Craig A Parton

This powerful critique of American Christianity chronicles the spiritual pilgrimage of one man and provides a defense of the pure Gospel. In the first half of the book, Parton explains his spiritual autobiography. Follow his journey from unbelief to American Evangelicalism and Campus Crusade staff work, to his discovery of the Lutheran church. In the chapters after his arrival at an understanding of Lutheranism, he presents a hard-hitting critique of shallow, pop-style worship and theology. Readers will also appreciate Parton's honest, systematic approach to apologetics that tackles the tough questions of how to explain the Christian faith in a way that always points back to Christ's work. This new edition features sections dealing with the challenges of New Atheism, Bart Ehrman, and the new wave of biblical criticism.

In a concise and devastating style, Craig Parton, an experienced trial lawyer versed in the laws of legal evidence, argues that religions uniformly fail the simplest tests of admissibility for their respective claims. Few religions even bother to make testable assertions, relying instead at best on subjective and existential appeals. The stunningly few historical, and thus verifiable, claims of a precious few religions can be swiftly sorted out, and the result is an astounding vindication of the central nonhearsay claims of the first-century eyewitnesses to the life and work of Jesus Christ. This work challenges the prevailing viewpoint that all religions are making the same, or even similar, allegations. More troubling than this prevailing view is that the religions of the world remain diametrically opposed on the issues of the nature of humanity, the reality of evil, the nature of history, and the way of salvation. Sorting out the clashing claims of religions is the task of this book, and a trial lawyer well schooled in the laws of admissible evidence brings insight and clarity to matters normally thought to be solely in the domain of philosophers and theologians. ""Religion on Trial is a thoughtful analysis of religious truth claims and the need to base faith and beliefs on evidence."" --Oliver Wilder-Smith Associate Professor of Medicine at Radboud University, The Netherlands ""Here is one author capable of combining his expertise in three disciplines--jurisprudence, theology, and literature--to build a brilliant and much needed case, a superb blend of courtroom, classroom and prose "" --Uwe Siemon-Netto International Journalist, Gurat, France Craig Parton is a lawyer who has been involved in the trial of some of the largest natural-resource cases in California. He is a partner with the law firm of Price, Postel and Parma LLP of Santa Barbara, California, and is the United States director of the International Academy of Apologetics, which conducts its annual July sessions in Strasbourg, France (www.apologeticsacademy.eu). Parton teaches and debates on the issues surrounding the facticity of the first-century events recorded in the primary source documents (i.e., the New Testament) and has traveled to over one hundred university campuses to lecture and debate on the topic of religious truth claims. He is the author of two previous works relating to the examination and defense of the Christian assertions, and is a regular contributor to the Global Journal of Classical Theology and Logia: A Journal of Lutheran Theology, as well as a contributing scholar to Modern Reformation magazine.

With ten thousand religions in the world today and two being added every day, how are we to know which, if any, is true?Religion on Trial takes a serious look at whether all religions are saying nearly the same thing and ultimately lead to the same destination-and if not, whether any of the world's religions can withstand a closer examination using the evidentiary methods developed in law, history, and science.For if any religions are to be left standing, they (or it) must have claims made not in a corner immune from rigorous examination but testable by all serious inquirers using methods that have been employed in other fields dealing with truth claims. Religion on Trial is a relentless search for the truth that puts religious claims to rigorous cross-examination-nothing less than eternity is at stake.Free discussion questions when you order the book A free downloadable PDF of study questions will be automatically added to your cart when you buy Religion on Trial.