Jan 31 2006
Debating People to Salvation
Alan at Theosebes posts about a Newsweak article on the the resurgence in college debate. The article mentions Jerry Falwell and the Libery University debaters.
When you believe the end of the world is coming, you learn to talk fast. On a Friday afternoon the debate team from Liberty University, Jerry Falwell’s fundamentalist Baptist college, is madly rehearsing for the tournament about to begin.Policy debate on the college level has become a rapid-fire verbal assault, an arguments-per-minute game, that sounds more like the guy at the end of the car commercial than an eloquent Oxford intellectual. There is tension and more than a little spittle in the air. The Liberty team is currently ranked No. 1 in the country, above Harvard (14th) and all the other big names. But for the evangelicals, there’s a lot more at stake than a trophy. Falwell and the religious right figure that if they can raise a generation that knows how to argue, they can stem the tide of sin in the country.
Hmmm… I don’t know if this is the Falwell/Liberty U position or Newsweak’s spin. Whatever you think of Falwell, he’s generally been reasonably sound theologically. I’m in favor of debate and understand the value of carefully reasoned logic, but you just can’t debate someone into the kingdom. How did the Great Commission go? Oh, yeah…
“Therefore go and debate all nations, overawing them with the power of your argument and the clarity of your reasoning, forsaking ad hominem arguments and argumentum post hoc ergo propter hoc.*“
