Frank Turek Guest Hosts

Welcome to the Line of Fire Mics, my guest host, Dr. Frank Turek. Yeah. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and President of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Ladies and gentlemen, Frank Turek with you. Been a guest for Dr. Michael Brown several times. As you know, Dr. Brown is in Australia right now.

It's my privilege to join you today. And I want to talk about a new atheist. A new atheist who seemed to stand out from all the others. And you remember the term new atheist means Atheists who arose after 9-11, who uh Got a lot of attention in the media. People like Richard Dawkins, people like Daniel Dennett, like.

Sam Harris, and the one I want to talk about in this hour. He seemed to stand out from the others. He was an atheist whom some Christians developed a great affection for, including my guest this hour. The atheist of which I'm speaking is the late Christopher Hitchens. Probably the most articulate of all the atheists.

Tragically, he died about four and a half years ago. And my friend Larry Taunton has written a new book called The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, The Restless Soul of the World's Most Notorious Atheist.

Now, who was this man, Christopher Hitchens, really? He was definitely the most eloquent of the atheists. I had the opportunity to debate him a couple of times, and so did my guest, Larry Taunton. In fact, you can see the debates I had with Christopher on our website, cross-examined.org. That's cross-examined with a D on the end of it, dot org.

Did Christopher have doubts about atheism? What was he like privately? What did he think of evangelical Christians whom he debated? How about? Of liberal Christians, he debated.

Did he have any belief in anything that was transcendent? Did he happen to convert on his deathbed? That is a question everybody wants to know. And my friend Larry Taunton deals with all that because he struck up an amazing friendship with Christopher Hitchens. And the book, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, is a fabulous book.

It just came out a few months ago. I want you to know about it, and I want you to check it out. Even if you've never heard of Christopher Hitchens, you're going to get a lot out of this book. And Larry is on the phone with me right now, all the way from France. Larry, thanks for being on the line of fire.

How are you, Frank? I am great, sir. You're in France right now. Am I correct about that? I am.

I am traveling. in Europe, uh, researching my next book.

Well, you did a great job on this book. I had you on my program a month or two ago about it, and I thought when I had the opportunity to fill in for Dr. Brown here that I'd have you on this program because the book is fabulous. Even if you're listening right now, friends, and you don't even know who Christopher Hitchens was, you're going to enjoy this book. I think probably most of you listening to Dr.

Brown do know who Christopher was. And Larry, you somehow struck up a friendship with Christopher for the past few years of his life. And how did you wind up meeting him, and how did this evolve into a friendship so quickly? Sure. Um Frank, maybe it's worth stating at the outset, this book, as I think you're aware, has created something of a transatlantic firestorm.

Yeah, exactly. But it has, you know, it's had everyone a buzz from the New York Times to Uh an interview, if you could call it that, that I did on BBC to MSNBC's hardball to Eric Metaxas is fine. A piece in the Wall Street Journal, and it seems to have gotten many atheists on their ear. But uh I I'll let me just simply say that uh Christopher was somebody that I met as you did as an antagonist. That is to say, Uh it was through.

A debate that we had organized, that I met him at the Edinburgh International Festival. Edinburgh International Festival.

Well, hang on, Larry. This is a short segment. Hang on. We're going to come right back. You can tell us about it.

We'll have a longer segment right after this. I'm Frank Turk. You're listening to Line of Fire, and my name is Frank Turk. Filling in for Dr. Michael Brown.

We're just back in a couple of minutes. Don't go away. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. It's Dr. Frank Turk, actually, Michael Brown, on assignment in Australia. He will be back again next week.

But I am subbing for Dr. Brown, and I'm talking to the great Larry Taunton, who has written a brand new book called The Faith of Christopher Hitchens. He's of the Fixed Point Foundation. You can look Larry up online. Also, larrytaunton.com.

And Larry's calling all the way from France to discuss his new book, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens.

Now, sorry, Larry, that was a quick break. On the line of fire, we get in and out of breaks quickly here. And so go back. How did you meet Christopher Hitchens, and how did this friendship develop? Yes.

I got to know him as a result of a debate that we were doing at the Edinburgh International Festival. And this particular debate, I was just I was the organizer, and he was debating Professor John Lennox, who I think you've met. and your audience may be familiar with. And I didn't expect to like Christopher, and I was pretty sure that Christopher would not like me. I mean, Christopher was a this Molotov, cocktail tossing atheist Uh who you know The impression was that he didn't like Christians.

He didn't like any religious people at all. Off stage, I found him to be a warm. I enjoyed my conversations with him and And then over the course of the next several years, I got to know him. As a result of yet other debates that we were doing, and it culminated in two lengthy. Road trips together where we studied the Gospel of John, among other things.

And, you know, I found that Christopher Hitchens was. was a different man off stage than he was on it. Yes, and I found that a little bit as well. In fact, you remarked that after the debate you had with him, and this is after he knew he had terminal cancer, it was probably one of the last public speaking events he participated in. I remember reading in the book, and again, the book is called The Faith of Christopher Hitchens by Larry Taunton.

He's my guest today. Larry, he said something like, and correct me if I'm wrong, he said something like, I think we put on a good show. Was that Really, more about showmanship when he did these debates, or did he think he really believed in what he was saying?

Well, I think it's both. I don't mean to suggest that Christopher Hitchens wasn't an atheist. I mean, he was an atheist. But Christopher was, as you know, Frank, he was a showman. There was something of the actor about him.

It's partially why his presentation and debate was as good as it was, because Christopher was a very good person. Christopher understood. that the debate was more than just simply rattling off uh um some uh you know some logical Proof text or something along those lines. It was the presentation, it was the English accent. It was It was the the manner in which it was delivered.

He knew all these things. And uh and so Christopher um likes For the debate to be something that an audience would really enjoy. And so as we're coming off of of of the stage on one occasion. He he says to me, Hey, this was You know, I think they liked us. I think it was a good show.

And that was the way he thought about these kinds of things. He wasn't satisfied if the debate, for instance, when he debated Al Sharpson, which your audience. Uh you know, he really annihilated Sharps in the debate. But that Christopher didn't come away from that, I don't think. But he came from that particularly pleased by that.

I think he preferred that debate have been more lively and Uh you know, something that really got at the ideas. Yeah, you know, I noticed, and I think you said this in the book as well, that if you just listen to Christopher, you would say, wow, he he's well worth listening to and gee, he seems to be doing pretty well in this debate, but if you just read the transcript of his debates, You get a completely different picture. Why is that?

Well, you know, um to Refer to uh a place in uh in one of your debates that you've you've referenced for me, Frank, where you were quite rightly zeroing in on a contradiction in his own logic, that Christopher, on the one hand, said he was an atheist and then on the other said that he believed in evil. And when you started pushing on him and saying, where does evil come from? He quipped religion. And of course, the audience loved that, and that scored points for him. um with an audience, but in reality Um that that that actually isn't an argument.

And so when you you took Christopher Hitchens And just read him. You read his debates rather than simply watched them You got a very different impression. In the same way, I might add that famously, you know, people had a very different impression watching the Kennedy-Nixon debate than they did listening. to it. The wonderful accent, a baritone, you got a very different impression of how those debates went.

Now, you mention in the book over and over again this. Consistent theme about Christopher that he was a man who kept two sets of books. Explain what you mean by that.

Well, it's funny, Frank. This has been something that People who see themselves as defenders of Christopher Hitchens have Seized upon as it relates to my book. That in saying this, that I was saying that Christopher Hitchens was dishonest, that he was a fraud. And I'm not saying this at all. And indeed, I didn't I wasn't myself the one who invented the metaphor.

Christopher used this metaphor in referring to himself. And he uses it quite frequently. In his memoir. Hitch 22. And what he meant by that was that there was a public manifestation of Christopher Hitchens, and there was a private manifestation.

And the result of that was that A Christopher frequently was a, as he referred to himself, as a divided.

So Others have spoken of this. David Horowitz wrote a brilliant essay called The Two Christophers. Because Christopher was this man with so many internal contradictions. This doesn't mean he was a fraud, it means he was a human being. And uh he was wrestling with a lot of issues more honestly, I think.

than some of the other atheists that you and I might mention. Yeah, in fact, he said in an interview, I think after one of his debates with Doug Wilson, he was asked what's the best argument against your view, and he thought the fine-tuning argument of the universe was.

So he at least admitted that. And you also write, Larry, in the book, you say the fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt. What do you mean by that?

Well, that's a Quotation from Tinker Taylor, Soldier Spy. Um Meaning uh what I mean by that is that Frequently those individuals who are protesting The loudest of their loyalty often are concealing something of a secret doubt or something of their divided. You know, famously in my part of the country, you know, Nick Saban declared that he. you know, he was was was not interested in the Alabama job when he was at the Miami Dolphins, and the next thing you know, he's at a press conference. I mean, how often do we see do we see these kinds of things, for instance, uh, in uh in sports?

And uh and I I think that that Christopher Pad doubts.

Now This has been taken. By some to mean that I'm suggesting that Christopher Hitchens was uh, you know, was uh um close to receiving Jesus Christ. I don't know that. I'm not quite sure what Christopher would have converted. Two.

But I do believe that Christopher was contemplating Major edits, if I may put it that way, towards the end of his life. And the reason is because Christopher Christopher. Christopher got the benefit of something that most of us Um will not get and that is He knew that he was dying. Um Death often comes rapidly, unexpectedly. In Christopher's case, he knew that he was dying.

And this gave him plenty of time, roughly eighteen months, to think through what he believed and why he believed it. I think um the late in life discovery that he was Jewish on his mother's side was rather significant. For him, and this was something that he was thinking about. I also think that Christopher knew. I mean, looking at the public record, my book lays out.

evidentially, many of the things that CRISPR was stating publicly. that would suggest that he was thinking through quite a lot, and that he recognized that atheism in and of itself was wasn't a belief system.

Okay. My guest is Larry Taunton. The book is called The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World's Most Notorious Atheist. Larry Alex Taunton is the author. And when we come back from the break here in just a couple of minutes, I'm going to ask Larry a little bit about the memorial service for Christopher, what was said there, and what the theme of the service was, and how that reflected Christopher's own life and what we can learn about it as Christians and believers.

And Christopher also had a brother, or has a brother, by the way, by the name of Peter Hitchens, whom Christopher debated because both Peter and Christopher renounced Christianity early on in life, but Peter came back and is now a Christian. And so we'll get some insights on what Peter thought of Christopher, particularly with regard to Christopher's book, God is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything.

So stay tuned because, again, my guest is Larry Taunton, the book, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens. I'm Frank Turek, filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown, who will be back next Tuesday.

So don't go away. We'll be back in just two minutes. Hey, this is Michael Brown. I want to invite you to join me for our second ever trip to Israel, February 25th through March 6th, 2017. This is a great opportunity I get to interact with you, our radio listening audience, and our ministry partners as we experience the land of Israel together and it will be a life-changer.

We've got a great price on the trip. And if you're one of our monthly supporters, our torchbearers, you're eligible to receive a special discount for this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Space is limited, and we're accepting applications on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information on the trip to secure your spot, go to askdrbrown.org, click on the Israel banner, or call our office at 704-782-3760. Give us strength to always do what's right.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Dr.

Frank Turek with you of crossexamined.org, co-author of I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and the new book Stealing from God, Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case. My guest today is Larry Taunton, who has written a fabulous book that I think everyone will enjoy and learn from. It's called The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, The Restless Soul of the World's Most Notorious Atheist. Larry's calling in from France. He doubles or splits his time between ministry in France and also in Birmingham, Alabama, the Fixed Point Foundation.

You can look that up. Larry was the gentleman who brought together Richard Dawkins and John Lennox for two fabulous debates that you can get at Fixed Point Foundation or fixedpoint.org. What's the actual website, Larry? It is Larry. Taunton.

Calm. Larry Alex taunted. I'm sorry.

Well, this fixed point was in there somewhere at some point. But anyway. Yeah, it it it uh it was, but not anymore. Frank, you know, it's funny. Here I am.

I'm I'm sitting out here and it's beautiful, a a lovely evening. Um in southern Europe, and uh I decide to do. Um Update my iPhone just before I call you, and you know, it's taking way longer. And I started to modestly panic, I wouldn't be able to call. Your show, Frank, and yet here we are.

All right.

Well, it's amazing. I told you there was a God, Larry.

Okay. Now, you here's what happened. My relationship with Christopher was pretty much just on stage, a little bit of email back and forth. And I remember the day after Thanksgiving 2011, I emailed Christopher because I knew he was suffering with cancer. And I told him I knew people at Sloan Kettering in New York, a fabulous cancer hospital.

Could I connect them with the right people? And he just emailed me back and said, thank you. I'd like to renew our debates. And I thought, wow, maybe he's recovering.

So I emailed him back. I said, would you like me to set something up? And he said, no, I'm not quite ready. And two and a half weeks later, I learned he had died. And then in your book, a few months after that, you go to his memorial service and you describe it in detail in the book.

What was the theme of the service, in your opinion, Larry? Yeah, the uh the The memorial service was uh was remarkable. Number twenty-five or thirty uh spokesmen and all, uh each taking Roughly three minutes to read something that Christopher Hitchens. uh himself had written And uh the uh the memorial service was a was a celebration of you know I the Christopher Hitchens that they all knew and loved. who was the atheist The militant atheist, the radical left-winger, and it had kind of a sixties.

Sort of theme that was Seeking to somehow kind of resurrect, if you will, a sort of spiritual, a secular spiritualism. And it was in the midst of this that they were remembering Christopher Hitchen. and his most leftist, his most atheistic self. And this struck me as very interesting. It seemed, I think you mentioned at one point in the book, it was almost as if the service was centered around rebellion.

And it seems like, in my experience anyway, not with all atheists, but with many, Larry, that's the common theme. It's all rebellion. I ended both of my debates with Christopher saying, you can sum up Christopher Hitchens' position in one sentence, there is no God and I hate him. I mean, it was if he was mad at God. Did you sense that in your interaction with him?

Which was much more extensive than mine. You know, on stage, no. I only debated him publicly once, Frank, and that debate was pretty friendly. I ye yet I didn't sense it in in in that particular public discussion. that quite so much.

But I will say that I did certainly in many other debates, as you did, and then certainly in his writing. God is not great, that sort of thing is what is what comes true. And like you, you often come away with this feeling that it isn't so much that they don't believe in God, it is rather that they don't like him. Hmm. And in fact, Peter Hitchens, Christopher's brother, who you had some interaction with as well, made a very interesting observation.

I heard him interviewed not long ago, and it might have been in your book too, Larry. I can't recall. But Peter said that Christopher's book should not be called God is not great, it ought to be called Man is Not Great. Because it's all about the evil men have done. And Christopher was consistent on this point, Larry, wasn't he?

He thought man was inherently evil, didn't he?

Well, he did, and this is something that made Christopher rather unique and intriguing to both of us. Um I can ask in Richard Dawkins' home some years ago, I asked him if he thought man was born. basically good or evil. And Richard rejected The question. You know, he rejected the notion.

of good and evil as artificial human construct, as an atheist ought to. And I asked similar questions of other atheists. And then I put it to Christopher Hitchens. But when I asked Christopher Frank, I didn't use the word evil because I was sure that he would. He would reject it as Dawkins had.

And this was early on when I was first getting to know. Christopher, and I said, Do you think man is born basically good or bad? And he said, Man is unquestionably evil. And that really surprised me. because I was quite certain I would get another kind of reaction from him, something similar to Dawkins.

But instead, he believed that man was evil. And I think this has a lot to do with Christopher's own personal experiences, meaning Christopher wasn't an Ivory Tower academic, He was a journalist who traveled around the world and had seen and experienced An awful lot of evil. And yet he would recognize that that was inconsistent with his own. declared worldview. Mm.

And uh You Also, go into great detail about his upbringing. What was it about his relationship with his father that you thought may have contributed to his atheism? Do you think that may have been part of it? Sure. I mean, of course, on this point, I can only speculate, but we know from some psychological studies that.

And gosh, from our own research here at Pix Point Foundation, that That parents, of course, play a there there's there's there's no great revelation when I say that parents play a very pivotal role. in um their own children Their own spiritual views or like thereof. And Christopher's father. Was, according to his descriptions and Peter's descriptions, a man who, at least during the time that they were children. Hold the thought, Larry.

Hold the thought. That's a good lead-in to the next section. What was Christopher's father like? You're listening to The Line of Fire. I'm Frank Turek, filling in for Dr.

Michael Brown. My guest is Larry Alex Taunton. The book is The Faith of Christopher Hitchens. We're going to come back with Larry at the bottom of the hour. Don't go away.

It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 Truth. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. No, it's Dr. Frank Turek, Dr. Brown on Assignment in Australia. We'll be back next week if you're just tuning in.

I'm talking to my friend Larry Alex Taunton. The book is called The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, The Restless Soul of the World's Most Notorious Atheist. And you need to get the book, and you need to go back and listen to the last half hour if you're just tuning in, because it's a fascinating discussion, a fascinating book. And Larry, just before the break, we were talking, or you were about to tell us a little bit about the relationship Christopher Hitchens, the notorious atheist, had with his father. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yes, um Frank, his father was according to him and to his brother Peter, During the time that they were being raised, Christopher describes him as a man who was weak and effaced by life. And Peter told me that he discerned from occasional mutterings of his father that he was an agnostic. And yet, this was someone who had them baptized in the Church of England and who saw it as something of a Of a religious duty or at least a civic duty for them to have some. Modest religious education and involvement in their church. And it seems to me, and on this point, Frank, I speculate that it seems.

It seems to me that Christopher rebelled against this as fraudulent. That he deemed this all to be something that was just a. Just a facade, and that he wasn't going to do it. He wasn't going to bend the knee to a God that. He didn't believe in, and then it seems his own father didn't believe in.

In fact, you write in the book, and again, the book is called The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, you write: the institutional Anglican church, the state church, merely represented the established order rather than aiming to reorder the heart through conversion. The church had little to do with the Bible or Jesus Christ. How do you think that affected Hitchens? He just saw right through that, Larry?

Well, I think he eventually did. I don't know that he thought about it in terms of Jesus Christ or the Bible, but I do think he saw it as a kind of tyranny, as a means of controlling uh uh societies and it was something he didn't like and that he strongly rebelled against because of it. And this seemed to have defined much of his life until after the publication of God Is Not Great in two thousand seven, something rather interesting happened. And that is that as a part Of his promotion for that book, he issued a challenge to people of faith to debate him. And guess who began debating him?

It wasn't Muslims, it wasn't Hindu, very few Jews. It was mostly evangelical Christians, people like the two of us, Frank. And I think that. These encounters, encounters with people like Francis Collins and Doug Wilson, that had a real meaningful impact on him. Yeah, I think it did.

And your interaction probably the most because you, as you document in the book, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, had several interactions with him. You even had him over your house on occasion. You wined and dined him all over the place. You went on road trips with him. You basically had your family with him, and you took him along.

So it's quite a very touching read, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, The Restless Soul, the World's Most Notorious Atheist.

So, friends out there, if you're listening to this broadcast, this is a book you want to pick up. Even if you don't really know much about Hitchens, you'll learn a lot because Larry goes in here and looks at Christopher's life, what may have led him toward atheism, and how he was a divided soul. He was a man that kept two books, as he himself said, and what he was content. Contemplating toward the end of his life. We'll leave the final chapter for you to pick up and read.

And when we come back, I want to talk to Larry a little bit more about this and learn a little bit more about Hitchens, how Hitchens was a divided self. Also, politically, although he was an atheist, he really wasn't a liberal atheist in terms of his political leaning.

So he was more conservative in that regard. We'll talk about why that was and how he didn't put up with political correctness right after the break. I'm Frank Turek, filling in for Dr. Michael Brown, my website, cross-examined.org. Back in just a couple of minutes.

Don't go away. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

No, it's Frank Turek filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown. He's on assignment in Australia. He'll be back next Tuesday. My guest today on this half hour with the line of fire is.

Larry Alex Taunton, his book, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, fabulous book. We've been talking about the book and how Larry had quite an interesting relationship with Christopher over the past couple of years of his life, and Christopher being one of the most prominent atheists in the world. And that's what this book documents and his relationship with Christopher and what Christopher was thinking in the last couple of years of his life. And Larry, you write in the book on page 93, you read Christopher held to his atheism to avoid the deep moral inquiry into his own behavior that accepting Christ would require too much of his life would have to be repudiated. Why do you think that was the case?

Uh well um I think that Christopher You know, when when we are Having our Bible study, we're driving through the Shenandoah Valley. This was on our first road trip together. Christopher asked me why I thought he didn't believe. And it was a serious question. He wasn't asking it mockingly.

He's asking very sincerely and I I I told him, you know, Christopher, are you sh you know, do you really want to hear what I want? my answer and he said that he did. you might be somewhat offended. by my answer. And um and I said, Christopher, you've made a global reputation as an atheist.

And I think you've created a kind of prison for yourself. it'd be very difficult for you to admit you're wrong. I expected some pushback on that, but Christopher remained silent and very thoughtful on that. I took that as, and of course I could be wrong, but I took it as a kind of quiet acquiescence. that there was at least a modicum of truth in what I had said um regarding Taram.

I mean You know, you someone who is an anonymous citizen. who hasn't really made bold declarations and written books and gone on television and radio ad nauseum railing against God, would find conversion simpler, a great deal less complicated and certainly not a humiliating process. I think Christopher Would have found it very, very difficult indeed. And I also think he'd have been ostracized by many of the people. Um who would celebrate him?

Yeah, just ask Anthony Flew, who did the same thing, as you know. Anthony Flew, one of the one of the most prominent philosophical atheists of the last century. When he came out, not as a Christian, he just came out as a theist. He didn't even believe in an afterlife. When he came out that way, as you know, Larry, he uh he took all sorts of grief from uh his fellow atheists who started to claim he was senile.

So now, as you said, Larry, you could be wrong about that. But I found that motivation to be very prevalent among the atheist community. Of course, I can't make a broad statement and say it applies to everybody, but I normally ask people the question: if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? And many times, Larry, atheists will say no. And the reason for that is because there's a moral implication to them moving from atheism to Christianity.

They don't want to give up something in their life or their lives that they don't want to give up. They think God, Jesus, is going to prevent them from doing something they want to do or will cause them to start doing something they don't want to do. And so it's really more of a moral objection than it is really an evidentiary objection. I don't know if you've discovered that among some of the people you've interacted with, but I have. I I think that's very true, Frank.

I think there are those who see belief in God, and certainly Christopher was one of them. Who saw it as a kind of slavery? They saw it as something that was lazy, that cowardly, that. It uh it somehow meant giving up. a kind of freedom.

That they enjoy. But of course, a lot of this has to do with very fundamental misunderstandings as to what Christianity is.

Some of it, sometimes it's because no, they understand very well what Christianity is. It means submitting to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Yeah, in fact, I remember Christopher calling God a cosmic North Korean dictator peering in on our sex lives. And it really gets down to the religion of sex for many people rather than the religion of Jesus. You know, people don't want to give up what they think is sexual freedom, and it will prevent them from doing so.

And I don't know if that was completely the case in Christopher's life, but he did mention that in one of our debates. God's a cosmic North Korean dictator. And he said, I'd rather live as an atheist than in this master slave mentality of religion. He thought it was morally superior to be an atheist than a Christian. Of course, he's stealing morality from a standard he doesn't have to do that, but.

Go ahead.

Well, and also, Frank, the great irony there is that North Korea is atheistic to its black-hearted core.

So I mean, I find it endlessly amusing that atheists want to claim that the a kind of moral high ground when their worldview I mean, the 20th century was an experiment of secular governance, godless governance. And it's on no less, no less, by very conservative estimates, one hundred million people die at the hands of secular regimes, which is more than all the previous centuries' religious wars combined.

So, you know, Christopher could say things like that, which are nice rhetorical flourishes, but at the end of the day, they have no logical, historical, or factual basis. Yeah, the gaping hole in his book, God is Not Great, is he leaves out all of the evil you just mentioned done in the name of atheism, Larry, in his book. And in fact, after your debate with him, he asked you this question. He said, where did you get the stats on Stalin murdering priests? Did you ever interact with him on that afterwards?

You didn't know that, Christopher? I actually took it from a book by Robert Conquest, you may know as of the Hooper Institute.

Well, I mean he there was a big a big blind spot in in in his uh In his book, there. He just kind of left everything out that atheists have done in the name of atheism. And as you say, it dwarfs what's been done in the name of religion. In fact, I saw this recently, Larry, that in the Encyclopedia of War, only 7% of wars have anything to do with religion. And if you take Islam out, it's only 3%.

And if you go back and you look at the last century, World War I, anything to do with religion? No. World War II, anything to do with religion? No. Korean War, anything to do with religion?

No. Vietnam War, anything to do with religion. I mean, you can just go on. No, no, no, no, no. And yet, yet I think 9-11 really changed Christopher, and you write about that in the book.

And it changed some of the other new atheists who got a little bit more adamant in their viewpoint.

Now, it did change Christopher politically, interestingly enough. You would think he would be a political liberal, Larry, but he wasn't. No, um, he was not.

Well, let me rephrase that. He was for most of his political life. I mean, Christopher, who was born in 1949, declared himself an atheist. in at age 15, 1964. And declared himself also a communist.

I mean, that really defined who he was until 9-11. But something went off in him after that, and Christopher began to attack. the left um politically. He became a kind of, not exactly, but a kind of neocon. um after nine eleven, it certainly became uh a a hawk.

Uh uh this is somebody who would Who had protested in the Vietnam War and so forth, as everybody on the left did in the 1960s and 70s. But but Christopher made a massive political defection after nine eleven. He did, and that really was not reflected in his memorial service, was it? They. All of his cronies treated him as if he hadn't made that political switch.

Was that would you say that was a fair assessment? Yeah, well, I think I think that that you know, well, they would acknowledge it, but they would see it as sort of a blip on the radar. They would just say, ah, that's just Christopher being a contrarian. And I actually think that Christopher that there was something more logical driving him than just simply being You know, arbitrary just for the sake of being arbitrary. That's the way that is often dealt with with Christopher.

I think his life was following an arc and it was very similar to his brother Peter, who's also an atheist, also a communist, but who became a Christian in the early 90s. Christopher had become a conservative, not a Christian, but a kind of conservative.

Now in my debate with him he actually admitted that he was more pro-life. But we got a minute before the break, Larry. Can you just give us 30 seconds or 50 seconds on his brother Peter? What do you know about him and how did he become a Christian? Yes, Peter is an interesting guy.

He looks like Christopher, sounds like Christopher. He's in the same profession. He's a journalist in the UK, prominent journalist. He's also something of a conservative He repudiated his own atheism and his communism in the nineties, became a believer. two years younger than Christopher.

He is a very interesting guy. You can hear on LarryAlexFont.com, you can hear on my website a podcast. That I did with him, a very interesting interview with him. I have a chapter in this book called Brothers. A discussion In the faith of Christopher Hitchens, this book, about the two of them.

And it's fascinating, their relationship. And Christopher's written, I mean, Peter has written a book called The Rage Against God. And we'll talk a little bit about that after the break and get into what Christopher thought about Islam and political correctness. You're listening to Frank Turek on the line of fire for Dr. Michael Brown.

My guest today is Larry Alex taunted. The book is the faith of Christopher Hitchens, a fabulous book you need to get. We're back in just two minutes. Don't go away. Oh God of burning, cleansing flames.

Say It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

It's Dr. Frank Turek filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown. He'll be back next Tuesday. He's down under in Australia, ministering down there.

But my guest today on the line of fire is Larry Alex Taunton, his book, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, one of the most notorious atheists who passed away a little over four years ago. A brilliant guy with a British accent who sounded even more brilliant than he was, but he really was brilliant, and he had a great rhetorical flourish in his presentation that was so good. In fact, Larry, you write in the book that Christopher was not a systematic thinker. He loved to season his rhetorical flourishes with literary references, but he didn't really have the depth of knowledge in many of the subjects he was debating. Why do you think that was the case, or how did you come to that conclusion?

I think you're right, but how did you come to that conclusion?

Well, you only have to watch several of his debates to get that sense. And listen, the Christopher. Christopher wasn't an academic specialist. He never claimed to be, so far as I know. Christopher was a very capable debater, very clever guy.

But Christopher, for instance, would pronounce authoritatively on science, on theology, fields where he possessed no expertise. And often, when you saw him, particularly in debates with. specialist. these are the debates that I would say that if you look at them on paper, you would find that Christopher's performance um was more smoke and mirrors. But he was a but he was a much better showman Then with all due respect to a Francis Collins, Christopher had a much better presentation.

as it were. Um but on paper, um it often looks very different. What did he think of political correctness and Islam? You know, off the top of my head, I can't think of anything that he might have said regarding political correctness, but my instinct is to say that he hated it. Islam, we discussed at length, and of course, He wrote about it and spoke about it at length.

And this is a place where I really miss Christopher because we could really use him now. I mean, I can only imagine what he would say regarding the Obama administration policies regarding ISIS, what he would say regarding an ISIS. or the recent massacre in Orlando or Charlie Ebdo or things of that nature. I think Christopher would have had flames issuing from his mouth and from his pin Um regarding these things. Yeah, in his book on God is not dead.

I mean, God is not dead. God is not great. He does have a chapter in the Quran or on the Quran in there, and he goes after the Quran. And in one of our debates, he actually went after an atheist, I mean, sorry, a Muslim who was asking a question. It didn't actually make the final cut of the debate, but a Muslim asked him a question, and he excoriated this Muslim.

He basically called the Quran, and these are his words, he said it was garbage. That's what he said in a debate. That's some of the milder that you said regarding the the Quran. Christopher also uh felt very personally A connection with that because Solomon Rushdie, who is a very dear friend of his, you know, has been living in hiding, you know, because of his own. um remarked um uh the satanic verses and so forth regarding Islam.

And so I think Christopher kind of picked up that standard and sort of carried it forward. Yeah, he was unlike the other new atheists. He really went after all religions pretty evenly, I thought. More Christianity, but he had no problem criticizing Islam. And, you know, to his credit, though, recently, Richard Dawkins has begun to come after Islam a little bit.

To his credit, in fact, Richard Dawkins recently said that a lot of people think Islam is a race. It's not a race, it's an ideology. And let me give credit where credit's due. Dawkins is absolutely right about that. I mean, I think, pardon me, Frank, I think that address has a little bit to do with that.

Richard's address is in North Oxford. Uh he is in a in a city and in a country with a very A very high percentage of Muslims in it. a Christopher Hitchens OSO and could write Much more boldly on this side of the Atlantic, although that's starting to change again as a result of policies. Of the Obama administration. Before we go, Larry, we just got a couple minutes left.

And the book, again, is called The Faith of Christopher Hitchens. Everybody ought to read this book. It's quite a great read. You're a great writer, Larry. And it's just an interesting story, your interactions with Christopher and what he was thinking toward the end of his life.

But I want to give you an opportunity, since this show is called The Line of Fire, to take some fire from the other side and respond to it. I mean, I'm looking at a bunch of one-star reviews, which is they're totally undeserved on Amazon. You know how atheists get on there? Don't even read the book and they just poo-poo the book. And oh, Larry's just trying to make money off of Hitchens' death.

How do you respond to that?

Well, you know, Eric Metaxas wrote a beautiful piece a week or two ago. In the Wall Street Journal about this very thing, about how atheists are, to quote Eric. um a crashing the Amazon website page uh for this book and giving it a one-star review. Before they go off, I think that it's simultaneously annoying and amusing. These are people who have not read the book.

They think the book makes claims, but it does not. Jerry Coyne, the scientist, apparently, wrote a review of the book in which he admits he had not read the book. Larry Krause went after me on BBC and in the New Yorker recently, and it's hysterical what he has written because if anyone reading the book will read what these men say and have written and will know they have not read the book.

Well, that's perfect for Lawrence Krause. Yeah, I was going to say, Larry, that's perfect for Lawrence Krause because he makes things up out of nothing all the time. You know that. Go on. It's amusing.

Read his article in the. In The New Yorker, where he talks about me making a claim of a deathbed conversion. Frank, you've read the book. Do I claim that I Jeff had conversion in this book? No.

No, you don't. But I'll say that, but I want people to read the book, so I won't give the whole thing away. But no, you don't say that Christopher Hitchens converted in the end. But it is interesting what he was considering in the end. And so that's why it's worth the read for other reasons as well.

But I don't think people realize too, Larry, that Unless you sell a whole ton of books, you're not making a lot of money on books. No, there's not a lot of money in these these days, as you know. And but I suppose if they keep writing about it, perhaps that will that will that will give the sales a nice little jolt. Of course, it is interesting, too, Larry, that these same atheists who have no moral standard by which to judge anything are judging you wrong. Even if that were true, that you were trying to make money off his death.

What's wrong with that if you're an atheist?

Well, you know what I find funny, Frank, is that they are so certain what Christopher Hitchens was thinking in conversations of which they were not a part. That's right.

Well, the book is well worth the read. Again, it's called The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, The Restless Soul of the World's Most Notorious Atheist. Larry Taunton's my guest. Larry, thanks for being on the show. Hey, thanks for having me, Frank.

Take care. All the way from France, Larry Alex Taunton. Check out his website. Our website is cross-examined.org and get this book, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens. And don't forget, Dr.

Brown will be back next Tuesday. See you next time. Welcome to the Line of Fire Mics, my guest host, Dr. Frank Turek. Um It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr.

Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUT. That's 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. It's actually Dr. Frank Turek, ladies and gentlemen, filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown who's on assignment in Australia. And my website, crosexamined.org, that's cross-examined with a D on the end of it,.org.

I'm co-author of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and a new book called Stealing from God, Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case. And today I'd like to talk about in this hour. The coexist bumper sticker. Yeah, the coexist bumper st are you d you're probably driving right now and you see one right in front of you. We actually in our ministry have a contradict bumper sticker.

Same symbols, but it it spells contradict because Can all world religions be true? I mean You'll hear this. Don't all religions lead to the same God? Isn't it arrogant to say that one religion or one viewpoint is the right one? Isn't it enlightened to say that all religions lead to God?

I mean, doesn't the coexist bumper sticker have it right? That's what we're going to talk about today, and get to your phone calls a little bit later in the program. And this is well illustrated, at least it's thought to be well illustrated, by the famous elephant parable. Have you heard of the elephant parable?

Well, there's an elephant in front of six blind men, and they all have blindfolds on, and they're feeling different parts of the elephant. And one is feeling the trunk and thinks the elephant's a snake, another is grabbing the tusk and says it's a spear, another is grabbing the leg and says, No, this is a tree, another has the tail, says it's a rope, another's got its hand on the side of the elephant and says this is a wall, another's grabbing the ear and says this is a fan. And these men are supposed to represent world religions. Each. World religion is supposed to have a different piece of the truth, but they don't have the whole truth.

And this is supposed to illustrate what world religions are like. They're all leading to the elephant, but they don't really have the whole elephant. They're saying that. They have different parts of the truth, but they don't have the entire truth.

Now, this is supposed to illustrate all these world religions. There's just one big problem with the parable. The only way to know that the blind men are wrong Is for you to see that that's an elephant in front of you.

Well, if you can see that there's an elephant in front of you, Why can't the blind men, if they just take off their blindfold, see it's an elephant? You see, the parable teller has an objective perspective, and he's saying all the other world religions don't have the complete truth, they have something wrong.

Well, if he can have an objective perspective, why can't everybody? You see, you, as the teller of the parable, have the superior knowledge, the objective knowledge, that you think no one else can have. In other words, the pluralist. The person that thinks all religions lead to God. They think that they have the right perspective.

Well, if they can have the right perspective, why can't other people have the right perspective? You see, it's not only logically wrong, that coexist could be correct. It's also biblically wrong. To say that all religions lead to God is to contradict the entire Bible. In fact, one of the central themes of the Old Testament is that Yahweh is the only true God and Savior.

There's no God but Yahweh.

So, Israel, stop playing the harlot. Stop serving other gods. As he says in Isaiah 45, I am the Lord and there is no other. Apart from me, there is no God. Of course, the very first verse says the same thing: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

There's one God. Not many. And they don't all lead. All belief systems don't lead to the same place. Logically, it's wrong to say that all religions lead to God or that they will all teach the same things.

Now, there is an element of truth in the coexist bumper sticker. I mean, the element of truth is this. I'm all for people from different religions coexisting. But that doesn't mean that different religions can all be true or lead to the same God. In fact, a more accurate description of world religions is not coexist, but it's the bumper sticker I mentioned that we have in our ministry.

It's contradict. That's because religions have mutually exclusive, contradictory ideas of who God is and even how many gods there are, which we'll talk about right after the break. I'm Frank Turek, filling in for Dr. Michael Brown on the line of fire, our website, cross examined.org, cross-examined with a D on the end of it, dot org. We're back in just two minutes.

Don't go away. For Join Dr. Michael Brown along with Messianic Jewish pastor Scott Volk for a unique behind-the-scenes tour of Israel, February 25th through March 6th, 2017. Space is limited, so we're accepting applications on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information on the trip and to secure your spot, please visit our website at askdrbrown.org and click on the Israel Tour banner or call our office at 704-782-3760.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUT. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

It's Dr. Frank Turek filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown. We'll be back next Tuesday. I'll be with you again tomorrow on the line of fire.

Today we're talking about Coexist. The coexist bumper sticker, you know, the one you see out there. I actually think the real truth is contradict. We actually have a bumper sticker at crose examine.org, which is contradict because all world religions can't be true. In fact, they're mutually exclusive.

They have mutually exclusive, contradictory ideas of who God is and even how many gods there are. I mean, some say God is personal, others say God is impersonal, some say God made the universe, others say God is the universe, some say there are many gods, others say there's one God, even those who believe in one God disagree. For example, Islam says God is rigidly monotheistic, whereas Christianity says, yes, we have a monotheistic God, but God is a Trinity. He's three persons in one divine essence. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam disagree on the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Of course, Christianity says he died and rose. Judaism says he died but didn't rise. And Islam says he didn't die and didn't rise. And the least plausible out of all those, of course, is Islam, because even. If there's one established fact from ancient history, it's that Jesus actually died.

Islam is trying to say he didn't die, and Islam comes 600 years after the events and tries to tell us something that the eyewitnesses tell us definitely did occur. I think the evidence is very strong Jesus did rise from the dead. In fact, some people will say, Well, no, the New Testament writers invented the resurrection. No, it's exactly the opposite. The resurrection invented the New Testament writers.

There would be no New Testament writers unless there was a resurrection. You recall that all of the New Testament writers, with the exception of Luke, were all Jews. They already thought they were God's chosen people. What possible motivation would they have to make up a new religion? If it wasn't true, why would they do this?

They got beaten, tortured, and killed for saying that the Jesus that they had followed had risen from the dead. You know, imagine a Jewish guy going, We're going to start a new religion. We are. Yeah, what's it going to get us?

Well, first, we'll get kicked out of the synagogue, and then we'll get beaten, tortured, and killed.

Well, sign me up. No, I don't think they invented it, okay? In any event, the point here is that. World religions disagree Now When people say all religions lead to the God, you know what's really behind the assertion? There's really a moral claim.

You see, all religions must lead to God because God would be unfair to judge people for having false beliefs, especially people who are indoctrinated into false religions.

So it's really more of a variation of what about those who've never heard? But the problem here is, it's a moral claim. The problem here is to say that all religions lead to God is like saying that all roads lead to New York. That's not true. In fact, most roads do not lead to New York.

Thankfully. And I'm from New Jersey, by the way.

So, all religions and all viewpoints are exclusive. In fact, um That's too long a story to tell right here, but I remember talking to a friend of mine before I was a Christian. I'll just make it really short. We were speaking. One morning over breakfast, and I said, Do you believe Jesus is the only way?

He was a Christian. He said, Yeah, I said, You know, he just quoted John 14:6, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. And I said, You know, Mark, that's really narrow. Anyway, we went to church that morning.

church we didn't even know where it was we got there late we sat down two minutes into the sermon Okay. Um The guy, the preacher, goes, and then Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. So my friend Mark gives me the elbow. And then the preacher goes, and some people think that's narrow.

So now Mark is really elbowing me. And he goes, But you know, the truth is narrow. If I want to call my friend John here in the front row, I got to dial ten numbers in the exact order to get John. If I get one number wrong, I don't get John, I get a wrong number. That's the way truth is.

It's very narrow. And he was absolutely right. In fact All truth excludes its opposite. All religions and all viewpoints are exclusive.

Now, some will say, wait, wait, wait, Frank, what do you mean? Don't religions teach the same thing? Say about morality? Don't they teach that you all ought to love one another? I mean, to a certain extent, that may be true, but not completely.

Why? For example, Satanism doesn't teach that. Neither does Islam, as some Muslims maintain, who justify jihad by the commands of the Quran to kill unbelievers.

Now, obviously, not all Muslims believe this, thankfully, but that's what the Quran says. And in fact, I saw the most contradictory set of bumper stickers on a suburban in Texas last year. On one side of the bumper was the Coexist bumper sticker. On the other side of the bumper was was a U. S.

Marine Corps. Emblem. I'm going, wait a minute. How can you coexist? How can you have a coexist bumper sticker and a U.S.

Marine Corps bumper sticker? The Marine is probably over in Afghanistan right now fighting a world religion. Or a group of people who adhere to a certain world religion who don't want to coexist with us. They they they can't coexist because they think we're infidels. But look, even if it were true.

That most world religions teach that you ought to love one another, that's only one small aspect of the religion. In fact, The truth is, religions superficially agree with one another, but they fundamentally disagree. As one writer sarcastically put it, he said, Oh yeah, most religions teach that you ought to love one another. They only disagree on the nature of man, the nature of God, sin, salvation, heaven, hell, and creation. Outside of that, they're exactly the same.

Think about that. They disagree on the nature of man, the nature of God, sin, salvation, heaven, hell, and creation. In fact, think about it this way: even if they do have a common moral code, the similar moral commands across most religions don't coexist. Because the religions come from the same God, they coexist because morality comes from the same God. You see, most religions are invented by man, but the same moral law is written on the hearts of every human being by the same God.

So we should expect invented religions to largely disagree on their religious beliefs because they are invented by different people. But we should also expect religions to largely agree on the moral principles because the same God gives the same moral principles to all people. In other words, we should expect people to express. express their moral beliefs in their religious writings. And since morality, the morality part comes from God, it's basically the same.

But since the religion part comes from man, it's basically different.

So, of course, you're going to have a similar moral code across different religions. But what people believe about sin, salvation, heaven, hell, creation, the nature of man and the nature of God will differ.

Now, you may hear this too.

Well, you just think that, you know. If you have the truth, you're arrogant. Ladies and gentlemen, truth doesn't have attitude. Arrogance is an attitude. It doesn't determine truth or falsehood.

You can be arrogant but right about something, just like you can be humble and wrong about something.

So Yeah, obviously you don't want to be arrogant about anything, but if you're arrogant and you're right, you're right. You can be arrogant about 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Okay. So you got a bad attitude, but you're still right.

Now, look, if the claim of arrogance means you can't possibly know that your way is the right way, then this is a self-defeating claim. Because the person who says you can't possibly know claims to know himself. How does that person know that you can't possibly know? Think about that. It's a self-defeating claim.

It's like saying I can't speak a word in English. It's like saying my parents had no kids that lived. It's like saying my brother is an only child. These are self-defeating claims. To say that you can't know is to know.

To say there is no truth is a truth claim. If somebody says there is no truth, you ought to say, is that true?

So The point here is that everyone is exclusive. Everyone believes their view of spiritual reality is right. Everyone is narrow. The real question is how do you treat people with whom you disagree? In fact, if you think about this, if you really look at world religions, they're all exclusive.

They all make exclusive judgments. Let's just go through the major religions really quickly. And by the way, if you're just tuning in, you're listening to the line of fire. I'm Frank Turek, filling in for Dr. Michael Brown, our website, crosexamined.org.

CrossExamined with a D on the end of it, dot org. And today, in this half hour, actually for the entire hour, we're going to talk about this coexist situation. And do all religions teach the same thing? And do all religions lead to God? And we've been talking about it so far.

If you're just tuning in, you can go back and go to the lineofire.com and you can listen to this. The first part of this podcast later. And if you want to join the program, a little bit later in the program, we'll take your phone calls at 866-34-TRUTH. That's 1-866-34-TRUTH or 1-866-348-7884. 348-7884.

If you'd like to be on the program, we'll take your phone calls on right when we come back from the break. We're going to go through the major world religions and point out that they're all exclusive. They all exclude their opposites, whether it's Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, atheism, pluralism, whatever it is, they all agree exclusive things about the afterlife. The only question is who's right? And that's what we're going to look at.

I'm Frank Turek, in for the great Dr. Michael Brown on the live fire. Again, our website, crosexamined.org, back in just a couple of minutes. Oh God of burning, cleansing. Flame send the fire.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Dr.

Frank Turk with you, 866-348-7884, 866-348-7884. If you'd like to be on the program, we're talking about. The differences between world religions and how they all can't b uh be true because they have mutually exclusive truth claims. The coexist bumper sticker, while it's a nice sentiment, isn't reality. The more accurate is the contradict bumper sticker because they all can't be true.

Now, I've been talking a little bit about pluralists. Who's a pluralist? A pluralist is someone who believes that all religions lead to God.

Now, this person claims to know that all religions lead to God. And at the same time, the pluralist is saying that the Christian can't know that Jesus is the only way.

Well, why not? Why can the pluralist know that? His way is the right way, but the Christian can't know that his way is the right way.

Now, the pluralist might say that the Christian is wrong for believing that Jesus is the only way to God. But in fact, the pluralist is claiming that everyone who disagrees with him Is wrong. The Christian, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the atheist. Everyone is wrong but him, the pluralist. In other words, you see, everybody has exclusive claims.

Narrow claims about the afterlife. In fact, let's just go through the major world religions very briefly here on the line of fire. And point out that every one of these world religions has an exclusive claim about the afterlife. Christianity believes you have a choice between heaven or hell, between being with God or separated from God. And as 1 John 5:12 says, He who does not have the Son does not have life.

Islam believes basically the same thing with regard to a choice. You have a choice between paradise or hell, hellfire. According to Surah 5, verse 88, the fifth chapter in the Quran, it says unbelievers will be inmates of hellfire.

So you either can be a good Muslim Or you're going to be in hellfire. You have a choice, according to Islam. In Hinduism, you actually have no choice. Why? Because everyone is subject to the law of karma and trapped in reincarnations.

I guess you can improve your situation by being good, whatever that means. There's really no standard of good if there is no. A monotheistic being whose nature is good, and Hinduism believes in many gods, not one god. Yet they steal from the monotheistic god this moral standard and they talk about karma. And everyone is subject to the law of karma.

You don't really have a choice in this. Buddhism, the same way. There's no choice. Everyone's subject to the law of karma and is trapped in reincarnations. Atheism, you have no choice.

Why? Everyone's just going to cease to exist in the afterlife. You're just going to become worm food. Doesn't matter what you believe, what you do. There's no choice.

You're going to become worm food. The pluralist actually believes you have no choice, too. Why? Because it's compulsory heaven for everyone. Everyone's going to heaven, according to the pluralists.

You don't have a choice. If you don't want to be with Jesus or whoever's in heaven, sorry, you're going there.

Now, they may balk at this a little bit when you say, You mean Hitler's going there? You mean Stalin's going there? You mean child rapists are going there?

Well, now you're making judgments here. See, it's ironically, pluralists, those who say all religions lead to God, are the biggest exclusivists of all. They say there's only one way No one has a choice. It's compulsory heaven for everyone. It's compulsory God for everyone.

Well, I got news for you. A lot of people don't want God. You see, they've been running from God their entire lives. They want to be left alone here in eternity. Think about that.

That's why I asked the question on college campuses in particular. I asked the question because I do a lot of I don't have enough faith to be an atheist events on college campuses. By the way, if you're in college or you know somebody in college and want one of those on your college, just contact us at crosexamined.org. Go to the website. You'll see how to do that, cross-examined with a D on the end of it.org.

Anyway, I ask questions of atheists a lot on college campuses. If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? And I've had many atheists yell back at me, no! No, wait a minute. To be an atheist, a beacon of reason.

Never mind if atheism is true, reason doesn't exist. Why? Because if atheism is true, if we're just molecules in motion, then we're not really reasoning anyway, we're just reacting. But let's leave that aside. I ask you if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?

And you say no. How's that reasonable? How's that rational? It's not. You see, most people aren't on a truth quest.

They're on a happiness quest. They're going to believe whatever they think is going to make them happy. Here's the problem. You can do a lot of stupid, sinful things over the short term that'll make you happy over the short term, but long term it's a disaster. The only way to get true happiness and contentment is to go straight through truth, and Jesus is the truth.

So Ask the question. If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? If they say no or they hesitate, the problem isn't in their head, it's in their heart. They don't want it to be true. Why?

Because they want to be God. They don't want there to be a God. They want to be God. They want to be gods over their own lives. They don't want any moral accountability or any restraint.

In fact, ultimately this boils down for a lot of people to the issue of sex. There's a new religion in America. It's called the religion of sex. And if you cross the religion of sex, it's a religion of the sword. They will hurt you.

I mean, if you think about all the things we argue over in the public square, Dr. Brown is very articulate on these issues. We argue over things all related to sex. Whether it's abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception paid for by the government, abortion paid for by the government, what bathrooms we use, the transgender issues, it's all related to sex because that's the new religion in America, an old religion resurrected.

So The point here is, back to the point of these different world religions. is the fact that not everybody wants to go to heaven. Because Jesus is in heaven. People have been running from Jesus their entire lives. To say that God is going to yank them into His presence for all eternity wouldn't be loving.

I mean, if God is all-powerful and He takes all people to heaven. Then what's the point of this life anyway? Why doesn't he just skip this step? Why doesn't he just take us all to heaven right away? What's the point?

It seems like this step, this mortal life here, is necessary so we can make a choice. And God, since he is a loving being, will respect our choice. As Tim Keller puts it, he says, look, everyone who makes a truth claim about the afterlife believes they are correct. Christians just think the consequences of what you believe are more severe than, say, in what an atheist or a Buddhist or a Hindu believes. The consequences are more severe.

Because God is a God of love, and He's going to respect our choices. And if you don't want to love Him, if you don't want to be in His presence, then you won't have to be. Hell is separation from God. And all world religions teach something exclusive about the afterlife. The only question is which exclusive belief is actually true, and for that you need evidence.

That's what we cover in the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. If you want to see the evidence that Christianity is true, check out that book. Because that's what we cover there in that book. But the point I'm trying to make here is it doesn't matter. What the coexist bumper sticker says, it's just factually incorrect.

World religions contradict and all world religions are exclusive. And if you disagree, you can call in and we can talk about it. Even if you agree, we can talk about it at 866-348-7884. That's 866-34-TRUTH, if you want to be on the line of fire. You're listening to the line of fire with me, Frank Turek, filling in for the great Dr.

Michael Brown, who'll be back next Tuesday. He's on assignment in Australia. Our website is crosexamined.org. That's crosexamined.org. And if you missed some of this program or the previous hour we had with Larry Taunton, the author of the book on Christopher Hitchens, you can go to askdrbrown.org.

Askdrbrown.org to listen to the entire program. And we're going to be back in just a few minutes with more. Maybe your phone calls at 866-34-TRUTH. 866-34TRUTH. I'm Frank Turk filling in for Dr.

Michael Brown back in 2. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. It's actually Dr. Frank Turek filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown.

Dr. Brown will be back next Tuesday. He's in Australia right now, ministering. And we're talking about can all religions lead to God? The answer is no, because they all teach mutually exclusive, contradictory things.

And if you've missed the first half hour, you've got to go back and listen to it at askdrbrown.org. Right now, we're getting your phone calls at 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-348-7884. Let's start with Adam in Utah. Adam, you're on with Frank Turek.

Go right ahead, sir. Hi, uh, I was calling in. Uh, I just tuned in. I heard You said something about a book that can the evidence that Christianity was the one truth. uh religion and I was wondering Uh What what you were referring to Yeah, that's that's a book I co-authored with Dr.

Norman Geiser. It's called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Oh, oh, okay. I guess I did hear that. I ca caught that title, but w I was curious if you could elaborate on the type of evidence or what the evidence was.

Is it scientific?

Well, yeah, there's evidence that you're going to use from science, from history, from philosophy to arrive at a conclusion about any world religion. And it turns out that Christianity has more evidence behind it in those three categories than any other, in my view. And so in the book, we actually go through 12 points to show that Christianity is true. But the four main points, Adam, are this. We ask the question, does truth exist?

Because the Bible can't be true if there's no truth. Obviously, if somebody says there is no truth, they're making a truth claim. If they say there's no truth, I ask them, is that true?

So obviously, truth exists. The next question is, does God exist? Because you can't have a word from God if there is no God. And in the book, we give three major arguments for the existence of God. What do I mean by God?

A spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, moral, personal, intelligent creator who sustains everything he created. And the three arguments for that, I don't have time to go into the details, but the cosmological argument, the argument from the beginning of the universe, the teleological argument, the argument from the universe, the universe, The fine-tuning of the universe and the design in nature, and then the moral argument, the idea that there's a moral law out there, and that moral law is what we mean by God's nature. And from those three arguments, Adam, you can come up with a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, moral, personal, intelligent, sustaining cause. Then we move on to the third question: are miracles possible? Because obviously, the Bible can't be true if miracles are not possible.

But it turns out the greatest miracle in the Bible has already occurred, and that's the creation of the universe out of nothing. The evidence that the first verse of the Bible is true is very strong, both from a scientific perspective and a philosophical perspective. If that verse is true, every other miracle in the Bible is at least possible.

So when people tell me they don't believe in miracles, I normally say, look around, you're living in one. This universe is a miracle. Then you can get to the New Testament documents and see if Jesus really rose from the dead. And there's a lot of good evidence for that that we cover in the book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

So I'm giving you a 448-page book in three minutes, okay? But those are the four major things. Questions, they're broken out into 12 points, but the four major questions are: does truth exist? Does God exist? Are miracles possible?

Is the New Testament reliable? And if the New Testament's reliable, it turns out the Old Testament is as well, because Jesus in the New Testament, if he really is God, then whatever he teaches is true. Jesus taught the entire Old Testament as the Word of God.

So if the New Testament's reliable, you get the Old Testament thrown in.

So that's what the book does in much more detail than what I could say in the last three minutes.

Okay. Makes sense.

Well, I think science requires an orderly universe, which requires an orderer.

So, the very fact that we can do science and that natural laws don't change points to a divine mind that created these natural laws and keeps them consistent.

So, the very ability for us to do science points back to what we mean by God.

So, yes.

Okay. Make sense? Not really, but I'm serious about it.

Well, check it out, Adam. There's only so much we can do in four minutes. Check out the book I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and there's another book called Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case. Thanks for the call. We're back in just two minutes, and if you'd like to join the program, it's 866-34-TRUTH.

866-34-Truth. I'm Frank Turek, filling in for Dr. Michael Brown. Our website, cross examined.org. Cross-examined with the Dion Himmlen.

Back in two. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. No, it's Dr. Frank Turek. We don't change the voiceover for one guy who comes in a couple times a year, but it's Frank Turik filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown.

And we're talking about how all world religions can't teach their, well, they don't teach the same thing, so they can't all be true, mutually exclusive, but they all make exclusive truth claims, particularly about the afterlife. And let's go to the phone lines. Stay on the phone lines. We'll go to Jeff in Durham, North Carolina. Jeff, you're on with Frank Turret.

Go right ahead, sir. Hi, I had a question. About uh the Baha'i faith. Yes. I had a friend that I've talked with uh at some length about the Baha'i faith and It seems to really hit the pluralism thing square on.

It does, yeah.

So good. You have some experience with it. I tried to pin him down actually on the exclusive truth claim that Jesus made because he affirms. I guess Baha'i Faith affirmed that all all religions and all prophets are saying true things. And so I said, Well, do you think that Jesus said true things?

He said, Yes. I said, What about when he said I am the way, the truth, and the life? Don't you think that was kind of exclusive of him? And he said, Well, know when you really understand it He was just saying something true to that generation, true to that time. And it wasn't actually contradictory with other religions or anything.

So I worked hard to say that that was contradictory. And he didn't buy it, and I didn't know where to go from there. Man, if there's yeah, Jeff, if there's any one theme of the Bible is there's one God, and He is the Savior. I mean, the whole theme of the Bible is redemption. Look at the whole theme of the Old Testament.

What's the Old Testament all about? Israel, will you stop going after these other gods? There's only one God. I am the one God. Just worship me, and everything will be all right.

And what do they keep doing? They keep running away from the true God, and they go out and play the harlot with other gods. I mean. It's really a lie from Satan to say all of these world religions are true and they're equally true. I will say this: all world religions teach some truth, otherwise, you wouldn't believe anything about them.

Right? Satan comes as an angel of light. He's going to bring forth what appears something that appears to be true, but it's really not.

Now, the Baha'i faith teaches basically they're pluralist. They think everyone's going to heaven. That all world religions lead to God. But we've been critiquing here the entire program. That's logically incompatible because all world religions teach different things about God and they teach different things about the afterlife.

Uh and it would be saying that all world religions uh are Are false to a certain extent because they don't teach what the Baha'i faith teaches.

So it's really uh a Another way of saying that All religions lead to the same place. when in fact the religions themselves don't teach that. Uh so You know, it's interesting to me, Jeff. We realize that all roads don't lead to New York, for example, yet we come up with these metaphors that say all roads lead to God.

Well, they don't. The metaphor doesn't even work. And yet they're trying to say that This metaphor applies to God. That world religions make exclusive truth claims about. Who God is, who man is, what the nature of sin is, what the nature of salvation is, whether we were created or not, all these things.

And And yet some people out there are trying to say, well, they're all teaching the same thing. No, they're teaching superficially the same moral code because the moral code comes from God directly to man, but they disagree on the nature of man, the nature of God, sin, salvation, heaven, hell, and creation. They disagree on just about everything. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So, and by the way, there's a good tactic that my friend Greg Kochl has. When somebody says something, in fact, he has a book called Tactics. When somebody says something, it's not your job to refute what they say. It's their job to support what they say.

So, if somebody says, well, all religions teach basically the same thing. You don't have to refute it. You have to ask them, well, first of all, what do you mean by that? Secondly, how did you come to that conclusion that they all teach the same thing? Have you read them all?

Do you know that they all teach the same thing? Um because after you ask that question They're going to be out of intellectual justification for their position because, if you really think about it, they disagree on just about everything.

So ask some questions before trying to refute what they say. They'll refute themselves if you ask enough questions. Fair enough. I feel like he did refute himself, but he wouldn't admit it. And it was just really slippery.

I just didn't know what to do or where to go from there. I think what you're saying is right. Yeah, I think it's really a moral claim at the end. They want everybody to go to heaven, and so does God, by the way, but he can't force people to go to heaven. You can't force somebody to love you.

That's why Jesus is the only way. It's not an arbitrary claim. It's not like, okay, I'm the only way. The reason Jesus is the only way is there's only one way, an infinite being who has infinite, one attribute is infinitely just, or one attribute is infinite justice, the other attribute is infinite love. The only way to reconcile those two things is to be just.

And the justifier at the same time. As he says, as Paul says in Romans 3:26, the only way that God can remain just and justify sinners is if he takes the punishment himself. And who is that? That's Jesus Himself. That's why Jesus is the only way.

It's not an arbitrary claim. It's just the way reality is. That if God's going to remain just, And punish sin and yet allow sinners into his presence. He's got to punish somebody.

So he punishes himself, basically. Make sense? Yeah, that's good stuff. All right.

Well, thanks for the call. All right.

Thanks a lot. And if you'd like to join the program, you're listening to Line of Fire. My name is Frank Turek, filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown. I'll be here with you tomorrow, Lord willing.

And Dr. Brown will be back next week on Tuesday. He's in Australia right now. Our phone number is 86634-TRUTH, 866-34-TRUTH. And let's go up to Canada, to Donna.

Donna's in Ontario, Canada. You're on the line of fire. Go right ahead, Donna. Yes, uh there's no i there's no ifs and buts and maybe about God. He give us a guarantee.

Now why don't people cash their guarantee? I mean, if I told them I'll give you a guarantee for a million dollars, Most people would immediately go and cash in it.

Well, a million dollars is nothing. compared to knowing whether God is or not.

So why don't people cash in their guarantee? What do you mean by guarantee, Donna? What do you mean? and you will find Ah, there you go. That's right.

I looked for him and he found me. He brought me up out of the pit of hell and. He manifests himself to me so I can I know that God is. It's not no ifs and buts and maybe. It's a guaranteed fact that He is.

Excellent, Donna. You're absolutely right. If you seek, you will find. And Jesus, of course, said the truth will set you free. And that implies if you don't have the truth, you're in bondage.

Think about that, friends. If you don't have the truth, you're in bondage. If the truth will set you free, it means you're in bondage before you have it.

Well, you see, the thing about Christianity, like you said, you asked atheists and they said no. But the trouble is. Satan's got all those do's and don'ts.

Now, I can't count the do's and don'ts. that are out there and I don't even want to count them because to me God reduced it all to one, one little wee word, and that is love. Yes, love God and love your neighbor. Yeah, and God is perfect love. He's the truth, He is the King.

He is a All right. Like, there's no mistakes in God. He's right. And he's pure, there's no toxins in him. you know, no topics at all, and he's perfectly lovely, there's no blemish in him.

And he perfectly, uh Well he perfect, period. Just I just And Oh, he is.

So much to admire. Look at how we admire Christ. Like, he has. Yeah. Self-discipline and self-control.

He knew, like, I'm thankful I don't know, but. He just knew he knew. He and full, you know, the entire sum. I've had him that all the time. Exactly.

The entire Psalm in full, and he knew. And he still wear the head. Like, I mean, I would be running still. For 2,000 years.

Well, actually, it's only 1,986 years. Bye. He said the Holy Spirit does, but he never. And if you knew, would you not be running still? Yeah, exactly.

Jesus knew the cup was coming toward him, the cup he had to drink, which was something that would kill him. And he said, if this cup could pass from me, Lord, pass it from me. And he went ahead with the crucifixion, which was just absolutely brutal. In fact, in the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, we have an account of the crucifixion. And when you read it, you will certainly, if it doesn't touch you, there's something wrong with you.

In fact, last week I was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and we brought a group to Israel. We had about 87 people go with us to Israel. And I read that account in the Garden of Gethsemane, and it is a powerful account of the crucifixion. We have it reprinted in the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

Well, this is a delightful call, Donna. We're coming up on a break. I want to thank you for calling in all the way from Ontario. Thank you so much. I know, but you see, God did manifest himself to me.

Therefore, there's no doubt in me. Like, I have absolute knowledge because he manifested himself to me.

So, you know. I could do nothing else but Speak truthfully.

Well, keep doing it, Donna, especially in Canada. We love you up there, our northern neighbor. Thank you so much, Donna. Thank you so much. That's Donna from Canada.

I'm Frank Turek, filling in for Dr. Michael Brown, our website, crose examined.org. That's cross-examined with a D on the end of it,.org, like our Facebook page. Also, if you want this entire broadcast, ask drbrown.org. See you in two minutes.

Give us strict to always do what's right. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Dr. Frank Turek, filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown. We'll be back next Tuesday. Our phone number, 866-34-TRUTH.

That's 866-348-7884. Great to have Donna from Ontario call us in the last segment. If you'd like to be on the program, we've got about eight minutes left. Call in now. We're talking about this idea that all religions teach the same thing.

That's quite obviously not the case. They're all different. They agree on some superficial things, but they disagree on the big things: the nature of God, the nature of man, sin, salvation, heaven, hell, and creation.

So those are the big issues.

Now, in one sense, all religions can lead to the true God because after you try them out, you realize that you can't live up to the demands of any religion. You see, that's the biggest difference between all other religions and Christianity. In all other religions, people are attempting to work their way to God. Do this, do that, do, do, do, do, do. In Christianity, we don't work our way to God.

God works His way to us. He puts on human flesh and he does everything for us. He literally comes to earth, adds humanity over his deity to save the very creatures that rebelled against him, and he allows those creatures to torture and kill him so he can save them from themselves. If that's not the greatest story ever told, I don't know what is.

So, other religions are do, do, do, do. Christianity is done, done, done, done. All you need to do is trust in Christ for your salvation. In other words, accept the free gift. And if you don't accept the free gift, God won't force you into heaven against your will.

If you don't want God now, you're not going to want him in eternity. Who's in eternity, Jesus is in eternity? Yeah. Many of the reasons, or one of the reasons, that people assert that all religions lead to God is, as I mentioned earlier, there's a moral claim smuggled in there. You see, they say all religions must lead to God because God would be unfair to judge people for having false beliefs, especially those who are indoctrinated into false religions.

And so That would be unfair of God.

Now notice this is a moral judgment. Here's the problem. You can't have an objective moral judgment unless God exists. If you're an atheist, you can't say it's immoral of God. To do X, Y, or Z, because you have no moral standard by which to judge.

no objective moral standard by which to judge anything right or wrong.

Now If God exists, and He does, He's the very standard of goodness and rightness and justice and fairness, God is fair.

So from our limited time bound perspective, we might not always be able to see how he is fair ultimately. But since God is the objective standard of fairness, he by definition must be fair. Must be right, must be just, and God wants people to be saved more than we do. In fact, there's a clue in Acts 17 on this. You know, it's the old, what about those who've never heard?

There's just a clue. It may or may not be the answer.

Some people will say, well, we don't know about those who have never heard.

Some will say that, but there's a clue here in Acts chapter 17. Paul was up on Mars Hill. before the Athenians. And he's talking to them about the unknown God that they've made this little. Idol to, or I should say this little altar to, in case they left somebody out.

They had all their other gods around them, and so they wanted to have an altar to an unknown god. And Paul, just in case they left anybody out, Paul comes and tells them. about this unknown God. And here's what he one of the things he says Um He says, and let's see, Acts chapter 17, verse 26. He says, From one man, God made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth.

And he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out to him. Or reach reach out for him and find him, although he is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, as some of your own poets have said. It says that God this appears to say God has so prearranged events That People live where they're supposed to live so that some will find him. He knows that not all will find him.

Why? Because all don't want to find him. In other words, It might be, let me put it this way: we know that there are many people who hear the gospel and reject it, right? It could be that those who never hear the gospel wouldn't have believed it anyway. Because God has so prearranged the way the universe is that they live in places that don't hear the gospel.

Obviously, that's a possibility, but at the end of the day, we know this: God is just. That nobody who winds up in heaven will go, wow, I should have wound up in hell, or winds up in hell will go, wow, I should have been in heaven.

Now some are going, that's pretty Calvinistic. Uh well I'm not a Calvinist, but I do know that God knows everything before he begins. He He creates the universe. And he knows how it's going to turn out. But that doesn't mean he's causing us to do what we do.

Just because he knows what we're going to do doesn't mean he causes us to do it. If you watch a football game that's already been played, you've TiVo'd it, you already know the score. You already know what's going to happen. But that doesn't mean you're causing the players on the field to do what they do. Just because you know what they're going to do doesn't mean you're causing them to do what they do.

The same thing is true with God. He already knows when he creates this universe how it's going to turn out, but that doesn't mean he's causing it. He has maybe prearranged events. When he created this universe, he knew how things would turn out, where people would live. And by electing to create this universe, he elected the outcome.

But nobody is choosing not to believe or to believe They're not being forced by God to believe it. They do have a choice in the matter.

So all I'm saying here it could be that those who've never heard wouldn't have believed it anyway. We do know this: that if you seek God after He first seeks you, and you seek to find Him. You will get the gospel and you will be saved. That's what the Scriptures teach. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Now, if anyone's going to be fair, it's going to be God. But going back to this objection, this objection that all religions have to lead to God because God is going to be fair. No, they don't all have to lead to God. God is going to be fair whether all religions lead to God or not, because He is fair. He is the standard of fairness.

But they don't lead to God because there's only one way to reconcile infinite justice and infinite love, and that is in the person of Jesus. It's not arbitrary. It's the way reality is. and that's why it's the most important message you could give anybody. Because it has eternal consequences.

Look, as we talked about earlier in the program, everybody believes that what they believe about the afterlife is right. The only question is. Who is right? What is the right view? And every view about the afterlife is exclusive.

Every view says they're right and somebody else is wrong. The only question is: what is the right view? And for that, you need evidence. And you need somebody who's been to the afterlife and come back to tell us. And who's done that?

Jesus has.

So Check out the rest of this podcast by going to askdrbrown.org if you're just tuning in. Uh and then tune in tomorrow. At the line of fire, because I'll be back. We'll talk more about issues like this, apologetics, evidence, that kind of thing. And you can call in at 866-34-TRUTH.

In the meantime, check out our website, crosexamined.org. That's cross-examined with a D on the end of it, dot org. My name is Frank Turek, co-author of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. And the new book, Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case. Thanks to Betsy, to Matt, to Joey, all the producers there.

We'll see you tomorrow. God bless.