My last post highlights a book I read last night:
Gregory Koukl. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.
In the foreword Lee Strobel recounts this story:
When I hosted a national television program called Faith Under Fire, which featured short debates on spiritual topics, I decided to invite best-selling New Age author Deepak Chopra to be a guest. The topic would be the future of faith. To offer a different perspective, I asked my friend Greg Koukl to represent Christianity. The idea was to tape them as they interacted for about fifteen minutes via satellite, the typical format for a segment of the show.
That plan quickly went out the window.
Greg was simply so engaging and so effecting in poking holes in Chopra’s worldview that I had to keep the cameras running. Time after time, Greg was able to expose the faulty thinking underlying Chopra’s amorphous theology and correct his inaccurate claims about Jesus and the Bible. Before I knew it, we had consumed the entire hour of the show. Chopra—who was accustomed to spouting his opinions unchallenged on television and radio—was left thoroughly defeated and deflated.
As soon as the taping was over, I turned to my producer. “That,” I said, “was a textbook example of how to defend Christianity.” For the only time in our show’s tenure, we decided to devote an entire program to airing one debate.
Why was Greg so incredibly successful in that encounter? He wasn’t belligerent or obnoxious. He didn’t raise his voice or launch into a sermon. Instead, he used the kind of tactics that he describes in his book: winsomely using key questions and other techniques to guide the conversation and unveil the flawed assumptions and hidden contradictions in another person’s positions. (p. 13)
Koukl’s website lists many video resources and other resources on apologetics, including a link to the Chopra-Koukl debate. (I also searched on “Koulk” at LeeStrobel.com and discovered ten videos, including the Chopra-Koukl debate in smaller segments.) Here’s a 36-minute video of the Chopra-Koukl debate:
Andy,
I do appreciate his demeanor, and I think that was actually his shining point. But he had the opportunity several times to show that Chopra’s circular reasoning was referenced only in himself. He had other opportunities to show Chopra that in his high-minded uncertainty, he was actually quite certain–and the philosophical and logical conundrum of that (properly done) would have had Chopra backpedaling more–with the opportunity for evangelism. He seemed poised to start down that road, I wish he had been more dogged about it, and done the “argument by folly and truth” in a more consistent path. [I’m showing my McCune mentoring–there was too much e.j. carnell,and not nearly enough van til.]
There was so much emphasis on the power of reflective reasoning by unbelievers, on evidences, etc. I wish someone like James White would have been in the discussion. Koukl did well in a sense–and I am not faulting him personally, but he needs to read Frame, Pratt, Bahnsen, VanTil, etc. Evidential apologetics runs out of gas in the end. It was better than Comfort & Cameron (ABC news show challenge with athiests (satanists? I don’t recall all the details) who (Lord love them) did abysmally.
If this is the entirety of the recording, my earlier reference to evangelism is appropriate I think. NT teachings which reveal to us the means and motives for apologetics speak of not simply defending the gospel, but propagating it. Did he do that there? We want to get the unbeliever to see they are standing on swiss cheese, to get them to be disenchanted with their POV, and make an appeal for the gospel to them. If the venue does not allow that, then Strobel should fix it. I can’t help but wonder how Wells, White, Carson, McCune, Doran, Phil Johnson, or John MacArthur would have done. [If I missed appeals for Chopra to consider his need to trust Christ, then I missed it. But, I’m not sure it was there.]
Thanks for posting this. It is quite helpful–I am teaching Apologetics in our Discipleship Academy during our Weeknight Bible Fellowship at our churchplant.
I agree with you, Sam. I was thinking the very same thing about it all as I was watching the debate. The presuppositions were not touched.