Greg Laurie Tells Rick Rubin Why Jesus Answers Life’s Oldest Questions

Rick Rubin, the legendary producer behind classic tracks and Grammy-winning albums for artists like Johnny Cash, Adele, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers recently interviewed pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie on topics spanning faith, suffering, the nature of God, and the spiritual hunger of a new generation.

The episode of Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin was released Wednesday, Oct. 7.

Over the past several years, producer Rick Rubin has expanded his cultural influence beyond music and into podcasting with Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin. On Tetragrammaton, he interviews notable writers, actors, and spiritual leaders, including his most recent guest, Pastor Greg Laurie.

In their nearly two-hour-long conversation, they discussed Laurie’s life and ministry, questions surrounding Christianity, and why a generation that’s “never been more connected digitally” still has the age-old yearning for something more.

“I wasn’t raised in church”

Laurie, 73, has pastored Harvest Christian Fellowship for 52 years and leads the Harvest Crusades, large-scale evangelistic outreaches held for more than three decades. He told Rubin he started with almost no religious background.

“I wasn’t raised in church,” Laurie said. “The only thing I knew about Jesus was what I saw in movies like Ben-Hur, King of Kings, The Greatest Story Ever Told.”

He described growing up with a mother who was “married and divorced seven times” and struggled with alcoholism. In the chaos, Laurie turned to marijuana and LSD as a teenager. “After about two years of that, I knew this was a dead-end street,” he said. “I don’t want the adult world of my mother. I don’t want the drug culture of my peers. What is it? What am I supposed to do?”

“God sent a Jesus Revolution”

The turning point came on his high school lawn, where Jesus Movement evangelist Lonnie Frisbee was preaching: “When he said, ‘Jesus said you’re either for me or against me,’ I looked around at the Jesus freaks and I thought, ‘Well, I’m not one of them. Does that mean I’m against Jesus…’”

Shortly after, Laurie decided to commit his life to Jesus Christ. 

Laurie called the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and early ’70s “the last great spiritual awakening in America.” He told Rubin the movement was born out of national turmoil: assassinations, the Vietnam War, riots in the streets, and the sudden deaths of rock icons Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix.

“All of these things were happening, and I think people are saying, ‘We need a sexual revolution. We need a political revolution,'” Laurie said. “So God sent a Jesus Revolution.”

Laurie never set out to start a church after his conversion: “ I didn’t even know I was starting a church when I began. I was just teaching at a Bible study of young people.”

“ When I heard the news, I just wondered, ‘How do you survive this?'”

Laurie also opened up about the loss of his son, Christopher, who was killed in a car accident in 2008.

“ When I heard the news, I just wondered, ‘how do you survive this?'” Laurie said. “I know I’m a pastor and a Christian of course, but still I was a father who lost my son.”

He recalled a time someone asked when he had felt God’s presence most: “ I have to say it was not long after my son died… We had a little office over the garage, my garage, and I just fell on the floor and I just said, ‘Lord, you gave him to me, and I give him back to you.’ And I felt the presence of God.”

“I think the nature of God is to forgive and to pardon and give second chances.”

When Rubin asked why God seems judgmental in the Old Testament and less so in the New, Laurie said nothing changed. 

“I think He’s the same God in the Old and New Testament,” he said. “ I think the nature of God is to forgive and to pardon and give second chances. I think you see that in the Old and New Testament.”

“[This generation’s] looking for truth, they’re looking for answers“

Laurie told Rubin he sees “real parallels between the late ’60s, early ’70s, and today.” He pointed to Gen Z returning to church, Bible sales climbing, and a new spiritual movement unusually led by young men.

He believes technology has left this generation hungry. “They’ve never been more connected digitally, but more disconnected as human beings and spiritually,” Laurie said. “ Instead of connecting, it’s having the opposite effect. So many of them are looking elsewhere. They’re looking for truth, they’re looking for answers. Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life? The age-old questions.”

The answer to those questions is the same he found as a teen himself and gave as a young pastor. “The essential needs of people don’t change, and the essential answer doesn’t change,” he said. “My message is Jesus, and how to come into a relationship with Him.”

And no one, he said, has to get their life together first. “You come with your sins. You come with your questions. You come with your addictions,” Laurie said. “You come to God, He’ll clean your life up.”