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 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. It's Dr.
Frank Turek with you again, ladies and gentlemen. Dr. Brown is on assignment in Australia, but he's still putting out. There's got to be more than one Michael Brown, because the amount of information that Dr. Michael Brown puts out, really good information, is legion.
Anyway, he's got a couple of videos out today and a letter to a gay Christian today that you can all see at askdrbrown.org.
So check all those things out. Today, I was with you yesterday. My name is Frank Turek, co-author of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, in a new book called Stealing From God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case. And by the way, stealing from God is not about tithing, it's about the fact that whenever atheists are trying to argue that there is no God, they're actually stealing realities that would only exist if God existed. That's what the book Stealing from God is about.
But today, I want to talk about the most important thinking skill that you need to learn and I need to learn in order to be not just an effective Christian ambassador and apologist, but somebody who can navigate life and avoid error. Because the most important thing in life is truth. If you don't have truth, you're going to get into trouble. Jesus said, the truth will set you free.
Well, if the truth will set you free, the implication is that if you don't have truth, you're in bondage. And there's a lot of falsehoods out there that can be identified as falsehoods, exposed as falsehoods, by simply understanding this one important thinking skill. It is the most important thinking skill I've ever learned. And I think after you recognize it, you'll go, yes, this is very important. Why?
Because you hear things in our culture that are anti-Christian. Things like there is no truth, or no one has the truth, or you can't know truth, or all truth is relative. There are no absolutes. You think you have the truth, you're arrogant. It's true for you, but not for me.
All truth depends on your perspective, they'll say. Or all truths are subjective. Or that's just your opinion. They may say you ought not judge, or you shouldn't try and convert people, or don't impose your morals on me. Or they'll say you should tolerate everything.
Or they may say all of our truth comes from science. You might as well throw the Bible out. That's not scientific. Or they'll say you can't know the real world, or you should doubt everything. That's the skeptical claim.
Or they might say there is no supernatural realm because all causality is physical. Or they'll say, only material things exist.
So the supernatural or the immaterial realm doesn't exist. Or they might say. You shouldn't believe anything you can't see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. Or they might say the world is random or evil disproves God. Or look, you can't go from the simple to the complex.
You're saying God is simple. Yet we have this complex universe.
So how could you go from the simple to the complex? Or some of the new atheists now are even saying consciousness is an illusion. Or neuroscience experiments show that the mind is the brain. And atheistic materialism is true, so we don't have any free will. Wow, there's a lot of objections there, Frank, in the first couple of minutes of the show.
Every one of the objections I just brought up, or at least most of them, can be refuted by this one. simple thinking skill. What is the one thinking skill you need to master to be an effective apologist, an effective case maker, a truth seeker? That is what we're going to talk about today. We're going to go through these statements I just mentioned and point out That they can't be true.
And if you apply this one thinking skill, you will see why they can't be true.
So, you're not going to want to miss today's broadcast. And in the second hour, if those of you who do get both hours of Dr. Michael Brown's show here, The Line of Fire, we're going to have Jay Warner Wallace, the cold case homicide detective, on, along with Rice Brooks, the man behind the movies. God's Not Dead, and God's Not Dead 2.
So you don't want to miss that. I'm Frank Turek filling in for Dr. Michael Brown. We're back in just two minutes with the most important thinking skill you need to know. Don't go away.
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 are 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. Mm-hmm.
God of light, hear our cry, send a 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.
It's Dr. Frank Turek filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown is on assignment in Australia. He's doing ministry down there. Hey, I just heard that spot for Dr.
Brown's Israel trip. I just got back from Israel three days ago. It's my third time to Israel. And it is a life-changing experience, especially with respect to how you view the Bible, because you can, first of all, see a lot of evidence for the Bible while you're there, and also see how. Geographically, things are, which is so critical to understanding some of the stories in the Bible.
So, it's a life-changing experience. You're not going to want to miss that trip with Dr. Brown. I highly suggest that you look into going on that if you've never been to Israel before. In fact, on my radio broadcast later this week, I'm going to talk about some of the archaeological discoveries we saw for ourselves when we were in Israel just this past couple of weeks.
You can listen to that program this weekend. Just get our app. We have a cross-examined app, two words in the app store. Cross-examined two words. And you can listen to all our, we just do one-hour radio a week.
Dr. Brown is doing two hours a day. We just do one hour a week.
So check that out off our cross-examined app. It's going to be the Israeli Archaeological Discoveries or Archaeological Discoveries in Israel. And it should be loaded up this Saturday or certainly by Monday, this coming Monday. It airs on Saturday and Sunday. But anyway, check it out.
It's going to be an amazing trip with Dr. Brown. Dr. Brown, so you're not going to want to miss that. Dr.
Brown and Scott Volk, so check that out. All right, we're talking about the most important thinking skill today, ladies and gentlemen. The most important thinking skill. What is the most important thinking skill? That is being able to identify and refute self-defeating statements.
A self-defeating statement violates the self-evident law of logic known as the law of non-contradiction. The law of non-contradiction says opposite ideas cannot be both true at the same time and in the same sense. For example, the earth can't be both round and not round at the same time and in the same sense. It's either round or it's not round, but it's not both, right? God can't exist and not exist at the same time and in the same sense.
If he exists, anyone who says he doesn't exist is wrong. If he doesn't exist, everyone who says he does exist is wrong.
So the law of non-contradiction is essential. And if you can get good at identifying self-defeating statements, you're going to be a fearless apologist and it will save you a lot of time going down the intellectual cul-de-sacs that our culture wants to take you down.
So, what is a self-defeating statement? A self-defeating statement doesn't meet its own standard. For example, if I were to say to you, I can't speak a word in English, what would you say? You'd say, hey, Frank, you just said that in English. Come on.
Or if I were to say to you, my parents had no kids that lived. You'd go, hey, you're here. What do you mean? That's a self-defeating statement. Or here's a kind of a fun one.
Only stupid people use insults.
Okay. I just called myself stupid, didn't I? All right.
So, in any event, a self-defeating statement doesn't meet its own standard. I can't overstate how important. It is to learn and apply this law of non-contradiction. In your quest for truth, it will help you quickly detect error.
Now, we go into detail in this in our book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. In fact, in our book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, we call this the Roadrunner tactic. It just reminds us of Wiley, Cody, and Roadrunner. You can get the book to figure out why. But the deal here is that if you can identify a self-defeating statement, then you can refute it and then move on to really searching for truth.
And many of the statements that I mentioned at the top of the program, if not all of them, are all logically self-defeating. They can't be true. Because they violate the law of non-contradiction. It's like saying I can't speak a word in English.
So let's go through some of these. And then later in the broadcast, if you want to throw some of them up on the air, you can call in at 866-34 Truth. That's 866-348-7884. 866-348-7884. If you want to be on the program on the line of fire today, I'm Frank Turk, filling in for the great Dr.
Michael Brown, our website, cross examined.org. And Dr. Brown, as you know, askdrbrown.org. Askdrbrown.org. If you'd like to listen to the previous programs, go to askdrbrown.org.
All right.
Yeah. The first Statement I mentioned at the top of the program was the statement: there is no truth.
Now, I hope you can see there's a problem with that statement. Because what you need to do to refute that statement, if someone ever says to you there is no truth, you need to apply the claim to itself. In other words, you need to ask that person a question. If somebody says there is no truth, say, Hey, is that true? Is it true that there is no truth?
Because if it's true that there is no truth, the claim there is no truth can't be true, but it claims to be true. Can you see this is a self-defeating steak? Of course. How about no one has the truth? What question would you ask somebody who says that?
Again, apply the claim to itself. If somebody says no one has the truth, you ought to ask them, then how do you have the truth that no one has the truth? You just said no one has the truth, but you apparently think you have the truth, the truth that no one has the truth. But if no one can have the truth, how can you have the truth that no one can have the truth? I know that can give you intellectual constipation if you think about it long enough, but that's because it's self-defeating.
It violates the law of non-contradiction. Don't buy into such nonsense. In fact, you might hear that on a college campus sometimes.
Well, no one has the truth. If a professor ever says that to you, you ought to raise your hand and say, then why am I here? I want my money back. Why am I paying you tuition? I'm here to learn the truth and you're saying no one can know it.
What are you doing up here telling people they can't know the truth? You obviously have the truth that you can't know the truth.
Well, that can't be true. How about all truth is relative? You've heard this. You might ask that person a question, apply the claim to itself. Is that a relative truth?
No, it claims to be absolute. It defeats itself. It's like saying I can't speak a word in English.
How about there are no absolutes? You've probably heard that. There are no absolutes. What do you ask somebody who says that? Are you absolutely sure there are no absolutes?
Because that's an absolute truth claim itself.
Now, I need to caveat this: it's not self-defeating to say there are no moral absolutes, because the claim there are no moral absolutes isn't a moral absolute itself. But it's practically self-defeating. Why? Because if somebody says there are no moral absolutes, just kick them in the shins and take their iPod and see if they think that that's not really wrong. Right?
Don't really do that. I mean, that's just, you know, you get the idea here. If you do something wrong to them, they're immediately going to believe in moral absolutes. That's the point. In other words, people don't always.
believe in right and wrong based upon what they do. but based upon their reactions to when somebody wrongs them. I mean I mean I think stealing is wrong if I steal from you, but what do I say the second you steal from me? Uh wait a minute, that's wrong. I mean, is torturing babies for fun really wrong?
Or is that just a matter of opinion?
Now, everybody knows that torturing babies for fun is really wrong, and they know it because there's a standard of rightness out there, and that rightness is God's nature.
So God is the ultimate standard of rightness, and any deviation from Him is what's wrong. This is why atheists have a big problem with the whole concept of morality. They talk them in moral terms all the time, but if there is no God, nothing's ultimately right or wrong. It's just a matter of opinion. It's just your opinion against another person's opinion.
Because if there is no standard beyond humanity, everything's just a matter of opinion. But we all understand there are certain things that are really right and other things that are really wrong. If that's the case, God exists. How about people who say if you think you have the truth, you're arrogant? What do you say to that?
Well, are you arrogant because you think you have the truth? That if you have the truth, you're arrogant? As I mentioned yesterday on the program, 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 Obviously, you don't want to be arrogant, but you might be arrogant and right, just like somebody may be arrogant and wrong. Or somebody might be humble and wrong. In other words, the attitude of the person doesn't necessarily affect the truth claim.
So, you need to keep that in mind. Truth doesn't have attitude. People might, but not truth. How about it's true for you, but not for me? You hear that a lot.
What do you say to somebody who says that? Apply the claim to itself. If somebody says it's true for you but not for me, say, hey, is that true for everybody? Is true for you but not for me true for everybody? Because if true for you but not for me is true for everybody, then true for you but not for me can't be true because it's true for everybody.
Did I say that right? Again, that can give you intellectual constipation if you think about it long enough, but that's because it's self-defeating. Actually, there's a more fun way of dealing with this. If somebody says it's true for you, but not for me, say, sure, go try that with your bank teller. Yeah, go to your bank teller one day and say, look, I'd like $100,000 out of my account.
The bank teller looks at your account and says, I'm sorry, I only have $47.06 in your account. It's easy to give the money. You simply say, ha, that's true for you, but not for me. Give me the $100,000. Are you going to get the money?
No. Of course not. If it's true there's only $46.06 in your account, that's true for all people at all times and all places when referring to your account at that time. It's just true. Or let's say you're driving down the highway, which many of you are doing right now, and you're going ninety and a fifty-five.
Don't do that. Cop sees you, pulls you over, walks up to the car, knocks on the glass, and says, You put the window down. You're going 90 in a 55. It's easy to get out of a ticket. You simply say, ha, that's true for you, but not for me.
And you speed away. Not going to work, friends. If it's true you were going 90, that's true for all people at all times and all places.
So don't try it.
Now, there's many more of these we're going to talk about here in a minute. I'm Frank Turek of cross examined.org, cross-examined with the D on the end of it.org. Fill it in for the great Dr. Michael Brown of askdrbrown.org on the line of fire radio. We're back in just two minutes with more self-defeating statements.
Don't miss it. Seeing two. Oh, God of burning cleansing. 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 Turk filling in for the great Dr.
Michael Brown on assignment in Australia. But he's still doing ministry, as you know. He's doing ministry down there. He's got some articles and videos, new ones up at askdrbrown.org, so check him out there. Our website, crosexamined.org, and we're talking about self-defeating statements today.
We're talking about. We're talking about the most important thinking skill you can have, and that is to apply the claim to itself, to identify self-defeating statements. As we mentioned at the top of the program, That can really help you. And prevent you from going down intellectual cul-de-sacs that the culture wants to take you down. You really want to concentrate on knowing the truth and living the truth rather than being diverted by these self-defeating statements that the culture tries to put in your way.
And if you can identify these self-defeating statements, it's going to save you a lot of time and heartache because the most important thing in the world is truth. If you don't have truth, you're going to be in bondage, as Jesus said. The truth will set you free. Which means if you don't have the truth, you're in bondage.
So Apply the claim to itself. If somebody says, I can't speak a word in English, you're going to say, hey, you just said that in English. If somebody says there is no truth, you're going to say, is that true?
Okay. Let's go through some more of these. All truth depends on your perspective. If someone ever says that, you just apply the claim to itself. Does that truth depend on your perspective?
No, you're claiming that that's perspective-free. How about there are no objective truths? What question should you ask them then? Is that an objective truth, that there are no objective truths? If it is an objective truth, you've just defeated yourself.
If no, it's just in you, the subject, in other words, it's just your subjective opinion, it has no external reference, then why should I believe it? See, you can't get away from objective truths.
Well, actually, you can temporarily. You can suppress them. And that's what people do. Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 1. We suppress the truth and unrighteousness to go our own way.
We don't want there to be a God, so we can do our own immoral things. That's why I ask people frequently, particularly on college campuses where I present I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. The question is. If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? And on several occasions I've had atheists yell back at me, no!
Why? Because it's not a matter of the mind with them, it's a matter of the will. They don't want Christianity to be true, they don't want there to be a God because they want to be God. They're not on a truth quest, they're on a happiness quest, and they're going to believe whatever they think is going to make them happy. Here's the problem.
You can make yourself happy over the short term, doing a lot of stupid, sinful things, but over the long term, it is a disaster. Ask anybody over the age of 40, and they will tell you.
So By the way, these self-defeating statements I'm talking about, most of them are in our app. If you can't keep up with it, get the cross-examined app, TwoWords in the App Store. And look on quick answers. There's a quick answer section there, and many of these are right there in the app. How about that's just your opinion?
Well, you could say, is that just your opinion? That that's just your opinion? How about you ought not judge? You hear that quite a bit, particularly if you're a Christian. Jesus said, Don't judge.
Why are you judging?
Well, let's forget what Jesus said for just a minute. Let's just talk about the claim you ought not judge. What's the problem with the claim? Apply the claim to itself. It's a judgment.
If somebody says you ought not judge, you ought to say, then why are you judging me for judging? See? And by the way, Jesus didn't say don't judge. Jesus said, judge not lest you be judged. By the same standard you judge others, you'll be judged by that standard.
So before you try and take the speck out of your brother's eye, take the log out of your own eye first, then you'll be better able to help your brother. Jesus isn't telling us not to judge here. He's telling us to take the speck out of our brother's eye. That involves making a judgment. He's simply saying, get that problem out of your life first so you can better help your brother.
In other words, don't judge hypocritically. This is not a command not to judge, it's a command on how to judge.
Now, Jesus was. Was very firm with people who were judgmental. And who were the judgmental ones in his day?
Well, the Pharisees, who were the religious and political leaders of Israel. And Jesus went after them. Yeah, he did. In fact, if you think Jesus was a sweet guy who never said a bad word about anyone, you've never read Matthew chapter 23. What does Jesus say in Matthew chapter 23?
To these scribes and Pharisees, you. The way were the religious and political leaders of Israel. Jesus got involved in politics. He went after them. What did he say?
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Oh, you look great on the outside, you're whitewashed tombs, but on the inside you're full of dead men's bones. You go a mile to make a convert, and then once you make them a convert, you make em twice as much a son of hell as you are. How will you avoid being condemned to hell?
What? Sweet and gentle Jesus said this? Yes, Jesus was not Barney.
Okay, can't we all just get along, boys and girls? No. He was not Mr. Rogers. Can you say kindness, boys and girls?
Well, I mean, he was kind most of the time, but he certainly didn't go around saying this sermon brought to you by the letter E. No, Jesus was tough. And sometimes you need to be tough and tell people directly the problem. You're beating around the bush too much, which means you're enabling people. By the way, I noticed one other thing about Gene.
You ever notice when you compliment somebody, which is a judgment, nobody gets upset? Like, if I were to say to Dr. Brown, Dr. Brown, you're just doing a great job on this radio program and online, man. You're putting out so much great information.
You think he's going to say, Who do you think you are? Are you judging me? No, he's never gonna say that. You see, I've noticed that people really don't have a problem with judging. They just have a problem with judgments they don't like.
And if you tell something, or you tell someone something that's true and they get annoyed with you. You've just helped convict them. As Augustine said, We love the truth when it enlightens us, we hate the truth when it convicts us. Or for you military guys out there, you always get more flack when you're over the target. If you say something that's true and people are upset, you're over the target.
They don't like it. But you're telling the truth.
So don't buy into this idea you can't judge. You're to judge without being judgmental. As someone said, evangelism is just one beggar showing another beggar where the food is. Don't get judgmental, but you have to make judgments. How about you shouldn't try and convert people?
What's that person trying to do to you? They're trying to convert you to the fact that you ought not try to convert people. They're doing the same thing they're claiming you ought not be doing. Or, how about don't impose your morals on me? You probably heard that.
My question is: why not? Would that be immoral? And why are you imposing your morals on me? Because that's what you're doing. You're saying your moral is I ought not to impose my morals on you, but you apparently can impose your morals on me.
And I always say this, by the way, these aren't my morals. I didn't make this stuff up. I didn't make up the fact that murder is wrong, that rape is wrong, that theft is wrong, that abortion is wrong, that men were made for women and women were made for men, and the only way to perpetuate and stabilize society is to recognize and promote one sexual relationship, that between a man and a woman, if you're going to stabilize society. I didn't make any of this stuff up. This isn't my morality.
We ought not impose my morality. We ought not impose your morality, but we ought to impose the morality. The one Thomas Jefferson said was self-evident. The one the Apostle Paul says, even the Gentiles know this. It's written on their hearts.
The natural law morality on which our country was founded. Of course. We should impose that. It's impossible not to impose morality. All laws legislate morality.
The only question is: whose morality? That was the subject of our first book, Legislating Morality. Everybody's trying to impose morality. The only question is whose morality will be imposed. How about you should tolerate everything?
Oh, you've probably heard that. Oh, should I tolerate that? By the way, Christians are not commanded to be tolerant, we're commanded to be loving. And if you tolerate things that are harmful, you're unloving. Every parent knows this, every kid knows this.
If your parent tolerates everything you want to do, are they loving? No, they're unloving. And the many people in our society want us to tolerate everything. Yet you can't tolerate evil. If you tolerate evil, you're unloving.
And they don't tolerate everything. By the way, I've noticed a lot of the people who say they're fighting for tolerance are the most intolerant people out there. Anyway, I'm Frank Turek of cross examined.org, cross-examined with the DionNivit.org, filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown, who's back next Tuesday. He's in Australia.
But we're back in just a couple of minutes, so don't throw away. And if you're listening. Uh turn up. 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. Oh no, it's Dr.
Frank Turek filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown if you're just tuning in. We've already had a half hour on the air and what I tried to say at the end is if uh your locality doesn't broadcast all two hours of Dr. Michael Brown, you can listen live at askdrbrown.org. Ask Dr.
Brown.org.
So if you didn't catch the first half hour of the program and want to Want to catch it? You can just go to askdrbrown.org and listen to the podcast once it's up there. Today we're talking about the most important people or the most important thinking skill that you need to have. And as I said earlier at the top of the program, that this particular thinking skill is the most important skill I've ever learned, and it will help you avoid going down the intellectual cul-de-sacs that our culture wants to take us down. In other words, there are a lot of self-defeating statements out there.
We've been through many of them in the first half hour of the program. There is no truth. What do you ask somebody who says that? Is that true?
Somebody says there are no absolutes. Are you absolutely sure? You ought not judge. Then why are you judging me for judging?
Okay, these are self-defeating statements. Let's do a few more of these. And then maybe later we'll get to your phone calls at 866-34-Truth. 866-34-Truth. If you've heard a self-defeating statement or want to bring one, or just want to ask a question related to theology, ethics, that kind of thing, you can call us at 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884.
How about you hear this? If you go to college, you're probably going to hear this at some point. All truth comes from science.
Sounds real good, doesn't it? The problem is it's false and it's self-defeating as well. Why? Because the very statement, all truth comes from science, doesn't come from science. You can't prove that in a laboratory.
That's a philosophical claim. And what's so often misunderstood. You can't do science without philosophy. Science is built on philosophy. What's philosophy?
Well, it's the love of wisdom, but in my in the sense I'm using it, right thinking about reality. And In order to think, you've got to use these laws of logic, these laws of reason. And when you think about the statement, all truth comes from science, you realize itself, that statement itself doesn't come from science, so it can't be true. And science is built on philosophy, science is built on the law of causality, science is built on the laws of logic, science is built on the idea that our senses can ascertain truth about the real world and then we can draw rational conclusions from those senses. You can't prove that by science.
You have to assume that in order to do science. Science is also built on the orderly laws of nature. If the laws of nature changed every ten minutes, you couldn't do science. Science is built on cause and effect. Science is built on the principle of uniformity, that causes in the past are like those in the present.
If the laws of nature worked differently 10,000 years ago than they do now, there's no way to know what happened 10,000 years ago. You have to assume a uniform nature in order to get at the past. These are all assumptions of science. And by the way, science doesn't say a thing. Scientists do.
I unpack this in the book Stealing from God if you want to go deeper on that. But whenever you hear someone say, science says this or science says that, you ought to stop them. No, science doesn't say a word. There would be no science if it wasn't for people. Scientists say things.
And quite frequently, scientists interpret data based on their philosophical worldview, based on what they've already decided is true about God. They've already decided there is no God, so it doesn't matter how much evidence points to an intelligent being, they're always going to interpret the data in a naturalistic, atheistic way. That's one of the problems in modern science today. People are imposing their atheistic worldview on the data. See, data doesn't interpret itself.
Data must be interpreted. And theistic scientists are open to the two types of causes. What are the two types of causes? A natural cause or an intelligent cause. Whereas atheistic scientists are not open to an intelligent cause.
They rule out intelligent causes before they look at the evidence.
So it doesn't matter how much the evidence points towards some kind of intelligence, they always assume it has to be a natural cause.
Well my Assessment is well, that philosophy is causing you to come to wrong conclusions in some cases about the scientific evidence. You have to have a more open mind to be open to both types of causes. And we'll talk more about these self-defeating statements right after the break. I'm Frank Turek, filling in for Dr. Michael Brown, our website, crosexamined.org.
That's cross-examined with a D on the end of it, dot org. And Dr. Brown's website, askdrbrown.org. We're back in two minutes. Don't touch that dialogue.
It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 Truth. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.
Now it's Dr. Frank Turek. Dr. Brown is on assignment in Australia, but he's back on Tuesday. Today we're talking about.
The most important thinking skill that you need to have in order to be not just an effective Christian thinker, apologist. But just an American or a human being, because there's so much or so many self-defeating statements out there that if you can identify them by simply applying the claim to itself, it's going to save you a lot of time. Particularly, college students, high school students, listen up. If you learn how to identify self-defeating statements, it's going to save you a lot of heartache. We've been talking about self-defeating statements, like people who say there is no truth.
You ask them, is that true? You apply the claim to itself. How about you can't know the real world? In fact, Immanuel Kant, that was kind of his theory, a philosopher from the 1800s.
So he put it this way: Kant said, you can't know the real world. That's how you That's how you remember what Khan said. What would you say to Kant who says you can't know the real world?
Well, how can you know that about the real world then, Kant? Why can't Kant know about the real world, but we can't? I mean, it's a self-defeating statement. He is exempting himself from his own theory. He says nobody else can know the real world.
But I can. But wait a minute. That's self-defeating. If nobody can know the real world, how can you know it? How about you should doubt everything?
That's the skeptical claim. You should doubt everything. What's the problem with it?
Well, should I doubt that? Harry in. Why are skeptics skeptical of everything but skepticism? Notice that? And by the way, as Philip Johnson famously put it, he said, He who is a skeptic in one set of beliefs is a true believer in another set of beliefs.
You hear atheists talking about, well, I just lack a belief in God. No, you don't. You have positive beliefs about. About the real world. You're trying to explain the real world by evolution, or you're trying to explain the real world about.
Or by multiple universes, or the quantum vacuum brought the universe into existence. Atheists have positive beliefs about the real world. In fact, atheists, many of them today, are materialists, that all that exists are materials. That's a positive belief about the way the world really is.
So you don't just lack a belief in God. You have positive beliefs, if you're an atheist, about the way the world really is. And so when Philip Johnson says, he who doubts one set of beliefs is a true believer in another set of beliefs. Atheists are true believers in the doctrine of materialism. The problem is materialism is self-defeating.
Why? Because if we're just molecules in motion, If we're just molecular machines, if we're nothing but moist robots, then we're not really reasoning, we're just reacting. But if we're not really reasoning, then why should we believe anything we think, including the idea that materialism is true? Including the idea that atheism is true, or evolution is true, or quantum vacuums are real, or the multiverse is real. Why should you believe anything?
If we're just molecular machines, if we're just moist robots. You shouldn't, that's the point. It's a self-defeating proposition to say only material things exist, because if only material things exist, then the very thought that only material things exist is just materially derived. And if it's just materially derived, if it's just a result of the laws of physics, then why should we believe it's true?
Now, if you want to go further in that, I know we covered a lot there in that short period. Get the book Stealing from God, Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case, because I go into much detail as to why that's a self-defeating proposition. And what are atheists stealing from God?
Well, they're claiming that they're reasonable, but there is no reason unless there's an immaterial realm, a source of reason. But they've denied the immaterial source of reason by claiming everything's material.
So, in order to use reason, they have to steal it from God to argue against him.
So, atheists are literally stealing from God while claiming he doesn't exist. They have to sit in God's lap to slap his face.
So Every time they open their mouths, they're really showing that God does exist.
Now, it doesn't mean the God of the Bible, it turns out to be the God of the Bible. But you need more evidence to see if the God of the Bible is the true God that grounds of all of their material reality, and that's what we do in the book, Stealing from God. I'm simply saying that. I'm simply saying that the very existence of an immaterial realm known as the laws of logic and the existence of minds, not just brains, shows that materialism is false. And theism better explains the immaterial realm.
And by the way. If you're a Christian, I'm sure you have doubts. I have doubts. In fact, atheists have doubts. Everyone has doubts.
But you know what? When I have doubts, I start analyzing these doubts, and I realize that most of my doubts are. emotional, they're not intellectual. In other words. The evidence for Christianity is very good and When I doubt, it's because I'm having some sort of emotional reaction to something.
Not because I think the evidence is bad. In fact, my friend Greg Kochl, who wrote a fabulous book called Tactics, says: Before I have my first cup of coffee in the morning, I'm an atheist. After my first cup, I'm Jehovah's Witness, and after my second cup, I'm back to being a Christian. Right? What's changed?
Has the evidence changed? No, the evidence hasn't changed at all. He's changed emotionally. He's changed. He's down before he has his first cup of coffee.
After he has his first cup of coffee, then suddenly he's feeling a little bit better. After his second cup, he's a Christian, you know. I mean That just points out that the emotions change, but the evidence doesn't change.
So if you start doubting your doubts, then you're back to knowing something for sure.
So, realize that when you're having doubts, most of the time they're not intellectual, they're volitional or emotional. How about How about you shouldn't believe anything you can't see, hear, taste, touch, or smell? This is what atheists will sometimes say.
Well, that very statement. You can't see, hear, taste, touch or smell, so why should you believe that? And you've never seen your mind, you've never touched your mind, you've never heard your mind, or smelled your mind, or tasted your mind, yet you believe you have a mind. In fact, there's a lot of things you can't see, hear, taste, touch or smell you believe in. You believe in gravity?
Well, you can feel the effect of gravity, but you can't feel gravity directly. Why? Because. you're feeling the effect of gravity when it's pulling you to the ground. You've never seen gravity.
You've only seen what it does. Um You've never seen George Washington. You've seen paintings of George Washington. You've never seen him. You can't see, hear, taste, touch, or smell him, but you can, if there's evidence for him.
There's many things. That you can't Ascertain with your senses. In fact, the very laws of logic we're using here to point out self-defeating statements. You can't see, hear, taste, touch, or smell them either. They're immaterial, they're self-evident, they're just grounded in the furniture of the universe.
You believe them. But you've never seen them. Because you don't You don't learn everything by your senses.
Some things are just self-evident, like the very laws of logic we're using right now. In fact, atheists believe in a lot of things they've never seen. They believe that life came from non-life without intelligence. They've never seen that. But they believe it happened.
They believe in macroevolutionary transitions they've never seen. Many of them believe in a multiverse. In other words, there are other universes out there. They've never seen them, but they believe them. In fact, all of history you've never seen.
But you believe it. Just don't bind to this idea. You only believe things you can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell. It's not true. How about the world is random?
Atheists will sometimes say that. You know, the only way you can know random is if there was. order and the only way you could know order if there's an orderer.
So when atheists are claiming the world is random, They're actually assuming there's order, but there would only be order if there was an orderer. How about evil disproves God? You may hear that. Turns out that's false as well. Why?
Because there'd be no such thing as evil unless there was good, and there'd be no such thing as good unless God existed. Because God is the very standard of good by definition. His nature is the standard of good. You see, evil doesn't disprove God. Evil may prove there's a devil out there, but evil can't disprove God because there would be no such thing as evil unless there was good, and there'd be no such thing as good unless God existed.
In fact, C.S. Lewis famously said. As an atheist, my argument was that the world seemed too unjust. He said, But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.
What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? You see, something can't be unjust unless something is crooked. just.
Something can't be not right unless something is Right.
Something can't be immoral unless something is moral.
So, evil doesn't disprove God. Evil may prove there's a devil out there, but it doesn't disprove God. In fact, Lewis, I think, in another context put it this way: the shadows prove the sunshine. In order to have shadows, you have to have sunshine. In other words, in order to have evil, you have to have good.
Oh, you can have sunshine without shadows. You can have good without evil, but you can't have evil without good. You can't have shadows without sunshine.
So if evil exists, I know this sounds counterintuitive, but if evil exists, then God exists. Not because God is doing evil, but because God is a very standard of good by which evil. can even be known. Evil is a privation or a lack in good.
So There's a lot of self-defeating statements out there that can be refuted by simply applying the claim to itself. And if you get good at applying the claim to itself, you're going to be an effective apologist. You want to join the program, 866-34-TRUTH? I'm Frank Turek of CrossExamined.org. CrossExamined.org.
Cross-examined with the D on the Internet.org. And I'm filling in for Dr. Michael Brown at askdrbrown.org. And we're back in just a couple of minutes, so don't go away. Angel world 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.
It's Dr. Frank Turk filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown, who is on assignment in Australia, but he's still writing articles and putting out videos. You can see them at askdrbrown.org. That's askdrbrown.org.
Our website, crose examine.org, and today we're talking about. Self-defeating statements, and your most important thinking skill as a Christian, and I think as a human being as well, is to be able to identify self-defeating statements, how they can't be true. We've talked about many of these on this program here today. Let me give you another one, and then we'll get to your phone calls. And the phone number is 866-34-TROTH, 866-34-TRUTH.
Daniel Dennett, a new atheist, says consciousness is an illusion. One wonders if he was conscious when he wrote that. I mean, come on. Conscious is an illusion. In order to know your consciousness is an illusion, you would have to have some sort of superconsciousness in order to determine that the consciousness you have is really not true consciousness.
In other words, it's a self-defeating statement to say that. In other words, let's put it this way: the only way to know you're having a dream is to get the more-than-knowledge of waking up. You have to wake up to go, Oh, that was just a dream. Right.
Well, in order to know your consciousness is just kind of a dream, it's just an illusion, you'd have to wake up. And so Dennett, who is supposed to be a philosopher, can't seem to recognize that his own position is self-defeating. And there's so many other self-defeating statements that atheists put out. And many of them I go through in the book Stealing from God: why atheists need God to make their case. But let's go to the phone lines.
And if you want to join the conversation, you can. 866-34-TRUTH. We're running out of time here in this hour. In the next hour, we're going to have J. Warner Wallace, the cold case homicide detective, who wrote the book Cold Case Christianity and God's Crime Scene.
And then also in the second half of that hour, we're going to have Rice Brooks. The real author behind the God's Not Dead movie.
So let's go to the phones and we'll start with John in Tampa, Florida. John, you're on with Frank Turek filling in for Michael Brown. Go right ahead, sir. Yes, good afternoon. One of the points I wanted to make is You know, God uses different people at different times in different ways as he used Saul.
And You know, but there's a possibility that God is using Trump Uh because we know that the The direction that the other will take us in is is is not the direction You know, that we should go in, and there's a possibility that God is using Trump and is changing Trump's heart. As he changed Saul's heart. Um you know, to to try to really help. And yeah, you know, we've all done things in the past that aren't good and we're not proud of. And we all change our minds from day to day.
So that that's just a point. Yeah, you might be right about that, uh John. And I personally think that uh an election is always the choice between the lesser of two evils. You know, even if Billy Graham were r running against Hitler, Billy Graham is still evil, as am I, as we all are. He's just a lot less evil than Hitler.
So I'm going with Billy Graham. And the same thing is true here. You've got Trump against Clinton. And I think if you take an honest look at both of their platforms and both what they stand for, I think Donald Trump is the least worst choice. Yeah, well, I have to hold my nose to vote for him.
Yeah. But everybody in politics is flawed. I'm flawed. Everyone else is flawed. Donald Trump is flawed.
Hillary Clinton certainly, they're all flawed. The question is, who's going to do the least amount of damage? And as you know, the Supreme Court is hanging in the balance right now. And according to what I've read, Donald Trump has a list of some very good Supreme Court possibilities that I know you won't get with Hillary Clinton. And while the Supreme Court shouldn't have the power it does, for some reason in our society, we've acquiesced to the Supreme Court when, in fact, the most powerful of the branches is supposed to be the legislative branch.
You say, how so? Because the legislative branch. Branch, the legislative branch can remove members of the executive and judicial branches. They could impeach them. And so they're suppo it's supposed to be the more powerful branch because it's most responsive to the people.
But, of course, we've kind of lost that in our culture today. Yeah, we're allowing judges to dictate constitutional laws. Yeah, we're allowing judges to be legislators. That's what we're doing, and we shouldn't do that. The judges should apply the law as written, otherwise, the people no longer are governing ourselves.
We're not governing ourselves. Look, if a judge can make up law, then what are we voting about? What are we here for? What's the legislature here for? And unfortunately, when you put judges on the court that are liberal in their orientation, they decide that they're going to make law rather than apply the law as written, and that's a big, big problem because then we no longer govern ourselves.
Yeah, that's I think how we've gotten into the mess we're in now. Exactly. And 'cause the church has not been involved enough, John. That's exactly right.
Well, you're in Florida, you're in a swing state, so you're going to have to convince uh many other Christians to get involved, and not just at the presidential level, but at every level. Absolutely. Absolutely. Prayer is the only answer. And prayer and a lot of hard work.
So you've got to do both. Oh, absolutely. All right.
Thanks so much for the call, John. Uh yeah, I mean Politics, you know, it's such a difficult venue and. people are really up in arms about it and They're not quite sure what to do, but again, for me, it's always the least worst choice anyway.
Somebody put it this way. I think my friend, my mentor, Dr. Norman Geiser, said, Look, an election is always a choice between a known witch and a suspected devil.
So you're never going to find a perfect candidate unless Jesus comes back.
So you might as well just pick the least worst choice and go with that. In fact, my friend Richard Land, who's the president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, said: out of the 17 people running on the Republican side, Trump was number seventeen in his view. But he's still going to vote for him because he's the least worst choice. And there are some good things about Trump, in my view. Certainly the idea that he is against political correctness, it seems.
And it seems like he'll just say what he thinks is true, even if he's off base. He's not going to be silenced by political correctness. And he realizes we have a national security issue that needs to be dealt with, whereas our current President seems to think that we don't have a national security issue, and he can't even call Islamic terrorism what it is. I mean, it's ridiculous. People out there running around yelling Alu Akbar, and he's trying to say it's workplace violence.
I mean, come on, man. This is, by the way, this is not new. This has been going on. Four. 1400 years.
Um Islam's been around since about 632. AD. And if you look at its history, it's experienced or it's committed jihad against unbelievers for 1,400 years. It's not a new thing. It's not caused by U.S.
policy. It's been going on a very, very long time. The question is: how do you deal with it? And that's a difficult question. But to ignore the problem is not to deal with it.
Anyway, we kind of got off topic there a little bit, but we're talking today about self-defeating statements. And the fact that that's the most important thinking skill you can have to identify self-defeating statements and refute them.
So when people say things that are self-defeating, or when they say anything, see if the claim meets its own standard. If they say there's no truth, say, is that true? If somebody says there are no absolute, say, absolutely sure. If somebody says you ought not judge, you say, then why are you judging me for judging? If somebody says you can't know truth, you ought to say, then how can you know that's true?
Somebody says all truth depends on your perspective. You should say, does that truth depend on your perspective?
Somebody says you should tolerate everything. Should I tolerate that? Do I tolerate? No, you can't tolerate everything. It's evil!
You can't tolerate evil. Anyway, we're back with another hour. Don't go away. I'm Frank Turek filling in for Cross Examine or filling in for Dr. Michael Brown.
I'm at cross examine.org and check out askdrbrown.org. Welcome to the Line of Fire Mics, my guest host, Doctor Frank Turek. The money. 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.
No, it's Dr. Not Dr. Michael Brown. It's Dr. Frank Turik.
But I'm filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown who's on assignment in Australia. He'll be back next Tuesday. And I just did an hour with you. If you're just tuning in, you can listen to that hour that you missed at askdrbrown.org.
And then yesterday I did a couple hours as well. It's a privilege to be on the line of fire, filling in. Our website's crosexamined.org. That's cross-examined with a D on the end of it.org. Hey, question.
Have you ever spoken to a non-believer? And maybe. Maybe you're doing it right now, or maybe you spoke to somebody this morning who's a non-believer, and it seems like. They are just so resistant to everything you say, every argument you bring up, or every fact you try and. You try and show them it doesn't matter what you do.
They are Um resistant to what's going on. They don't want To Acquiesce to anything you say about Christianity. In fact, you've probably had conversations with people, and you bring up an objection. And or they bring up an objection, you begin to answer the objection. And before you're done answering the objection, They're on to another objection.
And it's like Then you try and answer that one, and then they're on to another objection. You answer that, they're on to another. You go, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. It doesn't even appear. Like you.
are interested in What's going on? And by the way, I'm talking to my producer right now. We're not having Alex Davis on the program. We're having J. Warner Wallace.
I sent you guys the phone number, so check out your email for that. Jim Wallace. The only way I can talk to my producers over the air.
Sorry, sorry about that, folks. Anyway, we're going to have Jim Wallace on here in just a second. He's the guy that wrote Cold Case Christianity, and he also wrote God's Crime Scene. He's got a new book coming out, and he's going to give us some insights. And he's going to give us some insights into How to How to interact with people and how to identify the people you ought to be interacting with about Jesus.
And uh if you Figure out who you're dealing with. You won't waste a lot of time with people who are never going to accept what you say, no matter how much evidence you have. And so, this is going to be a very insightful conversation we're going to have in the next half hour with Jim Wallace. By the way, he is a cold case homicide detective who has solved cold case homicides in the state of California for the past several years. You've probably seen him on Dateline.
In fact, he was just on Dateline the other night. A friend of mine just said, I just saw Jim the other night on Dateline. And uh And it it was the it was a case that was just solved about a year and a half ago, two years ago. And so they're rebroadcasting some of these cases. These are thirty year old murders that Jim gets involved with, and he He solves them somehow, and so much of getting a proper conviction is getting a jury that's open to the evidence.
And the same is true when you talk to somebody who is a non-Christian. Are they really open to the evidence or are they adamant against you no matter what you say? That's what we're going to investigate in this half hour on the line of fire. And you can check out Jim at coldcasechristianity.com. Check out his website there.
And we'll get him on the line right after the break. And check out our website at cross examined.org. That's cross-examined with a D on the end of it.org. And you can see some of the evidence that we're putting up on our website that will be very helpful to you and also on our Facebook page. And I'll give you the best question you should ask somebody who's not a Christian right after the break.
So don't go away. I'm Frank Turek, filling in for Dr. Michael Brown, back with Jay Warner Wallace, the cold case homicide detective. 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 866-34TRUT. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. It's Dr.
Frank Turek filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown, who's on assignment in Australia, but he'll be back next Tuesday. I am from crossexamined.org, cross-examined with a D on the end of it. My guest today in this half hour is the great Dr. Jim Wallace, J.
Warner Wallace. You know him because he's written the book Cold Case Christianity, a fabulous book. He's also written God's Crime Scene, another gem. And Cold Case Christianity is a book that really looks at the evidence from a forensic perspective for Jesus' resurrection and the Gospels. And God's crime scene does the same thing for God's fingerprints here in the universe.
And Jim will explain that a little bit as we go. And you can check out, again, his website at coldcasechristianity.com. Jim, it's great having you on the program. Hey, well, thanks for being patient with my phone line. I'm glad to be here.
Just looking forward to talking to you. Yeah, tell me, Jim. I just was talking to a buddy of mine the other day, and he goes, I just saw Jim again on Dateline. I think they played the WIRE episode again. I think they play these episodes.
When you're on Dateline, you might be on for years because they're on Dateline repeatedly, and then they're on ID Channel, and then they're on Oprah Windbream Network, you name it. They're all over the place.
So, Dateline gets played a lot.
So, we've got. Four episodes out there that right now, I think, that are still in rotation.
So you'll see those occasionally, yeah.
Now, just to give our audience a little bit of perspective, just tell us a little bit about that case that was on. You've been on Dateline four times, but the case that was on Dateline just the other night, the WIRE incident, just give us a two-minute overview of that case so people will know your qualifications and what you've been doing in your vocation prior to getting involved in Christian apologetics.
Well, I for me, a lot of this was just my own experience coming out of I was an atheist, but I had no parents were not Christians, no one really in my family was a Christian to kind of model this or even explain it to me. And And I ended up just using my skill set that I had as a detective to look at the Gospels for the first time at the age of 35. And that's really how I became a Christian, was just using those same skill sets that we see on those shows. You know, this idea that you've got an event in the past, you're trying to figure out what the eyewitnesses really saw when you have no access to those eyewitnesses sometimes because they're dead. And you don't even have access to the authors of the supplemental reports because sometimes those detectives have also passed away.
So you really are using a skill set in examining these documents that's very similar to examining the Gospels, and that's just how I did it. That case with the lawyer. was another one of these typical nineteen it was a nineteen seventy nine case. Reports were really difficult to work with, not a lot of forensic evidence.
So a very similar skill set. You know, frank, most people don't even realize that we uh nationally, most cases we make with um with circumstantial evidence. You don't always have witnesses who can say they saw what happened. That's very rare. And so we don't have direct evidence cases.
So if you learn how to put together a cumulative circumstantial case, That's a skill set you can use in a lot of different places, and we've used it with the Gospels as well. And there was this girl uh that was murdered in Torrance, California in 1979. Right.
And you just You just latched onto some picture wire that was found at the scene, and you traced this wire back to one man, Doug Bradford, and you actually got a conviction over this. How did you do that?
Well, and this is not unusual, right? I mean, these are unusual cases. What I mean is, it's not impossible for us to put together what actually happened a long time ago, even when you have not great evidence. This is. This is a case where he was using a garage.
It's a strangulation device made with wooden handles and a wire between the two handles. And the kind of wire he used was unusual. Not very common at the time, not common today, but his mom happened to have access to it because she was a painter and was using this wire to hang her paintings, and she was still living at home.
So, you know. That's really where where the whole thing began, was trying to figure out well, how rare is this wire? And then how reasonable would it be that somebody else would have all the elements necessary to build this garage? at his disposal. You know, I always said if if you and I, Frank, were asked to go out in the garage and build a garot so we could do some harm to somebody, our garot would look a lot different than the kind of garot that was used in my case because the kind of garotte used in my case had unusual materials that just happened to be available to my killer.
Mm. And you were able to get a conviction. It was on dateline. There were three other episodes you were on dateline for.
Now, you've taken these. These skills that you've learned through the police department and applied them to Christianity. And one of the skills that you've spoken to me about, and I want to tell our audience about, is the skill of selecting a jury that's at least open to your position. And you categorize people in four possible quadrants. Can you explain that?
Because this has applications to evangelism. Yeah, you know, we just came out of, you know, first of all, you and I get a chance to meet again tomorrow to make this kind of case to a jury that's going to come to, you know, the Visalia Nazarene Church of Visalia, California for our Fearless Faith Conference, right? I mean, we do these four, five, six times a year. And you get people who are in that audience who are going to fall in one of these categories.
Now, jurors, the entire pool of jurors are typically people who are either inclined toward the prosecution or inclined toward the defense. Doesn't mean they're necessarily in the bag for one of those two sides, but they're people who just are inclined toward, they like the police, they like the prosecution, they've had a good experience with law enforcement. And there are people who have had a bad experience with law enforcement, are inclined against them, and inclined against a prosecutor. And then those two groups can be divided again. into two other smaller groups.
There's a total of four. And you have people who are so inclined toward the prosecution, they don't care what the defense says, they're going to vote for the prosecution. They're on the edge, that's group one. Group two, though, are people who are inclined for the prosecution, but they're fair, they'll vote based on the evidence. In group three, you have people who are inclined for the defense, but they're also fair.
They'll vote based on what the evidence suggests. Four are people who are so inclined toward the defense that they'll never ever vote with the prosecution. All accounts. Attorneys, both defense attorneys and prosecutors are trying to remove the edges when they select a jury. You know, we get choices.
We have a certain number of exemptions we can use. We can exclude certain potential jurors and keep the ones that we like. And both sides get to do this. And so we try to exclude on the prosecution side all those jurors who will never vote with us. And the defense does the same thing in reverse from their side.
In other words, we're trying to get rid of groups one and four, the people who are so entrenched and committed to their positions, they will never move. We want people in the middle, people who might be inclined one way or the other, but they're fair.
Well, it turns out that's very similar to looking at people when we share the gospel. Yeah, how how would you categorize people you're sharing the gospel with? In one of those four categories, how would you categorize them?
Well, the two large groups are people who are either Christians or non-Christians. Right.
And those break into two smaller groups. And the group one would be those people who are so committed to their Christian beliefs that no matter what you would what would happen, you could get the body of Jesus, they could find the bones of Jesus, if they could somehow prove this, and it wouldn't matter to them. They are committed to their worldview regardless of the evidence. Then you've got Christians who are starting to have questions. That's in group two.
In group three, you've got atheists that are starting to have questions. And in group four, you have atheists that are so committed to their atheist view that they are inflexibly unmoved. They will never, ever, ever bend a knee in this direction.
So what we're doing is, again, you have the edges. One and four are people who are entrenched. And two and three are people who are have questions, and they want to know want the answers.
Well, it turns out that when we speak about the gospel to the world around us, Only the people in groups one, two, and three are going to be paying attention. Group four, who are entrenched in the atheist position against us. are not hearing what we have to say. And now I always ask the question, how do I treat these four groups differently?
Well, Group One, you might wonder why I even make a case to Group One. They don't care about your case. They are in. As a matter of fact, they would say, we don't even need any evidence. I just believe this.
Well, I always tell that group that you need to learn the case for Christianity because you've got kids probably who are in group two. Christians who are starting to have questions and they don't they need answers. And they're not going to buy our books, Frank. I mean, I wish they would, but for the most part, if they do, that's rare. But their parents who are believers could master the material in our books and the material that's out there all over the Internet in support of the Christian worldview, so they could share it with their their own kids who are in Group Two.
Group three, of course, are the atheists who are starting to have questions. I want to reach them, but what do you do with Group four? And I can tell you I've got members of my own family who are entrenched in Group four. And what we do with that group is we pray for that group, we pray like crazy, and we model Christ for that group. Because until God moves people from Group four into Group three, We're not going to be able to penetrate that.
But once God does move them from group four into group three, I think we've gotten a great opportunity to share the case for Christ. Jesus had a pretty colorful way of explaining probably the people in group four, and that would be don't cast your pearls before swine. The question is, how do you know they're swine?
Well, and this is that issue, right? I mean, I can tell you just in my personal level, my own father is in group four. And you know this because you've had conversations. You probably, if you had to make a list of everyone you know in your life and you had these four categories in which to place them. You right now can make a list of whether there are one, two, three, or four.
And so we kind of already know just based on if you've got Facebook and you're posting you posted something about Christianity on Facebook and you might have gotten positive response from your family members or silence or negative response.
So you already know kind of in that range where people fall.
Well, let's talk about some strategies right after the break, Jim, on how we can break through to these groups or identify these groups. I'm going to give you a question you can ask, friends, of people who you think may be in group four. I'm Frank Turek, filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown. My guest is J.
Warner Wallace of ColdcaseChristianity.com. We're back in two minutes. Don't go away. 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. It's Dr. Frank Turek of crosexamined.org with my guest, J.
Warner Wallace, the cold case homicide detective who has been on Dateline four times solving 20, 30-year-old murders, and has written two fabulous books, Cold Case Christianity and God's Crime Scene. And today, for this half hour, we're talking about people who seem very resistant to Christianity. It doesn't matter what you say to them, they're objecting. And the questions I like to ask people, and Jim's going to give us some of his insights too. The couple questions I ask people who are, I think it might be in this category.
The first question is: if I ask you a serious question, will you give me a brutally honest answer? Most people will say yes. Then I ask them, if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?
Now, if the person hesitates or says no, you know they're in group four. And as Jim said, the idea there then is just pray for them and love them. And maybe God will move in their hearts at some point and they can at least move into group three or hopefully two or one after that. Jim, what are some other ways?
Well, first of all, how did you do this in the courtroom with juries? How could you identify the people in the extremes? What would you ask them? Oh, we've got great questions that we can ask jurors in the Vordauer process. You know, we've never in paneled a jury for a cold case homicide trial in which we didn't use a survey.
We actually have surveys that we give the jurors. They're usually pretty lengthy, and they fill them out, and then we've got a short period of time to kind of read through all these surveys to see where people fall in certain categories. And some of these surveys are quite simple. They'll talk about their prior experience with law enforcement, if they've had a good or a bad experience with law enforcement. But we'll also talk and spend time in questioning each juror as they come up for consideration and talk about, you know, ask them the questions about what they believe about certain things.
And sometimes what we're doing is really helping them to understand. understand the nature of evidence before we begin. And we talk about what people think about circumstantial evidence. What do they know about it? They hear that name.
It sounds bad. It sounds like a pejorative, like it couldn't be a very good case if it's just a circumstantial case. And then, as we discuss this and other jurors are in the room listening to what we're saying to each juror, by the time we get done, we've got a set of juries and jurors in place that not only fit our requirements, and by the way, both sides do this. The defense is trying to eliminate anybody that may predict, they're trying to get a favorable jury. You know, if you watched God's Not Dead 2, the movie we just did, there's a section in there in which both attorneys are trying to get the right jurors.
This is very common. And what we don't do sometimes, though, as Christians is we don't spend a lot of time in a voor dier process, right, where we're talking and listening and kind of being intuitive about and careful about what we're hearing from our friends and family members.
So we kind of can figure out where they fall in this spectrum, right? before we even begin. We just almost have a template. that we use and most of the time it's based on our own personal testimony that we just launch out on people without even knowing where they fall in the spectrum. And then we wonder why sometimes it doesn't it doesn't have much impact.
So I think that's part of the problem. And so that's why we want to do is when people ask me where do you have success in jury trials? Where do you have success in making the case? Is it in the cl opening statement? Is it in the jury presentation?
Is it in the closing argument? No, it's in jury selection. You win cases in jury selection. You have to pick the right jury.
Now I remember you saying this, that you're pretty good at picking up on verbal clues that can indicate whether somebody is lying. You did that in the case of The Wire. Doug Bradford was lying because he would qualify things he said. And I remember the deflate gate thing with the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. And I remember you saying when Tom Brady was asked the question, are you a cheater?
He said, I don't think I'm a cheater. He didn't say, I'm not a cheater. He said, I don't think I'm a cheater. And you said that's an indication of what?
Well, I think sometimes when you hear these kinds of responses, this is more an art than a science. And so people can have a number of reasons for why they might qualify a statement.
So what you have to do is look at a large body of work, right?
So it's really hard to make a judgment based on a 30-second statement. But if I had a three-hour interview, well, now I've got the ability to see, is he always doing this? Is there some pattern to this? And that's what we want to do. We want to know, are there things that people are qualifying because they just can't say yes or no?
You know, why would I do that? This kind of response I get a lot from people who are guilty of something. They can't say, No, I didn't do it. They want to say, Well, why would I just say no? If the answer I'm looking for is yes or no, and people don't give me a yes or no, then I think it's fair for me to ask the question another way.
And then, after a three-hour interview, I could look at the 20 ways I asked the question and see if every time I asked it from different angles in a different manner, do they always qualify?
Well, that's usually a good indication. There's something there they don't want me to know.
Now, can you apply that to conversations you're having with friends who you think are resistant to Christianity? I mean, again, I without asking them directly, which is what I try and do, I just say, look, if it were true, would you become a Christian? And then I see how they react to that question. That's a great question, by the way. Yeah.
Yeah. Are there other ways of getting them just by picking up certain cues to see how open they are? Yeah, I think, well, first of all, I think that you you there's no doubt that you have to ask questions and you have to listen carefully for the answer. And you and sometimes it's a matter of. Of looking at the three reasons why someone would ever deny a truth claim, right?
Rational resistance, emotional resistance, or volitional resistance. These are the ways that people push back and try to deny a truth claim. And sometimes people will tell you, I don't think there's enough evidence. But as you ask the questions, you can find out if it really is that the category? Is it just a matter of not being because if that's the category, I can help you with that.
But as I'm talking and they're saying things like, well, you know, my dad was a Christian, he was a jerk. And well, now I'm starting to sense this is not about reasons and about evidence. This is about a kind of visceral response, emotional response. to your dad.
Well, that's a very different category. And I can't approach that category by lobbying more evidence at you. Or if I find out that you know you've been you you've got some sin in your life that you've you've you know you're living with your girlfriend, you've got something you like that you're doing that you just don't want to give up.
Well then I know I can make a case for this, but the reality for this person is that they like the sinful life they're living, and they don't want to hear about my worldview that's going to confine their behavior. Very different approach toward people like that.
Now, my wife is better at picking up on the subtleties.
sometimes than I am, right? Because she's hearing and she's listening, she's standing on the sidelines sometimes, and I'm taking the approach that this is all about evidence and it's all about rationality. And afterwards, she'll say to me, You didn't hear a thing he said. You completely missed it. It wasn't about evidence for this guy, it was about this.
And then I realized, okay, I'm not even listening to my own taking my own advice. In fact, Robbie Zacharias famously said, when you're answering a question, you're not just answering a question, you're answering a person. If somebody gets up to the microphone and says, if there's a good God, why is there evil in the world? That may be an academic question. But if the person gets up there and asks the same question because they just lost their baby two weeks ago, there's a different answer.
Oh, absolutely. And so what we do is as apologists and we we write books about doing is really giving you the but I can tell you one thing, Frank, and you know this is true. If I have the academic answer in my head prior to suffering the loss, prior to experiencing the pain, that gives me the foundation that helps me through. If I don't have the academic answer in my head and then I go through that loss or that experience, it's much harder to reach me now with the academics. It's much harder to reach me now with the evidential basis.
But that's why it's so important for all of us as Christians to work through through the issues rationally before we encounter the trauma. Because if we do that, we'll be in a better place.
Now, Jim and I, my guest, Jim Wallace, and Mike Adams, we're all going to be near the Fresno area this weekend, Vesalia, California, doing our Fearless Faith conference.
So, if you're anywhere near Central California and you want to hear more about this, come to that conference. Jim, thanks for being on the show. Thanks for having me, Frank. I so appreciate it. Look forward to seeing you next time.
Yep, that's Jim Wallace, ColdcaseChristianity.com. Rice Brooks is up next. He's the author of God's Not Dead. Back in just a couple of minutes. I'm Frank Turk.
Don't go away. 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 or 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. 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 Dr.
Frank Turek filling in for the great Dr. Michael Brown. I'm of crosexamined.org, co-author of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case. But we're talking about even a bigger book that you've heard of today in this segment, in this half hour, written by my friend Rice Brooks. You probably heard the book, God's Not Dead.
Yeah, it was turned into a movie. And Rice is the man behind the movie, so I thought I'd have him on to talk about that, because we're trying to go, ladies and gentlemen, from a movie to a movement.
So, Rice is very accomplished. In fact, he's written another book that's in God's Not Dead 2 called Man, Myth, Messiah. We'll maybe get into that a little bit. Rice has started thousands of years. Thousands of churches around the world, and it's a great privilege to call him my friend Rice.
Thanks for being on the show. Dr. Frank, thanks for having me. How are you doing, brother? Where are you?
Are you back home yet, or are you still in Dallas? I'm in the great state of Texas looking out over a. over a ranch here, so it couldn't be the most the most quintessential Texas setting here. All right, well all I need is a good barbecue meal and I'll be right night at home.
Now our own. Audience wants to know, Dr. Brown's audience wants to know about this God's Not Dead phenomenon, which is in its second movie already, and I know there are more coming. How did this whole thing begin? You wrote a book called God's Not Dead, and then before you knew it, it was a movie.
How'd this happen?
Well good. Good question. Of course, Frank, like you, I work on campus and so we We have campus ministries and churches. It's called Every Nation, is the name of our organization.
So after you know, three decades of campus ministry and dealing with skepticism on a day in and day out basis. Actually, the news boys had a song called God's Not Dead and so We began to talk and I wrote some things for them. to kind of transition it from A song to where people would know. More evidence of why God's not dead.
So I kind of appealed to them and said, Look, we want kids singing this, but we also want them to know. how to defend that God is indeed alive. Because as you know, The studies are showing that there's this majority, this unthinkable majority that's kind of getting. Yeah. After high school, and they get there, and they lose their future.
Faith.
So I began to write some things for for them to use in their concerts and then I began to write this book. To lay out, you know, what does it mean when you say God's not dead? What is the evidence for God? And so, just from the We're getting at the universe. Life's origins and how the origin of life points to God, morality, the resurrection.
All the things that you've done for many years and what you're I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. book deals with uh it's So So I was actually in a car telling a friend. Had a couple of interactions with him, a businessman, and he said, said that needs to be a movie.
So we called the movie company and they came to Nashville. sat with us all and I just describe to them, this is what goes on on the campus. all the time, and this is what you do to defend the faith. They ended up introducing me to some screen. And so I Spent some time with M.
These stories, and anyway, so they came back. With the script, and so I was just privilege to be there and the beginning of the idea. and uh watch this drama of A young man Having to face a professor and I told him in the when I first met with the screenwriters, I said, There are professors like Bart Ehrman at North Carolina. Oh, hang on. Hang on a sec, Rice.
Hang on. We're going to come back and talk about that. We're talking to the author of God's Not Dead, the man behind the movie, and more movies are coming. Rice Brooks. Don't go away.
I'm Frank Turek, filling in for Mike Brown. Be back in just two. God of light, hear our cries, 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. It's Dr. Frank Turek filling in for the great Dr.
Michael Brown, who's on assignment in Australia. He's back Tuesday. I'm the co-author of I don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case. Our website's crosexamine.org. But my guest today.
Is Rice Brooks, who is the man behind the God's Not Dead movies, and of course the book called God's Not Dead. And we're trying to go from a movie to a movement. Our culture is eroding away, and the church is eroding away in this country anyway, because we are given up on the mind and we're all about emotion, and we can't really find our moorings. We can't throw down an anchor anymore and really figure out if what we believe is true because we're not interested in evidence and we're trying to move people to really trust what the scriptures say about. Always be ready to give an answer and love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and demolish arguments that are contrary to the Christian worldview.
We're supposed to do this, and Rice is trying to do it at the entertainment level, which is so critical because many people are swayed by what they see in the movies. And so, this is a fabulous way of doing it in God's Not Dead 1 and now God's Not Dead 2.
Now, Rice, you were saying before the break that you were sitting in Nashville with some movie producers, some screenwriters. Pick the story up right there. Go ahead. Yeah, well after explaining to my friend, a businessman, about the need of young people leaving high school to college to know to have an answer for their faith, to give a reason for the hope that's within him, as you referred to. And He's the one that said that needs to be a movie, so they came to town.
talked to me and I just I explained that there were professors like Bart Ehrman at North Carolina that both of us Uh know about embarked. Yeah. Yeah. class sitting there in Hamilton 100, that room where I've been before. Uh people from the beginning that, you know, are you sure the Bible is true?
And that And then many parents get that faithful call that you referenced when they call up and say, Dad. I don't believe in God anymore because somebody's talked them out of their faith.
So Anyway, I'd My role in the whole thing was just telling a friend that I was writing a book and that that was my total focus was to write the book. My friend had the idea that that needed to be a movie and brought everyone to talked to me and I could see the influence of the stories and really Yeah. And I think that's why. Around the world, God's not dead. whether you like them or not.
Yeah. one thing that was undeniable was it was a drama that showcased a young man, a young freshman giving evidence for his faith. And I think that's what resonated.
So, no matter whether I'm here or any other country that I've been a had the privilege of going to to kind of talk about this message. I think that is the common denominator is no matter where you are or what Age group Ethnicity, kind of a very good idea. Country, whatever. People are searching. to be able to give those reasons to believe.
That faith that God is not only real, but that He is communicated through Christ Yeah.
Okay. Question in history. Because when Jesus said, Who do you say that I am? If you answered that, you're the Son of God. then that means His authority His word.
are given preeminence. And it gives us that. It gives us that compass. gives us the foundation that we need, but without that foundation, It's just Yeah. whoever speaks the loudest or you know You know, just the mob rule, so to speak.
But God is the one that has the right and has given us His word and. And so it's everything about what we're facing and the culture comes back. back to who are you going to trust. And that's right. make the case that because of the resurrection.
Trusting Jesus. Yes, we are. And in fact, your book goes into it. The book is called God's Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty. And then there's a follow-on book called Man, Myth, Messiah.
And for those of you that have seen the movies, God's Not Dead 1, God's Not Dead 2, in the second movie, you'll see this book, Man, Myth, Messiah. Maybe we'll get to that here in a minute. But Rice, in the first book, God's Not Dead, you have a chapter called Real Faith Isn't Blind. A lot of people have the misunderstanding that faith is just trusting in something without any evidence, and you say that's not the case. Explain that, will you?
Well, let me give you a little bit of a motivational story behind that. I went down in 2012 to the gold. Global Atheist Convention. Mm-hmm. was a It was billed as the largest indoor gathering of atheists in history.
in Melbourne, Australia. You had Richard Dawkins and you had Dan Dennett and Lawrence Krause. Yeah. Christopher Hitchens was sketched. Obviously, he had passed away, so they had a tribute to him.
The caricature Of what faith was. was is it faith Is this thing? You know, faith is believed. What you know isn't true, kind of the old Mark Twain little. Line there that somehow that what we as Christians are advocating in there in any other religion.
That advocates faith is that we're just to kind of accept to accept things without any evidence. And so that's just the opposite of what biblical stay visiting. That's the case I make in the book under that chapter you referenced: Real Faith Isn't Blind, that really it's. The evidence is overwhelming. come to God against reason because come to God.
Yeah. And it's not that we don't have enough evidence. And as Romans says. we suppress it like an attorney that doesn't want the evidence that kind of jeopardizes his case. That might change.
the jury's opinion You try to get that evidence to be thrown out. And so that's what's happening with skepticism. Is that the evidence is overwhelming. The average skeptic who loves that refrain, well, you have no evidence for God, you say, well, what evidence would you accept? I'll stop like you do when we say, hey, well, tell me, okay, let's talk about evidence.
What would you accept? And really. Many times I haven't even thought about it. They go, I don't know. It's like, well, Richard Dawkins says, well, maybe I could see a 900-foot Jesus.
It's like wait a minute, if you're looking If you were looking for Steve Jobs, you wouldn't have found him by breaking down an iPhone. He doesn't live in a in an Apple product. you know, uh when he was alive, you wouldn't have found him. But you don't find Bill Gates in the software.
So you're looking for the intelligent mind behind the universe. And so the question is, is there evidence? Evidence of intelligence. and what we can look at scientifically, and that is whether it's life, universe Yeah. It's an overwhelming, resounding Yes, that this does not look like From our from our DNA with the complex information.
A three billion letter long sentence. information in us. to the fine tuning of the universe, all the things that you're good at Mm. better at me. in saying that litany of evidences.
But I think the average person needs to know that you can understand this. It may be a little over your head. It's not out of your reach. You can grasp these. basic concepts.
And hopefully, we can have the average belief. and hold their own and And not only keep their faith, but actually make a difference in the life of the skeptic. And I think, and this chapter in the book is very good. I've got it highlighted up. The book is God's Not Dead.
My guest here is Rice Brooks, who's the author of the book and the man behind the two movies. There's a difference between belief that and belief in. Belief that is evidence that God exists, that Jesus rose from the dead, that the Bible is true, and that's what a book like God's Not Dead gives you. It gives you that kind of evidence. But belief in is what you do with the belief that evidence.
Belief in is trusting in Jesus after you know that he's the Savior. And that's a step of the heart, not just the mind. Whereas the first belief that is intellectual. Belief in is not just intellectual, it's also volitional. And a lot of people, as you pointed out, Rice, don't want to do that.
In fact, Jim Wallace and I were just talking about this in the last segment: that there's a lot of people out there who are just so resistant because they don't want there to be a God. They want to be God. They want to do their own thing. And it doesn't matter how much evidence you give them. They're never going to believe in because they want.
They don't want the moral restraints or the accountability that they think comes with Christianity. And so they're going to resist it. That's why, again, friends, the question to ask people is: if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? And then just be quiet and see what they say.
Now, Rice, the second movie, God's Not Dead 2, deals with man, myth, Messiah. What is that book about?
Well, for When you get beyond just one. Once the existence of God has established Then the question is.
Well, well, what is God like, and how do we know which religion is true? And so you have a lot of misinformation out there. then somehow Jesus was Some people try to say that he never lived. And so if you Google something and you'll find the internet skeptics saying, well, did Jesus really live? And so History is just replete, it's full.
of the evidence that Jesus not only lived, but that Yeah. out there on the that lives on the internet is that somehow he was the The story of Jesus was borrowed from ancient pagan mythology, from the Egyptians, of the Persians, of the Greeks, or the Romans. And I mean, that's kind of like the intellectual equivalent of going to the grocery store. store and you see that magnetic material. that says Bigfoot stole my money.
My baby. I mean, there's not a lot of sources. You know, there's not a lot of substance or scholarship behind that claim.
So So anyway. You know, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, The myth part. Jesus exist? Myth? You know, what about the notion of him being a myth?
And so we deal with that in the book, and in the final part. of the trilemma, I guess, is Messiah. And how do you know? that Jesus is the the Savior, the Christ that uh Christians and people refer to when they say Jesus Christ.
So In that debate. Plot of that again in God's Not Dead 2, my influence was basically to. Say My influence was basically to say We need to deal with this in this movie, so. The plot line of a court case where a high school teacher quotes Jesus in class And she suspended and ensued. And then the question is.
in the defense of the school teacher they're trying to deliberate how do we defend her And the They say basically because Jesus lived, then, you know, why couldn't you quote him like you could anyone else? Hold the thought, Rice. We're going to come back to it right after the break and give you a couple of tools you can use to evangelize people from God's Not Dead.
So don't go away. I'm Frank Turek with Rice Brooks, the author of God's Not Dead. We're back in just two minutes. 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 inadequately, I might add, for the great Dr.
Michael Brown, but he'll be back on Tuesday. We're talking to my friend Rice Brooks, who is the author behind God's Not Dead, not only the book, but the movies as well. God's Not Dead 1, God's Not Dead 2. And Dr. Brooks has started many churches around the world, not only in the United States, but in the Philippines, in South Africa, in Europe, every nation churches.
And he actually pastors a church there near Nashville, Tennessee. And Rice, you also have something out there which is an app that can be downloaded in 155 countries. It is an evangelism app called the God Test. Tell us about the God Test. What's that about?
Frank, it's really was the original thing that I think I was more excited about even than the God's Not Dead project. But basically, This is a it started as a paper tooled Yeah. hold in your hand and then obviously as apps become more become more uh Part of every live sweet. It's an app form now, but it has been downloaded in 155 countries. It it isn't a track, it's basically a survey where you ask people the simple question.
Do you believe in God? And if they say yes, There are ten questions. And if they say no, there's ten different questions. And as you go through the questions Each time someone answers and they touch The screen for there, they have multiple choice answers. We actually record that.
data so we've Yeah. of thousands of responses and we're able to understand Where they took that test within about 10 feet, or if you're in another country ten meters. Um But it's been a a phenomenal Tool to just, as we say, it simply you start a conversation, you ask questions, you listen, and then you tell the story.
So you can see that spells something. Yes. Silt salts.
So the God test helps the average person start Yeah. And then the questions are so important. Instead of evangelism being about just you know, quoting scriptures. and kind of taking you know just kind of talking and giving all the answers. first you ask the question and listen And what's amazing is that as skeptics, let's say Is they're asked these questions and you thoroughly listen to them, they always give you a chance to respond.
In fact, on campuses, this is so popular that the atheists are actually Thanking us because, number one, it's a very civil thing. when you have listened to them first. And you're not playing ping-pong, you're not saying that's not true, that's not true, that's not true, that's not. This isn't the the the Spirit of this isn't the The mindset. You ask these?
Questions, you listen. And then, as you listen to people, first First of all, you'll find it Most people Haven't really thought. That deeply. They have a few things. that are there are standard objections or maybe their favorite skeptical insults that they've learned.
But when you begin to ask them a broad question, about everything from explain to me why you're an atheist, what are the main reasons, How do you account for life? What do you think about evolution? Where did life come from? And do you believe evil exists? Is evil really?
Real. If you're an atheist, then Consistently can you say evil is real? Or are you not, as you say, borrowing or stealing from God. concepts of good and evil to make sense of the world.
So, but as you listen first to the answers to these questions and And then you talk. Then you have the makings of a real Dialogue, not just a shouting match, and so that's why I think it's become so popular. And it's a free down. Just go to the app. Yeah, I think it's a very good idea.
The God Test. And you'll see it there. And it also has the training videos there I was an adjunct professor of apologetics at Fuller Seminary. Yeah. Yeah.
probably hindered more people than I helped. And so my goal was to train people To be able to share their faith in under an hour.
So instead of a twelve week or a three, you know. you know, six months. If you go if you download the app, you'll see the test part and you'll see the training part. And all the five training videos, the total running time is under an hour.
So again, you can be In a conversation with somebody by a By this evening, and being comfortable having that dialogue about these questions. Faith, skepticism, and the meaning of life.
So, this is a very helpful tool, ladies and gentlemen, if you're just trying to figure out how you can use this thing. You can have this on your iPhone, particularly those college students, high school students. Everybody likes taking surveys. You can go, hey, I'm taking a survey. Can you take a survey?
It's called the God test here. And they could fill this out right there on their iPhone. All that data goes to a central data point. But then you, as a result of going through the God test on your iPhone or your droid, you can then have a conversation with somebody based on the answers that they've given. And are people using this quite a bit on college campuses, Rice, to do this kind of thing?
You know, if I told you what was going on, you'd think I was exaggerating. But it is a. It is a phenomenon right now because again, I think what my research when I went back And did a a doctoral degree. My focus was What is the condition of the North American Church? I think the Evangelism was in essence missing.
The percent of churches in America are actually growing through evangelism.
So think about it. 80% of charges. Yeah. And the 17% of churches that do grow. It's just through migration of believers Yeah.
for a better church experience.
So only three. percent. Of churches are growing through evangelism.
So you can wonder if. you ask the question What's happening to our country?
Well, we if there was ever any whatever speech. Spiritual greatness we had, it was because the gospel. change the hearts of people in these great awakenings in history. And so if we stop preaching the gospel, And we just go into maintenance or we go into stall I mean, imagine a basketball team that never tried to score, but just passed the ball around. And now we have to have A plan.
We have to in the in the gospel is meant to be shared. and wants the gospel to share. shared It has the power to change hearts. I mean, I mean, I got started because my atheist brother In law school, in his third year at SMU Law School, of all places, came home to talk me out of the faith. And the weekend he came home to talk me out of the faith, we baptized him.
And so my brother went from this, you know, very skeptical opponent of the Christian faith. To a person that's now a defender of the faith, still an attorney. We have the power to change. charts. In mind.
The gospel is true. And so much right And then they therefore don't share. with confidence then it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle of defeat. Yeah, not only that, Rice. I think it it's it in our culture it's socially awkward to share the gospel, to talk about these things, but the God test makes it a lot easier.
That's the beauty of it. Because when you say, look, I'm taking a survey and I'd love to get your insights in on this and see what you think about this, then it's non-threatening. And you got it right there on your phone, which you always have with you because you're an American, right? You always have the phone with your friends.
So download the God test and use this thing with your friends, with your relatives, with people on campus or at your workplace. It's very easy to use, the God test.
Now, Rice, we're running out of time. Is there any website they ought to go to? Or just go to the app store? No, they can do it. If you go to Ricebrook, excuse me, RiceBrooks.com, and that's a funny spelling Brooks.
B-R-O-O-C-K-S RiceBrooks.com. You'll see the books. Yeah. app you'll see all of that there So to one stop place. Ricebrooks.com.
I mean there's several other websites, but that's kind of a central Alright. Thanks, Rice. Thanks for being on the show. And if you forget that, just go to askdrbrown.org or. Or lineofire.com.
All the links will be there. I'm Frank Turek. Great being with you. Crosexamined.org is our website. Check that out as well.
Dr. Brown will be back next week. God bless.
Whisper: parakeet / 2025-07-04 22:21:27 / 2025-07-04 22:23:51 / 2