Frank Turek Answers BIG Questions About Christianity
Inside This Episode
In this interview, one of America’s leading Christian apologists, Dr. Frank Turek, tackles the toughest questions he receives from skeptics head-on. Drawing from years of engaging with college students and atheists, Frank explains why he believes Christianity is not only reasonable, but the best explanation for truth, morality, and the hope we all long for.
Plus, Pastor Eric's comments on Charlie Kirk's death.
Read Dr. Turek’s new children’s book ➜ https://bravebooks.us/products/milos-mission-1?srsltid=AfmBOoopOG9UHyeonnPObFYPBsOo58ldksGzs3_cKA1hGQ8gcxeRRK_b
More from Dr. Frank Turek ➜ https://crossexamined.org/dr-frank-turek/
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Transcript
Eric Huffman: What are the biggest objections to Christianity today?
Dr. Frank Turek: People aren't asking as much, is Christianity true? They're more asking, is Christianity good? They don't want it to be true. They're not on a truth quest, they're on a happiness quest.
Eric Huffman: What are the major holes in the atheist worldview?
Dr. Frank Turek: Atheists have a problem with the virgin birth of Jesus, but they have no problem with the virgin birth of the universe.
Eric Huffman: And why would a good God allow innocent people to suffer?
Dr. Frank Turek: Suffering conforms people to the image of His Son. God can redeem all of this for good, even good that we can't see right now.
Eric Huffman: Today, one of America's leading Christian apologists, Frank Turek, tackles these very questions and much more.
Before we get started, I wanted to share some thoughts about the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10th, 2025. Our guest today, Dr. Frank Turek, was very close with Charlie. They often traveled together, defending the Christian faith on college campuses across the country. In fact, when Charlie was killed, Frank was standing just a few feet to his right, filming on his phone.
We recorded this interview with Frank about a week before Charlie's death. At that time, of course, no one could have imagined how the world was about to change. Despite what some have been saying in the media and online, Charlie Kirk was the farthest thing from a hateful extremist. He valued dialogue and always gave those who disagreed with him a microphone to state their case.
Even though he knew that he was putting his life on the line by publicly sharing his biblical views on touchy issues like gender and sexuality and the sanctity of human life and other controversial topics, Charlie did it anyway, and he paid the ultimate price, leaving behind a wife and two small children.
The past few days have been gut-wrenching and chilling, especially for people like today's guest, who frequently defends the Christian worldview in public spaces like college campuses. I couldn't be more grateful for men like Charlie Kirk and Dr. Frank Turek, and many others who put themselves in harm's way to speak the truth and love.
I hope you'll join me in praying for Charlie's family and for all those who love him, and even in praying for the troubled people who've been celebrating his death. Our country is clearly divided, and I think we need Jesus now more than ever.
Okay, now let's get started with our interview with Dr. Frank Turek.
Dr. Turek, welcome to Maybe God. It's so good to have you here. You are a brave, brave man. I've watched you for years do these talks and Q&A forums and college campuses and other challenging environments. Tell us why you do what you do.
Dr. Frank Turek: I'm not brave, Eric. I was just brought up in New Jersey. So, you know, you don't mind talking to people. Why I try and bring the evidence for Christianity to college campuses, high schools, and churches is because I came to faith through evidence. I came to faith through apologetics. In fact, I was brought up in New Jersey, as I mentioned, and so I was Catholic because it's the law. You're either Catholic, Jewish, or you're a skeptic in New Jersey.
I always knew there had to be a God because I knew there had to be a first cause, but I never knew who Jesus was. And it wasn't until I was in flight school in the Navy that I met the son of a Methodist minister, and I had so many questions for him. He finally said, "Look, you just need to get Josh McDowell books, Evidence Demands a Verdict in More Than a Carpenter."
This was 1985. And so I got those books and I read them and I said, "Well, it looks like Christianity is true." And when I got out of the Navy, I met Norman Geisler, who at the time was the Michael Jordan of apologetics, and was starting a seminary here in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I still am.
And so in 1993, my wife and three sons and I, we moved from the DC area to Charlotte to go to that seminary. And Dr. Geisler and I wrote a couple of books. One's called Legislating Morality. The other is called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. And then in 2006, I started a ministry called crossexamine.org, where we go to colleges, high schools, and churches and present the evidence largely from the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. And then we take a lot of questions.
And so we have a YouTube channel where we have about 2,500 videos. Many of them are Q&A videos from the college campus. And that's what you're seeing when you see us on social media. Most of it's Q&A from the college campus.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, it's the coolest thing and keeps me sharp as well. I watch them all the time and I encourage everybody watching this interview to check out Cross-Examined YouTube channel and see more of Frank in action. There's really nothing like it when you get on a roll. It's something to see. Even if somebody doesn't agree with everything you have to say, it is a marvel to behold when you get going and when you're on your game. So encourage everybody to check that out.
Personally, I will say part of my story is I was a pastor before I was a Christian. So I was the son of a Methodist pastor, like the guy you mentioned. Went into ministry. I just thought that's what Huffman men do because several generations before me had and I didn't know what else to do.
But I became a social activist. I was a left-wing social activist and I used the pulpit as sort of my channel to do that. I did not believe in anything really supernatural. I didn't believe Jesus physically rose from the dead. And then had a pretty powerful experience in the Holy Land in 2013. And on the way home, on the flight home, somebody had given me Tim Keller's book, his apologetics sort of primer.
Dr. Frank Turek: Reason for God.
Eric Huffman: Reason for God. The second book I read was, my best friend gave it to me here in Houston, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. And that was powerful for me. And if you're watching this and haven't read that book, I mean, if you like Tim Keller's stuff and other sort of surface-level apologetics, Frank's book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, will rock you. It goes a lot deeper. I just appreciate your work.
What I find is when people get into apologetics or are drawn to it, it's because they themselves are doubters. I know that's the case for me. I'm by nature a skeptic. I always ask questions. I find myself coming back to the same question cyclically sometimes. I preach and teach apologetics, in part to keep myself sharp.
Dr. Frank Turek: Sure.
Eric Huffman: Asking questions. Is that part of it for you too? Do you?
Dr. Frank Turek: Oh, sure. I think this is true when we preach, too. A lot of times we preach on subjects that we're interested in and we want to investigate and we want to make sure that we're believing the right thing. And so I think pastors and speakers like me, sometimes we minister to ourselves by investigating certain questions or certain passages. So yeah.
And I think apologetics, and apologetics just means you're given a reason for the hope that you have from 1 Peter 3:15, given evidence, I think it serves a couple of functions. One is, it helps the skeptic to see that there is evidence for Christianity and Christianity is true. But probably more often than not, it helps the already believer. When they go through difficult times, they go, "Okay, I know this is true, even though I'm having a difficult time. In fact, I was promised in the Bible to have a difficult time. So I should expect persecution."
But it's really hard for the mind... or let me put it another way. It's really hard for the heart to rejoice in what the mind doubts. And so it's important, I think, for our own edification and discipleship to get answers, but it also helps people who are not quite Christians yet to see there is evidence for this.
Eric Huffman: You think doubts are sin?
Dr. Frank Turek: Not necessarily. In fact, who says... is it Peter or James? Maybe James says, be merciful to those that doubt. I mean, doubt, if it's intellectual doubt, that's not a sin. You're trying to discover answers. You're trying to figure out if something's right, if something's true. That's not a sin. Actually, doubt can drive you to get answers. And that can help other people with doubts, too.
That's why when somebody like Richard Dawkins writes the book, The God Delusion, which by the way, was a terrible book. It didn't really have arguments; it had complaints. But even if he were to make a good point that seems to be against Christianity, it can drive a Christian to get answers to that point. So here a Christian is becoming closer to God because of something an atheist said, right?
So I think doubts can drive us to get closer to God if we treat them properly. Now, I think doubt can become a sin when you know that Christianity is true and you're still doubting God. You know, you're saying, "Well, how fickle are we?" How often did the... let's just take the Israelites. They see all sorts of miracles coming out of Egypt.
Moses goes up on the mountain for a few extra days, and suddenly they're worshiping the golden calf, and you're going, "You dimwits." Don't you remember what happened getting over here? I think that's true in our lives as well. Whether we've seen a miracle or not, we've certainly seen God's providence. We've seen God working in our lives, especially looking backward. And yet a week from now, even though something has happened that we know God was behind, a week from now we're going, God, what have you done for me lately? We even forget all the events that have occurred in our lives that God was behind.
Eric Huffman: We tend to remember the bad things, but we forget a lot of the good things. I know I do. Even now, you're a famous apologist, do you still find yourself wrestling with particular doubts or questions?
Dr. Frank Turek: Questions, certainly. Oh, there's tons of questions I don't have the answer to. Now, I did have the answer when I was 17.
Eric Huffman: Those were the days.
Dr. Frank Turek: When someone asked me a question I can't answer, I say, "You should have asked me that when I was 17. I knew everything when I was 17." But I'd grown up and apparently forgotten a lot. So yeah, there's questions all the time.
Eric Huffman: Can you give me a couple of examples or even one?
Dr. Frank Turek: Well, the two biggest questions... let me put it this way, Eric. If you think about this, atheists don't really have arguments for atheism. They really don't have very many arguments that say, this is the way the universe in reality could be the way it is in the absence of God. They come up with a couple, like they might say, well, the quantum vacuum gave us the universe, or evolution gave us new life forms. They may try and say that.
But most of the time, when atheists are arguing against Christianity, they're not providing positive evidence for their worldview. What they're providing are complaints about the way God is running the universe. So there's too much evil in the world, so there can't be a good God. That's the biggest objection. And it's a fair objection that you ought to investigate.
The second biggest one is, well, if there is a good God, why doesn't he just show up and tell us everything that we need to know? Why allow all this confusion? In other words, the hiddenness of God. Those are the two biggest objections to God.
Now, notice they don't disprove God, okay? And we can go into them and either of these, if you want. They don't disprove God and they don't negate the evidence we already have for God, like the beginning of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, the beginning of life, subsequent life forms, objective right and wrong, morality, the mathematical precision of the universe, our ability to reason, the evidence for the fact that Jesus existed and died and rose from the dead, Old Testament prophecy. Doesn't negate any of that stuff. It just causes us to ask questions. Well, if there is a good God, why is there this evil? Or if there is a good God, why isn't He more overt?
In fact, we just talked about this a minute ago. You notice in the Bible, a lot of times God is overt. But not a lot of times. Several times He was overt. Most of the time He's quiet, even in the Bible. But when He does show up, it doesn't have the intended effect all the time, right? Hey, we're gonna part the Red Sea, kill Pharaoh's army. Sorry, we forgot that already. Moses, where are you? Let's get this golden calf thing going, can we?
Eric Huffman: Yeah, I hear you. I continue to bump up against questions sometimes that I don't have the answers to, or I feel like it's a big unknown. But most of those questions are, I would say, side issues. They're not essential to the Christian faith. You know, things other people ask, like about suffering and things like that. Do you find yourself bumping up against, personally, a question or two that sort of haunts you?
Dr. Frank Turek: Well, the hardest questions to answer are, why does God allow certain evils? Not why does he allow evil? We know why He allows evil, because this is a world of free will. And if He were to stop every evil, this wouldn't be a meaningful moral world, right? He gives us the ability to love through free will, but that also opens up the ability to do evil.
So we had a school shooting recently, right? Why did God allow that to happen? Well, I know why God allows these things to happen, in general, because of free will. But if you ask me, why did God allow that particular event to happen? I don't know why. But I know why I don't know why. I'm finite, God is infinite. I know very little of the past and very little of the present and nothing of the future outside of what God tells me.
But God does know what's gonna happen in the future. So it could be that tragic events like this ripple forward to affect trillions of other events. In fact, we know they do. Whether they're good or bad events, they affect future events. It could be that an awful event like this school shooting might ripple forward to somehow bring forth a great evangelist 500 years from now who saves millions of people. Can we trace all those ripples? No, we can't. But of course God can. This is why we can trust God even when we can't see the good outcome.
Eric Huffman: Like you say, when it's personal, when it's a specific event, it's harder to address, especially when you're sitting in front of somebody personally affected by it. But I love what you said, actually. I'm gonna put that in my back pocket. That I may not know why, but I know why I don't know why. I think that's an important reminder to tell ourselves when we're stuck in some question or doubt.
You have, as we mentioned earlier, written this book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Probably, I'm guessing, your best-selling book, maybe? Most popular?
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah, that one is, although the point I just made about the ripple effect is really unpacked a lot in a book called Stealing from God, this book right here. It's the book I wrote after I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. And the point of this book is the fact that when atheists are arguing there is no God, they're actually stealing from God to argue against Him.
And evil is one of the things they steal, Eric. You say, why is that? Well, because there can't be evil unless there's good and there can't be good in an objective sense unless God exists. So if you're going to complain about evil, you're actually giving an argument for God.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, yeah. I've heard you address that a lot in your talks. Tell us at a 30,000-foot view, just a quick summary, why it takes more faith to be atheistic than it does to be theistic or, in particular, Christian.
Dr. Frank Turek: Okay, let's first of all define what we mean by faith. In the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, we're using faith in the sense Richard Dawkins, the atheist, would use it. He would say faith is either just a leap in the dark, you don't have any evidence for it, or you may even be believing something against the evidence. That's not faith in the Bible. Faith in the Bible is trusting in what you have good evidence to believe is true. Trusting in what you have good evidence to believe is true.
But let's just take the colloquial atheistic view that faith is kind of blind. You're just believing blindly.
Eric Huffman: Sure.
Dr. Frank Turek: If that is the definition of faith, then I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist because there's a lot of evidence that Christianity is indeed true. First, there's a lot of evidence that God exists and a lot of evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. In fact, those are the two facts you need to support, or you need to get evidence for if you're gonna say Christianity's true. God exists and Jesus rose from the dead.
And so, just very briefly, there's evidence that God exists from the beginning of the universe. Space, matter, and time had a beginning. Even atheists admit this. Space, matter, and time had a beginning. What could have caused that? Only something outside of space, matter, and time. So something spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, and intelligent. And that sounds like a lot like God.
Now, we don't know it's the Christian God unless we see that Jesus rose from the dead. And there's evidence that He did rise from the dead. And if Jesus rose from the dead, then we can say that the same being that walked out of the tomb 1,992 years ago is the same being in whose divine nature created the universe out of nothing. And so, when we give evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, it's a very short walk to show that Christianity is true and the Bible is the word of God. And that's what we do in the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
So, you've gotta overlook a lot of evidence that God exists and Jesus rose from the dead and Christianity is true if you're an atheist. That's why I say, I don't have enough faith to believe that.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. You really only even need the first point, not even the point about Jesus being the truth. All you need is the question about God's existence in the beginning of all things, right? I've heard you say that atheists demand or require one big miracle, which is the beginning. And why is that the most important miracle, though? What is it about that that causes you to go back to that well again and again in your talks?
Dr. Frank Turek: Because I always ask audiences, what's the greatest miracle in the Bible? And most people will say the resurrection. I say, no, the resurrection's easy compared to the greatest miracle. The greatest miracle is the first verse. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. I mean, if that verse is true, Eric, every other verse is at least possible.
If God can create the whole show out of nothing, can He intervene in the universe He created? Of course He can. Of course He can raise somebody from the dead or walk on water or turn water into wine or whatever. He could do any of these things if He can create the whole show out of nothing.
The interesting thing is even atheists are admitting the evidence for the first verse. They don't think it's God, but what else could it be that created the universe? It's gotta be a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent cause. And that's what we mean by God.
Also, I'd like to point out that everyone believes in at least one miracle. Christians believe that God created the universe and several other special events, other miracles. I mean, Christians believe that someone created something out of nothing. Atheists believe that no one created something out of nothing. Which I always ask audiences-
Eric Huffman: Something miraculous.
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah, which is more reasonable? Which takes more faith? And by the way, notice that atheists have a problem with the virgin birth of Jesus, but they have no problem with the virgin birth of the universe.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, that's true. I mean, I hope that right now we have atheists watching or listening. I'm sure we have skeptics and I wanna honor them by sort of playing devil's advocate sometimes and just interjecting some questions I see in the comment section a lot on other interviews, which one of them might be, what if someone just said, it's a matter of time before we discover the true origin of the universe. Science is getting there. Let's not play the God of the gaps thing and put God wherever science hasn't explored or discovered things yet. What do you say to that sort of argument that's pretty common?
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah, well, I get that question a lot. And the answer is... In fact, I had that at the university of, I think it was Oakland University in Michigan once. Atheist accused me of: this is a God of the gaps argument. He said, "Give science more time. We'll figure out a cause for the universe." And I said, "first of all, John, that sounds a lot like faith," you know? Give us science more time. We haven't found the answer yet, but we're gonna find it. That's a faith position.
Eric Huffman: Sounds like science of the gaps.
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah, that's right. But secondly, I said, "You're never gonna find a natural cause for all of nature." Because by definition, if nature had a beginning, nature can't be the cause. There's gotta be something outside of nature that brought nature into existence. And we call that something super nature, something beyond the natural.
And all the evidence to this point points to the fact that nature had a beginning. And if nature had a beginning, then something outside of nature must have brought it into existence. By the way, you don't even need science to show this. I mean, there are scientific arguments for this, and that's what we cover in I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. But this one fact about time shows that the universe had a beginning. And that is, if there were an infinite number of days before today, then the day we're in today, this day, never would have arrived. Why?
Because if there's an infinite number of days before today, you'd always have to live another day before you got to this one. But today is here. So, therefore, there can only be a finite number of days before today. And if there's a finite number of days before today, then time had a beginning. And if time had a beginning, whatever created time must be timeless. In other words, outside of time. And I always ask audiences, if you're timeless, do you have a beginning?
Eric Huffman: No.
Dr. Frank Turek: No. Which means you don't have a cause. Which means this answers the question, who made God? Nobody made God. He's the uncaused first cause. Right? He's outside of time. He didn't have a beginning.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. It's a cause-and-effect principle. Nature is the effect. It can't be the cause.
Dr. Frank Turek: Exactly.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, there must have been something on which everything is contingent or-
Dr. Frank Turek: And by the way, I think, Eric, too, that when we're given these kind of arguments from beginning of the universe or the beginning of time, they're actually not the best arguments for God. The best arguments for God are the metaphysical arguments that Aquinas developed.
Some people like Ed Fazer now talk about, who is a Catholic philosopher who wrote the book, Five Proofs for the Existence of God. The problem with the arguments is they require a lot of prior philosophical knowledge, which you can't give in a 45-minute seminar.
Eric Huffman: Sure.
Dr. Frank Turek: Right? For example, a derivative of the argument is the idea that matter can't be eternal because matter is composed. It's composed of pieces, parts, and whatever is composed is put together by a composer. But you can't go on an infinite regress of composers. Eventually, you're going to get back to an uncomposed composer. That's what we mean by God. Okay?
And there's arguments that have to do with what's called act and potency, which Aristotle first developed, and Aquinas then baptized 1,600 years later. But they're hard to explain and hard to get your mind around if you don't have that prior philosophical knowledge. So the more intuitive arguments are the arguments we give, that if there's a beginning, there must be a beginner. It's still a good argument. It's just not as airtight as these arguments that are more metaphysical.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, but arguments like that can be more helpful when you're talking to just everyday people. Like, if you're not in a philosophy class, and I hear that's what you're saying. It reminds me of the iceberg analogy of all you see is the tip. And I imagine it's hard for you not to go deeper into those other arguments, because I can tell it fascinates you personally. But sometimes we have to sidebar all that and just talk to people, meet them where they're at, and talk in ways using arguments that can be easily understood.
I've heard you say in your talks that somewhere around 75% of college students lose their faith or walk away from their faith. If they're Christians when they go to college, they walk away from it 75% of the time during college. Having spent so much time on college campuses, I'm curious why you think that is. Like, what forces at work are leading to that kind of mass exodus at that stage of life?
Dr. Frank Turek: Primarily because we haven't equipped them as kids. And when they go into a war zone like a college campus where Christianity is mocked and is not given a fair hearing, it's quite easy to walk away from something that you don't have any real evidence for, that you just believe based on emotion. In fact, if you win people on emotion, you can lose them to emotion.
Eric Huffman: For sure.
Dr. Frank Turek: You know, when you win them with, you win them too. And so if you win people with facts, you're not gonna lose them unless the facts change, right? But if you win people with emotion, well, there could be another emotion that comes along that I find stronger. Like, I like that girl and I wanna sleep with her. I'm in college now and I get to do what I wanna do and this Christianity thing's quite inconvenient.
Eric Huffman: It is.
Dr. Frank Turek: It's very easy to walk away from something that you're not sure is true. It's harder to walk away from something, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt is true. So we try and equip kids. You know, in the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, we say, "Hey, it's high school and up, right? But we've got curricula at our website, crossexamine.org and online courses that go down to the second grade that basically are for kids. And it shows them the evidence that Christianity is true.
In fact, I just wrote a new book with Brave Books.
Eric Huffman: I know.
Dr. Frank Turek: Let me show it to you. It just came out.
Eric Huffman: Please. I'd love to see it.
Dr. Frank Turek: I mean, this is for kids like as young as two. Maybe two to 10. This is a book called Milo's Mission, and it's by Brave Books. I don't know if you've heard of Brave Books, but Brave Books, they do great work. Every month they'll send you a new book for your kids or grandkids. I got grandkids now. They love these books.
Eric Huffman: That's awesome.
Dr. Frank Turek: They're very well-illustrated. This book teaches about responsibility, teaches kids that they have to be responsible for the little things before they're gonna be given trust over the bigger things. And there are books from Brave Books that deal with issues like humility and fruits of the spirit and other values.
If they sign up at, I think it's bravebooks.com/Frank, if they sign up there, they'll get this book for free. And then other kids, or I should say other months, more books will come for their kids or grandkids. So that's one way we're trying to equip kids before they go to school. Brave Books and the curriculum that we have on our website.
Eric Huffman: That's really cool. I wanna talk more about Milo's Mission at the end. So if you're a parent or you are concerned about the next generation and how to equip them, hang around for the end of the interview and we'll circle back to Milo's Mission. I think it's awesome that you're writing children's books because clearly what you're saying to Christians and churches and parents is we don't need to shelter our kids by sending them to some college where there isn't any opposition or not sending them to college at all. We need to prepare them for what they're going to encounter in the real world. And that can be done. It's just something we have to be intentional about. How long have you been talking?
Dr. Frank Turek: In fact, Eric, I would think, and we did this with our kids, too. It doesn't mean the kids are always gonna turn out perfect. They're not. None of us are perfect, right? But we tried to be the first person to talk to our kids about controversial issues. So when their friends bring it up or they see it on social media or something, they go, "Oh, I've already heard of this. My parents told me about this," right?
Eric Huffman: Yeah.
Dr. Frank Turek: Whether that's evolution. When my kids grew up, transgenderism wasn't an issue, but now we ought to be talking about that. We ought to be talking about the LGBTQ stuff. We ought to be talking about, obviously, the evidence for Christianity and the supposed arguments against it. If God, why evil? We ought to be talking about these issues.
Eric Huffman: That's right. Yep, over the dinner table, just day to day. You've been talking on college campuses for years now. Have you seen changes in the kinds of questions you're getting or the sort of heart behind the questions? What have you seen there?
Dr. Frank Turek: Yes. 15 years ago in the heat or the height of the new atheist movement, when people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, whom I debated a couple of times — in fact, they can see those debates on our YouTube channel — and others were after 9-11, mocking all religions and saying that all religions are evil and bad. They clumped everything together with Islam and said, you know, these terrorists are just... they're typical of religious people. They bring a lot of evil on the country and on people.
At that period, when I'd go to a college campus and I'd give evidence that the universe had a beginning, I'd get a lot of pushback on that, right? I'd get a lot of questions. Well, you know, why do you think that's true? Here are some other possibilities, you know, that people would come after you over that. I don't get that as much anymore. I don't get those objections as much. They're still out there.
I get many more objections that deal with the top three objections to Christianity now. Here are the top three. Morality, morality, and morality. Okay? Everything is couched in morality now, Eric, because people are dealing with moral issues every day, and there's a heightened sense of justice that people have, even though it's often misplaced and misunderstood.
And so people aren't asking as much, is Christianity true? They're more asking, is Christianity good? And they think it's not good because God doesn't allow them to sleep with whoever they wanna sleep with. God doesn't think they ought to change their gender. God is not for abortion. God is not for all these sexual and moral issues that people deal with.
And so I will always ask people on a college campus when they get up to the microphone, if they're not Christians, I'll ask them, if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? And I've had atheists and other non-believers stand in front of hundreds of people, and they'll answer that question, no.
Eric Huffman: Even if it's true, wow.
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You claim to be reasonable, right? You're supposed to be an atheist, a beacon of reason, right? How is it reasonable that you wouldn't say yes to "if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian"? How is that reasonable? It's not reasonable.
It's not a matter of the head. It's a matter of the heart. They don't want it to be true. They don't want there to be a God. Why? Because they want to be God over their own lives. They're not on a truth quest. They're on a happiness quest. And they're just going to believe whatever they think is going to make them happy.
Now, here's the problem. When you're young, you can make yourself happy over the short term, doing a lot of fun, but ultimately selfish and sinful things. However, over the long term, it's a disaster. And everyone listening to us right now, who's over 40 years old, knows what we're talking about, because many of us have tried it ourselves, right? We say, "Oh, I'm just going to live however way I want to. I'm going to live all about me. I'm going to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, with whom I want to do it."
And my answer to that is, no, you're not. Not very long anyway. I mean, if you become a complete "me" monster, what's going to happen to your relationships? I'll tell you what's going to happen. You're going to wind up divorced, addicted, broken, alone, and probably prematurely dead.
If you want contentment, you've got to go straight through truth, and Jesus is the truth. But people, when they're young, they don't always want to hear that. Although there is a spark on campus right now, you've probably heard about, Eric, that Gen Z in particular appears to be coming back to Christianity and coming back to church.
And I think part of that has to do with the pandemic and has to do with the fact that people are looking for security now. And what could be more secure than an eternal standard? It doesn't change. What could be more secure than God if God does exist, right? So they're starting to come back.
Eric Huffman: Maybe that does explain, too, I've seen stories about a lot of those Gen Z folks you're mentioning are going specifically to more traditional sort of churches and denominations. Maybe that's because they want something historical that doesn't change to hold on to.
Dr. Frank Turek: Have you seen more young men in your church in say the past year or two?
Eric Huffman: Oh yeah. What I've seen is not just Sunday morning church, but like men's discipleship like on our knees in prayer together throughout the week, where you get a personal invitation to come to some guy's living room or my office or whatever. And what's fascinating to me now versus 15 years ago is the hunger is so intense that the yes comes before the questions even out.
Men are just primed and ready for something real and true to hold on to. And that is an interesting turn, given what you've seen on college campuses, where it's been more of a matter of the heart than the mind. Maybe that's changing. Maybe we're in the time of a transition there. I don't know.
Dr. Frank Turek: I hope so because we've been in me-ology rather than theology for quite a while.
Eric Huffman: And it never ends well, does it?
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah. Everything's about me, me, me, me. No. Christianity, it's so paradoxical to human nature, isn't it? If you want to find your life, you need to lose it. You need to deny yourself and follow me. Deny myself? What? Yeah.
Eric Huffman: I'd rather not.
Dr. Frank Turek: No, that's a hard message, man. That's not a seeker message.
Eric Huffman: No, it's responsibility. It's the opposite of self-indulgence. And the world teaches us to self-indulge all the time. Maybe that's part of the reason that young people are perking up about Christianity too. It's like rebellious now in light of where the culture's gone. I don't know. It's a fascinating time to be alive and in ministry.
Again, to play a little devil's advocate, I wonder how people who aren't with us, Team Jesus, you know, that are watching might have heard what you said earlier about if you keep following yourself and your own desires, you'll be divorced, alone, addicted, prematurely dead. Well, that stuff happens to Christians too, right? I don't know the data, but I don't think I've seen data showing that Christians always live longer than non-Christians and stuff like that. And folks might say, well, Christians are no better, I guess. What's your response to that sort of argument?
Dr. Frank Turek: Well, a couple of things. Actually, the evidence does show that people are happier as Christians. Not that that's a test. It's just a conclusion. Sometimes Christianity doesn't make me happy. I get that. But they tend to live longer and are healthier.
But let me also point out that the church is filled with sheep and goats, right? I mean, there are people who claim to be Christians who are not. You know, I never knew you, Jesus will say at some point to them. And there are people who are in process all the time.
Sure, maybe you've already gotten your fire insurance, you've already been justified, but you're very low on the sanctification scale, right? You haven't become enough more like Jesus. And this is, of course, one of the problems with the big seeker model is the seeker model thinks that Jesus said, make believers. He didn't say that. He said, make disciples.
That's one of the big problems we have in the church is how do you make disciples? It's hard. People are so detached. They're more married to their phones than they're married to their church, or even maybe married to their spouse, right? And we're very individualistic.
So when you just look at the church itself, you've got people who maybe just have fire insurance... or let me start over. You may have people who are not really Christians, but say they are. You may have other Christians who just have fire insurance, they haven't become disciples.
Then thirdly, Christianity tends to attract people who we might consider lower in confidence and lower in... it's a word I'm looking for here. They're broken people. Let me put it that way. Christianity attracts broken people who know they need a savior, right? I mean, this is why Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, because they know. And He also said, it's difficult for a rich man to get into heaven. Why would that be? Well, because when you're rich, you don't think you need God, right?
So when you're attracting people that have broken lives, they're not always going to look as good as maybe an unbeliever who is an upright citizen. In fact, it's probably C.S. Lewis who talked about how people are born, of course, the scriptures talk about this too, but how people are born with different gifts and different upbringing, different constitution, that kind of thing.
In fact, I did a podcast not long ago on why aren't Christians better people? And trading on Lewis in the scriptures, I was just pointing out that say you have someone who becomes a Christian and say on our good neighbor scale, this guy was a three. He becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit works on him. And after a year or two, he's now a five morally, but the neighbor next door, who's never been a Christian, has always been a seven and he doesn't have the Holy Spirit. Who looks better in the eyes of the community? The guy who's a seven who's not a Christian.
But this guy who was a three and is now a five or maybe a six, he's doubled in his righteousness, but he doesn't look better next to the next guy.
Eric Huffman: That's where you get a lot of accusations of hypocrisy. It's one of the most common things I hear from people in the comment section, that Christians are a bunch of hypocrites, which I answer, absolutely, yes, we are. We are hypocrites because none of us can be as perfect as Jesus, at least not yet.
So of course we're hypocrites, but accusing a church of being full of hypocrites is like, I've heard you say this, go into a gym and ask him, "Why are all these heavy people here?" Like, what are all these fatties doing at the gym? Well, they're there to get better. You know, that's the purpose of a gym, just like the purpose of the church is to help sinners heal.
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah. And as John Dixon pointed out. He said to people who, who give you that hypocrite line, you say, Hey, when somebody plays Beethoven poorly, who do you blame? You don't blame Beethoven. So when somebody plays Jesus poorly, who do you blame? You don't blame Jesus. Newsflash, Christianity is not Christians. Christianity is Jesus, right? Keep your eyes on Jesus.
There's a lot of reasons why so-called Christians may not appear to be as good using, you know, a good neighbor scale as a non-believer. But yet in the example we just give, this guy's doubled his growth and yet he's still under the non-believer because he was born in a different situation, made different choices, has a different constitution, has different gifts. But he knows that he needs a savior and that's why he's saved and the other guy isn't.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. And some people might say, well, why is someone that doesn't believe a seven in the first place, while the Christian is a five? Well, you don't need Jesus to be or behave good. You need Jesus to define good, right? Like you need God to be able to even use the word "good" and evil for that matter properly. I mean, is that-
Dr. Frank Turek: Well, exactly. But when we say seven, I'm just kind of using like a neighbor scale. That guy's a good guy in the community, you know, but he's a sinner just like everybody else. And in fact, we're all sinners. None of us are going to make our way to heaven by our works. The only way we make it to heaven is by what He's done for us. We need things forgiven. And that's why Jesus came. In fact, your church is called-
Eric Huffman: The Story.
Dr. Frank Turek: The Story Church. Here's the most succinct story description I've ever heard of the Bible. It goes like this. God created it, we broke it, and Jesus fixed it. God created it, we broke it, and Jesus fixed it. And we all need to be fixed. It doesn't matter how good we are in the eyes of others. We need to have our sins forgiven.
We may be better than our neighbor or our neighbor might be better than us, but we're still fallen. We're still sinners. And since God is infinitely just, he has to punish that. But He doesn't want to punish that. He wants to give us grace. And the only way you can do that and remain just is to punish an innocent substitute in our place. And that's what Jesus does.
Eric Huffman: Amen.
Dr. Frank Turek: Have you ever heard John Lennox talk about this, Eric?
Eric Huffman: I listened to a lot of Lennox, so probably, but I don't know exactly what you're-
Dr. Frank Turek: I love this illustration he gives. He gives this illustration. When he first met his wife, Sally, when he was in college and he wanted to marry her, so he said to Sally, he said, "Sally, I want to marry you, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you this cookbook. And if you can cook well from it for 40 years, then I'll see about loving you. Now, if you don't like that, you can go back to your mother."
He says when he says that to an audience, the audiences roar. They go, "No way, you didn't do that." And then he says, "No, of course I didn't do that." He said, "If I had, she would have thrown that book back in my face, rightfully so."
He said, "However, you're so upset that I may have done that to Sally, but why do you think God works that way with us? Why do you think God gives us a book that he wants us to live up to? And then after a long period of time, he looks at you and He looks at the book and He'll then decide whether or not He loves us based on our performance, according to the book."
That's not the way Christianity works.
Eric Huffman: No.
Dr. Frank Turek: He loves you from the beginning. The book is there to help you orient your lives toward truth, to get you saved and sanctified. But it's not a book that's there to earn your way to heaven. Christ earns your way to heaven. And he says this in the context of marriage. He says, "Look, I loved Sally from the beginning. And I told her that. Then she felt free to love me as a spouse. And I felt free to love her as a spouse. And we could serve one another already secure that we have one another's love." That's how Christianity works.
Eric Huffman: Amen.
Dr. Frank Turek: Yet a lot of people think it's like saying, "Look, you obey this. I'll see about loving you. No, he already loves us. Why were we still sinners, Christ died for us.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. That's one example of the way Christianity is misunderstood, I think. And you're a master at engaging people who have misunderstandings about what Christianity really is about. You also freely admit, as you have in this interview, that Christians are the problem sometimes.
Dr. Frank Turek: Oh, yeah.
Eric Huffman: We don't do a great job of preparing kids to have these conversations and communicating the true gospel. I want to talk about how to have those better conversations, because one thing I've always appreciated about you is your sort of tactics with people. You always learn and repeat a person's name to them, for example, as a way of acknowledging them and their humanity and that they're important. You always answer questions with questions, as if to say, this is a two-way street. But what do you think of when you think of the strategies behind having better conversations with people that aren't all in with Jesus and Christianity?
Dr. Frank Turek: Well, my friend Greg Coco wrote a great book called Tactics on that. And a couple of the questions that he says you ought to ask people whenever they make a statement is to ask, what do you mean by that? And see what they say.
For example, somebody might say, well, I can't believe the Bible because it's been changed throughout the centuries. You ought not go into a dissertation as to why it hasn't been changed. What you ought to do is say, what do you mean by it's been changed throughout the centuries? And most people won't be able to explain why they think that. Why? Because they've heard a slogan. They don't know the evidence. In fact, that's the next question you ought to ask. What do you mean by that?
After you get clarification, you should ask, well, what evidence do you have for that position? Or how did you come to that conclusion? Because you see, Greg rightfully points out that when someone says something, it's not your job to refute what they say. It's their job to support what they say.
So if they were to say, I can't believe the Bible because it's been changed throughout the centuries, you ask, what do you mean by that? And then how do you come to that conclusion? What evidence do you have for that? Have you investigated the manuscript evidence for yourself?
I guarantee you the person isn't going to say, yeah, you know, just last night I was up reading a book about the Byzantine line of manuscripts, right? Like nobody's going to say that. Okay. Unless there's some kind of scholar.
Instead, what they've heard is a slogan that they like, but they don't even know if it's true. So you've already exposed the fact that they don't have any evidence for their position. And before somebody is going to accept your worldview, they have to begin to doubt their worldview first. So ask questions of people to uncover assumptions, uncover evidence.
And then the third question is your opportunity to provide some evidence back. Where it would be something like, well, if you ever considered that we didn't get the Bible like the telephone game, you know, where one person told it to another and it got distorted along its travel.
No, these people wrote down what they saw and then scribes later copied those manuscripts down. And when we compare all of these manuscripts, we can reconstruct the original with great accuracy. So you kind of give some evidence back.
I also think that when you're having a conversation with somebody, you shouldn't expect them to agree with you. Like people say, "Well, Frank, you don't get mad at people, even though they sometimes get rude." I said, "Well, why would I get mad?" You know, when I was 23 years old, I didn't agree with my now 63-year-old self. So why should I expect some 23-year-old now to agree with my 63-year-old self now?
I mean, I don't know where this kid came from. I don't know what he studied. I don't know what kind of upbringing he's had. I don't know whether he was abused or not. I don't know what's going on in his life or her life.
So, as Paul said, look, I was an insolent, arrogant man until Christ saved me. So I think we've got to have that attitude with people that we shouldn't expect them to agree with us. We ought to hear them out and see what they say, and ask questions back to try and expose really what they're thinking. It's also called kind of the Socratic method, right?
Eric Huffman: Sure.
Dr. Frank Turek: And then be kind. I don't want to try and, for lack of a better term, own them. It's not a debate. I'm trying to investigate their question, provide an answer back, and be kind enough that they'll maybe take it on board and say, well, maybe he's right about that. Maybe I ought to look more into this.
Eric Huffman: No, you're planting seeds that might not flower for many months or years. I think this is a really important point more than it seems because a lot of Christians I talk to shy away from engaging in conversations like these because they don't think they have the ammo or the ability to convince other people in a moment about the Christian arguments. And so they take that as a loss.
And I think we are measuring wins and losses wrongly in that way, because a win is... it's always great to convince somebody and you've done that a few times and that's always awesome when that happens in the moment. But usually what happens is seeds are planted and as long as they're planted well with a good heart, like you said, be kind, acknowledge their question and the heart behind it, you never know what's going to happen with that seed that's planted by God's grace in the days ahead.
So it's not necessarily about winning the moment or owning the atheist or whatever, which is another thing I appreciate about your approach is that you're really out to have really helpful conversations that stir the pot and get people thinking going forward.
Dr. Frank Turek: Yes, because evangelism is more about gardening than harvesting. In other words, if we think we have to get somebody to the foot of the conversation, first of all, we're not being realistic most of the time. And secondly, if we think we have that high of a hurdle to get over, we're probably not going to even try anything because it's too onerous to get there. It's too difficult.
But if we just plant seeds, as you said, like Paul did, some plants, some water, God gives the increase. If we just get them to believe that truth exists, and they say, there's no truth, and we say, "Is that true? Is it true that there's no truth?" And get them to doubt their postmodernism, get them to doubt their relativism. That's a win. Take it. Then maybe next time they'll have a conversation with somebody and they'll realize that God exists, and then that Jesus rose from the dead. And before you know it, if they're open, they're Christian.
But rarely is it just one conversation. Rarely. And if it is one conversation, that person, to use a baseball analogy, was already on third base leaning in. And he got the third base by other people bringing him around the base pass. You just saw the harvest. Most of the time evangelism is gardening, not harvesting.
Eric Huffman: I love that analogy. How important is it to be winsome and likable when you're making these arguments versus just being matter-of-fact and technical?
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah, I think that's important. But I think, unfortunately, many times we've carried that too far. Well, being winsome means for some, we sacrifice the truth in order to come across as likable. We can't do that. We can't sacrifice... Jesus wasn't winsome all the time. I mean, just read Matthew 23. He's excoriating people.
Eric Huffman: Okay. Whitewashed tools.
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah. Yeah. You hypocrites. You strain out a net and swallow a camel. We think Jesus was Barney. Jesus wasn't Barney. Right. Jesus was tough.
Eric Huffman: Yeah.
Dr. Frank Turek: So, winsomeness is overrated.
Eric Huffman: Sure.
Dr. Frank Turek: Especially and essentially when it causes you to try and hide the truth or shade the truth. I don't think we should be unnecessarily harsh. No, I'm not saying that. We can be winsome when we could be and can be, but we can't sacrifice truth in the name of winsomeness.
Eric Huffman: Amen. That's something a lot of us need to hear, myself included. You know, pastors often want to be liked, want to be nice, but Jesus was often not liked or nice. So, it's grace and truth, right? Both, not one or the other.
Dr. Frank Turek: I think one of the mistakes we make, Eric, even in the church is we confuse, or we think love means approval. Love does not mean approval. Every parent listening to us now knows that love doesn't mean approval. I mean, if you approve of everything your 13-year-old wants to do, are you loving? No, you're unloving. You need to stand in the way of evil. And yet our society says, if you love me, you'll approve what I do. No, if I love you, I will approve what's good that you want to do and I will oppose the evil that you want to do because I love you.
Eric Huffman: With the last few minutes we have with you, let's talk through some specific questions that I've seen you address, some really challenging questions that people often ask, so that you can model for us sort of how Christians can effectively address these.
There's one interview that comes to mind. Not an interview. It's a Q&A section at the end of your talk at a college campus, where a student who's in some way representing the LGBTQ community stands up and basically accuses you and people like you of having blood on your hands and, you know, contributing to suicides, I presume that's what he means, through your own bigotry toward LGBTQ+ people.
This is a tough topic to approach. It touches most of us on a personal level, especially college students, I think. How do you approach a question like that with, you know, all due respect and sensitivity, but with truth at the same time?
Dr. Frank Turek: Well, I would say, "Hey, thank you for asking that or making that statement. But when you say 'bigotry', what do you mean by that?" And then just be quiet. Because as soon as they try and define it, they're going to be in trouble. Because if they say. "Bigotry" means you don't agree with me," "Well, you don't agree with me. Does that make you a bigot?" "No." "Okay." If they say, "Well, bigotry means you don't want to give people certain rights," well, the next question is, "What do you mean by rights? Where do rights come from? Because if there is no God, there are no rights. In fact, if there is no God, there's not only no right to same-sex marriage, there's no right to natural marriage. There's not only no right to abortion, there's no right to life. There are no rights to anything unless God exists."
So, you want to unpack the slogans and the words that people give you, because really what they are are ad hominem attacks. They're attacks on the person. They're not giving an argument. They're making an accusation, a slur. They're insulting you. You're a bigot. What do you mean by bigotry?" And when they say, "well, you've got blood on your hands," I could say to them, "What do you mean by that?" "Well, a lot of people commit suicide because..." "A lot of people commit suicide because I say that certain behaviors they engage in are wrong? Do you know that you're doing the same thing to me right now? You're telling me that what I'm doing is wrong. Why do you never hear Christians claiming that the opposition that you provide is causing them to commit suicide? Do you know who was treated far worse than anybody in the LGBT community ever was?"
Eric Huffman: Jesus?
Dr. Frank Turek: Black people in America. Have you ever heard a group of Black people say, "You treated us so poorly, we committed suicide." Nobody ever. In fact, who was it? Was it Thomas Sowell who said this? Who said, "When Whites were their worst, Blacks were at their best." When Whites were illegitimately treating Black people as property and not giving them equal rights, the Black community was very tight and they dealt with that suffering in a noble way." Even though the Whites were doing all these things wrong, the Blacks weren't saying, "Oh, you're going to cause me to commit suicide."
You have people now who are saying that because they want to engage in a certain sexual practice, any opposition to that is going to drive them to suicide. I might say to them, with all due respect, if somebody thinks something that opposes your behavior, if that's going to drive you to suicide, you have another issue. There's another problem going on here. Another psychological mental health problem.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough one. That's a tough issue. And, you know, there's a lot of hearts and souls hanging in the balance. It's important to be, again, gracious and truthful at the same time.
When it comes to the kind of suffering that comes about, not because of human actions, you know, the ‘blood on your hands’ argument, but through the natural course of events, let's say, natural disasters, or I've heard you address the question of why certain children are born with special needs. What's the Christian response to questions like that? If God is the one who's responsible for creating all things and creation has gone so wildly wrong sometimes with natural disasters, wiping out hundreds of thousands and all of that, how do we make sense of that as people that claim that God is true?
Dr. Frank Turek: Of course, we trace it all the way back to sin. First of all, the sin of Satan, and secondly, the sin of Adam and Eve. And that created a fallen world where bad things will happen. But when we say that, what are we presupposing? a) We're presupposing that people are valuable and they ought not die. And secondly, there are evil things that occur. Those two things only are true if God exists, not if God doesn't exist. If God doesn't exist, people aren't valuable.
Killing them isn't really evil. It's just against your preference.
Eric Huffman: It's a matter of opinion.
Dr. Frank Turek: Because there's no standard beyond us, right? Now, as we said earlier, the shortest summary of the Bible is God created it, we broke it, and Jesus fixed it. Now, the fix is in, but the effects of the fix haven't been completely experienced by us yet. We're still in this process of trying to bring the full number of Gentiles into the kingdom, as Paul says in Romans 11. When is all this going to end? When the full number of Gentiles come in. When is that? Nobody knows. Okay.
But at some point, all of this evil is going to be ended. And as Paul says in Romans 8, we know that all things work together for good to those that love God and are called according to His purpose. It doesn't say all things are good. All things work together for good. Ultimately, why? To be conformed to the image of His Son. And suffering often does that. It conforms people to the image of His Son.
So, this evil that we all experience isn't the end of the story. If it is the end of the story, yeah, there's a lot of injustice that happens that has no explanation. But if it's not the end of the story, if there is an eternity where people can be recompensed, as Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 4, and where he says that our light and momentary afflictions are achieving for us a greater weight of glory that far outweighs them all, if that actually exists, then God can redeem all of this for good, even good that we can't see right now.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. Wow, Frank, that's really good. I wish I could pull that out of my back pocket when I need it. I'm going to work on that. Suffering is a big issue, just like LGBTQ. One more is, I suppose, would be other faiths and other religions. How can you as a Christian stand up and say Christianity is the only right one when all these other people across the world are proclaiming other faiths? Why can't we just coexist and say, this is true for me and that's true for you?
Dr. Frank Turek: Well, that's a moral question, by the way. It's assuming that God is somehow unjust for allegedly not getting His word to everyone. That's a moral claim. We have several videos on that if you want to go further.
But secondly, when people say you're wrong for saying Jesus is the only way, they think their way is the right way, they're doing the same thing that Christians are doing. They just have a different right way. They think everything is the right way except Christianity. Well, why is that true? What evidence do you have for that? Anytime you say that Christianity is wrong, you're presuming something's right, because every negation implies an affirmation.
So, if you say Christianity is wrong, you're saying universalism is right. Well, how do you know that's right? And do you think God's going to force people into heaven against their will? There are people right now who are running from Jesus their entire lives. What's he going to do in the afterlife? He's going to say, hey, you're with me now. Get over here. How would that be loving?
And then we can talk about what hell is. Hell is separation from God. And people who are in hell are justly in hell. They should be in hell. They don't want to be in heaven. And they're going to be at different levels of punishment, just like people are going to be at different levels of reward in heaven, because that's what justice demands.
And we don't really know the fate of the unevangelized. I mean, we know how people are saved, so we risk all to get them the gospel. But could people be saved without knowing Christ? They certainly were saved in the Old Testament without knowing the name of Jesus. The New Testament seems to say you have to know the name. So we risk all to get them that name. But I know at the end of day, nobody is going to be able to complain in the afterlife, God, I got a raw deal. Why? Because God is the standard of justice. Whoever is in heaven is justly there, and whoever is in heaven is there by grace.
And I always tell people, I say, look, you're only going to get one or two things in the afterlife. You're either going to get justice or you're going to get grace. Does anybody want justice? I don't want justice. If infinite being judged me, I'm toast, Eric. I want grace. So would you like grace? That's what Jesus provides.
Eric Huffman: Amen. Man, I could talk to you for several more hours. And if this is your first time watching or seeing Fran in action, I encourage you to check out his work online, crossexamine.org, or the Cross Examine YouTube channel, and of course, the books we've mentioned.
The last of which we'll land the plane with here is Milo's Mission. We talked about it earlier. Show it to us one more time. You still got it close?
Dr. Frank Turek: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a book for kids ages probably two to 10 or so. And there's a whole bunch more of these from Brave Books. So if they go to bravebooks.com/Frank, they'll get this book for free, if they sign up for the monthly book that they'll get for their kids or grandkids.
And by the way, they also have sort of Christian kids for lack of a better term, Netflix, that you can sign up at Brave Books. It's like six or $7 a month. They have this one show that I love on there for kids with Kirk Cameron.
Eric Huffman: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Frank Turek: It's called Iggy and Mr. Kirk, where it's kind of like a Mr. Rogers thing. One of the things I love about it is they got this vulture on there and the name of the vulture is Culture.
Eric Huffman: Culture the vulture.
Dr. Frank Turek: So the vulture is like spitting out lies and Iggy and Mr. Kirk are, you know, correcting the lie and it's perfect for kids. So there's nothing woke on there. There's nothing anti-Christian on there. In fact, there's like 60 different programs on there. So people ought to check that out. If you want to have a wholesome non-woke alternative to what you're seeing in kid programming, you need to get that from Brave Books.
You know what really happened? President Trump came along and said to Sesame Street, "You're fired." Because. They're putting out so much woke stuff. Why are we paying for this? Because what they were doing, I'm telling you, was wrong.
Eric Huffman: Wrong.
Dr. Frank Turek: Just wrong. So Brave Books has a solution to that. People ought to check it out.
Eric Huffman: Don't let vulture the culture indoctrinate your kids. Raise them up and prepare them for the world. We did say that we would end with a word to parents and folks that are invested in the lives of young people. What would you say to them as they seek to raise children to know the Lord and the truth and to explain to others why we believe what we believe? Give us a 30-second overview of what you would say to parents.
Dr. Frank Turek: Start young. Kids automatically understand there's cause and effect in the universe. When they see a butterfly or a hummingbird, they immediately go, "Mom, dad, who made this?" They know there's gotta be a cause. Even an atheist at Combs, they know this. And the atheist parents try and talk their kids out of it. Yeah. Right? Oh, there is no cause or, know, it's just some natural cause.
Use that intuition that kids have to say every effect must have a cause. Who caused the universe? Why is it fine-tuned? Where did life come from? Where did subsequent life forms come from? Where did all this you see around you come from? It came from an uncreated mind, an uncaused first cause who created and sustains all things. And there's evidence for that. Ground them in that very young.
Get it at Brave Books. They can also get it at our website, crossexamined.org. Just click on online courses or store and you'll find curricula go down to the second grade.
Eric Huffman: That's awesome. Start them young, make it part of everyday conversation just so that they're ready when they go out and fly the nest. So Frank Turek, I want to thank you so much for all your work. Thank you for the time you've given us here. I wish we had more time, but we did what we could with this hour. If you want to know more about Frank, check out the links in the description of this episode of Maybe God. Frank, thank you so much.
Dr. Frank Turek: Thank you so much, Eric. God bless you.
Eric Huffman: God bless you.