Settling for Spirituality with Matthew Tingblad

Spiritual hunger is resurging, but is it leading us closer to Christ or further into confusion? In this eye-opening episode, we unpack the surprising rise of "spiritual but not religious" beliefs and what they really mean for believers today.

While headlines shout about a spiritual revival or the decline of faith, the truth is more nuanced: a global shift toward superficial spirituality, swallowing many into a dangerous blend of contradictory beliefs. Matthew Tingblad shares compelling data tracing the explosive growth of the "nones" and the subtle but profound difference between atheism, agnosticism, and genuine spiritual longing. You'll discover how most people aren't rejecting faith outright but searching for authenticity in a culture that offers a confusing smorgasbord of beliefs.

Learn about the critical differences between true Christianity and the myriad of spiritual paths competing for attention. We break down why Christianity uniquely offers a relationship—not just rules—addressing the deep hunger that no other worldview satisfies. The episode explores powerful frameworks like the "one-one-one" gospel and the importance of asking thoughtful questions to navigate this spiritual landscape effectively.

Don’t miss why embracing biblical discernment, clarity, and authentic relationships is more crucial than ever. Ignoring this spiritual awakening risks missing the fertile ground where God is working, while on the flip side, properly guiding the hungry toward Christ’s truth can transform lives in this confusing age. Perfect for pastors, evangelists, and believers eager to respond wisely and compassionately, this episode equips you to stand firm and speak clearly in a pluralistic world.

Join us to understand what’s really happening behind the headlines and how to turn spiritual curiosity into authentic discipleship. The harvest is plentiful—are you ready to lead with love and truth?

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Transcript

Brock Anderson (00:00)
Have you noticed how everyone's suddenly talking about spirituality again?

Shelley (00:04)
Church attendance headlines, Gen Z showing up, especially young men.

Brock Anderson (00:08)
Some people are even calling it a revival.

Shelley (00:11)
Others are calling it something else entirely.

Brock Anderson (00:13)
So what's actually happening?

Shelley (00:15)
Is America returning to Christianity?

Brock Anderson (00:17)
Or are they expressing a deeper spiritual hunger?

Shelley (00:20)
without clarity.

Brock Anderson (00:22)
And why does the answer matter so much right now in this moment?

Shelley (00:27)
That's what we're talking about today.

Welcome back to the In and For podcast. I'm Shelley Komoszewski and you're tuning in where we help you live in Christ and for culture, cutting through the confusion so you can see Jesus clearly.

Brock Anderson (00:57)
I'm Brock Anderson. Shelly and I work for a wonderful ministry called Sightline, formerly Josh McDowell Ministry, where that is our mission, to cut through cultural confusion so people see Jesus clearly.

Shelley (01:09)
Hey, you know what day it is? It's kind of a big deal. Happy anniversary, Brock. It's our 13th episode. Woo-hoo! Can we have like that backfill stuff with cheers and confetti?

Brock Anderson (01:17)
Yes.

Yes, it's just... And then just imagine, you'll have to imagine the confetti, but it's amazing. It's all over the place. It's covering the floor. We're knee deep in confetti. But it does mean we've been doing this for a full year officially.

Shelley (01:23)
Mm. ⁓ that's it!

a whole year.

year of conversations about faith, culture, confusion, and how Jesus meets us right in the middle of it all. And honestly, I don't think there's any better topic to mark this moment than the one today, because right now, spirituality is having its moment in the spotlight.

Brock Anderson (01:54)
Yeah, we've seen a lot of headlines where people are just constantly saying, people are coming back. They're coming back to spirituality. They're coming back to church. They're coming back to God.

Shelley (02:00)
Yep.

and data shows that people are searching.

Brock Anderson (02:06)
And the stories all have one certain thing in common that something real is definitely stirring.

Shelley (02:13)
So today isn't a hype episode and take a deep breath. It's not a fear episode. I'm calling it a discernment episode. Ooh, that kind of makes us feel smart, does it? so we hear the term, perhaps you've heard it too, SBNR, spiritual, but not religious. Help us understand what that actually means, Brock.

Brock Anderson (02:23)
Forgot my glasses to look smarter.

Yeah, I mean the question is are people, are they rejecting atheism?

Shelley (02:42)
Are they rejecting church?

Brock Anderson (02:44)
or are they rejecting shallow answers to deep questions? Well, to help us think clearly about this, you all have seen those watching us on video, there's a third person here and you've seen him before. This is Matthew Tingblad, who's been living at the intersection of research, theology, and real conversations for quite some time. Matthew is an author of a phenomenal book called, Why Did God Do That?

Shelley (02:47)
Hmm. Yes. ⁓

Brock Anderson (03:09)
which helps people confront really hard passages in the Bible that seem to contradict God's goodness, but through proper interpretation actually show how God is good and faithful to his people. And he has another book coming out in the coming months on this very topic, a critical book, set to be published soon. And it's about why spiritual longing is rising even as religious affiliation declines.

Shelley (03:26)
Press.

Mm-hmm.

Brock Anderson (03:37)
Matthew's

been immersed in both the data and the stories behind the data for quite some time.

Shelley (03:42)
Yeah, that's so important because numbers without interpretation can oftentimes be misleading.

Brock Anderson (03:48)
So Matthew, welcome. And before we react to the headlines, help us put a name on what's actually happening or just put some parameters around what's actually going on.

Shelley (03:50)
Yay! ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Matthew Tingblad (03:59)
Yeah, so I'm really grateful to be here. Thanks for having me on to talk about this important topic. Obviously, a lot of people are thinking about the rise of spiritual interest these days. And how we understand this is a little bit of a trick, depending on the kind of information that you're pulling from and how we interpret this and so forth. You were talking about spiritual but not religious, and that is a, I don't know, relatively new term that people started using, but it wasn't always the case because for a while, this wasn't a thing, not in the way it is today.

And when people really started paying attention to this, actually goes back to a different metric that, like, I think it goes back to a different metric called the nones. I think James Emory Wright wrote a book called The Rise of the Nuns. And I'm not talking about like monastic Catholic women. I'm talking about people who, when surveyed about their religion, they don't check the Christian box or the Buddhist box or the Hindu box. They check none, none of the above. And one of the, one of the,

Shelley (04:36)
Spell that please.

Matthew Tingblad (04:55)
One of the popular studies that people look to for this is the general social survey. It's kind of the gold standard for the state of sociology or like social issues in the US. And one of the reasons this is such a huge survey is because it's been going on since like the 70s. So back in 1972, religious nones was at 5%. And it stayed under 10 % all the way up until, I'm looking at it right now, all the way up until 1996.

a lot of a lot of years. And then in 1996, it hit 12%. You keep going a little forward 2006, 17%, 2012 20%. Like this is rising fast. And then it peaked in 2021 at 28 % of people who say that they don't belong to any religion than nones. Since then, it's plateaued a bit, gone down a little bit. Now we're at 25 % since they're a 2024.

stats that they have public here. But what I'm trying to show is like this is a fast rising thing. It has plateaued a little bit as far as spiritual nones are concerned. But here's where it gets really interesting. Because if you think about nones in the US, people who just don't subscribe to any religion, if you're like me, you're probably thinking, okay, this is atheism. But when you look closer at the stats, it's just not. There is a Pew survey that looked at

those who identify as none, how many of the nones would call themselves atheist and it's 17%. So 17 % of about 25 % is less than 5 % of the US are atheists. That's not a lot. And you know, for us, like working in apologetics, oftentimes we think that the big conversation is atheism and things have just shifted. But even still, so you have another 20 % who are saying they're agnostic.

Shelley (06:29)
Alright.

Matthew Tingblad (06:41)
and then 63 % say they're nothing in particular. So they're not atheist or not agnostic. They didn't check that box, but they would say, just don't really belong to anything. Exactly, yeah, there's some spiritual element that they still see in themselves. And so they're not willing to call themselves atheist or agnostic. They're nothing in particular. So if we look at those stats, like there's another Pew research.

Brock Anderson (06:51)
Yeah, you have the majority saying that they're spiritual.

Matthew Tingblad (07:06)
that said those who simply identify as SBNR, if you ask them, spiritual but not religious, is 22%. So that was another Pew Research thing. We're talking like one in five people are thinking this way now. Yeah.

Shelley (07:17)
I was just thinking that, wow.

Matthew Tingblad (07:20)
Yeah.

Shelley (07:20)
So maybe

the headline isn't faith is dying and it's not revival is here. Maybe the takeaway is people are hungry and they're trying to feed that hunger somewhere.

Matthew Tingblad (07:31)
I think so. And I might also comment that there's stats that we're hearing about the rise of like Christianity. I mean, the same general social survey shows that Protestantism has risen in recent years, which has been previously on a slow decline. Maybe you've heard people say how Bible sales have gone up, church attendance has gone up here or there in certain ways, men are coming back to church.

Shelley (07:52)
Yes.

Matthew Tingblad (07:56)
is what people are saying and seeing. And so there's a lot, there's, yeah.

Shelley (07:58)
Are you seeing that? Our last baptism, it was five

young men under 30.

Matthew Tingblad (08:05)
exciting. That's cool. And so we have these things happening too. But what's really interesting as we look at the rise of also just spirituality in general, that also means a rise of just a whole mix of spiritual beliefs. And so if we look at say the state of theology published by I think Ligonier did this, they're finding some really unsettling numbers of people who identify as evangelical Christian

who are denying core beliefs of the Christian faith. And what this shows is I do believe that people are, there's genuine interest in Christianity. I mean, since Charlie Kirk's assassination and before that, people are genuinely coming to Christ, but at the same time, the narrow road to knowing Christ has become perceived as wide.

Shelley (08:47)
That's interesting.

Matthew Tingblad (08:47)
And, right,

and so with that, you get numbers going up for Christianity, but it might not actually be genuine Christian faith in the historic Christian tradition.

Brock Anderson (08:59)
Yeah, that's I think that's an incredibly good point. You said a lot of just really powerful things there that I know is extremely helpful to those listening and watching just to add some context to what's going on when they see the headlines that can feel a little bit competitive, like, which one of these is actually happening? And I think that's helpful. I love the mention about the it just it feels like atheism is everywhere.

It feels like especially when you're in the realm of apologetics or you're looking to study more deeply of how to explain the Christian worldview, when you're explaining it in an example or an analogy, it's almost always an atheist that's on the other side of the analogy. And so it just feels like I'm gonna catch an atheist somewhere. Like I'm gonna confront an atheist on the sidewalk or in the store. Like they're just gonna be everywhere and they're just gonna be like, hey, I have a argument against Christianity.

Matthew Tingblad (09:24)
Sure.

Brock Anderson (09:46)
But as we've seen in research, I know Pew Research set out, I think it was last year, about how atheism is actually on the decline. Like you mentioned, 5 % of the nones. But we have, I think it's 1.6 % of the globe are atheists. And that peaked in 1970 at 167 million people and is down to 145 today. the trajectory is only headed.

downward even more. So we see the spirituality trend. We definitely want to grab onto the truth that it's not just a U.S. thing. This is a global event that's happening. And the good news is that Christianity is strong. We do see this kind of ⁓ pluralistic idea of Christianity in the U.S., but we also see good, strong, orthodox Christianity just continuing to...

Shelley (10:16)
Right.

Yeah, that's important.

Brock Anderson (10:37)
grab hold around the world. when I think of, you know, 50 % of Africa today identifies as Christian as opposed to 10 % century ago. And in Asia, I know that I mean, that's, that's a lot. And we, and we have a, yeah, yeah, it does. But even in like Asia, there's 415 million people that identify as Christian, but it was just 250 million in 2010.

Matthew Tingblad (10:48)
Yeah, gosh.

gives hope for this country, my goodness.

Shelley (10:55)
Hahaha!

Brock Anderson (11:05)
And I know the stats, there's some debate about the fullness of this, but the rise of Christianity in China is not debatable. It's just how fast it's rising, because China obviously doesn't release these numbers. But it's considered to be a relatively true statement that the number of Christians in China will outnumber the number of Christians in the United States by just as soon as 2030. And these are just

like amazing truths about Christianity that we see globally. But with that comes a little bit of more disheartening news about just generic spirituality that's been skyrocketing. And the problem being that spirituality can really just mean just about anything. And it feels safe. Like spirituality feels safe.

Shelley (11:44)
Yeah.

Brock Anderson (11:57)
because it feels like, if I just kind of say I'm spiritual, then I've caught every possible potential for who God could be. So I'm in a very safe place. And maybe the universe is God, maybe there's one God, maybe there's multiple Gods, maybe there's no Gods. I'll just kind of hold all this kind of stuff in tension so that way it's a catch all. But what I end up, what we end up doing and what people end up doing, and I think if you've already talked about Matthew with the note on a pluralistic society is that,

We're picking and choosing what we want to believe from competing belief systems. And it creates a spirituality, so to speak, that can't possibly be true because it's created from contradictory worldviews. And that's a dangerous place to be.

Shelley (12:41)
Right, that.

It reminds me, Matthew, of your illustration of, is it the medicine cabinet?

Matthew Tingblad (12:48)
Yeah, yeah. So I actually kind of for sake of illustration, I have a bottle of pills right here. And sometimes this is kind of a way to think about it. So if I just said, hey, I've got this bottle of pills here, do you want one? And like, what's the first thing that comes to your mind when I give that question to you? What is it? Because you know that that matters and some pills are dangerous and some of them are not. The problem is a lot of people

Shelley (12:53)
Of course you do.

What is it?

Matthew Tingblad (13:12)
don't think that way about spirituality. But if Christianity is true, we really ought to, because there is much to be said in the Bible about the dangers of alternative spiritualities, and that there really is demonic forces out there trying to deceive us, trying to pull us away from the truth. You think of the sons of Sceva, in Acts, Acts chapter 19, who thought that they could use Jesus as a kind of talisman to assert

serve their purposes and do exorcisms and they left the place naked and bleeding. I mean, just like be careful and people don't think this way. They think that spirituality is like your favorite flavor of ice cream or like a pop in the soda machine that you can kind of just choose what you want. But in reality, there are safe and unsafe ways to engage with our spiritual life that God has given us.

Shelley (13:59)
Yeah, it's not just a little Jesus, a little astrology, a little mindfulness. That makes a dangerous medicine cabinet. I like that illustration.

Brock Anderson (14:09)
Yeah, and I like that the point's kind of made here. It's not combative. It's not rebellion. It's not rebellion in the sense of what we're seeing. There's definitely rebellion against God when we don't follow who he is. But it's not this anger or rebellion that we're seeing. It's truly confusion. It's, yeah.

Matthew Tingblad (14:26)
Yeah, yeah, and I'm glad

you bring that up because a lot of people when they see, especially like older generations, when they see younger people trying out different things and I mean, gosh, there's some research on like the number of Christians who are also visiting psychics and believing in ghosts and things like this. Like you said, this isn't necessarily rebellion. It's just that spiritual interest has risen so much and there's so much mixing of spirituality. People just think this is how you do religion these days.

Shelley (14:54)
Josh McDowell years ago used an illustration of standing at a vending machine and putting your faith. I'll take a little bit of this one, a little bit of this one, a little bit of this one and mix it all together. That's really interesting. So you're right, spirituality is never neutral, It always, always shapes us.

Matthew Tingblad (15:01)
Hmm.

Brock Anderson (15:16)
Yeah, I think that's a great point of it always shaping us and it's never neutral. I'm always headed in a direction toward a certain truth. And I think this is where a lot of people get stuck because when they think about where religion is heading, it's like, well, hey, spirituality is a good thing. I'm heading towards spiritualness or I'm heading toward being spiritual. So isn't that a good thing?

Shelley (15:24)
Right.

Matthew Tingblad (15:37)
Right.

Shelley (15:38)
Right.

Brock Anderson (15:42)
And I think even as Christians, we can see spirituality rising. I think that's great thing that people have more spiritual interest. Well, it's a good starting point for a discussion. But we still have to answer the question, why Christianity? As you have a rise in interest in spiritual things, why consider Christianity? Because a lot of people that are interested in spiritual things, they often hold this view that, hey, I see in these

various religions that I get these commonalities I should probably be a good person and I should probably treat other people well and I should probably be very mindful of kind of who I am and how I act and how I think. Don't all religions kind of basically teach the same basic principles? And we have an opportunity to show them that yeah, there are similarities among religions and there are major, major, major.

differences and it's the differences that matter and ⁓ It reminds me of a Greg Koukl from stand to reason years ago. He gave a great example where he talked about when thinking of approaching different religious worldviews He talked about approaching two white pills on a table and he's like, you know from a distance they look very similar

They're both small. They're both white. They're both round. They both seem like they're made of the same kind of stuff. They both have two yellow pill bottles next to them. And so there's a lot of similarities between them. And it's only until, it's only when you get really close to those pills and you look closely and examine each pill that you see that one has an A on it for aspirin and the other has a C on it for cyanide.

Shelley (17:20)
⁓

Brock Anderson (17:20)
and that's

only one difference between those two pills and that difference means everything. And we see that in religious worldviews as well. So you see Christianity has one God. Well, Hinduism has millions of gods and Buddhism has no particular god and Mormonism has millions of gods and Jesus isn't a god and Jehovah's Witnesses, there's many gods and Jesus is just one of

Shelley (17:28)
Right? That's the

Brock Anderson (17:49)
one among many instead of God over all. And Islam has one God, but Jesus isn't God or a God. He's just a prophet, but Muhammad has to be followed and must be considered to be a prophet in order for you to ascend to be with Allah. And so these differences are critical. I mean, they prevent you from going outside of a worldview to another worldview.

You can't believe there's millions of gods and also one god at the same time. So the differences prevent anyone from following more than one of these worldviews while actually also pursuing truth. And so one of these worldviews is true and right, and the rest are poison.

Shelley (18:34)
It reminds me, ⁓ I think that's so helpful. I think it was C.S. Lewis, but I could be wrong should have fact-checked this. But when he was in the university and they were listed, all of the various religions were on the board somehow. And looking at the differences, that there aren't really a lot of differences. And I think it was him that walked into the room and said, all of these are man trying to get to God.

And Christianity stands alone that it's the only one where God came to man. And so I think, you know, when we're looking at all these different

religions and all these different options to be able to lean into what Josh always said, Christianity isn't a religion as most people think about religion. It's not primarily about rituals or rules. It's not about self-improvement or special spiritual techniques that earn us God's favor. Christianity is about relationship with the person of Christ.

Matthew Tingblad (19:32)
Yeah, I mean,

every other spiritual system ultimately says, here's what you must do to reach God. Christianity is just radically different.

Brock Anderson (19:40)
Yeah, God came to us in Christianity. I've heard it said, you we've all heard this say in very clever ways, but you know, another way is ⁓ every other religious worldview on the planet says, says, do, here's the things that you have to do to ascend to God or to please God to be acceptable to him. And Christianity is the only religious worldview that stands aside and says, done. It's been done.

Shelley (20:05)
⁓

Brock Anderson (20:05)
God accomplished this on

Shelley (20:07)
I like that.

Brock Anderson (20:08)
our behalf, where we have to trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ and humbly submit to God as somebody who has fallen short of his requirement of perfection and say, God, I can't do it, but you did. And I trust what Jesus has accomplished. And it's just this beautiful dividing line. And God, as I say several times, as I've said several times,

had no obligation to make Christianity so beautiful and so marvelous and to give us this offer of simply trust and belief to be with him for eternity and make it so clear that any other attempt, any other religious worldview that's out there makes it so clear that you are climbing an unscalable mountain, that you can never get to the top. You can never do enough to please God. You can never be certain.

that you've done enough, you will always feel like you are unworthy and unable to be at the place where God would accept you. And Christianity says you're accepted because of Christ.

Shelley (21:09)
So beautiful.

Matthew Tingblad (21:09)
And this is

the opportunity we have now with the rise of spiritual interest. A lot of people think that like kind of shedding religion and just being a spiritual person is a kind of maturity. But in reality, like as evangelists, as witnesses in this world, if we really know the Christian story, it just becomes plain that Jesus in Christ alone is so much better than all of these alternative like religious and spiritual worldviews. In fact, what's interesting is,

One of the major books in the New Testament that talks about kind of mixing and adopting other spiritual practices is Colossians. And what you might expect is that when Paul is bringing up, you know, like worship of angels and all their other spiritual philosophies, he's gonna just dive into how dangerous all these things are. And they are, I mean, we can talk about that, but what Paul does in Colossians is he just gives this beautiful image of Christ in chapter one.

and then works through these different systems of beliefs and says none of these compare to Christ alone. It's kind of like that famous C.S. Lewis quote comes to mind in The Weight of Glory. I have it pulled up right now. He says, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum.

because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. That's Lewis in The Weight of Glory.

Shelley (22:35)
Mm. Mm.

Brock Anderson (22:36)
Such a great quote.

Shelley (22:38)
Yeah. I think this is so important as we talk about the rise of the spiritual, you know, Christianity speaks so unique to this hunger because hungers can't be satisfied by information. It's satisfied by relationship.

Brock Anderson (22:39)
Yeah, that's powerful.

Yeah, true meaningful connection. And I think that's something we have to think carefully about as we reach into the next generations and Gen Z and Alpha and even Beta as they're starting to rise up. And we have to think carefully and approach them carefully with this idea of meaningful connected relationship. And this is what

Shelley (23:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brock Anderson (23:20)
Christianity brings that no other worldview brings because they're not looking for a better rule book.

Shelley (23:25)
Yeah, they're looking for something or should I say someone? They're looking for what's real.

Matthew Tingblad (23:31)
Mm-hmm. I recall when I was in seminary years ago, I'm showing up for, I think it's like a 9 a.m. class. So it's a morning class. And one of my students, or yeah, one of my fellow students comes in, you know, right before class starts and he's beaming. He's really, he's just, something amazing happened. And so we're like, dude, what happened? And he said, I led someone to the Lord today. And we're like, already? Like, it's...

9 a.m. like what were you doing? And he said that he was going on his morning walk and he was just at this, I think like a crosswalk at some busy street, know, waiting for the signal to turn green so he could cross and somebody else was also there walking, waiting for the signal to cross. So they're just kind of standing there together and he looks over to the stranger and he just says, hey sorry this might seem a little random but are you at a place in your life where you want to learn more about God?

Brock Anderson (23:55)
Already.

Matthew Tingblad (24:21)
And the guy's like, well, actually, yes. And so long story short, he led him to the Lord just there on a street corner. But what's so wild about stories like this is we kind of forget that people really are searching. People really are open. And sometimes it's just a matter of popping a question to be like, do you want to learn more about God? And they're like, yeah. And then it happens, you It's wild. Like this is the world we live in. And that kind of story, I think,

could be happening a lot more if we had the courage to pop the question more often.

Shelley (24:55)
Oh, that is so good. So good.

Brock Anderson (24:58)
Yeah,

yeah, that reminds me of a book I read a long time ago where he had talked about the religious, the conversations that we imagine about Christianity, that we bring up a spiritual topic or we ask somebody, you know, where they are in their spiritual journey or if they think about spiritual things. And what we imagine is somebody being very combative and argumentative and getting upset.

And after having hundreds of these conversations, he was like, well, here's what usually actually happens in reality. The person politely responds with, I don't really think about that often, and then stops. And I have the opportunity to say, well, would you like to hear what I think about this very important topic? And the other person says, well, yeah, I guess. I'd like to hear what you think. And they go on. They talk. And maybe the person

goes all the way to trusting in Christ and hears the gospel. Maybe the conversation gets cut off. But he was just like, nine times out of 10, it's a very polite and cordial conversation where the person is actually very thankful that you took time to notice them in a world where everybody is just trained and conditioned to ignore everybody else. But you identified them as a person and just wanted to talk to them about something important. And it's why we don't dismiss this data about the rise of spirituality. We don't dismiss.

Shelley (26:09)
Right.

Brock Anderson (26:12)
this hunger that we see, we have a greater opportunity and more probability of starting a conversation with somebody when you transition to a, that makes me think about spirituality in general. What do you think about that? That a person is more likely today, even in the book written many, years ago, that they were likely then, they're more likely today to say,

You know, I have been thinking about that. You know, what do you think? And you have the opportunity to share what you believe about who God is. So we don't want to dismiss that hunger that we see.

Matthew Tingblad (26:41)
Mm-hmm.

Shelley (26:42)
Yeah.

No, want actually, want to help people aim it at the right place. this is so good. Matthew, I'm so glad you're on the show today. We get to this point about this time in the show and we just want to give people practical and actionable next steps.

Matthew Tingblad (26:56)
You

Brock Anderson (26:56)
Me too.

Shelley (27:04)
So if they're hearing this and going, wow, there's a whole generation that is curious about spirituality. But spirituality, so my first takeaway is spirituality does not mean Christianity. So don't confuse curiousness with conversion. But it's an excellent place to start, right?

Questions are not necessarily faithlessness. They're often just the beginning of the conversation. So don't confuse the spiritual interest into theology, but it's a great place to start that people are open. So what do we do with that, Matthew? What's another takeaway?

Matthew Tingblad (27:41)
Yeah, so kind of under the same strain of thought, we need to not assume that just because people are kind of nodding along with the Christian faith that they actually hold to these values. I worry about pastors today because many of them, you know, they might be great pastors preaching Christ, preaching how salvation works and atonement and all this, and people in the congregation might be nodding along being like, yeah, yeah, but...

If this really is a culture where we are kind of picking and choosing our own spiritual preferences, then that means you're not going to put up a fuss when somebody thinks differently than you. And that can mean pastors might be under the impression that the attitudes of the people in their pews is reflective of them, like, affirming everything that the pastors are saying. That might not be the case. I mean, you just look at the...

Shelley (28:14)
Mm.

Matthew Tingblad (28:27)
some of the like the state of theology again by Ligonier, if you look at that, you can google this yourself, 2025 state of theology and look at what evangelicals are saying, it is wildly different than what we expect. So, I say that kind of for pastors but also just for conversations in general that as we have conversations about Christ, we need to be mindful about the way that our culture sort of digests these ideas today and be very clear. So, this starts with even how we present the gospel.

One of the ways that I like to share the gospel now is I call it the one-one-one gospel. I said that there's one God, creator of heaven and earth, he loves us, he wants to be in relationship with us. There's one problem because of sin, we have been separated from God and there's one solution. God in Christ came down and died on the cross to pay for our sins and now he offers us new life that he's been resurrected and so forth. So one God, one problem, one solution. If you can remember those three points,

Brock Anderson (29:10)
you

Matthew Tingblad (29:19)
then you are prepared to give a gospel presentation to people in a way that really holds firmly to the fact that it is Christ alone, which is a message that just needs to be extra clear these days.

Brock Anderson (29:31)
Yeah, I don't think that could have been said much better than what you said. I think it's so important to offer Jesus clearly and not just throw out casual references to church or things like that, but to to when that opportunity comes up to make it clear, it's like this is who God is. This is who Jesus is. This is the solution to the problem that we have.

Shelley (29:31)
that's so good.

You

Brock Anderson (29:55)
And leave that result to God. I know we're moving into evangelism a little bit, and that's fine because, as you know from the standpoint of our ministry, apologetics is the heartbeat of evangelism, or evangelism is the heartbeat of apologetics. The point of apologetics is to lead to the gospel, to remove objections to the gospel. And so to present Christ clearly is so important in culture today when there's so much pluralism and there's so much picking and choosing from different religions.

So just mentioning the name Jesus and then defining who that is can be so helpful. And I think another good takeaway is just learning the habit of asking questions. And when we've trained people in evangelism in the past, it's always been like, when you're presenting the gospel or you're sharing the gospel with somebody or even in apologetics, 90 % of the conversation is listening and only about 10 % is talking because you can't.

Shelley (30:34)
Ooh, good.

Brock Anderson (30:49)
address what they're dealing with unless you know what they currently believe or what they currently hold. And so when you're hearing them mention things about spirituality, you can ask those questions of, what do you mean when you say spiritual? I'd love to hear some more about what you mean when you say spiritual. What does that word mean to you? And as they share, like, well, hey, here's what I believe. This is what I think is true. It's like, well, hey, where did that belief come from? Where did that originate from? Where did you first hear that or read that or?

Shelley (30:54)
So good.

Yeah.

Brock Anderson (31:19)
taught that to you or in a genuine posture of curiosity and that has to come from an authentic place of curiosity as well. And then, hey, what's the ultimate hope of holding that true? Like what do you hope to come true from that belief that you have? What's your ultimate hope in? And allowing them to walk through that and as you ask those questions, you're able to learn more and more and more about what they hold and why.

Shelley (31:23)
Right.

Brock Anderson (31:42)
which gives you the ability to do what Matthew just talked about, to be like, okay, this is how I can share who Christ is in the context that makes the most sense to this person and where they are right now. So learning to ask good questions, that matters a lot.

Matthew Tingblad (31:56)
Absolutely. And in light of what we've been talking about, I mean, we've got to. If somebody says, believe in God or I believe in Jesus, what does it even mean anymore? Right? So we ask the questions and here's the, to kind of punt it back to evangelism again. After you hear people talk about their life and express their views, then it's really not a hard transition to say, well, hey, could I tell you a little bit about how I think about these things? And usually they'll say, yeah, because they just...

Shelley (32:04)
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Tingblad (32:21)
like because you just gave them the courtesy to listen to them for a while, they'll probably be like, okay, I'll listen to you now and then you're off.

Shelley (32:27)
Wow. Love that. Just a reminder that we don't engage the world by being louder. We engage it by being clearer, which is the heart of sightline ministry, formerly Josh McDowell ministry. For 60 years, we've been about what? We want you to know what you believe. Absolutely. But more important, we want you to know why you believe it. To have convictions that go so deep it changes the way you engage with God.

Brock Anderson (32:28)
Yeah.

Shelley (32:54)
with the relationships closest to you and with the world around you. Final thoughts, Brock, on a great episode.

Brock Anderson (33:02)
Yeah, just what you talked about before, for 60 plus years this ministry has been dedicated to helping to equip Christians and so that final takeaway to just stay anchored in what is true. Discernment does require depth, does require prayer, requires knowing the Word. Scripture matters, truth matters. Staying anchored is critical.

in all of these conversations, especially when you're helping people navigate through the sprawling topic of spirituality. It really does help these conversations reach people who are navigating faith in a very confused culture.

Shelley (33:41)
Well, I hate that our time is gone. Matthew, we could talk about this all day long, and I know we have at times, but thanks for being on the show. And thank you, listener, for joining us to In and For podcast. If this conversation helped you think more clearly or love more wisely, would you take a moment to like, share, or subscribe? It helps us reach more people.

Brock Anderson (34:03)
Yeah, and be sure to tune in in February. We talk about the rise of individualism, what that looks like, what its implications are, and of course, as always, the opportunity it provides us to have meaningful conversations that lead to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Shelley (34:20)
Well, thanks for spending part of your week with us as we help you be in and for Christ and in and for culture. And that's it for today.