An accurate, but simplified, introduction to Christian Apologetics by two of the foremost Christian Apologists from India.
Excerpt:
The word "apologetics" confuses many into thinking that it refers to some kind of apologizing. Actually this word is not derived from the English world "apology", but from the Greek word "apologia", which is a word referring to "making a defense". Apologetics is a general term, signifying a formal defense of any kind. On the other hand, Christian Apologetics is that branch of Christian theology that answers the question "is Christianity believable". Integrated Apologetics stands for the special approach developed by us in our course material where we integrate the best from all schools of thought in Christian Apologetics.
In the past four centuries, all kinds of religious and spiritual beliefs have come under intense attack at the hands of radical philosophers and critics. Of this assault, the Christian faith has received the major portion because of a number of historical reasons some of which will be mentioned later.
These criticisms against the Christian faith have received so much media coverage that even a good number of well informed non Christians are aware of some of the major charges labeled against the Christian faith. Interestingly, books published against the Christian faith and sold from secular shops become bestsellers even in countries where the buyers are not Christians. This is the result of all this adverse publicity against the Christian faith.
Today all around us there is an atmosphere where criticism of the Bible and related subjects is widespread. Most of the Christian students have to face these attacks from other students in some form or other. It is quite common to meet Christian college-students who are perplexed by questions that are hurled against their faith. The volley of questions come with such high frequency that they find themselves at a loss in answering even a portion of them all. Moreover, since most of them never faced these questions before this assault, they usually do not know what to think and what to answer. Further, they often fall into the trap of thinking that if they do not know the answer, then correct or satisfactory answers do not exist.
Once a person erroneously concludes that answers do not exist for the questions raised against the Bible, his own faith is the next victim. His faith in the inspiration, authority, and the infallibility of the Scriptures suffer very much. He then finds himself in a split mentality: he knows that it is these Scriptures which have brought the message of true salvation to him, but at the same time he does not know what all things written in this Book are believable!
Apologetics is the solution to this problem. A person who has some background in the Christian apologetics can help this person to see the answers to the problems and questions which he is facing. Further, a Christian Apologist can pass on information to the doubting person, using which he can better face the people who raise questions against the Bible.