Alright – we have a bit of interest now.

I’m suspending my Daily Cut, and my Schaeffer study until I get this done – and we are decided on what to do.

This means that I want, and need, your input and prayerful counsel.

The plan thus far:

1) A new domain name – I bought voxapologia.org I wanted it anyway. If we use it, cool. If we don’t… VA can use it all by itself. Regardless… it’s a good name, and I came up with it. So, neener neener.

2) A group blog + extra features.

I installed WP 1.5 today, on the VA domain, and a set of forums as well. I’m not going to mess with templating quite yet. I’ll do a portal, too, if anyone wants – but I want to see what we want to do, first. So… what all do we want? I have a pretty superly hefty webhosting package – so seriously… don’t be shy.

3) Archival of contributor/submitted apologetics work – or links to it. Whichever/both.

And people to archive it/collect it/organize it – and to write it.

4) Central “command post” for Vox Apologia. I’m really thinking that since VA is a symposium, not a carnival – it should be rooted in one place. I know you guys would like the traffic – but really… VA isn’t exactly a traffic generator – you know? It’s a collection of symposiums on various topics. If someone different wants to host the VA there, and be the “guest director”, giving their blog a plug – that’s awesome. It’s just almost more of a pain than it’s worth, with the migrating hosting. Especially since we can make this a permanent, regular fixture this way – with no worries about “late announcements” (kick me, please), or the like. And, with a group blog… there’s more people to blame! (Instead of just me :P)

5) Place for skeptics/apologists to engage each other. The initial skirmishes can be blog trackbacks, etc – but “tracking the discussions” is helpful, and informative. We can discuss here, track discussions back and forth, or etc. Regardless, a group blog also generates multiple people who can help with the tracking. If I have to, I’ll do it myself – but I’d prefer some help 😀

6) Place for skeptics/other worldviews/religions to put their questions to – someone they can expect a reasonable, biblically sound answer, on a wide variety of issues, and multiple perspectives. Such a place needs to exist in the blogosphere. Forums are good – and we can add that to a stable of resources – but blogging is much more… network-capable. Which is why it’s grown so much. However – what we lack is a hub. I’ll build it.

Let ’em come, and let us invite them.

7) A focus on both general, active, and issue-specific apologetics. Let me explain.

General:

There are two general “areas” – offensive and defensive – which I believe go together. This is general apologetics.

Active:

Offensive:

There needs to be a way to actively engage the agnostic/atheistic/humanistic blogosphere – as well as any other sort of issue which apologetics comes into. We need to mobilize, and organize. Having a central “dispatch office” is what I’m planning this for. The springboard is my key focus, though. We all like to write on our own blogs. That’s cool – and it does some good work. However, we need to be both training for and actively searching for opportunities to go on the offensive, and engage others ourselves. Blogs are flytraps – they aren’t flies. I want to be a fly – that another flytrap can’t seem to digest. Know what I mean? This is a pretty consistent theme with me. “GO” and make disciples of all nations – not “sit and home, and wait for potential disciples to come to you.” Now, we’re to make our homes as inviting as possible, for when we invite them to have coffee, and talk things over – but I think that as apologists, our job is to go out and engage – then bring them back home to talk things over, if we can pique their interest, or challenge their arguments.

Defense:

If they want to “come to us” – we’ll have both the blog and the forum to work from, and through. So, we can use it both as a springboard, and as a flytrap. Every blog is a fly trap. The point is to make a big, fat, juicy-looking flytrap – which also happens to be where we go out from to engage the world, the culture, and the ideas “raised up against” Christ, and His word. We all know how to defend, from our specific “areas of interest”. An assortment of apologists, who contribute, link to, or categorize their own work in a central location, could be a formidable array of defenses. This is something I want to discuss – logistics. I’d be willing to put the entirety of my apologetics work into a new blog. That’s what I wrote it all for, in addition to the specific issue I was writing it for initially. Who else would be willing to do so, or at least go through and categorize what work they have done thus far, and linkfarm it all?

Issue-Specific:

By category, or target audience. So far I have the following – please comment if you see any you think are missing – and why you think they’re important.

Atheism
Agnosticism
Cults
Humanism
“Life” issues (Euthanasia, Abortion, etc.)
Doctrine/Theology misconceptions
Biblical (defending the Bible itself)
Common/specific “Objections” answers
Debates
Other religions
Philosophy
Culture
General Skepticism (Skeptic’s Corner?)
Seeking Truth

Any more?

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So, there’s the general plan, as it stands right now. Form, and direction are yet undecided to a great extent – my personal goal is as outlined above, with input from a couple people thus far.

Expressing interest in participating:

Joshua Duncan, of The Lazy Logician/HAT

Tim, from Church Voices

Alex Forrest, who is studying for a degree in apologetics.

Catez, from AllThings2All

Now – do me a favor.

Read the above, whoever else is thinking about it. Tell me if you can help with one of several things.

1) Assist with collecting/posting apologetics links and blog entries on a semi-regular basis. From maybe, say, 5 blogs, that fit your interests, and are blogging about apologetics-related topics.

2) Go debate/discuss with another worldview – tell us about it, send us a link to it.

3) Write about one of the above topics – and send the links – or give links to your collections of apologetics entries on various subjects.

4) Collect links from bloggers from other worldviews, asking tough questions about God – or looking for answers – or someone to answer.

5) What else can we do? Some of the above are more time-consuming than others. I can tell you, though – reading 5-6 blogs and getting apologetics-related links isn’t that time-consuming. You don’t have to do it daily. Take a read through once a week, and send us what you collect – or contribute yourself and post it on the group blog. Whatever you think would help.

So – what can I/we do to help you, as an apologist – and what can apologists do to help each other? That’s the point here – and that’s the goal. The mission is the same – defend the gospel, destroy strongholds. The strategy I want to use is a bit different. I want fellow strategists – or even short comments or suggestions. Seriously – just tell me – what do you want, or need? I’ll do my best – and I hope others feel the same way.