October 14, 2025 • 21 mins
Why stand for Christian Faith today? How do I answer tough questions and/or engage difficult topics about the Bible with my friends and family? How can/do I represent Jesus in today's culture? If you've ever asked any of these questions or they at least interest you, you're in the right place! Dr. Sean McDowell unpacks these questions and others as he highlights his recent book "Apologetics for an Ever-Changing Culture" with a heartfelt approach and a captivating, Christ-centered intellect.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Everybody, welcome to Kingdom and Culture. We have an amazing
guest here, Doctor Sean McDowell. He is, uh, well, I'll be,
I'll be honest, an author, a speaker. I've gotten to
know him personally. Actually, I've known him since back in
the day when I was at, uh, Vanguard University and
he was at Bioola and
Those were and our rivals. So, uh, but good, it's
(00:35):
a good, uh, Christian rivalry if you will, but uh
glad to have Sean, Dr. McDowell, Sean, what do I
call you Sean? Can we call you Sean on the podcast?
Please call me Sean. I see you got the Batman
logo over your head, so I'm just gonna be chill
about this. Um, love, love the work that you do
and how you make, well, the word of God relevant
and honestly in a time in which culture seems to be.
(00:59):
veering away from the truth of God's word. And by
the way, those on radio, those on podcasts, we're just
gonna jump in because there's too much good stuff in
such a short amount of time. I don't wanna miss it.
But it seems in a premise just to set it up,
that our culture, um,
Yeah, has veered away holistically, but even sometimes in the church,
(01:20):
away from the truth of God's word. And so, you,
in your latest book, have addressed this, this topic of apologetics,
which some people probably don't even know what that means.
Can you give us an apologetics for dummies rundown? And no,
I'm not calling anybody dummy online or on radio. I'm
in the same camp. But can you just let us
(01:42):
know what does this mean? What, what is apologetics? Why
do we need to address this? So, yeah, just we
can open that up and uh go for it.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You bet, Michael. Thanks for having me. My wife went
to Vanguard, so I consider as partners, not rivals. But
with that, with that said, apologetics has nothing to do
with saying, I'm sorry. It comes from a Greek term
that means giving a defense for something. So, interestingly enough,
when Plato wrote his defense of Socrates on trial, he
(02:14):
called it an apology, a defense, a case for his innocence.
So the verse that apologies off inside is 1 Peter 3:15,
it says sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart. Always
be ready with an answer or a reason for the
hope within. Give it with gentleness and with respect. And
the English answer or reason is, is apologetics comes from
(02:38):
the Greek Apologia. And by the way, it's not for
radio show hosts like you and me or professors or pastors.
All of us are called to be apologists in some
fashion or another.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Wow. So you're saying, uh, in, in essence, as it
is to us to share Christ as Christians in terms
of just our testimony, that defense of the faith and
rather to give an answer for the faith that we
have is for all of us. So, everybody out there, mom, dad, Suzie, Johnny, whomever.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, I, I think apologetics has two main functions. Number one,
to give Christians confidence. But we really learn, wow, there's
archaeology supporting the Bible. It's been copied carefully and faithfully.
We have a lot of manuscripts. There's reason to believe
it's rooted in eyewitness testimony.
When we see the evidence that God exists from DNA
(03:33):
or the origin of the universe or the moral law
pointing towards a moral law giver, it builds a certain
confidence in our faith to live it out and to
share it with others. But I also think the second purpose,
like you said, it's just when people have questions for us,
either an evangelist encounter or just a spiritual conversation, or
(03:54):
sometimes they pop up. I've been on a plane or
getting my haircut.
And people just ask spiritual questions. We are to be
ready with an answer for why we place our hope
in Jesus. That's apologetics.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And, and it's, it can be disconcerting. You're sitting on
a plane and, you know, you wonder, is the Holy
Spirit prompted me to talk to somebody right now? Maybe
it's a, it's an inlet, like you see somebody with
a Batman logo over their shoulder. Uh, for those not watching,
that's what Sean has on his, uh, his background, which
is awesome.
Uh, but, uh, you know, maybe starting with a conversation
(04:28):
or something practical and then veer from there into a
faith conversation. I do want to, uh, highlight, um, I
just bought it in the last two weeks, Apologetics for
an Everchanging Culture, which is your latest book, as far
as I know, I'm sure you're writing something else right now.
But I, I, if I may, I'm gonna do a
long quote and then let you unpack it. But I
(04:48):
want our listeners and our, our podcast guests to, to,
to get a little taste of where you're going with it,
that maybe they want to go deeper into this idea
that you just shared. Um, but you stated that it's
a practical how-to guide for conveying and upholding the Christian
faith in our contemporary cultural context.
Um, which will in turn help believers to, and I'm
(05:10):
gonna do three things here. A, engage confidently with non-Christians
with guidance from diverse group of seasoned apologists. So, as
you had already mentioned, and then B, converse biblically and
effectively on pressing issues. I mean, these are big topics
including mental health crisis.
Contemporary critical theory, deconstruction, gender narratives, and more. I mean,
(05:31):
we just opened up three different cans of crazy right there.
But people, if they're listening, like, this is something that
you can actually get some answers for biblically. And then
last but not least, to learn practical skills for defending
the faith, rather online, uh, teaching about apologizing to the
to the next generation, um, or in the church, or
(05:53):
helping people through as you shared with doubt, to give confidence.
So, in short, there is a question in this. How
do we, believers, followers of Jesus, the church, um, and
why do we need this today? What, you kinda answered
a little bit, but why do we need this answer, this, this,
this apologetic narrative to, to address these issues that are
(06:15):
in our culture?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well, for one, because we're biblically called to do so, right?
We've always needed apologetics. Some of the earliest church fathers
were called apologists. Now they weren't dealing with deconstruction or
gender theory or, you know, artificial intelligence, but they were
addressing the challenges of their day.
And helping Christians be thoughtful about them and have a
(06:40):
Christian response for their own confidence and for those who ask.
So this is a timeless task within the Christian fold.
I think it's particularly urgent today for a few reasons.
Number one, it's just that you
Ubiquity of information, of course, on the internet, now on
artificial intelligence, I really think we're hitting the point, Michael,
where it's almost impossible to tell truth from fiction on videos.
(07:05):
I mean, New York Times did a test like 6
months ago, AI videos versus non-AI, I got everyone right.
They did it again and I got like half of
them right and was like, really dang, the technology is
so good.
So how do we decipher truth from fiction? But there's
also more challenges today. Oftentimes people in the past would
(07:28):
grow up in one community, and they wouldn't travel around
the world, they wouldn't meet people around the world, but
of course, with social media and smartphones, there's the challenge
of Islam, there's the challenge of deconstruction. I mean, there
are so many challenges is so much information.
at our fingertips, that it can be overwhelming to Christians.
(07:50):
And so this book, like you said, there's apologetics books
that give answers, like how to think about AI, how
to think about parenting.
This book is more a two things. It's more a
how to, how do I actually teach apologetics to my kids?
How do I actually have an apologetic conversation with a stranger?
(08:11):
How do I actually do this online? It's a how-to guide,
but we also got some of the
Most relevant timely issues, many of which you mentioned, like
new age thought, that's exploding right now. I mean, there's
still a secular strain in our culture, but new age
thought is exploding. How do we think biblically about that
(08:33):
and engage people around us who are in the new age.
We've heard about this deconstruction phenomenon and deconversion. What is it?
How do we best pass our faith on to our
kids and mental health now, I mean, we're especially since COVID.
This has been an issue a ton of people are
talking about. So how do we engage our culture now
(08:53):
that there seem to be increased rates of depression and anxiety,
and people just see their lives many times through the
lens of kind of the mental health crisis we find
ourselves in. So I guess in
Some, there's hopefully timeless wisdom in this book because we've
always been doing apologetics. But it's tailored uniquely to our
(09:14):
cultural moment for people who say, all right, I want
to have spiritual conversations. I want to defend my faith
at work in the neighborhood with my kids. How do
I do this? That's what I wrote this book for.
Love
Speaker 1 (09:26):
it. And and thank you for doing it. And for
those just joining us on radio or podcasts, we have Dr.
Sean McDowell as our guest. Uh, he, honestly, he's a dad,
he's a husband.
Uh, he follows Jesus and he's really smart. Let me
just say it, this dude, and he's fun. I, I, OK,
I'm just gonna side tangent for like 30 seconds. I'm
gonna yield 30 seconds to myself. You recently did a podcast.
(09:49):
I think with Kirk Cameron on, on like, uh, Infinity
War or or Avengers or something, and you pulled it
in culturally. I loved it. I mean, I geeked down
on it. I'm not saying you have to unpack that
at all, but there was apologetics even in that. I,
I just loved how you approached a relevant topic that
people can relate to, but then you, you brought it
back to a biblical framework. Um.
So, OK, so, OK, now that I got that out,
(10:12):
I'm thanks for letting me do that. Um, I wanted
to ask this, OK, so we see the world and
the world's always been dark in one form or another.
It's always had its viewpoint away from Christ. It's anti-Christ, uh, leaning, uh,
of course. But it seems like, um, I would say
early mid 2000s, some church leaders abandoned apologetics altogether.
(10:38):
Um, can you kind of touch point on why that
might have been why church leaders would say, you know,
we don't need that. Uh, it seems like they went
more of an emotional route versus an intellectual holding ground,
cause I'm, I'm a firm believer and we need to
experience God, but we need to know God and be
known by God. But that's through.
His logos through his written word. But why would you
(10:59):
say that, uh, church leaders have abandoned in some respects,
and maybe I'm off here, but that's been my observation, um, apologetics. And,
and if you could reinforce why this might not be
a good idea for pastors and leaders to abandon the
idea of apologetics.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
So two comments. First, on the one with Kurt Cameron
related to Infinity War. Yes, one of my approaches is
I try to highlight more the good in creation than
I do the negative of sin. Now I think there's
a time to call out sin. I did a Twitter
poll not long ago.
And I just asked my audience, I mean, 300 people
(11:38):
I think responded, what are Christians more known for highlighting
the good of creation or the bad of the fall,
and it was like overwhelmingly, because we're viewed as judgmental
and negative and critical. And again, there's a need for
a prophetic voice, but there's still good in creation. So
I try to highlight good.
In things, even if I disagree with the worldview out there.
(12:00):
So Infinity War, there's plenty I disagree with. But at
the root of that movie is about sacrifice being the
greatest act of love, and that's such a biblical idea.
Yeah. I mean, things like Taylor Swift, right? Everyone's talking
about Taylor Swift. I have plenty to criticize in Taylor Swift,
but can we start by finding the good in who
(12:22):
she is and why people are responding to this and
the yearning in the human heart for relationships.
That's just my approach. So I recently had Todd McFarlane on,
if you recognize that name.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Spider-Man artist. Let's go like iconic
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Spider-Man artist. He co-created Venom. He created Spawn. He's one
of the most influential action figure and comic artist for
five decades.
He, he was on my show and he said, Sean,
there's spiritual and there's non-spiritual and I'm 4 miles past non-spiritual.
He got really animated in this interview and told me
(12:57):
he's like, Sean, I'll never believe in God. I said, Well,
you don't know. He goes, Sean, I will never bend
my knee.
To your God. And I didn't get defensive, didn't get
angry partly because I just love this guy and his art,
and it was such a fun conversation. But I'm trying
to model for people, the kind of thing we're talking
(13:17):
about here. I don't do it perfectly. I make mistakes
every time, but I'm willing to put my neck out there.
And I think it's.
are more doable for people than we often realize. Now,
I think to answer your question, I think people dismiss
apologetics for a few reasons. Number one, they've had a
bad experience with it, and then just dismiss all of it. Second,
maybe it wasn't super important for their own journey. And
(13:40):
so they assume, well,
The bad experience I had is the way apologetics is
always done, which is simply false. And they also assume
because they were maybe led to faith through some other
means that apologetics is not important bringing other people to faith.
I think that's a disastrous mistake to make. We heard
a lot of this during the emergent church movement in
(14:02):
the early 2000s.
And ironically, I heard Lee Strobel share, he goes, you know,
it's during this time that Case for Christ came out,
which is kind of an evidential apologetics, and I saw,
I mean, so many people come to Christ during this time,
and many of them were young people, which at that
time would have been millennials. So I don't think the
(14:23):
church as a whole has turned its back on apologetics.
I think there's certain voices that do this.
I think honestly, anybody who works with young people for
5 minutes, knows that they have questions about God, about evil,
about the Bible, about other faiths, and they know that
apologetics is important.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah.
Well, I just love that whole segment that, you know, and,
and I'm gonna have my wife listen to this because
I feel very validated in the redemptive story within Infinity
War and Endgame. So thank you for that. She'll she'll
just have to hear me say it again because I've
been saying it for years. There's just Star Wars, you
name it. There's a lot of redemptive qualities in all
of these amazing creative narratives. Uh, and we'll be praying for, uh,
(15:04):
Tom McFarlane and all that. But that's, that's amazing that
you got him as a guest. But yeah, bringing that
point of relevancy.
Uh, to the culture while holding true, um, to all
of that. And you kind of already mentioned this, but, uh,
as we bring this in for a landing here in
the next few minutes, uh, Peter, as you mentioned, or
writes in First Peter 3:15, but in your heart set apart,
(15:26):
Christ is Lord, always be prepared to give an answer
to everyone who asks you to give a reason for
the hope that you have. But as you said, doing
this with gentleness and respect.
So, uh, as a, a young person, high school, college,
a mom, a dad, whoever's listening to this right now,
how can we continue to hold firmly to truth while
(15:48):
also showing that grace and gentleness that we're called to
live in, uh, with regard to apologetics and relating to
people and, and hopefully leading them to Jesus.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
This is such a good question. I would say, Michael, we,
we're going to have to live in the tension of
grace and truth. People ask me questions all the time
and I'm inside. I'm like, I don't know exactly how
to navigate that one.
But if I don't live in a certain tension, either
I'm speaking too much truth and not having grace, or
I'm having what our culture considers love and not speaking truth.
(16:22):
And we also have different temperaments and some people have
more of what we might call pastoral voice and some
might have more prophetic voice, but we're going to have
to live in that tension. I'd say a few things
for me.
Is one when I'm not just talking about atheists or
Muslims or whatever group we want to target, but I'm
in relationship with them. I speak about them differently. It's
(16:47):
not an opponent, this is a friend. And so oftentimes
there's culture warrior language when we don't really know people personally.
So get out there and get to know people, listen
to their stories, hear their hearts, care about them as individuals.
And I think that tends to shape our rhetoric and narrative.
(17:10):
The other thing is just, I've just been studying scripture
more than ever lately, for reasons I won't go into.
I mean, just studying, almost reading the entire book of John,
day after day.
And just, it's so humbling to read scripture and realize,
man alive. I, I'm so aware of the sinfulness in
my own life, my need for savior, my brokenness that
(17:33):
it's only by God's grace that I'm even saved in
the first place. Amen. And I think that makes me
want to communicate differently with people. I'm not pretending I
always have it figured out, Michael. I don't. But I
think when I'm in the scripture.
When I pray and I'm just involved in our local church,
I mean, the simple things and I'm just living the
(17:54):
Christian life intentionally, it gives me a heart for the lost.
And number one, it makes me committed to scripture. Like
I've reading Luke in the morning and one theme that
just jumped out to me is the authority of Jesus
and the authority of the word of God. I mean,
he's been tempted by Satan. He cites Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 6,
and Deuteronomy 8, the authority of the word of God.
(18:14):
He gives the apostles authority. So there's truth there.
But also, you know, when Peter like is aware of
the fish come out and he's like, oh my goodness,
stay away from me.
I'm I'm
reading that going, man, that's me. So just getting in
the scriptures, you know, it's in some ways it's simple
(18:35):
and God's going to shape our hearts to know what
truth is, be bold, but to speak it lovingly.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Absolutely.
Well, I, you know, I, I, um, I teach a
sophomore Old Testament Bible class at Calvary Chapel High School.
And I was telling them, I said, Hey, I won't
say how old I am because I like leaving people guessing,
but I said, I'm older than all of you in
this room. And I think cumulatively, I probably,
Speaker 2 (18:59):
what's that? combined. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (19:01):
combined, exactly. I said, so cumulatively, I even think I
have more sin racked up in my life than you all.
And all the more do I need to cry out
for the grace of God, because I know my failure
and who I am. Not giving excuse for it, but
rather to say, because of my consistency of living on
the earth and not meeting the mark of God's standard,
(19:23):
all the more do I need to cry out for
the grace of God. And
And maybe that, that's the ultimate story of it all,
the heart of apologetics, because even if I may say, Sean, you,
you've got a pastoral heart in how you're approaching this. And,
and I think, I, I'm gonna go out on a
limb here and say, our listeners, I think, uh, those
on podcasts, it's endearing in a, in a good way, um,
(19:43):
having that tension and writing that tension of grace and truth.
And I, I appreciate you doing that. And so, you know,
in respect of your time and the
Uh, time of people within, uh, our earshot of radio and,
and podcasts. I just want to thank you again for
taking time to be here, for sharing your heart. And
I just want to reiterate, if, uh, if you want
more from, uh, Doctor Sean McDowell, uh, his latest book,
(20:06):
Apologetics for an ever-changing Culture is available on Amazon. Uh,
go get it. It's easy. I did it. I just
clicked the link and showed up at my doorstep. It
was pretty convenient, pretty awesome, um, or your local Christian bookstore,
I'm sure they carry it there, but, uh,
Doctor Sean, is there anything else you'd like to, to
leave us with as we, as we close this out?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
You know what, I just say thanks. Appreciate great questions.
You and I go way back. So the encouragement means
a ton. It's neat to see your trajectory. I taught
a high school class 21 years full-time and part-time and
just moved on because of busyness, but I loved it.
So I'm sure you're making a difference in those students.
live, so keep it up.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Cool, thanks. I appreciate that. Well, hey, for those of
you online and uh or on radio, thank you for
joining us for Kingdom and Culture. Again, we've had Doctor
Sean McDowell here, uh, and uh we hope to see
you next time on Kingdom and Culture. God bless you all.
Everybody, welcome to Kingdom and Culture. We have an amazing
guest here, Doctor Sean McDowell. He is, uh, well, I'll be,
I'll be honest, an author, a speaker. I've gotten to
know him personally. Actually, I've known him since back in
the day when I was at, uh, Vanguard University and
he was at Bioola and
Those were and our rivals. So, uh, but good, it's
(00:35):
a good, uh, Christian rivalry if you will, but uh
glad to have Sean, Dr. McDowell, Sean, what do I
call you Sean? Can we call you Sean on the podcast?
Please call me Sean. I see you got the Batman
logo over your head, so I'm just gonna be chill
about this. Um, love, love the work that you do
and how you make, well, the word of God relevant
and honestly in a time in which culture seems to be.
(00:59):
veering away from the truth of God's word. And by
the way, those on radio, those on podcasts, we're just
gonna jump in because there's too much good stuff in
such a short amount of time. I don't wanna miss it.
But it seems in a premise just to set it up,
that our culture, um,
Yeah, has veered away holistically, but even sometimes in the church,
(01:20):
away from the truth of God's word. And so, you,
in your latest book, have addressed this, this topic of apologetics,
which some people probably don't even know what that means.
Can you give us an apologetics for dummies rundown? And no,
I'm not calling anybody dummy online or on radio. I'm
in the same camp. But can you just let us
(01:42):
know what does this mean? What, what is apologetics? Why
do we need to address this? So, yeah, just we
can open that up and uh go for it.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You bet, Michael. Thanks for having me. My wife went
to Vanguard, so I consider as partners, not rivals. But
with that, with that said, apologetics has nothing to do
with saying, I'm sorry. It comes from a Greek term
that means giving a defense for something. So, interestingly enough,
when Plato wrote his defense of Socrates on trial, he
(02:14):
called it an apology, a defense, a case for his innocence.
So the verse that apologies off inside is 1 Peter 3:15,
it says sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart. Always
be ready with an answer or a reason for the
hope within. Give it with gentleness and with respect. And
the English answer or reason is, is apologetics comes from
(02:38):
the Greek Apologia. And by the way, it's not for
radio show hosts like you and me or professors or pastors.
All of us are called to be apologists in some
fashion or another.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Wow. So you're saying, uh, in, in essence, as it
is to us to share Christ as Christians in terms
of just our testimony, that defense of the faith and
rather to give an answer for the faith that we
have is for all of us. So, everybody out there, mom, dad, Suzie, Johnny, whomever.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, I, I think apologetics has two main functions. Number one,
to give Christians confidence. But we really learn, wow, there's
archaeology supporting the Bible. It's been copied carefully and faithfully.
We have a lot of manuscripts. There's reason to believe
it's rooted in eyewitness testimony.
When we see the evidence that God exists from DNA
(03:33):
or the origin of the universe or the moral law
pointing towards a moral law giver, it builds a certain
confidence in our faith to live it out and to
share it with others. But I also think the second purpose,
like you said, it's just when people have questions for us,
either an evangelist encounter or just a spiritual conversation, or
(03:54):
sometimes they pop up. I've been on a plane or
getting my haircut.
And people just ask spiritual questions. We are to be
ready with an answer for why we place our hope
in Jesus. That's apologetics.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And, and it's, it can be disconcerting. You're sitting on
a plane and, you know, you wonder, is the Holy
Spirit prompted me to talk to somebody right now? Maybe
it's a, it's an inlet, like you see somebody with
a Batman logo over their shoulder. Uh, for those not watching,
that's what Sean has on his, uh, his background, which
is awesome.
Uh, but, uh, you know, maybe starting with a conversation
(04:28):
or something practical and then veer from there into a
faith conversation. I do want to, uh, highlight, um, I
just bought it in the last two weeks, Apologetics for
an Everchanging Culture, which is your latest book, as far
as I know, I'm sure you're writing something else right now.
But I, I, if I may, I'm gonna do a
long quote and then let you unpack it. But I
(04:48):
want our listeners and our, our podcast guests to, to,
to get a little taste of where you're going with it,
that maybe they want to go deeper into this idea
that you just shared. Um, but you stated that it's
a practical how-to guide for conveying and upholding the Christian
faith in our contemporary cultural context.
Um, which will in turn help believers to, and I'm
(05:10):
gonna do three things here. A, engage confidently with non-Christians
with guidance from diverse group of seasoned apologists. So, as
you had already mentioned, and then B, converse biblically and
effectively on pressing issues. I mean, these are big topics
including mental health crisis.
Contemporary critical theory, deconstruction, gender narratives, and more. I mean,
(05:31):
we just opened up three different cans of crazy right there.
But people, if they're listening, like, this is something that
you can actually get some answers for biblically. And then
last but not least, to learn practical skills for defending
the faith, rather online, uh, teaching about apologizing to the
to the next generation, um, or in the church, or
(05:53):
helping people through as you shared with doubt, to give confidence.
So, in short, there is a question in this. How
do we, believers, followers of Jesus, the church, um, and
why do we need this today? What, you kinda answered
a little bit, but why do we need this answer, this, this,
this apologetic narrative to, to address these issues that are
(06:15):
in our culture?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well, for one, because we're biblically called to do so, right?
We've always needed apologetics. Some of the earliest church fathers
were called apologists. Now they weren't dealing with deconstruction or
gender theory or, you know, artificial intelligence, but they were
addressing the challenges of their day.
And helping Christians be thoughtful about them and have a
(06:40):
Christian response for their own confidence and for those who ask.
So this is a timeless task within the Christian fold.
I think it's particularly urgent today for a few reasons.
Number one, it's just that you
Ubiquity of information, of course, on the internet, now on
artificial intelligence, I really think we're hitting the point, Michael,
where it's almost impossible to tell truth from fiction on videos.
(07:05):
I mean, New York Times did a test like 6
months ago, AI videos versus non-AI, I got everyone right.
They did it again and I got like half of
them right and was like, really dang, the technology is
so good.
So how do we decipher truth from fiction? But there's
also more challenges today. Oftentimes people in the past would
(07:28):
grow up in one community, and they wouldn't travel around
the world, they wouldn't meet people around the world, but
of course, with social media and smartphones, there's the challenge
of Islam, there's the challenge of deconstruction. I mean, there
are so many challenges is so much information.
at our fingertips, that it can be overwhelming to Christians.
(07:50):
And so this book, like you said, there's apologetics books
that give answers, like how to think about AI, how
to think about parenting.
This book is more a two things. It's more a
how to, how do I actually teach apologetics to my kids?
How do I actually have an apologetic conversation with a stranger?
(08:11):
How do I actually do this online? It's a how-to guide,
but we also got some of the
Most relevant timely issues, many of which you mentioned, like
new age thought, that's exploding right now. I mean, there's
still a secular strain in our culture, but new age
thought is exploding. How do we think biblically about that
(08:33):
and engage people around us who are in the new age.
We've heard about this deconstruction phenomenon and deconversion. What is it?
How do we best pass our faith on to our
kids and mental health now, I mean, we're especially since COVID.
This has been an issue a ton of people are
talking about. So how do we engage our culture now
(08:53):
that there seem to be increased rates of depression and anxiety,
and people just see their lives many times through the
lens of kind of the mental health crisis we find
ourselves in. So I guess in
Some, there's hopefully timeless wisdom in this book because we've
always been doing apologetics. But it's tailored uniquely to our
(09:14):
cultural moment for people who say, all right, I want
to have spiritual conversations. I want to defend my faith
at work in the neighborhood with my kids. How do
I do this? That's what I wrote this book for.
Love
Speaker 1 (09:26):
it. And and thank you for doing it. And for
those just joining us on radio or podcasts, we have Dr.
Sean McDowell as our guest. Uh, he, honestly, he's a dad,
he's a husband.
Uh, he follows Jesus and he's really smart. Let me
just say it, this dude, and he's fun. I, I, OK,
I'm just gonna side tangent for like 30 seconds. I'm
gonna yield 30 seconds to myself. You recently did a podcast.
(09:49):
I think with Kirk Cameron on, on like, uh, Infinity
War or or Avengers or something, and you pulled it
in culturally. I loved it. I mean, I geeked down
on it. I'm not saying you have to unpack that
at all, but there was apologetics even in that. I,
I just loved how you approached a relevant topic that
people can relate to, but then you, you brought it
back to a biblical framework. Um.
So, OK, so, OK, now that I got that out,
(10:12):
I'm thanks for letting me do that. Um, I wanted
to ask this, OK, so we see the world and
the world's always been dark in one form or another.
It's always had its viewpoint away from Christ. It's anti-Christ, uh, leaning, uh,
of course. But it seems like, um, I would say
early mid 2000s, some church leaders abandoned apologetics altogether.
(10:38):
Um, can you kind of touch point on why that
might have been why church leaders would say, you know,
we don't need that. Uh, it seems like they went
more of an emotional route versus an intellectual holding ground,
cause I'm, I'm a firm believer and we need to
experience God, but we need to know God and be
known by God. But that's through.
His logos through his written word. But why would you
(10:59):
say that, uh, church leaders have abandoned in some respects,
and maybe I'm off here, but that's been my observation, um, apologetics. And,
and if you could reinforce why this might not be
a good idea for pastors and leaders to abandon the
idea of apologetics.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
So two comments. First, on the one with Kurt Cameron
related to Infinity War. Yes, one of my approaches is
I try to highlight more the good in creation than
I do the negative of sin. Now I think there's
a time to call out sin. I did a Twitter
poll not long ago.
And I just asked my audience, I mean, 300 people
(11:38):
I think responded, what are Christians more known for highlighting
the good of creation or the bad of the fall,
and it was like overwhelmingly, because we're viewed as judgmental
and negative and critical. And again, there's a need for
a prophetic voice, but there's still good in creation. So
I try to highlight good.
In things, even if I disagree with the worldview out there.
(12:00):
So Infinity War, there's plenty I disagree with. But at
the root of that movie is about sacrifice being the
greatest act of love, and that's such a biblical idea.
Yeah. I mean, things like Taylor Swift, right? Everyone's talking
about Taylor Swift. I have plenty to criticize in Taylor Swift,
but can we start by finding the good in who
(12:22):
she is and why people are responding to this and
the yearning in the human heart for relationships.
That's just my approach. So I recently had Todd McFarlane on,
if you recognize that name.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Spider-Man artist. Let's go like iconic
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Spider-Man artist. He co-created Venom. He created Spawn. He's one
of the most influential action figure and comic artist for
five decades.
He, he was on my show and he said, Sean,
there's spiritual and there's non-spiritual and I'm 4 miles past non-spiritual.
He got really animated in this interview and told me
(12:57):
he's like, Sean, I'll never believe in God. I said, Well,
you don't know. He goes, Sean, I will never bend
my knee.
To your God. And I didn't get defensive, didn't get
angry partly because I just love this guy and his art,
and it was such a fun conversation. But I'm trying
to model for people, the kind of thing we're talking
(13:17):
about here. I don't do it perfectly. I make mistakes
every time, but I'm willing to put my neck out there.
And I think it's.
are more doable for people than we often realize. Now,
I think to answer your question, I think people dismiss
apologetics for a few reasons. Number one, they've had a
bad experience with it, and then just dismiss all of it. Second,
maybe it wasn't super important for their own journey. And
(13:40):
so they assume, well,
The bad experience I had is the way apologetics is
always done, which is simply false. And they also assume
because they were maybe led to faith through some other
means that apologetics is not important bringing other people to faith.
I think that's a disastrous mistake to make. We heard
a lot of this during the emergent church movement in
(14:02):
the early 2000s.
And ironically, I heard Lee Strobel share, he goes, you know,
it's during this time that Case for Christ came out,
which is kind of an evidential apologetics, and I saw,
I mean, so many people come to Christ during this time,
and many of them were young people, which at that
time would have been millennials. So I don't think the
(14:23):
church as a whole has turned its back on apologetics.
I think there's certain voices that do this.
I think honestly, anybody who works with young people for
5 minutes, knows that they have questions about God, about evil,
about the Bible, about other faiths, and they know that
apologetics is important.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah.
Well, I just love that whole segment that, you know, and,
and I'm gonna have my wife listen to this because
I feel very validated in the redemptive story within Infinity
War and Endgame. So thank you for that. She'll she'll
just have to hear me say it again because I've
been saying it for years. There's just Star Wars, you
name it. There's a lot of redemptive qualities in all
of these amazing creative narratives. Uh, and we'll be praying for, uh,
(15:04):
Tom McFarlane and all that. But that's, that's amazing that
you got him as a guest. But yeah, bringing that
point of relevancy.
Uh, to the culture while holding true, um, to all
of that. And you kind of already mentioned this, but, uh,
as we bring this in for a landing here in
the next few minutes, uh, Peter, as you mentioned, or
writes in First Peter 3:15, but in your heart set apart,
(15:26):
Christ is Lord, always be prepared to give an answer
to everyone who asks you to give a reason for
the hope that you have. But as you said, doing
this with gentleness and respect.
So, uh, as a, a young person, high school, college,
a mom, a dad, whoever's listening to this right now,
how can we continue to hold firmly to truth while
(15:48):
also showing that grace and gentleness that we're called to
live in, uh, with regard to apologetics and relating to
people and, and hopefully leading them to Jesus.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
This is such a good question. I would say, Michael, we,
we're going to have to live in the tension of
grace and truth. People ask me questions all the time
and I'm inside. I'm like, I don't know exactly how
to navigate that one.
But if I don't live in a certain tension, either
I'm speaking too much truth and not having grace, or
I'm having what our culture considers love and not speaking truth.
(16:22):
And we also have different temperaments and some people have
more of what we might call pastoral voice and some
might have more prophetic voice, but we're going to have
to live in that tension. I'd say a few things
for me.
Is one when I'm not just talking about atheists or
Muslims or whatever group we want to target, but I'm
in relationship with them. I speak about them differently. It's
(16:47):
not an opponent, this is a friend. And so oftentimes
there's culture warrior language when we don't really know people personally.
So get out there and get to know people, listen
to their stories, hear their hearts, care about them as individuals.
And I think that tends to shape our rhetoric and narrative.
(17:10):
The other thing is just, I've just been studying scripture
more than ever lately, for reasons I won't go into.
I mean, just studying, almost reading the entire book of John,
day after day.
And just, it's so humbling to read scripture and realize,
man alive. I, I'm so aware of the sinfulness in
my own life, my need for savior, my brokenness that
(17:33):
it's only by God's grace that I'm even saved in
the first place. Amen. And I think that makes me
want to communicate differently with people. I'm not pretending I
always have it figured out, Michael. I don't. But I
think when I'm in the scripture.
When I pray and I'm just involved in our local church,
I mean, the simple things and I'm just living the
(17:54):
Christian life intentionally, it gives me a heart for the lost.
And number one, it makes me committed to scripture. Like
I've reading Luke in the morning and one theme that
just jumped out to me is the authority of Jesus
and the authority of the word of God. I mean,
he's been tempted by Satan. He cites Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 6,
and Deuteronomy 8, the authority of the word of God.
(18:14):
He gives the apostles authority. So there's truth there.
But also, you know, when Peter like is aware of
the fish come out and he's like, oh my goodness,
stay away from me.
I'm I'm
reading that going, man, that's me. So just getting in
the scriptures, you know, it's in some ways it's simple
(18:35):
and God's going to shape our hearts to know what
truth is, be bold, but to speak it lovingly.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Absolutely.
Well, I, you know, I, I, um, I teach a
sophomore Old Testament Bible class at Calvary Chapel High School.
And I was telling them, I said, Hey, I won't
say how old I am because I like leaving people guessing,
but I said, I'm older than all of you in
this room. And I think cumulatively, I probably,
Speaker 2 (18:59):
what's that? combined. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (19:01):
combined, exactly. I said, so cumulatively, I even think I
have more sin racked up in my life than you all.
And all the more do I need to cry out
for the grace of God, because I know my failure
and who I am. Not giving excuse for it, but
rather to say, because of my consistency of living on
the earth and not meeting the mark of God's standard,
(19:23):
all the more do I need to cry out for
the grace of God. And
And maybe that, that's the ultimate story of it all,
the heart of apologetics, because even if I may say, Sean, you,
you've got a pastoral heart in how you're approaching this. And,
and I think, I, I'm gonna go out on a
limb here and say, our listeners, I think, uh, those
on podcasts, it's endearing in a, in a good way, um,
(19:43):
having that tension and writing that tension of grace and truth.
And I, I appreciate you doing that. And so, you know,
in respect of your time and the
Uh, time of people within, uh, our earshot of radio and,
and podcasts. I just want to thank you again for
taking time to be here, for sharing your heart. And
I just want to reiterate, if, uh, if you want
more from, uh, Doctor Sean McDowell, uh, his latest book,
(20:06):
Apologetics for an ever-changing Culture is available on Amazon. Uh,
go get it. It's easy. I did it. I just
clicked the link and showed up at my doorstep. It
was pretty convenient, pretty awesome, um, or your local Christian bookstore,
I'm sure they carry it there, but, uh,
Doctor Sean, is there anything else you'd like to, to
leave us with as we, as we close this out?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
You know what, I just say thanks. Appreciate great questions.
You and I go way back. So the encouragement means
a ton. It's neat to see your trajectory. I taught
a high school class 21 years full-time and part-time and
just moved on because of busyness, but I loved it.
So I'm sure you're making a difference in those students.
live, so keep it up.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Cool, thanks. I appreciate that. Well, hey, for those of
you online and uh or on radio, thank you for
joining us for Kingdom and Culture. Again, we've had Doctor
Sean McDowell here, uh, and uh we hope to see
you next time on Kingdom and Culture. God bless you all.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.