Book Review: Not God's Type by Holly Ordway

Dr. Holly Ordway is a poet, academic, and Christian apologist on the faculty of Houston Baptist University’s MA in Apologetics program, which focuses on cultural apologetics. She has a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, an MA in English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an MA in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. She is also passionate about the truth. This is apparent in her book, Not God’s Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith, in which she shares her remarkable journey from atheism to Christianity.

Literary Apologetics MP3 by Holly Ordway

In this lecture, provided by Faith Bible Church, literary apologist Holly Ordway discusses the role of literature and culture in applying apologetics. (You may also be interested in her interviews with Ap315 here and here.) Holly is author of Not God’s Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith, which is highly recommended by Apologetics 315.

Full MP3 Audio here (55 min)
Enjoy.

Apologist Interview: Holly Ordway on Literary Apologetics

Today's interview is with Holly Ordway. Holly is an academic, a poet, a Christian apologist and author of Not God’s Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith. She is also director of ACM's Literary Apologetics Certificate program. She talks about literary apologetics, what it is and is not, excellence and creativity, what apologetics looks like through literature and the arts, developing and sharpening the skills of the literary apologist, the Literary Apologetics Certificate, and more. Visit Holly's blog: Hieropraxis.

Full Interview MP3 Audio here. (30 min)
Enjoy.

Subscribe to the Apologetics 315 Interviews podcast here or in iTunes.

Book Review: Imaginative Apologetics

Christian apologists are fighting on several fronts. The New Atheists are garnering plenty of press – and frustratingly so. Why are they being taken seriously when their arguments are, quite frankly, so weak much of the time? A distressingly large number of people are apathetic, or content to be “spiritual but not religious.” And then there are the challenges of postmodernism and pluralism within the church itself.

Apologists have a lot of work to do – and yet our encounters too often end up with both sides talking past each other.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cringed when a fellow Christian has confidently declared that “we just have to beat those atheists down!” See, I used to be one of those atheists, and the rhetorical beat-down just doesn’t work the way we think it ought to work, from the Christian perspective. When I was firmly in the “New Atheist” mode, I wouldn’t have listened to even the best Christian philosophical and historical arguments. It wasn’t until I had imaginatively engaged with the Christian faith through poetry and literature – when I had a sense of what it was that this “faith” thing might be, even though I didn’t understand it – that I was able to consider the apologetic arguments and ultimately find them convincing.

Book Review: Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination by Malcolm Guite

For as long as people have written, sung, and told stories about God, literature has been a means by which the Holy Spirit has moved individuals to draw closer to Christ. However, the role of the imagination in apologetics and theology has received, until lately, little attention from Christian scholars and apologists. Fortunately, this situation is now being remedied by a number of gifted scholars working on what is being called “imaginative apologetics” or “literary apologetics.” Malcolm Guite’s brilliant book Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination is absolutely essential reading for anyone seriously interested in the subject.

Apologist Interview: Holly Ordway

Today's interview is with Holly Ordway, professor of English and literature and author of Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith. She talks about her background as an atheist, her encounters with Christians in the past, the influence of literature and poetry, personal influences from others, looking at arguments for the existence of God, counter-arguments against God, psychological explanations, her encounter with Christ, her advice to skeptics and her advice to Christian apologists.

Full Interview MP3 Audio here. (42 min)

Check out Holly's blog here, her podcast here, and her book Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith. Also check out this audio which includes Holly's testimony.

Enjoy.

Do Atheists Ever Become Christians? MP3 Audio

Do atheists ever become Christians? In this talk given at William Lane's Craig's Defenders class at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, Holly Ordway discusses her journey from atheism to Christianity. Entitled Inside the Mind of a Former Atheist, this is an interesting look at how God works in the heart and the mind. Holly Ordway has written about her journey in Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith. Holly's blog is here. More about this audio here.

Full MP3 Audio here.

Enjoy.