Comedian Chris Distefano recommended Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ” to podcast host and fellow comedian Joe Rogan while trying to convince Rogan that Jesus rose from the dead.
“I was like, wow, this guy [Lee Strobel] is putting forth very compelling arguments for not only Jesus’ existence but his actual works being real,” said Distefano on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” [Editor’s note: This video contains language some viewers might find offensive]. “Like this all being f****** pretty real and pretty historically accurate. And I was like, ‘Oh, s***.’”
Strobel’s book seems to have made a significant impact on Distefano, who on Jan. 21 recommended “The Case for Christ” to Bill Maher, a comedian and political commentator known for being highly critical of Christianity.
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Joe Rogan is a comedian, UFC color commentator, and the host of one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience” reportedly earn about $800,000 each, and according to TechCrunch, in 2022 episodes were receiving around 11 million listens apiece.
Chris Distefano began his career in the entertainment industry on MTV and MTV2’s “Guy Code” and “Girl Code.” He recorded his first comedy special, “Chris Distefano: Size 38 Waist,” in 2019 and his second, “Speshy Weshy,” in 2022.
During his conversation with Rogan earlier this month, Distefano and Rogan were talking about anxiety, with Rogan expressing that being creative, versus simply consuming, is good for a person’s overall well-being.
Distefano said he experiences what he called “Catholic guilt,” leading to a superstition that if he feels good about himself, then something bad will happen. Then he said, “I’m reading this book, ‘Case for Christ.’ You ever read this book?” Rogan said he had not.
Distefano explained he was raised Catholic and became angry at Catholicism after the news broke about the sexual abuse in the Catholic church. “I was very angry for a while,” said Distefano, noting that at first he didn’t want to get his kids baptized, although he eventually did.
After reading “The Case for Christ,” Distefano “started to go back to church, and I started to feel like this, like, just like, calmness, and almost like, even if it’s forced, this force connection.”
Rogan responded to Distefano by offering him the advice that he should listen to what he knows is best for himself and hold fast to his ideals and values. The conversation strayed from Strobel’s book as Distefano described his insecurities and the two men discussed whether or not it is likely that people in the Old Testament actually lived for hundreds of years.
