My introduction to John came through his book, Bullies and Saints. The subtitle is an honest look at the good and evil of Christian history. So I started listening to it because I listened to books first and then about a third of the way I just went ahead and bought it. So authors loved me. I bought everything twice. And then I started talking about this book. And oftentimes people in our churches will say, Andy, what's a good Christian history book to read? But there's so many, you know, anyway.

So I started recommending this book.

And I thought, I would love for our churches to meet you and get and hear the content of this book.

And then, of course, you lived in Australia, but now you live in the United States.

And so thank you so much for doing this.

And real quick, the best way to jump into this is why did you write this book?

Because it's a look at the dark side of Christianity, but as dark as it has been historically,

and even in some cases, currently, you're still a Christian.

So it didn't drive you away, but why?

What drove you to write the book?

Well, being a historian by academic training,

I already knew that lots of bodies buried in the...

In Christian history.

In the graveyard of church history.

But increasingly, I found that people who aren't connected with church think that Christianity has only damaged the world or that its main influence is negative.

And this really came home to me in a large public debate in Sydney back in 2008.

And the debate motion was, we'd be better off without religion.

That was the assumption.

It was.

And Christianity was the main focus.

Yeah.

There were three academics arguing for the motion.

...