About This Talk

How do we respond to conflict? Men today increasingly face conflict, and even hostility from those who hold opposing worldviews and beliefs. In a polarizing world, standing with courage, living with purpose, and maintaining healthy relationships can be a difficult challenge. Even with those who share our core beliefs we can encounter conflict due to different views on how to respond. How should men of conviction respond? Assimilate? Withdraw? Rage? Or, is there "another way"?

In this IMPACT Talk, Author, Speaker, and Kiros Co-Founder Al Erisman sketches out the problem and cite a few examples to get us started toward this path. Al draws profound insights and unforgettable illustrations from his upcoming book "Living with Purpose in a Polarizing World: Guidance from Biblical Narratives" (Al Erisman and Randy Pope). The book will be available June 4.

Transcript

Al Erisman: It was about two years ago that I was in conversation with someone at our church. It was between services. We were standing in the hall and he said to me, you know, it's really hard to be a Christian in the Seattle area. He said, as a business person, I can't really talk about my faith. Everyone, it's like walking on air. And I feel like it is really difficult. As I began to think about what he said, an idea formed in my head, and I would like to share the results of that idea. What does it mean to be a Christian in a polarizing world? I'm sure that many of you have your own stories and you can fill that in.

So I began to look at the data, and the data looks like this from two different research groups. The number of people that self-identified as a Christian in 1990 in the US was about 90%. Now we know that 90% were probably not really Christians, but they identified as such. That number is down to 63% with religiously unaffiliated growing rapidly. You probably saw the headline recently that Seattle area is the most unchurched big city area in the country. Another piece of data, as many as 30% of the churches in the US will close in the next decade due to lack of attendance. And in this article in January of 2022, how to plan the post pandemic future of church buildings. What are we gonna do with these artifacts no longer needed? Someone did a survey of Christianity and its relationship to our culture, and they said Christians were widely regarded positively before 1994.

There was a period of time where it was neutral, and now it's primarily negative, and Christians have not figured out how do we navigate a world that looks like this? So I guess I would have to say that my friend was right. He was feeling something that is in the air. And the question is, what do we do about it? So before we get too caught up in a pity party, let's pull back and let's ask this question. What does the scripture have to say about it? One of the joys of my life being involved in the Theology of Work Project is that we have looked at the whole Bible and asked the question, what does it say about our daily work? It turns out it's not a few isolated passages. It's everywhere. Every book of the Bible speaks into this challenge of our daily work, our daily life. It's not just about what we do in church. Our Christian faith is bigger than that. So here are some qualifiers. The first one comes from the book of Ecclesiastes: "Do not say why were the old days better than these for, it's not wise to ask such questions."

John Perkins, the great African American leader in the south in Mississippi, was visiting at our church in Bellevue in the early nineties. And he looked around the congregation and he said, "I'll bet many of you wish you were back in the fifties when life was simpler, not me, I would be in the back of the bus." A reminder to us that we look at the world in a rather narrow way through our own lens, rather than thinking more inclusively. Secondly, how do we do compared to other parts of the world If we would go and look at the maps of where real persecution takes place, it is not here. People are killed for their faith in many parts of the world, and the US is not even mentioned. What about with biblical times? Comparing with biblical history. In Hebrews chapter 11, it says this, "They were put to death by stoning. They were sought in two, they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, mistreated. The world was not worthy of them." That is not our life, friends. Let's stop thinking that we are persecuted.

Or God's sovereignty. Did you pause and think about the fact that maybe God has us in this place and in this time for his purposes? It's not about us. And even if it is more difficult and we have to acknowledge from the data that maybe it is, what do we do about it? Are we here representing God or are we here for ourselves? That's the challenge.

So how do people respond today? Well, I've been watching and reading the papers and talking with people, and I've seen five basic responses to a world that is more hostile to faith than it used to be. The first one is assimilation. Okay, I'll just be a phantom Christian. I don't really care about what people think about me there. And I'll live in church, but at the rest of the time, I'll just be like everyone else. You've heard the statement, well, business is business. I'm sorry, it isn't that way. Maybe that's not a good response.

Another one is to withdraw. Okay, I'm not gonna engage with culture anymore because look at how broken things are. I'm gonna just do my Christian thing on the side with my Christian friends, but I'm not going to engage.

Or anger. I'm old. I have never seen so many angry Christians, as I've seen in the recent days. We are angry because we want things the way they were, or we want things the way we want them. And yet, maybe this is our assignment.

Fear is another response. Many Christians are afraid of what will happen in the next election. What will happen in, then to our community as this world gets worse and worse? What's going to happen? And they have fear.

Or seeking power. This is the one that really gets me because we say, you know, we could change this. If we put the right people in the right spots, everything will be back the way we want it to be. And we have to ask ourselves the question, are these the responses that scripture would call us to? I wanted to put these out because often people identify with one or more of these, and I think that that is not what we are called to do.

So is there another way? That's the question. We're gonna take a tour of scripture and, I will touch on a lot of pieces of scripture. I would ask you to bear with me on this. And if you're not familiar with parts of the scripture, I would encourage you to go look at some of these accounts. But look at Jeremiah nine. Jeremiah, the children of Israel were in captivity in Babylon. They were called to where they were, which was in captivity. They were told by God that they would be there for a while. And what did God say to do? Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. How do we be a part of the solution where we are rather than a part of the problem? And this is the call that Jeremiah gave. God gave through Jeremiah, and I think it echoes to us today.

You know, the children of Israel, were not always faithful to respond to that call. And if you go over to Psalm 137, you see the children of Israel in Babylon, and it says, "By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered Zion." They were wishing for the old days. "There on the poplars, we hung our harps for our captors asked for songs. Our tormenters demanded songs of joy. And they said, sing to us. How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land? And they would not go along." Now, you read down to the end of that psalm, and it is the most difficult passage in scripture because it's sad to see it there, but it says, "Daughter Babylon doomed to destruction. Happy is one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks."

You see, the anger of their situation was such that it took them into a place that none of us want to be where we wish ill on little children. And yet that was the net result of them not following what Jeremiah called them to do. I think that the call for us is God has placed us here at this time for his purposes. How do we align with them in representing him and our world?

So how are we called to respond? Micah said it really well. He said, "What does the Lord require of us but to seek justice, love, mercy, and walk humbly with our God." Seek justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly. Humbly doesn't sound like seeking power, fear, or anger. It doesn't sound like withdrawal. It doesn't sound like assimilation. It says, how do we walk with God in a way that represents him here?

And Jesus said this, "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." There's something really interesting about what Jesus said here. He said, I want them to see your good deeds so that you'll get rich. He didn't say that. I want them to see your good deeds so that God will be glorified. What a challenge to each of us as we read the Beatitudes, as we think about the words of Jesus. And, it seems to me that the instruction for us is here. God isn't surprised at the times we're in and God wants to encourage us to walk with him in this way. So what might this look like?

I don't know about you, but there was a time in my life when I said, really ignorantly, I'm a mathematician after all. I said, why didn't God just lay out a few propositions for us and allow us to work this out? What are all these stories doing in the Bible? And then I realized that that's really stupid. Okay, the stories are in the Bible because they provide a picture, an example, a signpost for us of how do we navigate in a world that others have walked before us and others walked in a world that was not that different from ours. We like to think we're different. We're the only ones. But if you read history, you know that the world has been a mess for a long time and will continue to be a mess ever since the third chapter of Genesis.

So how do we walk in this world? I think it's all rooted in this scripture in Hebrews chapter 12, verses one and two. I have spent more time with this passage than any other in the Bible over the last couple of years, just thinking about what does it mean in this instruction. I'm gonna read it, and then I wanna say a couple things about it. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race mark out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith for the joy set before him, he endured the cross scorning at shame and sat down at the right hand of God." Who is this great cloud of witnesses? Well, for those of you that have are familiar with the scripture, you know that this is in Genesis 12. And it reflects back to Genesis, I'm sorry to Hebrews 12, reflects back to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 is a reminder of all the narratives of scripture and the stories of people who walk faithfully in a very broken world. We can learn from them is what this says. And it says, let's throw off the sin that affects us. We like to focus on that, the sin out there, but let's throw off the sin that affects us so that we can run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Do we realize that God has marked out a race for us in 2024? And this is the call of God for us.

So in doing this, I'd like to look at, I'm not gonna look at all of these, I promise you, but I'll look at a couple. But a colleague and I started this project about two years ago, and we began to look at the narratives of scripture and said, how did these people navigate their polarizing world? A world that was not in line with their faith. What about Abraham and Joseph and Moses and Joshua and Ruth and David and Esther and Job and Daniel and Peter and Paul and Jesus? And then we began to think, wait a second, what about Nehemiah and Jonah and I mean, it goes on and on and on, and all these stories are there to help us get insight. Let me share briefly from a couple of them.

Let's talk about Abraham. Abraham we meet in the 12th chapter of Genesis. He's an amazing man because God said to him, I wanna take you to another place. And he said, I'll go. He recognized the call of God on his life to do what God had for him to do. And while he wasn't perfect, as none of the narrative people in scripture were perfect, you can see the way they made choices, the way they navigated situations. And Abraham had many, many cases of this. But I'd like to focus on one thing that happened. There's this interesting negotiation Abraham had with God. God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham said to God, what if there are 50 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, would you destroy it for 50 people? And God said, no, I wouldn't. And Abraham said, well, what about 45? Well, how about 40? What about 30? What about 20? And then he said, what if only 10 can be found there? And God answered, for the sake of 10, I will not destroy it. What does that have to do with us?

For the for the sake of 10, God will care deeply about the city of Seattle, about all of our region, about the organization where you work, about your neighborhood because you are there representing him. Remember Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world." Are you going to be, are we going to be a part of representing Christ where we are and holding back the darkness? We're not gonna do it with power. We're not gonna do it with anger, but we can do it in his power, in representing with influence, not with power, who he is. Reading the story of Abraham, is an exciting adventure to read with just this in mind. Not the broadest the whole thing, but just this. What does Abraham tell us?

Or let's take Joseph. You probably remember the story of Joseph. It was documented in the scripture, but it's also documented in Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat or many other places. Most people know the story. Joseph had dreams of being a great leader. Do you remember what he did? He went to his brothers and he said, you know, one day you're gonna bow down to me. I guess that wasn't the greatest start. His brothers didn't appreciate that, and they sold him into slavery. Let's look at it from Joseph's point of view. Here he is in far away Egypt, he's in slavery. And then not only is he in slavery there, but he is falsely accused and put in prison, and then he helps someone in prison. And he said, remember me when you get out. And it, the last verse of the 40 chapter said, but the Chief Butler forgot about Joseph. And the 41st chapter opens two full years later.

You think you've been in a tough spot for a while, look at Joseph in 13 years in slavery and in prison. How did he respond at the end to all that went down in his story? There's a lot more we can learn from his story. But I want to point to the conclusion. His brothers were afraid that he was going to get back at them after their father died. They were in Egypt. His brothers actually came to him with a story. And I always laugh when I read this in the scripture because it said before our father died, he said to tell you that you ought to be kind to us. Now, come on. They probably didn't say that at all, but it was a great story. But Joseph said, look, you did intend it for evil. I'm not gonna deny the evil that happened, but God intended it for good, for the saving of many people, because God called me here. Joseph learned this lesson.

Or Daniel. Now Daniel has a great story, and it's fun to read Daniel from the point of view of thinking about how he interacted with culture. And the opening chapter, Daniel chapter one, tells a story about he and his friends were, taken captive from their land. They could have been really angry about that, but there they were in a foreign land and they were being trained to serve this conquering king. How would your attitude be in that circumstance? And they decided that they would go along with almost everything in their training program, except they said, we would rather not eat the food from the king's table. Now, this is often presented as Daniel taking this stand. I'm not gonna do it. And he's being belligerent about it. Actually, that's not what he did. And he didn't do it alone. The Sunday school song that I learned as a child, dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone, dare to have a purpose firm, dare to make it known, sounds kind of in your face. And that wasn't what Daniel did. He was with his three friends. And together they said, I'm afraid my Lord, the king who's assigned your food and drink, why should he see you looking worse than the others? The king would have my head because of you. And Daniel said, please test your servants for 10 days. Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink, and then compare the appearance with the others. And so he agreed and tested them for 10 days. He was careful in addressing the problem of the other individual. He was not doing this with belligerence. He was not doing this on his own. But he had, as I heard earlier, a band of brothers who was with him in making this call. And God blessed it. What a great stand.

Or Esther You know, Esther found herself in a compromising position, but she got to the top. She was queen of all the land. And yet her uncle asked her, can you go into the king and ask him for something because our people are going to be killed? And Mordecai said to Esther, and maybe he's saying this to us, who knows but that I have been sent to such a, this place for such a time as this. Maybe we are on, thinking back to Hebrews chapter 12. Maybe we're here on assignment running with perseverance. The race marked out for us.

And ultimately, Jesus, he said in your relationships with others, have the mindset as Christ Jesus. This is in Philippians chapter two, "Who being in the nature of God did not consider equality with God. Something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the form of a servant." This is the call. This is what our Lord did. He became a servant. And this is what he calls us to do. And then he says in Matthew chapter 20, "You know the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them. There are high officials, exercise authority over them, not so with you. Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant." That's the call of our Lord.

What he did, he knew he was going to the cross. When the days drew the near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. He didn't run from the pain. He ran into the pain because he had a purpose that was given to him. Maybe he was echoing the words of Isaiah. He said, "I have not been disgraced, therefore, I have set my face like a flint, and I know I shall not be put to shame." I think this is the call for each of us in this day. What can we learn from these people? They all walked in a marketplace. It was hostile to their faith. These are not stories that took place in church. These are not Sunday school stories. These are real people who engaged in a real marketplace. Their work was of value to God.

We know that Esther, brought about a policy that saved her people. Joseph saved the world from starvation over and over again. The ordinary work of the people was a part of what God was doing in the work in the world. Sometimes I know you think about, well my job is so I can earn an income. So I can go off and do something important for the Lord. Maybe God cares about the work that you're doing right where you are. How do we do that as unto the Lord? They lived at risk. They sought to respond humbly and respectfully in a difficult place. They recognized God's call in their circumstances, and they made a difference where they were leading to some changes and they brought honor to the name of God. As we look at these stories, and you can look at many, many more, you would find that this is the norm in the scripture as we walk in a world that maybe is not what we wish it was.

Now I'm gonna add a PS I hope it's okay to do this. I wanna tell you a little bit about the writing of this, that went into this project. I selected a friend who lives in Mississippi. He's a lawyer. He's lived all his life in a red state. I've lived most of my life in a blue state. We look at the world differently, but we are good friends. He's a lawyer, talks with a draw. You'd recognize his origin as soon as you talk to him. And he's a dear friend. When we wrote this book together, we decided to take these narratives and I would write first draft of half of them. He'd write first draft of the other half, and then we would bring in our own stories. We'd challenge each other and we'd work together. Well, I did something I probably shouldn't have done, but I did. I recognize that Ruth was a Moabite woman from a land of the enemies of Israel. She was a migrant, a minority, and a woman subject to harassment. Read the story of Ruth, and you will see this. Boaz saw the need to provide protection for her, and so he did. So I wrote in modern language, we might refer to Boaz as woke. And then I put a footnote and I said, using the definition of woke, which is the original definition, aware of and empathetic toward the needs of the vulnerable in society, particularly racial and ethnic minorities. I got a call the next day and he said, we can't use 'woke.' And we battered it back and forth for about two weeks. And ultimately we decided to take it out because as he pointed out, this would cause some people to stop reading. But on the other hand, we decided to write it in the afterward in the book and talk about this. And we got some lessons that came out of this. We don't unnecessarily trigger others. That was my mistake. And I hadn't fully realized it until I got his perspective. But neither should we be triggered by others.

If someone says something to you that causes you to come up short, instead of immediately labeling them and putting 'em in a box and sending 'em in a corner, ask the question, what do you mean by that? What might you be thinking? Because we can have a respectful conversation and we don't need to be triggered. And as Randy and I concluded together, we built this on a basis of trust. Building a relationship of trust allows you to talk about really hard things. And being a person that demonstrates trust is really vital in this whole process.

So the key verse, we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. I've shared a bit of that. Let's throw off everything that hinders in the sin that entangles us. Let's run with perseverance. That's the call, the race marked out for us. Do we accept that God has placed us at this time in this place for his purposes? And let's not do this in our own strength, but fixing our eyes on Jesus, recognizing that he did all of this and much more for us. So all of this is captured in a book that will be out in June 4th It's not out yet, called 'Living with Purpose in a Polarizing World.' And I care about the book because I care about the message, and I've tried to share the message with you today, and I hope it's helpful to you. Thank you.