Cold-Case Christianity

J. Warner Wallace has just released a new book on apologetics called Cold-Case Christianity.

You may remember J. (Jim) Warner Wallace from the interview he did with me on Pagan Christianity. I caught up with Jim to interview him on his new book. Check it out.

What inspired you to write Cold-Case Christianity?

J. Warner Wallace: I’ve been training young Christians for many years, both as a youth and lead pastor. We often take trips to the University of California at Berkeley in order to engage atheist groups and interact with non-believers. A few years back, I partnered with Sean McDowell on one of these week-long trips to Berkeley. After one of my training sessions (addressing the reliability of the gospels), Sean asked me if I’d ever considered writing a book. I was buried at the time in three cold-case homicide investigations and couldn’t imagine finding the time to write anything, but with the encouragement of my wife, I sketched out a proposal.

Much of the book flowed naturally from my own experiences as a cold-case detective. The principles I use in my criminal cases are applicable to the investigation of any event in the past, so the book nearly wrote itself as I retraced my own investigation of the gospel accounts and I provided many examples from my criminal case work.

Was there any particular group that you had in mind when you wrote the book?

J. Warner Wallace: Well, I was an atheist until the age of 35. I was hostile to Christianity and to Christians whom I considered to be irrational and non-evidential. So, as I wrote Cold-Case Christianity, I definitely had the “old Jim” (and those like me) in mind. I tried to write the book in a way that addresses the challenges posed by skeptics, while helping Christians understand the depth of the case for Christianity. Cold-Case Christianity is an “apologetics” book, no doubt about it; and I think the Christians who most need to learn how to make the case for Christianity are young people in high school and college. These folks are leaving the church in staggering numbers and at a far greater pace than people my age. I firmly believe that those of us who are writing books of this nature need to have this younger audience in mind.

So, my first goal in writing Cold-Case Christianity was to make sure the book was accessible to those who don’t usually think of themselves as apologetics “junkies”. I wanted to write a book that employed cold-case investigative strategies and provided interesting real-life examples that transcend typical age boundaries. I hope Cold-Case Christianity is robustly informative while easily understandable.

What makes Cold-Case Christianity different from say, The Case for Christ?

J. Warner Wallace: There are so many great apologetics books on the market; I definitely didn’t want to repeat the work done better by others. Lee Strobel and I are very similar, both in terms of our personal histories and in the investigative approach we take. Lee has become a friend and he was kind enough to write the foreword. I was so grateful. I think Cold-Case Christianity is a great accompaniment to other apologetics texts. While it will certainly provide you with the evidence, it will also help you understand the nature of evidence and how it is properly assembled and evaluated when making a case.

In other words, Cold-Case Christianity is as much about helping readers understand how to think as it is about helping readers understand what to think, especially as they consider the role of evidence in determining truth claims. I hope my unique experience as a cold-case detective will provide readers with a skill set that is equally unique. Cold-Case Christianity will teach readers the categories of evidence and ten critical principles of evidence they can use to examine any claim from the past. I hope these tools will help readers become effective Christian Case Makers.

Has anyone challenged you to defend your claim that the Gospels can be examined as eyewitness accounts?

J. Warner Wallace: Of course! I was once a skeptic who rejected the notion that the gospels are eyewitness accounts. But the writers of the accounts identified themselves as eyewitnesses (1 John 1:1,3 and 2 Peter 1:16), and Luke also wrote that he was relying on eyewitness observations for his gospel (Luke 1:1). In addition, the apostles consistently represented themselves as eyewitnesses to the Resurrection (as described in the Book of Acts), and the early Church Fathers selected the canonical gospels based largely on the fact they possessed eyewitness authority. The question for me as a skeptic wasn’t, “Are these eyewitness accounts?” It was instead, “Are these reliable eyewitness accounts?” This is the important point I try to address in Cold-Case Christianity. There is a specific approach that jurors are encouraged to take in California when trying to determine if an eyewitness can be trusted on the stand. In the second section of Cold-Case Christianity, I describe this approach to determining eyewitness reliability as I evaluate the gospels.

Along the way, I address many of the challenges that have been leveled at the gospel accounts over the years. When I first investigated these accounts, I found that my investigative experience as a cold-case detective left me with only one reasonable conclusion: the accounts are reliable. Once I determined this was the case, I was forced to consider the claims of Jesus related to my need for a Savior.

What are you hoping to achieve with this book?

J. Warner Wallace: Two things: I would love for God to use this book as a means by which skeptics might examine the evidence. I can remember my hostility toward Christianity. I can also remember God removing my enmity and allowing me to examine the gospels fairly. During that time, I was reading the Bible daily and reading everything else I could get my hands on. It’s my hope that God might put Cold-Case Christianity in the path of a skeptic like me.

But just as importantly, I want Christians to understand God’s desire for all of us to become good Christian Case Makers. God spoke through Peter when he commanded that we be “ready to make a defense to everyone who asks (us) to give an account for the hope that is in (us)” (1 Peter 3:15). Those of us who call ourselves Christians have already made one decision; we’ve decided to trust Jesus for our salvation. I want to encourage my brothers and sisters to become “Two Decision Christians”. I hope that Cold Case Christianity will encourage people to take Peter’s words seriously and make a second decision to defend what they believe. If my book can help make that possible, I’ll feel like it was worth the effort.