Alabama Baptists teach apologetics in church classes

Did you know Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, tried to join a church where his girlfriend attended before being labeled a necromancer and founding his church?”
   
“Did you know Islam is not as old as Christianity?”
   
It’s always fun for Larry Thompson to see the looks on the faces in the room when he asks these types of questions in the 30-and-up Sunday School class he teaches at NorthPark Baptist Church, Trussville, in Birmingham Baptist Association.
   
“These kind of little-known facts about other religions usually pique the interests of the class, and then they want to know more,” said Thompson, who has taught on many organized religions from Seventh-Day Adventists to Sikhism.
   
It is important for Baptists to arm themselves with the facts and know how Christian beliefs are different from cult-like religions, Thompson said. 
   
“I always try to teach from a factual standpoint of ‘this is what they believe,’ and I let the students judge for themselves.”
   
The class at NorthPark Baptist and others like it in churches across the state are picking up the baton and running with it as far as teaching apologetics are concerned, according to Mike Jackson, an associate in the office of evangelism for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
   
And it’s significant that they are, he added, as Americans are more diverse when it comes to religion these days. 
   
“We are going to have to realize more and more that our churches are going to have to reach beyond who we have been to who we are becoming,” Jackson said. “We are multiethnic, multireligious, and to reach every man, woman, boy and girl, we’re going to have to learn how to reach them where they are.”
   
Church leaders and teachers like Thompson are utilizing sources such as www.4truth.net, the apologetics Web site of the North American Mission Board, as well as resources provided by Watchman Fellowship through a partnership with the SBOM’s office of evangelism.
   
And they are already seeing and hearing about results from those who participate in these types of classes in Alabama Baptist churches.
   
“It is … amazing to see the class begin to have encounters with people of other religions as we go through the material. They often are better prepared to respond, and because of the study, they report that they felt more comfortable,” Thompson said.