Tag Archives: Sean McDowell

Josh McDowell’s son had doubts about Christianity

Doubt plagued Sean McDowell, son of famous doubts-slayer Josh McDowell, when he stumbled across an atheist website that refuted his Dad’s book Evidence that Demands a Verdict point by point.

“Honestly growing up, I probably kind of thought someone wasn’t a Christian because they just hadn’t read Evidence Demands a Verdict or More Than a Carpenter,” says Sean on a 100 Huntley Street video.

The books have been decisive in establishing the faith of many people based on hard evidence to corroborate the Bible. But here was a well-reasoned attempt to erode confidence, Sean said.

“All of a sudden, I’m reading some really smart people — some doctors, some lawyers, philosophers, historians — going chapter by chapter, pushing back very thoughtfully on the arguments that my father had made,” Sean relates.

It shook him to his core.

So Sean, 19 and in college, sat down with his dad for coffee and came clean.

“I want to be honest with you,” he told Dad. “I’m not sure that I’m convinced Christianity is true.”

Sean wasn’t sure how did would react. Josh has famously written 150 books and given 27,000 lectures on college campuses to stir university kids to faith and show them what their atheist professors don’t want them to know.

Would his dad lose his temper, kick him out of the family and disown him?

Actually, Josh did none of that. Josh McDowell became a Christian master of apologetics when he as young man decided to study to disprove Christianity, which he thought was an annoying idea that needed to be dethroned in American. Read the rest: Sean McDowell doubted the Christianity of his father Josh McDowell

The next great apologist? A 13 year old.

Following in the tradition of C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel, and Josh McDowell, another great apologist has arrived, a 13-year-old.

Nahoa Life — his mom is Hawaiian — likes skateboarding, performing Christ hip hop and mastering big books of philosophy and science as it relates to God.

A product of Gen Z, Nahoa recently appeared on the Christian intellectual circuit’s radar when Biola Professor Sean McDowell received an email with questions about his doctoral dissertation.

Sean, the son of Josh McDowell, thought, Are you kidding me? This 12-year-old read my dissertation?

McDowell decided to host Nahoa on his podcast in February.

“I love apologetics,” the 8th-grader from Los Angeles told Sean. “I started doing apologetics about two years ago. I was just kind of bored and I read a book. It was super intriguing. For the first time I realized there’s actual evidence for Christianity.”

Apologetics, a lofty philosophy and usually a course in undergraduate Bible school, is the field of making Christianity palatable to skeptics.

Nahoa happens to be home-schooled, and when his mom saw… Read the rest: 13 year old apologist