The Sean McDowell Show - Is Christianity Outdated and Irrelevant?

Episode Date: October 29, 2023

Is it wrong to doubt your beliefs? What does it mean to doubt well? My son and I sat down for an interview (for Biola’s Torrey Conference) to better understand the role of doubt in one's spiritual journey. He asked me the top questions his generation has about faith, doubt, and deconstruction. Let us know what you think! Did we miss any questions on doubt? Also, what do you think of my new studio? READ: Set Adrift, by Sean McDowell (https://amzn.to/3PVrSUT) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Hey dad, I got some questions for you just about doubt and how we can live out our faith today. I love it. But first off, as you know, you and I are the first father-son combo who played basketball at Biola for Coach Holmquist. So I've got to know, how does the team look this year? Dude, this year is going to be so fun. We got shooters, we got size, depth. Our first game is actually November 10th. It's coming up. I'm super excited. All right, good. Now I brought, just for fun, my practice jersey from 1994. Look how ghetto that is. We've come a long way. That's awesome. Kind of fun.

All right, we'll be at the game. Tell me what you got. Cool. So the first question I got for you, Dad, is, Dad, you went through a series of downing. Can you tell us about that? I did, yeah. It was actually, I think my sophomore year at Biola, interestingly enough, and this is mid nineties. So you got to realize what the world

was like in the nineties. There was no social media. We just got this new thing called email addresses in the internet. And I got on, I was fishing around and I came across the atheist secular web had kind of begun responding to your papa's book, Evidence That Demands Verdict. And it was the first time I saw doctors and lawyers and historians going chapter by chapter through what I thought was obvious evidence for Christianity. And I saw that and it was really the first time in my life I thought, wow, maybe I'm wrong. It was unsettling intellectually and it was unsettling emotionally. Now I went to your papa and I said, this is a few months later, and I said something effective, dad, I got to be honest with you. I want to follow the

truth, but I'm not sure I'm convinced that Christianity is true. Now, for those of you watching at this point, my dad, your papa, was one of the most recognizable Christians in the world and has spent his life defending Christianity. And his son is coming up saying, I'm not sure I buy this. Do you understand the drama? And I'll never forget what your papa said. He looked me right in the eyes and he goes, son, I think that's great. And I looked at him and I was like, dad, did you hear anything that I just said? He goes, you can't live on my convictions. He goes, you can't live on my convictions. He goes, you've got to decide for yourself what you think is true and follow it. Don't reject what you've learned growing up just out of spite.

Only walk away if you're really convinced Christianity is not true. And you know your mom and I will love you no matter what. So that was a pretty significant period in my life. So you've been going through a lot of pain lately. Has that made you doubt your faith at all? I have, yeah. To be completely honest, probably the last six to seven weeks have been the most painful physically and in some ways emotionally of my life. I won't go into the details of it, but to be frank, there's been a few times where I

was laying on the floor, just taking a breath at a time, trying to get through the pain. It was just so miserable is the only way to describe it. Now, did it make me question God? The answer is no. And here's why. I'm not a Christian because it makes me feel a certain way. I'm not a Christian because something I get out of it. I'm a Christian for one main reason, that I actually think Christianity is true. And so when challenges like this come up, it doesn't rock my faith. Now, you know, I did my dissertation

on the deaths of the apostles. Was Peter really crucified upside down? Did Thomas make it to India? And I just decided I was going to read through the entire New Testament and take a look at every time it said that a follower of Jesus or an apostle disciple should expect persecution and suffering. And Scotty, it's like a drumbeat through the Bible. Everywhere, when we sign up to follow Jesus, he meant it when he said, pick up your cross

and follow me. And I'll tell you one story before we move on. Your pop and I were speaking at an event about a year or two before COVID. And when I was there, the head of it, there was maybe about a thousand people there. The head of it contacted me and said, hey, there's a former youth pastor who's coming. And he's just going to watch because he's interested in the evidence you're going to portray. I said, hey, do you think he'd be open for having lunch with me? And the guy, he goes, sure. So in the middle of our sessions, I sat down and had lunch with this youth pastor who had left his faith. And for about 45 minutes, I asked him, I said, what are your

questions? And I did my best to respond. And I keep, you know, the whole time I'm sitting there going, man, these answers are not connecting. Like I'm lame. Where's JP Moreland or William Lane Craig or something? I just didn't feel like I was doing a great job. And at the end, he said, he said, you have any final advice for me? And I said, you know, here's my question for you. You've talked about why you left the faith. I want to know that moment when you became a Christian. Tell me about that moment where you knew you were a sinner and you cried out to God for his grace. And it was like a deer in the headlights. He looked at me and goes, I didn't become a Christian because I was a sinner in need of grace. I became a Christian because I was hurting and told that Jesus would

make me feel better. That is a false gospel. That's a false gospel false gospel so yeah pain's not fun if anything it's made me more compassionate and it's made me cry out to god at times for his mercy and his strength because it hurts so bad at times but no it hasn't made me certainly lose my faith or question it so is it okay to have doubts that's a great question i. I, for a while, I used to beat myself up because I doubt almost everything. If I buy a computer, maybe I should have bought a different computer. If I go on vacation, maybe I could have a better deal. I'm a natural doubter. And a friend of mine whom you know, just seems to have faith and he doesn't doubt anything. And I was like envious about that. And it hit me one day. I thought, wait a minute,

he has the gift of faith. This is his contribution to the body of Christ, but he doesn't write seven or 800 page books. He's not plagued by researching and questions like I am. And so in some ways, it's because God has made me a natural doubter that I want to seek and I want to find evidence. So that's my contribution. Now, it's important to realize that doubt is not the opposite of faith. Doubt's not the opposite of faith. Unbelief is the opposite of faith. You can believe something and have doubt.

That's why in Jude 1.22 it says, Have mercy on those who doubt. Doubt can be painful because of what's at stake. But it's not really the question as a whole. It's not, is doubt good or bad? The question is, what do we do with it? How do we doubt well? How do we face our questions in an authentic, real way? And frankly,

some of us are just maybe more inclined to doubt than others. I love that because you've always told me that Thomas is your favorite disciple. He is. He is my favorite disciple. By the way, I'm glad you said that because we call him Doubting Thomas. We need to stop calling him Doubting Thomas. Thomas was not a doubter. A doubter is somebody who goes, well, I'm not sure. I don't know. Maybe. That's not what Thomas did. Thomas said, I will not believe unless I can see and touch the Spirulans in his side and in his hand. That's not a doubter. Thomas rejected it until he was given evidence. So when we call Thomas a doubter, we're basically saying somebody who doubts is akin to rejecting the faith. So I don't have a better moniker for Thomas,

but we need to come up with a better name than Doubting Thomas because he actually wasn't a doubter. He was a full-on skeptic who rejected it until he got evidence. So where should someone start if they're experiencing doubt? Like say I was experiencing doubt, where would you lead me to go? Another good question. I would say the first thing you do is to tell somebody. One of the worst things you can do is bury it inside. Now there's a lot of research. This was on younger millennials kind of becoming older Gen Zers.

And what they said is people don't jettison the faith because of doubt. They jettison the faith because of unexpressed doubt. So if you have doubts and you just bury it inside, it can become like a cancer and it can just grow and fester and then eventually you bail. So the first thing to do is just tell somebody who's safe, somebody who will listen. Somebody who's not necessarily going to try to fix it for you. Hopefully I would be that person, but there's obviously awesome people at Biola,

like there were professors and my resident director, my coaches were huge in my life. So the first thing is just to tell somebody. The second thing I would say is I, if you came to me, I would really encourage you to thoughtfully and prayerfully try to get at what the root of that doubt might be. Now, that can be it can be motivated by different things. So, for example, sometimes it can be moral.

I'll never forget a young man I met at a conference and we were talking for about 20 minutes. I think he was 19 years old. And after my session, he goes, hey, can we go outside and talk? I was like, sure. He started asking me all these questions. I remember thinking, doesn't strike me that these are really his questions. So I said, I could be off base if so, I apologize. But what's really going on? He'd been in a Christian home and he said he was an atheist. He looked at me, he goes, you're right. These aren't really my questions. I said, what is it? He said, what is it?

He said, I just graduated from high school and I signed up to go to college in a fraternity and I just want to have fun for a season in my life. I said, okay, now we're talking. It wasn't about contradictions of the Bible. It wasn't about that. For you, you think Christianity steals all your fun. That's how you view it. This is a moral issue for you. For other people I've met, it's different. I remember meeting a young man one time and I had given a talk on the nature of marriage and he came up to me afterwards and he said, so is homosexuality like the worst sin i thought that's an interesting question i said hey let's go outside and talk about this and so i asked him some questions i said hey why that question and it turns out after we talked for a few minutes that he had same-sex attraction and had never shared it with anybody and i was actually the first person that he told. And what I remember

is he was talking about certain doubts and questions he was have, but he shared to me, I said, why haven't you told anybody? He goes, I know my parents love me, but I've heard certain homophobic statements from them. I wonder if they're going to reject me. So for him, a lot of his doubts were relational. In other words, if I tell somebody my struggle, are you still going to love me? Do I still belong? Do you still care? The first guy's doubts were moral. This guy's doubts were relational. I was at a camp a couple of summers ago and a young man came up to me, grew up in a Christian home and had abandoned his faith. And I listened to his questions for a while. And finally, he made a statement about certain Christian doctrine. He goes, well, we know that's

immoral and false. And I said, we do? I said, you're 19 and you know this? I said, Christians have been wrestling with this for at least a couple thousand years. Have you read this book, this book, this book? No. And I said, okay, you are way too quickly dismissing this. I think there's some pride going on in your life that's preventing you from really following the evidence. So my point is, you said, where should somebody start is tell somebody. But second, Proverbs 25 says the purposes in a man's heart are deep or or a person's heart is deep, and a person of wisdom draws it out. What I would encourage you to do is prayerfully and thoughtfully try to say what's really going on. Is it a heart issue? Is it a mind issue? Is it a relational issue? Is it a moral issue?

And get to the root of it, because that's what I want to deal with and talk about. Okay, so what would you say to someone who is doubting, and they just don I want to deal with and talk about. Okay. So what would you say to someone who is doubting and they just don't want to read the Bible? I guess first off, I would say give yourself some grace. Don't beat yourself up and say, I got to power through this and I got to just force myself to read. Obviously the Bible says that there's a lot of value in reading the scripture. It keeps us from sin. There's power in the word of God. We learn about ourselves. We grow spiritually. But the first thing, if you feel like I'm supposed to read the Bible, I don't feel like it. You probably feel this weight of failing God and falling short. The last thing I want to say is,

well, suck it up and read the Bible. I'd say, give yourself some grace, give yourself some space. But then I'd say, okay, tell me what's going on. Was there ever a season in your life where you did want to read the Bible? And I might say, okay, what part of the Bible are you reading? Are you reading Leviticus right now? That might not be that exciting. Now, I love the book of Leviticus. Sorry to all the OT professors watching this.

It's amazing. But at certain periods of my life, some books are going to connect better than others. Especially if somebody is doubting, I think the book of Psalms can be powerful. Because you have examples of David saying things like, God, why have you abandoned me? This is God's chosen king, man for God's own heart. There's times where he feels like God abandoned him. I'd say maybe just find five minutes a day. Maybe listen to the scriptures.

There's a way to do that. So give yourself some grace. Get to maybe the root. And maybe it's just like you think, I just don't really believe it's God's word and you have to be convinced of it. But give yourself some grace. Give yourself time maybe read something different maybe find a different way to engage the scriptures and give yourself a little time to get there but ultimately you want to come to the place

where you are studying the scriptures so how might you encourage somebody who's having a hard time understanding that god's ways is better than their ways, or at least believing that. So this is, honestly, Scotty, this is the heart of it. This is the root of it. When it's all said and done, having faith is trusting that God's ways are better than our ways. Now, if you go back to the garden, and you and I have had this conversation before,

it's always interested me why God gives the commandment not to eat fruit. Now, of all the commandments God could give Adam and Eve, why that commandment? Why didn't he say, Adam, don't murder Eve? I mean, that'd be really easy to follow. Now, why? Because think about what's happening here is the infinite God is wanting to be in relationship with finite human beings. The eternal God with a temporal human being. What's that going to take? It's going to take trust. So God has to give a commandment that's somewhat counterintuitive that it took faith to follow. Hence, don't eat fruit which is made to be eaten. It's in the middle of the garden. it's somewhat counterintuitive that it took faith to follow.

Hence, don't eat fruit, which is made to be eaten. It's in the middle of the garden. Feels like he's setting them up for failure. But it's not just about a fruit. It's a question, will I ultimately trust God? So a friend of mine, a philosopher, Doug Groteis, his wife was an absolute genius. She was a part of the International High IQ Society, and she got a rare form of dementia and could not remember how to tie her shoe.

And Dr. Groteis wrote a whole book on mourning this and how painful it was. But he said to me, he said, the issue I had to resist was that I knew better than God. He said, that was the line. He said, I didn't always grieve well, and I wish I could take things back, but I could not start to think that I knew better than God. So when somebody starts to have this feeling, I would say you're at the root of the issue. And the question is, what is the character of God? What is God like? I'd like to think you listen to me because you know I care about you. And there's a relationship that's there. At the root of it is, what is the character of God?

Some students my age are fed up with evangelicalism because of its political stances. It makes them want to question things. What would you say to someone fed up with evangelicalism? So we got to define what evangelicalism in one sense in evangelical there's kind of four commitments broadly speaking to a personal conversion to jesus the importance of evangelism uh uh care for the scriptures the authority of the bible and uh there's one more that i think kind of a social activism and care for people. These kind of four core things that seem to me pretty much at the heart of Christianity. I call that lowercase evangelicalism.

That has a tradition that goes back probably even centuries. Capital E evangelicalism is kind of a popular moniker that people view a certain strand of Christians who tend to vote a certain way. And that has become a huge turnoff, statistically speaking. And I hear this a lot from millennials in particular, Gen Zers, your age. So I would say, for one, there's a big camp in the evangelical world. There's people who are politically engaged, those who are not politically engaged. There's a huge tradition across the Christian history of looking at politics differently. Now, I'm not saying I don't have opinions about which one of those I think is right or wrong.

That's not my point right now. But if you're fed up with a certain position of evangelicalism, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. As hard as it is emotionally, try to separate some of the things that bother you from what the root and the core of what Christianity is and how big of a field you might say. So I'd say then fine, don't engage that segment of evangelicalism. Find another way to follow Jesus. For now, that would be my encouragement. And then we could get to the questions of how should Christians vote? What does it look like? That's downstream. So Christianity does not seem very inclusive, especially of the LGBTQ community. So aren't we supposed to be loving? We are supposed to be loving.

But what we have to do is define what's meant by love. I think biblically, love is when you make a person's physical, emotional, and spiritual development as important as your own. In other words, if I, that's why, like it says in Ephesians chapter five, you know, husbands love their wives as you love your own body. If I love you, I care for your best, even if you don't want to hear it. This is what a parent is supposed to do, right? That's what a parent is supposed to do. And we could have that conversation another time. So when we say aren't Christians supposed to be loving, we have to define what love is. And love is to care for and want the best for another.

Now in our culture, in some ways, love has becoming affirming however somebody defines or experiences or expresses themselves. And if I don't affirm how you view yourself, then I'm considered unloving. Now, that's a different view of love that I don't think matches up with a biblical view. So, yeah, Christians are called to be loving. And sometimes that means resisting certain ideas that we see in our culture, which get us called certain names. So in some ways with that said, when I look at the church, we haven't always loved our LGBTQ friends and our neighbors. Well, we failed in that regard. And you've heard me talk about that a lot. And we've had this conversation. So we need to do better at that. But the greatest person who was a lover who ever lived was Jesus. And he understood that loving is to ultimately lay down your life for another.

That's what we're called to do is to follow Jesus. And he modeled that perfectly. What encouragement would you give to a student who goes to church, but just finds it boring? I would say on some levels, I get it. You know, maybe I shouldn't say this, but I didn't always go to church for a season when I was a bi-year old student, especially doubting right or wrong. Looking back, I probably would have chosen to church for a season when I was a Bible student, especially doubting right or wrong.

Looking back, I probably would have chosen to be more engaged. Now, I definitely did not engage Christian community, but I didn't go to church as much as I wish that I had. That's just a complete, honest confession with you. So in part, I would say maybe you're going to a boring church. Like there's some churches that are just more interesting than others. I mean, there are. There's some people that are better teachers. There's worship that's more engaging.

We found a church recently that we love, and I look forward to going in and not feeling well physically, not being able to go. That's been one of the things that actually has been really painful for me. It might be finding another church, but ultimately when it's all said and done, if you feel like you're not getting anything from church, partly I want to say, it's not about you. It's not about you when it's all said and done. We're to go to church to love and care for others it's a certain discipline that we're supposed to do and you know growing up we made you go many times when you didn't want to it's a discipline we chose to do as a family so maybe find another church maybe there's something deeper going on like

maybe you don't like going to church maybe had a bad experience there and you want to surface some of those kind of things that made it bad or when it's all said and done, look for a healthy church, ask around. I mean, anybody who's at Biola, my goodness, there are churches everywhere that we can find if we're willing to put in the effort. So I would definitely encourage you to do so. Many in my generation are fed up with the church being led by hypocrites who just want power. They took the role. Um, they look for role models and can't find any.

What should they do? Well, I think there's a lot of truth in that, that sadly we've seen a lot of stories online. If you watch, what is it? TLC and some of these other shows about Hillsong church. And you hear about some of the other churches, there's these shows that catch a lot of attention, and we see certain mistakes that are made. And so, yeah, I think it's easy to look at that in the generation and feel like the church is just made of hypocrites, and it's not healthy in that regard. I would say, though, I'm going to get to travel and speak at a lot of

churches. There are a lot of good Bible believing churches and pastors that I know who are not in for the power. They're not in it for the money. They are genuinely sacrificially serving. I know dozens and dozens and dozens. So if anybody says that, I get it. Maybe that's their experience. If they have a bad experience at the church, I mourn for that person. But I know from firsthand experience, there are some good, amazing believers and pastors. You've got to find somebody. But if you're upset about hypocrisy, the most famous person who's ever lived,

who resisted hypocrisy, was Jesus. That's what he called the Pharisees. So if you're fed up with the church, just make sure that doesn't become a reason to disengage following Jesus. Because if everybody who's fed up with hypocrisy leaves, then the church is going to be worse. We need people there who will

step in and who will see it and who will recognize it, be willing to call it out graciously, and be willing to be different. How might you encourage a student who feels like they cannot fully trust God? In part, I would say i would encourage this student to maybe reframe their thinking because i'm gonna ask myself do i fully trust god

i mean i have faith in god and i live my life for it but fully i don't know if i fully do i mean i'm sure hopefully i'll look back in five or ten years and be like wow i grew since i was 47 which tells you i probably don't fully trust god in fact i'll give an example uh coach homequist who you're playing for right now our bio basketball coach would often say he'd say he'd say some coaches say give 110 he'd say that's mathematically impossible you watch he's gonna say this he's give 110 percent he'd say that's mathematically impossible you watch he's gonna say this he's already told us he's already said i've heard him say there you go don't say that you say nobody can give 100 you say the key is to get as close to 100 as you can

and that always made sense to me so sometimes after game i think like did i take a playoff should i have been tougher on this one i'd'd ask myself, how do I get closer? I think about faith. I go, do I ever fully trust God? I certainly don't give 110%. I don't give 100%. I'm human. So if it's 60% right now, that 40%, guess what that's full of?

That's God's grace meeting us where we're at. Well, maybe in five years, I can take 60 and it could become 65. And then maybe it can become 70. I can grow in my faith. So I say to somebody who's not, who feels like they can't fully trust God, I'd say, give yourself some grace. Give yourself a break. You're giving yourself an impossible standard that nobody can follow.

I see a lot of students your age leave their faith because they feel like, if I don't have certainty that Christianity is true, then I can't know anything. I want to say, no, it's not about certainty. We can have confidence without knowing everything. Similarly, we can have faith in God without fully trusting God. If you have 51% faith, you have faith. And the part of your prayer should be, God, give me more faith. And how do you get more faith? Well, James 1.5 says, pray for it. And God gives, he gives us wisdom. And the Bible also talks about ways we can develop our faith. So give yourself grace, work through the spiritual disciplines, and over time, you'll be able to trust God more and more and more. So many people who have left the faith,

you know, seem happier. I've seen a lot of, you know, my high school friends go off to different colleges. It seemed like they're, you know, they're having the time of their life. It's tempting to feel like, you know, I'm missing out or we're missing out as a group. You know, I get that. I remember, I do remember feeling that way in college. Seeing some of my friends and I'm thinking, I'm trying to go to Bible school and follow Jesus and they look like they're just having a ton of fun. I can tell you now, having graduated 25 years ago,

where I see them at now is very different than where they were at at 20, 22, 23 years old. So if you see your friends right now and feel that way, yeah, that's the wrong standard to look at. Look at people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, and ask them about their life. That'll give you a very different perspective. And what I found is I think the older I get, I see things differently. I value things differently. And the more I see the richness and the goodness of what it means to follow the Lord in a way I didn't when I was 20,

22 years old. So that person feels that way. I'd say, don't live with your friends. That's wrong standard. Look at people way older. They would teach us an education. They'd say, begin with the end in mind. So think about the kind of life you want to live, who you want to become. Look at older people, a lot of wisdom and experience. And a ton of that is found in the scriptures. And I think that's going to reorient your thinking a lot. So going back to the doubt, how can people doubt well? It's another great question. First thing I would say is, number one, it's just absolutely valid.

You got to tell somebody i had a former student who left and uh he was a student high school and i all of a sudden i found out he was an atheist and he said i shut every out of my life i just read all these books and had to figure it out myself and i said to him i said if you ever start doubting your atheism all i ask is that you allow me to be a part of the conversation. I said, will you? He goes, yes. I said, shake on it. He actually shook on it. Haven't heard from him yet.

But point being, you've got to tell somebody first. Second, give yourself some grace. Give yourself some space. Okay, that's vitally important. Third, try to get to the root of it. And sometimes you get to the root of it through prayer, through reflection, through reading great books. Writers like Henry Nouwen and Philip Yancey

were huge in my spiritual journey. And also having mentors in my life, my resident director at Biola, some of my professors at Biola, my coaches would listen to me. They would ask me questions. They would help me process certain things in my life and make sense of what I really believed and why. So I think there are ways to doubt well. Last question, I promise. What should we say to a friend who

doubts? Here's what I would say. I would say, let's start with what not to say. Don't freak out. Don't be like, what? I can't have met like wrong response. Just say calmly, thanks for sharing with me. And if somebody tells you that they're having doubts, especially at Biola, they probably been thinking about it, agonizing over it for a while. And them telling you

might be a big step. And so don't freak out and go, oh my goodness, I never would expect this. Just simply say, thanks for sharing with me. Tell me about it. And just listen. If I could tell everybody who doubts, those who have a friend who doubts, three things. I'd say, number one, assure them of your relationship. Whether you stay in the faith or not,

or whether you change beliefs, I love you and you're my friend. This changes nothing. Number two, be present in their life. Listen well and just ask good questions. That's it. So assure them that you care. Be present.

Listen. Ask good questions. And then I might even say, hey, of all the people you could tell, why did you tell me? And how can I help you doubt well? Because I'm in and you're my friend and I'm going to be there for you no matter what. That was it.

That was really the last question. Yeah, thank you so much, Dad. This is awesome. All right, good job. Hey hey basketball game coming up don't miss it so sorry couldn't be there in person uh that was one of the hard things about what i've i've been going through a little bit but i'm on the upswing and if i'm on campus please say hi but we'll see you either on campus or the basketball game soon enjoy the rest of the conference god bless go eagles