Embarrassed to Say You’re a Christian? Nathan and Cameron on Misrepresentation and True Faith

Nathan (00:01)

Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host Nathan Rittenhouse.

Cameron (00:05)

and I'm your cohost, Cameron McAllister.

Are you embarrassed to be a Christian or are you embarrassed to admit that you're a Christian in front of others? You're not alone. We've all been there. Stick around because this will be helpful to you as we talk about hypocrisy, the public representation of the church, but then the importance of being able to speak about Christianity in plain speech, particularly for those who don't have any real familiarity with it in the first place.

As always, like, share and subscribe. And if you want to support the work that we do, you can do that by going to www.toltogether.com.

Nathan (00:07)

And we're going to talk about being embarrassed about being a Christian, which is, know, obviously not comfortable territory for anybody to think through. And you might be saying, I am a bold proclaimer of the gospel. I'm not embarrassed of my faith. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. You've got that Romans 1 16 verse in your mind. You're ready to go. But here's the thing, Cameron, I think as Christianity bubbles up into cultural, political,

all sorts of other areas and categories of our lives, we're going to continue to find ourselves as a perennial problem, perennial issue of saying, here's somebody who's talking publicly about Christianity, who's giving a certain perspective of Christianity that I want to have nothing to do with. Therefore, that person does not represent me or what it is that I believe, and I would rather not be identified with that. And so, you're not embarrassed of your faith, but you might be embarrassed of a particular manifestation or articulation of it.

And just start to feel like you know what I'm going to hold back publicly on my affiliation with Christianity Unless I can be the one who very clearly for two hours can sit down and to describe to somebody This is exactly what I believe but not like this person and not like this person and I don't believe that but I do believe this and unlike that and I'm not affiliated with that and this person says this but I'm not really like that and this person is popular and is on this podcast and the New York Times says this but that's not me like it's just the death of a

Cameron (01:20)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (01:31)

trillion qualifications in order for you to articulate what it is that you actually believed, contra what you think might be a flippant, flamboyant, overly politicized, or morally skewed version and vision of what you actually hold to be true as a Christian, and it just leaves you ⁓

Help us.

Cameron (01:51)

What do you think is the overwhelming kind of stereotype of Christians nowadays? It's changed. It changes with the decades. So in the not too distant past, the 1940s, let's say roughly from probably the, I'm talking about relatively modern times, so 20s to the 50s, Christianity had a reputation as being good for society.

You know, even if you weren't a Christian, you assumed Christians, you know, they're morally upstanding citizens and they make positive contributions. I'd say overwhelmingly, that is not the case now. But how would you say specifically people would characterize it now? You say Christian and what are the associations that come to mind for somebody who's not a believer? I've got my own. I mean, I can throw some out there, but.

Nathan (02:46)

Hmm. you... Okay. So

let me give you... I can't... So we can talk, historically, what we think might have been the case. Let's just use our own lives. So, you had... You know, both of us were young people through the New Atheist. All religions are filled with idiots. Like, you have to be knuckle-dragging fools. Christians are stupid. So, that was certainly a predominant narrative for an extended period of time. And I think...

Cameron (03:05)

Yeah. So stu- stu- stupid. Yep. Yep.

Nathan (03:13)

That's mainly fated. You can still find that. Go read the comments on a Sam Harris YouTube video. I mean, it's still out there, but it doesn't have its cultural prominence in the same way that perhaps a vision of Christianity as a politically successful system now is part of the broader conversation. And so it still is important for politicians to give some sort of a nod or and I think this is a Tom Holland error, not error, error.

Cameron (03:34)

Yeah.

Nathan (03:43)

⁓ Christianity of saying it brings stability and upholds certain values of liberty and freedom and responsibility and ⁓ Consequence and it's it's a yeah. It is a ballwork as a foundational element in which it ⁓ Supports the framing of the world that we enjoy at this moment That's the positive version of that with the everybody who's not that and doesn't appreciate that version

Cameron (03:57)

We'll work. Yeah.

Nathan (04:13)

Just sees it like a heavy-handed hammer that is here to squash all of the fun and to throw itself in the path of progress and knock the Utopian vision that we see progressive ⁓ ideology and technology leading us into so it's either the ball work or it's that it's it's either the the safety rails and iron core concrete foundation below us or it's the anvil on our head that's trying to squish us, but those are both framed in a

political vision of what Christianity is.

Cameron (04:46)

I think that's a thoughtful answer. Yes. In the past it was, yeah, if in the past it was Christians were stupid. Now for some it's Christians are dangerous. If you take the negative side of that, if you think, yeah, you've, if you look, if you look at it, somebody like.

Nathan (04:59)

Mm-hmm. Well, you either have removed Christianity

and it's dangerous to culture or insert Christianity and it's dangerous to the individual.

Cameron (05:05)

Mm-hmm.

Right. So yeah, some people look at a Doug Wilson, they think, hey, this guy has some serious answers and here's a positive constructive direction that we need. Others look at him and say, this is theocracy. This is extremely dangerous. This is terrifying.

Nathan (05:26)

We've been trying to

get away from this for a long time.

Cameron (05:29)

But you use the word political, that's an important one. So I do think that in recent years, mean, we live in a largely, our public spaces are largely secular. I mean, there's a growing openness to spirituality and religion. So I'm using secular in a carefully qualified sense. I just mean in our public areas of public debate and the sort of the public square, it's still,

styles itself or at least tries to aim for the ideal of a kind of neutral space now, whether that's even possible or not is another question, but that's how it styles itself. in that space, we talk about how everything's politicized nowadays. Well, yeah, because politics kind of becomes the final place that you go to get stuff done. And so it's a lowest common and not correct.

Nathan (06:21)

Yeah, it's the lowest common denominator. It's the only thing we still all have in common.

Cameron (06:28)

Right. So with that as your context, it makes sense that Christianity today is highly politicized because everything is highly politicized. So that's what's happening. know, Christianity still plays a major role in public life in North America. It played a major role in the past. So naturally it's going to be highly politicized. So those are some of those.

Nathan (06:50)

Well, there's an easy solution to

this.

Cameron (06:53)

What's up?

Nathan (06:53)

Well, you just deny that the other category exists. So, regardless of what flavor of Christian you're representing here, or where you lie on the political spectrum, you can't just deny that there are Christians in any other categories. ⁓ I've taught a class before where the class could not believe that historically there were Christians who were Democrats. It wasn't even a category that registered in their frame of reference that that was a real thing. ⁓

Cameron (06:58)

Mm-hmm.

Right. I've heard that before

too,

Nathan (07:22)

So you don't have to engage with a sense of, how do we figure this out? Or do we have a ⁓ deeper, common identity here? It's just, and it's super easy to not engage with people who see the world differently. If you don't like what the New York Times says about Christianity, don't read the New York Times. Easy. And if you like about filling the blank of who you do think represents the well, your YouTube feed will be filled up with that and you don't have to worry about it.

Cameron (07:37)

Of

Nathan (07:51)

I think this is a unique challenge for people who are trying to think missionally and read broadly and understand the culture and who just engage with non-Christians on a daily basis who would look at your aunt as lovely as she is like she had three eyeballs because she's a Christian.

Cameron (08:07)

Hmm.

So just a little bit of perspective here. This is, it's the, it's a much more serious kind of issue to deal with when it involves your, your faith and your convictions. But this is something that happens in other areas of life as well. So what, know, when you're a part of a certain, when you, you are an ambassador of a certain group or community. So if there's an instance of police brutality, for instance, that makes the news.

You know, if there's a kind of a media focus on police brutality, as there has been in the past few years, I had several friends who were in law enforcement. I'm sure many of you listening, whether you're in law enforcement or know people who are, they would tell you that practically the outcome of that makes their job very difficult on the ground. They may be very good at their jobs and they may be very responsible and they may be trying to be as just and fair as they can.

Nathan (08:59)

Mm-mm.

Cameron (09:08)

But the public perception is colored because they are, when they put on that uniform, representatives of that group. Same is true of soldiers. You know, if there's a military scandal or something like that, same is true of athletes or something like that. You know, whether if you're a football player. Yes.

Nathan (09:22)

But even small companies or local— there was just guy at my house.

He's like, I don't like to tell people I work for the state road. I'm like, what? You build roads and bridges? And he's like, yeah, but people are always mad at us. So, I just don't say that I work for the state. I mean, that's not a politically— that's not a deeply controversial category. Most people would be happy that there's somebody who plows the snow off your road and removes the dead animals and paints lines on the road.

Cameron (09:36)

See? Sound familiar? Yeah. Right.

Nathan (09:48)

Even within that there are times in which we feel like we identify with the public mistakes of other people and so we just pull back

Cameron (09:55)

So I'm trying to say that to also just try to, if some of you are sitting there feeling guilty, I'm trying to help you not feel guilty and just say, and try to paint this in a compassionate light. Let's say if you're a pastor and let's say you're on an airplane, you're traveling to some pastor's conference and it's a regular news week, which means there have been some notable, horrible scandals involving Christian leaders.

And it's on, you everybody's talking about it, lots of political stuff involving the president. And you happen to be seated next to somebody on a plane. This person turns to you and starts talking and you make some small talk and yeah, yeah. And then this person starts going on and on about the absolute outrageousness of some of these Christian figures and all of that. And then says, by the way, so what do you do? If, if you're hesitant or

Or if you choose to give some sort a evasive answer, these are the very real practical circumstances where I'm not going to fault you for that. We all understand. We've all been in these positions. I've been in this position so often on an airplane thinking, if I answer what I do here, this is going to, I better put my, it's not that I have to defend or anything like that. It's just,

the whole dynamics gonna change now and I have to, and it's gonna, there's gonna be a lot more work involved just in the sense that I'm gonna have to carry this conversation a different way. Yeah.

Nathan (11:29)

So that's it though. That's

where you put the thing. It's the amount of work. So you're gonna run into this if you haven't already. You're working on something in the kitchen around the house and one of your kids runs up to you and says, explain World War II to me.

Cameron (11:35)

Mm.

Nathan (11:45)

you're like, ⁓ man, like there's because on one hand you one day. Yeah, so there's a sense in which You're like all the amount of work that has to be done in a short amount of time in order to do justice to this topic because they have no other frame of reference of Geopolitics or anything you're like, wow, this is a to do this. Well, there's a three-hour conversation here. Watch this youtube video.

Cameron (11:47)

Mm-hmm.

One thing led to another.

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (12:14)

On the flip side, probably do

Cameron (12:14)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nathan (12:15)

need to have a short summary and understanding of that, that you could articulate. But, we're living in a time now that is post-Christian enough, outside of the Christian bubbles, that the person that you sit to who really doesn't know another Christian, and doesn't have enough of the supporting background details and amounts of information that would be needed in order for you to even explain what your denomination is, why their denominations, what you mean by certain words. ⁓

I had a year or back, had a phenomenal conversation with a young guy. ⁓ Where's that flying? I forget. Atlanta to...

Pennsylvania somewhere, I think. Anyway, ⁓ it was a really, really deep spiritual conversation and I used zero Christian words. We talked about salvation and forgiveness and redemption and reconciliation and fullness of life, ⁓ peace in our relationships and with God. But he had no... and he was an open book, super curious, very... but I mean, we're talking zero... like the language was not there.

You couldn't be like, like, know what Psalm 23 says? No, you didn't know there wasn't a Psalm or that there are 20 or even 20. And so it's, it's that kind of thing that I feel like we feel like we're living in this frustration of in order for me to have this conversation. Well, I have to start so far back and do so much work in order to justify and articulate what it is that I am, that it just can feel, I get it when people feel overwhelmed by the task.

Cameron (13:51)

I often turn to a great philosopher when these things come up. His name's Woody Allen. But I remember one of his films, a mom is distraught because her son, played by Woody Allen in the movie, doesn't believe in God anymore. And so she's yelling at the dad saying, your son doesn't believe in God anymore. He wants to know why there's evil. Why were there Nazis? Because why were there Nazis? I don't know how the can opener works. I don't know why there's evil.

I think some of the difficulty here too is, yeah, there's a lot of work in front of us, but also we don't want to fall into the no true Scotsman problem here with Christianity. Yeah. Because at a certain point you have to, we've got to accept that we're part of the crooked timber of humanity and we have to accept that. So there are a lot of Christians who.

Nathan (14:31)

Well, so this is where I think we should go. Yeah. Say more.

Cameron (14:49)

do a lot to make the church look bad, and I'm one of them. I think we need to start there. Now, there are people who do a much more dramatic and spectacular job of making the church look bad. It has to be said. There are degrees here, but we all in our unique ways fall short. mean, who among us is going to say, you know, of all the Christian representatives, I think I'm pretty good.

Nathan (15:01)

Yeah.

Yeah, I've got this.

Cameron (15:18)

I think I can

stroll out there. I'm pretty confident. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. As Christians, we also have to give lip service to this fact, but do we really believe it? There was one true, authentic, perfect human being in all of human history. His name was Jesus Christ. He's the one to whom we look. Your cheat code in these conversations is always to, first of all, to acknowledge

and not try to qualify, not try to distinguish yourself, but to point to Jesus who is himself. He's the head of the church. So he's your main representative.

Nathan (15:52)

So, Well said.

Here's the affirmation and the pushback. was at Q &A at some university. I can't remember what it was, but this kid comes up and he was hot about something. He's like, Christians say this, but Jesus taught this, and they're not doing what Jesus said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

I mean, he looked at them and said, why do you call me Lord, Lord, you don't do what I say? What else do you agree with Jesus about? He's like, it was hilarious. I'm saying Jesus himself had the same critique of why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do what you say? I don't think, I don't know. There's never been a time in which I'm embarrassed by the church living up to the standards of Jesus. It's not where we're in conformity with the way of Christ. There's nothing of that that embarrasses me. In fact, I'm proud of it.

Cameron (16:32)

DARE YOU!

Nathan (16:51)

It's the places in which we deviate from it, and specifically, it's the places that we deviate from it in the context in which the other listeners don't know what the standard actually is. So, the difference is, when this young man came up, he could say, Christians are saying and doing this, but this is what Jesus said. I'm saying we're now mostly engaging with the world who don't know what Jesus originally said, don't know that that position is hypocritical to the life, death, resurrection and teachings of Jesus.

Cameron (16:55)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nathan (17:18)

and just start to assume that that actually is what Christianity is. That's where I'm like, ⁓ great, now we've got to start way back and we have a lot of work to do. So, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel as it is. I am ashamed, oftentimes, of an overly manipulated, individualized, economized, politicized, self-idolatrize, self-grandizing vision that gets flaunted out there. ⁓ And that's where I'm a little bit like...

Cameron (17:46)

Well, that's why if you walk through with people who are so, you know, who now the phrase being used is deconstructing, but really just calling into question their, usually their Christian heritage or their upbringing, you'll find that, well, this is a little different from what you've said. So you're talking about the, I'm talking about people with a Christian heritage there. You'll find that there are a lot of, a lot of issues that can be discarded there that are just purely cultural Christianity. It's not the real stuff. And once they discover the real stuff, it's a, it's a very different conversation.

Nathan (18:11)

Right, yeah.

Cameron (18:16)

But then there are others, Nathan, who are coming to it from a place of and complete ignorance. I'm not using that in an insulting sense, meaning there's total biblical illiteracy. have no familiarity with Christianity whatsoever. I'm ⁓ sure this is true of a lot of people who were born in Portland areas or Boston or San Francisco, some of the major urban areas or some of the different states. This will vary by geography. So when it's somebody like that, all they have to go on

is what you've just mentioned, Nathan. The headlines, the people who are publicly representing themselves or styling themselves as Christians, often for highly manipulative purposes. for a long time though, even in the 80s, in the heyday of, or the 70s and the 80s, the heyday of televangelism, this did a disservice for a lot of people because they assumed, this was for many people, this is what they thought Christianity was. These people who were

televangelists, thought, well, guess that's Christianity. Wow. That's, that's, that's a very strange religion. yeah.

Nathan (19:18)

Well, let me give you a more

on-the-nose version of that. You do also have, in our recent political conversations of what percentage of white evangelicals voted for Trump or a Republican candidate, okay, those people probably all have very distinct Christian convictions and beliefs than Donald Trump does. However, for everybody who doesn't know that, Trump is the most informative theologian and representative of what Christian character is. So, that's the kind of thing that

Cameron (19:37)

Mm-hmm. Correct.

Nathan (19:47)

I'm talking about here, where we have some work to do. Yeah.

Cameron (19:48)

That's exactly the thing.

So, there is no easy answer to that other than that we need to be ready to put in the work. Now, once again, there is a cheat code here and the cheat code is the Sunday School answer. You want to go to Jesus, but like Nathan said, he said, I had this whole conversation with this very open person and I used no Christian language. Now, in my experience, those of us who

live as Christians in Christian communities, we're not, unless we're in kind of sort of frontline ministry of some kind, we're not generally in the habit of speaking about Christianity in non-Christian terms or doing away with that Christian language. That does require some preparation, some practice. I had to do the same thing.

Nathan (20:41)

And I was, to be clear, I was

not being vague. I would say there's a 95 % chance that that Sunday that guy visited a church. Like it was a on-the-nose heartfelt to that. wasn't shying away from any of the truths of the gospel or who I'm just, yeah.

Cameron (20:49)

Yeah.

No, just-

just using plain language. and even those of us who like C.S. Lewis, everybody, they're always going off and, you ⁓ we have transcendent longings, we have, those are really vague phrases that a lot of people, or you have some sort of, you know, we have restless hearts. Christians use the word heart in a very unique way. It's just thinking through that and trying to translate this into plain speech, not vague speech, plain speech. I had a similar conversation also on an airplane, Nathan. Mine was with a ⁓ soldier.

There was a little bit more Christian furniture there, but there was deep wounds and hurt because he had had friends perish on the battlefield. He had seen just horrible things. And so this was very much a conversation about evil.

Nathan (21:38)

But the gospel

is meant to engage reality, not words.

Cameron (21:45)

Yes, absolutely.

And I mean, again, an instructive example is to look at the way Jesus talks to those around him. I mean, think about something like his interactions with the woman at the well, where he's very clear on, I mean, he calls out very clearly in sort of prophetic mode what she's doing, you yeah, yeah, you've had five husbands and the one you have right now isn't your husband.

But he's talking very clearly in terms of worship. He meets her on her own, in some of her own, on her own ground in certain senses, but then is ready to take her beyond it and kind of really expand her vision of what is possible. Cause if you remember that whole conversation is all about worship. Well, you you, your people, you know, she's a Samaritan woman.

Nathan (22:39)

smartens you.

Cameron (22:40)

Two things against her right here. She's a Samaritan and she's a woman and he's alone and a man and talking to her. So this is quite an amazing scene. That's why the apostles, by the way, are so shocked when they see him talking to her. But she says, you your people say, of course we should worship at the temple. We have this different location. you know, on the one hand we could look at that and he could just, he could think, you know, if we were in his shoes, oh gosh, where will I even start with this lady?

She's all hung up on buildings and sites of worship. And, you know, we're talking about our father in heaven and the expanse of nature of worship. It's not about buildings. It's about where our worship is directed. So, but he, he does that and he, walks through it with her, acknowledges some of the mental furniture that she's dealing with right there, sites of worship, the temple, or the place on the, you know, on the mountain that she's focused on.

Nathan (23:16)

the

Cameron (23:38)

But then he talks to her about a day, an hour is coming and has now come when we will all peoples worship the Lord in spirit and truth. Now there's no way she can possibly wrap her head around everything that he's saying right there and then. We have to grow, if you become a Christian or if you start to follow Jesus, you grow into, yeah, being a Christian and taking hold of all of that, but yeah.

Nathan (23:52)

Well, yeah.

So let me just follow up on that point because it's in line with where I was wanting to clarify something. There is a difference between feeling frustrated with the cultural technological representation of your faith. There's also a sense though, which I think people start to feel that a little bit about their own church. And it was deeply freeing for me at the point that I recognized that all healthy churches are off balance.

or unbalanced. Like, if you have a church where you're like, wow, everybody's got it sorted out, we have this lined up neatly and nicely, and everybody knows what to do and how it all works, and they've been here for three, like that is an unhealthy church. Because the fact of the matter is, like, unless you're always reaching just beyond what you can actually pick up, you're not missionally engaging the world. So, if you have all the resources, but you don't have any of the chaos, you've withdrawn too far. Now, if you have all chaos,

No stabilizing resources you you've gone too far in the in the ambiguity of your teaching But a healthy church is always going to be right on that balance between having the right amount of ⁓ stability to who they are at their core and a desire to reach really far and lift and and once I came to recognize that a church without chaos and difficulty is an unhealthy church That freed things up for me

And I was talking to grandpa about this and he's like, yeah, because he's like, think about how this happens. We introduce people to Christ as they become captivated with who he is and understand his promises and his calling. We baptize them and then we expect God to change them throughout the rest of their lives. And because deep core changes and habits in the formation of who we are in our relationships take a long time to change, obviously our church is going to be packed full of people at every stage on the journey along the way there.

⁓ And so, if you don't have people that, on one hand, you're like, my goodness, they're crazy, what's going on here? You're probably not fulfilling the core of what it is that the Church is supposed to be. And if you don't have some people who are like, these solid people who been here for 40 years and are great pillars of the faith, you're missing something there too. But the diversity and the internal chaos is a sign of success, not a sign of brokenness, rather than the other way around. So, when I talk about

silliness that happens under the roof of the church. I'm not meaning that locally. I'm meaning that as a ⁓ more of a meta technol... technological level.

Cameron (26:31)

I Nathan, you have a household of four children. I have two, so my life's not quite as interesting. But anybody who has kids knows that there is that various stages of maturity. Well, if Christianity is true, and we're all God's children in the church, that should give you a very vivid kind of intimation of everything Nathan just said.

stages. You could say this in different ways. You could pick your metaphor. You're in different places on your spiritual pilgrimage on your journey, different stages of maturity. that's going to ... the word I hear most often used to describe a home with lots of kids, whether we're happy, we only have two, but when people come over or we go over to somebody else's house, we're like, all right, welcome to the chaos. Or you could climb into somebody's minivan. Welcome in.

Welcome to our chaos.

Nathan (27:32)

Kick a spot for your feet. Yeah, that's what we say. Would we like was somebody stops by? They've never been to our house before we say welcome to our home. It looks like this because we live here And and the same thing is and the same thing is true with the church of like welcome to our chaos. It looks like this because we come in all manners of of brokenness and disheveledness, but we're trying to grow towards something here together and

Cameron (27:43)

Yeah.

Nathan (27:56)

and people find a community in which we can be truly known and truly loved as we pursue that. That's different than a ⁓ detached theoretical... Yeah, okay, sorry.

Cameron (27:59)

Okay.

Well, think about what

you just said earlier. That also applies. Think about when you go into a space that looks like that's perfectly ordered. It's absolutely bright, immaculate. Nobody lives here. What you're describing about, yeah, an unhealthy church where you have everything is so, there's a hyper

Nathan (28:17)

A hotel room.

Cameron (28:34)

focus on control and order at all costs. But the feel is that it's too immaculate. Nobody can actually live here. It's worth bearing that in mind too, because a healthy home that allows for healthy growth, people in different phases and different stages, it'll look like people live there. A church, a healthy church, it's going to look like people, when a church is roomy enough like that, then all health breaks loose. Just kidding. Yeah.

Nathan (29:01)

There's a way to say it. I think

then Cameron, maybe to bring us back around to where we're talking about sort of a, where are the times in which we might cringe at the public representation of Christianity would be the times in which Christianity is used as if it's overly tidy and it has a political and powerful vision that will make all the crooked lines straight and, you know, clarify everything and will, well,

Cameron (29:26)

one size fits all ⁓

Nathan (29:29)

maybe not even that, a sense in which it brings a sense of ⁓ political order and stability that the gospel was not intended to bring. ⁓ It's being represented as something that is in a different category than where I most often see it so beautifully flourished. And maybe that's the part there that I want to recognize, is to say, from my experience, this use in this context is a wonderful thing.

also historically and in my experience when it's used as a...

for manipulation or coercion or for organization outside of the ethos. It gets back into this, if I speak in the tongues of men and angels, yet have not love, I am a resounding gonger and clanging cymbal. There's a sense of, you know, if I give all that I possess to this poor and sacrifice my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. There's a sense in which there are moments in which we can begin to use the core foundational elements, which have been great, that have sprung out of Christianity.

but the political manifestations have been secondary byproducts of a culture of love and charity and grace and redemption and forgiveness and the value of the individual and so forth that lead into this that just have not worked well coming from the other direction down. so it's, it's not, ⁓ actually embarrassment isn't the right word. It's a frustration of saying, we're trying to put the cart ahead of the horse here, but a horse in front of the cart is a, beautiful thing. And so that's the, I think, think maybe, ⁓

Thank for this therapeutic conversation for me to try to kind of work through. How do I, and then there are other times in which ⁓ somebody will do something dumb in public and you will have to say, yes, I do largely agree with him on most of the things that, So.

I'm not embarrassed because that's us.

Cameron (31:22)

Lots of,

right, yeah. So learning to the vital skill of distinguishing cynical uses to which Christianity is put from the genuine article, that's one task. Also, but also then being willing in other circumstances to stand out from the culture and face being ostracized.

and sometimes mocked or ridiculed. That also comes with the territory. That's not new to Christianity. Also,

Nathan (31:48)

Mm-hmm.

Public shaming is baked right

into the foundation of Christianity. Crucifixion is not for the prudish.

Cameron (31:57)

So, there you go.

And also recognizing that we need to operate with the proper anthropology here. This is especially helpful in our conversations with other people when we talk about hypocrisy, which is very serious. We take hypocrisy very seriously, but nobody took it more seriously than our Lord. So that's a great place to go, as Nathan did in that Q &A with that disgruntled questioner.

pointing out, wow, yeah, you're in profound agreement with Jesus. This people worships me with their lips, but their hearts are far away, quoting Isaiah there. So all of these are helpful practices as we think through this. There's no fail safe methodology for dealing with this when you're talking one-on-one with person, because persons are unique and the circumstances and the context are going to kind of determine where that goes. But I think

Having those principles in mind, know, distinguishing true Christianity from the same cynical uses to which it's put and also, you know, operating with a proper anthropology, being willing to face ridicule, that's important, and always being prepared to point to Jesus. And I think the other big takeaway here is learning to speak about Christianity in plain speech, not vague and not deliberately obscure it or anything like that. I mean, people will

people, vague terminology is easy to use and get away with, but to speak clearly. I think those are some helpful guiding principles. At least those are some takeaways for me after this conversation. But you have been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope.