All of Life: What is Total Truth? - An Interview with Nancy Pearcey

[Music] So I decided to very intentionally set aside my religious upbringing and embark on a search for truth. I decided, um, I guess it's up to me. [Music] Welcome back to the All of Life Show. I am your host, Stuart White, along with my beautiful, lovely, amazing, talented, incredible—did I mention beautiful? Oh, babe, you're the best. I'm Alicia White, your co-host of the All of Life Show. Happy to be here, babe. We have had, uh, quite an adventurous last few months. We went a few places. We did. We went—I'm trying to remember because we've been quite a few places, but I know we went to Maui for sure. Um, we went to Disney World before that. Uh, then we came back from Maui and we had a few days at home. Then we went camping, and it just sounds like we're just all adventure all the time. Well, then we just—we went camping again, but I know we went somewhere else in between. Oh, we went to Nashville. Oh, yeah, we went to Nashville. Yeah, we've been all over the place. Honestly, this is what I think happened. I think that, um, the last year and a half had everyone so cooped up that we literally were like, no, we're not doing it. I think after two weeks we were like, we are gonna—we are gonna make this year a year to remember, which has turned into a year and a half because we have traveled all over the place. Yeah, and we're super thankful that we have. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah, so here we are. Uh, we have two new episodes that are going to air, uh, right now obviously this one, and then next week we're gonna have a second part of this episode. And who are we interviewing on this episode, babe? We are interviewing on this episode and next week's episode an author and apologist named Nancy Pearcy. She is a brilliant, brilliant mind. I loved every minute of this interview. Well, these two interviews, I should say. Yeah, Nancy has written books such as Total Truth and Love Thy Body, and in this episode we're going to be talking to her about Total Truth. Now, for those of you who may not have even heard of this book, you definitely need to. There will be links in the show notes to everything you need to know. I just can't emphasize enough how much this book has meant to us and how much her other work has meant to us. All I can say is I'm excited for this episode. I really hope that you guys get a lot out of it, and I hope you are just eager to listen to the part two, which we will be releasing next week. I think, uh, my favorite thing about this particular episode was that—and we've said this on the show before—but there is a, um, there is a true pandemic right now in our culture, and that is, uh, a lack of searching for actual truth. A lack or just an acceptance that, um, truth can be anything that you want it to be, which if you guys have been listening to the podcast for very long at all, you will know that we completely disagree with that statement. We do believe that there can be total truth. So if you want to know more about that, hang on tight, listen to this episode. You're really going to enjoy it. Yeah, without further ado, here's our interview with Nancy Pearcy. Nancy, welcome to the show. We are very glad to have you today. Thank you. It's good to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Well, it is a pleasure, and, um, this has been an interview one that we have been looking forward to for months now, and so so excited to have you. And for those who are unaware of who you are and your work, give us, give us your story. You know, thank you for asking that because I love to tell my conversion story. I'm so grateful to God for my conversion that I—I love to tell this. Um, so I was raised in a Lutheran home, and, um, it was a very ethnic Lutheran. My parents were both Scandinavian, and I don't know if you know this, but, uh, it's like, it's like, it's like all Irish are Catholic. Um, parents tend to rely on the ethnicity to hold their kids. So when I was in high school, I was attending a public high school. All my teachers were secular. All my textbooks were secular, and I started asking, how do we know Christianity is true? That was it. I didn't have a lot of questions, just one: How do we know Christianity is true? It seemed like everyone else that I knew personally was not a Christian, so it seemed a bit presumptuous for us to—well, we've got the truth and you don't. My parents, my pastor, everyone I talked to had no answers. Apologetics was just not very widespread in the U.S. I, I guess especially in the Lutheran church. Um, and so I talked to a Christian university professor and asked him point blank, why are you a Christian? And he said, works for me. I said, that's it? You know, it's not working for me anymore. Uh, and I had a chance to talk to a—oh, a Lutheran seminary dean, and I thought I would get a more substantial answer from him, and all he said was, don't worry, we all have doubts sometimes. Wow. And I thought, you know, you're treating it like a psychological phase that I'm going to outgrow. And so even eventually I decided that Christianity must not really have any answers, and this was about halfway through high school. So I decided to very intentionally set aside my religious upbringing and embark on a search for truth. I decided, um, I guess it's up to me, and I literally started walking down the hallway in the public high school I attended and pulling books off the philosophy shelf because I thought if I can't get any adults to talk to me about these issues, maybe these, maybe these dead guys can help me. Because after all, isn't that what philosophy is about? Philosophy is about asking questions like, what is truth? How do we know it? Is there a foundation for ethics, or is it just, you know, true for me, true for you? And I pretty quickly realized that if there was no God, the answer to all of those questions was no. There is no meaning to life. There is no foundation for ethics. Um, we're adrift. We're adrift on a planet flying through empty space, and that's it. You know, life is a—life is a, um, is an accident, a cosmic accident that happened by pure chance. And so I very quickly went into moral relativism and even skepticism because I thought this is literally how I thought, um, as a, as a high school senior. Um, if all I have is my puny brain and the vast scope of time and space and history, is there any chance that I could have access to absolute, universal, eternal true—ridiculous. That seemed to me obviously ridiculous. Um, and I, I remember still in English class doodling on the side of my homework, uh, an image of myself with the whole universe as a thought bubble in my own head. So I had—I had gone pretty far, like I said, into relativism and skepticism. And it was a few—a few years later that I was—I was in Germany. We had lived in Germany when I was a kid. So when I graduated from high school, I went back, and I ended up at LaBri, the ministry of Francis Schaeffer, which is in Switzerland. And that was my first exposure to Christian apologetics. I had no idea that Christianity could be supported with good reasons and evidence and arguments and logic. And in fact, uh, in fact, I was so impressed that I left, which sounds a little odd, but I was so impressed that I was afraid I might be drawn in emotionally because LaBri was so attractive. You know, these thoughtful Christians, these intellectually engaged Christians, these—and culturally engaged too. As you probably know, Schaeffer was known for, um, encouraging Christians to go into the arts. And in Germany, I was studying violin at the Heidelberg Conservatory, so his appreciation of the arts. And I would ask—add one more thing. All the students there, this was 1971. All the students that were hippies, and at that time the hippies were the cool kids. And so I was really astonished that Christians were able to reach out to these disaffected young people. And I thought, who are these Christians? I have never met anyone like this before. But I stayed only a month, and then I left. And, uh, having discovered apologetics through LaBri, I then—that's when I found out about Lewis, for example, C.S. Lewis and Chesterton. And I think G.K. Chesterton had written his first book by then and so on. And so eventually I de—

beautiful lovely amazing talented incredible did i mention beautiful oh babe you're the best i'm alicia white your co-host of the all of life show happy to be here babe we have had uh quite an adventurous last few months we

went a few places we did we went i'm trying to remember because we've been quite a few places but i know we went to maui for sure um we went to disney world before that uh then we we came back from maui and we

had a few days at home then we went camping and it just sounds like we're just all adventure all the time well then we just we went camping again but i know we went somewhere else in between oh we went to

nashville oh yeah if we went to nashville yeah we've been all over the place honestly this is what i think happened i think that um the last year and a half had everyone so cooped up that we literally were like no we're not doing

it i think after two weeks we were like we are gonna we are gonna make this year a year to remember which has turned into a year and a half because we have traveled all over the place yeah and we're super thankful that

we have it's been a lot of fun yeah so here we are uh we have two new episodes that are going to air uh right now obviously this one and then next week we're gonna have a second part

of this episode and who are we interviewing on this episode babe we are interviewing on this episode and next week's episode an author and apologist named nancy piercy she is a brilliant brilliant mind i loved every minute of this interview

well these two interviews i should say yeah nancy has written books such as total truth and love thy body and in this episode we're going to be talking to her about total truth now for those of you who

may not have even heard of this book you definitely need to there will be links in the show notes to everything you need to know i just can't emphasize enough how much this book has meant to us and how much her other work has meant to

us all i can say is i'm excited for this episode i really hope that you guys get a lot out of it and i hope you are just eager to listen to the part two which we will be releasing next week

i think uh my favorite thing about this particular episode was that and we've said this on the show before but there is a um there is a true pandemic right now in our culture and that is uh a lack of searching for

actual truth a lack or just an acceptance that um truth can be anything that you want it to be which if you guys have been listening to the podcast for very long at all you will know that we

completely disagree with that statement we do believe that there can be total truth so if you want to know more about that hang on tight listen to this episode you're really going to enjoy it yeah without further ado here's our

interview with nancy piercy nancy welcome to the show we are very glad to have you today thank you it's good to be here thanks for inviting me well it is a pleasure and um this has been an interview one that

we have been looking forward to for months now and so so excited to have you and for those who are unaware of who you are and your work give us give us your story you know thank you for asking that

because i love to tell my conversion story i'm so grateful to god for my conversion that i i love to tell this um so i was raised in a lutheran home and um it was a very ethnic lutheran my parents were both

scandinavian and i don't know if you know this but uh it's like it's like it's like all irish are catholic um parents tend to rely on the ethnicity to hold their kids so when i was in high school i was

attending a public high school all my teachers were secular all my textbooks are secular and i started asking how do we know christianity is true that was it i didn't have a lot of questions just one how do we know christianity is

true it seemed like everyone else that i knew personally was not a christian so it seemed a bit presumptuous for us to well we've got the truth and you don't my parents my pastor everyone i talked to had no

answers apologetics was just not very widespread us i i guess especially in the lutheran church um and so i talked to a christian university professor and asked him point blank why are you a christian and he said works for me i said that's it

you know it's not working for me anymore uh and i had a chance to talk to a oh a lutheran seminary dean and i thought i would get a more substantial answer from him and all he said was don't worry we all

have doubts sometimes wow and i thought you know you're treating it like a psychological phrase that i'm going to outgrow and so even eventually i decided that christianity must not really have any answers and this was about halfway through high

school so i decided to very intentionally set aside my religious upbringing and embark on a search for truth i decided um i guess it's up to me and i literally started walking down the hallway in the public high school i

attended and pulling books off the philosophy shelf because i thought if i can't get any adults to talk to me about these issues maybe these maybe these dead guys can help me because after all isn't that what philosophy is about

philosophy is about asking questions like what is truth how do we know it is there a foundation for ethics or is it just you know true for me true for you and i've pretty quickly realized that if there was no god the answer to all of

those questions was no there is no meaning to life there is no foundation for ethics um we're adrift we're adrift on a planet flying through empty space and that's it you know life is a life is a um is an

accident a cosmic accident that happened by by pure chance and so i very quickly went into moral relativism and even skepticism because i thought this is literally how i thought um as a as a high school senior um if all i have is my puny brain and

the vast scope of time and space and history is there any chance that i could have access to absolute universal eternal true ridiculous that seemed to me obviously ridiculous um and i i remember still in english class doodling on the side of

my homework uh an image of of myself with the whole universe as a thought bubble in my own head so i had i had gone pretty far like i said into relativism and skepticism and it was a few

a few years later that i was i was in germany we had lived in germany when i was a kid so when i graduated from high school i went back and i ended up at labrie the ministry of

francis shaffer which is in switzerland and that was my first exposure to christian apologetics i had no idea that christianity could be supported with good reasons and evidence and arguments and logic and in fact uh in fact i was so

impressed that i left which sounds a little odd but i was so impressed that i was afraid i might be drawn in emotionally because libri was so attractive you know these thoughtful christians these intellectually engaged christians these and

and culturally engaged too as you probably know schaefer was known for um encouraging christians to go into the arts and in germany i was studying violin at the heidelberg conservatory so his his appreciation of the arts and i would ask add one more thing

all the students there this was 1971. all the students that were hippies and at that time the hippies were the cool kids and so i was really astonished that christians were able to reach out to these disaffected young people

and i thought who are these christians i have never met anyone like this before but i stayed only a month and then i left and uh having discovered apologetics through liberty i then that's when i found out about lewis for

example c.s lewis and chesterton and i think us god's guinness had written his first book by then and so on and so eventually i decided i was intellectually convinced you see christianity had let me down already once before so i was not going

to go back unless i was intellectually convinced it was true and eventually i had to admit that i i had reached that level of intellectual conviction but then and i did convert but then i had to say well now that i'm a christian where do i

find other other christians i was not involved in a church or anything this is strictly on my own a friend of mine once said i read my way back to god that would be a good way to describe my own journey i read my way

back to god so i thought well i knew some christians back at labrie so i got on a plane and went went back to labrie a year and a half later so that's when i really got grounded in

christian worldview and really understanding how christianity applies to all of life um so that's that's why and that's why as you asked why i'm so passionate about apologetics because it was such a big part of my conversion i had to really understand

how christianity is true on an intellectual level before i would entrust myself on a more emotional level to a relationship with god that's so interesting and as you were talking there it reminded me of something common uh thing i guess we would share

is i would say i went through the same thing somewhere in my teens i i want to say somewhere between like 14 and 16 something like that and and i just remember having this like yeah what is the meaning of life wait

something has to explain this and i was raised in a christian home and in thinking okay somehow it has to have something to do with god like it now it sounds so funny to say that but but at the time you're like

well i i really thought that it was just like there was there was faith and that was something you had that was separate but i remember somehow we were homeschooled and my parents had gotten a book from i think it was a homeschool convention

and it was francis schaefer escape from reason and my 14 year old self or so sat down and read this i probably didn't even understand half of it because it's so brilliant and like i didn't know what he

was referring to and he's talking about all these ages of art and culture and different things but it made a lot of sense and and i was like oh wow there's there's actually intelligent people out there who believe this and it isn't just a um

like a something where it's like you were told oh don't worry we all have doubts it's like no it's not it's not just a doubt thing it's like i actually want proof and so for me that that was something

that was like very shaping was like oh there there's actually foundational truth in all of this um and so that brings us to to total truth i think you in your writing there's a very clear theme uh and conviction to

everything that you you write about and it seems all to just trace back to this uh jesus and gospel and if god is true and all of that is real then there there must be something uh fundamentally related to everything

that we do yeah one of schaefer's major themes was that the concept of truth has been divided you know most civilizations have known that there's a natural order and a moral order a spiritual moral order and so and

but they thought that the two were intertwined they were connected and therefore truth would also be an integrated consistent coherent system but with the rise of modern science uh western thinkers began to say no no the only uh reliable knowledge we have is of

science empirical facts what can be scientifically tested and what does that mean then for our theological and moral truths well they said but not really truths they're just a matter of personal preference you know what you the behavior you approve

or disapprove you know what you like or don't like and so that split that split in a sense uh the concept of truth was split apart into two separate domains and that permeated all of fancy schaefer's writings um and permeates all of my writings by

the way uh because it turned out to be so foundational he was so right he used to say you will not be able to talk to young people about you know the christianity is true if you don't recognize

that they have absorbed a different view of truth let me personalize this you know as i said when i arrived at labrie i was already such a relativist and skeptic that i had to go through a two-step process i had to first be convinced that

christianity excuse me i had to first be convinced that there was such a thing as objective truth before i could even consider whether christianity was that truth and schaefer used to call that pre-evangelism he said that with some people there are many steps

that you have to go through before you can even get to the gospel and that was the case with me as well that was 1970s you know it's even more the case today that young people have the split view of truth

where they think science and reason and facts um to use uh i should i should so you can uh conceptualize this and get a picture in your mind schaefer used to use the imagery of two stories in a building

to illustrate the split view of truth he said in the lower story is science reason and facts and in the upper story then it's like people sort of threw up into the attic the things that could not be

scientifically proven so god and spirit and our moral sense and meaning and beauty in the arts all of these things that cannot be stuffed into a test tube and studied under a microscope became then merely relative private subjective preferences

and so for many people if you s if you just come to them with a gospel message they will automatically unreflexively throw your message into the upper story where it's just a matter of your personal preference and they're

likely to say i'm glad that works for you i'm glad that works for you but they feel no sense that no no you're commuting you're communicating an objective truth that is true for everyone everywhere at all times they just don't

even hear that message anymore do you it almost seems like there's a i i mean i i genuinely believe this there is a spiritual element behind it like i think that if you think that uh satan and demons are real and all of that that

he has uh nefarious plans for everything to take away the very basis of their being truth in the first place it's like now i can't even like you're saying you have to have that pre-evangelism where you establish there is truth just to get them to the

point okay now that we've agreed that there is truth let me tell you about the the truth you know the way the truth and the life that is i i run into that a lot where or or you end up with the people who as

you share it with them it's kind of that pat on the head like yeah that's great you know it's all it's all uh relative and and subjective so sure if that works for you and i what meanwhile i'm over here and i'm going to

worship buddha or something else because it's like it it's up to your own private you know upper level interpretation yes and it's also the way that christianity is blocked from having an impact in the public square um i have i have some examples here

before the supreme court decision passed the obergefell decision which made same-sex marriage uh the law of the land it had already been debated in several states and so let me give you a couple of quotes on this when the ayah when the iowa supreme

court imposed same-sex marriage on that state which was in 2009 it claimed that the pro-homosexual side quote presented an abundance of evidence and research but the definition of marriage as a man and a woman was quote unsupported by reliable scientific

studies in fact the court said it was nothing but quote stereotype and prejudice in other words the view of marriage as a man and a woman was primarily a moral and religious view and therefore they threw it out of the court as stereotype

and prejudice and the same strategy was used when a federal court overturned california's proposition 8 which had defined marriage as a man and a woman here was uh the the judge was named walker judge walker claimed that the

pro-homosexual side presented quote overwhelming evidence by contrast walker said supporters of proposition 8 expressed merely quote private values which he rejected as quote irrational in both cases you know if you define one side as scientific and the other

side as irrational stereotype and prejudice who's going to win so this has now become the main strategy in the secularist playbook you see for secular thinkers of the term you know values if you say well we're promoting christian values for the

secular person's values means literally whatever some person values whatever some group of people values it's a it's a verb and now it comes from the verb at all huh no no no it's just what basically it's your private tastes and

preferences what you prove what you like or dislike and so judge walker actually went on to say supporters of proposition 8 acted out of nothing more than sheer dislike quote dislike of same-sex couples or the word he also

used was animus against them animus means hostility or hatred so these liberal judges could not even conceive of morality as an objective truth it was just a matter of emotions and so this is the main way in which

christianity now is locked out of the public square and um you know disempowered that's another reason christians need to understand it it's not only a matter of communicating christian truth on a personal level it is also the main

strategies strategies used on a public level it it would seem like like you just described christians are being held hostage in this uh this dynamic here of feeling like they're they're in this box and they've been framed into that

category and so they don't even know how to approach anybody anymore like how do we engage and how do we how do we navigate that how do we fight against this this being put in a box and being isolated away from where the

actual conversation is happening well yeah that's a good question um let me give you an example that i'll show the contrast christians need to learn how to assert christian truth as objective truth and one of the examples i give in in my book total

truth is a star trek episode it's called star trek the next generation and the plot centers on one character uh whether one character is the klingon messiah who has returned from death in fulfillment of prophecy do you kind

of get the pattern here and the enterprise's klingon security officer has to decide whether or not the resurrected messiah is real so somebody another character challenges him and says what empirical evidence is there for the truth of these claims and the security

offers officer answers well it's and this is a direct quote it's not an empirical matter it's a matter of faith you have to take a leap of faith so what a star trek teaching people here this is not just

entertainment star trek is teaching that faith is intrinsically contrary to evidence that faith is blind and irrational but if you would talk to a christian about uh the evidence for jesus claim to be the resurrected messiah they would start talking about the

history histo the historical evidence for the resurrection the reliability of eyewitness testimony in the new testament they would talk about references to jesus in sources outside the bible like the roman historian tacitus or the jewish historian josephus they

would talk about the remarkably high quality of the new testament as his as purely historical documents for example how close in time they are to the original events so there was not enough time for a legendary material to be added and so on you know

we accept player when aristotle is historical but their you know the the closest documents we have are more than a thousand years after they lived whereas in the case of jesus it's like 200 100 years after jesus lived depending on the exact

dating so christianity rests on historical objective evidence so to divide it we don't say there's a lower story truth and an upper story truth christianity challenges that division altogether and it says christianity is true on all levels truth we christians are the only ones

today who are really insisting that truth is not divided the truth is unitary consistent holistic applying to all of life so nancy where do you think that conversation starts we're talking about christians feeling like the conversation conversation is hijacked and we're um

when we have these conversations we're starting from a place of already feeling put into a box how do we which i do think that that christianity and christians have kind of um unintentionally perpetuated that because we're not educated in apologetics as

a christian culture right now we have kind of taken more of the um standpoint of well it just takes faith or we all have doubting experiences sometimes just believe it and we're we're fine with that because it's easy to just

say that rather than actually do the work and in educating ourselves in apologetics and so when we're having a conversation with someone and you reference this in total truth and your other book love thy body as well which we're going to get to but

um you talk about uh like basically it all starts back with your world view so when we want to have culture cultural conversations from an opposing view with a friend do we do we always have to bring it back to

what your world view is does that always have to be where the conversation starts well if it doesn't start then it needs to get there yeah you know because in a conversation you you start with where the person is

but you need to get there and you're absolutely right by the way when schaefer used the imagery of two stories in a building um it turned out that he was he didn't use the language but he was actually mirror mirroring

reflecting what particular world is called the fact value split and facts with facts in the lower story you know and personal values in the upper story and in total truth because schaefer didn't use that language people were not making

the connection and so in total truth i made that connection and all of a sudden people said oh oh that's what he was talking about because many people were familiar with the fact value split and that in secular thought they do

think that values that excuse me that's that facts are empirically knowable and objective and everybody has to bow to them you know whatever science says we must bow to it and that values are merely uh personal preferences and so on

and so uh so just to give you the language to talk about it with non-christians um they tend to call it the fact value split what but but you are absolutely right christians have a split as well what do we call it

we call it the sacred secular split and to in in many ways it mirrors the secular world because what it says is that religious truths apply only to an upper story to use that metaphor as two stories in a

building religious truths apply only in an upper history of worship bible studies prayer and so on and does not really apply christian truth does not really apply to the so-called secular realm of business politics art education and so on and so many

people have been so trained in this that even if they want to apply christian truth to their job to their vocation to their professional life they don't know how and so this is what we're up against is that even christians

don't typically know how to speak about christian truth in a way that applies to the secular realm and so we have to start christians really need to start with themselves you know they need to try try to discern

whether they themselves hold a sacred secular split you know let me give you one example just because it's from my personal life um my my son had a kind of conversion experience um he'd never really given up his christianity

but he hadn't made it his own right so um i think like he was about 20 when he had an experience and really made it his own and decided to work at a christian bookstore because he thought this way i will have an opportunity to

work i know it's not great um i'll have an opportunity to be in touch with you know great christian literature um so at christmas time the bookstore decided to have a raffle a typical fundraising device right that people customers would come in and

put their name in a bowl and then on the big day right before christmas they the staff gathered around the bowl and pulled out a name and tossed it it turned out they wanted to use the raffle to reward one of their loyal

customers so they kept going through the names until they found the name of somebody that they liked and declared that person the winner and i thought i thought these christians but have they really thought about the way christianity

applies to their business practices how do they really think cheating is appropriate behavior for those who claim to be disciples of jesus so i've talked to secular businessmen by the way actually christian christian businessmen and the way that

they sometimes phrase it is in business you have to play by a different set of rules that's how they put it you have to play by a different set of rules you have to basically accommodate to the secular

world so that would be an example where um my son got a really vivid example of the sacred secular split where you know they were selling christian books but they were using business practices that were not christian that were so they

they had absorbed their business practices from the lower story from the secular world even as they had you know a very christian commitment in their in their heart shifting to the question of so as we're engaging the world

uh something right now that has become very popular um i think guys like ben shapiro and others have said it and i think i i swear i heard francis schaefer say it but is the saying that politics is

downstream from culture and i think something that christians get hung up in is we are going to change the world and the way we do that is is through politics you know we we pass good laws and and i do believe that we have a role

in that but the point of that saying is really if you want to impact politics start upstream in culture but then i got to thinking about it and i'm like well what is upstream from culture like what is truly

the thing that you need to change to make a culture different and um my thought was it's it's the heart it's the the person and it's the faith that is affecting them and and where they're placing that uh if

it's in if it's in christ then that's shaping them if it's in anything other than him then that is shaping them too just in a negative sense usually what what would you say to that though is there is there something more is

there anything we're leaving out in that that analogy well i do agree with you um when i wrote total truth and when i wrote my earlier book with chuck coulson uh how now should we live we did have

some people criticize us first for treating um the realm of ideas as important and i started saying yes we're doing unabashed intellectual history that's what we're doing because there are people uh sociologists and others who think ideas follow from um

basically marxist right marxism says your ideas follow from your economic situation and so there are even you know that his basically if you want to understand his lower upper story his lower story is economics and everything else is driven by

economics you know uh society is laws it's religion it's morality it's government everything is just driven by the economic conditions um and unfortunately we ran into christians who basically held the same position and so we had to actually argue

that no ideas have consequences you know that book ideas have there's a book by that time ideas have consequences so i i do agree with you that um ultimately it's a matter of world views that peop of course were holistic beings god made

us with um with bodies so we're physical god made us social beings so our social environment matters all of this matters but i do think that we have a realm of freedom in our minds where we can in fact decide what we

think is is true and that's why we have conversions if we were totally determined by our economic and social environment no one could ever convert to christianity we'd be totally determined by social and economic forces so i think it's clear that as christians

we have to claim that there's a realm uh in the inner in the inner person when you call that intellectual whether you call it um the spiritual realm whatever you want to call it there is an inner part of the human being

that can be free from outside forces enough not totally but enough to make a decision otherwise we would not be able to even talk about people being able to uh have a conversion experience so i i think what you're saying is very good

and i i tend you know i all of my books are about what are about world view and how important your ideas are to how you live uh the choices you make so i'm yes i'm totally with you if you i

like the way you put it um one of my friends who's the chief of staff on capitol hill loves that phrase politics is downstream confirmed culture because working on capitol hill he sees a lot of people including christians who work on capitol

hill who are totally absorbed by politics and his point is that no culture really determines politics more than the other way around um but your point is well taken what determines culture then i do think it's ultimately you know an interaction

between you and god in your deepest personal being so i appreciate your bringing that to bringing that balance here yeah absolutely it's it's interesting that you mentioned marxism and there's there's a lot of talk of that going on right now

in politics and um and it's very subversive in the way things have but now it's becoming more apparent that that that is what is going on and uh you just see people becoming absorbed in that and but then they absorb that world view uh

like you were saying and it starts from everything is just deterministic from if your economic status is bad then you're going this direction if your economic status is good then you're in this camp and and these two sides should fight against each

other and trying to to reshape a narrative within our society that that says this is the way it is and um i think it's why books such as total truth are so important for people to engage their minds and actually think is this

really the way that the world works or is this something that's a lie trying to sneak itself in as as truth because even the idea today where people will say there is no such thing as absolute truth and but that's an absolute

statement and they there's always a way they say it but it's never to eliminate truth it's to eliminate your ability to argue against anything they're about to do as this is the absolute this is what you must do

this is the right thing this is the wrong thing there's always just this overwhelming um spirit i guess you could say behind it of control power authority dominion and so i think we see that in our in our culture right now

what so what would you say um to the person who's listening uh who may have started out in like a faith-based family like you you said you did uh but now is identifying as an atheist or an agnostic what would be the first

thing you would start to engage them with of course you would ask them first what happened there are people who become estranged from the church for emotional reasons and somebody hurt them somebody heard their feelings somebody who was um was mean to them

i mean literally uh and i would say um that that is somewhat common but there was a recent um survey done i found out that that's not as common as you would think these researchers found out that the majority of they interviewed former

christians and asked okay so why did you leave the church and interestingly enough the vast majority referred to intellectual questions they were referred to questions about uh secular philosophies that they had learned they referred to questions about science

and hasn't science disproved the bible they they referred to doubts and questions that were not answered they brought their doubts and questions to the church leadership um and the church leadership did not know how to answer them um one guy

actually wrote a book about it you know how he left the christian faith and he said my my youth group leaders were nice guys i thought they were they were nice guys but they were not the brightest bulb

in the lamp is how he put it and he said when i started asking questions they had no answers and that's how he left christianity behind so so it seems that my experience is more common than most people realize and the the

researchers themselves were surprised they just assumed that they would be relational issues you know somebody was unkind to them somebody didn't understand them somebody didn't you know connect relationally with them they just assumed that would be the answer and it was not so they would

the researchers themselves were surprised so what i appreciated about labrie was that it dealt with both levels so on the one hand um labrie uh dealt with you know this is again francis schaefer's ministry in switzerland um it was the first time

i had experienced apologetics so that was a big deal you know because you do have to tweet people's questions seriously if they do have questions i kept it running into people who said you know there's something wrong with

you if you don't have faith you know like it's a moral failing not to have faith instead of dealing with my questions honestly schaefer was known for saying we need to give honest answers to honest questions and when i tell christians that

sometimes they come back with well chris you know questions aren't honest you know they're just rebelling against god no god made every person with a mind with reason with rationality and they do have questions that need to be answered rationally now

i'm not saying that's the only thing but you have to treat the mind with respect god made us with minds i really appreciated that labrie was the first time i ran into christians who didn't just push me aside and say

something's wrong with you you know do you really have a moral problem i run into it now sometimes i tell people my story and they say yeah you just wanted to party more on the weekends right [Laughter] no that's not true and uh

labrie was the first place where i got treated seriously with my question so that i think that is an important first step the second step is to find out whether they do in fact have some emotional issues and at labrie there was a on staff was a

psychiatric social worker and she was she agreed to be on staff because she realized that there are a lot of people who do have emotional issues as well that can stand between them and becoming a christian especially pastors kids and missionary kids yeah

she she herself was a missionary kid so she understood and she had gone through a long period of not being a christian before she came back and um i um i went to see her when when i was at labrie because i

had i ha i had a home life where my dad was severely abusive physically abusive and i've only started recently to talk about it publicly just to let you know um you know as long as he was alive i

never said a thing uh but he died a few years ago and i'm i'm starting to tear up a little bit just talking about it because he it was very severe and so i did have an emotional reason i i

didn't think so at the time i thought it was just intellectual but as i began to get my intellectual questions answered you know sort of layers and layers um as those layers got peeled off i began to realize well i also didn't

want christianity to be true because i did not want to be anything like my parents i wanted to be as far away from my parents as possible i wanted to you know if they were christians i didn't want to be one so i had to work

through both sides and i would say this is probably true with most people is you you treat their minds with respect and and then you ask then you ask you know are there any other reasons is there any are there any emotional

motivations that could also be behind it and um and and then you get into you know well i read dozens and dozens of books on emotional healing psychological healing and so on uh when i was first a christian

to deal with these issues i've had lots of books on the problem of suffering because i thought you know why did god let this happen so so i i would say that when you talk to a person you have to treat them with

the whole person and deal with all all levels of possible objections to christianity i hope you guys enjoyed that episode i know we really enjoyed interviewing nancy and i think if you guys enjoyed this one you will probably

enjoy the second one even more uh not just probably absolutely because absolute truth right you will absolutely enjoy the next one more so next week please tune in join us for our interview as we cover love thy body

nancy piercy's most recent book [Music] you