(Revised/Updated) “God in America: National Debate” Coming to TLN
Posted Tuesday, October 24, 2006 by Total Living Network
Contact Information: Peggy Kennedy at (630) 801-3652, Total Living Network
Organization's URL: http://www.tln.com

• Live 90-Minute Telecast with Expert Guests – Nov. 2, 8 p.m. CST
Also an Opportunity for Tickets to the Aurora Studio Program

Aurora, Ill., Oct. 24, 2006 (The Religion Wire™ ) — Nostalgic television viewers remember with delight when host Phil Donahue brought together a New Orleans pastor and atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hare for national televised debates on religion. The studio and home audiences loved it and so did the national ratings. Well in early November, Christian television’s Total Living Network (TLN) is scheduling an updated 21st century version.

Does the belief in the existence of God morally, socially, and politically affect our nation? Tune into a national debate on Nov. 2, 8-9:30 p.m. CST on TLN and see renowned Christian apologist Dr. William Lane Craig and the legal director of the American Atheists organization, Edwin Kagin, discuss this issue. Also joining Craig and Kagin in this lively discussion will be Sandy Rios, president, Culture Campaign and Fox News Channel contributor, also former president of Concerned Women for America; Peter S. Sprigg, vice president of policy, The Family Research Council; Dan Barker, co-president, Freedom From Religion Foundation; and others.

The 90-minute program “God in America: National Debate” will be hosted and moderated by TLN President Jerry Rose.

Visit www.tlnministries.org to get your free studio tickets or call TLN at (630) 801-3684.

You can watch TLN’s “God in America: National Debate” on Comcast Cable throughout Chicagoland, Rockford TV 51, Rockford Insight Cable 15, KTLN-TV 68 San Francisco, KEEN-17 Las Vegas, and other affiliates.

Background on in-studio guests:(additional background sources: www.wikipedia.org, www.leaderu.com, www.frc.org & www.atheists.org)

William Lane Craig is an philosopher, theologian, New Testament historian, and Christian apologist. Craig is a prolific author and lecturer on a wide range of issues related to the philosophy of religion, the historical Jesus, the coherence of the Christian worldview and natural theology. He is currently a research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, La Mirada, Calif.

As a New Testament scholar, Craig has published widely on the historicity of the resurrection accounts of Jesus. He has authored or edited over thirty books, including “The Kalam Cosmological Argument”; “Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus”; “Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom”; ”Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology”; and “God, Time and Eternity,” as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology, including The Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science.

He is a frequent public speaker and debater on university campuses and he occasionally appears in the national news media. He has engaged many prominent academic atheists and liberal theologians in public dialogue. Some of these debates have been subsequently published as books; these include:

• “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?” debate with John Dominic Crossan
• “Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment?” debate with Gerd Lüdemann
• “Does God exist?” debate with Antony Flew
• “God?” debate with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

Edwin Kagin is a constitutional attorney and founder/director of Camp Quest, a nonreligious residential secular summer camp for children of atheists and other nonbelievers. Kagin is a member of numerous atheist, free thought, and state-church separation groups, and has published numerous articles dealing with religion, philosophy and politics. He is co-author of “The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America.” He serves as the legal director of the American Atheists organization.

Peter S. Sprigg serves as vice president for policy at the Family Research Council. In this capacity he oversees FRC research, publications, and policy formulation, and coordinates the work of FRC’s Center for Human Life and Bioethics and Center for Marriage and Family Studies. Mr. Sprigg’s own principal areas of policy expertise are human sexuality and the homosexual agenda; religion in public life; and the arts and entertainment.

Mr. Sprigg has been quoted as a spokesperson for FRC in many major newspapers, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Washington Times. He has been interviewed or participated in debates on all of the major broadcast and cable television networks, including NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News.

Mr. Sprigg is also the author of the book “Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges Are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage” (Regnery, 2004), and the co-editor of the book “Getting It Straight: What the Research Shows about Homosexuality.”

Dan Barker is an prominent American atheist activist who served as an evangelical preacher for 19 years, but left Christiianity in 1984. As a musician, Barker has composed over 200 songs that have been published or recorded. He is the current co-president with his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an American free thought organization that promotes the separation of church and state. Barker is co-host of “Freethought Radio,” a Madison, Wisconsin based radio program for atheists, agnostics, and other free thinkers that has included interviews with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Julia Sweeney, and Michael Newdow. He is also the author of “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist,” and has written numerous articles for Freethought Today, America's only free thought newspaper.

Sandy Rios currently serves as president of Culture Campaign, a new non-profit dedicated to awakening a sleeping army of concerned citizens never before involved in public policy. Through strategic use of the Internet, personal relationships, and production of a high level educational CD series called “Culture Shock,” plus the development of an adult curriculum called, “God, Sex and the Culture War,” Culture Campaign hopes to develop thousands of new activists by 2007. In addition, Rios writes a weekly column featured on the Culture Campaign web-site.

In September of 2005, Rios joined the Fox News Channel as a Fox News contributor. She appears weekly as an on air personality to bring the conservative perspective to the news of the day.

From 2001 to 2004 Rios served as president of Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization with 500,000 members. She has debated Barry Lynn and Michael Newdow on the right to acknowledge God in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Rios served as host of CWA’s nationally syndicated radio program, “Concerned Women Today” (CWT), heard in almost every major market from New York to Los Angeles to Toronto. Prior to CWA, she had eight years of experience as host of her own award-winning WYLL drive-time radio news and talk show in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest media market.

She has appeared regularly on major broadcast media, including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and FOX News Channel, and is frequently quoted in key print media, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, and many Christian publications. She has been featured in Newsweek, Time Magazine, US News and World Report, and has appeared as a guest and co-host on CNN’s “Crossfire.”

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PDF of news release

A digital photo of William Lane Craig is available at:
http://public.gospel-net.com/images/william_lane_craig_1.jpg

Also a digital photo of Sandy Rios is available at:
http://public.gospel-net.com/images/sandy_rios.jpg

Digital photos of Edwin Kagin are available at:
http://public.gospel-net.com/images/edwin_kagin_1.jpg
http://public.gospel-net.com/images/edwin_kagin_2.jpg
http://public.gospel-net.com/images/edwin_kagin_3.jpg