Well, hello and welcome to this episode of the Speak Life podcast. My name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life. And in this episode, you are going to hear a conversation between Glenn Scrivener and Justin Brierly. Justin is a friend of the show and is doing all sorts of amazing work on his podcast, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, and also the re-enchanting podcast. In this interview, Glenn asks Justin about his surprising encounter with Richard Dawkins, about the surprising rebirth of Belief in God and the quiet revival report that was brought out by the Bible Society. And they also talk about Justin's book Why I'm Still a Christian. So it's a fascinating conversation, and it's great as always to have Justin back on the show. And before we dive into that, I'd just like to draw your attention again to the 321 podcast, the brand new 321 podcast. Episode two is out. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Episode two is called The Greatest Story Ever Told. And in the conversation, Glenn, Graham, and Swazi press into the Jesus story and how extraordinary it is, but that it really happened in history. There will be eight episodes in total, and we're bringing them out one a week on the podcast platforms. But you don't have to wait to get all eight episodes. If you head to 321course.com right now and create an account there, if you haven't done so already, you will be able to log in and watch or listen to all eight of the 321 podcast episodes. So why not go and check those out? We pray that it will be a blessing for you and something that you can send to your friends who are investigating Christianity. Well, that's all from me. I will hand straight over to Glenn Scrivner and Justin Briley.
SPEAKER_02Justin Briley has had a front row seat to the rise and fall of the new atheism as well as a surprising rebirth in belief in God. In this interview, I asked him about a gobsmacking conversation he had with Richard Dawkins.
SPEAKER_01Your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six. I mean, you could say that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Last year, the most read article on The Spectator was Justin Briley's A Christian Revival is Underway in Britain. That caused many to question, where is your data, Justin? The only stats I quote in the book are the ones that are contrary to my thesis. The data is now in. The Bible Society have commissioned Ugov to do a 13,000-person survey among those in England and Wales, and church going is on the rise. We've gone from 8% church going in 2018 to 12% in 2024. It seems like there is a surprising rebirth underway. We talk about that rise and fall of the new atheism. We talk about what the new younger crowd are looking for when they show up in church, and we talk about debates. Justin Bradley has moderated between some of the great conversations between Christians and atheists down through the years. Are they that valuable? Let's hear what Justin thinks. Take me back to uh the early 2000s, you're fresh out of university, uh, you're joining Premier Christian Radio, and you have an idea for a program. Um, what makes you think that sitting Christians down with non-Christians is actually going to make good radio?
SPEAKER_01Because good radio is usually about making people want to listen. And I just thought it would be quite exciting, interesting, different, get us out of a kind of Christian bubble by actually introducing a bit of spicy non-Christian dialogue. Um, I must admit, not everyone liked it, you know. I mean, there were a number of listeners when we first started Unbelievable who said, Do we really have to have atheists on our Christian radio station? We've got plenty of those on the BBC, you know. Uh and I totally understood that objection. But at the same time, for people who did like it, they really loved it and they really leaned into it, and the other people could just skip that segment on a Saturday afternoon. But but in a way, it was actually once we started podcasting and we were quite early adopters of podcasting, that it kind of came into its own because it turned out there was very little else available of that kind, actually bringing both sides together for a long-form conversation. And and the people who found it, you know, in the podcast space really loved it, both Christians and non-Christians, it turned out. So so that was a real revelation to me that there was this fruitful mission field of uh available if you started to just bring both sides together in that way.
SPEAKER_02Was there a moment when you thought, okay, this is dynamite, this is gonna work?
SPEAKER_01There were times when I wondered if that it might not work. Because I remember early on uh I started, you know, perhaps s slightly naively bringing interesting combinations of people together, including some fairly fierce Muslim debaters opposite one or two Christians, and things got very heated in some of those early conversations I remember. Um and I was sort of struggling to know how to keep things grounded and you know, for people not to go off go off on one. But um actually, yeah, I I think there were also enough pro shows where it really worked that uh it just made me think this is this is what I want to be doing, you know. Um and I was almost, you know, it was almost boring to listen to conversations that were where everyone agreed with each other. I I kind of quite enjoyed the drama and the spectacle. Even if and it wasn't like the Christians always won or anything like that, apart from it. It was But I think that was part of the interest and excitement and engagement and the fact and part of the reason why the atheists and agnostics who started listening came back again and again was because it didn't feel like a a setup, you know. It it felt genuine and and I There's been lots of occasions when I've just felt that thrill in the middle of two guests and thinking, this is exciting, this is this is where I want to be, you know.
SPEAKER_02So Because this era was overlapping with the birth of podcasts, it was also overlapping with the rise of the new atheism as well. How how much did that play into the success of the Unbelievable show?
SPEAKER_01I would say hugely because it was the perfect foil for the kinds of conversations we were having. You had these big bombastic characters like Dawkins and Hitchens and so on coming into the public eye, making these big arguments and these big statements against Christianity. And it was sort of the perfect backdrop to kind of host these kinds of conversations. There was something really tangible that you were responding to. So so in that sense, the new atheists were were a gift to this kind of show. I mean, obviously they presented some problems for a lot of Christians who perhaps struggle to answer or engage some of their polemic. But actually, for this in terms of the show, it was gold. Um it it we really built our audience, I'd say, on the back of that new atheist thing, because we were the sort of people saying, okay, let's let's talk about this, let's bring on the new atheists and the the Christian thinker. And and a lot of Christians loved the fact that there was someone stepping up. A lot of atheists loved the fact that they could find a sensible discussion on these kinds of issues. And so there was a lot of lot of interest that built out of that.
SPEAKER_02How did you manage to stay out of the debate? Um Yeah, I thought you did a fantastic job of of being a kind of a neutral moderator. You um you are sensational at summarizing the arguments that that somebody brings and then posing it to their opponents. And what I what I think you did really well and continue to do really well is um if the opponent doesn't answer the question that is proposed, you sort of press in. But what about that thing that he mentioned about suffering? And and you you kind of and and I thought you did that that very fairly. Um I'm sure it there must have been part of your brain thinking, I'd like to step in right now. And the the Christian on my side is not doing much of a good job.
SPEAKER_01Um it's true, it's true. There were lots of moments that like that where I felt that temptation to kind of step in, especially, yeah, sometimes if the Christian I thought so there were occasions I thought, I think I could do a better job than this guy. Uh and w uh and probably I sometimes did overstep my moderator mark on various occasions. And but I I hope I also tried did it the other way. I mean, if I felt like the non-Christian was getting a real pace from the Christian, I would also sort of try and sort of bring in a little bit on his side and say, Yeah, but have you thought about and what about this? And you know, and I think that was my job really as moderator. Uh as I say, you kind of in the end have to let the chips fall where they will with these kinds of conversations. You can't jerry rig them too much in in favour of one side or the other. And the what I found was in the end, um people respected that, even if, you know, you didn't even if cr a lot of Christians went away thinking, oh, it wasn't a good addition today because the children didn't do a great job, or likewise the atheist. Um what I think happened was that especially for atheist listening and agnostics, uh over the course of many shows, you know, these would would be people who would come back week after week, what they couldn't deny was that there was a kind of intellectual core to Christianity. You can't listen to that many shows come back week after week without realizing, okay, there's something in this, it's not just poppycock and fairy tales. And and so even if they never heard some sort of overwhelming, you know, argument that convinced them of Christian faith, I I got the feeling that that they certainly changed, a lot of them changed in their respect for Christian faith at least. They kind of felt, actually, no, these these guys have something to say, even if I don't agree. Um yeah, but my my job really was moderator, um, and so I tried to to stick to that as much as possible, not to become the apologist myself. Um I've it to be honest, I moved into that role more in latter years when I published a book about the show and I started to do more apologetic speaking myself, but but I I I tried to let the guests do the talking most of the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. What do you think are the possibilities and what do you think are the limitations of the debate format? It's it's obviously catnip uh for YouTube. Um people absolutely love saying, you know, so-and-so roasts some so-and-so, so-and-so owns so-and-so. Um and and certainly it generates an audience. Um, but can you speak to us about yeah, what are the positives, what are the drawbacks?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I think I think that what you said is absolutely one of the positives. It creates a spectacle, you know. And um, you know, again, during that new atheist era, there were these big set pieces, weren't there? The the big William Lane Craig showdown with Christopher Hitchens or whatever it might be, that and it kind of created a sort of uh a suitable vehicle for for everyone to get round and behind. And and so I think there's there's a value in that, creating a bit of drama, theatre, um and and and and that that can be really helpful in some ways. What obviously is not so helpful about that debate format is that you're setting it up as a winner takes all kind of situation, and like you say, it feeds into some of the worst types of clickbait stuff on online about so-and-so destroys so-and-so. Um and you know, as has been often said in the world of apologetics, you can win an argument and lose a person in the process. And that unfortunately is has often been the way that these things skew um flexing your intellectual muscles to prove your point and win a win an argument, but potentially not actually looking very Christ-like or um uh persuasive in the process because you just came off as a bit of an arrogant jerk, you know. And so I think that's always going to be the danger in that kind of debating format. Having said all that, the show did try to kind of land somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. We liked infusing a bit of drama. We quite often did have quite combative characters on the show. But we also had plenty of those more, you know, gentler, nuanced conversations where there was give and take and people actually ended up quite liking each other. And and that, in a sense, that one of the things I value most from my time hosting the Unbelievable show was the number of relationships that just developed behind the scenes and off off mic, you know, people that I got to know as friends over the course of those years, the friendships that developed between guests who you might not have thought on paper would get on with each other, but it turned out actually they did. So, and that was that was genuinely one of the best things was sensing that actually there was more than just a debate going on a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_02Justin Briley and I are putting on a conference on the 22nd of November. It's called Responding to the Rebirth. The spiritual tide is turning. The church needs to be ready. And we want to help you to be the Christian and to be the church that can respond rightly to the quiet revival that is happening all around us. It's happening on the 22nd of November. I can't wait to share with you the platform of speakers. I'll be there, Justin Briley will be there, and many others will join us. It'll be a wonderful time. So please do save the date, 22nd of November in central London. We'd love to see you there to learn more about the quiet revival. That sense of fostering conversation, um, not just sparking debates, um, is something that I think you did so very well. And and I think I noticed over the years in Unbelievable, I I think some of the real powerhouse shows on Unbelievable were this person disagrees with this person and you completely expected them to disagree, and they did. Um but as the as the show developed and as we you know m moved on in time, there started to be shows in which this person agrees with this person and you wouldn't have expected them to agree. Um I I wonder, does that say something about the show? Does it also say something about the kind of times in which we're living?
SPEAKER_01Well, i essentially it it says that I think I I largely tracked on the show kind of what was happening in the wider culture. And so when the new atheism was the the big juggernaut in town, it tended to veer more towards these kind of big set piece debates between characters on both sides of that. But yeah, what I sketch out in in my other book, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, is that the conversations did change over time and that in c as the new atheist movement sort of lost steam, it was replaced by this quite different, much more open to the value of Christianity conversation. And I started to hear of people like Tom Holland, the historian, Jordan Peterson and others, not necessarily Christians, but talking in much more, you know, um sympathetic terms about the value of Christian faith and so on. So I started, yeah, very consciously as I as some of those people started to replace in the public domain some of those new atheist thinkers, I started naturally to feature more of those on the show. That seemed to be where the conversations were heading. And what was interesting about that was, yeah, exactly as you say, ending up having people on the show where uh even i you might have um uh a Christian and a non-Christian, but who are broadly in agreement on the subject we were discussing, you know, that that they weren't there to kind of sort of disagree with each other. Or you might have two non-Christians on the show, but the the non-one of the non-Christians is kind of more or less playing the part of the Christian, you know, like when Jordan Peterson goes on with Susan Blackmore, you know, um, to debate whether we can make sense of life without God. Jordan Peterson wasn't there exactly as a Christian guest, but you could have been forgiven for thinking he was the Christian apologist, the way he defended the idea of we can only make sense of life if we're made in the image of God and all that kind of thing. Likewise, Tom Holland versus AC Grayling, you know, again, Tom Holland wasn't coming on as a Christian per se, but he was certainly defending the idea that we owe our values in the West to um the the Christian story. Um and so those were really interesting conversations because they they were somewhat of a departure from the typical Christian atheist debate, um, but they were still very exciting and interesting, and they were the right conversations for that moment, you know.
SPEAKER_02What do you make of the fact that you've you've just mentioned um Jordan Peterson and and Tom Holland as these voices um that are definitely having an impact on the culture? There are definitely people in my church who have gotten on the Jordan Peterson train or the Tom Holland train and have found themselves um not only in church but but now as as believers in and in some sense kind of taking the train further than uh a Jordan Peterson him himself would take it. Um I remember you you were on stage with Tom Holland last year, and he was reflecting on the the kind of popular voices that are out there in the culture that are saying anything Christian, and he was contrasting the 20th century in which you would have a Martin Luther King, or you'd have a Billy Graham, or you'd have a Mother Teresa, with the 21st century, in which we're sort of scratching around and we're we're and Jordan Peter, a a Jungian psychologist who doesn't go to church, is is kind of is he the the the most prominent advocate for Christian faith in the West at the moment? He might be. Um if if Tom Holland is right about that, what does that say?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I think it's it's a reflection on obviously partly the fact that we you know, since the time of the 1960s when Martin Luther King was on TV screens, we've seen an increasing de-Christianisation and you know secularisation of our culture. And so there just arguably there just isn't the profiling of major religious figures and movements that there once was. But at the same time, there's been a massive shift in the way we consume media as well. It's become far more diversified and arguably democratised at one level, and the Joe Rogans of this world are now arguably far more um influential than than some of those sort of typical voices of uh of a couple of generations ago. And it's interesting, is it isn't it, that some of those folks, the Joe Rogans, Jordan Petersons, are still yeah, somewhere on the on on the Jesus train. It's it's a sort of interesting moment we've we've arrived in. Um and I just I just don't know. I I I I understood what Tom Holland was saying there, that we don't have kind of those typical figures that that once might be you could turn to. But even in his day, Martin Luther King we kind of often look back on these figures and we see just how influential they were. He was he was less of a certain c person, I think, to a lot of people at the time. And and we've kind of and I I think it's often only in retrospect that uh I don't know, a Martin Luther becomes this hero of a of a generation. At the time it's all a bit more messy and and everything else, and there's people who like him and people who hate him, and whatever. Um so I I I think um we may look back fifty years hence and say, Oh, yeah, that that was the person, that was the person of our age who was speaking truth to power or that was the prophet of of the age, or whatever. Um so I I think it's har harder to say in the moment who those people are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You mentioned uh Joe Rogan uh earlier this year. Wes Huff, uh Canadian apologist, kind of went onto his show. I just saw on YouTube it's it's had uh six and a half million views um already. And I I guess Wes got on there because of a debate, uh, which is interesting to think about. Um we're we're thinking about uh the challenges but also the opportunities of debates, and he debated sort of uh Billy Carson.
SPEAKER_01It was a bit of a car crash debate. Absolute car it was a debate.
SPEAKER_02He was sort of watching it through your fingers as he very politely dismantled Billy Carson. But was fascinating to me is in the comments you saw people saying, I had followed some of the Billy Carson nonsense for years, and it led me down some very dark paths. Thank you so much, Wes, for opening up opening my eyes. And and they're getting, you know, Apologetics Canada are getting, you know, stories of people becoming Christians left, right, and center, really through a debate, interestingly. A debate which then showed up on Joe Rogan's radar and he gets him onto the onto the biggest podcast in the world. It's it's a very different age, isn't it? Um we we couldn't have even explained what Christian apologetics would look like in 2025 when you were starting out at uh at Unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01It is, and and that's the thing, you can never tell what direction things are going to go in. Um I think uh by God's grace, uh I've always, for some reason, been in the right place at the right time to be able to do my little bit in in in the developing kind of culture. So when I began podcasting, uh you know, this was 2007, no one was really listening to podcasts, we didn't have smartphones, you know, it was literally just a convenient way that a few people I hoped would would end up being able to listen to what was basically a radio show. But of course, in the course of time, the podcast overtook the radio show, and we were kind of on the first edge of that kind of podcast thing that that now is so ubiquitous everywhere. Um later adopters, admittedly, of of the YouTube thing, where we kind of we've probably left it a lot later than some people to get on that bandwagon. But nonetheless, um that and and kind of the the front seat it gave me to this changing cultural shifts and and being able to sort of somewhat predict this surprising rebirth that has, I think, manifested in some. interesting ways since writing that book. I I think it's all it's all a sign that you you kind of have to just um do your best to to kind of go where the spirit seems to be leading and be as faithful as you can in in doing what God's called you to do. And I felt God was simply saying to me, host good conversations. And I feel like I stumbled into the formats and the technology and the thing that none of it was really planned. But by God's grace God put put me in the place where thousands, millions of people could eventually listen and and watch these sorts of conversations. And yeah, it's been really fun to see the way that that technology is all now coming out. There's it's almost like we're seeing with the Joe Rogan thing and the Wes Huff thing and all that sort of thing, it's almost like the maturing of a of something that's been fermenting for a while. And I I I had the privilege of being part of that process and now it's kind of suddenly coming out in public and and and some of the we're seeing some of the fruits of this to mix my metaphor the this process of uh of of what a lot of people have been beavering away on for a long time and suddenly it feels like oh something's happened. There's people are taking notice so that apologetic stuff seems to suddenly be coming somewhat useful as people suddenly start to ask these questions in in new ways.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Well let's get into that now as I was going to ask you about that later but um what signs are you seeing that there is indeed a surprising rebirth of belief in God?
SPEAKER_01Well the signs that I outlined in the book when that was published in 2023 were these kind of early signs of these interesting secular intellectuals talking in new ways about faith, not giving the stock new atheist type answers. And so we've already talked about Tom Holland and Jordan Peterson and some of the other sort of influencers who have been part of that movement. But then soon after the book was published we had you know this amazing testimony from Ion Herssialley coming out and saying I'm no longer a new atheist, I'm a Christian. Her story, both the intellectual side and the personal side seemed to fit perfectly this thesis of mine that new atheism was just too thin a story for people and they were looking for a better story. And that yes people were recognizing that the Christian story was basically responsible for their basic beliefs about what it means to be human. And so that was really interesting. I I was like that felt exciting I felt like oh this this is happening in real time. And then on top of that you then get there's other personalities who you hear about you know coming to faith and that sort of thing. And all that's exciting. But I think what's been more interestingly exciting for me has been to see trickling through not just anecdotal stories about young men turning up at church out of the blue, but actually some quite solid data now starting to appear about this renewed kind of openness to spirituality among Gen Z, about a lot of young men suddenly turning up I think there's going to be some really interesting data coming out later this year around this upsurge of interest in the UK among young men. You're seeing this boom in again young men turning up at Eastern Orthodox churches. There are sort of pockets of Catholicism that are suddenly experiencing some kind of renewal. Again lots of stories I'm encountering of church leaders talking about some really surprising things happening in their patch. So it's quite exciting to me that it's it it it's quite widespread. You know, it's happening in lots of different places and although you know it's still too early to say to use the R word, revival, I would say it feels like people are talking about a quiet revival a sort of something's definitely happening on the ground and it's now starting to be felt. And so that's been one of the most exciting things to see happen across the you know since the book was first published. I'm certainly seeing something like that.
SPEAKER_02And in traveling around I talked to a lot of different uh church leaders and I I think a lot of church leaders a lot of conversations with church leaders have gone along the lines of yes I I listened to um Justin Briley's Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God or I read the book and I was a bit skeptical to begin with but we've never had more baptisms than last year. But we're we're we're seeing you know more more and more visitors just show up in church with uh all their messy lives and and you know no no history of of church going behind them. And I'm just encountering more and more churches and church leaders who are saying exactly that which is interesting because I like I trained for church leadership right when the Church of England was going through a mission-shaped church kind of initiative and it was it was all about um perhaps we can make church as as unchurchy as possible. What we really need we need cafe style church and we'll all meet around coffee tables and in circles and none of none of the rose stuff and we will completely de-weirdify Christianity and make it kind of lowest common denominator. And what I'm noticing at the moment is that there are there are lots of people showing up in our church which is a beautiful looking Anglican church and still finding it not churchy enough for them. And they they they expect more liturgy and they expect more sacraments and they expect you know more creeds and and all that kind of thing. And I I I think the strategy had been to expend a lot of energy kind of outside the doors of the church which I still totally believe in. But there seemed to be a lot of people making their way inside the church and needing a lot of help. They they might have watched online for six months you know the live the live feed of your your church services but they might well also just show up out of nowhere um and be willing to journey with you in your weird church thing. What did those sorts of people need as they as they show up in our churches um and is it the same kind of apologetics that we were producing 20 years ago?
SPEAKER_01Well I think some of that apologetics is still useful because pit a lot of those people are going to turn up and at some point they're going to have a question about suffering or, you know some aspect of of God or the Bible that maybe they're they're confused by or need some help with. But I don't think that's where people are beginning as you say and I I I too it's interesting isn't it that yeah as you say that seeker sensitive movement was absolutely where the energy was we've got to make church as accessible as possible. And then interestingly a lot of people turning up and saying actually I want I want somet something that feels a bit full fat and weirder. Yeah and and um and and a lot of them and that's coming from I think this this fact that people are just disillusioned I think with the what the culture's given them and the answers the life it's produced for them and so they don't w actually want church to look too much like what they've already got on offer. You know this is this is what people like Tom Holland have said keep Christianity weird. I'm looking for something different to what I can easily get already in the public environment. And so yeah I think there's an intrigue about the weirdness of Christianity especially in those more traditional circles where there's this mystery and liturgy and that those forms of worship. People kind of are are are are looking for that. Likewise I think you know at an ethical level I think uh people are looking for more of a challenge than just a kind of be nice to people and you know um follow the latest guidance or whatever. It they're looking for something that feels a bit more um challenging and stringent. The young men that you have probably bumped into that I come across it's it's it's like because they've been living in a culture where all the boundaries have been removed and every kind of identity is up for grabs. And everything's sort of they've completely rudderless and mawless and they they've never been given any kind of path to follow they're actually coming to church not to hear you be you like they've already been told that a a million times outside they they want to be told here's how here's a s here's a rule for life here's a way of structuring yourself here's a way to kick that pornography habit and start to pray and be a kind of you know someone who who has some kind of order. You know it's it is the Jorn Peterson thing to some extent it is the kind of the order out of chaos it's the kind of tie to your room thing. But it's like it's not just that it's a sort of it's it it's it's it's when they glimpse that there's this kind of depth to the Christian story intellectual um spiritual sort of the um physical in the sense that you know it might require something of you you might find that fasting this whole ancient practice might just change your life or whatever. They it it suddenly it's it's very energizing because it it it it suggests to them maybe maybe there's a there's a different story, there's a different way of doing life that actually might answer this kind of thirst that I've been experiencing. So I that's just a very long-winded way of saying yeah I I think that's right. It's that that weirdness is something that the church needs to re-embrace in that way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And therefore that sort of person who's looking for something weird and deep and rich and challenging what sort of answers are they are they seeking when they're saying okay Justin you have survived um having your faith challenged very robustly for 20 years what what from your experience is resonating with seekers at the moment and and how do you start to answer those questions? The the seekers come to you and and they say why do you still believe? What are some of the first things that you start to say?
SPEAKER_01Well it will depend on the seeker that I'm speaking to and the kind of questions that they're they're wrestling with uh and so on. And but but where I might begin with a lot of these people who are kind of just asking that as a sort of an intellectual question well how what makes you believe in Christianity the first three chapters more or less of of the new book kind of lay out my case for why it makes sense to believe in God that God makes sense of human existence, God makes sense of human value and God makes sense of human purpose. And those are three arguably quite intellectual ways of approaching the God question. But I think they kind of all have a purchase on our everyday reality because one of the most fundamental questions we can ask is why why do we exist? Why is there a universe? Why are we here and able to work out our place in it? And I think um I think there's just a lot of people asking those kinds of questions today. And it's it's interesting how far the pendulum seems to have swung in the last several years away from this very new atheist way of saying it's all just um blind chance with evolution thrown in on top to kind of people kind of starting to talk in very different terms about the sense that we're meant to be here, that that there's a kind of um there's a rationale behind the universe that leads us to be here. So I I would want to lean into that and just point out some of the ways in which it feels like the God answer is a better answer than the the other ones that have been on offer for why humans exist. I'd want to point out the common s this sense that Tom Holland has been leaning into about value and why do we believe in human rights and all of those things that were just so taken for granted up till about five minutes ago until suddenly the road gets pulled out from under us and suddenly we've got Putin you know on the shores of Europe trying to invade. We've got um China flexing its muscles we've got fundamentalist Islam we've got lots of competitors for the Western vision of human flourishing and a lot of people suddenly asking themselves oh why do I believe in these these values and human rights and dignity You wrote the book on this Glenn so I'm I'm teaching you to suck eggs here. But the point is I think that's a question that there's some fruitful conversations to be had around why do we believe in human value? And increasingly I feel like people are gravitating towards a God answer. Not just at an intellectual level but at a kind of sort of deep felt sense of I need more than the secular story of reality to make sense of why my what why this makes sense. And that kind of leads into that purpose you know piece as well which is I I honestly think we're living in this mental health crisis, meaning crisis culture and it's just forced the question of purpose the why question up to the top in a way that it was kind of that question kind of got debated at an intellectual level 20 years ago in the new atheist era but now it's like really pressing people like they're desperate for meaning because you know we they see people collapsing around them and the culture wars sort of just taking its toll and you know we know the statistics about the leading causes of um death among men is suicide and all of that. It's a sort of suddenly this has become a really real question why? What's the point of it all? And I just feel like again we're landing in the we're we're we're ending up with God at the centre of that and not just God Jesus in the sense that that's that's kind of the God that actually makes a difference in your life because here's someone you can actually invest in.
SPEAKER_02Yes and why did you specify it at that point? I'm very glad that you did yeah that it's God that answers the existence question, the value question, the purpose question and not just any old God Jesus. What what difference does it make to specify Jesus?
SPEAKER_01Because otherwise you're just left with another sort of interesting intellectual proposition if if all you've got is God. And that's that's the problem. It's o you'll only actually get to to to answer the existential side of that question if if this God becomes real in some sense in your life and the only way I've ever understood or encountered that is is through the person of Jesus Christ that suddenly God goes from being an intellectually interesting proposition to a f a person who has a stake in your life. And um and that's that's always the great danger in apologetics generally is is you're arguing for a kind of God of the philosophers and there might be some value in that but it's not gonna it's it's not going to bring life.
SPEAKER_02It's only when you sort of um find the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob made manifest in the person of Jesus that you suddenly realize this is this was the thing that all of this stuff was only you know pointing in the direction of yeah you're sort of referencing Pascal there so Blaze Pascal when he died a letter well a a sort of a note that he'd written um to himself was found sewed into uh his his jacket and it was basically uh him sort of writing down uh this night of fire when he encountered the God of Jesus Christ the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob not the God of the philosophers fire fire and whatever else he says um very very stirring stuff. Um what do you think we can learn from Pascal that that moment but also how he considered um his his task of evangelism and apologetics in in his own age?
SPEAKER_01I mean the the more I read Pascal the more I'm kind of like just in awe of this person who died what in his early thirties yet wrote prodigiously it's obviously just this polymath and invented the triangle that's pretty good isn't it invented the triangle but many people only know him don't they for Pascal's wager but that's like very surface level I'm sure you'd probably read Graeme Tomlin's recent book on on Pascal as and and I learned a lot in the process. But um he he basically anticipated all the questions that came up with the new atheists and everything else. It sort of none of this it turns out was very new. Pascal was there a couple of hundred years ago. But the what I yeah what his story you know what resonated with me so much about that episode in his life this night of fire was that it did turn this philosophical quest into this heart quest. He kind of it everything became real and you you read this time and again don't you with some of those greatest names Aquinas you know who after creating all of his proofs for God at the end of his life said it was all like straw in one moment where he experienced God in a kind of visceral real way. And and that's that's the tar I think that's that's the great task I think for people like you and me who are you know ha uh are grounded in that kind of subject of apologetics and the rational defense of Christian faith never to forget that actually God can sort of do something that kind of blasts all those categories apart and to to be ready for that we might be here laying the ground and there might be important things but in the end it's it's a work of prayer and power and the Holy Spirit at the when the moment is right when suddenly the lights come on for people and it's not always you know it's not always some amazing night of fire but it's there's always it's always something there's always an something more than just these intellectual arguments. It's when that person yields effectively to God to the true God that that's when the magic happens that's when change occurs and transformation and everything else.
SPEAKER_02Yeah I mean it's so interesting like we've we've mentioned Tom Holland and and and obviously you know we've both been in in many different conversations with him and in lots of ways you know when I wrote the air we breathe which is Dominion for Dummies and I'm the dummy but but it it's also it's also kind of a book that's like like Tom what do you make of this? Because I'm coming at it from a convictionally Christian point of view and as I was writing the book and I and I knew you know Tom said he would he would absolutely read it and he commended the book and and I was very grateful for that. And and so one of the audiences in mind for my book was was Tom Holland. And I'm thinking well you know what are the arguments that are going to really fly with a Tom Holland in the world and and and then of course you know him having you know considered all these you know various arguments there's nothing Glenn Scrivan is going to say to Tom Holland that he hasn't read um a million times more and a million times better in in the history of the church um but where he speaks movingly of faith is um his encounter in Sinjar or his encounter in St. Bart's the Great in London um actually meeting God is what has actually made um the biggest difference in his life and I I I I remember when he first told me about um his his story about his own cancer and then his story about his mother's cancer and how he you know it experienced this this sort of miraculous all clear both for himself and for his mother and I just remember going away from that conversation where he told me that story and just thinking well of course it's it's not an argument at the end of the day it's it's meeting God. And this is this is this is the task really I guess.
SPEAKER_01Yeah though I do think you know having said all that you know there there is often a long path towards that moment where people are actually open to meet God. And and a lot of the you know and and sometimes you do have to lay the sort of the intellectual groundwork you know um C.S. Lewis I've been reading some of you know an anthology of his letters that covers you know his time right from a young man to to his death and you sort of get glimpses of his journey towards faith along the way through these letters and it's just a reminder that there was such a long intellectual kind of path, an imaginative path that led to these seminal moments for Lewis you know that that walk around Addison's uh walk uh with J.R. Tolkien or whatever that now go down in you know popular mythology. But there's a sort of it's it absolutely you have to have that personal encounter element but it's so often you have to there's a long road to walk for for almost a heart to be ready to receive that. Yeah. And yes and you know traditional apologetics has its place in that I think um that for a lot of people they have to spend a lot of time prodding on the outside before they walk into the church building and see what it looks like from the from the inside.
SPEAKER_02Yeah yeah I mean why was Tom in St. Bart's the Great he was in St. Bart's the Great because he'd written himself into that that that space through Dominion yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah absolutely and and I I I you know it it would be very hard to imagine that Tom would have been in a place where he felt he could utter that kind of skeptic's prayer if he hadn't sort of become convinced that there's a lot of people who did this before me and it kind of worked out okay. Um and um so yeah I I do feel like you'd you sometimes it's about being ready, isn't it? And and there there's a long preparation for that for some people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. What is your kind of your anthropology, your uh and your theology of conversion um You know, Pas Pascal famously said, you know, the heart has reasons that reasons know reason knows nothing of. And so he he was um a contemporary of, although much younger than Descartes, and um just thought Descartes had taken a real left turn in terms of his his skepticism and his rationalism. Um he was a very hearty kind of a a theologian and thinker. Um how it's if you agree with um Pascal more than more than Descartes, certainly I do. Um what follows if we're seeking to persuade people?
SPEAKER_01I think I think for me, um Pascal was evidently a brilliant man and he was very persuasive and he wrote you know some amazing apologetic works. It's just I think he was he was very aware that you can't divorce that from the human emotions and passions and and the the the storytelling. I mean, in a way, that that's sort of in a funny way been my own journey as well. That in more recent years, having spent you know 17 and a half years engaging on the unbelievable show, very much kind of doing that dialogue, debate, intellectual back and forth. My latest project, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, is it's not completely out of that ballpark because we're kind of reaping the fruits of a lot of those conversations, but we're presenting it in a much more narrative-driven way, a sort of let me tell you a story now about what happened over the last 20 years. And and I think that just reaches people in a different way. And I think that's what Pascal did brilliantly. Um it's what C.S. Lewis did brilliantly, of course, through the Narnia stories, and um, you know, as well as being a great philosopher and apologist. And and I think uh so I th I think we, you know, the the mistake that Descartes made is by sort of reducing everything to sort of just pure logic and us being kind of brains on legs, and we're not. We're we're this mixture of body soul and mind, and we and all of those are important in the mix. Uh and so yeah, our our our approach in offering people the good news of Jesus has to be something that takes in all of those aspects of people's lived experience. And uh and obviously for some people it'll be weighted more towards apologetics, for other people they'll be transformed by the imaginative, you know, side of of this and and the way it makes them feel. And there's nothing wrong with that. But uh it's always going to be about finding that that that right balance.
SPEAKER_02And I I wonder whether some of those issues around value and perhaps even like the moral argument for God's existence is a place where those those things can coincide. Um that um you know, I've I've got plenty of friends who they say that this is a godless universe and they believe in human rights, and they don't see any cognitive dissonance between those two things yet until I try and show them that uh this belief in the inviolable worth and dignity of each human being, no matter how weak, um, is a profoundly theological thing. And as soon as I kind of show them that human value in that sense um is a theological idea and it doesn't really fit with a godless universe, as soon as I do that, most of my friends say, Oh, but I believe in the human rights thing far more than I believe in a godless universe. Yeah. Um at that point, I think they're they're sort of following that Pascalian instinct that's, you know, the heart has its reasons that reasons knows nothing of. And they know that a weak, marginalized human has this inviolable worth and dignity, that there's a sanctity to their life that's, you know, and they might not even phrase it as that person is in the image of God, but they're they're grasping for that kind of language at that point, and they're betraying whatever um purported atheism that, you know, that they once held. And I wonder whether arguments in that arena are going to be more and more um useful and powerful in the in the modern day.
SPEAKER_01I think so. I think so. I think the reason they're becoming more and more useful and powerful isn't because the arguments have changed per se. You know, it's the same argument that essentially brought C.S. Lewis to theism. But um but the circumstances around us have changed and made them feel much more pressing because, as I said earlier, it's the fact that we've suddenly been stripped from this easy assumption that everyone just thinks the way we do, right? About human values. Yeah. And suddenly we've realized, oh no. Uh as as as you put it so well, as the tide has gone out, it's exposed all these fundamental assumptions we have about what it means to be human. And it turns out they're not as obvious to everyone as as we had assumed. And as we become, you know, as there's so much kind of international kind of destabilization and shaking and people I think people are just, yes, suddenly the force of the moral argument suddenly becomes real because they're like, well, how do we hold on to these values? W what do we say to the I don't know, the transhumanist tech billionaire who just wants to rip up the rule book and you know, do whatever you want with human beings, or to to the Putin or the most powerful man in the room. Um suddenly you you suddenly have to find a way of justifying the these ideas. And it turns out secular atheism just didn't have the grounds to do that. A lot of people I think it's it's forced the question on them in a way they never had to think about it before. So that's kind of scary at the same time because it's a sort of it's a sign of the world that we're now living in where these basic fundamentals that we all once agreed on are being thrown into question. But I believe, yeah, like you, I I just sense it's not a it's not an intellectual question anymore for most people. It's not just a sort of moving intellectual counters around kind of thing. It's a like, okay, this really matters now. Yeah. The answer to this question really matters.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and I think a a moment that sort of brought the starkness of what low tide has revealed was when you spoke to Richard Dawkins. Um it was over a like a lunch counter or a buffet kind of um I'm I'm speaking in particular.
SPEAKER_01I can tell you exactly what it was. Yeah, yeah. Set up for me. Yeah. It's it's so emblazoned on my memory. Um, but this was 2008, I think it was around October, November 2008. And um Richard Dawkins and John Lennox were going to be having one of these great new atheist set pieces in at Oxford University at the Natural History Museum. Uh, it was an initiative that had been um launched by the Fixed Point Foundation in America, but they'd this was the second of two debates they'd had, one in Birmingham, Alabama, now on Richard Dawkins and John Lennox's own turf in Oxford. And they just had a great conversation at the Natural History Museum with this T-Rex towering behind them, going back and forth on God and Christianity and science and faith and good and evil and everything else. And I was in the audience. Um, but I got to um go to the sort of after party basically at a local Oxford College afterwards, where you know, the buffet was happening and the drinks were circulating. The funny the funny bit of this story is that as I was making my way to, you know, down the road towards this nearby college, who should come trundling his bicycle next to me but Richard Dawkins himself. And um, so we had a little bit of a conversation on the way to the after party, and I sort of said, Oh, I was in the audience and uh I actually worked for a Christian radio station, and he looked very uncertain about that and said, Um, you know, but I said, I'd love to catch up with you, you know, a little later, maybe we could have a conversation. And he said, Okay, yes, that I'm sure that'd be fine. And so it emerged, you know, in the midst of all the hubbub of the party. I I I pulled out my little recorder and we just had sort of 10 minutes um to chat about what happened in the debate. Um and there was one very specific moment in our conversation that um kind of I used on a subsequent show. Other people picked up on it, it started to do the rounds, it went, in my little world, a bit viral. And it was a bit of a conversation we had on this the moral argument, essentially. Uh, and I I mean I could literally read it for you vape. You've memorized it now. Should we play it? Well, you could play it. I can see you've you've you've got it queued up. Do you want to play it?
SPEAKER_0244 seconds. You can find it on YouTube. Richard Dawkins says rape is morally arbitrary. Let's listen.
SPEAKER_01When you make a value judgment, don't you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say there there is the reason this is good is because it's good and you don't have any um way to stand on that state. But my value judgment itself could come from my evolutionary past, and I suppose. So therefore it's it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution. Well, you could you could say that, uh, but it it doesn't in any case, nothing about it uh makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural. Okay, but but ultimately your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six. I I mean You could say that, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You could say that, says Richard Dawkins. Uh could you could you believe that you were having the conversation? Could you believe that he was saying that?
SPEAKER_01I I mean I was it was one of those moments where it it it was just kind of we were going back and forth, I wasn't really sure what what direction to take. I didn't know what he'd say in answer to that question. But when he said you could say that, yeah, I thought, hmm, okay, yeah, you could say that. I what I appreciated actually about Richard Dawkins is he was being absolutely consistent with his naturalist atheist worldview. In you know, I think you know, I uh the way it just happened in that conversation was he kind of had to see, oh yeah, okay, actually, if our moral beliefs are just another byproduct of a purposeless process of evolution, then yes, in a sense, we just get whatever gets delivered. There's no right or wrong about it, it's just the way things are. And I'm I happen to be quite happy about the fact that I believe rape is wrong, but it's in a sense, he had to admit this is just the happenstance of the hand we've been dealt with. It could have gone in a different direction, you know. And as we know, other cultures have evolved very different views on rape.
SPEAKER_02And the animal kingdom certainly has.
SPEAKER_01And the animal kingdom, you go to ancient Rome, uh uh, you know, uh senior Roman male can have his pick of whoever he wants. There are societies where rape is was considered absolutely fine. Um and yet we recoil, don't we, at this idea. Um and I think it's just really helpful in kind of, yeah, it does pull away sometimes some of the veneer and it makes you realise, okay, if that's if that's all this is sitting on, something doesn't feel right about that. Most people know that that that is not the answer I should give to the question.
SPEAKER_02The thing yeah, the thing that just popped out at me, having having heard that about ten times before, but but just playing that again, where where Richard says, um, none of this makes the existence of God any more likely. Um it's it's just so interesting that for him, God is just this sort of placeholder. He he might as well be the flying spaghetti monster on the far side of Jupiter. Um that the God he's dealing with is some super being who like has no connection really, really, to life as we know it. And it's just this philosophical debate about whether your your kind of inventory of the metaphysical furniture of the universe is is as complete as mine. Whereas what you're talking about, what we're talking about, is whether there is goodness with a capital G or not that is woven into the whop and woof of the of the cosmos. It's it's the the very nature of the cosmos is at stake here. Is is there something right with a capital R? Well, we certainly seem to think that there are things that are wrong with the capital W. Um So surely this is a good argument. Like surely surely it makes God's existence more likely if you follow it.
SPEAKER_01And you would think so. And and uh, you know, it's been always my favourite argument of all the sort of intellectual arguments for God, the moral argument is the one that gets me, kind of because it's not just an intellectual argument, it's not just a kind of, you know, premises that work out into a conclusion. It hits you at a kind of you know, in in the solar plexus, it's a kind of, yeah, this makes a difference. Um, whether this is just the happenstance of the hand evolution has dealt me, or whether there really is a moral order, some something right and wrong about the way we treat each other. And I think and the problem is as long, yeah, I I think Dawkins ha ha has and always has had this kind of view of God where he's just one more thing among a an order of things, and if he's not needed, then you can just expend him. I don't think Dawkins has ever seriously taken seriously the idea that that God is the the source of everything, including that moral sort of compunction that we all feel about an issue like rape. And um and I I don't know what would take him to move. I I suspect it's not necessarily just me being a clever gotcha kind of moment uh after a debate that's gonna move him. I in my experience, um there are some kinds of atheists who are so wedded to their naturalism that there's almost no intellectual or piece of evidence that could move them. Because you always run it through this naturalistic filter and find, you know. Um so at that point, you you know, someone like Richard Dawkins arguably doesn't just need more arguments and and evidence. Um he needs a change of heart at some level. And who knows what that could that could mean. But um as it stands, um it's certainly it where it where wherever he end ends up on that question, it's certainly for a lot of other people, I know it was quite an interesting moment which has led them to think, hmm, actually, I'm not sure he gave the right answer to that question. And why didn't he give the right answer? Why, why, why am I? Why couldn't he give the right answer? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. So Justin, you get into many of these topics and more in your book, Why I'm Still a Christian, after two decades of conversations with skeptics and atheists, the reason I believe. Is there any play on the the titles of some other famous books and works by that name? I guess we you we've had Bertrand Russell uh talking about why I'm not a Christian. And you're talking about why you're still a Christian. Is is that play in mind?
SPEAKER_01It does, it does play on that kind of thing. It's also, you know, because a lot of people will know me from having hosted conversations between atheists and Christians for for many years on the Unbelievable show. Um I one of the most common questions I ever got was, why are you still a Christian after all these years of being given the best arguments against faith by, you know, the atheists and so on that I've had on. And so writing a book which talked about why I'm still a Christian was kind of meant to sort of say, Yeah, I'm still hanging in there, you know, I still still haven't quite been convinced out of it. On the contrary, in fact, I'm I'm more confident actually of that that Christianity can stand on its own two feet intellectually after having all these conversations. So that's the kind of the idea is to say, you know what, turns out this thing kind of makes sense. Even when you put it through the ringer and look at it this way, that, and the other. It it I'm still here, still a Christian. What do you hope the book does? I hope it gives Christians a sense of confidence that we're living in a moment, as I've said in in the other book, Surprising Rebirth of Believing God, where there's an openness. And actually, it turns out Christianity has a wealth of good reasons to present to people. Um so I'm still I'm still a fan of marshalling all the resources we have and and giving people a reason to believe. Um and that's what I hope it will do for Christians. I hope that, again, in this moment where people are asking these kinds of questions more and more, it's the kind of book you could give to someone who's maybe starting to question things and and open up. And it might just help to answer some of those n normal questions that arise. Uh it might give people a little bit of a bird's eye view as to what the story of Christianity looks like and why it might make sense. So I'm hoping, yeah, that it'll find its way into the hands of both and just be helpful as we see what what God's doing in in our time.
SPEAKER_02Wonderful. And I'm sure it will be helpful to many, many people. Uh Justin, how can people keep up with you online?
SPEAKER_01There's my website, JustinBriley.com. Um you can find links there to the podcast I'm involved in, the reenchanting podcast, the surprising rebirth of belief podcast. Uh you can you'll be able to find links to the new book there as soon as it's published. And um yeah, and uh if you want to follow me on social media, just look up Justin Briley and uh you'll find me rabbiting on, um, usually encouraging people to to to to sign up to my newsletter or do something that helps that enables me to like, share, and subscribe.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Justin, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks, Glenn. Delightful to be with you.