Tim Keller on How to Bring the Gospel to Post-Christian America

welcome to the Carrie newhoff leadership podcast on YouTube my name is Carrie newhoff and my goal is to help you lead like never before so what I do every week is I sit down with world class leaders and church leaders business leaders and I talked to them about what made them who they are and try to have the conversation with them that you would have if you got to sit down for lunch with them or have dinner with them or really got to spend some time with them so we go into the back story and we explore what made them who they are and some of the principles they've learned along the way so if you enjoy this episode I would love for you to like it to subscribe and also to share it with your friends and in the meantime here's today's episode what would you say the spiritual temperature of New York was when you arrived well in it was very vital in the borough's because for about 30 years where all these new churches getting started in but from non-western missionaries so there was the people who are starting churches were from Africa Latin America Asia and they were planning hundreds and hundreds of churches that was from probably around 1970 to about the year 2000 or so when I got here just starting the 90s Manhattan was very very secular but the rest of the city was not so if you went to a community board meeting in the Bronx for example it might be open in prayer because most of the most the civic leaders were black and Hispanic and acosta ministers and if you went to Brooklyn you might it might it would be filled with Orthodox Jews and if you went out to Queens the community boards would be filled with Asian Christians but in in Manhattan was secular and the churches are extremely small or dying and so when I got here the the spiritual growth that had been happening in the rest of the city hadn't really reach the center but it changed that since then I've heard a stat it may or may not be accurate that's something like less than 1% of Manhattan was attending an evangelical yeah yeah I've write what we define Center City as from the top of me at the top of Central Park okay South to the to the tip plus a little bit of Brooklyn a little bit of Queens in other words the very near environment that we would call that Center City right cosmopolitan very wealthy professional there's about a million 1 million 50,000 people that live in that area and from what we can tell 1989 they're only 9000 Manhattan residents going to Evangel church's out of it 1 million in 1989 and by 2014 there about 54,000 so that was a kind of growth of about quintupled yeah yeah in about in about 25 years Wow so that's been the biggest change let them see okay so let's throw down a little bit further Tim when you look back on the last ten years when it comes to the church in America so just think about the last decade what do you see changing and let's start with things that you can celebrate you're like this is very encouraging we went there a little bit with the growth of the Church of Manhattan but just think about the church in America or the church in the West would have been some bright spots in the last decade well I wouldn't say there's there's not a lot I mean let's put it this way certainly there are a lot but I mean there's probably more more cancers more areas of concern than there are bright spots honestly but bright spots I think is the growth of new multi-ethnic churches by and large there's a lot more of those I do think that the the future of Western society and Western culture is multi-ethnic there's a lot of reasons why that's true I'm not I'm not so much celebrating it or denigrating it at all I'm just saying that the percentage of white people in the West and in the world will be smaller and smaller there will be more multi more multiracial marriages there'll be more multi-ethnic communities and cities are still not true for parts of the heartland like you know Iowa and New Hampshire are still 90% white and so on but by and large that's changing and the church is changing there too that there really are more efforts to create multi racial churches there are especially in cities there's more of them and I think that's to me maybe the biggest bright spot because that's keeping up with the changes what are some of the challenges you see over the last days well I just see exactly what Rep Leslie Newbegin saw and that's so this is nothing but don't give me any credit for this at all I'm just channeling him he would say that for a thousand years the Western Church assumed a mission model in which most people in the culture would feel some social pressure or at least some social benefits going to church yeah and the culture created people that had had the basic furniture for a Christian worldview that is they usually believed in a personal God they often believed in an afterlife heaven in hell they believed that they should be good and they weren't perfect and that therefore they they you know they did need forgiveness so you could call those the religious dots believe in God belief in an afterlife belief in the moral law belief in sin and so these are the church could assume that people would be will just show up in church if they were invited or they would show up in church maybe at Easter and Christmas or maybe for weddings and funerals and they would if they came they would have a general respect for the Bible and they would have some basic understanding of these things and evangelism was just waiting for people to show up and then connecting the dots but what do you do if people don't come to church and won't come to church why should they and don't have the dots so you can't evangelize by saying oh you want to go to heaven when you die right and you know you're not perfect but Jesus Christ died for your sins so that you can be sure if you believe in him that when you die you'll go to heaven so that's assuming all the dots and what if the dots aren't there now what do we do and new begins basically saying the the entire Western Church for a thousand years has assumed a Christendom culture and now that it's gone it has no way of reaching people doesn't know how to talk to people get their attention it doesn't know how even if they do show up it they don't know how to share the gospel in a way that makes sense to them so is that a cause for concern yeah that's why I say that to me that is that it was overshadowing concern yeah how do you see that show up in the model of church that you see in America today what do you think you think a lot of evangelicalism or even mainline evangelicalism is still waiting for people to show up yes make the dots yes and out now the Willow Creek seeker metal did take one step in the direction of saying people aren't going to come to church unless they're great production values so they they don't feel the same social pressure to go to church but even that seeker service model kind of assumes that people would see a social benefit right and that they have somewhat 'tried as somewhat of a traditional mindset that they would say church is good and it's good to be talking about these moral issues and it's good to be talking about how do you handle anxiety I would still say that they are assuming a kind of a still a fairly traditional kind of person that would come in the door they're not looking at people I don't think they're reaching people who feel like the church is an agent for injustice I don't think they know what to do with people who say you can't make me feel guilty because the meaning of life is not to be good a good person see that's what my my family my parents generation whether they're Christians or not yeah the meaning of life is to be good today the meaning of life is to be true to yourself hmm and that's I just don't think that our church today and has any way of dealing with that we think they certainly don't know how to answer how to answer somebody who says I'm just being true to myself so when you look at your ministry at Redeemer how did you respond to that how did you attempt to say okay we're going to turn the dial on that a little bit different well the thirty years ago it there wasn't yet that in the emphasis on being true to yourself and and creating yourself you might say that when I came along my parents generation whether they're Christians are not believed the meaning of life was to be good and the way you preach to them was to deal with their guilt and say you're never going to overcome your guilt with moral effort you're gonna have to get forgiveness from Jesus so it that sort of thing is what you did by the time I came along it's in New York and New York was a little more it was further advanced than the rest of the country toward more sectarian and yeah yeah yeah when I got here the meaning of life was to be free to discover your true self that's very Rousseau Jean yeah that that's very much like what Rousseau would say which is society kind of screws you up but in your there's an inner child and they're a kind of perfect inner being and the world makes you feel very guilty about it and you just need to be free to discover who you really are and and express that without guilt that's very Freudian it was very psychological when I got here all the talk was about dysfunctional families and enabling behavior and getting free from people making you feel guilty so it was actually that's the reason why if you just preach why if if you assume people are guilty and then they know they ought to be guilty and then you give them the relief through Jesus you try to do that with the people that were in front of me in New York they would have just walked out the door they said that's what I don't need I don't need that and so the way the gospel worked with my parents generation was you know you should be good but you're not as good as you would like to be but Jesus Christ can forgive you and in him you can be accepted by God with my young people that I came to here in New York basically I said you think the meaning of life is to be free but you're actually not as free as you think you are you have to live for something everybody has to live for something and whatever that thing is you're living for will enslave you and you will feel guilty and shameful because you'll never feel like you can live up to it so let's just say well I've left my little Bible believing Church back in hot coffee Mississippi and I've moved up here to be an actress or to be an actor or to make it on Wall Street well guess what you've got a new God mmm you've got a new master and when you say I'm gonna be free to discover that my true self now you're gonna have to live up to that and you're actually still a slave you'd be a slave to your work you'd be slave to your you know your your figure you got to keep your weight down you'd be a slave you think you're free but you're not because if you're living for anything but God you're a slave and Jesus Christ is the only master who if you get him will satisfy you and if you fail him we can forgive you your career can't die for your sins and so that's how I did it with them and it it was okay in other words I assumed their cultural narrative and showed how only in Christ could there you might say there their story line have a happy ending okay just like I did that with my parents generation today it actually has changed again because there's not that same feeling like I just need to be free to find my inner child of the past inner child of the past now the emphases not psychological and sociological it's all about justice it's all about creating your own self if I say I'm this that's who I am I can do that and it's all about including marginalized people's marginalized identities and it actually would this the change was happening just as I was stepping out so literally six years yeah in the last five or six years and therefore if I was starting a church now I'd have to i'd have to retool again really yeah what do you think the like just off the top of your head I haven't done it ah-ha-ha-ha you're saying what would you do I said what would you do even a couple of brodster yeah yeah broad strokes would be to say the Christianity gives you the only identity that is because it's all about identity now yeah okay Christianity is the only identity that is received and not achieved if you say I can create myself that's a lot of pressure if and you can see it online you can see people they come up with an identity and then they just scream at each other if you don't support my identity or then you get beat you get screamed at if you're not true to your identity you know I say you say your this but you know you're hurting the rest of us who are like this and it's I said it's I said Christianity is the one identity that's received over is the fact is that because of what Jesus Christ did Jesus Christ is actually a person who lost his glory and his power and his privilege and came and died on the cross for us paid the penalty for our inhumanity to God and to each other other words he took the penalty and because of that when I believe in him I can actually know that God loves me unconditionally forever you know I'm righteous in Christ and what that means is the minute I become a Christian I mean I believe in God God loves me as perfectly as he will love me 5 billion years from now when I'm perfect and he loves me that well right now now what that means is it's the ups and downs of my performance and see all postmodern people say that identity is performative they say power is performative they say they say identity is it's a role that you play that's horrible pressure I said we've got an identity that's received not achieved that it's not up and down depending on how well I perform and and also this is an identity that doesn't exclude because if you have an identity that's based on being a an open-minded justice oriented person then you're gonna despise the bigots and one of the reason you despise the bigots it's a way of you bolstering your kind of flagging sense of self-worth by saying I'm basically saying oh lord I think the I am not as other men including this tax collector right here and that's how you bolster a an insecure identity by excluding other people and looking down at them saying I must be ok because I'm not like these horrible people over here with a Christian identity you don't have to do that you will not do that in fact in James chapter 1 verse 9 and 10 it's interesting it says that the rich Christian should think about his low position and the poor Christians should think about his high position now what's beautiful about that is the Christian identity says you're a sinner and you would go to hell if it wasn't for Jesus Christ so it's got the lowest it makes you come all the way down here and say I can't save myself so you have a low position you're a sinner you deserve nothing but judgment and yet in Christ I am loved more than I dared hope I'm accepted Jesus Christ says the father loves you even as he loves me now what's interesting is if you're a poor person and look at look how brilliant the Christian identity is if you're a poor person and all of your life you've been told you're nothing can you become a Christian you should dwell on your high position dwell on who you are in Jesus Christ and that will overcome all of the crap you've gotten for some of the is from people but what if you're a rich Christian what if you're a person that you've gone to the right schools and you've gotten all these all your life people are telling you how great you are you become a Christian Union you even need to remember your low position you need to remember that you are a sinner saved by sheer grace that you are no better than anybody else what's brilliant about the Christian identity is it doesn't exclude people and it actually it's a it's an enormous equalizer and it takes all the pressure off now that's where I would be going I would be saying I don't care how you guys are forming your identity there is no identity like the one that you can find in Jesus Christ so that's not the same quite as 30 years ago where I said there's no freedom like you get in Jesus and there's you know it's not like what I would have preached down in Hopewell Virginia which I did in the 1970s when all the people out there were like my parents so you've got to connect the gospel with the gospel is that Jesus Saves you you don't and you have to connect it to the the cultural name so just exiting the culture yeah but then you write but then you've actually got to find a way to take the plotline of the culture and give it a happy ending in Jesus so for example first Corinthians 1 the Greek it says the Jews want power and the Greeks wit and wisdom but the Cross is weakness to the Jews and foolishness of the Greeks but to the Jews and Greeks that are being saved the true wisdom and true power of God so what is Paul doing he says the cultural merit of the Jews is we want we're pragmatic we want to know how you get things done give me power the cultural narrative the Greeks was there the artistes there the you know we want contemplation we want wisdom we want beauty and what he's saying is the gospel confronts the idolatries of both of those cultures differently but also fulfills them differently the cross confronts the idolatry of power and a wisdom but then it says but the crosses the true wisdom the true power of God in the cross you actually get a culture what you want so it's not just cultural exegesis it's contradictive fulfillment its subverting it and fulfilling it and that's what you have to do in every culture that's the basic of the missionary that's the missionary task so we live in a disruptive age and the state of the church report talks about a lot of elements of disruption what else have you seen disrupted over the last few decades in New York City and culture well one of them one of the things of course is that the the most disruptive thing is that there were always the kind of how I say it there was a small number of evangelical and maybe conservative Catholics who were very devout and they had you know Christian they were very devoutly Christian but they also had Christian ethics so they you know the Christian view of morality and sexuality and things like that that's maybe 20 percent then there was 80 percent of the of the population who were nominal Christians they didn't Emily went to church on Christmas Easter you know they said they were Methodists or Presbyterian or Catholic but it wasn't big it wasn't very deep and yet they actually held the Christian views too and that was like reason I'm making these strange gestures is they were like an umbrella okay they were a shelter because to be an orthodox evangelical or catholic and to have all these views of things didn't look that weird because 70 80 % of the population had the same view of marriage and sexuality and things like that but when that has gone away what's going away is inherited religion is dying not chosen religion not religion based on conversion but inherited religion where you're born into it my family's Methodist I went to church growing up that's just going away young people say unless I choose it it's not nobody can choose my right religion for me so the idea that you're you're you're born into a Catholic family or Presbyterian family is going away and that's the reason why the mainline and the Catholic Church is just collapsing and so what you have is these devout people are pretty much the same number of really devout Christians but now they look really weird and they affect they look dangerous and strange because you see I mean that protective coverings gone and that means more ostracism more strangeness more strangeness from the culture that's the big thing that's happening I think right now when you look into the future is there anything that you can see on the radar that you're like hey leaders pay attention to this well the political polarization yes okay out here's where to go where I would go the political polarization that's happening now is a major challenge for churches because here's my reading of the Bible my reading the Bible says that Christians ought to be sold out for racial justice to all that all races are equal all in the image of God they should be deeply concerned about the poor the marginalized they should be pro-life and they should believe at least for Christians that the sex should only be between a man and a woman in marriage okay now those four things that the early church was marked by them we know that okay two of those look very conservative two of those look very liberal and so right now what's happening is since those four things are never combined in any political party they're not combined in any instance any other institution other than Catholic social teaching and you know biblical Christianity and so what happens is there's enormous pressure enormous pressure everywhere in the country for churches to major in two of them and get quiet about two of them so in New York huge pressure for the churches in New York City to talk about racial justice and caring about the poor everybody applause but if you say we're pro-life or we think sex should be only between a man and woman in marriage is there people are gonna pick at you I would say in the middle of Alabama if an evangelical pastor starts to preach about all four of those things a lot of people get nervous about the racial justice and poverty thing and said that sounds kind of liberal that sounds kind of like you know wait a minute what are you doing here and so I don't know anywhere where it seems to me that there's a kind of red evangelicalism and a blue evangelicalism and almost everywhere I see people like play up to of those and play down to of those or even actually stop believing into of those right and that's because there's this enormous prep these are package deals the the political parties say you can't have them together you have to you know there is to be a Democrat to be a Republican for example be Fox News or MSNBC you just can't keep those things together and yet and so that is to me the biggest challenge for Christian leaders how do you be how do you be committed to the whole range oh that's the early church is biblical so all four of those Tim have been I think hallmarks of Redeemer at least to the extent that I've been able to access hundreds of your sermons over the years and you're writing you're preaching how have you held that tension in New York what has been easy you mean it means that there are occasions I have some definitely seen people get up in the middle of sermons and walk out yeah which is always a little bit satisfying because when you see that you do say all right okay I'm not a total coward here because see here's the thing I do think you have to care about context yeah which means for example is you don't want to pat yourself on the bat and say I'm valiant for truth because I'm preaching against abortion every month right there are certainly people who criticize me for not preaching about abortion constantly and I do say all right look if I have an encore is coming to church I don't want thing to get hit over the head with something that I know that they're gonna be offended by within the first two weeks they come so am I gonna be careful about my context am I gonna realize what offends people and what attracts people yeah so I mean I would say that if I was in Alabama I'm in the middle of New York City I wouldn't preach identically I wouldn't be reaching on Christians the same way nevertheless what you have to do to your leaders constantly is at least your leaders you have to say we cannot get cold feet on any of this I mean there is no biblical warrant I mean here in a minute you know here I'd have to say you all get excited about what the Bible says about justice and just and you don't get excited by what the Bible says about sexuality at that point you're really not letting the Bible animate you you're letting the culture intimate you and you know you've just got to immerse yourself in the word because they go together by the way you know there's a there's one I think it's a mr. to verse 7 where it says a father and a son go into the same woman and they sell the poor for a pair of shoes so one verse sexual sin and economic injustice the Bible sees it as a whole cloth they go together and we live in a culture that just tries to rip that apart so important for important safety tip for leaders Tim at this phase in your life you've committed the last few years in the future to Redeemer city-to-city he came to New York in 1989 why cities and talk about why cities are so important in so strategic well one of the reasons cities are so important for the world mission of the church is that they're growing when Jesus said go into all the world and make disciples he didn't mean go into all the world geographically he didn't say go to Antarctica and start churches okay even though it's a big part of you know geography yeah he meant go to the world demographically he meant go to where the people are and the people the world are moving into cities faster than the church is so if we if we don't spend a lot of to plant churches in the cities that are growing and growing growing then we're actually not obeying the Great Commission so there's the one answer a second answer is cities are uniquely difficult places especially the biggest cities to plant churches they're horribly expensive they are extraordinarily culturally diverse so you look out there and the people are from every tongue tribe people a nation and you want to know who am i preaching to and and so it's it's it's complicated culturally it's extremely expensive and for those reasons we felt at Redeemer city-to-city that we didn't know of any mission agency that specialized just in urban in just big big church planning in global great big global cities and since Redeemer had their 30 years of experience we said well there's let's just leverage that we're not saying that everybody's got to go to a city we're not saying that we only should plant churches in cities but we're saying is that it's a huge need demographically and it's it's you can't just pick up and do what you did out in the field you know in the suburbs or in the small towns in the city you have to you have to it's got peculiar issues and so why not just leverage our expertise and say that's what we do so years ago city to city was started to say not that we sneeze sneer at anybody else but we just know that city churches need a lot of help and so we're going to do that and so three years ago now almost three years ago when I left redeemer I stepped full-time in the city city and that's all we do is we help national leaders we don't send Americans and we help national leaders everywhere in the world reach their biggest global cities and they have problems the house churches that proliferate all through China have trouble when they go into the big cities because the ministry needs are different so just because the church is growing in a country doesn't mean it's reaching its biggest city and that's that's what we try to do and I love the point he made one of your sermons that was on the book of johna that Joan was trying to run away from a city when God actually said no that's exactly where you should go when things get bad God goes into a city when things get bad Christians usually leave the city yeah and because because they're thinking more of their own comfort than they are of usefulness sometimes people say well you've been in New York now I've lived in New York twice as long I've lived anywhere else in my life and it won't be long before I will have lived in New York if I live long enough if I live a few more years I would live longer in New York and I've lived everywhere else so people say what does it feel like home well even my own children who grew up here my youngest especially who I don't and who doesn't really remember anything but New York New York is so unmanageable I remember the very first day I came here and I talked to a few people administered in New York there was a woman who had lived here for years and said I want you to know that New York City is unmanageable and what she meant by that is nobody anybody says this is my town that's just hubris it's the big cities of the world art aren't there they are too complicated they are difficult they are extremely inconvenient almost anywhere is more inconvenient than living in the great big city but she says you want to be here not because you can manage it because it's more comfortable but because you're so useful here because there's so many people there's so much need so I you know what we try to do is we try to give people Christians who come to these cities to have a ministry mindset don't come just as a teeth gritter who's going to use the city to pad your resume and then go back to wherever you're gonna be don't use it as a consumer so I just love cities which means I love the restaurants and I love all the ethos and all that how they come here as a minister come and love the city that doesn't mean you may like you may not even like the city but loving the city means caring about the people the city caring about the infrastructure caring about the school's caring about the neighborhoods you know come and love the city and if you were gonna be here for two years make it four if you're gonna be here for five years make it ten or even consider just living here so that's the attitude not like oh you got to be here you know no you just you just try to give people a ministry mindset and I think it will bear a lot of fruit because cities as cities go so goes the cultures so I know you're committed to human flourishing and the state of the church report has an awful lot to say about it and so I want to share five categories with you of human flourishing this is some barniz research that David Kinnaman has done it's Harvard and biblical concepts of spiritual formation and as I share them I just like you to kind of riff on it doesn't talk about what that means to you why it's important to the church in your view but we'll start with relationship and the definition in the report is how biblical community and relationship relational health impact human flourishing so just give me all five okay so relationships spiritual health fiscal and material stability vocation and career and wellness and behavioral health those are the five components that contribute to yeah human flourishing I know this could be no look well yeah obviously mm-hmm well that's that is uh that's a great list because it really does it is comprehensive it is true that as a church if you're caring about people's flourishing you really cannot ignore any of those yeah there's no doubt that I think probably most churches would say the first two we're going to talk about that the last three not so much of course the one about giving yes as long as it's giving to the church yeah fiscal stability my fiscal stability as it churchly it tends to lose its it most churches most evangelical churches they're not very good at talking to them about money in general they talk about give us some money they certainly then the fourth one is not mentioned much at all I've occasion and career no because it's I think part of that is because we pastors are not trained on how to help people there you see if somebody comes and says I want you to help me study the Bible and pray hmm got it I've been trained to help you let me give you these books I'll meet with you but somebody comes in and says you know I'm an actor and I don't know which parts I should take as a Christian in which parts I shouldn't and I got some questions about certain roles and you know what what does it mean to be a Christian actor and I cannot you know as a pastor I don't know what to do and I would say you have to figure that out yourself I don't know see what happens I think when it comes to that one is there's an equality between the pastor the minister and the lay person that we don't have in the other areas mm-hmm the we don't I may not know much about acting he doesn't maybe know as much about the Bible and we have to sit down and kind of work together so it's not a matter of him coming and me telling him yeah you're the expert right and the last one I actually do feel that we have a tendency to outsource that well that's a behavior yeah and not talk about it and say go to a psychiatrist or go to a doctor or medical doctor I do think that there needs to be better ways for maybe Christians who are medical professionals to inside the church talk to people about it all that stuff those fruit of the Spirit all 5 million see hit this is my take on the fruit of spirit love joy peace patience kindness integrity humility faithfulness self-control so love patience and kindness is largely about relationships joy peace and humility is largely about spiritual disciplines and self-control faithfulness which is faithfulness integrity those things actually have a lot more to do with with the last three so I mean basically the fruit of the Spirit covers it it does the fruit of the Spirit our God created character and so I do think you can if you went to the fruit of the Spirit and you went to the Book of Proverbs they're all covered because proverbs about yes five areas in a way though sometimes there's other place in the New Testament that don't but if you go to proverbs and I my wife and I did a devotional going friend book about 13 yeah did you well there's nothing that proverbs doesn't talk about it talks about every single area of human flourishing so I would say if you went to proverbs and you went to the fruit of the Spirit you basically could preach that and and that would be a I do think that's a great way of telling people you really can't ignore any of these areas and you've got to make sure that you're honoring Christ in each of the areas it's interesting because he raised it Hamiltons playing right down the street I mean we're right in the heart of New York City and you picked an actor as an example how would you approach that actor knocks on your door i redeemer and says hey tim what part should I take what part should I not take I would try I would probably create a little it was John I got this idea from john stott years ago it would be good to get a couple of the Christian actors maybe a little more a little more experienced both in Christianity and in acting it would probably be good that maybe even get an academic I mean there are people who tii we do have by the way people who who used to go to Redeemer have moved to other have moved to other colleges and taught acting I mean I know one woman who teaches acting at a at a secular school in New England another guy who teaches acting at a Christian College and so these are people who have not only done it but they've actually had to do reflection on it so he would say get an academic get a practitioner get a theologian get a pastor and and come together and generate questions and then have a meeting over a period of year every two months and and work on the questions together and that way and it's kind of egalitarian because no one person has got all the answers and have somebody to take notes and it's it can be a great idea yeah I know I've done that in other areas I wish I had more time to do it so that's a really good idea and I know vacations really important to David as well David Kinnaman we didn't talk about it a lot so also in the report Barnett asked pastors what are the top concerns for the church and these are some of the top findings watered-down gospel teachings the culture shift to secularism poor discipleship declining attendance and reaching a younger audience kind of touched on a lot of those already different ways and we've kind of topped on you touched on your top concerns for the church anything you want to add to that before we move on well that's an interesting list watered-down gospel I do think that what they're getting at there is we may be over adapting to the the identity narrative the identity narrative is you've got to be true to yourself and you've got to feel good about yourself and it's possible that you start to I adapt the gospel and turn it into something where Jesus just makes you feel good about yourself and by the way what I did there a minute ago or human you know about how you would talk about the Christian identity unless you're careful it can really sound like Chris Jesus is here to boost your self-esteem right you wait you you you have to say that when Christ's love becomes your identity it reorders all your loves which means this is that's August that's August and what he would say is when when Christ is your supreme love he's both the support he's the source of your love but he's also your supreme love what that does is it denotes everything else without f8d Motz other identities without it facing them which is another way of saying if you're Chinese and you become a Christian you don't stop being checked you don't start being anything else you're still Chinese but that you're your greatest pride isn't what Christ what who you are in Christ and therefore what it does is it takes racial pride it takes vocational pride takes those things down a notch and that has to be said otherwise if you're if you're not careful you say you find your I've I've seen youth group where people are told you find your identity in Christ which means God loves you even if you're a you screw up he just loves you all the time and and you should feel good about yourself and not hate yourself and it actually just becomes not a an understanding of how your whole life is reordered by the gospel it's more like is like Jesus basically makes you feel better about yourself as regardless of whether you change or that's right yeah and that's watered-down gospel which is more of a self-esteem ism and I think that's prophets right and I think that's probably what they're getting at yeah sort of mine too sure you've done it's also Varna has a partnership with glue big data is really making yeah yeah we live in a very different age you've done some work with Varna over the years where you've done studies for your work at Redeemer do city what is in your mind the line between being data informed and data driven well the the German philosopher not a Christian valray Jurgen Habermas as is famous for saying while he's famous for more than this but he he said that while science can tell you what you can do and how to do it efficiently it can never ever tell you whether you should do it or not in other words you can't get it you can't get a nought out of it is you can't get an aunt out of it is so science can tell you what is it can never tell you what it ought to be and you have to be careful when I have people saying well the data shows that you should do this the data can't show you what you ought to do the data can inform you about what is and on the basis of what is I can make decisions but I make decisions on the basis of my moral values which I get from the scripture hmm so there's a little danger that you say well the you know it for example my church does not have to grow what do you mean by that it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible your church has to grow I mean you ordinarily if people are growing spiritually and they're sharing their faith the church will grow but the that's a that's a byproduct I mean the church must grow spiritually the church must grow in joy it must grow in worshiped it must grow in those things and if it's gonna grow numerically then it ought to be a byproduct of that and therefore I don't want to just do something that kind of doesn't end run around those things and just get some more people in the door and sometimes data can look like it's saying oh if this if you do this you will grow as so anyway I would say the data can tell me what is but it can tell me what I ought to do and if it looks like it is then I think it's overstepped its bounds anything else on the state of the church today before we switch gears I want to talk about preaching but anything else on what you see what worries you what excites you what confuses me okay okay you didn't ask that but well let's do what confuses me is I'm not sure how hostile the culture will get so should we assume that all the evangelical colleges will lose their accreditation for example yeah should we assume that you know Christian radio stations will lose their FCC licenses because of their would be considered bigoted or you know hateful and that kind of thing I think that's at least possible in other words if you we should not live in fearfulness of that especially as I've traveled around the world as a speaker in the last few years and everybody's got it worse than we do yeah I mean everybody had worse than we did and certainly Americans I mean you're in Canada I mean certainly Americans have it even better than well it's a little bit tighter where I am yeah for sure nevertheless I would say that we have to be not afraid of that but we also should be ready for it so we should be not afraid but ready and not be shocked if it happens do you mourn that no not necessarily mean here's the thing it would be I I see to me it's win-win believe it or not the win is if it doesn't happen hey that's great I mean there's great advantages to being able to keep your accreditation and your FCC license and they keep on moving and have your endowment funds and it's it's better for institution building mm-hmm on the other hand if it goes away it's probably better for spiritually it probably is even like the whole tax question yes yeah yes I if it goes away it's better for spiritually if it stays it's better for us institutionally would you fight it oh I would fight fight or do you mean I mean well I would you would you would you petition governments and that yeah sure I'm not sure they listen that'd be very happy to sign a petition for sure Oh galleries I wouldn't I wouldn't yeah I mean lightly I looked lightly but you wouldn't you wouldn't no go to the mat or say this is the end of the world or how can you do this I mean most of the other parts of the world you know you don't have the ministers you know tax break you don't have the the nonprofit status a lot of generals we still have that in Canada but every time you know I get mail on that I'm like well if this feels like the first century more and more all the time mm-hmm yeah I would I would not not make it easy but on the other hand like I said it's a win-win I think yeah yeah well let's talk about preaching what have you learned and we again we've touched on this but I think you're masterful at communicating to a post-christian culture and New York has been more post Christian than a lot of America and America is becoming very checkerboard I mean you go off the coast yeah it's much more you go into the cities it's much more post-christian yeah I spend a lot of time in the Bible Belt and there it's generational you look at Gen Z and Millennials everybody's Christian yeah and it was sad about those areas is a lot of times the older people don't realize it's happening 100% yeah and so you go into the very center for example if you go to the center of some of these conservative cities where if you go to the center of Houston or you go to the center of you know these Bible Belt cities there's the younger generation is definitely walking away from yeah faith they can be in California or New York that's right yes right and very often the parents aren't it's completely aware of it as they would be so yeah what would you say to those kids well I think it's I would say that the the Christianity is better resources for what they're trying to do you're looking for freedom you're looking for meaning you're looking for satisfaction you're looking for identity you're looking for a basis for doing justice mm-hmm you want to you want a basis for doing justice that doesn't turn you into an oppressor yourself do you want to have an identity that's not performative that is not exclusive to you I said I got better resources for you I mean now here's why I would start there with them rather than start with what I'd call heart apologetics here's the evidence for the resurrection there's a there's a upon say by Blaise Pascal who said he says bring people to the place where they wish Christianity was true then show them that's true hmm so there's really no reason for me to get out the guns on the evidence for the resurrection stuff like that which is trying to show the Christianity is true if they don't want it to be true yeah but if I get them to want it if they get to the place of the site gee it would be great if that was true but is it then then I can do my near more tradition so speaking to the identity Prabhas right yeah identity freedom meaning satisfaction and justice you you you speak to the the the values they have and that they're trying you have to have an operational way to get those things you can't live with other said well I think you made the argument others it may be argument that in some ways the culture still has the values of Christianity without the faith of Christianity especially yeah especially in the area of morality and justice we have a questionnaire that I in my evangelism class I ask people to go talk to a non-christian friend and they have a set of questions to ask them and one of the questions is how do you determine whether something is right or wrong how do you make a moral judgment and all of them he said almost all the secular people actually turn to tying themselves into pretzels because I said look the the assignment is not to actually get into a debate but you can if you want ask a follow-up question and the follow-up question there is to say how do you tell somebody who doesn't feel that what they're doing is wrong and whose culture tells them it's not wrong that they're doing something wrong how what what would you say to them and they just have no idea because they on the one hand they're relativist they say nobody can tell me what is right or wrong for me but then on the other hand they want to do they want to tell other people not to live on just lives and that is deeply incoherent so that would be one of the things I would be talking them about the fact is that they don't have a basis for they don't have a sufficient moral source for their moral ideals but that would be still not not the heart apologetics that's still saying Christianity is better resources for the things you're seeking then you have and if I got them to the place where they said oh that's interesting that would be you know but how do I know this is true then I could say well let's read the Gospels that's talking about the claims of Jesus then you get into more traditional apologetics well it's interesting I mean you've written a lot about apologetics and spoken a lot about apologetics but I was listening to a talk you gave years ago and I'm sure you've written about this as well and I'm paraphrasing here but you said the place to start with apologetics is not with hard logic like there are so many codices in the New Testament etc etc because people don't actually respond to logic they've right onto emotion yeah can you elaborate on that a little bit well what there's that accurate yeah and I okay yes and I was trying to say this they they gotta want it to be true before they're open to an argument that it is and they can only want it to be true is if you actually in a sense do emotional apologetics there there's actually a book I wouldn't I wouldn't I can't recommend every part of it okay but a book by Francis buffered called unapologetic he's a he's a very cheeky British writer who is a professing Christian not a fool and certainly not an evangelical and not an orthodox woman but the subtitle of the book is why in spite of everything Christianity still makes great emotional sense that's that's the sub channel and I thought that's pretty brilliant that's what I was trying to talk about yeah yeah is that if for people to think Christianity makes emotional sense that it gives you a workable approach to identity or it gives you a it promises a happiness or a love that you find desirable or it gives you a basis for making moral judgments that that doesn't turn you into a Pharisee but at the same time gives you a basis it says when people start to emotionally want that because those aren't that's not hard logic it's more like saying look I have better resources than you do for the things you're dealing with so it's part of that pointing out the problem Nissa pating the objection yes I'm trying to show them that Christianity makes emotional sense and if it's it makes emotional sense there be open to a argument that it makes rational sense through an example just to make it crystal clear well you know you might say CS Lewis I'll give you an example CS Lewis when he does his argument from desire in his famous chapter and mirko sanity on hope and what he says is that he starts off by saying if you're young you may not have experienced this but as you get out in life you're gonna realize that all the things you thought were really gonna make you happy don't do it and he does a wonderful job of saying the job you thought would be make you happy the marriage you thought would make you happy the the travel you thought would make you happy at first it seems like this is finally gonna do it and it it goes away in the grasping of it and then he says I'm not talking about bad marriages I'm not talking about bad jobs I'm not talking about bad bad trips he says I'm talking about the best possible ones and you're gonna find out that nothing actually satisfied there's still a kind of emptiness and then he says now once you decide that there's only two or three possibilities one is you could say I just I need a better wife I need a better trip I need a better job and out there that happiness is out there in this world the second thing you can do he says that'll just make you an absolutely he's gonna make you driven it's gonna make you anxious the second thing you can do is say there is no happiness there is no satisfaction I just have to harden myself stop crying after the moon just get cynical and says well that might make you less of a nuisance to people but it also is gonna be humanize you it's gonna kill the part of your heart that really wants love and once a penis and satisfaction he says the third possibility is this he says ducklings want to swim there's such a thing as water babies want to suck milk there's such a thing as milk desires don't exist unless satisfaction of those desires exists and if you find in yourself a desire for something that nothing in this world can satisfy it probably means you were made for another world now that's logical and yet it's basically working on emotion it's really not yeah it's not the evidence for the resurrection it's not saying there's the existence of God who's trying to say there is an emptiness in you that you can either say I'm gonna find it in this world or you can say I'm gonna kill my desire for happiness and then become a real cynic and snob or you can say there's actually something else out there there's another way now if I was preaching this and I I do actually pretty yeah I would add the Buddhist approach what and the which the eastern approach wishes which is to say that the world is an illusion it's a little bit like hardening your heart but it's it's it seems more spiritual but ultimately it does make you detach and I could make it I could make a case against it so what I would do is I'm actually doing argument I'm doing apologetics mm-hmm but it's it's trying to make Christianity and make emotional sense and only if it makes emotional sense would people want eventually to sit and listen to an argument why it makes intellectual sense I don't know that you would think this has changed a lot but a lot of people would see a surge in the New Atheism everybody from Sam Harris to Christopher Hitchens to you've all her re and people like that yeah a lot of books and some of their arguments are fairly strong right you could make the argument that perhaps we're not doing very well on that front as Christians these days with a few you know present company excepted well go ahead so you're gonna say I'm sorry cut you off no no there's so your ask question when I think of that well I'm saying what do you think their best arguments are that was going to be my question well I think the best arguments of the New Atheists I actually think that the the older New Atheists like sam Harris and and of course Hitchens is dead obviously the original Dawkins I think actually they're stridency has actually faded mmm I mean I think I think they're they're they're still is right it's it's fainted because a little buddy no no they're old and even a Harare he's a he's a more recent one yeah but that's not where kids are okay they they are the new atheists are saying science will solve everything it's sort of an old enlightenment approach that sort of sees everything rationally and younger people today are all about justice they're all about identity and they I don't think I don't think that that kind of very detached intellectual scientific enlightenment thing that you know science has got the answers to everything I don't I don't think younger people resonate with that so back to what we talked about earlier yeah I actually I think I don't think that they're in ascendancy anymore I think that they're fading they also do come across as just as fundamentalist and and narrow-minded as fundamentalist oh yeah yeah Harare especially yeah some of his work I know it's but and yet the books are still selling very well yeah when I say they're not incentive see it doesn't mean they're not making a good income yeah so we got a lot of preachers listening who are like I think I'm stuck in christened don't you want to give them some tips on how move out of that mindset and I mean whether that's generational in the Bible Belt or they're in a city and they're not having the impact that they wish they would what are some starting points for some preachers oh boy that's oh okay well you went to cigar it's the hardest question he gets a cigar for the hardest question thank you because there's not a lot of great examples what worries me is I I already told you I think that the the the mega the seeker megachurch I still think it is probably it's it's not the place a lot of the younger justice oriented postmodern people are showing up I still think it it it's really not that it's not the way of the future I don't think okay I I would say if you can find a multi-ethnic Church in a city that's growing and it's not compromising on any of those four things on the the sex the pro-life the justice the racial if it's multi-ethnic if it's really equally evangelizing people calling the repentance and doing justice calling people to be to be a sexual counterculture and work on being anti-racist if you find a church like that that's growing and and Orthodox and true to the whole you know panel of those things they're probably doing what I'm they're probably what they ought to do probably probably go there but I don't if you mean a movement a book I mean even I and I just mean like they're stuck in an old mindset how do they begin to detach well even before you could you could you could read Leslie knew Bing and now new vegan died 1999 yeah and and so he's already somewhat dated I mean he's already looking at a post-christian West that has already moved from when he saw it and yet he was just ahead of his time and so I would I would if you could read foolishness of the Greeks and the gospel in the plural society I mean cos poni plural society I think yes right those two books would be great starting points okay they'd be really good starting points let's get anything else on the megachurch movement that you've seen over the last 40 years mm-hmm developed I know a lot of them are lists like I mean obviously I I planted a megachurch by anybody's standards and at this point I feel like I think was the right thing to do to let it get that big mmm there wouldn't be a redeemer city to city there wouldn't be a Counseling Center there wouldn't be hope for New York they wouldn't be all sorts of stuff and I do think that for New York to grow an evangelical mega church was a good thing for the whole ecosystem I think yeah it is breaking up I broke up ma belle I mean we're already three and eventually four or five six churches so not there is no 6,000 person Redeemer church anymore they're right a whole slew of them and I think that's good because in generally speaking when a church gets over a thousand people there's a it it really becomes much more bureaucratic I'll give you two real quick I mean that sounds kind of negative about big churches the the pastor's can't know everybody like I always said of a pastor if you can interview every single new member personally then your church is still small enough and if you can't do that anymore it's too big secondly what happens is if you listen if you run a pharmacy you start a pharmacy you're probably a pharmacist you probably know how to stock the shelves and then maybe you you grow your pharmacy and then you form a second pharmacy and a third pharmacy even generally the people running those pharmacies are still pharmacists they actually know what it means to make it a good experience for people to come in the door and buy things but when you have 50 pharmacies in a chain the people running it know almost nothing about pharmaceuticals they're just looking on ROI return on investment bottom lines they're just operating like they're basically financial people yeah and what ends up happening in a very large church is more and more that both the staff and the the lay leaders become people who are not so much doing the ministry at the bottom they're not they're not the pharmacist anymore they're people who are looking at systems and doing all these things and I don't think that's healthy so I actually have been saying frankly the the city would be better off with ten churches of 500 people in general than one church of 5000 on having said that I think almost every city needs a couple of mega churches because they can do things nobody else can do a couple yeah but I wouldn't aspire to be the pastor of a mega church I just want you to know that further reasons I just mentioned yeah there's it's a it's a discipleship problem a lot of passivity and as a bureaucracy problem where people spend an awful lot of time and just looking at systems instead of doing ministry so I would say looking forward I think churches basically I'm not a big house Church fan in spite of the fact that Francis Chan other people think it's the it's a solution yeah I would say moderate sized churches you know 100 to 800 is the way forward you're speaking most of the people listening to or watching this so I've got a list of questions that and you've been so generous with your time but I'd love to close with this one sure a lot of leaders listening in right now are discouraged personally it's been a tough season it's hard at home I'm sure you've had seasons of discouragement mm-hmm do you want to just tell us about a time where you felt discouraged and how you got yourself through it just so many poeple I ever choose you know i if you're talking about leadership the hardest time was there was a period from about 2001 to 2005 or so that was tough for me as a leader because 9/11 happened and that's a whole big story of to 9/11 in New York City is it's a world of discussion as I can't go there the whole city got depressed and everybody burned out it was it it was a the day after 9/11 day after a Christian minister from Oklahoma City who had been through the Oklahoma City bombing called and told me you're gonna have a lot of trouble in your church for the next three or four years you're gonna have people burning out you're gonna have people grieving you're gonna have you're gonna have all sorts of trouble I mean he kind of gave me the list on top of that I got thyroid cancer on top of that my wife had Crohn's disease had a big flare up and had all multiple surgeries on her body and I stayed the pastor but basically really let the staff kind of go and when I actually came back to health after about two years basically I was still preaching and all that I came back to health and I sat down with my staff and I found that they were all bitter because they'd left them on the road and they'd also formed these little silos and they were actually all having turf battles and it was a wreck it was a total wreck and so I said oh my gosh so we're ever gonna get out of this and basically I frankly out I did hire a new executive director Bruce Terrell who was probably the single biggest help at cleaning all that up and you know reintegrating his staff into a community but for the about two or three years before that I'm not sure how we made it other than to say you got to keep going you got to pray and my wife was so sick that at certain point there I thought maybe I should leave the ministry but I couldn't tell her about it because then she would feel guilty but I couldn't tell anybody else about it because I felt I would betray her so I didn't tell anybody and I live with that for a couple years and never really never really resolved it other than that god never gave me the freedom to leave so prayer that is when my prayer life really kicked in in a new way I was might repair life changed drastically right during that period of time just deepened got stronger and pretty much worth it the whole thing was worth it just for that so but no no key you know God sent in somebody was important he deep in my prayer life that's how that's how you get through it Tim this has been rich deep and such a privilege thank you thanks for thanks for the thanks well I hope today's episode was helpful to you you can always get more by subscribing to my channel I also have a lot more content over at cari newhoff comm for leaders in business and leaders in churches and you can get transcripts of this episode there and so much more plus some other stuff I do for leaders so head on over there to discover more at Carey newhoff comm and in the meantime I really hope our time together today has helped you lead like never before

Channel: Carey Nieuwhof

Views: 164,144

Rating: 4.8897057 out of 5

Keywords: Carey Nieuwhof, Tim Keller, Timothy Keller, Redeemer Church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Pastor of Redeemer, Videos of Tim Keller, Videos of Timothy Keller, Interviews with Tim Keller, Interviews with Timothy Keller, Interviews with Redeemer Pastor, Videos of Redeemer Pastor, Churches in New York, Churches in New York City, Churches in NYC, Videos about Post-Christian America, Why did Tim Keller leave Redeemer, Why did Timothy Keller leave Redeemer

Id: zNve3Hexh28

Length: 67min 57sec (4077 seconds)

Published: Mon May 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/friardon]

This is a great interview by Tim Keller. I have it marked to his views on preaching and leading through the hot button issues of the day. I would encourage listening to the entire interview if you have not. Oh, and as a mod, if ya'll go nuts, I will use all the powers afforded to me (lock, remove, ban) if anyone tries to derail this.

[u/cbrad1713]

I immensely appreciate his shout-out to Catholic Social Teaching, but I think the most important thing he had to say was that these four issues, divergent as they may be, are all critical tenets of the Christian faith for ALL Christians.

[u/HornedGoatScream]

If you're interested in this you should check out the (and) campaign on social media. They have a book coming out on July 21 called compassion and conviction. It's all about Christians having both, or as Keller would be it, all four.

[u/Yancy166]

Man, this is what I've been trying to express for awhile now in my own political beliefs, good to see someone much smarter and more eloquent than me explain it.

[u/REVDR]

This whole interview is gold. The part that you posted is definitely the most memorable.

[u/Kronzypantz]

Its things like this that make me wonder about how we could do something like a Christian Democrat party in the US, left leaning on public issues but center-right on social issues.

The problem is, I can see that immediately being abused by those who have made the culture wards their shtick. "Look, we have reasonable policies on welfare and education, so let us go too far in abusing minorities and the gays at the state level."

Maybe it just doesn't work out with federalism, or the best shot we have is to put forth independent candidates rather than try to make a party to be hijacked.

[u/Cledus_Snow]

You know who else is concernd about poor people? Marxists. Cancel Keller!

/s

[u/thebapterian]

I'm on board with having all four of the things he mentions (pro-life, pro-biblical sexual ethic, pro-mercy, pro-unity). My problem with Keller in the past is that he can be less than discerning about how to handle poverty and racism. Let's tackle those issues, but let's tackle them biblically.

I also think he's misunderstanding conservative Christians' views on race and poverty. I think most committed Bible-belt Christians want to deal with poverty and racism, but you're also dealing with a lot of nominalism. We can argue about the nominal Christians, but the really committed and faithful Christians are really interested in seeing poverty and racism eradicated. They're just not interested in dealing with them in the way that secular liberals do. Yes, we should take those things back from the secular liberals, but we shouldn't also take the language and implementation strategies that they've added to them.

There's a book to be written on that one day if anybody wants to take up that mantle.