Review: Foundations of Apologetics-Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

I was someone who had intellectual questions before the Holy Spirit grabbed me.  I worked through the reasons for faith first, elementary though my thinking was at the time.  I have devoured several books on the reasonableness of the Christian faith including Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, On Guard by William Lane Craig, Letters from a Skeptic by Greg Boyd, More than a Theory by Hugh Ross as well as perhaps a dozen others.  Each of these resources provides a different slant or addresses a different issue. My belief in the validity of Christianity has only been strengthened by availing myself of these resources.

I have also undertaken to more intensive study through the many training courses available.  I thought it might be useful for me to give my impression of the ones I have done for those who are interested in delving more deeply into the defense of the Christian faith.  Over the next few days, I will be reviewing these one by one. 

Let's start with Ravi Zacharias. 

Foundations of Apologetics--Ravi Zacharias International Ministries has a 12 DVD series based upon a number of lectures delivered at Oxford University.  Each lecture is about an hour in length.  The topics include:

1. Conversations that Count-Michael Ramsden
2. Truth and Reality-Stuart McAllister
3. The Existence of God-Alister McGrath
4. Establishing a Worldview-Ravi Zacharias
5. Trustworthiness of Scripture-Amy Orr-Ewing
6. Uniqueness of Christ-Joe Boot
7. Trinity and Apologetics-LT Jeyachandran
8. Pluralism: Do All Religions Lead to the Same Goal?-John Lennox
9. Faith, Reason and Integration-John Lennox
10. God, Evil, and Suffering-Ravi Zacharias
11. Seeing and Exploring Cultural Connections-Stuart McAlister
12. Reasoning from the Scriptures-Michael Ramsden

I enjoyed this series, but it took me several months to work through it.  This series, though highly informative, is not for many people.  Unless you enjoy watching video of someone standing behind a podium lecturing, it will probably not be for you.  It is probably more academic than many people might like, though I personally enjoyed it a great deal and learned a lot from it.  My wife would catch glimpses of it while I was watching and it was clear that she did not connect with the material on the same level that I did.  I particularly liked the lectures by John Lennox, Michael Ramsden and of course, Ravi Zacharias.  Others were less engaging.  They were very strong on certain areas, including things such as establishing a Christian worldview, but weaker on others such as creation science/intelligent design, likely due to their European audience. 

Summary: This is a good series if you would rather watch than listen, don't mind the more academic presentation, or like British/Scottish accents.

Below is an example of the series from a lecture by Michael Ramsden