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John Stonestreet on “Truth Rising” and courage in today’s culture

September 5, 2025 - Denison Forum

In this episode of Faith & Clarity, Dr. Mark Turman and Dr. Ryan Denison are joined by John Stonestreet, President of the Colson Center, to talk about the new documentary Truth Rising. More than a film, Truth Rising is a call to courage in a time when faith, identity, and morality are being redefined. Through stories of ordinary people making an extraordinary impact, the documentary points us back to the unchanging truth of Christ. Listen in as Mark and Ryan explore why this cultural moment matters, how you can access the film and study guide, and what it looks like to stand with clarity and conviction today.

Topics

(02:27): John Stonestreet’s faith journey
(05:19): The Colson Center’s mission
(09:53): Truth Rising documentary overview
(12:02): The cultural moment and Christian response
(14:48): Os Guinness and his influence
(18:32): Existential crisis and revival
(22:47): Stories of courage and truth
(24:37): Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s journey
(27:12): Chloe Cole and the power of truth
(28:51): Jack Phillips: A stand for truth
(36:22): The role of comedians and musicians in culture
(40:28): Accessing the documentary and final thoughts

Resources

About John Stonestreet

John Stonestreet serves as president of the Colson Center. He’s a sought-after speaker and author on areas of faith and culture, theology, worldview, education and apologetics. John is the daily voice of Breakpoint, the nationally syndicated commentary on the culture founded by the late Chuck Colson. He has co-authored five books including A Practical Guide to Culture and Restoring All Things.

Before coming to the Colson Center in 2010, John served in various leadership capacities with Summit Ministries and was on the biblical studies faculty at Bryan College (TN). John is an ordained deacon in the Anglican Diocese of All Nations (Anglican Church of North America). He and his wife, Sarah, have four children and live in Colorado Springs, CO.

In addition to hosting the Truth Rising documentary, he also serves as the instructor for the small-group curriculum to be released after the film.

About Dr. Ryan Denison

Ryan Denison, PhD, is the Senior Editor for Theology at Denison Forum. Ryan writes The Daily Article every Friday and contributes writing and research to many of the ministry’s productions. He holds a PhD in church history from BH Carroll Theological Institute after having earned his MDiv at Truett Seminary. He’s authored The Path to Purpose, What Are My Spiritual Gifts?, How to Bless God by Blessing Others, 7 Deadly Sins, and has contributed writing or research to every Denison Forum book.

About Dr. Mark Turman

Mark Turman, DMin, serves as the Executive Director of Denison Forum, where he leads with a passion for equipping believers to navigate today’s complex culture with biblical truth. He is best known as the host of the Faith & Clarity podcast and the lead pastor of the Possum Kingdom Chapel, the in-person congregation of Denison Ministries.

Dr. Turman is the coauthor of Sacred Sexuality: Reclaiming God’s Design and Who Am I? What the Bible Says About Identity and Why it Matters. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, and received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He later completed his Doctor of Ministry at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco.

Before joining Denison Forum, Mark served as a pastor for 35 years, including 25 years as the founding pastor of Crosspoint Church in McKinney, Texas.

Mark and his high school sweetheart, Judi, married in 1986. They are proud parents of two adult children and grandparents to three grandchildren.

About Denison Forum

Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, the Faith & Clarity podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.

Dr. Mark Turman: [00:00:00] Welcome to Faith and Clarity with Mark Turman. I’m your host for today’s conversation. We always want to help you find clear hope beyond the headlines, so that you can live by faith and not by fear. We think that means that we need to learn to think biblically, live wholly, and then serve joyfully.

Part of what the Apostle Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to his friends at the church at Philippi, Philippians one, nine includes this prayer from Paul. For them it says, and I pray this, that your hope will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment. So that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.

There’s a lot there that we could talk about, but we really hope that our conversation today will help you to grow in the knowledge of God and of His kingdom, and that you would learn to be discerning about the culture that we live in so that you can approve and follow and embrace those things which are superior, pure, [00:01:00] blameless, and beautiful in the kingdom of God.

And to do that today we’re talking about a. Special resource that is coming out, a new documentary called Truth Rising. So I have a couple of friends to talk with me today. Ryan Denison, our senior editor for Theology. Ryan, say hello.

Dr. Ryan Denison: Hello. Thank you for the chance to be here this morning.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, glad to have you back with us today.

And we’re also joined by John Stonestreet. That may be a name familiar to some of you. John is the president of the Colson Center. He is a sought after speaker and author on the areas of faith and culture, theology, worldview, and apologetics. John is also recognized today as the Daily Voice of Breakpoint, a podcast syndicated across the country and was originally founded by.

The founder of the Colson Center, Chuck Colson, which some of you will remember that name as well from the seventies and eighties and other places. John has also co-authored five books, including a Practical Guide to [00:02:00] Culture and Restoring All Things. John, welcome to the Faith and Clarity Podcast.

John Stonestreet : Hey, thanks Mark and Ryan, great to be on with you as well.

Love the Denison Forum, all that you guys do, and it’s great to be on with you.

Dr. Mark Turman: We consider ourselves collaborators and partners with you. We cheer each other on in every way that we can. And we’ll talk a little bit in a moment about the Colson Center. ’cause I want you to tell people about it in case they don’t know about it.

But before we get to that, tell us about John. Tell us a little bit about your faith journey your own sense of calling to speak truth in today’s culture and issues of the day. And how did you get to the work that you’re doing now?

John Stonestreet : You know, listen I grew up in a Christian home. They introduced me to Jesus.

My parents did at a, at a young age through the, the lens of basketball. I chose college and God had arranged that that would end up introducing me to this concept of Christian worldview, which for me was like a. A second salvation. I had kind of gotten the impression that the, the world was something to be opposed and [00:03:00] resisted and complained about.

But the idea of engaging the culture that we’re in, the idea that God has created human beings to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, that there’s not just a great commission, but a cultural commission. All this was kind of brand new for me and also the life of the mind. Just that faith is not just something to be.

Believed and felt strongly about but it’s something to be thought through and also that thing through which I’m supposed to think the world through. And that to me was huge. And big journey. Interestingly enough, when I was a senior in high school is when I first learned of Chuck Colson, I was too young to remember all the Watergate part of his story.

But my parents had Moody Radio on nonstop. If you grew up in a household with Moody Radio, you never knew what time it was. You just knew who was on the radio and that’s how you ordered your day. It’s like when Chuck Colson’s on the radio, I need to be headed out the door, you know, headed to school, right?

Yeah. But even then, even though at the time, you know, young Faith hadn’t really thought much about it, clearly Chuck was doing something different. You know, there was a [00:04:00] lot of wonderful Bible teachers, and then Chuck would get on and talk about. You know, the international issues, he would talk about movies and films.

He would talk about philosophers and ideas. He would talk about politics and culture and public policy. He would talk about worldview and I, it, it, it was even then I recognized, even though I didn’t know what it was how different. What he was trying to do. And, and in college, that approach just captivated my heart.

And I’m just passionate about helping Christians think about the world around them as if they have been called to this cultural moment. Because I, I really believe that we have, and, you know, not just called to a ministry or to a job or to Good works, but to a time and place. And here we are.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, it just really makes kind of kindred spirits between Colson Center and Denson Forum that, that verse out of the Old Testament about the tribe of Issachar.

The men of Issachar understood the times and knew what Israel should do. Absolutely. They knew what they were seeking to know God intimately, but they also [00:05:00] wanted, if their relationship with God to flow over into their understanding and engagement with the world, which I may have just done a really good commercial for the Colson Center, but in the chance that I didn’t.

Based in Colorado Springs, founded by Chuck Colson. Tell us a little bit more about the Colson Center and the work that you guys are doing day by day.

John Stonestreet : You know, Chuck had a, a big legacy No one can fill his, his, I, I used to joke, you know, that, that Chuck had more good ideas by noon you know, than the rest of us had for the rest of the month.

He, he just was so driven. He was super passionate about, as he put it. The church being the church, you know, being salt and light and everything that, that mattered. Now of course people know that Chuck founded Prison Fellowship which is the largest ministry to prisoners and their families in, in the world, but he also founded that at a time where the prison population.

America was exploding, and he wanted to know why, and he wanted to know what the church’s responsibility was. And so asking that question, why led him to the [00:06:00] public application of Christian Theology. It led him to critique. Other worldviews and the secular explanations that, you know, increased crime is because of lack of education or lack, you know, poverty or racial, consider, you know, whatever that, that, no, this is actually about moral formation and moral formation’s connected to what you believe about life in the world and where you get that is from your family.

And if the family breaks down and the church breaks down and, you know, and then he understood those dominoes and that’s why he started re-writing and thinking about worldview. And that’s really what the Colson Center has done, is we have inherited that part of Chuck’s legacy and, what we try to do is help Christians make sense of the world around them, and then understand what it means to be called to this moment.

And we do that through podcast and content, you know, like the what you guys do and we, we quote each other all the time. And and we probably plagiarize each other too, but, or at least I’ve, I should apologize for plagiarizing you guys. But we also do an in-depth training program called the Colson Fellows.

There’s about [00:07:00] 17, 1800 people around the country and around the world studying worldview and culture for a year, coming up with a ministry plan that God wants you know, to, to lead them into. And, and so that’s the work that we do as equipping Christians to make sense of the culture and live into this moment as, as, as salt and light.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, and we would include this in the show notes, of course, but we would really encourage people to check out the Colson Center Breakpoint podcast. Thank you. And other resources. I had a wonderful woman in my church who recently graduated from the Colson fellows Program. Just really, really deepened her faith and her engagement in the world.

Can’t recommend that highly enough. It’s in depth. It’s substantial. It’s, it is, it’s a commitment. It’s a commitment. It’s a commitment. It is commitment and it, but if you’re looking for a hearty challenge that will really radically change and deepen your faith and your understanding of the world around you.

Colson Fellows Project is a really, really good one, but we wanna talk about Mark. Go ahead. Lemme

John Stonestreet : jump in on that and ask [00:08:00] you a quick question about that, because what’s fascinating it is, it’s a deep dive and I think about. You know, making that kind of commitment and go, man, that would be a really tough pull.

But we’ve seen such an incredible explosion of interest and growth in that program and, and I, and I think it’s because. First of all, the cultural challenges feel overwhelming and have for about a decade now. Mm-hmm. And many Christians feel like their level of preparation just doesn’t match the challenge, you know?

It’s kind of like they’ve been asked to play in the Olympics and they’ve been playing pickup volleyball, you know, and it, it, it, it’s, they, they want something, you know, more. And so the level of interest has exploded. I’m guessing you guys have seen that as well.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, we’re seeing it in some of our understanding of Gen Z, right?

That they’re like, Hey, if, if I’m gonna go in faith, I want to go all in. I want to go deep. And, and we’re definitely seeing that in some of, of the responses. It’s hey, you know, we may come at this from a, a place of curiosity, somewhere between curiosity and skepticism. But we’re willing to talk about it.

It’s one of the great things that we’re seeing [00:09:00] about Gen Z is they’re willing to talk about just about anything, and particularly willing to talk with older generations about faith. And then what you’re seeing in many of them is that if, if the Holy Spirit persuades them and brings them to a place of conviction and belief, they are ready to go all in and they, they are ready to take that into their whole world.

Not just make it a compartment of their world which is the way we all ought to be approaching our faith. But John, let’s talk about this new project, this documentary that is coming out on September the fifth called Truth Rising. It’s a partnership between the Colson Center and focus on the family.

Give us a summary of what this project and documentary is about and why did y’all choose to do this platform? Why a documentary film, and what’s a little bit of the backstory about how y’all got into this?

John Stonestreet : Yeah. The Truth Rising Project was something that kind of was born out of a partnership between focus on the family and the Colson Center. And of course, you know, Chuck is known for how now, shalt, we live the book on worldview and culture, helping Christians understand what the challenges of the moment.

That he and Nancy Pearcy were writing in at the time focused on the family known for the Truth project, helping mm-hmm. Christians understand truth and, and, and the, the importance of Christian worldview, the importance of ideas. And that’s really in the vein. Of how then shall we live, right?

What Francis Schaeffer did when he walked around Western civilization wearing those, you know, cool pants and you know, with that awesome beard and, and talking about, you know, where, how Christianity what provided the roots of Western culture and how those things were being undermined and what that would mean, a very prophetic piece.

And you can almost see that [00:11:00] translation, what, what I really think is what those guys. Really did in a theoretical way. Has existentially become true? In other words, we have sensed that Western culture is at a critical moment in the film, truth rising Oz Guinness, who’s kind of the Gandalf of the film.

And I think really in a lot of ways the Gandalf of, of of, of, of, of the church right now. He calls this moment a civilizational moment. And I what, what he means by that is that these ideas have had consequences, right? The bad ideas have had victims. And we feel, I think a lot of Christians we’re playing a game of cultural, whack-a-mole, like this issue pops up and we’re bad, you know, and it’s, it’s hard at times to get what’s to what’s underneath that, which is this, these dramatic shifts in the western world.

And these are things that. You can look back through history and say civilizations go through this. Civilizations don’t last forever. Right there, there, there are ideas that animate them, that bring [00:12:00] them to life. And when those ideas are cut off, then the civilization has to survive on something else.

And either will attach to new ideas, which could be revolutionary ideas. It could be, you know, hedonistic or selfish ideas. Or it’ll just decay and die. Unless there’s renewal. Now I don’t know what the future of western culture is, but I do know, and what drove this project is realizing we need to think hard and long about what moment we’re in.

We we need to take seriously, not just these random issues that seem to pop up, but to to own up to the fact that we are in this civilizational moment and something that we’ve already talked about. God has called us to this moment. You know, we need to ask again, how do we live? What’s it mean to live?

You know, George Orwell said, in an age of deception, telling the truth as a revolutionary act. That’s the baseline, right? I guess God wants us all to be those kinds of revolutionaries. This is Alexander Schultz, [00:13:00] Innis, great line. You know, live not by lies. Tell the truth. Don’t let the lie come through you.

You know, and, and, and what we wanted to do was highlight. This moment we’re in and the fact that we’re called to it. So it’s a, it’s an ambitious journey We’re asking viewers to go on, right? The history of civilization to your calling to this moment. Yeah. That’s the journey.

Dr. Mark Turman: And yeah, how do we, and how do we fit into this big picture that God has and how do we

John Stonestreet : fit into this big picture?

And the good news is, is God and his kindness ha has, has, has given us examples of courage, of people willing to tell the truth. People even willing to admit that they were deceived and now tell the truth. Yeah. And to me, that’s the inspiration of the film, or five stories of courage that we culminate the film with.

So we really begin with this, I think, a very understandable and accessible way of thinking about, okay, where are we? It’s kind of like a big, you are here you know, arrow and then [00:14:00] culminating in, okay, what’s it gonna, what’s it gonna mean for us to be the church that we need to be?

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. I’m gonna let Ryan ask a question or two here in a second, but I have one last question for you, and I’ve been ever since we came up with the idea of talking with you today.

This is my favorite question. You mentioned Oz Guinness, who is at the beginning of this. So my favorite question of the day, who is Oz for those Great and wonderful Oz? Yeah. For those who may not be familiar with who Oz Guinness is, tell us a little bit about who Oz is.

John Stonestreet : You know, Oz has written, I think, more books than I can count.

As I kind of joked, he’s kind of a Gandalf of our generation. He tells his story, by the way, in truth rising. It was an unexpected thing that we added in because he has watched the shift of great, of at least one great civilization born in China. And in the middle of just a. Complete cultural upheaval revolution decline a lot of death and how God has kind of positioned him to [00:15:00] do that.

You know, he’s known as an author and, and, and a social critic, and he is probably one of those rare voices of our lifetime. By the way, he should be, should should mention that, you know, a lot of his development and intellectual formation came at re he was a, a, a, a colleague and student of of Francis Schafer’s.

But, but I don’t know anybody else that’s written and, and be provided such wonderful help and thought leadership on both civilization and calling. And that’s really what this film does, which is a weird combination civilization, like how do we understand the world that we’re in at that big of a level?

And then what does it mean? To respond to calling. And you know, when I first came across the call, which is his bestselling book, years and years ago, I was struck by this one aspect that he added to it. You know, at the time I was at a Christian college and there was a lot of people writing about calling as, you know, do what you love and find somebody to pay you for it.

And God’s called you, you know, to a particular line of work, all of which is true, right? Mm-hmm. You know, all good advice. [00:16:00] But he said the element that many people have missed in calling. Is the moment that they’re in the seriousness as he puts it of the awa, you know, because he’s got that great British accent.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah.

John Stonestreet : And and I thought, I had never thought about calling in terms of the cultural moment. And then that’s when I started to wake up. When you look through a scripture all the way through scripture, God is revealing himself as this historically precise chronologically, you know, precise. God who’s orchestrating history and putting people in times and places.

What Paul says to the epicurean and stoics is that the God who made everything determines the exact times that people live in the boundaries of their dwelling place. Yeah. And that he did that for a specific purpose. That’s all. That’s all in that little Marsh Hill sermon. And you think, man, that’s a, that, that’s loaded.

I mean, what does that mean? And Oz was the first to [00:17:00] introduce me to that.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. Yeah. So if you haven’t ever read any of Oz Guinness’s work or found him on YouTube or anything, we highly recommend you go do that as well. He’s a big part, especially of the first part of kind of setting the table That’s right in this experience called Truth Rising.

And then that kind of sets the table for other stories that come later. We’re gonna take a break for a couple of seconds here and let you catch your breath. Let us catch our breath and then we’ll come back. Ryan’s got some questions that will take us a little bit deeper into this documentary as we talk about truth rising.

We’ll be right back.

All right, we’re back talking with John Stonestreet about the documentary coming out on September 5th called Truth Rising. Ryan, you had a question or two you wanted to pitch in John’s direction.

Dr. Ryan Denison: I do. Yeah. One of the parts that especially kind of in the second half of the, of the documentary really comes out as a point of emphasis is the way that people in the present generation seem to be feeling the loss of [00:18:00] meaning, truth, identity, purpose, all those really foundational concepts in a way that wasn’t necessarily true a generation or two ago.

And I was curious why you think that’s the case and also just what opportunities that presents us to be able to minister in ways that we may not have been able to a generation or two ago. Y

John Stonestreet : you know what? So I, I, I’m, I’m so young, but I’ve, you know, still been teaching on worldview for about, you know, 20 years or so and, you know, the early days reading you know, the apologist and the you know, kind of popular cultural commentators.

You know, there was a lot of theoretical. Conversation, right? Oh, you know, if you compare Christianity with secular naturalism, Christianity gives you an ultimate source of meaning and truth and morality. Secular naturalism does not. We would talk about postmodernism in these theoretical terms early on.

It’s if there’s no such thing as truth, and everyone determines their own truth. Does that mean stop can mean go? Does that mean boy, can mean girl? And we use that as an [00:19:00] illustration and fast forward 20 years, we’re not using it as an illustration like that boy can be, girl is being pushed as public policy and the sciences settled and medical pro.

I mean, this is a new level of the prophecies of a generation ago becoming real. And of course I think the first guy who really prophesied this. Was Frederick Nietzche in the parable of the madman, one of the places where he said God is dead. And it, you know, the other place was thus Bake There Austra, which was another parable in which he was saying, you know, look this is, we, we need to get on with the death of God.

And now, you know, go to the Uber match or the Superman and become the dominant kind of force on the planet and, and, and shed religion and. The parable of the madman, he’s really ushering a warning, like this is gonna be messy. And he talks about straying is through an infinite nothing and not knowing what up and down is.

Things becoming darker and colder. And and then of course at the end he goes, oh, I’ve come too soon. This [00:20:00] stuff is coming, but it’s not yet. And I remember going back to that and, and, and seeing the cultural conversations about gender and seeing the cultural conversations about the great resignation that happened in the wake of COVID and, and, and, and the suicidality numbers, especially among young people.

And, and the, the, the, the, the, the scramble of young men to, to figure out what life is all about and the crisis of meaning and so on, and think, man, Nietzsche was right. You lose God, you lose meaning. And it was always true. But on a civilizational level, we’ve now, Oz puts it this way, we’ve cut the flower from its roots.

We’re a cut flower civilization. So there were ideas. And of course in the film, some of the great thought leaders, many of some of whom aren’t even Christian will point to one of the great ideas that animated Western culture, for example, being the dignity of the individual. What we’ve done is cut off.

The individual from the source of its dignity and basically said, oh no, you, [00:21:00] you, you, you be, you, you’re autonomous. You create your own dignity. And everyone realizes that’s a fool’s errand. Like that’s a, that’s a failed project. You know, I, I think that that’s how it’s different. It’s that it was always theoretically the case, and this is what Francis Schaefer talked about.

This is what Del Tackett talked about in The Truth Project. And we looked around, Jim Daley and I from Focus on the Family about three years ago and said, this is all existentially now come true. So we need this. You are here. And that’s where the Truth Rising Project came from. Now what’s interesting in the last three years, one of the things that we have seen is what.

You know, folks in the UK, for example, are calling a quiet revival. We’re seeing an explosion of young people come to church. You know, we’re both old enough here to remember the rise of the nuns, you know, the NONE. Yeah. Oftentimes blaming how the church has let them down. And now we have a whole bunch of young people going back to church talking about how secularism let them down.

So what an opportunity right now for truth to [00:22:00] Rise and when, when we talk about the, the, the stories of courage at the end, the five stories. Anne Hersi, Ali, Jack Phillips, the baker in Colorado, Chloe Cole who has det transitioned from deception. Seth Dillon from the Babylon Bee and Katie Faust.

You look and you go, oh, there is an opportunity. Telling the truth really is something that can make an incredible difference. Who could have imagined when the Babylon Bee refused to pull down a tweet that cost them their access to a million people on Twitter? All the, all the cultural dominoes that would’ve followed.

I mean, if you kind of do the math of what happened. You’re just like, no one could have written that script. Now, they didn’t know that, right? They would just say, no, we’re gonna stand by what’s true. We’re not gonna back off because of the pressures of cancel culture. Good for them. But look at what God put to, you know, worked out because of that.

And there’s so many of those stories, and so that’s the opportunity. Ryan, I think, is that [00:23:00] people are looking right now, they’re desperate because that meaning crisis has become so existentially a part of their lives.

Dr. Ryan Denison: And, and one of the ways, one of the things I love about the way y’all frame that in the, in the documentary is you go back to pick up all those threads that were in the past.

And yeah, at the time we’re often seen as sort of straw man arguments. Oh, it’ll never get to that point. And now you look at the present culture and it has, and I think the more we look back to that, it gives reason to. Have confidence in the validity of what we’re saying today. And I, I love, like another one of the points you make in the film and you alluded to it before, is how truth has to be more than a, the theoretical concept that we as sent to.

And I really wanted to see if you could expand a bit more on that thought as well.

John Stonestreet : You know, each of the five stories highlight a different aspect of what it means to be a courageous voice of truth. And I have been captivated as many have by the story of Anne Hersi Ali. She was one of the new atheists and we all remember the [00:24:00] nineties, right?

The new atheists were telling us that God’s a delusion, religion poisons everything. Now even Richard Dawkins is telling us we need Christmas carols. And it’s just, you know what has happened And her story’s so fascinating. And I’m answering your question with her story ’cause I think her story is what answers it.

Mm-hmm. I was at the first ARC conference. She announced she was a Judeo-Christian and a thousand people in the room gasped because we all knew she was an atheist. And everyone’s what’s a Judeo-Christian? You know, what, what does that mean? And then there was questions. She’s calling for cultural Christianity.

That’s not the same thing. She then writes an article in by UK publication where she explains it and she says, I’ve realized that secularism is not gonna provide the meaning that has been lost and that people are looking for. The last art conference, which we attended and was able to roll out truth rising and Ha having had these conversations with, with Anne in the middle.

You know, she lays out the foundations of Western civilization in 10 points and puts Bible [00:25:00] verses to each one. Hmm. That’s an 18 month growth right there. Now in the film, what she then talks about is how she came to realize the emptiness of Islam. She became a critic of radical Islam coming out of her background, that letter to reject all religion.

But the threat to her life that came because of the fatois because she had critiqued is Islam followed her. She had a family and, and, and, and she was depressed and she turned to alcohol. I, I don’t wanna give, I spoiler, Lord, I don’t wanna give away so much of this. But what the story she tells is not only this kind of intellectual journey of realizing the emptiness, the cruelty of Islam, and the emptiness of, of, of atheism, but discovering meaning.

And I, I don’t want to give it away, but I just watched the film with a group of friends and they all pointed to this moment in the film where she talks about what her personal faith, her personal embrace of truth has meant, which is [00:26:00] the fulfillment of her lifelong search for freedom. And the look on her face is worth the price of admission to this film, which by the way, is free.

No, but it’s, it’s, it’s absolutely worth it. That’s what I mean, Ryan. I, I, I mean, that’s what we’re trying to say is that. And Chloe Cole puts it this way in her story, there’s not my truth or your truth. Jesus Christ is the truth. This is the beauty of this. We’re talking about truth with a capital T that has civilizational level ramifications and implications for our lives.

But it has, it’s just as personal as finding freedom and finding hope and finding forgiveness. In Chloe’s case, finding identity, who God really made her in the image of God. It’s it. That’s what we mean. And so the language we use in the film is not just knowing it, not just assenting to it intellectually, not rejecting the intellectual side.

That’s a whole big part of it. But loving it. And it’s lovable because God loved us in Christ Jesus and, and that this is actually not just some, a matter of personal [00:27:00] faith, but our personal faith has incredible public and historic implications, and we’re trying to connect all those dots, I guess.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And I, and I love how the, yeah, I love how the film does that ’cause it, you know, people may watch this documentary and they may, they may say, oh I remember that story.

I remember the guy, the baker in Colorado whose story ended up all the way going up to the Supreme Court. But most people probably have never. Looked into that story with any kind of depth or even seen a picture of him. And then these other stories, they may have heard of the Babylon Bee, if it, depending on what your involvement in the Christian community is, and then some of these other, like several of these other stories I hadn’t heard anything about.

Yeah. But how y’all do a great job of connecting them all together and how they actually form kind of a, a shared narrative. Can I,

John Stonestreet : can I, can I jump in on, on a point on this because you mentioned Jack Phillips, Jack’s a friend. I’ve known Jack for years. I remember being on my front porch about an hour from his [00:28:00] cake shop, not knowing Jack reading in the newspaper about his story and thinking, oh man, that dude is in trouble.

And he was, for 13 years, the state of Colorado has relentlessly gone after him, one after another and. Of course one of the lies of the last generation and one of the things, as I said, I think each of the stories elevate a certain aspect of truth. We have been told that if you take a stand for the truth, you are unloving.

If Christians are going to be continue to be relevant, we have to be tolerant. And we tolerated ourselves right out of orthodoxy. Jack refused to do that. Now, here, here, here’s the interesting story. I’m not gonna say who it is, but we did an interview about the project recently and the host admitted that she did not want to talk about that story when she heard the Jack Phillips story was in the film.

She’s I, I don’t wanna touch that because I think he was wrong. I think he was unloving. I think he should have just [00:29:00] baked the cake because that’s what Jesus would’ve done and da da da. And she said, and then I watched the film and complete 180, and that’s what she wanted to talk about because I, I think a lot of people.

Have believed those headlines, right? That mm-hmm. You know, here’s this angry bigot in Colorado that just wouldn’t bake the cake. Now listen, there might be a nicer person on the planet than Jack Phillips. If there is, I have not met them. The Jack is he’s awesome. And, and, and to see how the, the truth about how he took his stand has been so hidden.

And now God is vindicating him in such powerful ways and so many people have been influenced, and that’s what it’s all about for him. I, I just, I just think that’s cool. What, what all these stories are is a calling for all of us. You are called to be a truth teller. You might be called to be a truth teller with your friends, with your family.

You might be called to be a truth teller on a national stage. You might be called to be a truth teller at the next school [00:30:00] board meeting you might be called to, but to be a Christian in this civilizational moment is, is more than. It’s not less than being a truth teller. And that’s really one of the key takeaways I think, of the film.

And by the way, I know we haven’t talked about this, but there’s a follow-up four-part study that goes into depth on what it means to be a courageous truth teller and what that looks like and what that requires of us. So that’s really one of the punchlines we’re getting at.

Dr. Mark Turman: Go ahead Ryan. Do you have something you wanted to add?

Yeah,

Dr. Ryan Denison: I was gonna say, like I, and I love how y’all make that point throughout the film, that with all the, with all the people you talk to, there’s, their story is similar but different enough that it really kind of highlights that. I think one of the things we have to do when we are gonna stand up to be true tellers to the culture is understand that the process of people accepting the truth is gonna look different.

And whether it’s and Herse Ali and her story versus some of the others, like I love that it just, there is such a clear, de clear demonstration [00:31:00] of just the need to give God time to work and not give up on hope and the As he works and I. Kinda with that in mind, I was curious you touched on the kind of Oz Guinness’s comments about the civilizational moment before, and kind of when you think about kind of how truth does develop in stages at times or how people progress differently where, where do you see this kind of going?

Like where do you think actually where will the culture end up? But what do you think are the next steps that are coming up next?

John Stonestreet : One of my friends says, you’re asking me to, to prophesy it, and I work for a nonprofit. And so that’s the that’s a terrible joke. I’m sorry. But I, I have lots of ideas about this and I think there’s lots of factors to consider.

I mean, the most truth for answer to that question is I don’t know. And I don’t know if this is a Wilberforce moment or a Bonhoeffer moment, and I, and I use those. Names pretty carefully. I mean, both men found their culture at the edge of the abyss. I think clearly we’re in a very vulnerable place in Western culture.

Civilizations have [00:32:00] rules. If you break those rules, you decline and die. And the West has broken those rules for a long time. You know, you, and so we’re at a moment now. Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer both met their cultures at vulnerable moments, and they both worked and they both collaborated and they both you know, built their cultural engagement around the gospel.

And Wilberforce saw renewal. Bonhoeffer saw collapse, and, and, and, and, and, you know, everything Bonhoeffer tried, failed everything. Wilberforce tried. It failed for a while and then God, you know, blessed him, but neither man was a failure, right? And, and so where God has us in his historical precision, I don’t, I, I, I don’t know.

I do know he has got caught us here. And so that very factor. Now I, I know a lot of people are talking about the, you know, there was the, in the uk the quiet revival, you know, the, the number of people, five times as many young people going to church as a decade ago. You have. Prominent voices like Tom Holland, the historian and [00:33:00] others that are, you know, showing signs of faith or at least publicly advocating for the faith you have, what many people are calling in the United States, a vibe shift.

And of course a lot of that’s just. You know, tied to the election and politics can’t fix the problem. That’s one of the things that comes up. I’m grateful for the vibe shift. It’s better when we have some pushback on the relentless attacks against particularly children when it comes to sexuality.

Five years ago that seemed like a runaway train that couldn’t be stopped. Now it seems like there’s been a vibe shift. The vibe shift I think has primarily been a rejection of, of, of. Extreme lies. I’m not sure the vibe shift has fully been a reattachment to truth, and that’s the opportunity for us, right?

Yes. We need to point out that’s a bad idea, that will have consequences, that’ll have victims. And, and so we need to reattach. That’s really the call of truth rising is let’s be a part of, of pointing people back to what is true and embracing what’s true and living what’s [00:34:00] true, loving what’s true in our own lives.

Was that a, was that a sufficient way, Ryan, to skirt your question? Because I tried,

Dr. Ryan Denison: I, I love that way of framing it okay. That is an excellent way to assess it.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, and, and you know, we talk about all the time I know Colson Center does as well, and the documentary as well is what, what does it mean to both speak and live the truth in love?

We do know, unfortunately, that there are sometimes some passionate believers who are strident in, in speaking up for the truth, but sometimes it doesn’t look or sound too loving. And you know, we learn from Daniel that there’s a right way to be right. And that’s part of what this film brings out as well.

Which kind of brings me around John to maybe one other question about one of the features of the film. And it just seems, it seems to be all over our culture both inside and outside Christian communities, which is there’s kind of a what I would call a teaser into the five inspiring stories that are just really outstanding in and of themselves.

You gotta spend a moment talking to musicians and a [00:35:00] comedian. Mm-hmm. And you know, we, we’ve got the biggest podcaster in the world is a comedian. Yeah. Why, why touch base with a musician? Why touch base with a comedian? Why? Tell the story of the Babylon Bee and their opposition to censorship. What is it about musicians and comedians that we need to be paying attention to?

John Stonestreet : You know, art is a bellwether of culture. It both reflects culture and it leads culture. So I think that’s one thing. I know Jim Daly the my, my my friend and, and, and co. Partner on this project that focused on the family. You know, he has said he really thinks comedians are kind of canaries in the coal mine.

Kind of, you know, pointing ahead and, I mean, we remember the kind of the brutality of cancel culture and it came for comedians and sometimes they deserved it. But sometimes, you know, they didn’t. You have so that’s, that’s really interesting. Those two in particular. You know, Constantine Kissen, who is a Russian immigrant [00:36:00] in the uk basically saying, look, I’ll tell you what’s going on.

And, and being very, very clear. Interestingly enough, he’s not a person of faith at all. He’s not a a a a, a Christian. He, you know, I think he’s an agnostic and isn’t it? And, and we also have some others. David Linsky in the first part of the film. And, but these are, the voice is talking about the state of Western civilization and it’s so interesting.

He’s one of those voices saying, we have a spiritual crisis, and you’re like, mm-hmm. You want him to make the connection and, and, and I hope he does. But it’s interesting that there have been so many of these widely secular voices pointing to the very same things that folks like Francis Shafer and Chuck Colson and Ooz GNI have been talking about.

So that’s, that’s part of it. Constantin’s, identity as a, as an immigrant having been outside, particularly in Russia, and then seeing the critiques against the West, seeing the connection between the [00:37:00] Marxism that, you know, he, he saw you know, kind of tail off in, in, in Russia and the, and the Marxism, the cultural Marxism that dominated the West in the form of kind of woke.

That is a. I think a really powerful part of talking about the ideas that really matter. And what are the ideas that animated Western culture and have now been abandoned? Yeah. The, the other, Winston Marshall was the lead singer of Mumford and Sons. And many people might remember that he was a victim of cancer culture.

He was a victim of cultural Marxism and, and, and he decided not to back down. And a lot of people did back down. Yeah. A lot of people did. You know, say things that weren’t true and. He, he says something really interesting. He goes, you know, yeah, I care about Western culture, but I care about the uk. I don’t want the UK to be lost on my watch.

Yeah, and the idea of cultural responsibility there, I think is really powerful. That’s one of the, you know, reasons and and so yeah, I, I think both of those guys have some really interesting personal [00:38:00] experiences. So we talk about, you know, this is the big picture of Western culture. This is the crisis facing western culture.

And here are two stories that highlight what this means right now. And now, you know, let’s look at these stories of, of courage.

Dr. Mark Turman: It’s just so many good ways to help people think about, okay, where’s your part in this? Yeah. Where’s, where’s God calling you to be a person of truth and love. And it, it’s right outside your front door.

Sometimes it’s in your living room. Sometimes it’s bigger than that. But we just, we just wanted to take a moment, John. Thank you. I know you need to get onto some other responsibilities, but we’re just grateful for the work that you’ve done on this project. And we want to highly, highly recommend that Christians and others.

Check this out. Tell us again how do people access this documentary called Truth Rising?

John Stonestreet : The Global Streaming Premier, September the fifth. Friday. And the website’s Truth rising.com we wanted to take down every barrier that we can. You go to truth rising.com, you can sign up to have [00:39:00] access to the film.

You can have resources to host a watch party. If you’re a pastor you can show this in your church. We’re gonna be. You know, doing a, a screening at a, at a church in Fort Worth in your neck of the woods of September. The September the eighth, I think. Is that Monday, September the eighth at Birman Baptist.

Yep. Excited about that opportunity. And and then of course you can also learn there how to get access to the four-part study. And the four-part study is real simple. You know, the call is to be a voice of co, of courage, a truth teller. And then the four part study, or the four ingredients of that hope, truth, identity, calling understanding our you know, what’s true about our cultural moment.

Understanding what’s true about reality, what’s true about the human person. And then how now shall we live? So the hope, truth, identity calling piece, really accessible and hopefully it’s something that will captivate people. I mean, we, we, we want the, the, the, the win on this film is not even that. A lot of people see it, although I hope a lot of people see it.

The win on this film is that people who see it, them [00:40:00] become these voices of courage wherever God’s put them. You know? Yeah. And that’s how culture changes. It’s not just with ideas, it’s with people who embrace which the, these ideas. And if they embrace true ideas then we can see renewal. That’s the, that’s the idea.

Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. So my favorite John Street quote, I’ve used it, I don’t know how many times I’ve used this quote. Good idea or ideas have consequences, bad ideas have victims, and, this is a great project for helping you to get clarity on the truth of God and how you can be a truth teller in faith and love and hope.

John, thank you again for being a part of faith and Clarity and being so instrumental in helping people to know how to live their faith out in the cultural issues and moments of our day. Want to take a moment to thank our audience as always for tuning in. We hope that you’ll check out Truth Rising at truth rising.com starting September 5th recommended to others.

And if this conversation’s been helpful, please share it with your pastor, with other church leaders. With other friends and [00:41:00] help them to connect to this as well. Remind you that faith and Clarity is a podcast of Denison Forum and you can always find more resources [email protected]. So God bless you and we’ll see you next time on Faith and Clarity.

John Stonestreet on “Truth Rising” and courage in today’s culture

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT