Some years ago, I attended a gathering of top evangelical leaders in the country. Many evangelical leaders who were national leaders in their respective denominations, mission agencies and other Christian organizations were there. What was interesting to me during that conference was the message of the main speaker, Dr. Fred Magbanua, a well-known evangelist in the evangelical community.

He said that what was lamentable in the evangelical community was the serious lack of apologists among us. Evangelical seminaries were not producing as much as it ought to, according to the guest speaker. And he showed the facts. Preachers like Eli Soriano, Apollo Quiboloy and others like them were relentlessly recruiting and influencing our members in droves. The Filipino masses all over the country and abroad are being bombarded with their false gospel and faulty theology while the evangelical community remains meek and quiet as a lamb. Essentially, that’s what the guest speaker said.

Wanted: Apologists

“Are there no apologists among us?” That was the lament of the guest speaker. What is an apologist anyway? Well, according to one dictionary, it means “a person who makes a defense in speech or writing of a belief, idea, etc.”

The example of Irenaeus as an apologist is a good one. He was one of the early Christian leaders during the early centuries of the Church. He was a student of Polycarp who was a student of the Apostle John, the last of the original apostles who lived and died around A.D. 100.

During the time of Irenaeus (died A.D. 202) he was grieved at the spread of false gospels and heretical ideas and therefore he fought and preached against it and wrote his book, Against Heresies.

Shall Evangelicals Just Stand Still?

Shall we just keep quiet then when false gospels are spreading around influencing wrongly the minds of our church members? The virus of false gospels and wrong theologies are also spreading on the internet. Shall we just stand still while our flock are being brought to the slaughter? Shall we not protect our flock? “Are there no apologists among us?”