Huff did not stop there, though. Towards the end of the interview, he asked Rogan, "What do you think of Jesus?"
The practice and discipline of Christian apologetics has a long and storied history. From the beginning, after Jesus' ascension, the apostles proclaimed and argued positively for the truth of the good news in Jerusalem and throughout the Roman Empire. Paul's speech on Mars Hill (Acts 17:22-31) and apology at the court of Herod Agrippa (Acts 26:1-29) are but a few examples of how the apostles didn't just assert what they believed. They backed it up with the evidence for both fulfilled prophecy and the fact of the resurrection.
Early Christian apologists made clear that the good news of Jesus was not some myth or fairy tale. It was the truth, they contended, for the incarnation and God's work of reconciling the world unto himself "did not happen in a corner" (Acts 26:26). Even so, Christianity encountered much resistance. Rome's intellectuals tried to discredit it, characterizing it as a "pernicious superstition" (Tacitus, Annals, 15.44), and Jews developed stories designed to demonize it by characterizing Jesus as a charlatan and practitioner of black magic.
The earliest literary critique of Christianity was written in the second century by a Roman philosopher named Celsus. Entitled, The True Word, and only known through Origen's extensive quotations of it in Against Celsus, the work is aggressive if not combative. It describes Jesus as a sorcerer and likens Christians to a swarm of bats. The thrust of Celsus' argument is that the story of the gospel and subsequent theology of Christianity was an invention of the apostles and their co-conspirators.
The presumption that the gospel can't be factually true is ubiquitous in anti-Christian writings of the past and present. It's especially prominent today among revisionist historians. It is the operating assumption behind their claims that the canon of Scripture (especially the four Gospels) and the peculiar doctrines of Christianity (such as the deity of Christ and tri-unity of God) only really took shape in the fourth century (after Constantine's conversion and the Council of Nicaea).
These ideas aren't just found in the polemics of the academic or the intellectual elite anymore. They've grown in influence over the last three decades in popular discourse on Christianity, seemingly making their way into every mainstream documentary and podcast that touches on early Christian history.
For example, such ideas are fully displayed in the content produced by Billy Carson. Carson is the founder and CEO of 4BiddenKnowledge TV, an online streaming service advancing what he calls a new consciousness. He is also a best-selling author and (alleged) expert on ancient texts and civilizations. He has been featured in notable publications such as Rolling Stone, Time, and USA Today and has appeared on several popular podcasts.
One of his hobbies is deconstructing historic Christianity by casting doubt on its most basic truth claims. He attempted to do this in a recently released YouTube debate with Canadian apologist Wesley Huff. From the beginning, Carson went for what he thought was the jugular of Christianity—the crucifixion of Jesus—as he argued that there were good historical grounds for doubting it along with any of the events recorded in the Gospels. He cited two sources as his evidence—the Gospel of Jesus' Wife and the Gospel of Barnabas—and very quickly, Huff pointed out the profound weakness of his evidence, for both sources are well-known and very late Gospel forgeries.
The conversation went downhill from there. Carson's lack of basic historical knowledge in his alleged areas of expertise continued to be exposed throughout. And he seemed to know it, for he abruptly left the recording studio and subsequently tried to keep the debate from being published. He even threatened legal action. Huff, however, obtained the recording and released it in early December.
The ensuing controversy made enough of a splash that Joe Rogan, host of one of the most widely listened to podcasts on the planet, invited Huff to come down to his studio in Austin, Texas, for a long-form interview in late December. While Rogan has had Christians on in the past (for example, Stephen C. Meyer made a stellar case for a creator from science back in the summer of 2024), this was the first time a Christian apologist was invited to speak specifically on the historicity of the gospel.
The conversation was wide-ranging, moving from Huff's interesting autobiography to the linguistic features of ancient languages. It eventually moved toward the reliability and historicity of the Bible. Huff masterfully and winsomely navigated all the questions Rogan asked, demonstrating that the biblical text has been reliably transmitted, the canonical Gospels were written by or drawn from eyewitnesses, and the death and resurrection of Jesus were, according to an abundance of evidence, historical events.
Christianity is not a religion that arose from mythology; it makes factual claims, is substantiated by evidence, and can be investigated by normal historical methods, and most importantly, its central message is the death of Jesus for sins and the justification of sinners.
Huff did not stop there, though. Towards the end of the interview, he asked Rogan, "What do you think of Jesus?" And this is where things got interesting. Rogan was uncertain. He acknowledged Jesus' uniqueness and tremendous influence. He even described what Christians confess about him—that he is the son of God who died for our sins—but ultimately only went so far as to acknowledge that Jesus was a great moral example, a guru of sorts whose teachings would lead to a better life. Huff's response to this was beautiful:
If Jesus is a moral example it actually misses what I think Jesus actually said about what his purpose was in that you can't do enough to actually live up to the standard that God holds you to, and so if you keep striving you're actually gonna wear yourself out and be exhausted.
Christianity isn't a system of moralism. Nor was Jesus some type of archetypal being, as Jordan Peterson suggests (In the interview, Huff speaks directly to this suggestion). Rather, it is an objective confession of what God did in time and space for the sins of the world.
Throughout the interview, this was made clear. In the end, Huff gave Rogan and his millions of listeners and viewers much food for thought: Christianity is not a religion that arose from mythology; it makes factual claims, is substantiated by evidence, and can be investigated by normal historical methods, and most importantly, its central message is the death of Jesus for sins and the justification of sinners.
What is most amazing is that this all came out loud and clear without pretense or arrogance on a show like the Joe Rogan Experience. With well over 14 million listeners, some are claiming this is the most widely listened to defense of the gospel in history. Thank God for Wesley Huff and others who, like St. Paul, were set apart by God and "put here for the defense of the gospel" (Phil. 1:16) as they persist in demonstrating that what Christians have believed through the ages is not "a cleverly devised myth" (2 Pt. 1:16).
.jpg?width=36&height=36&name=staff_Headshots-(3%20of%2013).jpg){kind=small}
