Unbelievable Premier

About Unbelievable? and Justin Brierley

Unbelievable? is a weekly dialogue program produced by Premier Christianity, the United Kingdom's leading Christian media organization. The show was founded by Justin Brierley in 2005 and has since grown into one of the most respected forums for debate between Christians and skeptics in the English-speaking world. It is broadcast on Premier Christian Radio and distributed widely as a podcast, with a substantial YouTube presence under the Premier Unbelievable channel.

Justin Brierley is a British journalist and broadcaster who served as the host of Unbelievable? for nearly two decades. He is the author of Unbelievable?: Why After Ten Years of Talking with Atheists I'm Still a Christian (2017) and, more recently, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, in which he argues that cultural trends including the work of figures like Jordan Peterson and Tom Holland represent a renewed openness to religious ideas in the West. Brierley has since moved on from Premier to pursue broader projects, but the channel retains his name and legacy in its archive.

Format and Approach

The program's signature format is a moderated debate or dialogue between two guests who hold differing positions on a question of faith, theology, or philosophy. The most common pairing is a Christian apologist or theologian against an atheist, agnostic, or skeptic, but the show has also hosted debates between Christians of different traditions, dialogues between Christians and adherents of other religions, and conversations between scholars with differing views on biblical authorship or theology.

Brierley is known for his skill as an impartial moderator. He creates space for both participants to make their strongest arguments, presses both sides with genuine follow-up questions, and maintains a tone of respectful civility even when the exchanges become pointed. His personal Christian faith is evident but does not dictate the framing of each episode.

Over time the program expanded beyond its standard two-guest debate format. The long-running Ask NT Wright Anything series allowed N. T. Wright to respond to questions submitted by listeners, and The Big Conversation, a spin-off launched in 2018, produced high-quality long-form video debates between major thinkers on questions such as the existence of God, the nature of consciousness, and the relationship between science and religion.

Notable Guests and Topics

The guest list across the channel's archive reads like a who-is-who of contemporary theology, philosophy, and atheism. Prominent atheists including Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Peter Atkins, and Bart Ehrman have appeared, as have leading Christian scholars and apologists such as N. T. Wright, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, John Lennox, and Francis Collins. The show has addressed questions ranging from the resurrection of Jesus and the reliability of the Gospels to the compatibility of evolution and faith, the problem of evil, and the ethics of sexuality and gender.

The channel's most referenced biblical book is Romans, reflecting the frequency with which Pauline theology, particularly justification and grace, arises in Protestant-Catholic and Reformed-Arminian discussions. John and 1 Corinthians also feature prominently, consistent with debates about Christology and the resurrection. N. T. Wright is the single most frequent guest in the archive, and his distinctive historical-theological perspective on Paul, the Gospels, and eschatology runs through a large portion of the content.

Theological Positioning

As a Premier Christianity production, Unbelievable? operates from a broadly Christian perspective, but it is explicitly pluralistic in its guest selection and deliberately gives equal time to dissenting voices. The show does not function as advocacy for any particular denomination or theological school. It presents itself as a safe space for honest inquiry, and viewers holding a wide range of positions, from convinced atheism to conservative evangelicalism to Catholic or Orthodox Christianity, will find material that engages their own views seriously.

Target Audience

Unbelievable? is aimed at thoughtful adults who want to engage seriously with the intellectual case for and against Christianity. It is particularly valuable for those exploring faith questions, for Christians who want to understand the strongest objections to their beliefs, and for scholars, students, and educators in theology, philosophy of religion, and religious studies. The long-form format allows arguments to develop with a depth rarely achieved in shorter media formats. With 485 videos in the archive, the channel represents one of the most comprehensive repositories of serious faith-and-doubt dialogue available on YouTube.