Joe Rogan, still the largest podcast host in the world, had Wesley Huff on his podcast. Wesley Huff is currently the Central Canada Director for Apologetics Canada and PhD candidate in New Testament studies at the University of Toronto. He is also an elder at West Toronto Baptist Church. He is a conservative, evangelical Bible scholar and apologist, which makes his appearance all the more shocking.
Rogan is known for hosting all kinds of fringe scholars and skeptics, typically people more associated with Ancient Aliens than your typical history department at a local university. A few of these names are Randall Carlson, Graham Handcock, and Billy Carson. Rogan’s guests and views vary widely, but almost exclusively skeptics and those with an agenda to argue against the Christian faith.
Carson Helps Huff Get on Rogan
A few months ago, Rogan hosted Billy Carson, a self-proclaimed expert in Biblical Studies and ancient religions, seemingly without any formal education on the topic. His views more closely resemble new-age philosophy and general spirituality, and he argues against the Christian faith and historical evidence of our faith whenever the chance arises.
In October, a friend of Carson’s asked Wesley Huff to have something of a debate/conversation between the two of them. That conversation and the aftermath are what we have to thank for Huff being invited on The Joe Rogan Experience. To put it kindly, this was an essentially one-sided conversation. With simple questions, Huff dressed down Carson’s supposed expertise. Carson tried to suppress the video-recorded conversation, but the Streisand effect followed, and it has been widely viewed.
Everyone in the YouTube Apologetics orbit and Carson’s massive spiritual audience wanted to see what happened. As of January 9th, the video on Huff’s channel has reached 1.6 million views four weeks after the initial posting. One of those viewers was Joe Rogan.
Having Carson on in the past made it seem more likely that Rogan would have come across the debate video at some point. A supposed expert when appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience Carson was completely embarrassed (with Huff claiming less than 24 hours of preparation). After clips of the debate went viral, Rogan invited Huff on what is likely the world’s biggest platform.
A picture of Huff with Rogan in his studio uploaded to social media kept Huff’s fans anxiously waiting for the interview. For about a week, many were daily asking Huff when the episode would drop.
It finally did, and we were not disappointed.
The three-hour conversation was right on par for Rogan’s guests, especially the ones Joe seems to enjoy the most. It became clear to anyone not familiar with Huff that he is not the “fundamentalist” that many non-believers assume conservative Christians to be. Huff’s knowledge of ancient history, historical methodology, and competence in languages of antiquity was center stage.
An Insufficient Gospel Presenation?
There is a lot of noise on the internet that Huff didn’t do a good enough job in presenting the gospel, or that he missed a significant opportunity to be more direct with Rogan about who the true Jesus is. I think this is incorrect. Huff played his part perfectly.
Rogan did not want an evangelist or apologist on his podcast. He wanted what he always wants: someone competent in ancient religions and history who can explain these topics to his golden retriever. Perhaps it could have been anyone, but in God’s providence and Carson’s hubris, it was Wesley Huff.
Huff’s demonstration of the subject matter was an exemplary apologetic for the Christian faith, particularly the reliability of the New Testament documents. Huff communicated the truth, and the truth confirms the historicity of the Bible. But, what about his presentation of the Gospel?
If you listened carefully to the last ten minutes, Huff demonstrated the gospel in probably the best way possible for Joe Rogan given his history of guests and his circle of friends. Specifically, Huff recalled Jordan Peterson’s Jungian interpretation of the Bible and charged Peterson with “missing the forest for the trees.”
As Huff said, Peterson views the Biblical stories and characters as moral archetypes; whether or not the people and places were real doesn’t matter to him. Jesus is the greatest moral example, and we should learn from his example and live likewise. Huff rightly exposes this as the same type of self-righteousness Jesus so often spoke against.
Huff did present the gospel in a way Rogan needed to hear. He got right to the meat of it. Jesus is not a moral example, because we all fail in living up to His. He is the one we need to save us, and that can only happen if He’s real and is who he says He is: the Son of God who died for sins and was raised to life. That last few minutes of the conversation was what needed to be said. The contrast between moral self-righteousness and what Jesus accomplishes was absolutely proclaimed.
