The Concept Of Apologetics And Faith In Christ Jesus By Zacharias

Zacharias’s central message is that Christ came and died for the sins of the world, rose again, and if we believe and repent, we will have life in Jesus. To persuade his target audience to accepting this ideology, Zacharias uses the concept of expert power to encourage his audiences to comply with the lifestyle changes that he seeks to change that comes along with the acceptance of his central message. Power is defined as “the ability to influence others” and when someone has expert power their influence is based off “skills and general competence” (Woodward, Denton 189-190). This means that the persuader has the ability to impact the audience because of his personal knowledge or expertise. This form of power is what causes Zacharias to have

Emotional appeals in advertising is when the advertisement “addresses the social and psychological needs for purchasing the product” (Woodward, Denton 280). This is when an advertisement uses language that is going to focus in on the target’s audience’s human needs. Zacharias uses personal, emotional appeals that focus on the needs of “safety, love, joy or happiness, pride, self-esteem, confront, ambition or success” (Woodward, Denton 280). Every individual needs those needs met, and Zacharias promotes his books in such a way that he in implies promises to meet those personal needs of his target audience. For example, he released a book in 2010 called “Has Christianity Failed You?” which is a book explaining the “intellectual credibility of the gospel” (Durant, RZIM). He wrote this book for his typical target audience, those ‘thinkers’ that are struggling with the conflict between their questions of the faith and believing in Christ and for the believers who feel as though the gospel has let them down (Durant, RZIM). The name of the book is an advertising in itself. It grabs the attention of people that are struggling with disappointment with dissatisfaction with the gospel of Christ. It comes out with a phrase that immediately identifies with the target audience, and makes an emotional connection by showing them that they are not alone in their disappointment with the gospel. This book seeks to answer the questions of what the gospel actually is and how it can become a real and powerful aspect of people’s lives. In an interview upon the release of this book, Zacharias explained that this was a very personal book for him (Durant, RZIM). That in answering the question has Christianity failed him was something that he had struggled with