Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

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The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) is a non-profit Christian apologetics organization run and founded by Matt Slick. The organization is dedicated to defending orthodox Christian beliefs from alleged doctrinal error. It is part of the Christian countercult movement. CARM is known especially for its website, but Matt Slick also attends public speaking engagements and holds conferences under the CARM banner. CARM teaches a variety of conservative Christian beliefs, including strict Biblical inerrancy, a literal Heaven and Hell, and Creationism. [1]

Contents

[edit] History

CARM was founded in October 1995 by Matt Slick, a Calvinist, a presuppositional apologist, and a leader in the counter-cult movement. CARM began as a collection of information Slick had gathered from his studies of other religions he considered to be cults, including Unitarian Universalism, Christian Science, Christadelphianism, Jehovah's Witness, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The site then grew to include several more topics related to Christian theology and apologetics. Slick is also critical of Catholicism, though he believes many individual Catholics are saved.

CARM offers text in five languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, and Arabic) and receives by its own statement 1 million page views per month and 12,000 emails per year. CARM is estimated by hitbox.com to be the 14th most visited religion-related website on the Internet.

The CARM site offers also a local radio show "Faith and Reason" featuring Matt Slick and guests broadcast out of Boise Idaho, streamed daily over the internet, as well as a podcast, chatroom, and fifty discussion boards administrated primarily by volunteers. CARM reports over twelve thousand registered users since January 2006 with 2 million page views per month to the forums.

[edit] Critical views

CARM's methods and policies receive criticism from a variety of groups. Some groups described on the CARM website as cults (such as Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses) have posted responses to CARM's articles on their beliefs, and some atheists, who disagree with CARM's published conservative, Evangelical philosophy, have written counter-arguments to articles on the CARM site.

Some aspects of Slick's ministry have been briefly touched on by Douglas Cowan in his critical, sociological survey of the Christian countercult movement.[1] Slick issued a written response to Cowan's article,[2] and he claims to have left a message offering to discuss the issues with Cowan in person and to have not received a response.[3]

CARM's internet forums have fallen under fire from people who have been excluded for alleged rule violations and who interpret this exclusion as an attempt to diminish opposition to Evangelical beliefs through moderation. In 2004, John W. Ratcliff, under the impression that atheists and liberal Christians were being systematically excluded from CARM, created the forum Atheist Apologetics Research Ministry as an alternative forum for discussion that was not subject to CARM's forum rules. Relations between the forums are less than amicable.[4]

In 2006, controversy arose when it was discovered that administrators at CARM were reading users' private messages to each other. Matt Slick wrote an announcement defending the practice, citing the need to protect the ministry.[5]

[edit] Books and writings

Slick has written a book entitled Right Answers for Wrong Beliefs, ISBN 1-85240-279-2 (2002 Sovereign World) as well as a 1,125 page notebook that contains much of the information from his website. He also publishes the entire content of the CARM website on CD.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "From Parchment to Pixels: The Christian Countercult on the Internet"
  2. ^ "Cesnur knocks CARM"
  3. ^ "Wikipedia on Matt Slick"
  4. ^ CARM's response to AARM
  5. ^ "Instant Messaging on Discussion Boards"

[edit] External links

[edit] Official websites

[edit] Neutral

[edit] Opposing

[edit] See also

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