Is Christianity Inherently Arrogant

it is my name is Nick dill and my day job is Amanda bishop of Bermuda but don't hold that against me it's it it's great to be able to welcome you all here tonight it's so thrilling to see so many of you who come out on a windy day for this evening now I don't know why you've come tonight it may be that you've come because someone's badgered you to death and you finally agreed and if that is you you are so welcome and thank you you've made someone very happy if nothing else this evening you may have come here tonight because you've got lots of questions or because you think that these Christians are absolutely nuts and if that is the case also you are absolutely welcome and I hope that you'll feel able to show us why at some point in the process but maybe you're here for your searching or maybe you're just here for to hear a good chat or a good talk and there'll be wonderful opportunities later on this evening to ask those questions that you either brought with you or that have been stirred up as a result of what we'll be hearing in in a few minutes time and the way this is going to work just so that you know is that Michael Ranson who I'll introduce in a moment will be our speaker and he'll speak for about I don't know forty minutes or thereabouts something like that in something and then after he's spoken there'll be a little lull in the proceedings and you can either take your a ticket that you have with you and write a question that you may have or there's some little baskets up there with other questions in hand them to the end they'll be collected together sorted into categories and there will be an attempt to answer as many as possible and I think this suggestion is to put if you would like to have your question answered to put your sort of contact details on the water if you would like so that in case it isn't answered someone can follow up and and deal with the question that you may have there's also another way that there will be an open mic available for people to ask questions and more will be explained about that later on so we'll probably alternate between having a paper question having a question from the floor for our speaker and it's just so thrilling to be able to welcome Michael ramsden to Bermuda you may not know very much about him except what you've seen in the blurb and to be honest with you I'm not going to say very much about him myself because you will hear him for yourself and make your own judgement but to say many years ago before I was remotely interested in being a bishop I've never been interested in being a bishop there was a time when I actually thought that religion was a very useful thing for people who had no brain and needed to be told what to do or for those who are about to die and it was with that conviction that I tried to convince others around me that that was the state of affairs and with that I failed my re at school and and all this kind of stuff so I thought the whole thing was a load of baloney and rubbish and just a power trip anyway needless to say I was grateful to people like Michael Ranson who could help me to look a little deeper than my little surface soundbite theology that I had that I had in my own mind and it's wonderful to behold how someone who can answer some of our questions and raise some of the issues for us in this very complex world where it does seem that we've got to model lifts that are sort of fighting against each other at some level the judeo-christian worldview that many have grown up with and a more secular worldview and how they connect and somehow why should one group have a voice louder than another and so on and so forth and we live in this era where there's a lot of antagonism but we need to listen and understand I guess we're becoming from and that's part of what's going on tonight and Michael Ranson has been around the world he's studied in jurisprudence and all sorts of other things spoken at the White House he's spoken to politicians in Europe and just about everywhere you can imagine and so he's probably heard many of the objections and questions before but if not if you've got one that you've never had never heard well tonight's the night when we all hear it but it's wonderful to be thinking about what he's saying and then to be allowing him to to address some of those things the only thing he says you need to know about him is that he lives in Oxford's which is one of the greatest cities in the world where I did my studies but with with a wife and three kids he runs the center of the Oxford Centre of Christian apologetics which may mean nothing to anybody but that's what he does apart from traveling to places like Bermuda to speak so I am so thrilled that he's here and I would like you to offer him a wonderful Bermuda welcome but with the caveat that is you know Weber medians are vey polite and nice people and we would never say anything nasty to each other except on the anonymous blogs that we have but tonight's the night where you can you know kill you can let it out a little bit but after he's finished speaking if I may say so if without further ado kill me welcome Michael Ranson to come and address us tonight [Applause] well let's say it's a pleasure for me to be able to be here with you and especially to speak to this question that I've been asked to on his Christianity inherently arrogant this is a title that should make any British person feel humble that they've been asked to speak to it although I'd like to start out by pointing out my mother was from Cyprus I didn't I was raised most of my life in the Middle East and so I'll be looking at this question hopefully not with too much of that cultural lens attached we we live in a world where we have an awful lot of questions that we we wrestle with and think about but very often we don't find ourselves in a place where we have the opportunity to to ask those questions and even if they're ones that mean a lot to us and they're very very closely connected with us and so what I'd like to try and do if I can is in the first 30 40 minutes just set out a very general broad stall about what the Christian faith actually is and says as it relates to this whole issue of arrogance and then throw it open to you for questions and I'll do my very best to answer as many as I can and as it's been said if you have a question that you would love to have answered even if it doesn't get pulled out of a you know a hat or company have time for the microphone if you do put an email address or something like that then we'll make sure someone gets back in contact with you and offers you a cup of coffee or something like that sits down with you and talks with you about your question so even if all you want is a free cup of coffee that is something that you may want to bear in mind now when we talk about arrogance just generally there are a couple of things that I probably need to deal with with straight away the first one is I want to make a slight distinction between the idea of arrogance and what a virtue that we often talk about today called tolerance now tolerance has become a very very difficult word because most of us are told we should aspire to it but there is a problem when we talk about just tolerance generally and let me try to illustrate it this way let's suppose in you come and speak to me at the end and you say Michael have you had any have you had Bermudian food since you've arrived and I say yes as a matter of fact some people cooked for me fish cakes and I had the the beans with rice said it and P peas and peas and rice peas and ice and and you say to me Michael did you like it and I say yeah the food was tolerable I suppose and let's supposing the lady who cooked it for me is standing behind me now when she hears me say that does she immediately think gosh next time Michaels in Bermuda I'm definitely cooking for him again or let's suppose you say well Michael did you have you met any people from here now and I say actually it's interesting at lunch most of the people I met with I met with various different pastors of different churches here and in Bermuda who all actually from here and I was asking them about what it was like growing up here and so on and you say well did you like them and I say yes I could tolerate them if they heard me give that answer do you think they would be happy with my response so here's the interesting thing we talked a lot about tolerance today we offer it as a virtue that everyone should aspire to but I know very few people who actually want to be tolerated as a matter of fact in tolerance as we use it as a largely negative word tolerance in engineering is how much error you can build into a system before it collapses in medical term is it's it's happier ability to fight off a certain type of disease and infection none of us are actually looking for tolerance actually what most of us are looking for is respect and respect is very different you see if I were to come up and say you know what Michael and I were to say to myself you know I'm guys I want to tell all of you here that I'm prepared to tolerate Nick Hill who was just doing the introduction now Nick bill no dill he'll dill I'm gonna blame the jetlag you can blame it an inhuman jetlag I've noticed but if I were to say look I'm prepared to tolerate Nick what I mean by that is I I think he's wrong in some kind of fundamental way but he's either too stupid or too silly to recognize it so there's no point talking to him I however am kind merciful and gentle you may refer to me as Michael the mass of and out of being such a wonderful person inside I'm prepared to put up with him you see when I say I'm prepared to tolerate you I'm saying something to my benefit at your expense but when I feel to say to me Michael what do you think of Nick and I say you know what I only known over a short time but I really respect him I'm now saying something totally different I'm now saying there's something about him that demands I treat him in a certain way and we all want to be respected and so as we go through this evening we're going to now just focus on this issue of arrogance but what we're going to be doing partly in the first part is just thinking about some of these definitions because we use these words all the time but we very stop stop to actually think what they mean now I'm sorry that the fact that we're going to be defining lots of language it is something that I learned to do I got taught to do it when I was doing a law degree I got taught to do it when I used to teach in the university and I also love reading dictionaries which is why I like defining words I don't have any of you ever tried reading a dictionary there'll be one or two here who have well done congratulations if you've never have done that let me commend it to you the plot isn't very exciting but it does explain every word as you go through the book which is fantastic so let's just turn our mind for a moment to this whole question and of arrogance is Christianity inherently aragón now one of the reasons why we sometimes associate arrogance with something like Christianity you indeed or almost any other belief system is they're saying well yes but they believe that they're right they believe what they're saying is true and therefore that must be arrogant so we're struggling with it if you like at a philosophical level we don't like the idea that maybe if someone says something it implies that someone else may be wrong I which is why we often especially when it comes to what we believe about God we often try to come up with pictures to try to make ourselves and less arrogant so people may say something like this they may say look Michael everyone's on a different path you're on a Christian path going to the top of a mountain and other people are on this path or that path or the Y power for the Zed path and we're all on different paths but we're all going to the top and so we try to talk about things in a way that we hope somehow make things sound less arrogant but when we're claiming something to be true it doesn't matter how you dress it up you're always going to have the same problem I remember speaking in London once and after on this question about arrogance and there's guys that actually stood up and he gave me that illustration he said Michael if you ask me we should we should think about God we should think about all religious belief as these different parts that go to the top of a mountain and he describes you know all these different parts and how they all went to the top and when he'd finished speaking because he looked much fitter than me I said to him do you climb mountains he said actually I do I said have you ever stood at the top of a mountain he said I have I said where do you need to be standing on a mountain to see all paths from the basely to the top and he paused for a moment I said can you see where every base from the bottom leads to when you're standing on the top he said no you can't I said where do you need to be standing - no all paths go from the bottom to the top he said you need to be up here I said that's right I said who has that view and he says well I guess God does I said who are you claiming to be when you tell me you can see all paths from the bottom go to the top and he paused I said look I'm just trying to figure out which one of us thinks that thinks their God as we talk about this subject the picture has a sort of a humble ring about it does that make sense it seems to be a way of talking about a difficult subjects but actually the the humility is false it's not actually there the the simple truth is is that when anyone claims something is true they're going to exclude something else if I were to stand here today and give a talk to you entitled all paths lead to God and that's what I was trying to prove to you that every path would take you to God no matter what it is then as I say that I'm implying that people who believe only some parsley to God or only one path leads to God or wrong now if I were to say to you look only some paths lead to God because I'm not so sure that Genghis Khan Adolphe Hitler and so on had such great plans of universal salvation and I want to say they're wrong the fans say that only some paths will get you there while I make that statement I'm saying people who think all parsley to God or only one path leads to God are wrong no matter how you phrase any truth claim you're going to exclude something somewhere so the question isn't about are we claiming some kind of truth all of us in this room to some extent are the question is what is the attitude that goes with it and that leads if a guess into the second question that we think about especially when we come to arrogance and it's to do with a moral question I remember once I'm at the end of a a talk which is structured very differently that asked me to speak for five minutes and then do two hours of questions which is an awful long time to answer people's questions at the end of it a lady came up and she said you know I enjoyed this evening but I was very disturbed by something I said what was that she said well you seem to imply or you seem to assume in some of your answers that you were thinking that the Christian faith is true and other religions may be wrong I said well you would be correct in that and she said well I I could never agree with you that's why I'm a Buddhist she's I've never want to become an arrogant person who said other people are wrong and she was happy to talk with me so I said can I ask you a few questions and she said of course I said tell me you're a Buddhist she said I am I said are you a serious Buddhist she said I am I said didn't the Buddhists say that Hindus were wrong I said didn't the Buddha say that the Vedas are not a divine revelation from God and didn't he call the caste system evil and she looked at me and she said he did say that I read it this morning in my devotions I someone look if you're prepared to follow the Buddha when he says other people are wrong why didn't he want to follow Jesus Christ when he says when people are wrong she looked at me and she said I don't like where this conversation is going but I understand what she's saying because what she's trying to talk about if you like is an attitude of the heart because there isn't a single person in the world that thinks that arrogance is some kind of morally beautiful attribute that we should aspire to which maybe brings us into this last one which is really to do with attitude you see you can claim to be truth and you can do it in an arrogant way or a humble way you can talk about what may be right or wrong and you can do that in an arrogant way or a humble way but the way we often think about it most strongly is that actually to do with our attitude and that's I guess what she was she was raising there's a there was an academic who lived in on Oxford's before I was there I'd loved to have met him actually called Isaiah Berlin he was a particularly gifted writer thinker and wrote all kinds of books and actually a lot of short essays if you if you want to read short essays to really make you think you could do a lot worse than read some of I desire Berlin's work he was very very insightful now his background having seen the rise of Nazism and Stalinism and all of that kind of oppression in Europe and all of the terror that followed in its way very much informed his own thinking and writing and when he was at Oxford he he wrote about lots of different subjects he wrote about history he wrote about politics he wrote about philosophy and so on he was very very gifted and in one of his essays he also raises this question about people who believe that they have the truth that they know the truth that what they think is true and he he wonders whether that's such a good idea maybe it's dangerous and so he contrasted what he called monism the belief that there's one truth with what he talked about pluralism maybe that there are multiple versions of truth and we need to learn to make them all work together and because of his background he he thought about this a lot and here's the way he if you like to put the complaint I think he puts it very well he says the enemy of pluralism is monism the ancient belief that there is a single harmony of truths into which everything if it is genuine in the end must be made to fit the consequence of this belief is that those who know command those who do not to cause pain to kill to torture are in general rightly condemned but if these things are not done for my personal benefit but for an ism socialism nationalism fascism communism fanatically held religious belief or progress or the fulfillment of the laws of history then they are in order monism he says is one step away from despotism you see what he's saying if you have someone who actually believes they have the truth then they're just simply one step away from despotism now I remember when I first read that that essay I got to the end of it and my first thought was that the Jesus Christ was described as someone who was full of truth and grace now when you describe someone who's being graceful what you mean is there's a beauty to their physical movement you may have noticed that as I walked up the stairs to this podium when you describe someone as gracious you are saying that there is a beauty to their inner moral movement when Jesus Christ was described as someone full of truth and grace there was a beauty like in their life in his life and Christians are called to be gracious which is why there is a charge which is given to Christians everywhere that they should live a life which is worthy of the calling they have received that the manner of their life and conduct will somehow be worthy of the one whom they serve and whose name they claim to be their own and what does that really mean now this is a very pressing question in many ways a few months ago now I was talking with I was in that country I really I I for what become obvious reasons I cannot name and while I was there I was invited with one or two of my colleagues to meet with a man who has spent an awful lot of time in prison he is fanatic ideologue his fanatic ideology is probably responsible for tens of thousands of death in the last of death in the last few years he has inspired some of the most violent fanatic groups in the world many of which operating today and right now causing all kinds of untold misery in pain and so I didn't actually realize who I was meeting with until he actually walked into the into the room the National from the country I was in almost fell off his felt part of his chair when he saw who walked in and he had a large smile on his face since and he's one of the most wanted people in the world right now he's in basically in arrest within this country he can't leave this particular country and he was very cordial and very polite and we had an amazing time but his opening question fascinated me he sat down and his opening question was this he said tell me if someone believes something which is wrong does their life have any value is that an interesting question if someone believes something which is wrong does their life have value so the safest thing seemed to be to do was to ask him the question and so I said well what do you think and actually he was very clear he said no if someone believes the wrong thing then their life has no value and then he went on to explain that that maybe that killing such people ridding the world of them you may actually be doing the world a favor you could be making the world a better place by getting rid of these valueless human lives and that explains if you like the kind of fanatical mayhem that he's unleashing in parts of the world right now as he inspires all kinds of terrorist organizations to put that theory into practice so the question we're asking isn't just simply an incidental one it's actually really very very important and therefore all Christians need to have a good answer to it and thankfully this particular question is one that Jesus Christ actually addressed head-on because what lies behind that question is also a question about how we understand the idea of being right or the idea or even more importantly being righteous of somehow being morally right and it's inevitable that if someone is self righteous in other words they believe that they can make themselves right that we somehow possess a quality which allows us to look down on everyone else and pass judgment well that's going to lead to all forms of arrogance and it may even lead to violence and it is interesting to say that Jesus Christ actually addressed this question directly and so it seems rather safe since the question is is Christianity inherently arrogant to actually look at how he answered it and so Jesus told this story it may be familiar to you it starts off by saying to some who are confident of their own righteousness and look down on everyone else Jesus told them this parable and then he begins to outline this parable he says two men went to the temple to pray now in in Arabic in Hebrew in any Semitic language when you talk about going to the temple to pray you mean one of two things you either mean that you're going if you got almost act to an empty building to make sense just to pray on your own or you're going to a service in which lots of people they're all together now we know from the way this story is told that Jesus is talking about the second two people go to a service a worship service at the temple we know that for sure because of something he says a little bit later we're going to come back to it in a minute so the two people they go off to a temple and while they're there because the word prays M going to the temple to pray either means I'm going to like worship and sings I make sense my big public thing or it means private it you have to the context gives it it's the weight that you used to interpret it because one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector now I'm sure you're some of you may be familiar with this story Pharisee upright religious leader tax collector I'm sorry if you work for the taxation services here you've never been particularly popular in any political economy that I'm familiar with and of course the tax collectors were seen as having sold out so the question which is meat immediately rise Rises is one about righteousness and self-righteousness who can be confident of the fact that they're leading a morally good life and you think that the answer to the story would be well look the guy who is the religious leader he should be the he should be the morally right one that makes sense he's the good guy and the tax collector who basically because they were underpaid would overcharge the taxes and this is one of the fundamental problems of what's called a systemic economic corruption within political systems if you under pay your teachers on the play your police force under pay your civil service they have to find a way within which to afford to send their kids to school and buy clothes and food in and so on and so they will use their profession where whatever it is tax collection working in the civil service teaching the police to raise the money that they need in order to look after their kids which is why public sector pay becomes actually a very important issue making sure that any political economy is put on a stable basis and so since the tax collector is operating this way he's not really paid by the Romans to collect taxes so he collects his more and he skims off the top to keep for himself he's despised by everybody and they both go in to the same place to go and worship God and the Pharisee Jesus says he stands and he basically gives a little speech he's danced by himself and praise now why are they praying well the answer is is that every morning and every evening in the temple there was a lamb that was sacrificed what would happen is the police would come and he would lead the people in a time of worship and prayer and then there the sacrifice would be made for the forgiveness of sins a lamb would be killed so that people people had done wrong could be forgiven and after that the the guy who was leading the surface would turn around and he would walk off back through a curtain and behind the curtain he would burn incense and not for prayers for everyone who sat outside and at this point the congregation are looking at a big empty platform so what did you do well the answer is everyone stood there praying so if any of you familiar with the Bible you've read Luke chapter 1 it says when it fell to Zacharias turned to burn incense while he went inside to burn incense in Luke chapter 1 4 verse 14 it says all the people stood outside praying so this is what you do this is the point in the service where there's nothing going on hey there my sense the priest has done all the stuff he does here's your chance to offer up your own prayers and so the Pharisee stands a bit by himself because he wants to be separate from the riffraff but he's he's nice he's a good guy and he basically says God I'm doing pretty well right now I'm tithing and giving you my 10% I'm obeying the law I'm doing everything you want as a matter of fact I'm doing more than you want you say that we should fast once a week I'm fasting twice a week yeah you say it was safe to give you 10% of my income and giving you 10% even of things which don't qualify as income and so he basically stands there and says look how brilliant I am and he's very confident of his own righteousness and his prayer is incredibly arrogant and everyone gets the benefit of hearing how wonderful he is and after he's finished praying Jesus says the tax collector he stood a long way off he's at the back of the room he doesn't want to be near the front he doesn't feel that good and instead of praying looking up to heaven which is if you're Jewish that's how you pray if you want to have fun if you're a if you're a skeptic or an atheist or something like that and you won't have a bit of fun get a whole group of different either Christians or you know and some Jews in the room and say why don't we pray they'll all do something different hey the Jews will stand there and they'll look up to heaven because you know that's where God lives all the Anglicans were down on their knees and they look down into the ground because that's where who lives down there wait a minute anyway but anyway you know they're all do different things and but what we read is that the the tax collector feels so ashamed of his life he he doesn't stand looking up to heaven he he looks down and it says and he beat his breast as Jesus told the story now I don't know if you how much news you watch but if you watch news that comes out of the Middle Eastern area whenever there's some kind of big shooting bombing killing and they film a funeral you'll notice something all the men will be outside yelling and shooting guns in the air and the women wail and they beat their chests it's a sign of very very deep remorse it's a sign of being devastated and men just don't do it as a matter of fact the only recorded instance we have a man beating his breast is actually recorded when one of the disciples sees Jesus dying on the cross and is so so mortified by what he sees he also beats his chest but men just don't do it so the fact that the this tax collector was looking down as he prays won't even look up to heaven and beats his chest shows you how how cut up inside he feels and then he prays a very very interesting prayer it's written to us in in Greek in the way it's recorded in Luke he says lord have mercy on me a sinner that's how it's translated except the Greek word which is we have translated there into the English word mercy is a different word there are at least a few Anglicans in this room we have at least one Bishop here and there may be others and if you come from a more traditional Christian background you may have heard of something called the key really so have you ever sung that or said that kirei Eleison Christe Eleison anyone have any idea what I'm talking about at this point just raise up your hand don't be ashamed okay there are seven of you well it's a Greek form of words it basically means lord have mercy Christ have mercy and it's either said or sung in Greek and that is the Greek word for mercy is a lesson and that is not the word which is used here the word that is used here is the guy actually prays in Greek alas the toyboy which means may there be appropriate for me now that's how we know that these two people were at this public act of worship in the worship service at the temple every morning and every evening a lamb was sacrificed for the forgiveness of sins and after this sacrifice is made for sin to be forgiven for wrongdoing to be forgiven one guy stands in the temple and says hey look at me god I'm great I'm doing everything you want and a little bit extra and the other guy he looks down beats his chest and he says hey may this sacrifice may it be for me may this provision for forgiveness may it be for me may what has been offered up here that makes it possible for wrongdoing to be taken out of my life may that be for me and Jesus then says something really incredible he says I tell you that that man the tax collector went home having been justified before God not the other in other words Jesus says the guy who left that place in a right place with God a good place with God wasn't the one who stood there boasting about how morally superior he was to everybody else it was the one who stood there and realized that they needed forgiveness now what Jesus is talking about here in this parable is a it's like a little illustration of what's called the gospel the Christian faith is inherently humbling the Christian faith should be inherently humbling there is no room for any arrogance or boasting or anything else it basically is saying that we need forgiveness for stuff we've done wrong all of us we're all we've all done stuff wrong we're all sinners look if you're sat here today and you believe that you're a good person that you don't do anything wrong there's only one way out of that state of self-deception you must get married we we have all done stuff wrong and going to the temple isn't a chance to show off before God about how morally compliant we are before him it's coming before him to say hey all the areas of where I failed in my life I need that forgiveness - now this is offered now where Christianity is seen as being very arrogant because if a Christian is asked hey how are you going or how sure are you that you're going to go to heaven when you die Christians who know this forgiveness will say I'm a hundred percent sure and the question is surely that is very arrogant how can someone be so selfish or so arrogant to assume and to think that as soon as they die everything's so perfect then we go straight to heaven and it's a misunderstanding it's quite a chronic misunderstanding if Christians who felt they had assurance of heaven were like the Pharisee the religious person hey I'm morally perfect god I'm so good even you can't wait for me to get there well that is arrogant but that is not the Christian basis of assurance i I don't know if any of you ever had the experience where you've accidentally insulted a friend has that ever happened you were speaking to them and you said something and as soon as you said it you wish you could take the words back yeah I see a few of you have identified with that maybe we should offer prayer for healing at the end of this anyway it's a terrible experience isn't it you say something and you would give almost anything just to get five seconds back I says as soon as the words left left your lips you'll do anything to give it back so as soon as you said the thing that you wish you'd never said what's the first thing you do well you apologize I am so sorry I wasn't thinking I never should have said that please forgive me now it's interesting what happens next if the person you're talking to the SEL forget about it don't worry it's nothing the very next day when you see them you could be here and they could be at the other side of this room you could look at them and in one nanosecond you can look in their eyes and know if they've forgiven you have you ever notice that it's incredible isn't it and if they haven't forgiven you you go up a second time when you say O'Connor I'm just so sorry please forgive me and they got always nothing and now it's hard isn't it you're trying to admit I was wrong but they're not even allowing you to admit that you were wronged and I sense there's no reconciliation which is possible reconciliation occurs when the person who's done something wrong is willing to admit it and the person who's been wronged is willing to forgive if both of those happen now real reconciliation is possible so let's supposing while I was speaking here at this point I decided to launch again into a long moral attack on Bishop Nick again I'm sorry I always the person who introduced me always gets picked up on that's why so few people are willing to do it and the supposing I were to attack him his family his background his record as Croatian his integrity I'll salute her all kinds of slanderous insults against him and this supposing that tomorrow morning I'm speaking somewhere at lunchtime tomorrow I can't even them where it is but it's a by a harbor somewhere okay so you see me sitting by a harbor and I'm getting ready to speak at this lunchtime meeting and I'm having a cup of strong coffee and you come up when you sit next to me say Michael I was at that meeting last night really interesting how you those things you said about Nick how is the relationship between you and the Bishop of muta and I say you know what he's my closest friend he's the closest person I I he's the best friend I have in the planet right now now I would have to have the emotional intelligence of a carrot okay so for that to be true right but let's supposing after I insulted him from this platform after everybody left he came and he put his arm around me and he said Michael what why don't we go and talk and he took me down to the harbor and we actually stayed up all night talking through the morning and as he stalks him he makes it clear that he bears no ill-will to me whatsoever and he's willing to forgive me and then later in that morning I just break down into tears and I say Nick I'm just so sorry I have no idea why I said what I said it was completely out of line I I made things up you I can't believe what I said I'm in a difficult place in my life right now here's what's going on and he just sits with me the whole time and he prays with me and and now when you come to me he's just left with me with a cup of coffee he just walked out two minutes ago now you sit next to me and you say to me Michael how's your relationship and I say he's the best friend I have in the world right now well now all of a sudden I'm speaking the complete truth and there's not an ounce of exaggeration in it is there see it's amazing about how forgiveness works the person you have offended is willing to forgive and your money to say I'm sorry you can get peace like that I'm not talking about saying I'm sorry if I hurt you that's how husbands apologize to their wives that's that's not an apology at all that's that's a simple statement of emotional regret it means life was pretty good right now and then I said something stupid and I can see you're upset and now I'm feeling sorry that you feel so upset it's my life put a hole but hard at harder than it was few minutes that's not an apology an apology is I was wrong and I'm sorry I was wrong and when you say that word I'm sorry you receive the forgiveness has been offered to you by the other person repentance saying I'm sorry is how you receive someone else's forgiveness and if you receive the forgiveness which has been offered there's complete peace between you and that other person it's the most incredible if you've ever experienced this in any form of human restoration of relationship it's one of the most incredible experiences you can have because there's a closeness that follows in its wake which is unbelievable and Jesus is saying hey if you want to be right with God if you want to be justified with him this is exactly what it looks like Jesus saying look I have come into this world as the Lamb of God and I will take away all the wrongdoing I'm gonna pay the price for what you guys have messed up with and I'm offering myself up for what you guys have done wrong and if you're willing just to come into my presence and say I'm sorry well I'm offering you this forgiveness as a free gift and when you say those words you receive it and it's one of the most humbling things in the world that can happen to you because you have to admit that you're wrong you have to confess the reality of it and you're recognizing there's nothing you can do to make the situation better apart from receive the forgiveness which now God Himself is offering you it should manifest itself in the most inherently humbling way you can possibly imagine so there is absolutely no room for arrogance in the Christian faith that's why one of the early Christians a guy by the name of Paul said where is my boasting well it's precluded I can't boast in anything apart from Jesus Christ and in the cross of Jesus Christ because he is the one who came to forgive me to rescue me to save me he is the one who paid the price for me I didn't deserve it but he did it for me and now I know this forgiveness it should be inherently humbling so look if you've met a lot of Christians and your assessment of them is they're just simply a bunch of hypocrites well we have good news for you this is a small island if you give us a list of names and addresses the bishop and various other pastors who are here in the room today we'll go visit them on your behalf and again we'll sort that out but I would I would want to encourage anyone in this room who's been put off what it what the genuine Christian faith looks like because of an arrogance that they've encountered in someone else's life especially if it was a self righteous self-assured one not to turn your back on the reality on the genuine thing that's been offered because you've who may you may have encountered something counterfeit there's just there is something which is genuinely humbling when you come into his presence and know this kind of find this kind of peace and it's also something that brings great joy well that's basically everything I was planning to say for this evening so you've done very well most of you awake which is a first for me I'm very happy about that so here's what's going to happen now there's going to be a short break as some of you will need to run to the restroom otherwise you will need a stiff drink and and then there'll be a time for Q&A and as we said you'll be able to ask your questions in person if you want to otherwise you may want to to write your question down now as we said if you want to write your question down so you can either read it at the microphone that keeps it concise then do do that but if you are going to write your question down and people will come up and down and collect the questions and then there'll be that grouped into groups does that make sense and then what like try to do questions in groups of all the questions around the same subject will try to you know maybe you read out two or three and answer it generally like that if you have a question that's really pressing to you if you do put down either a phone number or email ID or something like that then our promise to you is that someone will get back in contact with you take you out for a cup of coffee and then try and answer that question as best as they can so if you don't want your question to be missed because we're not gonna have to stay here till midnight answering questions it means that your question we could answer in the next couple of days in the meantime I'd like to to thank you all for allowing me to speak to you and for putting up with me it's wonderful to come and visit here this is my first visit to Bermuda I've already fallen in love with the food that means I'll be back that's the bad news but the good news is is now comes the break and you've been a very very gracious audience in this neat what I've had to say on the subject matter and I really do appreciate it so thank you very very much for having me I can remember speaking at a set of university meetings several years ago now and this particular lady came to every meeting there were five evenings in a row and every evening she came to the meeting in every evening she sat in the same seat on the front row and so after a while I began to recognize her and I can remember thinking if she come from the last night I'm gonna come and just sit down next to her and just ask her what's been going on because at the end of every talk there was the opportunity for anyone who wanted it - to pray and to become a Christian and every evening I it looked like she was about to stand up and then she'll sort of sit back down again so on the last evening sure enough she was there she was same seat front row and I went and down at sat next to her and I said I hope you don't mind I said I have noticed you've been coming every night I said every night I said I may have been misreading it it looked like there was an expression on your face every time I ended the talk and I thought that maybe you were going to respond in some way and then it looked like you changed your mind and sat down and she said yeah that's correct she's like I said I've been trying to respond to what we've been saying by standing up on the inside so I said well do you mind if I ask you what's been going on and she said well I was sexually abused by my grandfather for many many years from the age of 12 onwards and she said if I become a Christian I'm Lord I'll have to forgive him so I said well are you seeing a therapist right now she said I am I said well what's your therapist advising and she said well my therapist is telling me I need to hold on to my anger and just direct it against him so I said well is that helping you and she said no she was I feel like I'm being destroyed on the inside I said to her it sounds to me like you're paying twice for what happened to you once whenever he did this terrible thing to you and secondly every single time you remember it and she said that's right I said now that when you forgive someone on the inside that's not saying you'll forget you're releasing them from any legal consequence that should flow from their action there's legal consequence that should flow from his action but when you release it from the inside I said the Bible speaks very powerfully about not letting a root of bitterness come and spring up in your heart because when that bitterness takes control of your heart it poisons everything else I said and when you hold on to that bitterness they don't suffer you suffer and she said that's correct so that's exactly how I feel I said all I can say is yes if you've received this forgiveness from from God through Christ God tells us to forgive others as we have been forgiven that doesn't mean that he shouldn't suffer legally for what's happened you release him on the inside so it doesn't eat your own heart he has to face up with the legal consequences of what he's done now there may be some extreme consequences we're getting real relationship back even after forgiveness simply is impossible because it may not be safe and this is a good example of that but we're now talking about quite extreme examples if the question that has been raised here is just simply this I've been hurt many many many times over and over and over again my encouragement to you would be you need to find a way to let go though my sense on the inside to forgive from within now here's the interesting thing about forgiveness forgiveness cannot be received by the other person unless they're willing to admit they've done something wrong it ends the way you receive forgiveness is by saying I am wrong I was wrong and I'm sorry and if that figure that if that repentance is insincere or isn't men they can never truly they can never truly receive it from you and that peace will never come I said so even if at some point there's some kind of relational peace only be because of this complete unambiguous confession admission there may sense I was wrong so look I really hope that helps if depending on who asked this question and depending what lies behind it I would encourage you if you haven't talked about it with anyone before in any kind of depth then if you're willing to make yourself known towards the end of this would love to put you in contact with someone here in the muna who you may be able to talk to more just to process that through but it's a great question to start with these things are always harder in practice than they are than they are just simply to talk about but there's also a huge path to freedom that can come through if if we were able to get there so thank you very much for that question great is it there are there any questions from the floor yet there is right here in the back all right we're getting that set up let's just go to another question Michael we have one entitled of a little title here hate and arrogance what would you say to what would you say to Christian who has so much hate and discrimination toward people who are gay and he used the Bible to support such prejudice okay and is there another question in there was it - I see another one behind again oh no that's different different oh okay all right Wow well first of all let me start off by saying that anyone who has experienced hate from a Christian in this kind of way you know I then I am very sorry that is something which as Christians we're told that we should not do there's a famous verse in the Bible that talks about the fruit of the Spirit now there are some good Christians here and you should all know Galatians 5:18 off by heart some of you can even sing it to me okay the fruit of the Spirit it's singular now let me just set it up in context and just to try to give it a bit of context the book of Galatians is one of the first books written in the New Testament we're not sure if it's the first but it's one of the first parts of what we call the New Testament it's written by a believer called Paul to a church in Galatians and Paul has at least two concerns in that book he has more but he has at least two number one he wants people to know what the true gospel of Jesus Christ it's rather than the false gospel so he starts off by talking about the true gospel and a false gospel and he basically says hey the false gospel brings a curse okay cursed is the person who speaks it and cursed is the person who lives it the false gospel is a gospel that basically says if you try hard enough God will forgive you he says that gospel is a curse if that's how you think God relates to you your life is going to be a mess he says the true gospel is about grace okay God wants to forgive you even though you have done wrong and he's paid the price for you to be forgiven then he turns his attention to the true Christian what is a true Christian versus someone who isn't a Christian yes yeah in other words just because someone goes around saying hey I'm a Christian doesn't make them a Christian he says you need to look beyond that he says and then he talks about the fruit of the Spirit he said you can taste it if you find a Christian you should be able to taste the fruit of the light of their life does that make sense so what the Apostle Paul is basically saying to everyone is bite me but he's saying it in a really nice way okay he's been he's very very friendly he's saying look you should taste my life okay taste the life of the Christian in the life of the Christian should taste of love joy peace patience kindness and so on that's what it should taste like the words hate arrogance and so on they don't appear in that list as a matter of fact he says if what you taste is anger hatred lust malice Envy then that's they may be claiming to be a Christian but they're not does that make sense in other words the Apostle Paul is inviting people to critically look at everyone who says I'm a Christian and says and say look don't just accept it cuz they say it taste it now let me also be perfect up front here we're not claiming to be perfect okay so I make plenty of mistakes have to apologize a lot and if my wife were here she would well provide you with a very long list of things I'm currently in the process of apologizing for so so it's not it's not claiming perfection it's saying but the direction the direction overall direction we're heading in should be like that so there is there is no room for that kind of hatred or whatever that's just simply that's just simply not an attitude which is made available to us and that we should draw on we are called to reach out with love and with kindness with to everybody even people we may regard as enemies the guy I was speaking telling you about earlier at one point I was there with my a colleague and boss Ravi Zacharias and Ravi gave an answer to this guy and the guy didn't like it and he said this makes me want to reach for my gun and everyone in the room went very quiet at that point thinking anyway I won't tell you what I thought but the words I'm not paid enough to do this did occur to me at one point but what Ravi said was very gentle to him only since it was he wasn't cutting across him at all but that was his response we're told that if people respond with anger it shouldn't be because they have any good grounds against us so that means we have to be very careful how we act very careful how we speak very careful how we treat people to treat someone with respect you see this is what is now really important and here's something I think that we forget there is a problem when tolerance becomes a virtue as defined by modern language today tolerance is defined in modern language today becomes the enemy of freedom what do I mean by that the way we define tolerance today means that you cannot tolerate someone and disagree with them and it is as soon as you disagree you cease to be tolerant but you can respect someone and disagree with them do you see the difference and we have forgotten in our civilized societies how to disagree well with each other anymore you can love someone and disagree with them very often we think love and affirmation go together but actually they don't as a matter of fact sometimes the reason we may disagree with someone or even tell a child no isn't because we hate them is because we love them so love an affirmation on even the same thing as a matter of fact the best friends we have are the people who respect us love us and the ones who can take say no to us or tell us when we're wrong does that make sense those are the closest friends we have so regardless of whatever you think about whatever is right there is a first of all there's an attitude that we are commanded the Christians are commanded to embrace it doesn't mean that therefore that everyone's going to believe the same thing that's not the case at all it means but we have to learn how we treat other people as human beings and we have to start there now I happen to have working with us too as a matter fact I think it's my fact when sure come service even any public meeting was he just coming to speak to there are two people who work on my team who speak about this issue very publicly both of whom one is a guy called David Bennett he's Greek no I know what you're thinking if any of you know about names Bennett it's not a Greek name when he arrived in Australia as a refugee from Greece and the the immigration official he white Australian said to him what is your surname and he said it was something like Hadley Papadopoulos they said that won't do it give me another name and his mother was a big fan of Pride and Prejudice and the family was called Bennett's so they became the Bennett's so David Bennett grew up most of his life in Australia he was a gay rights activist he was the guy with the microphone standing outside the church yelling them were all a bunch of bigots and I hate you and if you get online and google him you'll be able to hear about how he became a Christian and what God has done in his life since then there's another guy who works on stuff with us called Sam Aubrey he's written a very little book I'd recommend called his god anti-gay Sam Aubrey at the age of about 1718 realized he didn't as he said he didn't just have feelings with his friends he started having feelings for his friends and began to realize that his sexual orientation was different and that realisation came to him at the same time while he got interested in what it meant to be a Christian and so that book then also describes what happened there's not a very big book is probably only 70 pages long very very easy to read so if either of those would be of use to you here's what I'll do you can order that any of Sam's books online very easily through Amazon you can get David Bennett free if you're sat here today and you're not a Christian but you would like either to get one of these books or resource from us completely free of charge if you go and speak to Jim wiglesworth you're standing just there looking very dapper with the little thing in this pocket if you go to gym and tell them no I'm not a Christian but I'm really interested in getting a book either on this or something else okay we will send you a free book it's our gift to you you can have it this on this subject you can have it on this one any other book I mentioned you want it we'll send it to you for free now there may be a few Christians here and you're thinking of like one of those free books and you're thinking to yourself right now that you're gonna have a little crisis of confidence in your faith in order to claim a free book and to all of you I'd like to say there will be a day of judgment and you will be held to account for what you did tonight but for everyone else there's Jim go and speak to Jim and and we'll send that to you this next question is has to do with racism racism black and white and nationalism locals / medians and expats are are very divisive topics in Bermuda how should Christians in Bermuda address these topics humbly what does the Bible say about these topics go yeah I love the question now first of all let me start off by saying I'm I'm not running for political office right so okay let me now to speak specifically about the context here and Bermuda this been my very first visit so let me just try and talk more generally with issues to do with racism historical wrongs and so on there are we have at least well we have at least one major problem and we've already hinted at it so let me just say a little bit about about what it means to act in love and again if you want a free link to this talk and speak to Jim or where's where's Todd who's been driving me around is he here was he now hiding outside in the car anyway he was telling me he had a link to this laptop a link to this talk on his laptop so you can have it but this real love doesn't simply mean saying yes to everybody around you sometimes you're gonna have to say no and we have to understand what that looks like because we're living in a world that's increasingly deprived of love and compassion now the reason why we think love always been saying yes to people is we think the issues of love and judgment are in opposition to each other does that make sense so it's another one of the questions I often get asked if God is so loving why does he judge people you know if he's all God is love he shouldn't judge you if God judges then he isn't loving so people feel this is somehow this tension but we fundamentally misunderstand something here I don't know if any of you have either read Pride and Prejudice or seen the BBC adaptation and have you seen the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice just put up your hand if you have wow that's a lot a few of you if you haven't seen it you're probably both male and single the the book Pride and Prejudice the the BBC adaptation in particular which is very faithful adaptation of that book and if you haven't seen it this worthwhile watching if you have seen it you may notice how much I look like a guy called mr. Darcy if you're not familiar with the story it tells a love story between a guy called Elizabeth and a guy called mr. Darcy and Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth but he doesn't realize it and what happens is mr. Darcy comes to court on Elizabeth but she's all alone she's not accompanied so when he's shown into the room where she's standing by herself he immediately apologizes because as a gentleman he cannot be alone in a room with a woman to whom he's not betrothed and I'd like to say as the father of two daughters I believe this is the only acceptable pattern of behavior that there is so he immediately apologizes and he says I had no idea you were unaccompanied otherwise I would not have called and then he starts to walk out the door and he's literally halfway out the door when he stops he turns around he Bree enters the room he looks at her and he says it will not do my feelings cannot be repressed you must allow me to tell you how much I ardently admire and love you now gentlemen listen carefully that line is a winner now sadly at this point he keeps talking he goes on to say that he loves her even though it goes against his will his reason and his own better judgment and she rejects this declaration of love and being a man he can't understand why so he says I may inquire how you so easily reject me and she says you told me you loved me even though I went against your will your reason and your judgment in other words you told me you loved me she said even though I went against your will your reason on your own better character in other words she's saying you told me even though it went against all better judgment so here's the key thing true love doesn't exist in the absence of judgment true love exists in the presence of it true love exists when you're in the presence of someone who knows you only sense the real you your weaknesses your failures your shortcomings and they love you that makes love meaningful love and judgment are not two opposing categories they are in the same category the closest friends you have are people who've made a true judgment as to your character and yet they love you those are the most meaningful things they have listened said that that's what makes love meaningful now why do I give that poo Yambol to a question about about this well to truly exercise love and compassion in this world we also need to exercise forms of moral judgment you have love and compassion in the face of racism when you make a moral judgment that is wrong and you're moved in your being to do something about it does that make sense that manifests itself in terms of love and compassion you do something about it if you don't do anything about it you don't have any form of compassion you just have moral Theory you have compassion in the face and love you have love and compassion in the face of poverty when you make a moral judgement about it that is wrong and then you're moved and you're being to do something about it if you're not moving you're being to do something about it you don't have any form of love and compassion just have moralizing again now one of the reasons why I think we live in an increasingly compassionless society is we're scared of making any form of moral judgment anymore so all we have is our feelings well I feel bad about this and then the feeling goes away well you see so much poverty on TV you just get what's called compassion fatigue you just feel tired okay more poor people yeah yeah yeah okay why I've got problems at home that's not the basis for a Christian understanding about how we deal with racism poverty and so on it's not about just simply having a feeling inside it's first and foremost about making the proper moral judgment that is wrong and then knowing that we're called to do something about it to respond so what do we do with racism discrimination in action in face of poverty or whatever well the first thing we need to do is we need to figure out is this actually right or wrong and when we've answered that question then the next thing is well what does that then demand of me we very often talk about justice in this world and what we mean by Justice is hey you need to do something they put it right when the Bible talks about justice the first question is what are you doing to put it right so the question then comes down to us what is my role in this to try to make this different to make this better so this is why most of the historical human rights agencies in the world that you're familiar with in the West regardless of what they are whether it's something like the Red Cross or whether it's any of the classical human rights movements all had were all founded by Christians which is understanding that this is wrong we have to do something about it okay and this is what we're going to do so so if this this makes you feel uncomfortable as a Christian it probably should do Martin Luther King wrote a very famous letter called a letter from the Birmingham jail if none of you have ever if you've never read anything by Martin Luther King just read that letter go google it letter from a Birmingham prison it'll take you ten minutes to read it in that letter all you have to remember if you read this letter is that Martin Luther King wrote that letter in prison he was in prison in Alabama and his lawyer visited him Martin Luther King of wrote the letter to the church to a group of clergymen who were criticizing his behavior and smuggled it out of the prison now the reason why mentioning this is you will realize how brilliant a man he was because he wrote this letter with no he had no reference volumes he had no books he had no Google you know nothing to look up everything he wrote in that letter was from memory from his heart and if you read that letter you'll see how brilliant a mind he had and what he basically says is look I am here doing what I'm doing because injustice is here so so I have to be here and any then talks about how God has throughout history in the Old Testament in the New Testament compelled people to go and take a call of gospel to bring freedom and also to respond to what he calls the Macedonian call for aid and if any of you were Christians here you should recognize what that phrase means he says I have to go and then he says something very interesting he says I'm a pastor my father is a pastor and my grandfather is a pastor he says I love the church and I'm weeping over it right now he says where is the voice in the church that's speaking with a clear Clarion voice into all of these issues where is she where are the people who are standing up he says I walk around the South he says I see all these beautiful white pointed spires pointing towards heaven and pointing people towards crisis but where's the voice where is it gone and he ends his letter by saying God's judgment is on the churches never before if she rises to meet this hour she may well recover some of her splendor and be seen once again as a force which is able to change the mores of society but if she remains silent and then he starts to paint a very bleak picture after that it's a very beautifully written letter if you haven't read it I'll urge you to read it and in many ways it sums up so much I think of what the church should think and believe about about racism and now you also ask a question about ex-patriots which I'm not going to answer because I've only been here for two days but it's already looking good and so I may have a vested interest in wanting to come back for a longer period of time so I'll skip over that part of the question and we'll take another one good evening just a little follow-up to that if you are parishioner in churches nowadays where you talk about you know the church's need to rise what happens if you're in a church who is not necessarily rising to the challenge of today's society or is rising and saying opposite of what you have been taught or your life biblically as what is truth and what is not truth now what do you as a parishioner where does that put you and how do you kind of deal with that conflict do you just stand stay silent within that church do you get up and walk out you say something how do you deal with those challenges in today's society you know what that's a great question and we can almost begin to wrap this up here because I know some of you will need to leave and it's it's coming up for nine and by the way I'm happy to stay down here at the front for as long as any of you would like to come and talk to me I'll happily stay down here and answer any questions if you want to just find out questions about our organization what we do and resources that we could help you with and so on if you go to speak with Jim then Jim will do that but here's what I would say I think it's always important if you're if you're just a part of a church to think you know what there are times when I need to bring something to the attention of you know the leadership which you're here to see how they respond to it we need to do it with loving kindness and gentleness but we also don't need to be able to speak it and then the next two questions are do I feel I'm called to be in this place to help affect to change and bring it on the mesons or do I actually think that I would be better placed somewhere else well this is an active part of whatever I feel called to be part of either way I would say you know do it well and do it with a lot of grace because all kinds of people are blind to all kinds of things so when we see other people's blind spots it's very easy to point them out and we love doing it the problem is when people like to point out our blind spots so the best advice I'd give you is share this with someone in the same way you would like someone to share it with you if they were pointing out one of the blind spots in your life okay and sometimes actually modeling what you're talking about is the most effective way of bringing about change does that make sense in other words just getting on and doing it in a beautiful way and it inspires so many other people as a matter of fact we're we're sadly Raquette lacking and a lot of these motivational role models in a positive way right now there were all kinds of role models out there in the world right now modeling themselves on violent patterns of behavior and that brings all kinds of by definition bloodshed in its wake we actually need people who are willing up willing to lead lead the charge on various issues while in the process of blind laying down their lives serving other people so the Christian view of martyrdom is very different to the non-christian view of martyrdom the non Christian view of martyrdom largely consists of dying while killing other people the Christian view of martyrdom the Christian calling of martyrdom is actually to lay down your life in service of other people and that's a whole other different type of calling does that no make sense that's very good did you want to erase one last question or I do i okay I think would help to wrap up things as well coming from your invitation to invite people if they want to stay afterwards to come up to you so this is a good question too to end with please explain what is an apologist thank you yeah okay so you may have seen I'm a Christian apologist let me explain what that isn't that doesn't mean I tell people who Jesus is and then say I'm really sorry I had to do that but I have to because of what I believe yeah that's not it the the word apologist comes again from a Greek word we find in the Bible apologia it refers actually to what a defense lawyer would do on behalf of his client if someone came and raised up issues accusing you of someone you needed a defense lawyer and what the Bible basically says is that you need to be ready to bring your defense when people bring those kinds of questions to God or to what it means to be a Christian if you were to think about it the most deeply seated questions that are probably exist in this room right now whether you're a Christian or a non-christian our moral complaints about God's character why does it gotta love allow suffering how do I understand the process of judgment if God wants us to believe in him why does he make us more object why does he make himself more obvious and so on that makes sense we raise whether we're believers or non-believers significant questions about God's moral character God who are you what kind of God are you because you can't trust someone unless you believe they're morally trustworthy the next biggest group of questions that probably exist in this room are actually moral questions about the church only what a bunch of hypocrites why doesn't this make a bigger difference in your life and so on now the third group of questions we have are questions actually which are more about well how do I know this is true and how do I understand how science may connect with this or whatever that makes sense they're questions which don't let have a moral component but they're very important what I would like to say therefore is if you are here and you're you're interested and those kinds of questions I know that and I think there were some Flyers being handed out there is something being put on by some of the churches here called the Alpha course and the Alpha course is actually a way to come and find out about what the Christian faith is it involves a short talk does it all food it involves a three meal and then the opportunity to ask questions in a small group there aren't professional question answers in those groups those groups are with other atheists agnostics people who aren't sure what they believe Christians where you can raise the question that make sense in a meaningful way and talk about it as a group to try and figure out well what are what do I believe and what are you know how do I understand these questions so if you've never done one I'll encourage you to come and do one you may really enjoy it now you may be sitting here and you'll describe yourself as a hardened atheist you were dragged one of the people who is dragged here against your will and you're thinking well there's no way I'm gonna go to a Christian Alpha course but if you're a hardened atheist I mean like a really convinced one you're morally obliged to do the Alpha course now let me explain that to you if you're are morally hardened atheist you think that what Christians do by going telling other people about Jesus is is wrong they shouldn't be going around converting people and the churches that put on this alpha course they're sending people all over the world to go and tell people about Jesus but you believe that's wrong but because Alpha involves time salaried people and food if you go to the Alpha course you'll be consuming resources that would otherwise be used to convert someone else so it's time to take a hit for the team stop that bad stuff going farther afield yeah you stop it right here you go along to the course and you just absorb all of that resource into you is that okay all right you you guys I've absolutely loved being here I only got in last night's I had the privilege of spending some time with 2030 pastors also from all kinds of different churches at lunchtime that was that was an education in and of itself it's been wonderful to be here tonight and just see so many people from I don't know I guess every walk of life I'm not sure what what every sector of this society you'll represent in terms of his economics or politics but it's a privilege for me to be here I'm looking forward to the next few days but I want to thank you also for at least giving the time to consider these questions I really hope it's been used as I say I'll be down here at the front and just thank you so much for allowing me to come and enjoy some of this beautiful island with you

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Rating: 4.7639751 out of 5

Keywords: RZIM, Michael Ramsden, Evangelical Church Bermuda

Id: GaUbCJkShUU

Length: 73min 58sec (4438 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 22 2018