A Near Apostate Keeps the Faith through Church Hurt, Doubt, and Addiction with Bobby Conway 

Well done. Loved what he had to say. He was real, honest and so glad he dealt with some difficult questions so many Christians have. He is fighting the fight with honesty!!

Thank you Alisa for having this great, great discussion with Bobby Conway! For one thing, it motivated me to check out "apologetics". Further to that though, a lot of what Bobby Conway shared resonated with me, especially the importance of being willing to be transparent (with those I can trust of course). It took me a long time as a Christian (36 years) to take that step. At the age of 58, I realized it was time for me to remove my "plastic veneer" I had been wearing based on how I thought it was important to portray myself as a great Christian (externally) in order to "feel" accepted and approved by fellow Christians. Prior to the first time I ever shared my struggles/weaknesses with other men within a Christian Based Recovery Program, I hated the scripture James 5:16 "Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed." Once I decided to be willing to do that, (in the right kind of environment of course), I sensed grace on a horizontal level from other men (no sense of condemnation or judgement). That truly motivated me to want to change and to "return to the Lord" with my whole heart. I have learned more about myself and have grown more in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in the last 14 years than my first 36 years as a Christian and healing has followed as well. Alisa, I have listened to other interviews you have done and have learned much. Thank you for exercising courage to present and share what you do!! Blessings on all that you do as unto the Lord!

"I gave myself to the mostly likely explanation". I love that!

What this guy says is just amazing!

A very informative and encouraging discussion. It was important to disclose the ups and downs of his walk because this is the real and common challenge to believers and non-believers alike. It's scary but it's okay. Don't give up on Jesus because He won't give up on you. Call on the name of the Lord. I did, and Jesus answered, many years ago now. After all I've been through and have studied, it really does all boil down to nourishing, growing, sustaining and protecting my relationship with Jesus.

This is an amazing interview. Brought me to my knees and back up again. Will be contemplating so much of this for the next few days. Thank you. Transparency, amen!

Im no pastor but I need this so much! I don’t feel alone now with my struggles , thank you!

Such a beautiful interview. Love this guy's transparency.

Very well done...both of you! There's the extreme of not caring about sin, as a Christian, to legalism or self loathing. Christ is Lord!

This was a far reaching discussion, but landed on the simple truth of surrender in faith to Jesus. Thank you both, Alisa & Bobby.

Thank you both for this open honest chat. I can soooo relate to so much of the content. I’m one of those “right brain” creatives and simultaneously a “left brain” intellectual analyser. . It’s only the true person and work of Jesus that can keep me “balanced “ between the two , when intellectual questions and strong emotions pull me towards the extremes , it’s the childlike dependence and trust in Jesus and abiding in His word that keeps me sane. And I’m so thankful for the ministry of folk like you. That has been such a blessing during the past two years of existential angst. The description “near apostate “ really got me! I’ve often thought of myself in those terms. The burden now is for those dear to me who seem to have abandoned the true gospel , who have asked questions and settled on the answers they prefer and the version of Jesus who only says things they want to hear. Thankyou again …… I think there might be a song in this to add to my growing collection of songs on the topic of apologetics! . I don’t think anyone has written one called Near Apostate !

Love this man's humble heart!!

I desperately needed this. Thank you.

Hi Alisa, love your interview to Pastor Bobby. I heard about you from Pastor Bobby and he wasn't wrong about you, you rock lady! Praise God for people like you and Bobby and your love for God ❤❤ what a blessing you are, thanks for your show ❤

Somethings you are just meant to leave to the mystery of God. We can’t understand it all. You meant to be learning a lifetime with the LORD through His word. Great conversation! Thanks!

God does open our hearts and minds when we decide to follow Him. I think that’s what it means by ‘the renewing of your mind’ in the Bible. When I became a Christian, He did just that: He opened my heart and my mind to understand what I hadn’t been able to understand before. And then He gave me a calling! 👍🏼

This is beautiful!

So applicable to my journey with the Lord. Thanks Alisa and Bobby!

Thank you alisa for bringing bobby conway on. He answered some questions that I had about loved ones that walked away from the faith and never could understand why? How could someone who loved reading the bible just walk away. But if they were experiencing similar doubts that bobby was in the past, it made sense. It at least answered some questions and gives me a new direction to pray for them as well. The part of his testimony about church hurt, was very relatable which broke my heart. I am thankful for my new church family that shepherd me well to be convicted on completely trust in God and his Word to transform my heart! But wanted you to know that this podcast was very timely! I thank you and I thank God for you and your ministry.

Doubt toward God. That's a good word.

This interview was fantastic. Thank. My faith is not hanging by a strong. But my love and commitment to my local church. Is. I'd love a podcast about the issues surrounding love for and commitment to the local church. I won't bore you with my story

Hello Alisa. I have a RU-vid channel in Portuguese targeted to Brazilian Pentecostals. Our denomination is very large, but winds of Word of Faith, New Age/New Thought, and of course, culture influence that lead to progressive Christianity, is moving around many churches. I read your book, and even mentioned in a couple of my classes. I would love the opportunity to make some of your videos available to my community, but it would have to be translated into Portuguese. Would you be willing to work that with me? How could I get in contact with you? Thank you, and many blessings, Manuela

Alister begg is a wonderful biblical pastor. I agree Alisa

Looking forward to hearing this!!

this was a terrific episode, thank you!

Wonderful!

Another great interview! The Lord is always glorified!

Beautiful!! 😍

Exactly how i feel just now 😥🙏

Fortunately, a similar thing has happened to me. I have arrived at a solid and stable foundation from which I can be in an open and perpetual state of learning through after a journey of miniature panics. I was basically raised Armenian/Wesleyan, WoF/prosperity, 6 day creation, and premil/pretrib eschatology. I thought that was the only Christianity there was, anything else was wrong and didn’t really know anything else existed. I had a mini panic every time I found out there was a different possibility on each of these points. But after going through that, I’ve grown a lot and now I have left WoF/prosperity, have a core understanding of the gospel & practically reformed, but I’m comfortably open to hearing the arguments for and possibly changing my mind on other views for creation and eschatology.

This really helped. I especially can relate to the obsessive analysing part. I'm glad I could watch this 😁. Edit: I really resonate with this!! 🙏🏽

Personally; I believe in an earth that is NOT billions, nor millions of years old. A man's theory which I think is very flawed.

Hey Alisa, do you know of Dr. Esau McCaulley? I have just listened to a couple of interviews with him and I think he is right up your alley to have an amazing conversation.

❤

The Universe is 14 BILLION years old. So, god created the universe 14 BILLION years ago and then sat around for 13.999999 BILLION years. LOL

Alisa, can you interview Greg Laurie, Jack Hibbs, or Amir Tsarfati? ... Regarding this interview: " Faith, hope, love..." Jesus probably knew some followers would "get in their heads". Could He have known we would need to come back to our childlike principles of belief?

why do I keep hearing knocking??

No instruments? Probably Church of Christ.

Why do Christians punish themselves? Because they think that is the way to get rid of their guilt. It's what Jesus did, they think, to get rid of their guilt and they want to follow Jesus. Sacrifice doesn't do it; forgiveness does. Matthew 12:7 "If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent."

Why would Jesus put Bobby through a dark time of doubt and alcoholism? Answer: Because Jesus wanted to test his faith. But Jesus already knew the outcome and didn't need to run a test. Well then Bobby decided that doubt led to drinking so he returned to his faith based life. I on the other hand allowed my doubt to show me the contradictions and barbarity in the Bible without becoming depressed and turning to drugs and alcohol.

William lane craig is a questionable leader to me. He is very confusing about his belief on God's creation biblically. I wish apologist wouldn't use him wouldn't as an example of godly leadership leadership.

"When we say…Jesus Christ…was produced without sexual union, and was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, ***we propound nothing new or different*** *from what you believe regarding those whom you call Sons of God. [In fact]…if anybody objects that [Jesus] was crucified, this is in* ***common*** *with the sons of Zeus (as you call them) who suffered, as previously listed [he listed Dionysus, Hercules, and Asclepius].* Since their fatal sufferings are all narrated as not similar but different, so his unique passion should not seem to be any worse." *Note how Justin (Martyr) is less of a fool than modern Christian apologists. He admits that differences don’t matter.* Since each and every one of the suffering and dying gods are slain by different means, one cannot argue the mytheme requires exactly the same means of death. “But Osiris can’t have inspired the Jesus myth because Osiris wasn’t nailed to a cross” is a stupid argument. The mytheme is simply death. Being killed. Suffering and dying. The exact mode of death can vary freely. It makes no difference to the existence and influence of the mytheme. It’s simply the particular instantiation of a generic abstraction. *And Justin’s argument (that Satan invented these fake religions to confuse people) entails Justin agreed the mytheme existed: indeed, it was demonically promulgated, multiple times. Intentionally.* *Likewise, Justin notices the mytheme is not virgin birth, but sexless conception. Of which many examples had already been popularized in pagan mythology (there just happens to also have been examples of actual virgin born gods as well). And by his argument (that the Devil was deliberately emulating the Jesus mytheme, in advance), Justin clearly accepted the same principle for “rising again” after death:* the particular exact metaphysics of the resurrection could, like the exact method of death or conception, vary freely. The mytheme consists solely of the abstraction: returning to life. Somehow. Some way. We will say bodily, at the very least. But what sort of body (the same one, a new one, a mortal one, an immortal one), didn’t matter. *If it had, Justin would have made the argument that “those gods” weren’t really resurrected. But that argument, never occurs to him. Nor did it to any other apologist of the first three centuries.* *Ancient Christians well knew there was nothing new about their dying-and-rising god. Not in respect to the mytheme.* Their claims were solely that his particular instantiation of it was better, and the only one that actually happened. *They didn’t make up the stupid modern arguments that dying-and-rising god myths didn’t exist or weren’t part of a common mytheme everyone knew about. For example, in the same century, Tertullian, in Prescription against Heretics 40, makes exactly the same argument as Justin. Funny that. They had better access to the evidence than we do. They knew what was really and widely the case. We should listen to them.* Google *"Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier"* ------------------------------------------------------------------ In addition, look up the below articles. *"Ehrman Errs: Yes, Bart, There Were Dying & Rising Gods - atheologica"* Watch *"Dying & Rising Gods: A Response to William Lane Craig"* by Derreck Bennett at Atheologica. *"The First Easters: Death and Resurrection Before Christ | atheologica"* *"The Christs Before Christ: Tammuz-Adonis | atheologica"* Watch *"Asclepius: The Pre-Christian Healer & Savior"* by Derreck Bennett at Atheologica *"Virgin Birth: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier"* *"5 Pagan Parallels to Jesus That Actually Aren’t Bullshit - Atheomedy"* *"Christian Apologetics: The Art of Deceit - Atheomedy"* *"Isaiah 53 & the Suffering Servant | atheologica"* *"Defending the Resurrection: It’s Easy if You Lie! - Atheomedy"* *"Rising Gods, Pagan Parallels, and Cultural Context: A Response to M. David Litwa | atheologica"* *"An Evidence Attested Resurrection? - chromosome two"* *"The Empty Tomb: A Rhetorical Dead End - atheologica"* *"Theological Dodgeball: On the Posturing of Faith over Reason | atheologica"* *"Majority of Scholars agree: The Gospels were not written by Eyewitnesses - Escaping Christian Fundamentalism"* A good site written by an actual Biblical scholar. *"Contradictions in the Bible | Identified verse by verse and explained using the most up-to-date scholarly information about the Bible, its texts, and the men who wrote them -- by Dr. Steven DiMattei"* *"How do we know that the biblical writers were* ***not*** *writing history? -- by Dr Steven DiMattei"* Also: *"How Did The Gospel Writers Know? - The Doston Jones Blog"* *"Yes, the Four Gospels Were Originally Anonymous: Part 1 - The Doston Jones Blog"* *"Are Stories in the Bible Influenced by Popular Greco-Roman Literature? - The Doston Jones Blog"* *"Gospels Not Written By Matthew, Mark, Luke or John - The Church Of Truth"*

This is so fake, Christian poopaganda at it's worst(aka fineset).

How can you be advocating for historical Christianity? You are a woman. Women are not suppose to preach or teach a man. Why are you talking to apologist? Historically you are supposed to believe in everything that the Bible says. Shouldn't you be explaining Noah's Ark right about now?