On this edition of the Evangelists Podcast, we're going to talk about the terrible trap of talking about God.
SPEAKER_01The Evangelists Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. Today we're talking about the terrible trap of talking about God. Before we go on, I'm just wondering if you get our free daily prayer bulletin. It's a small twenty-four page booklet that tells thirty-one stories of what God is doing around the world. Did you know that the gospel is reaching people in Romania, or that Slovakian school pupils are studying the Bible in schools? Or that North Korean Christians pray for us in the West? Well, you can hear more about it in our prayer bulletin. You can get it free of charge by going to revivalmedia.org slash bulletin. So Glenn, we're talking about the terrible trap of talking about God. What do you mean? I mean this is what we're supposed to be doing.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast. It's the Evangelist Podcast. We're Christians. What else are we going to talk about? Well, I don't know if you've had the same experience of of talking with a friend about God for hours and hours and hours. And uh at at some point in the conversation you you think to yourself, hang on a minute, are we even talking about the same thing? Uh, because their definition of God and your definition of God are so utterly opposed. Actually, the the real question is always, which God? Like which God are we talking about? And God in general is not always a helpful topic of conversation. Right. Um God in general could be anything or anyone, but not the God of Jesus. So talking about Jesus, and talking about specifically the God of Jesus, is a a wonderful thing to do, but it can be a terrible trap to continue talking about God.
SPEAKER_02Because I guess I mean there are thousands of religions. Yeah. Which God do you believe in, you know, is is an appropriate question. Yeah. And perhaps, you know, for atheists even which God don't you believe in? Yeah. So how do you sort of clarify that with people?
SPEAKER_00I I think, yeah, sitting with their objections for a lot longer than we do, um and and taking them seriously. We you know, we our our best downloaded podcast on the Evangelist Podcast is what the atheists get right. It's been downloaded sort of like three times as many as any any others have been downloaded, I think like ten thousand times, wasn't it? That that one episode. And I think what we're talking about there is is similar to what we're talking about here. What if what atheists get right is a rejection of the kind of kind of like Bigfoot in the sky God. You know, that there's this sort of understanding, certainly among some new atheists, that God is a little bit like Bigfoot, you know, and they're they're prepared to say, well, maybe Bigfoot does exist. If you show me the evidence, if you if you you know, give me the video footage, if you give me the the photographs, and if you catch if you actually manage to capture Bigfoot and bring him in, then you know, I'm a reasonable human being, you're a reasonable human being. We'd all have to, you know, change our minds if the evidence came to light. And and I will consider the same thing about God. If evidence comes to light that God exists, then I will change my mind. And but, you know, I don't see any evidence for that kind of God, and therefore I reject that kind of God, and I'm an atheist. At that point, I want to say, come on, I I reject that God too. Like I don't believe in a Bigfoot in the sky, like I I really don't. And you know, Christians believe that God is the source of all being. He's not like a super being within the created order. And as much as you want to rail against and and you know have your tirades against Bigfoot in the sky, then I will add my hearty Amen. And so will the Bible, so will the prophets, you know. Go to go to Isaiah and and you'll read some brilliant stuff about the ridiculous nature of idols, which is which which is so much of like the God delusion, for instance, is pretty much talking about the idol delusion, you know, because Richard Dawkins is taking aim against a created god, you know, you know, he he can he says, Well, God cannot exist because he would need to, you know, have a creator. And you know, well who made God? Ha ha ha ha. Um well if he's just considering a created god, then yeah, absolutely, such a god does not exist. Um we tend to have a name, as yeah. This is um what John Lennox always says, you know, Christians also have a name for a God who's created, and they're called idols, and the you know the Bible is also against those. So, like if you want to rail against a big foot in the sky, then don't let Christians get in your way. Please, by all means do that. But the God who Christians talk about is a fundamentally different kind of being. A father always giving life to his son in the power of the Spirit, who brought through this overflow of their life and love, brought into being a whole cosmos, so that now we live and move and have our being in this God, this God who now by his son has come into the world and taken hold of our flesh in Christ, and and and Christ who has glorified that flesh through death and resurrection and brought it back to himself as the as as the first fruits and taken humanity into the heart of God and you know all these sorts of things. Christians have a really weird view of the world, but uh a such a grander view of the world than some kind of bigfoot in the sky. So when people talk about I believe in God or I don't believe in God, the question is always which God do you believe in, which God don't you believe in? Because it's the slipperest term in the world, we always need to define it, really.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So how far would you take this? Uh would you call yourself a theist?
SPEAKER_00I don't like to call myself a theist, to be honest. I I don't really like because the the whole problem with saying like there's there's theists over there and there's atheists over there, and in between there's agnostics, is it's it doesn't really work. It's not as though there's this umbrella term, and under the umbrella fit all the different religious type people who believe in some kind of god, and then outside that there are people who are unbelievers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, or unsure or uncertain, or 'cause you were on this faith forum, weren't you, which was sort of a number of different faiths all on the panel answering questions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Theists. We were all theists together. And so yeah, this this is uh something put on in Eastbourne uh a couple of years back, and it was the Faiths Forum, and and uh I was sat next to there was a Mormon next to me, and then then there was a Jew, there was a Muslim, a pagan, and a Christian scientist, um Mary Baker Eddy thing. And uh so there were six of us sat on this panel, all supposedly theists together, and in the audience it was mainly kind of agnostick-y, kind of atheistic-y kind of uh audience asking questions of the faiths, mainly to make sure that we weren't gonna kind of plunge the world into World War III with our religious hatred and all that kind of like, you know, are we gonna play nice, nicely in secular society? It was th those kinds of questions being asked. But like the whole time I just sat there thinking, why isn't an atheist on this panel and a humanist and an agnostic? And why why aren't there people who don't happen to believe in a God but but have a set of beliefs? Why aren't they also on this panel? Because everyone's got beliefs about stuff. Richard Dawkins is a naturalist. That doesn't mean he walks around in the nude. Um that's that's a s a philosophical position that matter and energy is all there is, was, and ever shall be. And I put that in religious-sounding terms because it is a religious kind of belief. It's it's a belief in the kind of reality that we inhabit, and it has all sorts of consequences for how you live and and what you consider the good life to be, and how you should treat your neighbour, and what you think life's all about, and what you think it there is beyond death, and it has all sorts of beliefs associated with. And I am not a believer in the naturalism thing. I believe in the Jesus thing. Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, he believes in the naturalism thing, and he doesn't believe in the Jesus thing. But it's not as though I'm a believer and he's not a believer. It's just that we believe in different things. So when it comes to like, am I a theist? Well, y I d I do believe in God, but I don't believe in a lowest common denominator God that that is the same as the God of the the Muslims, the God of modern Judaism, the God of philosophical theism. I d I don't. Like, I believe in the God of Jesus, and I and I don't think that the term God is is this lowest common denominator thing that can be used to uh to apply to lots of different kind of faith positions. So yeah, I I resist I resist the label theist when I can. And it gives you the chance to then explain what you mean. You know, I I've got a friend who uh it it just turns turns out I didn't I've I've known her for since 1996. So oh my goodness. Is that like 18 years? It's coming up for 18 years. Dreadful. So it only came out the other day that her uh grandfather was a famous Unitarian Universalist. Uh Unitarians they don't believe in the Trinity, so that they don't think that Jesus is God. They just believe in some kind of God who is the God of the whole you know, all religions and, you know, they're all paths up a mountain and and universalist, you know, everyone gets to heaven and, you know, to be with God forever, this Unitarian God. And was quite a famous Unitarian Universalist preacher in England and and wrote quite a few books and and we got talking about that and um and she said that the unit Unitarian Universalist thing always seemed very attractive to her. How could I be so narrow in talking about the Jesus thing? And I was just able to say, well, actually, I I think it's a really attractive thing, because what the Christian position is, like, whoever God is, and we're not really sure who God is, are we? And she wasn't sure, she didn't know. She's like, Yeah, I don't really know who God is. I said, Well, okay, whoever God is, I'm banking on the Jesus God. Yeah? Look at Jesus, look at this guy who comes among us and lives the most extraordinary life ever, of of love and self-sacrifice. I'm banking on this guy being God. And and you know, and I I told her the line that that Lord Byron used, you know, if God isn't like Jesus Christ, he ought to be. Uh and just like the Christian position is not there's some kind of God, I'm not sure how Jesus fits into that. The Christian position is, well, I don't know who God is, but look at Jesus. Oh my goodness, wouldn't it be great if he was God? So at that point, not being a theist, but being far more concretely a Christian, actually started to sound appealing to her. Because what we're saying is like we don't know who God is, but but Jesus, if Jesus is Lord, my goodness, isn't that very attractive? I think that I think that's more the way around that we should be arguing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And it sh kind of shows that you know God is involved in the world. Yeah, yeah. Um would you say you believe in an interventionist God? Um An interventionist meaning that uh you know God has made the world and set it going and then occasionally um steps in?
SPEAKER_00Occasionally steps in. We we we will allow God we will allow the interventionist God to every now and again make an intervention. It's the sort of question that gets asked in sort of surveys. Um when people want to get particular about the kind of God that the general public believes in, they'll say, you know, do you believe in God? Yes, no, whatever. Um do you believe in an interventionist God? It sort of narrows down the number of people who then believe in gods. People are are happy to believe in a god who creates everything and then steps back, a deistic god, a kind of a clockwork god who just lets everything run. But what about a god who makes interventions into space and time? So do I believe in an interventionist God? No. No, of course I don't. Like, because like he's not intervening. Like, like this is his world. In him we live and move and have our being. The whole earth is full of the glory of the Lord Jesus. You know, it's it's not as though every now and again God makes a decision. I'm gonna, you know, reach my hand into the machine and tinker with this cog and this wheel and make it go back a little bit or speed it up or and and then I'm gonna withdraw my hand, and then I'm gonna make like that is such a silly view. But what it goes to show is everyone assumes they know what the world is like. Everyone assumes that obviously we all know that the world is like clockwork, and it does just grind along of its own accord. But there's these other people called interventionist Christian believers who believe that there's a God who also does some weird freaky stuff with the machinery and tinkers around with the cogs. Whereas I, you know, the agnostic secular person, I don't believe in such an interventionist god. Like, yeah, no the Christian doesn't believe in an interventionist god either. The what the what the Christian does is fundamentally call into question what is the world like that we live in. Is it really this clockwork thing that grinds along according to iron laws of physics that that just sort of perpetuate themselves? Or maybe, maybe is the Bible true in him we live and move and have our being. And and actually it's not just that we've got God wrong, we've actually got the world wrong. I think so much of our evangelism takes for granted that the world is a quite non-spiritual, neutral space. And then we get caught up in arguments about like, well, what kind of God might there be above and beyond this neutral space? But at that stage you're not really arguing for a Christian view of the world. The Christian view of the world is not that downstairs is the clockwork and the m the mechanics, but upstairs does the weird freaky ghostly spiritual stuff. The the Christian position is that the whole earth is full of the glory of the Lord Jesus and and we are living within the living and the moving, the having uh our being within this this God, not this God sort of entering in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we've uh I've got a quote here from Francis Spufford. He wrote a book called Apologetic, How, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Make Surprising Emotional Sense. And he says When people who believe in God talk about God, we don't mean that a being exists who is animal like ourselves, only bigger and cleverer and more complex. We don't think he lives in the universe. In fact, we don't think that he exists in any environment. We don't imagine that he had to grow or evolve or appear or emerge thanks to some process or another. It's the other way up. We think that all processes exist thanks to him. We think that he is the universe's environment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. He is the universe's environment. It's not like God is the Bigfoot in the sky. And and if uh an atheist wants to shoot the Bigfoot in the sky, then fine. But they ha they haven't taken aim at the Christian God. They re they really haven't.
SPEAKER_02So it's not so much where is God in the universe, but where is the universe in God?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, the universe is in God, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So this takes another a look really at the at the questions of suffering. You know, people sort of say, why didn't God step in there? or why won't God help in this situation? Why did he allow this? Um rather than looking at it and saying, Well, God is with us in this suffering. You know, he sort of experienced this suffering with us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, in Jesus. In Jesus, absolutely. And and and that's that's where we should go with this whole thing. That we're not talking about God in the abstract, but Jesus concretely and particularly. So that questions about, well, what about God and suffering? We really need to be talking about Jesus front and center in that question and bringing in, well, yeah, actually, what does uh Isaiah 63 say, in all the people's affliction, God too was afflicted, and the angel of his presence, another title for Christ, the angel of his presence saved them and delivered them. And and it's that's that's always the way the Father, out of compassion in for our suffering, sends Christ into the midst of our suffering, into the midst of the valley of the shadow of death, to take on our flesh, and then on the cross to take on our sin, our darkness, our God forsakenness. Um so that when you look at this God, the God of the cross, then you know, you you ask the God and suffering question in a different way. You still have questions, but you don't say, Well, how can God and suffering fit together? Because you've seen at the cross how God takes suffering into himself. And yeah, there is the suffering Lord Jesus. And I think that transforms the kind of conversation you then have when you put Jesus at the centre of it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, Glenn. So uh it's quite deep here.
SPEAKER_00So uh We're drowning.
SPEAKER_02Just to summarize for us uh this topic.
SPEAKER_00Talk about Jesus. Do you want the longer version? Um Yeah, there it there is a danger to talk about God. Which God are we talking about? And so often what's being aimed at in antagonistic discussions of Christian faith is is also something that we should take aim at. So absolutely, we we can agree with so much argument that is against God, and yet we are those who believe in God, not the Bigfoot in the sky, but God the source of all being, the Father, who gives life to his son in the Spirit, who gave life through the Son to the world, who entered the world through his son, and can be known through his son. So that in evangelism, what we're talking about is not God in the abstract, but Jesus in the concrete. And if we don't know how to put Jesus at the centre of a question about suffering, or a question about what about free will, or a question about what about other faiths, or a question about what about religions causing war. If we don't know how to put Jesus at the centre of those those answers, then we don't have an answer for those things. And we need to go back to our Bibles and pray a lot more and and think about how Jesus is at the core of those answers. Um, because just talking in the abstract about God will get us lost down a whole heap of cul-de-sacks. Uh let's talk about Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Well, we better leave it there for for this episode. If you uh like listening today and you like listening regularly, perhaps you'd just like to share it. Uh you can do that by going to revivalmedia.org slash tep39. There's some links there where you can hit the share button or just uh email it to somebody you think might be interested. Or if you'd like to leave us a rating and review, you can do that through the links on that page as well. Thanks very much, and see you next time. See you next time.