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In this episode John and Gregg discuss an article from Christianity Today titled Here Come the Radicals by Matthew Lee Anderson that examines several books on “radical Christianity” such as Kyle Idleman’s Not A Fan. John resonates with the author’s point that writers such as Idleman promote an intensity as key to whether one is really in right relationship with God. Yet due to what both he and Gregg have seen to be a rather amateur use of Scripture, John finds their credibility to be questionable.
John notes further that these authors focus a great deal on how ‘not to be’, but offer little on how to be rightly toward God (and instead seem to replace belief with commitment). Gregg broadly agrees and notes how this author has reached many of the same conclusions as he and John have. He further emphasizes the difference between belief and understanding (and ultimately trust).
Yet where the author sees an issue with vocabulary, Gregg sees a misunderstanding about the role of personal experience. So the issue is not that Christians have lost the grasp on the “simple language of Scripture,” but more likely that such Christians lack experiences of God / proper expectations of what experiencing God should be like. So for a love relationship to have real impact, we need real experiences of that love! So perhaps Christians are often trying to “fake it” through a relationship that just is not working for them.