Turek was an engaging speaker as he addressed the crowd gathered in the auditorium two weeks ago.
Photo By Anastasiia Vorobeva
On November 17, Concord University hosted Dr. Frank Turek, famous American Christian apologist, radio and TV-host, author and coauthor of award-winning books: Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to make their Case and I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. The event was organized by CU United – Concord University Bible Study Group, and was sponsored by the Princeton Church of God.
The idea to invite Turek came to Zachary Harvey, the president of CU United, last semester. “Most all of us were huge fans of Dr. Turek,” says Harvey about members of CU United. “With almost a year of planning and a ton of help from the church and my friends, which are my United leaders, we were able to make it happen.” The event drew big crowd of students, Concord staff, local community members and other people interested in seeing Turek.
Turek spent about three hours with the audience. He started with a lecture on scientific and logical proofs of God’s existence followed by a question-and-answer session. He talked about the Big Bang theory, moral compass, logical fallacies in atheistic arguments, Bible stories, evidence that New Testament is true, and other things. Turek proved himself to be a talented speaker with a great sense of humor.
Many people in the audience found his lecture to be informative and persuasive. John Cedric, student at Concord University, says “I really liked it. I had a lot of things I wasn’t sure of that he affirmed. And I had some things I never thought of that he a kind of opened me up to.” Cedric says he came to the lecture with a lot of negative judgments, but Turek proved a lot of them wrong.
Chris Nichols, pastor at the Princeton Church of God, says about Turek: “I think he is an incredibly smart man. He has done his research, he weighed out the options – theism and atheism and pantheism. And he comes to the conclusion that there is a God, that theism is correct over the other versions. I learned a lot tonight just to be able to strengthen my faith as a Christian.”
However, religion and God is a controversial topic and there were people who didn’t find Turek’s lecture that persuasive. Haley McCord, another Concord University student, says “I feel like his argument for why Christianity is the only faith was baseless. I remain unconvinced.”
Overall, the event went great and was educating for many people. “I feel that it was a huge success and I hope everyone who came out enjoyed their experience,” said Harvey.
After the Q&A session Turek signed books for anyone who wanted before leaving people to think about what they had just learned. Harvey, who was in charge of organizing the event, notes “I would really like to give special recognition to those who helped me make this possible, Zachariah Elmore, JB Hurt, Lance McDaniel, Chris Nichols, Adam Pack, Tyler Weaver, and everyone else that had even a little part it this endeavor.”