VIENA, W.V. (BNC) by Charles C. Pugh III — September 20, 2016, will mark the 40th anniversary of a monumental event that serves as one of the foundational underpinnings of the apologetics legacy and approach of the Warren Center. The Warren-Flew debate on the existence of God held on the campus of North Texas State University (now The University of North Texas) attracted audiences ranging from five to seven thousand nightly September 20-23, 1976. Some estimates of the size of the audience go as high as nine thousand.
It was an amazing event. I am deeply grateful to God for allowing me to experience that once-in-a-lifetime event 40 years ago.
We believe the Warren-Flew debate to be the most significant debate on the most crucial question (i.e. Does God exist?), which has occurred during the last 100 years and likely even longer.
This year Warren Apologetics Center is planning the production of what we believe will be great events and publications in conjunction with the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Warren-Flew debate.
These events and publications will exemplify the WCAC motto—“Honoring the Legacy, Securing the Future.” We are grateful for the doors of opportunity that Providence has set before us “for such a time as this” special anniversary year.
God willing, it will be a year of commemoration, but also a year of examination, interrogation, and investigation by way of the exciting apologetics events and publications being planned.
Roy Abraham Varghese, author of The Wonder of the World (2003), as well as contributor to The Case for the Christ of the New Testament—An Adversarial Dialogue Concerning the Existence of Jesus Christ, published in 2013 by the Warren Center, knew both Dr. Thomas B. Warren and Dr. Antony G. N. Flew.
Varghese has said Warren “changed the whole climate of thought as it pertained to public perceptions of theism. Today theism and Christianity are under renewed assault from numerous quarters and there is an obvious need for the kind of work pioneered by Dr. Warren. It is precisely this that is addressed by Warren Christian Apologetics Center.”
It was also Varghese who with Dr. Flew co-authored the 2007 book, There Is a God—How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. This is the book from which Professor Flew, arguably the best-known atheist in the English-speaking world when he debated Dr. Warren in 1976, shocked his former fellow atheists when he announced he had rejected atheism because he had been led to the conclusion that God exists.
Antony Flew’s change from atheism to theism is no small matter. That this change occurred is just one of many reasons why the Warren-Flew debate 40 years ago remains “top shelf” in the history of classical apologetics.
Charles is director of the Warren Christian Apologetics Center. Read the entire report here.
2016-02-08 at 7:14 pm
I remember the excitement that was generated from this debate. I was unable to attend ( I was a poor teenager at the time). Do you know if this was filmed or recorded in any way?
2016-02-08 at 10:24 pm
Yes, you can purchase dvd’s of the debate at the WVBS site, or watch it on Youtube.
http://www.wvbs.org/index.php/categories/sermons-debates/debates/debate-on-the-existence-of-god-warren-flew.html
2016-02-09 at 3:02 pm
I was at the Warren-Few Debate from the first night through the last night. Truly it was the debate of the last 100 years. I wrote two reviews of the debate for two newspapers upon my return home. Warren did a truly outstanding job for truth each time he stood to speak. Every Christian should have a copy of the debate book!
2016-02-10 at 7:56 am
While I did not agree with every position Brother Warren took, especially on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, every book of his I read, I was profited by it. The sad part is over the last few years I have found in thrift stores and used book stores these type books that have come from church libraries that have been given away because no one was reading them. Several of them had never been checked out. I can’t believe that we have brethren so ignorant to throw away such sound and high quality reading material. Yet this is just more proof of how far we have digressed. I doubt in most congregations that the name Thomas B. Warren is even known today.