How to Reach the West Again with Tim Keller

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon Guerra (00:00):
[MUSIC PLAYS]

Amy Mantravadi (00:28):
Hello and welcome to another episode of
the(A)Millennial podcast.
My name is Amy Mantravadi andI'll be your host until such
time as somebody elsevolunteers.
Today, I'm going to be speakingwith Tim Keller about his short
work, How to Reach the WestAgain.
When I decided to start thispodcast, one of my chief
concerns was how the church inNorth America should respond to
the increasing secularization ofour culture, which has resulted

(00:51):
in a large drop in churchattendance, particularly among
my own Millennial generation.
Many people share my concern,and a host of possible responses
have been suggested.
Some believe we should do littleor nothing, while others want us
to seek political dominance orgive up and head for the hills.
I think it's safe to say thatsome of these responses are
motivated as much by fear ashope.

(01:13):
We can fall into the trap ofviewing those who reject
Christianity as mere enemies orpersecutors rather than precious
human beings who need to hearthe gospel.
Even so, I too have felt thefrustration of living in an age
where my beliefs areincreasingly ridiculed.
I have concerns about what willhappen just like the next
person.
While I have great faith in theultimate triumph of Christ and

(01:35):
his Church, I do wonder how hardthings may get before that
occurs.
Our brothers and sisters in theMiddle East can testify to what
happens when a civilization thatonce embraced Christianity comes
to reject it, leaving only asmall remnant of faithful
believers, or think of the caseof Christians in Japan, who
after being initially convertedthrough the ministry of Jesuit

(01:56):
missionaries were subjected tohundreds of years of severe
persecution, commanded to rejectChrist publicly by stomping on
his image or face torture andeven death.
The Church there was drivenunderground, and Christians
still make up a tiny minority inJapan.
As I consider these things, I'verecently been drawn to an
episode in the life of theprophet Elijah.

(02:17):
Many of us will remember how hepublicly challenged the prophets
of Baal on Mount Carmel and theLord sent down fire as a
demonstration that he alone wasthe true God.
Immediately after that literalmountain top experience, Elijah
was forced to flee into thewilderness to escape the wrath
of Queen Jezebel.
1 Kings 19 tells us how Elijahended up under a juniper tree,

(02:40):
utterly exhausted and indespair.
He prayed,"Oh God, take my life,for I am not better than my
fathers." The Lord ministered tohim there and provided for his
physical needs.
This gave Elijah enough strengthto make the journey to Mount
Horeb, also known as MountSinai.
Why did Elijah go to Horeb?
Because that is where Godappeared to Moses and gave him

(03:01):
the words of the Law.
That was where the people ofIsrael witnessed the Lord
descending on the mountain withsmoke and fire, thunder and
lightning.
Elijah was going back to theplace where God's presence had
been felt before- to the placethey had seen God work.
He lived in an era where Godseemed almost absent, and I
suspect he longed for that senseof God's immediacy and the

(03:22):
victories that Israel knew backat a time when they were more
faithful to God's covenant.
I'll pick up reading with versenine.
"Then he came there to a caveand lodged there, and behold the
Word of the Lord came to him,and he said to him,'What are you
doing here, Elijah?' He said,'Ihave been very zealous for the
Lord, the God of hosts.

(03:43):
For the sons of Israel haveforsaken your covenant, torn
down your altars, and killedyour profits with the sword, and
I alone am left, and they seekmy life to take it away.' So he
said,'Go forth and stand on themountain before the Lord,' and
behold, the Lord was passing by.
And a great and strong wind wasrending the mountains and
breaking in pieces the rocksbefore the Lord, but the Lord

(04:06):
was not in the wind.
And after the wind, anearthquake, but the Lord was not
in the earthquake.
After the earthquake, a fire,but the Lord was not in the
fire.
And after the fire, a sound of agentle blowing.
When Elijah heard it, he wrappedhis face in his mantle and went
out and stood in the entrance ofthe cave.

(04:26):
And behold, a voice came to himand said,'What are you doing
here, Elijah?' Then he said,'Ihave been very zealous for the
Lord, the God of hosts.
For the sons of Israel haveforsaken your covenant, torn
down your altars, and killedyour prophets with the sword,
and I alone am left, and theyseek my life to take it away.'
The Lord said to him,'Go returnon your way to the wilderness of

(04:49):
Damascus, and when you havearrived, you shall anoint Hazael
king over Aram, and Jehu who theson of Nimshi you shall anoint
king over Israel, and Elisha theson of Shaphat of Abel-mehola
you shall anoint as prophet inyour place.
It shall come about the one whoescapes the sword of Hazael,
Jehu shall put to death.

(05:09):
And the one who escapes the sortof Jehu, Elijah shall put to
death.
Yet I will leave 7,000 inIsrael: all the knees that have
not bowed to Baal and everymouth that has not kissed him.'"
And that was 1 Kings 19:9-18.
Thank you for your patience as Iread that long passage.
Here's what I think is theapplication for us today.

(05:30):
Like Elijah, many of us arelaboring under the impression
that God is relatively absent.
We too see people falling awayto our right and left and feel
like,"I alone am left." Perhapswe are looking for God to repeat

the things he has done before: to move heaven and earth in (05:43):
undefined
great supernatural acts.
But if we were patient for amoment and sat in stillness, we
might just hear the whisper ofthe wind and know the presence
of God that is always there inhis Word and in the testimony of
the Spirit.
Notice how God responds toElijah's lament.
First, he commands him to anointthe new kings of Aram and

(06:06):
Israel.
Aram was a rival kingdom and anenemy of God's people, while the
kingdom of Israel was home toElijah and many others of God's
chosen people.
By declaring his right toappoint the kings of these
Gentile and Jewish nations, Goddemonstrates his sovereignty
over all creation and ultimatepower over events.
As the apostle Paul wrote inRomans 13:1,"There is no

(06:29):
authority except from God, andthose which exist are
established by God." They are inpower now, until that day when
all power and authority isturned over to Jesus Christ and
the kingdom of this worldbecomes the kingdom of our God
and of his Christ.
Second, God commands Elijah toanoint Elisha as prophet in his
place.
This is a clear signal to Elijahthat the prophetic office will

(06:51):
continue.
He is not alone, nor is he thelast of his kind.
God will always have someone toproclaim his Word.
It is also important for aElijah on a personal note, as
Elisha will be a comfort to himin his old age.
"Train this man to continue yourwork," the Lord seems to say.
Finally, the Lord assures Elijahthat while the coming years will
be a time of tumult andjudgment, he will reserve for

(07:14):
himself 7,000 people in Israelwho refuse to bend the knee to
Baal and continue to serve thetrue God.
This is a theme throughout theprophetic books of the Old

Testament (07:23):
that though the majority of the nation of Israel
may turn away from God, therewill be a remnant that will be
saved.
How do we apply these things toour own situation?
First, we ought not fear themachinations of political
powers, because corrupt as theymay be, they are ultimately
appointed by God and subject tohis judgment.
The Lord is sovereign over all.

(07:45):
Second, we need not fear thatthe Church will not have leaders
in the future or that the HolySpirit will stop working.
While the gospel may beforgotten in one area, it will
be proclaimed in another, andthis gospel will be preached
unto the ends of the earth.
Lastly, we will never be alonein our adherence to God's
commandments.
God will always preserve aremnant of faithful souls who

(08:06):
refuse to bend the knee toidols.
I believe that all theseobservations are important as we
think about how to reach theWest again, which is to say how
we bring the hope of the gospelto our neighbors.
The days may seem to grow dark,but we have the promise of God
that the light shines in thedarkness and the darkness has
not and will not overcome it.
Before ado is furthered anyfurther, let's head to the

(08:28):
interview.

Jon Guerra (08:30):
[MUSIC PLAYS]

And I am here with Tim Keller, who is the
author of How to Reach the WestAgain.
He was educated at BucknellUniversity for his bachelor's
degree, at Gordon-ConwellTheological Seminary for his
Masters of Divinity, and atWestminster Theological Seminary
for his Doctorate of Ministry.
He is ordained in thePresbyterian Church in America,

(09:02):
and with the support of hiswife, Kathy, he planted Redeemer
Presbyterian Church inManhattan.
He's worked on severalinitiatives with Redeemer,
including co-founding RedeemerCity to City, which aims to
promote gospel movements incities around the world,
primarily through churchplanting.
He's also a co-founder of TheGospel Coalition.

(09:22):
He has many theologicalinterests, which include the
integration of faith and work,church planting, ministry in
urban environments, addressingthe philosophical questions
raised by our present secularage, the history and means of
revival and renewals, andevangelism of all kinds.
He has spoken as part of theTalks at Google series and
participated in Veritas Forumevents, and he's both written

(09:46):
and been interviewed forarticles in major publications
such as The New York Times andThe Atlantic.
In 2017, he stepped down fromhis pastoral role at Redeemer to
focus on his work as chairman ofRedeemer City to City and spend
time training and mentoringpastors around the world.
And his published works includeThe Reason for God, The Prodigal
God, Counterfeit Gods, GenerousJustice, The Meaning of Marriage

(10:09):
with his wife Kathy, CenterChurch, Every Good Endeavor,
Making Sense of God, and manyothers which I will not list so
that we'll have some time leftfor the interview.
And you can find him onFacebook, Twitter, and Instagram
@TimKellerNYC.
So Tim, thank you so much forjoining me today.

Tim Keller (10:29):
I'm glad to finally see you and talk to you, Amy.

Yes, as much as we could see each other in this
time of COVID and witheverything you're dealing with
with your health.
So I like to start everyinterview off with a fun
question or two to sort of justestablish a rapport and lighten
the mood.
So when I was considering whatquestion I should ask you, I

(10:54):
thought back to something youmentioned in one of your emails,

and I have the quote here (10:57):
you said,"I've likely read Lord of
the Rings all the way through atleast 25-30 times, and I've read
The Silmarillion and the otherolder works through quite
often." So in light of that, Ithought we could take the
opportunity to call upon yourextensive knowledge of the
Tolkien legendarium and put acouple of ongoing controversies

(11:19):
to rest.

Tim Keller (11:19):
Oh...

Yes, these are two questions that pop up often
in the world of Tolkien fandom,and I think we can safely say
whatever answers you give todaywill be the definitive answers
for all time.
Okay?
The first question I have foryou is one I've heard a lot and
it's,"Do balrogs have wings?"

Tim Keller (11:43):
Uh, they have- no, probably not.
They actually have- Well, butbalrogs can fly.
It doesn't necessarily mean theyhave wings, but they can fly.
I mean, you get that in TheSilmarillion.
Yeah, sure.
And so- But on the other hand,it looks like when it's
described in The Bridge ofKhazad-dum, that it looks like-

(12:08):
he's got shadows that look likewings, in other words, shadow
comes out.
So it's hard to tell.
I would say they probably don't,but they can fly.
That doesn't necessarily meanthey've got wings.

Ok, well...

Tim Keller (12:22):
I just- I did not in any way resolve the problem.
So give me another one.

No, because- Yeah, I've heard that if they
had wings, they wouldn't keepfalling to their death, and I've
heard all kinds of theories.
But I think that's probablyabout of good of an answer as
we're going to get.

Tim Keller (12:41):
Yeah, the movie gives them wings, but...

Yes, all the artwork seems to give them
wings.

Tim Keller (12:48):
There's a lot about balrogs in The Silmarillion.
They are- basically, a balrogand a wizard- the wizards are
good versions of what thebalrogs are.
The balrogs and the wizards weresecond t ier angels.
The Valar and Morgoth was sortof top tier angels, and those

(13:08):
were sort of second tier angels.
So when Gandalf took on thebalrog, they were basically
equals, and that's why it's suchan interesting conflict.

Right.
So the second question I havefor you is,"What kind of being
is Tom Bombadil and what is hisorigin?"

Tim Keller (13:26):
Well, Tolkien was asked about that a number of
times.
One of the more fun things to dois to read his letters, and his
letters are filled with peopleasking questions about that, and
he admits that originally TomBombadil was just a poem, and he
was a character that he hadcreated all on his own for his
children, but then he inserted-Tolkien had a little bit of a

(13:50):
mystical approach to writing.
He would very often find that ashe was writing- He just found
Tom Bombadil- who he had in hishead, or he had already created
Tom Bombadil- showing up in thestory.
And he just felt like,"Well, Ineed somebody like Tom Bombadil
to save everything at thatpoint," so he just put him in.

(14:10):
Then afterwards you try to say,"Well, who the heck is he?
Is he an elf?
Is he a this?
Is he a that?" And actually hedoesn't fit.
He doesn't fit in the- BecauseTolkien back in World War I,
when he was just a soldier,probably just out of his teens,
he actually wrote the myths thatbecame part of The Silmarillion.

(14:35):
So he had sort of created thisuniverse with Valar and Maiar
and elves and dwarves and humansand so on, and Tom Bombadil
doesn't really fit- actuallyisn't anything.
And so he just decided, and heactually has a line there where
he says,"After all, the world isfilled with strange creatures
that nobody can quite accountfor." And so he just thought it

(14:57):
was just a way of saying,"Thisis a real world.
In a real world, there are somethings that just don't seem to
fit our categories." He actuallysays that.
And he thought it was just like,"It happened to me.
I put him in there.
Afterwards, I looked back andsaid,'Well, maybe this is like
in the real world where you'vegot some things that just don't
fit.'" And so he just left it.

(15:17):
So he was admitting that it wasa kind of on the spur thing that
later on, he couldn't reconcilewith, like you said, the laws of
his legendarium.
But on the other hand, he saidin some ways that makes it even
more realistic, and that was hiswhole point.
His whole point was the idea ofsecondary belief.
That- reason he didn't likeNarnia much was he felt like

(15:42):
Lewis didn't work hard enough atmaking this world believable.
That's why he went into suchdetail because he felt like you
want to draw the person in soyou're saying,"Man, this is so
realistic," and then it works onyou more, and that's what he
wants to do.
So Bombadil doesn't fit, and hewas created outside of the Lord

(16:03):
of the Rings, and then he wasleft in there as a way of
saying,"There are some strangethings that we can never account
for in life." This is a much-Why don't we just stay on
Tolkien?
This is so much more interestingthan whatever you're going to
ask me about my writing.
Let's go.
Besides, I know you lovelegends, epics.

That is true.

Tim Keller (16:25):
I know you love romance and fantasy and all
that.
So, you sure you don't want tojust...

It would be very tempting, but I have a feeling
there would be no listeners leftby the time we were done.

Tim Keller (16:40):
Well, you know what, Amy, if just you and I are the
only two people who listen toyour podcast, that's okay, isn't
it?As long as it'...

It is okay.
I mean, we're having a niceconversation, but we probably
should move on to talk aboutless important things like the
future of Christianity andwhat's going on in our world and
not trying to go on and discusshow Tom Bombadil is the
Middle-earth version ofMelchizedek and all that

(17:09):
different stuff.

Tim Keller (17:09):
Oh, I've heard that.
Yeah.

Yeah.
So talking about your short book, How to Reach the West Again,
which I think came out lastyear, right?
That you released two years ago.
I forget.
COVID has made my whole timelinegetting messed up.

Tim Keller (17:27):
I know.
It's a free ebook.
Unfortunately, it was coming outjust as COVID happened.
Anything that was happening justas COVID happened has kinda
gotten lost in the shuffle.
So I'm glad, actually, to talkabout it here.

Well, I had a child just as COVID was
happening, so I know what you'resaying in that regard.
You start this short book bynoting that Christian influence
is decreasing in the West andwe're entering a post-Christian
world.
And the dominant ideology inmuch of Europe and North America
is secular liberalism, which hasbeen heavily influenced by

(18:03):
Christianity but nonethelessstands in opposition to it in
some key areas.
You note that,"If there is amoral absolute in today's
culture, it is that we must notsay that there are moral
absolutes, let alone a sacredorder with which all people must
align," and that today's culturebelieves,"The thing we need
salvation from is the idea thatwe need salvation." However,

(18:26):
Western culture is powerfullyattracted to the idea of justice
and making a better world.
How does this differ from theChristian concept of salvation
and are there connectionsbetween biblical justice and
secular justice that may beuseful for apologetic purposes?

Tim Keller (18:43):
Okay, so now that's two different- I mean, two
related questions.
The first is- You're right.
You already sort ofsemi-answered the question,
which I was always like, whenyou said that- The idea of
justice for the poor and themarginalized; that all races,
all groups, all classes- they'reequal.
They're all equally human, andnobody should be oppressed or

(19:07):
exploited.
That idea did not come from theEast.
Didn't come from Confucius.
Didn't come from Hinduism.
Didn't come from Africa.
It didn't come from all theother places.
It came from medieval Europe.
It came from people who believethe Bible.
It came from Judaism andChristianity.
And Tom Holland's recent book,which I recommend to people-

(19:29):
It's a long book.
He's not a Christian.
He says plenty of things inthere that as a orthodox
Christian, I wouldn't agreewith, but by and large, he makes
a slam dunk case that the ideaof justice for the poor, the
marginalized is a Christianidea, or it's a biblical idea.
That it just doesn't come fromany other worldview.
And so when secular peopleadopted, they are in a way- you

(19:53):
might say, it's a Christianheresy.
Secular liberalism is a kind ofChristian heresy.
It's not a Buddhist heresy or aConfucian heresy or anything
else.
It's taking certain Christianideas and trying to cut them off
from God and still have them,basically.
It's wanting the kingdom of Godwithout actually having a king

(20:14):
to tell me how to live.
The second question though, isthe difference between biblical
justice and secular justice.
I've been pretty influenced inthe last year since COVID
reading Bavinck's- I know youhad Gray Sutanto on your podcast
- Bavinck's little book onworldview, which is so unique
comparatively to- you may thinkyou understand the idea, the

(20:35):
concept of the Christianworldview until you read that
book.
Then you say,"Wow," because whathe says is that every
non-Christian worldview isreductionistic and
contradictory.
Basically he says everyworldview except the Christian
worldview has trouble holdingideas together, or it tends to
reduce things.
So what happens is secularjustice will be based on a

(20:56):
relativistic view of things, soa secular person will say,"Don't
tell me what I can do sexually,because basically all morality
is socially constructed.
Every culture is different, andbasically there are no moral
absolutes.
There's just- I have to decidewhat's right or wrong for me,"
as soon as you're talking aboutsex.
As soon as you start talkingabout how you use your money and

(21:19):
your power- as soon as you starttalking about that, then they
immediately get moralistic andsay,"Well, that's absolutely
wrong.
Racism is wrong.
Exploiting people is wrong.
You need to be generous.
You need to give up your powerand all that." And you say,"Why?
Would you please tell me whynow?" And so,"Well, because
everybody knows..." Well, noteverybody knows.
Sorry.
Half the world, at least,doesn't see it that way.

(21:43):
The idea of individual humanrights and equality is not
something that is common sense.
And you can say,"As a Christian,I believe in the absolute values
that come from the Bible," butthen that means that I can't do
anything I want sexually.
And this is apologetics, okay?
I can say either,"I can doanything I want, as long as I
can get away with it, if itmakes me happy," or,"There are

(22:06):
moral absolutes that I have tofollow," but you can't just say
in this area of your life,"I cando anything I want in this area
of my life.
There are no morals.
In this area of my life, thereare." So I won't go any longer
because we have a lot of othergood questions, but I'd say the
other thing is secular versionsof justice, either secular Right
or secular Left- Secular rightversions of justice are highly

(22:30):
individualistic.
They're libertarian.
They're saying anybody-"It'sunjust to diminish my freedom at
all, like to tell me, I have towear a mask." That's the secular
Right version of justice.
Justice is done as long aseverybody's free to live the way
they want.
The socialistic view of justiceis, of course, very, very state

(22:51):
controlled economy, andeverything is seen as a-
Basically put it this way.
Secular Right people say,"Ifyou're poor, it's always your
fault." Secular Left people say,"If you're poor, it's never your
fault.
It's just social structure." Youread the Book of Proverbs,
anywhere in the Bible, you'llsee that it's complicated.
The reason for for poverty issin.

(23:12):
In other words, you can't blamethe state.
You can't blame capitalism.
It's sin, and it's complicated.
And Christians who are lookingfor justice, who are trying to
help the poor and lift them up,realize there is personal
irresponsibility, there aresocial structures that need to
be changed.
Christians, Bavinck would say,don't reduce everything and they

(23:34):
move toward justice.
But I would say all secularversions of justice are quite
reductionistic andcontradictory.
So anyway, that's just- there'stoo much more say on that.
We ought to keep moving becauseotherwise we won't finish.

Well, undoubtedly, entire books could
be written in response to thesequestions and have been.

Tim Keller (23:53):
Yeah.
Your questions are great,because they would lead to
infinitely long answers.
So anyway, good.
That's my that's my thoughts onthat.

Yeah.
Well, you know, I look at a lotof the things you tweet and the
many ways that people react tothem, and you recently tweeted
out something that I'm sure wasa summary of what you've written
in a book or said in a sermonwhere you're talking about how
basically the only way we havemorality- it has to be rooted in

(24:26):
something.
Basically making the pointyou're making now.
And many people, of course,responded saying,"Well, you
don't need the Bible to tell youthat murder is wrong.
It's obviously wrong." Orsaying,"There are lots of other
ways you can get morality." Butthe thing I was thinking in
response to that was, theproblem comes whenever you try

(24:50):
to apply that moralityuniversally, because even in
Western society, we can say,"Okay, everybody in America
agrees that it's wrong to killsomeone," but if you look
historically at most humansocieties, they have thought at
one point or another it was okayto kill people under certain
circumstances.

Tim Keller (25:08):
That's right.
And certain kinds of people.
That's right.

Right.
So it's when you're trying tomake it- if you're going to
apply that standard of justiceto anyone else, you have to have
something universal, and inorder to have something
universal, you really needsomething bigger than just human
reasoning to be able to apply itto all humans.

Tim Keller (25:27):
In fact, since- let me give you a little apologetic
tip here.
A guy named George Mavrodes whotaught for many- a Christian guy
taught I think with theUniversity of Michigan.
I'm pretty sure.
In your kind of Upper Midwestneck of the woods, which I can
hear in your accent, by the way,you know?

Yes, yes.
Everyone comments on it.

Tim Keller (25:47):
Well, no, actually I knew...yeah...But he taught in
Michigan, Christian guy, and hewrote an article many, many
years ago, which now actuallyprobably you can't use, but the
title of it was,"The Queernessof Morality." He wrote it long
before the word queer had becomesomething else.
But what he actually says is ifyou don't have- if you don't

(26:08):
believe in natural law, in otherwords, if you don't believe in
anything but this universe, thismaterial universe- if you don't
believe in God, which issupernatural- or like Aristotle
or Plato and people like that,they still believed in a
transcendent supernatural.
They called it a kind of acosmic order, and Confucius did
too.
They believed in heaven.
They believed that there was anon-material cosmic order that

(26:33):
basically created moralabsolutes.
A moral absolute has to besomething based on something not
in this material world.
So if you don't believe in anykind of transcendent or
supernatural basis for moralabsolutes, then you have to say
morality is based in culture ormy feelings: one or the other.
Now what Mavrodes said was thatevolution or culture can account

(26:57):
for moral convictions, but itcannot account for moral
obligation.

That was the key word: obligation. (27:03):
undefined
In other words, I can say,"Hey,I just know that this is wrong,
and yes, my culture tells methat, or my genes tell me that,
or my choices tell me that.
But see, I just know it." Fine,but then you have to ask and
say,"Why should your feelings,your convictions oblige me,

(27:23):
because I don't think there'sanything wrong with what you're
saying.
You think doing X is wrong, butI don't think it is wrong.
So why should your feelings oryour convictions take precedence
over mine?" And he says unlessyou believe in a transcendent
moral order of some kind, youcan account for moral feelings,
you can explain why people havetheir values, but you can never,
ever make a case for moralobligation.

(27:46):
And Christian Smith recentlywrote a book called Atheist
Overreach in which he makes thevery same point.
He never cites Mavrodes, but hebasically says, that's where you
are.
Whenever people say,"Everybodyknows this is wrong," it's never
true, and as soon as you meetcultures or other people who
don't agree with you, then onwhat basis can you say,"You know
what, even though you think whatyou're doing is okay, your

(28:09):
feeling- your culture tells youit's okay to molest...." I mean,
there's, as you know, MiddleEastern cultures-"...it's okay
to sexually molest boys, becausethat's just something you do at
a certain point.
Your culture says that, but it'swrong.
And what I'm telling you has to-you are obliged to stop doing

(28:31):
that, even though you don't seeanything wrong with it." And
Mavrodes said, and ChristianSmith says only if you believe
in God, or some kind oftranscendent natural order-
there is no answer for that.
I think the Mavrodes article, asgood as it is, is a little bit
dated, and that's why ChristianSmith's book Atheist Overreach
is the best place to go forthat.
Okay.
Sorry.

(28:51):
I just...

No, no.
It's ok.

Tim Keller (28:52):
It's important.
Very, very important.

Yeah.
The decline of Christianity inthe West has been lamented for a
long time by evangelicals andseveral different strategies
have been suggested in response.
You note that some choose towithdraw, others choose to
assimilate, and still othersattempt to enforce their desires
through political domination.
You suggest another path whichyou call a missionary encounter.

(29:17):
How does this strategy differfrom the others?

Tim Keller (29:20):
I love your questions because they're
leading questions, dear sister,and I like that.
That's fine.
Because people don't getconverted if on the one hand-
I'm looking at your questionhere- if on the one hand, if
you're too much like them, ifyou just assimilate, if you
basically blend in, well, thenthat doesn't convert anybody.

(29:43):
Basically, you've gottenconverted if you assimilate.

Yes.

Tim Keller (29:47):
Okay.
So secondly- the second thing isif you withdraw, meaning you get
into the little Amish kinds ofcommunities, nobody gets
converted, because you're nottalking to non-Christians.
But number three, if you getinto power and just sort of
impose your will on people, thatdoesn't convert people either.
It usually alienates, because insome ways you're demanding, you

(30:11):
might say, Christian behaviorbefore you're actually getting a
Christian convert- Christianheart.
Also, one of the problems withpolitics is it's okay- Look, if
you believe in, you say, highertaxes and more government
regulation of business, well,there's no way to get that

(30:34):
passed without to some degreebeing pretty critical of
business or unregulatedbusiness.
So you have to be adversarial tosome degree in politics.
You have to be.
It doesn't matter how nice a guyor woman you are.
You kind of have to go afteryour opponents and you have to
be pretty critical.
So when Christians in the nameof Christ, get political and

(30:54):
say,"As a Christian, this is theright candidate to vote for,"
and all that, what you're reallydoing then is you vilify the
other side, which you have to.
You're alienating people.
You just are alienating peoplefrom the gospel.
For example, I just remember-believe it or not, I was in
Tennessee somewhere where afriend of mine told me that he

(31:16):
had been bringing up anAfrican-American, a
non-believer, kind of an atheistto a church service and trying
to get them- bring the guy tohear a really good preacher.
And so he brought his friend andsometime during the time they
were there, he went into themen's room to go to the
bathroom.
And when this African-Americanwas in there, he heard at all

(31:38):
kinds of very conservativepolitical people saying awful

things about Obama (31:42):
making very caustic remarks, nasty remarks,
that sort of thing.
And he was an Obama supporterand he suddenly came- He
suddenly realized,"This entirechurch thinks Obama is horrible
and Democrats are horrible." Andhe came out and says,"I don't
want to stay for the sermon,"and that was it.

(32:03):
And I mean- So the only way youget converted is if someone
engages you, challenges you, butdoes it in a somewhat winsome
way.
That's what a missionaryencounter is.
The term came from LesslieNewbigin, who was a lifetime
missionary to India, but it'sreally nothing special.

(32:26):
Every missionary knows if I'mtoo withdrawn from the people,
if I'm too assimilated, or ifChristians frankly have the
reputation for being bullies orreally just a political power
block, then people on the otherside of politics- they're just
not going to listen to you, andyou're not really converting
people.
Lesslie Newbigin is the one whoused the term missionary

(32:47):
encounter, cause when he cameback from India after a lifetime
of being in India, he came backto the UK in retirement in the
late Seventies, he realized thatWestern culture now was a
non-Christian culture.
But he says, the Church inIndia, the Church in China,
churches outside of the West, hesaid, always were in a
missionary mode trying to find away to convert people.

(33:11):
He said, what happened is theChurch for many years in the
West, didn't seem to recognizethe fact that- I mean we do now,
but he was thinking Seventies,Eighties, and Nineties, when he
was still alive- he says, theChurch is just complacent.
They still act as if everybodyhere is a Christian.
The Church is sort of acaretaker chaplaincy.
It's not in mission.
And that's why he was saying,you've got to get in mission.

(33:33):
We now know what he was sayingis true, but it's a little late.
I would say.
We're getting to the dancepretty late.
Every single church in the West,even in the middle of
Mississippi, has to be in amissionary mode- not just assume
that people are Christians andthey're just going to come to
church if you have a great youthprogram, which is the way- In

(33:55):
Christendom, when everybody wasa Christian, the way a church
grew was better preaching,better music, better youth
ministry, and then you justcornered the market in your
town, and the market was allthese people who are already

Christians looking for a church: your church shoppers. (34:07):
undefined
Now you actually have toevangelize people, and we don't
know how to do that.

Yeah, I remember the first time that I visited
England when I was in college.
I was there as part of aone-month study program, and I
was housed with a vicar's familyin Oxford.
And it was very interesting tosee- to hear him and his family

(34:37):
talk about their experience asfaithful orthodox Christians in
the United Kingdom, whichobviously is still an officially
Christian society- was for manyyears a very dedicated Christian
society, but now is essentiallya non-Christian society in
practical terms.
And he was saying that they havea little part of their building

(35:03):
that is adjacent to thesanctuary, but isn't actually
part of the historic churchbuilding.
He said,"If we have an eventwhere we want people from Oxford
to come, we can't hold it in theactual church.
We can only hold it in thebuilding that's adjacent,
because they will not even setfoot in the actual church.
That's how opposed they are toChristianity.

(35:24):
And we can't make it anythingexplicitly Christian, or they
won't want to come." And howdifferent is that from my
experience growing up in theNineties in Midwest America,
where we'd have all theseevangelistic events and, you
know,"Invite all yourneighbors," and lots of people
would come.
And I think we are heading formore like what we're seeing in

(35:45):
the UK where- the ChristiansI've known there- you can't just
assume that at your workplace,if you wear a necklace that's a
cross that everyone's going totolerate that.
You can't assume that.

Tim Keller (35:58):
Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, it's a very different mindset.
And like you said, probably- Iwould say, unfortunately, we're
going to have to get used to it.
One good way to determine whatwe should do in a post-Christian
society is to look back at whatthe earliest Christians did in a
pre-Christian society, which youdo several times in your book.

(36:19):
How does the example of theearly Church provide us with
wisdom and encouragement for thepresent hour?

Tim Keller (36:26):
Well, one is where we were just going with this
last question.

So I'll give you two (36:29):
two ways the early Church is not only an
encouragement, but also a model.
The one is the fact that theearly Church did not evangelize
by bringing people to thebuilding, which they didn't
have, or to big events, or tohear the great speaker.
It just didn't happen that way.
I do remember when I was astudent at Gordon-Conwell

(36:53):
Seminary, 1972 to 1975- Iforget.
Where were you those years?

Even my husband wasn't born then.

Tim Keller (37:04):
Yeah, I know.
We had to read a book by MichaelGreen called Evangelism in the
Early Church.
It was a scholarly book by aChristian scholar.
And it was astounding becausebasically what he said was,
generally speaking, bringing anon-Christian to church wasn't
even- in many cases in the earlychurch, it wasn't safe because

(37:28):
Christians were a persecutedminority.
They were the most persecuted ofall the faiths.
Larry Hurtado has written somebooks on that very recently.
The main reason was Christianswould not worship the idols.
Every single home had their ownidols.
Every estate had idols.
Every meeting had idols, andChristians really, because they

(37:48):
would not be involved with idolworship and they wouldn't be
involved with any kind of rightor ritual in which there were
idols, Christians wereimmediately seen as incredibly
anti-social, dangerous,terrible.
So they were persecuted, andMichael Green said it was
dangerous to bring anon-Christian to church to
worship, because they mightreport you and then everybody

(38:12):
get arrested.
I mean...So he says basically,it all happened through
individuals talking to theirfriends at a time in which being
a Christian was incrediblyunpopular.
It was first of all courageous,but at the same time, it was the
ordinary Christian that did allthe evangelism.
And there was, as we all know-the Christian Church grew quite

(38:32):
a lot in those first two orthree centuries.
So we're just nowhere nearthere.
The average Christian does notshare their faith.
They're actually afraid nowbecause they do- like you just
said, people are more hostilethan they've ever been.
I do know a friend, by the way,who came to the office when, you
know- dress down Friday with aTim Tebow shirt, I think when he

(38:54):
was with the Jets, was he?
Anyway.
So he came with a Tebow shirt inthe back, and two people, two
different people come up andsay,"So you hate gay people, do
you?" So the point is,Christians are afraid and we're
not opening our mouths, and inmany parts of this country,
they're still, I feel like,"Evangelism is something being

(39:16):
done by experts or people needto bring people to events." So
that's the one place wherethey're a model and an
inspiration for.
The other is, and you know thisis in the book, the Christian
community had a set of values,you might say: social values
that just didn't seem tocompute, but they were both
infuriating and fascinating topeople.

(39:37):
They were multi-ethnic.
They were the most multi- ethnic- this is in the book- they were
the most multi-ethnic religion.
They did care about the poor-quite a bit- in a way that- the
Greeks and Romans looked down onthe poor.
Christians didn't.
So they were multi- ethnic.
They cared about the poor.
They were reconciling andforgiving.
So if you killed them, theydidn't come and kill you.

(40:00):
They were pro-life- that is tosay, they were against abortion
and infanticide.
They went out and actually tookabandoned children, usually
girls, and raised them.
And they believed sex was onlyfor a man and a woman inside
marriage, no other.
And like you said, those fivethings even today are shocking,
because they're a kind ofcombination of what seems like

(40:21):
liberal and conservative.
And I actually believe thattoday, progressive churches tend
to push the,"We're for justice,"and they just play down, or even
don't believe what the Biblesays about sex.
Conservative churches want tolift up,"We're against the gay
agenda and all that," butthey're afraid of talking about

(40:42):
racism cause that's CriticalRace Theory.
And you really don't have manychurches, frankly, that are
basically following thefootsteps of the early Church in
that kind of balance thatdoesn't fit into the world's
categories.
So those are the two ways that Isaid- it's in that every member
evangelism and that inability topolitically and socially peg

Christians (41:04):
they just don't fit in the categories.
In those ways, the earlyChristians are an inspiration
and a model.

You note in your book the need for a Christian
high theory that can critiquethe failures of the prevailing
cultural ideals.
I personally fear this could bedifficult as evangelicals have
either ceded much of thatintellectual realm to
secularists, or they could faceincreasing discrimination when
they attempt to make theirvoices heard.
We may be past the era in whichtheologian like Reinhold Niebuhr

(41:36):
could serve as a leading publicintellectual capable of
influencing those on thepolitical Right and Left.
What would more conservativeChristians need to do if they
want to have greater influencein secular universities, the
literary world, and the arts?

Tim Keller (41:53):
Yeah, that's a big- that's a very, very good
question.
I think it is true that- it usedto be the case that leading
intellectuals were notnecessarily employed by
universities.
They weren't actually academics.
So David Hume was a librarian,and you've got Kierkegaard: he

(42:15):
didn't even have a pastorate.
He was just this kind of editor,writer.
So there's a whole lot of folkswho have been game-changing
intellectuals, who wrotegame-changing books, who were
not employed by a university.
Now that's harder now, by theway.
It's just very difficult to justsupport yourself, and therefore

(42:38):
it's tough without having atenured position to get heard.
I would say that- here's justtwo things- You might say
there's a dominant culturaleconomy, and there's an
alternate cultural economy.
The dominant cultural economyare New York Times and Harvard,
but there is alternate culturaleconomies.
There are conservative Catholickind of colleges.

(43:02):
There are Christian colleges.
There are ways for people tosupport themselves and still
write, I think, pathbreaking,game-changing theoretical and
scholarly work.
I also do think that in someways, as bad as social media is
in so many ways, it has brokento some degree the stranglehold.

(43:27):
When I was younger, it was NBC,CBS, ABC, and the big
newspapers.
There really wasn't a way tobreak in.
Reinhold Niebuhr, because he wasloved by the networks and the
big institutions- I agree thatthere isn't anybody like that,

but here's the thing (43:43):
those institutions, the secular
mainline institutions don't havethe same amount of stranglehold.
That's not good for society ingeneral, but on the other hand,
maybe God will use it.
Here's one other thing to say isthat right now, I do know that
there's a move afoot.
The hardest thing about gettinggoing as an intellectual is in

the early part (44:06):
you get your PhD or you do your education, and
then you have to get that firstor second decent book written.
Sometimes it means even justgetting your PhD out there, but
sometimes the thing you need todo to get the PhD from that
institution isn't necessarilythe best first book, and

(44:29):
therefore you need to get thatfirst one or two books written
that everybody says,"Wow, that'sa real contribution." Now who's
going to pay you to do that?
Generally, you're not gettinghired by these academic
institutions unless that book iswritten or those two books are
written.
On the other hand, who's paying[inaudible] for that.
Years ago, when The PewFoundation originally was formed

(44:51):
by J.
Howard Pew, who was a strongevangelical Christian and the
president of Sun Oil, and heformed The Pew Charitable Trust,
and it really originally was aChristian foundation.
It isn't anymore.
It's sad how that happened sofast.
But in the early days it hadsomething called The Pew Younger
Scholars Program, and a whole- Iwon't mention it cause I'm not
sure exactly which ones, but anawful lot of very, very

(45:15):
successful Christian academics,largely evangelicals, but
sometimes Catholic, got theirstart with- they got grants to
sometimes work for two or threeyears just on books and things.
And it had an enormous impact,but then it went away because
Pew went in a very differentdirection.
Right now, there are people whoare trying to raise, I know,$50

(45:37):
million or more to do thatagain.
There are people behind- Wedon't have enough money, but
there are people in theChristian philanthropic world, a
few people who recognize howimportant that's going to be to
get the writers and the authorsand the thinkers- to say,"We're
going to get you started, andthen it might get you an actual

(45:59):
academic post somewhere, or inmany cases, it just might enable
you to do something else, andyou'd be in the alternate
cultural economy." Does thatmake sense?
And now I'm not as sure whetherwhat I just said is clear, so
ask me any clarifying questions.
Did you follow me?

No, I think that makes sense.
I do think that building up kindof alternative institutions- and
obviously many of them alreadyexist, but being willing to
continue to support them andpotentially develop new ones as
the circumstances require isgoing to be a big part of the

(46:36):
strategy for how we succeedgoing forward and getting that
counter messaging out.
And I heard someone mention awhile back about the idea of
churches actually having awriter-in residence at the
church, and to me, I'm like,"Oh,what a novel idea: paying

(46:59):
writers for their writing!" ButI mean, that's a little bit the
cynical experience of being awriter and knowing so many other
struggling writers, but I thinkthat actually is a good idea,
and a lot of churches don'tthink that way.
I'm sure there are some- maybeRedeemer or some large churches

(47:20):
in large cities that aredefinitely thinking that way,
but that doesn't seem to be-usually if we think about
missions in the average church,we're thinking about overseas
missions or maybe charitylocally.
We're not thinking aboutdeveloping people who can sort
of speak into the culture, aswriters or speakers or anything

(47:44):
like that.
And maybe it seems a littleself-serving for me to be
putting that plug in when Imyself am a writer.

Tim Keller (47:50):
No, it's not.
No, no, no.
I know.
It's not.
Now see, the thing is there is aneed for that.
I have to say, yeah, bigchurches can usually afford to
have a theologian-in-residenceor a writer-in-residence or an
artist-in-residence.
However, one of the big problemswe have is- I've already
mentioned it- is the area ofChristian philanthropy.
There are plenty of wealthyChristians.

(48:11):
An awful lot of them I don'tthink have a vision for what
we're talking about.
You can get them to give toevangelistic projects and that
sort of thing, but as soon asyou start talking about writers
and artists and theologians andacademics and scholars- One of
the troubles is, it doesn't seemlike there's a way to measure

(48:32):
that.
One of the reasons why- A lot ofpeople who are wealthy
Christians come from thebusiness world where they want
to see metrics, have you say,"Well, there's so many
conversions, so many newchurches, so many this and
that." It's easier.
But I do think that there is apossibility of developing a
philanthropic community orcertain foundations, like in the

(48:55):
secular world, that reallyunderstand the culture shaping
power of writing and theologians.
So I want you to- Listen, aslong as I'm still alive, I'm
really trying to encourage thatbehind the scenes.
One of the nice things aboutgetting a little more high
profile with my books and allthat: I have been able to talk
to more wealthy Christians thatI'm able to say,"Look, I'm not

(49:18):
asking for any money now.
I'm retired.
I'm fine.
But you really ought to begiving to these things," and
trying to give them a vision forthat.
A lot of Christians with wealthdon't have that vision.

So the high theory stuff (49:29):
I've been trying to give people a
vision for why that's soimportant.
Now, Augustine didn't write abook on,"How do we know the
resurrection happened?" thoughhe believed it.
He wrote The City of God, whichis an absolute game changer.
It basically said,"The paganworldview doesn't work.
It will never give itself thejustice and peace that it

(49:52):
aspires to.
Only Christianity will do that."And that's high theory.
And we don't have people doingthat, but I do think it's the
academics and the intellectualsand the writers and things.
So yeah, it might beself-serving, Amy, but I think-
Also, by the way, these folksneed to be put into community.
That's the reason why smallerchurches ought to be able to get

(50:13):
grants to put people on, so thatthe people's ties go to
supporting the minister and allthat.
But at the same time, you don'twant these detached
intellectuals, you might say.
They need to be embedded in realChristian community.
So what I'd love to see would bethat these grants would not just
come to individuals, but also tochurches that have a vision for
supporting them.

(50:34):
Anyway...

You mention the need for better catechesis in
the doctrines of the faith, aswell as counter-catechesis
against worldly thinking.
While Protestants often treasureour Reformation era confessions,
there's a case to be made fordeveloping additional statements
and tools that confront issuesthe Reformers did not
anticipate, such as presentdebates over gender and

(50:55):
sexuality.
On the other hand, we see agreat proliferation of
statements from differentChristian organizations, some of
which are more helpful thanothers.
You and your wife, Kathy, workedon the New City Catechism that
was released a few years ago.
Can you describe the goals andphilosophy behind that project
and how you see it fitting inwith historic confessional
statements?

Tim Keller (51:16):
Ah, okay.
First of all, the New CityCatechism wasn't part of the
counter-catechesis project.
At that time, we were actuallyjust trying to get people to get
into the bigger, longercatechisms.
So the New City Catechism iskind of a short summary based on
the Heidelberg and theWestminster Catechisms, so it

(51:38):
really was just kind of astarter thing.
The counter-catechesis projectcomes from something that Harvey
Conn, who was a friend of mineat Westminster Seminary years
ago when I was teaching thereand Harvey Conn was also
teaching- Harvey had been amissionary to Korea, and he said
confessions, he thinks, had andhave always had three possible

(52:02):
functions.
He says, one is instruction.
It's a way of instructing peopleon the basics.
Secondly, one is qualification-that is to say,"Do you believe
this?
Okay, you can be an elder.
Do you believe this?
You can be a pastor." But thethird is interaction: basically,
I'll say witness- confessionswere witness.
That's why the word confess.

(52:24):
So he says it was a way ofspeaking to the issues of the
time.
It was giving biblical answersto the questions of the culture.
And he says- just to give you anexample, he says, if you look at
the Westminster LargerCatechism, especially on the Ten
Commandments, and you get to,"Honor your father and your
mother." You'll see that what itdoes is it goes way beyond

(52:45):
father and mother and says,"Well, the implications of this
are we should be honoring allpeople in authority over us."
And Harvey says they werewriting this into a culture in
which things were reallychanging in the 17th century.
People were moving to cities.
It was just the very beginningof the more Industrial

(53:06):
Revolution, which was...And hesaid there was, there was a
sense of being, there was abreakdown, they thought, at the
time of social structures andhonoring your people in
authority- but really pushingthat.
Then he says, when thePresbyterians came to Korea-
they were Presbyterianmissionaries- and when people

(53:27):
started becoming Christians,they started a Korean
Presbyterian church.
And they said,"Well, you need toadopt the Westminster Confession
of Faith and Catechism." AndHarvey says, however, in Korea,
the danger was not people notobeying authority.
He says in Korea, the problem ofhonoring your father and mother-
the real problem in Korea wasancestor worship.
There is another side.

(53:48):
In other words, the Bible says,"Honor your father and your
mother," so that dishonor isdisobeying, but to worship them
is too.
And therefore he says,Westminster in no way really
addresses thatdoesn't use theBible to address ancestor
worship and an overemphasis onauthority.

(54:10):
And he says, as a result, theconfession never really
dismantled the Confucianapproach to authority that was
seeping into the ChristianChurch, and it was more from
Confucianism than the Bible.
And he really convinced me that-now he says,"Here's what I want
you to know," is he says,"TheWestminster Confession is still-

(54:32):
it's hard to imagine anybodydoing a better job today.
So you don't want to justrewrite confessions, but you
still need new confessionaldocuments because the times
change." So I am not a personwho says,"Oh, I think we ought
to rewrite our confessionbecause it's dated." Nah, it's
still...I'm Presbyterian, so mybelief is I just can't imagine a

(54:54):
better confession right now forqualifying people, and it's also
pretty good for instruction, butI do think you need to create
confessional statements thatinteract with today's narratives
.
So right now I'm catechizing my10-year-old granddaughter, and
what I'm doing is I'm basicallybringing in kind of the
traditional catechism mantra-the Trinity, or the traditional

(55:18):
catechism on the deity of Christand all of that- but then I'm
taking what she's gettingcatechized from the world- that
is, she's getting- The world istalking about identity.
The world is talking aboutfreedom.
The world is talking abouthappiness.
And I'm always bringing in whatthe world says about these
things, and she recognizes that.
I'm giving her examples fromTaylor Swift and from Elsa and

(55:39):
people like that.
She knows that.
And then we're trying to say,"Now, if this is true and this
is- they both can't be true."Now that's counter-catechesis.
And so I am not in any way readyto abandon the older ones, but I
believe that every generation,you need to do new instructional

(56:01):
and confessional, in a sense-witness confessions that speak
more to the moment withoutgetting rid of the older
confessions.
I mean, we never got rid of theNicene Creed, did we?

Well, hopefully we didn't...

Tim Keller (56:13):
I mean, the Westminster Confession didn't

get rid of the Nicene Creed (56:18):
it built on it.
So I don't want to get rid of it and say,"Oh, we have to
update." T he Confession wasn'tan update of the Nicene Creed.
It was a supplement.
And so I w ant to supplementwithout getting rid of the older
ones.
O kay.
Does that help?

Yeah, no, I think it does.
And I think it's kind of the waythat- well, it's not a great
comparison, but we think aboutthe United States Constitution
that was written back in the18th century, and sometimes we
have this view that it kind ofdescended from on high from God
to us or something.
No, it's a human document andit's a very good one and, do we

(56:58):
want to change the FirstAmendment?
No, we don't want to change theFirst Amendment, but there have
been amendments added over theyears as issues arose, and
actually the people who wrotethe Constitution understood that
there would be a need to addthings to the Constitution.

Tim Keller (57:16):
Yeah, roughly similar.

I think that it's safe to say that the
Westminster Confession of Faithholds up better than the U.S.
Constitution has over the years.
So we're not talking about-whether it's that, or if you're
someone who holds to the ThreeForms of Unity, or the Augsburg
Confession, or whatever you holdto.
I think those are all very gooddocuments, but like you said,

(57:40):
they're not Scripture itself, sothey aren't necessarily- there
are maybe things that we have toadd on occasion.
So, yeah, that's a good point.
So I started this podcast inlarge part to address issues
that are important to my owngeneration, and in my
conversations with fellowMillennials, there's a deep
sense of disappointment or evenbetrayal from their interactions

(58:03):
with the evangelical church inAmerica.
The"Exvangelical" movement isthe most extreme manifestation
of this, but even among thosewho remain within evangelical
congregations, there'sfrustration over the
politicization of the church,mishandling of cases of abuse,
and the hypocrisy and arrogance,either real or perceived, of

(58:24):
Christian leaders.
How much is the departure ofyounger Americans from the
church being driven by the pullof these secular ideologies and
how much are they being pushedout by the failures of the
Church itself?

Tim Keller (58:36):
Yes.

Another one that you could write a book about.

Tim Keller (58:44):
No, I don't know the percentages.
I mean, you're saying it's both.
You're implying it's both.
It certainly is.
It certainly is both.
In other words, I do thinkyounger- for example, I see it
in younger people who walk awayfrom the Church too quickly, in

my mind (59:03):
that they've kind of imbibed the anti-institutional
bias of modern, expressiveindividualism that basically
doesn't believe in institutionsof any sort, but we really can't
live without them.
So they're too quick.
There's also a little bit ofsecular ideology also teaches
you a certain amount ofself-righteousness like,"My

(59:25):
experience.
I don't need other people tocorrect me or tell me.
This is my experience, andtherefore this rules." There are
ways in which secular ideology,I think, makes younger
Christians- oh, by the way, itmakes them think they can do
without institutions, so I cango out and just be spiritual on
my own.

(59:47):
It makes them think in some waysthat they don't need a lot of
accountability, which they do.
But it also, by the way, it's-modern people are really
historically ignorant.
You know that.
And one of the most amazingthings about Church history- I
remember when I went to seminaryand took two courses on Church
history, everybody I remember- Imean, I was 23/22 years old

(01:00:10):
then.
Whoever took Church historyalways felt the same way.
On the one hand, we were shockedat how many things went wrong in
the Church.
I mean, we were shocked at allthe heresies and all the awful
things.
It was incredible how varied andmessed up the church has gotten
at various times, and yet it wasalso amazing how resilient it
is.

(01:00:31):
It's just astounding howresilient it is.
And what it did was it humbledmost of us out of the idea that
there's only one way to do theChurch.
We began to realize there's awhole lot of ways.
Church history would be such atonic, I think, for younger
people.
I'm mentioning it here because Inever see anybody talk about it
as a way of overcoming both the-Modern secular ideology kind of

(01:00:57):
gives you a feeling likeeverything in the past was
terrible- and you need to see alot of bad things, but all the
good things from the past- butit also shows you that the gates
of hell will not prevail againstthe Church: that you are
abandoning something that Jesussaid,"I'm never going to let
this go.
I'm never gonna let this die".

(01:01:18):
See, what Jesus says- If yousay,"I've stopped believing in
Christianity or the Bible," thenalright, fine.
But if you say,"I still believein Jesus.
or I still believe in God, but Ijust can't have anything to do
with the Church," sorry.
Jesus says the Church will not-he didn't say individual
Christians.
He says,"The Church- I'm nevergoing to abandon it." So there's
gotta be a true Churchsomewhere.

(01:01:39):
They're always has to be, or atleast a better Church.
So anyway, I'm just saying,you're right.
I don't know if it's 50:50 thesecularism is making people not
find Christianity credible, butit's also true that the Church
is right now going, especiallyin America- the Catholic Church,

(01:02:00):
it's going to be a hundred yearsto get over the priest scandal
and pedophilia scandals.
The liberal Church- I just wrotean article about this.
The liberal Church, I think-liberal, mainline Church- made
itself very non-credible withpeople by originally hooking
itself to liberal politics.

(01:02:21):
One of the reasons why theevangelical Church grew was
because in the Sixties andSeventies, the mainline, liberal
Church just said,"If you're aChristian, you gotta be for all
these different liberalpolitical"- It basically turned
itself into just a politicalanimal, and it lost members
fast.
And now the conservative Churchis doing the same thing.

Amy Mantravadi (01:02:39):
Yeah.

(01:02:41):
So, I mean, it's working the wagon of politics, lots of
corruption, lots of high profileexplosions and people that
everybody thought of- well, nowwe realize was an abuser or a
sexual predator and that sort ofthing.
You put all that together, it'snot good.
On the other hand, I'm still- bythe way, one last thing, Amy, on

(01:03:03):
this one is there really isn'tanybody really saying that the
evangelical Church is infreefall.
It's true that there's somewhatfewer people who are willing to
say,"I'm an evangelical." If youask a white person,"Are you an
evangelical?" most people thatbelieve you have to be born

(01:03:23):
again, believe that the B ible'scompletely right, you have to be
born again, you have to believein Jesus or you're going to
hell.
So if you say,"You believe theBible is completely true, you
have to believe in Jesus or goto hell, you h ave t o b e born
again"- If you ask a whiteperson who believes those three
things,"Are you an evangelical?"they'll say probably yes.
If you ask a black person inthis country who believes those

(01:03:45):
three things, they probably willsay no.
If you ask the black person,"Areyou born again?" they'll say
yes.
So it's a little difficult totell, but from what I can tell,
there really isn't yet anythinglike a major decline in people
who say,"I've been born again."Non-white people who are- the

(01:04:07):
number of.
not only people in t he countryare growing, they tend to be
more religious.
So I really don't see the Churchin f reefall, in spite of the
fact that on social media, itlooks like it, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Tim Keller (01:04:19):
I mean, somebody give me some proof that people
who believe that conservativetheology about the new birth and
all that- that somehow thosenumbers are in free fall.
I doubt it.

Well, you can look at the numbers for
particular denominations, andyou see all kinds of polls that
talk about church attendanceamong different age groups.
And it certainly is true thatnon-evangelical churches have
generally been losing morepeople than the evangelical
churches.

(01:04:51):
But the bigger issue, like yousay, might be people's
willingness to identifythemselves with the evangelical
movement, just because of...

It's muddying the water.
Most of the young people whosay,"I'm no longer a Christian,"
tend to be, like you said,mainline.
People with a mainlinebackground are much more willing
to say- younger people are morewilling to say,"I have no
religious preference." It'sstill difficult for me, if you
push down deep, to see afreefall.

(01:05:20):
I mean, right now, post-COVIDeverybody's attendance is down.
But just to give you an idea, inNew York City, when I got here
in 1989, there were 100 churches- what we call evangelical

churches- in center City (01:05:32):
about 100 evangelical churches with a
grand total of 9,000 Manhattanresidents who are going to those
churches.
Okay?
Today it's like- there's 80,000people in about 275 evangelical
churches in that same area, andthat's 32 years later.

(01:05:53):
So, I mean, we've gone from9,000 to 80,000.
We've gone from 100 evangelicalchurches to 260 or 70.
We're still planting churches ata pretty good clip.
They are generally speaking onlyabout a third- probably overall
only about a third white, abouta third to maybe even 40% Asian.

(01:06:15):
But there's also a good numberof black and Hispanic churches
too.
In New York, I'm not seeingpeople walking away from the
faith.
On the other hand, these are notvery politicized churches.
They certainly aren't right-wingchurches.
And yet they're not open andaffirming- in other words, they
haven't bought the sexual thing.

(01:06:35):
So I'm in a position where Iknow when I go online, it looks
like everybody's walking awayfrom evangelicalism.
That's not the way it looks tome.

And maybe some of that has to do with the fact
that even in 1989, culturalChristianity was not as powerful
in Manhattan as it was herewhere I'm living in suburban
Ohio, where it's still prettypowerful.

Exactly.

You get a lot of people who maybe are more
shallow believers or even justnominal believers, and those
tend to be the people who- it'sa lot easier for them to walk
away than it is for people whoare really grounded.

Right.
They show up on the pollsoriginally as Christians, and
then five years later, they'renot Christians anymore.
Whereas- you're right.
That's the nice thing about aplace like Manhattan, where
there was essentially no nominalChristianity.
Keep going.
Sorry.

Well, that's a nice thing, and then you've got
The Met and Central Park, andthere are a lot of nice things
about New York City.
Yeah.
Just following up a little biton that...A lot of people have
recently been listening to theRise and Fall of Mars Hill
podcast.
We've heard about cases ofJoshua Harris walking away from
the faith, the Ravi Zachariassexual abuse scandal.

(01:07:57):
Some of these people were majorplayers in the"Young, Restless,
and Reformed" or the"NewCalvinist" movements, and when
prominent leaders experience avery public fall, it can cause
those who appreciated theirministry to ask a lot of
questions.
And the two I'd like to address,and I know again, could write a
book on either of these, but isthere anything that evangelical

(01:08:19):
leaders can do to protectagainst reputation destroying
failures, both in spiritualterms and more practical terms?
And secondly, to what extent arethe rest of us at fault for not
spotting character flaws inthese men early on, particularly
those who knew them morepersonally or worked with them
more personally?

Right.
Well, they're two very differentquestions.
They're not totally different,but they're pretty different.
Your first one is- I feel likerelationships are thinner than
they used to be.
People are more mobile.
They don't stay where they grewup.
They don't stay near friends andfamily.

(01:09:01):
For all those reasons, it doesfeel to me that the pressures of
ministry are maybe creating moreblowups than they used to.
I mean, there's always beenministry failures.
There are always people who hadaffairs or embezzled funds.
I mean, all my life, you hadpeople going down for those
kinds of reasons, but it doesseem like there's more now.

(01:09:22):
It does feel like that.
Also, there's some studies thathave shown that about five years
out of seminary, something like20% of people in ministry just
leave the ministry.
And so I do think it's worse,and I think it's probably
because, A) We are moreisolated.
We are more mobile.
We're less embedded inface-to-face relationships, and

(01:09:46):
so burnout and the kinds ofthings that can lead a minister-

It sort of happens like this: The minister overworks, feels (01:09:53):
undefined
pressure, it thins out theirprayer life, it makes them start
to- it makes them feel likethey're getting- what they're
doing is mediocre.
They're not having enough timein prayer.
They're not having enough timeto read.
They don't feel excited aboutwhat they're offering people.
They start to look to things.

(01:10:15):
It could be pornography.
It could be- they looked atother things to kind of soothe
them.
And then when it comes out, itleads to a scandal of some kind.
I think those things happen moreoften because I think, frankly,
people are not as embedded inrelationships with friends.
There's more people travelingaround.
There's more people on theirphones instead of actually

(01:10:37):
talking with one another inface-to-face relationships.
You can hide so much easier.
Even phone calls are better,actually, than texting and
emails and things like that.
So I actually do think there'ssomething about the fact that
we're all more isolated, we'reall lonely, or there's more
anxiety.
There's more depression.
There's more breakdown, becausefrankly we are not in community.

(01:11:00):
That's number one.
On the other hand, the secondquestion, which is a pretty
interesting one is"To whatextent are the rest of us at
fault for not spotting characterflaws in these men early on?"
Boy, hindsight is so 20/20.
If somebody commits suicide thatyou know, you immediately start
to second guess yourself, andyou either say,"I should not

(01:11:22):
have said X, Y, Z to thatperson," or,"I should have gone
and said X, Y, Z to thatperson," and you'll never know
if you're right.
Whenever there's a ministry blowup, I always- I kind of laugh a
little bit.

Example (01:11:36):
Mark Driscoll.
I knew Mark Driscoll.
So in hindsight, I remember whenMark Driscoll blew up in 2014, a
couple of people went online andsaid,"Tim Keller invited Mark
Driscoll up into The GospelCoalition and gave him this
incredible platform, andtherefore he should bear some

(01:11:57):
responsibility for whathappened." Now, here's what's

funny (01:11:59):
When we started The Gospel Coalition in 2005, first
of all, there was no GospelCoalition platform.
Number two, Mark Driscoll had abig one.
Mark Driscoll and John Piper hadbig platforms.
In other words, they hadinternet platforms, and they had
been writing books.
You know, I didn't write a book'til 2008.
I was 58 years old.

(01:12:20):
When Gospel Coalition cametogether, I hadn't written any
books.
There was no platform.
There was no website.
We weren't even sure we weregoing to have a website.
We just started havingconferences.
Mark and John had hugeplatforms.
So the idea that Tim Keller hadthis big platform, which I
didn't- I didn't even- I wasjust, like a normal person my

(01:12:42):
age, I just was stupid about theinternet.
Hadn't written any books.
Somehow that I platformed Mark?
My goodness.
If anything, Mark might'veplatformed The Gospel Coalition.
I mean, in hindsight, peoplehave some idea that if you'd
just done this and this and thisand this, then that wouldn't
have happened, so you're toblame.

(01:13:04):
Maybe I should have saidsomething more to him when I
began to see some of thebrashness, but it's difficult to
know.
After the suicide, you mightsay, it is very difficult to
know whether- maybe I would havemade things worse.
Maybe it would've happenedfaster.
I'm not really sure.
So I'm quite willing to letpeople do post-mortems after

(01:13:25):
these blow up and start to say,"Maybe we should do more of this
or that," but I'm unconvincedthat there's some formula that
if everybody does it this way,these blow ups are going to
stop.
They're just not.
So I'm really trying to- Peoplewho are absolutely sure of what

we should have done (01:13:39):
I think we have to be careful about that.
Let's not beat ourselves up toomuch.
Ultimately, what I have to sayto people who are upset because
I could have stopped thatsuicide- I used to say, in the
end, the person who commitssuicide: it's their
responsibility for what they'vedone.
And also, I'm not sure in theend, if somebody wants to commit

(01:14:00):
suicide, there's any way toreally stop them.
So anyway- to me, there is asimilarity when after these blow
ups, it's very easy to go backand say,"This is exactly what
you should have done, you shouldhave done, you should have
done..." On the other hand, letme just say one more thing.
Listen, I have seen pulpitcommittee after pulpit committee

(01:14:22):
hire guys who are greatpreachers, because they want the
pews filled, even when thereferences show the guy is not a
good pastor, the guy is not agood leader.
Over and over again, I've seenpeople, pulpit committees, and
churches- They want a person whocan draw people in the door,
because they want the nickelsand noses.
Okay?

(01:14:44):
They want the nickels and noses.
And then what happens, ofcourse, is the guy is not a very
good leader.
The guy might be actually-there's all sorts of other ways
in which the person's notparticularly spiritually mature.
And then what happens is theinsiders- the people who are
really doing the ministry- theysee that and they lose respect
for the man.

(01:15:05):
Meanwhile, the people who arecoming in the door, who don't
know him very well but just lovehis preaching: they become his
fans.
So then you have a problem wherethe fan base is propping the guy
up, but the internal group ofpeople who see him are starting
to say,"I'm not sure this is theright guy for the job." And when
that happens, you've got adisaster coming.
That's exactly what happened toMark Driscoll.

(01:15:26):
And I don't know what you doabout that other than- you know,
especially when he started thechurch.
But what happened was he wasusing the people close to him,
and so they would leave, but thepeople who were the fan base:
that was his source of power.
I've seen this happen over andover and over again, and that
is, frankly- that is the faultof the congregation and the

(01:15:49):
original leaders who let the guygo there because they wanted to
see the growth.
Now, what do you think of that?
You're a lay person.
So I'm on the one hand sayinglet's not beat ourselves up
after it's over to be sure whatwe should have done, but that
dynamic I've seen happening moreand more today because people
want success, and so they go forpeople who can put people in the

(01:16:13):
seats, and then that creates thefan base that keeps the thing
going too long.
And the internal group of peoplewho are trying to blow the
whistle and getting beaten up bythe fan base.
So it happened to Mark, but Iactually see it in less
explosive ways all over theplace.
Happens all the time.

Yeah.
I mean, and we're about maybe adecade on now from what people
see as the height of the"Young,Restless, and Reformed"
movement, and there are a lot of- well, I wouldn't necessarily
say they're all post-mortems,because I don't think it was a
complete failure by any means,but a lot of people looking back

(01:16:58):
now and it's become- now we'relooking back at it as history
and considering what should havebeen done differently.
We see some things that havecome out of that period that are
still with us that are verygood, and we're thankful for
that.
But if I think back of my ownexperience with that movement,

(01:17:18):
back around the time you werefounding The Gospel Coalition,
back around the time that allthis was happening, I was in
college.
I was really pretty unaware ofall of this.
I think it wasn't until I was incollege that I even heard the
name John Piper or knew who hewas, and it wasn't until I
visited New York City in 2007and a friend of mine was

(01:17:42):
attending your church, and so Icame to visit your church: that
was the first time I heard ofyou.
So I was not affected by it inthe same way as a lot of people
my age were, who were readingeverything by Mark Driscoll and
listening to his sermons all thetime.
And I was much more in thepolitical world at that time,
and I'm glad I'm not in thepolitical world anymore.

(01:18:04):
But if I were to say what wasthe one factor that maybe should
have been setting off alarmbells- I mean, there's so many

things we could talk about (01:18:16):
the trend toward megachurches, and
celebrity pastors, and all thatkind of thing.
But for me, the root that'salways at the bottom of all this
is pride in some form oranother.
And what was the thing that wassimilar about Mark Driscoll or

(01:18:36):
Ravi Zacharias?
They both, in their own way,believed that they had some kind
of right to use or abuse otherpeople because they were such
great leaders that they had- youknow, this is what we're hearing

that Ravi would say to people: "I've done such a great work for (01:18:51):
undefined
God, and so I've kind of earnedthis." And whether you're
abusing someone sexually, orabusing them verbally, or
however- anytime you're abusingsomeone, you've taken this view
that you can somehow possessthem and you're not fully
honoring their humanity.

(01:19:12):
And the way- I mean, a lot oftimes this kind of thing will be
hidden away from the averageperson, but what you might see
is a kind of prideful attitude.
And I remember back 10 yearsago, when I was watching videos
by some of these people, therewas something about them that

just seemed a little off (01:19:29):
it seemed kind of prideful.
And sometimes that's the onlything you can see, especially if
you're someone like me who'snever met them, or someone who
meets them once a year and neverreally gets to know them that
well.
And I think sometimes, becausewe are looking for people who
are going to be strong leaders,who are really gonna hit back

(01:19:53):
against the cultural narrativeswe're hearing, that are going to
do kind ofyou know, we'retalking about the need for
people who are going to speak tothe culture, right?
But sometimes instead ofgravitating to people who are
making really good nuancedarguments, that are people of
character, we just sort ofgravitate toward the people who
are loud and charismatic.
And sometimes I think we are notwary enough of the sin of pride

(01:20:21):
in our leaders.
And that is something that if Ihad to pin it down to one thing-
but many others have written atlength and probably much better
than I would about that.
So I don't think we can entirelylet ourselves off the hook when
things like this happen.
But like you said, I mean,particularly in the case of Mark

(01:20:42):
Driscoll- I remember a few yearsbefore everything really blew up
at Mars Hill, there were someelders who got dismissed, and at
the time he gave this talk aboutit where he was saying people
just need to"shut up and do whatthey're told." I've ever is that
was the quote that he gave.
And to me, I was like,"Wow,that's a real red flag right

(01:21:03):
there when you're taking thatattitude towards the elders who
were supposed to be youraccountability.' And that kind
of spirit really does- it canpop up anywhere, whether it's a
non-denominational church, or aLutheran church, or a
Presbyterian church, it couldpop up anywhere.
So I think we really have to bevigilant against that, and I
guess that would be my response.

Epilogue, then we better do our last question, but
the epilogue is- this has beengreat.
I would say what you really-you're exactly right about
pride, but it's also, like yousaid, you just hinted that it's
pride on the part of thelisteners too.
In other words, people are proudof going to this great church
and to have this big church.

(01:21:47):
And so in some ways it's our ownpride that makes it- that leads
us to make excuses for somebodylike Mark.
Here's the other thing though.
With people like Mark and Ravi,I'll put it this way: the pride
also leads to self-pity.
The self-pity comes when, eventhough your ministry is doing
well, it's costly.

(01:22:10):
You're tired.
You also get a lot of criticism.
And so what always happens isthere's an internal- you have to
really watch this- there's aninternal self-talk that goes
like this:"Nobody knows what Ihave to go through to do this
ministry.
Nobody knows the cost.
Nobody knows the pain.
Nobody knows the hours.
Nobody knows what I've had to gothrough.

(01:22:31):
And therefore I deserve this."That's self-pity.
That certainly-"Therefore Ideserve this release- this
sexual release.
Certainly I deserve people justto stop giving me guff, and I
shouldn't have to work throughfor two years to get the elders
to agree to something.
They should just do..." In otherwords, the pride plus the

(01:22:54):
hardness of the ministry leadsto self- pity, and that
self-pity is really what killsyou.
Absolutely kills you.
You better go on here.

Yeah, we've been - I don't want to- we've been
taking up so much of your time.
So just in closing, manylisteners will know you've been
receiving treatment forpancreatic cancer.
Could you just give- I know youregularly give updates on social
media, but could you let us knowhow you're doing and how we can
be in prayer for you and yourfamily?

Sure.
It's hard on social media.
It's hard in emails to get itright, because on the one hand,
as many of the listeners mayknow, the great majority of
pancreatic cancer patients diewithin a year of diagnosis,
especially with stage four,which I have: metastatic.
So like I said, 90% pretty muchdie within a year, and it's been

(01:23:45):
a year and a half almost for me.
So in that sense, I'm doingawfully well.
I mean, in that sense, God hasreally answered a lot of
prayers, and my doctors say mychemo treatments are being
unusually effective, becausethey're keeping the cancer at
bay in a way that- usually thecancer breaks through the chemo

(01:24:06):
and just comes no matter whatyou do, and this has kept it at
bay.
So that's the incredibly goodnews, and you don't want to mute
that.
You don't want people not tosay,"This has just been
astounding," so please keeppraying.
On the other hand, it's everyother week.
Chemo is not easy.
And also anytime it could justturn around and start breaking

(01:24:28):
through.
So what we just pray is,"Lord,keep it at bay or eradicate it."
And every three months I get ascan, and we might get a
completely different readingthan- so we're just- it's been
almost a year and a half, and wepray for more time.
And on the other hand, I wouldnever want to go back.

(01:24:50):
Cathy and I never want- youprobably heard me say this- we
would never want to go back tothe level of spiritual life we
had before I was diagnosed withcancer, because it's just- in
other words, there's nothingthat drives you to Christ other
than trouble, and then when yougo there you say,"Gosh, I had no
idea this was available before.
Why didn't- I just wasn'tmotivated." I mean, there is

stuff available in prayer: there's spiritual reality (01:25:13):
undefined
available in prayer through theHoly Spirit, and we don't get it
because we are too busy or we'renot motivated.
We're too self-sufficient.
So I would never want to losewhat I've gotten through cancer.
I know it sounds kind of, Idon't know, John Piper-ish or

(01:25:34):
something, but I'm just tellingyou the truth.
Thank you for asking.

Yeah.
Well, and I'll continue being inprayer for you, and I know I
often pray to God,"Is there anyway you could get me to that
spiritual state without makingme go through the trial?"

I've always prayed that.
Unfortunately, our hearts are-but you need to keep- Yes, the
answer is, if you just say,"I'vejust got to," you'll make
progress, Amy.
I mean, in other words, if youjust buckled down right now
without some kind of trouble orsuffering, you'll make progress.
I'm just saying you just never-in this life, you just don't

(01:26:13):
make the progress without sometrouble and difficulties and
disappointments, just because ofthe hardness of our hearts.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to
talk with me today.
I really appreciate it.

Okay.
It was really nice just seeingyou as well as talking with you.

Jon Guerra (01:26:46):
[MUSIC PLAYS]

It was a pleasure to speak with Tim about
his book, How to Reach the WestAgain, and I wish him all the
best as he continues to undergotreatment for pancreatic cancer.
I'd like to offer a final wordabout how those of us who are
orthodox Christians should thinkand behave in an age when we are
becoming an increasing minorityin the West.
Though we are called intraditional language"the Church

(01:27:18):
militant," we must not bemilitant as that term is now
commonly understood.
We battle against sin, theworld, and the devil, but not
with the weapons of this world.
It is the Lord himself who goesbefore us, and the battle
belongs to him.
In times of change, we trust inthe unchanging One.
Hope springs eternal for thosewhose hope is in eternity.

(01:27:39):
When they write about us inyears to come, let them say that
we gloried in our weakness andsaw the power and glory of God,
that we made ourselves poor tobecome rich, that we took up our
crosses and followed where heled, that we descended into the
depths to ascend to the heights.
Whether we light a candle forhumanity with our words or with
our very lives, we must be theshining city on a hill that

(01:28:02):
gives light and hope to all.
For if we feel a risingdarkness, how dark is the
darkness of those who walk withblinded eyes?
We must not let our love growcold.
We must show grace, even as wehave been given grace.
This brings us to the end ofanother season of the
(A)Millennial podcast.
I hope to bring you a fourth andfinal batch of episodes in 2022.

(01:28:24):
Thank you so much for sharing inthese theological conversations
for today's world, and thank youto my husband, Jai, for his
support while I put togetherthese episodes.
This podcast is written andproduced by yours truly.
Please send all complaints bymail to 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue, Washington, DC.
The music you've been listeningto is from the song"Citizens" by

(01:28:45):
Christian recording artist JonGuerra off his album, Keeper of
Days.
You may enjoy listening to myinterview with him from last
season.
Reviews and ratings areimportant in helping people
discover new shows.
If you have a moment, pleaseleave an honest rating and
review for this podcast whereveryou listen to it.
Also consider mentioning it tofriends or sharing episodes on

(01:29:05):
social media.
I know your time is valuable andthank you in advance for any
help you can provide.
If you have any comments orquestions about this podcast,
feel free to email me attheamillennialpodcast@gmail.com.
Now to him who is able to keepyou from stumbling and to make
you stand in the presence of hisglory, blameless with great joy,

(01:29:25):
to the only God our Saviorthrough Jesus Christ our Lord be
glory, majesty, dominion, andauthority before all time and
now and forever.
Amen.
Have a great week.

Jon Guerra (01:29:37):
[MUSIC PLAYS]

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How to Reach the West Again with Tim Keller

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

How to Reach the West Again with Tim Keller

24/7 News: The Latest