85. Black Apologetics with Lisa Fields | Best of WYF?

What do you do when someone questions your deepest beliefs? How do you respond? In this first episode in our “Best of Where Ya From?” series, we’re throwing it back to the very first conversation we ever had on the podcast. That was when we sat down with Lisa Fields, the highly regarded Christian apologist and founder of the Jude 3 Project, to hear how the struggles and questions of her own faith forced her to go back to the basics and reevaluate everything she believed. Unknown to her at the time, this season of doubt led to a career and life of apologetics that would not just be difficult—but almost impossible—for a young, Black woman. 

Guest Bio:

Lisa Fields is one of the world’s most sought-after Christian apologists. She combines her passion for biblical literacy with her heart for sharing God’s love to all those she meets. Lisa is a graduate of the University of North Florida with a bachelor of science in communications and religious studies. She also graduated from Liberty University with a master of divinity and a focus in theology. Her time in seminary propelled her into her calling as an apologist. 

During her last year of seminary, her passion to teach others how to defend their faith became very clear. It was then that the Jude 3 Project was born. As founder and president, Lisa’s primary mission for the Jude 3 Project is to help the Black Christian community know what they believe and why they believe.  

Since starting the Jude 3 Project, Fields has received several honors, most notably, Christianity Today’s recognition of her work as an apologist in the African American community. Though these accolades have been encouraging, Fields continues to break new ground for the sake of the gospel by adding production to her resume. She helped produce and create two documentaries, Unspoken, an in-depth look into the Christian heritage of Africa and people of African descent; and Juneteenth: Faith and Freedom, the groundbreaking documentary presented by the Voices Collection and Our Daily Bread Media. Additionally, Lisa also published her first book, When Faith Disappoints: The Gap Between What We Believe and What We Experience, this past summer.

Notes & Quotes:

• “So I feel like a faith that can’t be tested, can’t be trusted. And so I continued to test it and put it under scrutiny because I believe that if it was truth, it will always be found to be true.” 

 

• “Relationship shows you what’s going on in people’s lives and people’s world, and it helps you not to have such a narrow view of concepts, I think. Because you’re like, ‘Okay, this is a great concept in theory. How does this flesh out in a person’s everyday life? What is this person experiencing?’ It helps you be able to speak to some of the issues differently and with a level of empathy because you actually know people in these situations, and you’re not making these rigid kinds of statements that aren’t considerate of other people’s experience.” 

 

• “The tendency for people that have bad experiences is to overcorrect; and when you overcorrect, you’re still not corrected.” 

 

• “I think, relationally though, it is easier for people to receive hard truths from people they are in relationship with versus strangers. And so it doesn’t mean that I water down the message. It means that when I share the message, people trust me enough to believe that I’m not trying to do them harm with the message that I’m sharing.”

Links Mentioned:

• FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT 
• Learn more about Lisa’s work with the Jude 3 Project here. 
• Get your copy of Lisa’s book When