How do We College Proof Our Kids?

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On the campus of Mid-America College and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in beautiful Memphis, Tennessee. Today, we're going to talk about how to college-proof your faith. You've got college kids and you know somebody that does.

You want to get on the call on the phone and call them and tell them to start listening now. You guys are listening. You know, I've got two kids in college, and I want to tell you, it's shocking to see the brainwashing. That, to me, literally is brainwashing and the indoctrination that's taking place on college campuses across the nation, even on campuses, so-called Christian colleges and Christian universities. And y'all, you know the pressures that Christian students face on college campuses does not just come from peers anymore and from their friends. It's also coming from the administration and professors that are teaching them in the classes each and every day. They're taught that religion is a myth, that the Bible has no science in it, and you're going to learn that's not true today, that people are born homosexual or transgender, that unborn babies are not living independent beings.

It's shocking what they're being taught today. So our guest today is a good friend of mine. His name is Jay Seigert. Jay is the president of the Starting Point Ministry, and the neat thing about Jay is he's not just some guy.

He is a trained scientist. He's a Christian apologist, and like me, Jay is concerned about colleges and universities and what they're teaching our next generation of leaders. Jay, welcome to The Christian Perspective. It's an honor to be on the program. How are you today? I am great, Jay.

Jay, I tell you, before we jump into this subject, some people might not know much about you. Can you tell them a little bit about your ministry and what you do all over the world? I know you lead some tours to the Grand Canyon and other neat places that people might be interested in joining you on sometime.

Sure. Ministry is the starting point project. Been in full-time ministry the past 15 years. Actually been speaking on apologetics in the Christian worldview for 37 years now, but went into it full-time, felt called by God for the last 15 years.

Traveling quite a bit around the United States, but have been in eight other countries as well, doing a lot with, again, apologetics, defense of the Christian worldview. Many people know what they believe, but they don't necessarily know why. We deal a lot with Genesis and science and the Bible. We also deal with the question of how do we know that the Bible is actually the inspired word of God, because, again, most Christians certainly believe the Bible, but then we ask them all, how do you know that it's the inspired word of God? Way too often they might say, well, I just, I feel it or I sense it or that's what I believe.

How does that help anyone else, including your own children, if it's just something that you feel versus having solid evidences for it? So we discuss those things. We don't charge for any of our events. We do ask that travel expenses be covered, but I was up to about 190 talks a year. We also lead Grand Canyon tours, which is phenomenal because it's not just an opportunity to see a cool hole in the ground, but we all along the way point out scientific evidences that there really was a worldwide flood, just like Genesis 6-8 talks about. So we do one day on the rim, standing on the Haibab limestone, looking one mile down to the Colorado River, and then the next day we're actually on rafts on the river, looking from the bottom up, pointing out evidences all along the way that there really was a flood of Noah and there's so much evidence for it. And Grand Canyon is probably the best spot on the planet to see those evidences. So we've got five tours going this year.

We have some of them still available on our August and September trips. But again, I'm just honored to be able to be doing this full time and maybe a little bit later into the show, I'll get into a little bit more of my background of how I got all started in this because it didn't have a lot to do with my experiences in college. On the tours that you do for the Grand Canyon, when we say a mile down, I'm terrified of heights. I'd have to skip that day just joining you on the day you get on the river. But for our older or even those with younger folks that might want to join you, is it a whitewater rapid or just pretty smooth going down the river that just about anybody could do?

It's incredibly smooth. We have purposely put our trips together so that it's family friendly. We've had, you know, five, six year olds go. We had a couple go.

They were 80 years old. You're walking a flat paved path when you get to the rim and you're not even walking long distances. We take buses everywhere.

We stay in nice hotels, eat good food. And then on the river, we actually take a bus through a tunnel to get down to the river. So you're not, you know, climbing, managing rocks to get down or anything. You take a bus, you get out at the Glen Canyon Dam, which was phenomenal to see.

And then you walk down a ramp and get in the rafts. And most rivers are rated on a scale of one to seven for their rapids. The Colorado River in the Grand Canyon has its own scale.

It goes from one to ten. And the rapids we go through are a point one. And so if someone really wants a whitewater rafting, this is not the trip.

This is a family friendly one. It couldn't be any easier than it is. Very, very enjoyable and very, very faith affirming.

I want to do that with you someday. It's always wonderful to be out in God's creation. But I can only imagine, like you're saying, we are pointing out those channels that are cut through that rock that probably came from the flood and things that people just can't imagine that really prove that what the Bible says is true. You mentioned you're in the ministry of apologetics. And for those of you who don't know, that's just basically a way to defend your faith. And I think it's important for us, as you mentioned, Jay, to understand what we believe and why we believe it as Christians.

I keep telling my wife I'm going to write a book called What We Believe and Why We Believe It, but I've been procrastinating so much I haven't gotten it done. But I think that kind of leads into our topic today because statistics are showing an alarming high percentage of Christian youth are walking away from their faith during the college years. I think part of that, Jay, is because pastors aren't preaching the Word of God, people aren't reading the Bible, and a lot of college students don't truly know what they believe as Christians and why they believe it. And it's become a huge problem.

Why do you think that's happening and what can and should we be doing to combat this disturbing trend? There are actually quite a few factors. Years ago I think I had a slightly naive view thinking that college was worse than it is and so these kids, they go off to college, they're perfectly fine, they go off to college and all of a sudden it just shipwrecks their faith and they walk away. And it's because they didn't have answers to questions about carbon-14 dating and dinosaurs and this and that and creation evolution.

That is certainly a factor and for some youth it can be a huge factor, but I think for many other youth that's not really the issue. There are other things going on including relationships with their parents, what their experience has been with the church, what they see the Christian worldview as being, how they view the Bible. There's a high, high percentage of biblical illiteracy, not just amongst Christian youth, but even in a typical Sunday church attender, even for people who have been going to church for 10, 20, 30 years. Because I think many churches have gotten away from really teaching God's word and they're doing a lot of topical things over and over and over.

And it's not bad to go through a topical series once in a while, but if that's all you do all year long, you're not really getting into the word to see what does it say and equipping the youth especially with answers. And so when they go off to college, they just believe the Bible because they're a Christian and they're a Christian because they believe the Bible and they believe the Bible because they're a Christian. And then they have professors who seem to be really sharp and have answers for just about everything and they see it as more of a black and white thing and science-based and they really know what they're talking about, that the Bible is antiquated, filled with errors and contradictions, science has disproven it, there's all these different versions out there, there are different religions and so who really needs that? And again, one of the other big factors is if they stick to the Bible, there are a lot of things that they probably shouldn't be doing that they would like to do, but if they've been convinced that the Bible is not the inspired word of God and you can't trust it, it's not reliable, that frees them up, they'll not feel so guilty when they're making choices that many of their other friends are making. And so many of these youth are actually looking for reasons to help walk away from their faith and when they're younger, they don't necessarily have them, they're living at home, they're in junior high, high school, and then they go off to college and their professors are more than willing to give them these reasons why they don't have to worry about the Bible.

And many of the youth are excited about that, they're like, yes, I knew it, I knew the Bible wasn't true, I just couldn't defend it before but now I can and they go back home and they lay into their parents with all these evidences about whatever their professor brought up with the Big Bang and evolution and there was no flood because where did all that water come from, where did the water go, how did Noah get all those animals on that ark and what about carbon-14 dating and what about all the evil in the world and all the violence in the Bible and on and on. And they use that as a weapon against their parents and very often the parents are not well equipped and they just say, well you need to get back into church and you shouldn't be hanging out with those kids, well that doesn't cut it and so that's one of the big reasons why we have such a high percentage that are walking away from their faith because we really haven't done diligence ahead of time. So many important topics there and I think that Bible illiteracy is such an issue, Jay, because pastors just aren't preaching the whole word of God anymore, they're taking the easy way out and I don't know if it's apathy or ignorance, do they just not really know what the Bible says themselves because they're not studying or do they not care, they're afraid they're offending somebody. It's really crazy and so I challenge you pastors and youth pastors that are listening, you need to equip these young people.

I think, Jay, we have a really smart generation of young people out there today and part of the problem that I see in churches is pastors are giving like a Happy Meal sermon. Like you said, it's topical but even with topical you could go into some depth and explain something but they give this spoon feeding like baby food to their congregations and we have these smart young people who are hungry for knowledge, really any knowledge and they're not getting it at church and they go away to college like you say and then these professors are taking the time to actually answer a question. It's not a biblical answer, it's not the right answer but at least they're being told something and then they come home like you say and they come to mom and dad but same problem mom and dad. Mom and dad don't know enough about the flood. They haven't read your materials or stuff that others are putting out there and mom and dad can't give a good answer either so the only educated and informative answer they're getting is from these liberal professors so the kids go with.

How do we stop this? It starts one choice at a time with parents deciding that it is important for them themselves to have a better grasp of what God's word says and that's what they need to start with. They don't necessarily need to start with all the scientific evidences for the flood or creation. Those are good supplements but first and foremost know what does the Bible say about these things and secondarily how do we know that the Bible is authoritative? How do we know it's trustworthy? How do we know it's accurate? Those two things will go a long way and then when you get challenged with carbon 14 dating you could say initially you might say you know what I don't really know much about that but let's look into it and when you start looking into it you realize wow it's not what I thought it was it doesn't contradict the Bible in fact when you look at it accurately it actually backs up what the Bible's been saying all along.

Yeah well folks we got to take a quick commercial break I'm talking to Jay Seager. Jay when we come back I'm going to ask you about having a better grasp of what the Bible says and how it's trustworthy and accurate. Maybe explain to our guests how they can tell their kids it's trustworthy and accurate and then we're going to talk more about your background and apologetics. Stick around we'll be right back with more from a Christian perspective. This show is brought to you by Generous Joe's the coffee company with the Christian perspective. This is the answer that Christians and conservatives have been looking for a coffee company that gives back to causes you care about.

Order your coffee today at ShopGenerousJoes.org and even subscribe to a subscription coffee plan and never forget the coffee you love or the causes you care about. Walk in the footsteps of Jesus and see the Bible come to life. This December join nationally syndicated radio host and founder of the Citizens for America Foundation Dr. Chris Hughes on a life-changing trip to Israel. It's one of the world's oldest and most fascinating travel destinations, luring the faithful from all over the world for thousands of years. Visit Jerusalem's religious quarters and explore Christianity's most treasured religious sites like the Wailing Wall, the Dome of the Rock and the Via Dolorosa. Walk with Chris through the winding alleyways of Nazareth's old city and visit ancient Bethlehem, the place of our Savior's birth. Float in the Dead Sea, visit the Sea of Galilee and the Jewish fortress of Masada. See firsthand where the events of the Bible took place. Touring Israel with Dr. Chris Hughes is a travel odyssey like no other. Visit CitizensForAmericaFoundation.com and get ready for an unforgettable trip and memories that will last a lifetime. For over 35 years I have been helping families just like yours build lasting relationships.

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For a free transcript, call American Minute at 1-888-USA-WORD. Welcome back to The Christian Perspective. This is Chris Hughes. My guest today is Jay Seigert with the Starting Point Project. Jay is one of the leading apologists in the nation and the world where he teaches people how to defend the Bible, how to understand what the Bible says and why things that we read in the Bible, like the flood. and creation, really are true. You know, a lot of people, even a lot of people who profess to be pastors today, don't teach that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, that it's all true or none of it's true, that it's the inerrant Scripture that is blessed and comes from the Holy Spirit. We're talking about college kids today and how our kids go away to college and a lot of times because they have not been taught a good healthy menu of the Word of God in their youth groups and even in their homes and from their pastors in churches and because of that they're not prepared as they should be to answer the questions about what they believe and why they believe it. Just before we took the break, Jay was talking about particularly like parents when the kids come home for that first break, maybe at Thanksgiving or at Christmas after they've gone away to college and the brainwashing has started a little bit. They don't really believe the Bible is true anymore and they talk to their parents and it gets into arguments and parents can't explain why is the Bible trustworthy and accurate. So I know you probably teach long sessions and written books on this, Jay, but just in a few minutes, is there a simple way where parents can begin to show their kids that the Bible is trustworthy and accurate?

Yeah, it's really not hard. It probably doesn't take as much work as many people would think and what's interesting when the topic comes up of how do we know the Bible is the inspired Word of God and especially when a skeptic brings it up, too often we're very quick to jump on and get into an argument or whatever and what I've tried to do with training people is that once a skeptic makes a claim, before you get too defensive and try to spew a bunch of stuff out and try to win an argument, first ask follow-up questions. What do they mean by that? How do they come to that conclusion?

How do they know it's correct? And so, just as an example, I've had skeptics say to me, there's no evidence that God wrote the Bible. And when I was younger, I would have tried to jump on that and argue and throw certain things out, but now what I do when they say that there's no evidence that God wrote the Bible, I just say, okay, I've got a question for you. What would you accept as evidence that God wrote the Bible?

What would that look like in your mind if you saw A, B, or C? That would definitely be evidence that God wrote the Bible and I've had them say to me, well, I don't know, but I know there's no evidence. And I say, hey, wait a minute, if by your own admission you don't even know what the evidence would look like, how do you know it doesn't exist?

If you don't have criteria that you use to judge what would count as evidence and what wouldn't, we can't even have this discussion. And so I get them to realize they've just made a very bold claim with nothing to back it up and then I would turn the table, put the onus on myself to offer up a response and I would say, you know what, if God actually did write a book, how would we know? What would we expect to see in that book? And I said, personally, myself, if God wrote a book, I'd expect at least four things. Number one, I would expect it to be historically accurate. Number two, I'd expect it to be internally consistent and it wouldn't contradict itself. Thirdly, I'd expect it to be scientifically accurate if it actually makes statements that can be tested directly by science.

I'd expect that to be accurate. And then lastly, I would expect it to be prophetically accurate, that if it's making predictions about the future, it better get them right, because if it's not, that's good evidence God didn't write that. So those are four areas of tests that you can apply to any religious writing. These aren't special Bible tests, these are tests you can apply to any writing and when you apply those to the Bible, it passes with flying colors where other books fall quickly by the wayside, because the Bible is 100% internally consistent, even though you've got 40 authors writing over a 1600 year period on three different continents and three different languages, and they have all different educational backgrounds, and they're covering not just one controversial topic, but hundreds of controversial topics, and yet they're all in perfect agreement.

How in the world is that possible unless God is inspiring each of these writers? And then we know from archaeology that history is right, and then scientifically it could go on and on and on about that, or there's so many things in the Bible that were written long before we had microscopes and telescopes, and then scientists today are reading these things and thinking, wow, these guys were right about that, but how could they have known those things they couldn't have, and it's true, they could not have known these things scientifically back then. This is evidence that God told them what to write, and then prophetically, about 27% of the Bible is prophetic in nature. It's over 8000 passages in the Bible that are predictive in nature, making statements about their future.

Some of those are still for our future, but every single other one has come true in every minute detail, 100%. So again, how is that possible if man just made that up? This is evidence of inspiration. So parents need to know that.

That's not that complex of an answer. They should have that down, teach that to their kids. Their kids can then repeat that with their professors, and along the way they should probably have an example from each of those areas. Here's an example of archaeology, you know, showing that history has been recorded accurately in the Bible. Here's something about the internal consistency.

Here's an example of one or two things from science, and then here are a couple prophecies that are in the Bible. That would go a long, long way. Wow, I'm taking notes. This is great stuff that I want to be able to use myself. Really powerful and so easy to explain when you give it the way that you just shared with us.

That's incredible. Have you written a book about this that people can look up and learn more about? We have a number of resources. We have a five-part video series called The Inspiration of the Bible, and I go through a lot of introductory things about the Bible. We talk about its origin a little bit, but then we go through all four of those areas, the internal consistency, historical accuracy, prophetic accuracy, and scientific accuracy, explaining what that means and then giving examples for each area. We also have a pocket-sized booklet on how do we know the Bible is the inspired Word of God. In my first book, Creation and Evolution, Compatible or in Conflict, I also have a chapter in there on the inspiration of the Bible.

And so there are a number of resources written and visual covering those topics because it is one of the most basic questions. When you think about the Christian worldview, compare it down to two tenets. Number one is that God exists and He created everything. Number two is that the Bible is His Word. Those are the two most basic foundational points of Christianity. And yet many Christians, when asked, well, how do you know God exists and how do you know He created everything? Or how do you know that the Bible is from God?

They're like a deer in headlights. They're like, well, that's what I believe. It's my faith.

Well, at that point, it just sounds like a blind faith. Why should anyone else believe it just because that's what you chose versus saying, yes, great question. Here's why I believe that God exists. Here's why I believe He created everything. Here are some of the evidences. And here's why I'm very, very confident that the Bible is what it claims to be, that it's the Word of God who created everything and shares a lot of things in there that we can't get from looking at dirt and DNA. You can look at nature and conclude there's got to be a God, but you wouldn't know who that God is, why He created us, what happened to it, and what happens to us when we die.

That's why He gave us a special revelation in the Bible. Wow, such great stuff you're giving to us, Jay. So I'm going to bring that back and we're going to cover this again after a break in a few minutes. But before we take our next break, can you tell us a little bit about your personal background and what led you into full-time apologetics? Because I think it had something to do with your college experience, didn't it?

It did. It's very kind of, to me, a powerful story in how God works in our lives. So long story short, I was raised in a Christian home, believed the Bible from cover to cover. I went to public schools through high school, but still was very strong in my faith. There wasn't a whole lot in my high school experience that upset me or really caused any problems. And then I went to a Christian college, John Brown University in Arkansas to study mechanical engineering.

I got a degree there, but then I became more interested in physics, but they didn't have a physics major, so I had to leave there and came back to Wisconsin where I'm from and went to the University of Wisconsin Whitewater to get a degree in physics. And that's when everything changed for me because I went from that small Christian university where my engineering professors opened up every class in prayer to a large state university where my physics professors did not open up in prayer. They were certainly all evolutionists, some of them were atheists, and they were telling me that everything I believed was wrong and that made me feel very uncomfortable because, hey, these are PhD scientists and I assumed that they had evidence for what they believed, but I realized for the first time in my entire life that even though I knew what I believed, I didn't know why. I couldn't defend my faith and that made me so uncomfortable, especially being in the sciences, and so I basically went home to my home church one weekend, told someone that my professors were really giving me a hard time and I didn't have answers.

They said, oh, you need to talk to so-and-so. He was a man studying for his PhD in medical physics and he was really into the creation evolution topic. So I went over to his house, spent maybe 45 minutes with him. He loaned me two books.

I devoured them cover to cover and that got me on my journey of 37 years now of looking into these evidences, researching, and then lecturing. In fact, that man from 37 years ago, he and I still get together regularly for breakfast, so he had no idea that spending 45 minutes with a college student was going to launch an international ministry. But one other really, really important aspect with this is today you mentioned the high percentage of Christian youth walking away from their faith. I had been speaking for at least 30 years and it finally dawned on me to ask, wait a minute, I was in college, I was attacked by my professors, how come I didn't walk away? Because most Christian youth are, how come I didn't walk away?

It took me about a half a second to come up with the answer and the answer for me was my relationship with my parents. It was so strong, I respected my parents so much, I thought, they're not wrong about what they've told me. They certainly weren't lying to me and I don't think my pastors are wrong or lying, but if they're not wrong, that means they're right. And if they're right, that means there's got to be evidence, and if there is evidence, I'm going to find it. And so it sent me on a journey to find that evidence, I wanted to find that evidence, I wanted to honor my parents and please them, and I enjoyed my church, I really respected my pastor. But that is in stark contrast to many youth today where they can't wait to get out of the home because they did not have a good relationship with their parents and there's too many rules and regulations and hypocrisy and on and on, we can talk about that a little bit later.

So they go off to college looking for a reason to bolt and the professors do a great job of giving them well-sounding means on the surface, you know, these evidences, and now they feel that they have an excuse to walk away from their faith. Well, that's a good point for us to break and go listen to some commercials to help pay for this message that you're giving us. This is so good, Jay. I'm so grateful that you're here today sharing with our listeners. So folks, stick around. We're going to learn more about how to defend your faith, how to prepare your kids to go to college.

We'll be right back. The United States of America has a strong Christian heritage, but most Americans don't know the truly important role that God in the Bible played in the founding of this great nation. This June, join nationally syndicated radio host and founder of the Citizens for America Foundation, Dr. Chris Hughes, for four amazing days in our nation's capital. With Chris, you'll embark on a journey of discovering the hidden secrets of Washington, D.C. and rediscover much of America's forgotten Christian heritage. Your tour will include an up-close and personal look at the nation's establishment and how it's evolved over the centuries. Learn about the government and the men who helped forge this new kind of republic, one that acknowledged the creator from its very inception.

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Order your coffee today at shopgenerousjoes.org and even subscribe to a subscription coffee plan and never forget the coffee you love or the causes you care about. The Conservative Baptist Network is a dynamic movement of Southern Baptist pastors, churches and Christians committed to standing for the sufficiency of God's word in the face of a culture of compromise. The passion and prayer of the Conservative Baptist Network is that God would help Southern Baptists stay bold for the gospel so that we might see revival in America and the world reached for Christ. Visit our website today at conservativebaptistnetwork.com to learn how you and your church can join and support this exciting movement. Welcome back to the Christian perspective.

This is Chris Hughes. My guest today is Jay Seager with the Starting Point Project. And wow, what a great talk we're having about the importance of several things. One, before the commercial break, we were talking about how it's important for college kids to have a really strong relationship with their parents before they go away to college.

Because if they honor and love their parents, they're going to be more inclined to listen to you when they are brainwashed by the professors and friends at college and come back home. Another great point that Jay has shared with us is we need to know what we believe and why we believe it. We've got to be able to defend our faith, and too many of us don't. So I hope if you're listening today that you're going to be challenged to begin to understand more about what the Bible says, to get in God's Word and learn what the Bible says, and we'll get some great resources.

Jay is going to share his website with us in just a minute, but he's got some great resources that can help you easily understand what you believe and why you believe it. And parents, you all know that I stress the importance of families eating supper together at night, and that's a great time where everybody comes to the table and the kids put away their cell phones and you just talk. And ask them questions.

Don't get in arguments. As Jay said, the best way to defend the faith is to ask questions of others, not argue about certain points. But I want to share a couple of things that Jay told us in the previous segment, just if you're coming here to the show right now. He said there are two things that every Christian should know, that God exists and that God created everything, and then the second is that the Bible is from God. And that's really a great starting point is you have the name of your ministry, Jay.

And then I love this, and I'm probably, if I get it wrong, Jay, correct me. He said there are four things we need to understand that the Bible is historically accurate, that it's basically what it said is true. And I mean, really, that's the name history is his story, God's story. So is the Bible historically accurate?

Is it internally consistent? Jay shared with us that the Bible is written by over 40 authors, I think he said on three continents from three different languages, and yet they all were in agreement in what they said. Is the Bible physically accurate? Before telescopes and microscopes, Jay shared how God revealed, the Holy Spirit revealed to these writers things that they wouldn't understand or know. But when we develop the technology, we now understand and know that those things are physically accurate. And finally, is the Bible prophetically accurate? And there are over 8000 passages in the Bible, over 27% of the Bible, Jay shared, has to do with prophecy.

And it's all been 100% accurate of the things that have happened so far. Jay, this is just great information that you're sharing with us. And I appreciate before the break, you were sharing your personal story of how you went away to college and just had a desire to learn more. But, you know, is college really the problem?

Or is it just a place where these issues are getting exposed? Jay, do you think that part of the problem is that many of these kids might have, you were talking about having a relationship with parents. How about with Jesus?

Did they really have a true relationship with Jesus in the first place? If they're so easily swayed when they go to college? Yeah, that's something we definitely need to keep in mind. There are various statistics out there of how many youth are walking away and they have different numbers, but they're all pretty high numbers.

They should be alarming no matter what the actual number is. And then within that percentage exists a group of youth that would consider themselves Christians or others might call them Christians, but probably weren't truly saved. So there's always a number who go off and we assume that they were Christians and then they walk away, but they weren't really there to begin with.

And so we definitely need to keep that in mind. But then within the remainder of the group, they were truly saved, but what was the depth of their faith? They didn't have a very good understanding. It really wasn't lived out at home. They went to church on Sunday and then that was it. They got an hour at church or so and then they're back home into the real world in a sense.

And they really don't know what the Christian life is like. They don't necessarily see it lived out in their parents' lives and so it causes a lot of problems with that. And then they go off to college and very often I have parents coming to me and they're just so upset with the university or the professors and there are certainly things that are going on there that aren't good, but they're acting as if that was the only issue.

My son, my daughter, they were fine. They went off to college and they came home and now they say they're an atheist. College is rotten.

No one should ever go there anymore. Well, college very often is just revealing issues that were kind of festering for a long time. And I'll try to give a real quick analogy here because I think it's pertinent and I think a lot of listeners can relate to this and I don't want to make a blanket statement. This is certainly not every Christian home but it's probably too many homes where Sunday morning comes. Everyone's getting ready for church and they're running late and then Dad's going down the hall and he sees little Billy. He's still in bed and the Dad's just like, you're still in bed. We got to leave in eight minutes and we're going to be late.

So Billy drags himself out of bed and gets ready to get in the car and there's tension and maybe yelling or whatever going on in the car. As soon as they get into the church doors, the parents are like, oh, hi, how are you? And they're all happy, smiling. Kids are rolling their eyes thinking, yeah, if you would have seen my parents a few minutes ago in the car. So then the kids go off to their Sunday school class and it's okay.

We've got some friends there and they like to see them and the talk is about whatever. And then they'll go into the church service later and they hear the pastor say, Paul in 2 Corinthians tells us that, you know, whatever and blah, blah, blah. But that's just what they do. That's church and they just kind of do that. Then they go home and as soon as they get home from Sunday afternoon to the next Sunday morning, it has nothing to do with church or Christianity. You don't see their parents reading their Bibles or really praying or anything. Dad's gone all the time working so many hours and Mom's frustrated that he's not home to fix this and do that and just there's all this tension.

But the next Sunday comes and it's so important to get to church on time. That's their Christian experience. And then on top of that, little Billy knows that his parents get really upset if his room is messy. And he's thinking, boy, if they ever found out that I was smoking pot once in a while with my friends or whatever it is. So he learns to hide that because he feels guilty about it and he knows his parents will go through the roof on that. And then he's going to hang out with some friends from the junior high or high school or whatever and his parents say, oh, no, you're not hanging out with those kids. You've got to do stuff with the kids from the youth group at church. And very often little Billy's thinking, boy, if you only knew the kids in the youth group, they're the ones who got me smoking pot.

My friends from the public school, they're actually pretty good kids. But he can't tell his parents that because then his friends will get in trouble and then he'll be in trouble. So that's the Christian life. And then he goes off to college and his professors tell him the Bible filled with errors and contradictions. Science has proven that there's so many different versions.

What about all the violence in the Bible and on and on and on? And he's like, yes, I knew it. And then he goes home and uses that as a weapon against his parents. His parents don't have answers. And he says, that's what I thought. My professor said, you don't know what you're talking about.

And he's gone. And then the parents want me to do something about the university. And I'm thinking, well, if you had perhaps spent a little more time with them when they're at home and teaching them God's word and all that, they would have been fine in college. In fact, they probably would have been a really strong witness there. But because they weren't prepared, they walked away.

And it's not necessarily too late, but it certainly makes it a lot more challenging. Well, you stepped on a lot of those things. I know you stepped on mine some, too, because as you were talking, I was like both. So I have two kids in college now and I'm living this life that you're talking about because I see it, you know, when their friends and the things that they are taught in school. And I was thinking about exactly what you said with church.

I remember particularly when the kids were little, you know, I don't know. I've told them I'm gonna get trouble here. My wife, I won't say she's the reason we relate.

Okay, so I'm giving a disclaimer there. But, you know, I tell Vicki, you know, you can get up and get to work every day on time, you know, Sunday, every single Sunday, we're late. And so I know exactly what you're saying. I mean, I used to get so mad, and so worked up. And then the big scheme of things that really matter, you know, that we were two minutes late, walking into Sunday school. But, but I know, you know, thankfully, the Holy Spirit, you know, convicted me that I was making it where my kids just dreaded Sunday and hated, you know, going to church because I was just getting livid, you know, every Sunday, because we were always late. And so God convicted me, I needed to do something about that, you know, so I had to change because I wanted my kids to enjoy going to church, you know, I, I miss it, you know, like you, I travel a lot, I know you probably feel the same way. I'm away from my home church many, many Sundays speaking at other churches and other places. And I miss it, you know, when I when I'm away from my church family and being fed.

You know, even though, you know, both of us speak in churches, you know, I love speaking to other people, but I like to get fed myself, you know, as well. But I had to do some things I think is and I think so I'm going to speak to fathers here. And it's important for both parents. But particularly dads, you know, the kids are looking at you as a leader of the family. And, and I realized pretty early on with my kids that I need to be intentional, where they could see me praying and see me.

Reading the Bible now not, not, you know, it wasn't for show or anything like that. But I wanted them to know that prayer wasn't just something we talked about on Sunday, but it was important and we needed to pray together. As a family, we needed to read the Bible study the Bible. And, and, you know, I think that just makes a huge difference when they know that it's part of your life and it needs to be part of your life. And, and I've seen that with both my kids, but really my son, you know, the first year of college, I think was pretty rough for him.

If he listens to this, I'll get trouble with him too. You know, because he was away from home the first time and he was younger. But this past year, he made a decision on his own, you know, that he was going to read the Bible in three months. And so he was spending about an hour a day in God's Word. And Jay, just like you were talking about when he got in God's Word, it really transformed his life because he, like you, has a very scientific and well, both my kids do an analytical mind. And he's studying to be an aerospace engineer. And he has lots of questions. He wants to understand why things work the way that they do. And when, particularly when he was looking at creation, and I know many of the things that you've written books and spoken all over the world about, when he started getting into God's Word and studying it, he saw that there really are answers and that God's Word was in fact true.

And it's really changed him. We're gonna have to take another commercial break. Folks, stick around.

Jay Seeger is our guest today. We're talking about what happens to our kids when they go to college. Are they going to lose their Christian faith?

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Visit CitizensForAmericaFoundation.com today and secure your spot to join Chris Hughes in Washington, D.C. this June. Welcome back to The Christian Perspective. My guest today is Jay Seeger. Jay is the founder of Starting Point Project, and he travels all over the world as a Christian apologist teaching people what the Bible says and how we can establish a defense of our faith and tell others what we believe and why we believe it. We've been talking today about our college kids. When they go to college, many times professors are telling them the Bible is not true, that the kids shouldn't live to their parents. They come home and there's tension in the family because the kids are now questioning things and parents can't really answer those questions.

And Jay is talking to us about how we need to understand what we believe and why we believe what the Bible has to say about us. So Jay, as kids go away, I know you've talked a little bit about attacks that kids receive, and I think you've said there are two types of attacks. Can you tell us a little bit about the attacks that come on to kids when they go to school?

Sure. I just put them into two categories. One would be the blatant attacks, and then there's ones that are a lot more subtle. You don't always realize that they're going on, and some of the subtle ones are very intentional.

Other ones are more incidental, different depending upon where you go in the situation. Sometimes you can have secular professors that are just great professors, great teachers, nice people. And other times, you know, you can get just the opposite where you have someone who is very, very caustic and very tough to deal with. And I've had personal experiences from both sides when I was in college, but the blatant ones where they're just outright attacks. And there's one particular quote from a professor from the University of Virginia that kind of sums it up. And this is certainly not every professor in every state university, but there are too many of these, and this is what he said. He said, quote, secular professors in the universities ought to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own. Students are fortunate to find themselves under the benevolence of people like me and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents. They go right on trying to discredit you parents in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. End of quote, Dr. Richard Rorty from University of Virginia. It is.

And one thing I like about it, though, is being very transparent. This is his goal to make sure that these students leave with views that he has rather than what they were brought up with. And he wants to make sure the parents look ridiculous in the eyes of their children.

That's just cleaving the family and God created the family in an order there gets these kids to disrespect their parents even more. Probably already a struggle that to begin with, but it's going to be heightened quite a bit because of what these professors are feeding the students. And one of the things that doesn't help is that it's kind of a lost art when you think of critical thinking skills. So many people do not have critical thinking skills.

And the universities and public high schools and such teach kids what to think rather than how to think. And so whatever they're told by the professor, their students are just thinking, well, this is a college professor's Ph.D. He studied this for years. He's an expert. He knows what he's talking about.

He's a sharp person. And that's the whole reason I'm here is to learn this. He's here to teach. I'm here to learn.

He knows what he's talking about. And so they just write it down and they don't even have time to really think it through. They'll want to ask questions because you don't want to be made fun of if the professor in turn attacks you. And again, you're just busy and this is going to be on the test and you need to pass the test to pass the class. You need to pass the class to get a degree. You need to get a degree to go out in the real world and get on with life.

And so no one else is really causing a problem. So you're just going to be a good student, too, and write it down and regurgitate it on the test and move on. And so it really is indoctrination because they're not thinking through things anymore. And they haven't learned the critical thinking skills even when they were at home and reading the Bible and all that and learning how to ask questions like that question. When I mentioned before, if someone says there's no evidence that God wrote the Bible, critical thinking skills would have you respond by saying, Oh, what would you accept as evidence? Give me an example of something that would count as evidence that God wrote something. What would that look like?

I'm curious. If you say it doesn't exist, what is it that you're looking to see? And you always find out they haven't thought of it. The skeptic has not thought that through. They have no examples of how in the world do they ever recognize evidence for inspiration of the Bible, and they haven't even defined it in their own mind.

They don't even know what they're looking for. That's really a great way for our students to understand how to think and to ask questions back in class. Well, do you have any experiences in your own life when you were in college where maybe professors treated you that way or got mad at you or tried to embarrass you in front of others?

Sure. I had that experience again transferring from the Christian university, going from engineering to physics at the state university. My professors, once they found out what I believed, they were somewhat hostile towards me. In particular, my geology professor, I remember the first week of class. I'm in a geology class at the state university. I don't know any other students in this class. I'm sitting in the second row. Professor doesn't know me.

I was very shy. So I'm sitting in the class. I didn't know anything about geology.

I just needed one more science class in order to get my physics degree. So I thought, huh, geology, I'll learn something there. And the first week of class, the professor starts making fun of the Bible, which kind of shocked me.

I thought, OK, I thought we're going to talk about rocks. Why is he talking about the Bible? If I wanted to talk about the Bible, he'd kick me out of class. But so he's making fun of the Bible and the students are laughing. And I felt so uncomfortable sitting in that class because I didn't know what to say.

I couldn't necessarily refute what he was saying. And I was too shy to raise my hand. I just started praying. And I just said, God, close this guy's mouth. And it was strange.

In the middle of the sentence, he stops and he said, I can't remember what I was going to say. OK, well, I guess that worked. But he did mention in class that all the planets rotated the same direction. And I had just started studying evidence for creation.

For a number of reasons, God put it in my heart. I needed to really learn that because I'm getting a degree in physics and going up against the whole concept of evolution and Big Bang. And I remember reading that two of the planets rotate backwards.

And I knew it was an issue for the Big Bang idea and the nebular hypothesis that if gases are swirling a certain way and those gases form the sun and the planets, they should all rotate the same way, but two of them actually rotate backwards. So I knew that was an issue. So I went to his office after class and just knocked on the door. Again, he didn't know who I was.

I said, I'm just a student in one of your classes. And I said, today, you mentioned that all the planets rotate the same direction. I said, actually, two of them rotate backwards. And he instantly got angry. And I could not have said it any kinder.

I just was bringing it up. And he said, no, no, no, they all rotate the same way. And I said, well, no, actually, two rotate backwards. He goes, no, no, no, they all rotate the same way. And I said, well, I could get you the documentation if you'd like to see it. He goes, yeah, you do that.

I just turned around and walked away and I was so intimidated by him. And I went and found the article. It was from Science Magazine, a secular source. And I brought it back to him two days later, knocked on his office, and was reminded that I was there a couple days ago. We were talking about the planets. And I said, you requested this documentation. So I handed it to him again.

I was being so respectful and very kind. He started reading it. And he said, well, I guess I just wasn't keeping up with the latest findings. And I said, well, that was actually 16 years ago. And I didn't say that sarcastically. I was just pointing out, this isn't a new discovery.

We've known about this for a long time. And fast-forwarding, he did not go back to the class to say, hey, you know, I mentioned this the other day. I guess I was wrong about that. He didn't say anything. And I did not raise my hand to say, hey, prof, are you going to tell everyone that you were wrong? I didn't feel it was my place to do that. I thought it would be disrespectful.

He never corrected himself. Well, a couple years later, after I graduated, I was invited back to the State University to speak to the InterVarsity Group. So I gave a talk for about an hour.

We did almost an hour of Q&A. Afterwards, I'm talking to just a group of students casually. They mentioned something that reminded me of the story with this geology professor. So I told them that story privately. I did not share that story with the whole group because he was still a professor there and I didn't want to disparage him. But I told these three students the story. And one girl, her jaw dropped. She says, I can't believe it.

She goes, I have him for a geology professor. And just yesterday, he told us all the planets rotate the same direction. So here it was probably four years later teaching the same thing as who's going to call him out and who cares. And then he treated me very differently. While I was still there at the university, sometimes he wouldn't even make eye contact with me. He wouldn't answer a question like, is the exam Tuesday or Thursday this week?

He'd walk away from me. Another time, I had asked him a question about a certain rock formation that I literally knew nothing about. I wasn't trying to make a point. I just thought, this is really cool. And I showed him this.

It was a newspaper clipping. I said, hey, do you know anything about this? And he started swearing at me. And the rest of the class was, they were all thinking, what did I do to upset him?

I didn't do anything other than ask, do you know anything about this? And he thought I was trying to make a point with it, which I wasn't. I had a lot of that from him. I had other things from my physics professor. I had other things from my thermodynamics professor and lots and lots of stories like that where you do get attacked for what you believe, but God is faithful.

He was there. He used that and put me in a crucible there to really form me into what he wanted because he had work prepared ahead of time for me to do, and then he will equip you to do that. That's so sad that that happens in a lot of colleges and universities, I think. Well, Jay, can you quickly share some tactic Christian students who are listening can use with their professors?

Sure, very quickly. Number one, be respectful. Be a good Christian example. Don't call the professor out in front of the other students. I would say only raise your hand if you want to ask a question of clarification. If you think he's wrong about something, don't say, That's wrong.

Here's the truth. But you can say, Could you explain that a little bit further? Secondarily, I would highly suggest approaching the professor outside of class in their office, and I would even recommend bringing a friend with you in case there's any conversation going on. You need a witness as to who said what, but go there and do it very tactfully and in great respect that you just want clarification on something or that you know something that you would want to share with them and see what their response might be. You don't want to get into an argument in front of the rest of the class.

It's not a good Christian testimony, and it probably won't end well because the professor will probably bring up 30 things to everyone that you might possibly think of, and those are just a few things on the surface. Well, Jay, thank you so much. We're going to have to continue this fascinating topic.

Real quickly, tell them again how they can learn more about you and get your products. Sure. You can go to our website, thestartingpointproject.com. Lots of DVDs, streaming video, booklets, books, and other resources, and again, the main thing I do is travel around and speak, plus our Grand Canyon tours, but you'll see it all there at thestartingpointproject.com.

Folks, go to The Starting Point Project. Go to his website. You'll want to have Jay come to your church. We've had him at our church. He is phenomenal. He's great. He speaks in schools and all over the country.

Please check him out and get some of his products. Jay, thanks for being with us, and folks, thank you all for joining me today. I'm Chris Hughes, and this is A Christian Perspective. Be sure to tune in here on your favorite radio station each and every day to learn how you can develop a Christian perspective. And please subscribe and like our podcast and share it with your friends on social media. Now let's go change the culture for Jesus. Thank you for listening. The Christian Perspective with Chris Hughes. Learn more about impacting the culture for Jesus. Visit citizensforamericafoundation.com. This is the Truth Network.