By “foreign,” I mean more precisely “cross-cultural,” the same term missions strategists use for missions that crosses significant boundaries of religion, worldview, customs, habits, language, taboos, and expectations. For decades missiologists have been saying not all cross-cultural missions means flying somewhere. It could also include ministry to other cultures transplanted to America, or to Native American cultures that were here long before Christians.

Still, for most American Christians our mission field was fairly domestic: familiar language, no exchange rate to worry about on the dollar, and most importantly, not much by way of cultural barriers to cross. The first of those is questionable, the second one only matters if you’re comparing the value of yesterday’s dollar to today’s, but the third one has changed drastically. Our culture has turned foreign — and I would say not merely cross-cultural — in almost every way that matters to ministry: its view of God, its view of self, its view of Christianity, which it both misunderstands completely yet holds increasingly hostile attitudes against. Here’s one fresh, new, and I think helpful way to look at it:

Church programs and methods designed for the 20th century may seem effective still, but cross-cultural missions outreach is different. Our churches need to change accordingly. That’s the hard part — the almost impossibly difficult one. In this video I share both the urgency of change, and hope for ways to help make that change happen. It’s not the only hard thing Christians have experienced, in fact for many it’s far from the hardest. It is, however, the greatest challenged we’ve ever faced simply for being who we are, the Church.

Serving by Listening and Networking

Most of all, I share how much I care for and love the pastors God is tasking with reaching this new foreign culture. For years it’s been my dream to have a full-time ministry of networking with and serving pastors in making this change realistically possible. I finally freed up time for it by retiring from other work — only to be shocked with a completely unexpected diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

I am holding my own with it, but I cannot expect to be out among pastors here in Dayton as I had dreamed of doing. For those who feel the burden of this new ministry reality, though, I would love at least to offer some Zoom conversation. Pastors need to converse with pastors on these things, but I can facilitate it, as long God allows.

I am proposing two separate conversations: One at 3:30 pm Eastern time, Wednesday, October 23, and a second one on Thursday evening October 25, at 8:00 pm Eastern time. (I wish I could do it later for the sake of West Coast participants, but staying up late isn’t as easy as it used to be.) To be informed of these conversations, please use the special contact form provided here. I look forward to talking with you!

An earlier conversation between the eminently wise and unfailingly loving Christian professor Timothy McGrew and me sheds more light on the same subject.

The post How Your Church Can Thrive in This Strange New World We Live In appeared first on Tom Gilson.

You and I have been trading videos, articles, and tweets over the past several weeks. The latest round, other than tweets I’ve sent, and which you haven’t answered, was your video criticizing my Stream article about you. I wrote an answer to your criticism, but when I finished I realized it was missing the point, the “central issue” — not the “central issue” you’ve chided me for “avoiding,” but one that’s even more central than that.

So I’m not posting that response. I could, but this comes first. I have some questions for you.

It starts with the overarching question, what is the real central issue?

What Is the Real Central Issue?

You have said repeatedly that I’ve missed it. You’ve said the central issue is Sean McDowell’s claim that progressive Christianity isn’t real Christianity. The problem is, I don’t think that’s central enough.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that Sean actually committed that error. There is no eternal principle that says, “Thou shalt not mischaracterize progressive Christianity.” If what he did was wrong (again, or the sake of argument), it must have been wrong for violating some deeper, broader, more enduring ethical principle or principles.

Those principles might include bearing false witness. If Sean is misrepresenting progressive Christianity (or historic Christianity, for that matter), he’s not speaking from ignorance, so knows enough about these things to bear responsibility for the error. He’s violating one of the Ten Commandments. That would constitute a definite violation of a very old, enduring principle.

As I hear your responses, though, from the hurt you’ve expressed over the way your friend Pete Enns has been treated, to your complaint about my being condescending toward you, I hear an even more general issue reverberating through it all, one that would include misrepresenting progressive Christians, and yet more than that. What I hear you saying is, “Thou shalt not mistreat fellow believers.”

That, I believe, is the real central issue: How we — especially we who are Christian leaders — treat other believers. Thus, if you are right to identify Sean McDowell’s behavior toward progressive Christians as a problem, he’s still just one person. He would be be an example or instance of a larger problem in that case, but one person’s behavior could never be important enough to be the central issue.

Opportunity Offered, Opportunity Declined

That’s my opinion, at any rate. I have wondered whether you would agree with that, and I wanted to hear you weigh in on it. On April 14 I asked you via Twitter whether “you think it would be fair to say the actual central issue of importance is more general than [McDowell’s statements]: Christians’ treatment of other Christians. Or maybe Christian leaders’ treatment of others.”

It could be, for example, that you think the “central issue” is any Christian leader’s mischaracterization of progressive Christianity. I would say that’s still not central enough. At any rate, I gave you opportunity to answer. You didn’t take it up, either when I first asked it or when I repeated it the next day.

Therefore, not having heard from you, but with reasons stated here to support it, I am going to proceed with this as a statement I think we should be able to agree on. If you think there’s something wrong with this I’d certainly want to know why.

The true core issue at stake is this: Christian leaders should not mistreat other Christians in any way at all. They should not misrepresent them, not mock or scorn them, not falsely call them false believers, not act with hubris or pride toward them. They should love instead.

Again, if you disagree, I’d be glad to hear your reasons. (I suggest you take a look at question 5 below before you answer.)

Right Actions in Relation to Right Beliefs

One further important point came up more recently. You’ve made it clear that you prioritize actions over beliefs; that you consider it more important to love your neighbor than to have the right doctrine. We ran into disagreements on that, too. I have a follow-up article ready to post in which I believe I can explain how you may have misunderstood my Stream article. I’m letting that pass for now, though. This matter of the central issue is far more important than defending that article.

So in that vein I have eight questions for you here. I’ll start with four representative tweets that I’ve already asked you about on Twitter. Please note that I have no interest whatsoever in your answering these to my satisfaction. I’m more concerned that you answer them to your own satisfaction. I’m not sure that will be very easy.

You’ll find this to be a list of observations about your written or video content, followed by questions for you to consider. Nothing here amounts to a judgment regarding your character. That’s a matter for God and you, not for me. But I would urge you to ask these questions of yourself. You might start with this one, borrowing from a thought experiment of your own. You’ll need to read the eight questions below to understand the entire context in which I ask it. I’m starting with it only because it should look rather familiar to you:

Imagine having this choice on Judgment Day: You could be a person with what you’d consider proper progressive beliefs, yet who treated other Christians the way you see outlined below. Or you could be an out-and-out fundamentalist who treated others consistently in kindness and love, including those he thought were wrong. Which of the two would you choose to be, standing before the throne of judgment on that day?

Misrepresenting, Mocking,  Condescending? Four Twitter-Based Questions

The following tweets are all yours. (I say that in case someone’s browser doesn’t display them fully.)

1. Misrepresenting?

“In 1483, English religious minorities could be imprisoned, Jews were subject to special taxes, prisoners were tortured, women couldn’t sign contracts or borrow money, mental disabilities were viewed as divine punishments … but they had ornate church ceilings so they had God?!”

In 1483, English religious minorities could be imprisoned, Jews were subject to special taxes, prisoners were tortured, women couldn't sign contracts or borrow money, mental disabilities were viewed as divine punishments … but they had ornate church ceilings so they had God?! pic.twitter.com/RHNgBGOkdf

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) April 17, 2023

In answer to that, I raised this question for you: “That’s not even close to what they were saying. Are you shooting straight by implying that it was?” (The term “straight shooter” comes out of your own definition of a good apologist, as I’m sure you recall.)

2. Mocking?

“I can’t help but wince when well-meaning Christians cite the opinions of 18th century thinkers to justify their view of origins. You don’t cite their views on the treatment of cancer or the nature of volcanoes so why here? Science has moved on over the last three centuries.”

I can't help but wince when well-meaning Christians cite the opinions of 18th century thinkers to justify their view of origins. You don't cite their views on the treatment of cancer or the nature of volcanoes so why here? Science has moved on over the last three centuries. https://t.co/zOfeXHll5T

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) April 18, 2023

I observed and then asked in reply, “I just wince when you react to an article you obviously haven’t read. It’s not about justifying their view of origins. Your tweet is about mocking fellow Christians. Do you find that satisfying, I wonder?”

3. Condescending?

“I agree with @newvangelicals. This kind of ad hoc expansion of basic confessions based on the hot cultural potatoes of the day is nothing more than Protestant fundamentalism run amok.”

I agree with @newvangelicals. This kind of ad hoc expansion of basic confessions based on the hot cultural potatoes of the day is nothing more than Protestant fundamentalism run amok. pic.twitter.com/ruJ08dX16v

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) April 12, 2023

My answer was: “Yes, I agree, for the sake of creedal unity and balance we should stay close to the early creeds and church council agreements. Like, for example, the genuinely revolutionary, unifying statement made in Acts 15. Which includes verses 19 and 29, by the way. NOT ad hoc.”

My further question now is whether you would consider your tweet to be fair treatment in light of that? Is it not condescending, at least?

4. More Mocking Misrepresentation?

“Fundamentalism cannot tell the difference between ‘a donkey spoke’ and ‘Jesus resurrected from the grave.'”

Fundamentalism cannot tell the difference between "a donkey spoke" and "Jesus resurrected from the grave." pic.twitter.com/01xhSV6WDc

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) April 14, 2023

I tweeted in reply, “Randal, read what you wrote in this tweet. Not what you quotes [sic. on myself there. Oops!] the other guy saying but what you said. Do you actually believe it? You’re all about how Christians should behave, but you mock and scorn and scoff and deride, and you know what you’re saying isn’t even true.”

I could present many, many more examples from your Twitter feed, but these should be enough.

Please realize that none of the above is about me. Your answers don’t affect me in any way, so whether you answer or not is of no direct concern to me — except, in love for a brother in Christ, I think you should be concerned about these things.

The next four questions do relate to some interchanges you and I have had directly.

Two Questions Related to the “Central Issue”

5. You have repeatedly castigated me for not addressing “the central issue,” Sean McDowell’s treatment of progressive Christians. That is your central issue. You seem to think, however, that it is the central issue.

You have often explained why you consider it to be an issue of great importance, but I have never heard why you think it is the central issue, to the exclusion of, for instance, other issues that I have previously brought up. You’ve said, or at least strongly implied, that it’s wrong for me not to address it. Now, if you’ve given reasons why that should be so, I’m afraid I’ve missed them. Would you then kindly explain why your central issue is necessarily the central issue, so much so that it’s wrong for me to aim my focus on another issue of high importance instead?

6. When I came to you with another important central issue, the manner in which you treated McDowell, you dismissed it as containing “not very much of substance.”

I can’t help wondering how it is that you are not concerned about evidence-based, substantiated questions regarding your own honesty and integrity. It baffles me. I would never ignore such a thing, especially if it was presented with supporting evidence.

That’s me, though. You need not answer this question. I intend it for your own reflection. If you do want to answer, please explain this as well. I considered your treatment of McDowell an issue of high importance. You continued to declare his treatment of progressive Christians the only matter needing discussion. I wouldn’t call it the central issue, but if questions regarding treatment of progressive Christians comes near to the core of it, then I would think substantiated, evidence-based questions regarding your treatment of Sean McDowell come equally near. You waved it aside as “nothing of substance,” though. Have you then taken it as your prerogative to declare what does and doesn’t count as a central issue? If so, how?

(Note again: I have stated what I think is the core issue. I gave you opportunity to weigh in on it. I am still offering you opportunity to explain, if you think it is wrong. So please do not suggest that I have likewise taken it as my prerogative to declare a different central issue.)

Two Questions on Treatment Toward Fellow Christians

7. That article included seven evidence-base points at which I showed, with full substantiation, that you had misrepresented Sean McDowell. You called it “nothing of substance.”

Would you kindly explain how substantial evidence of your own false representations of a fellow believer could seem so trivial in your eyes?

Finally,

8. If you are right, and (still for the sake of argument) if every negative thing Sean McDowell has ever said about progressive Christianity is wrong:

Does your disagreement with him justify your harsh misrepresentations, as identified here? If he is as wrong as you say he is, does that justify making false statements about him? Do you consider such misrepresentations to be consistent with an attitude of love?

From where I sit, it’s hard not to wonder whether you think the differences in your beliefs (matters of orthodoxy) outweigh your call in Christ to act in love (orthopraxy).

So you can count me confused on that. I’m just not sure how you can consider these actions of yours consistent with your own stated values.

I’m Open to Listening If You Are

Be assured that I am open to learning. In your most recent video on me, you said I had misunderstood and misrepresented you. I hope not, but if I did, I will certainly retract and/or clarify it, whichever is honest and appropriate. First I’d want you to see what I’ve written (but not published so far) about how you’d misunderstood me yourself. I’m not sure you got everything right. But that’s a matter of conversation, and I am willing to have that discussion alongside this one.

That’s assuming you don’t dismiss this one as not worth responding to, of course. In that case, I’ll just keep asking you questions like this on Twitter. Just questions, based on observations, nothing that should annoy you enough to block you there, unless there’s some reasons you don’t like basic observations followed up with questions. It’s still up to you whether they’re important to pay attention to.

Anyway, s far as I’m concerned, Randal, it’s not about me at this point. It’s about you. Of course if you can offer something for me to learn by, I’m all ears. I just hope your ears will be open, too.

Grace and peace to you,

Tom Gilson

P.S. If you respond to this on video, feel free to call my blog “moribund” again, if it feels good somehow to call it that. Feel free as well to look here first, though.

Image Credit(s): Unsplash/Ana Municio.

The post An Open Letter with Eight Hard Questions for Progressive Christian Apologist Randal Rauser appeared first on Tom Gilson.

I know some folks on Facebook were aware of this going on, after I posted this blog post on it, but not all of them would have followed it on Twitter. I’m putting this here to tie a bow on it for them and for myself. I thought it would be interesting to count how many times he demanded I drop what I was there to talk about, and answer his questions on his preferred, perhaps more comfortable topic. It was also interesting to see how few of my questions he answered.

I close with some thoughts on integrity in discourse.

It wasn’t a clean question-answer Twitter thread, so at points the sequence was hard to reconstruct. I dropped a few tweets where he said, rightly, that links had come through, and where I followed up by providing them again. They’re not germane now, though I did leave a couple in anyway. What follows is my best reconstruction of the sequence, with all the relevant tweets I was able to identify.

Some Preliminary Tweets of Concern

pic.twitter.com/9Bb331v0gB

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) January 11, 2023

I’ll let you click on his pic link so you know what I’m referring to in this answer:

Better not to indulge in false dichotomies.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 23, 2023

My go-to symbol for a Christian who is equipped to defend their faith is not a megaphone. Rather, it is the two coffee cups of my imprint "Two Cup Press." Rigorous, charitable, mutually enriching conversation, not an amplified harangue on the street corner. https://t.co/YKxOgTQoQc

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 19, 2023

Is that how you'd characterize your approach to Sean McDowell? https://t.co/cKu6sMH5JD

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 23, 2023

There’s the first question I asked him that he never answered.

@RandalRauser, as you know, I've been studying some of your responses to @SeanMcDowell and Alisa Childers. It appears your most basic critique is that they believe their view of Christianity is true, to the exclusion of other views. Would you call that a fair short summary?

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 23, 2023

There’s the second question I asked him that he never answered.

My latest video provides a focused, succinct (12 minute) rebuttal to Alisa Childers' false teaching on progressive Christians. Please help me counter the misinformation spread by Childers and her ilk. https://t.co/A8PXoDjOvx

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 19, 2023

I can't find a single instance of word "relativism" or "relativistic" in her book that sounds the least bit like what you attribute to her. Could you provide real evidence, please?

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 23, 2023

There’s the third question I asked him that he never answered.

The “Stereotyping” Pseudo-Dialogue Begins

The word "atheist" still functions in much conservative evangelical parlance as roughly equivalent to "evil, amoral, licentious anti-social iconoclastic hater of God, mother, apple pie, and all that is right and good."

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 23, 2023

I guess you’re opposed to stereotyping. That’s why you’ve decided to stereotype evangelicals this way, maybe.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 23, 2023

How is it "stereotyping" to point out a common problem? Please explain.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 24, 2023

Let’s take this in order, please. I’ll explain (if you really need it!) after you answer the question I posed you earlier about your basic disagreement with McDowell and Childers.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

I don't know what you're referring to. Please restate it here. As for my tweet, I wrote a book defending that claim and there's abundant survey data supporting it. For example:https://t.co/bEWE7J8Se5

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 24, 2023

You could answer this as well while you're at it: https://t.co/LpFjnV3m5J

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

Who’s Deflecting?

Sean McDowell has declined to have any interaction. I had excellent conversations with Douglas Groothuis and George Yancey. I just provided supporting evidence for my atheist tweet. It seems like you're deflecting. Please respond to the evidence I provided.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 24, 2023

It is not deflecting when one says, “I will answer your question in order. I asked you more than one question that you haven’t even acknowledged. It’s your turn to answer first”

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

In the time you took to write that tweet you could've offered a defense of your original critique of my tweet about evangelical attitudes toward atheists.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 24, 2023

That’s rude. Stop it. https://t.co/Ov2qHhYnBi

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

I will reply to your question regarding stereotyping when I said I would reply.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

Also this. Please answer, in context of your tweet that is linked here and the question I asked about it. And please do not be so rude as to push me again to answer your question. I have already told you I will answer when you have first answered me. https://t.co/a2U3PkFXrn

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

There’s a tweet missing here; I can’t track it down.

Once again, I don't know what you're referring to. Please link me to the "egregious errors" and I'll happily provide a fulsome response on my YouTube channel. In the interim, please defend your response to my atheist tweet.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 24, 2023

3 times now I have pasted the link in question into a tweet. I’m having trouble tracking them all down from my mobile, but I know at least it failed to transmit for reasons I do not know. Try this instead: Go to https://t.co/s8WKRW2YiA It’s the most recent blog entry there

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

Also @RandalRauser , it appears not all of my messages to you with this link yesterday disappeared. You missed this one from more than 24 hours ago. https://t.co/3xV0esttr3

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

@RandalRauser , this is another tweet I wrote yesterday, another question I asked before you asked me yours. I'd like to know your answer, please. https://t.co/RsUUFILpZV

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

He Promises to Respond, and I Respond

Got it. I'll either do a video or a blog article in response.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 24, 2023

With that as at least a mild acknowledgment, even though it answered only one of the three questions above, I decided to go ahead and start answering his question about how he was stereotyping. I begin by asking him for some specific clarification.

Is it your position that the link you gave, https://t.co/5NkoGLMk7G supports this detailed description of "much of evangelical parlance"? Do you intend to imply that evangelical parlance is *largely* stained by this view? If not, what word would you use in place of "largely"? https://t.co/K5FtB8W4Kb

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

There’s the fourth question I asked him that he never answered. He gave a vague, general response, as you see below, but no answer to the very specific questions I asked.

Yes, evangelicals "largely" have an overwhelmingly negative view of atheists. I cite multiple high profile examples and additional surveys in "Is the Atheist My Neighbor?"

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 24, 2023

I ask those questions because (a) the detailed description you gave is unsupported by the evidence you gave. It's highly inflammatory, and your vague word "much" has all kinds of possible implications.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

I didn't say anything about race, Tom. And I find your communication style "inflammatory." But I don't place weight on subjective impressions: rather, I cite objective survey data to support my claims.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 24, 2023

Did you seriously think I said (or implied) you had said something about race? Good grief, Randal, it was an analogy. And did you miss my tweet moments earlier where I responded to your survey data and your claims about it?

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

@RandalRauser Do your surveys support your statement that evangelicals largely speak of atheists as haters of mother and apple pie? Or as iconoclats? Or anti-social? Exactly which words in that phrase of yours are *specifically* supported by your data? https://t.co/gyM3eRefX1

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

There’s the fifth question I asked him that he never answered.

If you had written, "Many evangelicals hold a chilly or cold attitude toward atheists," I would have agreed. That's a commonplace. But in my experience with many evangelicals I have never heard the inflammatory language you ascribe to us here. It's not true, and it's stereotyped. https://t.co/K5FtB8W4Kb

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 24, 2023

He Begins Insisting on a Change of Topic

My latest video is a response to a very offended @TomGilsonAuthor who claims my critique of Sean McDowell is "utterly reprehensible." https://t.co/KdANcAmlvO

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

@RandalRauser Your latest video is predominantly a critique of Alisa Childers, tangentially a critique of Sean McDowell, and just barely a response to my article at https://t.co/JwteHrMK4s. https://t.co/O91RrMhJHK

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

You're right: I largely ignored your article because it largely ignored the central thesis under debate, Is progressive Christianity another religion as McDowell claims, or not? Let me know when you want to discuss his thesis.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

That was his central thesis, not mine; but if it actually was under debate, why didn’t he answer my questions about it above? This was his first attempt to take control of the topic. More to come.

But no, it was not the central thesis, as far as I was concerned. I entered the conversation with questions about his treatment of McDowell and Childers, and then I wrote a blog post showing how he had completely misrepresented McDowell, with a list of egregious errors in the use of evidence and reasoning. That was what I was here to talk about. In no way was Childers’ or McDowell’s treatment of progressive Christians the topic I came to discuss. But with all temerity, he tried wresting the topic over to a “central thesis” of his definition and of his preference.

@RandalRauser You focus on what you assume to be true of me ("offended" — which I did not say) and set aside the 7 specific points where I show objectively identifiable errors of evidence and logic in your treatment of Sean McDowell, saying it's "[not very much of substance]." https://t.co/O91RrMhJHK

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

All 7 errors I listed at https://t.co/JwteHrMK4s are serious and substantive, but #5 and #7 are especially egregious. You called my use of that word "off-putting," but you use it yourself in this video (ca 7:15). https://t.co/O91RrMhJHK

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

As I said, let me know when you're prepared to discuss McDowell's central claim that progressive Christianity is another religion.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

That was his second attempt. The following third attempt has the same words but it is not the same tweet. It came later:

As I said, let me know when you're prepared to discuss McDowell's central claim that progressive Christianity is another religion.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

Here’s number four:

One more time: let me know when you're prepared to discuss McDowell's central claim that progressive Christianity is another religion.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

Pushiness

Number five, an ironic attempt to make me look like the one who’s deflecting, when he had refused to address my blog points, along with five questions in this discussion string. He’s also talking about his “central topic” again, ignoring the other topic I had introduced: his own writings and message on video:

Your ability to deflect is remarkable. The central topic of the original and follow-up videos is a response to McDowell's thesis that progressive Christianity is another religion. Think on that, please.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

That's actually hilarious. Your "response" to me was a deflection from https://t.co/JwteHrMK4s. And if you think my pointing out your objectively identifiable errors in your one video obligates me to respond to your claims in other venues, you're simply wrong about that.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

It’s incredible how hard he was pushing me to get on his topic, as if my bringing up Topic A, which he didn’t want to talk about, obligated me to discuss his more comfortable Topic B. And as if I was a really bad interlocutor, “deflecting,” for not dropping Topic A and following his demands to talk about what he wanted to talk about!

@RandalRauser In this video you find much fault with Childers & McDowell, but it's all elsewhere. Their words elsewhere have no bearing on the specific errors I identified at https://t.co/JwteHrMK4s. Your defense is thus a deflection, not an answer. Think on that, please. https://t.co/O91RrMhJHK

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

Let me know if you're ever ready to talk about the central thesis I was critiquing in the original video. Time and again, I find that evangelicals like McDowell and Childers who promote that thesis refuse to defend it when challenged. Sadly, you fit that pattern.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

@RandalRauser, I'm not pressuring you to respond to me in anyway. I did say your honesty would be revealed by how you respond, but that's entirely up to you. I won't try to control what you choose to write or speak about. You can quit trying to control me now, too. Thanks.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

Number six:

How about you address the actual thesis endorsed by both McDowell and Childers that progressive Christianity is another religion?

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

Please note, I had asked him two questions related to this (my second and third questions to him), and he had not answered.

I guess I didn’t answer him the way he wanted me to. Meanwhile, note all the questions I put to him before he declared to me what the “central thesis” of our conversation was — a central thesis that was in no way central to what I had entered the conversation to talk about.

Drawing It to an Unsatisfactory Close

I'm ready to bow out of this. Readers may look at https://t.co/JwteHrMK4s and your responses since then and draw their own conclusions. You may draw your own as well, Randal. I've said what needs saying.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

@RandalRauser Finally: From this point on you can expect me to respond to you as seriously as you respond to me. You chose "not … to interact with [my] article" much. I will interact with you if you give substantive reason to. Otherwise, I've said all I feel a need to say. https://t.co/O91RrMhJHK

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

@RandalRauser I did not call you dishonest, as you claim. I did say, if you care about honesty you need to withdraw those statements now shown with objective evidence to be false. So I need not judge your honesty. What you do now will itself reveal how much you care about it. https://t.co/O91RrMhJHK

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

Number seven:

.@TomGilsonAuthor claims to offer a rebuttal to my critique of Sean McDowell; yet he has repeatedly refused to address McDowell's central claim that progressive Christianity is another religion. So I made a video explaining how to respond to deflection:https://t.co/ZUMpkwqKo7

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

You refused to address my central claim that your video about Sean McDowell is filled with errors in evidence and logic, some of them really quite egregious. And then you accused me of deflecting?

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

You show no interest in responding to what I wrote. Rude. You keep trying to control me to attend to something more comfortable to you. Doubly rude. You call it "sad" that I will not submit to said control.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

That's triply rude. You accuse me of deflecting when you have deflected from what I wrote about you. 4x rude. Why would *anyone* continue in a discourteous pseudo-conversation like that?

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

You're "ready to bow out" without ever addressing (let alone defending) McDowell's central claim that progressive Christianity is another religion. Sad, but not surprising.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

You love talking about "evidence" and "logic" but are silent on the evidence for and logic of McDowell's central claim: straining gnats and swallowing camels.

— The Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 25, 2023

Draw whatever conclusions you like. Goodbye.

— Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) February 25, 2023

The sum of it: He effectively ignored me and my questions, except for trying to beat me up for not answering his. It didn’t work. I don’t feel beat up.

Closing thoughts on integrity in discourse

I told Rauser I was bowing out, but there remains one more thing I must say. I suspect it will be on some readers’ minds, and I want to get there ahead of you. It’s about Rauser’s complete refusal to look seriously in the mirror of another writer’s assessment, and to consider whether he might be making some mistakes.

I have to say I am astonished. It’s not that it’s necessarily true that my analysis is correct. I think it is, or I wouldn’t have written it, but I’d be just as astonished if he responded that way to a false analysis, on the order of the careful examination I conducted.

I have been blogging here and writing in many other venues since 2004. Every time — and I mean every time anyone has called me out for an error, I have responded. It’s a matter of integrity. More than once I’ve responded by acknowledging and correcting mistakes I’ve made.

It’s even more important I do that when the charge is that I’ve misrepresented someone. In that case I must examine it, because if it’s an actual misrepresentation and I let it stand, then I’m effectively lying about that person. Even if I examine it and find that I haven’t made that mistake, I’ll at least acknowledge it was worth looking into! I’ll do the same here, of course.

Rauser misrepresented Sean McDowell. That’s what I see, as I blogged earlier, and I gave explicit, evidence-based reasons for drawing that conclusion. I do not believe there is any way he could examine what he said about Sean McDowell, or the images he posted, and come away thinking he represented Sean accurately. He doesn’t have to agree with me on that, but it’s incredible to think he doesn’t even consider it important enough to look into. He says it’s “nothing substantive,” not worth spending time on

I cannot imagine not caring about that, again, as a matter of integrity.

I did not call him dishonest in the course of this Twitter exchange. I do not know his motivations, and I think it’s unlikely he would be intentionally dishonest. I can see two other live options: He can’t do the analysis because he lacks competency to assess evidence and logic, which I also think is extremely unlikely, or he’s so intent on pursuing someone else’s errors he’s blind to his own. I don’t know how likely that is in his case.

I don’t know if there’s a fourth option. I don’t need to know. It’s not my life, not my issue, and I don’t expect to interact with him much more, so I have no need to draw any conclusions. If I were Rauser, though? I’d want to be sure I wasn’t making any such mistake.

The post Follow-up on My Exchange with Randal Rauser appeared first on Tom Gilson.

Let’s note right at the outset: This video thumbnail represents Rauser’s view of Sean McDowell. It does not represent reality, as I will show below.

I will speak to Rauser as I list the problems in his message. I will keep it pointed at his use or misuse of evidence, logic, and assumptions, so that none of this needs to depend on liking or disliking Sean McDowell. Sean is a friend of mine. I doubt Randal Rauser would say the same, but he doesn’t need to, if he cares about those three factors: evidence, logic, and assumptions. That’s where I’ll be focusing here.

Mr. Rauser:

1. You say early on that McDowell implies that fuzzy boundaries around progressive Christianity constitute a problem for it. I agree that would be a rather silly thing to say if he said it, but he didn’t. Not even close. He does say it makes it hard to construct an answer to the question that applies to all persons who might consider themselves or by labeled by others as progressive Christians.
2. Your fisking of Sean’s “caveat” concerning counterexamples (at 3:15) is once again a critique of something he didn’t say. He doesn’t say it here in this video, and you give us no reason to believe he says it anywhere. How can you possibly consider this a problematic rhetorical maneuver on his part, when you give us no reason to believe he’s even making such a maneuver?
3. You make a big deal out of the fact that Christians differ over the nature of atonement or salvation, and therefore there many answers that may be candidates for being correct or true. That much we all agree with. But you present it as if it were some kind of rebuttal to McDowell’s view of progressive Christianity, which it manifestly is not.
    
   In order to be a rebuttal, you would have to demonstrate either that (a) progressive Christian beliefs do not tend to fall outside of that range of potentially true beliefs, or (b) Sean McDowell’s acceptable range is much more narrow than it should be. You do not attempt (a) in any way. You do throw (b) at us — especially in your video’s opening cartoon — but you offer no evidence for its being true, beyond your own assumptions. It happens to be false, as I know from Sean’s wider body of work, but one need not agree with that or even know it in order to recognize the point I am making in this paragraph, which is that your argument fails for lack of evidence.
4. You say at 8:10 that “Sean McDowell is assuming without argument.” Not only is that sadly ironic in view of your own assumptions already mentioned, it’s also specious, illegitimate, and wrong. Consider that you yourself described this video of his as a “short.” Shorts are summaries. Summaries do not usually present entire arguments. Their statements may therefore be founded or unfounded, depending on whether the foundation for them exists in other sources, especially the person’s larger body of work. Therefore the fact that a statement is presented without accompanying foundation in such a short summary as this one means nothing on its own. You need to examine McDowell’s other work to find out whether he can support his statements. You don’t bother doing that; instead, you draw an unfounded conclusion of your own.
    

   The same answer does not apply to your video, by the way. Your video here is not a summary, it is a fisking, and fiskings require argument. To be charitable, since it is a short fisking, I would count it acceptable if you indicated somehow that your conclusion was drawn from what you’ve studied in his larger body of work. You don’t even do that.

5. Worse yet, you say (and I quote) he’s claiming that the “mere existence of difference” is sufficient to constitute a different religion. Your claim there is unevidenced, to begin with, since he says no such thing here. Once again you commit the easily identifiable error or speaking without evidence. It’s also false. Sean makes no such claim anywhere. I know him and his work well enough to know: He very clearly believes that it is not the mere existence of difference, but rather the nature and degree of difference, that determines whether another set of beliefs constitutes a different religion.
    

   Again, you say at 8:45 (while still on this same point) that he assumes this point without argument. No, you assume that he assumes it. And you assume it with neither evidence nor argument. You are clearly committing the fault of which you accuse him.

6. You complain near the end that Sean McDowell identifies evangelicalism with historic Christianity. I wondered where you got that from, since he came nowhere near saying such a thing in that final clip, so I searched through it to see. The closest thing I found was back at around 1:20 in your video, where he says progressive Christianity is “a different faith system than conservative Christianity or evangelicalism, and I would argue the historic Christian church.” If that’s where you got that conclusion from, it’s specious and unfounded. Suppose I said, “American football is different from English football (what Americans call soccer), from rugby, and I would argue Canadian football as well.” Would that mean I was identifying Canadian football with rugby or soccer? Hardly. You present no evidence of him making the identification you claim he makes.
    

   Besides that, do you actually dispute what he said near the end, that “progressive Christianity and conservative Christianity are actually two different things.” At 10:45 you misquote him on that, but at least it’s something McDowell might say. Again, though, do you doubt that progressive Christianity differs from conservative evangelical Christianity?

7. Your summation after the final McDowell clip is a straw man along the same grossly erroneous lines as your cartoonish opening video thumbnail. McDowell very decidedly does not say, as you represent him saying (I am quoting you here now), “If you differ with the conservative evangelical in any respect, you’ve rejected historic Christianity.” Especially since, by your own examples, you imply that he would grind that difference as fine as agreement with the Chicago Statement and rejecting evolutionary theory.
    
   If you found him telling the world that C.S. Lewis wasn’t a true Christian, then you might have evidence that he believed such a thing. You won’t find that or anything remotely like it. What you present here is a very serious misrepresentation, and I call upon you to withdraw it. There’s a lot here you would do well to retract for the sake of accuracy and fairness, but that error in particular is false, wrong, unfair to Sean McDowell, and damaging to Christian discourse.

In summary:

In this video you purport to speak with a fair degree of seriousness, even some authority, in critiquing the “cultic” “radical sectarianism” McDowell supposedly espouses. What you’ve accomplished instead, unfortunately, is a mass (and a mess) of poor logic founded upon completely unevidenced criticism and a series of outright misrepresentations.

You attribute some pretty ridiculous and reprehensible beliefs to Sean McDowell falsely. Your doing so is itself utterly reprehensible. It doesn’t matter how much you may dislike him. If you care about honesty, you need to withdraw these false statements. You can disagree with him all you like. Just disagree honestly, okay?

And if you’re going to present yourself as an apologist, do try to work on the quality of your argument, too, please. I try to train people in evidence and in logic. This doesn’t help anyone. Not one bit.

Thank you.

The post How Not to Do Apologetics: Dark Example from the ‘Tentative Apologist’ Randal Rauser appeared first on Tom Gilson.

What is marriage? What is it for? Why does marriage matter? Ten years ago, those were the hottest questions on the planet. Now they’re … nothing. No one even asks anymore, at least not in public.

That’s okay to a certain point: I don’t mind the public debate going silent for now until a more strategic time arrives. I just worry that things are equally quiet inside the churches, where we dare not let the marriage question die, and where we dare not give in to wrong answers.

You probably think I’m talking about same-sex marriage. No, not this time. Our culture got marriage wrong decades before that. Same-sex marriage was about who can get married. It got that answer wrong, but that’s because the straight world got a different and even more fundamental question wrong long before that. The marriage revolution didn’t happen in 2015, but 40 to 50 years before.

So now you may be thinking about the rise in divorce rates around that time. That’s connected, yes, but that’s not the revolution I’m thinking of, either. This one is even more fundamental than that, and it’s affected us even more deeply. So deep, there’s a fair chance you don’t even see the change that’s taken place. It’s affected us so much, I need to devote this entire article to simply helping us see what changed. I won’t have space here to explain why the change matters; that will come later.

I’ll begin by setting two scenarios before you.

The Marriage Revolution

The year is 2022. You’re the young woman or the young man, totally lost in love with your intended, longing for your wedding day to arrive, so finally you can be together for real and forever. You have important questions for your future, questions that will define your whole destiny: “Where should we live? What kind of work should we do? Should we have children? How many? How soon?”

Familiar enough, right? I expect every couple goes through those questions these days. I know my wife and I did. But now let’s time-travel back a few generations:

The year is 1962. You’re the young woman or the young man, totally lost in love with your intended, longing for that wedding day to arrive so that finally you can be together for real and forever. You have important questions for your future, questions that will define your whole destiny; questions such as, Where should we live? What work should we do? Should we ever make love together?

Wait, what was that last question?!

Did engaged couples ask that question? Not on your life! We can’t imagine it, and for good reason!

But in 1962, the only practical way to ask, “Should we have children? How soon? How many?” would have been by asking, “Should we or should we not make love when we’re married?”

I seriously doubt many engaged couples had long hard philosophical talks about that question!

The Question That Could Never Be Asked

Do you see now what changed? There was a time when marriage meant children. You could separate them conceptually, since the definition of “marriage” isn’t identical to the definition of “family.” A couple might marry and not end up not having children for some unexpected reason, and it would still be a marriage. But although you could separate the two conceptually, you couldn’t separate them practically or functionally. If you were a young couple thinking of getting married, you were a young couple thinking of having a family. No questions asked.

For nearly all of human history, if you’d asked anyone what marriage is and what it’s for, they would have said it’s a lifetime commitment (or at least ought to be) between a man and a woman, with:

• Companionship
• Well-defined sharing of responsibilities and rights — not often equally shared, but at least with customary and legal expectations to define the sharing
• Sexual intimacy
• And children.

Again: You could define marriage without children, but you couldn’t plan to have a marriage without planning to have children. The two were that inseparable.

(We need not worry much about rare exceptions. Human rules and institutions always have human exceptions, but the human rule remains the human rule, and the human institution remains the human institution; and for those who recognize marriage rightly as a divinely-ordained institution, the same answers applied there, too. )

The Change that Changed Everything

That’s ancient history now, though. Ancient, as in “almost as old as me, your author!” (I was born in 1956. Very ancient.) Humans have always tried various means of artificial contraception, but the first safe and reliable Pill wasn’t introduced until 1957. It was approved nationwide for married couples’ use through a Supreme Court ruling in 1965, and then in 1972 the Court approved it for all women.

The question that could never be asked suddenly became ask-able. For the first time in human history, engaged couples and newlyweds could ask, “Should we have children? How soon? How many?” Before then, no one would ask it; now every couple asks it. My wife and I did. And everything has changed as a result. I do not say “everything” lightly. Marriage has changed; and I don’t mean just some marriages, but all marriages. Families have changed, communities have changed, the whole culture has changed. The change has overwhelmingly for the worse.

A World Turned Alien

Yet we can hardly imagine it being otherwise. Picture yourself wandering a suburban neighborhood you’ve never visited before. Kids are everywhere. You find out that three families on that block have five kids, two others have four, and most of the rest have three. This is strange, you think. What kind of cult has taken hold here?

Very, very strange. It’s also the description of the perfectly normal (at the time) neighborhood that I grew up in. My own family was one of the three with five children; a large family, sure, but not out of place in our town.

What was normal then looks cultish now. Likewise if you could see today’s world through your great-grandfather’s eyes, you’d think the planet had been repopulated by aliens. Children themselves have practically become abnormal. It’s that different.

This is all introductory. All I’ve tried to say in this article is that the world has changed. Later on I’ll explore the difference that’s made.

Questions About Questions

I expect some readers’ mind are popping with questions at this point. I’ve got lots of them myself.

• Is this about same-sex marriage? No. This is about what happened decades before that.
• So it has nothing at all to do with same-sex marriage? Really? It has a lot to do with it, but we need to take things in proper order. What I’m talking about came long before that, and that’s where I’m going to focus for now.
• Is this just about Roman Catholic doctrine that artificial contraception is sin? Because I’m not a Catholic, and I don’t agree with that. No. I’m not Catholic either, and I don’t agree with that doctrine myself. I agree with my Catholic friends that artificial contraception has had huge negative impacts, and there is enormous load of sin associated with it. I wish more Protestants saw that more clearly. But I don’t think a couple’s decision to use contraception is necessarily wrong in all cases, so my Catholic friends and I disagree on that.
• Some couples still get married with plans to have lots of children, just like couple have always done, down through the ages. Are you saying this change affects them, too? Yes. Definitely. I’ll have to save that for later, though.
• Are you saying it’s wrong for couples to ask the children questions (“Should we have kids/When/How many…”)? No. You have to ask the question, simply because it’s impossible not to ask the question. You’re a child of the 21st century, so you will ask the question, and nothing will stop you from asking it. But I’m preparing here to suggest some new thinking for you to include in that conversation.
• What about unmarried couples, or couples living together, or people having a fling? Contraception obviously has a lot to do with that, but I’m setting that aspect aside for now to focus on the meaning of marriage.

Pastors: Even More Questions

If you’re a pastor or a teacher, you may also be thinking:

• This isn’t very helpful yet. I need more. Absolutely! See below.
• I’m especially concerned about how to counsel couples before marriage. I think you may be introducing a new and difficult question into the mix. Yes, I am, and when I’m done, it will still be a difficult question for many couples, so difficult that I could almost say I’m sorry to have brought it up. But only almost sorry. I am trying to speak truth here, and I do not apologize for that.
• This is going to be controversial for a lot of other people in our church, too. Yes, it will. The controversy is out there already. This is nothing new, though, for the gospel has always presented a challenge to culture. You can avoid the controversy by avoiding this topic, but you can only do it in good conscience if you think the topic isn’t important to your church — and then you’d be doing it in poor judgment. Marriage is important.

Additional Resources

For pastors who are wondering, “How am I ever going to preach this?” I have a sample sermon available for you to read through and consider. At the end of it you will also find my best pastoral recommendation for couples that are wondering what to do about the children question.

When this mini-series comes to a close, I’ll add a further link right here to a page that puts it all in one place for you, with a summary and outline as well.

Image Credit(s): Unsplash/Bruno Emmanuelle.

The post The Very Alien Question of Marriage (from <em>The Stream’s</em> Pastors’ Corner) appeared first on Tom Gilson.

(There is an unusual echo in the sound here. After listening a while you’ll probably find you’ve tuned it out, but if not, I expect to have an audio-only version posted for you by the evening of February 8, with that echo audio-magically removed removed.)

Also available in podcast form.

Image Credit(s): The River Church.

The post Find Your Authentic Self, or Find an Authentic View of God? appeared first on Tom Gilson.

And why isn’t God like an elephant?

You weren’t expecting that last question, I’m sure! That’s okay, it’s just a teaser to a fun part of this sample sermon on Christian Exclusivism vs. Religious Pluralism. I present this early in December, with a Christmas theme as part of it. Though it may be late for you to use that aspect, you can easily extract that out and use the rest of it any time of the year.

In cooperation with The Stream’s Pastors’ Corner, we offer you a sample sermon in PDF form you can use on this topic. Visit The Stream and you’ll find a wealth of accompanying information, in the form of a one-page summary “explainer” article covering this material and more, with links in it to all the supporting documentation you could want in order to make sure you’re representing the truth in this message if you use it. Also here at Thinking Christian, find a spoken version of this sample sermon.

We invite you to use this, not just as information but as a sample sermon. We do ask that in your bulletin and online postings you give credit to Tom Gilson and to The Stream, with whom this work is being done in cooperation, with links both to The Stream and to this podcast page.

If you’re not a pastor, please consider yourself a member of the congregation listening and learning. You’re most welcome here! And then do please send this podcast to your pastor. There’ll be more like it to come!

Image Credit(s): Wikimedia Commons.

The post Pastors’ Equipping Series: Sample Sermon on Christian Exclusivism vs. Pluralism — Christmas Themed! appeared first on Tom Gilson.

In cooperation with The Stream’s Pastors’ Corner, we offer you a sample sermon you can use (see below) to begin preaching the truth, that faith has nothing to hide and nothing to fear from science.

With Christmas approaching — and possibly some final sermon prep still waiting to be done — we present this with with a special emphasis on Advent and the Virgin Birth. Skeptics say it’s got to be a fable, because “Science shows that’s impossible.”

Christians typically know a good first answer, which is, “With God all things are possible.” I’m not sure that always comes across as strong with skeptics as it could. Their charge against us there has a whole lot worse problems than they realize. They’re probably the ones believing fables. Provable to be fables, I mean; provable in ways even they would have trouble denying.

You’ll find a wealth of accompanying information, in the form of a one-page summary “explainer” article covering this material and more, with links in it to all the supporting documentation you could want in order to make sure you’re representing the truth in this message if you use it. Also here at Thinking Christian, find a spoken version of this sample sermon.

We invite you to use this, not just as information but as a sample sermon. We do ask that in your bulletin and online postings you give credit to Tom Gilson and to The Stream, with whom this work is being done in cooperation, with links both to The Stream and to this podcast page.

This isn’t all we have to offer on the topic. Find a written form of this sample sermon in PDF form here, and visit The Stream for a one-page pastors’ explainer article on the topic, with loads of links to additional information you can use. (I’ll update these program notes with a link there as soon as it’s ready.)

If you’re not a pastor, please consider yourself a member of the congregation listening and learning. You’re most welcome here! And then do please send this podcast to your pastor. There’ll be more like it to come!

Image Credit(s): Unsplash/Ousa Chea.

The post Pastors’ Equipping Series: Sample Sermon on the Faith-Science Challenge (Special Focus on the Virgin Birth) appeared first on Tom Gilson.

I’ve got to tell you, as I was reading through your book it was actually… exciting! … I mean, doctrinally, we know Jesus never sinned, we know that on a certain level. But  … you bring it out in a way that I’ve never seen anyone do before.

And again at 27 minutes:

I didn’t know what to expect, I’d seen your book I wanted to read it. And I remember reading it on a plane, and I’m reading this, and that is the effect it had on me.

What effect does she mean? She’d just asked me to summarize my thoughts about Jesus character, and I’d said how my study had drawn me to worship Jesus as never before, to see he’s greater than I’d realized. That’s the effect. As she went on to say,  “It made me just want to bow down and worship.”

If this book leads people to worship Jesus, then it’s done much of what I’d hoped of it. Yet it’s also a book that shows how we know with confidence his story isn’t merely a story: It’s literally too good to be false. Watch the conversation and see! (Also on audio.)

The post Alisa Childers: ‘Reading Through Your Book Was … Exciting’ appeared first on Tom Gilson.

Critical race theory: Could you preach on it in church? Teach it in a small group? How would you approach it? Should you even address it in church?

That last question calls for a definite answer yes. It’s too influential, and too much of a false gospel, to let your congregation try to sort it out on their own. Still, though, how would you preach on it?

Today at Thinking Christian, in cooperation with The Stream, with whom this work is being done in cooperation, we present a sample sermon for you to prep from. Hear it in audio, see below for an outline, and check out the expanded sermon notes on PDF here.

You’re free to use it all; that’s exactly what it’s for. We do ask that in your bulletin and online postings you give credit to Tom Gilson and to The Stream, with whom this work is being done in cooperation, with links both to The Stream and to this blog page.

This isn’t all we have to offer on the topic Please visit The Stream on or after the evening of October 1 (we’re still prepping things there!) for a one-page pastors’ explainer on critical race theory, with loads of links to additional information you can use. (I’ll update this page with link there when it’s ready.)

If you’re not a pastor, please consider yourself a member of the congregation listening and learning. You’re most welcome here! And then do please send this podcast to your pastor. There’ll be more like it to come!

Image Credit(s): Partial Credit to Ted Eytan.

The post Pastors’ Equipping Series: A Sample Sermon on Critical Race Theory appeared first on Tom Gilson.

I practically jumped out of my skin. It’s a good thing the two of us are friends. It’s a good thing I wasn’t with someone who actually believes it’s a useful analytical tool. “What? Analytical tool? There is no such thing!”

That was a bit abrupt. And incomplete. So I went on to explain what I meant: “You’ve been asking me questions, right?  Did you notice they had an effect on me? That I actually learned something? Your questions weren’t just neutral information-gathering: They actually changed me!”

You Can’t Ask Without Communicating

I’ve heard this “analytical tool” question before. The idea seems to be that even if CRT has false worldview foundations, and we don’t think much of its theories of structural racism or white guilt, we can still learn from it as a neutral analytical tool. That’s where it falls off the rails, off the trestle, and into the drink a hundred feet below. Because when it comes to people and social groups, there is no such thing as a neutral analytical tool.

I learned this in my earlier work in organizational psychology, where I built, delivered, and analyzed several organizational surveys. My first question to the leaders I worked with was always, “What do you want to measure?” My second question was, “What do you intend to communicate?” They expected the first question, but the second one usually caught them off guard. “Communicate? I’m not communicating, I’m asking questions!”

Then I would tell them how the two are inseparable. “Suppose we put in four or five questions about communications in the organization. You’re not just asking them how we’re doing at communicating. You’re telling them you care what they think about it. And suppose your survey uncovers a deep level of discontent over corporate communications, and then six months later your employees notice you haven’t done a thing about it. You know what they’re going to think: You only pretended to care. It wasn’t real. You might as well have come out and lied about it.”

If You Ask a Big Question You Communicate a Big Point

Of course I’d keep this all very hypothetical, because I wasn’t about to tell a leader he was a liar, especially since he hadn’t done any such thing at that point. It was enough to get the point across. When you ask a question, you’re saying you’re interested in the answer.

Now, suppose you announced a grand, huge, organizational survey. Suppose you made such a big deal about it, everyone knew it was going to influence your company’s culture for years to come. And when you  had 20 questions on it, and ten of them were about communications and nine more were about tech support. You’d very soon have your employees asking each other, “Is that all they care about? Is this even real?”

That’s more or less the situation with critical race theory as an analytical tool. It’s got itself built up as the answer to America’s cultural problems, or I might even say America’s cultural problem, because it seems at times that whatever the issue is, it’s racism. Or as I said at The Stream, “It sounds like a squirrel to me, but I’m going to say racism.” Critical race theory is supposed to analyze the race problem. And it’s almost like the company that communicates it only cares about two things.

CRT Communicates What It Considers Important: Power

In CRT’s case, those two things are money and politics, and in the end they boil down to one: power. CRT analyzes blacks’ and whites’ status with respect to economics and political power. (The two collapse into one when talking about persons’ positions on the job. Organizational leadership is a form of political power.)

CRT claims to measure racism, or systemic racism, or racial injustice, or some such thing. It produces information on how differently blacks and whites experience life in America, and so on.

What it actually measures — because this is central to CRT’s view of reality — is discrepancies in blacks’ and whites’ economic and political circumstances. It’s a power measurement. How much economic and political power does each group hold, and in particular, how are whites using their power advantage against blacks?

It Mis-Communicates What Life Is Really About

The answers could conceivably useful if the analysis  were positioned as what it is: a measurement of how much economic and political power each group holds, and how whites may be using their relative advantage to disadvantage blacks. Instead it’s put forth as a measurement of justice, or “social justice,” which is a travesty of real justice.

CRT assumes that justice is reducible to current circumstances, without regard to whether a group’s beliefs, habits, customs, and actions — its own culture, in other words — have played any role in their current circumstances, or whether they may be receiving something like a just return for their labors, habits, customs, and so on. Justice for CRT is a matter of outcome, disconnected inputs. The one grand exception to that is the idea that outcome (justice) for blacks is a matter if input (injustice) by whites.

As a theory of justice this is incredibly distorted. As a measure of quality of life it’s even worse. It ignores everything from quality of relationships, to aesthetics, to virtue, to spiritual life (relationship with God). Its narrow focus allows it only to measure narrow living.

There Is No Neutral Analysis

So it doesn’t really measure what it claims to measure. That’s problem one. The second problem is the one I started with here. It communicates a theory of justice, of right living, of quality of life, and more, that depends entirely on money and power. That’s a very flat view of life. So flat, I’ve called it today’s flat earth theory, and just as believable as the original one.*

It’s a flat view. It’s a dangerous one, in view of its focus on power; for power always tends to grow into the abuse of power. It’s a deadening view, being so uninterested in most of what makes life rich, rewarding, and enjoyable. It’s a spiritually fatal view, in that it pays no attention to God, or even to human virtues.

And that’s the view that CRT’s analytical method communicates. Don’t let anyone fool you. There is no such thing as a neutral analysis.

*Side note: I got pushback on that article from a reader who objected to the comparison. It was a flat-earth theorist trying to convince me his view was right. I’m keeping that one for my upcoming “Bizarre Moments in Ministry” video series.

Image Credit(s): Scott Graham/Unsplash.

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I’m approaching age 65. Many would be thinking retirement now, including mental retirement, where there’s just not that much left they want to learn. I trust that’s not you if you’re at that same stage. I know I can’t relax that way myself.

God has put too much love in my heart for his church, at a time when the Western church has never been more vulnerable. He’s given me a special love for pastors in particular. I think of pastors I’ve spent time with, and I wonder (sometimes I’ve asked them, too), “Did you know when you started seminary, that soon you’d be navigating your church through progressive Christianity, critical race theory, and crises of conscience being forced on your parishioners over sex and gender?”

This stuff’s hot and, it’s hard! In fact there’s nothing the church has faced in many generations to match the complexity of critical theory. With the right equipping ideas, though, you can learn to head off problems and to answers questions. You’ll see your church keep on growing toward transformation in Christ.

An Initiative Born of Love

I say God has given me a love for pastors. This isn’t some generic thing, it’s very personal. There’s nothing I enjoy more than buying lunch for a pastor, asking him to tell me his story, and just listening. Every time I do that I’m both encouraged and amazed at how God works in and through the men who lead his church. Every time, too, I feel their pain over having too much to do, too many hurting people to care for, maybe even too many meetings.

I spoke to a pastors’ gathering not long ago, and told them the story of a conversation I’d had with the pastor of my own church. We were talking Christian apologetics, which is a specialty of mine. But I told him I didn’t want to begin to imply that I knew more than he did. His answer surprised me: “You probably do.”

Of course I asked him to explain, and he said, “Tom, I just don’t have time to study.” At the pastors’ gathering I asked the men there if they were having the same experience. Their heads nodded so emphatically I thought I felt a breeze blowing my way.

Some of us do have more time to study. We don’t work every day in such a broad range of ministry, just a portion of it, but it’s a portion in which we can pitch in help pastors keep up the pace of learning they need. I’m talking about practical help;not another book, but web resources that will truly organize the information you need, and present it in a form you can use.

Why It’s Taken So Long

I’ve really been eager to dive into this project. God has gifted me across forty-plus years of ministry with the ability to take complex subjects and make them both manageable and understandable. So I’ve had this on my heart for months. I thought I’d be starting it early this year. I thought it would be begin during the spring. Then the summer. It kept getting blocked, though. I just couldn’t get to it. There were other major projects at The Stream. There was my father’s slow illness that began in March, and ended with his passing away in May. I’ve had my own health issues, too: back problems that have messed with one leg, and may still need surgery this year.

It hasn’t all been bad, I assure you. Our first grandchild was born the last day of 2020, and my wife, Sara, and I have made time to be with him, as well as with other family. So some it’s been plain old-fashioned fun. Still the project kept getting blocked, and I kept getting frustrated.

Enter The Stream: The Delay Finally Makes Sense

But then something happened that made the delays finally make sense.

I work as senior editor with The Stream a major national Christian website offering a Christian perspective on current events. One day not long ago our publisher, James Robison, mentioned how much he wanted us to be able to do more on the site for pastors in particular. That’s when it finally made sense: two streams coming together, one of them my long-lasting desires to help pastors and churches, and the other one literally called The Stream.

Our team met to think and pray through ways we could accomplish this, based on The Stream’s resources, and on the desires and plans of my own heart. Now it’s to be a joint project, with articles and sermons published both here and at The Stream. It’s turned this from an evening and weekend project for me, into a complete cooperative effort. And still built on our common love for pastors, and our desire to equip you for this challenging age.

What You Can Expect from Heat to Light

So what can you expect when this all rolls out? Here’s a short preview. I think you’ll especially like the third and fourth part of it.

1. A comprehensive guide to critical race theory on just one page, with supporting links to key questions and answers, organized so you can see what it’s all about from a clear Christian perspective.
2. A steady stream of short, one-page explainer articles coming out one every two to three weeks, on everything from “wokeness” to the homosexuality challenge to science and faith and more.
3. Getting really practical: Sample sermon outlines, and a recorded sample sermon, on each of these topics as they come out.
4. Even more practical: Answers you can give in counseling or even in the church lobby or atrium, when someone asks you for guidance or your opinion on any of these topics.

Sound good? Wait till you see it! Right now we’re building the first two to three weeks’ worth of articles, to be sure we’re good to go before we start publishing them. Stay connected here and I’ll keep you informed.

Image Credit(s): piqsels.

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That’s one perspective you’ll hear from Lydia McGrew, David Marshall, and me, sharing from “outside the guild,” the usual New Testament scholarship. We all appreciate their work; we also think there’s room for an infusion of new ideas. My book Too Good to Be False has been widely hailed along those lines.

Lydia’s work has been treated as more controversial, but in the end I’m quite sure we’re all going to find she’s got something very important to say — important even by way of correcting some missteps within the guild. And David Marshall’s work, informed by his extensive world travels, shares another feature in common with Lydia’s and mine: It’s creative and it’s common-sense, both at the same time.

Hosted by Brad Cooper.

Update: See it here now!

Watch for us here live on David Marshall’s YouTube channel.

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Here’s why you’ll want to tune in, and spread the word around your church leadership team, too:

• It’s specifically for pastors, teachers, and other spiritual leaders. (Parents are spiritual leaders, too, so you’re more than welcome to join in.)
• It’s about cultural conflicts, of which there are plenty these days. Your people have questions about what’s really going on. Some are probably facing hard ethical decisions, even crises of conscience over these tough new issues. No one wants to walk a path like that alone. It calls for a whole new level of spiritual equipping.
• It’s about hope: hope of new life, of spiritual transformation, in the midst of these days so unlike any we’ve seen before. First Peter 4:12-13 is a watchword for us: The conflict is surprising, it looks like something strange is coming upon us, but in reality it’s reason for joy in the hope of the glory of God being revealed among us.
• And it’s about practical ministry. We’re not meeting our objectives unless you say, “Wow! I can use that!”  — in your preaching, teaching, counseling, and coaching, that is.

What to Expect

Here’s what to expect when it gets rolling. (There are just a couple steps left to fill in first, which I’ll explain in a moment.)

Two-Week Topic Cycles

We’ll tackle topics one at a time, here and at The Stream, the highly respected national website offering daily Christian perspectives on current events. I’m a senior editor there. A few weeks ago our publisher, James Robison, said he was wishing we were doing more for pastors. I just about jumped, because that’s what I’ve been working toward here at Thinking Christian. We’ve agreed to a partnership now, bringing together strengths from both websites.

We’ll run in two-week cycles, covering a separate topic every fourteen days.

A Practical-Ministry, One-Page Explainer

The centerpiece will be hosted at The Stream. Pastors have told me over and over again they’re looking for something like this: A one-page explainer outlining the issue, providing quick background and basic biblical perspective, and practical answers you can give when someone asks you for help with it. (Full disclosure: You might have to print it out on both sides to get it to fit on just “one page.” It’ll still be brief, though.)

This one-pager will have links to everything you see below, so it could even serve as your table of contents for it all, if you want it to.

Background Material, for Further Understanding

But that’s hardly all. Before that one-pager comes out, I’ll have two to three background articles on it already prepped and published here at Thinking Christian. None of these will be longer than they need to be, either. I know you don’t have as much time to study as you wish you had, and I’ll respect that in all these articles.

• The basics of the issue: What it’s about, where it fits in today’s culture, and so on.
• The background, including some of its history, why some people are drawn to it, and what’s lifted it up to the level of a truly hot topic.
• What’s right and what’s wrong with it, biblically, socially, and rationally.
• A resource list in case you have time and reason to dig in deep.

Sample Sermons

With each topic I’ll also write out a sample sermon outline and record a shortened sample sermon, which you’ll be welcome and free to use in your own church setting (with appropriate attribution). This, too, will be ready to go before the one-pager is published at The Stream.

Room for Change

That’s the initial outline. It’s subject to change, and that’s a good thing. As far as I know, no one has ever done anything like this for pastors before. I know of nothing that gives this level of background, with this much flexibility for you to decide how much time you can spend on it, and with the same practical ministry/answers approach we’re making available. We’re doing a new thing here, as far as we know. We’ll invite your feedback on what works, what doesn’t, and what you’d like added.

Two Final Steps Before Launch

I’ve been working on something like this for months. In fact, I thought I’d have it launched months ago, but God had other plans, and the reason finally came into view when The Stream opened up as a partner website for this project. We’ve got some design work to do there before we can launch on that site, there’s one other design project in the queue there ahead of this one, and that means it’ll likely be the end of July before we kick it off.

Meanwhile, I’m waiting for final word on a proposed change in the “Heat to Light” name I’m using for it on the Thinking Christian side. I’ll have some design work to do here, too, when that’s all settled.

Image Credit(s): unsplash/Yaoqi.

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Apologists need to connect with pastors, and vice versa. We need each other. Pastors need the best possible understanding of changes in our culture, which apologists are uniquely equipped to offer. Apologists need to learn practical ministry from pastors, and they also need church leadership to open doors from them when they’re ready for it.

Last time I spoke of ways to build relational connections between apologists and pastors. My one best piece of advice was to have lunch together. I got a lot of response to that, and it included people asking a very practical question: How do I invite a pastor to lunch? What about the pastor of my own church, which has well over 10,000 members? What about pastors of other churches?

That was the question. Let me tell you, too, that one listener told me he’d been trying to get people to be interested in a certain speaker coming to their town. He sent mailing and got no response to mailings. When he invited pastors to lunch, he started seeing real interest, which I believe he said turned into a couple of bookings.

 It’s About Your Caring and Your Willingness to Serve

Still there was that question, how do I actually, practically, make that connection with pastors? I’ve got stories to tell here today. First, though, I need to raise the reminder: This isn’t about going to lunch. This is about building relationship. It’s about being there to serve, with a genuine interest in the pastor as a person and as a spiritual leader. It’s about being ready to listen. You may learn of an apologetics-related ministry the pastor believes his church needs. If it’s about meeting needs, you’re on the right track.

Some will say that a service mindset means being willing to serve in any area whatsoever. That’s true, and we need to have exactly that openness to meeting needs in the church. It doesn’t mean, though, that we should serve where we can only serve poorly. You wouldn’t want me organizing your church’s next dinner, for example; it would be sure to be a flop. There’s something about that kind of organizational work that I just can’t do. We wouldn’t want certain people teaching apologetics, either. (Chances are they wouldn’t want to.) The point remains, our heart as apologists must be to serve.

I had to emphasize that. I wouldn’t want this coming off as a way to manipulate pastors to invite us in!

Connecting With Pastors in Williamsburg

Let’s assume we’ve got that right. Now, how do we make those relational connections with leaders? I’ll share some stories.

Years ago, before I even thought of doing apologetics ministry for multiple churches, I was living in Yorktown, Virginia. My next door neighbor was a retired Baptist pastor. He was still leading a small church in his retirement. We just got to know each other. It was that simple: He was a friend, and we were neighbors and friends with him and his wife.

At the time my office was in Williamsburg, where there was a pretty strong ministerial association. I just asked if I could attend, and they said yes. I enjoyed it there, and I came to discover it was quite an interesting group. Their topics ranged from healing prayer to cultural conflict. Over time I came to know the members well enough to — you guessed it — ask them to lunch.

I spent a lot of time with the group’s leader in particular. I drove half an hour to get to our lunches together; he drove only a couple of minutes. One day he said, “Wow, you come a long way just for lunch.” I answered, “Bob, I will drive a long way to meet with an encourager!” I think he saw me as an encourager, too.

Apologetics Ministry in Williamsburg

Anyway, because of consistently showing up at the ministerial associations meetings, I had the chance to ask them if I could bring in a group of apologists to talk about some of the issues that we’d been discussing as a group. They said yes, so I invited a group in from Southern Evangelical Seminary, Campus Crusade for Christ (as it was known at that time) and BreakPoint.

I kicked the meeting off, and I’d do it again the same way again just for the entertainment factor. (It was no trick; it was how I see reality.)  I said to the group, “We’re gathered here today as people involved in ministry, to spend some time listening to the experts. Pastors, you are the experts. We apologists need to learn from you.”

Heads snapped all over the room. The pastors were not expecting me to identify them as the experts! But they are. Just think of the wide range of skills a pastor has to have: leading meetings, dealing with personnel problems, dealing with family issues, counseling, preparing sermons and delivering them every week (for an incredibly diverse audience), handling criticism… I could go on and on.

Besides those tasks, pastors watch people grow. They weep over those who won’t. They are the ones who have the all-important long-term relationships, the long-term investment in people’s lives. So we apologists need to pay a lot attention.

And so on that day we listened to them, and of course they listened to us as well. It was a great day. My intentional connection with that group gave me a very significant apologetic ministry opportunity.

Making Friends with Pastors

Meanwhile I spent time with my own church’s music minister, who later became the lead minister. He gave me more than one opportunity to teach apologetics, in church-wide sermons and in small groups. It’s no coincidence that I would also consider him my best friend there.

Some time later we left Virginia and we moved to Ohio, where I had very few connections. It helped a lot when a mutual friend introduced me to a pastor in a church about 30 miles west of us. Brad and I went out for lunch, and over time he and I have become best friends and his wife and mine have, too.

We actually attended his church only briefly, but I’ve been going to their Thursday morning men’s group. That relationship has brought me many invitations from Brad to teach at his church, including an entire only series on my book Too Good to be False, How Jesus’ Incomparable Character Reveals His Reality.

Connecting With Pastors at a Megachurch

A few years later we downsized and moved to another town about 30 minutes north of where we were. Now we’re attending a multi-campus megachurch. How did I get chance to meet with pastors there? I just emailed one of them, and he said, “Let’s do lunch tomorrow.” I don’t consider a quick answer like that to be very normal for megachurch pastors, but he was wide open to it.

He was the community pastor. I didn’t go straight to the lead pastor; that would have been expecting way too much. But as I’ve been there I’ve had the chance to know several of the other pastors that way. I’ve met with the lead pastor in his office — never for lunch, but that’s okay. Two of our pastors have learned of my ministry background and asked me for mentoring.

This same church hosted community-wide leadership meetings for business persons, non-profit leaders, and pastors. It didn’t have to be my church; I’d have gone to whichever church hosted it. I’ve kept my ears open for pastors introducing themselves, and (one more time, you’ve guessed it!) asked them for lunch. One of those connections tied in with a prior lunch meeting with someone I’d met at a conference, and it led to an invitation to lead a webinar on Critical Race Theory for dozens of pastors.

We Have Something to Offer, If We’re Truly Serving

Again, we apologists have something to offer, if it’s an offering of service. When I was living in Virginia, after we had a new lead pastor come and join us, I invited him to a meeting with Chuck Colson’s worldview ministry. It was a three-hour drive. On the way back, we were talking about apologetics, and I said, “You know, Pastor, I really do not want to convey the impression that I’m smarter than you. I know we apologists have a reputation. We can come across pretty cocky, giving the impression that we’re smarter.”

His answer surprised me. He said, “You probably are smarter.”

“What?” I answered. “What do you mean?”

Since then I’ve tested his answer in larger meetings of pastors, and you wouldn’t believe how the heads nod in agreement. He said simply, “I don’t have time to study.”

It’s because they’re doing a lot more ministry than we do.

Apologist or Pastor, This Is For You!

This is not the road to building a huge national ministry. This is for you, the local apologist, or for you, the pastor of a local church.

Someone actually raised that point with me. He said it might work for local apologists in local churches, but I don’t know about building any real widespread ministry. I answered, “That’s exactly right. That’s exactly where the real need is: local apologists doing local ministry in local churches.”

Not every Christian should be an apologist, not even every pastor. But I believe every church should have an apologetics ministry. Every church should have one person who’s been identified and endorsed as a trusted teacher and a trusted source to get hard questions answered. It might be the pastor, but it doesn’t have to be.

This is about local ministry. I’ve done national level ministry, and I certainly enjoy it, but for this season I’ve been concentrating on relationally-centered ministry in the nearby Dayton-Cincinnati area.

So go for it, apologist. Find creative ways to meet pastors and ask them for lunch. Not every pastor will respond, and even if they do, some will never open up to other teachers in their churches, especially on apologetics. Just go with the ones who will.

Along the way you might make some friends. You might encourage some pastors, too. That’s a good enough result itself, if you ask me.

Image Credit(s): pxhere.com/rawpixel.com.

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You can still download a free preview chapter, too!

Check out the endorsements:

See also the Post–Publication Reader Reactions

Lee Strobel, New York Times best-selling author, director of The Strobel Center at Colorado Christian University:
In this engaging and exhilarating book, Tom Gilson breathes new life into an old premise: that Jesus was more than just an ordinary rabbi with special effects, but his awe-inspiring character and teachings point persuasively toward his divine nature. In a breezy style, Tom makes the compelling case that Jesus couldn’t possibly be the product of mere legends because he is quite literally too good not to be true. This might be the most surprising and refreshing book you’ll read this year.

JP Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University and author of Scientism and Secularism:
This book is an absolute delight to read and it wonderfully fills a big hole in contemporary apologetics. While it revives an older argument that has dropped out of the contemporary scene, it updates and exposes that argument in a fresh way. Its brilliance lies in the approach of arguing for Jesus’ uniqueness and Deity based on what Jesus did not do. I have never approached the gospels in this way and, with Gilson’s guidance, I have come to love, respect, and worship Jesus with renewed vigor and insight. Honestly, this book must be in your library. I am grateful that it is available to a new generation who will be strengthened and equipped by its argumentation.

Frank Turek, President, CrossExamined.org, speaker and co-author of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist:
Are you skeptical that anyone could present fresh insights about Jesus after two thousand years? Tom Gilson has done just that by highlighting what Jesus didn’t say and do, which is almost as shocking as what Jesus did say and do. Too Good to be False not only gets you to say “wow!” about the most influential life in human history, but also helps you realize how feeble the arguments against the biblical Jesus are. I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy this easy-to-read and hard-to-refute case. Extremely insightful!

J. Warner Wallace, Dateline featured Cold-Case Detective, Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Talbot School of Theology (Biola University) and Best-selling author of Cold-Case Christianity, God’s Crime Scene and Forensic Faith:

In Too Good To Be False: How Jesus’ Incomparable Character Reveals His Reality, Tom Gilson examines the nature of Jesus and argues that the gospel descriptions of the Savior were too glorious, consistent, and unique to be the product of legendary embellishment. Too Good To Be False describes the incredible character and appeal of Jesus of Nazareth, even as it makes a refreshing case for Christianity.

Gary R. Habermas, Distinguished Research Professor, Liberty University:
I may never before have made this comment in a recommendation, but this volume was a “fun read.” I enjoyed it! Don’t get me wrong — Gilson’s responses hit the skeptical objections at which he aimed time-and-again, including many of the major complaints lodged against Jesus’ story. Tom didn’t avoid head-on evaluations. But he did so in disarming ways that created a flowing narrative, revealing what made Jesus truly unique — doubtless the most influential life ever lived. Kudos!

John Zmirak, author and fellow senior editor at The Stream:
Tom Gilson’s book made me think about the Bible in fresh new ways–and helped me to answer certain nagging difficulties I’ve always had that made me read it LESS than I should. Enthusiastically recommended!

Jeff Myers, author, president of Summit Ministries:

I was skeptical when I first glanced over Too Good to be False. My mind filled with objections that I knew my non-believing friends would give. But in a conversational, easy-to-read tone Tom Gilson demonstrates that the gospel narratives about Jesus simply could not be made up. To have “invented” Jesus would have required a genius that no human possesses. Too Good to be False meaningfully contributes to the world’s apologetics library by affirming in a creative new way that Jesus was the most brilliant, loving, world-changing leader in history.

Paul Copan, author, professor, former president, Evangelical Philosophical Society: 

Tom Gilson has written a splendid book that takes us on a wonderful journey to see Jesus with fresh eyes! Gilson distills for us a riveting picture of Christ’s virtuous character, his commanding authority, his rigorous intellect, and his beautiful selflessness. This book reveals just why this Man from Nazareth is both the compelling and incomparable historical figure that he is.

James Robison, Founder and Publisher, The Stream, Founder and President, LIFE Outreach International:
A senior editor for The Stream, Tom Gilson produces articles that are well-researched and inspiring. It’s no surprise that Too Good to Be False has these same qualities. If you have never thought much about the impeccable character of Jesus or need a fresh a reminder, you will be impacted by what Gilson shares in detail. As he writes, “The creator of our universe, Lord and King over all, unimaginably far beyond any of us in his holiness, greatness, and glory, loves us anyway, with a love far beyond our comprehension. He calls us his family; he calls us his friends.” In response, may we fall on our knees in awe of Him.

Sean McDowell, Author, Speaker, Professor:
With so many books on Jesus, how do you say something fresh? My friend Tom Gilson has figured it out. Too Good To Be False is an enjoyable read, well researched, and will challenge you to rethink some of your assumptions about Jesus.

Brad Mitchell, Pastor, The River Church, Liberty Township, Ohio:
Compelling — Insightful — Paradigm-shifting — Brilliant. My thinking and approach to apologetics as a Christ-follower and a pastor has been reoriented through Too Good to be False. More compelling than good ‘arguments’ are evidential reasons to believe in Jesus because of Jesus. I will be recommending this book to believers to strengthen their faith and embolden their witness AND to spiritual inquirers to lead them TO Jesus. Finally! A fresh, Biblical approach to apologetics!

Lydia McGrew, author of two major New Testament studies, and speaker:

In Too Good to Be False, Tom Gilson offers a fresh look at the argument for Christianity from the character of Jesus. Gilson’s thesis is similar to C. S. Lewis’s Liar, Lunatic, or Lord trilemma, but Gilson complements that argument in several ways. Too Good to Be False offers insights into Jesus’ less explicit claims for himself, based both upon what he does say and what he does not say.
Several of these were new to me. For example, I appreciated the point that, when Jesus says that he came to fulfill the law rather than to destroy it, he is attributing high authority to himself. Would any ordinary Jewish teacher imply that he has the power either to destroy or to fulfill the Mosaic law? Gilson also points out the unprecedented nature of the Gospels’ picture of Jesus as a man possessing vast, miraculous power but not using it to save himself from a shameful death. It is too easy to forget that this was hardly an ancient value, either Jewish or pagan, and it seems to have bewildered Jesus’ own disciples. Our own love of a powerful, self-sacrificing “Christ figure” is conditioned by the fact that Christianity lies behind our culture.
Skeptics, of course, deny that Jesus could do miracles, but Gilson asks how and why the evangelists came to put together these qualities and present the combination as an ideal if it were not true. He also illustrates that the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus’ character is unified across a variety of stories, which is evidence of their historicity. Too Good to Be False provides a welcome addition to the cumulative case for the truth of Christianity.

Judy Douglass, Author, Speaker, Encourager, Cru Women’s Resources, Office of the President:
If you’ve ever dreamed of being a lawyer, an investigative reporter, or maybe a detective, or if you love to ask questions, you will love this book. Reading it was as though I were sitting with Tom Gilson, meeting this amazing Jesus all over again. We marveled at his love and his goodness. Jesus’ clever questions and brilliant responses, his leadership and humility all came alive. This book puts it all together: history, apologetics, a perfect character and unexpected humor. It offers insightful answers to hard questions, gives the skeptic some new ways to think about Jesus, and walks with me — and you — on a journey to let this Jesus live and love in and through us.

Craig A. Evans, John Bisagno Distinguished Professor of Christian Origins, Houston Baptist University:
Tom Gilson takes a fresh, innovative approach in his stimulating Too Good to Be False. Although oriented for the general reader — including skeptics — the “professionals” will get a lot out of it, too.

Jay Richards, Best-selling Author, Speaker, Research Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America, Executive Editor, The Stream
Tom Gilson is always a careful and patient apologist, taking the time to explore objections to the faith that others might dismiss. In this book, he argues persuasively that Jesus is a unique character in history. If you’re open-minded skeptic, Gilson makes a strong case you probably haven’t seen elsewhere. If you’re already a believer, he reveals truths that have been right there in the gospels all along, but you probably haven’t noticed.
Do you want to know the truth about Jesus? Then this is the book for you.

Josh McDowell, International Speaker and Best-Selling Author:
Too Good To Be False is almost too good to be true! This book takes a fresh look at the uniquely great character of Jesus, and finds in his greatness a new and compelling case for the truth of his story as presented in the Gospels. If you think there are no surprises left to be found in his life, prepare to be surprised yourself by this remarkable new book.

Eric Metaxas, #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the nationally syndicated Eric Metaxas Radio Show:
Too Good To Be False takes a fascinating look at the human character of Jesus, uncovering fresh insights for believers and skeptics to see that Jesus’s story is not simply a story — it’s truly, truly too good to be false.

The post RELEASED TODAY ON KINDLE! <em>Too Good to be False: How Jesus’ Incomparable Character Reveals His Reality</em> appeared first on Tom Gilson.

Along the way he found out my interest in Christian apologetics. So fit in naturally when we were sipping the last of our drinks for me to ask him the question apologists everywhere have been asking for years: “Pastor, tell me, what would it take for you to want to have me come minister in your church?”

That’s been a live question among apologists for years, but it’s hotter than ever now, with our culture bringing such serious attacks against the faith. The pastor’s job is a lot more complex than most thought they were signing up for. It was hard enough when it was about leading a church, with all its incredible needs and opportunities, and with all the people dynamics that make it so … interesting.

Why Doesn’t the Church Pay More Attention to Apologetics?

It was hard enough before, in other words — but now it’s about cross-cultural missions, too. If ever there was a time when apologetics could help a church, it’s now — not just because apologists have reasons for belief, but because we tend to be students of the culture(s) we’re all trying to reach for Christ.

So it is that apologists, specialists that we are, keep asking, “Why won’t the church let us in for more ministry than it does.?” Last week again I watched three men hammering it out on video. They gave good answers, true answers, important answers, answers I strongly recommend you see and hear for yourself. I know these men, I respect them, I trust them.

But they didn’t give anywhere near the whole answer. They brushed by it, telling stories of their own backgrounds and ministries, and even giving strong indication that they were practicing the whole answer. I only wish they’d included it in their analysis.

They didn’t, though. It’s not surprising: I don’t think I’ve ever heard any apologist give the most important part of the answer. I have heard it from pastors more than once; just not from apologists. It’s the answer that I believe could and should make all the difference.

Now Is the Time, But the Connection Remains Weak

Now, I need to pause and say that though it looks like I’m speaking to apologists (and in fact I am), I’m also hoping a lot of pastors are eavesdropping, reading over the apologist’s shoulder, so to speak. This message is for them, too, though not as criticism. Quite the opposite, actually! Pastors, you’re the stars, in my book. The change that needs making here is almost entirely up to apologists, but you can help. I’d much rather you be in on the process with us.

The need now for pastors’ and apologists’ cooperation is absolutely urgent, and the time is right. We’ve never had better reasons for faith than now, and never had better scholarship for today’s Western cross-cultural ministry needs. Meanwhile for those of us in the Western world, there’s also never been a time when our faith has been under so much attack.

The church desperately needs reasons to hold on to Christ. Apologists have those answers. But the connection between the two is about as tight as duct tape holding the fender on your brother-in-law’s old Chevy II. Some connection, yes, but not nearly enough.

So that takes us back to the question: Why is that connection so weak?

Apologists Should Know Better Than to Settle for Apologists’ Explanations

Apologists tend to say it’s because the church has a weak view on discipleship of the mind. This is true. Pastors, you could really help take the lead on that! Apologists will also admit we’re part of the problem, with our reputation (at least partly deserved) for nerdiness and combativeness.

I find it fascinating, though, that apologists think the problem in the church comes down to poor thinking. It’s such a typical apologist answer! So here’s how we’ll attack it strategically. First, we’ll persuade them to listen to us about how to think. Once we’ve done that, they’ll be ready at last for us to start in on what we need to do most: We need to persude them to listen to us about how to think.

We should know better. We know all about circular reasoning; circular causation is no better. If our persuading people to think depends first of all on our persuading them to think, we’re going nowhere. Which is pretty much where we’ve gone, isn’t it, in relation to the church?

Our typical apologists’ answer works with other typical apologists’ minds. What about everyone else, though? My pastor friend gave me the answer that day.

The Answer Every Pastor Knows, and Apologists Need to Finally Catch Up On

As you recall, I’d asked him, “What does it take for a pastor to want someone like me to come share at his church.”

He looked at me and said one word: “This.” He saw my quizzical look, and clarified with two words: “Lunch. Together” And then he added three more that explain it all: “Relationship, relationship, relationship.”

(Okay, he didn’t say it exactly that way, but that really was his message, and I thought it made a good tale the way I paraphrased him.)s

Apologists, we’ve missed the boat. Badly. We’ve been wishing we could have a ministry in churches, and we’ve skipped the first step: Building relationships.

Relationships, Relationships, and Relationships. And Trust. (And Relationships.)

Pastors won’t invite us in until they know us and trust us. Sometimes that can happen through a distance, maybe as they read a book or a blog, or hear us speak. Sometimes it grows through referrals. It’ll never happen through a flyer, though, and not through a single email. A shepherd needs to know who he’s admitting into his flock.

This is how ministry works; how it always works. Apologetics is ministry. Ministry is relational. It’s almost always relational. Sure, we love reading books whose authors we’ve never met, asnd we’ll listen to their podcasts, too. That’s ministry, too, sure. But I’ve been in full-time Christian ministry since 1979, and I’m here to tell you that it’s only a paper-thin slice of it. You want real ministry? You’d better build relationships.

I have stories of how this has worked out in my own ministry, and I tell them in today’s podcast. Note that I said, “how it worked out,” not, “how it worked.” If I’d only done it so it would “work,” it wouldn’t have. Relationships had better be genuine. I didn’t mention this, but before I asked my pastor friend how I might be invited to speak at his church, I’d already made it as clear as I could possibly make it that my purpose was to serve. To come in humbly and do what they needed, for their good, not for mine.

An Appeal to Apologists, An Appeal to Pastors

So I say to my apologist friends, do you want to influence the church? Busild relationships in the church. You want to make a difference in how churches are led? Build relationships with leaders. Genuine relationships. Relationships of love and trust and listening and caring. Humble ones, too, which is absolutely a prerequisite for the final appeal I’m about to make, speaking one last time in this post to pastors.

And here it is. Pastors, give us a hand, please. You’re better at this than we are. We’vse got unique ministry to offer, a service that could really help your church — our church, since we’re in this together — in these very strange and new days.

Maybe we apologists aren’t all that gifted in figuring out how best to carry out our ministry in your church. Maybe we need each other. Maybe that wouldn’t be too surprising in the body of Christ. Let’s determine to glorify him together.

Image Credit(s): pixabay/masbebet.

The post Apologists and Pastors, Here’s How We Can Finally Work Together (And We’d Better Get To It!) appeared first on Tom Gilson.

Dorothy’s line was prescient: “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Today you could almost say Kansas itself isn’t in Kansas anymore, as if the whole world got grabbed by a whirlwind and dropped on some strange planet somewhere else. The world has changed around us, and especially around the church, which appears to me finally waking up to the fact.

It’s no longer a  post-Christian world, here in the west. It used to be, but major portions are anti-Christian now, and among those who are hostile, it’s not so much because they know better but because they care less. Biblical knowledge is at a low point in America and the rest of the West. Last I checked, fewer than half of Americans know that Easter is about anyone’s resurrection, much less Jesus’.

A drastically changed world means a drastically changed mission for the church. For pastors, that means you’re not just a pastor anymore. You’re a missionary, and not in the casual, though earnest sense of churches with signs on their exit doors reading, “You are now entering the mission field.” That was a good reminder at one time; not so much anymore. Counter-Christian culture has enveloped us all so much, the mission field is in your church, too.

For Pastors

What I have to share here now is mostly for the benefit of pastors and other Christian leaders. I don’t mean to dissuade anyone else, but that’s where I intend to focus from now through at least the end of this year-long Heat to Light series.  Pastors are God’s chosen leaders for God’s primary chosen strategy, the church. Their place and purpose are central to all God is doing on earth.

I’ve been a parachurch person my whole career long, but almost all of that was in ministering to ministers — missionaries, mostly, in Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) and Ratio Christi. Because of my love for the church, though, I’ve spent hours and hours listening and loving on pastors.

It’s precisely because I’m not a pastor that I may have something unique to offer. I have the freedom to specialize in something pastors are going to be needing more and more over the next few years, and to package it for pastors’ easiest application. Because every pastor’s job description is on the brink of change, and every pastor is going to want to do some catching up. From now on you’re not just pastoring a church, you’re leading a cross-cultural missionary force.

Your New Local Foreign Mission Field

Cross-cultural? Very. It’s easy to miss just how much drastically our mission field has changed. The language and some (not all!) of the customs may still be familiar enough. We may not face the same “How do I find my way around?” questions that missionaries face when they leave for foreign lands, and unless you’re dealing in cryptocurrency you’re probably not asking what the exchange rate is.

Other than that, though, our situation is just about as cross-cultural as if we’d picked up and moved to Djakarta. The Christian worldview that once dominated America has been utterly upended and replaced by a hodge-podge of beliefs that seem to share just one thing in common, which is that whatever you decide is just fine.

Even to suggest that there’s a sovereign God in heaven is to upset the small god-ish-ness of every autonomous self-idolizing individual who thinks he, she, “they,” “xe,” “xir,” or “it” is in charge. Sin, judgment, grace, forgiveness? All totally foreign words, at least in any biblical sense. We can still talk about “grace,” maybe, but all it means is, “Hey, it didn’t matter.” Note to the world: Christ didn’t die for you on the cross because, “Hey, it didn’t matter.”

They don’t know our beliefs, though many think they do, and mock what they think they know. They don’t know the story of creation, the Fall, of Israel, of Jesus, or of the church. Really: They just don’t know. Their worldview is only barely informed by vestiges of Christian tradition.

This is what any thoughtful observer would have to call a missions situation. We’ve got to think like missionaries now. Pastors, you are cross-cultural missions leaders.

What Do Missionaries Do Differently?

A missionary has three tasks. The first is familiar to every pastor: He has to know the Scriptures through and through. The second one is where it becomes less familiar: a missionary has to understand the language, stories, beliefs, customs, hopes, and fears of his host culture. That’s essential because his third task is to put all that knowledge to use in translating the timeless gospel into a new language the host culture will understand, and couch it in new stories, with new explanations and new defenses, so people can appreciate its beauty and truth, and so they’ll be convinced Christ is true, and He is for them.

The second task has always been part of evangelism. Lately, though, it’s grown way more complicated than it used to be. Not only has North American culture turned anti-Christian, it’s done so in so many ways it can seem impossible to keep up. The latest new trend is critical race theory, which is complex enough on its own, but on top of that there’s everything from the culture of tolerance to the new sexual morality to gender fluidity to paganism to Islam to “scientific” atheism to the apathy of the “nones.”

And if there’s anything I know about pastors, it’s that you’re busy enough already. You’ve got enough study time invested in just your sermons; how are you ever going to catch up with all that? Hang on a moment …

Leading Your Congregation to Joy in the Lord

Meanwhile, though, your congregation is going through these same crazy-making culture changes. Some of them are dealing with crises of conscience at work: “Do I follow Christ, or do I act as if I think my boss’s gay marriage is just as wonderful as any other marriage?” Many are (rightly) worried about their children growing up in this strange new world.

Tough questions like these aren’t new; Christians have faced them since the very beginning. They’re just new to us. We’re perfectly positioned not to obey 1 Peter 4:12: “Brothers, do not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you, as if something strange were happening to you.” We’re surprised, all right. We think it’s strange. It isn’t. Taken as a whole, throughout all of Christian history, it’s the relatively easy time North American Christians have experienced that’s the strange thing.

Your job as pastor is to lead your congregation through it with joy, just as 1 Peter 4:12 continues: “but rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

The Good News: You’re Not On Your Own!

Other than that, I guess you could say so far I’ve been telling you mostly bad news. Like it or not, you’re in a foreign mission field now. You can either choose to try to reach it or you can choose not to, but none of us can change what it’s going to require of us to reach it. The even worse news is that members of your congregation, especially younger people, are being strongly influenced by this foreign culture, so that even your congregation is shifting in alien directions.

The good news is, you’re not on your own. You’ve got help. Some of us have time to do what you likely wish you could do. Your job includes everything from leading committee meetings to handling personnel problems to doing counseling to prepping sermons. I couldn’t begin to do all that. What I can do — since it’s actually my job — is study and communicate. I have the freedom, and this year it is my intention, to look at current issues with three pastor-oriented steps in mind:

1. An explainer, that is, a one-pager to give you a quick overview of each issue in light of a biblical perspective.
2. Practical ministry implications, answering the question, “Now that I know this, what difference does it actually make in my ministry?”
3. A short sample sermon, written and recorded in audio, that you’ll have my permission (with attribution) to use as freely as you like.

Soon, too, I’ll be making myself available for individual coaching from time to time.

Your New Job and the Help You Can Find For It

Pastor, your job has changed. You don’t have to like it; it’s just a fact of the world God has called you to minister in. Your faithfulness to his call, especially in evangelism, is going to require you to learn how to think more like a cross-cultural missionary.

You don’t have to go it alone, though. Many are there to help. I pray, and I believe, that this series the rest of this year will prove to be a major part of that help for you. I’ll be back in a week or so with the first round of explainers, practical ministry applications, and sample sermons.

Please feel free to let me know what else would help you most!

Image Credit(s): Unsplash/MelynaValle.

The post Pastor, Your Job Is About Cross-Cultural Missions Now. Could You Use Some Help? appeared first on Tom Gilson.

As always, there was more that could have been said. I’m still curious why he’s so critical of Jesus, whom he takes to be God in the flesh, and in the same light also, how he could think Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

He actually caught me off guard when he answered a certain question I’d asked, saying, “Inerrancy.” I hadn’t studied the history of that doctrine, but now that I’ve had a chance to look through it, I have trouble understanding how he could make the point he followed through on it with.  I believe he left the door open for more conversation, though, so maybe I’ll have a chance to ask him these things. I’d rather meet him over coffee, but I enjoyed the talk, and I’d do it again gladly this way, too.

I think he’s expecting we would talk about sexuality if we meet again this way. That’s been done a lot, though, and I don’t know what progress we could make without first walking through the one main issue he himself brought up near the end. Our differences really hinge on what we take to be our best sources, our authority, that which determines what we believe. I’m thinking that would be very interesting to talk about.

For enhanced audio — audio only, that is — visit the Thinking Christian podcast.

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