What do I think of Tyler Vela’s new book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Most people have never really heard of David McAfee. I try to keep up with most of the atheists out there and I hadn’t heard of him, until someone mentioned him in the Christian Apologetics Alliance, which is how I came across my friend Tyler Vela. Before too long, I found myself engaging on his page and really, the level of ignorance among his atheist followers was just staggering. I can’t help but wonder how this person has any following whatsoever.
McAfee is someone who does no research and makes wild claims that will only affect one subset of Christianity and yet he thinks he’s attacked the whole. He will regularly take out snippets of conversations on his page and elsewhere where he thinks he’s demonstrated the ignorance of his opponents without bothering to look and see what’s really going on.
I recall immediately the time that he posted a claim about there being a large number of denominations, which is usually a number thrown out like 30,000 or something of that sort. My reply in the thread was to ask “What’s a denomination?” McAfee took this reply and made a whole thread out of that on its own as a demonstration of theist ignorance supposedly. In reality, had he really bothered to interact with the question, he would have known that the question of what a denomination is is precisely the question that needs to be asked since even some Catholic apologists are against using this kind of argument because it’s just false.
Of course, seeing events like this take place, I decided to see if McAfee would be willing to do a debate. That challenge is still open and he still has not accepted. I’m not the only one he’s turned down. He’s turned down everyone, and yet somehow he has over 120,000 likes on Facebook and seems to be recognized as some authority to speak on disproving Christianity. (Which happens to be the title a book of his which I have also reviewed.)
Yet if there was one thorn in McAfee’s side constantly, it would be Tyler Vela. Vela has somehow chosen to focus on McAfee which is a good thing. With the rise of internet atheism, we need people who are dealing with even those who are not so well known. Vela’s book is a look at McAfee’s that is in-depth and covers practically everything.
Ultimately, reading this is like picturing a spider and using a tank to squash it. McAfee is entirely out of his league. Vela and I do come from different viewpoints in Christianity. He’s a reformed guy with a support of presuppositionalism. I differ on both counts, and yet I can agree with a good deal of what Vela says in this book. If there are times that I think he is wrong on something, he is certainly not nearly as wrong as McAfee is. In fact, there were times when reading I think it’s more of a compliment to say McAfee is wrong. We could say that McAfee’s argumentation is so bad you can’t even call it wrong. It misses the mark that much.
As one who read McAfee’s book, he uses no footnotes or endnotes and he does not cite scholars. He might make a reference to what Biblical scholars say, but there’s no indication that he has ever read one. The material he has could be found just by searching internet atheist blogs. If this is what passes for an authority on Christianity in atheism today, then Christianity is in good hands. This is especially so since Tyler Vela is well-read and quotes regularly and has footnotes that point to further sources on areas he doesn’t want to spend as much time on.
McAfee has this challenge hanging over his head and he does know about it as shown by a post on his page. Naturally, he decided to go with a vulgar joke instead of, you know, actually making a response. That McAfee can still act like he knows what he’s talking about with something like this out there unanswered at all should be a mark of shame to him and to his followers.
Alas, it will not be. We are often told that Christians will believe anything if it supports what they already believe. This is a human problem that affects Christians and atheists are just as prone. If you want to be an atheist, be one, but certainly try to be a few thousand steps above McAfee.
If I had some criticisms, I would have first off liked to have seen more of an emphasis on the resurrection. This is the foundation stone of Christianity, though McAfee sadly thinks it’s Inerrancy. I would have preferred for Vela to include at least a brief apologetic for the resurrection if only in an appendix. The next is that I wish Vela would have had someone proofread his book first. There are several typographical errors in there and some of them can affect the meaning of the sentences very much.
Still, this is an excellent work and even if you don’t care about McAfee, you will find valuable information in here.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
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