It almost seems that it's more important to come across as nice and winsome than it is to contend for the truth and to convey biblical truth. That's not to say it's one or the other, we can do both. But first and foremost is contending, defending, conveying biblical truth, and doing it in a way that is good and respectful. We can do both.
Hi friends, welcome back to another episode of Ideas Have Consequences. As Christians our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. But our mission also includes transforming the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of our mission and today, Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Well, welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. My name is Scott Allen, it's great to be back. Today. I'm joined by my friends and colleagues, John Bottimore, Dwight Vogt, Shawn Carson, and Luke Allen. And we are going to discuss today a topic that has been debated, I would say, or is particularly pertinent relevant topic within evangelical circles in the United States and in the West. I can't speak to how this discussion is happening in Latin America. My guess is something similar is happening in other parts of the world, but it's certainly a lively discussion that's happening right now. And we wanted to just talk about it and share our thoughts related to it. I think it's a very important discussion.
And the way I would probably describe it's this discussion on what should be the church's response to the culture? And how do we respond to these hot topics and big issues that are happening in our culture right now? On one side, you have people that are emphasizing the need for Christians to be—a word that gets used a lot as winsome. Loving. Nice. And recently, you have a group of Christians that have been challenging that and not necessarily challenging in the sense that we need to be jerks or we need to be rude or obnoxious, but just challenging this idea that our main focus or or emphasis towards the non-believing culture should be nice.
A couple of people that have been spokespeople for this recently. One is Owen Strachan, who is a Professor of Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Arkansas. He wrote a book that is very similar to the book that I authored on social justice and critical theory. He wrote a book titled recently titled "Christianity and Wokeness." Very similar kind of take that I had on that subject. He has a podcast called "The Antithesis." And in May, he had a couple of podcasts that we listened to as a team and one was titled "You are in a Negative World, Christian, Why Being Nice is Not a Winning Strategy." I want to come back to that idea of negative world here in just a second. And then he followed that up with another podcast titled "The Winsomeness Project has Failed. Choosing Gospel Boldness Over Cultural Approval." So he istaking us taking a stand against that approach.
And then just last week, we listened to a talk, a video, by James Wood. James is the editor, one of the editors in chief or I think he's now former editor in chief, at First Things. And he wrote an article about a month ago called "How I Evolved on Tim Keller." And basically he was saying of Tim Keller, he was a guy who had helped him a lot as a Christian. Obviously very influential and I think we could all say a lot of positive things about Tim Keller. But he was saying something similar to Owen Strachan and how he associated Tim Keller with this—he actually phrased it this way—he called it the winsome third way-ism. And I like to explain what he meant by that a little bit in just a second. And then the video that he recorded just last week was a response to some critics of that article. I encourage all of you who are interested in this discussion to listen to those two podcasts from Owen Strachan and also this video from James Wood, again, titled "How I Evolved on Tim Keller" and the video is a response to critics, I believe it is, I think they're very thoughtful and excellent.
Let me just define some terms that these folks are using, before we get into the discussion. First of all, they use the word "winsome." And I think that doesn't need a lot of definition probably for the listeners here. I think it means being nice, non-offensive. James Wood defines it this way, the goal in this kind of what he calls winsome third way-ism is that the goal is to minimize offense, particularly to influential elites in our culture, so as to maximize openness for the gospel. Well, that sounds good. Like we want to have maximum impact for the gospel.
So anyways, the third way-ism is something that Tim Keller has championed, particularly in politics, where Keller is a big advocate for and his disciples, I would say, for Christians to be engaged in politics. And I think we can all say a hearty Amen to that in the DNA world, in the sense that Christians should be involved in every sphere of society. This is something that we teach, there isn't a higher/lower sacred/secular divide and Christians should just be involved or engaged in kind of the higher spiritual spheres of life, doing evangelism and missionary work and church planning. Those are very important, but what that mindset does is kind of relegate any other kind of vocation or area of society to kind of this lower, dirty secular sphere that we should not be involved in, including politics. Well, we disagree with that.
Keller also disagrees with that. Christians should be involved in politics. But then he goes on to say that we need to kind of find a third way between Democrat/Republican, conservative/progressive. It's not helpful to bash either one of those. We need to find the good in both. We need to kind of find the third way. That's his particular approach to politics. And I think a lot of his followers would agree with that. So again, James Wood call that "winsome third way-ism." And I think that's a decent way of describing it.
Owen Strachan mentions in the title of his podcast, "You are in a negative world." What he means by that is, he's referring to a framework that another Christian thinker, Aaron Renn, has put forward here in the last couple of years. And it's getting a lot of discussion. I like this, I think it's a broad general framework that makes sense. And he talks about how in the United States in particular, we've gone from being in a negative—or excuse me we've gone from being in a positive world to a neutral world to a negative world. What he means by that is that it has to do with the way the culture views Christians. Particularly, I would say, those with influential positions in elite culture, how they view Christians. In a positive world, and he dates this right around 1994 and before, so anything before 1994 positive world is where those influential Christians in this culture tended to view Christians—excuse me, influential people in the culture tended to view Christians in a positive way, right? So being a Christian was seen as a positive thing, you're moral upstanding, honest, hard working, good, and so that's all good.
Then he dates the neutral world, to 1994 to 2014. And he said there was a definite shift in attitudes towards Christians, and it wasn't negative at this point. But it was more neutral in the sense that it was, well, if that's what you believe, that's fine. I don't. There was a, "live and let live" tolerance approach here. But now, he says from 2014, we've kind of entered into a negative world, where being a Christian is seen in a very negative light. Particularly by, again, people that have positions of real power and influence in our culture. And, again, by that I'm really referring to the fact that if you look at leadership, if you will, as their influence in our real major sectors of society. Whether it's law or government or education—particularly university education—or big business or big tech, there really is kind of an elite culture, these are people that are leading those areas of society, it's really the view that they have towards Christians in the church. And Renn would say that it's now negative, in other words. Especially Christian moral or sexual ethics, they're viewed negatively.
So, again, Owen Strachan says we are in a negative world. And in that negative world, being nice is not a winning strategy. So this is something we've talked about in the DNA quite a bit. I know Darrow and I have had a lot of discussions on this. Very often Darrow and the DNA more broadly, I think, sometimes they're accused of being not nice. Being unloving. Being culture warriors. And so we've recognized there is this kind of emphasis on, wow, we need to prioritize being nice, being winsome. And Darrow and I've had some discussions, even debates on that, because I'm saying, well, Darrow, we don't want to be jerks, right? There's nothing virtuous about being unnice. The gospel calls us to be gentle, right? So we've had some debates on that. And so it's not a discussion inside the DNA that we're unfamiliar with.
But I just wanted to kind of frame it that way, guys. I want to just open up to you now and what would you add? You've listened to the podcasts and these videos and some other things on this. What am I missing in terms of my framing on this that you want to add before we begin to think about and discuss this and what it means for Christians and in their daily lives?
Scott, I think you've set it up quite well in terms of describing the basic situation, the definition of the terms. So I'm not really adding anything different, not really getting into the discussion of what it all means, if that's okay. It's quite interesting that a lot of this debate and discussion is what I would call about process or atmosphere. Now, those things are incredibly important. And we're called as Christians to be unified and to demonstrate love and demonstrate respect and demonstrate reasonableness. I think James Wood talked about that. Those are very important things and there's very clear biblical commands to us about that. Including all the way to loving our enemies.
But what's not really talked about there is that unity in what? What are we standing in unity towards and for? It almost seems that it's more important to come across as nice and winsome than it is to contend for the truth, and to convey biblical truth. That's not to say it's one or the other. we can do both. But first and foremost is contending, defending, conveying biblical truth, and doing it in a way that is good and respectful, and kind and gentle. Ways that lead to repentance. And you know, not being quarrelsome. Don't speak evil of the other person, all of these things. We can do both. But it seems like third way-ism is really elevating the process more than—call it the product, the product of truth. That's my initial comment.
Yeah, you laid that out quite well. And in my own life, I've seen this move from a neutral world—I wasn't alive back in the more positive world—but from the neutral world, to now, what we're seeing more often than negative world. I don't think the negative world has spread everywhere yet. I know for some people listening to this, there can be a much more neutral place. I live in Oregon. I went to college near Portland. I would say that city, for the most part, has entered the negative world and is proud of it. So I see this shift in my own life. And I remember growing up as a kid, that common phrase everyone like to say is, "Oh, you be you. You do you. Just don't enforce it on me and we're all happy." That's something very common with the neutral world. That phrasing doesn't really work anymore. I've seen that in my own life. I've tried that with people, and it's blown up in my face now.
I think a couple of the things, as we were preparing for this podcast, I was thinking about that have accelerated this change between the neutral world and now more of the negative world and have been points of conflict in the church and we've seen people choose sides on. A couple of those would be like abortion, recently with the the Roe vs. Wade ruling. We see different approaches to that.
Our recent President Donald Trump in the US, you saw all the weight that came with him in his inauguration. And the media like to say, "Oh, if you agree with anything, if you say anything good about Trump, you immediately throw yourself in the bag with him and you have to agree with everything he stands for." And of course, a lot of people like, "Oh no, I don't want to do that." Because there's questionable things about that guy and they don't want to be thrown in that bag. So they'll go tend to tiptoe around that discussion.
You also see it with LGBTQ and that whole discussion and how should we walk through that in a loving and yet truthful manner, grace and truth? You see it with the whole 2020 BLM Movement. COVID even, in lockdowns and how do we approach this with grace, and yet also stand for convictions, and especially with churches closing and things like that? So I've seen this acceleration. I know for in my own life, over a couple of things I just mentioned, I've mentioned the side that I tend to agree with. And I've lost friends over the issue over some of those things I can think of two in specific. I know a lot of people can agree with me there, where they are losing friends, have lost friends, or they just know that if they bring up some of these topics, that they're going to be ostracized by some people. And the question is, how can we faithfully walk through these times where Christian ideals and God's truth is becoming increasingly unpopular? And if we stand for that, we will see divisions in our relationships and friendships and the culture abroad will see us in a different light. So how can we walk faithfully? Yeah, cut me off there. I could go on for a while.
No, it's good, Luke. And I think you're bringing up some really important points here. If I could just kind of summarize what I'm hearing, first of all, this is dividing the church. And I think you're right, it's dividing the church around those issues. People are losing friends, churches are splitting. So this is a painful reality for a lot of us right now. You mentioned abortion, the way I would describe the divide, on one side, you have a group that is very sensitive to, again, I'm going to call it elite opinion. So, on the issue of abortion, I've heard people say, in the wake of Roe v. Wade, the people that are, I'd call it the "nice side" or the "winsome side", say "Hey, as Christians, we might be happy that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, but we can't celebrate too loudly because that would be insensitive to the people who are really hurting and upset by this decision." And furthermore, they would be very sensitive to the view of the elites on the issue of abortion, which, if I could summarize it, it would be something like this, "Christians don't care about women. They just care about children." They have this kind of idea. And you would hear these nice, let's call them nice Christians mimic that. They would agree with that. They would say, we need to do a whole lot more to care for women. We don't do nearly enough to care for women in addition to caring for abortion.
Or on the issue of social justice, Black Lives Matter, they would be very sensitive to the fact that that's a very popular view amongst elites, especially in universities, called Critical Race Theory, wokeness. So they would tend to say things like, we need to find the good in it. What's the good? Are there some good things? What's the word that they often use? Are there some tools that are helpful in this ideology that we can bring into the church? They're very sensitive, and they don't want to be offensive to that group at all. And their motive is good, right? If you take them at their word, they want to create an openness for the gospel or a relational openness for the gospel. And then on the other side, people are saying no, these things are really wrong. Abortion is really wrong. Social justice, critical race theory, this ideological social justice is Marxist and it's wrong. We need to have the willingness to speak out and to say that, even if it's going to put us at odds with the culture, let's say again, elite opinion in the culture. So I agree. I agree with you on those particular issues. Other thoughts from the rest of you guys on what Luke shared, or just the setup that I did on this subject?
Yeah. And for some of those those issues, here's the deal, in a lot of things, there is truth. There is truth in many things. And I saw this in myself in college, I like this phrase, "There's truth in everything and seek that truth." And that's true, even lies are 90% true, usually. That's why they work. So you can find the truth there. But partnering yourself with something like CRT even though, sure, there's parts of it that can be true, it's just risky ground to stand on. And what I always question with people that are maybe more of a winsome type than myself, is, who do you fear here? Is it a fear of man or a fear of God? And that's at the bottom of a lot of these questions.
Yeah, I agree, Luke, I think a weakness, let's say, of this winsome approach can be this elevating of the opinion of elites. You can say I want to do it in order to give a hearing to the gospel, but it can easily kind of slide into, I want to do it in order so that I am viewed positively by powerful elite people. And I think I've seen some of that, frankly, that it's this fear of man type of thing. I think this idea that is there good, is there truth, in lots of things and we need to find the good and find the true, well, I guess. You could say yes. But then you have to ask yourself, where are the lines? We've all got lines on this. Can we find some good in Nazism or even in Islam, radical Islam? Maybe there could be some truth in there, amidst all the other stuff. But at some point, you're going to say, it's not helpful to sit there and go, "Okay, I'm gonna find the good, find the true," It needs to be called out as evil and needs to be firmly resisted. So where do you draw the line? And that may be part of this debate. People are drawing the lines differently.
Hi, friends. Thanks again for listening to this episode of Ideas Have Consequences. As I mentioned later on this episode, this topic is incredibly important and applicable for all of us, and therefore, we'll continue to discuss it in future episodes of this podcast. Speaking of topics, we always love to hear feedback from you guys. So if you have a topic that you'd like us to discuss, or guests that you'd like us to in on the show, please don't hesitate to send us a message. I can't say this enough. We'd love to hear from you guys. And the best way to reach us is on Facebook or Instagram. I've linked both those accounts down the description. So just after this episode, feel free to go onto one of those platforms and send us a message if there is anything you want to hear or know about this podcast. Or you can leave us a comment on this episode's landing page at our website, where you'll find everything you need to know about the podcast, including highlights, social media posts, the transcript of the episode broken up into chapters, and more. And if you scroll down to the bottom of that page, you can also leave us a comment there that we'll make sure to read and get back to you on. I've also linked that page down in the description below. By the way, as a side note, if you've noticed a recent drop in sound quality, you're not making that up. We've had to record on the road recently, due to summer travels. But in a few weeks, we'll be back in the studio, and the quality should be back to normal. So in the meantime, thank you for your patience.
I mean, we're talking about well, what are you going to be messaging to the elites, or are you appealing to the elites? I'm thinking everyday life. What's the role of the church in everyday life? And Luke, just as you've said, we're experiencing this tension in everyday life. You're talking to your child or your neighbor or your friend. Do you even try to find middle ground with them anymore? Or do you just say I'm on this side and if you're not, you're wrong and go away? Because there's a lot of canceling that's going on in relationships. Luke, you've had two friends that have canceled you. So do you just go ahead and be mean straight out or forceful. Or do you try to find, hey, we at least agree on this. We agree here, don't we? Are we saying we never do that again? Yeah, maybe on an elite level or if you're a prophet speaking out to the nation, you don't agree with anything, but in real life with real people, with real conversations, as a member of the church, as part of the body of church? What's my response?
Maybe this is my Mennonite background. I've always strove in every situation to say, "Okay, on this one small thing. Yeah, I can agree with you. And I think you're right there. But there's, let's move on to the other 99. I will not agree there." And I'll try to persuade them. But I'm experiencing this in almost every dimension these days. Maybe you guys aren't. And so then it's like, since Trump was elected, you can either be—I'm in this camp, go away, or I'm in this camp, go away. And be mean to get our way. Is that where we're at?
I hope not. I don't think this idea that we should write off people that disagree with us is in any way right. I think we should continue to pursue—
But then how do you talk to them?
Let me give you an example just in my own life. When I was first wrestling with the woke ideology, and I was preparing my book, "Why Social Justice is not Biblical Justice," it came out of essentially this discussion I had with friends who I loved and respected in the church, who challenged me, and they said, Scott, some of the things you're saying are hurtful or mean. And I was just trying to understand truth about these things. And I was told that you need to stop talking about that. It's not helpful, it's not nice, etc. But I felt like this kind of this idea of, we have to talk about it. We have to understand what's going on. If this is a false set of ideas, it's really going to be destructive. We can't just worry about not being non-offensive.
And so I went ahead, I wrote the book. I tried really hard to stay in relationship with these friends of mine. But I found that to be really hard. I'm not trying to say I did it all right, but I tried to stay in relationship. I felt like they didn't want to do that anymore. I had become toxic, if you will. And so I feel like it's, as far as you can do—the Bible talks about it. I'm gonna paraphrase here—but as far as it depends on you, live at peace with all men. I really did try to apply that. I want to live at peace with my brothers and sisters in Christ, but not at the expense of truth. I'm going to speak truthfully. I'm going to try to stay in relationship, if they want to pull away, I can't control that. So, that's been my own personal experience with some of this. And it's yeah, it's painful. But it doesn't mean I'm going, "Hey, I don't want to have anything to do with you. I'm not going to talk to you anymore." That's not at all the approach that I took. And I don't think most Christians want to take that. Certainly some. "I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore." But I think...
Just to echo what you've said, Scott and Dwight, before, maybe saying it in a slightly different way, I think we should always look for common ground, but not at the expense of blurring the truth that we want to convey. And James Wood said in his video, a C.S. Lewis quote that I think applies here. It says, "The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of man." And so that message is really critical. That we maintain the truth as job one in this, while doing everything we can to maintain the relationship and maintain the process but first, it's standing for truth.
What do you think C.S. Lewis meant by that John, that quote? Could you just unpack why you felt that was a particularly helpful quote?
Yeah, cuz I think he meant that the truth is hard to the human mind. The truth is hard to sinful man. Parts of the truth. And that's hard, but that's love. That's the hardness of God. The love of God is kinder—that's what we need. We need God's hardness. We need God's love. Because that's kinder than the softness of men. We let each other down. We let each other off the hook when we shouldn't, and that kind of thing, so I think that's what that that means. The outcome to the heart, and to the person, is better and kinder by the hardness of God than it is to the softness of man that can easily let someone down. I think that's what he means by that.
Just to add to that, I think this idea of, you know, there's there's been a kind of a redefinition of love that's gone along with this discussion. And love has come to mean being nice again, or being non-offensive. Being even affirming. So let's say you have a friend who's transgender, and they're very sensitive to this whole discussion of transgenderism. And they don't believe in the male, female binary. And so out of a desire, let's say to be quote, unquote, loving, you're not going to talk about that, or you're going to even affirm them in their beliefs, in the idea that that's going to allow you to stay in relationship and maybe eventually be able to share the gospel or whatever it is.
Whereas the other approach would say, that's not actually loving. Because they're in an ideology that's destroying them. In other words, God made male and female and any kind of confusion about that, trying to live out that confusion is just deeply disordering and destructive. And so "loving" means I don't bash them over the head with the truth here, but I've got to speak the truth. There's male and female, you're male, you're female. That's the way God made you. Your life is going to be best if you live in that design that God's created you for. That's not going to be seen as loving at all by that person at that time, but it is loving. Maybe this is what C.S. Lewis was saying, John. Shawn, I'd love to get you involved in the discussion. I know, this is something that you've thought a lot about as well. And what are you hearing? And what are your reactions to what's been said so far?
Thanks. Yeah, I think I mentioned earlier. Just the idea that, as believers, as followers of Christ, we're called to have strong convictions of the truth. We're called to search the truth out. We're called to live it out. We're called to share that with other people. And so I think the interesting thing that we've talked about is that we're in a post- or a negative Christian world, in a culture. So we're talking about culture here, as the United States, or in the Western world, that is not as friendly or is just bluntly anti-Christian.
So I've traveled in lots of different countries and lived in some of them that are not Christian cultures. And as a Christian living in a non-Christian culture, you live differently than you do as a Christian in a more Christianized culture. And you don't have the same abilities to say certain things that you do, per se, in the United States. The reason that we're post-Christian is we're denying what God has done in our nation or in our culture, and we're wanting to eliminate that. To me, that's what that means to be a post-Christian culture. And so I think I take some guidance from my brothers and sisters who live in non-Christian cultures in how do they live and how do they interact?
I think that the challenge that we're facing as believers in America is that we're losing something that we've had, where we've lost something that we've historically had in the culture, and now we're being forced to deal with the loss. And I think that it's important to realize why are we where we are today. And then what does that mean? What does that mean to us? If we say that we are where we are today in a culture, because—maybe we could debate this, but—because maybe the church hasn't been the church that it needs to be. It hasn't promoted the truth. It hasn't held on to the truth. It hasn't been as irrelevant to the culture that it should have been.
And therefore, we've encouraged the church to withdraw. Be seen as tangential to life. It's like you said, Luke, you do you and I'll do me and if church is good for you great. But it's not good for me. If the church has promulgated that idea, then we see where we've come. We're in a post-Christian culture now, where people are not just non-Christians, they're anti-Christian. And so how do we, as believers, then address those issues in the culture?
And I think there is this idea that there's this higher, maybe elitist idea that is very anti-Christian. My next door neighbor, he's not anti-Christian, he may not be a believer, but he's not anti-Christian. He's like, "Hey, there's good here and there." But I think that distinction is really important to make. Because like you, Dwight, when you go to the store, you interact with friends or family, how do you live out your faith? How do you talk about that with people who may just not know anything? Or may be inculturated to think that Christians have had a negative impact on our culture? How do you stand up and say something positive? And I think that that's where the tension is. And it's like, we as believers have just tipped our hat to the culture and saying, "We will let you go as far as you want, let us just keep our faith to ourselves." And now that that's impeding the culture that we live in, we're not so happy about that anymore. Many churches have just compromised more and more to become a reflection of the culture with a semi watered down understanding of God and His Word, versus where we were called to be as believers.
So I think it's important that we make that distinction between a culture that's maybe anti-Christian and my neighbors who may just not know anything. There is tension in that. And then how do you bridge that understanding for people? Because people are being told the culture that we have now, part of the reason it is like this is because of the negative influence of Christianity on on a culture. Or that the church is irrelevant to everyday life. And I think that it's important for us to know that maybe the church just failed or the church has failed, but that doesn't mean that it's irrelevant and that it doesn't have anything to say to culture. And I think that that's where the tension comes.
Maybe I could jump in with an example Shawn. You tell me if this is this fits. I'm thinking as you're talking about this shift in culture, you could look at marriage as a great example of this. If you go back to the positive world, or even the neutral world, a marriage between a man and a woman was accepted, and not just accepted, it was seen as a good. And now in a negative world. If you think or if you say, "Hey, marriage should be the exclusive relationship for life, of a man and a woman." that's viewed very negatively, again, not by everybody in the culture, but by the elite opinion makers and opinion shapers in the culture. Particularly in entertainment, media, government, etc. That's viewed as hateful and bigoted now. It's viewed as negative. And you're right that Christians were in some ways complicit in that shift in the sense that we weren't... We were complicit in divorce culture, sexual immorality, there was a lot of complicity there as well. We weren't doing a great job ourselves on issues of sex and marriage while all these shifts were happening, and now we feel wow, it's hard for us to speak with some kind of moral authority. Is that a good example?
That's a perfect example.
So then what do we do now, given that? Do we just kind of sit back and hold our tongues? Or do we speak truth? I would say, we do. We have to speak truthfully. I think the other side, when you talk about speaking truthfully these issues, it's always viewed very negatively. It's like bashing somebody over the head. And I just don't think that's what speaking truth is, or it certainly shouldn't be. I think you can speak—the Bible says speak the truth in love. There's a balance there. You can think about truth and love on a line. And you can err on the side of either one. If you err on the side of truth, and you leave love out of it, then it's just this kind of haranguing, I'm gonna bash you over the head, and etc. If the truth loses love, it loses, in a sense, truth.
But at the same time, you can err on the side of love by losing truth, right? I'm just going to do whatever I want to help you think positively. I am going to affirm you and I'm going to leave truth out of it. Well, then you've lost love as well. I think this is kind of John's point, the Bible puts truth and love on it as a balance and we need to speak the truth in love. If you ask me where we're at right now, as a church, in this culture, we're airing too much on the side of love. And by doing that it's gone so far that it's not love anymore.
I think we've got to come back and we've got to go back towards truth. And again, that doesn't mean leaving love behind. But in a negative world—and I think this is Owen Strachan's point—we've got to find the courage to speak to the lies that are out there, whether it's about sex, or marriage, or gender, or even Marxist woke ideology. We have to find the courage to speak. Now this is where it gets hard, though.
Dwight, as we were talking about this episode, in our lead up to it, you said, "I have got a friend who works at Target." And Target now, as a corporation, has policies in place on these things now—particularly as it comes to the issues of transgenderism, or whatever it is—she literally would lose her job if she spoke out against those things. Not only friendships, but actually her livelihood. And so this isn't easy. Do we have a place to tell somebody like her, hey, you've got to speak truthfully even if it's gonna mean you lose your job? Or do we not have a place to do that because we in the DNA are gonna lose our jobs by speaking out truthfully? I'd love your thoughts on that, Dwight, or any of your thoughts?
Yeah, that was my point against Owen. He was really strong and vocal, but he's not in risk of losing his job. And he's not a seventy year old on a pension and needs this—these are $15 an hour job or whatever she gets paid now. So it's hard. It's easy to speak when you're not threatened by anything that will hurt you.
Even the comment of love, Scott, you know, I am loving to my son when he was way out of line and I had to speak very forcefully. If we identify love as an emotion, or a feeling of affection, or some warmth that I have towards that person, then we're always going to be conflicted by love and truth. But if our devotion is that person becoming who God made them to be, and intends them to be, I can be very strong with my small son at times when he was growing up, and still very, very loving. So I don't have a conflict on that. I think you can be strong and loving. And as long as you don't equate love with, I feel really warm towards you right now. I just think this is really contextual, too. And that's an example. You know, with my growing up with my children, there were times where I was in your face and needed to be because they were wrong. And they needed to know the truth. Other times, I was, well, what do you think? Other times it was? Yeah, you're right there, but you're wrong here. We debated things, especially as they grew up. So there's a bit of contextualization going on here. And, and I you know, I think for the blog writer, there is no context because they can just speak their mind. But in real life, you're gonna be I seminar in your company. It's pretty contextual. You know, what do I say? How far do I go? I disagree with this point, you know, but I think we, yeah, I'm all for standing for the truth. If we if we came in on the truth. We're in trouble.
I just think this is really contextual, too. And that's an example. You know, growing up with my children, there were times where I was in your face and needed to be because they were wrong and they needed to know the truth. Other times, I would say, "Well, what do you think?" Other times it was, "Yeah, you're right there, but you're wrong here." We debated things, especially as they grew up. So there's a bit of contextualization going on here. And I think for the blog writer, there is no context because they can just speak their mind. But in real life, you're gonna be in a seminar in your company. It's pretty contextual. What do I say? How far do I go? I disagree with this point... I'm all for standing for the truth. If we cave in on the truth, we're in trouble.
We'd lost everything. Dwight, I think your point on context is so helpful actually, in this discussion, because I think Jesus himself really modeled that. You see Jesus being very gentle towards people who are in sin. I'm thinking of the woman caught in adultery or something like that, very gentle. He still spoke the truth there. He said, you know, go and sin no more, but he didn't judge her. And I think partly it's because he could see their heart. There was a sense of humility or brokenness, right? And to the person who is in that place, gentleness is really appropriate in that context. However, it's different for the person who is like, let's just say maybe, they're prideful or they're really militant, in their rebellion against God or their positions with these lies or really hurtful things. I don't think Jesus maybe was quite as gentle with those people. He was pretty hard with them. So I think your point of context, or what did you call it... basically the circumstances and adjusting the way you respond depending on the circumstances is really good point.
The beautiful irony of the gospel to the mind of man, is that it tells us what we need to hear and ought to hear versus what we want to hear. I realized that's a very broad statement. But there's a lot of applications where that could play out here. And in addition to the love versus truth that we talked about hear. It's not love versus truth, it's love and truth. Salt and light also comes into play here. Matthew, 5:13-14, "You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet." And then in verse 14, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden." It's not salt or light, it is salt and light. The truth of the preservation and the contention of biblical truth, which in many areas is so different than what we have in our own minds, in our own culture in ways... it's not good for anything if we don't speak that truth. And again, the irony is, that's the beauty of what it isn't. And we talk about wanting to have people open for the gospel—what better way to be open for the gospel, than to hear something that has been communicated in a loving way to someone that is totally different than what they've ever thought and never been told. That's a real opportunity for a discussion between people if they're open minded to one another. So that's where we need to get to in this. And it's very difficult because it gets very emotional very quickly. And there's no compromise. There's only the desire to demonize in the situation today. So it's very difficult. But that's the ideal of where we should be going.
Yeah, I heard the quote recently, "Paradise is a walled city." And I love that quote, because in a way, that's really God's love for us. He wants us to live in this right way of living that he is laid out for us. It's the biblical worldview. He has a structure for us to live in. And yet, it's a walled city. Its the most loving thing for someone, and God loves us. He wants us to live in that place, in that space. We live in a world full of evil and darkness. And God has created a way for us to live even inside of that. So the most loving thing, again, is to be inside of that city. However, yes, there are walls. And that's kind of the truth, in a way. It's the thing that protects it. AnD God's format for our way of living has never changed. It's the steady point on a map. Culture is always going to be fluctuating, it's going to be fluctuating closer and further. And yet our job, no matter what, in and out of season, our job is to preach the Word. And to preach and to point people towards God's format for living. Sometimes it's going to sound harsher and less popular. Sometimes it's going to sound, maybe more in a positive world, it'll be easier to preach. But that's something important to remember is our stance as long as we're standing upon the word, has not moved. We don't need to feel more defensive.
I think a couple pieces of context, you're talking about conscious really good thoughts, Luke, but just for me that really factor into this discussion. They're both historical pieces of context. And one piece of historical context is Germany. I often think of it as Germany in the 1930s. The eve of World War Two, as Nazism, this ideology of Nazism, this really destructive racist ideology is gaining ground inside of a Christian country. Germany is a very Christian country. It's got this long historic church tradition. The Reformation starts in Germany with Luther. And yet here in the 1920-30s, Nazism is gaining ground. It's not an intellectual debate. This is a deadly ideology. And we know it's deadly, because in hindsight, we can see exactly what it did to the Jews, the concentration camps, and really the whole world that just got caught up in the the flames of this just terribly destructive ideology. What was the church in Germany doing in the 1930s? Were they speaking truthfully against Nazism? Well, some were, Bonhoeffer and the folks that he represented, were speaking against it. But they were in a minority.
And I think that the lesson I take from that is that, first of all, these ideologies were this isn't just philosophical, this is demonic and these ideas can be demonic and deadly. Abortions, a great case in point, we're talking about 60 million children killed since 1973. So these are real—these ideas have consequences—real deadly consequences. And so we can't just be passive towards these ideas out of a desire not to offend people. I'm speaking for myself here. We have to say this is wrong. And if we don't check this with the truth, if we don't confront it with the truth, it could kill people and destroy lives and cultures.
So I just think that's a lesson I take from that. I think we're kind of in a similar place in the sense that, we've got really powerful, destructive, non-biblical ideas coming into the culture, fast and furious. And we have a choice to make. Do we keep our heads down? Or do we say no, I know, it's not going to win me any friends, I'm not going to be seen as nice. I could lose my job. There's gonna be lots of costs. But I can't just sit around and let that happen, right? Because we look back at the Christians in Germany, we kind of criticize them, don't we now, right? It's like, gosh, they should have spoken up, right? They should have done more. Well, what about us?
I think another historic piece of context, and Shawn, you mentioned this in our prediscussion, where you were talking about the epistle. We've kind of gone through this in the United States, over 100 years ago, within the church, where powerful non-Christian ideas were coming into the culture, Darwinism and whatnot. And you had one side of the church say, hey, let's not be offensive to the people that are promoting these ideas, let's try to look good in the eyes of the people that are promoting these ideas so that we will be seen positively by them, right? So we'll kind of minimize the truth. We'll try to look good in the eyes of the people that are pushing these false ideas, because they have a lot of power in the culture now, in an idea that this will help us to survive as the church because we'll be seen as nice. So that would be the mainstream church. You mentioned the Episcopal Church, they kind of did that.
And the other side was, they fought against what they were calling the fundamentalists who were emphasizing truth at that time. It split the church. Now, what do we learn from that? Well, a lot of the mainstream churches that tried to accommodate these ideas in the culture and minimize truth, they haven't had a particularly good run, right? They've kind of shrunk. Whereas the churches that you know, emphasized truth—hopefully truth and love—but they didn't give up on the truth have grown. I think we're at a very similar place. You've got a group that's trying to say, hey, let's be nice, winsome. Try to keep on good graces with the culture, the cultural elites, because that's going to win us a hearing for the gospel, etc. I think we just have to learn from our own history. First of all, that it was damaging, greatly damaging to the church. We don't want to split over these things. I think that's one thing if we can avoid it, let's not split.
But secondly, this idea that we can accommodate false ideas in the culture and somehow be seen as nice—this is both Owen Strachan and James Wood makes this point, in a negative world, no matter how nicely you package biblical truths, sexuality, marriage, whatever... The walled cities, as you said, Luke. The things that are fixed and aren't going to change. No matter how nicely you package these things, in a negative world, you're going to be still viewed as a hateful bigot. No matter how nice you are. So it's kind of like deal with it. And don't deal with it by being a jerk, but deal with the fact that no matter how nice you are, you're not going to be seen as nice. Now speak the truth courageously. I'm sympathetic to that, let's just say so
Yeah, and I love looking back at history, because this isn't a new thing, this negative world and Christians living in a negative world, how to interact with this. What are applications that we can live out? Just look at the Hall of Faith. Most of the people in the Hall of Faith lived in a negative world. I'm thinking of people like Moses for the first part of his life, Daniel, Paul, Elijah. These people lived—and let's talk about Daniel, for example, he lived in a completely non-Christian culture. And yet he was in a place of leadership, and how did he live in that place? Paul, and the early believers. Jesus, in the time of the Roman Empire. And Dad, to your point that you were just talking about with the danger of watering down the truth. I'm reading through First and Second Kings right now. And as you're reading through the Kings, it's like and there was a good king and you cheer, whoo! And then it was an evil king, evil king, evil king. And then it was the king that was good. And he built up the temple, but he left the high places in the idol worship. And to me, I see that as a king who's kind of playing the middle ground and trying to...
Third way-ism
Third way-ism I guess, and guess what, at the end of his life, it doesn't go well for him. You can't play that way. There's so many stories.
I think those are good lessons that we can learn. Yeah, from lots of history there for sure.
To kind of connect key words, and the negative world that we're in, even in the negative world that we're in, key words that are good words, that are nice words, that are powerful words—they've just been co-opted, and kind of reversed to their initial meaning. And so that's the sort of thing especially in a social media world that we've got to watch and understand and be clear with—with powerful and truthful contention from the gospel. I just read today, not a perfect analogy here. But I just read today of some of the sanctuary cities that were set up a few years ago, are refusing to be sanctuaries for the unborn, now in post Roe. So let's look at that twist and reversal of the word sanctuary, for the most innocent of all, the unborn. And so those are the kinds of things that are still said in a very—intending to be in a very positive, winsome way, but are really quite evil and are really quite deceptive in this negative world. So we've just got to be especially able to see the wheat versus the chaff in this world.
Guys, this has been a terrific discussion, I'd like to wrap it up and just kind of ask for final thoughts as we wrap up, and especially things that might be helpful for for Christians who are dealing with the reality of this right now. Either the friend who's working at Target or the pastor who's seeing his church split, or whatever it is, Dwight.
Yeah. Yesterday, I was trying to figure out who to vote for in the primaries here in the state of Arizona. We have our primary election soon. I came across this one person running for Senate and I didn't really like his ads. His ads were like, "I'm against this, I'm against this, I'm against this, I'm against this, and I'm against this." I thought, Well, okay, he's against all the right things. But then I found a 30 minute interview with him. And I just listened to the interview. And the guy unpacked his worldview, in terms of human beings, in terms of cooperation, in terms of the economy, and he just went really deep in his understanding of human anthropology. He did a DNA thing in a sense, and said, "This is where I'm coming from." You can expect my immigration policies to come from this understanding, you're going to expect my life votes to come from this understanding. And it was so rich, and I'm thinking... and he was so strong. He didn't raise his voice once. It was like my grandpa. He didn't have to, he just said it. And he knew that he meant it and don't get in his way. He's going to do that. It was really encouraging. I'm going to vote for the guy so hope I hope I read him right.
What do you take away from that related to this discussion, Dwight?
That it's one thing to be against things. You need to be against what's wrong, but you also need to be very clear, why you believe what you believe and what's right. What does it mean to be made in the image of God? And how does that shape your view of all of life? Something like that. It's your worldview.
Yeah, I learned this from Nancy Pearcey. We had Nancy on the podcast here not too long ago. And she's very strong on this point that you're making, Dwight, that we as Christians have to be able to speak out against evil and against false ideologies and belief systems, especially that are destructive. But it's not enough. And it's not nearly sufficient, to do that you have to speak about what you're for. What is true, what is good, what is the biblical worldview? And I think both of the guys that we were listening to, Owen Strachan and James Wood, make this point. They say that right now, there's a lot of people that are confused, because society is breaking down in a lot of ways, and they're looking for answers. But if we're always worried about being nice, we might not be ready to give them true answers. Because we're always trying to downplay truth in order to be nice and winsome. Now's an opportunity to speak truth, because a lot of people are seeking it out. And we need to be there to speak it. We need to say what we're for. So I think both of those are really good points. I agree with you.
Just dovetailing on that, Philippians 4:8, "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellent, anything worthy of praise, think about these things." This this is where our hope is, we are just to understand and try to communicate in ways as we best understand them for these times, and to connect with people and find common ground. But the content of gospel truth is rock solid, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So our great hope isn't all of us, no matter how hard the negative world seems. We have assurance. We know the end and the outcome of all of this. So it doesn't answer the question of "Well, how do you deal with this in your workplace?" and all that, that's a very much a remaining difficult contextual question here for believers of today. But at least they can know in their hearts and in their minds, that God's word is true. God's way is true. And we can rest in that.
We alluded earlier to my favorite Bible verse, which is Hebrews 12:14, Dad, you mentioned this. This says, "Make every effort to live at peace with everyone." And that's so good. That's so rich. And you hear that all the time. Everyone likes that part of the verse. The second part is just as equally important. And it says, "Make every effort to live at peace with everyone and be holy. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." So we need to make every effort to live at peace with them. But we also need to recognize that we have been taken out of this world. And we are called to be holy and live within God's framework for living, no matter how popular or unpopular that is.
God calls us to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. And he also says, don't seek to become too much entrenched in the world, because as in 1 John 2:15, as we all know, it says, "Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not enough." I mean, that's a pretty scary verse, really. And then also, John 15:19 says, "If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because we're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world will hate you." But again, make every effort to live in peace with all men and be holy. And that depends on the context a lot.
Speaking of context, we've been addressing a lot of these subjects, kind of dividing subjects on this podcast. These dividing subjects are ideas, whether they're lies or truths, and now the consequences that we're seeing played out in our world. So we've had discussions recently with John Beckett and in the business world, how can we live faithfully in the business world now in more of a negative world? Dad, Nancy Pearcey, we had on recently talking about LGBTQ... I can't remember it all, and how to address that as a Christian and a lot of other topics. So we'll definitely be talking about more of the application side of things in future episodes.
We were a part of an Anglican church for a number of years and every week we say the Nicene Creed. And one phrase of that is, "And his kingdom will never end." I used to lean into my voice every time, I'm used to say, "And his kingdom will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever end." And I just think we have to have that context that God is establishing His kingdom. And this is His work, and this is His kingdom. And we need to find out what he says. We need to align ourselves as closely as we can to understanding what that means and then living that out. He even says that he's sending us out as sheep among wolves. But be shrewd. Be wise as snakes and harmless as doves.
So I think there's that tension that we're a part of a kingdom that's never going to end. It's never ever, ever going to end. And yet, at the same time, in this world, we're called to be wise, to make wise decisions, to know how to answer people in season and out, to respond in love and truth, and not sacrifice, because the Kingdom of God doesn't sacrifice love over truth or truth over love. It's consistently the same. And I think, as Christ as our example, we have to wrestle through that with our culture, and even realizing maybe the churches that we're a part of are finding themselves trying to be friendly to the culture, or maybe are compromising in ways. How do we help our churches not to do that? How do we, as we talk about all the time, how do we disciple our nation to reflect the kingdom of God? And by embracing lies, we might be discipling our nation, but it's not going to reflect the glory in the kingdom of Jesus. And so we have to wrestle through that, I think, and as believers, love. And some of the most loving things you can do is speak truth.
And also, sorry, and also recognize who the enemy is. That is also super important in this discussion. Remember that we're not fighting against flesh and blood here, if we ever start thinking that we are, we are immediately going to lose love, right away, and we will come across harsh, and that is not the biblical response that we want to see here. So we're fighting against the evil principalities and powers of this world. And those play out in the lies that we see in our cultures, but it's not the people promoting them. Those people are created by God and are loved by Him.
Really good thoughts. I really appreciate what you guys both said there, all of you guys, at the at the end here. Just my final thoughts on this would be, in a negative world, there is going to be a cost. If we're living truthfully, even in a very loving way, there's going to be a cost. If there's not a cost, if we're being appreciated and lauded by the negative world, if you will, something is wrong. Okay. There's going to be a cost. And that's hard. But the Bible has a lot to say about this as well, like a lot. And I think for what I'm challenged by, frankly, is that, because most of my life I've lived in the positive and the neutral world, there isn't a real cost to being a Christian. In fact, it's in the positive world, it was positive. It was great. The culture liked you. But not so much anymore.
So now we've got to wrestle with this cost. And am I willing to pay it? And the Bible is really strong on that, isn't it? It's like, yeah, pay that. Because there's a whole theology of persecution, if you will, right? There's just a whole, as Shawn, you said, this kingdom isn't going to end. God's got your back. You might have to suffer for a little while, but there's incredible benefits that come with that as well, both now and an eternity. I think we have to return to the message of, what does it mean to live in a world that's increasingly hostile to our faith?
Everyone's got to wrestle with that in their own way. I can't sit here and point my finger at somebody else and say, well, you should be willing to lose your job or you should be... But I've got to ask myself, am I ready? Am I ready to speak the truth and in a way that's going to cost? So I think we all have to wrestle with that right now. But at the DNA, we're gonna keep speaking truth and hopefully we'll do it in a loving way because we believe that the truth has the power to bring transformation to people's lives and cultures. And that's what we want to be about. Guys, thanks. Great discussion today. I hope this was helpful for everybody that was listening.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Ideas Have Consequences brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance. As I mentioned last week, make sure to take a minute to check out our landing page for this episode that I've linked in the description below. Again, that page has everything you need to know to continue to study each episode in further detail, including episode overviews, chapter summaries, the transcript, key quotes, and links to additional resources on the topic. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click on that link below.
