Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Talk to About Sex, Politics and Religion Without ☠️ | Proverbs 18.13

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

Talking about spicy topics should be the spice of life, not the end of it. Having trouble bringing up a touchy topic? Get some tips on how to carry hard conversations from https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Pastors Keith Simon) and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/patrick-miller/ (Patrick Miller). Interested in more content like this? Scroll down for more resources and related episodes, including https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/how-to-resolve-covid-conflict/ (How to Resolve COVID Conflict). Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Are you afraid to talk about politics, sexuality, religion, the spicy topics in the world today? Do you want to be able to talk about it? On today's episode, we're going to give you some tips on how to have these kinds of difficult, impossible conversations. But before we hop in, let's just ask this question. Why is it so hard to talk about these things today, Keith?

Well, it used to be that you didn't talk about politics or religion because you didn't want to hurt people's feelings. They were too controversial. And I think some of that is still true. I do think people have become so sensitive that they're unable to handle argument. I don't mean like anger argument. I just mean disagreement. And then I think also we have this thing where we don't want to talk about politics, but that's almost impossible to do these days because everything has become. political. Everything. Whether kids should be in seat in their school or not in seat. Somehow that has

become a political issue. Masks. We were with some friends the other day and they were talking about how masks have become political. They can't just be something we're doing to help protect our health. They're now attached to an ideology of the right or the left. Can we stop and think about how bizarre that is, that I can guess what someone's perspective is on masks based on their politics? What you would expect is that some Republicans think that masks are great and others think it's terrible and that some Democrats would think that masks are great and others would think that it's terrible. But no, it's become a political issue. So you can guess, based on whether someone's on the right or the left, what their perspective is. What pronouns they want to be called is an indication of where they are politically.

So politics is creeping into every area of our lives so that if we're not going to talk about anything to do with politics, we're just going to end up having the same students. conversation. Sports, weather, little league. Yeah, you talk about your kid's sports. Well, we went here for this tournament or that tournament. I can't talk about it anymore. But another thing I can't talk about it anymore, we went out with some friends last night,

and I'm so thankful we didn't talk about it. And that was COVID. Oh, amen. I mean, I'm so tired of talking about COVID. So part of what we want to discuss today on today's episode is how to have conversations about real substantive matters, conversations with your friends, conversation with people you like,

but talk about issues that you may agree on, disagree on, but at least you're talking about substance of stuff. I think another reason why people are afraid to talk about these topics is because we've reached this point culturally where we think that proselytization or evangelism, trying to change someone's mind. We now think that that's immoral. In fact, almost half of millennials think that it is immoral to try to change someone's view about Jesus. To me, that is insane. If changing someone's view about Jesus is the difference between eternal life with him and not, well, gosh, what could be more loving than trying to convince them? But I think that that expands well outside of religious circles. I think a lot of people think it's immoral or unkind or uncouth to try to change someone's political perspective, which really matters when everything is political.

I love this quote by Thomas Jefferson. He wrote in 1800. He said, I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, and philosophy as, cause for withdrawing from a friend. So if we could only be around people who are like us and agree with us, then it's going to be hard to talk about controversial topics because what we're thinking in our head is, I might lose a friend here. But if we had Thomas Jefferson's approach, then I can be friends with people who come

to different conclusions about all kinds of things. I think our life would be more interesting. We'd be less tribal. We'd be smarter because we'd always be getting feedback and giving feedback. sometimes to other people, our views would mature and improve. There are so many advantages that come to us personally and to society as a whole if we had this idea that we can be friends with people who have different faiths, different philosophies, different politics than we do. That is a radical idea today that you could be friends with someone who disagrees with you

on politics. Think about Ellen DeGeneres, who has gotten roasted time and again for having friends who aren't all progressive liberals, her relationship with George W. Bush has come under fire multiple times. I look at that and I say, that's the way the world should be. We should have a world where Ellen DeGeneres and George Bush go to sporting games together and have a great friendship, even though they disagree on a huge amount of things. I think one reason why we've begun to say that it's almost a sin to be friends with someone on the other side is because we all live in our little echo chambers. And COVID's made this worse. When you spend more time at home and on the internet, only reading people who agree with you and those people paint those who disagree with

you in the worst light possible, you will actually begin to think that that's correct because you don't know anybody who disagrees with you. If you don't have any friends on the other side of the political aisle, it is so easy to believe that those people are nefarious monsters out to destroy the world. It only takes a single friend to convince you and show you that that's not the case that people on the other side of the aisle are probably pretty normal, decent people just like you. Just because someone has a different view of you doesn't mean they are a bad person. And to go back to the Jefferson quote for just a second about having friends with different politics, religion, philosophy, et cetera, just go to your deathbed. The person that is there with you,

caring for you, holding your hand, praying for you, do you care who they voted for? No, no, you could care less. And so since you're not going to care then, then why can't you have friends now who have a variety of views that are similar or different than you? Padre, have you ever heard the phrase, You can be right or you can be married. I haven't. You haven't? I love that one.

You can be right or you can be married. It makes perfect sense. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to be the kind of person who always has to be right, always has to convince everybody that you're right, it's going to be hard to be married because being married is a sense of compromising and learning from one another and be willing to admit you're wrong or you have a lot to learn still or you might be wrong. well, we can say the same thing but replace it with friends. You can be right or you can have friends. Nobody wants to be a friend of the person who always has to be right. If you are humble and have an approach like, I got a lot to learn, you're a much better friend. So maybe you're like Keith and I, and you want to have these conversations with people. You want to be able to have them and you want to have them in a healthy way that maybe your mind changes, maybe someone else's mind changes, or maybe you both just come to a greater understanding.

If that's the case, we've got some tips that a lot of them are actually coming out of the Proverbs that will help you have these kinds of conversations. Now, I will say this. There's a great book called How to Have Impossible Conversations by James Lindsay and Peter Burgosian. Is that how he says a lesson? Well, I was waiting to hear how you pronounce that. I think it's Peter Bergozian. I just called Peter B in my mind. And we've referenced some of their books in the past. Now, here's the deal. I just want to say this. They are adamant atheists, and they wrote this book to train people how to deconvert Christians. They did? That was the genesis of the book. Uh-huh. That's where that book came from. Gosh, I love the book, and they didn't convince me at all.

I mean, the more I read their stuff, the more I thought, I'm pretty comfortable. They take on so many straw men of Christianity in the book. So I'm saying that if you're someone who is impressionable, maybe not the book for you. But if you just want to learn about how to have good conversations on hard topics, it's a pretty good book. But they live what they preach in this book. So they reference in the book this Peter, Bogosian is friends with Phil Vischer. He's the guy who created Veggie Tales and does a podcast on their stuff, a strong Christian, a committed Christian. And so here, Peter Bogosian is a hardcore atheist studied under Daniel Dennett, I believe. And he's good friends with this very committed, smart, winsome evangelical Christian, Phil Visher. So I like that they practice what they preach, even if they don't believe the same thing I do. Who cares? I'm going to get James Lindsay on this

podcast. If you do that, that'd be impressive. But the Peter Bogosi got pretty sharp, too. He is. I take either one. I'll take either one out of there. Okay, so let's talk about tips. I doubt you can pull either off. I'll tell you what. I'll take you and Emily to dinner if you pull either one of those off. All right, you guys heard it here first. Maybe we could record a dinner for a podcast. No, that'd be a bad idea. I'd say something dumb. Okay, let's go. How to have impossible conversations. Here's the very first and most important thing you can do, and Keith already alluded to this, you have to start by remembering your goal. Your goal is to build relationship, to make a friendship, not to win an argument. Or even to think about a difficult topic from a different

perspective, to learn to grow intellectually. So it may not just be to be friends. It might be to, in the context of this friendship, let's think hard about this topic. Immigration, drug reform, same-sex marriage, tax policy, conspiracy theories, whatever. That's great. And if you If you take a humble attitude, which I think is a Christ-like attitude, into the conversation, you will learn something if you're talking to someone who disagrees with you. Let's talk about a second tip, which is check your anger. It is really easy because these topics are sensitive and because for a lot of people, they are deeply attached to their sense of self.

It's how they identify themselves to make them become angry or you yourself to become angry. Proverbs 2111 says this. Fools give full vent to their rage. but the wise bring calm in the end. I love that because I kind of want to give vent to my rage on a consistent basis, but this is saying that's a foolish thing to do. The wise know how to have a calm conversation. We can talk about sensitive conversations without getting heated.

One other thing, brain studies actually show that anger shuts down your ability to think well. So if you get angry or the person you're talking to gets angry, you've already jumped the shark. It's too late. You're not saying sensible things. One more. is not proportional to correctness. These days, it seems like whoever yells the loudest gets to be the most correct, and we have to fight that in these conversations. If someone starts getting upset, might be time to change the conversation. Or if you start getting upset, it might be time for you

to start changing the topic. If you want to have a great conversation and maybe even influence another person, you have to start by listening, which is a little counterintuitive because I think all of us are quick to go into lecture mode with the idea that if I could just tell you all my great wisdom. I'm sure you would be impressed and change your mind and believe like I do. But that's not the place to start. The place to start is to close your mouth and open your ears and listen to the other person, to ask questions of that person, to really get to a point where you understand what they believe and why they believe it so that you can state back to them what they believe in a way they go, yep, that's me. And if you're going to influence someone, if you're going to enjoy a conversation,

You have to be willing to not straw man them, not create the worst possible version of their argument, but the best version. And when you do that, they will feel respected. Just like when somebody strawmands you takes your argument and constructs kind of the poorest version of it and then tears it down, you don't have any respect for that person. You don't want to keep engaging. But if they really hear you, you're like, okay, this is going to be a good conversation. I'm willing to participate.

And my guess is that if you ask enough questions to accurately articulate someone else's view, you'll probably have your own mind changed in some fashion. If you're sitting there for you in the best possible light, there will be things that you have to grant. They have to say, you know what, that's a good point. I need to think more about that. And not being absolutely certain about absolutely everything, especially when you cannot possibly be an expert in everything,

is a great way to have healthy conversations. If you need a verse that you can keep in mind as you're going into these conversations, it might be Proverbs 1813. To answer before listening, that is folly and shame. If I follow that verse in all of my life, I think I would be a better husband, a better friend, and certainly a better dialogue partner. Okay, so here's another tip. Act in a mature way, and the other person will probably imitate it. So you could think of it this way. Model the behavior that you hope. the other person demonstrates or treat them like you hope they'll treat you if you want to get all Jesusy for a moment. So if you want to be listened to, listen to them. If you want them to remain

calm, you remain calm. If you want them to be willing to admit, you know, I don't know. Then you should be the kind of person who says, yeah, I don't know. I'll have to think about that more or look it up or do some research. If you want them to answer your questions, then answer their questions. So modeling the behavior that you hope they demonstrate will go a long way to allowing you to set an environment that promotes healthy dialogue and getting at truth. Make it a partnership. We're not adversarial here. We're partners in trying to learn and grow and seek the truth. An adversary is trying to win. don't be an adversary. Another tip is to appeal to shared values. If you're trying to convince someone of a particular perspective, you need to think about where do we have common ground? So maybe you're talking

to someone who is very interested in justice. They really, really deeply care about justice. Well, you share that same value. I want what's just as well. And so you can use that shared value of justice to be a raft that you float difficult ideas on. So maybe your conception of justice is, you know what, we should treat people equally and fairly regardless of their identity. Maybe that person says, no, we need to pick winners and losers based on their identity. Well, you could use the shared raft of justice to make a point to say, well, in my opinion, I think you really care about justice as well. I think that justice should be blind. That justice doesn't pick winners or losers because where does it end? Do you have to discriminate eventually against the people that

you previously discriminated against? Don't we want policies and decisions that give equal opportunities to all people? Now, they might not agree with you, but you began in a place you agree. We both want justice. I think some point in the conversation, it's okay for you to begin to plant a seed of doubt in how certain the other person is in their view. And you can often do that by simply asking questions. Because when you start asking questions, then people have to explain. And the more they have to explain, their opinion, the more likely they are to realize that there are some holes in their own opinion. So how about this? Can you define what you mean by the gender pay gap? And what factors would we need to take into account to determine if there is a gender pay gap? How do you know abortion is a murderer?

Do you have any data that shows that illegal immigrants account for higher proportions of crime? the more you can get people to have to explain their views and how they came to them, the more they are going to see, you know what, I don't think I probably have as good a grasp on this material as I thought I did. We all tend to speak a lot more confidently about our beliefs than we should. There was a funny study that was done where they asked people to describe how a toilet works. And the respondents gave their answers with a great deal of confidence. They really thought they understood the basics of how a toilet worked. But when they showed the answers to actual plumbers, the plumbers began to laugh.

They said, no, this isn't how toilets work at all. And I find in these conversations, that's often what happens, both myself and others. We will speak with much more confidence than we ought to have. And so what Keith is trying to do is cause the unread library effect. He's trying to help the other person see, maybe I don't know everything. I had this happen recently. I was having a conversation with an atheist. And the atheist was making a lot of claims about how Christians don't believe based on evidence,

and there's no good evidence for anything that Christians believe. And I just started asking him questions. I said, well, have you read Richard Bacombs, Jesus and the eyewitnesses? Have you read any comprehensive studies of how we know that the Gospels probably are eyewitness testimonies? And he kind of said, no, I haven't done that. So, well, have you read Resurrection and Son of God by N.T. Wright? I mean, this is secular scholar. I say it's one of the best works on the historicity of the resurrection.

I've read it. No. What have you read on that? How have you come to this conclusion that the resurrection didn't happen? Well, I just, when people tell me it's based on feelings and beliefs. I said, well, that's fine that that's what's happened, but you haven't really researched the topic at hand. And you don't have to, but don't pretend like you have. I think that takes us to another tip, trying to figure out why people believe what they do. Is it based on evidence? Is it based on religion? Is it based on experience and anecdotes? Is it based on how they feel about the topic? Why do people hold the position that they do? If you understand why they believe what they believe, you can tailor your arguments to them personally and try to address the issues that have formed

their belief structure. So it's an okay question to ask. Do you have any evidence of the point that you're making. Now, they might have great evidence to offer, and you might learn something in the conversation, or they might not have evidence. Or you might say, you know what, we'll pick this up later. We're both going to go do some more research and have a more informed conversation, because as it turns out, we're both not experts on the topic at hand. But maybe what you'll discover is they say, yeah, this isn't rooted in evidence. This is rooted in my feelings. I had this happen in a very kind of ordinary way. We were having a debate amongst our team here about something that we do on the internet. But one group said, hey, we really don't want to do this thing. And I said, that's fine,

but the evidence shows that doing that thing makes no difference. Doing the thing you don't want to do. And I said, so why don't you want to do that thing? And they say, well, we just don't like that thing. That thing just doesn't feel right. And I said, but there's no evidence to make the point. There's no evidence to prove that it's any difference doing that one little thing. So why does it matter so much? And once we talked, I began to realize this isn't about evidence. This is about our feelings about the issue. And that helped me change the conversation to say, okay, so we're talking about our feelings on this. So let's talk through that as a secondary thing. Or a lot of times what you find is that me, you, all of us, we hold tightly to beliefs, not so much because

there's evidence, but because we have decided in our mind that's what a good person believes, or that's what our tribe believes. And when you realize that identity is at stake, you begin to see why people get so angry when they start to lose an argument because they can't lose that argument. They can't change their mind because if they do, their friends will change or they'll be looked down on by their tribe or their identity will be undermined. So there's more to it than just this belief. It is a more personal issue. Especially this day and age where breaking with the party line never wins you friends. Because if you're on the last, and you break with the party line on an issue, no one on the right's going to welcome you.

And everyone on the left is going to demonize you. And so there's a high cost to admitting maybe I have the wrong perspective on this issue. I think beyond that, and Jonathan Haidt talks about this in his book, The Righteous Mind, we've mentioned it multiple times. Our minds are hardwired to go along with the tribe. It's way easier to not think about something and to believe what you see everybody else believing than it is to actually think through it, especially like Keith said, if it's going to cost you social capital. So there are so many things that go into a conversation. And once you get into that issue, that changes the conversation. We can say, hey, we're not talking about the evidence on this issue. We're talking about how your friends,

your family, or others might respond if he took on this new perspective. Now, let's just take an example for a second. Let's take immigration, immigration reform. It could be gun control. Now, how many of us have really good data that we have used to determine our position on immigration or gun control. And my guess is not much. We've gotten our information from our tribe. It could be our media tribe. It could be our political tribe. It could be our church or religious tribe. And every tribe has its own experts. So we came to the conclusion that gun control was good or bad, immigration, good or bad, and then we look for evidence to support it. So we come to our decision and then look for evidence to confirm what we already believe. I think

a lot of us are under the illusion that we've come to our beliefs through a study of the evidence. And that's just not true. It's definitely not true of me. No, we come to our beliefs and then cherry pick the best evidence that supports our beliefs and ignore all the counterfactuals. So pulling back the camera to having these difficult conversations, it's good for you to admit when this is the case in a conversation because you know what that will do? It's going to help the other person admit when that's the case. It's good to help someone see that maybe that's why they believe what they believe, that it's not rooted in evidence. These are helpful things to do in these kinds of conversations. How about another tip. In the book, how to have impossible conversations,

they talk about how you can use a scale from one to ten or one. Have you ever actually done this? I've done it a little bit, but not much. It hasn't always landed well for me, but let's like, well, okay, so that could be fun. Here's kind of the picture. But I really like it. The picture they lay out is that you can use a scale to help identify how strongly a person believes something or even to maybe begin to get them to question why they believe it. So let's start with that. Let's say you ask a person, how confident are you in your position on a scale of 1 to 10, one being the least confident and 10 being the most confident? And let's say they choose an 8. You could say, well, why didn't you choose a 10? Why didn't you choose a higher number?

And what you're doing is getting them to share with you why they lack confidence in their own belief. You're getting them to argue against themselves. I have to say, that's genius. It's Jedi mind tricks stuff. That's genius. Because if they say a eight or a seven or whatever, you could always go, well, huh, I wonder why you didn't say a 10. If you can get the person to do the work for you and to argue against their position. So when I did this, the person doubled down.

Would they increase their number? Yeah. Oh, I'm not a seven. I'm a 10. That's what happened. I go, so why didn't you say Ted? They go, well, I don't know. I mean, I guess I'm a 10.

So what would you do in that circumstance, Keith? Well, I think that if you say you're a 10 on something, you're probably revealing that your identity is at stake. Because you really don't know. I mean, you can ask me, hey. So you can ask the opposite question of how is it that you are so absolutely, certain on this issue. Well, let's say you ask me, how certain are you that Christianity is true that Jesus rose from the dead? I wouldn't say a 10. Now, I'm the kind of person just temperamentally, and I don't say a 10 on anything. I'm not a 10 on anything at all. You're not a 10 on your

own birthday. I'm not a 10 on much. So if somebody says a 10, you probably are talking to somebody who's rooted their position in their identity, and that probably tells you that we need to stop talking about the issue and start talking about why they believe it and what it is about that issue that makes them feel like they're a good person for believing it, or if they change their mind, they'd be a bad person. And if someone comes out, and let's say they say eight or nine or a really high number, that doesn't always mean that it's wrapped up with their identity. It might actually be an issue that they've spent a lot of time researching and thinking. So someone asked me about the resurrection, I would probably give it an eight or a nine.

But part of that's because I've read more books than I can count on the resurrection. I've spent a lot of time thinking really, really hard about it. Now, if you asked me, Patrick, how confident are you about your views on immigration? To be honest, I'm going to go down to like a three or a two. I just don't know that much about it. I have an opinion. I have an opinion. But it's probably not based on a lot of it.

I can tell you some things that the Bible says about immigration and maybe make that sound like the left or the rights policies if I wanted to you. But the honest truth is... So along those lines, what if you ask somebody, what would it take you to do? change your mind. That is also a revealing question because if they can answer it, then that helps you go, okay, let me go do some research or let me tell you some things I've learned that address the specific thing that you said would cause you to change your mind. But a lot of times what you find out is that people can't change their mind. They won't change their mind. There's nothing they can

tell you that would cause them to change their mind. And if that's the case, well, that is also revealing. I would love to be in a conversation group of diverse people, diverse religions, diverse politics, all of that. And you could bring up topics and you could start with that question. You just let people put themselves on a one to attend and explain why they're at, where they're at, and then have a dialogue about the various reasons that come up. Because, again, as we're making the point here, sometimes it's rooted in evidence, sometimes it's rooted in identity. Sometimes it's rooted in our ethics, our values. Someone says, Patrick, are you certain that abortion is wrong, well, I'm going to give it a nine for the basic reason that part of my

value system is that all lives have dignity and that I don't get to make the call on when a life is a life. Now, that's not rooted in evidence. I cannot give you a scientific experiment to show you this is when the human life starts. I'm very willing to admit that, but I have ethical principles that are shaping my ideas. So we shouldn't have a conversation about the biology of where life starts. We need to have a conversation about ethics if you want to convince me at least to change my perspective on abortion. Yeah, that's the situation. you described of people making truth claims, saying how confident they are, and revealing how they got there, and what it would take to change their mind, is so far away from Twitter

or Facebook arguments or political arguments you see even in presidential debates or on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Those are emotionally fueled, anger fueled, and they're the kind of things that cause us to not want to bring up substantive conversations and instead hide behind. what's your take on COVID? How's Johnny's Little League season going? What's the weather say? Checked out the latest design blog. I mean, these are the things we get focused on.

So there's a way here. There's a way that we've tried to lay out, based on some of the reading we've done, that says we can have more interesting lives, we can have more mature thinking, we can have a wider variety of friends. It will be good for us. It will be a better life.

The Bible paints a picture of a better life in a diverse community who's growing and learning together, will you take that step? Will you take some of these principles? Maybe pick up that book. Take some of these principles and start to incorporate them in your friendships

and just say to people, let's talk about more substantive things. This week at our dinner, at our small group, at our hangout, whatever you call it, let's spend a little bit of time talking about and then you pick the issue, the hot button issue of the day that you're interested in.

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