Truth Unites - Deconstruction: How Christians Should Respond

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

In this video Gavin Ortlund interviews Sean McDowell and John Marriot about how to respond to the deconstruction movement in the church. Buy their book here: https://www.amazon.com/Set-Adrift-Deconstructing-Believe-Without/dp/B0BSP64Q2D More about Dr. John Marriott: https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/people/john-marriott More about Dr. Sean McDowell: https://seanmcdowell.org/

Hey, everybody. This interview is with Sean McDowell and John Marriott about their outstanding book, Set Adrift, Deconstructing What You Believe Without Sinking Your Faith. I always, from the glare of the book, it always is blinding, isn't it? I always noticed that when I hold up a book. This book is outstanding. Here's the way I can sum it up. It's relationally wise, it's culturally wise, and it's theologically wise. So it's helpful about not just the content people are usually working through when they're going through a season of deconstruction, but also about just the process. How do you go through that in a way that leads to a stronger faith rather than heresy or deconversion? And obviously, or help others, because we all need to be thinking about this because it's so common right now.

This is the first book I would give on this topic to somebody. So it's a really great. Link in the video description, as well as link. to more information about both Sean and John, you can get to know them. And if you have struggles with the word D construction, I know that's controversial, we're going to get into that in the interview. So without further ado, here it is. Well, hey, everyone, welcome or welcome back to Truth Unites.

Truth Unites exists to go deeper into theology for assurance in the gospel. And I'm here with Sean McDowell and John Marriott. We're going to talk about their awesome book, which I've already given an intro to you can see a link to the book and more information about them in the video description. We're going to talk about deconstruction. What does that mean? Because that's a big word. And then basically the goal of this is just to help and equip Christians, maybe someone

who's not sure if they're a Christian, but people who are struggling with doubts about their faith themselves, or maybe some other experience of deconstruction, or really all of us need to be thinking about this because it's such a common thing that we want to be like Christ to others. and we want to help those who may be wrestling, and there's a lot of anxiety right now, a lot of depression, a lot of despair. We want to be helpful to others. So I really think this interview will be helpful.

You can see how much I like this book by the blurb that I wrote. I meant every word, fantastic book. So please check it out. So let's start by just defining what is deconstruction. John, you've written several books on this. Maybe you can just kind of canvas. What are kind of some of the different meanings of that term? And what are we getting at here?

Sure. And thanks for having us on, Gavin. we really appreciate it. It's hard to answer your question really briefly. I think the best way to begin would be to make a distinction between deconversion and deconstruction. Deconversion is a term that is used when it's describing someone who once identified as a Christian and now says, I am no longer a believer. I don't follow Jesus. Maybe I don't even believe in God anymore. So to de-convert would be to undo your conversion. All of the theological entanglements that we could get into a side. It's when someone says, I once was an identified as a follower of Jesus,

I don't anymore. Deconstruction is a very contested term right now because often deconstruction will lead to deconversion, but we would like to make the argument in the book that deconstruction doesn't have to lead to deconversion. It can lead to a more healthy and historic and Orthodox Christian faith. And where the term is contested is that it originally comes out of the 1960s with a French philosopher by the name of Jacques Derrida. And his usage of the term post-mole, his usage of the term deconstruction is intended to communicate the idea that maybe that there's no one understanding or one truth, one meaning that all our attempts to describe reality really undercut themselves. And so his task was to show how that was the case. And when deconstruction is used in that way,

and when we hear Christians say, I'm going through deconstruction, unfortunately that usually means for them that they are undoing their faith, that it's a destructive kind of endeavor. However, there would be lots of other Christians, and these were the ones that Sean and I probably would run into maybe most in our speaking engagements

and on the campus at Biola University, who are Christians who are saying, I believe that Jesus is the way, but I don't know what the way of Jesus looks like anymore. I've been handed a particular version of the faith, and now I'm starting to wonder whether or not I think it's a great reflection of the way of Jesus. And so I'm deconstructing,

taking it apart, looking at it, and then building it back together in a way that I think is more reflective and honoring to Jesus. And so those would be the two ways that I would see the word getting used most often today. Okay, but both of you probably have a good sense of the lay of the land right now on this through being at Biola

and then Sean with your YouTube channel and all the connections you have there. And John, of course, you've this been a huge area of research for you. How concerned are you? Maybe Sean, you could speak to this of just, because as I look at things more anecdotally, it looks like there's a pretty significant portion of the U.S. population that is now de-churched. It looks like in the younger generation, there's a high level of anxiety.

Maybe what's your level of alarm at this point as you see this kind of playing out? So first off, the idea of people rethinking their faith and the idea of people leaving their faith is nothing new. I've been studying First Timothy kind of in my personal study time. And Paul names two people, including Hymenas, and calls them out for shipwrecking. their faith. So this whole idea of questioning and deconstruction, even though the word wasn't used, is really nothing new. But what's new today is the access to information that people have. I mean, in college, my own deconstruction story really began, and probably in the mid-90s, before Google, when we had the internet, I'm searching around going, what is this internet thing?

And I found out that really a lot of the atheist secular web began questioning, like chapter by chapter my dad's book evidence it demands verdict and to say it lightly gabin it just rocked me it's the first time i met really smart people doctors lawyers historians pushing back on the stuff that i assumed was true and it unsettled me well now that kind of information is coming through tic-tok it's coming through everywhere and because it's ubiquitous it can tend to cause that questioning process a little bit earlier. There's also a sense in our culture where it's like you've just got to express yourself. You have to tell your story to the world. And so there's pressure on people. You be you express yourself when someone deconstructs in some fashion, whether they're questioning their faith in

the way John described or deconverting. They feel this need to be their authentic self and tell the world about it. So it's not so much that anything is new. It's just that there's new phenomenon going on in our culture. I think in some ways this deconstruction thing is really revealing a lot of the shallowness and the hypocrisy within the Christian church. I mean, if you spend time talking with a lot of people who deconstruct and at the heart of it, and again, this isn't deconversion, it's sometimes they've just been given an emotionalistic view of the faith, a purely experientialist view of the faith, sometimes an overly rational view of the faith, sometimes they've experienced hypocrisy or church hurt lurking beneath this is i think we need to pay

attention and fix some things within the church so yes i'm concerned with people leaving and it's hard to gauge the numbers because how many people are really in the church and really believe and leave versus they were just sociologically engaged that's hard to know but nonetheless a lot of people are talking about it. There's pressure to do it. There's praise from our culture when you deconstruct and even deconvert from the Christian faith. So I think it's something we need to be attentive to. And in a sense, I mean, I get emails probably daily from people and other forms of communication concerned about it. Hence, that's why John and I wrote the book. Yeah. When you say that it rocked your world, I can relate to that in a time in my life when I actually two seasons where I went

to kind of angst in my faith. And one of the things I appreciate about your, guy's book and the work you're doing is there's an element of compassion and kind of a human awareness of just the painfulness of those experiences. I think one of the things Christians can do that's unhelpful is always assume bad motives in the person who's struggling and not appreciating just the pain and the sincere struggle they might be going through. But what your book is trying to shepherd people towards is ultimately not a defensiveness and not an alarmism, but ultimately getting through that to a stronger faith. And so that's what one of the things. I love, but you mentioned hypocrisy in the church. Can we identify maybe like the top two or three

reasons why you think, and you've also brought up the age of authenticity kind of dynamic, but from those or any others, what would you say top two or three reasons? Maybe both of you could address this of that you see causing people to go the full route of deconversion. John, go ahead, buddy. Yeah, thanks. The number one reason that people say that they leave. the faith is always the same. It's always that they came to the conclusion that it was no longer true. The difference is is how they get there and the different avenues that they take to arriving at that conclusion. Some people have a more of an intellectual approach and they'll say, you know, I think that there's no good reason to believe the Bible. The more time I spent

reading it and the more time I looked into its history and who wrote it, we don't know who wrote it. And when I learned about higher criticism and the history of the Israelites and from a secular perspective. I just think that the Bible is not worthy of being considered the word of God and might not even be considered a good book when you read all of the things that God came in at the Israelites to do. So big problems with the Bible might be the number one intellectual issue followed up with no good evidence to believe in either the resurrection of Jesus or even the existence of God. Second would be emotional hurts. And those are either emotional hurts by someone in the church or emotional hurts received, perceived, at least, that they've received from God, where there is almost a reciprocity understanding of a relationship with God,

that they live for God, they do what God wants, they give him worship, they believe his word, then he should come through for them when they really want something or they're in a bind. And when he doesn't, there's a sense of betrayal, which also leads to a sense of maybe God doesn't even exist. But if he does, I'm not going to give him what he wants because he really hurt me. And then I think the last one would be ethical issues, which would come down to some of the values that culture shapes and instills within us run contrary to the Word of God. And our modern moral sensibilities make it very difficult, I think, to affirm a historic Christian understanding on sexual ethics. And we feel very

feel very bigoted and intolerant, mean-spirited, you know, a hater for holding what Christians have believed for, you know, 2,000 plus years now about that. And so when all of that comes together, it's a recipe for disaster. Each one of those on their own is enough for some people to say, I'm out of here. But when all three of them happen, then it's really dangerous. You know, that's a great answer. And I appreciate one of the things I appreciate about you, John, in your research is that you go intellectual, the emotional, the relational, is that we are holistic beings. And for all of us, they play a part in different fashions. And really the key for anybody is what Proverbs 25 says, the purposes in a man's heart is deep. And a man of wisdom will draw it out. So when somebody is deconstructing or reconficking their faith or, you know, deconverting, I want to do my best to just to get to the heart of it for that person. And many times we don't even understand the deep reasons that really causes to approach things this way. So that balance is key. One question I'll throw out there that's interesting is when people are deconverting, we often want to know

what's the reason you're leaving. Tell me your story why you left the faith. A really interesting question I found to ask is simply rather than leave or questioning your faith, tell me about the time you came into the faith. Tell me about that time, you knew that you were a sinner and you knew that you needed God's grace and you cried out to God for forgiveness. And I'm telling you, Gavin,

not in every case, but in many cases, and I could give you story after story, there was never that kind of grace-filled experience. There was, I experienced God in worship, you know, like I did in a rock concert. I experienced God in nature. I experienced, you know, really in many cases, it's a false gospel that people are led to believe.

So not in every case. But I found in so many cases, people are walking away from a certain experience of the faith and maybe not even realize that this isn't the heart of what the faith really is. Yeah, fascinating. Well, that's what I experience over and over and addressing this topic is that, You talk about deconstruction and doubts and challenges, and it forces you to look in the mirror as a Christian and as the church and say, you know, where have we missed it or how can we refine and repent our own practice or our own understanding in ways? And so it's humbling in that sense. But let me ask about this distinction that you guys make between big E evangelicalism and little E evangelicalism.

We're just going straight for the controversial stuff, I guess. But, you know, a lot of people. So you're talking about not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And maybe first question, simple question, I don't know, maybe John, I can't remember if you were more in the lead on that chapter, but if you maybe want to start and just explain that. What's the difference there between Big E and Little E, if you can remember back from. Yeah, no, I can remember, but this is just such a hot button topic that I want to make sure that I choose my words carefully. You know, one of the things that we find by listening to enough young people, and this is a, perception that they have. This is a related to the maybe the values that that have been

instilled in them by the culture. And that is that the church is a big evangelicalism is, you know, reflects a turning from being identified with the things that historically evangelicals were identified with, which was an emphasis on conversion, a focus on the cross, a high view of the Bible. And then evangelism slash social activism and being involved in fighting for just causes in the world in the name of Jesus. And big evangelicalism is seen as, you know, turning from those things and being identified with maybe winning the culture war via politics or the court. For a lot of young people, it wasn't so much that a lot of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump but extolled him as a person or at least they said, supported him without calling out his gross immorality and ungodly character. And so there would be a number of young people, and I don't think that the criticism is

completely off base, who would have difficulties identifying with that version of evangelicalism. And what we wanted to say was, you know, we have some misgivings about that, too. We have some deep concerns. But we don't want you to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and the baby is. little evangelicalism, which is a movement that's, you know, 300 plus years old, that's worldwide. It's not an American phenomenon specifically. And that has done some of the greatest good, both socially and spiritually, and produced some of the greatest and most beautiful people in the last 300 years. Don't, don't in your frustrations and your rejection of maybe some of the ways that it's betrayed that.

don't throw out the entire thing and the good that has gone along with it because we think that that good really reflects the essence of what it is to be a follower of Jesus. How is that, Sean? That was a great answer. I appreciate that. And you're right. This is such a hot button topic. Let me just add to this that we are not writing an apologetics book.

Correct. I've written that book. At the very beginning of this book, I write and I say, if you're not sure if the Bible's true, check out evidence to man's verdict. Now maybe I should have added this in here. If you're not sure about a biblical view of sexuality, check out my book Chasing Love. Like that is not this book. I've written books on ethics where I talk about political issues.

I talk about transgenderism. I go into those. This book is John and I are trying to basically write the book that we wish somebody gave to us when we were kind of questioning and rethinking our faith in our 20s. Now, the book's not just for somebody in their 20s, But it's really the book I wish that somebody had given me. And in my life, I had people like William Lane Craig and J.P. Morlin. I thank God for these guys.

When I was intellectually questioning things, they had deep, philosophical, historical answers that just helped me have confidence in my faith intellectually. But I also had a friend who's my resident director of Bile. His name was Rob Lone. And he didn't give me simple answers. He asked me questions. he framed things for me he kind of guided me and he'd say well if you change this belief how would it shape your faith now some people would say that's dangerous and you should tell young people

exactly what to believe but that is exactly what i needed in my life at that time is somebody to guide me and re guide me and offer kind of guardrails so to speak of the different ways it means to follow jesus how do i rethink and own my own faith faithful to Jesus and faithful to the Bible. So this section at the end, one of the things John and I hear over and over again, and I think the data backs it up, is that politicization, just too much emphasis on politics and having to vote a certain way to be a Christian is off-putting to many in this younger generation. Now, we're not saying you should vote A or you should vote B. That's a different book. I have strong political convictions and I vote a certain way and I'm more than happy to debate

and talk about this with others. That's just not this book. We're saying we live in this hyper-tribalistic, hypersensitive culture. Let's take a step back and just say, what is the heart of the gospel? What is the E of evangelicalism that in a sense the church has been faithful to for 2,000 years? Let's just start there and answer these questions first, and then the specific political questions are downstream. That's not to say they're not important. That's just to say there's a difference between kind of this cultural understanding of evangelicalism and what it is historically meant. And don't throw out the goodness of the church and lowercase evangelicalism if you happen to be disillusioned with a certain cultural understanding that you have experienced of the faith. Now, let's suppose someone's watching this,

and I'm trying to anticipate based upon so many conversations I've had how some are feeling. Some might feel I really struggle to pull apart the big E and the little E, the baby and the bathwater. I feel like they just go together. I haven't seen them pulled apart or, you know, and how would you help someone who's struggling to see if that's an authentic distinction? And I'll give a thought of my own, if that's okay, to lead into this and then see what you think. But just an encouragement is to study church history and also to look at the church. in other places today. You know, the church in Iran, you know, is growing rapidly. Evangelical Church in Iran is growing rapidly. And I think just that global perspective and the historical

perspective, which John, you already mentioned, the force for good that like 18th century evangelicals were on certain social issues and that kind of thing. You know, all of that, I think, is really helpful for people, because I've experienced people theoretically they can accept that distinction, but not having seen it, it's hard to really embrace it. So anyway, what would you say to someone who might be struggling in that way? Go ahead, John. I was going to say the same thing to you. One of the, I think the thing that comes in my mind, I'm not sure how helpful this is, but, you know, I'm a Canadian living in the United States and I've been here for a long time, but I grew up in Canada.

And in Canada, it's become more like the United States in the last 10 or 15 years where identifying with a particular political party is what a lot of conservative Christians would do because of the social issues involved. But historically, that hasn't necessarily been the case. And the difference in Canada is also that there's more than just a two-party system in Canada. We have five different political parties that all win seats in what would be for us, our Congress or the Senate. And so there isn't a polarization between if you vote for one party, you're not a Christian, you have to vote for this party over here. There's been an ability to have Christians be able to find justification and good justification for voting for different parties throughout probably the last, you know,

20 or 30 years. But as I see things in the United States, because there's only two-party system, it really becomes polarizing, as shown said, tribal. Because when you do, look at some of the platforms of the parties you say it's it's really hard to vote for someone who would extol or who would who would try and you know enact these things in in our culture and i think that plays a big role in in why this has happened is just a limited two-party system i think that's helpful i think your point gavin is right on that we have a certain experience we live in a certain cultural certain cultural moment and we take tend to see all of reality through that cultural moment.

But if we step back, we look in church history. If we look in other countries, we see a wider range of being faithfully Christian. And so in some ways, if somebody has a hard time separating these two, they're just going to have to see a model of somebody who does it well. There's really no other way outside of that. So the example of Wilberforce in the book and others we point towards as examples of modeling this for people. Now, one thing I want to be clear, we're not saying, we're not saying all political parties and positions are equal. We're not taking a relativistic view here. We're saying there's a lot of

space within the Christian fold. Let's make sure our commitment is to Jesus first and the scriptures. And then we can start to work out some of these political commitments. Part of my concern is I think people jump really almost thoughtlessly onto certain political parties or positions and assume that's the Christian position without really studying scripture, without thinking about the intersection of politics and faith, without really doing a deep dive here, they just accept what was handed on to them. So we're giving people space to work these things out, but ultimately point to them back to saying, okay, what does scripture say? Make Jesus Lord of your life. Make Jesus Lord of every thing you do and that will shape ultimately the way that you vote. But let's make sure we don't have a form of

political idolatry, which we often see where our hope becomes in some political party or some political person instead of Jesus. That's not helpful. And that's when our priorities are out of whack. So we're kind of calling people to take a step back and be more thoughtful about how they even approach this conversation. Hence, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Love it. One of the great things about your book is the call to not be defensive when we are helping someone else who is working through deconstruction. And I think sometimes we can feel this temptation of almost panicking and wanting to fix the problem or something like that rather than coming alongside someone and being helpful to them. One of the things you've even emphasized in the book is encouraging a relentless search for truth, which I loved. So maybe I could just ask you both to just unpack a little bit the importance.

If someone's watching this, they have a child, a grandchild, a friend, a roommate, whoever, who's really questioning their faith, really working through things, the importance of listening and the importance of not giving too quick of a response, but allowing for the process. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Sarah, I'll jump in first on this one. One of the first things I'd say to parents and a pastors is to not take it personally. It's easy and natural when we have a love one we've mentored or we've been a parent to

to see it through the lens of either we failed or think about how all the other people around us are going to view me if my child is no longer in the faith. Those are natural human responses, but let me urge you to resist those. My dad, I mean, obviously an influential apologist when I told him I was questioning the faith, back in college, his response was he goes, son, I think that's great. And I swear I paused. I'm like, did you even hear me? Like, are you paying attention? And he goes, you can't live on my faith. He goes, I'm glad you want to seek truth. You understand the importance of these issues. Seek after truth and fall wherever it'll lead. And you know, your mom and I love you no matter what.

I just needed that calm reassurance, even though I knew it in my head. So the first thing is to just not take it personally and just show unconditional love. Don't freak out. Just respond. Because imagine if a young person is questioning their faith and they tell you, they've probably been thinking about this for a long time, maybe weeks, maybe months, maybe years. And so it took some courage to finally tell this adult.

So what they need is someone to just go, wow, thanks for telling me. I'm so glad you shared with me, invited me. to this part of your life. And then just ask questions. I'd say, tell me about it. When do you start having questions? How does this affect your views of God? How do you think I can most help you through this season?

How did you anticipate how to respond? And just assure your love, your commitment to this person, your willingness to listen, and that you're in the long haul for this person. Because doubt can be painful, like you said earlier. That's why Jude 122 says have mercy on those who doubt. That's awesome. John, any comments on that? And then we're going to get to just practical guard rails and guides that we can direct people towards.

But anything about the importance of listening? No. The only thing that maybe I would be able to add to that would be at some point to say something along the lines of, hey, you know, I'm here for you. But let's, I'm going to let you set the ground rules for our discussions. My temptation might be to always want to be asking you questions, always want to be finding out where you're at, always wanting to get an updated. But I don't want to do that because I know that that will just push you away. I hear over and over again that people who have left the faith are in the process of really deconstructing.

The thing that they find most frustrating is trying to be won back by by loved ones. And so I think that it's okay to say, hey, you know, this is not about me. It's about you. But this also because you're my son or you're my daughter or husband or wife affects me. And I would also like to be able to talk about it, but in a way that doesn't make you feel under the gun. And so would you be willing at some point, maybe in the future, maybe in a month or so, we could revisit this conversation and I might have some time to ask you some questions. and I'll do it respectfully so that we can, you know, just be able to hear each other out. And I think that that is a reasonable request to make of someone who has maybe dropped a real bomb, you know, into your life.

And so that would be the only thing that I might add. Yeah. It's really helpful because I was just reading another book about the de-churching phenomenon, how many people have left the church. And it was heartbreaking for me reading some of these statistics about, the number of those people who would be back at church if either A, someone invited them, or B, someone had listened to them in their context of departure. And that was really helpful for me because I can tend to think in an intellectual way about all this

stuff and think, oh, everyone who's left the church is like a Richard Dawkins type hardcore atheist. And it's not true. A lot of people who've left the church actually have Orthodox beliefs, but they've kind of been casually de-churched because they move. they stopped going during COVID or something like this. So the human element of your book is, I think, really helpful for all of us to kind of come to terms with. But let's get the real practical question. Like this may be the most basic question just to ask you both.

How do you help someone? What do you give someone? What's your basic, like, pitch to encourage and shepherd someone who is personally going through a season of deconstruction? What are the guardrails you offer them, the guides you would want to direct? them towards, what would be your appeal to them? Well, our book is written distinctly for people who say, I want to follow Jesus, but I want to kind of reconstruct, breakdown, and reconstruct a lasting faith. So this is not a book we say, again, at the beginning for someone who says, I'm not even sure if the Bible's true. You're

going to have to go elsewhere for that kind of resource and that book. So what we do in this book is say, there's a wide pasture or a lot of range where Christians can differ. on secondary issues like doctrine, like the role of women in the church, the age of the earth. These are important, vital topics, but there's room to differ on many of these kind of doctrines. But core dogma, who God is, the nature of salvation, the problem with the world, kind of a nicety and creed Christianity, so to speak. Those are guardrails that we cannot move outside. side of. So we want to give as much flexibility as we can while holding on to some of the essentials. So that's the basic guardrail that we put in place. And of course, we say, you know,

one way is to lead towards deconversion. One way is to move towards heresy. So these are the kinds of things we want to avoid and help young people develop a lasting faith by asking the right questions. Now, last thing I'll say, and then John jump in here is really, I think one of the biggest values in our book is we kind of take our cultural moment and try to help young people think through or young Christians why they have certain beliefs that are coming into tension with the scriptures. Like where does this idea come from that I'm just kind of intolerant and bigoted if I don't accept same-sex marriage? Where does this idea come from? Well, it certainly doesn't come from the scripture. It comes from the culture. So we're helping them ask the

deeper questions, what's kind of called the social imaginary, so to speak, things that we just believe and we accept because they're part of the world we live in without questioning them. It's like we're just pulling back the curtain a little bit and helping young people reflect on their beliefs where they came from and maybe shed some of those assumptions and get them more in line with what scripture really says and more in line with what who Jesus really was and is. Yeah, and we begin that by saying, if you really want to remain in a historic Orthodox understanding of Christianity, then the first thing that you need to do is end your deconstruction with Jesus, right? You can pull apart all kinds of aspects of your home, but if you destroy the foundation, then there's nothing left to build on. And the foundation of the Christian faith is Jesus, and it's not just having correct ideas about them, which we think are important, and you have to have minimally correct ideas about who Jesus. is. But it's it's submitting to him and his lordship and recognizing that he is he's the king, that we need to lay down our arms and we need to give him allegiance. And it's from starting from

that point and building on that foundation that any healthy deconstruction or the reconstructed process of deconstruction has to start. And it doesn't mean that you can't ask questions about Jesus, like what did Jesus say or what did Jesus mean when he said this, or what was Jesus' mission or how did Jesus understand himself? all of those things are fair game to ask, and Christians have been asking them for a long time. But there has to be a fundamental understanding of who Jesus is, that he's the Christ, the son of the living God, that he's come into the world to offer himself up as a substitutionary atonement on our behalf, and that he calls us to enter into his kingdom by way of believing that and submitting to him as the king of the kingdom.

And then from there, we say, as Sean mentioned, that there are some historic boundaries that have been set up, by the community that have been, that are act as theological fences, and that if you transgress those and go outside of those, then you're no longer theologically a Christian. Now, can you still be born again and saved, regenerated, and maybe be wrong about some of, or even deny some of the most basic non-negotiables of the faith? That's a debate for perhaps another book, but what we want to say is that you need to stay inside of historic Christianity, which is cashed out in terms of the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and maybe the Calcedonian Creed,

the very early ecumenical creeds of the church. But within there, as Sean used the phrase, that there is a large pasture to be a free-range believer, that you can really think about, A, the different views that people have. I think there were many of your viewers will be familiar with the different versions book, the four views on women's ministry, five views on charismatic phenomena, three views on salvation in the pluralistic world. There's about 34 or 40 of those books out there with about four or five different positions

that Christians have taken. And the number of those when you combine them is astonishingly high. And so there is freedom within those boundaries before Jesus as the Lord of your life to think well about the beliefs that you hold as a Christian. Let me jump in here, Gavin, if I can. Really key with what you said, because I don't want to be misheard on this, is that the identity of Jesus is God and Jesus as Lord of our life. Now, if Jesus is Lord of our life, then we can differ on the secondary issues.

But there are certain issues that Jesus was very clear on. issues like the nature of marriage in Matthew chapter 19. So we don't leave this open and say, oh, because there happens to be a four views or three views book on a biblical view of homosexuality, that's fine. No, I actually think in a lowercase Catholic, a biblical view of marriage is as historical in the church in terms of what marriage is meant to be as any belief. And Darren Belusick walks us through in his book on same-sex marriage. So yes, we frame it with the creeds, but we also walk through and compare and contrast with kind of what's often called a progressive Christian view.

And maybe we want to get into this more is that don't hear us saying, therefore, you can just differ on marriage. You can just differ on any of these other cultural issues today. There is a wide pasture here. But there's also some issues such as the nature of marriage where scripture is clear and the historical record is unanimous within the church. And we try, and if I can just add to that, Gavin, and we try and go that next step in the chapter where we talk about, you know, what's your authority? Because we think that everyone is making decisions according to some authority. And we really argue that for a Christian, their authority is the word of God. And before the Lord, they need to, and we all need to do our very best to understand what we think the scripture teaches.

And even if we don't like it, we need to. to submit to it if we become convinced or persuaded that this is what the Bible has to say. And so I just want to echo what Sean is saying is that we're not leaving it wide open and saying that this is a free-for-all and you can just pick and choose and believe what you like. You need to believe what you do underneath the authority of Jesus as you study the Bible, recognizing it as the authority and submitting to it when you come to conclusions regarding what it teaches. Okay, this is really helpful. So I'm hearing you guys say that on the one hand, treating every doctrine or even every opinion as a hill to die on is unhelpful. And it actually, and this is what I see as well, that actually facilitates people having a crisis of faith when one little thing gets challenged and now they're questioning everything. But on the other hand, you're also not saying, okay, so there's nothing that is a hill to die on. And not just on the creeds, but even on a social, issue like marriage and I feel the same way. That's something I've had to work at being clearer on

so that no one misunderstands what we mean by this idea of like doing triage with doctrine is that it's not a free for all. But since you've both brought up the authority of scripture as we start to get toward the end here, let me ask you about this. And I'm going to read a quote from the book on page 92 because I thought this was a great part of the book where you're addressing this concern that sometimes you find in more progressive contexts where someone will say, well, I accept the authority of Jesus rather than the authority of Scripture. Okay, so that's the context for this quote, and I'll read the quote and then just invite you both, whatever you'd like to comment on this, because I think what we are recognizing at this section of the book here is that the authority of

scripture, that's kind of a watershed issue in this conversation. How we might interpret, you know, the particulars is a little different. But so here's the quote. It says those who adjudicate scripture or through the lens of Jesus, never seem to see God as more wrathful, more intolerant, or more exclusive. On the contrary, the Jesus lens seems to coincidentally align with the values of contemporary culture. Shouldn't that give us pause? We think so because it severely limits the Bible's ability to do its job, which is to correct our mistaken beliefs. if you embrace a view that allows you to reject certain parts of the Bible, there is a real danger that you will reconstruct a Christianity that reflects more of who you are than who Jesus is. How do you unpack your thought process about this?

I think the idea of pulling Jesus out from the Bible is potentially a dangerous idea. And I don't if I'd say a false idea, but first off, we know about Jesus. through the scriptures, right? That's the primary avenue we know about them. We also have to ask what kind of view of scripture did Jesus hold? And over and over again, he refers to the scripture as being unbroken. The scripture is being passed on to us. The scripture is being written down and authoritative by God. So if we're going to believe in Jesus and make him Lord, then we have to hold the view of scripture that Jesus, in fact, held. I don't think we can or should separate those.

Now, what happens, and we point this out in the book, is maybe some people are more, you know, this is probably somewhat of a stereotype. But even Dennis Prager said, he goes, maybe if you take those in the right who tend to be Republicans, they focus on justice. Those in the left who maybe tend to be Democrats focus on compassion. Well, we can come at the scriptures,

and I realize that's a generalization. but we can come at the scriptures and start to favor one over the other. Maybe it's our temperament, maybe it's our family for whatever reason. That's where we start to fit a Jesus into our own liking. The reality is Jesus was profoundly and deeply compassionate. He touched the leper who had been starved for touch. You know, he calls the one woman, he says, daughter and just refers to her with this beautiful loving demeanor. but he's also just and he also spoke truth and i would argue that he also talked about and warned about

the reality of hell so if we take jesus seriously then we have to take all of his words seriously can't pick and choose which we have both of those perspectives in the scripture so that idea of kind of unhinging jesus from the scripture really makes me nervous and gives me pause John, anything you want to add onto this? And if you have any thoughts thus far, go for it. But I'll throw in even another level of somebody might be watching this saying, I just really struggle to accept some of the things in the Bible. There's some strange things in there.

There's, you know, we got Elijah calling for the bears to mall the youths, you know. For some reason, that one always comes up into my mind. We've got, you know, we've got the book of Joshua. There's violence. You know, we've got slavery is tolerated or appears to be tolerated in certain passages. There's a lot in there. So for somebody who's really struggling to accept a high view of scripture, how do you help them? How do you pastor them?

Let me just go back if you don't mind. And I don't just have one thing to what Sean said is Jesus affirms some of the most difficult passages in the Old Testament. Jesus speaks as though the flood actually happened. Jesus in Matthew says to the Pharisees that they have made the Word of God null and void and they have elevated the traditions of men over the law and the commands, he says, the commands of God.

And what he's referring to there, he said, is when the Old Testament law says that you need to honor your father and mother and whoever doesn't honor their father or mother, shall be put to death. Now, it's clearly much more complicated than just simply a son or daughter who doesn't honor their parents in a specific moment. But the Pharisees had an entire system worked out where they could avoid honoring their parents because they would come up with a way that they could swear an oath to God. And that would get them out of honoring their parents. And what's fascinating to me is that Jesus in Matthew

says to them, woe to you, because you have taken the commands of men and elevated them, or the traditions of men and elevated them over the commands of God. Because God said, or Moses said, that you need to honor your father or mother, and whoever doesn't honor their father or mother, let them die the death. Jesus seems to, at least to me, to very clearly uphold probably one of the hardest laws in the Old Testament. And that was capital punishment for disobedient kids. And again, for those who are listening, I'm sure that it's much more complicated than that. And there's probably a lot that goes on in that. And maybe that's part of the answer when it comes to people who are struggling with

this question is that often we come to the Bible with a set of assumptions, lacking maybe some contextual understanding, lacking cultural understanding, looking at it through historical eyes that are looking at the ancient world from thousands of years away, and that might cause us to see the world, causes to see scripture in ways that maybe it was never intended to be seen. Now, I do think that Jesus does affirm a really difficult and harsh law. So therefore, anyone who would be willing to say, hey, Jesus said, love your enemies, and yet in the Old Testament, God is annihilating Canaanites, maybe the Canaanites, and maybe the Israelites, got that wrong. God didn't really say that. And we should really just follow the teachings of Jesus

who said, love your neighbor. We can't avoid the fact that Jesus also says some pretty hard things, and he affirms some of the most difficult commands of God, such as children who are disobedient don't honor to their parents will be put to death. That's a great point. I mean, we've got to come to terms with the teachings of Christ, right? Let me throw out too, you know, it's funny. If anybody saw me looking down while you were talking. It's not because I was bored by your answer, far from it. It's because I was actually looking up an old email thread between you and me, John, and I was trying to remember, I think you and I had emailed about this, about some of these Old Testament passages, and we were kind of just brainstorming together about how to think this through. And, you know,

two, I find that many times Christians do make some basic hermeneutical mistakes when they're struggling with the scripture. So I would give two thoughts to encourage them as well. This is just, in addition to everything you guys are saying is remember the difference between descriptive and prescriptive, not everything in the scripture that it records as happening as giving approval of. A lot of the terrible things that Abraham or Moses might have done aren't necessarily being upheld as good. And then another is just reading it in historical context and not expecting it to function like a 21st century book when it's addressing realities that are in the ancient world. There's other

things, too, that we were actually going on in our email about that kind of like that, just helping Christians think through some of those basic, sometimes errors that we make in interpreting the scripture. And I'd like to recommend a book by Paul Copan, is God a moral monster. If anybody's wrestling with, like, the book of Joshua and some of these tough Old Testament passages, I think he does a really great job of helping us think through those things and seeing there's certainly not as slam dunk problematic as sometimes, like, you'll find. atheists wielding them. They're actually really convoluted to work through. So that's a book I might encourage people. I have one other question, but first I get to the last question about humility,

anything else on the authority of scripture that we don't want to leave anybody hanging on this topic before I move on. You know, one simple thing I would just offer. When somebody comes to me in the rest of these passages, sometimes we feel like we have to have a black and white answer. and I would say part of the Christian faith is to wrestle with these. Let me give you permission to not have a perfect answer. I felt many times in my life, like, I've just got to have this perfect answer. But as you grow up, any worldview that you have is going to have tensions. And I find in the Christian worldview, there's a lot less and they're less significant.

But it's okay. I mean, in physics, is it a, is, you know, is it a, what is it when it comes to tension with electrons and light? Is it a wave or is it a particle, right? Like there's a certain tension that's there. Well, there's going to be a certain tension within theology. So some of the studies show, and I was going to cite this earlier, Gavin, that this comes from sticky faith on millennials out of Fuller Theological Seminary.

They said people don't leave the faith because of doubts, but because of unexpressed doubts. So part of what we're doing in the book is we're not giving apologetic answers. We're saying, okay, doubt is a part of being human. especially in our cultural moment. It makes sense you to look at these Old Testament passages and have questions about them. Try to find answers. But how do we live with questions and still trust Jesus?

That's an important piece to this that we want to add that's often left out. It's really good. Okay, I'm going to call an audible on my last question to switch it up because I've preached so many sermons that my instincts are now to always end with Jesus. because I just feel that that's what you've got to do. So I'm going to ask you a personal question.

In your own experiences as a Christian or in your shepherding of others going through doubts and deconstruction, how have you seen the beauty of Jesus? A moment ago, we just mentioned Jesus touching the leper. I think you brought that up, Sean. I was thinking about that passage recently, too. It's just unbelievable, the compassion and kindness. I think people might benefit from having us close on this note. because I really believe that people who are struggling,

that's a great place to kind of come back to is the beauty of Christ. Could you say something to encourage people in your own observations of the beauty of Jesus? Yeah, sure. I'll jump in here. One of the things I keep coming back to, especially if people would deconstruct, is just the beauty of grace. I mean, when I see people who have wrestled with their faith and I just say, give yourself grace, that's at the heart of the Christian faith.

It's okay to struggle. It's okay to ask questions. I mean, just read Psalms. Even David and the people after God's own heart deeply wrestled and didn't understand. But there is grace for you. That's where I've just seen people take a breath of fresh air. I've seen people really rejuvenated by that period of grace. So again, Jude 122 have mercy on those who doubt. Just as important as offering intellectuals. responses. In fact, you can almost make the case that it's more important is showing the beauty of grace because of what Jesus has done for us. Yeah, that reminds me, as Sean and I were doing an interview with a nationally syndicated program, and the host was telling us his story, and his relationship with his son. And he said he had a great relationship with his son, but one day his son came home and said to him, you know, Dad, I don't really know if I think that the earth is created 10,000 years ago. I don't really, think that it's probably done in six days and I might even believe in evolution.

And the way he responded, the host responded, was exactly how Sean described it, was with grace and with kindness and said, that's okay. Let's just talk about it. And although I have an opinion on that, it's not a matter of your salvation. It will affect other things in your life. It will have a ripple effect through your theology. But you don't have to believe that. that's not what makes you a member of the community of the kingdom of heaven.

It's really all about Jesus and then everything works itself out from there. And years later, his son came back to him and said, you know, Dad, the reason why I'm a Christian today is because how you responded when I told you that I was struggling with believing a particular interpretation of the book of Genesis. Fantastic note to finish on for us all to kind of leave with that thought in our mind of we've got to show love and kind of. to others because people are hurting more than we realize a lot of times. So thank you both for writing the book. Thanks for this great discussion. I really enjoyed it. People watching this video, check the book out. It's in the video description. Pastors, consider getting a copy for the college group at your church or others in your church. Consider taking your church through it. Others who have influence, I think this book will be really helpful for people on this whole topic. So thanks for

watching everybody. We'll see you next time.