#165 A Near Apostate Keeps the Faith through Church Hurt, Doubt and Addiction with Bobby Conway

Summary

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The Alisa Childers Podcast

Episode #165: A Near Apostate Keeps the Faith through Church Hurt, Doubt, and Addiction with Bobby Conway
Date: August 7, 2022
Guest: Bobby Conway (“The One Minute Apologist”)

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Episode Overview

In this candid and deeply personal episode, Alisa Childers sits down with apologist and pastor Bobby Conway to discuss his near-apostasy, the intense doubts and emotional struggles he faced as a Christian leader, and how he ultimately kept his faith through church hurt, doubt, burnout, and relapse into addiction. Together, they explore the triggers that drive people toward deconstruction and what healthy responses look like, both personally and in the church.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Deconstruction and Its Triggers?

• Defining Deconstruction: The episode explores what leads people to deconstruct (critically dismantle) their faith, be it intellectual doubt, church hurt, or moral struggles.
• Directional Doubt: Doubt is not neutral—people can doubt “toward God” or away from Him.
  • Alisa: “You can doubt one way or the other, but apologetics can help people to doubt toward faith in God.” (06:13)

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2. Bobby Conway’s Testimony: From Party Life to Apologist

• Background: Bobby did not hear the gospel until age 19 after a life of partying and substance abuse. Conversion was transformational, including entering sobriety.

  • Bobby: “All I wanted to do was tell people about Jesus. Right. That's how I got into apologetics.” (05:21)

• Education and Insecurity: Despite a rough academic start, Bobby pursued two doctorates (in apologetics and moral philosophy) but grapples with imposter syndrome and the shadow side of intellectualism.

  • Bobby: “God takes the foolish things, the weak things of the world.” (09:09)

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3. The Agony of Doubt — Especially for Leaders

• Vivid Metaphor: Bobby described himself as a “near apostate”—like a “spider soon to be snapped from its web.”
  • Bobby: “I felt forsaken, abandoned, let go, and I was wondering where God was.” (01:50)
• Leadership Pressure: As a pastor and apologist, his doubts were compounded by public responsibility and internal expectations.
• Apologetics’ Limitations: While apologetics is vital, it cannot answer all questions—learning to live with mystery is crucial.

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4. Triggers for Deconstruction

Intellectual Triggers:

• Doctrinal Rigidity and Legalism: Overly strict environments set up false dichotomies, causing crisis when secondary issues are questioned.
  • Bobby: “If what you're told is if you bust out of that small box, you become an apostate... The box is bigger.” (15:04)
• Information Overload: More reading led to more questions; constant pursuit of certainty is futile.
  • Bobby: “The way out of this is not going to be simply apologetics... I got to learn how to live with unanswered questions.” (16:05)

Emotional and Relational Triggers:

• Burnout and Busyness: Leading a church, pursuing two doctorates, family, and public ministry led to neglect of soul care and spiritual dryness.
  • Bobby: “The wiser you get, the more you learn... Well, I'll take it from here. I'm not going to pray as much. And so that soul care piece started to hurt me as well.” (22:24)

Addiction & Temptation:

• Relapse After 23 Years: Feeling overwhelmed and emotionally distant, Bobby rationalized drinking again—eventually relapsing. This surfaced deeper issues around shame, secrecy, and self-sufficiency.
  • Bobby: “Transparency is my survival medicine... I found myself wanting to deceive myself, you know, overpouring, being a little bit secretive...” (29:54)

Church Hurt:

• Confession and Poor Response: Though transparent with his elders about doubt and relapse, Bobby and his family felt unsupported and eventually left the church.
  • Bobby: “It was incredibly agonizing... We didn't feel shepherded. Ultimately... we didn't feel loved well through our suffering.” (31:29)

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5. Key Insights and Encouragement

On Intellectual Humility and Growth:

• Slow Theological Development: Don’t rush theological commitments; enjoy learning broadly and deeply before narrowing views.
• Advice to Parents & Churches: Teach children and new believers about the diversity in non-essential Christian beliefs; avoid setting up “false faith crises” over secondary issues. (See 18:11–21:41)

On Childlike Faith:

• Dependence, Not Ignorance: True “childlike faith” is trusting dependence, not intellectual naivety or anti-intellectualism.
  • Bobby: “Out of my doubt was the same solution to my guilt and purpose of life. It was the cross, it was the gospel. It was childlike faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.” (34:56)
  • Alisa: “It's not about not being curious or not wanting knowledge, but it's dependence, right?” (37:50)

On Dealing with Doubt and Uncertainty:

• Embracing Limits: No worldview grants omniscience or certainty; even agnosticism is “certain there is an explanation, he just doesn’t know it.”
  • Bobby: “What I’m struggling with is my finitude... at the end of the day, no worldview is going to give me omniscience and certainty.” (42:03)

On Transparency and Healing:

• Transparency vs. Secrecy: Openness about weaknesses and struggles is vital for spiritual health.
• Healthy Church Response: The church must respond with grace and restoration. Churches should be “a place of broken people... The church welcomes you here, your questions and all.” (34:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Doubt’s Direction:
  “When you are in doubt, I mean, you're in a place where you can't stay there, you're going to doubt toward faith or you're going to doubt toward unbelief.”
  — Bobby Conway (04:02)

• On Transparency:
  “If there's anything I learned in recovery is that transparency is my survival medicine.”
  — Bobby Conway (29:54)

• On Leaving Christianity vs. Staying:
  “If I was to walk away from Christianity, I would just inherit another set of unforeseen questions. Eventually, that will become my doubts.”
  — Bobby Conway (42:03)

• On True Hope:
  “The local church is the hope of the world. Apologetics is not the hope of the world. Jesus is the hope of the world.”
  — Bobby Conway (47:32)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:00 — Bobby's “near apostate” experience and what that felt like
• 06:24 — Overcoming educational insecurity and academic journey
• 11:34 — The origins of Bobby’s intellectual doubts in seminary
• 15:04 — How legalism and doctrinal rigidity can set up false faith crises
• 21:41 — Emotional triggers: burnout, busyness, and neglect of soul care
• 27:01 — Rationalizing and relapsing into addiction after decades of sobriety
• 29:54 — Transparency with church leadership and how the church responded
• 33:22 — “Trauma trigger” of church hurt and broken relationships
• 34:56 — The rediscovery of childlike faith and the cross
• 42:03 — Embracing finitude and faith as the only answer to ultimate doubt
• 46:05 — Upcoming book: Does Christianity Still Make Sense?

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Practical Takeaways for Listeners

• Doubt is a journey, not a destination; which direction are you traveling?
• Apologetics is important, but not sufficient; relationship with Jesus, humility, and transparency matter most.
• Churches must teach theological essentials vs. non-essentials and create space for honest questions.
• No worldview offers perfect certainty—every stance involves faith.
• Healthy faith communities respond to confession and failure with grace, support, and restoration.
• Parents: Help your kids understand that questions and periods of doubt are normal and not unique to Christianity.

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Connect with Bobby Conway

• Radio show: Pastor’s Perspective
• Podcast: One Minute Apologist
• YouTube: One Minute Apologist channel

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This episode is an honest, hopeful look at keeping faith in the midst of profound intellectual and emotional challenges, and a call for churches and Christians to foster environments of authenticity, humility, and grace.

Transcript

[A]

And I had to come to a conclusion with, okay, why not be an agnostic then? And I came to the place where I said, well, you know what? Even the agnostic is certain about one thing. He's certain there is an explanation. He just doesn't know it.

[B]

Welcome to the Alisa Childers podcast, where we equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity, discern its counterfeits, and proclaim the gospel with clarity, kindness and truth. Today we're going to be talking about triggers toward deconstruction, things that tend to catapult people into a deconstruction process. I'm here with my friend and fellow apologist, Bobby Conway. You may know him as the One Minute Apologist. He's also a pastor and he has experienced a lot of these triggers in his own life, yet he has stayed in the faith. Bobbi, welcome.

[A]

Hey, it is so good to be with you. And I am just super stoked and excited watching what God's doing in your life. It's been so much fun just hearing the great news about your book and bumping into people. Listen, you have been one contagious Christian.

[B]

Oh, yeah? Well, I hope it's a good contagion, right? Well, I remember watching the 1 minute apologist videos back when I first discovered Apologet and they were just so helpful to me. So it's great to get to work with you now. And we're here live in Cincinnati at the cross exam at Instructor Academy. But we were talking one day while we were here and you mentioned something that I thought was very thought provoking and you referred to yourself as a near apostate. Why do you call yourself that?

[A]

Well, I literally questioned whether or not I was going to be able to hold on. I can recall driving in my car one day and the image of a spider soon to be snapped from its web, was how I envisioned myself in the faith. I felt like I was hanging by a strand as the undoing of everything that was so dear to me was killing me. And it was literally overwhelming, would lead me into some really dark nights. And I would say I just find myself literally as a near apostate because I thought I was going to be an apostate. I was scared and I would pray, God, please don't let that be the case. And the pressure was so overwhelming, Elisa, because here I was pastoring a large church. I had a national platform through One Minute Apologists where I was defending the faith. The difference between me and my doubts and maybe progressive Christians is I hated my Doubts. I wanted God to resolve my doubts so I can go deeper into him. Where I think some people, they want to move beyond God into something else. And that was what was so scary. I felt forsaken, abandoned, let go, and I was wondering where God was. And this went on for a long time in my life.

[B]

And you wrote a book called Doubting Toward God, which I thought was a great. Because in the book you talk about doubt being directional. You can doubt toward God or away from God. And as I've of course wrestled with my own doubts and talked with others and listened to deconstruction stories, it seems like there's a path that people tend to take, one path or the other, and that's either engage with their doubts because they want to believe what's true. And then at some point, though, there are those who where the intellectual arguments seem to be justification for an unbelief that maybe already is there. Maybe they're looking for reasons to exit rather than reasons to on ramp. So doubt in that sense isn't really neutral, is it?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, when you are in doubt, I mean, you're in a place where you can't stay there, you're going to doubt toward faith or you're going to doubt toward unbelief. And it does bring you to a desperation. And I think if you're a true believer in Jesus, that it should wreck you when you're experiencing it. The reason my doubt was so agonizing for me, Lysa, is because love relationship for Jesus was so powerful. I mean, I'm a guy who grew up, never heard the gospel Till I was 19 years old, grew up in California. I was a big partier. I was wondering how to get two questions answered. What do I do with my guilt? And what's the purpose of my life? And I went and heard this evangelist while I was playing college baseball by the name of Greg Laurie. And I resonated with him because he used words like me, dude, cool, bro, stoked. And as I was listening to him talk, I placed my faith in Jesus. But looking back, I kind of just jumped in and I really didn't even know what questions to ask except those two. But there were so many more questions that were going to come my way down the road. But Jesus would end up helping me to enter into sobriety. I would do 400 meetings of sobriety in my first year. I would get my life cleaned up. I came alive. And so my relationship with Christ, it was so powerful. All I wanted to do was tell people About Jesus. Right. That's how I got into apologetics. The person who says apologetics isn't important has just revealed how little evangelism they're doing. Right. Because that's how I needed apologetics. I was out there sharing my faith with Christ. And so, yes, to enter into that doubt then it was so literally, emotionally agonizing. I mean, to preach by faith, like, God, I am going to walk out here and I want this to be true. It doesn't feel true. And I don't feel like it'd be responsible for me just to step down from my pulpit because I'm in a season of doubts. I know that that would come if I walk away from this, but will you please help me to be faithful? And that's what I see happening in our culture. Right. You can doubt one way or the other, but apologetics can help people to doubt toward faith in God.

[B]

Yeah, that's good. So tell us a little more about your story. A lot of people may not know how educated you are, right, because this isn't something you blast out on social media, but you have two PhDs, so tell us about that.

[A]

Well, I was very uneducated. So some of my academic pursuit was rooted in insecurities. Right. So a lot of it was rooted in, hey, I just want to know God, and I want to know more. I wish I could say it was all perfectly sanctified, but I was a guy, Elisa, who was so uneducated in high school. I mean, I was a big partier. I was the senior sitting in class with sophomores. If I was in class, because I might have been out in the parking lot rolling a joint to make it through the rest of the day. But I was also this guy that when I became a Christian, I had never read a book except for Judy Blume's Freckle Juice that I could remember. And for the longest time, I was calling it Chocolate Juice until somebody corrected me on that because I had forgotten about that. I got sent home from school for gluing a book together when I was in about the fifth grade or sixth grade. I failed the ASVAB three times. Out of high school, I wanted to go to the Marine Corps. You needed a 31 on the ASVAB. The first time I took it, I failed. I had to wait 30 days. It again. I waited six months and I failed it again. The army would give you a pass to get in on a 28. The third time I took it, I got a 27. The third time I took it, I Was doing everything I could just to not have drugs in my system. When I showed up at MEPs to take the physical, well, the army gave me a waiver on my 27 and said, we'll let you in even though we require 28. And I went and failed the physical. Well, when I met Heather and I became a Christian, I was coming alive for Jesus. And I can remember, we're young, we're dating, and I did not show up at my interview at Chili's. And the reason is the menu was so long that I was worried that I couldn't pass the test. I was so insecure to go into Chili's and to go back and tell Heather, this girl that I was falling in love with, that I failed the test. So what happened was, is I started getting educated. I went to Bible college. I was going to lots of meetings, getting my life cleaned up, sharing the gospel, fumbling my way through this thing. And I was paying people in Bible college, Elisa, to type my papers because I didn't know how to type. Then between Bible college and seminary, my in laws got me a laptop and I taught myself to type. When I showed up at Dallas Theological Seminary, I can remember tipping the laptop down so that the students wouldn't see my fingers as I was typing because I would type so slow compared to everybody that was just crushing it. So I'd be like, God, gee, oh, well. By the end of Dallas, I was starting to academically, but in fact, I got straight A's my first semester with 18 credit hours. So I felt like there was academic potential there. I got out, and then I would go get a doctorate of ministry in apologetics under Norman Geiser at ses. And listen, I mean, I graduate summa cum laude, highest honors. I don't share that to brag. I'm just saying God takes the foolish things, the weak things of the world. And then I got into, you know, philosophy and was loving it and loved William Lane Craig and learned that they had a program out of University of Birmingham in England. And I went and got a PhD in moral philosophy and developed an argument for moral guilt and wrapped that up. And here I am. You know, I write books and do this stuff, but I'm not the guy that just came out with this knowledge. This has been hard won't.

[B]

Yeah, well, I worked at Chili's for a few years, so I can attest to how difficult that test was.

[A]

I mean, do you remember the guiltless menu and the guilty menu?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah, see, I would have been guilty. I'd have failed that test, man. So you did it. Kudos.

[B]

Well, you know, I was the hostess, so I didn't have to pass the level that the servers would have had to have passed, but I still had to know what all the food was. You know, back then you had to train to do jobs.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Yeah, just like today.

[A]

Exactly. You had to have people skills to be a waiter or a waitress. But you know what, though, Elisa, what I really admire about you is you have such a great mind. I mean, the first time I heard you speak, I can just remember telling you, wow, you're so articulate. And I think we all appreciate that. That listen to you. And also your ability to capture this stuff has just been fantastic. Right. So I love that you don't have to go and get.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

A couple doctorate degrees in order to do this. You're a living example of somebody who's doing it well.

[B]

Thanks. I mean, it's kind of the same. I was a terrible student. I think my parents were just happy I passed high school, you know, just like graduated, you know, but yeah, I remember praying, asking the Lord to expand my mind. I didn't know what to pray. I didn't know the words. But just help me understand this stuff. So I know the Lord had a big hand in that. But I want to circle around to. You kind of walked us through a bit of your story, but yet somewhere in there, these huge doubts start to emerge. I mean, you're. I mean, you study under Norm Geisler. And was it after that even that you came to the point of possibly losing your faith? Tell us about where maybe where that started.

[A]

The first time I remember struggling with doubts was at Dallas Seminary. I was taking a class with Dwight Pentecost and he was a big time eschatology person on pre trib and all that. And he wrote a book on the life of Jesus that was about 500 pages. And it allowed us to look at the Synoptic gospels. And I was looking at these parallel accounts and recognizing some apparent discrepancies. And I can even remember raising my hand and asking Dr. Pentecost, you know, answers. And I just wasn't satisfied. I really kind of felt like it was just too simplistic of an answer. It was actually another professor, Darrell Bock at Dallas Seminary who helped me through this synoptic problem that I was beginning to see. He wrote an article called Live Jive or Memorex. And he talked about the difference between ipsissima verba and ipsissima vox.

[B]

Okay, gotta tell us what that. What that is.

[A]

I'm happy to.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's just a Latin phrase that means, do we have the exact voice, the vox, or the exact words, verba of Jesus? And one of the things that can cause us to start to doubt is if we get too wooden and too literalistic. Like, people mean well in that, but in their desire to just be so literalistic. What can happen is that can set people up to go, well, wait a second, and it can start the ball rolling for doubt. And what Bach said is, we don't have the exact words of Jesus always, but we have his voice properly captured. And so even the fact that he is speaking in Aramaic and then we have his words in Greek, there is some loss where they were capturing the voice. And so good, faithful journalism, they can capture maybe the voice. If somebody was listening to us, they could capture the voice and sentiment of this conversation, but they might not remember the word order. But I was getting hung up. The word order here is different in Mark than it is in Luke. And being told that, yeah, he said it just like this, and I had to just learn, maybe it's not as big of a deal. Like, obviously with the epistles, you have the exact word order because these are letters that are being written. So that bothered me for a little bit, and I felt a short haunting, but it would return to me with a vengeance. While I was pastoring a church, working on my doctorate in apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary, I started to struggle more. And I think some of the struggle was this, as I said, I got into Christianity looking to answer two questions. It's not that I didn't have other questions. It's just taken mine. I didn't have a big education. I didn't do a lot of vetting. And I was haunted by the question of how do I know I got it right? I mean, there's a lot of other beliefs out there. There's a lot of other world religions out there. There's over 40,000 Christian denominations. Doesn't even seem like we can be aligned on this thing. And I found myself struggling. And when it got horrifying is when I entered into the PhD program. I mean, I was swimming in the deep seas with Nietzsche and Freud, and I was thinking through all this stuff. But when you commit to your beliefs too quickly, like your doctrinal positions too

[B]

quickly, like, you're talking about not essential things, but you're talking about, like, what you might think about the timing of the return of Jesus or the age of the earth or something like that.

[A]

Exactly. So, I mean, somebody gets saved on a Wednesday, they go to church Sunday and they're at a membership class, and now they got to sign a list of 30 things that they believe in, and they've never even had a chance to really think about it. If they're in a particular denomination that is really wooden and legalistic. Because I entered into legalism in my Bible college in Arkansas. But, you know, I was just being teachable. But I was in such a small box. Like, what are denominations? There are different size boxes that tell you how large or small Christianity is. And I was in a tight box. And if you're an analytical type, a creative type, you're going to come busting out of that. But if what you're told is if you bust out of that small box, you become an apostate. Yeah, you need to realize that the box is bigger. Now. Progressives, they don't even really want walls and borders, right? So we want that mere Christianity box. So what happened is I'm out there in the seas of philosophy and I'm swimming and all these objections are happening. Well, here's the thing. As apologists, we have to be careful because we'll say, hey, you need to just go and read a book and chase down the answers to your questions. Well, my problem was, is I had taught myself by this time how to speed listen. I mean, I'd processed over 120 books in like 90 days on a sabbatical. Speed listening. I'm just taking in information. I'm going for book that I try to read to address my doubts. I'm collecting 10 more questions or 20 more questions. So the way out of this is not going to be simply apologetics, because apologetics is I'm reading it, but I'm getting more and more answers or questions. So I'm like, I got to learn how to live with unanswered questions. I got to learn that Christianity can give me a way to live without all of my questions answered as well. And that was tricky. But while I'm in the middle of all this, I'm pastoring. I'm wondering if God's going to pull me through. I get on antidepressants. My wife and kids see me looking very, very hollow. But what God's doing is God can use doubt to be the ingredients for the making of an apologist. And, you know, when I would come out of it, I would write Doubting toward faith. And there's things that I've learned, Elisa, like I Told my kids, you know, what we need to do and teach discipleship is for people to love God, love people, celebrate the Gospel, enjoy learning, don't try to conquer it. In other words, I told them, don't commit to your theological positions too quick. Because when we were younger, it was like the mature Christian was the one who could say all their theological positions, and then we'd feel insecure if we didn't know it. So my thought would be more like, what if we enjoy learning knowing that there is a proper position, but I'm going to take. Take my time to learn it. And so I think part of discipleship in churches is don't simplify it and think you just go through one on one, two, one, three on four or one or whatever, and now you've got Christianity in a box. Rather, let people know early on, there's lots of questions you're going to bump into. There's lots of ways that people think about it, enjoy, take your time learning it, and know that there is some proper borders for you to live within.

[B]

I think this is really important because as I studied deconstruction and I, you know, I go to the TikTok pages and the Instagram pages so many times, you'll find an account where someone thinks they're destroying Christianity because they didn't realize that there are faithful Christians who think the earth's a little older than 6,000 years old. And if we equip our kids to say, look, there's this box, the salvation box, like, that's salvation, right? That's mere Christianity. Outside of that, we always want to get to what the Bible's teaching on everything, what the age of the earth is. I mean, if it, if it has something to say about it, right, we want to know what that is. But there are faithful Christians that disagree with each other on some of these topics, like women in ministry, have the sign gifts of the Spirit, continued, things like this, predestination, free will. Oh, you know, never going to solve that one, but I'm not going to solve it. But, you know, but just to let people know that even if churches would say, look, this is our position on the end times, but just so you know, if you disagree with this position, you take a slightly different position. It doesn't mean you're not a Christian. And that could, I feel like that could really safeguard people from some of the assumptions that are made. I've said before on the podcast, nobody ever told me, if you don't believe that the Earth is exactly 6,000 years old, then you're liberal or you're not a Christian, but I kind of caught that. And so when I got into apologetics after my faith had just unraveled, I learned that a lot of the guys that I was following and learning from actually had an older view of creation, yet they believed the Bible was the inerrant word of God. They believed that Adam and Eve were real historical people and that sort of expanded the world. And I don't mean expanded in the sense that, oh, I just learned there was all this other stuff out there, like it's a free for all. But my, you know, my core things where I. I knew the Bible was the word of God and that was important to me. I couldn't have gone outside that box. But knowing that that view can exist in that box was an important piece of the puzzle for me, as far as my thinking goes. And I think that's what I see on TikTok so often. I don't know if you listen to the Rhett and Link deconstruction story, but it seemed like a huge part of the beginning of the journey for Rhett was he thought, if you're not young earth, you're not a Christian. So when he met Christians who thought differently, it started to make him question everything. I just spoke with a girl who, someone in her family was raised in a particular type of Christianity that doesn't use musical instruments. And, you know, that's fine. I'm not saying that that's wrong, but this particular person thought, well, if the Bible wasn't so clear on that and we had gotten that wrong, then, you know, maybe there's all these other things that they got wrong and it actually propelled them into a deconstruction of that middle of that Southern Bible. Throwing the baby out with the Bible. Yeah, exactly. So I think that's really good because you've kind of identified the intellectual triggers that might be something that could send someone into a deconstruction and kind of how you worked through those intellectual triggers. I've heard you say that before, how you've taught your kids, you know, take your time on these positions. And I've actually learned from that and said similar things to my kids. What. What was. Do you think would be another trigger for you that. Cause you've been through. You've been through some. You had a relapse, you had some bad church experiences, church harm, church abuse, things like this. Talk about, what trigger do you think would be maybe the one that follows those.

[A]

You know, one of the things that happened with me. And, you know, you might be feeling this a little bit, Alisa, you know, you. When you were singing, you know, Zoe girl, and it was busy and life can overwhelm you, but now you're in this situation, right? You got this podcast, you're writing books, you know, you're raising a family, you know, you've got your husband, you're married, and there's all these demands, right? What was happening to me is I was pastoring a growing church and trying to do two doctorates and raise kids and write books, and then the woman apologist was growing. And when we started that, we didn't really even know what we were doing, right? Like, we were just kind of the. The OG of YouTube apologetics back then, right? But. But it was a lot of fun. But then opportunities were coming with it, radio interviews that you're doing. And so before you know it, it was kind of like, in good intentions, you're meaning well. And life starts getting so busy and soul care starts to get on the shelf. And because I've got this addict brain, and I'm an obsessive analyzer, and I talk about. That's the worst person for doubt is what I call the obsessive analyzer. And that's a person might have some OCD tendencies, right? Coupled with analytical skills. So, like, the person who analyzes, but they're not, like, maybe obsessive. Like, I think of like, a William Lane Craig. He's a strong analyzer, but I think he can detach from what he's doing. Right. He doesn't just get worked over. Then you got people who are obsessive, but it might not be that they obsess on analyzing things. So. So the obsessive analyzer, I think, is really a prime candidate for deconstructing, for walking away. It's a temperament to pay attention to with people. I also think somebody who is. I'm also really left brain, logical, but I'm also really right brain, that creative type. And I think that the creative types, the artistic types, they don't always do well with borders and boundaries. They're always pressing up and pushing them. My left brain tells me I need that, but my right brain's always pushing to make sure. And so sometimes that artistic side doesn't let somebody feel safe in their faith for long, and that can haunt them. And that's why you see a lot of, like, who is it that takes their lives the most, right? It's your artists, it's your musicians, it's their tortured souls and so in a lot of ways, I was a tortured soul with my doubt. And the type of doubt that I had was interesting life. It was intellectual doubt for me. But a trigger that didn't help me is I got to. My relationship with God began to be a lifelong Q and A session. And so, like, literally, like, your poor audience would be like, what did you bring this guy on for? He's got add some OCD tendencies. He's recovering alcoholic, anxiety disorder. Okay, well, good, because I'm like, so here's the deal. What were the triggers? Okay, well, the doubt's there, but then. And I was really busy experiencing some burnout. And, you know, there's a danger, like, when I started off in Christianity, never hearing the gospel Till I was 19. So much of that beginning, Elisa, I depended on God for everything. I mean, I was crying out to him. I was praying. I didn't have any wisdom. So to think about what the word had to say. I needed God to do, like, circumstantial things to get my attention, and I needed to pray. And, boy, he did amazing circumstantial things. And I would pray. But you know what happens? Well, if you're not careful, the wiser you get, the more you learn about the Word. Well, I'll take it from here. I'm not going to pray as much. And so that soul care piece started to hurt me as well. And so then you've got busyness burnout that's building up. You're struggling with doubts. You met well, but you take on too much in your life, and then the devil uses all the good to begin to crush you. And then we're in the middle of raising our kids, and we are real open about, like, just mental health in our family. And we were having just mental health issues in our raising our kids. It was affecting our marriage. My wife and I are arguing like cats and dogs. We both wanted to go to Tahiti at times and not with each other, right? And it was like everything felt like it was falling apart. Here I am feeling like I gotta preach on Sunday, and I've had an argument with my wife on Saturday. And I'm preaching by faith, but I'm doubting this thing. I got more opportunities than I know what to deal with right now. I got book deadlines. And now I wonder if I could drink again. I wonder if I could have a sip of alcohol to help assuage my angst. Because it had been, you know, 23 years. I got clean when I was 21. It had been 23 years since I had a sip. And so I thought, you know, I learned self control in other areas. And I wasn't wanting to drink to go be like I did when I was a kid. I was just thinking, hey, it'd be nice to be able to have a glass of water.

[B]

Maybe I can be a mature person and do this.

[A]

Yeah, you know, everybody else around me drinks. Maybe I could do this. So I went online and I typed up, well, how much does a normal person drink? Not realizing that normal people don't go do that question. So I was already failing.

[B]

That's not a good sign.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, I didn't see it like the attic in me. I'm like, so here I am doing research about how I'm going to conquer alcohol. Right. Yeah. I'm going to be thoughtful. I'm going to really. Well, it didn't work because right before you know it, then I would do my quota and be like, okay, the normal person doesn't drink more than 14 a week or no more than four in one night. Great, I'll start there. Well, the problem is, it'll be like, I show up and if it's going to be four in one night, well, then when I'm looking at the menu, I'm not ordering by flavor. I'm looking at what has the highest percentages for my quota. Well, then it becomes this mind thing. Right. Well, then I ended up having a night where I literally just got inebriated. I went to the elders. I shared about that.

[B]

Let's stop there because that's huge. That's huge, Bobbi, because I want to highlight, and I want you to continue the story, but I want to point something out here because I remember when we first met, I had shared with you the story of being in a small type of study group with a pastor who had. Well, I found out later, I didn't know this back then, that he had actually already fully deconstructed, but at the time, I thought he was experiencing doubts. He was in deconstruction, maybe, and he was processing those doubts with this group of parishioners. It wasn't elders, it wasn't leaders. And a lot of them were baby Christians, brand new Christians, and was really persuading people to leave their, you know, that mere Christianity box, I would say. And I remember you sharing that when you had gone through doubts, you went to your elders, like, you confessed that to them because your intention was not. You didn't want to lead people away from God. You didn't want the doubts even in your own life. And I just think that's so admirable because how many pastors would. There's just not a lot of pastors that would do that. And then again, when you had your relapse with the alcohol, you go to your elders and you confess that. I just. I mean, I think if anybody could take anything away from this conversation more than anything else, it would be that, like, that is what we should all be doing. I think in this kind of culture of celebrity, of just, you know, if you just think about how different the world is now, even with how big churches have gotten. And then. And I get it. I mean, I've been in the music industry and I'm doing this, and I try to be really aware of, you know, guarding from burnout and all this stuff. But there is a sense in which you get to a certain point and you feel like, if I start to struggle, there's so many people depending on me. And then you have a choice, do I just hide it or do I confess it? And you did the right thing. And I think that's an example for everybody, not just pastors, to follow. But I just wanted to pause there because that's huge. That's not normal. You know, that's not the typical story.

[A]

But I appreciate that. You know, I mean, if there's anything I learned in recovery is that transparency is my survival medicine. And part of the thing that was scaring me while I was trying this experiment out with drinking to see if I could manage it. And again, it was a big mental game. One time I got completely inebriated when I went to them, but I was trying to manage it, and it just was so in my head, like it was going to crush me. But transparency is my survival medicine, and I need to be able to be real. But I found myself wanting to deceive myself, you know, overpouring, being a little bit secretive, like, you know, oh, I'll have these drinks and go out on a date night with my wife and then, like, slide off into the bathroom on a date night and pre pack a drink and take that down and think, this is not normal. This is not normal. And this was some of. I said, wow, my heart's starting to get deceptive, and I'm gonna. This could hurt me. And I was fortunate. It wasn't like I was out, you know, looking at pornography and having affairs or anything like that. But that could lead to those places because my heart was getting dark. And so, yeah, I would go to the elders and, you know, I shared with them. And then eventually I would resign from the church. I didn't have to resign. I wasn't terminated or anything like that. But I had made it through my intellectual doubts a few years earlier. But this would create some emotional doubt because the church at large was amazing when I did share about the relapse, but. But the leaders had no idea how to handle this with love and grace. And it was incredibly agonizing, and I had to go through a lot of healing. And if there's anything I want to be as a pastor, it is when somebody slips up to hug them and confesses and love them and sag. That's huge that you did that. It doesn't mean that we don't have to talk about some steps and how you got there. Because I could understand that. I needed a break. I needed to think about what was going there. But. But the kind of things that I had, I mean. I mean, I had two pastors right after I shared it, immediately go, is he forever terminated from the ministry? You know, getting kicked out of an elder's wife's house or saying, you're not sorry enough. These were the kinds of things that were confusing. Leaving a church that I pastored for 14 years and not even having some of the leadership come and say goodbye to my wife and I or never follow up with us. So we didn't feel shepherded. And ultimately the reason I resigned is. Is we didn't feel safe and we didn't feel loved well through our suffering. But God is so gracious. I mean, he put the right people in our place, put us back together, and has given us a wonderful church family again that loves us well. And so we're just really thankful right now.

[B]

That's great. So intellectual triggers, doubts, emotional triggers, doubts. And I would even add, too, you've experienced the temptation element. You know, you hear in a lot of deconstruction stories as well, where there's a sin struggle, and that tends to people either say, look, I'm just going to give up on this and live how I want to live, or they don't, and they do what you did, which is, you know, you saw your heart becoming deceptive and you saw what was down the road from that. And, you know, so that's even another trigger that we didn't even plan on talking about that I'm hearing in your story. But then you have the church. You know, the church.

[A]

The trauma trigger.

[B]

The trauma trigger, yeah, because that's a huge one as well. And you Know, are there others? I mean, I mean, those are big. You don't need anymore.

[A]

But yeah, you know what else I can think about here? It's the. I love truth, right? I mean, and I think as apologists, that's what we love it and we're motivated by it. And so. So for me, when I was going through this, I just wanted to know what truth was. It was never about, like, I want to go live some crazy life, you know, and maybe that's why these weren't emotional doubts as much early on, more intellectual. But I did want to know truth and I wanted to know how to properly defend it. I mean, I would find myself doing these thought experiences that was incredibly fruitful for me as an apologist. Like, okay, well what? Like, so, for example, the atheist would say, oh, you know what? How could a good God allow all this suffering and evil and stuff like this? And then I would think, okay, I'll grant that maybe God doesn't intervene, like, as quick as we want as Christians. But on atheism, you've got a couple problems. So if I leave my Christianity and walk over to atheism, that's how I would think. Like, what if I walked over there? Well, now I've inherited a couple problems. Like, now I have no standard to even say something's right or wrong. But not only that, there's no ultimate justice for, like, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, where on Christianity we have a standard and we also have ultimate justice. We just don't have the timing of justice when we would, like, that's it,

[B]

that's it right there.

[A]

That thing over and over and over again. And I was like, wait a second. And then, like, now, like, I feel alive again. I feel so excited about Christianity. It was just like I had to go out and get scared to death for a little while and to be able to come back. And now I just want to be able to. God can use, like, my addiction and my mental health and my doubts and my lack of education to getting an education to just be able to say, hey, the church is a place of broken people. I'm a broken person. The church welcomes you here, your questions and all. But when we're seeking truth, the tough thing is, is that relationship is what's so key with Jesus. So here's how it came to an end for me. I become a Christian. I'm trying to figure out two questions. What do I do with my doubt? I mean, guilt and what's the purpose of life? So enter Christianity, the cross. Then I go to Bible college to learn about my Christianity. Then I go to Dallas Seminary, do a master's of theology. So I go get a theology degree to learn about my Bible, and then I go get an apologetics degree to learn about my theology, and then I go get a philosophy degree to learn more about my apologetics. And on that journey, by the time I'm in the philosophy tale and apologetics, I'm deep in doubt. And what was so ironic about this, Lisa, is, you know, the way back, it was faith like a child, the way out of my doubt, the same solution. Out of my doubt was the same solution to my guilt and purpose of life. It was the cross, it was the gospel. It was childlike faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And I became like a child again because somewhere along the way, in my love for truth, I put so much emphasis on knowledge that I was losing my heart and not guarding my heart. And I was detached as a dad, and my kids saw it. I was detached as a husband, I was detached as a pastor, and I was detached from Jesus. And the reason I ultimately drank is because Jesus wasn't enough for me at that time. And I was looking to assuage my angst in other ways. But I can say, today, Jesus is enough. And that's what's so beautiful. Like, Jesus is enough. And I feel like it's like he took me out and gave me all of this knowledge and all this stuff, and I'm thankful. I can do apologetics and stuff, but at the end of the day, I want to love Jesus and I want to love people. And, yeah, I can give a defense for truth, but guess what? In heaven, there's not going to be a need for apologetics, but there is going to be a need for. For us to experience the love of God and love of Jesus, and that will be a need that will be met.

[B]

You know, I love that you brought up the childlike faith thing, because I think that some people even misunderstand what the Bible is even talking about with that. They think, oh, well, you have to be done. You know, you have to be uneducated, or you have to be where you don't know anything yet, or you haven't gained wisdom yet, and you just have to. Almost like they might use that synonymously with blind faith. But I think it was Francis Schaeffer, I don't know if you know this quote I'm about to say, but I think it was Francis Schaeffer who said, have you ever seen how many questions kids ask you know, it's not about not being curious or not wanting knowledge, but it's dependence, right? Because our kids are totally dependent on us for sustenance, for life, for food, for clothing, for shelter. They rely on us. They cannot do it independently on their own. They can't support themselves. They need us. So that's, I think, really a better picture of what that childlike faith looks like. It looks like us just saying, lord, I am utterly and totally dependent upon you. And I think that, you know, one of the things that has been going through my mind so much, I. We've been reading through the Book of Acts with the kids, and I may have said this on the podcast before, I forget all the things I've said, so. But it's relevant here. And we were reading about that first sermon where Peter basically giving the first altar call, right? And he says, all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. And I think that what so many people maybe don't think deeply about is the fact that Christianity is so unique. It's different than any other religion. It's different than any other philosophy, because it's not a philosophy. It's not a set of rituals or boxes you check to give intellectual assent to some kind of proposition. Although, I mean, there are. It's not a bunch of rules, even though there is morality, right? Rules that are a part of it. But in and of itself, that's not what it is. It's not like, you know, the Buddhist path of enlightenment. It's. It's actually. It's different than all of those things in that it's a conversion experience of placing faith in Jesus. And so in Peter's sermon, he says, all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. And I was listening to this sermon on that passage by Alistair Bagg. I don't know if you listened to Alistair, but he. He paused there, and he said, all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. You don't have to have a PhD to get to grasp this. There's no intellectual challenge that can come that can really defeat that. Have you called on the name of the Lord? Have you? And he. I mean, he paused and he said, ask yourself, because you could be baptized by a religious professional, and that's not going to do it. That's not what does it. You could have attended Bible studies since you were a kid. You could have done all these things. Have you called on the name of the Lord? And that was so impactful to me that I actually stopped I was out running in my backyard. I have this little path I do in my backyard. And I stopped and I was like, I have done that lots of times. And so I was like, okay. I mean, I have. I've called on the name of the Lord. I asked my kids that night, have you called on the name of the Lord? And I'm not saying that there's any sort of, you know, one stop shop defense against deconstruction, right? Because it's such a tangled different, you know, different triggers, different things that can springboard somebody into it. But I mean, that's the question, right? Have you called on the name of the Lord? Have you been born again? Jesus? You know, when Jesus meets with Nicodemus, you have to be born again, right? This is like a new birth. It's not like, oh, check this box. And I believe that. And I believe that. And I believe that. I mean, the demons believe all that. That and they're not saved. That's exactly right. Faith, it's active trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ. So what would you say? You know, the near apostate. I mean, you kind of answered it beautifully. But maybe, maybe this. One of the main questions that I get when I'm speaking is a lot of times family members of people who have deconstructed or who are in deconstruction, what would your advice be to those family members who love Jesus this, and they don't really understand what's happening to their family members and their loved ones, what would your advice to them be?

[A]

You know, if I could even just answer that question, even before I do say just something else as it relates to the faith, like a child. It was because I had to end my quest with omniscience, the temptation to think that I could ever find all the satisfactory answers anyway and to realize that doubt's not a Christian problem, it's a human problem. And in the absentee of certainty, there will always be room for doubt. The question is, which worldview best closes the doubt gap? And realizing that if Adam and Eve could doubt in paradise, how much more are we susceptible to paradise lost? And so I found myself looking at my ornamental plum tree in my backyard. And I was considering it, and I was asking questions about the plum tree. How deep are the roots right now? How much water would it take, at bare minimum, for it to survive? How many ounces of water has fallen on this ever since it's been planted? How many hands touched the original seed? And I was going on and on, how big is this going to grow? How long will this last? What kind of a windstorm would knock the leaves off? How many branches are on this? So I was tweaking, right? And you know what? I. I came to this moment where it was just like, I can't even plumb the depths of my ornamental plum tree. And I'm overwhelmed with the fact that I can't come to all the conclusions that I want on God. And I started just thinking, like, if I was to walk away from Christianity, I would just inherit another set of unforeseen questions. Eventually that will become my doubts. And so what I'm struggling with is my finitude. What I'm struggling with is my mortality. What I'm struggling with is my limitations. What I'm struggling with is my weaknesses. And I can study and study and do all this I want, but at the end of the day, no worldview is going to give me omniscience and certainty. And so the thing that looked most appealing, it certainly wasn't atheism to me, it was agnosticism, because I felt like I could sit in critics corner and just be like, you can't know, you can't know, you can't know. And I had to come to a conclusion with, okay, why not be an agnostic then? And I came to the place where I said, well, you know what? Even the agnostic is certain about one thing. He's certain there is an explanation, he just doesn't know it. So what would you rather do both? Would you rather give yourself to the best explanation or just sit in critics corner and say, you can never know what that explanation is because that person believes there's an explanation, they just remain skeptical. And I just, like a child, said, I'm going to give myself to the best explanation. It's Christianity, it's the resurrection, it's you. And so to parents, I would say, at the end of the day, maybe just help your kids to know things like what we've talked about here, that there's questions in all the worldviews that apologetics, we often think of. We're on the defense. My goodness. I feel like other belief systems, they're the ones that really need to be on the defense. I would say that we're living in a time because of social media, and these kids are being put into algorithms that maybe helping them to be aware of the messages that are feeding them them because they're liking things and they're being fed information that is reinforcing a narrative for them. And so we're stuck in a matrix that's further dividing us apart. And we have to become aware of the world that we're living in and the information that's coming our way. And as moms and dads help recognize, help them recognize the influences in their life and how it's paying attention so they can come out and take a. Come out and take a bigger picture of the objective world.

[B]

That's good. That's very good. You're working on a book right now?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Tell us. Just a little teaser because it's not going to be out for a while. Yeah, but just give us a little teaser about what we can expect with your book.

[A]

Yeah, so I'm working on a book that's titled Does Christianity Still Make Sense? Because I think that a lot of people are becoming nuns, right? Those without religious affiliation. I think that there are apostates. There are people that are. Are becoming progressive Christians. There are people that aren't interested in the church because of the scandals. So what I've done is I've tried to identify the top areas that Christianity no longer makes sense to people. And I'm trying to provide answers to show that it still does. And it's going to have a lot of story of how I almost became an apostate in my own journey and how I worked through these types of. And then we're going to put together a video series with Tyndale Publishing that will hope to get this in the local church. Because that's my heart. If we do not catch the church, 15% of pastors are 40 years and younger right now. The stats are abysmal. We've got to find a way to capture this new generation. And in worldview studies, with Barna's new release, when you think about the low percentages, student pastors and children's pastors that have a worldview being 11%, and if they have a worldview at 11%, how many of them know how to transfer that worldview to the ministries they're leading? That means 89% of churches are being led by student pastors and children's pastors that don't have a worldview. And of the 11% that do, do they know how to transfer that worldview? So my passion is local church ministry. The local church is the hope of the world. Apologetics is not the hope of the world. Jesus is the hope of the world. Apologetics is a piece in the cumulative pie, and I'm so thankful for it. But as a churchman, I just want to hope and pray that the Lord can use this book to reach the church and say, hey, yeah, we need to do more apologetics.

[B]

Beautiful. Good job. Where can people connect with you online? And you got anything else coming up that people can. You can send people to?

[A]

Yeah, actually a co host on a nationally syndicated radio show called Pastor's Perspective. And it's call in. So I just sit in the hot seat and answer people's questions so they can check that out. But they could also get the podcast called Pastor's Perspective, and they could get the podcast One Minute Apologists, where they can hear my other radio show called Unapologetic, and they could subscribe to our YouTube channel, One Minute Apologists.

[B]

Great. All right, well, I want to thank you all for watching and listening today. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and subscribe. Be sure you click the bell icon to be notified every time we release a new video. If you're listening on audio platforms like Google and Spotify, it always helps so much if you will go leave a great review just triggers the algorithm tells them, hey, people like this, they want to hear this. They'll put it into the suggestions of more people. Thanks again for watching and we'll see you next time.

[A]

Sam.