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:
