Home Podcast Irving Hexham: This Is Why Christians Need to Know About Other Religions

Irving Hexham: This Is Why Christians Need to Know About Other Religions

“If you look at the New Testament conversions, there are sudden conversions, like those of St. Paul, but St. Paul was Jew. He knew the Old Testament well…but when you come to the pagans, it’s very different. Most of the stories of pagan conversion in the New Testament seem to be of people that were converted over a long period of time or who were on the edge of Judaism.”

“I think one of the failures of the evangelical tradition has been to stress the instant conversion and forget about the long-term conversion.”

“Above all, and this is the most important thing, we’ve got to trust God [with other people’s conversions].”

“The Bible clearly teaches that we’re all created in the image of God. And it’s this image of God in human beings that gives us our point of contact.”

“I think Kuyper had the right view, that the Holy Spirit works in everybody. Even people who may do great evil, the Spirit restrains them. And without God’s restraint, the world would be total chaos. So God is working the world and we’ve got to recognize that, even if we don’t see how.”

“Islamophobia is a two-edged sword because on the one hand, there is certainly often prejudice against Muslims as people and that’s bad…on the other hand, there are Muslim groups that use Islamophobia as a foil to do and say anything they want.”

“I think we have a lot of shared values with most immigrants.”

“We’ve got to try to develop a Christian perspective [on these issues] that is based on scripture and not just our own fears.”

“We’ve got to educate both pastors and our congregations about Christianity…and then we’ve got to teach them about other religions.”

“What happens with many Christians is they look at another religion and they’re afraid of digging into it because they might lose their own faith.”

“I think we’ve got to get back to very serious study of other religions, but we’ve also got to have a strong faith ourselves.”

Mentioned in the Show

Encountering World Religions 
Understanding World Religions
Francis Schaeffer
L’Abri
The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity
Abraham Kuyper
The Venerable Bede
Zen Way, Jesus Way

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Jason serves as the Chief Strategy Officer at PastorServe, a ministry committed to strengthening the Church by serving pastors through personal coaching and church consulting. He also hosts FrontStage BackStage, a podcast and YouTube show, that helps pastors embrace healthy, well-balanced leadership as they develop a sustainable rhythm for life and ministry. Prior to joining the PastorServe team, Jason served as Vice President of Ministry Mobilization at Outreach, Inc., and as the Executive Director of the National Back to Church Sunday movement. Additionally, Jason served for nearly two decades in pastoral leadership, primarily as a lead pastor, in several contexts, including church plant re-launch, multisite church, multiethnic urban church, and an established suburban church. His experience as a lead pastor has provided numerous opportunities to coach and mentor pastors across the country. Jason and his beautiful wife, Monica, are the proud parents of six children and live on Anastasia Island, Florida. @jasondaye