Apologetics Group to Examine Evidence for Jesus' Resurrection
With Easter around the corner, a new apologetics ministry announced this week that it will soon be offering a course that examines why the resurrection of Jesus is such a core teaching in the Christian faith.
The course, entitled "The Historicity of the Resurrection," will be offered as part of Athanatos Christian Ministries' new online academy, which launched at the beginning of February.
A Barna Group survey last October found that 75 percent of Americans believe in the resurrection as the literal truth.
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Athanatos Executive Director Anthony Horvath, one of the course's facilitators, says that resurrection is a claim that is unique to the Christian faith and is not present in any other religions.
"Jesus claimed to be God. The resurrection gives us a very important reason to believe His claim," explained Horvath to The Christian Post.
"God respects our need to have evidence for things," he added. "He didn't send a guy out to make some claims and disappear into the clouds."
Athanatos' online offering is designed to be taught at an introductory level. It is for the average Christian who has questions but doesn't know where to go, according to Horvath.
Horvath, who has ten years of experience in the apologetics ministry and has taught at a Bible college, said he used to direct his ministry toward hard-core atheists but only recently began focusing on Christians.
While ministering to non-Christians, Horvath observed that most of them had been Christians before.
"They were raised Christians but they leave Christianity because they never really understood it in the first place," he said, noting his comment was true for "Skeptic" magazine editor Michael Shermer and "The God Delusion" author Richard Dawkins.
Horvath's goal now is to equip Christians with a proper understanding of Scripture before misunderstandings cause detriment to their faith.
"We have launched our online academy because many people long to know more about the Christian faith but are not being taught," said Horvath. "Many Christians will fall away from the faith completely."
Instruction for the apologetics course is set to begin April 15.
For the two-week course on Jesus' resurrection, students will be referring to the book "Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus," written by Christian apologist William Lane Craig, as the base text.
The Athanatos Online Academy will also be offering classes on other topics such as the New Testament Canon and an introduction to biblical Greek. Each course costs $15 and would require five hours or more each week.
"The formation of the New Testament Canon seems very academic and wouldn't get covered in most Sunday school classes," said Horvath.
The course would help "immunize" Christians against challenges posed by books like "The Da Vinci Code," he said.
Whichever course people decide on taking, Horvath is hoping that Christians will take a pro-active approach to studying their faith.
"The one thing that we can't do any more is assume that just by virtue of being in a Christian climate we're going to raise informed and educated Christians."
On the Web: More information on courses offered by Athanatos Christian Ministries at www.athanatosministries.org/courses
