The Table Briefing: Dialogical Apologetics And Difficult Spiritual Conversations

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is senior research professor in New Testament studies and executive director for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is a doctoral student in New Testament studies, project manager for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary, and adjunct professor of Christian apologetics and world religion at William Jessup University, Rocklin, California.]

An old Indian proverb says, “You don’t cut off a man’s nose and give him a rose to smell.” In a Table episode called “Cross-cultural Evangelism and Apologetics,” Ramesh Richard, professor of global theological engagement and pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, applied this saying to a defense of the faith, observing that in the midst of discussing God, Jesus, or the Bible with skeptical neighbors, some believers seem to “destroy them in the process of contest and debate.”

Apologists often cite 1 Peter 3:15, focusing on the command to be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you,” but many seem to neglect the rest of the command, “yet do it with gentleness and respect” (ESV). As a result, apologetics training usually focuses on philosophical, theological, and historical issues, while less attention is given to the personal aspects of practical engagement. How can we approach difficult spiritual conversations? A number of Table podcasts have explored the concept of dialogical apologetics—a practical approach that sees apologetic engagement not as debate but as genuine dialogue.

In this briefing, we share four key lessons: (1) See apologetics as ministry; (2) engage in dialogue, not debate; (3) consider a different kind of persuasion; and (4) always reflect God’s character.

See Apologetics As Ministry

While some Christians seem reluctant to discuss their faith with their skeptical friends, others seem all too eager to dismantle objections and refute challenges. What attitude should we have as we prepare for difficult spiritual conversations? How can we alleviate some of the tension and avoid becoming defensive? On an episode called “How to Engage in Spiritual Conversations,” Darrell Bock talked with Houston Baptist University assistant professor of apologetics Mary Jo Sharp about these questions:

Bock: When [some Christians] get the opportunity to talk about Christ . . . they say, “I’m going to stand up for God and make the case,” and they tend to [enter] almost like a bull in a china shop. How do you advise people to walk into those conversations? And what should they seek to do in starting off?

Sharp: My goal, before I roll into a conversation, is to actually care about people. The first thing I want to demonstrate to a person is that I care about them. So, what we’re about to discuss is all wrapped up in “Do I really want to serve this person?” I’ve had atheists tell me they felt like Christians made them a project. Like they just wanted to throw their [talking] points at them, and if they weren’t ready to accept those points, they just walk away. That makes [the atheist] feel like a project rather than a person. I want to avoid that.

First, [we need to] know what we believe. [Many Christians] don’t talk to other people about their faith because they don’t know their faith. They are not trained in essential Christian doctrine. They’re not comfortable in their Christian skin. . . . If you talk to me long enough, [you will get] Star Wars, the Bible, Lord of the Rings, or The Chronicles of Narnia, because that’s my skin. That’s what’s going to come out of me, because that’s what I care about. So, we have to . . . know what we believe and why we believe it. Early on in Christianity, I felt intimidated to share my faith with others, because I didn’t know why I believed it. And that’s just vital to having an effective conversation where you don’t get defensive—knowing your own beliefs.

Before speaking, then, Christians should see apologetic engagement as ministry and recognize the value of remaining calm in difficult spiritual conversations. Approaching these encounters with a desire to minister can reduce the tension and help us avoid becoming defensive or argumentative. Confidence in the truth of the Christian worldview should allow us to minister to others by listening to their views and the stories behind them.

Engage In Dialogue, Not Debate

Defenders of the faith must embrace the kind of apologetics that is relational, tailoring the way we build a case for Christianity to a shifting culture and preparing for a holistic, person-centered dialogue rather than a solely issue-centered debate. While the truth has not changed, challenges to the Christian worldview have evolved. We need a new generation of apologists who are sensitive to current conversations around issues like transgenderism, religious freedom, and the intersection of faith and vocation. On an episode called “Truth, Love, and Defending the Faith,” Sean McDowell, associate professor of Christian apologetics at Biola University, discussed with Bock and Mikel Del Rosario the needed next generation of apologists.

McDowell: Truth remains the same, but culture changes. . . . A new kind of apologist is [a Christian who says], “Let’s take stock, because a lot of things have changed around us today. Make sure that we’re communicating the gospel and defending the faith in a way that’s God-honoring and effective in our culture today.”

Bock: We’ve had a kind of cultural net that was Judeo-Christian wrapped around most of the Western world. That net is gone. [In the past], you could assume certain things in your conversation that you can no longer assume. People had a belief in God. People had at least a healthy respect for the Bible. If they didn’t believe that it was inspired, they at least saw it as a valuable reflection on religious faith.

That’s no longer the case. In many cases, the Bible itself is directly challenged. It’s seen as an ancient book that doesn’t have much to tell us. The existence of God is up for grabs in a way that, generally speaking, in Western culture didn’t exist before.

Some of the earliest church writings . . . came in the generations immediately after the New Testament. There’s a group . . . that’s nicknamed “the apologists.” They [were] defending a Christian worldview in the midst of a pagan worldview and explaining why Christianity matters in that context.

We need another generation of apologists, . . . [and] there are a variety of issues that they need to address. [They need] to be aware that there are certain assumptions they can no longer make as they make the case for why the Christian faith is . . . the way to look at life.

Del Rosario: In a culture that often pushes back against Christianity—where the Bible is often the question and not the answer in the minds of many people—how can we earn the right to be heard?

Bock: There are three important elements: One is earning respect and credibility by the way you relate to the person next to you, the way you engage them, their seeing your sincerity. Christianity has an inherent critique of the way people live. That’s not an easy thing to deal with. They won’t care about your critique unless they know you care. That’s step one.

The second requires a significant adjustment. . . . We’re used to saying, “The Bible says [a proposition is true] and so it’s true.” . . . I like to reverse that and get people to think, “Maybe it’s in the Bible because it’s true.” . . . So what makes this true? What makes this authentic about a way to live that we need to probe in order to understand why God would put it in his inspired word?

Because what [God is] communicating to us are the realities of life, and if we appreciate why those realities are the way that they are, why the truth is true, . . . you don’t have to appeal to the Bible for it. You can also appeal to what this means for quality of life, or for human flourishing, the common good, [what] makes it valuable, and you can lead people into reflecting on the nature of what it is you’re arguing for in and of itself without appealing to the Bible for the warrant. For someone [for whom] the Bible is not a warrant, to say “the Bible says it” doesn’t do them much good.

[Third], there’s a way to have a conversation across a table with someone that emphasizes apologetics as a conversation rather than as a debate. . . . That is the right tonal way into the conversation.

So there are three things here. One is how you relate, the second is knowing how to make the argument, and this third one is understanding you’re not in a debate, you’re in a conversation, and it’s important to draw a person into the topic that you’re talking about.

Use A Different Kind Of Persuasion

Rather than operating in “debate mode,” Christians should seek to persuade others by provoking both reflection and a longing for the truth of the gospel. In an episode called “Keys to Effective Cultural Engagement,” Bock discussed a different kind of persuasion with Centre for Public Christianity founding director John Dickson.

Bock: My initial goal . . . is to get the person to pause and reflect. “Might there be another way to think about what we’re talking about?” [My hope is] that what I’m putting out on the table is something they can recognize the potential merit of, and then consider what is being said, because it’s different than what they’re used to hearing.

So it’s persuasion. But not [the kind of] persuasion that has a hammer over your head, [saying,] “Believe this or else!” But [instead] saying, “What I think I’m putting out on the table for you is actually a very helpful way to think about [how] humans should interact and live with one another.” There’s a certain effectiveness of living that’s being represented. [I want to] give them pause so they’ll start to think.

Dickson: I couldn’t agree more. If I lose well in a debate or discussion with a journalist but I’ve done it so well that I know that the audience are thinking, “That Christian guy was reasonable and level headed and pretty nice,” that commends the gospel. I don’t go around trying to lose but I’m not so concerned about losing. . . . Losing well is sometimes a beautiful representation of the gospel for those looking on.

Bock: Yeah, I’m more interested in how the audience is responding than in my trying to defeat the person [the media pitches me against]. My goal is to engage in such a way that I’m commending what I represent as opposed to winning a debate.

The first rule is, “I’m engaged in a conversation versus a debate. I’m not trying to win anything. All that I’m trying to do is demonstrate the reasonableness of what I believe in a way that will draw people in to consider what is being said.”

I’m probably not going to convince the guy on the other side of the microphone, but I’m interested in the person who’s trying to decide, “Which microphone am I going to believe?” and hopefully draw them in my direction as opposed to the direction of the person whom I may be pitted against.

Dickson: And if we think of Christianity as not only true but good, then you’ve got to allow that sometimes you won’t be able to convince an audience that it’s true but you might be able to convince them through tone and behavior that it’s good. If they have a sense that it’s good and beautiful, . . . in some ways that’s as good as convincing them that there’s a very good argument that Jesus [rose from the dead].

That was C. S. Lewis’s approach. He came to believe that if he could convey the beauty of Christianity to people, it would open them up to the truth. . . . He wanted to convey the beauty of ideas to allow people to open up to the possibility that they’re also true. To want it to be true is a step along the path to knowing it’s true.

The word ἐπιείκεια in Paul’s letters [is] translated as “gentleness,” but it really means “humanitarian regard,” that moderate, fair, just character. We trust . . . the good-hearted person more than anyone else on all topics. The key to persuasion is if you are someone who is trustworthy, . . . that moves belief. [Aristotle] said this ethos is the primary part of persuasion because we believe those we perceive to be credible and fair-minded far more easily than we do anyone else.

If we can convey the goodness of Christianity to people, that it’s morally credible, loving, generous, compassionate, humble—all these things that just flow out of the gospel—people [will] long for that goodness even if they’re not one-hundred percent convinced that it’s rational. What you call apologetics . . . ought to be trying to convey beauty in addition to truth.

These insights, applicable to both personal discussions and public square conversations, represent a different kind of persuasion. Rather than being concerned about winning a debate, we should cause people to pause and reflect on the effectiveness of living seen in the gospel. We must be mindful of our demeanor and the way it affects those who may be watching and listening.

Reflect God’s Character In Dialogue

Character plays a key role in effective apologetics. McDowell shares an activity he uses to help Christians begin to consider the way we approach engaging with atheists, linking one’s confidence in the faith and one’s ability to remain charitable in difficult spiritual conversations.

McDowell: One of my favorite things to do at churches, camps, conferences, is . . . to go into role play and put on glasses and [play the role of] an atheist. . . . Then I open it up for questions from the audience. I respond and I shoot them down graciously and kindly as an atheist to break their stereotypes of how they think atheists may be. And I’m telling you, almost every time I do it, people get frustrated. They get upset. I’ve been called names. I’ve literally had a guy stand up and threaten me one time. People get agitated. They get upset. They get angry and you can feel the tension coming over the crowd. And then I’ll stop, I’ll take the glasses off, and instead of saying, “How do we defend faith?” I’ll just say, “Here’s my first question. How did you treat me as your atheist guest?” And the eyes of people say everything: “Oh, my goodness. I hated you. I wanted to bash you. I was angry at you.”

And then I’ll say, “Why did people get so defensive?” And then I’ll explain, “I think it’s because you don’t really know what you believe and why.” When I push back, it shows an insecurity, so people tend to lash out with anger and defensiveness.

So, if we want to be able to talk about difficult subjects, we have to have confidence in terms of what we believe. Then we’re not threatened when people challenge our faith.

This echoes Sharp’s early experiences of feeling intimidated at the thought of sharing her faith. Like McDowell, she now holds that knowing what you believe and why you believe it can help Christians avoid feeling flustered, defensive, or angry. We simply must reflect the character of God while engaging with people from a variety of backgrounds. Bock and Dickson discuss:

Bock: The most important thing that we’re after is trying to reflect the character and the engagement of God while engaging the world. And if we model what Jesus modeled, then I think it’s an important step in the right direction.

Dickson: It is. Peter says that you’re to give an [apology] but do this with . . . gentleness and respect. Because you can’t defend this Lord that you set apart in your heart . . . without gentleness and respect.

Bock: Colossians 4:5 and 6 goes to the same place: “Let your speech with outsiders always be gracious.” There’s an interesting combination of moral challenge and invitation that’s part of the way the Christian is supposed to function. Conviction and compassion together—you’ve got to have both. It can’t be one or the other or else it will absolutely fail.

Here, Paul is emphatic about how grace should characterize a Christian ambassador at all times. This, along with the demeanor commanded in 1 Peter 3:15–16, should inform the way we engage the culture, make the case for Christianity, and defend the faith.

Conclusion

While some Christians approach explaining reasons to believe strictly as an intellectual pursuit, apologetics is much more profound in terms of its role in cultural engagement. It must be characterized by gentleness and respect rather than fear, anger, or resentment. The hope we have in Christ—along with the confidence that comes with knowing what we believe and why we believe it—allows us to be gentle and respectful. This is crucial in engagement and dialogical apologetics. Our tone must communicate our love for those we challenge with the gospel. Approaching apologetics as dialogue should result in a relational, holistic, person-centered conversation rather than an issue-centered debate.

There is no point giving people a rose to smell if you’ve cut off their noses. But the gift of a rose and its aroma is especially sweet coming from someone who genuinely cares. May God grant us the grace to see apologetics as ministry, engage in genuine dialogue, use a different kind of persuasion, and reflect God’s character at all times and in every way.

The Table Briefing: Did the Historical Jesus Claim to Be Divine?

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is cultural engagement assistant.]

How would you respond to someone who said Jesus never claimed to be God? While most believers can cite Scriptures that affirm Jesus’s deity, more and more people are hesitant to accept the Bible as an authority. Through popular culture, many have passively absorbed claims by skeptical scholars that the historical Jesus never claimed to be divine.

On an episode of the Table Podcast, we sat down with Dr. Justin Bass to discuss whether the historical Jesus claimed to be divine. Bass explained how he argued for the affirmative at a debate held at the Collin College Preston Ridge Conference Center in Frisco, Texas. Dr. Bart Ehrman, one of the most visible agnostic New Testament scholars today, argued for the negative position.

This Table Briefing highlights a portion of the conversation with Bass on the historical evidence for Jesus’s claim to be divine. First, we discuss a strategic way to talk about Scripture in a skeptical context. Then, we examine what early sources for Jesus’s claims say. Finally, we consider two key texts that demonstrate how Jesus used a combination of his words and deeds to point to his divine identity.

Examining Scripture In A Skeptical Context

Before we talk about the claims of Jesus, it is important to consider how we can discuss the New Testament with skeptical friends who do not recognize the Bible as an authority. Understanding how historians and New Testament scholars employ biblical texts in historical Jesus conversations can inform a strategic approach.

Bock: Most historical Jesus study is rooted in a principle that we actually use in our journalism today, which is corroboration: “Is there some way we can corroborate, or get additional sources, or multiple witnesses attesting that this took place?” It used to be [that] newspapers didn’t print a story unless they had two fairly independent witnesses testifying that something happened. Then they felt more confident about it. One of the criteria is what’s called multiple attestation: The more source levels you have testifying to something—a theme, a saying, or something like that—the more likely it goes back to Jesus on the premise that the more widely spread this is across the tradition, the more likely it is to have roots.

You have to be aware of these kinds of discussions with certain people because if you say, “Well, [the New Testament is divine] revelation. It’s so,” they’ll say, “So? I don’t believe in [divine] revelation and I don’t believe it’s so. What reasons do you have for believing that?” You’ve got to think through the other ways to say this.

Del Rosario: So there are ways to talk about this with your skeptical neighbors, coworkers, and relatives who don’t hold that the Bible is the word of God. You can say, “Look, here are different ways that we can figure out what happened in the past,” and they can come to the conclusion that Jesus did claim to be God, not just by “taking it on faith,” but by looking at the historical evidence and being confronted with the claims that Jesus made.

Bock: And it would be a kind of rationale you’d use with anybody in any kind of setting whatsoever. It’s designed to give them pause, [to] have them think, “Oh, that’s another way to think about this,” and boom, you’re into a conversation. In some cases, people will be drawn to this kind of argumentation.

Now there’s a lot of discussion about why people doubt. Are they really [doubting] strictly for intellectual reasons or is there other stuff going on? A lot of the time, there can be other stuff going on that’s impacting the way they argue rationally. But what you’re doing is you’re taking away that support, that buttress that says, “Well, I object and I object strictly on rational grounds. You don’t have to talk about where I am personally because I’ve got these rational objections that you have to deal with first.” And that oftentimes is a good way into these conversations because unless someone’s really into this topic, in most cases, they aren’t aware of what these conversations are.

Bass: And this was my approach with Bart Ehrman. I basically said, “Okay, let’s assume your criteria. Let’s assume what you accept.” I chose sayings of Jesus [that] he accepted. . . . I said, “Hey, let’s look at the New Testament documents. Let’s not assume they’re inspired. Let’s not assume they’re inerrant, and let’s just look at them as historical documents [and try] to find out ‘What did Jesus say?’ ” And I think even if we do it that way, we still see Jesus claiming to be God. That’s one of the reasons I love studying historical Jesus in this method.

More than ever, believers must be prepared to engage in public square discussions about Jesus in a culture that has shifted away from the traditional Christian view of Scripture. Christians tend to assert, “It’s true because it’s in the Bible,” but skeptical friends may be more open to conversations considering the idea that “it’s in the Bible because it’s true.” In light of our current context, this strategic approach seems to provide a more appealing way forward in cultural engagement.

Examining The Sources About Jesus

Skeptics often resist taking the Scriptures seriously as historical sources for Jesus’s claims, arguing that the earliest biblical documents were written at least a decade or more after Jesus’s death. However, the apostle Paul’s early letters are often overlooked as key sources for investigating the claims of the historical Jesus. These epistles contain traces of oral traditions that predate the composition of every New Testament document and shed light on the earliest Christian views of Jesus. Bass explains how close early Pauline material gets us to Jesus:

Bass: A lot of people think that the Gospels are our earliest sources for Jesus, but it’s fascinating that Paul, in his early letters—1 Corinthians, Romans, Galatians were written within about 20 to 25 years of Jesus’s death—actually quotes creeds, poems, hymns, and other sayings of Jesus that go back to within even the first decade after Jesus’s death.

Paul’s epistles provide a glimpse into very early oral traditions about Jesus. For example, Paul quoted an ancient creed in 1 Corinthians 8:6: “Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we live, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live” (NET). This seems to modify the Shema, a historic declaration of Jewish monotheism proclaimed daily by pious Jews: “Listen, Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength” (Deut. 6:4-5, NET). Bass and Bock discuss this creedal material:

Bass: [This quotation] is basically making the Lord of Deuteronomy 6 Jesus . . . [who is] somehow included in the one God of Israel. It’s an incredible creedal tradition that goes back probably within the first five to ten years after Jesus’s death.

Bock: The written traditions may go back to five or ten years, but the actual [conversion] experience of Paul lands on top of the [Passion] events in Jerusalem, if you think through what it took for Paul to be converted when Jesus appeared to him on the Damascus Road within eighteen months . . . of the events tied to Jesus in Jerusalem.

He had to have known the Christian message. He had to have been able to respond to it. When Jesus appears to him, he has to understand what that means. He immediately gets it. That actually dates [the] theology that allows for his conversion to before his experience with Jesus, because he’s hearing what the church is preaching as a preparation for that experience.

So this gap that people like to talk about between the event and what’s written in the Bible keeps shrinking to the point where it’s on top of itself. So the issue becomes “Where there’s smoke, there must be fire.” We’ve got these teachings among the very earliest Christians—where did they get them from? It’s unlikely they made them up on their own because they got them into trouble. Why would you make up something that would get you into trouble? That doesn’t make sense. . . . If Jesus really taught that he was a great religious leader or even that he was just the Messiah, there [would have been] no reason to make him divine.

Given the early date of 1 Corinthians and Paul’s own radical conversion, it seems the earliest Christians did believe that Jesus was somehow divine. But what caused this belief? A very plausible explanation is that Jesus really did claim to be divine. Still, some skeptics object that creedal material does not reflect what Jesus himself said. Are Jesus’s words and deeds really congruent with the beliefs of the early church?

Examining Jesus’s Words And Deeds

Nowhere in Scripture do we have a report of Jesus saying, “I am God.” This is one challenge often brought up by those who doubt that the more explicit divine claims portrayed in the Gospel of John—claims like “I and the Father are one” (10:30)—truly go back to the historical Jesus. But was an explicit declaration the only way for Jesus to communicate his divine identity? Not at all. According to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus revealed his divinity by doing the things that only God was believed to do. For example, Jesus implicitly claimed to be divine by assuming authority over the sacred calendar. He claimed to be Lord of the Sabbath—the Master of one of Judaism’s key distinctives commanded in the Torah. Further, he changed the historic Passover liturgy into a ritual that referred to his own life and death. He even demonstrated his supernatural authority over nature. This leads to a discussion of how to understand Jesus’s implicit claims in a monotheistic Jewish context:

Bock: If you think the only way for Jesus to say, “I’m divine,” is to say, “I am the Son of God,” you won’t have much to work with. But if you step back and you look at what these implicit claims [are] actually saying, they’re building a cumulative argument of, “It’s in this area, this area, this area, this area.” Who can do all of that? That’s part of the way the argument works.

Bass: Even in the Gospel of John, [Jesus] never says, “I am God.” I think the reason for that is he came to reveal the Father and he did not want to confuse people by saying he was the Father. So he did claim to be God, but the way he did that was by claiming to be, using the Jewish text of the Old Testament, “the Lord at God’s right hand” and the Son of Man from Daniel 7.

Del Rosario: The implied claim then seems to be, “I have authority over sickness, over demons, over the sacred calendar, over all these things.” In a monotheistic culture, he’s not saying, “Hey, I’m another god alongside Adonai who created heaven and earth,” right?

Bock: Right. It can’t be that.

Del Rosario: He’s making this claim and they’re having to put things together.

Bock: Exactly. . . . He’s introducing the idea that there is personage in God. He doesn’t use that terminology, but he says, “My status and my function equate to the types of things that God does, but there is only one God.” And you’ve got the idea of incarnation working here, that God is expressing himself through a human person. He’s gone about this very, very carefully.

Bass: Right. There’s no doubt Jesus was a strict monotheist, yet he accepts worship. It’s those kinds of things—those implicit things—that show that he did claim to be divine and see himself as divine.

Bock: So they really do add up. . . . It’s kind of an alpha to omega or an A to Z set of things that he’s doing, many of which God alone does. So as a result, you begin to say, “Okay, who is this guy?” For example, when Jesus calms the creation, the disciples’ reaction at the end is, “Who’s able to command the winds and the waves, and they obey him?” That’s the pronouncement that comes at the end of that miracle. That’s exactly the right question to be asking.

A good Jew would say, “Well, there’s only one person who’s able to control the creation; that’s the Creator.” So you get the introduction of this Creator-creature divide in which Jesus keeps functioning on the Creator side of that divide and that begins to raise the question: “All right, who is he claiming to be?”

Del Rosario: So there is a unity with God and there is a distinction as well.

Bock: Exactly right, and he’s trying to preserve both of those simultaneously so he’s not [mis]understood as a second god but he’s also appreciated as divine.

Indeed, if Jesus had chosen to announce, “I am God,” many Jews would have misunderstood his claim. In order to more accurately communicate his divine identity, then, he often chose more implicit means. In fact, it was often Jesus’s combined words and deeds that gave people pause and piqued the curiosity of some. Others who heard and saw the kinds of things Jesus said and did rightly came away with serious questions about the level of authority he seemed to assume. Jesus’s words and deeds contributed to his implicit claims to deity in, for example, the healing of the paralytic and Jesus’s Jewish examination.

Two Key Texts

In Mark 2:1-12, the scribes present likely heard Jesus’s apparently unoccasioned claim to forgive a paralytic’s sins—apart from any reference to the temple or the sacrificial system—as an implicit claim to possess divine authority. Indeed, his combined words and deeds pointed to a kind of authority beyond that of priests, prophets, and even angels. Further, Jesus seemed to present the healing miracle itself as validation of his authority to forgive sins—something those present believed only God had the authority to do.

Most scholars agree Jesus was known as a miracle worker and a healer. Further, all four Gospels report his miraculous healing of lame people and his clash with the Pharisees and their scribes. Moreover, Jesus’s pronouncement of forgiveness appears across the Synoptic tradition as well as in Luke’s special material. We discuss Jesus’s implicit claims in this scene:

Bock: The Mark 2 passage is important because Jesus is showing something that you can’t see by something that you can see. So he’s got a paralytic in front of him who’s asked to be healed. When the paralytic drops into his presence, he doesn’t say, “Be healed.” He says, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then he says, “In order that you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—that’s something you can’t see—“I say to you, ‘Get up and walk.’ ” He links it to something you can see and that requires the power of God in order to happen. That’s how implicit claims work.

Jesus is doing something miraculous. If he’s a sinner or a deceiver, then how are these things happening? But if they require the power of God, and he’s doing them, and he’s making claims of authority while he’s doing them, that underlies the implicit claim.

One of the great ironies of this text is we tend to give the Pharisees and the leaders in the Gospels a hard time, but every now and then in the movement of the narrative, they actually are giving us major clues for what’s going on. They’re saying to themselves in the Mark 2 text, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Jesus asks, “What’s easier to say? ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Rise up and walk?’ ” And then, “In order that you might know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins, I say to you get up and walk.” And when he gets up and walks, his walk talks. And what his walk is saying is “The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” And the Pharisees have already put the theological stamp on that: “[Forgiving sins] is something only God does.”

Bass: Also they say “blasphemy” there, which is an important connection between Mark 2 and Mark 14. After the climactic statement of Jesus claiming to be the Son of Man before the high priest, they also declared blasphemy. So you have that connection with Mark 2, almost a foreshadowing of what’s going to happen in Mark 14.

This brings us to the second key text: Mark 14:53-65. Here, Jesus’s own words before the high priest provided the impetus for the leadership to present Rome with a case against him. Jesus links himself with powerful figures in Psalm 110 and Daniel 7:13-14, resulting in a blasphemy charge. This scene is corroborated across the Synoptic tradition. Further, ancient extrabiblical sources also support the idea that a segment of the Jewish leadership rejected Jesus and presented charges against him before the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate (Antiquities 18.64; Gospel of Thomas 66; Gospel of Peter 1:1; Gospel of Nicodemus 1:1). The event also helps explain why the Jewish leadership rejected Jesus and how this resulted in his crucifixion under Rome.

Bock: Jesus responds by saying, when he’s asked if [he is] the Christ, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man riding on the clouds and seated at the right hand of power,” as Mark puts it.

It’s a roundabout way to refer to God out of respect because there’s something respectful going on. Jesus has been put under an oath when the question is asked and so he responds in kind. [The high priest asks,] “Are you the son of the blessed one?” showing respect for God by not saying “son of God,” and Jesus responds by saying, “I’ll be seated at the right hand of the power”—doing the same thing back. So they keep the solemn note of the exchange, but [Jesus’s] claim is “You can do whatever you want to me, but one day, I will be your judge and I will be seated at the right hand of the Father,” and they didn’t like that answer.

Bass: Things will be switched.

Bock: Things will be switched, and the assumption is that he’s actually predicting his vindication by God because God’s going to take him to the right hand. That’s an allusion to the resurrection. So when the tomb goes empty, Jesus is saying, “God will have vindicated me and he will have cast his vote in this dispute.”

Bass: And that’s important. He could have just said, “I am.” He didn’t have to say, “and you will see the Son of Man.” He added that, and that just happens to be what people have called the Christological climax of the Synoptics. It’s on par with “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Del Rosario: So here, Jesus is using [the title] Son of Man and he’s saying basically, “People will worship me, my kingdom will be unstoppable, and I will be your judge,” to the representatives of God on earth.

Bock: Yes. “I’m seated on the throne. I’m riding on the clouds. I’m doing God stuff. God is vindicating me and giving me this position with him. This is not something I’m claiming for myself. This is something God is going to do in order to show who I am.” And they get it, because when he gives the answer, they tear their clothes. That’s a Jewish symbol of having heard a blasphemy, and [they say,] “What more need do we have of evidence?” The next thing they do is they go to Pilate.

The healing of the paralytic in Mark 2 shares themes with the Jewish examination in Mark 14. In both cases, cultural conceptions of blasphemy and exaltation clashed. In the former, Jewish scribes understood Jesus’s claim to possess divine authority to forgive sins. In the latter, the Jewish leadership understood his claim to divine vindication and being seated in God’s presence as a claim to be both God’s Anointed One and their eschatological judge as well.

To them, Jesus’s claims constituted blasphemy—a perceived offense to God’s unique honor. Interestingly, the dissimilarity of this expression to Christian titles for Jesus along with Mark’s use of “Son of God” in his Gospel (1:1; 3:11; 5:7; 15:39) suggests that this material came to him from an existing tradition. What must have struck the Jewish leadership is how closely Jesus seemed to link his exaltation with God, suggesting that he would share in both judging and ruling—that he was in fact sent by God from heaven.

Conclusion

Introducing the concept of personage in the God of Israel required a monotheistic audience to grapple with implicit claims. Although Jesus did not say, “I am God,” he claimed to be divine by doing things his Jewish audience understood as divine prerogatives.

As a result of the cultural shift away from Christian assumptions in the public square, we need to be prepared to do more than merely declare the teaching of Scripture. Rather than saying, “It’s true because it’s in the Bible,” we must be willing to help our skeptical friends understand that “it’s in the Bible because it’s true.” Understanding how Jesus used a combination of his words and deeds to point to his divine identity can help us better engage popular skepticism about Jesus’s claims to deity.

The Table Briefing: Vocation, Faith, And Cultural Engagement

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is cultural engagement assistant.]

Imagine what it takes for you to have a bowl of cereal in the morning. Imagine all the different vocations that go into making a box of cereal available for a reasonable price—from the farmer to those involved in the design and execution of the packaging process, the truck driver, and even the person who stocks the shelves at your local grocery store. Then imagine how many people are involved in providing easy access to the milk and sugar. While we rarely reflect on the multitudes of people and tasks involved in providing basic goods and services we use every day, considering these things can result in a profound appreciation for the wide array of vocations that support our culture and way of life.

On an episode of The Table called “The Relationship of Vocation, Faith, and Culture,” Steven Garber, founder and principal of the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture, sat down with Darrell Bock to discuss vocation and sharing common grace for the common good. In this Table Briefing, we define the terms “vocation,” “common grace,” and “common good” from a biblical perspective. How do the Scriptures show us God’s desire to use our vocations to bless our communities? What does it look like to approach work with a biblical view of vocation?

What Is Vocation?

While many in the church primarily view vocation as synonymous with one’s current employment context, vocation is a broader concept that encompasses more than our daily occupations. Vocation includes our call to love God with all of our hearts and minds in specific ways as we use our gifting and the opportunities he has given us. It is related to the imperative God nurtures within us to glorify him by the way we live. At bottom, it is a call to embrace a divine perspective on all of life—including the daily work that God has sovereignly directed us to do at our places of employment. Bock and Garber discuss this concept and make a distinction between the general and specific sense of vocation:

Garber: A vocation is a gift from God to us. Not surprisingly, the word has a history. It comes from a Latin root, vocare, a word for a call. So who’s calling? Is there a caller? That’s really the first of all the questions about vocation. Is there somebody giving a call? Is there a caller giving the call?

This is a conversation about God himself calling us to see the world as he sees the world, to hear the world as he hears the world, to feel the world as he feels the world, to care about the things that he cares about, to love the things that he loves. So that’s really the deepest sense of vocation or calling: to see and to hear and to feel as God does.

Bock: So there’s a directedness to vocation in which the sense is “I’m where I am because God has me here.” At least that’s a dimension of it. And that enhances the idea of “Well, I chose my job” or “I do my job in order to earn a living” or something like that. No, there is a—I’m going to coin a word here, a “placedness” to what we do, and God’s responsible for placing us there.

Beyond a general sense of viewing the world and work through a biblical lens, there is a specific sense in which the term “vocation” is used to refer to actual occupations. In this way, multiple dimensions to the concept of vocation play out in specific ways for each person engaged in specific forms of work. On an individual level, one’s calling to do a certain kind of work may remain constant amidst a changing context. Garber explains:

Garber: We have a tradition within the church which says there is a more general sense of vocation . . . but there’s a more specific sense too. We can speak about the general sense of responding to the call of God upon my life—to know God, to be known by God, to love what God loves. But a more particular, specific sense is also legitimate, and we use this as the vocation of cowboy, the vocation of law, the vocation of journalism, the vocation of medicine, the vocation of mothering. . . . [Vocation] has to address all of life, as my father helped me to see. . . . His vocation was multifaceted. At the heart of it was trying to love God and to love the things God loves, but it had a fatherly dimension to it. It had a husbandly [dimension]. It had a professional, scientist dimension to it. . . .

[There is a] general, deeper sense of vocation for all of us, the more particular vocation of being a rancher, being a businessman, being a teacher. [Called as a teacher, you] could teach in a grammar school for five or six years and then go on to get a master’s degree and then a Ph.D. and then find yourself twenty years later teaching at a seminary. You know you’re still the same person with the same calling to teach, but the occupational setting has changed over time. . . . You can find a deepening coherence with your vocation as your occupation unfolds over the course of life.

Sometimes, by God’s grace to us, there’s more overlap than at other times. Sometimes, because of systemic injustices and wrongs in the world and hurts and wounds in one’s life, there’s hardly any relation between what I end up doing day by day and what I really long to do with my life. But those always relate to each other in some honest way.

Indeed, a vocational calling is a calling to serve God in a vocational space; it transcends one’s current job and can manifest in a number of specific employment contexts. More, it is a key part of discipleship to Jesus. As Greg Forster noted in a Table podcast series on economic wisdom:

[Vocation] is central to discipleship because work and the economy are so central to our lives that if that part of our lives remains secularized or unconverted, then Christianity . . . becomes a leisure-time activity, something that we do in our off hours, a few hours a week.

More and more, pastors and churches are recognizing that one way faith shapes culture is through the work people from all walks of life and religious backgrounds do during the work week. As Garber says, “Faith shapes vocation, which shapes culture for everyone everywhere.” This is true regardless of whether a person is an atheist, Buddhist, Muslim, or Christian. Deeply held convictions shape the way one lives life. This realization has profound culture-making implications for the world as a whole. Therefore, recognizing that God has placed each person in a particular place of employment for a certain time, how should a Christian live out the general calling to honor God in the context of a specific workplace? Garber answers that the Christian should display “common grace for the common good.” But what is common grace? What is common good in the conversation on faith, vocation, and cultural engagement?

What Is Common Grace?

Graber notes, “It’s through our vocations that we are to take up this work of common grace for the common good.” That is, God calls us to share common grace for the common good through our professional work. Each week, we find ourselves rubbing shoulders with people like ourselves who live in a fallen world and have hurts and needs. How is the common grace that we are supposed to share with our coworkers, clients, and stakeholders distinct from saving grace? What does it look like to share common grace with our neighbors through our professions?

Garber: There’s a distinction between common grace and saving grace. Saving grace is God’s work . . . in the world. God saves; we don’t save. That is the confession of true Christian people. God is the savior, we don’t save.

Bock: We’re vessels.

Garber: Common grace is ordinary grace, to use another word. It is the ordinary gift of God to the world. . . . Common grace [is comparable to] the kisses of my good wife, which I love and adore and keep . . . but they don’t save me from my sin. But [often we incorrectly assume], if they’re not sacred in that sense they must be secular. If that’s the paradigm, then my wife’s kisses are secular kisses, sad to say, because of course they’re not saving kisses. Our paradigm is, “All of life is either . . . things God loves or things he doesn’t love as much. But [that can’t be] how we think about life. All of life is to be holy to the Lord. We have to have eyes to see.

Bock: So by common grace you really mean common grace; it’s appreciating the fact that everything is grace and a gift and special and from God and for our presence and enjoyment, that kind of thing, that life is designed to be lived out of an appreciation for all it is that God does. Even the very common things that we go through in life are special because they are evidence of his provision.

Garber: That’s the point really. And so a good law, a good road, a beautiful sunset, a good cup of tea in the morning, a good friend—these don’t save us from our sin. But they’re not nothing. They are gifts of God to us.

Common grace, then, includes ordinary acts of service that are a part of daily work. This relates to the broader understanding of vocation as God’s mandate in Genesis 1:28 that shows humans have a responsibility to manage the creation. While “management” may initially seem to be a secular term, it carries profound theological implications for grace in daily work. That is, from serving a customer a cup of coffee or harvesting fruits that end up in grocery stores, to assembling a vehicle part that makes driving safer or enforcing laws that protect the intellectual property of artists, sharing common grace mirrors the love of God who graciously provides rain, oxygen, and breathtaking natural landscapes. While these things are not salvific, they nevertheless communicate an aspect of the heart of our gracious God.

How do the Scriptures demonstrate this? Bock and Garber consider what Christians can learn from the divine directive to those living as exiles in Babylon in Jeremiah 29:7:

Garber: One of the places I most love in the biblical story is where the prophet Jeremiah is speaking to the exiled people in Babylon: the Daniels, the Meshachs, the Shadrachs, Abednegos, and thousands more, really. And he’s saying to them, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this word for exiled people: “Seek the flourishing of the city. Pray for the city to flourish. Plant trees, build houses, get married, have kids. And when the city flourishes, you will flourish; so pray for the city to flourish.”

It would be easier in some ways to imagine praying for Colorado Springs than for Washington, DC. You know, thinking, “Well, [I don’t want to pray] for Washington. There’s too much bad [that] happens in Washington.” [Jeremiah is talking about] the most iconically bad city in the world: Babylon. It’s the worst of the cities.

Bock: And [the exiles would say], “They’re our enemies.”

Garber: But the word of Jeremiah given by God to the exiled people is to pray for Babylon, for it to flourish, to seek its flourishing. There’s a whole lot of common good in that calling that God gives to the exiled people—to seek the welfare. Another way to talk about it . . . [is] “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” That’s not just privatized piety. [It] has personal meaning for all of us. But it has to be worked out in the whole of life to love my neighbor as I love myself. And we can connect [Jesus’s teaching], I think, with honest integrity to that language of Jeremiah to the people who were exiled to Babylon: to seek the flourishing of your city, to care about your neighbors as you care about yourself, to love them as you love yourself.

[We should] work this out as Daniel did. . . . He was the chief political counselor to three tyrants. He weighed in on military strength, on agricultural resources, on building highways, on the economy. That’s what political counselors always do. That was Daniel’s work, as best we understand it.

A biblical view of vocation, therefore, allows us to see ourselves as agents of God in the world, helping our cities and neighborhoods flourish through our daily work. But this concept also points us beyond ourselves and helps us appreciate the contributions of others that allow society to function. Further, understanding vocation allows us to better relate to the people around us and appreciate how all kinds of work are expressions of service, love, and care for our neighbors. Moreover, these things demonstrate the value of the common good. How can we think about working for the common good more specifically in our professions?

What Is The Common Good?

In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus teaches:

You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people. You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden. People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven (NET).

What does it look like to be salt and light in the world? How does this affect the way we conduct business and live among our neighbors? Consider how a concern for the common good can profoundly impact our vocation and cultural engagement:

Garber: One of my great teachers was John Stott. He said this in his commentaries and his teaching about the Gospel of Matthew. When Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world,” [Stott] said, “Why would you blame a room for being dark? Why wouldn’t you ask, Why wasn’t the light turned on? . . . His point was, Why would you blame the world for being in the world? Why wouldn’t you ask, Why wasn’t the church there? Why didn’t Christians get involved? Why didn’t we permeate the world?

I work with the people who are behind the H-E-B grocery stores in Texas. . . . They’re committed to the Apostle’s Creed and to the Trinitarian faith and to being people of justice and mercy in the world and to working that out in selling milk and bread and bananas throughout the cities and villages of Texas. But I’ve watched them enough to know that they don’t suffer from dualism in their best thinking about this.

[Charles Butt and his family have] given generations to trying to think through “How do we serve Texas? By offering good food at a good price.” I know enough about them to know that they don’t see that as a secular [endeavor, where the attitude is], “We make enough money off Texans to do good things with charitable offerings at the end of the year.” They are very charitable. They are very generous people, really, but it isn’t because they have squeezed every ounce out of Texans and sold bad food at bad prices. Why do people keep going back? [It’s] because H-E-B has served Texas so well. They had a vision of common grace for the common good in and through their supplying of groceries to Texans.

Bock: What I’m hearing kind of between the lines in what you’re saying is this is not primarily about what we say, but it’s how we engage. . . . When we’re talking about being salt and light, we’re talking about the way in which we have contact and presence with people as opposed to merely talking to or about them.

Dallas Seminary graduate Hans Hess joined Bock and Garber at a cultural engagement chapel called “Applying Faith to Work” to explain how a deep concern for the common good motivated his entrepreneurial entry into the fast-food market, establishing Elevation Burger restaurants in Virginia:

Hess: I got this whitepaper that came across my desk that talked about the use of antibiotics in meat. . . . Widespread use of antibiotics in the animal supply has caused superbugs to develop. . . . In the late ’90s, ten thousand people a year were showing up at hospitals with a bacterial infection that was fairly common, but it had mutated in them to be resistant to antibiotics. So they would die because the antibiotics weren’t effective. I thought, “This is awful! We have a food system that systematically kills people. This is terrible.”

And this is when my Dallas [Theological Seminary] training came back—remembering Genesis, remembering that we have this obligation to care for the creation and each other. . . . Three years later, I had this idea: If you could make a burger restaurant that was using beef that was grass fed instead of grain fed. . . . I realized, in the marketplace, this was a complete hole. There was nowhere I could take the kids my wife and I were planning on having, where we would feel good serving them a convenient, quick meal like a hamburger . . . without serving them commodity beef.

I worked on the business plan for a couple of years and finally opened up the first [Elevation Burger restaurant] in Falls Church, Virginia, a couple of blocks from the church Steve [Garber] and I went to. So that’s how I got into the burger business. It was public-health motivated, which was theologically motivated.

These examples illustrate the ethos behind Dallas Theological Seminary’s slogan “Teach Truth. Love Well.” The slogan represents a commitment to connect the mind and the heart, the intellect and emotions, so that the biblical worldview is understood and lived out as a holistic worldview, seamlessly encompassing all of life, including the specific vocations in which God has placed us now.

On the website for the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture, Garber shares a prayer that should inspire us to approach our daily work with common grace for the common good in mind:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, you declare your glory and show forth your handiwork in the heavens and in the earth: Deliver us in our various occupations from the service of self alone, that we may do the work you give us to do in truth and beauty and for the common good; for the sake of him who came among us as one who serves, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Conclusion

The next time you have breakfast, consider the wide variety of people who collectively allow easy, affordable access to simple things like a box of cereal. Doing so invites reflection on our vocations—our shared calling to love God and others. How are we going to serve our Lord and others though our work today?

Vocation transcends our jobs and may look different in various contexts and seasons of life, yet it is a key part of our discipleship to Jesus. A biblical view of vocation, then, includes a holistic perspective of discipleship in which every day can be lived intentionally in God’s presence, manifesting common grace for the common good in our daily work.

The Table Briefing: Truth And Tone In Cultural Engagement

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

Over the past few decades, some evangelicals have seen cultural engagement as fighting a culture war for Christ. But the landscape has changed in a way that most people who graduated from seminary forty years ago might never have imagined. Today, we as Christians find ourselves in the position of a cultural minority in the United States. How should we engage with a society that is increasingly hostile to the Christian faith?

This Table briefing explores what the New Testament teaches about honoring God though our message—and our tone—as we minister in a world that often pushes back against the gospel. This ethos of balancing invitation and challenge has been a key emphasis since the beginning of the Table Podcasts. First we consider how the example of the early church should inform our cultural engagement as a church today. Then we examine how the Apostle Paul’s example should inform our interpersonal interactions with unbelieving friends and neighbors.

The Early Church’s Example

While some believers may be surprised at the kind of hostility and vitriol they encounter when sharing the gospel today, this situation is not new. The early church got its start immediately immersed in a skeptical context. How did the earliest Christians respond to persecution? What kind of example did they leave?

In Acts 4, Luke records how Peter and John were imprisoned and threatened by the Jewish elders and chief priests after healing a lame man and preaching in Jesus’s name. Interestingly, the church was not surprised by this level of persecution. The believers knew that Jesus had predicted it. Their prayer in response to persecution begins by highlighting God’s sovereignty over all things:

Master of all, you who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, . . . both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do as much as your power and your plan had decided beforehand would happen. And now, Lord, pay attention to their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your message with great courage, while you extend your hand to heal, and to bring about miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus (Acts 4:24-30, NET).

Rather than take an aggressive stance against those who opposed the gospel, they sought to live as a contrastive community that blessed the culture through service. In fact, they prayed that they, as a church, would all share God’s message with boldness and continue to minister to the very people who were opposing them. Their humble prayer seems to have pleased God, who immediately answered with tangible results: “When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God courageously” (v. 31).

At a recent Leader Board event, Darrell Bock noted that when our message comes alongside compassionate ministry, its credibility is enhanced. He explains:

Bock: The strategy of the early church was to be faithful in proclamation of Jesus and to be faithful in display of the grace of God through Jesus; to continue to serve the community around them; to continue to speak to how God cares for the people around them; and to engage in a ministry of word and deed. . . . When you share the gospel and say things like “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” the next question that a person might ask is “Well, how do I know that God loves me?” And service demonstrates the idea that God cares.

Unfortunately, I think, in the church, it’s been all too easy in the midst of thinking about the metaphor of culture war to allow a divorce to take place between what our message is and what our ministry is. Our message and our ministry need to be wedded together. God has joined together the word and the deeds of ministry of the church in such a way that there is a marriage. And somehow we have allowed to be put asunder that which God had joined together.

Bock demonstrates that this marriage of message and ministry can be traced to Jesus’s own example:

Bock: If you look at a text like Luke 4, where Jesus marches into the synagogue and declares the Word of God out of Isaiah 61 and Isaiah 58, “The Lord has anointed me to release the captives,” there’s a wonderful message about what he’s all about. And then you look at the very next scene where he’s in Capernaum and all he’s doing is ministering and meeting the needs of people. You see this wedding [of message and ministry].

Somehow, I think, because of the tensions of the fundamentalist/modernist controversy, which predates the [idea of] culture wars, we’ve allowed this idea of ministry that shows compassion to the world to be identified as a kind of social gospel that’s separate from the Word of God, and we’ve allowed that divorce to occur out of a real concern that some people who minister . . . in service never talk about the gospel. But the solution isn’t to shy away from ministry. The solution is to engage in a combination—in speaking the Word with boldness and in ministering [to people].

The early church set an example of bold faithfulness in both what they said about God and what they showed about God. They proclaimed the gospel of God and displayed the grace of God by serving the community. In the same way, today’s local congregations should intentionally embrace the ethos of this ancient corporate prayer and show our neighbors that God cares about them—even in the midst of the skepticism or outright rejection. When our message comes alongside service, it tends to give people pause and enhance the gospel’s credibility. Beyond this example for the local church, the Apostle Paul also gives us an example for individual believers to follow.

The Apostle Paul’s Example

Paul’s example offers three lessons on how an individual believer should live the Christian life as a cultural minority. First, Paul uses the image of an ambassador in 2 Corinthians 5:20: “Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His plea through us. We plead with you on Christ’s behalf, ‘Be reconciled to God!’” Just like ambassadors travel the world and represent their home country to those they meet, believers should not be shut off from the world or expect unbelievers to make the first move toward understanding the gospel, but should intentionally engage the culture as representatives of Jesus.

In a cultural engagement chapel on spiritual renewal in a post-Christian society, Bock and J. R. Vassar discussed the practical importance of this image for effective ministry:

Vassar: [The image of an ambassador] is extremely important, I think, especially when it comes to effectively communicating to the culture. The danger of the picture of exile is one of withdrawal, . . . but the ambassador is saying, “I have a sense of identity, I know to whom I belong, but I also know from whom I’ve been sent and the purpose for which I’ve been sent.” And so being able to interact with the culture, engage with the culture, understand its hopes, its aspirations, . . . its language, and then being able to communicate the gospel in a way that connects right with where they live . . . is an extremely important thing. It means being well-versed in the poets of the day, whether that’s media, whether that’s music, whether that’s popular bloggers, being able to listen to those cultural voices so that as an ambassador you’re able to speak intelligently [about them].

Bock: So how often when you preach do you end up using contemporary examples and evaluating them, either for the kind of hope that they’re searching for in what’s being expressed or the frustration that they sense with life? What often happens with preaching that I hear is the culture gets cited—but it always gets cited [with] critique.

Vassar: Right. . . . I probably don’t do it enough, but whether it’s a novel or whether it’s an article in a magazine or whether it’s a movie, I’m more inclined to talk about the aspirations that are revealed in those moments, the ache of the human heart that’s revealed, the universal longing that is seen here, or universal fear . . . that only the gospel can address or only the gospel can assuage. And you know, [in] some contexts that’s a little easier to do. I know there have been times where I’ve come back to visit and I may have quoted a movie and I’ve gotten accosted by people—“How could you promote a movie like that here in church?” And so I guess you have to be culturally sensitive about some of those things. But I find in those, again, cultural poets, if you will, a real revelation of the human heart. I think we need to capitalize on those things.

While Vassar rightly cautions believers against the danger of withdrawing from the culture as an exile, it is also important to nuance the image of an ambassador. If believers are not careful, many outside the church may detect an air of triumphalism or entitlement in our personal interactions. During a Table series called “Christianity as a Cultural Minority,” John Dickson joined Bock to make this point:

Bock: To me, the value of the ambassador picture is, I’m a stranger in a strange land and I represent someone and something to other people who may or may not appreciate what I represent. So I have to think about how to do that well and with the intention and the hope—and this is the mission part of it—of inviting them into the experience that believers share with God.

Dickson: That’s almost certainly what the biblical picture of ambassador means, but I think Christians can take it as “my authority over the world,” because ambassadors are people we bow and scrape to. So, yeah, . . . it’s a fantastic image viewed from that perspective.

Bock: So the hard thing to deal with [is that] our message does say, “You’re a creature accountable to a creator, and you have responsibilities before God whether you recognize it or not.” But then the flip side of it is, How do you get the person to take that frame of view or that world view seriously? And I like to say when I talk about this theme with people, “What would you prefer if someone were to put in front of you? The response that says, ‘Well you’re blind and in the darkness and just can’t get it,’ or the response that says, ‘You know that’s a good question; now let’s talk about the answer’ ”? There is this tension [between] where people are theologically on the one hand and . . . the relational part of how to get there on the other. And sometimes I think our theology washes out the relational dimensions of how we think about mission.

Dickson: Or we interpret that authority that we do have in Christ in institutional, structural terms. The main point I’d make on this question is that [some people] hear any tone of authority as institutional and structural authority, like you think your institution ought to be running the show. . . . You and I might simply mean, “We’ve heard the message of God and that is an inherently authoritative message, so that when we speak the words of God, everyone is under it.” Sure. But that’s not how it’s heard. It’s heard as, “My organization is better than your organization.”

Bock: They see it as almost a power grab in some sense?

Dickson: They associate it with political and legislative and social power instead of persuasional power and relational power. So it’s complicated because you can pluck out of the Scriptures all sorts of references to authority, but it would be wrong to interpret that as an authority in any structural way and it would be wrong for us to use language that [leaves the impression we] think that we have structural authority.

Bock: It’s interesting because when you think about the example of Jesus and how he went about doing his ministry, there’s no doubt that he challenged people to think about how they’re related to God. And [he] did so in ways that could be considered . . . off-putting. And yet at the same time the nature of his ministry and relational engagement with people was such that it seems to have negated an aspect of the edge of that challenge. It was having the two things together, side-by-side, functioning together that allowed people to say, “He may be challenging me, but there’s no doubt he cares about me while he’s issuing the challenge.”

Dickson: And this is key, isn’t it? The genius of Jesus [was] to be able to flex two muscles at the same time: The muscle of conviction and the muscle of compassion. So he can thunder in public about the coming judgment and then sit down at a dinner table with those under judgment. It’s an extraordinary thing. Once more they flock to him, they surround him, they want to hear him, they want to be near him. Through the history of the church, of course, there have been moments where the church has been able to flex the muscle of conviction—moral conviction, theological conviction, political conviction—really well but the muscle of compassion has atrophied. Equally, there have been periods of church history, particularly nowadays, when the church is good at flexing the muscle of compassion and has given up conviction. Well, neither represents Jesus, who was able to do both at the same time.

This leads into a second lesson to learn from Paul’s example: We need the wisdom to engage from a position of humility—even when the broader culture has rejected God’s law. While many believers may resonate with Paul’s frustration at the depravity of humankind detailed in Romans 1:18-26, it is important to note that verse 27 points back to the diverse list of sins, ultimately implicating all of humanity in moral evil. At a recent DTS Houston chapel, Bock explained:

Bock: The point that Paul is making here, as he sets up why the Gentile world falls short and needs the gospel, is [that it’s] not because of one thing that he mentions in this passage, but because of the list that he mentions in this passage. Because he’s setting up the argument . . . that extends itself into chapter 2, to the Jewish people . . . and by the time we get to chapter 3, we’ve got “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all in the same boat. We all fall short in one way or another.

This inspires the kind of humility that should mark ambassadors of Christ. While some believers today are quick to critique popular culture and lament the apparent relativism of morality in the public square, the early church grew up in a context that was not radically different. As a representative of Christ, Paul often found himself engaging with people who shared his Jewish background and those who understood spirituality in an entirely differently way. His interactions with both audiences are instructive in terms of balancing challenge with invitation.

On a classic episode of the Table, “DTS’s New Initiative on Cultural Engagement,” Mark Bailey and Darrell Bock summarized well the contrast in Paul’s tone as he addressed believers on the one hand and unbelievers on the other:

Bock: If you think about when Paul writes in Romans 1 about the culture that he addresses in Acts 17, it’s pretty harsh. It’s pretty hard-nosed. It’s pretty direct. There’s a challenge.

But when he gets up to address the culture [in Athens], there is a communication of a respect and an engagement and an invitation for them to walk into an open consideration of what God is doing and what God is about that has a completely different feel and tone to it. So that, in one sense, the in-house conversation has a certain element and feel to it, but that’s not just directly transferred to what’s being said to people on the outside.

And it’s not duplicitous. . . . It’s just simply an awareness that the need of humanity is great. That’s what Romans 1 is communicating. . . . But God, in his love and grace, transcends that so that when the gospel is offered in Acts 17, you can see the extending of a handshake and offer of a handshake with God to reconcile that which is broken. And so the tone is completely different.

Part of the skill is knowing when to do what—when a direct confrontation is called for—and when it is an opportunity to offer an invitation for someone to step into a way of looking at life that they may not have considered before.

Bailey: When Paul was in front of the Roman leadership, his method of engagement was very different, like you said. With the Jewish audience, he could presume a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. [He used] a lot of Scripture references. Whereas in Acts, it was theology. It wasn’t backed off of; it was fully frontal. But it was from a theological [approach], without a quotational aspect. . . . It’s very instructive that God would give us a book like Acts that would help us look at those different methods, and I think we learn a lot from that.

This leads to a third lesson to learn from Paul’s example: When it comes to effectively communicating truth as an ambassador of Christ, tone matters. Indeed, Paul’s direct challenge to believers in Rome was very different from his inviting tone in Athens. He clearly understood the context in which he was ministering. Almost everyone in Athens accepted a supernatural worldview, as was evidenced by the vast amount of idols visible in the city. Though Paul was “greatly distressed” (Acts 17:16) by the spiritual state of the culture, he let their cultural context inform his approach. He began by expressing not outrage at idolatry but respect for their spiritual sensitivities, misguided though they were:

People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you” (vv. 22-23).

This introduction is striking, considering the strong convictions Paul expressed against ungodliness and idolatry in Romans 1. But this contrast communicates an important lesson to learn from Paul’s cultural engagement strategy. Bock explains:

Bock: Paul is getting ready to engage in a spiritual conversation in which he’s going to communicate respect for spiritual pursuit even when it’s misdirected. . . . Then, he’s going to challenge it. He doesn’t do it as directly as he does in Romans 1 because he understands the listener that he has. And in understanding the listener he understands, “I’ve got to build a bridge into this conversation because the only way in which I can effectively challenge someone is if I communicate some level of respect in the midst of offering the challenge. Because if I do not communicate that I care while I challenge someone, then the person won’t care about what I have to say.”

He sees an opening and he seizes it. . . . He’s going to say, “I want to give you pause about the way you think about spirituality.” He doesn’t cram it down their throats. He simply raises questions that he wants them to think about. . . .

The place to start is with their sense that life must have something about it that’s more than just being here and then being gone. He doesn’t cite the Bible even though he’s telling a biblical story. He cites their own poets.

This reveals one of Paul’s strengths: Understanding his ministry context and capitalizing on whatever spiritual sensitivities he found already present in the culture. Still, he was not immediately concerned about clearly presenting the entire gospel message. Instead, he strategically placed biblical ideas in front of his audience in a way that connected with their own expressions.

Similarly, when we as believers take a cue from Paul’s method, we prompt people to consider a different view of spirituality than the view they have absorbed from the popular culture. Paul’s method lays the groundwork for this challenge with humility and an inviting tone. He does so not out of frustration with people enslaved to sin, but with a heart of compassion, knowing the answer to humanity’s ultimate problem is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is to this saving good news that we must humbly point while simultaneously extending a hand of invitation and service—even to those who oppose us.

Conclusion

In a society that is increasingly hostile to the Christian faith, may we never forget the examples set for us by the early church and the Apostle Paul. Let us proclaim the gospel of God and display his grace by ministering in the community. Let us intentionally engage the culture as ambassadors of Christ from a position of humility. In the end, people tend to be more open to the idea that God loves them when they see us loving them. The truth of the gospel and our tone in cultural engagement both matter. Instead of viewing engagement as fighting a culture war, let us focus on our diplomatic mission of reconciliation. May we minister with compassion, balancing invitation and challenge, even in a world that opposes us. After all, the battle we wage is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces (Eph. 6:12). Our goal is not to win a culture war or crush those who disagree or push back against the Christian message, but to lovingly win them to the Lord, freeing them from those spiritual forces, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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The Table Briefing: Religious Liberty In A Pluralistic Society

By Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario

[Darrell L. Bock is Senior Research Professor in New Testament Studies and Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. Mikel Del Rosario is cultural engagement assistant.]

The value a society places on religious liberty suggests the value a society places on liberty in general. Even in a pluralistic society, it seems that the freedom to exercise one’s religious convictions and conscience must be legally valued in order to maintain a free society where a diverse population can work together for the common good.

But what is religious liberty? How does religious freedom relate to the nonreligious? Furthermore, how does the law allow citizens to live out their beliefs about matters of conscience in a pluralistic society?

At the Hendricks Center for Christian Leadership, Liberty Institute President and CEO Kelly Shackelford and General Counsel Jeff Mateer joined Darrell Bock to discuss recent legal cases and the importance of religious liberty in a pluralistic society. This article highlights three key points made during these Table Podcast conversations: First, religious liberty is a civil right ultimately derived from God. Second, religious liberty upholds the freedom of conscience enjoyed by both religious and nonreligious people. Third, the law must find a way to balance the compelling interests of the state with the sincerely held religious beliefs of a diverse population.

What Is Religious Liberty?

Religious liberty has long been recognized as the first of all human rights, sourced in a solemn duty to the Creator. As such, religious liberty is a civil right that is not ultimately derived from the government. Indeed, the founders of the United States simply recognized the rights God had already granted human beings. In order to protect these intrinsic rights from being infringed upon by the federal government, they wrote the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

On an episode of the Table Podcast called “Religious Liberty in a Pluralistic Society,” Jeff Mateer explains how the founders greatly valued civil rights as sourced in God:

Mateer: Our foundation in this country is the Constitution. And the founders, when they adopted the Constitution, at first didn’t have a Bill of Rights. But in their wisdom, a few years later they decided . . . to articulate, originally in ten amendments, what are the particular protections. And really, out of those amendments come our civil rights from the federal perspective. Of course, the founders would say, “We are not granting the rights. We are recognizing rights that God has already granted.” And so they wrote them down. So there are certain things that the Constitution provides and gives us the right to. The First Amendment talks about some of those, which include freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of association—core fundamental rights.

Bock: Freedom of speech is in that group.

Mateer: [Yes,] freedom of speech. And then later, of course, we had a Civil War, and out of the Civil War came the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth Amendments abolishing slavery and giving rights that you cannot discriminate on the basis of, originally race, and . . . out of that we’ve expanded to include sex, and all those are sort of a group of rights that we would refer to as civil rights. So it’s the right to speak, the right to believe, the right to be free from discrimination, because of your race, because of your sex. All those would be considered civil rights.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both agreed that the Creator of the universe also created the human mind to be free. Beyond this, however, religious freedom includes the right not only to hold religious beliefs, but to act freely on these matters of conscience—to live out one’s convictions in the world. Mateer and Bock discuss this idea:

Mateer: The first phrase of the First Amendment is to protect religious freedom and prohibits the federal government from the establishment of religion. It prohibits the federal government from prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and that became the foundational freedom.

So what is that? The founders were extremely intelligent men who debated . . . [and] understood these issues. They could have said, “Freedom of worship.” They didn’t say, “Freedom of worship.” They wanted something so much more. And I think that’s important because freedom of worship really talks about what we do on Sunday mornings and the view of what happens inside our church, inside the synagogue, inside the place of worship. And it’s that believing there and speaking there, not going outside that. The founders rejected that notion. Now they certainly wanted to protect freedom of worship, but they chose words that were beyond that.

Bock: So you’re saying [it’s] a bigger concept?

Mateer: A lot bigger concept. And the concept they used is free exercise. And free exercise is not just simply believing something. It’s acting on those beliefs, and that’s at its core—that’s religious liberty.

Religious liberty is being able to believe and then to act on those beliefs. It’s not just believing. It’s being able to act on those beliefs . . . religious freedom implicates speech. It implicates association, other things that the founders also put down in the First Amendment. But it’s that right to believe, it’s that right to act on those beliefs that is at its core what religious liberty is.

Bock: If you were to secularize this concept at all you’d be talking about [how] the state doesn’t have a right to ask someone to violate their conscience in some ways. Is that a good synonym?

Mateer: The founders would have been comfortable with that because they interchangeably would use “religion” and “conscience” because it came from the same thing. And that’s exactly what it is: freedom of conscience. And it’s to act on that and to be able to not just believe it. I mean, think of conscience and think of the best—when I think of conscience, the first thing that comes to mind is conscientious objectors’ right—the people who didn’t want to go to Vietnam. Well, think if the government said, “Jeff . . . you can believe you don’t have to go to Vietnam, but—”

Bock: But you’re going! [Laughs]

Mateer: “But you’re going anyways. But we’re not invading your right to believe. You can believe whatever you want.”

Bock: That’s not what it means.

Mateer: That’s not what it means, and that’s never what it meant.

Religious freedom, then, is a civil right derived from God that includes not only the right to hold to specific truth claims but to freely discuss and exercise one’s beliefs in the public square. Indeed, the founders believed that no government had the right to take this liberty away. Their perspective is expressed in the opening section of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The idea that God, not the government, grants liberty is one of the core truths upon which the American system of government was built.

Still, some suggest that such religious freedom may sometimes infringe upon the civil rights of those who do not hold to any religious tradition. How might the law relate to the liberties of non-religious people who are exposed to diverse views while living in a diverse society?

How Does Religious Freedom Relate To The Nonreligious?

Religious freedom is important in a pluralistic culture because people from a variety of religious traditions and people with no religious affiliation must be free to live out their beliefs in matters of conscience. This seems to relate to freedom of speech as well, because hearing opposing views in public square conversations is pivotal to a free society. During another Table Podcast series on religious liberty, Darrell Bock discussed this point with Kelly Shackelford:

Bock: If someone’s an atheist, I’m not inherently offended by that. That’s their choice. And hopefully they’ll recognize the same thing for me for being a religious person. It seems to me that that is how [the law] was designed to function, versus some other way.

Shackelford: Absolutely. And so you provide freedom for everybody, to their own beliefs, to their own expression. But there’s this new sort of intolerance . . . there’s a group that calls themselves the Freedom from Religion Foundation. And they run around the country, filing letters and trying really [to] change the country. As somebody who practices in this area, it’s just such a foolish phrase. There’s no freedom from religion if there’s freedom of religion. There’s no freedom from speech if there’s freedom of speech.

The whole point of living in a free society is you hear things that you disagree with. And that’s okay that people have a right to express things you disagree with. And that includes religious things that you disagree with. So to have freedom of religion means citizens don’t have some sort of right to be free from hearing about other people’s religion. They’re going to in a free society where the exchange of ideas occurs.

Despite this, some have demanded the removal of all religious content from areas in which the government presides, citing a need to maintain a separation of church and state. But doing so would seem to remove the many benefits that virtue and religion bring to free societies, as the founders recognized. Furthermore, this would be detrimental to a free and flourishing society because it would result in the government exercising an unjust power over the consciences of its citizens. Shackelford responds to a common argument for the removal of religious content from public life and explains why everyone should value religious freedom:

Shackelford: One of the favorites is the use of the term which, of course, is not in the Constitution, but rather the concept of “separation of church and state.” But then they read that in a really wooden, kind of bizarre way, to mean that everywhere the government is, religion can’t be there. Well, the government’s everywhere. So what that would essentially mean is, religion goes into the corners of society, and religious expression into the corners of society. And that is what some people really want. They want religious freedom to mean, “You have the right to your religion in your church, in your synagogue, and in your home, and that’s it.” And so things like being able to exercise your faith in your workplace [are at risk.] We’re representing people as Christians who are losing their jobs because they’re living their faith out in their workplace . . . We have laws protecting against that. But this is this whole philosophy . . . some think the country would be better if religion was removed from public society.

Bock: There’s a very famous citation from George Washington in his farewell address, talking about how important virtue and religion is to the stability of a society. You’ve got John Adams making this same point as one of the founders. Thomas Jefferson makes the same point even though he . . . isn’t necessarily an orthodox Christian. People see the value of the pursuit of virtue as a stabilizing force in the culture. And yet we’ve got this push to kind of almost have “anything goes,” which actually . . . undermines the society.

Shackelford: If these folks ever got what they wanted, what they’d really have is the government having power over people’s conscience: Freedom from religion. If the government could tell us that we [could not] talk about religion in public, we [would have] given incredible power to the government over the marketplace of ideas and people’s conscience and expression . . . for the atheist, they lose freedom, too . . . so, we really all should be for full, vibrant religious freedom—for those of faith—and those who don’t have faith at all.

Now, as Christians, we believe that we don’t need an unfair advantage, because all we need is freedom to speak the truth . . . You think especially [of] some of the Muslim countries where there’s just a complete meshing of government and religion. And certainly there’s not religious freedom in those places. That’s a very different idea from ours and . . . what they do when they infuse [religion] with the government is they take away people’s freedoms. I think the Judeo-Christian mindset and philosophy . . . is behind giving freedom to everybody, no matter what their faith is, or even if they have no faith at all.

Bock: I think that if you learn to equate freedom of religion and freedom of conscience and recognize that those two things very much go together, then there shouldn’t be any sense of feeling threatened about the fact that this right exists, and that it’s a very important part of the way our country is structured.

So religious freedom is an important part of a pluralistic culture because religious people and nonreligious people must all be free to live out their beliefs in matters of conscience. A society in which all expressed views must conform to the position of the government or the majority perspective is no free society at all. Still, the American model also sees the possibility that an individual’s sincerely held belief may pose a threat to the common good. How does our justice system seek to balance both the compelling interests of the government and the freedom of conscience possessed by each individual?

How Does The Law Protect The Liberties Of Religious And Nonreligious People In A Pluralistic Society?

An inevitable tension arises in a society that allows for freedom of religion. At some point, people may suggest that a specific policy or law discriminates against their religious views. Meanwhile, the categories of unlawful discrimination have expanded beyond race and gender since 1964. Mateer explains:

Mateer: The word “discrimination” itself, that’s not changing. It’s who and who is protected. This really comes out primarily from race in 1964 . . . It was signed by President Johnson after President Kennedy’s assassination. We were going to outlaw discrimination and so the question becomes “Discrimination against who and in what areas?” In 1964, they had a vision of what that was, and again, it was primarily race. . . . That got expanded to sex, and now the push is to expand it even more. . . .

Can the federal government discriminate on the basis of religion? Can the federal Government discriminate on the basis of race? Those things were taken care of through amendments to the Constitution.

Bock: So that’s your Fourteenth—

Mateer: That’s the Fourteenth Amendment incorporating the First Amendment and other parts of the Constitution . . . So whether it be the federal government, the state government, local governments, there’s a prohibition against discrimination [against] religion, race, sex . . . We’re not going to allow discrimination based upon religion [in the] public and private [sectors.]

When an allegation of unlawful discrimination arises, the court reviews each situation on a case-by-case basis. The goal of such analysis is to determine whether or not a given policy or law substantially burdens a certain person’s sincerely held religious belief. In this, what must be assessed is the balance between the government’s compelling interests, such as public safety, and an individual’s religion. For example, converting to the Mayan religion would not allow a person exemption from existing laws against murder and unlawful killing in cases of ritual human sacrifice. Mateer discusses this in a conversation on Indiana Senate Bill 101, or the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA):

Mateer: The law in Indiana, the law in Texas, [and] the law in 20 states says the first thing that courts look at when someone feels their religious liberty is being somehow infringed [is]: “Is this substantially burdening a sincerely held religious belief?” That’s the first thing. And so the person who is arguing that my rights are being somehow violated has to demonstrate that it’s a substantial burden.

And even when they do that doesn’t mean they win. Then the government comes forward and says—and in the case of human sacrifice we would use that—but in the case of any public safety sort of situation, would say, “All right does the government have a compelling interest?” Now again, that’s a legal term that has been in the legal vernacular for over one hundred years. What it really means is Does the government have a really good reason? It’s not made up reason. It’s a good reason. There are some tests in the law that are called “rational basis.” That just means that the government has a reason. It doesn’t have to be really good. Just a reason and then that’s good enough. Here, it’s a little more than that.

Bock: It’s a higher standard.

Mateer: Yeah. It’s a higher standard . . . that’s the standard that the court looked at in the Hobby Lobby case . . . That’s all Indiana at its core. When you look at the core parts, that’s all the Indiana law does.

Bock: It says to the person who feels that their rights are violated, You get the right to assert that your rights are violated, and then we go through this standard practice of determining whether the state has a compelling interest

Mateer: That’s right. . . . So vaccinations, for instance. . . . I tell people, “Look, I don’t know how the court would handle that case, but I know what the analysis would be. First it would be Do you have a sincerely held religious belief that’s being substantially burdened?” So it can’t be just I wake up one morning and I don’t like vaccinations. You have to be part of a religious belief system that—and there are and I recognize that—but you couldn’t be just willy-nilly. And then from that, Does the government have a compelling interest to substantially burden that? Well, I could see a lot of judges and ultimately the Supreme Court saying that they do have a compelling interest and there’s no other way.

Bock: Because of the public health threat?

Mateer: Because of the public health threat. And you know the court gets to make that determination.

Bock: Let me give you another one that you mentioned to me when we were off the air that I think is interesting and it’s the Amish right to use the public thoroughfares, because your human sacrifice example is kind of out there.

Mateer: Yeah. That’s a little out there. I haven’t met too many Mayans or Aztecs lately. [Laughs]

Bock: That’s right. Okay. But the Amish one if you live in Pennsylvania, that’s a real one.

Mateer: Yeah. I was just there.

Bock: So what does that one look like?

Mateer: The Amish want to use buggies on public highways. And originally the Amish said, “Well, we don’t want to put reflectors on our buggies. We don’t want to do that.” So they argued that, and the government said, “No. We have a compelling interest for safety. Now we’re going to let you on the roads, but you’re going to have to do certain things to be on the roads. You’re going to have to put reflectors on there. You’re going put the lights [on]. You’re not going to drive at night. There are going to be certain restrictions.” And courts have said that that’s fine . . . You can’t use religious liberty as a trump card.

When the interests of the government seem to conflict with the free exercise of a person’s conscience, the court reviews the claim via the compelling state interest/least restrictive alternative test. Here, the person alleging discrimination carries the burden of proof and must demonstrate that he or she has a sincerely held religious belief that is being substantially burdened by the law or policy under discussion. If this is sufficiently proven, the State must then carry the burden of demonstrating that the law is based on a compelling government interest, such as public safety, that cannot be accommodated by a less restrictive law or policy than the one under discussion.

One of the most recent legal developments that will increase the number of claimants is the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor, which struck down the key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—the national law that recognized marriage as a union between a biological man and a biological woman. While the full impact of this and related rulings has yet to be seen, a number of alleged discrimination cases surrounding religious freedom and same-sex marriage have already emerged. Even before the landmark ruling, Bock and Mateer reflected on such cases in a pluralistic society:

Mateer: If the Supreme Court . . . find[s] that in the Fourteenth Amendment there is a right to same-sex marriage, then county clerks are going to be asked to issue [marriage] licenses [to same-sex couples]. They’re going to be faced with, “Do I resign or do I follow the law?” . . . Again it goes back to [having] to demonstrate this is your sincerely held religious belief . . . The majority of Americans believe in traditional marriage . . . for thousands of years, the three main faith traditions all believe in marriage between one man and one woman.

Bock: I don’t think you’re going to have difficulty saying this is a controversial area.

Mateer: But . . . in cases right now on my docket, I’ve got men and women who’ve lost their jobs in the private sector because of their beliefs concerning traditional marriage.

Bock: Well, the famous case in that regard is what, the Atlanta police?

Mateer: The Atlanta police chief. And we’ve got four others. I mean Craig James, which people in the Dallas area will know . . . fired [from] Fox Sports because his views. I’ve got a PhD, MD doctor of public health, Eric Walsh, fired from the State of Georgia because . . . Dr. Walsh is a lay minister. And lo and behold, he had preached about traditional marriage. That makes him unqualified to work for the State of Georgia, apparently. And so these issues are coming up. And what we’ve been talking about at Liberty Institute [is] we see the clash; it’s a clash of absolutes. You’ve got religious freedom, which for over 200 years . . . we’ve respected as a core foundational freedom versus this new sexual orthodoxy. . . .

The person who is now in charge of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, the EEOC, is a former professor named Chai Feldblum. Recognizing this clash, she was saying, “When there’s a clash between religious liberty and sexual orthodoxy, this new sexual orthodoxy, can you imagine a time ever where religious freedom would win?” And she answered honestly and said, “No, I can’t imagine a situation.”

Bock: I even think the language is poor because the issue’s not an issue of one side winning or the other . . . We’re back to the principle of—we’re talking about a diverse society—in which there are differences of views and we’re trying to figure out how can we live together. I like the legal language: How can we “accommodate” one another to a certain degree? Then it’s not going to be a matter of me getting everything I want and you getting everything you want. It’s going to be a matter of trying to sort out how we can co-exist with one another despite the differences in worldview that we have. And trying to figure out what impinges on everybody the least, if I can say it that way, might be a better path to seek then for each side to seek absolute victory.

For the government to require a person to hold a specific view in relation to a nationally controversial topic like same-sex marriage seems to be a violation of core amendment rights. Still, members of a diverse society all have a stake in balancing the interests of the state with personal freedoms. Therefore, stakeholders on both sides of a given issue must make efforts to balance the tensions of living in a diverse society, respecting the way the law has been crafted in order to better coexist. The value American society places on religious freedom says much about the value society sees in human freedom in general. In a pluralistic society, one must value the right to live out one’s conscience in order to maintain a free society where a diverse population can work together for the common good.