The Cold-Case Christianity Podcast

In this conversation, J. Warner Wallace joins Janelle Wood from Finding Something Real to examine the case for Christianity through the lens of a cold-case detective. Together they explore evidence, doubt, and the reliability of the Gospels, offering practical help for anyone wrestling with whether Christianity is really true.
Watch more from Finding Something Real with Janelle Wood on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@FindingSomethingReal
Learn more in Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels:
https://amzn.to/42XtJhu
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In this episode, J. Warner Wallace — cold-case detective, Christian apologist, and author of God's Crime Scene — reacts to the most viral atheist claims circulating on TikTok right now and runs them through the same forensic framework he used to solve decades-old murders. The central question: Can you account for all the evidence in the universe by staying inside the universe?
Whether you're a skeptic, a deconstructing believer, or a Christian who's been rattled by what you've seen on social media, this episode is your call-out bag for the most common objections you'll face.
📖 Get the book this episode is based on:
God's Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe by J. Warner Wallace
👉 http://amzn.to/2kAroVD  
If this episode helped you or challenged you, please subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Reviews help more people find the evidence. Thank you for being part of the investigation.

In this episode, I put five of Jesus' hardest sayings under the investigative spotlight. As a cold-case homicide detective, I've spent my career testing witness statements, examining context, and following the evidence wherever it leads. In this "case file," I apply that same approach to some of the most troubling verses in the Gospels.
Along the way, I'll walk through investigative tools you can use on any tough passage:
Examining the historical and literary context
Comparing parallel gospel accounts
Understanding ancient language and idiom
Testing skeptical vs. Christian explanations to see which best fits the facts
If you've ever wondered whether these verses disqualify Jesus as a trustworthy source of truth, this episode is for you.
Want to go deeper and learn how to think like a detective about your faith? Check out my book Forensic Faith for an in‑depth look at building a case for Christianity and living it out with confidence.
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Share this episode with someone who struggles with Jesus' difficult teachings

Faith is not supposed to be blind, reckless, or detached from reality. In this episode, J. Warner Wallace (cold-case detective and Christian apologist) takes a hard look at the way many Christians think about "faith" and shows why some popular versions of faith are not just weak—they're dangerous to the church. He explains the difference between unreasonable faith, blind faith, and reasonable (forensic) faith, and why only one of these is actually biblical.
Drawing on years of courtroom experience, Jim unpacks how juries reach verdicts "beyond a reasonable doubt" and why that same standard makes sense for the Christian worldview. He addresses why so many churches avoid apologetics, how "just have faith" can become a license for intellectual laziness, and why that's leaving our kids vulnerable to every counterfeit worldview that comes along. He also tackles commonly misused passages like Hebrews 11 and the story of "Doubting Thomas" to show that Scripture consistently presents a thoughtful, evidential faith—one that welcomes investigation rather than fleeing from it.
If you've ever felt like the only person in your church who cares about evidence, or you've struggled with the idea that faith means shutting off your brain, this episode will help you reframe biblical faith as a reasoned trust grounded in what God has already revealed in history. If this conversation is helpful, please remember to subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and review, and share it with a friend—your reviews on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the major platforms really do help more people discover the show and join us in making the case for the Christian worldview.

In this episode, cold-case homicide detective and Christian apologist J. Warner Wallace walks through the "spiritual crime scene" of his own journey from skeptical naturalist to follower of Jesus. Drawing on decades of investigative experience, he explains why the usual reasons people give for being Christians ("I was raised this way" or "I had an experience") are not uniquely Christian, and why the real question is whether the Gospels record what actually happened in the first century. You'll hear how eyewitness variation in the Gospel accounts first caught his attention, how the standard jury instructions for testing witnesses can be applied to the New Testament, and why abductive reasoning from four key facts about Jesus points most reasonably to the resurrection. J. Warner also unpacks his memorable distinction between "belief that" and "belief in," using a bulletproof vest story from an officer-involved shooting to show what genuine, evidence-based trust in Christ looks like when the stakes are life and death. Along the way, he addresses miracles in other world religions, the rising generational question "Is Christianity good and worth caring about?", and the power of God-honoring content to reshape our culture.
If this conversation helped you think more clearly about Jesus, take a moment to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you'd be willing to leave a rating and review in your podcast app, it really helps more people discover the show and join the conversation about the case for Christianity.