[00:00:00] Speaker A: And then all of a sudden, I realized, here was the solution to my doubt. I needed to become like a child again. The way out of my doubt was the same way into Christianity, by having faith like a child in the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. And that took a former skeptic into basically a renewed, satisfied con.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome to X Skeptic, where we hear unlikely stories of belief. I'm your host, Jana Harmon, and here on this podcast, we listen to those who have once been an atheist or a skeptic, but who became a Christian against all odds. We explore the stories of those who have wrestled with doubt and emerged with new perspectives on life and faith.
In a world full of big questions about God, purpose, and existence, doubt is an inevitable companion. It can feel like an unsettling force pulling us away from certainty, but it can also be a powerful tool for growth. On the one hand, doubt challenges our beliefs, leaving us questioning the very foundations of what we thought we knew. On the other hand, it opens the door to deeper understanding, pushing us to seek answers with greater passion to find what's true.
In today's episode, we feature the story of Bobby Conway, a Christian who has always been by nature a skeptic. He didn't just encounter doubt from the outside. He wrestled with it from within his own faith. As someone who has faced ongoing questions about God and reality, Bobby found himself in a tension familiar to many. How can you trust something so deeply, yet still carried out? For Bobby, the Christian worldview offered the best explanation for the complexities of life and reality. Despite his skepticism, he came to see that it's worth placing his trust in. Even when grappling with unanswered questions. His journey is a reminder that faith and doubt often coexist. But doubt doesn't have to erode faith. It can actually refine it.
Join us as we dive into Bobby's experience and explore how he learned to live with skepticism, finding not just peace, but conviction in the truth he now trusts.
Well, welcome to Ex Skeptic. Bobby, it's so great to have you with me today.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Jana, it is great to be with you as well. And I'm just so excited to be on this program. And it's been fun to see how God has taken your research at Birmingham, where we had the privilege to study together and seeing how God is using you.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Yes, I. You know, I have so many fond memories of our time. We actually met at a doctoral program in Birmingham, England, which it seemed like so long ago. We have a lot of memories going back, but I just. It's such a privilege really to have you.
This program is called Ex Skeptic and you've had skepticism woven in and out that through your life. Before we get into all of that, I'd love for you to introduce yourself, who you are, what you're doing. Now. I first met you as the one minute apologist as well, so I know that's a huge part of your podcast ministry. But tell me a little bit about what you're doing now and some of your education as well.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Sure. Well, academically I, you know, spent my first three degrees kind of in Christian circles in Bible College and then went off and did a four year thm or masters of Theology at Dallas Theological. And then after that, Norman Geisler, the late Christian apologist, he had started a seminary in Charlotte where I would start a Church in 2004. And I ended up doing a doctorate in apologetics under him. And. And after that I took a break and the itch was still there, and then would go on and earn a doctorate in philosophy of religion at Birmingham University in England. And we studied under the same supervisor, Dr. David Cheatham. And then I also had Eugene Nagasawa. He would often be described as a pantheist or panentheist by some, but he, you know, wherever he stands, he's done a lot of great work on the argument that Anselm used on the greatest conceivable being. And so what a privilege it was to study under Eugen as well. And after finishing that up, I had the privilege of teaching at a Bible college for a little bit out in California after I resigned From a long 14 year post as a pastor. And then I was brought on with a radio show that Chuck Smith used to do, called to every man an answer, but now called Pastor's Perspective. And so that's a nationally syndicated call in show where people call up and you're in a hot seat and they're just dropping you into anywhere in the Bible on the spot or any of kind of the world religions and stuff like that. So that's been fun. And then after a little bit of doing that, which I'm still doing, but about four years ago we started Image Church and we moved back to Charlotte. So I'm from California originally, but we moved back to North Carolina. So I'm pastoring, I'm doing radio.
Just came out with my newest book, Does Christianity Still Make Sense? A former skeptic answers Today's Biggest Objections is subtitle and you know, I have a podcast and YouTube channel called Christianity Still Makes Sense. So that's kind of what I've got my hands in. And for fun, at 50, I'm 51 now. I picked up a pencil just about a year ago, and I didn't realize, Jana, that I could actually replicate whatever I saw. So, like, somebody like that has the. An ear for music, and then they just have to learn how to play it. Well, I just didn't know. And now I'm doing a lot of realism portraits where I just take art. And I'm getting ready to start a T shirt company called Ponder, where I'm going to be capturing philosophical thinkers, great intellectuals of the past, and I'm going to be showing through art their philosophy and putting it on T shirts. I'm really thankful for that, too.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Wow, that's. That's amazing. Very impressive. You have your hands in so many things, and we actually have more in common than I thought. I actually have a history in oil painting and portraiture, so I appreciate what you're doing, except you're. I love what your. Your application there of actually putting on T shirts. Yeah, Great thinkers. I can't wait to see what that's going to look like. Um, but you've also written a book called Doubting Towards Faith. You doubt has been a big part of your life, and you had mentioned that you lived in California or you grew up in California. So why don't we start at your story back there in California and how that doubt informed your growing up. But also, let's just start with your family. Did your family of origin. Tell me how you grew up, Bobby. Was God a part of that picture? Was religion? I mean, you're talking California, which is a very different culture, too. Seems like there's a real darkness and light there in terms of religion or not religion in pockets. How did your particular family grow up?
[00:07:37] Speaker A: My dad grew up Roman Catholic and my mom Protestant. But neither of them had a relationship with the Lord. And when they married, there was the big argument about, you know, where do we raise our kids? You know, and they just couldn't agree. So I didn't grow up in church. The few times I went, I would go with my grandparents, who were also Roman Catholic. And I always thought it was strange, like, you know, what's the person with hanging on a cross with a diaper? Why are these people walking around in dresses and giving short messages?
I remember one time I was in the Catholic Church walking around, and I thought everybody was saying, pleased to meet you. And so I was walking up to people in the Catholic Church saying, pleased to meet you, pleased to meet you. And would later find out, no, it's peace be with you that they were saying. So I was clueless. And so I always had this curiosity about me. And so from the youngest of age, I would be in conversations with people and a thought would come across like, what am I doing here? And who's this person I'm talking to? And why are we engaged in a conversation and what's this all about? And at times I thought, well, am I going to go through some kind of a samsara, reincarnation type of a process? Am I a person that is just going to go out of existence? I really didn't know. But I did believe in God. I just didn't know who that God was. But I did sense that he had my number because I grew up, I hated school, Jana. And now we have a name for it. But I was your classic ADD kid. And it just looked like rebellion. About age 13, horrific anxiety kicked into my life, but I didn't know how to talk about my emotions. And so I turned to alcohol and drugs and promiscuity, just always looking for the next girl. And I just found a lot of my identity through being a star baseball player and through having lots of popularity. And that's what I leaned into. I didn't have the academics. I used to take LSD and a journal in hand, and my buddies. And I'd say, we're going to go find ourselves. Well, I collected a lot, a lot of guilt along the way with my lifestyle. I found myself playing college baseball in Southern California, and my teammate, he asked me if I would go to church with him. And I saw something different in his life. And I thought, sure, why not? My life's not really working for me. It's pretty broken. And so he said, yeah, let's do this. He says, on Monday night, there's this church in Costa Mesa called Calvary Chapel, and this evangelist by the great name of Greg Laurie speaks there. And I was looking for two questions to get answered at this stage of my life. And it was, what do I do with my guilt? And what's the purpose of my life? I felt purposeless, and I knew that a lot of my hard drinking was a result of trying to just not think about my guilt. What ended up happening is those two questions were answered through Jesus. I placed my faith in Christ, but I still struggled to come to grips with how do I live beyond my feelings, because I was a slave to my emotions. And so for about a year and a half, I had multiple relapses until I finally ended up in recovery doing over 400 meetings of sobriety. And that's when my life really just took off for Christ and ended up feeling a call to go into full time ministry. And it was just amazing what took place. But all of a sudden down the road after I would surrender to ministry and go to Bible college, doubts would kick back in. And I can share with you a little bit about what that looked like.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Well, yeah, let's, let's step back a little bit. Your younger years when you were growing up and you were finding life outside of Christianity, obviously it wasn't part a real part of your world and you were finding what you thought to be life in popularity and in drugs and in athletics and all of that during that stage of your life. I would imagine that you weren't actively going to Catholic Church or even participating in anything religious at that point. Point. But did you still have some kind of a tacit belief in God that he existed?
[00:11:55] Speaker A: I did. In fact, I can remember praying for God to forgive me for just total actions that I knew were wrong before I even knew who the God of Christianity was. Like, I didn't know what was going on. Jan. I was so in church on Easter, I was clueless about what that was about. I would see Jesus hanging out on TV and on Christmas and Easter, but I didn't know why. I was so unchurched that if the pastor would have said turn to Romans, I would have thought, oh, I didn't bring Romans, I brought my Bible. It took me several months after being a new believer to figure out that the forefathers was f o r e. I was looking for the fourth one, F o u r. I mean, I didn't know of David and Goliath. Heck, I don't know how I wasn't even aware of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea. I mean, I was basically a dumb butt. This is what I guess I'm conceding here. But yeah, I went to, I spent about half my time in Southern California, but I went to high school in Northern California, about an hour south from San Francisco. I was very liberal in my mindset. My mentality would have just been total hedonism and that's the way to live. But you fast forward all of my friendships from which God plucked me out, half of them are gone. I've seen a half of my dearest band of brothers, they're dead because of the worldview that they had and that I once had.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: So in that Period of time. Bobbi, if someone would have pressed you hard or even just asked you on the street, so what would you consider yourself? You know, are you spiritual? Not religious? Are you a Christian? Are you agnostic? I mean, what would you have said about faith and religion at that time, even? You obviously had some feelings of guilt, desiring to pray. But how would you have identified yourself?
[00:13:51] Speaker A: I might have said that I was a Catholic because that's what my dad told me I was. And again, I didn't know who Jesus was, so it would have just been a mere word. I did have a belief that there was a God that was out there, that was a moral God that I was accountable to, and he knew my. My wrongdoing. And so what ended up happening when I became a Christian and read Romans chapter two about how he's written his moral law in our heart, it blew me away because it took me back to that laundry room moment as a teenager where I'm confessing my sin to an unknown God and then reading in Romans 2 about the God that knows me and has shown me my own heart before him. And it was very powerful for me to consider. And even today, when I listen to the worldview that's being cast before so many people about freedom and, you know, sexual freedom. And I don't buy that vision because I lived that vision.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: You believed that there was a God that existed, but you chose what you call a hedonistic lifestyle.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: So it wasn't as if. It sounds as if you weren't antagonistic towards religion or faith, but you knew that there was some kind of moral standing over there, that it wasn't something that you were obviously attracted to or wanted to pursue at that time. You had a different kind of life to pursue.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. I needed. I needed the why behind morals. And so I would have grown up in a home and hear statements like, you're in trouble for lying, but I would hear my parents lie, or, you're in trouble for speaking a certain way, but I'd hear my parents speak a certain way. And all it was was just a rule. Don't do this. And I didn't know why. And so my teacher for the why became my consequences. And the consequences were ample. Like, my parents got sued for $100,000 for a horrific car accident that I was in and messed up an individual for life as they were medevaced off to Stanford Medical center, totaling another car as they got hit by an 18 wheeler flipping my Suzuki Samurai getting in a car accident on the way to the Metallica Guns N Roses concert. Constantly running away from home, selling my car for money, and then drinking all of it away. Showing up at a college and then spending my entire student loan on alcohol and lasting in class for about three, four weeks. I mean, those consequences were my teacher. And guilt accompanied with it was my teacher that began to show me why. And so I look at Guilt is one of God's thorny graces in life that if. If we'll pay attention to, can teach us. And so one of the things about guilt is it can tell us some things about God. It can tell us that he's obviously a good God, because why is it that I only feel guilt when I do bad? If he was an evil God, it would seem like I would feel guilt when I do good. But I felt guilty whenever I did things that violated his moral law. And so I started paying attention to my consequences through reflecting on my life, and I started paying attention to my guilt and I started thinking about how I was trying to deal with it by drinking more. And I realized, call it a God's little drop of gracious wisdom that this isn't working for me. And so all of that awareness then would prime me for, okay, now I see the need for morality. And I'm not thinking that God's trying to crash my party. He's trying to protect me from a crash by showing me where the real party is.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Yes. And you know, it's interesting that guilt isn't guilt in a vacuum. You're guilty towards someone and are in the face of someone, in the face of ultimate goodness. And so you were obviously feeling that guilt. So that when that opportunity came along and you heard the gospel that there's someone named Jesus who could actually take your guilt away, you actually accepted that it doesn't do any good to deny the guilt. Right? Where does that get you? Or pretend that it, you know, your actions aren't bad, but you have to do something with it, otherwise you're carrying it. So tell me about that just a little bit more clearly what the gospel is and what it is that you accepted and what happened with your guilt.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: So what began to make sense to me was that if heaven's perfect and I'm imperfect, well, an imperfect person can't go to a perfect place or it will no longer be perfect. And so imperfection can't remain in the presence of God in an eternal promise of salvation. And so it made sense to me that I had broken God's moral law. And that if God was just. That would require him to act justly. And we are wise enough as humans to set up our own justice system. How unwise would we to think that God doesn't have his own justice system, But God's justice system is so much more severe because he's so much more holy. And the beautiful thing is, is though God's justice system is so much more severe, his grace is so powerful that it can cover it all. And so the gospel is the good news that that Jesus lived the life that I could never live, and he experienced the death that I should have, you know, had for myself. And there's an exchange of his righteousness for my unrighteousness. And so, just as he fulfilled the moral law that all of us have broken and was counted as if he had sinned though he didn't, when we believe on him, we are counted as righteous and sinless before his very eyes, as if we never sinned so that we could have entrance into heaven. And that's the beautiful thing of justification, just as if we never sinned. And it's the gift. And then that gift does something in us. It says that God's kindness leads us to repentance. And so the bigger thing is like, oh, I have a bigger problem than my sin. Sin is not my biggest problem. Loving God is the reason I sin is because I don't love God. And so Jesus said, if you love me, you'll obey My commandments. And so every time I sin, it's a reminder that I'm not loving the God of the gospel. But then the reason I don't love God is because I haven't grasped forgiveness. Because Jesus says, he who's been forgiven much loves much. So if I want to love much, I got to understand his forgiveness. But the reason I don't understand my forgiveness is because I don't contemplate on his holiness. And that's the reason why I can't understand my sinfulness. So if I'll contemplate on his holiness, I'll recognize my sinfulness. And then I'll realize that He's a forgiving God. And then that I'll experience that forgiveness. And in turn, it should make me love much the one who loved me much. That's the gospel.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: That's the offer, right? A forgiveness of the sin and guilt and love beyond imagination. Despite who we are and what we've done, he wants to be in relationship. And so you found that. You found that. It sounds like you. You were so excited about it. But I think that what happened with your life once you came to this place of acknowledging your sin, confessing it, being forgiven for it, and your life, you did, your life and your lifestyle, your choices, did they change?
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, so this is the fun question, right? Because I think anybody that is a true believer, if you were to ask, well, what difference has it made? We all have a story to tell. And so if I was to give kind of the, you know, the quick Cliff note version, here's how Jesus has changed my life. He has helped a guy that has struggled with anxiety to have a place to find comfort through it. He cleaned up my mouth. I used to say that the greatest vocabulary word is the F word. I cussed like a sailor. He taught me how to not objectify women.
He allowed me to meet my wife. And for those that are Christians, they can appreciate this, but for those that are not, think this is weird, but I wanted to be a faithful man. And I was an unfaithful boyfriend and I had lots of lust issues. And so I felt like I needed to wait until my wedding night with my wife. And we dated almost two years. And so God took this promiscuous guy and he radically changed me in a way that I waited two years because I wanted to build trust and I wanted to build the relationship in the right order. And I wanted her to know that I could have self control and that I could be a self controlled man. And I thought that those could be virtues that could be helpful in a marriage. And so that helped build a foundation of trust. He changed my selfishness where I lived completely for my own fleshly desires. I started learning to deny myself so that I could serve other people and put other people's needs ahead of my own. He rebuilt my family. My brother used to be scared of me because of just the rage that I had as a kid. Both my parents got saved and they're still to this day, a part of the church. I pastor, my dad worked for me for many years. I pray with my parents. I have had the privilege, by God's grace, of being married for going on 30 years and being a faithful husband. As a guy who was utterly addicted to promiscuity, he allowed me to experience education. I was so uneducated that I failed the ASVAB to get in the military three times. And then I would go on and struggle my way through Bible college and paying people to type my papers because I couldn't type. And then I was learning English grammar as I was learning Greek. And then I got out with Decent grades and went off to Dallas Seminary and started to bud as an academic and would graduate with probably about a 3.5. And then I would go do a doctorate after that and graduate with summa cum laude, highest honors.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: You gave your life to Christ. It sounds like in a radical way. And because not long after you got married, you decided to enter seminary. Now that's an interesting Choice. That's a 180 degree turn from the lifestyle you were living. And then you decide, Jesus is great and I want to go to seminary.
What prompted that? Did you just want to be educated and informed so that everyone could know about Jesus? Did you. You felt a calling on your life to be a pastor? What happened there?
[00:24:53] Speaker A: I became a zealot. I mean, I was sold out. I would be memorizing verses through the night, showing up at small groups, looking for ways to insert groups. And people started saying, I could see you in ministry.
And one night while I was working at the Ritz Carlton, I was pulling my car, a car in, and I saw a license plate in front of me. It said Matt419. For whatever reason that stuck out. And I just sensed the Lord saying, go look up in the Bible, M A T T Matthew 4:19. And I ran through the parking lot. I was working a graveyard shift at about 2 in the morning. And I opened it up and the verse said, come follow me. Jesus said, and I'll make you fishers of men. And I surrendered right there and felt this call to ministry and would go to Bible college. And in Bible college I didn't even wait for opportunities. I was going out doing street evangelism, witnessing to 50 to 100 people a week all by myself, walking up to groups of people.
Shortly after getting there, my wife and I were married and I was doing preaching out on the campus, not yelling and saying turn or burn. But I mean, I was just a passionate guy wanting people to believe. And so I had been witnessing to literally thousands of people in doing apologetics that way. And so I got into apologetics not because I was trying to beat people up over the head with the Bible. I got into apologetics because I needed answers for the questions people were asking me. So anyone who says apologetics isn't important, it's just revealed how little evangelism they're doing. And so I went off to seminary and then I started studying, you know, to be a pastor. And then I realized I was going to have an evangelistic style to my pastorate in calling people to the gospel.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: So you were this on fire Evangelist, obviously, had embraced everything. Jesus, the Bible, scripture, the Christian life, heart and soul and mind. But as you were studying and really trying to bolster this intellectual grounding underneath your worldview, underneath your profound faith, did there ever start to become doubts or cracks because of what you were studying, or did it just simply really give you an intellectual depth and confidence that what you believed was true and real?
[00:27:15] Speaker A: No. It was actually in seminary where I got hit with my first brick of doubt. Dwight Pentecost taught a class called the Life and Works of Christ. And I went through the Gospels, and in particular in the Synoptic Gospels.
I was doing a lot of studying and coming across the apparent contradictions and suffering in my soul to reconcile them and my faith. In seminary, it was starting to get a little bit complicated because I became a Christian on wanting those, excuse me, those two questions answered. What do I do with my guilt? And what's the purpose of my life?
But I started thinking things eventually, like, well, did I just prematurely commit? Like, should I have been asking more questions?
Because I obviously didn't have the answers and I didn't have the forethought.
And what ended up happening is for each wave of doubts that I would get hammered by, there would be a reprieve, like a wave, and then it would recede. I would learn to ride that wave when it came, when the apparent contradiction wave would eventually come again. I could ride the wave and not stay under the water and drown. And so I ended up realizing that what was disturbing as apparent contradictions, the reason it was so disturbing, is because of an ultra rigid way of looking at the Gospels that I was taught. And this is where a lot of what I do now and even how I raised my kids, I think so much of my doubt, Jana, could have been prevented if there would have been a commitment to mere Christianity instead of just showing up at a church in a Bible college. That was just going to teach me a very rigid way and indoctrinating me and trying to get me to sign off on their doctrinal statement. It would have been better for me to have somebody say, you know, Bobby, now that you're a Christian, I just want you to know there's a lot of different streams of Christianity and there's lots of different interpretive options. Don't panic when you see it. And I'm only telling you that, Bobby, because I don't want to put you in my denominational box so tightly that if you come across books from within another box, it doesn't blow your box up. Altogether. And so I prematurely was committing to theological positions that was basically used to set me up for a future crisis of faith. I would have been better off doing what I think I've taught my kids to do. Love God, love people, celebrate the Gospel, enjoy learning, don't try to conquer it. That was my method with them. Love God, love people. The great Commandment, Celebrate the Gospel, the great commission. So live a great commandment, Great commission, life. In other words, there's lots of views. Take your time, study the different views, be informed, but don't try to conquer it. And then make an informed stance on what you have. And that wasn't there for me. And I didn't get that. And I had to go through a tremendous. A lot of angst over that.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: So what did that look like when you started experiencing doubt? Did you become. Did you reach a point where you became skeptical of faith or belief altogether, or were you able to ride through it just with some trepidation?
[00:30:37] Speaker A: I had to nuance some of my beliefs.
But what happened for the solution to some of this was it created horrible depression. And the reason I suffered so bad with my doubt was because I had such a powerful love relationship with the Lord. Like, I was so connected to him. I mean, I'm sharing my devotion to him, and now I'm questioning if I've been duped. And so I felt like after several of these different waves would come with, what about those who've never heard? And, you know, and one of my big areas of doubts were what I call the, you know, the apparent ridiculous, the bizarre passages of the Bible. And it really was problematic for me. And so at times I felt like, did I just commit intellectual suicide? And I ended up with each of these waves having an apologetic for the ridiculous, having an apologetic for what about those who've never heard? Having an apologetic for the reliability of Scripture, Having an apologetic for apparent contradictions. And all those doubts were the making of an apologist. But what ended up happening is, you know, I went to that church that night and became a Christian. And then I went to Bible college to understand my Christianity and then went and got a master's of theology to get theology to better understand my Bible. And then I went and did the doctoral work in apologetics so that I could, you know, better have a defense of the faith. And then I did the PhD in philosophy, because I was looking to philosophy. So I looked to theology to help me. But then when that crashed, then I looked to apologetics to help me. But then when that was crashing, I Looked to philosophy to help me. And then out in the middle of the PhD program, I was deep in the seas of doubt, Ended up on antidepressants, ended up in counseling, had heavy duty suicidal ideation. It affected my marriage, it affected my parenting. I started second guessing everything I was doing, and I felt like I was hanging by a string and I was thinking of ways to take my life so that I wouldn't be ashamed of the church. It was just horrible. Like, because I. And not only that, but then what I started to do is I started to take my questions and then think, if I leave Christianity because of this question, which worldview am I going to enter? Because to leave Christianity for one set of doubts is only enter into another worldview and inherit another set of foreseen or unforeseen doubts. So I realized that doubt isn't a Christian problem, it's a human problem. In the absence of certainty, there's always going to be room for doubt. The question is, which worldview will best close the doubt gap? And for me, I had to think through these different worldviews. And then I just started thinking about, well, what kind of doubts would I have as an atheist or an agnostic or a Buddhist or a moral relativist? And I could not get away from Christianity when all was said and done. Sure, I still have some tensions, but interestingly enough, the way out will become something. I'll love to share in a little bit with your audience, but I'll tell you, this last piece is my relationship with God turned into a Q A session. I kept looking for that next book to solve my doubts. And this is where apologetics has its limits. Because for every book I read, I only learned about 10 more books that I needed to read. And so the snowball was crushing me, and I had to learn how to live as a Christian. Not thinking that I just need answers to another set of questions. And that was some of the process I went through.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Sounds like that could be relatively agonizing. Honestly, you know, there is, I think, a quest towards certainty. That's impossible, right? I don't think that everything is going to be neatly tied up in a bow. Every, every answer is not going to be satisfying in this lifetime. I think there's, you know, obviously our limitations of our own knowledge, our own human knowledge, but the, the grandiosity of just what is available in the world and alternative ideas and everything pushing back and pushing, you know, one way or the other. And I can't imagine that snowball effect of feeling like, but what about you know, that, that question, that nagging question. But what about, you know, obviously it sounds like you were kind of at the edge of a cliff. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, like, what am I going to do with this? You know, have I been fooled like you said? Have I been duped? Is this true? How can I know it? All of those big questions, you came back around to Christianity as the most solid rock on which to stand or Christ and the Scripture and the Bible as compared to other worldviews, that every, you know, every worldview is trying to answer the big questions. Right. And so how is it that you found a solid place to stand within the Christian worldview as compared to others, even though all questions cannot be answered?
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I suppose the, the, the most attractive worldview to me when I was in the horrors of doubts was agnosticism, because I felt like, hey, I can just always play the skeptic. But then I would find myself reasoning like this. I would think, well, even the agnostic isn't agnostic, that there is an explanation for how we got here. He's just agnostic about what that explanation is. And then I thought, so would I rather give my life to the best explanation, not certainty, or just live with saying I don't know what the explanation is? And so then I would think, like, well, if I give myself to the best explanation, and for me, I believe that's Christianity, what will that provide my life? It gives me, you know, a story of how I got here, that God created us in his image. It gives me a story of what's wrong with the world, that it's broken due to, you know, us wanting to take life into our own hands. It shows a pathway to mend that with God. It teaches us a pattern through the life of Jesus on how to treat one another relationally in a way that can protect civilization. And it allowed me to think like, okay, suppose I have to take all the different worldviews that I'm considering and impose. What if you took 7 billion or 8 billion people today and impose Nietzsche's worldview on everybody and we all live by it? What kind of a world would we have if everybody took that Ubermensch vision? Or what kind of a world would we have if everybody took Marx at his word? Or what kind of a world would we have if everybody lived according to radical Islam? And I quickly started to think, well, then what kind of a world would we have? Everybody lived like Jesus, where we loved people, where we loved God, where we respected moral boundaries. I thought, well, that would look a Lot like heaven if we could apply it. And so I then realized I don't think I want to be an agnostic because agnostic is not going to answer objective morality for me. So then I'm going to be morally confused and I'm just going to have to know that what I'm doing is what I just want to do. But really there does seem to be objective morality and there does seem to be an explanation for how we got here. So ultimately then I thought, what do I think is the best worldview? And I would think, well, I do think there is such a thing as a real world, that, that this isn't, you know, an illusion. Like I don't believe the universe always existed. I think that the second law of thermodynamics, I think the expansion of the universe, this all points to a beginning.
So I don't believe that is an option. I don't believe that the world is an illusion. I believe I'm a realist. It takes more faith for me to believe that's all an illusion. I'm not a solopsis thinking I'm the only person who exists and everything's a projection. And so then I would think, okay, well if I believe there's a God, then I believe there's truth. And I don't think that truth is relative. So which God do I believe in? I don't believe in polytheism because that's what led, you know, the, the Greek philosophers out of, you know, the world of Homer and Hesiod as these gods contradicted each other. And same with Hinduism and they've learned to live in the east with these contradictory contradictions because their gods contradict each other. And I thought, that's not a way I want to live my life. You know, how do you have compassion in a world where someone's just getting their karma, you know?
You know, it seems like a way just to become really unaffected by life. In Buddhism, you know, it's like, hey, well you know, the problem is your, your desires, you know, and you just got to lose your desire. But then I have to have the desire to lose my desire. So it's self refuting. So all of a sudden I'm back at going, how do I get out of this? And the, the thing was this. I got out of it through the resurrection. That was my ticket out. I could not explain away the resurrection of Jesus. I, I even put my hat on. I started thinking like, what explanation could I give? I was familiar with the different theories that have been given. I'VE studied the different options, and I thought, man, those are weak. It would take more faith for me to believe in one of those objections being true than it would be to believe in the actual event. So then I thought, okay, I believe in, in the Resurrection. And what does that entail? Okay, I can actually resolve all these other questions. It can all roll up into the resurrection. How's that? Oh, okay. If Jesus really rose from the grave, then he really did die. And if Jesus really did die, he really did live. And when he really did live, he said he was going to die and rise. And when he really did live, he also validated the Old Testament. That contains the apparent ridiculous that I'm struggling with. But the apparent ridiculous doesn't have to be a problem anymore. Because if Jesus really rose and if Jesus really died, and if Jesus really lived and while he lived, he validated the Old Testament and he said he's going to send the Spirit, it's going to lead people into more truth. Then I thought, if Jesus in his first coming validated the Old Testament, I'm going to trust that in his second coming, he'll validate the new. And then all of a sudden, I realized here was the solution to my doubt. I needed to become like a child again. The way out of my doubt was the same way into Christianity, by having faith like a child in the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. And that took a former skeptic into basically a renewed, satisfied convert.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: There's a lot of substance there. I love the way that you journeyed. I mean, you were honest, you felt the weight of the doubt, but yet you were willing to take the journey to figure it out. And I think God honored that journey because it, it sounds like you have landed in a place maybe where there's, there's. There may not be a time in this life where you're ever without any doubt, but it sounds like you've landed in a place that's pretty solid, Bobby, that you're sitting here as a pastor still proclaiming the name of Christ as real and true, as the remedy for sin, that those categories exist, that guilt is real, that sin is real, that there is a remedy for that, and it's through the person, the God, man, Jesus, you. You've give, you're continuing to give your life to this purpose, to this person, and living according to this philosophy, this grand story of reality, that you. You have good reason to believe. After all the work in theology, after all the work in apologetics, after a PhD in philosophy, at, you know, at a high level at the institution that you have done the hard work both existentially and intellectually and emotionally and spiritually in every way. It sounds like you have covered a lot of ground to move from a place of abject skepticism and willingness to give it all up to a place of grounding again, of almost peace. The way that you express yourself, it's, it's, it's very fluid, it's very real. You can tell that you have walked through this. I'm thinking of those who are just skeptical and they're just skeptical by nature like you, and they cannot, they just can't jump the hurdle of, you know, the, what they would consider a leap of faith when they don't have everything buttoned down.
But they're curious and they want to come to that place of belief. And you know, faith and trust is really, you know, surrendering that yourself to the person of God. And that's just hard to do. Or, you know, they may have questions or whatever. If someone is actually just intellectually curious or just curious about what you've been able to find, how would you encourage them to make a step forward? You, you've, you've definitely given us some ideas from your own life. You know, how to kind of trust when you don't, when you're still doubting. But, but there's, you know, some may not have even said, yes, I believe, or you know, even, even in the first place, because their doubts are preventing them.
[00:44:22] Speaker A: You know, I would say that I, I know that it's difficult in this world that we walk sometimes. And I, I do understand that you want evidence. And so on one side that's very noble, like you shouldn't not want evidence. I would say that that's a good thing. But what is the reasonable evidence? And I do think that the case for the resurrection is a great place to start. And I would also say that what's so great about Jesus is he doesn't burden us with having to have everything figured out. He gave us enough evidence to know that he rose from the grave.
And if he rose from the grave, that entails a lot, as I discussed, and rejoice in that, like take the burden off. Because no worldview you're going to get to the end of. You know, there's things that atheism can't explain, like near death experiences or free will or consciousness or objective morality, unless you're going to, you know, ground that in some platonic realm. But then, you know, what, what about guilt? Guilt requires an offense. An offense requires Someone who's offended and an abstract object is not a someone that is offended. And so it breaks down the moral story. And so I would say consider it. And then as you consider the Resurrection, I would say, you know, just like. Like a child would say, you know what? Lord, help me to be willing to just trust in the simple gospel. You know, you can enjoy learning and not try to conquer it. And I would say that it can make a difference in your life. Christianity can give you a story to live by. It can give you a lot, but it will leave you with questions. But for me, what I think my doubts did is it allowed me to go through a place. If somebody brings up, oh, what about this? What about this? Or that? I can just join with people and I don't have to feel threatened. Like I said, you know, I actually feel some of those things too sometimes, or I wonder that myself. But I'm trusting in the deathbed resurrection, or I can't explain that, or let me give you a way to try to, you know, tease that out. When I was younger, I felt like I got to get everybody to see the world the way I see it. I just want people to be able to experience the confidence that Jesus can offer us in our life. But it's not certainty. And we have to crucify our desire for certainty.
[00:46:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a good word, that there has to be just at some point, you know, we have to believe and. And have a sense of faith or knowledge in what we do or can know. If someone was looking for a way to look at the Resurrection in an objective, historical way. Do you have a resource that you would recommend?
[00:47:12] Speaker A: I would. I think Gary Habermas would be a great place to start, and he'll get you, you know, in the waters and take on a lot of stuff. I just think it's worth looking at. And I would also say that if you don't believe, I want to give you what I'm saying, and I hope you'll give to others. We do need to learn to be gracious with each other as human beings.
We should be able to have conversations and still love people who think differently. Because at the end of the day, it's naive for me to think just because you listen to me talk, that you're going to just. Just all of a sudden believe it would be great if you did, but we shouldn't expect that. And I think the same thing in reverse, because all of us have been shaped by our DNA, by our upbringing, by the books we've read by the teachers we have by our pain and by our trauma and by the mentors and by our life experiences and by our addictions and by the people we know and by the books we've read. Everything has shaped us to make us who we are. Just try at least to get an understanding of what shaped somebody and enter that conversation. And so I would say if you could find a thoughtful Christian that you could talk with that's not going to freak out or try to arm wrestle you into it, but take time to hear this person's story, his story or her story, and share your story and start going on a journey together because that's where the life change happens, is in community.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: Yeah. That is, again, just really wonderful advice for the Christian. Just to sit back and listen and understand and hear where they're coming from and how their lives have their views have been shaped so that you can enter into to what it is that they're really looking for and provide, you know, substance of what they're really needing rather than any kind of artificial anticipation of what you think they need or those kinds of things. That's such a good word for us, Bobbi. It's been so amazing. Your story is so rich and full. It's dramatic, it's passionate, it's honest and it's so wise. I mean, you are, you are someone who has actually lived life in very full ways, both in lightness and in dark. And you've come at the end of the day to say that Jesus is Lord and that he is he's the one to pursue and that the gospel is real and it's available for anyone who's willing to take it. The simple gospel, just Christ. And thank you so much for bringing that message to us today, for helping us to understand the doubts. You know, doubts even though they're very real, that they don't need to get in the way of belief. You know, they help us navigate and they help us to understand. But at the end of the day, we shouldn't allow doubts to be debilitating and paralyzing and prevent us from accessing the best thing that there is. And that is life in Christ.
So thank you so much for coming on and telling your story, Janet.
[00:50:41] Speaker A: Thank you for having me on. And just thank you for your sweet spirit and authentic self. I mean, it just bleeds through. And what a pleasure it was to be on. And good to see my colleague back from the Birmingham days. Those were some fun times and it's been wonderful catching up with you. And again I just delight in God's usage of you and he's just made such sense of your studies and now how you're using your research to get the stories of skeptics out there. Ex Skeptics. So thank you. It was my pleasure.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: Wonderful. Thank you. Bobby thanks for tuning in to Ex skeptic to hear Dr. Bobby Conway's story. You can learn more about him and his recommended resources in our Episode Notes. If you have any questions or feedback about today's episode, we'd love to hear from you. Feel free to email
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