Anselm

I'm interested in Lee Strobel's "Case" series for various aspects of Christianity. More particularly, I'm intrigued by his own history. He claims to have been a hard-nosed atheist journalist whose faith (for want of a better term) was shaken when his wife converted and came over all nice, and was then blown out of the water by the solid evidence for Christianity's various tenets that he claims he was forced to confront. He is now a dyed-in-the-wool biblical literalist and pastor etc. etc., but his "tough questions" seem more like a PR firm's press releases for Christianity Inc.

Does anyone know what this guy's bottom line actually is? Is he for real, or is his personal history more fiction than fact? I can just, just imagine someone like Francis Collins becoming a Christian, but from atheist to biblical literalist - really?

Toto

Strobel was a hard drinking newspaper man until he decided that the proof of Jesus' power was that He led Lee Strobel to stop drinking. (Hallelujah!)

Strobel then started producing a series of apologetic arguments meant to justify his conclusions. These arguments have never persuaded any skeptic. He sells his books to Christians to give to their skeptical friends. These Christians are then astonished that skeptics are not persuaded, and find the arguments weak or completely lacking.

Strobel seems to have given up on his effort to reach skeptics. All of his recent activities involve preaching to evangelicals.

If you want the particulars on the problems in his narrative, both Robert Price and Earl Doherty have written books taking him apart.

Challenging the Verdict: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ" (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Earl Doherty

The Case Against The Case For Christ: A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel (or via: amazon.co.uk)

There is a rationalwiki entry here (the Faith Under Fire program is defunct.)

ApostateAbe

There are some conservative Christian apologists who do a better job than others when they are making their case. Lee Strobel is not one of them; he is at the bottom of the barrel. His books are interesting to read, and they are compelling only when you have barely any background knowledge and you don't know the arguments against Biblicism. I am suspicious of his claim of being an ex-hard-nosed skeptic. I see him as more of a capitalistic author.

spin

It is unlikely that you'll get the real background story. There's the propaganda and beyond that a lack of interest. Religionists are happy with what they see, though outside that audience, who would really care why Strobel went off the deep end?

One can surmise that he was brought up in a non-religious family, ie he had no religious domestication and was unprepared by a religious turn of events, such as his wife's conversion. There is no sunday school for non-religion. He married a like minded person without religious convictions, who underwent a conversion to christianity. When a driver is headed for a cliff, the passenger has little to do. Without insight into religious mechanisms there is little defense against being ensnared. Strobel may have desired to be a hard-nosed reporter, but his being a hard-nosed atheist is almost certainly post-conversion revisionism. To many believers, anyone who doesn't believe is an atheist and the hard-nosed reporter wannabe is obviously a hard-nosed atheist sinner who needs to get down on his knees and seek forgiveness for his sinful past, the expiation of which is a rush. It is also a good marketing point, both to his now fellow religionists and to those non-committeds who have no analytical preparation for religious proselytism.

Our society is still religiously biased. Every neighborhood across the christianized world has a few houses of indoctrination. The religion is still evangelical in nature in that people will crop up at doors across christendom and purvey their religious wares. Defense against the onslaught has had almost no organization until the last few decades. Before that there were a few voices predominantly of purely amateur anti-religionism. These days the internet supplies the facilities for non-religionists to gain more knowledge about religions. It still lacks a solid core of scholars to supply coherence to a non-religionist analysis of religion. The average religionist finds this situation only natural as non-religion is an abomination and should have no order to it.

When non-religionists have the support necessary to resist the emotional appeal of religion, there may be the hope of a rational exchange of ideas on belief.

Jeffrey Gibson

Of some worth in this regard is Alain de Botton's Religion for Aetheists: A non believes guide to the uses of religion (Pantheon).

Jeffrey

Toto

Some unfortunate posts have been removed from this thread for moderator review.

John Kesler

You can view Strobel's testimony and apologetic arguments for yourself in this video. Strobel says that he was an angry, heavy-drinking atheist, who was unpleasant to be around. His wife, he claims, was an agnostic, and was converted by a neighbor. Stobel says that after a visit to his wife's church, he set out on an investigative journey about Christianity, the truth of which, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, hinges on whether Jesus rose from the dead. He then offers the typical apologetic "arguments": Jesus really was dead; there are early witnesses to the life of Jesus; there are eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus; hallucinations don't explain postresurrection "appearances"; even the enemies of Jesus admitted the tomb was empty, etc.

Toto

Strobel's claim that he investigated before he decided to believe is undoubtedly false.

The typical pattern for conversions is that people are converted for social reasons, and then find rationalizations for believing in their new faith.

John Kesler

Do you assume the same thing about skeptics who claim that evidence led them away from Christianity?

Toto

I don't assume anything. Objective sociological research shows that people are converted to a religion for social reasons, and the apologetic reasons follow.

If atheism ever becomes a large social movement, you might find the same pattern with atheist converts. But that's not the case so far.