Disunity, the End of RZIM, and the Hope of the Gospel | Alycia Wood

Join Mike and Alycia Wood as they navigate the complex terrain of brokenness in the church and RZIM's dissolution, offering insights into the challenges of disunity while anchoring their discussion in the resilience and solace of the Gospel.

Before joining Apologetics Inc. as a speaker, Alycia worked at the Ravi Zacharias International Ministry (RZIM). She speaks on challenging topics like transgenderism, and isn’t afraid to talk about the good that came from RZIM. Join us for an important conversation about pursuing truth in a world that has forgotten how to talk to each other.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
All human beings for all time have experienced the fear of what if I'm wrong
on these big ticket items.
You marry that with a society today where people don't have good relationships anymore.
Well, hello everyone. Today I get to talk to my friend and colleague, Alicia Wood.
Alicia is one of the speakers at Apologetics Inc.

(00:22):
Prior to joining us at Apologetics Inc., she worked with with RZIM for eight years, I believe it was.
And we do talk about her experience with RZIM.
And more broadly, we talk about why there's just so much fighting in the world
today and what can be done about it and what role Christians have to play in that.

(00:44):
It was quite a conversation. So get ready for it.
Alicia, I thought it would be worth our time. It'd be fun.
Maybe get us into some trouble. I don't know, to talk about why contending for
Christianity or truth for that matter is so hard today,

(01:04):
what it's like to contend for truth in a culture that seems like they've forgotten
how to talk to each other and at the risk of chronological snobbery and assuming
it's so much more difficult in our time than it was in other people's times.
It certainly seems like people just can't talk to each other anymore, right?
About the most important issues in life life rather than finding opportunities

(01:25):
to have enjoyable, productive, meaningful conversations.
We're just looking for the best way to destroy our opponents,
not seek understanding.
So why is it like this? I mean, you've been doing this for a long time now.
I don't say that to say that you're old, but you've been doing this for...
That's what I heard, but okay. Yeah.

(01:46):
I mean, you've been working as a Christian apologist for over a decade.
Have you noticed any changes? Is the way I'm describing it accurate?
Why is the world like it is?
Yeah, you know, the job of the apologist I find to be quite interesting, right?
Because there's a sense in which as the culture moves, so does the apologist move slightly as well.

(02:06):
Same message, but the means to which you communicate are oftentimes changes
because of the various things that are happening in the culture.
And I do, I feel like I've noticed changes.
And maybe it is the impact of social media. And, you know, there's so much that
people talk about with social media and the harms involved,
but it really has allowed people to bring out maybe the worst in them,

(02:32):
the stuff that they wouldn't say to somebody face to face or that they wouldn't
say if they weren't behind this phone or computer or whatever.
And I think it's allowed us to become much more vocal and not really care about
the effects of what I'm saying on the other person or on the other readers or the other listeners.

(02:54):
But it's been much more of, I'm going to point out what I say matters at whatever expense it is.
And, you know, that coupled with so many of the different social issues that
have gone on, you know, America has struggled with a lot of the racial tensions.
We had a whole series of incidents with police officers that people were trying

(03:16):
to process through, you know, who's right here, who's wrong here.
You have various views on sexuality.
You had various views on politics. So you had all of these things start to raise in the culture.
And through the outlet of something like social media, you get the ability to
know about more things than you would have ever known before.

(03:37):
So me sitting at my home, I'm not necessarily going to know what's going on
in another state unless I pull out the news, this kind of thing.
But social media, you voluntarily go on and you You hear all kinds of things.
You don't know what's true.
You think you believe something that's true. It's actually false.
So we've just become really divided.
We've heard so many ugly parts of us as a culture and it's really kind of pulled

(04:00):
us apart. And it's really sad to watch, to be honest.
We've become the divided states of America. Yeah. Yeah.
Social media is, it's probably old news at this point to say something like,
you know, it has really changed the world. It's, you know, on par,
like the way the printing press changed the world.
And I got to see this a little bit firsthand.

(04:21):
I used to, once upon a time, I was a teacher.
It was the best of times. And it was, you know, I had a lot of fun teaching, actually.
Been there, done that. You know, when I first started teaching,
you know, if you had spare time at the end of class, you know,
10 minutes that you like ran out of stuff to do, it wasn't prepared.

(04:41):
That's when things got out of hand. Like picture your classic 1980s movie with,
you know, the substitute teacher and spitball balls and paper airplanes being
thrown, people hanging from the roof, you know, kind of nonsense.
Sense and so as a teacher you just better have your your whole time plan because
things could get out of hand pretty quick,

(05:01):
Well, I witnessed from one year to the next that changing and it going from
if you had spare time at the end of class, it not being an opportunity for mischief,
it just got to be total silence.
And it's because that was the year that school stopped fighting the battle to
let kids bring phones into the classroom and the advent of the smartphone,

(05:22):
not the advent, but the proliferation of it, meaning all these kids had smartphones now.
So they were in class and they were still talking, but they were,
of course, talking like this. And it was just a profound change in the way people
interact with each other.
So to your point, now that all people not only are aware of all things,

(05:43):
so this notion of non-actionable news, like you're confronted with all of the
problems that have ever, that exist at any given time.
And when you are presented with all of the problems in the world,
you feel like I've got to do something.
Thing well what would you have been able to do years and
years past not not a lot join a cause send a

(06:04):
check go on if you're a christian like a short-term mission
trip but now through like social media everyone feels like because i have this
platform i must use this platform and i've got to do something and inevitably
we just resort to these weaponized kinds of attacks and rhetoric rhetoric,

(06:24):
and I don't know what hope there is moving forward.
I'm curious what you think. So I think I'm with you in the sense of,
yeah, social media is a big part of this, the problem here.
People feel they must do something.
Here's one outlet to do it.
For a lot of it, it's a written platform. Not a lot of people have skill in

(06:45):
writing, but even in the video world, it's the video world, the TikTok stuff,
it's instant response often. And a lot of these issues don't...
An instant response isn't appropriate. You need more time to think about it.
So what's maybe hope of the way forward in light of the present reality?
Is it only going to get worse? Do you have to pull the plug on the system?

(07:09):
What's a way forward here? Well, first of all, I just want to add one thing
to what you're saying, because I think you're spot on.
And I think it wasn't, it is an addition, I guess you could say,
to some of the things that you raised.
It was also because people were finding out about it. It was that they felt
like they had a responsibility to do something about it.
So there was a sense of justice, right? Like I need to speak up.

(07:31):
If I'm silent, then I'm perpetrating this or I am supporting this injustice.
I'm morally culpable in keeping it going in a sense.
I'm almost participating in it by not acting on it or doing something.
Right. Yeah, that's exactly it. Exactly.
And so that now it was it wasn't so much, oh, I heard of this thing in this

(07:51):
other state or this, you know, that's 2000 miles away from me that I can't do anything about.
I actually have power to do something and I can make my voice heard.
Whereas if we had heard about something far away, pre kind of any internet,
it was just, there's nothing you can do.
And you resigned to that.
And so, but as a result, then it meant like, I'm going to say something.

(08:12):
But the minute you say something, just in general, you're going to make an enemy
out of anybody because people hold different views on various things.
And it naturally built up this wall of animosity of people towards each other
because some people think people are rushing to judgment too early.
Other people think they've got it wrong. Other people think that they're right.
I think it's called The Social Dilemma. It was the Netflix documentary on social

(08:35):
media where they had a bunch of different former employees of various social
media outlets speaking.
And one gentleman, his name is Jerron Lanier.
One thing he said that really stuck out to me, and he talks about how the goal
for social social media isn't just for your attention and time to be spent on those platforms.
He said the goal is actually to change how you think, what you do,

(08:57):
your behavior, how you perceive things.
And it's a slow and gradual change. And I thought that it's not a direct quote
to paraphrase, but it was just really interesting to hear him talk about that.
It's changing how you think.
And one of the things that they said that was really interesting on that documentary
is that the stuff that you see on social media is geared for you.

(09:18):
The stuff that I see on social media is geared for me, which means we may see
the same topic, but we're fed different information on that topic.
And so we're not even seeing the same stuff. And so now I'm mad at you for something
that you've talked about, but you've actually looked at, and I'm assuming you're
seeing what I'm seeing, but you've actually seen other things.

(09:39):
And so this whole system is set up.
I don't know how it's, I don't know. You asked about hope and I don't know what the hope is.
I know that in a general sense, whenever it comes to any kind of mental health
situation, I mean, one of the biggest advices is get off social media.
If you're struggling with depression, anxiety, any of these things, get off social media.

(10:03):
And I've seen people in a very short amount of time change drastically their, how they feel.
They're happier. They don't feel as angry.
And so we know there's like, you know, maybe the hope is to pull back on some
of these things, or at least we know that it's not real.
We have to have a grasp of that. It isn't always reality.

(10:24):
And I think that that might be a key thing that we got to do. Yeah.
Pulling, stepping away from it. I think there's probably a lot of wisdom in that.
Interestingly enough, I think
it was yesterday I was listening to podcasts between Jordan Peterson.
He had Sam Harris on and I didn't get to watch all of it, but I listened to all of it.

(10:45):
But the portion that I had, Sam Harris was talking about one of the best decisions
he made in life was getting off Twitter. Yep.
Yep. And he was talking about, so he was talking about the health that came
to him because Twitter is an environment that is, it wants instant response.
It's, you can't say a lot. And so it kind of, you know, with it being right

(11:08):
there at the ready, you get cut off in traffic, you get served the wrong dish.
So it's just this environment that breeds kind of hostility.
And inevitably, he just talked about so much of the negativity in his life came through Twitter.
And so he got off it. And it's funny, it's interesting if other people had watched it, what they thought.
But my impression of it was, he was saying it was one of the best decisions

(11:30):
he ever made in life was to get off of Twitter and then to find platforms that
are more conducive towards things that are positive. And that's what he found.
So not that I'm advocating becoming a disciple of Sam Harris,
but I think that he's- Right, that'd be a whole other conversation.

(11:51):
Right. He's finding what you've found and are saying, and that a lot of us should
employ and use some wisdom and discernment. And of course, it's hard.
There's the fear of being out of the loop.
It's the fear of now I'm going to be left behind. There's a lot of fear associated
with social media, but stepping, stepping back from just even maybe a platform or maybe not all of them.

(12:13):
I think can bring a lot of good. Can I say a couple of things on that real quick,
actually? No, let's move on.
Go ahead. So you raised a really good point that I was thinking as well.
I was like, actually stepping back can be stressful for people,
especially if you're a teenager and all your friends and social interactions are on social media.
So stepping back makes you do feel disconnected with your friends.

(12:35):
And so there is that kind of like you wanna step back, but then you lose your connections.
And what was also interesting in that Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris interview
was how they both mentioned like, in their normal everyday life,
they have very good positive experiences with people.
But when you get on social media, it's just negative. Like the negative experience

(12:56):
in their life are predominantly on social media, but their everyday interaction-
So it's not reality, right?
Yeah. It's not, yeah, go ahead, sorry.
No, no, it's fine. I mean, that's the thing. And I'd never thought about it like that.
Like when I look around at my friends' groups and like I have a very good positive,
positive, like circle of people around me.
And then you think about, yeah, social media. And look, this is the pot calling

(13:18):
kind of black or whatever they say. I mean, I'm on Facebook and Twitter, right?
And I won't do Instagram because I think it's not going to be healthy for me, all the images.
But I think Twitter has been so interesting until I've learned more recently,
but more interesting to hear some different perspectives and things.
And you get to see all these really cute videos of kids and dogs and things like that.

(13:38):
But learning more and more More about how it's trying to manipulate your mind,
makes you really, you know, question things.
And if you don't feed into that, a lot of times you don't get the clicks.
So it was interesting that interview with Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris and
how, yeah, when he said he said that from Twitter, I was like,
wow. And I checked. Yeah, he's not on there.
So it's just interesting to me because I think this is most people's experience.

(14:03):
I remember it's been a couple of years now, but I had this man come up to me. And he said.
And he was confessing. He said, I hate Democrats.
And he wasn't happy about this. He wasn't trying to score a point.
He wasn't even riled up. It was like a confessional moment.

(14:24):
And I knew him. And so I said to him, I said, well, wait a minute.
What about your friend Steve?
And he goes, oh, not Democrats like Steve. And I'm like, what do you mean not Democrats like Steve?
If you were to find a dictionary, you know, if there was a picture,
a person in a picture associated with the definition of what it is to be a Democrat, it's Steve.

(14:46):
I mean, he through and through is as blue as he possibly could be.
And of course, you're getting where this is at. What was the difference about
Steve versus, quote unquote, Democrats was he knew Steve and people are not
simply you shouldn't reduce somebody simply to a position that they hold.
People are more than the sum total of their beliefs, especially like political
beliefs. But in the world of social media, that's what happens.

(15:08):
People are reduced to an idea and it's easy to hate an idea.
And some ideas should be hated because they are dangerous, but people are more
than the ideas that they have.
But in the world of social media, it just becomes easy to reduce people to ideas.
So, I think maybe one practical piece just to take away from this is,

(15:30):
and one of the things that especially Christians can be leading the way in,
is to understand that the world that we are a part of in the social media world,
that there's something false about it.
And to be able to step back, whether it's literally step back and just disengage
for a period of time or permanently, or at least step back and get a truer picture

(15:51):
on life and go, is this really the way the world is?
Because it's like we entered into this other realm, right? The social media realm.
And then we walked back out into another one. And I think we should all ask
the question is, is the world that I live in every minute, you know,
the rest of my life, although the amount of time that we're on social media,
Maybe that is the real world these days.

(16:13):
But in real life, so to speak, is that the way things really are?
And to be careful about bringing the experiences that we've had in social media
and putting that on the rest of life.
Yeah. What do you think about that? No, and I think that's the real harm, right?
Especially going back to what we were just talking about how,
you know, you see things on social media that I don't see.

(16:35):
And both of us is going to think that this is reality.
And that is going to cloud our view, our way of interacting with other people.
So behind me, I have this painting, which is the School of Athens by Raphael.
It's my favorite painting.
And you can't really see it quite well. But it's got a bunch of different people
debating and engaging with various ideas. ideas.

(16:59):
Now, so you might have some mathematicians. They think maybe Socrates is in
there or, you know, there are people they don't really know if he was painting
different people, but you got philosophers, you got mathematicians,
you got probably theologians.
And if you look at it, you got diversity, ethnic diversity, and you even have
like men and women, which is what it looks It's like all that to say, you...

(17:19):
What you see in that painting is the opposite of what we have today.
You see differences in opinion as being an exciting thing to explore.
Why don't you hold the view I hold? Tell me more.
Where am I not seeing things? What am I getting it wrong? Nope,
you actually have a hole here in your view. Let me challenge this. What do you say back?

(17:41):
It is the exact opposite is what we're having in our culture.
And it is anything anybody has different than me. it's not let me explore,
let me understand why, it's you are my enemy, you're against me.
So your idea means that you're fundamentally against me as a person,
or your viewpoint means you're against me as a person.
And the problem is, is that this idea behind me of these different philosophers

(18:04):
and theologians or whoever they are, mathematicians, is this is what's given
us such a rich base of knowledge over the centuries, is to be able to be challenged.
Now, I'm probably maybe one of those people that's a little bit more comfortable
with somebody challenging my ideas or my thoughts, I actually find it,
like, I love that back and forth, actually. What am I missing?
Nope. I see you have a hole here. Like, I find that enriching because it strengthens

(18:26):
me. It makes me, yeah, just more intellectual.
Yeah. So how did you get to a point where you didn't feel like that's threatening?
Because that painting, yeah, that seems like this romantic.
Better than life, utopiastic kind of environment where people from different
backgrounds, Browns, different disciplines, different expertise,
different viewpoints all come together in this spirit of humility in the pursuit of truth.

(18:51):
I mean, who wouldn't want to be a part of that?
Of course, to be a part of that, you have to risk being wrong.
And it seems like there's just few people that are able to do that. So what is it about you?
How did you get to a point where you enjoy that and you aren't afraid of someone
saying, that's so stupid? Why do you believe that?

(19:12):
Yeah. So that's an interesting question. I guess it was. Have you always been like that?
Has it always like from as long as you can remember, you just had this almost
thick skin, if you will, or something else, another just that you always welcomed conversation.
It was easy for you to change your mind or did this happen later in life?
What is it that got you to a place where you welcome this kind of dialogue and

(19:35):
don't close down and shut it off?
Yeah. So I do think it comes from childhood.
I was at, first of all, I was that annoying kid in class that had a million
questions about everything. You know, like the teacher finished the class.
You're still that annoying kid in class.
I have questions about everything. Yeah.
And I'm always like, no, the answer wasn't good enough. What about this? It's just, and,

(19:56):
you know, I, and so I think I had an environment where I could do that spending
hours discussing with people different theology things, being challenged.
And I do think that it does have to do with your sense of, like, I have to be right.

(20:18):
If you hold that position where you have to be right, then this kind of discourse
is just going to, you're not going to be able to handle it.
I think it was just, I look at things as let's engage with ideas.
And so I think growing up, I had the ability to challenge ideas,
but that didn't mean I didn't love the person.

(20:39):
It was never, it was, yeah, sometimes you get like tense, but you just,
you move on after like a day or two, you have to be whatever you move on and you keep going.
And I wonder if that might be, as we're discussing this,
something that's missing where we create these
places for people to have these challenging
ideas and perspectives on things and be able to be challenged themselves and

(21:04):
be able to be corrected because of the environment that we've created where
people are scared to share what they feel like because they don't want to be
called a phobic of something, whatever it is, or racist or whatever.
So they're scared prepared to even engage in that dialogue.
And I think as apologists, I mean, this is the world, we live in the tension.
We live in, I mean, apologists, you know, we are challenging ideas.

(21:26):
We are challenging writings. We are challenging. So for us, we are very comfortable
in the tension of, hey, this is actually incorrect.
I think this is the better way. And we also need to be recipients of that.
Like, you know, people challenge me and I'm like, yep, that's a good a point.
I'm wrong. Good. Great. I've strengthened, but I don't think we've created that environment.

(21:47):
Yeah, there's kind of, I think, two pieces here that you touch on.
One is the world that we live in, in the kind of cancel culture,
if you will, that most people live to some degree with the fear of, if I take the wrong side.
My livelihood's going to be taken away, my social network's going to be gone,

(22:10):
and my friends, family, whatever it is.
And that may be unique to this time. So that's certainly challenging.
I think also, though, there's there's there is a certain risk with being wrong.
Now, not about all things. Right. Like if if I need to have my mind changed
on whether a certain football team is better than the other,

(22:32):
whatever, you know, or who are the goat is in a sport, whatever.
And you can get and you can get in the spirit to the bills. got.
They got from Miami this week. Is that right?
Yeah. They just, yeah, they just beat Miami. It was a great one.
The division. Yeah. I'm not supposed to date these podcasts.
Oh, well, we'll just leave stuff like that in, but not even lost what I'm saying.

(22:52):
Oh, so like, you know, if you're wrong about something like that, no big deal.
You have an opinion about something and you're wrong and someone changes your
mind. No big deal. You have to get over your pride.
Maybe there are some beliefs that come with a bigger risk and maybe there's
a greater level of fear that to some degree, maybe even is as appropriate.
I mean, for me, right. If we're just going to be honest, right.
I've believed for a very long time that God is real.

(23:16):
Jesus Christ, who was God in flesh, walked this earth, showed us who God the
father was, died on the cross for our sins.
And I believe him that he will forgive me of my sins by faith in him.
I've lived an an entire life based on that idea, that belief.
I've taught that to my kids.

(23:38):
I've written books. I've spoken to thousands of people.
What if I'm wrong about that? What does that mean for my entire life?
How do I backtrack to correct all the wrong I would have done? Mm-hmm.
So there are some beliefs that the farther you go, right, the harder it's going

(24:01):
to be, the scarier it's going to be, the consequence of being wrong, right?
It's almost, I think, insurmountable.
The the psychological just the psychological state you
would have to get into to admit you're wrong
on that and then reorient your life a
conversion experience like that is a big deal and so i think so you take a lot

(24:24):
of these things together so that's i think a normal human experience that's
probably persisted from the dawn of creation right that all human beings for
all time have of experienced the fear of what if I'm wrong on these big ticket items.
You marry that with a society today where people don't have good relationships anymore.

(24:44):
All of our relationships are like that deep, right?
We move a lot. Everything's digital.
You don't have long friends. A lot of people don't have the relationship that has survived the fight.
And you think about if you do have a friend that you've duked it out with,
that's a different kind kind of relationship than another.
And people don't have that. So you take that environment, that's part of our

(25:08):
environment, the cancel culture, it's part of our environment.
I think it makes a heck of a lot of sense why there's a lot of fighting.
There's the fear of I can't be wrong. Yeah. You're hurting me.
You're threatening me with your viewpoint.
I don't know who you are. You need to just shut up and go away.
And I'm going to use whatever I can to put you away. way. Now,

(25:29):
I think that's maybe what's lurking in a lot of our hearts.
But if you were to talk to somebody, they certainly wouldn't have,
I don't think, a self-awareness or admit, yep, that's what I'm doing.
But I think there's a lot of that there.
And so, again, what do we do about that? Or what do you think?
Do you think I'm off base in that? Or what do you think?

(25:50):
No. So, Mike, I think this is something that we all need to think about is what
is, if we are wrong, what does that mean?
And this is whether you're religious or not religious. This is if you hold a
political view or you don't hold a different political view.
This is if you think red is the best color, you think blue is the best color.

(26:12):
The point is we all need to consider what is the reason that the person is holding
to that view because they think it's right.
Or is it because of many other reasons, one of which could be that if it's wrong,
what does it mean for their life or things that they said and all that?

(26:34):
And that's exactly true.
I remember, just to bring it into a Christian context quickly,
and I'll take it back out, but I remember there was a Jehovah's Witness who
had come to my door years back.
She came knocking on my door one Saturday morning. And of course,
it was like the one Saturday you want to sleep in at 9 a.m.,
you know, there's a knock on the door.
Very nice lady, former retired teacher.

(26:55):
And she had come to me about two weeks after she had come home from,
I don't know, shopping or something, came home and found her husband had had
a heart attack and died on the kitchen floor.
And she took a couple of weeks to kind of process that and deal with that.
And the next, you know, she's coming to my door knocking.
And so I invite her in and I, you know, we talk and she comes for a series of weeks.

(27:17):
And I remember, you know, just kind of getting frustrated because I was like,
no matter what I say, she's just holding on to this view, no matter how I challenge
it or how I say, there's a hole here maybe you need to consider,
or maybe you need to consider this perspective in Christianity or something.
She would hold on to it. And I remember, you know, just kind of reflecting on

(27:37):
that and just kind of like God saying to me, Alicia, you got to think about
what does this mean if she says the Jehovah's Witness faith is no longer right?
What will that mean for her? What would that mean for her dead husband?
Is it possible here that what she's fighting for isn't for her own belief,
but maybe for wherever her husband might be?

(27:59):
And that was for me was exactly like eye-opening.
You know, that we as people need to remember. It could be political.
It could be, and even if you disagree with somebody, why is it that they hold this view on abortion?
You may be pro-life. They may
be pro-choice. Why is that? Versus just saying, you just murder babies.

(28:21):
Okay. Well, or is there some sort of situation?
Do they have a relative that was sexually abused or raped and was 12 years old
when they got pregnant? Something. In other words, what is undergirding that?
And part of what's happening now with our culture is because we are so at odds,
we no longer can put ourselves in the other person's shoes.
We can't do that. And so that So that means that we're just fighting at each

(28:44):
other versus trying to hear and bring people into the story that you're trying
to create, the truth that you're telling them.
You're just fighting at them. And that just shuts people down.
They get defensive and they dig their heels further into their position. Yeah.
Having empathy is needed now more than ever.

(29:04):
And that does not come at the cost of sacrificing proclaiming truth, but we have to recover.
Some empathy for, for one another. And so I think, you know,
one of the things I think is always important is when you're dealing with really
important issues, the tendency is to always, you know, point the finger and
go, the problem's out there.

(29:25):
But I think a bit of reflection for all people that recognize there's a problem
with the way the world is. There's a lot of fighting going on.
It's not just because the problems with other people, the problems also within us as individuals.
And a lot of people want to just think that they're open-minded and the rest

(29:47):
of the world is closed-minded.
I don't think that's the case. I think all people struggle with being closed-minded
because of what we just talked about.
For us to be wrong on some of these really, the issues that matter most,
what we believe about God, what we believe about what
it means to be human and then the implications that
come from that politics is another big one that stems from this

(30:09):
what if if we're wrong on those things it comes at a heavy price and that price
is something a lot of us don't want to pay and the fear of that closes us off
and i think that's true of all people so if the world needs peace today who are the peacemakers.
And I think rather than looking at other people, we ought to look within,

(30:32):
which brings me maybe to another thing I thought we ought to talk about.
Why are Christians so bad at being peacemakers?
And I don't even mean with culture, I mean with each other.
We talked just recently about, and I can't remember the example because it seems
like there's one a week of, you know, this Christian is going after this Christian publicly.
And it's not that ideas shouldn't be debated publicly, but the spirit with which

(30:56):
it happens, the name-calling, it's just nasty.
Why are Christians seemingly as bad as anybody else at making peace?
So this is something that I think has bothered me for a while, before COVID. Right.
Because I just noticed change.

(31:19):
I just noticed fighting and just really hurtful things being said on social
media for several years now.
And it really, I didn't realize it at the time, but I think it really started wearing me out.
And it's because I think as an apologist, you expect to go out to a university,

(31:40):
retreat a group, something, an audience somewhere, and to be at odds with people.
You know that. And like you said, you got to have a thick skin to be able- That's
what you signed up for, right? That's what you signed up for.
And so you do that, but you know that you can always come home.
And home doesn't necessarily mean your physical house, but home meaning you

(32:03):
can come home to the people that don't fight with you.
And what I was noticing was happening is I would go out there there and speak
and be challenged and challenge each other. And that's great.
And that's good. And that's what I'm doing.
But then when I came home, it was still fighting.
It was still the church was fighting. So when I go out to do ministry or any

(32:23):
kind of work, there's fighting.
When I come home within the church, there's fighting. So there was no place
I could go where there was peace.
And it just started to wear on me where I was like, how can I just shut Shout out the noise.
And this is something, like I said, it's pre-COVID. And if you think of a lot

(32:44):
of things that happened with COVID and the different things we've had over the
last several years, I mean, this predated it that it was going.
So to answer your question, why are Christians like that?
I think it's because of so many of the reasons we said, where I think as opposed
to feeling like there has the sense
of justice is I've got to protect this Christian message, which I get.
I totally get. We all want to protect the truth of Christianity.

(33:07):
We don't want people, false teachers being out there, and we don't want people
spreading things that aren't true because followers, people are following them.
They have followers that are influencing their lives.
And I totally get that sense of justice. says. My concern is,
I agree with you on the problem.
It is the means through which we solve that problem. I think for me that the disagreement is.

(33:31):
And I'm not convinced that social media is the way to solve that problem because
social media has not been around for all of human history.
It's something of the last 15 or so years. Probably not even quite that much
yet. So before that, there was a way that we were dealing with these things.
And so we've changed to make it be this. And I understand why they got followers

(33:53):
and you can get your mess out to a lot of people. And I'm, you know,
and okay, maybe, yeah, that's true.
But have you actually changed people? Like your ultimate problem,
have you actually solved it? Have you actually changed the way people have thought?
Because now what you're asking people to do as you challenge them on social
media is you're asking them to have humility and change their position in front of thousands.

(34:13):
Think about how effective that is going to be versus a one-on-one conversation.
Oh my gosh. So that, that sparked something.
And I want to come back to another thing here, but I say a lot to people that,
you know, part of maturity is maturity.
Knowing how hard to argue a belief.
There are some beliefs that based on a number of factors, but there are a number

(34:40):
of beliefs that you can have a very high degree of certainty that it's true.
And arguing fiercely for that is appropriate.
The danger though, is the harder you argue for something, the harder it is to
ever admit you're wrong.
Yes. So there's a risk of arguing fiercely because of just good old fashioned pride. Yes.

(35:03):
Compound that with now you did this in front of thousands of people,
or at least you think you did.
You know, we have our hundreds or thousands of friends and, you know,
we think our posts probably are seen by more than others, but it's public nonetheless.
That really, you know, causes you to dig your heels in.
And so, yeah, there's some discretion that needs to come with,

(35:25):
you know, back to social media, but arguing in generally just this principle
of be careful how hard you argue a point because the harder you argue a point,
the harder it will ever be to admit that you're wrong.
And so be very selective in what you argue that way and put not all issues need
to be argued as fiercely.
And, but, but, but what I, what
I really want to get back to is just this notion of going home, right?

(35:49):
My home is a place where there is fighting. So I don't know that I buy into
this This home is this place where there is no fighting.
But I do know this home is a place that's filled with relationships that survive fighting.
I mean, that's just also part of the beauty of marriage and why...
Why divorce is a grievous thing because, you know, Paul talks about how in marriage

(36:12):
there's this mystery where it demonstrates the love that God has for his church.
And I think part of that love is I am for you and I forgive you and I'm with you.
And it's not dependent upon your behavior and whether you fall in line or not.
And, you know, with my wife, she is certainly not stuck with me because of my behavior.

(36:33):
I'm not the worst husband either, by the way, but, you know,
Our marriage is like probably a number of marriages where either one of us had
times where, by a worldly standard,
if you will, bouncing would have felt easier or whatnot.
Saying something like that probably gets me in trouble, but hopefully I communicated it well.

(36:55):
What I mean to say is I think we've had a pretty normal marriage that has highs
and has lows. But what's different about our marriage, seemingly these days,
is no matter what, I know my wife has my back and I have her back.
And I will never leave her. And I will never abandon her. And I will never forsake her.
So we fight a heck of a lot, but our fighting's a little bit different because

(37:18):
it's without the fear of being abandoned by the other person.
And I think church should have that feeling, but it doesn't.
It certainly doesn't. Because what happens in church when you fight?
What does somebody do? They leave.
Abandonment plagues the church. Yep. And so this is one of the things that I got to be careful.

(37:39):
I've certainly got baggage here and this could become a soapbox, high horse moment.
But the church are the people that the Lord has brought out of darkness, rescued us from our sin.
We know forgiveness, we know mercy, but we don't know how to give that to other people.
And preaching on unity is the easiest thing to do because you know what you're

(38:02):
going to do? No matter where you preach this at, you're going to find an audience that says, amen.
Damn right, preacher.
Everybody believes in unity. And yet disunity is pervasive.
Abandonment is pervasive. Gossip is pervasive.
Fighting is pervasive. Is it that the church doesn't really believe the gospel?

(38:26):
Well, they haven't really experienced the forgiveness of Jesus Christ or what
the heck is going on in our churches.
Or is it the way we've structured churches?
Is there something about the way we have structured ourselves,
put ourselves together that breeds this kind of fighting and disloyalty?

(38:47):
Similar to what we've said, like social media, the environment itself is part
of the problem is the way that we kind of do quote unquote church these days, part of the problem.
And it kind of is an environment that breeds, I mean, I want to use the word hostility.
Maybe there's a better word there, but, but what do you, I don't know.
What do you think about that?
Well, that is, yeah. So, I mean, I guess you just want us all to get in trouble here.

(39:12):
I'll let you handle the church structure one as the former pastor,
because that's, And that is something I don't know as much about.
But when you say, you know, have we forgotten the gospel? I mean,
there's so many times when I wonder, my goodness, do we know the gospel?
Like, like, and, and, and I, you know, and you just wonder, like when,
when, when I read, when I read the, the new Testament and you read the Beatitudes

(39:38):
in Matthew five, blessed are the peacemakers.
Well, we aren't really peacemakers and blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.
Well, are we really meek and blessed are the pure and hard blessed are hungry,
thirsty, thirsty, righteous, all of these things, right?
We have the fruits to the spirit, love, joy, peace, long suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.
We have 1 Corinthians 13 and love.

(39:58):
And one of the lists of things about love, just, you notice,
just in case anybody missed it, that it doesn't say anything about emotions
in that section, just in case somebody missed that.
But one of the things it talks about is that we are like, that we keep no record of wrongs.
And, and I just, I just oftentimes wonder if we have have lost the gospel,

(40:19):
the transformational new covenant that we belong under, that Christ has put us under.
And we've lost that along the way because we've been so influenced by the culture.
And I just...
When I look at Jesus and he's on the cross and he's dying and he says,

(40:40):
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
When I look at Stephen in Acts chapter seven, when he's being stoned,
he says something along the lines of like, looks up at heaven and says,
don't hold this against them.
You see a massive change in how we respond to our enemy.
And that isn't because our enemy has owned their mistake.

(41:03):
Stake it's not because they've repented it's not
because they've had this massive transformation you are
forgiving an unrepentant person that to
me is such a like a mind-blowing countercultural model that i don't know if
we're following and i don't i think we we feel like we're definitely not following

(41:23):
yeah and you know and and so we've we've allowed and then you look at the the the the verses,
there's just way too many for me to even like read.
But you look at so many verses that tell us about how the unity of the church
is a model to the culture that Jesus really is, that this gospel message is true.

(41:43):
Like our unity, the way that we are, the way that we pull together,
like that is supposed to be a light. It's supposed to be a witness to the world.
So when you see these kind of verses that talk about that, and then you see
that we're doing the opposite, we're like, what really is our reputation?
What really is the gospel message that we are teaching? What really is the model
that we're teaching, that we're promoting is what I've begun to wonder.

(42:06):
And I think that's what grieves me.
I think what grieves me more now is the brokenness of the church.
I can deal with the brokenness of the lost because that's what they are supposed,
hosts, they're going to be broken.
And I got it. I'm going to walk with them and help them in their thing.

(42:28):
But it is the brokenness of the believers, I think, that has really worn me out.
Because you wonder, who are we as a church anymore that we've lost our way?
Well, I think here's the thing. I think, as we're talking about this,
the hope and the peace for right now is the gospel.

(42:48):
And it's It's the hope for Christians, not just those that have yet to come to believe in God.
Christians, I think, can move on from the gospel. They think it's something
that I learned and it's something I did. Like I prayed a prayer years ago.
But you never move on from the gospel. It's centrality.
It must remain central in the believer's life, their heart and their mind.

(43:12):
And you think about what we're talking about here, this fighting and this hostility
that's that's pervasive in culture and within the church.
To some degree, I think it exists because Christians have moved on from the gospel.
So you think about like when you've been wronged, right?
Jesus said, forgive them. They do not. They don't know what they do. Stephen said that.

(43:33):
Can we do that for others? Can we?
Because I think, you know, when you think even when the Lord has forgiven us, the repentance.
So let's even put aside the forgiving, the unrepentant, if you will.
Christians are those that have repented of their sins. I think it's,
I think it stands to reason. I think this is a true statement.
We don't really know what we've done, right? Right.

(43:54):
Do we fully comprehend the nature of our offense and our sin against God?
I don't think we know. Maybe we grow in that knowledge over time and we're more
aware of God's goodness and our brokenness and the nastiness of sin grows and matures in our own mind.
But I think we have a partial understanding.

(44:15):
So this notion of forgive them, they don't know what they've done.
That's true for all people that live right now. And if we've been forgiven in
that way, is it possible for us to extend that kind of forgiveness ourselves?
What if we did? I think that's peace. I think that's where our hope is. It is in the gospel.

(44:41):
I think so. And I just think, I guess one of my questions for many people that
maybe feel like it's, you know, whatever,
whether it's social media, whether it's an article, whatever it is,
that this is, that you have to do this to protect yourself.
You know, the gospel. My question is, well, how many people do you know that

(45:01):
have become Christians through your article?
How many people that you know have become Christians through the stuff that you put in social media?
Because what I see is a non-Christian world that looks at the Christian world
and says, clearly your crucified savior wasn't enough because you are still
crucifying people today.

(45:22):
That is not a body of people that I want to belong long with.
You crucify your own. So why would I want to join you?
And so I don't see how this is protecting the gospel. There's a sense in which
I feel like we feel like we have to help God.
Like somehow he can't handle like these things and we need to maybe protect him.

(45:44):
And so maybe we go too far.
I think once again, there is a balance between healthy correction and how do
we deal with things that are said.
Once again, we can address ideas versus slandering a person or making it going
way too far as personal that it needs to be.
But in the same sense, I don't know what the witness is to somebody looking in.

(46:10):
Because if me as a Christian is worn out and just wants to separate myself in
terms of shutting all the noise down, then how would a non-Christian feel?
Like, you know, it's like for me, this is the family that I got to keep enduring with.
And I, you know, I got to forgive and do life with and these kind of things.

(46:30):
How would a non-Christian feel when they don't have that obligation?
I think your whole allusion to marriage was very good.
This idea of.
You know, you do the ups and downs, you do the disagreements,
but you're not going anywhere.
And I, and I just think that that piece is what we've lost.

(46:52):
Cause what we do is like, Oh, you disagree with us. Boom. I'm out. We go, we go away.
And I think that that is a very interesting and scary thing to think that maybe
that's infiltrated more areas of our lives than we've realized.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think for me as an apologist, I think for me,

(47:13):
just the way I see everything is I just see everything as how does this look to the non-Christian?
How does what I say sound to non-Christian? How does what I'm doing, how does this look?
How does this come across? I find it interesting that, not surprising really,
but so here we are, we both work for the same ministry, Apologetics Inc.

(47:33):
You've been doing this as a living for over a decade.
Here we are, apologists, defending the faith. And we've talked about what the
impact Christian witness is on the non-believing world.
We haven't talked about what's the best argument to make here.
Well, in the classic sense of an argument.

(47:57):
We've talked about what Christian unity, what kind of sign that would be.
Because that's what, again, to have unity, there has to be forgiveness and there has to be humility.
And the world just doesn't see that anywhere. They don't see that anywhere.
And they don't see it in the church. The Christians aren't experiencing that in the church.

(48:19):
We're experiencing conditional transactional relationships one after another.
And I have to pick this up.
We're saving this conversation for another day. I am growing in a conviction
that the way that we've structured churches facilitates that.
It facilitates a transactional consumeristic expectation.

(48:40):
And so we just fall in line and treat each other that way.
So I do think there's something to be said there. But I wanted to ask you,
if it's all right, how you've personally had to apply kind of what we're talking about,
being a part of, you were with RZM for many years, and it was It was a tragic
ending, if you will, to a ministry that did a lot of good for so many years.

(49:04):
And the ministry was more than just, of course, Ravi.
There were a number of people impacted by what he did and then the dissolution of RZIM.
How have you kind of applied and wrestled with and dealt with the stuff that
we're talking about here?
What has the gospel meant for you in all of this, maybe?
Yeah, what has the gospel meant for me in all of this? Yes. So the,

(49:27):
I guess you could say the imploding, exploding,
whatever you want to, the downfall of RZM, which by the way,
was a fantastic place to be.
Best eight years of my life. It was a great organization.
They took great care of us. And yeah, so it was, it was sad on a bunch of levels.

(49:50):
I think what you're going to see in that situation is you're going to see a
range of people who process through something so,
I think I would definitely use the word traumatic for several people in various ways. ways.
Within RZIM, it's an organization, it was a global organization,

(50:12):
over 200 some odd people.
You had women who had experienced some sort of sexual abuse and various degrees,
I'll keep it general to protect identities, and then you had people who that was never their story.
And there was staunch differences actually between the people who had experienced

(50:32):
experienced sexual abuse and those who hadn't.
And those who had experienced sexual abuse were so upset with the disunity that
formed with RZIM as it was kind of winding down.
They were, the fighting and the infighting and the public fighting actually

(50:54):
hurt them more because they- Why is that?
I guess you're answering that. Sorry. No, that's okay.
Because I think for them, the trauma of what had happened to them was something that...
Nobody out here could deal with. But RZM had become their family and their friends.

(51:15):
Once again, this was the, you're going home, right? You're leaving the world
out there and you're going home to the crew that loves you.
And now your family is fighting.
And that was something they couldn't handle. They had already processed through
the trauma or they were still doing it, whatever that happened to them,
but they had no place to go where it was peaceful anymore.

(51:37):
And that became really difficult. So right.
So now you got tears because people they love are fighting with people that they love.
And you just, I mean, it was just, and so, and I remember,
you know, one young lady who had nothing to do with anything,
just said what was happening, triggered in her something happened with her own

(51:59):
personal family seven years prior, a completely different situation, RZM.
But the stuff that was happening was making her feel, was reminding her of that
pain. And so So she's crying because of that.
And so basically, so I'm not, so people aren't unclear and I'm not being,
I don't want to be too vague with what she's talking about.
The public response to what was happening at RZIM caused people a lot of pain internally.

(52:24):
And it isn't because people are saying that things never happen wrong.
It has nothing to do with that. Once again, people agreed on the problem.
It was the means that people disagreed on as to how that should be handled. old.
And much of the public stuff actually re-traumatized certain people that were
in the organization who had nothing to do with anything that happened.

(52:46):
They were employees, everyday employees in the organization.
And so that re-traumatized them because nobody wants to see their family fight.
And so this whole disunity thing, I think, has ramifications beyond what we are thinking.
And this is getting back to something we talked about earlier.
When you are are fighting with somebody, it's really easy for you to not put

(53:08):
yourself in their shoes. It's the empathy thing that you talked about.
And kind of some of the stuff that I had mentioned earlier as well,
like this idea that you can't put yourself there. Why do they hold this view?
Why is it they're responding this way? And this goes on both sides of the gamut
of what happened to Arizam.
Why is this person responding this way? Why is this one responding an opposite way? And,

(53:29):
And in the ability to not do that, it's easy to become self-focused.
Well, let me save myself at whatever expense it might be, whatever pain it might
cause somebody else, because I'm not putting myself in somebody else's shoes
as to how this will hurt them.
And so I think that caused a lot of the pain where people focus on how do I,

(53:56):
and this is, I guess, getting back maybe to some of the New Testament here,
is to what level do I allow myself to be dirtied by RCIM? a.m.
And I think for me, as I look, you know, you read Jesus, right?
And the Pharisees were like looking at me, he hangs with tax collectors and
sinners, like what a fool, right?

(54:18):
In other words, they looked at him as dirty because of who he was associated with.
But Jesus was not interested. You don't see Jesus change. Oh,
well, let me not, let me not, let me separate myself from these tax collectors
and sinners. Let me separate myself. They're dirty.
He didn't do that because he didn't care what the Pharisees thought of him.
Their opinion didn't matter to him. He He knew that he needed to be with the ones that were hurting.

(54:40):
And that meant he was going to get dirty. And the Pharisees hated him more and
more and eventually got him to the cross.
You know, they hated him when he stood up for the woman who was caught in the
act of adultery. They hated him when the woman washed his feet with her hair.
If he was really a prophet, he would know what kind of woman it is that's defiling him right now.
And Jesus never pushed people like that away. He was okay to get dirty.

(55:02):
The very first book of the New Testament, the very first verse of the very first
chapter of Matthew, basically says this is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah,
the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Jesus' identity is immediately linked to being a descendant of David,
who we know is a man who committed adultery.

(55:23):
And you can say abuse. Of course, Bathsheba couldn't say no to the king.
So he has this woman come and gets her pregnant and to cover it up, has her husband killed.
And Jesus identifies his entrance in Matthew 1.
This is the genealogy of Jesus inside the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Jesus wasn't scared to be associated with sinners because then he would never

(55:45):
be able to be associated with us.
And this is what I think so many people miss. We're talking about the gospel
that we lost the gospel. We've lost the gospel.
And what's hard in this is inevitably people will hear something like that and
go, oh, you're now excusing behavior.
But I don't think empathy entails excusing somebody. I don't think...

(56:12):
Looking at things through the gospel excuses anything. It's not a pardon for
the crimes that are committed here on this earth.
But without the gospel, we inevitably make really bad decisions on how we treat
people and how we handle things. And so that's a pretty interesting insight.

(56:32):
I've never heard you put it that way before about how dirty am I willing to
be with the the yards I am situation because though there was something tragic
that happened, there's a lot of good associated with it.
And certainly all of those that were associated with it, there's this kind of
toxic, whatever surrounding those people and those initiatives and, and whatnot.

(56:57):
And it's been just a, let's ignore
to act as if it never existed and those people were never a part of it.
And let's just not have anything to do with it for fear of somebody writing
writing an article or whatnot about us.
But I think that's counter gospel. I think that does not represent what the gospel is enough.

(57:19):
Yeah. So can I say the tragedy of what you just said?
The tragedy of what you just said is that if R.A.J.M. to you was about people
or prestige prestige or a name on a business card,
then for you, the fall was, yeah, I don't want to be associated with that filth.

(57:42):
But for so many of us, it was we saw God change people's hearts.
We saw people come to be believers.
We saw people who never understood Christianity in that way. way.
We had head of atheist societies at Prestigious University come to our talks
and bring his whole humanist society and talk to us for hours because they hadn't

(58:04):
heard Christians talk like this. They didn't know Christians were intellectual.
So there's nothing that a human could do or humans could do that could erase from me what God did.
And the way that he worked and the people that he touched globally cannot be erased.
So there is not an ounce of shame in me for being a part of RZM for eight years because...

(58:30):
I was a part of what God was doing in this little tiny fraction of the world.
And I'm never going to be ashamed of being a part of his calling and being a
part of his work. And you know what? You get dirty sometimes.
And you know what? The early church died and were beheaded and were tortured.
And these things happen. If you don't want to get dirty, then lock yourself
in a room and don't ever speak to anybody and share the gospel.

(58:54):
But whenever you're dealing with culture and world, we are going to get dirty.
But I just want my friends to know that when they fall in that hole,
that I'm going to get down there
with them and we're going to figure out together how to get out of this.
I'm not going to look at them and say, what you stupid idiot,
you knew better. We'll figure it out. No, I don't think that's what it is.
And I don't think me climbing in that hole affirms any kind of behavior because

(59:18):
Jesus never, he didn't affirm the behavior with the sinners, right?
The woman caught in the adultery says, you know, I don't condemn you either,
but go and don't do this again.
Sin no more. Like he didn't say it was okay. What, what more than the,
the, what does the incarnation say?
I mean, it's not even just that. I mean, he took on humanity and ain't taking on humanity.

(59:40):
He's obviously not affirming what we've done with it.
He's on record in the Old Testament saying, I'm going to wipe them out,
Moses. I'm going to start over with you.
Yeah. Humans have have made the worst.
We've made a mess of what we've been given, but in the incarnation.
God takes on flesh to be with us, to lead us to freedom and the fulfillment

(01:00:05):
of what it is to be made in his image.
And so I think that's an appropriate way to look at things.
And it's really hard, right? To not want to take on the filth and the fear of what comes with that.
But again, I think the gospel with wisdom implores us to love people like that.

(01:00:29):
Well, Alicia, I think this is a good place to end.
We could talk for much longer, but I'm
glad to be working in an organization with
you where we get to see what the Lord is doing and to be partnering with people
that aren't afraid to get dirty and to be motivated by what the Lord has done
for us and to see His his glory go forward and to see his love find as many

(01:00:52):
people as possible. So thank you, Alicia.
And I'll see you before other people see this. Yeah.
Music.