Welcome to The Poached Egg Christian Worldview and Apologetics Network

The Poached Egg Network,  in partnership with Ratio Christi Student Apologetics Alliance, is where Christian apologetics, history, philosophy, science, theology, and pop culture collide. Our goal is to help guide believers, seekers, and skeptics alike to the Ultimate Source of Truth and a better understanding of the Christian worldview.

Founded and edited by Greg West. Greg is passionately committed to the cause of Christian apologetics; providing an adequate and reasonable defense of the Christian faith. The Poached Egg is a large and continually expanding virtual library of articles and essays compiled from all over the World Wide Web. Noted apologists, biblical scholars, philosophers, scientists, historians, students, and laymen all come together under this one site.

Because The Poached Egg is a mix of original articles, scholarly commentary, Christian news, controversial issues, and other relevant content, there is almost nothing this blog does not cover in terms of apologetics resources. The layout is friendly, easy to navigate, and there is a wealth of information to be found. Topics include: The Historical Jesus; Is God a Moral Monster?;  The Universe and Self-creation; The Case for Christianity, Evolution and Intelligent Design; reviews of new book releases in the field, and much more!

The Poached Egg derives its name from the famous C.S. Lewis quote from, Mere Christianity. “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.”

With so many resources and so much content, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised each time you visit. The Poached Egg is a one-stop shop for discovering vital resources that you may not even knew existed. Whether you are new to apologetics, or a veteran apologist, The Poached Egg should be one website that every Christian has bookmarked and shares with their church community, skeptics of Christianity, family and friends, and fellow believers who may be struggling with the doubt…    read more >>>

In the News: TPE Chosen as One of the Top Online Apologetics Resources We’re so thrilled and thankful to Jonathan Sherwin of the Demolition Squad at the UK website, Christian Vision for Men, for selecting The Poached Egg as one of their top six recommended online apologetics resources. I have to say that it is truly an honor and consider it no small compliment to have The Poached Egg listed among the other five which include, William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith; Ravi Zacharias International Ministries; and Brian Auten’sApologetics 315 (click here to read the full article) as these are resources that we use and highly recommend as well. The Poached Egg, which began as a humble little blog that I did in my spare time that received a handful of daily visits from my family and friends, has now grown into a full time ministry that now averages 3,000 page views a day and has reached over 1.5 million lifetime page views in in its relatively short time of existence. This is all the result of God’s generous grace and the burden he has given me to make disciples and evangelists through apologetics ministry and training, which I do offline in my community and church as well as being in strategic partnership with Ratio Christi Student Apologetics Alliance…   read more >>>	Our Vision and the Necessity of Apologetics Missions: Will You Partner with us? Apologetics training and education is as much of a vital ministry as any discipleship ministry and I’m thrilled to be a part of it—and especially thrilled to be partnered with Ratio Christi Student Apologetics Alliance. One needs only to read the short article, Who's Waiting for Your Kids at College?, and Ratio Christi’s Purpose Statement to understand how vital apologetics ministries is to making disciples and helping students and adults realize what it means to think biblically, hold a Christian worldview, and be more confident Christians and evangelists. As a supported missionary with Ratio Christi, my duties go beyond editing and publishing articles on The Poached Egg, and include taking apologetics into my local church and community—and anywhere else that will have me to speak on apologetics related topics. Earlier last week I gave an apologetics based presentation and Bible study at a local mission which was very well received and I was excited to be asked to come back to give another in the near future. I either lead or co-lead at least two 8 to 10 week apologetics courses per year to small groups…   read more >>>
RATIO CHRISTI STUDENT APOLOGETICS ALLIANCE Many Christian parents are concerned that their kids may graduate from college no longer believing that Christianity is true. After all, the secular campus confronts them with questions about supposedly suppressed gospels, James Cameron supposedly finding the lost tomb of Jesus, the Zeitgeist movie madness, and erudite sounding “science” which proclaims that all the complexity we find in the universe arose by luck.Sadly, even many “Christian” colleges have professors who undermine the reliability of Scripture. These can be harder on Christian students’ faith because they expect secular campus profs to revile every aspect of Christian truth, but not a professor who self-identifies as being a Christian but then tells them that Christianity is only “our construction of reality” or that Adam and Noah are no more than “poetic devices.” (Thus, to borrow from that wise sage Mr. Miyagi: “Either Christian school do yes, or Christian school do no, but no Christian school maybe.”) This should concern Christian parents! After all, Christians cannot love the Lord with all their minds while suppressing fears that Christianity cannot answer the hard questions. That is why I believe apologetics is essential…   more >>>	Ratio Christi: The Grass Roots Apologetics Movement LEE STROBEL INTERVIEWS RC PRESIDENT: Ratio Christi is a global movement that equips university students and faculty to give historical, philosophical and scientific reasons for following Jesus Christ. Ratio Christi is Latin for…   more >>>   THE RATIO CHRISTI STUDENT EXPERIENCE: I came to Ohio State my freshman year as a Christian, hoping to share my belief with others. Within the first fortnight at the dorms I was challenged with questions I had never heard before…   more >>>   RATIO CHRISTI AND THE APOLOGETICS MOVEMENT: Do you find most “methods” of evangelism forced and uncomfortable? We all know the Great Com-mission, yet how many Christians are regularly engaged in making Christian disciples…   more >>>
Apologetics In the Bible WHY APOLOGETICS? To every believer the charge has been given; “earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). Today, this charge may be of even more applicability than when originally penned…   more >>>   APOLOGETICS: A BRIEF HISTORY: While apologies or defenses of the Christian faith go all the way back to the first century, the formal science of apologetics is a more recent development. Here we will survey the history of apologetics in three stages…   more >>>   APOLOGETICS: NECESSARY TO FAITH: Why does the faith need to be defended? Does the Infinite Creator of the Universe need finite creatures employing fallen reasoning in an effort to support what He has revealed? He does not need it but…   more >>>   CALLEDTO BE CONVINCED: Is the Christian Faith Supposed to be “Blind”? God wants us to be certain and base our certainty on evidence that can be articulated to others who may have doubts. Sometimes Christians have a…   more >>>	Christian Apologetics: So What is Apologetics Anyway? Throughout the history of the church, Christians have been called upon to explain why we believe what we believe. The apostle Paul spoke of his ministry as "the defense and confirmation of the gospel." Peter said we need to "be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you." This activity of the church came to be known as apologetics which means "defense." But, if it is important that we defend the faith, how do we do it? In this essay I will not provide a lot of evidences and arguments. I will rather look at some basic principles that will guide us in defending the faith. We will talk about our starting point and about the important matter of thinking logically. We'll look at the specific charge of elitism which is prevalent on college campuses today. Finally, we'll deal with the question of presenting a case for Christianity. So, what is apologetics, anyway, and what is it supposed to do? Apologetics has been defined as "the science and art of defending the faith." It is chiefly concerned with the question of the truth of Jesus Christ. In the days of the Greeks, when someone was summoned to court to face a charge, he would present an "apology" or a defense. For Christians, this might mean answering…   more >>>
Stepping Up: The Call for Community Apologists While interest in apologetics is experiencing a resurgence as of late, the church as a whole still seems to be slow in catching on, or are even downright opposed, as ‘faith trumps facts’ seems to be the prevailing attitude. Instead of producing Christians who can say, “I believe the Bible is God’s word, and here’s why…”, we’re producing Christians who can only say, “God said it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for me!” This manner of blind faith and circular reasoning is not likely to win many converts or help the struggling student who has left the relative safety of their Christian ghetto and has entered the real world. What is the solution to this problem? Does every pastor need to be a trained apologist? While I believe that every pastor does need to have some basic training in apologetics, I don’t think that this is a realistic solution. Perhaps churches could hire academically trained apologists to serve on staff? This would be ideal, but again, unrealistic…   more >>>	We Don’t Need Apologetics? “We don’t need apologetics, we just need to ‘experience’ Jesus!” Unfortunately, this is something I hear from fellow believers quite often and it never fails to set off the warning sirens in my head; not because I think that ‘experiencing’ Jesus is bad—in fact, I think it’s a good thing, but if you’re basing your faith on experience alone to the exclusion of reason and knowledge, then you’re building your house not on solid rock, but on sand—and when the rains come down, the streams rise, and the winds blow and beat against your house it will fall with a mighty crash. We need to stop teaching people to ‘experience’ Jesus and teach them to know Jesus. Let me explain what I mean: In his post titled, High School Students and Apologetics, teacher Dan Gehrke said, “I’ve observed that kids have changed over the last seven years since I last taught apologetics…   more >>>
Into the Wardrobe: From the C.S. Lewis Archives WHY BOTHER WITH C.S. LEWIS? I tell my students that when they cite Lewis, they cite a recognizable source. And a recognizable source can be a helpful source when making an argument. Still, simply being well-known does not make one…   more >>>   LEWIS’ LANGUAGE OF APOLOGETICS: Many people wonder why. C. S. Lewis is certainly one of the greatest Christian writers of all time. Judging from the number of copies sold, he is the most successful author in church history…  more >>>   C.S. LEWIS’ MERE CHRISTIANITY: C. S. Lewis’s earliest biographers, Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper, wrote that if they were going to a desert island and could take only one Lewis book, it would probably be Mere Christianity…  more >>>	God in the Dock: The Apologetics of C.S. Lewis In modern English the words apology and apologize indicate regret because some statement or action was offensive and wrong. This is not the case for “apologetics” in theology, for that discipline is intended to manifest “a point of view is right.” It is intended for those who differ in order to win them over, or for those who agree in order to confirm them in the truth for which the apologist testifies. It is in this sense that C.S. Lewis is recognized as an “apologist,” for a number of his works are intended to manifest the adequacy of the Christian outlook over against a “naturalist” position, which asserts that the universe is simply a great material mass functioning in terms of its own mechanism or laws without any possible intervention from the outside and specifically without a creative or governing power of a mind. C.S. Lewis was very well prepared for this task because until late in his twenties he was a devotee of atheism without any reference to…   more >>>
You Don’t Need a Degree to be an Apologist—But… You don’t need a degree to be an apologist but you do need to be a reader. The first apologetics book I ever read was Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ, and I was blown away about the amount of evidence for the truth claims of Christianity. Not only that, but it introduced me to a host of other apologists and apologetics resources. Every Christian is called to be an apologist (1 Peter 3:15) and reading apologetics books is one of the best ways to learn apologetics, along with listening to lectures and debates. For the latter,Apologetics 315 is hands down the best resource on the internet, and as for the former, I’ve provided a list of over 100 books (and a handful of videos) from some of the best Christian thinkers past and present. Most of these I have in my own library as well as keeping extra copies of some of them to give away to unbelieving friends or Christian friends who are struggling with doubt. The aspiring apologist should start with introductory level books (Lee Strobel’s “Case for…” series is a great place to start) and work your way up to higher level books (Reasonable Faith comes to mind) as you begin to become more familiar with some of the basic arguments for Christianity…   more >>>	Christian Apologetics Book Reviews CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS: A COMPREHENSIVE CASE FOR BIBLICAL FAITH: In the first sentence in the Acknowledgements section, Douglas Groothuis says, "Christian Apologetics comes out of my Christian life and all who have contributed to it…  more >>>    JESUS AND THE EYEWITNESSES: There are books that are interesting, there are books that are important and then there are seminal studies that serve as road markers for the field, pointing the way forward. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses is in the latter category…   more >>>    THINKING ABOUT CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS is a cogent and compelling book because it argues that apologetics is not an academic exercise. To be sure, an apologist can learn much from academia, and from having ideas tested…   more >>>   SAVING LEONARDO: Nancy Pearcey knows the captivating power of secular ideas because she used to hold them herself. As a teenager, she rejected the religion of her childhood and embraced a host of "isms," from moral relativism to scientific determinism to…    more >>>
ANSWERING CRITICS AND SKEPTICS THE NEW TESTAMENT CONSPIRACY:  It is certainly possible that the New Testament writers worked together and concocted a plan to use a good man named Jesus, who had recently died, in order to gain power and influence…   more >>>   JUST A BIG GAME OF TELEPHONE? One attack that is commonly levied against Christianity is that the Bible we hold today cannot accurately represent what was written nearly two thousand years ago. It surely must be frocked with errors…   more >>>   EXPLAINING AWAY GOD WITH SCIENCE: Just as bananas cannot have beliefs, science cannot provide complete explanations for natural phenomena. Rather it can only provide useful descriptions. This is why bold declarations from atheists…   more >>>   YOU CANNOT PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD!:I was an atheist when I first said that to a Christian about 45 years ago. I must say it felt pretty good to say those words. It makes one feel superior to tell a person they cannot prove something…   more >>>	The Apologetics of Jesus Was Jesus an apologist? As we read through the Gospels it could not be more evident that we see Jesus utilize a variety of methodologies to communicate spiritual truths. Since there was no New Testament canon at that time, it is not as if Jesus was cognizant of 1 Peter 3:15-16 where we read, “But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. ” So I doubt that Jesus walked around saying, “ I have been called to be an apologist and I need to carry out my task in a faithful manner.” However, Jesus offered reasons on several occasions as to why He is the Jewish Messiah and God incarnate. So let’s take a look at some of these and try to learn some things. For starters, if you read through the Gospels, you will see Jesus asked 153 questions. This is something that needs to be practiced by all Christians. As Christians we tend to be great talkers but poor listeners. If you read through the rabbinical literature, you will see that asking questions is a common occurrence…   more >>>
Questions are a Good Thing “Introducing a strong and aggressive apologetics program at our church was one of the single best decisions I have made in my ministry.” That is a pretty strong statement for a pastor to make about any ministry or program his church has implemented, but I made the statement and I wholeheartedly stand by it. By creating an “atmosphere of apologetics,” we have challenged people within the church to dig deep into their faith and to question if what they believe is really true or not. One of the mottos that has become a mainstay in our church is “Questions are a good thing.” What we have found is there are many people that feel churches and/or pastors really do not like people to question the things they are teaching. We have created a culture in which people are comfortable knowing that questions can be asked and our faith will stand firm against any…   more >>>	Exploring Faith and Doubt WHAT IF MY WIFE IS HAVING AN AFFAIR?  I just talked to my wife on the phone about forty-five minutes ago. Everything seemed fine. She was a little distracted and wanted to get off the phone for some reason at the end…   more >>>   RESOLVE YOUR DOUBTS: We all have doubts. The question is: what will we do about them? If you want to resolve your doubts, you need to engage with doubt, to push your doubts to their limits, and see what remains. In my experience…   more >>>   LETTER TO AN ATHEIST: I understand you having doubts. I understand having doubts because I’ve had many. I’ve questioned the existence of God. I’ve questioned the character of God. I’ve questioned if Jesus was God incarnate…   more >>>
Learning to do Apologetics Right A LESSON IN APOLOGETICS: It hasn’t been until recently that apologetics has emerged into the forefront of Christian education and missions. It’s been found in the writings of C.S. Lewis, proclaimed by the likes of Ravi Zacharias…  more >>>   7 GREAT TIPS FOR DEFENDING THE FAITH: Apologetics is the term used for defending ones beliefs using reason. This is a big fancy word to say that you want to explain to others why you believe what you believe…   more >>>   52 TIPS FOR APOLOGISTS: What advice do you have for those who want to learn more about apologetics? What kinds of attitudes and character traits should Christians adopt as they use apologetics in conversations with skeptics…  more >>>	One Million One Dollar Apologists There have been quite a few articles written on the need for apologetics as of late, but just in case you’ve not read any (or enough) of them, this happens to be another one. My pastor always says that every Christian who thinks about God (which should be all of us) is a theologian; I believe that every Christian who thinks about the reasons why we believe that Christianity is true (which, again, should be all of us) is an apologist. Now I’m not saying this means that every Christian needs earn a degree in theology and apologetics, but what I am saying is that every Christian should at least know some of the basic reasons for why we should believe the truth claims of Christianity, because if our faith is not built upon a solid foundation, then like the man who built his house upon the sand, our house of ‘blind faith’ will fall with a great crash…   more >>>
The Quotable Francis Schaeffer Defense is proper and necessary because in every age historic Christianity will be under attack. Defense does not mean being on the defensive. One must not be embarrassed about the use of the word defense. The proponents of any position who are alive to their own generation must give a sufficient answer for it when questions are raised about it. Thus, the word defense is not used here in a negative sense, because in any conversation, in any communication which is really dialogue, answers must be given to objections raised. Such answers are necessary in the first place for myself as a Christian if I am going to maintain my intellectual integrity, and if I am to keep united my personal, devotional and intellectual life. more quotes >>>	Christian Apologetics: Shake the World with the Truth On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of death will not overcome it—Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:9). This is a manifesto to ignite the holy fire of apologetic passion and action. As did Jeremiah, we should have "fire in our bones" to communicate and commend Christian truth today (Jeremiah 20:9). This manifesto is not a sustained argument or a detailed development of themes. Rather, as a manifesto, it proclaims a short series of interrelated propositions crying out for both immediate and protracted reflection, prayer, and action. These challenges issue from convictions formed through my nearly thirty years of apologetic teaching, preaching, debating, writing, and Christian…   more >>>