"I Was a Professional Christian" - Why Rhett McLaughlin Stopped Believing

Summary

In this compelling conversation, Rhett McLaughlin delves into his transition from a deeply involved Christian, even envisioning a career as a 'professional Christian,' to eventually questioning the tenets of his faith. Initially inspired to merge his passion for entertainment with ministry, Rhett's journey took a turn when he began exploring the intersection of science and faith. This led him down a path of skepticism towards traditional evangelical teachings, particularly on evolution. Discover how Rhett's intellectual curiosity and discussions with fellow believers, including his wife, ultimately reshaped his beliefs.

Highlights

• Rhett and his longtime friend dreamed up a comedy-evangelism mashup, but things took a different turn 🎭🚦.
• Rhett's exposure to 'progressive creationism' made him rethink science-faith compatibility 🤓📖.
• A pivotal moment came when he accepted the overwhelming evidence of evolution, shaking his foundational beliefs 🌍🔄.
• Despite being in the Bible Belt, Rhett felt the tug of truth over tradition, challenging his social circle's norms 💪🌪️.
• Revealing his newfound beliefs to his wife underscored the personal and relational risks of his evolving views ❤️🔍.

Key Takeaways

• Rhett McLaughlin's initial dream was to combine comedy and ministry into a unique form of evangelism 🎭🙏.
• The idea of progressive creationism was a stepping stone in questioning religious narratives 📚🤔.
• Confronting the scientific evidence for evolution was a major turning point for Rhett's faith journey 🔬🌱.
• Rhett felt isolated in his doubts, especially in a community that largely supported traditional views 🤐.
• His wife's reaction highlighted the deep emotional impact of changing beliefs in a close-knit faith community 😢.

Overview

Rhett McLaughlin recounts his journey from being a 'professional Christian' aiming to mix humor with ministry, to questioning his long-held beliefs. Starting as an engineer while nurturing a dream of comedy that served a religious purpose, his path took a thoughtful turn towards examining the ties between science and creationism.

With influences from progressive creationism, Rhett began examining the hard facts science presented, such as evolution. This exploration pushed him away from the young earth teachings he was familiar with, fostering skepticism about the absoluteness of evangelical interpretations and leading to broader existential inquiries.

Struggling in the Bible Belt with new convictions, Rhett's candid discussions with his wife, and her emotional response, marked the shifting dynamics in his personal ecosystem of beliefs. His willingness to embrace uncomfortable truths over comforting myths showcases a bold move towards intellectual integrity.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Early Twenties The chapter titled 'Introduction and Early Twenties' describes the author's journey from being a deeply involved Christian to seeking their own path. In their early twenties, while working as a civil engineer, they remained active in Campus Crusade, a Christian ministry, without facing much existential questioning of their beliefs.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Professional Christian Ambitions The chapter delves into the protagonist's aspiration to become a professional in the Christian ministry. Despite his wife's ongoing college education at the time, the protagonist and his long-time best friend since 1984, Link, had a mutual understanding and shared vision. They were intent on creating a ministry that allowed them to both express their comedic talents and support the cause they cherished. This marked the beginning of their journey to merge their passion for humor with their devotion to their faith.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Balancing Faith and Filmmaking The chapter 'Balancing Faith and Filmmaking' explores the intertwining of the creators' religious beliefs with their filmmaking endeavors. Initially, the content produced has a subtle focus on evangelism, but as passionate entertainers and filmmakers, the creators aim to produce culturally significant work. This desire for impact is rooted in their foundational goals within the film industry. The chapter sheds light on the creators' ambition to merge their faith with their passion for cinema, striving to create meaningful and culturally relevant art.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Staff Training and Seminary Insights The chapter titled 'Staff Training and Seminary Insights' explores the idea of using a ministry as a platform for creative expression that might one day lead to significant impact, potentially even reaching Hollywood. The narrative reflects on the initial dream and enthusiasm for creating impactful work through ministry. It discusses the transition from an engineering role to joining the staff at Campus Crusade and highlights the experience of attending staff training and engaging in seminary classes. This transition signifies a shift from professional engineering to a more ministry-focused career path, emphasizing continuous learning and spiritual growth.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Science and Faith Intersection The chapter titled 'Science and Faith Intersection' explores the narrator's journey and thoughts on the relationship between science and faith. Initially, the narrator describes themselves as a moderately deep student of theology who was inclined towards certain ideas and enjoyed discussing them. However, they admit that they hadn't previously considered the intersection of science and faith deeply until receiving a book on the subject. This suggests a turning point in their understanding and contemplation of how these two realms may connect and inform each other.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Progressive Creationism Consideration The chapter explores the concept of Progressive Creationism and presents the viewpoint of the speaker who suggests that many scientists, being atheists, come up with unconventional ideas to explain the world without involving God. The speaker expresses skepticism about evolutionary theory and the scientific explanation of the Earth's age, considering them desperate attempts to exclude divine intervention. The chapter reflects on the speaker's initial dismissal of these scientific narratives without deep contemplation.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Evolutionary Questions and Doubts The chapter titled 'Evolutionary Questions and Doubts' starts with the narrator reflecting on their past as a staunch young earth creationist. However, a turning point occurs when they encounter a book by astronomer Hugh Ross. While the astronomer has a Christian ministry that opposes evolution, he supports the concept of an old universe from an astronomical evidence standpoint. This includes considerations like the speed of light and wider astronomical evidence. The chapter presumably explores the narrator's evolving thoughts on these matters and the conflicts between religious beliefs and scientific evidence.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Debunking Young Earth Creationism The chapter discusses the tensions between scientific understandings of the age of the universe and young Earth creationist views. It highlights an individual's belief in progressive creationism, which reconciles the scientific age of the universe with biblical teachings, asserting that God's truth encompasses all, and denying the occurrence of evolution.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Embracing Theistic Evolution The chapter titled 'Embracing Theistic Evolution' explores the idea that God was actively involved in the creation process throughout history. It suggests that God created different species at various points in time, eventually leading to the creation of humans. This view intertwines the concept of divine intervention with evolutionary theory, proposing a harmonized belief in both science and spirituality.
• 04:30 - 05:00: North Carolina Struggles The chapter "North Carolina Struggles" explores the complex relationship between scientific understanding and personal beliefs. The narrator reflects on the difficulties of reconciling scientific observations with individual worldviews, noting a personal encounter with a scientist who questions evolution while accepting the age of the Earth and the universe. This highlights the diverse perspectives individuals can hold, even within the scientific community, on various topics of science and belief.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Confronting Beliefs with Family In this chapter, the narrator grapples with the conflict between scientific evidence and personal beliefs, particularly when discussing the age of the universe and the theory of evolution. They acknowledge the validity of astronomical findings that support the universe being 13.8 billion years old but express skepticism about evolution, which they have not studied in depth. The conversation turns to pondering the implications of divine creation and the idea of God experimenting with creating life, reflecting on what this conception means about God's nature.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Questioning Apologists The chapter titled 'Questioning Apologists' explores the intersection of Christian beliefs with the scientific theory of evolution. The narrator reflects on how, similar to the biblical story of Genesis, evolution stretches over a long period, with species emerging at different times. The main issue presented is the challenge evolution poses to Christian doctrine, yet it is noted that many modern Christians reconcile their faith with the acceptance of evolution, acknowledging a common ancestry between humans and other animals.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Significance of Evolution Acceptance The chapter discusses the complexities and moral implications of evolution acceptance.
• 06:30 - 07:00: Metaphor for Personal Belief Shifts This chapter delves into the metaphorical exploration of personal belief shifts, particularly focusing on how individual transformations in understanding and belief systems might develop amidst similar circumstances. It reflects on the perceived arbitrariness in life and death, questioning the fairness of redemption and meaning granted to one person over another who shares similar experiences and suffering. The narrative progresses towards a philosophical inquiry into concepts of personhood and evolution, highlighting an internal struggle in accepting certain creationist views while questioning evolutionary theory.

"I Was a Professional Christian" - Why Rhett McLaughlin Stopped Believing Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 So at some point you go from not just Christian but really involved professional Christian as you put it to now where you are. Where where does this start? So I in my early 20s uh you know the first couple years out of school I'm an engineer civil engineer. Um I'm still very involved in Campus Crusade at the time. I'm not having that many you know existential questions about it. If anything, I'm thinking about how I'm
• 00:30 - 01:00 going to I'm moving towards being a professional Christian because my wife was still in college at the time. And so Link and I had kind of, you know, we've been best friends since first grade, 1984. So we kind of knew what we were working towards. And the idea that we were going to develop this ministry where we got to be funny and make our comedy videos. And we were really trying to find a way to do the thing that we loved for the cause that we loved. So it sort of started as with God in the
• 01:00 - 01:30 periphery here of like with all the video stuff and it it's all sort of directed towards at least subtly to some degree evangelism. Yeah, definitely. And I think it was a way to have my cake and eat it too because I really wanted like we we are entertainers at heart. We wanted to be filmmakers. We wanted to make things that you know had significance culturally. We we wanted to do that from the very beginning. So we always had our minds of like on this idea that maybe we'll kind of you know
• 01:30 - 02:00 we can have we can use this ministry or we can have a ministry where we're doing these things that we love and then maybe something that we make will be impactful enough so that we could one day maybe we'll move to Hollywood and maybe we'll have a ministry there just through the things that we create. That was sort of the the thought in the early days. So shortly after the engineering stint go on staff with campus crusade at that point you know you're going to the staff training and you're taking the seminary classes
• 02:00 - 02:30 and your initial and I was always a stu you know I was a not like a super deep student of theology but I would say moderately deep and there were certain ideas that I would gravitate towards and things that it would I kind of I like to think about and talk out. At that same time, I was given a book and I never really thought about the intersection of science and faith. I think the way that I would have
• 02:30 - 03:00 described it is, yeah, I think that most scientists are not Christians. Most scientists are atheists and they've come up with some pretty wacky ideas to try to explain the world and why people are the way that they are, why the world is the way that it is. And they're mostly just desperate attempts to explain the world without God's involvement. So that whole thing about evolution and how long the world has been here, that's probably all BS, but I didn't think about it any more deeply than that. Mhm. I wasn't like a
• 03:00 - 03:30 staunch young earth creationist. I didn't think about that issue in particular, but I picked up a book from a astronomer, uh, Hugh Ross, and I'm sure, you know, it's I've mentioned this before, and it's, you know, he's like a he has a Christian ministry that is like very anti-evolution, but very pro- old universe, huh, from the standpoint of astronomy, which uh, you know, obviously when you look at all the astronomical evidence and the speed of light and the
• 03:30 - 04:00 size of the universe and all this stuff, Yeah. Okay. The universe has been around for probably as long as the scientists are saying. And but then he went on to essentially say that, you know, but all God's truth, all truth is God's truth. And this is totally compatible with the Bible. But just so you know, evolution didn't happen. And he was a proponent of something called progressive creationism, which essentially was, yes, the world has been around for as long as the scientists say, and these fossils we
• 04:00 - 04:30 find are legitimate fossils that are approximately the date that they're saying they are. But God was creating new batches of creatures, special creations at different stages throughout the history of the world. Whoa. And then ultimately resulting in the creation of people. So why? Great question. Great question. So I remember thinking as I'm reading this, I'm like, it's the first time I ever thought
• 04:30 - 05:00 about there being some reconciliation between what we observe in science and my belief about the world. And I just remember thinking, this doesn't this doesn't feel like a good explanation. I've never heard of somebody. I mean, I'm I'm sure I've met someone who probably like believes that the Earth is old and the universe is old, but maybe is suspicious of evolution, but specifically like, well, I'm a scientist and I'm an astronomer and there's just
• 05:00 - 05:30 no way I can look at the red shifting of the galaxies and deny that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, but that evolution stuff from that other field of biology that I've probably never really seriously studied. Yeah. Know, that's all that's all BS. And instead, I mean, God is just creating animals willy-nilly. And and there's animals that are getting more and more like a person before the people. Yeah. It's like it's like God is just sort of doing little trial runs or something, right? I mean, what does that say about God is what I was thinking.
• 05:30 - 06:00 Yeah. It gets there eventually. That that is a little bit a little bit strange. I suppose it's kind of biblical in the sense of like stretching out the story of Genesis over however long you needed and animals sort of popping in on on different days and stuff like this. But but yeah, I mean the the biggest problem for me that evolution poses to to the Christian and and a lot of Christians today just accept evolution. They're like, "Yeah, sure." You know, humans all have a common ancestor with other animals.
• 06:00 - 06:30 The biggest problem that I think it poses is the seeming like arbitrariness with which you have to say that presuming that our apish ancestors don't get to inherit eternal life. At some point a mother gives birth to a child and the child is morally condemnable to hell but also potentially has the ability to inherit eternal life but his mother doesn't rape. And what the difference is there and maybe it's just a brute fact. Maybe maybe God just
• 06:30 - 07:00 breathed life into that particular organism. But it just seems a bit arbitrary and unfair that that person's suffering will now be redeemed and it now means something. But their mothers who is the same organism, same suffering, same lifestyle, same everything dies like an animal. It just doesn't seem right to me. Unless you want to say that personhood is something which develops as well, but that gets you into a whole lot of trouble with and so that's where I ended up going, right? Because when I was I I didn't really buy into the progressive creationism thing, but I was so sure that evolution didn't
• 07:00 - 07:30 happen. I was like, when you when you're raised in the Christian faith and the only exposure to the idea of evolution you've ever had has come through the filter of a Christian scientist telling you why it's not legitimate. You know, somebody comes into your church and they're like the evolution expert and they're like, they make it seem so impossible that you walk out of that with a full affirmation of the idea that evolution definitely didn't happen and it's a horrible explanation. It will be
• 07:30 - 08:00 debunked by the scientists themselves within our lifetime. Like that's the kind of stuff that we told ourselves. Right. Right. And we firmly believed it. But because of this this proposal, this progressive creationist idea because the the age of the universe and the age of the earth from a from a geological I'm always been interested in geology, but from a geological standpoint, I was like, "Oh, well, this is inescapable." Like this isn't like the way that Answers in Genesis has framed this issue is I mean, I'm not
• 08:00 - 08:30 going to say it's definitely disingenuous. I think they really just believe that it's that it has to it has to, you know, be consistent with the Bible and so they're just willing to just completely reshape everything that they're seeing in light of that. But I essentially was like, well, this doesn't make any sense. So then the idea of considering evolution, which just felt I was like, am I actually about to do this? And I
• 08:30 - 09:00 was like, well, I think CS Lewis believed in evolution. you know, you start saying these things like, "Yeah, but there's people there's a lot of Christians who are like theistic evolutionists and okay, so maybe there's something to this." So, I read Francis Collins book, The Language of God, the language of God. And the thing that I took away from that book was that well, evolution happened as well. And, you know, he he he touches on it a little bit. He talks about in that book, I think he talks about the second chromosome, the fusing of the second chromosome. Mhm. Uh I think he talks a
• 09:00 - 09:30 little bit about uh retroviruses and essentially um you know we've got the the marks of the same retroviruses on our DNA that chimpanzees do, right? There are just these again there's no other way to see it. Just like inexplicable data, right? It's like if God if we're not related to every other animal on earth, well, God certainly try to make it seem like we are. Yeah. And um so then that was a huge moment
• 09:30 - 10:00 for me. I remember coming home still living in North Carolina. Again, a lot of people think that the story that is often told is that link and I were Christians. We came to Los Angeles. We were corrupted by this sinful city and we threw away our faith. And the reality, and I've told it many times, but you know, it doesn't it's passed over is all this happened when I was in North Carolina, right? This happened when I was completely buckled into the Bible belt as as tightly as you can be surrounded
• 10:00 - 10:30 by people who agree with me about all these things. Um with no social pressure to deviate from that at all. In fact, a lot of social pressure to stay. So I was struggling a lot because no one I didn't have anybody to talk to about this. Yeah. I remember talking to Link I mean talk I talked to Link about it a little bit. Uh, and he would just kind of be like, "Oh shit." Like he it felt like you're learning a lot of things that seem problematic, but uh, I'm not
• 10:30 - 11:00 going to think I don't want to think about this. Yeah. Yeah. Jesse, my wife, who did come from like a young earth creationist background, like that's, you know, that's what she was taught growing up. When I came home and I was like, "We need to talk about something." thing and I and I said I am thoroughly convinced that evolution is true and that we are related to every other animal. I believe in common ancestry and I just think that it is not just I sort of think it's
• 11:00 - 11:30 true. It's just like my reading has led me to think that if this isn't true then I actually can't determine what any anything that's true. It's so overwhelming because I'd read in additional additionally to that. She just starts crying because this represented she knew what this represented, right? This was this seismic shift. And I think a lot of people that I tell this story to are like, "What do you mean? What there's all these Christians that
• 11:30 - 12:00 believe in evolution? Like I I can't believe that this was so significant for you." But I think the reason it was is because at that point I realized how wrong I could be about something so fundamental. Yeah. And I never ever considered that I might be wrong about something so fundamental. And then not only was I wrong, but all of these Christian apologists who were so sure about their
• 12:00 - 12:30 critiques of evolution, they had missed the boat so significantly on this that suddenly I was like, can I can I trust anything else they've got to say about this? So that was the first big domino. Yeah, it's significant like you say. I mean, you might think, well, there are Christians who believe in evolution, but depends which way you come at it. I mean, if you're somebody who's like a a scientifically minded person who comes to faith in Jesus, you're not going to
• 12:30 - 13:00 abandon evolution, but you might think, "Okay, I can I can make this all work." But if you've come from the background you've come from, it's like, it's like going up to your wife and saying, you know, I just think maybe we should uh I just think maybe we should like live in separate houses or something. and your wife starts balling and someone says, "Hey, I don't really know." People, some people do that. Some married couples, they sort of they live apart. It's like, "Yeah, but what it represents to move from where we are now and the way we were living to having this kind of question or this kind of desire
• 13:00 - 13:30 indicates a direction of thought." Yeah. Which you don't really want to want to entertain. If you enjoyed that clip, you can watch the full conversation with Rep. McLolin by clicking the link that's on your screen. To support the show and get early adree access to episodes, subscribe to my Substack at alexoconor.com.