John Dickson: What the Good and Evil in Church History Teaches Us About How To Live Now

John Dickson on The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

John Dickson on The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Voice Over:
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Voice Over:
Welcome to the Stetzer Church Leaders podcast, conversations with today’s top ministry leaders to help you lead better every day. And now here are your hosts, Ed Stetzer and Daniel Yang.

Ed Stetzer:
Welcome to the Setzer Church Leaders Podcast, where we’re helping Christian leaders navigate and lead through the cultural issues of our day. My name is Daniel Yang, national director of churches of Wacom. And today we’re talking with Reverend Doctor John Dixon. John is the Gene Quam Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies and Public Christianity at Wheaton College. He pastored a local church in Sydney, Australia for a decade and is the author of more than 20 books, including A Doubter’s Guide to World Religions, A Fair and Friendly Introduction to the history, beliefs and Practices of the Big Five, and Bullies and Saints An Honest Look at the Good and evil of Christian history. If you are enjoying our interviews, make sure you like and follow us on Apple Podcasts. And now let’s go to Ed Stetzer, Editor in chief of Outreach Magazine and the dean of the Talbot School of Theology.

Ed Stetzer:
Well, John, it’s fun to have you on the podcast and a little history that I don’t know, most people might not know is that I actually recruited you to Wheaton College. And then. And then I left. Now, to be fair, just on the beginning of the podcast, I did tell you it was a remote possibility in the recruiting process. You lie, you lie. You know, I did anyway. And now you have. You’re doing a great job. I mean, people are it’s I’d love to see the gospel impact that you’re making. So let’s talk a little bit about this. You have this I mean, this decades long passion of reaching people who have maybe are doubters or skeptics or questions about the Christian church. So when you’re talking to non-Christians about the history of Christianity, maybe in the West and beyond, you know, because a lot of people just, you know, say, well, what about this? What about this? What about this? How do you advance that conversation?

John Dickson:
Huh? Well, it’s interesting that the questions of the last, say, 20 years have shifted from, um, the kind of is it is it true? Um, you know, what about this tricky scientific claim to really be focused on the goodness of of Christianity? Um, not to say the other questions have gone away, but but these other ones have come to the fore, you know, um, if you think of, um, persuasion as logos, pathos, ethos, ethos is the character of the persuader. And a lot of people are asking questions about the character of the persuader that is the church. Um, and they’re not idiots because there’s a lot of bodies buried in the graveyard of church history.

Ed Stetzer:
Literally.

John Dickson:
Yeah. And and today, you know, it’s not just history. I mean, yeah, boy. Um, the things that are happening all around us and pastors failing people and churches covering up sin and mistreating the vulnerable. And, uh, so the long winded answer to your question arrives at this point. I firstly, absolutely admit fault, not as just a strategy, um, to get a hearing and let them see that I’m on their side before I whack them over the head. But because it’s just true. And Jesus said, take the log out of your own eye before you think about the speck in someone else’s eye. Um, that’s said to his disciples, not not to the Pharisees or whatever. Um, so I think a good practice is for Christians, when confronted with the questions of the goodness or otherwise of the church, is to admit fault, to think, what is the log that’s there without going overboard? I mean, I don’t want to give the impression that we go with every criticism of the church because some of the criticisms of the church are completely exaggerated. Um, but as a first step, I want to admit fault.

Ed Stetzer:
Yeah, that’s not something that I don’t know. It’s sort of like we’re almost trained not to like, Jesus is going to be embarrassed. He’s sort of counting on us to defend his honor and that stuff. But there really is I mean, it’s a history of crazy in a lot of ways. And your book, I think I like the title of your book. Right. So when you talk about bullies and saints, an honest look at the good and evil of Christian history. Uh, I was I saw that, you know, it was on the front page of CNN, people talking about bullies and saints. And I think the, the, there’s a certain disarming nature to just acknowledging some of the worst and best things both exist. But do you do you acknowledge it’s mostly worst or mostly best, or do you try to move people from? It’s a lot of bad, but there’s also a whole more good. How do you how do you have that conversation?

John Dickson:
Yeah, I think it’s an impossible question to answer. Has Christianity done more harm than good, or rather, has the church done more harm than good? Because how on earth can you, you know, have the scales and weigh, you know, the Crusades versus the hospitals? Um, so my approach is more to say, let me tell you, uh, what I think the church has got wrong. And I tend to sort of reveal to my doubting audience more than they ever knew about how bad the church was. Right? Um, which is an interesting strategy.

Ed Stetzer:
Let me tell you. Think it’s bad? Let me tell you how bad it is.

John Dickson:
Exactly, exactly. You think of the early fifth century. Murder of the greatest female philosopher in the Roman world by Christians. Mm. Right. Um, so we have primary sources that refer to it. So let’s let’s name it. But then this is a good example because, um, on the one hand, I’m happy to admit that Peter, the reader in Alexandria with a great mob, murdered this great woman, Hypatia. And then I want to point out that, do you know the reason we know about this awful event, which sometimes skeptics take to exaggerated lengths? And a whole Hollywood film was made about it called Agora, or about the Christians murdering this famous philosopher woman. But what is so often overlooked is that it’s Christian sources that tell us about this and how bad it was. It’s Christian sources that say how despicable it was that the Christians of Alexandria murdered this great woman. So right there, you have the best and worst in the one thing. Um, and and Christians themselves were horrified at the behavior of this particular Christian mob. And I find, um, that through history, we could, you know, move into the sixth century and the seventh century and the eighth century and on and on. And you always find this theme that, yes, Christians have done terrible things, but it’s usually Christians who rebuke the Christians and call them back to the way of Jesus.

John Dickson:
There is this self-corrective mechanism in Christianity that means no matter how bad the Christians get, someone pipes up and says, hang on, this doesn’t look like Jesus. Maybe we’re all going to hell, you know? Um, and, and causes a reform movement to take place and the church cleans up its act. So the the challenge I put to the to the doubter is, which do you think is truer to the original form of Christianity, the murder of Hypatia, or the the embarrassment and criticism of those Christians by Christians? You know, what do you think is more true to the character of Jesus? Charlemagne’s murdering of the Saxons to make them Christians baptism or the sword, or Alcuin of York’s letter to Charlemagne, begging him to return to the apostolic way of persuasion instead of the new innovation of the sword. And I think the average doubter, in their honest moments will say it’s obvious. Only one of those is true to the original form of Jesus, which means it’s not about weighing up how much good, how much bad. It’s about what what is genuinely a reflection of Christianity.

John Dickson:
Because I don’t think anyone can Suggest that murder and violence and warfare and bigotry and hatred were Christian, unique Christian gifts to the world because the Romans were doing fine on the warfare and torture and bigotry and hatred front before the Christians came along, so were the Greeks. So were the Saxons. So were the Gauls, the Celts. Um, but what they didn’t have was the care for the poor, the building of hospitals, education for all those things did not come from Greece and Rome, or Saxony or the Celts. They came only from Christianity. So right there you you have to ask the question, what is the unique thing Christianity brought into our world? Yes, Christians have done terrible things. I’m never going to deny that. But what was the unique thing they brought? And as soon as our doubting friends are willing to come on the journey around that question, it brings us very close to the gospel, actually the love of enemy, Christ’s own self-giving for a sinful world, and that expressed in the church’s love of the outsider, love of the enemy, building hospitals for believers and skeptics alike, which is which they were doing from the fourth century onwards.

Ed Stetzer:
Fascinating, fascinating. We are. This will release just before you and I head to Oxford. We teach. We’re going to be teaching together a class there. I teach every December, and it’s the Wycliffe students and a lot of Anglican ordinands, and they bring Talbot students. And and I love bringing you in. And we’ve got this partnership that we’ve kind of forged together. And so one of the one of the sessions you’re not you’re not doing the session, but one of the sessions is on is Christianity been good for us. And there’s different things. You know, the world is it been good for women? Has it been so different sessions that were that were doing. Is that a you kind of a minute ago you said maybe, you know, that’s not the best way to frame it, but that is what we’re framing. So how would you. Frame it differently? And is it largely to you said it’s hard to. Answer that question. But isn’t that I mean, we’re going to have a. Whole session on is Christianity good for women. Was good Christianity. Good for women? It is still a good good for women. Is that an important conversation to have?

John Dickson:
Yeah, I think it’s a because it’s a question. Yeah. Um, the answer could be yes and no. Right, right.

Ed Stetzer:
Well, sure. I would think so.

John Dickson:
Yeah. So, uh, if, if it were a bold Christianity is good for women. I mean, although, you know, if we squint and try hard, we can make that case. Um, you know, the average doubter in the audience is going to put up their hand and say, but what about the Salem witch trials or the ferocious treatment of women in the Spanish Inquisition? Um, so. But asked that way, is Christianity good for. I think it’s a great, um, opener. So long as the speaker and I can’t remember which speaker is doing that particular talk, but probably someone brilliant.

Ed Stetzer:
It’s Clarice and she is brilliant. So that’ll be good.

John Dickson:
Claire Williams great. So, um, I assume she’ll be saying yes. Sometimes the church has sucked for women, like. Because that’s just obvious. It really has. Um, and there’s a sense in which you can’t rush to the good without acknowledging the missteps, but the missteps never mean you can’t then also talk about the good. And there is no doubt. Um, I mean, you can prove empirically how good Christianity was for women in, in the period of, of my specialty, because the churches were criticized for being full of women. Women rushed to the church, and pagan Greeks thought that was proof against the truthfulness of Christianity because it’s full of women, right? So, um, Christianity was good for women and partly because it told their husbands to be good and faithful. Women loved that. It said that women were made in the image of God, not just men. Um, it allowed women to do all sorts of acts of service, you know, I mean, regardless of debates we might have about what women can do today, women were really active in the early church in spreading the faith. So there is, you know, no doubt Christianity is good for women. But I come back to what I mentioned at the outset, Ed, Christians killed Hypatia, the most educated woman in the Roman world. Uh, so sometimes for political reasons, uh, Christians have also done despicable things.

Ed Stetzer:
Yeah, yeah. You you one of the things you and I have talked about, you know, when I hired you, I was running the Billy Graham Center, and I wanted to hire you. I talked about you as like, you’re from the future. And it’s a strange thing for when I say it. But you know, Australia, by now people have heard your accent. You’re Australian, you’re, you know, it’s a much more secular environment, you know, and and post-Christian clearly. Obviously. I mean, there’s still some shadows and vestiges, but but so I wanted to kind of bring you in to help Christians prepare for what if current trends continue. And that’s what trends tend to do. They tend to continue. That’s why we call them trends. If trends can continue, will be a more secular environment. But I think when you came here, it was a little jarring. The some of the political realities, the cultural realities. And you did a whole episode at Undeceptions at your podcast and you talked about, you know, Trump and, you know, and Christian and white evangelicals, all those sorts of things. I was a part of that podcast episode. People can listen to Undeceptions for more.

John Dickson:
I think you did all the talking about Trump, but go on.

Ed Stetzer:
Yeah, well, you asked me questions to be perfectly.

John Dickson:
That is true.

Ed Stetzer:
That is true. It is. It’s literally an interview. And then anyway, so So I tried to, you know, because partly true, you’re you’re a foreigner. You’re not an American. You’re you’re here as a guest. But I think that over the years that we’ve known each other, I think one of the things is that American evangelicals tend to have a different posture than Australians. Evangelicals, you’ve already lost the culture war in Australia. American evangelicals are. And, you know, we don’t know. We’re actually recording this like days before the election and releasing it later in November. So we don’t know who will have won the election, though. You will when you’re listening to this and or if it’s been settled or if we’re in the midst of a civil war seeking to settle it. Um, but but so what I would say is your posture of, let’s admit all the bad. Let’s, in a sense, admit defeat. Let’s go to the margins and speak from the margins. Um, how how does that, like, address some of the issues that Christians historically have actually advocated for the good of culture, cultural well-being that might include issues of of of marriage, might include issues of the value and role of women, might include issues of of a proper understanding of gender and sexuality, or things like if you kind of adopt that posture of we’ve lost these cultural wars, but in the US. Well, you could debate whether or not winning or losing, and people will be listening to this side of the election. How do you respond to that? We’ve talked about this, but we’ve never talked about it online. So let’s talk about it.

John Dickson:
There’s something I need to say this carefully. There’s something good about losing the culture wars and about Christianity becoming a minority. Like, visibly, according to the data, a minority because it forces Christians to see the reality that God’s principle means of action in the world are not power, politics, etc., but prayer, persuasion, service, and suffering. These four things because when you lose all political power, you think, oh, what have we got? Oh, and then you and then you open your Bible, right? Instead of just go with the culture and you find in the Bible, just take the book of acts, which is the great mission document. This is how the church won the world, its prayer, persuasion, service and suffering all the way through. And, and and you’re reminded you don’t need power to do glorious gospel persuasion. You don’t need secular power. You don’t need political power. So what I’m saying is, and I hope I’m saying this carefully, that’s the good side of losing the culture war of of becoming a minority, because you you read the New Testament the way the original readers read the New Testament.

Ed Stetzer:
Because they were they were on the margins. They were isolated. They were they were more. But but but they were. I know you’re going to the other side, but you got another side to this, because when you have cultural influence, you use it for good. Which let me just tell you, I mean, again, I’ve written plenty on the failure of evangelicals in the current cultural moment. So, so again, I’m not that naive person saying, look, it’ll be like this utopian reality, but simultaneously, there’s a good thing to actually saying that abortion is wrong, that we’re really without a lack of clarity on gender. We’re hurting and harming the next. This is.

John Dickson:
Why I was trying to say, I hope I’m saying this carefully, because I got to the end of one thing I wanted to say, and.

Ed Stetzer:
Then I just jumped.

John Dickson:
In. Yeah. Um, and many of your listeners will have. So good on you for doing that. Um, but but once you get to that point, you then go out into the world with prayer, persuasion, service and suffering. And therefore, when you lose an argument or you lose a legislative, um, vote or you lose a presidency or whatever, you don’t panic because you were already relying on prayer, persuasion, service and suffering. And I’m suggesting that that biblical, um, fourfold biblical way of doing God’s work in the world. Um, ought to apply even when we have power. So I am all for Christians being a majority. I mean, in the sense that I want to share the gospel with people, and I’d love a majority of Americans to actually believe in Jesus death and resurrection. Awesome. Right. So I’m up for a majority, but even when we’re a majority, we don’t rely principally on the tools of political power. We still rely. There’s something valuable about being a majority, having cultural sway, but only still relying on prayer, persuasion, service and suffering. I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, but this is just what the Bible teaches. Um, and all I’m saying is what happened in Australia as we became a minority and lost all the culture wars reminded us of these things. Yeah. And, and and if we, if we remember this and maybe ten years from now, there’ll be a revival in Australia and we will be a majority. And I pray that we won’t then suddenly turn to the culture war levers, to the political levers. I pray that even as a majority, we’ll continue to work on our prayer, our persuasion, our service and suffering because they are the way God does his work. Not at all denying that it’s great when Christians go into politics. It’s great when Christians become, you know, powerful in that worldly sense, so long as we don’t think the success of God’s work in the world depends on it, that’s that’s my problem. There’s too much believing that that the work of God depends on this and it doesn’t.

Ed Stetzer:
If you believe that Christians having cultural power will produce more just laws that make a better society. Um, which which I tend to say, I would say that the problem is the current cultural moment has not shown any evidence of that. So in other words, you know, we’re evangelical Christians. It’s not exactly lining up, but in and around people of character and, you know, and more. However, we do have historic examples where Christians brought a greater sense of justice when they had more cultural sway, cultural power. We can think about the, you know, banning of slavery. Now, now, now in the British, in the British Empire, now again, Empire itself has a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of loaded into that as well. So, so we have a very long track record of when Christians gain cultural power. They use it badly. So. So what do we do with that? I mean, it’s kind of like, you know, we go back to like, people keep saying, have you ever been around an American secular university? Everyone’s like, well, you know, communism was really good. It’s just not been tried, right? You know, it’s like. Yeah. So Cuba didn’t do it, right? Russia didn’t do it right. China didn’t do it right. And so, you know, the left wings of American University are saying if we just try communism, we could do it right. And I hear kind of similar things sometimes from Christians. And if we just had cultural power, we’d actually do it right. And I want to say to those Christians, can I just say the last few years have not shown that to be the case at all. So what’s a Christian to do? So and this is, you know, you’re you live in another country, you’re a citizen of another country.

Ed Stetzer:
So talk to and not everyone who listens to this as an American, but mostly mostly Americans, pastors and church leaders, that’s after the election. We don’t know if Donald Trump is the president. We don’t know if if Kamala Harris is the president. You and I don’t we matter of fact, it may not be settled yet. Like I said, we don’t. We know these things take a while. It’s not not like Australia where you guys just pick and go on. We like to. And it’s not just like recently like go back to, you know, Gore, Bush, Bush v Gore. So. Well, I make a very long question. I will tell you that in 2016, I went to bed thinking that, uh, Hillary Clinton would be the president. And I had some young intern. I said, I’ve written two articles. I want you to publish the date when it’s announced. I want you to publish which one? And and the first, the articles the first chapter, not chapter. The first paragraph in the article was different because I think if a Democrats elected, there are different conversations to have. There’s religious liberty concerns around the Equality Act, right? If a Republicans elected, there are different concerns, particularly certain Republicans whose, you know, vitriol and more and character. Et cetera. Et cetera. But, you know, the next six paragraphs were the same thing. So, so because, again, it’s prayer, persuasion, service and suffering. Right. To use your four things. So keeping in mind you don’t know the outcome of the election. What advice would you give evangelical Christians in America that would apply to others about this moment?

John Dickson:
You just gave it because the whatever is the top paragraph, um, doesn’t determine the game. The rest of the article, as it were, is what the game is about. So look, it’s it’s great if your preferred candidate wins, but the the work of God in the world does not depend on who is president. Mhm. Um, prayer, persuasion, service and suffering. That’s that’s what we’ll continue to do the work of God. So, so let’s just say um, you know Donald Trump has won and the Republicans are in and you know, they’ve swept the House and the Senate and they can do their work. Um, I, I just think that for Christians, there must be a, a, a revival of believing that God works in the world not through political means first. Yes, he works through political means. It’s great, this new gift that we have of voting for our leaders. Brilliant. But the Scripture teaches that there are other ways of doing God’s work in the world. And I just love the idea. Um, of Christians with power still relying on prayer, persuasion, service and suffering. Because when you meet Christians who hold power lightly, who still think that they have to make the case for their view, they can’t just, you know, be a bully, um, get, you know, do backroom deals to get their way.

John Dickson:
A Christian who shuns that but relies on persuading people to the good. That is gorgeous. So I’d almost say like, because I don’t I don’t want to idealize the not having power thing and being a minority. I mean, we want the gospel to to be a majority viewpoint, right? Um, so being a minority, losing the culture wars isn’t the ideal. It’s just that that can remind you of what the real ideals are. But the most beautiful thing is when Christians in the majority with power act like Jesus. That is, they use power only for the good of others. They hold power without thinking they’re better than others. They don’t bully people. They’re gentle. They’re respectful. They act with grace. They speak with gentleness. That’s the most beautiful thing. And so I, I pray that if, you know, the conservatives have won in the election, um, that, that they will not rely on power because you will not win America to the gospel. That way you’ll put people off the gospel because the gospel will look like a moral program. It’ll look like a political program. Instead of winning people to forgiveness of sins through Jesus death and resurrection.

Ed Stetzer:
So and we could point back to historically, like France, which was the most Christian nation in the entire world and now is deeply secular and eventually got to a place where, you know, kill all the priests because by fiat, by mandate, people don’t become people of faith. And I also say to that, I mean, we let’s say that Donald Trump right now is the president. Let’s just be crystal clear. He’s pro-gay marriage. He’s he’s pro-choice on abortion by state, and he’s actually spoken out against state laws that would restrict abortion, even though he said it was by state. So if he’s won, I don’t know that you can say that. The culture I mean, in a sense, I think some of the evangelical traditional evangelical concerns were sort of jettisoned from the Republican Party and, and of course, the Democratic Party. Those things to an nth degree as, as well. So either way, uh, those traditional evangelical concerns. So what would you say? And again, I’m asking you to be a little prophetic. Uh, what would you say to us? I mean, you’re you’re an outsider to our culture. Um, you know, some will object to the fact that you seem to have a romantic perception of losing the culture war. I have objected to that to you at times. Um, but but at the same time, speak prophetically to to to people who are evangelicals. Most of our listeners are not the fringy people you’ve seen get all in on the politics, but they’re they’re just trying to navigate that. What should we do? How do we people of courage and biblical conviction in this season, between the election and the inauguration.

John Dickson:
One of one very practical thing. Open the book of acts and ask yourself the question, how does the gospel go forward? Because I’m assuming your listeners ed long above all other things for the gospel of Jesus Christ to win hearts and minds. I’d be right that majority of your listeners would be on board with that. Well, open the book of acts. Ask yourself the question how does the gospel go forward? I honestly think listening to a foreigner talk about, you know, the Australian experience or whatever is not going to convince people. But if you believe acts is the Word of God, there is no way around the conclusion That God’s people don’t need to hold the reins of power in order to overturn the world, but they do need to be praying. They do need to be open and persuading. They do need to be serving, as we’re told repeatedly, that they were. And they need to suffer, as in, they need to be willing to suffer and not be grumpy. I find amongst Christians who have been used to cultural power, um, they are annoyed at the minor sufferings they go through instead of rejoicing. Um, one of the most common words you find in the New Testament in sentences about suffering is rejoice. I don’t see much rejoicing. I see people getting all smug and belligerent and punching back as hard as they received. And it’s just so obviously contrary to what the Bible says. So let’s be cheerful. I talk about being cheerful losers. And I know people don’t like me talking about that because.

Ed Stetzer:
Americans don’t like you talking that way. That’s very Australian.

John Dickson:
You’re such a winning. Such a winning culture. Um, but but what I mean is willing to lose what looks like, um, the battle of the moment. You know, Paul is, um, in Philippi, and he’s arrested and put in jail in chains, right? It looks like he’s lost, but he’s a terrific loser. What does he do? He sings hymns, and. And God lets him out. And off he goes preaching the gospel. He’s shipwrecked, he’s beaten. He’s losing left, right and center. Um, but the gospel is going forward. And he eventually arrives at Rome and he’s under house arrest. But the gospel isn’t under arrest because the last line of act says that he, you know, freely, um, persuaded people about the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ. And that’s the end of the book of acts, right? So, um, I do, as much as Americans find this annoying, I actually want to just turn up the volume. You got to become better losers. And I put losers in inverted commas because I, I actually think this is how we’re going to win people to Jesus Christ. Because Jesus was the best loser of. All right. Father forgive them. They don’t. They know not what they do. Um, this is our model. We are death and resurrection people. You know, let’s look like it.

Ed Stetzer:
Yeah. So? So I guess how then do we live that out? I think, you know, don’t be grumpy. Don’t complain. I saw, you know, I wrote an article about the Olympics controversy, and you had some sort of subtweet about Americans getting upset about things they shouldn’t get upset about, or some variant of that. Um, so.

John Dickson:
You.

Ed Stetzer:
I’d never. No, no. Not me. I’m not talking about me. I didn’t perceive it that you even read what I wrote. Um, but but you could kind of. I could just kind of tell you were meh. May. Why are these people complaining about this? And and for me? I subsequently wrote another article because then there was this backlash to people who wrote something and, well, it turns out they actually it was actually them, you know, kind of spoofing the Last Supper painting. It was those things and, and it’s like, well, these American evangelicals just get triggered. And so I quoted actually, I could have quoted 50. I actually quoted the Egyptian evangelicals who put out a statement saying, you know, let’s just not mock other people. So I’m not I wasn’t outraged, I wrote a whole book on outrage. I’m not allowed to be outraged, but I think we should be offended by offensive things and we should say things at appropriate times. And I think I said in appropriate ways, I’m not responsible for what everybody else said. And I kind of felt you were kind of like, meh. So. So what was your posture to something like that be where in my case, I.

John Dickson:
Certainly not mayor, certainly not mayor. I didn’t mean to communicate that that might just be an American mismatch. American.

Ed Stetzer:
Not the first time that you and I have misunderstood each other. It’s there’s a we are a divided by a common language.

John Dickson:
Because I, I, I, I said I think it probably was deliberate and it is offensive. It’s just that Christians should be the world experts at being offended. Um, so.

Ed Stetzer:
Just not say anything or just kind of say.

John Dickson:
Okay, no, see, this this is the thing I, I emphasize persuasion. We should have jumped in front of every camera, but done it with such a grace that the people listening thought we weren’t just pompous gits. That’s probably not an American term who? It’s not.

Ed Stetzer:
American term. It sounds really bad. So I feel bad as.

John Dickson:
It sounds who feel like, you know, how can you possibly criticize us? You know? No. And that’s that’s how it came across in a lot of in a lot of social media posts. My point was, let’s get in front of every camera, behind every mic and just say, look, do we really want to be in a society where this is the way we treat other people’s religions. Yeah, like, yeah, sure, sure I’m offended. I am, because I think Jesus is, you know, the one who gave himself for us. And so it is hurtful to me that that but but actually, I really want to ask the question, what kind of society do we want to live in? Do we want to have this kind of denigrating of religion, or do we want to be more open hearted to all religions? I don’t just mean to mine. So that’s what I’m saying. It’s it’s jump into every argument. Yes, it’s posture, jump into every single argument, but do it with good cheer and with gentleness and respect. That seems to me the biblical way people often. I’m not saying you’ve made this mistake, but but I often feel people when they hear me say, oh, you’ve got to be gentle. You’ve got to be respectful. They say, are you talking about not saying anything, man? I founded the center for Public Christianity in Australia. We were in the media every week. We were constantly trying to, you know, I mean, our, our, our goal was to sort of take the hits. Right. Um, but but we always did it, God willing, with a cheerfulness, um, that that showed that we believed Christ is above all. You can throw us in jail, you can mock our Lord. And we’re not we’re not going to become grumpy. We still know he is Lord. We just we just lament that you’ve created a society that can be that denigrating to something that’s so special to so many millions of people.

Ed Stetzer:
Yeah, I think I think posture is key. And I do think you come from a cultural context with a different level of engagement for Christians and Evangelicals in the political sphere, which complicates some of our conversations. But it shouldn’t complicate the idea that we should live as Christ called us to live. And I think right now there’s a bit of a war on winsome. Winsome is bad to some people, and I don’t think of winsome as a political strategy and a culturally happy moment. I think winsome is the way of Jesus. I think we we want to seek to live that way.

John Dickson:
So the word winsome actually comes from an old word for joy.

Ed Stetzer:
Nice. Yeah.

John Dickson:
So I you know, I understand that people don’t like winsome, but it’s it actually it’s root idea is to be joyful. Yeah. So let’s go with that. I mean, when when you’re insulted. Bless. Yeah. There you go. That sounds like what the Bible says.

Ed Stetzer:
Yeah. So. Okay. So we’re, you know, post-election, pre-inauguration country’s still very divided. People are talking about these divisive issues, and more pastors and church leaders are still trying to navigate. I think pastor church leaders did better in 2024 than they did in 2020. And 2016. Had a little more experience navigating some of these things. Some of them went crazy. We all we all saw that. It was like, wow, it’s almost like the book of Galatians level Bewitched in some cases.

John Dickson:
It’s my first election watching it from in the country.

Ed Stetzer:
Oh, okay. And it didn’t. No, it’s. Yeah. My brother 2016 and 2020 were were were this way. I think pastors just have learned to kind of navigate not not all of them. So so but now we’re still dealing with some of the the division is still around us. Our audience is pastors and church leaders. What closing exhortation would you give them to disciple their people? Well, and I and I would say to I would just really the Bullies and Saints book is super helpful and honest. Look at the good and evil of Christian history. Also, we didn’t mention a lot, but the Doubter’s Guide to World Religions, I’m actually using that as the accompanying book for the class that I’m teaching at Mariner’s in the spring. It’s coexist question mark at the end. And and it talks about where religion. So you know, I think these things help us to engage well. But what advice would you give to pastors and church leaders in closing words about how to disciple people? And still the election is over, but the division is still here.

John Dickson:
Well, I know I sound like a broken record. I, I was thinking the other day, I reckon the best thing pastors could do post-election is do a long series on the book of acts, a long preaching series on the Book of Acts and reset. How did the first Christians upend the Roman world? Ask that question of each passage you confront and and that will reset the way we think about things. It will free us from thinking. It all depends on power. It will connect us with prayer, persuasion, service and suffering and fill. Fill our people with confidence that even when it looks like we’re losing, we can win people to the gospel.

Ed Stetzer:
John Dixon. Um, I’ll look like when this releases for days away from being an Oxford. And let me remind people that every December in May I’m there. John’s consistently we do this often together, but every December in May, I’m there teaching evangelism, discipleship and the December class that’s. And then back in May, teaching Christianity and culture and theology of mission. And and I like having John along because he’s they love him. They love him. They’re he’s also on you’re on the College of classics. What are what medieval faculty of classics.

John Dickson:
Yeah. Classics faculty.

Ed Stetzer:
Right. Right, right. And then comes over with us at Wycliffe Hall, which is one of the permanent private halls there. So we’re thankful for you all. See you in a few weeks. And thanks everyone for listening to our conversation today. Bless you.

Ed Stetzer:
We’ve been talking to Reverend Doctor John Dixon. Be sure to check out his books, A Doubter’s Guide to World Religions A Fair and Friendly Introduction to the history, beliefs, and Practices of the Big Five, and Bullies and Saints. An honest look at the good and evil of Christian history. You can learn more about John at John dixon.org. And thanks again for listening to the Stetzer Church Leaders podcast. You can find more interviews, as well as other great content from ministry leaders at Church leaders.com/podcast. And again, if you found the conversation today helpful, I’d love for you to take a few moments to leave us a review. Give us a like and a follow. That’ll help other ministry leaders find us and benefit from our content. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you in the next episode.

Voice Over:
You’ve been listening to the Stetzer Church Leaders podcast for more great interviews as well as articles, videos, and free resources, visit our website at Church leaders.com. Thanks for listening.

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