The Eric Metaxas Show - Michael Brown

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Michael Brown returns with a discussion of his latest book which hits on a very important and concerning subject, "Why So Many Christians Have Left the Faith."

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m.investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. We'll get you from point A to point B. But if you're looking for point C, well, buddy, you're on your own. But if you'll wait right here in just about the two minutes, the bus to point C will be coming right by.

And now here's your point C. Ralph Cramden of the Airways, Eric Matt, Texas. Hey, folks, welcome back. Everybody I know writes for the stream. I've written for the stream. Our next guest, Dr. Michael Brown, writes for the stream. Albin, you just wrote an article for the stream. I did.

Yeah. What's the title of your article? Well, it's called America Needs Founders Nationalism. Yes, you know, because people talk about, oh, Christian nationalism. Yeah. scary stuff. Well, I talk about the fact that, you know, there's another kind of nationalism that's already creeped in.

I mean, it's called, I call it gay nationalism because they have a whole entire month, and they're the ones that seem to now be in charge of your children. I don't see the Christian values thing. It seems to have been shoved out, and now they've put in theirs in place. Look, it's a very good article, Albin. I got to tell you, I read it. Not just is what you say in it very important. but the way you write it is fantastic.

And I posted it on my Twitter account. It's very, it's very important. What can I tell you, folks? So you go to the stream where you go to my Twitter account, but Albin's article, it's, I mean, I have to say, Albin, congratulations, it's really wonderful. I got to, while we're talking about that, I want to mention to people tonight.

I'm going to be in High Point, North Carolina. If you go to Eric Mataxis.com, you can find out the details if you can get to High Point, North Carolina by 7 o'clock tonight. Winston's Salem, North Carolina, tomorrow night. A lot of stuff coming on. We have a Socrates event March 30th coming up in New York City. If you want to get all this information, you've got to sign up for my newsletter at Ericmetaxis.com.

I think, gosh, There's so much I want to talk about. I don't know if we have time. Let me say this. We're doing a fundraiser for food for the poor. And we never succeed in getting everybody to participate. I don't know why. But I literally mean it if you give $5.

If everybody gave $5, it would be life-changing. Because a lot of people listen to this program. But we tend to leave it to others. we think somebody else can write a big check. If everybody would give a little bit, you can text Eric on your phone to 911-999. Text Eric to 911-999. This is real.

People are starving. I want to say that there are places where a simple meal is life or death. They're children in places like Guatemala, Honduras. food for the poor ministers in those places. Let me actually play you a clip, just so you understand we're not making this up. Here's a clip concerning what's going on in Guatemala right now, and we need your help on this. Here's the clip. Guatemalans are especially vulnerable because half live in poverty.

Now a quarter face malnutrition. This dead corn represents calamity, literally starving families. Severe drought or too much rain at the wrong time is destroying crops. and along with it, families, hopes and dreams. This is what we do, folks. This is what Americans do. This is what Christians do. We help those who can't give back.

You're not getting anything back from these people if you help them feed their children. But God sees what we do. God repays us. In fact, he's already given his life for us in the hopes that we would say, okay, Lord, what can I do for you now in the few years I have left on this planet?

and he says, well, help those who are starving, who are miserable, visit those who are in prison. So this is just something that we can do, that we should do, and you can do it on any level. I want to say there's a phone number. The easiest way is go to metaxis talk.com and you'll see the banner. I just hope that hearing about this tugs on your conscience and makes you want to do something because these are real people. and this campaign is a real campaign. The money we raised through this campaign helps feed these people.

For example, $72 feeds two children for a year. That is how effective food for the poor is. They're an extraordinary Christian organization. They know how to do this. $72 will feed two children in a place like Guatemala, Honduras, two meals a day for a year. This is a big deal. Also drinking water, which is a problem in these places for a lifetime.

They drill wells and dig wells. So the phone number is 844-8663, Hope, 844-863 Hope, 844-8663 Hope. Or you can text Eric, the keyword Eric, to 911-999. we really we really need everybody to do a little bit whatever it is that you can do. And by the way, if you text Eric to 91199 and give $5, your name goes into the same hat as the person that gives $500. And you could win one of three grand prizes. We do this just to entice you.

We'll send you all kinds of signed books, signed by me, signed by Albin. I got Hamster Homes. Hamster Homes right here. I sign it. I put a cartoon drawing of myself in there. So hamster homes, that's part of the package. So any amount, any amount. I mean, this is a, this is a great thing to do, the least of these. If these people are not the least of these, that all they want is food and water, and we can help with $5, $10, $20,500. And like Eric said, $10,000, you can sit down and have a meal with Eric. I will even join if you, give $10,001. There you go. There you go. But we just want everybody to pitch in. So whatever you can do, Eric, text Eric to 91999 or call 844-863 Hope, 844-8663 Hope, or go to Metaxistalk.com

and click on the banner. And I, you know, Albin, I want to remind people this, everywhere I go, I'm speaking on my book, Letter to the American Church. But the other day I got to speak when I was in Salt Lake City on my book, Is Atheism Dead? And I just get so excited when I get to talk about, is atheism dead? Because there's so much apologetics in there that people aren't aware of. I mentioned that this Friday, on this program, we're going to air my time with, well, if you read the book, you've read about it.

But the Dr. James Tor, we did a Socrates in City with him in October. on Suzanne's on my 26th wedding anniversary. That was the exact day. We're going to air it on this program. But there's lots of really exciting stuff in the book is atheism dead, which makes me want to go back to Israel. I will be going back to Israel next year for sure, either to film parts of a documentary series based on the book is atheism dead

or to make another film with Dinesh D'Souza, which we can't talk about publicly. But the point is I'm going back. I can't wait to go back. And when I look at my own book, is atheism dead? I'm drooling, flipping through these sites, thinking I can't wait to lay my eyes on this and this and this and this.

If you want to go to Israel, we are recommending you visit holyland. dot Israel. travel. Holyland. dot Israel. dot travel. Holyland.

Israel. Travel. Yeah. Yeah, we are honored to have the Israel Ministry of Tourism as one of our sponsors. I mean, that's just incredible. We just love them. So if you go to holyland. Israel.com travel, I mean, they've got great videos and testimonials and just beautiful sites. So you'll want to go there and get excited. Everything we're about on this program, I hope, is leading people closer to the truth, closer to God. And visiting Israel, there's just no question. Everybody who goes there says the same thing. It utterly re-energized their faith. It's a beautiful thing that we get to do that. So I want to recommend

that to you. Also want to recommend to you, please go to my website, which is Ericmetaxis.com, sign up for the newsletter. We send you all kinds of links and things that, again, we won't have time to talk about on this program. So that's- Oh, yeah. One other thing. Nutrametics.com. You've got to stock up on your vitamins and supplements. Nutrametics.com, 25% off this month. Oh, this month only. This month only. Use the keyword Eric, the code word Eric, and you get 25% off. Nutrametics.com. This month only, nutrometics.com. All right, we'll be right back. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis, and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed, and when oil prices go up, the cost of

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Their 100% U.S.-based customer service team make switching easy. Just go to patriotmobile.com slash Eric. Patriotmobile.com slash Eric or call them at 878 Patriot. Get free activation today with the offer code Eric. Folks, welcome back. We talk right now to an old friend Michael Brown, PhD. So much to say. We've heard Michael's story on the program before, but in case you didn't.

A Jewish believer in Jesus came to faith in 1971 as a heroin shooting LSD using hippie rock drummer. Wow. And he holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern languages and literatures from NYU. He's written more than 40 books. The brand new one is why so many Christians have left the faith. Michael Brown, welcome back. Good to see you. It's been too long. Great to see, Eric. Well, you write more books. You know, people say that about me. And it's like, no, no, no.

That's not true of me. But you, there's certain people that they, I don't know how you do it. But this one, the title, it's a very provocative title. And again, brand new book, Why So Many Christians Have Left the Faith. So let's talk about it. I have my theories. What do you say? First, let's recognize there is a problem. You know, there's some say, well, if they're true Christians, they won't leave. Either way, a lot of people are dropping out. Prominent leaders have dropped out, fully apostatized, pastors, worship leaders, seminary professors don't believe the Bible anymore.

You know, we hear the stats about professing Christians dropping at a rapid rate in America, young people dropping out of church. So there are lots of different reasons. There are someone who say, look, look, Eric, Jesus prophesied that there'd be an end time falling away, and this is just the expected falling away. Well, it's a falling away. There's no question that it's happening. But to just say, well, it's the final thing.

There's something we can do about it. No, I don't believe that at all. And for sure, there are a number of different factors. And what I do in the book, Eric, is I try to break down all the different factors because everyone has their own story. Each person has their own story. And I try to see why this is happening. and then how we can address it. So, for example, one of the big issues, you've got a great book about atheism.

One of the big issues is that the new atheism that really sprung up about 15, 16 years ago, best selling a book, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett. What happened was the memes, the quotes, the ideas, the mindset of those books kind of trickled down to the general public so that 12-year-olds are talking about, I'm not going to listen to a, a Bronze Age God and some antiquated book, and everyone thinks the Bible is hateful and bigot and so on. So the sentiments trickled out Bart Ehrman's scholarship. I debated years back, a great New Testament scholar.

Evangelical went to agnostic atheist, started writing these books for the general audience about why we can't really trust the New Testament. To everyone's shock, they became national bestsellers. All of us who deal with things as scholars, they're easy answers for these things, but the general public didn't get it. So there's this deluge of information, getting you to mistrust God, getting you to mistrust the Bible. Then you factor in a lot of other things, say the shift in society towards solidarity with the LGBT community. If gay is good, then God is bad. The God of the Christians is bad and the Bible is bad. Or other things in terms of scandals, leadership scandals. One after,

who do we trust? Or the church getting so caught. up on all sides of the political battle that we look just like the world. And all the people like, I came to church to meet with God, not to hear this stuff. So there are a bunch of things that have taken place and together they've created kind of this tsunami. So what I do in the book is try to lay out a chapter each dealing with one of the problems and then how do we address it? How do we respond? What are the answers? Well, it's interesting because there is so much. I think it's complicated even when we say stuff like people have left the faith because I think it's complicated. In other words, I think that part of this, what I would consider a good part of this is that there are some people that have pulled away from what I would think of as dead religion.

They just realize something is wrong here. It's kind of useless, blather, and I want the truth. And there is some of that. In other words, I think that when I, in my Bonhoeffer book, when he talks about religionless Christianity, he realizes that the German church going through the Kabuki theater of Lutheranism, it was useless when it came to the satanic evil of the Nazis. And I think that's part of it, that there are some people that realizing, like, I can't just keep playing church. But then when people take the polls or the numbers of who's going to church or whatever, it looks like they've fallen away from the fifth. When you talk about people actually who have fallen away from the faith, I'm always amazed, Michael, because you kind of think, did they ever really believe it in the first place? What a strange thing for you and me, because we know this is true.

It doesn't mean we don't have questions. But isn't it extraordinary to see people make that journey, which makes me think that their relationship with God wasn't a relationship was an intellectual assent to a worldview, which is very very important. different than a relationship to a person capital p right so there's tremendous truth in both of the things that you mentioned of course i deal with them unpack them in the book one is that people have never really had an encounter with god and look every generation in israel had to have its own encounter with god you the end of joshua 24 the children of israel serve god as long as joshua and the elders were a lot who had experienced god and then the next generation fell away so when you have a power is Christianity, when you just preached a compromised gospel or an intellectual gospel only,

and people are not encountering God, the power of the world, the pull of the world is just too strong. The other thing is I have interacted with some of the people who have left the faith, some that were known leaders, some who have become outspoken atheists, some who are more moderate in their approach. One of them assured me that he had supernatural experiences, that God was very real to him. He gave me examples of things. So I still have to push further with him. But Eric, all the others that I spoke to, when I said to them, tell me something, you may not believe it's a miracle now, but when it happened, there was no explanation to excite other than it was a miracle. I mean, God met you in a certain way. God answered a prayer in a certain way,

like you document your miracles book. I said, you may have a different view of it now, but tell me back then. Give me some examples because you and I could sit here and give example after example. after all of our decades in the Lord, what we've seen amazingly with our own eyes and experience. They couldn't give me any. One gentleman, and he was on my show crying

because he's so broken. He had a baby that died, and he wants to be able to see his baby again, but he doesn't believe there's an afterlife. I mean, a precious guy. Went to Johns Hopkins, started studying with great scholars and lost his faith entirely.

The only example he could give me of what seemed to be a miraculous answer to prayer was that he was convicted to keep the spirit, speed limit. And sometimes he would be late. You're convicted by God. I should keep the speed limit. Sometimes going to school, he would be late in leaving, but he always got there on time. That's like, that's it. That's all you can point to. So for many, absolutely, there was a lack of real encounter with God. And I think that the shaking, everything we've been through in these last few years, the shaky in America is revealing a lot of the faulty found.

I think that's true. And in my new book, not so new anymore, but a letter to the American Church, I talk about this idea that, I mean, it should be basic, but the Lord, you know, when Jesus asked for the two great commandments, love the Lord your God. And you think, not obey, not acknowledge, not love. We are called to love. It doesn't get more personal, right? We're called to love the Lord or God, not to assent to doctrine or to theology or to apologetics, but to love him. And I really think that there are many people that they had a faith where that wasn't, even in major churches, certainly in the mainline denominations, you're not really encouraged to love the Lord your God passionately.

That seems to be like, you know, for the fanatics. And yet when Jesus himself, kind of an important figure in the scripture, is asked, what are the commandments, commandments to love the Lord your God with all your eyes? So that's part of what I see happening, is that if you don't love the Lord, what you have really can just evaporate. When bad things happen, it just evaporates. Yeah, and look, Jesus calls us friends remarkably, the apostles within us by extension.

and 2 Corinthians 1314 speaks about the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. That is a close relationship to be enjoyed. So for sure, for some, that's the problem. One past used to say the reason they backslid is because they never frontslid. They never really had that radical conversion experience. But there are others that when they were met with intellectual objections, you know, kids go off to college, raised in the faith. They love Jesus. Praise the Lord.

They're going to evangelize. And then for the first time, they get bombarded because there's been no apologetics foundation. There's been no defense of the faith. It's all heart, which is wonderful. Look, when I started meeting with the rabbis as a new believer, they had questions I couldn't answer. All of my studies were at secular universities. I never went to Bible school or seminary. So I got bombarded, and I knew Jesus was real in my life, but it was very challenging.

And I watched others, and they couldn't get the answers. They didn't have the answers. And they felt, it's just, I've got to be true to my mind. I can't deny these. We're just going to go to break. Plenty more. We're going to let Michael Brown continue that and other sentences when we come back. Stick around.

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Call the toll-free number 844-863. Hope 844-863 Hope. 844-863 Hope. God bless you. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Michael L. Brown, or Michael or Mike. Mike, Mike, honestly, what you were just saying,

it's fascinating because people talk about faith like it's this subjective thing. Like, I believe, and you believe, and you think, well, on the one hand, there's truth to that, but ultimately we're talking about truth. It's either true or it's not. You know, gold is an element. One plus one equals two.

Either what we're talking about is true. Either Jesus rose bodily from the dead. Either all these things are true or they're not. And it's fascinating how you were just talking about apologetics and how a lot of people, they don't have answers and they just kind of fold up. They never seem to have understood like, look, you might not have the answers to some these questions, but this stuff is true. You can get the answers. It's important that people know, not everybody's going to be gifted in the way that you are or to a lesser extent that I am in talking about some of these details.

But people need to be impressed with this idea that this is actually true. This is not just some religion, some philosophy. It's actually true. Yeah. And by the way, book has a really nice cover for everyone to see. It's hard to see the way. You pull it back closer to your body there. There we go.

Why so many Christians have left the face. by Michael L. Brown, why so many Christians have left the faith. Yeah, so that's my thought, is that some Christians leave the faith because they never really were convinced like, look, this is true. You may not know the details or you may not be able to argue with a skeptic, but you need to know this is true. And there are people who can help you understand if you have a question. Exactly. As you know, I've been on the front lines of Jewish apologetics, defense of the faith, interacting with rabbis, Jewish scholars for decades, and I will regularly meet Jewish believers who will come up to me. I've got to thank you. I'm still in the faith

because of you. Now, obviously, God keeps his people, right? But in other words, they got bombarded with objections. They got bombarded with questions about the Bible about how can you be a Jew and believe in Jesus. And it's through them. You know, God, I think this is true. I believe you changed my life. But what do I do when I'm hit with all these things? You want to have interesting. intellectual integrity, we're not telling people to shut off their minds. And when they saw, oh, there are answers. This guy's not pulling a rabbit out of the hat. Oh, the Hebrew does say this.

That's why I have a whole chapter in the book. Asking is, the Bible still relevant? My friend Darrell Bach, New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, he says, you know, in years past, used to be able to say it's true because it's in the Bible. Now you have to say it's in the Bible because it's true because people have shifted that that presupposition isn't there that used to be there. So I was always praying about how to approach these things. You know, what answer can I bring?

What's going to be helpful? And it struck me, first start going through scripture and show how it stands out from the ancient world. The Bible is just another ancient book of mess. Like, let's contrast what these biblical authors are saying to the idolatry of the dance. Where did they get these ideas from? Genesis 1 and this transcendent God who speaks and everything comes into existence

and subdues the power. of chaos just with a word one god where did this come from there was no such conception in the ancient world but that's the point is that you can only speak out of when people are speaking out of ignorance when they say things like that like oh it's all part of this uh ancient stuff and you go no no no no there is nothing like this this is utterly unique it's shocking in the context of the world in which it arose you know if if people don't make that clear i can see how culturally we get all these bad ideas but you just made that point And boy, there's a lot to say on that.

And then just how practical it is, down to earth it is, the stories it tells, the things that it wrestles with, the very questions that you're asking today are being asked and answered in the Bible. Or maybe not the exact same words, but they're being asked, they're being answered. And when you begin to read it and you begin to see, okay, wow, this is why it stood the test of time. And so believe the Bible. This is God's word. and don't you dare question it, we want to say, hey, you may have been raised without it. You may have been raised to mock it

or just think it's a religious book. Do you know the treasures that are in here? Do you know the riches that are in here? Because most, well, it's misogynistic. Oh, hang on. Let's put the Bible in the context of the ancient world and see how liberating it is to women and see how when the gospel goes into a new culture,

how it raises up the status of women and makes them equals to men. You open up what's really in there and then even how it's been preserved. Oh, the endless contradictions. Do you know how carefully it's been preserved? You know, the books is the Bible are the most well-preserved books

in the ancient world by far. God has an amazing job of getting his word to us, relevance of it. You know, even the question of the goodness of God, that has come up now. The world's gotten smaller. It's not like, the heathens over there are going to hell, the wicked heathens.

It's like, that's my friend on Facebook. That's the lady I watch on TV. TikTok, you know, how can you say that? So I've got a whole chapter, how could a good God send billions of people to hell? And rather than getting into a philosophical discussion about the rationality or the justification of hell and so on. I just prayed and felt, let me present a picture of the goodness of God in the Bible. And it's incredible mercy and long-suffering and compassion. And, I mean, it's verse after verse.

It's story after story. that's the God we're talking about. Whatever he does is perfect. When you see the extraordinary nature of his mercy, his long-suffering, slow to anger, right? Slow to anger, abounding in love, that's the God of the Bible. So in a lot of ways, we just have to get people to think differently. We're not telling you to turn off your mind. We're saying renew your mind to life-changing truth.

Folks, I'm talking to Michael Brown. The book is why so many Christians have left the faith. We'll be right back. Get ready for a riveting new documentary called Come Out in Jesus' Name in theaters nationwide March 13th. It follows number one bestselling author and Pastor Greg Locke's epic journey from a small church in Tennessee to a global deliverance ministry. Following a startling chain of events, Pastor Locke took a 180-degree turn from his mainstream religious traditions and led his church to the brink of revival. He's exposing and fighting an unseen enemy that's destroying families and churches and parlorical. realizing Christians with fear and bondage.

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and use promo code Eric or call 1-800-9757 and you'll get huge discounts on all MyPillow bedding products, including the Giza Dream bed sheets for as low as 2998 and get all your shopping done now while quantities last. Again, use code Eric and save mypillow.com. Folks, the book is why so many Christians have left the faith. I'm speaking with the author, my friend Michael Brown. Michael, you're just talking about a number of things. There is so much here, and it's important for us to talk about this. But when you're talking about the goodness of God, I also think, you know, when we're talking about questions like hell or certain objections that people have, on one level there is no answer. In other words, I think it's perfectly a purpose. I think it's perfectly a

sometimes to say, listen, there's a mystery. I can't pretend that I have an easy answer to that. There's no easy answer to that. There are things that trouble me and I am confused by, but the overwhelming evidence is so clear. You know, it's kind of like somebody saying like, I don't believe your car exists. You'd say, well, I drove here today and it takes me back and forth. And what do you mean by that? Like, well, I don't understand how the carburetor works, and I just don't accept it. You know, you just say, well, listen, I don't know what carburetor works, but the car works. And so we can talk about that. And maybe I'll never have the brains to figure out how this part works or that part works.

But people grab on these objections and they think that's good enough. And I feel ultimately it's an emotional rejection. They're not being rational. They're just trying to find something to wave and to say, this makes me mad, and so I throw the whole thing away. Yeah, look, there's the old saying that some of the atheist books can be summarized in the saying, there is no God, and I hate him. So you can't deny that people get burned.

Look, a woman called my show the other day called my radio show. You used to go to Times Square Church in New York, Jewish woman, now apostate, angry, very, very angry. and she's got all these reasons and she's now pro-abortion, et cetera, but one thing she didn't think she was treated rightly by the people in the church. It's like, hey, that's a great church and I preached there many times. Well, people weren't nice or whatever. They judged me or something where they said I had this problem. And, you know, who knows what?

Every church you're going to have someone with a complaint. But she got hurt by people, even if in her own mind, she got hurt by people and turned against God. What happens, though? What happens when you came to faith? through a particular leader, his books changed your life and you heard him speak and God used that person and you came to the Lord through them. Or your pastor was the one that prayed you into the kingdom. And now you find out your pastor secretly been living in adultery. Or you find out that this this well-known speaker was living a secret life.

It's easy to understand how people question everything now. Even though it's not logical or rational, it is that emotional response. And many times that's where God is going to meet that person. You know, in the book of Job, Job has all these questions. You know, we did a chat about my commentary on Job written years ago. Job has these endless questions and challenges God because what happened to me is not right. It's not in keeping with who you're supposed to be. So you're a monster.

You've got to fix this. And God reveals himself to Job at the end. He never answers a single one of Job's questions, but he reveals himself in beauty and power and majesty and wisdom. And Job says, I heard of you by the hearing of the year, but now my eye sees you. And what I try to get in the book is for people to see who God really is. I remember many years ago when a close loved one of mine died, and he had been open to the gospel, but he had never openly received the Lord. And now he died suddenly.

And I thought, is he lost? Is it over? Is he going to hell? As he wrestled with you agonized. And then I just thought, my heavenly father is the most wonderful being I could ever imagine. He has been so incredibly pain. with me as a believer and so merciful to me as a non-believer. On the day I stand before him, whatever he does, I know is right.

I know is good. I know is, and I just had to leave it there because he's not a schizophrenic. I'm going to send Jesus to die for you because I love it. But I'm going to curse her and kill you. He's not back. He's consistently good. And whatever he does is right. When he brings judgment, it's a good thing.

And if we could get the whole perspective, we recognize it's a good thing. We've got to introduce people to the real God and the real word of God. Part of what I see as the problem as well, Michael, is that in our lifetimes, we have seen very little evil. In other words, we've been so blessed in this country that when we look through history, whether we're talking about slavery or torture or just levels of evil and cruelty that have existed since the beginning of time, And we've been living kind of in this bubble. And I think when you see evil, you say, I want to know that there's a God who is just. I want to know that there's a God who is good.

But when everything's kind of like, you know, when your big problem is, I don't know, that you can't find a parking space or somebody was mean to you at church or whatever, it's a whole different world. And in a sense, it has inured many people to the profound goodness of God, to the wild goodness of, of, of, of who God is because they kind of live in a world where, you know, everything is gray. They just haven't seen evil. But when you see dramatic evil, you want to know, is there a God who's an answer to this?

And so I think that's part of the idea is that the prosperity that we've experienced over these decades has really lulled people into sleep when it comes to the idea of why we would need a God. And we have baptized our gospel into that. So we basically preach a gospel of convenience, a gospel of comfort. Come to Jesus. It's a good business deal. He'll prosper you. He'll answer all your prayers.

He'll just take away your guilt. All this and eternal life. So we've never even been confronted with our own sin. So when we're not confronted with our own sin and convicted by the Spirit, we don't realize the glory and the beauty of the cross. And the fact that Jesus died for the horrible things I did. And then, like you said, human evil. my wife Nancy when we met we were both 19 I was a believer she was a hardcore Jewish atheist

really mocking of religion really looked down at religious people disdain them and the thing that happened was she got a revelation of the reality of evil meaning that there was personified evil that there was a devil and when that switch went on then she realized that therefore there's a god and you know you either have to say that the whole universe is meaningless that everything is chaos that we are all just pre-programmed beings that are just floating through this miserable world and then soon enough it's over, or that there is terrible evil and there is a cosmic battle and God is working something out in the midst of it. You know, people say, oh, you just got saved because you were desperate.

I didn't want to get saved. I wanted to keep doing drugs and living the way I was living. But many call out to God, you know, their marriage is falling apart, their life's falling apart. It's not that they're weak and it's that they woke up to reality. I mean, we all need to. We don't need God. That's exactly, that's exactly right. Going to a break.

Final segment coming up, the book is Why So Many Christians Have Left the Faith. Michael Brown is my guest. Folks, welcome back. Talking to my friend Michael Brown, the book is why so many Christians have left the faith. Michael, let's talk about you just suggested the subject of deconstruction. What do we mean by that? So this is the big happening thing now. I deconstruct it.

I began to question what I, believed and why I believed it. And I took away little by little, each of the presuppositions and things like this, until I got to the real truth and therefore I don't believe anymore. And people just have it. It's a whole movement. We're deconstructing. We're ex-evangelical. And I have a whole chapter asking, can deconstruction be healthy? So here's the deal. If I come in mocking, cynical,

with an attitude, I know better than everybody. I've studied this. I watched eight videos on YouTube. I'm now an expert. on the subject, if you come in with that kind of attitude, you're likely to find the wrong answers because you've already prejudged the matter. But if you come in honestly and say, God, I've been taught this, this, this, this, this, I believe you're really there, but I'm not even sure. But I've been taught these different things. I want to ask honest questions to see how solid the foundations are. That can be a wonderful thing. You know, at a certain point in my life, I decided, confronted with rabbis challenging me, brilliant men that had been studying since they were little boys, brilliant professors at college and university, I decided I am going to follow the truth wherever it leads, that I cannot do anything but follow the truth regardless of cost or consequence.

And the more I studied, the more I learned, the more thrilled I was to see that the things I believed in my heart were being confirmed in my head. In other words, we don't have to be afraid of people asking honest questions. And a lot of times in our churches, we don't welcome that. You know, Jude 22, it says, have mercy on those who doubt. So rather than someone says, well, Eric, how do we know if the Bible's true? You just need to believe it and just read it again and say these verses out loud. Sometimes that's how we respond. We should say, that's a great question.

And if we don't have the answer, we know the answers are out there. You know, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a philosopher. I'm not this and I. But, boy, there's some brilliant Christians. who are scientists and bringing Christians who are philosophers and others who've been to hell and back and suffered unimaginable things and they have a testimony of the goodness of God. So by all means, let's welcome honest, seeking, searching questions.

What do I say to my cousin who's gay? Is he going to hell? Well, let's talk about, let's talk about your cousin. Let's talk about what the Bible says. Let's look at these different issues. Let's see why these things are in the Bible. And it's so wonderful, the discovery, the journey. when you see people's eyes open, when you see life and hope come back to them because they really thought, I've been believing a lie, and you can show them the truth.

So if the attitude is right, if it's a genuine seeker, someone really want to know the truth, ask away and we'll go on a journey and discover the answers together. And part of it, as you know, it's the media, right? You were talking about the atheist books that came out years ago. You get one side of the story. The media does not tend to cover the amazing miracles that you have. have experienced and I have experienced and we've met people that have experienced unimaginably beautiful things, proof of God, all of the evidence for God that comes out in archaeology. I've written about it. You've written about it. That tends not to get

coverage. So you hear one side of the story. And that's one of the reasons many Christians have left the faith. They've literally never heard most of the evidence or the reasons to believe. and I think it's important that we put that out there, that we're living in a very secular culture that's hostile to Christian faith. So it's an uphill battle, but by God's grace will prevail. Michael, I'm just grateful for you being so prolific. You've written so many books. Congratulations.

This one is very important why so many Christians have left the faith by my friend Michael L. Brown. God bless you, Michael. Thank you. God bless. Thanks for having me.