AbstractThe fathers of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) acknowledge the importance of using the means of social communication to proclaim the Gospel. Some people have refuted and continue to denigrate the Christian and or the Catholic faith. Therefore, apologetics is always relevant in evangelisation. This study coined digital apologetics to mean using the social media for apologetics. It aimed at appraising the extent to which the Catholic Church in Nigeria has deployed the social media for apologetics given the contemporary objection to the Catholic faith through the social media. The study adopted the qualitative research design using the narrative approach. It gathered data through formal interviews and informal group interviews, online participant observation and the use of written sources. Research questions were sent to 40 Catholic respondents including laity, religious and priests through WhatsApp, but 34 responded. Findings revealed that the social media was used to attack Christianity and or the Catholic faith, and most Nigerian Catholics were aware. Most Nigerian Catholics did not use their social media handles for apologetics. Among most Nigerian clergy on social media, Fada Oluoma, Fr Kelvin Ugwu, MSP, the Claretian Sisters, and Bishop Godfrey I. Onah have been most visible at engaging in digital apologetics. The study challenges Nigerian Catholics to use their social media handles for apologetics rather than solely reporting social or religious events. It is recommended that Nigerian Catholics, and most especially the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CS

AbstractThe need of cultural interaction in Apologetics: Acts 17:16–32 as explanatory statement. Acceptance of a secular-versus-holy dualism holds Christianity in a cultural prison and has the effect that the Christian faith becomes a compartmentalised entity, which oddly fits in a secular context, because it does not have an impact outside the church building. To be culturally effective in its communication, apologetics should make use of images and expressions that is known by the people it aims to reach. Interacting with their worldviews in a narrative form is also much more subtle than the use of an argumentative style of reasoning that emphasise differences. Arts have a particular ability to shape and analyse culture. Films can help Christian apologists to understand culture as well as to be in a better position to engage meaningfully with the world. In a similar way to which Paul made use of pagan insights and narratives in Acts 17, the themes of contemporary movies can be used by apologists. Paul’s strategy was not the syncretistic reconciliation of two incompatible worldviews, but subversion through giving Greek ideas new meaning by placing them in a monotheistic context. When apologetics makes use of stories saturated with Christian themes, it can address secular imagination with an understanding of God and the world which they would not otherwise have considered.

AbstractOur churches need leaders who gently shepherd the flock and fiercely fend off wolves. We need more pastoral apologists, majoring in care and conviction

AbstractGod's people are always vulnerable. Between false teaching and cultural trends, the church needs leaders who carry out the charge to be pastoral apologists

AbstractGod exhorts pastors to doctrinal purity, discernment, and the defence of the gospel. Through discipleship they must teach their congregations to do the same

AbstractThis article explores how digital media culture affects young people in African cities in three major areas. First, it leads to a shift in the area of knowledge and certainty; second, it leads to isolation and attendant mental health issues; third, it provides a bridge for engaging popular culture’s philosophical and religious ideas that are propagated by new media. This article proposes that, to counter digital isolation or assimilation, Christian leaders are called to “wise-engagement” modelled after Paul’s apologetic in Acts 17. The article offers practical considerations for engaging in the apologetic task among Africa’s next gens (generations).

AbstractContemporary Christian ministry and theological education in Africa cannot neglect her children and young people. Engaging effectively with the children and youth in Africa's cities presents a rising challenge to scholars and practitioners. In addition to the developmental issues surrounding children and youth, there are worldview issues at play among young people. Urban African cities like Nairobi contain a mixture of African traditional religious worldviews, modern worldviews, and postmodern worldviews. This means that Christian ministry with the emerging generations will often take an apologetic mode. The scholarly literature on apologetics in the continent is scanty. Further, much of the research is merely theoretical and lacks empirical insight from practical ministry. This article will use an empirical methodology among African church leaders to collect salient themes in the discipline and practice of apologetics and draw conclusions for ministry and theological education.

AbstractThis essay problematizes worldview engagement in Africa from a Kenyan context. The author suggests that robust youth engagement must straddle the traditional/animistic, modern, atheistic, and postmodern worldviews. The essay approaches the study using a practical theological methodology, which deepens the interplay of theory and praxis. In particular, the essay is grounded in Osmer's approach which asks four questions. The first question is the descriptive-empirical question, “what is happening,” that explores the state of African youth ministry; the second question is the interpretive question, “why is this happening,” which unpacks worldview issues in the lives of young people; the third question is the normative question, “what ought to be happening,” and will engage Johannine Christology in John 4. The fourth question is the pragmatic question, which asks, “how can we apply this,” and offers recommendations for youth ministry practice and higher education.

AbstractFaith formation is a crucial area in youth ministry. Although the area of apologetics may be a helpful bridge, the theory and praxis of apologetics in the African context is scanty. The work of apologists such as William Lane Craig, John Frame, Ravi Zacharias, and John Lennox has responded to the post-Christian context of Europe and North America. Much needs to be done in light of the African contextual realities. Using a practical theological methodology, this paper considers how ubuntu apologetics – which honors both the cognitive and affective development of adolescents – can lead to holistic faith formation of African youth. This research paper will 1) consider youth ministry contextual realities in Kenya and Africa; 2) analyze foundational methods of apologetics; 3) utilize an ethnographic methodology in analyzing the data and 4) offer recommendations for youth ministry education and practice in Nairobi and Africa at large.

AbstractThis work studies dialogue, argumentation, and their relationship to belief revision in person-to-person apologetics in five West Cameroonian dialogues. The seeming irrelevance of Western Apologetics to West Cameroonian thought is the problem that stimulated the study. The primary methodological steps of the study include obtaining meticulously transcribed scripts of unrehearsed conversations, and subjecting those transcripts to an inquiry about the presence and nature of dialogue, argument patterns, commitment, questions, rhetoric, and belief revision in the conversations. These primary tools are drawn from Commitment in Dialogue (1995), Argumentation Schemes (2008), ‘A Truth Maintenance System’ (1979), ‘Reason Maintenance and Belief Revision’ (1992), and related sources. The initial premise, to be tested by the research, is that these conversational elements are present, and that the theories are useful in understanding the dialogues’ rationality. The second, but no less important, premise of the study is that this research contributes to an understanding of the nature and role of the cumulative case in the practice of person-to-person apologetics in West Cameroon and cultural situations dominated by relativism. Chapter 1 introduces the background of the research and the questions of the inquiry, which I call ‘tools’. Chapter 2 questions the significance of the tools and the analysis of the data for person-to-person apologetics in pluralistic contexts. Chapters 3-7 document the analysis of the dialogues. And chapter 8 ends with a summary of the evidence for the thesis of the work: ‘A belief’s entrenchment, the result of argument patterns converging into a cumulative case for the belief, is primarily sensitive to understanding and revision in the context of dialogue.’ This work contributes to the understanding of modern African rationality, and the relationships of dialogue, argument, belief revision, and the cumulative case in relativistic contexts.