When most people hear “apologetics,” they think of courtroom-style arguments for the resurrection or bestsellers like The Case for Christ. But those are only a recent chapter in a much longer story. In this episode, host Dan Hummel talks with guest Daniel K. Williams about his new book, The Search for a Rational Faith: Reason and Belief in the History of American Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2026).
Together they trace four centuries of Christian efforts to defend the faith: the English Arminians and William Paley’s natural theology, the “Christian evidences” courses once taught at nearly every American college, the German research university model that displaced them, the experiential apologetics of liberal Protestantism, and the cultural apologetics of C.S. Lewis, Tim Keller, and their heirs. Williams also reflects on how his own upbringing shaped the book, why apologetics has mostly served believers rather than skeptics, and what today’s intra-Christian debates on YouTube have in common with seventeenth-century arguments.
IN THIS EPISODE
- The five main types of apologetics: evidentialist, classical, presuppositional, worldview, and cultural
- Why nineteenth-century Christians thought the evidence for Christianity was as certain as Newtonian science
- How the German university model, not Darwin alone, ended apologetics in the American curriculum
- Why today’s apologists must answer critiques of Christianity’s historical record
- How Catholic and Protestant apologetics have converged in recent decades
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Daniel K. Williams is a senior fellow at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, where he teaches American history. He is the author of several books on American religion and politics, including God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right and The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship. His newest book, The Search for a Rational Faith: Reason and Belief in the History of American Christianity, was published by Oxford University Press in 2026.
NAMES AND WORKS MENTIONED
• Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict
• Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ
• C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia
• Francis Schaeffer and Cornelius Van Til
• N.T. Wright, Gary Habermas, and Michael Licona on the resurrection
• Tim Keller and Rebecca McLaughlin (cultural apologetics)
• Thomas Aquinas, R.C. Sproul, and William Lane Craig (classical apologetics)
• William Paley (natural theology and Christian evidences)
• Mark Hopkins (Williams College) and George Frederick Wright (Oberlin College)
• Thomas Reid, Immanuel Kant, and David Strauss
• Mark Noll on the Bible as "America’s book"
• Tom Holland and Christopher Hitchens on Christianity’s legacy
• G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Peter Kreeft
• Gavin Ortlund, Trent Horn, and Bishop Robert Barron (online apologetics)
• John Owen and the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement
🔗 LINKS
• The Search for a Rational Faith: Reason and Belief in the History of American Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2026) — https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-search-for-a-rational-faith-9780197748039?cc=us&lang=en&
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This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO at Upper House.
Produced by Daniel Johnson and Dave Conour
Edited by Dave Conour
