Theology in the Raw - 721: #721 - A Conversation with Scott Sauls

Episode Date: January 28, 2019

On episode #721 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with Scott Sauls. Scott serves as Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife Patti and two daughters. Scott has authored four books: Jesus Outside the Lines, Befriend, From Weakness to Strength, and Irresistible Faith. Scott also blogs weekly on this website and is active on social media. Follow Scott on Twitter and Instagram. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. A few updates on my speaking schedule. I will be in Sioux City on February 4th and 5th at Sioux City, Iowa. If you don't know where Sioux City is, it's in Iowa. February 7th, we'll be in Grand Rapids. February 11th, Orange County. February 12th, Orange County. March 10th, Los Altos or the South Bay of San Francisco.

March 12th, Seattle, Washington. March 14th, Seattle, Washington, March 14th, Salem, Oregon, April 23rd, Cleveland, Ohio, and April 24th through the 26th in Nashville, Tennessee for the Q Conference. I would love to see you at one of these events. You can go to my events page on PrestonSprinkle.com or you can check out CenterForFaith.com for most of these events here. And the ones that you need to register with, you can do that through the events page on centerforfaith.com.

Also for my Patreon supporters, if you're one of the 200 plus and growing number of Patreon supporters, if you want to attend the March 10th event, that's a conversation between Justin Lee and myself. The title of the event is Sexuality, Scripture, and the Soul of Christianity. It's a several hour event on Sunday, March 10th in the evening. It's going to be a provocative conversation and I'm pretty sure it's going to

be a very full house. So if you're a Patreon supporter, you get free admission. I finagled and begged and coaxed and convinced. Not really, but I did ask him. I asked the host, hey, can you kick me down some free tickets for my Patreon supporters? And he said, yeah, of course. He said, how many supporters you got? I said, well, I have a little over 200, but I doubt most of them will be able to come to San Francisco. But if you do want to come to San Francisco, or if you're in the area or want to fly to San Francisco, you get free admission to this event. That's March 10th in the South Bay of San Francisco conversation between myself and Justin Lee. Okay, back by popular demand. I just, whenever I talk to this guy, I feel like I'm just talking into the mirror. Like it's almost weird. It's just weird because we see eye to eye in such, in so many ways. I'm

like, just even the very words we use, as you'll see when we're talking about different things, I'm like, dude, what you just said is almost word for word what I often say. And I don't think he's stealing it from me. And I don't think I'm stealing it from him. And even if we're stealing stuff from each other, we wouldn't care. I have on the show Scott Saul. Scott is a pastor in Nashville, Tennessee. He's an author. He has just come out with his fourth book, Irresistible Faith. And he talks a lot about some of the ideas in that book and really the ideas in the book flow from really the focus and heart of his ministry as a whole, like why he's a pastor, like why he does what he does. I mean, this book really, I haven't read it, so I guess I shouldn't speak too much, but as he was talking about the book, I'm like, dude, this just really seems to capture the heart of Scott Sauls. We talk a lot about evangelicalism, faith and politics, and Donald

Trump, and Christianity, sexuality, and many other topics. So please welcome to the show, back by popular demand, the one and only Scott Sauls. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have back on the show, back by popular demand, the one and only Scott Salls. Scott, thanks so much for being yet another guest on The All-General. Thanks, Preston. I didn't realize there was popular demand for this. Well, both of our moms wanted you back on, and I think—

My mom doesn't know how to listen to a podcast, so I know you're at least half lying on that. Oh, what are we going to talk about, man? Let's start with your book, Irresistible Faith, which just came out. This is book number, is it number four for you? This will actually be the, let's see. This is the, yeah, this is the fourth one. You're already losing track. I'm a little bit confused because I just

signed a contract for a fifth one that I haven't started to write yet. So the numbers are mixed up a little bit. Are you able to talk about that one later on or no? Uh, sure, sure. It'll be a couple, probably a year and a half before it releases, but, but, uh, well let's, yeah, let's start with Irresistible Faith. What's this book all about? And, uh, yeah. Okay. So, um, it is, it is essentially a heart community mission, uh, type of book. And, um, it, uh, it's an effort Preston to encourage, especially people who identify as Christians, to maybe consider or reimagine what beautiful, life-giving expression of Christianity in the world could be. an effort to return to the

New Testament picture of believers who lived such a quality of life and lived so beautifully among one another and among their neighbors that it says in Acts chapter 2 they were enjoying the

favor of all the people and And that means a lot of things, one of which is that their non-believing neighbors, their neighbors that didn't know Christ or didn't identify with Christ, still experienced Christians as a positive, life-giving presence in their community, in their neighborhoods, in their places of work, and so on. And so it's a bit of an effort to paint a vision for what that could look like in our time. Do you think Christians, I mean, it sounds like Christians are really hungering for this kind of life. Would you agree with that, that there's a hunger there? And yet probably, I guess I'd turn right around and say many Christians aren't experiencing that, that kind of faith that is super attractive and compelling to the people around them or even attractive and compelling to people within the church. you. I mean, I listened to you a good bit, Preston, and I think you and I are very kindred in the way that we would look at the state of things right now. But I think that most thoughtful

Christians are really weary of a couple of things. One, just this climate that we're in of suspicion and us against them and posturing and politicizing of everything. And so I think we're weary of that. And we're also weary of being mis kind of voices and examples that tend to get the most press, you know, in media and on television and so on and in movies and in film and in art. And what's being missed is stories like what Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times is stories like what Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times is telling these days about Christians, and evangelical Christians in particular. Kristof identifies as agnostic, not as a very religious person himself, but one thing he observes is an incongruence between the way that he sees Christians being represented in the media,

in film, in sort of mainstream art forms, you know, as kind of a hostile, critical, judgmental, holier-than-thou, separated-from-culture group of people who are just really irritating. from culture group of people who are just really irritating and what he actually sees, especially when he reports on poverty and disaster and human need. He says that every time he shows up to a broken situation to report on it, Christians are always the first ones to show up. They're always the last ones to leave. They're the ones who are emptying their pockets of their own resources in order to help their neighbors in need. And so he, you know, he makes these observations that there are actually some really beautiful life-giving stories all over the world of how the people of Christ are making a difference in the world in a way that's

so different than the way that we're being portrayed. And so I think that we're all kind of weary of being maybe mischaracterized and we kind of want an opportunity to shine as the light that really does exist in the world. And, you know, hopefully we can get it out there somehow, because there really is a lot of wonderful stuff being done. Why do you think Christians are mis- I totally agree with you. Why do you think that is? I mean, I guess the theological answer is

because the Bible says so, right? Like, don't be shocked when the world hates you or whatever. I mean, I can probably give a decent theological answer, but is there a sociological one? Why non-Christians or non-church people are so eager to paint Christians in the worst possible light? I think it's a couple of things. I think one is, I think we're still being blamed for the ridiculous aspects of the moral majority movement in the eighties and

nineties, where there really was a whole lot of pointer pointing of fingers, finger pointing by, by Christians at, you know, different people groups. And, you know, the, the kind of the post nine 11, uh, remarks by a couple of pastors on all the national news channels about how 9-11 was, you know, as if God was getting back at all of these horrible Americans who needed to repent and become Christian, right? And I think that was kind of the low point of the moral majority movement when that happened so publicly. And I think ever since that time, there really has been a concerted, sincere effort on the part of Christians to write a different narrative and to live a different story than us against them. And so I think that we're still being held responsible for an outdated

story, if I could be honest with you. And I think even the current narrative of, you know, 80% of the people voted for a misogynist who abuses women and who's a bully and, you know, et cetera. I don't think that's really a fair, I think that's a very superficial read of what actually happened in the latest presidential election, because the truth of the matter is that everybody, almost everybody was faced with two choices that they really couldn't imagine having to live with, and everybody had to go one direction or another. and um and you know i look at my own life and my own experience and my own friendships and i know thousands of evangelical christians and i can only count on one hand uh the number of of of evangelical christians that i know among the thousands that I know who would call themselves Trump enthusiasts. Yeah.

And so I think there, I think there's a false story being told a misinterpretation of whatever data that, that we were given in terms of who voted how, but we're, we're kind of lumped in. Yeah. So you're referring to the public narrative.

You're referring to the public narrative you're referring to the 80 that statistic that 80 or 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for trump right that's i see that uh i see that toted all over the place on on the internet and see people repeat that that that is yeah keep going because i've got tons of thoughts on that and i think it's completely just wrong on so many levels yeah i think you know i i think what i would encourage us all to do is stop allowing the news media do our to do our thinking for us yeah uh and to stop allowing social media sound bites to do our thinking for us and actually think ourselves alan jacobs has recently recently written a really good book about that called How to Think, and he's basically saying, don't believe everything you hear, especially if it comes

from your echo chamber. Don't believe everything that you hear. Look into it. Study the story from all perspectives and all sides before you start drawing your conclusions and you actually might become a more reasonable human being. Right. And also a more persuasive human being. Yeah. So, and I do think the Trump narrative, at least in my observation, there's just a lot of people who are allowing the news to do their thinking for them and their echo chambers to do their thinking for them. In the same way that under the Obama administration,

there are a lot of, you know, conservatives who allowed, you know, Fox News to do their thinking for them in the same way that under the obama administration there are a lot of you know conservatives who allowed you know fox news to do their thinking for them and didn't think for themselves and and so you know to be more careful thoughtful thinkers yeah but you know back to your question i think the other um sociological reason is also a theological reason and that is that there are certain aspects of the ethics of biblical Christianity that do not jive with modern Western American cultural values, you know, particularly around sexuality, you know, among other things, but especially around sexuality, there's sort of a developed disdain. In the name of tolerance, a disdain and intolerance for those who don't share the prevailing views about sexuality that the prevailing culture does. And, you know, I think the historic biblical, you call it traditional, but I like the word historic better,

view of things, which is taken out of several places of scripture in terms of sex and marriage. You know, Christians always have been more conservative with their bodies and more promiscuous with their money. And things have not changed. And that first part, being conservative with our bodies, hopefully without passing judgment on people who don't identify with Christ, who have a different view of things. I mean, that's not our business to judge. That's right there in 1 Corinthians 5. It's not our business to judge those outside the church and so on. But I do think it has put Christians in a position where we really do have a fork in the road to deal with.

We have to decide whether or not we're going to have courage to be able to continue to hold fast to what seems to be the very clear testimony of the scriptures themselves at cost to ourselves. And we need to be willing to bear cost for the things that we believe. And right now, the issue, at least now, seems to be sexual ethics. And the sexual revolution has really taken off. has really taken off. And ancient biblical sexuality is not only viewed as weird, but also by some as evil and oppressive. And so I think that's part of it as well. So, I mean, that's obviously the world that I live in.

So it's good to hear you say that because from my vantage point, the world that I live in. So it's good to hear you say that because from my vantage point, that certainly feels like the crux of this tension is largely the clash between a Christian view of sexuality and even gender identity versus kind of the rapid pace that the wider culture is moving. But for, I mean, you live in a much broader world than I do. I mean, this is my, kind of my, the one thing I'm focusing on right now. So you would still say that even as you kind of pay attention to many other things going on, you would still say sexuality and gender is really a main dividing point or point of tension between the church and society? I do think it is a contested subject. I do believe that Christians have decisively lost the culture war on this. And I think Christians who haven't already acknowledged that and embraced that reality

would be wise to acknowledge it and embrace it. You've lost the culture war. That does not mean that Christianity has failed any more than Christianity was failing in the Roman Empire in the first, second, and third centuries, where the Roman Empire had very similar perspective on sexuality as contemporary Western white thought. And, you know, Christians were punished a lot more severely than Christians get opposed today in our culture for our views. We just get shouted at, you know, on a bad day. They got killed on a bad day, you know, for holding biblical views around sexuality. But here's what happened. You know, this whole dynamic of Christians being

promiscuous with their money and conservative with their bodies and assuming a nonjudgmental posture toward the world around them and toward people who did not agree with them, which is, I think, what you've really championed beautifully, Preston, and want to just encourage you to continue, you know, in that vein to hold grace and truth, law and love in this lovely tension that the scriptures hold them in, in your life and in your ministry and your teaching the church. I appreciate that. I think do this faithfully, as they did in the first few centuries after the resurrection

of Christ in the Roman Empire. And, you know, you probably know about this letter, Preston, written by Emperor Julian. I talk about this some in the book, Irresistible Faith. But Emperor Julian was sort of a Hitler type. And he, you know, he was a genocidist. And he wanted to kill off Christians in the same manner that Hitler set off to exterminate the world of the Jews. in the same manner that Hitler set off to exterminate the world of the Jews. And he wrote a frustrated letter to one of his friends,

frustrated by the fact that every time he saw one Christian executed for their faith, for their loyalty to Jesus as their primary king, every time he would see one executed, 10 more would pop up. And he said, I don't, he essentially said, and this is a paraphrase, I don't think that I can defeat the Christians because of their kindness to everyone, because of the fact that they take better care of our people than we do. They take better care of Rome than Rome does. And that's what I'm trying to advocate for. See, we can hold the biblical ethic around sexuality, for example. And this book isn't about sexuality. The people need to buy a Preston Sprinkle book for that. I mean, I don't touch on sexuality as much as I do in my previous books.

And this one, this one's a lot more sort of general, broad sweeping life-giving presence in the world kind of stuff. But on the subject of sexuality, we must simultaneously, we must learn to simultaneously hold to what we believe the Bible to say and live it in our own lives without passing judgment on the world outside of our faith, and also be on the front lines of anti-bullying movements. Like if a gay kid or gay teenager is being bullied, gay kid or gay teenagers are being bullied, or if there's a suicide dynamic happening or depression, Christians should be on the front lines trying to address that and help address that in love. Christians should be, of all people, the most public vociferous opponents and antagonists toward bullying against gay people while also holding to the historic

view of sex and marriage and it maybe feels contradictory to say it that way but there is this this place that the bible calls us to be that that combines law and love and that combines grace and truth and the two should never be divorced from one another in the way that we engage the world around us. I think I've said the same exact phrase, even that Christians should be on the front lines standing against gay bullying. I would even take it a step further that until we do that,

our sexual ethic will not be very compelling because our grace or our truth will not be heard until our grace is felt. The greatest apologetic for truth is love. And so when we are being the most aggressive for standing up toward anyone who's being bullied, especially the marginalized, especially somebody who's, you know, being bullied for something like a sexuality or whatever. I mean, when we do that, then people might take more of an interest in our actual sexual ethic.

There is, I don't know if you've read it, a fascinating book by a classicist named Kyle Harper. I don't know or even think he's a Christian. I don't know. He's a classicist. He wrote a book called From Shame to Sin. It looks at the 300 years of early Christianity, 300 years of its sort of sexual ethic. And it's a fascinating book because one of the things, two things, I mean, it points out tons of stuff, but two things that really stood out to me. Number one, conversion in the early church was almost synonymous with leaving behind a Greco-Roman view of sex.

Like to be converted to Christianity was like synonymous, coturnamous with a whole new way of viewing sex. Like this whole idea that you can be a Christian and also have a very kind of culturally, oh, there you are. It just popped up. I'm going to go and put my video back on then. The whole idea that you can be a Christian and also have a largely you know cultural view of sexuality is just unheard of in first century to be a Christian meant you believe in

Jesus and you have a different sexual ethic and different sexual way of living also what was fascinating in that study is he showed and again I don't think he doesn't give any evidence that he's writing from a christian perspective that one thing that was super attractive in the early christian sexual ethic is that it was tremendously humanizing toward women yes it was the christians that reduce and ended up eradicating things like prostitution it was the christ Christian church that was the only community where women were fully equal with men on every level. And he shows that took in the widows and cared for people. And you saw how destructive the Roman sexual ethic was, especially toward women. And it's ironic today, I think. Well, I just, I would love the church to connect those

dots that the Christian sexual ethic is actually humanizing toward women, because I think it's the wider cultural narrative is really speaking out of both sides of its mouth. I mean, I think it's, yeah, I think it's intrinsically dehumanizing toward women when you kind of follow the logic to its logical conclusion. I think along those lines, Preston, this is where Christianity ought to stand out as the most life-giving solution to the problems that we face. Isn't it ironic that, that so many voices behind the, the me too hashtag movement are also those who showed up at Hugh Hefner's funeral to celebrate his life as a social justice activist who should be

remembered for being such a hero. And, you know, we, me too is a product of the climate that Hugh Hefner created and, and the worldview that he championed and the life that he lived. And the best thing that the world can offer is, is in this space is hypocrisy. I'm sorry, Hollywood. You're not my mentor on sexual ethics and taking care of women.

I'm sorry. In the same way that you're calling for Christians to have integrity, In the same way that you're calling for Christians to have integrity, we have to be consistent. That's our witness. We have to be consistently truthful and consistently gracious. And the church always suffers in its witness when it lets go of one of those two. We, you know, we become truthful at the expense of being gracious, or we become some version of gracious at the expense of, of being driven by truth. And, you know, you lose one, you lose both. They've got to be held consistently in tension. The world can't do that. We ought to. And sometimes we do it better than others.

we ought to. And sometimes we do it better than others. You know, I mean, I'm a product. How old are you, Scott? I just turned 43. You're a little older than I am. I just turned 50 this past year. Oh, wow. Okay. I am an old, old man. So I'm kind of a product of the more majority era when it was in its height, but I wasn't really paying attention. So I don't really, going back to the original question,

like why are people so eager to paint Christians in the worst possible light? I don't think I maybe appreciate how loud and widespread and in many ways obnoxious and hypocritical and power-driven, the moral majority movement was. So do you – and so I can – I don't know. And yes, I think the broader culture keeps trying to keep that perspective, that view of Christianity alive. They keep trying to paint current evangelicalism in that light.

But I guess to their – not defense necessarily but i could i could appreciate it you know um that it wasn't that long ago and there's still lingering effects of certain people i'd be the one that comes to mind is franklin graham and others that are really yeah not that didn't vote for trump as the lesser two evils but as the greatest candidate the country's ever seen um and so that the vote there are some loud voices still there but i i it definitely is a far minority position within evangelicalism even for those for instance maybe did vote for trump but um there's very few trump enthusiasts in yeah i think right across evangelicalism as a whole um and that 80% statistic, it drives me crazy because, first of all, it's just completely wrong for several reasons.

Number one, the definition of what's an evangelical, they draw from that statistic that 70% of America is evangelical, when if you actually ask some really just basic theological questions, just basic, questions, just basic. Only about 7% of Americans would be genuinely evangelical. They maybe go to church more than two or three times a year. They have any kind of Christian way of living.

So, I mean, their definition of evangelical is just wrong. And also, it doesn't even ask a question, you know, 80% of those who voted. I didn't vote. I know a who voted. I didn't vote. I know a lot of people that didn't vote. And then it also doesn't even take into account the people that voted as the sort of lesser TV rules. And I've heard people say, oh, it doesn't matter. I'm like, well, wait. I mean, I would say that putting Hillary up as a candidate, I mean, I would almost argue that the Democrats helped put Trump into office by putting up one of the worst candidates, maybe the second worst candidate that the world has ever seen.

I mean, put up a decent candidate. If Trump was up against Bill Clinton or even Obama, there's no way he would have won. I mean, there's no way. I mean, yeah. So I think that really matters when somebody says, look, I don't like Trump, but I really don't like Hillary. So as a lesser to evils, I'm going to vote for Trump. I don't, I think that makes a huge difference.

That doesn't mean that they embody sort of Trumpism in their posture. Do you agree with that? Is that, or am I blowing smoke? I do. And, you know, I'm a none of the above guy. I'll show my hand. I don't typically show my hand politically, but in that one, I will come out as a none of the above guy. I wrote somebody in because I just couldn't go either direction. And yet I sympathize with well-meaning Christian people who went either direction because of the lesser of two really problematic choices scenario that the whole country was in.

you know, scenario that, that, that the whole country was in, but. Right. And, and also, I mean, I think, I think, and I think it was an article that was, that came out a few months ago that talked about this, that, that, that the rise of Trump is not the cause of division or all these tensions, but it's largely a by-product of it or it's symptomatic. It's symptomatic. Yeah. That, that that um that the that the left let's just say the left i don't love these categories but the left has become so far left that people are getting sick of it that half of the country is not you know doesn't resonate with

the far left agenda of say hollywood or most news outlets or social media stuff i mean there's so much there's so much being crammed down people's throats that are not just not just liberal i'm liberals fine but that far left agenda that's redefining what it means to even be male or female that's coming up with these just insane policies and so on that it's almost like you've pushed people so far that they got to a place where now they're going to vote for a guy like trump because they're like they're going to vote for a guy like Trump because they're like they're tired of you know the extremes on the other side doesn't make it right and again I don't you know I would never have or did vote for Trump would never will but uh but I

can I can understand and almost appreciate some of the frustrations that would lead people to vote for someone like him I don't know if I've ever said that on the air. I might lose some supporters for that. Again, to be clear, I think Trump is a terrible person to be leading this country, but I can understand why people would vote for him over Hillary. Well, I mean, this is, again, this is you being an example of what I was trying to encourage a few moments ago and what I tried to encourage throughout the book. You're thinking. You're thinking for yourself. You're not letting echo chambers and your cable news

channel of choice do your thinking for you. You're coming at the conversation as a rational, rational, thoughtful person who has carefully considered all perspectives and developed an opinion or a viewpoint that, you know, is your very best effort to reflect the biblical world and life view around this issue. And hopefully you'll gain a few listeners. You'll get a net gain on that. I think it came from Jonathan Haidt, who was a far left liberal atheist Jew psychologist. And his book, The Righteous Mind, Why Good People Disagree on Politics and Religion. I mean, he talked about it. He's now more of a centrist because he was like, yeah, the left is getting so far left that it's not even liberal anymore. It's like illiberal.

I think David Rubin. Well, there's a new moral majority. Yeah. Well, there's a new moral majority that's formed. If you define moral majority in the way that Luke 18, verse 9, described Jesus' audience, those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on others with contempt. That was the 80s and 90s moral majority from the right. And now we have a 21st century moral majority from the left exhibiting the same behaviors with a different creed.

And this again, whether you're a Christian in the 80s and 90s or whether you're a Christian in the 21st century, your opportunity is to witness to the gospel by having nothing to do with that kind of posture, you know, to engage the world and engage ideas from a posture of thoughtfulness and kindness. I think that's, you know, it used to be like, like, like apologetics, you know, defending the Christian faith was giving a reasonable, rational argument for why you believe Christianity is true, right? The whole, you know, Josh McDowell era, et cetera. And now I think the, the, in the climate we're in now, the most effective apologetic is not prove to me it's true, but, but, but show me it's beautiful. Like, like, like demonstrate to me that your worldview leads to a loveliness that,

that, that is greater than any other loveliness that, that other worlds worldviews are, are, are producing. And, you know, youth specialists, youth ministry specialists will say that warmth is the new cool. And I don't think that's just a youth ministry reality. I think that's a climate that we are currently in reality that if you want credibility as a Christian, then embody the warmth of the gospel and the kindness of the gospel and surprise people with, with not only thoughtful sharing of your perspective in, in a, maybe in an environment of debate or discussion around a contested issue, but the way in which you express it

with respect and holding the other person in high esteem and taking them intellectually seriously and taking them seriously emotionally. Like, you don't go on the attack. You don't troll. You don't adopt this, you know, there's two kinds of people in the world, the good people and the bad people, and I'm on the side of the good and you're on the side of the bad. God separates the world, the good people and the bad people, and I'm on the side of the good and you're on the side of the bad. God separates the world between the proud and the humble, not between the good and the bad. You know, there's only one who's good according to scriptures and that's,

that's Christ, right? And the reason why Christ had to come was because none of us is good and, and we need, we need his rescue. And that ought to have a humbling effect. There should be no more humble person in the world than the person who is absolutely sure that they're right about Jesus. If you're absolutely sure that you're right about Jesus, then you're going to be fiercely humble. And, and, and you're going to, you're going to take into account the person in front of you or on

the other side of your screen has a soul and has emotions and has a story. And the last thing they need is for you to pile onto them. What the whole world, I think, is thirsty for is what Madeline L'Engle talked about when she said, we draw people to Christ, not by telling them how right we are and how wrong they are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they cannot help but ask about the source of it. And, you know, that's the answer. That's the alternative to being a moral majority person, whether you're coming from the right, the ideological right or the ideological left, if you're a moral majority person, the only applause you're going to get is from people who already agree with you.

Right. And you're just going to be sitting in an arrogant corner together, you know, talking about other people's problems and just becoming more and more corrupt in your heart as you do so and as you become more and more superior in your heart as the people around you and your echo chamber bolster your sense of superiority you know and even that comes from a place of need and a place of you know having a story right there are reasons why we feel like we have to be right and point fingers at others. But remember that if you're listening to Preston's podcast and you

identify as a Christian, your primary job in the world is secondarily to be right and primarily to be humble. And, you know, if you're right without being humble, you're going to be completely ineffective, just as the Pharisees were. They lost their platform. They lost their influence. So did King Saul, because they were all trying to be right without humility. Now, if you're humble without caring about being right, I mean, that's a problem too. You just become slippery and you affirm things that God is displeased with. You say peace, peace when there is no peace, like the prophets warned against. Being a sappy, sentimental prophet where you have no enemies.

If you have no enemies, then you're not representing Christ well if there aren't people who are against you and what you stand for that are identifiable. At the same time, if it seems like everybody's your enemy, you're not representing the gospel either. Does your book address that other side, the sort of peace, peace, this person who might be humble but doesn't have any convictions or doesn't have any enemies? Yeah, it does. I would assume that's not the main focus would be the humility piece, right? The warmth, is that?

Well, yeah, I mean, the Irresistible Faith, the one that comes out this month, January, there are three sections. One is the first section is about the irresistibility of Christ himself. Our starting point being we're not okay and being okay with that, that we're not okay because he's a gracious God. He comes to us with grace and compassion, slow to anger, abounding in love. to us with grace and compassion, slow to anger, abounding in love. You know, I talk a little bit about just orienting our thinking toward biblical world and life view and really, you know, getting the scriptures into us, you know, getting into the scriptures so the scriptures get into us and just trying to, I guess, encourage us all to see Christ as someone to be savored and someone to be

cherished because of the way that he savors and cherishes us. And then the second section is about belonging to a community that's headed in that same trajectory toward Christ, you know, practicing transparency and kindness, being willing to speak the truth and love to one another, to keep one another, you know, support one another on the path toward Christ and faithfulness and obedience, embracing hope together based on the resurrection and, you know, how the resurrection assures us that our future is always better than our past or present, no matter what our situation. And then it's really the last three chapters that talk about going out into the world full of grace and full of truth. And, you know, one of them is about treasuring the poor and really, you know, giving special attention to the least of these and how that's the calling of every Christian to be part of that kind of effort.

as our mission, as our calling, to sort of kindle the Christian imagination that no matter what your career path, if it involves creating, redeeming, making order out of chaos, restoring, healing a person, a place, or a thing, or some combination thereof, then you're just as much as part of the mission, part of the, an active part of the mission of God in the world as I am, as a pastor, or as Preston is, as a writer and a Bible teacher. And then the final one is just, you know, the final chapter is about neighbor love and, and, you know, loving those well who are near and in our circles and so on being the first responders in creative ways. And so, so it's,

it's kind of a three section book, but, but yes, I do deal with the grace and truth stuff. My book actually the second edition actually comes out um i hate to be a self shameless self-promoter but publishers publishers tell us you have to do that right yeah right um especially when you got a generous guy who has you on his podcast um with what you have like a billion listeners now right so no it's not but no, it's not that. Yeah, but Jesus Outside the Lines, the subtitle of that is a way forward for those who are tired of taking sides. And it really is kind of a book that you could have probably written better than me, Preston,

because you've built your whole life on that kind of principle and approach to the world and engaging the world. But second edition of that comes out with a couple of extra chapters on race and on uh on gender issues uh not like transgender issues but more like men women me too kind of stuff right uh and a lot of revisions in the other chapters as well but that second edition comes out later this year on that one. Um, but, uh, in any event like you, this is a passion of mine, just, just taking grace and truth and putting them together and watch it and

watching what Christ does with it through us. It's such a privilege to be part of that, but it's, there's such a hunger for it too. And I, I've often said, I think there's such a silent majority of voices that are hungering for a more nuanced, thoughtful, warm perspective. And what a golden opportunity. Given the aggressiveness and polarized political climate, it's almost like the way, let's just say politics or society as a whole, the way it is going towards these extremes, it's created this massive, beautiful vacuum of opportunity. And if you combine that with a massive hunger for Christians for a truthful and truthfully warm – I love that word, by the way. I haven't heard anybody say it like that, the warmth.

Warmth is a new cool. That's from Kara Powell, I think. Oh, really? She's a youth ministry specialist. Yeah, I haven't read her book yet. So she uses that, the warmth is a new cool? Yeah, she and others that she co-wrote. Interesting.

I think the book's called Growing Young. I would totally agree with that. Again, Jonathan Haidt talks about that. If you want to convince somebody of an idea, about 10% of what you need to do is present good, solid, logical, factual arguments. The other 90% is you need to speak to the heart of the person, which means you need to respect them. You need to show understanding. You need to show humility. You need to show that even with people on different sides of the political spectrum, look, hopefully we can acknowledge that there is

some good in the very ideas and heart of the other person. If you think they are 100% walking evil, you're not going to get anywhere with in a conversation and plus it's just not true no person we are split down the middle of good and evil and every person there is no you know evil people over here good people over here we all have evil hearts and and we all do do good things in some cases even people even somebody like both you and i that are not trump fans at all, that I think there's – you used the phrase problematic. That was probably – that was very gracious of you.

A very problematic candidate. Even I would say, oh, yeah, there's some good things he does. Can you say that? Yeah, hopefully he loves his kids and his kids seem to respect him and look up to him and so on. But man, I wish I could go on for another hour with you on that one. I mean, you know, Christ, just look at Luke 7 and how he speaks kindly about a prostitute, you know, and, you know, picking out that nugget of beauty that she demonstrates in that moment. And, you know, picking out that nugget of beauty that she demonstrates in that moment,

or the Apostle Paul, who's affirming idolaters in Athens in Acts 17, because they're searching for truth, you know, like, like, like, he, he affirms them for being very religious, you know, that's a great, that's a great way to be a friend to somebody, right? Is to find, catch somebody doing good before you start meandering into here's where I think your thinking is wrong. Now we got to get to that place where we say, Hey, our thinking is different on this. And let me tell you why, where I'm coming from and I want to hear you out as well. Like we, we got to go there, but it's got to be surrounded, like you said, well, like we got to go there, but it's got to be surrounded, like you said, by that 90% of ethos of warmth, of kindness and generosity of spirit. But yeah, thanks for pointing that out.

Scott, I know you got to go. You got a meeting to run too. So we'll wrap it up. Again, the book is Irresistible Faith. Super excited about this book. Andy Stanley just came out with a book. It's called, I think, Irresistible, right? I know. I know. It's funny. We have the same publisher. Are you serious? I actually advocated for a different title and the publisher said, no, we think it should be called Irresistible Faith. So it's on Thomas Nelson to have, but maybe there's some magic in there. Maybe I get to just kind of jump on the Andy Stanley bandwagon because he's a much more widely known entity than I am. So maybe they're just doing me a favor there.

So I wrote a book on nonviolence years ago called Fight. And it came out, I think, right just before Craig Groeschel wrote a book called Fight. Now, his is on like ministry or something. Is his Craig Groeschel? Just kidding. I actually didn't. When somebody told me that, I actually didn't know who he was. I'm sure you do now, though. I'm curious.

How did you get Bob Goff to write the foreword? Do you know Bob? Did the publisher hook that up? Yeah, he's a friend. Oh, you know what? Oh, cool. I'm speaking at a conference in Edmonton, Canada in a couple weeks. He's the keynote. I'm doing a workshop on sexuality, so I'm'm hoping to give him a big hug for us well i i guess i could just call his cell phone apparently he has that the number yeah he's still got the same number

back of love does oh that's awesome he answers about 40 calls a day that's what he does all day long i don't i don't understand just mathematically how you can do that because i've heard he will actually pick up the phone i'm like yeah we've witnessed it he's got a an otherworldly extraordinary capacity so that's insane all right yeah well scott thanks for being on the show and we'll have you back on sometime man keep up the great work man man. Thanks, Preston. Appreciate it, man.