Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you.

I'm Dr. James Dobson, and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.

Well, welcome to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. Question for you, how do you know if your faith is the real thing or just a comfortable imitation? That's the question that a lot of people have been asking recently, and it's also at the heart of our conversation this week here on Family Talk. Gary Bauer, our senior vice president of public policy here at the Dr. James

Dobson Policy and Culture Center, sat down with Dr. Jed Coppinger, lead pastor of First Baptist Church

in Coming, Georgia, to talk about 10 traps of an inauthentic faith and how to avoid them.

He's written about them in his new book called Fake Christianity.

On the last edition of Family Talk, Dr. Coppenter walked us through Jesus' words in Matthew 23,

revealing how easy it is to slip from a servant's heart into a performer's mentality,

you know, doing good things, but for the wrong reasons.

On today's edition of Family Talk, Dr. Coppenter takes us a little deeper, exploring how

fake faith plays games with the truth and why even the most painful chapters of our past

can ultimately become powerful tools in God's hands. So here now is Gary Bauer to continue this

conversation on today's edition of Dr. James Dobson's family talk.

I confess that over the years I've been in public life that you can get hooked on giving a

speech to a crowd and see as a result of your words that some people, if it's a sad

moment, are literally crying or you've brought joy and some people are laughing and applauding.

And it can become its own drug where that affirmation becomes what you're looking for in your message instead of just speaking

the truth.

You're exactly right.

Yeah, they can be good little signposts.

I mean, when you're preaching or you're speaking, you get a sense, is the crowd with me?

Are they not with me?

...