Apologizing

Wake up, everyone. It's time for The Steve Noble Show, where biblical Christianity meets the everyday issues of life, in your home, at work, and even in politics. Steve is an ordinary man who believes in an extraordinary God, and on his show, there's plenty of grace and lots of truth, but no sacred cows. Call Steve now at 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH, or check him out online at TheSteveNobleShow.com. And now, here's your host, Steve Noble.

Well hello, all of you. Steve Noble, folks. This is not The Steve Noble Show today.

Well, it is. This is Steve's equally obnoxious friend, Chris Connell, filling in for Steve, and today we're talking about apologizing. Yep, every Christian, every follower of Christ should be a fanatic about apologizing. We should be professional apologizers. What am I talking about? Well, I'm talking about the subject, the topic of apologetics, and what it is, and what it means.

We live in a very skeptical world, with skeptical people that have a lot of questions, and a lot of biblical ignorance now in these days, and so apologizing is the subject today on The Steve Noble Show. If you have a question that you'd like to bring up, a hard question for Dr. Hazen I'll bring on in a moment, you can call 866-348-7884-866-34-TRUTH, and talk to Morgan there, and they can give me that question. I probably won't bring you live on the air because we've got a lot to cover, and not a lot of time, so the first thing I'd like to do is I would like to bring my guest on the air, and so I'd like to bring Dr. Hazen, Dr. Craig Hazen, welcome to The Steve Noble Show, it's good to have you here. Are you there, Dr. Hazen?

I am here. Alright, here we go, gotcha. Well listen, I'm going to introduce you to the folks, Dr. Hazen, you have a PhD from the University of California, an MA from there as well, a BA from the California State University, you are the founder and director of the master's program with a concentration in Christian apologetics, and director of the master's program with a concentration in science and religion at Biola University, you are the editor of Philosophia Christi, I'm laughing because I don't think I pronounced it right, a philosophy journal, he is also the author of the monograph, The Village Enlightenment in America, the acclaimed apologetics novel, Five Sacred Crossings, and he's written dozens of articles and chapters in various books and journals, he is a recipient of the Fisher Award, the highest faculty honor at Biola, and he's lectured across North America and Europe on key apologetics topics, including lectures on Capitol Hill and in the White House, he is a popular church and conference speaker and a former co-host of a national radio talk program, and I think Dr. Hazen has the best head of hair and apologetics on the planet, I just want to say that right now. Oh my goodness, hey, thanks for that warm introduction. No problem. Well, Dr. Hazen, I serve at a church in Raleigh, North Carolina, you're out there in the La Mirada, California, which I believe is a suburb of LA, if I know my geography well, and you just came out to the Raleigh area to do an event called Biola on the Road, and it was on apologetics, and you know, the number one question we got from the 620 or 700 or so folks that came out for that Friday night and Saturday last weekend, the number one question was, what is apologetics?

That was the number one question. So let me start with that, Dr. Hazen, when we talk about apologizing, what in the world are we talking about? What is apologetics?

You know, that's a burden I've been having to carry for years. You know, what in the world does it mean? I run a graduate program that has, at its core, this strange word, apologetics, and it used to mean something really strong and offering a robust defense of your faith. And now it's, you know, devolved over time so that it means just basically saying, I'm sorry. And if you're attending an apologetics conference like we had, they think, you know, I'm going in to learn how to apologize in different languages or different postures or something. Sure. So Dr. Hazen, you've been serving in this field of apologetics for a long time. And I'm curious, what's your story?

Why did you decide to go into apologetics? Yeah. Hang on one second, I got a little problem on my end. Yep. Let me make sure I can get this fixed up.

We're just having a little bit of technical problems. Can you hear me now? Yep.

Can hear you just fine. Oh, nice. Yes.

I keep talking to myself on the phone. Right. Well, you know, Dr. Hazen, I do believe there's a place in hell for technology. I'm not sure if that's biblically accurate or doctrinally sound, but I do believe that. So again, what drew you to the subject of apologetics? Well, I became a Christian as a senior in high school. And I was at the time a bit of the, you know, the campus atheist or agnostic. And I know a whole lot of people were praying for me and all. But I wasn't that antagonistic to the Christians, but I just thought it wasn't true.

And I was pretty convinced that, you know, maybe it could be true, but there's just no way to ever know that. And so that was a question that was just bouncing around in my heart and mind for years before I actually heard the gospel clearly. And so as a senior in high school, I hear the gospel. So did you grow up in a Christian home? Did you grow up in a Christian home? I did not. No. Okay.

Did you grow up in a Christian home? I didn't. And so this is all very new. And so when I hear the gospel, I respond and I get a chance to start thinking more clearly about the questions that I had. And it was a long list. And I really did need to get those things resolved in order to really make that deep commitment.

And guess what? I've been following Christ for almost 50 years now, and so clearly I had those things resolved. I think Christianity can answer the tough questions. Yo, you know, what I find amazing is that, Dr. Hazen, is that they're the same questions. I don't find, as I study apologetics, I don't find new questions, I just find the same ones being asked over and over again. Have you found that to be true yourself? Oh, sure. I mean, even through history.

I mean, I go way back to the first generation of Christians and read the kind of questions that they were answering and responding to, and that they carried with them themselves. Same basic question, a little bit different context often, but the same basic question. All right. If you'll just stay with us, Dr. Hazen. We are on the Steve Nova show talking about apologizing, apologetics, defending the faith where our guest host, Dr. Craig Hazen of Biola University, will be right back after the break.

To have a hard question answered, and they need it to be done in such a way that it gives them something to think about. Welcome back. We are on the Steve Nova show. This is Chris Connell filling in for Steve today.

Apologizing is the subject. We're talking with Dr. Craig Hazen, who is the director of a Christian apologetics at Biola University in La Mirada, California, and I'm going to bring him back on the air right here. And Dr. Hazen, welcome back. It's good to have you here on the Steve Nova show.

Good to be back. So we were talking a moment ago about your story and what drew you to apologetics, and you didn't grow up in a Christian home. You had some hard questions. And what was it that made you decide, you know, I'm going to invest my life in this subject? Well, you know, I was strangely moved by it.

I mean, your whole audience probably has the same kind of experience. At some point in their life, Jesus touched them, and it was profound and life-changing. So I had that same experience, but I also was carrying with me a whole slew of questions that needed to be answered. And some of them were simple, some of them were complex. I think one thing that really captured my imagination earlier was, what about the other great world religious traditions like Buddhism and Islam and Hinduism? We can even throw the Mormons in there.

What about all those? You know, sure, I've committed myself to the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm following him closely, but I'm a little uneasy because I don't know anything about these other challengers, these other world religions that seem to give Christianity a run for it to money. And I believe that you studied that, if I remember right, that's one of your degrees.

I did. In fact, that indicates basically how profound this question was for me. Although I majored in biology as an undergraduate student, I went on to do an MA and a PhD in religious studies, basically comparative religions, and I did that at a very secular school. It wasn't a place where a Jesus-loving, Bible-reading Christian goes. And it was a hostile territory, no doubt about it.

I kind of thrived in that environment, so I loved every second of it. But I also got a lot of my basic questions answered, you know, what is Buddhism all about? And Islam and Hinduism and so on. And all along the way, I was comparing these movements with my traditional, but rather new Christian beliefs. And I was stunned. I was stunned to find out that Christianity was truly unique and set apart in dramatic fashion from the other great world religious traditions. Did you find in your studies, did you ever run into moments where you yourself had doubts or you thought, aha, you know, here's a fault in Christianity that I don't have an answer for?

You know, I didn't. Early on as a Christian, when I first became a Christian, there were some things, you know, I think the devil was trying to plant some seeds of doubt in me. And by the way, I'm fine with doubt. Doubt can actually lead to greater strength of commitment if you actually get your questions answered. Some people, they have doubts, they have questions, and then they fail to actually just look around to find how these things have been answered through the history of the church.

And the answers are all readily available. So early on, I did have some doubts that led to some important growth. But by the time I got to this hostile graduate program in religious studies, I think every day was a faith builder for me, because I would hear the answers that were coming forth from these other traditions.

And they just didn't hold a candle to what Jesus was bringing to the table. You know, one of the things that I find in our culture, and I don't know if it's just Western culture, Dr. Hazen, or if it's, you know, the whole world, but there seems to be a popular notion right now in our culture that faith is the same thing as make-believe. So that if you put your trust, your faith in Jesus, or even in any other religion, it really doesn't matter what you believe in, because it's just kind of make-believe. It's like believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. And it's almost this idea that you've got to check your brain at the door.

Do you find that to be true as a fundamental assumption in our culture? Oh, I think that is the... People often ask me, so you do apologetic, you answer people's tough questions about Christianity, what's really the toughest question you run into, or the most prevalent question? And it's exactly that. That people don't think, they don't take Christianity seriously because they think it's all about blind leaping.

It's all about blind leaping. So they think anybody who chooses their religion basically closes their eyes and just leaps into the religious abyss, you know, hoping beyond hope that whatever they're jumping into is going to be the right thing. Yeah, I, you know, I had a grandfather that was an atheist and then he became an agnostic and then there's a cool story I'll have to tell some other time, but about a month before he passed, he gave his life to the Lord. And one of the things he would say to me, Dr. Hazen, through the years when I was in Bible college myself and I, you know, I'd visit with him because he lived in the same state that I was going to college in and so I would spend weekends with him and we would have these really open dialogues and he completely disagree with me. We did so respectfully, thankfully, but one of the things was that fundamentally he really didn't think that there were intelligent people that, you know, he estimated to be intelligent. I'll just say it that way, that were followers of Christ, he really thought you had to check your brain at the door and that seems to still be a prevalent thought process in our culture today.

Yeah, it's just not the case at all, my goodness. Two of my faculty colleagues at Biola University have been voted among the top 50 living philosophers on the planet today. Notice I didn't say Christian philosophers, they happen to be Christians, a wonderful conservative Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christian. And yet they've been voted in as the top, you know, two of the top 50 living philosophers on the planet today. I mean, that's the kind of intellectual firepower and intellectual caliber that we have on the Christian side.

It's really stunning. Let me read a quick blurb from an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, this took place a couple of years ago, and it was just so interesting, I printed it out and they carry it with me. There's an engineering professor at the University of Southern California, and he says this, he's given a definition of faith, faith is unwarranted belief, faith is belief without evidence or despite evidence to the contrary, faith occurs when a person believes that something is true, even though he suspects that it's false. I did not sign up for that, whatever he's describing, I didn't sign up for that. I think that idea of faith is completely misguided. And notice what really he's got going here is faith equals blind believing. That is not what faith is in the Bible. Faith is following that which you can know clearly, in fact, that God wants you to know clearly. Faith is trust.

See, I can have all the knowledge in the world and still not have faith in God, because what I need to do in order to have faith is to trust and to move out in his work and in his life. Dr. Hazen, let me jump in there because we're going to go to the break, but that is a fascinating thought on what faith is with Dr. Craig Hazen of Biola University apologizing, talking about apologetics and arguing the faith. If you've got a hard question, 866-348-7884, call in and give them that question. We'll get it to Dr. Hazen. We'll be right back after the break. This is The Steve Noble Show. We're back.

This is The Steve Noble Show. This is guest host Chris Connell filling in today, apologizing. Every fall of Christ should be good at apologizing.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the subject of apologetics. We're honored to have on the air with us today Dr. Craig Hazen, director of the Christian apologetics program at Biola University. Dr. Hazen, before we go any further, would you talk a little bit about Biola and your apologetics program, and if somebody wanted to get involved, what they could do? Yes, you may not have heard of Biola University, but it's a 115-year-old Christian university in Southern California and has had one of the finest master of arts degree programs in philosophy and the finest master of arts degree program in apologetics on the planet for years. If anybody out there wants to earn a master's degree, you can actually do it fully in a distance now and not leave your beautiful part of the country to come to Los Angeles.

That can be rough. But we've got a wonderful program, and it's been ranked top in the world, and we'd be delighted to have you. We also have a certificate program in apologetics that's open to everybody.

We've had junior high students do it, and people who have a couple of PhDs do it. Really? You can find out all about this as you go to Biola, B-I-O-L-A, then just a space and then Apologetics, Biola Apologetics in Google will get you right to us.

Yeah. There's a question I wanted to ask you, Dr. Hazen, about apologetics, and that is, it's not really an apologetics question, but I grew up in an independent charismatic background. So I grew up with fantastic worship and really bad doctrine and a horrible church government, right?

But great worship. And I went into an Assemblies of God university, and I'm now licensed with that denomination, which is an evangelical group. And I will tell you that this subject of arguing for the faith, the philosophy, using philosophy to be able to reason for the faith was not something that I heard in that church environment growing up.

I didn't really hear about it much at the university level either. And one of the fundamental questions I have now as a pastor and a church leader is, why has this subject been such a challenge for the evangelical church? Because I feel like we're behind the eight ball, in a sense, because the statistics on the number of young people who leave the faith going to college, and I think partly because they have hard questions thrown at them that they've never heard before or reasoned with, but why is this such a challenge for us in the church world to talk about these things?

Yeah. Well, I chalk it all up to our losing the war in terms of spiritual warfare. In 2 Corinthians chapter 10, the apostle Paul makes the case that we have got to be able to tear down these intellectual barriers that block people's knowledge of God. We need to tear down those intellectual barriers that block people's knowledge of God. It's actually an apostolic command. Peter in 1 Peter 3.15 says, Be prepared always to give an answer, a reason for the hope that you have, but do so with gentleness and respect.

A lot of churches today, they have roots to go back into the 19th century. And back then, you know, it seems like everybody was a Christian at the time, and so it didn't seem particularly necessary to offer solid reasons for faith. But today, if you try to do any kind of evangelism or share people, the love of Christ through your life, the thing that happens almost immediately is they will snap out three or four questions that are bugging them. And most Christians, unfortunately, are not prepared to respond to those even though they should be, and it's not that hard. You shared something at the apologetics conference because you guys use something called Biola on the road, which is an amazing event that you do, that you bring some of your philosophers with you, and you come to a church or some type of venue, and you share about apologetics and really about some of those hard questions people face.

And in fact, I recommend anybody listening or watching a Biola on the road, it's a great thing for us at our church, I highly recommend it. But when it comes to this topic of apologetics, where should somebody start, Dr. Hazen? If they said, you know, I really want to study this, I want to be able to have a good reason for what I believe, where should they start?

Where do they begin to study? Yeah, well, I think starting with some of the writings of some of my dear close colleagues, and you probably know these names, Lee Strobel, for instance. Lee Strobel wrote a book called The Case for Christ, in fact, they made it into a movie, and it was a pretty darn good movie.

It was a good movie. But yeah, but he's got that, The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, The Case for Grace, The Case for the Historical Jesus, you name it. And these are all wonderful books written at a lay level, so you can really begin to understand the tremendous evidence that stands behind our claims in Christianity.

And another good friend, he's a former cold case detective, and his name is J. Warner Wallace, and he wrote this marvelous book called Cold Case Christianity, where he lays out the evidence for the truth of the historical Jesus and his death and resurrection, and it's just marvelous. So God has really blessed us with some wonderful thinkers and writers where we can start, and those would be two great starting points. Thank you, Dr. Hazen, for that. There's something that you shared at Biola on the Road that I thought was key, and it was this subject of what are we afraid of, and I'm going to put it in my own phraseology here if I can. I think you're trying to address the challenge that I think a lot of people who follow Christ are just afraid of hard questions.

And what would you say to that? Yeah, in fact, I didn't get to give this to the audience at Cross Assembly. And by the way, everybody listening, Chris Connell is one of the pastors there, and they are just delightful at Cross Assembly in Raleigh.

What a wonderful church, a wonderful group of people, just tremendous leadership, and Chris is emblematic of that. All right, thanks, Dr. Hazen. No, I forgot that. Oh, and I didn't get a chance to give the audience this particular little tidbit. I call it the golden rule of apologetics, and it's really simple.

It's this. Ask of them as they ask of you. Ask of them as they ask of you. So let's say you're at work, you've got a Bible out on your desk, because you're reading it at lunch and you forgot to put it back in the drawer. Somebody walks by and goes, oh, look at that, a Bible. I didn't know you were like a religious person. And then they go, oh, but you know what, good for you, good for you.

I suppose you need that kind of thing. Now you're a little bit annoyed that they're talking like that. But here's how to handle a situation like that, because generally we just kind of get nervy, like, oh, I wish I'd read that Lee Strobel book, you know, I'd be in better shape. But even if you haven't read that book, just simply take a deep breath and then ask your friend Bob, who's questioning your Bible on the table, say, hey, Bob, I'm curious, what do you think the Bible is?

And then you basically step back and watch the craziness fly, you know? Because he's not gonna have a clue, and he's gonna start parroting things that he's heard along the way, which makes no sense whatsoever. But it'll really be a wonderful way to get a conversation started. And you're really not on the hook there, you know, in other words, you don't have to have all the answers.

You simply need to know how to ask a good question or two to get things rolling. And that usually ends up building confidence in people and can be very helpful. So Dr. Hazen, I had somebody write in, Steve puts his show live on Facebook, and we've got about two and a half minutes or three minutes till the next break, but they said this, and Emily wrote in and said, how do you explain that our God is the one true God and not the same as the gods from other religions? Any thoughts on that, Dr. Hazen?

I'm glad you're having these questions and not me. Yeah, it's really simple because every one of these religions, whether it's Buddhism or Mormonism, Hinduism, they all make claims about the deities that they worship or that they follow. They make specific claims, like their god created the world in a particular way or their god saves people in a particular way. And you can actually read those and understand what those are and then compare those claims to the kind of evidence we have that supports the Christian claims. For instance, in Christianity, we claim that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died for the sins of the world on a Roman cross and that he came back from the dead on the third day, exactly as the New Testament describes. Now, I don't know if your listening audience knows this, but the evidence for those claims I just stated about Christianity is stunningly good. I think the life of the historical Jesus, his death on a cross, and his coming back from the dead on the third day are some of the best-known facts of the ancient world. And you cannot say that about, for instance, the life of the Buddha or the life of any great Hindu teacher or god. You can't say that about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and so on. This resides strictly with Christianity. It is a paradise, really, for those of us who want really solid answers.

So again, people have less to be afraid of. Sometimes I think Dr. Hazen, followers of Christ, even if they're not experts, and we're going to go to the break here in a second, even if we're not experts at what we believe, if we can just invite questions and have honest dialogue, that's half the battle as well. We're with Dr. Craig Hazen of Biola University apologizing, what in the world? Why are we doing that?

Because apologetics is arguing the faith, and we need to know how to do that. We'll be right back after the break in the Steve Noble Show. Stay tuned. This is the Steve Noble Show, and this is Chris Connell filling in today, and Steve has the best intro music in broadcasting. I'm just telling you, he's got great taste. So welcome back.

We're talking about apologizing. I just want to sing along. Man, I'm going right back to the 80s with that song. Well, we're here with Dr. Craig Hazen. He is the director of Christian apologetics at Biola University in La Mirada, California. And Dr. Hazen, thank you so much for being with us this entire show today.

It's been fun. Hey, I had somebody write in or call in a question. It's one you may have answered a little bit earlier, but I'm going to be faithful to do what I said and ask, and is that why aren't apologetics presented more in church? And I think that may be a part of the reason why you do Biola on the Road, but what is it about church leadership that wrestles with presenting this topic? You know, I think they're so overwhelmed with taking care of the people that God has entrusted them with, the people who are in their churches every day and every week, in and out, and families with trouble. There's so much to take care of that we often need extra help with these special topics, really.

But it is necessary. One of our goals in running a Master of Arts degree program in Christian apologetics and training people deeply in the subject matter is to see if we can't get churches to take some of our graduates, and they have, into their churches to be pastors who focus specifically on intellectual challenges to Christianity, so that our young people will have people to go to to ask the hard questions that they're hearing from their secular friends, or that they're hearing from secular high schools or colleges, and we just don't have enough of that. I gotta tell you, our students, our kids are getting eaten alive by this, and they're believing all these ridiculous things on the internet, and they're not that hard to answer, and so we've gotta train up some people who can go into the churches and assist the pastors who are far too busy to take on some of this sometimes. I don't think that's a way of excusing what they're doing.

I think they do need to focus on it more, but sometimes you need to call on a specialist, and we've got specialists now. Yeah. Dr. Hazen, if there was someone listening to this broadcast now or in the future that is someone that themselves are wrestling through questions of the faith, is there a God? What's the meaning of our existence? Who is Jesus?

What makes Christianity and other religions? If there was somebody that was just themselves in a place of asking some of the fundamental questions about life that most human beings ask at one time or the other, what would you recommend to them? Where would you recommend them start? Where would you recommend them to begin to process through those questions?

Yeah, they really should write down our phone number at Biola University, because I think we can recommend some wonderful materials. What I don't recommend is people just Googling stuff on the internet. Oh my gosh, there's so much. The devil owns Google.

I am not kidding. You're going to Google some stuff. You're going to get some of the raunchiest and most terrible answers and illogic and irrational, so you just need a better source.

We've actually been doing this for decades at Biola University, and we've got a long list of wonderful books to recommend, and we've got audio and video products to learn from that answer all of these questions. Like I keep saying, it's not that hard to do. In fact, it doesn't take long for a person to read a book or two and listen to a few good lectures, and pretty soon they're answering the tough questions for people. But I really feel for parents and grandparents in our churches today, because they see it up front. They see that their kids are coming home from school, and they are going, I'm not sure about this Christian stuff, mom and dad or grandpa and grandma.

I'm not sure it makes any sense whatsoever, because that's the message they're getting. We need people who can actually give a thoughtful response and do so with gentleness and respect as the Apostle Peter commands us. Yeah. You know, one of the most common questions, and I think it's one of the harder questions to wrestle with in apologetics, is why does God allow evil, why does God allow suffering? Do you have any thoughts on that you'd like to share to the listeners?

I do. In fact, one of my colleagues, his name is Dr. Clay Jones. He is probably a world-class expert in this, and he has a marvelous book on the topic called Why Does God Allow Evil? Clay Jones, Why Does God Allow Evil?

So I do recommend that book. But the basic idea here is, why is there evil pain and suffering in the world? Why would God allow that?

Well, a very strong case can be made. That God, in His quest to create human beings in His image and then have an eternal love relationship with them, had to give His creatures free will, so that they could have this free exchange of love between each other. And human beings, unfortunately, went hog-wild with their freedom and began to rebel against God, shaking their fist at Him and moving down through history. God saw this, and He knew what was going to happen, so He made a provision. He set it up so that His Son would die on a Roman cross to pay for the sins of the world, the rebellion that human beings are under.

And by doing that, God would, just by believing or trusting in Jesus, you could actually have a restored relationship with God the Father and spend eternity in a love relationship with Him. But it's that free will component. God gave it to us so that it would result in love, and we turned it into really an explosive device of some sort that really caused humanity tremendous trouble. That's why there is evil pain and suffering in the world. It's not that God had a blind eye for it, but He wanted to create a love relationship and we blew it up. I also get people ask this question—thank you, Dr. Hazen—you know, how can a loving God send people to hell? Have you ever wrestled with that question? Sure.

Sure. He has made a wonderful provision for all of us. We are in rebellion against Him, and He actually arranged it so that His dear Son would die on a cross, and that just by looking upon Him, we would gain the gift of eternal life.

That's what's at stake here. So anybody who wants to reject that, reject that provision that God has made, there has to be some sort of very strong sanction on them, and that's what we consider to be hell. It's a place of quarantine, a place of sanction, where people who don't want to have anything to do with God, guess what, they don't have to have anything to do with it. They can go into their sector of the cosmos where they don't have to encounter this at all. And it's a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, is how Jesus describes it. It's a place of regret. People had it right in the palm of their hand, the opportunity to have an eternal relationship with a loving God, and they decided to rebel against Him and go their own way.

Wow. Well, I just feel led to hit a subject we talked about earlier again, and that is this. Dr. Hazen, when you look at Christianity, fundamentally, what makes it different than other religions? What is it that makes it stand out? Because I think there may be some listeners that are wrestling through this question now, and I'd love to talk about that again.

Yes, yeah. There's several things that captured my attention in graduate school, and I was studying the other great world religious traditions, like Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam and so on. And there's several things that set Christianity apart from the pack, and the first one is that Christianity is testable. It's testable.

And what I mean by testable is you can offer evidence for it, and you can offer evidence against it, and it's the evidence that actually means something. And I discovered that Christianity really is unique in that regard. You're not going to find that kind of intellectual testability in Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam. Another one that I think is really attractive and sets Christianity apart from the pack is that salvation in the system is a free gift from God. There's no crawling over jagged rocks for miles to lay some offering in a temple. There's no sitting in arthritis-producing lotus position for hours on end in hopes of becoming enlightened. No, it's a gift from God. He just gives it to you. It's free. And again, there's just nothing like that.

There are a number of others, but there's one other that I want to hit on, and that is this. One thing that sets Christianity apart from the pack is that Christianity has Jesus at the center. Now, maybe you're thinking, well, of course, it's Christianity, but it understands something that the other great world religious traditions in our day actually want the same thing. They want to take Jesus, they want to change him up a little bit, and then plunk him down somewhere near the center of their religion. Jesus is the universal religious figure. Everybody wants a piece of Jesus. And so if you're a seeker who's looking for the place to start on a religious quest of some kind, I totally recommend starting with Christianity, because it's got this universal religious figure, Jesus Christ, right at the center, and he's always been at the center.

Other religions want to co-opt him, but Christianity has had him all the way along. I've had a couple of people say, hey, I'm really interested in, while we've been talking, Dr. Hazen, in apologetics, I'm interested in Biola University, I'm interested in this Biola on the road. If people would want to bring Biola on the road, if they want to get involved in apologetics with Biola specifically, could you mention again how to make that connection?

Here's a real simple way to do it. You can write to apologetics at Biola dot edu, that's apologetics at Biola, that's B-I-O-L-A dot edu. And you'll just ask us whatever you'd like, if you want to find out how to set up one of these conferences on apologetics at your church, we'd be delighted to do that. It's one of the most fun things we do on any given weekend. That's awesome. Well, our guest has been Dr. Craig Hazen. Dr. Hazen, thank you for being with us today, it's been great. And we all need to know there's nothing to be afraid of. What we believe in as a firm foundation, and it is reasonable, and for those that are looking and seeking and they are out there, being a follower of Christ, right, is something God has called us to do, to share our faith with reason. Let's make sure we're good at apologizing.