Alliances Against Cancel Culture

Does truth exist? Because you have faith, does that make this book true? Does God exist. So when someone says there is no truth, if you apply the claim to itself, what should you say? Is that true? They don't think Christianity's true. They're talked out of it! You know why they're talked out of it? Because they've never been talked into it! Cross-examining skeptical and atheistic views. Welcome to Cross Examine with Dr. Frank Turk. Ladies and gentlemen, how did a seventh generation Mormon, a man whose ancestor was actually a polygamist and one of Joseph Smith's bodyguards, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, how did this man, a seventh generation Mormon, become an evangelical believer and then The president of the top apologetics ministry to college campuses. We're gonna find out today. And we're also gonna answer questions like how close is Mormonism to Christianity? Where do they agree and disagree? What should you say and do when a Mormon comes to your door or when you have an opportunity to dialogue with a Mormon? What is Ratio Christie? And uh how can you join other ambassadors to bring the truth of Christ to college and high school campuses? My guest today is Dr. Corey Miller, who as I say, he was born in Utah. And as a seventh generation Mormon, his ancestor was a polygamist, one of Joseph Smith's bodyguards. Corey is now the president and CEO of Ratio Christie. Whenever I go to a college campus, chances are... The people inviting me A uh a a chapter of Ratio Christie. Sometimes crew, sometimes Intervarsity, sometimes BCM, but probably more often than not, it's Ratio Christian and that's a campus apologetics and evangelism ministry. It's on about 150 campuses. And uh it's also on some high school campuses now. We'll talk about that. Uh, Corey has four graduate degrees. He's taught it nearly he's taught Nearly 100 college courses in philosophy and religion, including at the Indiana University and Purdue Universities. He's the author of several books, the newest one, which comes out. in mid-August is called Responding to the Mormon Missionary Message. Confident Conversations. With Mormon missionaries and other latter day saints. This is co-written by Dr. Ross Anderson, who also was raised in the Mormon church. So this is the book you want to get, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to be able to know what Mormonism is and how to interact with people on this issue. So let's get to my guest, Dr. Cory Miller. Corey, how are you? Hey, Frank, so good to be here with you. Thanks for our partnership together and love bringing you on our campuses. Oh, absolutely, brother. Uh let's start at the beginning. You were born in Utah. And your great great great what what grandfather was uh was the bodyguard for Joseph Smith. Tell the story. Yeah, three greats back, four greats was the uh the first one who converted Uh, from Scottish Presbyterianism in eighteen thirty six, six years after the publishing of the Book of Mormon. Uh, my family got converted to Mormonism. And uh yeah, he was one of many bodyguards of Joseph Smith. As one donor in Indiana that I spoke said to me, Yeah, but he wasn't doing his job very well. That's right. Got shot and killed. So I guess not. Yeah, that's the uh heritage that I grew up with. Um, you know, uh he had five wives, thirty six children, of which I'm a descendant, and I knew nothing different from that. uh growing up in Utah and till I did. Wow. At what point did you start to question Mormonism? You know, earlier on during adolescence, I had a falling out with the uh kind of societal group that I was part of. I I was uh kind of raised in a black sheep environment where My mom and dad were both not really active in Mormonism, even though the grandparents on both sides and extended family were. Um, but uh my mom smoked and that's a definite no no. You're not gonna get the celestial glory glory that way and uh being raised in a in a single home. I just felt like I was kind of ostracised and so I went into adolescence, you know, my teen years kind of in rebellion. while still believing in Mormon theology and thinking that I loved Heavenly Father. I didn't have a father in my home. Uh but I had a heavenly father and I wasn't looking to change my religion until I ended up at some summer camp in California one year. kind of by accident and the preacher spoke on hell and I tell people that scared the hell out of me and heaven into me. my world changed my life and it got me thinking for the very first time because before that I had no interest in in religion in theology, in philosophy, and anything that I've got interest in today. But it really rocked my world and opened up some new venues for me to start taking this stuff seriously. So in your case, a hellfire sermon actually worked. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, absolutely. I mean i in Growing up in Utah, we never even said the word Hell. That's a cuss word. We call the H E double toothpicks. And really no one that you know is going to go there. You couldn't even have confidence to say that someone like Stalin or Hitler would be going to a place like that. Because there's always these opportunities to progress and In the heavenlies. Um but That said. It also has the uh added bonus that you don't really take seriously that you could be wrong or that your sin might get you in trouble. And when I first heard the gospel, it was with the backdrop of the law. And the consequences of my sin. And I knew that that resonated strongly in me because I was not on a good road at the time. And when I heard about grace. Even though I've grown up in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. This was the first time I ever understood grace. First time I really saw grace in people. And it was so transformative, Frank, that I remember going back home at the end of the summer. packing my bags and moving to California for my junior year of high school where I lived with this Christian family for a year where I got discipled. And um only went back to Util my senior year and that's when problems began. Uh, because now my culture, my extended family, my friends uh we're all putting the pressure on saying you know what happens to apostates. You know what happens to the sons of perdition. And on one interpretation at least. Those who know the truth and leave it. Those are the only ones you might have confidence to say. They're gonna go to that bad place. And so do you want to reread the Book of Mormon this time for the sake of truth? Rather. And I thought, yeah, I should probably do that. And so I did. And that's when all of a sudden everything opened up. I was so glad that I made the decision to leave Mormonism. But now for the first time I really was wondering connections with the Bible I'd been taught my whole life. We couldn't really trust it, but it didn't matter because you had a living prophet. Uh we had modern day uh revelation. But now that I no longer have confidence in Mormonism. How do I know that the Bible is the Word of God? How do I know God even exists? And if so, which one? And so that sent me into a a period of of scepticism before getting to where I'm at today. What brought you to of faith in Christ then. Was it, I mean, intellectually, what what did you study to try and get you to the point where you said, okay, not only do I know that Mormonism isn't true, but it looks like biblical Christianity is true. Yeah, I mean where I started finally engaging in other options, different religions, different ways of thinking, science and so forth. I had to start thinking, okay, if there's an eternity. And my soul depends on getting something about connection between this life and the next life right. better do my due diligence and get out there and actually look for it because Maybe I only live once. And maybe this is it. And so uh as I was Migrating here and there. I came across Apologetics. And uh for the first time I started being able to compare things. uh in a in a good contrasting comparative kind of a way. And with critical thinking. I was able to see more and more. Confidence developing. in me that Christianity was true. that I had made the right existential decision to follow Christ in the gospel. Because it's true, and now thirty five years later. I'm more convinced than ever, having gone through uh secular PhD programs and teaching at major universities. Well, we're gonna get into right after the break, how close is Mormonism to Christianity? Obviously, m most of the Mormons you meet, you're gonna love. They're great people. But do they agree with Christianity? Is just it another denomination of Christianity or is it something completely different? And what can you do when someone is at your door claiming to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints? What do you say? What questions do you ask? Where do you go? We're gonna do that with Dr. Corey Miller's new book, Responding to the Mormon Missionary Message You Need to Get. Very practical. We're back in two minutes. Don't go anywhere. We're back! Talking about Latter day Saints, also known as Mormons. You're listening to I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist with me, Frank Turk on the American Network, our website crossexamined.org. That's cross-examined with a D on the end of it.org. My guest, Dr. Corey Miller, a seventh generation Mormon. So is his co-author, Ross Anderson, who has been a Mormon as well. The new book responding to the Mormon missionary message just coming out. Here in a few days into August, you're gonna want to pick it up wherever you pick up books. It'll help you deal with uh people that are Mormons, whether they come to your door, you just meet 'em out there in the world and you want to have a good intellectual conversation with them. Corey, let's start at the beginning. This uh is a relatively new development on world re on the world religious stage came out around eighteen thirty or so. did they believe that's different from Christianity? Although they'll use a lot of the same language it's it means different things. Yeah, I mean there are a lot of things that we share in common with Mormons and Because they have certain foundational issues like belief in God, like the sanctity of human life. uh like marriage and family. Uh we can walk alongside them in our neighborhoods and in our Cultures rather well. Where they're wrong is where it is an essential problem. Uh who is God? How does man get to heaven, both of which find their segue in the person and work of Christ. And so um, you know, their view of God, Frank, is uh unlike the view that even Muslims or Jews and certainly Christians hold about God. When I would teach Mormonism in the secular university at Indiana University, when I taught comparative religions, sometimes I struggled whether or not to put it under eastern religions. uh like Hinduism. or under Western religions because it claims to be Christian. Their view of gods are very much like the Greco Roman uh pantheon of gods. They have fingernails and heads and toes and um, you know, things like that. Their view of salvation is that uh it is by grace. Through faith. After all you can do. And how much can you do? Well, the book of Mormon says there's not a command that's given to you that you can't keep. And in order to get the grace, you've got to commandment keep all the way to the top. And then the grace gets applied. Well, that's not good news. That's mission impossible. And their view of Jesus gets tainted both from the salvation end. and what they believe about God and and really their They don't have a distinct theology and anthropology. Um we're all God's an embryo, as one Mormon prophet put it. So it's just a matter of uh being on a spectrum. divinely human or humanly divine. So is it true that Mormons believe that as man is, God once was? In other words, the God of this universe or planet was just a man. And somehow grew up and became God. Do I have that right? Yeah, some Mormons will deny that. They don't want to get into that, but yes, that that goes way back to the early days, Lorenzo Snow, an apostle and then a prophet. who was a contemporary with my ancestor and obviously with Joseph Smith. was the one who coined that expression and Smith gave him the approval. Smith wasn't teaching this stuff originally either. It started coming out in his late sermons before he died. And um then it came out in the Doctrine and Covenants and then in um in the Pearl of Great Price in the Book of Abraham. But you don't find the concept in the book of Mormon proper. It's found in other doctrinal scriptures. uh sermons of Joseph Smith and the church as they teach it today. I remember many years ago I was having dinner with a Mormon. I was doing business and he happened to be a Mormon. He was a CEO and I was training his uh c his explained to me his position and I said, um so you're saying God was once a man? And uh I said, how do you deal with the infinite regress? You know, I are you gonna get back to an uncaused first cause? Because I had I was writing, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist at the time, and we were talking about the cosmological argument and how space, time, and matter had a beginning. So it seems the cause must be at least spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, and intelligent. I said, What do you do with that argument? He said, Oh, we don't go back that far. That's what he said. We don't go back that far. What I was I I I was kind of flabbergasted. I didn't know what to like. What do you mean you don't go back that far? If that's what the evidence shows, you have to deal with it, how do you deal with it as a Mormon? I mean, do they have D do they even get into this kind of theology or cosmology or What's No, not really. This is not something most Mormons there will be some, but very few really get engaged in. Mormonism is is less about logic and theology. And more about psychology and sociology, I would say. in that what's really important for them is that families are forever. One Mormon apostle said uh just this week, I think it was that Heaven. without his wife. He doesn't want there to be a heaven without his wife. Because the focus on Uh Mormon theology is really anthropology. And it's the law of eternal progression. It's that families are forever. It's it's my trajectory, but They're not they're not I don't wanna make them sound like bad people, but they don't think in logical terms theologically. It's more uh experienced, they're they're heart people when it comes to religion, brilliant when it comes to engineering or math or politics or anything like that. But when it comes to religion, you might say they've fallen under the Kantian spell of the fact value dichotomy, the faith reason dichotomy. And so those conversations are few and far in between, unless they come from people like yourself that are challenging them to think about this. They're not run of the mill conversations you're gonna grow up with. Well, Corey, what would you recommend? to our listeners or our viewers right now, if a Mormon comes to their door and you say they're not really motivated by logic, Then How do you make any headway with them? What do you do? What do you say? Yeah, I mean, uh you know, there's a lot of different tactical approaches people have with Mormons. Um, I think we ought to focus Building the r the relationship first, building the platform, the right to be heard. You know, the Greek philosopher Epictetus said that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason so that we listen more. Because you get five different Mormons, you're gonna have six different opinions, and you're gonna have Mormons who are Mormon for one reason and the other Mormon is not for that particular reason. So We want to figure out the individual Mormon, what makes them tick. And focus on the essentials. Who is God? How does man get to heaven, both of which find their segue in the person and work of Christ. Now those are the essential doctrines, but then I say there's also an essential of dialogue. And that is the testimony. gotta be able to speak Mormonese. You've gotta understand the psychology. of Mormon epistemology or theory of knowledge. Uh we think it might be logic. We think it might be the Bible. Um we think it might for them even be the living prophet. But at the end of the day, for the average Mormon It's the burning in the bosom as current apostle Dolan Oakes called it. The the the burning in the bosom, that testimony that I know Joseph Smith's a prophet of God. I know the book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that the church of Jesus Christ. My version of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. is the one true church. And they don't realize that there are numerous other ones. And that's where I help them to see through what I call the police lineup. how many different uh sects of Mormonism there are. And each one of them bears a similar testimony. And yet they contradict, which goes to show that at best only one of them can be true. At worst they're all false, and we need to go look for Truth elsewhere, but what that does is it serves to undermine that subjective uh sole criteria of of truth. the testimony for the Mormon because that's to be all everything to to them is authority is everything and the testimonial authority is is where it's at. got to be able to understand the Mormon psychology, not just their theology, and to be able to speak from the language of experience. Christians are told to always have a reason for the hope that we have, so we're supposed to give logical reasons to show other people why Christianity is true. We also believe in the witness of the Holy Spirit. There's a difference between knowing Christianity is true and showing Christianity is true. How does the witness of the Holy Spirit in your view, Corey, differ from this so-called burning of the bosom that the burning in the bosom that the Mormons have? Right. So a lot of Christians too will will Genages. testimony speak because the Mormons rely on it so much. Right. I I think that's a mistake because uh testimony is is It's a major field in philosophy of uh testimonial evidence, for example. We rely on testimonial expert evidence in courts. We rely on it when we go to the doctor or the pharmacist. We find testimony throughout scripture and we're told about um how the Holy Spirit testifies to us that we are children of God. And then in first John chapter five, verse nine um through thirteen, it uses that term testimony. At least a half a dozen times. So the Christian ought to bear testimony and they ought to do it with as much, if not more, tenacity. Than the Mormon does. Because we have the veracity or the truth, whereas the Mormon does not. And so the way that it is distinguished, Frank, is that The Mormon testimony does not correspond with objective truth in fields of archaeology or history or science or philosophy or ethics. Biblical testimony does. I was in Israel doing some excavation with uh a Rashio Christie team over there. We discovered things, everyone on the team, right above us was the BYU campus. Um, I ended up being on two debates with different Mormons, one in the UK and one in the University of Utah. And both times I brought up the fact that I was there for 10 days and it this place is a veritable graveyard of a sandbox of archaeological confirmation. For the Bible. uh in history. And yet the book of Mormon doesn't have a shred. Both of those scholars admitted that I was correct. And so their subjective testimony. is the sole criterion or the main criterion of truth. When we talk about testimonial evidence, we can place confidence in it. But not an overconfidence. It must correspond with. The objective testimony. that we find in the Bible. uh that we find in nature. And happily those things do coincide. So you're are you saying then that If Christianity is true and we can see it's true through the evidence, then we would expect to have this witness of the Holy Spirit. But if we only had the witness of the Holy Spirit and couldn't verify that Christianity is indeed true through historical, philosophical or scientific methods, then we we would be on par with the Mormons? You know, it's possible for God to reveal Himself just to me and me alone and no one else, and I not be able to show that as you distinguish knowing versus showing. So I want to say that it is possible to be able to know God without being able to show God. Right. You think about the thief on the cross or uh who just had some some basic encounter basic evidence. And maybe that evidence is just personal. Maybe it's a dream that some Muslim has been given by the Holy Spirit. What I'm saying is that if and where that can be tested We can test the spirits, we can test. Testimonial evidence because Uh everyone might have a subjective testimony. And the way to confirm whether that testimony is or is not from God. is through a multiplicity of different ways that God has left us in in nature, Romans one, eighteen through twenty. uh in scripture uh in in several different ways. And so We're talking to Dr. Corey Miller from Ratio Christie's the president of Ratio Christie. We're talking about Mormonism right now because he's a seventh generation Mormon until he left Mormonism for Evangelical Christianity. He just co-wrote a book called Responding to the Mormon Missionary Message. A great book to get if you want to know how to interact with Mormons, and I know you do. So check it out, we're back in just two minutes, don't go anywhere. If you want to know how to answer people who claim there is no God, that atheism's true, then you want to be a part of the online course Stealing from God, why atheists need God to make their case. It starts, I think August 14th, I'll be your instructor. If you join the premium version, we'll have six live hour long YouTube, not YouTube, Zoom sessions for Q<unk>A. And uh we'll learn from one another. You can ask me any question you want. As I say, it starts August 14th. Go to crossexamined.org, click on online courses. You'll see it there. You'll see about 25 other online courses too. All of them you can take at your own pace in a self-paced way, but the stealing from God course is going to be the premium version. which will allow you to interact or allow us to interact together with Q<unk>A and there'll be other enhancements to the course beyond just the self-paced version. So check that out. We're talking today to my friend Dr. Corey Miller New Book Responding to the Mormon Missionary Message. He grew up Mormon, as did uh many of his ancestors, and just before the break, we were talking about this witness to the Holy Spirit, which is what Christians call the fact that Uh The Holy Spirit can confirm that Christianity is indeed true, but that seems an awful lot like what the Mormons are saying. I got the burning in the bosom. And Corey, you were making a point about that before we were we were rudely interrupted by the by the break music, so pick it up right there. Sure. Yeah. Which Aquinas and Calvin would have referred to as the census divinitis or the sens of the divine. It's legitimate, it's adequate. I God can communicate through direct uh revelation of himself. To me. And that is giving me the ability to know God without the ability to show God. But thankfully we do have the ability to show. These things the subjective testimony. and the objective testimony of scripture and of nature. correspond to one another. And so there are different kinds of evidence. They're not mutually exclusive. They are complementary. So tell me what you're going to find, what our listeners and viewers are going to find in the new book responding to the Mormon missionary message. What's the purpose of the book? How can they use it? Yeah, Frank, when when I first became convinced of the truth of Christianity, I became an evangelist, but then God also made me a strategist. And Given the ministry that I'm dealing with now, uh, I'm a strategic thinker with that, but this book is similar to that. And rather than just meeting every individual Mormon missionary, we want to go upstream to the source of their Massive church growth program. This year they will have, they say recently, approximately one hundred thousand LDS missionaries, both teaching and service missionaries combined, on the mission field. And that's more than they've ever had. And this is a very influential and uh people of influence and affluence. You know, two percent of the population are LDS, but six percent of the US Senate is LDS. And so um they're very influential and they are boasting that they've got a twenty five percent increase already this year. over last year on the number of baptismal conversions. So we wanted to put together to assemble a team of people who are The best you could come up with. People who are former Mormon missionaries who did the two years, their full two years, from coast to coast and in various places around the world. and have them each take on one of the chapters the missionary discussions that the missionaries have in people's homes. And to be able to give Christians an opportunity Uh with foresight. uh to know what is coming on Tuesday night. Uh, how many exhales you should do and how many inhales they're going to tell you to do. When it's time to bear testimony and what passages they're gonna cover and what challenges they're gonna put forth, because Mormons typically go after those with Christian backgrounds. Now we have for the first time ever Something uh of a tool to equip Christians uh who were meeting with Mormon missionaries to stop the bleeding from uh Christian churches into Mormonism and instead to give us by God's grace an opportunity to see Mormon missionaries coming to Christ in droves. And if you can get a Mormon missionary coming to Christ, well then that's gonna cascade and many others will follow. How do you start a conversation? Someone comes to your door and they claim they want to give you the book of Mormon. I mean How would you recommend, I know the details are in the book, Corey, but just give us a little insight as to what you would do or what do you recommend our viewers or listeners would do when someone comes to the door. But if you're a new believer, I'd recommend if you're going to meet with Mormon missionaries, because It is an exercise in deception. It's both self deception by the Mormon, but it's also a matter of uh somewhat deceiving other people too. Um they capitalize on certain issues of Christian backgrounds, and that's missionary discussion number one. Creating the need for a living profit by showing that there is so much within Christendom. and then enters Mormonism. So first of all, if you're a new believer, schedule a time that you can be there with a a more mature believer. And that is not to dissuade you from critical thinking and having an honest assessment and an examination and comparing the two. But you want someone who actually knows what the Bible says if you're young in the faith. And can help you. in the dialogue process. But I actually think, Frank, it's a good thing to invite missionaries into our homes. Um it takes them off the street from converting other people. Two it gives us a chance to really put the pedal to the metal and uh challenge ourselves to be able to know what we believe and why we believe it and how to articulate it. But three, and most importantly gives us a chance to be able to share Christ. people for whom Christ died. Uh, God so loved the world and the Mormons are part of that. We don't know what's going on between God and them. I know I have a message and it's of eternal value. And these people are not the devil. These people need to hear the gospel. And so I I encourage people to invite them into your homes, go through the missionary discussions, listen to what they have to say. Use Socratic evangelism. Ask thought provoking questions after you've heard them give their spiel in four or five missionary discussions. And that always uh works out best because instead of doing theological ping pong back and forth. Asking questions helps to take the wall down of pride and uh deflection. And it helps to build a bridge for reflection instead. And now you've earned the right to be heard and you've built a relationship and you've shown them interest and they're interested in what you'll have to say next. Well, it's just another works based religion. to try and make your way to heaven. It's no different than any other works based religion. So if you were to ask a Mormon today Uh Based on their theology. I know not every Mormon agrees. with everything, you know, uh that the official church might agree with. But if you were to say, what's the purpose of Jesus? If I've got to do good works. Why Jesus? What's what's the purpose of him? Oh, the purpose to life in Mormonism is happiness, to learn to live happily, to to pass the test. This life is a test. Of our faithfulness to Heavenly Father. Jesus is necessary for the test. for the way the heavenly father structured this world and the plan of salvation. And so no Mormon is going to concede that Mormonism is salvation by works. It is salvation by grace. Plus works. So you're grace after all you can do, second Nephi twenty five twenty three says. Um and so Jesus is is necessary He's not sufficient. He's not enough. And that's the fundamental challenge that uh I enjoy talking with Mormons about is the gospel approach using the book of Mormon actually, because the book of Mormon does teach mission impossible. There is a heaven and hell, and you've got to become perfect by this lifetime or else. other Mormon doctrines and sermons and so forth that come in and give you this idea that you Try try your best and God'll make up the rest, we used to say as a child. Okay. Well, one other thing before we get to Ratio Christi, because that's what you're doing now. And that is What's the the crowning miracle that confirms Joseph Smith as a prophet? It has something to do with golden plates. And why does anyone think that's a miracle? Yeah, I mean there's uh the idea that these plates were written down um by Ancient peoples that We're part of the lost ten tribes of Israel that came over the Atlantic Ocean. uh a long, long time ago and there were these great battles, four hundred thousand Lamanites, two hundred thousand Nephites, and and this stuff was written down and and hidden in New York. Uh Joseph Smith uncovered the plates and and the heavenly father sent um an angel to Assist him Help him to translate these. And the story goes that some other people saw the plates. And similar to Islam. Ah, the original Quran was taken up to heaven. The plates are now gone as well. Yeah, we no longer needed them through the power of the Holy Spirit. They've been translated and Here you go, you've got the Book of Mormon. What else do you need? Joseph Smith was an illiterate person. How else could he have come up with such a book like that? Of course it's from God. But How how do they know if that even if there were plates and people saw them, how do they know Joseph Smith just didn't make them? I mean why why do why do we consider that why did why does anyone consider that miraculous? It's not as if someone rose from the dead or the Red Sea was parted or somebody walked on water. I mean, I can make golden plates in my garage if I have the right material. So Why did why does anyone think it's a miracle? That's a that's a great question. I mean, most people today don't even think about what it would have been like back then. We're living on the crest of the wave right now, and one day we'll probably have a Republican nominee who is a Mormon. Surely it's not a quack job of a religion. Surely it's commonsensical and and um I have this burning in my bosom. But back then you would think shouldn't they have seen these things? Like, you know, you touched Jesus, you You probably smelled Jesus, you heard Jesus, you saw Jesus, maybe even. tasted the sweat on Jesus. I don't know, but there was you know sense perceptible evidence of the resurrection. Um once you get to the the evidential value of the plates. Uh on the surface they try to make it comparative to The biblical manuscripts It's not there. It's not there, and that's not vitally important to most Mormons because don't confuse me with the facts. I've got a feeling. And that's why the testimony Dealing with the testimony early on. Um subverting the overconfidence in Objective testimonial experience as the sole criterion of truth. vitally important, even though it's not an essential doctrine. It's an essential of dialogue. Now they said they had witnesses. Were there seven of them? And did any recant? They saw said they saw. Yeah, um some did Uh change minds throughout time. Others when you examine what they were witnessing It wasn't the same kind of cash value or credibility. that we think of when we're talking about uh seeing objects and testimonial evidence and things like that. So it's it's not quite the same. I think Rob Bowman's got a fantastic book compared to Alright, well the book you want to get right now is by my guest Dr. Corey Miller and Ross Anderson called Responding to the Mormon Missionary Message, How You Can Have Confident Conversations with Mormon Missionaries and Other Latter Day Saints. My name is Frank Turk, you're listening to I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and we're gonna give you ways you can actually help bring the truth of Christ to college and high school campuses. Right after the break, don't go anywhere back in two. If you've been listening to this show long enough, you know we go to college campuses and also high school campuses and present the evidence that Christianity's true. Based on the book I co-wrote with Dr. Norman Geiser called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, we also take a lot of questions, that's why our YouTube channel Has about 1700 videos on it. Many of them are Q<unk>A videos from the college campus. Go to cross-examine two words on YouTube to see, or you can also go to Instagram to see them there. But YouTube has them all. And when we go to a college campus... Quite frequently it's a ratio Christie group that is hosting us and the president of Ratio Christie is my guest today, Dr. Cory Miller. How did this happen, Corey? First of all, What is Ratio Christian and how did you become president? So Roscio Christi means the reason of Christ. It's been around for about a dozen years, and its uh mission is to equip students and professors with historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons. For following Jesus. So it's a Christocentric, Christ centered ministry. And our desire is to um through thoughtful Christianity, heart and mind. uh to transform lives on campus today and change culture tomorrow. So concerned about the culture, go upstream and you're gonna find where the problem is at, and that's in education and that's at the university. So Uh I became the president about eight years ago. Uh at that time I was teaching at Indiana University. I was on staff with uh Campus Crusades faculty ministry because I saw the the gold at going after professors at the end of the rainbow. again, uh strategically going after the source of of much of the um the problems that we're seeing. Uh ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims, lots of them. And so I uh became president of Rosio Christi and have been blessed to See it grow from its infancy and fragility into where we're at today on over a hundred college campuses having a college prep uh ministry for high schoolers so that they not only sur uh survive when they get to the secular baptismal font, but they thrive. uh ministry to college students and then to professors. And then our newest uh division we we're international as well, but we also have now publications. Yeah, what are those print publications and how can people get them? Sure. So we have more than thirty five uh booklets now that are in PDF ebook form. Um They're nine thousand words. They are very concise. So they're readable. A lot of people don't like to read today. But nine thousand words is like, you know, three blog articles um writ at the eleventh grade reading level, but you're getting content from people like William Lane Craig on the resurrection. That was one of his two dissertations. And we had him reduce it down to nine thousand words. You're getting them from Steven Myers in the Discovery Institute on his trilogy of the God Hypothesis and Signature in the Cell. You're getting them from JP Moreland. Um you're getting classical apologetics on problem of evil, scripture, science, all the way to current cultural apologetics issues like race, class, sex, and gender. So all of those are written by people with lived experience in those particular fields as well. So we think it's a great uh great opportunity. uh starting August first, they will be uh able to be ordered in print and by the masses in bulk for groups, uh small groups, youth groups, whatever, or to use on the college campuses. So they can go where to get 'em, Corey. Yeah, so you go to r uh roshiocristi.org or you can go to roshiochristi.org. Forward slash R C press. Yeah, Rational F Yeah, ratio Christie. Just think ratio. That's what it looks like. It looks like ratio. Mathio. Yeah. Christ with an eye. Why did we have to do that in Latin? That's right. Ratio Christi. So ratio Chr Christ with an I on the end of it.com or dot org. Sorry.org. Check it out there. Now. I know there's a lot of people listening who are apologists. They want to get involved. They want to use their skills, what they know. Uh how can they do that with Ratio Christie or through Ratio Christie? You can go to info at roshiocristi.org. But yeah, if you want to engage in your local church and help the high schoolers who don't realize what they're about to face, I mean, if people realized, if parents, if grandparents realized. They are paying for the apostasy of their own children. We might think differently, Frank, about how we equip Our young people. rather than, you know, engaging in skinny jeans and fog machines in some of our churches, we need to be equipping these students because they don't realize what they're about to face in the secular university. So if you want to help engage students and be part of Roshio Christie College Prep. You can contact us if you want to go after college students, which form the the leaders of the next uh generation. I mean Heaven's sakes. I think it's three fourths to um I'm sorry, one one fourth to one third of all world leaders, president presidents and prime ministers. attended an American university. So we have the opportunity to reach the future political leaders of the world. uh the journalists, the K through twelve educators, future professors, business leaders, and so forth. And then even when it comes to professors, if you can get the professor, you get their classroom too for thirty years. It's exponential growth. It's not addition. And we even have a grant now that we uh actually stipend PhD students in top programs to help them learn how to become not professors who happen to be Christians, but Christian professors and then they launch PhD Rosio Christi chapters and turn around and do the same thing so that we're multiplying their efforts. Did you hear that, friends? You can start a Ratio Christi chapter or you can help an existing Ratio Christi chapter. Just go to rashiochristi.org to see more. Now Corey, you and Dr. Peter Bogosian. Uh, who is an atheist. originally taught at Portland State, who wrote a book called The Manual for Creating Atheists, which is a way to try and convince Christians that atheism's true. You and he actually joined forces in recent years to go to college campuses. Why why would people on opposite ends of the theological scale and probably opposite ends of the th of the uh political scale come together? and talk about well what did you talk about? What'd you get together and go college to college and talk about? What what did you do? Why? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And uh he recognized as did I that there is something that's more subversive out there. Than each other. And when he first asked me for this alliance, I said, Okay, but remember. this whole problem that we're seeing in culture right now. is because of your side. And just about two months ago in a podcast you finally admitted it that the new atheism was uh causally instrumental. in bringing about this revolution of wokeness we're seeing Everywhere. Now when when you see it you can't unsee it. But Yeah, he invited me to lecture in his atheism seminar that he was teaching at Portland State on atheism and to give arguments for God's existence and We went to lunch and he said, look, if you go, I go. If I go, you go. We need each other in this right now. And so uh what do you say we form an alliance and we began speaking on University campuses on viewpoint diversity. the death of intellectual diversity in the universities because At least in the past, you know, we could think about someone like Voltaire who said Um, you know, I may disagree with what you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it. Now it's more like Stalin who says that ideas are more powerful than weapons. We don't allow our enemies to have weapons. Why should we let them have ideas? And so the whole heart of cancel culture. that affects not only conservative Christians Also liberal atheist is coming from the same source. And these guys have opted for uh revolution. Uh in Western Marxist ways. very tactically the long march through our institutions. And that's exactly what they're doing. And so you're starting to find these various allegi uh alliances coming together making strange bedfellows because at least currently there's something worse in the room. DR and um you know uh Churchill and Stalin had to ally for a time for a purpose. And then went back to Right. Well, right now I know Peter has left Portland State. He couldn't take the wokeism and the cancel culture there. uh which to by his own admission his philosophy at least uh started to create and then it came back to bite him. I think he's living overseas now or something, isn't he? Where is he now? He's traveling overseas a lot, but he is part of the uh founding scholars for the new university that's getting ready to launch. That is Very much like um conservative Christianity's Hillsdale College or Patrick Henry or Grove City College, which don't allow even the GI Bill. Because they don't want government intrusion. So this is gonna involve Steven Pinker from Harvard and Others of the neo atheist movements, but Peter Bagosian and it's for them, they see it as an opportunity for critical thinking. The University of Austin Um, and it will allow conservative or libertarian thinkers to come in as well. But of course it's got more of their their brand ethos. And so he's still here. He's traveling around a lot in Europe, uh, of of many places. Um Hungary, Romania. Uh, but he said he is done with the atheist theist debate. dedicated his career to taking down social justice and critical theory because that's about civilization. Yes. Truth be said. Um atheism, it was it was the new atheism. And atheistic foundations that provided the the impetus for this whole thing. Um and we can't go back to the way it was. We need to have a little revolution of our own. and the long march through the institutions and reclaim the intellectual voice of Christ. in the universities. Ideas have consequences, and that's where these ideas are incubated. And they grow. And as Lincoln famously said, he said, the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next. And we're seeing that right now. So thanks for the work you're doing on college campuses and in high schools. Corey. Again, give the website for Ratio Christie and and give the uh book again. Go. RoshioChristie.org. That's where you can find starting next week uh all those booklets, free uh PDFs. If you um download. And the uh website for the new book on Mormonism is Mormonmissionary.org. Mormonmissionary.org title is responding to the Mormon Missionary Message. Sorry, MormonMissarymessage.org. MormonMission Missionary Message.org or let's be honest, friends, you can just go to Amazon and find it. It's written It's written by Corey Miller, my guest today, and Ross Anderson comes out in mid-August. It will help you. with any Mormon friend you have or missionary that comes to your door and get involved with Ratio Christi. I'm involved because they do great work. You can get involved too and use your skills in apologetics and philosophy and theology and help young people know the truth. So check it out rashiochristi.org. And Lord willin, we'll see you back here next week on the Tuesday Midweek podcast. God bless.