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I'm Ok, You're Not

January 02, 2012     Time: 00:28:56
I’m Ok, You’re Not

Summary

An author's recent survey on how Christians are often viewed by non-Christians is very revealing! Dr. Craig examines some of the survey results and draws some conclusions we should all take to heart.

Transcript I'm ok, you're not

 

Kevin Harris: Thanks for joining us on the podcast of Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig. I'm Kevin Harris. Bill, I know I speak for you as we wish everybody a happy New Year at this recording. I don't know if you're going to be able to top this past year. [laughter] I know that a lot of things in 2012 will be taking place; but, boy, what a hum-dinger of a year.

Dr. Craig: It was extraordinary. Although, you know, Kevin, at the end of every year we look back and say 'wow' of what God has done—it is marvelous.

Kevin Harris: What we'll do throughout the first part of this year is reflect on the U.K. tour – which was a very important event for you this year – because we're still getting input from that, we're still seeing the results of it, and we kind of want to reflect back on just what kind of a splash that has made this side of the pond, on the other side of the pond. So far, just looking at various websites, media coverage, press and so forth, it has really gotten a lot of attention.

Dr. Craig: Yes, it has. And by having the films of the various events released one by one as the editing process is completed, rather than all released at once, it has, I think, generated an ongoing interest in it, rather like the old serials they used to show in movie theaters in the United States. People are coming back, looking for the next installment, as they're done. We're putting them up on the audio/visual page, and they're also available more broadly at bethinking.org and YouTube, but we do post them at ReasonableFaith.org, as well.

Kevin Harris: Bill, you called to my attention a blog from a writer named Jon Shore. He talked abut a new book that he's writing. He did a little research, a little personal research, on what non-Christians say about Christians. What strikes you, Bill, as far as how we appeal to outside folk?

Dr. Craig: Well, what Jon Shore wants to show, I think, is that the perception of evangelical Christians in our culture is overwhelmingly negative; that non-Christians have a very dim view of evangelicals. And he bases this on a sort of survey or question that he sent out inviting email respondents to write in and answer his question: “How do you feel about being on the receiving end of efforts of evangelical Christians to convert you?” And, as you can imagine, the responses were pretty negative, and he takes this then to indicate that we Christians have got a bad image problem.

Kevin Harris: He posted on Craigslist sites. He went all over the internet to gather this information for the book that he's writing called I'm Ok, You're Not: The Message We're Sending Non-Believers And Why We Should Stop. So obviously we wanted to know what the perception was of evangelicals, but notice, Bill, that this is also a question that says, what do you think about Christians efforts to convert you? And what that opens up is those who are perhaps rather vocal about their faith, those who are going to maybe stand on the street corner and get you, or those who are going to give you a tract at work, and sometimes that can be a little aggressive.

Dr. Craig: Well, I think the way Jon Shore worded his question skews the results. It has an almost self-selective effect because he addressed it to non-Christians who have been resistant to efforts to evangelize them. So by the very nature of the case this is going to draw responses from people who have been resistant to the Gospel. And, moreover, the way it's worded is, I think, very prejudicial: words like 'the receiving end' and 'efforts to convert you.' I wonder how the response would have been if he had asked something like this: “How do you feel about Christians who share their faith with you?” Or, “How do you feel about Christians who share the Gospel with you?” I suspect that the way he's worded the question has already helped to determine the answer. Moreover, notice that it's directed toward non-Christians. It doesn't include any of the non-Christians who, hearing the Gospel, then embraced it and become Christians. I think we'd also like to hear from people who heard the Gospel as non-believers and then who responded from it. How did they feel about the efforts of Christians to share the Gospel with them? I think of people who are like Darren Strawberry and Peter Byrom who come out of a militant atheist background and have recently come to faith in Christ—how do they feel about the efforts of Christians to share their faith with them? [1] I think they're reaction would be very different. And in recent months, Kevin, we have just been receiving a steady stream of emails at ReasonableFaith.org from people who are coming from atheism to Christ. It's quite remarkable how the current has been reversed, and instead of seeing all these people losing their faith, what we're seeing is people coming in the opposite direction. So the way Jon Shore has conducted his informal survey here I think has a kind of self-selection effect in the type of person that will answer the question, and guarantees a negative sort of response.

Kevin Harris: Sure. Our pastors and our preachers and our leadership are always on us about sharing our faith. And the complaint that you hear is if more Christians would share their faith we'd have more people coming to Christ. And that's true. But the problem so often is that Christians don't share their faith at all. But then there are some who attempt to do it and they apparently botch it up so bad [laughter] that there needs to be some training in order to shore up some of the things that he sees as negative, no pun intended. [laughter]

Dr. Craig: No pun intended.

Kevin Harris: Because it's like: “You guys need to share your faith.” And those who do, preachers often say: “Well, don't do it that way; you're obnoxious.”

Dr. Craig: Right. Of course we have to be sensitive to where the unbeliever is. We should never be pushy or obnoxious, as you say, Kevin. But as I read these responses that Jon Shore received, the impression that I have is that the wide majority of them have simply got problems with the Christian message. They don't like a message that is non-inclusivist. They're looking for a message that says “I'm OK, you're OK.” A message that says Jesus is just a sort of liberal social reformer who made no radical personal claims. It really is asking for a very milk-toast kind of Christianity. And a lot of the offense that is taken is simply at the biblical message of Christ.

Kevin Harris: One of the respondents, someone from Denver, said: “Religion always seemed too personal for me to take advice about it from people I don't know.” And what that seems to indicate is, here's somebody I really don't know, don't know well enough, and they're talking to me about spiritual things, and that makes me uncomfortable.

Dr. Craig: I think what we can learn from that is the importance of trying to build some report with the people that we talk to, and not just treating them as souls to be won, but as real persons in whom we have a genuine interest. So we need to learn to ask questions and befriend them, and I do think that that will certainly make our evangelism all the more effective. But what worries me are comments, well, like the following ones: one fellow says,

The thing that baffles and angers me about Christians is that in their fervor to convert another person, they tell that person, “You're bad, you're wrong, and evil” and they actually expect that person to agree with them. It pretty much guarantees that virtually the only people Christians every realistically hope to convert are those with tragically low self esteem.

Well, I think that's just a complete misunderstanding. The message of the Gospel is not “I'm OK, you're OK” and it's not “I'm OK, you're wrong.” The message of the Gospel is “I'm not OK, and you're not any better. Therefore we need a Savior; we need someone to forgive us and cleanse us and morally restore us.” And so it's a message of hope for people who are broken people. And it doesn’t have anything to do with your self-esteem. On the contrary, some people with enormous, good self-esteem, with enormous pride, can nevertheless need desperately forgiveness of sins and moral cleaning in their lives. Their pride can actually be one of those obstacles to coming to God.

Here's another one that bothered me: this person wrote in and said: “I feel Christians have got it all wrong. It seems to me that they've created the very thing Jesus was against—separatism.” Now, when I read that I thought this person doesn't know the Jesus of the Gospels because Jesus said, “Don't think that I've come to bring peace, but a sword. I am going to divide a father against his son, daughter against her mother, families will be divided because of me.” Jesus is divisive, and he knew he was divisive. The crowds deserted him in the end. They wouldn't follow him; they called for his blood. So the idea that Jesus' message is one of inclusivism and unity is just false to who the historical Jesus was and the message that he brought. [2]  It is divisive in the sense that he makes radical personal claims about himself that you must either accept or reject.

Kevin Harris: Sure. And there's a difference, Bill – isn't there? – between unity and unity at all costs. What we often get in our culture is, let's be unified, and let's not have separatism and so forth, and let's do it at all costs. Obviously truth itself can be very divisive, and we can divide over legitimate issues.

Dr. Craig: Right, and what we can do is agree to disagree about the issues even as we treat that other person with love and with respect and with inherent God-given rights. So the proper understanding, I think, of tolerance is to say, I disagree with what you say but I'm going to defend to the death your right to say it. We include people, but we are separatistic with respect to ideas. We believe in absolute truth and falsity.

Kevin Harris: What about this one: this writer says:

Whenever I am approached by an evangelist, by a Christian missionary, I know I'm up against someone so obsessed and narrowly-focused that it will do me absolutely no good to try to explain or share my own value system. I never want to be rude to them, of course, but never have any idea how to respond to their attempts to convert me. In short order I inevitably find myself simply feeling embarrassed, first for them and then for us both. I'm always grateful when such encounters conclude.

Dr. Craig: Yes, that's really unfortunate—isn't it? I think what this does show, again, is the importance of being a good listener. We should really care about what that other person believes and thinks, and invite them to explain their views and explain what they mean. This is one of the things that Greg Koukl is so good at emphasizing in his Tactics. Learn to ask questions: “What do you mean by that?” or “Why do you think that?” And draw the other person out so that we are interested in what they have to say, and give them a chance to share their own beliefs.

Kevin Harris: Along the same lines this respondent says:

I am often distressed at the way some Christians take as a given that Christians and Christianity define goodness. Many of we non-Christians make a practice of doing good. We, too, have a well-developed ethical system, and are devoted to making the world a better place. Christians hardly have a monopoly on what's right or good or just.

Bill, why I say that that is similar in a sense is that this other respondent that we just referred to says, “I'd like to share with you my own value system that apparently is as legitimate or equal to yours.” And here's this person saying, “Look, I've got my ethical system, you're got yours, and you don't want to hear mine.” So the Gospel message is perhaps misconstrued as a mere ethical system or value system?

Dr. Craig: That's a very good point, Kevin. Look at the next one, too, on this site: “Christians seem to have lost their focus on Jesus' core message: love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and love you neighbor as yourself.” That was not the core message of Jesus of Nazareth. That is a misrepresentation. Jesus' core message, New Testament scholars agree, was the Kingdom of God. He was a proclaimer of the advent of the Kingdom of God breaking into human history in his person. And he called for people to make a decision as to whether or not they wanted to be members of that Kingdom or to reject God's reign and rule over their lives. And it’s just wrong to think of Christianity as an ethical system. If that's all it were, you don't need Jesus. You don't need Jesus to live a good ethical system. I think that what this person is confused about is a kind of moral argument for God's existence which says that if God does not exist then we don't have any objective basis or foundation for objective moral values and duties. And I think that's true. In the absence of God it seems that relativism will hold the day. But that's not to say that Christians have a monopoly on doing good or what's right or that non-Christians cannot be good and decent people. It's to say simply that we need God as a foundation to ground the objective moral values and duties that we all share and hold dear.

Kevin Harris: Well, Bill, you've worked on that until you’re blue in the face to make that distinction and try to clear that up. And I'm hoping that we will continue as the church to clear this distinction up, about what the moral argument for God really is, and not that we have the corner on the market of being good and moral. [3]

Dr. Craig: Right, it seems to me that in the absence of this sort of transcendent foundation we're just lost in socio-cultural relativism, and it's impossible to condemn as objectively wrong, say, the cultural values that evolved in Africana, South Africa, or in traditional India where women were burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. In the absence of a transcendent foundation for moral values whose to say that they're wrong and we're right? So the claim isn't that you need to believe in God in order to be good. The claim is that you need some transcendent objective foundation to ground the moral values that we sense and that do exist.

Kevin Harris: This person from Washington says: “I wish Christians would resist their aggressive impulses to morph others into Christians. Didn't Jesus preach that we should all love one another?”

Dr. Craig: There he's simply asking us to cease doing evangelism. I mean, morphing people into Christians is a way of saying don't try to tell me about the Gospel. Don't share with me the good news of the Gospel. And I think what these folks don't understand is from a Christian perspective we're all desperately sick, we're broken, we're fallen people, and God has provided a way of healing and restoration. And it would be unloving to refuse to share that message with people who need to hear it. And I think that's one of my concerns about Jon Shore's book where he says why Christians need to stop. Now, if he means we need to stop saying “I'm OK, you're not OK” granted, I would agree with that. But I hope people don't interpret him to mean we should stop doing evangelism. That would be, I think, disastrous; indeed it would be contrary to God's will. Jesus has given us a great commission to take the Gospel into all the world and to share it with every person, and to make disciples of all the nations. And therefore we simply cannot put our light under a basket and refuse to let it shine brightly.

So while Jon Shore is correct that we as Christians need to be attuned to our culture, we need to be sensitive to what people are hearing, and not be overly aggressive or rude or obsessive; nevertheless I think a good deal of the misunderstanding that is expressed in some of these responses to his question is the fault of the non-Christians themselves. They're reading the Gospel through their own cultural lenses and grossly distorting what in fact we as Christians believe.

Kevin Harris: A couple of Jewish people also responded. One said,

I'm frequently approached by Christians of many denominations who ask whether I've accepted Christ as my savior. When I have the patience I politely tell them that I'm Jewish. Well, this only makes them more aggressive. Then they treat me like some poor lost waif in need of their particular brand of salvation. They almost act like salespeople working on commission. If they can save my soul then they're one rung on the latter closer to heaven. It's demeaning. I always remain polite, but encounters like those only show disrespect and sometimes outright intolerance for my beliefs and my culture. In Judaism we do not seek to convert people. That is because we accept that there are many paths to God and believe that no one religion can lay sole claim to the truth or to God's favor.

Well, that's not exactly accurate of the Jewish faith, not unless you're really liberal.

Dr. Craig: Well, he's probably talking about reformed Judaism that is prevalent today. And basically what he's asking Christians to do is to become religious relativists, and to give up any sort of claim about the objective truth of Christianity. And to that we can simply say, I'm sorry, we're not going to do that. We don't mean to be offensive or demeaning to him, but on the other hand we do believe that there are not many paths to God, that there is an objective reality about the way God is and what he has done in revealing himself in Jesus of Nazareth. So we disagree with him when he says “each person is free to find his or her own way; to Christians I would say practice your religion as you wish, there's no need to try and influence others.” That's simply inaccurate if by that he means to express a kind of religious relativism. [4] A part of our religious faith is the responsibility to share the good new of the Gospel with others.

Kevin Harris: Some go so far as to say, '”'m proselytizing you that you shouldn't proselytize.” You know: “I'm giving my firm opinion that you shouldn’t be so adamant in your opinion. I'm adamantly giving you my opinion that you shouldn't be so adamant in your opinion.” [laughter]

Dr. Craig: That's so ironic – isn't it, Kevin? – I mean, here he's accusing Christians of being outright intolerant toward his beliefs and views and he doesn't seem to appreciate that he's being equally intolerant toward Christian beliefs that God does exist, has revealed himself decisively in Christ, and that we're entrusted with the message of the Gospel to share with all people. He won't tolerate that. So this whole religious toleration thing, I think, it just is drastically misunderstood in our culture. The basis, as I say, to repeat, of tolerance is not relativism. The correct basis of tolerance is love. The recognition that every person is created in the image of God and therefore endowed with certain God-given rights, including freedom of belief and freedom of conscience. And we respect those rights when we allow people to practice their beliefs as they feel free to, but also to disagree with them politely and respectfully and to share and defend our own beliefs. This is the same sort of attitude of those who said to William Carry, when he wanted to carry the message of the Gospel to India, “Don't go to India. If God wants to save the heathen he'll do it all by himself without any help from you, young man.” And they tried to stifle Carry's attempt to carry the Gospel to the whole world, and we must simply resist all such attempts to stifle the proclamation of the Gospel. Christianity is a missionary religion. It is a religion which is entrusted with the commission to share this message with every person in the whole world, and any attempts to stifle or squelch this, whether in the name of religious relativism or tolerance, is to be rejected as not from God.

Kevin Harris: Okay, let's let you handle this one, Bill. This writer says,

There are about a million things I'd like to say to Christians but here's the first few that come to mind. Please respect my right to be the person I've chosen to become. Worship and pray and praise your God all you want, but please leave me and my laws and my city and my school alone. Stop trying to make me or my children worship your God. Why do we all have to be Christians? Respect my beliefs. I guarantee they're every bit as strong as yours. Mostly, please respect my free will. Let me choose if I want to marry someone of my own sex. Let me choose if I want to have an abortion or not. Let me choose to go to Hell if that's where you believe I'm going. I can honestly say that I'd rather go to Hell than live the hypocritical life I see so many Christians living.

--D.B from Seattle.

Dr. Craig: We certainly agree that he has the freedom to practice his religion, worship as he wants or to refrain from doing so. But this, again, is an attempt to stifle Christians carrying out their beliefs in the public square. For example, choosing to have an abortion or not is not, I think, just a matter of individual conscience because there's another person involved. There's that unborn infant who has human rights as well. So to say, let me choose if I want to have an abortion or not: can you imagine someone saying, let me choose if I want to rape or not; let me choose if I want to murder or not; let me choose if I want to abuse my child or not. Of course not; you're not allowed to have the liberty to injure or hurt or take the life of another innocent person. Similarly with respect to his saying, “Let me choose to marry someone of my own sex.” What he doesn't understand is that marriage is a public institution in the United States and therefore has important implications for public policy and for certain rights. At the EPS conference last November Frank Beckwith from Baylor University gave a remarkable paper on what would happen if same-sex marriage were legalized in the United States. And he shows on the basis of court precedents the way in which this would override the rights of persons who don't believe in same-sex marriage. Just to give one small example, in Massachusetts there was a case where a photographer declined to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony because, [5] he said, it was contrary to his religious beliefs and therefore this professional photographer choose not to do it. He was taken to court and the court fined him six thousand dollars because they said he was not recognizing the legitimacy of this same-sex union that was legitimized before the law. You see, this isn't just a private matter, this is now a matter of public policy, and those who disagree with it on the basis of conscience can actually have their rights overrun and taken away if they choose to disagree with this. So this is not just a private matter. These are important public issues on which Christians should not be silent.

Kevin Harris: And he says, “Leave my city and my school alone.” If you unpack that, Bill, it means, I want the school and the city and the laws to be my way and not your way, because my way is right and yours is wrong. It's like saying I want the dominate view to be a naturalistic secular humanism and that's the way it ought to be and it ought not to be your way, so quit imposing that on me.

Dr. Craig: Yeah, that's what I fear, too, Kevin. I feel like there's always a subtext beneath the text here that can be very dangerous. I thank God that we live in a country that has separation of church and state. We lived in Europe for thirteen years where there's often an established church, and I think it's just had a deadening effect upon religion. The establishment of a church just seems to be a stifling, deadening influence. And I think one of the reasons Christianity is so vibrant in the United States is because it is separated from state authority and it's not compulsed upon people by government. So we, I think, completely agree that there ought to be this kind of distinction between church and public institutions. But that doesn't mean that therefore they're allowed to teach some sort of naturalistic anti-theistic message which is, as you say, Kevin, I think, what is really being implied here.

Kevin Harris: If you want to lobby for, or promote, your view or defend your view of the way things ought to be, we have freedom of speech and the right to peaceful assembly. We can do all of those things here in American.

Dr. Craig: And we should do those things as good citizens.

Kevin Harris: Bill, here's the big pink elephant in the room, and that is, I hope that our friends who resist becoming a follower of Christ because of bad experiences that they've had will see through that themselves. If you had a relative or a friend or a neighbor, a church worker or something like that, that was abusive toward you then does that mean that therefore you discount the truth and message of Jesus Christ? I know you see where I'm going here, but I want to urge people not to – what? – use that as an excuse?

Dr. Craig: Right, and I think what you want to do is point people to Jesus. People will always disappoint you. Christians will never live up to the standard that they ought because we're broken people, too. But look to Jesus – his teaching and his life and his example – and I think he doesn't disappoint.

Kevin Harris: Thanks as always, Dr. Craig. I want to remind everyone that the new Reasonable Faith app is available now. Get it at our website community, ReasonableFaith.org, download it there for your iPhone, your iPad, and help us spread the word that it's now available. ReasonableFaith.org—we'll see you next time. [6]