{"id":12699,"date":"2017-10-10T17:35:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T21:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=12699"},"modified":"2018-04-27T15:32:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-27T19:32:35","slug":"hugh-hefner-received-the-gospel-from-lee-strobel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2017\/10\/hugh-hefner-received-the-gospel-from-lee-strobel.html","title":{"rendered":"Hugh Hefner Once Received the Gospel from Lee Strobel"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13292\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13292\" style=\"width: 626px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2017\/10\/hugh.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13292\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2017\/10\/hugh.png\" alt=\"hugh\" width=\"626\" height=\"402\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13292\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luke Ford<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;Hugh Hefner dead at 91. I remember sharing the Gospel with him,&#8221; Strobel revealed in a Twitter post. &#8220;He saw significance of the Resurrection but had never checked the evidence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Strobel, who authored the book &#8220;The Case for Christ&#8221;, was an atheist journalist before his life was transformed and he became a follower of Christ. Strobel began looking into the evidence for the Resurrection and became convinced that the Bible was true. Strobel&#8217;s conversion experience was recently turned into a hit movie.<\/p>\n<p>Strobel said he once visited Hefner&#8217;s notorious Playboy Mansion to interview &#8220;Hef&#8221; about his views on theology.\u00a0Strobel says he was able to get an interview with Hefner because one of the producers on Strobel\u2019s show \u201cFaith Under Fire\u201d had a connection with someone who was a Playboy employee,\u00a0according to The Christian Post.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We went over to the Playboy mansion, which for me was just freaky,&#8221; Strobel shared in a recent episode of the Billy Hallowell Podcast. &#8220;It was the last place I ever expected to go.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hefner was not aware that Strobel was an evangelical Christian, but was said to become engaged with conversation and was genuinely curious about Strobel&#8217;s beliefs upon finding out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He was quite engaging in terms of the conversation. We talked about what he believed and he had a very minimalistic, deistic view of God,&#8221; Strobel said. &#8220;He said he has a minimal belief in God.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Strobel said Hefner especially \u201cperked up\u201d when it came to discussing evidence for the Resurrection. Hefner told Strobel he was at &#8220;the head of the line hoping it&#8217;s all true&#8221; but that the rational part of him prevented him from truly believing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He saw the relevance of the resurrection, he saw the significance of it,&#8221; Strobel said.<\/p>\n<p>The evangelical author was later able to share the gospel with Hefner, explaining that humans are &#8220;separated by our sin, by wrongdoing&#8221; and that Jesus &#8220;offers forgiveness as a free gift of his grace.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Before he left, Strobel left a copy of his bestselling book &#8220;The Case for Christ&#8221; for Hefner, and expressed his hope that he would read it.<\/p>\n<p>While no one can ever be sure of Hugh&#8217;s personal relationship with God, we can be sure that God was working through Strobel in sharing the Good News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Hugh Hefner dead at 91. I remember sharing the Gospel with him,&#8221; Strobel revealed in a Twitter post. &#8220;He saw significance of the Resurrection but had never checked the evidence.&#8221; Strobel, who authored the book &#8220;The Case for Christ&#8221;, was an atheist journalist before his life was transformed and he became a follower of Christ.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3388,3374],"tags":[3500,2926,3497,3498,3499,3501],"class_list":["post-12699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrities","category-faith-based","category-news","tag-faith-under-fire","tag-gospel","tag-hugh-hefner","tag-lee-strobel","tag-playboy","tag-the-case-for-christ"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ 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