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Growing up in a deeply Christian home, Shayla Perez assumed that faith was simply part of her family tradition. But as she entered her teenage years, skepticism began to grow. Questions about suffering and whether Christianity was actually true led her into online atheist communities and eventually to reject the faith she grew up around.
What began as rebellion soon became a sincere search for truth. As Shayla wrestled with the claims of atheism and the intellectual foundations of Christianity, she discovered something she had never expected.
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Guest Bio:
Shayla Perez is a Christian speaker and content creator passionate about helping the next generation discover the truth of Christianity. After a season of skepticism and involvement in online atheist communities as a teenager, she returned to faith through apologetics, philosophy, and a personal encounter with Christ. Today, she reaches Gen Z and Gen Alpha through social media, youth events, and churches, engaging honest questions about faith and culture.
Resources Mentioned:
eX-skeptic Guides: https://exskeptic.org/bookstore/
Shayla’s Recommended Resources:
- William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith https://www.reasonablefaith.org
- Frank Turek, Cross-Examined, https://crossexamined.org
- Cliff Knechtle, Give me an Answer: https://www.youtube.com/@givemeananswer
- Got Questions: https://www.gotquestions.org
- Total Truth and Finding Truth, Nancy Pearcey:https://a.co/d/066TnGwI
Shayla’s Social Resources:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shayla_j_perez/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Shayla_Perez
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shayla_j_perez
Connect with eX-skeptic:
Website: https://exskeptic.org/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exskeptic
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/exskeptic
Twitter: http://x.com/exskeptic
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@exskeptic
Email info: info@exskeptic.org
eX-skeptic transcript
Ep. 151 Shayla Perez
August 14, 2026
Shayla Perez
00:00 – 00:27
I decided to pray to God. I decided to say out loud, you know what, God, I don’t believe I’ve ever given you a real chance. If you are real, I want to know that you are real. I don’t want to— I don’t— I actually want to believe it for myself. My mom and dad have faith. My grandfather has faith. If you’re real, just will you meet me where I’m at? Because I’m going to give you a chance.
Jana Harmon
00:34 – 02:03
Hello and welcome to eX-skeptic, where we explore unlikely stories of belief from those who’ve once wrestled with doubt, skepticism, and the deepest questions of life. For some, skepticism begins outside the church, but for others, it begins much closer to home. What happens when the beliefs you grew up with no longer feel convincing? When the confidence and faith of those around you is not your own. In today’s episode, I’m joined by Sheila Perez, a young woman who grew up in a deeply Christian home yet found herself increasingly skeptical of the faith she had always known. Drawn into online atheist communities and unconvinced by what seemed to be an emotional or assumed Christian belief, Shayla had to wrestle for herself whether or not Christianity was actually true or simply familiar. Her story is a powerful reminder that faith often has to be tested before it can be truly owned, and sometimes the very skepticism that seems to threaten belief becomes the means by which it is examined, strengthened, and made real. I hope you’ll come along and listen to Sheila’s journeying away from Christianity and back again. If you’re helped by these conversations, please be sure to follow the eX-skeptic podcast. And if you’d like to stay connected with new episodes, stories, and resources, you can sign up for our email list at exskeptic.org. Now let’s listen in to Shayla’s story. Welcome to eX-skeptic, Shayla. It’s great to have you with me today.
Shayla Perez
02:03 – 02:05
It’s so good to be here, Jana.
Jana Harmon
02:05 – 02:31
I loved meeting you. I met you at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention not long ago, and we were neighbors in our booths. We were both exhibiting, and I just fell in love with who you are and what you’re doing now as a young, beautiful woman who is promoting the truth and grace of Christ. Can you give the listeners a little bit of an idea of the kinds of things that you’re involved with now?
Shayla Perez
02:32 – 03:53
Yeah, so I’m a Christian speaker. I speak at youth camps and youth events and women’s ministries. I was in youth ministry for a long time, from the time that I got saved to up until just a couple of years ago, so almost 10 years in youth ministry. So, I really care about the next gen being saved, but we will get into it. But a big part of my testimony is that the internet truly led me to Christ, which I know might sound weird to people, but I did come to Christ because of the internet. I just believe that the digital world is where we see a new mission field popping up. And that is where next gen is being shaped. I believe we need to meet them where they’re at. So I make content on TikTok. I do TikTok Lives where they’re live streams where people can come up and ask their questions, and, you know, they can be skeptical all they want, uh, as they, you know, talk to me and ask their questions. And I try to just lead them and guide them on TikTok Live. I also make content on Instagram and on YouTube, just responding to different critiques of Christianity, that I see that are popular online. Because as much as there’s bad things on the internet. There’s, there’s good things, and I try to be one of the good things responding to the bad. So yeah, so I’m really into the mission of developing young people’s worldview where they’re at online.
Jana Harmon
03:53 – 04:05
Thank you for that beautiful introduction, Shayla. What a dynamic young woman you are, and I do hope that people will go and look at your social media links, which we will post in the episode notes.
Shayla Perez
04:06 – 04:07
Thank you.
Jana Harmon
04:08 – 04:42
Yes, absolutely. Now, one thing that intrigued me about your story is that— and we’re going to start here—is that you, you grew up in a Christian family, but you were a very skeptical thinker. You, just didn’t want to take faith for granted. Let’s start there in your home. Tell me about how you grew up, how that shaped you in terms of your understanding of your own faith and beliefs and worldview, and then why you and how you started kind of pushing back against that.
Shayla Perez
04:43 – 11:09
I really hope that this episode resonates with anyone who also grew up in a Christian household but felt like maybe other people had faith that you didn’t have. That is what I felt when I was young. I had a connection to God. I would I had these supernatural encounters when I was a child. Well, first let me say this. I was a third-generation pastor’s kid. So my grandfather was a Baptist preacher. My father is a Pentecostal preacher. So we have this, you know, bloodline of faith, if you will, that I inherited. But I grew up as a kid having these supernatural experiences where I would have prophetic dreams that would come true. One of them saved my brother’s life. I had a dream that his face turned blue and that he was going to die. And because of that, my mom and dad were hypervigilant. Like, this 6-year-old had a dream that her brother died. Maybe we need to keep an eye on him. And they had never used the baby monitor, but they decided to use, started using a baby monitor because of that. And one night my dad heard my brother gasping for air on the baby monitor. Like, it was just the slightest sound of, uh, and he heard that. And because of that, they were able to find him, rush him to the hospital, pray, rush him to the hospital. And so I had these moments that only could be described as supernatural. I even remember as a young girl, and it’s going to sound a little bit woo-woo, but feeling like I could see angels, and I could actually see in the room angels that were watching over me. But as I got older, that is where I started to have a lot more skepticism. And I felt almost guilty because my mom and my dad had this incredible faith. You know, they were, like I said, very Pentecostal, very charismatic. You know, they were always believing for miracles and that God was going to continue to bring revival. And I just, I had, like I said, some encounters with God as a child, but as I got older, that just wasn’t enough. I was like, how do I know that my mom and dad aren’t making up that story? You know, like, I was only 6. I don’t remember that dream. Like, oh, I have this distant memory of seeing angels, but maybe that was just, you know, like, a child makes things up all the time. Like, a child’s imagination, you know, runs wild. That was probably just my imagination. And so by the time I was 12, 13, I was definitely full-blown skeptic. I was like, I don’t know if any— this seems a little bit crazy to me, especially because of the Christian circle that I was in where there was like a lot stuff that they were claiming was supernatural, you know, people like shaking and people, you know, I was like, I don’t— how do I know that’s not just a facade, you know? Um, 14, I was on the internet. My mom and dad didn’t realize. They used to have what’s called an iPod Touch, and it was like the first technology that was not just, you can just— it’s not just you just have your music on there, you had internet access. And so I downloaded Instagram at 14 and I started meeting people online and I ended up just in this community of atheists, agnostics, people really making harsh critiques on Christianity. And there were a lot of the critiques that resonated with me, honestly, that I had. And I was like, oh, this— so I’m not— there’s other people who believe that this is a facade. And I just became part of this community of people who were more agnostic and skeptical in nature. And it was also kind of on the end of the wave of the New Atheistic movement. So a lot of them were, as you know, Jana, and the, the people watching know, some of the, those New Atheist movement people are very harsh, and if you’re, I think if you’re a skeptic, you naturally inclined to being judgmental and kind of harsh. And so there was a part of me that thrived in that, if, you know, if I could use that word. Like, I just was like, oh yeah, like, that is stupid. Oh yeah, like, that is dumb. Like, and at 15, I met a guy online. He was an atheist. He was an older man. He was 19, I was 15, and he became my boyfriend. And that relationship, which was, you know, obviously, I don’t know if I’d call it a love relationship, but it felt like it for a 15-year-old girl. He really continued to push me in my questioning and challenging this household that I was even in at the time and saying, like, your mom and dad are brainwashing you, you know, you. And I just, for the first time ever, kind of like went into it full force of, yeah, I’ve been brainwashed. These people around me are silly and stupid. And that’s kind of where I was at. And I told— I remember one time my mom and dad— and I was also a very rebellious child, I will say that. I was not a goody two shoes. I was pretty rebellious. And one time I was in a fight with my mom and dad they took away my iPod Touch, which was my access to my 19-year-old boyfriend. And I, you know, was so upset. And they were telling me that, you know, they felt like God was telling them that I shouldn’t have access to this iPod Touch. And I was like, God’s not even real, so the Holy Spirit isn’t telling you to take this away from me because that’s just you guys being controlling. And I said that out loud to them, and that was the first time that I admitted to anyone, because I wasn’t even admitting to my peer group because I was the pastor’s daughter. I was in a youth group, like, I had to be a good example. So I wasn’t admitting to anybody, where I was at internally. But that was the first time I said out loud, almost in anger and frustration, not even calculated, but a reaction of, you’re saying that this is from God? God’s not even real. And they just looked at me like they had nothing to say. And that was the first time ever my parents had nothing to say to me, actually.
Jana Harmon
11:11 – 11:29
So yeah, that’s really hard. It’s probably a very common tale. And so when you were starting to push back, at least even internally, was there a place, a resource, a person when you started going, well, I don’t know if this is real, how do you know this is real?
Shayla Perez
11:30 – 12:51
At the time, no, because it was like this reaction almost. It was like, this is all I’ve ever known and now I’m seeing this. And it was like a pendulum swing almost. And because there was that love interest as well, there was like this trust that I was having in him. After I told my mom and dad, I don’t even believe in God, they would start dropping certain resources. I could tell in my life, they gave me A Case for Christ. And even that, I read it to humor them. And the whole time I was just thinking, how do I know that this guy is not just saying this to profit off of Christians? Like, you know what I mean? How do I know that he actually talked to Lee Strobel? How do I know that Lee Strobel actually— because I also saw within Christian communities that there could be a financial incentive to make these stories up and to say like, oh, God healed me from this, or, you know, God did. And so that just shows how deep my skepticism was, that even when I was reading a resource like A Case for Christ, I thought, this guy’s probably just saying this to profit off of Christians, you know. So it was pretty, it was pretty deep, and it was a pendulum swing at the time.
Jana Harmon
12:51 – 13:47
Yeah, the New Atheists were very persuasive. Yes, at that, in that cultural milieu, just very strong voices. The mantras of, you know, Christianity is, like you were saying, stupid. It’s not rational. It’s not worthy of belief. They did a very powerful job of tearing down religion and the need to believe in it. Yeah. But on the other hand, what did they provide in its place? So you knew what you were rejecting. Did you really know what you were embracing when you say, okay, I don’t believe in God anymore, uh, what do I believe? And did you think that through? What, what did you believe at that point when you turned from God.
Shayla Perez
13:47 – 19:35
Well, I will say that those, like I said, were— I was 15 and I was angsty and I was angry and I was all these things, so I was not thinking through those. It was when I became a little older, so I mean, at like 16 and a half, I did start wrestling. And this is where I would say there was a turn of like me kind of like balancing out with the philosophy that does come with the atheistic worldview, which is everything is subjective, we, you know, might not even have free will. All of those things started to kind of like bring me to the center. Specifically, I remember watching a video where it was like a circle group. I couldn’t tell you the name of the show. It’s just I mean, this is over 10 years ago, but I remember seeing a video on YouTube where Richard Dawkins was speaking so harshly about Christianity, and he said some stuff that I just knew was not true. Like, he was saying that the Old Testament authors were basically a bunch of low IQ savage desert— I think he used like desert savages, like a word like that, that every other scholar on the panel looked at him like, that’s ridiculous. That’s not true at all. And that kind of put a poke in my— I was like, okay, I think that he’s not being very charitable to the Christian holy book because even if you’re not Christian, you still realize that the Bible is an incredible piece of literature. And I knew that. I knew that it all of the books that we had that made up the Bible was an incredible piece of literature. And so I saw all these scholars look at him like, what? And so that was the first part of, like, atheist hostility, like a lack of charity that I saw. And then I saw people asking questions to people like Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, where basically they use the moral argument of, okay, so if we don’t have a higher power basically rooting and grounding us in our morals, who’s to say that Hitler and the Nazis in the Holocaust were not justified by continuing to rapidly, I guess you could say, bring forth evolution and just say like, hey, this is part of the evolutionary process. Like, we believe that they are a lesser human than we are. Why not exterminate the Jewish people? And their answer to that was always freaky. And like I said, I was at 16, I was like, whoa, this is a harsh answer. Because their answer is, well, yeah, who is to say? If they were being honest, they knew how bad it sounded. They knew how bad it sounded. But if they were to be honest, they knew that they couldn’t say that that wasn’t possibly justified because morals are all subjective. And same thing with the free will, like a lot of these atheists don’t believe in free will at all. And that really helps balance me out to say, okay, I think I need to reassess and reevaluate what it means if I’m going to take on the atheistic or agnostic worldview. I need to stop being so harsh towards Christianity. And that’s where I started diving into Christian philosophy and Christian apologetics for myself, not because my mom and dad handed me A Case for Christ, but that’s where I became encapsulated with Christian apologetics. And there was one specific talk that I— one of the reasons that I was so, I would say, at the time, like, the biggest struggle for me with the Christian faith was the problem of evil, especially because, like I said, the theology I was in in my household, was very Word of Faith-y in a way, where if you believed enough for healing, it’s always God’s will to heal, and he’s always going to heal. And my aunt was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She actually came to California to be treated at City of Hope, which was one of the greatest cancer hospitals that we have. And she died in my mom and dad’s house after we took care of her for almost a year and a half. So, it was like a very slow, painful death. And after seeing that, it made it very, very hard for me to grapple with there could be a good God, and my mom and dad could have so much faith, and they could still allow this to happen, you know. He could still allow this to happen. So I was deep diving into the problem of evil and what Christians believed about that and I found a talk from a Christian philosopher, and he for the first time gave some good answers to that. He didn’t ignore it like I was seeing from my Christian household, where we were just kind of ignoring that that just happened, you know, and he, and he grappled with it. And I had never seen a Christian grapple with the problem of evil like that. And so it opened my mind even more so. And so you could say over the course of time, there were just these like little holes being popped, little breadcrumbs being dropped for me that was leading my heart closer and closer to Christianity.
Jana Harmon
19:36 – 20:41
In a nutshell, you were a Christian who believed, then you got sucked into the internet atheism, and, really the pendulum swung. And then you started realizing, wow, there’s a lot that you have to buy into if you buy into this godless world that is a little bit difficult to explain according to your own humanity, according to our own human experience and even moral intuitions, this just doesn’t make sense. So you set out on a path to really try to figure it out. And I love that you were motivated enough to go look. It seems like the internet kind of drew you in, but the internet also helped kind of lead you in and lead you out in a sense. Once you started looking at Christian philosophers and Christian apologists, they were helping you make sense of the Christian worldview in light of reality.
Shayla Perez
20:41 – 22:39
I loved watching debates, which is why I think there’s a part of me that just has always wanted truth. I did. I wanted truth so bad I mean, like I said, there was a point where I was just being a little rebellious, you know, teen, but I really did want to know the truth, which is why I liked these debates, because it felt like everyone had to fight for what was true. Everyone has to put their thoughts on the table and we have to grapple with who has the best explanations, who has the best arguments. You could complain that there’s all of these atheist communities and, you know, they’re being really critical of Christianity. I was thankful that there were Christian thought leaders putting out good arguments and being willing to debate. And it just wasn’t something that I was used to seeing, like Christians talking about these subjects openly, being willing to grapple with them, being willing to defend them. Like, the, the way that someone like Frank Turek or even like, uh, Cliff— uh, I always say his name wrong— Knechtle, the way he would go onto college campuses and just be so willing to talk to students and so willing to hear their critiques, and even when they were harsh or mean or even rude, he just met them where they were at. And I saw that, and I was so taken aback by it and overwhelmed by it. It’s like, wow, this is what I want. This is what I want. I want someone to help. I want someone to help me grapple with this part of the Christian faith. Yeah, so those are some, some names, but it really was the people who are willing to answer the hard questions and talk about them. And like I said, my heart might have been critical when I was younger, but it, at the end of the day, now that I look back, I really did just want the truth. And I love seeing those Christians who are willing to fight for it.
Jana Harmon
22:40 – 22:54
So you started looking and listening and looking at both sides. And I presume that you began to become persuaded that the Christian worldview actually is intellectually grounded.
Shayla Perez
22:54 – 29:50
Yeah. So like I said, I’m starting to center out. I’m coming over. I’m actually even starting to enjoy the content so much that I’m actually starting to come over here a little bit more towards the Christian side because of how much I, you know, admired these Christian apologists and philosophers. But I— my mom and dad, like I said, they were doing the best that they could to help me in my rebellion. They were starting a class at our church and it was a discipleship class, and the way that it was pitched to the church was, and by the way, just because I was— I admitted I was agnostic didn’t mean my mom and dad stopped telling me to go to church. Like, they were like, you’re in our household, you’re going to church whether you like it or not. And so I was just always there. And they offered what they called a discipleship class where they said, we’re going to read the Bible every day for 30 days, and we’re also going to only consume Christian media. And it’s like your ability to give God a chance to have a relationship with him. Like, it’s like you are stepping out and saying, okay, if I want a relationship with God we’re going to focus. It’s kind of like those, like, workout boot camps, you know, it’s like we’re really going to go all in, really intense as like a kickstart. And so they offered this discipleship class where it was going to be like a kickstart for your relationship with God, where you are listening to sermons throughout the week, you’re only consuming Christian content and you’re reading every day. And I just thought ‘You know what, why not? Like, why not just give God a chance? Why not? Because if he’s not real, I’m gonna consume more of this literature that I don’t believe in, and I’ll at least be able to say I’ve read the Bible to challenge Christianity, or I’m going to experience God, you know, the way that everyone else seems to be experiencing him and I’m not.’ So I did that, and on the first day, I can only describe it as like probably the conviction of the Holy Spirit, where as I decided to pray to God, I decided to say out loud, you know what, ‘God, I don’t believe I’ve ever given you a real chance. If you are real, I want to know that you are real. I don’t want to— I don’t— I actually want to believe it. For myself. My mom and dad have faith, my grandfather has faith. If you’re real, just will you meet me where I’m at? Because I’m going to give you a chance.’ And I don’t think we can command God to do stuff, you know, like, God, show up right now if you’re real. But I know that my heart posture was one of sincerity to just say, okay, God, I’m gonna dive into this. And I started in the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And at the same time, my Christian media, because I was only allowed to consume Christian media in this discipleship course, on the validity of the gospel account. And that’s what I decided to pair with my reading of the gospels. And between reading the gospels and consuming Christian apologetics that were giving me reasons why we can trust the validity of them, the Holy Spirit moved and he worked on my heart and I started finding myself wanting to pray and wanting to talk to God when before it was this disdain, you know, of like, this is so stupid. I felt like I— before when I would pray, when I was in my skepticism, I just felt like I was talking to no one in the room and I just, I made my— I just felt dumb. I don’t know how else to explain it. I just felt silly. Now I was praying alone in my room and I felt like God was with me. Like, I felt like he was there with me and he was almost like— I felt like he was proud of me for giving him a chance for myself as opposed to trying to prove him wrong. And the combination of all of those things led me to say, you know what, I am starting to believe this. That doesn’t mean I have no doubts. Like, I still was like, okay, well, how do we explain the Genesis account? And how do we— like, I saw a million questions, but I found myself actually being convicted to give my life to Christ and follow him. And one thing about me, Jana, is that I am a very all-in or all-out person. That’s why I took it so seriously, because I didn’t want to be half in, half out. But by the end of those 30 days, I felt like I was fully in, and I committed, saying, ‘Okay, God, I’m gonna, I’m gonna follow you.’ And at the end of that time, I was in a youth service, and in this youth service, the youth pastor, one of the youth leaders, said, I want you to close your eyes and picture Jesus. And this is one of those things where I was like, okay, here we go, like everyone’s gonna I’m not just gonna, you know, make something up. And so I closed my eyes and I actually did see something. I saw a vision of me and I was like this, like almost like this poor, gravelly peasant, you know, like I was coming before God and there was like this giant throne. And on this giant throne that was like a skyscraper, I felt like the Holy Spirit spoke to me and he said, “Shayla, this is how you see me right now. You see me like this.” And it was like this little gravelly peasant looking up at this throne. And he says, “But really, I’m like this.” And all in a moment, I saw Jesus so close that I could see my reflection in his eyes. And I just thought, “Wow, that’s so weird.” Like, I don’t think I made that up. I think I really just saw that vision. And that later on in that week, I listened to a teaching. He quoted a passage where it says that we are the apple of God’s eye, and he began to explain that what that really— the original language is we are like the little maiden in God’s eye. And what that means is it’s a love analogy where you’re so close to someone that you can see your own reflection in them. And then I thought like, oh my gosh, that’s what I saw. I saw my own reflection in Christ. And I realized that that wasn’t something I made up, that that was actually a vision that I had and that was kind of like the nail in the coffin, if you will, of, okay, like, I think God is pursuing me. I think I pursued God the past 30 days, and I think he’s pursuing me too.
Jana Harmon
29:52 – 30:03
That’s beautiful. That image is beautiful too. And that’s available to everyone, isn’t it? That we are all the apple of God’s eye if we would come and allow him to love us, right?
Shayla Perez
30:04 – 30:04
Yeah.
Jana Harmon
30:05 – 31:08
And thinking about your story, it was funny because you picked up Lee Strobel’s Case for Christ at one point that you were really resistant to it. You read it, but you weren’t really— it’s not, it’s not like you wanted to be convinced by it, right? And so, you kind of set it aside. But I would imagine, after having listened to Christian philosophers and apologists, by the time that you came to this 30-day period, I would imagine, like you say, you had a heart posture that was open. But I presume at some point you were intellectually satisfied on some level to say, well, maybe it’s true in my head. How about my heart? Um, so that it— convinced is probably a too strong of a word, but, but you were willing to admit or even ask God if you’re real, you know?
Shayla Perez
31:08 – 31:36
Yeah, that’s what that prayer was at the beginning of the discipleship class. It was, ‘Okay God, I don’t think I’ve fully given you a chance. I think I’ve told myself I have, but I don’t think I really have. And so I’m just going to be honest and humble and just really give you a chance’ if you will. And what I meant by that was not, you know, like, God, show me. It was more like, I think I’m gonna soften my heart and not be so skeptical.
Jana Harmon
31:37 – 32:34
Because it sounds like your mind had become more open to the reality of God, that there are good reasons to believe. And then you opened your heart, and I think that’s very fair, isn’t it? At the beginning of your story, you kind of inferred that it seemed like there’s no real good reason. Yes, you know, people believe because of faith, but I know you’re a beautiful young lady there sitting going, but faith is not blind. And that we don’t have to believe just because we want it to be true, or because other people seem to believe it so strongly, or have ‘the gift of faith.’ Some of us need more than that. Some of us need good reasons to believe. What would you say to someone who says, ‘Oh, you, you know, it’s believing in God or Jesus, it’s just blind faith?’
Shayla Perez
32:36 – 34:01
Yeah, I would tell them that that’s not biblical, that we see in 1 Peter that we’re supposed to give a defense for our faith, and that word defense is talking about giving a reason for why we believe what we believe. And so if faith is really just trust, it boils down to trusting God, the more that you have reason to trust the more that, that faith can grow stronger. And so I would say that reason is, if anything, it is like propping up our faith. Our faith can be strengthened by our reason. Our faith can be strengthened by using sound logic. And so yeah, I think my faith was so weak because it didn’t have anything to strengthen it. It was just there, like almost dormant, if you will. I don’t think non-existent, but it was dormant, and it was strengthened by me using logic and reason. So I would tell that person, I’m really sorry that someone has maybe given you an inaccurate definition or biblical explanation of what faith is supposed to be, but I would push back and say I don’t believe that’s what’s described as what faith needs to be in the Bible. I don’t think even from my own experience that it’s going to get you very far if you don’t grow that faith with some logic and reason.
Jana Harmon
34:02 – 34:09
If someone said, well, how do you know, Shayla? How do you know it’s true? How would you respond?
Shayla Perez
34:10 – 35:02
Well, my answer might not be as fluffy as some other— some people are just like, oh, you just— I hate the fluffy answers. I don’t like them, to be honest. I, I’d be honest with them and I’d say I don’t 100% know. I don’t 100% know, but I want to follow the evidence, and I believe that the evidence points us to our faith in Jesus Christ, that if, if Christ had not raised from the dead, then all this is pointless. But I believe that we have enough evidence to point us to Jesus did raise from the dead. And so I cannot give you anything that’s going to make you 100% sure that there is an element of faith that plays into this, but you can follow the evidence to have good reason to believe it and to put your faith and put your trust in our, in our, in our Christian faith, in that Jesus rose from the dead.
Jana Harmon
35:03 – 36:07
That is, that is the crux of our faith, isn’t it? If Jesus rose from the dead, then the claims that he made about himself are true, and we can trust in him. And there, for anybody who’s looking, there is a lot of literature, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that that is the case, that that was a true event in history, that Jesus rose from the dead. And anyway, so I would imagine that your parents were very happy that this kind of rebellious stage, whatever you encountered during that period of time, was resolved and that you had come to a belief. Can you give a word to the parents out there whose children, teenagers, may be straying, how perhaps they can best continue to relate to their children in a way that is not putting them off of Christianity even farther— further?
Shayla Perez
36:08 – 40:22
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first thing I’ll say is that faith is something that everyone has to come into for themselves. It’s not something that can be given to them. We, of course, like I said, I had an inheritance of this faith household because of the generations that were passed to me, but at the end of the day, I had to accept it and I had to come into it. And so I want to encourage any parent out there that you cannot force faith on your child, but you can contend for their faith. And so the first thing I would say to do is do not forget that this is a spiritual battle. I know that we’ve talked a lot about logic and reason and figuring all this out in the mind, you know, but at the end of the day, there is a war on your child’s soul. And so the best thing, the first thing I would say, and this isn’t me over-spiritualizing it, this is me making this very practical, you have to contend for the soul of your child. You have to pray for them like their soul is on the line, because it is. And so I would say the first thing is contend for their faith. Don’t give up hope. I don’t think that there’s a point of them going too far. I think a lot of parents can get discouraged because they think, oh, it’s too late for them. That it’s not too late for your child. No, there is no sheep that’s too far off that Jesus isn’t willing to pick up and bring back to the fold. And so I would just say to take it seriously that this should be your number one spiritual priority as their parent, is to contend for them, intercede for them, ask the Holy Spirit to open up doors for them to have what I had, like these little holes being pricked in their doubt, and that the Holy Spirit would lead and guide them to the right conversations and the way that the Holy Spirit led me even on the internet to finding these videos that led me into the faith. So I would say that I don’t want to make light of that. That’s, that’s probably the biggest thing that you can do for them. The second thing would be to help help bring them— and my parents did an okay job, but I think that, you know, we can learn that from them, and that they could have maybe done a little bit better with giving me more of these names. Like, I had to find these names for myself of these Christian apologists and these Christian philosophers. Like, I had to find them online. Maybe you can present to them some of these names, some of these resources. And like I said, they might have this attitude of like, oh, this is just my mom and my dad, but you just never know. Like, you never know what they’re going— who’s— what apologist or philosopher is going to resonate with them the way that, you know, there were some that resonated with me. So I would say that giving them resources and kind of exposing them to this world is one of the best things that you could do for them, because you’re not trying to teach them one way to think. You’re trying to teach them how to think for themselves. The harsh reality is that we can’t shield people from, you know, criticisms of our faith. We can’t. The best thing that you could do is, is shine a light on it and expose them to, hey, like, yes, there are these critiques of our faith, but there’s also, you know, these reasons to believe. So I think if you engage your child and you ask them, like, do you have any you know, doubts, is there anything that you’re wrestling with, da da da da da, you’re helping shine a light on what I think the enemy wants to hide, you know? Like, I felt like I had to hide my doubt. I felt like I had to hide my questions. I had to hide my skepticism. Like, I, as the pastor’s daughter, I wasn’t allowed to not believe in God, you know? And if I would’ve had someone come to me and say, hey, Shayla, like, I’ve noticed that you seem really disengaged in some of these parts of the service. Like, do you have any questions or is there any, you know, I would’ve appreciated that. Um, because you’re shining a light on what the enemy wants to keep hidden and in the dark.
Jana Harmon
40:22 – 40:22
Mm-hmm.
Shayla Perez
40:22 – 40:49
So yeah, Jana, if they, even if you felt, even if they’re a parent that says, ‘Oh, I have the gift of faith, I’ve never doubted,’ you know, I would say congrats. I’m, I’m jealous of you at times, but you know, you want to be there for your child and you want to make sure that we’re not, we’re not treating them, you know, like they can’t handle these critiques because they probably already have them in their mind, you know, and you’re actually helping them when you bring them to attention.
Jana Harmon
40:50 – 41:23
Or even including it in a youth group curriculum, right? Just bring out these questions, these big questions, and let’s talk about these things, whether or not the Bible is worth believing, or, you know, all of the criticisms. Because you’re right, I think putting your head in the sand and pretending, like, especially in this technological age, that children and teens are not exposed to alternative views and criticisms and critiques is a bit naive, I would imagine. And it’s better to be wise.
Shayla Perez
41:24 – 41:26
It’s naive.
Jana Harmon
41:26 – 42:45
Yeah. And we have a, just an abundance of wealth of riches of evidence and logic and apologetics and all the things that we need to really to ground our beliefs in more than emotion or mere faith or whatever. So I’m so glad that you’re a reminder of that. If I— and I know that there you are representative of a lot of different teenagers who really make a decision around age 15, like, okay, I’m not sure I buy this Christian thing. There’s so many different reasons why a teen might reject it, so many reasons, and we won’t go into all of those now. But if someone is genuinely curious and they’re going, but I don’t know, I don’t know where to go, I don’t know, I don’t have somebody in my life that I can ask, I don’t, I have never heard of giving an intellectual defense of the Christian faith. All I know is just believe, or that’s just have faith, and that doesn’t seem sufficient for me, Shayla. And it looks like you’ve been through a journeying and a grounding of your own faith so that you came back to a heart posture towards Jesus. How can I find that? Where should I look? What should I do?
Shayla Perez
42:46 – 44:56
Well, one, I just want to say that’s where I was too, so there’s no shame in saying that out loud. But I want to challenge you and I want to encourage you that the Christian faith can withhold testing. It can withhold scrutiny. And so do not be afraid to dive into what we believe as Christians. Do not be afraid that if you begin to look at the resources that we have for our faith that you’re going to lose it. If anything, be encouraged that you can begin to look into the Christian apologetics and the Christian philosophy and all of these different ideas of our faith, you can dive into those because it can withhold scrutiny. I mean, newsflash, our faith has withheld a lot worse than the criticism of a 15-year-old, okay? We’ve gone through trials and tribulations and persecutions, and you’re not the first one. And so don’t be afraid to dive into that. The resources I would give them is online we have an abundance of resources for them. Jana, I don’t want to plug my own stuff. I want you to plug— I mean, look into everything that eX-skeptic offers. But there’s a million ministries that come to mind that can answer these questions. One of the most basic ones that to this day I still use is. There’s someone, I don’t even know who made this website, but there’s a website called GotQuestions. And it was one of the first websites that I found when I was like 17 and growing in my faith with some of these harder texts, you know, when I started looking into like Old Testament verses to grapple with, with slavery and genocide. And, you know, like one of the websites that I just leaned on was GotQuestions, and they put out really good resources. So my point is that there’s a million that I could plug, you could plug, Jana, but I want to encourage that 15-year-old that might be skeptical and has only been told you just have to have faith don’t be afraid to deep dive. Our faith can handle it, and the internet does have a lot of great resources for you to dive into.
Jana Harmon
44:56 – 46:11
That’s wonderful. And I’m thinking about this generation too, Gen Z, Gen A, the voices out there that are going, you know, the intellectual stuff is, is good and all of that, but I just wonder, does God matter to my life? You know, I There’s so many that are just reaching for something more than this liquid modernity culture that we’re in, where you have to self-create and you have to find your own way and you just express yourself. And it’s also seeming confusion and just hard. It’s harder than it sounds. And, people are looking for something solid and something where they can find real identity and meaning for their life. You know, is life more than this, than just creating myself? You know, is there more purpose than this? knowing that there’s so much anxiety and depression and all of these things, what is it that Christianity— if you could speak to those in your generation now, what does Christianity offer? What does Jesus offer that is better than what they can find in the world.
Shayla Perez
46:12 – 48:55
Yeah, we see a rise right now in interest in spirituality. This study was just put out that for the first time ever we see an uptick in interest in spirituality, not Christianity. And people have confused the two. They say, oh, like Christianity is on the rise. No, no, no, look, read, read the full study that was put out by Barna. It’s an uptick in interest in God. And that word God could mean a million different things. It doesn’t necessarily mean Christianity. And so what I would challenge young people today who maybe feel like, well, I’m interested in something spiritual. Truth matters and truth is found in Jesus Christ. Because we have evidence for Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, we have, we can fully rely on the faith that Jesus spoke and taught of the kingdom of God. And that is where you’re going to find rooting. That’s where you’re going to find grounding. It’s not in this fluff, you know, I just believe that God is with me, I could do whatever I want to do and live however I want to live, and that’s what’s going to make me happy. No, we have rich church history that this faith has caused Christians for centuries to go through what we talked about earlier— trials, persecutions. There’s a reason they’ve been able to stand on it, and for the gospel that Jesus Christ set up, the gospel that Jesus died for. I would tell that young person, you want to dive into the religion of Christianity and what Jesus set up, his church, his message. And you’re only going to do that by going back to what Christians have always believed. And so you want to start off with a biblical foundation. You want to start off with the Apostles’ Creed is a good place. If, like, if you’re, like, just starting somewhere fresh, you want to go into what have Christians always believed for hundreds of thousands of years, and that is going to be found in the Apostles’ Creed. It’s going to be found, and it’s going to be in within the message that we’ve always proclaimed. And so I would just want to push back against this, like, okay, I’m interested in God, but that could mean anything. No, no, like, what me and Jana are, are saying that we have such a strong belief in now, and that we can have evidence for. It’s not just anything. It’s specifically the orthodox Christian teaching. That is what you can put your faith and your trust in. And so I would encourage them to deep dive into that so that you don’t end up falling into some wacky, you know, like I said, belief in the universe, because that’s not what we have evidence for. We have evidence for is the resurrection of Christ.
Jana Harmon
48:56 – 49:37
Yeah, yeah. And it is in Christ where you find the fullness of who you are and your own personal dignity and purpose and worth. And all those things that our human hearts long for are found in Christ. Now we’ve already talked about maybe what parents can do to help their children along. When you, when you encounter someone who doesn’t believe, who may be pushing back, who may be looking at other things, how can we best as Christians encourage them to look in the direction of Christ?
Shayla Perez
49:37 – 51:58
I recently read there was like a survey put out. They asked over 100 Christian apologists what did they believe was the best evidence for God, you know. And some of them said creation arguments, like fine-tuning. Some other ones said moral arguments. But one that John Lennox said, which you just wouldn’t expect this because he’s like a mathematician at Oxford, but he talked about testimonies in people’s lives, like the existential evidence that we have of, like someone’s life went from from ruin to like, they’ve gone, they had this old past life before they came to Christ and they’ve been transformed, this transformation that we see. I would point you to look at people’s lives around you, that were not saved and then became saved, their testimonies, because we might want to just write that off as be like, oh well, but we see this consistently over time. We see that there are people that once they came to Christ, they truly do become a new creation. They become— that’s actually my husband’s testimony. He says the reason that he fully decided to follow Jesus when he was a teenager was because he saw the transformation in his stepdad, who was an alcoholic gave his life to Christ, and he began to see these changes in his family and his mom and his dad. But regardless of what the testimony looks like, there is this beautiful miracle that we see of people changing when they encounter Christ. And so I don’t want to, like I said, get so heady in this conversation that we forget that there is a spiritual transformation that does give evidence to the fact that Jesus Christ not just was alive but is alive today and living amongst Christians inside of us. The Holy Spirit is living in us. And so, I don’t know, I just really wanted to bring that up to someone who might have written that off or maybe thought like, oh, well, that’s maybe that’s not a good piece of evidence. Well, John Lennox, he thinks that it’s great evidence. I would, and my husband, it caused him to come into his faith. And so, and I know several other people in my life who they saw the testimony of others and they were compelled. So I want us to dive into that as well.
Jana Harmon
51:58 – 52:39
No, that— no, of course I’m gonna love that, right? Because we, we’re all about giving testimony, right? And we’re all about giving testimony. And I think part of that is too, is just like you say, being a living testimony in the lives of others, you know, not separating yourself, but just being with others who don’t believe so they can see the difference that Christ makes in your life. So, before we end, Shayla’s, it’s just been so wonderful. Have we missed anything about your story or anything else you had in mind that you’d like to add to this conversation?
Shayla Perez
52:40 – 54:25
Yeah, I, I’m kind of going on the last thing that we just talked about, testimonies. I just want to encourage listeners and viewers to not be afraid of the internet and not be afraid of the digital age that we’re in. I believe that it is a modern-day mission field, and so you as a Christian can be a missionary on the internet. And you might say, well, I’m not like Jana, or I’m not like these other apologists who have full-on YouTube channels, or, you know, but you can be online and, and share your story at the bare minimum. And the next step is you could also share the content that Jana is putting out. You could share, you know, your favorite episode of eX-skeptic. You could share your, you know, your favorite apologist or your favorite video that brought you to faith. You even sharing that on your platform. I just don’t, I think sometimes we discredit what a big deal it is. We are all called to, for the Great Commission, right? We’re all called to go out and preach the gospel. And share our testimony. And so my plea, I guess, at the end of this conversation would be, you’re watching this now, you obviously are on the internet. This is— see this as a mission field and don’t take it lightly, because people like me got saved because of people sharing their testimony and, you know, grappling with these hard questions and being willing to have these conversations. And so don’t take it lightly. Share your testimony today. Share this channel and any Christian content that has been a blessing to you. I would encourage you to share it with others because this is how we continue to bring forth the gospel on the digital mission field.
Jana Harmon
54:26 – 54:45
That is such a good and refreshing reminder. I think sometimes people write off technology as being just only dangerous and dark. Whereas you’ve really brought forward the— especially for this digitally native generation, you know, in generations, that is where they go.
Shayla Perez
54:46 – 54:49
And that is— we need you.
Jana Harmon
54:49 – 56:54
Yeah, we need to meet people where they’re going, right? And if we can, if we can put forward Jesus on the internet, it obviously worked for you. There were those who were contending for truth, those philosophers, those apologists, and you paid attention, and it was enough for you to become convinced and enough for you to, to give Jesus a second chance. So I’m so thankful for the people who came before, who kind of laid the path for you to have the permission again to believe in a solid and intellectual way as as well as obviously having given your life. And they open the door for you for that. And I know you’re opening the door for so many to come and see the truth and the grace and the love of Jesus. So thank you so much, Shayla, for coming on board today. Shayla’s story reminds us that growing up around Christianity doesn’t automatically make faith your own. Sometimes belief has to be questioned before it can be truly understood. And sometimes the very doubts that seem to threaten faith become the catalysts that drive us to search more deeply for truth. For Shayla, that search led her to examine both critiques of Christianity and the reasons for believing it. And in that process, she discovered that the Christian worldview was not something to dismiss, but something worth trusting. Sometimes the questions that challenge our faith are the are the very ones that lead us to discover whether it’s actually true. If this conversation resonated with you, consider sharing it with someone who may be wrestling with faith for themselves. If these conversations encourage you, would you consider supporting the mission of eX-skeptic? Your support helps us continue sharing stories of former skeptics and atheists who found reasons to believe. You can learn more at exskeptic.org. Thanks for being with us this time, and we hope to see you again next time where we’ll explore another unlikely story of belief.
