Over the past 26 years, the National Conference on Christian Apologetics (NCCA) has drawn hundreds of people from around the world.
This year, due to the coronavirus, the event is going virtual—and one North Carolina doctor can’t recommend it enough.
Craig is a professor and chair of surgery at the Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine. He’s been to NCCA multiple times and calls it one of the greatest resources for Christians.
“It’s the biggest and the best apologetics conference that I am aware of anywhere.”
Craig fondly remembers engaging with many of the speakers—including Drs. Norm Geisler, Hugh Ross, John Lennox and Gary Habermas—during past conferences.
For Craig, the conference brings top Christian leaders within reach to impart decades of wisdom as believers learn how to appeal to a questioning culture.
“Apologetics is needed more than ever before because people are hurting, and they need to see the love of Jesus authentically and caringly demonstrated in their lives. The conference helps equip us in that aspect.”
Shedding light on the healthcare profession, Craig said it’s not unusual to work 75 to 80 hours a week, on top of studying, training and everyday life. Healthcare workers may be seasoned in medical knowledge but lacking in their familiarity with apologetics.
Craig also serves as vice president of Triangle Christian Medical Dental Associations. Through that organization, he’s helped connect medical students—some of different faiths or no faith at all—with Christian apologists he’s met through NCCA.
“Real truth acquisition is more caught than taught,” he said about going one-on-one with “great apologist minds.”
Getting to know them personally has had a “powerful” influence in his own life.
While the patients he sees are there to receive a service, not hear him preach, Craig said one takeaway of NCCA is learning how to meaningfully and lovingly interact with others, whether the exchange is long or short.
At a time when society has an increasingly negative impression of Christianity, he said, it’s important that people feel heard and valued—that Christians listen well, build relationships and consider the other side of the argument.
Just as he must listen and understand first before making a diagnosis and addressing it in the medical field, he said, Christians must do the same.
First, assess the situation before moving to “engage those that vigorously stand against faith principles with the principle that we need to be tactful and shrewd as a serpent, but also innocent as a dove.”
Don’t Miss the Conference!
This year’s National Conference on Christian Apologetics is a six-day virtual event, held October 12-17. Hear from a plethora of renowned speakers on today’s pressing issues. The $30 registration fee gives you access to content for 3 months. Spanish sessions are included.
