Big Skeptics Becoming Christians

KEVIN HARRIS: Hey, it’s Kevin Harris. Welcome to Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig. As you can probably guess, I love this time of year. This big old state of Texas finally starts to cool off, it feels better outside, signals the coming holidays, and it's also an important time for Reasonable Faith as we once again launch our Matching Grant campaign. Some generous supporters have gotten together and agreed to match whatever you give. So your donation is doubled between now and December 31st. So grab this opportunity and double the impact of your giving. Please consider giving now to help the powerful resources from Reasonable Faith continue to transform lives, resources like the Equip course, which is a free online apologetics, philosophy, and theology course. Have you signed up for it yet? It's free. Over 9,000 people have enrolled in Equip. We want to keep it free. Again, that's just one of the many resources that you are supporting when you give. Give online between now and the end of the year at ReasonableFaith.org and your donation will be doubled by this matching grant. Now let's go to the studio with Dr. Craig.

Bill, we examined the trend earlier this year in some of our podcasts, and this month Christianity Today is examining that same trend. We have their article^[1] by Nathan Guy who is associate professor of philosophy, theology, and ethics at Harding University titled, “Some of Christianity’s Biggest Skeptics Are Becoming Vocal Converts” – long title. But, as our listeners can probably guess, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is prominent in this article.

DR. CRAIG: I think you're probably thinking as well of Justin Brierley's recent book entitled The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers are Considering Christianity Again. Justin was the podcaster on the very popular British podcast Unbelievable where he had the opportunity to interview some of the top minds in British intellectual culture. And in conversation with an agnostic journalist named Douglas Murray, Brierley began to suspect that there is a major change going on in British culture. Apparently Murray, speaking of the so-called sea of faith which had receded as the tide went out, remarked “the tide is coming back in again” and that a number of intellectuals had converted to Christianity in recent years. In the book Justin talks about secular thinkers that he had interviewed like Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland, Dave Rubin, and many others who are now re-engaging in these conversations of faith. So any of our listeners who are interested in documenting this trend could take a look at Justin Brierley's book on the surprising rebirth of belief in God.

KEVIN HARRIS: The article begins with a little history of the Jesus Revolution of the 70s. Fifty years ago Christianity Today reported on that movement. They leveled a criticism against those youth noting that they seem to exhibit “super-subjective trust.” They “held emotionally charged notions of the Christian experience” and “they lacked a substantial apologetic.” The article argues that today's trend among former skeptics is the opposite of that. Before we look at that, Bill, I wanted to ask you if you consider yourself a product of the Jesus Revolution. You and Jan were just the right age for that movement. How much were you influenced by the Jesus People and that movement?

DR. CRAIG: I was converted as a junior in high school in 1965 which was just a few years before the outbreak of the Jesus Revolution in Southern California. But when I graduated from Wheaton in 1971, I went out to Arrowhead Springs in San Bernardino, California for new staff training with Campus Crusade for Christ. In between there was a weekend where we all had to vacate the campus in between the Institute of Biblical Studies and the beginning of staff training. I had no place to go, so I went to a Jesus commune in Newport Beach and spent about three days with the Jesus People in Newport Beach. That's down near to where Calvary Chapel is, with Chuck Smith. It was a wonderful experience. I would sit and listen to these countercultural hippie-types who had come to know Christ in a very real and palpable way and come out of the drug culture and so forth. It was really exciting. I must say that it did inspire me to be countercultural myself in that regard; to not conform to the typical American culture, but to be part of this Christian counterculture. That really was important for me in those early years in the 70s.

KEVIN HARRIS: By the way, I was a little younger, but I was certainly influenced by it all. I was 12 years old at Explo 72 – in 1972 in Dallas. I was there. My youth group was very emotional like this article says. We were pretty much the epitome of kumbaya. Josh McDowell hit the scene during the same time with Evidence That Demands a Verdict. I was 17 when I read that, and I was electrified. It was exactly what I was missing in my walk with God. Josh influenced you, as well.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah. Jan and I were both on Campus Crusade for Christ staff at that time. Explo 72 was an outreach of Campus Crusade for Christ inspired by Bill Bright. So while you were there, Kevin, as a teenager, Jan and I were staffing the conference. We were out in the parking lot directing traffic and doing other things of that sort. So we were close to each other then and didn't even realize it at the time.

KEVIN HARRIS: Back to the article, Nathan Guy writes this anti-intellectualism,

was caused for concern, it was felt, since the Christian faith required “cognitive knowledge” to ground one’s “subjective experience.”

What do you think the way that he phrases that?

DR. CRAIG: I think by saying that we need “cognitive knowledge to ground one's subject experience” he means to say that that subjective experience needs to put us in touch with what is objectively true. That experience needs to be veridical, and it needs to be authenticated by objective truths. For example, if someone says, “I have an experience of Jesus,” this can't just be some sort of a mystical feeling. It needs to be grounded in the historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, who actually lived and wrought and died on the cross and rose again. If that's what he means, I would agree with him wholeheartedly.

KEVIN HARRIS: Continuing, Guy writes,

Fast forward 50 years, and a new religious movement seems to be underway, perhaps just as offbeat as the Jesus People of the 1970s. I am talking about the growing number of “intellectual Christians”—people whose turn to faith is tethered far more to cognitive knowledge than to subjective experience.

. . .

a curious trend is taking place among the elite, as a growing number of high-profile thought leaders and public figures are repudiating their antireligious paradigms in favor of the Christian framework.

The first example he gives is A. N. Wilson of Oxford. A noted author and researcher. He was a classmate of Richard Dawkins, and wrote a 1991 book titled Against Religion: Why We Should Try to Live Without It. But in 2009, he wrote a New Statesman article titled “Why I believe again.” Wilson said, “I found it impossible not to realise that all life, all being, derives from God.” This reminded him, he said, “of all the human qualities that have to be denied if you embrace the bleak, muddled creed of a materialist atheist.” That reminds me of something you've written that even if the evidence was 50/50, why would one want to embrace the hopelessness of atheism?

DR. CRAIG: Yes, I agree entirely. This is Pascal's Wager. Blaise Pascal, the brilliant French mathematician, argued that even if the evidence for and against Christianity were absolutely equal, you ought to believe that it is true because if it is true there is infinite gain to be had, and if it turns out to be false there's very minor finite loss. So on balance the utility of believing just swamps the utility of unbelief. I think this is a good argument. It's absolutely correct. I think that what Wilson underlines is the point that I've made in my work that if atheism is true then life is ultimately absurd. I think the French existentialists had it right. If God does not exist then ultimately life is without meaning, value, or purpose, and moreover I would argue it is impossible to live consistently and happily with that sort of framework. If you live happily, it is only because you are inconsistent with your worldview. If you manage to live consistently, you will not be happy; you will be in the depths of despair and perhaps even suicidal. I think A. N. Wilson found out that, in fact, that was the truth. His atheism could not be lived out consistently and happily. You mentioned Richard Dawkins. Dawkins now is claiming to be a cultural Christian. He doesn't believe in Christianity, but he wants to adopt the values of Christianity and to mold his life by it. So he, himself, is backpedaling.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next on the list is Tom Holland, an award-winning British author and ancient Greek and Roman historian. He realized,

Christianity is the reason we take for granted that it is better to bear suffering than to cause it—and why we assume all human life is equal in value.

What's interesting is, although he now attends church, he reads the Scriptures, he does not yet consider himself a believer in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. He recently said in an interview, “I have come to the conclusion that, essentially, I am Christian.” What does this bring up? Does this bring up what you've been writing in your chapter on faith in your Systematic Philosophical Theology?

DR. CRAIG: Yes, I think it does in the sense that I argue that saving faith is not just a matter of trusting in Christ or in God, but it also involves propositional content. There is propositional faith – for example, that God exists; that Jesus died on the cross for my sins; that he rose from the dead – and those propositional beliefs are part of saving faith as a Christian. So in that sense Holland by simply embracing the culture of Christianity is not essentially a Christian. He's trying to have the benefits of Christian belief culturally but I think without really embracing the propositional content of Christianity. What's interesting about his statement that you read is that he's a Greco-Roman historian, and he says, “the reason we [here in the West] take for granted that it is better to bear suffering than to cause it—and why we assume all human life is equal in value” is because of Christianity. That is in noted contrast to the ancient Roman world which he, as a historian, would be familiar with. Life was cheap in Greco-Roman paganism. Particularly in the Colosseum people would be treated to spectaculars in which ancient beasts would fight each other or gladiators would fight with these beasts, or most horrible of all, is that human beings would fight to the death with one another. People in their bloodlust would flock to see these contests and cry out for the death of different persons. Of course, eventually these spectacles even featured Christians being thrown to wild beasts without armament – defenseless – to be eaten alive and torn to pieces. So it really is true that the reason we just take it so for granted that all life is valuable and that we ought to love one another and so forth is because of the cultural influence of Christianity in the West.

KEVIN HARRIS: We've covered the conversion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali in a couple of podcasts. She's next on the list in this article which says that,

her desire and search for a unifying basis for belief in the humanitarian values of life, equality, freedom, and dignity ultimately led her to the Christian faith.

She’s like Tom Holland in recognizing the extent to which Christianity has changed the world. But you and I discussed in that podcast that she seems to be more than just a cultural Christian. Time will tell, but she really seems to have embraced Christ.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I certainly agree with that, and I think that does distinguish her from Tom Holland in that she really does believe that Christianity is true and that Jesus was who he claimed to be and so forth. We can only hope that those who were on this path back toward faith will continue to full-fledged Christian belief in the same way that Ali has.

KEVIN HARRIS: By the way, Bill, you probably noticed that all of these examples of prominent intellectuals who are converting are in the UK. Do you care to speculate what's going on here? Could it be because it's such an intellectual center, or could a UK revival be on the horizon?

DR. CRAIG: I just don't know. I mean, the examples that Justin Brierley gives are also coming out of the UK. I'm not aware of this phenomenon here in North America yet. So it is rather surprising. I honestly just don't know what to make of it.

KEVIN HARRIS: We just got word of this; I haven't even had a chance to check out any of the interviews. But Philip Goff has also embraced Christianity. I think you've had some interaction with him.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. Philip Goff is a philosopher who is what is called a panpsychist; that is to say, he believes that the universe itself is conscious – that the universe has a mind or is a self. He tries to explain the fine-tuning of the universe on the basis of this panpsychism. In my forthcoming Systematic Philosophical Theology, I take on this attempt to explain fine-tuning without a transcendent designer and creator of the universe and argue that he's unsuccessful. I haven't had a chance to check this out, but apparently he claims to be a heretical Christian; that is to say, he's some kind of a Christian now but apparently not a full-fledged one. So that would be another example at least of this similar direction.

KEVIN HARRIS: Here's the bottom line of the article. Guy writes,

Such intellectual conversion stories are not new. . . . But this trend seems to have increased exponentially in recent years, with a growing number of secular intellectuals making similar declarations.

What does this phenomenon reveal about the changing cultural climate in the past 15 years? I believe it signals a significant pendulum swing—due in part to apologetic groundwork laid by previous generations.

Then he recounts the renaissance of Christian philosophy and philosophers and academics including, of course, Alvin Plantinga. It sounds like he's been reading some William Lane Craig.

DR. CRAIG: I would love to think so, but I have no reason to believe that that's the case. But that would show that the influence of apologetics on our broader culture is finally beginning to be felt.

KEVIN HARRIS: A couple more highlights from this article. Guy says that the intelligentsia has been trying to find a replacement for religion in modern times for decades. They keep thinking they'll discover and codify a secular ethical system that is superior to Christianity. This has led to what some are calling the “new ethical absolutism” which “cherry-picks moral principles apart from their larger ideological foundations” and that results in a kind of a new Puritanism that is downright scary. Leftists in particular are enforcing their pet virtues in brutal and cruel ways and feel morally justified to do so. What these intellectuals are discovering is that there is no comparable replacement. Guy says, “And while enjoying a tree’s fruit while spurning its roots is possible in practice, it requires accepting the cognitive dissonance of an incoherent worldview.” A lot to comment on.

DR. CRAIG: William Watkins has astutely observed that what we are confronting in our culture is not actually moral relativism. People give lip service to moral relativism, but Watkins says what it is is really a new absolutism where traditional values are being replaced by a new set of values. I think we see this so clearly in the promotion of the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion which are defined in ways that are very imperious, as you said, and can be imposed upon people contrary to their will. And that really is frightening. There is a terrible intolerance on the political left with regard to this new absolutism. The irony here is that if it really is detached from the tree that bears the fruit then there's no basis for this at all. There is no ontological foundation for affirming the objective value of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think that these folks who want to affirm moral absolutes but without a theistic grounding for these find themselves in an existentially impossible situation.

KEVIN HARRIS: The people mentioned in this article seem chiefly concerned with and moved by Christianity's overwhelming ethical and social contributions. I'm trying to figure out where you and your work are going to be most helpful in this. Do you think these cultural Christians will be most drawn to your work on the moral argument? I certainly hope they'll be drawn to the kalam and the resurrection as well.

DR. CRAIG: I hope so. I think so. I think even more directly relevant, as I've already mentioned today, would be my claim (which is the claim of many atheists like Nietzsche, Russell, and Sarte) that if atheism is true, life is ultimately absurd. I see this as a kind of prolegomenon to building a positive case for Christianity. It gets the unbeliever to at least think about the possibility that God might exist because if he does not the implications for human life and culture are catastrophic. It means that we cannot live consistently and happily within the framework of this atheistic worldview. And that leads to bad faith and inauthentic human existence. So I would see that as the most directly relevant aspect, but then as well the moral argument. If someone does want to affirm objective moral values, like the value of diversity say, then he's going to need to believe in God in order to ground the objectivity of that moral value.

KEVIN HARRIS: The article initially concludes,

Ultimately, only time will tell whether this growing “New Christian” movement is merely a superficial cultural shift or whether stories of those like Wilson, Holland, Ali, and others represent a real and enduring return to God among society’s intellectuals.

Reasonable Faith has been a big part of the groundwork that Nathan Guy says has been laid. Perhaps we're seeing a growth spurt in the fruit of your labors. Your thoughts?

DR. CRAIG: I wouldn't venture to say that. I have no idea. But I'm just trying to be faithful to what I believe God's called me to do. I think, as I step back and look at the big picture here, what strikes me is the cultural and societal effects of secularism. Back in the 50s and 60s, North American culture was still widely Christian. The mainline denominations like Episcopalians, Presbyterians, United Methodists, Catholics, and so forth, had churches that were well-attended and had large enrollment. Their seminaries were flourishing. Then what happened with the aggressive secularism and atheism that has now permeated our culture is that this cultural veneer of nominal Christianity has been largely swept away. People now freely admit they do not believe rather than claim to be a Christian and in fact live like an atheist. Now they're coming clean and saying, “No, I really don't believe this stuff.” In one sense, this kind of nominal cultural Christianity was a great bane on our culture because it was so hypocritical and it inoculated people against the real thing. Because people already thought they were Christians, they weren't open to the Gospel or hearing the need for repentance and faith in Christ. One almost in a way hoped that this nominal Christianity would be swept away. But now what we've seen is the secularism that follows in its train when that nominal Christian cultural veneer is swept away is catastrophic for society. The moral fabric of society unwinds and in its place you have the imposition of values and mores by governmental authority because there is no consensus any longer. The person who seemed to really predict and foresee this was Francis Schaffer. Francis Schaffer was not a great thinker, but he was very clear-sighted in this regard. He traced the sort of line of despair through Western culture when it sheds its Christian cultural veneer and really begins to live consistently – or try to live consistently – with its atheism. And he argued that it was unable to do so. It could not do so. I think he was right. But I, honestly, now kind of long for those days when there was a kind of nominal cultural Christianity that provided the glue for American culture. The absence of that kind of civil religion has resulted in a kind of coarseness and incivility and anger and imperiousness that is really troubling. We're seeing sort of the advantages and the disadvantages displayed so plainly in our culture today by the decline in cultural Christianity. It may be, as this article and as Justin Brierley’s book suggests, that the cultural tide is coming back in now and may lead to a resurgence of a kind of nominal Christian culture. And that will bring certain benefits, yes; but then also certain disadvantages that I’ve already noted.^[2]