Answering the Call: Recent Episodes
NOBTS, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Gary Myers, Marilyn Stewart, Leavell College, Joe Fontenot
The official podcast of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Leavell College, where we talk to interesting people answering God's call. It's co-hosted by Marilyn Stewart and Gary Myers, it's mixed and mastered by Chris Callahan, and original music is by Micah Atkinson.
Hyuna Franklin, director of the Community Center for Life in Gretna, Louisiana, discusses how her pregnancy center helps women and children and why it is important.
Blake Newsom, director of the NOBTS Caskey Center, tells why sharing the gospel in today's culture may be easier than many think. The Caskey Center equips students to share with confidence.
Alex Brian leads a unique congregation in a unique place—New Orleans’ French Quarter. But his role as an adoptive and foster father has deepened his insight into the needs every human has.
Chris Martin, executive director for the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention, shares about ministry in his beautiful, diverse, and very unique mission field of Hawaii and beyond.
Kendall Wolz shares from her painful past of childhood sexual abuse and gives guidance on how to spot abuse in children and how to help them find healing.
This new class takes an historical perspective of significant African-American individuals who've made significant contributions to the church, but who have also been largely overlooked. Dr Rex Butler is professor of church history and patristics, and Dr Mark Johnson is assistant professor of evangelism and pastoral ministry. In today's episode, Drs Butler and Johnson talk about this new class.
Today Marilyn talks to Micah Chung, a PhD student at NOBTS in theology (minoring in ethics). Amongst other things, they discuss his journey coming to faith, as well as his time spent with the underground church in China.
Marilyn interviews Kay Bennett and Kendall Wolz as they discuss the fastest growing criminal industry (and what to do about it): human trafficking.
Today, Gary talks with Tina Tang Angoluan, who is the lead campus missionary for the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at the University of New Orleans. And in January of this year, she was named Associate BCM Director of the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Born in Vietnam and raised atheistically as a Buddhist, she's currently at MDiv student at NOBTS. She tells about her story and ministry and the work of God in her life.
Today, Gary talks to Dr Greg Mathias, associate professor of global missions and director of the Global Missions Center at NOBTS and Leavell College, about how to mobilize those God is calling to missions.
Marilyn Stewart talks to Justin Haynes, a NAMB Send City church planter. He's the pastor of Refuge Church NOLA, and today they discuss sharing the Gospel in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. The Bywater presents a unique challenge, because, as Justin says, it's a place where "anything goes."
Dr. Bill Warren is the director of the Center for New Testament Textual Studies, as well as professor of Greek and New Testament at NOBTS. Marilyn Stewart talks to him about textual criticism, and what it tells us about the reliability of the Bible.
Today, Gary talks to an NOBTS alum, who is serving as a missionary in an undisclosed location. “Kip” talks about cross-cultural missteps, Covid 19, and what he’s learned about sharing the gospel in practical ways.
Today, Marilyn Stewart talks to Irvin Wasswa. Irvin is an NOBTS alum, knows firsthand the challenges and joys of planting a church and taking it from its earliest days to thriving congregation. Along the way, low points come, including times when some turn back from the task. Irvin pastors a satellite campus of Living Hope Church, Clarksville, Tn.
In this episode, recorded at SBC '21, Marilyn sits down with Bobby Wood (a Send City Missionary) and Daniel Savage — both NOBTS alum, and both serving in the Salt Lake City area. And, as a bonus, James Walker (who is a former Mormon and is currently the president of Watchman Fellowship) stops by.
Tara Dew talks about women heroes of the faith in this surprising podcast with Marilyn.
For followers of Christ, understanding the Trinity is foundational to everything else we believe. This is a doctrine we want to understand well. But, too often, we have trouble communicating correctly what we mean when we say the Trinity. Marilyn talks today with Dr. Tyler Wittman, our newest professor of theology, about the Trinity and how we should talk about God.
Emily Dean was just elected as faculty at NOBTS & Leavell College. Marilyn Stewart sits down with her and talks about what the potential for women in academia looks like -- as well as what it's like to raise a daughter in these times.
Travis Milner is an NOBTS grad. Shortly after graduating, he went through the process of becoming a military chaplain. And most recently, he's been serving in Lake Charles after Hurricane Laura. In this episode, he talks about both of those experiences.
Mark has had an interesting career, which has included being a pro basketball player in Europe and then chaplain for the Cleveland Indians. Now he's a professor at NOBTS.
Mark's website: marklouisjohnson.com
Marilyn Stewart sat down with Dillon Diaz and he told her about how he came to be a Christian. And much of it started with the Apologetics Study Bible.
Dr. Jeff Audirsch and his wife became convicted they should adopt. And then, in the midst of that, God called them to become Foster parents. On this episode he talks about that journey and what he's learned.
Dr Stewarts walks through his 10 Stupid Apologetics Tricks. In other words, the top ten things NOT to do.
This is part 1 of a two-parter. In this episode, Joe sits down with Dr Bob Stewart, who is the director of the Defend Conference and a professor of philosophy and theology here at NOBTS. And they talk about the role apologetics plays in evangelism.
Today Gary talks to Old Testament professor, Jeff Audirsch, about a practice in some circles to diminish the impact of the Old Testament -- and the problems that result.
Marilyn interviews Robby Gallaty about his new book, Recovered, and he talks about how his difficult path led him to God.
"We will win this war [spiritual battle], not by silencing others," says Roberts, "but by letting them speak and sharing the gospel with them."
Global Ministries Foundation: https://gmfonline.org/Mormonism Unmasked (Phil's book): amazon.com/dp/0805416528
Unplanned movie: https://www.unplannedfilm.com/
CareNet (supports women): https://www.care-net.org/
Christian Apologetics (his book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005ER3NL2/
Walking through Twilight (his book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0773QHWHW/
Truth Decay (his book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001XUR77A/
Shameless (by Nadia Bolz-Weber) book he reviewed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CWG1719/
DeeDee Williams is a mom, pastor's wife, and she has an active prison ministry...oh, and she's working on a PhD in biblical studies. She talks about balance and priorities.
"In your garden, there is influence. Even if you just have a small garden, is your presence there creating positive change? Is it bringing about peace? Is it glorifying God?"
Aaron Shamp talks about developing leadership skills as a Christian in a post-Christian world.
Learn more at: aaronshamp.com.
Shanon Snyder discusses the current Pro-Life landscape, how to get involved, and the chance of Roe v Wade (legalized abortion) being overturned.
To sign the petition to pass the Love Life Amendment to the Louisiana Constitution, visit LoveLifeVoteYes.com. Also, visit ProLifeLouisiana.org to learn more.
Unplanned movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9024106/ And Then There Were None: https://abortionworker.com/ Rachel's Vineyard (counseling): https://rachelsvineyard.org/
Dustin Turner took over a successful church plant after the founding pastor moved to a new ministry. He talks about being a "systems guy" when the original pastor was a "visionary," and how that's helped their transition and growth.
Andrew and Emma are new missionaries to Asia. Andrew grew up as a missionary-kid on the field. Emma, on the other hand, lived her whole life in the Midwestern. In today's episode they discuss the transition and lessons learned.
Shawn Powers was an associate VP at NAMB before moving to China in a consulting capacity. Today he's the CEO of Baptist Community Health Services. He discusses the nature of the Church in Bejing, China, and what we here can learn from it.
Andre Traversa was once in the cult, Urantia. And he tells us why he joined, what it was like, and why he left.
Joe Fontenot: All right. We are recording. Okay. Jamie Dew.
Jamie Dew: Yep.
Joe: You are the president of the seminary.
Jamie: Newly elected.
Joe: New Orleans Seminary.
Jamie: Two months ago.
Joe: That's right. We're glad you're here.
Jamie: Thank you.
Joe: Glad to have you on the podcast.
Jamie: Glad to be here.
Joe: I wanted to ask you some questions, namely around why you're here.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: You, born and raised in North Carolina.
Jamie: Right.
Joe: You were with Southeastern for a long time.
Jamie: 19 years.
Joe: 19, wow. I didn't know it was 19 years.
Jamie: Yep, yep.
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: As a student, then Ph.D. student, teacher, administrator. Yep.
Joe: Right. So well into that world, both Southeastern seminary but also just North Carolina. And then you came to New Orleans. In a lot of ways, Louisiana is a typical Southern state. In a lot of ways. Broad blanket there. But New Orleans, culturally, yeah, it's kind of like this island.
Jamie: Yeah.
Joe: Culturally. And so what are some of the things that have surprised you since you've been here?
Jamie: Oh, okay. Yeah. That's a great question. You're right, I was very surprised at how different the city of New Orleans is from the actual state.
Jamie: And you know, it's funny. Throughout the search process, the search committee occasionally in some of those meetings, they would reference that or they'd say something about it. I didn't think too much about it. I was like oh, they keep saying New Orleans is not the South. But I didn't believe them.
Joe: Everybody says their stuff's special.
Jamie: Yeah. That's right. So that's kind of the normal thing. And then you get here and you realize oh wait, they were serious about that. This is just not the South, in so many different ways. I mean it doesn't have ... it's a very culturally diverse city. It's a very European city. And that becomes obvious pretty quickly when you ride around. Especially when you eat the food, because it's fantastic.
Jamie: And everybody says oh, the food's amazing. And I thought yeah, okay, everybody says they got great barbecue and stuff like that. But my word. The food here's delicious. And so you do. You see the difference of this city than really anything else you're going to see in the South. And so people had said that kind of thing, I didn't really believe them. But getting here, I totally see that now.
Jamie: Because you've got racial diversity, you've got cultural diversity, you've got economic diversity, you've got religious diversity here. It really is a melting pot of everything. The good, the bad, the hard, the easy. There's fun things. There's challenging things. And I think it comes together to really create a very unique sort of concoction of culture that I really have never experienced in any other city.
Jamie: That really did surprise me, I'd have to say. And then I'd say ... I mention one other thing that surprised me. This is a very happy city. And that I totally didn't see coming. Not that I thought I was going to get down here and people were going to be sad or mad or anything. But I think it's easy for people, especially maybe the Southern Baptist Convention, they still tend to view the city with this post-Katrina lens. What they saw, very vividly-
Joe: Blight.
Jamie: In a sea of that brokenness ... yeah, was difficulty and strife and sorrow and struggle and all these things. And indeed, all that was real. All of that really did happen. But the city in so many different places has bounced back. And more importantly, it's pretty obvious that however difficult all that was, it didn't break the spirit of this city. Tara and I, we came down, it was for my last interview, some of my interviews were on different parts of the country. And some of my interviews were in different parts of this state.
Jamie: And then the last interview was here in the city of New Orleans. We came down about a day and a half before the actual interview. This last interview was set up to meet my ... for them to meet my wife. But it was also set up to give us an opportunity to see the city. And they wanted us to have some time well before the actual interview for she and I just to walk around the city and be in the city. And see it and eat the food and check the culture and everything.
Jamie: So the first morning, we got in late one night, first morning we got up it was breakfast time. We drove into the French Quarter, we went to the famous Café du Monde and we're sitting there eating our beignets and our café au laits. It's about 8:30 in the morning.
Jamie: And they were sitting outside under this awning, watching the French Quarter. And this guy walks up with a trombone and he just starts playing the blues. And next thing you know a saxophone and then the next thing you know a trumpet, and then somebody with a bass drum and then somebody with a snare drum.
Jamie: And the next thing you know, you've got this full band. Just sitting there playing. And they're having a fantastic time. Which was really cool. You certainly don't get that in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where we're from.
Jamie: And but what really struck is as this sort of random impromptu band struck up a concert for the people there, of course they were collecting money and stuff like that. That was fine. I actually gave them some money.
Joe: They make good money, by the way.
Jamie: They do. And rightly so. It's genuinely entertaining and joyful. But as they started to play, there were all these street workers that were responsible for cleaning the streets and stuff like that and city maintenance people, and they're walking down the street with their little broom and their sweeper.
Jamie: And they're sweeping up the cigarette butts that are on the street. And they're just dancing to the band and that impromptu struck up a concert there for us. And Tara and I, we looked at each other and we just thought wow. You never get anything like that in North Carolina. This is genuinely cool.
Jamie: And that was a typifying example of a city that we found to be a very happy, joyful city. That's really neat.
Joe: That's a great example. Because New Orleans is a city that's kind of like Las Vegas in a sense. People, they think of Las Vegas and they think of the strip. There's not much else you think about. But Las Vegas is a big place. It's got a lot of good things going for it that are very much nothing to do with the strip. And I think a lot of people, they think about New Orleans, they think about seedy Bourbon Street. Which was about two blocks from where you were. Parallel anyway.
Joe: And so then they also think about parades and then seedy parades. And the interesting thing is, my in-laws came down recently and we went to a parade in Metairie. Which is a suburb area and it's a very family-oriented thing and they're like yeah, we had a lot of fun and all this kind of stuff. And it's like yeah. There's only 10% of them you need to stay away from. 90% of them are actually normal.
Jamie: That's actually another surprise. Coming from a non-New Orleans background, you come into the city, Mardi Gras has the reputation I think throughout a lot of the South, and maybe our whole culture, of being the very very naughty thing that people do.
Joe: Exactly.
Jamie: You only do that if you're a certain kind of person. So your point, everybody here does Mardi Gras. And there's all sorts of family friendly ones. And so that's been a neat surprise as well.
Joe: Yeah. Well, that's interesting. What have been some of the biggest adjustments? I know you haven't been here for a long time. But I feel like it's also very still fresh.
Jamie: Yeah.
Joe: You know? And so what have been some of the biggest adjustments you've had to make?
Jamie: Well, some of them are I'd say professional and then some of them are cultural. So professionally I've never been a president.
Joe: I want to come back to that in a minute. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Jamie: I've never been a president and you learn that in some ways it's actually your call now and you have more authority to do what you feel like God's put in your heart to do. But you still have to lead in many of the same ways.
Jamie: So for example, at my previous job I had to ... if I wanted to pull off initiative X in my role as the dean of the college at Southeastern, I had to win the support of other vice presidents and things like that, to help get them to pull the rope with me on those tasks.
Jamie: Here I may not have to necessarily get anybody's approval in that way, but it would still ... it would be profoundly foolish of me to just lead with an iron fist and demand. You still have to win the support. Because even though maybe I have that authority vested in me, it still is going to function vastly better and create an environment with the ethos that I would want this place to have, if we're getting people to buy into it.
Jamie: And so that's new. There's always adjustments on that type of thing. Then I would say culturally two things. One has to do with the weather and one has to do with traffic.
Jamie: The weather here, everybody told us, and this kind of goes back to the surprise. Everybody's like dude, it's so stinking hot there. And I believed them and I was prepared, I was really really prepared to walk outside and melt. I actually have to say, in some ways I feel like North Carolina in the summertime is hotter. But it does not have the humidity. So for example you'd walk outside there in the heat and the scorching summers and the sun felt like it was genuinely cooking you in that moment and your body just starts pouring sweat as a result.
Jamie: Here you don't necessarily feel like that. But you feel like you walk outside and the air gives you a hug. Yeah.
Joe: That's the best euphemism for our humidity I've ever heard.
Jamie: It seeps into your clothing and it wraps itself around you. And you're damp all the time.
Joe: So come to New Orleans.
Jamie: Yeah. I'm a blue jeans kind of guy, I'm wearing blue jeans right now. And blue jeans are like wearing a wool blanket, as it turns out, down here in New Orleans. And so you don't want to do that, as often as you can. Traffic is ... oh. Gosh, I'm 42 years old, I've had my driver's license since I was 16. I've got a lot of driving experience. I feel like a brand new kid in the car again.
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: Just the traffic. The traffic patterns are different. This whole median, or what is it, neutral ground?
Joe: The neutral ground.
Jamie: Space and turning left across those where you'll have actually not one but two stoplights. And sometimes you can run those stoplights, evidently, and sometimes you can't. And your light may have just turned green, but you really don't want to just take off. You need to look and actually make sure nobody's blazing through there.
Jamie: So I feel like I'm having to learn to drive again and I'm certainly questioning my blue jeans wardrobe that I tend to wear. And learning the ropes of what it means to be president.
Joe: You know, this is funny because New Orleans, sometimes people say it is America's third world city. And yeah, you're like eh, yeah, I could see that. That's right. It's got all the laws but it doesn't really have the behavior. And I think probably the best spin for that is this is the greatest place to come and learn to do missions. Because you step outside of a normal culture, in many ways. You're so close to it.
Joe: You drive 70 miles and you're in Baton Rouge, which is pretty normal in a lot of ways, city in the South. But it's the capital of our state. But in a lot of ways you're here, and it is just a very different cultural experience.
Jamie: That's right. And I think that ... look, I'm genuinely grateful for all six of our seminaries. We're doing fantastic work.
Joe: Absolutely.
Jamie: It's a joy to have six that are strong. And I think that the theological diversity between the seminaries, and then also the diversity in specializations and niches that we each have, is ... I think that's genuinely valuable to the body of Christ and to the Southern Baptist Convention.
Jamie: We need, with some 15 million Southern Baptists, we genuinely need six seminaries that have distinctions and differences. And I lament and grieve over the fact that often we fight over those things and we pit ourselves against these.
Jamie: I'm not saying necessarily seminaries do that. But those types of trends happen in our midst and I think it's a blessing to us that we really are so distinct. One thing that I think New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Leavell College can do exceptionally well in theological education for Southern Baptists is we can give students a very unique cultural experience while they're doing theological education.
Jamie: If you're going to go, for example, to be a missionary in say Europe or Afghanistan or anything else, now granted I'm not saying our culture here is like Afghanistan. It's not. But the skillset and the tool set you've got to have to do ministry here, if you can learn that tool set here, you can then employ that in any context.
Jamie: And so I think that New Orleans gives a student the opportunity to ... a laboratory if you will, to constantly work on and thing through contextualization. Which is vital to the proclamation of the gospel. And I think that we have a real advantage there.
Joe: I definitely agree. I think NAMB agrees too. Because New Orleans is really not a big place. Yet it's still one of their send cities.
Jamie: That's right, that's right.
Joe: We have NAMB representatives here and they talk about some of the things, and it really is true.
Jamie: Yeah. And another thing within that. What I've said to students recently, look, the city in the context you have the laboratory itself, is remarkable for ministry preparation. But then also the faculty that we have here is really unique and distinct. The faculty here, you can say virtually every faculty member we have is knee deep involved in vocational ministry in local church context in this setting. And this is a setting where there's difficulty and challenge and you have to do contextualization.
Jamie: And if you can do ministry here, you can do it anywhere. And this faculty is doing that ministry here. And so therefore they have, I think, firsthand experience in a very unique way that I just don't know a lot of seminaries have that opportunity. And so where better, and who better from, to learn how to do ministry than right here at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Leavell College.
Joe: Let me ask you a question.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: You mentioned something earlier and I wanted to go back to this, because I thought it was an interesting point. A lot of times when God is calling us to something, it's not always something that we recognize or we've done before or we can even compare to something else. Right? So a lot of times part of what's going on inside of us is we are deciphering God's calling. Is he really calling me to this or do I just want this? You know, how does that look.
Joe: You have talked before about how God called you here. You've never been a president before, there's not really a lot of presidents of seminaries and this kind of thing, so the pool gets really small. You talk to people and kind of get a flavor of this. How did you know, really, that God was calling you here?
Jamie: I could talk for hours about this. I got overwhelmed and bombarded from every angle and vantage point that a human being could possibly be spoken to, in terms of confirmation.
Jamie: To start off with, I was not ... there were so many things about this that got my attention. And it got my attention in a way that, as it happened, I couldn't doubt that this was something that the Lord was doing.
Jamie: So for example, I personally did not want to be a president of a seminary. I wondered from time to time when people asked me if I ever had aspirations to be a president, maybe something like a college or university at some point one day. Because I was a dean of college, I loved college life. It's funny that I ever even thought that, though, because looking back on it I actually don't know anything about universities.
Jamie: So I don't know why, in my mind, I thought that would've been it. I know quite a bit about seminaries, though. But my passion was college and so I thought that. I saw ... oh, let's just be frank about it. The Southern Baptist Convention can be volatile a lot of times. There are often storms that are raging. And here I am taking the helm of a ship and sailing it into a storm.
Jamie: That did not sound appealing to me at all. And in fact it still doesn't sound appealing to me. And so this has forced me to my knees and my prayer life has never been as vibrant as it has been in the last eight months. But I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to pursue it. I had friends encourage me to quote on quote put my name in for it. I refused to do it. They pressed me on it, I kept on saying no, absolutely not, I have no desire to do it.
Jamie: And it had nothing to do with New Orleans itself that I didn't want to be here. It's just I didn't want to be a seminary president. And I wanted to stay right there in Wake Forest where I was. That's where my family is.
Joe: It's your home.
Jamie: That's right. It's 40 years. It's like home-home. I didn't move there and it become home. I mean that's where I grew up. And so I had no interest in doing it. And Bob Stewart on faculty here is the guy that was approaching me, saying, "Come on, man. Come on." And I was just like, "Bob, I'm not doing it. I can't do it."
Jamie: And he says, "Man, don't you feel like maybe you need to open your hands and see if that's what the Lord would do?" And I said, "Look, Bob. If God did something and made it clear to me that I'm supposed to do this, obviously I'd have to pray about this. But that's the only way I could do it."
Jamie: And he said, "Well, what would that look like? For you to think that this is God, not you." And I said, "Hmm. I don't know. Me putting my name in it and trying to get it." Look, if I had half of a spiritual life and I had gone that route, and it goes somewhere, I would have to wonder is this God or is this me. Did I do this or did he do this? And I said to him, "Listen. If I cannot pursue this, if God wants me to do this, he knows exactly where to find me. If the search committee knew who I was for some reason." Which they didn't at that time.
Jamie: And they thought that I was somebody that has to be pursued, then I would obviously have to pray through it. And so that was in November of 2018. Just a couple ... oh gosh, almost about 10 months ago now.
Jamie: And he said, "Okay." And we got up from the table and we left and November ended and I didn't hear anything. And December ended, I didn't hear anything. And January came, and by that point I'd heard it was something like January 8th was the deadline if you wanted to put your name in for consideration, if you wanted to do that. Put your name in and they might consider you or something.
Jamie: January 8th came and went, I didn't put my name in. I went on with my life. I completely forgot about New Orleans, aside from the fact that I was praying for the next president every time I would think about it.
Jamie: And on I think it was January 18th, 10 days after the date for submitting your stuff closed, I was preparing to go to England to defend the dissertation for that second degree I did. And I got an email from Frank Cox, the chair of the search committee.
Jamie: And he introduced himself and he said someone gave us your name as someone to consider.
Joe: Was it Bob?
Jamie: It was Bob. Yeah.
Joe: For our listeners, Bob's going to be on the podcast later in this season.
Jamie: He's a faculty member here. He was my sub reader on my dissertation 10 years ago. And we've gotten to be friends since then.
Jamie: Anyway. Frank emails me and I thought ... well, by that point they obviously had seen my resume and everything. And so sure enough, the committee had seen me and thought that I was someone they needed to talk to. I called Danny Aiken, who is my president that I served under there and a mentor to me, and I talked to Ryan Hutchinson. And I talked to Chuck Lawless and I talked to my pastor.
Jamie: And I talked to my dad. And all of them really pressed me and said ... my dad of course did not want me to go. But he even said, and this got my attention, he even said, "Jamie, you have to fill out that questionnaire." And I thought doggone it. And Chuck Lawless aid, "Jamie, you'll be being disobedient if you don't do it." So I said, "Okay. Well, I guess I'll fill out the questionnaire." And surely I'll fill it out and I'll ... they'll move on, I won't be the guy.
Jamie: Rewind a bit. In 2008, New Orleans actually, I don't want to say came after me, but came to me to talk to me about joining the faculty in 2008. And a long story short, it was not the moment in our life that we could move down. From a family perspective, it was not what it wanted to be. And I don't think she'd mind me telling you this. My wife was not crazy about moving down here, mostly because of moving away from family.
Joe: Almost nobody who comes from any of that area is crazy about coming. I've never met anybody who is. My wife's same thing. She comes from Tennessee, which is a little bit further, east Tennessee.
Jamie: And for her it was mostly family. Her family's there and everything. And so she did not want to do it. And looking back, I have no doubt in God's providence things turned out the way it was supposed to be. But let's just say since then I always have a fear that maybe my wife would not be open-handed with this. And when that ... I came home that afternoon and told her what had happened, and even she was like we have to see if this is what the Lord would have us do.
Jamie: And I'm like why is everybody saying this to me? And at first I was like me? I mean I'm not a president. I had not been the guy that was an SBC mover and shaker. That's not who I am. I just didn't have those connections and nobody knew who I was.
Jamie: In fact, I asked Frank Cox once. I said, "When this process started, did any of you even know who I was?" And he said, "Nope. We didn't." So anyway. I can keep telling the story, but bottom line is throughout the process I did fill out the questionnaire, I answered things in stone cold, honest, straight up fashion as I possibly could. I just knew that I would probably be off-putting to the committee and offensive.
Jamie: And I got a phone call a couple weeks later that I was in the top four and they wanted to talk to me. And I went into my first interview in Denver, is where we were. I went into that meeting looking for a way to get out, because I just assumed that they were looking for something that I'm not.
Jamie: And I had no interest in being anything other than what I felt like God made me to be and do. And I needed in that meeting to be stone cold honest with them about what I am and what I'm not. And I went in the meeting and the meeting took a drastic turn into candor and frankness immediately. And I was able to share here's who I am and here's who I'm not. And I'm not going to be the guy that's coming in here trying to strut New Orleans and suggest that we're better than everybody else.
Jamie: I just have no interest in doing those types of things. But I want very badly, wherever I sit, whether I stay as a dean of the college, end up as the president of New Orleans, or go somewhere else, no matter what job I perform all I want to do with my life is train up a generation of servants. People that will serve the broken and be faithful to Christ.
Jamie: And I began to talk about that. And I could tell something was happening in the room. But I didn't know if I was offending people or lighting a fire. I didn't know. By the end of the meeting I had a pretty clear sense that something just happened. And I don't know. I knew there were still four people in it at that moment. I was checking myself constantly to not be arrogant and think that it was mine, because I didn't necessarily think it was mine.
Jamie: But in the back of my mind, at the same time-
Joe: Something has shifted.
Jamie: Something had shifted. And that was March 20th, 2019. And I got on the plane the next morning early early, like a 5:30 flight to fly back to Wake Forest. And I sobbed and I wept the entire flight home because in the back of my mind I kind of had this sense that I was going to be forced to let go of my beloved college at Southeastern.
Jamie: I mean my heart and my soul was in that college. And it was impossible for me to imagine doing anything different. But there was this clear sense that the Lord was going to take that from me. And that's how I felt about it. This was mine, I loved it. And no, it's not yours, it's mine. And I'm going to give you something else and you're going to love it just as much.
Jamie: And I didn't ... I had a hard time believing that, on that flight back. And I sobbed and sobbed and I came home that day and I said to Tara, my wife, I said, "I just am afraid that I'm going to end up in a job God calls me to, granted, that I'll never love as much as this one. And a people that I'll never be able to love as much as I have them."
Jamie: And I don't know how else to explain it other than from that moment, March 21st, that morning when I sobbed all the way home, till the next month and a half as I continued through the interview process, the grieving of letting go of Southeastern lessened more and more every day. I still grieved, but less.
Jamie: And simultaneously, as I ceased grieving as much in degrees by every day, vision and desire began to take root in my heart for New Orleans. I don't know how else to say it other than God began to put this people in my heart and in my mind. And I could not sleep at night.
Jamie: My second interview, I showed up and Frank Cox picked me up that morning about 7:30 in the morning. He said, "How'd you sleep?" And I said, "Frank, I haven't slept in a month and a half." Because, I kid you not, every single night all I could dream about was New Orleans. Programs, degrees, people, graduates, recruits, fundraising, the whole gamut of it all. The Lord was just bombarding my heart and soul.
Jamie: And now I sit here and as much as I loved the college at Southeastern and my students, it's impossible for me to imagine being back there now. And it's impossible for me to imagine not being right here right now.
Joe: Had you ever been through anything like that before?
Jamie: Not like that. This calling was very distinct. But I would say ... so I've been a Christian for 24 years. Not the oldest in Christ by any stretch, but certainly got some street cred. And when you walk with Christ, the nice thing about getting older in Jesus is that your life, you get more reps with him, day after day after day. And you've had more chances. It's not that you get smarter or better yourself. But over time you just had the opportunity to see him be faithful, again and again and again and again.
Jamie: And it becomes, I think, easier in some ways, to believe that he just might do something here. And I had never had, in that 24 years, these are not everyday occurrences, right? These moments when God just grabs your heart and turns your head and your mind to something.
Joe: For sure.
Jamie: But I can point to four or five moments in those 24 years where I can say definitively God called me to it. I don't use that language of calling lightly. And I don't think we should. But I remember the night that I came to faith in Christ, June 16th, 1995. I knew that night, after coming out of the drugs and the alcohol and the womanizing and all that stuff and the brokenness and the arrests, I knew that he had just changed everything for me.
Jamie: And I was so grateful and so overwhelmed and so overcome by the love of Christ that I knew not only that night that I was home in Christ, but I also knew that I would spend the rest of my life serving him. Whatever that meant. I didn't understand callings, I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know that you could make a career out of being a preacher. I didn't know any of those things.
Jamie: So I didn't know what that meant or looked like, but I knew I would spend the rest of my life serving Christ. And the Lord, for about eight months, just confirmed and confirmed and confirmed. Because I wanted to go in the military. I wanted to fly jets, that's what I wanted to do. I have vertigo, I could never fly jets. I'd pass out up there when I was doing turns.
Joe: We have air shows here so you can go watch.
Jamie: I know that God, knew that God, was calling me. I knew again years later when I went to go be the pastor of Stony Hill Baptist Church in 2004, in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Right at the beginning of my Ph.D. program there.
Jamie: Very clear. I had a sense, the morning I handed in my resume. A friend of mine asked me, it was my eye doctor, my buddy Jay. He asked me for my resume and a tape. I dropped it off at his office, drove out to the church, and I drove up in the gravel parking lot of that church.
Jamie: And I knew they had other people they were going to look at and interview. I knew that. And they were good candidates. It's not that I thought I was better. But I knew God had called me to the pastor of that church, and I pastored there for eight and a half years. I knew the day that I was asked to be the dean of the college at Southeastern that God was calling me to do that. And I know now, with everything in me, that God has called me to be here to do this.
Jamie: And it does not make sense to me, in a lot of ways, because I'm probably very atypical as a president in lots and lots of ways. But I like to build stuff. I love to renovate stuff. Whether that's something physical like a house, we renovated our house in Wake Forest. Or it's a degree program or it's a college or a seminary.
Jamie: I love taking something with good bones and developing it and flourishing it and renovating it and renewing and restoring. And I look at this place and I think holy moly, this place has got good bones. We could do so much cool stuff here.
Joe: One thing, our office monitors all of the social media chatter and all of this kind of stuff. And we just on and on. And so we see all the comments everywhere.
Joe: And as a reflection of what you just said, I think people are really excited that you're here. And I know you don't like a lot of me focused language, which we are liking this everything. But we haven't heard a single negative comment.
Joe: We haven't had to hide anything or be like oh, that's in appropriate. You know?
Jamie: Yeah.
Joe: It hasn't been that at all. It's been a very fluid, happy transition. And it's been surprising, just because you just don't see that. I'm very thankful.
Jamie: I'm very thankful for that. To be honest with you, that was one of the reasons I didn't want to be a president. I had no desire to lift my hand up and say me, I'll do it, put a target on my back. That sounds awful, to be honest with you. I'm not a perfect man, though. I'm grateful that it's been so well received. Maybe it's because I have the good fortune of being a normal human being prior to being an academic, or even being a pastor to be honest.
Jamie: But I've made ... I know what I've done. I know what my mistakes have been. And I shouldn't be here. There's the bottom line, I shouldn't be here. I've done horrible things. Yet Christ has redeemed and restored. And so I would simply say I know I'm going to make my mistakes. I know I have made my mistakes. And some of this probably a bit of a honeymoon. Maybe there's an encouragement that I seem to be a rather normal guy. And I do feel like I'm a rather normal guy.
Joe: You wore shorts the other day. I saw you.
Jamie: I did, wore shorts. That's right. I ride down the road and my kids make funny sounds out of the car. But I make my mistakes, I know that I will.
Jamie: And there'll be times I have to ask for forgiveness, or I have to correct something. But man, I tell you, I feel the magnitude of this responsibility. And this process and now this presidency has forced me to my knees in ways that really, gosh, it's been since I was a young, young, young man in Christ.
Jamie: And that has been sweet.
Joe: I think that's really a great testament to the picture, the bigger picture, of what's going on anyway. Like you described, you weren't looking for this. But God said this is what I want now and the transition just happened to, from our perspective, work really well. And so I feel like that all is the same story being told from different angles.
Joe: I have another question for you. When we do things in life, whenever we go over and beyond, we're often driven by passion or a burden. When somebody, probably somebody famous, said I can tell you what you value, let me see your calendar and your bank account, that kind of thing, because that's where you're going to spend your time and your money is what you care about.
Joe: So the question I have is you for that. What are the things that are burdening you specifically for NOBTS right now? What is your passion project, so to speak? Where is your effort pointed right now for NOBTS?
Jamie: Yeah, great question. I would ... really two fronts is where my mind is constantly turning at this point. One has to do with big picture, 30,000 foot vision type of stuff that has to do with the ethos of the school. And then there's another set of questions that I'm always churning on that are very, very practical and strategic. Let me start with the ethos types of things.
Jamie: I am struck. I'm like everybody else, to varying degrees. There was once a point in my life where it mattered to me very, very, very much that I be somebody intellectually and academically. You know? And so the press to publish and the press to do the degrees and all these things, there were lots of reasons I did that second Ph.D. But one of them was man, I just really wasn't satisfied yet academically. I wanted to keep driving.
Jamie: And through way more things than I can talk about right here of how the Lord worked to break my heart of those things, maybe that's another podcast for another day.
Joe: We could do that.
Jamie: The Lord just broke me and humbled me and reminded me of who I am and who I come from. And I don't care about that anymore. I really don't care if I ever get to publish another book, to be honest with you.
Jamie: I will and I'm scheduled to and I'm working on something.
Joe: So if the publisher's listening…
Jamie: Publishers, I'll get it to you, I promise. But I don't care. And I think it's become acutely aware for me that despite the fact that we're in a moment right now where people know my name, and even talk about me and maybe watch little videos about me or read articles about me or whatever else, here's the deal.
Jamie: This world will forget my name. That's the bottom line. The day I die, the people that come to my funeral are going to sit there and cry for a minute. And then they're going to go eat some fried chicken and move on with their life. And there'll come a point where even my own descendants, probably two or three or, not two. But maybe three or four generations down, my own great great great grandchildren won't know who I am. That's family.
Jamie: That's my reality. That's your reality. That's everybody's reality. So we should all remember that the fame for which we are laboring and striving for, the worship of our own name, that idol that we so often bow down to, is, as Ecclesiastes says, vanity of all vanities. I will be forgotten. And this school will one day be forgotten. And we should remember that. Now, the work that we do will not. The work that we do will last forever.
Jamie: With that in mind, here's what I want this school to be about. I want us to be a people that first and foremost above everything else are servants. If I can be honest, I love being a Southern Baptist. There's no other denomination I would want to be a part of. There really isn't. There's so many good, wonderful things about us. But in our worst version of ourselves, we can peacock. We can strut and we can puff ourselves up, we can look, show off how big we are and how special we are. And it's all vain. We'll all be forgotten one day.
Jamie: I want to train up a generation of people, I want to be a leader that, above everything else, just serve. And be willing, like Christ, to take the towel and the basin. Look, Paul says this. And we nerd out in Philippians 2 about the kenosis passage. Jesus emptying himself, he is God. It's one of these great Christological statements that Jesus is equal with God.
Jamie: Yeah, I get it. That theological point is there. But that is not the point of that passage. The point of that passage is what Paul is saying about Jesus he says as an illustration to the point. You, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, that though he was God he humbled himself and became a servant.
Jamie: In other words, you're supposed to do that. I'm supposed to do that. This is what his followers are supposed to do. I want to be a part of training up a generation that they care vastly more about advancing Christ and his kingdom and serving the broken and the lost in the name of Christ than they do about getting their own church or having their own Twitter account with lots and lots of followers, or fill in the blank of whatever it is.
Jamie: That's first and foremost. Then I'd say two other things on the ethos front. Gospel proclamation. This is something New Orleans has been known for and has done well in its history. And doggone it, I don't want that to drop off. I want that to continue on and march on. We have to proclaim to those that are dying. Because they're perishing and they don't have life, even now as we speak. Not to mention what's to come. So gospel proclamation is vital and key.
Jamie: And I see in that, man, in church planting and church revitalization and missions and evangelism and all of those things have to be essential to what we do.
Jamie: And last of all, if we're going to do that, this is the part that strikes me, the Lord ... I've always know this. We always know this, right? But you know, the Bible tells us in the book of Psalms that unless the Lord builds a house those who build labor in vain. And Jesus says abide in me and I in you and you can bear much fruit, but apart from me you do nothing. Man, we are called to things vastly bigger than ourselves. And the Lord has burned that into my mind these last eight months throughout this process.
Jamie: And certainly for me I can sit here and tell you the job in front of me, the job that the Lord just put in my hands, is so much bigger than me. If I'm going to do any of the things that God's called me to do, he always calls us to stuff bigger than ourselves, if we're going to do all the things that God's called us to do, man, we are going to have to walk on our knees every single day with Christ.
Jamie: And he's going to have to show up. If he doesn't show up, then we're in a lot of trouble. As scary as that sounds, I think that that's the right place to be. So I want that, therefore. I want this to be a place where we walk with God more than we ever have. And that might sound oh of course this seminary president's going to say that. But those who've been to seminary will understand what I'm about to say, and maybe those who haven't maybe this will surprise you.
Jamie: Seminaries can often be the place where people's spiritual walks dry up. They don't mean to and it's surprising. But it's because we get here and all of a sudden Christianity goes from being a very personal, spiritual thing to now a very intellectual, professional thing.
Jamie: Yeah. We're doing it professionally now. And when that happens, we're ... that is a perfect recipe for disaster. And it's also a recipe to make us completely powerless to do the work that God's called us to do. Man, I hope that we can cultivate an environment here where our students have purity before God. Where our students have a prayer life that is vibrant and passionate and they're walking with him.
Jamie: So those are ethos things I want to do. And then I would just say this very quickly. Structurally then some strategic things that I want us to be about. Leavell College we're going to expand and develop a lot. Enrollment strategy, and by enrollment we don't just mean recruiting and admissions. We mean things like advising students, helping them with financial aid. Doing all the things that actually help students through their enrollment process, from matriculation at the beginning to graduation at the very end.
Jamie: Helping them to succeed. Because what we don't want is a generation of students coming, starting, and then fizzling out. We don't fulfill our mission when we do that. The students don't and we don't. We want students to get here and actually complete their programs and finish their programs. We want to increase the number that actually complete.
Jamie: Then marketing and communications. I think that our story, this podcast, has been a great example of the kind of thing I think we have to do more of. In the sense that people have a mindset about what New Orleans is all about.
Joe: Very much.
Jamie: And I think you ... God's like you and I, we have to sit down and tell that story very differently because this is a cool place to be. And then last of all, denominational relationships. I want to ... I need to meet, my team needs to reengage, the denomination itself. Because if we're really going to be servants for Christ we've got to be... So anyway. Those are the things. All that right there. This is where my mind is 24/7 as I think about our wonderful institution.
Adam Hughes, assistant professor of expository preaching, dean of chapel, and director of the Adrian Rogers Center at NOBTS discusses the model of Adrian Rogers and why some preachers and church leaders fail.
You can download his '5 Preaching Mistakes That Cause You to Lose Members' on his website, AdamLHughes.com.
Matthew Weaver is the Ministries Pastor at Vintage Church. This podcast talks about what exactly that is.
Mike Edens and our co-host Gary Myers debrief after a mission trip in Greece, sharing the gospel with Muslim refugees.
Lisa Fields, founder and President of the Jude 3 Project, talks about the most common objection to the faith. You can learn more about Lisa and the work of the Jude 3 Project at jude3project.com.
Rob Bowman, is the executive director of the Institute for Religious Research, speaks nationally on Christian apologetics, and has authored and co-authored numerous books including Faith Has Its Reasons, Putting Jesus in His Place, and 20 Compelling Evidences That God Exists. Today Marilyn talks to him about how Joseph Smith plagiarized the Sermon on the Mount, and other ideas.
Neil Shenvi has a PhD in theoretical chemistry, and this episode he talks about what quantum mechanics and social justice have to do with the church.
Learn more at ShenviApologetics.com.
Arliss Dickerson spent over three decades on Arkansas State campus. Gary talks to Arliss about what it takes to reach college campuses for Christ.
You can read more about him on his blogcollegeministrythoughts.blogspot.com. And on Twitter @arlissdickerson.
Dr. Kristyn Carver is professor of counseling at NOBTS, as well as a practitioner and teacher of TBRI (Trust Based Relational Intervention)--a form of discipline for children that focuses on strengthening the relationship. And today, she gives Joe counseling on how to be a better parent.
Gary Myers: Hi. My name is Gary Myers.
Joe Fontenot: And I'm Joe Fontenot.
Gary: We're the hosts of the Answering the Call podcast.
Joe: And this is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Today our guest is Emir Caner. He's the president of Truett McConnell University.
Gary: He talks about leadership, it's challenges, and where he finds inspiration.
Joe: And so, here's Emir.
Joe: Dr. Emir Caner, you are the president of Truett McConnell University and you've been there for 10 years now, since 2008. So it's really great to have you here. I had a question for you first. We're going to talk about some leadership things, but every single email and then on your website you say three words. Truth is immortal.
Emir Caner: Yeah.
Joe: What does that mean?
Emir: I did my dissertation on Balthasar Hubmaier, who is my hero of the faith, not only for his strengths, but for his weaknesses as well. Ended up living his life the last 14 months before he was arrested and ultimately martyred for the faith, he had baptized six to twelve thousand people, and that's if you can imagine a church that baptizes 150 a more a week, and published 17 books at the same time. Ultimately was arrested and burned at the stake outside the gates there in Vienna, Austria. So his slogan I have plagiarized now some 500 years later. 'Truth is unkillable' is the literal translation from the German. Truth is immortal is the popular translation. It just reminds people that while truth can decay and truth can diminish, it can never die, because like the resurrection it will raise itself like our Lord. And as long as our Lord is raised from the dead, truth itself cannot die itself.
Joe: That's a pretty comforting concept, I think, especially since we live in a truth is relative world. You know, truth is not only here, but it's immortal. So, I have a question for you. I was looking at your career and so forth, and something strikes me as kind of interesting, and it's specifically about leadership. So there's a lot of talk about leadership in the world, and all this kind of stuff, but I think a lot of time leadership gets generalized. So for instance, one of the things I found, came across, was this idea that there's a difference between being like number two, and being number one. In an institution, an organization, I'm talking kind of about responsibility and direction, not like in an ego sense. And you take the difference between number two and number three, and it might not be much. What is the difference between number one and number two? This is something ... You know, you're currently the president of Truett McConnell, that institution, but you've not always been at the top, in that case, and so you've had kind of both sides. Can you talk a little bit about some of the things that you've learned in the process of that?
Emir: Yeah. Some of it's experiential. I had never intended to be in the spot I am. Never thought I was qualified. Many days still don't think I'm qualified to do so. But before this position at Truett McConnell University, I was at Southwestern Seminary, and helped found the College at Southwestern that's now Scarborough College. I think the number two, the greatest difference, and I gladly fit into that, is I wanted to give unfettered support to my president. And as long as everything, of course, was ethical and theological, even if we disagreed, and ultimately you do. In any position of authority you will disagree with those are in authority, my goal was to prop him up to encourage him and to do what God had put him in that place to do in every way possible, whether it was recruiting students or fundraising, whether it was in the classroom or sitting with students in my office like I do.
``` In some ways there aren't many differences. I think the largest difference is the enormity of the task becomes clear from the chair because you start to realize, "Oh gosh. I've got 300 families who rely on me in order to make a living. I have 2900 students who have a desire in their life, and a call in their life, and in some minute way I am responsible for them as well." And so there is a gravity to the situation that you wake up and you realize ... If you don't realize at that point that you are inadequate, you are probably arrogant, because there is no possible way.
The best piece of leadership advice I've ever received came from Dr. Charles Stanley. When he was asked how did you get where you are today? Right? He started first at Atlanta in 1971. Now he's got a potential audience of over a billion. His answer is, "I don't know. All I did was one step at a time." And I think that's a crucial issue of leadership is that those that I wish to emulate most never intended to be there. They only intended to follow the Lord, whatever the path was. And that was truly helpful, because when you get to the chair you start to recognize there's no way of doing this without the grace of God. And not in part, but really in whole, because any decision you make has an impact on every student. And the decisions you make will have an impact not just for tomorrow, but for decades to come. So that's also the joy of the situation, because then you get to see graduates. You get to see them do things far greater than anyone could have dreamed, and that's the joy of it.
```
Joe: Was there a time when you looked at leadership, the way you described it here is almost as follow-ship. You are here to serve. You're here to follow. The one foot in front of the other on the path that God has laid out for you. Was there a time when you looked at leadership more in a, I would almost say stereotypical way? Like a lot of people look at the leader and say, "The leader has a plan, has a path. They're going. We're going to follow them. When I get to that position, I'm going to be the one making the direction." But kind of what you've described is something a little different in the sense that you were here to follow God, right? And so has that become like a change in your life? Did you always look at it like this?
Emir: I just really never saw this coming. When I got called to ministry my dream was just to preach the Word. And I think that's enough. It's not just, it is the primary goal even to this day that I do. And then all of a sudden I was asked to become professor of church history and Anabaptist studies at Southeastern Seminary. And that's all I dreamed about in life was just to do that, and I got to do that for years. And then all of a sudden I got a call from Southwestern to say, "Would you think about taking this on?" I'd never seen that coming. So I gladly did that, and we purchased a home. My wife and I had a great church out at Forth Worth. Our family was growing, and young, and I thought, you know, this is it. This is where everything will happen.
``` And then an email came in from a trustee at Truett, and thought, "No. I don't want this." And trustees can tell you even 10 years later, I waited until the very last minute to say yes, because there was no possible way in my mind that I could be what Truett needed. But when you get the unction of the Lord, you have to say yes. And so here you are 10 years later. And there is. There's a great joy. It's not hard living in the mountains of North Georgia.
```
Joe: Right.
Emir: Right? It's a beautiful place. It's a contagious place. So many of our students not only come, but they stay because of the mountains of North Georgia. But no. I think there is, Luther Rice Seminary has a professor who wrote a book on followership, and I guess that's part of it. I would only add most books on leadership are written of the perspective that those who have succeeded. I read a lot from those I can learn from who those who in the worlds eyes have failed, but they haven't. There was a missionary out in South America in the 19th century, I think about 1857. They found his diary. He went out to a remote island trying to win the tribe to Christ, and never did. Never won one to Christ that we know of to this day. But his diary says it all. In his diary, his last diary before he starved to death was, "I am overwhelmed by the goodness of God."
``` And I think you can learn just as much from that faithful servant as you can from the successful story. In fact there's a great danger of only looking to those who ... They love the stories of Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill. They failed, they failed, they failed, but then they succeeded. But I wonder, would you really read Lincoln, or Churchill, or anyone religious life if they had just failed? And as a church historian, that's what I do. I love to study those who are the forgotten, are the grassroots.
```
Joe: What are some of the main things you've learned from those forgotten?
Emir: You know, as a church historian, history ... Less than 1% of history is ever written down. And history that we read, in fact, if you study church history in terms, even as you teach in Baptist life, Evangelical life, Protestant life, we still only teach it from the perspective of the successful. So you teach the church fathers nearly as cleanly as Roman Catholicism teaches of the church fathers of Jerome, Augusta, et cetera. But I look for the grassroots. And it's one of the reasons why I'm a free churchman. It's a reason why I studied Anabaptistica. Why they are our forefathers spiritually, and I would say historically as well is these are the forgotten. They were meant to be forgotten. They were martyred to be forgotten. But those, I think, are the true heroes. And you really can translate that into modern day church life. Where if you think about it, you walk into church, all the accolades goes to the person with the limelight. But the forgotten heroes of the backrooms, of the 3-year-old Sunday school, of the deacon who goes to the hospital. That's part and parcel of how we should look at church history.
Joe: I think we're at a little bit of a disadvantage in the one sense of everybody puts the emphasis on the winners, right? Whether it's the person whose standing up at the front, you know, on and on and on. How does a person spot the forgotten who are not "losers" right? But they're the people that are being faithful and so forth, but the world has not validated them?
Emir: Many times you can't, right? Because the eradication of history stops you from doing that unless you move into oral history, or you find some forgotten documents. But that's exactly what we should do. When you got The Evangelical Theological Society, there are many good papers being done, but sometimes you sort of get tired of the regurgitation of Martin Luther for the 17th hundredth time of the ... It just becomes insane that they think they found something. I love when you'd stated grassroots you find things you never thought.
``` So for example, with Anabaptistica, one of my professors came over to the States, studied at Georgia Tech, got his bachelors/masters in PhD in aerospace engineering. And he was an agnostic, didn't believe, and then he got saved. And all of a sudden he did a master of divinity and doctorate, and did it in Anabaptistica. He's Italian, French Italian, and so he decided to go study the archives. And that's where I tell people they are. They're in the back rooms of families. They're in the archives of libraries. Every book written about Italian Anabaptists, and they were heretics. All of them. And they basically repeated secondary history over and over again. Well this French Italian then went into the archives and studied, and it was all a myth perpetuated by those who wanted to eradicate their history, call them heretics, because in the medieval times you had to prove heretics in order to put them to death. But you ultimately found is while there were some heretics among them, the vast majority of Italian Anabaptists were orthodox. They were Trinitarian, they were salvation by grace alone and so forth, and they were martyred for the faith.
And so when I do my Anabaptist tour, like I'll do next summer, we go to Venice. No one else has done this in an Anabaptist, or the Mennonites don't do this. So we go to Venice. We literally go to the place where they would take the Anabaptists at night quietly, whole families, put them out into the water, drop them underneath the boats, let them drown, come back to dock, nobody knew them again. And one of the honors of being a theologian or historian is being allowed to tell the story of those who are forgotten, just like those guys.
```
Joe: That's amazing. Do you think those forgotten people still exist today?
Emir: Yeah. You know-
Joe: I mean are alive today?
Emir: They're not only alive, but they need to come more to the forefront of, for example, how we do issues of church planting, or ecclesiology. If you go to conferences, there are a lot of conferences on church planting. But church planting in urban Atlanta is radically different than doing church planting in the mountains of North Georgia. And there are different heroes for different situations. And the forgotten man who is sitting out in First Baptist, Lizard Lick, North Carolina, which is an actual city-
Joe: It is.
Emir: ... is doing as faithful work as the urbanite or the suburbanite that's in the larger church. And I think we've forgotten that the backbone of Southern Baptist life is not merely made up of the megas, but is made up of the smaller churches, and the yeoman's work that's out there, that a man that's in a community of 500 baptizing 30 is just as extraordinary as man that's in a community of 100,000 and baptizing 300. And those are the forgotten. Those are the ones I love to preach for, because you walk in to this remote location. I remember a few years ago I drove up, they didn't even have a parking lot. And they had this auditorium that sat about 300, and you pulled up to grass, and it was packed, and I went in. And doing that, being in Georgia, preaching under watermelon sheds, and old revivalist. I preached at a revivalistic facility that had had a revival service every year except for once since 1812.
Joe: Wow.
Emir: Those are the forgotten too many times, but I think we have to realize or maybe even re-realize what it means to have that differentiation between the segments of Southern Baptist life as we unify under theology.
Joe: How we tell the difference between one of these forgotten heroes, the person whose doing the good work, and perhaps the world is not recognizing them, versus someone who is not, and they're basically sowing the seeds of, or getting what they're sowing. In other words, the difference between someone who is being faithful to the gospel, but not seeing anyone come forward, versus the person who is not being faithful and not seeing? You know what I mean? How do we know the difference between what the world is miscategorizing and what the world is categorizing correctly?
Emir: Yeah. You know, I often ask the question in class when I teach on Adoniram Judson, would we talk about him if he had left after five years? Before he saw a convert? Before he saw people come to faith in Christ? And I don't think we would have talked about him. I don't. But the reason I don't think we would have talked about him is not because he was a failure, but because he walked away too soon. The faithful stay faithful. And that's how we need to consider who are the heroes of the faith is not merely by the recognition of success by numbers. I do worry sometimes that we diminish that so much that we're paying the price for it, right? Numbers do mean something. He who wins souls is wise. It's the recognition that someone cared enough to look at me as a Muslin and say, "I want you in church, and I want to you to be saved."
``` On the other hand, the faithfulness is the reason why it's the ending as much as matters as the beginning. I think God rewards on the beginning as well. But the recognition comes, and I tell students, your greatest part of ministry is not when you're 20, 30, or 40. Your greatest ministry should happen when you're 50, 60, 70, 80 years old, because you're building upon the blocks of God's call that at one point you were a pioneer taking down trees, and now your faithful service, you can look back and see God's hand to such a degree that even if God doesn't do anything from that point forward, there's a joy and gratitude that lives within your heart that gives others who are doing the same calling, and encouragement to walk faithfully.
```
Joe: Yeah. That's a very different kind of thinking. That's a kind of thinking that looks 20 to 30 years into the future, not a kind of thinking that looks two years into the future. I mean of course, we always consider-
Emir: Yeah. I worry that Southern Baptists are into fads. But I worry about because just like parachute pants, they're going to go out faster than they ever came in, and for good reason.
Joe: Sure.
Emir: So when I hear statisticians and some leadership pundits say, "But you got to reach the millennials," my mind is okay, I get that. I understand the technicalities, but the millennial generations now gone. Right now you're dealing with another generation. Another generation. The fact of being faithful does not segregate a population into generations, whether that's an ethnic segregation, or whether that's an age segregation. Instead, the person sits in a neighborhood and says, "That 98-year-old in the nursing home is just as important as the 19-year-old in a college right over there." And many times we see successes reaching the younger and we forget what it is to reach the older who are closer to eternity in so many ways as well. And thereby we designate success by the sex appeal instead of by the sacrifice. That's part of what I think can be a problem with an evangelical life. It's not a denigration. We got to reach the youth, right? When in Georgia the number one number of those who are baptized as a youth is zero, we recognize we have a problem with the youth. But the statisticians never say what the number one number is for the older either. We concentrate so much on one generation, we forget the next, and that is not biblical in any regard.
``` So I think the recognition has to be, all right. If you win New Orleans, then you've got to reach those who are in your community, whether that's in Slidell, or whether that's in an urban community. Whoever's around you, God's put around you. In the mountains of North Georgia, it's going to be different. But we have to be in some ways a generationalist church, one that cares as much as about one age as the other.
```
Joe: You know, leadership obviously is about hard choices. We all know that, hard decisions. You said in an interview back in 2011 that a decision for Christ, this is talking about Muslims, could end in being kicked out of the family or even death. You didn't, if I have this right, you didn't have really much of a relationship with your father for most of your adult life because he was a Muslim. You became a Christian and he basically disowned you.
Emir: Right.
Joe: Do you think that Christians in America, and I'm talking about people, not Muslims, not your situation, I'm talking about just a person who grows up in a "Christian" home, nominal or whatever. Do you think Christians in America have it easier?
Emir: Let me go back on something you said first, because I want people to hear this because when you're reaching out to Muslims, and I've taught Islamic evangelism so much now for the better part of two decades. I think people make ... There's a misnomer out that somehow you got to know Islam well to win someone to Jesus, and it's just not true. It's helpful. It's supplemental, but it's not essential. Those who know Mohammed well are not necessarily those who win Muslims to Jesus. It's those who know Jesus well that will win Muslims to Jesus.
``` On the part of America Christianity, I would say we all have it far easier, not merely other Americans who didn't grow up Islamic like I did, but all of us including me, because while I was disowned by my father, I didn't pay the price that so many are paying across the globe. That usually happens, the demarcation line is with baptism. And at that point of baptism they see you as never returning. By the way, the statistics say that 75% of Muslims who become Christian go back to being Muslim.
```
Joe: Really?
Emir: Because of the heavy pressure. Because the fact that Islam isn't merely a religion, it's a 24/7 socioeconomic development of religion that involves every part and aspect of your life from the economy, to how you dress, to who you marry and so forth. But those across the globe, and you're starting to see this incredibly rambunctious powerful movement of God in places like Iran. And why I think that's happening is because the persecution is leading to others coming to faith in Christ, just like in the Anabaptist movement in Europe in the 16th century, just like the persecution under Communism, under my wife's country all the way through the Soviet Union in the 1940's through the 1980's is true of Islam today.
``` The great persecutors of the church day are still Communists in China and North Korea and so forth, but are also, it's Islamism. Not all Muslims, because some Muslims come to America in order to leave the traditional elements of the faith. Not radical. I think people forget, it's not radical Islamic theology to put to death someone who leaves Islam. It's traditional. Mohammed said, "Whoever leaves the Islamic religion, kill him." Comes from Bukhari's Hadith. So that's why 85% of Egyptians say that anybody who leaves Islam should die. It's not radical, it's traditional. So it is. But it's where the church also seems to be growing most.
I would just add one other thing. I always hear people say that under persecution the church grows the most. And that's true many times in history, but philosophically doesn't have to be true. Our greatest moments in American history with revivals came when we recognized our dependence of God came when we were polarized as a nation. It didn't come under persecution. It came under different elements. Freedom can birth revival just as well as persecution. It's just a matter of what is God's will in that regard.
```
Joe: As leaders, what can we do to help people get to that realization, which I think is the key. As you were saying, persecution brings that realization that we need God, but there are other things that can bring that realization that we need God. As leaders, how do we get people to understand, or how can we shepard people to that point? What can we do?
Emir: Yeah. I tell my students there's an old cliched phrase that says Christianity is not a crutch, it's a wheelchair. You cannot be semi-dependent on God, you've got to be fully dependent on Him. I think we wait for God moments. You know, essentially I tell my children, of whom I have three, you have to learn in one of two ways. You either learn through knowledge, which is to desire scripture, right? The reason God wrote his revelation is that we would read it and follow it, period. But unfortunately we are stubborn and fallen creatures, and so the only other way you learn is through experience. So the two ways that you put that into a person's life is that you preach it faithfully from the pulpit instead of opinionations and things of this nature that become so popular in today's pulpits. You faithfully expound the Word of God verse by verse, book by book. You will hit every topic if you touch every verse.
``` For the second part, which is I would say is the majority of our church members, its experience, which means there are going to be God moments where they recognize they need God. There will be a loss of a job, loss of a family member, a brokenness in their heart and their mind. And that's at that point where the pastor, the shepard has to walk in, and he can do one of two things. He can either assuage their conscious and miss the God moment, or he can like a Barnabas convict and encourage at the same time and allow them to see a dependency on God that will become the pilgrimage. And it is. Revivals are an instant. And I study them faithfully. But faith becomes a pilgrimage.
Far after the first great awakening was over, people were still walking faithfully with the Lord. They just weren't seeing the numbers they did under Jonathan Edwards in New England, or Charles Finney's Ohio, whatever it may be. That's just part of what I think it's going to take in America, and if we don't learn through this too, I think the intervention of God is just a matter of time, whether we want to see it as a cause or a permission, it really doesn't matter at this point. But when we put ourselves outside of the umbrella of God's protection by disobedience, what else is going to happen besides the consequences of disobedience that happens to a person or a nation?
```
Joe: I've one last question. Anything you would do over?
Emir: Ha! Golly! What would you not do over? I don't know. In some ways, as a historian, I would say no because your scars tell your story. In other ways, any disobedience to God, you'd always want a redo on that. I think the greatest mistake I made young in ministry was I thought I was teachable, but I wasn't as teachable as I thought I was.
Joe: Oh, that's interesting. How did you recognize that?
Emir: You don't. You wait.
Joe: In retrospective?
Emir: In retrospect. It wasn't as if I was obstinate. It wasn't like I was obtuse in any way. It's just that my confidence outweighed my humility. And looking back, I think most ministers would say, "I wish I had listened more and spoke less." In particular, one of the things I did, and even wish I would do more is, when I got called in the ministry in the 80's, I made it a point to listen to older preachers and actually to attend conferences where I thought, if this jokers near 90, I'm going to show up because he doesn't have long on the Earth. And so I would hear people that no one else today hear, because they're gone. Right? They've graduated to glory and their time with Jesus is now at hand. And I would encourage that of students is if you find those who are older, and they have been faithful in their walk, go listen to them. You'll catch far more than you know. One of the people I bring into Truett, and every time he just rolls his eyes at me, is Junior Hill.
Joe: He was here not too long ago.
Emir: Yeah. He's 80 years old. Every time he'll wrangle and go, "I don't know why you want an old codger like me." But inevitably after he's done preaching, the line out the door of students is much longer than he can stand. And it's because the students recognize it's not merely he's grandfatherly, I think there's a recognition of the intangible faith that he has walked with the Lord for decades and decades. And that's what I wish I could even do more is just listen to those who have walked the faith for so long.
Joe: Well, thanks so much Dr. Caner for coming on the podcast. It's been great talking with you.
Emir: Yeah. It was good being here.
Joe Fontenot: You are the North America director for RZIM, Ravi Zacharias ministry. But you're a lawyer. How did that happen?
Abdu Murray: Yeah, well funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse, as they say. So I was a partner at a law firm. Actually, I was a partner at two different law firms and was doing part-time ministry and really wanted to do full-time ministry. I'm still a lawyer, I maintain my law license, but I'm doing this on a full-time basis.
Abdu: How it happened was I was doing a ministry of my own called Embrace the Truth, which was a politics evangelism on the side and then I was doing some event with RZIM and I got to know the RZIM folks and they said, "Hey, why don't you help us to run North America, our region?" And I said, "Sounds like a good idea," and we just sort of merged my ministry into theirs and that's kinda how it went.
Joe: Interesting. Why do you maintain your legal license, your law license? Do you still practice or-
Abdu: So I do have a foot in the legal door. But I also serve in terms of a ministry capacity, I help to field legal questions, and these kind of things as well. But another good aspect of it is that I get to have my finger on the pulse of the legal community. One of the things that I'm very interested in is the philosophy of law as it applies to spiritual issues. Like transcendent foundations of law, and I wanna be able to speak at conferences involving lawyers or judges and at law schools and that kinda thing and maintaining a license among other benefits allowing me to even practice law in the first place, helps me to do that as well.
Joe: That's interesting. I wanted to ask you a few questions about a recent talk you did, and you made a comment that I thought was really interesting, and you talked about the perception of the gospel from other people and how some people can think it's harmful. So some people as I understood you, could think it's harmful maybe from a social point of view, but others could think it harmful from a theological point of view. For those listening, how do we wrap our heads around a person who could think the gospel is harmful? The gospel seems like a good thing, it's the good news. How would it be harmful?
Abdu: Well I think often times and this is part of the discussion I have in my latest book, Saving Truth, we are in a post-truth culture, and the post-truth culture is one that doesn't deny the truth exists, it simply says where in post-modernism you should say that. A post-truth culture says, "Truth exists, but I don't care. What matters more is my agenda." And so what they might see as harmful is Christianity for example, says "That there is a truth, and freedom is found within the bounds of truth." So that sounds paradoxical because freedom is found within the boundary of something.
Abdu: Freedom, we think of as boundless. But that's not really freedom. That's autonomy. And the Bible stands against autonomy which is you know, two Greek words, eaftos meaning self and nomos meaning law. So when you're autonomous, you're a law unto yourself. So today's culture wants to be autonomous. We want to have what we want, when we want, in whatever way we want. We even wanna be what we want whenever we want. Whether it's gender issues, or trans humanism or whatever it might be. We don't want boundaries. And so the gospel makes the claim, like Jesus makes the claim in John 8 when he says that, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." So truth leads to freedom and he himself says, "And the son will set you free indeed. So if the truth sets you free, and the son sets you free, then the son is the truth."
Abdu: And if that's the case, then they see the gospel message as being harmful because it puts restrictions on your autonomy. The reality is the remedy for this is to show that yes, the Bible does stand against unfettered autonomy but it doesn't stand against freedom. Freedom has to have boundaries otherwise, it leads to chaos. So I think that's why they see it as harmful, but it also can lead to I think, real fulfillment if we understand freedom in its real sense. We have the caricature of freedom now, not a reality of freedom.
Joe: I see. Do you think that post-truth will go in the same direction as postmodern. So for instance, postmodern philosophy is kinda easy to rebut in a lot of ways, 'cause it's very illogical but it's seeped into our culture in a lot of deep ways and people don't always make that connection. Do you think that we're gonna see post-truth kinda doing a similar thing or is it a different beast altogether?
Abdu: It's a little bit different in this sense, is that it looks like postmodernism on the outside, but deep inside, it's actually quite different. Postmodernism rejects truths existence by claiming it doesn't exist, which of course is a truth claim and of course, it's illogical. Post-truth doesn't reject the truth, it just says that, "There is a truth, but if it doesn't subserve my preferences, then I'm either going to lie about it or I'm going to ignore it altogether."
Abdu: So when you bring facts and logic to a postmodern person, they can see that and understand the depth of the logic. When you bring it to a post-truth person, they're ignoring it because truth matters. They're acknowledging truth exists, they just simply don't care.
Joe: So this sounds a lot like Kyle Bashir. He was here at Defend, and we talked also, and he talked about apathism. And this just this idea that it's like, how do you talk to somebody who simply does not care.
Abdu: It's a little bit similar to that except that this is gender driven. So apatheists don't care about spiritual things. Post-truth people do care about spiritual things or social things, but they care about it their way and if you come up with truth and facts that contradict their agenda or their preference of some kind, whether it's a sexual preference or a societal preference, or their narrative of the way things are going, they will either ignore it or they'll lie about it. So it's not quite apathy. They care quite a bit actually about their agenda, so much so that the truth doesn't matter.
Abdu: So my point in saying they don't care isn't that they don't care about truth's existence, they're saying this particular set of facts if it confronts me, I don't care enough about following truth to let that affect me.
Joe: They're willing to cherry pick and they're okay with that for the agenda.
Abdu: Right and that's what I call the culture of confusion. Where confusion is considered a virtue. If you're confused sexually, you're a hero. If you're confused morally, your progressive. If you're confused religiously, all paths lead to God, well then you're considered tolerant. But if you're clear sexually, you're a bigot. If you're clear morally, you're regressing. If you're clear on maybe only one path leads to God and there's good reasons to believe that, well then you're considered intolerant. So confusion becomes a virtue and clarity becomes a vice.
Joe: I wanted to ask you about that. Confusion becomes a virtue. Is this something that we have sort of logically concluded because of the actions or is this something that people in this post-truth culture, these advocates for this, actually would say confusion is a virtue. Maybe not those words, but-
Abdu: I think it's a mixture of both and I'm gonna give you an example. So now it's become sorta fashionable to say if a child expresses for example, confusion about their sexuality. It used to be the case that they just were confused and we let them work it out or we'd help them work it out. Now, we actually foist on them, oh confusion means you're not sexually normative. You're not heterosexual, you're whatever, whatever among the spectrum, LGBTQIA, whatever that might be. You're one of those. So we try to label them there.
Abdu: So your confusion becomes virtuous because you're a hero for coming out. But no one would actually say those words, "Well, I value confusion." No one says those things, but it used to be that confusion was just confusion. Now it's considered virtuous to be confused because it leads to a path that's not the norm. But it is a bit of an epiphenomenon in the sense that I'm noticing it as a virtue, not because people are saying it's a virtue, because people are acting like it's a virtue.
Abdu: Until the clarity comes, they'll say, "Well no, I'm not confused. I am gay or I am lesbian or whatever, I'm not confused." I'm not saying you're not confused. I'm saying that the confusion that started the whole process was considered virtuous at some point and if you were allowed to or you were actually forced into a lane because confusion must mean you're not heteronormative, then you're forced into that lane. I think that's what I'm trying to get at.
Joe: Right and I feel like that certainly goes back to the idea that you're saying about this post-truth because truth says that confusion ... Truth is what defines confusion, right? So we can't have confusion if we have don't have truth. And they're saying, "You know, we reject that truth because this becomes your new truth, because it's you."
Abdu: And those words, I use those all the time. I have to tell them my truth. That's sort of a new catch phrase now, my truth. What they mean is my perspective. Which I get what they're saying there but we sort of personalize truth and it's true for you for example. Let's say someone has true gender dysphoria. They really do have this wrestling with their mental sense of who they are in a gender and their physical sense are at war with each other. That's a real phenomenon. It's very rare, but it does happen.
Abdu: Their truth is their struggle. That is true. It is true, objectively true, that they are going through the struggle. But it's not true that you get to pick. That's not how that works. So I think that's where we're seeing this sort of personalization of truth which actually eventually does away with the whole concept at all. Or at least downplays it so it's not really that important. The only thing we're really clear about in this culture right now and this is the sad part I think that's going on, is that if you don't agree with me, you're Hitler. I'm clear that I'm always right and you're always wrong and if you don't agree with me, I'm going to label you something like Hitler or Stalin or Chuck Chescu, you name your despot, that's who you become.
Joe: So it's a shaming almost.
Abdu: And what's interesting is in this new book I'm writing with Robbie on the Easterness of Jesus. I'm writing a chapter right now on Easter Shame and Honor Cultures and the interesting conclusion I'm coming to is that western culture has caught up and possibly even surpassed eastern cultures in being shame and honor based. We shame people left, right and center for their political opinions, for their social opinions, all the time.
Joe: That's so true with the whole, basically the last election cycle and Facebook. Say no more. Like that was all about shame and defriending and on and on.
Abdu: Our moral enforcement is now shame. It's no longer truth right and wrong. Is this correct or is this false. Is this right or is this wrong? It's are you bucking the collective system and I'm going to shame you until you shut up.
Joe: So I wanna ask you about something that you said that I thought was really great. The official apologetics verse is always First Peter 3:15 but you said one that you hang onto a lot is Colossians 4, 5 and 6 and it is, "Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." And then you said, "Apologetics is not about answering questions, but about answering people."
Abdu: That's right. I don't think apologetics will answer questions. They should answer people. Questions are the means by which people get their answers. But Paul's very deliberate when he says, "How you ought to answer each person." He could've said, "How you oughta answer each controversy, each question, each issue." He didn't say that, how you oughta answer each person. So making the best use of the time is, understanding what is their baggage. Every question is asked by a questioner and every questioner has their context and their baggage. I very rarely ever met, and maybe never have met and frankly I don't know, someone whose asked me about the problem of evil, who didn't experience some form of it in their life or know someone who did.
Abdu: I very rarely ever been asked a question by someone about the Trinity who hasn't tried to understand who God is in their life, or how can God exist in a certain way. There's a yearning in every question, otherwise you wouldn't have asked it. Pure, raw academic curiosity is rare and it's not because it's a good thing and it's rare. It's just that it's rare 'cause human condition doesn't allow for it, to be all that prevalent.
Joe: It's always a context.
Abdu: Always a context. So you have to answer the person, not the question. The question is the means by which you answer the person, but it itself does not need answers. People need answers.
Joe: Last question. How are you personally answering God's call?
Abdu: Well you know, so I was talking to someone yesterday, Dr. Gary Habermas was here and we were talking about ministry and all these things and I would say this, I've never been busier than I am right now. I've never worked more, traveled more with books and speaking and other things that I have to do. But I haven't toiled one day. Now there are parts of my job that are a job, you know, just life. I never toiled one day. I feel like I'm answering God's call because the drudgery of every day life and sometimes just of working is so outweighed by the joy. As we were walking over here, someone told me that they became a Christian because they heard me explain the Trinity. This is an atheist talking. So unusual. I'm gonna remember that all day. Not because I said something, but because God used me.
Abdu: Here's what I would say. I'm answering God's call by listening to what it is and following it. I have this whole discussion on finding your call where passion meets purpose. So what are we passionate about? I'm passionate about people. I went to my undergraduate degree in psychology, because I wanted to be a therapist. Then I went to law school, because I love the gathering of evidence and I love to make arguments. Now I'm an apologist, who uses evidence and arguments to answer people. And so the security, that sort of winding route to all this shows me God's hand is in everything, even seemingly tangential or weird roads you take, are actually lining up with his purposes.
Abdu: So I find my call where my passion for people and evidence and argument has met my purpose, my God given purpose. It's not a mystery to know God and make him known. That's every Christian's purpose. Every human's purpose by the way is to know God and make him known. That's my purpose, my passion lined up with that in this way. If you're a doctor or a lawyer or a mechanic, or whatever it might be a nurse, a stay at home parent. Your passion will line up with your purpose and when it does, it'll snap together like one of those pixelated paintings you see in malls where you don't know what it is exactly, you stare at it and suddenly, it's a dog.
Abdu: Well in this case, my passion and my purpose snap together and I suddenly saw it, this is my call.
Joe: That's interesting, that's amazing. Well thanks so much for being on the podcast. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you, wanna follow you, social media.
Abdu: So I'm on Twitter, Abdu Murray, A-B-D-U M-U-R-R-A-Y. Instagram, abdumurray12 and then I have a Facebook page as well. But abdumurray.com and then RZIM.org, you can see our entire team there, all of us.
Joe: Excellent. Well thanks so much Abdu.
Abdu: My pleasure, thanks for having me.
Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers.
Joe Fontenot: I'm Joe Fontenot. This is the Answering The Call podcast. This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Today's guest is Kyle Beshears. Kyle talks about a new word, new word to me at least. Kyle was here at the Defend Conference, and the word he taught me was apatheism.
Gary: Apatheism?
Joe: Apatheism.
Gary: That's a new one on me as well.
Joe: It is, it's not fruit, it's something else, which he's going to tell us about now.
Gary: Let's hear from Kyle.
Joe: Okay, so Kyle you've said something that doesn't get said often and it's called apatheism. In some ways we can guess what it's about, but I think your explanation is much more helpful. What is apatheism?
Kyle Beshears: Yeah, the word's a bit intuitive. You can parse two words out of there, apathy and theism, a clever way of trying to describe a feeling of indifference towards questions related to God's existence is how I would initially define apatheism. There's a ... I don't know how to describe it, the-ism we think has to do with the way we think, right?
Kyle Beshears: It's a belief, it's cognitive, but I think apatheism affects our heart as well, and how we feel, our emotions. Apatheism is not just finding questions related to God's existence intellectually or being apathetic to them intellectually, it's also an affective reaction to questions about God. I might define apatheism as when a person believes questions about God are unimportant and they feel that way as well. It's both a belief and a feeling.
Joe: Okay, so let's work that out. Like a role-play, right? Your apatheist, I am me, and I say, "Kyle, I would like to talk to you about God." What do you say? How do you act?
Kyle: Well me personally I would be polite, but to have the conversation ...
Joe: A kind apatheist.
Kyle: Yeah, yeah, you seem like a nice guy Joe, but in reality I really don't want to have this conversation. I find it as uninteresting as arguing over whether or not Pepsi is to be preferred to Coca-Cola, right? It's just not an interesting conversation to me.
Joe: It's sort of irrelevant.
Kyle: Irrelevant, yeah, I don't find that God affects my life, my relationships, my future, and I don't think ... Maybe he affects you in a personal way, but that's that's you, that's idiosyncrasy, that's unique to each person. To me, I don't care.
Joe: Do you think it's a generational thing?
Kyle: Thinking through it, I think it's probably more prevalent in younger generations, so millennial's and younger. I've just been reclassified as zenial, so I guess we're in between generation Y and the millennial's.
Joe: Okay.
Kyle: I think probably you're starting to see it in Y, in zenial's, millennial's, and whoever comes next. I don't think it would be fair to assign apatheism to just younger generations. I think you see wherever there is a decrease in religious attendance and church services, wherever you see an increase in religious un-affiliation, I think you'll find apatheism there.
Kyle: Apatheism may even be ... You might be able to find apatheism more geographically that generationally, right? Pockets in the Northeast in the United States, Western Europe, Canada, I think you'll find that apatheism is more prevalent with those people than in say southeastern United States or majority world contexts like South America and Africa where church is growing, you'll find a complete opposite.
Joe: Where do you think apatheism comes from or what causes it? Is there an easy answer for that?
Kyle: No, I don't think there's an easy answer for that. I think you can trace the beginnings of apatheism maybe as far back as pre-Socratic thinkers. You have this movement in ancient Greece where some philosophers are starting to move away from polytheism and they're moving towards this ... It's not monotheism, but it's God is everything and God is fate, right?
Kyle: The problems you're having with your crops or your relationships or your wealth are not because of fickle gods, it's because of fate, so why should you care about the gods? You see an apathy towards the comings and goings of the gods, but it's not replaced with the apatheism we experience. Their apathy was a virtue like you come to just recognize that you can't control fate.
Kyle: The moment you truly understand that, you'll find bliss, you'll find happiness. I think the kind of apatheism we experience today starts to rise in the Enlightenment period where people are rejecting Christian theism in exchange for agnosticism, which is we can't know if God exists. Deism, which means a God exists, but he or it doesn't really have any direct impact on our daily lives.
Joe: Set it and forget it thing.
Kyle: That's right, yeah, the popular phrase is the absentee landlord. Atheism, no, I'm unconvinced that God exists, right? There's this a line from one of those Enlightenment era atheists named Denise Diderot. I'm going to pull it up real quick. Sorry, you'll have to edit this part.
Joe: No, it's okay, we don't edit, this will all be in there.
Kyle: Oh, okay, great.
Joe: They're listening to us right now.
Kyle: Good, good, so Denise Diderot, famous Enlightenment atheist thinker, and he distills apatheism in his time in this one sentence. He says, "It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all," right? If you don't know much about hemlock, you should not put that on your tacos.
Joe: That's the stuff that kills you.
Kyle: It will kill you, yeah.
Joe: Painfully.
Kyle: Hemlock and parsley look similar, right? Diderot is saying it's more important that you discern between what can go on a salad and what will kill you than warrior fret about whether or not God exists.
Joe: I feel like that betrays this huge idea already that God doesn't exist. If he exists, it's more of the idea of God exists. The same emotional attachment we might have like a small kid has to a blanket, do you know what I mean? This makes me feel good, I almost feel like in once sense what he's saying is forget about the blanket, it's just a toy thing.
Joe: There's real issues, something could kill you and not kill you. The irony there is that what happens when you die? It really does matter if there is a God or not.
Kyle: It is deeply ironic with this question, what happens when you do mistake the hemlock for parsley and you end up dying?
Joe: Right.
Kyle: Well, now the question of God's existence becomes of the ultimate importance.
Joe: Right.
Kyle: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. How do you put apatheism on the scale with atheism? I think a lot of people know atheism, whether it's the new atheists which are angry and want to pick the fight, or whether it's just the person who says look, "I'll be honest with you, I've thought through this, I don't think God exists. I'll talk to you about it, but it's not something I talk about a lot."
Joe: Then you've got this new class or this newer category, newer to me, apatheism, which is just like this is completely irrelevant. Where do you put those on a line as far as the easiest people to talk to?
Kyle: Yeah, intuitively you would think apatheism has a lot to do with atheism. If you don't think God's existence is important, well then you must not believe in him. That could very well be the case for a lot of people, but actually I think there is something that an atheist and a theist has more in common than does an apatheist, and that is interest in questions relating to God's existence.
Kyle: If you were to ask a Christian theist, "Do you believe God exists?" They would say, "Yes, of course I do." Then you would be able to have a conversation, "Well, what is that God like? What are the implications of that belief?" If you were to ask an atheist, "Do you believe God exists?" They would say, "Well no, I don't," and then you'd be able have a conversation. "Well, what does God's nonexistence mean," right?
Kyle: Now if you were to go to apatheist and ask them, "Do you believe God exists?" They're going to shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't care." That indifference drains any conversational power out of the whole dialogue, right? They won't have the conversation with you, because they don't care to have the conversation. In one sense atheists and theists should both share a deep concern about apatheism, because both the atheists and the theists find questions relating to God's existence important, because they understand the ramifications of answering the positive, theism, or negative, atheism.
Joe: That's really interesting, I never thought about that before. An atheist should be concerned about the ramifications of an apatheist.
Kyle: Absolutely.
Joe: Clearly a theist of the Christian should be concerned, because we want everyone to be restored to God and love God and have a happy life. The atheist should be too, tell me why.
Kyle: Yeah, I mean a simple scenario, who's going to buy Richard Dawkins books, right? Let's say Richard Dawkins publishes a new book, which is a very compelling, intellectual argument against the existence of God. The people that are going to buy those books are people interested in the question of God's existence. The atheist, the theist, and even the agnostic are sitting in a room having a conversation about God, because they're all interested in whether or not he exists, and what God is like if he does, and what it means if he doesn't, or even what it means if we can't know.
Kyle: The apatheist is on the opposite side of the room looking over at those three having the conversation thinking they're wasting their time, it's completely useless. Yeah, I think that should be deeply concerning to atheists and agnostics as well as theists. That maybe rounds us back to the question that you asked earlier, which of those do I find most difficult to engage with the gospel, the atheist or the apatheist?
Kyle: Unequivocally, I think it's the apatheist, because at least when you're approaching atheism, you have a mutually common interest in whether or not God exists.
Joe: Yes, okay, so I have a very specific question about this. I'm going to come back to that in just a second. Before I get to there, what are we talking about? Are there a lot of people that are apatheistic? How do you count, find, survey apatheistic people? Would they even care? Then how do they compare to atheists or agnostics? What's the ratio? What's the population? What are we talking about?
Kyle: Yeah, this is a frustrating thing looking into apatheism. It's impossible to tell how many apatheists there are in any given culture. The reason is because if you go to polling data, so things like American Religious Value surveys or Pew Forum or Gallup that ask questions about religious identification, those pollsters do not double-click into the reasons for why people don't believe.
Kyle: Very quickly we might say, "Well I know where all the apatheists are, they're in the nones, the N-O-N-E-S," right? The religiously unaffiliated, those people who when asked if they have a religious affiliation, they say, "No, none." Apatheism is not restricted to the nones, and there may be nones that are not apatheistic, right? You may just not have a religious affiliation, but it doesn't mean you don't find the question of God's existence important.
Kyle: Further, to complicate matters, you can find apatheism in people who identify as a religious tradition. You can say, "I'm Jewish, I'm Christian," but they don't really care what that means.
Joe: For sure, I mean, there's so many, not so many, but I already at the top of my head think of so many secular Jews who are popular in the media or whatever. I feel like in a lot of ways they don't really care. They're Jewish by culture and heritage, but not religion in the spiritual sense.
Kyle: Here we're in New Orleans, I'm in Mobile in Alabama. We're in the South, the primary religious affiliation is going to be some kind of Protestantism or Catholicism, right? That doesn't necessarily mean that they care about what that means, it just means that, that's the household they grew up in, that's the tribe to which they belong.
Kyle: Apatheism permeates both religious affiliation and non-religious affiliation, so it makes it very tricky to try to gauge.
Joe: Where does apatheism as a proper noun end, and where does all the category, whatever you would call this, and maybe this is apatheism, all the category of say the people that come and sit in the pew, but don't do anything, do you know what I mean? They don't tithe, they're not active, they're coming for some reason, maybe it's social, maybe it's guilt, maybe it's who knows?
Joe: We all know this exact group of people and they're usually a large group of people, is that apatheism? If not, is apatheism something different or more extreme maybe?
Kyle: Yeah, so I think what we're walking around now is the difference between apatheism and what's called practical atheism or pragmatic atheism. Practical atheism is as old as the Bible itself. We hear Scripture lament that the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Now that doesn't mean that they were actually atheist. The fool doesn't say, "There is no God." The fool says in his heart, so there's a dissonance between what this fool believes and how this fool acts, right?
Kyle: This is the height of foolishness that you believe that there is a God or you acknowledge there's a God and you recognize that the implications of God's existence affects your ethical moral behavior, but you act as if he doesn't exist. I think for a lot of our experience in the church, what we're seeing is practical atheism.
Kyle: It's a profession and even maybe a vague belief of God's existence, but a refusal to recognize and act upon the implications of that belief. How that's different from apatheism, is that the apatheist doesn't care about God's existence or nonexistence, he or she could care less. The practical atheism's apathy is sympathetic, it's not real.
Kyle: An apatheists apathy towards God's existence is real. To me, from my experience and my readings, this is very new. This is a very new thing in the life of the church, not one that it's had to approach perhaps ever.
Joe: Yeah, you had mentioned earlier that you and Tala Anderson have written or presented a paper on this.
Kyle: Yeah, that's correct, so Tala Anderson is a professor of philosophy over at Oklahoma Baptist University. He and I and a couple of other folks presented papers on apatheism at the American Academy of Religion in Denver this past November. The goal of that presentation with those papers is to define apatheism from an evangelical, Christian perspective, and then to propose ways in which we might approach it as gospel believing evangelistic, Christians who are first concerned that you don't care about God's existence.
Kyle: Second, that we would like to see you come to know the Lord Jesus the way we do. Yeah, we felt it was one of these conversations that the church ought to start having, right? Especially as the United States continues to secularize in an unique way from the rest of the West. A little slower than Canada and Western Europe and a little more diverse, right?
Kyle: We're seeing an increase in interest in neopaganism and the occult, which is completely unexpected.
Joe: Interesting, yeah, where did that come from?
Kyle: Apathy, right?
Joe: Yeah.
Kyle: We are secularizing in a different way, but yeah, as a challenge to the gospel, we thought it would be a wise thing to begin, at least bringing it to the public mind.
Joe: Yeah, getting the word out there.
Kyle: Most people experience apatheism, they know it, but they don't know it.
Joe: Yeah.
Kyle: Right? The second you say even the word apatheism, people go, "Oh yeah."
Joe: Right.
Kyle: I know exactly what you're talking about. Then it makes that thing that was intangible, tangible.
Joe: Yeah.
Kyle: If it's tangible, well now we can talk about it, because we can identify it, we can see it, and we can prayerfully think through how we ought to approach it.
Joe: This brings me to the question, one of the questions I wanted to ask specifically was how do you start a conversation with an apatheist? An atheist, right? That's easy, there's so many entry points. It might be intimidating, but it's clear there are a lot of ways in. An apatheist says, "I don't really want to talk about this." How do we talk about something someone doesn't want to talk about?
Kyle: Yeah, this is the tricky part, right? The word that's probably floating around in people's minds with a conversation like this is well that's apologetics, right? I know what I need to do, I need to go bone up on apologetic methods, arguments for God's existence. If they don't find God important, well maybe if I argue that he exists, they'll find that he's important.
Kyle: Unfortunately, that presupposes something that's not there, that they're interested in having that conversation, right?
Joe: Right.
Kyle: I certainly don't fault people, because as creatures created in the image and likeness of God designed to have a relationship with our creator, we are by default we have interest in God's existence, right? Thinking that everybody thinks the way or feels the way we do about God is intuitive, right? Certainly, that's the model we received from Scripture thinking about the context and the time in which it was written.
Kyle: Everybody thought God or gods existence is in the little g, like multiple gods, is important. We've built our apologetic models off of that, and rightly so as a biblical foundation. For example, the most famous apologetic model that's cited from the New Testament is Paul's Areopagus sermon in Acts. When he goes into Athens and he's preaching the gospel and people find it interesting, so they invite him to the Areopagus or Mars Hill in the King James.
Kyle: They want him to present this new philosophy they're so unfamiliar with. As he's walking there, he passes a pantheon, so he sees a bunch of statues of gods. He notices that there's one statue to the unknown God. They are so superstitious, that they wanted to make sure they didn't offend the one god that they might not have remembered in their little collection there.
Kyle: This one God is really interesting, because there's something special about him, right? He seems to proceed the other gods, there's something more powerful, more mysterious about him. Paul notices that they're very religious and he leverages that religious interest. He starts, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious."
Kyle: He presupposes that they both share a minimally common interest in theism, even though they are polytheists and he is a Christian. At least they both think that God's existence is important. From that story we've built our apologetic methods, have we not? I mean, I find it very rare to read a book on apologetics without that model coming up.
Kyle: That's so important, because it's so good, but what if we live in an Athens without a statue to the unknown God?
Joe: Yeah.
Kyle: What if we live in a society now where there may have been a statue to an unknown God, but it's come under disrepair for being neglected, vines are growing on it, soot, it's been chiseled away, right? People don't care about the Pantheon anymore, how could Paul have started, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way you're very religious." They would say, "What do you mean? No we're not, we don't care about what you have to say."
Joe: It's like in the one hand you've got we're in a car and they're in a car. We have gas in our car and we're going north. They have gas in their car going south, and we're trying to get them to turn their wheel and come north, the right way. This new scenario that you're talking about here is like we're in a car and we're going north and they don't have any gas.
Kyle: Right.
Joe: It's like a totally, foundationally different issue.
Kyle: That's correct, yeah, so that's why I argue that it's far more challenging to present the gospel to an apatheist than it is an atheist or an agnostic, because you are robbed of that minimally common belief. Not only are you robbed of that minimally common belief, but the question, do you believe in God, is zapped of its power because of indifference and apathy to it.
Kyle: That question is meaningless to an apatheist, in fact, they may even feel negative towards it, because they're so tired of being asked it, right?
Joe: Right, so you're starting at a deficit almost?
Kyle: Exactly.
Joe: Yeah.
Kyle: You have to take a step backwards in just recognizing that we don't share that minimally common interest is crucial to approaching apatheism, yeah.
Joe: Excuse me, what should I do if I've ... I have this friend and he's apatheist, I'm just going to say, and I have a few friends that I already know fit. Say they're not friends, say we don't have a relationship already, is that the key? Is it having a relationship? Even then, maybe they don't care to talk about this. I'm the kind of person, jumping into me for a minute, I'm the kind of person that I will get confused like sports.
Joe: I'm like which one is the football and the basketball? I'm at that level, right? Extremely ignorant when it comes to sports, just a real idiot, and so somebody wants to come and talk to me at sports, I'm just like I will smile and be nice and can't wait for you to stop talking about this, right? How would a person come to me and talk about sports in a way that's interesting?
Joe: How do I go to a person and talk about something spiritual when they just simply don't care?
Kyle: Yeah, so in that scenario what I would say is you are interested in sports, you just don't know it yet.
Joe: Oh, good one, I love this, please tell me more.
Kyle: How do I get you to recognize that you actually are interested in sports? Well, I would begin by finding what are you interested in period, right? When I say that the classical methods that we've developed from apologetics, we've presupposed something that perhaps we don't have any more. What I'm not saying is well we'll just nuke apologetics altogether, right?
Kyle: We're just going to start over again, that's absolutely foolish throwing the baby out and the bathwater, right?
Joe: You've got nothing.
Kyle: No, there are people in the history of Christianity thinking theologically, philosophically and approaching their cultures, that I think anticipated this type of thing. I think we look to, in their technical terms, individuals that have explored presuppositional or existential approaches to apologetics. Things like the moral argument can be very helpful here.
Kyle: What we do is we start from the bottom up, rather than the top down, right? The to down approach is you believe in God, I believe in God, but you believe in God in a way that does not align with reality, so let me explain to you how. Let me argue that, let's go through your objections, and then boom, we get to the gospel.
Joe: Which even works for an atheist, because you would say, "You believe in the value of this concept God, you just believe that it's false."
Kyle: That's correct, yeah.
Joe: Right.
Kyle: Then you deal with objections and then get to a gospel presentation. With the apatheists though, I think you have to flip the script a bit, you have to start with the bottom up. We start with the individual, and I've found that most people are interested in themselves.
Joe: Yeah, sure.
Kyle: Via fallen nature that we are our favorite thing to think about. When I'm having conversations with apatheists, the place I start with is not God. He is the goal of course, but the place I start with is them. I ask them, "What do you find interesting? What drives you? What are your fears? What are your hopes? What are your desires? What do you think is virtuous? What do you think is unvirtuous? What do you think is good character? What do you think is a character flaw?"
Kyle: Naturally most of those conversations go towards political things. What I try to do is I try to steer the conversation towards issues of morality. Then employ what Francis Schaeffer identified as pressure points and worldviews. Things that are held inconsistently or ideologically, and really push on them and ask, "Why? Why is that?"
Kyle: Very quickly, for example, using the moral argument for why murder is wrong. You would ask a person like, "Why do you think murder is wrong?" The person would say, "Well, it's not good to kill somebody, because you're taking away that person from their family." "Well I agree with that, but what if a person, another person believes that taking away that person from their family is good, is a good thing, and they have one reason or another? Well who's to say that you shouldn't murder that person?"
Kyle: Well the conversation then goes to there's governments let's say, right? You shouldn't murder, murder is illegal, so I guess that's why I think murder is wrong. Well what if there is a government that decides murdering is good, right?
Joe: We've had that before.
Kyle: We've had those before in history, right? Then what do we do, right? You argue this until you're in this theoretical land of a one universal government that determines whether or not murder is wrong. Then well you can imagine that universal government decides at one point no, genocide is good, so now what do we do? Well I don't know, what do we do?
Kyle: That's a pressure point in their worldview, they can't explain why they believe murder is objectively wrong.
Joe: Yeah, I think this is interesting, because a lot of the stuff we learned in apologetics, we've essentially shuffled the deck on. We're still using all those cards, we're using all those approaches. We're using all those ideas and concepts. We're using the reductio ad absurdum, the logic, like take this to its logical end and where does this take us based on what you said you, etc.
Joe: We're doing it in a way, like you said, which I think is so critical, we're doing it in a way that starts with something they care about.
Kyle: Right, that's exactly right, yeah, and notice the entire time I was having, we were having this very speedy, truncated vision of that conversation, I didn't bring up God once.
Joe: Right.
Kyle: I didn't need too, that wasn't the point in the conversation at the beginning stage. Then the question becomes well, why can you say murder is objectively wrong? I don't know. That moment, the, I don't know is called doubt, right? Doubt, when used sometimes, is quite advantageous. You've caused them now to think critically about their worldview.
Kyle: Soren Kierkegaard has a great line about doubt, using it in this kind of a way. He says, "That doubt is a higher form than any objective thinking, because it presupposes the latter, but it has something more, a third, which is interest."
Joe: Yes, because doubt is not simply, I don't know, like agnosticism in the little a, agnosticism. It's not just simply a vacuum, it's an out of balance vacuum. I feel uncomfortable, because something needs to be back in line.
Kyle: That's right, so this is Kierkegaard's point. Doubt's a good thing in these kinds of situations, because if you're apathetic about your faith, if you're apathetic about a position, no amount of questioning or propositions is going to zap you out of that apathy until you're interested. Obviously you can't be apathetic toward something and interested toward something simultaneously, it's impossible, it defies both terms.
Kyle: How do you get somebody from apathy to interest? Kierkegaard says, get them to doubt something about the thing that they're apathetic about, or that is related to the thing they're apathetic about. Then you have interest, and interest is important, because it zaps the apathy of its power, right? That one thing that they were completely disinterested in and indifferent towards just a moment ago, now becomes something that they have to seek out.
Joe: Yes, doubt becomes like the fulcrum gets them back into the interest area.
Kyle: That's right, that's right.
Joe: That's very interesting.
Kyle: At this point, in these moments of doubt, they start to think objectively. Now for the first time maybe in a long time they're interested. This is when you make a gospel presentation. This is when we can re-approach apologetics in the way that perhaps we're more familiar with, right? We've not assumed the presupposition that these men of Athens are very religious in every way.
Kyle: We've gotten them interested and then now we can move forward.
Joe: Really, unless a person is clinically depressed or something like this, unless a person is really just disconnected and not motivated to live, they are interested in something, in things. They have ambitions, they have motivations, and I feel like what you're saying is we just need to do the work of finding those. They are not being upfront in that kind of way in the way that an atheist is.
Joe: An atheist says, "I'm very upfront about what I disbelieve." Somebody who is apathetic in this way says, "I'm not really gonna tell you in that way," right?
Kyle: That's right.
Joe: This conversation is boring to me, but it's not boring. It's just the framework of it's boring, and what you're saying is you come in with this back door, you find the doubt, find what they're interested in, expose the doubt, and then the new interest emerges, the relevance to the real conversation.
Kyle: That's right, if you've struck a vein that truly causes them to doubt, interest inevitably comes. Nobody's ever doubted something and then not felt some kind of interest towards why they doubted that thing, right? It's a very, very powerful tool to use, it just needs to be used wisely and appropriately.
Joe: Sure.
Kyle: Perhaps even in moderation, you don't want to just throw somebody into an existential tail spin.
Joe: Yeah, this is for your own good.
Kyle: That's right. Yeah, I think it's a challenge, right?
Joe: Yeah.
Kyle: It's a challenge.
Joe: It's a challenge, but it's also a way forward. I think you come across someone who is in apatheist, someone who's really just apathetic about spiritual things, you're like well I don't know what to do. I think a lot of people feel that, and having this approach first step I think is very helpful, it's very helpful for me.
Kyle: Well that's good, that's good, yeah. Yeah, I would say I've had this kind of conversation quite a few times now, and one of the things that I've had told to me is that just seems like a lot. I can't even remember this conversation that we had, how am I supposed to draw up this framework the second I identify an apatheist? One, I think these types of things come with experience and practice.
Kyle: Evangelism, of course, is a gifting that the Holy Spirit gives us, and it's one in which he guides us, and one that we become better with through experience. The challenge I would say is well don't worry about being able to draw on this and other things that you've thought about before, go do it in and see if the spirit is not good and willing and able to guide you through these things.
Kyle: Then second, in these moments we're called to be stewards. If we're stewards of the message that we're given and we rely in faith that even in our stumblings we're trying to analyze somebody's worldview, find pressure points, push on them, get them to doubt, get them to interest, that first of all this is precious to the father. This is an act of worship and it's pleasing to him.
Kyle: Second, he's good to use it, so you may not zap them out of their apathy the first time, the third time, the fifth time, the 10th time. That's okay, like you may be chapters one through three in a story that's 50 chapters long.
Joe: Yeah.
Kyle: Yeah, it's a challenging thing, but I still think that not only are we called to through the great commission to engage all peoples, which include the apatheists, even if they're more challenging than others, it's something that the spirit indwells you to do, right? He's there with you in these moments.
Joe: I think the encouraging thing to me is having the right tools, knowing what to do, at least in some sense is a good thing, but ultimately, it's not my job to save anybody.
Kyle: That's right.
Joe: Right? It's just my job to say why I care.
Kyle: Yeah, that's right.
Joe: To me that's encouraging. This has been really great Kyle, I want to ask you one last question, how are you answering God's call? What does that mean and look like and so forth in your life?
Kyle: Yeah, I mean personal day-to-day, the way I'm answering God's call is through finding the ways in which he's sanctifying me, and digging in and pushing into those. It may sound very basic, but I think it's very true. This comes through repentance and through prayer and through reading Scripture and acting on the things that God has told me to do and not just filing them away in a journal.
Kyle: Very recently, just being candid, the Lord has pressed on, or just pushed on my heart in prayer that he would like to see me be more aware of what repentance means and to be bolder. Answering God's call for me in this season of life is being keenly aware of what is repentance, how often do we do it? Should I be doing it more often? What does it mean to be bold, to be bold for the gospel?
Kyle: It means being a good husband, it means being a good teacher. It means being a good preacher when I'm given those opportunities. I think for me, the short answer of how I'm answering God's call is he's given me talents like from the parable, talents to steward and to multiply. Every day I ask how can I multiply the talents that you have given me?
Kyle: Not just to receive an answer, but to act on that answer as well.
Joe: It's a great question, how can I multiply the talents that you've given me. This has been quite a joy as always. Thanks for coming to the podcast Kyle.
Kyle: Yeah, Joe, thank you for having me, it was a pleasure.
Click here to get James' new book, What the Quran Really Teaches About Jesus.
Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers.
Joe Fontenot: And I am Joe Fontenot.
Gary: We're the hosts of the Answering the Call Podcast.
Joe: This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call.
Gary: Today our guest is James Walker.
Joe Fontenot: James has a new book out on the Quran but specifically on using the Quran to show that Jesus is who Jesus is-
Gary: Wow.
Joe: Yeah, it's very interesting. Marilyn interviewed him in this one and I sat in and listened and I really can't wait to read this book because the Quran essentially says Jesus is God without saying Jesus is God, and if you read carefully you can use it as its own apologetic for Christianity.
Gary: That's great. I caught his evening session at Defend and he spoke about the book there and it's an exciting book. Can't wait to read it.
Joe: Yeah. And he's also got an atheist Christian book club which he talks about, which I thought was pretty interesting as well.
Gary: Very interesting. Well, let's hear from James.
Marilyn Stewart: James, you are involved in some very interesting ministries and I want to talk to you about two of those. You do spend a lot of time talking to Muslims and also to atheists, but you have a brand new book What the Quran Really Teaches about Jesus prophet of Allah or Savior of the world. So, I want to start there and give you a chance to tell us a little bit about that book. But the title says the Quran Teaches about Jesus. I suspect that many Christians don't realize this. So, what does it say about Jesus?
James Walker: Well, it is a surprise that the Quran has a lot to say about Jesus even more than Mohammed, and there are some things that actually that we would agree with that it agrees with the Bible in some places. Now, I think it's important to understand that it's not the same Jesus that we're talking about. But for one thing, the Quran affirms that Jesus was born of a virgin and no other Prophet, according to Islam was ever born of a virgin.
Marilyn: And there are a lot of profits that Islam recognizes.
James: They recognize any prophet of God. So, the prophets mentioned in the Bible, Isaiah, Ezekiel, talk about King David and Abraham. Yeah, all these are prophets, and Jesus also was one of the prophets. That's another affirmation that you have. In the book I have the transcript of a debate I did with a Muslim apologist Khalil Meek, and that's where the subtitle of the book comes from Prophet of Allah or Savior of the World.
``` So, basically we started off in the debate with the point of agreement. We're both religions, both scriptures, the Bible and the Quran, both affirm Jesus as being a prophet. Now, we're I took it from there is you have to ask the question, what did Jesus prophesy? There is not one prophecy of Jesus recorded in the Quran.
```
Marilyn: I believe you mentioned this when you were speaking at Defend about a Muslim who went to other authorities to check. Tell us a little bit about that.
James: Yeah, one of the things that I'm trying to do in the book is encourage Christians to just engage. You'd be surprised most Christians if they think about it a while, they know a Muslim. It could be their doctor, or it could be a pharmacist, it could be a classmate at the university, it could be a convenience store clerk, a neighbor, but they know someone who's a Muslim. And there's, I think we have this kind of built in fear. I don't maybe want to start a conversation. What if they ask a difficult question, or maybe they would be offended if I ask a question about that. So, What I'm trying to do and what the Quran really teaches about Jesus is in the book, be able to have some great questions to ask or a verse in the Quran that you can ask them to explain to you and kind of start this gospel conversation.
``` So, this particular example I gave, I was at a coffee shop and this guy comes in and I had seen him before but not really talked with him anything, but I noticed this time when he came in he actually had an Islamic dictionary in his hand. And I thought, "Okay, I know ... he's Muslim, but he also, I noticed there was only one seat open in the entire coffee shop. So, basically when I saw him headed toward my seat, I had been reading on my tablet, I'd been reading the Bible, but I just switched to the Quran.
So, he sat down next to me and I didn't say anything but I thought this might happen. He must have looked over because he taps me on the shoulder he's big smile and he says, "Oh, you're reading Quran?" I said, "Yes I am." He said, "Oh, you must be Muslim." And I said, No, I'm actually Christian. He said, "huh." And it was like, it was a little bit disorienting to him. He didn't know what to make of it, but I said, "Listen, I'm a Christian, but I want to understand other religions and I want to know what the differences are, and I recognize if 1.8 billion people believe the Quran, this is an important book that I should be able to know. And I was reading in the Quran and I was having difficulty understanding a passage." He said, "I'm Muslim, let me help you."
And so I showed him Surah 350 where the Quran ... Jesus is speaking actually. Here's another thing you have the saying of Jesus and Jesus says that you must fear Allah and obey me. So, you fear God, but you also have to obey Jesus. And he said, "But that's true, my friend, you must obey Jesus." I said, "Well, here's my question. I cannot anywhere in the Quran, find the commands of Jesus. If we're to obey Him, where can we find His commands?" Well, that ended up being like several conversations like that one and like two more times were talking about this and he was unable to find any of the commands of Jesus and so I said, "Well, this obviously you can only find them in the gospels like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." He was a little bit hesitant to go that way but I finally convinced him if he would read Matthew's Gospel with me and see if we can find anything.
He would say, "Oh, but the Gospels have been corrupted." I said, "But is there anything remaining of value there?" Well, he hadn't thought. "Well, there could still be something good let's go look and see." So, this is again, a way that just knowing a little bit about the Quran maybe a good verse, know the right kind of questions to ask. Yeah. And it ended up being for better part of probably six or eight months, we had off and on conversations.
```
Marilyn: Now, so, he didn't know any commands in the Quran from Jesus and also prophecies? There were no prophesies in the Quran?
James: Yeah, you can take the same approach with the prophecies. Nowhere in the New Testament. In my debate with Khalil Meek, when we both agreed at the very outset, okay premise one, is Jesus a prophet of God? Both affirm. So, my question which is a good question to ask any Muslim, what did Jesus prophesy?
Marilyn: What do they say when-
James: Well, they assume he must have prophesied what the Quran teachers. There's the idea that in Jesus' original writings that may be he must have taught Islam. Now, we don't have any of these writings because you don't find any of that in the four gospels or in the New Testament or anything like that, but there's this assumption, well, he must have taught the five pillars of Islam. Like any good Muslim and so I asked Khalil on that, "Can you show me the documents?" Now, when I'm going to say that Jesus made a prophecy I'm going to point to ancient documents very close to the time that Jesus lived. The best he could do was to say that those were corrupted and need to be superseded by the Quran.
Marilyn: ... Now, that's interesting. So, let me make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Because the Quran does not list any commands or prophecies of Jesus, that presents a problem, but they can't feel comfortable accepting the Bible because they feel the New Testament is corrupted.
James: Well, it's what Jesus prophesied. He prophesied that He would be crucified, that He would die, that He would rise three days later from the grave. These are things that not only are not in the Quran, the Quran mentions them and says that they're not true.
Marilyn: Yes. Okay.
James: But you don't have a prophecy of Jesus saying this. So, if someone is going to be a prophet, is he a true prophet or a false prophet? Of course, I mentioned in the book that, and the Muslim apologist Shabir Ally complains that the New Testament is not trustworthy because the Gospels may have been written several decades after the events they describe. Well, that doesn't mean they're not true, but ironically he's complaining about several decades when the Quran is trying to comment on something 600 years later, 800 miles away.
Marilyn: Interesting. So, they then do say some at least that this corruption that took place with the New Testament they assume that these five pillars that's what's been taken out.
James: Right. So, he must have taught Shahada, he must have taught everything that we find. So, it's kind of like the ultimate conspiracy theory is the idea that all of Jesus' original disciples were all Muslim, Jesus was Muslim, all his disciples are Muslim. They believe Islam, they believe what you now can find in the Quran and they wrote them down in what they call the Injil, the gospel, but none of the copies remain. Every copy that we have, very early copies that we have match what we have in our New Testament. So, one of the examples was that in the, there's a fragment of John's gospel, the Ryland P52 fragment, which is the oldest extent part of the New Testament that we have. It dates traditionally between 100 and 150 AD. Way before Mohammed.
``` Ironically that little piece of fragment is actually citing a prophecy where Jesus speaks of his death and his resurrection.
```
Marilyn: Yeah, the manuscript evidence for the New Testament just in Greek is around 5,000 manuscripts. And then of course we have other copies and other languages. So, we do have good evidence how the New Testament came to us.
James: Right, and if you want to claim that there was another earlier uncorrupted New Testament, I mean, that's an interesting theory but I'd like to see some documents. Where's any proof on this?
Marilyn: Sure. Let's go back to where else the Quran says some things about Jesus that we could affirm that do match up with what the New Testament says.
James: Well, that Jesus was a prophet of God. We mentioned that His birth, His coming was predicted by the other prophets. They even say in the Quran that Jesus is Messiah. Now, they mean something very different by that than what we do. So, they're not trying to say Jesus was Christ or savior. That is not what they believe. But they do have the title Messiah. So, that would be something that we would affirm.
``` To me, one of the most remarkable affirmations though is that the Quran teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. And there's a whole chapter about Mary and about the virgin birth of Jesus in the Quran. I'd like to say, in fact, it's kind of the opposite of the Gospels. The Gospels is, 80% of it deals with Jesus' life and then rather, 20%, 25% and then the vast majority deals with those last two weeks. While in the Quran it talks a lot about Jesus but the vast majority talks about His birth and the early years and not so much about the later part of his ministry. But yeah, there's a passage in the Quran where it says that we honor and believe all of the prophets of God. And it lists several, including Jesus, and we make no differentiation between them.
A great question to ask a Muslim is, "Hey, we have something in common. You believe in the virgin birth and that's what our scripture says, that Jesus was born of a virgin. Here's the question, tell me what other prophets were born of a virgin?"
```
Marilyn: That's a good question.
James: Well, there has been no other prophet. Not Abraham, not Ishmael or Isaac, or they would talk a lot about King David, none of them. So, even Mohammed. Mohammed was not born of a virgin.
Marilyn: So, Jesus had this miraculous birth that no other prophet in the Quran has had.
James: Yes. And would you have to agree with me then that Jesus is unique among the prophets if no other prophet has this kind of birth.
Marilyn: Now, how is it that they see Jesus differently? Where do we disagree on Jesus?
James: Well, unfortunately the disagreement on the essentials of Christian faith and the very core of the gospel. So, they're first of all going to say that while Jesus was a prophet He was not the Son of God. In Islamic thinking, and in the Quran actually, is pretty clear on this. The idea of God having a son is reprehensible to them because it implies if you're the Son of God that ... and I would agree it does. Some level, there's a quality there. You're the same type of being the father and the son. And in Islamic monotheism, only one person can be God, Allah and not any other person. If you ascribe the attributes of God to any other person, even Jesus, it is tantamount to the unpardonable sin. It's what they call the sin of shirk.
Marilyn: And this is unforgivable, unpardonable, it is a major problem for Muslims.
James: Yeah there's some Muslim folklore that's not explicitly said certainly in the Quran and not even really explicitly taught in the Hadith, but the idea is if you're a Muslim on the day of judgment and your bad deeds outweigh your good deeds, the Muslims all agree, you go to hell. But there's a caveat there, this idea that if you did not commit shirk and you were Muslim, that you potentially can get out of hell later.
Marilyn: Okay. So, there's a way out.
James: Again, that's not in the Quran. I asked a friend, one of my Muslim friends I was talking to, "I cannot find anywhere in the Quran where you get out of hell tell me where this comes from." And he, "Oh, it's not in the Quran it's in the Hadith." And I say, "Well, you know my Imam friend told me that Hadith is not totally reliable." And he's, "Well, it's not totally reliable." What if the part about getting out of hell is in the unreliable part?
Marilyn: Gosh, that would be a bad situation.
James: It would.
Marilyn: Now, the Hadith, explain what that is and how it's different from the Quran. Just a brief explanation.
James: Well, when Mohammed dies, and this is actually like a century or two after the death of Mohammed. The collection of the Hadith begins. And this is where you're trying to gather together a corpus of data on what Mohammed did and said, is extremely important in Islam because Islam is very much focused on orthopraxy, doing things the right way.
``` I mean, everything. Every aspect of life, there's a right way to do it. It's based on the pattern of what Mohammed did. Well, that's based on Hadith. So in Hadith what they're doing is, they're trying to gather these statements, these sayings or deeds and they're trying to build a chain of custody on them. So, you have this saying, the story, and how do we know it happened? Well, this particular person said that he talked with someone who was one of the Friends of a companion of Mohammed. And so, they they connect the dots, try to get it back to the life of Mohammed, and there are several collections of Hadith. Many, many volumes of work.
So, the idea is the Muslims will try to weigh how reliable that Hadith is. Is it highly reliable, is it somewhat reliable, and they base that on that chain of Custody. But I would say in a practical sense that what Islam is today is based at least as much if not more on Hadith than it is on Quran.
```
Marilyn: Oh, is that right?
James: Yes.
Marilyn: And so, this shows some, it shows how important their thinking is on following a certain, I don't know if works is the right way to say it, but there is a path laid out for them that they must follow.
James: Yeah, even the five pillars you don't find it at all clearly in the Quran. There's implication and stuff, but that you're to pray five times not six or seven, that's Hadith, you don't get that in the Quran.
Marilyn: Very precise.
James: Exactly. And so that's, on a practical level, extremely important in day to day Islamic life.
Marilyn: So, it lays out a step by step thing that they must do in order to be right with Allah.
James: Yes.
Marilyn: So, there is no savior in Islam, is that correct?
James: Yeah, and that was, we included as a chapter the entire transcript of my most recent debate with Khalil Meek and the title Jesus Christ prophet of Allah our Savior of the World, and Khalil is adamant that Jesus is not the Savior. But one of the debate issues that came up, if Jesus is not the Savior, who is? Who's the Savior then? And the tragic part of Islamic theology is, it's not just that Jesus isn't the Savior, there is no savior.
Marilyn: Do they realize that they need a savior? Do you find that longing in their heart to this understanding that they are not quite good enough, that they haven't followed that path as closely as they need to? Do you get the sense that they have that desire to have a savior?
James: I think not so much initially. Part of what I'm trying to do is get that Muslim friend with me into the Bible. So, I'm going to start with the Quran, but I'm trying to shift over, "Can we see what the gospel say about this." And try to get them to hear the stories of Jesus and you get a very different picture of God in the New Testament. You get a God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Well, in Islam Jesus can't be the begotten son. It says in the Quran, "Allah neither begets nor has he begotten, but even more disturbing you don't have a God that's love.
``` You have a God, Allah is merciful, but there's a big difference between merciful and loving. In the same way the God in Islam cannot partner with or share His attributes with, He can't have a son or He can't be a son. This idea imply that He can't have that love relationship either because he's separate and distinct and totally apart from creation.
```
Marilyn: And so, they do not think of God as a heavenly father as Christians see Him?
James: Not father at all that's anathema to call Jesus father. And even in the doctrine of the Trinity, there are several places in the Quran where it says, stop saying, seize saying God is three. And in parentheses Trinity, sometimes they'll put the parenthetical in case you don't know what we're talking about. We don't believe in the Trinity doctrine. So, technically, is a monotheistic religion and it does cause confusion with Christians. We hear from our news media, we hear from some of our politicians even. Oh well, Christianity and Islam they're both monotheistic religions, they are both religions of Abraham, they put their roots back in Abraham.
``` So, they believe in one God, they believe in the same God. Well, I would beg to differ on that. The believe in one God doesn't mean that we're talking about the same God. I've never met any Muslim, any Imam, any cleric, any even rank-and-file Muslim who would ever say that God is the father of Jesus Christ, you can't say that.
```
Marilyn: So, we do worship different gods.
James: I would say so.
Marilyn: And we can start with the things that we do affirm about Jesus but it is important to lead them to the Gospels and finding out who Jesus really is.
James: I do find some parallels ain how the Apostle Paul dealt with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. So, the Areopagus, and Athens, and Mars Hill. When He is talking to them and when he's confronted by them and he's trying to explain the gospel, it's interesting he never quotes any scripture. If he had quoted it, those guys wouldn't have known what he was talking about anyway. He does elsewhere quote their philosophers. And so what he does is he finds a point in common. There was a shrine to this unknown God. And I think, Paul, thinks, "Hey, I don't believe in Greek mythology, but this is too easy to use. Even they've acknowledged there might be a God they don't know about. This is the one I want to tell them about."
Marilyn: And this is why your book is so helpful because you pull out some passages from the Quran that is a great place for Christians to start as they're talking to a Muslim. Some of those passages about Jesus and how He is, the things they agree with about Jesus and where it is different. So, your book came out this year?
James: Well, late last year, it's already a new year now.
Marilyn: Well, that's true. We're in 2019.
James: Less than a year ago. We can say it that way. It seems like, and I tell you, I do not really embrace and enjoy the writing process. I do it. I am not happy to write, I'm happy to have written.
Marilyn: And you are a good writer. It's very clear.
James: Well, thanks. But it's, sometimes I think that writing a book is the closest a man can ever know to what it's like to give birth. So, it's like the labor pain.
Marilyn: No, giving birth is worse.
James: You've done both so you would know, but yeah, I don't enjoy the process but I'm glad that it's done. I like the product, had a lot of people helping me. I had our editor at Watchman Fellowship at my ministry did a lot of work to help, and then at Harvest House, the senior editor there, Steve, he's just so good at what he does.
Marilyn: Excellent. Before we leave Islam, I want to give you a chance to talk about tips. You've mentioned a couple of things, but for Christians that want to make a friend of a Muslim and lead that Muslim to Jesus, to a loving God, you mentioned several tips at Defend, and I know you use the word task that this is our task, I just wanted to give you a chance to explain that to us, give us any other tips for getting to know Muslims, how we get to know them, how we approach them, anything like that you'd like to say.
James: Yeah, I would just say just in general, and this is not just Muslim, this is really trying to build relationship with anyone for the gospel. I have a Mormon back, I used to be Mormon before I became a Christian, and when I first became a Christian I kind of did it all wrong with my Mormon friends. I could prove them wrong and I have all this evidence I want to hit them over the head with and looking back on it I should have known better because nobody responds well to when somebody says, I can prove you're wrong 10 different ways or something like that.
``` So, over time, what I, here's what I've learned. It's really all about relationship. What did they say. No one cares what you know till they know that you care. And so, on the building on the back of relationship, you earn the right ... first of all, you know the person and you spent time with them that they can see that there's something different about you. They can see Christ in you, hopefully. And also you earn the right to ask the question. And there's a feeling of safety that, they know that I'm going to be their friend whether they're Muslim or not. And so it's not about if you convert to Christianity, then we can be friends. No, we're friends. If you convert to Christianity, I'd be thrilled. But we're friends either way.
```
Marilyn: That's a good point.
James: And building that relationship. So, it's all about that and asking the right questions. At the end of most of the chapters, we have a series of good questions that would help further that gospel conversation and gospel discussion.
``` The other thing I would encourage people to do, I thought, many, many years ago, I had been dealing with reaching Jehovah's Witnesses, reaching people involved in the occult and I'll put in this Muslim thing. It's just like, I have this kind of fear. If I start talking to the Muslim, they're going to say, "I'm Muslim, I'm not interested" or something. And I found the exact opposite. What I found was, "I'm Muslim. I'm very interested."
```
Marilyn: And this is fascinating. I think a lot of Americans felt that way, still feel that way. A little afraid to speak to a Muslim.
James: Well, you know, we were the generation that lived through 911 and we see the terrorism and it's connected with radical Islam and sometimes there's an actual fear, every Muslim that you see, is there a bomb involved or something like that. I'm not going to minimize that that's not a bad problem. The vast majority of Muslims do not interpret the sword versus, when the Quran says that you're to smite the infidel and strike their necks and stuff, my friend Khalil that I did the debate with, he would tell me, "James, when it says to kill the infidel it's about the infidels on the Arabian Peninsula during the time of Mohammed and the warfare that was going on. It doesn't mean kill all infidels everywhere all times. It's a specific." He'd make a comparison to the Canaanites and the Exodus.
Marilyn: In the old testament.
James: It doesn't mean we're to go conquer every land and kill all the inhabitants and drive them out. So, if that's what most Muslims believe it's probably not my best strategy to talk them out of that. "Oh, no, right here you're supposed to smite infidel, that's me, you're supposed." No. If that's what they interpreted, it is what it is. There are Muslims that do interpreted it in a terroristic fashion.
``` So, I'm so appreciative of our military, our first responders, and those politicians who make the right decisions to help protect us from all dangers, foreign and domestic, including religious terrorism, but my job as a Christian, I'm not the Air Force or the army, I'm not Homeland Defense, I'm part of the church. So, I feel like my job is the gospel, not so much to be involved in military or political solution. I really kind of feel we may be beyond, on the case of radical Islam, we may be beyond a political or military solution at this point. The only real solution I think might be the gospel of Jesus Christ.
```
Marilyn: And it is a great opportunity. We say we are people of the Great Commission and God does seem to be bringing the nation's to us even from nations that we can't get into as missionaries. So, this is great.
James: I've noticed a lot of pushback from people who, they're disturbed by there's so many Muslims moved to America in a 10 year period according to our most recent census, Islam is growing by 160% in just 10 years in America. But we have to say, well, you look at the other side, these people, a lot of them are coming from countries where it is illegal to share the gospel. Now that the Muslim is your next door neighbor or is your classmate at school at the college or something, you don't have to get on an airplane, you don't have to go through the red tape, is a mission field that comes to us let's see if we can take advantage of that.
Marilyn: So, what are the things that we have in common with Muslims in terms of, they are people that love their families, love their children. And in terms of developing relationships, surely they are things like that, that we can connect to. What would you say to that?
James: Well, one of the things, you're dealing a little differently if you're dealing with a Muslim, from Saudi Arabia, or even from Pakistan or Indonesia, Muslim country, Sharia law, you're dealing with a little bit different mindset when they come to America versus an American Muslim, but just understand that a lot of Muslims are confused when they get here because they assume that America is a Christian nation and everything that they see, everything that they see on the internet, everything that they see on TV and the movies, they think, "Oh,, this is Christianity." And to help them to see that not everything American means Christian. A great question to ask is, when you've built that relationship with the Muslim is say, "Let me ask you my friend, have you ever came to the place where I share with you how I became a Christian?" And sometimes there's this confused look, "Well, you were born in America."
Marilyn: Sure.
James: "Well, yes I was, but to be born in America makes you an American, but to become a Christian you have to be born a second time." And it's almost like John chapter three. Is usually like, "What do you mean to be born again?" It's just like, they've never heard this before.
Marilyn: That's great.
James: And this was my life before you should be able to do this in 90 seconds, but I wanted to please God, but I was concerned that perhaps I had sinned against God and there may be a day of judgment where I would stand before God and what if I fail what would happen to me? and I realized at a point in my life I needed help, I needed a savior. And that's when I realized that Jesus was more than a prophet. That He actually came to be my substitute, to offer me eternal life. Just that little kind of communication and it's almost you can see, I can remember vividly seeing it's like childlike like, this is they've never heard this story before.
Marilyn: Interesting. Well, the gospel of course is a great message and He is a God of love so I could see where this could draw Muslim very easily if we are genuine in our faith and in our walk. I do want to change the subject now and kind of shift gears and go to something that you do that is also very fascinating. That's the Atheist Book Club. So, how in the world did you get into an Atheistic Book Club? What does that look like? And whose idea was that?
James: Not mine. The actual title is the Atheist Christian Book Club. So, it's atheistschristianbookclub.com, and this is something an atheist friend of mine kept bugging me to do. It's a long story how I got invited to this atheist gathering that they have like a fellowship. And just out of curiosity I went and they were actually kind of really nice and had a lot of questions. And I would try to go at least maybe once a month or something. And we got into all kinds of great discussions about everything from, Big Bang cosmology to the source of ethics, and intelligent design, and the Dallas Cowboys and I mean, all kinds of things, but over time I-
Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers.
Joe Fontenot: And I'm Joe Fontenot.
Gary: We're the hosts of the "Answering The Call" podcast.
Joe: And this is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call.
Gary: Today our guest is a well-known apologist, Gary Habermas. He also is a visiting professor here at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Joe: Yes. Which is news, cause he's just recently started. And I just found out that he ... So he teaches ... He's a professor at Liberty, and he does only PHDs. And-
Gary: So you can take a master's level class from Gary Habermas here.
Joe: And here. That's right. So, the only place you can take a class from Gary Habermas and not be in a PHD is NOBTS, which is a completely shameless plug on our part.
Gary: That's exciting.
Joe: I'm shameless. So, anyway, in our podcast today, he talks about something very interesting for apologetics. He talks about where doubt and apologetics intersect. And it's interesting for a few reasons. Number one, apologetics is not normally known for that, but number two, he has been through a lot of doubt himself. His wife passed away, and so he had to, for a good chunk of his kids' growing up, he had to raise them, and just all the difficulty that came with that.
Joe: So this was a really interesting interview that I'm excited about.
Gary: Yeah. He has a powerful testimony. He's not only a great apologist, but he has a dynamic testimony for Christ.
Joe: Yeah.
Gary: Let's hear from Gary.
Joe: Sounds good.
Marilyn Stewart: Gary, you have been with us this weekend, Defend, and it's been great. And you are known as probably the best resurrection scholar there is today. You've done a lot of research, written a lot on that. You've also written about doubt, why Christians doubt, and what we can do about it.
Gary Habermas: So we wanna get to that later, but I want to begin with the resurrection chapter. 1 Corinthians 15, and the first time I heard you tell this as evidence for the resurrection a few years ago, it was revolutionary to me. And in particular, the dating of this creed in 1 Corinthians 15. So I want you to talk about that a little bit, and in verses three and four, there is what we call a creed. And it does say that Jesus was buried, that He was raised on the third day, according ... that He was ... that He died for our sins, was buried, and raised on the third day according to scriptures.
Marilyn: So talk to us about that. Tell us what it means.
Gary Habermas: Those two verses, three and four, well, let me back up. Before he gives the creed, he says, "When I came to you Corinthians, I presented the Gospel." Now, if someone says to me, what's God's side of the gospel? Ours is the, "I do." The "Are you gonna do or not do?" But God's side is minimum. DD, death, resurrection of Jesus.
Gary Habermas: So after saying to them, I presented the Gospel to you, and what you did with it basically determines where you spend eternity, 'cause that was the message of Jesus, the central message. Paul illustrates number one, and he says it's number one, because in verse three, he says, "I delivered unto you that which I also received as of first importance." Now, you could translate that real first point. But the Greek commentators think what he's saying is, this is the most important, central thing I can tell you. I've given to you, that which is of first importance, that Christ, and notice the title is used, rather than Jesus, died for our sins according to scriptures, buried, rose again the third day, according to scriptures, and then appeared. And the appearance is a part of the creed, too.
Marilyn: Yes.
Gary Habermas: The creed ... There may be more than one creed here. There's some people who think he attached a couple appearance traditions together, but at the very least, there are five appearances to which he attaches his at the end, making six. So, and in that five, it's very, very important apologetically, there's three to individuals, and you couldn't find any more ... I mean the names are huge.
Marilyn: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Peter.
Gary Habermas: There's Peter.
Marilyn: He says Cephas, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gary Habermas: Right, Cephas, and that's a pointer, by the way, to it being really early.
Marilyn: Oh, yes.
Gary Habermas: Because of Cephas.
Marilyn: Yes.
Gary Habermas: Yeah. It's-
Marilyn: Tell why. Why is that?
Gary Habermas: Well because he's using his Hebrew name as opposed to his, I don't want to say nickname, but you know, he's using Cephas. And I believe he's called that in Galatians 1, too, which is also important, when he goes back and gets this message, which is when scholars think he got this.
Marilyn: Yes.
Gary Habermas: There's Peter there. There's James. Of course it's being told to Paul, and he adds his name at the end, and there's three groups. A group called "the twelve," "the five hundred," and a group called "all the apostles," which is almost always taken to mean a group larger than the twelve, but that apostle is geared ... Well Acts 1 is defined by who's with the risen Jesus. So we are there. We are in the middle of it. This is, as Paul says, of first importance.
Gary Habermas: Now if you add the name John, who's not in the creed, but if you had John, you would have the four most influential Christians who ever lived in the early church, and here's what's interesting about that. You have Paul, James, the pastor of Jerusalem, Peter, the chief apostle. When Paul goes to Jerusalem, and most people believe he received it in Galatians 1, just a few years after the cross. He goes back 14 years later in Galatians 2, and John is there.
Marilyn: Yes.
Gary Habermas: So the big four are there.
Marilyn: They're all included.
Gary Habermas: Three in the creed, and John's added. And when Paul says in Galatians ... Don't wanna get ahead of us, here, but when Paul says, "I set before them the Gospel I was preaching to see if I was running in vain." Again, we're on this primary topic. He says five words in English: "They added nothing to me." They added nothing to me, which means, we're on the same page. Which of course is what Paul says at the end of the creed, 1 Corinthians 15:11, he says, "Whether it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believe. So if you don't want to get it from me, I don't care. Go talk to Peter. Go talk to John. You're not gonna hear a different message."
Marilyn: Now one thing we might oughta do is explain what a creed was and how it was used.
Gary Habermas: Yeah. In the new testament ... This is earth shaking. I really think it's evangelical priest's oppositions that keep us from seeing this, 'cause the liberals came up with this argument first.
Marilyn: I was there.
Gary Habermas: I shouldn't say liberals. Don't take derogatorily, but critical scholars.
Marilyn: Sure.
Gary Habermas: And in the New Testament, there are dozens of credal texts. You go well, that's kind of subjective, how would you know? Well, sometimes the author, usually Paul, but sometimes the author says so. Twice Paul says 1 Corinthians 11, the communion passage, 1 Corinthians 15, "I deliver unto you that which I also receive." The communion passage he says, "Jesus is Christ" in this one. In 1 Corinthians 11, that which I also receive from the Lord.
Gary Habermas: Then in other passages, especially the pastorals, which critics have an issue with, but evangelicals don't. In the pastorals, Paul says things like, "Observe the traditions of the elders," or "Here is a trustworthy saying." Over and over again. "Here is a trustworthy saying." I told my students that is the first century way to make a footnote. Because in your translations, it's starting to come out this way now, in the modern translations. These things are set off in verse. Like Philippians 2, Christological Hymn, that's probably the best known one that's set off in verse. And now they're starting to do it with the other ones.
Marilyn: That's great.
Gary Habermas: So here's the definition of a creed. These were little snippets, little one liners that were taught to a mostly, up to maybe as high as 90% illiterate audience. How do you teach somebody something when they can't write their own name? So when I'm lecturing, I'll say, "Okay. Here's a secular example. Jack and Jill went up the hill-"
Marilyn: And everybody can repeat it.
Gary Habermas: ... And the crowd says, "to fetch a pail of water." Alright, here's a religious example. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, 'cause that might be what Philippians 2 is, a hymn. And they go, "Oh. Cool." Okay Jack and Jill, or Amazing Grace. Can you teach a five year old? Sure. Can they write their name? No. But they can learn that. Yes. We saw it in our play last week. Okay, that's how they spread the word in the early church with illiterate people, and that's how the word spread for the first 20 years before the first new testament book was written. It's really an exciting study.
Marilyn: It is, and I think this is what impressed me so, besides the timing, which we're gonna get to. But in this little creed, it does include that He died for our sins, according to scripture, was buried ... Each one of those. The fact that he was buried, because of course there are those that have tried to say, "He just ... His body was eaten by dogs or thrown in the ditch." And so each one is just so powerful. And then raised on third day again, according to scripture. So it is ... It's powerful. Everything about this chapter is powerful.
Marilyn: Now the thing I remember most is when you gave us a time when that creed was probably being used. They met for worship, and by this point in time they were probably repeating it. So, talk about the timing, the date.
Gary Habermas: Yeah, and you know what? This is not just an evangelical thing. You could find critics who are gonna say what I'm gonna say next. And that is, they will say that when Paul meets Jesus on the road to Damascus, a number of these creeds were already in existence. So they are called pre-Pauline. Pre-Pauline means they are dated somewhere between the cross and Paul's conversion. So that again is like, whoa. Then you think, wait a minute. A huge implication of that. Critics used to, old days, not so much anymore, used to say, Jesus was a first-century Palestinian carpenter, nice guy. Paul was the one who founded Christianity. Paul's the cultist.
Gary Habermas: Well, how could Paul be the cultist if all these credal passages predate Paul?
Marilyn: Absolutely.
Gary Habermas: And 80% of the credal passages are on the gospel of the deity, death, and resurrection of Jesus. So the gospel-
Marilyn: 80%.
Gary Habermas: ... Was laid out before Paul was ever converted, so Paul could not have been the founder of the creeds.
Marilyn: Have you written a book on this?
Gary Habermas: No. I've written parts of books.
Marilyn: Okay.
Gary Habermas: But I just ... My teaching assistant Bill, I mean, just edited and republished the best known book on the creeds, which was by a famous German, well actually French-German theologian, Oscar Coleman, and it's called "The Earliest Christian Confessions." And many people think it's still the best thing ever written. It's only like 65 pages. And he lays out the creeds. There are different kinds. There are baptismal creeds you say when you go down to the water, there are things in preaching, there are type of hymns, they are doxologies you can say when you do blessing. There's all kinds. Then he started unpacking these, and it's a classic book. But it's been out of print for a long time and very expensive, so we got it reprinted.
Marilyn: Oh, excellent. Excellent.
Gary Habermas: So, yeah, it is exciting.
Marilyn: Going back to the date, so if its pre-Pauline, then we're talking about within three years of Jesus dying on the cross.
Gary Habermas: That's right.
Marilyn: Is that correct? Three years? There just is nothing like this in our ancient manuscripts. The gospels are unique, and the letters that Paul wrote are unique, 'cause they're pretty close. But-
Gary Habermas: They're 20. 20 plus.
Marilyn: Yes.
Gary Habermas: But they predate the gospels, and in the gospels, a genre. Now, there is a move right now to agnostics who think that Mark was probably written ... Well, one, in his doctoral dissertation ... He's an agnostic. He dates Mark 38 to 42. So there is a move to get some gospels back, but for the most part, everybody puts Paul before.
Gary Habermas: Now there's creeds in other books, very well known ones, but for example, there's a pretty strong belief today that in the book of Acts, there are a number of what they call sermon summaries, and the little snippets, not the whole sermon that Peter gives here or there or Paul, but little snippets read in a ... fashion, that you could block off as quote. And so there are other passages too, but I think Paul does most of them because by the time the Gospels and Acts are written, it was already pretty common knowledge.
Gary Habermas: Paul was sort of breaking the ice. He was sort of the ice breaker for the preaching. And he gets it out there by leading with the words of the elders first.
Marilyn: Interesting. Now without ... I don't want to just take this to where we beat it to death, but I'm very interested in how a creed develops. And I can picture a small group of people meeting. They don't have a church building. They're in a house. And they just begin to remind each other. They're talking about this. What does this mean? It's very early after the cross and the resurrection. How do creeds develop?
Gary Habermas: Well first of all, everything you just said plus throw in illiteracy, and if they're going to get it, they can't even write down the creed and pass it on because they can't write. So, you teach them, and what sets the creeds apart? You have to be really, really, good in the Greek. And I'm not. I mean, I minored in it in school, but that's not good enough.
Gary Habermas: The text often has a ... Hebrew poetry is not like English, but it often has a staccato kind of ... And there's a pretty wide feeling that that creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3 to following, that there are two stanzas. It breaks off very nicely in two stanzas, and then verse eight, "Last of all, He appeared to me." Paul is more or less appending his own experience to it.
Gary Habermas: So they had to teach it in some kind of fashion ... Secular example. If you're gonna teach "Jack and Jill" ... Religious example. If you're gonna teach "Amazing Grace," it has to be so the kids can remember it next week when they're in the classroom or when they're at home. And so it becomes a teaching device, or even a mnemonic kind of device.
Marilyn: So it's teaching. Do you think it also could just develop? I mean I can almost picture the earliest Christians going, as they discuss what they've seen, what they've witnessed, as eye witnesses, and just going, "Wow. It's according to scripture." You know He ... All these different things. So maybe even from the members themselves, rather than the apostles. Could it develop that way?
Gary Habermas: Sometimes in writings, things are immortalized because they're so catchy. I mean, I think of C.S. Lewis, for example, who's given to a lot of these. But how about his comment in his autobiography, something like, "And then I came into the kingdom, kicking and screaming, the most reluctant convert in all of England." You hear that once or twice ... Or "Pain is God's megaphone."
Marilyn: Right. Right.
Gary Habermas: You hear phrases like that, it's like, "Whoa, that ministered to me." Well if it ministers to me, I'm gonna memorize it, 'cause I figure it's gonna minister to you.
Marilyn: Right. Right. And it may not even be that the author at the time said, "I'm gonna write something that they're gonna repeat for the rest of human history-"
Gary Habermas: Oh, sure.
Marilyn: ... But it just resonates and fits. And interesting.
Gary Habermas: Well, cosmology had not ... Is a very heavy subject, but you can download it for ... C.S. Lewis had a one liner. If there ever was a time when nothing existed, nothing would exist now. Whoa, that's easy. Well, when you're looking for something, instead of, "I can't explain that argument. That's so and so." But you got a little one liner like that, that stops a guy in his tracks. So, I think we judge by one liners, mostly on the Gospel, but 80% of the creeds are Gospel. A few of them are other things. You know, how we minister the church, maybe some non-Gospel things about Jesus ... So I think clearly what rose up was what was of central importance in the earliest church.
Marilyn: Absolutely. Well we've always talked about this as a resurrection chapter because Paul goes on to say, "If the resurrection didn't happen, you need to pity Christians." We have nothing to go on. This is it. Everything hangs on the resurrection. And you mentioned last night, and I just want to give you a chance to speak about this, about how the resurrection should give us peace and joy as we're facing death and the loss of loved ones.
Gary Habermas: Yeah, and that's the practical side. If we come in with the truth, how should we lead with it, and I think things like the creeds, and I think things like ... We mentioned doing others' thinking for them. Sometimes parents say, "Now remember, honey. I've told you before. When this things, situation, happens, here's what you should do when this happens in school. Or be careful of this."
Gary Habermas: They are teaching moments, and I think the resurrection, being the sort of thing ... Here's a great example. Paul says, in Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians, he says, "We grieve, but not like those without hope." There's a great little phrase at the end. Yep, we're gonna grieve. And you go, "Duh. I just lost my Dad, you know?" But not as those without hope because grieving with the hope of heaven is a world of difference than grieving without the hope of heaven.
Gary Habermas: So those are the teaching moments where the truth can come in and say, "Have you ever thought about the whole world that resurrection opens? It's called heaven." Or a phrase like, "For 40 days and nights, Jesus appeared to his disciples, and during that time, they say walking, talking, eternal life." Jesus embodied eternal life. Jesus embodied heaven. Those kind of thoughts, that's closest you'll come to heaven. I think they're very powerful-
Marilyn: I think so too.
Gary Habermas: ... When we're going through tough times.
Marilyn: Wow, that is ... And this is something you know about and have written about. You have several books that deal with grief, doubt, all these different things that are real life experiences. So I won't go into your personal experience. I'll let people buy your books, Gary Habermas, and look that up. But this takes us then to something that Christians always deal with. We do grieve, but we also face anxiety and depression. And this is something else you've written a lot about. You've talked to hundreds of people who have contacted you, but the question is ... You've mentioned that we allow bad thoughts to kind of direct us, but how do we ... What do we do? What are the practical steps in facing depression, anxiety, or doubt?
Gary Habermas: How to get out of it, right?
Marilyn: How to get out of it.
Gary Habermas: You reverse what you're saying and substitute truth for the lie. Example I used today was Romans 1:25, after a long catalog of sins, Paul says, "What characterizes all of them is these folks loved and believed a lie," 1:25. Twelve one and two, he says, "But you're not part of them. You ought to think differently, so I beseech you to change," and in verse two, I used to ask, "Okay, great. But how do we do it?"
Gary Habermas: Verse two B, 12:2B says, "By changing the way you think." Or Philippians Chapter Four, he says, "Be anxious for nothing." 4:6. Two verses later, he says, "Don't think of these anxiety-causing thoughts. Substitute God's truth. And we think of it maybe as a goody-two-shoes verse, and different translations use different words. Whatever is this, whatever is this, whatever is of good report, and he ends with, "Whatever is excellent or praise worthy, think." And some of the modern translations say, "Meditate," to think deeply and single-mindedly on these things.
Gary Habermas: Paul's saying take your anxiety of verse six. Be anxious for nothing. He's already said, "Stop it." And he said, "Put in its place God's truth that will transform your thinking." Then he says in the next verse, verse nine, "Those things you have seen in me, do them." In the Greek, it's "Continue to practice." So I call verse nine "Practice, practice, practice."
Gary Habermas: So, Paul has given a remedy there. Stop doing what you're doing. Now in between, he also says praise. So, stop doing what you're doing. Pray, and give it to the Lord. Praise. Change your thinking, and for crying out loud, do it every time you need it. So he's got a remedy right there. And those things are repeated many times in Psalms, Proverbs, Ephesians, other places.
Marilyn: So it is a matter of thinking, meditating on the bible scripture, and that's a good help.
Gary Habermas: And practicing. Putting one foot in front ... Peter and John both say to follow Jesus ... Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll obey." They both say, "Walk in his steps." So, you put one foot in front of another is how you get a quarter mile, a half a mile, a mile. You have to start, and you have to make progress.
Marilyn: But in talking to people who are going through tough times, often times they say, "I just can't pray. I can't read the bible right now." What do you say to them?
Gary Habermas: That's where if it's a husband, or wife, or child, someone that you live with them ... Because you would hear things that other people wouldn't hear. You'd step in and say, "Look, forgive the sermon, but you're in pain right now, and you asked me to help. Let me ask you a question. Give me those once again."
Gary Habermas: "Well, I can't pray right now."
Gary Habermas: "Do you think that's true, or do you think that's false?"
Gary Habermas: "Well, now that I've said it, I'm kind of embarrassed. So I think ... Well it's true, 'cause I can't pray."
Gary Habermas: "Really? Okay. Let's just pray together here. Now did you pray or not pray?"
Gary Habermas: "Alright, I prayed."
Gary Habermas: "What do you have to do? It's like saying 'I don't wanna go play my instrument,' but it's not gonna get played unless I sit down and start ... You start doing it. So, are you really saying you can't pray?"
Gary Habermas: "No, I'm saying I don't feel-"
Gary Habermas: Bingo. You don't feel like praying. That's precisely why you practice it now. Because if you don't use a limb, learned the old saying in therapy, use it or lose it. It's like that in mental health, and it's like that in spiritual health, too.
Marilyn: I think that's very good advice. Feelings are just so difficult to deal with. Emotions are difficult, but you're saying take it one step at a time, day by day, hour by hour, and simply go to the Lord in prayer, and that's a way to practice, practice, practice.
Gary Habermas: Yeah, and the teaching, didactic passages, like Colossians 3:2, "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things," well that's like a teaching. And you're probably in pretty good shape when you read the verse. But in John 11, Jesus is using the same truth with the two sisters when Lazarus dies. And he gives them a theology exam, and they pass the theology exam. Yeah, we'll see him some day at the end of time, but what about it right now?
Gary Habermas: And Jesus says, "He who lives and believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." So I have two messages for you. You'll be with him at the end of time, but does it help you to think that your brother is currently alive? Does that make you feel better? He's not moldering in a Palestinian tomb. He is currently alive.
Gary Habermas: And I made the comment last night ... When my wife died, it was actually her sister who's aid this to me. She said, "You know, I miss Deb." She said, "I miss Deb a lot." But she said, "It helps me to think she will never get sick again. It'll never be cold. It'll never be too hot. She's fine. And the blessing the Lord's given her ... He's compensating for the loss of her children and husband. She's in the best possible place she could be." So, I started telling my children ... Now, this is a side. I don't mean to get into it, but just to mention how we can get illustrations. Next to the resurrection, I've probably done the most work on near death experiences.
Marilyn: That's true, yes.
Gary Habermas: And when you talk to people who claim to have crossed over ... They claim that. Who knows? But it's a testimony. I used their testimonies, after studying hundreds of them, and I told my children ... After their mom died, the youngest was only nine, and I said, "Guys, I wanna tell you something. You can weep for your mom ... " Sorry, I said it the wrong way. I said, "You can weep for yourself, but don't weep for your mom, 'cause A, she's fine, and B, this is true, she wouldn't come back even if she had the opportunity." And then it was like, "Really?"
Gary Habermas: "Yeah."
Gary Habermas: "Well, Dad, I'm gonna miss Mom, but if Mom's happy-"
Marilyn: Then that's okay.
Gary Habermas: ... "I can handle it." Yeah, I had a situation speaking to a group of Christian medical doctors one time, a medical group. And I was talking about near death experiences, one of many lectures. And a woman there ... Her husband was a physician, surgeon, and she raised her hand. I did not know. This was unexpected. And she raised her hand, she goes, "I've been to heaven." And the doctors in the room went ... It's one thing to say that ... I mean it's one thing to be there, it's another thing to claim that. You're a physician's wife.
Marilyn: Sure.
Gary Habermas: You know, act like it. One of them was actually saying that. And I said, "Okay. What child was this?" She said she was in childbirth. "What child?"
Gary Habermas: "Number three."
Gary Habermas: I said, "I've been lead to believe that the strongest biological tie in the universe is between a mother and her child."
Gary Habermas: She goes, "I'd agree."
Gary Habermas: I said, "Okay, tell me something. Have you seen your third baby yet?"
Gary Habermas: "I have not."
Gary Habermas: "You're in your death experience?"
Gary Habermas: "Yes."
Gary Habermas: "Okay, let me ask you something, in front of all these physicians. Did you want to return?"
Gary Habermas: And she realized the implications, and she goes, "No."
Marilyn: Is that right?
Gary Habermas: "I did not want to come back."
Gary Habermas: So I teased a little bit, and I said, "You wouldn't want to come back to see your newborn?"
Gary Habermas: And she elbows her husband, and she playfully says, "He can take care of the kids." But she did not want to return. Now, Philippians 1, 21 and 23. "I prefer to die and be with the Lord, which is better by far." I think that's what we're talking about, and to me that's a teaching moment.
Gary Habermas: It's like, here's the resurrection, but if the resurrection secures heaven, and we really believe that, I can be sorrowful when my wife died, but don't you dare be sorrowful for your wife because she's saying, if she could see you, she's probably joking with me, going, "I'm gonna come haunt you." 'Cause she used to say that to me. "I'm gonna come haunt you. I'm not gonna let you forget this." But when she's more serious, I can just hear her saying it, "I am fine, okay? I am fine. Worry about yourself, but don't worry about me."
Gary Habermas: I think that releases me from that kind of anxiety and that kind of depression. And that kind of freed me up. You go, well, everybody has that right, 'cause everybody has near death experiences. Now we're back to Paul, we grieve, but not as those without hope.
Gary Habermas: It's because of the resurrection that we can do that.
Marilyn: Now, I do want to kind of play devil's advocate here.
Gary Habermas: Sure.
Marilyn: Okay, you are an adult, though, so you're saying this helped your children as well, perhaps not only just seeing you show that attitude, but as they thought about it, it helped them?
Gary Habermas: I teased. I walked through the room, and my daughter might say ... And I have a daughter on the mission field, and the other one's a nurse. But they would say, "Dad, do you mind if I go over here tonight, or can I do this?" And it was something that wasn't really bad, but most parents would say, "I'd really rather not have you get involved with that."
Gary Habermas: "Well, come on, Dad, I'm a big girl. I know what I'm doing. I'm 17. I can handle myself." And I would look up to the ceiling, and I would go "Deb. Tell her something, will you?" And everybody'd start laughing. So, I would use this humor to basically say, "Don't know where Mom is, but she's fine." And the kids all responded to that. We didn't make light of it, or laugh, or cut up, but when I would go, "Hey, can you help me with this one? There used to be two of us, okay? The least you can do is have some input, you know?" And I made it short and sweet, and everybody would laugh, and they relaxed, 'cause first of all, that was her personality, and secondly, I knew she was fine.
Gary Habermas: We would mix all those sorts of things, and I think they got very easy with it, but when I said to them, "Don't weep for your Mom," I think they realized that took the biggest sting out of it.
Marilyn: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now, but that still doesn't take all the sting out because-
Gary Habermas: No, no it doesn't.
Marilyn: ... They've got ... And you had to face, like you mentioned last night, doing the laundry, getting the kids to school, through all their activities, plus all your writing deadlines and teaching.
Gary Habermas: Teaching.
Marilyn: And people have trouble with that. And they go, why did God ... I needed this mother, this wife, this husband, whoever it is. What about that?
Gary Habermas: I would say keep doing ... This, what we're talking about ... Think it out, all the way out. Who is God? Well, God ... Let me remember my theology. God is all the omnies. Okay. Can God break promises? Well, sometimes ... Can God break promises? No. Not just he won't, he can't. Am I right? Can God be un-God? No. You're kind of destroying my argument, here. No, what I'm doing is taking away your feelings, which you wanna harbor, which you have no basis for. So, God can't break that promise. No. Can God let you down? Well yeah, because his will is not mine. I understand that, but can God dog you? No. Can God be other than God? No.
Gary Habermas: But, as I said today, are his ways also above ours? Yes. So, if we dare to let him be God, I mean, we do wanna let him be God, right, honey? I was saying to my daughter. Yeah, we wanna let him be God. He's gonna be God whether we let him be God or not. Okay. So, if he's gonna be God, can we think that he has some ideas that are not like ours? Look, when you wanna go out with your friends, I don't like what you're doing. If I feel strongly enough about it, I'm gonna say something, right? 'Cause that's what a good parent does, right? Yeah.
Gary Habermas: Does God say something when we're going to do it? I guess. But do you think he's always gonna agree with you? No. Not nice when he doesn't agree, is it? No. Could you maybe learn later it was still a good choice? Yeah. And that's not a time for a half hour sermon-
Marilyn: Sure.
Gary Habermas: ... But you can get it across in two minutes.
Marilyn: Yeah. Well this is ... That really underscores how important our thinking is. And you've mentioned that many times, that it's important to think correctly, to get your theology straight, to use your theology-
Gary Habermas: To use it.
Marilyn: ... In these moments.
Gary Habermas: Apply it.
Marilyn: And it's tough. It's hard, but yet it's very important. Which also then brings me to my last set of questions, and that's about doubt. Because I've heard you say that doubt is typically not related to the facts or the evidence supporting Christian faith, but again back to those emotions, and I just want to give you a chance to speak to that.
Gary Habermas: Yeah, we think. We like to think. I'll just pick on the PHDs and the MDs in our society.
Marilyn: Please do.
Gary Habermas: How many MDs, how many psychiatrists, don't think correctly? How many PHDs know good theology, and don't apply it? Because when somebody crosses us, or when somebody how about cuts us off in traffic? We have moments where it's visceral, and the first thing that happens is emotions first, and you know what, I have to think. I don't know, I have to be real careful when I say this, but is that what went through Jesus's mind when he said my dad, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Marilyn: Sure.
Gary Habermas: Sweat drops of blood equaling high anxiety? Paul says be angry and sin not, how about be anxious and sin not? I'm not saying these moods are sinful, but they're not true. So, that's when we step in and say, "What are you getting at?" Well I wonder why God ... So you're going to guess what God should be doing? Yeah. And you know he's all the omnies? Yeah. But yet, you're gonna tell him what the omnies mean. Yeah. And you don't feel so cool when you think ... Yeah. And Jesus had to learn obedience by things he suffered. Is that in the bible? Yeah, it is. It's Hebrews 5. And Jesus was completed by his suffering. Yeah. Why do we behave like that? And I do it with my kids. I did it with my kids.
Gary Habermas: My youngest ... Well, my oldest daughter, but my second oldest child, is a nurse now. And she does it with her kids. But she went through a time when she was so scared at age 10, she wouldn't go to bed by herself. And we applied of this correct thinking thing. And it's just a silly example, but she would lie down in the doorway, and about the upper half of her head would be out in the hallway. She was at the end of the hallway, her bedroom. And I'd have to ... Every 15 minutes, I'd look down the hallway, and I'd say, "I love you." And she'd smile, and sometimes she was just dozing off, I'd say, "I love you," or, "Have the burglars gotten you yet?" And after about two months of doing that ... See, I was changing her thinking. See, we can be the surrogate frontal lobes for people who aren't very good frontal lobe thinkers.
Marilyn: Well, before you say that, I mean, this is really good, Gary, because I feel like this is what scripture promises that God does, that he's with us in these really tough times. Psalm 34:18, "God is near the broken hearted. He saves those who are crushed in spirit." I mean, I think that's a very important point, too.
Gary Habermas: You know what, you could go ... You just started me on something, here. You could find some verses, I'm sure, where God corrects our thinking, and says, "Not this, but this."
Marilyn: And it's maybe not an explanation, but just that what you said to your daughter. "I love you." I think that's-
Gary Habermas: Which he does say, over and over again. He also says, "I could never leave you or forsake you."
Marilyn: Yes.
Gary Habermas: He also says, oftentimes, "God will never break his promises." Well, it's more than that. He can't break his promises.
Marilyn: He cannot.
Gary Habermas: He could-
Marilyn: Cannot lie.
Gary Habermas: Seminary guys, they have to think the sentence through. God wouldn't break his promises, even if he wanted to, which he doesn't. Okay, I agree. Then why don't you say that when you're going through a rough time? And if someone's real honest, when they think about it, they'll go, "Because I kinda like my sad emotions. It gives me an excuse." Yeah, your feelings do, but your theology doesn't.
Marilyn: Oh, that's-
Gary Habermas: So what's right?
Marilyn: That's powerful.
Gary Habermas: Your theology, or your emotions?
Marilyn: That's powerful. Now, you were mentioning that we do need people to walk along beside us, surrogate?
Gary Habermas: That's my psychologist buddy, Gary Sibcy, clinical psychologist, who says, "Sometimes, we have to be each other's surrogate frontal lobe." Where you do some of your most serious thinking. Like when I first married Eileen, she moves into this family, and I have four kids at home. And somebody would yell out in the other room. Something just happened, and they're on the phone, or they're just goofing around. And my oldest son was prone to do this, and he would go, "I am so angry right now. If he does this one more time, I'm going to ..." And maybe he'd use a word that wasn't like a cuss word, or out of bounds, but it was kind of a strong word. And Eileen would be cooking dinner, and she would yell in there, and she'd go, "Rob!" Do I ... And she wouldn't even look around the corner. She'd just go, "Rob! Do I hear you saying you're bothered right now?"
Gary Habermas: "Yeah, I'm blank, blank. I'm really bothered."
Gary Habermas: "Oh, I thought I heard you right. Yeah, I did think I heard you say you were bothered. Yeah, okay." So what she's telling them is, use a different word. Or don't use the kind of word that you feel really cool using it, but what it does is double the fire power, and it makes you really angry. You're saying, "Calm down a little bit," but all you said was, "Oh, are you bothered?" And after a while, everybody would start laughing. All right, Eileen. And you'd hear from the other room, "All right, Eileen." Or one night at the dinner table, we were all eating, and she said to one of my children, she goes, "That's a fork. It's not a shovel." But I looked down, and I was holding my fork like this, and I changed it around real fast.
Marilyn: She-
Gary Habermas: So, what I mean is there's teaching moments, but they're really simple, and you didn't intrude. You didn't say anything horrible. It was funny. "I can hear you're bothered. I get the point." And it just ... It makes people just ... So there's way to tamp down things and diffuse situations.
Marilyn: She did a good job. She sounds like a very wise woman, but yes, we do need those people in our lives to do that, to kind of help us keep control of emotion and walk ahead.
Gary Habermas: But spouses, and parents, and children, they're in the best position to do it because we will let that show around the house when we never say it in the classroom, in the church.
Marilyn: Sure. Oh, yeah.
Gary Habermas: You know?
Marilyn: They see the real us, don't they?
Gary Habermas: And they hear it.
Marilyn: Yeah.
Gary Habermas: Like what if, what if, what if, and I go, wow, that's me. I'm what if-ing again.
Marilyn: Yeah. And you know, that's what we do. We can get very anxious when we think about what if. Well you don't Gary the ... When I first met you years ago, and I began to hear about that you were a resurrection scholar, and then you wrote about doubt and grief, I thought, how do those ... Those don't go together. They seemed at first to not fit. But when I started hearing you speak, it became very clear. These go very well together.
Gary Habermas: If this, then this.
Marilyn: Yes. Because of the resurrection, we can think differently, and a lot of our doubt and anxiety can ... We can deal with it when we think differently. So this is ... I just appreciate all the work you've done-
Gary Habermas: Thanks.
Marilyn: ... And all the contributions you've made. And I'll give you a chance to say any last thing that you would like.
Gary Habermas: No, I don't have anything else to say, but when you said that, I did think of the verse again in Paul, we brought up several times. We grieve, but not as those without hope. So the add on that we have is ... You go, well, where's the bridge between resurrection and grief? The bridge is if Jesus was raised, Mom's doing fine right now.
Marilyn: Yes.
Gary Habermas: Or Philippians 1. I'd prefer to die and be with Christ. Oh, then Mom's okay. Yeah, mom's fine. And I'll be with her one day. Yep, that's the women in, with Lazarus in John 11. Yep. Wow. Okay. Well, I'm still sad. You can be sad. But now I know Mom's having a good time. Exactly.
Marilyn: And you can-
Gary Habermas: And that's a real lesson.
Marilyn: That is. And then you can get through those details of life where you're left behind knowing God is with you.
Gary Habermas: And some day ... I tell people ... I ended last night by saying, I don't know why she died. I didn't know then.
Marilyn: That's a good point.
Gary Habermas: But about the time she died, I think before she even died, I realized it wouldn't make a bit of difference if I know why she did. I think I'm better off not knowing, 'cause I'd wanna argue.
Marilyn: Sure.
Gary Habermas: That's me.
Marilyn: Sure.
Gary Habermas: So, I don't know, but that's not the important thing. Knowing why is silly. Knowing why doesn't change anything. She's still in heaven with the Lord. She's still happy. She's still okay. This is still God's universe. Remember the song, "This is My Father's World?"
Marilyn: Yes.
Gary Habermas: I love the verse, "And though the wrong seems off so strong, God is the ruler yet." So, I don't know why, but I can ask myself ... You talk about these little pithy truths again. I could ask myself, "Who died and left you the king of the universe?" Oh, yeah, that's funny. It's funny? Okay. Well then it teaches something, so quit doing it. Get yourself off the throne. And so sometimes those little, tiny-
Marilyn: Reminders.
Gary Habermas: And one place, and we're full of them, but it must be the same way in the early church, you know? We don't grieve with, as those without hope. Or put your mind on things above non-earthly things. Quit, stop thinking like this.
Marilyn: Those are great thoughts, and we just really appreciate it so much.
Gary Habermas: Oh, thanks.
Marilyn: And your books are great. Thank you.
Gary Habermas: Oh, well thank you very much, Marilyn, I have enjoyed it, enjoyed chatting with you. I hope it's in some small way applicable. You know what though? That old saying where when I point to you, the thumb comes back to me. I'm reminding myself the whole time.
Marilyn: Yes. Thanks so much.
Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers.
Joe Fontenot: And I'm Joe Fontenot.
Gary: We're the host of the Answering the Call Podcast.
Joe: This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call.
Gary: It's a real treat today to have Frank Turek, the Apologist.
Joe: Frank is a nationally-known name. He was one of the speakers at our recent Defend Apologetics Conference so this is the first in a series of podcast that were filmed or recorded rather at the conference. And so he's going to talk about the philosophical breaking point of atheistic arguments.
Gary: He's very good at this, and I caught his lecture at Defend. It was wonderful.
Joe: It was, and I got to sit in on the podcast that Marilyn actually interviewed him, and it was solid.
Gary: Let's hear from Frank.
Joe: Let's do it.
Marilyn Stewart: I'm just kind of go through some of these and see if they're okay with you.
Frank Turek: No, you can just ask them, don't worry about it. Let's just do it.
Marilyn: Okay. Well I really planned on two, but I'm sure we can go... I might interrupt,
Frank: You can interrupt me. Whatever. Just have a conversation.
Marilyn: Alright, sounds great.
Frank: I'm I close enough to this?
Producer: You're good.
Frank: It's Mardi Gras, let's throw beeds.
Marilyn: You can't make me laugh too much-
Frank: Why not?
Marilyn: I was in tears there a couple of times. Okay, are we ready?
Producer: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Marilyn: Frank we are glad to have you on campus with us this week for defend, and you've given us a lot to think about, but I wanted to address atheism for moment, and your book I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist with a Dr.Geisler-
Frank: Dr.Geisler, that's right.
Marilyn: We have heard pretty often that many atheists are atheists because of some trauma or emotion that they emotionally reject Christianity. And you made the statement that many of them are on a happiness quest, not a truth quest.
Marilyn: And you said the only way to find happiness is straight through the truth. I wanted to give you chance to talk about that. I thought that was very interesting, how can we use that as we were talking to atheist?
Frank: Well, I think when you're talking to somebody, if they're not a Christian, you might want to ask them, why are you not a Christian? And a lot of times you're going to hear responses that don't strike at the heart of Christianity. Like for example, they might say, well, there's too much evil in the world. Well, that doesn't mean Christianity is false.
Frank: The entire reason Christianity exists is to resolve the problem of evil. That's why Christ came to take evil upon himself so we could be reconciled to him. Or an atheist might say, "Well, evolution is true." Say for example, even if it's true, it doesn't mean Christianity is false, right?
Marilyn: Right.
Frank: It'll give us problems with biblical inerrancy and the Old Testament but doesn't mean it Christianity's false, doesn't mean God doesn't exist. In fact, even if evolution is true, you need God, why? Because you need a being to create the universe set up the universe, set up the laws of nature that if evolution is true, drive evolution.
Frank: So even if it were true, you don't get rid of the need for Christianity. I very rarely hear people say, "The reason I'm not a Christian, because I think there's a better explanation then the resurrection for the evidence that we have." Whoever says that hardly anybody. I think you should ask them why you're not a Christian first.
Frank: Then I normally ask them and I do this a lot on college campuses where atheists come to I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist presentation, I'll ask them, "If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?" And many of them will be honest and say, "No." They don't want it to be true, they don't want there to be a god. Why? They want to be God, they want to be god of their own lives. Hey, half the time I do too, don't you?
Marilyn: Sure.
Frank: It's natural you don't want God to exist. I don't know if it was Nietzsche or Russell or one of those old atheist who said, "The biggest problem I have with God is I'm not him." Right?
Marilyn: Says it all right there didn't it?
Frank: No, I can't say this is true of all atheists don't get me wrong. I'm just saying, many of the ones I run into they admit it's a volitional problem, It's a moral problem, It's an emotional problem It's not an intellectual problem, It's not like there's not enough evidence out there. And I think God has given us enough evidence to know that Christianity is true, but He's also left enough ambiguity that if you want to go your own way-
Marilyn: You can make that choice.
Frank: He is not compelling you to follow him. In fact, that's what hell is, it's separation from God. He doesn't compel you to follow him, He separates himself from you.
Marilyn: So, we can give the evidence, some may not accepted.
Frank: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Marilyn: But it's a matter of addressing the head as well as the heart.
Frank: Yes.
Marilyn: Unpack that a little bit more about if you're talking to an atheist, and you understand that there's a lot of anger there, a lot of hurt. Do you have any other specific pointers about dealing with that?
Frank: Turn or burn doesn't work.
Marilyn: Right, Yes.
Frank: So that's not going help, no. I think you just got to love the person and maybe not even talk about Christianity at that point because if they have a visceral reaction to it, it's not helpful to bring it up.
Frank: But I can almost guarantee you this, if you love that person enough at some point something's going to happen in that person's life and your phone's going to ring and that person is going to be on the other end because when something happens, they're not going to call they're atheist, buddy-
Marilyn: That's exactly right.
Frank: Atheist buddy is going to say, "Well, these things happen where there's no rhyme or reason, we just dance to our DNA, there's no purpose to life, fuck up." No. You'll be one that can then at that point say, "Well, there's a reason for this and Christ came to ultimately take our pain and suffering away and you can have that taken away and your sins forgiven by trusting in him."
Marilyn: It was a powerful story that you told a few minutes ago, a true story about a Christian who did the unthinkable and at least he claimed to be a Christian and abused a little child. It does just make us angry at this person who did such a thing.
Marilyn: It makes us wonder like they do, why did God allow this one thing to happen? We need help us Christians understanding that one horrible thing to a child and then we also need to help those who are rejecting Christ because of that action. Do you have anything you'd like to say more to that?
Frank: Well, see there's always two answers to the problem of evil. There's the philosophical answer and then there's the pastoral answer and since I'm from New Jersey, I don't have the pastoral answer. There are people way better than me at compassion and reading people well and really comforting them.
Frank: I give the more philosophical answer, I tell people when I ... Yesterday we had a breakout session If God were evil basically. I pointed out that the answers I'm going to give, if you're going through difficulty are probably not going to resonate, they may annoy you.
Frank: But I think the first step toward recovery is to intellectually recognize that while you might not know what the reason for this happening is, God has a reason even if you never figure out what that is, this side of eternity.
Marilyn: Now that's very interesting because yesterday we did a podcast with Gary Habermas, and he deals with a lot of people who have doubt, who are suffering, and he says kind of the same thing.
Frank: I think the way out of suffering is some intellectual muscle that you put your theology to work, that you remind yourself of scripture that God doesn't leave us, He doesn't forsake us, that we can trust him, that He doesn't lie, that He all good.
Marilyn: It's kind of a good reminder, I think to us as Christians that we do have to think properly to understand these really difficult situations and then to help anybody else.
Frank: Right. In fact, Gary does a great job talking about cognitive therapy and Philippians 4, think on these things, the first thing you have to think about is things that are true and that's the first step out of there. But let me just say one other thing about evil Marilyn, that is it doesn't disprove God it actually shows God does exist.
Marilyn: Yes.
Frank: Because none of this would be evil unless there was good and good wouldn't exist unless God exists because God is the standard of good. If evil exists, I know it sounds kind of counterintuitive but if evil exists, God exists because God is the standard of good by which we would even know what evil was.
Frank: You can always ask the question, "Why did God allow this evil to occur?" And there are many answers to that. One of course is free will, If God interfered with us doing evil all the time, we wouldn't be free creatures at all. This wouldn't be a moral universe we'd be robots.
Marilyn: Sure.
Frank: He allows evil to take place because He can get the greater good of love by giving us free will, but He can redeem evil even if we can't see why God would possibly allow say, an awful child abuse or something like that.
Frank: We might not be able to see any good coming from it now, but it could be that ultimately God can recompense that individual, not only here but in eternity. Infact I think the writer of Hebrews talks about a better resurrection, whatever that means, it means something and about enhancing our capacity to enjoy God in heaven.
Frank: But also the idea that there's the ripple effect out there, that one event can ripple forward and does ripple forward to affect trillions of other events.
Marilyn: I tell you that heartbreaking story as you shared and I thought if nothing else, it should be a reminder to us of how serious our sin is, how that ripple effect that our sin has and that we answer to the Lord.
Marilyn: You did mention this morning that if there is no God, there is no justice because I believe if I heard correctly that she was unable, this victim was unable to really testify on the stand and so as I understand it, the man walked free.
Frank: The man's free and everyone knows he's guilty and he's never going to get justice here on earth if she doesn't testify.
Marilyn: Yes.
Frank: He'll only get justice in the afterlife if there is one.
Marilyn: So without God, there is no justice.
Frank: There is no justice, there's no standard of justice and there's no justice done because there's nobody with the authority and the knowledge and the power to make something just ultimately.
Marilyn: Now that kind of brings me to another question that I jotted down, we have also talked about Islam this week in some podcasts.
Marilyn: My question is why does it have to be a good God that is the basis for our sense morality? That every human feels this deep sense of right and wrong and why can't it be Allah? Why does it have to be a good God that really gives us that sense of morality?
Frank: Because as Muslim scholars will admit that Allah is arbitrary according to them that his nature isn't good, whatever he does is good. Kind of a mild example of that would be in the Gulf War, when the allied forces hit the Iraqis with overwhelming force, some of the Iraqis were surrendering to CNN camera crews why? Because Allah must want us to lose now it's a very fatalistic whatever Allah does is good, not is Allah good?
Frank: Now if Allah isn't good, there must be a standard beyond Allah that is in order to judge what is good and what isn't good and that standard is God's Yahweh's nature. Ultimately you have to arrive at an unchanging source of goodness and justice and righteousness and that standard is what we mean by God.
Frank: In theology, you well know here at New Orleans seminary, you know there's a difference between essentialism and voluntarism, I don't know if our podcasters may have heard this but essentialism is that goodness is grounded in God's nature. Voluntarism is that God is arbitrary and does whatever he wants regardless of any nature. Well, as Christians er are essentialists we believe that God's nature is goodness and that's where the buck stops, so to speak.
Marilyn: Interesting, now on Allah, I wonder if this goes back to the old philosophical dilemma. Is it good because Allah says it is good?
Frank: Yeah. That's called the Euthyphro dilemma that Plato brought up and it's why I should bring that up Marilyn because I get it a lot on college campuses. People will say, "Well, is God good because he does it or does he do it because God's good?"
Frank: And this is supposed to be a dilemma for the Christian who goes, "Well, look, if God does it because he's good, then he must be looking at a standard beyond him and if it's good because God doesn't think Allah is arbitrary, why you need God for good then?" Right "God's not doing anything he's looking at a standard beyond him or he's just arbitrary and making it up"
Frank: And they think it's dilemma, but it's not a dilemma, this is what's called a false dilemma. A true dilemma is A or non A.
Marilyn: Right.
Frank: This is A or B. Well maybe there's a C, In other words, maybe there's a third option here and there is. The third option is not that God is arbitrary or not that God looks at a standard beyond him, the third option is God is the standard, right?
Marilyn: Yes.
Frank: If God has to look at a standard beyond him, then God is not really God. The standard beyond him is and so it's not a dilemma. The Euthyphro dilemma is not a dilemma there's a standard beyond or the standard is God not a standard beyond him.
Marilyn: When I ask you about this question that Christians face quite a bit or this challenge of, don't judge me. You talked about Matthew 7 or where someone will say, "Who are you to judge?" Or "The Bible says judge not."
Marilyn: You mentioned this last night about Matthew 7 and you said, "It's not that we're not to judge, but they were to judge correctly." I wanted to give you a chance to talk about that a little bit.
Frank: First when someone says, "Don't judge." They're actually judging you. It's a self defeating claim to say, don't judge. It's like saying, "I can't speak a word in English." It's doing what you say you should do so Jesus doesn't just stop after he says, "Judge not." he says, "Judge not lest you be judged by the same standard you judge others you'd be judged by that standard, so before you try and take the speck out of your brother's eye, you hypocrite take the log out of your own eye."
Frank: He's not telling you not to judge, he's telling you to take the speck out of your brother's eye, which involves making a judgment. He's simply saying, "Get that problem out of your life so you can better help your brother." So it's not a command not to judge, it's a command on how to judge.
Frank: Everybody makes judgments, atheists make judgments, they judge there's no God, the Bible is wrong, you're wrong if you're a Christian, all these things, they're judgments. The question isn't whether or not you can make judgments, the question is, are your judgments true?
Frank: In fact, the next verse after that, I think if I remember correctly, Jesus either says don't throw your pearls before swine Or it says something about dogs. He's making a judgment about certain things, so everybody's making judgments. The only question is, are your judgments true?
Marilyn: I think that's a real important point for Christians who are trying to share with other people to understand and you went through quite a few challenges last night and you said, "Turn these on their head, turn it back." Give us a couple of examples.
Frank: Turn the claim on itself, this is the most important thinking skill you can have. In the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist we call it the road runner tactic. It reminds us of Wile Coyote and Road Runner like Road Runner stops short in the cliff and Wile Coyote goes over the cliff and he's hanging in mid air until he realizes there's no ground to stand on well, that's exactly what you do when you turn a claim on itself.
Frank: Somebody says there's no truth you say, "Is that true?" You're claiming it's true, there's no truth. Somebody says, "Don't judge." Then why are you judging me for judging? Somebody says, "There are no absolutes, are you absolutely sure?" Someone says, "All truth comes from science."
Frank: You say, "Does that truth come from science?" No, it doesn't. You should doubt everything, "Should I doubt that?" I mean, you can't know anything, "How do you know you can't know?" These are relativism and postmodernism or just they're intellectually vacuous. It's logically self defeating.
Frank: Once you get good at turning a claim on itself, you can avoid a lot of error and that's important because if you start believing error, reality will hit you in the face ultimately you're going to get hurt.
Marilyn: And it's a great skill for every Christian learn just if nothing else, it puts a back on them, gifts that Christian a moment to kind of collect themselves and make them answer the question. You may not have a snickers bar, but if you learn this skill, that gives you just a moment to kind of back up and not be on the defense all the time.
Marilyn: All right, let's see. You said so many good things but I loved what you said this morning about miracles, that sign of the great king. You talked about that when a king wanted to send a message, he would send a messenger that, when he signed a document, he did it with a seal of a ring. Tell me about how miracles are really a sign of a great God that we serve?
Frank: The purpose of miracles in the scriptures anyway is to show that somebody speaks for God. The great periods of miracles in the Bible and there aren't many of them actually, people think miracles are occurring all the time in the Bible, they are not actually occurring very often. They are occurring about on average, once every eight years.
Marilyn: I believe he said 230, 250 something-
Frank: 250 over so to make the math easier, just check it from Abraham to Jesus and that's 2000 years, it's one miracle every eight years. And they're there to say, "Listen to this person." God is going to pour out miracles on Moses so the Israelites listened to Moses and Pharaoh listens to Moses.
Frank: God's going to pour out miracles on Elijah and Elijah goes there trying to prevent Israel from going into apostasy. God is going to pour out miracles on Jesus and the apostles because they have a new message that people need to understand and know that this is from God that's why miracles are done.
Frank: They're never done to entertain, they're never even done for the personal benefit of the miracle worker. For example, Paul says, "Pray for Timothy" Or pray for so and so. Timothy, take a little wine for your stomach because, well, look, if Timothy has a problem why don't you just heal him?
Frank: It's never done for the personal benefit, God can heal him directly don't get me wrong. I'm just saying when the apostles and others in the scriptures are doing miracles, they're doing miracles to show everybody that they speak for God and that's why we ought to believe in what they say.
Frank: This new revelation needs new confirmation, this new sermon needs a new sign, it's kind of like a miracle is like a seal from the king who sends you a message that seal says, "This is from the king."
Marilyn: I think that's a great picture, I think that really communicated the message very well. Now, you asked this question and in my mind I got it wrong. You asked, "What was the greatest miracle?" And I was thinking resurrection.
Frank: Yes.
Marilyn: But you said, "No, it's in Genesis 1:1." That's interesting, I'm going to have to give that some more thought but tell me-
Frank: Let me say technically you're correct.
Marilyn: True.
Frank: The resurrection is the greatest-
Marilyn: Good, I like to be right.
Frank: Because when we think of miracles, we think of acts of God inside the universe technically, the creation of the universe is an act of God, but it wasn't inside the universe it was the creation of the universe.
Frank: If you want to be technical but in terms of the amount of power that it would take to create the universe that appears to be greater than say to resurrect Jesus from the dead.
Marilyn: True. One of the things that I wondered about that might be helpful as we're talking to people is that that is accepted across the board in scientists that there was a big bang, that there was a moment when everything came into existence and that, that might even be helpful as we're sharing that here we had the greatest miracle ever right here at the beginning. Science sees that from there, everything else is easier to accept perhaps.
Frank: That's right. If Genesis 1:1 is true and the atheists are admitting the data for Genesis 1:1 they don't think it was God, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that a space matter in time had a beginning, whatever created space matter in time can't be made a space matter of time.
Frank: The cosmos must be spaceless timeless was in a material, powerful, intelligent, personal to create the universe out of nothing those are the attributes of God. It's hard to avoid that conclusion and if God does really exist, then obviously miracles are possible.
Frank: I see as Lewis said, if God exists ... How did he put it? He said, if God exists, must we believe in miracles? Indeed, you have no security against it, that is the bargain.
Marilyn: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Frank: If God exists, he can intervene in the universe anytime he wants. And the question is why does he intervene? It appears when it comes to the Old Testament, he's intervening to show people that these people speak for me, listen up.
Marilyn: I don't know if we can underestimate just how powerful the big bang is for our case because and by the way, you pointed out just how old I am and Bob and everybody else when he had us raise our hands this morning. Yes, I do remember the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Frank: Yes I raised my hand too, but I was only two.
Marilyn: But as we talk about the big bang, I remember when I started I taught school many years ago and taught science and those textbooks back in the 80s were still saying that many scientists believe that the universe was eternal.
Frank: Really in the 80s?
Marilyn: Yes.
Frank: Wow, it takes-
Marilyn: It takes a long time for textbooks to change over and-
Frank: Wake up. Einstein knew it through the theory of general relativity, he knew that the universe and time, that space time and matter are co relative, he knew that back in like 1916.
Marilyn: Oh yes. It takes a long time, especially in schools, but they were still talking about universe eternal maybe expanding contracting universe and I could see it right there. So I would point it out to the kids. I said, "But here's an option, and they're talking about it, it has significance."
Frank: Well, you can even lay the science aside. Because I was actually with a Muslim philosopher many years ago who came up with what some call the column cosmological arguments that time had to have a beginning in other words, today never would have gotten here.
Frank: Regardless of the Big Bang, regardless of science and all this, we know time had to have a beginning. If time didn't have the beginning today, wouldn't have never arrived because you'd always have to live another day before you got to today because there's an infinite number of days before today.
Frank: Now, whatever created time must be timeless, and if you're timeless, you don't have a beginning, which means whatever created time is eternal, I.e God is eternal. So you could lay all the scientists aside and still arrive at the beginning of the Genesis 1:1.
Marilyn: Sure. You mentioned that last night, and this is one of the reasons everybody loves your talks. We are out of time, I do appreciate it very much-
Frank: We are out of time? I thought we had infinite time.
Marilyn: We have infinite time, we're not even yet to today's.
Frank: All right.
Marilyn: But thank you so much for all you do and for being with us today.
Frank: My pleasure. And if people want to know more about this Marilyn, they can go to our website, crossexamined.org and we're on YouTube @crossexamined.org and we have Facebook, cross examined.org
Frank: And we do a lot on the college campus so people can watch the Q and A or the entire presentation including the Q and A from our college campus if they feel like our Facebook pages because we stream it on Facebook and we stream it on our website as well. When is this podcast coming out?
Marilyn: Joe will have to be the one to answer that and we'll let you know and we'll send you the link because we want others too and we want you back for defend. I'm sure you will be.
Frank: Oh, sure.
Marilyn: And we'll do some more podcasts how about that?
Frank: Absolutely. Well, if this comes out at the end of January, at Ohio state, people can watch it. And then we're at Winthrop university and several others, so they can check our calendar, crossexamined.org and see those.
Marilyn: All right. Thanks so much.
Dr. Kevin Brown (PhD in Urban Studies) is the director of the prison programs at NOBTS, has a U.S. Marshalls badge in his office, and talks about growing up with the civil rights leader, John Perkins.
Joe Fontenot: David Odom, you are associate professor of student ministry here at NOBTS and you're the Director of the Youth Ministry Institute.
David Odom: Yes.
Joe: Now you got your start in youth ministry.
David: That's right.
Joe: And eventually transitioned to teaching at a seminary level, but you're still teaching youth ministry. What I think is really interesting, and you wrote a blog for us recently, is kind of an insight into Generation Z. Age wise, who is Generation Z? Who is that we were talking about?
David: Well, they're teenagers and even children today. Typically the age range starts at those born 1996 to about 2010. And then there are some that would sort of flex those date ranges a little bit, but it gives you an idea that we're talking about children, youth, college students today.
Joe: Yeah. So this is a pretty huge range. So we're talking to like eight years old all the way to even 22 years old, which are graduating college in a lot of cases. So you go from like third grade to college graduate. So this is a massive generation, at least in this span you're talking about. And I think for a lot of people, a lot of people are just now getting used to who Millennials are. Millennials are in a lot of ways coming into their own. Economically they're becoming this force. But now we've got Gen Z who in a lot of estimates are just as big as Millennials, if not bigger. They're kind of arrival. So here's the question. How do people best relate to Generation Z in the church?
David: Well, I think that that's the question because I think, and many of us that are seeking to help churches understand this generation or wanting to help them understand how to reach them and to know exactly how to help them come to faith and then grow in faith. I think that it comes down to relationships and building and developing those relationships and that takes time. So we've got to make sure that we are wanting to know a little bit more about who they are as individuals. And maybe even some of the assumptions that we may have about teenagers and young people letting some of that go in order to build those relationships.
Joe: You know, it's not uncommon that the college years at a church dropoff, unless you're like a college church kind of thing. And the youth and the younger ones are often in a different area for many of their activities. Does Generation Z, does this age in general, do you think they want to be part of the bigger church?
David: Well, I think so. And, it's not necessarily something that I don't know that I hear students verbalizing that they want to be a part of the church as a whole. But I do hear students talk about the impact that they want to make. And so part of that then comes from what we are understanding about Generation Z and their desire to want to see change happen, and even changing institutions like the church. And so they want to be a part of seeing things change and grow and develop rather than maybe keep the status quo. And so that requires involvement, that requires them being a part in order to see that happen.
Joe: A big criticism of Millennials is that they are entitled. Do you think that Generation Z acts entitled or do they feel entitled? What is your opinion on that?
David: Well, no. I don't know that so much it's an entitlement as much as it is empowerment. I think that today's students feel empowered to really make a difference. I think we see that expressed in the desire for Generation Z to join a cause and be a part of a cause. And one of the reasons for being a part of a cause or movement is because they have a real sense that they can make a difference and they can make a change. And their involvement and their participation, their commitment to a cause enables them to be, I think, feel less entitled as much as someone who's entitled would feel like what does society or the institution have to do for me. And the other side of it is saying what impact then can I make on culture or in my church?
Joe: Right. I think one shift that I've seen, like when you look at older generations. Older generations, I think many times think in more of a hierarchy in the sense that I'm not qualified such and such. I haven't put in my hours to be at this table. And one thing I see a lot with younger people, Millennials and Generation Z, is that they seem to just jump right in and say I want hands on right now.
David: Right.
Joe: And I think a lot of people confuse, like you're saying, it's really more of an empowerment. They want to be involved right now.
David: Right. And I think that we need to rearrange some of our structures in our churches to allow for that participation at that level. I think that so often leaders can be comfortable with having a role that's allowing teenagers to have more subordinate place in the churches, in our churches. But it takes some effort and some intentionality there to say no, what are some ways that we can enable our students to lead and take ownership of various aspects of the ministry that we have.
Joe: So here's the question, what kind of areas would someone like a teenager who doesn't have a lot of life experience yet, but as a heart to do something, what are some areas that they would be equipped generally speaking to get involved in?
David: Right. Well, and I think of service and ministry opportunities. I think that talking with students about some things that they might be passionate about and related to serving the community in some way. And then gathering together students and talking about, okay, what are some things that we could do as you lead and kind of put the onus back on them to say "If you were in charge of this, what would it look like? What might we accomplish or what impact might we make if we were to have us all work together to minister, to serve whatever it might be?" It could be in our church locally or it could be in the community. Yeah.
Joe: Is Generation Z different from Millennials? Obviously the age are different, but is the characteristic, do they act differently?
David: Well, I think that there's subtle differences. I'm not so much necessarily that they're acting differently, but I think that there are some things that are some identifiers or characteristics of this generation. I mentioned the change and looking to change institutions, wanting to join a cause and those types things. I think too that when we think in terms of of generations, separate generations, we're talking not only in terms of an age range and folks that study this look at a population spikes and how that plays into making a determination from one generation to the next.
David: But it's also shared experience. It's shared cultural experience. Those that are in a certain generation have shared a life experience that's similar. And so when we think about today's generation, we're talking about folks that have grown up with social media and access to internet through their phones and these types of things that's something that adults have come into and made it part of our lives, but these are young men and women who have had these devices and had this access their entire lives. And so it's, it's a pretty, pretty significant difference.
Joe: If someone in the church who's from an older generation, whether it's Millennial or older, wants to mentor a person from Generation Z, granted, an eight year old is different from a 22 year old, but let's just say youth or college, right? Just for this question. How would they go about that? How would they approach them? Would someone from Generation Z even be interested in that?
David: I think so. I think that there's an opportunity in a mentoring type discipling relationship, you have an opportunity to pass on and share what you have learned in your experience. And I think that if you're just starting out, if you're interested in that type of a relationship, then you want to start basically trying to get to know folks, right? That you want to, if it's a church setting, look at volunteering in some way, whether that's just a being a sponsor or helping out in some way in a youth ministry. And as you have an opportunity to get to know students and build some rapport, asking questions about their life and things are concerned about, then you have an opportunity maybe to have a greater impact. Whether that may be a small group leader or volunteering in some other way. And then after that, then there's an opportunity, I think, once relationships are built to be able to approach or to offer the opportunity to be a mentor, to be a spiritual leader, a discipler in that situation.
Joe: One thing, one theme I hear as you're describing this is Generation Z is ... It's less about "Generation Z" as it is in the case of teenagers, these are teenagers.
David: Okay, right.
Joe: Right? Or these are college age or something like that. One thing when we were talking the other day, you mentioned to me is that they're not a whole new species as much as teenagers kind of had this shared, like you mentioned before, the shared thing that they go through. And I think that's pretty helpful too when you kind visualize as an older person, how do do I engage with these people? I have a passion. I want to help them learn. How do I engage with them?
David: You're talking about really developmental differences, right? So we know that we're talking about different generations, but that's not necessarily the same thing as just talking about what someone's going through developmentally that's a young person, young adult as opposed to a more mature adult. So there are some common experiences that everyone goes through and experiences during the teen years. As you're getting older, you're wanting to have more independence and to be able to make your own decisions. And that can be difficult because you may be labeled as rebellious when maybe really you're just asserting that independence that you naturally want to express because you're no longer a child and you're becoming an adult.
David: And so, I think that for me, when I'm interacting with a student then I'm trying to come less with maybe preconceived notions about what teenagers are like today as more of wanting to find out about them as an individual and to ask questions about who they are, things are concerned about. And I think that that is again, all a part of that interrelation, interacting and inter-relational skills that you want to have with someone.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really helpful thinking really them as not as a demographic but as an individual.
David: Right.
Joe: Right? And one thing I noticed about teenagers is they don't always give feedback.
David: Yeah. Yes.
Joe: So how do you know when you're interacting with them, if you're really helping or they're just tolerating you? I mean, in your experience, what are some ways that you know that you're actually being a positive influence in their life?
David: Right. Well, it can be tough and typically you don't ... It's maybe years later that you get feedback or you hear a student share about the positive impact that you made on their life. But it's years later after they're reflecting back. I think in the moment that it's really all about just being yourself. It's all about being genuine and real. It's rather than trying to be cool or to be something that you're not, or just to try to fit in or to engage with a teenager. It's more about just being honest about your own inadequacies or maybe not so self conscious about who you are as an adult or an older person in trying to relate. And just seek to get to know them and to be willing to ... Maybe they'll be a little nervous around you and maybe you're nervous around them at the same time. But I think that any of us would respond to someone that genuinely cares about us and is expressing a desire to be a help and support in any way we can. And I think that students respond to that.
Joe: You know, that's really helpful because when you think about all the different social media platforms, right? This group is usually the one of the first ones to find them and use them and embrace them. And everybody's else is like well, I just figured out Facebook, which they're like, you know, that's terrible. I never go on Facebook. And so it's kind of helpful to know that you don't need to be cutting edge on all that stuff simply to engage with them. They're not necessarily looking for that.
David: No, not necessarily. And in fact, I think that there is a sense of ownership that students have with whatever social media might be popular at the moment. And when we kind of invade that space, they're maybe not as comfortable with that as maybe they would like to. It doesn't mean that we totally are not using social media at all, but that we have to feel that we're using social media or engaging with students in social media as a way or as a means to get to know them.
David: I think it's really the other side of it. I think that as I'm developed a relationship and as I know students, and so I get to know them, then maybe I'm able to interact social media in some way and it's less intrusive, right? Because I already have established a real face to face relationship with them. And that face to face is key. Even though this is the social media generation and they're interacting with between three and five screens every day. Studies are also showing that they value that face to face interaction. And that's a win for us at the church because we have an opportunity to do something low tech, which is to have those face to face conversations and to realize that it's something that students value and they're not necessarily sensing and feeling like that I've got to only interact with you digitally. But now there is a longing for the intimacy of the face to face, the being in the room. Being present and being real.
Joe: You know, I remember when I was in the youth, I had to go to church. My parents went to church. So I kinda had to do some things even when I didn't want to. And I think sometimes we can look at the youth and we can kind of wonder are they here because they want to be here? Or they here because their parents want them to be here and they don't really have a choice? Are there ways that are ... Let me me back that up. Are there certain things that hold this group back from wanting to get involved in the church? In other words, they might appear to be involved because their parents are making them go, but on the inside they could care less or whatever. What are some of the things that caused them to care less? What are some of the things that we could do differently to involve them more in the work of the church?
David: Right. Well, I do think that integration in the congregation is key. Otherwise I do think that as they get older, as they graduate from high school, and we see this in statistics, that students are walking away from the church. And some walking away from faith. And so we do need to be more intentional about how we are seeking to find ways for students to become more involved. And I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the empowerment that I think students feel, if we will sort of get out of the way.
David: There's an opportunity for us to provide leadership opportunities to students, leadership in the youth group itself or perhaps even leadership in variety of ways where some churches have changed bylaws to allow for teenagers to serve on committees. For teenagers to be involved in various ways as ushers and serving and those kinds of things. Parts of leadership on teams, whether that be some kind of ministry team or service team, missions work. All these types of ways are ways in which we can help our students understand that they're not just the church of the future, but they have a place now. And if we want them to be a part of the church of the future, it means giving them opportunities to serve and be a part of the church now and here as students.
Joe: You said something that stuck in my head. Some churches have changed our bylaws so that teenagers can be on committees. And my first thought is teenagers, you know, what if they make a bad decision, you know what I mean? That's kinda their life right now. They make a lot of bad decisions. Maybe that's a stereotype, I don't know. So how does a church who wants to do things like that do it in a way that doesn't just derail the train and the process?
David: Sure. Well, and I think that we're talking abut situation that would be a group primarily of adults and that they would be one or two teenagers, a part of that committee. So I'm not talking about necessarily a completely student run a committee, although there could be value there too. But part of it is to realize there are going to be mistakes that are made. I think there are going to be ideas that are gonna kind of be seemingly out of nowhere. Or they're going to be opinions that aren't gonna necessarily be the opinions of the other adults in the church.
David: But being a part of that is beneficial, beneficial to the student to help them grow and mature in their faith and maturing as as a young adult. But then also beneficial to those adults as well. To have input and to seek advice and to have the perspective of a young person is pretty special. And wanting it to be less about just having a student on a committee just to maybe have that one token youth or young person on the committee, but to genuinely respect that opinion and to want them to be able to contribute to some way.
Joe: Yeah. I remember when I was about 16, my youth minister at the time sort of took me under his wing and I wasn't talking about going into ministry or anything like that. He just just did this, and he treated me like an adult. He didn't just give me anything I wanted as if he couldn't tell me no, but he just talked to me like an adult and that made such an impact. And it could have been that nothing shifted, no authority shifted, nothing like that. I don't even remember. All I really remember was that he valued my input. And that left such an impression on me. And what does it take? What does it take in your opinion to do that for someone who wants to get involved with these people, these youth? What kind of time commitment are we talking about here? What kind of investment are we talking about here to actually start making a difference in their life?
David: Well, time is a big part of it. And it can be maybe a difficult thing to think about because we're all busy and we all have busy schedules and lives. But if we're really wanting to make an impact on students life, it will require time. But I think that we're talking about also a somewhat slow process because you're talking about giving time to develop a relationship, which it takes time to develop that level of trust that you need to have and you would want to have with teenagers. And the student though is going to translate that time commitment that you're making to caring and love, right? They're measuring that. That you care enough about me to take time out of your schedule to spend time with me, to be my small group leader or to mentor me or to disciple me along with a small group of students. But over the long haul, that time that you dedicate to interacting with students in this way will see results and will result in opportunities to see that student grow in their faith.
Joe: Can you tell us the top mistakes or it could be the top one mistake that you generally see people make when they try to engage with this youth age.
David: Right. Well, I think that maybe we think that we've got to change the way we dress or we've got to change the way we speak, the languages that we use. Maybe we try to use phrases or terms that we hear on the radio or social media or something like that. We think that those types of things are going to help make that connection with the student when really I think that the teenagers have a pretty good radar and a pretty good sense of when someone is being kinda disingenuous, right? And they're not really being real. It's more of a false front maybe in some way. And it's not necessarily our intention, but that's the way it can come across.
David: And so again, I really think that the best advice I could give was just to be yourself, right? And to just own the fact that you're an adult, you're older. You know, you could be a young adult in your 20s or someone in their 40s and yet, even someone in their 20s has a different experience. And what's cool now isn't what was cool then and so there are going to be those things.
David: But I think too that we also need to be able to not take ourselves so seriously. That we can joke about those differences. That we can be willing to be self deprecating where we recognize that there's some things that we're just not cool anymore and we're not going to be. But we again, are comfortable about those things and willing to even joke about some of those things. And that helps I think put the student at ease too. That you're not trying to be something that you're not and you realize that you're an adult. But that there are opportunities to still connect with a teenager from another generation because you're just expressing genuine care and love for them.
Joe: This has been very helpful, very insightful, David. I appreciate you coming on podcast.
David: Definitely. It's been a pleasure.
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Page Brooks is a pastor, chaplain, non-profit leader, and profession. He discusses balancing his calling(s) and what it takes to raise up leaders.
Ryan Rice is the pastor of Connect Church in Algiers (a suburb of New Orleans). Shortly after planting a church, his church merged with another. He discusses why he became a church planter and how he navigated the merger.
In this episode, Marilyn talks to Gary--one of our co-hosts--about working in secular journalism while being a Christian.
Byron Cutrer, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in New Orleans, was looking for a way to help his congregate engage in ministry. He began praying to experience God in new and fresh ways. And, then when he went on a short-term mission trip to Italy, he did.
Kris Beville is the strategy coordinator for Global Gates in Brooklyn, NY--a mission-organization working with immigrants here in the US. His focus is with Muslims. And he walks Joe through how a person should (and should not) share the gospel with a Muslim immigrant. Learn more at globalgates.info.
Steve and Amy Morgan, both NOBTS alumni, have recently completed the application process with the IMB. Steve talks to Joe about what led them to make this decision.
In part two of this interview, Katherine (Rachel's ministry partner) talks about the Mormon relationships she's formed and how they handle some of the stranger practices of Mormonism.
Rachel is half of a two-person team. They have befriended a Mormon splinter-of-a-splinter group. She shares what she's learned.
Linda Gilden talks about her new book, LINKED Quick Guide to Personalities: Maximizing Life Connections One Link at a Time.
Davey Akin is a Leavell College student. And he drives for Uber. And this has become a ministry for him. He talks to Joe about how he learned to share the gospel, naturally and often.
Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers.
Joe Fontenot: And I am Joe Fontenot.
Gary: And we're the host of Answering The Call podcast.
Joe: And this is the podcast where we talk to people are answering God's call. Today, I talk with Shaun Grunblatt.
Gary: He discusses a process of overcoming shame in the past.
Joe: And, here it is.
Joe: Shaun, you have an unusual past, but today you are doing your PhD. What are you doing your PhD in?
Shaun Grunblatt:New Testament in Greek.
Joe: Okay. So, what does that mean?
Shaun: Well, I'm studying many of the critical issues in New Testament foundationally, including the languages, language that it's written in, and preparing for a future of hopefully teaching, or continuing to teach because I have been teaching ever since I finished my Master's degree.
Joe: Okay, and so a lot of people here at the seminary, this is not an unusual story, right? We have a lot of people, they're doing this exact thing. A lot of people come from a pretty normal background, but not you. So, you did a podcast interview with Davy Aiken whose podcast we will put in the show notes. People can listen to your full story there. I listened to it and I thought it was pretty amazing because you were a drug dealer, like for real-real. You had a very big tragedy where your first wife was actually murdered, and you seriously considered taking active revenge on her death. That is not a normal pre-PhD story. And so how did you get here?
Shaun: That's a-
Joe: I mean I know that's a big question, but like ... you know ... Let me back up. How did you realize that maybe that was not the life for you?
Shaun: Well, that's an interesting story. It really kind of develops over a great deal of time. A lot of that comes in to my understanding about my relationship with God. Throughout my life I grew up really kind of believing I had a relationship with God because of my Catholic upbringing. Went to Catholic school, nominally associated. You know I prayed and read scripture, and was what I like to refer to as sympathetic towards God. I wouldn't oppose God to his face and I had positive warm feelings about him, I just wasn't submitted to his Lordship.
Shaun: But in the midst of the tragedies that you can hear about in my testimony which you referenced, they sound impactful when I hear someone else reading them back to me-
Joe: That's very impactful, let me just let you know.
Shaun: When I hear it told back to me, I'm like, "Wow, that sounds pretty intense." But in the midst of all of that, there are periods where I began to seek God and I really felt God working in my life long before I had fully submitted to him, and long before I believed that my relationship became what it is now. But in the midst of, really in my brokenness and seeking the Lord, trying to reestablish my family, get back custody of my children, the difficulties that I was facing in that, facing criminal charges, I finally reached a point of complete brokenness, utter hopelessness to where really I had considered ending my life.
Shaun: My stepfather, Tony Vespo, had been to a place called The Home of Grace, and it really changed his life. It was a faith based treatment center out of Vancleave, Mississippi. I went to the Home of Grace.
Joe: How old were you then?
Shaun: How old was I then? I believe I was 27.
Joe: Had your wife already passed away?
Shaun: Yeah, this is after she has died. This is after, I picked up, I wanna say my fifth felony charge.
Joe: Fifth felony.
Shaun: I was facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison.
Joe: And you're only 27?
Shaun: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And so I'd lost my wife, I had lost my children, and I was looking at losing my freedom. I really didn't have a whole lot of reasons left to live. Really, my children were the thing that kept me going because they had lost their mother, and I felt like any way in which I might give up on them ... by killing myself, or doing anything else, leaving the country, that was my other thought or option ... would be abandoning them and that was just unacceptable.
Shaun: Really in all of that brokenness, I went to the Home of Grace and heard the Gospel in a way that I had never heard it before. It was revealed to me that God had purpose for my life, and that all the shameful things that I had embraced, the darkness of my life, no longer had to be a shame, it could be a glory to God because he could forgive and use even someone like me, and turn all of that around so that my life could be a reflection of his grace and love and glory.
Shaun: So I began to live with that purpose. I heard the Gospel in a new way there. I confessed my sin and just asked the Lord to save me.
Joe: Do you think that's the point when you became a believer?
Shaun: I believe that that's the point when God changed my life, transformed my life. You know the word believer could probably be applied in a lot of different ways, it's kind of generic. But it's the point at which my life changed, and it changed the way I saw the world.
Joe: So what happened from there? What was year 28 like?
Shaun: I got out of the Home of Grace and every temptation was there. One of my very good friends, who I'd actually been arrested with on that last event, he died about three days I got out of the Home of Grace. His name was Michael Turner, Tomato, as we called him, and he was very, very close to me. He had spent the week with me, among several other of my close friends, searching for my wife when she was missing, and really someone who had been there for me quite a bit. When he died, many of my friends got together and we spent time together. And so I'd just come out of rehab, and I'm around my friends who are still heavily involved in drugs and that lifestyle, and really I'm at a crossroads of do I share Christ with my friends and continue in the life that he's prepared for me, or do I, in my pain, just slink back into my old lifestyle? I know my mother for one was very concerned about that time period.
Joe: Was she a believer or was she a-
Shaun: Yeah she had become a believer before I had. Not originally when ... My parents were divorced when I was young and subsequent to that I lived with my father for many years. Subsequent to that she became a believer. Anyway, as I got out of the Home of Grace and really began to face the world and the struggles, and come to the realization that even though God has forgiven me, maybe not everyone else has. In hindsight, my observation for a long time has been that it took me, I wanna say almost five years, to get back to zero. Many people, you know just a normal person who hasn't destroyed their life, they can build upon their life and make progress. But what I had to do was number one, assure myself of my freedom, or get to a position where I knew that I could be free. I had to get my children back. I had thousands of dollars-
Joe: Free like legally or free like spiritually?
Shaun: Free legally. That's something that I believe the Lord helped to provide for me while I was in the Home of Grace, he set me free. But I had other freedom issues that I was facing. So while other people may have been able to make many progresses in their life, I had to climb uphill to get to zero. I had to climb uphill to get to a point where I didn't owe thousands of dollars in court fines, where I wasn't expecting to go to prion, possibly for the best part of my life, where I could spend time with my children, and where I could work towards a career. Do any of the normal basic things: to be able to pay bills, provide for yourself, and have the basic necessities of life. That was a tremendous struggle for someone who was in a position that I was in.
Joe: Did you ... you said that took like five years, did you ever-
Shaun: At least.
Joe: At least think about quitting? I mean what was that like?
Shaun: Well, for someone like myself, I was a teenager when I started selling drugs-
Joe: How old?
Shaun: I guess 16 or 17. I think 16. To go to a point of ... to go from, at one point I had made such an amount of money that I had a money counting machine ... to working for minimum wage-
Joe: You were like Scarface.
Shaun: Not quite. But I made ... The point I'm trying to illustrate is that I made a huge amount of money. More money than I've made since then, working, I would make in a month. And so the challenge of transitioning from that kind of a lifestyle into a lifestyle where someone else gets to tell me what to do for minimum wage, or anything near minimum wage, was severely humbling and a much slower rate of progress. When I knew that the thousands of dollars of debt that I had, the issues that I had, there is another way to try to accomplish those goals that is a much shorter track. That's a small illustration of so many spiritual temptations and struggles that you'd face climbing out of something like that.
Shaun: The relational hurdles converting from a lifestyle in which you are preserving your sex life for marriage, and the kind of investment that goes into something like that. The financial issues, the social friends ... I'm gonna be honest with you, it's hard to build intimate close relationships with people in the church world in the same way than-
Joe: Why do you think-
Shaun: -Than it was in the world that I came from. And the reason why, is because people don't have anything to lose relationally. You know, some of the challenges-
Joe: That's very interesting.
Shaun: -That we face in the church is people have to keep up a certain appearance. But they also have jobs and families, and time constraints and responsibilities. I lived in a world where most of the people had very few responsibilities that were in my circle. A lot of free time to be together, and we had to have a really high level of trust for one another to be able to engage in the activities that we're involved in. So it was a hard circle of friends to get into, but once you were in it, there was a deep level of intimacy.
Joe: Do you ever miss it?
Shaun: Do I ever miss what?
Joe: Any of it?
Shaun: The world? I miss the closeness.
Joe: You made more in a month than you've ever made dollars wise since then.
Shaun: I don't miss the friends.
Joe: You had the money ...
Shaun: I don't miss the money. I still have relationships with many of the people, the ones who are still alive. I've lost many of my friends. Heroin has killed several, drugs, other drug related complicated things have led many of my friends to die. But no, I mean the money, the anxiety, the struggles, the looking over your shoulder ... that world I don't miss. You don't need a lot of money to be happy. It doesn't hurt to be able to do things, but no, I don't miss any of that. I mean the people I miss them. Often many drug addicts can be, besides what the drugs do to their lives, can be amazing and really wonderful special people.
Joe: You said something earlier, you were talking about just kind of the depth and the level to which you were in that life. And then we kind of live in this world today where there's this perfect expectation.
Shaun: You mean in the church?
Joe: In the church, right or wrong, it's what it is. Do you ever get kind of afraid talking about what you used to do, in front of this church world?
Shaun: Only initially for me. I had family problems growing up and always wanted approval from my dad, or male approval, that kind of thing, insecurities. When I felt the call to ministry, which was fairly in the Home of Grace basically, I knew that God had a purpose for me to serve him in a lot of different ways. Really a big challenge for me was to speak publicly. I mean many people are afraid of public speaking. They say statistically more people are afraid of dying ... public speaking more than dying ... not afraid of dying. And that was a big challenge for me, but mainly because I was afraid of saying something stupid or not gaining approval of the men of the church or the people of the church.
Joe: Did any of that ever happen? Did you ever get up in front of people and say something stupid?
Shaun: Oh I'm sure I've said many things that are stupid. I probably still do. But that's okay, there's nothing wrong with ... I realize now that I don't have to be perfect and there's nothing wrong with making mistakes. We all do, and if we don't, then maybe we should look into something about what's going on with that person. No, but what I really wanted to say about that was this, that one of the biggest challenges for me was when my pastor asked me to share my testimony. I spent a lot of time illustrating and trying to condense what I'd been through, and what God's done in my life, and it was a huge hurdle and I was just obsessing over it.
Shaun: But it was such a powerful and a freeing thing, because as I shared what I had been through and what God had done in my life, how he'd taken my shame and used it for his glory, so many people afterwards and people that I had not expected, and especially some of the people that I was afraid that ... Basically this was a disarming of the devil, because he had told me the voices that I was hearing that were telling me not to share was because of shame. It was because it's this kind of voice where, "Oh they're gonna know." But that was something that haunted me because I was very different. In the little church I was at during the time I was in Ponchatoula, I had been a big drug dealer in the city, and I traveled around a lot, and my lifestyle was very different than a small southern Baptist church kind of a lifestyle.
Shaun: You know, fitting in is a little bit different anyway, and wondering what people thought about me, what they knew about my background, if they found out about it how would they treat me, how would they look at me, would I continue to be accepted. And I was working in youth ministry at the time as an interim, or with the youth minister later on and became the interim there. So you're always wondering sometimes in that environment what people think about you, and you know, the things people say about gossip and all of those things that go along with that, that we know sometimes does go on. Being able to share what God had done in my life, and who I had been but God saved me anyway, completely disarmed the devil of all the power to shut me down and to fear what people thought about me, because when I revealed those things not only did it take away his ability to say, "What if they find out," because I told them, they don't have to hear rumors about it or be uncertain about some of those things.
Shaun: It glorified God and so many people came to me afterwards that I never would have expected who had been through, not exactly what I had been through, but they struggled with addiction. You know, their brother died from addiction, or close family members. Every part of our society is being touched by addiction right now. I mean it doesn't observe class, or any other kind of boundary that we'd like to place around it. It doesn't matter what neighborhood you're from, or what family you're from, or any of those things. So many people were encouraged and were touched by what I shared, and came, so it was such a blessing to do what I was so afraid to do, and what I felt so bound to do. And it was exactly what I felt called to do.
Joe: Tell your story.
Shaun: To tell my story, to reveal the love of God even in my shame. And it's my shame that was trying to stop me from sharing that.
Joe: Does the shame ever come back?
Shaun: No. I wouldn't say that. You know there are different factors I think that may come into play. Sometimes when you overcome one test, there are others around the corner that you may face. For me I think after that it was ... Well, coming here to the seminary. I remember my first day at orientation when I was at Leavell College, really sitting in the chapel before orientation and just feeling like I didn't belong. Feeling like ... and it was similar feelings that I felt into the church, but I wasn't like all these people.
Shaun: Kind of like some of the things that you said when you introduced me, you know my story was different so I felt that. I felt like I was not like anyone else, and I felt like I didn't belong, and I felt like well they're gonna find out that I don't belong. I'm not like them. I haven't been ... I wasn't churched, is one of the words that I've learned that we like to use now. And you see that. You see people who are unchurched and they come from a different culture. And sometimes we don't understand them that.
Shaun: I had come from a different culture and it made me afraid because I didn't think I would be accepted, and maybe there was fears that although I had a very strong sense of calling, I was under attack. I really truly believe I was under attack and I wanted to flee, but I didn't, and it's been great. A lot of my experiences through Leavell College really affirmed what I was here and doing. Dr. Strong is the dean of Leavell College and he was a mentor of mine, and still is in many ways. We don't get to spend as much time together, but I remember after taking class on Acts with him and really, really working hard on it, and running into him in the bookstore. And really never knowing, this is a couple ... a year or two in my time here ... still wondering about whether or not I belong, is my work good enough, am I at the bottom. Kind of just insecurities or however you might define that.
Shaun: I remember him seeing me in the bookstore, and just giving me a word of encouragement. He's got a true Barnabas soul. And he thanked me for the hard work that I'd done and how well I'd done on the final. That was just meaningful and it was the right word at the right time.
Joe: Kind of like a father figure stepping in and validating you in a lot of ways.
Shaun: Absolutely. All that I had feared that I would never receive in a complete and different culture and environment, and something I really always wanted, you know, as a child.
Joe: One last question Shaun. In some sense we all come from where you came from. Yours is much more extreme. But we are all enemies of God. We're all on a path of being reconciled to God. What would you give the advice to a person who is a younger you coming into an active life of following Jesus, but they're dealing with shame. They're dealing with a background that they're not proud of. What would you tell them?
Shaun: Well first I'd tell you, you're not alone. As you come and as you share your story, which you should, because God has done something great. Not different than what he does. Just like you said, every one of our testimonies is a miracle, whether or not you were facing prison and had done horrendous things, or you grew up in the church with a great family. I believe that your coming to faith is miraculous and an important story. But if you come from a background that's like mine, share your story. You'll find that there are a lot of other people who are like you, and you'll find that even the shameful things that you did and your differences can be your strengths. Can be the things that will be of value to your ministry, an asset to what you can do in the kingdom of God, and really bring value to the church.
Shaun: Because you'll have a perspective and experiences and the ability to reach people who others can't. We can all love people who are very different than ourselves, but we can't always connect in the same ways that other people can in a more deep way, and a way that says, "I know that struggle." Each of us, it doesn't matter whether it's something strange, but for other people, there's other people that maybe come from a completely better opposite background than mine, other people can connect with them better than I can. Some things are easier to relate to if you've been through them.
Shaun: So I just wanna encourage you if that's been your ... if your background is anything at all like mine, drugs, brokenness, loss, death, a different kind of a culture than the church ... outside of the church wondering, "I'm not like these people. They're all special, they're all holy." All those kinds of things and insecurities. Those are not things that should inhibit you from fulfilling what God has you called for. In fact, they may be the keys to helping you do that well.
Joe: Thanks Shaun. Thanks for coming on the podcast with us today. Thanks for telling us your story.
Shaun: Thank you for having me.
Gary Myers: Hey, it's Gary and Joe here again. Would you do us a favor? If you liked this podcast, go to iTunes and leave us a review. This would mean the world to us. Thanks.
George Ross is the NAMB SEND Missionary for New Orleans. He talks with Joe about church planting, preparation, and when to pull the plug. Learn more at georgeross.net
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Gary talks to Dr Ken Taylor about how his path to urban ministry, and the pitfalls and successes along the way.
Mike Edens--distinguished professor of theology and associate director of the Institute for Christian Apologetics--discusses how 27 years as an IMB strategist in the Middle East prepared him for discipleship back home.