158 - Braxton Hunter and Online Apologetics - Apologetics 315 Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast with
your hosts Brian Auten and Chad Gross. Join us for
conversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics, evangelism, and
the Christian worldview. I celebrate the guys entire catalog. Hello,

(00:22):
and welcome to the podcast. This is Brian Auten and
I'm Chad Gross, and we're back from a little bit
of a hiatus. We've been having technical problems, problems with cables,
problems with laptops, problem with scheduling. I got ninety nine problems.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, we've had quite a few issues.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
We've tried to a couple times record The Rational Faith
two and when we've come on, we've had audio issues
and issues with the platform we use, Riverside, and so
it has been a little frustrating. So hopefully we're going
to be able to get through today. That's what we're praying,
and everything goes off without a hitch, as they say.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, we even had that debate between Alvin Planting and
Richard Dawkins, but then the audio got corrupted and you know,
we were going to release that so.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Right right, which I mean, I'm kind of glad because
you know, we could do better than Richard Dawkins.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, So anyway, today we have an actual guest and
it's actually going to happen today. Doctor Braxton Hunter is
with us. He's president of Trinity College of the Bible
and Theological Seminary in Evansville, Indiana's former president of the
Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists. Is a pastor, educator, and
seasoned debater and so he holds a PhD in Christian apologetics,

(01:40):
other degrees and such, and has authored several works on
Christian apologetics. If you want to know more, go to
his bio at Braxton Hunter dot com. Yeah, Braxton hunter
dot com, slash about and you will find everything you want. So, Chad,
what are your hopes and dreams for this podcast interview today?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
You are right over there. Yeah, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Well, the best way I can introduce Braxton and kind
of what I hope to get out of the interview
today is have you ever been in a conversation with
somebody and they'll about apologetics and they'll bring up a
certain speaker that they came across, and sometimes your inner
thought when they bring that person up is oh, man,
not that guy.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
You know, like.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yeah, no, no, no, no, it's like actually quite the opposite.
If somebody stumbled across Braxton Hunter and they told me
that they had been listening to him, I would be
greatly encouraged by that. And it's because not only is
he extremely knowledgeable, he's very clear. He's able to what
people have classically called put the cookies on the bottom shelf,

(02:49):
if you will, but he does so in such a winsome, thoughtful,
inviting way. He kind of invites people into the conversation
about Christianity and just his manner and I love that
about him. And so what I'm hoping today is, first
of all, he recently made an announcement on his YouTube
channel which is called Trinity Radio, which he'll talk about.

(03:09):
So I'm not going to go into what that is.
But he made an announcement. We're gonna talk to him
a little bit about that. I also want to talk
to him about how do you do effective online apologetics?
Because you and I both know that we can point
to people who are doing it very well, and then
we can point to people who we hope no one
stumbles across. Right, And if I'm somebody sitting at home

(03:33):
and I'm kind of feeling that leading of maybe I
need to engage online, maybe I need to start something
like that.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
What are some things that Braxton would.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Advise them to do, What are some maybe mistakes he's made,
And how does he decide what to engage with and
what not to engage with because it's such like a
vast body of information. And then finally, how does he
manage to engage in such a way that he doesn't
sacrifice truth but he does so in such a way

(04:03):
that invites people into the discussion. And then if there's time,
and this is completely self indulgent, I will confess that
on the onset, I hope to ask him a few
kind of behind the scenes fun questions about a debate
he had with Matt Dillahunty, which I did a post
on truth Bomb something about my favorite debates or something

(04:25):
like that, and that one is on there.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
He also did a.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Wonderful debate on free will with Dan Barker, but according
to Dan Barker, Barker had no choice as to whether
or not he participated. But anyway, that's kind of what
I'm thinking for the interview, and this is somebody I've
wanted to have on, as you know, for a long time,
so I'm pretty excited about it.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Actually cool, Yeah, it sounds good. Well, come on join
us for this conversation. We invite you in. Let's go
to the interview.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Let's get ready. Switch me on.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Well, Brexen Hunter, thanks for joining us on the podcast today.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Oh, thanks so much for having me here. Guys.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
I'm so excited to be a part of this. I've
really appreciated and admired the ministry here at Apologetics three
fifteen for so long and the work that both of
you guys do. It's kind of like I feel like
maybe I've made it now that I'm on Apologetics three
fifteen this way.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Well, we're super excited to have you on. I think
that you came on my radar. I was trying to
think yesterday when exactly I started watching your content. But
I know that when you became kind of at one
of the top people on my list, if you will,
somebody said, hey, where do you Where can I learn
about Apologetics on YouTube?

Speaker 2 (05:40):
You would make that list.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
As after your debate with Matt dillahunty, I was just
so impressed by that, And again I was watching your
stuff before that but that kind of cemented it for me,
and I've wanted to have you on here for gosh, Brian,
what a couple of years now.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, but I say, no, man, no, he hasn't made
it yet.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Totally understandable, Brian, you haven't made it yet. Eat. So anyway,
it's just such such a pleasure to talk to you.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
When we when I joined Brian on the podcast when
we rebooted it, there was a short list of people
that were kind of my if I do this and
I don't get to interview these people, I'll be disappointed.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
And you were on that. You were on that short list,
and so I'm very excited. Well that means a lot
to me.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
And let me tell you about you personally when you
post like lists of what's going on in apologetics.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, I always think of you.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
I always thought of you as like the one of
the guys at the cool kids table online and so
like when I get referenced, it's like, oh, wow, he
saw that, you know. So the feeling here is very cute. Yeah,
thank you. I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Well.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
I just would would want listeners to hear a little
bit about you, like how did you become a Christian.
What's your background, A little bit about your family, because
I know that's very important to you, and so just
kind of let us get to know you a little bit.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah, well, I really appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
I was born the son of a megachurch pastor at
a time when megachurches were starting to become more of
an obvious thing and have television ministries at the time
in the early eighties. So my father pastor of a
church called North Jacksonville Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. And
for the first ten years of my life I was there.
That church had five thousand in regular attendants and auditorium

(07:23):
that seeded thirty five hundred, and I thought that was normal,
you know. I just was proud to be there, happy
to be there, enjoyed all of that. My parents went
out of their way to make me and my brother
feel as though we were not the pastor's kid in
the stereotypical sense where there's all these responsibilities on you
and people are, oh, that's the pastor's kid, you know,

(07:45):
he should know all the Bible, all the books of
the Bible by heart and all that kind of thing.
It was never like that. In fact, that's why I
have an unbiblical name. Is because my parents knew about
pastors that had their children were like Joseph and Mary
and Philip, and so he wanted us to not have
even that, you know, And so he went out of
his way and my mother to create that sort of environment.

(08:07):
So I really enjoyed being the son of a pastor.
And when I got into my teenage years, I wanted
to be a rock star. You two was my favorite
band is still my favorite band, and I wanted to
be bono. But and that was what And I didn't
want to be a preacher at all because my dad
was a preacher and I thought that was lame and

(08:27):
I didn't want to be a preacher. So but then
on a youth trip, I really felt that God wanted
me to go into the ministry. And oh you asked
about my salvation. I was saved at a young age,
but like a lot of people, I prayed to receive
Christ multiple times. But the ultimate thing is I know
that one of those times my heart was in it.
I was doing it for the right reasons and became

(08:50):
a follower of Christ. But I went into the ministry
then as a seventeen year old. I surrendered to the
Gospel ministry, is how he phrased it in my church background,
and I wasn't happy about it.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Really.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
That's one of the reasons I know it was real
is because it was not the thing I picked for myself.
I wanted to be Bono, right, I wanted to be
a rock star and so and so I but my dad,
even though he was a preacher, wanted me to wanted
me to be really sure about this, and so I
started going to school for music business degree. I realized
by that point I wasn't going to be Bono, but
I could make money off of other people that might

(09:22):
want to be Bono and be a manager or something.
But an academic advisor there, who was an atheist woman, said, well,
you know, I was trying to arrange my courses so
they would fit with what it was I was wanting
to do for the Lord in addition to music business.
So I was taken some philosophy classes, some religion classes,
and she said, why don't you just stop this and

(09:43):
go to seminary that's where your heart is.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
And so that's what I.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
Did, and then over time I got interested in I
pastored two churches but got interested in full time traveling
evangelistic preaching. But I was realizing that there are people
out there that don't take it for granted that they
can believe the Bible, or believe that Jesus is God,
or believe that there's a heaven. You know, one of
the key questions in one of the faith soul winning

(10:09):
program was one of the big sole winning programs so
called in the late nineties and early two thousands, And
the key question you want to get people to is,
in your personal opinion, what do you understand it takes
for a person to go to heaven? Well, that assumes
they believe in a heaven. That assumes they believe. So
I picked up apologetics really just as a way of
moving forward with my evangelism. And that's still what I

(10:29):
use apologetics primarily for is I want people come to
know the Lord Jesus Christ. And over time that resulted
in a degree program at Trinity College in Seminary where
I'm now in administration, and worked through that program and
ultimately got a degree from there, and then went to
another school, Luther Rice and got a Doctor of Ministry

(10:51):
degree there and so and then became and then went
into administration here. But what I began to realize when
I was on the road was that there needs to
be a way. This is where I kind of enter
back into the discussion about where I'm at now, is
there needs to be a way for regular church people,
regular Christians who think they can't understand some of the

(11:11):
principles and ideas with making a case that Christianity is
true in a way that they that they can pick
that up and go use it, or at least nowhere
to go back to to use it. And so that's
what I've tried to create with my ministry, both online
and in written materials.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
And one of the things I really appreciate about you,
and I want to get to an announcement you recently made.
But in that announcement you talked about how when somebody
were to listen to that, and you obviously have a
lot going on, one of the things that's important to
you is keeping your family first, right, And so tell
us a little bit about your family.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Well, yeah, I have my wife, Sarah.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
We met in college, and we met because neither one
of us had been good at math in high school,
and so we were both in math classes for Dummies
and intermediate algebra class. So if you're a young person
out there and you're like, why doesn't God just give
me the ability to understand this thing or whatever, Hey,
it may be the way that God's working something out
in your life. Because neither one of us had been

(12:09):
good at math, we might not have met. And so
she's she's really. When I was a pastor and in evangelism,
she was very instrumental in all of that. And now
we have two daughters who are, as I say, seventeen
and fourteen years old, and man, I'll.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Tell you, you.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
Know, growing up, you know a lot of people would
always tell you, well, when they become teenagers, that's where
everything changes. And with both of my daughters, we've spent
a lot of time, particularly this summer in this spring,
talking through things and.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
All of that.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
And I'm just going to tell you struggling over like
am I doing the right thing to foster the right
worldview and all of that. My daughter, you know, who's
in the room with me right now, could tell you
that up in like, for a period of time over
a year, I would put together powerpoints just for her
and we would stand in the living room and we
would go over some of the apologetic ideas, how to
make a case for the resurrection and that sort of thing.

(13:02):
And so I haven't been the greatest father and or husband,
but that is something that matters the most to me.
I would turn off Trinity Radio, my online outlet and
never go back to it if I could. If doing
that would guarantee for me that my family would would
turn out as God wants them to turn out. So
in that sense, they definitely come first. I love that

(13:22):
tell us about Trinity Radio. So in about two thousand
and nine, I began a podcast so called on a
rudimentary Macintosh website back when they hosted web for you,
and I didn't I don't. I couldn't even call it
a podcast. I just made a piece of audio responding
to like the New Atheist or something and just posted
it on this website. I don't even know if anybody

(13:45):
ever saw it. They probably didn't. And then I just
kept going with that. And the year after I started
doing that, I was in Florida, speaking at in Miami
in an area called Hyalea, which is where a lot
of Cuban Americans when people come from Cuba.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
This is like the first.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
One of the first areas they come to is Hialiah
in Miami, and the one of the large churches there
had had me come and speak and I had to
use a translator and all that. But with two days preparation,
they got the Florida the professor of World Religions at
Florida International University, Daniel Alvarez. He's in a viral Cliff
Connectley video now, but he he to debate me on

(14:22):
on the arguments for God's existence and all that. So
with two days to prepare, I did my best William
Lane Craig cosplay and we got through it, and I
felt good about that. But then that kind of opened
up the chan it wasn't a channel, but the podcast
a little bit. And then I had a couple of
little debates with atheists online there at that time, and
it was just me and my attic in downtown Evansville, Indiana.

(14:46):
And when we brought on a guy named Jonathan Pritchett,
who is now our vice president of academic Affairs at
our school, Trinity Seminary, he was inclined to join the
podcast with me. And what was great about that is
he has we kind of have a good cop bad
type vibe. He says, the hard thing, and I'm like, now, now, Pritchett,
And that's how most of our audience has grown is

(15:06):
through that sort of a relationship. And I'm guessing that
by you kind of laughing at that, Chad, you've seen that.
So we did that, and then really quickly after the
Matt Dill Hunty debates there were we grew from we
had just gotten to a thousand subscribers on YouTube, and
we grew two or three thousand very quickly after that.
And then I had a debate with Dan Barker from

(15:26):
the Freedom of from Religion Foundation on Unbelievable, and we
grew a bit more dramatically after that, and so it
just kind of moved on from there. And then guys
like Mike Winger and Cameron Bertouosi and John McCrae from
what do you mean, they all kind of we were
in a group chat together and they really really helped
me and gave me advice on how to do this

(15:48):
thing of online ministry. And so from that point that's
that kind of took off and now.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Here we are.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yes, Yes, I love the oh gosh, the interactions between
you and Pritchett sometimes are so funny and it's really
neat because it's one of those deals where you know, obviously,
today's the first time I'm meeting you. I've never met him,
but in a sense, I feel like I could just
walk into a room and sit down and talk with you.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Guys. Absolutely, you know what I mean. So that's so endearing.
I love that.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
So recently on Trendy Radio, you made an announcement kind
of a new project or initiative. I'm not sure how
you'd want to characterize that, and I wanted to give
you an opportunity to share that so that churches might
want to consider taking advantage of it.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
Well, I really appreciate that that you are giving me
that platform. I wrote a book that came out originally
in twenty fourteen called Core Facts, and I'm a classical apologist.
And for those that don't know what that means, there's
a great book called Five Views on Apologetics and it
goes through the five different methodologies that generally people use.
But the thing that's interesting about the classical approach is

(16:49):
it has two steps to it. So the first step
is to show that God exists. You know, you're not
specifying the Christian God. Although this God is consistent obviously
with Christianity. You're showing that some form of or that
theism proper is true, that God exists. And then the
second step is to show that Jesus is God through
something like the resurrection, a case for the resurrection. And

(17:12):
so those are the two steps. So I read this
book Core Facts, which is an across stick because I'm
a weird dad and so I like dad humor, and
I realized that acrostics are weird dad things, but they're
also really helpful and remembering. And so the word core,
each letter of the word core stands for a different
peace of the case for God's existence. So like the
sea is the universe has a cause. Well, that's like

(17:34):
the cosmological argument or something. And then os for orders,
so that's a design argument and it goes on from there.
And then the facts are all facts, though each letter
there stands for things related to the resurrection of Jesus.
The case for Jesus and so I like the F
is fatal. His wounds on the cross were fatal. The
a has appeared, He appeared to people after his death.

(17:56):
C is for committed the disciples were committed to the
point they were willing to die for that, you know,
those kind of things. And so what that does is
highlights what I think is a benefit of the classical approach,
where if you're talking to someone who already believes in God,
they just have a problem accepting Jesus, well then you
can drop the core and just go with the facts,
because the core part is the part that has to
do with arguments for God, or if you guys remember it.

(18:19):
At the beginning of the book The Case for Faith
from Lee Strobel, he shares this interview with a guy,
Charles Templeton, who was Billy Graham's associate but became an atheist,
and in that interview that he had with him there
Templeton says, well, you know, I love Jesus. I miss Jesus,

(18:40):
you know, and well, with such a person you might
not even end up needing to give the facts about Jesus.
They're ready to accept Jesus if they could just believe
that naturalism weren't true, that they could believe that there
was a God or something. So it's flexible in that way.
So I wrote that book, came out with that book.
It was sole it was bought by several by a
conference and then schools to use for things like this.

(19:01):
I've sold it for years now and I've been really
pleased with that, and recently I rewrote it for a
second edition to make it even more understandable and easy
to grapple with for newcomers. And honestly, this is going
to sound a bit arrogant. I hope that you're not
getting that vibe from me, but I really believe this
resource is among the best for that sort of thing,

(19:21):
and with my DMN project this I'm wrapping this up here.
I'm going long winded, but hey, I'm a Southern Baptist
evangelist at heart. So I get to say I'll let
you go in a moment three times exactly. You get
to close your sermon for it.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, and hold you there.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
We'll do another song. We'll do just as I am
for the invitation. But the thing is, so I thought, hey,
we need to this needs to be something that's taken
on the road to churches. Because for my DMN project,
I did exactly that. I did a like scale test like.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
One to five.

Speaker 4 (19:53):
How confident and how competent are you in using these
the apologetics. And I did that with group of interested
church members who we might call lay people, and we
took them on a Friday night a Saturday, and then
I spoke at the church on Sunday. And during that
time from Friday to Saturday, we just went through some
of the material that's in Core Facts, and we did

(20:15):
a like er skilled test. And they were not very
confident and not very competent before and then they were
much more or substantially more afterward. Now that didn't mean
they knew everything about apologetics, but what it meant was
they now had that they were growing in confidence. Well,
that was a great test for me to know that
if we could get this going in churches where say

(20:35):
I come in for a weekend with a box full
of Core Facts that everyone's going to go through and
we're going to work on a Friday night and a
Saturday to understand this material as best we can. I'm
going to teach it, we're going to talk it, we're
going to work shop it. And then on Sunday I
preach a message to the church kind of geared toward
sending a rally cry that hey, this church is going
to start a Core fax group, and we want you

(20:56):
to commit today to be a part of that and
be in that group. Then I think that would be
that would go a long way toward increasing the Church
in America's ability to do apologetics with the average person.
And I think pastors over the past twenty years have
been told you need apologetics, you need apologetics, and they're like, okay,

(21:18):
we do, You're right, but how do I do that.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
I'm just me.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
I'm the guy might not even been a seminary. And
we can also help organize the church in ways that
would be helpful for doubters, and so I'd like to advise.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Them that way.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
And so in the coming year, I'm planning on launching
that and I've already got a couple of churches they're
lined up that want to have me come do this.
I'm hoping God will bless and open a lot more doors.
I'm not looking to make a career out of this
or anything. I just want the church in America to
be able to give an answer when someone asks in
this increasingly secular age.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, I mean it's like, you know, anybody getting into apologetics.
But we were talking before the podcast started about resources
and stuff on the Apologetic x three fifteen website, and
one of the things we made at one point was
how to get apologetics in your church. And there's a
lot of different approaches, but something that can be plugged
in to a church that is ready to equip them all.

(22:15):
It takes the requirement for there's someone to be within
the church as a primary driver for doing that. You know,
you can call upon that external resource, plug it in
and then kickstart something rather than having someone from within
the church having to drive it. That's a really helpful
approach and crucial right now.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
Right And have you guys noticed in your own churches
that like in typical churches there's at least one or
two weirdo apologetics junkies and they don't understand why everyone's
not that way. Well, that's the perfect kind of person
to kind of help facilitate small groups, and most churches
have somewhere right at that.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, you know, one of the things that really stuck
out to me when I listened to your announcement was
you you have the reasonable faith groups through William Lane
Craig's organization that Standard Reason Does Outpost, which which I
lead one of those. But the thing I love about
what you're doing is when somebody starts a reasonable Faith

(23:17):
chapter or somebody starts a standard reason outpost, Like I
love these guys, and I understand you know that probably
some of the limitations they have or whatnot, But like,
you're not getting William lane Craig to come do like
a three day introduction to your reasonable Faith chapter. You're
not getting Greg Cochle to come and do a three

(23:37):
day introduction to what this looks like. And uh, and
that's no slight to them because they have their own
focuses and and again I'm not William Lane Craig or
Greg Cochle either, so well, but but the point is
is that that's such a feature that stuck out to
me of like whoa, Like, what a great way to
get people pumped about it, to have you actually come

(23:59):
the author of the book lay it out and it
and it's such a support to the person who would
decide that they would want to start this core fax group.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well, yeah, I appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
And you know, one of the things about my ministry
is again, like some people are into apologetics just because
it's interesting. Some are because someone in their family has
become an atheist, and even among Christian apologists, well known ones,
some of them are in it because now they want
to put out there what's true and maybe the church
can use that however they will. But I was in

(24:30):
the car with a somewhat well known apologist a couple
of years ago. We were at a conference together and
we were talking and he said, well, what's the focus
of your ministry that makes it different? And I said, well,
I'm an evangelist. I believe I'm in Ephesians four eleven evangelists,
and so my apologetics serves evangelism. And the guy was like,
and this is a well known apologist, and he was like,
apologetics for evangelism, huh what about that? And I'm thinking, Wow,

(24:55):
what better reason to defend the faith but that someone
might believe the faith?

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Right?

Speaker 4 (25:00):
It seems obvious to me. But I have a pastoral background.
I have a very pastoral background. In fact, I work
with Talk about Doubts, which is a ministry that for
people that have doubts that can call in and talk
to an apologist, to talk to a guy yesterday. I've
done that for a few years now. Jonathan McClatchy has
that up. But in that they usually send me like

(25:20):
someone who has some doubts, but they need pastoral care
for that reason. And I'm not saying I'm the best
at that, but I think that kind of person that
understands the church mindset and how church people think and
receive information it has been a preacher, you know, is
able to kind of bring it down home in a
way that maybe I think William Lane Craig, for example,
would admit that he's not that doesn't do that as much.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, I loved it when I watched.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Just for preparation for this to refresh, I rewatched the
Delahunty debate, which honestly I probably didn't need to, I
just wanted to. And then I rewatched the Dan Barker one,
which gosh, I would love to just see a whole
podcast about that, but that's a whole other thing fascinating.
But one of the things I loved in the Dill
Hunting debated. At some point, and I'm paraphrasing, you're basically like, yeah,

(26:08):
I know this doesn't sound cool, but like I'm an
evangelist at heart, Like I'm not going to apologize for that,
And I'm like, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Didn't know I said that in that debate, but oh yeah, yeah,
yeah you did. I don't know if it was during
the Q and A or the debate itself, but yeah,
I'll tell you.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
I was the president of the Conference of Southern Babtist Evangelist.
I go to a non denominational church right now, but
I was. I was the youngest ever president of the
Conference Southern Babtist Evangelist, which is an official you know,
NAM North American Mission Board thing with SBC. And what
I noticed there was many of us. Oh we had
great evangelists, so don't get me wrong, but they had grown.
They had decreased from like twenty two hundred evangelists in

(26:46):
the seventies down to like, I don't know, a couple hundred,
and a lot of them were like puppet ministry or
you know, a singer that was an evangelist. We had
a saxophone player that was the evangelist. Great people, God's
using them. Don't want to take away from that, but
there had become a little bit of an idea about evangelists.
So of course we see this in the culture in general.
Though this is the guy who's who's kind of a

(27:08):
redneck he'll Billy Backwoods, you know, doesn't really know the Bible.
And so if I have a chance as standing on
the debate floor, especially if I feel like I've just
done well increasing that that stock and evangelist a little bit,
I want to try to do it.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, I love it. Chick tracks, Yeah, yeah, we can
do track, so it'll do this Hunter tracks.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
I would prefer Hunter tracks, thank you. I don't even
need to see one to note that I would prefer
a Hunter track. It's not even a debate. So you
you talked about engaging online, and one of the reasons
I wanted to reach out to you is because if
anybody goes on your videos or even you know, again,
not to beat a dead horse, but the Dilla hunting debate,

(27:53):
you know, people are very taken, meaning atheists are very
taken often by your approach. They'll say things I've seen
things like, you know, I don't agree with Braxton, but
he's the most reasonable Christian I've heard, or something along
those lines. And what I've told Brian when we did
the intro, we kind of pre recorded an intro. I said,

(28:13):
you know how there's when I'm talking to people about
apologetics sometimes they'll say I was listening to fill in
the blank, and on the inside, I'm like, uh, you
know what I mean, Like, I wish that wasn't who
you were listening to for various reasons. But if they
were to say I'd stumbled upon this guy Braxton Hunter

(28:34):
with Jonathan Pritchett, it would greatly encourage me because the
kind of the way you present Christianity in a reasonable,
rational manner, but it's so winsome and thoughtful, and you're
able to engage even on really difficult, kind of hot
button issues in a way that I think invites people
in which is something I want to learn to get

(28:56):
better at as well. And so I guess thinking about
you engage online, like what are some of the the
guiding principles that you keep in mind that that enable
you to be able to engage in that way? Sorry,
that was very long winded.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
No, I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
I don't mind people being long winded when they're saying
how wonderful I am. But the truth is, I have
a hard time being a jerk in general. There are
some people that that's their spiritual gift is being a
jerk to people online. That's not that's not me, and
so as a result, like I want to be I'm

(29:34):
inclined already to be nice to people also, like some
of sometimes the thing that can and look, God has
a place in his kingdom for different types of utensils here.
But I think a lot of people can come off
kind of as a jerk because they're not totally confident
in the strength of the argument, and they might see

(29:54):
an attack as a threat to their faith or something.
And as an apologist, if you got online ministry, that
you should be confident enough about this that when you're
when you're going out to do this that you can
you're not bothered when they say you know that, well,
the problem of evil, you know, shoots down theism or
something or whatever, or she at least shoots down in

(30:14):
all powerful God of it. Well, I'm not worried about
that because I know how this argument goes. I've seen
the answers and we all have confidence. But the nice thing,
I'm already keyed up to be that way, and I'm
kind of a people pleaser, and that can be too much.
That's why it's good that Pritchett is my balance, even
though he can be a blunt force instrument. Sometimes we

(30:35):
balance each other that way, because I can go too
far and water things down where I shouldn't trying to
trying to make it. I have good relationships with some
of the big atheist creators. I've had conversations with Alex
O'Connor privately, and we were supposed to debate, but he
couldn't get over to America.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
It was during COVID, and then I have.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
Good relationships with like Paulogia. If people know who Paulogia
is online, people like that. Matt Dillahunty and I were
very pleasant. I'm sure he doesn't like me now because
I've covered him much more straightforwardly since the debate, But
the fact is I wanted to have good relationships now.
I will say that some of the relationships I've had
with atheists have this make me sound thin skinned, but
have hurt me a little bit because because some of

(31:17):
them did turn code on me kind of and that
sort of thing, but not all of them have. And
I think that seeing people like that as humans and
all the things you would expect to hear an apologists
say that's important stuff. But another thing about it is
when you're doing this kind of thing online. I think,
especially if you're not like a professional content creator. I
think that sometimes if it starts to get to like

(31:39):
on Twitter, I still call it Twitter or Facebook or something,
and you feel like it's getting contentious. One of the
problems there is everybody wants to save face. So it
might be good to invite, as an individual Christian, invite
that person to a private chat or DMS or something
where you can have where there's no performative side to that.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
That's one thing that I really try to do.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
Another thing is share the Gospel as quickly as you can,
even in not in a forced way. But a guy
I was speaking at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminaries Defend
Conference a few years ago, and someone asked me about this.
Then this came to my mind in the moment. So
maybe it's like the Holy Spirit prompting me.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
But the idea here is you may not get to
say much to them because they might get distracted or
in a debate you might go off on other things.
So try to get the gospel in there as soon
as you can so that if nothing else happens. Hey man,
the gospel is the power of God into salvation. So
if we can get that out there and then what
we say is gravy on top of that, I think

(32:38):
that's really important. And those are kind of some principles
that also don't assume people have all the knowledge you
have about how all this works. Sometimes even my co host,
I'll notice him presuming knowledge on the part of the
people that are in our audience, and you know, make
things as basic as possible, even if you have a
more complex advanced channel.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
I think, yeah, that's another thing I was telling Brain
when we recorded the intros is that I think, you know,
people always use the phrase putting the cookies on the
bottom shelf, and I think that you're you're you're very
good at that. Like even in the debate both of
the debates, you know, free will came up both the
debates we mentioned I know you've done others and you
know that can be very complex.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
I mean, that can be a hard thing to follow.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
But I feel like even if that was somebody's first
time hearing that, they could walk away and go, Okay,
I need to learn more.

Speaker 4 (33:27):
But I think I followed that. But that takes that
takes work and being intentional, well, you know, I did
try to use a lot of illustration and things like that.
And you know, a lot of the comments obviously on
that video of the debate as it exists on Dilla
Hunty's channel and online, a lot of the ones, at
least on my channel are are negative. Obviously overwhelmingly it's

(33:49):
atheist pointing out that I'm just worshiping my sky Daddy
or whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
But a lot of them, a good.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
Substantially more, I think than is typical on these debates,
are like, well, you know, I think Braxon is wrong,
but man, he was a nice guy, enjoyable to listen to.
I've had people say that they came to christ after
watching that debate, and we've shared those publicly, So, you know,
I think just trying to be friendly with the like
in the deal hunting debate, I said, hey, I don't
know who's going to win this, but I guarantee it
will be someone. It will be a bald headed and

(34:17):
bearded man. Well, something as simple as that. You know,
we're both bald headed, bearded guys. We joke around. I
think that just takes some of the steam off of it. Now,
maybe that's not always how it should be. Maybe there
is someone who is propagating something in a very straightforward
way that is that is hurting people.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Is evil. You know, maybe we be more firm, but
I still think the love is important.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
But like even in the Barker debate where I was
so impressed with how you went out of your way
to point out to him that the chipmunk thing, the
chipmunk climbing up on him or whatever like, endeared him
to you. And I think it's important as apologists, and
you really model this, I think, to be vulnerable in

(35:00):
that way, you know, to say like, hey, I really
care about you and I saw that you did this
and I appreciated it or it endeared me to you
or something like that, And I think I think that's
a good lesson people could learn from you.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Well, I'm glad you saw it that way. And the
most important thing I think about all of this is
if you don't know the answer to something, here's what
you say.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Take notes on this. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
That's the answer. If you don't know something, say I
don't know, because first of all, that is also disarming.
You validated their question, you know. Secondly, when you try
to make up an answer, see I was raised a
little bit in the Southern Baptist world to think, if
you're the preacher, you thump the pulpit and say, thus,
saith the Lord. Even if you don't know what the
Lord does, saith about that, and guess what, That's how

(35:44):
cults and false religions begin. So so if you don't know,
say I don't know, but I'll go find out and
I'll come back and we can have that discussion. And
in that way, you may not know how to be
an answer giver yet if you're just studying this stuff,
but you can be an answer finder for people. You say,
I'll go find out and bring it back to you,
And in that way you could be an apologist today.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
I'm also a proponent of this idea of you know,
trying to win the person and not the argument. Of course,
you want to make the strongest case possible, but if
you lose the person or at what's the point. And
I think that that people, even if you don't move
the person you're debating with or talking to, everyone sees

(36:26):
that interaction. When we Chad and I did spend quite
a bit of time debating in blogs and things like
that in the comment sections with people, recurring visitors and
stuff like that. And I would get people texting me
personally say oh, well, thank you for this interaction with
so and so. So those are helpful and it's just

(36:47):
a mirror image of what you're saying with this debate.
You know, your interaction move the listener because like, wow,
I thought this he was just going to try to
come and fight or defend his defend his position. But
he's a real I like him.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
And it's like it's.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Almost like if if the person doesn't like you, they're
just not even going to listen to you. It's not
and like you said, you're talking about being a people pleaser,
but I don't think maybe that's the word. It's more like, no,
you want to win the person. You know. It's not
that people pleas are in the negative sense. Now you've
been in the apologetic space for a long time. We're
talking about debating people in blog comments, like there might

(37:25):
be people listening, Like what's a blog at this point?
And things are shifting online and how have you seen
things change as far as your engagement online? What's become easier,
what's become harder? Do you find the playing field has changed.
What's been your.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
Experience absolutely, you know, as I said, when I first
started to take off with the channel, Mike Winger was
one of the people that really helped me out a
lot with that. I remember he did like a private
stream one time just for a few of us and
himself that nobody could see. It was like unlisted, to
help some of the people that he thought had some

(38:01):
potential here to kind of understand some of the stuff
you're talking about right now. But the way that the algorithms,
the way that the platforms have changed just in the
past few years since then is so dramatic that some
of that advice is still good, but a lot of
it is now irrelevant and and what and what is
being favored on YouTube, for example, and this is probably
true across the platforms is really exaggerated thumbnails and titles

(38:28):
and things like that, And to a certain degree, you
have to play ball with that. You don't want to
be dishonest, though. I think if you if you have
what we might call clickbait, you need to deliver on
that clickbait.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
I've noticed like three or four videos where you say
I'm going to quit this YouTube channel, and I've watched
all of them you have not yet delivered, so.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Right, I like you.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
I like you and Pritchet's thumbnails Braxton where you go.
That's right, Yeah, we get goofy sometimes. In fact, my
wife has said to me before, She's like, why do
you make these stupid faces on your thumbnails? And I'm like, well,
it's not just me. Like Mike Winger's almost got a
million subs and he does that. He told me to

(39:09):
do that, and he's like.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
She's like, I don't care. It doesn't look professional. And
I get it, man, I get it. There's a cringe
factor to all of that.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
But yeah, there are things that have changed. TikTok you
have to handle differently than you do Twitter that you
have to handle differently than YouTube and Facebook, and I
have slightly different audiences on all of those things. But
one of the like, well, I'm in a season of
experimentation right now, trying to figure out different formats. That
was one of the things I said in the video
you guys have referred to where I talked about core

(39:37):
facts is I'm trying different things right now, different formats,
and that means this year I've had some of our
biggest videos with like two hundred thousand views or more,
and then I've had other videos that were the lowest,
Like I had a live stream this week that currently
is like the lowest live stream for the time that
I think I've ever had. But then maybe the next
video will be way high. You know, it's very it's strange,

(39:59):
and you have to try to feel figure all that out.
And I think one of the most important things for
me is I got our church to basically create a
sort of an online space for people that become Christians
through Trinity Radio or something else, so that I can
send them because even though they might be in Canada
or Mexico or whatever, I can send them there to
a hub where they can start figuring out the Christian

(40:21):
faith and have an online semblance of a church while
they're trying to figure out where they're going to go
to church. And so that's a way trying to fit
this all together. But man, you're right, it has made it.
I could probably think of a million different ways to
talk about that. But if you're a Christian content creator
and you start to have a little size to you,
I think finding a way for people that become Christians

(40:43):
to plug into a trustworthy community is a really important thing.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, a couple questions.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
So when you're talking about those different platforms, and this
is genuinely because I'm on Facebook and X like that's it, right,
And I'm not like a content creator in the sense
that you're talking about. Right, So, when you have all
those different platforms, is that you and Pritchett managing like
all of that. Do you have a team that helps

(41:09):
you do that?

Speaker 2 (41:10):
How do what does that look like? Kind of behind
the scenes.

Speaker 4 (41:12):
You know, just like most people do on those different platforms.
We have moderators that are just fans that we give
them the rent, you know, so they can make changes.
But for the most part, it's me and Pritchett. Pritchett
handles a lot in our Facebook group. I'll post new
content there. Occasionally I'll post something. It's usually him YouTube.
It's all me. We're still small enough that we can

(41:33):
do all that sort of thing, and we like, we
like doing all that. But I know other creators that
have that have started to hire or pay a little
bit to someone to help them out.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Okay, if somebody is listening and they're thinking about possibly
I think this is something that I'm feeling led to do.
You know, and you know, maybe perhaps are praying and
the Lord keeps prompting them to you need to start
an online minister, or move in the direction of a
content creator or whatnot. Are there any kind of pitfalls

(42:07):
that you would encourage them to avoid? Is there any
like kind of first one or two or three steps
you'd encourage them, like here's where to start, anything along
those lines.

Speaker 4 (42:18):
Yeah, I think that the most important. Well, so for
podcasting you have probably very helpful analytics that tell you
exactly what's going on. And for your website you probably
have the same thing. And YouTube does a good job
with that. But when you're trying, when you're thinking about
the different popular social media platforms, they don't count things
the same YouTube counts things in a very fair way.

(42:42):
I think that gives you a realistic picture of who's
engaging with your content. Facebook and X, as far as
I understand, somewhat inflate the numbers because on YouTube, I
don't know if this is still a case, but like
you have to watch it for however many seconds before
it'll technically count as a view, and then if there's

(43:03):
double views, they'll go back and rake that off. Whereas
on Facebook an X it just passing through your like
if you slowly pass over it as you're scrolling, well
that might count as a view. Well that's not really
a view. So that may tempt you to only post
on one particular platform because you say, well I got
ten thousand here and only got a thousand over there.
Well maybe those thousand were real thousand, and the other

(43:24):
ten thousand were people that just happened to scroll past,
and that counts as an impression, but shouldn't necessarily count
as a view. That kind of thing is important to
when you're choosing where you're going to post, because I
think that there's a war each of these platforms are
trying to keep you on their platform for the longest
amount of time. YouTube wants you to accept that next
video that you linked because they want to keep somebody

(43:45):
there and not on Facebook or not on Rumble or
not on whatever else. And they all want to do that.
And that means, by the way, that if you make
a podcast, or you make a on one of these platforms,
or you make make a YouTube video and then you
try to share that video on Facebook from YouTube, it's

(44:06):
probably not going to get the legs, is my understanding.
As if you natively posted that on Facebook or on Twitter.
And I've seen things that kind of bear that out.
So that's important. Also the way you title these things,
and if you're doing a video, the way you thumbnail
these things that has not changed. A great thumbnail and
a great title are really important, and AI can really

(44:28):
really be helpful with this. So I think Brian asked
about like how AI has has done this? Man, I
type out about twenty titles, even if I think the
first one is a banger, I'll type out like twenty
titles to I'll force myself to do it to see
what I come up with, and I usually come up
with something better. And then there are online tools that
you can go to and ask it Chat, GBT you

(44:49):
can go to and ask. You can say, here's my
thumbnail that I'm working with, here's the title that I
think I like. How can I make this better? You
can tell it, Hey, the title, I only want four
or five words and it'll work within that. So and
it does a pretty good job being helpful with that.
Some people don't like AI in their thumbnail images. Honestly,
it's an easy way if you like, go to Canva's

(45:10):
AI image upscaler. You've had the problem trying to create
graphics for what we do and you get the perfect
image of the guy that you're interviewing or something, but
it's grainy. It's you know, he's not he hasn't done
public professional stuff. It's like grainy and all that. Well,
now it's so easy to like throw that into Canva's
AI image upscaler and you can choose I want it

(45:31):
two times, four times, eight times. You do more than
two times and it starts to look weird, but you
can make it look like a pretty decent People don't
know really if it's AI or not with that, and
that has really revolutionized and has helped me with clicks.
So I think those are some things, especially thumbnail and title,
that are really important.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
One of the things I think about, and even just
with like blogging on truth Bomb, I've kind of narrowed
over the years what I address on there, and it
typically is based around what I personally find interesting.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
But as a content creator, I feel like.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
There's that expectation of when there are these like certain
hot topics going on in the body of Christ or
in the news, uh that I can imagine there's sometimes
like a draw of feeling like we need to address this,
that and the other thing. So in this kind of
vast world of online madness, if you will, how do
you guys decide like what to address and kind of

(46:25):
what to to not address.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 4 (46:29):
Well, we mess that up horribly, and a lot of
us who have been doing it for several years messed
that up. And I'll tell you why. Really, if you
want to grow your channel, so Winger, I refer to
Mike Queen or a lot because he's been really helpful
and we all know he's really successful sure at this,
and he told us, uh privately, he said, look, if
you if you whatever it is you're doing, if your

(46:51):
whole thing is crocheting lizards, there are two billion people
out there on YouTube or whatever, and so there are
there are hundreds of thousands, if not a million, people
who would really like to watch you crochet lizards. And
so so the people are out there now obviously for someone.
So you got to realize your baby's ugly and that

(47:12):
you know by that we mean what you're producing is
just bad. Okay, But but there really are a lot
of people who probably want whatever you've got. But here's
the thing. They might like the thing you made on Monday,
but not care anything about the thing you made on Wednesday,
And so most of us have wrongly in terms of growth,
and Winger says this about himself been broad in our

(47:34):
topics and broad in our variation of lengths of videos
or podcasts or whatever. And really, if you like, if
you have a video, like one of the big videos
that took off early was when ret and Link from
Good Mythical Morning Online, Oh first deconverted. I did an
hour long video on that, really addressing like everything that

(47:54):
he laid out, well that not went up to like
seventy thousand or something back with my chain wasn't anywhere
close to doing anything like that. You know what I
should have done is the very next video I produced
should have been on ret and Link and a similar
thing about retin Link, because I brought in all these
eyeballs over ret and Link, and the next thing I
gave them was like, you know, the moral argument or

(48:17):
calvinism or.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Something, you know, something else I was talking about that
they don't care about.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
So if you make your channel narrow in that sense,
like hey, my channel is all about response videos to
atheists that are ten minutes long. Oh man, that's great
because every time someone comes to your channel to get
in the same kind of thing. But if you did
that today and then next week you're talking about crocheng lizards, well,
the kroscheng lizards people don't care anything about the atheist stuff,

(48:42):
and the atheists probably don't care about the crocheng lizards.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
People are going to subscribe to a channel where they
know what they're going to get. They want, Oh, you're
going to dispense me x every week or whatever, Okay,
I'll sign up for that, but random stuff. I just
to clear my feet every time I see you up.
So yeah, totally get that.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
Yeah, that may be specific to YouTube. And it's also
true that as your channel grows a little bigger, you
can widen what you offer a little bit because.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
You have more of a base.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Yeah, on good point.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
That's really helpful.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
All right, So a couple questions about the Matt Dell
Hunty debate that I've that speaking of YouTube views, like,
I don't know, eighty four of those might be me.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
I don't know, but anyway, I'm exaggerating, but I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
Man.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
I studied for that thing for eight months.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
Well, it was very evident, which I'm going to talk
about in a moment. But it's one of those things
now where sometimes when I want to listen to something
that I'm familiar with, and I find it's almost like
such a wonderfully done debate that I'm like, I'm gonna
go back and listen to practice comfort food.

Speaker 4 (49:45):
It is.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
It's comforting, it is.

Speaker 4 (49:47):
It is.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
It's just like, yeah, I don't know, but great. So
I remember when William Lane.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Craig debated Christopher Hitchens, and one of the things that
people took away from that is it was a very
kind of different Christopher Hitchins, like he was almost on
his People said he was almost on his best behavior.
And I don't know if that's because Craig was so formidable.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
I suspect that's what it was, but you know, I
don't know, because certainly he spoke in front of Christian
audiences and had no qualms being Christopher Hitchins. So I
kind of attributed to that, but I wondered I got
that same impression with this debate. Now now I enjoy
I'm like you, I enjoy listening to Matt. There are
things I agree with Matt on so so this isn't

(50:34):
at all a slight on him. But but sometimes he
can and I think sometimes it's rhetorical. I think it
is a strategy on his part. He can get rather
cantankerous and argumentative. And I saw almost none of that
in your debate with him, and it seemed like that
the rapport was great. And is that your impression too.

Speaker 4 (50:56):
Yeah, I was actually coming there expecting what I had watched.
I'd watched everything Matt Dyland he had ever done by
that line, Yeah, which gave me a lot of content
to make videos about later on.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
That also helped the channel.

Speaker 4 (51:10):
But anyway, the first thing I said to him when
I walked in, I had met him once before at
the same conference two years prior. He had walked in
and listened to me give a talk about core facts
as a matter of fact, and he gave me some notes.
He's like, I really liked your presentation. Here's some things
I would do and so so that was nice and
I was really nice to him that day. And then

(51:31):
when we met, we met kind of in the aisle
at Baylor University in the chapel we were in and
I said, man, Matt, Hey, I've really appreciates you as
a public speaker. Obviously we disagree about the substantive things,
but you know, I was really nice to him, asked
him about is I think there were some things going
on in his life personally at that time that I

(51:53):
knew about, So I was asking him about that. He
seemed to appreciate that I asked him a little Somehow.
He ended up telling me, Hey, I'm not going to
be like I am on the Atheist Experience his television show.
I'm going to be more, you know. And I was like, okay,
well great, And so I took advantage of that to
tell you the truth. Not deceptively, but I said everything
I was going to say and put him in a

(52:16):
tough spot where if he's going to if if he
I'm gonna, I'm gonna let him. Give him every opportunity
to be the Matt Dillon Hunty we've seen on television,
because that's what I expected. But if he's gonna, if
he's gonna not bring it, I'm.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Still gonna bring it.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
So that was my goal, right because I'm not gonna
feel bad for mad or for our discussion. I want
to destroy atheism here cut the legs out from under it.
So anyway, but it was very cordial and we joked
around a little bit during the debate. But you're right,
it was the tone was good.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
And do you think that was because what do you
attribute that to the fact that you just the way
you kind of approached.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
It or the demeanor. Yeah, the demeanor just being a
human being to him before. I think that's why a
lot of times you hear about with these debates, like
they'll go out to dinner before the debate or something
like that. I think that's actually a really good strategic
thing for the moderator of the debate or the host,
because it makes people see each other as human beings
a little bit more than a talking head on the computer.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Yeah, and so so preparation for something like that.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Just again, I think this will interest listeners, you know,
kind of behind the scenes, who who may think. I
think sometimes you watch, like you watch that debate and
you're like, I could I could do that, Yeah, you know,
but there's a lot more to it than that. It's
like watching It's like watching you know, Novak Djokovic play
tennis and you're like, that looks easy, and then you
go out and actually try to play and so kind

(53:37):
of that behind the scenes obviously watching tons of Matt's content, right,
but what else does that look like?

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Hey, yeah, I'd love to talk about that. I there was.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (53:48):
Some of your followers may know a guy named Layton Flowers.
He's got a ministry talking about Calvinism, but and he's
not a Calvinist. But he became a close friend of
mine because he debating account He was going to debate
James White for those that might know who James White is,
and before that first debate, he was looking for people
from his background as a Baptist who had to have

(54:10):
debates with Calvinists, and I had had two or three
by that point, and he found those and so we
became friends, and then we started to work together, and
now he's a professor forrest at our school and he's
one of my best friends in the world.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
But he called me up.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
He was the head of Texas Baptist Apologetics at the time,
who was putting on the conference where Dila Hunty and
I debated, and where Michaelacona had debated him two years before,
And so he called me up and he said, hey,
you wanted to debate Matt Dilla Hunty and to tell
you the truth. Just because of the way Dila Hunty
presents himself online, it was intimidating and so I was like, man,

(54:45):
I don't know, I have to think about that. And
he was like, oh, don't worry. I could get married
Joe Sharp or Frank Turk to do it.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
They'll be happy. I was like, went out, hold on
a second, you know.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
Maybe we'll do So I ended up agreeing to do it,
but I was very nervous about how it was going
to go. As it turns out, this is going to
I hope this doesn't sound arrogant. As it turned out,
I could have had the debate the next day after
we scheduled it. But I studied for eight months and
it gave me a lot of good content. I uh,
you know, And what I would do is not just

(55:13):
listening to everything Dila Hunty said, and some of it
more than once. And some of the best del Hunting
debates are with a guy named Blake Junta. I don't
know if you guys know Blake Joe.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Yes, yes, I think he's done an incredible job with
Dila Hunty. But but you know. The way.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
What I would do is, since Dila Hunty has all
this online content where he's debating, I would try to
find one that I hadn't listened to yet, and then
I would play Dila Hunty's opening statement, and I would
take notes as though the debate was happening and it
was me right there. And then as soon as he
got done, I would pause it without any idea really

(55:47):
what I was going to say when I stood up,
and I would stand up as though it was my debate,
without hearing what the Christian was going to say, and
I would respond, and I would get to the point
where I.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Was really confident. What's that That's a great idea.

Speaker 4 (56:00):
Yeah, I encourage that as like a preparation thing. And
then and what's funny is when I ran out of
I ran out of Matt Dila Hunting debates to do
that with because I'd heard them all, and so I
switched when I was preparing for Dila Hunty to Dan
Barker debates because he argues somewhat similarly. And that was
maybe the providence of God, because I ended up debating

(56:20):
Dan Barker right after that, So I had already done
a lot of preparation ahead of time. That way, I
recommend that as a good strategy there, and again I
also recommend mixing in humor, mixing in. I think you
should write what are called briefs. I know other apologists
who do this, where you write like things that they
could object with, and you write like a little paragraph.

(56:43):
I had like four pages on biblical slavery and things
like that, just in case still a Hunty brought it up,
because he so often does. He didn't, but I had
pages on everything in a notebook with tabs, a physical
notebook book, because in a debate, I don't trust the technology.
If something goes wrong with my tablet, I'm in trouble.
So paper is what I went with and tabs, and
so if he asked me about any subject, I can

(57:05):
open up right there and write, there's my notes. But honestly,
I've already memorized it all at that point and know
what I'm.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
Going to say.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
But it's just a backup. And so that was really good.
And look for moments to be charitable, like a plan
for moments to be charitable. So there was a moment
during the Q and A that people can see in
that debate may have been the first question in the
Q and A. This kid gets up as a Christian
who's actually a supporter of my ministry and already was
a follower, and I didn't know that at the time.

(57:31):
His name's Drew And he got up and he said,
why do you call yourself? Do you believe that God
does not exist? And Dila Hunty says, well, now, I
don't believe that God does not exist. I lack a
belief in God, or I don't believe in God, you know.
And he says, well, then why don't you call yourself
an agnostic?

Speaker 2 (57:46):
Fair question?

Speaker 3 (57:47):
But Dila Hunty got upset and he's like, hold on
a second. I've hosted the Atheist Experience for all these
years and raw rah rayh and all that, and I
took up for Dila Hunty there.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
I said, look, I said, I might sympathize with the
questioner here, but the fact is is it's more important
we're having discussions with unbelievers to hear how they're using
that term and what they mean by that term, instead
of like trying to force them to use your terms.
Because the point here is we're just trying to understand
what that guy believes, so we can properly address that.
And I said that, and I think Dilla Hunt he

(58:17):
appreciated that, and in fact it threw him off because
a question later someone asked him about the cosmological argument
and he said he said something like, well, you know,
my understanding is that or no, he didn't even say
my understanding. He said, well, they added in that everything
that begins to exist must have a cause later, because

(58:38):
the original cosmological argument would just said everything requires a cause. Well,
I knew he couldn't substantiate that, because, for one thing,
there's not the original cosmological argument. There's all kinds of
cosmological arguments. But I asked him right there. Now, this
was right after we had developed some we had fostered,
like some goodwill toward each other, and then I just
fire across them, Hey, Matt, can you can you demonstrate

(58:59):
that that's his term?

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Demonstrate?

Speaker 4 (59:01):
Can you demonstrate that? Demonstrate what that the original colomb
had that think, Well, that's what I've been taught. I mean,
I don't know, maybe I could. I said, maybe you
could send it to me after say, and well I
guess so, Well that really scored some points in the
eyes of the audience for whom Dila Hunty's glass jaw
had never been shattered. Well right there, because I had
been friendly prior to that with him, and then straightforward

(59:25):
about that. We caught him in a moment where he
maybe thought I wouldn't have pressed, and as a result,
I've never gotten that answer back from Dila Hunty.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
I was just getting ready to ask you that. Okay,
let me let me ask you guys this, this is
both of you.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Is it really sad that as you're recalling these moments
and the debate, that I can hear them in my head?
Does that mean I have problems? I think maybe I
literally could hear that part of the Q and A.
I even remember what really set Matt off, calling Matt
like I know him. Sorry if you ever hear this, Matt,
mister Dilla Hunty, whatever, you prefer, no disrespect. But it

(59:59):
was the It was the fact that the guy asked
him about atheism. Apparently he was smirking, and that's really
what he was like, are you smirking right now?

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
And I remember listening.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
I had my earbuds in and I was outside doing work,
and I was like, oh crap, I'm so glad.

Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
I'm so glad this happened because I'm so glad now
in other people's debates. I've heard every William Line Craig
debate twenty times.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
I know it's okay.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
That makes me feel better because I was like, this
is really sad, Chad. You can hear the audio in
your head is he's talking like what?

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
I love it? So, do you have any upcoming debates?

Speaker 4 (01:00:36):
No? You know, honestly, I'll just tell you debate. I'll
be open about this. Debates take a lot out of me.
I'm not I think I was. I don't know if
they call me an introvert or not. You know, they
say there's a middle one amb avert. I don't know,
but I've classically thought of myself as an introvert cause
playing as an extrovert because all the things like when

(01:00:59):
I'm when I publicly and all that, I shake, all
the hands, I kiss, all the babies. I'm happy to
be there, and I really am happy to be there,
and I love everybody there. But then I got to
go be alone for a while and like watch TV
because or or just be with my people. You know
that I'm most comfortable with, because that does drain me
and debates for some reason, I think I think I'm
good at debates. I think I'm good at this, but

(01:01:22):
it's so taxing and takes so much to prepare for
all that as a person who's kind of OCD and
I'm not saying that flippantly, I do have OCD diagnosed,
But because of that, it takes so much out of
me that for the past few years I've been trying
to focus so much on our school and my kids
as they've been teenagers, that I haven't wanted to block

(01:01:45):
out like a two month or three month period to
mostly be obsessed with this debate. You know, I do
plan to come back to it, and I am often asked,
and there are moments on Trindy Radio where you've had
an atheist on and it wasn't supposed to be a
debate and it didn't up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
I debated him kind of.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
But I'm kind of taking a break from debating for
a few years, and then I do plan to get
back into it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Though excellent.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
Yeah, I agree with you, I think, and this is
me you know, being objective, not fanboying or whatnot. But
I do think you're very good at it and would
love to see you do more, but I, of course understand.
I can only imagine the time commitment that it requires
in the mental band with you say you're a fanboy
or not a fan or however you said that. But

(01:02:30):
maybe I'm a fanboy because I've always been afraid you
might sue me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Do you know why?

Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Don't you run truth bomb Apologetics? Yeah? Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:02:41):
I took all my blog articles at one point and
that I had written and made a little book out
of that to give away when people sign up for
our newsletter. Yeah, and so I called it truth Bombs
Brief Thoughts on big issues. And I was like, man,
I hope that truth Bombs guy doesn't call me on copyright.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
That's so funny. I have not copyrighted it. So's we're good. Yeah,
we're good.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
You mentioned that's so funny. You mentioned Trinity the school
just before we finish up. Would you mind telling us
a little bit about that and case listeners are looking
for a school to attend, and then of course let
us know where listeners can find more of your stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
Be happy to Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
I'm the president of Trinity College of the Bible and
Theological Seminary in Evansville, Indiana. It's existed since nineteen sixty nine,
always as a distance learning school, so whenever some of
the distance learning type stuff. Online education was pioneered by
one of the former presidents of this school, and so
we've been on the cutting edge of that for a
long long time. And in fact, we were like the

(01:03:44):
third website in history that had a dot edu or
something like that, and so and so we've been at
this for a long time. We know how to do
online education, were costs effective in a way that I
think a lot of schools aren't. And we're theologically conservative
and biblically conservative in our approach. Now I want to

(01:04:08):
be open about the fact that you might be just
a layperson and want to go to school here. You
might be a person who wants a future in academia.
And our school doesn't have accreditation, but we have articulation
agreements with a number of other schools. Well currently we
have with three other schools and working on a fourth.
And what that means, and these are regionally accredited schools,

(01:04:29):
so where you might spend like thirty or thirty thousand
dollars or something going through a bachelor's program before you
end up going into your masters. Well, you could come
with us and spend a fraction of that and then
articulate into one of our articulated schools and really get
a financial boost there and a time boost to get

(01:04:50):
you toward where you need to be and where you
want to be. And so those programs have been looked
over by those other schools so that we're happy with that,
and we've had a good relationship with ship that way.
You know what, our students have become department heads. Trinity
graduates have become department heads at accredited schools. We have
teachers and professors at some of the big schools, presidents

(01:05:14):
of seminaries who've had their only doctoral degree from US
and it's never held me back personally. So a lot
of our students stay with us straight on through to
their doctoral program. But I want people to know that
there is a pathway if you want to go further
in terms of accreditation. And so we've tried to be
all things to all people in that respect so that
we can really be flexible and hopefully give people what

(01:05:36):
they need. And we have some people that I think
your listeners might know of like they know of me.
That's great, but they might know of Layton Flowers, they
might know of Tim Stratton, who does a lot of
work on philosophy and free will. And then we have
Steve greg Is, a radio host across the nation. We
have Calvinist and non Calvinist professors. You're really not going

(01:05:58):
to be in an echo chamber in that respect, and
so I guess that's my elevator pitch for what we're doing.
My YouTube channel is YouTube dot com slash Braxton Hunter.
As Frank Turrik used to say, that's how humble I
am that I named the website, but also the website
is Braxton.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Hunter dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
But everything I do ends up going through YouTube, So
the YouTube channel is the best place to find me.
But I'm on all the social media platforms under my
name Braxton Hunter. And then of course the website's Braxton
Hunter dot com. So Trinity SEM Trinity s e M
dot edu will get you there. And really, what what
I wish people would do is, even if you think

(01:06:37):
you might be interested in this ten years from now,
still go ahead and fill out the request for more
information on the right hand side of the screen when
you go to Trinity SIM dot edu, and it'll be
there and you can do this online in your pajamas
at home. It's I think it's set up for the
world we live in today.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Excellent. Thank you for coming on.

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):
And you know, sometimes when you look up to somebody
and you get to meet them, it can be you know,
a bit of a disappointment, and this has been, this
has surpassed my expectations.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
And just thanks for everything you do. Man, I appreciate that.
That really means a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:07:09):
And to tell you the truth, I kind of needed
that encouragement on this very day, so that that matters
a lot to me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Thank you for that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:16):
And now I've fulfilled one of my lifelong goals of
appearing on the Apologetics three fifteen podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Well that's that's going to be our last episode now
that we've finally made it through Chad's list. Brex and
thank you so much. It's been wonderful chatting with you.
I love everything that you're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
And oh, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Thanks guys, thanks for the chance, Thanks for listening to
the podcast. If you have a question you'd like us
to address, or just a message for us feedback, good
or bad, you can either email us at podcast at
Apologetics three fifteen dot com, or leave a voice message
for us using speak Pipe. Just go to speakpipe dot com,
slash Apologetics three fifteen to leave us a mess, and remember,

(01:08:01):
if you include a ghostbuster's quote in your question, we
guarantee that we'll read it on the podcast. We also
ensure up to fifty percent better quality answers. Also, if
you've enjoyed today's podcast, please leave a review in iTunes
or the podcast platform in your choice, and please share
this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
With a friend if you've found it useful.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Remember you can find lots of Apologetics resources at apologeticspree
fifteen dot com, along with show notes for today's episode.
Find Chad's apologetic stuff over at truthbomb apologetics. That's truthbomb
dot blogspot dot com. This has been Brian Auten and
Chad Gross for the Apologetics three fifteen podcast, and thanks
for listening.

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158 - Braxton Hunter and Online Apologetics

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}158 - Braxton Hunter and Online Apologetics