[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of the Stumble where we're having meaningful conversations from a Christian perspective about faith, doubt and how the heck those two things can live together in your life. My name is Sam Tennell and I'm your host. Before we get too far into today's episode, let me take a second to thank the sponsor, Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville, Missouri. Emmanuel Fellowship Church's mission statement says this as Christ pours into us, he pours out of us. I love that mission statement for a lot of reasons, but the main one is this. That's really talking about an overflow kind of ministry. The idea that when individuals find life and joy and freedom in Christ, they will have an abundance of love and joy and freedom to share with the world around them. That's really what Emmanuel believes in, is seeing individuals find life and joy and freedom and share it with those in need it. So if you're in the St. Louis area, come check out Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville. It is a Christ filled community where you will find love, acceptance, joy and the Gospel of Jesus. If you live in the St. Louis area, I also want to give you a personal invitation for the rest of 2025. I am personally going to be setting aside time in my schedule to sit with people who live in this area who are working through their own doubts and struggles. This isn't for the purpose of recording an episode of this podc.
It's just to give people a safe place to process what they're going through. If you're listening to this podcast and it's still 2025 and you live in the St. Louis area and you would just like another voice on your team to help you work through and process what's going on in your faith journey, I'd encourage you to reach out. You can find
[email protected] that's hellofcstl.com email me there and we can schedule a time to grab a coffee and sit, talk through whatever you're going through. This is actually our second to last episode for the first season of the Stumble. We're wrapping up the main stumbling blocks that came in through our first round of surveys. After our interview today, we'll have one more episode where I'll meet with the guests just to kind of discuss this first season and some of the main themes that we saw come out in those conversations. We're excited to continue this conversation in season two and so next summer we'll be doing some of the same stuff over again. If you have questions or concerns or doubts or even things you'd love to see us dig into further or explain more, please reach out. We're going to be sketching out season two over the next several months and hoping to release that to you in 2026. But let's come back to today. I'm really excited for today's episode. We're going to be talking to Tim Montgomery. Tim is the youth pastor at Fellowship of Wildwood, a church here in the community. And we're going to be talking about just the plurality of religious belief. We're going to talk about how Christianity sits within the larger spectrum of world religions and Christian faith. And, and really the question of whether or not the diversity of religious belief should cause us to doubt the specific claims that Christianity makes. So if you're the kind of person who has dug into world religion or comparative religion, I think you're going to find today's episode interesting. So let's jump straight into it.
Okay. I am here with Tim Montgomery. Tim is the student pastor at Fellowship of Wildwood, a sister church to my own church here in west St. Louis County. Tim, you're going to do it better than I will. So why don't you take just a second, introduce us to yourself, give us a little bit of your background and then your ministry that you're engaged in now.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. Thanks. First of all, thank you for having me on. It's, it's an honor to be able to do this. So my name, yeah, Tim Montgomery. I am not from the St. Louis area. I was born and raised in Ireland. I was born in Belfast, Ireland. So lots of people know that for all the troubles and stuff, I was kind of born at the tail end of some of those. And my parents were sent to the Republic of Ireland as Baptist missionaries back in the day.
So I went from a Northern Irish context to a Southern Irish or Republican of Ireland context. And, yeah, that was kind of my context for growing up. I was a church planter kid. I was a missionary kid. Eventually, when we had planted the church there, when things kind of got established and there was a, a fully formed church constituted, they called my dad as pastor. So he's been there now, goodness, over 35 years and still plowing away, ministering faithfully. And so that was where, that's where I grew up, was in that sort of, in that sort of an environment, very fragile church, you know, not big, you know, hundreds of people, but like you're talking on a Sunday morning, you have 50 people and, you know, including kids. And so me and my Brother and our older sister, like we were all hands on deck. We were part of ministry. Mom and dad did ministry as a family, so we got included all the time. And you know, that was, you know, in the fun things. And that was also in, well, the church needs clean, so let's go, you know, grab the vacuum cleaner and the mop and go clean toilets, you know. And, and so I need to go.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: To comfort my daughter because she, she's living that reality right now.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: There you go. There you go. But that's, that was my environment for being brought up. And Lord got a hold of me when I was young, when I was 9 years old and realized that the faith that my parents had, that was theirs, but I needed to make it my own. And so I came to the Lord when I was nine, Some growth there for a couple of years. And then middle school hit and that kind of derailed things for several years of me trying to do stuff by myself, not walking with him the way I ought to, led me to a place where I was angry and frustrated and tired and bitter as a teenager and just kind of thinking, where is God in my life right now? And he brought me to a breaking point when I was about 15, 16, woke me up graciously, kind of brought me back to where I needed to be.
And from that point on, it's not been, you know, all up from there, but I think the, the direction has been in the right, in the right direction. The movement has been in the right direction, shall we say. And went to after kind of that happened after the Lord got hold me, ended up going to college to pursue being a teacher, middle school, high school. Realized while I was there that was great training, but I was going to be in ministry for my life. And straight out of school I got married self and my wife joined a admissions organization.
Actually we were working with two. I was working with InterVarsity, she was working with a group called OM.
And a year later I jumped in with both feet to OM as well, served with them while serving alongside our local church back home in Ireland for another seven and a half years. And then in 2018 made the made the decision to follow the Lord's call out to serve at the Church Fellowship of Wildwood here in Wildwood St. Louis and Wildwood West County. And so that's where I've been now for over seven years and just privileged to be a part of the ministry that God is doing here. Privileged to be able to get to know awesome people like yourself and to be able to do Life and ministry in that sort of environment as well. It's cool.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: So you've done college ministry, you've done missions mobilization. Now you work with middle school, high schoolers. And so you've done a lot. And I just, from our friendship, I know you just got a lot of passion around discipleship and apologetics, and you've hung out in that world a lot. And so I really think you're a great get for this conversation. So I told you a little bit about the structure of this podcast and how each of our topics. It's not just stuff I made up, like these come from surveys. This is real questions that folk in the St. Louis community asked about faith, about their doubts. And so I've got a big one for you. So I pre apologize for that, but I think this will be really helpful. So what we're zoning in on today is this idea like, well, Christianity is just a product of a particular culture or geography. Like, thinking about the work you've done. How many times have you heard that idea? Right. If, oh, if I'd been born someone else, somewhere else, as someone else, I would have had different beliefs.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Right?
[00:09:04] Speaker B: If I'd been born in India, I'd be Hindu, that sort of thing. And so I guess the question is, can Christianity be objectively true if it's sitting in this crowd where so many other religions exist? Right. That's a huge question, and we'll bounce around it. But what are some of your initial thoughts on that?
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Well, I think initially, right off the bat, I think the whole idea, first of all, let's deal with the first part. The whole idea of, if I were born in India, I'd be a Hindu. If I were born, you know, in Asia, I might be a Buddhist or something like that. I think the, the reality that we need to understand, recognize, wrestle with is that there is reality to that. Right. Culture and geography does influence the beliefs that we are, that we are raised with, the beliefs that become kind of foundational in the early life of a child, adolescent, and on up. And so I don't think we can avoid that or pretend it doesn't happen. I mean, I'm from Ireland, and in many cases, it's often thought that to be Irish is to be Catholic.
And that is very true in a lot of cases. There are lots of people who I know and, you know, if I ask them, you know, do you, do you have a spiritual background? Do you have a faith background? They'd be like, well, I'm Irish, so I'm Catholic. And if you were to press beyond that.
There may not be a whole lot of depth there, but it's almost. It is a cultural identity at that point. And so I think this is something I'm very familiar with, very aware of.
And so I recognize that there's a. There's a validity to what we're talking about here. But that being said, while geography and culture might be a factor that. That plays into and influences a person's beliefs, to say that it is the defining factor or it is all of what defines a person's beliefs, I think is just taking it too far. I think, to be honest, I would kind of even argue that it's a bit reductionistic to kind of say that, you know, you're from there, therefore this is who you are. And it's. It's pigeonholing, it's putting people in a box. It's not engaging with personal experience, their own study where. Where they've come to and the. The things that they've gone through in life.
And, you know, like, I know lots of people in Ireland who are not Catholics. I know lots of Americans who are not Christians. I even know people from India who are not Hindu, and I know people from the Middle east who are not Muslim, like you. You can take those generalities and push it too far. And I think that's where. Where we need to be aware in kind of logic and reasoning. What we're talking about here is the genetic fallacy. Right. That we assess.
Sorry, it's where my mind goes. Right. Yeah.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: I'm grateful for it. It's a logical error where we assess a claim, an argument, or a belief based on where it came from, the origin, how it was adopted, rather than on the merits of the claim or the argument itself.
And I think.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: I think hitting on something that is so important here, because I think part of the truth of this is that religious practice. Religious practice, at the bare minimum, is deeply connected to cultural identity.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Like, there's no way around that. Like, you talk about the stereotype that to be Irish is to be Catholic. What I find funny about that is that's the truth in St. Louis. To be a St. Louis is to be Catholic.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Right. I feel very at home in St.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Louis, but I think there's these pieces there where it's like, in a cultural sense, that is 100% true.
The holidays you grow up celebrating, a lot of the way you understand your calendar, a lot, like, a lot of the way you dress, a lot of your social mores and a lot of your Ethics, they're just going to be defined by the culture you grew up in, and the culture is going to be deeply defined by the dominant religion.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Like, that's.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: But that's a separate idea from evaluating the truth claims of a particular religion. Right. Like, if you grow up in a place that is predominantly Hindu, there's going to be a whole bunch of Hindu holidays and Hindu cultural aspects and way to dress and way to speak that are going to be the air you breathe in. But that doesn't mean you read the texts and doctrinal and theological claims of Hinduism and believe them to be objectively true in reality.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: It's kind of two different pieces here.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah. There's the cultural or the nominal reality of things. Like, a lot of people will. Again, going back home to Ireland, a lot of people will call themselves Catholic, but it's a nominal factor. It's a cultural reality. It's not that if you were to press into the, you know, the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, that they actually, many of them would. Would know it and would follow it and would agree with all the different tenets of it. It's, it's, you know, it has become more of a cultural reality versus a personal faith practice that they're going to see through in their lives and be devoted to. And so I think, yeah, if we get to this point of just kind of saying, you know, that religion or faith is based on where we grow up, then we're falling into a ditch. There are influences there. Absolutely. It is tied to culture. Absolutely. But to say that that's the only thing that defines what you or I believe, that's just too far. And. And so I think we need to wrestle with the question a bit more than that. I think oftentimes when that, when that challenge is raised, it's raised in a.
As a means to invalidate something that I don't really want to deal with. Yeah. Versus I'm willing to have a good faith, reasonable conversation on this. And so I'm going to dig in, like, help me understand. I think it's often just. I want to invalidate, I want to dismiss. So, you know, if you were born in India, you'd be a Hindu, and that's kind of the argument.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah. It dismisses any of the actual truth that reality claims, any. Any world religion is making by just saying those are cultural artifacts.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: I'd be curious, Tim, if we're saying, okay, culture, geography, personal history, that's a big piece of. But it's not the only Piece.
So what are the other pieces? Like? Like, what do people use to build out their worldview and their spiritual belief system?
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think obviously culture plays a massive role because it's the environment, it's the milieu that you are raised within. But I think, you know, personal family culture weighs in massively on those sort of things as well. Right. My dad, his family, very devout Catholic family. My granny and then my grandpa, like, hey, they. They were. They were solid people in many ways, and they. They prided themselves on the fact that they went to mass on a regular basis. But then you drop down to my dad's generation and his siblings.
Well, they were Catholic, nominally. They didn't really attend mass, but they still maintained some of the. Some of the things within the family structure and, you know, some of the morality of it all. But then they added in their own right, and they. They loosened boundaries, they pulled reins in in different places. So family culture matters massively.
I'd say, you know, just childhood upbringing weighs into what people believe.
Personal crises in life and, you know, feeling that questions go unanswered sometimes that that will influence how people form their beliefs and encounters with even authority figures, people who they perceive to have, you know, authority in different spheres of life, whether it's even just down to your boss and work or your teacher in school or the person who stands up behind a podium or a pulpit in a church. Like, what's your interactions been like with them and with those people? That's going to all go into it as well as worldview is massive.
And thinking. Thinking about, like, the different worldviews that exist in the world and how that influences how you see your way through a lot of the time. The. The religious and spiritual beliefs in those areas is kind of interesting to observe too.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: So I think it's. You're hitting on some really good stuff here. And I think this is one of those things that's. It's kind of obvious when we say it out loud, but it needs to be said out loud.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: You build out your worldview or your belief system as an individual human as you come into adulthood.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Right, right. Yeah.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: From a variety of places. Yes. Your culture. Yes. Your geography, but also your family system. But also your peers.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: But also other authorities in your life. I love that you hit on the idea of crises when. When bad stuff or difficult or traumatic stuff happens in our life, it reshuffles our belief system. I think one of the biggest ones is just the innate human desire for meaning.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: I think when we you know, if you think about, like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs type thing, when you get past, okay, I've got a place to live, I've got food, you know, like, I've got that stuff taken care of. Human beings inherently want to live a meaningful, purposeful life.
And I think as we step into adulthood, we begin to evaluate the belief systems we've been handed and build out a life that we think will have the most meaning and the most impact for us.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: So I just think unavoidably, in that there are some facets of every person in their own life is going to shuffle through what they've been handed, and they're going to build their own belief system.
And so it doesn't mean you're just gonna automatically take on what mom and dad told you to take on. You know, exactly how many of us have. We can think of concrete childhood beliefs. We held that something about stepping into adulthood caused us to let go of, whether it's my belief in Santa Claus or my belief in Pluto as a planet. You know, like, there are all sorts of things that we heard from silly to really meaningful, that as we step into adulthood, we go, no, I'm changing what I think about that.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And again, I think that's one of the.
That's like what you're saying highlights the danger in kind of simplifying one's religious and spiritual framework and belief system to just where they're born or where they come from in the world, or, you know, do they come from an honor shame culture? Do they come from power, fear or guilt, innocence? Like, those things absolutely weigh in. But when you just reduce it to that, we have. We have lost so much of the conversation and we're, you know, we're not engaging, I would argue, well, with the. With the whole question or with the whole idea. But one of the things that I absolutely love about Christianity and going back to kind of one of the big parts of the initial question, how can Christianity be objectively true in the world that we live in? Christianity doesn't shy away from dealing with the big questions, from dealing with how do you go through crisis, how do you deal with family, how do you like all of those sorts of things?
Christianity isn't expecting us to check our minds at the door. It's not expecting us to kind of just blindly believe and follow.
It's okay with us doing what you said earlier. It's okay with us kind of examining what have I been raised with and what am I going to hold on to. Or what am I not?
And it encourages us to use our minds. One of my favorite verses in God's Word is coming out of the old Testament, Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. And it's the famous. Goes into a famous prayer that the Jews would pray called the Shema. And it's hero, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. And Jesus added with all your strength to it as well. But that idea of loving him with all of your mind.
Yeah, like it's not blind faith. Examine, press in, push, push the, you know, push things and make sure that they're solid, you know, and, and Christianity invites that which I, which stimulates me in kind of an intellectual as well as spiritual way.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: I love that. You're reminding me of an earlier conversation we had in this series with Alex Lee from Invite Church about deconstruction. And he was zoning in on this idea that in America, that is a predominantly Christian country, a lot of different denominations, but predominantly Christian, you have a lot of folk who step into adulthood and the way they look back on their childhood faith is that it did not invite questions. It demanded blind faith and blind acceptance. And he was saying he thinks that's a lot of what has kind of sparked the deconstruction movement we see is some of this kind of fundamentalist tendency to say, well, the God Christianity is true, so don't question it and don't ask hard questions. And I love that you're pushing back on the truth, that the Bible itself gives us the opposite invitation. Yeah, yeah, the Bible says, oh, question the heck out of this.
I remember, I can't remember how I told you this story or not. I actually think I might have told this story to Alex, but it's so appropriate here. I had a professor in my undergrad who is a Progressive Presbyterian, and I still know him, he's an awesome dude, but just some incredibly progressive ideas about the authority of Scripture. Didn't believe in inerrancy, rejects a lot of the supernatural claims of the Bible and those sorts of things. And as an 18 year old who grew up in a Baptist church, I had no clue what to do with a Bible professor who didn't believe in the supernatural. You know, and so I go and I meet with them and I really was, I just go, I said to him, I don't get how you can be a pastor. He's an ordained pastor also. I don't get how you can be a pastor. And say these things about the Bible.
And he looked at me and he just goes, sam, you believe the Bible is supernaturally inspired and preserved by the Holy Spirit? I go, yeah. And he goes, you believe Jesus is exactly who he claims to be in the Bible? And I go, yeah. And he goes, okay. Then he can stand up to any critique me or your textbook can give him.
And it was this moment of, like, deep intellectual freedom for me where I went, oh, my gosh.
I don't have to be fearful of questioning facets of the Christian faith. If it's true, then it won't just withstand questioning. It will thrive under questioning.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Right. And it will be able to answer. Right. It'll be able to stand that test. Yes. It reminds me of Spurgeon. I think it was Spurgeon who originally talked about how we don't need to try to defend scripture.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Defending scripture is. Makes about as much sense as defending a lying. You don't defend a lying. You just turn it loose and it'll defend itself. Like, I think so many times, I don't know how we got here, but there is this perception that, like, you're saying we gotta. We just gotta blindly accept, we gotta follow, we gotta almost protect it. Like, don't question it because it might crumble, like it's a house of cards. Like, don't blow too hard. It'll fall over. And it's like, why are we doing this?
Scripture is robust, it is strong, it is mighty, it is God breathed. It can handle our questions.
When we come with honest, good faith, like, truly seeking out, it'll reveal truth to us. But if we. I will say, if we come and we're trying to.
To smash an understanding into the text, we can do that. If we're coming, we're trying to proof text why I'm right and, you know, everybody else and somewhere else is wrong.
You can do that if you want to. I had a seminary provide seminary professor who said, you're at that point, you're doing violence to the text.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Come on, man.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: And we need to be careful that we don't do violence to the text. That we. That we go to it honestly, truly seeking what God and his word has to say, not just what we want to say through it.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: We're on a little bit of a rabbit trail here, but I think it's really appropriate to the conversation.
I really think in our cultural moment, a lot of the core of this fear that a lot of Christians hold on to, of we can't question things. It really just comes down to the advancement of the modern world.
It's the age old question of science versus religion. Right. Like as things in every area of science, biology, physics, psychology, name the thing as they advance.
A lot of people step back and go, what does that mean about this Bible verse? What does that mean about this passage? And I think that has built over the last hundred years. I go back to the Scopes Monkey trial. I think it's built a lot of this inherent fear of going, we've got to protect Christianity from those evil scientists.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Instead of stepping back and going, hey, you know, science was invented by believers who loved God and wanted to discover his world. You know, there's a whole lot more there than we probably have time to explore in this conversation. But I just think one of the most freeing things I ever heard in my entire faith journey, it was from a different professor during my undergrad experience. But it was around that same time that I'd had that conversation with, because I've shared this before, but I had this really unique undergrad experience where I went to a secular university, Lindenwood university here in St. Louis. And at the time they had an evangelical Christian theology program. But you took a mixture of, of what they called Christian ministry classes taught by evangelical professors and rel classes, which were just traditional, like normal university rel classes taught by a variety of different people. And so I got exposed to a really broad brand of spiritual and religious worldviews. It was actually super helpful for me, as at that age of trying to discover my own worldview and those sorts of things. But, but I had this professor who just said, the Bible will fail you when you force it to be read the way you want to, when you force it into your mind as your idea of a modern science book, a modern history book. But when you read the Bible on its own terms, when you read it as it asks to be read, then you find life changing truth. You find universe settling truth. And that has been, that has been so true to me. I have found almost every time I come up against these deep abiding fears of, oh, what does that mean about the truth of the Bible? It's because I'm forcing a text through a modern lens that it never intended to set itself in. And when I read it on its own terms, it founds my entire life.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: You know, yeah, yeah, why not?
[00:28:53] Speaker B: We're getting a little down a rabbit trail and there's probably a whole nother podcast episode in there about science and faith and fundamentalism and all those things.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: Just to wrap that little Bit up as well. I think some of our fear also springs from the fact of the honest reality that we don't like to admit that we're not God.
We're not infinite. We don't understand everything, but he does. And when we're willing to allow ourselves to remember that and to trust, like when we get hit with something that confuses us or confounds us or shakes our foundation a little bit, our immediate reaction is, I don't know how to handle this.
Fine, that's okay.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: God, what a good word, man.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: So stop trying to clutch onto control. Stop trying to. To. To cling on to you holding it all together, and instead rely on the one who Colossians tells us holds all things together by the power of His Word. And, you know, just. Just go back to him and honestly approach him through His Word and kind of say, okay, God, I need your help in this.
Settle me, ground me. And when we do that, he does. He loves to meet us in those moments.
But again, when we're constantly trying to do it ourselves, that's when life gets crazy and shaky and. Yeah, sorry, but that was.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: No, that's great.
Yeah, thank you for tying the bow on that. I'm going to circle us back. I want to take you through a progression of thoughts. I want to ask you a couple questions in a row and answer them as you want, but I want you to follow me through this. So if we're talking about the idea of the diversity of world religions, if we're in that place, there obviously are a whole stinking bunch of religions and worldviews and beliefs and philosophies around the world. It seems. I mean, it's essentially a universal human experience to develop some form of spiritual worldview, philosophy, religion. So what are some of the common threads or themes we see running through faiths in the world?
Do you see any connective tissue between all of them?
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I think going back to one of the things that you said earlier, a desire for meaning and a recognition that meaning is not found purely in the natural, but has to be given to us by the transcendent. I think there's a. There's an understanding of that that we see that is kind of a through line.
I think, you know, just that reality of obviously a belief in divine. A belief in the transcendent, The. The understanding that if there is a transcendent, if there is divine, then that should then bring forth worship. I think that you see that through. As a through line, through. Through all kinds of religions and faiths and There are certain, you know, rituals that almost that come through worship that seem to, to transcend different groups as well. I think you have things as simple as creation accounts and explanations of how we.
That, that seem to transcend and seem to go all the way through sacred texts.
Yes. Something that you see in, in different ones and even down to some alignment around morality, like one of the ones that, that has been dubbed, you know, the, the golden rule. Right. Do unto others is you would have them do unto you, like love others. Yeah, as you want them to love you. And you see, you see some of those, those similarities throughout different religions. And again, I think it's. It.
One of the places where sometimes recognizing those similarities gets taken is, well then aren't all religions just basically the same? Aren't we all just kind of, you know, pursuing the same God and I.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: All roads lead up the same or all roads up the mountain lead to the same, to the people.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Right, right.
I think the similarities don't so much mean that we're all, you know, walking up this, up to. Or we're pursuing the same God. I think all of similarities speak to the fact that we were created by Him.
And the image of God, the fingerprint of God on every single human has left its impression. We are worshipers by design.
We innately know that there is something beyond us. There is a transcendent. Even if you're raised in a place where faith and spiritual practice is not a thing or it's said to not be a thing. But atheism, I would argue, is a faith structure all of its own. You know, we are, we are in this reality where we know deep down there's something beyond us. There's, there's something that calls us to something else and, and leads us to, to Himself, I would argue. And that's where meaning, that's where purpose is going to be found. And the fact that we're worshipers, the fact that there are sacred texts, the fact that all those things, I think it, it springs from the fact of who God is and the, the imprint that he's left on us and humanity by design.
Not so much then that I don't think it's. That we turn things around and we're all ultimately pursuing him. Because I think one of the things that comes into this conversation is that biblically speaking, which I very much affirm, we have an enemy who likes to deceive. And so our enemy comes in with different counterfeits that capitalize on similarities but pull us away into error.
And, and so that's where I would say it's not all that, just all religions are leading to the same place.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: And.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: And I think there's some ways that you can go about kind of differentiating those, but.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: So, Lewis, in this, one of the most famous apologetic books ever, Mere Christianity.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: You talked about the diversity or the universality of religion and ethical structures as a proof for the evidence of God. Like, there is something inherent in humans that we long for transcendence, we long for ultimate truth. And I think there's something worth exploring there. But I think the flip side of that coin that you hit on this kind of circles back to how the discussion opened is it can feel really intelligent and progressive to go, well, look at all these common threads between religion. Really, all roads are leading up the same mountain. We're all going to the same peak.
That can feel really like, wow, like how I've connected the dots, right?
[00:35:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: But I actually think that is reductionistic to the point of being incredibly disrespectful.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: Like, I think. I think, like, I'm. I'm not a brilliant student of world religion. I've. I've taken world religion and comparative religion and my undergrad, but it has been years since I've dug into that stuff. But even with my sophomore acknowledge of the diversity of world religion, I can tell you these faith systems make exclusive claims that exclude one another.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: And so we can't put them in the same pot. And to do so is disrespectful of people who practice those faith. It's taking people's passionate beliefs and just going, all those distinctive facets of your belief don't matter.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: All that matters are these three parts I like.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: Well, and like you say, there are some exclusive claims that they make that are diametrically opposed to each other.
And a good example of that is.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: I think all religion structure has built into it some attempt to explain or solve the problem of human suffering and evil. Why do we suffer? That's one of those kind of universal religious things, right?
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: And Christianity has a really specific answer to that. Christianity says it wasn't supposed to be this way. There is not supposed to be evil, suffering, pain, injustice. It's here because of sin. And when Christ returns, it will go away. It will be gone forever because it wasn't part of the original design and it won't be here in heaven. Okay, that's a cool answer. But then you put that next to, like, a Buddhist answer that says life is suffering.
The defining facet of Human life is to suffer and to struggle. Like, that's a very, A very differing understanding. And to say, well, they both talk about how to solve the problem of evil, so they're both about solving, solving suffering.
That's so dismissive of these two wildly different understandings.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think, again, there's sometimes, like you said, it can seem very attractive to kind of put everything under the same umbrella or say that it's all leading in the same direction. But again, just a. A cursory, honest look at the different systems of faith and religions out there, and you realize they are not going in the same direction. And it, it is incredibly dismissive, it is incredibly disrespectful to just kind of say, and I would argue, you know, like, it's arrogant for anyone to be like, oh, well, no, y' all just worship in the same God. You just don't get it yet.
Like, oh, really? You figured that out? Cool.
You want to show me how you figured that out? Because when I read this text, this God tells me what he's like. When I read this text, this God tells me he's something else. And the two don't match. So you like, who's telling the truth?
When things are diametrically opposed, they can't go together.
And so just trying to honestly walk through those things is really, really important.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: And I think what's beautiful is that ideas can be measured and discussed off of merit.
That's a thing we do as people. We debate ideas and we get through, and the ones with the most merit rise to the top.
So to pretend as though what we should do with religion is reduce it down to one soup of its simple, common components to me is, well, it's rude, but I also think there's a laziness there of going, well, how about instead we take these belief systems and their claims seriously and we compare the merit of their ideas?
[00:39:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: And so kind of going off that, man, like, I'm going to put you a little bit on the spot here, but why don't you do a little bit of that for us? Like, what are some of the truth claims of Christianity? Like, what are some of the things that Christianity claims as a belief system?
And what are some of your thoughts on the merit? Obviously, you have a confirmation bias here. Yeah, we can't ignore that. You and I are both Christian pastors, and so we are. We're predisposed to believe these things. But I think it's important to note we're Christian pastors because of points in our life where we did hard work of evaluating these claims and they, their merit, spoke to us alongside other spiritual experiences and those sorts of things. Right, but. But I'd love to invite you to do that, Tim, just to dig through what are some of the claims of Christianity? Maybe how do those line up with other belief systems and what makes the Christian claims seem. Seem true to you?
[00:40:48] Speaker A: Well, I think when.
When I think of, like, what sets Christianity apart? What is some of the. The unique truth claims?
I'm reminded of A quote from C.S. lewis again, and he brought it all down to Jesus and he said, you know, you've got to do business with Jesus and the claims that he makes.
And the way C.S. lewis frames it, he says, you're only left with three options.
Either Jesus was a liar, which his following throughout history, and you know, what we know about him, even through other people, recording histories would seem to mitigate against that.
So he's either a liar, but history doesn't seem to show that, or CS Lewis gives us a second auction that he's a lunatic, that he's just outside his mind, crazy.
But again, history and accounts that tell us that he did incredible, miraculous things. He's a respected teacher of truth across religious divides. Like all of that seems to mitigate against the fact that he's just a lunatic. And so the only other option that Lewis gave us was, well, is he a liar, lunatic, or is he Lord? And I think for me, that's a really helpful thing to consider. Like, let's look at Jesus, look at who he said he was, look at some of the claims that he made. And I think you don't have to go much farther than John 14:6 to kind of end up at kind of a crux and a huge cross point where Jesus himself said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
That's an incredibly exclusive statement. Yeah, that's not Jesus saying, I am a way to find God.
He's saying, I am the way. It's a definite article and it's just like there's no other option that he's giving you. And then he goes on, he says he is the truth.
He's not just a bit of truth and you gotta go find it elsewhere or it's going to, you know, you're going to find some truth in him, but it's going to be added to. He's saying he's the truth, he is the source of all truth.
And then to say that he is Life.
What he's claiming is that outside of him, there's only death.
There's only, like, there's nothing good.
And so what do we do with that?
How do we go about that? And to finish off his verse, what he said, no one comes to the Father except through me. So he's saying there's no way to have a relationship with the Father. There's no way to even be kind of have the opportunity to come into. If you want to view it like God's heavenly court or into his throne room, there's no way to come before him unless you come by Jesus.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:44:02] Speaker A: So the whole idea of all religions are leading to the same point with Jesus just here in John 14:6 says, no, that is not the case.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: If you look at that larger chunk of scripture like that, that's the verse we usually go to to talk about exclusivity in Christianity.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: But he gives this extended metaphor in the same chunk of scripture where he talks about people as sheep and they're in the sheep gate and he's the gate.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: And that's the only way in. And if, and if you hear any other voices that aren't the shepherd, you know that's not who you're going to. And if anyone tries to come in any other way, if they try and sneak over the wall, they're not the shepherd. Like he. Jesus really spells out some exclusivity in that text where he just goes. Other religious teachers who aren't me, other religious belief systems, other ways of trying to get there claims to say, this is how you get to God without Jesus. Like Jesus is saying, nope, yeah, those aren't, those aren't real. He's. He's invalidating them. And he may be, he may be wrong in that claim. He may be lying or crazy, but he's making a claim there where he just goes, yeah, everyone else has missed it.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: Yeah, this is it. And again, we've got to do business. You've got to evaluate that. And so is he a liar? Is he a lunatic? Well, then go outside of what he's saying and let's observe him and his life and the records that we have about him and see what do other people say about him.
And what I find stunning is that there is like even other world religions, even other, you know, some of the other big world religions, none of them say that Jesus was a liar.
None of them call him a lunatic. Some of them call him a prophet.
Some of them refer to him just as a good teacher. But everybody in Kind of the world religious sphere. Everybody acknowledges Jesus for being a good person.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: And a person who is not out. Sorry.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: And a person worth following.
[00:46:16] Speaker A: A good leader and a person worth following. Yeah. Not someone out to deceive, not someone out to lead astray or trick or hoodwink others.
And yet I don't understand how it goes when he makes such an exclusive claim.
Like, you know.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Well, I think what's interesting about that is that Jesus's claims are so obviously exclusive.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: Right.
[00:46:43] Speaker B: Even when other religions try and co opt Jesus's integrity and authority, they then have to make the claim.
Well, later Jesus's followers changed his words.
[00:46:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:56] Speaker B: They went back later and edited what he said to make him sound like he was exclusive, which. Okay, that's a real historical claim they're claiming.
[00:47:05] Speaker A: Let's go back and check the record.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: Yeah. The apostles and the ones who followed after them went back and changed Jesus's teaching, changed the Bible to make him sound like he's making exclusive claims. Which part of me goes, well, if that's the case, then you have no idea what he said and you have no idea if he's a good teacher. But the other piece to that is that you can actually do some historical textual criticism and go, okay, when was the Bible? When was the New Testament written? How close was it written to Jesus's lifetime? Is there any evidence that his words were shifted or changed over generations of faith as Christianity grew? And when you do that, you sit there and go, oh shoot, the New Testament wasn't changed.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:46] Speaker B: Like, it's very solid. We have good textual evidence that the New Testament we have now is the one that was originally written.
[00:47:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:53] Speaker B: We know that it was written close to his lifetime and the lifetime of eyewitnesses, which doesn't come close to the religious texts of other major world religions. And I'm not trying to steal your thunder by going here, but it's interesting to me that other worldviews will try and co opt Jesus's likability.
And in doing so, they make this really actually easily, like, challengeable historical claim. Yeah, well, he didn't really say any of that stuff. And it's like. Well, I'm pretty sure he did. I'm pretty sure we have good historical evidence to think he said that stuff.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think what I love about what you're just saying is like, everything that we find and it's just, it's, it's funny to me because every time we make a new archaeological historical discovery related to the Bible, it only Affirms it is only ever affirmed what we already had and what we already held it. There's never been any archaeological discovery or a new scroll pulled out that's been, you know, shown to be authentic and accurate. That kind of go, you know, you've got John 14, and it skips from verse five to seven or verse eight, you know, and that's not there. He didn't actually say it. No. Everything that we find through history, through archeology, through the eyewitness accounts that we've got in. In the text itself, everything that we find only affirms what scripture holds to be true. There's a guy I love.
Maybe he'd be helpful or his quote would be helpful. He's a guy. His name is Dr. Vodi Baukham, and he summarized a passage in Second Peter, chapter one, verses sixteen to the end of the chapter. And what he was doing was he was summarizing why we can choose to believe the Bible, why we can stand on it. And he summarized it like this. He said it. He chose to believe the Bible because it's a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses in the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. So even if the apostles had tried to go back and change stuff, there were other people who are around with Jesus and them who could have been like, what are you doing?
Like, stop doing that. He didn't say that, like. But we don't. Anyway. Reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses in the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecy and claim that their origins are divine rather than human in nature.
Scripture is so unique and robust and, like you said, testable and verifiable. And we can go back and we can do historical and kind of critique and see, is this.
Is this how it's always been? One fact that, like, stuns me is through the writings. Even if you were to take. And I'm not saying you ever should, but even if you were to take scripture and put it aside for a second and kind of say, well, we can't trust it. Well, let's talk about the writings of the early church fathers because they quoted extensively from the originals and from, you know, the letters that were sent out and the texts that they had, and from that we can reproduce.
Is it 99.5%?
[00:51:13] Speaker B: It's a ludicrously high number. Yeah.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: Of what's in the New Testament that we have recorded, like, just from their commentaries, from what they wrote. About and their, their citations. It's insane and is so different to other, with respect, but to other sacred texts and other religious texts. It's, it's just, it's in a, in a class all of its own.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: And so this is the piece.
And again, you know, admitting fully that I have a confirmation bias, but this is a piece in my own story of deconstruction and reconstruction and exploring for truth.
A thing that God used to draw me to the Christian faith is the fact that Christianity, which I think is not entirely, but largely unique amongst world religions. Christianity joyfully invites non Christian skepticism and criticism of our history. We invite the intellectual world to come and dig to the history and dig to the archeology and do the textual criticism.
And I think what's so wild about that is that even the most anti Christian or even just the most skeptical non Christian scholars who operate in this world, even folks who would say I don't believe in Christianity and there's nothing supernatural, isn't true, and these books, blah, blah, blah, will still sit here and go, well, there's just so much more historical evidence for the New Testament than any other, any other major religious work.
It's not even comparable. And I think if you're a person who is struggling with this idea of is my faith a coincidence of my birth?
I think comparative religions, comparative religious study, the way they do it in college campuses, right, like secular comparative religion textbook like that practice, it can actually be really helpful. It can be a really good exploration. You have to be careful for the reductionistic aspect of it. I find that a lot of comparative religion stuff tries to reduce world religions to just their commonalities.
But it can still just be really good to just sit back and go.
There are a lot of unique aspects secularly and academically about Christianity alongside the unique historical and truth claims it makes. And I think, I think people are smart, right? Like you can, you can measure those claims, you can dig into those with trusted friends and guides and wise people and you can decide what you think about it.
[00:53:55] Speaker A: You know, and I think like one of the things, just thinking about that, one of the things that for me was, was kind of a factor in kind of me realizing scripture is true and I can trust it.
And in doing some of this comparative studies, one of the things that I thought was so interesting and again, one of those things that makes Christianity and Scripture kind of unique is that it's not just the hero stories.
It records the good, the bad and the ugly.
It is.
Personally, I'm reading through second Kings right now, which is, you know, divided kingdom. And this king, he was the worst of all of them. And then the next king, well, he was even worse than all the rest that came before him. And, you know, these are kings who are supposed to be kings over God's people who are not following God at all, who are doing all sorts of crazy, horrific things.
And Scripture is honest about the brokenness of even people who should know better and people who should be doing different.
And it's. While there's this exclusivity to the claims of Jesus, there's also an insane invitation to come to Him. Like, I think of another one of my favorite passages that. That Jesus, where we see the words of Jesus and he says, come to me all you who are weak and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and humble in heart and you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Yes, there is an unrivaled exclusivity to what Jesus says in that he is the only way. He's the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but by Him.
But there's also this insane inclusive invitation.
[00:55:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:58] Speaker A: Where he invites any who would want to come to him, any who want rest, any who want to enjoy what life was always designed to be. Not that we will get to the fullness of that here on earth because we're still dealing with brokenness and sin and all sorts of stuff, but one day in his presence, we'll get to enjoy the fullness of it. And there's an invitation that any who would simply turn to him can enjoy. And I think that is something that is just quite stunning to me that we've got a. You know, in the Bible, we've got a text that, yes, is historically accurate and, yes, can be taken to the mat on those kind of things. And you can do all the. All the stuff, but you've also got something that's not just trying to be squeaky clean, that's not just trying to, you know, gloss over atrocity.
It tells it like it is and then it shows us the solution to our brokenness and it is a true solution. Like just really quick. When I think about how to evaluate, there's. There's a couple of things that come to mind. One is actually a little book that a friend of mine wrote. This one actually, it's called Foundations by Peter Mead. Four questions that we typically. Or that we should be Asking that we typically don't. And the four questions I find to be super helpful in evaluating and doing comparative studies. Right.
Which God is God? Look at the claims that that God makes about himself and you know, compare like are they equal? They're not if we're honest about it. When you start to do that. But the second question which is really helpful is what is human?
Who are we as humanity?
What is said about us in whatever faith you're looking at? And does that really line up? Does it make sense with what you see around and with what you feel innately and deep down?
Third question, what is sin?
And then the fourth question, what is salvation?
And when I look at Christianity, it makes some very exclusive claims in those four questions, right? Yeah. Which God is God? Christianity claims that it's the triune loving God of the Bible who spoke all things into being and designed us for relationship. Not as a workforce, not as, you know, because he needed us for anything, but simply as an overflow of his love to come and enjoy what he's always enjoyed. What is a human.
We were created for relationship, but we decided to go our own way and we broke relationship. And that's left us where we are in a world of sin and death and disconnection, destined to die.
What's sin?
Sin when we recognize that we were created for relationship, created to love God and to love others. Sin can be boiled down to sin. Is love turned inward instead of going in the right direction to God and to others around us.
Sin is selfish. Sin turns that love that should go out and turns it in and we become self focused beings.
But what's the solution? What's salvation?
It's not what's amazing about Christianity and what's unique about Christianity is that sin or salvation is not in Christianity just forgiveness. It's not even getting to go to heaven when you die.
Salvation according to Christianity is adoption, relationship. I get to have his father as my father, his son as my older brother. His spirit is my spirit. Those are way different forms of salvation than anything else out there.
And it is only found in Jesus. Like he said, he's the only way, the truth and the life. And so when you start to look at that and you evaluate those things and you take them all into consideration, I think Christianity stands out among the rest in quite a substantial way.
[01:00:03] Speaker B: I love that man.
I think to kind of land us out.
I think you hit this perfectly. And so I'm not going to re ask the question, but I want to just say this if you're listening to this.
And this was your question, right? If you're the person who's sitting here and you're saying, man, is my faith a coincidence of my birth, then I think what Tim just hit on here is so perfect.
If that's your worry, I think our encouragement to you right now is take that seriously and explore it.
Go explore it like there's an invitation in the Bible. There's an invitation within Christianity. There's an invitation from Jesus himself.
Come look at the claims of Christ, look at the offer of the gospel.
Explore those claims with clarity, with thought, with intellectual honesty. Compare them to the claims of other belief systems and figure out what you want to root your life in.
I think if you do that, you'll find that the invitation of the Christian gospel is the best one. It's the best one that leads to life and to flourishing and to joy and to freedom.
[01:01:15] Speaker A: Amen.
[01:01:16] Speaker B: I don't want to put words in your mouth, Tim, but that's kind of what I was. What I was hearing and you kind of wrapping this thing up.
[01:01:22] Speaker A: No, absolutely. I would say I can't add to it. I think when you look at it and you look at the invitation, there's no other invitation that does what the invitation of the God of the Bible does. There's no invitation that truly defines who we are and the issue that we have and the solution that we can enjoy better than Christianity. Nothing else comes close. And so, yeah, I would encourage people who are interested, people who are searching, like, dude, connect with Sam. I'm out at Fellowship of Wildwood. You're more than welcome to come chat with me, but examine the evidence and pray and ask God himself.
If you're struggling with these things, ask him to reveal himself. Ask him to bring you to truth and then go to Scripture and look at what it offers and just enjoy seeing the God of the Bible put himself on display and the joy of what can come from a relationship with Him.
Yeah.
[01:02:31] Speaker B: Thank you so much for your time, man. I know you're a busy guy. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for chatting.
[01:02:35] Speaker A: Hey, thank you, man. I appreciate the opportunity. Again, not enough.
[01:02:53] Speaker B: Hallelujah.
[01:02:55] Speaker A: You have saved us from the ones that we love.
Hallelujah.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: What a great conversation. I hope that was challenging and encouraging for you. It was good for me to listen to that.
I got a lot out of that. I want to give another shout out as we end out to our sponsor, Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville, Missouri. You can always check them out online@emmanuel fellowshipstl.org Please also remember my invitation to you. If you live in the St. Louis area and you're working through your own doubts and you'd like to be able to talk to someone in person, reach out to me. Hello fc, and we can schedule a time to grab a coffee and talk about the same sort of things we're talking about on this podcast. This is actually our second to last episode. We are finishing out season one of the Stumble podcast. We've worked through the top main doubts that were expressed in our initial survey. We're going to have one more episode where I sit with a guest and we kind of process some of the stuff that was talked about this season and hopefully we'll come back to you next summer with another round of these. And so if you have anything you'd like to see us dig into further or expound upon, please reach out and let us know. Other than that, a big thank you to Travis Teal Page for the use of our theme song Family. You can find him on all the major streaming platforms, Travis Teal Page and the Capitol Club. Okay, I think that's all. We'll see you guys again real soon.
[01:04:34] Speaker A: I've been called man of God the one that blood's washed clean but the biggest step of faith I've taken Is saying I don't believe well, I'm sorry to say I'm back but I've got some questions for you.
If it weren't for that girl I'd be nowhere near you.
