Here are some of the most essential and/or most helpful resources for reclaiming the intellectual high ground. Much more could be included, but these will provide you a great start. It won’t be easy. But for the church’s strategic position in the world, it’s essential.

Not every Christian needs to be fully equipped in all of these areas. It is vital, though, that every church be well equipped: that there be people and resources for every local body of Christ to address issues and questions with knowledge and substance. It’s also important for churches to encourage scholarship: to send students to grad school, not only in theology but in almost any area of scholarship. Parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents can help send students, and encourage them that this is part of real discipleship.

For it is in fact true that for many, scholarship is real discipleship. Does that come as a surprise to you? Some of the resources listed here (especially the books) will help explain why that’s true.

An open letter to the apologetics community

Web pages:

• Worldview Studies
  • The Chuck Colson Center for Worldview Studies
  • Stand to Reason
  • Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

• General Apologetics

• • Reasonable Faith
  • Lee Strobel
• Science and Religion

• • Oil and Water?
  • Faith In An Age of Science (talk)
  • Faith In An Age of Science (Resource List)

Books

• Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul by J.P. Moreland
• Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge by Dallas Willard
• Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit’s Power by J.P. Moreland
• The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller
• Handbook of Christian Apologetics: Hundreds of Answers to Crucial Questions by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli

Podcast Sources

• The Reason for God (Timothy Keller)
• Let My People Think (Ravi Zacharias)
• Reasonable Faith and Defenders Podcasts (William Lane Craig)
• Veritas Forum Media
• Apologetics 315: The Master List (see also other podcast lists linked from the top of the page)

What will it take to reclaim the ethical high ground? Here is a starting point for you. It’s only as a starting point: for the purpose is not to read but to act, to do what will shine our light so that others may see our good works and glorify God (Matthew 5:16).

The Lost High Ground: Gaining a Grasp On the Issues

• unChristian: What a new generation really thinks about Christianity… and why it matters: the report of a research project conducted by Christians, describing how we have lost the high ground in the minds of 18-29 year olds.
• Moral Relativism
• Difficult reading (unpleasant, that is): One writer’s view of what he considers the “Nightmare of Christianity,” included here to represent those who see Christianity as being morally deficient or evil. Obviously I do not agree, but it’s important to be aware that this view is held by many.

Standing on the High Ground

• Understanding the Spirit-filled life
• The Map or the Fuel: How To Live By Grace and Not By Law

Christian History On the High Ground

• Books:
  • The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal, Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force ….
  • How Christianity Changed the World
• Websites
  • Christianity is Good For Culture
  • Pagans, Christianity, and Charity
  • Who Invented Charity?
  • Pagans, Christianity, and Infanticide
  • The Christian Liberation of Women
  • Christianity and Slavery
    • From Timothy Keller
    • From Thinking Christian

Rediscover God

To reclaim the High Ground means to stand once again on strong strategic ethical and intellectual ground. This cannot happen unless our relationships with God are kept at the center of all we do. Specifically in this day, we — yes, even we Christians, who already have a relationship with God — must gain a fresher, fuller, more all-encompassing awareness of God. My friends and colleagues at Bright Media are working on helping the church rediscover who God really is. They also have one of the more helpful perspectives I’ve seen on strategizing for the High Ground: Making God the Issue. I highly recommend all of their resources to you.

For knowing God better, other than the clearly obvious source, His Word, the two top resources in my view are:

• Knowing God by J.I. Packer and
• God: Discover His Character by Bill Bright

Call On God Through Extraordinary Prayer

With God firmly at the center of all we do, we must commit to extraordinary prayer, or we will never regain the High Ground in any sense. What is “extraordinary prayer?” The simple answer is that it is extra-ordinary, or more than ordinary. It means a commitment to increase our dependence on God and our calling on Him. How much of an increase? I suggest you start with whatever you can, on an individual basis, and uniting with others for more prayer together as well.

Realistically, I know that whatever guidance I might offer on how much to pray, two things above all will determine the depth of our prayer lives:

• How urgently do we recognize the need for God to act?
• How confident are we that God is waiting to meet us in prayer, to love us, and to answer?

For the first, I urge you to read the provided High Ground resources (moral and intellectual), and to be genuinely involved in the needs of your community. For the second, I recommend you expose yourself to encouraging reading. My favorite sources on prayer, besides the Psalms, are two classics:

• The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer: Experience the Wonders of God through Prayer and
• The Kneeling Christian by an unknown Christian

Follow God In Deep Discipleship

Much has been written on discipleship, just as there has been on knowing God and on prayer (which are themselves aspects of discipleship). I encourage you to pursue any biblical form of discipleship you can! Here, however, I want to focus on two crucial, specific areas of discipleship required to reclaim the High Ground. They are of course the two strategic hills the church needs to capture: the ethical and the intellectual. Resources for these aspects of following God are listed oin their respective pages: Moral and Intellectual.