Confident Witness: Evangelism and Apologetics for the 21st Century
Editor’s note: Occasionally, Integration will highlight books and resources produced by IACE officers or through IACE channels by providing notices.
David S. Dockery, editor. Confident Witness: Evangelism and Apologetics for the 21st Century. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2024. Pp. 304 $29.99.
The aptly titled Confident Witness assembles contributions from the world of Christian academia. Though some would not imagine that academic pursuits and Christian evangelism would overlap much in the world of Venn diagrams, in the Scripture-soaked mind of David S. Dockery, the Great Commission and the Great Commandment occupy more than headspace. The world of learning and intellectual discipline, the love of God with mind and strength, as well as the love of neighbor, are ready assistants in the task of world evangelization.
The International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE), founded and led by Dockery, hosted a three-day conference in the fall of 2023 on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. 125 administrators and faculty from 33 institutions attended the IACE Conference on Evangelism, Discipleship and Apologetics. Fourteen sessions from the conference were selected for inclusion in this book. University administrators as well as faculty in the areas of theology, evangelism, world mission, youth ministry, and cultural engagement tackled the theory and practice of both evangelism and apologetics.
The resulting chapters bring evangelistic endeavors to the foreground of Christian higher education. Foundational chapters explore the definition of evangelism through scriptural, theological, and historical prisms. Engagement with culture brings a consideration of evangelism in the post-Christian West as well as ventures in apologetics to support evangelism. C. S. Lewis makes an appearance as a model for cultural apologetics and evangelism. The volume concludes with several practical chapters on evangelism in both the global setting and American Christian higher education.
The tightly edited chapters along with accompanying discussion questions and guides for further reading will make this an excellent text for use in an academic classroom or the local church.