Randy Newman grew up in a secular Jewish home, but through relationships with Christians, as well as through a series of personal events and realizations, he became a Christian. Randy is now a senior fellow for apologetics at the C.S. Lewis Institute, and over the past several decades he has talked with many individuals, and studied their journeys of coming to faith in Jesus.
In his recent book, “Questioning Faith” - he tells some of these stories, and looks at the factors in what he calls “indirect journeys of belief through terrains of doubt.”
In this episode, Randy and I speak about his story of coming to faith in Jesus, and we talk about some of the factors that Christians face today in sharing their faith, and how we can do that more effectively.
Make sure to check out the Theology for the People website at nickcady.org
[00:00:00] It was Hitchens who convinced him to become an atheist and then Hitchens own inconsistencies
[00:00:10] that bothered this guy where he said, wait a minute, wait a minute, where are you getting
[00:00:15] these moral absolutes that you're coming up with?
[00:00:18] And that shook him up so much that he was willing to read the Bible and willing to go
[00:00:24] to a Bible study and talk to Christians who again didn't just shut him down and make
[00:00:30] drop the mic kind of arguments.
[00:00:35] Randy Newman grew up in a secular Jewish home, but through relationships with Christians,
[00:00:41] as well as through a series of personal events and realizations, he became a Christian.
[00:00:47] Randy is now a senior fellow for apologetics at the CS Lewis Institute and over the past
[00:00:53] several decades he has talked with many individuals and studied their journeys of coming to
[00:00:58] faith in Jesus.
[00:01:00] In his recent book, Questioning Faith, Randy tells some of these stories and looks at the
[00:01:05] factors in what he calls indirect journeys of belief through terrains of doubt.
[00:01:11] In this episode, Randy and I speak about his story of coming to faith in Jesus and we
[00:01:16] talk about some of the factors that Christians face today in sharing their faith and how
[00:01:21] we can do that more effectively.
[00:01:24] I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, I hope you will too.
[00:01:27] I'll be back at the end with some final words.
[00:01:32] Randy Newman, thank you so much for being a guest on theology for the people today.
[00:01:37] I'm delighted to be with you, thanks.
[00:01:39] Randy, maybe tell myself and our listeners a little bit about yourself and your work.
[00:01:44] Well, let's see, I'm originally from New York, grew up in suburbs of New York City.
[00:01:48] I grew up in a Jewish home, but came to faith in Jesus as a sophomore in college at Temple
[00:01:55] University in Philadelphia.
[00:01:58] After graduating, I worked for a while as a music teacher, but then joined the staff of
[00:02:03] campus crusade for Christ.
[00:02:05] That's where I met my wife and we got married and I joined staff at the same time and
[00:02:10] we did that in a number of campuses mostly in the Washington DC area for over 30 years.
[00:02:17] Amazing.
[00:02:18] Then I sent the Lord, leaving me to connect with a different ministry, the CS Lewis Institute
[00:02:23] and that's who I serve with now.
[00:02:26] They're based in the Washington DC area but there's 15 different locations around the
[00:02:30] world really.
[00:02:32] And just recently we moved to Austin, Texas, to be near grandchildren and their parents
[00:02:38] and so I do a fair amount of writing and teaching and trying to connect believers to
[00:02:44] non-believers in fruitful ways.
[00:02:47] Your latest book, it's called Questioning Faith, Indirect Journeys of Belief Through
[00:02:52] Terrain's of Doubt.
[00:02:54] Maybe could you just give us a summary of what the book is about?
[00:02:58] And I'd love to know if there's anything that happened in your life that led to the
[00:03:04] writing of this book.
[00:03:07] Hmm.
[00:03:08] Well, it's an outreach book.
[00:03:10] I'm hoping it gets into the hands of lots of non-Christians and lots of Christians who may
[00:03:15] have doubts and are questioning their faith and to the title.
[00:03:20] I'm also hoping that Christians will read it and they'll get an idea or a number of ideas
[00:03:25] about how they can connect with non-Christians that God has placed in their life.
[00:03:30] I've written several books about evangelism and they're written for Christians about
[00:03:34] how to do evangelism in our world today.
[00:03:38] And I talk a great deal about dialogue and questions and making it more of a process
[00:03:45] rather than just a one-shot proclamation.
[00:03:49] And at some point, I thought, well, I should try to put some of this stuff into practice
[00:03:52] and write a book for the very people I'm hoping my teaching reaches secondarily but
[00:03:59] I wanted to write it primarily.
[00:04:02] Your question about whether there's something in my life, well, I think my coming to faith
[00:04:07] out of a Jewish background had lots and lots of skepticism and doubts and strong critiques.
[00:04:16] And when people presented the gospel to me and said it was simple, it was easy,
[00:04:21] I thought they don't really know me or they don't know what it's like for someone
[00:04:25] coming from a Jewish background.
[00:04:27] It's not simple and it's not easy.
[00:04:29] Well, I think it's even complex to understand intellectually but it's especially difficult
[00:04:34] emotionally.
[00:04:35] So, I wanted to write a book that might help people who had similar struggles and first
[00:04:43] of all to tell them it's not as simple for many people of just connecting the dots.
[00:04:49] One, two, three, four there.
[00:04:51] Got it.
[00:04:52] It's much more of a meandering back and forth.
[00:04:55] That's why the subtitle is indirect journeys.
[00:04:58] And I tell a lot of stories of people who have come to faith but also people who never
[00:05:04] did come to faith or who walked away from the faith.
[00:05:07] And both of those sets of stories have lots of complexity to them.
[00:05:12] They're not as simple as one day someone explained this to me and I went, aha, that makes
[00:05:17] sense because I think for a lot of us it's much more of a weaving back and forth.
[00:05:23] I noticed, I enjoyed reading the book by the way.
[00:05:26] I'll tell my listeners that it was a fascinating read for several reasons.
[00:05:31] One is that it's very engaging just reading people's stories.
[00:05:33] I think that there's something about us as human beings where we're, you know, this
[00:05:37] is built into us.
[00:05:38] We love to hear stories especially true stories.
[00:05:42] And so that was an easy read for me and I think it would be an enjoyable read for my
[00:05:48] listeners.
[00:05:49] One of the things that you mentioned, I can't remember if it's in the first or second chapter
[00:05:53] but you talk about how, is it 79% of people who were asked said that they would be more
[00:05:59] than happy to discuss matters of faith with somebody who respected their opinion or treated
[00:06:06] them with respect.
[00:06:08] Have you experienced that in your personal conversations with people?
[00:06:12] Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:13] And I think right now in our culture we're starving for meaningful and respectful
[00:06:22] conversations that don't feel like you're trying to win an argument or you're just trying
[00:06:29] to, I always gag when I hear people use the phrase drop the mic.
[00:06:36] You know, that was a drop the mic moment there, drop the mic.
[00:06:39] My first thought is that's really expensive.
[00:06:41] Those mics are caused because they cost a lot of money.
[00:06:43] You should know where to drop them.
[00:06:46] But that whole idea of there, I've left you speechless.
[00:06:49] You don't have a leg to stand on.
[00:06:51] I just think that's, it's just a terrible image and a model for us.
[00:06:56] So I want to, and again, I think a lot of people, they have questions and doubts and
[00:07:04] they want to express them and they want to try to work through them and they don't want
[00:07:08] to just have a simple answer shove down their throat and say there, now just believe
[00:07:13] it.
[00:07:15] So yeah, and there's research that backs it up.
[00:07:17] So the statistic I quoted comes, I think from Pew Research or some other researcher
[00:07:23] and it's amazing to us that a whole lot of the people that we know who don't hold the
[00:07:32] same beliefs that we do might very well be willing to have several meaningful, respectful
[00:07:39] conversations.
[00:07:41] And I think especially in our moment now when it seems like every public conversation
[00:07:46] politically or otherwise, it's just sarcastic.
[00:07:50] It's mean-spirited.
[00:07:52] It's gotcha.
[00:07:53] And so I think it makes people afraid to express anything like questions or doubts because
[00:08:00] they're going to tack or they assume they'll get attacked and a lot of cases, they will
[00:08:05] be attacked.
[00:08:06] So right, I was trying to write a book for that person who might say, well let me just
[00:08:11] explore this incrementally piece by piece.
[00:08:15] Yeah, you know, I moved to Colorado from Europe.
[00:08:19] I was there 10 years as a missionary and a pastor.
[00:08:22] And one of the things that I've often discussed with my friends who've also moved here from
[00:08:27] Europe or done ministry in Europe is that we felt that where we live here in Colorado
[00:08:33] it is similarly post-Christian as Europe is but it's different in this way that we felt
[00:08:40] that in Europe people, if anything they were apathetic about Christianity whereas here
[00:08:45] there seems to be a sense of outrage, anger and we feel this with discourse.
[00:08:52] So we felt that like in Europe you could sit in a cafe and talk to a stranger about matters
[00:08:58] of religion for hours and they would listen to your viewpoint, weigh it, respond.
[00:09:06] And you'd leave and shake hands and be fine.
[00:09:09] Whereas here it often feels like these things are so everybody's so ready to throw up their
[00:09:14] arms and storm out of the room.
[00:09:17] Do you have any idea why that might be?
[00:09:19] We were talking about this just the other day and trying to figure out if we could put our
[00:09:23] finger on why this is.
[00:09:25] Well, I think your choice of the word outrage is exactly correct.
[00:09:34] You're asking me why is that?
[00:09:36] Why? How long on the show is this?
[00:09:40] Well, I hate to say it but I'm sure a whole lot of it is fueled by politics right now where
[00:09:49] it just seems that the two sides of our country politically are so far apart and they see the
[00:09:57] other one as so ridiculous.
[00:10:02] I mean, they can't find anything that they agree on.
[00:10:05] So that shapes a whole lot of it.
[00:10:08] I think quite a few people have said that our world today is shaped by the internet in the same
[00:10:15] way that the Protestant Reformation probably wouldn't have happened at least not in the way
[00:10:21] that it did if it hadn't been for the printing press.
[00:10:24] So technology shapes history.
[00:10:27] It's not the only factor for sure.
[00:10:29] But so the internet shapes culture and feeling and emotions and the nature of the internet is it's
[00:10:38] not real conversation.
[00:10:39] I mean, what you and I are doing now is pretty close to real conversation, although it's artificial
[00:10:46] in the fact that we're not in the same room.
[00:10:49] I can see your facial expression but that's still not anywhere near as good as sitting face
[00:10:55] to face with someone.
[00:10:56] But most of the interaction of the internet is there.
[00:10:59] It's there.
[00:11:01] I can choose to comment on it and I send something to it.
[00:11:05] I send out an email or a post or a tweet or whatever it is, but I just lob it out there.
[00:11:12] And I don't know who's reading it.
[00:11:14] I don't know who's there.
[00:11:15] And I may not get a response ever or I may get a response immediately.
[00:11:19] But it's not real interconnectedness.
[00:11:23] It's sort of simultaneous messaging rather than connecting with people.
[00:11:30] And then that can push us further and further apart and can make outrage more
[00:11:41] much more likely.
[00:11:43] And then there's a whole technological thing about analogs or I don't even know what they're
[00:11:48] covered but the more outrageous those are the things that get traction.
[00:11:53] Which is exactly the opposite of what we need.
[00:11:57] We need much more of people going, I think I need to think about that.
[00:12:02] But that kind of response isn't very entertaining.
[00:12:06] It doesn't get many likes.
[00:12:11] But that's exactly what we need is the exact opposite of what the internet exacerbates.
[00:12:17] When it sounds like that's what your book advocates for and what it portrays.
[00:12:22] Is your conversations that you've had with people regarding faith.
[00:12:27] And so I wanted to ask you, your book discusses a lot of people
[00:12:31] and they're indirect as you mentioned, the journeys towards faith.
[00:12:35] What was yours?
[00:12:36] You mentioned that you came from a Jewish background.
[00:12:38] What were some of the key factors in your becoming a Christian?
[00:12:42] And how does that perhaps shape the way that you approach other people?
[00:12:47] Yeah, it certainly does shape the way I approach this.
[00:12:50] So but if I can just go back a little bit when you mention the word outrage or
[00:12:55] I thought of in the course of writing this book,
[00:12:59] I've become pretty good friends with a guy who's an atheist.
[00:13:03] In fact he's a state leader in the American atheist chapter in the state of Virginia.
[00:13:11] And he and I have had really, really good engaging conversations
[00:13:16] and he even wrote an endorsement from my book.
[00:13:20] And I love the fact that an atheist wrote an endorsement for my book,
[00:13:23] although I'm sure some people think, well I guess that means it didn't work.
[00:13:26] So there's a problem with having an atheist endorsement but I want to say,
[00:13:31] well it hasn't worked yet.
[00:13:33] Give it time.
[00:13:34] But he wrote in the endorsement in a time of instant outrage,
[00:13:39] Randy Newman delves into the most divisive of topics and goes on.
[00:13:43] So he's concerned about the outrage that a year is even in his world of atheism and skepticism.
[00:13:54] I think he and I have learned a whole lot just from listening to each other and enjoying
[00:13:58] our friendship, even though we know we disagree.
[00:14:02] I think we challenge each other a lot.
[00:14:04] So I just wanted to throw that out there.
[00:14:06] It's good.
[00:14:06] My story.
[00:14:07] Well, so first of all, my story if I remember this clearly,
[00:14:16] it took at least four years from me first hearing some things about the Christian faith
[00:14:24] that were true and accurate to when I actually became a Christian.
[00:14:31] So I grew up in a Jewish home very secular.
[00:14:34] I didn't really know anything about Christianity.
[00:14:36] I just knew that we were Jewish and they were Christian and they being pretty much everybody else.
[00:14:42] And, you know, I just didn't really know much about it.
[00:14:45] I believed what my rabbi and my parents told me that all religions are basically the same.
[00:14:51] They all do the same thing.
[00:14:53] They connect to God.
[00:14:54] They're different paths of the same mountain.
[00:14:56] They only disagree about minor little things like whether you should worship on Saturday
[00:15:01] or Sunday or Friday and you know, whether you eat these kinds of food.
[00:15:04] But those are peripheral.
[00:15:06] And then I started taking Judaism more seriously and I delved into it more seriously
[00:15:12] than my family and I dug into it more deeply.
[00:15:15] And no matter how hard I tried and no matter how diligently I sought to obey the commandments,
[00:15:22] it just didn't seem to be connecting me to God in any kind of meaningful way,
[00:15:26] which led to a whole lot of disappointment and dissolutionment
[00:15:30] and then kind of giving up on anything to do with religion.
[00:15:34] Then I met a group of Christians who really seemed to connect to God in a meaningful way
[00:15:39] and I was intrigued with that.
[00:15:42] So that started a number of dialogues and conversations.
[00:15:45] Of course, their point of view always revolved around Jesus
[00:15:48] and I wanted very little to do with Jesus.
[00:15:51] Jesus was off limits.
[00:15:54] So I heard some very, very good things from them but I wasn't pursuing it
[00:15:59] I went off to college for several years.
[00:16:02] It was rather kind of, I don't know, absurd and ridiculous.
[00:16:05] I drank a lot of beer.
[00:16:09] I tell people I watched a lot of Woody Allen movies.
[00:16:12] I read a lot of Kurt Vonnegut novels and I drank a lot of Heineken
[00:16:16] and they all left me still with emptiness and not a sense of transcendence or meaning.
[00:16:24] I was a music major and I thought well, maybe music is going to do it.
[00:16:27] And music was what brought me the closest.
[00:16:30] Every Saturday night I went to concerts of the Philadelphia Orchestra in the Academy of Music
[00:16:35] and there were so many moments in the pieces of music that I listened to
[00:16:40] that almost seemed like here I found it but then it would dissipate and disappear
[00:16:45] but sometimes even before the piece of music ended or certainly when the concert ended
[00:16:50] and I had to go back to reality.
[00:16:52] And then through a series of some really difficult things,
[00:16:57] a friend of mine died in a very tragic accident.
[00:17:00] I started reading the New Testament and see as Lewis's mere Christianity.
[00:17:05] And I think when I got to that line in Lewis's book
[00:17:09] if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy
[00:17:15] the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world
[00:17:19] and I think that brought all these pieces together but again that was at least a four-year process
[00:17:25] of meandering and weaving and it all kind of came together there and I was 20 years old
[00:17:31] and I got baptized soon after that.
[00:17:35] It became part of a church, started reading the Bible much more rigorously
[00:17:40] and it's been a wonderful trek ever since.
[00:17:45] Wow, so were you not nervous about reading a book called mere Christianity that it might convert
[00:17:51] you or were you maybe even open to being converted?
[00:17:56] Well I was very nervous and very very reluctant.
[00:18:00] Well I will tell you these friends at this youth group who I first met,
[00:18:04] they gave me a copy of the New Testament and I thought oh I'm not reading that thing.
[00:18:09] That's things. I had been warned that the New Testament was an anti-Semitic book and was used
[00:18:16] by all sorts of Christians in the history of the Christian Church to persevere Jewish people
[00:18:20] so that you know that would be like my reading Adolf Hitler's mind-cumse.
[00:18:25] But what I find intriguing is that I took that pocket New Testament with me away to college.
[00:18:32] I never hadn't read it but I brought it with me, I don't know why.
[00:18:36] So when this friend died and I felt like oh okay I remember vividly sitting at his funeral
[00:18:42] and I was thinking okay I gotta get some better answers because Woody Allen,
[00:18:46] Kurt Vonnegut and Heineken are not doing it for me.
[00:18:49] And so I went back to my dorm room and started reading Matthew's Gospel
[00:18:54] and I went to the library and took out mere Christianity.
[00:18:57] I knew I didn't want to go buy it
[00:19:00] and not just because I'm cheap, I am cheap.
[00:19:04] But back then the only way you could get a book was you had to go to a bookstore.
[00:19:10] Yeah there was no Amazon or online things, there was no electronics.
[00:19:13] So I would have to walk into a physical bookstore and there was one very close to campus
[00:19:19] where I'm sure I could have gotten Lewis's mere Christianity but I would have had to ask somebody
[00:19:23] out loud. Do you have CF Lewis's mere Christianity?
[00:19:26] And so I found it as a library and I was very afraid of anybody seeing me.
[00:19:32] I remember, I read that book in my dorm room with the door closed and the door locked.
[00:19:37] I didn't want people to know I was reading the Gospel of Matthew
[00:19:42] and a book with the name Christianity and the title but you know God was drawing me,
[00:19:48] he was working and making that whole thing irresistible if I can use that word I think I can.
[00:19:53] And you know it was worth the risk is probably something that I sent.
[00:20:00] Although I'm not so sure I could have put words to it back then.
[00:20:04] Well, so you mentioned that that does shape the way that you approach speaking with
[00:20:10] people who are not believers at the moment. How are some of the ways that it does that?
[00:20:15] Hmm good thank you. Well so it shows me the power of the scriptures.
[00:20:21] So I want to get people, you know I want to urge people to read the Bible for themselves.
[00:20:26] It shows me the power of logic and reason the way CF Lewis did in mere Christianity because he
[00:20:31] just makes very compelling reason. I also think of the importance of allowing people
[00:20:41] to move gradually or to take time because again for me it was years and years and I think for a lot
[00:20:47] of people it is. There's also the factor of seeing it in people's lives. I mean it wasn't just
[00:20:53] intellectual arguments that convinced me, it was like these people really seem to know God they
[00:21:00] talked about him as if he's right next to them. They I remember being struck with the fact that
[00:21:08] they prayed just they made up prayers spontaneously about anything and everything
[00:21:16] and they prayed in English. When you grow up reciting prayers in Hebrew written out prayers that have
[00:21:25] been written hundreds of years ago, that you are supposed to just repeat. That stands out and
[00:21:30] start contrast to the Lord Jesus. Thank you for this beautiful day. We pray that when we go to the
[00:21:37] beach nobody will get badly sunburned. I mean I remember people praying that like wow you could
[00:21:41] pray that kind of stuff. And then one more thing is that whole idea about pointers,
[00:21:46] right? You know for me it was music. Music points us to something bigger than just ourselves and even
[00:21:54] bigger than the piece of music. There's something that goes on in a lot of pieces of music maybe not
[00:22:01] but there's something that happens and it feels like oh there's something going on in me
[00:22:07] that I can't explain with just molecules and formulas. And so that argument that Lewis made
[00:22:19] you know he said we all have these disappointments and either either we just keep chasing after
[00:22:24] another experience and other experience or would become cynical like yeah I used to go chasing
[00:22:29] or there's this other thing of maybe maybe that really is pointing somewhere else. And you're not
[00:22:34] going to find it in the music or the art or the relationship or the job or the I mean there's a
[00:22:39] million things. You're not going to find it there. What you're going to find there is a pointer
[00:22:45] to something greater, a personal God who wants us to know him intimately and experience all of his
[00:22:51] greatness and his love. That's really helpful to hear that story and that approach. One of the
[00:22:58] things you mentioned, you mentioned this in your first chapter which by the way I found absolutely
[00:23:01] fascinating. You talk about a story of a person named Alex and how he was converted twice. Once he
[00:23:08] was converted by Christopher Hitchens to that kind of angry atheism and then he was converted again
[00:23:15] to Christianity. And then in the end he ends up writing a letter to Christopher Hitchens while
[00:23:19] Christopher Hitchens is dying saying you know I you know basically besieged you to seek the Lord
[00:23:26] and saying that Christopher Hitchens in a way is the person he credits with paying a big role in
[00:23:31] him coming to true and vibrant faith in Jesus. I found that fascinating but in that chapter you write
[00:23:37] this that we approach the topic of faith with a menagerie of motives not just intellectual curiosity.
[00:23:45] What do you think are some of the motives that people come at faith with?
[00:23:50] Yeah. Yeah, it was just such a fascinating story because it was Hitchens who convinced him to
[00:23:57] become an atheist and then Hitchens own inconsistencies that bother this guy where he said wait a minute
[00:24:04] wait a minute were you where are you getting these these moral absolutes that you're coming up with
[00:24:10] and that shook him up so much that he was willing to read the Bible and willing to go to a Bible
[00:24:16] study and talk to Christians who again didn't just shut him down and make drop the mic kind
[00:24:23] of arguments. For him a lot of the motive of rejecting Christianity at first and embracing atheism
[00:24:32] was anger. He saw some real disgusting hypocritical behavior by so-called Christians in his church
[00:24:41] and in his Christian community that he was just angry so that's a motive that a lot of people
[00:24:48] bring. In Christopher Hitchens life he talks about this really just horrible thing of his mother's
[00:24:55] suicide and he felt like he could have possibly prevented it if he would have just gotten to the phone
[00:25:03] when she called right before she took her life and he said in a in an NPR interview and I quote
[00:25:09] this he says I've been trying to write myself out of that ever since the the guilt or the despair
[00:25:16] or the sadness so some people bring that some people feel like they've had religion shoved down
[00:25:24] their throat and it's a different kind it's not just anger it's a kind of resentment or it's
[00:25:29] a kind of rebellion. So we all we all approach this with a mix of motives some people they come
[00:25:36] to it of I really want to believe this because I know some people who are Christians and I really like
[00:25:41] them and so I'm drawn more almost like a social motivation. I want to belong to this group of people
[00:25:51] who seem to have joy in in another story not not recording this book but I remember having a
[00:25:57] conversation with a woman she was African-American and had seen just I mean some really horrible racism
[00:26:05] in her life and she had a negative attitude toward she was just suspicious of all white people
[00:26:11] because their potential racist and she had she had very very legitimate reasons for this kind of
[00:26:17] antagonism and it was when she went to a church where they were both black and white people there
[00:26:24] and they were getting along and they were loving each other there were even some mixed couples
[00:26:28] and and for them race was not nothing it was not insignificant but it wasn't ultimate
[00:26:35] and that was what drew her of wait a minute could this actually resolve a racial tension that's
[00:26:43] deep in my own the marrow of my bones. So what I'm trying to do in that first chapter is just say
[00:26:50] to people examine your motives this probably isn't as pure as just well I heard these intellectual
[00:26:57] arguments and here's why I don't agree with them intellectual arguments are very much important part
[00:27:02] but it that's not the only thing going on in this scenario. Yeah no very hopeful that's that's
[00:27:09] interesting and just you know realizing that we may not even be aware of some of the motives that
[00:27:15] we bring into it you know like you mentioned Hitchens Hitchens almost seems in some ways to be
[00:27:22] unaware of the things motivating him to make some of his decisions in regards to religion.
[00:27:30] But here's another question for you I have a friend and he has been he's kind of gone on this
[00:27:37] trajectory you know there was a time when he would say that the whimsomeness approach to
[00:27:45] evangelism and preaching it was advocated a lot through like Timothy Keller and others
[00:27:51] he says that that has proven to be a failure and instead we need to take up the biblical language
[00:27:57] of viewing people who do not believe or let's say who advocate for different lifestyles.
[00:28:03] I'm thinking of your friend who wrote for the book you know wrote a recommendation
[00:28:08] or an endorsement that he is an atheist so this friend of mine he has kind of come to this point
[00:28:15] where he says no no instead of trying to have win some conversations with these people about
[00:28:21] Jesus we need to label these people as enemies of the truth and then treat them as so
[00:28:27] and he's very keen on applying the imprecatory Psalms to them and saying things like
[00:28:32] God I hate those who hate you and these sorts of things what advice would you and by the way
[00:28:39] I think that this opinion that this person represents is growing in popularity in my anecdotal
[00:28:47] experience yeah so what would you say to that? Well boy well I think about what Jesus said
[00:28:56] about treating others the way you would want them to treat you it was that was like one of his
[00:29:01] biggies wasn't it? So I think of myself when I was not a Christian I wouldn't want people to
[00:29:11] pray the imprecatory Psalms on me. You know I'm still in touch with some people who knew me then
[00:29:19] and believers who prayed for my salvation and I just marvel at it and I want to thank them
[00:29:27] that they didn't label me an enemy they labeled me someone created the image of God created
[00:29:34] to know God and someone who needed to repent and get saved so I would I would look at Jesus's
[00:29:43] command about loving our enemies loving our neighbors treating them the way we would want to be
[00:29:51] treated. I think about Paul's teaching in Colossians 4 about let our speech be with grace,
[00:29:58] seasoned with salt and to conduct ourselves with wisdom toward outsiders I mean
[00:30:05] I mean that grace and salt combination I think the title wins some this makes sense now it doesn't
[00:30:13] just mean you're always saying positive nice you know you challenge people you say things like
[00:30:19] you know I I disagree with you I'd love for you to consider a different perspective that sounds
[00:30:25] like salt but calling people enemies and telling them that they're lost well I mean I think it's okay
[00:30:33] to tell them that we think they're lost but there's ways to do that that sound like grace and there's
[00:30:39] way that's that's due that that sound like hatred. We could discuss the use of imprecatory Psalms that
[00:30:47] would be a long we did another whole thing with that and you probably should have someone who's
[00:30:52] a Psalms expert scholar on that I think those if those Psalms do apply to us I think they're very
[00:31:00] very limited in the situations where we need to apply them. I'm not a pacifist I do think that
[00:31:06] there's times to be able to fight back against evil yes but I think in evangelism we have far more
[00:31:15] statements about loving graciousness being what wisest serpent but innocent as doves and again in
[00:31:27] our current moment our current culture there's so much ugliness and hostility and anger that if we
[00:31:36] come close to that people just say oh you're part of that crowd you're you're part of a very I
[00:31:42] think I think a whole lot of people in that crowd are not Christians and have no desire what's
[00:31:46] so ever to glorify God we're called to glorify God in everything that we do so I will just add one
[00:31:55] more thing I don't know I don't I don't know if you're going to be able to convince your friend
[00:32:01] that he's wrong I think right now there's that kind of wave of anger and when they're told
[00:32:07] that it's righteous anger and we need to be like the prophets I don't predict a high success rate
[00:32:15] I'm very sorry to say that by the way the prophets they lived to say we need to be like the prophet
[00:32:21] yeah the prophets were pretty strong and pretty harsh they were also amazingly loving I mean
[00:32:26] sometimes in the same verse I mean it's just it's astonishing how they condemned sin so strongly
[00:32:37] righteousness but they also appealed to God's tenderness and his grace and his mercy in ways that
[00:32:44] are just breathtaking yeah I think if there's one thing that is highlighted in your book especially
[00:32:50] in those early chapters it's that people who might appear to be enemies of the truth you mentioned
[00:32:57] for example woman who's very promiscuous had absolutely no in no interest at all in Christianity
[00:33:04] and yet that's not the end of their story and their story doesn't end with them being enemies
[00:33:10] of the truth and it was because people lovingly and patiently spent time with them and and
[00:33:16] showed them a different way invited them into spaces rather than just pushing them away and
[00:33:22] treating them as enemies I think that that's one of the things that your book most you know poignantly
[00:33:28] shows well thanks I'm encouraging here you say that I want to say that's not the end of their
[00:33:35] story and it's not the whole of their story there are other things going on in people's lives
[00:33:41] and so yeah on what we may see on the outward is a whole lot of rebellion and immorality and just
[00:33:50] I don't know a recklessness but I've talked to enough people who will tell me at the same time
[00:33:55] that they were doing all those things they were also wondering isn't there something more to life
[00:34:00] some of them were reading the Bible because they were drawn they thought well I don't tell I've
[00:34:08] had so many different stories that have heard I remember one young woman and I don't think she
[00:34:12] I don't think I wrote about her but I mean she was doing all sorts of immoral things and also
[00:34:17] reading the Bible and I said why why why was that and she said well all these guys I was
[00:34:22] hooking up with they weren't making my life any better I figured maybe God could make my life better
[00:34:28] so we just never know all of the things going on and to just label people as one dimensional oh
[00:34:36] they're just rebellious they're just immoral they're just idolaters well we're more complex than
[00:34:42] that and we we want people by the way we want people to treat us as multifaceted and nuanced
[00:34:48] all these things going on but but we want to treat other people in single dimension which is just
[00:34:54] it's not loving hmm here's a question I'm curious to know your answer on like do you think that we
[00:35:02] need absolute certainty in order to believe something because it would seem that some people
[00:35:08] perhaps skeptics of Christianity think that in order to believe Christianity you have to be absolutely
[00:35:13] certain about everything but you say that's not exactly true so what would you what what is your
[00:35:19] viewpoint on that yeah well so I wrote a whole chapter about that because I think it is I think
[00:35:25] for a lot of people they think well if I can't be absolutely 100% sure I'm not going to believe this
[00:35:31] because that because you know I have too many doubts or I have too many questions and I just think
[00:35:37] absolute certainty 100% certainty is not really possible for any human being given our limited
[00:35:47] intelligence given the fact that we're we're trying to connect to an infinite God there are there
[00:35:53] must be things about him that are beyond human comprehension they're not contrary to reason but
[00:35:59] beyond human reason so I wrote a whole chapter of what what maybe much more realistic is a high
[00:36:07] level of confidence rather than 100% absolute certainty and I don't know I find that liberating
[00:36:17] and refreshing and I'm hoping that some people will go oh so it's okay that I still have some doubts
[00:36:24] it sure seems to me that the Bible gives us a picture of a very very high level of confidence
[00:36:31] and yet there still is an element of we don't fully know this side of heaven so the you know
[00:36:39] we see through a veil dimly a glass dimly but then we will see face-to-face that beautiful
[00:36:45] passage in second Corinthians where we're afflicted but not crushed perplexed but not despairing
[00:36:51] perplexed there are still things that we go I don't get it I don't understand I mean when people
[00:36:58] say to me I just don't understand why a good God would allow so much evil and suffering I want to
[00:37:04] say that's a that's a struggle for me too it is I think belief in what we do know about God and
[00:37:12] what we do have in the person of Jesus enables me to handle those difficulties and it's the best
[00:37:19] of all possible answers but it still has a whole lot of incompletenesses about it so I yes
[00:37:26] I was trying to encourage people of I don't think you should hold out for absolute 100% certainty I
[00:37:32] just don't think that's realistic for mere human beings with the level of intelligence that we have
[00:37:40] well this has been good Randy if you could give maybe a couple you know closing thoughts to those who
[00:37:48] you know want to share their faith with others maybe they're not sure how to approach it what advice
[00:37:55] would you give with your experience in light of your experience what advice would you give to people
[00:38:01] about sharing their faith with others well thank you well I think one the first thought that comes
[00:38:06] into my mind is when anybody becomes a Christian it's an absolutely supernatural miracle and so God
[00:38:14] does miracles and he uses flawed sinful imperfect people Christians to proclaim this beautiful message so
[00:38:25] don't wait till you're perfect don't wait till all of your motives are absolutely 100% pure
[00:38:31] you'll never do it but trust that God does supernatural things he raises people from the dead he
[00:38:37] opens up blind eyes and so I would encourage people reach out start conversations I would encourage
[00:38:46] people not to feel like it all has to occur in one conversation I just think that for a lot of
[00:38:53] people it's a sequence of many conversations and by the way that they get input from a whole lot
[00:38:59] of other people from a whole lot of people not just them so it's they also go on the internet and
[00:39:03] they read an article or they talk to somebody else or it this it's you know they get input from a
[00:39:08] whole lot of places and I guess I would also add if you're fearful God can use you anyway
[00:39:16] I think I'm always fearful when I'm talking to an on Christmas you know it's like the temperature ramps
[00:39:21] up 10 degrees in the room like oh we're gonna go for that topic here we go so but but but God
[00:39:27] can use timid fearful people I get a lot of mileage out of Paul's statement in first Corinthians
[00:39:33] Duke I was with you with much fear and trembling all right yeah if that was wall I could I could
[00:39:39] do that awesome well Randy it's been a real joy speaking with you I love your heart for sharing
[00:39:45] with people and having dialogue with them I hope it encourages our listeners I hope so too thanks
[00:39:50] so much for the time together thanks for listening to this episode of theology for the people
[00:39:58] new episodes are released every Wednesday so make sure to subscribe to the podcast on whatever
[00:40:03] app you use in the next episode I'll be speaking with Wendy Zahordianski Wendy is a missionary in
[00:40:10] Serbia prior to moving to Serbia she spent some time in central Asia and in that discussion we are
[00:40:16] going to be talking about the importance of taking steps of faith in order to grow in our relationship
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