Wesley Huff, 33, laid out the case for the historical reliability of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, on the The Joe Rogan Experience in January.
Less than seven months ago, Christian apologist Wesley Huff had a YouTube following of fewer than 10,000 subscribers. Over the last few months, that number has jumped to well over 450,000. And it continues to grow.
There has been an explosion of interest in his work, and the organization he works for – Apologetics Canada, a ministry with the mission of equipping the Christian community with a biblically sound, intellectually robust and culturally engaged faith.
On January 7 he became the first biblical scholar to appear on The Joe Rogan Experience, the world’s most popular podcast, which has millions of subscribers across various platforms. The show’s guest list includes everyone from politicians and celebrities to scientists, skeptics and conspiracy theorists.
Huff has had hundreds of emails from people saying they’ve started going back to church, or picked up a Bible, because of what he has said, with messages like “I thought all that stuff was nonsense, and you've shown me that it isn't.”
It has been an almost unbelievable journey for the 33-year-old PhD student at the University of Toronto’s Wycliffe College.
In a wide-ranging three-hour interview, Wesley Huff laid out the case for the historical reliability of the Bible, particularly the New Testament – although Huff and Rogan also touched on topics as diverse as athletics and the Egyptian pyramids.
Huff did not set out to get a spot on the world’s biggest podcast.
It all began in the fall of 2024, when Huff debated Bible skeptic Billy Carson. As a researcher of early Christian manuscripts and ancient languages, Huff spent two hours defending the reliability of Scripture while pointing out flaws in Carson’s arguments. After the debate, Carson sent Huff a cease-and-desist letter, demanding he not release the video. But in December, Huff went ahead and posted it anyway. The debate quickly went viral on YouTube, catching the attention of Joe Rogan, who had previously hosted Carson on his podcast.
So, on Christmas Eve, Huff got a personal invitation on Instagram from Rogan to go down to his studio in Austin, Texas in less than a week to record the interview.
“There is no way I could have orchestrated any of the events leading up to this moment,” says Huff. “I could not have gotten myself on Joe Rogan's podcast by my own volition, and so beforehand, I was really trying to just trust, leaning not in my own understanding, but leaning on the fact that this is a situation that the Spirit has designed.”
While Joe Rogan has had guests before who have talked in part about their Christian faith, Huff says his appearance was the first by a biblical scholar whose work is defending the Bible’s historical accuracy.
“That did feel daunting, because in many ways, it felt like I was representing Christianity just as much as I was representing Wesley Huff and my own research,” he says. He also had concerns about misspeaking during the three-hour interview.
“The trickier part of the conversation was not necessarily Oh, can I remember everything perfectly? which I did not, but more so there was no predictability to where the conversation might go,” says Huff. That’s part of the reason why Rogan’s podcast is so popular. “People feel like it’s very authentic, it’s not scripted, it’s kind of off the cuff.”
Huff’s appearance has been praised by many.
Denny Burk, professor of biblical studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky, describes it as “a masterclass of careful scholarship and Christian apologetics. It’s about three hours long, but it is so worth the listen.”
And Stephen J. Bedard, pastor with Brookfield Baptist Church in Nova Scotia and a Canadian army chaplain, writes in his blog, “If you look at the comments you will see that a number of skeptics were left with much to think about. They had not encountered such a thoughtful and respectful Christian like Wesley Huff before.”
There has also been a bit of criticism, and Huff posted a well-received video to his YouTube channel acknowledging some factual errors.
Huff says he saw his appearance as a “planting moment.”
“I think that posing thought provoking questions rather than a direct gospel presentation is something that for a platform like the Joe Rogan Experience, that is more organic to what that podcast is,” he says.
His recent exposure in Christian apologetics has come long way for someone who as a young adult was thinking of becoming a police officer.
Wesley Huff was born in Pakistan to missionary parents and spent part of his childhood in the Middle East.
At the age of 11 he was paralyzed from the waist down because of a rare neurological condition. The paralysis lasted about four weeks – but then came a healing he believes was miraculous. “I believe that I was supernaturally healed, and that marked a powerful supernatural experience in my life,” says Huff.
But as he got older, the experience itself wasn’t enough – he needed to know whether his beliefs were based on facts. He read authors who defended the historic nature of the Gospels and authors who disputed them.
“So apologetics has been a very profound building moment, because it has truly gotten me to the point that I can say I don't just believe this because it works, but I believe it because it's true,” he says.
While he hopes his appearance on Rogan has given skeptics food for thought, he also sees it as an indication people are warming to Christianity.
“This is actually something Joe Rogan and I discussed a little bit in that you see Joe Rogan himself as a test case for the shift. Seven to 10 years ago he was mocking Christianity and religious perspectives to now, I think he himself has seen that there has to be more,” says Huff.
And he added that hunger for something more is increasingly visible in the greater population.
He pointed to Somalian-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of the House of Representatives in the Netherlands, who at one point was identified with “the new atheism” popularized by people like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.
In 2022 she announced she had become a Christian. Huff says, “And for her to actually say, ‘No, I believe in the virgin birth and death and resurrection of Jesus’ is a profound movement.”
That shift is showing up, at least in part, in polling.
Until recently the trend was a decline in religious affiliation in Canada – a Statistics Canada study released in 2021 shows a steady decline from 1985 to 2019. But data released by Cardus in 2024 shows there has been an uptick in religious commitment by those in the 18–34 age range.
Cardus, a think tank based in Ontario that studies a variety of issues including faith, found around 20% of Canadians in the 18–34 age group are religiously committed – higher than the national average of 18%.
Andrew Bennett, program director for faith communities at Cardus, says this shows the growing cohort of younger Canadians are taking their Christian faith more seriously, while the “mushy middle” is slowly hollowing out.
“In that 18–34 age cohort, there is no cultural reason they should be in church. So those young people who are there in the churches are committed. I take that as a great source of hope, and I see it in my own pastoral ministry,” says Bennett. “I think they realize that what the secular society is offering them is pretty thin gruel, and they're not buying it.”
Bennett, who also served as the Canadian ambassador for religious freedom from 2013–2016, gave the example of a man he’s been working with who was a self-professed atheist by his late teens.
At university the man encountered classical thinkers like Aristotle and took another look at Christianity.
“I remember talking to him sometime afterwards, and I said, ‘What was it that drew you back?’ And he gave me a very simple answer. He said, ‘Well, it’s the truth and I wanted the truth,’” says Bennett.
Huff says they are seeing much the same thing in the work of Apologetics Canada, and demand has grown since his Rogan appearance. But regardless of trends or online hits, Huff says for him the ultimate question is whether his faith is based on facts.
“If it merely worked, but it wasn’t true, I actually think I would have an obligation to not believe it, because a convenient lie is still a lie,” says Huff.
Speaking to the work he and others do at Apologetics Canada, Huff concludes, “We want to be a resource to help skeptics believe and believers clear up their skepticism.”
Doug Lett is a freelance journalist in Saskatoon. He has worked as a reporter, producer and news director for CTV and Global.