Let me explain that word, for the few tonight to whom it is strange. An apology is, in the classical sense, a defense, in this instance, a defense of the faith, of Christianity. Apologetics is that kind of philosophy and theology that is aimed at explaining what Christians believe so as to counter opposition and to answer questions. An apologist is a person who gives a defense of his Christian faith.

Paul was a great apologist. He wrote to the Philippians: "I am set for the defense of the gospel" (Philippians 1:16). Peter wrote in his first letter: "Be ready always to give an answer to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15).

Not everyone makes a good apologist; it takes certain gifts of knowledge, language, temperament, and communication. Not everyone makes a good musician, or a good teacher, or a good artist. God gives his gifts of ability and opportunity to whom He will; isn't that what Paul the Apostle said in writing to the Corinthians about spiritual gifts?

C. S. Lewis may have been Christianity's chief apologist of the 20th century. Goodness knows we have needed such a ministry! This century has been filled with doubt, skepticism, and unbelief. The wars, and rumors of wars, have tested our confidence in the mercy and justice of God. Technology and scientific knowledge have offered explanations for things that do not require the presence, the power, the purpose of an almighty and everlasting God.

The emerging dialogue between the religions of the world have been yet another challenge to the Christian world view. Jew and Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu, even the exponents of ancient tribal traditions and new age attitudes have joined the conversation.

Among Christians, there is an increasing and bewildering variety of ideas on everything from the gender of God to the ethics of death.

Sometimes it overwhelms the ordinary believer, and their pastor; sometimes what we need and long for is a simple, straightforward explanation of what Christians have always believed, a defense full of learning, style, and rational power, a presentation of things which we confess in a way that reaffirms for us their truth and certainty.

Such was the ministry of C. S. Lewis. Informal discussions and academic papers, Sunday morning sermons and Monday night discussions, logical treatises read the world over and radio broadcast talks to his own British people. "All things to all people," the Word says, and so Lewis was.

Especially his broadcast talks. In 1943, the British Broadcasting Corporation asked Lewis to give a talk. It was wartime, there was little entertainment, even less hope. And so there came to be the first of those famous Broadcast talks that taken together, edited, and published, became one of the most famous Christian books of the century.

Mere Christianity is the description Lewis gave to that which most Christians had believed, confessed, and taught for most of her 2000 years. He described it in his essay entitled "Christian Apologetics" as "the faith preached by the Apostles, attested by the Martyrs, embodied in the Creeds, expounded by the Fathers."