Josh McDowell

Joslin "Josh" McDowell is an evangelical Christian preacher and Christian apologetics writer of some regard. He has been associated with Campus Crusade for Christ since 1964.

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Book and evidence

His best known book is Evidence That Demands a Verdict, which is an attempt at defending the historicity and deity of Jesus and the inerrancy of scripture. It has been a perennial best-seller on the Christian bookstore market since its 1972 publication. The verdict of those who aren't already inclined to accept Biblically inerrant Christianity is "what's the point?"

Freethinkers have written extensively about how unreliable they think McDowell's supposed evidence is.[1][2][3]

The internet
“”Atheists and skeptics now have equal access to our children as we have, which is why the number of Christian youth who believe in the fundamentals of Christianity is decreasing and sexual immorality is growing, apologist Josh McDowell said.
—[4]

McDowell believes ready access to Internet porn is corrupting young people. Further he knows easy access to the Internet means atheists and skeptics can reach teenagers as easily as Christians can. McDowell fears if Christian fundamentalists have not reached children by the age of 12 those children will be lost to the other side. [4]

The Torah scroll

McDowell is in possession of what he claims is a 16th-century Torah scroll from the Jewish community of Lodz, Poland. He regularly brings the scroll to his speaking events. McDowell has refused to allow anyone to verify the scroll's provenance, which some Jews say raises ethical questions as, if authentic, the Torah could have been the subject of looting during the Holocaust. Assuming it is real, concerns have also been raised over McDowell allowing people to touch the delicate parchment with their bare, oily fingers. Critics say this defiling of a Jewish sacred object is a form of "replacement theology," which has historically been the basis for Christian anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews. Tom Hennell says McDowell's handling of the Torah is "crass" and reflects how "the entire history of Jewish witness, scholarship, persecution and annihilation is appropriated into the back-story for the Christian Bible."[5]

gollark: Neural interfaces are better.
gollark: Also, some offense, but your central bank is likely to have vast security holes.
gollark: They don't represent currency if the logs cannot actually be swapped for anything unless they have salt value somehow.
gollark: And why would people use this over krist?
gollark: So why transfer the logs at all?

See also

References
  1. A Verdict on Josh McDowell
  2. The Jury Is In The Ruling on McDowell's "Evidence"
  3. Josh McDowell's Charade (1982)
  4. Apologist Josh McDowell: Internet the Greatest Threat to Christians
  5. Marketing the Word of God
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