The Greatest OBSTACLE That Christians Face in 2024 | Dr. Sean McDowell | Kirk Cameron on TBN
The Greatest OBSTACLE That Christians Face in 2024 | Dr. Sean McDowell | Kirk Cameron on TBN
Dr. Sean McDowell joins Kirk Cameron to provide expert advice for navigating one of the biggest obstacles facing Christians in 2024. Is it possible to bridge political and religious divides while still maintaining a firm stance on controversial issues? Learn more in this insightful discussion on Takeaways with Kirk Cameron on TBN!
Join Kirk Cameron to discuss pressing issues Christians are facing with compassionate, well-informed guests. Together we will find actionable takeaways that we can use today, this week, and this month to bring more of Heaven to Earth.
how could you possibly believe that now whether you’ve said those words out loud or simply thought them in your mind we’ve all been there struggling to get on the same ideological page or maybe even the same Planet as someone with a vastly different world viw disagreements are nothing new but sadly in today’s world sharing a dissenting opinion may result in online hate or falling victim to cancel culture so how do we deescalate this kind of situation and have productive conversations with our differing opinions we’ll talk about that
with sha McDow disagreements have always been part of our culture in our families at our schools and even in our politics and government but it seems like we’ve reached a level of intensity now where we can’t even talk to each other if I want to maintain a friendship or a family relation I can’t even talk about politics and there’s about a hundred things that we can’t seem to have a disagreement on and still be friends how did we get here that’s a great question we’ve heard some terms used for this
like cancel culture so the moment that term popped up I started doing some research trying to figure out why are we so polarized like you said like there’s not only disagreements but there’s contempt across the religious aisle there’s contempt across the political aisle and I think a few things are going on here number one obviously the elephant in the room is social media right now we have means to communicate to the world instantly without filtering it and retweet anything anybody else says there used to not be such access to
the world and the algorithms favor things that incite emotions such as anger more than happiness so that creates the sense of feeling I think another issues that plays that we just have so many issues in which we’re more divided than ever whether it’s issues like vaccines whether it’s race whether it’s transgender there’s all these issues that our media talks about all the time which were divided not only within the church but within Christians and those on the outside I think the third piece
about this Kirk is that I think we have we’ve all seen the stats about mental illness and depression and loneliness and anxiety Rising well you and I have both heard it said that hurt people hurt people there’s a lot of broken people out there that are communicating out of their hurt and thus cancelling and polarizing and I think the final piece is we’ve literally just lost how to communicate we don’t know how to listen we don’t know how to ask good questions we don’t know how how to find common
ground with somebody so you add all these factors together from mental illness and social media and polarizing issues in the inability to communicate of course we find ourselves in such a polarizing culture I agree with you so many times I will receive a tweet or a post or a story that gets a reaction out of me and it’s just so easy to forward that on to my family or forward that on to a friend with an opposing view thinking that I will produce in them the same reaction they produced in me without me really having to put any work
into it I don’t need to research I don’t need to communicate in a way that is going to really build that person up and help them it really just is a quick reaction and I can move on but I I think that’s made us lazy in terms of our thinking made us lazy in terms of our communicating and making sure that what we say is being seasoned with Grace like the scripture tells us to do Sean talk to us about how someone ‘s personal backstory focuses their passions or uh might Cloud their Vision when it comes to their view
on a particular Topic in other words if I’ve had a a horrible family upbringing or I had some tragic trauma happen in my life does that maybe give me a particular bias toward a particular worldview and should we try to unearth some of that stuff before we just just go ballistic on somebody yeah this is something in the book we call bricked and there’s a lot of experiences good and bad in relationships that shape how we see the world so I’ll give you an example I’ve had I think three or four online
conversations with a friend of mine who somewhat tongue and Chek describes himself as an atheist New York media Elite and he’s written for New York Times written for the New Yorker he grew up in Greenwich Manhattan which is the Hub of the sexual Revolution he’s about my age and we started a conversation some online and some offline and I was just interviewing him about his story and he said to me I’ll never forget it he said Sean I didn’t know a single Evangelical growing up I mean let that sink in he goes I didn’t know one he
said but 40% of the men I knew growing up Were Gay 40% and they were good with me they were my people they cared for me now if you just put yourself in his shoes we can at least understand intellectually and hopefully emotionally how he might view Christians how he might view the lgbtq movement it doesn’t remotely mean I have to agree with that but that’s going to give me sympathy and empathy and at least understand why he sees the world as he sees the world so there’s a proverb that says the purposes
in a man or a person person’s heart are deep and a person of wisdom draws it out so whenever I’m speaking with someone I’m doing exactly what you’re talking about Kirk I’m always wondering is there a backstory what is it what experience did this person have with Christians what experience does this person have in the church what experience if we’re talking about something as DIY as immigration what experience does this person have with immigration because those experiences probably more than
anything shape the way we see the world again not just intellectually but in our hearts and in our feelings so I want to tap into those kinds of stories and experiences this is so wise and this is important for all kinds of relationships not just a relationship with someone with whom we disagree with theologically or in a worldview issue but just in a marriage we we have how many times have we been in a in a marital conflict and you know guys we tend to compartmentalize everything and isolate the incident for what it was in that
moment and go wait a second what I just said was absolutely true and yeah we fail to recognize the fact that that’s something that actually is connected to a long string of uh injuries or wounds that go back years and years into the past for our spouse or a child or something like that and when we don’t take into view the whole context of that person’s backstory uh we can be completely missing the mark when it comes to communicating and helping somebody and that happens absolutely here when we’re talking about answering
worldview questions so you talk about um mys side bias sympathetic awareness and mind blindness can you just grab a hold of one of those and unpack it for us yeah let’s take what’s called mys side bias and by the way my my co-author is a communication expert he got a PhD in this so I bring like practical experience and he’s got like this Theory and study and research behind and my side bias is exactly as it sounds that we have certain deep seated biases to a agree with and favor things that support
our narrative and reject things that don’t and this could be in a conversation like we’re talking about this could be when we’re reading the Bible and a lot of these biases if we stopped and thought about and somebody asked us to express them we could express them for the most part they’re just like literally underneath the surface and they’re kind of like the air we breathe or the kind of water we swim in in the sense that we just bring them to the table and don’t even have direct awareness of them and so I’m always in
conversations like I’m listening to people trying to figure out okay what are the biases that you have and how are these shaping the way you’re processing this information and then how can I at least bring them to the surface so we can talk about them my dad in high school Kirk he said something to me he said he said whenever you read an article whenever you read a book whenever you watch a movie ask yourself what is the world viiew or the assumptions of the person who is writing or producing this that will reveal to
you everything about what they conclude so my side bias it’s one thing to point it out in other people but it’s another thing to try to be aware of it amongst ourselves and this can be painful like do I have certain biases about people of other races do I have certain biases about people of another religion do I have certain biases about people of a different political party and does this shape the way I treat and interact with them we all have biases yeah but we’ve got to do the Deep work to be aware of
them so we can really communicate in a in a fruitful fashion this is so good uh you’re you’re you’re just fine-tuning and sharpening the way that we think Sean and and I I do want to point out as well that uh the word bias has been um I think uh labeled in such a way that we think biases are always bad oh you’re biased you’re biased and you say we all have biases yet not all biases are bad I don’t believe the Bible itself does not set out to prove the existence of God it has its own internal bias and just
asserts God for who he is and his character and and and and I believe that by faith so I I agree with you understanding what the bias is helps us to understand where a person’s coming from and then if we want to then examine those presuppositions and say do you have good reasons for the bias that you’re coming to the table with now that’s a really interesting conversation as well uh do do you agree I actually do agree with that for example you and I both have a bias that the Bible is the word of God and it’s inherent and it’s
inspired now I’m aware of that and if somebody asked me I would Express that and I could say where that bias comes from and it’s not realize that you and I have that exactly that’s a good bias that we should have and the scriptures teach it but that does shape the way we read the Bible and interact with others so I think that’s well said um is it possible for us to end nasty stalemates with a friend with a family member and still stay true to our Biblical convictions I think we can try and in
more cases than not we can now are there times that we can’t yeah I can’t control how somebody responds to me I mean I’ve had people where I’ve worked out and been as gracious and kind as I can to have a f fruitful relationship and they’ve canceled me that happens I’m G to think of Jesus the Rich Young Ruler walked away from Jesus and he let him go so I I don’t think we can guarantee in every circumstance we can end a state I I get heartbreaking letters from parents whose kids say if you don’t do ab and c
I don’t even want to be in relationship with you well these parents can pray for their kids they can reach out and be gracious they can be patient they can love their kids but we can’t guarantee that anybody is going to be in relationship with us and have a conversation but I think a lot of us have accepted a certain stalemate and not taken steps that we can take that would be affect like the scriptures talk about you know a gentle word turns away W yeah your book is called end the stalemate and uh we’ve been talking
about these intense discussions that we can have with people that lead to arguments that leave us not talking to each other anymore because things have become so polarized that we’re going to become enemies if we don’t just walk away and that’s not friendship that’s not what it means to be family and you’re helping us walk through these stalemates Sean what what about ending stalemates uh if you’re talking to a Believer versus an unbeliever do you handle those situations differently I do
in the sense that with a Believer we have the authority of scripture that we can point towards and so that that’s something I can say wait a minute the Bible says this not only about a subject but about how we should communicate whereas with a non-believer there’s not that same shared Authority now with that said I mean honestly Kirk I’ve had many non-believers much more gracious and charitable in the way they’ve treated me than Christians so it’s not like well Christians are going to communicate well
and non-believers aren’t it’s really not that simple but I think the big difference is the authority that we have of the scripture and our shared faith and our called to Unity that should transcend differences as long as those are not gospel based B defining differences then you know we might appropriate and respond differently like the scriptures say so the truth is Sean these stalemates these these really uncomfortable standoffs where uh we know we’re about to blow up into an argument sneak up on us while when we least
expect it sometimes it’s at the you know during the lunch break or it’s at the dinner table and all of a sudden we we we send that temperatures are rising the the pressure is mounting and this whole thing is is about to blow guide us through step by step what’s the what’s the way to approach that kind of a moment when you know uh this whole thing is a powder Kake ready to explode well first off uh I have sometimes taken the bait and not responded the way I should and had to go back and apologize to people and rethink
plenty of times in my life so this is not a book for somebody who’s always gotten it right in fact my co-author and I share a lot of stories where we fall short but my principle is not to throw gas on the fire I want to be a peacemaker I want to just calm things down for one and so some of my strategies would just be to ask a lot of questions more so than make statements I want to listen well and I want to look for common ground so often human nature is we focus on differences and we put somebody in a different political
religious ethical camp but there’s certain Common Ground like there’s a proverb that says you know by wisdom a house is built and by understanding it’s established so if I find somebody coming you know pops up in the middle of nowhere I might just internally kind of Coach myself saying take a deep breath the goal is not to win an argument the goal is to understand the goal might be a model to other people watching how I treat this person and then if I really feel like things are you know exploding
I hopefully would say something like hey this is a really important topic and I love to have this conversation with you I’m wondering if there’s a better time where the two of us could just sit down because honestly Kirk you know this people will treat you away online they won’t treat you when you’re there in person that’s right and people will also act differently when they have an audience and they realize people are watching I don’t want to lose face that’s right versus just sitting down
face to face and so be a peacemaker ask questions try to understand the goal is not to win an argument the goal is just to love that person to understand and be an ambassador now that doesn’t mean roll over and take punches but just take a deep breath be a peacemaker and try to think of not you know I can win an argument where I could win you know a battle but lose the war what am I trying to accomplish here is what I ask Sean C can you help us with some specific questions like you mentioned that would be good to start a conversation with hey
you’re really passionate about this I’m really interested that you care so much about this issue about Reproductive Rights for example or about um um you know these minority rights or this political view um what are some questions that we can ask to make them feel that we really care and that we’re listening to them so interestingly enough in the gospels in Acts we have Jesus asking 341 questions in Paul’s letters he asks 262 if I’m not mistaken Jesus was asked 183 questions and he directly anwers
seven so The God Who made our brains communicates with us by telling stories and by asking questions so part of our thinking is to just shift and say I want to ask questions partly I want the burden of proof on the other person but I also want to understand and the reality is most people enjoy talking about themselves when they’re ask questions but I’ve also found when I ask questions in probe there’s often times not a lot of depth that’s there so to take your example if somebody says I’m
