Heath Lambert: Today we are talking about the problem of atheism, the problem of unbelief, and how to engage a culture where the unbelief of atheism is increasingly in the forefront of what we’re dealing with as Christians. Our guest on the podcast this week is Sean McDowell. He is a professor of apologetics at the Talbot School of Theology, an author, and a man who has spent a lot of time engaging atheists. We are really glad that you’re here with us this week on the podcast.
I want to ask you a few questions about this issue of engaging atheist and the first question is, what are some of the reasons that Christians are intimidated about engagement with atheists?
Sean McDowell: This is a great question because I found a lot of Christians are intimidated, that’s the best word, to have conversations, to read their books, and I think the main reason is because Christians don’t really know what they believe and why. Studies have actually shown recently that atheists know more about world religions, more facts related to religion than Christians do. So, I think since we’ve in the church a lot of times love God with our hearts, love God with our souls, but don’t really love God with our minds and take seriously questions, “like why does God allow evil? How do we know the Bible is true? How do science and faith intersect? How is Jesus the only way?” We’re afraid that an atheist is going to press us on this and that we won’t have an answer and will look bad, as a result, we just hang back. So, to me, I think one of the most helpful things to gain the confidence to not be intimidated is just simply to know what we believe and why.
Second, a lot of Christians are intimidated because they don’t know any atheists. They’ve seen stereotypes, they’ve read their tweets, they’ve seen their blogs. They feel like an atheist might hate Christians or something, but that’s a stereotypical view. So, since they don’t actually know him, it’s a class rather than individual. So, knowing what you believe and then taking the time to build relationships with people, realize you’ll have much more in common with them than you do differences.
Heath Lambert: Let me come with that a different direction, because some Christians are not intimidated at all by atheists, and they come at atheist from a very different direction, and they wind up saying and doing things that are embarrassing, at best, and unbiblical, at worst.
What are some of the biggest mistakes that you’ve seen Christians make? After they get over any intimidation that they have about engaging in atheist, now they’re having the conversation, they’re asking the questions, what are some of the biggest mistakes you see Christians make in that context?
Sean McDowell: Well, we are supposed to argue for our faith, but were not supposed to be argumentative; those are very different things. Sometimes, on the flip side, as you indicated, people get so much knowledge that it puffs up. Some people are just waiting for an opportunity to prove that the atheist is wrong and that’s just as much of a mistake as not having a conversation. Yes, we’re supposed to speak truth, but Scripture makes it clear that we’re supposed to speak that truth in love. I actually tell people, if you’re going to study apologetics and learn it, but you’re not really motivated to, number one, to have your own understanding grow and number two, to be a voice of love to people, then don’t even get into conversations. You’re going to do more harm than good.
So really, what Apologetics does is it’s just a ministry of helping Christians who have questions and doubts or clearing away roadblocks for non-believers so they can understand and see who Jesus is. That’s it. So, I think the mistakes are when people just want to win an argument, want to prove how smart they are rather than really love people and help them understand truth.
Heath Lambert: So, you’ve got a super kind Christian who engages atheists, but they say stupid things. If you were king and you could banish some things, a thing, that you hear Christians say all the time to atheists that you think, maybe they say it in love, but when they say it, it does more harm than good, what would you banish Christians from saying?
Sean McDowell: That’s a tricky one. You know, it’s interesting though, even though we say dumb things, I think God still uses it. I could tell you stories. I don’t want Christians to feel like, “I’ve got to have all these answers lined up and figured out before I engage” I think that’s also a mistake that people make.
I guess, in principle, it’s not just one thing Christian say; we get caught up on secondary issues that don’t matter as much. So, I’m going to say one, probably controversial to your audience. We will die on the issue of evolution. I’m not saying it’s unimportant, but if Jesus Is God, and he rose from the grave and evolution happened in some fashion, Christianity is still true. The heart of my faith is in who Jesus is, and that Jesus is risen from the grave. Now. I don’t personally believe in evolution, and it raises very important questions like the historical Adam, how old is the earth? I’m not saying those are unimportant, but sometimes we get caught up with atheist trying to disprove certain things and talking about secondary issues when, at the end of the day, I want to say, “who is Jesus? What does that mean for our life?” and then we can get to these important, but secondary, issues.
Heath Lambert: Good. Okay, what are the main reasons why someone is an atheist?
Sean McDowell: It’s important for Christians to realize that people can be atheists for a lot of different reasons. Now if you ask someone why they’re not a believer, they almost always give you intellectual reasons, and I think it sounds more sophisticated to give that answer, and I think that’s a part of it. But interestingly enough, there was a study about skeptics in college, and this was in the Atlantic Monthly and they interviewed atheists and most of them said it was around the ages 14 to 15 years old, and their atheism began when they had an emotional experience. One girl, said, “the day my abusive father died, I stopped believing in God” so many people are atheists because they’ve been hurt, they’ve never had a loving father and so the idea of a heavenly Father is just not even appealing or attracted to them.
In fact, there was a massive study by a psychologist named Paul Vets of some of the greatest atheists of all time, Freud, Nietzsche, Marx, Khemu. He said, “they all had a dead, distant, or harsh father, all of them. So there can be relational issues, there can be emotional issues, and there can be experiential reasons. It can be that somebody goes to church and feels like Christians are hypocrites, It can be moral reasons; I had somebody tell me the most honest thing, he goes, “I don’t have any objections to what you’re telling me about God, but why would I give up some belief when I have 10 girls I’m texting who will regularly sleep with me.” He just owned it; I mean I’ve never seen somebody so honest, I’m like, “Wow, thank you for your honesty.”
So, the bottom line is if I’m speaking to an atheist, I want to find out, “what’s the heart of your reason?” Is it really intellectual? Okay, let’s talk about it. Is it really moral? Is it experiential?” So, it’s important not to just assume we’ll all atheists having the same objection, every individual atheist is unique, everyone has a story by listening to them and trying to get to the heart of it. We can at least address it, but also realize sometimes it’s spiritual blindness.
Heath Lambert: Well, and that gets right to the issue of what we’re concerned about in a ministry like at ACBC where we’re thinking about counseling ministry because it teaches us that we need to listen to folks and hear them out. We want to we want to get to know people and in the context of relationship, that’s going to teach us that maybe our most important argument is not what Genesis 1 says about the days of creation, but is what Jesus does in the midst of the pain of the loss of a father.
Sean McDowell: I think that’s right. That’s powerful. People often ask me, “so, how do I minister to an atheist?” I say, probably the same way you would to anybody. Listen. My dad taught me that it’s more important to understand than to be understood. We always want to be understood. If I’m speaking with somebody, tell me your story, where are you from, do you believe in God? Why not? What’s your understanding of the Gospel? What are the big questions that you have? Are you open? Can I try to help with this? I’ve had people say, “no”, and I say, “great. I’m not going to waste my time. Let’s go watch a basketball game. Fine. When you’re open, let’s have this conversation.” In other people, when we really listen and showed genuine interest in them, I think would be amazed at how many would be open to us just sharing the gospel.
Heath Lambert: I think about how Jesus let the rich young ruler walk away. He didn’t go, “wait, what about making it a half” or “how about 25%”? I mean, He just let him walk away, and I have probably 15 or 20 stories where people that I’ve known who were resistant to having a conversation about the Bible, about Jesus Christ, about spiritual things, when you let them walk away, but show love to them in a different direction, they’ve warmed up, and I’ve always been able to have at least a good relationship with those people.
Sean McDowell: But here’s the key, when they’re open, which often means something goes bad in their life and they start asking questions, are you the person they’ll come to because you’re thoughtful and because you’re loving? That’s the question. I ask myself of people in my world, if they’re not interested in God, when they are, am I going to come to their mind and are they going to call me?
Heath Lambert: We have said even here in our office who’ve kind of run away from the faith run away from the Lord and what I’ve said to folks is, “hey, you love them so well that when they get done with their prodigal life, they remember that nobody loved them anywhere as well as we loved them, and they’ll come back.”
What about parents? What about our children thinking about a new generation coming behind here? What are some things parents can do with their kids to equip them for this kind of culture?
Sean McDowell: The first thing parents need to do is to equip and train themselves. We can only pass on to kids what we first have. Second, create a climate, a culture in which questions are invited within your family. They’re okay. When you look at a lot of studies like Sticky Faith from Fuller Theological Seminary, a lot of kids who leave the faith say that “I never felt permission to ask questions and I never felt room to doubt.” Doubt itself is not caustic to faith, but it’s unexpressed doubt that eats faith away. Create a climate in which questions are welcomed. Third, be intentional with your kids. I’ll see movies with my kids, I will engagement conversation. If something comes up in the news, I’m always sharing it with my kids. I send my kids to the best conferences; I’ll give a plug Summit Ministries. Wonderful. If your kids are 16 to 20 to send them, send them to Summits. Its 12 days, game-changing worldview experience for students. So, taking advantage of those resources or it’s being very intentional is the way to do it with your kids.
Heath Lambert: You and your father spent three years updating and revising Evidence that demands a verdict.
Sean McDowell: This was such a joy. Because everywhere I go, somebody will talk to me about how either God used that book to draw them to faith or to keep within the faith when they had questions. To partner with my dad to update this for new generation was really humbling. I wanted to get it right because so many people rely on this book. We got 12 leading scholars in the world, Craig Blomberg, Mike Lakota, people like that and 36 grad students to research, edit, write and put together one volume where somebody could have it either to read or as a reference for, how we know the Bible’s true, Jesus rose from the grave? Jesus is the son of God, the Old Testament events happened, this is a single resource that brings all that evidence together and I feel really good about it. I mean, it’s done well, and it just says that people are asking these tough questions today. So that’s the book Evidence that demands a verdict that just came out this past fall and has already actually sold more than the publisher projected for the full year, which just kind of tells me, it’s hit a nerve. People are having these questions and we got to be ready to share that with our kids.
Also, the book is also about 70% new. So, to give some context, I asked my dad. He’s been like 55 years with Crusade. I said, when you first started in the 50s to 60s research in the evidence, how does that compare with the evidence we have today? I’ll never forget what he said, he goes, “Son, we have a tsunami of evidence.” That’s so encouraging.
Heath Lambert: That is encouraging.
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