Dr. Tom Tarrants is President Emeritus of the C.S. Lewis Institute and author of Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love: How a Violent Klansman Became a Champion of Racial Reconciliation. In this episode, Tom and I discuss the accusation that the American Protestant church promotes bigotry and racism, particularly white supremacy. In Part 1 of our discussion, Tom shares his gripping testimony of growing up in the Deep South amidst anti-communist and racist ideologies and coming to know God through his readings of classical philosophy and the Gospels in a maximum security prison. We discuss the difference between nominal and true faith, whether America is a Christian nation, the sinful perversion of the Bible to justify racism, and more.

Sharon Dirckx, PhD., trained neuroscientist, prolific speaker, and author of award-winning books on the problem of evil and human consciousness, helps us to tackle the problem of natural evil. There are evils in our world which can't be directly attributed to human moral error: natural disasters, parasites, and disease attack seemingly indiscriminately, causing rampant death and destruction of innocent people. How can the Judeo-Christian God be simultaneously good, loving, and all-powerful and yet allow disaster and disease to occur on his watch? Did God create these evils, does he passively permit them, or is he powerless to stop them?

Many Christian leaders across different sects hold varied interpretations of key Biblical practices, leading to notable differences in theology and practice. Do differences in Biblical interpretation betray a pluralism within Christianity or an insufficiency of Scripture as God's method of communication? Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer joins us to discuss historical and modern differences in Biblical reading cultures, what it means to read the Bible "literally," and how to discern Biblical genre. Dr. Vanhoozer puts forth the practice of "mere Christian hermeneutics"-- essential principles for reading the Bible as Scripture everywhere, at all times, and by all Christians.

Dr. Peter Williams joins us to discuss various objections to the trustworthiness of the gospels, including the possibility of fabrication of the gospel accounts by later writers, the presence of apparent contradictions within the gospels themselves, and the alleged corruption of the original accounts by oral transmission and thousands of years of copying and translation. Dr. Williams has been leading Tyndale House, an international Bible research community in Cambridge, England, since 2007. He received his MA, MPhil, and PhD from the University of Cambridge, studying ancient languages related to the Bible and was formerly a Senior Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Aberdeen. He is an Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a member of the Translation Oversight Committee of the English Standard Version. His book Can We Trust the Gospels? (Crossway, 2018) has been published in 15 languages. His latest book is The Surprising Genius of Jesus (Crossway, 2023).

Dr. Carolyn Weber, a prolific writer, professor of literature, and ardent Christian, joins us to discuss the rich history of Christian literature and the purpose of Christian art. We discuss Rudolf Otto's concept of the numinous, or the feelings of awe and mystery which give us a sense of the supernatural. Is beauty more than aesthetic perfection? What can the Bible teach us about storytelling, myth, and archetype? What should the purpose of Christian writers be, and how should Christians handle genres such as horror? Finally, we close with a discussion of how to recover one's sense of mystery, wonder, and presence of the divine through literature.

How can it ever be reasonable to accept the testimonial evidence of an alleged miracle over the mass of evidence that the natural world behaves according to the laws of nature? Could it be rational to accept that miracles could theoretically occur, or are miracles impossible violations of nature? Dr. Timothy McGrew discusses the history of objections to miracles, focusing on Hume and Spinoza, and puts forth positive and negative criteria for evaluating the evidence behind a miracle claim. We discuss the evidence for miracle claims from the Bible, from Catholicism (Eucharistic miracles and the healings at Lourdes), and from religions other than Christianity. We conclude with a personal testimony on how to remain faithful to God in the face of unanswered prayers and undelivered miracles.

We live in a world where children die of cancer, women are raped, and entire villages are wiped out by natural disasters. Yet, according to Christianity, our universe was created and is presided over by an all-powerful, good, and loving God. So how do we reconcile God's goodness and power with the existence of moral and natural evils in the world today? Join Dr. Bill Kynes and I as we discuss the tension between God as sovereign Creator and humanity as a creation imbued with free will and capable of moral transgression. We discuss whether God is the author of evil, the fairness of original sin, the Old Testament genocides, and the purpose of evil in the lives of Christians. As a former senior pastor of Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Annandale, Virginia, Dr. Kynes shares his wealth of experience in ministering to those in the midst of suffering and offers encouragement to those walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Throughout the podcast, we discuss lessons learned from the book of Job, from Dr. Kynes' book Wrestling with Job: Defiant Faith in the Face of Suffering, and from C.S. Lewis's Problem of Pain.

The Questioning Belief Podcast is hosted by Dr. Kathleen Noller who draws on her background as a former atheist, a scientist, and a critical thinker to explore serious questions about faith.