A Case For Jesus Christ - Lee Strobel | PBD #770

Lee Strobel, former atheist and investigative journalist, joins Patrick Bet-David to break down the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, his journey from skepticism to faith, the global decline of Christianity, church scandals and their impact on believers, and the growing cultural divide around religion, free speech, and truth. ------ 👍 LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE! Ⓜ️ MINNECT WITH LEE STROBEL: https://bit.ly/3Okei0A Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4kSVkso Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4lzQph2⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj 🇰 KALSHI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://kalshi.com/pbd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://kalshi.com/pbd⁠ 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US:Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Who killed Jesus Christ?

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Give me a long weekend and I can disprove the resurrection. Dead people don't come back to life. That just doesn't happen. I was an atheist. I lived a very immoral, drunken, profane, narcissistic, self-destructive in many ways kind of life. My wife comes up to me one day and gives me the worst news any atheist husband could get. She said, "I've decided to become a Christian." And honestly, first word through my mind, divorce. And I used my journalism training, my legal training. Took me two years, unequivocally, that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof, which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.

• 0:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Who is benefiting the most from seeing this divide taking place today, both theologically, politically, specifically on social media and who benefits the most?

• 0:53Speaker 01

  He certainly sparked something on these college campuses. He had the courage to go in. He lost his life because he did. I've been working with the FBI for the last couple of weeks because someone's trying to kill me, because of the stands I take. And yeah, there was a credible threat on my life.

• 1:49Patrick Bet-David?

  All right, Lee Strobel, great to have you here.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Thank you. Wonderful to be here.

• 1:51Patrick Bet-David?

  We've been looking forward to having you for a long time. I have an interesting story with you.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Before we get into it, you know, I think it's important for the audience to know for... Those who don't, you've sold nearly 20 million copies of your books, 40 plus books. The big one being Case for Christ, and Case for Church. There's a bunch of them. You have a new one that came out. The Supernatural, which we'll get into as well. And it's funny because two weeks ago, I had Scott Galloway on. I don't know if you know who he is, Professor Scott Galloway. You know, a very good voice on the liberal side, who talks about fatherhood, very successful business guy. And while we're talking, I said, so tell me about your relationship with God and faith. He said, look, I wish I had faith. I don't. I said, well, look, normally when I talk to somebody who is either a super logical thinker,

• 2:39Patrick Bet-David?

  and maybe their philosophy, or maybe their math, or maybe hardcore logic. I'll recommend two books to them. And I recommended those two books to them. I said, number one, you got to read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, which by the way, Shadowlands, phenomenal. I don't know if you've seen it or not, great Anthony Hopkins. I said, the second book you got to read is Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Yes, and my story is, 20, back in 2002, 2003,

• 3:09Patrick Bet-David?

  when I got out of the military, I was an atheist for 25 years of my life. I lived in Iran, so it's kind of tough to be a Christian when you're in Iran, war. Parents get a divorce. And then I'm doing Bible study in Pasadena. Every other Friday night from 6:00 PM to 2:00 in the morning. Wow. And your stuff would come up all the time. And then that led me to, you know, studying the topics, and we're doing these Bible studies and all this stuff. Anyways, but now we are sitting down talking. It's such a great conversation. I got a lot of questions for you. Yeah, that's encouraging. Yes, I got a lot of questions for you. But I want to start off with, in today, a lot is going on in the world. We have the war going on. We have, you know, data that's coming out with what churches are growing, which ones are not.

• 3:52Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, there are challenges when you talk to somebody about introducing them to going back to church. They'll go back to a time where there was a massive crisis at a mega church they were a part of, where there was a big fallout and, man, I'll never trust the church again. I'll never trust the pastor again. I experienced that myself as well. And I know you were part of one, and the pastor you were part of was one I used to study his stuff very closely. He had very, very good content. We'll talk about that as well. But the opening question I want to start off with you. You write in the book Case for Christ. Who killed Jesus Christ? You did. I did. We did.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Ultimately, he died because he paid for the sins of humankind. He atoned for our sins. He paid the penalty we deserve for the sins that we've committed, so that we could be given a free gift of forgiveness and eternal life. So, when it comes right down to it, you and I are the ones who killed Jesus.

• 4:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, and you know, it's interesting when you say that. If you're a Christian, that's the answer, right?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:52Patrick Bet-David?

  But if you're somebody that's not a Christian, say you're an atheist, say you're a, you know, if I'm talking to the 19, you know, I don't know, I think you gave your life to Christ, was it 1980? I don't know what year it was.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, 1981.

• 5:06Patrick Bet-David?

  1981, right, when you gave your life to Christ.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:09Patrick Bet-David?

  And you were 27, 28.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, about 30, yeah.

• 5:11Patrick Bet-David?

  And prior to that, you know, you're a journalist.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:15Patrick Bet-David?

  For the Chicago Tribune.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:17Patrick Bet-David?

  You've, your, your, your job is to investigate everybody. So, you look at things in a different way. You're an investigative journalist.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:24Patrick Bet-David?

  How would you have answered that question when you were doing the investigation of wanting to know who killed Jesus Christ? The non-Christian. What would that answer be for the non-Christian, not the Christian?

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, certainly, the Romans had the authority to crucify someone. And by the way, they didn't crucify Roman citizens because it was such a cruel, torturous death that, that Roman citizens were exempt. But, of course, they had to implement it. It was encouraged by the Jewish leaders of the day, who were opposed to Jesus. And so, they both had a role, you would say, in the actual execution of Jesus.

• 6:01Patrick Bet-David?

  What was Romans' concerns? What was the Romans' involvement? And what was the Pharisees?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting, the Romans, you know, if you look at Pilate, he sort of washed his hands. He tried to kind of distance himself from it. If you read the account, doesn't sound like he was that into it. He seemed like he was more capitulating to the crowd. He offered to give him Barabbas, hey, you know, take, you know, let's trade out here and, or Jesus. And of course, they chose to free Barabbas, not Jesus. So, the Romans, you know, didn't like the fact that Jesus was claiming to be the unique Son of God, the Messiah.

• 6:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Why? What were they afraid?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Because the, in those days, the emperor was considered to be divine. And so Caesar would be considered divine.

• 6:48Patrick Bet-David?

  So it's kinda like, we're okay if you wanna worship Jesus, but not above Caesar.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right, exactly. And the Pharisees didn't like that Jesus was coming in and kinda throwing a monkey wrench into all the rules and regulations that they wanted people to live by, and talking more about grace and more about what it means to be a true follower of God. And so there's a lot of conflict there. He was making divine and messianic claims about himself. At one point, Jesus got up before a group and he said, "I and the Father are one." And the Greek word there for "one" is not masculine, it's neuter, which means he wasn't saying, "I and the Father are the same person." He was saying, "I and the Father are the same thing, we're one in nature, we're one in essence." And the audience got what he was saying, they picked up stones to kill him. They said, "You, you're just a man and you're claiming to be God."

• 7:36Speaker 01

  So Jesus claimed to be God. And that did not sit well.

• 7:40Patrick Bet-David?

  With Jews, with the Pharisees.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  With the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day. And of course, anybody can claim to be, you could claim to be God, I could claim to be God, but of course, that's where Easter comes in, because Jesus not only claimed to be God, but then, after being crucified, three days later, he returns from the dead. And thus proves he is who he claimed to be.

• 7:57Patrick Bet-David?

  So it's a combination of physically Romans, verbally Pharisees?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, they encouraged the crucifixion of Jesus, yes.

• 8:07Patrick Bet-David?

  And, okay, so then, bring that interpretation to today. On how that has been, not miscommunicated, but misunderstood today. Because you see a lot of different arguments. You know, where there's the animosity towards, well, let me tell you, it's really, you know, the Jews killed him, no, the Pharisees killed, no, the Romans killed him, no, we killed him. How has that misunderstanding turned into some of the challenges that we're seeing today when that debate comes up?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's inconceivable to me that any Christian could be anti-Semitic. Jesus was Jewish. Jesus' followers were Jewish. The Christian religion is an outflow of the Jewish religion. It is a fulfillment of the ancient prophecies that were made centuries before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, that pointed toward the Messiah, and Jesus fit those prophecies just like a fingerprint. So I don't know how anybody who's a follower of Jesus could be anti-Semitic. It's not the Jewish people as a group who got together and said, "Let's kill Jesus." That's not what happened. There was a leadership at the time, these Pharisees and Sadducees,

• 9:21Speaker 01

  who were upset about his teachings and so forth, who instigated and pushed for his execution. The Romans went along with it and implemented the death penalty in his case. But it's inconceivable. When I see reports of anti-Semitism among people who claim to be Christians, I go, "What are you talking about? What faith are you putting your trust in here?" You know, so, yeah.

• 9:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, some of them may say, "Well, Lee, you know, there's two types of the old-school, traditional Pharisees. The ones that were more, you know, Jews that are more about the Torah, right? Where 25% to 30% of the Old Testament is the Torah, and, you know, take the other 65, 70%, 75% is, you know, the legalistic, you know, the way they would structure it together because they were thinkers. So, okay, I don't have a problem with them, Lee, but I do have a problem with the modern-day Jews, who created their own Talmud, and, you know, whatever, the 600-plus commandments that they have, and the way they wrote it. What is the difference? Because I'm really trying to understand.

• 10:34Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not like these people that are, you know, creating the argument against Jews and being, you know, some people labeling them anti-Semites and all this.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:42Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not like they're dumb. These are not dumb people. These are very well-read, educated people who are going there. So what is the context for you specifically as an investigative journalist? What is the difference between the old-school, the Torah-type Jews that some people look at versus the new, modern-day, the Talmud? What's the difference?

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there were 600-some-odd commandments that were added to the Jewish scripture.

• 11:04Patrick Bet-David?

  By Jews?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  By Pharisees, by the leadership of the day and so forth, and created this very much driven, works-driven culture. And it was virtually impossible for anybody to fulfill all of these commands and to stay on the straight and narrow, given all these requirements that were added to the basic law, the Ten Commandments that God had provided for the Jewish people.

• 11:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. So, okay. So then, so then if we go a little bit further, and I know this is like a heavy topic right off about to get into. Is who, who benefits from this division that you see? Whether it's those who are like, what are you talking about? Jews are our friends. You know, if I have to choose between Jews and, you know, Jesus was a Jew, like that argument you just made earlier. I'm gonna choose the Jews over knowing what Islam wants to do and what the Islamification of the world and Muslims book tell them to do. I'm gonna side with these guys. And then the other side, no, but you guys are naive. You don't even understand. Israel owns the world, Jews, Bibi runs the world, and you, you guys don't, you guys are such low level, you don't know what's going on here. What, what is the, what is the, you know?

• 12:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Who is benefiting the most from seeing this divide taking place today? Both theologically, politically, specifically on social media and America, who benefits the most?

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Well, certainly from social media. I mean, we have some people on social media who make all kinds of allegations against the Jewish people who are making millions of dollars in doing that.

• 12:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Such as who? Who do you?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  I don't wanna name names, cuz I'm not that.

• 12:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Are the names that I'm thinking about? Or some of the?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Probably, probably.

• 12:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, alright.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  And so I go, is there an incentive here? Yeah, maybe.

• 12:47Patrick Bet-David?

  You think first one is profit mode?

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Possibly. And then, honestly? If indeed Jesus is the unique Son of God who came through the Jewish line. If indeed Christianity is a fulfillment of the Jewish teachings and the Old Testament becomes fulfilled in Jesus and so forth. If you are Satan, wouldn't you love to create a divide? Wouldn't you love to attack the root of Christianity, which is Judaism? Yeah, I think you would. So I think, honestly, I just wrote this book called Seeing the Supernatural. You know, Jesus was an exorcist. Jesus believed in demons. Jesus believed in Satan. He encountered Satan.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  And so, do I believe that he might have a role in terms of fanning the flames of antisemitism? Yeah, I think he does.

• 13:37Speaker 02

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• 14:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so, okay. So then, let's just say if I'm sitting down with somebody who once was a Christian, who supporters of, you know, Israel or Jews, and didn't have the anti-Semitic positions that they have.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:22Patrick Bet-David?

  And I want to go out there and serve them. I want to go out there and, you know, speak to them about maybe a different position to be thinking about. What angles would I take with them?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Oh, golly. I always look at the affirmative side, which is what is the evidence that Christianity is true? What is the evidence that Jesus is who he claimed to be? I want to make that case. Because, you know, you can get into arguments about, okay, let's contrast Islam and Christianity and things like that. But ultimately, I think, as someone who started as an atheist, trained in journalism and law, I was looking for what is the evidence? What's the corroboration? How do I know this is true? So if Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, as I mentioned earlier, he did clearly, how do I know he proved it? I returned from the dead. What is the evidence historically that Jesus really returned from the dead? Because if that is true, then he is who he claimed to be,

• 15:17Speaker 01

  and I ought to put my chips in that pot, right? I ought to go all in in Christianity.

• 15:25Patrick Bet-David?

  And what was that moment for you? Because, you know, if you don't mind sharing your own testimony, because your wife came to you, and you guys have been together since you were 18, 19 years old. I think it's good for the audience to hear from you.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I met my wife when we were 14, got married at 19 and 20. And I was an atheist. I lived a very immoral, drunken, profane, narcissistic, self-destructive, in many ways, kind of life. I was successful. Went to Yale Law School, was legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, won major awards for investigative reporting. So people would look at that and think, oh, man, this guy's got it together. They didn't see the other side. I was literally drunk in the snow in an alley on Saturday night. And my wife comes up to me one day and gives me the worst news any atheist husband could get. She said, I've decided to become a Christian. And honestly, first word through my mind, divorce. Really? Oh, yeah, I was gonna walk. I didn't want to be married to a Christian. Now, were both of you guys married? You were atheists, both of you?

• 16:21Speaker 01

  No, she was agnostic. Okay. She didn't know what to believe. She's kind of spiritual neutral. She meets a neighbor who's a Christian nurse, shares Jesus with her, brings her to church, and she checks things out herself and comes and gives me the news that she's become a Christian. And I thought, she's, well, what's gonna happen? She's gonna turn into some holier-than-thou person who's gonna look down on me and my drinking, and she wouldn't like my friends anymore, and it's just gonna be trouble. How are we gonna make decisions about how we spend our money and how we spend our time? We're gonna have this divide in our marriage. So I thought, I'm just gonna walk out. But then I thought, wait a minute. What if I could rescue her from this cult that she's gotten involved in? How would I do that? How would I do that? Oh, I know. All I gotta do is disprove the resurrection of Jesus. Because

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Jesus clearly, as I said earlier, may messianic divine claims about himself, and the resurrection proved supposedly that he is who he claimed to be. So I thought, you know what? Give me a long weekend, and I can disprove the resurrection. Dead people don't come back to life. That just doesn't happen. So I thought, you know, I'm trained in this stuff. I can investigate the evidence. So I started to do that. And I used my journalism training, my legal training. Took me two years to delve into the minutia of the historical data concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus, until November the 8th of 1981. And I said to myself, you know, I've been doing this two years. The evidence is in. A good jury reaches a verdict. So I got all the data I gathered. Back then, this is before the internet, so it's a microfilm.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  No chat GPT, no language learning models, no Google. No Google, no. So you're going to the library to do this? Oh, yeah. I'm going to, I remember once, I requested an interlibrary loan at the Chicago Library, because I was trying to find this obscure book written by one of the founders of Harvard Law School, who had become a Christian in the 1800s or whatever. And six months later, I get a phone call, we found your book. You know, that's what it took. I mean, that's why it took me two years. Talk about investigative. Oh, I delved into this stuff, and into microfilm, and libraries, and museums, and so forth, interviewing scholars and experts, until November the 8th of 81, when I realized any good juror reaches a verdict, and the evidence was in, I need to reach a verdict.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  And I looked at the data concerning the resurrection. It is fascinating how much that... I'll tell you a little story. There was a guy named Sir Lionel Luckoo. Sir Lionel is the most successful defense attorney in the world. He was in the Guinness Book of World Records. Why? Because he won 245 murder trials in a row. This guy right here? That's him. Okay. 245 murder trials in a row. Nobody's ever done that. As a defense attorney, either before the jury or on appeal. And when I was a student at Yale Law School, he was my hero. Because I figured this guy must understand evidence. He's an atheist. Well, he was a skeptic about the resurrection. Didn't believe the resurrection occurred. And I was an atheist, so I agreed with him. And he was knighted twice by Queen Elizabeth.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  He became a member of the Supreme Court of his country. Yeah. So brilliant, brilliant guy. But he didn't believe in the resurrection. So somebody came to him one day and says, "Sir Lionel, you're the greatest lawyer in the world. Have you ever taken your monumental legal skill and applied it to the historical record of the resurrection and come to an informed verdict on whether Jesus rose from the dead?" He said, "No, I haven't, but I will." So he spent years doing what I ended up doing, investigating the evidence. And I'll recite to you one sentence he wrote that summarizes his conclusion. He says, "I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof, which leaves absolutely no room for doubt." This from the greatest legal mind, I think, in practical sense, in his... By the way, I told that story in California.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  I moved to California in the year 2000 to be a teaching pastor at a church. And a woman came up to me afterwards. She said, "Hey, I'm your new neighbor. We haven't met yet, but you just bought a house down the block." I said, "Oh, that's great. Good to meet you." She said, "Yeah, one other thing." I said, "What?" She said, "I'm Sir Lionel's sister." Stop. Yes. Your neighbor is his sister? Yeah. Was she a devout Christian at that time? Oh, yeah. And she actually showed me his private papers, where he had done his investigation. I know. Can you believe that? What are the odds of... What did you find when you're going through it? It was ultimately a confirmation of what I discovered in my investigation. Can I summarize the evidence for you real quick? Four words that begin with the letter "E" to summarize the evidence for the resurrection. This is what brought me from atheism to faith. The first E stands for execution, that Jesus was truly dead after being crucified.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  There is no record anywhere of anyone ever surviving a full Roman crucifixion. In fact, this is not controversial among even atheist scholars, because when you study ancient history, we're lucky if we have one good source to confirm a fact, or maybe two good sources. So if you have Alexander the Great, and we believe certain things about his life, well, dig down. How do we know? Well, it turns out it's one source, maybe two sources. And yet, for the death of Jesus, we not only have multiple sources in the documents of the New Testament, we've got five ancient sources outside the Bible confirming his execution. This is so well-established of historical fact, you could get laughed out of a major academic institution if you go in and claim he somehow survived the crucifixion.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  In fact, get this, no less of a source in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a secular, peer-reviewed, medical, scientific journal, carried an investigation into the death of Jesus, and this was their conclusion, quote, "Clearly, the weight of the historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead even before the wound to his side was inflicted." Even the atheist historian, Gerd Ludeman, says, "It's indisputable that Jesus was dead." First E, execution, he's dead. Second E, early accounts. In other words, we have early reports that come very quickly after the crucifixion, that he rose from the dead. Why is that important? Because I used to think, like a lot of skeptics, that

• 22:15Speaker 01

  the resurrection was a legend, and I do it took time for legend to develop in the ancient world. So I figured 100, 150, 200 years after life of Jesus, legends were invented, and that's where the idea came from. Guess what? We have preserved for us a creed of the earliest church. The first Christians had a creedal statement, based on facts that they knew to be true, based on eyewitness accounts, that summarized their convictions. And it said, "Jesus died." Why? For our sins. He was buried. On the third day, he rose again. And then it has the specific names of individuals and groups of people who encountered the resurrected Jesus, including 500 people at once. Well, guess what? Historians have been able to date that creed.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  So, for instance, one of the great historians, James D.G. Dunn of England, one of the greatest historians of our time, dated that creed, and he says, "We can be entirely confident that that creed was formulated within months of the death of Jesus." Within months, that's historical gold, that's far too quick to be a legend. The great historian A. N. Sherwin White of Oxford and Cambridge said, "The passage of two generations of time is not even enough for legend to grow up and wipe out a solid core of historical truth." So, we got a newsflash, and it's not the only early report we got. We got others in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Book of Acts, all that date back so early they were circulating during the lifetimes

• 23:39Speaker 01

  of Jesus' contemporaries, who would have disputed the claims if they had been wrong. So, that's the second E, is early accounts. The third E stands for empty, we have an empty tomb. And what's interesting about that is, even the enemies of Jesus admitted the tomb was empty. Everybody conceded the tomb was empty. How do we know? Because we know from sources inside and outside the New Testament that when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus had risen, what the enemies of Jesus said was, "Oh, well, the disciples stole the body." Now, think about that, they're conceding the tomb is empty. They're trying to explain how it got empty. So, everybody's conceding the tomb is empty, that's not the issue of history. The issue of history really is, how did it get empty?

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Romans weren't about to steal the body, they wanted Jesus dead. Religious leaders of the day weren't about to steal the body, they wanted Jesus to stay dead. The disciples weren't about to steal the body. I found seven ancient sources, six of them outside the Bible, that said that the disciples lived lives of deprivation and suffering as a result of their proclamation that Jesus had risen. They were willing to die for it. Why? Because they heard in Sunday School he'd risen from the dead and proved he's the Son of God? No, because they were there. Of all human beings who've ever lived, they were in a position to know for a fact whether he returned from the dead or not. They touched him, they talked with him, they ate with him. And knowing the truth, they were even willing to die for it. Then finally, the fourth E stands for the word eyewitnesses.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Remember I said earlier, we're lucky in ancient history? If we have a fact we believe to be true, we dig down, we find one source, maybe two sources. There are nine ancient sources, inside and outside the New Testament, confirming and corroborating the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the risen Jesus. That is an avalanche of historical data. And so it was based on that kind of evidence that I sat as an atheist and said, wait a minute. If I'm gonna be honest, if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna follow the evidence wherever it points, which is what I was always taught to do, then I have to conclude that Jesus didn't just claim to be God, he backed up that claim by returning from the dead.

• 25:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, when you're saying nine-eyed witnesses, I'm assuming this is it, right? Paul, the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts of Apostles, that's what you're talking about with the nine witnesses?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  I'm talking about nine sources, nine sources, right. So the first one is the creed that I mentioned. By the way, the historical credentials of that creed are so strong that one of the few Jewish New Testament scholars, Pinchas Lepid, said it may be taken as a statement of eyewitnesses. So you've got the creed, you've got Paul. Paul, of course, said personally that he encountered the risen Christ. And that's how he became, he was Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of Christians. He encounters Jesus risen, he becomes the Apostle Paul, he becomes friends with Peter, James, and John, and some of the other disciples. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians, he says, "Whether it is I or they, this is what we preach." In other words, we're all saying we encountered the resurrected Jesus.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Then third, we have Peter in the Book of Acts, who gets up and says, "This Jesus, God raised in the dead, to which we're all witnesses." And 3,000 people said, "We know you're telling the truth, what do we do? They repent and the church is born." And then we have the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who I believe have historical credentials that give them incredible credibility. They are ancient biographies. But then we have two sources outside the Bible. This is fascinating. We have people who sat under the teachings of the eyewitnesses themselves. So, for instance, we have Clement. Clement was ordained by Peter himself, Peter the eyewitness. And he wrote a letter to the church in Corinth, right there in the first century.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  And he said, "Why, I'm paraphrasing, but he said basically, why do the apostles have such courage and such conviction that Jesus..." Because of the resurrection, because it happened, because they knew it happened. And then Polycarp. Polycarp was appointed by John himself to be the bishop at Smyrna. And Polycarp wrote a letter to the church in Philippi, in which he mentions the resurrection no fewer than five times. And he says that the apostles did not value this present world because God had died for them. He'd opened the door to eternity from them. He, Jesus returned from the dead and proved he is who he claimed to be. So, so these are, this is nine ancient sources. That's a lot.

• 27:58Patrick Bet-David?

  It's very powerful. But now going back with you.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, your parents, what were your parents?

• 28:03Speaker 01

  My, yeah, great question. My parents were Christians. Uh, they were members of a Lutheran church. But very interesting question. I had a very difficult relationship with my dad. My parents had three kids in a row. My dad was very involved with their lives, loved it. And then they were done. And then many years passed and oops, my mom found herself pregnant with me. And I think that was the seed. In fact, my mom told me on her deathbed, because I asked her about it. He said, yeah, it was not happy news when your dad learned that I was pregnant. And so I had a very difficult. He was kind of done with the, he wanted to go off and play golf and do all this stuff. And he did, he did the parent thing.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  He was kind of done and oops, now this comes along later and I was.

• 28:49Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the age difference between the youngest, the, uh, the youngest, oldest of you versus you?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  I think it's six years.

• 28:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Six years?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:55Patrick Bet-David?

  And then the oldest?

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Uh, well, the old, um, the, let's see, the oldest would be 10 years.

• 29:00Patrick Bet-David?

  10 years older than you?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  And so, but here's what's interesting. Studies have been done into the great atheists of history. So there's a guy who's a professor at New York University. He did this PhD project. He looked at the famous atheists of history, Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche, Freud, Voltaire, Wells, Feuerbach, O'Hare. He looked at every single one of them had a father who died when they were young.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Whom divorced their mother when they were young, or with whom they had a very difficult relationship. And Freud pointed out, the implication is, if your earthly father has hurt you or disappointed you in some way, you don't want to know anything about a heavenly father. He's only going to be worse. So you have this barrier between you and God. You have excuses not to find God. So it was divorced mother, died young. What was the third one? Or terrible relationship, very difficult relationship. So you didn't have a relationship with your dad? I had a relationship, but it was very, very difficult. I remember, he told me on the eve of my high school graduation, he looked at me, we had a big argument, as usual. And he looked at me and said, "I don't have enough love for you to fill my little finger." Stop it. Stop it.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  So it was, it was a very difficult relationship. Now, mom and dad are still together? Yeah, they're deceased now. But at the time, they weren't. That's right. So he said this to you while they're married? Yeah, yeah. What caused him to make a statement like that? Well, I was a rebellious kid. I pushed all his buttons, you know? I mean, I went out and did something he specifically told me not to do. What's that? Buy a motorcycle behind his back. I was into motorcycles. How old were you? I was 18. And you bought the bike? Yes, yes. 650 Triumph Bonneville. And he found out that I did it behind his back. And of course, he was mad. I was pushing his buttons. I take a lot of responsibility for the difficulty in our relationship. But it was a problem.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  And so, interestingly, C.S. Lewis has a solution for this. Because some of your listeners may say, "Yeah, maybe this explains, my friend, why they are so antagonistic toward the idea of God, because their dad divorced their mother when they were young," or whatever. C.S. Lewis had a solution. He said, "If this is the case in someone's life, I say to them, 'Could you imagine, just imagine for a minute, what would the perfect God, the perfect father be like? Just imagine. Oh, well, the perfect father would be loving. He'd be kind. He'd be an encourager. He'd be your biggest cheerleader. He'd beat you up in his lap and hug you." That is a picture of your heavenly father. He's not just a magnified version of your earthly father who disappointed you or hurt you.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  He is, he is otherworldly. He is different. He is the perfect father. And I found that to be very helpful. What's your fondest memory of you and your father when you were a kid? Fondest memory?

• 31:47Speaker 02

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• 32:20Speaker 01

  You know, we did take a car trip once. I was a teenager at the time. Took a car trip from Chicago to Phoenix, Arizona, to deliver a car for my brother, who was a student at Arizona State. And that was kind of nice. I learned some things from my dad on that trip that he'd never talked about before. But it was just a very cold relationship. And again, I take a lot of the blame.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Did you ever rekindle that relationship?

• 32:45Speaker 01

  He died before I was able to reconcile.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's a... You know, it was funny because I was at the wake for my dad. And these men began to come up to me. And they would say, "Are you Lee?" And I said, "Yeah." He said, "Oh, your dad was so proud of you. Oh, man, every time you had a front-page byline in the Chicago Tribune, he would show it to everybody. And when you got promoted to legal editor, he'd cut out that picture of you in the paper and show it to everybody. He was so proud of you." And I was just in tears because it's like, I wish he'd told me.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  So, yeah, that's hard. It's hard. So I believe in his own way, he did love me. But he had his own barriers there, too.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  What did Mom say? Was Mom like, "No, Lee, he loves you"?

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was always the encourager. And she was the one that would try to patch up the relationship.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  What was his name?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Walter.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  Walter.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  Do you have an older brother?

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, two older brothers. One who died of COVID and another older brother.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  And one of them, sorry to hear that, with the COVID situation. And was one of them named Walter or no?

• 33:57Speaker 01

  No, his middle name, John Walter. Yeah, yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  That's interesting because for me, I was an atheist because...

• 34:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Of, um, you know, the war in Iran, I'm like, there's no way in the world if God loves us, he's gonna let innocent people die and just keep me away. So it was a very different situation.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  But, yes.

• 34:14Patrick Bet-David?

  So, did you later on feel like, was there a older man who played a role of a father in your life? Like a living? Did somebody play the role of that? Were you like, you know what? That's an example of somebody I want to be like? Or no, was it vertical?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  It was vertical.

• 34:34Patrick Bet-David?

  It was vertical?

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I wish I'd encountered someone like that. I have people in my life today who are like that for me. And now that I'm a Christian and I have good friends who I see model fatherhood and I see model a strong, um, devoted Christian life. And, um, it's important to have those kind of people in your life. My, my friend Mark Middleburg and I, we have no secrets from each other. We were best buddies since 1987 and, um, that I learned more from him than anybody else.

• 35:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Very cool. So, so then later on, you go and I think you join a, a church in Chicago, right? Right outside of Chicago?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I took a 60% pay cut and joined the staff of a church. Never intending to write any books. That wasn't my, I'd written one book as an atheist. Uh, do you remember, of course, you're much younger than I am, but, um, do you remember the Ford Pinto controversy?

• 35:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  I wrote a lot of the, broke a lot of the news in that case.

• 35:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop. That was massive. Milton Friedman would talk about that. You remember the whole?

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:33Patrick Bet-David?

  So, did you see Milton Friedman's argument on it with Michael Moore on that?

• 35:36Speaker 01

  I, I don't, I don't think I saw that. But what I did, I did, I got a hold of secret Ford documents that showed that they knew that the Ford, that the, that the Pinto would blow up when hit from behind in a low to moderate impact collision. Um, but they didn't want to spend the money, which would have been what, five bucks a car? To, according to millions of cars, to, uh, upgrade it, to protect it and so forth. So, I actually broke a lot of those. I got a tip, you know, Ford was indicted, uh, for a charge of reckless homicide because three innocent girls were burned to death in a Ford Pinto. Um, their car was rear-ended by a Chevy van and they, they burned to death.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  And so they, Ford was charged with homicide for designing a car that was unreasonably dangerous. So, I'm legal editor of the Tribune. I get a tip one day. And the caller said, I knew who he was, he said, "Hey, go check the public file in the Ford case." Okay, so I went to Winnetka, Indiana, where the case was being held, and I looked up in the file, "There's a thing in law called a motion in limine," which means, "We don't want this to come before the jury, so let's litigate it before the trial." So, they had that motion, and they attached to it a bunch of secret Ford documents that they didn't want the jury to see, but they're attached to this, this motion, so I'm photocopying them, I'm just copying all these secret documents.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  And a Ford lawyer walked in and saw me in the courthouse and said, "What are you doing?" "Uh, nothing, nothing." Then he runs into the judge and gets an order sealing the case. Wow. So I was the only reporter that had all these secret documents. So I did a series of articles that were headlines all over the country, and I ended up writing a book called Reckless Homicide. I saw that right now, The Reckless Homicide, 1980. Yeah, yeah. I actually reproduced the documents in the book.

• 37:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Have you ever seen the movie The Genius, uh, what's it called? Rob, can you find the movie that, uh, The Flash of Genius? Have you seen the movie The Flash of Genius?

• 37:37Speaker 01

  No, no, it sounds interesting.

• 37:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, you have to watch the movie The Flash of Genius. So this movie, if you go to Wikipedia, so I can kind of give the idea what it's about.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:45Patrick Bet-David?

  This is the inventor of the inter, uh, the wiper, windshield wiper, the intermittent wiper.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:51Patrick Bet-David?

  And he goes against Ford Motor Company, he invents it, he shows it to them, they tell him, they say, "This is nothing, you didn't invent anything." Then they don't give him the patent, he loses his wife, wife takes the kids.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 38:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Stubbornly, he ends up winning this case. I think you would enjoy this movie.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, that sounds, I gotta watch that.

• 38:08Patrick Bet-David?

  You would enjoy that movie.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  That sounds great.

• 38:10Patrick Bet-David?

  So, is the first church you go, is that the Willow Creek?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 38:13Patrick Bet-David?

  So you go there, so who's the senior pastor when you go there?

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Uh, Bill Hybels.

• 38:15Patrick Bet-David?

  It is Bill Hybels.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 38:17Patrick Bet-David?

  So at the time, so this is 80s.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was the second largest church in the country at the time.

• 38:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I mean, Bill Hybels is a guy that I've studied very closely because, uh, he, he wrote that one thing, Ten Different Styles of Leadership.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:30Patrick Bet-David?

  And he would talk about the reengineering, reengineering leader, the directional leader, the entrepreneurial leader, the visionary leader, you know, the motivational leader. He was a very good teacher.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Excellent, excellent.

• 38:41Patrick Bet-David?

  How much time did you spend with him?

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Oh, a lot of time. I mean, I was on the management team of the church ultimately, um, and he led that management team as a senior pastor, and, um, so I, I was quite involved with him. He was instrumental in me coming to faith, because my wife started taking me to that church, even when I was an atheist. When I walked into that church on January the 20th of 1980 as an atheist, and I heard the message of Jesus for the first time that I understood it from Bill Hybels. And that's what started me on my journey to see if I could disprove it. And so I owe a lot to Bill.

• 39:12Patrick Bet-David?

  What was, what was special about the way he built this church into the second largest?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Well, you know, you mentioned some leadership things. He has a leadership gift. He was a, he was a visionary leader, but a, a practical leader as well. He was able to, uh, what's, take what started out as a bunch of teenagers, a student ministry at a little church in Park Ridge, Illinois, and ultimately build it into the second largest church in America.

• 39:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was the first at the time?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Um, it was a church in South Bend, uh, in Hammond, Indiana.

• 39:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Interesting.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Second Baptist Church in, I think in Hammond, Indiana.

• 39:45Patrick Bet-David?

  So he builds the second largest church?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:47Patrick Bet-David?

  And he's, he's, uh, you know, I, I think John Maxwell left the church to go into leadership, but Bill never did, right? Bill stayed.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  He was best friends with John.

• 39:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Right. I mean, both of them are, uh, very good at what they did. So then, you know, uh, leads to, and I know in the book Case for Church, I don't know what point it was you made, but you talked about what happens when there's a fallen out in the church and Bill's was when there was a fallen out in a mass exodus. And that seems to be, you know, it, it, it happened locally here as well at a church that I go to that might, you know, uh, down the street from here.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Where Billy Graham's grandson went through it as well. I don't know if you followed that story when it happened. Couple of miles away from here. It happened at Calvary Chapel here down the street as well where the pastor was, uh, uh, stories came out about him having a relationship with one of the members' wives.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:42Patrick Bet-David?

  And then the other pastor at the other church was, um, he couldn't give up the party life. He was a good looking guy, very good speaker, Armenian guy. Both him and his, his brother still preaches and he's phenomenal at the way he preached. I think his brother preaches at the Calvary here. But a lot of people have experienced it. Were you there when the church fell? Or you had already left?

• 41:02Speaker 01

  No, I left in the year 2000 to become a teaching pastor with Rick Warren at Saddleback Church.

• 41:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, wow, you went through Saddleback?

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 41:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow, Purpose Driven Life. That book sold 40 million, I don't know what it did, but Rick Warren, the Green Book, right? That was a book I read, 40 days, I think it was. I didn't go through the 40, I read it all in like a couple of days. And I heard him preach once at a Billy Graham event at Pasadena. November of 03, Rick Warren was there. Jack Hayford, which is a church my sister used to go to, was there. He was in Van Nuys, I believe.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yes, I knew Jack.

• 41:34Patrick Bet-David?

  And then Billy Graham preached three out of the, he preached every day. I went three out of the four days. One of the days I had a business event. And then eventually, I think in Pasadena, they gave the day to Billy Graham when he preached. But Rick Warren was there as well. So you leave Willow Creek. You go to San Diego to be with Rick Warren. When you hear about the stories, I'm sure you still have connections and relationships there. How big was the direct impact to the church? Because I read stories about how-

• 42:01Speaker 01

  It was huge. I mean, it broke my heart. He's a friend. I mean, it broke my heart. I mean, if you ask me, who are the five people in Christendom, leaders in Christendom, who are least likely to fall? Bill would be one of them. I mean, he was a man of, as far as the Bill Hybels I knew, was a man of integrity, a man of principle, a man of faith, a man of a great leadership ability. He gave me opportunities. You know, the joke was, here I am, I was an atheist. I come to faith and I leave all that behind, take a 60% pay cut,

• 42:42Speaker 01

  and I joined his staff as, I was, my role was to oversee 750 volunteers in a very second. I had no aspirations to preach, to write books, any of that. In a typical church, I would have risen to become Chief Usher.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  But he gave me opportunities. He saw something in me and said, you know, I think maybe God's given you a gift to communicate, to preach. And honestly, I thought he had, but I thought, I'm not going to say anything because there's too much of a risk of self-promotion. So if God is calling me to preach, to teach, to write books, he'll make it happen. I'm not going to say anything. And one day knocked on my door and came in and said, you know, the elders were praying and we believe God's given you a gift and I want to help you develop. He helped develop me to preach and to write. And so I owe a lot to Bill. And when I left

• 43:38Speaker 01

  and I heard these stories about his inappropriate relationships and so forth, the first reaction I have, it broke my heart. And it almost broke the church. I mean, it was a very difficult time for the church. The church, a lot of people left the church. They got some new leadership in there. It's doing great now. But I mean, that's a horrible thing to have a leader of a church fall. It hurts the faith of people who say, maybe inappropriately so, because we're all sinners, we all mess up, we all have flaws and so forth. We put sometimes preachers on pedestals and maybe they don't 100% deserve to be on. But when

• 44:23Speaker 01

  one of them falls, it can be devastating to people's faith. That's what breaks my heart especially because I'm, my goal in life is to drag as many people to heaven with me as I can. And this frustrates that because of the number of people who were hurt personally by that.

• 44:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, and this, but it's not, it's not a new thing.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  No, it's not.

• 44:45Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not a new thing. I used to go to a church in LA called Los Angeles Church of Christ. And their pastor eventually came out and there was a massive scandal with that as well. But he came out and he said, look, because their thing was, it wasn't about women with him. It was more, the only way to go to heaven is through our church, no other church.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Because we're the right one, all this other stuff.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:06Patrick Bet-David?

  But you can, you can go back and hear stories with. You know Jimmy Swaggard, that was the original one.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, um, you hear the Jim Baker story, the Ted Haggard, which was the story with a male escort and a lot of them, even some of them right now that you look at, the one locally was Bob McCoy and recently was, I think it's a John Morris, he wrote a very good book. Is that his name from Dallas?

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yes, from Dallas, not John Moore.

• 45:32Patrick Bet-David?

  No, it's not, it's a different Moore.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Morris.

• 45:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Richard Morris, Robert, Robert Morris is what it is.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Yes, I don't know him, but yeah.

• 45:38Patrick Bet-David?

  And he came out and things that came back and he, he accepted it.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Which was a great church. I have friends who went to that church. They loved, they grew spiritually, it's a great church. And then to have that happen, it's like, you gotta, you know, you have to tell people, yeah, it's a tragedy and, and yet it should not destroy your faith.

• 45:57Patrick Bet-David?

  So, so I, for me, you know, I go back and I see, okay, so uh, uh, I'm going to Bible study with this guy Mono and he tells me, says, hey, your relationship is a vertical relationship, not a horizontal relationship. So, in your book, The Case for Church, you talk about, one of the points you make in the book, which I love, is that scandals don't invalidate the truth. Right? Scandals don't invalidate the truth because, you know, these are human beings, they're gonna fall, they're gonna make mistakes. But what, what is your position of what these men who come in, because women are attracted to what? A pastor who builds a very big church,

• 46:40Patrick Bet-David?

  the way you do it is, you're either very good at one-on-one, but typically you're very good in one in a thousand.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 46:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Very good with one in a thousand. So, to be good in one in a thousand, you're very good persuading, you're charming, you're charismatic, you're convincing. The conviction, you're like, women want a man, that these are all attractive qualities, right?

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Can be.

• 47:01Patrick Bet-David?

  That, that get into play, so.

• 47:04Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, one, as the attendee, how should an attendee look at that, as devastating as it is,

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:12Patrick Bet-David?

  and not cause them to lose faith in a man upstairs?

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:16Patrick Bet-David?

  And two, what can senior pastors do to protect themselves against this common pattern that happens to many great men in history? It isn't just, it's unfortunate that we're mentioning their names, but I can go with a list of history.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 47:29Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, and, and we have thousands of names that we can give with this. How do you, how do you?

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Well, I think first of all, for those who are quote unquote victims, in the sense that they're part of a church that pastor falls and so forth, how do they not lose their faith? I think number one is our faith is not in the pastor, our faith is in Jesus, our faith is in God. And I mentioned to you earlier, the reasons why I became convinced that Jesus is who he claimed to be through his resurrection from the dead, historical data. I go back to that, I go back to that. Yes, there are men of God who fall and who sin and who forfeit their pulpit because of immorality, but I go back to the evidence, I go back to the, how do I know, how do I know Christianity is true? I look at the four Es and say, yeah, Jesus did return from the dead, he did prove he's the son of God.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  It has nothing to do with Bill Hybels, you know? So, I want to set that boundary and say, I want to rely on, on, you know, it's called in Christian world apologetics, defense of the faith, reasons to believe. In terms of the pastors, there's gotta be accountability, there's gotta be, you know, I see a lot of churches where the, the elders of the church are employees of the church. They're, well, you can't hold the senior pastor accountable if he's your boss, right?

• 48:48Patrick Bet-David?

  So you're getting paid, you got a salary, so your incentive is to protect them?

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. So, you know, who are the elders of the church? How are they chosen? And, and what access do they have to the pastor? Is a pastor willing to open up his life? Are there people who he discloses to? Like my friend Mark. You know, I mean, we each, that's our accountable relationship as followers of Jesus. We want to hold each other accountable. And if Mark ever senses that I'm kind of going astray, he'll pull me aside. And if he doesn't hit me across the face, I know he's going to tell me, "Hey, Strobel, listen, what you did, that's inappropriate. You need to do..." You know, so there's got to be that kind of accountability. Iron sharpens iron, the Bible says.

• 49:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, are you, I'm assuming you're familiar with the Modesto Manifesto that Billy Graham came up with, with his crew?

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:42Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think about the Modesto Manifesto?

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Is this where you are never in the presence of a woman?

• 49:46Patrick Bet-David?

  That's right, yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  You know what?

• 49:48Patrick Bet-David?

  1948, he sat down, he says, "Hey, guys," it seems like he knew.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  And look what happened to Billy Graham. He lived a life of authenticity and effectiveness.

• 49:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Till the end.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Till the end.

• 49:59Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not easy.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  It's not easy. And I wonder, is there a cause and effect there?

• 50:02Patrick Bet-David?

  They had a rule of three, right? Because he told, he tells a story, I believe, one time where it's like, he's in a room by himself, a real attractive girl comes in. I don't know if this is, it could have been a different pastor. Rob, fact-check me on this if he told the story. And he runs out immediately.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Because like, I can't be in, so they, they would travel in threes.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Is what he would talk about, because he would break down the fall was based on four things that would cause a church to fall. One was women, one was finances, because you're not, one was like, it's getting to your head. And he had four things that he would talk about, but...

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Well, I, I personally travel with my wife wherever I go. She's here on this trip to Fort Lauderdale. And she comes with me whenever I travel, mainly because we're best friends. And, you know, known each other since we were 14. So, we're always together. And I, and that's a blessing to me, to have someone like that. She's not like she's a bodyguard, or she's screening things, but she's there. And I'm glad she's there. I enjoy her being there. But she also, that becomes a, a guard against any inappropriate actions that I might otherwise try to make.

• 51:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  We're all susceptible. I mean, temptations of, you know, Satan is very clever and he will tempt us in ways that we don't see coming. We gotta be, you know, Bible talks about put on the full armor of God.

• 51:24Patrick Bet-David?

  You can't do it alone, though. I mean, it's the one thing that's for sure. You can't do it alone.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 51:30Patrick Bet-David?

  When you're going through it alone, it's gonna be, it's gonna challenge you in a big way. So your, your, your evolution of, you know, going from the atheist to a, you know, a Christian.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:41Patrick Bet-David?

  What role did C.S. Lewis play, you know, with Mere Christianity or some of his other writings that he had? What role did he play?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  He played a big role. I mean, Mere Christianity is a classic. And I recommend anybody read that, whether a believer or not a believer, just someone who's checking out the faith. It's just a great, great book. C.S. Lewis wrote some wonderful, wonderful stuff. So I enjoyed him. You know, on a popular level, Josh McDowell. Remember Josh?

• 52:06Patrick Bet-David?

  I do.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  He's a friend now. And his son, Sean McDowell, is a fantastic, he's a professor at Biola University. And my son is a professor there. He has a PhD in faith. He's a Jonathan Edwards scholar. And he's a, teaches spiritual formation at their seminary. But Josh wrote some popular level books. There's a book written by a guy, gosh, what was his name? Oh, there's several books. The Agnostic Who Dared to Search. That was, that was an interesting book. Peter Stoner. Peter Stoner.

• 52:42Patrick Bet-David?

  What a great name.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Peter Stoner.

• 52:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Sounds like an atheist name.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  It doesn't it? And he was.

• 52:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Stoner, Peter Stoner.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  That's right. He was an atheist in, in, in England and became a Christian after he investigated the evidence for the resurrection. And I read that book. There was a famous guy at, who made Harvard Law School what it is, which is the second greatest law school after Yale. But back in the 1800s, who investigated faith and became a believer and wrote a wonderful book on the reliability of the gospels. There's a lot of great stuff out there.

• 53:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Josh McDowell, did he, Josh McDowell write a book called Tolerance?

• 53:14Speaker 01

  No. He wrote a book called The Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter on a real popular level.

• 53:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Yep, yep.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Great guy, still alive. And Sean, as I say, his son is doing great work. He has a wonderful podcast that he does. So he's carrying on. There's some wonderful.

• 53:33Patrick Bet-David?

  There's a bunch of them. One of them, Wayne Cordero, one day my pastor brings me in.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Oh, Wayne's a great guy. I used to speak at his church. Yeah, Wayne, from Hawaii.

• 53:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes. My pastor brings me in. He says, I want to have breakfast with you Pastor Dudley Rutherford. I don't know if you know who he is. He's in LA, big church, 20 plus thousand members. And he introduces me to one of Wayne's book called Leading on Empty, I think it's called. Leading on Empty says what men go through when they're in their 40s. You know, it's kind of like, man, I'm carrying the weight. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. You kind of need to go and to re-energize yourself for the next phase because sometimes at that age, if you go through that phase by yourself, you could do something dumb. You could do something, you know. And that was also a big book.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Lee Strobel, atheist turned Christian, author of several books, including The Case for Christ and Seeing the Supernatural. You might have questions about faith, about how we know that Jesus is who we claim to be and that there really is a realm beyond what we can see and touch and put in a test tube. So I'd love to chat with you about that. Just go to Mynect and then we can connect and talk about these matters of faith that are so important to our lives.

• 54:43Patrick Bet-David?

  But when it comes on to C.S. Lewis, for him to be the, he was more from the philosopher's side, right? That he went there. Chronicles of Narnia, he's written a lot of things that you would think. But he did talk about those three things, the argument that kind of got me. What role did that play where he says, God, Jesus is either, what is it, the liar, the lunatic, or the Lord, right?

• 55:04Speaker 01

  I would add a fourth one, a legend. He could have been a legend.

• 55:08Patrick Bet-David?

  I like that because you said that earlier.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. And that's a popular objection these days. Oh, it was legendary.

• 55:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Over time, it gets bigger and bigger. And he was eight feet tall. And he was.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Right, right. So, yeah, is he a liar? Well, could have been, could have been. Is he a legend? Is he, or is he Lord or lunatic? Could he have been crazy? I interviewed a psychologist about Jesus. Could he have been crazy? And he set me straight on that.

• 55:35Patrick Bet-David?

  What did he say?

• 55:36Speaker 01

  He said, no, he said, first of all, the teachings of Jesus. You ever read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, Chapter 5? The Beatitudes, the most brilliant insights into human nature? Just, this is not, these are not the words of a crazy guy. And besides which, the way in which we document his identity of being the son of God is through the resurrection, and that's irrelevant, you know, his mental health is, you know, not relevant at the time of that. But, um, so, yeah, you go through those, those options, and you see that Jesus is who he claimed to be. That's the, that was my conclusion. It was not something I was seeking. I wanted to rescue my wife from this cult. But you know what?

• 56:21Speaker 01

  I'm from the old school of journalism. I can't speak about contemporary journalism. Back in my day, I got a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, which was the first, and I believe the best journalism school, and we were taught to try to tell both sides, to be objective as possible. When I was an atheist at the Chicago Tribune, I was very pro-abortion. I, as an atheist, I helped arrange an abortion for a young woman I knew as a friend at the University of Missouri who got pregnant, and she came to me and said, "Lee, what do I do? I'm pregnant." I said, "Don't worry about it. Abortion's legal in New York. I'll take care of it. We'll get the money together. I'll set it up. So no babies in your way, you get rid of it."

• 57:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, but you know what? Even though at that time, I was very pro-abortion, I covered a lot of court cases involving the abortion issue. It goes Supreme Court back and forth through those years. If you read any of my articles, you would not know where I stood. Because I was taught, you tell both sides. You quote both sides. You present both arguments. That's my role as a journalist. Today, you get a lot of people, you say, "Why are you going into journalism?" "I want to change the world." No! That's not your job to change the world. Your job is to tell the truth, is to tell both sides, to report what's going on.

• 57:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Who does that today?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Accurately. Who does that today?

• 57:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Who do you go to? Like, is there any source you go to?

• 57:42Speaker 01

  You know what I do? I try to go to multiple sources, figuring I'm going to kind of reach a mean that'll, you know. So, I like the Wall Street Journal. They're pretty good. You too. It's my number one. Yeah, that's me, my number one. I bounce back and forth between, on television, between CNN and Fox News. I'll listen a little here and a little there and try to catch something. I subscribe to the Washington Post and the New York Times, not because I trust them, but because I want to know what they're saying. I don't trust them. I guess I don't trust them anymore. They have become advocates. They've become people who are trying to promote a cause. And that's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in somebody telling me what is going on.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Give me both sides, tell me the truth.

• 58:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, it's tough. I mean, listen, today, it's not, it's not easy to sit there and, you know, see who to trust, what they're going to be saying. It's such a great time for propaganda and confusion.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 58:38Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, they say the fog of war, it's like the fog of everything today.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  That's a very good point. You're absolutely right. It's the fog of everything. And it, you know, now, having been trained in journalism and law, I have some skills that I can kind of cut through some of the...

• 58:53Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you do that?

• 58:54Speaker 01

  You know, well, you know, it's because I, I was there, so I know how to... If you want to, if you want to, if you want to tell a story to present one side, I can pretty much spot it. You know what I mean? There was an article in the Denver newspaper recently, or on television, and it was about transgenders in women's sports. And they, they interviewed this one guy who was very, he was a coach, and he was very in favor of having men in women's sports. And I thought, huh, that's interesting. I wonder who that guy really is. And as you dig down, which was not disclosed at the time, when you dig down, you find that, oh, he's part of an advocacy, advocacy group that promotes transgenders involved in women's sports.

• 59:38Patrick Bet-David?

  That's not hard to... So you go a little bit deeper to see what the writer is about, what their background is about.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you look at who the writer is, you look at, are they telling you something that your antenna go up and say, wait a second? Is that kind of unusual that a coach would say, well, I have no problem with men coming into my women's sports and playing? Really? Who is this guy? You know, you try to discern, you try to cut through the stuff. It's not always successful.

• 1:00:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you see the story about this NBA player, Jaden Ivey? Uh, did you see this story in the last couple of days?

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:00:10Patrick Bet-David?

  So Jaden Ivey is this, I'll let you, Rob, if you want to play this clip. He plays for the Chicago Bulls. He used to be with the Pistons. He was the backcourt in the Pistons, pretty strong guy. He had a good season last year, 17 points, four assists, four rebounds. Had a bad injury, goes to the Bulls. You know, becomes a Christian even more devout. He starts openly talking about it. And he makes this video just a couple of days ago.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:36Patrick Bet-David?

  And shares this about LGBTQ, the fact that NBA supports it. The next day, the Bulls drop him. Rob, if you want to play this clip, go for it.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  That the world can proclaim LGBTQ.

• 1:00:54Speaker 03

  Right? They have, they have, they proclaim Pride Month in the NBA. They proclaim it. They, they show it to the world. They say, come, come, uh, come join us for Pride, for Pride Month. To celebrate unrighteousness. They proclaim it.

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

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• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness. So how is it that, that one can't speak righteousness? How is it one that, how, how, how are they to say that, uh, you, you, man, this man is crazy?

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Because of this, he gets fired. The bull's fired. I had not heard that. That is unbelievable. You know, in law school, my specialty was First Amendment law. Okay. I used to teach First Amendment law at Roosevelt University. First Amendment is foundational in our nation, absolutely foundational. And what are we seeing? We're seeing censorship, whether it's overt or covert. We're seeing people whose opinions, like his, that's a legitimate opinion to have as a follower of Jesus, that this is not biblical and so forth. He should be allowed to express that without consequence in this country. Not anymore. Uh, there, there's, there's these attacks on people. I'm, I've, I've been working with the FBI for the last couple of weeks because someone's

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  trying to kill me, um, because of my, the stands I take. And, um, yeah, there was a credible threat on my life. And, um, so we've been working together and I think the time has passed. I think it's, uh, it's over, but, um... Do you know who the individual is? No, they never caught him. But they provided protection for me, uh, at various events because the threat was they were going to shoot me at my next speaking event. Oh, they made it clear? Oh, yeah, made it clear when and where. Was it in an email? Was it in a message? It was, it was a message through my website. Unfortunately, my website is pretty rudimentary and I don't, I can't capture, I don't capture the whole IP address because I'm cheap and I didn't want to spend the money on a nice website. And so, um, they tracked him down a little bit, but they, they not identified him, but, um, they, I got extra security when I was speaking.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  But I mean, what, what, what am I saying? What am I saying? Am I saying something outrageous? No, I'm saying the evidence points toward Jesus being the unique Son of God. Here's what I said that I think got me in trouble.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  The Quran, you have the Quran, you have the Bible. I read the Quran. I read the Quran when I was a spiritual seeker. I wanted to know, maybe Islam is the way. And I saw three things in there that contradict Christianity very clearly. Number one, it says in Surah 4, 157, Jesus didn't die on the cross. Well, if he didn't die on the cross, there's no resurrection. Secondly, the Quran says, "And no one can bear the sins of another." Well, that takes away the atonement, which is the foundation of Christianity. And third, it says, "God does not have a son." So, okay, they're allowed to believe that and proclaim that and preach that. But if those three things are true, the Bible is false.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  So either both books are false, or one of them is true, but they cannot both be true at the same time. That's all I said, that I think triggered this whole thing.

• 1:04:44Patrick Bet-David?

  And so the individual that came to you, did they know if he was Muslim or not?

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  They don't know for a fact, but it was right after I expressed this on a podcast.

• 1:04:51Patrick Bet-David?

  I got it.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so who knows? It could have been an atheist. They get mad that I left the...

• 1:04:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, and I want to go to that. It's a perfect transition into that, but just to get past this.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:00Patrick Bet-David?

  The criticism for this story about Jaden Ivey is that there's another NBA player called Kevin Porter. Now Kevin Porter gets charged with assaulting a girl, strangulation, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Rob. Can you fact check? Yeah, strangulation.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:05:19Patrick Bet-David?

  And he pleaded guilty, just pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault. And when he did this, this was just two years ago.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Patrick Bet-David?

  The NBA just gave him a four-game suspension.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Four-game suspension.

• 1:05:31Patrick Bet-David?

  The NBA gave him a four-game suspension.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Unbelievable.

• 1:05:33Patrick Bet-David?

  And this other guy, he's questioning why...

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, just raising...

• 1:05:37Patrick Bet-David?

  ...five months, and he gets fined. So this is where the criticism comes in. This is why I believe the NBA is the worst product.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:05:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Out of all the force that we have.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  You know, what have we got in England these days? I mean, you talk about the law. Now, they don't have a First Amendment. They don't have a First Amendment in England, as a board to understand.

• 1:05:53Patrick Bet-David?

  They claim they do, but they definitely do. You and I both know they don't.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  That's right. And it is dangerous now to have an opinion that violates the standard viewpoint of the culture. It's just unbelievable to me where that nation has gone. And there's places in Europe that are similar.

• 1:06:12Patrick Bet-David?

  So I want to read this to you. I want to read some stats to you. Now, I wonder how you're going to answer this. Ten countries where Christianity is declining. Australia has the largest drop of any country studied. It went from sixty seven point one percent in two thousand and ten to ten years later forty six point eight percent. This is a twenty, uh, twenty point decline li- in only ten years, and it's even lower today. UK went from sixty two point four percent during that same period to forty nine point four, losing its Christian majority. Church of England closing twenty churches per year. France Catholic share fell from eighty one percent in nineteen eighty six to forty seven

• 1:06:54Patrick Bet-David?

  percent, almost a forty percent decline from eighty six to twenty twenty. Lost Christian majority among the eight countries projected to lose Christian majority by twenty fifty. Uruguay shifted to a majority unaffiliated, uh, fifty two nuns versus forty four Christian, used to be sixty one percent Christian in twenty ten. Netherlands transitioned to religiously unaffiliated majority by twenty twenty. Roman Catholics went from thirty nine percent in nineteen seventy one to twenty three percent, average of eight churches closing every year. US seventy eight point three to sixty four percent, fourteen percent decline during the same period. Canada sixty seven to fifty three. Chile eighty six to sixty eight, almost twenty percent. Germany forty eight percent Christian in twenty twenty four, fewer than half belonged

• 1:07:39Patrick Bet-David?

  to two large churches. New Zealand fifty one percent unaffiliated. South Korea, no clear religious majority. In forty one countries, the Christian share changed by five plus percentage points from twenty ten to twenty twenty, and forty of those forty one, the change was a decline. Only one was a positive. The sole exception was Mozambique, that's increased. That was the only one out, out of all of them. Why is this happening? Why is the decline happening across the world?

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  I think there's a lot of explanations for that, a lot of, um, factors that, uh, go into that. Number one, I don't trust the stats. Because back when in 1966, when I met my wife, we were 14 years old.

• 1:08:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Yep.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  Uh, 91% of Americans would say they're Christians.

• 1:08:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Do you think we were a nation that reflected that back then? I don't think so. And, and so how do-

• 1:08:28Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you mean by, what do you mean by reflected that like-

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Another, yeah, do we live as if we're 91% followers of Jesus Christ? No. So people will claim in the past, it was a, if you're a business guy and you wanted a bunch of clients, um, you know, you want to go to a big church in your community and become a member of that church and so forth. So you have an incentive to present yourself as being a Christian. Are you truly born again? Are you truly have a relationship with God?

• 1:08:57Patrick Bet-David?

  I think those are two different things though, right? To me to say, you know, at that time, you know, there wasn't social media, there wasn't the accessibility of-

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  Well, and those are, those are other factors.

• 1:09:06Patrick Bet-David?

  There was a Billy Graham, we did have a mass, Billy Graham would be on, uh, Johnny Carson, he was on the Woody Allen show, he would go, so at least they would still invite nowadays, you know, when's the last time you saw, you know, Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel, bring a-

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  Oh, they never had one.

• 1:09:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Charlie Kirk or bring a, any of these guys, the late, great Charlie Kirk. They don't do that. So we were living in a different era. So we were kind of like, we're a Christian nation. So maybe TV, social media changed.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  We're a Christian nation, but are we Christians? Are we truly born again? Have we received Jesus as our forgiver and leader in our lives?

• 1:09:39Patrick Bet-David?

  What percentage is really born again though?

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, well-

• 1:09:40Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a very small percentage, right?

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  But those are the true Christians.

• 1:09:43Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree. I agree.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  And so I think you're right. All these factors, social media, the, the mass media, um, um, and so forth, those are all factors. I mean, I remember when Billy Graham was on the Johnny Carson show.

• 1:09:55Patrick Bet-David?

  That's right.

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  I mean, are you kidding me?

• 1:09:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Great show.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  Could you imagine Franklin Graham being on Jimmy Kimmel? I don't think so.

• 1:10:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  So, um, yeah, so we did have those, those positive influences. We have a rise in Islam in some places that has created a culture where it's uncomfortable for people to, um, publicly, um, defend their faith.

• 1:10:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Just to give you that number, during that same period, 2010 to 2020, fastest growing major religion, three, plus 347 million. Is Muslim now 25.6% of the world versus Christians 28.8%. Projected to be the majority by 2050 is what they're looking.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  And you look at, look at the birth rate among Muslims versus the birth rate among evangelical Christians. It's night and day. So there are various factors that are involved. However, I see pockets of good news. I see outbreaks where God is doing amazing things among young people in our country. The, the recent statistics show that young people are reading the Bible more than previous generations.

• 1:10:56Patrick Bet-David?

  You're right, Rob. Can you pull up that Gen Z stat? You're absolutely right.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  It's just amazing. And so I, and you saw what happened.

• 1:11:02Patrick Bet-David?

  The chart that Connor sent, Rob.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  In Asbury, at Asbury College Seminary, where you had an outbreak of the Holy Spirit. You had people coming to faith right and left. I see some positive things going on.

• 1:11:14Patrick Bet-David?

  But you know, I want to stay on this. I want to, I want to push you, challenge you a little bit, go a little bit deeper. Because I think what people want to know is, I get all the positive. And we're going to go to it because the next thing I'm going to show is where my enthusiasm comes for Gen Z specifically. Their level of interest in wanting to become Christians, wanting to learn about the Bible, you know, and we, and we see that. But the question I want to go to is, these countries, Australia was a Christian majority, UK was a Christian majority. France was, Uruguay was, Netherlands was, Canada, a lot of these countries were. What, what, what did the leaders, what did that country do? What did they look away, what did they do for them to all of a sudden be like, oh, let's just be tolerant. It's okay.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  I'll give you an example.

• 1:11:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Please.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  The Church of England, which is totally woke and, and has become soft on the gospel, has become just, in many people's views, kind of a theological joke. And that's a state-run church. I think state-run churches are a mistake. That's not how the church ought to be flourishing. But that's one example that I think is influencing England. But again, I like to, you know, the, the. Factors que incentivariam alguém hoje a ser um cristão de fala alta não são o que eram nos anos 50, 60 e 70. Na época, era socialmente aceitável ser cristão.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Hoje em dia, você pode enfrentar alguns obstáculos profissionais se for um cristão de fala alta. Dependendo do trabalho que você faz e o que você faz, pode não ser a coisa mais inteligente.

• 1:12:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Eles podem te matar. Charlie Kirk foi o Billy Graham dos dias modernos. Quem era o grande Rush Limbaugh. Eu sempre disse que Charlie é a combinação de Rush e Billy. E eles o mataram. Eles o mataram por isso.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  Isso é verdade. Então, há todos esses obstáculos negativos que... E eu acho que é um processo de frutação onde as pessoas hoje que estão proclamando que são seguidores de Jesus provavelmente realmente são seguidores de Jesus. Você sabe, George Barna, que faz muitas pesquisas e assim por diante, fez uma pesquisa. Ele inventou cinco perguntas para tentar determinar se alguém é um cristão legítimo. Cinco perguntas teológicas. Você concorda com isso, isso, isso, isso? E nós não podemos dizer, Deus sabe o coração. Mas cinco perguntas para tentar discernir. Então ele foi para várias denominações para tentar descobrir quantas pessoas na igreja encontrem esses cinco critérios e são verdadeiros cristãos. Qual é o resultado dele? O que ele está tentando resolver? Ele está tentando descobrir... Você pode ter mil pessoas na igreja, quantas realmente são cristãos?

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  E então ele foi para igrejas bautistas. Você sabe o que ele descobriu? O que é? Um 29%. Esse é o meu recolhimento. Era como 29%. Você pode pegar isso lá, Rob? Bautistas, 29%. Sim. Eu estou trackando. Cátolico, quase o mesmo. Ok. Não muito diferente. Eu não me lembro. Este veio de um número de anos atrás, então eu não posso lembrar todos os outros. Mas o meu ponto é que ele estava tentando chegar além do que as pessoas dizem versus quem eles são.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  The incentive to be a Christian today is not what it used to be. You know, I'm getting death threats. You know, who am I?

• 1:14:26Patrick Bet-David?

  The risk of being a Christian today?

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Versus what it was back then. You were safer back then?

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  That's right. It was more popular.

• 1:14:33Patrick Bet-David?

  So then the question, again, the question becomes, Lee, why? What changed?

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  I think it's a social media. I think it's mass media. As you said, a guy like Billy Graham's not going to get the exposure today that he got back in the 60s. I think it's, in many ways, the rise of Islam and a squelching of Christian beliefs. People expressing them. Well, look at this reporter that, or this NBA player you mentioned, who lost his opportunity because he was outspoken, saying something that an average Christian would probably agree with. That there's an unrighteousness to certain behaviors that culture says are fine, and we ought to celebrate and be prideful of.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  So there's a squelching of Christian belief in that way that I think makes it uncomfortable for some people to say, "Oh, yeah, I'm a Christian." Because now all of a sudden, you go, "Oh, well, you don't believe in choice? You don't believe in abortion as being opportunity? It's women's health issue? You want to come out against that? Really?" You know, and you're likely to get challenged today. Well, you wouldn't be challenged back in the 60s. You'd be celebrated. I mean, that was, everybody claimed to be a Christian, regardless of how many truly were.

• 1:15:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, it's interesting when you see that. Now, while we're talking over here collectively with a couple of my teammates, conversation came about a barrier to entry. Because, you know, sometimes, you know, different denominations or sects will say, "Well, let me tell you. You know, it's very hard to be a Catholic. You know, try out, you know, the whole nine months. Starts in September, and then you have to do this, and you have to be committed to do this to be a Catholic. You can't just come and become a Catholic overnight."

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Right? Or if you want to be a Jew, it's not like Jews are going around saying, "Just accept, you know, and you're going to be fine based on the Talmud." No, it's going to take a year to two years to be a Jew. You know, to become a Muslim, seconds. To become a non-denominational Christian, seconds. What do you say to people that, you know, make the argument of the barrier to entry? You've made it so easy to become a non-denominational Christian that people are actually not valuing it versus the reason why 2025 Catholic Church grew so much and had a very big growth year and they're expecting to have even a bigger year this year is they don't just allow you to join it. You have to do certain things to be part of that church. What do you say to that?

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  Well, certainly in the earliest days of Christianity, before a person was baptized, they would catechism, go through a catechism with them in a sense. They would educate them. What is the faith about?

• 1:17:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Cost of discipleship.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, cost of discipleship, things like that. And, you know, I think where the American church has fallen down is in the area of discipleship, in the area of people understanding what it really entails to be a follower of Jesus. But, having said that, I certainly don't want to add to what the Bible says in terms of what it takes to become a true follower of Jesus. You know, the Bible is 700,000 words plus. It's a big book, 66 books. It can be very complicated to go through and to try to figure out, you know, exactly what's the central message. I like to, I say, you know what? Give me 21 words. One verse, to me, sums up everything. Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death,

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." So the wage of sin is death. What we deserve, what we earn, the consequence of living a life opposing God, failing to follow His teachings and so forth, the consequence of that is death, which means eternal separation from God. Nobody wants that. That's what hell is. But, the free gift of God, not something we have to earn. We don't have to go through a process of education and so forth. The free gift of God is eternal life, how? Through Christ Jesus our Lord. In other words, He went to the cross. He paid the penalty we deserve for the sins that we've committed

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  and He offers forgiveness and eternal life as a free gift of His grace. So I don't want to lose the fact that so often in history, we've added things to that and we've made it, oh yeah, but you gotta do this and you gotta do that and you gotta do this. No. You want to receive Jesus as your forgiver and leader. You want to receive this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life. It is a prayer, like I prayed on November 8th of 1981, of repentance and faith, that took me from an atheist to a believer, took me from someone who's rebellion, in rebellion against God, to now a son of God forever. Took me from someone who was headed for hell, to someone who someday will spend eternity with God forever in heaven.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  So, I don't want to lose the beauty of the gospel, the beauty of God's grace. The life... I was talking to one of your staff members, who has kind of had a tough background, you know, and knows a lot of people who, you know, tough, tough folks. And he said, "The beauty to me of Christianity is to see these hell's angels become devoted followers of Jesus." And that is done through this gospel, through this, you know. What happens after you do that is our values begin to change, our, our, our character begins to change, our morality begins to change, our worldview, our, even our politics begin to change after that.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  I mean, when I was an atheist, the ugly truth about me was, when I came home from work, if my little daughter was just a little toddler, playing with some toys in the living room, and she heard me come home from work, she would just gather her toys and go in the room and shut the door. Why? So I was gonna be drunk again, so I was gonna be yelling and screaming and literally kicking holes in the walls out of anger and frustration, that's who I was. And then, after I had the investigation of years, came to faith, prayed that prayer of receiving this free gift of God's grace, he began to change my values and my character and my morality and my parenting and so forth, to the point where my little girl, she was

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  five years old when I came to faith, she was watching, "God has changed, something's different with my dad, something's changing with my dad, something's new with my dad." She's five, she can't articulate it, but she... And it took about four or five months, and then one Sunday morning, she came up to my wife, and she said, "Mommy..."

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  I want God to do for me what he's done for Daddy.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  And she prayed a simple prayer like that, she became a follower of Jesus. Today, she's 50 years old, she's the mother of two of my oldest, my two oldest grandchildren. We're the best of friends, we write books together.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  And same thing with my son, my son saw the difference in his sister and his mom and his dad. And, and, and he came to faith at a young age too, but he took an academic route and ended up getting a PhD in theology and now is a seminary professor. Teaching young people about Jesus Christ and future pastors about Jesus Christ. Where at? At Talbot Seminary at Biola University. And then 13 years ago, his wife gave birth to our first grandson and he named him after me. Wow. So God healed our family. Wow. God changed our family. Beautiful. God changed my children. That's amazing. And he changed me. So I say, you know, it, it, it sounds too simple, it sounds too easy. But that's the gospel, it's free.

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  Now, on the other side of that, you know, John 1:12 says, "But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name." And I, I notice that forms an equation of what it means to become a true Christian. Believe plus receive equals become. So I have to believe certain things, like Jesus is who he claimed to be, he proved to be by returning from the dead. So you believe, but then you have to receive. And that's what you do through a simple prayer of, of repentance and faith. And you become a child of God and then your life begins, begins to change. And if there's no evidence of that, if your life doesn't begin to change, you have to question whether your initial prayer was really heartfelt.

• 1:22:57Speaker 02

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side, but Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, thehousemajoritypact.com, not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:23:27Patrick Bet-David?

  So, you know, what a great testimony you're sharing with the family. And especially for your son to name 13 years ago grandson after you.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  It is granted a middle name, but to me, that's enough.

• 1:23:38Patrick Bet-David?

  That's okay. That's plenty. You know, even, you know, your father followed the same thing, right? Walter, middle name, one of the boys.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:48Patrick Bet-David?

  But you know, you'll sit there and you'll talk to those who maybe not mock Christianity, but maybe take some shots at it, then they'll say, give me a break. Like maybe some, we have a guy on our podcast who's Jewish.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:00Patrick Bet-David?

  And say, Tom will say, why don't you go to a church, Jews for Jesus, right? He'll say, I think that's what it's called, you know? So why don't you go see their testimony, what happened with them, right? And they'll say, stop it. You mean to tell me, Lee, that a, you know, a girl, Lily Phillips, who slept with, you know, a thousand men in 24 hours, if she accepts Jesus Christ as her Savior, she's saved? You mean to tell me the other day had Joey Morlino on the, you know, the current, FBI says the current boss of the Philadelphia crime family. This guy's been documented, but you know, he, they weren't able to get him on it. That maybe he's taken out seven guys.

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:42Patrick Bet-David?

  And we had a great conversation. I've had a lot of different officers on. And he said, you know, you, you want me to believe that Sammy DeBogravano, who was tied to 19 different murders, accepted Jesus Christ and now he's going to heaven? You want me to believe that? You, you want me to believe that a Hitler that killed all these different people, if he accepts Jesus Christ, he's gonna go to heaven? You know, that's the problem with Christianity.

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  But that's, you know what? I want to say to them, yes, that's exactly right. My father-in-law was an atheist. And after I became a Christian, he said, don't ever bring up the name Jesus to me. Okay, he was a nice guy, but he was a strong atheist. And I finally led him in a prayer to receive Jesus in the final conversation before he died.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  And I believe he'll be in heaven and we'll spend eternity together. And I think that is the power and the beauty of the Christian message. I wrote a book called The Case for Grace. And every chapter is a story about someone who is the most unlikely candidate for conversion. And yet God intersected with their life. They gave their life to Christ. They received this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life. They followed Jesus as their leader. And they've been radically, radically revolutionized, including the guy who ran the torture center for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who's now in life in prison and telling everybody he meets about Jesus because God's changed his life. That is the radical truth of Christianity.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  And when we add things to it and say, "Well, you gotta do X, Y, and Z to kind of earn your way or show that you're good enough." No, none of us is good enough. We've all fallen short, the Bible says. And the consequence of that, unless we receive this gift of forgiveness and eternal life, is not anything we want to find out for ourselves.

• 1:26:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so that becomes the argument, right? To say, "You want me to tell, you want me to believe that these guys..."

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want you to believe.

• 1:26:42Patrick Bet-David?

  And you want that.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  I want them to believe because I've seen it. I've seen the... I'll tell you a story. You got a minute?

• 1:26:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  Okay. So, there was a guy named Robert. Robert was the biggest narcissist you probably ever meet. Very successful business guy, multimillionaire. Had a woman in every city. Drunk, gambler, gambled away millions of dollars. He had two corporate jets that he bought. And he had his name painted on the tails of both of them.

• 1:27:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Very humble.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, sometimes he'd take both of them up. And he'd be sitting in one just so he could watch his name fly through the clouds of the other jet. That's a narcissist, right there. That is a narcissist.

• 1:27:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Respect, he's qualified.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  That's right. So, one day, toward the end of his life, he's on the beach here in Florida. And God speaks to him. Talk about the supernatural. God spoke to him on the inside, not through his ears. And God said, "Robert, I've saved you more times than you'll ever know. Now you need to come to me through my Son, Jesus." He was rocked by, what was that? So he called the only guy he knew who was a Christian.

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  Gifford, the sportscaster, Frank Gifford. Remember Frank Gifford? Of course. He calls Frank Gifford, "Frank, you're a Christian. I just had this experience. Who's Jesus?" And Frank said, "Read that book, Case for Christ by Elise Rowell. That'll explain it." So anyway, this guy, Robert, becomes a radical born-again person. His life is transformed. When he gave his, he was gonna be baptized. Would we know this individual or no? I'll tell you the punchline in a minute, who he is. Robert gets up at his baptism and he tells his story. And he says, "I was, I was running away from God. I hated the idea of God. And then he spoke to me. And then, and then he looked at people in the congregation. Have you met him? Has he changed your life? Do you know him?" And the pastor ripped up his sermon.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Said, "You've heard, you've heard the gospel. Anyone," and this church had never had an altar call in their whole service. "Anyone who wants to come forward right now, receive Jesus and be baptized, come forward." And this guy got up from the second row and came forward. And another two people. Seven hundred people came forward in two services. Seven hundred people. And so, Robert and I became friends. He called me to thank me for writing the book. We became friends. And then he died about a couple of years later. And at his request, on his tombstone, thousands of people came to his funeral. Matthew McConaughey gave the eulogy. And on his tombstone, it just says, "Believe in Jesus Christ."

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  Now, as you said, who is this guy? Why did thousands of people come to, why did Matthew McConaughey give his eulogy and so forth? Who is this guy? Evel Knievel. Wow. The motorcycle daredevil rider who had the most broken bones of anybody, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Evel Knievel became a born-again follower of Jesus. We became good friends. And he was, he was absolutely sold out to Jesus. Good for him. And that was right at the end of his life. And, and, and yet, God, through that one prayer that he prayed. At one point, he just said, "God," he said, "Satan, get out of my life. Get out of my life. I want to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior." And God...

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Grew something in his heart and changed his values and character. He could not stop talking about Jesus. There was a men's magazine. They wanted to do a profile of him and they didn't know about his conversion. So they went to interview him. He didn't want to talk about all his girlfriends. He didn't want to talk about all the, all the things he had been, he wanted to talk about Jesus. And so the writer said, what do I do here? So he writes this article based on all this old stuff. And at the end, he just said, um, and um, so I talked to him and all I want to talk about is Jesus. And that was it. I mean, so that is the power of the gospel, to transform a life, to say, I don't have to, I don't have to fulfill 18 requirements.

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  I don't have to, I don't have to try to be something. I can't be on my own. I need the power of God to live a godly life. I couldn't have, I mean, I was heading down a dark alley. I mean, before I was a Christian. And if I had not come to faith, I, I, I don't know what would happen. Um, and God rescued me because of a prayer. And just said, God, I'm throwing yourself on your mercy, because you are a merciful God. And I am a sinner. I know, that's no mystery about that. And I just want to receive this free gift. You tell me it's free? Okay, I'm gonna take you at your word.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  It's a free gift, forgiveness, eternal life.

• 1:31:31Patrick Bet-David?

  That's amazing. It's a great story. Evil can evil. I didn't know where you were going with Robert.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was just a given name.

• 1:31:37Patrick Bet-David?

  That's, that was his given name, yeah.

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  You know, when he died, just before he died, he was shopping for a new motorcycle. And he said, look, I'm gonna take you for a ride. And I thought, I don't want, I don't want to be on the back of Evil Keneval's motorcycle. And so when he died, I thought, well, now at least in heaven, it'll be safe. We'll have a motorcycle.

• 1:31:55Patrick Bet-David?

  He's not gonna crash on clouds.

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:31:57Patrick Bet-David?

  It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be a small crash.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:31:59Patrick Bet-David?

  But let me, you're, you're, you've read the Quran. You've obviously read the Bible many times and you've gone through the studies, the researches that you've done. What is your impression of? You know, the religion of Islam and Prophet Muhammad. When you read about him and you read the stories. You know, one asks, what caused this religion to get as popular as it is that in the world today? One out of four person living today is a Muslim. How did that happen? What was so special about Prophet Muhammad?

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  Well, you know, Islam was spread by the sword in the early days. It was a conquest religion to conquer other peoples. And, you know, I look at, I look at the life of Jesus and how he lived and what he taught, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount. His beautiful, wonderful, life-changing sermons and teachings that he gave, his parables. And then I contrast that with Muhammad and say, golly, he consummated his marriage with a nine-year-old.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  I mean, seriously?

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  And, you know, I have friends, Nabeel Qureshi was my good friend, who was a doctor, medical doctor, who wrote a book called Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. And it's a powerful book about how he did the search and investigated Christianity as a Muslim and became a devout Christian. We became very good friends. He died of cancer. I was at his bedside shortly before he passed. And he did what few people do, which is to say, I'm going to investigate it. I'm going to check it out. I'm going to look at, what is the evidence for the truth of Islam versus what is the evidence for the truth of Christianity? I just encourage anybody to do that. Be as objective as possible. I'll tell you, I have a good friend who's a Muslim.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  And he came over to my house for dinner and we're grilling in the backyard and I said, you know, let's set aside religion. Just set aside religion. I said, let's just look at history. Let's look at facts. I've got all of this evidence that Jesus did die on the cross. These things we talked about earlier. I've got these four E's that point to not only the death of Jesus, but his resurrection from the dead. I said, I got, these are first-century sources. This goes right back to the beginning. And then I said, what have you got? You've got a book 600 years later by a guy who said an angel in a cave told him it isn't true. Surah 4, verse 157, Jesus didn't really die on the cross. I said, "Let's just weigh the historical data.

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  Where does that come out?" And he looked at me and said, "I choose to believe the Quran." "Okay, you have that freedom to do it, but I'm asking, where's the evidence? Where are the facts? Where's the data?" "And I believe it points toward the truth of Christianity." So, you know, we're facing a very interesting time with the rise of Islam around the world, and some of the values that seem to be clashing with American values and so forth. So, I'm going on 75 years old, and I'm kind of happy that I'm going to be checking out before too long. I'm not sure I want to be around for the next 20 years.

• 1:35:18Patrick Bet-David?

  But because of what could happen by 2050?

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean...

• 1:35:22Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the worst thing that could happen? Because like...

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  Well, in the end, Christianity wins. In the end, Jesus wins. In the end, God wins. That's not to say there's not going to be some great tribulation and difficulty in the interim, and I think there will be. I think we're seeing that around the world. My goodness, what happened to the ability of people in free countries like Australia, like England, so forth, and Scotland, to freely express their faith? And it's being squelched, and what's the consequence? Its consequence is people are reluctant to share Jesus, reluctant to proclaim themselves as being Christians.

• 1:35:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I mean, again, going through the numbers. I have the numbers here, which countries went from a majority Christian to a majority Muslim, right? Turkey, one of them, you know that, where they were at before. Now 99% Muslim. You've got Egypt, Christian, you know, one of the earliest Christian centers, Coptic Christianity, Muslim conquest in the 7th century, 90% Muslim. Syria, early Christian hub, majority Muslim. Iraq, same thing, strong early Christian presence, Assyrians. My father's an Assyrian. Now we know where they're at. Northern Africa, you hear the stories with Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, almost entirely Muslim. Lebanon...

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, look at the slaughters going on in Nigeria right now.

• 1:36:41Patrick Bet-David?

  But the part with this is, if one were to look and say... You know, this is growing in a lot of different, it's coming to Europe and it's not coming to US. It's grown aggressively in US as well.

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:36:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, we got people politically that are involved to, you know, our Muslim, our biggest city, the financial capital of the world is being ran by a socialist, some even categorically, categorically call him a communist Muslim.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Who is sitting there praying and, you know.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  And his wife had tweets in which she was endorsing the massacre that took place, which is to me unconscionable.

• 1:37:17Patrick Bet-David?

  But how do we get here in the greatest country in the world and a country that was a Christian majority?

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  I mean, my hope is there's a turning point coming. My hope is that when people see this, like the mayor of New York and others, that this will be a kind of a turning point in our country to say, wait a minute, we need to get back to the values that our country was founded on. And it's not values of violence and so forth. It's values of free speech, but it's also values, moral values that sync up with Christianity.

• 1:37:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, hopefully.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  But you know, I got, my best friend in college was a Muslim from Turkey. And I led him to the Lord, Jesus Christ, because he was willing to listen to the evidence. So I'm a little bit naive in the sense that I think Christianity has a truth on its side. And I think ultimately, truth ought to prevail. There's a lot of barriers, there's a lot of issues, but, and it's tough. And I think it's going to be a lot of conflict in the coming years. I mean, our brothers and sisters in Nigeria being slaughtered.

• 1:38:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Slaughtered.

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  And nobody cares.

• 1:38:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Fifty-three K in the last, I don't know what the number is, but.

• 1:38:29Speaker 01

  And nobody's talking about it. No, what politician is, you know, speaking out on this issue? So, you know, we've gone down this path far enough and I'm hoping that there'll be a turning point, but I'm just not sure. I just, I just have my faith that Jesus is going to come back.

• 1:38:45Patrick Bet-David?

  It's good to be there because the one data, Rob, if you want to go to the Gen Z data that we had, this Gen Z data that just came out this year, this is a US Protestant senior pastors from January 29th to 2026. They were showing that over the past year, if you look at Gen Z.

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:39:06Patrick Bet-David?

  A rise in next gen engagement.

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:39:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Higher engagement in Gen Z ages 13 to 26 years old, 45%. Millennials. Twenty-seven to forty-one, forty-two percent. Gen X gets lower to thirty-one. Boomers, lower engagement at twenty-five. Men, thirty-six percent versus thirty-one for women. Ages eighteen to thirty-five, women, forty. That's a massive.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39:29Patrick Bet-David?

  So, when you see this, this gives you hope.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:39:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Right? This gives you hope. And how much of this you think could have also been a direct impact of what Charlie was doing? The late, great Charlie was doing? How much you think this impact could be him as well?

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  He certainly sparked something on these college campuses. He had the courage to go in. He lost his life because he did it. He had the courage to go in and defend the Christian worldview in front of often hostile audiences. And I think it made an impact. I think people said, wait a minute, what did he say? Maybe I should think about that. Could there be truth to that? And so, I think he sparked a lot of this stuff. And it's encouraging to me. Now, you can cite all kinds of numbers as you have legitimately showing the people who claim to be Christians has gone down significantly. But I'm seeing people engaging with the Bible more and more among young people.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  That, to me, is a very positive sign. But there's a lot of work to be done.

• 1:40:29Speaker 02

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:41:00Patrick Bet-David?

  There is no question, there's a lot of work to be done. By the way, how do you view President Trump's relationship with God? How do you process that? Because you've heard some of the things he said. I'm curious.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:11Patrick Bet-David?

  How you view it?

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  I do not know. I just honestly do not know. There's a man that got up and said, I never say I'm sorry. Whereas Christianity involves confessing our sins, turning from those, receiving grace through Jesus Christ and so forth, I don't know him personally. And so I hate to venture any kind of conclusion, but you know, and I see certain things he does that kind of make me go, hmm, that doesn't sound like Jesus to me. And I see other things and I go, yeah, that's, so it's a mixed bag to me.

• 1:41:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you think God uses people like that at times like this? Do you think God sometimes uses the most interesting characters that you may look at and say, you're gonna use him? You're gonna use her?

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  Yes, look through the Bible, look through the people God has used in the past. Look at David, I mean, an adulterer who killed this guy and so forth. God uses all kinds of people to accomplish his, his will. So, yeah.

• 1:42:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, last thing before we wrap up, your recent book.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Seeing the Supernatural. Yes, what can you tell us about it?

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  Well, I was, as I say, a skeptic about a lot of things, and I wanted to look at, what is the evidence and what is the corroboration that there really is a reality beyond what we can see and touch and put in a test tube? So I looked at things like near-death experiences, deathbed visions, well-documented miracles, personal interventions of God, like Evel Knievel and so forth, to try to look at, what is the evidence that there is a realm beyond what we can see and touch? And I think the evidence is strong, I think it's powerful. I mean, you've probably heard about the dreams taking place among Muslims.

• 1:42:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you talk on that?

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  Yes, I have a whole chapter on it. It's, it's, it's, and it's corroborated. This is what's important. More Muslims have become Christians in the last few decades than in the 1,400 years since Muhammad. And 25 to 35% of them have had a Jesus dream, a supernatural dream, before they converted. Now, what is not happening is they're not going to sleep, having a dream about Jesus, waking up as a Christian. That's generally not happening. What's happening is they're going to sleep, they're having a dream unlike any dream they've ever had, and it's pointing them towards something external that leads them to faith in Jesus. So I'll give you an example. There's a woman named Noor, mother of eight, Muslim, in Cairo. She has a Jesus dream.

• 1:43:39Speaker 01

  Jesus is walking with her along the lakeshore. She feels the love and the grace. And she said, "For the first time in my life, I didn't feel shame." And she said, "Jesus, why do you come to me? I'm just a poor Muslim, mother of eight children." Jesus said, "Because I love you, Noor. I died for you." And he said, "My friend will tell you more about me tomorrow." She said, "Who's your friend?" And he gestures toward a man she didn't even realize was walking with them along the lakeshore because she was so mesmerized by Jesus. Jesus said, "My friend will tell you." The next day, she goes to the crowded marketplace in Cairo. It's Friday afternoon. And she sees that man from her dream. And she goes up to him, "You're the one." "What are you talking about?" "You're the guy. Same face, same glasses, same clothes. You're the one." He said, "Did you ever dream about Jesus last night?" She said, "Yes."

• 1:44:24Speaker 01

  He was an underground church planter. He didn't want to go to the crowded marketplace in Cairo on Friday afternoon. It's chaotic. He went that day because he felt like God had an assignment for him. So he said, "Let me do this." He pulls her aside, and he opens the Bible, and spends three hours explaining the gospel of Jesus to her. That's what's happening. So this is not just something being conjured in people's imaginations because it points towards something external that corroborates her encounter with this missionary. And those are the kind of stories I document in the book. You know, it's so common in the Middle East. Sometimes in Cairo, you can pick up the newspaper, and you'll see an ad. And the ad says, "Call this number,

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  and we'll tell you about the man in white you met in your dream last night." And people just call up, say, "Met Jesus." The guy I interviewed about this is the world's leading expert on this topic. And he said, "Lee, I could pick up the phone right now. I'll call Kuwait. I'll call Saudi Arabia. I'll call Iran. I'll call Afghanistan. I'll give you five more stories right now." This is a worldwide phenomenon. The God, because He loves people. Some of these countries are closed to the gospel, as you know. And you know, it's a crime for someone to convert from Islam into Christianity in some places. And it's as if God says, "You think that's going to stop me? Watch this." And he rolls up his sleeves and begins to bring these mystical dreams.

• 1:45:54Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing that's happening. By the way, I know you like stats a lot. I'm gonna give you one that you're gonna like. Okay. House church movement in Iran. Oh, yeah. Estimated at 300,000 to 2 million converts. Up from 2 to 5,000 20 years ago. Figures from advocacy organizations not independently verified. So Iran is having a massive Yes. Movement right now. Absolutely. With converts. And you're talking about Iran, which right now has

• 1:46:27Patrick Bet-David?

  a ton of challenges they're dealing with. You're seeing the same thing happening right now with Philippines. Yeah. 146, 143 million Christians projected by 2050. 40% growth, approximately 80% Christians. Ethiopia, 45 million, 85 million Christians. You're seeing the growth happening in many places as well. Yes. Uh, specifically in Iran. Yes. And that's somewhere I lived for 11 years. So I know what that life is like to see Christians growing there. I remember going to a Christian church. We'd go every Sunday with my Friday, because in Iran, the Sunday is Friday. We don't have Sundays off. We have Fridays off. And it was, hey, you know, when you go everywhere, just be careful. Because if you're too proud, it could take you. They could do this, they could do that. Right. It's amazing the courage you're seeing around a lot of.

• 1:47:12Patrick Bet-David?

  As unsafe as we are here, speaking on our faith. Yeah. It is a thousand times more unsafe in Nigeria, in Iran, and a lot of these other places. Yep. For these folks that have the courage to do that. And Lee, I got a lot of respect for you for what you've done. You've changed a lot of people's lives through the books that you've written, including mine. Because Case for Christ was a very big book for me. At a time where I was logical, a friend of mine, whose name is Armand.

• 1:47:42Patrick Bet-David?

  No one in school would have ever thought that we would have became Christian, the two of us specifically. Unlikely candidates. Unlikely candidates. And for the audience that's watching this, if you enjoy the message, you probably have three or four books to order, especially the new one that we have. Seeing the Supernatural, Case for Christ, maybe Case for Grace, maybe Case for Church. Maybe all four of them you gotta go order. And if you got a question for Lee, you can also get ahold of him on Manact as well. Uh, we're gonna put the link below with the QR code. But Lee, with that being said, it's been a pleasure having you on. Thank you so much for coming out. I enjoyed it. Great conversation, really enjoyed it. We're gonna put the links to all of his books below as well. Take care, everybody. God bless. Bye bye, bye bye. Hi, I'm Lee Strobel.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Atheist turned Christian, author of several books, including "The Case for Christ" and "Seeing the Supernatural." You might have questions about faith, about how we know that Jesus is who we claim to be and that there really is a realm beyond what we can see and touch and put in a test tube. So I'd love to chat with you about that. Just go to Minnect and then we can connect and talk about these matters of faith that are so important to our lives.