Misled: 7 Lies That Distort the Gospel: Allen Parr

Episode Transcript

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Misled: 7 Lies that Distort the Gospel

Guest:Allen Parr

From the series:Misled: 7 Lies that Distort the Gospel (Day 1 of 2)

Air date:August 12, 2024

Allen: Even though you have doubts, there are valid answers to the questions that you have about Christianity. [For] so many people who are “deconstructing” and then, ultimately, leaving the faith, I doubt that they’re really going through the process of trying to seek to get answers for what they believe.

Ann: Yes.

Allen: They’re kind of jumping on the bandwagon and saying, “Well, I don’t believe any of this stuff.”

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: I’ll never forget, coming home for Christmas break my junior year in college. I had just given my life to Christ, and I was on fire. I think I told my mom within the first five minutes of walking back in the house, “You’re going to hell if you don’t know Jesus.” [Laughter]

Ann: Well, I think you said it kindly. When I walked in my house as a 16-year-old, I yelled it: “We’re all going to hell without Jesus!” [Laughter]

Dave: So, anyway, I was on fire. I’ll never forget: my mom just looked at me, [wondering], “What has happened to my son?” Then I said, “I’m not going to be home on Christmas break. I’m going to a Christmas conference with Campus Crusade for Christ in Chicago.” I literally think my mom thought I was in a cult. She had never heard of Cru, where we are now, literally, doing our radio program on the Cru campus in Orlando.

But she was seriously concerned. “I don’t know this organization. My son has flipped. He’s totally changed. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing, but he’s a radical, and he’s not even going to be around for New Year’s Eve. He’s going to go to some conference with a bunch of weird Christians.”

Allen: Right.

Ann: My family thought the same. We didn’t go to church, even, growing up. So, when I started following Jesus, and getting a Bible and reading it, they thought, “This girl has gone out of her mind.” [Laughter]

Dave: So, we’re sitting here today with Allen Parr, who has come in from Dallas, Texas to Orlando to be on FamilyLife Today. And Allen, it’s a little bit like your story, as I read your book. But first of all, let’s just say, “Welcome to FamilyLife Day!” You’ve never been here, right?

Allen: I have not, no. Thank you for having me. I’m excited for this conversation.

Dave: Yes.

Ann: We are, too.

Dave: So, when you hear that little story of our little journey—again, years ago, is it anywhere close to your journey?

Allen: My journey is very interesting. I grew up in a Christian home. My parents were divorced, but both of them were Christians. So, I got saved at the early age of eight, but didn’t really know the Lord, didn’t have any relationship with the Lord, for most of my time whenever I was in my parents’ home. Then I went off to college and didn’t go to church for a whole year, for my freshman year.

It wasn’t until a deacon of a local church came by, and he started discipling me and some of my friends in college. For the first time in my life, I picked up a Bible, and I started reading it, and started really understanding it, because he was doing this Bible study on our campus. He was teaching it in a way that really made sense to us, and it was exciting. So, I started picking up the Bible, and I haven’t been able to put it down since.

But interestingly enough, the church where he was a deacon—I started going to that church along with my friends, and it was a church that had a lot of false teaching and different things going on that, at the time, I didn’t know about—

Ann: —yes.

Allen: —because, as the old saying goes, “The worst thing about being deceived is you don’t know that you’re being deceived,” right? [Laughter]

Dave: Yes.

Allen: That’s the problem.

I grew up in a traditional Baptist church, very traditional, singing hymns from the hymn book and things like that. So, when I got to this church, and everybody was singing loudly and raising their hands and shouting and having these experiences, obviously, it was very attractive to me as a young man in college. I had never experienced any of this type of thing.

But as I started reading my Bible, and as I started studying, and as I started really just observing what was going on at the church, I realized that there was a lot of false teaching, and a lot of practices that were against Scripture. Little did I know at the time that that would be the catalyst for my entire ministry, wanting to equip people to be able to discern truth from error. So, that’s how it happened in college.

Dave: Yes. Tell our listeners what you do, because I’m guessing there are some listeners in a car right now, or maybe working out, listening, and they recognize your voice—

Allen: —yes.

Dave: —because your voice is known around this world through YouTube® and otherwise. Tell us what you do.

Allen: I graduated from college in 1998, and then, I went to seminary a couple years later. I felt called to the ministry, as they say, and went to Dallas Theological Seminary from 2000 to 2004. Then, from 2004 to about 2017 or so, I was teaching high school math; but around 2014 or so, I just got to the point where I [said], “Lord, I really want to use my gifts for You. I went to seminary to be a teacher, a preacher of the Word. That’s why I gave up my career as an engineer, and I want to be used.”

So, I started a YouTube channel. At the time, in 2014, there weren’t a lot of Christian—

Ann: —yes.

Allen: —YouTube channels at all.

Dave: Yes, it’s pretty new, right?

Allen: It was pretty much—

Dave: —were there any?

Allen: Oh, there were a few, but there were not that many. I saw all these secular channels putting out videos and getting a million views and 100,000 views, and I’m thinking, “Wow! What could happen if Christians would leverage the power of YouTube? How could we spread the gospel? How could we spread the Truth of the Word of God? And how could I communicate the Word in a way that is accurate but fun?”

There were some Christian YouTube channels, but they were kind of like—

Dave: —go ahead, you can say it.

Allen: —45 to 50 minutes long.

Dave: Oh, okay.

Allen: And they weren’t very creative in how they put their videos together.

Ann: Yes.

Allen: So, it wasn’t like something that a lot of people would be, maybe, interested [in]. So, I came in, and I started creating videos that were five minutes. I think the first video that really took off was The Book of Revelation Explained in Five Minutes. People were [thinking], “Wow, how can I understand that?

Dave: “That’s impossible.”

Allen: Yes. Well, it—

Ann and Dave: —you did it!

Allen: In seminary, we were told that you should be able to explain anything in one minute or one hour, right? [Laughter]

Dave: Right, right.

Allen: So, that’s kind of how it got started, and it just grew from there.

Dave: Yes. So, we’re sitting here today with—is this your first book?

Allen: First book, yes.

Dave: Yes, [it’s[ called Misled: 7 Lies that Distort the Gospel (and How You Can Discern the Truth). Obviously, this became a passion.

Allen: Yes.

Dave: And I’m guessing some of that is even tied to your story in college.

Allen: Yes.

Dave: One of my journeys, as I continued to grow in my Christian walk, was one of the guys on the football team (I was playing football there) said, “Hey, you’ve got to come to my church.” Well, I’m a new believer. I had never read the Bible. I sort of grew up going to church with my single mom; but like you, once I got to college, I didn’t go to church for three years. I was living the bad life.

Allen: Right.

Dave: The quarterback on campus, using those advantages in bad ways. So, I became a follower and then, I’ll never forget: one of our defensive ends said, “You’ve got to come to my church.” So, I went to his church.

[As] I grew up, when I went to my mom’s church, it was pretty traditional. I walked in [to his church], I’d never seen anything like it. There were people in the pews playing their instruments while the band was playing at the same time.

Allen: That is something I’ve never seen before. [Laughter] Even to this day, and I’ve been to a lot of churches. [Laughter]

Dave: It was one of the craziest moments in my life. I remember standing there, and [it] overwhelmed me.

Allen: Yes.

Dave: I remember getting—actually, he rode me there on the back of his motorcycle. [Laughter]

Ann: Which is a little weird.

Dave: This whole story is just craziness, you know? [Laughter] I just remember coming back to my dorm room thinking, “I don’t even know what that was.”

Allen: Right.

Dave: But I had no filter, like discernment.

Allen: Right.

Dave: Was this error? Was this wrong?

Allen: No.

Ann: You didn’t know God’s Word enough to know.

Dave: Was this normal?

Allen: Neither did I, no.

Dave: I was brand-new and so, I needed some help. That’s sort what you’re—

Allen: —that’s what this book is literally all about.

Dave: Yes, it’s sort of your call in life, right, to help discern?

Allen: My goal is to equip people with the necessary knowledge and skills and strategies to rightly divide the Word of God, to study it for themselves; because I feel like I can spend all day on my YouTube channel, pointing out false teaching after false teaching after false teaching, which is what I did in this book.

But my greater passion is to equip people to study the Word of God for themselves, so that they understand how to put a passage in this context; so they understand how to properly interpret the Word of God; so that they’re not dependent on me or anyone else to be able to walk into an environment, hear a sermon, and say, “There was something that was off about that.”

This book was really largely motivated by my experience as well as, whenever I put videos out on YouTube, a lot of times people will comment on the videos. When I read through the comments, I can see so many people who are misled, so many people who are deceived in how they are responding. I [thought], “I’ve got to write a book that hopefully sets the record straight.”

Dave: I think about my mom. As parents of young men and women in our culture today (middle school; high school), and you’re sort of an apologist—

Allen: —yes.

Dave: —defending the Truth and understanding the Truth. How would you get—and you’re married with two kids?

Allen: Yes.

Dave: So, you’ve got kids who are walking into this culture as well. How would you coach parents as they have sons like we were, in college or wherever, and they come back, and they don’t know if what they’re doing is right or wrong? How would you coach us to be discerning parents?

Allen: Yes. Well, it starts with (as we all know) the saying, “You can’t pour from empty cup.” You can’t give to others what you don’t first possess yourself. I think that there are many parents who are religious. We take our kids to church, and we do the right thing. We want our kids to grow up in the youth ministry and children’s church.

But if we’re honest, a lot of parents really don’t know Truth from error themselves. They’re not really being a disciple of Christ. I think that, if we are going to help our kids understand Truth from error or hopefully protect them from getting into cults and things like that, that they might get really excited about; or maybe they’re at a church like you and I were. If I had a parent at the time who was able to pull me aside and say, “Hey. Okay, I visited your church with you, and there are some things that concern me. Let me take you to the Word of God, and let’s just see what that says.”

Dave: Yes.

Allen: That would have probably expedited my whole process, because I was in that church for about three years. As you know, probably, it’s hard to get out of a situation when you’re so deeply embedded that you start to feel like that’s your community; you feel like that’s your lifeline.

Ann: Totally.

Allen: Yes.

Dave: How’d you end up three years? Because when I read your story, initially, it was like you started to see some things that made you question, and I’m [thinking], “Oh, he’s going to leave.” And then, “Oh, no, you’re still there.”

Allen: Yes.

Dave: That’s pretty common.

Allen: Yes, I would say, it probably wasn’t until about the second year that I was there that I really started to even see and understand some of the signs and different things that were going on that let me know, “Okay, something is off here. I’m not quite sure what it is, but something doesn’t seem to gel with what I’m reading in the Scriptures.”

Then from that point, it took me about a year, a year-and-a-half, to muster up the courage. And even then, if I’m being honest with you, what happened was: I graduated from college, and I got a job offer in Detroit, Michigan. [Laughter] So, it was easy for me to leave at that point. I was already checked out, mentally, from the church (and emotionally).

Ann: Yes.

Allen: I share in the book some things that happened at that church with the pastor that were really difficult to deal with. So, at that point, I think God just kind of removed me when I graduated.

Ann: I appreciate that you started with that story, because some of the things that happen to us, God will use them and draw us toward what He has for us by some of our pain, and some of the trauma; some of the things that we go through.

One of the things I appreciated about our seminary—I remember this one class we had—they’d bring in like, “Today, we’re going to talk about…” (it could be very controversial topics, or just regular topics.) Then, we would be assigned to take one of the sides, whether you believed it or not, you were assigned a side, but you have to have come back, biblically,—Allen: —right.

Ann: —to prove your point, biblically.

Allen: Oh, that’s interesting.

Ann: That to me was really interesting, because they weren’t saying, “This is what you’re going to believe.” They’re saying,—

Dave: —“Prove it.”

Ann: —“Study the Scriptures.”

Allen: Right.

Ann: “Now, let’s go and really tear them apart. Let’s go deep into the Scriptures.” I thought that was beautiful, because then we’d all get together, and they’d point out things; they’d say things.

I think as a family, because we’ve raised three sons who are all adults, and having those conversations, “This is what’s going on. This is what this church is doing. This is what that church is doing. What does the Scripture say?”

Allen: Exactly.

Ann: That’s exactly what you’re doing, and I think that’s really important for families. And I would say this: our boys are all very different theologically,—Allen: —okay.

Ann: —which drives me crazy. [Laughter]

Allen: I can imagine, yes. [Laughter]

Ann: When they get together, there’s some tension, man; but they are solidified on the gospel;—Allen: —right.

Ann: —on Jesus; on the things that really matter;—Allen: —yes.

Ann: —the necessities. But man! They can go after it on some of the other things. I would call those the gray areas.

Allen: Yes.

Ann: Yes.

Allen: Yes, the secondary issues. That’s one of the things that I try to point out in my ministry as well: that it’s great to have debates; it’s great to have “intense fellowships,” as my wife and I like to call them [Laughter] whenever we’re having a little (I don’t know) disagreement, if you will.

Ann: Yes.

Allen: We call them “intense fellowships.” It’s okay to have those things, but at the end of the day, even some of the things that I write about in this book wouldn’t be things that I would say we need to break fellowship with someone, because many of them are secondary issues.

Ann: Yes.

Allen: At the end of the day, as long as people are in agreement with the non-negotiable aspects of Christianity—

Ann: —maybe we should say what those are.

Allen: Yes.

Ann: Go ahead.

Allen: Sure. There are several of them: there’s the fact that God is a Triune God; that we do believe in the Trinity, that God exists as one God in three Persons. We believe in the bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ; the inerrancy of Scripture; the Deity of Christ; the humanity of Christ—that Jesus was fully man, but also fully God; the return of Christ—that He is going to be coming back; the atonement—that Christ died on the cross for our sins. These are the primary, essential things that we have to agree on. Some of the other ones are non-essential, that there’s room for interpretation.

Ann: I think that’s good to just keep in mind—

Dave: —oh, yes.

Ann: —with our kids especially, because there would be some times where, maybe, our kids were going off in a direction where the essentials aren’t a part of it.

Allen: Right.

Ann: So as a parent, that’s when we do need to be more concerned.

Dave: Yes, Talk a little bit about giving your children freedom. I know your oldest is seven, right?

Allen: Right.

Dave: So, we’re a little older with—

Allen: —she hasn’t formed all of her theological theology just yet. [Laughter]

Dave: She hasn’t done it yet? [Laughter] She’ll have it by age nine, at least.

Allen: Yes; she’s half-witted.

Dave: But as they become teenagers and college kids and older, there’s that tension of, as a parent, giving them adult freedom, yet I’m still their parent. Let’s say [it’s a] 15-year-old, 14-year-old, or 17-year-old; they’re still in my home. They’re starting to believe some things that I would say, Scripturally, are not—

How do you manage that tension as a parent, do you think?

Allen: I like, Ann, your story about some things that you had to do in seminary about studying things from both sides.

Ann: Yes.

Allen: Because I think that, oftentimes, we are guilty of that. We have a certain theological idea or a theological bent, or maybe our kids—

Ann: —bias.

Allen: —a bias, yes. Or our kids are in college or high school, and maybe their friends say they believe this or that. So, they just don’t really study it out on their own. They’re just [saying], “Okay, well, I believe that, too.” Oftentimes, we don’t really know: “What are the other sides to this particular view here?”

I would—as a parent, as my kids get older, I would—encourage them to always try to study various aspects or different sides of a situation. Whether they believe it or not, the only way that they’re going to be really able to defend their faith well—and now we’re kind of moving into apologetics—is if they truly understand what someone else believes, and, “What is their worldview?

Ann: Yes.

Allen: “What type of mindset are they bringing to this conversation so that I can better understand them?” But so often, we are really arguing from our side without even having any idea.

So, as a parent, I would try to encourage my kids to always try to study, not only what you think you believe, but what other people are believing as well. That way, you’ll have the best of both worlds.

Dave: I remember one of my first classes in seminary, a communication class. I remember—I’ll never forget, on one of the first days—the teacher said. “Hey, one of the things I want to encourage you to do is: don’t just read Christian literature. Read what other people think. Study other religions. You need to understand.”

I [thought], “Wait, wait! I thought we need to keep ourselves…”

I remember, one day, we walked into class. It was on theology, and they had a rabbi. The rabbi came up, and he [the professor] said, “We’re going to give him an hour to present what a Jewish person believes, and then we’re going to ask questions.” I remember, a soon as he was done, the professor said, “Anybody have a question?” The first hand that went up, somebody said, “Why don’t you believe Jesus is the Messiah?” Boom.

Do you know what he said? He [said], “Because He didn’t fulfill His job description.”

I’ll never forget this. This was 45 years ago. [Laughter]

Allen: Wow.

Dave: And we’re [wondering], “What do you mean?” He [said], “He didn’t set up His Kingdom. He didn’t come and conquer.”

Allen: Right.

Dave: So, it was really interesting to [think], “Okay. I need to understand.”

Allen: Right.

Dave: One of the things you talk about in your book [that] I’d love to hear you talk about is deconstruction. We’ve had Sean McDowell—

Allen: —yes.

Dave: Big word right now.

Allen: Oh, yes.

Dave: We’ve had Sean McDowell on here talking about it, and others, and I think a lot of us as parents are [thinking], “Oh,”—

Ann: —we’re worried.

Dave: —”this is a scary word”—

Allen: —yes.

Dave: —”that our kids, especially as they get to college, are going to deconstruct”—

Allen: —sure.

Dave: —”what we’ve poured into them all these years.”

It’s not a phenomenon, but what’s going on and how to understand that, especially as a parent?

Allen: Yes, that’s the buzzword now. That’s the in thing. That’s the popular thing is, “Oh, I’ve deconstructed.” And there are even whole YouTube channels that are dedicated—

Dave: —right.

Allen: — to sharing their deconstruction journey, and helping other people deconstruct, and all of that.

Ann: I was going to say, “They’re evangelizing.”

Dave: Yes.

Allen: Oh yes, absolutely. They are absolutely doing that.

I think that we need to encourage our kids that it is normal, natural, and healthy to have questions and have doubts about what you believe. I think we should encourage that. I think we should affirm that, because what we don’t want is for them to have all these questions and doubts and feel like, “Oh, there’s something wrong with me.”

Dave: Yes.

Allen: Or, “Maybe I’m not a Christian, or maybe I don’t love Jesus because I have these concerns or have these doubts.” And then they hold it in, and they never really get the help they need. Instead, we should encourage our kids, and we should have these conversations with them.

I’m sure you’re probably familiar with Natasha Crane.

Dave: Right.

Allen: She has these books out that are really encouraging parents to have conversations about God, about Jesus, and different things like that.

So, we should make sure that they feel like it’s okay to have these doubts; but at the same time, as parents, we need to help direct them to figure out how they can work through this in a way that would help them land on the faith side and not the lack-of-faith side after they go through this. That’s where we expose them to books like Dr. Sean McDowell has, and Jay Warner Wallace, and Lee Strobel—

Dave: —hey! And Allen Parr!

Allen: —and Allen Parr—

Dave: —Misled.

Ann: Allen Parr!

Dave: —Are you kidding me?

Ann: —That’s right! [Laughter]

Allen: Now, mine is less apologetics, and more—

Dave: —right.

Allen: —defending the Christian faith and things like that, but yes.

Ann: But it’s your first one—

Allen: —yes.

Ann: —of many.

Allen: —yes, [Laughter] And I could see myself doing some apologetic stuff in the future as well; but I think that if we could just direct them to the resources and help them understand that, “Even though you have doubts, there are valid answers to the questions that you have about Christianity.”

So many people who are “deconstructing,” and then, ultimately, leaving the faith: I doubt that they’re really going through the process of trying to seek to get answers for what they believe.

Ann: Yes.

Allen: They’re just kind of jumping on the bandwagon and just saying, “Well, I don’t believe any of this stuff.”

Dave: Yes; and I love the fact that we have a disciple who many people think his first name was “Doubting.” [Laughter] You know, “Doubting Thomas.”

Allen: Yes.

Dave: It’s how we refer to him, because he had that moment when he says, “I won’t believe unless I see the nail scar.” And I love—and I preach this many times, but I love—how Jesus approaches him when he has those doubts. He doesn’t look at him like we sometimes might think.He’d be like, “Come on, dude, really?”

Allen: Yes, “You’ve been with Me all this time.”

Dave: “I’ve been with you. You’re doubting?”

Allen: Yes.

Dave: He looks at him [Thomas] and says, “Oh, you need evidence?”

Allen: Yes.

Dave: “Here you go.” It’s almost like, as a parent, when our son or daughter—and I like how you, in the book, when they—are saying, “I’m reexamining my faith.” That’s a better word than “deconstruction.”

Allen: Yes.

Dave: I like that because, I’ve even said, “Deconstruction is a good thing. It isn’t a bad thing if you’re trying to understand, ‘What did I grow up with? Is this right? Some of it was error in theology, and I want to construct’.”

I’ve said it’s wrong. I think that’s a bad term, because it makes you think you’re going to leave—

Allen: —ues.

Dave: —and examine, or “reexamine” is a better way to say it. And you said that in your book. I like that.

Allen: Yes, and I think a large part of what’s motivating a lot of the Deconstruction Movement is Progressive Christianity.

Dave: Yes.

Ann: We want to talk about that.

Dave: Which is a whole chapter in here.

Allen: Okay.

Ann: We’re going to do that tomorrow.

Allen: I’m looking forward to digging into that. Okay! [Laughter]

Ann: Me, too.

Dave: Yes, I think it’s where we head tomorrow—

Allen: —okay.

Dave: —because I think a lot of our parents are [wondering], “What are you talking about?”

Allen: Oh, yes.

Ann: Yes; we’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Allen: That’s great.

Shelby: As I’ve worked with young people over the last 25 years (25 years—man, it’s been a long time), the topic of deconstruction really is quite important, because it’s the air that young people breathe, especially on college campuses. So, if it’s unavoidable, how do we handle it appropriately?

I’m Shelby Abbott, and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Allen Parr on FamilyLife Today. Great conversation today, super helpful, and it will continue on into tomorrow. Allen has written a book called Misled: 7 Lies that Distort the Gospel (and How You Can Discern the Truth). You can get your copy of Allen’s book, Misled, by going online right now to FamilyLifeToday.com, or you can find it in the show notes. Or feel free to give us a call at 800-358-6329 to request your copy; again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

You know, the month of August is really important. We, as a ministry of FamilyLife, want to encourage you to make your mark within the context of this ministry, and we at FamilyLife are obviously very adamant; we’re very passionate about reaching families. You can link arms with us and be a part of what FamilyLife is doing to help reach families all over the world. You can go online to FamilyLifeToday.com to make a donation, or you can give us a call at 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

When you do make a donation of any amount, we’re going to send you, as our “thank you,” a special FamilyLife pen, along with a copy of Brant Hansen’s book Unoffendable. It’s just a small way of us saying “thank you” to you for partnering with us to help reach families and marriages all over the world. Again, you can head online to FamilyLifeToday.com to make your donation.

Now, coming up tomorrow, as we talked about, what is the difference between Traditional Christianity and Progressive Christianity? Well, Allen Parr is back to tackle that, along with much more with the Wilsons tomorrow. We hope you’ll join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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