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I think the fear of death
drives a lot of our lives.

We try to suppress it.
We try to ignore it.

We try to deny it.
We try to distract from it.

But the truth is,
our fear of death,

as some experts say,
drives all of culture.

This underlying fear
of what happens when we die

drives a lot
of people's ambitions.

It drives what they do
and how they do it.

They want to be immortal.

♪ I'm a city
on a hill, yeah ♪

♪ I'm a light
in the darkness ♪

♪ I'm a trumpet blowing down
my walls of fear ♪

♪ I'm filled with promise ♪

♪ I am built
to overcome, yeah ♪

♪ I have joy in my sorrow ♪

♪ And my only motivation
is your love ♪

♪ I'm your beloved ♪

♪ Oh, you walk anew ♪

♪ I know ♪

♪ What I was made to do ♪

♪ Will you increase my ability
to be loved ♪

♪ Will you increase my ability
to be loved ♪

♪ Be loved by you ♪

Your personality
was changing.

- Yeah.
- Over weeks.

Yeah.

But it was small,
little things that, you know,

you just kind of wonder
what that's about.

But you jumped
into your novel,

started becoming part
of that book

that you had just finished.

Yeah, I was writing
the novel at the time,

and I kind of became one
of the characters in the novel.

That's right.

Started seeing people
watching the house

and kind of coming after you.

You got to a point where you
would not go to a doctor.

I called your doctor.
He wanted you to come in.

I couldn't get you to come in.

You were paranoid and thinking
people were after you,

and then that night,
you went to bed,

and thought I heard a noise
in the bedroom,

and I thought, well,
maybe you're just dreaming,

and I thought I better check.

And there you were,

you know, just laying there.

The first thing
I saw was the doctor,

and he was hovering over me.

His surgical mask was down.

And he had a concerned look
on his face.

And I remember opening my eyes
and kind of trying

to figure out where I was,
and then hearing him say,

"You're one step
away from a coma,

two steps away from dying."

And even before I was able
to process that,

I fell unconscious again.

And so it was,
you know, a few days

before I started
to come back around

and feel like myself again.

And then, looking back
on all that we went through,

I think back
at that time period,

that was where I started
to really consider losing you,

and that whatever's going on,
if it does take you from us,

his plan is beyond mine,
and I can rest in that

and know
that I'll see you again.

Yeah, aw, aw.

But just don't go
dying early, okay?

- Okay.
- Couple more centuries.

When you're on your back
in the emergency room,

looking into the face
of an emergency room physician

who says you're one step
away from a coma,

two steps away from dying,
and all of a sudden,

this becomes the most
relevant thing in the world.

What happens next?

What happens if I close my eyes

and I don't open them
again in this world?

Mm, um...

I have absolutely no idea
what happens after we die.

How do you make
a movie about Heaven?

That question frightened me.

I think it would take
a lifetime.

I think it would take
exploration

around the world
and different places,

stories, and cultures.

We had 12 months condensed
into 90 minutes

to make this happen.

If we could just touch Heaven
for one second in this film,

I think that might be enough.

The day I got
the phone call from Lee,

I wasn't expecting it,

but I knew that it was
gonna change everything.

Hey, Mani.
Lee Strobel calling.

Hey, I've got a project
I'm working on called

"The Case for Heaven."

Something I've learned in
my life throughout the years

is that everybody
has a moment of truth.

I think something
that's crucial

that we think about is,

if that moment were here,
would we be ready for it?

My mother cleaned houses
in Malibu.

My dad was a dishwasher when
they came to this country.

I was born
in an immigrant family

from Guatemala.

I was raised
in South Central LA,

definitely not
the nicest place

to grow up in.

Though there was
all this chaos outside,

whether there were
drive-bys, gangs, you know,

even fires, and things burning
down during the LA Riots,

inside our house,
there was this peace,

there was this joy.

And if I can claim anything
to know about God,

it's the fact
that he changes everything.

Here we go.

To compensate
for people's fear of death,

they are trying
to find some way

to live on beyond their death.

People are terrified of dying,

and that's
just all there is to it.

Now, don't get me wrong,
if you ask people

if they're afraid of dying,
they'll say no.

In fact,
that's what most people do.

The first step to dealing with
the fear of death is denial.

I'm just going to ignore
the fact that I'm gonna die.

Denial doesn't work
without distraction.

You know, there's the old joke,

think about whatever you want
for the next two minutes,

but don't think
about pink elephants.

Well, everybody
knows the answer to that.

The answer to not thinking
about pink elephants

is to think about blue ones.

In other words, you have
to think about something else.

And that's where movies,
social media, sports stars,

singing stars,
you know, all of this--

that's where
these things come in

because it distracts us
from the fact

that we're going to die.

If you look at almost
everything that humans do,

they're doing it
as a symbolic attempt

to live on past their deaths

because they're terrified
of death.

Everyone on Earth is engaged
in some sort

of a symbolic
immortality project.

Build something,
to write a book,

political activism is
an immortality project.

I'm going to change the world.

See, in other words,
I'm doing something

to make the world
a better place.

Having children is
a symbolic immortality project,

and that's
the most common one of all.

The trouble with that
is that your children

are only half you.

Their children--
your children's children

are only a quarter you.

After 20 generations,

there will only
be 0.000004% you,

if there's any of you at all
because, you know,

genes transfer over in blocks,

and there's regressive genes
and dominant genes,

and after just
a few generations,

there might not be any of you
at all in your offspring.

But there's one more problem.

I've asked my classes
all the time.

I'll say, "So how many
of you know the first names

of your
great-great-grandparents?"

And I think, in all
the classes I've asked--

I didn't write it down,
but I think in all the classes

that I've asked,

only three students
have ever said,

"I know the first names of
my great-great-grandparents."

And then, I ask
this follow-up question.

I'll say, "Do you care?"

Nobody cares.

I've never had a student say,
"I really wish

I knew the first names of
my great-great-grandparents."

Nobody cares.

Unfortunately,
a lot of people figure,

"I'm gonna go out
in a blaze of glory,

"in a blaze of gunfire.

"I'm gonna do something
that will make people

"remember my name even if it
means blowing up a school

or murdering somebody famous."

The investigation
into the high school massacre

is slow-moving and dangerous.

The two gunmen
who went on the rampage

booby-trapped the building
and even themselves.

Mark David Chapman,
who murdered John Lennon,

said that he was trying
to steal his fame.

He walked past me.

I took five steps
toward the street,

turned,

withdrew my Charter Arms .38,

and fired five shots
into his back.

The Columbine killers,
the day before they went

on this murderous spree
at that high school,

were talking about,
"Which director is gonna direct

the movie about our life?"

Witnesses say they laughed
as they fired their weapons,

executing their classmates,
who begged for their lives.

Screaming after they'd
shoot up something,

they'd go, "Whoo!"

Just the pleasure for them.

Some people will commit
atrocious crimes

because they want
to be remembered.

That's the dark side
of symbolic immortality.

What is a soul,

and why include it
into your investigation?

The soul is our spirit.
It is our self.

It is the locus
of our introspection,

our emotions,
our desires, our thoughts.

It is the essential you.

It's our first-person
perspective.

It's "I."

The key question is,

does the soul
survive physical death?

When we die, our spirit,

our soul,
separates from our body.

So I wanted to look
at--what is the evidence

that we have a soul,
first of all,

and then secondly,
what evidence do we have

that it can survive
our physical death?

So in other words,
Jesus, on the cross, said

to the thief next to him that,

"Today, you'll be
with me in paradise."

Apostle Paul said
to be absent from the body

is to be present with the Lord.

So when we die, our spirit,

our soul separates
from our body.

And as one philosopher said,

"I am a soul,
and I have a body."

I think that's a good way
to look at it.

One of the views
that we find being expressed

is that you are your brain,
that everything you do,

think, and say originates

and is driven by the neurons
in your head.

But is that all that there is
to being a human being,

or is there actually more
to it?

Well, it's true
that we have a brain.

That's very important,
but we also have a mind,

and we have this--there's
something that it is to be us.

There's something
that it is like to be you

that actually neurons alone
can't completely explain.

I grew up
in a very loving home

in the northeast of England,

and it was a setting of which
kind of religious beliefs

weren't really talked about
either way,

and so there wasn't
any particular agenda

or belief system
that was being pushed on me.

Probably, I'd say,
by the time I was a teenager,

I knew that I wanted
to be a scientist.

I loved the sciences.

And I remember
my biology teacher

handing me a book
by Richard Dawkins

about this idea that we are
essentially gene machines,

and that the purpose
of our lives is

to be DNA carriers,

and I think
I absorbed the view

that that must be the only way

of looking at life
from other sources as well,

like magazines, and radio,
and from other people

that I was meeting.

And you can't be
a credible scientist

and believe
in God at the same time,

and so I needed to find out
whether I was being asked

to choose
between God and a theory.

Is free will an illusion?

Scientists will have
their different views,

but there is one question

that really science
isn't able to answer:

why can we think
in the first place?

And if the forces
of nature are not enough

to explain the human mind,

then maybe our explanations
for the human mind lie

beyond the forces of nature.

A significant part
of my story is

when I was invited
to a carol service

around Christmastime
when I was at university,

and I was just really moved
by the experience

of what was happening,

and there was more going on
than just the music.

There was something else
that really was moving me

on quite a deep level.

What was that?
What is that?

And, you know,
if all that there is

to this world is
physical things,

then there wasn't really a way
to make sense of that.

One of the go-tos of those
that are trying to say,

"No, there's more to a human
being than just their brain,"

is the idea that we have
these experiences all the time

that are very difficult
to describe purely in terms

of physical interactions
and physical descriptions.

You know,
one example would be coffee.

You know,
here we are drinking coffee.

Imagine I were to ask you
to describe to me the smell

of coffee purely in terms
of physical descriptions.

You know, we might come up
with the chemical structure

of caffeine,
but that wouldn't

actually get us any closer
to the smell of coffee.

Or we might describe what's
happening physiologically

as it goes into our body
and we digest it,

but that doesn't
get you any closer...

- Yeah.
- To the smell of coffee.

If you want to understand
the smell of coffee,

you need to smell it,

and this is an example
of a quale in the singular,

or qualia, in its plural.

Life is full of qualia,

and these things cannot be
described in physical terms.

They are in a category
of their own.

And ultimately,
there's the qualia

of what it is like to be you,

the experience--
the first-person experience

of being a human being.

You know, maybe there's
a sort of a bigger experience

that is out there.

And if physical descriptions
aren't enough,

maybe the ultimate reason
for that lies

beyond the physical.

And where I really kind
of land with this is that,

you know, we are conscious,

we have
these conscious experiences

because we're made by a god
who is himself conscious

in Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit,

and who has made a world
in which that kind

of consciousness is extended
into human beings.

And so we think
because God does.

We have a mind
because God does,

which is kind of radical,
because a lot of people think

to be a Christian
or to be a spiritual person

is perhaps
to throw out your brain

and start
believing impossible things

that have no bearing on life,
but actually no.

Actually,
to be a thinking person

is to live out what it means

to be made
in the image of God.

A famous old
recording engineer--

his name's Walter Sear.

He had a place called
Sear Sound in New York City.

I read something he said once,

that everything
we do in here is a lie

because you've got
these two speakers,

these two crappy
little speakers,

and you're trying
to create these giant worlds,

like you're in a big hall,
or you're, you know,

in a giant silo
with a drummer.

So everything you have
to do in here

is extremely calculated
to create this illusion

that there's this world
coming out of these speakers.

And hopefully,
you feel enveloped in them.

You're gonna have the paper
in your hand for this?

Yeah.
Does it look bad if I do?

- I don't--
- I don't mind it.

I don't mind.

This is real stuff,
okay, guys?

- Yeah.
- We didn't cut this.

I think I called you
on the phone.

I was in Georgia.

I called you,
"Hey, Lee, I have this idea."

You know, you had
an id--something in your book

about how you went
to a concert.

- Yeah.
- You know, the experience.

And I was like,

"Hey, Lee, I want
to do something at a studio."

What was your first impression?

Well, I didn't know
what to expect.

You know, entering
into your thinking process...

- Yes.
- Is always an adventure.

Yes.

And so I just kind
of went along for the ride.

And I think there's a couple
of ways to look at it.

You know, there's a lot
in the Bible about Heaven,

but a lot
of it is metaphorical.

A lot of it uses imagery
to convey something

that may not be figuratively
accurate and so forth.

So we know a lot
about Heaven,

but we don't know
a lot about Heaven.

And I think ultimately,
it's gonna be the kind of place

where you're gonna have to say,

you just gotta go
and experience it

to really understand it.

And so today, with
this whole musical experience,

which is so alien
to my background,

was the kind of thing

that you just kind
of had to experience.

How different in dynamics
was it actually hearing it

back through the speakers?

It's very different
because, first of all,

Bob was totally into it

and was kind
of sending hand signals

through the glass to
the drum player and so forth.

Yeah, yeah.

And the idea that it comes

through
some pretty basic speakers,

but then through the system,

that can enrich the sound,
and the product that you get

in the end is
so much more vibrant

and robust than just listening
to somebody play an instrument.

Leslie and I,
when we were newly wed,

went to a concert
with the Rolling Stones

and with Ike and Tina Turner.

I remember afterwards trying
to communicate to a friend

of mine what that was like.

And I'm trying
to tell him about the sound,

and the ambience of the room,
and the crowd,

and the songs,
which songs were played.

And at the end,
it was so--at the end, I said,

"Well, you just had
to be there."

'cause mere words

couldn't communicate
the whole experience.

A lot of scientists believe
that we are just our brains.

We're just
a meat computer basically.

Well, there's a lot
of implications of that,

and a lot of them are good.

For instance, if we're
just a meat computer,

we don't
really have free will.

How do you punish someone
for doing something illegal

if there's no free will?

He didn't have a choice.

How do you congratulate
someone does something great?

It doesn't make sense,

but a lot
of scientists believe that.

And yet, we know that
we are more than our brain,

that our brain can tell us,
if you go to a concert,

which notes were played,

what the temperature
of the room was,

and so forth, but it can't
convey the experience.

We are more
than a meat machine.

We are more
than just our brains.

We have a spirit.
We have a soul.

We have a consciousness.

It's the seat of our volition,
of our emotions,

of our feelings, and so forth.

And you can't open a cell
in your brain and say,

"Oh, here's Lee's emotions."

It doesn't work that way.

We are a hyphenated people.

In other words,
we are a body,

but we're also a soul,
a spirit.

And what's important
about that is that,

if that is true,

then it would make sense
that if our physical body died,

our immaterial body, that is,
our spirit or our soul,

could continue to live.

Near-death experiences--
I was a skeptic about it.

Even as a Christian,
I was skeptical

about near-death experiences
initially

until I did the research.

One of the things that
John Burke did in his research

when he wrote his book
"Imagine Heaven,"

about near-death experiences
is, he only interviewed people

who had nothing to gain
and a lot to lose

by talking about their
near-death experiences.

There's two questions, really.

One question is,
are we a body and a spirit

or soul, or consciousness,
and if we are,

how do we know
that consciousness

survives clinical death?

And that's where we get
into near-death experiences.

- That's our segue right now.
- Yeah.

Which I love, because

as our conversations
have developed,

and we're moving through,
you know, these topics,

I think
the near-death experiences is

the thing that--'cause
I was gonna say,

well, how do you prove that?

Yeah.

For me, it started
when I was still an agnostic

and a skeptic.

I was an engineer
for a number of years,

and that's kind
of how my mind works.

God, the afterlife, all that--
I just didn't know,

and I honestly didn't care.

But my dad was dying of cancer,
and someone gave him

the very first research
on what's come

to be called
near-death experiences.

When someone clinically dies,
their heart stops beating,

in some cases,
brain waves cease,

and yet modern medicine,
or miracle, whatever,

brings them back,
and they actually talk

about a life to come.

And that began a whole journey
of really exploring,

and questioning, and trying
to understand all of this

that has gone on
for about 35 years.

These commonalities
that people report,

and they report
these same commonalities

around the globe--

how does that
actually intersect

with what the Bible says?

In a court of law, you know,
if you had ten people

who witnessed an accident

and they all say
exactly the same thing,

that's collusion, right?

That would be thrown out

because people would never say
exactly the same thing

unless they colluded together
to say the same thing.

But if you have ten people

who say
slightly different things

from different perspectives,
but they all overlap

to make a bigger picture,
well, that's a strong case.

I mean, I've personally studied
over a thousand of them,

but you have millions
all over the globe.

In fact,
the Gallup poll did a survey

and found 1 out of 25 Americans
has had one

of these near-death
experiences.

That's like
13 million Americans.

European Academy
of Neuroscience recently did

a study across 35 countries,

and they found that
more like one in ten Europeans

have had one
of these experiences.

So these are not uncommon.

In order to show
that we have a consciousness

that survives our death,
we just need one authentic,

corroborated
near-death experience,

and we have a lot more
than one of those examples.

My favorite example
is Pamela Reynolds.

Here's a 35-year-old woman

who is having
a brain aneurysm,

so she had to have
a highly unusual operation.

They put her
under deep anesthetic.

Her body was cooled
to 50 degrees,

and all of the blood
was drained from her brain.

Three tests showed that

there was no measurable
brain activity whatsoever.

She had devices inserted
into her ears

so that all she could hear
was 100 decibels of sound,

which is like a subway train
going right next to you.

And then her eyes
were taped shut.

And all the surgical
instruments were shrouded

before the surgery began.

And yet, she was conscious,
she said, during that surgery.

Even though there was
no measurable brain activity,

she was conscious.

She described witnessing
the surgery take place.

She described going
through a tunnel,

meeting dead relatives,
coming back into her body.

She was able
to recall specific details

about the highly
unusual instruments

that were used
during her surgery.

And, even more than that,

she recalls
specific conversations

that took place
while she was brain-dead,

while she was clinically dead.

She remembers
one person saying,

"We have a problem.
Her arteries are too small,"

and a male voice responding,
"Go to the other side."

So she witnessed things
that she had no way of knowing

unless her consciousness

somehow survived
her clinical death.

Another researcher
studied 93 patients

who reported specific details
that they encountered

during their
near-death experience,

like Pamela Reynolds
identifying

the surgical instruments
that were used

and the conversations
that were spoken.

And what she discovered is
that a remarkable 92% of them

were absolutely accurate

in what
they verifiably claimed.

Another 6% were
largely accurate.

Well, that's
almost a perfect record

of these people
observing things

that they otherwise
could not have observed

because they were
clinically dead at the time,

and yet reporting correctly
what they had seen.

One of the commonalities
of people

who have NDEs
is a life review.

And because time doesn't work
the same on the other side,

they often relive
their entire lives.

It's like watching

a three-dimensional
panoramic replay of your life,

but what they say is they're
watching not only everything

they did, but their
interactions with other people,

and they can experience how
it felt to the other people.

So they're not
just experiencing

what they thought and felt.

They're experiencing
what others thought

and felt as well.

When I was being interviewed
on the news in New York City,

I got an email
afterwards from Heidi.

She was a hospice nurse.

And she said,
"Hey, I saw you on the news.

"I heard about your book.
I've never read your book.

"I don't know who you are.

But that happened to me
when I was 16 years old."

And she said,
"I grew up in a Jewish home,

"but my father and mother--
they were agnostic atheist.

"My dad used to tell me that,

"'You're no more significant
than a speck of dust,

"'and Jesus Christ
was the biggest hoax

ever perpetrated
on humanity.'"

"When I was 16, my horse
reared back, and fell on me,

"and completely crushed
my pelvis and my chest,

and I died."

She said, "I was up
above my body about 30 feet,

"and I'm watching
my sisters freak out,

"and I'm thinking,

I wish my sisters
didn't have to watch me die."

She felt great, but she was sad
that they had to watch that.

And then she sees a light
over her shoulder, she said.

And she turns,
and there's Jesus.

She fully wasn't
expecting Jesus.

And yet, she said,
"I knew this was God.

"And he looked
just like Jesus.

And I felt
like I had always known him."

Since she was a little girl,

she had always believed in God
and had always prayed to God.

And Jesus ends up
in this near-death experience

giving her a life review.

And he shows her
in the life review,

when she was
a little girl praying

and she would feel
this sense of peace,

that he was actually the one
sitting on her bedside

when she would pray.

She came back
from that experience knowing

that Jesus was God,
and yet she's Jewish.

And she's been able
to see that the Jewish prophets

foretold all about Jesus,
and so she's Jewish,

but she believes that
Jesus was the Jewish Messiah

who was foretold.

And so we have a famous case
of a woman

who was clinically dead,
and she describes how

her soul separated
from her body.

She was watching them trying
to resuscitate her,

and she floated up through
the floors of the hospital

to the roof of the hospital.

When she came back
into her body,

and was telling people
about this, she said,

"By the way,
while I was floating up there,

"on the third-floor ledge
of the hospital,

"there's
a man's blue tennis shoe

"with some wearing
over the little toe area,

"and it's sitting on that ledge

with the shoelace
underneath the heel."

Well, then they go up,
and they find,

yes, here it is,
exactly as she said.

That's corroboration.

That is something
she could not have known

if she didn't have
a real out-of-body experience.

I think at first,
John decided to write

about the NDEs and about Heaven

using the near-death
experiences as part of it.

We knew that it was gonna get
a lot of resistance.

And we knew
that people would maybe think

that we were going
away from Scripture,

or even some
of our pastor friends

might not understand

because nobody was really
taking theology of Heaven

and the near-death experiences

and showing how
they can line up.

You know, John actually gave
a talk on this

back in the late '80s

at the University
of California, Santa Barbara.

The Christian community
was giving a lot

of pushback to this.

People that were sharing
their near-death stories

did not get well-received.

And in many cases,
they were judged

for what they had experienced.

My 35 years of research have
completely changed my view

from what it was earlier on

of what the life to come
is gonna be like.

What I've realized is
that every good thing

that we experience
on this Earth,

everything we love--
first of all, God created it,

and that's why we love it.

He created it for us
to enjoy it and to love it.

But all of it is just a shadow
of the real thing

that he created us
to enjoy in Heaven.

So all of this life
is just a shadow

of the real one we were meant
to experience, relationally,

with beauty,
with fun and excitement,

with work and pleasure,
with all of it.

I mean,
the best is yet to come.

In the over a thousand
near-death experiences

I've studied,

it's this incredible picture
of how, when we die,

we leave our natural bodies,
but we're still ourselves.

We have spiritual bodies,
and not with five senses,

more like 50 senses.

It's life on steroids.

It's life beyond anything
we've experienced.

The colors
that people talk about

are the color spectrums
far beyond Earth,

but that's what
you would expect

because the color spectrum
of Earth

is the color spectrum
of the sun,

but the color spectrum
of Heaven

is the color spectrum of God.

There's this great
welcoming committee

of people who have
passed on before them,

who are there to welcome them.

And Jesus said,
"Use your Earthly resources,

"you know, to make friends,
so that when you die,

they will welcome you
into eternal dwellings."

It's gonna be life
and beauty not unlike Earth.

You know,
there are mountains,

and flowers,
and trees, and streams,

and all of that's talked about
in the Book of Isaiah

and the Book of Revelation.

And that's exactly what
near-death experiencers

talk about,
except they experience it

in expanded dimensions
of space,

more than three dimensions
of space,

and more dimensions of time,
just like it says in the Bible.

The greatest experience
on Earth is just like

a tiny taste compared
to the feast

that I believe
God has prepared for us,

and I can't wait to discover
all these new things.

I mean, imagine a universe
of billions of stars

and planets that we thought
were beyond our reach,

but what if, in a thought,
we can go explore them?

Endless, endless exploration.

I remember one day,
on the fourth floor newsroom

of the "Chicago Tribune,"
one of the copy editors

walked all the way
across the newspaper

and looked at me and said,

"Strobel, you're not
the best writer in the world,

but doggone it,
you're a clear writer."

And to me, that was
the biggest compliment

'cause that's what I think
good writing really is.

This really represents to me,
as you say,

the pinnacle
of my journalism career.

I mean, this is back
when newspapers mattered.

This is back
when our daily circulation was

almost a million every day.

This was back when
everybody got the newspaper.

It made a big difference.

And to know
that you could write an article

that could change the city,

that could end up
with people getting locked up

in prison because of crimes

that had never
been exposed before,

political corruption
and so forth.

You had a lot
of influence back then

that newspapers
really don't have today.

I just felt that,

if I could
get a front-page byline

in the "Chicago Tribune,"

which I had by the end of
my first week at the "Tribune,"

I had a front-page byline,

that sort of established
my credibility,

and it showed that I
made something of myself,

that I was successful,

that I was making
a difference,

that I was climbing
the ladder,

that I was
on the road to success.

All that was represented
by that little byline

on the front page
of the "Tribune."

Everyone wants to be remembered
by something, huh?

Before I got
into skateboarding,

I was really heavily into BMX,
and bikes, and motorcycles,

obviously because I was
a huge fan of Evel Knievel,

and the only way that we
can emulate Evel Knievel

was on a bicycle.

You know, I used
to put the card in the spokes

to try to make
it sound like a motor.

I used to buy
these plastic gas tanks

to put over my bike to make
it look like a motorcycle.

We used to make ramps to try
to jump over garbage cans,

pretend like
we're jumping cars.

I chose skateboarding

because it really didn't matter
how big you were,

how strong you were, how tall.

No, didn't fear God at all.

I didn't believe in God,
really,

you know, so at that time,

I didn't really care whether
I was going to Heaven or Hell,

or even thought about it.

I had a conversation
with an old teammate

from the Bones Brigade days.

His name is Lance Mountain.

He was a teammate of mine
on Powell Peralta,

and he's been
a devout Christian

ever since I've known him,
since the late '70s.

And I remember,
I was in his car,

and we were having a debate,

argument about God
and about science.

And I don't
really remember for sure

specifically what
we were talking about,

but basically,
I told straight up--I said,

"Hey, Lance, you know,

"I know you want to try
to show me something about God,

"and try to make me understand,
but I'm not going to,

"you know,

"even think about God
or give God the time of day

"unless he reveals himself
to me.

"And once he reveals
himself to me,

then I'll look into it."

And sure enough,
six months later,

he revealed himself,
you know, to me in a big way.

I just remember
just having my eyes closed,

and then just hearing
this voice in my head.

Call my sister-in-law Kathy,

who's married
to my brother Eddie.

Out of the blue, I'm like,
"Where did that come from?"

You know?

And so I did, you know,

'cause I trusted
that voice in my head.

And I said, "You know what?
She's gonna give me

the answers that I need."

You know, I had just gone
through a divorce.

You know, I was dating.

You know, I wanted
something solid again.

And I got together
with this woman,

and shared a relationship
with her,

and--which
was built on trust,

you know, and the trust
was broken months later.

I just really couldn't really
understand being 40 years old

and dealing
with this drama relationship.

And I'm hurt, you know?
I'm sad.

I was sad.

Even after all this time,
it still hurts.

But she told me--she said,

"Steven, you know,

"you've had
all this success, you know.

"You're a famous skateboarder.
You've done so well.

But there's something missing
in your life, you know."

And I had a feeling
she was gonna say

that I needed Jesus
in my life

'cause I was calling her
for the answers.

And so I was ready to hear it.

My heart was
not a heart anymore.

And it turned out to be one

of the greatest decisions
I've made in my whole life.

Okay, yeah.

I wrote it
with two friends of mine,

Jason Ingram
and Matt Bronleewe, yeah.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, When I look back at,
like, Hawk Nelson songs

I was a part of writing,
I feel complicated about it.

♪ A little louder,
open your heart ♪

♪ It's time
that we start again ♪

Sing it out!

On one hand, I'm really proud
of the work that we did.

♪ Love can go, just how deep ♪

Our goal was always
to really encourage people.

And that's still my goal.

So in a sense, there's
a throughline there for me.

♪ He says,
"I am for you," yeah ♪

♪ "I'm not against you" ♪

Thank you, EO!

We love you so much!

I grew up

in a very charismatic
evangelical setting.

My dad's a pastor.

And he was pastoring a church
in southern Ontario

for a lot of the years
of my childhood.

As I was growing up,

I got really interested
in music.

My musical education was very
much in, like, worship teams,

and being a worship leader,
and that kind of thing.

And I ended up joining
this band, Hawk Nelson.

♪ Here and now,
I'm in the fire ♪

♪ In above my head ♪

Yeah, the idea
that it could be a career

was like a dream
that was, like, worth chasing,

even if it felt unlikely.

But it did become something
that I did for a career

for, you know, 15, 16 years.

I think, as I was
writing that stuff,

it, for me, represented
what I wanted to believe.

And when you want to believe
something really deeply,

you have periods of time
where you sort of can, right?

Like, you sort of can believe
that this is true,

and you have experiences,

and you interpret them
through that lens,

and you go, like, "Oh, yeah!

"Like, God does love me
this much.

And I had this experience,
and I kind of felt it."

You know, sometimes,
I think there's a trope

that gets trotted out that,
like, oh, well, like,

people choose not to believe
in God 'cause they just want

to go do some sinnin',
and, like, that was not me.

I, like--I really wanted
to believe.

And the more I read
and learned,

the more I just found

that it was difficult
for me to believe.

So that culminated in me

finally feeling
like I really needed

to say something publicly
because I had been talking

about my faith publicly
for so many years

that to talk
about this only privately,

and to hide it publicly,
felt really disingenuous to me.

So I finally wrote this post.

I posted it
on Instagram May 20 of 2020.

And I said,

"I'm finding that
I no longer believe in God,

and here's why."

And it was terrifying
to post that

'cause I knew
my life would change.

And I knew it was
gonna affect my family.

I knew it was gonna affect,
you know,

like, my parents, my siblings,
guys I'd been in a band with.

So you know,
I remember posting it,

and then, you know,
I hit Post,

and then I literally
put the phone down and,

like, walked away,
and I was like, "Ahh!"

You know, I think I
probably had a beer or two

and, like, relaxed.

You know, like,
I need to chill.

But the response was
really interesting.

I had a lot of my Christian
friends though,

who were very kind
and supportive.

And while they didn't agree

with where I was at
or my conclusions,

they still cared
about me as a person.

And I really appreciated that.

And then I also had
a ton of people

who messaged me privately,

and, like, in the first
two weeks after that post,

I probably got 10,000 messages
from people saying something

along the lines of,
"I'm wondering some

"of the same things
you're wondering,

and I thought
I was the only one."

You know, God--if he's real,
he has chosen to make himself

hidden in such a way
that we could plausibly say,

"I don't even know
if God's there."

And then, with that in mind,
in Christianity,

we're often told, well,
now you have to make a belief

that God is there,
you have to make a decision,

and you have to affirm God's
existence and his--you know,

Jesus' lordship in your life.

And if you don't do that,

you're gonna burn
in Hell forever.

And I just go,
as a father, like,

would I make myself hidden
to my son who I love dearly?

Would I hide myself
from him his entire life,

and then
if he denies my existence

or doesn't, like,
love me enough,

or the right way, or believe
the right things about me,

burn him forever?

Like, no one would look
at a parent

and say, like,
"That's a good parent."

And, you know,
that's one of the reasons

that I just--I cannot believe
in this whole structure

of way of looking
at God and eternity.

It just doesn't work for me.

And if that is true,
that God is not loving.

I think some people have a lot
of anxiety about Hell.

If we're gonna believe

that there is
this eternal conscious torment

that's a punishment for not
believing the right things,

then it's sort of like
there's a gun to your head.

I don't believe that an
all-powerful and all-loving God

is compatible with the idea
of Hell in the way

that we often think about it.

I think those two things
are incompatible.

I have absolutely no idea
what happens after we die.

I haven't been there.

What would you say
to someone

whose loved one died,

and they don't know
whether they accepted Christ?

What do you say to that?

You know,
the truth is, we don't know

what happens
in those final moments

before a person dies.

We don't know how many people
call out to God

and say "save me"
in those final moments.

My brother was an atheist,
an outspoken atheist,

virtually his entire life,
and he died not long ago,

right at the beginning
of the COVID crisis.

I don't know what happened
in that day.

I hope he reached out to God,
but I don't know.

I'll find out
someday in Heaven.

You know, C.S. Lewis said
if there was any doctrine

of Christianity he wishes
he could change or eliminate,

it would be Hell,
and I get that.

It's a difficult concept.

It's much better and more fun
to talk about Heaven, I think.

But there are a lot
of misconceptions

about Hell
that confuse people.

First of all, God does not
send people to Hell.

In a sense,
we send ourselves to Hell.

The Bible says explicitly
that God

does not want anyone to perish.

He wants everyone
to come to repentance.

He wants everyone
to come to faith.

He wants everyone
to experience Heaven

with him forever,
but like any gift,

it's only ours
when we receive it.

You know,
God gave us free will.

It's like, if we're drowning,

and someone throws us
a life preserver,

it's up to us whether we want
to clutch it or not.

And so we have free will.

We could decide we want
to live without God,

we want to ignore God,
we want to reject God,

we want to live in a way

that we know
God would not approve of,

so we don't want God
to be part of our lives,

and we shun him
during our lifetime,

and at the end of our life,
God will say to us,

"You chose to be separate
from me your entire life,

and now you will be separated
from me for eternity in Hell."

Hell is not a torture chamber.

Torture is imposed
from without.

Hell is more about torment,
where it comes from within.

It's a sense of regret.
It's a sense a anger.

It's a sense of loss.

It's a sense of suffering
that people have

because of the predicament
that they find themselves in,

that they themselves
have opened the door to.

People think that Hell is

kind of a one-size-fits-all
experience.

And yet, we know from
the New Testament of the Bible

that people--their experience
in Hell will be proportionate

to how they lived their life.

In other words,
Adolf Hitler's experience

in Hell is not gonna be
the same as my neighbor,

who may be an atheist,

who doesn't want anything
to do with God,

has rejected God
his whole life.

His experience in Hell
and Adolf Hitler's

are gonna be quite different.

I think that matches
the fairness of God.

You know, the Bible says,
"Will not the judge

of all the Earth
do what's right?"

And nobody
after being judged by God

will be able to legitimately
shake their fist at God

and say that was unfair.

We will ultimately see
the fairness of God.

Another misconception involves
the figurative language

that the Bible uses
to describe Hell.

For instance, it uses metaphors
like flames and like darkness.

But those are
clearly metaphors.

They're not literally true

because if they
were literally true,

the flames would light up
the darkness,

so that doesn't make sense.

And so I don't
think that Hell is a place

of excessive thermal output,
in other words.

And yet, metaphors are intended
to point us to a broader truth

that we may not be able
to fully comprehend yet,

and that broader truth is,

Hell is
the very worst situation

that anybody could
ever find themselves in.

June 1, 1985,
at Hotel De Lima,

Rue Saint-Germain,
Paris, France,

my first thought was
that I'd been shot.

Because it was like,
right there, bang,

the most acute pain I'd
ever experienced in my life.

Went to the hospital.

We went to emergency.

Two doctors examined me,

said the same thing that
the doctor at the hotel said:

I had a perforation
of duodenum,

and that if I didn't have
surgery right away,

I would die.

But I didn't want to die
because I knew

with 100% certainty
that when you die,

that's it, it's over.

The screen goes black,

like in the movie theater,
you know?

Says "the end,"
blackness, nothing.

I was 38 years old.
I had a wife.

I had two kids.
I had a good job.

I had a career.

I had art galleries
showing my work.

I was winning prizes.

You know, I was making money.

This is not right.

This is not time for me to die.

I woke from unconsciousness,

and I was standing
next to the bed,

and I felt wonderful,

better than I ever felt
my whole life.

And I noticed
that the big, dead lump

in the bed was me.

But I couldn't accept that,
because it's not--I mean,

that's impossible.

Then I heard people
outside the room

calling me
by name in English,

which I thought was weird
because everybody

in the French hospital
spoke French.

And they said, "Hurry up.

"We've been waiting for you.
We know everything.

"We've been waiting
and waiting,

and it's time
for you to come with us."

So I assumed, since I
had mentioned the doctor,

that they were gonna take me
to the doctor.

So I left the light
of the room and went out

into the very gray,
dank hallway,

where there was
this group of people

that stayed back
in the darkness

away from the light
of the room.

And they led me what at first
I thought was the hallway,

but then we walked for miles,
and miles, and miles,

and we never went up or down.

We just--they encircled me
and just shepherd me

into ever-increasing darkness.

It started off with them
being very officious.

Like, "This way,
keep moving, hurry up."

That evolved into,
"What's the matter with you?

Move, move faster.
You're too slow."

That became vulgar.

And then it became clear that
they were gonna have at me.

They began by kicking,
punching, pulling.

Then they started biting,
and ripping, and tearing.

And then they started

invading me physically.

So eventually,
I was completely torn apart,

lying on the ground,
unable to even move

or defend myself in any way.

I'm completely defeated,

completely depressed
and despair.

And I couldn't think
of any way out.

This is it forever,
and ever, and ever

with these horrible people.

And I heard a voice say,
"Pray to God."

And I thought,
"I don't believe in God.

I don't pray."

And the voice said,
"Pray to God," kind of strong.

And I thought,
"I don't know how to pray.

I can't pray."

And the voice said,
"Pray to God."

My mind went involuntarily
to me as a little boy

in a Sunday classroom
singing "Jesus Loves Me."

I could see it vividly.
I could hear it vividly.

But much more importantly,
I could feel it vividly,

that as a little boy,
when I sang "Jesus Loved Me,"

I believed that there was this
really cool guy named Jesus,

and the lions, and tigers,
and bears would come out

of the closet, you know,
and start swarming

around my bedroom
in the middle of the night.

You know,
I would pray to Jesus,

and they would all flee.

And I believed
in him as a little boy.

That's why when I was 12,
I wanted to get baptized

'cause I wanted to know him.

And when

that happened,

I decided that I needed
to take a chance

'cause I didn't know
what I did not.

What I didn't know
is whether he would care

about me or not.

As far as I was concerned,
his best option would be

to leave me there.

And I called out to him,
"Jesus, please save me."

and with that, a tiny light
appeared in the darkness

and got very bright,
and it came upon me.

It was impossibly brilliant.

If it had been light
as we experience light

in this world,
it would have consumed me.

I mean, I just would
have been burnt up.

But it was that bright.

Out of it emerged
hands and arms,

and he reached down
and touched me,

and I saw myself
come back together

from the roadkill that I was.

You know, I became complete.

And much more important
to me was

that he filled me
with the love

that I never experienced
in this world.

And his hands and arms
picked me up

without any effort,

and he brought me
up against himself,

and put his arms around me,

to stroke my back
like a mother or father would

with their child.

And I cried
out of joy into his chest,

slobbering all over him.

The people who took me
into that place of darkness

were people just like me.

They were people
who had rejected God,

rejected God's love,

and God gave them
exactly what they wanted.

I don't believe
God punishes anybody.

I believe God gives everybody
exactly what they want.

The Bible says
humans judge by appearances,

God judges by the heart,

and if we seek God
and seek God's love,

we will find it
in this world and in the next.

And if we reject God
and reject God's love,

we get to go to a world where
those things don't happen.

And I don't mean this
as a joke.

I mean
this absolutely sincerely.

Hell's not so bad.

The problem is the people
that are there.

They're awful.
They're really awful.

There's nothing to do there
except torment one another,

so Hell is a place
of continuous torment.

It's a place of complete
hopelessness and despair.

What do you make out
of Howard Storm?

Like, I know he's in the book,
but how did you discover him?

- Yeah.
- And why him?

Well, you know,
there was a series of studies

that we've done
that showed that,

of 1,400 people who had
had near-death experiences,

23% had negative experiences

that ranged from distressing
to frightening and terrorizing.

And his was an example
of someone

who had
a terrorizing experience.

How do you go about,
like, for that one,

verifying, like, its validity?

Yeah, that's a good question.

'Cause it's like, you hear
a lot about "I went to Heaven."

Yeah.

But very few
"I went to Hell."

Yeah, I think it's
against a person's interest

to talk
about having gone to Hell

because it's embarrassing.

Who wants to say, "Oh, yeah,
I was in the trash bin

of the afterlife," you know.

So it's embarrassing.

It's traumatic to the degree
that I think some

of them have
post-traumatic stress syndrome,

and they don't want
to talk about it,

they don't want
to revisit it and so forth.

And in the case
of Howard Storm,

here's someone who came back
from that experience,

and it was so profound,
it was so real to him,

that he resigned his position,
his tenured professorship,

his chairmanship
of the art department

at this university,

and became a pastor
of a tiny church

that he continues
to serve to this day.

That's some evidence
that this was more

than just
some loose hallucination.

There was something profound
that happened to him,

something that chilled him
to the bone.

Would you say that there's
more sermons about Hell

than there are Heaven
or vice versa?

I think there's a lot
more sermons about Heaven

than there are Hell.

Very few pastors like
to talk about Hell.

So we are
in Chinatown, San Francisco,

and this is where I was born.

This is the hospital,
back in 1967.

This is also
where Bruce Lee was born,

which is kind of cool.

And this is where
my mother died 54 years ago.

Yeah, my dad kind
of flipped out,

and I feel like that's why
he always resented me,

and I think it's because I was
the one that caused her death.

We never even talked about it.

Like, he just--the only time
he ever talked to me was

when he was beating me,
you know, just yelling at me,

maybe giving me instructions,
telling me what to do.

But we didn't have
conversations,

which isn't
really that abnormal

in a Chinese family.

I don't know the whole story,
but my mother--when she died,

you know, people blamed
the hospital or whatever,

but she basically bled out.

It was something
that was pretty--should be

pretty simple nowadays.

Because she died,

and I think my dad
just had a hard time,

like, you know, living
in the U.S., making a living,

he had me sent to Hong Kong

to grow up
with my grandmothers.

My name in Chinese
is Chan Yang Fan,

and that last character
is the same character

in San Francisco.

I'm assuming my dad just took
the translation into English

and named me Francis.

So I guess, in a sense,
I'm named after the city.

And it's weird
'cause my stepmom...

it says "Chin" here,

and that's what it says
on my birth certificate.

But then my stepmom is Chan,
and my dad is Chan.

And so I don't know.

You know, back then, everything
was just a little more screwy,

so who knows who I am?

Death is so ugly.

And it's awful in so many ways.

Like, you know,
having seven kids,

there's that fear.

Having grandkids,
I have that fear.

Being married
to a woman that I love,

there's fear.

Like, I don't like
the thought

that that could end
at any moment.

At the same time...

the whole point
of the resurrection

is that I wouldn't have
to fear it in a sense of,

"Oh, no,
what's gonna happen next?"

In a lot of ways, it's like,
that's what I anticipate.

Like, God, bring it.
I'm ready to go.

I'm done with this Earth.

You know, I'll do whatever
you want me to do.

I'll stay here as long
as you want me to stay here.

But there's so much
of me that's like,

oh, I can't wait to die.

I can't wait
to get out of here.

Like, it's weird.

Like, I would love to know
what it would feel like

to have a mom
that gave birth to me

and loved me,
and--but I'll never have that.

I'd love
to have a dad right now,

and just wonder,
what did he think of my life?

I know we didn't talk,
you know,

the whole time you were alive,
but would it have changed--

you know, of course, there's
some of that curiosity.

Sometimes, I'll think
about her on Mother's Day,

like, just grateful
that she decided to have me

and lost her life so
that I could be on this Earth.

I have no idea
what would have happened

if my parents stayed alive.

I don't know.

Before I left for China,

I found these old pictures
of her,

and it showed the location
of where she did ministry,

And it happened to be
exactly where they had

set up an office for me.

And so I thought,
that is crazy

that 60 years ago,

my mom was doing ministry
in that exact same spot

where God was calling me now.

What do you think
your life would have been like

if you had not come to Christ,

if you had not taken on
that challenge to investigate,

you know,
the resurrection of Jesus?

I've thought about that,
and I don't know for sure,

but I was headed
down a dark path.

We were childhood sweethearts.

I mean, we dated
on and off in high school,

and we enjoyed each other,

and we had
a certain expectation

of what our future
would be like.

And then, one day,
she came up to me

and gave me the worst news
that an atheist could get.

She said, "I've decided

to become a follower
of Jesus."

And first word that went
through my mind was divorce.

I was gonna walk out.

You know, I was a narcissist.

I was a drunk.

I was self-absorbed.

I was a liar.
I was a cheater.

People thought
I was a great guy.

They didn't know
the inside of me.

They didn't know--they
didn't see me

when I was literally drunk
in the snow

in an alley on Saturday night.

You know, I had all
this success in journalism,

but it masked what was
really going on in me.

♪ Oh-oh-oh-oh ♪

♪ Oh-oh-oh ♪

When you look
around this world, man,

and there are choices
that we make, you know,

and those choices lead to...

well, instead
of saying good or bad,

I'd like to say life or death,
right?

The choices
that we make will usually lead

to one or the other,
seldom just right

in the middle of the road,
right?

Things bring us life,
or they bring us death.

We make those choices
all the time.

I think the essence
of what we long for

is to know that we're loved.

While we're here
on this Earth,

I think it's safe
to say that we all

have some significant
doubts about the fact

that we're truly loved.

But it's God's purpose
to reveal that to us here.

And it's our purpose
to open our hearts to it

and in turn reveal
that truth to each other.

♪ I was there when you
looked up into the night ♪

♪ Looking far beyond the stars
and asking why ♪

♪ Although you thought
you were alone ♪

♪ When you fell
into the unknown ♪

♪ All the while, my love ♪

♪ You were a child of mine ♪

♪ Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh ♪

♪ Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

How much does pain,
suffering, betrayal,

hurt, questions play
into writing your music?

Pain and longing accompany
each other in the way that,

when we
experience that longing,

there is a sense of,

"Hey, things aren't right
here in this Earth"

in the way that we know,
somewhere deep down,

it's supposed to be right.

When there's injustice,

we know that somewhere
there's supposed

to be a place that is just.

So the question is,
where does that come from?

If it doesn't exist somewhere,

why would we long
for something like that?

Eric, tell us how some
of these sounds and things

that we hear
can just, like, I guess,

take us to another place.

Yeah, I mean,
every artist has their own way

of kind of capturing
that other place.

For me,
I have really experimented

with trying to find a sound
that is unfamiliar

but, at the same time,
familiar.

And so I pulled this up
for you, Mani,

'cause I want
to do a little experiment

with you--experiment for you.

And listen to this track,

and I'm gonna play
two different tracks,

and see if you know
what this is.

Okay, so do you recognize
that instrument?

Yeah, I think
that's the oboe.

So an oboe--you know,
if nobody's ever heard

an oboe before, they might go,
"Wow, that's, like, incredible.

That's taking me
to another world."

But for most of us,
we know what sound that is.

And obviously, we can make
a melody with that oboe

that can take us
to another place.

So close your eyes
for a minute

and listen to this sound.

Okay, what do you hear there?

Yeah, I have no idea
what that is.

So part
of what you're hearing is,

in the beginning,

it's actually samples
of outer space.

So there's sounds coming
from quasars,

and the Solar System,

and planets,
and things like that

that, through equipment,
can actually be translated

into sound.

So I have a few
of these samples.

And when you hear
these samples, you're like,

"Wow, that's
an unfamiliar sound."

It's not, like,
every day that we walk around,

we're hearing sounds
of outer space,

and planets, and stuff.

So when you take
a sound like that

and then incorporate other
familiar tones and textures,

and combine them all,
you come out

with something that's,
in some ways,

just really moving,
taking you to another place.

I think faith is--it's
an interesting topic

because when I was an atheist,

I thought faith was
believing something

even though you knew
in your heart

it couldn't be true.

You know, I thought
that's what faith was.

And then I came to learn

that Biblical faith is
quite different,

and I think
it's important for people

to understand that distinction.

Biblical faith is taking a step
in the same direction

that the evidence is pointing,
which is logical and rational.

Yuri Gagarin was the
cosmonaut--Russian cosmonaut.

He was the first guy
into space.

And he quipped, when he was
up there, he said--or later,

I can't remember,
but he said basically,

"I looked around,
and I didn't see God."

And yet Buzz Aldrin,
who was one of the Americans

who went to the Moon,
who celebrated communion

on Christmas Eve in space,
affirmed that God is real.

Sunday, July 20, 1969,
around the world,

nearly a billion people
watched this moment

on television as the first man
from Earth prepared

to set foot upon the Moon.

That's one small step
for man.

One giant leap for mankind.

I believe that this nation
should commit itself

to achieving the goal,
before this decade is out,

of landing a man on the Moon

and returning him safely
to the Earth.

And what that tells me
is some people can see

the same evidence and come
to different conclusions.

And you have to ask yourself,
what's driving that?

What's driving that?

Do I have reasons
not to believe?

Are there reasons
I don't want to believe?

Are there things in my life
I would have to give up

if I became a believer in God?

Are there certain moral things
that I would have to give up

because they're immoral
in God's sight,

and I want to keep doing them,

and so I would rather find
reasons

not to believe
than to believe?

So we have to try
to filter out our motives

as much as we can,

and say,
"I want to reach a verdict

"in the case for Heaven
based on the evidence

"and not
on my wishful thinking,

"or not on my preconceptions,

or not
on my biases or prejudices."

I want to reach it based on,
"What is the evidence?

"Is there sufficient evidence
to tell me

that when I die
I will continue to live on?"

Sometimes,
this church is actually

what deters some folks
from even finding that love.

because
of their negative experience.

Right, right.

What do you say to those

that can't
get this out of the way,

you know what I mean?

That's a real problem,
I think.

You know, for me,
I want to strip away things

that get in the way
of finding the truth.

And if someone is hurt
by a church,

or they're hurt
by a relationship

with a Christian
who betrays them,

or who uses them,
or whatever,

that's a horrible thing,

and I can understand
emotionally

how that makes a person
less likely to seek after God.

But then I step back
and say, "Wait a minute.

"That doesn't change the truth
of Christianity.

That doesn't change whether
it aligns with reality."

That's the real question.

Truth is that which
corresponds to reality.

It was more than 40 years
since I've been in this house.

Yeah, my whole writing career,
my whole journalism career,

started here
in the basement of my house.

Well, we were
in the family room here,

and I had blatantly disobeyed
my dad

by buying a motorcycle
that he had forbidden me

from buying,
and he found out,

and we had
a huge blowout argument,

and he said words
that I hope he didn't mean,

but told me that he didn't
have enough love for me

to fill his little finger.

And I remember hearing that,
and I had no response.

What do you say to that?

And so there was silence
for a moment,

and then I just turned
and walked out.

And that was it.

I never intended to go home.

Although I remember
when he died,

I was at the wake,

and a guy came up
to me--two guys actually,

and said, "Are you Lee?"

And I said, "Yeah."

And they said, "Oh, man,
can I shake your hand?

"Your dad never stopped
talking about you.

"He was so proud of you.

"And when you'd have a byline
on the front page

"of the 'Chicago Tribune,'
he was so proud.

He'd show us the article."

And I was just shocked by that

because it was nothing
he ever expressed to me.

We never reconciled, really.

We never talked
about that incident.

We never processed it.
We never resolved it.

And I remember interviewing
a scholar about Heaven,

and he said, you know,
"When you get to Heaven--"

I said, "I believe
my father is in Heaven."

And he said, "That first hour
that you get to Heaven,

"you're both gonna be
totally motivated

"to reconcile fully
and completely,

"and you'll be able to spend
eternity in Heaven in the kind

"of father-son relationship

that you never really had
in this world."

Just that feeling of being
here in this environment,

where my entire journalism
career had its scene

and began, I mean,
the nostalgia

just kind of wells up
inside you.

It's a great feeling
to be home.

Oh, man, I think I'd say,

"Keep seeking.
The truth is out there."

Jesus, unlike anybody else
in history,

has the credentials to tell us
the truth about the afterlife.

When you explain
the resurrection,

you tend to talk
about these four things.

Yeah, the four areas are,
number one, his execution,

number two, the early reports
that he rose from the dead,

number three, the empty tomb,

and number four,
the eyewitnesses.

So the first E is
for execution,

that Jesus was truly dead
after being crucified.

And the evidence
for this is very powerful.

We have no evidence anywhere
of anyone ever surviving

a full Roman crucifixion.

Even the scientific,
peer-reviewed,

secular Journal of the American
Medical Association

conducted an investigation
into the death of Jesus,

and their conclusion was,
"Clearly, the weight

"of the historical
and medical evidence indicates

"that Jesus was dead
even before the wound

to his side was inflicted."

The second E stands
for the word "early."

We have early reports
that Jesus rose from the dead.

In other words,
reports that can be dated back

very close
to the events themselves.

I used to think,
like a lot of skeptics,

that the resurrection
was a legend.

And I knew it took time
for legend to develop

in the ancient world,
so I figured 100, 150 years

after the death of Jesus,
stories were invented,

mythologies were spun,
and that's where the idea

of the resurrection came from.

But we have report
of the resurrection

of Jesus Christ,

including named eyewitnesses
and groups of eyewitnesses,

that has been dated back
by scholars

to within months
of his execution.

That is like a news flash
from ancient history.

So I don't think
you can write it off

as just being a legend.

The third E stands
for "empty."

We have an empty tomb.

And the strongest evidence
for this is

that even the opponents
of Jesus

implicitly admitted
the tomb was empty.

There was nobody
in the first century

claiming that, "No, no, no,
the body is still there."

Even the opponents
of Jesus said,

"Oh, well,
the disciples stole the body."

They were conceding
the tomb is empty.

They're trying
to explain how it got empty.

And yet the disciples
didn't have the motive,

the means, or the opportunity
to steal the body.

And then finally, the fourth E
stands for "eyewitnesses."

As I said, most of what
we know from ancient history

are facts based on one
or maybe two sources.

And yet, for the conviction
of the disciples

that they encountered
the resurrected Jesus,

we have no fewer
than nine ancient sources

inside and outside
the New Testament,

confirming and corroborating
the conviction of the disciples

that they encountered
the risen Christ.

You know, Luis Palau
was not only my hero,

but he was my friend.

He was one
of the greatest evangelists

of all time.

He shared his faith
with a billion people.

He was very winsome,
he was very warm,

and he spoke
all over the world,

radio shows,
and books, and so forth.

But he knew he was dying.

He had stage IV cancer

and only had
a short time to live.

And I thought, you know,
if I'm investigating Heaven,

wouldn't it be good
to talk to someone

who's about ready to go there?

That's what drew me to Oregon,

to encounter,
one last time, Luis Palau.

It turned out to be
the last major interview

of his life before he died.

Tell me about the moment

where you heard
that Luis passed.

Where were you?

I was at home in Houston
and got the news

through his family
that he has passed.

And you know,
I was happy for him

because he was anxious to go.

I mean, he said--he told me
in the interview,

he said, "I'm ready."

And I said,
"Are you afraid of death?"

He said, "No, I'm not.

"I know to be absent
from the body

is to be present
with the Lord."

Is it still hard for you
to see a friend go like that?

Oh, yeah, absolutely,
because there's a loss.

There's a loss of contact.

There's a loss of relationship.

You know that he's leaving
behind a wife and children.

And there's a sadness to it.

I mean, even Jesus wept
when Lazarus died...

Yeah.

Even though he knew he was
gonna raise him from the dead.

So it's appropriate

to mourn when a friend dies.

And he wasn't
just a friend to me.

He was a hero to me.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Yeah, you know,
he told me about attacks

he believed were from Satan
in those final days,

where, you know, Satan
would whisper into his ear,

you know, "You've told
thousands of people,

"millions of people,
a billion people about Jesus,

"but you're not going
to Heaven.

"You're gonna be one
of those that God's gonna say,

'Depart from me.
I didn't know you.'"

And--which, of course,
is crazy,

but it was--you know,
as he said to me at one point,

he said, "Satan is very good
at what he does."

And the Puritans
wrote about this,

that at the end, sometimes,
there's these words from Satan

to make you feel uncertain

and to make you question
your salvation, so forth.

And even Luis Palau felt that.

Yes.

Uh-huh.

Wow.

Wow.

Even if we are confident

that we're gonna spend
eternity with God,

the process
of dying is not appealing.

Yeah.

In other words, nobody
wants to go through that.

And yes,
there's gonna be loss,

and we're not gonna be--

Luis said,
"I'm not gonna be able

to pick up the phone
and call Pat," his wife,

"or call my kids."

You know,
he mourned that loss.

Yeah.

But at the same time,

the idea
of not just being embraced

by Jesus in Heaven,

but to meet Wesley,
and Moody...

Yeah.

And Spurgeon, and all
these heroes of the faith,

and to see his father,

and to have
a relationship with him...

- Yeah.
- He didn't get in this world.

Because we live
in a sin-stained world,

his dad died at an age
where Luis was too young

to really have a full--or
relationship with him.

He will have that in Heaven.

And I think, deep down,

Luis has thirsted
for that his whole life.

And even as your father
was a poor example,

and your mother
left your family,

you come
to the living Father.

He is the ideal Father.

And Jesus says,
"Young man,

"you've got
to make your own decision.

"You cannot have
a thirdhand faith.

"You cannot inherit your faith
from your folks

"or your grandparents.

God has no grandchildren."

Jesus Christ is relevant today
to the Soviet Union.

As far as the east is
from the west...

So far he removes
our transgressions.

You will never forget
this night.

I know I'll never forget it.

♪ No hay lugar más alto ♪

I am sure because
now I have children of my own

that for Mom and Dad to see
the direction I was going,

to see my love of partying,

and--even though
I was a respectful kid,

I think they knew I was moving
in the wrong direction.

A lot of times, people
will say things to me like,

"I know why you were
such a rebellious kid,

"because your dad was
heavy-handed

"or, you know, he was shoving
his religion

down your throat."

And I've always
really resisted that

because that's not the fact
in my case.

This place, this cemetery,

is kind of representative
of one of those places,

probably everybody has
something like this in life.

It sort of represents some
of the worst parts,

most foolish parts of my life.

And now, you know,
to have Dad buried here,

my grandparents buried here,

it's just a place
of great reflection,

and it represents
the gratitude of my heart

for the love of my parents.

Humanly speaking,

I would want one more day,
one more week.

I would want more time.

So when we say
it was an untimely death,

not in God's economy,
it wasn't.

To me, Luis lived 86 years.

We were married for 60.
That's not enough.

I am teaching myself
to say he died.

He didn't pass.
He isn't lost.

Because it's reality.

You know,
the other words--lost?

He's not lost.
I know where he is.

Do you remember the moment
when you first saw her,

first, like,
actually talked to her?

Yeah, We were outside
the train station in Chicago.

I was with a friend of mine,
and she was with a guy

from my neighborhood
who she had met at a dance.

And he saw me
and recognized me.

"Hey, Lee," and "Yeah,"

and we came over,
and we were talking,

and he introduced me
to this girl.

And I thought,

"Wow, I'll have to find out
how to contact her."

And...

Did you know
at 14 she would be the one?

She went home
and told her mom,

"I met the boy
I'm gonna marry."

Her mom was kind
of condescending.

"Oh, sure, you did," you know.

And so I think,
just to prove her wrong,

she married me.

This is the
no-champagne wedding.

That was
the no-champagne wedding.

Yep, that's right.

We were so young
when we got married,

they had champagne glasses,

but we couldn't drink
champagne,

'cause we were too young,
so they were filled with milk.

What does Leslie mean to you,
personally, as Lee, the guy?

- Yeah.
- Not the author, not the dad.

- Yeah.
- Just Lee.

You know,
we're best of friends.

You know,
meeting as young as we did,

at 14, kind of growing up
together in that way,

through those tumultuous
high school years,

and then college,
we just bonded very strongly.

And she's just my best friend.

I can't imagine life
without her.

I can't imagine
where I would be

if God hadn't brought her
into my life.

You know, I don't remember,
at any moment,

feeling like I was ready
to give up.

I remember worrying
that he would walk out,

that he would say
he'd had enough.

I was also convinced

it was gonna be
a deathbed conversion.

I didn't imagine him
ever accepting Christ

until maybe on his deathbed.

Oftentimes,
I could sense God saying,

"Remember, you have the truth.

"He doesn't.
He doesn't know.

"You're expecting him
to act in a way

"he's incapable of acting.

"Hold your anger.
Hold your tongue.

"Do what's right.
Be patient.

I'm bigger than both of you."

I'm unaware of ever having
reached anyone for the Lord.

I see myself as a link
in the chain--other than Lee.

♪ Let me wipe
your tears away ♪

If we accept what
the near-death experiences

tell us about life reviews,

people talk about how
they almost feel like

they're judging themselves,
and that from Jesus,

they're getting a sense
of mercy,

forgiveness, grace, and love.

And so from that perspective,
I think it's not gonna be

as daunting of an experience

as maybe I otherwise thought
it would be.

♪ Wipe your tears ♪

Yeah, I remember
getting the job

at the "Chicago Tribune"
and wanting

to have that front-page byline
the first time,

knowing my dad would open it
and see it.

"That's Lee!"

And just show him that I've
accomplished something,

I've become somebody.

I think of the split second
that our lives intersected

on a street corner
in downtown Chicago.

There's no way,
humanly speaking,

that we ever would have met.

It was the beginning

of this incredible
relationship.

She tolerated me during
those years of rebellion

'cause I was angry
and lashing out many times.

But she persevered.
She prayed.

She prayed for me every day
for two years.

My daughter, Alison--
when she was a toddler,

if she was alone
in the living room,

playing with some blocks,
some toys, or whatever,

and she would hear me
come home from work

through the front door,
her natural reaction was just

to gather her toys,
and go in her room,

and shut the door.

"Was he gonna be drunk again?

"Was he gonna be yelling,
and screaming,

"and kicking holes
in the wall?

At least it was nice
and quiet in here."

It was four or five months
after I became a Christian,

and Alison had begun
to see changes in me,

and so one Sunday morning,

she came up to Leslie,
and she said,

"I want God to do for me
what he's done for Daddy."

God changes everything.

So I asked Luis, I said,
"Luis, if you could send

"a text message
back from Heaven,

what do you think
it would say?"

And he thought for a second,
and then he said,

"I think I'd say,
'Go for it.'"

If we believe
that Heaven is true,

that it's real,

that should affect
our everyday lives,

our attitudes,
our perspective,

the way we treat people,
the way we spend our money,

the way we spend our time.

It should ripple
through every aspect

of our lives.

At some point, we realize

that when we close our eyes
in this world,

that isn't the end
of our existence,

but there's another chapter
to come.

♪ Where did you go ♪

♪ Where I could not follow? ♪

♪ A place to call home ♪

♪ Where time
can't be borrowed ♪

♪ I'm waiting for a sign ♪

♪ I'm waiting for you ♪

♪ Now we're worlds apart ♪

♪ But how could that be? ♪

♪ It was never fair
for me to say goodbye ♪

♪ When I never said hello ♪

♪ I'm waiting for you ♪

♪ I hope
that I'll meet you someday ♪

♪ There's something inside me
that speaks to me ♪

♪ Comforts me, guides me,
and shows me the way ♪

♪ While I'm caught
between Heaven and Hell ♪

♪ I lie awake ♪

♪ In dark, lonely nights ♪

♪ All these memories
that could have been ♪

♪ These pictures,
they keep me awake ♪

♪ I'm waiting for a sign ♪

♪ I'm waiting for you ♪

♪ I hope
that I'll meet you someday ♪

♪ There's something inside me
that speaks to me ♪

♪ Comforts me, guides me,
and shows me the way ♪

♪ While I'm caught
between Heaven and Hell ♪

♪ I hope
that I'll meet you someday ♪

♪ There's something inside me
that speaks to me ♪

♪ Comforts me, guides me,
and shows me the way ♪

♪ While I'm caught
between Heaven and Hell ♪

♪ You, I hope
that I'll meet you someday ♪

♪ There's something inside me
that speaks to me ♪

♪ Comforts me, guides me,
and shows me the way ♪

♪ While I'm caught
between Heaven and Hell ♪

♪ I hope
that I'll meet you someday ♪

♪ There's something inside me
that speaks to me ♪

♪ Comforts me, guides me,
and shows me the way ♪

♪ While I'm caught
between Heaven and Hell ♪