Apologetic Wars

"Apologetics is a New Testament ministry of helping people overcomeintellectual obstacles that block them from coming to or growing in faith bygiving reasons for why one should believe Christianity is true and by respondingto objectives raised against it" -J.P. Moreland

J.P. makes an interesting statement:

"intellectual obstacles that block them from coming to or growing in faith." I wonder if those exsist.

I once heard a story of two guys. One was a Christian and one was a "non-christian scholar" who took pride in his ability to debunk scripture and intellectually beat the crap out of any christian on any scholastic playing field. The two guys both went to college and became roomates. Now, the Christian guy had not been a Christian for long and was still filled with questions and had no answers to any kind of theological question. Now, any outsider looking in would say the Christian was hopeless of changing the mind of the roomate, at best, and was probably soon to "lose faith." Not a year later there were two Christians living together, the "non-christian" changed his mind. when asked about the experience he said "I won every argument but no matter how badly I debunked or disproved his faith he never doubted, he had something I didn't."

Maybe the barrier is not in the intellect but in the heart. This is a faith, not an intellectual decision about the person of Jesus or the theory of evolution.If you have doubts about the virgin birth (which are far from groundless), or disbelief in seven day creation, or doubt about wheather or not Jesus actually lived, that does notexclude you from being a Christian. Maybe the questions are not a search for answers (because many times there are none and the answer given is foolish) but the barrier is burried deep benieth the questions. I commend J.P. if all his questions are answered, mine are far from it.

My intention here is not to bash J.P. Morland just question him.

I'd like to hear your input:
what's the practical purpose of appologetics (if any) in our culture? does it match J.P. Morland's thoughts?
Should we be responseble to know apologetics? (as janette asked) "is the Chruch responseble for raising appologists?