<\/p>\n
Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle are on an apologetics mission to demolish doubt and help people better understand the Gospel.<\/p>\n
Their new book, \u201cDemolishing Doubt: Discover How Your Deepest Questions Can Lead to Life-Giving Faith,\u201d helps people navigate the uncertainties of faith and arrive at key answers that will inform their faith journeys.<\/p>\n
Listen to the latest\u00a0episode\u00a0of \u201cQuick Start\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Cliffe recently told CBN News his long history in apologetics helped prepare the father-son duo for the project.<\/p>\n \u201cFor 46 years, I\u2019ve been dialoguing with university students on campuses around the United States, and whenever I\u2019m confronted by an atheist, I love to, first of all, go through the evidence for the existence of God, then the evidence for the reliability of the New Testament Gospels, then the evidence for the reliability of Christ, and then \u2026 what is real faith,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He said a friend challenged him to write a book that follows this logic, and the apologist ended up heeding that advice.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the line of thought that I followed from atheism, evidence for the existence of God, to evidence for the reliability of the Gospels, to the evidence for the trustworthiness of Christ, and then to what is real faith,\u201d Cliffe said.<\/p>\n This is the very approach that has repeatedly made both Cliffe and Stuart go viral, as their interactions and responses tend to resonate deeply with those they encounter.<\/p>\n Stuart said he believes some of the duo\u2019s online success stems from speaking out about free speech concerns \u2014 a dynamic that started more political and ended up moving into apologetics.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we started off, our videos actually were mainly geared towards just refuting the anti-free speech we see in our nation, kind of that anti-free religion, anti-free speech, and then the other ideologies we could name that I won\u2019t right now that have come along with that,\u201d he said. \u201cI think those first few months of us going on social media, people were just all about the free speech, and then slowly we brought the Gospel in after a couple months, \u2019cause that was kind of our pre-evangelism piece.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the most fascinating elements of Cliffe\u2019s journey has been the many decades he has spent sharing the Gospel. Over that time, he said there hasn\u2019t been much change in the types of questions people have been asking about God.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a tremendous similarity between the questions that were asked 45 years ago and the questions that are asked today,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the definition of tolerance has definitely changed. When I first began, tolerance meant we disagree, but we\u2019re gonna try and respect each other. Then it morphed into, \u2018Well, we all really are saying the same thing even if we contradict each other, and tolerance \u2026 just means being brain dead and accepting everything as equally valid, even if you\u2019re contradicting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Cliffe continued, \u201cBut now \u2026 tolerance has morphed into, \u2018Well, I\u2019m right, you\u2019re wrong, and I\u2019m gonna cancel you,\u2019 and I think it was epitomized by two lesbians at Texas State University who said to me, \u2018You can\u2019t really love us. You can\u2019t be our friend.’\u201d<\/p>\n He recalled telling the women that he truly loved them and that he was commanded by Jesus to do just that. He told the couple he also has love for people who are racist, despite disagreeing with such sentiment.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough I strongly disagree with racism and will communicate to that person why racism is wrong, I still respect them as human beings created in the image of God, loved by God, and given gifts by God,\u201d Cliffe said.<\/p>\n One of the most interesting elements of Cliffe\u2019s and Stuart\u2019s work is their firsthand accounts of seeing spiritual outpouring across the nation. When asked if he believes something is truly unfolding on that front, Stuart was candid.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery organization we talk to on all these major campuses, all of them will say, \u2018We\u2019ve had a huge spike in numbers,’\u201d he said. \u201cSome, I mean, exponentially larger just within six to 12 months.\u201d<\/p>\n With faith seemingly surging among Gen Z, he believes something could be afoot.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever you define it, I think if we look at it numerically speaking, definitely the statistics and not just the anecdotal evidence is there,\u201d Stuart said.<\/p>\n Cliffe agreed, noting he sees revival \u201cin pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike it or not, when we go to the University of Tennessee, University of Georgia, Texas A&M, Mississippi State, the crowds are much larger than when we go to Harvard, MIT, Yale, Brown, Cornell,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the Northeast and the Northwest are in the grip of an incredible secularism, materialism, atheism, agnosticism.\u201d<\/p>\n Cliffe added, though, that even in those tougher geographic areas there is an increased excitement and openness to Christ, even if among smaller groups of people.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very excited for what the Holy Spirit is doing in people\u2019s hearts and minds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Despite this excitement, Cliffe also offered a caution: revival aside, \u201cthere also is a stranglehold that secularism has\u201d on some college campuses, with professors at government colleges driving much of this dynamic. And the impact on young people is profound.<\/p>\n With all of this in mind, the duo is hoping \u201cDemolishing Doubt: Discover How Your Deepest Questions Can Lead to Life-Giving Faith\u201d helps people confront their doubts.<\/p>\n \u201cDoubt can be good,\u201d Cliffe said. \u201cDoubt has motivated me to study. I am not a natural student. It doesn\u2019t come naturally to me. But when I have doubts and when my faith in Christ is being challenged seriously in my own head or from the mouth of a skeptic standing in front of me, that\u2019s gotta be motivating me to study harder and to find better answers.\u201d<\/p>\n He said unbelief grows when people stop thinking and cave into their emotions. Watch Cliffe and Stuart describe these issues above.<\/p>\n As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for\u00a0Faithwire\u2019s daily newsletter\u00a0and download the\u00a0CBN News app, developed by our parent establishment, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle are on an apologetics mission to demolish doubt and help people better understand the Gospel. Their new book, \u201cDemolishing Doubt: Discover How Your Deepest Questions Can Lead to Life-Giving Faith,\u201d helps people navigate the uncertainties of faith and arrive at key answers that will inform their faith journeys. Listen to the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3470,3238,6425,4571,821,10235,328],"class_list":["post-30726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-breaks","tag-cliffe","tag-deliver","tag-knechtle","tag-revival","tag-stuart","tag-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}