Does Truth Exist?

Welcome to Base Camp, where we equip Christians to be able to go into

the darkest places with the gospel.

We are kicking off a new set of questions, topics.

And I'm here with my good friend Mike Collins.

Mike is jumping in to the ATAP team.

And is going to begin producing our podcast, but he's also going to be the

co host because as long as I've known Mike, he's always had interesting things

to say about pretty much everything.

Mike serves as the kids pastor at my church element church in forest city,

North Carolina, and also serves as the operations director for Psalm 68

five ministries and is an all around awesome guy to talk to you, Mike.

I'm glad to have you

Thanks.

I'm really glad to be here.

I'm excited to see where the podcast goes and, and see how I can help out.

I'm sure you can help out a lot because the podcast has always been

really successful, but I just never do it.

And so it's going to be cool to have you.

Mike is, like I said, all around intellectual hard worker.

He comes from a background of kids ministry, camp ministry,

grew up here in our small town.

At one of the best Christian camps that I've ever been around and has an amazing

gift for teaching also is a great writer.

He wrote an article for ATAP that we're actually going to be talking

about today, at least in referencing, and it's available on the ATAP

website, all things, all people.

org.

And it's titled post modern post modernity relativism and truth, which is sort of the

springboard for our conversation today, which really centers around the question,

as we look to have Conversations with people who might be far from God, people

from other religions, and especially with the topics today, people who maybe

they're not religious, but it all comes back to what do you believe is true?

Do you even believe that there is such a thing as truth?

And Mike, when you wrote this article is, I mean, it's really short

blog article is actually available first on your website and I just.

Stole it

and with your permission and send it out to ATAPs people.

But you start off with this story of talking to a guy from a pretty different

worldview background about what he believed in, about truth in general.

And I love that story.

So for, for listeners who haven't read the article yet, go ahead and

kind of recap your experience for us.

Yeah, so back in 2017 I was about 20 years old and I took a job

working at a YMCA as a lifeguard.

And I was the only Christian that was working there, but I got along with

everybody great, really good friends.

And about halfway through my time there, this new lifeguard came

on who was a hardcore atheist.

Like, he told me, his goal with his life was to disprove Christianity, but

he was a very friendly guy as well.

So he and I He loved to debate and discuss and have conversations about

God, and he'd grown up as a Christian and then walked away from the faith

a couple years before I met him.

He actually had a cross tattoo on his shoulder.

And so we would just talk and debate all the time.

And he was kind of the new guy.

I had a lot of friends there, . And we were sitting back in the break room.

Having discussion about God in some capacity and within

earshot of the other lifeguards.

And then, it was my turn to go up and watch the pool, so I walked out

there and was watching the kids swim.

And one of my friends, who was a lifeguard who had been listening

to our conversation, came up to me and he had this concerned look.

I was like, what's going on?

And he, he looks at me and he's like, Hey, was he, are you okay?

Was he trying to tell you that you were wrong?

And the question caught me so off guard.

Cause it's like, well, yeah, I mean, I was trying to tell him that that

was the point of the conversation.

But.

I could tell that he, that was a big deal to him.

He, my friend was genuinely worried that, that I was in some sort

of emotional turmoil over this.

And I said, it's fine.

Everything's, everything's fine.

And he said, Oh, okay.

And I was like, yeah, you know, it's all good.

And he wasn't completely set at ease, but he wasn't gonna go and

punch the guy or anything anymore.

But it was so strange to me because it was the first time that I'd ever

encountered this postmodern view that a lot of people have where it's,

it's hateful and intolerant to try to have a conversation about belief with

somebody if you disagree with them.

Yeah.

It, when I read the article and I've had a lot of conversations, at least somewhat

similar, I've not quite had as many.

That ended where you have somebody presumably who maybe they agreed with

you Maybe they didn't but they were genuinely concerned that you had been

offended or in some sense violated What's funny is when I think about?

The conversation you were having with the guy who's an atheist like I Know

for me and probably some people who listen to this podcast follow a tap

And I think you're somewhat similar.

I enjoy those conversations.

I have a much easier time sometimes talking to people who,

who drastically disagree with me.

And when I, when I see videos of guys like Christopher Hitchens or do you,

do you know Christopher Hitchens?

Yeah, obviously not personally.

but, um, But Christopher Hitchens, for a long time was the end all be

all of atheist intellectualism.

And I always thought , man, I would have really liked to have

hung out with him and talk to him.

And I've heard a lot of Christians kind of say the same thing.

Kind of say the same thing.

Yeah, like,

Yeah.

Like what's funny, the difference, in the article you, you make mentioned

briefly of a guy like Richard Dawkins.

But I always like, when I look at Hitchens as opposed to Dawkins

and some of these other people, I was like, no, I think he'd be fun.

Like, I think he'd be fun to talk with, even though he really hated, he really

hated Christianity and theism in general.

When, when we talk about postmodernism and postmodernism,

The title itself doesn't really tell you what we're referring to when

we talk about it, but when we refer to postmodernism, what we're really

referring to usually is the postmodern view of, of truth or epistemology, which

is to say that all truth is relative and, and you make sure to reference

it also as relativism, which is really more so the, word we're utilizing.

Why do you think it is in that, in that dynamic?

The person that presumably you have the least in common

with is the atheist, right?

But then you sort of have this weird ideological bumping into the

other lifeguard, so to speak, right?

The other person who maybe they agree with you, or at least maybe in paper,

like they agree with you more, but you see that you see a kind of a worldview

issue there as well, that to them, them being so concerned that there was

like some harm done How do you think?

We've gotten to that point.

You know what I mean?

Why do you think that's so prevalent?

Even within Christendom, in all honesty, I mean, even within

Christianity, there's sort of an underlying current of relativism of

like, Hey, that's, that's your truth.

And for somebody to question Mike's truth is inherently offensive or

even kind of violent against Mike.

Well, I think , part of it is, At the fault of, Christians and people who

have gone out and spoken truth violently, and they, they go in and they're trying

to communicate truth to people, but they do it in a way that is false.

Very offensive and they leave the love out of it You know They the people that

they do not have a relationship with that they're screaming at telling them

that they're wrong or that God hates them for the way that they're living

or anything like that and it's just not the way to try to to get someone to

have a relationship with God as almost a

cultural response to that

pendulum swings the other way in that, well, clearly trying to evangelize

somebody and communicate truth to them, if that's what that looks like,

we need to avoid that at all costs and not talk about this in any capacity.

Then also part of it, I think, is that people who don't hold religious beliefs

A lot of times I'll talk about like in the world we live in now, In

the West, at the very least, we have the largest growth religiously are people

who say they're not religious, but they also aren't naturalist atheists either.

They're not Christopher Hitchens.

They're, they're kind of in between.

I usually say spiritual agnostics.

And these, so if you're spiritually agnostic and you're not

sure about anything, you don't really believe in anything, at least not.

Or there's no dogma.

There might be belief.

There might be belief.

Like you have a functional belief in spiritual things,

but, but there's no holy texts.

There's no, there's no hierarchy and like

Yeah, so it's got this free form make it whatever you want I think from

that point of view it can be hard to tell the difference between a belief

that Something is true in a metaphysical sense for all people, and just an opinion

about something, because for them, their spiritual beliefs might be pretty close to

their same thing as a spiritual opinion.

And so They view

everybody else in that same light, in that everybody else's beliefs

are pretty much just opinions.

And to go up to somebody And try to have a serious conversation with

them about how they really need to turn their life around and accept

that pineapple is good on pizza.

Just sounds insane, right?

You would never talk about an opinion the way you talk about a belief

or something that you believe it really is true for every person

alive.

Yeah, we, I think, I think part of the problem too, and not that every

problem the church faces is the church's fault, but I do think the churches has

kind of made its bed and is lying in it now in the sense that we really, for

a very long time settled comfortably into everybody assumes that what The

Bible says is true or, or everybody assumes that sort of our foundational

understanding of what we believe to be true is, is, it's, it's accepted.

And, and what's happened is we live in a world now where, Oh, wait, no, that's not

true because everybody I bump into now, whether they're atheist, agnostic, or even

Christian, , We sort of don't know how to determine truth outside of maybe something

like like empiricism, which is the idea of what you just said, if I can't prove

it to be true, then any claim to that thing's truth really begins to fall into

the category of pineapples good on pizza.

It's more of an opinion because I can't prove it to be true.

But the problem is then.

The most important questions that we face in our life, like, is there an afterlife?

Is there a God?

Is there, is there a objective truth?

Those are pretty important questions.

, those are things that if we put those in the opinion category, kind of I hate

to be crass, but like all hell breaks loose because really, then you have

a whole society of people who really need to have the conversations like

you were having at that YMCA of Hey, , what's the real nature of reality.

What's going to happen when we die?

Is there objective truth?

Is there a God, but we don't have the foundation to even

have those conversations because all truth claims are false.

Are in the opinion category and we don't know how to navigate

epistemological conversations.

Like, how do we even say what truth is?

You know what I mean?

And you, in the, in the article, you talk about, I like how you said this, talking

about subjective truth, which is really the nature of what we're talking about.

The idea is, is truth objective or subjective?

Is it fixed?

And immovable, or is it relative, like individualized to each person,

kind of like the pineapple on

pizza thing.

And you talk about like, there's nothing new under the sun.

You, you mentioned Protagoras fifth century said, man is the measure of

all things, which means that what is true for you might not be true for me.

And then you list off a bunch of people, including C.

S.

Lewis, who I know has made a huge, Impact on you and just kind of how

you communicate and think but you also mentioned Plato even Dawkins I was

actually kind of surprised at that I I didn't realize that Dawkins was

kind of maybe on the side of objective

Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's one thing that's interesting

is, you know, you got C.

S.

Lewis and Richard Dawkins that both strongly agree that truth exists.

Something is either true or it's not

true.

And I think, I don't know for sure, I think a lot of the, the naturalist

atheists agree with that as well, because otherwise, there's, why in the

world would they spend so much time Any amount of time trying to debate with

anybody, you know, that's the other side of it is if all truth is Subjective

and if your truth is equally true to my

truth

Then there's no reason for us to discuss it at all and the discussion never happens

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of apologists like the, the biggest one that comes to mind because he's

always at the center of conversations on.

Morality and whether true like objective morality exists is Frank Turek, who's

actually I've had on the podcast a long time ago and I actually asked him

a question when he and I were talking because he always brings people who

struggle with objective truth and specifically objective morality to

the question of what what's Christians usually calls the moral argument,

which is, you know, if there's no moral law giver, then there's no moral law.

And if there's no moral law.

Then there's no morality.

You can do whatever you want.

And actually I asked him, I was like, Frank, do you ever worry

that you're going to cause people to realize that you're right, but

they're not going to then choose.

The path that we want them to, which is that there's moral law that you're

actually making like moral nihilists, which is the idea that nothing

matters, because what's funny is what you just pointed out is most people

don't think that truth is, or morality specifically is, is subjective because

they all operate every single day on a basis that there is right and

That's, yeah, that's the funny thing is that even people

who try to claim that all morality is subjective and all truth is

subjective, they don't act like it is.

If somebody steals from them, they're still gonna call the police and try to

get their stuff back and believe that that person did, committed a crime, did

something wrong against them, but If that person believed that what they were

doing is right, in their view, it's right, and they've got no reason to be offended.

So impasse too.

And I borrow this, this notion from a friend of mine who told me one time we

have theoretical knowledge, in the brain and then operative knowledge in the

heart, let's say, and we have beliefs and worldviews that we might put on paper,

but when, when the rubber really meets the road, we live our lives by a certain set

of principles and kind of, I agree with you is like most people, I agree with you.

Functionally do believe in some sense of objective truth, objective morality.

The problem is what you experienced at that YMCA, which is when two people who

have two different ideas about truth, whether that be ontological truth,

like, is there a God is reality real?

You know what I mean?

Or moral truths like, of course, the big pressing ones in our society today in

2024 questions of gender inclusivity sexuality, things like that, we have

huge disagreements with people on these and everybody thinks they're right.

And we don't really experience the friction until two people or more butt

up against each other and you you kind of Portray this I think pretty well in

what you wrote talking about postmodern relativists think that their view is

the only one that a person can hold if they're going to truly love their

neighbor and I think a lot of what you experience what i've experienced what

pretty much everybody listening to this is experience Is the question within

like the Western mindset of to tell somebody that quote, unquote, their truth

is wrong is unloving, you know, in that any, any friction, any disagreement, any,

any, any discord or disunity is unloving.

And you go on at length in that particular paragraph in the article to

talk about, no, no, that's actually.

Sometimes that's the most loving thing you can do.

So how do you think Christians should handle that then?

Because, hopefully we're having conversations where we are looking

at somebody's worldview, they're looking at ours and we are weighing

them out and we are saying, okay, if I'm willing to accept that there is

objective truth or objective morality.

Which one's the right one, you know?

But first we have to be willing to have those conversations and

make people feel uncomfortable, make ourselves feel uncomfortable.

So what is then the most loving thing, when it comes to, butting up against

these, these relativism issues.

Yeah, it, you know, it's interesting, Because

even if Christianity is wrong, if I believe wholeheartedly that That it's

true, and I don't tell people about it.

If I believe that the guy sitting next to me is going to hell, because he doesn't

have a relationship with the living

God, and I decide just to keep that to myself, that's not

love.

I'm not showing him love, even if my view is incorrect, if that's what I

believe, the most loving thing that I can do is try to tell him about that.

And I think the best way to try to reach somebody, in my opinion, in most, in

most cases, honestly, but especially if they're holding this view that it's

unloving to tell someone to try to evangelize, and we all just need to keep

it to ourselves, is first to show them that you do genuinely care about them.

And you're not just, you don't have a desire to discuss

God with them purely out of

an attempt to earn more religion points at your church, but because

you actually care about them.

That's always gonna be the first step, because there's, you

know, there's this famous line of nobody's gonna care what you

no, until they know that you

care,

right?

And, so showing them that you genuinely do care about them.

But then, explaining them what I just mentioned.

That, hey, I really believe that this is true.

And, and I think that your life is going to be better.

If you believe in this as well, can we sit down and just talk about it?

And I'm not, you know, saying up front, I'm not, I don't

want to Make you uncomfortable.

I'm not trying to oppress you in any way.

I, I just, I think that this is, this is the most important thing in the world to

me and I really wanna share it with you.

I was at a I was at a church this past weekend teaching the religions,

and We're talking about hinduism and I was talking about a lot of the

ministry that i've done Trying to engage south asians with the gospel,

which usually involves me Just trying to really establish relationship first.

And one of the guys asked what was a phenomenal question?

Just basically saying are you ever worried though, that

when you go into these places to strike up conversation with people

and obviously, you know, your motivation, there's an end to it.

Like you do want to share the gospel with them.

Are you ever worried that you're going to be perceived as disingenuous

because you're not just going in there just to be friends with them, right?

You're going in there because you.

Have an end in mind.

Are you ever worried that they're going to perceive you as disingenuous?

And I love the question, but my answer was kind of like somewhat

short as I was like, you know, The best way to avoid being perceived

as disingenuous is to be genuine.

If I genuinely have concern for that human in front of me,, I

do want to be friends with you.

I do want to, you know, have relationship.

But for me, because of the underlying, you can call it a worldview if you

want, but the underlying operative belief that I have found to be true,

not for me, but I believe it's true for you, even though you disagree with

me, is that the God of all creation, Wants to know you and be known by you.

And there is a particular way he has prescribed to do that.

Then even if they don't like what I have to say, I doubt that they'll

perceive me as disingenuous.

And I think what you said too, is the idea of like a lot of times Christians, things

like evangelism, sometimes they do fall into the camp of , trying to get points.

I told this guy, Hey, , if it would be disingenuous for to go into

this particular place and try and share the gospel, then don't do it.

You know what I mean?

Because you will fall into that camp of the stereotypical Christian that

people really don't want to be around.

There's I throw out a statistic sometimes when I'm teaching and I can't remember

it exactly, but Pew or Barna put out.

Some numbers recently that said 51 percent of millennials believe that

it is inherently wrong to share your faith with somebody in an attempt

to get them to change their faith.

Their beliefs and so that kind of tells us where we're at now.

That's as much about People's epistemological view as it is what

you said at the very beginning of this conversation Which is the way people

have gone about doing that in the past, which is to say hey, you're wrong I'm

right get on the winning team, well, that's that's not really our heart

either, you know And also one thing that I honestly gets factored into this.

I have a good friend who's a logic and philosophy teacher, and we'll probably

have them in for a conversation at some point, cause he's written he's written for

ATAP before too, but he, he's a phenomenal teacher of logic and philosophy.

And, one of the first things he asks people is he's, he tries to

gauge Hey, do you believe that?

You know, a can equal non a, or do you believe that a circle can

be a square and all these things?

and he asks like these kind of out there logical questions because what

he's trying to drive at is that , hey, Square is a square like the truth is

truth Like there are some things that are objective and it's not unloving or

disingenuous or pushy or arrogant for us to insist That a square is a square

and ultimately You At the heart of the matter, when we're talking about the

gospel and we're talking about the big questions of life in reality, we're

not talking about pineapple on pizza.

We're talking about the things that actually make up the

fabric of, of everything.

And, you know, before we started recording, you mentioned some

of the groups that there is this prevailing sentiment that like your

truth is not the entirety of truth.

I think more Christians need to realize like, no, we need to get

better at understanding there is a logical undergird girding

to the claims of scripture.

These are not things that like some, there are obviously some things that are matters

of interpretation, but at the end of the day, the fact that there is a god and

what you do in life matters and that there is an afterlife in that god can only be

known Through one avenue and we say it's the person of jesus and the work that he

did on the cross and resurrection These are not things that are up for Opinion,

like you said like the pineapple on pizza

Lewis points out that in one of his books, that Christianity and kind of all

of, all religions and, and beliefs about,

the metaphysical.

Either of the utmost importance in that there is nothing that is more

important or could ever be more important

than what you believe about

these things, or they're of no importance whatsoever.

But so many people are sitting in this like, yeah, it's important, but

it's not the most important thing.

Kind of camp and

they're

just

happy

to

hang out there, but

that's the logically that makes no sense because either this matters way more than

anything else that you could possibly care about, or it doesn't matter at all because

because it's either

true

or it isn't.

It can't be halfway.

made essentially the same argument, you know, the, the idea

of like, if, if Jesus hadn't been resurrected, then everything we're

doing is, but a clinging symbol.

And I have a great friend and mentor who his conversion story, he was, I

don't know if he would have considered himself an atheist, but he was

certainly at best and agnostic when he was young and he kind of came of age.

His college years were around the Billy Graham crusades.

And he didn't realize it, but there was a church group that a lot of his friends

were in, and he was on their prayer list.

He was on their list of people that like, Hey, we'd really love to see,

you know, him become a brother.

And so they would invite him surfing.

They'd invite him to the beach.

They'd invite him all these, you know, cool things.

And.

They developed relationship with him and he loved it.

And he was like, yeah, I don't really love what you guys worship and all

these things, but I like you guys, you know, well, one day they invited

him to a Billy Graham crusade and it was like a three or four day thing.

And the first day he went sort of kind of like, well, these people are really cool.

They've been really good to me.

I'll go.

Plus it's Billy Graham.

Like I think back then people sort of had a sense.

, Oh, this is a, this is a spectacle.

I need to go see this Billy Graham guy.

So he goes the first night and he's pretty intrigued and He told me that the

following nights was like crazy rain.

And so all of his friends were like, oh, we're not going to go.

And he was like, no, we have to go.

We, we, like I went the first night, you know, he said, he's going to keep

talking about these big spiritual things.

So he's, he's like cutting holes in garbage bags for ponchos

for his friends and everything.

Second, third night, however many nights there were, he's the one

that's like, no, we got to go.

So it gets to the last night, Billy gives the big famous invitational.

And what my friend told me, and it blew my mind.

I mean, cause, cause he had made such a big impact on me and I'd never heard his

testimony was that when Billy gave the invitational he realized that he had

been made accountable to make a choice.

Yes or no about the truth of the gospel of what you just said.

Hey, this either happened or it didn't.

It is not a subjective matter of opinion.

Either Jesus was raised from the dead.

And if he was raised from the dead, then that validates everything that

came before it and everything that would come after it, or he didn't.

And if he didn't, Paul's right.

C.

S.

Lewis is right.

Tim Keller's right.

Tim Keller said pretty famously, Either Jesus raised from the dead and

it's the most important thing ever.

Or it doesn't matter at all, you know?

And my friend realized he's like, shoot.

I think he's right.

I think what he is saying is true based on the merit of what the scriptures

say, based on the merit of scripture and based also to on the this is

something that gets lost in the mix based on the matter of the experiences

of all of these Christians, right?

They they've all had these experiences too.

And so he goes down to the football field or whatever it was and, you know, it

gives us life to Christ and it wasn't.

Just experience.

It wasn't just an intellectual thing.

It was that someone had made him accountable to say, either

you believe it or you don't.

But it's not just an opinion.

It's, it's based on historical facts, experiential facts, metaphysical facts.

Some of them cannot be proven, but we still have to make a decision

whether we believe them or not.

And the decision that you make, whether you believe it or not, is the most

important one you're ever going to make, you know, and it goes back to

kind of what you were saying about Lewis, which is, yeah, either it's,

you know, Either it's super important and it's going to dominate your life

or it doesn't matter at all, but you can't be indifferent.

And I think we have too much.

And I actually think that too many people inside the church

don't realize that either.

Is that like, no, you can't be indifferent.

This can't just be pineapple on pizza.

I like

that,

that, uh,

that picture.

Yeah.

In the article you mentioned, That post modernism relativism is the rejection

of of anything that's overarching What I what I learned the term meta narrative

which is like the idea that like there's anything there's any greater truth

than an individual's experiences and choice and opinions so as As we seek to

have conversations, whether those are conversations with other Christians who

just maybe haven't gotten to the point where they realize that their decision

to follow Christ is something that's going to both undergird, but then also

kind of be the meta narrative over their entire life or non believers, whether

they be a Hindu Hindu background, or maybe they're in the new age, metaphysical

movement, something like that.

How do you think Christians Can approach conversations so that

people can come to the point where they realize, no, there is a truth.

And what you decide

To

believe that that truth is a, is hugely important.

And it's not just always opinions.

While also maintaining the idea that like, well, we do want to be loving.

We want to love our neighbors.

We want to be seen as the term in a lot of circles of Christianity is winsome.

Right.

So we don't want to be the street preacher.

The guy who's perceived as hateful.

How do you think we can navigate that?

guy perceived do you can navigate that

Everybody has a god, quote unquote.

They have something that gives their life meaning.

Something that is of utmost importance.

And it dictates everything else that they do.

Maybe it's a relationship with a spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, maybe

it's their job and how much money they make, how many Instagram followers

they have, their house, their dog, or it's God, but it's got to be something

because we're created to worship and everybody worships something.

And.

It's

very important that you know what that something is, because

if it's not going to be God, it's going to be something else.

And

if

it's

something else, it's not going to last.

, at some , it's going to fill you with emptiness and you're going

to have to seek a new God, a new

goal

of some sort.

So having these conversations, , my goal is always just to get

people to examine their own life.

And why do you do the things that you do?

, I think why is the most powerful question you can ever ask of yourself.

Because if you continue to ask yourself why, like Two year old who just

learned the question for the first time

and just asks you why on repeat You know if you ask that of yourself and

then answer as honestly as you can And if you hit a point where you don't know

why okay, that's a gap That's something you need to sit down and figure out

But eventually the question why will take you to what is your ultimate goal?

You're the thing of ultimate importance.

You'll

hit

a

point

where you're like why the answer to why is because There's

nothing more important to me than

this, and if you can get people to realize that, hopefully that will

open up their eyes enough to the point where they are, are more willing

to, spend some time thinking about, okay, is this the correct goal?

You

Yeah.

Have you ever heard of a guy named David Foster Wallace?

guy.

I don't know if he was atheist.

I

who he

is.

Okay.

Well, I'm even surprised that you've heard of him because you, you're a

little bit younger than me, but, and he was a really famous author in like the

nineties and the early two thousands.

He's not a Christian, very much, not very much a Christian patients kind of guy.

Yeah.

I don't know if he was atheist.

I think he was atheist, but he wrote this huge book called infinite

jest and it's it's like war and peace level, like word count.

But he gave this tremendous speech it was a commencement speech to Kenyon college.

And if you didn't know who you were listening to at, there are

certain parts of the speech where you'd think he was a Christian.

And he's actually kind of talking about similar things.

The speech Starts off with him telling this parable where he's like, these

two fish were swimming in one direction and this older fish is swimming the

other direction and he looks at them.

He says, morning boys.

How's the water?

And they swim on for a little while.

And one fish looks at the other and says, what the heck is water?

And he, of course he said a little bit more crass than that, but then he goes

on to basically point out to this, undergraduate class of this pretty liberal

school basically saying like, Hey, there, there are undergirding their underlying.

Things about reality that , we just don't even think about.

We don't notice.

And what you just said reminded me of that.

Cause he's like, you have to kind of examine those things.

And he actually makes the point that everybody worships

something and he's like, and you have to figure out what it is.

And of course he's open minded religiously.

He's like, maybe it's Jesus.

Maybe it's Yahweh.

Maybe it's Allah.

Maybe it's the Buddha.

Maybe it's something, something, something, but he actually makes the

theists claim, which is to say, if you worship your physical beauty,

you will always think you're ugly.

If you worship your intellect, you will always feel stupid.

And like one day you will be found out as the fraud that you are.

And basically he's kind of pointing these, these kids to say like there,

there is something worth worshiping.

You just have to find out what it is.

And, and, and sadly, David Foster Wallace, his life ended in a bout

of crippling depression that ended with him taking his own life.

And I do think that even many Non believers who are very antagonistic

to what they've seen from the church, what they've seen from

institutionalized religion are asking the same questions that we are,

that ask that are asking the same questions that led us to follow Christ.

And Tim Keller said that the job of the Christian communicator, so not

just preachers, but like anybody who's listening to this podcast,

who's like, I just want to learn how to have conversations with people in

my life that he said, the job is the job of the Christian communicator to.

At least in some form or fashion, remember what it was like to not believe.

And if you do that, you will ask people these types of

questions, like, what is your why?

Like you just said, and if you examine the why, if you examine what it is that is

getting your adoration, your veneration, your exaltation, your attention, then

you might realize the what as well.

And if the what is something that will expire, Something that will

betray you, then perhaps you can.

That person needs to hear the invitation to say, Hey, here, here's my why, and

here's my what, which is something that will never expire and something that

loves me more than I could ever love it.

And something that has redeemed my imperfections.

One day I will be old one day.

I will, you know, lose my intellectual abilities or my eloquence or these things

that I could be tricked into worshiping.

There's something higher.

And so I think.

Going along with what you're saying is, is not, it's not even for the

Christian missionary, the Christian who's looking to be missional.

It's not always about just saying, Hey, can I just explain the gospel to you is

it is about living out that why and what.

And inviting people into it, like my friend who, you know, he realized what's

funny is after he walked down to that field and gave his life to Christ, he

then realized that at least part of the motivating factor of being invited

to the beach, being invited to all of these things with this church group was

that they had a genuine concern for him.

That motivated them.

So call that disingenuous.

If you want, I don't think, I think it's actually the most genuine

thing is that those friends saw in him, man, we love this guy.

So we do want to make him uncomfortable.

We do want him to wrestle with these questions because

we've wrestled with them too.

And I think that if more Christians just did that, I'm just saying

like, it's not just about how many times can I share the gospel.

I think that's important.

I think it is important for us to be about the father's business, but being

motivated by this sense of like, I remember what it's like to have not and I

know what happened in my life once I did.

And once I found that higher, why and what.

And I want to bring these people into that.

And if it makes them uncomfortable, if it makes them angry, because we

live in this postmodern world that says , Hey, any friction is hate.

Any friction is violence.

Then so be it, you know, and just kind of saying , no, it's worth it.

It's the ultimate truth.

Is worth the discomfort that you experienced in that break room

talking to the atheist and then the confusion and kind of like side eye

of presumably somebody who might have been a Christian who's like, I can't

believe he would disagree with you.

That's so, that's so offensive.

And it's just like, no, actually, I'm not offended by either of

scenarios, you know?

And so, I think that for people listening to this who, hear that phrase like,

okay, go on mission into the dark.

, First, you figure out why and what and invite people into that.

And if there's discomfort, if there's arguing, if there is, all of those

things that sometimes come in this weird world that we live in, then that's okay.

You know, what will come at least sometimes is people will realize, I

want to worship something that's worth worshiping and there's only

one God that's worth worshiping.

So for, for listeners who want to engage on this topic more be sure to to go Check

out the the it's a very short article, but it's packed with a ton of really amazing

thoughts on this topic and then from there you can you can go Read all the people

that you can That Mike mentions in this article so yeah until next time Mike,