“John Warwick Montgomery was an evangelical, evidential, and confessionally Lutheran apologist, a defender of the faith for all people and for all seasons. The raison d’être for the degrees, the books, the debates, and his tireless contribution to the defense of the faith was not his pursuit of an esoteric idea or an intellectual chess game to win human souls. Rather, it was a life lived sub crucis—under the cross—and dedicated to the aggressive and apostolic defense and presentation of Christ crucified for sinners and raised again for their justification.”
Craig A. Parton

I recently interviewed Craig Parton about a book he co-wrote with John Warwick Montgomery titled The Art of Christian Advocacy, and before our conversation officially got rolling, I asked Craig how Dr. Montgomery was doing. After a short pause, he responded by saying, “Between you and me—not good.” At 93 years of age, he had just finished teaching a series of summer courses at the International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism, and Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Well, this morning I received an email from Craig, along with his colleague Dallas Miller, announcing the death of John Warwick Montgomery. Their email included the following notice:

Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, born October 18, 1931 Warsaw, New York died on Wednesday, September 25, 2024 at the the Bischwiller Regional Health Centre in France. Dr. Montgomery was a citizen of the United States, United Kingdom and France. He resided in Soufflenheim, France for much of the past three decades. A full obituary [is available at the end of this article].

I converted to Christianity in the Spring of 1985, and shortly thereafter I discovered a weekly radio program hosted by Dr. Montgomery called, Christianity on Trial in which he took calls from listeners with questions about the Christian Faith.¹ The show primarily dealt with issues related to Christian apologetics, and he would frequently encourage listeners to call with questions relevant for non-Christians who might be tuning in. The result was that he frequently received calls from Christians who were looking for help in dealing with objections they had received as they attempted to share their faith with others.

Looking back, this was just what I needed at the time, since as a new believer myself, I had many of those same questions floating around in my head. And week after week, I found my budding faith strengthened by Dr. Montgomery’s common-sense approach. At the time, Montgomery worked at the Simon Greenleaf School of Law in Orange County, California, and on occasion, I recall him mentioning two of his colleagues, Kim Riddlebarger, and Rod Rosenbladt, who I would later end up working with for several decades in my role as producer of The White Horse Inn radio broadcast.

During that period I began to attend several lectures and conferences featuring Dr. Montgomery and I profited greatly from his legal and evidential perspective. As a result, I had many conversations with fellow Christians in those days about the importance of presenting Christianity as a truth-claim, rather than as a kind of therapy. Most of my friends thought that “sharing your testimony” was more effective than arguing with others about various factual or historical details. But Dr. Montgomery had convinced me that a careful study of the New Testament revealed that the earliest Christians continually appealed to facts and evidence, and rarely (if ever) appealed to their own changed lives as a vindication of the Christian faith.

Following one lecture in particular, I happened to be involved in a conversation with a fellow attendee in the parking lot, and at one point Dr. Montgomery exited the building and asked, “Is anyone able to give me a lift?” I quickly volunteered. His car was a few miles down the road at a repair shop waiting to be picked up, so I escorted Dr. Montgomery to my orange Volkswagen Bug and drove him to his destination. On the way, I told him my story about being raised Jewish and stumbling onto several ancient Jewish prophecies about the coming Messiah, including the following:

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