Has there been enough of an increase in apologetic work?

It's often suggested that more apologetic work isn't needed in a certain context, since there are so many web sites that have addressed the topic, there are so many books discussing it, etc. And people will sometimes make such comments about apologetics in general, not just a particular subcategory. Look at how many YouTube channels there are that address apologetic issues. Look at all of the books that have been published. And blog posts. And articles in academic journals. And radio programs. Sometimes somebody will even cite one source, as if the fact that one book has addressed a topic is sufficient. After all, anybody who's interested in the topic could go to that book to find the relevant information.

But there are billions of people in the world. How many of them have even heard of the YouTube channel, book, or television program you know about that's addressed the apologetic issue in question? The increase in apologetic work and the increase in its availability that have occurred in contexts like the popularizing of the printing press and the popularizing of the internet have been accompanied by an increase in other types of work and the availability of that work (books on non-apologetic topics, web sites on non-apologetic topics, etc.). One of the things that's accompanied the increase in pro-Christian apologetics is an increase in anti-Christian apologetics. Rather than just asking whether the number of Christian apologetic resources has increased, we should be asking whether it's increased enough. It hasn't. Something like the increase in the number of apologetic web sites is accompanied by a much larger increase in the number of web sites about sports, food, pornography, family, careers, politics, humor, music, non-Christian religions, and so on. And even when those web sites don't explicitly involve anti-Christian apologetics or aren't primarily about anti-Christian apologetics, they often have that sort of content in one way or another, to whatever extent and however subtly.

Instead of being content with the fact that some valuable information about apologetics has been mentioned in a particular book that few people have even heard of, why not make more of an effort to disseminate the information in that book? The fact that you've friended dozens of people on Facebook who are unusually active in apologetics doesn't mean the average person on Facebook is coming across apologetic material that often. Most likely, the average person on Facebook hasn't friended a single individual who has an above average interest in apologetics. If any of his Facebook friends say anything of an apologetic nature in the sense of pro-Christian apologetics, those people are probably few and far between, and they probably rarely or never go beyond the lowest steps of an introductory level when apologetic issues come up.

I'm not denying that it's significant when a book addresses a topic that hasn't been addressed before, when the number of apologetic web sites increases, etc. An increase like that has some value. And things like online search engines make finding the relevant information easier and more common, even if the information isn't as widespread as it should be. But we need to be careful to not overestimate what's been accomplished. What's happened in the increase in apologetics over the years isn't as significant as it's often made out to be, and there's a lot more work that needs done.

In the areas where I do the most work, I see a lot of indications that far more work is needed. Think of Reformation issues, for example. Critics of Protestantism can make all sorts of false claims about church history without getting much of a response from more than 99% of the Protestants they encounter. On an issue like baptismal regeneration or eternal security, false claims can be made in a YouTube video with tens or hundreds of thousands of viewers of the video, and there won't be a single commenter who says anything substantive about historical theology. Or think about the Christmas context. People will frequently joke about Die Hard being a Christmas movie, joke about Nicholas hitting Arius, or discuss parenting issues related to Santa Claus, but they're really apathetic, lazy, and cowardly about Christmas apologetics. They don't want to do much. Almost half a century after Raymond Brown's book on the infancy narratives came out, how much effort to respond to Brown has been made by those who hold a traditional Christian view of Jesus' childhood? Some, but not nearly enough. I've repeatedly been the only person for years on end to have reviewed a major Christmas book on Amazon from a traditional Christian perspective or the only person to have reviewed it in any significant depth. To cite a third example, I do a lot of work on paranormal issues, and the amount of Christian negligence in that context is astonishing. It's not just that Christians don't say much in that context or make much of an effort to argue for their positions. It's also that they're so ignorant of so many of the explanatory options, and they're typically so apathetic, lazy, and such that they haven't even given much attention to the few explanatory options they know about.

One of the problems (so many could be mentioned) is that Christians aren't as critical as they should be of the false standards the culture has spoon-fed them in certain contexts. Time management is a major example I've discussed in a lot of depth over the years. Why think you should be spending as much time as the culture does on movies, sports, family issues, reading fictional books, advancing your career, etc.? Isn't that culture one you claim is so corrupt, untrustworthy, etc. in so many other contexts? Why is your time management so similar to theirs?

The world surrounds us with anti-Christian sentiment, including anti-Christian apologetics, in our public schools, on television, on the internet, in newspapers, etc. The question is what sort of response we'll offer.