Jimmy Akin


James Akin is an American Catholic apologist and podcast host. He is director of apologetics and evangelism in the Catholic Answers and is a Catholic convert.

Biography

Born in 1965 in Corpus Christi, Texas, James Akin grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. For six years he attended worship in the local Protestant church with his parents. As a teenager became interested in the New Age movement. During his studies at the college, under the influence of the televangelist Eugene Scott, he turned to Protestantism and became a preacher. He soon turned to the conservative Presbyterian Church in America, and wanted to be a pastor or a teacher at the seminary.
Akin met Renee Humphrey, who also shared New Age and Catholic beliefs. They married and he converted to Catholicism. Akin has since rejected the belief in reincarnation though he has examined it. Humphrey has since died.
He is a senior apologist for Catholic Answers. Akin defended charges that Pope John Paul II engaged in self-flagellation, writing, "Self-mortification teaches humility by making us recognize that there are things more important than our own pleasure." Akin said that while Chick tracts were inaccurate, he thought they brought some people to God.
Since 2018, Akin has been the co-host of "Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World", a podcast examining mysteries from a Catholic perspective.

Works

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