Joe Rogan and Wesley Huff
Many Christians who enjoy many of the subjects Joe Rogan highlights on his podcast, have hoped that he would bring a Christian Apologist onto his program. While it is completely up to God to save anyone who is saved, God allows us to participate with Him in the spreading of the Gospel. We want to think that if a person hears the Gospel presented from the right perspective, they will accept it and I have always wanted Joe to hear the facts that support the claims of Christianity.
A few months ago, Wesley Huff was an up-and-coming Christian Apologist, with “Apologetics Canada” as he worked on completing his PhD. He would post some YouTube videos and Instagram reels on different subjects related to Christian Apologetics in relative obscurity compared to many of the major channels on YouTube. Then came the opportunity to converse with Billy Carson about the nonsense he has been peddling unopposed for years. Politely, Wes exposed Billy as only having a very surface level of knowledge on the subjects he has been claiming to be an expert in. The video went viral and suddenly Wesley’s YouTube channel blew up to over 100,000 subscribers almost overnight. This caught the attention of Joe Rogan, who had previously had Billy Carson as “an expert guest” on his program.
The conversation between Joe Rogan and Wesley Huff lasted about 3 hours and was very interesting. Wesley would make a point about the reliability of the biblical manuscripts as compared to other ancient documents, which would seem to get Joe’s attention but Joe would then quickly pivot off to another area of discussion. But in the last ten minutes of the discussion, Wesley finally asked the million-dollar question, “What do you think about the person of Jesus?” In scripture, Jesus asks this question, “But who do you say that I am?” Joe answered the question in a manner that tried to leave open the possibility that Jesus was just a good and wise moral teacher. The answer was so similar to the ideas presented by Jordan Peterson that Wes made that connection to Peterson, immediately and showed Joe that this wasn’t even a logical option given what Jesus taught. Wes didn’t quote C.S. Lewis but the objection is the same one raised by Lewis in Mere Christianity:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” (C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity)
No, Joe Rogan didn’t come to the faith during the interview but you could see the wheels were turning. The seed was planted. Only time will tell whether the seed fell on stony ground or somewhere it could take root but after years of chasing down hundreds of rabbit trails Joe Rogan finally was presented with the most important question of his life, which is the most important question that each of us must answer, “Who do we say that Jesus is?”