The Sean McDowell Show - An Ex-Hindu Comes to Christ...and What it Cost Him

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Nijay Gupta was a confused, superstitious Hindu and he abandoned his family religion to become a Christian. Since then he's found his place in the world. He has written several academic books including on the New Testament. Why did he abandon the religion of his family? Why does he believe Jesus is the only way? In this video, I interview Nijay about his story and more. Please join us and consider sharing with a friend. READ: Strange Religion, by Nijay Gupta (https://amzn.to/428tu3k) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Why would a former Hindu abandon the faith of his family and become a follower of Jesus? Hinduism isn't just a religion to Indians. It's just pervasive in culture. Our guest today, Meejay Gupta, is a New Testament scholar and an author from Northern Seminary. And this is where I first heard kind of a true and true gospel message. Christ met me that December and I found my place. First time on the show. I've been looking forward to this a while. Thanks for coming on. We're going to unpack your story and have some fun doing it. Thanks, Sean. So good to be with you. Well, let's go back to the beginning. Tell us about your family growing up. Yeah. My parents came from India in the early 70s.

They had certain reasons for leaving India and wanting to kind of carve out a better life in the United States. My dad's a physician. My mom works in the medical field as well. And my oldest brother was born in India, but I was born in the United States. My family eventually landed in north central Ohio. Go Buckeyes. And I was born and raised in a Hindu household. Now, something that many people don't understand is Hinduism isn't just a religion to Indians, to most Indians. It's just pervasive in culture, in many ways, like Christmas is in America.

So just like people celebrate Christmas, they're not necessarily Christian or they're not devout, let's say. There are a lot of Indian families that are Hindu or that would put on some kind of census or document that they're Hindu and they don't necessarily go to the temple all the time or they don't necessarily say prayers all the time. I would put my family in that general nominal, maybe nominal plus category. My mom, I remember from growing up, would have a kind of prayer, a prayer shrine. It was actually in my room just because I had a space for it in my room. And she would have pictures of different Indian gods and maybe some ancestors of ours. And she'd have maybe some food offerings, some incense, some Hindu symbols, and she'd stand in front of it

and she'd say prayers in Hindi. I don't speak Hindi. I'm sad to confess. So I didn't know what she was saying. I could actually maybe be able to recite it to you from my childhood, but I don't know what she was saying. I could actually maybe be able to recite it to you from my childhood, but I don't actually know what it means. But she would say these prayers and then she'd walk around and she would waft the incense into our faces as a sign of blessing. I have two brothers, two older brothers. My dad, so I'd say my mom has been kind of on and

off devout sort of in different phases of her life and probably a little more devout when I was young. My dad, I would say, he's kind of cosmopolitan. If you sat down with him and you asked what religion he is, he would talk about his Indian heritage. He'd talk about Hinduism. But if you said, what do you think about Jesus? He loves Jesus. He reads the Bible. I mean, he, I remember growing up his doctor's office, the office within the office, he would have a Bible on his desk, and he'd read from Proverbs every now and again. But I would say in terms of his belief system, I mean, I don't know.

I would say he would be kind of a mix of all religions. He would say, I like Christianity. I like Hinduism. I want everybody to get along, that sort of thing. So I grew up kind of confused, to be honest. I don't know if you want to get specifically to my story, but I would say before I became a Christian when I was 16, I'm trying to reach back to those days. I probably had a superstitious religion. Okay. Okay.

I'm going to tell you a thing, Sean, I've never told anybody before, except probably my wife. All right, here we go. I remember as a young person, maybe middle school, elementary school, I was afraid of evil spirits. I think I was afraid of the dark a little bit even as an older older child and i'd have that thing where i jumped from after i turned off the light in my room i jumped from the doorway to my bed like the boogeyman was gonna get me i don't know i need therapy but uh i i would say i adopted from culture from my you know from the little bits of Hinduism I got, maybe a sense that there is something spiritual out there. My parents never sat down and taught me the Hindu faith. We went to religious events sometimes. I would participate in them as a young person because i i didn't have any reason not to um i would uh i would oblige my mother when she would want to bless me with hindu prayers

um and if you asked me before i became a christian if i was a hindu i would say yes but in a sort of family connection sort of way okay i'd say yeah that would be sort of the category I fall under. But if you asked me what my actual beliefs were about Hinduism, I couldn't really articulate it because I was never directly taught it. Interesting. So I don't think you need therapy because you had concern about spirits. I remember as a kid having dreams of scary things under my bed. I remember I grew up in the mountains

and sometimes the lights would go out because we'd lose power and there'd be storms. And I'd think I'd see something outside. But my response was growing up in a Christian home, pray the name of Jesus. And even as a kid, that gave me some comfort. How did you respond to that? Do you think some of that concern came from your awareness of being Hindu or did that did you respond to that? Do you think some of that concern came from your awareness of being Hindu or did that bring you comfort at that time in light of the spirits? I'm going to say I didn't have much of a religious imagination to have comfort or discomfort. I will say a big part of my story is I struggled in my pre-Christian life with finding my place in the world, um, socially, but also existentially.

Um, I'm not going to say that I, you know, would have been diagnosed with depression, but I was a very sad child and I just didn't feel like I belonged in the world. Um, my parents loved me and I want to just say like I belonged in the world. My parents loved me. And I want to just say I don't represent Hindus. I know they're probably Hindus listening saying, oh, he's butchering our religion. I don't represent Hindus. I don't have a thinking Hindu background. I don't have an educated Hindu background.

That's fair. I do think there are a lot of Asian Americans, Indian Americans like myself who grew up United States, who absorbed a Hindu heritage, but were never taught it, to be honest, and really didn't have a religious infrastructure. And I do think there are a lot of people like me out there. You describe your parents emigrating in the 70s. Do you know how far back your Hindu heritage goes? Great grandparents, great grandparents. Do you have any idea how deep that is? My son, who's 14, almost 15,

likes to remind people that we're part of the Gupta dynasty. Which means you're talking potentially thousands of years. So yeah, I would say maybe my family started it. I don't even know. I mean, in India, my family goes back many, many, many, many generations. So I mean, it's deep seated into our background. And so we're going to get into this later, but coming with a conversion to Christianity comes a distancing from my heritage, and that was something I didn't realize I'd have to reckon with. Yeah, we'll definitely get to that. So as far as you're aware, are you the first Christian in the line of Guptas in your immediate family or beyond right no because the

reason I came to faith is because my older brother the middle brother Neil okay came a Christian through in college he's my older brother in college became a Christian through some friends and then he brought then he helped to bring me to the Lord. We could talk about that later. But before my brother, who's four years older than me, he probably became a Christian in 1994, and I became a Christian in 1995. So I mean, we're pretty close.

That makes sense. Yeah, we'll come back to that story, which helps. Now, you described your childhood as being just almost kind of depressing and sad. How much of that, like, what do you think are some of the factors that not belonging? Was it personality? Was it being Hindu? Was it being from India? What are the factors that made you feel like an outsider? yeah i mean so much i think partly is the experience of um being being a being a child of immigrants uh who um in that space you're not you're not fully indian you're not fully american you know what i mean um one of the things i like to tell people is i've almost i don't it's a little embarrassing i've never read an American classic novel before I a Western classic novel I'm trying to think probably not

and I didn't grow up with any American classic novels in my house my parents have never read a Western classic novel Shakespeare and all of that I've probably read Shakespeare but about growing up I never did and so there are just some things that made me an ill fit, but also like growing up in an Indian household, you're expected to be really good at math and science. Full disclosure. I was the kid in musicals and choir. I did not, I did not fit the profile. You're supposed to be good at tennis or badminton is a good, or cricket if you can, if you haven't. And I didn't fit the profile of the athlete. I was expected to go to an Ivy league school school I didn't go to an ivy league school um I I struggled in in grade school honestly and um I have an unlikely story becoming an academic

I think um but uh there are a lot of reasons you know being a brown kid in a white rural town in the heartland made it very lonely. I was one of the only non-white people in my school. Wow. Especially after my brother left for college. So I'd be called things sometimes or teased, you know, all of that. So you're dealing with that, you know, Indian family in a white, you know, in a white town. My dad had to deal with stuff as a local physician. I mean, all kinds of stuff. And then there's just stuff in my own head about what are people saying

about me? I have a weird name, you know, little things like that. When you're naming your children, you just, you don't always think about what people are going to say about their name. Fair enough. That makes sense. So 94, 95, that was in high school for you. I'm guessing 16, 17 years old, maybe. Before that time, did you have friends that were Christians?

Did you ever go to church? What was your perception of Christians kind of growing up if you had one? Yeah. I don't know if your listeners have ever been to Ohio, but there's like everybody's Christian. It's a very Christian state, I would say, especially in the rural parts. And so I had lots of people that would identify as Christian. If I had to sleep over at a friend's house every now and again, some of them who went to church would take me to church with them.

I would, you know, often they were high church kind of things or Catholic church. And it was just kind of boring. I sat in the back and we would like, you know, do spit wads or paper airplanes or whatever, whatever a young teenager does in those days. I would say other things like lock-ins or pick up basketball at the church would be kind of secular things that met at a church where I wasn't kind of evangelized in those kinds of settings. I went to some of those things, didn't think much of it.

It's kind of like uh the YMCA you don't immediately think this is a Christian organization when you go sign up for you know swimming or something at the YMCA so I every now and again I would go to christiany things I think I was neutral I wasn't like this horrible and I wasn't like this is amazing I was like this is the this is just what people do that makes sense okay so let's let's shift to kind of your brother's story. Obviously, since that's so pivotal to you, tell us what happened first, and then I want to know how you processed it. First off, were you close with your brother? Did you guys have a good relationship at this time?

Yeah, yeah, it's my brother Neil, on and off. I mean, I looked up to him as my older brother, smart guy, good guy. But, you know, as brothers, you get into tensions every now and again. Sure. And he went off to college and probably when he went off to college, we weren't in contact a whole lot. I mean, he'd come home sometimes and we'd hang out a little bit. But I definitely looked up to him.

I definitely listened to him, especially in those phases when we were closer. His story is basically I'll give you short version he had a lot of Christian friends he wasn't Christian but he had a lot of Christian friends and he just had a lot of things in common with them in terms of just being good friends and liking the same music or sports or whatever it was. And he just got to do life with them. He kind of had an experience maybe over the summer back in my hometown of just doing life with them. And they would invite him to stuff and he would go. And he just kind of fell in love with the people of Jesus before he fell in love with the people of jesus before he fell in love with jesus and he got to know one

family a kind of uh family that um volunteered for the youth group of a church and he he really spent a lot of time at their house because everybody spent a lot of time at their house and he got to just see the inner work into this christian family and he just i remember my brother saying they just look they're just a different sort of people i remember my brother using the word glow they glow in the dark wow he just saw this they weren't perfect but he just saw this beauty and this energy and this love that comes from somewhere and he wanted to know where that comes from and and they that comes from somewhere, and he wanted to know where that comes from. And it comes from Jesus, right? And so he not only fell in love with the family, but then fell in love with Jesus,

and then fell in love with the daughter and married her. Oh, there's another part to the story. Okay, all right. Part to the story. So he became a Christian in college and just has a beautiful story. And then if we're pivoting to my story, he came home from- Hang on one second before it comes up. Where did he go to school? Miami University of Ohio.

My parents, they didn't want us to go to a Christian college because they didn't know what Christian colleges were. And they thought, when they think of a Christian college, i think they were thinking christian college were training you for ministry um like a wheaton college or whatever they would think sure i think in their minds they're thinking if you went to a christian college you're gonna go into ministry and they didn't want that for us so my brother went to a really good state-funded school in ohio and has had a good campus ministry program through campus crusade for Christ. Uh, and, um, I ended up going there as well, but, but yeah, that's, then he got involved with crusade after he, after he became a Christian. Okay. So this is pre social media. This is pre texting, obviously, you know, mid nineties or so.

So it's not like you're tracking the story did he come back and was like hey i'm a christian you're just like oh my goodness complete world change or take us through how this how he broke it to and what your response was um no i mean he's not that he at that time he wasn't that kind of person to be that straightforward but you know he check in with after became a christian i don't know if i knew the story, honestly, until later. But he came home and I knew he was hanging out with Christians. And he just said, hey, you know, how's it going? And at that time in my life, I had struggled to find good friendships because a lot of my friends that I had from middle school going into high school had gotten into partying and drinking. And just as an upstanding

Indian, I would be in so much trouble if my parents ever found out I was at a party with drugs and alcohol and other things. So I had trouble finding friends that we could have clean fun with. And I think my brother knew that. He sensed that. He knew I was looking for my people. And so I remember him just coming home one weekend from college during the year and saying, you know, hey, you know, come to church with me. Because he fell in love with this particular church in my hometown. Okay. And where that youth group family was. And I was like, no, no, no, no, I don't want to do that.

Like, it's so weird and awkward. And I'd never been to a big, no. I don't want to do that. Like, it's so weird and awkward. And I'd never been to a big church before. I'd only been to smaller churches. And it was a bigger church that has more of a seeker-friendly vibe. This is the raw 90s, Sean. I got the context. Seeker-friendly vibe. And he said, no, you'll love it.

There'll be lots of people your age. They have a really amazing youth group, which ended up being very true. He said, just come sit in the back and see what you think. Go to youth group, which met Sunday mornings and later in the evening. And so I did mostly on his recommendation. Now I didn't realize he would take me to church and he'd leave me because he had a different group that he went to for college um but immediately i went to youth group and i saw all these people i knew from school that were in classes with me that were in choir or musicals or you know all these other things and i tell you sean they just welcomed me with open arms and I was their new best friend. It was just incredible. The amount of warmth, friendship, true, true love they had for me,

not knowing really who I was and immediately just said, Hey, we got this Bible study. You should come. And I didn't know anything about the Bible. I didn't know anything about Bible study. I didn't know what a Bible study was. All I knew was they had a Nintendo with Tecmo Bowl. They had a ping pong table and they had chicken wings and they had root beer. That was all I knew. And so I started going to this group and my life changed overnight. This group of people,

just, it was as if I'd known them my whole life, the level to which they, that we bonded together immediately. And that was really the beginning of it. So the skeptic in me goes, okay, Meejay, had this been a Mormon group or a Muslim group, and it's the first time you experienced that kind of love, do you think you would have been taken in by that, at least at that point in your life? I mean, maybe. I don't know. I mean, if it was, I mean, this is, you know, the particular city I'm in, that wouldn't happen.

But, you know, I'm going to say the people I knew, these were like, one of my physicians, the mayor went to the, you know, went to this church. You know, people that I knew, some of my teachers, right? So these weren't just loving people, they're people that were really respected people from the community. And uh and so i just knew that there are people i could i could listen to and trust uh there were a lot of parents of the kids i went to school with and i knew i could i could respect and trust them but but the love part it's it's the beginning i think of a lot of christians a lot of converts experiences it's it's saying you know uh this is for a lot of converse experiences. It's saying, you know,

this is for a lot of young people, I'm guessing, a lot of teenagers. I think that's where it begins, right? That's not, that can't be the foundation, but it's certainly where it begins. So you are drawn into, and I think it's interesting that both you and your brother just powerfully as community,

it was Christian love. It was people that you could trust. That was the draw that was in. When did you start to realize, oh my goodness, this involves Jesus dying for my sins. I am a sinner. I need to repent. Was that easy to accept or is there kind of a jarring moment of like, whoa, this is a big step. And how did you overcome it? I'll say for me, it was easy. So I think I started going to church in like September, October of when I was just turned 16. And I was kind of a pretend Christian, like they just welcomed me as one of their own. And knowing that I was going to get lots of sermons in me over the next,

you know, several weeks, they didn't ever call me a Christian, but in the Bible study, they weren't treating me differently than the other people there that were, had had more of a profession of faith. I just sat and listened. We were studying Romans.

I remember there were two of us in a, in a larger group that were very biblically illiterate. And I remember the Bible study leader, who was a 20-something, was talking about circumcision. And so Justin and I were like, what's circumcision? Now, we know what circumcision is, but we didn't think that's what the Bible was talking about. So we started drawing a diagram. We're like, Tom, stop drawing a diagram. We don't want to know. I remember just having that jarring feeling of, you know, what is this Bible thing all about? But I signed up for the, my brother bought me a Bible for Christmas. So

this is a couple months later. And I signed heard kind of a true and true gospel message. Um, and the message I'll, I've remembered it for the last, you know, several decades. Um, it was about unconditional acceptance in the family of God, uh, through Jesus Christ and his, and his, and his incarnation, uh, life, death, resurrection session, all of that. And this was a time where I felt like I had no place, right? I don't quite fit in in my family cause I'm not super smart. I don't quite fit in at school. I don't quite fit in the world. You know, I'm so glad social media didn't exist because that just would have compounded my stress. And here was this church and here was this Jesus saying,

hey, if no one else takes you, you got a place with me. And I always go back to Colossians, you've been hidden with Christ. He's transferred you into the kingdom of the beloved son. Sean, I felt that. I felt that right away. And since that day, it's never left me. This is my constant, right? This is my home. And it just clicked. I didn't have a lot of rational concerns about religion. It was really that Christ met me that December and I found my place. I just, it's like, it's like when a peg falls into place in a perfect hole, right? I was this peg bouncing around, right? And then the slot, it just fit perfectly with no extra space it was just the way it was did you ever have a flirt with atheism at all or your background in hinduism and spirits just always kind of knew there was something supernatural not atheism um but not because i'm an intelligent philosopher, but because I think because humans were, because I think I'd always believed, especially since I was a Christian, humans were never meant to be

alone. They're never meant to be by themselves, right? They always have this connection to another person. That person is God. But this idea that humans don't have purpose, not all atheists believe that, but this idea that humans don't have purpose and there isn't eternal meaning, that just never resonated with me. That never sat with me. As a young person, I honestly, I just didn't think about that.

But ever since I became a Christian, I was convinced of it. Were there any unique objections you had to overcome or even barriers given your background? And maybe, I know you describe yourself, you don't speak for all Hindus, and it was more cultural, even though your family practiced it in some fashion, where they're kind of unique barriers you had to come up against as a part of this journey. And how did you overcome them? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. a lot of Asians in your time, but the idea of rejecting something from your heritage is unthinkable, unthinkable, and so disrespectful in my upbringing and culture.

So when I told my parents I'm a Christian, they didn't care that much, to be honest. But when I told them I'm not Hindu, oh boy, that was a rough go. Now I was an immature teenager at the time, so I can't say I did my best, but I had a very poor understanding of hermeneutics, which is the philosophy interpreting the Bible. But I remember in Matthew, it said, a family will be divided two and three. And so I thought, oh, it's me and my brother against my family, the rest of my family. And so I kind of wrote my family off. And I just said, I don't care what they think. I don't care about reconciling with them. They were really hurt by my conversion because my dad wanted me to be a physician or a scientist of some kind or an engineer.

They want me to be well off because a lot of Indians coming from India, especially worried that their children aren't going to have enough money and stability to survive because that's the way it is in India for many people. Right. And so that's why many Asians aspire to have their kids become doctors, lawyers, business people, engineers, to have a stable living. And I, Sean, from day one, I wanted to be a pastor. Wow. From day one, I was like, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.

And I told my family that. I said, I'm going to go into ministry. And this was a hard message for them. They just thought I had deviated from the plan, disrespected them. In the Indian culture, if your parents tell you to become a nuclear physicist, that's what you do. If your parents tell you to become a cardiologist, that's what you do. And my dad really wanted me to be a surgeon like he is. And I really wanted to be in ministry. And I had visions of going to Moody Bible Institute. I've told that story to people before and to go into ministry or be a missionary. I was really

interested in Wycliffe Bible translators. So a lot of those conversations in high school created a lot of brokenness in my relationship with my parents. I was kind of a jerk, but also I had written them off. And I remember going to a conference, a youth conference, and the speaker said, how many of you want to be missionaries? We're like, yeah, we're going to do this for Jesus. And he said, your first missionary field is your family. Go call your family right now. And I had to go that day and call my mom and apologize to her and tell her I'd been a jerk. But you had said, what was hard? I think that situation with my family is hard.

We've reconciled since then. But also, the first time I visited India after I became a Christian was very difficult. Because I have hundreds and hundreds of Indian relatives in India. And they weren't mad, but it is unusual to have a Christian relative, especially like a very passionate Christian versus I married into a Catholic family or something like that. It could be a passionate Catholic family, but let's say you married into a nominal Catholic family. And so there are a lot of questions that came up. This was five, 10 years later, but there are a lot of questions that came up about what it means to be Christian. And I remember sitting around with a group of relatives in India, and these are aunts and uncles. These are people I highly respect. And they said, so are we going to hell?

Wow. I was like, oh my gosh. Wow. I don't remember what I said, but I did talk about the exclusive nature of Christianity. And this, I mean, how could that not be offensive, right? I've had that conversation with my parents. I've had that conversation with my brother in terms of how we talk about this with our family. We don't rain hellfire and brimstone down on our family, but

it's tough to be frank, Sean, with our family about what we believe. My brother and I try to approach it from a winsome way. We want to woo them to Jesus, not scare them into heaven. But I would say that if you're asking what part do I have the hardest time with in terms of becoming a Christian coming from a Hindu heritage, it's the exclusive nature of Christianity. I believe it and I know why I believe it. And I want Christianity for everybody. I want Jesus as Lord Messiah for everybody. But it's tough when these are your family members, these are aunties and uncles. And you think about the literally billion people in India, right? And Christianity is in India, but obviously the dominant religion is Hindu. And my brother and I have had to deal with things like what happens

when we get invited to participate in a Hindu wedding? How do we navigate that or to attend and be part of some of the rituals? Some of our experiences about that have changed over time, but it's tough. That part's really tough. So if presumably you were, I don't know, 18, 19 years old when you went back to India, first being a Christian, is that about right? Uh, it was when I got married. It was probably early, early, early, mid twenties. Early mid twenties. Okay. So now it's, you're double that age roughly. We'll just leave it at that. If you were back there now, what would you coach yourself to say when family members say oh my goodness so i'm going to hell how would you respond looking back

i i think a lot of it is the confidence that i have now in my faith um you know when you're young in your faith, you're still trying to figure it out and you're still trying to kind of prove your chops. So maybe you're a little more blunt than you should be, or you're a little more standoffish. At least that's the way I was. And when you're settled into it and this is like, this is who I am, this is what I love. Um, how would I approach it now? Um, I think I approach it in many ways, the way I approach, approach a postmodern, uh, approach that I take in, in Portland, Oregon, where I live now, which is not really focusing on heaven and hell. I do think those things have a place in a longer conversation. But ultimately,

when I talk to Hindus now, it's really about... I love using this stuff from Switchfoot, this is your life, are you who you're meant to be? Right? This is your life.us innately want to be good people and do good in the world every single hindu i've met is like that uh they they aren't as interested in lord liar lunatic stuff uh they're not as interested in proving you know that jesus walked on the earth 2 000 years ago they don't really have a hard time with that or that he died or that he rose again or that he lives in heaven they don't really have a hard time with that. Or that he died, or that he rose again, or that he lives in heaven. They don't have a hard time with that. But there's going to be a challenge with talking about the relationship between various

religious systems and whether other gods exist. But I find a very natural starting point is, what do you want? What do you think you are meant to do in this life and how do you know and uh you know hindus are very open to talking about jesus christ many of them respect and revere jesus christ and that ends up being a really winsome conversation when we get into the harder parts of um the differences between Christianity and Hinduism. I end up nowadays talking about sin. Okay. If people don't have an innate sense

that sin is a real problem, I'm not going to get very far in a conversation. What brought me to the Lord is this understanding that I am messed up. I am messed up? I am messed up. And if someone doesn't feel that way, they're going to have a hard time coming to Jesus. I personally think that.

I'll tell you a story that's really stuck with me. When I went off to college, one of my friends stayed in my hometown, one of my best friends. And I wanted to make sure he had a mentor. So I reached out to somebody and said, will you mentor so-and-so? And they said, yes. And then I came back to that mentor a month or two later. I said, did you start mentoring this person? They said, no. I said, why not? They said they didn't want to be mentored. And it's kind of like that. I think when I talk to people about the Christian faith, there's got to be an opening there for their understanding that something is really wrong with the world and with themselves. Yeah, that's my take. I think

that's how I'd try to approach it today. That makes total sense, that fair. And that matches my experience, not just with Hindus, but with human beings in general regardless of worldview now you said a minute ago you said i know something effective i know why i believe that jesus is the only way why do you believe that man sean you put me on the spot. Okay, full disclosure, I am Wesleyan holiness. So there is a spirit testimony part of that for me. Okay. Right?

The spirit witnesses to my spirit. So there's something within me existentially that says, like that peg fitting into a hole like this is it so there's an individual experience this is it and then there's the sort of objective experience is this it for everybody so um i i would say part of it is is this you know spirit testifying to my spirit part of it i would, is theologically. I don't know how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go, Sean, but I'm going to take you down the rabbit hole. Uh-oh. One of the latest things I'm writing is about love,

and it's Paul's theology of love. And I look at the world today and the world is devastated. I mean, the pandemic, politics, ecology, it's absolutely devastated. And everybody's looking for the answer, right? And everybody's looking for a solution and people are selling pills and all kinds of things all over the internet. Everyone's trying to sell a solution. And I am convinced because of what the Bible says, that love is the answer. And other people will think that too, right? Other groups think that,

Judaism thinks that, but love became embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. What theologians call cruciform love, love to to the fullest extent love to death on a cross self-sacrificial love and just as paul says um people will die for a good person right we'll give up our we'll give up our lives for a good person who's gonna who's gonna give up their lives for a good person. Who's going to give up their lives for their enemies? Who's going to love their enemies? This is a hard teaching, Sean. So when I look at why Christianity is the way, we live in a world of a thousand paths. Why is Christianity the way? It's who Jesus is as the embodiment of cruciform and resurrection power love that vivifies every human being if they follow and participate in the life of jesus christ by faith

amen that's a great answer i'm not sure what I expect you to say. I thought you'd go chapter and verse on me, but the story and theme behind it is beautiful as well. So you said earlier that right when you became a believer, you wanted to be a pastor, but you're a professor. That's right. Tell me how that took place. You know, you probably resonate with this, I think. You know, when you're in a youth ministry, you aspire to be a youth pastor, right? And then you get into college, and then you want to be a campus minister. And then, you know, in high school, I had the privilege of going on a few missions trips. One of them was to a Wycliffe Bible translators site in Guatemala. And I

absolutely fell in love with it. I love the Bible. I love missions. I have some health problems that are chronic that would prevent me from being able to do that kind of missions work. I went to college really vocationally unsure. I wanted to be in ministry, maybe campus ministry, maybe pastoral ministry. I ended up going to Gordon-Conwell because Robert Coleman was there. And if you're in Crusade, you absolutely must read the Master Plan of Evangelism, which is fantastic. And so I wanted to study with the man, Robert Coleman. I also want to study Greek. and Bill Mounce was there. And so I went to Gordon-Conwell and I thought I was going to be in ministry, church ministry or campus ministry.

But I had taken Greek in college. And so I tested out of Greek in seminary and then I was invited to be a TA. And Sean, I got bit by the bug. I just thought, I'll just do this for a little bit of money, a little bit of fun. And I just came alive. I just found that I had this passion for learning things and then passing them on to other people, specifically in a seminary environment. And now what I think that I do is actually I pastor pastors. I'm a New Testament scholar.

I teach at a seminary and I work with the doctoral ministry program, work with a master's program. But I don't just want to deliver information. I want to be a champion and cheerleader for the gospel, right? My seminary president when I was in seminary, his name's Walter Kaiser. You might know Walter Kaiser. Yeah, yeah. He used to say, he had this really iconic voice. He still does, but he has that kind of voice.

He'd say, God's sheep bite. That's what he would say. God's sheep bite. What he means by that is ministry is hard. And a lot of people go into seminary, they're not training to be pastors. They actually already are pastors. 99% of my students are already in ministry and they realized during ministry, they need more support and training. And they're coming to seminary discouraged, disillusioned, disenchanted with what's going on in the news, all the scandals, what I call ugly Christianity, deconstruction, spiritual abuse.

And my job is to inject them with gospel hope and power and wisdom. And so when people say, oh, Nija, you're not a pastor, I say, I'm not a capital P pastor. But I really see what I do as lowercase p pastoral ministry in the seminary context. That makes sense. I'm curious about the focus on Paul. And let me just throw a guess out there. I could be completely off base here, but I was speaking with a fellow who's a former Muslim. And I asked him, I said, what do you find the most compelling evidence for Christianity? He goes, oh, by far the conversion of Paul. I said, why? He goes, because of how much it would have cost him in his family to become a believer and accept Jesus. And I thought, I never thought about that because it didn't cost me that much

coming from a Christian family. Did that have anything to do with your focus on Paul? Ooh, good question. No, not, not, not, I would not say that because, um, I probably didn't put all those pieces together until later, uh, in my life, but I would say, you know, looking back, one of the reasons I'm so passionate about Paul is if you read Paul's letters, one of the reasons I love Paul's letters is he's not afraid to talk about real life, right? Paul talks about the very things that we talk about every day, family, friendship, death, grief, sickness, right? Broken relationships. His letters are full of real life stuff. I love it. I do a lot of work on Philippians. He was talking about Epaphroditus being sick and how

much it made him sick to think about Epaphroditus being sick. How real is that? Paul's letter to Philemon is about a broken relationship that Paul wants to see mended. How real is that? Right? The very things that we care about most eternally and in our day-to-day life are right there in Paul's letters. I hate when people say, oh, the Bible is irrelevant. You might not like it and that's okay, but it's not irrelevant. Right? I love

to use example of Hamilton the musical who would ever thought a musical about the founding fathers would be one of the most famous musicals of all time interesting because Lin-Manuel is a genius and he said let's make this about real life and real people and their real relationships and their real hopes and dreams that's exactly what the Bible's doing, right? That's what Paul's doing. He's talking about the very stuff that gives our life meaning. I'm going to probe a little bit here. Hopefully you're okay with this. So just share as much as you're comfortable. But you described as a kid, just struggling with things like depression and

just kind of a sad growing up. You also described becoming a Christian as really kind of a joyful, life-transforming experience for you being a part of the community. Is that something you continue to struggle with as a Christian? How do you so address it? Or did that just kind of go away when you became a believer? It definitely didn't go away. I would say I probably, I probably experienced the, the new Christian honeymoon. I'll say, I was gonna say, hi, maybe that's too salacious, but the new Christian honeymoon, I probably was,

I was probably flying high for a long time. And that means I didn't address certain deeper things emotionally that I should have. But just like anybody else, and I'm sure we're about the same age, your life will hit a midlife crisis, which I had probably a handful of years ago, and I just crashed and burned and I needed therapy and I have a spiritual director now. So I want to say to people, Jesus is the answer, but that doesn't mean you don't need help from other people. And you don't need to deal with things going on.

That doesn't mean you don't need to deal with things going on in your emotions and in your head. But I will say, one thing, I actually do a lot of research now on emotion theory. i like to tell people is there is a place in our emotional toolkit for anger and lament and sadness but the bible teaches us that joy and thanksgiving is our resting place that's our equilibrium right so so anger can be good but it's not the place we live sadness grief and lament can be great and good and righteous but it's not the place we live. Sadness, grief, and lament can be great and good and righteous, but it's not the place we live. And so if you meet a joyless Christian and they're like that all the time, they don't actually know Jesus. I mean, I hate to say that to them, but they don't actually know Jesus. Wow. That's powerful. on the flip side of some just angry all the time they don't know jesus

either fair enough okay so you mentioned your brother was really kind of the one who helped lead you to christ did anybody else in your family or extended family become a believer or show interest in it or is it the two of you uh it's the two of us um i mean i've had so many conversations with my dad and there was a time where i lived in my hometown after my phd and uh i went to church and um he had he had a period where he went to church too just i think because he likes learning and he likes meeting people and he likes kind of rubbing shoulders. And so I'd go over to his house after church and we compare notes. He'd say, what did you learn? He'd be testing me like, what'd you learn at church? And then he'd say what he learned. He could articulate Christian truths and what the message of a sermon is

without necessarily fully believing it himself. Um, so we have those ongoing conversations, but in terms of, you know, what we think of is as, as a born again believer, it's, it's my brother and I. Fair enough. So if somebody is watching this who is a Hindu, what would you say to this person? Assume they're maybe somewhat spiritually curious and they're open to it. What would you say to this person? Assume they're maybe somewhat spiritually curious and they're open to it. What would you say to this person about why they should maybe consider the person of Jesus? Yeah, I'd start with that question. You know, this is your life. Are you who you want to be? Are you who you're meant to be? I mean, that's a question all of us have to face. And that's a question about, you know, I'm going to go a little deep here into Augustine, St. Augustine.

And I think even a non-Christian could appreciate this. Augustine has this really interesting philosophy of what he calls gravitas, that every object has a weight or a natural resting place. And they will do everything they can to get there so he says if you're holding a rock and you let go you know exactly where it's going to go it goes down to the ground and philosophically what augustine is saying is the rock will move to its resting place it cannot not do that right it's gravitas he says but not all resting places are the same so he says with a fire it's gonna always flick up okay because that's where it wants to go he says our souls are restless right until they find their resting place

in the god of scripture right that's what august i mean it's beautiful a lot of people know that quote they don't know where it comes from the context so i'd say to a hindu is are you restless are you restless sean i'm wesleyan holiness this is the way i preach it are you west are you restless i was restless not everybody's restless but i'm wesleyan holiness this is the way i preach it are you west are you restless i was restless not everybody's restless but i think they are deeper down i would believe but i i was restless so i'd say start there look deep in look deep in where are you where where is that at deep in you second thing i'd say to a to, to a interested Hindu is start reading the Bible. Now I started with Genesis and it resonated with me. I learned a lot about sin and I said,

that's me and I need help. But I would say to someone that might be intimidated about that, start with the gospels, read through the gospels. Third, I would say, talk to Jesus. Hindus don't mind praying. Hindus are praying people. But I would say talk to Jesus and in companion with reading the Bible. As you're reading the Bible, talk to Jesus and say, Jesus, did you really do this? How's this going on? Can you do this for me? You know, I used to teach undergraduate at Seattle Pacific University, Eastern University.

And I had lots of Hindu students and they love Jesus. They found Jesus fascinating. So I'd say just be curious, learn about Jesus. And the last thing I would say is get to know some Christians, spend some time with Christians. Go to a church, find a church that you feel like would be welcoming to you and be nice to you and just say, hey, a Hindu but I'm curious I'm not want to sign up for anything but can I just spend time with you guys and just see how you do things and do it and and let's say for six months spend six months with a group of Christians maybe you crash their Bible study Maybe you go to a Sunday morning and just live like a Christian. Paul calls this idiotes, people, individuals who aren't directly connected to the church.

So just go into a church and be a kind of second tier community member and just experience life with them. Like show up to stuff and participate in stuff obviously you can't be baptized in many traditions and obviously you can't take communion but otherwise just be fully involved and just enjoy it and soak it in like you're a tourist um and just see what comes of that like i don't i don't have any compulsion to um to proselytize people i pray for people but i want to say put put people in the right places and let jesus do what he does best and and show them gospel love do you have any doubts ej ever go gosh i wonder if i'm mistaken about this maybe i should have become a muslim or jewish or whatever go Go back to Hinduism, Buddhist.

Do you ever have doubts? Or are you just like, no, spirit has spoken to me. And that Wesleyan background just grounds it for you. Amen and amen. I don't have doubts about God. I don't have doubts about the gospel. I don't have, I mean, do we have another two hours to talk about the Bible? As a biblical scholar, I know too much.

I know how the Bible came to be, and I have so many questions. Now, I believe that the Bible is fully inspired. It's a gift of the word of God from God. But there's things I don't fully understand about the Bible and textual criticism and how this text and that and the story of the woman caught in adultery. And is that in the Bible, not in the Bible, longer earning a mark? Who knows? We have all sorts of questions, but I don't doubt God. I don't doubt Jesus Christ. I don't even doubt the Bible. But I often just full disclosure, I doubt whether I'm making the right choices in my day-to-day life. And I think sometimes people, Christians feel like they have to be fully confident of knowing everything

they're doing. And, and I don't always know if I made the right choice. You know, my daughter's going to go to college. We're praying about it. You know, we're going to have to make a decision which college she goes to.

Right. And I'm going to have doubts. Unless I- Wait, hang on, Nije. I got a word from the Lord. Okay. He said, send her to Biola. It's easy.

If there could be a neon sign in the room, that would help. It's on her list, John. It is on her list. She applied to Biola. I think she visited too. So I want to say to Christians listening, non-Christians listening, this could get controversial, but I think uncertainty and day-to-day doubts are the reason we have faith, right? We're not given the gift of certainty in every decision we make. We're given the gift of Jesus Christ to follow.

Well, if that's controversial, I would I'm just going to say, amen. I agree wholeheartedly with that. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Unbelief is, you know, Jude 122, have mercy on those who doubt. I doubt everything. I'm just naturally skeptic. And I have questions about the Bible that don't make sense to me. I could go on and on for two hours. I think one of the reasons we see people deconstructing towards deconversion is this impossible standard of certainty, apologetics done in a way that leaves no room for questions and as if it's just a home run every single time actually discourages people in the faith. So I love hearing you say that.

I think that's fantastic. Did I miss anything about your story that you want to share? Any piece that's just kind of important that would help us understand you and your journey and your background? Where do you feel like we covered it? I feel like we covered it? I feel like we covered it. I mean, with anyone's story, you tell the story differently as you age, right? So I think I probably tell the story differently now than I would 30 years ago. But I think the big picture, Sean, is I've never looked back. I've never looked back with regret

about my Christian faith. And it's only brought me good things. I have experienced difficult things in the church, like church breakups, church splits, Christians that were not being like Jesus. But I'll tell you, when it comes to the things that have changed my life for the good, right? It's Jesus, my wife and my kids and my parents and my family, right? That's what it is. Amen to that. I love it.

Now, for folks who are still with us, you're on Twitter. How can people just kind of follow your ministry, what you're working on? Tell us quickly kind of what you're up to and the best way people can track with you. Sure. Well, we were just talking about deconstruction and doubt. My friend, Dr. A.J. Swoboda, we have a podcast called Slow Theology, which is about simple faith in an age of disenchantment and doubt. And we talk about the hard stuff, all the hard stuff of Christianity. We've been hitting this for a few years. So this actually follows A.J.'s book, After Doubt, where he really wants to be a champion

for Jesus in an age of doubt. I will say also that I have a column with Fathom Magazine called Written for Us, where I talk about the Bible and spiritual formation. Check me out there. And if you're interested in seminary, talk to me about Northern Seminary. I love it. Good stuff. Well, we want to partner with all seminaries doing good work here at Bayon Talbot.

So love the plug. Absolutely. By the way, I didn't know you're connected with AJ because my most recent book is called Set Adrift, Deconstructing What You Believe Without Sinking Your Faith. And we frame deconstruction positively like AJ does. Obviously, there's debate about this and people go back and forth, but a very similar track I take with that term, seeing it as potentially a positive experience for Christians.

If we ask questions in the right way, go back to scripture, et cetera. So, uh, Tom, I said, hi, and I appreciate this book. Hey, we will do this again. And maybe in 10 years we will revisit it and see how your story differs with 10 more years of reflection. By the way, the first person who's quoted, not only Augustine on my channel, but Switchfoot as well. Yes.

So you have covered the breadth. Ancient and modern. Man, way to go. Nije, I really appreciate this. I hope we can connect in person sometime if i can ever encourage you and help out let me know thanks before you guys click away make sure you hit subscribe we've got other stories coming up of people from different faiths who come to christ and we're in spoil like we did today what motivated them so make sure you hit

subscribe we're covering scientific, historical, philosophical, apologetic, cultural issues. You will not want to miss it. Have some other conversations coming up with people who see the world very differently. That's one of the things we try to do here. So make sure you hit subscribe. And if you thought of us done apologetics, we would love to have you in our distance program. We're the top rated apologetics program. You might know this, but we have students coming from all over the world, from Africa, from Europe. I'm not sure if we have any students in India, to be honest with you. I'd have to look into that, but all over the world, fully distance, information is below. We talk about problem of evil, textual criticism, a lot of the topics

that came up today. Would love to have you in the apologetics program. Nije, thanks, my brother. My pleasure.