The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 68 – Billy Hallowell

Episode 68: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Dr. Jeff interviews journalist Billy Hallowell about navigating the current cultural landscape from a Christian worldview. Hallowell discusses his journalistic approach of looking for what is missing in mainstream narratives to find the truth, particularly the spiritual or faith-based elements. He reflects on how tragedies are immediately politicized, which he sees as a sign of cultural brokenness. Hallowell shares his personal story of being inspired to write after the Columbine shooting, and he offers advice on how to consume and communicate information responsibly.

Episode Transcript

Ryan Dobson (00:00):
Hi everyone. Ryan Dobson here for the Dr. Jeff Show. Summit camps are in full swing and kids are having a blast. In fact, my own son Lincoln is attending right now. There are so many kids who want to go to camp at Summit, but they just need a little help. A generous donor has agreed to match every donation to the Summit Summer programs. Will you help a child learn the foundations of a Christian worldview at Summit? Donate online at summit.org/match and every tax-free donation will be doubled. Again, you can find that at summit.org/match. God bless, and let’s join the Dr. Jeff Show.

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:40):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show. The show’s available on Apple, Google, Spotify, Edifi, Liftable, and wherever you get your podcasts. Would you take a moment and give a positive review for the show? Reviews really make a difference. They help people learn about things they might be interested in, and we want people to be interested in worldview. This is the show where we talk with celebrities and journalists and all kinds of interesting people to demonstrate that worldview changes everything.

My guest today is a journalist who has written more than 14,000 stories. He’s going to communicate with us about how you share truth. He’s going to talk about his work at the Christian Broadcasting Network and a couple of podcasts which are really cool that I’m just now learning about. One is called Prodigal Stories and one is called Playing with Fire, which deals with issues of the supernatural. Please welcome Billy Hallowell to the show. Billy Hallowell, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show.

Billy Hallowell (01:41):
Hey, thanks for having me.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:42):
It’s going to be a fun episode today. You and I and Ryan Dobson, who’s producing this, and Isabelle Brown and Rick Green did a panel at the National Religious Broadcasters together and we reconnected and I’ve just been looking forward to hosting you.

Billy Hallowell (01:58):
Yeah, no, that was a fun panel talking about worldview, right? Amazing.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:02):
Yeah, it is really fun. And it’s such an important topic right now and good on the national religious broadcasters for having that panel because it’s so timely.

Billy Hallowell (02:12):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think people don’t know how to engage. I always say it’s like we’ve woken up in the middle of nowhere. I mean, this is your wheelhouse, you know, and you’re training people to do this. But I think for most Christians, they’re kind of waking up and they’re like, “How did we get here? What is going on?” It’s like being an alien landing in a foreign land, trying to figure out how to navigate these rapid changes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:34):
There’s a new Barna study that’s come out recently that says that only half of evangelical pastors have a biblical worldview. And I was talking with the students at Summit ministries today about that. How on earth are we supposed to have a biblical worldview if the people who are supposed to help us get one don’t have it?

Billy Hallowell (02:55):
And when I saw that survey, I was not shocked by it, sadly, because the culture, I mean, culture is so pervasive and we know this, right? And for years there were complaints about universities and anybody who’s gone through a university or college knows this, right? That especially in the secular world, that there’s a lot of pressure, there is a lot of secular pressure coming down on you.

But it’s not just that now, it’s that our cell phones, we’re walking around with our tablets. Everything is pushing an alternative worldview on us. And it’s really easy even when we think that we’re not allowing things to kind of seep in for them to seep in through all of those mechanisms and the tablets and the internet. And so that’s something for me that I’ve had to be really aware of, like, what am I taking in? So it’s hugely important.

Dr. Jeff Myers (03:43):
Well, you’re the perfect guy to talk to about this. I have so many questions for you. And of course, our audience just is getting to know you. They heard the introduction and what they know about you is that you have written thousands of articles on all kinds of topics related to biblical worldview and what’s going on in the culture and the supernatural and all of these things, and that you’re a reporter for CBN. And we’re going to talk about the new podcast too, the prodigal. Tell me again what, it’s the prodigal?

Billy Hallowell (04:18):
Yeah, prodigal stories. Yeah, the prodigal stories.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:20):
Prodigal stories. Okay. Yeah. Prodigal stories. Okay. Are you prepared to tell some of the stories from that?

Billy Hallowell (04:25):
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:27):
Okay. Yeah. Okay. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to talk about all of that. Well, I’m actually in my office today at Summit Ministries. We are switching studios. We’ve got a brand new studio that’s going to come online, but in the meantime, I’m just doing this from my office. And then the students here are asking questions like, “How do I actually identify truth and speak truth in a culture like this?” But this is something you would do every day when you wake up in the morning and you’ve got stories to file. Can you give us a little of the secret sauce for you on how you identify what the truth is in a story and how you communicate it?

Billy Hallowell (05:09):
Yeah. Unfortunately, the world we’re living in now, I launch with unfortunately, I often find myself when I’m looking at the mainstream media, so media outlets that are not faith-based outlets, I often am looking at, what are they not covering? What’s not there?

And it’s crazy because you can be reading a story about a mass shooting or some horrific event, and you could go five paragraphs down, seven paragraphs down into that story, and you’ll realize that that’s where the nugget is that a faith audience is going to care about. That’s where the truth of the story is, right? Everybody’s fighting about gun control, but what is really going on at the basis of that story?

For instance, looking at the Texas shooting that happened, this horrific shooting that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers, as you’re looking at that, while the world is arguing about the politics of it, and of course those are important conversations to have, the deeper question, and this is just one example, what is it in the heart of an 18-year-old kid that would make him say, “This is an okay thing to do. This is something that I believe is the right thing to do to go into this building and harm these children.”

(06:16):
And so it’s often looking for the piece that’s not being discussed as the main point of the story and bringing that out. And a lot of times for me, I might read a story and think, “Huh, what was that person thinking or feeling? They’re not telling me that. Is that person a believer, right? Is that person a Christian?”

And you can often tell even in reading a story that maybe a secular person has written for a local outlet, let’s say, that, oh yeah, that’s a faith story, but they don’t quite get that. So we may take the extra step of reaching out to talk with that person that they interviewed to really get the full story. And I often find that’s the case that we’re missing pieces of the story that we then have to fill in.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:54):
Yeah, that’s a great example. And with the Texas shooting, which is so tragic to dig into it in that way, is it distressing to you that people automatically default to politics when people are mourning and you’ve got these situations where this community is in tatters and people just immediately begin debating back and forth about all of these political issues. As you mentioned, they are important ones, but man, we’re humans.

Billy Hallowell (07:31):
Well, that’s the thing, and I think that’s actually the evidence of how broken the culture is that the first thing we do, it used to be that we waited five or 10 minutes before. Now you go on Twitter and the minute an event happens, we have no details about it. We don’t know how the person got the guns. We don’t even know who the person is outside of maybe a name, and yet everybody solved the crisis in their own minds because if they just ban this type of gun or if they just do this other thing or whatever it is, then they’re going to solve that case.

The reality is, and this is actually really important to kind of even pull back from as believers. If we are Christians and the truth is what we’re after, that’s what we’re called to, then we need to make sure we have all the details before we’re kind of going out there and making these statements.

(08:13):
So I do think it is very distressing and it doesn’t mean, now I’m not saying there aren’t things we don’t need to talk about. I think part of having humility as believers, and this is hard, it’s hard for me as a person who is more conservative and who is a believer to come in and say, “I’m going to listen to the other side. I’m going to sit down and talk.” But we have to have that humility to do that.

We may walk away and say, “Look, we’re not going to change our perspective on it. We don’t think there’s some law,” but that shouldn’t be our first point of contact in addressing something. The first point should be mourning for these people. How can we help them? And I have to tell you, the thing that I have found, and I understand where the argument is coming from, and anybody who is watching or listening to this, they’re going to experience this and they probably already have. An event happens.

(08:58):
You say, “I’m praying for you.” I don’t quite care as much about the thoughts part. It’s nice, but thoughts don’t do much, but prayers do, right? Thoughts are nice, but prayers do a lot, but yet we live in this culture and you’re seeing this happen. “Oh, keep your prayers. We want action.” There’s such a disregard for the eternal that even the thought of people praying. And by the way, the reason people pray, and we know this is believers, it’s not just like we’re praying so that magically these events will stop happening.

Of course, we want God to turn the hearts of people away from these, doing these sorts of things, but we’re praying for those victims. We’re praying that God would give them peace for their families, for those that love them. And I think, I don’t want to go off on a tangent, but I think there’s so much lost in our culture that the reaction to these events actually shows us how far we’ve fallen.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:44):
It really does reveal somebody’s worldview. The very first thing somebody says about something tells you what at the core they think we were made to do as humans, what our problem is and how it can be solved.

Billy Hallowell (10:02):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that that goes back to this material obsession, the obsession with the here and now, right? Of course, your go-to is going to be, if everything in your life has a political solution or a material solution, right? And we could talk about every issue on the face of the earth from abortion down the line. If everything has a material solution or you’re the person who gets to, you’re your own God, so you get to make the rules, you get to make that decision.

Well, of course, the first thing you’re going to do is go to gun control right away. Again, I’m not saying we don’t need to talk about these things, but what I am saying is that we should be leading with our faith first, but that’s not where the culture is. And so we have a lot of dysfunction in even how we spread information and share information, you can’t even get the information out there because that bias is so strong that it actually prevents, I think, a real processing that needs to happen with the emotion of these events.

Dr. Jeff Myers (10:58):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s so good. Billy, one thing I love about your story is that you began writing and became a journalist and doing a lot of things when you were young. So we’ve got students at Summit Ministries who are 16 to 22 years of age and you were in that range. You were a young guy when you started writing. What was your inspiration? What made you want to start communicating in that way?

Billy Hallowell (11:23):
Yeah, I love that you asked that because I often forget about this and I think it’s so important with younger people that we’re pouring into. And that’s what Summit does, that we’re pouring into people because I was 15 and the Columbine shooting happened. I mean, here we are talking about this example of a shooting. The Columbine shooting happened, I will never forget it. I was homesick from school, 15 years old, a freshman in high school myself. I had just turned 15.

And I remember watching it on TV, like the rest of the country and being horrified by it and thinking, what could I do? What can I do as a 15 year old to try to stop something like this? And so I tried to start a TV show locally. I tried to do a bunch of different things to get teenagers talking, but one of the things that was suggested to me by a producer was to launch a website.

(12:09):
And so that’s what I did. And this website dealt with, and at the time I was a Christian, I grew up in a Christian home, but it wasn’t a faith-based site. It dealt with violence, things like Columbine and discrimination, the way we treat people, right? Those were the two issues that I was tackling. And I won’t bore you with every detail, but that really grew into, by the time I was 18, I was writing very regularly on these issues. I had a column at age 18 and I went to school for journalism. It really led me into all of this.

And it took me a while, to be honest with you, to realize that the faith that I had been brought up with and that I believed in my head, it hadn’t quite gotten into my heart yet, was going to come together with media and that God was going to use that in my life and allow me to tell stories. But yeah, I started really young and it was an event just like this that sort of sparked that for me.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:59):
Yeah. So how did you approach it? I’m thinking of young adults who are thinking, probably not interested in a career in journalism necessarily, but they absolutely want to be people who communicate the truth. I mean, when you look back at that time. Let me ask it this way. When you look back at that time from where you are now, what would you say to a young adult about using the platforms that they have to communicate truth?

Billy Hallowell (13:31):
Yeah. I think that when I look back, there’s a lot of things I would do differently now when I look back even throughout the first. I’m 38 now, until I got into my 30s, there’s a lot I would do differently in my 20s, really making sure that we lead with the truth first and that we lead with the gospel first. Because I have to tell you, I think that we all have a go- to and it’s that our politics or our thoughts or whatever we believe about something, and this is just human nature, we’re going to go there first, right?

So just like the gun control exam, we’re going to go to the gun control solution, we’re going to go to. But as believers, we need to pull back. We need to look at everything before us. And I don’t care if somebody wants to be a journalist or if they want to be a business owner, whatever they want to do, right now we are living in a culture of chaos and confusion and that chaos and confusion really is a lens that kind of overshadows everything.

(14:23):
And if we’re not careful and we don’t understand the information and how to take it in, and when I say the information, I mean, no matter what it is we’re looking at, always ask yourself, and I think this is the most important question as a Christian for me now, what am I not hearing? Right? I know what I’m hearing. I know what this person is telling me. I know what this story is telling me. I know what I’m seeing here, but what’s missing?

Because very often, going back even to the earlier example of how I find stories, the thing that really matters often is the thing that’s missing, and that’s what we need to be called to, to fully have that information. I don’t know if that fully answers your question, but I think for me, that is something that’s been so important in every area of my life as a believer, and that’s where I learn the most too about what it is I actually believe.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:09):
Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think it’d be helpful if we had some examples. So let’s say you’ve got, I know you get assignments, your network says, this is the topic, this is what we want you to focus on. But let’s say you are just going through the internet and thinking, “Wow, I’m going to write something here. What’s my topic and how do I approach it?” Can you give us a couple of examples of how you do that?

Billy Hallowell (15:36):
Yeah. I mean, one thing that I will do is let’s say a topic comes to me and I’m looking at this subject and I’m reading one story about it because usually that’s what happens. Somebody shares a link or you see a link. Okay. I see that Nancy Pelosi was denied communion, right? Okay.

So I will then go through every single story that I can find that is out there on that, honestly. And I know that that sounds time consuming. It’s not. You do it quickly, you go through and I will look at everything. I want to understand every part that’s available and then I want to think through, well, what wasn’t available? What else could be here in this story that I’m missing? And I will put that all together into something. And a lot of times when we’re putting stories together, it’s like putting a puzzle together.

(16:20):
You’re pulling pieces from all of these different areas to hopefully create a full puzzle. And I think we need to do that as believers with any information. A lot of the time we go out there and we’re sharing things or we’re throwing things out there and the puzzle’s not complete. And when it comes to our faith, that can actually hurt our witness if we’re out there saying things that might not be true. Now sometimes we’re missing those details, but for me, storytelling wise, it’s always about pulling together everything that I possibly can and bringing that together.

And then thinking through where does this fit with the gospel, right? Where does this fit with a Christian message? And many times, most of the time, almost any story you can imagine, there is a gospel lesson there, right? Either something good that happened, something bad that happened or something that was missing that we try to help people focus on. And so you’ll notice if you go to Faith Wire or CBN, at the end of stories, we’ll often talk about that. Here’s what the Bible actually says about this topic, and we’ll present that.

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:22):
That’s so good. One of our mutual friends is John Stone Street from the Colson Center and John often will say, just remind people in an audience, no matter what happens, we live in a world in which Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. Nothing can change that. And so if that is true, that affects the way we view everything. We begin asking questions differently. What is broken that can be fixed? What is good that can be promoted? Those are the sorts of things that we begin focusing on.

Billy Hallowell (17:57):
Absolutely. And I think that is often, and there are a lot of media outlets that want to do those things, but if they’re not coming from a Christian perspective, they don’t quite always know how to do it. They know, oh, here’s a feel-good story, but they don’t always understand how to do that. And I think a lot of times, look, you can watch certain networks only. You can go and watch one network all the time and you’re going to have only sort of one take on everything.

I think we also need to be careful. When I say, grab all the information that’s out there and bring it together, it’s not for this sort of kumbaya moment that’s going to change your perspective or your faith. I actually feel like the strongest thing we can do, right? And anybody who’s experienced any sort of restriction on their beliefs or they’ve been in an environment where, this has happened to me many times where a college or a workplace sort of doesn’t allow you to speak on your faith, you feel that, right?

(18:48):
And when I look at colleges, for instance, where they don’t allow conservative speakers in or they don’t allow Christian speakers in or they’ve tried to restrict speech, what’s so interesting is we often focus on how that hurts Christians or conservatives on the political side, and it absolutely does, but it’s actually a bigger danger to the students on the other side, to the secularists or to liberal students who don’t believe. It actually hurts them more because they’re not being challenged at all.

For me, when I talk about bringing that information together, it’s because it helps refine what it is we believe. It doesn’t change it. It helps us understand, oh, that’s what the other side believes. That’s what a secularist culture believes. And when we understand that, I believe it helps us understand our faith much better so that we can actually meet the needs that people have.

(19:34):
We can answer those questions. And honestly, you know this, in this culture, it’s becoming a bigger priority to be able to do that. We need to be able to refine what we believe so that we can meet the questions that people have.

Dr. Jeff Myers (19:46):
Yeah, this is really, really important. And meeting those needs, that’s such a great emphasis because what we’re not talking about is saying, “Here’s the issue of the day, and now let’s talk about Jesus.”

Billy Hallowell (19:58):
Right. Well, yeah, and I think too, I mean, look at what’s happening right now in this country. The world, again, and it goes back to everything we’ve talked about with gun control and all these other issues, they see everything in a vacuum, right? As Christians, we see everything as connected. We understand what’s going on. The culture is crumbling because we’ve made a decision. I mean, we’ve made a very overt decision in this country.

And look, the country’s never been perfect because people are in it. We’ve always had sin, but this is an amazing country. We live in the most incredible country in the history of mankind for all of our issues aside. And we see as believers what is going on. We’ve said to God, “We don’t want you here. We’re done. We don’t need you. We’re going to be our own gods.” I mean, you look at the statistics that are coming out from Barna, and you know these very well.

(20:45):
Even back in 2016, the majority of Americans were saying, “You know what? Whatever you believe is true is your truth. And whatever cultures want to come up with, any culture, they can make up whatever truth they want it to be, and that’ll be the truth.” Well, this starts getting really complicated when you start asking questions like, “Okay, well, you say any culture can just decide what they believe is moral. How about ISIS? Do they get to decide what they believe is moral?”

And that’s their truth. They can just say that women have no rights or they can kill Christians. I mean, when you start to take these ideologies that they’re like hallmark card lines, right? Oh, believe whatever you want, say whatever you feel, but when you start to actually… It’s impractical, right? I mean, it’s insane when you boil it down.

Dr. Jeff Myers (21:27):
Yeah, that’s powerful. I think at Summit, I always try to, I’m usually the first speaker. So these students are here for two weeks. Some of them know what they’re getting into, some don’t, but I try to find that common thread of where they are in the culture right now, and then use that to bring up issues of truth. So for example, this last session, I started off with, we are in a very difficult moment in our culture and people aren’t sure what’s true, but we all have to ask and answer the question, how do we find meaning in a fleeting life?

And I said, “I know the statistics about your generation.” 75% and your generation say they do not have a sense of purpose that gives them meaning in life, 53% say they regularly struggle with anxiety and depression. In my generation, number one fear, Chapman University always lists out all these fears, which sounds obsessive in a way, but it’s always interesting.

(22:27):
My generation’s number one fear is government corruption. I said, “Your generation’s number one fear, according to the surveys, and they already know what it is, being alone. It’s number one fear, being alone, being isolated.”

Billy Hallowell (22:38):
And we have the most connective devices in the history of, think about this. And I mean, it’s insane. We have Facebook, we have Twitter, we have, I mean, you and I are in two different locations talking right now. Anybody can do this around the world, and yet this generation being brought up in these technologies is the most isolated and fearful of being alone. How sad is that?

Dr. Jeff Myers (22:59):
Yeah, it’s sad. And you could see the effects on their psychological health, mental health issues are hugely significant. And if they’re not struggling with it personally, they have a very close friend or family member who is. And that’s a great place to start. So is there truth in a world like this? Does it help us to say, truth is whatever you want it to be? Does it help us to abandon the idea of, seek the truth and accept, instead speak your truth? So it’s, what a fascinating time to be writing and thinking.

Billy Hallowell (23:35):
It is. And I think too, I’ve often encouraged people not to be antagonistic, obviously, but to ask important questions. I think a lot of times we get sort of sidelined or cornered as believers because the culture at this point, they’ve moved on, they have different viewpoints and we’re the strange aliens now, right? It went from sort of like the majority view on a lot of different issues within a couple of years to, wow, you guys are strange and I don’t quite understand why you believe what you believe. And so we often find ourselves responding to questions rather than asking questions. And it is really interesting.

And so I encourage people, ask questions back to people. When they’re asking you questions like, “Well, do you hate me because you don’t agree with this lifestyle or do you?” Well, I would always ask, and I have asked people back, “Well, you don’t agree with my Christian worldview. Do you hate me because of that?”

(24:26):
It’s really interesting when you start to ask those questions back, again, not to be antagonistic, but to actually help people think and understand. If you’re asking me or you’re treating me as though I hate you because we have a difference of opinion on sexuality or any issue, right, any biblical issue, well, then if I go back to you and say, “Well, do you hate me?” And there may be some people who do, but the vast majority don’t. And they would say, “Well, of course not. We just disagree.”

And so sometimes that’s a starting place of understanding. Yes, we have a disagreement in worldview. This is my worldview and here’s where I stand and this is why I believe these things because I follow Jesus and you have your worldview, right? You don’t have to be insulting about it, but you have your worldview and this is why you might believe these things.

(25:07):
And so I have found that that’s a really helpful starting point. Sometimes in those really difficult conversations where you feel like you’re kind of up against a wall and you’re on the defense, to kind of go back on offense a little bit, again, not to be rude, but to actually help those people think a little bit deeper that what they’re accusing you of is sort of insane in the scheme of things, right? I don’t require people to go to church with me on the weekends, right? I don’t get mad if somebody won’t partake in, I’d love for them to come with me, but they don’t have to.

And so, but yet when you flip it around, if a Christian doesn’t agree or do the things that people want them to, they are treated as though they’re being hateful. So anyway, I don’t want to belabor that point, but I think it’s actually important to ask those questions back.

Dr. Jeff Myers (25:51):
Yeah, that’s so good. And I think dialogue is what people want. We’ve been doing a lot of polling as you know at Summit, not because we want to be a polling company, but because we want to understand the cultural moment that we’re a part of. And consistently about five to 8% of the people in this country are real jerks. That’s what we’re finding out in the polling. Sounds about right. That’s about right.

They think that anybody who disagrees with them, they should cut them out of their lives. They think that no one who has a religious viewpoint should be allowed to express it publicly. I mean, they’re real jerks, but that leaves 92 to 95% of the people who are open to having a conversation, which you might not know if you’re only looking at things on the internet, seeing the person screaming at somebody else.

Billy Hallowell (26:36):
Absolutely. And by the way, too, what you just said is so important because when it comes to that small group of people, even if it’s 1 in 10, it’s a very small percentage of the population that’s that way. And that would be over. I mean, that’s a very liberal stat on it. But when I look at that, it’s also interesting to point out to those people, “Well, what happened to my truth and your truth?” It’s fascinating that any culture can make up whatever idea they want, but the minute a Christian culture has an idea, that idea is suddenly bad, right? Well, wait a minute, you said it was okay. Anybody’s truth was fine. Why is this truth suddenly not okay?

And I think there are ways to point that out. I have pointed that out. I teach college students and I don’t tell them what I think because I’m in a secular college, I teach them, we talk at the end they’ll ask and I’ll let them know at the end of the class, but it’s a public speech and debate class.

(27:26):
And as we go through, I will ask those questions and I’ll put them in those tough predicaments where they have to think outside of their bubble and 99%, I mean, I’ve had students who don’t know what a nativity is. They don’t know. They’ve never heard these words and that’s shocking to me that we live in America and there are students who are, and I’ve seen that get worse over the last 10 years.

And also I’ve seen students who will walk out of the room, they will not listen to a debate. They will not, if it’s something they can’t agree with. That’s a newer phenomenon. So I think this issue’s getting worse and we have to get better at navigating it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:00):
Yeah, that’s good. Do you get feedback on your articles? I mean, do people come back to you and comment and things like that?

Billy Hallowell (28:12):
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:13):
Yeah. That’s really cool.

Billy Hallowell (28:13):
It is cool. And there was an old joke like, never read the comment section, right? And I joke about that because look, comment sections can be brutal, but I like to know, because I want to hear, like, “Hey, did you feel like we covered that well?” And there are times where people will point things out, even small things and you could say, “You know what? That’s a really great point.”

Again, it helps me refine how we present certain things or wow, I never actually thought that when I’m using the word luckily, that word luckily, instead of fortunately, if you use that word luckily, some people get really upset about it. There’s no luck. And so there’s little things and then there are big things. So we get great feedback and I love to hear from people, honestly, of what they like and what they don’t like.

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:56):
Yeah. Billy, it just reminds me, one of the things I love to do. In fact, I just did this today. There was a journalist who wrote something that I thought was beautiful. And so I commented, I said so. And I did just comment, most journalists, this would not be true for probably the people who are at the very, very top anchoring national shows because they get so much communication, they’re not going to see it all.

But most reporters, most journalists, people who are writing articles in Time Magazine, if you write to them, they see it. They can hear from you. Absolutely. And I almost always, almost always, make sure that my first communication with them is something positive. I saw your article on such and such. I thought the story you told here was beautiful and that’s it. Then if they write back, then it opens a channel of communication.

(29:51):
Journalists are real people and you can, as an everyday person and as a reader, you can influence how they see things. Hey, you may not have considered this viewpoint, but I know some people believe this. And when it comes up again, you might want to consider that that’s a significant number of people. And journalists are, oh, okay. Yeah. If you communicate it in a positive way with a constructive view, you can actually make a difference.

Billy Hallowell (30:20):
Absolutely. It’s so great that you said that. One of the things. I wrote a book called Fault Line a couple of years back, and it was about culture, and it was about media, Hollywood, and universities. And as I was going through and looking at those three areas, it was really striking to me because for years people told me, there’s no bias in these arenas. And I mean, it’s an insane claim. There’s so much bias in each of those arenas.

The troubling part about Hollywood media and universities is that outside of the church, if you’re not going to church or you’re not involved in a church community, all of those arenas are rapidly secular. And it’s gotten even worse since 2016 when that book came out. And so if you’re being raised up by those three arenas and that’s it, and you don’t have that solid biblical worldview, you’re going to see the world through a very specific lens.

(31:07):
But in that, and in understanding that, it became very clear, and this is controversial, some Christians don’t agree and that’s fine, that as Christians, we’ve also pulled out of those arenas. We are not as present in those arenas. We’re not in media. We’re not in Hollywood as much. And that’s changed a little bit as well over the years. Some of that’s changing and evolving. But my point is, you writing those emails, you engaging, and I would encourage everybody to do that.

A lot of these journalists and a lot of these people in Hollywood, they’re only talking to people who think the way that they think. They’re not sitting in a room with a Christian who would say, “Well, maybe if you wrote that character a little different,” or, “Hey, here’s what a Christian actually might do in that situation.” And so I’m not excusing all of the things that go on in these arenas, but we do have to understand that some of this bias is the result of vacuums and bubbles that if we don’t engage are never going to be popped.

Dr. Jeff Myers (31:58):
That’s right. That’s exactly right. So good. I promised at the beginning that I would ask you a question about Prodigal Stories, this new podcast that you have, because I think people are always on the lookout for what’s cool, what’s interesting to listen to these days, and people need to know about this. So tell us about the show and tell us a couple of the stories that have really been meaningful to you.

Billy Hallowell (32:21):
Yeah, absolutely. So this is a show. There’s another faith reporter at CBN and Faithwire, Trey Goins Phillips, and the two of us worked together at the Blaze years ago, and now we’re working together at Faithwire and CBN. And we decided to launch a show where we would just tell people’s transition stories, the things like their pivot point moments, the things they’ve gone through that maybe were difficult or powerful in some way.

And it’s interesting because there’s sort of two podcasts that are going on right now and Prodigal, I’ll talk about Prodigal first. These are things, these are maybe celebrities, people we would know, but we might not know certain parts of their stories. And one that comes to mind that we recently did was with Anne Wilson. She’s a Christian singer. She’s only 20 years old, she’s young. And this is somebody who never, she grew up playing music.

(33:09):
Her parents made her play piano, which she kind of resented, but she never imagined herself being a professional singer, right? This just wasn’t something that was on her radar. And her brother died in a tragic car accident in 2017 and she had never performed in front of an audience before. And these are the kinds of stories we tell.

We had her on, she told the story, but she was playing the piano after her brother’s death and her mother came up to her and said, “Would you be willing to play and sing?” Because her mother heard her singing and thought, wow, she had never heard her actually singing. And then she’s just at home singing, “Would you play at his funeral?” And so Anne said yes. And she went to the funeral, sang at her brother’s funeral for the first time. She had never performed in front of people before.

(33:52):
And it was in that moment, in the worst moment of her life, while she’s honoring her deceased brother’s life that she felt God saying to her, “This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to minister to people through music.” And now flash forward a couple of years, she’s got a hit album out and she’s ministering to people through music. And so it’s these incredible moments that God gives us where we have these life changes, these life transition moments.

Another example from the show, and he can be a little controversial, but dog the bounty hunter. I don’t know if you remember him from his show. I do. But he talked about his going to prison. He had charges in the 1970s, went to jail, and after coming out of jail, he was kind of brought up in the church. His mother, while he’d sleep at night after getting out of prison, his mother would play the audio Bible.

(34:39):
She turned it on after he fell asleep. She’d play it in his room, and he’d wake up and the Bible would still be playing and he’s like, “Mom, what are you doing here? What’s going on?” But he had two choices, continue in this life of crime or surrender to Jesus. And so he talked about that transition in his life. And so those are the kinds of moments we cover.

And I would also mention, and it’s kind of strange, but it’s sort of the other side of Prodigal Stories, which is the Playing with Fire podcast. So those are two shows that I have going on right now. And those are stories of spiritual transformation that people have gone through. And so that spiritual warfare or people who deal, pastors who deal with that. And so it’s been really interesting, kind of, having these different kinds of conversations on these two shows happen simultaneously.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:23):
Yeah. And playing with fire, you wrote a book by that title dealing with supernatural things. Do you find, I was not planning to ask this question, but I’m just curious. I know a lot of people who don’t believe in God, but they do believe in ghosts.

Billy Hallowell (35:41):
Yes. Yeah. This is really interesting. And I would actually say, and I’d love to hear feedback after this episode from people who agree or disagree, that this topic of supernatural, and I’m going to throw ghosts in with that because I think people think they’re dealing with ghosts. They’re really dealing with evil generally. But this topic is discussed more in pop culture and by Hollywood than it is in some churches.

(36:08):
And that’s been really interesting. And actually, I wasn’t going to bring this up either, but as we’re talking about the young generation, 53%, there’s at least one survey showing that 53% of people between the ages of 13 and 25 are playing with tarot cards or using some other spiritual device to try to fortune tell. And so you have this really strange dynamic. There’s a vacuum that we talked about, of pushing God out and yet people are scrambling to fill these voids and they’re doing it in really interesting and unfortunate ways.

And so yes, to go back to your original question, there are lots of people who do not believe in anything. They don’t believe there’s a higher power, but somehow they still believe. And you’ll hear people say, “I’m spiritual.” And I think we’re going to see more of this in the coming years. It’s on the increase.

Dr. Jeff Myers (36:56):
Wow. Just because I want to sort of bring closure to that topic, you’ve brought up something that’s hugely important. We probably need to have a whole show on that, but what would you counsel to Christians who are seeing some of those kinds of things and they kind of have a fascination with that. What’s a good guideline for staying close to the truth?

Billy Hallowell (37:22):
Yeah, because there’s two dynamics here. There’s the dynamic of let’s pretend that evil is not existing or impacting anything and let’s not talk about it ever. And there’s a lot of churches that are there. And then there’s the let’s obsess about evil and we see it behind every doorway. It’s under every rock and every bad decision you’ve made is the result of some oppression, some demonic oppression on you instead of just, you made bad decisions and did bad things. So there has to be a balance.

And my encouragement, one of the most interesting chapters of the Bible that I had really read through so many times and then just kind of ignored or didn’t really fully process is Ephesians six. And I think as we talk about culture and we talk about what is happening in the world around us, understanding that as Paul writes, we are in the middle of a spiritual battle.

(38:11):
We don’t see it happening. We see the effects of it, but there is a battle between good and evil going on and it’s happening around us. And a lot of us who are waking up in the middle of nowhere, looking around trying to figure out how we got here, we have to understand that there are spiritual elements to all of the things that are happening in our culture today. And so I think a lot of us, and I don’t want to speak for everybody, I can speak for myself growing up, I was taught that there was evil. I was taught that there was an enemy, but it was never really brought together into this full picture of understanding that we see in Ephesians 6.

So I would encourage people, read Ephesians 6 and understand that not everything is evil or demonic, but that this is happening and that our world is deeply impacted and not just our world, but individual lives by this.

(38:56):
And when we don’t talk about the existence of that, we do a disservice not only to ourselves, but to those we’re trying to minister to. Because I will tell you, and then I can put a bow on it and wrap it up here, that writing a book on this topic, I was very fearful going into that. And then after I finished it, I kind of came back around and realized like, wow, when you understand evil, it points you back to your need for Jesus and your need for good. It gave me a real peace actually. And so I’d encourage people to understand that. I know it’s a much broader topic than we could talk about now, but go to Ephesians 6, read it, process it, and understand it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:33):
Yeah. Wow. This is really great. Well, Billy, I love the conversations we have together because we just can go all over the place and it’s just fun to track with you and see what you’re thinking about, what you’re working on. Thank you for your work. Thanks for what you do with Faiththwire CBN and the other outlets that you have. And we’ll direct people in the show notes and in the outro to where they can find you, but I’m sure grateful for your being on the show today.

Billy Hallowell (39:57):
Thanks for having me. This was a blast. It was fun.

Dr. Jeff Myers (40:00):
A special thanks to my guest for today’s show, Billy Hallowell. There are so many things that Billy’s doing. You’re going to want to find out about it and stay in touch with them. So the easiest way is to go to his website, which is billyhallowwell.com. Hallowell is spelled H-A-L-L-O-W-E-L-L, BillyHallowell.com. You can get his book Playing with Fire, which we talked about briefly, which deals with issues of the supernatural. You can also find out more about his podcast and his work with the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Listen, the Apostle John said that Jesus came to give us an understanding of the world so that we could escape the false ideologies and know the truth. And journalists like Billy help us, but he also teaches us how we can be people who speak the truth, ask questions that lead toward the truth. It’s about the truth that’s the most important thing to stand for. I’ll look forward to seeing you next week.

Ryan Dobson (41:00):
Thanks for listening to the Dr. Jeff Show. And don’t forget, you can help a child attend Summit summer session by going to summit.org/match. All your donations that are tax deductible will be doubled. God bless, have a great week, and we’ll see you next time for another Dr. Jeff Show.

Dr. Jeff Myers (41:19):
Listeners, I want you to know that our podcast is on Edifi, which is a truly powerful app that brings together thousands of the best Christian podcasts in one place for your listening enjoyment. You can download it at edifi.app. Be sure to share the show if you have enjoyed listening to it and leave a review, if you would, on the site where you download the show that helps more people know about the Dr. Jeff Show, and I’ll look forward to seeing you next week.