Addressing the Cultural Issues of this Generation with Abdu Murray

[00:00:00] thanks for being here with us this evening my name is kevin conover i’m your host you’re on k praise 12 10 a.m

[00:00:05] down here in southern california educate for life radio my website is educate4life.org and we’ve got all kinds

[00:00:10] of resources on the website if you’re trying to train your kids up in the way that they should go if you want to teach

[00:00:16] them more about all the different uh issues that are going to be coming their way as they head out into the world it’s

[00:00:21] a great website to be able to discuss things like creation and evolution and how do we

[00:00:27] know the bible is true who put the bible together and all the different issues that are

[00:00:32] coming up and uh they’re sure if if they aren’t already dealing with they they certainly will be dealing with um this

[00:00:38] evening we’re going to be talking about one of those subjects that’s relevant to these issues we’re going to be talking about

[00:00:44] a post-truth world what is uh things like moral relativism or post-modernism

[00:00:50] before we get into that i want to talk a little bit about gen z and millennials i just

[00:00:56] did a little bit of research to look into this i thought this was really interesting some of the stats and if

[00:01:02] you’re a stats person i love stats personally but if you’re a stats person you’ll find this pretty interesting

[00:01:07] according to george barna the director of research for the cultural research center at arizona christian university

[00:01:13] 24 out of every 25 millennials do not possess a biblical worldview

[00:01:20] 65 of millennials say they are christian 25 of millennials have a positive view

[00:01:26] of atheism barna said this millennials are struggling to make sense of this world and the next they live in the crosshairs

[00:01:32] of cultural influencers whose extreme message about independence and self-reliance conflict with the biblical

[00:01:39] themes of christ’s dependence and personal spiritual sufficiency according

[00:01:44] to a 2019 arizona christian university study more than 40 percent of millennials in the united states do not know

[00:01:50] believe or care if god exists millennials are more likely to define success in life as happiness personal

[00:01:57] freedom or productivity without oppression

[00:02:02] and um so that just gives you a taste of what we’re dealing with i didn’t touch too much on gen z but

[00:02:08] my guest this evening is abdu murray and abdu is a former muslim he’s a speaker and author his ministries embrace the truth

[00:02:15] ministries embrace the truth.org and recently came out with

[00:02:20] his most recent book saving truth finding meaning and clarity in a post-truth world uh abdul thanks so much

[00:02:27] for being on the program this evening it’s wonderful to be with you kevin thanks for having me yeah and um i mean

[00:02:33] you’re passionate about all the things i’m passionate about i’m so excited to talk to you and and hear what your perspective you’re kind of on the

[00:02:38] cutting edge of this stuff and and um you know you wrote this book saving truth um and i what i really like about your

[00:02:46] subtitle is that it says finding meaning and clarity in a post-truth world would

[00:02:51] you say that’s one of the biggest struggles that the the culture is dealing with is just finding meaning right now

[00:02:56] i do think that’s one of the biggest uh struggles in fact i really appreciate that you picked that up and from from

[00:03:02] the title um because um i think that one of the things that’s important for us to understand is that

[00:03:08] um everyone regardless of the worldview you know you rattled off some alarming statistics about millennials and for gen

[00:03:15] z some of those are even more dire and one of the things that seems to it

[00:03:20] seems to suggest is if they don’t know or don’t care that god exists for example then they don’t really care

[00:03:26] about things like meaning in life and some would say that but for the most part people are searching for meaning

[00:03:31] even those who think that we’re all here by accident they’re looking to inject their own sense of meaning into the

[00:03:38] world even if it’s a private subjective meaning so people are really looking for this idea of meaning and is there any

[00:03:45] real place where we can find it but the problem is that in a post-truth world in

[00:03:50] a world where we’re all sort of the masters of our own universes we’re actually finding that meanings are

[00:03:57] fleeting they change sometimes from year to year sometimes from week to week and then sometimes from moment to moment and

[00:04:04] then we yield ourselves to a despair because one of the things that’s that’s point that’s part of the research as

[00:04:09] well is that not just because of covid but because of a lot of reasons young

[00:04:14] people i mean people in single digit ages into their tweens and into their

[00:04:20] teens are experiencing and we’re experiencing even before kobit the highest levels of stress and anxiety

[00:04:26] that they had experienced in decades part of that’s due to the fact that where we care more about this

[00:04:31] and we’re measuring it more but a big part of it i think is because we’re

[00:04:36] telling them that they can be the masters of their own destiny at an early age they can decide who and what they

[00:04:43] are at age eight now look i’m going to be 49 soon which means i’m a child of the 70s but i’m actually i grew up in

[00:04:50] the 80s and we had plenty of anxiety growing up in the 80s because we had what was sort of known as a cold war

[00:04:57] neurosis or cold war um uh anxiety you know we were worried that the us and the

[00:05:02] ussr were going to turn the cold war nuclear hot with a push of a button and so kids were waking up in the middle of

[00:05:08] the night screaming thinking the world was going to end tomorrow but we got over that

[00:05:13] only to find ourselves now from an anxiety where we thought there was a world spinning out of control to

[00:05:21] now an anxiety based on the fact that we’re told we can control everything

[00:05:26] and that is a scary thought for a young person uh because what you’re told is you can decide and you should decide who

[00:05:34] you are and we’re going to enforce it for you and even tell you who you are and

[00:05:40] somehow that gives you a sense of meaning and purpose and so we meander through life in very very shocking ways only to find

[00:05:47] that our desire for autonomy our desire for control has left us in a world where

[00:05:52] we have to formulate meanings based on what we’re against or what we’re for or

[00:05:58] um what new sort of identities we can create for ourselves only to find

[00:06:03] ourselves feeling empty because those things shift and we don’t have a common

[00:06:09] uh belief that things are solid anymore we like the shift but now we’re living

[00:06:14] in the grisly aftermath of that shift that’s really interesting um can you explain that a little bit further you

[00:06:20] said you said that um kids are being told that they can

[00:06:26] control everything and you said that this is not a good thing um that they’re being told this whereas

[00:06:34] a lot of people you know that their first thought is yeah hey i want to be able to control everything and and i’m glad that i can i have that power but

[00:06:40] you’re saying that’s actually not a good thing can you explain that a little bit further sure absolutely you know it’s interesting when you look at the the the

[00:06:48] values um you can tell the health of a culture by how it expresses its chief values and how those values begin to

[00:06:54] morph and change over time so if you were to say what is the chief value of the american experience or even the

[00:07:00] western experience the western world oftentimes we hear the word freedom being used here is that freedom is what

[00:07:07] defines the western world as opposed to oppression and slavish

[00:07:12] obedience to tradition we are free thinkers we break boundaries we bust through go west young man as it were

[00:07:19] yeah you see this you see this even on um i thought this was really interesting i was reading the studies on this it was

[00:07:24] talking about how many people use tik tok it’s unbelievable the amount of people that use tick tock

[00:07:29] and what what i’ve noticed is that there’s a really common theme of

[00:07:35] you can do it independence break like you’re saying breakthrough push through is that what you’re talking

[00:07:41] about when you’re voicing that i i am and this is an expression of the issue

[00:07:47] though so the issue is this is we talk about freedom and freedom is a good thing when it’s properly understood but

[00:07:53] we’ve actually used the word freedom often enough but we’ve actually stopped talking about the actual meaning of it

[00:07:59] and what i mean by that is this is that we have defined freedom as the ability to do what you want whenever you want in

[00:08:06] whatever way you want uh at any time you want and so it’s absolute unlimited

[00:08:12] ability to do whatever you want and define reality as as you see fit now that sounds like freedom but the reality

[00:08:19] is as uh isaiah berlin and other scholars have pointed out that essay isn’t freedom at all that’s autonomy and

[00:08:27] that’s a different thing altogether so freedom has two facets to it uh oz

[00:08:33] guinness points this out i see berlin points this out a bunch of people point this out freedom has two facets to it

[00:08:38] there’s what’s called negative freedom which isn’t a bad thing it just means freedom from restriction and that’s what

[00:08:44] we talk about all the time i don’t want anybody to restrict my expression of my sexuality of my opinions of my religion

[00:08:51] and all these things and a lot of that’s good the problem is is that it’s not tempered against the freedom for the

[00:08:59] positive freedom so negative freedom is the freedom from restriction positive freedom is the freedom to do

[00:09:06] that which is the greater good and that means that we use our freedoms not just

[00:09:11] to do whatever we want but to work for the common good to work for the ideal

[00:09:17] and we used to have a idea about what that actually might be

[00:09:22] and so so why would somebody i mean i’m just you know pushing back a little bit here

[00:09:28] just uh why wouldn’t somebody say everybody has the freedom to do the greater good they have that freedom as

[00:09:36] much as they have the freedom to do whatever they want they you know how would you respond to

[00:09:41] somebody that said we do have that freedom to do the greater good what do you mean

[00:09:46] yeah we do have the freedom to do that but my point is that when we talk about freedom we’ve actually lost that we’ve

[00:09:53] it’s it’s not that we don’t have it it’s that we don’t talk about it and we don’t actually define freedom that way so

[00:09:59] instead we look at negative freedom only which means that we’re talking about a one-sided coin or a one-ended stick

[00:10:05] which of course is nonsense but negative freedom by itself without a reference to a objective moral

[00:10:14] good isn’t really freedom it’s autonomy and autonomy is an interesting word because

[00:10:20] it comes from two greek root words autos meaning self and namas meaning law so

[00:10:25] when you’re autonomous you are a law unto yourself so here’s the danger kevin this is where i think is the danger is

[00:10:32] that if i’m a law unto myself i’m the master of my universe i am the ruler of my domain

[00:10:38] and in a post-truth world preferences and feelings matter more than facts and

[00:10:45] truth facts and truth exists but they just don’t matter as much as my preferences and my feelings so here’s

[00:10:50] the here’s the issue if i’m a law unto myself if i’m the master of my own domain the king of my castle and someone

[00:10:57] else happens to be the master of their domain and the king of their castle and they’re autonomous and their preferences

[00:11:03] and their feelings matter more than the facts and the truths but so do my preferences and my feelings

[00:11:09] when we collide when my autonomous kingdom collides with your autonomous kingdom and truth is no longer the

[00:11:15] arbiter between us who wins it’s not the one truth it’s the one with power oh

[00:11:21] that’s scary and so the irony is this if we don’t love truth

[00:11:28] as being the determiner of who’s right and who’s wrong what ends up happening is in our quest

[00:11:34] for ultimate freedom which is autonomy someone gets enslaved and that is

[00:11:41] tragically ironic wow that is powerful that is that is a message that more people need

[00:11:47] to know oh my gosh because that’s exactly where we’re at i mean that’s exactly what’s happening in

[00:11:52] our culture today um we have people that have decided um well we were well on our way to to truth

[00:11:59] doesn’t exist and now we see it playing out that people have decided i will win

[00:12:04] this battle of power at any cost uh it doesn’t matter and and and we can

[00:12:10] see that the evil the vehemence or the the just um

[00:12:16] just plain i don’t know how to say it other than to say it’s evil the way people treat one another in their attempt to to have

[00:12:24] their will win out like you’re saying it turns into tyranny yeah it does and you know what’s

[00:12:29] interesting about this is that we have to ever be vigilant i have to be vigilant because i’m not perfect at this

[00:12:35] and everyone has to be vigilant at this because as human beings you know it’s interesting this quest for autonomy over

[00:12:41] freedom is not a new thing this is actually as old as human beings when you think of the adam and eve story this is

[00:12:47] why i love the scripture so much because the scripture actually teaches us about the human condition long before

[00:12:53] our social scientists our sociologists and our psychologists have learned about it it tells us about this long ago so

[00:12:59] you look at the garden of eden story adam and eve are made to be in relationship with god and they walk and

[00:13:04] talk with god in the cool of the day genesis says now what’s interesting about this is that god gave them one

[00:13:09] command there’s a tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that is the one tree in the garden the fruit of which you shall not eat that’s the only

[00:13:15] command that’s it everything else is absolutely theirs they have free reign over everything and who knows how long

[00:13:21] it was that they lived with this rule and it never bothered them it never

[00:13:27] tempted them but along comes the serpent and the serpent says did god really say and he messes with their minds a little

[00:13:33] bit and what happens adam and eve respond in a way that’s really interesting they don’t say

[00:13:38] god said don’t eat of it they don’t say that what they say is god said don’t even touch it well he never said that

[00:13:45] they added to god’s word in other words they became the god of god and that’s

[00:13:50] when satan knew he had them he’s like ah they are adding they do want this

[00:13:58] god-like status and this tree of the knowledge of good and evil when i say you will become like god they will

[00:14:03] suddenly want it and what happens he says god knows that the day you eat of it you will not die but you will become

[00:14:09] like him and that’s when despite however many years it took for them not to be

[00:14:14] tempted by it suddenly when satan says you will be like god their quest for autonomy their human nature their human

[00:14:22] desire for autonomy over the truth one out and that’s when they fell so

[00:14:29] what i’m saying here is that the post-truth tree we’re living under right now was

[00:14:35] planted in the garden in the very very first people and so what we have to do is check ourselves whether you’re a

[00:14:41] christian or you’re a non-christian check i have to do this daily and i have failed at this times where i have failed

[00:14:48] or others have failed and many have failed to see is my preferences ruling the day or is truth ruling the

[00:14:56] day and because the old man is still there and claws back sometimes um we

[00:15:01] lose but if the lord is with us if that ever-present

[00:15:06] unmoving constant of truth is with us he will bring us back and say that no

[00:15:12] truth matters more than preferences and that’s how i think we can overcome

[00:15:18] a tendency to want our feelings and our preferences to rule over us so give me an example there

[00:15:25] of of what you mean when you say uh you know that that and it’s interesting what you

[00:15:30] said you said both christians and non-christians have to check themselves um would a would a non-christian even

[00:15:36] want to check themselves regarding uh determining whether this is a preference

[00:15:42] uh that they’re they’re seeking or whether it’s truth that they’re seeking why why would they want to

[00:15:48] to know that or or what don’t check themselves on that you know it’s interesting you say you asked that question because i’ve seen it

[00:15:54] you know i’ve had uh debates and dialogues with people all the time who who don’t believe uh who aren’t

[00:16:00] believers but who do say i want the truth and i want to you know find out what the truth actually is and you know

[00:16:06] the bible specifically talks to us about that people don’t believe disbelieved just because there isn’t um uh any uh

[00:16:13] truth out there or a lack of evidence especially suppression of the evidence which requires a certain level of

[00:16:18] knowledge that there actually is some truth out there but i’ve seen people um who aren’t

[00:16:23] believers who have looked for and even stood for the truth at times as well i mean we have to remember there were it

[00:16:30] wasn’t just christians who led the abolitionist movement there wasn’t just christians who had the women’s suffrage

[00:16:35] movement there were non-christians who were involved in that as well and this shouldn’t surprise us because the bible

[00:16:40] specifically says that god has actually written a law into the hearts of human beings yes we are sinners yes there is

[00:16:47] no hope apart from christ and we need to be awakened by the spirit the god needs to move in our lives but that doesn’t

[00:16:52] mean there is not any truth in some people oh yeah i i find it surprising sometimes that i agree with bill maher

[00:16:59] and i’m like what in the world how did that happen yeah it does in fact happen doesn’t it yeah

[00:17:05] well it’s weird because it seems like um as the left is getting crazier and crazier um you see people coming out

[00:17:12] going whoa whoa whoa wait a second i didn’t i made no commitment to this crazy train and so you have people

[00:17:19] starting to reject it that you were like wait a second i thought you were the other side what’s going on yeah yeah absolutely and you know this is

[00:17:25] interesting because i in in saving truth i have a whole chapter i think it’s the second chapter of the book actually where i talk about the way the church

[00:17:31] has actually contributed to a post-truth culture as well so you have people who don’t believe and who might be far left

[00:17:37] politically and you have people who do believe or at least maybe say they believe but and even

[00:17:42] believe that they believe but really political ideology matters more yeah and so you have in the church you have two

[00:17:49] competing atmospheres you have those who want to make the gospel message and the

[00:17:54] bible and some of it’s sort of more harsh passages or it’s more um uh

[00:18:00] defining uh culturally limiting passages or even personally limiting passages they want to make it more palatable so

[00:18:07] a good example is uh christians well-meaning christians who might say things like jesus says judge not that

[00:18:13] you be not judged and so we aren’t to be judgmental we can’t judge anybody’s lifestyle we can’t we can’t judge

[00:18:18] anybody’s choices we certainly can’t proclaim truth in certain ways but of course the problem there is that when

[00:18:24] you want to make the gospel so palatable to people that they end up saying oh i’ll believe that you don’t

[00:18:31] really believe the gospel anymore or it’s so easy that there’s no conviction and so what ends up happening is you

[00:18:36] take the scripture out of context because your preference is that everyone gets along that no one

[00:18:42] actually fights and what you’ve done is you’ve elevated that preference over the truth and what happens in this

[00:18:49] particular instance for example jesus does say do not judge a judge not that you be not judged for when you judge and

[00:18:57] he goes on to talk about how you should actually judge jesus is not talking about no judgment he’s talking about

[00:19:03] hypocritical judgment so i think that when we compromise the scriptures we’re

[00:19:09] often looking at those people who are sort of harsh and and stick to the scriptures and look at a more literal or

[00:19:14] a more i wouldn’t say literal literal sometimes a bad uh uh inconvenient word here um i

[00:19:20] would say a more um obvious reading of the text um they’ll say oh they’re being too

[00:19:26] harsh and they’re being post-truth but the reality is we have to before we take

[00:19:31] the post-truth spec out of the culture zio we have to get the post-truth log out of our own but then there are people

[00:19:37] on the pendular swing the other way there are those christians who i think want and believe in the scriptures and

[00:19:44] they want the the truth to be out there but they don’t speak the truth in love necessarily and so they take some of

[00:19:50] those more culturally limiting things and they bash people over the head with it and so they don’t show them the beauty of the

[00:19:56] gospel that comes along with the boundaries that truth creates and so i think that’s where the church sometimes

[00:20:03] contributes to a post-truth culture as well is that we elevate our preferences whether it’s to be liked or to be

[00:20:09] judgmental over what the truth is which is the truth in love and so i think that that’s very important for us to check as

[00:20:15] well yes and jesus is that perfect incredible balance

[00:20:20] um it’s just stunning to see christ and the way he talked and everything and

[00:20:27] you just look at it and go this guy this is no normal person here well i know you know it’s fascinating

[00:20:33] when you when you look at the way he even discusses truth in the first place you john 8 3 8 36 and you know we have

[00:20:39] um uh the scripture verse that many of us know and even non-christians know it when he says uh you know you will know

[00:20:46] the truth and the truth will set you free but it’s interesting when you look at the context here in the full breadth of

[00:20:51] scripture so jesus said to the jews who had believed him this is interesting because he’s talking people who believe in him

[00:20:57] if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know knowledge not feel

[00:21:03] but know the truth and the truth will set you free then they go on and they make an interesting statement they say

[00:21:09] we are offspring of abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone how can you say that truths will set you free

[00:21:15] that’s fascinating because they just said we’re children of abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone

[00:21:20] are you kidding me you were enslaved to egypt for 400 years yeah

[00:21:25] and and so it’s interesting how how truth gets put on the back burner

[00:21:32] when you’re about to you want to want to debate or you want to win someone win against someone in an argument

[00:21:38] jesus lovingly says truly i say to you everyone who practices sin is the slave to sin the

[00:21:44] slave does not abide in the house forever but the son divides abides in health and forever so he says so if the son sets you free you’ll be free indeed

[00:21:51] now this is interesting jesus says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free and then he says the son

[00:21:58] will set you free that means if the truth sets you free and the son sets you free the son is the truth he’s claiming

[00:22:05] to be the very truth that you just said kevin is one who there is no one like this one

[00:22:11] and love at the same time yeah i always i believe it’s in matthew where he says i i share this with my students

[00:22:17] frequently because it’s kind of a kind of sets you back it’s very unexpected where jesus says um i have

[00:22:24] not come to bring peace but a sword and uh it’s it and then he and then

[00:22:29] you’re kind of like wait what this is jesus talking and then that’s the emphasis on truth um

[00:22:36] do you believe that that’s where he’s saying that um you know truth rises above our

[00:22:41] preference uh that’s what it seems to me to be the case well you know it’s it’s interesting is

[00:22:47] the way the poetry works here of the of the scriptures is so jesus says in john chapter eight that he is the truth that

[00:22:53] sets us free then he says do not think that i am come to being priests but but a sword of course later on in john

[00:22:59] chapter 14 where he says peace i leave with you not as the world gives but peace i give to you um it’s interesting

[00:23:05] when you all this weaves together and this is one of the beauties of scripture as well is that when jesus says i have not come

[00:23:12] to bring peace but a sword because people will divide their preferences will matter more than the

[00:23:17] truth and what was the chief issue what was the chief issue that was facing the disciples and then of course the

[00:23:23] fledgling church going forward who do men say that he is

[00:23:28] and so he knew that what would divide people is who jesus claimed to be and so you

[00:23:36] see families divide over it you see if just ask anybody from a different religious system who converted to

[00:23:42] christianity how divisive how much of a sword jesus can be in that moment

[00:23:48] politically we get divided so easily but jesus is not uh it’s not the politics that divide us

[00:23:55] is what he’s talking about he’s talking about the fact that truth divides because truth by definition excludes

[00:24:02] error it excludes falsehood it excludes that which is untrue and so truth is not

[00:24:08] inclusive truth is exclusive but it is inclusive in its invitation it’s not

[00:24:14] inclusive in its in its substance but it’s inclusive in its invitation truth

[00:24:19] excludes error but it invites everyone to itself that’s awesome um if you’re just tuning

[00:24:26] in my guest today is abdu murray abneymarie.com or embracethetruth.org

[00:24:31] and uh his most recent book saving truth finding meaning and clarity in a post-truth world um so

[00:24:37] uh abdul as far as that’s concerned you know you you titled your book saving truth um so

[00:24:44] uh you know how does one save truth in in a culture that has decided that

[00:24:49] um i was reading about c.s lewis called this perspectivism um the idea that each

[00:24:55] person’s person’s individual viewpoint becomes like you said in the beginning of our discussion becomes the dominant

[00:25:02] um dictator of truth and that’s why we got into this situation where people are saying hey you’ve got to call somebody

[00:25:08] by the personal pronoun of their choice because that’s their reality um and and you’ll hear people say

[00:25:14] uh i think they say uh their perspective is the truth because

[00:25:20] it’s filtered through their mind and you have to respect their truth and obviously you’re talking about

[00:25:25] objective truth how do we save truth in a culture that’s decided that hey personal personal like you said autonomy

[00:25:31] or personal preference is the highest good well boy you’ve you’ve hit the question

[00:25:38] as to why i wrote this book in the first place is because you know it’s interesting uh kevin when you think about the post-modern mindset when you

[00:25:45] think of the post-modernism that arose in the 50s and the 60s and gained some traction in the 70s really started to

[00:25:52] pull in the 90s and even early 2000s only to find that it started to die of

[00:25:57] death and it’s interesting because we often think that we’re in a post-modern culture we’re not we’re in a post-truth culture and post-modernism died um but

[00:26:05] it’s interesting that you know we have different theories that are out there now that are living on the backs of post post-modernism but here’s why i say that

[00:26:13] post-modernism was the belief that truth is relative and that all claims to ex to have the absolute or

[00:26:20] objective truth were merely power moves it’s those who have power would would

[00:26:25] force an objective truth on someone else in order to gain power over them or to maintain their power and this is like cr

[00:26:32] this is like crt right yeah for critical theory the original critical theory was based on this idea

[00:26:38] of of uh dichotomies of oppressors and oppression but also of this idea of

[00:26:44] those who have the power will use it to dominate over those who don’t have it and make their own make their own

[00:26:50] historical truth up right exactly and so in order to and so the thinking was in order to avoid the

[00:26:57] conflict in order to avoid the inequities and the empower the power imbalances what we need to do is get rid

[00:27:03] of all ideas that truth is objective because if we get rid of objective truths then people can’t use it to

[00:27:10] oppress other people it sounds very well-meaning but it is quite wrong-headed um and what ends up what

[00:27:16] ended up happening was was the obvious things you know when someone says of course and you i know you know this

[00:27:21] kevin and i’m sure your listeners and your viewers do as well if they probably listen to you for five minutes they probably know this

[00:27:27] when someone says there is no such thing as objective truth that statement itself has to be objectively true otherwise

[00:27:34] they wouldn’t have said it and if it is true then of course objective truth does exist and the person has sought off the

[00:27:39] very limb on which they’re sitting yeah so that kind of argumentation has won the day

[00:27:45] oftentimes postmodernists and people who are relativists will see the issue and they’ll see the problem

[00:27:51] and they’ll begin to be talked out of it the problem is worse now however we’re no longer in a post-modern world that

[00:27:58] died what rose from the ashes of postmodernism is post-truth and what

[00:28:03] post-truth is remember this is very important post-truth is not the idea that truth doesn’t matter but my

[00:28:09] feelings do no what it is is that truth matters but my preferences and my feelings matter more

[00:28:15] why that’s more dangerous is because if you say here are a bunch of facts and

[00:28:20] figures and statistics and things that you need to look at they’ll say that’s wonderful but i don’t care

[00:28:27] so they don’t deny that it exists they just deny that they care now the question becomes how do you get

[00:28:33] someone to care about truth again and i think i think the answer is this

[00:28:38] um you have to show the concept there’s two ways and they have to work together because

[00:28:44] if they don’t they only work in tandem sorry if they only work either isolation they won’t work

[00:28:49] the one is to show that the consequences of a post-truth world are unlivable

[00:28:55] and then the second one is the hope of a truth-filled world i think fueled by the gospel is not only livable but

[00:29:02] hope-filled and hopeful so if you take the despair that comes from a post-truth

[00:29:08] world and couple it with the with the the joy of hope even in an imperfect

[00:29:13] world of the gospel that’s what i think you can get them to see that they should care and so several consequences arise

[00:29:20] um and we can talk about those but the first the first consequence of a post-truth world is that we lose all

[00:29:26] sense of wisdom the second one is that we lose all sense of accountability and the third one is that we lose all sense of human value in

[00:29:33] a post-truth world and if you can show that people who actually care and most people do care even people who are steeped in a

[00:29:40] post-truth mindset they care about wisdom they care about accountability and they care

[00:29:46] about human value they they care about these things um yeah it’s almost as if

[00:29:52] i was going to say it’s almost as if um because i that’s been my experience is that when i actually have the

[00:29:58] opportunity to have these dialogues with somebody who’s who’s thinking in a post-truth world and maybe they’re not a

[00:30:04] believer they it’s not as if they don’t have feelings it’s not as if they don’t care about

[00:30:10] people it’s almost as if their mind has just been so um inundated

[00:30:15] with wrong thinking that they’ve never just even had the opportunity to have that discussion with

[00:30:20] somebody that can actually articulate it in a way that that makes sense is that is that your experience or

[00:30:27] definitely my overwhelming experience is that most people who think in a post-truth way or who hold to certain

[00:30:33] views that i think are antithetical to and out to an objective truth of the gospel aren’t doing it without without

[00:30:40] without with um sort of a scowly sort of hillary look on it on their face they’re they’re actually think that that

[00:30:46] they’re propagating a better good and a greater good so i i think about it here’s an example

[00:30:53] of what i’ll give you exactly to your point about someone who i think really did have a well-meaning mindset and who

[00:30:59] had a ton of tenderness towards people who they didn’t even agree with so i was uh

[00:31:04] a number of years ago i was giving my testimony of my my conversion from islam to christianity specifically islam to

[00:31:10] christ um to uh to a to a men’s breakfast it was a fairly large um crowd for that

[00:31:17] kind of an event and uh there was a guy sitting in the front row who was listening and he was taking you know really really copious notes and i knew

[00:31:24] this would be the first guy to talk to me or at least the main guy talk to me as soon as i was done speaking yeah and

[00:31:30] so what i do when i talk about my conversion is that i don’t talk about how false islam is i talk about how true

[00:31:35] the gospel is i didn’t become a christian because that was false i became a christian because this is true

[00:31:41] now by implication everything else is false but it was the light of the gospel that attracted me not the darkness not

[00:31:47] not the darkness of something else that repelled me um so um what he what he got out of it

[00:31:53] essentially was that i became a christian but i thought islam could be equally true well that’s not the point i

[00:31:59] was making but he said hey i appreciate that i’m like well he didn’t quite get the point i was making but he said hey

[00:32:05] can i show you something which whenever you’re if you’re a public speaker and someone says hey can i show you something yeah uh it’s it’s gonna be

[00:32:12] a long conversation yeah um and that’s okay that’s good uh so he had a diagram that he had drawn and in the middle of

[00:32:18] the diagram was uh was a capital t like in bold he scribbled it really thick he had a circle around it he says this is

[00:32:24] objective truth and there is such a thing okay great you and i are on the same page then he had all these little lowercase

[00:32:31] t’s that were surrounding it and arrows that were pointing towards the capital t and he says all of us

[00:32:37] have imperfect versions of the truth and i said well we have to put a pin in that one for a minute he says but none

[00:32:44] of us knows all the truth i said so far you and i agree on that none of us knows all the truth because if i knew all the

[00:32:49] truth and i would know everything and if i knew everything i would be god so so far we’re on equal footing neither you nor i or god that’s a good place to

[00:32:56] start he said but we all have imperfect versions of the truth i said everybody

[00:33:01] he said everybody all people do okay so i rattle off some names i said

[00:33:07] adolf hitler joseph stalin paul pott mao zedong idi amin i can go on um are you

[00:33:12] really telling me that these men all had imperfect versions of the truth

[00:33:18] and his his words these are his words exactly he said i can tell you i don’t prefer their versions of the truth but

[00:33:25] because my version is imperfect i can’t judge their version oh yikes

[00:33:32] right so what ended up happening was in the course of the back and forth i asked the question uh i said are you telling

[00:33:39] me that you can’t disagree with anybody he said that’s right i can’t disagree with anybody i said sure you can’t he

[00:33:45] said no i can’t i said you just did it he just did it that’s funny

[00:33:51] he disagreed with me now i wasn’t trying to do a logic trap to make him like a fool because he was a very thoughtful

[00:33:56] guy by the way yeah my point was my point to him was his god-given wisdom

[00:34:02] was sacrificed on the altar of his preference that everyone gets along and

[00:34:08] no one fights with anybody that’s a good thing that’s a noble thing but the problem was he sacrificed wisdom

[00:34:15] on the altar of that desire and that’s what i think happens is often times when we talk about things that we

[00:34:21] care about whether it’s you know sexual freedom or whatever it might be

[00:34:26] we often have this burden in our hearts for people and we should but we sacrifice reason

[00:34:34] and truth on the altar of our desires and we have to be careful of that all of

[00:34:39] us do christians do non-christians do we all do because we’re all capable of doing that kind of thing

[00:34:45] we have our own personal uh experiences and biases that uh

[00:34:51] you know that are so often very very difficult to see um and that’s why humility is so

[00:34:56] important right that uh we we listen and allow somebody to speak into our life

[00:35:02] to the blind spots we may not see that’s pretty powerful well

[00:35:08] um you know i was looking more at the the gen z and the

[00:35:15] millennial situation i wanted to read these stats too i thought this was really interesting

[00:35:22] it says here this is about jnz here it is

[00:35:27] gen z is more likely than any other generation to want an activist government with 70

[00:35:33] saying the government should do more to solve problems as opposed to the government doing too many things better

[00:35:39] left to businesses and individuals they then went on to say 48 of gen z says same-sex marriage is a

[00:35:46] good thing for society while 15 say it is a bad thing 47 percent of millennials say same-sex marriage uh let me skip

[00:35:52] that one 35 percent of gen z members personally know someone who prefers that others refer to them using gender

[00:35:57] neutral pro pronouns and then um it says 40 45 of 13 to 17 year olds say they use

[00:36:06] the internet almost constantly um you know when you’re dealing with this whole thing from a practical

[00:36:13] standpoint and we’re looking at all these real these are real life issues they’re i mean the the whole thing with

[00:36:18] gen z deciding that 70 saying the government should do more to engage and

[00:36:25] when you have massive amounts of kids using the internet um and things like

[00:36:31] tick tock um for their information and as a as a administrator and teacher

[00:36:37] i see this all the time it says tick tock has 1 billion monthly active users out of 4.8 billion internet users

[00:36:44] worldwide 20 of internet users are monthly active using tick tock um

[00:36:50] and then 47 of tick tocks active users are between 10 and 29.

[00:36:55] so when you when we look at this and you’re talking about saving truth from a practical perspective abdu how does

[00:37:03] how does that what does this mean for the everyday christian for the lay christian as we engage the culture as we

[00:37:09] do our best to be salt and light as we’re as we’re trying to be um a good and

[00:37:14] godly influence on the culture um what are your thoughts there as far as that’s concerned

[00:37:20] yeah um there’s a lot to unpack there but it’s such an important question um one of the things that’s interesting

[00:37:26] is despite all the um uh sort of uh given to to um preferences

[00:37:33] and the appeals to emotion that are out there and the sort of bottom shelfing of truths over

[00:37:40] underneath the autonomy of preference is a deep-seated desire within

[00:37:45] millennials and gen z for a and it’s an overused work but for authenticity um so an authenticity

[00:37:53] presupposes objective truth it presupposes objective morality for

[00:37:58] example um i remember i was talking with a young man after an event this very

[00:38:04] very bright guy very very bright far brighter than me at his age far more learned than i was at his age but um he

[00:38:10] said to me um you know you speak about objective morality as a christian he says but i

[00:38:16] see christians acting exactly the opposite of that um uh and of course

[00:38:23] there are well-known christians who uh despite their words being true their actions don’t always always line up for

[00:38:28] that for that with that truth and i’ve certainly seen quite a bit of that um uh

[00:38:33] and we all have um but um he said i see this he’s like but um

[00:38:39] why do we have to be consistent at all why you know what is this the point of all of this in

[00:38:46] the first place is that i see all this um and people aren’t really living like there’s an objective truth out there and

[00:38:52] i said well that’s that’s what sin is all about sin is all about our inability to um live up to it doesn’t mean it doesn’t

[00:38:57] exist it just means that we don’t live up to it perfectly um but it’s still there he says yeah but i’m trying to get

[00:39:03] i’m trying to force you to see that we don’t need objective truth we can just believe that a true that objective

[00:39:10] morality exists even if it doesn’t because it helps other people so wait wait wait are you saying we should believe a lie

[00:39:17] and that bothered and that bothered him a lot yeah because he hadn’t thought that far and he said wait a minute and

[00:39:22] he said well i guess i am saying that i’m saying well wait a minute you just asked me to be consistent you wanted me

[00:39:28] to be consistent and yet you’re suggesting that people can be criticized for being inconsistent so if

[00:39:36] can if you want authenticity consistency then what you’re presupposing is that i

[00:39:41] ought to act consistently and the minute you say i ought to do anything you are

[00:39:48] so presupposing an objective moral obligation i have to act that way so no

[00:39:54] matter how hard you try whenever you try to foist on me and uh obligation to be consistent

[00:40:02] you’re assuming there is an uh objective morality by which i must live

[00:40:08] so you’re actually admitting the case you know he saw that and we had a great conversation afterwards i think that

[00:40:15] this is the practical world in which we have to live is that um and i say this with a certain amount of

[00:40:22] you know understanding of the recent past having worked with a ministry where

[00:40:28] there was a devastating devastating revelation about someone’s improprieties

[00:40:35] that here’s the truth that’s important the the the credibility of the message is

[00:40:42] always the judged by the integrity of the messenger and that’s not always fair because when none of us are perfect yeah

[00:40:48] some of us are you know and i’m not talking about people being imperfect i’m talking about you know really really

[00:40:54] sometimes some really bad mistakes or some really bad actions that aren’t really excusable as just mistakes

[00:41:00] but the integrity of the messenger influences how the credibility the message is is looked at that’s why we

[00:41:06] look to jesus because he never failed in these areas he always he cradled the vulnerable and he empowered the

[00:41:13] vulnerable but he also didn’t just chastise the powerful or the rich he wanted the rich redeemed he

[00:41:20] wanted the writ the powerful to use their power in a god-given um

[00:41:26] uh way that actually helped all human beings so this this this culture wants

[00:41:32] authenticity which presupposes the very objective morality that they’re saying doesn’t actually exist or at least can

[00:41:40] be molded to their own preferences this is also a culture obsessed with the word justice which is a good word to be

[00:41:46] obsessed with but that presupposes an objective morality as well um and so i

[00:41:51] think that if we challenge people in good conversations in relationships if we try to live

[00:41:58] up to what we believe we can start to have an impact and they’ll see it and they’ll want to

[00:42:05] hear the message that the messengers give so i think living that way is really important i think

[00:42:13] bringing the truth back to not just what the bible says but why it says what it says and i realize this

[00:42:20] is a long answer to an incredibly important question but i i take a look at some of the hot

[00:42:25] button issues of the day let’s take sexuality for an example oftentimes when we ask a bible-believing

[00:42:32] christian or we we pit more of a progressive christian or a bible-believing sort of conservative

[00:42:37] christian or even someone who’s not a christian and says why can’t people just

[00:42:42] love who they want to love um and that sounds wonderful it’s like we’re

[00:42:48] we we follow someone who claims to be the very source of love why wouldn’t we be pro-love and instead we find

[00:42:55] ourselves being is pro-institution pro-institution of marriage well if you’re looking at a at

[00:43:02] a debate socially and these people are pro-love and these people are pro-institution who wins the pro-love

[00:43:07] people win yeah because pro-institution sounds cold and unfeeling and uncan lack of lacking compassion

[00:43:14] rather not just saying the bible says that sexuality is supposed to be

[00:43:21] expressed between one man and one woman within the bonds of marriage that’s true

[00:43:27] but the question isn’t what does the bible say that’s clear the question is

[00:43:32] why does the bible say it and it’s not because you’re a worse sinner than i am

[00:43:39] or you’re more broken than me that’s why kevin i might get people mad at me for saying this but that’s why i think the

[00:43:46] words heterosexual and homosexual are incredibly unhelpful um because

[00:43:52] heterosexual is considered sexually moral when the reality is it’s just more sexually normal there’s nothing

[00:43:59] inherently moral about heterosexuality i know plenty of heterosexuals who are incredibly sexually immoral yeah far

[00:44:06] more than some of the some some of my friends who were saints attracted and actually act on it um

[00:44:11] uh and so what ends up happening is the church doesn’t reach out the church reaches down

[00:44:17] instead and this is i’m getting this from janelle williams paris is that she’s pointing out that oftentimes

[00:44:23] christians seem to be reaching down without seeing what’s going on in their own lives so authenticity

[00:44:29] and i think explaining why the bible says what it says not just what it says

[00:44:35] but why it says what it says because in the sexuality discussion if you actually take a look at why the

[00:44:41] bible limits why god limits sexuality to one man one woman within the bonds of marriage

[00:44:49] the beauty begins to blossom why that’s the case begins to blossom it’s not

[00:44:55] god is prohibiting certain conduct because he finds it yucky no that’s not why he’s protecting something sacred because

[00:45:03] he finds it beautiful and he wants that for each one of us and that’s why the bible says what it says

[00:45:08] and you can go on and unpack it but i think that’s what gets people listening

[00:45:13] oh absolutely that’s so great yeah and that i mean from an apologetics perspective right

[00:45:18] from a an apologist i mean that’s really what we’re to be doing is to be able to explain

[00:45:24] in a way that people can understand and go whoa that makes so much sense and i see that god is loving this is like you

[00:45:31] said it’s a it’s because god loves us uh that’s really great um well uh my guest

[00:45:37] this evening has been abdul murray and um you can find out more about him embrace the

[00:45:42] truth.org he’s also on facebook and his most recent book saving truth finding meaning and clarity in a post-truth

[00:45:48] world very much needed uh it’s a it’s a difficult issue you know um to really

[00:45:53] wrap your mind around and a lot of people they’re just like whoa that’s too much but i just want to encourage you if you’re listening it’s worth the time to

[00:46:00] get to understand it better because it’s an issue that’s not going away anytime soon and it reminds me of the scripture

[00:46:07] the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few and it seems to me that that

[00:46:12] american culture and really the world is crying out for what you’re talking about abdu is they’re crying out for truth um

[00:46:19] and they they want that truth but there aren’t that many people that can articulate it in a way that’s both

[00:46:25] loving and at the same time understandable and so as christians we all want to grow in

[00:46:31] that area we want we all want to be more like jesus and able to communicate well and love well so

[00:46:37] thanks so much for being on the program this evening it’s been a real big blessing it’s been my pleasure as well and what

[00:46:42] an honor thanks kevin having you on fantastic uh for those of you uh that that were here with us um there’s all

[00:46:49] kinds of stuff you can check out all kinds of interviews on my website as well as um up on social media uh with

[00:46:55] experts all over the world uh really helpful and encouraging to see how god has influenced them and and change their

[00:47:01] lives and then how god is then using them to change the lives of those around them and so all kinds of opportunities

[00:47:08] we’ll be back again next week and thanks for being with us and i just hope you have a uh that you are blessed and that

[00:47:14] you grow closer to god this upcoming week i will see you next time

[00:48:00] you