[5] McDowell also revealed he was sexually abused repeatedly as a child by a farm hand, Wayne Bailey, from the age of 6 to 13.
[6] He enlisted in the Air National Guard, received basic training and assumed duties in mechanical maintenance of aircraft.
According to McDowell, he was an agnostic at college when he decided to prepare a paper that would examine the historical evidence of the Christian faith in order to disprove it.
He completed an exit paper examining the theology of Jehovah's Witnesses and was awarded the Master of Divinity degree, graduating magna cum laude.
Part of his speaking ministry has focused on youth issues in relationships and sexual mores and is reflected in seminars such as "Maximum Sex" and the "Why Wait?"
In discussing Critical Race Theory, McDowell said, "I do not believe Blacks, African Americans, and many other minorities have equal opportunity.
His work in this area has consisted of a popular summary of scholarly debate, particularly from Evangelical discussions about higher critical theories.
In two companion volumes he and his colleague Don Stewart have addressed popular questions and objections to faith concerning biblical inerrancy and Bible discrepancies, Noah's Flood, and creation versus evolution.
McDowell and Stewart have also popularized the arguments of other apologists in the Christian countercult movement, particularly the work of Walter Martin, in the Handbook of Today's Religions.
Presuppositional apologetics, on the other hand, questions this methodology by arguing that since unbelievers partially suppress and resist the truth about God (as Paul states in Romans 1:18–20), the problem of unbelief is also an ethical choice and not simply a lack of evidence.