[Apologetics] Fwd: Catholic.com: Two great debates with Jimmy Akin!

[Art Kelly]

I've heard both of these debates and agree that Akin
won narrowly. I definitely believe that he prevailed
in the two debates, but neither was "a slam dunk."

In fact, the Christian Research Institute sells the
Bible Answer Man tape on its website. They clearly
believe James White came out ahead.

As for the debate on priesthood, Akin did something no
debater should do: He saved his best argument for his
closing statement, which his opponent could not
answer.

I might add that both of these debates were a LONG
time ago--more than 10 years. 

You might wonder why there are no recent debates. I
don't know why Akin no longer debates Protestants, but
I can guess that he felt fortunate to escape both
debates with narrow wins and does not want to risk
anothear encounter, which he could very well lose.

If he has listened to tapes of debates by Tim Staples,
Art Sippo, and Bob Sungenis, I'm sure he's very
reluctant to "get into the ring" again. Staples,
Sippo, and Sungenis have all debated White and have
gone down to resounding defeats.

The problem with Staples is that he cannot condense
his arguments into the short, salient points that you
need in debates. Plus, he doesn't think well on his
feet.

Dr. Sippo is nasty. He probably thinks he's being
"tough," but he makes his Protestant opponent seem
likeable.

As for Sungenis, there is almost no hope for him.
Listening to him is excruciatingly painful.

(I will say that I did see a videotape of ONE Sungenis
debate which he did relatively OK vis-a-vis White.
Some others who have seen the tape give Sungenis the
edge. I'm not trying to be funny when I speculate that
White may have been ill during that debate.) 

Of course, Sungenis is now an ultra-traditionlist and
is "off the reservation," but even when he attempted
to defend Catholicism, many times he just didn't get
it.

So by comparison, Akin is a super-star Catholic
debater. The key phrase is "by comparison."

I do recommend the Akin tapes as a tool to learn some
valuable things about apologetics.  

They will give you a good indication of the dos and
don'ts of effective argumentation from both Catholic
and Protestant prospectives.

Art

Note: forwarded message attached.


ART KELLY, ATM-S
13524 Brightfield Lane 
Herndon, Virginia 20171-3360 
(703) 904-3763 home
(703) 392-7676, ext. 1115 work
arthurkelly at yahoo.com
ArtK135 at Netscape.net
art.kelly at cox.net












-------------- next part --------------
An embedded message was scrubbed...
From: newtitles <newtitles at imcomonline.com>
Subject: Catholic.com: Two great debates with Jimmy Akin!
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 13:24:58 -0500 (CDT)
Size: 17173
URL: <http://gathman.org/pipermail/apologetics/attachments/20050908/5a591eb6/attachment.mht>