The Sean McDowell Show

Talbot New Testament scholar Dr. Alan Hultberg joins Sean McDowell to sort out what Scripture says, walk through the three major views, and ask the question everyone wants answered: are we close? Hultberg starts by clearing away the "Left Behind" imagery most of us absorbed from movies and kids' Bible storybooks, then lays out the three positions evangelicals actually debate explaining what separa...

Can we actually know Jesus is coming back or is this just a matter of blind faith? In this conversation, bestselling author and pastor John Bevere joins me to talk about his new book The King Is Coming. John makes for why Christians can have confidence that Jesus is returning, why he sees Israel's reestablishment in 1948 and the recapture of Jerusalem in 1967 as escatologically significant, his re...

Children who have near-death experiences make for unusually strong evidence and almost nobody has studied them. In this conversation, near-death experience researcher Dr. Steve Miller returns to walk through what we actually know about children and NDEs. We get into the case from Dr. Melvin Morse's peer-reviewed work (the drowned girl who came back describing exactly what her family was wearing an...

Many Christians dismiss the evidence from near-death experiences on biblical or theological grounds by quoting Hebrews 9:27, citing soul sleep, worrying about new age associations, or treating any extra-biblical vision as automatically suspect. But are those objections actually warranted by Scripture? Dr. Steve Miller returns to walk through twelve of the most common biblical and theological objec...

What are the strongest Old Testament prophecies that point to Jesus as the Messiah? My guest is Jeff Morgan, a former secular Jew who does street evangelism with Jewish people in Israel. He hears the objections every day, in Hebrew, from people who grew up reading these texts. Jeff and I walk through 10 prophecies and address the common Jewish objections to each passage and shows where rabbinic so...

In this conversation, Carl Trueman joins me and Scott Rae for one of the most wide-ranging episodes we've recorded. We get into CS Lewis, Nietzsche's madman, the anthropological question at the heart of every cultural debate, the sexual revolution, pornography, contraception (where Trueman calls himself "a work in progress"), IVF, surrogacy, end-of-life decisions, and how Christians sometimes mirr...

Dr. John Lennox has lived one of the most remarkable lives in modern Christian thought. From sitting in on CS Lewis's final lectures at Cambridge in 1962, earning his PhD and teaching at Oxford as Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, debating Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and authoring best-selling books on faith, science, suffering, AI, and Revelation. In this conversation, Dr. Lennox j...

The Michael Jackson hit is one of the most recognizable songs in pop history. What most people don't know is that the woman behind the song was a real person with a real family. La Nej is a chaplain, an apologetics teacher, a Biola grad, and someone I've known since the mid-90s. She's also the daughter of the woman the world remembers as Billy Jean. In this conversation La Nej walks through her ch...

Does the science actually point to a beginning of the universe or can clever cosmological modeling get around it? Sir Roger Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) is one of the most serious modern attempts to model an infinite, beginning-less universe This is Part 2 of the conversation. (If you missed Part 1, watch that first! In this deep dive, Dr. Stephen Meyer walks through Penrose's CCC mo...

*Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA ( https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program ( https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: ( https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@...

A neuroscientist with a brain tumor. A wife with a strange dream. A demonic encounter. And a healing he can't explain away. Dr. Josh Brown is a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University and the author of Proving a Miracle. As one of the world's leading researchers studying the empirical effects of prayer, he applies rigorous scientific methods to questions most scientists...

Tomas Samuel returns to the show to discuss his new book The Truth Unveiled: A Defense of the Trinity. Once trained to destroy anyone who challenged the Islamic faith, Tomas now devotes his scholarship to answering the most common Muslim objections to the triune nature of God, and his perspective is unlike anything you've heard. We walk through why the Trinity is the doctrine that Muslims attack m...

In this episode, Dr. Stephen Meyer is back to set the record straight and unpack the bigger argument his critics keep missing. This is the first part of a response to Sir Roger Penrose who recently pushed back on a previous conversation with me on the show. Stephen calls it a "pick your poison" argument and once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's a dilemma at the heart of modern cosmology that p...

*Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA ( https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program ( https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: ( https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@...

Is the universe fine-tuned for life? Or has the fine-tuning argument been defeated? In this conversation, I sit down with Dr. Jay Richards, a philosopher, co-author of The Privileged Planet, and one of the world's leading defenders of the fine-tuning argument to explore one of the most compelling cases for design today. Dr. Richards walks through how the fine-tuning argument has improved over 30 y...

Today, we sit down with Dr. Doug Axe, a molecular biologist, Caltech and Cambridge researcher, and author of Undeniable. He's here to discuss one of the most consequential questions in science: could a functional protein arise by chance? This protein folding experiment changed everything and is why Doug became a Darwin doubter at Berkeley. Join us Tuesday April 21 at 4:30 PT to follow up on the co...

"If the universe needs a cause, what caused God?" In this episode, Dr. Sean McDowell and Dr. Tim Pickavance dive into the metaphysical heart of the universe's origin. They move past the scientific data of the Big Bang to explore the logic behind it. Discover why "nothing" is incapable of creation, why the laws of mathematics are "causally effete," and why an infinite past would make the present mo...

Today, I talk with Dr. Stephen Meyer, a Cambridge-trained philosopher of science, about his belief in God about the beginning of the universe and how it points to a Creator. And as Science has progressed it has in fact helped in the case for God. WATCH THE FILM: https://www.fathomentertainment.com/releases/the-story-of-everything/ *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA ( ht...

What is the "Islamic Dilemma," and is it really an unanswerable challenge for Islam? In this conversation, David Wood join us to discuss some of the biggest questions facing Islam today. We explore David’s journey to faith that began in prison, his friendship with the late Christian convert and apologist Nabeel Qureshi, and the main reasons many Muslims begin questioning their faith today. F...

I sat down with Bart Ehrman to explore one of the most important questions in philosophy and faith: Is morality objective or is it simply a product of human development over time? Today, I'm reviewing the debate live with you!  READ: Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West by Bart D. Ehrman ( https://amzn.to/3O85zhU) WATCH: A New Approach to...

Is what’s happening in the Middle East connected to biblical prophecy? I'm sitting down with Mark Hitchcock to discuss the role of Iran (ancient Persia), Israel, and the end times. Together, we examine key passages from Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, consider whether events today could relate to Ezekiel 38, and talk about how to approach biblical prophecy with wisdom, clarity, and humility. *G...

In this live Q&A with professors, we tackle the toughest "deal-breaker" questions for the existence of God, focusing on the problem of divine hiddenness and the reality of religious hypocrisy. Rather than dodging the hard hits, we argue that God provides enough evidence for those who seek Him without being so overwhelming that He destroys human freedom, while also explaining why a church full...

Did the teachings of Jesus actually transform the moral conscience of the West? And if they did… does that point to objective moral truth or just cultural evolution? Today, I sat down with Bart Ehrman to explore one of the most important questions in philosophy and faith: Is morality objective or is it simply a product of human development over time? READ: Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachin...

Are the arguments for God’s existence still standing… or have they been defeated? After more than four decades of debates, writings, and public discussions, Dr. William Lane Craig offers a fascinating assessment of where the conversation stands today and why belief in God is far from intellectually obsolete. In this in-depth conversation with Sean McDowell, Dr. Craig walks through six...

Why are we hearing so many stories of Christian artists, pastors, apologists, and influencers who either abandon the faith or fail morally? Is something broken in Christian celebrity culture? And is there still hope for those who fall? Today, I have John James, founding member and former lead singer of the Newsboys, to talk about his new book: Newsboy, the failures and fractures inside Christian p...