← The Alisa Childers Podcast
The Alisa Childers Podcast
#164 The Inspiring Story of one of the Most Prolific and Influential Scholars of our Time.
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- [00:00]
A
I had a crisis in my life, actually, when my sister committed suicide, because one of the questions I asked is, how can I be happy in heaven if my sister is in hell? But then I remember what my father taught me, that I can trust God for what I don't know because of what he's revealed to me. That I do.
- [00:40]
B
Welcome to a special live episode of the Alisa Childers podcast, where we equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity, discern its counterfeits, and then proclaim the gospel with clarity, kindness, and truth. And the reason we're doing a special kind of surprise live episode today is because this is a message that I wanted to get out to my people immediately. This episode will eventually go to audio platforms, so if you're listening to this on Google or itunes, you can just know. This conversation happened a little bit before. But I wanted to bring David on today because the Norm Geisler International Ministries has produced a movie called Norm Geisler Not Qualified. I want to make sure I get that. I'll ask David when he comes on. But I had a chance to screen the movie, and to be honest with you, I didn't know what to expect. But I was really blown away. I was moved. And I really want to get this message out to you guys because this is a movie that you can show in your churches, and it has to do with the legacy of Norm Geisler, but it has to do with a lot more than that, which you'll see in a moment. But I'm going to bring David on. David is Norm's son, so that's extra special. David, welcome. I've told you this before, but your dad means a whole lot to me because I never actually got to meet your dad. Dad in person, but his influence in my life was really profound. And so when I watched this movie and I saved my reaction to be on the air because you said that you don't often get to talk to people who have seen the movie and interact about it. So I'm going to give you my thoughts, but I want to give you a chance to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. I know you're the president and co founder of Norm Geisler International Ministries, so what are you up to? What's the ministry doing? Tell us a little bit about yourself in the ministry.
- [02:36]
A
Well, I had the privilege, obviously, of learning apologetics when I was a little boy, and because of that, I didn't have any doubts about my faith. And so. But I've approached apologetics in a different way than my dad. I've actually been more of an evangelist most of my life, but because I had the certainty about my faith, I didn't have any of those doubts. And so I was able to help other people. And my father and I actually wrote a book together called Conversational Evangelism. And so my focus has been to teach people how to use apologetics and evangelism. But about five years ago, somebody approached me to do this movie about my dad, and I thought it'd be a great idea. I mean, he is the grandfather of classical apologetics. I thought it would be a nice tribute. But what I discovered is that my dad had a central role to play in the 60s and 70s, actually 60s through the 90s in our culture and reaching our culture. And there weren't many people like him. And so that's why I want to get this movie out so that we can learn from what my father did and hopefully have a better idea of how we can interact with our culture in a better way.
- [03:58]
B
Well, I want to tell a little bit about my story of finding your dad. So, as many of my followers know, I went through a really significant faith crisis over 10 years ago. Essentially, a progressive Christian pastor deconstructed my faith, and I did not know where to look for answers. I couldn't find anyone really analyzing progressive Christianity as a move or directly maybe answering the claims of progressive Christianity, but through a series of events. And it's interesting my story, because I've talked about all of this. The first apologist that I ever heard answering some of the questions I had was Ravi Zacharias. So when that whole scandal happened, excuse me, I had to sort through some things. I made a video on that that's available on my YouTube channel. But almost immediately through that channel, I discovered Norm Geisler, and I discovered Southern Evangelical Seminary. And within about two or three years, I started auditing classes at ses, which of course, is the seminary that your dad founded, that Norm Geisler founded. And that's really how God reconstructed my faith, was through your dad's work and his books. I remember discovering his books and thinking, okay, this is a really intelligent Christian who loves the Lord. Now, at that time, David, I didn't know anything about his backstory. I didn't know that he was, for all intents and purposes, illiterate until he was 17 years old. I did not know that your family had walked through the death of your sister, his child. I didn't know any of these things in his Backstory. And so when I watched the movie, it was mind blowing to me because I always saw your dad as this high level intellectual, just, you know, this guy's answering all of the tough questions. He's debating all the atheists. He's in there, you know, in the public square. And then I learned from this movie that there is such a tender backstory to his life. And I want everybody to get to see that. Because what it shows me, David, is that when you know real Christians, when you encounter real Christians, there's this integrated approach to their lives, that it's not just intellectual, it's not just one thing or another thing. It affects absolutely every aspect of their lives. And so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the movie. Why did you call it Not Qualified?
- [06:27]
A
Well, obviously, as you mentioned, he was practically illiterate until he was 17. And so he had to start right from the very beginning to learn how to read. And then he took a 20 year journey basically learning how to find the answers to all these questions he had about the Christian faith that people asked him about when he was street witnessing. And after 20 years and getting a PhD, he thought he was finally ready to witness. And then he wrote in his lifetime about 125 books. So if God can take someone like Norm Geisler, who was practically illiterate when he was 17, and raise him up to be a scholar, that impacted a whole generation of Christian leaders. Think of what he could do in our lives if we just allow him to. So that's the first part of the story. The second part of the story is to look at what Norm Geisler actually did from the 60s to 90s. You may remember this. This was a time when the Supreme Court had decided that in public schools you could not teach creator creation or God given moral values. And my father tried to stop that, tried to be a part of the, you know, the answer to secular humanism. And there weren't enough people like my father. And so, you know, we need to really ask ourselves some questions, like why? Like why weren't there more people like my father during that time period and why, therefore, the culture moved on. In other words, if there weren't many people like him to stand in the gap, well, no wonder why our culture has even moved further on since the 90s. And so as Christians, I think we need to ask ourselves, what is it we can learn from his life that we should understand better? And. And I've discovered there's specifically three things that a lot of Christians still don't understand that. My father tried to teach all his life about all truth is God's truth, faith and reason, and the appropriate use of apologetic sin evangelism.
- [08:51]
B
Well, I want to talk through each one of those points in a moment, but I want to back up a little bit and talk a little bit more about your dad's life because he's such an unlikely scholar when you really look at his life. He was actually. I want you to tell his story of how he became a Christian because he was actually picked up by like a bus ministry that would take him to church. Is that right?
- [09:14]
A
Can you tell that story for many years? For eight years, he was picked up. And then finally, after eight years, he made a decision for Christ. But he told me that he. He kept putting off the decision to. To trust Christ, but he knew that God had become so real to him and Christ had become so real to him that he knew that he had to make that decision. And eventually when he did make that decision, then he basically, you know, was this person that God could use to do amazing things. And his life verse is Philippians 1:21. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. And when his mother threatened to kill him if he tried to witness to her again, he said to her mom, for to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. And that was when he was 17. And so he decided very early on he was going to live his life for Christ. And the rest, you know, really shows what. What God did in his life. I mean, it wasn't just his knowledge. It wasn't just the quality of what he taught. It was also how he mentored and discipled other people. Most people don't realize, yes, the impact that my father had on other people. He was. He didn't care about himself. He didn't care about his reputation or promote himself. He cared about helping other people. In fact, I remember once catching him working on a book for another Christian apologist, but he didn't put his name on the book. And I said, dad, why did you do this? He said, well, I just want to help this apologist write a better book. So it was all about, how can I help you? And I think we need to understand that kind of Christian. We need to model that kind of Christianity in our life. Not just the knowledge he had, but also the humility and the servanthood that he demonstrated throughout his life.
- [11:23]
B
Well, it's one of the things that I learned in the movie that I didn't realize was that One of his goals was to replicate himself. In other words, that mentorship and discipleship heart. And when I look at my story and how that intersects with him, you know, of course, I just shared how I discovered him and, you know, kind of viewed him as like a safe place like this. Of course, you always want to take anything anybody says and filter that through Scripture, of course, so everybody's fallible. But at the same time, I recognized in him this is somebody who loves God, views the Bible as the authority. This is a safe place, at least to springboard off of. I can feel safe here. And then I look at some of the other people who were more directly involved in launching my ministry, which would be Frank Turek and J. Werner Wallace. And I know specifically in Frank's case, Norm was Frank's mentor. So Norm mentors Frank. Frank, in many ways, has mentored me. And so I've seen that work itself out, even if I never met him in real life. And for anybody just tuning in, we're talking about the legacy of Norm Geisler. The movie is Norm Geisler. Not qualified. Real quick, David, before we continue our discussion, if anyone wants to know where they can find this movie, how they can sign up to be able to show it in their churches, give us a little bit of that information. Also want to mention that toward the end of the broadcast, we're going to be taking questions. If you have any questions for either one of us about this or, you know, hey, you got two people who are into apologetics. Any apologetics questions, we'll take. It's the same. So put the word question in all caps, and we'll get to as many as we can toward the end. But, David, tell us where we can find the movie, how people can sign up to show it in their churches and venues.
- [13:08]
A
Sure. The website is normgeislerthemovie.com Norm Geisler themovie.com and if you're interested in hosting it and in your city and inviting pastors to come, because we. We want to use the movie as a tool to give other resources, get other resources in people's hands, you can just email us@movie gim.org you know, my burden is to really help other Christians to discover all these things that you and I had the privilege of learning from my father or through other people that he's discipled.
- [13:50]
B
Yeah, well, let's talk through some of those. I also want to say before we do that, just in case anyone's wondering, this is not a paid sponsorship. This is not Something I'm making money to do. This is a message I just from my heart want to get out. So I just always like to say that because sometimes I think people can be kind of suspicious when we start giving coupon codes and things like that. This is not a paid sponsorship, guys. This is just. I told David I want to get this to my people. So let's talk through those three points that you mentioned that you think these are things that every Christian needs to understand, but maybe they're not fully understanding. So let's talk about this first one. And I think there's a lot of confusion around this one, that all truth is God's truth. I've heard people use this phrase to sort of be a catch all. Like just cast the net out, catch whatever truth you can from wherever you find it. Take everything in. That's not exactly what we're saying here. What does this mean? All truth is God's truth.
- [14:46]
A
Well, if God is the source of all truth, then if truth is that which corresponds to reality and if truth is something that we can know, which the Bible assumes we can, Romans 1 and other passages, then we can use that as a bridge. We don't have to start with the Bible as the word of God. We can start with the issue of truth. And I know Frank Turek spends a lot of time in his seminars talking about how you cannot deny absolute truth. The illustration I always loved my, that my father used was Winnie the Pooh. Do you remember that one? Winnie the Pooh is knocking on Mr. Rabbit's door saying, Anybody home? And Mr. Rabbit doesn't want to get eaten out of house. And home says from the closed door, nobody home. And winning. The Pooh scratches his head and says, wait a second, there's got to be somebody home to say there's nobody home. That's undeniably true. And there are foundational principles. My father taught things that we cannot not know. Things like truth. Truth is something you can't deny because you have to use truth in order to deny it. And so if we can help people to understand, yes, there is truth and yes, the atheistic God does exist and miracles are possible. We can look into New Testament and see the New Testament is historically reliable. See what it says about Jesus. If Jesus claimed to be and proved to be God, therefore whatever he says is true is true. And if Jesus says the Bible is the word of God, therefore the Bible is word of God. And so I encourage everyone to kind of like memorize that little 12 point framework so that when they're witnessing to people, they'll know where, where to start with people. And I would say a lot of times we have to start with the issue of truth. Because if we can't start with the issue of truth, someone can believe that God exists and God doesn't exist, and both are true.
- [16:54]
B
Yeah. Yeah, right. And that's funny.
- [16:56]
A
That's a big problem, right?
- [16:57]
B
Yeah, it's a big problem. And what's interesting is it's. I think he had put his finger on something that is more, possibly more relevant now than it even was then. Because when I talk with young people, I've been doing that a lot lately. I don't know, I've been doing some Christian high schools and even a couple of youth group situations. And what is impressed upon me when I'm talking to young, even Christian people is we have to hit on making a case for objective truth first. Because I always tell the young people, you're growing up in a culture, every culture kind of has a dominant worldview. Sometimes that can be closer to what's true or really far away from what's true. Right now, the dominant worldview is really this kind of relativistic, postmodern approach. And I think because so many people in our culture are so indoctrinated to think that if objective truth exists, it can't be known, they're so indoctrinated with that it makes them suspicious of anybody who comes around claiming to know what's true about God or morality, especially in those two categories of religion and morality. And so what I learned from your dad and I continue to do is, is to make that case for objective truth. Because in my personal story, the reason that I doubted what I believed so profoundly was because those clever, skeptical, progressive pastor was able to convince me that I couldn't trust my Bible. So before that point, my whole life, I would just. I mean, I. I used to do street evangelism with my parents. So I talked. We didn't grow up in a bubble in that sense. I talked with atheists. I remember one time watching a satanic priest give his heart to the Lord. I mean, I saw stuff like that happen all the time. So I talked with those all types of people, agnostics, Wiccans, atheists. And whenever they would bring a skeptical claim against something I believed, I would just say, well, the Bible says this, so I'm not persuaded. But when as an adult, I was doubting the foundation of that, like, do I even have an accurate copy of what they wrote? That's when all the house of cards came tumbling down. But then, you know, realizing objective truth exists and can be known, and then tracing through the case you just made all the way to Jesus. And what did he think about Scripture? That's what persuaded me, and that's what I teach. And that really is trickled down from your father. It's. Your father is the one who gave us these words, this language to communicate these things. And one of the cool things I think about your dad that I learned was that he was illiterate till he was 17, but when he learned to read, he discovered he had a photographic memory.
- [19:37]
A
Exactly.
- [19:38]
B
That is crazy.
- [19:40]
A
That really is amazing, isn't it? And so when he would debate different people and they would try to wiggle out of what it is that they believe, my dad would say, well, on page 482, you say in your book. So he could. It was really amazing. He would not let him wiggle out of the argument. I don't know if I told you this, but when I was a little boy, when I would go to his debates, I never prayed for my dad's success. I would just pray that God would have mercy on his opponent.
- [20:15]
B
Oh, my goodness.
- [20:18]
A
Now can you imagine I'm approaching apologetics in a different way than you are? Because it's like I had all this. I didn't have any doubts about whether it was true. I just thought, okay, let's share the truth, but let's do it with meekness and fear. And that's kind of what happened to me. I. I learned how to teach this with a more sensitivity to people's individual situations so that it doesn't become just an argument with people. I've seen that so many times over the years.
- [20:53]
B
Yeah. And talking about the influence of your father, many people may not be aware that he was one of the framers of the Chicago Statement on inerrancy. He was a great defender of biblical inerrancy.
- [21:04]
A
Yes. And I think if people see the movie and they see what he says in the movie about how the Bible is the fundamental of all the fundamentals. And if the fundamental of all the fundamentals isn't fundamental, what's fundamental? That's one of the points he makes. And I think if his Christians understand it, we have to start there with the inerrancy of Scripture. I think it would really help to, to build up a lot of Christians faith because we live in a world in which people are saying now, and even some Christians, that something can be true and yet there's errors in the Bible. And I, I think that that just as Josh says in the movie, if you, you know, let inerrancy slip, you let every other doctrine slip intellectually. And I, I think that's an important message also for us.
- [21:59]
B
It is. I want to read some of these sweet comments. People are leaving, but real quick, tell us again where we can find the movie and the discount code and all that.
- [22:06]
A
Okay, so the movie, you go to the website norm geisslerthemovie.com and see the movie and our resource package that goes with it. You can email us@moviegim.org and the coupon code is qualified by God 2022 and May 10th. For example, we're going to show this movie in Alaska Bible College and then do a Q A online afterwards. And my hope is that I can get this movie in university campuses all across the US this year so that we can have this dialogue with skeptics and Christians, help people to understand all the things that my father taught all his life and get these resources. I think I mentioned you before. We have this free conversational evangelism app that was just endorsed by J. Warner Wallace.
- [23:00]
B
Great.
- [23:01]
A
And all they have to do is go to their Apple or Google Play store and type in Norm Geisler International Ministries and you get this free evangelism app that will give them ideas of how they can be a more effective witness. But these are the kind of resources we want to get in the hands of more and more Christians.
- [23:19]
B
Great. Well, I'm going to read a couple of comments and then we'll get to that second point that you want all Christians to understand. So this, this comment is from Michael Martin. He says Geisler was my professor at dts, didn't need notes for teaching, and was always capable of finishing our questions when we hit a wall trying to express ourselves. I admired his willingness to offer the gospel to those he debated instead of running them through with a lance. In his final point and summation, apologetics is my favorite area of theology. And I press those I instruct and disciple soldiers here in Korea. And then we have another comment from Scott Grimm. In addition to being a world class apologist and philosopher, Norm Geisler was the most underrated theologian ever. What a phenomenal man. I treasure his work. So yeah, man, I second those. You know so much that your dad has done to influence people. So the second point that you as making this movie that not all Christians understand, but they need to, and that is that faith and reason are more compatible than most Christians realize. Talk about that. A bit.
- [24:27]
A
Well, actually, I had a crisis in my life, actually, when my sister committed suicide, because one of the questions I asked is, how can I be happy in heaven if my sister is in hell? But then I remember what my Father taught me, that I can trust God for what I don't know because of what he's revealed to me that I do know. And I do know in Revelation 21:4, it says that someday God will wipe away all my tears. So I don't know how I'm going to be happy in heaven, but I can trust by faith that that's true. And I can trust not by blind faith, because I can trust the Bible, because I can trust Jesus. And I can trust Jesus because he claimed to be improved, to be God. And so it's like, so because of apologetics, because I know what I believe and why I believe it, I was able to handle that crisis in a lot better way because I could trust God for the things I don't understand because of what he's revealed to me that I do understand. I think if more Christians understand what they believe and why, and understand how their faith is compatible with their reason, it will really help them to grow in their faith.
- [25:51]
B
Yeah, And I. That was one of the things that really struck me. I had no idea that your family had been through that. And so when that was, when they talked about that in the movie, what really stood out to me about that is that your dad spent a lot of time talking about arguments for God's existence, answering skeptical claims. One of those claims that he spent a lot of time talking about and answering, is this what we call the problem of evil or the problem of suffering? If God is good, why does he allow evil? Why does he allow this kind of suffering? Is he not loving enough or not all powerful enough? And your dad provided wonderful answers to those questions. And then he walked through this experience of his own child committing suicide, which I can hardly think of many things that would be worse than that cause more suffering, that would reflect more of a reflection of the evil in the world than that. And yet he was tested in that way. And so all of those answers that he had provided in my mind are more deeply supported by the fact that they carried him through such a horrific experience. And your family as well, even trickling down to you to give you language and give you ways to process what your family walked through. That was such a powerful part of the movie to me, because it really. It backed up the words, you know.
- [27:16]
A
Exactly. And the other powerful part about the Movie I think that we haven't talked about is the lady that actually, we. We didn't give her real name that was in his class and. And was actually thinking about committing suicide. Grace is the name we gave her. She was thinking about committing suicide. If she didn't get answers to. To my. To her question in my father's class when her brother was in seminary and she sat in the class for a couple weeks, and she got enough answers that she didn't commit suicide. And she went on to have an impact on a whole group of people. And there's a story even behind that.
- [28:11]
B
Very cool. Got another comment from Michael here. This is such a hot topic right now, of course, because of everything happening with the Roe v. Wade situation. He said Dr. Geisler also went out to Routh Street Clinic to protest against that abortion facility. He did this every Thursday, taking students with him to encourage them to flesh out their convictions. So he was faith in action there. He was put his, you know, his walk was matching his talk there.
- [28:39]
A
Yeah. I actually went to Dallas Seminary when he was a professor there, and I went with him several times to that clinic. And there were lots of Christians that, you know, were trying to communicate, you know, this important conviction that we all had. And so it. Yeah, it's really amazing what's happening now. I'm really hoping this will turn out in a way that will. Will honor God.
- [29:08]
B
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Number three, the third thing that you want every Christian to understand is that there is a proper to use apologetics in our witness to others. And that starts with knowing what apologetics can and cannot do in our witness to others. What are the. What can apologetics do and what can it not do?
- [29:29]
A
Okay, so one of the most important things I think my father taught me growing up is that the Bible makes a distinction between belief that and belief in James 2:19 says, the demons believe that God exists, but do they believe in him? No. In the illustration I always use is my wife. When I married my wife, Charlene, I believe that she would make a great wife based on the evidence. But the evidence of why I thought she would make a great wife never forced me to say I do to her. That was a decision of my will. So when I'm witnessing to a non believer, I always point out there are two decisions you need to make about Jesus. First, you have to decide, is there enough evidence to believe that he is who he claimed to be? And then once you've decided that, you have a more difficult decision to make. Do I want to believe in him. Do I want to put my faith and trust in Christ? And sometimes when I'm talking to skeptics, I'll say, you mean to tell me if I can answer your question right now to your satisfaction, that you would repent of your sin, you would turn around 180 degrees, you would invite Christ to come into your life, ask him to forgive you of your sins, and direct your life from this point on. That's all you need, is just an answer to this one question. And if they're honest, they'll say to me things like, well, maybe that's not the only reason. So I use apologetics to help people to speak, see that their biggest barrier is not intellectual, it's volitional, it's spiritual. And if we can get people to that point using apologetics, that's the value in witnessing using apologetics. And that's why we need to teach more Christians this important distinction. Because a lot of times people think, well, you guys are just trying to argue people into the kingdom. And that won't work. Well, of course that won't work, because the Holy Spirit has to work. You know, John 6:65, First Corinthians 12, 3 say that it's the Holy Spirit that does that work in our hearts to get us to believe in Christ. Right? The natural man does not understand the things of the spirit of God. First Corinthians 2:14. The Greek word there is decomai. He does not welcome. It's not that he can't perceives some of the truth. It means he cannot receive the truth. And so we need to use apologetics appropriately in witnessing to help them with the belief that. And pray and live our lives in such a way that the Spirit of God begin to work in their hearts, help them to take that step of faith to believe in Christ.
- [32:23]
B
It's great. We're talking about the movie Norm Geisler not qualified. You can go to norm geislerthemovie.com to find out more. We are going to take some questions in a minute. So if you've got a question for us again about the movie, about Geisler's life, or about any general apologetic issue, you got a great apologist in David Geisler right here to answer your questions. Just put the word question in all caps and we'll try to get to a few questions at the end. David, one of the things about this movie that was really impactful to me, it reflects what I think your dad was about, what SES is about, and that's about equipping Christians, whether they have letters behind their names or not, and encouraging Christians to know that you can, you know, everybody has the same access to information now, you know. And so one of the ways that I have often felt unqualified is that I don't have a college degree. All of this study in my case has been mostly through auditing through. So it wasn't entirely self study. I was guided by professors, but not for credit. I have read a lot, read a lot of your dad's books and sometimes, you know, you can think, well, I don't really have the credentials to be able to say, you know, make a case for the truthfulness of Christianity. But the whole point of the whole movie is that, you know, sometimes we don't feel qualified for things that God has called us to do, but he calls us anyway. And I know that there are some prayers that you have some, some reasons. This, of course, is a tribute to your dad. That's certainly present. That's what the movie is. But you also have these deeper things. You're hoping and praying that people who view it will come to maybe some questions that they'll ask about their own lives after they see this. Maybe be inspired by talk about what those are.
- [34:13]
A
Well, yeah, I mean, if you grew up in a Christian home and you never really questioned your faith, you're going to have a lot of questions. I mean, look at the statistics that shows how many college church kids actually leave the faith after they leave college. So we need to encourage people to ask questions about, you know, what is the scientific evidence for God's existence? What's the philosophical evidence for God's existence? I, I developed a friendship with a skeptic, a scholar, in the last couple years, and I was watching him debate these other Christians and I noticed that when these Christians didn't use the two forms of the cosmological argument that my father said we need to use to establish theism, the beginning causality argument and the current causality argument, they didn't do as well. And so one of the things I want to encourage people to do is to remember all the things my father taught. He wrote this great book called Christian Apologetics. And the first time I read it, many years ago, it took me two times reading it to understand it. It was very, very deep. But take the time to read that book, Christian Apologetics by Norm Geisler, so that you can have a deeper understanding of the content of your faith. Know what you believe and why you believe it. Know that there's Good evidence from science, from philosophy, that God exists. And if God exists, then we can look at the evidence for Christianity through the lens of theism. And helping people to understand that is really, really important.
- [36:07]
B
As you know, that was the first apologetics book I read, and I understood about a fourth of it when I read it because I didn't know what any of those words meant yet. And so your dad's Christian Apologetics was the first. And it was a little above my head at the time, but it was, it was the first apologetics book I read. And that's actually where I learned about the different types of agnosticism. And, and that's even where I learned, like. Okay, even when something is like a lot, pick out what you can learn from it, something you do understand, and then start building from there. And. Yeah, just so influential. We're talking about Norm Geisler, Not Qualified, the movie. We got a couple questions here that we're gonna take. Let's start with where'd it go? We have a question from. It's gone now. Okay, Ginger. Ginger wants to know what is an effective way other than prayer for parents of deconstructed children, to bring the truth to the conversation?
- [37:12]
A
Okay. I have parents approach me all the time saying, my child has basically left the faith. What can I do? And my number one recommendation is to get Anthony Flew's book, There Is a God. Now, Anthony Flew, you may know, was one of the greatest atheistic philosophers of the 20th century. But before he died, he gave up his atheism and he wrote a book about why he did that. Now, as far as we know, he never became a Christian. So that's why he's like a good, objective person. You know, his, his book would be a good, objective book to read. If you have a child that basically is questioning the faith, have them read it. You read it, discuss the things that he talks about in the book. And I've had several people use that book that help them to take those steps. So obviously we need to pray for people. I am under the conviction that when people go away to college, the devil has a two barrel approach to dismantling people. And that is he tempts them morally and he tempts them to question their faith. If you can get them to question their faith that there's no evidence for Christianity, it's easier for them to fall morally. And if they fall morally, it's a lot harder for them to be restored. And so keep that in mind. You know, just that we need to help them in both of those areas intellectually and in terms of moral values. And we need to model for our children the kind of lives that we want them to emulate. Right?
- [39:06]
B
Yeah. And I would probably. I would. That was great. I love that approach. And that's so especially powerful because when you have a book like that, I think sometimes, you know, if you hand them the, you know, the case for Christ or something, the immediate instinct is like, well, this is from Christians. There's so much bias there. He just wanted to believe in that. But you've got a book that's really from the best case could be made for an unbiased source, because he's not actually even all the way to Christianity yet. He's just, you know, sort of making this case. So that's a great suggestion, David. And I would just add to that too. This is currently the world I'm in because I'm researching and writing a book right now, co authored with Tim Barnett of Red Pen Logic on the topic of deconstruction. And one of the things we're discovering in our research is that when people deconstruct, the instinct to disconnect from all of their Christian friends and family, or at least draw strong boundaries with those people is very strong. Because a lot of times I think you're right, David. I think the two pronged of moral and intellectual is really heavily influential. And because of. I think you add to that the relativism of the skepticism of objective truth claims, like, who are you trying to control with this? They've come to see Christianity as a toxic system. So they actually feel like it's an unsafe place. And so my advice to parents, a lot of times, if you have even adult children who are deconstructing, be very, very wise, because you probably have a very small and fragile window to just stay in their life and, you know, get to maybe the point where you can do the flu book, but you have this very fragile window right at the start there. If they're even gonna talk to you about it at all.
- [40:51]
A
That's right.
- [40:52]
B
Stay in their lives. Don't react in fear. Show lots of love, understanding, acknowledge what you can. If there's been spiritual abuse or hyper legalism or something like that, acknowledge that and try to escape. Establish that communication so that maybe those conversations can happen a little bit later down the road.
- [41:10]
A
Well, and then help them to understand that if there is no truth, as my father taught, there's no hope. My father used to teach this principle. A point in every direction is no point at all. If you Embrace everything you stand for what you stand for nothing. You believe in nothing. So if there is no objective truth, there is no hope. I remember about 11 years ago, before we moved back to the US I was on a panel discussion representing Christianity. There were different people representing different religions and someone asked the most important question of the night. They said, how does your religion help mankind to stop hating other human beings? And I thought, wow, what a great question. So I waited around to see what these other people would say and no one said anything. So finally, after about 30 seconds, I said, Romans 8:11 teaches that that same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to me as a Christian so I can be a better father to my children, a better husband to my wife Charlene, and yes, so I can love those I naturally hate. We need to help people understand Christianity provides the only hope for the world. No other religion provides that kind of hope. And I think my panel understood that because their silence communicated to me that they understood that hope is only in Christ alone. And that was a powerful moment for me in my ministry. I just remember that.
- [42:55]
B
Very cool. All right, here's a question from Melissa. This was something that was asked to her and she wasn't sure how to answer. So someone claimed hell is a man made concept that made its way into Judaism and Christianity from Zoroastrian influence on those religions. We have the texts from Zoroastrianism and the archaeology and historical record of the birth of Judaism arising from the Babylonian period of exile. How might you go about thinking through that question?
- [43:23]
A
Yeah, I mean, I mean there's a lot of people that make a lot of speculation. This is what I encourage. I don't have the answers to all the specific questions that people will raise. But here's what I encourage people to do. I encourage people to say, what if I answer this question? Would that help you to actually take a step further to the cross or be more open to hearing about Christianity? Like if people, I mean, I've hear just all this speculation for, for many, many years, but it just, it's, it's, it's just speculation. I mean, there really isn't a lot of substance to these kinds of questions. And so rather than answer the question, I tried to get the person to get to think through, well, okay, if I answer this question, will this actually help you to consider that Christianity could be true? If I could find you an answer? And if they say no, then what have you just found out? So I'm more adverse to not answer people's every question, but to get them to think what are the important questions that if I could answer, it would move the ball a little bit.
- [44:55]
B
Yeah, that's good. And I might. Melissa, too, I might come about this, you know, like, David, I don't know the specifics of the beginnings of Zoroastrianism and how that relates with Judaism, but here, what you have a perfect example here is somebody making a lot of truth claims. What a great opportunity to say, hey, I'd be really interested in looking at some of that evidence that you're talking about of, you know, specifically. I'd be very interested to know what people are saying about the Zoroastrian influence on Judaism. I'd love to look at some of that archaeological evidence from. You're talking about and that historical record regarding the birth of Judaism arising from the Babylonian period of exile. Now, that's something I might kind of question because, you know, we are starting to see more and more evidence from archeology for the Exodus. We have this, even a brand new. We got a podcast coming up on that. By the way, the brand new tablet that was just found, which is arguably, if it's authentic, which it's looking like it's going to be authenticated, is possibly the earliest Hebrew text we have, and that has the name of Yahweh in there. And there's things about that that are evidence for the Exodus, which came long before the Babylonian exile. So there's lots of different ways you can go about this, but what a great opportunity to have more discussion, ask a lot of really good questions, because when somebody makes claims like this, the burden of proof is on them. So they need to produce the evidence they're. They're claiming to have brought about. And then there's probably quite a bit of debate about some of those points that you can get into with your friends. So that might be another way to approach it as well.
- [46:34]
A
Absolutely.
- [46:34]
B
All right. Meg has a question. I really resonate with the feeling of being unqualified. I have a chronic illness that is very disabling and didn't get into apologetics until after I became sick. Now I feel like maybe God is telling me he wants to do something with my newfound passion for apologetics to strengthen the faith of others. I've thought about auditing seminary classes as a step forward in pursuing this passion and calling. Do you have any other suggestions for how I can help other people find truth through apologetics in my situation?
- [47:06]
A
Well, my father has left, like, a lifetime of resources that we put on our website. There's like we have a Norm Geisler audio library. So in other words, there are things that people can do to better equip themselves in what they believe in, why. And the more information you have like that, then just look for those everyday conversations and try to move those conversations in a spiritual direction. That's one of the things we teach in our conversational evangelism model, is don't wait to bring them to church, find out what their interest is and then use that interest as a launching pad to build a bridge in a spiritual direction with people. And I think this is a new paradigm shift that let's not start with spiritual conversation. Let's start with what they're interested and, you know, ask questions about hope and purpose. Like, do you ever feel like you've been placed here for some kind of purpose and what do you think that is? Or how do you cope when you go through difficult times? So find some of these introductory questions that you normally wouldn't think is part of evangelism. But in our culture we have to start there and then build spiritual bridges. But at the same time go to our website, ngim.org, go to the institute and learn more and more of all the things that my father left and just to get better equipped. But there should be, we should have a lot more opportunities to impact people than we, than we actually do if we are open to using everyday conversations and asking the Holy Spirit to help us to move them in a spiritual direction. And that's what I encourage Christians to do.
- [49:10]
B
Good. All right, A question from Michael. It is sad that so many churches seem indifferent to the need for apologetics and Christian education with so much material available for free. What explains this reluctance among well meaning Christians? I will say, Michael, I'm not sure if you're aware, but Prestonwood Baptist Church, big church in Texas, just hired Jeremiah Johnston as a pastor of apologetics and engagement. It's a sort of they're modeling this for the rest of and I'm actually, I just interviewed Jeremiah yesterday for an episode that's going to be coming up pretty soon about that tablet that was discovered. But I think that there's hope in that. We see this is a very large church that's saying, hey, we know that we don't just need an apologetics conference once a year. We need this integrated into every facet of our children's ministry all the way up. But David, any thoughts on that? What explains this reluctance among well known Christians?
- [50:03]
A
I mean, I've seen this for many, many years and I remember Once my father telling me this, that he believes that the evidential apologists and the presuppositional apologist are confusing belief that and belief in. And if they would better understand this distinction, then I think they would have a better understanding of the value of apologetics and then understand the limitations of apologetics. And this has been my experience. I've talked to too many pastors that have never heard until I explained to them the difference between belief that and belief in. And I'm thinking, how can someone go through seminary and not even learn those basic ideas? We, we're not doing. We're not doing our jobs as Christian leaders to educate lay people in understanding what they believe and why they believe it. But more and more people are beginning to. So, you know, my father raised up a generation of people who understood, and now it's up to us to help teach the next generation. And I think that's where we probably need to put our focus.
- [51:20]
B
Very good. All right, final question here. Do you know of any countries where churches are taking the initiative on a broad scale to implement apologetics?
- [51:29]
A
Well, I'm working with a megachurch in Manila right now. It's 100,000 members. And they are introducing, they're taking our curriculum, our movie, our all our resources and they're integrating that into their church. And I think, because they will do that, I think a whole bunch of others. But I think it's been slow, hasn't it? It's been a slow process. The churches in other countries are beginning to understand that we need to know what we believe and why we believe it. Especially with all this anti Christianity sediment that we have in our world today. We really need to better equip churches around the world.
- [52:24]
B
Yeah, and there's. I was just trying to think of all the places I know that are doing a good job all over the world. Of course, our friend Simon Brace from Southern Evangelical Seminary doing some great work in South Africa. I did a zoom with some ladies from Singapore who are integrating. They went through the Colson Fellows program and they're trying to integrate apologetics in their communities there. There's some great apologetics coming out of India. So, yes, I think there's so much hope to see that this is getting disseminated out throughout the world. And that seems like a good place to stop today is just with the hope, right? It is happening. We are seeing this. And the thing too, I just. There are. I want to end with this as well. And then we're going to give the links again so people can find The Movie I had a really cool experience this week. There are a lot of Christians who are feeling like their churches are compromising. It feels like they're being squeezed out. You know, things are getting smaller in a way. And I was invited to a home this week to talk about apologetics. And I thought, well, this will just be a tiny little thing. And I showed up. There are 50 people in this ladies living room who are part of a circuit of home churches. And they're doing that because they can't find churches that are just continually faithful. And they just like, you know, we're going to meet in homes. And they were so hungry for apologetics. They were hungry to know the true gospel and make sure that that's what they defend. They want to obey Jesus and know his word. And it was just kind of exciting to see that many people show up just at somebody's house in the middle of the day on a Monday or Tuesday it was. And because they're hungry. And so there is so much hope there. It reminds me of when God said to Elijah, I have 700 that have not bowed their knee to Baal. You don't even know about these people. You don't know about it, but I've got them. And isn't he always going to do that? He's always like that. But David, I'm going to let you leave us with some encouragement today. Be sure that you leave us with the links and the discount code for the movie we're talking about. Norm Geisler not qualified the movie. Go ahead and leave us with some encouraging words and then those links.
- [54:41]
A
Sure. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Norm geisler the movie.com norm geislerthemovie.com and if you want to bring the movie to your city and host it for a bunch of churches and do a Q and a afterwards. Moviegim.org and the coupon code is qualified by God 2022 so that's the information. Thank you so much for, for having me on.
- [55:12]
B
My pleasure. I want to thank my guest David Geisler today. If you're listening on audio platforms, this will go out to the audio platforms. Be sure to you leave a five star review on itunes. Really helps with those algorithms. If you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, you know, click, follow, subscribe. Click that bell icon to be notified every time we release a new video. We've got so much great content coming pretty consistently now. Also check us out on Instagram, Lisa Childers We've got some exclusive content there if you want more exclusive content and some Benefits, go to patreon.com alisachilders and you can sign up for that there. But for today, thanks so much for watching and we will see you next time.