You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. My name is John Galantis, and I'm so excited to be back here in the Clearview Today studio with our host with the most, Dr. Abadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Yeah, give it up for him.
Professor Carolina University author, full-time pastor, and host of today's show. Dr. Shah, welcome to the studio. Good to be here. Good to be here.
We had a great conversation yesterday. Lots of comments came in. I'm going to save some of them because I do want to ask you a very, very important question, Dr. Shah. For $1 million, this is a great episode.
So, this was actually sent in by someone from our church.
Okay. I did not see the name, but I know, well, I know who this person was.
So I want to set this up. In your doctoral dissertation, you refuted. A scholar by the name of Bart Ehrman. Yes, I did. And we've talked about him extensively on the podcast.
Sure.
So you're going to get $1 million. But Bart Ehrman basically publishes your dissertation word for word. as his own book. Oh. He basically just copies and pastes your manuscript and publishes it as a book himself.
If you accuse him of plagiarism, it will never ever stick. But here's the kicker, everybody universally agrees. Like you pretty much solve. You, Abadan Shah, pretty much solve this issue of getting back to the original text, but Bart Ehrman gets the credit. But you get a million dollars.
Wow. That's a tough one. I know. I know. That is a tough one.
Someone could. Theoretically Go back and see that you published yours first, and they can find out on your own, but you can never call attention to it.
So maybe some scholars would find out that he copied your book. Hmm. That's a tough one. It's a million dollars, though.
So I have I have a conflict. conflict there. Right, right. On one hand, for The The word of God, or the cause of the word of God, I would say. Yeah, I'll take it.
Let him have the credit. And Bart Ehrman will recant. Like he he he will say like hey Not only was I wrong. Like You can get back to the original text, and everyone universally agrees. Oh, then I'll do it.
And I get a million dollars. You get a million dollars. I'll take it. But like, it's not like the conversation, the conversation is stopped. Like, you have solved this issue.
Wow, I'll take it then. And then you take the million? Just deep inside, I'll be like, Lord, you gave me the wisdom. You helped me understand this. Your kingdom grows.
I get a million dollars. Yeah, my book now is under Bart D. Irmin. No, your book still exists. But it's no longer mine.
It's if someone goes.
So the way I see it in my head is like.
Someone has to stumble upon the fact that he copied you. You can't raise the alarm and say, Hey, that's my book. But a scholar, if they were to pick up your book and see it and they would say, Oh, wow, this looks like Bart Ehrman's book and check the date, they could discover, like, oh, hey, he plagiarized. He plagiarized it. You just can't call it.
But for him to recant and through that, a lot of lives have changed. I would say, I'll take it. Plus, I get a million dollars. Plus, you get a million dollars. I'll take it.
All right. Did I write a book on how. How all this happens. You can do that. I feel like with a million dollars, like the publishing, I don't know if you can like bribe publishers, but I feel like that kind of opens some doors to get some very cool.
Very cool.
Okay, Dr. Shah, today's verse of the day is coming to us from Jeremiah 17:11. It said, this is a verse I had not heard before today. Like a partridge that hatches eggs, it did not lay Are those who gain riches by unjust means? When their lives are half gone, their riches will desert them, and in the end, they will prove to be fools.
Shortcuts usually don't work out. Yeah, I've learned that the hard way. You know, people take shortcuts in life, they take shortcuts in their work, they take shortcuts in their research. And what I've found is most of the time, there might be that one exception here and there, but most of the time you pay heavily. Yeah, like if you play a Mario Kart or something, I say go for it.
Yeah, if you can get that, get that mushroom right on that bridge with those, what do you call those chevrons? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then you launch out. Yeah.
Great. If you're playing Yoshi Circuit and you know where to go for it, man, there's one you can hit the mushroom, you can hit the hill. There's a little secret tunnel. And then make a turn while you're at it. Oh, yeah.
But in life. In life, people, when they take shortcuts, they usually regret it. Yeah. And it's a shame. It's a shame that some people, like, I feel like you have the wisdom to know that.
Like, people like me, I had to find out the hard way, that shortcuts, man, you just end up hurting yourself. You make yourself worse off for it.
Well, let's talk about ministry for a moment. In ministry, people take shortcuts. They want the big fame, the big success. They want the big stage. You see somebody who is a mega church pastor and they want that lifestyle.
They want that look. They want that influence. And so they will do things just to present themselves as a mega church. And it doesn't take long to figure out. You're not.
You're not that person. You're playing that person. And now there's a crisis in your life. There's a problem. There are things in your life that you haven't really addressed.
sin, weaknesses. failures and then before you know it, you fall. And because you presented yourself as this person, and that happens a lot in the Christian world, in the ministry context, because you presented yourself like this, now all of a sudden you fall. Not only do you discredit yourself, but you also discredit other people. Yeah, that's true.
And I think people look at everybody and go, who are in the ministry and say, man, you're a phony, you're a fake. Yeah. And I think it's especially true, everything you just said, especially when it comes to like money, like finances, funding. You know, anyone who's done something, and maybe you can speak to this as well, because I know you've done a lot and you've kind of lived in this world since your undergrad degree. But anyone who's produced something, you know, done something that's worth doing knows that it takes money to do it.
You know, it takes money to really take money just to break, just to keep the lights on, keep the air conditioning right. That's right. But then you think about, all right, well, now I want to grow this platform. I want to grow this message. I want to actually make impact.
And, you know, I think myself included a long time ago, people think, well, if the message is good, it will just grow. They don't think about the investment you have to make. That's right. But then this verse with Jeremiah talks about, you know, this money that comes easy. Or money that comes dishonest.
And so we wanted to talk today. You actually sent me an article that I thought was actually a spot of good news for once, where Baylor University, which I've never been to Baylor, but it's one of the largest Christian universities in the country. They turned down a grant that was intended to fund research on how LGBTQ individuals have been marginalized in church settings.
Well, let me begin by saying this is not something to brag on Baylor.
Okay. Baylor accepted that grant. Really? Initially.
Okay. Okay. They accepted that grant. This grant came from this Eula May and John Ball Foundation for about over half a million dollars. Wow.
$643,000. And this is what it said. Through academic research, this grant will help us better understand the disenfranchisement and exclusion of LGBTQIA plus individuals and women within congregations to nurture institutional courage and foster change.
So I'm glad you pointed that out. When they proposed the grant, Baylor accepted. Absolutely they did. And they did it thinking, oh, yeah, this is great. This is their Center for Church and Community Impact, C3I, received the funds.
And it was going to be part of their school's agenda, and we're going to go for this. It will assist us. Their director said, the director of C3I said this grant will focus on the lived experiences of emerging adults. It will assist us in filling out the bigger picture of congregations' practices that result in an environment of belonging. And then he also said through our research we want to expand our picture of what congregations do and do not do in their caring practices with all people.
about their experiences of belonging. I mean Talk about, he needs to learn how to limit his word count. His word count. Yeah, his word count's a little free. But you got to do that when you're hiding depravity in your exactly.
Thank you for saying that because I think when people get wordy like that, that run on sentence is usually because they're covering up something. Yes. Yes. Yes. I can tell you that, even from personal experience, a lot of times I'll ramble.
To cover up the fact that I don't really know what I'm talking about, I have not thought this issue through. And so, no, no, before we say kudos to Baylor for rejecting that, no, they received it with open arms. Good, good on you for pointing that out because I did not, I did not, I didn't do enough research in the article, I thought they were they. Turn down the grant. They turn down because a lot of ministries and people and evangelical leaders said, Hey, you do that.
We will not support you anymore. We're done. I mean, who will send your Young student or your son and daughter to that school, and she knows this is what you're doing there. You're promoting values that are clearly contrary to the Word of God. Why would we support you?
That's right. And so, organizations like Focus on the Family, Living Hope Ministries, and many others, they said. this is not acceptable. Baylor needs to immediately uh reject this and and Stop this mess.
So what we're seeing now from Baylor is damage control. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, some of these people, you know, these high and mighty people, did not realize the shift that would happen in this world. You underestimated what God was going to do.
That's right. They thought that what was coming in America was just going to keep coming. Yeah, the woke world just ended. This LGBTQ DEI world just got a full stop. And Places like Baylor were riding the wave and say, Hey guys, we are in the new world.
Let's take advantage of this and it's going to promote Baylor and we're going to get a lot of money. Oh, wait. The pendulum just reached the edge. And it is now going back the other way. They did not expect this.
See, it's interesting because they put out a statement on human sexuality that actually upholds the biblical view.
Now, I'm seeing that in a new light, where it says sexuality is a gift from God, is to be expressed in purity and singleness, or in a marriage between a man and a woman. But you're doing that now as a damage control for the money that you took.
So, do they have to give the money back? Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. The Baylor president, this is Linda Livingstone, who is saying this. But it wasn't that long ago when Gaynor Yancey said that: hey, this is what we're going to do.
This is how it is, and it's going to be great. And everybody said. No way. We're not going to support you anymore. This is unacceptable.
And in the grand scheme of things, you know, when you're talking about big institutions like this. Half a million dollar is power Pocket change, I mean, not even pocket change. Yeah. It's nothing.
So, so the implication being that they wanted to do this. Oh, yes. It wasn't about the money. Like, oh, the money is too good to turn up. Like, if it's not that much money, it's that's a study they wanted done.
Oh, absolutely. They wanted to have that badge of we are a You know, supporting supportive of these value system and this sexuality, and we want to promote that. They were not just supporting it, they were wanting to flaunt it and even force it into churches. Wow. That's what they were going to do.
Wow. I mean, these studies were going to be done in churches, church contexts.
So it's kind of, it's also sort of pernicious. I use that word two days in a row, but it's also sort of pernicious that they're putting out these headlines saying, but look at what Baylor has done, you guys. Baylor has turned down this grant for LGBTQ. Isn't that great? Yeah, I mean, they're trying to make the best of this situation, but honestly, shame on you for even accepting that.
Oh, I agree. And you were behind times. And a lot of these places, a lot of these institutions are behind times. They need to get with it and go. Wait, the world has just changed.
And God is doing a new thing. And there are people who are not for these kinds of aberrant behaviors.
So I agree 100%. And, you know, maybe you can talk about this because you live in this academic world. I mean, you live, you know, eat, breathe, sleep academics. You know One of the things we saw in secular university, maybe I would say over the past decade, but maybe even longer, is that liberal thought and liberal ideology was pretty much destroying universities. Oh, yeah.
And it was like. And it has been for decades. Yeah. It was like not even close to balanced. It was all liberal and it was tearing the universities from apart.
And even seminaries, I would say seminaries were in the same boat. That's exactly what I was going to ask you. Did it take longer to infiltrate? Christian U uh academics. No.
Same same time frame. See, the problem in scholarship is every scholar, most every scholar, wants to make a contribution that will outlast him or her. We all want to make something that will be like, hey, this is uniquely me, and I hope it will be remembered and it will make an impact after I'm gone.
Now, some scholars may disagree with me. Sure, whatever. Yeah, but but I'm sure that's what you want as well. We want our works to be published. We want our names to be mentioned in dictionaries.
We want our names to be mentioned when you talk about this view and that view and the shift in theology or someone opened the vista to a new way of studying scripture that's going to revolutionize the way we do church and change the way we do scholarship. Scholars want that.
So Unfortunately, lot of research has been done for Hundreds and hundreds of years. There is nothing new under the sun. Yes, there can be at times a unique discovery. Yes, there can be a time we can learn something from another discipline and try to apply that in the biblical field. Yes, there can be a time where we can.
Innovate something, a fresh new way of reading scripture or studying scripture or grammar. You know, some new windows have been opened up. To the study of grammar.
Okay, great. And now we come to the text and we can see it in a whole new light. And then it has theological and doctrinal implications. And as long as they're not going to hinder or they're not going to change our our our core beliefs, then Let's go with it and see where it takes us. As long as we are.
lining up with the word. Much of scholarship spent we're talking about religious scholarship or Christian Scholarship. Most of our beliefs are already set.
So we have to then, scholars have to then find something unique. And many times we steal it from some liberal scholar out there who doesn't have the same convictions as we do. And we try to sneak it into Our Christian, evangelical, conservative, Bible-believing, inerrantist world.
Well, that was going to be my follow-up question, which is: do you, is there. Genuinely, do you think there's anything Revolutionarily new to say as far as Christian academics goes. Oh, yes, there there is.
Okay. That's why in every generation we need new we need new commentaries.
Okay. Why? Because uh every generation changes. Our way of thinking change. Gotcha.
Uh our way of speaking changes. Our understanding of Scripture Because of advancement in academia also helps. But many times It's not that much.
So, as a shortcut, we can start accommodating culture and like all of these liberal ideologies that are that's the big thing that was selling us: like, hey, I can always take this woke ideology and I can take all this liberal junk and kind of funnel it through. And then I am a unique voice for the marginalized people and buy my commentaries, buy my books. That's one thing that you said. I think you've said this on the show before: is that a lot of Christian leaders who get into that desperately want to be cool? They don't want to be seen as like, oh, that's the fuddy-duddy old Christians.
They want to be like, no, guys, I'm with you. Yeah. I'm cool like you. And, or, you know, anything you want to say, someone. 50 years before you have said it 10 times better.
Now, what are you going to do?
Well, I got to have something. I I would say There are many ways to uniquely make a contribution in the Christian world, in academia. And you can do that by studying the scriptures. You can do that by studying history. You can do that by studying other disciplines.
But when you get into what Baylor was trying to do over here with this LGBTQIA plus, Grant and trying to bring that into their church studies. Uh that was a clear, obvious, Rev um Uh Evidence of how this happens. Kind of In the extreme sense. When you were in the heart of your academic journey, how did you? navigate and avoid Um Liberal ideology.
So think about it, you know, my dissertation deals with Bart Ehrman. it would have been very easy for me to to espouse his his ideology about the text. If I had only written From his perspective of orthodox corruption of scripture, that. Orthodox Church has altered scriptures to the point that we cannot retrieve the original text. My book would have been published by some press In Europe.
Easily. I would have been on a conference circuit somewhere. I would have been part of the up and coming Scholars. Because you're saying the popular thing. Yeah.
I took the view that Yes, there are some Orthodox corruptions, but not to the level that Bart Ehrman is making them out to be. I said that what Bart Ehrman is doing is very calm. Cleverly, cleverly, he is Telling you that it is not as much, and yet you walk away with the impression that. The Bible is just completely adulterated. Yeah.
And There is no original text left. Mm-hmm. In fact, what we're reading in all this Trinity and This um All these cardinal doctrines, man, this is just made by the church. He doesn't say that. But he leaves you.
But the impression That the Word of God, the New Testament documents are Corrupted beyond repair. And so, also with pastors and even like pastors who have PhDs who are academically bent, they'll bring in sort of the same ideology as far as sexuality goes, where they have you, or as race goes, where they have you feeling like, man, America really was built on blood and extortion and genocide. Yes, yes. And they will say, American slavery is like no other slavery in the world. It is terrible.
It is horrible. Blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is, that's not true. That is not true. Maybe one day we can do a book study.
Sure.
And what do you call it? What is this? The book club. There's a book, The Ten Liberal Lies My Teacher Told Me. Yeah, that's well, years ago, a book came out.
There's 10 lies that my teacher told me. And And then this book, which is called Ten Liberal Lies by Wilfred Riley. It's a great book. And in this book, he takes on who who himself has African American ancestry.
Okay. But he takes on some of these liberal lies, especially about slavery in America. And He exposes that. And says that's not true. Slavery has been part of Civilization for a long time doesn't justify American slavery for a long time.
doesn't but to make it look like What happened in America is the worst thing ever. Right. Like it's like it's somehow unique to America specifically. That's not true. Yeah.
So, you can either buy the narrative and just get angry, or get emotional, and attack me, or attack Wilfred Riley, or whoever. You can do that. Just oh just know that Evidence Does not support your arguments. Right. But because it's coming through the universities, because it's coming through institutions of higher learning, we think these are credible people.
And so what they're saying is true. And it's not true. When you do research, you find out, of course, if you do research in ancient times, slavery has been there. If you do research on the East African slave trade or West African slave trade, you see that's not true. Slavery was being practiced.
If you do the research on Arabs who were buying and selling Africans, you go, wait. Yes. Europeans should not have been part of this, should not have done that. That's wrong. But to say that that is the problem.
No, the problem was here, and the problem continued. And it continued and continued. And so. Um Falsehood Spreads. And I think it was, I want to say.
Was it C.S. Lewis or Churchill or whoever said that? You know, falsehood gets halfway across the world while truth is just putting on his shoes.
So, I don't, so I want to. That's a great quote. I want to ask you something about that because. I was kind of struck by Mark Twain. I don't know.
I want to ask you about that because I was struck by something you said about Bart Erman. You could have easily jumped on the bandwagon, but you didn't because you didn't believe it. Like you didn't believe he was right. You wrote about what you thought was true. Do you think that Scholarship is losing its credibility, but like Baylor, for instance.
They say, hey, this is our stance on Sexuality. It's pure, it's biblical. And yet, we took money to fund a research that says otherwise. Of course, Baylor has lost some credibility because of that. Do you think scholarship in general is losing credibility because they're getting onto things that they don't believe?
And then when culture shifts, they're coming back and saying, guys, I never believed that. Baylor has never been the bastion of conservative theology.
Okay. Let's just put it that way. Sure, sure. That hasn't been the case.
So, this did not come as a surprise to me that they took the money. None of this is a surprise. And the fact that they gave up that money is not a surprise either because they were like, oops, guys, wait, I just got trouble. Wipe your eyes. Oh, wait, 2025.
Yeah, we don't do that anymore.
So you're going to give the money back, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Who was responsible for this? We will make sure they're fired.
So, I think those are the kind of things that happen here. Do you still feel like universities and institutions of higher learning have an ethical? Principle or an ethical responsibility or obligation is the word I'm looking for. Because they are, they're the teachers. Let me put it this way: there are two kinds of jobs.
Okay, one are jobs which are very building. Construction, medicine. Engineering. These are very concrete jobs, if you know what I mean. Then there are jobs that are more philosophical, which are literary studies, history, theology.
What happens is the people who are doing the first kind of jobs, which are very tangible, there are measurements. You cannot argue with the laws of physics. I mean, this is how it works. Or biology, or human anatomy has to be a certain way. They have to follow certain rules.
When you get into these other philosophical sides, with literature or history or theology. The rules are not the same. It means you can make up rules as you go. You shouldn't be, but you make up whatever you want to. Unfortunately, Social Marxism or even Marxist values have infiltrated the academia.
For a long time. For a long, long time. I'm talking about. At least 100 years, if not more, have been infiltrating that world. It cannot infiltrate engineering schools.
Right, right. It cannot infiltrate, now it has infiltrated medical schools because now here you cannot tell the difference between a man and a woman. Right. So, what's happening here is this fluidity when it comes to these liberal. Uh you know, when I say look Like leftist ideologies.
Ideology with literature or philosophy or history. Those ideas have sort of gone into. A concrete feeling, and you can see the chaos everywhere. Yes, of course. You see the chaos entering into sports, men playing in women's sports.
Where does that come from? Biology is very clear on that, but you allowed this to sort of, and now people are going, wait, no, that's not right. That's not right. Get it out.
So I would say on there needs to be some some g Not just guidelines, but strong stipulations, even in the field of literature and history, and philosophy and theology, that what are those. those par uh those parameters that you cannot cross. Yeah. Yes, you can have free thinking, but there are certain parameters that are not good for society. Like Marxism is not good.
Social Marxism is not good. Uh and so And I know some people will disagree with me on that, and that's fine. They have the right to do that. But I think we have also the right to protect our universities and our seminaries. I agree.
I agree 100%. Dr. Shah, thank you for sharing that with us today. Guys, thank you for joining us online. Make sure you join us next time.
Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic right here on the Clearview Today Show. Real quick before we go, I want to say thanks to all of our sponsors. That's mightymuscadine.com and LaBlue Ultra Purewater for sponsoring today's episodes. And don't forget, you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.
You can always, always, always support us financially at Abadanshah.com. A couple of quick announcements. Number one, we are doing another live stream August 15th. That's 7 to 9 p.m. We want you guys to call into the show.
We will pray with you live on the air. We've done two of these so far. Another two-hour live stream coming up on the 15th. That number is 252-582-5028. Go ahead and save it in your phone right now.
You can label it the Clearview Today show. That number comes directly to us. That's number one. Number two, we have a new show. It's called Lighthouse, the Lighthouse with Dr.
Abadan Shah. It's a weekly devotional podcast. It drops every single Saturday morning at 8 a.m. If you're on the Clearview app, which I think you obviously should be, you're going to get that as a push notification. But that podcast has now made it to where every single day a Clearview podcast is dropping.
Monday to Friday, Clearview Today, that's what you're listening to now. The Lighthouse is Saturday at 8 a.m. And then Sunday sermons by Dr. Abaddon Shah. You can find all of those on Apple, Spotify, Pray.com.
Dr. Shah, speaking of pray.com, we are closing in on 35,000 followers.
So I'm just going to give the Lord a hand of applause for that. 35,000 people have been touched by the gospel of Jesus Christ from right here in Henderson, North Carolina. If you have not followed Dr. Shah yet, make sure you go and do it. Thank you to everyone who's using the Pray platform to give and support us financially.
We appreciate you. We love you. And we'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.
