Why Are So Many People Leaving the Faith?

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. So, why is it that so many Christians are losing their faith?

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. So why is it that it seems, really, not just being blown up, not just being reported, not just being exaggerated, but really, many Christians are leaving the faith. Many are losing their faith. Many are in church questioning their faith. Others have dropped out entirely. I mean people who, according to everything we could see, were believers before.

They were not just part of a liberal church and professed Jesus in name only, but seem to be Bible-believing Christians. Why are so many falling away? I want to address that in a comprehensive way today. I want to be as practical as I can. We've talked about these subjects a lot in recent weeks, especially with my book Has God Failed You?

coming out last month. But I felt it was important to revisit, to go a little deeper. Here's a number to call 866-344-TRUTH. If you yourself are struggling, you're having questions, you're having doubts, you're wondering if God is real, feel free to call. If you would rather call anonymously, not even give a name or location, because you want to speak honestly but feel you can't, if someone might recognize your name or whatever, feel free to do that. You can call with questions and struggles others are having. If you no longer believe, if you are convinced what you used to believe is false, well, tell us why. Maybe I could be of help to you, or maybe it would be helpful for people to know why you believe what you believe. 866-344-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. If you have encountered objections to the goodness of God, objections to the Bible, and you don't feel like you have solid answers, maybe a meme you saw, just a little line like how do I respond to that, or something you were confronted with on a university campus, or something to come up with in your own family, let's be as constructive as we can today. Phone lines are open.

866-348-7884. A few weeks back, I did a video responding to one of the viral TikTok videos of Abraham Piper, also known as Pastor John Piper's son. Look at this New York Times headline. A pastor's son becomes a critic of religion on TikTok. John Piper is one of the most influential theologians in America. His son Abraham calls evangelicalism a destructive, narrow-minded worldview. And excerpts by some of these videos, you can see from these videos, some of you viewed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of times. He's questioning hell, he's talking about experiences he had in the missions trip, etc. This is wrong.

That's wrong. If you still live with evangelical parents, and he's light-hearted and he's got a style that obviously works well on social media, created quite a buzz, quite a following. Again, I could give you headline after headline. How about this headline? Talk about Pastor Sean McDowell, or Professor Sean McDowell, how to make sense of all the Christians deconstructing. It's an interview with Stephanie Martin, an article on Church leaders' website, and he's explaining, why is this happening?

Why are so many falling away? And then Francis Chan, Christian leader Francis Chan, said evangelical Christianity is seen as an absolute joke. This is also Stephanie Martin on Church leaders interacting with Francis Chan. At this year's recent Online Reset Summit, speakers addressed ways to lead with confidence in the post-COVID church. Chan spoke of the troubling trend of well-known Christians who have publicly abandoned the fold, quote, I'm seeing so many people, friends of mine who were in ministry, who were just saying they don't believe, or they're walking away.

I just think that's crazy. We're seeing people that we look up to, leaders fall. We're seeing the world look at evangelical Christians, and Christianity is an absolute joke right now. Every day you can just jump on Instagram and someone's saying I'm not a Christian any more. Now, on the one hand, social media and our instant access to all these opinions and views, that can give an exaggerated feel of how many are walking away, but I don't believe it's exaggerated.

I believe it really is a crisis. I know of people that were in our ministry school years back, that were in the fires of revival, that were deeply touched by God and pouring into the Word and wanted to be used by God, who no longer believe or who have radically shifted their views. And one of the best known names of people who've fallen away would be Joshua Harris, author and pastor.

Here's an interview that he did on HBO, and it's very, very sad to hear this, but check this out. As a very young man, you wrote a book that sold a million copies. Yeah, it was called I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and that got a lot of attention because it was a radical idea.

We shouldn't just not have sex, we should stop dating because dating is leading to us making these mistakes. So the first time you kissed your wife was? At the altar, yeah. I got married about a year and a half after that book was released and then dove into being a pastor and pastored a church for 17 years. I was a pastor there. And then this summer you went on Instagram and said, essentially, I don't believe.

By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I'm not a Christian. What do you mean by that? I was really just trying to be honest about the fact that all the ways that I had defined faith and Christianity, that I was no longer choosing to live according to those. Most significantly, the decision that my wife and I made to end our marriage. Since then, Joshua Harris has been even more outspoken, has apologized to the LGBT community and gone to support gay pride events.

It's very sad to hear that. Even if you say, well, the purity culture thing went too far or it was unhealthy or it was legalistic and Joshua Harris was part of that, there's no questioning his sincerity. There's no questioning that as a pastor, he seemed to care for the flock and love Jesus and love the world.

I didn't know him at all personally, never interacted with him, never read his books, but certainly we had no reason to question whether he was a solid Christian or not. And some of the others who have fallen away, we could explain this and find fault here, but we need, rather than faulting the people or throwing stones at the people, we're saying, well, obviously there wasn't a good foundation and they were wrong here or something was wrong there. Instead, we need to step back and say, okay, why are so many falling away?

I wrote down a list of six or seven different items and I want to go through them in no particular order. In other words, I'm not saying this is the first reason, this is the most prominent reason, but I want to go through these different things to talk about why so many are leaving the faith and have left the faith and what we can do about it. I was just sent a wonderful, beautiful testimony moments ago, right before going on the air, just barely had a chance to read it, but I want to share that with you in a little while about Has God Failed You?, the book that I wrote in response to it, and any good that comes out of that, trust me, I know it's all from the Lord and for the Lord's glory. But let me throw out one major factor, going to go through a list of six or seven, as to why so many people are walking away from the Lord, leaving their faith, losing their faith. One is the aggressive attack on God and the Bible over the last roughly 15 years from what is called the New Atheism or the New Atheists. There were prominent authors like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and others.

Their books became best-selling books, mega best-selling books. So, they're being read widely in the culture and attacking God, attacking the God of the Bible. Now, many who are experienced apologists and have dealt with atheism for years said this is actually a weak brand, that the atheism of past generations was more vigorous intellectually and presented tougher arguments to respond to, and of course, we have answers to those. But this was more aggressive.

This was more take no prisoners. This was more to the point of Richard Dawkins saying, you know, for Christian parents to be able to raise their children in the faith, that's not a good thing, that's not a healthy thing. They're brainwashing these children in myths and things like that. And what's happened is that those attacks, those attacks on the God of the Bible being an evil God, especially the God of the Old Testament, the Old Testament being a Bronze Age book with a Bronze Age God and outmoded, outdated ideas, that those have trickled down into the larger population. Over 100 years ago, especially starting in German seminaries, there was the rise of what's called higher criticism.

It really grew powerful in the 1800s, late 1800s, early 1900s became tremendously influential that questioned so much of the Bible, that said this never really happened, this never really happened, this person didn't exist, this event was not true, this is exaggerated. Higher criticism is what it's called. And it undermined the confidence of many pastors and leaders in the authority of Scripture. Now, higher criticism didn't really trickle down to the population as a whole. Higher criticism didn't really trickle down to your average German Christian sitting in the pew, so to say, or your average American Christian sitting in the pew. But it did trickle down to many of the pastors, to many of the seminary professors, to others now that were trained under these skeptics and now they came away lacking in confidence in the authority of Scripture, and that in turn produced a falling away in the body. If your pastor is not confident in the authority of Scripture, if your pastor is not sure that Jesus rose from the dead, if your pastor cannot simply say the Bible is God's word, if your pastor can't do that and comes in a questioning way, even if not overtly saying, we don't know if Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch and we don't know if this letter is authentic, even if he wasn't direct in saying it, the fact that he was uncertain, the fact that he couldn't preach with authority, that does have an effect. And Jonathan Goforth, used by God as a missionary to China and Manchuria in the early 1900s, said that he was seeing the effect of this. He was seeing the effect of higher criticism on these denominational pastors who are now becoming uncertain in their faith, and then many who were trained would go on to be seminary professors themselves. So that trickled its way down, hence denominations becoming more and more liberal and questioned in the authority of Scripture. But the new atheism, that directly seeped in to the general populace, to the point of Josh McDowell telling me and others that objections that he used to confront with college-age students, objections to the faith and to the Bible, he's now confronting with 12 and 13-year-olds, because they've got it by way of a TikTok video, they've got it by way of an Instagram meme, and they're just spouting this stuff out, repeating it without even understanding the nature of it. We've got to deal with this, friends. That's one reason. One reason. 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. Thanks friends for joining us on the Line of Fire, 866-34-TRUTH. Are you struggling with your own faith? Do you have friends, family members who have left the faith or lost their faith? Are there objections, issues you're confronted with that you don't have answers for? Or you're struggling to come up with better answers? Give me a call.

866-348-7884. One reason I've given for many falling away from the Lord is the rise of new atheism, best-selling books, overt attacks on the God of the Bible, overt attacks on the Bible itself, and those have trickled down to the man and woman in the local church, to kids being raised in church, to the larger general public, and because of that, there has been a crisis in faith for many. My friend, Professor Darrell Bock, said that years ago, you used to be able to say it's true because it's in the Bible. Now you have to say it's in the Bible because it's true. People say, well, should I believe that book? Who cares about what's written there? It's outdated.

It's outmoded. That's why my book, Has God Failed You? I have two whole chapters that deal with the attack on the Bible as an outdated, bigoted book.

Okay, that's one reason. A second reason that many are falling away ties in with what Jesus said in Matthew 24, 12, that because iniquity will abound, the love of many will wax cold. Obviously this has happened in different ways in different generations, but no generation in world history has ever had such access to such an array of temptation and sin that this generation has. You know, if you struggled with pornography in the past, well, let's say you lived in a Christian home. You can't subscribe to a pornographic magazine.

Are you going to try to go into the city somewhere and find a porno theater? You'd have to maybe go sneak in somewhere, buy a magazine and sneak away and look at it. You just didn't have access to porn. Now a kid with a cell phone can access things that I didn't know existed when I was shooting heroin at the age of 16. I'm talking about all kinds of stuff that didn't even know was out there. Just that one area, sexual temptation, which is so strong and pornography, which is so powerful and so addictive that that's just available in ways like never before. And then just things that can distract us, things that can take our time endlessly and pollution on different levels. So the availability of sin, the availability of temptation, the constant pull, that's something new.

That's something beyond anything we've ever had. Yes, so sin has always been there on a certain level right here. But look at this. Of course, sin's been in society since the fall. We understand that and pervasive and available and people can go anywhere with their thought life.

But think of this. If you are a single guy living in a small town and there are two single gals there that you find utterly repulsive in every way and, you know, you want to have a relationship and so on, well, there's only so much available and maybe they find you repulsive. But if you live in a city and there are hundreds of prostitutes in your city and there are every kind of person looking for a one-night stand and every kind of person you can date short term, long term, you're going to mess up more sexually than in the other setting.

I mean, just an obvious thing. If you're an alcoholic and you got a bar right, you know, you're in an apartment on top of a bar, you're probably going to get into more trouble drinking in the liquor store next to you than if you live 50 miles away from the nearest liquor store or bar. So this is another issue. This is another thing.

Okay. The third factor that has contributed to so many falling away is the shallow American church, that we've had a full generation plus of preaching a watered down message, a watered down gospel, trying to cater to people rather than bring people to God, to make God acceptable to people rather than make people acceptable to God, not bringing them into a real encounter with God, a real repentance experience where they see the holiness of God, see their own sin or gloriously beautifully wonderfully born again, truly empowered and filled with the Spirit. Yes, some people start there and still fall away, but it's a lot harder to. It's a lot harder to fall away when you've really had that deep encounter with God. So our shallow gospel message has also contributed to the perfect storm, the lack of encounter with God, the watered down gospel that doesn't really change people. And then with that, with that, a fourth factor, a church hypocrisy.

Yeah, just looking at my, yeah, got my order here. Church hypocrisy. When you hear scandal after scandal, when you hear well-known leader after well-known leader, this one in sexual sin, this one in financial sin, this one drinking, this one doing this, this one doing that, you better believe that has a negative trickle-down effect. You better believe people wonder, is this thing real? Or if that was, if he who was so strong in his message was privately living like this, who can I trust?

I can't trust you. Why should I believe what you're saying? And does the gospel really change people? And are they all charlatans? So you have that negative effect. And then the politicizing of the church, to the extent that evangelicals in particular have been associated with politics and a political party, then we become as guilty as the party. In other words, the whole political system is a mixture and often corrupt. So some of us became better known, say, as supporters of Donald Trump than followers of Jesus. If you went to, you know, Facebook pages of social media, you'd see more posts about that than the gospel being preached.

So then whatever he does wrong, now we're kind of guilty by default, guilty by association. So the politicizing of the church has driven many people away. And then LGBT issues.

As odd as it may seem, when you have such a tiny minority that for so much of our history was just rejected, our spies marginalized, that they have become so supported, popular. Obviously, kids still suffer and people get rejected. I understand that. But the fact is there has been the celebration of gay. And the church has looked at it as mean-spirited. And why does God hate gay people?

And you've got a gay friend, gay coworker, gay family member, transgender coworker, friend, family member, and you just want to love that person and support them. You're convinced they're born this way. They can't change.

This is who they are. Why does the church not embrace them? Why does the church say this is wrong? So solidarity with gay and lesbian community has changed many people to change their theology. And then with that, those that are secretly struggling, you know, maybe you're a pastor and you're in a heterosexual marriage with kids and preaching, but deep down you're struggling with same-sex attraction. And finally, you get to the breaking point and you come out and say, I don't believe any of this anymore.

And the biggest reason is not so much that you've thought through philosophical and intellectual arguments about the existence of God and the trustworthiness of scripture, but rather you're thinking, if God says I can't be gay, then I just have to reject God. And the next thing you're announcing that you're in relationship with someone of the same sex. For many young people, it's not that. It's not their own attractions. It's their friendships.

It's their sense of solidarity with others. It's this belief that the God of the Bible is somehow mean and hates gays. And why is he punishing my friend and sending him to hell?

If God made him gay, why is he sending him to hell? I mean, that's how the argument gets oversimplified. So that's a real factor.

It is a real undeniable cultural factor that we must deal with and have answers for. It's a major reason that I wrote the book Has God Failed You? Finding faith when you're not even sure God is real. Now, I'm going to go to your calls in a moment. 866-34-TRUTH and a wide range of comments, questions that are coming in as I look to our calls. So I do want to get to those shortly, but we'll pick that up on the other side of the break.

I don't want to rush things. Let me just read this testimony, though. It just came in and it really blessed me. It's from Chad. I posted this on Facebook. I believe I know his family. His dad died suddenly about a year ago. He said, I'm not usually like this. Most days you're lucky to get a sentence out of me when it comes to my feelings, but I'm going to be vulnerable here and be honest with you guys and myself.

Posted this on his Facebook page. My relationship with the Lord has been rough lately. I'm not going to lie or sugarcoat it.

It's been almost non-existent, but before I go any further, let me make myself clear. I have and never will leave or renounce my faith in God. There have been too many things and times in my life that I've experienced his love, seen him move in only ways he could, but I'd be lying if I haven't struggled with my relationship more the past year plus than I ever have in my life. I've dealt with so much loss, pain, health, confusion, countless friends, people that I've looked up to for years renounce their faith and jump trains to some other kind of faith. I've been dealing with all the hard questions in life lately like why didn't God answer this prayer and why do I feel like God is just sitting up there not even listening to me while all along being seriously upset with God, but at the same time believing in him. Then I stumbled across a post from one of my Facebook friends that just finished reading Dr. Brown's new book titled Has God Failed You? Of course the title jumped out at me and I felt it was very timely and for me so I picked up a copy all along wondering to myself if it would even really help, if I could get anything out of it. When I started reading it, I didn't even make it to the second page of the book and this is what I read, quote, what makes me think, these are my words, what makes me think I could possibly help you?

What magic formula can I supply? What can I tell you that you've not already heard? Maybe you suffered a devastating loss, something that was almost impossible to bear, but what made things even worse was you felt abandoned by God. With tears of anguish, you cried out, where are you? To this day, you still wonder where was God when I was hurting? Why didn't God let me feel his presence? Why didn't he speak to me or send help my way when I needed him the most? What kind of God is that if he even exists?

Or is there something just wrong with me? And he says, when I read that, I broke. All right, a little bit more of the testimony I'll share on the other side of the break and then straight to your calls. Why are so many leaving the faith? Why are so many Christians leaving their faith, losing their faith, renouncing their faith, including Christian leaders?

86634, truth, going to go to the phones momentarily. This testimony from a reader of my new book, Has God Failed You? Finding faith when you're not even sure God is real. A book that at times I literally wrote on my knees, literally on my knees with a computer by the bedside saying, God, I don't have answers.

My words are inadequate. You've got to give me the wisdom, the insight, the ability to reach and touch and help. So from a young man who is going through a real difficult struggle last year plus, the greatest struggle of faith he had, after reading the book, this is what he said. I finished the book now and can honestly say it's one of the best books I've ever read. If you're struggling in your relationship with God or wondering why your prayers haven't been answered or why do people experience pain or wonder if the Bible is even real, you are not alone.

But don't stay there. I'm not saying read this book and all your problems will be solved, but if there's a chance at all that it will help do it, it has helped me tremendously. And he said this on his Facebook page, and I'm not putting this out on radio and intradet, but on his Facebook page he said, if that's you or someone you know, I want to buy you a copy of this book free.

Seriously, just send me your name and address and I will mail you one free. I'm offering this because I feel the Lord asked me to, and if there's a chance that it would even help just one person, then it was worth it to me. God bless you. I am so thrilled to hear that. That's why we wrote the book Real Life Struggles with Real People in Real Pain. So, so pleased to hear that. May the Lord be glorified.

May many others be helped. And when I went through a list earlier in the broadcast about the major reasons why so many are leaving their faith, I didn't say increase in scientific knowledge, because I don't believe that's the case at all. I believe it's the reverse, that the more we learn scientifically, the more there has to be a God, a creator, an intelligent designer, that there's no other option for it. That to deny intelligence behind it and the order and purpose behind it is to deny scientific evidence. But, many get hit with objections that have answers, but they don't know the answers are there.

And there are many other reasons I didn't list, but I listed most of the principal ones. With that, as promised, we go to your calls, and we'll start with Dan in Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thank you. So I think that the problem a lot of times, you hit it with number three, is people lack of the watered-down gospel message. If someone truly understood what Christ did for them on the cross by paying their debt and making them righteous, that sense of gratitude allows you to operate in faith, not blind faith, but out of gratitude. And what happens when you start questioning a lot of things, you're doing it not from gratitude, just like the parable of the man who got forgiven his great debt and then went out and started choking someone that owed him ten bucks. That's a parallel to a lot of Christians, especially the watered-down version, where, you know, homosexuality is so rejected and so vile for so many years, and yet adultery and fortification is, you know, hit with a knot and a wink. And so it's out of gratitude for what Christ did for us that actually will keep your faith growing as you realize the depth of that debt paid. So, Dan, there's no question that when someone has a real conversion experience, you know, even Spurgeon in his day talked about a superficial message that rather than people, the nooses around the neck, they're about to be hung as condemned men, and then the pardon is given, you know, their gratefulness is much greater than the person just kind of, kind of deal with God.

Yeah, sure, I'll start at serve. You see how that works. And certainly there's a lot of bleeding of members from liberal churches where people didn't really hear the gospel and weren't really saved.

The others, so I absolutely agree on that side. The other side is people go through a crisis and they wonder, is God even there? Did this whole thing Jesus, you know, did he really exist?

Did he die? I mean, I don't know if he died for my sins or is any of it real? And that's when that foundation gets hit and you minister the truth to them that you just shared with me. And like, I don't even know if it's real. I don't, I used to believe it, but I don't know. I mean, I've gone, you know, XYZ has happened and maybe question whether the Bible is true or God's really there. That's where it can become really difficult. But Dan, hey, thank you for winning in with that. I appreciate it. And you know, that's, the problem is when someone's like, oh, you're quoting the Bible to me, but I don't know if the Bible is true.

You're telling about Jesus, but I don't even know if any of what was written about him really happened. And that's when, by God's grace, we have to find out what's going on and why and help get to the root of it and get them back. Hey, thank you for weighing in. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Brad in St. Louis, Missouri. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey, how you doing? Doing well, thank you.

Well, my name is Brad Keane. I've got my own thing called God TV Radio Show, and I have a different idea on why we're seeing a lot of these changes in society with person. If you don't mind me sharing my view. My view is like yourself, you're doing social media.

I'm doing social media. We reach out to many, many more people than we could normally do in a local church. And I think a lot of Christians, they've got, they either feel their preachers are too hardcore or they're too soft, and they feel like they want to be the preacher. They want to be the one that spreads the message. And where else can they do it on the internet?

You don't have to pay big bills. You can get 10,000 subscribers watching you and listening to you. Being that I do a show, I'm around a lot of very, very popular Christians from all over the world, and I don't see any real major decline. Sure, there's an atheist movement there on social media, but they're getting clobbered with all the great arguments that philosophers and Christians have been bringing forth.

Yeah, well, Brad, let me say this. I'm glad that you're not seeing decline in those regards. If you look statistically, the profession of Christian faith in America in a decade has gone inherently through prophecy. That would mean that every word spoken by every prophet is always perfect and inherent. It is the written word alone that can lay claim to being the word of God. Prophecies at best are a word from the Lord to be tested by the word of God.

So just having a conversation about that, Alan in Charleston, West Virginia, back to you, wanted to hear your final comments. Yeah, so Dr. Brown, so what you're saying is that I can actually give a word from God and it could be incorrect. Is that what you're telling me? Well, it's not a word from God. You think it is, but it's not.

No, no, no, that's what I'm trying to get. If God gives anybody a word, me, you, your mom, your dad, whoever, if we speak what God says, whether you're an Old Testament prophet or a new, I know they're not equal, but whatever, it's not equal with scripture, I know that, but whatever God tells you, that word will be true and will come to pass. Now, whether we get the interpretation wrong or the application wrong, when God speaks, it's true. And I agree with me on this, the people that are speaking today, especially with the COVID and the Trump prophecy, that don't even apply to this in part, no in part, the prophesying part. These people did not hear from God. That's just plain and simple.

It might be blunt, but these people did not hear from God where Donald Trump would be president. Right. So, so here's the other angle to that, Alan, which is that God may give me a word, right? And then I add to it when I deliver it. Right.

So it has to be sifted. And so again, we're kind of nuanced in this point and for people who don't believe in anything to say, what are you talking about? Well, have you ever gotten something from the Lord, maybe a sense about something or strong feeling or a strong impression, and then you kind of add it to it or you presume something, you know, the Lord showed you, you're going to get a certain job. So you went ahead and quit your job. It's like, no, you're six months too early. And so we can often do that, add our two cents to it.

That's why things must be tested. Hey, Alan, thanks. Thanks for the call. So conversation that I was just having with one of our staff members right before radio today was the, the profits who continue to hold their ground and say, Trump is the real president. He's the authentic president. And he did when he went on a landslide and the election got stolen. So my question is, well, number one, we weren't asking an arbitrary quote. You weren't giving, you weren't giving arbitrary information in advance as to who's going to win the election, but it was going to be stolen. Rather you were telling us who the next president would be sitting in the white house. Right. And right now it's not Donald Trump. The other thing is if you really had this word, then you should have also had with it, but it's going to be stolen because always what's the use of saying is going to win. If it's, that's the whole question that was being asked, who's going to win.

Right. But what if just theoretically, what if this conversation we were having before radio, what if people were getting a sense that Trump's going to win? In fact, the election would be stolen through fraud. Joe Biden would then be president, but that this was all an answer to prayer because God's trying to teach the church and then reveal fraud and all this stuff.

All right, let's just say that. So these, some of these prophets had some of the truth, but then put their interpretation on it. What if things had been properly vetted? Then people might've said, yeah, we sense he's going to win, but he's going to lose at the same time. This is the very conversation we're having before.

So that would be a matter of getting part. And now I think you have the whole, just throwing that out because remember that the old Testament prophets go to first Peter one thought that the prophecies they were seeing about the sufferings of the Messiah and his glory were for them. Maybe even taking the pledge of their own lives. God said, no, no, it's for future generations. This is what happens with prophecy.

This is why we have to be so careful, rightly understanding and interpreting. All right, let's, uh, let's go to Bobby in San Luis Obispo, California. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello, uh, Dr. Brown.

Love your show. Uh, this is right in line with what you were just talking about. I was going to ask you personally, uh, Dr. Brown, do you believe the election was stolen and Trump should have been present? I don't know.

I wrote about this some months ago saying that some of my colleagues, very, very solid people, researchers, PhDs and statistics, people with inside information have insisted that the election was stolen, that it can be demonstrated. I do not have a, the expertise to look into this, be the time, the birds will not be live talking to me. I honestly, up to three minutes, but if we, if we choose to play excerpts on the air, then we can only have so much time in, in doing so. So, uh, keep it under three minutes.

Under two is even better. And if you could say it more concisely great, but 1-800-618-8480. That's the number to call. What was your experience with so-called purity culture, positive or negative 1-800-618-8480. 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 866-342. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Remember friends, just because you haven't been tested in one area doesn't mean others aren't tested. Just because an answer satisfies you doesn't mean it satisfies someone else. Just because you haven't struggled with your faith doesn't mean that others aren't struggling. And sometimes, because we've never been through a challenge, a test, we just, we're not sensitive. We're not empathetic. We're not understanding when someone shares their challenge, their test, their struggle with us.

And that's a quick thing to realize. Okay, my answer seems very superficial to this person. My response seems to be in one ear and out the other.

I'm missing something. And sometimes you just pray, Lord, help me to understand what this person is going through. And if you realize, I don't have what you need, well, provide a listening ear at least, a praying heart and a listening ear. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Sean in Omaha, Nebraska. Welcome to the line of fire. Hello.

Hello, Mr. Michael Brown. How are you? Doing good.

Thanks, Sean. Yeah, so I'm a 15-year-old struggling with this faith right now. I was having to deal with, because I'm going through the Bible saying if it's trustworthy or not, I'm going through Genesis right now, and I'm struggling with the creation account and the flood, mostly. And I try to... Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, and I try to bring info, and I try to bring to God about it, but He's not answering. How would you expect...

I'm stuck. Yeah, hey, Sean, thanks for calling and being so open. How would you expect God to answer you? I honestly don't know.

I was hoping He'd give me something, like I don't know, maybe a personal conversation or something. Right. Now, I mean, that would be nice if it would happen like that at every level. I mean, that'd be awesome. Like, God, why is this going on?

Why is that going on? Obviously it doesn't always happen like that, and there are aspects where God wants us to learn to trust Him, but then you have to have some basis for trust. Like, I'm not going to put my trust in a tree or a piece of steel or an animal. Why should I put my trust in this invisible deity?

So you have to have some reason to trust Him, and I want to come to that in a minute. But why do you think Genesis 1 is in the Bible? To get a foundation for the rest of it. Right. So, excellent.

What is it that we're supposed to take away from Genesis 1? I mean, the world. Okay. Maybe.

Maybe. So, I got a question for you. Has science changed its views about things over the centuries? Very much.

Okay. So, a thousand years ago, if you said that the sun goes around the earth, everyone would think you were correct, right? That's what people used to believe. Yeah, they used to believe the sun went around the earth. If you told them, no, no, no, the earth goes around the sun, they would all think you're crazy. Mm-hmm.

Okay. So, if the Bible—if Genesis 1 was mainly there to teach us science, then the problem is every generation would think it was wrong until science got things right. That if the Bible talked about, for example, the earth going around the sun, everyone would have thought a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago, three thousand years ago, people like you, Sean, reading it, you think, the Bible is wrong.

It's false. And then when science would get things right and science is still learning, still changing views, then you say, oh, so the Bible had it right. The Bible's not there—Genesis 1 is not there to teach us so much about science and the creation of the universe.

It's to tell us about what kind of God he is. Read Genesis 1, not so much trying to figure out how the universe was created, but more what it tells you about God, because the Bible is God's book. So, it starts—not by talking about science, because science keeps changing its views all the time. My wife was watching—Nancy was watching a video with these scientists talking about the universe, and they're saying, it looks like almost everything we thought we knew is not right, and we have to look at it from another angle.

And these are contemporary scientists. So, the whole purpose of Genesis 1 is to teach you who God is. So, when you read that, it talks about a God who brings light out of darkness. It talks about a God who brings order out of chaos. It talks about a God of abundance who causes everything to reproduce after its own kind. It tells us about human beings being on a higher plane than everyone else. And then, it talks about us being created male and female, the importance of male and female distinctives and God's order for mankind. That's the main thing we learn from it. And there are scientists who debate back and forth—is the Bible accurate scientifically or not?

That's an interesting debate, but that's not why it's there. So, when you go through the rest of the Bible, like all the things about light and darkness and walking in the light versus walking in the darkness, or God's power over the powers of chaos and things like that, that's why it's there. If you step back and read it again and just say, pray this prayer to God, open my eyes as I read your word. And maybe you're getting an answer to prayer that I can give you some wisdom in this.

And by the way, I spent many years studying these texts and got a PhD in these ancient languages like Hebrew and Aramaic and Babylonian and all of that, so I could read these texts in their ancient context. And it was in that way that I realized, well, why is this here? It's not here primarily to tell us about science, but to tell us about who God is. So, if you just pray, God, give me spiritual insight as I read. Open my heart and my mind, and then read through the rest of the Bible. What does it say about day and night, about light and darkness, about order and chaos? Then you'll start to see who God is, and that's why it's there. Does that make some sense to you?

I think so, yeah. Chew on that some more. And then again, yeah, the Bible is saying, six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and refer to that with a 24-hour days, this just means days of creation, which could be, you know, eons. That can be debated. But God put it there so you could learn about Him.

That's why it's there. Learn about Him as the Creator. When you read the flood accounts, what's given you the biggest problem with those, Sean? Today, science says there was no flood account. Wait, or a global flood. Right.

So, what science does rec... So, then there's the debate. Is the Bible talking about a localized flood when it says the world? Does it just mean the earth, the Middle Eastern region? You know, there's that debate. So, you know, some would argue that. I believe that the Bible is talking about a universal flood, but then there are geologists, there are archaeologists, there are others that would say, oh, there's no question that all around the world, in virtually every society where you go, you have accounts of a flood that destroyed everything.

So, the question is, why do you have these accounts all around the world? Many would say it's the only way we can understand certain geological layers and how things are. I'd encourage you to check out two websites along with the things that I've shared. Check out creation.com and just type in flood and look for information there, creation.com and then reasons.org, creation.com and reasons.org. One will give you answers to these questions based on the perspective that the universe is old and the earth is old. Others will give you answers based on the perspective that the earth is young, but they'll all be intellectual. They'll be scientific, they'll be intellectual and then you can sift through, okay, what seems to be the most accurate to you? And then, would you like a copy of the book that I wrote, Has God Failed You?

Because part of it, I don't deal with science so much, but I do deal with questions about the existence of God and the reliability of scripture. I'd be glad to send you a free copy if you'd like to receive it. Sure. All right. Tell you what, stay right here, Sean. I want to say this last thing though and then Rachel's going to get your info.

I'm not going to put you on a mailing list or anything, just want to send you this as a gift. The key thing is having a personal relationship with the Lord. Is there any point in your life where you feel that you've really come to know him personally, that you know your sins are forgiven and Jesus is savior?

Is it more something you're exploring? No, I've served him for most of my life. It's only now that I'm starting to really have my faith challenged like that. Got it. All right.

Well, good. So, Sean, I say good, not that your faith has been challenged, but good that you had the foundation. God's going to get you through this.

God's going to help you as you lean on him and look to him. And rather than looking for that conversation where you're just having a back and forth about every little verse and question, say, God, open my heart. Open my mind as I read your word. Give me insight.

Open my heart and it'll do that. All right. Rachel's going to get your info and I want to send you a copy of Has God Failed You? And I'm so glad you're asking honest questions. God's going to give you wisdom. And remember, his biggest thing is to reveal himself to you.

All right, friends, we are out of time. Dustin, hey, maybe we can take your call tomorrow or Friday as I'm just looking at some questions coming up. If you're struggling with your own faith, own questions, please give me a call.

You can always write to us and ask drbrown.org, askdrbrown.org, where it says contact. All right, back with you tomorrow. The Lord is faithful. If you call out to him, my friend, he will, he will get you through.