“I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist” | Frank Turek

In this episode, Granger and Frank Turek discuss Christianity, apologetics, and their personal journeys. They start with a fun rivalry (Granger’s Cowboys vs. Frank’s Giants) before diving into deeper topics like intellectual worship and the role of apologetics in faith. Frank shares how apologetics led him to faith and shaped his ministry, while emphasizing the difference between belief that and belief in. Tune in for an insightful and engaging conversation on defending the truth of Christianity and strengthening faith with both heart and mind.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ranger. How are you doing.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm doing great, sir.

Speaker 1 (00:02):
How are you just swell? Where are you you Nashville?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
You text them in Texas outside of Austin.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Oh all right, we were just in Austin. When we
were in Austin, like November, we're doing an event there
at Hill Country Bible Church.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, sure, I know. Well, well next time we we
should get together that happens again.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Oh yeah, absolutely, So how do you like doing the
the podcast and ministry thing? You know?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I love it. I told I told a man this morning,
I said, I am I am giddy this morning. I've
got Frank Turt coming on the podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Oh yeah, wish our kids thought that.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
So yeah, in that aspect, you know, I love it.
I've done the podcast for a long time, but we
just opened it up to guests really recently last few months.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Okay, you're you're at the top of that list.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh great, happy to be on. Thanks rolling it.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Okay, Well, Frank, thank you so much for It's such
an honor that you're you would willing, you're willing to
give up some time and be on the podcast today.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
My pleasure, Granger, thanks for having me, and glad you're
having guests on now. Otherwise this wouldn't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
That's that's right, you know. I want to tell you though,
before we get started. I think we have a we
have a fundamental difference, and and I think for fairness
of the conversation that we'll have, we should we should
get it out of the way. That way we kind
of know where we stand as we as we discuss things.

(01:37):
I am a Dallas Cowboys fan, grew up in Dallas.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, if you're from Dallas, yanda be a Cowboys fan,
you should be, I know, from New Jersey, I should
be a Giant fan. And both of our teams stink.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
It's very unfortunate. And now is that a theological difference
we have here?

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well, I do say that whenever the Cowboys win, it's
living proof that Satan is alive and will Yeah, yeah,
I do say that as matter a fact.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
I think I've heard you say that before.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Although although Jerry Jones does give the Salvation Army, so
I have to give him that, Okay, Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Don't think it's enough for me. I wish we could
do away with Jerry Jones and keep the Salvation Army.
I think we could do that Yeah, well.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
He just likes to be too involved. I think in
day to day optsbody, who was I what was I reading? Recently?
Some former cowboy said that so much of being a
Cowboy is the extracurricular stuff you need to do, like
the photos and the meet and greets and all that
it wasn't as focused on football as it needed to be.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
I think you're right. I think that explains a lot.
Yeah and yeah, growing up in Dallas, it's unfortunate that
I'm a Cowboys fan. But I won't hold the Giants
thing against you because because you're from there as well.
You didn't you didn't You didn't choose the Giants. The
Giants chose you.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
That's right. I was there. It was my dad's team,
So what was I going to do? You know?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's right. Well, we've been apologizing for our football teams,
which which brings me to a point, because it's funny.
I had someone recently say somehow something about Christian apologist
came up, and somebody commented and said, it is so
sad that Christians need to designate people to apologize for

(03:27):
what they have done to the world.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, that's pretty silly, isn't it. It goes to show
that's really our fault that we don't even explain what
it is, you know, and people think that we're apologizing,
when in fact, it comes from a Greek word which
means to defend. It comes from First Peter three fifteen.
It's ready to give an answer, give a reason for
the hope that you have. Yeah, so it's not we're
not apologizing. We're actually saying, here's the evidence we have.

(03:50):
And you know, if a person was astute, they would
recognize the word apologists because it's used politically all the time. Yeah,
he's a Trump apologist, or he's a Harris apologist, somebody
like that. You know, actually there weren't very many Harris apologists.
I have to correct myself, but you get the idea.
The idea, I mean, there are people who are, you know,
saying that I'm advocating for this politician or this political position.

(04:14):
So it's the same thing in Christianity. We're trying to
give evidence that what we think about Christianity is indeed true,
that in Christianity is indeed true. That's that's what apologetics means.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
When did you first start calling yourself an apologist?

Speaker 1 (04:28):
I'm sorry, I can't tell you. Well, I don't know
if I would call myself one. I came to faith
through apologetics. So I was brought up in New Jersey,
and I was Catholic, because it's the law. You're either Catholic, Jewish,
or you don't care if you're from New Jersey. I
went to Catholic high school, and I always believed in

(04:50):
God because I knew there had to be a first cause.
But I didn't know who Jesus was. And it wasn't
until I went into the Navy and was down in
flight school in Pensacola, Florida, that I met the son
of a Methodist minister who also happened to be a
Dallas Cowboy fan bokay and Yeah. He turned out later
to be a pastor, and I kept asking him questions

(05:13):
and he finally said, look, you just need to get
Josh mcdal books, Evidence, de mans a Verdict and more
than a Carpenter. So I read those books. Those books
were written like in the seventies, and they've been updated
since then. In fact, I was involved in one of
the updates ironically, But in any event, I read those
books and said, Wow, Christianity is true and then when
I got out of the Navy, I happened providentially to

(05:34):
meet Norman Geisler, who was the Michael Jordan of Apologetics
at the time, and he was starting a seminary here
in Charlotte, North Carolina. So in nineteen ninety three, my
wife and three kids and I moved to Charlotte to
go to seminary. Because there was no internet, you couldn't
take seminary online. And so that's how I got involved
in Apologetics, and he and I wrote a couple of books.

(05:54):
One of them is called I Don't Have Enough Faith
to be an Atheist? Yeah, and so, and then I
started a ministry called Cross Examined dot org, where we
go to colleges, high schools, and churches and present the evidence,
largely from that book, that Christianity is indeed true.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah. It's fascinating because you are the Lord is the
Lord has gifted you in this way for sure. I
mean everyone should be an apologist, you know, we're we're
all called the Church should all we should all be apologist,
but I think we could admit that some are better
than others, and the Lord has gifted you certainly in
that I believe I would call it intellectual worship?

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Is them say that and they say that, Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Think when I see you on stage and I see
you traveling in your all these these college campuses, and
you're you're defending the faith and you're you're doing it,
and you might not think in a patient way, but
I believe you are. You're extremely patient and and to me,
that is worship.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
That is a form of Oh oh, I thought you're
using it like like some people will say that apologists
are worshiping their intellect.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
I do not mean. I do mean tho.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Okay, all right, all right, yeah, some will say that
I see what you're saying. Well, yeah, we're supposed to
love the Lord. You go with all your heart, soul, strength,
and mind, mind right, and nothing goes, nothing gets to
the heart without first going through the head.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
So we're if we bypass the head on the way
to the heart. That can be problematic because if you
follow your emotions to your impulses, you're going to wind
up in a very dark place. Of course, the Bible
says guard your heart. Doesn't say follow your heart, say
guard your heart because everything you do flows from it.
That's Proverbs four twenty three, which I think is the
second most important verse in the Bible for today's culture
other than the Gospel, because you know, our culture thinks, oh,

(07:36):
follow your heart. No no, no, no, no, guard it, guard it,
because if you follow it without reason or without moral restraint,
you're going to You're going to wind up addicted, broken, alone,
and probably prematurely dead if you follow your heart without
moral restraint. Yet that's what our culture tells us to do.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Amen, right, yeah, Mark Mark twelve thirty is where Jesus
adds mind to our commandment to love our Lord, our God.
Jesus adds mind. It's fascinating that he does that, and
it makes perfect sense. And that's where I'm saying this
intellectual worship. I'm actually that's a compliment. I'm saying in
a good way. I believe that we a form of worship,

(08:17):
should be exercising the gift of the mind that has
been given to us so that we could examine the evidence.
Not in a way really not in a way for
us to be reborn and to receive new hearts, but
really it's an overflow of the new heart that has
been given to us in the new birth that we

(08:40):
then go to the world and say look, look and
see the evidence. It's clear, it's all around you. This
is what Paul does in Romans.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Want that's right. And I think there's a difference as
well that might be helpful to people. The difference is
the difference between belief that and belief in. Belief that
is getting evidence that God exists, that Jesus rose from
the dead, that the Bibles telling the truth. But all
the belief that in the world won't get your moral
transgressions forgiven. For that you got to go from belief

(09:08):
that to belief in. There's a difference. Even James, the
half brother of Jesus, who wrote that little book in
the New Testament called James, Oh good, You're good. You're
with me all right? Even he said, he said, even
the demons believe that God exists, but they tremble. You know,
demons know that God exists better than we do because

(09:28):
they're in the spiritual realm, but they don't trust in him.
There's a difference because there's a difference between belief that
and belief in. In fact, we know this in relationships.
When I first met my wife forty years ago, I
got evidence that she would be a good wife. But
all the evidence in the world didn't make her my wife.
I had to take a step of trust in her
to ask her to be my wife, and in a

(09:49):
momentary lapse of judgment, she said yes. See, that's the
difference between belief that and belief in. One is of
the head belief that, but belief in is not only
a the head, it's of the heart. After you know
that Jesus is the Savior, trust in him. And by
the way, John puts belief that and belief in into
one verse. It's the last verse of chapter twenty I'm paraphrase,

(10:12):
and he says in the Gospel, he says, these things
were written down so that you may believe that Jesus
is the Savior, and that by believing in him, you
may have life in his name. You see, he's putting
belief that, belief in into one verse. In other words,
he's saying, look, I wrote the Gospel and all these
miracles in it and what Jesus said and did, so

(10:33):
you could know that he's the Savior. But then you
can go from belief that to belief in. I mean,
you can know that something's true and still not assent
to it right. We do that all the time. You know,
we know things are true, and we don't want it. It's inconvenient.
We want to avoid it. We suppress the truth, as
Paul said in Romans Chapter one. So there's a lot
of belief that out there that we suppress. But if

(10:55):
we're open to belief that, it's easy to move on
to belief in and belief that is in intellectual. Belief
in is not just intellectual, it's also emotional. By the way,
you said something earlier too, I want to mention you know,
you said everyone ought to be an apologist because we're
commanded to be an apologist. And people say, I'm not
an apologist. No, everybody is. You just might not be
a good one. It's like when people say I'm not

(11:15):
a theologian. No, you are a theologian. You just might
not be a good one. Right. Everybody has some sort
of belief about God. You know how people always caveat that,
They say, well, I'm not a theologian. Well, okay, you
actually are. You just might be. You might not be
an accomplished one, right, you might not know enough. Everybody
has some sort of belief of who God is and
what he does and why we're here. Everyone has some

(11:38):
sort of belief about that. They may have evidence for it,
they might not. They might have thought about it, they
might not. But everybody's a theologian of some kind, even
atheist or theology.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
To ask who Jesus is, and instantly they're given you
theology when they answer that question.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
That's right, everybody's given you theology. An atheist is there's
no God. That's a theological conclusion that there is no God.
They're af the theological conclusion.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
I heard you say something interesting one time about when
when you're talking about someone being an apologist and someone
says I'm not I'm not apology, I'm not an apologist,
or I'm not a good one, and you said, well,
what happens when honestly, I don't remember the exact illustration
you used, but say, say what happens when your son
gets diagnosed with some kind of disease and suddenly you

(12:22):
begin to research and study and you learn everything you
can about that disease, And similarly, that happens in apologetics.
I remember specifically when this happened to me. It was
several years ago. I saw a comment on social media
by a guy and his name was Costy. Unfortunately, his

(12:45):
full name was Constantine. He's an atheist with the unfortunate
name of Constantine. But he comments on here and someone
was talking about a worship service and he said, I
think the big overdrive traumatized performance based worship services. I
think they're actually manipulating people. And and I commented, and

(13:07):
I say, and I knew he's an atheist. And I
commented and I said, you know, I agree with you
on this at some level, I do. And then we
started dming each other. That turned into we're talking to
each other on signal app and we're talking about the faith.
He's he is an atheist, which I I don't know
if I've ever met a true atheist that can stay

(13:28):
consistent in their beliefs, because in my mind, a true
atheist would say, we're all upon scum. You have, you
could do whatever you want. It's all an illusion, and
I don't really care. You know, we have one life
and nothing matters. And and but no one stays consistent
to that because they want to.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Nobody can live that. No one can live that.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
So this guy cost He, ultimately what he's doing is
everyone every true atheist wants to advocate for to keep
something they're doing costy. In his case, he wanted to
keep sleep with his girlfriend and he didn't want his mother,
who was a Christian in Germany, telling him he couldn't
sleep with his girlfriend anymore. He didn't want to hear that,
So he builds a the odyssey for atheism. So we're

(14:14):
talking with this lasted Frank for over a year and
a half, back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes he
would get angry and he wants to argue about slavery
in the Bible, and I'd say, I'm happy to discuss
this with you. He wants to talk about all these
all these issues, the wars that you know, Christians have caused,

(14:34):
the slaughter that that Christianity has caused, and I'm happy
to discuss all of this with him. And we go
back and forth. A year and a half goes by,
and and finally I said, what would it what would
it take to convince you? You know, what would it take
for you to believe? Because he kept he keeps saying
things like, if God wants to me to believe, He'll

(14:55):
give me something to make me believe. I said, okay,
what would that be Just hypothetically, because God's given you
a lot. What would that be and he goesys, I
don't know. I said, what if you saw a video
of the resurrection. He goes, they would be tampered with.
I know the video would be tampered And I said,
of course, of course you would say that. So then
so then I pulled at doctor Frank Turk and I said, Costy,

(15:17):
if Christianity was true, would you believe it? And he goes,
what does true mean? I said it. I said, outside
of your understanding, outside of time and space, it is true.
It is Christ died on the cross and was resurrected
and walked among the people, and said, turn from yourself

(15:40):
and look to me and be saved. If that happened,
would you believe it? And he goes no, I wouldn't
believe that. And I said, then, brother, our conversation is finished.
We could go no further. After a year and a half,
I tell you, if it's true, and you say no,
then what are we talking about? And then I think

(16:00):
of you.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
He was, as you say, just looking for a way
to validate the lifestyle he wanted to live. Now, to
be honest, Christians can do that too. Right. Christians might
have not have good evidence for what they believe, but
they want to convince themselves it's right. So we have
to all be aware that we might be self deluding ourselves. However,
I think, first of all, when people stay there's no

(16:23):
evidence for reviews, stimpally asked that, well, first of all,
why is there evidence for anything, not just for Christianity?
Why is this a world that's orderly where we can
discover cause and effect relationships? And why do we have
in mind that allows us to do that? I mean,
what explains that? I've noticed that atheists will say if
you ask them where did your brain come from? They'll say, well,

(16:44):
it came from a blind forces coming together and putting
it together. And to quote my friend John Lennox, John
Lennox when he asked people that question, you know, where
did your mind? Did your brain come from? They say,
it's a mindless process, And he says, and you trust it?
Why would you trust something that? Why would you trust
something that came from a mindless process? Right? Like suppose

(17:07):
a computer got put together by a tornado ranging through
a junk yard. Would you trust anything it told you?
Of course you wouldn't. Right, first, of all, it wouldn't
happen that way. But even if it did, it's not designed.
Why do you use Why do you say that you
are not designed? And the apparatus you're using to say

(17:29):
is not designed isn't designed either, So why would you
think what you're saying is true? Look, is it more
likely that your mind is the result of an undesigned
process your brain which produces your mind, or is it
more likely that your mind was made in the image
of the Great Mind so you could know truths outside

(17:52):
of your skull, including the Great Mind himself. Yeah, that's
more likely.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
And they say to that, they say, this is God
of gaps theory. Frank, you're a god?

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, yeah, Well, first of all, I would say it's
not a God of the gaps theory. It's not. It's
not that we just haven't found a natural explanation for
the brain or the mind. It's that the brain and
the mind are positive evidences for an intelligent being. Just
like if you're walking along the beach and you see
John loves Mary in the sand, you don't just lack

(18:25):
a natural explanation for that. You do lack a natural explanation,
But John loves Mary in the sand is also positive
evidence for an intelligent being, and a mind is evidence
for an intelligent being. It doesn't. You don't just lack
in that. You do. But it's not just that it's
positive evidence for So it's not a god of the
gaps argument. We're not arguing from what we don't know.

(18:47):
We're arguing from what we do know. We do know
that messages come from minds, and in every cell in
our body there's a message three point two billion letters long. Okay,
where do messages go?

Speaker 2 (18:58):
They don't.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
They don't happen by natural forces. They don't originate from
natural forces. They may be reproduced through natural forces, Yes,
that happens. You know, life gives fourth life, But life itself,
where does that come from? It's not from the wind,
the rain. It's not from the four fundamental forces gravity,

(19:19):
strong and weak, nuclear forces, and electromagnetism. There's something else
going on here. And by the way, even if you
were to say that everything came from those four forces,
where did those four forces come from?

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (19:30):
And why are they so persistent and consistent? Natural laws
come from lawgivers, just like every law comes from a lawgiver.
And so the very apparatus. Even if you were to
make a case I saw you did a podcast, I
just saw the title for it on evolution. Even if
one could make the case that macro revolution is true
from the good to you via the zoo, right, there's

(19:52):
no intelligence behind it. Even if you could make that case,
the natural laws that drive evolution are evidence of a mind,
not just a mind that created the laws, but a
mind that sustains these laws right now. This is the
Aristotle Aquinas argument that says, the world as it operates
right now needs a present cause. Why is everything so orderly?

(20:15):
Why does it do the same thing over and over again?
Why can we ascertain truth about the real world and
cause and effect relationships outside of our skull? Because this
universe was created and is sustained by a mind. That's
how we can do science, by the way, that's that's
how we find cause and effect. We find cause and

(20:38):
effect because this world is orderly, a world of orderly
cause and effect, and our minds are oriented to discover that.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
You've read a lot of C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Oh. C. S Lewis is, Yeah, he's one of my favorites. C. S.
Lewis and John Lennox has written on this. Ed Fays,
who's a Catholic apologist, has written on this. I wrote
it on a book called Stealing from God, Why atheists
need God to make their case. I think actually the
best arguments for God are not even most of the
arguments I use. I think the best arguments for God

(21:13):
are the metaphysical arguments that take a while to explain
and you need some sort of philosophical background to understand them.
They're not the kind of argument you can give in
a one hour lecture, yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Or much less having someone at a college campus with
a microphone ask you a thirty second question and you
under a time constraint, I have to give them an
answer in two minutes. It's so difficult to do. But now,
do you think you keep getting the same questions? I mean,
maybe there's eight or nine questions you could possibly get
and you must.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
They fall into categories. And on our cross Examined app
two words in the app store cross Examined, we have
a quick answer section and we point out that there
are four questions you need to answer to show the
Christianity is true, and there are four objections you're going
to get or four categor or of objections. The four
questions you need to answer are does truth exist? Does
God exist? Are miracles possible? And it's the New Testament

(22:06):
telling us the truth about the resurrection. Because if truth exists,
if God exists, if miracles are possible, and Jesus rose
from the dead, mark it down. Christianity is true. Right,
It's easy to show the Christianity is true if those
four questions are answered. Yes. Now, the four objections you're
going to get to saying Christianity is true are what

(22:28):
I call the four ease. You're going to get questions
on ethics. You're going to get questions on eternity, you're
going to get questions on evolution, and you're going to
get questions on evil. So and some of these are related,
like most of the questions that I get now are

(22:52):
related somehow to morality and evil. In other words, I
say that the top three objections to Christianity are moral,
the morality and morality kind of like what your friend
had that Constantine guy, Right, it's a moral issue.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
He wants to talk about slavery when he can't he
doesn't have a moral ground to stand on.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
That's right, Yeah, he doesn't have the moral standard by
which to say that slavery is even wrong, but he
thinks it's wrong, and he has no moral ground if
there is no God to say that sleeping with your
girlfriend is right or wrong, because it's not right or wrong,
because nothing's right or wrong if there's no God. Everything's
a matter of opinion. So on one hand, he wants

(23:32):
to say, since there is no God, I get to
do what I want, but I don't like the Christian God,
and I think he's immoral for telling me I can't
do X, Y or Z. Wait. Wait, look, if the
only out these people have, the only possible out they have,
Granger is to say, Okay, I'm not an atheist anymore.

(23:54):
I'm a theist. I believe in God. I just think
the God of the Bible is not the true God.
That's a fair position to take, because now you have
a moral standard and you can say, well, the God
of the Bible has done this evil or that evil.
The problem with that approach is is that it doesn't
fit with the evidence, because the evidence shows that the
Christian God is the true God. And if Jesus did
rise from the dead to prove he was God, and

(24:16):
he taught the Old Testament was the word of God,
and he promised the New Testament. Then then the Bible
is true.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
I love the way you'll bring up the Canaanites and
this kind of idea because people will go there. God's
not moral. He murdered. God breaks his own law by murdering.
What do you say to that person?

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Well, first of all, I asked them, by what moral
standard are you saying that's wrong? And then I asked them,
when God kills somebody, does he murder them? I mean,
it's wrong for us to take innocent life because we're
not the creator and sustainer of life. We can't resurrect life.
But it's not wrong for the creator of life to
take life. He can resurrect it. He owes it right

(24:57):
and we don't have that capacity. God does. So just
because it's wrong for us doesn't mean it's wrong for God.
And also point out that whenever God judges somebody in
the Bible, that's what it is. It's judgment. It's not genocide,
as they try and say, it's more sinocide. People have
done evil and they're judged for it. And how do
I know, Well, God did the same thing to Israelites

(25:18):
he wiped out three thousand Israelites or worshiping the Golden
Calf right. So it's not an ethnic issue. It's a
sin issue. And I also point out that some of
those commands might be hyperbolic, because that's how ancient Near
Eastern people talk and spoke and wrote. For example, in

(25:42):
Deuteronomy seven, he basically says, wipe everybody out, and then
right after that he says, and then don't intermarry with them.
And you're going, wait a minute, if you wiped everybody out,
how could you intermarry with them? Right? And you see
over and over again that God says, wipe these people out,
and then they pop up a few chapters later again
and you go, wait, I thought they were white. They're

(26:03):
not right, right. It could be exaggerated language. But my
point is even if it's not exaggerated, even if it's literal,
God has the right to take us out anytime he wants.
And in a world of free creatures, it's gonna be messy, right,
because God can't force free creatures to do what he
does it wants him to do. If he does, they're
not free. So there may be instances where God judges

(26:26):
people very swiftly, and.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
And that's what a people want, right. The people say,
if there's a good God out there, why wouldn't he
stop evil from happening.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Well, whenever people say that, I say, well, if he did,
he might start with you. Yeah right, yeah, I mean,
if God were to end evil at midnight tonight, would
any of us be alive at twelve oh one? You
know I wouldn't be. No, I wouldn't be alive at
twelve oh one if he stopped all evil at midnight,
I mean, if he just took away our free will
or decided to to judge us.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
And then when he does in the Bible, when he
does judge us, people go, look look at the monster
he is.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, I know. Well. I had this situation a couple
times on college campuses. One lady at Oklahoma Central University,
she was up at the microphone and she was just said,
I can't believe in a god who would kill people
in the Old Testament. And I had a long conversation
with her. It's on our YouTube channel. But I then
asked her, I said, well, were you on the abortion issue?
She said, oh, I'm pro choice. I said, can I

(27:25):
ask you a question. Why is it that when God
plays God in the Old Testament and decides who lives
and dies, he's in moral But when you play God
right here in terms of abortion, that's your moral right.
You can decide who lives and dies. But that's a
moral right for you. Why is it not a moral
right for the creator of life, but you have a
moral right to do it. That's not your life, you know,

(27:48):
I mean what you say, well, there's really not much say.
I mean, she's you know, she's a college kid, right,
she tried to skate around it.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
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(28:18):
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(28:42):
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slash granger to upgrade your selling today. Shopify dot com
slash Granger. As a reminder, you could always get a
hold of on cameo dot com slash granger Smith. It's

(29:02):
a great way to get a message, a video message
from me from anywhere in the world to whoever you
want to send it to. You go to cameo dot
com slash granger Smith and you fill out whatever you
want me to say, Happy anniversary, happy birthday, may be
a ward of encouragement to someone that needs to hear it,
and that person may be you, and then I'll send
you a video message. It's super easy and it's a

(29:25):
good gift. I've been doing this for many years now.
It's a good gift to someone that is impossible to
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Once again, go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith,
I got to tell you all about this. Have you
heard about Yegfest. It's happening this year May ninth and
tenth in Georgetown, Texas at the EEE Farm, So you

(29:46):
can come hang out with us. Me, my brothers, my
family will all be there. We've got a track show happening.
We've got a mud Bog competition, kind of like we
did last year, but the new edition this year is
a concert by me and my band and my old crew.
This is not a tour, This is not me getting
back into music. This is one time every year we
hope to do a concert for my friends and family,

(30:06):
especially Maverick who's never seen me play live before. So
come out have a meal with me and my family
on Friday night. I'm gonna give a little devotional from
the Bible, maybe play an acoustic song or two. This
is really a once in a lifetime experience, and if
you want to find out more, go to eeye dot com.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
It's it's people people give themselves moral rights. While they
they complain that God is doing something. He's taking life
what they think innocent life, and they think he's wrong,
but they think they have the right to do so, Yeah,
the very same thing they're complaining that God has done
now and when God does it, he's judging people when

(30:42):
they do it. This is an innocent life that hasn't
done anything, and it's just inconvenient. You know.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Has anybody at one of these these q and as
these conferences have you have you surely you have seen
someone come up afterward and say, I think I was
wrong about this. I want to know more. I think
is there anything I could read about this?

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Oh? Sure, yeah, that happens. In fact, we have some
people on camera saying that, oh I think that's a
good point. Thanks. I hadn't thought of that, you know,
most most people, though. I won't say that out loud,
you know though, But I don't want to try and
own them, so to speak. I don't want to try
and make them feel badly about I just want them

(31:24):
to think. So I'm not I try and be very
kind to people and just say, hey, okay, I see
your point, but what about this? And see what they say, right.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
I don't want to have it.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, I don't want to have a heated argument with them.
I just I just want them to start thinking about
certain assumptions they have with their questions because most of
the time there's always an assumption that you can ask
them about, Like when they say, well, God is evil,
what do you mean by evil? Or killing the Canaanites
is wrong? What do you mean by wrong? You know?
Why do you think that's wrong? Who said? Because they're

(31:58):
stealing from God while they're arguing against him, right, they're
still in a standard from God. In order to say
God is wrong, they're still in a standard and they're
misapplying the standards. They exempt themselves from that standard, but
they think God ought to be held to it. So
that's what the book Stealing from God is about.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, yeah, you've you've you've built this idea over time
that you will claim to them, I don't have enough
faith to be an atheist. Now they don't. They don't
like it when you say that. That's like pouring salt
on a on a snail. You know, they don't like
that because they'll say, I don't have a faith at all,
and then they'll say being an atheist is a lack

(32:41):
of belief at all. But then that, of course that
goes back into them defending why they want to be
an atheist and why you're wrong, which truly, if they
were held consistent, they wouldn't care what you think, Frank,
they wouldn't care.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah, Well, it usually come down to why do they
do what they do if there is no God? Why
do you spend all your time fighting him? Like they
don't believe in lepre cons and unicorns, but nobody writes
the leprechaun delusion, right, because there's something about God that
they think the God believers are somehow going to take

(33:19):
their rights away politically, then normally that's really really the
road that gets them all riled up. Well, you God believers,
you want to impose your view on the rest of us,
and that's wrong. So I'm going to come out and
hammer you for believing in God, just like your friend
you know, I want to sleep with his girlfriend. Okay, yeah,
I get it. Why don't you just tell me that
a year and a half ago could have saved us
a lot of time? Right, let's just go. And that's

(33:42):
why I usually start with the question, after a short discussion,
if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? Or
you could say, if Jesus really rose from the dead
to prove me he was God, would you follow him,
you know, and see what they say. Most people are
looking for God like a criminal's looking for a cop. Right.
They're running. They're on the run. They don't want God
to exist. In fact, maybe we could do a little

(34:06):
thought experiment with your audience. For those watching right now,
I want you to think of someone you know who's
not a Christian whom you'd like to be a Christian,
A friend, relative, somebody like that. All right, think of them,
got that person? Okay, good? Now here's my question. Is
the person you're thinking of on a relentless pursuit of truth.
They want to know if Christianity is true or are

(34:28):
they apathetic or maybe even hostile to Christianity. Now, ninety
nine times out of ten is my friend from Mississippi
says it's their their apathetic or hostile. It's it's really
it's it's it's either one hundred zero or it's ninety
nine to one. Very few people when I do that
survey raise their hand and say, oh yeah, they're on

(34:50):
a relentless pursuit of truth. Most people are apathetic or hostile.
They don't want it to be true.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
So true, that's exactly right. You meet an atheist and
there you want to tell them, you know, you strike
me as someone that would be a little bit more
open minded, and they say, I am. I am wildly
open minded than you're agnostic. Well maybe maybe I'm agnostic.
Are you constantly seeking truth? Then no, no, I'm stuck

(35:16):
in my agnosticism. Well that doesn't seem like you either.
You seem like you would be a more open minded agnostic.
Well maybe maybe I am. Then would you like to
hear more about the evidence of Christianity? No, I don't.
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
But this is the layer they're not. They're not open
minded at all, which is why Milton Burrow, the old comedian,
used to say, we found out this one guy in
our neighborhood was an agnostic, so we burned a question
mark on.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
So what do you say to someone that that that
they listen to this and they think I'm not doctor
Frank Turk, I'm not that smart. I can't defend the
faith because I think the the number one hindrance of
being an apologist is fear. Really, I don't want to
sound stupid. I don't want to end up in a
conversation where I don't know what to say. I'm sure,

(36:09):
you've talked about this with people.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, Well, you don't have to know what to say.
You just have to know how to ask questions. Asking
questions is easy, Answering them is hard. That's why my
friend Greg Coco wrote the book Tactics.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Great book.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
You know, Yeah, how to ask questions? You know, what
do you mean by that? How'd you come to that conclusion?
Why do you think that's true? What evidence do you
have for that position? You know, questions like that. So
once again, because when somebody says something, it's not your
job to refute what they say. It's their job to
support what they say. So start asking questions. Why do
you think atheism is true? Why do you think there's

(36:41):
no evidence for God? Or why do you think that
there's not enough evidence for God? Like the question you
were asking the guy, like what evidence would you need
to see? Right? Why do you think there's evidence for anything?
Why can your mind ascertain truth about the real world
outside of your skull? Why does that even happen, not
just about God but about anything. Why do you know
if you put two parts hydrogen one part oxygen, you

(37:03):
get together, you'll get water. Why do you know that? Right?
Why if you drop a ball off a building, It's
going to go to the ground. Why do you know that?
Why do you know anything? Yeah, So you just start
asking questions like that and see what they say. Do
you believe every effect has a cause? If they say no,

(37:25):
they're not being very scientific, because that's the basis of science,
that every effect has a cause. The next question is
after they say, yeah, I believe very effect has a cost. Well,
the universe is an effect. Where did it come from?
What caused it? Right? Why is it so fine tuned?
Why is it so designed? Why do you have a
law pressing on you that says you ought not murder people,
you ought to love them? Where does that come from?

(37:48):
Is that objective or is it just someone's opinion? Right?

Speaker 2 (37:52):
That's a deep rabbit hole and a good one.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I mean, if there's no God,
there's nothing ultimately right or wrong. So just ask a
lot of questions. And you know, when people ask me
how do I know that God exists? I just say
I know God by his effects. Right. If there's a creation,
that's the effect I'm reasoning back to a cause a creator.
If there's design, that's the effect, I'm reasoning back to
a cause, a designer. There's a moral law written on

(38:15):
the heart, that's the effect. I'm reasoning back to a cause,
a moral lawgiver. If there is evidence a man predicted
and accomplished his own resurrection from the dead, that's the effect.
I'm reasoning back to a cause. Who could have caused
the man to predict and accomplish his own resurrection from
the dead, The creator of life, someone like God. In fact,
we do that when we even if we think we
have some sort of personal relationship with God. You know,

(38:38):
if we think that God has told us something, or
that God has answered prayer, we're doing the same thing.
We're taking the effect, say the answered prayer, and we're
reasoning back to a cause. We're saying the cause of
that prayer answered prayer was God. You're always reasoning from
effect to cause. And with atheists, their main problem is
they have no cause. Right, there's no cause for any

(39:00):
of this. There's no cause for the for the four
natural forces that govern the universe. There's no cause for
the universe. There's no cause for the design of the universe.
There's no cause for life. There's no cause for the
design of new life. Forms, there's no cause for the
laws of logic and the laws of mathematics and the
laws of morality, and there's no cause.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
And to that they typically say, to that, they say,
I'm not saying there is a cause or not a cause.
I'm saying I don't know, and you can't know. That's
typically what that's how they'll make that.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Well, if they say you can't know, I'd say, why
can't you know? Why do you say that? And how
do you know that you can't know? How do you
know that you can't know? Because you know that, right?
So yeah, I mean it's it's a self defeating position
to say I can't know anything because you you apparently
know you can't know, right. That's incredible. Yeah, So it

(39:52):
turns out to be a self defeating cul de sac
that they back themselves into. And just about all of
the natural philosophers that have come along trying to disprove God,
whether it's Hume or Kant, who was a believer, by
the way, but he said you can't know the real world.
That's how you remember k can't know the real world.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Well, when he says that, you want to ask him, well,
how do you know the real world is there. Then
if you can't know it, right, you know, the world
is there, So you can't know the real world. Now,
you can't know the real world.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
You can, yeah, you can.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
You can't know the real world. So these are self
defeating philosophical positions. And just by pointing that out, you
can show that at the very foundation of their belief
system there's a there's a fault, a fatal flaw.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
So you engaged many times with Christopher Hitchins a couple
of times, couple of debates, couple couple of debates. What
was the talk off camera between you two? Were you
guys friends?

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Oh? Yeah, I mean, you know, it was fine. We
didn't socialize, but you know, you arrive at the debate
and it was funny. Christopher was a funny guy. Actually,
first time, the first debate we had was at university
was at It was at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond
back in eight and he was debating Christians around the country.

(41:16):
He had written the book you Know God is not
Great at Religion Poisons Everything. And I saw him on
TV a lot because he was also a political commentator,
and a lot of the politics he he talked about
I agreed with. I mean, Christopher was very straightforward on
the danger of Islam, and he didn't pull any punches there. Yeah,
and so I appreciated his candor there. And when I

(41:38):
first met him, I said, hey, Christopher, you know, this
is my first debate debating anyone other than my wife.
So I don't I don't fear you, but you know,
but I said, you know, I'm kind of a fan.
I kind of I kind of you know, like a
lot of the things you say. And he kind of
peered over his glasses and he said, the night is young.

(42:00):
And then before the second debate, we got talking about
a couple of things, and I mean, just small talk,
you know, nothing. But everyone liked Christopher. Whether you agree
with him or not, you liked him. He was he
was a he had a great way with words. He
was a he was a journalist, you know, he was
a literary guy. Loved poetry, that kind of thing. And

(42:24):
but I think he was just mad at God. That's
why I ended both debates by saying, you know, Christopher
Hitchins says there is no God, and I hate him. Yeah,
but there is a God and he loves Christopher Hitchins.
So but yeah, we had. If you watch a debate
with Christopher Hitchins, you'll go, I like this guy, you know,

(42:47):
but if you read the transcript, you're going to go,
what is this guy talking about? He's not even in
the ballpark of the of the topic. He's skating or
all around it. In our first debate, I went first,
and I got up and I talked about, you know,
three arguments for the existence of God, the cosmological, teleological,

(43:07):
and moral arguments. And Christopher got up and started talking
about what a bad person Mother Teresa was, And I'm going,
what does this have to do with whether or not
God exists? Whether Mother Teresa was good or bad is
irrelevant to this question, you know. But he was so
good rhetorically that, you know, you just kind of get
mesmerized by him. But he was not technically a good

(43:30):
debater because he was not really dealing with the issues.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
No, he was never really listening to you. He was
just kind of always assuming. It was like he was
kind of blacking out, and then assuming that you said
something and he would get up and he was, like
you said, he was brilliant, and so he could just
kind of talk his way around anything. But never really
answering any of the propositions that you put forth. And
if anyone wants to see those, those are very famous debates.

(43:54):
You just look on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, they're on our YouTube channel, across on YouTube channel.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
They're on Cross Examine. Yeah, fascinating stuff. And he passed away.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah, he passed away in twenty eleven. Yeah, a long
time ago. Now it's almost what fourteen years ago, thirteen
years ago. Yeah, and he had esophageo cancer. He was
a big smoker and drinker.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
And why not if nothing else matters.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
There's no God, Yeah, there's no God. Yeah. It was tragic.
He was such a sharp guy.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
So to the to the people that would question the
problem of evil, I know, there's so many places I
can go with this, Frank So I think problem the
problem of evil is one of the main points that
people want to go to. I also think proof of
the Bible, which which I think in twenty twenty five,

(44:52):
what an incredible time to be alive and to be
a Christian. We have we have an advantage over all
the brothers and sisters you know, before us for the
last few millennia that didn't have the evidence, the archaeological
evidence that didn't have the translation ability that we do now.
And so I think those two things. You probably get

(45:15):
those a lot in college campuses, like how could you
possibly trust the Bible written by these men changed by
Constantine for his game.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Yeah, you'd be surprised how how infrequently that comes up?

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Really?

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, As I say, most of the objections have to
do with morality. You know, they're not interested that much
in the text anymore. They just want to do what
they want to do.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Maybe because the text is so obvious now maybe.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Well, yeah, I don't know. The figure of Jesus is
an enormously attractive character for obvious reasons. There's nobody been anyone,
There's never been anyone like Jesus in history. And everybody
noticed that. Everybody wants to have Jesus on their side,
so much so that they'll take him out of context

(46:05):
and ignore other things he said in order to get
done what they want done, or to get him on
their side to support a particular position. Even world religions
will change around Jesus. Everyone wants to import Jesus into
their world religion. You know the Muslims. Did you know
the Muslim You read the Koran Jesus is sinless, Jesus

(46:27):
is you know, a prophet, he's a miracle worker, all
these things, but they don't think he's God, but they
want to have him in their system. But most of
the objections that come up have to do with, you know,
the Canaanite issue, the four ease I mentioned earlier, evolution, ethics, evil,

(46:49):
and eternity. And ethics and evil can be related because
they deal with right and wrong. Eternity are questions and
they that can even delve into the ethics too. Eternity
you know what about those that have never heard that's
actually an ethical or moral question. Yeah, saying that God
is somehow immral if he doesn't get his gospel to

(47:10):
everybody so everyone has a chance, that kind of thing,
you know, Or why did God create people he knew
would go to hell? Or why is Jesus the only
way right? These are eternity questions. Evolution questions, that's obvious.
You know what about evolution? What does that does that
contradict the Bible? Is it true? Not true? That kind
of thing? Questions on evil. If there's a good God,

(47:32):
what does he allow evil to occur? And then questions
on ethics. You know, slavery in the Bible, that's some
ethical question. What about LGBTQ issues that comes up, right, Canaanites.
We mentioned that. So ninety percent of the objections, maybe
more than ninety percent, are going to be in one
of those four categories.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
And you're saying that people will typically pull Jesus out
of this and say all he said is good. You know,
take the red letters, which is why I don't actually
agree with red letter Bible. But they'll say, take take
this and look look what he said, Look what Jesus.
I will listen to what Jesus said. And then I
saw you make a brilliant argument for the Jesus's beautiful
sermon on the road to Amaas, the seven mile journey

(48:13):
to Amaeas, when he said all of this was about me,
and you laid out this beautiful exposition of what do
you think Jesus talked about on this seven mile journey
to Amaeas after the resurrection? Because the whole Bible is
pointing to him and he said talking about him fulfilling,
He fulfilled what it says. And so you can't say

(48:38):
I just listened to what Jesus said. I don't listen
to this stuff of the Canaanite stuff and all the
monster in the Old Testament. You can't say.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
That firm the entire Old Testament. By the way, Jesus
talked more about Hell than anybody else. He talked more
about Hell than Heaven. He famously said, Uh, don't fear
the one who can kill the body, but can kill
the body and the soul in Hell. Right, And what

(49:09):
profit will it be for a man if he gains
the whole world that loses his soul. You know, he
talks about beating people with few blows or many blows.
That's a reference to Hell and the punishment that they
will experience. And he talks about those who haven't accepted
the sun are condemned already, right, I mean, why why

(49:31):
did Jesus come to save us from the wrath that
we're due, the wrath of God that we're due. That's
why he came. The son of Man did not come
to be served, but to serve and to give his
life as a ransom for many. That's why all of
these commercials, I know, they're all well intended, but they
missed the mark completely. All that he gets us commercials. Yep, yes,

(49:54):
it has nothing to do with Jesus's mission or very little.
Jesus didn't come for social justice. Jesus came for eternal justice.
An eternal justice says that we're all sinners, we all
need a savior, and I'm the ransom. I came to
put my life down so your life wouldn't be punished.

(50:16):
I came to save you. I didn't come to give
you a new ethic. I didn't come to give you
a you know, a new series of laws that you're
going to impose on the rest of people through some
sort of political process. I mean, that might be part
of Christianity, but that's not why I came, right, Absolutely.
I came as the sacrifice. I came as the lamb.

(50:37):
I came to take your sins from you and then
give you my righteousness. That's incredible. That's the God's right. Yeah, Yeah,
that's what it's all about. It's not social justice. It's
not take care of the poor. Yeah, Jesus said take
care of the poor. But that's not the focus of

(50:57):
his ministry. That's a result of why he came. Yes,
that's not the that's not the the that's not the
goal of his ministry. That might just be the result
of people that have accepted Jesus. They go, you know,
we ought to take care of the poor. You know,
we ought to we ought to take care of the widow.
This is what true religion is, right, we ought to
take care of the downtrod and we ought to do that. Yeah,
let's do that because we're saved, not to get saved.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
That's so good. And you could add in their practice
apologetics because we're saved.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
That's right, because how.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Could we not how could we not tell everyone about this?

Speaker 1 (51:32):
Mm hmm. And yeah, we should be.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
To the point of, you know, the Costy conversation. I
learned so much from that. He might not have. But
that's kind of besides the point. I hope that there's
a seed that's planted in that that German guy wherever
he is today, maybe listening to this. But but my
point is that people, all of us listening, as Christians,

(51:55):
we should engage in these conversations. I think you laid
out a great way to do it by just asking questions.
You could ask questions and and it's okay also to
say you know what, I don't know that, but give me,
give me tonight and let's talk about this tomorrow, I'm
gonna I'm gonna look at some stuff. And that's okay too.
But the more we engage that, the more we want

(52:15):
to practice apologetics naturally, the better we're going to get.
I don't think anyone's going to get as good as
you though.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Oh no, no, there's uh, there's a lot of great
people out there who are presenting the the evidence for Christianity.
I think quite well. You probably saw Wes Huff on
Rogan's thing. If you see that, he did great, Yeah
I did. Yeah, Yeah, Wes is young, he's good. His
colleague Andy Steiger was with him on some recent shows.

(52:42):
I just said Andy on the podcast too. You got
Jay Warner, Wallace, Greg Kochel. Of course, John Lennox, nobody
better than John Lennox. Of course John is an older
man now, but you just watched. If everyone acted like
John Lennox, the whole world would be Christianized because you
can't not love John Lennox.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
There By the way, Lennox gives a great illustration about
Christianity when he says, when I first met my wife Sally,
I mean, he's this is hypothetical, this is not how
it went. But he said, when I first met my wife, Sally,
I gave her a cookbook, and I said, if you
can cook well for the next forty years, i'll see
about loving you. Right and and well, he said, well,

(53:22):
if I had done that, she'd have rightfully thrown that
cookbook in my face. Right. But why do we treat
God this way? Why do we think that God has
given us this cookbook called the Bible, and if we
obey it well enough, at the end of our life,
if we've done it well enough, he's going to love us. Now,
that's not the way it works. God loves us already.
God came into this space time continuum and took our

(53:44):
sin upon himself, and he loves us already. We'll obey
the cookbook that he gives us out of love for
what he's done, not as a way of earning his
lover his favor. He already does love us, and so
he gives us wisdom through this series of books we
now call the Bible to help us live a life
and become more like Christ, than to bring other people

(54:06):
into the kingdom. We're here to know God and to
make him known. But it's not to earn anything with God.
It is when we follow his commands. You know, he said,
if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. When we
follow his commands, it's a result of the fact that
he loves us.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
It's not to get him to love us. He already
does love us. That's why he came to earth.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
That's right. And then we hear Peter after that, who says,
always be ready to make a defense, which is where
we get that world apologia. That's where we get that
root word, always be ready to make a defense for
the hope that is in you. Yeah, do it with
gentleness and respect, which I think you also.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
It's hard for me to do because they're from New Jersey.
Forget about it. You do.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
You have yelled a few times, and I think if
your wife's there, she must be thinking he's in there
doing a podcast because he's yelling again.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
That's right. Yeah, I yell on podcasts. I don't know
hell to other people.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
But let me ask you one more thing. You're in
good shape, man. What are you eating? What are you doing?

Speaker 1 (55:10):
I'm sixty three, but I don't look a day over
sixty two. In fact, when I turned fifty, my wife said, honey,
you're going to live to be one hundred. I said,
how do you know? She said, because you look half
dead already. Thanks.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
You tuck that shirt in every time you're at a
college campus or doing you tuck that shirt in. It's
like washboard abs.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Well, I'm a runner. I've always been a runner. Well,
I can't run as much anymore, just because I ran today.
But I only run like once a week now because
I got to kill these tendon itis. You know, you
get old, everything breaks down.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Is that the old naval aviator in you that still runs?

Speaker 1 (55:47):
Yeah? Well, I before I was in the navy, I
was a runner because I was just a skinny kid
and that was the best thing I could do athletically
was run. So and then I have something called tonal,
which is a workout thing you put on your wall. Okay,
I like, use what about you? You're in shape? What
do you do?

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Uh? Try to eat right as good as I can.
I try to do strength training. I'm actually not a runner,
but I will do some kind of cardio in the
gym and do strength training.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
And I think strength training like what do you do?

Speaker 2 (56:16):
I do isolated muscle groups each day, like Monday's chest day.
Tuesday is back day.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Like already in a gym, like a plan of fitness
kind of thing or what I.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Have for a lot of years. But I have a
little something that my wife and I made out in
the garage.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
No, that's good. So, yeah, that's what you want. I
don't want to have to travel anywhere. Ours is in
the house too. Yeah, it's a lot quicker. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
So when you have an event, speaking of being ready,
I think that you know, being healthy and trying to
eat right and like you said, running, I think that
all affects the way that you you defend the faith.
So whenever you have an event, say it's a debate
or or you're doing a Q and A, are you

(57:00):
thinking about are you drinking coffee before? Or you think
are you trying to get rest? I mean, is there
anything that goes through your mind? You do it so well?

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Well, I haven't. I didn't. I don't drink coffee. I
didn't drink coffee before, you know, and since I've been saved,
I didn't drink it before I was saved either, So
it doesn't be in the same thing doesn't matter. I
just want to sound more spiritual than you. That's all.
Not a coffee guy, I do like iced tea, but unsweet.

(57:29):
But no. I mean, look, when you're you know this
probably better than I do. When you're doing some kind
of gig, you're not tired. The adrenaline is going, right,
You're not Yeah, you don't get up there and do
a set and I don't really want to do this.
I'm kind of tired, right, I mean, you're you're you're
probably feeding off the audience, aren't you.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Sure? But have you thought have you been on there
before and just thought I am not as sharp as
I normally?

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Oh? Yeah, that happens. Sure, that happens, especially during the
Q and A because I've already been up like we
just did one outside the University of Nebraska last week
and it the presentation was an hour and forty minutes
and then there was an hour forty minutes of questions.
By the time that you know, it's three hours and
twenty minutes, and I'm like, okay, I'm getting tired. Oh
that happens. But thankfully, I've tried to stay in shape

(58:19):
most you know, my life, and thankfully I haven't gotten
any major injury in order to do that. And I
think generally if you're carrying extra weight around that's going
to that's just going to bog you down. It's just
not You're not going to be able to be as
sharp as you could be. Sure though, thankfully I haven't
had the problem with that. I have a high metabolism,

(58:42):
so I know maybe it may. Other people have a
slower metabolism, it's harder for them to keep the weight off.
I just haven't had that problem. But I do work out,
so I don't know if that's going to change. Hopefully
it won't. Hopefully I'll be able to maintain not getting heavy. Unfortunately,
America's head. Make America healthy again. RFK.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
We need, we need you. He's right, we need you, Frank,
we need we need some more books from you. You know,
we need you to keep cranking that out for us.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Uh, I'm working. I'm working on a couple right now.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
What do you work what's the thing you're working on?

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Well, there's a book that, uh, colleague of mine, is
what we're working on, called The War on Reality, and
it's you know, all the crazy stuff that people try
and say is true and right when it really isn't
so very much needed right now, Yes, So we're working
on that and we're working on an updates to some
other stuff, so okay, but a lot of the time

(59:39):
is spent traveling and you know, doing the video work
on college campuses.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
So which for everybody it's cross examined on YouTube. Uh,
excellent stuff. Brother, it's such an honor having you on here.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
Thank you, Thank you Granger. It's an honor to be on.
So thanks for having me. And uh, I appreciate the
work you're doing now man. And and you know, you
had a great career in the music world and now
you're having a great career in ministry. So you're doing both.
By the way, I think you can do both at
the same time, right you can. You can be in
ministry and in music.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
You certainly can, you seeah speaking you know, hypothetically certainly.
As far as me personally, we'll see, we'll see. As
if the Lord H gives me a way back into
music somehow through worship or you know, that'd be amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Well, right now, I'm just trying to make more Him
and less of me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. No, it's good whether
you're in music or not, because look, there's we actually
need more apologists maybe ought to become an apologist. We've
got a lot of music artists out there. We don't
have enough people going to college campus. As I can
tell you that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
You know, when I first started seminary, I first started
going after an apologetic degree before I changed to m DIF.
But but I agree, and I think everyone should at
least study And you know, you could study apologetics by
watching you. That is a way that anyone listening right now,
how do I get into apologetics? Go watch Frank Turik.

(01:01:09):
Go go to YouTube and watch how you interact and
how you answered. I don't think there's a question that
anyone has asked that that someone else watching wouldn't get
the same question. It would be very common.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Yeah, the questions today, they're they're all that, they're all
around morality. Most of them are anyway. So yeah, you're right.
So it's not like you have to know a whole
ton in order to answer them. And as you said earlier,
the real challenge is not h are these questions hard?
The hard thing is answering them in two minutes, which

(01:01:41):
you can't do completely. All you can do is kind
of cover one point briefly and say I recommend you
go read this book or you. You know, you look
at this or that or I'm just giving you a
doorway to an answer, not a complete answer. Yes, that's
that's the harder thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
You ever have any death threats?

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Uh, that's a good question. Probably on the internet. But
I'm gonna take those seriously, you know, you know, not
not not recently. I'm trying to think if back, if
we have, I kind of just brush them off. If
someone wants to kill you, they're not going to tell you, right.

(01:02:26):
I remember one time backstage I was with I was
with I was with Hitchens because he was coming out
against the Muslims pretty strong, and I said, you ever
get death threats? He goes, Look, if if someone wants
to kill me, they're not going to tell me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
It's something good we could learn from Christopher. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
You just keep moving forward, you know. Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Well, brother, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
I appreciate you taking the time. It means it means
the world to me.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Well, thank you, Granger. Thanks for the work you're doing.
We'll do this again some point.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
I hope sounds great. I hope. So thanks for joining
me on the Grangersmith podcast. Asked I appreciate all of
you guys. You could help me out by rating this
podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel,
hit that little like button and notification spell so that
you never miss anytime I upload a video.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Yii