Monday, June 20, 2011

Apologist Interview: David Robertson

Today's interview is with Pastor David Robertson of St Peter’s Free Church in Dundee, Scotland and Chairman of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity. He talks about his interaction with Richard Dawkins' God Delusion book, his open letters to Dawkins (and The Dawkins Letters book), his thoughts on persuasive evangelism, the goals of evangelistic conversation, the positive effect from the new atheism, how being a pastor overlaps with evangelism and apologetics, the problem with American apologetics, the importance of practical application, connecting with an audience, the top issues that always seem to come up, the state of the new atheism today, the influence of postmodernism, stopping calling yourself an apologist, our tone with others, the starting point for conversations, and more.

Full Interview MP3 Audio here (44 min)

Enjoy.
Apologies: the audio quality was substandard this week because of a technical glitch.
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3 comments :

jeremy said...

Catching Robertson is a must-listen. While still being respectful, he pretty much gets to the heart of the matter like a speeding bullet! Probably my favorite person to listen to on Unbelievable.

pds said...

Nice to hear someone from Scotland! Robertson is well worth listening to.

dgfisch said...

By some curious chance, Robertson was on Unbelieveable this past Saturday. He debated the president of the National Secular Society on the topic "Is a secular society a more tolerant one?" He was a holding the negative position surprisingly well, especially with is opponent's opening remarks about the secular society he would defend was by definition a democracy that would develop a humanitarian welfare system/state. Robertson counter with the idea that such a society that would support fairness is a valuable one, but that there would still be problems with the marginalization of a segment of society that would not agree with the moral uncertainty of the government being tolerant at all costs.

Robertson was tactful throughout and did not raise the examples of secular societies that were totalitarian, but worked with Terry Sanderson's (his opponent) vision of a democratically based secular society. He had examples of unfair practices with his own government, and agreed that the American vision of Church-State division was a superior pattern.

A most civil exchange, and Robertson made his points firmly.

Enjoyed.

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