The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 7 – Frank Turek

Episode 7: 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

Dr. Jeff interviews Dr. Frank Turek, a Christian apologist, about his personal and professional journey. Dr. Turek discusses his conversion to Christianity, his mentorship under Dr. Norman Geisler, and the origin of his book title, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. He recounts his experience of being fired by Cisco in 2011 for his views on same-sex marriage, an early example of cancel culture. Dr. Turek also shares insights from his debates with prominent atheist Christopher Hitchens and provides practical advice for Christians on how to engage in dialogue fearlessly and effectively, emphasizing long-term preparation and the strategic use of questions.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Hey gang, it’s Dr. Jeff. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show. This is the show where we interview major thought leaders and go behind the scenes, get insight into their lives to understand how worldview changes everything.

In this episode, I interview Dr. Frank Turek, who is one of my favorite Christian apologists. He’s a debater who has debated top atheists and he’s going to share with us how to be honest and forthright and fearless and personal as Christians in the time in which we live. You’re not going to want to miss a minute of it. Hey, Dr. Frank Turek. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show.

Dr. Frank Turek (00:43):
Dr. Jeff, great being with you, sir. Hope you’re feeling well.

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:46):
I am feeling really well this week. Thank you. We’ve been friends for a lot of years, but the very first time I heard about you was a book title of a book you had written shown to me by Dr. David Noble with the most classic Christian apologetics title I have heard ever, which is I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. I thought that was.

Dr. Frank Turek (01:13):
I can’t take credit for the title, Jeff. I can’t take credit. I’ll tell you how he came up with it though.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:17):
Oh, I want to hear that story.

Dr. Frank Turek (01:19):
Okay. So Dr. Norman Geister and I, who has written more books than most people have read. In fact, when Dr. Geisler died, it was discovered he had written or co-written 129 books.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:29):
Wow.

Dr. Frank Turek (01:31):
So he died in 2019. Anyway, he and I were going around doing a program, a seminar we called, I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist, well, no, we didn’t call it I don’t have enough to be an atheist. We called it 12 points to show Christianity is true. And we were doing this in the ’90s and the early 2000s. And at one point I said, “Dr. Geister, this really needs to be a book.” So he said, “Well, we’ve got our outline.”

He had come up with most of the outline, so I just started writing. And then at one point we were doing the seminar, the 12 Points to Show Christianity is True. And after he went through the fine tuning argument, he got done with all this evidence and it’s just overwhelming that there has to be some sort of intelligence and created the universe and fine tuned it.

(02:14):
And he finally said, after all this evidence, he said, “Look, I just don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.” And I went, “That needs to be the title of the book.” So get this, Jeff, get this. So we submit the proposal for the book and the publisher says, “Oh, we don’t like the title.” I said, “You don’t like the title? What?”

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:33):
It should be, seven points to bore people with a Christian worldview.

Dr. Frank Turek (02:38):
The title they came up with was The Truth About Truth. And we said, “Look, now that’s a deal breaker. If you don’t want the title, we’re going somewhere else.” So they said, “Okay, we’ll go with the title.” And the title is, I think, what really gets people to buy the book.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:52):
I think so too. And I think the title tells us something about Dr. Geisler, who’s one of my heroes. And it also tells me something about you and the nature of your work because I’ve watched you in interviews, I’ve watched you do debates with famous people, like the most intimidating atheists in the world like Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Silverman and others and you just do it so well.

There’s got to be some secret to, how do you debate or how can you be so fearless and how do you come up with things to say that are memorable? And I want to get to all of that because I think our audience, everybody who’s watching this or listening to this is wondering on a daily basis, how can I be wiser? How can I be wiser in a more clever way? Because I don’t want to bore people with the truth.

(03:48):
I want them to be fascinated by it. So anyway, we’re going to get to that in a few minutes. All right, good. But before we do, I want to know a little bit about your story. You didn’t always have the kind of relationship with Jesus that you now have and that you share with audiences all over the world. I wonder if you just tell us a little of your story.

Dr. Frank Turek (04:09):
Sure. I grew up in New Jersey and since I grew up in New Jersey, it was the law that you had to be Catholic. I don’t know if you know that or not, but I went to Catholic high school, actually. I went to St. Rose High School in Belmar, New Jersey. But through all that, I never really knew who Jesus was. Went off to college.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:26):
What did you think Jesus was?

Dr. Frank Turek (04:28):
I didn’t know. He was just some guy hanging on a cross at the front of the sanctuary. Oh, Jesus was a great man. Jesus was someone who had great ethics, that kind of thing, but I didn’t know. It’s probably more my fault, but I felt like I never was taught who Jesus was and why he came and what he did. So after I went through college, I always believed in God. I knew there had to be a cause. There had to be a cause for all this. There had to be somebody behind this.

So I always believed in God and I was a pretty moral kid growing up, didn’t get into a lot of trouble. When I got through college and went into the Navy, because I was Navy ROTC, went to Navigator School in Pensacola, Florida, Aviation Navigator School, and I ran into the son of a Methodist minister and he took me to, believe it or not, a Baptist service.

(05:18):
And I thought it was so intriguing because I learned a lot in the Baptist Service. Unlike the Catholic service, which was very liturgical, I knew the mass by heart except for the five minute homily you’d get and everything else was the same. But when I went to this Baptist service, I started to learn things and I started to ask my roommate a bunch of questions. Mark Vowel was his name, and I had so many questions for him.

And they were skeptical questions, like if God, why evil and how could Jesus be the only way and all this, that he finally said, “Look, you just need to get Josh McDowell books.” So I got Evidence Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter. This is about 1984, 85. After reading those books, I became a Christian. I’m still in the Navy and after I got out of the Navy in 1992, in 1993, I moved here to Charlotte to go to seminary under Dr. Norman Geisser.

(06:14):
And the way I met Norman Geisler was through a seminar that he was doing up at McLean Bible Church. I just happened to be in it and I put him up at my house. I didn’t even know who he was, Jeff. I didn’t know who he was. I just, “This guy’s coming in to teach the seminar. Sure, we’ll put him up. No problem.”

And it turned out at the time he was the Michael Jordan of apologetics. Of course. And he was starting a seminary here in Charlotte. And so within six months of meeting him, we moved from the DC area down to Charlotte in 1993 and then we started doing seminars together, writing books together, and here we are.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:45):
So you were one of his first students at that seminary then.

Dr. Frank Turek (06:49):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:49):
So you mentioned.

Dr. Frank Turek (06:50):
Seminary started in 92 and I started in 93.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:52):
You mentioned two names. You mentioned Norm Geisler and you mentioned Josh McDowell and we have a show with Josh McDowell. He’s one of my heroes as well.

Dr. Frank Turek (07:01):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Josh is great.

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:05):
Those are two amazing, I guess maybe you would say pioneers of what you would consider to be Christian apologetics because apologetics used to be apologizing for believing something so stupid. Then with those guys, they’re saying, “Wait, we have nothing to apologize for. This is actually, this is brilliant. This is defensible.” And they changed the course of the discourse around Christianity, which has had enormous effects.

But I just want to go back to being a naval aviator. Then from being in the navy as a naval aviator, that’s a hard thing for me to say for some reason, to getting a doctorate from seminary does not seem like a natural career path to me.

Dr. Frank Turek (07:57):
Well, yeah. When I was in the Navy, my final three years, I was an ROTC instructor at George Washington University in Washington, DC. And while I was there, since faculty could go to college for free, I got a master’s degree in public administration, but my heart was really into apologetics and that’s why I was taking that class at McLean Bible Church. It was just a lay class. It was being run by a guy named Barry Leventhal.

Well, Barry Leventhal was the chaplain to the Washington Redskins at the time and he was also a former student of Dr. Geisler and that’s why he brought Dr. Geisler, excuse me, that weekend in 1993 to McLean Bible Church. And it turns out that Barry then moved to Charlotte as well to be a professor at SES and he still is. He’s still here in Charlotte. I learned through Dr. Geisler, it was interesting.

(08:50):
One thing, going back to Josh McDowell, I had read Josh’s books. I didn’t know who Norm was. When I first met Norm, I remember we were driving down to the seminar and he was sitting in the passenger seat next to me and I said, “I’ve read these Josh McDowell books and all this stuff about where the Bible came from and all the evidence for it.” I said, “Where did he get all that stuff?” And Norm just said, “He got it from me.” Because I didn’t know Geiser had written all the books prior to McDowell.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:20):
I could so see him saying that. The most un-self-consciously straightforward person I have ever met probably.

Dr. Frank Turek (09:27):
It’s okay. Yeah. He just tells you like it is. Yeah, he was reading General Introduction to the Bible, which is still on my shelf right behind me. The first book Norm wrote in 1968 and of course McDowell wrote Evidence Demands a Verdict, I think in like 1972.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:44):
Right. Man, that is so great. I love hearing those stories. Now from there, from seminary, then you would speak on apologetics and so forth, but there’s kind of an interlude here because you were a corporate trainer. Your job was, and you were very successful at this, to train people in corporations in leadership skills and so forth, but something went terribly wrong in that in 2011. You’ve paid a price for teaching the things that you teach. Can you share a little of that with our audience?

Dr. Frank Turek (10:29):
Sure. What happened was we moved to seminary here in 1993 to Charlotte, North Carolina. I didn’t have a job and I had a wife and three sons five and under. So in order to feed the family, I started doing corporate training, leadership training, sales training, team building, that kind of stuff. I was a speaker in the Navy too because I was an ROTC instructor and prior to that I was the NATOPS, which stands for, it’s the Naval aviation expert in your place in the plane. So I was the instructor there.

So I’d always been kind of in front of people. I had no problem with that. And so I started to make money by doing corporate training while I’m going to seminary. I got my first degree in 99, my second degree in 2005, and I’m doing corporate training the whole way through and I’m also doing writing books with Dr. Geisler and I’m also doing seminars with Dr. Geiser and some on my own.

(11:27):
And we started cross-examined our ministry now in about 2007 and I’m still doing corporate training. So I’m kind of doing both at the same time. And it turns out I’m doing corporate training for Cisco, which is a major kind of internet equipment firm for many years. And by 2011, I had written a book in 2008 called Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone. And I’m doing leadership training in Cisco and someone in one of my leadership classes Googles me, found out I wrote this book, which of course was not the topic of anything I was talking about at Cisco.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:07):
And you didn’t bring up your faith in those. It wasn’t like you were saying, “Okay, if you want to follow my process, you have to believe in God,” or anything.

Dr. Frank Turek (12:15):
No, no, none of that. None of that. But at that day, the guy who was in the class who self-identified as a homosexual called the HR director and said, “Oh, Frank can’t work here at Cisco because he doesn’t agree with same sex marriage.” And yet this guy in the class loved the leadership class I was teaching, but he still said, no, Frank can’t teach her.

So I was fired that day immediately and what I did was the guy who hired me as a friend of mine just came and told me, I said, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to let you go because of this.” And I said, “Okay, well, what am I going to do?” I wrote a letter, however, a month or so later to the head of Cisco. His name was John Chambers, the CEO. And in 2008, John Chambers was the head of the McCain for president campaign in California.

(13:12):
And so I wrote Chambers and I said, “Hi, my name’s Frank Turek. I’ve been working for your company for many years as a consultant. I’m a veteran of the United States Navy. I appreciate your support for Senator McCain in the last election. I was fired because I hold this view on same-sex marriage from Cisco, even though I never brought it up. Are you aware that Senator McCain holds the same position on same-sex marriage that I hold?”

(13:39):
And I then said, “Are you qualified to be working at Cisco?” And I FedExed that letter to chambers. The next day I get a phone call from an attorney and the attorney says, “What do you want?” And I said, “Well, I don’t want anything other than the fact I want you to call the dogs off Christians for if they hold a different political viewpoint than you hold there at Cisco. I mean, that’s wrong for you to just fire them.” Now keep in mind, I was not an employee. I couldn’t bring a lawsuit. I was a vendor. They can let vendors go. You’re a contractor.

Dr. Jeff Myers (14:16):
I mean, you can be let go at any time for any reason.

Dr. Frank Turek (14:18):
That’s right. That’s right. And so the lady on the phone, the attorney said, “Well, I could put you in touch with the head of inclusion and diversity here at Cisco.” Her name is Marilyn Nagle. I said, “Great, love to talk to her.” We set up a call. Guess where I was when we took the call? I was at Summit, Jeff, and I was sitting in the room with our mutual friend, Mike Adams, and we were in his apartment there.

And I said, “Mike, let’s talk to Marilyn Nagle, see what she has to say.” And Marilyn Nagel could not explain to me why I was being excluded in the name of inclusion, tolerance and diversity for holding a diverse view, right? She just kept throwing platitudes at me and she couldn’t explain because there’s no explaining it, right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:08):
No, no, there’s no explanation.What does she say? I mean, because she’s not trying to rationalize this. She’s just trying to keep you at bay.

Dr. Frank Turek (15:17):
Right. Yeah. And well, there is no rationality behind it because inclusion, tolerance and diversity does not mean what we think it means. What it means to corporate elites is if you don’t agree with what we think is right, you’re going to be excluded.

(15:32):
Right? They have their own set of values that they’re trying to impose. So I wrote this column because after we got nowhere with this lady, I said to Mike, I said, “Mike, we’ve got to go public with this. We just can’t let this lie. I know it’s going to prevent me from ever working in corporate America again, but I’ll just do apologetics full time.” And so Mike wrote the first column called The Cisco Kid in June of 2011. The next month I wrote a column called Sex at Work. By the way, do not Google that. Do not Google Sex at Work. Okay?

(16:04):
Go to our website. Crossexamined.org and type in Sex at Work in the search bar and you’ll see the article. And my main question, Jeff, was this, why are corporate elites talking about sex at work? I mean, why are they so obsessed with sex. Are we supposed to have sex at work? Why is it even an issue?

And I said, look, I work with everybody regardless of their sexual orientation or what they believe about these issues. I work with everybody and I treat them all with respect. All I expect in return is the same kind of treatment. Let’s treat everybody with respect and let them believe what they want to believe and do what they want to do in their off hours. That’s fine. Let’s just live and let live in this regard. But no, the left won’t do that. The left will not live and let live. Now get this, Jeff. This occurred in 2011. It’s now 10 years later. I was canceled 10 years ago.

Dr. Jeff Myers (16:55):
You were the original. And now it’s happening everywhere. Cancel culture, right? Yeah. And now the kinds of things you’re describing happen all of the time and still over the issue of sexuality.

Dr. Frank Turek (17:07):
Yes, yes. In the name of inclusion, tolerance, and diversity.

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:11):
Right. Yeah. Man, we could do an entire show on just that. And we’ve had guests on this show who are really good on sexuality and trying to understand all of this from a biblical perspective and a personal, sexual, ethical perspective.

(17:29):
But I want to drill down on something that I think is really important. As you had the communication skill, you had honed that over the course of many years in the Navy. This was your job, you were a corporate trainer, you were good at it, you were doing workshops and so forth on the weekends. So all of this time you were improving your communication skills, but at some point you actually became a leader in the very field that had fascinated you. You actually got on stage with people like Christopher Hitchens, who was one of the most acerbic attention getting virulent, at least in public, anti-Christian debaters, ever.

(18:23):
Nobody came close to this guy. Charles Darwin did not come close to this guy. Bertrand Russell never came close to this guy, and you got on stage with him. What on earth possessed you to do that and how did you get ready for it? Because I think there’s a lesson for those of us who are just living everyday lives. We don’t want to ruffle a lot of feathers. We have friends. We want to kind of live at peace with others and we think that’s probably a good thing and we’re in a free country and shouldn’t we aspire to that, but sometimes you have to take a stand. And can you just take us a little behind the scenes?

Dr. Frank Turek (19:01):
Yeah. Well, what happened with Christopher was I got an email from somebody at Virginia Commonwealth University because he was a Christian and they were tasked with getting somebody to debate Christopher Hitchens because the Secular Alliance had gotten Christopher Hitchens. And at the time Christopher had written the book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everyone. And for some reason, this guy knew who I was, the Christian and he contacted me and they said, “We’d like you to debate Christopher Hitchens.” I said, “Okay, fine.” That’s my first debate actually, I guess this guy, first debate against anybody.

Dr. Jeff Myers (19:35):
Might as well. I got to start off at the top.

Dr. Frank Turek (19:38):
I got to back up because people say, “Well, how did you know how to debate?” Well, I had been married for like 25 years at that point, Jeff. So there’s plenty of debate going on, 22 years. I’ve been married 35 now. So as you know, you can debate when you’re married, you’re married that long, although I rarely win at home. In any event, I said, “Sure.” So it was a few months out.

I said, “Okay, I’ll just start reading his books and watching what he does and just see if I can put out an argument.” Because look, the debate, as you know, in a debate, things are very scripted. You got a 20 minute opening statement, then you get like a 10 minute rebuttal, then you might have some Q&A time and that kind of thing. So I knew I had 20 minutes to make the case, right?

(20:26):
And from what I had seen about Hitchens was, he wasn’t really all that coherent in his argumentation. He was great at rhetoric, but he wasn’t really good at argumentation. I mean, he could read technical manuals and keep people memorized, right? Because that’s just how cool he was with his baritone and his British accent, which made him sound more brilliant than he was. But in terms of logic, man, he did not have arguments, right? He had complaints.

And I noticed that most atheists, Jeff, don’t have arguments. They just have complaints about the way they think God is running the universe, right? There’s too much evil in the world. God isn’t doing it the way I would do it. He kills people in the Old Testament. What’s wrong with him? By the way, I’m pro- abortion. And so they’re very inconsistent. On one hand, they want to say that God is bad and evil, yet they have no standard by which to judge what good or evil is.

(21:23):
And secondly, they personally do evil things themselves, like they’re for abortion. So it’s not hard to find the inconsistencies in what an atheist is trying to do. I mean, Hitchen’s entire book when he says how religion poisons everything, well, where is he getting the standard by which to say religion is poison? That’s the only thing I need to bring up is say, “Christopher, you’re an atheist. You’re molecules in motion. There’s no such thing as good or evil, yet you’re claiming God is evil. Where are you getting this from?”

And so I just think turning it around is the tactic I typically use. It wasn’t all that difficult. Now, Christopher’s always going to make rhetorical points. I mean, he made fun rhetorical points in our debate, but I think if any honest person looks at any debate with Hitchens, if you watch the debate, you’ll go, “Hey, I like Hitchens. He’s kind of cool.” If you read the debate, Jeff, you’re going, “What is this guy talking about? ” He has no arguments, right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (22:17):
Yeah. If you pull it back from that British parliamentarian free for all argument thing after lunch and you actually look at the points being made, you realize that he’s just like you said, just complaining.

(22:34):
That’s so powerful, Frank. I mean, one of the things we teach at Summit Ministries to our students in our two week programs is that you have to compare different worldviews to one another because if you’re always on the defensive, what about this with Jesus? What about this with God? What about this with the Bible? Then you don’t have the opportunity to make a coherent case and show the patterns of ideas.

Christianity does have a problem of evil, but so does every other worldview. Exactly. And Christianity’s answer is coherent. And by the way, Christianity is one of the only worldviews that admits that evil is actually a problem. Yes. The others just assume that it’s a problem as a path to power.

Dr. Frank Turek (23:19):
Yeah. And as you know, our co-friend Greg Koukl points out that Christianity, the whole story of Christianity is the answer to the problem of evil.

Dr. Jeff Myers (23:31):
Yes.

Dr. Frank Turek (23:32):
Right? I mean, that’s what it is. It’s that God comes down and takes evil upon himself and one day he’s going to quarantine it in a place called hell. I mean, that’s really the answer to the problem of evil is Christianity. That’s what it’s all about. So once you understand that, then you can say, “Well, Christopher, I agree with you. Religious people have done evil things, but you wouldn’t even know what evil was unless good existed and you wouldn’t know what good was unless God existed.” So you’re stealing from God to argue against him. That’s what you’re doing.

Dr. Jeff Myers (24:04):
How did he respond to that? Because I’m sure he had something clever or profane to say.

Dr. Frank Turek (24:09):
Here’s the kind of stuff Hitchens would say. I’d say in our first debate, I said, “Hey Christopher, what is evil? What is it? What is it ontologically?” And Christopher would say, “Religion. Religion is evil.” So he would make a joke out of it, but he would never answer the question directly, right? I’m not asking what he thinks is bad. I’m asking what is the ontological status of evil? Because evil doesn’t exist on its own. It only exists as a lack in a good thing.

Dr. Jeff Myers (24:41):
What is its definition, not what is an example of it? Yeah.

Dr. Frank Turek (24:44):
Yeah. And so he wouldn’t answer. He would just crack jokes and the audience would laugh. Wow.

Dr. Jeff Myers (24:50):
Wow. Did you get to interact with him personally in that? I mean, did you hang out in the green room or anything like that or was it just sort of?

Dr. Frank Turek (24:58):
Yeah, I got to tell you what happened in the green room. When is this? This is September of 2008, right? And I had never met him. I’d seen him on TV. I’d read his book. By the way, one other thing that you need to know, I have never debated an atheist that actually read anything I ever wrote except Jeffrey Louder. Every other, Shermer never read a word. Hitchens never read a word of anything I wrote. Silverman never read a word of anything I wrote. Several others, never read a word. They don’t take Christians seriously.

Dr. Jeff Myers (25:35):
So they don’t prepare.

Dr. Frank Turek (25:36):
They just think, no, they don’t prepare. Well, they don’t prepare counter arguments to what I’m bringing forth because they don’t even know what they’re going to be because they haven’t read anything I’ve said or written. In any event, I see Hitchens in the green room. First time I meet him, and I walk into the green room and say, “Hey Christopher, I know we’re on opposite sides of this whole God issue, but I agree with a lot of what you say.”

Because politically he was kind of on the right a little bit more in some areas and some of the stuff he would say on Chris Matthews show and others, I’d go, hey, I kind of agree with this guy. He’s kind of right about certain things.” I said, “Actually, I’m kind of a fan.” And he looked at me kind of over his glasses like this and he smiled and he said, “The night is young.” Saying a great way about him.

(26:28):
That’s why even Christians loved Hitchens. I loved Hitchens. I remember in the second debate, this is the College of New Jersey, like six months later, we’re in the green room beforehand and there was an atheist that I was talking with over in the UK. And so I had a book, Christopher’s book and I said, “Would you sign this for my atheist friend?” And so he signed it and I said, “He kind of thinks you’re a hero.” He goes, “Ah, people shouldn’t have heroes.”

And we were just talking about some column he had originally written and he had said something about Islam and I said, “Well, Christopher, you ever get death threats because you come out against Islam quite a bit.” And he goes, “Oh yeah, I get them all the time.” And I said, “Well, you worried about that? ” He goes, “Look, the ones that are going to come, they’re going to threaten you, are not going to do anything. I mean, they’re not. It’s probably the ones that aren’t going to say a word that will.”

(27:24):
And actually in that debate, what happened was during the Q&A, a Muslim asked a question of Hitchens and said, “Why don’t you Atheists debate more Muslims?” I can’t remember what Hitchens said originally, but then I said, “One of the reasons maybe some atheists aren’t debating Muslims because they’re afraid of getting their heads chopped off.” And the whole audience went, “Ooh.” And I said, “What? That’s not true? Are you saying there’s not a violent strain in Islam?”

And I said, “If you’re a Muslim and you leave Islam, according to the Quran, you should be killed.” And the Muslim said, “Well, not everybody interprets it that way.” He went on and on. And anyway, he said, “But I think that you Christians and atheists ought to consider the Quran because the Quran is true.” And then Hitchens jumped in and he said, “If you want to know what I think about the Quran, you can read my book because I have a whole chapter on the Quran in my book.”

(28:29):
“And once you read my book, you’ll see the Quran for the garbage that it is.” Wow. And the whole audience went, “What?” And so when we edited the debate, we just took that whole question out because we didn’t want to get Hitchens killed, but Hitchens had no, to his credit, Hitchens had no problem talking about the evils of the Quran and Islam.

The problem is he tended to conflate Christianity in Islam and basically said they’re all evil. And so did Dawkins. Although Dawkins now, as you know, in recent years has come around and said he’s more afraid of Islam than Christianity. In fact, I think Dawkins is probably concerned that secularism cannot oppose Islam, only Christianity can.

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:19):
Wow, that’s so interesting. Boy, how these things turn just within a decade, right? That’s incredible.

Dr. Frank Turek (29:26):
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:30):
I love hearing these stories and I’m wanting people who are watching and listening right now to be able to get a little bit of an answer to the question, how can I be like that? I want to be not afraid. I want to be willing to jump in and engage when I’m meeting with a coworker or I’ve got somebody over at my house who I know there’s a friction there because we don’t have these same core beliefs.

How do you recommend that people dive in? First of all, they at least need to read your book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. But life being what it is, that might take a while and you can’t go run back in the bedroom and grab it and pull it out and refer to it when you’re in the middle of a conversation. How do you recommend people prepare so that they just feel confident and natural?

Dr. Frank Turek (30:31):
Yeah, I think there are no shortcuts. Everyone wants an easy button, right? Everybody wants to learn everything in a soundbite and then they can become an apologist. I mean, you bring kids through Summit every summer, 2000 or so kids, right? I mean, it doesn’t happen overnight. You have two weeks with them and that’s still not enough. But what you’re doing is you’re infusing them with some principles and also you’re giving them a track to run on because you’re saying, “Here’s the stuff you need to read. Here are the things you need to do in order to be effective long term.” None of this happens immediately.

My advice to people, and this was Dr. Geiser’s advice too. Dr. Geiser used to say, “Get your education first, then do your ministry.” I remember Sean McDowell saying that when he went to a leadership program once, I said, “Sean, what was the biggest takeaway you took from this leadership program?” He said, “The guy who was leading it said, the number one thing you want to do is you want to shun the spotlight as long as you can.”

(31:30):
I think, “What?” In our culture, it’s the opposite. Give me the spotlight now. This guy’s saying, first of all, in today’s culture, everything’s recorded. Everything that you say and do is going to be seen somewhere. Don’t torpedo yourself or the truth of Christianity by being unprepared and saying something that turns out to be wrong. Get ready first, then go do your ministry. So it’s not a short-term deal. It’s a long-term process. It takes years.

But once you have years under your belt, it’s like anything else. As we record this right now, in a couple days, the Super Bowl’s going to occur. All those guys in the Super Bowl didn’t just show up for practice yesterday for the first time. They went through a lifelong process of getting ready to play in this game. It’s not a short-term deal. It’s a long-term deal, but it’s a long-term deal worth doing.

(32:25):
And it’s something that I think will pay big dividends, not only for you personally, but for the kingdom. That’s why Summit is so important. That’s why the books that you and I wrote and many of our other friends write are so important. You’ve got to read. If you want to be a leader, you got to be a reader.

Dr. Jeff Myers (32:39):
That’s one of our main mottos at Summit, for sure. One of the things that we talk a lot about at Summit Ministries with the students is how to engage in dialogue. And a lot of dialogue begins with questions, not statements. And I think if people could grab that, they would feel a lot less fearful because anybody can be curious. When you go into a social situation before you get in there, think of three questions you want to ask the other person.

Dr. Frank Turek (33:12):
Yeah, that’s why I always recommend Tactics. Our mutual friend, Greg Koukl, his book, there’s no better book to read on having the right questions to ask when issues come up than this. So I know Greg sometimes teaches at Summit too, but for those that haven’t heard of this book, Tactics, it’s a book you need to get. And I think it’s a book that you would endorse as well.

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:36):
I fully endorse it. If you go to summit.org, you can just type in the name. It’s an interesting spelling. It’s K-O-U-K-L. Or you could just type in the word “tactics” and that book will come up so that you can buy the book. But also what will come up are videos from Greg Koukl where he explains his techniques and he’s a fascinating communicator. So those are great to watch. In fact, we got to have Greg on the show sometime.

Dr. Frank Turek (34:07):
Yeah, you should get him on because, I mean, just asking simple questions like, “What do you mean by that? And how’d you come to that conclusion?” Questions, when people say stuff, you don’t need to refute what they say. They need to support what they say. So somebody says, “The Bible’s been changed throughout the centuries.” You don’t have to give them a dissertation as to why that’s not true. They have to give you a dissertation as to why it is true.

So you have to say, “Well, what do you mean by it’s been changed throughout the centuries?” And how did you come to that conclusion? Have you investigated the manuscript evidence for yourself? How many people, Jeff, are going to go, “Yeah, just last night I was up reading the book about the Byzantine line of manuscript.” That’s right. Nobody’s going to say that, right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (34:42):
In fact, I just left the Bodleian Library where I examined it.

Dr. Frank Turek (34:48):
I was investigating the Chester Beatty Papyri just last night. No, these people have heard slogans, Jeff, and they’re just repeating the slogans and they can’t give you evidence for the slogan. So if you just ask them for the evidence, they’re not going to be able to do it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:05):
Just go a little deeper.

Dr. Frank Turek (35:05):
Yeah. So before somebody’s going to accept your viewpoint, they have to start to doubt their viewpoint first. That’s why you have to ask these questions.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:13):
Frank, one of my favorite questions is one I think I learned from you is that if you do have somebody who’s just poking, poking, poking, making little snide remarks and things like that, one of the things that you share is at some point in the conversation you can say, “Look, if I could prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt, 100%, I’m not saying that I can, but if I could theoretically hypothetically prove to you that Christianity is true, would you become a Christian?”

Dr. Frank Turek (35:49):
Oh yeah. You should see how many times I get no to that. I just say, “If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?” And they go, “No.” Well, then it’s not a head problem. It’s a heart problem. They don’t want it to be true. That’s right. That’s right. They’re not on a truth quest. They’re on a happiness quest and they just want to believe whatever they think is going to make them happy and in their mind, God is going to make them unhappy because he’s going to put restrictions on what they want to do.

(36:12):
I always ask the question, “If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?” I don’t even like to use the word prove because I don’t want it to be that strong. I just want to see that if it were true, would you become a Christian and their answer is going to reveal everything because most of the time they’re going to hesitate or say no. And if they hesitate or say no, it doesn’t matter how much evidence I give them, Jeff, they’re not interested. I mean, they’re looking for God as much as a criminal’s looking for a cop. They’re not. They’re not looking for them. They don’t want them. They’re holding them at arm’s length.

Dr. Jeff Myers (36:44):
Right, right. I can imagine for most people, that kind of conversation’s going to take place with somebody one time, but the relationship keeps on going. You have to sit next to them in your cubicle at work and so forth. Are there ways to kind of keep the conversation going or to invite further conversation that are natural and not weird or forced?

Dr. Frank Turek (37:09):
Yeah. I think whenever you are talking about a current event, if somebody says something like, “Well, that’s wrong.” You might say, “Hey, that’s interesting. You said that’s wrong.” Why do you think it’s wrong? By what standard are you judging that is wrong? I mean, morality is a great way to enter a discussion about ultimate things, particularly whether God exists or not, because if he doesn’t exist, there is no morality.

It’s just all a matter of opinion, right? There’s just your opinion against, say, Hitler’s opinion. So I think when people make statements, “Hey, that’s not right. That’s wrong.” Well, what do you mean by that? What standard are you using to say that? See what they say. You never know where the conversation’s going to go.

Dr. Jeff Myers (37:52):
Well, you can be conversant, you can be curious, you can be compassionate and you can be courageous all at the same time. This has been an amazing time together this morning and I just wanted to ask you one thing in closing because I know a lot of people who are watching this are listening to this are young adults in their 20s. Maybe they’ve come through Summit Ministries and they’re kind of brushing up or they come through Summit Ministries and they may feel like they’re wavering a little bit because their world is so overwhelming. If you could just give a word of encouragement to bring courage to this rising generation, what would you say?

Dr. Frank Turek (38:35):
Yeah, I would say don’t let the noise of the world drown out the word of God. There’s a lot of noise out there and social media is not the place to get good information in most cases. There’s a lot more to life than Instagram posts or what your buddy thinks on Facebook or TikTok or whatever. As you well know, Jeff, I mean, you help write some of the most seminal books on worldview out there, right? Understanding the Times, Understanding the Faith.

These are big, thick books that take a long time to digest because there’s so much evidence there and there’s so many different competing worldviews that you’re never going to adjudicate all this stuff on social media. Don’t use social media as your guide for truth. It may be interesting. It may open up interesting conversations, but you have to go a lot deeper to really find out truth than just what you see off your smartphone.

(39:31):
So don’t let the noise of the world drown out the word of God. Try and research things and get real good information before you make decisions, life decisions that can change your life forever.

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:42):
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I know you say that as a dad and you say that as a husband and you say that as a guy who invests in thousands of kids every year through Summit Ministries. Thank you for doing that. And also as somebody who’s on the radio and you have a show, crossexamined.org, people can go get more information there and they can find all of your books there, but they can find the one we were chatting about earlier.

Dr. Frank Turek (40:06):
Also our YouTube channel has about 900 short Q&A videos from the college campus because we do a lot of work on college campuses when they’re open and we take questions from people and then we take the questions and put them on YouTube. So there’s a lot up there that people can avail themselves up. It’s all for free.

Dr. Jeff Myers (40:25):
Oh, that’s perfect. That’s perfect. Man, that’s a breath of fresh air. Dr. Frank Turek, thanks for being on the Dr. Jeff Show today.

Dr. Frank Turek (40:31):
Thanks, Dr. Jeff. We’re praying for you. I hope you feel better.

Dr. Jeff Myers (40:34):
Thank you. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Dr. Frank Turek as much as I did. I also hope that you’ll go to crossexamined.org and also look at Dr. Frank Turick’s channel on YouTube. He’s got 900 short videos there. Every question that you’ve thought of, he’s got a great short answer for you, helping you articulate your faith in a clear fashion.

Also, you can see Dr. Frank Turek and 70 of our other instructors if you go to summit.org and look at the resources there. And as always, be sure to look at the two week Summit Ministries student conference program for every young adult, 16 to 25. Dr. Frank Turek is one of the favorite speakers there and now you know why.

Ryan Dobson (41:25):
Hi everyone. I’m Ryan Dobson from the Rebel Parenting Podcast. When my parents, Jim and Shirley Dobson sent me to the Summit Ministries Worldview Conference when I was 17, we had no idea the impact it would have on my life. It changed me so much in two short weeks, I’ve returned every summer for 34 years. This summer, your student can attend an in- person conference. That’s right, in person.

Summit Ministry’s Worldview Conference challenges students ages 16 to 24 to think deeper about their convictions and their faith by engaging with today’s top worldview thinkers and apologists. Can you imagine in person with other students learning about the Christian worldview? If not, they can attend Summit’s virtual experience and it’s amazing. Change your student’s life forever by partnering with Summit Ministries Worldview Conference today. Find out more by clicking a link in the show notes.