When Apologetics Goes Viral

The most popular podcast in the world, the Joe Rogan Experience, published a three-plus hour conversation with Christian scholar and apologist Wesley Huff.

I used to listen to a lot of classic rock. Or at least classic for my almost-millennial self. One song I used to hear pop up on the local radio station went:

“There's something happening here…But what it is ain't exactly clear…Stop, hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down…”

As I think about the current cultural moment in relationship to Christianity, this chorus refrains through my mind.

Something’s happening. We’re not sure exactly what, but something is up. We need to pay attention.

Famous entertainers and actors like Russell Brand and Hulk Hogan are becoming Christians, getting baptized, becoming vocally evangelistic. Influential public intellectuals like Jordan Peterson are writing entire books about the Bible, posting YouTube videos about the Bible with millions of views. More young men are going to church than young women—a statistical first.

And just yesterday the most popular podcast in the world, the Joe Rogan Experience, published a three-plus hour conversation between Rogan and Christian scholar and apologist Wesley Huff. (Be warned: Rogan isn’t a Christian and doesn’t talk like one. But he is clearly curious about the faith, hence the conversation).

As plenty of folks have pointed out on social media, Huff’s presentation is masterful. He winsomely, confidently, yet humbly unpacks many points in favor of Christian faith. He shares the gospel with Rogan. And, specifically, he talks much about his own field of expertise, a relatively obscure and certainly nerdy thing called textual criticism.

It’s kind of hard for me to explain how much it blows my mind that millions and millions of people will listen to this conversation centering on textual criticism. The practice of textual criticism is fascinating yet tedious, with hours and years and lifetimes compiling and comparing fragments of ancient scraps of writing. It’s a scholarly niche.

Huff mainstreams this practice as part of an apologetics ministry centered on defending the reasons why the Bible is trustworthy. He’s a legitimate scholar, who creates online content on his website and YouTube that persuades people to believe. He’s part of an online movement with folks like Gavin Ortlund, Allen Parr, Sean McDowell of Biola University (a long-time hub of apologetic fruitfulness), and quite a few others.

As Samuel James said recently, apologetics is having a moment: “Am I the only one who feels like apologetics was a valley of dry bones just a few years ago, and now it seems incredibly important/relevant?”

I’m especially interested in this apologetics moment, because I’m immersing myself in apologetics in this season and I have a vested interested in it. (I can’t yet share about this publicly, but I will share later). I think we need apologetics now more than ever, and it is incredibly relevant and important for our time.

Defending the Faith

Apologetics takes its name from the Greek word for “defense” or “reason” in 1 Peter 3:15: “but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”

The Greek word for “defense” is apologia. When someone is challenged or accused, they would “apologize.” Not say, “Sorry,” but defend themselves. Sometimes in legal contexts: “it is not the Roman custom to give someone up before the accused faces the accusers and has an opportunity for a defense against the charges” (Acts 25:16). It’s a chance to set straight the record, even in moral contexts (2 Cor. 7:11).

The field of Christian apologetics has become a place to defend and display the truth of Christian teaching. It arises in theological, ideological, and evangelistic contexts. Paul defined his ministry in his letter to the Philippian church as apologetic:

• “You are all partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel” (Phil. 1:7).

• I am appointed for the defense of the gospel” (Phil. 1:16).

Apologetics has sometimes been seen as a dusty, nerdy, or irrelevant discipline. But not anymore. When Joe Rogan hosts a Christian, evangelical apologist on his podcast, we know something’s up. Something’s happening here. Apologetics has an immediate cultural relevance that we can’t ignore.

Apologetics branches into many different spheres like philosophy, history, science, archaeology, and more. Likewise, specific visions of apologetics like presuppositional apologetics can sometimes seem to compete with other approaches like evidentialism. Presuppositional apologetics tends to focus on the level of worldview assumptions (or “presuppositions”). Evidentialist apologetics tends to focus on evidence for Christian faith from history, philosophy, and science. Of course, many Christians (and I’m one of them) realize these approaches aren’t enemies but friends.

Cultural and Classical Apologetics

That said, I think we can helpfully describe the need for apologetics in our culture in two ways: cultural apologetics and classical apologetics. Recently, cultural apologetics has been more popular among many folks in my broad tribe of evangelicals. For example, The Gospel Coalition launched The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. The Keller Center takes its vision from the late and great pastor Tim Keller, who said, “The job of the missionary is to enter sympathetically the worldview/story of the culture yet challenge and re-tell the culture's story so they see their story will only have a happy ending in Jesus.”

We absolutely need to reframe the narratives of our culture in light of the gospel. Desires like sex, money, power, and fame point to deeper longings. Missionary and missiologist Lesslie Newbigin (who influenced Keller) said that we shouldn’t so much make the gospel intelligible to the world. Instead, we need to make the world intelligible to the gospel. This is the task of cultural apologetics.

We need cultural apologetics, but we overcorrect if we reject classical apologetics as dry and irrelevant. Now, I don’t think Keller did this, nor does something like the Keller Center do this. After all, the arguments for the resurrection were some of the most important to Keller. I think most folks agree that both approaches have their place. We need to deploy all the relevant arguments for Christianity, and defend against all the relevant arguments against Christianity, as best we can.

This is where classical apologetics helps, as it lays out rational and intellectual arguments for the truth of Christianity. Two big examples come to mind. First, William Lane Craig, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer and others have argued that both the existence and the fine tuning of the universe point to a Creator. The existence and fine-turning arguments are technically distinct, but basically they both say that the universe doesn’t make sense without the existence of a Creator.

Next, one of the most powerful arguments for Christianity is the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Folks like N.T. Wright and Gary Habermas have argued persuasively that Jesus rose from the dead. And if Jesus rose from the dead, it’s game, set, match.

I find it interesting that Huff’s discussion with Rogan was almost entirely a classical, evidentialist approach to apologetics. It focused on history, artifacts, and evidence. Clearly our culture craves evidence in a world where anyone can say anything based on nothing.

Huff reminds us, as all the great apologists do, that Christianity can stand up to intense scrutiny. It has “evidence that demands a verdict,” as Josh McDowell’s famous book says.

The Huff-Rogan moment reminds us: Something’s happening here. “What’s that sound?” We need to stop, look, listen, and lean in. And we need to start “apologizing” like Christians, again.