 When you know the truth, it sets you free. And we're so glad you're joining us on this Monday on Hope Today. I'm here with Tom Hollis and Amanda Brocker. And we are gonna have a really great conversation coming up, Tom, with one of our dear friends. Oh, I know, one of our favorites. Well, listen, we all know someone who hasn't been showing up at church lately. Perhaps they just get out of the habit. A lot of people have. But statistics say that many people, especially young people have not only stopped attending church, they've even walked away from Christianity completely. So why is this happening now? Is this the end times falling away that's in the Bible? Well, Dr. Michael Brown, one of our favorites, he's gonna be with us and he's gonna share some of the important reasons for this exodus and what can be done about it. Guys, you know, many people got out of the habit during COVID, they got kind of out of the habit of going to church. But there's a bigger problem. And especially among young people. Now, I know there's been great things happening among young people too. But Amanda, we've been seeing some of this in the church, people walking away. That's right, I think until for each of us that we own this and desire to make a change. I think what Dr. Michael Brown's gonna bring to the table is something for all of us in a leadership role of which God has called each and every one of us to, that we need to have ears to hear and eyes to see and hearts to obey. Because I do believe there's things that we can do that would help change this. And it's hard for me. I have young adults in my family and I know my greatest desires to see them seek after God but I can also see the ploys of the world and how it has tried to pull in different directions. You know, I know a lot of times we're talking about young people, we're talking about millennials. I'm a millennial Gen Z and one thing even just seeing among my generation and the generation that is coming up. I think what's really happening is they're tired of things that look fake. And so I think that's the biggest thing is why people walk away when they see scandals or they see things that are happening that doesn't line up with Jesus. And just to give you some encouragement, like over the weekend actually was part of a thing called Acoustic Soul that was started by Macedonia Church of Pittsburgh. And it was young people that were like 30 and under all different churches in the city of Pittsburgh just worshiping together. So I just really know that even what we see the shaking and shifting in the culture I do see among generation Z and millennials that there's really this coming together but there's just this hunger where we're like we wanna know the truth. We wanna see what's real. And so a lot of things I think that our generation has grown up with and we've seen were like there's just certain things that just don't cut it. We can discern what's real and what's fake. So I think this is a great time for us is like the body of Christ to see like what are some things that we can do to change to make sure that we're like presenting Christ in the right way. So people are like, I don't wanna be part of that. So that's like my take on it as the young generation and just what I'm seeing in the culture today. I think that's a really good point. And I would encourage anyone to if you are watching this show and you know someone that maybe has walked away deconstructed as they say, you might maybe tell them to watch one of the re-heirs or to catch us on YouTube. But anyway, nowadays it seems like more and more Christians are leaving the faith. Church pews seem emptier and even Christian leaders. Some Christians, some name Christian leaders actually walked away and are renouncing their faith. The question is why is this happening? Well, our next guest says this is a complex question but the answer is a critical one to understand. Dr. Michael Brown is the author of the book why so many Christians have left the faith. And he joins us now to confront the deconstructionist movement with unshakable, timeless truth. Dr. Brown, it's great to have you with us again on Hope Today. Well, thanks for having me. Always, always great to be with you. Well, Sydney just said it and we've seen some young people especially that have the Asbury revival and things that have happened where people have strongly entered into following the Lord but we're seeing something else. Could you kind of set the table for us here? What is happening? What does it mean to deconstruct because we're hearing that word a lot? What is happening with people, especially young people in many cases walking away from the faith? Yeah, I'm constantly around on fire young people just like Sydney mentioned, people with Gen Z, young millennials going after the Lord sold out on fire. So God is moving many hearts and lives but so many have turned away, so many have dropped out and it's kind of a perfect storm. On the one hand, you have the scandals that were mentioned and that's very, very intense when young people see this one, that one falling, this well-known leader, you wonder, okay, who can I trust? Who's for real? What about this Jesus stuff? It's not lining up, maybe the whole thing is bogus. Then you have a lot of the objections that became very popular about 15 years ago. There was the wave of the so-called new atheists, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and Daniel Denniden and a lot of their objections attacking God, attacking the Bible, kind of trickled their way down to the general public. Josh McDowell once told me that objections used to run into, with college age kids, he was not running into with kids who were 12 or 13 years old. They couldn't even process a lot of the stuff but they just knew God is bad, the Bible's bad. There's also been a major shift in the culture which has become so gay affirming, trans affirming. Well, if gay is good, then the church is bad. Then the Bible is against my friend, is against my cousin. So that perception has been very powerful as well. Something else that's happened is that just with everything available on the internet, that anyone can find objections to their faith and this attack and that attack and often, even though the answers are readily there, that there are many people who don't know how to get those answers. It seems often that the error is more accessible than the truth. These and a number of other factors I get into, each in a separate chapter in the book, this is something that's going on to the point that deconstructing has become a popular thing. You even have the term X evangelical. So I used to be an evangelical. I'm not anymore. And of course it's not just evangelicals. People have been dropping out. So the first thing we need to do is recognize this is happening. Recognize even for example, professing Christians in America in a decade went from about 75% down to 65%. Now many of them are not real Christians to start but many others have left and have major questions about coming back. College campuses are often so hostile to the faith and so negative that we raise our kids, we pour into them for 18 years and set them off to college and immediately they got bombarded with stuff they weren't expecting. And then there's just sin and the flesh in the world is so accessible. I mean you have kids as young as eight getting exposed to porn for their first time. There's just stuff out there a lot to pull you away from the Lord. So the first thing we need to do is understand what's happening. Not deny it and not stick our head in the sand. The second thing is we need to have love and empathy for those who are struggling. As opposed to condemning people with doubts, we need our churches to be a safe place where they can come with their doubts and their questions. We need our kids to be able to come to us with their doubts, with their questions, with their issues. And then what we need to do and I seek to do this in every chapter in the book is to say, hey, that's a good question. We have a good answer. That's a fair thing to raise. Let's address it together. So rather than push the people away rather than give a cheap answer, even if we don't have an answer, say, okay, let's search this out together because I'm confident we're on the side of truth. Let's search this out together. What a great way to set this up, but let me ask you about some of those specifics. Let's talk about the LGBTQ situation because we want to take a stand for what's true, clearly true from scripture, but we also want to love people but it doesn't seem like we're given that opportunity. If we're not completely affirming, then we're thought of as evil. How do we navigate that situation? One thing has to be relational. Sometimes you just need to sit with a person because things are caricatured. We are all perceived as if we're on the street corner saying God hates fags and holding up signs like that. So there is this extreme caricature that we need to overcome and a lot of it is done relationally. Then we can point to say where things have gone because even many gay activists, lesbian activists, they're not happy with transgender activism. They're not happy either with the general mutilation and chemical castration of kids or boys competing with girls in sports. So we need to say, hey, look, do you think I'm hateful when I say a 13-year-old girl shouldn't have a full mastectomy because she's confused about the gender? Look at this one and this one, they're 17, they're 18. They regret what they did. You think it's hateful and you just go through things specifically and then just say, hey, look, do you think there's a difference between a mom and a dad, between a man and a woman? Could it be that God intended something? Now you may differ with me, but can you see there's nothing hateful in what I'm saying? And then if you can point them to people who are ex-gay, who are ex-trans, to say, look, Jesus really brings life. He really brings transformation. It's not a matter of hating people. It's an agenda that I oppose that I believe is dangerous, but people I care about, and then one-on-one relationally, show them the love of God and show them a better way. Amen. I just love the term of relationship. I think that we need to do a better job of really getting to know people and until they know how much we care for them, they don't really wanna know what we know. So it's really important that relationship. But I wanted to ask you about a term in your book. It's me-centered gospel. And you talk about how this basically equals putting God on trial. So talk to us, number one, about what is me-centered gospel and how are we putting God on trial? Yeah, the American gospel could be summarized as this is who I am, this is how I feel, and God is here to please me. Whereas the biblical gospel is this is who God is. This is how he feels when we're here to please him. Somehow now we have to justify God to people. When people come under conviction of sin, they wanna know how can I get right with God? Now we somehow have to prove to people that God is okay, that he's not some moral monster, the way he's been portrayed by others. My friend, Professor Darryl Bach likes to say that in the old days we used to tell people it's true because it's in the Bible. Now we have to tell them it's in the Bible because it's true. We have to start with some different premises and we can't just assume that the authority of scripture is something that's gonna be real in the lives of the people that we speak with. As far as the nature of the gospel, there are variations of it in a lot of our American preaching, but it's pretty much how Jesus died to make me into a bigger and better me. How through Jesus I can fulfill all my dreams and goals and everything will go well and if it doesn't well then I'm out of here. I mean, think of, think of, you expect that you're gonna be going to a vacation, instead you're going to boot camp. You show up there, it's like, I'm out of here. What's this? I didn't sign up for this. So we don't preach a gospel in so much of America that convicts us of our sin that makes us understand our great need for God to go running to the cross. We don't preach a gospel of repentance. We don't preach a gospel that tells people take up your cross, follow me. So when the shaking comes, when the testing comes, a lot of these converts prove to be either superficial converts or false converts. So a lot of the bad fruit we're seeing is because of the compromised message that we've been preaching for decades. You know, Dr. Michael Brown, as you're talking about this compromised message and I was just thinking about and wanted to ask you too is just because of this compromised message, is that one of the reasons we are seeing people that just don't want to come to Jesus because it's not a true gospel that there's actually this false gospel that is rising up in our culture and is rising up in America that is really like shaking things. Cause I hear even now that there's people from other countries coming to America to evangelize because we are in such a dire and desperate situation and we're not fully aware of what's happening. You know, Sydney in 1990, I wrote the book How Saved Are We? And I mentioned missionaries coming from other countries to America. This is 1990 because they saw the condition that our country was in. So yeah, some of us have been shouting about this compromised message. It's kind of like the pastor is a life coach who's just gonna give you a pep talk every week and encourage you and we could all use encouragement and life coaches do a lot of good but the gospel is so much deeper than that. So we've seen the sifting COVID of course, very painful and I took the lives of people that we love but with it also brought a lot of sifting and for some it's like, hey, I'm stay at home and enjoy the message just the same. It's like, well, no, being part of a church is not just enjoying a message. It's making a life commitment with the community together to serve the Lord and to serve one another. So the bad news is we've seen a lot of sifting. The good news is that those who are really going for it are seeing blessing. I mean, I minister in church it's not because I'm showing up but their normal Sunday service, they're packed out. They can't find enough room for the people. They'll call for a prayer meeting and the building will be filled. And a lot of the people up front worshiping going after God are young people. I know that if we'll really preach an authentic gospel and the power of the spirit and we'll really live it out together that people will come flocking because they're hungry, they're thirsty, they're hopeless especially that a young people depressed, suicidal, drug addict, fentanyl is the number one killer of people aged 18 to 45 in America. I mean, these are real crises. COVID was a crisis and the world doesn't have answers. We have the real eternal hope that has real relevance in this world. If we'll proclaim it, live it out without shame people will come flocking. Oh yeah, I love that Dr. Brown. I, you know, there's a scripture just a phrase really where Paul says Demas having loved this present world has left me and so we see even from the earliest church where people walked away from God. What do we do? How is it that we're able to encourage these people, the ones that have walked away? Of course we wanna stop the tide if we can but people that have walked away and have serious questions or serious hurts how can they be brought back? Yeah, I wrote why so many Christians have left the faith for those who are falling away or have fallen away along with for those that wanna help and understand. So the first thing, never underestimate the power of prayer. My best friend before I was saved then after I was saved, he got saved right before me. I was best man in his wedding. He was best man in my wedding. He was away from the Lord for over 40 years if you can imagine that. And we were out of touch for the great bulk of that time but many times I would pray for him in tears. Last couple of years, not only has he come back to the Lord but he is on fire. I mean he recently got diagnosed with liver cancer. It's like, hey, Mike, I think I got more work to do here preaching the gospel but if not I'm gonna go be with the Lord. He goes, I'm not scared. It's like, he's on fire. It's amazing. Just shares the gospel and radiates everywhere. He goes over 40 years away. So don't lose hope. But for those that say 40 years is a long time doesn't have to be that long. Never underestimate the power of prayer. That's the first thing. And then second thing, reach out in a non-condemning way and say, hey, what's going on in your life? And if people are hostile, maybe they're gonna lash out at you because you represent the church. Maybe they got hurt or burned or something. Maybe they think you're part of the problem. You're a narrow-minded bigot. What you wanna do is demonstrate real love. And when they hit you with objections to different things rather than being defensive for yourself because maybe they insulted what you believe and maybe they make you feel bad about what you believe and maybe they raise questions you don't have answers to, rather than responding in a defensive way, say, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I could see it from your perspective. Are you open to talk? Are you open to read something? We even have a list of resources in the back of the book that you can tell someone, hey, check out this website. Or are you willing to talk to people, scholars and theologians and philosophers who might be able to help you and see if by reaching out, if by hearing them out, if by understanding, you can help point them back in the right direction. But again, never underestimate the power per. I can't tell you how many times during the Browns River Revival in Pensacola, we saw baptisms on Friday night, especially big guys fresh out of prison. Instead of, I was raised in the faith, I fell away from God. But mama, she kept on praying. I mean, these big guys break down and weeping. I've had women call my show. I was living a lesbian lifestyle for 20 years, but my mom never stopped loving me and praying for me. And I love Jesus now and I'm free and I'm living a new life. So never underestimate that. I know you have prayer sent to there. Never underestimate the power of prayer. Wow, wow, I love that. I love that the power of prayer comes back to that. I do want to ask you a question because I teased it up front. I want to ask you if you think this is the predicted end times falling away, the great apostasy, is this that or is this just something else we're seeing? I don't believe it is that final one that's spoken of the rebellion in Second Thessalonians 4, the falling away, Jesus speaks of in Matthew 24. It's probably the most significant one I've seen in my lifetime in the Lord. I've been saved 51 years now. So I think it's the biggest, most widespread that I've seen, but it's not happening all over the world. In other words, as the Holy Spirit's moving in Asia, as the Holy Spirit's moving in the content of Africa, as the Holy Spirit's moving in Latin America, they're seeing far more harvest than apostasy. They're seeing a mass of turning and in the midst of this, and an outpouring is taking place, I got on radio about eight days before Asbury and said, listen, I've known this for a while, but I've got to declare it the first wave of the next revival and outpouring has already hit America. It's just the beginning, but the first wave of the next outpouring has already hit, and then eight days later, Asbury happened, which is kind of to me like a divine exclamation point to say something was going on. But either way, regardless of whether it's the last one or just the most serious one that many of us have seen in our lifetimes, we're still called to reach out to those who've fallen away. Our loved one that no longer believes, our pastor, that apostasy, our best friend, that's not a statistic. That's a person that we love and for whom Jesus died, and therefore we want to do everything we can to help bring them back to the faith. Absolutely. Would you take a moment? We have just about a minute left. Would you take a moment and pray for those out there that they may be one who deconstructed or maybe they have a son or daughter that has? Would you just pray for those folks? Yeah. Father, I pray first for those who are struggling that are watching right now and to those who actually don't even believe and don't even know why they're watching. Lord, light a fire in their hearts. Make them to understand that you alone are the fountain of life, that in you alone is found forgiveness and cleansing and peace and joy and eternal life. Lord, make them uneasy with wrong choices and give them a grace as they turn back to you. May they encounter you afresh. May the questions disappear as they encounter you. And Lord, for those of us who have friends, loved ones who have fallen away, may there be a fresh spirit of persevering love to pray them back, to love them back, to help them back. May we have the joy of seeing them return like the prodigal son. May there be a great celebration when they do to give us confidence and wisdom. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. The book is called, Why So Many Christians Have Left the Faith by Dr. Michael L. Brown. Dr. Brown, thank you so much for being with us. My joy, thanks for having me. Well, important conversation, and we're gonna be coming right back after a quick break with an important scripture for you. Remember your childhood joy and excitement when being invited to a party? You felt valued, included, wanted, and ready to have a good time. Best-selling author Bob Goff believes that every day of life can be lived with the same childlike enthusiasm and sense of humor. Inside Love Does, you'll learn that love is a verb, not just a feeling. His insights and joyful reflections will help you discover what it means to live fully alive, even as you serve others. Prepare to encounter remarkable stories from Bob Goff's life as he shares how living and loving to the fullest is the best way to make Jesus known in this world. Request your copy of Love Does when you give your best gift this month. Your gift today will help Cornerstone Television show the life-changing love of Jesus through Christ-centered TV programs. Call us at 888-665-4483 or give at ctvn.org slash donate. Wow, I just, I love the interview with Dr. Michael Brown and bringing that relationship to the forefront and its importance and I just, I wanna say the saying again, I didn't come up with it, but I've learned it, but it says people don't care what you know until they know how much you care. So I think we need to be more eager to build a relationship, establish some type of foundation, have something in common, you know, it says in the New Testament with someone before we wanna point out any wrong. We really just need to love them right where they're at and the Holy Spirit will do His work, but this is a really important thing. We're gonna go to the scripture right now. James 5, 19 and 20, it says my brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this, whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. That's really important. So those relationships being established and built in order to see that one turn away and turn around. Wow, I pray that the Lord would just quicken your heart now that that person, maybe they've aggravated you and you've just wanted to tell them a thing or two, you know, just take a step back and allow the Holy Spirit to use you to draw that person to Himself, Sidney. It's so important. Well, I think it's so important. I think a lot of times like we can be in church for so many years and you forget about where you once were or where you were wandering down a road or a path that didn't line up with God. And so I think it is so important. Relationship is the way that's what Jesus said. You didn't see Jesus like yelling at people or throwing things down their throat. He was one on one, a relationship, speaking to them intimately. He didn't embarrass them when it came to us. And I think we really need to just go back to God's Word and just even get those strategies of how to really love on people, how to communicate with people. Because I think one of the things why we see so much deconstructionism, why we see so many young people turning from the faith, it's because we did not act in love. And I think it's a time for us to like repent and just say, you know what? I didn't act in love in that moment, but you know that God's mercies begin new every morning and that we can take that step and love on people. And you know, one thing that has just been so encouraging at my church at Petra International Ministries is just I'm seeing it in action where it's just like talking about the truth, we're looking at the word, this is what the Bible says, this is what the word says and we're gonna stand on it. But loving people that you know, like Tom and Amanda, I mean we've just seen people come to the altar that it's just like the society is like turned their back on them, but they're hungry and they're desperate and it's the love that will draw people. It's the love when you see them in the midst of their brokenness and they're like, hey, I'm struggling, I messed up or whatever it may be, but when we love them in that place and speak that truth and walk with them, that's when we really see true transformation and just see God just move in a powerful ways, Tom. Well, you know, love is an expression of something that's real, something that really matters. And I think of the man who was healed by Jesus and people were questioning, you know, the Pharisees were questioning and they said, well, he's a sinner and he goes, I don't know whether he's a sinner or not, but I used to be blind and now I see. And when that kind of thing, when that reality, oh God, hit someone, it doesn't matter. The things, all the arguments don't matter anymore, all the objections don't matter. What matters is I really encountered God. I really had something that was really different, something that was powerful, something that was life changing and I felt the love of God in a way that I've never felt before. That's what God is after in everybody's life, in your life and in mine, that it wouldn't be religion, that it wouldn't be even just the reading of the word in a kind of a dead way. It would be life and truth. Whether he's a sinner or not, I don't know, but where I was blind, now I see. That's what matters. It's so important to know that God is real. He's real and he loves you. No matter how distant you feel from him, he's running toward you and he loves you. And I think that is just such a place that we are, just as we begin to land this plane of hope today and we just hope that as you've been watching, that you just know that he loves you and the most important thing is this whole relationship with God, what made Jesus so controversial because he wasn't coming to establish a religion, but it was a relationship, it was a movement and that's what he wants to do. He wants to move in your spirit, move in your heart, move in your mind so you walk in the truth today. Have a good one. On tomorrow's Hope Today, providing help and hope to those ministering in smaller places. Pastor and author Ronnie Martin identifies the struggles that go along with pastoring in small towns and offers advice to help church leaders engage their people with the gospel. Don't miss tomorrow's Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.