Q&A with David Geisler
Producer and Narrator for the documentary film
“Norm Geisler: Not Qualified”
Q: Tell us what influenced you to make this movie.
Answer: About four years ago, a former student of my dad approached me about the idea of making a movie about my dad. I prayed about it and felt that it would be good to do a movie to honor my father for a lifetime of service, especially since many had considered him to be the grandfather of Classical Apologetics. But as we began to interview all these top Christian leaders, it became clear that God wanted us to do more than just honor my father. I began to see more clearly how my dad was one of the few people in his day that helped point the evangelical church in the right direction. About two years later, I came to the conclusion that dad wasn’t one among a few in his day, he was the one we truly needed to listen to in the early 1960’s and the one we still need to listen to today if the evangelical church is going to stay on the right path in the 21st century. |
Q: What will we see in the movie? What is the story?
Answer: We follow Norm Geisler’s life story through the changes that happened in the church and in the culture from the 1960’s through the 1990’s. We also see how God took a poor little boy from Michigan, who was practically illiterate until he was seventeen, and made him into a scholar that impacted a whole generation of Christian leaders.
The turning point in my dad‘s life came during a witnessing experience. He was certainly asked some hard questions as he was doing evangelism as a young leader within Billy Graham’s Youth for Christ movement. But the moment that hit him the hardest was when a drunk man made an objection that he couldn’t answer. The drunk opened the Bible and pointed right to the verse in Matthew 8:4 where Jesus healed the man of leprosy and then said, “Go and tell no man.” Then the man said to my dad, “Now get out of here…you are not supposed to be doing this.” After that experience, dad decided he needed to either get answers or stop witnessing. That sent him on a 20-year quest, and he says in the movie that it was only after those 20 years of study that he felt he was ready to witness. For dad, apologetics was a crucial component of witnessing for the every-day Christian. He eventually earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy, and he believed there was good philosophy and bad philosophy. The question he challenged others to consider is whether we are doing good philosophy that enables us to see reality as it really is, or bad philosophy that causes us to misunderstand reality. If our reasoning is wrong, then just like wearing bad eyeglasses, reality looks distorted, and we draw false conclusions. The movie shows how he engaged in our culture in the last part of the 20th century when Christianity was challenged and at a time that the Supreme Court ruled that public schools were not allowed to teach about a Creator, Creation, or God-given moral values in a public school.
Answer: We follow Norm Geisler’s life story through the changes that happened in the church and in the culture from the 1960’s through the 1990’s. We also see how God took a poor little boy from Michigan, who was practically illiterate until he was seventeen, and made him into a scholar that impacted a whole generation of Christian leaders.
The turning point in my dad‘s life came during a witnessing experience. He was certainly asked some hard questions as he was doing evangelism as a young leader within Billy Graham’s Youth for Christ movement. But the moment that hit him the hardest was when a drunk man made an objection that he couldn’t answer. The drunk opened the Bible and pointed right to the verse in Matthew 8:4 where Jesus healed the man of leprosy and then said, “Go and tell no man.” Then the man said to my dad, “Now get out of here…you are not supposed to be doing this.” After that experience, dad decided he needed to either get answers or stop witnessing. That sent him on a 20-year quest, and he says in the movie that it was only after those 20 years of study that he felt he was ready to witness. For dad, apologetics was a crucial component of witnessing for the every-day Christian. He eventually earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy, and he believed there was good philosophy and bad philosophy. The question he challenged others to consider is whether we are doing good philosophy that enables us to see reality as it really is, or bad philosophy that causes us to misunderstand reality. If our reasoning is wrong, then just like wearing bad eyeglasses, reality looks distorted, and we draw false conclusions. The movie shows how he engaged in our culture in the last part of the 20th century when Christianity was challenged and at a time that the Supreme Court ruled that public schools were not allowed to teach about a Creator, Creation, or God-given moral values in a public school.
Q: What did you learn about your dad’s life in making this movie that was somewhat surprising and what might viewers learn that they didn’t know before?
Answer: It wasn’t surprising for me to know my dad's faith got him through some tough times, like my sister’s suicide. What I was surprised to learn was his faith wasn’t just a result of the quality of what he taught but also how he applied that teaching in mentoring and discipling others.
Dad knew that the only way we could have ultimate satisfaction, hope, purpose and meaning for our lives, is if we knew the true God. It wasn’t just the quality of what he taught that impacted so many lives, it was also how he applied that teaching in mentoring and discipling others. My father was always trying to find those who would duplicate what he was doing, which is why he co-wrote some books with other people.
My father also demonstrated what it looked like to be a servant leader and put other people first. Many pointed out in the movie that my father focus was on “How can I help you?” For example, I remember one day talking to my dad about a book he was helping to write with another well-known Christian apologist. But I noticed Dad didn’t put his name on the book. So I asked him why he helped this person but didn’t include his name. He said to me, “I just wanted to help them write a better book.”
The bottom line is that my father understood that it’s not only important that we communicate the right message to people verbally, but he also saw the importance of living our lives consistent with that message. That is why our ministry is also now committed to integrating our apologetics and evangelism into discipleship. We call it the 4 R’s of Apologetics, Evangelism, and Discipleship—Rooted, Rested, Ready, and Reaching.
Q: In what ways is the movie relevant to what Christians are facing today?
Answer:. My father dedicated his life to combat the influences of secular humanism on our culture and restore Christian values. Unfortunately, there were not enough like him in the 1960’s to stand in the gap between the church and the culture. There were too many who were rebelling against Christian values, and it has had huge repercussions on our society. Sadly, we can see that today things are even worse. Our society is now accepting the premise that reality is something that a person determines in their head, so if a person is a biological male they can decide, in their own reality, that they are a female. My father taught that reality is not something we determine in our heads. He believed that Truth can be known, and that Truth is that which corresponds to a reality outside of us. He also believed that the Bible talked about certain things we can know about ultimate reality. Romans 1 and 2 teaches that we can know God’s nature and the moral law that is placed inside of us. My father used to say, “God wants to reach the heart, but he does not bypass the head on the way to the heart.” The Christian faith is a reasonable faith, and we need to be equipped to share our faith now more than ever.
Churches need to get back to our classical roots and classical thinking and apply it in a way that transforms our character. What was important to Norm Geisler is not just having the right information, but also being the right kind of servant of God, first and foremost.
Q: How can people watch the movie?
Answer: The National Religious Broadcast Network (www.nrbtv.org) is showing the movie on April 7th at 8 pm Eastern Standard Time. Christian leaders can also bring the movie to their own church, school, or ministry. We have a movie package that includes a screening license, study guide, four core sermons, marketing materials, as well as three, one-year memberships in the Norm Geisler Institute. Our goal is to have a movie premiere in each of the 50 states and then take it internationally to as many countries as God opens the doors for us to go.
Answer: It wasn’t surprising for me to know my dad's faith got him through some tough times, like my sister’s suicide. What I was surprised to learn was his faith wasn’t just a result of the quality of what he taught but also how he applied that teaching in mentoring and discipling others.
Dad knew that the only way we could have ultimate satisfaction, hope, purpose and meaning for our lives, is if we knew the true God. It wasn’t just the quality of what he taught that impacted so many lives, it was also how he applied that teaching in mentoring and discipling others. My father was always trying to find those who would duplicate what he was doing, which is why he co-wrote some books with other people.
My father also demonstrated what it looked like to be a servant leader and put other people first. Many pointed out in the movie that my father focus was on “How can I help you?” For example, I remember one day talking to my dad about a book he was helping to write with another well-known Christian apologist. But I noticed Dad didn’t put his name on the book. So I asked him why he helped this person but didn’t include his name. He said to me, “I just wanted to help them write a better book.”
The bottom line is that my father understood that it’s not only important that we communicate the right message to people verbally, but he also saw the importance of living our lives consistent with that message. That is why our ministry is also now committed to integrating our apologetics and evangelism into discipleship. We call it the 4 R’s of Apologetics, Evangelism, and Discipleship—Rooted, Rested, Ready, and Reaching.
Q: In what ways is the movie relevant to what Christians are facing today?
Answer:. My father dedicated his life to combat the influences of secular humanism on our culture and restore Christian values. Unfortunately, there were not enough like him in the 1960’s to stand in the gap between the church and the culture. There were too many who were rebelling against Christian values, and it has had huge repercussions on our society. Sadly, we can see that today things are even worse. Our society is now accepting the premise that reality is something that a person determines in their head, so if a person is a biological male they can decide, in their own reality, that they are a female. My father taught that reality is not something we determine in our heads. He believed that Truth can be known, and that Truth is that which corresponds to a reality outside of us. He also believed that the Bible talked about certain things we can know about ultimate reality. Romans 1 and 2 teaches that we can know God’s nature and the moral law that is placed inside of us. My father used to say, “God wants to reach the heart, but he does not bypass the head on the way to the heart.” The Christian faith is a reasonable faith, and we need to be equipped to share our faith now more than ever.
Churches need to get back to our classical roots and classical thinking and apply it in a way that transforms our character. What was important to Norm Geisler is not just having the right information, but also being the right kind of servant of God, first and foremost.
Q: How can people watch the movie?
Answer: The National Religious Broadcast Network (www.nrbtv.org) is showing the movie on April 7th at 8 pm Eastern Standard Time. Christian leaders can also bring the movie to their own church, school, or ministry. We have a movie package that includes a screening license, study guide, four core sermons, marketing materials, as well as three, one-year memberships in the Norm Geisler Institute. Our goal is to have a movie premiere in each of the 50 states and then take it internationally to as many countries as God opens the doors for us to go.
About Dr. David Geisler:
Dr. David Geisler is the president and co-founder of Norm Geisler International Ministries. He co-authored the book “Conversational Evangelism,” with his late father, Norm Geisler which has now been translated into six languages. He teaches in various seminaries around the globe and is an adjunct professor at the two seminaries his father founded: Southern Evangelical Seminary and Veritas International University. He served as a missionary in Asia for over seven years, training over 300 bible and seminary students in practical apologetics. He graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary with master’s degrees in both Biblical Studies and Theology and holds a Doctor of Ministries in Apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. For more information visit www.normgeislerthemovie.com.
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