ALISTER MCGRATH | Rethinking Christianity (Ep. 990)

This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. All right, guys, we got a special guest on the podcast today. His name is Alister McGrath. He is a theologian, Christian apologist, scientist, and author. He's a fellow of the Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford, and he is a very vocal critic of new atheism. So, this guy has debated the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Atkins, Stephen Law, Susan Blackmore, and a whole lot more. He has a new book out now called Rethinking Christianity. It's a fantastic book. And guys, I just got to throw this out there to you. I've I've listened to his work for for quite some time. I've seen some of his debates. I saw the stuff he used to do with uh Justin Brierley and his different shows over there in the UK. Very, very intelligent individual, obviously, but he's he engages the Christian worldview in a very unique and interesting way. He's not just all about the bombastic arguments or trying to get, you know, kind of the clickbaity things. He just wants people to reason with the Christian faith. But it's interesting for him because he didn't always have a Christian faith. So, we talk about that here in this podcast. We talk about new atheism, the four horsemen, so Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, and how he was preparing to debate those people when he kind of became aware of them and, you know, what some of their best arguments were. Like, he actually talked about some different things that maybe stumped him that they brought up. We talked about his new book, why especially young people are really looking at Christianity, giving Christianity a second look. And then towards the end, I asked him about Islam, but I also throw him into some Christian apologetic scenarios. So, it's like some of those top debate topics that people throw out there that would leave a lot of us that don't maybe do this for a living. Maybe you're not a professional Christian apologist listening to this, but you need to have an answer to some of these questions that might be thrown out to you by your atheist coworker or your agnostic sister or something like that. So, we got into all that information. I really, really enjoyed my time with him. So, without further ado, let's get into it. Alister McGrath, I would give you a normal welcome to the show, but this is technically take two because the tech gods of the world are trying to make sure that we don't have a good conversation. What do you have to say about that? >> Well, I say it's great to be with you this time. Let's hope it really works out. I'm looking forward to it. >> That is. I've been looking forward to this as well. Obviously, I've followed your work for a very long time. I got introduced to you by Justin Brierley, who's a good fan of the show. I've been on his show several times. He's been on mine. And so, the interesting thing about you and your pathway to what we're going to be talking about today, which is a lot of stuff in the world of Christian apologetics, new atheism, debating, the new book, all the things. You didn't start out this way. And so, I grew up in Oklahoma, so we were culturally Christian. I call it country music theology. But for you, you weren't always thinking the way that you do now, which is what you encourage your audience to do. And so, I'm just curious if we could just start in your upbringing as a child. Like, what was your view towards God, Christianity, the church, that whole world? And then we'll peel out from there. >> Well, when I was growing up in Northern Ireland, I just assumed that Christianity was part of the landscape. It made no difference to me. I I went to church sometimes, but it wasn't really anything that meant anything to me. And then what happened was, as I began to become older, as I began to realize I wanted to be a scientist, I began to think that, you know, if you're a scientist, you you have to be an atheist because, you know, science and religion, they're at war with each other. And I know that sounds very naive, but that was the way I thought when I was a young man. And so, at the age of about 16, really, I became quite an aggressive atheist. Not really because I'd thought things through very well, but because that seemed to be the obvious culturally acceptable thing to do. So, in many ways, I became an atheist scientist because I did not understand what Christianity was or the difference it made to life. >> Well, Alister, I'm curious for you cuz obviously, you know, you're a theologian, you're a professor, you're a writer, you've studied history, all the different things. If you know anything about the connection between science and Christianity, or you could even call it Christianity and scientism, if you will, there was a tipping point where it went from, "Oh, you're a scientist, well, obviously you believe in God, you believe in the order of the universe and all these things." Where do you feel like the tipping point was, at least colloquially or culturally, to where it's like, "Oh, yeah, you Oh gosh, if you want to be a serious scientist, you got to forget about the spaghetti monster in the sky thing." >> I think it was just as part of my cultural background. The people who I knew well just said it was obviously true that if you were a a scientist, you couldn't do religion. And therefore, because I trusted these people, I I bought into this. It wasn't really something I checked out for myself, but it just seemed to be the way that the intelligent people I knew thought. And therefore, I thought I'd like to be part of that that way of thinking. It seemed to be almost like a sort of intellectual coming of age. And then, I think I began to quite enjoy being an atheist and because it allowed me to look down my nose at my Christian friends and ridicule them for believing in God when they couldn't believe that was true. So, actually, it made me feel all all kind of superior because it seemed to me atheism was just the obvious position for an intelligent person, well, like me. >> Well, and Alister, I was even uh meaning like because some people in our audience is like, "Where do these thoughts come from?" So, I was talking about even like historically, like was it was it the Enlightenment? Was it pre or post-Enlightenment where you kind of had this mix-up to where, you know, science and and belief in God, theism, I guess you could just call it, was simpatico, but then it was just like, "Okay, now these things are oil and water." Is there Is there a time or an instance that we can point to to where it flipped for really all of humanity? >> I think you could say it happened during the 18th or early 19th century. If you go back to the 16th and 17th century, look at people like Isaac Newton, [clears throat] they saw no problem. I mean, Christianity and science were were bedfellows. They They were good friends. They were different, but that that didn't mean they didn't talk to each other. And then when the Enlightenment arrives, we have this growing emphasis on the importance of reason, and also an increasing desire to um marginalize the social authority of churches. And therefore, this idea that science and religion are enemies, that science is the the new order, that scientists are the new intellectuals of our age, uh really began to take quite significant um quite significant role in European culture. So, I would say that we can see this beginning to happen in the 18th century, and becomes really important during the 19th century, when you have this idea of a of competition for cultural authority, both in the United States and here in Britain. Um and the idea was that science wanted to discredit religion to to en- enhance its own cultural authority. >> Yeah, and I think that's interesting uh about what you're talking about in terms of where these ideologies were taking place and where they were taking hold, because for you, you didn't just go from ardent atheism on into your your regular life. You be You kind of started to fancy Marxism, right? And so, if you've done any study uh particularly of what Marxism, communism, any of those types of ideologies did in the 20th century, you could obviously see that there has to be atheism at its core, because there's no accountability. You can't assume that there's a god watching what you're doing. It's just my You basically might makes right. But specifically for you, obviously being an intellectual you know, being driven by the stuff that you studied and the people around you and wanting to be accepted by them, what was it so uh what was so enticing about Marxism to you? >> I think there were two things. One was that it seemed to be trendy. This is what um young people of my age were all doing and therefore it was very easy for me to jump on this cultural bandwagon because it seemed to be the way things were going and I wanted to be on the right side of history. So that that's that doesn't speak very well about myself having but it does indicate I think that a lot of people are shaped by wanting to be part of of what the future's going to look like of wanting to be ahead of the game and that was certainly true of for me. So one it was culturally trendy. But secondly, Marxism had this idea of a big picture. It wasn't just a set of ideas. It really was a bigger picture of reality which made sense of so many things and I rather liked the idea of a a larger vision of reality which made sense of things. So I gave up on Marxism because it just didn't really fit the facts very well but I had this innate longing for a different big picture because I thought the idea of a big picture was really good. And I didn't think I would ever find a new big picture but happily I did and it was called Christianity. >> Well even before we get to your transition to Christianity, I'm curious for you because I've talked to people that used to be you know enforcers in the Soviet Union and different things like that and when they see young people today Alister all across the West talk about the virtues of socialism and communism which obviously all socialist roads lead to a communist end and that's just basically what it is communism just has more guns and more enforcement than socialism does but when you hear young people because it's one thing just just kind of dismiss them Alister as like oh these are soft-headed people they're soft-hearted and and they just don't really know what they're they're talking about. But now we have people that are running for Congress here in my country that are open socialists right even though democratic socialism is kind of like saying jumbo shrimp it's just like a it's a it's a mixture of terms there but whenever you see young people being romanced similar to similarly to how you were I mean, what do you even do? Because it's like the history's there. Like we can see where these things end up. It's not that the ideology hasn't been done right yet yet. It's that the ideology sucks and it's not redeemable. So so what are your thoughts there when you see that? >> Well, I think what you want to begin by saying that this is ideologically very very suspect or a lot of very big problems with this. But then I think we need to ask why is it that this has such an appeal? I think again, the thing I found when I was embracing Marxism as a teenager was this seems to be right. This seems to be the future. This seems to be trendy. All the people who I admire are buying into this. So if you like, there might be part of a desire to be part of a social group that's seen as being trendy or or in effect powerful. So I think that very often when people are assessing worldviews, they're not just looking at the ideas. They're beginning to ask where will the these ideas take me in terms of who I associate with, my political future, and things like that. So it's not simply a question of whether this makes intellectual sense. It's also will this align me with the kind of people who might well be important for my future career if I'm going into politics. >> Yeah, certainly. It's one of those things that whenever you look at a culture and you see what people are saying and some of the the nostrums that they're repeating or the things that are written on the side, it's like, "Golly, how in the world did we end up here?" But obviously for you, you you have this transition from, you know, this ardent atheism into Marxism, but then Christianity became a center point of your life. You know, uh the You believe that when Jesus died on the cross, that somehow counted for you and you're going to stake your eternity on it. And so let's let's talk about that. Like how how did you end up coming to faith in Christ? >> Well, I think the first thing that really made me think about Christianity was um beginning to realize that although I always asked my Christian friends to prove that there was a God, and they couldn't, of course, um I had failed to ask myself that same question. Could I prove that atheism was right? And of course the answer is no. And to begin with I just thought that you don't worry about that kind of thing. It's just so self-evidently true. But then I began to realize actually this is a serious problem. I am in effect critiquing other people for believing in God and not being able to prove what they think. When here am I not believing in God and having no good reasons for saying my views are right. And so I find that very unsettling. It began to make me wonder whether I had perhaps inadvertently bought into a belief system which I thought was simply factual. And gradually I began to realize that it wasn't so much fact versus faith. It was two different faiths. Atheism is a faith and the question therefore is in the battle of faiths, atheism versus Christianity, which of them comes out better. But then you see I went to Oxford University. I think I was a very, very important point. Because at Oxford I met some extremely intelligent Christians, many of whom were natural scientists. And I began to realize that things were not as simple as I had thought. And so I had to begin to rethink everything in my first couple of months at Oxford in the face of very intelligent Christians being able to explain what they believed, give very good reasons for it, and saying look, you know, we're scientists. There isn't a problem about science and faith. So it was a very, very important transitional moment for me. >> Hey guys, real quick. So pretty much everywhere you look right now, all anyone in the fitness and wellness world wants to talk about is peptides. And in the last few years the demand in the market for peptides has gone through the roof. And here's the thing. Most people don't really know anything about peptides. They just know that a lot of people they know are on them and are having great results. And here are a a reality checks as it pertains to peptides. One, you need to know what they are and how they can help you. Two, not all peptides and peptide companies are reliable and safe. 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I'm red all the time. You know, whatever it is. But, at the same time, hearing him talk about faith, it I wasn't planning to ask this, but it's like, okay, when you see people when the scales get removed from their eyes, especially people that are high intellect, high IQ individuals, it's like when they come to faith, it would again, this this is the imputation of of our justification through Christ. Like it's a gift. It's given to us by grace, not you know, not by works so that no man may boast. Because, gosh, I mean, Alister, there are people who are experts in the New Testament. They can tell you everything about the cultural context, the historical context. They know all the archaeological evidence for everything. They believe that Jesus Christ really walked this earth, that he really did 3 years of ministry, uh, you know, in Galilee [clears throat] in his early 30s. They believe he died on a Roman cross. They believe he was put in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. And some of them even believe that he rose from the dead as the most plausible explanation for how the church could even survive first century Rome. But, they themselves have not placed their faith into that reality for their life. So, when you see that, when you see somebody that know, they can read the back of the baseball card, right? They they they know all the things about Jesus, but they don't know Jesus. I'm just curious what that's that's like for you as somebody that, you know, believes that you have to have faith in Christ to make it to heaven. >> Well, I think the thing I discovered really is that, um, you can know what Christianity is. You can, in effect, have a very good idea of what its core beliefs are. But, these are something that somebody else believes, and you don't. I think for me, a a lightbulb moment where I suddenly saw things in a different way is that, in effect, I have to make this transition. This is not somebody else's belief. This is a way of thinking, a worldview, a big picture. And I'm being invited to step inside it and make it my own. In effect, saying, "This is me. I am part of this. I In fact, I I am a no longer who I used to be. I now take on a new identity, a new significance. And that was a very important moment of realization for me. That if you like in some way God was taking hold of me, transforming me, not simply the way I think, but the way I I hope for the future. So, it's a very important moment when you suddenly realize this is transformative. This is about changing my life and saying, that's who I am, that's where I'm going. And you embrace this and allow God to do all this wonderful transformation in your life and in your soul. >> And speaking of transformation, you don't just get transformed from an atheist to a Marxist to a Christian, but at some point along the way you decide that you're going to transform into someone that's going to contend for the faith. That you're going to argue for the faith, you know, because I and I've talked to Christians that get real they get a lot of Pepsi about, you know, Christian apologetics. They're like, we shouldn't have to argue if it was so blatantly obvious. It's like, all right, well, that's a silly thing and again, the Apostle Paul says we need to stand ready to give an apologia for the faith that we have in Christ. What does that mean? Well, you got to learn some arguments, you got to know some stuff. And so for you, you could have just had your career, been a professor, done your thing as a scientist, but instead you went a much different path and you became a very you went from, you know, ardent supporter of atheism to an ardent arguer for the faith in Christ. And so, let's talk about that transformation. >> Well, that transformation really began to happen when I realized that I was an atheist who knew why I was an atheist who became a Christian and knew why I become a Christian. I began to realize maybe I could be helpful to atheists who were doubting their faith or who were beginning to wonder what Christianity was all about. And I thought, well, maybe I could help here. And I I it really is one of these things where it's not simply being able to answer the arguments of other people. It's also about being able to say, "Let me tell you what happened to me. Let me try and explain to you how I now see that my early atheism was because I did not really understand what Christianity actually was." And beginning to develop ways of explaining Christianity to atheists who in effect um I could talk to and try and help move along the road to faith. So if you like my own personal history is very important here because um I was helped to come to faith by Christians who would explain things to me, who would hold me by the hand and lead me along the way. And that's what I'm trying to do now. I'm trying to repay that compliment by in effect trying to help other people who are thinking about faith and see if I can help them move a little bit further along that road that leads to faith and salvation. >> Yeah, and we'll certainly get to the new book Rethinking Christianity a little bit later in the interview because uh I think for a lot of people it's like, you know, no thinking is a part of this because a lot of people think, "Oh, if I'm going to have faith, I just have to kind of turn my brain off and just have faith." It's like every single worldview has has has a faith element to it. Sitting down in a chair has a faith element into it, right? But for you, one of the ways that that your Christian apologetics and and the way that you study and how you make your arguments, how this kind of came to the fore at least culturally was because you started to go up against the new atheists. And I can remember back into the early 2000s when the new atheism movement was starting to really gain steam. And Alister, I just remember Christians being terrified. They're like it was like, "Oh, no, these four really smart guys don't believe in our God. What if they're right?" And I mean they were so concerned. But then I just remember when I first became aware of these people, I'm like, "All right, you know, we got millions of people buying these books basically saying that everything is nothing. That's interesting." But then when you start looking at the arguments, you're like you were like looking around waiting for the camera the camera man to pop out from behind the bush and be like, "Ah, it's all a joke. No one's actually buying this garbage." But but Alister, there were there were millions of people that were bewitched by the four horsemen of new atheism. They even had a cool group name, right? The four horsemen of new atheism. And so for you, I'm just curious, when did you become aware of these four men cuz who is it? It's Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and uh uh the American guy. Sam Harris, thank you. And so these four guys, gosh, they were everybody they were everybody's like, you know, favorite philosopher and all these different things. So I was wondering when did you become aware of them and when you started digging into their arguments for the first time, what were your thoughts? >> Well, that's a really good point. Let me talk about that. I first became aware of this possibly very significant development uh at Oxford back I think it was about 2004 when I was asked to speak at a private debate in Oxford with two opponents, one of whom was Richard Dawkins. And so we had this debate in private. And I began to realize this this could be big. This could be very significant. So I went away from that debate and I began to do two things. First of all, I researched a book on Richard Dawkins' views on science and religion. But secondly, I began to note all the arguments that had been used on that occasion and made maybe maybe respond to each one. In other words, I began to script responses to the various arguments that Richard Dawkins had used at that private debate. And so when The God Delusion appeared in 2006, I was able to actually respond very quickly to it because I'd already worked through the arguments and knew what to say. But here's the point I think we need to make and you've already hinted at this in your very good introduction. The new atheism was aggressive. It was absolutely certain. It was saying no thinking person can be a Christian. But these were simply aggressive assertions. They were not evidentially based. And what we see, particularly in North America, was this kind of cultural mood. Hey, this is the new future. It's not based on evidence or reason. It's simply based on a cultural perception that these guys are saying this sort of stuff so confidently, they have to be right. And it proves something which I'm afraid is very, very depressing in the long history of um of Western culture, which is the guys who say things with complete conviction are the guys who get believed, you know? And we just have to say it's not that simple. Let's look at these things in more detail. >> Alister, it's literally it's like a derivative of the heckler's veto. It's like, "Hey, if I'm really loud about my opinion, that makes me more right than you cuz you're expressing your opinion and calmly." But I mean, a really good uh you know, I guess apologetic you could call it for people if you're trying to evaluate which one two sides, which person is correct, the person that's most calm like it's kind of the same thing. Like, if you run into a guy and violence starts breaking out and he's the calmest one in the room, he's probably also the most dangerous guy in the room because he's just like, "All right, yep, I'm used to all this. This is going to be just fine." So when someone starts yelling their point because they they don't know how to argue it's they're trying to yell so that you're not distracted by the fact that there's no foundation for what they're saying, that their feet are planted firmly in midair. But for you, obviously, like a lot of people don't like debate. They don't like any type of, you know, you know, dissonance or any type of like issues that are going on. So when you're going into one of these debates, and you did some privately, but you also did some very, very publicly, I'm just wondering what it was like preparing for those debates. Because, you know, obviously, if they start doing ad hominem name and, you know, different things like that, like, "Okay, you're going to have to deal with those and that just that also shows that they're losing if they start, you know, attacking, you know, you personally or any of those types of things. But when you're going to debate a Richard Dawkins or a Christopher Hitchens or a Daniel Dennett or somebody else, what was the preparation like? >> Well, the preparation was basically saying they're likely to use these lines of argument. What do I have to say in response? And then of course, I'd also want to ask them. First of all, can you prove to me that you are right? And secondly, what sort of what sort of worldview results from what you're saying? How How does it feel to live like this? And I noticed actually in public debates, atheists were very, very hesitant about saying the kind of world that they wanted us to inhabit. They were just saying Christianity is wrong. That's the end of the discussion. And I wanted to say to them, look, atheism has major problems, but they did not want to talk about that. They only wanted to attack Christianity and they were not receptive to either talking about atheism in terms of its intellectual foundations or the kind of lifestyle that it enabled. So, I find it deeply frustrating. I think it's fair to say. >> Well, and what I was trying to remember the quote as you were saying that I think it might be Chesterton, but it's like when someone's an atheist, it's not that they believe in nothing, it's that they'll believe in anything. I may be messing that up, but I you know, somebody smart said that before. And so, yes, it makes sense that they wouldn't want to talk about their worldview and it really goes all the way to what we saw Richard Dawkins shockingly admit a couple of years ago that he was a quote-unquote cultural Christian. So, he loves the trappings of Christianity. He loves, you know, the ideals that come from Christianity because Christianity is a worldview that you can build society around. It's almost as if it was designed that way. But if you were to take the God Delusion and say, all right, this is my Bible, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to build a society using this book. You can't, right? Because you you can't build anything based on nothing. You can't say, "You are a highly evolved chimp that figured out language, pants, and fire. I am, too. I think this way, you think this way. Which one of us is right? I don't know. Let's just get mallets and beat each other to death, and the guy who wins wins." Like, what exactly are we doing here? It became foolish. But, I'm just curious even for you, considering that Richard Dawkins said that, can you would you be surprised if Richard Dawkins at some point confessed Christ? Because I know God can save anybody, right? He he he chooses who he wants to save, and he can save absolutely anybody, and what a turnaround that would be. But, do you feel like Richard Dawkins like has it like that that he could come to faith? Would it really really shock you? >> Well, let's go back a bit because I think you've raised some very good points there. I mean, at the end of The God Delusion, you have these atheist equivalents of 10 Commandments. And, frankly, they are just banal. They are pointless. They're they're they're they're just useless. And, of course, what's the evidence for believing in them? It's Dawkins, in effect, has to ground his beliefs in something. So, here's the point I want to make. Um Dawkins is clearly saying he likes the fruit of Christianity, but doesn't like the root on which they're based. What I'm saying to him is, "Look, um Christianity is the root in which Christian values are based. You can't have Christian values without the Christian belief in God." So, if you if you love the fruit, you got to love the root as well. And, that means that cultural Christianity is simply um parasitic. It it is it is drawing on the Christian faith and liking its values, but not liking the way you get to those values. So, I think Richard Dawkins himself is in a very difficult position because um in in some of his earlier writings, Dawkins says, "Look, there's no way that science is able to give you moral values or a theory of existence or anything like that." He's backtracked on that a bit, but uh it really realized, I think, that science, his own way of looking at things, wasn't able to help us live good lives. And that's a very important point. That the kind of things that Richard Dawkins thinks really matter in life are not things that science on its own is able to deliver. So, where's Richard Dawkins going to get the stuff from? That's that that is for me the big questions. If, in effect, you're saying, um I only accept what science and reason can prove, well, you're not going to have moral values. You're not going to have any hope in life. So, what I'm really saying to Richard Dawkins is that, with all due respect, you're you are buying into a worldview that is empty. It's meaningless. It it lacks any vision of the good. And what you're doing is borrowing other people's visions of good to be able to sustain yourself. >> Yeah, that's one of the the interesting things is whenever someone makes one of these arguments, I'm like, "Okay, to whose authority do you appeal?" Right? Because I'm I'm not big on apologizing for what the Bible says. Like, I forget who said it first, but I love it. They're like, "Hey, if if you're if you're a pastor or if you're a preacher, you're just the mailman, right? So, if the mailman, Alister, delivered, uh you know, a letter to my door and you know, somebody put a mean note in there, right? And said I was a horrible, mean, nasty, awful person. I'm not going to go beat up the mailman, right? He's just delivering the mail. Like, you know, you can't be mad at the mailman for for the delivery. Now, if he delivers it like a jerk, if he throws it down on the porch and it smacks me across the face, yeah, then okay, we're probably going to have some issues there. But at at the same time, it's like you you can't be mad at the mail. But for the other people, it's like, "Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute. What are you basing what you're saying on? You're appealing to a higher authority, but it's actually inside your own head. It doesn't transcend you, which is so interesting. But uh before we move on to the new books, I want to get to the new book. Obviously, you did your preparation. You did your homework going into these debates. You were very well prepared to deal with the things that they would say. But they had to have said something that caught you flat-footed. You did so many of these debates with with people you debated Susan Blackmore and you know the guy from Reason magazine. You debated all these people. What were some of the best points that they made and did anything they say or throw out to you stump you at any point? >> Well, I think one of the things they they brought up which again is is a fair concern to discuss is how on earth do you guys account for evil? And at the time I I tended to give them the standard answers to those questions. I now see that what I ought to have said is you guys have got no answer either. That in effect, you know, what Christians are able to do is to say we have a way of coping with with suffering and you guys have nothing like that at all. Suffering is for losers. And I think that really we I I failed to make that point clearly. So, I think if I was able to rewind my clock and go back and have that debate again, that's one of the things I would like to focus on. That in effect um the key thing is not offering some kind of rational explanation for suffering the world, but giving us a way of coping with it and also of seeing that in effect Christ's suffering gives us hope in the face of what is otherwise a completely meaningless world. >> Well, and I mean we've had people for thousands of years Alister that have given their answer to the problem of evil. Um I I tend to especially in these you know interactions that can get a little a little tense, a little persnickety if you will. I tend to like to ask questions back of people. Not not only to try to understand where they're coming from. It's kind of like when someone you know you know says I don't believe in God. I'm like, "Would you mind describing what you think God is?" Because I don't I may not believe in him either. But the same thing is like if somebody you know poses the problem of evil is like, "Why does evil matter?" Like what why does it matter that we even see evil? How can we even perceive evil? Cuz then you can back into all the questions of like, okay, well, in order to see something as evil, you have to see it as the absence of the good, right? It's just like darkness. It's the absence of light. And so, I just want to make sure that we're understanding things. And so, that would be uh my, you know, my commercial to people listening to this is don't be afraid to ask questions yourself. Because the person asking the questions is the one that's actually in the control of the debate, not the one that's answering, right? Because if I ask you a question and you answer some other question you wish I had asked, it makes you look foolish, right? And so, as as the person in that interaction, it's probably not going to happen on a stage during a moderated debate, but just be comfortable asking questions of the other person. But within all of this, Alister, is the thing that you brought up a couple of times already, which is how we should be thinking about things. And so, your new book, which is out right now, it's got it's out this week if you're listening to this on time, guys. It's Rethinking Christianity, A Thoughtful Guide to a Life-Changing Faith. So, I want to read a quote from early on in the book, and then we'll move right into the discussion. Why are so many people rediscovering Christianity? Why is a 2,000-year-old way of thinking still so resilient, relevant, and life-changing today? Surely it should not have died of old age, or surely it should have died of old age. There seems little place for an old faith in a culture that is obsessed with innovation. Despite the predictions of some of its critics, Christianity has not faded into obscurity, but is evolving and adopting new forms. Though firmly rooted in the Christian past, these connect with the social and personal needs of the 21st century. That's why so many younger people are now reconsidering the world's largest religion. So, Alister, why this book? Why now? Why you? >> Why not? Why me? Because I had conversations, going back to my debates with the new atheism, with many younger people in their 20s, 30s, who in effect came to visit me in Oxford to talk about Christianity. They wanted to raise questions. They wanted me to explore things with them. And over time, over a period of more than 10 years, I noticed several things. One was the questions changed. To begin with, it was how on earth can you be a Christian and a thinking person? It just doesn't make sense. You know, in effect, this is all about um how should I put it? Um simply um you know, holding on to an old world view is discredited, and they were very much shaped by the agenda of the new atheism. And obviously, I gave them answers. But here's the point. Over time, the questions changed. They changed for two reasons. First of all, they began to realize that the new atheism itself was now fading into obscurity. That in effect, what they had once thought was the future was now simply fading away. And that was making them ask a deeper question, which is is there any anything that abides, anything that it can be trusted, anything that's going to be there in the future? And one of the things that they kept coming back to was their concern that we live in a rapidly changing culture. What is self-evidently true today, you know, in a couple of years' time, it's just what we thought a couple of years back. You know, it's not reliable. And these people were looking for something on which they could build their lives and change themselves without having this threat of how should I put um being shown to be wrong, being shown to be outdated hanging over them. So, there's a new interest in asking what is the difference that Christianity makes to my life? And in many way, Rethinking Christianity is the outcome of these conversations. It's trying to help people to see not simply that Christianity makes sense, but that Christianity transforms lives. And that Christianity's 2,000 year history is not an irrelevance or an embarrassment. It's saying it's existed for 2,000 years for some very good reasons. It's able to meet humanity's deepest needs and give them a new way of life. So, the book is both reassuring Christians, this makes sense, this changes lives, but also speaking to people beyond the church to say, "Look, this is something you really do need to check out. It's here to stay. Try and see what it's all about." >> Well, your approach, Alister, wasn't always the same. You describe in the book how you had a big change along the way. The quote from the book is, "Then an Oxford colleague made a comment that changed the way I taught Christian doctrine." Now, I do want you to go into the story of what your colleague said, but his critique led you to focus on these three questions. I'll list them here. Number one, what is the basis of this belief? What reasons can be given for defending it? Number two, how can I best explain this belief, for example, in preaching or in church study groups? And then the third is, what difference does this belief make to my life? How does it affect how I see myself in the world? How does it change the way that I feel about God? How does it bring meaning to my life? So, let's go back to your Oxford colleague that pointed out perhaps a blind spot in your approach. >> He did, and basically it was a fair comment because I'd focused on saying that Christianity is true. Now, that's a very important thing to do, but there are lots of things that are true that make no difference to life at all. Two and two make four. That's true. But so what? Um I'm British, so I say Queen Victoria died back in 1901. It's true. So what? I began to realize that factuality isn't enough. We need a truth that transforms, something that really is able to bring meaning and purpose and significance to our lives. And I began to realize I've been so focused on defending the truth of Christianity in public that what I'd failed to do was to explain the difference it makes. Difference it makes to me, difference it could make to everyone else listening to me. And so in many ways we're talking about Christianity bringing meaning to life, giving us hope in life, transforming us. In other words, I began to realize you show Christianity's true, but you also show the difference that makes. Now, here's a really important point. There are many people listening to us today who will say, "Well, you know, I'm not sure I could prove that Christianity's true, but I I can certainly tell you the difference it makes to my life." And what I want to say to you is that that's really important because there are so many people who are looking for a life-changing way of thinking that when you begin to talk about the difference that your faith makes to your life, people are going to resonate with that and say, "Tell me more." So, I want to encourage you to think about that, the difference that you can make by talking about the the way in which your faith energizes your life. >> Well, Alister, I think it's funny, too, when people talk about proof cuz I I've seen the interactions. I've seen probably thousands of these interactions with a Christian and an atheist and it's like, "Well, show me the proof. Give me the proof that Jesus actually rose from the dead. Give me the proof that God created everything. Give me the proof proof of this, that, and the other thing." It's like, "Okay." And there's a guy named Cliff. No one knows how to pronounce his last name, but he goes around to these college campuses and he does like these open discussions, open forums with these students. He's been doing it for decades and his son does it with him now as well. And I remember this gosh, this video is probably from the early '90s or something like that and this guy does the whole yelling at him thing. Give me the proof. Show me the proof. Well, Blondi goes, "Hey, buddy, I can't prove that you and I are having this conversation right now. I can't prove that this isn't just some sort of computer simulation. Like, I can't prove anything. We don't We don't live our lives based on proof. We live our lives based on evidence and lived experience." And so, in terms of your approach, do you like that approach of hey, as opposed to focusing on proof, which I don't think we can actually nail down, let's focus on evidence and then also experiences. >> I think that's very important because one of the key points that I make in this book is that the truths that really matter to us, whether you're an atheist or Christian, are things you can't prove. So, I don't want to say is look, atheists have a lot of beliefs they don't really care to acknowledge, and they can't prove that they are right. The The things that matter in life that really matter lie beyond proof. And Christians are just very honest about this. We talk about faith. We talk about believing in God. And what I'm saying to my atheist debaters is, look, can you be equally honest and say you know, that that your you are believing there is no God. You can't prove it's true. All of us believe stuff. The question is, which faith is the best? What's the best evidence? What's the best reasoning? Realizing you can't actually prove that this stuff is true. And when you see it that way, everything is changed. I think the key point to make here is that whether you're an atheist or a Christian, you believe stuff. And the question is, which are the best beliefs? >> Certainly. And And what beliefs do you want to stake your entire life by? I remember having a conversation with a buddy of mine who has now come to faith in Christ. He actually expressed it at my interview table, which was just absolutely mind-blowing. But I remember at one point he got very, very angry with me, very frustrated, and he said some not so nice words, and he's basically like, "Hey, I don't know why you care so much about whether or not I believe in God." And what I when I looked at him, Alister, I said, "Well, because if you're right, you and I are both just chimps, and we're both going to be put in pine boxes and then be put in the ground when you know, when we die, the lights just go out, and that's it." But I'm like, "But if I'm right and you're wrong, it's eternity, brother. And I love you too much not to tell you about it, right? I'm trying to warn you. I'm trying to, you know, be the the check engine light on your vehicle here. And I think that that's an an okay thing for Christians to kind of think through as they're doing that." Uh one thing I was going to tell you as well, on our website, we have a book list. So, it's one of the first things we did as a ministry. It's the 100 books every modern Christian man should read. And they're broken into different categories. We've got apologetics, we got philosophy, we got money, we got marriage, we got, you know, uh literature, all the different things. But there's only one author that has his own section in this list, and that's C.S. Lewis. And so obviously C.S. Lewis is a very, very important author to Christendom writ large, uh arguably the the greatest writer, uh if not, you know, one of the most prolific of the 20th century. And his influence redounds to this day. Like whenever you have little kids that are growing up reading The Chronicles of Narnia, uh when you have adults that are really trying to understand their faith, and then they discover Mere Christianity, right? Like as if it's been like finding them, it's been like a heat-seeking missile trying to find them for their whole life. Boom, and then it hits them at the right moment. And then you also obviously have all of the other works. You spend a lot of time thinking about, lecturing about, and writing about the writings of C.S. Lewis. Uh and so I'm just curious why he has such a profound and indelible impact on you, cuz not everyone's a huge fan, but, you know, you and I are, and so I'm just wondering for you, why did C.S. Lewis speak to you so much? >> Well, I I'll tell you. It's a very good question. Um when I became a Christian back at Oxford University, I mean I I I began to think through my faith. And I had lots of questions. They're all perfectly reasonable questions. Why do Christians believe this stuff about the Trinity? It just doesn't make sense, you know? And my poor Christian friends just They said, "Look, Alister, go and read C.S. Lewis." Now, I have to say, I didn't actually know very much about C.S. Lewis back then. Um I knew he'd written a book about a lion, but that was about as far as it went. So I went and bought a book by C.S. Lewis. It was called They Asked for a Paper. It was a list of addresses. And I began to read them. And let me tell you, let me tell you this. I mean, by the time I'd finished that book, I suddenly realized, "Hey, Christianity really makes sense. Hey, this is very exciting. I like this guy. I'm going to start reading him." And you know, I'm still reading him to this day. It was 1974 when I first read Lewis, and really he's become a traveling companion of my walk of faith, someone who is a trusted friend who really helps me. And I can just agree with you, you know, he is so good. He he's he speaks language that we can understand. He deals with the questions you and I really want answered, and he uses such eloquent and simple language that he just draws us in. So, I can entirely understand why you have a second separate section on C.S. Lewis, because he he just is so good. >> Uh so, let's say the family of C.S. Lewis came to you. They're like, "All right Alister uh we're done with all these books. We're tired of selling stuff. We're tired of stacking all the money. We're going to get rid of all the books. We're going to lose them to history, but we'll let you pick one. We'll let you pick one work. It doesn't have to necessarily be a book, but one thing that C.S. Lewis wrote, and that's all that humanity gets going forward. All right, everything else we're just going to like poosh, you know, Men in Black, you're not going to remember it. If there was one thing, and you were in charge of the one-man committee, what's that one book you're leaving for us?" >> Oh, this is a difficult question, but I'm going to answer it. It would have to be Mere Christianity. Now, I know you're going to say, "Look, there's so many others you could have chosen." But I'll tell you why I chose that one. It's simply that it is so beautifully written. It has this beautiful description of what Christianity is all about, and it draws you in. I mean, you know, Chuck Colson, when he heard Mere Christianity being read to him, suddenly said, "That guy's talking about me." And I know exactly what he means. So, for me, Mere Christianity would be the one book I'd recommend, and it's such a blessing there are so many others as well, but that's the one I would save from the scrap heap, if I had to. >> That's the one I would do as well. For all intents and purposes, that's his magnum opus. And I mean for for people that are like cuz I challenge men all over the globe. I'm like, you should always look back on who you were 5 years ago and be at least a little embarrassed. Like, wait a minute, I thought that way. Wait, I thought that was a good idea. I wore those. Like, you should always do that. But at the same time, we should read books that are a little bit beyond us, right? That that challenge us in some way. I mean, I read a book years ago called Genesis and the Big Bang. It's like, I don't think I'm smart enough to read this, but here goes nothing. And then I just launch into this highly, you know, dense textbook for a guy like me that doesn't really have a scientifically wired brain. And Mere Christianity is just off enough from modern English to where if you just turn your brain off for a few pages, you got to just go back. You got to pick the thread back up. But yes, it's absolutely a genius level. Now, Alister, before we get you out of here, I'd be remiss if I was speaking to a professional Christian apologist and I didn't throw out some scenarios to you and didn't throw out some of some of the questions that are really really popular because again, I want the men in this audience to be ready, not be caught flat-footed when one of their atheist friends or some rando in culture throw something at them and they don't know exactly what to say. So, you good with approaching some of these topics with me? >> have a go. >> All right. One of the one of the first ones and I've seen this one a lot is, you know, we talk about creation, all the different things. Okay, God created everything. And then the atheist will say, "But who created God?" So, Alister, who created God? >> Well, the answer simply is the buck has to stop somewhere. And God is the one who's always been there, who's brought this world into existence, who brought us into existence, and who says you really matter, and I want you to be with me for eternity. It's a very, very important thing. There's no logical inconsistency in saying there's a starting point for this whole process. Everything suggests that it all goes back to one thing. You know, if we were having this conversation 100 years ago, people would have bought into the idea the universe has always been here. The idea of creation is simply nonsense. Today, the idea the universe came into existence, that's the way things are. So, I I don't think there's a problem with this. The great news is the guy who made all of the stuff we see around us, he cares for each of us. We matter to him. >> Hey guys, real quick. I just wanted to remind you that we have an official Undaunted Life store. You can go to shop.undaunted.life or check it out in the show notes. Guys, we're always going to have hats and shirts and a bunch of other awesome stuff. Go there, support us, wear the mission. Again, it's shop.undaunted.life. Check out the link in the show notes. shop.undaunted.life. Absolutely, love that. All right, the next one that I've heard a lot is, "Hey, you know what? If this God guy really wanted a relationship with me, then why doesn't he just make his existence more obvious? Why doesn't he write my names in the in in the clouds and say, 'Hey John, you believe in me. I I you know, I believe in you. I made you.' Why does God have to kind of hide behind all this mystery?" >> Well, God isn't really hiding. God is doing everything he can to make himself known. And what more could he have done than really enter into our history in Jesus Christ, suffer and die on the cross, and and have thousands more of people at the time saying, "Hey, look at this." And zillions now who can say, "We can tell about God." So, what I want to say is every Christian you meet is a witness to who God is and what God has done. He's making it as obvious as possible. Look at all these transformed lives around you. Might this also be pointing to what might happen to you. So, look around you to the natural order. Look at See God speaking to you and Christians around you who can say, "I can tell you the difference that God makes to you. >> Very good. Next one up. How could a good and [clears throat] loving God really cast people into an eternal hell? >> Well, this is a big question, but the way I begin to answer is to say that we're talking about God of love. And the God of love is saying, "Look, um you guys matter to me profoundly. The reason that Christ is dying on the cross is because I care for you so much and I am offering you all of this. I'm offering you this in love. Will you say yes? It's very much an offer. And you know, if we want to say no, well, that's very sad, but you know, there's an offer there and God isn't forcing himself upon you. The issue is, "Look, I want to help. I want you to be my friend. I want to love you. Over to you." So, it's really the ball is in our court. >> Yeah, and I think as well when you when you talk to about people, it's like, "Wait, people are sending themselves to hell." Like, wasn't it C.S. Lewis? Didn't he say that hell is a place that's locked from the inside, right? And so, it's like, you know, "Hey, it's you know, God's like, look, it's my will be done." But then finally, these people that just want their will done, God grants them that and says, "Sure." So, he hardens Pharaoh's heart, which doesn't mean that Pharaoh had his heart hardened against his will. It's that Pharaoh's heart was already hard and then basically, God stamped it and said, "All right, you're just going to have a hard heart. If you want it your way, we'll have it your way." Now, one of the things that comes up a lot and this one really really catches a lot of people flat-footed, Alister, is what about all the violence and slavery in the Old Testament? Now, what I've described to people is, you know, when you say slave, automatically, especially here in this country, we think of the the African slave trade where African tribes, you know, captured other Africans and put them in cages and put them on the beaches and they were sold to to white people and then they were sent over to South America and America and the way across the globe and all the different things. They don't have any regard for the word doulos meaning bondservant, not a shadow slave, or any of those types of things. And so, when they say it, they're just saying it cuz they know it sounds bad. And you know, when all the violence is discussed, they're not really understanding the context of any of that violence. And so, there's a lot of of misgivings and their question is not exactly fair. But when someone brings up the quote-unquote atrocities of the Old Testament, how do you respond? >> I respond with saying, "This is what human beings are like, unfortunately. That in effect there's something deep within us as human beings which makes us oppress other people, makes us do violence. And that's why God is trying to do something about us, making us better people, helping us to challenge these things." And I think that's a very important point because if you think about what God does to try and sort the situation out, he takes an act of violence, the the ruthless crucifixion of Christ, and through that act of violence is opening up a new way of living for all of us. So, for me Christianity is absolutely honest. Human beings are violent. We need transformation. And it is only through what God does on the cross in Christ that you and I can be healed of this propensity for violence. There's much more that needs to be said, but that's the first thing I'd want to say in getting that conversation going. >> All right, very good. Now, this next one is made in a lot of different kinds of ways, but there are Look, all the accounts that we have of Jesus' life. Yeah, I heard you say we got more accounts of Jesus than we do of Julius Caesar, all the things, blah blah blah. But look, Kyle, these are written down decades and decades after the man lived at the earliest. And some people would even claim, "Actually, it was hundreds of years later, right? I mean, these were all fables and they were made up and so there were no eyewitnesses left to say, 'Actually, no, that's not how that happened.'" So, there's a lot of versions of this, but ultimately it's the same thing. How can we trust any of the ex- accounts of Jesus's life cuz they were written down so long after his life? Why didn't Jesus write all this stuff down if was if it was so important? How would you respond? >> Well, I think Jesus was rather doing other do so busy doing other things. He hadn't time to do this. But, here's the point I'd want to make. Um the early Christians memorized what Jesus said, and we find that difficult to accept, but in the oral culture of the time, this was the way it was done. They remembered the stuff, and they passed these memories on, and those were then written down. But, the key point is the the memory of Jesus was kept alive in the Christian community. Everything he said, everything he did, precisely because it was so important. And eventually, these things were written down. But, hey, if you look at the memoirs of Roman emperors, there's a huge gap between the events and the writing. It's just the way it was in the ancient world. What we see in the New Testament is people in fact solidifying their memories of Jesus, putting them down on paper. And of course, you also have the letters of Paul, for example, which are very early indeed. And these are saying, here's the difference that Christ makes. So, we have two things in the New Testament, what Jesus did, why Jesus is so important. They're both there for us to reflect on. >> Well, now Alister, when someone asks that question, it's clear it's kind of revealing a post-enlightenment worldview and a new way of thinking because right now if if I want you to prove that something happened, I need sources, I need videos, I need all these different attestations to this one event. We don't understand what it's like to be a oral culture where almost everybody's illiterate. We don't understand that because in our culture, most people are literate. They can read and write. They can understand these kinds of things. And so, for us, we don't remember but one or two phone numbers. And and so, we can't even fathom how people could remember entire swaths of scripture, how children memorize the Torah, or any of these kinds of things. And so, it's just it's not the same thing. We're we're trying to make it apples and apples to the the world we're living in today, but that's just not where we are. Now, Alister, we're running up against time here, so it's probably unfair for me to throw this at you at the very end, but let's move off the Christian apologetics thing. I want to ask you about Islam. And so, I've had you know, I've talked about that a lot on this show. I think the the final battle where we're talking about, you know, the end times eschatology, it's not going to be, you know, Christianity versus wokeism or versus Marxism even. It's going to be versus fundamentalist Islam, right? I think that's where all of this is heading. Obviously, you're in the UK. We see the videos over here of what's going on over there. We have the unchecked immigration, legal and illegal, that's spread certainly all throughout Europe. There's the massive issues of groups that are not assimilating. There's obviously the issues of Muslim fundamentalist violence, all these different things. And apparently, Christians just can't hold any ideas in tension. It's like, you know, we can hate Islam without hating Muslims. You know, we can do that because you can't hate a Muslim and evangelize them at the same time. It doesn't really work. But I'm just curious for you seeing what you've seen, knowing what you know about history, I'm not sure how familiar you are with really the the breadth of of the Crusades and, you know, the how all those started and all those different things. But basically, Islam has been running the same taqiyya playbook since the 600s, right? Where it's like either spread Islam through conquest or through faking assimilation and then eventually taking over. And so, gosh, it just seems like the playbook is being ran again here in the 21st century. I want to know what your read is of it. >> Well, my read of it is that this is a uh major challenge to Christianity and that we need to find the best possible arguments we can use to engage Muslims. I It's not an area in which I specialize, I'm afraid. I mean, really my own field is science and religion. What I would say to your listeners is this is really important. And what I would say particularly is if anyone listening to me is a Christian who began their life as a Muslim, your history can be a very important part of your of your ministry and we need exactly that kind of ministry in today's situation. So, you know, if you have that right background, there's a lot you can say and we need to hear from you. >> I would absolutely agree with that and and the thing about it is this ministry was put on this I believe I was put on this planet to equip men to push back darkness. And for the men listening to this, you can't push back darkness if when you see it, you run from it or if you just refuse to see it. You cover your eyes, you plug your ears, you just say, "Oh, this can't be happening." No, it's happening and it's happening right in front of your face and the only way it gets pushed back is if you decide you're going to help push it back, right? God can move mountains, you got to bring a shovel though, right? God can do whatever he wants to do, but for whatever reason he's decided to use the apple of his eye, his creation, his image bearers to do his will on this planet and to take dominion. So, Alister, I've really enjoyed this conversation. We weaved in and out of a lot of different subject matters, but that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? >> It's been really good speaking to you. Thank you ever so much. >> Great having you. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Alister, but before I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost. At Undaunted.Life, our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Couple links for you. Got a link to where you can check out Alister's website and a link to where you can buy your copy of Rethinking Christianity. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming. www.undaunted.life. The music on this podcast is the song Conqueror by the Christian metal band Void A Waken. Be sure to stream their music on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever else you get your music. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah. >> For the Lord >> [music]