Science
Brief Review of What Works: Gender Equality by Design
What Works: Gender Equality by Design by Iris BohnetMy rating: 4 of 5 stars I read a lot of books and journal articles about bias and inequality. It's pretty common for those sources to offer a lot of recommendations for overcoming bias that sound like...
Is the Enneagram Legitimate for Spiritual Growth?
This article is the paper I read at the Evangelical Theological Society annual conference in 2021. It's pretty long but is organized with lots of headings. If you want shorter content, here's an article I wrote on the accuracy of the enneagram...
Why isn’t Apologetics More Effective?
Have you ever had a religious or political discussion with someone where you stated your disagreement in a carefully worded, factual, and well-reasoned response? How did it go? I'm guessing the other person didn't say, "Oh, you're right! Thank you so much." In fact, I...
What is Psychological Apologetics?
I've been explicitly focusing on psychological apologetics for a few years now, but it just dawned on me that I've never clearly defined it, at least not in writing. While I'm not strictly the only person doing psychological apologetics, I am doing it more actively...
Psychological Apologetics Resources
Psychological apologetics is a unique field that focuses on using and applying psychological sciences (which really includes all social and cognitive sciences) for apologetics. Very few people do work that could be considered psychological apologetics, especially...
The Complexity of Politics
I'm working on my Ph.D. in psychology and in a recent class of mine, we were discussing the trolley problem in the context of moral development. My professor ended by saying, thankfully, we don’t actually have to make these difficult choices in real life because doing...
Engineering Psychology for Apologetics
Apologists tend to think like engineers in the sense that we're very analytical and logical, which also means that we often misunderstand people who don't think this way. Nearly every apologist goes through a phase where we think, if I just show people the evidence,...
The Coddling of the Righteous Mind
I've been meaning to read Jonathan Haidt's books, The Righteous Mind and The Coddling of the American Mind for quite a while. In fact, I considered applying to work with him for my PhD because his research is so relevant for apologetics. Alas, I...
The Giraffe’s Neck: Evidence for Evolution or Design?
If you've done any investigation into the debate between evolution and intelligent design (or creation), you've probably heard about the giraffe's neck. Not only do both sides claim it in favor of their position, but they often tout it as irrefutable proof that they...
What you don’t know about biological sex
Sexuality, biological sex, and gender are the hot topics of the day, and unfortunately, nearly everyone has an over-simplified view of each topic. For this article, I'm only going to focus on biological sex, and for 99% of people reading this, my guess is that there's...
Are Christians Dumb?
While working on my previous article, Are you a Stupid Christian?, I realized I should probably address the actual scientific evidence regarding intelligence and belief. This was made all the more apparent when I came across some anti-scientific statements by several...
Are You a Stupid Christian?
This is what we're up against. Christians have a reputation for being stupid. Anyone engaged in apologetics has probably been told (usually by someone in complete shock) that they're the first intelligent Christian they've met. The charge that Christians are stupid...
Do We Need a Christian Psychology?
Recently I've been bombarded with various notions a Christain psychology. This can mean a variety of different things, but I am using the term very broadly to refer to Christian specific practices or approaches to psychology. This seems like an obvious approach to...
Virtue Apologetics
A recent article in Psychology Today has been making the rounds on my social media. The article discusses a peer-reviewed paper from 2015 that showed that Christian children are less generous than non-religious children. The original paper was touted as...
A Reasonable Faith in Science?
One of my favorite things I get to do as an apologist is answer questions on behalf of Reasonable Faith. I recently received a question that I've been thinking about in greater detail since I answered it. The person was wondering if it is reasonable to have faith in...
Logic’s End: An Apologetics Fiction Book Review
Logic's End by Keith A. RobinsonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars This book is an apologetics fiction book and I was super excited to read it, but at the same time, I didn't have very high expectations. Overall, I'm a bit torn on my thoughts about this book...
Memory, the Gospels, and Darth Vader
Memory, the Gospels, and Darth Vader The image on the right is a picture of a puzzle that my wife and I tried to put together about a year ago. We were about halfway done and decided to give up because it was taking too long and...
Should Christians Get Therapy?
The role of therapy is by far the most controversial topic for Christians in regards to the field of psychology. There are mounds of books devoted to the integration of therapy into Christian theology and the different views on it. Thankfully, I think there's a way to...
Sleeping for Christ
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me what spiritual disciplines I was participating in. If I asked you the same question, what would you say? One of my answers was sleep, which seemed a bit odd to my friend until I explained the way sleep affects our lives. Most...
Vaccines and Apologetics
I've been meaning to write about vaccines for a while now but just haven't gotten around to it. However, in the past year or so, I've heard several Christians question their safety (mostly about autism), there have been several outbreaks, and there is a proposed bill...
Review: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert by John M. GottmanMy rating: 5 of 5 stars The author, John Gottman, is well known for his scientific research on marriages. Because of this, I have cited...
Answered Prayer or Apophenia?
Generally speaking, humans are control freaks. We like to feel like we have control over everything, which means randomness and uncertainty make us uncomfortable. There are several ways our brains try to overcome this. Compensatory control explains our tendency to...
Preventing Abortion
How many people have you convinced not to have an abortion? How many people have you convinced to become pro-life, and if you have, did it prevent them from having an abortion? With the exception of a small handful of people, my guess is that the answer to all of...
The Science of Sex as an Apologetic
Let's just jump right in and start talking about sex. Christians believe that God is good, designed us, and gave us moral instructions, including sexual instructions, presumably based on the way He designed us. Therefore, the moral laws in the Bible will probably lead...
Preventing Pop-Psychology in Apologetics
Apologists, as a group and as individuals, are the most well-informed people I know. This is likely because the discipline demands knowledge on a wide variety of subjects, apologists are intellectually curious, and there are well-known apologists with legitimate...
Persuasive Apologetics Principle 7: Bonus Tips
The previous articles in this series each focused on a specific principle from the book Influence: Science and Practice. Because of the narrow focus, the practical tips were limited to things that fit squarely into a single category; however, many of...
Persuasive Apologetics Principle 6: Authority
In 1963 Dr. Stanley Milgram published the results of one of the most famous psychological studies of all time. In this experiment, Milgram was able to convince regular people to administer what they thought was a potentially fatal shock to another participant for...
Persuasive Apologetics Principle 4: Commitment and Consistency
Asking someone to convert to Christianity is a huge commitment. In most cases, people will have to change the entire way they view the world and their place in it. They may lose relationships with family members and friends over it, they could lose their job, and in...
Persuasive Apologetics Principle 5: Scarcity
Ha Ha! Gotcha... I shared this article by saying it would only be available for a limited time (It's not. This was just to make a point). As a result, I expect it will I'll get more readers quicker than my previous posts, at least for the first few hours (update:...
Persuasive Apologetics Principle 3: Social Proof
Have you ever been in a new situation where you didn't know what to do? This is common when visiting foreign countries, but also happens pretty regular in our lives. Think of when you may have started a new job or new school, visited a new type of restaurant, or...
Persuasive Apologetics Principle 2: Reciprocity
Everyone loves getting things for free, but this also comes with a sense of obligation to return the favor. This is reciprocity. It's a give and take. Some social scientists go so far as to say that civilization is built upon this nearly universal human principle....
Persuasive Apologetics Principle 1: Liking
I've heard the above statement quoted by several apologists and it was even the inspiration for a book, The Fifth Gospel, by The One Minute Apologist, Bobby Conway. On the one hand, apologists are right to recognize that the behavior of Christians is not a...
Persuasive Apologetics
What would it take to convince you to convert to a different religion and how long do you think it would take? Whatever your answer is, keep in mind that people of other belief systems are likely just as resistant, if not more resistant, to convert to Christianity. As...
Personality Tests for Apologetics?
I was not intending to write another article on personality after my Enneagram articles, but I had a few people ask me questions about personality in general, so I thought it would be good to answer those questions since my mind is already on the topic and the...
The Enneagram, Science, and Christianity – Part 2
I reviewed the scientific evidence related to the enneagram in part 1 of this article and concluded it is not a very good tool. If you haven't already done so, I would suggest reading it. In this post, I will address the reasons why the enneagram seems to...
The Enneagram, Science, and Christianity – Part 1
Part 2 discusses the reasons why the enneagram seems to work. Part 3 talks about the enneagram in the context of spiritual growth. I first heard about the enneagram in mid-2017. If you're not familiar with it, it's a psychological and spiritual personality assessment...
A New Perspective for Apologetics
Think of all your favorite apologists. What are their degrees in? Most have philosophy or theology degrees. Then there are a good number with degrees in the hard sciences or mathematics. However, there aren't really any apologists with a graduate degree in psychology....
A man’s thoughts on makeup
Yes, I am a man and I am writing about makeup, which primarily concerns women, but I am also a father of three young girls. While this article is directed mostly towards women, it is not just for women. It's also for husbands, fathers, and the men who (directly or...