eX-skeptic

Alister’s website: http://alistermcgrath.weebly.com/

For more stories of atheists and skeptics converting to Christianity, visit www.sidebstories.com

Episode Transcript

Hello and thanks for joining in. I’m Jana Harmon, and you’re listening to Side B Stories, where we see how skeptics flip the record of their lives. Each podcast, we listen to someone who has once been an atheist or skeptic but who became a Christian against all odds. You can hear more of our stories on our website at www.sidebstories.com or through our YouTube channel. We welcome your comments on these stories on our Facebook page, and you can also email us directly at [email protected]. We do love hearing from you.

In the world of ideas, some people are experts in their field. They are scientists or historians, theologians or philosophers. They have a particular understanding of the world from their unique expertise, academic training, and personal perspectives. Sometimes, however, a concentration on one area of thought can skew the vision of the whole. The risk is that some become so specialized that all other sources of knowledge become subdued to their own unique slice of understanding of the world. With expertise in one area, it can become harder to see how that one piece of the puzzle relates to the bigger picture of reality. It can lead to a false confidence that their small area of knowledge explains the whole when perhaps it may not.

In our podcast today, you’ll hear from former atheist Dr. Alister McGrath, who holds three PhDs from Oxford, one in science, one in theology, and another in intellectual history. He’s also the author of more than fifty books. Although he dismissed belief in God due to his belief in science and the naturalistic worldview, he changed his mind. Now, he is one of the world’s greatest proponents of the necessary integration of a wide range of knowledge in order to best understand and explain what we observe in the world and in ourselves. And because of his broad academic accomplishments and years of coursing through the strengths and weaknesses of diverse ideas, including atheism and naturalism, he has the unique ability to see the big picture, integrating sub-specialties into a whole and making sense of all of reality. Through his erudite mind, he contends that the Christian worldview is not only the best explanation for what we see and experience in the world, it also provides the best story for our lives. In his view, the Christian story best answers the big questions of who we are and why we’re here. It best fulfills our deepest longings, as compared to other worldviews. I hope you’ll come along today to hear his story of moving from atheism to Christianity.

Dr. McGrath is also going to introduce us to his new forthcoming book, Coming to Faith through Dawkins. Many of you might recognize the name Dawkins as referring to Richard Dawkins, a recognized biologist and one of the four horsemen of the New Atheist Movement. This book is filled with twelve stories of former skeptics and atheists who were once enthusiasts for the claims and the writings of the New Atheists, but they became disillusioned by the arguments and conclusions of Dawkins, causing them to look deeper and with more objectivity at religious faith and became Christians. They became convinced that the authentic Christian faith is in fact more intellectually convincing and robust than atheism. I’m looking so forward to today’s podcast.

Welcome to Side B Stories, Dr. McGrath. It’s so great to have you.

Well, I’m delighted to be here. Thank you very much for having me as a guest on your program.

Terrific. As we’re getting started, Dr. McGrath, you come to the table with much gravitas, I must say. And I would love for our listeners to know exactly a bit about your academic background, your three PhDs at Oxford. You’re an author of over fifty books. There’s so much to say, but I also know that you have a new book coming out, Coming to Faith through Dawkins. So could you introduce us a little bit to who you are, your academic background, and even your new book?

Yes. I’d be delighted to do that. I’m a person who began as an atheist and a scientist, and then I went to Oxford University and began to realize that things weren’t quite as straightforward as I thought. I was an atheist when I was a teenager. I thought life was very, very simple, that...

Vince's Resources:

• podcast: Unbelievable? https://www.premierunbelievable.com/shows/unbelievable
• Book: "Non-Identity Theodicy: A Grace-Based Response to the Problem of Evil” https://academic.oup.com/book/32027

Resources/authors recommended by Vince:

• Blaise Pascal, Pensées
• GK Chesterton

Jana Harmon's book: Atheists Finding God. Use code LXFANDF30 for a 30% discount offer at Rowman & Littlefield

To find more stories of atheists and skeptics converting to Christianity, visit www.sidebstories.com

There is a common idea in our culture that religion, at its foundation, is nothing more than a fairy tale to help those who are scared of the dark, that faith is blind, that only uneducated, weak people believe. There’s a sense that religion is nothing but merely wishful thinking for those who aren't themselves thinkers, that Christianity is a man-made religion with no connections to facts, reality, history, or evidence.

But that begs the question: What of those who are thinkers, who are academically accomplished, who take their beliefs seriously as something substantive, worth believing, and for good reason. There’s something more than wishful thinking. Are they all deluded as a skeptic might suppose? Or could it be that an intelligent, thoughtful, serious-minded person may actually have investigated the claims of Christ and Christianity for themselves and found them to be convincing and true? This especially raises eyebrows for those who were skeptics of faith and then find themselves to become one of Christianity's most passionate proponents. Such a dramatic shift, from disbelief to belief, causes you to lean in and question what comparing evidence it must have taken to cause someone like them to change not only their views about God but change their entire life, helping others to see and know the truth about Christ that they’ve found.

Today's story is just that. Vince Vitale was a thinking skeptic who did the hard work of investigating the claims of the Christian worldview and did not find them wanting. Rather, he became convinced that they were not only true, but they led him to the Author of all truth, Jesus Christ, and that his life has never been the same. Come and listen to his fascinating story.

Welcome to Side B Stories, Vince. It’s so great to have you with me today.

Oh, it's wonderful to be with you. I appreciate the invitation.

Excellent. So the listeners can know a little bit about you, Vince, before we get started, can you give them an idea of perhaps where you life, a little bit of your life, maybe your academic background, and the things that you’re involved with now?

Sure. I live currently in East Palo Alto, California. I've been here for just over a year. My wife, Jo, and our two kids, Raphael and JJ, now four and two years old. We were in Atlanta before that. We drove out here in our little Kia, and once you... At the time, they were even a bit younger. So once you include their two car seats and the pack and play and the stroller, it wasn't much room, so it was quite an adventure.

Oh, I bet!

But we loved it. We loved it and seeing a lot of the country. We’ve been out here for about a year now. We're part of a house church community that has really been family to us, welcomed us with open arms at a very difficult season in our lives. So we've been so thankful for that, and we’ve just felt like this has been a place of provision for us in a time when we really needed it. And we're close enough to the beach that I can get out to surf every couple weeks, which is a particular joy of mine. So I’m very thankful for that as well. Before that, we were actually in England. My wife is from England. We met in graduate school there. I was there for twelve years and then, before that, in New Jersey, which is where I was born and where I grew up and stayed through college.

So you graduated both Princeton and Oxford, right?

Yes. That’s right. Yeah. Princeton was my undergrad.

And what was the focus of your study?

It was both philosophy and theology, religion. Interestingly, I got to Princeton not as a Christian but as somehow knowing that I wanted to study philosophy, even though I had never taken a philosophy class in high school. It wasn’t offered at my high school, but somehow I just knew those were the types of questions I asked and the way my mind worked. And I've always thought t...

To learn more about Jack and his story, visit: www.jackbarsky.com Or read Jack’s book Deep Undercover: My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America

Episode Transcript

Hello, and thanks for joining in. I’m Jana Harmon, and you’re listening to the Side B Podcast, where we listen to the other side. No matter who you are, if there’s something common to all of us, it’s that we want to be fully known and fully loved. We long for meaningful relationships. We want our life to have significance and deep meaning, but sometimes what we long for seems quite elusive. Despite outward appearances and even worldly success, we can find ourselves deeply lonely and empty. What happens then? What do you do? Where do you go?

Our podcast guest today had a life with all the thrill and adventure of a spy novel. That’s because he was a spy, a genuine spy. Raised in Communist Germany, he worked for the KGB as an undercover agent literally. Yet with all of the trappings of worldly excitement and success, something was desperately missing. He didn’t know how or where to find it. As a Communist, religion and God were not an option. That was only for the undereducated masses. Jack Barsky’s story is one filled with dramatic twists and turns and transparency as he confronts his own dark night of the soul. He knew he was looking for something more than his own seemingly exciting yet shallow, empty life. Even though he may not have been looking for God, God was looking for him. Jack came not only to know about God, he came to know and be known, love and be loved by God himself. He came to find a life of satisfaction, fullness, and peace that had eluded him for so long. Come join me as Jack tells his journey from atheism to belief.

Welcome to the Side B Podcast, Jack. It’s wonderful to have you today.

I’m delighted to be here.

As we’re getting started, just so the listeners can get to know a little bit about who you are, even just right now, can you introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about who you are?

Well, my name is Jack Barsky. I currently reside in the beautiful state of Georgia, in the suburbs, southeastern suburbs of Atlanta, with my wife, Shawna, and my soon-to-be 10-year-old daughter, Trinity. I retired from corporate life about 4 years ago, I spent some 35 years having a career in information technology, including executive-type management. But four years ago, I became a public figure, and at that point, it was time to say goodbye to corporate because my life story does not sit very well with a lot of companies. I did some things that are a little bit out of the ordinary. And I described all of this in my memoir, Deep Undercover, which was released three years ago. And so what I’m doing now, I’m engaged in public speaking. I do interviews such as this one. I write blogs, and I’m working on some other things that are not very much related to my career in corporate but are more in the creative sector.

Wonderful. Wow. That sounds exciting. And for anyone who’s listening, I will definitely put the name of your book and your blog and where we can follow you in the episode notes, so you can find out more information about Jack there. So I’m so excited to get into your life. You obviously, like you said, have become a public figure because of the extraordinary life that you’ve lived. Let’s take it back to set the context for this extraordinary by talking about where you grew up, your understanding of God, your family, your culture. What was that world like?

Well, it started very ordinary, to put it mildly. I was born in 1949 in the easternmost part of what was, at the time, the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany. That place became eventually the German Democratic Republic, a strong ally and pretty much dominated ally to the Soviet Union and very much dominated by Soviet influence. I was born into a small village. My parents were both teachers. And my first home was on the third floor of an elementary school building. That was pretty good because this was—World War II, particularly in the east, did a lot of damage to the country. Massive destruction—apartment buildings, cities, factories. I mean it was a wasteland, and probably the best thing was to be able to grow up in the country because we had the ability to scrounge up some food here and there that was outside of the assigned ration. The assigned ration for an adult for about ten years, still ten years after the end of the war, was about 1500 calories. That’s below a subsistence level. But it was like a place where you cannot imagine to get out of there and go out in the world and make a wa...

Resources recommended by Nico:

• Cold Case Christianity, J. Warner Wallace
• Letters to an Atheist, Peter Kreeft
• Unbelievable? Podcast with Justin Brierley
• Reasonable Faith Podcast with William Lane Craig

For more stories of atheist and skeptics converting to Christianity, visit www.sidebstories.com

Episode Transcript

Hello, and thanks for joining in. I’m Jana Harmon, and you’re listening to Side B Stories, where we see how skeptics let the record of their lives. Each podcast, we listen to someone who has once been an atheist or a skeptic, but who became a Christian against all odds. You can hear more of these stories at our Side B Stories website at www.sidebstories.com. We welcome your comments on these stories at our Side B Stories Facebook page.

Oftentimes, we are perfectly content in what we believe until something happens in our lives that disrupts the status quo. New circumstances arise that cause us to rethink what we think about the world around us, about our lives, about what we hold to be true or not. At those thresholds, we are presented with an opportunity to take a closer look at our beliefs, or we can continue on, presuming our pathway in life is built upon a good foundation without examination.

In today’s story, former atheist Nico Tarquinio encountered a change in life circumstances, and with that, a new opportunity to look more closely at his own and others beliefs, to search more intentionally for truth. As an attorney, he was naturally driven towards critical thinking and analyzing and debating ideas. But this journey for him ended in a place he never expected, as a strong believer in God and apologist for the Christian worldview. What did he find on his journey towards discovery that was so compelling that he was willing to move towards Christianity, a worldview he once held in contempt? I hope you’ll join in to find out.

Welcome to Side B Stories, Nico. It’s great to have you with me today.

Jana, it is amazing to join you. Thank you so much for having me on.

Wonderful. So the listeners know a bit about who you are, Nico, can you tell us some about who you are, what you do, where you live?

Sure. So, my name is Nico Tarquinio. I’m currently living in Lincoln, Nebraska, but I’m from Massachusetts originally, Southbridge, Massachusetts. I’ve lived in Maine. I’ve lived in upstate New York. I’ve lived in Boston. I’ve lived in Vermont. I’ve been a lot of places, and these days I am living in the Midwest. I work for the Federal Government. I’m an attorney and, well, non practicing at the time, but I did pass the bar exam, so it counts for something. I love to do apologetics and theology in my spare time, and I’m also raising four kids in my spare time. That little hobby on the side there. So gosh, I wear a lot of hats.

Sounds like you’ve got a very, very busy life, Nico. Very full. So it also sounds so that you’ve spent a lot of time in the Northeast. Is that where you were born? Why don’t you take us back to your childhood and where you were raised, that culture, your family? Was religion or God any part of your world?

Sure. So I was raised in a contentious divorce situation, so my mother and father didn’t see eye to eye. They often came to harsh words with each other, and I was primarily raised by my mother. My father, on the other hand, eventually moved to Florida for a while. My grandmother still

lived in town. But my more religious side would probably be my father’s side of the family, simply because, if you couldn’t tell by my name, Nico Ramo Tarquinio, I’m Italian. And if you want Nonna’s meatballs, or at least a good conversation after she puts the meatballs on the table, not like she refuses them to anyone, you’re going to go to Mass, at least on Christmas and Easter with everybody. So that was kind of a very typical experience in the Northeast in general, but certainly within my family.

And my mother, who was much more open spiritually, and she’s a very brilliant woman, but I don’t recall Bibles being in the house. I do recall seeing Tarot cards, seeing spell books. I remember her going to psychics. She was very open spiritually, and I don’t think that comes from a dark place or anything like that, but that kind of shows the kind of spiritual upbringing I had. We certainly didn’t pray over dinner or do any of the kind of things we associate with Christianity in the household. There was a little crucifix above my bed from when I was baptized. Like most Catholics and Lutherans, I was baptized as a...

Guest Bio:

Dr. Kathleen Noller is a leading Computational Biologist and specializes in cancer research. Kathleen completed her undergraduate studies in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University, where her academic journey laid the foundation for her career as a scientist. She holds a PhD from Johns Hopkins University and is passionate about medical research. Kathleen is also a dedicated wife and mother to a one-year-old, balancing her professional achievements with the joys of family life.

You can find her blog on Substack at The Reformed Gadfly

Resources mentioned:

John Lennox

The Reasons for God Timothy Keller

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

William Lane Craig

C.S. Lewis Institute resources

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