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You can find previous episodes of “The Stone Chapel Podcast” at Lanier Theological Library.
“The Stone Chapel Podcast” is part of the ChurchLeaders Podcast Network.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
Shane Rosenthal
My name is Shane Rosenthal. I was raised in a secular Jewish home and became an atheist at a very young age. Soon after that, in my college years, I ended up losing faith in atheism and I converted to Christianity.
David Capes
Shane Rosenthal, The Humble Skeptic, welcome to The Stone Chapel Podcast.
Shane Rosenthal
It’s great to be with you, David,
David Capes
it’s great to see you. I saw you and your wife at the Lanier Theological Library recently, and that was marvelous. I really enjoyed it. Gary Habermas was our lecturer that weekend, and we had a great time.
Shane Rosenthal
I really enjoyed being there. Thanks for the invitation. My wife and I just really enjoyed our time. It was our first time at the library.
David Capes
We’ll have to get you back for many reasons. We’re going to talk today about your persona as The Humble Skeptic. I guess you’re proud of that.
Shane Rosenthal
You know, I was shopping around different ideas when I decided to start my own podcast, and I was wondering if this would work in a Christian world. Because, you think of the word skeptic as in an outsider. That’s the unbelievers.
David Capes
They’re the ones who are questioning God or questioning everything.
Shane Rosenthal
Yes. But it’s actually done very well with Christian audiences. And the way I like to say it is that we’re all believers, but we can’t all be right. Because we have so many different disagreements with what we believe. And every doubter is also a believer, and every believer is also a doubter. When the Jehovah Witnesses come to your door, you don’t believe them. And so we’re all believers and skeptics, but we simplify things when we talk about believing in skeptics. I just say, I want to own skepticism, but in a humble way. I want us to be discerning is another way to put it.
David Capes
I love that. Now, earlier, you said that you were raised in a secular Jewish home and that you lost faith in your atheism. Unpack that a little bit. In other words, who is Shane Rosenthal?
Shane Rosenthal
Part of the issue of my own upbringing is what I like to focus on throughout the rest of life. We’re all struggling with things that happen to us in our formative years. I was raised in a secular, Jewish home. We didn’t have a lot of theological discussions, or biblical discussions. That was the thing that you study at Hebrew school. It was compartmentalized. It was liturgical, and traditional, but not a lot of substance, so I checked out as a third grader. I thought it was made up and silly but I didn’t vocalize my doubts.
I think that’s important as Christians, as we think about how we are nurturing others in the faith, we should make sure we’re weaving it into our theology and doctrine. This is actually touching the real world. This is true for everyone, not just us. That’s what we actually believe about our core doctrines. This is true, and here’s why we believe it’s true.
For me, I began doubting that this was real. I thought, the stories are fictional. But the thing that rescued me from my atheism was actually bumping into some Messianic prophecies, like Micah 5:2, and Isaiah 53. So out of Bethlehem, the Messiah will come. The Messiah will be a suffering servant, and he will atone for sin. It was all those great themes that Paul summarizes in 1 Corinthians 15. According to the Scriptures, this is seen by eyewitnesses but foreseen by the prophets. So that rattled my world as it were, and I started talking to rabbis about it.
David Capes
What did they say about it?
Shane Rosenthal
My favorite is one was when I mentioned Psalm 22. Here it says they’ve pierced my hands and my feet. Doesn’t that sound like crucifixion? And one Rabbi said, I don’t know, maybe it is talking about bows and arrows. And I mentioned Micah 5:2, and he said, well, that’s not really talking about the Messiah, who’s going to be born in Bethlehem. It’s talking about King David, who is related to the Messiah. And King David was born in Bethlehem. I asked him though I’d only been a Christian for a few months, how do you know if somebody today comes and claims to be the Messiah? How are you going to find out
that he’s related to King David? Aren’t the records all destroyed after the fall of Jerusalem? And he said, that’s a good problem.
David Capes
You said you were about in third grade when you became an atheist. Did you tell your parents about this. Or did you tell you the Rabbi?
Shane Rosenthal
I did not vocalize my doubts as an atheist. It was all in my head. I’m just going through the motions. The reason why I could do that is because we didn’t really talk about religion at home. It was more about traditional culture, diet, and festivals, but not a lot of theology or biblical discussions. It’s easy to be anonymous there.
David Capes
It was interesting that you said to me earlier that you lost your faith in atheism because people don’t often think of atheism as a faith.
Shane Rosenthal
Yeah, and I make the point that faith isn’t a religious term, especially if you look at the word that’s used in the New Testament. It’s not a particularly religious word. It’s just the word trust. What do we trust? What do we believe? What do we know? We should be humble about these things. And if you just think about chance, there are 1000s of different world views out there. Your view isn’t likely to be right. So you need something better than just chance and odds, and that’s why we should think things through carefully. The reason I converted to Christianity is I became convinced that there’s something here that’s substantive, that’s grounded. It seems obvious that this is the true faith. This was. It was revealed in advance.
David Capes
So earlier you said you bumped into Messianic prophecies. How did that happen?
Shane Rosenthal
I was just out of high school, and I began working in various restaurants. Conversations started with people I was working with. They invited me to church. I experimented one day, and I said yes, and I went to one. But also, things I was hearing in college piqued my interest. I began reading. I don’t know why I was reading in the book of Micah, but that was the first one where I saw Bethlehem. I actually went to my closet and pulled out an old Hebrew Bible where it’s Hebrew on one side and English on the other.
Sure, I’ve been to Hebrew school. I thought it can’t really say Bethlehem here, but it’s right there. If you follow that passage it says, out of Bethlehem shall come, the one whose origins are from old, from everlasting. A couple verses later, his name will be great to the ends of the earth. If you think about it who else from Bethlehem has a name that everyone knows? Jesus is the most famous person who ever lived.
David Capes
Yes, exactly. Let’s transition a little bit here. You have this persona and your website is called “The Humble Skeptic.” I love that. It has many really wonderful, well produced podcasts that are just beautifully done. You weave music and you tell stories, it’s just phenomenal. It’s more than just a podcast. It’s something else. And you started this because you’ve been in radio for quite a while.
