My Apologetics Question & Answer You Tube Session

My Apologetics Question & Answer You Tube Session November 25, 2015
Dave0113-6
[selfie from January 2013]
(3-31-15)

I did an informal Q & A teaching session (1 hr, 17 min. total, in two parts) with a Catholic high school youth group, called ROCK (Relying On Christ our King), in Southgate, Michigan (3-22-15), answering 30 or so questions, completely unprepared and “off the cuff.” We managed to upload the footage to You Tube:

Links: Part One / Part Two

I hardly ever do this, whether filmed or not. I did an actual talk / lecture a year or two ago to another high school group. That’s even more rare than what I did here, which was almost totally a Q & A session. Blessedly, I wasn’t really aware that I was being filmed the whole time. That would have made my perfectionism hit the roof and make me worry too much about what I was saying.

This is me! People are always talking about how the Internet doesn’t convey body language, tone, and all the rest that we see visually, or what we hear (inflection and so forth). So now you can see what I’m really like (rather than what the myths of my detractors claim): laid-back, informal, given often to witty remarks and one-liners (sometimes dry humor), unassuming, easy-going.

This is exactly what I would be like (so my family and some friends who have met me say), if you were in my living room talking to me about apologetics. Hopefully, this can overcome the curious stereotype that makes out that apologists are these mean, overbearing, arrogant types who love to tell everyone they are wrong and how stupid they are. I have my faults like anyone else, but those things are not among my besetting sins or shortcomings.

No! I’m here to share with joy, the Good News and the fullness of spiritual and theological truth that is found in the Catholic Church.

What’s cool is that in the second part you see a lot of my second-oldest son Michael (almost 22) who was reading the questions and making some comments. You hear my youngest son Matthew (baritone voice just like myself and Michael) with a few questions, but don’t see him, because he was filming it. You also see the back of my wife Judy’s head in Part 2 (dark, curly hair). I wish she had turned around!

I think it’s fun because it is so informal and a sort of group discussion. Part 2 is as informal as can be imagined, in a separate room with everyone feeding their face and walking around, while I answered the questions from index cards. Though I don’t do stuff like this much, I immensely enjoyed it. The most fun in apologetics that I ever had in my life was when it was just me and 16 atheists in a room, 3 or 4 years ago. That was a Q & A session, too. I wrote about that but I don’t have a transcript of it.

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