Daniel Ray did not have a religious upbringing, yet he somehow ‘knew’ God was real but kept Him at a distance. He was living his own way on his own terms, but eventually he was found by God.

Daniel's Resources:

• Apologetics Ministry, The Watchman Fellowship: https://www.watchman.org/

Daniel's Recommended Resources:

• Tactics by Greg Koukl
• Street Smarts by Greg Koukl

Listen to more stories from skeptics and atheists who investigated Christianity.

Brought to you by the C.S. Lewis Institute and eX-skeptic.

Transcript

Thank you, Jana. It's great to be here.

Wonderful. As we're getting started, I would love for our audience to get a sense of who you are. Could you introduce us to yourself? Maybe some of your passions, what you're involved in, your education, the work that you're doing?

Yes. My name is Daniel Ray. I am a staff apologist with Watchman Fellowship in Arlington, Texas. It's an interfaith evangelism ministry, we equip the church to understand non-Christian ideas and worldviews and other religions. And then we try to go out and engage with those people. And Watchman’s been around for about thirty years. I produce two podcasts for Watchman, Apologetics Profile and Good Heavens!. Good Heavens! has a science and faith emphasis, and I have a master's degree from Houston Christian University. It was Houston Baptist University. I studied under Michael Ward and did my thesis on C.S. Lewis and his relevance—“The Relevance of C.S. Lewis's Imagination for Our Time.” I did my master's thesis on that. And I've been informally involved in the field of apologetics for about the last 10 to 15 years and really enjoying it. And thank you for having me on.

Yeah.

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

That's terrific! And of course I love that you have such a focused interest in C.S. Lewis and the work of C.S. Lewis, particularly having been mentored by Michael Ward, one of the foremost experts and scholars on C.S. Lewis in the world!

Yeah. I didn't really realize at the time how fortunate I was, but Michael was gracious and compassionate.

Let's start at the beginning of your story. Can you paint a picture for us, Daniel, of your life as a child, how you grew up, your family, your culture, and whether or not God or religion played any part of that?

Yeah. I was born on the East Coast, and Dad was traveling salesmen and hopped around a lot, so I was always moving, and my first cognitive memories were of our home in Ohio. And then we moved to California when I was five and lived in several different places there. There was no religion in our household. Dad certainly never darkened the door of a church. We were not antagonistically atheistic in our sense but a comfortable secular family. But Dad—as an adult now, Mom tells me stories. Dad was always trying to find one… chasing one scheme or another. I kind of liken my father to the character of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman in some respects. He was just like that. But as a child, it was a comfortable life. I felt like I had a pretty decent childhood.

But when I was in kindergarten, we moved next door to the Liberatore family in Palo Alto, California, and I became best friends with the ninth child of that family. They were a large Italian family. And that friendship with their youngest solidified for me, or I can see now God's handiwork, in providentially guiding us next door to the Liberatores, because they would play a huge factor several years later, when my dad passed away. But there was no religious upbringing in my home. And I loved Charlie Brown cartoons and Christmas, and we had birthdays and went to school and all the typical childhood things.

I was about six or seven, and I was watching Charlie Brown Christmas on our black and white TV in our family room. And I remember distinctively—I could separate the difference between cartoon and reality. But then I knew at some point, when I heard Linus reading from Luke, I knew that was true. Now, I had no prior reason to believe that what Linus was saying was actually true. But I knew at that moment, and I could see at that moment, and I don't know why that moment sticks out in my mind as it does, but I think that was a pivotal moment in my childhood, where I think God—I cognitively remember God starting to work in my life.

And I didn't tell anybody. I just knew. I was six or seven. I just knew that what he was saying was true. And so I think that was initially where I saw God begin to work, but we never went to church. I was never catechized or formally introduced to God or religion. We had a Bible in our house. And I remember as a kid thinking that you would burn your hands if you touched the Bible.

Oh!

I don’t know where I got that from, but that was a belief. The Bible went from house to house with us, and it was always on the shelf, but we never read it. I never read it, and I was afraid to touch it. So I had the Charlie Brown Linus reading from Luke in my head as true, but then I was like, “Well, if I touched the Bible, I would burn my hands,” so I kind of lived in that…. But I never really, beyond that, I never really thought much about God as a child.

Right. It’s funny, our memories as children. And those pivotal moments, kind of emotional moments, that kind of stick in our mind for some reason or another. It is fascinating, the story of Linus and Peanuts. That used to be significant for those who are a little bit older, when television didn't give us that many choices. And obviously you can look back and see, even now, that was a seed planted in your heart or in your mind at some point to consider the possibility of God. So walk us on from there. God was not a part of your life. Did you ever begin to think about God more intentionally, either to move towards or to reject, at some point?

Well, I was nine. I remember when we moved to Sunnyvale from Palo Alto, and I was nine or ten. Our dad asked us—I have three younger brothers—asked us to write down what Christmas meant to us. And I saved the paper. It’s in my scrapbook. And I spelled Jesus wrong, but I said that Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus Christ. Where did that come from?

Right.

I don't know. I mean, there was another one. I was like, “Oh, that's wild.” And we'd have a little manger scene on the mantle at Christmas. But I would say that our family had all the benefits of traditional Christianity without Christ. But I would say my childhood was very comfortable up until teen years, when, for whatever reason, my father turned on me. I mean more like, not so much physical abuse, but verbal abuse. Never pleased with me. I could never do anything to satisfy him. And then he largely started to become absent from our family. And there were days where he wouldn't come home. And so you start to wonder, “Well, what did I do?” From the time I was about nine until I was freshman year in high school, things got so bad between my father and I—and this is an instant one of my brothers told me that I don't even have a cognitive memory of. A little bit maybe. But my dad got so angry with me about something that he picked me up and threw me through the door to our garage, and the door fell off the hinges and landed on top of me.

Oh, my!

I can sort of remember that? But I was fourteen, or thirteen, and a freshman in high school. And I just—it was awful, and I didn't want to have anything more to do with my father or that house or my family.

Of course.

And so, unbeknownst to me, there had been a plan after that incident—or some time before that incident—enter the Liberatores again, and my mom contacted the family. And we lived in Sunnyvale. They lived in Palo Alto, which is about half hour drive. And they reached this agreement. They said, “Well, why don't we have Dan live with us for the rest of high school, and he can go to high school in Palo Alto? Get away from dad and finish school,” because I was getting D's and F's and F's at the high school where I was at, and I hated my home life. So my mom presented me with the offer, and Mrs. Liberatore presented me with the offer, and I jumped at the chance just to get away. So the Liberatores took me in as a foster care kiddo. And I remember waking up—so I would go to the Liberatores during the week to go to school at Palo Alto High School and then have to go home on the weekends. But there would be times where I didn't want to go home on the weekends.

Yes.

Because I just didn’t want to go home, but Barb and Jack were Catholic. Barb would start talking to me about Jesus. She never forced Him on me, but I at least saw here, “Well, if this is how people that believe in God live, they showed me genuine love.” And my mom showed me love, and she does as best she could. My dad didn't. I mean as a child he did, but then something—there was just Dad before I was thirteen and Dad after I was thirteen, two different people. And so the Liberatores, I would say, gave me a foundation for what a good family looks like, what Christian love looks like. I mean, who takes in people as one of their own, like a teenager, in fact! A 14-year-old troubled teenager! But I started to love school at that point, because I didn't have to worry about home life. I had a place to study, I had my own little room, and I loved school. All of a sudden, I got A's and B's for the rest of my high school career. So that pretty much covers it in nutshell about… but I didn't become a Christian in the Liberatore household. I graduated high school from there. Barb laid the groundwork, that this is what God's love looks like I was always going over to their house. I was always going on vacation with them. So that really, I would say, laid the foundation that basically saved my life, because at that time, shortly after what my dad did, he took his own life.

Oh, I’m sorry.

And it was miserable. So the Liberatores literally saved my life. Though I was never a Christian in any of that necessarily, I would never, in that time period, have classified myself as an atheist, So I’d never had my fist out at God in that capacity, but I certainly was not a Christian. So maybe I was a tepid deist or something. I don't know what you would classify me as.

So, through that experience with your father, you didn't blame God or push God away because of your earthly father, essentially?

No, I never made the association. I think, thankfully, because I saw what a good dad looked like in Mr. Liberatore. And he wasn't perfect. An Italian family with nine children, there’s going to be some arguing.

Sure.

But they could always resolve things, and they always loved each other, and it was always genuine, and I was always made a part of that. But I never made that connection to…. I was never fist shaking at God. “Why did You do this to me?” I didn’t know enough about God to blame Him, and I think, naively maybe, I would think that God would have been above all that, anyway. Why would I blame God for something my dad did? I don't know. It just never crossed my mind as a teenager.

I didn't even go to my dad’s funeral. I didn't really even miss him a whole lot, either, as a teenager.

Well, that's understandable, certainly. So you were given this extraordinary gift of actually living in and being a part of a genuinely loving family. You said you weren't there on weekends, so I take it that you didn't attend any kind of church service or Mass or anything like that.

They never asked me to go. I did occasionally, I think, when I was a kid, not as I was living here as a foster care, but as a child, they did…. Once or twice, I can remember taking me to the Catholic Church that was there in Palo Alto, but never, ever recall them ever making that an issue with me. I think Barb knew better than to try to force a teenager to go to church.

Yes.

She knew better. And I was still not ready. But her… kind of an unconditional acceptance. I mean she laid the groundwork. She did not let me do whatever I wanted. But within those bounds, she let me have a little freedom. It wasn't like, “Okay. You’re in this house, and these are the rules.” She did have some rules, but I didn't feel like she was trying to box me in. She really genuinely loved me, I think.

Okay. I see. Okay. Wow. You know, that that really is a gift, to have been taken out of one home, your home actually, and be given such a loving environment. So you lived there through high school, and then what were your next steps?

So my best friend in high school and I had hatched a plan. we planned to move to Los Angeles and start a band. And we tried. And so she and I moved to LA. A minute and a second after I graduated, I went and got a job at a grocery store in Los Angeles and went and found an apartment. And so I picked up the guitar and started playing guitar, and I wanted to be a rock star. So I was living in Los Angeles, Sunset Strip area, Hollywood, during the time of the big metal bands of the early 90s, and the I was emulating all these bands, wanted to be like them. Bands like Guns and Roses and Motley Crue were still playing on the Sunset Strip, before they had… even when they had become popular. And so I was into all of that. But we never successfully made a band or anything. And I never was successful in any band. But it was a sort of a lifestyle that was dragging me down.

I was living in the middle of Hollywood when the Rodney King riots happened in 1992, I think it was. And I was like, “Nope. No more rock star dreaming. We’re moving!” and literally packed everything in my car that I could and moved a couple hours north to Thousand Oaks just to get away from Los Angeles. And through my work at the grocery store, I met somebody in Thousand Oaks who had a room for rent, so I had a place to go. Living in LA during the riots was eye opening. But as scary as it was with seeing everything, I really still wasn't thinking much about God at that point, either. And that was early twenties when I moved up to Thousand Oaks and transferred from one grocery store to another up there, started working there.

And then I went back to junior college to get into broadcasting, which is something that started to interest me. I took music away, and I was like, “Well, I could do broadcasting. People say I have a good voice, so I’ll look into broadcasting,” so I went back to junior college for broadcasting. And that was in my early twenties.

So I still had the mindset of a rock star when I moved to Thousand Oaks, and, long story short, I ended up in a class, a media class, sat next to a girl. And she was about my age, and she thought she could clean me up and fix me and invited me to church. And I don't know why I had to go through it this way, but it was kind of a dating evangelism sort of thing, where she took me to church. I didn't want to go to church. I went to church for her. It was not a healthy relationship, but she was a Christian, and so the message, the first message I heard going to church formally as an adult was the pastor asking people for money. I was just like, “No. No. Nope. Nope,” and-

It fed all your negative stereotypes of what church was. 

I was like, “Okay, if there is a God, He’s not here.”

Yeah.

Or, “This is the basement of all religions.”

Right. Okay.

And so the pastor said, “Somebody today is going to have to give up their Ferrari.” And I was just like, “No,” and I walked out, and I sat in the car, and I waited for her to come out. And I was like, “Look, I'm not coming back here. This is ridiculous.” She’s like, “It’s not always like this. This is the only time I've ever heard him say things like that.” But through her—she gave me a Bible, and I started reading the Bible, and I actually went back to that church and actually got baptized in that church. It was about a six-month process where I would say, in short, Jesus stuck around, and the gal left. She's was like…. Once I became what she was aiming for me to become, she took off. So I was like, “Okay.” I was not the rebel bad guy anymore, and she didn't like that.

So I'm sitting here wondering how you went from leaving the church, going outside, sitting in your car, being so offended by this pastor, the basement of all religions, to then actually being willing or open to look at the Bible. How did that happen?

I don't know, Jana. I don't know. There’s not a moment within that window of time that I can tell you, “Well, this made me want to go back.”

She gives me a Bible, and I start reading it. Why? I don't know, except that the Spirit of God must have been drawing me to do so. So I started keeping a journal with questions that I had, but I felt like the Bible was kind of reading me, and this was intriguing. And the thing that sticks out most to me from that time was reading through Proverbs at the suggestion of somebody who said, “Well, just read Psalms and Proverbs,” and so I started reading Proverbs. And I thought… my first instance, my first encounter with the Bible sort of reading me, was, “Gosh, I'd really like to be the wise person that the Proverbs always speak about, but why is it that I feel like I'm the fool?” Like every, “The wise man does this; the fool does that.” “Oh my gosh, I'd like to be that guy, but I'm more like this guy.” “The wise man does this; the fool does that. The wise man does this; the fool does that.” And by the end of that, I was like, “Do I tell anybody that I'm really feeling like the fool? I didn't have anybody coming alongside me to help me understand what was going on. But I knew this was true. It was like the same conviction I had when I was seven about Linus reading from Luke. This is true. This is the word of God. God exists. This is it. I don't need a study in comparative religions to know that this Bible is the word of God. That was the conviction, Jana. The Bible is the word of God. And in thirty years, I have never wavered in that conviction.

And so I plowed through trying to read the Bible. And ignorantly. I just thought…. I didn't understand the difference between the Old and New Testaments or law and gospel or anything like that. I just thought, “You obey God.” And little did I know as a struggling non-Christian striving towards the light a little bit that you can't obey God, that the whole point of the scriptures, the law, is to reveal our sin, which was happening to me in Proverbs. And I didn't know it at the time. I just thought, “Man, in order to be a follower of God, I need to obey Him. But why can't I obey Him?” And for years I struggled with that, even after my baptism. But I jumped in the water in complete ignorance. I mean, I don't even know if I knew what sin was. I just knew that the Bible was the word of God and that Jesus was like, “Come here.”

And so I think…. Jana, I say all this to say that the way God brought me into the water and when I got baptized, I think He was very, very gentle, because I just—I don't know how much my past has affected me, and I'm not going to play the blame game and say all of my problems were because of what I went through. But I think God knows ultimately how gentle to be with me. I would categorize it as being very gentle in my ignorance. He didn’t…. Look, He says to the disciples, He says, “I have many things to share with you now, but you can't bear them.” And I would say that that's been my Christian life. “I have many things to tell you now, but you're not ready for it, just because of where you are emotionally and intellectually.” And so He gave me what I could bear as I went along. And even at my baptism in 1993, I didn't know anything except the Bible was the word of God and that Jesus was somebody that was calling me to Him.

During the time that you were praying, you were reading through the Proverbs, and you were seeing that there was something in yourself that you were more the fool than the wise man. And that there was something convicting about that. And you were still a little bit averse to the idea of Jesus, although you were okay with God. You were feeling some kind of conviction, some kind of sense that, “Yes, I’m not who I should be or who I want to be.” And that God exists. You were believing that the Bible is God's word, and it was actually reading you. The text was reading you, so walk us… give us the steps forward from there.

Well, the gem in all of those texts about the proverbial fool was Proverbs 3:5-6. And this ignited…. I’d say this was the catalyst that gave me the ability to persevere, I suppose? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.” I think that was the anchor verse that I'm like, “Okay, I don't need to understand all this right now. I just need to trust what God is doing.” That made perfect sense to me.

And I think what God has done in my life since then, Jana, has been to sort of break me gently, so that there's this gradual submission, to the extent like—when exactly is the first light before sunrise? And so it was kind of like a gradual submission to Jesus over time, like a sunrise, like eventually the sun is brilliantly bright in the sky, and you're like, “Yes, Lord.”I recognize the difference between the law and the gospels and recognize that what was happening to me, as someone reading the Bible for the first time, was a conviction of sin. But that all, Jana, actually, for the first three, five years of my Christian walk, was very legalistic. It was very much trying to be the wise person. It was very much works oriented. I was in a church for a long time that basically, though everybody was loving and well meaning, even the pastor, who was very kind to me as a mentor…. Much of the sermon was self help. “If you do this, then God will do this for you.” “You need to do this before God will do this for you.” And I just despaired of that, not realizing that what I was hearing—and I don't blame that church. I think that it just all culminated into a works righteousness to where I was so frustrated I didn't want to do Christianity anymore. And this was like after the zeal wears off.

So about five years after I became a Christian, like my father, I tried to take my own life. Because I couldn't measure up to God's standards, I didn't think. I lost a job at a school, and I wasn't a very good Christian. I was comparing and contrasting myself to other believers, and I just finally hit a pit of despair, and I'm like, “Why not? I have nothing left to live for.” And God rescued me from that. And I’ll kind of couch it this way: “You've seen what you can do, Daniel, or what you do and what it amounts to. I am now going to show you what I can do.” And so, in the moment—I was sitting in my car in my garage in Tennessee with the car running, and God gently said, “Turn it off and go call your friend.” And so I called a friend, and she had been praying. They were in a Bible study, and they were praying, and they knew I was in danger. And that just was like a very sobering moment. How did they know? Nobody knew what I was doing. How did they know what I was doing? And that revealed to me that God knew what I was doing. And at that moment, it was kind of like a Romans 12 moment, where it's like okay. Here’s Proverbs 3:5-6 again. “I don't know what God is doing. I don't know why He spared me. But I just want to stay alive now to see what God will do.”

Yeah. You’ve spoken about the difference between law and the gospel, and that it was the law…. The law makes us conscious of our own sin, right? And that we can't live up to that kind of standard. And it really drove you to the brink of despair. But here you are, years later, having found, it seems, something different. How would you speak of how the gospel overcame that sense of performance and striving, the burden and the weight of the law that was upon you of never feeling good enough? Can you explain perhaps for those who've never even heard this concept of gospel? What does that mean?

The bad news has to proceed to good news. And for some of us that can be an intellectual, “Oh, I get that. Okay, yeah.” And for me, it had to be experiential. I really had to come face-to-face with how wretched I was. So I had the intellectual knowledge that something was wrong with me reading Proverbs. The suicide attempt was experiential knowledge. And so, conceptually, you combine those two things, and you are ready for the good news. It's not good news unless you really fully encounter the bad news.

But the good news is that Jesus has done all the work that is necessary for salvation. I've seen more concretely just how common it is for human beings to have this sense of, “I have to earn my way, I have to earn the favor. I have to earn my salvation. I have to earn the favor with the guru or the teacher. I have to do the works in order to be pleasing to the person that I believe in or whom I'm following.” And Christianity is antithetical to all of that. It's the only worldview in which the God at the head of it does all the work for those who wish to follow him. Jesus's death on the cross, His resurrection, is our justification. And it's taken me twenty years, Jana, to fully and to completely embrace that goodness because it's just unbelievable to me. It still remains unbelievable to me, from somebody who has had mostly a performance-oriented lifestyle. It's hard for me to wrap my head around that news. It truly is good. It's true. It's truly wonderful.

So it's truly good news, though, that there’s nothing I can do to earn my salvation. And I think through the struggles that God has led me, Jana, that there's no way I'm standing before Jesus and trying to justify myself by the works that I've done. I know they're not good. I know what my works add up to. But that it's only by the mercy of Jesus and His righteousness that I'm able to stand. And maybe I wouldn't even be standing. Our works have no place in terms of trying to justify ourselves but God. So the good news is that God has done the work for us, for me. This is a miracle, Jana. I go from a guy who's about to take his own life in his garage twenty years ago to interviewing scholars and theologians and astronauts and having a degree and having a ministry? How did that happen? It is all by the grace and mercy of Jesus. I'm not smart enough to have planned this for myself in that capacity.

Wow. What an amazing transformation! And I'm sitting here thinking, too, you were given, in a way, a gift of faith, gift of belief, even as a child, that you knew something was true about what Linus was saying. You knew something was true when you opened the Bible. And you could actually see yourself mirrored, and what it was speaking to you was true, and you just knew it. And then you accepted Christ, you were baptized, and you became a Christian. It's not as if you did a lot of intellectual due diligence. “Okay, let me determine whether or not the reliability of this text is sufficient for the text to be believed.” You didn't go through the philosophical arguments of God or any of that, but yet, beyond that, here you are sitting as a minister of sorts contending for the truth of Christianity versus other world religions. You pursued a master's degree in apologetics.  To give a reasoned defense for the Christian belief of course, we would all love to grab onto the grace of God. It is good news! But how do you know that it's true? I mean, you knew it was true, again because you were given that gift, but yet you went on to, I guess, confirm its veracity. There was something inside of you that wanted to really understand and know. You’re one who pursues the hard questions. So why did you do that? And how do you know? So, those are two really big questions.

Well, this is like the essay question after you've finished your English test, and the teacher hits you with just one sentence and a long blank underneath that and, “Use extra paper if you need to.” Yeah. Thanks, Jana. Thanks a lot. I am glad you asked that question, because since then I have been on a lot of atheist podcasts and had a lot of engagement with atheists. It’s one of our ministries. I am a part of two book clubs. One is an atheist book club here in Dallas, and another is our own ministry's atheist and Christian book club. And I have been on some atheist podcasts. And I'm often asked, “How do you know the Bible is true?” “Well, what about Islam?” and Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormonism or something like that. So I would say—and this is something that I think is lost in our culture today that I didn't know back then, but it's going to sound super simple, and it's not going to be intellectually satisfying to the ardent skeptic who’s looking for reasons not to believe. Because a lot of times when that question is posed to me, Jana, it's used as a gotcha. It's used as, “See, I'm going to expose your ignorance, so that I can continue to be comfortable in my unbelief.” But for those people that are seeking, like genuinely, people who are genuinely asking this question, as you have, I can say this: “God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, the Trinity, His revelatory truth in speaking to a soul is sufficient.” If that's all he gave me, Jana, that would have been enough.

But the truth of the matter is that even the most erudite skeptic philosopher and atheist knows that there's some kind of idea that we call truth. How do they know this? But they have a problem grounding what they mean by truth. Now, a lot of times they will appeal to empirical evidence. “Well, see? There’s a star out in sky, and we can measure its distance, and we can have this empirical data to verify that I'm justified in believing that the sun is 93 million miles away.” A lot of people think that's what truth is. It needs some empirical backing. But for me, the sufficiency of the Word of God, the sufficiency of God Himself. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Now, this didn't satisfy the skeptical Pharisees and Sadducees. Pontius Pilate when he's about to sentence Jesus, or considering what to do with Jesus, he says, “What is truth?” and Jesus doesn't respond to him, doesn't give him a long answer. And this is one of the reasons why I thought the gospels were authentic, because if this was made up, Pilate’s question would have been followed by a long soliloquy of some philosopher trying to articulate in thousands of pages what truth is. But the fact of the matter is, Jana, that God is truth, His word is truth, He is true. And He’s powerful, and He is capable of revealing to people in any way that He so can, through a still, small voice or a voice from heaven or a lightning bolt on the road to Damascus. God's revelatory truth to a human soul is sufficient. That is the ground, epistemic ground, of how I ultimately know. Now, that doesn't satisfy the erudite ardent skeptic. It’s not intellectually supported with footnotes. It’s not a thousand page book or anything like that. But that's the foundation for me.

But, to the other side of that question, in terms of me pursuing the hard questions, I did want to have answers that tied back into this, in terms of relationship to how I explain my faith to non-Christians. And I was always curious. It’s like, “Well, how is this guy who lived 2000 years ago and died on the cross and resurrected. How is He relevant for us today?” So that started my lifelong inquiry into being able to understand some of the most important questions being put to Christians throughout history. I was not literally… I was not trying to be omniscient, as God was. I was just wanting to have a knowledgeable defense for why I believe. And I wanted to be able to answer, or at least understand, the questions that were being posed to Christianity. And so very early on, I started reading books, and then I got interested in apologetics, again not to be omniscient, but to give a defense, to have thought through my faith. I know people aren't going to accept what I say necessarily.

Apologetics, I think, for me has served as something that has strengthened my faith.

I see apologetics as I've seen it in my own life, an encouragement, a way to bolster and support what I believe rationally, but with the same sense of knowing that of course that’s now how I came to Christianity. But it’s how it kept me in Christianity. I wasn’t like, “Oh, I’m doubting Christianity. I need answers!” It was more like, “No, I want answers to the questions that people are asking so I don't look like an idiot.”

I really appreciate the fact that God can and does communicate in ways that are far deeper and richer than, say, a propositional argument for Himself. Because He is a spirit and mind, as are we, like you say, and He can communicate in ways that we can know.

I put no stock in apologetics any more than what God would want me to put into it. And so I use it as a tool, with the humble recognition of open hands and frailty. And I talk to a lot of atheists who are totally unconvinced of some of the best apologetic defenses that are out there. And I used to be bothered by that, but I'm not now, because I know how God can move in somebody by something simple that I share, even though I may not ever know it. So that's kind of where I'm at.

Yeah. That’s beautiful, actually, Daniel. I’m thinking of those curious skeptics who are honest seekers. They’re not just resisting for the sake of skepticism. They really are listening to you, and they’re hearing that you have found something pretty substantive, something very real and meaningful and really intellectually robust to boot. And they are interested in taking a step forward or…. What would that be? What would that look like for them? Would it be like, in your case, where they took a Bible and they opened it up and began to read it and allow it to read them? I mean, what would it be? What do you think would be their next step?

Right. Given my experience, I would hate to give you a one-size-fits-all what's your next step? because oftentimes the next step is more like a voice, could be a voice behind you saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” So I don't know. You could go to an IMAX movie with your girlfriend and be having popcorn, and something is said in the movie, and suddenly you believe in God. My friend Sarah Salviander, who is an astrophysicist, was an atheist, raised in a Canadian atheist household, was studying at UC San Diego, I think it was. And she was walking across the campus one day, wondering about where all the universe came from, and it was an epiphany moment, a Damascus Road in a sense, that it's all God. Now Sarah wasn't seeking all of that, but that began her journey. So I can say basically that, if you're interested in this, to read the Bible and read the Bible. But I know atheists well enough to know that they're not going to want to necessarily tell a Christian that they're interested in reading the Bible, because they've been—especially the ones that have been so vocal about their atheism, they're still trying to maintain that… I don't want to call it a facade. I don't mean to demean them, but it's really difficult for skeptics to reach out to Christians, for a multitude of reasons. My faith in Christ came pretty much in isolation. I wouldn't say that's the best way to do it, but I would say just be on the watch, for God’s going to do stuff that you're not even thinking about. So I would hate to make this a method and more like just be an observer. Go to the top of the mountain and keep your eyes open, because it's coming. Not like I would tell you to do this, that, or other thing. I would say just being.

And so I would be hesitant to say what that would look like for each individual person. So my best advice would just be to watch and to wait, and if you're interested in God, I guarantee you things are going to start happening. I mean your book documents a lot of these out-of-the-blue moments that were sort of catalysts, that these people were not expecting. And I think that's genuine faith, where your testimony is not a series of decisions you made, but a series of things that happened to you. Just be there and watch it and watch what God will do.

Yeah, no. I love that kind of paradigm shift of being on the receiving end of God, being open, like you say, being watchful.

So, finally, Daniel, as I think of your story, thinking of how we, as Christians, can at least be in the world of those who are seeking, who are watching for God. I think of the family, of course, that took you in and showed you what it looked like to genuinely love, be generous, and available with you and through you, and it gave you a sign pointer to God.

And how you are even intentional now in engaging with those who don't believe, with atheists. You are in book clubs. You are in conversation. You’re actively in the lives of those who don't believe, so in some way you can demonstrate not only the love of Christ but also the robustness of it and that it's worthy of belief, that He is worthy of belief. How would you encourage us as Christians to somehow be in that space where others who are watching can get a glimpse of God?

I think there's an aspect of childlike faith.

What I think the Bible means, is not like we pretend to be children or that we just kind of put on this cloak of naivety. It means literally trusting in God's power and sovereignty and majesty to be able to work in a person's life. In other words, in our day and age of technology and control, we tend to want to steer, direct, control, manipulate, even though we don't realize that's what we're doing. A lot of evangelism many decades ago was trying to get people to confess Jesus after a five-minute presentation from a gospel tract. So I would say go into a conversation—and I've interviewed Greg Koukl this past year, too. I've interviewed him about both of his books in relation to evangelism. And Greg uses the analogy of gardening. And the scriptures are replete with analogies of gardening when it comes to engaging the world with the gospel.

if you plant a seed and your aim is to plant a seed, again getting back to what I said to our skeptic friends that might be listening, watch what God will do. Don't try to be God and control or manipulate that person in a certain direction. God is leading that person in a certain direction. You're just along for the ride to plant a seed. So don't have these grandiose expectations that every person you talk to is going to automatically accept what you believe. That's one thing I've learned from engaging my skeptic friends through our book clubs and stuff. These people aren't impressed with these arguments. Okay, so what if that doesn't work? Then what are you going to do? And then you're just left, going [NOISE 1:15:25], and the atheist walks away justified, thinking, “See? I silenced another Christian.” Why do I want to believe this stuff?

And so if you demonstrate a confidence in what you're saying as true without feeling like…. Because if you take it personally, it's really going to become a battle of vindictiveness, where you're just trying to assert that you're right and they’re wrong, rather than trusting in childlike faith, that God is sovereignly in control in leading that person to Him. And so you just kind of get out of the way and do what the Holy Spirit leads you to do in those moments, as He guides you, as He gives you those words. And don't fret if you get vilified. I mean, look at the outcome of Paul on Mars Hill. Some believed, some mocked, some said, “We’ll hear you again on this matter.” So just relax and rest and trust in childlike faith in God as you go forth and engage people, without expectations of those people. We have expectations of what God is doing, but don't put expectations on your unbelieving friends or family members.

There is such deep wisdom in that, Daniel. It’s obvious to me that you have really spent so much time, not only with the Lord, but understanding and being with those who don't believe as well. what you're describing here is giving reasons with gentleness and respect for the other you are a beautiful example of who we're meant to be in the world, trusting, like you say, in childlike faith that God has got it and that we’re trusting in Him working in the lives of those whom He loves, that He’s drawing to Himself. I think sometimes we do put too much pressure on ourselves, that it’s up to us somehow-

Yeah. And I will say that

All the stuff that I've learned has come through suffering. Through suffering and difficulty and being embarrassed by conversations where I wanted to just win the conversation or play gotcha with atheists, you learn, trial by fire. So the best advice I would say would be get out there and try it. And realize that you will fall on your face when you're talking to unbelievers. But don't worry about it. They’re watching you, and they're listening to you. And you just continue to live the Christian life, like Barb did for me, without ever trying to win an argument with me. She won an argument with me through how she provided and opened her home. That really set the concrete for, “Okay, that's what Christianity really looks like,” or, “That’s what people who believe in God look like. Okay.” And, in my dream—I don't know if God will do it, but my dream has always been that I could do something like the Liberatores did for me, but never having been married, it would be hard. I would love to have a second phase of life, where I'm doing for a child or some children what Barb and Jack did for me. I would really like to do that. So that's the only thing on my bucket list, really.

Well, that's a beautiful dream! And it's worth having on your bucket list for sure. Daniel, what a… just a really beautiful, wonderful story you've given to us. Time with you has been not only delightful, but I feel like we’ve just been kind of learning at your feet. You are so filled with wisdom, and you're so God centered and trusting, and your faith, it runs deep. And it shows, just through your words. You can see your heart but also your mind, and what a beautiful, fully orbed example you are of who we’re called to be as ambassadors for Christ. And I just really, really appreciate you coming on and not only telling your story but also sharing those pearls of wisdom.

Sure. Well, thank you, Jana. It’s humbling and encouraging at the same time. Thank you for saying all that. I need to hear that more from other people, because it's always a personal struggle. You’re never done struggling, but it does take me talking to other people to see how God is working in my life, because my mirror is really dirty.

Believe me, I understand.

Yeah. It’s pretty bad, so I need that. And so thank you. It was fun. I hope it goes well for you.

Oh, I think so many people will be blessed through this. So thanks again.

Sure.  

Thanks for tuning in to eX-skeptic to hear Daniel Ray’s story. You can find out more about his ministry as well as his recommended resources in the episode notes. For questions and feedback about this episode, you can contact me through our email, at [email protected]. If you're a skeptic and would like to connect with a guest with questions, please contact us through our website or email, and we'll get you connected.