Apologetics

Apologetics () is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and recommended their faith to outsiders were called Christian apologists. In 21st-century usage, apologetics is often identified with debates over religion and theology.

thumb|Bust of John Henry Newman, by T. Westmacott, 1841. Newman wrote an apologia to defend his decision to leave the Anglican church.

1940 essay by British mathematician G. H. Hardy

thumb|A manuscript of Tertullian's Apologeticus from the 1440s. Apologeticus ( or Apologeticus) is a text attributed to Tertullian according to Christian tradition, consisting of apologetic and polemic. In this work Tertullian defends Christianity, demanding legal toleration and that Christians be treated like all other sects of the Roman Empire. It is in this treatise that one finds the sentence "Plures efficimur, quotiens metimur a vobis: semen est sanguis Christianorum," which has been liberally and apocryphally translated as "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church" (Apologeticu

French writer