April 10, 2018 Show with Justin Brierley on “Why After Ten Years of Talking With Atheists I’m Still a Christian”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet Earth, listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 10th day of April 2018, and today

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I am so delighted to have for the very first time as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Justin Brierley, who as many of you know, hosts a radio program in the

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UK very popularly known as... Well, Justin, it's great to have you back on.

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The fade out wasn't working on the music. I was trying to make it sound a little bit nicer and have it fade out, but it wasn't working.

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It was jammed. But anyway, well, Justin, it is great to finally have you on my program.

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I had the pleasure of being on the unbelievable program, and I believe that was right before Reformation Day last year, correct?

02:21

That's right, yes. It was great to have you on, Chris. It was a fascinating discussion that we had where I had you on in conversation with someone who was at one time a

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Protestant and became a Catholic, and you were representing the opposite journey of having been a Catholic and becoming a

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Protestant, and really drawing out some of the distinctives of the Reformation in the course of that conversation.

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And of course, we also carried a version of it in our magazine as well, Premier Christianity Magazine, which is kind of the equivalent of Christianity Today here in the

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UK. So it was a great show. Thank you for coming on. Oh, it was my honor and privilege, and please send my greetings to James Bogle, who was my counterpart in that discussion, which became a debate, and I enjoyed that very much, and I hope

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James is doing well, and please let him know that I send him my regards from this side of the pond.

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I will do, I will do. And before I go into more of your story, let's talk more about me.

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I was just curious, I don't think I ever heard how you learned or discovered Iron Trippin's Iron Radio.

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Well, it was actually through a mutual friend of ours, James White, who I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with as a well -known pastor, especially known in terms of his own podcast and Aaron Phoenix, and the fact that he's been a guest on my show many times, either debating with Muslims or kind of on similar issues to the ones we were doing on my program with you, that is in conversation with Catholics and other people.

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And so it was really through James White that I came to learn of your own radio show, and he was actually in the course of really looking for people who could represent that story of having been a

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Catholic at one time and becoming a Protestant, especially in the Reformed tradition, and James said, oh, perhaps you'd like to get in touch with Chris Arms, and that was how we made the connection, really.

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Great. Well, it was, as I said, it was an honor and privilege to be on your program, and tell us about, tell our listeners who are unfamiliar with Unbelievable, the radio program, tell us about this book.

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I mean, well, it's a book as well, but tell us about the radio program and how that began and so on.

04:51

Well, the Unbelievable radio show, and it's unbelievable with a question mark, that really began about 12 years ago now.

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So Premier Christian Radio has been a Christian radio station in the UK for about 25 years now, and I joined it about 15 or 16 years ago.

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It was very much my first job in broadcasting. I learned the ropes of radio on the live breakfast show each weekday morning, and after a few years being in that role and getting stuck into broadcasting,

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I went to the manager of the radio station and said, I'd really love to begin my own radio show once a week, where we don't just talk to Christians, but we talk to non -Christians as well.

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And so Unbelievable was born, and really it was a very simple concept. I wanted to, as well as having those conversations between Christians, I wanted to model what it would look like to have good conversations between Christians and non -Christians.

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So I began inviting non -Christians, atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, other people on to have a discussion or debate with Christian guests on the radio show.

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And yeah, it was just a fascinating experience. Now we also do the kind of, you know, inter -Christian theological debates, kind of like the one you had, obviously,

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Chris, but the main core of the show has actually always been the Christian, non -Christian discussions and debates.

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And over the years that grew. It started podcasting a couple of years into the program and whereas the radio show reaches a

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UK Christian audience, primarily, the podcast has actually reached an even more diverse audience.

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So we have started to have a number of non -Christians and agnostics and atheists who would start to pick up the podcast because perhaps they'd heard one of their representatives on the program and start to follow it to the extent that we're now, you know, receiving over 3 million downloads a year of the podcast.

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And I get a lot of mail from both Christians and non -Christians who listen to the program from all over the world, which is very exciting.

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So that's really how the show has grown over the years. Yes, so when I was invited on Unbelievable, I discovered a number of Americans who listen to your program and enjoy it very much.

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So that was interesting to discover as well. And I'm assuming Unbelievable would be because those who are not

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Christians believe that our claims, and the claims more specifically from the inerrant God -breathed scriptures, they believe that what we are proclaiming and teaching and defending is unbelievable.

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Yeah, in a sense, I wanted the title to be a bit of a play on words because it obviously has a question mark at the end.

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So it's asking, well, is Christianity unbelievable? Obviously, many people say it is.

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But on the other hand, I also kind of, you know, Unbelievable also has that sense of something being unbelievably good, you know, unbelievably wonderful.

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It's an expression of, you know, the magnitude of something almost. So I thought it could work with both.

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But in a sense, the program title has worked quite nicely, because it is a question, ultimately, and most of the programs we do involve a central question.

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And so it's very much an invitation to the skeptic, to the non -Christian, to examine the claims of Christianity, and for us to be able to create that forum, that space where we can do that together.

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And in the process, you know, it's been wonderful to see the way God has used the program in various ways.

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Amen. And in fact, being from a theologically reformed background, as you know, in one sense, you can say that much of the scriptures is unbelievable, and it requires a miraculous work of the

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Holy Spirit in order for a person dead in their trespasses and sins to actually see and believe the truth in it.

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But before we even go further with our discussion on Unbelievable and your book, which we are going to be discussing today as well,

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I want to get, as I typically do with first -time guests, I want to get a little bit of your personal background, your religious upbringing, if any, what that involved, and what providential circumstances our

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Lord brought about in your life to draw you to himself and save you. Well, I was fortunate to grow up in a

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Christian home. My parents were both saved, really, at university.

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They joined a Christian church, which I was part of in my family growing up.

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And my own, you know, really root to faith involved, as it does for I think many young people who are involved in church, through our youth group, through my peers, through a really wonderful youth pastor, you know, that was all influential in my journey towards my own confession of faith eventually.

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I'd say things really became real for me on that front, probably,

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I think I must have been around the age of 15 or 16 when I went on a youth retreat in the town where I lived, or and there was just one evening where the,

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I suppose you could say, the power of God really hit me, and I knew that this was true.

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I knew that something had changed in my heart. There was a meeting with me of God, and it, and I changed.

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I had, for some people, I know that they don't have that sort of Damascus Road moment, but for me, there really was a date, you know, that I can think of when, for me,

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I knew that Jesus was who he said he was. I wanted to worship him. I wanted to read my

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Bible. I wanted to follow him. And so from that moment on, really, my life changed in many ways, and that was the start of a faith, the faith journey for me, the point at which

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I suppose you could say it stopped being something I had sort of inherited from my parents, became something very real and meaningful for me.

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So that was the route in for me. Of course, you know, this was now, you know, my mid to late teens, and naturally, there were lots of questions that sprung up, but, you know, there are very few

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Christian bubbles here in the UK. It's a largely secular country in many ways, so you're immediately going to be assaulted by skepticism, either from friends or these days as well, obviously from online as well.

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And it wasn't long before, both at, you know, in senior school and then at university, there were plenty of questions and people who questioned the faith that I had.

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Now I was fortunate to have many great friends who were strong Christians and continued to influence me in that sense and help me in that journey.

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But certainly it was during that time that I think I started to engage with, you know, what is often called apologetics, the evidential basis for faith, some of those objections that are frequently leveled at Christianity, and started to engage with some of that.

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I wouldn't have known it by that name actually at the time, but it was only later on really that I would end up hosting a program where we specifically deal with those kinds of objections and doing that on a professional level really.

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But I certainly began to really value the work of writers such as C .F.

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Lewis, who I found really touched an intellectual cord with me.

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So as well as it being something I had experienced as a Christian, this sense of God's presence and the reality of Christ, I also began to,

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I suppose, read and value the intellectual backbone, if you like, that exists for Christianity.

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And that, for me, started to become an important part of my own journey as well along the way. So that all, you know, played into it.

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I went to Oxford University and read politics, philosophy, and economics there, and had a wonderful time, was very involved in drama and art, and I was involved in a

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Christian arts and drama society. So we would put on street evangelism sometimes.

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I was involved in doing street drama that was aimed at, you know, telling the story of the gospel.

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We would also do that for Christian unions, for house parties, for drama events, and that kind of thing.

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So all of that was part of the mix as I was finding my faith continuing to develop.

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And it was there that I also met my wife, Lucy, who I'm obviously married to now, and a university.

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So that's been all part of the story as we've gone along. And it's, yeah, it's been really, really interesting.

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And certainly, you know, as anybody does, my faith has developed and, I would say, gone deeper and broader in many ways as I've continued,

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I suppose, to look into and understand, and really just continue to go on that journey that we all go on as Christians.

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Let me quickly give our listeners our email address. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Justin Brierley, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

14:51

How would you describe yourself? I know that there are many

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Christians and many evangelicals that don't like labels. I know that labels can be obnoxious myself, but I think that they can also be helpful.

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But how would you describe yourself theologically and doctrinally as an evangelical

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Christian today? Well, I suppose I'm a fan of sometimes what

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Lewis called mere Christianity, and so I agree to an extent that the labels there can be unhelpful sometimes.

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I would say that I affirm the historic creeds of the Christian Church regarding Jesus Christ, his death, his resurrection, his deity, and I affirm the authority of the

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Bible, and I think that I stand, obviously, in the Protestant tradition, in the

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Reformed tradition in that sense. I wouldn't, personally, I wouldn't tend to use sort of Calvinism to describe my beliefs, though I've got a great deal of respect for those who do take that theological position.

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I'm sorry, show's over, show's over. Just kidding.

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But that's, you know, in a sense, not that I'm in any sense particularly anti that position either,

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I should say, but it probably doesn't quite describe where I'm coming from.

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But having said that, you know, I don't seek to just present my position, if you like, and hence

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I'm very happy to present, you know, people like yourself and James White and others who hold a more, you know, traditionally

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Calvinist perspective on faith and so on. And I've learned a great deal from people in that sense, and so for me, absolutely, it of course is about God's grace.

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I think the great danger in many ways of apologetics can be that for some people, at least, the danger is it can become an idol in itself, that we somehow begin to lean upon our own understanding, our own intelligence, when of course salvation is a work of God.

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It is something that we are drawn towards by God.

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And so I wouldn't want to suggest that this is simply something that we're in complete control of, you know, with our intelligence and everything else.

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For me, apologetics is at its most powerful when it is steeped in prayer, when it is fully reliant on God, and God in His grace can use it as a means of, you know, to draw people towards Himself.

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So for me, that's certainly an important part of how I would see it so.

17:51

Well, I want to read a portion of the forward by Alistair McGrath of your book,

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Unbelievable, Why After 10 Years of Talking with Atheists, I'm Still a Christian. Alistair McGrath says of this book, in this book,

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Justin reflects on his experience in his conversations with both atheists and believers, offering a rich fare to his readers.

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He covers a wide range of apologetic questions, always ensuring that the atheist or secularist perspective is fairly represented, while making sure his readers know that there are good answers that can be given.

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This book will be a valuable resource for both those who want to think about their faith and those who want to develop their kinds of conversations themselves.

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As Justin makes clear, there are lots of problems with an atheist worldview, and unless we have serious yet respectful conversations with atheists, those problems will not be acknowledged.

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As a former atheist myself, I now know how important it is for wavering atheists to find sensible and informed

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Christians who they can talk to about their growing doubts. I hope many wanting to have these kinds of conversations will find this book helpful and encouraging, and that's

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Alistair McGrath, who is probably very well known to many of our, if not most of our, listening audience here on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

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In fact, I've got to get Alistair on this program at some point. So this book that you have written,

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Unbelievable, is basically, I'm assuming a, I don't know if it would be an exact transcript, a collection of transcripts, but a collection of conversations that you've experienced that are highlights of your radio career with Unbelievable.

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Am I right? Well, it certainly features a good deal of extracts from some of the many conversations

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I've hosted between the atheists and Christians on the show, but really the book serves as an introduction to what the show is, telling the story of the show, how it's, you know, built an audience over the years, the kinds of people who have begun to listen, and really why

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I began it and how it continues. But then that's, if you like, the opening chapter of the book.

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The rest of the book is really on the back of these many conversations and the many objections

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I've heard and the arguments I've heard for as well from leading Christian thinkers. It's my case for faith, you know, written to either, both for Christians, but also very much with atheists and skeptics in mind.

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And to say, okay, I've heard the case against Christianity, but I'm still convinced that it's true.

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And if we're looking for objective reasons, I tried to give some of those. I tried to make the case, if you like, from the basis of some of our experiences of when we look at the universe, when we look within ourselves for the existence of God, I make a sort of historical case for the resurrection of Christ, the trustworthiness of the scriptures.

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And I also address some of the common objections to faith, such as the problem of evil and suffering, and indeed some of the sort of more popular online memes that atheists want to spread around on social media and so on.

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And so really, it's very much aimed at helping to make the case for Christianity from an intellectual side, from an evidential side, and sort of, in that sense, hopefully helping those who may be open to or interested in, or as Alison McGrath said there, who are atheists who are perhaps starting to question their own belief, if you like, as atheists, who are starting to doubt their doubts.

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Sort of opening, I hope, a door to them to trust in Jesus Christ. And I've certainly heard from lots of Christians who've read the book, who've found it very faith -inspiring, who have found it to be a real confidence booster in their own walk of faith.

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And I've heard from lots of non -Christians who have really engaged with it and been very interested in it, for whom it has definitely opened up a new dimension on faith that they hadn't realised, you know, that there is, as I say, sort of an intellectual backbone to Christian faith.

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So I think that's a very exciting aspect of the book, hearing some of those stories come back of people who have really been excited by it when they've read it.

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Yeah, I'd like to go into some examples specifically of answering objections by atheists and agnostics, but I want to take a couple of listener questions first.

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We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who says,

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I'm curious how you caught the radio bug and became a radio host yourself?

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Great question. Well, I did a degree at university in politics, philosophy, and economics, which a lot of people do end up going into some kind of media career off the back of.

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It's very much a qualification that helps you to think critically. But I know a lot of my peers from Oxford University who are now in broadcasting or journalism of one kind or another.

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So I, and I've always had a bit of a theatrical flair, have enjoyed, you know, speaking and presenting in that sense.

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I tried the sort of the straightforward journalism thing. I did a bit of work experience on a newspaper while I was during my university years and enjoyed that somewhat.

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But it was really when I did a week's work experience at a local radio station, and I got to, you know, do a little bit of reading of the news bulletins and researching and going on there.

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I really enjoyed that experience. And it really brought out, I think, the best in me, in a sense. So after having had that experience,

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I decided I'd really like to look for something along these lines in terms of a broadcasting career once university is over.

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And when my wife and I went away on a gap year after university, we went and did some mission work in Namibia, in southern

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Africa. And while we were there, the director of the charity, it was a

24:31

Christian charity, came out to stay with us. And he said, oh, I've just been on this radio station in the

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UK called Premier Christian Radio. I honestly hadn't really heard of it at that point. I was vaguely aware that there was a

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Christian radio station in the UK. We don't have nearly as many as you have in the USA. I mean, in fact, we really only have two in the whole of the

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UK. But it did make me think, okay, well, I knew I was going to be looking for employment once we returned from this gap year.

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And so I sent an email really out of the blue from Africa to Premier Christian Radio in the

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UK, saying, would there be any chance of some sort of work when I return? And they said, well, actually, we might have a little role for you here if you'd like to come and try for something.

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And I did. And that turned into eventually a full time job. And really, as I say, learning the ropes, as I went along, and it all started from there.

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So that's really the short story of how I got into broadcasting to start with.

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Well, thank you, RJ. In White Plains, New York, you have won a free copy of Unbelievable Why After 10

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Years of Talking with Atheists. I'm Still a Christian by Justin Brierley. And we want to thank our friends at SPCK Publishing Society for Proclaiming Christian Knowledge, or Promoting, I'm sorry,

25:53

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. And that actually has quite a long history behind it, doesn't it,

25:59

SPCK? Oh, yes, it's a very long -standing Christian publisher in the

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UK. I actually believe, though, that in the US, it's actually being distributed by IVP.

26:11

Yes, that's who actually shipped it to us. They're the people who would have shipped it to you in the USA. But yes, it's the primary publisher here in the

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UK is SPCK, who do quite a variety of theological and Christian books of one kind or another.

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And so, yes, it's great to be with them. I don't know how it's looking in the

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US, but the Christian publishing industry, along with really many parts of the publishing industry, have had a hard time here in the

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UK. A lot of the bookshops have really had a hard time or closed because of the advent of the internet more than anything, the way people do their shopping.

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And that's hit some of the publishers quite hard. But SPCK has actually been really bucking that trend.

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They've adopted some really great models that have actually really driven their business upwards.

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And so I'm really glad to be part of that particular publishing house with this book. It's encouraging.

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Yeah, I just, in fact, recently got another shipment, actually from England, from SPCK, with copies of a book for a guest who's returning to this program.

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And I can't remember if it was Michael Kruger or James Dolzall, but I don't know if either of those authors sound familiar to you from the catalog of SPCK.

27:34

I don't have the book right in front of me. But I just remember not long ago getting a shipment from them, and I'm looking forward to conducting those interviews.

27:42

We have all the way in Slovenia a listener. His name is Joe, and he says,

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Dear brothers Chris and Justin, thank you both for promoting evangelistic dialogue among the many worldview perspectives that greatly need a credible witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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My question is about conversation methodology. Have you heard of the book

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Question Evangelism by Randy Newman? Is that the guy that sang Short People, or is that somebody different?

28:13

Randy Newman, in it, he presents what he sees as the main evangelism approach of Jesus, that of asking questions in response to questions, and asking questions in response to truth claims by objectors.

28:33

What do you think of this approach, and is it an accurate description of Christ's methodology, and if so, how might we benefit from it?

28:42

There's a lot of questions in there, but they're all basically around the same thing, about Question Evangelism.

28:49

Yeah, I haven't heard of the book, so I can only speak from what our listener in Slovenia has described there.

28:58

But I think it's correct, you know, I think it's an interesting thing to point out that a lot of the time in the

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Gospels, when Jesus is asked something, he does respond with a question. And I think that is interesting, because I think in that sense,

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Jesus doesn't, I think Jesus was always aware that very often questions are so loaded, aren't they?

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They come with a whole lot of baggage behind them very often, or very often in the case of Jesus, there was an attempt to trap him into saying something.

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And so he wasn't going to play that game, and I think he very cleverly was able to reflect, and deflect, and spin things around by asking another question, and sort of exposing to some extent very often the heart of the issue by doing that.

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And I think there is a great deal we can learn from that. I think very often

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Christians are put on the back foot often by questions, because somehow it's often assumed that, well, we're the ones making the supernatural claims by the atheists, therefore they ask the questions, and we have to provide the evidence, if you like.

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And actually, what I've tried to explain in the book is actually, both the Christian and the atheist are both presenting a worldview.

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We both have claims to defend the atheist just as much as the Christian has to do that.

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And so I think it's important that the Christian does ask the questions themselves of an atheist worldview.

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And if an atheist asks, for instance, well, why does your God allow suffering and evil?

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I think it's perfectly legitimate for the Christian to turn around, perhaps like Jesus would have done, and ask a similar question, which is, well, how can you even believe in such a concept as evil and suffering on an atheist worldview, where there are no objective values ultimately in the universe?

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So I think there's something to be said for that idea of responding to questions with a question, because I think each of us has a certain amount of burden of, if you like, evidence to bear.

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And it's sometimes good not to just always constantly be trying to play by, as it were, the game set by the opposite side, but rather be willing to ask whether they actually are asking a valid question and to pose questions of our own in that way.

31:20

Well, thank you, Joe. And Slovenia, you have also won a free copy of the book Unbelievable by Justin Briarley.

31:26

And thank you so much for providing an American address, where your daughter lives in Georgia. And we're going to have

31:34

CVBBS .com, sponsors of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, ship that book out to you or up to your daughter, to your attention as soon as possible.

31:43

Keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Slovenia and beyond. And we are going to our first break right now.

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If anybody else would like to join us, we do have a few of you still waiting to have your questions asked and answered. But if anybody would like to get in line, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Justin Briarley and more of Unbelievable.

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34:54

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

35:00

Eastern Time for a visit to the pastor's study, because everyone needs a pastor. And if you call in to a visit to the pastor's study every

35:08

Saturday, 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time, please mention to the host,

35:14

Bill Shishko, that you heard about his program on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio. And by the way, speaking of unbelievable, well, it's not very unbelievable knowing how the technicological world is an annoyance as much as it is a blessing.

35:31

If many of you are wondering what happened to the World Magazine ad that I was playing, well, it disappeared from the desktop of my computer, and it has vanished.

35:43

I have no idea what happened to it. The first time in years that this commercial has vanished, so we'll have to have somebody with more technicological knowledge than I have find out what happened to that ad.

35:58

But we are now back to our discussion with Justin Brierley. We are discussing not only his radio program

36:05

Unbelievable, but the book of the same title, and also his exchanges with those outside of the

36:12

Christian faith over the years, or conversations that actually led to the birth of this book.

36:18

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. We have

36:26

Bebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks, isn't it true that at one time

36:34

Christian radio, if not all religious radio, was banned from the airwaves in the

36:41

United Kingdom, and it was only until fairly recently in history that the broadcasters were permitted to air religious content?

36:52

Well, that's a really interesting question, because there's a sense in which it's true that it's a relatively recent phenomenon that specifically religious broadcast stations, exclusively in that sense, have been allowed, and really

37:08

Premier Christian Radio, who I work for, the first station to be able to take advantage of a change in the law, which allowed for a specifically

37:20

Christian -themed station to broadcast in the UK. Now, the reason that initially there was no provision for specifically thoroughly

37:33

Christian stations to broadcast was it was part of the broadcasting charter that the

37:38

BBC was supposed to, through its programs, provide enough coverage of religious issues and religious worship in order to facilitate that, and so for whatever reason, there had been no provision for specifically religious stations within the

38:00

Broadcasting Act up to that point. Now, obviously, over the years, the BBC, when it was founded back in the 1930s, was founded very much with a

38:09

Christian ethos. Lord Ree, the founder of the BBC, was a committed Christian. If you go into, even today, the broadcasting house of the

38:17

BBC in London, you will find the words of a well -known psalm inscribed around the hallway there.

38:26

Of course, in itself, the BBC has, of course, over the decades become increasingly secular, however, and a lot of the religious content has been squeezed out of the airwaves and off the schedules on both

38:38

TV and radio, and so by the time Premier Christian Radio came along, there was much more of a hunger among the

38:45

Christian community, especially in the UK, to see committed Christian broadcasting have its own place, its own channel, on the airwaves, and that's really where it came from.

38:58

And then, of course, you had the advent of satellite TV and cable and, of course, now a plethora of different TV channels with Christian content on via digital, so there's, if you like, to be honest, even less reason now for the

39:14

BBC to have religious content. Now, they are still actually obliged to put on a certain amount of religious content in a given week, but increasingly, you know, it keeps getting slashed back and back and back, and to be honest, many people find what they do offer to be so, in a sense, either trivial or really pale in terms of its actual truth content that a lot of people prefer to come to an out -and - out religious broadcaster like Premier Christian Radio if they want to, you know, listen to Christian output.

39:53

So that's sort of the backstory to where it all started from and why things changed in the

39:59

UK over the course of years. Yeah, for 15 years, starting in 1991,

40:06

I worked for WMCA Radio, which is a major network within the

40:13

Salem Media Network, the largest Christian network in the world, and I remember we had a visit from the general manager,

40:23

I believe it was the first Christian radio station in London, and he came to America and visited our station so he could, you know, learn some things about how a

40:37

Christian radio functions, get some ideas, get some tips, and get some counsel, all that kind of thing.

40:43

And when we were as a sales team there to ask questions for him or from him, you know, he sat in our meeting room and was asking us all different kinds of questions.

41:00

I was shocked when I asked him, or when I said to him, I should say, I always wanted to visit

41:05

London because I really, one day before I die, I hope to visit at least once the

41:11

Metropolitan Tabernacle. And he said, pardon? I said, you know, Metropolitan Tabernacle where Charles Adams Spurgeon was the preacher.

41:20

He says, I'm not following you. He didn't know who Charles Spurgeon was, and he was from London.

41:27

How is that possible as a Christian to live in London and not know who Charles Spurgeon was?

41:33

Well, that is a good question, Chris. Perhaps, in all honesty, you know,

41:40

I will say that some of the great preachers of the past, like Charles Spurgeon here in the

41:46

UK, in a sense are better known very often in the USA. I think, unfortunately, our

41:52

Christian heritage is often least valued by us in the UK, sadly.

41:59

And the same goes for some of our classic, you know, Christian thinkers like C .S. Lewis. I think, you know, in a sense, there's a greater market for and interest of very often in those writers in the

42:10

USA than there often is in the place where they obviously began in the UK. Though I must confess,

42:17

I can only express with burden that I'm embarrassed that whoever that individual was, they didn't know who

42:23

Charles Spurgeon was, or indeed of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, which still stands very prominently, you know, in London.

42:31

Right, we're on the elephant in the castle, right? Exactly.

42:38

I mean, and very much, you know, still stands in the tradition that Spurgeon established. I mean, the fact is, obviously, many of those, you know,

42:47

Spurgeon -filled, massive preaching stadiums, really, of his day, because he was, you know, just the celebrity preacher of his day in many ways.

43:00

And you look back on those days, and you often look at London today, and you think, gosh, can we, could we ever recapture that?

43:07

And I think, obviously, things have changed. But I think, and very often, some of those great, you know, huge tabernacles that were built, really, for preaching, you look at them today, and many of them are, you know, have only a handful of people in a place that maybe could seat 2000 people or something like that.

43:29

And that's, that's a great shame. But at the same time, I think we need to look back and understand that, okay, we don't have people like Spurgeon necessarily filling those churches today.

43:42

But actually, there are good things happening in the UK church and in people like Spurgeon, and Whitfield, and Wesley, who led great revivals in the

43:52

UK. I don't see any reason why we won't see revivals take place again.

43:57

I think very often we do see, I think we see valleys and peaks in the history of Christendom in the

44:07

UK. And I think we just started to come out of a valley where a lot of secularism has sort of swept through the country over the last several decades.

44:17

But I don't think that it will last forever. I think that people ultimately realize that there's a spiritual side to themselves, that there is a spiritual nature, and that ultimately, what secularism offers really can't sustain it or satisfy it.

44:33

So my prayer is that we will see in our generation, you know, the Whitfields and the

44:39

Spurgeons and the others who will reach a new generation in London and beyond.

44:45

Well, before I return to any of our other listener questions, and by the way, B .B. in Cumberland County, please give us your full mailing address because you have also won a free copy of the book

44:54

Unbelievable by Justin Brierley, which will be shipped out to you compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

45:05

I'd like to know, Creating Better Conversations is a chapter heading in your book, and that,

45:13

I think, is a very valuable aspect of the Christian life because when many of us, and I include myself in this, are on a train, a bus, a plane, in a waiting room online somewhere, or even gathered amongst friends over a holiday meal, especially if they're unbelievers,

45:38

I know that I far too often, and I'm sure many of our listeners would have to confess if they were honest, that far too often we just are silent, we're remaining to ourselves, or we're talking about things that have nothing to do with the gospel or scripture.

45:54

So how can we take advantage of these times when we do have opportunities to present the gospel by creating better conversations?

46:06

Well, it's a great question, and I think it does depend on the context to some extent. So the environment you're in, in an online context, is quite different to when you're face -to -face with someone.

46:19

And the reality is for a lot of Christians, a lot of these conversations on face do take place in that online context, you know, it might be on Twitter or a

46:28

Facebook group or whatever it might be. And the fact is that actually, in my experience, that can be detrimental because I often find that the conversations don't very often go well in those contexts, especially with, you know, fairly hardline skeptics and Christians who are trying to engage with them because you quickly do run into a lot of negativity, things can quickly spiral into unpleasant or unhelpful language and behavior, you know, the sort of thing that is not edifying and ultimately doesn't glorify

47:06

Christ from either the Christian or the atheist in question. So I think there's some important principles we need to learn if we are going to engage in those sorts of online discussions.

47:18

And that is really, you know, as 1 Peter 3 .15 puts it, you know, yes, we need to be ready to give an answer, to give a reason for the hope that we have to anyone who asks, but we need to do it with gentleness and respect.

47:29

And I think very often we don't do justice to that if we do engage in the kind of, you know, sarcastic or irreverent engagement that often takes place online, and we forget our calling to represent

47:48

Christ and everything. So I think for many people who are engaging like that, online, they just need to stop, actually, and maybe ask themselves why they're doing it and if it's really for the right reasons.

48:01

I think we need to learn the art, in a sense, of engaging good conversations again face -to -face.

48:08

We've tried to do that on the show, you know, and you do have a very different conversation with someone in person than you do online very often.

48:16

It's much harder to be rude to someone's face if you're sitting down opposite them. Now, that's not to say we can't have, you know, strident or, you know, honest conversations.

48:26

It's not that we have to be terribly polite towards one another, but at the same time, what

48:32

I hope modeling these conversations has done for Christians, especially, is to give them confidence when they're engaging with non -Christian counterparts.

48:40

I think a lot of Christians do clam up when they're in that situation where perhaps objections are being leveled or people are being critical of Christian faith.

48:51

They don't know what to say. They feel perhaps out of their depth, or they're not sure they're going to say the right thing, or they feel intimidated at some level.

49:00

And my hope is simply by listening to conversations where you've got people who, you know, seasoned Christians who are aware of the issues and able to respond in like manner to non -Christians helps

49:11

Christians to see that they don't need to be afraid, that Christianity is on sound intellectual footing, and that there are answers to many of the questions that come along.

49:24

And whether or not they think they have the answers, that actually it's good to have conversations.

49:29

It's good not to run away from conversations, even if we may have to sometimes say, well,

49:35

I don't know, to some of the questions that arise. But I'd love to go away and look that up, and we'll come back, and we'll continue this conversation.

49:44

I think the worst thing, in a sense, is when that thing happens where Christians just duck it or kind of avoid it because they don't want to be involved in a confrontational kind of, you know, conversation, or they simply feel a bit, intimidated in that environment.

50:02

And my hope is that Christians learn good lessons in terms of being confident in their faith while being gracious and respectful, but also standing up for what they believe in, and also being able not simply to defend what they believe in, but also to intelligently critique the other's point of view as well, because this is a two -way conversation.

50:22

It's not, as I said earlier, simply that Christians need to defend what they believe. I think they also need to call atheists to account for what they believe, because, you know,

50:30

I think in many ways it takes an awful lot of faith to be an atheist. There's lots of things about the atheist worldview that I find, you know, don't comport with the way

50:41

I, you know, see life and the way that the universe presents itself to me, and all other aspects.

50:47

So I think it's important to help Christians in that confidence, to kind of give them the tools to dissect and understand and analyze the atheist's own position, and to see whether their own view actually makes internal sense.

51:04

And in my experience, that alone can do a great deal, both for the Christians' confidence and in terms of perhaps starting to make the atheists think about whether they really are as secure as they think they are in their own worldview.

51:19

Well, believe it or not, I'm going to be revealing my age here, because when

51:24

I actually used the phrase striking up conversations online, I did not mean that in the way that it is most often used today.

51:32

I meant standing online, like to go into a movie theater or something. Yes, I could understand how being online people are going to be more artificial, perhaps, not always, but they're very often not going to be revealing what they really, truly believe, and they're not going to have tempered language or, you know, they might be more prone to mockery or vulgarity or whatever the case may be when you're anonymous somewhere without a face and a voice just behind a keyboard in a dark room.

52:10

But we are going to our first, or should I say, our midway break.

52:16

This is a longer break than normal because Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us a longer break between the two major segments of the show.

52:27

So I hope that you're patient and I hope that you take this time not only to write down the information that our advertisers provide, but also write questions for our guest,

52:36

Justin Brierley. And in fact, Justin, I am right now, since it's a rather lengthy question that I received from Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I am going to email this to you so you during the break can have an opportunity to look it over and be prepared for an answer when we come back from the break.

53:00

And if anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisorenson at gmail .com,

53:08

chrisorenson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

53:14

USA and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away, we'll be right back with more of Justin Brierley and Unbelievable after these messages.

53:24

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am

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I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

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We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how

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God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things. That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

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We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

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If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

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You can call us at 508 -528 -5750, that's 508 -528 -5750, or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

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01:01:06

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01:03:40

And before we return to our discussion with Justin Brierley, just have a couple of announcements to make.

01:03:46

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is once again having the

01:03:51

Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology. It's being held in two locations, neither of which are

01:03:57

Philadelphia. It is called the Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology out of tribute to the dearly beloved

01:04:04

James Montgomery Boyce, who is now spending eternity with Christ.

01:04:10

He had these conferences at the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for many years, and they carry on to this day but in different locations now.

01:04:21

The first location will be from April 13th through the 15th, coming up right around the corner, at the

01:04:27

First Christian Reform Church of Byron Center, Michigan. And the second location will be April 27th through the 29th, where I intend to be,

01:04:35

God willing, at the Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, a lot closer to me and a lot closer to Pennsylvania too.

01:04:44

The theme is the Spirit of the Age and the Age of the Spirit, and the speakers include Daniel Aiken, Richard Gaffin, Daniel Hyde, my favorite preacher of all time,

01:04:53

Conrad M. Bayway, pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

01:04:59

By the way, Justin Brarley, have you ever had Conrad M. Bayway on your program? I'm afraid

01:05:04

I haven't, but he's certainly someone I'd like to get on at some point. Yeah, because he travels through London, I believe, every year.

01:05:13

But Richard Phillips is also one of the speakers. Jonathan Master, David Murray, and Scott Oliphant, David Murray being from Scotland, and now teaching on the faculty at Puritan Reform Theological Seminary.

01:05:29

If you'd like to register for these conferences, go to alliancenet .org,

01:05:35

alliancenet .org, click on events, and then click on the Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology, the

01:05:41

Spirit of the Age, and the Age of the Spirit. Please tell the folks at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that you heard about the conferences they are orchestrating from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sherp and Zion Radio.

01:05:53

And last but not least is the least comfortable or the most uncomfortable aspect of the program where I have to beg you for money.

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As many of you know who have listened to this program all the way back to 2005, I went for years without ever even one time making a public appeal for donations.

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But my advertisers who spend their hard -earned money keeping this program on the air have worn me down urging me to make these public appeals because they are urgently needed.

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If you love this program, you don't want it to go away, you're benefited by the guests and topics, you share the free mp3s with friends, well, please consider donating to Iron Sherp and Zion Radio.

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01:07:22

Never put your family in financial jeopardy if you're struggling to make ends meet. Providing for your family and your church are two commands of God.

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Obviously providing for Iron Sherp and Zion Radio is not a command of God. But if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands and you love this show and you don't want it to go away, please go to ironsherpandzionradio .com,

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click support, and then click click to donate now or mail in a check to the address you see. If you want to advertise with us, just send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. We would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we surely do need the advertising dollars.

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As long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with the theology we express on Iron Sherp and Zion Radio, we would love to have you join the advertising family.

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01:08:22

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. That's also the email address to send in a question to our guest

01:08:28

Justin Brierley of the Unbelievable Radio Program, who's our guest today. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:08:35

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:08:43

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama says, as a longtime listener to Unbelievable, I'd like to welcome along many,

01:08:55

I'd like to welcome along Justin to Iron Sharpens Iron. I suspect many listeners to this program are unaware that Justin is actually an egalitarian believer whose pastor is actually his wife.

01:09:06

I also suspect that I've just triggered many an aortic aneurysm among those listeners with that revelation.

01:09:15

I'm wondering what Justin can tell us about his interactions with those from our camp, conservative, complimentary and reformed, regarding his egalitarian stance.

01:09:25

How obnoxious or on the other hand, how winsome has our team been?

01:09:31

Have you ever had a guest decline participating in your program because of it? What is the best argument you have heard against egalitarianism?

01:09:41

And if you could respond to Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. There you go.

01:09:47

You see, not a Calvinist and now an egalitarian. It's getting worse. I mean,

01:09:56

Ted is right. That is where I stand on the issue. And he's right. My wife is in Christian ministry.

01:10:03

And I totally understand that for you and I imagine many listeners that that will be a significant departure from what they believe is the best way of understanding

01:10:13

Scripture in that sense. In all honesty, it doesn't come up really in terms of the program, particularly because I'm not there to really put my particular way of seeing

01:10:26

Christianity to the listeners. It's very much about the two guests joining me on the program from week to week and the way they see things.

01:10:34

So I very rarely, to be honest, sort of impose or try to put my particular way of seeing these kinds of issues on the program.

01:10:44

And very much with the book, I've steered clear of those particular kinds of doctrinal issues.

01:10:50

As I say, I've sought to, in the book, really defend a mere Christianity, really the central claims of Christianity, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the existence of God, and, you know, the historical reliability of Scripture and so on.

01:11:07

So that's sort of... I purposefully, in a sense, steered clear of some of the wider issues that obviously are contentious within Christian theology, where there are different perspectives on different issues.

01:11:21

I mean, we do, though, obviously on the program, cover these issues from time to time, and we have done issues around female leadership, where I will get on a complementarian and an egalitarian perspective to discuss such things.

01:11:34

And, you know, more often than not, I find that they are good -natured discussions, where people obviously have a difference of opinion on these matters, but I don't find that one side is particularly worse or better than the other when it comes to the way they put them across.

01:11:50

And, you know, more often than not, we're really just looking at the arguments for and against them, and allowing the listeners to make up their mind in terms of what they think.

01:12:00

Probably one of the most famous examples, though, where it came out on a more personal level in terms of the interview was when

01:12:07

I had, while he was in ministry at the first church he founded, when

01:12:13

I had Mark Driscoll on my program, and his name I'm sure is familiar to many listeners, he was a somewhat controversial character, obviously in the reformed, sort of more

01:12:24

Calvinist kind of tradition himself, but very much in sort of the new Calvinist sort of camp, and drawing, you know, large crowds, lots of young people to his

01:12:34

Marlfield Church in Seattle, where he had this ministry, which, you know, at one time was the fastest growing church in America, I believe.

01:12:43

When I had him on for an interview, which wasn't actually for the radio originally, it was actually for the magazine that I was contributing it to,

01:12:51

I sort of generally spoke to him about some of the various issues that he'd been involved in, some of the controversies as well, because he did sometimes say things which obviously were controversial in one form or another, and eventually we did get into a discussion or debate really between ourselves on the whole issue of women in ministry, where he obviously took a complementarian view and I took a different view, and that was interesting, because that, to some extent, that was sort of one of those ones where we had quite a fun exchange really in the course of the actual interview, but later on, some of the comments he made were later reported in the

01:13:38

Christian press and things from that interview, and he responded in a blog, and it got a little bit controversial in the course of time, and in order just to make clear what had transpired in this interview,

01:13:51

I simply put it out as an edition of my unbelievable podcast and allowed people to make up their own minds about what we'd debated and what we'd said and so on.

01:14:01

So that was probably, yeah, the most high -profile example, because that show was listened to by a great deal of people, and in it,

01:14:09

Mark Driscoll and I did sort of have a little bit of a mini -debate about the whole question of complementarianism and egalitarian ministry and so on.

01:14:20

So yeah, that might be what Ted has in mind when he sent in that rather cheeky email, which may well pull us well off course.

01:14:31

Yeah, we'll leave it to Ted and Tuscaloosa to ask the controversial questions that are usually off -topic and start arguments on and off the air.

01:14:44

But yeah, it is an important issue, and I totally have a great deal of respect for people who obviously do take, as I imagine you do,

01:14:53

Chris, the complementarian line. In no way would that ever stop me personally from working alongside people who hold that.

01:15:03

And I think when I spoke to Mark Driscoll on the show about it, he said actually it isn't the kind of an issue that would stop him working for the

01:15:12

Gospel alongside other people. It was something that within his own church stream he felt was important enough that he had to take a line on that, but he saw it as a secondary issue in the sense of it wouldn't stop him from doing

01:15:26

Gospel ministry alongside others who do hold to an egalitarian point of view. So I was encouraged in a sense by that.

01:15:34

Though I imagine there are others for whom it is an important enough issue that they wouldn't feel they could in good conscience work together in Gospel ministry with people who took a different view on that.

01:15:46

Now personally I think it's an issue where I can say this is not a primary issue, it is more a secondary issue, and so we can work together even if we do hold a different view on this.

01:15:59

Though I appreciate when people, you know, because of personal integrity feel that they can't do that, and you know,

01:16:08

I have to respectfully say, okay, that is your choice, and that's where you feel God is calling you, and what the

01:16:15

Bible says, that's absolutely what you should do if that's what your conscience demands. Yes, and of course we who are complementarian must not broad brush when it comes to this issue because there are

01:16:30

Bible -believing evangelicals who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, who believe in egalitarianism, and there are also on the other end of the spectrum left -wing liberals, one might even say apostate denominations and individuals who deny the inerrancy of Scripture and who promote ungodly behaviors such as homosexuality and abortion who are also proponents of the ordination of women, and we can't mix them all up as if they're in the same group.

01:17:05

There are many godly people, as though even though I very heartily and forcefully disagree with them on this issue,

01:17:15

I extend the embrace of brother and sisterhood to them because of the fact that they are believing in the gospel and so on.

01:17:25

In fact, Roger Nicole, who is a name that the majority,

01:17:32

I would think, of my Reformed listeners would very quickly recognize, he's now with the

01:17:38

Lord for eternity, but Roger Nicole, a very famous Reformed theologian, even though he was conservative on everything that you could imagine, he believed that women had the opportunity to pursue any role that a man pursued in regard to ministry and so on, so he was a very uncommon person within the that he traveled.

01:18:09

So thanks Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and we will be, or should

01:18:14

I say cvbbs .com will be mailing you a free copy of the book Unbelievable by our guest

01:18:20

Justin Brierley, so keep your eye open in the mail for it. We have

01:18:25

Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York. What is the most intriguing interview that you personally ever had?

01:18:33

Okay, we'll say besides me. Well, well, what a question.

01:18:41

It's kind of like asking me to choose between my children, really, you know, it's so many, so many great interviews over the years, because the show's been going, you know, over 12 years now, and we've done so many topics with so many guests in all of those years.

01:18:57

I guess one of the most memorable was someone who, in many ways, is the crown prince of atheism in the world today,

01:19:05

Richard Dawkins, but for those who perhaps aren't familiar with who he is, he is a well -known here in the

01:19:13

UK British biologist, scientist, who wrote a best -selling book about 12 years ago called

01:19:19

The God Delusion, which was really the, if you like, almost the leading text of what has come to be known as the new atheism, a brand of atheism that's very dogmatically anti -religion, that was led by people, has been led by people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennis, and others, and so in many ways

01:19:42

Richard Dawkins has been this figurehead of this very skeptical brand of atheism, very public, very much in the media, very much dismissive of Christianity, and so it really,

01:19:58

I really wanted to get him on the show, I really wanted to have him, in order to be able to put the claims of Christianity to him, to have some sort of debate, and he'd written this book,

01:20:08

The God Delusion, which was a bestseller, and really it was launched, it was released not long after my show began, so in a sense the show has always gone in tandem with the evolution of that new atheist material, and so for the first couple of years of the show, first few years,

01:20:28

I'd requested, but not been able to get him in for an interview or for a conversation, and then my opportunity came when he had a public debate with a fantastic Christian thinker,

01:20:44

Oxford mathematician, John Lennox, who's written some excellent books that I could highly recommend to your listeners, on the whole area of faith and science, and they had a debate at Oxford University, it was in the

01:20:59

Oxford's Natural History Museum, so it was in this very interesting environment surrounded by these huge dinosaur bones all around them, these skeletons, and I was able to finally get the interview

01:21:18

I'd been after with Richard Dawkins by actually approaching him during the after -debate party, as it were, that was happening in a nearby college, and I managed to,

01:21:28

I actually bumped into him while I was walking down there after the debate had taken place, and everyone, well lots of people in Oxford ride bicycles, and I just happened as I was walking along to pitch up next to Richard Dawkins as he was on his way to the same after -debate party, and started chatting to him there on the street as we were both going, and I said, oh well

01:21:49

I'd really love to get an interview with you Richard, I'm from a Christian radio station, and he was a little bit dubious about this whole idea of a

01:22:00

Christian radio station, you know, but in any case he did say, well well, you know, find me once we're inside, and I did, and I had my recording equipment with me, in the hubbub of this environment

01:22:12

I was able to, for 10 or 15 minutes, have a conversation with him, bring up some of the debate points that had happened in the debate, and put some of the questions

01:22:23

I had to him about whether his own worldview made sense in the light of what we know of our own intuitions and moral sense.

01:22:34

In fact I do quote a little bit of our conversation in the book, would you allow me to read a little bit of it?

01:22:39

Oh yeah definitely. So there's a chapter in the book where I talk about the fact that I believe that God makes better sense of human value than atheism does.

01:22:51

So most people agree that there is an intrinsic value to humans, we have some kind of sense of inherent dignity, that's why we produce documents of human rights, that's why we believe that people should be treated in certain ways and not in other ways.

01:23:08

And our question is how do we ground such a belief in the absence of God, because after all if we are ultimately just very complex arrangements of atoms, where does this, you know, sense of value come from, where does, you know, at the end of the day on atheism it's very hard to see how we are any more important than any other part of the biological tree of life.

01:23:28

And so I've often challenged atheists with this and said, you know, well this sense you have of the dignity and intrinsic value of human beings, where does this come from, where, you know, how can you ground that on an atheistic worldview?

01:23:42

And I effectively asked a similar sort of question to Richard Dawkins, and he had a really interesting response to this, because I wanted in the course of this interview to ask him how exactly he grounded his belief in human morality and that kind of thing.

01:24:07

And so I'm just trying to find a point in the book where I quote from our discussion in fact, because he obviously in The God Delusion, you know, makes a lot of claims about the way people shouldn't treat each other in many ways, and that's intriguing.

01:24:28

But I do often find that, like many atheists, he doesn't really give us a sense of exactly how we're supposed to ground this in his own worldview.

01:24:39

So here we go. Let me just find the particular... In fact, I'll repeat our email address while you're doing that.

01:24:46

Our email is chrisorenzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

01:24:53

If you have a question, I would strongly urge you to send it in now before we rapidly run out of time.

01:24:59

That's chrisorenzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

01:25:07

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Great.

01:25:14

Thank you for giving me that moment to recollect. I was looking in the wrong chapter, believe it or not. It's actually a chapter where I actually talk about Richard Dawkins, really, as a phenomenon anyway.

01:25:30

Here's where he gave a really revealing, I think, answer to a question that I asked him during the course of this little interview

01:25:38

I had with him. It was really on the whole issue of whether we can really believe that morality is derived only from a godless, undirected evolution.

01:25:49

Here's how our interaction went. I began by saying, but if we'd evolved into a society where rape was considered fine, would that mean that rape is fine?

01:26:00

Dawkins responded, well, I don't want to answer that question. It's enough for me to say that we live in a society where it's not considered fine.

01:26:07

We live in a society where selfishness, failure to pay your debts, failure to reciprocate favors is regarded as scant.

01:26:13

That is the society in which we live. I'm very glad that's a value judgment. Glad that I live in such a society.

01:26:20

I responded, but when you make a value judgment, don't you yourself immediately step outside this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good.

01:26:30

You don't have any way to stand on that statement. He responded, well, my value judgment itself could come from my evolutionary past.

01:26:38

I said, well, so therefore, it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution. He said, you could say that.

01:26:43

In any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there's anything supernatural. I finished by saying, okay, but ultimately your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six.

01:26:58

He finished by saying, you could say that, yes. That was just fascinating because I think what he was forced to admit in that short bit of conversation was that actually, as much as he doesn't like the idea of rape or anything that we might find objectionable like that between two human beings, it's very difficult to see how he can regard it as anything other, unlike any other product of evolution, as just simply the whimsy of where we happen to have arrived at this point in our process, as it were.

01:27:33

And so, if one culture does happen to develop a disrespect for women and it just becomes part of the cultural norm that women are treated that way, or indeed if another culture develops some kind of process whereby they choose to exterminate girls because they're unwanted after birth, as does happen in parts of India, that just is the way the world is.

01:27:57

That's just the way evolution has determined things will happen. There's no right or wrong about it.

01:28:02

It's the way things are on a godless universe with no purpose behind it.

01:28:11

And yet I find many atheists just can't buy that. Deep down they know that's not true.

01:28:17

They know that there is a real right and wrong. There is real value to human life. There are ways we should and shouldn't treat each other.

01:28:24

And you cannot account for it on a purely purposeless theory of evolution.

01:28:31

There simply is what there is on that, and there's no right or wrong about it. There's no overarching narrative.

01:28:37

There's no purpose or value or intrinsic dignity or equal rights or human rights or whatever.

01:28:46

If we really believe in those things, though, we have to get to grips with how on earth we can ground them.

01:28:52

Where does this come from? And the only option I've ever really been satisfied with is that there is an ultimate moral lawgiver.

01:28:59

There is a god who invests humans with dignity and value and purpose, and anything else makes human beings a commodity, makes us disposable.

01:29:08

And for me, I've never heard a satisfactory answer from an atheist on that key objection, and I didn't hear a satisfactory one from Richard Dawkins.

01:29:18

I interviewed him about it. When we had that conversation, and that particular little part of our conversation, you know, this is going back several years, but it did do the rounds on a lot of blogs.

01:29:30

A lot of people picked up on it and said, you know, this is really important. Richard Dawkins has admitted that there is really no rhyme or reason to morality if it's just undirected, godless evolution.

01:29:43

There's no right or wrong out there. It's just what we happen to have developed a preference for in this particular time and culture.

01:29:52

So I think that gives a lot of pause. That should give a lot of pause for atheists to ask themselves, if you disagree with Richard Dawkins on that, you've got to ask yourself why, and I think it will point you in the direction of God.

01:30:04

Yeah, I don't even know how they can summon up a different argument other than the one Richard Dawkins gave.

01:30:10

In fact, our mutual friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, I know that I've mentioned this a number of times on this program, but I think it's fascinating and shocking that it bears repeating.

01:30:24

I organized a debate between him, Dr. White, that is, and David Silverman, who is the president of American Atheists, the organization founded in the 60s by Madeline Murray O 'Hare, and Mr.

01:30:37

Silverman is ethnically Jewish and an atheist, and during the debate when they were basically reaching a point where you had reached the same point with Mr.

01:30:51

Dawkins in regard to the inability of an atheist to have really any legitimate reason to have a code of ethics or morality or to have any basis for those ethics or morals,

01:31:09

James White said to Mr. Silverman, do you mean to tell me that if you were being marched through the gates of a

01:31:15

Nazi death camp that the most you could say in protest is, I find this personally objectionable?

01:31:24

And Mr. Silverman said, yes, because he realized what else could he say?

01:31:30

He couldn't really say this is morally wrong or whatever, and in fact, the irony was the theme of the debate was, is the

01:31:39

New Testament evil? That was to be the theme of the debate that we had already scheduled between Dr.

01:31:46

White and Christopher Hitchens, and Christopher Hitchens, after we had already had the flyers and posters printed up with Mr.

01:31:55

Hitchens' face and so on on them, I got the sad news from his publicist that he had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and it wasn't long after that that he departed from this earth, but after actually he did have a brief period of time of recuperation, if I can't remember the word right now that they use for cancer, remission, that's it, but then it just ravaged him later, but it was interesting in my personal phone conversations with Christopher Hitchens, he was really a pleasure to speak with, he has a sense of humor, and I was taken aback actually by it.

01:32:34

He was very warm and apologetic when he didn't get back to me quickly enough, and was just a likable person, at least on the phone, but we have to...

01:32:43

I would agree with you. I mean, the one person I'm really glad I never did get as an atheist on my show is

01:32:50

Christopher Hitchens, who, you know, and I've had his brother, interestingly, Peter Hitchens on a number of times, who is a very, you know, committed

01:32:59

Christian interestingly, and of course had a debate with his own brother on the whole question of God and Christianity, but Christopher Hitchens was, in a sense, one of the most likable,

01:33:12

I would say, in terms of his own personality of the new atheist, in the sense that he, as much as he was a, you know, a fearsome rhetorician and debate opponent,

01:33:26

I got the sense that people really liked him off the stage, and you could see that from,

01:33:32

I don't know if you ever watched the documentary of his sort of friendship with Doug Wilson. Yes, and I interviewed

01:33:39

Doug on that years ago on the old show when that was still out in theaters at the time.

01:33:46

And I just got the sense seeing that, and the hearing of others, other Christians who knew him and engaged with him, he was actually quite possibly a lot more open, actually, than he often let on to Christianity.

01:33:59

And for me, he was an interesting character. He was full of conflict,

01:34:06

I think, within his personality. And so, yes, but I'm slightly digressing here because, yes, as you say,

01:34:15

James White did eventually, obviously, have that debate with David Silverman rather than Christopher Hitchens in the end, and that was an interesting admission to draw out of David Silverman.

01:34:26

And I wonder what Christopher Hitchens would have said. Would have been interesting to know, wouldn't it, exactly what

01:34:31

Hitchens would have said in response to that. Yeah, because actually that theme was, I believe, the exact title of a chapter in one of his books.

01:34:38

That's why we had the theme is the New Testament evil. It had something to do with a chapter. By the way, it was interesting when

01:34:45

I saw Eric Metaxas interview Christopher's Christian brother, and it looked like that he was having a more difficult time interviewing him than I had having a conversation on the phone with Christopher Hitchens, the atheist.

01:35:01

Well, Peter Hitchens is famously sort of, has a famously slightly surly and sort of grumpy demeanor, but that's part of his charm in many ways.

01:35:11

He's sort of slightly irascible, but he's a very funny, intelligent, witty person and quite the traditionalist in many ways.

01:35:24

And so he not only critiques atheism, but he also critiques the church where he sees it being trying to be too, in a sense, modern or cave in too much to modern sensibilities and that sort of thing.

01:35:38

So he's an advocate in many ways, very similar in terms of his commitment to the historic reformed

01:35:49

Anglican church, and he doesn't like some of his more modern expressions. But yes,

01:35:54

I've heard some of those interviews with between Metaxas and Peter Hitchens, and it's always, there's this quite funny sort of dialogue between them as Peter Hitchens sort of constantly corrects

01:36:09

Eric on either his pronunciation or on fact or another. But I think he's done in good humor ultimately.

01:36:18

We have to go to our final break. It will be very brief. And if you have any questions, I would submit them now before we run out of time.

01:36:24

And we still have a couple of you waiting and we will get to you as soon as possible. And we'll get to as many of you as time will allow.

01:36:30

That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Don't go away.

01:36:36

We'll be right back with Justin Brierley right after these messages from our sponsors.

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And now we are back to our final moments with our guest Justin Brierley of the

01:41:53

Unbelievable Radio Program. And we have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who says,

01:42:00

I understand that atheists wrote a response to your book called Still Unbelievable. How strong are the arguments they make?

01:42:10

Yeah, it's one of those things that when you host a program which brings Christians and atheists together and has a number of atheist listeners, that I fully expected there to be some sort of a response book.

01:42:21

And indeed, a band of non -Christians have got together, listened to the show, and in a pretty respectful tone have put an online book together responding to some of the key arguments.

01:42:36

And I've had a chance to read it. I think there are parts of it that I think are pretty good responses, others that I'm not so impressed with.

01:42:45

I think it goes somewhat beyond what I was trying to do with the book. I don't, for instance, really in the book, seek to address some of the aspects of, for instance, how to interpret and understand the

01:42:58

Old Testament when it comes to some of the warfare passages there. And whereas some of the authors of this book have kind of really gone all out on those kinds of issues.

01:43:09

So I think we're in the process of actually probably arranging a show where, in addition to my show, where I will engage one or two of the people who have put that book together, because that seems fair, as I put my own book out there really to engage in these kinds of conversations.

01:43:27

So yes, listen out for that, and you'll see that as well. But yes, you can read their response book.

01:43:35

It's called Still Unbelievable, if you search for it. As I say, for me,

01:43:41

I think some of the arguments are definitely worth responding to.

01:43:47

Others, I think, don't quite engage with where I think I was trying to land some of my material in a way.

01:43:56

But yes, in a sense, I'm encouraged that people take it seriously enough as a book to want to write a response book to it, and I'm all for encouraging the dialogue and the continuing conversation in that sort of way.

01:44:12

Yes, as the old saying goes, any publicity is good publicity. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

01:44:18

And well, thank you, Christopher, in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. You have also won a free copy of the book

01:44:24

Unbelievable by Justin Briarley, so make sure that we have your full mailing address, so cvbbs .com can ship that out to you.

01:44:31

By the way, I want to apologize to some of our advertisers. For some reason, all this discussion on atheism seems to have introduced demons into the technology here.

01:44:40

The advertising has been going really weird today, cutting in and out in ways that it normally doesn't, so I'm not sure what that is.

01:44:51

But we have John in Bangor, Maine, who says, I have heard from Christians in the

01:44:57

United Kingdom that your average person in the UK is more likely to view a

01:45:04

Christian as being insane than perhaps your average American would, even if the

01:45:10

American were an agnostic or atheist. Is there truth behind this claim that I've heard, and if so, how is your approach to striking up conversations with a member of your country different than what you would experience in other parts of the world?

01:45:30

Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know I'd go quite as far as the average non -Christian would view a

01:45:36

Christian as insane, but they would certainly here in the UK view them as unusual, and that's simply partly because we don't have the same church -going culture that is still prevalent, really, in the

01:45:48

United States. Now, I understand that it does vary, obviously, in different parts of the USA, but nonetheless, there's still a general sort of more

01:45:57

Christianized culture, I would say, in the United States than there is in the UK, which

01:46:02

I think has, since the 1950s, undergone quite a radical move towards a more sort of secular space, and where there has been a significant decrease in church -going.

01:46:14

Now, I don't think that's the whole story. As I said earlier, I think there are some really interesting things going on in the

01:46:21

UK church which suggest we may be coming out of that valley, if you like, and it will be interesting to see what the church looks like in 10 or 20 years' time here in the

01:46:31

UK. Nonetheless, it is an environment, as it stands, where if you are a

01:46:36

Christian, if you go to church, you are different to the prevailing culture, and it will probably make someone sit up and wonder, well, that's a strange thing to do with your

01:46:48

Sunday. Why would you do that, and so on. Now, in some ways, the positive side of that is that, whereas I think in the

01:46:59

US, there can be a kind of institutionalized aspect to going to church,

01:47:06

I had one pastor say that just because you go to church doesn't necessarily mean you're a

01:47:13

Christian in the USA. Well, I think in the UK, if you go to church, you really do go because you believe it.

01:47:20

There's no sense of it being in any way culturally normative anymore or somehow expected.

01:47:27

It's very much a decision. If you're going to church in the UK on a Sunday morning because you want to be there, you believe that it's true, in my opinion.

01:47:35

So I think in some ways, that gives a good opportunity for Christians to be able to stand up and explain what they believe in.

01:47:41

I think there's still a lot of work to be done in giving Christians the confidence to speak boldly and with confidence to their neighbors about their beliefs, and that's where I've tried to model those kinds of conversations and give people ways in which they can present the claims of Christianity to people who may be very skeptical of it, who may distrust organized religion, who may think that Christianity is somehow just a part of the history of our country, not the present, who see it as somehow irrelevant, and to show that actually, no,

01:48:16

Christianity very much makes truth claims which very much should be taken seriously today in our culture, and that the

01:48:25

UK itself is founded in Judeo -Christian heritage and values, that many of the things we take as sacrosanct and most important in our lives today, it's very hard to see how we would have those on a purely secular, sort of atheistic worldview.

01:48:42

We owe such a great deal, as you do in the United States, to our Christian heritage, and we reject it on apparel in many ways.

01:48:51

So yes, it's not easy necessarily, but I think there are still lots of opportunities, more than ever probably in our culture today, to engage people in those kinds of conversations, and simply the fact that it is rather unusual to be a

01:49:06

Christian should hopefully be enough to spark a conversation with someone if we're brave to have those kinds of conversations.

01:49:16

Well, you have also won a free copy of the book Unbelievable by Justin Brierley.

01:49:22

Please make sure that we have your full mailing address, so cvbbs .com can ship that out to you.

01:49:29

Thank you, John and Bangor, Maine, for providing such an excellent question. And we have

01:49:34

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, is it true that there are more mosques than churches in the

01:49:43

UK today? No, that is not true. There certainly are more mosques than there ever have been in the

01:49:51

UK. Obviously, Islam has been a growing segment of the population, but no, it's certainly not true that there are more mosques and churches.

01:49:59

There are still many, many churches in the UK from our history of the various revivals over the years.

01:50:07

We have an enormous number of churches up and down the country in villages, towns, and cities, and in comparison, a relatively small number of mosques, really.

01:50:21

But at the same time, that's not to downplay the fact that Islam is a growing segment of the population.

01:50:29

It's important that we do engage with it fruitfully and understand it and be able to engage with it.

01:50:39

So I don't want to overstate it, but I don't want to understate it either in that sense.

01:50:46

And very often, we've focused in this interview, Chris, on the engagements I've had with atheists, but if you like, the second most common type of conversation

01:50:56

I have on my show with people of other world views is with Muslims and those are very different to the atheist -Christian dialogues because there you've got a very different kind of worldview being presented and it's always interesting to see just how committed and fervent some of the

01:51:15

Muslim participants are when they come on the show and engage with people like James White or Jay Smith, who's been a long -time evangelist to Muslims here in the

01:51:25

UK and others who I've had on the show over the years. By the way, are you going to be... Go ahead,

01:51:31

I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say, are you going to, since you mentioned James White, are you going to be seeing him when he's in England debating

01:51:39

Peter D. Williams, the Roman Catholic apologist, again? Yes, I have a feeling that's happening in Ireland, isn't it?

01:51:47

Oh yes, that's right, that's right. Northern Ireland, Belfast, I think, right? That's right, that's right. So I don't know whether his schedule will make time for a stop in London or not, but I did notice that, actually, that he was going to be over soon.

01:52:05

Hey, if he's in town, I'm always open to having James on the program. He's always such an interesting guest and always an amazing debater, an amazing brain on him.

01:52:19

So I always enjoy having him on whatever kind of engagement he's available for, really.

01:52:25

And it's actually refreshing that Peter D. Williams is willing to debate topics that many

01:52:31

Roman Catholics refuse to engage in public discourse over, such as indulgences, which is the subject of the next debate that he is scheduled to have with Peter D.

01:52:45

Williams. And I think what James White appreciates about Peter D. Williams is the fact that he's unashamed of the full -blooded sort of Catholicism that he embraced.

01:52:58

And I think James has more respect for that, in a way, someone who does own up to and embrace

01:53:06

Catholicism and all its doctrines in its fullness than a sort of a slightly watered -down version of Catholicism, which

01:53:13

I think James feels, well, we're not really being told the full story here.

01:53:18

And at least as much as he disagrees profoundly with Peter D. Williams, he respects the fact that he actually does hold to the received doctrines of Rome rather than a watered -down version thereof.

01:53:31

We have Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, what would you say are the main differences that you have witnessed between evangelicals in the

01:53:41

UK and evangelicals in the United States? Great question.

01:53:47

I would say that, you know, we obviously split down similar lines as evangelicals do in the

01:53:56

States over various different theological positions and so on. But I think one of the main differences is probably that in the

01:54:02

UK, we have less of a luxury of being able to disagree and fall out with each other because we're simply smaller in number, and I think we need each other more.

01:54:13

I think in the US, the church is large enough that different sections of the evangelical community can more or less exist independently of each other and have their own seminaries and have their own networks and kind of exist almost, you know, without almost having to necessarily, the

01:54:34

Charismatics talk to the, you know, the Sassationists or the Armenians talk to the

01:54:39

Calvinists or whatever, you know, it may be. There's a sense in which there can be silos in that sense in the

01:54:48

US that isn't really possible in the UK. We have to, in order to have a voice, in order to be able to make an impact on society,

01:54:56

I think evangelicals in the UK have had to do more together, overcome some of those differences, and work together as far as they can, together in the course of the gospel.

01:55:06

And I think that's actually been a very positive thing. I think that it's caused, you know, there to be more of a sense of gospel mission together, even despite, you know, theological differences.

01:55:21

And I think the urgency, the sense that, you know, perhaps we do need to put aside some of the secondary issues and focus on the primary goal of evangelism, and so on, has been a good focus for the

01:55:39

UK in many ways. The other main difference as well is that we live in a very different political culture in the

01:55:46

UK to the USA, and so whereas there's much more of a culture war and political culture war going on in terms of the evangelical sort of approach to politics in the

01:55:59

USA, and whether or evangelicals should or shouldn't be supporting Donald Trump, and the kind of the traditional sort of alliance of, you know, white evangelicalism, at least with the

01:56:12

Republican Party, that dynamic doesn't really exist in the same way in the UK, because we don't have the same history of the political divide that you have in the

01:56:23

USA. Yeah, I've noticed that there is a stark contrast with even like Reformed Baptists in the

01:56:31

United Kingdom who might agree with me theologically on every jot and tittle, but when you bring up the

01:56:36

Second Amendment here in the United States, the right to bear arms, all of a sudden it's as if you're having a conversation with a theological enemy of some kind.

01:56:48

Well, exactly. Those are some of the key cultural differences, and I think that is very much part of just the different way in which our nations have developed, and obviously some of the things that someone in the

01:57:02

USA may hold really dear as an important thing. A Christian in this side of the pond, with so much in common with you, might really struggle with the importance that you might lay on something like that Second Amendment, or indeed other aspects of the way that politics plays out in the

01:57:23

USA. So again, it's hard in just the course of this conversation to explain exactly why that is so different, but I think it does boil down to just a very different cultural context and very different ways in which we've come to sort of express a

01:57:45

Christian faith in the UK in our own context compared to the USA. I want to thank you so much,

01:57:51

Justin Brarley, for being on the program. I know that your website is premierchristianradio .com

01:57:57

forward slash unbelievable and premier is spelt p -r -e -m -i -e -r christianradio .com

01:58:06

forward slash unbelievable. Do you have any other contact information that you care to share? Well, if people want to go to the website specifically for the book, and indeed they can actually get signed copies of the book from our own website, then they should go to unbelievablebook .co

01:58:22

.uk. That's unbelievablebook .co .uk. Well, I want to thank you so much, and I look forward to your return to Iron Trump and Zion Radio.

01:58:32

You have an open door to our studio here when you write a new book or whenever you want to come on to discuss something that's burdening your heart.

01:58:41

And if you could hold on, because I'd like to say a proper goodbye to you off the air. I want to thank all of our listeners today, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

01:58:50

Don't forget, tomorrow, Dr. Conrad M. Beyway, the pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, is my guest on Iron Trump and Zion Radio.

01:58:59

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.