The Catholic actor discussed Christ rising from the dead and also the Shroud of Turin with the popular host.
Editor’s note: The podcast episode mentioned in this article contains instances of Our Lord’s name being used improperly as well as other language that readers may find offensive.
(LifeSiteNews) -- Catholic actor Mel Gibson defended the truth of the resurrection of Christ on Joe Rogan’s podcast this week.
Rogan is a fallen away Catholic who has not been shy about expressing disdain for the Church. At the same time, he has often had on guests to discuss Christianity though always maintaining a strong level of skepticism toward their arguments.
During their conversation, Gibson and Rogan talked about the Shroud of Turin but also whether or not Christ rose from the dead.
“I regard the Gospels as history … verifiable history. Some people say, ‘it's a fairytale, he never existed.’ But he did,” Gibson remarked.
“The resurrection is the one that is the most difficult for people to swallow. That is the one that requires the most faith,” Rogan replied. “You believe that was a real event?”
“Yeah, I do,” Gibson emphatically stated.
Gibson then explained that he was brought up Catholic but that as he got older, he embraced his faith even more than before by studying but also “through reading and putting things together … and occurrences in my own life.”
Rogan has discussed the resurrection with many other guests, including pro-Trump musician Kid Rock but also, most recently, Protestant Wesley Huff in December 2024.
“How do you fact-check someone coming back from the dead?” Rogan asked Huff, while admitting that Christ’s teachings have changed the lives of “billions of people.”
Huff cited 1 Corinthians where St. Paul said Christ’s resurrected body was seen by more than 400 people.
During Rogan’s conversation with Rock, he asked, “You think there’s a real Jesus? … What makes you convinced?”
“My faith,” Rock replied.
“I think the concept of Jesus is absolutely amazing,” Rogan responded. “I’m very interested in the idea of Jesus being a real person.”
Rogan and Gibson touched on that subject in their own conversation when Gibson brought up the Shroud of Turin, which is the cloth that bears the imprint of the Body of Our Lord on it.
“They also don’t understand how it was made which to me is very fascinating because it’s not paint,” Rogan said. “They don’t know what caused the image itself and how that technology could’ve even been around.”
“It wasn’t,” an excited Gibson responded. “An intense light — I mean, atomic (light)” left a “photographic imprint.”
Gibson then explained that the hairstyle of the image of the man on the Shroud was of a Hebrew from the first century and that he was about six-feet tall and had scourges on his crucified body.
“The pollens that they found in the cloth were from that region, also, the weave (of the cloth) was a first-century weave,” he said.
As previously reported by LifeSite, Gibson also revealed to Rogan that Jim Caviezel will again be starring as Jesus Christ in his forthcoming film “The Resurrection of the Christ” that will begin filming in 2026. In remarks about “The Passion of The Christ,” the two took time to admire Caviezel’s portrayal of Our Lord while mentioning that in both of their estimations the actor played Christ better than any other actor has before or since then.
