Apologetic Quotes

An argument in apologetics, when actually used in dialogue, is an extension of the arguer. The arguer's tone, sincerity, care, concern, listening, and respect matter as much as his or her logic - probably more. The world was won for Christ not by arguments but by sanctity: "What you are speaks so loud, I can hardly hear what you say.

... and yet he could also be very charming, in a bookish, infinitely apologetic way.

I always know it's Sunday because I wake up feeling apologetic. That's one of the cool things about being a Catholic . . . it's a multifaceted experience. If you lose the faith, chances are you'll keep the guilt, so it isn't as if you've been skunked altogether.

You can’t blame a fella for kissing the prettiest girl in New York, can you, sister?” Sam’s grin was anything but apologetic. Evie brought up her knee quickly and decisively, and he dropped to the floor like a grain sack. “You can’t blame a girl for her quick reflexes now, can you, pal?

If writing with a goal - whether it be evangelistic, apologetic, or didactic - implies propaganda, then all recorded history is propaganda. . . a work shouldn't be dismissed simply because of the strong convictions of the writer. Should we discount the facticity or reliability of the accounts of Nazi concentration camp survivors simply because they passionately recount their story?

We need a new apologetic, geared to the needs of today, which keeps in mind that our task is not to win arguments but to win souls... Such an apologetic will need to breathe a spirit of humanity, that humility and compassion which understand the anxieties and questions of people.

She never sat down in a car but stood, braced tense, facing the wind. Now and again she would turn her face toward me with an apologetic expression as though to say: "I have not forgotten that you are here but there are certain pleasures I cannot share with you." Her nose never ceased its sensitive quivering.

It is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer.

The philosopher is not an apologist; apologetic concern, as Karl Barth (the one living theologian of unquestionable genius) has rightly insisted, is the death of serious theologizing, and I would add, equally of serious work in the philosophy of religion.

I'm not apologetic with respect to the policies of the Bush administration. I think we basically got it right.

I have been young, but now am old. I have spent a whole life-time in battling against infidelity with the weapons of apologetic science; but I have become ever more and more convinced that the way to the heart does not lie through the head; and that the only way to the conversion of the head lies through a converted heart which already tastes the living fruits of the gospel.

I was shy as a child. Now I'm not really shy any more, unless I'm with shy people. I find it contagious and I don't know what to say. But I don't think shyness is something one should feel apologetic about.

Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage.

Apologetics has an important place in the local church as we seek to influence our communities for Christ in an increasingly skeptical culture.

Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful - Christian community is the final apologetic.

Art and the saints are the greatest apologetics for our faith.

[I]t is dangerous for a bride to be apologetic about her husband.

I've got friends who are so good at getting away with things, like going up to the desk to get upgraded on a plane, for example. I haven't got any of that kind of confidence in those situations. I look so awkward. I act awkward. I'm really apologetic. I fail to get anything that way.

For me, apologetics proved to be the turning point of my life and eternity. I'm thankful for the scholars who so passionately and effectively defend the truth of Christianity - and today my life's goal is to do my part in helping others get answers to the questions that are blocking them in their spiritual journey toward Christ.

If our culture is to be transformed, it will happen from the bottom up - from ordinary believers practicing apologetics over the backyard fence or around the barbecue grill.

It's fine to deal with people's doubts and explain why they have good reasons to believe in Christ. But until we tell them the good news of Jesus Christ, we haven't done our job. They need a saviour that God has provided them in Christ. Once they know that, we can do as much apologetics as we need to.

If the Bible is not the Word of God and inspired, the whole of Christendom for 1800 years has been under an immense delusion; half the human race has been cheated and deceived, and churches are monuments of folly. If the Bible is the Word of God and inspired, all who refuse to believe it are in fearful danger; they are living on the brink of eternal misery. No man, in his sober senses, can fail to see that the whole subject demands most serious attention.

The apologist is most entrusted with apologetics when capable of arguing his opponent's position better than his opponent.

You mark my words: Whenever a cult attacks Christianity, the first place they're going to go is they're going to attack the deity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; is that not true? They are going to attack His deity. Throughout 2000 years of Christian history, we have had to build walls to keep them out. We have had to fight, we have had to amass arms, we have had to do apologetics, we have had to do it all. It is our purpose and our responsibility to proclaim that Jesus Christ is God.

MAKE STATEMENTS also applies to us women: Speak in statements instead of apologetic questions. No one wants to go to a doctor who says, “I’m going to be your surgeon? I’m here to talk to you about your procedure? I was first in my class at Johns Hopkins, so?” Make statements, with your actions and your voice.

If you don't feel apologetic for slavery, if you don't feel apologetic for colonialism, if you feel proud of it then say that.

In a post-modern culture we need an apologetic that is felt and seen because if post-moderns are not feeling it, they are not believing it.

Just as bank tellers need a thorough knowledge of legitimate currency in order to spot counterfeit bills, so Christians need a thorough knowledge of the Bible in order to spot bogus religious teachings. How grounded are you in the Scriptures? How deep are your theological roots? How capable are you of detecting false teachings?

I wasn't writing, I wasn't drawing, and personality-wise, I was just completely arrogant. I'm not trying to be overly apologetic for my behavior - I wasn't evil. The lifestyle I had was one that lent itself to becoming more and more self-involved.

A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.

The Peace Corps is guilty of enthusiasm and a crusading spirit. But we're not apologetic about it.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

The purpose of apologetics is not just to win an argument or a discussion, but that people with whom we are in contact may become Christians and then live under the Lordship of Christ in the whole spectrum of life.

I am not politically correct. I am all about the facts, I am all about the truth and I am all about Godly pursuits and what this country was built on, and I am not apologetic about it.

Christianity israrely understood by those outside its bounds. In fact, this is probably one of the greatest tasks confronting the apologist–to rescue Christianity from misunderstandings.

Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

I love people thinking about apologetics. I just think that we have to be careful. We need to realize that we can argue about evolution or the existence of God or any number of things, but until we tell people the message of the cross, we have not evangelized them.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Successful evangelism involves not only harvesting, but sowing and watering, too. We must never think that because a nonbeliever remained unconvinced by our case that our apologetic has failed. For one encounter is not the end of the story.

More often than not, it is what you are rather than what you say that will bring an unbeliever to Christ. This, then, is the ultimate apologetic. For the ultimate apologetic is: your life.

It's no longer enough to teach our children Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics.

In the New Testament alone there are Gospels, acts, epistles, and an apocalypse. Gospels contain literary forms like miracles, parables, pronouncements, proverbs, farewell discourses, annunciations, and so on. Epistles can be apologetic, commendatory, friendship-oriented, exhortational, diatribes.

Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.

The heart must be kept tender and pliable; otherwise agnosticism converts to skepticism. In such a case, the value of apologetics is voided, for apologetics is aimed at persuading doubters, not at refuting the defiant. He who demands a kind of proof that the nature of the case renders impossible, is determined that no possible evidence shall convince him.

In a post-Christian, skeptical age, love on display is the most convincing apologetic.

For my own part, I believe that in dealing with skeptics, and unbelievers, and enemies of the Bible, Christians are too apt to stand only on the defensive. They are too often content with answering this or that little objection, or discussing this or that little difficulty, which is picked out of Scripture and thrown in their teeth. I believe we ought to act on the aggressive far more than we do, and to press home on the adversaries of [Biblical] inspiration the enormous difficulties of their own position.

Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims by saying, 'To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,' his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.

Our Christian faith - and correlatively, our account of apologetics - is tainted by modernism when we fail to appreciate the effects of sin on reason. When this is ignored, we adopt an Enlightenment optimism about the role of a supposedly neutral reason in the recognition of truth.

Imagine a person who comes in here tonight and argues 'no air exists' but continues to breathe air while he argues. Now intellectually, atheists continue to breathe - they continue to use reason and draw scientific conclusions [which assumes an orderly universe], to make moral judgments [which assumes absolute values] - but the atheistic view of things would in theory make such 'breathing' impossible. They are breathing God's air all the time they are arguing against him.