TESTIMONIALS

As I type this out, I’m in the heart of the African Bush.

When I was in my early teens I struggled with my belief in God, as I never had any good arguments for believing in him; I had, as you said in ‘Reasonable Faith’, a superficial type of belief, but I kept my doubts at bay. The turning point was when, for the first time in my very short life (I was seventeen at the time), someone I loved deeply, died: My Grandfather. All of the doubts that were kept at the back of my mind, were brought to the fore, and I felt a need to have my questions answered.

I came across Dawkin’s, Hitchen’s, and Dennette’s debates online. None of their opponents put up a good fight, and so I found myself leaning on Atheists’ side of the argument. Looking back, I think the death of my Grandfather actually made me quite angry and bitter at life, and I was finding reasons to justify my emotions. I then read Dawkin’s book ‘’The God Delusion’’, and was even more convinced. I was adamant that God did not exist.

As I was perusing the various videos on youtube, I found a debate where Christopher Hitchens was debating you and about five other Theists. I can’t remember what event this was. At the end of the debate I had heard a brief overview of some good reasons to believe in God, and Hitchen’s hadn’t been able to refute any of them. I was stunned! What I thought was a closed book, was re-opened, and I felt rationally compelled to scrutinize my own beliefs.

As I type this, I have watched at least fourteen of your debates, and have been thoroughly convinced of your arguments. I actually feel quite silly that I was swayed by Dawkin’s sophomoric arguments. I’m currently reading your book ‘reasonable faith’. I listen to the in-depth lectures you give on the arguments for God’s existence on a weekly basis. And the dust that had been collecting on the Bible I used to read as a child has been brushed off. I’m currently studying Philosophy, but with the hopes of branching off into Theology some day.

The reason for this message, if you get to read it, is to thank you for helping to expose the light that had been missing for many years. You have made a massive impact in my life, and I thank God for your existence. Words don’t do my feelings justice.

-Brian

I just wanted to thank you for ministry. I am a missionary in France (for about 8 years) and have been listening to your podcast regularly. The podcast has become a regular part of my jogging routine and I really enjoy it.

I face many difficult questions from friends, neighbors and church members. As you know from experience (I believe you studied French at the same school as me), living and witnessing in Western Europe is a particularly hard because of its humanist context. I've been forced to to train myself more in evangelism and apologetics, much more than I was trained for in the small Bible college I attended. Your ministry is a big help.

By the way, before hitting the field in France, I worked in Christian Radio syndication (out of Nashville, TN). We worked with many popular Bible teaching programs of David Jeremiah, Alister Begg, and Michael Youssef. I would like to complement you (and anywhere credit is due) on your good format and quality sound engineering. This is a real uphill battle as the trend has been toward contemporary Christian music programming, but do not lose hope. I do pray that your audience grows as I passionately believe in the need to equip believers to understand and defend their faith in our rapidly secularizing world. If I can be of any help in this area, please feel free to contact me in the future.

Again... all my thanks and God bless!

-Tim

It is an honor to even be writing to you right now. I am a youth pastor at a large evangelical church in ___. A few years ago, one of the elder's sons who was in high school at the time, approached me and told me that he had become an atheist over the summer because science and philosophy had proven that God doesn't exist! He challenged me with some quotes from Hawking, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc... and I had no responses to them. I'll never forget the look on his face when I had no reply. He started crying and with tears running down his face he turned around and walked out the doors of the church, and he has never come back.

That sparked something in me! I realized that there was a new language that needed to be spoken to the youth culture of today... a language that I was not fluent in! In fact I was probably guilty of telling the young men and women that the Bible was true because it says it's true! Wow!!! Looking back I feel like I had no right to call myself a youth pastor at that time, but things have changed since then!

Three years ago a fellow pastor gave me your book, "Reasonable Faith". It was hard to get through... but I managed to plow my way through most of it. Shortly after that it seemed like atheists and agnostics were finding their way into my life. I started having debates on many issues with all of these different individuals, especially via facebook! Issues that ranged from meaning, value, and purpose in life, morality, the existence of the universe and much more!

To make a long story short, I made www.reasonablefaith.org my home page, and I downloaded all of your podcasts. I made sure that on top of staying in God's Word... I listened to at least one of your podcasts everyday, and read a portion of one of your books. I have listened to each of your podcasts at least once, and I peruse your website daily.

Your ministry has had a huge impact on my understanding of God, and my love for Him has grown deeper because of it. I am currently taking a big group of high school boys through "ON GUARD" right now and they absolutely love it! I even taught the Kalam cosmological argument to my youth group of high school and middle school students!!! They understand it and they are hungry for more! It is so awesome to watch their faces when they come to an understanding that the cause of the universe is personal, and therefore, they can have a personal relationship with the "CAUSE of the universe!"

I have even used the "Kalam" argument to lead an atheistic college student to the truth of the Gospel about a month ago. Now this former skeptic is now studying "On Guard" with me too. He wants to go to seminary now and devote his life to the truth!

Speaking of seminary... I ordered the DVD of your debate with Christopher Hitchens a couple of months ago. When I opened it a post card about Biola's Christian Apologetic Program fell out of it. It took me about 30 seconds to realize I wanted to do their distance learning program.

Now I am currently going through their certificate program in Christian Apologetics, and I hope to be accepted into their Master's Degree program for the fall semester.

Thank you for being so faithful to God. He has used you to impact my walk with Jesus, and that impacts the walk of the hundreds of kids I work with too! With the limited amount of time I have studied Christian apologetics, I have seen the youth group grow with many skeptical teens. These students want to be respected with logical and thoughtful answers to their deep questions. I am seeing kids come to Christ on a regular basis. I have also seen many of the Christian students grow stronger in their faith and bolder in their evangelism because they are not afraid of having their faith questioned.

Thank you for your ministry Dr. Craig. It is changing many lives... including mine!

-Tim

I am currently in the airport as I just previously wrote, but I thought with my extra time I would also like to send you a quick message regarding your effect on my life.

About 5 years ago, at the age of 19 years old, I was in school, and working as a security guard at a local Sprint Store in the Kansas City area. One night, as we were locking up the store, 3 gunmen approached myself and the store manager with semi automatic weapons positioned right into our faces. They screamed for us to re-open the door, and threatened to kill us multiple times. As the manager made his way back into the store to retrieve the cash from the safe, I had to listen to two other gunmen describe what they were going to do with the "bodies". Obviously it being a critical situation, all I could do was begin to pray. I truly thought that was going to be my last night on planet earth. But then suddenly after what seemed like an eternity, I heard the so often quoted 4 words in the movies. "Get your hands up!!" Amazingly, the Westport Security team showed up and had the men surrounded. The police, were no where to be found. Somehow, some random person, tipped off a nearby restaurant that some suspicious behavior may be occurring at the Sprint store down the street. Miraculously the restaurant employee phoned the Security team, rather then the police. An act that proved to be life-saving.

This experience changed my life forever. About a week after the experience, I could not stop thinking about death, and what is to come after I'm gone. The life after this one. It flooded my mind daily, to the point that nothing even mattered except embarking on an all out research project aimed at determining my eventual future. I went through one religious book after the next. Atheist texts, theistic texts, Buddhist texts, Muslim texts, and everything in between. I sought after books describing in detail "Near Death Experiences" and other related works. Undoubtedly philosophy began to become an important part of finding the "truth". I first came across your works in Lee Strobels "Case for a Creator", if I accurately recall. I remember finding your arguments very compelling, and intriguing. The problem I ran into though, is that the famous "Borders" and "Barnes and noble" don't carry too many of your books!! (maybe that's why Borders is going under now!) But eventually I found your primary book "Reasonable Faith" in a local Christian bookstore. The book was incredible. I think I have read it ten times now. After that read, I went on a year long investigation of God, and probably bought every book you have written on Amazon. I have read about all of them. I also got very into your debates, and would literally, grab my favorite food (chips and dip), and sit down on Friday and Saturday nights watching one debate after the next on youtube, or on your website. Since my investigation began, I have read over 100 books by numerous authors, including atheistic works, and theistic works. Your works have been nothing short of invaluable. I have almost completed my B.A at KU in philosophy and have challenged nearly every professor their with the knowledge that I have acquired from your works. Students in the classrooms have came up to me after classes asking where I learned what I learned, and I tell them about your works. I have changed my entire families outlook on life and on God. I have challenged all of my friends beliefs, if not changed them entirely because of your impact on my life. My dad listens to your pod casts every week now. The domino effect is hard to even explain because its so far and wide. I cant thank you enough for all that you do. I hope to eventually find a role in the field of apologetics, since there are so few who are up to the task. None of this would have ever been the case had your works not existed. Thank you!

-Wes

I own a Slate Roofing company and occasionally discuss your arguments with my employees while working. On a recent trip to Detroit we listened to 3 of your debates on the existence of God. One believer and 2 "seekers" were really interested to see how you defended your arguments against the usual weak front offered by most of your opponents. They were amazed to see how disjointed the so-called "brights'" (as Mr. Sinclair referred to them last week) arguments were and could clearly see the difference in quality of the presentations (and they are roofers). You should also know that your brief testimony at the end of your debates was met with stone silence as (I would guess) God's Spirit hammered on their hearts. It is a miracle of modern technology that testimonies given years ago can still be effective today!