J. Warner Wallace, Author at Refcast

Why the Case for Christianity Is More Important Than Ever

By J. Warner Wallace — 4 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Thursday, October 24, 2024
I sometimes think this group of “nones” has rejected their experience in the Church rather than their belief in Jesus. That may simply be a reflection of the sad, non-evidential nature of the Church rather than a reflection of the strong evidential nature of Christianity. Some of those who have left our ranks may never have heard anything about the evidence supporting the Christian worldview in all the years they were attending church with us.

Much has been written and discussed about the Public Religion Research Institute poll, Religious Change in America. According to the poll, “Around one-quarter of Americans (26%) identify as religiously unaffiliated in 2023, a 5 percentage point increase from 21% in 2013. Nearly one in five Americans (18%) left a religious tradition to become religiously unaffiliated, over one-third of whom were previously Catholic (35%) and mainline/non-evangelical Protestant (35%). When statistics like these are released, it’s tempting to panic and respond without properly examining the trends. The devil is always in the details, however, and a careful analysis of the data ought to energize rather than discourage us.
Opportunities abound, and the case for Christianity is more important than ever.
While more and more people say they no longer identify as Christians, the ranks of atheists and agnostics are not growing in equal percentages. So where did all the Christians go? They went to the ranks of those claiming no affiliation with any established Christian denomination or belief system (a category affectionately called, “the nones”). Importantly, those who no longer claim a Christian attachment, have not yet jumped in with the atheists or agnostics. They haven’t even jumped in with other religious groups (such as Jewish, Muslim or other believers).
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Why We Should Expect Witnesses to Disagree

By J. Warner Wallace — 4 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Thursday, October 10, 2024
I spent the first nine years of my career investigating crimes as a committed atheist. Even then, I would have approved the notion that witnesses who fail to agree on every detail, raise as many questions as they seem to answer and are inaccurate in some detail of the event, could still be trusted as reliable eyewitnesses. Even my old atheist criteria for eyewitnesses would have been sufficient to make the case for gospel reliability. I now know that the gospels actually exceed what I would require to consider them reliable.

I’ve worked more cases involving witnesses than I care to count. A career in law enforcement will put you in direct contact with eyewitnesses on a daily basis, starting with your very first night on the job. After interviewing literally thousands of witnesses over the course of twenty five years, I think I’ve learned something about reliable eyewitness testimony. I want to share three simple characteristics of reliable eyewitness testimony and relate these three characteristics to the Gospels:
Reliable Eyewitnesses Never Agree
In all the cases I’ve ever worked, from simple theft and assault cases, to robberies and homicides, I’ve yet to have a case where the witnesses of the event agreed on every single detail. It’s never happened. I’ve learned that perspective is important, and it’s not just one’s physical perspective that determines what a witness did or didn’t see. When you’re staring down the barrel of a robber’s pistol, you have a tendency to miss certain details that are picked up by the witness who is watching from across the isle of the liquor store. There are many factors that contribute to one’s perception of an event. Physical location, past experience, familiarity with a feature of the crime scene; a witness’ physical, emotional and psychological distinctives play a role in what they see and how they communicate this testimony after the fact. No two people are alike, so no two people experience an event in precisely the same way. If you’ve got three witnesses in a murder case, expect three slightly different versions of the event. Don’t panic, that’s normal. In fact, when three different witnesses tell me the exact same thing, I start to get suspicious.
Reliable Eyewitnesses Raise Questions
As a young, inexperienced investigator, I used to think that an eyewitness would answer all my questions about an event. I wish this were true, but the reality is that for every question an eyewitness answers about what occurred at a crime scene, a new question is often raised. There are times when eyewitnesses even raise more questions than they have answered. I’ve worked a number of cold-case homicides in which an eyewitness account was captured decades ago, at the time of the original investigation. After reading the testimony, I was left with a few troubling questions. How could the crime have occurred like the witness described it? How could the suspect have done what the witness said? There are times when an eyewitness just doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.
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It’s Better to Be Respected Than Liked

By J. Warner Wallace — 5 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Monday, October 7, 2024
While it may be easy to embrace the beliefs of others to gain approval, we know the courageous path requires us to point others to the truth, even when it’s inconvenient or unpopular. It’s time for the Church to take this second path. We’ve spent far too much time trying to become like the world in order to win its acceptance, rather than having the moral courage to make the case for what we believe.

I had a discussion with one of my kids recently about the natural inclination we all have to be adored. Let’s face it, we all want to be accepted, loved, admired and embraced; it’s difficult when you find yourself on the “outside looking in”, shunned or ignored by those who are popular or influential. We are innately social creatures; we thrive on the adoration of others, even when it comes at a great price. There are times when our decision to do the “right thing” will put us at odds with the people we hope to endear. There are times when our Christian standard must dictate our actions, rather than our desire to be accepted by friends who possess a different standard altogether. In times like these, it’s better to be respected than liked.
The Choice Between Influence and Acceptance
Popularity often requires agreement. It’s easy to like people who hold the same opinions and values. It’s not really surprising, therefore, that many of us, in an effort to be liked, try to find a way to come to agreement with the people around us. And that’s where the trouble usually starts. There are two ways to form agreement:
1. Influence others toward our position, or2. Simply embrace the positions of others
We can try to move them toward us, or we can simply move toward them. One of these strategies will ensure our likability but the other is the path to respect.
There’s a great danger in moving toward the values and opinions of the culture, especially when we take a hard look at the culture we live in. Even the least religious among us would have to admit that we live in a society that often embraces the lowest common denominator. I have friends who are non-believers. Like me, they limit the exposure their young kids have to television, the Internet and other forms of media. Why?
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Two Things Nearly Everyone Believes About the Universe

By J. Warner Wallace — 5 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Friday, September 27, 2024
I hope God’s Crime Scene can help you answer this question by employing a number of very simple investigative tools detectives use every day. Criminal investigators recognize one important evidential truth: the identity of a suspect must account for all the evidence “in the room”. Whatever caused the origin of our universe must also account for all the other evidence we see “in the room” including the fine-tuning of the cosmos, the origin of life, the appearance of design in biology, our experience of consciousness and free agency, the existence of transcendent objective moral truths, and the enduring presence of evil and injustice.

In my book, God’s Crime Scene, I examine the universe as a “crime scene” and investigate eight different pieces of evidence through the filter of a simple investigative question: “Can the evidence ‘in the room’ be explained by staying ‘in the room’? This question is key to determining whether a death scene is a crime scene, and I typically play a game I call “inside or outside the room” whenever I am trying to determine if a death is, in fact, a murder. If, for example, there is a victim in the room with a gunshot injury lying next to a handgun, but the doors are locked from the inside, all the DNA and fingerprints in the room come back to the victim, the gun is registered to the victim and there are no signs of an outside intruder, this is simply the scene of a suicide or accidental death. If, however, there exist fingerprints or DNA of an unknown suspect, the gun does not belong to the victim, and there are even bloody footprints leading outside the room, I’ve got to reconsider the cause of this death. When the evidence in the room cannot be explained by staying inside the room and is better explained by a cause outside the room, there’s a good chance I’ve got a murder. When this is the case, my investigation must shift direction. I must now begin to search for an external intruder. I think you’ll find this investigative approach applicable as you examine the case for God’s existence. If all the evidence “inside the room” of the universe can be explained by staying “inside the room”, there’s no need to invoke an ‘external’ cause. If, on the other hand, the best explanation for the evidence “inside the room” is a cause “outside the room”, we’ll need to shift our attention as we search for an “external” intruder.
There are eight distinct pieces of evidence (in four separate categories) that must be explained when examining the attributes of our universe. These divergent categories of evidence all point to the same reasonable inference. The first category involves cosmological evidence. One important attribute of the universe is simply its origin. This first piece of evidence is critical to understanding the very nature of the cosmos and has been examined deeply by atheists and theists alike. As it turns out, nearly everyone agrees on two evidential inferences related to the origin of our universe:
The Universe Came In To Existence From Nothing
The evidence for the beginning of our universe is cumulative, diverse and substantial. The “stuff” of the universe (all space, time, and matter) came into existence from nothing, and all the evidence scientists have examined so far points to this reasonable conclusion.
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Feel Free to Use A Commentary When Reading Your Bible

By J. Warner Wallace — 5 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Without a commentary or study guide, most of our blog entries (and responses to blog entries) will be difficult to understand. Study guides and commentaries are not only reasonable resources, they are responsible resources. They help us understand the author’s context so we can understand the author’s meaning.

The famous atheist magician Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller fame) once included the Bible in his list of favorite books. The inclusion was cynically sarcastic, as it provided him with the opportunity to make the following statement:
“If you’re considering becoming at atheist, read the Bible from cover to cover. No study guides, no spins, just read it. Sometime between when God tells Abraham to kill his son and when Jesus tells everyone to put him before their families, you’ll be an atheist.”
Jillette’s statement echoes the sentiment of many skeptics who argue that Biblical commentaries and study guides are little more than efforts to “spin” the ugly nature of the Biblical narrative. Now, much has been written about the alleged moral failings of God in the Old Testament, from Paul Copan’s work in “Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God” to Clay Jones’ “Killing the Canaanites: A Response to the New Atheism’s ‘Divine Genocide’ Claims”. It’s not my intention to make a case for the “goodness” of God in this post. Instead, I want to address the claim that the Bible ought to be read without any assistance from commentaries or study guides. This assertion is silly, and in my opinion, dangerous.
The Bible is filled with propositional statements; claims about historical events, claims about the nature of God, and claims about the nature of man. Along the way, the authors use language that is specific to their own culture and time in history. Something similar happens in cold case trials. There are times when a witness makes a statement to the original investigators and this statement becomes part of the case.
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The Extraordinary Nature of Murder and the Evidence for God

By J. Warner Wallace — 6 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Sunday, September 8, 2024
In my new book, God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for A Divinely Created Universe, I take this very approach. It’s reasonable to build a case for an extraordinary claim (the existence of God) with rather “ordinary” circumstantial evidence (particularly when this cosmological, biological, mental and moral evidence is cumulative in nature). In the end, all of us make a case for something extraordinary and incomprehensible from very ordinary evidence.

In 1981, there were approximately 24,159,000 people living in the state of California. That year, 3,143 people committed the crime of murder. Most people were law abiding, peace loving citizens; very few (only .01% of the population) were murderers. That’s an extraordinarily low number if you stop and think about it. One of these 1981 California murderers (representing only .000004 % of the population) killed his wife and claimed that she ran away from home, leaving her young children and abandoning her family. This killer was a beloved member of the victim’s family and they refused to believe he was responsible for her death, even as I prepared to take the case to trial. I can understand why they would feel this way. It was an extraordinary claim really: a gentle and friendly man, representing only .000004% of the entire population, without any history of violence and without any apparent motive, accused of committing the worst possible crime. The victim’s family repeatedly told me this was an extraordinary claim they simply could not accept, and even after showing them the evidence I gathered prior to trial, they refused to believe it.
The jury trial lasted about a month. Dateline (the NBC news program) was in the courtroom with us during the course of the trial and the correspondent for this show later interviewed me on camera. He was incredulous about the suspect’s involvement. The evidence was entirely circumstantial. That’s not unusual for my cases (all of them have been built on circumstantial evidence), but this one was particularly extraordinary. There wasn’t a single piece of physical evidence. In fact, we didn’t even have the victim’s body. There wasn’t even a crime scene; the case was worked as a “missing person” investigation back in 1981 and no one examined the home where the victim was killed.
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What We Mean When We Say, “God Created Everything From Nothing”

By J. Warner Wallace — 6 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Monday, August 26, 2024
Lawrence Krauss, Arizona State University Professor (School of Earth and Space Exploration and Director of the Origins Initiative) wrote a book entitled, ‘A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing’. As part of the promotion for the book, Krauss appeared on the Colbert Report where he was interviewed by comedian Stephen Colbert. During the interview, Krauss tried to redefine “nothing” to avoid the need for a supernatural first cause, “Physics has changed what we mean by nothing… Empty space is a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles popping in and out of existence… if you wait long enough, that kind of nothing will always produce particles.” (Colbert Nation, June 21st, 2012). Now if you’re not careful, you might miss Krauss’ subtle redefinition.

Even as an atheist, I understood the challenge offered by the “Standard Cosmological Model” (the Big Bang Theory) when examined from my naturalistic worldview. This model infers a “cosmological singularity” in which all space, time and matter came into existence at a point in the distant past. In others words, “everything” came from “nothing”. I knew this presented a problem for me as a naturalist; if the universe had a beginning, the “principle of causality” inclined me to believe there must have been a cause. But, what could cause something as vast as the universe? Could it have caused itself to come into existence, or must the first cause of all space, time and matter be non-spatial, atemporal and immaterial? How could “everything” come from “nothing”?
I’ve written about this in God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe. In this book, I examine the universe as a “crime scene” and investigate eight different pieces of evidence through the filter of a simple investigative question: “Can the evidence ‘in the room’ be explained by staying ‘in the room’? This question is key to determining whether a death scene is a crime scene, and I typically play a game I call “inside or outside the room” whenever I am trying to determine if a death is, in fact, a murder.
If, for example, there is a victim in the room with a gunshot injury lying next to a handgun, but the doors are locked from the inside, all the DNA and fingerprints in the room come back to the victim, the gun is registered to the victim and there are no signs of an outside intruder, this is simply the scene of a suicide or accidental death. If, however, there exist fingerprints or DNA of an unknown suspect, the gun does not belong to the victim, and there are even bloody footprints leading outside the room, I’ve got to reconsider the cause of this death. When the evidence in the room cannot be explained by staying inside the room and is better explained by a cause outside the room, there’s a good chance I’ve got a murder. When this is the case, my investigation must shift direction. I must now begin to search for an external intruder.
I think you’ll find this investigative approach applicable as you examine the case for God’s existence. If all the evidence “inside the room” of the universe can be explained by staying “inside the room”, there’s no need to invoke an ‘external’ cause. If, on the other hand, the best explanation for the evidence “inside the room” is a cause “outside the room”, we’ll need to shift our attention as we search for an “external” intruder.
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Can Naturalism Account for Human Dignity and Value?

By J. Warner Wallace — 7 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
Those who stay “inside the room” of the universe to account for intrinsic human dignity and inherent human value simply cannot justify their prejudice toward humans. If, however, humans are the special creation of a Creator God who created us in His image, our position “inside the room” would indeed be worthy of moral obligation.

In my book, God’s Crime Scene, I examine eight pieces of evidence in the universe by asking a simple investigative question: “Can I explain the evidence ‘in the room’ (of the natural universe) by staying ‘in the room’?” This is a question I ask at every death scene to determine if I actually have a crime scene. When evidence in the room can’t be explained by staying in the room, I’ve got to consider the involvement of an intruder. If the evidence inside the universe can’t be explained by staying “inside” the natural realm of the universe, we must similarly consider the involvement of a cosmic intruder. One critical piece of the evidence in the universe is the existence of moral obligations. Can we explain these obligations by staying “inside the room”? Can naturalism account for the human dignity and value necessary to ground moral obligations?
Why do we, as humans, feel obligated toward other humans when we don’t recognize moral obligations toward other forms of life on the planet? We seldom hesitate to exterminate the rodents and insects in our homes and we feel no moral obligation toward the weeds growing in our garden. What, from a naturalistic perspective, gives us the right to consider humans differently? Can we stay “inside the room” of the universe to explain why humans ought to be honored with dignity and value when we don’t afford these considerations to other species or forms of life?
If humans are simply the product of blind physical and chemical laws, there is no reason to believe we are anything more than the accidental consequence of an evolutionary process. If this is the case, there’s nothing special about us when compared to other species or forms of life in our environment.
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Please Make a Mess of Your Bible

By J. Warner Wallace — 7 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Friday, August 2, 2024
Read large sections over a short period of time, reading sequentially through the accounts in as few sittings as possible. Read all of it before returning to the text to begin highlighting and writing notes. Try to put yourself in the crime scene. If you were the original investigator, what follow-up questions would you have asked a particular eyewitness? It just might be that another eyewitness has already answered that question in his own account of the events. Identify and highlight the details of each witness statement so they can later be assembled to resolve any conflicts. Think like a detective.

I’ve examined many claims about the past; most of them were criminal. At our agency, we’ve got a room full of binders that contain the details of every homicide our department has ever worked. Our homicide vault holds the files of all our solved and unsolved murders. My dad’s old cases are in this room, along with the cases that I’ve solved over the years. Someday my son may also have some of his cases on the shelves along with those of his father and grandfather. The first step in examining an unsolved case from the past is to pull out its binder and make a copy. I copy the contents because the next thing I am about to do is going to be ugly. I’m about to make a mess of the case files and documents. I want to encourage you to do something similar when examining the contents of the most important case in history; I want you to make a mess of your Bible.
When I examine a case from the past, I begin by parsing through every word from the original file. I read the case from cover to cover in the sequence of events as they occurred. I have a set of colored markers at my disposal and I use these markers to circle, underline, and highlight important areas of concern or evidential value. By the time I’m done, it’s clear that an investigator has been going through the file. It’s a colorful mess. I examine a few distinct areas and try to understand the connected nature of all the evidence. Here are just a few of the things that are important to me:
Evidence Collection
I highlight those items that are described in the original documents that ought to be recoverable as pieces of evidence. This helps me to form an early list of what might be important at trial.
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If this Is Such a Grievous Sin, Jesus Would have Mentioned It

By J. Warner Wallace — 7 months ago

Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Thursday, August 1, 2024
There are many things that Jesus “said nothing” about. This means very little, however, when you really stop and think about it. As Christians, we need to consider the entire counsel of God before we determine whether or not God’s Word approves or condemns a particular behavior.

A post at Stand Up For The Truth described the efforts of “progressive Christians” to “use the Bible to promote abortion”. It describes the effort among pro-choice “Christians” to establish the beginning of life at the point when the baby takes his or her first breath (rather than at the point of conception). The post cited an article on The Christian Left Blog (entitled, “The Bible Tells Us When A Fetus Becomes A Living Being”) making a case for life starting when a baby takes its first breath. I’ve already discussed the problems with such a view in a prior post, but I was struck by the final line in the Christian Left blog post:
“In the end, if abortion was such a grievous sin Jesus would have mentioned it. He said nothing.”
I’ve heard this kind of argument many times over the past few years, applied to any number of behaviors that people are trying to justify or reconcile with the Christian Scriptures. I bet you’ve heard this kind of statement as well. “Jesus said nothing about (insert any number of behaviors) in all of his sermons to his disciples and the masses. If it’s such a big deal, Jesus would have preached on it.”
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