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In this episode John and Gregg discuss one of Gregg’s recent blog posts where Gregg lays out his approach to others, both Christians and non-Christians, in preparation for examining (and as distinct from) how Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias (and other Christian apologists) engage with non-Christians.

Gregg notes that he is very excited by this blog post because it lays out his perspective. Further, his next blog post further expands on this first post and lays out why he holds this perspective and how this fits in with his approach throughout the podcast.

John focuses on Gregg’s 5th point: “I want to advocate to others the joys, benefits, and truths that I have experienced and come to believe about myself and life, in light of rightly relating with God. ”  John is struck by how different this is from wanting “to tell others about Jesus so that they don’t go to hell,” and sees this approach as something that he can relate to.

Gregg likens the typical evangelical Christian response that John has outlined to a situation where “everything is on fire and you need to get out of the building!” Gregg explains that this is not how matters work in his life—he has much more time to make decisions and engage with questions, and so sees the matter similarly for others.

Gregg also notes that his 5th point is not necessarily describing how he will tell people about God, but that his goal here is to “jubilate in becoming my best self as one who is loved by, in love with, and rightly relating to God.” So here Gregg might be engaging with others about parenting, or about self-care, or the value of a rigorous approach to Christian belief, or some other true thing that he has come to know in & through rightly relating with God, even though this need not be about God or Christianity specifically.

Next, John raises Gregg’s 3rd point: “my starting place with anyone is not the Bible but my humanity. By starting my engagement this way I enter the process of mutual understanding (my first interest, above) where it is most likely to meet with success and situate truth-seeking (my second interest, above) within its proper framework: in both cases, beginning with the human and creational. The goal here is living with others according to my best understanding of how life works: creation frames salvation; salvation transforms creation.”

John wonders how starting with our humanity is a good idea or even possible, seeing that humans are innately sinful and so need God in order to make right decisions, etc. Gregg notes that there are generally a constellation of ideas that accompany this sort of concern, such as the idea that God is first (and in some Christian traditions, humans are so distantly second that we essentially have no value).

John notes that, in contrast to Gregg’s approach, the typical Christian approach to non-Christians sounds like a transaction, almost like selling life insurance. Gregg replies that in good part he realized that his excitement about this writing is seeing how his recognition of the rampant suspicion in our Western culture has oriented him to providing some of the truth value to the Christian truth claims before ever presenting these claims!

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In this episode John and Gregg discuss the difference between dialogue and debate, focusing on a number of distinctions between the two that John found on-line.

John notes that while he generally agrees with the definition of dialogue, he also preferred some of aspects of debate.  Gregg notes that how Christians view and present their knowledge represents an area of weakness in the Christian church and a loss of credibility with those outside of the church.  In other words, Christians typically see themselves as already having all of the answers and so they engage with non-Christians from the perspective of “how can I help you understand this.”

Gregg sees this as ultimately condescending and advocates instead the perspective of Hans-Georg Gadamer, who notes that being involved in a dialogue means trying to bring out the strength in the other person’s perspective.  This is not simply to understand the other’s view but actually to further it.

Yet this also begins with wanting to understand others, and to be understood by them.  Similarly, rather than aiming to teach others “the truth of Christianity” Gregg seeks first to learn from them, regardless of their belief set or worldview.

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In this episode John and Gregg begin by discussing John’s experience of explaining the Untangling Christianity podcast to co-participants at Podcast Movement 2015 and from this they consider when and how to tell someone that one is a Christian.

John notes that, while briefly explaining the Untangling Christianity podcast, he was asked if he was a Christian and he responded: “I don’t know.” John expresses uncertainty about how one should define the term (or whether typical definitions “work” anymore) and then asks Gregg how he would respond, if Gregg were asked this question, and wonders how Gregg would define the term “Christian.”

Gregg notes that he considers the context of the question (and it’s place in the conversation) to be an important guide to how he would respond to the person asking him. Gregg goes on to explain that often the focus of someone’s questioning, when asking if Gregg is a Christian, is to find out whether Gregg is an authentic human being.

As such, Gregg does not always assume that simply acknowledging his faith in Christianity or allowing the other person’s line of inquiry to direct the conversation is the best move, but will instead gauge the situation and reply accordingly with the aim of “earning a hearing,” which may only be possible over the medium or long term.

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In this episode John and Gregg discuss books that they have been recently reading.

John explains that he has been reading N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope with his parents.  Given that this is the first book by N. T. Wright that any of them have read, John notes that the absence of fuller explanations (particularly on matters that Wright has discussed / argued at length elsewhere) is unsatisfying.

John also notes how his interest has recently been captured by the book of Job, particularly because it seems so self-contained, and how in searching for books on Job he has come across Peter Enns’ book, The Bible Tells Me So.  John is rather excited to see that his current study of Job / the Bible is holding his attention much longer than he typically experiences when reading on such topics!

Gregg, in turns, recounts that he is reading several books by Ravi Zacharias: Why Jesus? and Beyond Opinion.  Gregg’s interest in Zacharias was peaked by a post that listener Amy put in the Untangling Christianity Facebook group, and Gregg notes that he has also watched several of Zacharias’ videos and read 2 or 3 articles from RZIM website.

In addition, Gregg is reading Myron Penner’s The End of Apologetics.  John is surprised by the book’s premise, yet Gregg explains his longstanding misgivings about the “apologetic enterprise.”  So Gregg juxtaposes what he and John are doing on the podcast with looming focus that apologetics places on “defending the faith,” and how this is often a misplaced expectation in a non-Christian world that views Christianity neither as a subject of interest nor as a threat, but actually as largely irrelevant.

In other words, by anticipating being attacked (or at least questioned) by non-Christians, Christians often adopt a defensive stance (as the subtitle of one of Zacharias’ books: “Living the Faith we Defend”) such that their expectations ultimately keep them from being able to relate to others in easier, more normal manner (that, ironically, may allow them much greater possibilities in communicating the love and truth of Christianity than the typical apologetic approach)!

More worryingly, Gregg is concerned that Zacharias has misunderstood postmodernism and, as a result, misjudges postmoderns and so approaches them in a way that ultimately devalues them.  This is a particularly important as our North American culture is largely postmodern, and so Zacharias’ understanding of postmodernism is rather definitive for his apologetic approach.

Further, Gregg notes the disparity between apologeticists, who start with knowledge, and the widespread understanding in continental philosophy (following Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time) that human beings always start with a sort of tacit “understanding” gleaned through lived existence: understanding something’s use by using it.  Gregg connects this with the need to realize that the apostle Paul’s approach on Mars Hill (i.e., his focus on immediately “telling” about the gospel rather than first “living it out” to his hearers, in Acts 17) while necessary and beneficial at the time, is no longer relevant.

Rather, because North Americans in particular have become super-saturated with information about God and Christianity (even if such contains a good deal of misinformation), yet they have also seen the numerous failings and inconsistencies of Christians, today Christians must first overcome their suspicions before (and in order to) “earn a hearing” with postmoderns.