He's also used to discourse with conservative or fundamentalist Christians in his teaching role at Chapel Hill. He claims to really enjoy teaching undergraduates, and he seems quite sincere about that. He also claims the majority of his undergrads are conservative Christians brought up to believe the New Testament (his area of academic expertise) is inerrant, infallible, and without contradiction.

So he has quite a bit of experience leading people down paths of knowledge that they don't want to go down.

Maybe his gentler works for him, I don't know.