From unspeakable memories to undaunted faith

Latest project: Undaunted, written with Cristóbal Krusen (Tyndale House Publishers).

Why did you choose this particular time in your life to write a memoir? I never intended to write a memoir, but over the last 10-15 years, scores of people have said you need share your life story. And I said, well, I don’t feel that I have the authority to do that. They said, “It will help so many people in their walk with Christ and coming to know Christ.” This seemed to be the time when the movie came to reality and the right man to write it, Cristóbal Krusen, so usually you don’t see a movie like this until after a person has died. And often a book like this doesn’t come out until afterwards. But maybe while I’m still alive, it will give me a greater platform to impact more for Christ.

Followers of your ministry know that you set out to disprove the Bible. That didn’t work out so well, did it? The simple answer is no. The reason it didn’t work out is that I was ignorant. Like most people, I never knew there was evidence, abundant evidence on the reliability of the Scriptures. I never knew about the abundance of manuscript evidence. So when I set out to write Evidence That Demands a Verdict against Christianity, I was persuaded against my will. I had to struggle because my mind told me it was true, but my heart wanted to go another way. I didn’t want to become a Christian, but the evidence became so dominant that I had to make a decision.

What surprises are there in this book—things we don’t know about Josh McDowell? I think that there are a number of surprises. One, most people never understood the extent of my background with sex abuse—I call it homosexual rape—with a background of violence in the family, which is so prevalent among so many people today. And then most people didn’t realize the extent of alcoholism in the McDowell family. I think people are going to identify. Ninety percent of people identify with the sex abuse, alcohol or the violence. And I think people are going to walk away with the new surprise, saying, “Wow, it doesn’t matter what my background is, I don’t have to be a victim. I can be more than a survivor, I can be a victor.” Another big surprise they’ll find is how “I needed more than Jesus.” All these people that teach, all you need is Jesus, that’s heresy. When it comes to salvation, all I needed was Jesus, but [for] everything after that, I needed the body of Christ, which is biblical. … God wants to use other people in your life for the healing process.

What do you hope readers take away from reading Undaunted? I hope that they walk away with hope. That no matter what my background is, this is the principle I would like them to walk away with: “There’s nothing too great in my life for God’s power to deal with, nor anything too insignificant for Him to be concerned about.” It they walk away with that … that will free up so many people.

How did the movie tied to this memoir come about? It’s very logical that when you release a movie of this type of the background of an individual, to release the book [as well] because one would promote the other. The book would promote the video, and the video would promote the book. And it was also logical that once we were going to do the book, to see the movie come out because as people read things from the manuscripts, they kept saying, “You’ve got to put this into a movie.” And so it just naturally came out of a flow. It’s a good marketing concept to help bookstores and all. And usually the movie will take people to the book because you have so much more of the detail and answers in writing. So we started a website; we started a book to go with the movie. And I think what is going to surprise people is that we have now learned that in every culture of the world, there are three main crises in people’s lives, in young people’s lives: 1. Sex abuse: At least … 30-40% of all the children in the world have been sexually abused. In the United States, at least a third in the best of churches. In some countries in South America, it is 80%; in some other countries, 90% of boys have been sexually abused. 2. Alcohol. It’s hard to find many young people in the world that have not had the negative affects of alcohol; and then 3. Family violence. These are the trinity of problems facing people in the world, and when we started out with the movie, we never realized that it was going to hit on all three major areas.

How can Christian retailers best convey the import of your message? I would say the best way to do that is that in the three areas of alcohol, violence and sex abuse, this book, this video, can give you answers and give you hope. And second, every person who walks into every bookstore has relationships, whether the person has been sexually abused, alcohol-abused or [has experienced] violence and abuse. And this will give a very practical, understanding way to minister to someone who has been affected in these three areas. This is a book that will have a direct effect in the purchaser’s life or through their life to other people. That is probably the biggest story, and part of the theme would be if you learn one thing out of this book that you’ll never forget, [it] is that there’s nothing too great in your life for God’s power to deal with, nor anything too small or insignificant for His love to be concerned about.

Read more of this Q&A online at www.christianretailing.com/undaunted.