Loving Others Who Believe Differently

So I have a distinct memory of our first year of marriage we ran staff full time with athletes in action later at the University just reminded me where we were and I remember Alyssa okay so I don't remember very many good things you have visionary this though you're sitting on the couch and come down and you seemed really deep in thought and you have your Bible in your lap and you say I don't know if any of this is true, I said we talking about. What if none of this is true.

What if Jesus really was and who he said he was. What if he didn't rise from the dead one that's true welcome to family life to day.

We want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most and Wilson Wilson. You can find us if it we live today.com or on our family life.

His family life today.

I remember that distinctly because you had a look of fear on your face you guys. These are the questions you're asking now we've given our lives to this work, yet I remember you know her almost 3 years in my Christian walk and it just hit me. You know we give our life to Christ.

But now our vocation full-time omicron can make a lot more money doing it. I just remember it started hit me and I remember thinking, I don't know if this is even true if this isn't true. I gotta find out, member that's what you said yeah I said thank you better find out for yourself what you're thinking because I really didn't have problems with believing you are more skeptical in nature, and I did. I went on a journey than there are questions and is asking their questions. I need to get answers for.

Guess what I got the answers that did prove I needed some help I needed some evidence and there were some great tools and we got a great tool today for teens were excited to have Rebecca MacLachlan back with us today.

Welcome, Rebecca, me, your book is really written to teens but it's part of a book he wrote to adults a few years back confronting Christianity in its really full. The questions that I had to wrestle with in your sin.

Teenagers need to wrestle with the skull. 10 questions every team should ask and answer about Christianity and so obviously you believe it's good to ask questions.

I do and get answers absent, and there are answers that I say as I read it I found it just so well-written. I mean, I haven't read confronting Christianity I want to know did you use more Anna and Aladdin and Harry Potter and confronting Christianity. I used a lot of high posts about Nima Wanda writing to a younger audience and then you talk about grabbing their hearts and grandma in their imaginations.

It was so well done, but here is your background I mean you can tell us will bit more about this because I don't know what a degree.

I noted PhD is but in Renaissance literature from Cambridge. What is that is that Shakespeare Shakespeare was three years of writing about prisons and Shakespeare was fun use of the Holland sense, although I will say as I write. I love understanding things by hearing them and when I write, I may see here what I'm writing and see if the rhythm feels good to me. I think any reason I know whether it is not is because of all the years I spent with fake but good.

And here's the thing when I was wrestling through my you got a crisis of faith or whatever, but it was a great journey as it was pretty exciting for me to dig into and again it's a couple years after party committed to Christ. But that's okay.

It's like a minute again. I was looking for evidence. I wanted to prove that Jesus lived, died, rose from the dead, you are reading books like evidence that demands a verdict in the case for Christ in different things is that the questions are teens are asking today is apologetics of defendant faith changed in 34 asking the generation of day it feels different. Is it yeah I think it's changed a lot because those questions that still matter, we do still need to know you. Can we trust the Gospels is Jesus who he claimed like is there any evidence that using existed.

All these things, but the questions that are front and center the people today on anything to do it to Jesus Christ and the debtor is the Bible authority to vote, reason, or even a science disprove Christianity. They all is in Christian anti-homophobic is Christianity against diversity night on Christian's racist isn't this just like white scented Weston well be that which I impose on the people they use kinds of questions the moral questions really front and center for people and I think one of the transitions affixed may have know where off as they go from being united. The teenager on the young adult, he was scrapping themselves to being the parent now raising teens is that whereas it 20 oh years ago, depending on what you left in the US but study. When my husband drop nighttime. For example, he said that even if people didn't get a check. They respect the fact that he did. It was considered like that you had a little bit of a moral high ground. Yeah if you are a Christian, he went to church and today in inmate spots in the country, at least if you're Christian you you guys stretch and really believes these things, you kind of a moral life. Can't people see you, not just as sin deleted unfinished, but actually is a moral and a lot of spaces say that's really I think whether the main front is off rest now, and what we need to to base grapple with oppressions for ourselves, but will say help kids to navigate those questions. I do know that in the 90s we started our church in 1990. It was you are respected when you use the title pastor by what you do him a pastor less nice now in Europe. It's almost like you're afraid to say I you judge it you know I was chaplain for an NFL football team and I felt like I have for my job in that locker room was to show them on that Weirton just to be a normal guy yeah it's a it's like you, I mean I member unlike you and I member one time literally speaking to the team. We caught a chapel service which is voluntarily guys want to come Saturday night before our Sunday game and I use an illustration in my talk of listening to some song that was on the radio and this guy 2025 people in the room goes well you listen to music like what we are pastor and a child. I don't think you listen the music you listen to radio Mike, are you kidding me. I love you know good music but it was just that whole thing is like they think you're weird in like you said, there's a there's a generation now that's like there's beliefs about you if you call yourself a Christian. That may not be anywhere near true, but that's some of the questions we got answered yet in your book you still go after some of the questions that I had the answer in the 70s and 80s because they still really important question. I'm sitting right so let's talk about some of those anyone or chapters can Jesus be true for you but not for me. Talk about that a little bit because that is a important question for teenager or an adult thinking is you talk about it, Inc. about the parents are listening there wanting to know how they can answer these questions with their kids is a popular story that's often told to help people supposedly understand the different mod religions because people say another 70 religions out that it's fine if Christianity is true for you and it works for you and it's fits with your cultural background, but you can possibly say that it's true. Got us away come from what you background it is like it's actually really offensive to say for example that Hindus adjust mistaken beliefs and that they would need to convert to become photos of Jesus as a people sometimes tell the story of like an elephant that walked into a village of blind people and different people came up to the defendant felt different pots about unit one guy felt the leg and set all this. This elephant is like a tree and somebody else felt the air and set on and it is not like a tree is like a fan and someone else for the Tuscan sun, and as noted by Cutrer like a fun it's like a spear and people tell that story to say you know really the different world religions roll across the different truths about God and really if we could see the full picture. We see that that wasn't real contradiction between these different beliefs must be really kind of humble tissue to say you name my religion doesn't contain all the tracer is to nice inmate we have to take trees from different places, but if you think about it. The story is told from the perspective of someone he can see the whole elephant is kind of condescending to say like all you different religious people with little ideas about God like blind people kind of trying to figure out what an elephant is and I think the more that we we work through this sentimentality. People have about saying to become possibly say that one religion is true and others on the moment felt like it was maybe very respectful in the first place actually comes in a disrespectful I think that we makes respect to a Muslim friend or neighbor, for example by being real about the fact that they believe different things that we do and to say, do you know both of us in making real claims about God.

Where is that there is some overlap. You know Muslim friends would also believe that God created everything nice and sunny so my flap the massively important differences.

If you look even just at the three religions in the wild that I places to each other. Actually, a Christian team and Islam and Judaism. Like the soul believe is one crazy God chest. Some of the Old Testament Scriptures.

If we look at what people are they three different beliefs say about Jesus a Christian say that Jesus died and was raised from the dead Muslim say that Jesus didn't really die on the cross, but that he just seemed to any second and heaven, and she was in for that matter. Hindus and Buddhists and atheists, and I will stakes say that Jesus died and was not raised in the debt that we will be up to get back 2000 years with a video camera and kind of see exactly what happened in the team but those three explanations incompatible I get, be the case that each of the is several correct and so but when hoping respectful if we say while all these different religions, even the basted of similar ones in some ways are already saying the same think is that then all this is just the kind of detail on the edge of a religion. This is like the absolute central claim of the Christian faith, without which Chris Chancey is dead and the most say I think as we as we walk through these questions and you base ourselves on what with kids. We need to helped fix to make the distinction between being disrespectful and not have to sheet amounted to what somebody which is a sign that Jesus calls us to a tool actually calls us to always be loving, especially today, so it different from us owing a pita said that we should we be ready to give a reason for the height that we have but to do so with gentleness and respect.

That should very much be a posture, love, gentleness and respect. But at the same time making very clear that we do believe different things and we know in different spheres of life that it's not the case that you know your truth can just be a truth and lying can just be mine. That's fine if it's like he's cooking is best and I'm sure your wife cooks better than my husband in your eyes and I'm sure my husband to expand on your life and mine. But when it comes to masses of more universal trees matches of history whether something really happened or not, whether it's in our own lives are in Broda history and that's truly relevant to today. We will know that we can't just that you know it's it's fine if you think the Holocaust didn't happen.

That's that can be your truth. But my truth is that it did not.

We we know that's not okay. So II think we need to help people see that actually this is a special category of religious trees that makes it something that can be entry fee but not for me actually Christian team taker is making very real historical claims that are the true fulsome.

You are an evangelist in my eyes because you basically have been sharing Christ with your friends. One of the reasons you've written some of your books is to share Christ with your friends and just showing them what you believe and so as we talk about that, like, what would you say to your friends about this point that you've had a lot of great conversations about this. Yeah, I think one of the really helpful things to bring up Ashley again whether the kids with friends is that fall from being primarily a white Western religion Christianity has always been from the Scriptures on weds and multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural movement, she today Chris and is the largest global belief system and it is the most of us went with the owner can't write. So Job feel culture in older specs, economic, most people are aware that I did and they don't either. I really didn't. I think it just changes the framework in which people think about this question in particular Ashley because once you realize that there I seem to be more Christians in China than in America when you realize that by 2060. Experts think that 40% of the wells Christians will be living in sub-Saharan Africa.

When you realize that she from like literal day. One of the chat ship Pentecost. As we seen in the book of acts see the spirit pulled out and people from all these different countries including white paste like a Ragnarok tuck in Egypt and Libya. Cummings, but I trust in Jesus that day realized Christian T-shirts shaped in a West white European fight like me and said that the white European West Annette my is been around the weld from the get-go and increasingly say today is a multiethnic, multicultural, multiracial faith, actually, that the demographically believe it is my Christian aunties declining his white Western men.

How is it that we don't know this, the general population thinks it's a white more European centered religion were is that coming from that.

I don't think it's just in America that we think that yeah I think parts of it is just that, even in the lost 40 is a sociologist of religion, of kind of studied religion that they used to think that Christian he was just gonna decline this as well becomes a molten and a more educated, more scientific religious belief naturally declines and because that is was what happened in Western Europe. They felt the rest of the weld would follow on so they will be paying as much attention to the grace of Christianity across the weld, but actually in the loss for two years, we've seen, it is an increasing diversification affects you, who putting their trust in Jesus, and they're expecting that in the in the next what he is Christian aunties can continue to be that Wilde's largest religion and the mice divests it can increase slightly globally, rather than decreasing but for too long I think is a strong as he bites in my country the canon America is been a set of marrying together people's minds Christianity with set of white scented nationalism and national saying this in the Bible little mice subside from biblical perspective we latecomers to the Christian family from the Bible's perspective. It is also, it just doesn't align with the reality of the church today and the and the truth is, as you say all this and you have a chapter about the you know Christianity and diversity.

It's not know right as you answer this question and you write about it to help teens answer this question.

This needs to be known and understood, not only for our own faith, but as we seek to share our faith with others. These are truths we have to have so that when they do have questions or push back against it. We can answer like you just yelling. I think a lot of kids today become very disillusioned with Christianity because of the history of racism in the white Chechen America and I understand that. I think there real things to grieve and lament and repent of that I think will the information that those kids are missing is that God has been growing the black Chechen America for centuries and and that actually rule other than if we any align Christianity in our minds with the set of the white Christian slaveholder rolled all the white Christian segregationists rush ignoring the voices of the millions of black Christians that goes through the centuries done today that it is interesting again. I can feel it in your book and the way you answer even in this interview, your gentleness and respect which is so key as we are interacting with people that are on a journey toward faith and maybe don't believe what we do is like were not answering their questions were answering a person with gentleness and respect of their forget one time early in the beginning of our church. I made a comment in a sermon something like it was early 90s so I don't remember that I got confronted by somebody that's why.

Remember I said something to the effect of making a comment about a Muslim someone that would be of the Islam faith alleges I was trying to debate different things and I said can you imagine somebody actually believes that just went on right just a foot below, this one on this young man came up to me right after and waited patiently and he goes hey dude and I knew him, so he was part of our arch team to it a little bit a relationship, we say Dave just wanted make a comment to some you said today your sermon out.

They get good this can be a good thing goes. You know you made this comment that I can't believe somebody would like out.

How could they believe that he was my mom is a Muslim and I think she's coming next week to church and that comment you know it just destroys her as a person. She is not less than you because she believes something else please don't make a comment like that and I was like thank you yeah that is so true. I need to hear that.

And that's the attitude part right, it's like I'm making a flippant comment like totally edition somebody who's made in the image of God, who has a different belief than I do. We believe crazy things to me first century Jewish man died on the cross and was supposedly rise from the dead three days later is crazy.

The thing is that the more the I have read an online from atheist and I know stick office think is today. When choosing between Christianity with all its crazy beliefs and puffy coherent kind of secular well view that the does all the things question and he does but without having to believe the crazy stuff which is meeting Christianity and to incoherence well and I think to the way we talk about other people, other religions other beliefs is critical for us in the home and year on the stage at a church. But what are we saying around our dinner table and how are we viewing people and how do our tones come across or are biases come across I think is parents as followers of Christ.

We need to be loving, because as we watched Jesus encounter various people of all different kinds of faith he is laughing he sees them.

He speaks to them. He acknowledges them acknowledges their pain and he loves them and don't we all want that. I don't care what your background is, we all want.

That means, and as we all know is also full of truth is always full of grace and truth. So isn't withholding or hiding the truth. He's latently seeking. This is the truth. But he's doing it with such a grace package.

It's appealing yeah yeah we should be that we see it mobile as well by pool actually hear you on that has a bad reputation in people's minds because we repull let Kathy sometimes I love what he says in his full-fledged Timothy what he says is a trustworthy saying whether you full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came to the well safes and as if he mindfulness I think we so quickly forget that as Christians we so quickly stop thinking we're on some set of moral high ground. Looking Donald Dyson is not that world is full of people who do in a believe other things and that he, Jesus is where the people who is pulled puts it for himself like it's such evidence of God's grace that he would send Jesus to say someone even like him, even as bad as pool right wheel the full my sinners were probably the West and as we know them. We need to have that posture always. As we come to unction friends as your with your three kids and you're talking. What is your dialogue about these kind of conversations or people of different faith or beliefs. That's right my kids rule and will mail the kids are in school are in a public school in and came to Massachusetts and one of the delightful things is that they get to learn alongside people who come from also said amongst the weld and sometimes that means they're encountering Christians from Ethiopia and Eritrea and other parts of Africa and China, etc. and sometimes it means that that rubbing shoulders with with Ms. Lim so he can do so and people from being a whole range of different faith backgrounds, they have that the privilege I think of growing up knowing real people who believe very different things from them. I like the ecology privilege think that's important. It really is that it's an opportunity for them to line in real time that God's people transcends any racial, cultural, national barrier from for the Christian friends from all over the weld and to learn to love people and not just a set of how this idea in the mind alike. What is a Muslim like a what is a Hindu like a what is a Jewish proselyte – to to know and love people from the ground and he believes very different things from that will he's families do and there it to some extent having that possums them and is well-nigh often people growing up in religious times, not necessarily actually knotting Holland about that that religious tradition say I die trying to talk to my kids and from the ground up about these these questions and help them to engage at that level with that friends sent and stand for that face in conversation with friends and with teachers at school.

Yeah the most beautiful thing I think would be if our neighbors in our kids classmates would want to run or come to our home because when they're around as followers of Christ. They maybe they can't even articulate like there's grace and truth. They're gonna be totally honest are not gonna fudge anything there to be truthful, but there can be fully loving to be at the McGlocklin's house. I will be at the Wilson's house. I don't know what it is about being there. I don't think that's what a lot of people feel about church people want to run away his judgment and the kind of attitudes and yet number one pick up the book so we know the truth and we can articulate for ourselves and to others and also then live it out in grace and truth. The word that comes to mind for me as I'm listing to David and Wilson talk today with Rebecca McGlocklin is the word winsome. I think as we present the truth of the Scriptures we need to recognize that people are going to be as influenced by our demeanor by our winsome kind, caring, loving nature as they are by the truth claims that were making is Dave just said we need to be people who are full of grace and truth and one of the things I love about Rebecca McGlocklin's book 10 questions every team should ask is that as she defends the faith she does it winsome what she does it in a compelling kind, generous way. I think this is a great book for moms and dads to go through together with their teenagers.

It may be that your youth pastor would want to take the youth group through a book like this, we would like to make a copy of Rebecca's book available to you this week if you could help support the ministry of family life today with the donation of any amount.

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Hope you can tune in for that on behalf of our host statement and Wilson on Bob Lapine will see you back next time for another edition of family life to day family life to the user. Production of family life accrue ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most