Well, hello, and welcome back to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Thomas Thorrigan, media producer at Speak Life, and a happy new year to all of you listeners. 2026, can you believe it? To kick this year off, here is Glenn Scrivener reflecting on a recent conversation between Alex O'Connor and Rhett McLaughlin about Christianity. Let's check it out.
SPEAKER_03If you're saying that you believe this in faith because you trust God, and then there's a legitimate spiritual transformation that takes place, why is that not a good enough argument? Why do we have to get into using reason and logic? Because for me, I was told it was true because it was reasonable. When I found out it wasn't reasonable, I concluded that it wasn't true.
SPEAKER_01We need to save Christianity from Christians. That is the bold assertion of Rhett McLaughlin and Alex O'Connor. I am a Christian and I'm here to tell you that Rhett and Alex are right about many, many things in this video. They get so many things right and they miss the real problem. We'll get to what they miss in a second, but my name's Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus, including the issue of faith. Rhett McLaughlin in this video wants to save Christianity from Christians, and he identifies three things that Christians need to embrace or to re-embrace in order to forward their message out into the world. Because Rhett says we have a wonderful opportunity right now.
SPEAKER_03If you've got people like me who are in your currently in the flock and you want to keep them there, I think there's some things that you could do differently, right? The crazy thing is happening is like you've talked about this a lot, but there's there is a crisis of purpose and meaning, right? Like we are experiencing people feeling the sense of hopelessness and disconnectedness. And then you've got the church kind of stepping in. It's kind of having a cultural moment, right? The church is stepping in, ready-made purpose and meaning. You've got this tested philosophy that's that's helped millions of people, billions of people. It's showing up in the stats. Uh, you know, church attendance is up. I was looking at one uh Barner research poll that was the number of people who considered Jesus, a commitment to Jesus to be a very important thing in their life. Like in 2021, I think that was around 54%. In 2025, it's 66%. It's a 12-point jump. You know, and 54 was like the lowest it had ever been. Right. Yeah. In a very short period of time, based on a number of different factors, it's it's climbed to that level. And so the church is having a moment, and you've got all these people coming in. Like I th I thought it would be interesting to sort of do what might not be expected by the skeptic and the former Christian and talk about what they can do to keep the people who are coming through their doors.
SPEAKER_01There is a moment, there is a vibe shift, there is more interest in faith, people are showing up in church, and Rhett wants Christians to do well. Why does he want Christians to do well? Well, he says this.
SPEAKER_03One of the reasons I'm motivated to do this is because, you know, the church isn't going away. The church is going to evolve. The church can has always evolved, and the church continues to be a really important cultural force in the United States, they basically have the biggest influence on the direction of our country right now. And I think that as a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the world, I have a vested interest in the church being healthy and the church being a force for good.
SPEAKER_01Christians, and in particular evangelical Christians, are perhaps the largest voting bloc in the U.S., which puts a really interesting spin on the church and state dynamics of the United States. And it also skews the incentives of those on the inside and those on the outside of church. There are many people who go to church but have their eye very much on the politics of the United States, and they want to use Christianity in that way. Rhett McLaughlin is similar. It's just he is on the outside of church and he very much wants Christians to help America go into better directions. But interestingly, both the cynical Christian and the cynical ex-Christian are interested in the church for largely political reasons. So Rhett is wanting the church to do well, and he says we need to embrace these three things. We need to embrace faith, truth, and Jesus.
SPEAKER_03I see it as sort of three points. I would say they need to embrace faith, they need to embrace truth, and they need to embrace Jesus.
SPEAKER_01You can take the boy out of evangelicalism, you cannot take the evangelicalism out of the boy. Three points, and they are three excellent points. I'm with him. Embrace faith, embrace truth, embrace Jesus. What's he gonna say about embracing faith?
SPEAKER_03So the first thing, you know, when we talk about faith, I think in many ways, the modern Christian church, and I would say this is most pronounced in sort of American evangelicalism, um kind of took the bait of the Enlightenment. Right? So you've got this one-two punch of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Reformation, of course, when faith became more personal and the access to scripture and the experience of God became something that could happen on an individual level, right? And then you follow that up with the the Enlightenment, where we go from truth being determined by dogma, by tradition, and authority to truth being determined through observation, uh you know, evidence. And I think that fast forward to modern times and you've got Christian apologists who spend a lot of time making the case that Christianity is the most reasonable worldview that you can have. That the resurrection is the best explanation for the start of the church. Like the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus is the most reasonable explanation for the start of the church. And I think that I don't think that's true. I don't think it's the most reasonable explanation for the start of the church. But I think that what ends up happening when you're when you have a brain like mine and you are sort of motivated to try to get the things that you believe to line up with reality, you're told this is the most reasonable thing. And so you really jump in with the reason and logic, and then you encounter a faith that says that reason and logic can be a little bit overrated. And that and and what I see in the Bible from Jesus and also whoever wrote Hebrews, uh Paul, I see a completely different message. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01This is fascinating. I love setting things in historical perspective. I think the enlightenment is a really key moment, and Rhett is right to highlight that. We've spoken about this a lot on the channel, for instance, when we had Graham Tomlin on to speak about Blaise Pascal versus Rene Descartes and his enlightenment views. We spoke about it again when we had the philosopher Esther Meek on the channel talking about the split, the enlightenment split between fact and value, between body and mind, between science and faith. And the way that that has really done a number on us, and I think that Rhett is identifying correctly that the church has tried to accommodate that split, and that he's identifying apologists as wanting to camp out on the fact side of the fact values split. So that if you want to believe in the resurrection, what you really want to do is to find the five minimal historical facts that point to the empty tomb and the point to the success of the Romans at crucifixion and the fact that everybody knew where the tomb was and the tomb was empty, and that the apostles all sort of went to their deaths kind of proclaiming this, even though it was against their interests. And you sort of build up the factual case on the side of science to establish the faith thing that Christians have always been interested in. We've always been interested in declaring the faith of Jesus risen again from the dead, defeater of sin and death and hell. But there's been an enlightenment split, and some Christians have tried to accommodate the age and they have camped out on the more scientific side of things, the more fact-related side of things, and it just doesn't work. And Rhett McLaughlin says, People with my kind of brain, we want to go in on the fact side of things, and we're looking for scientific proof of a resurrection, and when we don't find it, we start to conclude that the faith is empty because the facts are found wanting. Rhett McLaughlin has just identified the key problem in apologetics. He really has, but I think he is missing the solution. And in fact, what Rhett will provide as the solution is only reinforcing the fact value split. His solution to the problem only makes the problem worse. What is it that solves the problem? We'll see, but let's let Rhett speak.
SPEAKER_03I'm sure these are all verses that you're familiar with, but just to like to explore the idea of what faith looks like in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02Let's take a look.
SPEAKER_03Follow along at home. Bible study. Yes. So we're starting with, you know, the uh the famous verse in Hebrews, uh Hebrews 11 1, right? Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
SPEAKER_01I love that we've got our Bibles open here. This is a fantastic conversation. We get to a lot of scripture. This is a very rich conversation. Hebrews 11, let me read it in the NIV, which is a translation that I prefer. I think it tends to be the one that Alex uses the most as well. Hebrews 11, verse 1. Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Now notice that faith is about confidence and it is about assurance. Faith is not the opposite of certainty. Um, the the other side of faith is not certainty. The other side of faith is sight. Faith is being sure of something even when you can't see it, because it's based on trust. You trust in what you can see in order to have assurance about the things that you cannot see. That's what faith is in the Bible. It's not the opposite of certainty. Rhett goes on to quote from 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 7 uh we live by faith, not by sight. Okay, in the Bible, faith is not the opposite of certainty. Faith is the opposite of sight. It's about trusting Jesus when you cannot see Jesus. This will be important, and I would love to sit down and have a conversation with Rhett if I ever had the opportunity. Rhett, you've got a new channel. Um, why don't you have uh a Christian apologist on to talk about faith? Because I I love to talk about these subjects. And I think once we see that biblically faith is still about certainty, it's just not about the same kind of certainty as science is interested in. It's not about sight, it is about trust. That will become important as we go on, but let's hear Rhett continue to make his case.
SPEAKER_03This is this is maybe my favorite passage just because it's so uh personal to me and my experience. So you got Jesus in John chapter 20. So Thomas. Yes. So, you know, he has appeared to the disciples, and he's shown them the holes in his hands and the in in the hole in his side where he was pierced. And then, of course, Thomas said, What I don't know what he's doing, he's not there. And then Thomas shows up later and they're like, We have seen the Lord. And he's like, Okay, well, that might be good for you, but I I need to see him, and I need to literally place my fingers in his hands. I need to place my hand in his side. And what does Jesus do? Well, he comes back a week later and he's like, Okay, you want to you want to do this? Here, touch my hand, touch my side. And there's a great painting, The Incredulity of St. Thomas, which I want to get a print of this. Yeah. Uh just but interestingly, he's sticking his finger in the side, not his whole hand. Yeah. Missed opportunity.
SPEAKER_01Let's get an image of Caravaggio's incredulity of St. Thomas. It's an incredible painting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think so. Although interestingly, um, as a s actually, you know, I'll I'll I'll get to this in a moment, but I it's not clear from the text. And this actually works really well with what I'm presuming you're gonna say. It's not actually guaranteed by the text that Thomas ever actually touches Jesus. Uh we only know that Jesus shows up and offers, come on then, like tu touch me. Right.
SPEAKER_03Because he kind of continues in in that and says, stop doubting and believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then of course he says the thing that, and I've heard you talk about this as well. He's like, you know, you have seen because you have believed because you have seen. Blessed are those who believe who have not seen. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly. And in John's gospel, the very next verse says this Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Seeing leads to a certain kind of certainty, but you need to trust things that you cannot see. You need to trust things that you cannot see in science, you need to trust things that you cannot see in everyday life. Our whole world runs on trust. It really does run on faith. You orient your life according to a thousand things that you do not see, and yet you still trust, you still rely on these things, you still depend on these things being real, even when you cannot directly observe them. You live your life by faith, I live my life by faith. And really what we need to do in those moments where we cannot directly observe something is we need to rely on the testimony of others. And the opposite of the certainty of sight is not the uncertainty of just being a faith head. The opposite of the certainty of sight, or the complement to the certainty of sight, is to rely on the testimony of others. And John is saying that the word of God is reliable testimony that you can trust so that even without directly observing the risen Jesus, you can trust the testimony of others that Christ did indeed defeat death, just as the scriptures testified. And you might think, well, that is a far less certain kind of knowledge than to see Jesus directly, the way that Thomas got to see him. But that's not true, is it? I mean, if Jesus appeared at the end of your bed tonight at three in the morning in all his risen glory and he said, See my hands on my side, reach out, stop doubting and believe, if he said that to you, that would give you the most overwhelming sense of trust and confidence and assurance in your entire life. Until the next morning, when you would start to doubt your senses? And still you went into work the next day and you tried to tell people, yeah, Jesus was at the end of my bed last night. It was kind of incredible. And having told all your co-workers this story, and after they ask you, Did you have much cheese before bed, Glenn? You would start to need to see Jesus again. And then again, and then again, and then again. Is sight the most certain kind of knowledge? Very obviously not. It is only the Enlightenment divide that makes us think that certainty belongs on this side of the ledger, next to science and sight and fact, and that other kinds of knowing are uncertain, unsure, vague, ephemeral. Matters of private judgment, but not matters of actual truth and reality. Whereas most of us live our lives by faith most of the time. We trust that when we put our car into the mechanics, that the mechanic was well qualified, and that he had done due diligence on the brake lining that he put onto your car, and that every other motorist on the way home from the garage is also going to abide by the rules, even though you don't know who these people are. You trust, you trust, you trust, you trust, you cannot not trust. You live by faith, not by sight. And that is not a less certain way of living. If you only lived by what you can directly observe in life, you would live a much less certain life, a much shrunken life, a much littler life. Faith expands you and helps you to be more in touch with reality. And so when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus, if you had seen Jesus the way that Thomas saw Jesus, then that would give you a certain level of assurance, but you might need to see him again in two weeks and then again in another two weeks. If you have come to meet Jesus in Scripture, and if God's word has spoken to you with the self-authenticating glory and reality that God's voice can speak with, then you can be assured that Jesus is alive in a way that is not inferior to sight, but that is in many ways superior to sight. You believe because you have seen Thomas, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. Believe through the word of testimony, believe through the word of God. That is a far more certain kind of knowledge, actually. And Rhett is right to fault apologists if they want to found people's faith on the five minimal facts of the historical record of the first century. That is far shakier ground to build your faith on than the word of testimony given to you in the Bible. I think Rhett is right at this point.
SPEAKER_02Let's keep going. Which again, considering this sort of essence of Enlightenment values of empiricism and observation, to say, blessed are those who believe without seeing. When I ask Christians about this, and I say, look, what what is what's Jesus saying here? Is he saying that you're supposed to believe without evidence? They say typically No, no, no. It's more that Jesus thought that Thomas shrew had enough evidence based on the witness of the disciples. Like blessed are those who could believe based on that amount of evidence. And if if that even if that's the case, we're still talking about sort of belief in something which you have not directly observed for yourself, but rather heard through essentially a kind of authority. That is the authority of like trustworthy friendship, which is much more in keeping with the tr sort of traditional view of authority than this enlightenment scientific approach.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell But we all believe authorities all the time, and you cannot get out of bed in the morning without believing authorities, without trusting to things that you have not directly observed. All of life is lived like that. It's not just benighted people who are pre-Enlightenment.
SPEAKER_03Trevor Burrus, Jr. I saw a lot of people come to know Jesus during my time in ministry, and I never, not once, after sharing the gospel, did I have someone say, Do you have any way to prove that that's true? Can you, can we like, is there something I can read to know that the Bible is true? It was like, no, they were making it was a faith decision, it was a spiritual decision. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Rhett is right uh in the people that I've seen come to faith. It hasn't really been because they've done a historical analysis of the first century and come to the conclusion that probably the CCTV footage outside the tomb would see a man walking out of the tomb. It's not that they've done the five minimal facts that prove the resurrection and they've discounted all the alternative hypotheses. It's it's not that at all. It's that they've met Jesus. They've met Jesus in the pages of scripture through worship, through song, through the witness of others. They have met a Jesus who is self-authenticating. And by self-authenticating, I mean you've met an authority that just seems so self-evidently to be tops, to be numero uno, to be number one, to be head honcho, to be to be Lord. And when you encounter Jesus in just such an unmistakable way, you cannot conclude anything other than that he is Lord. I look at the sun and I know that it is bright. I taste honey and I know that it is sweet. I encounter Jesus in Scripture and I know that whatever else God might be in this world, he is it, right? And if he's not what God's like, then God ought to get his act together, right? It's it's that kind of thing. It's encountering Jesus in that kind of way. Such that you then reason backwards to what must have happened on the third day after he was crucified, and you think to yourself, well, how could death hold the author of life? How could the grave have a victory over God? And you don't understand the physiology of how coagulated blood starts pumping around a body in a first-century tomb again. You don't know that. Nobody knows that, right? It's not the scientific belief in the plausibility of resuscitating a corpse in uh some, you know, some tomb in Jerusalem. It's that Jesus is Lord, and I guess I guess death has met its match in him. I I know that death is largely the heavyweight champion of the world. When death has come up against every other opponent, every other opponent has fallen beneath the power, the authority, the the cruel tyranny of death, and yet I think death has met its match in Jesus. I think death is not Lord ultimately. I think Jesus is Lord, and I think somehow he beat it on that Easter Sunday. And and there are enough people who testified to it, and I look at the internal consistency of the Gospels, I look at the internal consistency of the New Testament and the Old Testament and its predictions of all those sorts of things, and it seems to me that they are witnessing to a Lord who is Lord even of death. So I guess that is why Jesus is encountering me now with living power, not as a dead teacher whose wisdom I am remembering, but as a living Lord who is present with me now. Well, I guess he did not rot in that Jerusalem tomb. And I don't know how it happened. I don't know physically, scientifically how it happened, but um I'm all in on Jesus. So yeah, he rose from the dead. Sure. That's how I have come to believe in the resurrection of Jesus. And that's pretty much, I think, how most people have come to believe in the resurrection of Jesus. I don't think they've gone through the minimal facts thing. And I don't think we're meant to go through the minimal facts thing. I think that is to build your faith on some very shaky foundations. Rhett keeps going.
SPEAKER_03And then maybe once they became a Christian, they might then go to apologetics. Which again, that's what apologetics exists for. Yeah. It's to justify belief that's already happened in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_01Did you get that? Rhett is right. Apologetics reinforces beliefs that you already have. That's true about apologetics. It's also true about everything. The way true knowledge happens is faith seeking understanding. That was the pre-Enlightenment view that Christians have always had. That was the view of Augustine, that was the view of Anselm, that was the view of Aquinas, that you believe in order to understand. And actually, even the scientific method proceeds along that particular route. That you believe that there must be a bosun out there. You know, Higgs. And we're going to call it the Higgs boson. And you believe, because of a whole bunch of other things, that there must be this thing here. And so you go to great expense and you build the large hadron collider and you smash together particles at uh, you know, un undreamt of speeds and velocities before, and bang, and you discover what was there. And it's faith-seeking understanding. Even science proceeds according to faith-seeking understanding. It's not just apologists who have their dogmas and then they're just so riddled with confirmation bias they cannot but find confirmation to their prejudices. It's not that. This is the way all knowledge works. It's the way knowledge works for Rhett. It's the way knowledge works for Alex. It's the way knowledge works for me and for you, faith-seeking understanding. You might think that that is a regrettable thing, but it is just a thing. Let's keep going because Rhett then goes to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, which I love, one of my favorite chapters in all the Bible.
SPEAKER_03So we've seen the example of Jesus talking about it and then the writer of Hebrews, but Paul gets even more explicit, which again, I find this very difficult to reconcile with modern apologetics. So you got 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse What is that? I need my readers. 18. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. And in other translations it says foolishness, right? And then he expands on this at the top of chapter two, where he says And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear, and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Plause it's this is not Amen.
SPEAKER_01Did you hear that from Alex? Amen. Amen. I think I think we're all on the same page here. Alex Ritt and I. I I think these guys are right in lots of ways, but I I just I think they are missing what the solution actually is. And I think what they have identified as the solution is actually only increasing the problem that they're experiencing. But on the fact that Jesus Christ and him crucified is the heart of all things and it's bonkers and it makes no sense on worldly carnal wisdom. It looks foolish, it looks stupid, it looks moronic. Um the fact that Christianity is putting all its chips on this weak-looking, foolish-looking doctrine called Christ crucified. That is everything. That's my entire faith. That's my entire life, that's in my entire ministry, that's in my entire message out there into the world to put all my chips onto Jesus Christ and Him crucified, looking so foolish, looking so weak, choking to death on a cross. Doesn't look wise, doesn't look powerful, but this is the thing about one Corinthians, it then goes on to say that actually to the mature, this is a message of wisdom, that this is wiser than man's wisdom, that this is stronger than man's strength. It's not that the cross is inferior to human wisdom, it is far superior to human wisdom, actually. And it's not that Christianity is subrational, it's that we are subrational when we use the wisdom of the world. We are the fools, not the cross. But without the wisdom of the Spirit, we are going to look at Jesus choking to death on a cross and conclude that that is weak and that is foolish. And Paul says, nevertheless, I put that stumbling block out there into the world, and I I determine to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And this is a word for apologists. Rhett and Alex are right. We need to lead with Christ and Him crucified, no matter how foolish it looks, no matter how weak it looks. We definitely need to do that. And this is a wonderful reminder, and I'm very grateful to Rhett for giving us this reminder. Rhett goes on to say some more things, but he lands on this point, which I think is really worth saying.
SPEAKER_03Ultimately, what I'm asking for, I think, is just just embrace the fact that it's a faith. And if you're saying that you believe this in faith because you trust God, and then there's a legitimate spiritual transformation that takes place, why is that not a good enough argument? Why do we have to get into using reason and logic? Because for me, I was told it was true because it was reasonable. When I found out it wasn't reasonable, I concluded that it wasn't true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It sort of um sets up the way in which it could be falsified. Because if your belief is that this has to essentially be grounded in empirical evidence or rationality, then if it if you discover that actually the case isn't as good as you thought it was, and you know, so it's not for us to say that it's definitely unreasonable or that there is no evidence, but even just on a practical level, if somebody becomes convinced that the arguments they heard from an apologist that made them think about Christianity actually aren't as well founded, if that's what brought them into the church, then that's what will send them right out again, you know? It's um you know the same the same hand that leads you in also pulls you out. Okay? And so in that case, is it not better to ground Christianity in what historically people have claimed is the most sort of important part about your relationship with God, which is the the experience, the the faith, the the sort of personal commitment to a relationship with Jesus, that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01That is so well said from Alex. The hand that leads you into the faith will be the hand that leads you out. And if the hand that leads you in is simply being clever, then as soon as you meet a more clever atheist, then he or she will lead you out of the faith by that same hand. If you build your faith on human wisdom, then it will be human wisdom that brings down your faith. And that is not to say that Christianity is not wise. It's just that human wisdom is actually subrational. It's not God's wisdom. God's wisdom is demonstrated at the cross. So Alex is right, we should not build our faith on such shaky foundations as human philosophy. But then he says we should build our faith on personal experience, just having a relationship with Jesus. And this is what I mean by Alex and Brett not actually having the solution to the problem that they point out. They say that the Enlightenment has split us between fact and value. And then they say, well, the facts might not be on the Christian side of things. Therefore, Christians should camp out on the other side of that chasm and instead just go for the personal, for the interior, for the subjective, for the relationship, just for the vibes, right? Over on this side of things. But the problem with that is that it assumes the chasm. And the chasm is not true. The chasm is a lie, that the chasm is the thing that really needs to be addressed. Not that we need to shun one side of the chasm and just camp out on the value side of things, on the faith side of things, on the personal interior experience side of things. And that's because Jesus is the integrator of fact and value. He is the word who became flesh. He is God who lived as a man. He is the one from heaven who came to earth. He is the eternal one who has encountered us in time and space. He is the integration point of fact and value, of science and faith, of word and flesh. And no wonder, as we have walked away from Jesus, no wonder we have found it ever more difficult to unite heaven and earth, God and man, eternity and time, faith and science, value and fact. We have found it ever more difficult to unite these things because we have shunned the one who is the integration of these things. Rhett and Alex have identified the problem. The problem is an enlightenment split, and the problem is certain apologists using certain apologetic methods that camp out on the fact side of things. That's a problem. But the solution is not to assume the chasm and instead inhabit the other side of it. There is an integrated view of heaven and earth, of all things, that does center on Jesus Christ. And that will mean thinking through various tricky questions. Rhett goes on in the conversation to talk about, well, what do we do about Genesis and the fact that there are two different creation narratives, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, and that then how are we meant to integrate Genesis with Darwin and how are we meant to integrate faith and science and all these sorts of things. The second point that Rhett makes is that we need to embrace truth. Christians need to embrace faith and we need to embrace truth. And by that largely he means we need to believe the neo-Darwinian synthesis. But as soon as he says that, he is opening up a whole area of inquiry in which, well, you would need to think through, therefore, what is a human being? And are we simply animals? And is there anything qualitatively different about the human species as opposed to all animal species? And at that point, what are you engaged with? Well, you're engaged in some kind of philosophical undertaking. You're you're engaged in some kind of apologetics at that point. Some kind of apologetics, right? You're engaged in theology proper at that point. And and Christians are not foolish or capitulating to the spirit of the age to want to think about, oh, why is there Genesis 1 and 2? And then how do we think about Genesis 1 and 2 in the light of modern science? Oh, and and how do we integrate fact and value in science and theology in all these different ways? And at that point, Christians, well, we'll need to wear a hat. And you might not call it an apologetics hat, you might just call it a contextualization hat, or you might just call it a theology hat. You'll need to do some deep thinking about stuff. And Rhett, having jettisoned apologists in his first point, he might actually find that there's a need for that category of person thinking about contextualizing the Christian message for today. You might actually need apologists in the end. And then Rhett goes on to talk about we need to embrace Jesus. And I thought that was beautifully said. Um he makes uh an incredible comparison between Christians selling out for political gain, and he brings that into conversation with Matthew chapter four and the temptations of Christ. Here's just a selection of what Rhett says at that point.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Ross Powell The temptation of Jesus. Of course, he's out there in the wilderness for 40 days. And so there's the three temptations from the devil. The third one being going up to the top of the mountain, saying, Look at all the kingdoms of the world. I will give you all of this if you will just bow down and worship me. And of course, Jesus says, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and only him shall you serve. This to me this is pretty wild, considering the state of the current American church. Because the one opportunity that Jesus uh has to make a commentary about embracing political power over the kingdom or the kingdoms of this world is presented as a temptation of Satan. This is presented as a temptation of Satan to fall for this. We've got to be, we've got to be in control of the kingdoms of the world. Does Jesus say, well, okay, maybe you're in charge right now, but you just wait until a few of m my followers are in government. Or you you wait until we're in charge. Again, he says, it's not about that. And it just blows my mind that we've gotten to this place where this seems to be the way that the kingdom of God is going to be established is by infiltrating and taking over the government. And I'm not just saying that it's not a good idea from a Christian perspective. I'm saying it is forbidden. I think it's worth noting that the more that Christians have embraced this pursuit of political power, the more they have embraced political leadership that looks a lot less like Jesus and a lot more like the devil himself.
SPEAKER_01That's really well said. We need to embrace Jesus himself. And as we do that, we will find that the wisdom of Jesus is against the wisdom of this age and against the power plays of this age. And it has a way of speaking into the contemporary issues of 2026 when we go deeply into scripture, when we go deeply into Jesus, who is the integration of fact and value of faith and science. Jesus is forever relevant, and we'll have to go deep into his message and then contextualize it for today. And as you do that work, maybe you don't want to call it apologetics. I don't like the name apologetics. I don't I don't like being called an apologist. That's that's not how I think of myself. But you will have to have that category of thinking through what does the Jesus of Scripture, the Jesus who went to the cross out of love, how does he become a lens through which we see all things, including politics and science, including personal relationships and meaning and significance and politics and economics and philosophy and art and literature and all these things. Jesus has proved to be the most fruitful lens through which to see reality that humanity has ever come across. And maybe that recommends Jesus, right? Here at this channel, we say we like to see all things through the lens of Jesus. And it turns out that Jesus is the lens through which more people have seen truth than any other lens. Alex says it well when he quotes C. S. Lewis. He says this. What is it, Lewis said?
SPEAKER_02C. S. Lewis said, I believe in Christianity for the same reason I believe in the sun. Not just because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything else. He has some good ones. He is uh he's got some bangers, he's got some bangers.
SPEAKER_01Jesus is the light of the world in whose light we see light. And so I would just urge uh Rhett and Alex to keep on looking at Jesus and to keep on looking through Jesus at the rest of the world, and the fact that he is so fascinating and the fact that he reveals things about this world. Maybe that might suggest to them that Jesus is awesome, he's ace, he's numero uno, he's head honcho, he's the chief, he's the king, he's he's lord. And then at that stage, bad luck you're a Christian again, Rhett. It sneaks up on you like that. That's what I'd be praying for. And uh Rhett, if you'd ever like to get into a conversation uh with somebody about these things, I'm a card carrying Christian and uh have loved your content for decades. Would love to get in conversation with you if you would like that. Um are you subscribed to this channel? Uh why don't you give the channel a subscribe? And we'll see you again on the next video. Thanks so much.