Attempting to win Christians over to their side, same-sex “marriage” proponents often assert that Jesus would approve of their agenda. They claim that Jesus never said anything at all about homosexuality. Not once do the gospels record him condemning homosexual acts as being sinful. Therefore, the activists claim, Jesus would approve of same-sex “marriage” and Christians should be supportive.

Although it is true that the gospels do not record Jesus directly condemning homosexual acts, to conclude on this basis that he in any way approved of them is faulty reasoning. It commits a logical fallacy known as argumentum a silentio (Latin for “argument from silence”). “Jesus is not on record against it so he must be for it.” Such an argument bases its conclusion on a supposed...

There once was a minister who noticed that his little boy and the neighbor kids had decided to put together a funeral for a dead bird they had found. Being the Preacher's Kid, the minister's son was deputed to lead the services. Standing before the tiny grave, shoebox casket waiting to be laid into the ground, the minister's son confidently intoned, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and in the hole he goes!"

It's a cute story, but when I first read it, immediately I was struck by the apologetics lesson to be learned. There can be a tendency in apologetics circles to mimic the big-name apologist who is making the biggest splash, with all of that apologist's arguments uncritically repackaged and passed on to one's own circle of listeners. And, like the little boy who...