Is Christianity Divisive? | Tim Keller

welcome to the Veritas forum engaging University students and faculty in discussions about life's hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life you know the the topic is belief in an age of skepticism and I'd like to in my address to you which is only going to take part half the time we're here together tonight I like to drill down into one of those main reasons why people are skeptical about belief in God in general Christianity in particular tonight and if it's not maybe the question that you most wanted to hear about though there's half the time we'll have a questions and answers and you can come and pose your question but that the one I'd like to specially tackle is that people today are particularly skeptical about belief in God because they feel that to say I know God and I have the truth is it is too exclusive a way of speaking in a pluralistic society filled with all kinds of views and religions and it's also too divisive in a democratic society a free democratic society because people it is said that believe they know God and they have the truth I feel impelled May they can't help themselves to impose those beliefs on us at least legislatively by law and in some cases to really oppress and marginalize people in fact very often belief in God seems to lead to violence into war itself now how do you justify then belief in God and especially the most perhaps exclusive of all the religious claims which is Orthodox Christianity that says Jesus Christ is the one true way to God how do you justify that kind of claim and how do people with those kinds of exclusive beliefs actually fit and operate in a free democratic society now you know a lot of the new atheist books by mr. Dawkins mr. Hitchens mr. Harris and others say it doesn't fit at all in fact religious belief unless it diminishes or even goes away until that happens we're really not going to have a peaceful world I I don't agree with that at all and I'd like to share with you the five ways people are trying to deal with exclusive truth claims five ways people are trying to deal with the divisive nosov religion I'd like to show why all five of them fail and I'd like to show in conclusion a way forward not one of those five but a way forward but let me start off by saying something it might surprise you I do think religions part of the problem with the world I do think religion has a fair to a great degree contributes to division and conflict and war in the world and I'll tell you how it works you know being a believer in God an Orthodox Christian I know how it works the first stage is it's actually I call it a slippery slope in the heart religion first of all starts with gives you a kind of sense of superiority because you have the truth and you're living a good life and these people over here are not they don't have the truth and they're not living a good life so you feel superior to them at stage one sec stage two is separation you just don't hang out with them you know you don't spend time with them they're kind of impure all right stage three is because you don't know them you caricature them they become one-dimensional ever seen cartoons you know big ears big nose it you know a cartoonish view you have of these other people over here so from superiority to to separation to caricaturing and that leads to passive and then active oppression because those are the kind of people you can push away those are the kind of people you can ignore those are the kind of people you can do maybe not actively oppress at first but sort of passively just not give them the same kind of regard that you should and and that slippery slope leads from religion belief or the true to oppression it really does so what now now that we all agree the religion is a big problem in the world and does not lead generally speaking to peace on earth what are we going to do about it now right now there's five things that people are suggesting and five strategies that people are trying to use to address the exclusive truth claims of religion and Christianity in particular here's what the five are none of them are going to work none of them do work I'm going to try to give you another approach but the five are what do you do about exclusive religion hope it away outlaw it away explain it away argue it away privatize it away none of them are going to work let me show you why okay first hope it away now I am older than a lot of you and when I was your age wait don't you hate sentences that start like that when I was your age everybody thought that modern societies technologically advanced societies would become less and less religious as time went on the idea was a thick robust Orthodox religious belief was going to thin out the more developed countries got economically developed a more technologically developed they got the more people became educated and came to know something about what the whole world was like it was understood that when human beings became more mature that religion was slowly died out it would thin out at first you know there's there's robust religion that believes in miracles and believes an absolute truth and believes in scriptures that are authoritative and then there's the thinner kind of religion that says well we take those creeds in the story sort of metaphorically and we don't really believe that literally happened we just think it's a symbol and that's what you might call thinner religion and it was expected that the robust kind of religion would start to die out then things would get thinner and eventually things we get secular and the more modern a society got the less religious it would be and it was believed that Europe because was the most secular of all the continents was ahead of the curve and that's where we were all going to go none of that's happened between the time I was your age and the time that I'm my age none of that's happened in fact this is that this is this is shocking to everybody for example North America you know mark Lilla has written a book called is stillborn God and you know what that books about the title it's about the death of mainline liberal religion what's happening in this country is yes on the one hand there are more secular people there's more people who say I don't believe in God or I don't know what I believe in God or have no religious affiliation but on the other hand there are there's more orthodoxy there's more robust supernatural religion than has ever been and what's actually happened is the middle has atrophied the moderate middle has atrophy so for example Pew foundation just came out with this this huge religious survey of the you know religious state of the country and if you notice evangelical Pentecostal Christians are the biggest category in the country bigger than mainline Protestants by far bigger than the Catholics that just was not true when I was growing up now there is what's happened is you've got more Orthodox religion and actually more secularism and so we're more polarized than we ever were and that's just America if you go to Latin America Asia and Africa religion Islam and Christianity is growing like crazy and it's refuting this idea that the more modern a country gets the more secular it will get for example Korea went from about 1% about 40% Christian in about 100 years as it was getting more modern and right now the same things happening in China and today there's probably more Christians in China than there are in America and in Africa right now as some of you know these statistics there's two million Episcopalians in America you're 17 million in Nigeria alone 8 million in Uganda alone how did that happen you say well because Africa went from 9 percent to 60 percent or 50 percent we Khristian in about 90 years what's going on the only place in the world in which say Christianity isn't growing like crazy is Europe and now people are not looking at Europe is the forerunner they're saying what happened why is it the exception and the answer is it's not modernity it was state churches and that's another subject you want to ask me about it I'm not sure it's most fruitful use of our time tonight but the fact of the matter is Orthodox religion is not going away robust crunchy I believe in miracles I believe in the truth I believe in the scriptures that religion is here indefinitely there's something in the human heart that is so inexorably religious that you can really say it's a permanent condition and the most one of the most amazing things I've known about this for years but one of the most amazing things are some lifetime last year the New York Times magazine ran a survey of the fact that scientists evolutionary scientists are now trying to study the evolutionary roots are going to get back to this in a second of religion because they are finding that basically human beings in general are very prone to believe in God in fact they the studies have shown that children when they're introduced to it's almost like children are almost they're wired to they're prepared to believe in God they find the idea of God incredibly credible and and so what they're trying to do now is they're trying to say why are people so religious because they recognize and this is not going away what are the evolutionary roots so that I get back to in a second but the idea that you can hope it away the idea that hopefully I mean that one of the the idea that if we could just get rid of this kind of Orthodox religion then we could really swing in this country it's not going to happen we're going to have to learn to get along we're going to have to learn to talk we're gonna have to learn how to do civil discourse and talk about these issues you can't hope it away secondly and this is going to take like one minute the second strategy which by and large is going away I think the second strategy for dealing with the device this and the exclusiveness of religion is outlawed now that has not worked very well perfect example of this is a that the two biggest projects of it was a Russia and China under communism in which they basically said religion is it undermines the state it undermines the authority the state and many of these religions were outlawed or you know highly controlled but one of the great ironies of history and I think five hundred years from now everybody's going to see this the best thing that a communism ever did for the growth of Christianity in China was to kick all the missionaries out in 1945 because when they said we're clamping down this is a we're getting rid of all the Western missionaries and they kicked them all out and they said that's that what happened it was it turned Chinese Christianity indigenous and it became far far more powerful and far more potent and it began to grow like wildfire outlawing religion does not help okay so for the most silly of the five strategies hope it away to the most futile of the strategies outlawed away we move to a third strategy and I said explain it away now explain it away and argued away this is the this is what a lot of intellectual folks a lot of scholars are trying to do hoping to sort of Dee crunch fi religion and the first way is to explain it away now here one of the ways that sort of diminish its impact one of the ways to say this we need to tame religious people uh you know I'm not trying to be pejorative about it I mean I just I know that this is one of the ways it's done is we're going to show we're going to explain it the New York Times Magazine I mentioned was a survey of the last ten years in which evolutionary scientists have been working on this question why are human being so religious and if you grant there's no God if you say there's no God and everything has to financial cause and if you say therefore everything every feature of your brain in my brain everything about its belief forming faculties is the product of natural selection every single thing about my brain is there because it helped my ancestors survive somehow then you have to ask this question why are people so religious and you have to give it an evolutionary answer and and the answer now right now nobody quite knows that's what that's what the debates about the evolutionary scientists that are were being reported on all agree that there must be some way in which belief in God was something that helped our ancestors survive otherwise it wouldn't be in our brain and everybody's trying to decide how it happened and you know there's there are people like Richard Dawkins who actually says it's sort of a it was a misfiring of evolution he doesn't want to grant that it helped our ancestors survive he just thinks it's a byproduct of some other trait that helped our ancestors survive he won't even grant this and on the other hand there are other folks who saw it I don't go into that here's what I want to point out I have been absolutely amazed at the negative reviews by secular people of the new atheist books the New Republic gave a very learned and very devastating negative critique of Daniel Dennett's book the so many a Thomas Nagel of NYU is a philosopher did a tremendously negative review of Dawkins book and you know here's what they said and these were not these men were not writing as Christians and this is absolutely right that we have a problem with saying yeah most people believe in morality they believe that there are moral absolutes and most people believe in God but it's because our evolution is because our genetic is because we're programmed by evolution to feel that way our belief forming faculties that there is a God and there are moral absolutes are do not tell us that there really is a God if you have Baloo farming faculties to tell you there's a God it doesn't mean there is a God it just means that that feeling helped your ancestor survive so the belief forming faculties being a product of evolution only helped survival they don't necessarily tell you what's really there your belief faculty they don't tell you what's there they just help you survive and all these reviews said but wait a minute the problem is that evolutionary scientists use that scalpel on everything else when I think there's a god well you were just programmed for that I believe in morality we're just programmed for that I believe in evolution and here's the question if your belief forming faculties don't tell you the truth but only what you need to survive why believe them why believe that when you actually observe the environment they're telling you what's actually out there or that when you decide I believe in evolution why should you believe that why put the scalpel and everything else in Alvin Plantinga who's a philosophy professor at Notre Dame has argued is at a very high level much higher than I could possibly get across to you but he's pointed out and a lot of other philosophers have pointed out that mild paranoia is going to be much more helpful for survival than an accurate assessment of your environment and therefore if you believe if you have a theory of evolution I'm not saying I'm against all understanding of evolution but if you have a theory of evolution that says you can't trust what your brain tells you you can't trust what your brains belief forming faculties tell you including what they tell you about evolution then you can't trust the theory your theory of evolution CS let's put it like this some years ago he wasn't talking about this directly but it applies he says you can't go on explaining everything away forever he's really talking about people who deconstructed everything it's Oh everything that's just that that's just that he says you cannot go on explaining away every way forever or you will find that you have explained explanation itself away for example you cannot go on seeing through things forever the whole point of seeing through something is to see something else through it it is good that you can see through a window because the garden beyond is opaque but if you could see through everything then everything would be transparent and a wholly transparent world would be an invisible world so to see through everything is the same as not to see at all and so how does that apply like this if as Nietzsche says all truth claims are really just power grabs then so is his so I listen to him if as Freud says all views of God are really just psychological projections to deal with our guilt and insecurities then so is his view of God so why listen to him if as the evolutionary scientists say that what my brain tells me about morality and God is not real it's just chemical reactions designed to pass on my genetic code then so is what their brains tell them about the world so I listen to them in the end to see through everything is not to see so you know if you try to explain away religion you'll explain away explanation you'll explain away what you believe to doesn't work now a little bit less esoteric strategy for people want to say you mustn't make exclusive truth claims they're trying to argue you religious people into saying I shouldn't do that in other words when people say who are Christians Jesus is the once your way to God Christianity is the truth well the strategy goes like this you mustn't say that it's wrong to say that it's illegitimate to say that it's divisive to say it's exclusive it's now to say that I don't think those arguments hold up let me give you three versions of them that I can almost guarantee since I'm a father to people your age but most of you believe the first one is if somebody said if I say for example to you Jesus is the one way to God the only way to get to heaven the only way to get to God is through Jesus one of the ways one one reason you'll come back and said no none of all religions are equally right don't say that to me mister all religions are equally right so I come back to you on this is that's impossible it's impossible that all religions be equally right and it when you say that it just shows you're not listening to any of the religions at all you're a bad listener I was once I was I'm trying I'm really not trying to make fun of you I mean but well I was once on a panel with a rabbi and a man in Imam and myself you know Protestant clergymen and we agreed about this statement I'm about to let me give you the lead up to the statement Jesus Christ claimed to be the Son of God from heaven he made unbelievable claims you know you have in John chapter 8 he said before Abraham existed I am I saw Abraham fact before Abraham existed I am there's a place where Jesus says I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning I'm sure the people around him was saying when was that and and where were you standing and who are you see there's a place where Jesus actually says to his critics is you know I've been sending you prophets and wise men for years and you keep killing them what Jesus claimed to be the Son of God the founders of all other religions said basically this I am a prophet come to help you find God Jesus is the only one who came and said I'm God come to find you now either what jesus said is a fact or not and I'm not even going to argue for it now just just I'm just dealing with what you just said which is all religions are equally okay you know they're all right don't say that yours is better than any other jesus said that and therefore if it's a fact if he actually is the son of God he'd have to be a better way to get to God he is God if he's not if he's not right if it's not a fact then he's deranged or he's fraudulent and it's it's an inferior way and you know the rabbi and the Imam were perfectly happy to STATS exactly right either Christianity is better than other religions or it's worse but it's not the same it couldn't be the same and for you to say they're all the same shows you just haven't listened you see a fact isn't narrow I wish very often that I wouldn't have to I wish I wouldn't have you know sometimes you get really busy gosh I wish I didn't have to eat I did wish I didn't have to sleep I've got so much work to do it's a fact you're going to wither and die if you don't eat it's not narrow it's just a fact and if Jesus Christ is the son of God your soul will shrivel without him and you'll die if it's a that's not narrow just a fact or it's not a fact but it's not narrow either way it's right or it's wrong well some people say no no you can't say Jesus is the only way not because all religions are equally right that's not what Dawkins Harris Hitchens and company would say they would say no because all religions are equally wrong and what they would say is all religions just have little bits of wisdom but nobody sees the whole picture it's very very typical of folks to say don't you dare say that your religion is the right religion because no religion is the right but all religions only have a little piece of the pie then we see a little bit of the whole and the traditional illustration of this is that the the blind men and the elephant right have you heard this illustration imagine five blind men and they come upon an elephant and each one grabs the elephant at a different place and one says ah the elephant is he's grabbing the trunk sort of long and you know flexible but another guy has hold of their legs and say it's not flexible at all it's kind of stumpy and so every one of the blind men tends to think they sense the whole elephant but they only see a little part of the elephant and none of them really can see the whole elephant and no religion ought to say it sees the whole thing because all religions have a little part of it and nobody sees at all however Leslie Newbegin pointed out something very important some years ago in which he said this in the famous story of the blind men and the elephant so often quoted in the interest of religious agnosticism the real point of the story is constantly overlooked the story cannot be told except by someone who is not blind but can see what the blind men are unable to fully grasp which is the whole elephant the story is constantly told to neutralize and the affirmations of the great religions to suggest that they learn humility and recognize that none of them can know the whole truth but the story is told by one who claims to see and know the full otherwise you wouldn't know the men were blind you see what'd he say he says the only way you can know that these men are blind is if you say you're not and the only way you can say no religion sees all the truth is if you believe you see more of the truth and they do or actually all the truth in other words you are claiming the very thing you say no religion must claim superior knowledge and that's the reason why Newbegin says there is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp but if this is used invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to the very kind of knowledge which it says no one can have see if you say I don't know which religion is true that can be a statement of humility but if you say no one can know which religion is right you are being dogmatic and presuming you have a far better view of ultimate reality than any of the other religions and that's the very claim you're criticizing in fact I've even had somebody and I listen here I've had this this conversation several times I'm talking to somebody about Jesus and suddenly somebody says what are you doing and I say I'm evangelizing you so you mean you want me to adopt your view as better than my view that you know you're trying to say your view of spirituality is a right and I'm wrong and you want me to convert yeah I say that's arrogant how dare you say that your view of spirituality is better than anybody else's and try to convert us and wait a minute what are you suggesting and the person says well I think that you need to keep you know everybody you ought to keep your religion private if it if it's good for you it's good for you but you need to honor what other people think and and and not try to convert them I said wait a minute you're saying your take on spiritual reality is better than mine and you're trying to evangelize me right now because you're saying I need to adopt yours and you think the world would be a much better place if everybody adopted your take on spiritual reality rather than mine and of course I believe that the world we better place if everybody adopted my view of spiritual reality than yours rather than yours it who's being more narrow here nobody's being more narrow as soon as you say nobody should make exclusive truth claims that's that's a universal claim see it's a universal claim you're just laying down on everybody you can't avoid exclusive truth claims let me tell you what real narrowness is not the content of what you say because as soon as you start to say you shouldn't be drawing lines here what did you just do there's people good people like me who don't draw lines and there's bad people like you who do you just drew a line by saying nobody should draw lines look everybody is exclusive well then who's open and who is narrow I'll tell you nanus is disdaining and and sneering at and belittling people who've got a different exclusive truth claim than yours because you've got an exclusive truth claim I'll tell you what you really need in this world I only tell you what you really need in this world what you need is people who've got an exclusive truth that humbles them that's what you need look I have to be quick here because I was I want you to be able to ask me questions the fifth strategy is privatize it and there's a huge problem with this that is to say look do not go out into the public realm and ever argue from a religious point of view if you're going to try to pass a law it should never you should have a secular reason for it never religious reason for it richard rorty says the problem with religion when you talk about it in public discourse is other people if you're speaking out of your religious convictions other people don't have access to that so what we need to do is put your religion in the back let's agree on practical solutions to the problems that we're really facing like AIDS and poverty and education and things like that and let's work together just keep your religious views behind you that won't work and I'll tell you why as soon as a richard rorty says let's all agree to work together on the problems that we have you can't begin to work on those problems unless you have underlying commitments to what human flourishing is and those underlying commitments the human is are based on views of human flourishing that are based on views of human nature and spiritual reality that cannot be proven in a test tube it cannot be proven scientifically they're not self-evident to everybody and everybody's got moral commitments that are not accessible to everyone else so a quick quick example and it'd have to be quick look at divorce laws for a second okay let's try let's try to come up with divorce laws that really work for everybody that really help human flourishing and let's leave our worldview commitments and our let's let's just use scientific reasoning you can't do it I'll tell you why if you come from a traditional culture Confucianism Hinduism if you come from Christianity Catholicism Protestantism orthodoxy traditional cultures have always said human beings flourish best when the individual right is supplemented to the community the family is more important in the individual the clans more important in the individual community values and traditions are more important than the individual but the Western enlightenment said no the individual is more important than the community individual rights have to be you know are more important in the community so people from a background in with a more traditional world view a view of human flourishing that's different says let's make divorce law is hard become a should be very hard to get a divorce because the most important thing is to keep people together so you have a stable environment for the frit for raising children but if you come out of an Enlightenment view of human flourishing what you're saying there is well no the whole purpose of marriage is to fulfill the individual needs of the two adults that get into it okay now how are we going to come to agreement so now we're exact group wants to make divorce laws easier how we get to agreement well let's find these neutral universal scientific principles we all can agree on they're not there because your belief about what will be a good divorce laws depend on certain commitments and views of human nature and human flourishing that are based on things like the dignity of the individual no the importance of the community and those things cannot be proven there's there there either formally or semi-formal religious commitments and therefore again what you need is to be able to go out into the public square and talk about your your religious commitments or your semi religious commitments that admit what you're doing but with humility let me show you what I think is a way through now at this point if you don't mind I'm just going to quickly talk to Christians we are we Christians are the biggest faith group in the world we're still twice Christianity still twice the size of the next religion at this point in the world and the only way that we're going to break this is not to say what's wrong with you secular people why are you being so mean to us Christians have to recognize number one that you're a big part of the problem and number two that we also can be at the heart of the solution okay two minutes and I'm done there are two basic ways of thinking about your self-image one is what I'm going to call a moral performance narrative a moral performance narrative says I'm okay I'm a good person I feel significant and I have worth because I'm achieving something you are a liberal person and you feel like I'm a good person because I'm working for the poor and I'm working for human rights and I'm open-minded you can't help in a moral performance narrative your self-image is based on your performance as a a generous liberal activist person you can't help but look down your nose at bigots you can't help but feel superior to bigots on the other hand what if you are a traditional religious person and you go to church and you read your Bible or you go to synagogue and you read your Bible or you go to the mosque and read the Quran and you're working really hard to be good and to serve God etc now in that case you have to look down your nose at people who don't believe your religion and you're not being is they're not being as good as you are and maybe just a secular person and you're a hard-working decent chap you can't help if your self-image is based on the idea that you're a hard-working decent chap you can't help but look down your nose at people who you consider lazy but the gospel the gospel is something different the gospel says Jesus Christ comes and saves you the gospel says you're a sinner the gospel says you don't live up to your own standards the gospel says there's no way you're ever going to be able to live up to your own standards the gospel says that you have failed your moral failure and salvation only belongs to people who admit their moral failures and Jesus came in weakness and died on the cross and he says my salvation is only to weak people it only is there for people who admit that you're not better than anyone else that you just need mercy if you have a grace narrative if you say the reason I can look myself in the mirror the reason I know I have significance is because Jesus died for me though I'm a sinner saved by grace you can't feel superior to anybody I and I've got a Hindu neighbor in my apartment building and I think he's wrong about the Trinity I think he's wrong about a lot of things but he could be probably is a better father than me he's probably could be a much better man why aren't you your Christian he's a Hindu don't you think you have the truth yeah but here's the truth the truth is I'm a sinner and I'm saved by grace so why in the world I'm not say because I'm a better man I'm say because I'm a worse man and I really and so what happens is the grace narrative takes away the kind of superiority and removes that slippery slope that I mentioned in the very beginning that leads from superiority to separation to caricature and to passive and then active oppression it just takes it away now Christians I've got to admit to a great degree we operate out of the moral performance narrative and we don't have to because we got the gospel yet to a great degree we do to a great degree we do but let me tell you what happens when the grace narrative is really ascendant you go back to the earliest days of the church here's the Roman Empire the Greco Roman Empire and they believed in pluralism they had a very they didn't believe there was any one God everybody had their own God right open minded along come the Christians and they say Jesus is the true God very very rigid and yet the lives of the pagans and the Christians were different the pagans looked down their nose at the poor Christians loved the poor the pagans were very stratified they never mixed different classes and social strata Christians got everybody together races together classes together the pagans were extremely oppressive to women Christians were much more open to the leadership of women by the way you can all see this in Rodney Starks book rise of Christianity why would what looks like an open minded philosophy lead to so much oppressiveness and what over here the Christian will looks like a rigid philosophy lead to so much peace making it so much generosity I'll tell you why I remember I remember not long after 9/11 I was reading an editorial to my wife out of the Sunday morning paper that said you know what the problem with the world is fundamentalism if you're a fundamentalist it's going to lead to it's going to lead to violence and of course I just try to show you we're all fundamentalists actually but when my wife sat there and she says that's ridiculous it all depends on what the fundamental is she says have you ever seen an Amish Terrace she says you know she says listen if I'm ish aren't fundamentalist there ain't no such thing but here's what they're fundamental is a man dying on the cross for his enemies a man praying for the forgiveness of his enemies as he's dying if that's at the very center of your life that destroys the slippery slope if Christians are willing to say we're going to start we're going to start if we start acting that way we start acting you know Martin Luther King jr. when he saw racism in the south and he looked at all those white people churchgoers What did he say to them he says you know your problem is you guys are too religious you guys are too conservative you guys read your Bible you know you just you know we got to get more relativistic and then things will get better in the south is that what he said no what do you say he said let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream that's the Book of Amos he didn't say good against religious what he said was get true to the religion you got you need you don't need less Christianity you need real Christianity that's what I'm saying to you okay time is up and Clint's going to come back up here and I know that Senator sounded more like a sermon than a lecture but I'm a minister and I kind of got carried away at the end and so so I'm just going to go back and forth so over here thank you for your talk dr. Keller I really appreciate it I really liked the suggestion of the grace narrative and what I want to talk about which really resonated with me is explain it away legalize it away argue it away what that doesn't leave room in my mind for is religious legislation just like anti religious legislation is enforcing a point of view so would religious legislation in my understanding and I want to ask you how you might justify illegal gay marriage from that point of view from the narrative of grace from anti explaining it away well now I thought you were going to buy actually buy at the very end you made it a lot easier for me I thought you were going to ask me something bigger I really did that no this is actually very is a simple answer because it's a complex issue there are plenty of people who see nothing morally wrong with homosexuality who think same-sex marriage is a very bad idea and there are numbers of people who think that homosexuality is morally wrong but think the government should make that pronouncement at all and therefore same-sex marriage is a good idea and then you have people who think own sexuality is wrong therefore same-sex marriage is a bad idea and you have you know there's at least four groups and I hate to say it I mean this is a democracy and you're going to make arguments the arguments have got to appeal to if if your arguments appeal to the broadest possible number of constituents you're going to you're going to win your policy so I don't think if you're going to ask me this I don't think at all that a I don't think the grace narrative at this point makes a great deal of difference except how you argue see so for example what if I'm a Christian and I think that though it there's two possibilities here Christian traditional view which is homosexuality is wrong that's the vast majority of Christians over the years and you can have two people who both believe it's wrong and arguing on different sides of this issue what the grace narrative will do is not necessarily determine which of those sides are going to be on because you see you've got people who say you've got a more Anabaptist tradition of Christianity which is relating Christ and culture that says it is not the job of the church in any way to try to get the government to be kind of a big mama church in other words the Anabaptist tradition has always said let the government be absolutely neutral and we don't in any way want it to try it we it always well you can a batteries are the people looking at Europe and are saying that if that's what you want in America you know just go ahead try to legislate Christian morality but then you've got a more reformed and Catholic to some degree view of how you relate Christianity and culture and they would probably say no we do want the marriage laws to reflect Christian morality the grace narrative will not necessarily determine whether you're an Anabaptist or a Catholic that's going to come from different things different different issues the grace narrative will determine how you treat people on the other side it'll how you treat gay people in the debate but it won't necessarily I don't think it's going to necessarily determine whether you think it's a it's a good idea or a bad idea that will come from other concerns and other issues and I'm at a minute misunderstood what you're trying to do it sounds to me like what you're trying to say is defend everyone's right to an exclusive idea an exclusive point of view to a belief you are religious Iying atheist thought as also very exclusive yes or I appreciate that right right um so we're in that comes in the rightness or the right of legalizing and empowering one point of view that way from I bet this is country this would be my last time because I don't mean actually this is the problem.you this is a very important question and I don't want to take up too much time on because other people might have a question from a Christian point of view I have to decide what I think from a Christian point of view I have to decide what I think the role of the state is and Christians differ on that now are you that you're not asking that are you coming in is that what you're asking see the my gospel net grace narrative identity is not going to necessarily determine that it's going to determine how I argue and how I treat people and how civil I am but I is a Christian man going into politics trying to decide whether same-sex marriage should be legal or not will be determined by my understanding of my own scriptural texts on what the role of government is some people would say the government ought to reflect the the mores of the Christian Church others would say no that that's a great way to corrupt both the church and the government and those are long-standing historical debates intramural debates inside the Christian Church it's not what I'm asking I don't want to talk anymore temple without without asking any more response from you I'll just say it seems contradictory to me to say everyone's entitled to a point of view no matter how exclusive it is and then to say also I'm entitled to enforcing one form of reality behavior legality on a group of people because of my exclusive belief no in a democracy nothing's supported you wait a minute okay no I don't want to lose you here I really don't want to lose you okay if you believe racism is wrong and you think it's bad for human flourishing and you pass a law against it you're imposing your view of human flourishing on everybody are you not I don't mind other people thinking in a racist way I think everyone does I don't think they should tell me whether I should behave this way or that way really in my home no no I'm talking it well the same thing with same-sex marriages public we're not talking about homosexuality and private we're talking about it publicly so you do understand do you not that if we decide racism is bad for human flourishing and we pass laws against racist behavior that we are imposing our view of human flourishing on everybody in society yes right so what's the problem with that in other words everybody is everybody is arguing for laws on the basis of their view of human flourishing and if they get enough votes that's the one that we have to do and I wouldn't call that imposing your view that helped a little bit yeah okay I'm sorry it's my age and I promise I promise not to be so loquacious and I'll try to get to your that your meaning faster okay sorry thank you hi yes I have about 80 of your sermons and how many about 80 80 maybe 90 roughly roughly and I you know I probably don't remember any of hello at least don't ask oh go ahead uh this question is a lot lighter than that last one by the way um well it was my feet it worse than it had to be go ahead in your your series on Abraham you um this is what I was afraid of go ahead you you thank you completely don't address Melchizedek even though Paul refers to him in the New Testament and I'm just wondering you know in the Orthodox Christian tradition Malky sadhakas is greatly addressed they kind of revere him I'm just wondering why you choose to completely not even address and ignore him now you said this was not a hard question you okay well listen I let me confess it I'm Protestant and and as a result I am not used to giving milk acidic that much air time and no look but what about the fact that Paul addresses in the linear Testament where in Hebrews I think so yeah Paul didn't write Hebrews look I'm I'm really I'm really honestly truly willing to to think about how little how little emphasis and thought I've given to him as a character honestly i but you know it's the same reason why Catholics will give a whole lot more emphasis to Mary then either the Orthodox or the or the Protestants do it's the tradition and I think that we probably can learn from each other so I'm quite willing to learn from the eastern tradition and not I have not you're right haven't given a lot of thought to it so there we go that's all Oh next I appreciate it too honest I really do actually I will I wasn't kidding I will probably tonight I'm going to go read those two chapters in Hebrews and say what have I been missing and I will go ahead I was interested in what you had to say I guess about people something that I hear a lot too is that people might sort of say that all religions must be okay and that like everyone has I guess your interpretation of that thought is that all people think that all religion must have part of a part of a greater truth or something but at least in my point of view when I hear people justify religion like that I think that they're trying to make God seem benevolent in the fact that God would not send people to hell for what people would most people would say as a geographical accident um okay no so is it what the last part mostly like I think I think a lot of people would think that whatever religion you are is somewhat of a geographical accident in that I mean well our mission in the United States yeah yes it hurts you the fact that they're born here well yes and no would you say for example see here's the problem there's three reasons why people believe or disbelieve intellectual personal and social so and this isn't just people who believe in God but who disbelieve - I think a lot of people though would say that social like the probably the most powerful well you see because you really want to say that here's the problem with that when people say to me and I had this said these are secular people who kind of say that basically religious belief is socially constructed and what they'll say to me is if you were born in Madagascar you wouldn't even be a Christian now the right comeback is if you were important Madagascar you wouldn't you wouldn't believe in relativism I don't think atheism is like I think you're like ik waiting atheism what the relativism and well no no no no but the point is you wouldn't be an atheist let's just say an atheist essence you wouldn't be an atheist if you're raised in Madagascar so are you really saying your view of your view that truth is socially construct can't be completely socially constructed or else that truth would be that statement would be meaningless no I don't think I don't really follow what I'm just saying is that a God that would send someone I mean oh yeah you know that since you're Christian you think that there are people obviously unless you're like a really radical Christian who's some some people I know don't believe in hell that that I guess if you if you are like a Orthodox Christian you think that some people are going to hell and I think people try to reason that out by saying that well God can't send people to hell for something that's kind of an accident of location okay because then he would be malevolent okay now I'll tell you what just for everybody else you asked me two questions and I'll answer I'll remind you what I just tried to say but you actually put two questions together and I was just confused about the first one because you were going into life well now you know listen here's just a suggestion Peter Berger who's like the father of the sociology of knowledge and sociology knowledge says basically we are we believe what we believe largely because it's the social setting right to a great degree you believe what you believe beliefs are found plausible because of the people around you and he in his book rumour of angels he's got a chapter called relativizing the relative icers now this isn't directly what you're I'm not going to write at your heart but that's just for everybody else a little bit in which he says one day he realized he was getting to the place where he said all all beliefs are really socially constructed so you're just the product of your environment then you began to realize that belief would be socially constructed just the product of the environment he says because I belong to a bunch of scholars and when you begin to realize when you say all statements are socially constructed except that one you can't do that but if that statement is socially constructed are you really saying therefore it's meaningless that you know I believe it only because it's socially constructed no no no no I worked on this I thought about this and he says it you get it gets you back to the place where even though we're more chastened and we're more humble about our beliefs because now we know to a great degree we're biased by our social setting we still have to make decisions which of these views is right and wrong because we have the mountain for all in front of us so you can't be a complete relativist but I think what you're after is the hell thing okay well what maybe to clarify one is this is not question just I'm an atheist but I think I don't really care about Christianity mostly because I think if there is a God he doesn't he's not going to send me to hell because I believe in I'm Abed because I'm an atheist just because I've reasoned that through all right on my own everything that I'm not saying that that's right for everyone else but I don't think God would send me to hell for what coming to question that's a pretty big leap of faith I mean what's your warrant for that I mean mean what why would you it's a nice feeling but it's the same warrant that you have for Jesus you know ascending an air anything well wait a minute go read an 800-page book by NT Wright is top rated historian called the resurrection of the Son of God in which he says there's no historically possible alternate explanation for the birth of the Christian Church than the bodily resurrection of Jesus it's a very very I don't think it gets you all the way to proof but it's awfully cogent and it would be really wrong to put up a feeling that God wouldn't damn me to hell against well I don't this there's a tremendous amount the feeling of the fact that the kind of God would do that would be malevolent it's not it's not like me saying like well that would be bad so I don't want that to happen it's the fact that a God that I think okay I think that's a problem that a lot of all of Christianity is that he would send people to hell for like for either geographical accidents or things that they have come to terms to believe on well okay two things one is most people and I have a I have a Pakistani Muslim friend who once said to me he says you realize the problem that people in America have this idea that there can't be once your religion and God couldn't he says you realize that it's a very ethnocentric objection in other words Americans are so democratic in their thinking so Western so individualistic that every single person has a vote and everybody you know should get an equal chance that which of course most people most times have never felt I felt that that strongly that they actually impose that on God and even though this this guy is not a Christian doesn't believe the Christian God at all he says it's he says it's strength that that objection is pretty ethnocentric it's a way of saying this is a problem that my culture in my time has right now it's possible that a hundred years from now nobody in America will be bothered by it and I would hate you see you know two-thirds of the things your grandparents believed you now are kind of embarrassed by two-thirds of the things your grandchildren believe are going to make their you're going to be embarrassing to them and right now we live in a time in which we feel like God could have to give everybody an equal chance and he couldn't possibly let anybody be lost who didn't get a kind of equal chance and that's probably imposing a Western individualistic understanding of human rights on God and I think it's a little bit it's a little culturally narrative narrow to say that is that's that's a you know that's a slam dunk that just that means that God couldn't you know I just can't believe the traditional God because most people in other parts of the world that's not a problem they have other problems with Christianity but not that I wouldn't want you to inhabit that objection as if it's kind of a universal objection at all you know wise people would have here's the other thing nobody ever goes to hell in the biblical the Christian understanding unless they want to I mean I hate to say this read chapter five in my book okay I know I sound like it I know I sound like a book Hawker here but the point is there is no way that don't a little funny for people to want to go to hell but that's well no no those I'd like to read about well the idea that there's people down in hell saying help me let me out let me out no you can't it's too late you know you died and you had your chance a CS Lewis basically relying on Dante will say will tell you that if you know anything about how to say this people who go to hell go to hell because they want to be away from a God who will tell them what to do in other words people in Hell right now do not want to get out of hell they're miserable this is this is fair to say but I take a look at if you know how the human heart works I think you kind of recognizes they would be they're saying it's pretty miserable here but I would never want to be up there in heaven with God where he's just you know pushing you around all the time people go to heaven because they want to be they want to be someday one to submit to God they love him they wanted to submit to him people go to hell because they don't want somebody telling him how to live their life they want to live their own lives their way and therefore nobody goes to hell except people who want to go there and nobody in Hell wants to get out and if that is a little odd to you if you said well that's not the Christian understanding of Hell I've ever heard of then you ought to you know immerse yourself a little bit more in Dante and CS Lewis and it's really a the most fair and just possible understanding of the afterlife is the Christian one which says God only gives you what you want if you want to live with God forever you get it if you if you want to be your own person and you really you know want to be your own Savior your own Lord you get that as simple as that and and you stay wanting it you don't suddenly change your mind now I just lost you completely really that's just I guess I'm sorry I just feel like a lot of the things you're saying like are operating on me like having or just I guess kind of believing in some part of Christianity which I don't well know what listen if you don't well in a way it's not quite fair no no I'm just I'm trying to answer out of money I don't I I'm just saying like it's um I don't know it's just well I'm ants listen I you're asking me to answer in a way out of my own Christian worldview try to say how does house Hell coherent and not cruel and of course where you're standing the whole idea is ridiculous so I have to kind of answer out of mind no yeah I know it's just but I mean do you I hope you would see that inside the Christian understanding a thing if there's a God and he says you can choose me as instead of your life I'm like non-western thought because that that's oh you did an interesting point no I understood that point that's an interesting point okay well if I gave you anything I think that's about all I can do right here I'm actually happy I did something but I need to get around so and and forgive me for not actually in any of these cases you know giving the treatment that it warrants okay dr. Keller from a um an objection I mean kind of looking at things from you know 40,000 feet an objection a lot of people have is I mean clearly a lot of what you've been talking about tonight your beliefs are obviously based on the Bible but I think for a lot of students a lot of people my age you know - that's an ancient text you know written in a foreign language it's got some fantastic stories I mean without going into that too deeply because I know it's it's a deep subject how would you respond just on a easy level - that you mean why you know why give the Bible much credibility yeah isn't it isn't it outdated Arthur isn't sort of fairytales the there's a book right now that actually just came out this year that is if probably the best single book though it's you know it's not it's not it's not written at a popular level but it's a book by a professor from the st. Andrews University in Scotland called Jesus and the eyewitnesses and probably what you have heard and probably what may be taught here may be may be taught here at Berkeley by somebody in the audience here is that the Bible take the New Testament Gospels that the New Testament Gospels were oral traditions that were passed down for many many years they were they were sort of massaged by each Christian community to kind of meet their own needs so they were changed and after many years they were written down and to the Gospels and therefore you really can't be sure they're probably legends there were all traditions they were changed and so we don't even know whether any of those things actually happened G Richard Baulkham just wrote a book called Jesus and eyewitnesses that I probably got to overturn all that in fact it's it's so good and so right on that most scholars in the field have told me that probably the younger scholars everybody knows it's right and yet probably nobody's even reviewing it because it really means that most an awful lot of people in the field it will make their Scholarship obsolete so what'll probably happen is will be ignored and younger scholars will come along and implement it but what he says there is the Bible are the gospel right the Gospels are all not oral traditions there are all histories and they are written down out of the mouths of the eyewitnesses while they were still alive because that's how history was done then and that's the reason why you'll have something like for example mark chapter 15 they'll say Jesus fell and Simon of Cyrene picked up the cross and took the cross you know and carried the cross for Jesus and it says Simon was the father of Rufus and Alexander so you're reading that text and you say who the heck are Rufus and Alexander they're not even in the they're not even in the why they even mentioned and baulkham points out he says that was very clear in ancient historiography what it meant was Rufus and Alexander are eyewitnesses were still alive that's why other names there and what it's really saying is if you want to know that this happened just go talk to Rufus and Alexander and so the book basically says the book makes it goes to it's very very thorough and basically says that the Gospel accounts of what happened of Jesus life would have been written down within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses that are named that's the reason why for example in mark it person will just say blind man he healed a blind man the same story in Luke will say bartemaeus well why was he named there and not there because bartemaeus was one of the sources it's a terrific book and it gives you all kinds of scholarly backing for the idea that no these aren't legends they were written down too early to be legends legends have to take a long time to develop you can't write something down when all the eyewitnesses still around and and you know and it really changed it secondly they're too difficult to be eyewitnesses is a perfect example this is in all of the resurrection accounts women are the first eyewitnesses of the risen Christ right and back then women were of such low status that their testimony was not admissible evidence in any court either Rome or were in Israel and therefore nobody making up a legend nobody making up a story about the risen Christ whatever in a million years put women as the first witnesses it would have been it would have totally undermined the cresst credibility of the story with any listener Jewish Greek Roman whatever and the only possible explanation for the fact that women are the original eyewitnesses in those accounts as if they were there is no other possible reason for them to be there now those kinds of arguments are in the book and they're in a lot of other books and it still it bothers me that at the street level there's still this idea like you just you just did a wonderful job of saying yeah the Bible is kind of filled with legends you really can't trust it that just shows you having you haven't done your homework you just haven't done your homework and you really can that's not the same thing as saying I'm not arguing for the absolute infallibility of the Bible there I'm just trying to say the Bible you can trust what it tells you about Jesus as historic accounts read that figure out who Jesus is and go from there I think I kind of understand like you arguing for I guess like absolute religions but I want to know why I guess because I think I learned a lot more of like the defensive side but why do you think Christianity is like the absolute religion like what is it about Christianity that makes you so confident that you have the right answer oh well I I would say yes I didn't talk about Christianity much when I if I can trust the Gospels as telling me basically what Jesus Christ said and did I just gave you a reason when I was talking to Clint about that I can trust the New Testament documents that gives me Jesus Christ I look at his words I look at his deeds I look at his claims and then I look at the evidence for his resurrection and you have to decide this you have to say if he really was bodily raised from the dead then it's true and if he wasn't bodily raised from the dead then it's not true and if you say well how in the world can anybody know that there's actually quite a lot of back and forth about this that Dec see that's a historic event it's one thing to say is Jesus a better teacher than Muhammad is Muhammad a better teacher than Confucius and that's very subjective and we can go on forever and there's almost no way even judging best you see but the resurrection is different that's a claim as a historical fact and so you either decide it happened or it didn't and if it did happen then you're confident that it's all true and that Jesus is who he said he is and all of his teaching is true if you said no it just couldn't have happened it didn't happen there is another explanation you have all these documents that say hundreds of people saw Jesus and they changed their mind and and they became the church and you can say now I looked at that and it's not plausible then you don't then you don't believe Christianity it's one or the other does that help you understand it really I would say it would mainly the Christianity thing mainly hinges on the resurrection oh how would you explain um like miracles that occur in different religions they might happen I mean as in other words that wouldn't if Jesus says I'm the son of God from heaven I'm the way the truth and the life and I'll prove it I'll die and rise from the dead then I believe him I don't say well now gee whiz why is it that this other religion over here this person was healed I say fine so I mean that wouldn't that wouldn't in any way undermine the this exclusive claim by Jesus just because I mean frankly if I had three if I had three different people who all said I'm the son of God I'm the savior and they all said they were going to die and rise and they had these big movements of followers I saw him rise from the dead I guess it would be a little harder because then I'd not only have to look at this one claim I'd have to look at three claims but I've only got one and I have to decide yes or no about him and then it doesn't matter whether there's miracles it doesn't matter whether there's great teachers it doesn't really matter whether you know people's lives are changed and say oh I got into this religion it really turned my life around there's a lot of people who've turned their life around without any religion at all so none of those things would matter it the resurrection it would stand and fall in the resurrection okay thank you I haven't been doing very well lately so I'm not saying I answered that perfectly but at least I got it go ahead yeah I have to I have to forewarn you that I'm a philosophy major as well but but hopefully I can get my question a little bit so my idea kind of starts with with Conte and the limits on on like human knowledge basically to know about metaphysical beans and it seems like a lot of the force behind the Christian way of looking at the world is gained from a metaphysical point of view or like thoughts that knowledge is had about a metaphysical point of view and so my question is kind of if you accept Kant's idea that we can't really know about metaphysical points of view other than maybe by faith then what what is there left for us to go on between something like Christianity or or evolutionary theories which seem to be equal at that point in entire FAL ability it seems like they're almost would be kind of a nice ability with like I think that's what is nice about the evolutionary theory is we can kind of touch what we're thinking about well now you know you started the question saying if you grant you know what Kant says about not well what if I don't then then if you could respond like that well don't say that well I can't because I'm a Christian because Conte has this big wall between the new model and the phenomenal and the phenomenal is facts and we we have access to them empirical the new model is God morality values that sort of thing there's this this wall between the noumenon and the phenomenal accept the whole idea of the what happened in the manger at Christmas was the noumenon became phenomenal that's the reason why the ideal became real CS Lewis says a myth Kame fact and I think that here's the problem with the fact value distinction which is content I mean that's Western other parts of the world that's not a problem that your moral convictions are as valid for public discourse as empirical facts they don't have this thing between the new model and phenomenal and I would the one of the problems with Conte is to say facts are provable or they're empirical we have access to them and the Newman --all isn't you know the phenomenal is the numeral is in fact value distinction but you know what that isn't a fact you can't prove the fact value distinction that's a value that the one thing that years ago I was studying this the fact value distinction that put in there you know I feel as a Western person yes that's right you know these are facts and these are just these are kinds of subjective things that I can't but then I began to realize the very fact value distinction is a value it's not a fact it's not self-evident to everybody and it you can't prove it in a empirically those are the two things that you would a fact is something you either either can prove empirically or self-evident to everybody like we're all in this room you can't prove that actually because you know follow as you philosophers will know you can't prove that you're not a butterfly dreaming you're a student but and yet we would treat we would treat the fact that you're here is self-evident though you can't prove and and one day I began to realize you can't prove the fact that I distinction the new mental phenomenon distinction and the whole idea of Christianity was that that that wall was was breached the ideal became the real our great captain has opened a cleft in the pitiless walls of the world and he has bid us come through it so as a Christian I don't grant that and I don't know I guess the other thing would be the resurrection would be to me proof that the wall has been breached so I I can't go with you past your premise to say if you grant what Kahn said I can't do it would you would you then pull the the phenomenal world as you seem to be doing towards the later end of your answer towards the new middle world and say well we can't actually know anything about the world around us and all kind of on the same level as because a the thing that I'm kind of trying to get is there seems to be a separation in the amount that we can know about these certain things and it seems like you're trying to pull them together yeah well you know you know pull on you personal knowledge yeah you're right you're very good at this thank you a little bit like the Holy Spirit down there yeah I'm looking at you I'm sorry if no you're doing you're right Michael Polanyi own personal knowledge I would only say that rationality pure rationality can only get you to probability but I actually think personal commitment can get you to certainty and this might be a little too holy a kind of illustration but if I was trying to hire you on my staff no matter how much rational investigation of you I did I could never be absolutely sure you'll do well I can't really be sure you're the right person and I do all my resumes I do all your tests I'd be as rational the only way I'm going to be sure is if I actually commit to you which is oh gosh I have to hire you and now it's a you know I'm risk I think it's a little bit like I think it's a lot like that with my reason I can only get to a certain degree of certainty but with my personal commitment I was assured of my Christianity and and these things as a person can be if as a philosophy major you get back and you really do work more on the rational what level of course you start to get filled with doubts but that's not how you live okay thank you we have time for one more question please oh dear it's my fault all right over here this is a much easier question and all the other questions you've got well I hope I do better than I did with the other ones I follow your preaching ministry and I noticed that one of the major theme you were going to ask me about my kazoo that no no that you actually brought up tonight is the the difference between religion and the gospel and you brought up tonight about the difference between a works performance and the grace narrative you know I'm personally very thankful to you for for that just in my personal life and loving and cherishing the gospel I'm very thankful to you for your ministry in that regard but my question is um how did you personally come to understand the distinction between just being religious and being humble and loving the gospel and specifically what are some of scripture passages and some books or resources that help you understand that distinction because for me right now really you are the only resource that I have to understand the distinction because I really want her in trouble so I'm wondering books resources scripture passages that have helped you to understand the distinction between religion and and the gospel I just bought your book and I know she had a chapter in there yeah listen I can tell you that I actually I wrote I wrote I wrote two books together and the work on these two books for quite a long time and the other book is supposed to come out I don't know when but soon and it's basically that that very chapter expanded so you of all people will be very happy because it's it's really just an expansion and it and it will it will give you a lot more information right there Martin Luther Martin Luther on that is a really changed my life in fact Martin Luther was always struggling with with not being a good enough person and there's he was he was meditating on Romans 1 verse 16 7 he was a monk you know he was a very diligent moral person had been teaching the Bible for years and he was always struggling with inadequacy and so on II and he was a struggling to understand Romans 1:16 17 which it says I'm not ashamed of the gospel it's the power of God unto salvation for all who believe Heath who through faith is righteous shall live and he suddenly said wait a minute he who through faith is righteous shall live he who through faith and he suddenly realized the righteousness was not something he gave to God but a gift that he got from God and at the time that I remember the time that I thought oh I understood that theologically I went to seminary I got I got A's on papers but I remember so I understand the gospel look at look at my Rick look at my resume look at my you know but I remember one night I was just rest I was just scared to death I was gonna have to preach tomorrow I didn't have anything good to say I hadn't really done my homework I was going to really get up there it's like getting up there without any clothes on when you no you don't have anything good to say and I remember looking at that verse he who through faith is righteous shall live and suddenly it hit me you know I don't know Presbyterians so we don't usually hear voices from God but I I am I felt I heard or either I felt I heard this sentence yes and he who through preaching his righteous will die every Saturday night and I realized you know I thought I understood the gospel I thought I was telling people you know you you know you have to not a moral performance narrative of the grace narrative but anxiety insecurity inability to take criticism feelings of superiority racial pride racial prejudice all that comes from our performance from taking you know from being from looking to something besides Jesus Christ as your actual righteousness and yeah you know I was able to relax to a great degree was reading the scripture but to a greater degree it's just been trying to work through it in my own life and that's where it comes from but you will be happier than almost anyone in this room when's that book it well it's probably going to be called the prodigal god it's an exposition of Luke 15 the prodigal sons word prodigal actually means recklessly extravagant so that'll that'll probably that'll probably answer your question better than what I just did okay okay well please please join me in thanking dr. for more information about the veritas forum including additional recordings and a calendar of upcoming events please visit our website at Veritas organ

Channel: The Veritas Forum

Views: 103,304

Rating: 4.8034101 out of 5

Keywords: veritas forum

Id: XiWeohEBdPo

Length: 80min 49sec (4849 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 18 2010