Greg and Amy discuss how to respond to someone who claims to follow Jesus, but who left the church and now identifies as a spiritual agnostic.
Transcript
Question: My sister left the church a few years ago, claiming she “followed Jesus out of the church.” She now says she is “fine with Jesus” but calls herself a spiritual agnostic and doesn’t believe spiritual truth is knowable. I’m not sure where to begin with all of that and would greatly value your response.”
Greg: Notice that these are vague statements that don’t entirely go together.
Amy: “She followed Jesus out of the church.”
Greg: I’m not sure what that means. There must be something that is true about Jesus—who she wants to follow—that is contrary to what she found in the church. So, for some reason, she’s leaving the church because her dedication to Jesus required that.
Amy: “She now says she’s fine with Jesus but calls herself a spiritual agnostic.”
Greg: Let’s pause for a minute. Well, if you’re fine with Jesus, I’m not sure what “fine with Jesus” means. If she followed Jesus because she saw something in him that she wanted to follow as true—contrary to the church—so, she left the church to follow Jesus, and she’s fine with Jesus, in what sense is she a spiritual agnostic? She doesn’t know? She has no opinion one way or another?
Amy: “And she doesn’t believe spiritual truth is knowable.”
Greg: Okay, well, again, if spiritual truth is not knowable, then what was the spiritual truth she saw in Jesus that motivated her to leave the spiritually untrue environment of the church and follow the spiritually true Jesus? Do you see? None of those statements fit together with each other.
I would say, “I’m confused about what you just said,” and then I would ask questions that are meant to address these concerns. “If there’s no spiritual truth, why are you okay with Jesus? You must think he said something accurate, spiritually, which is why you followed him out of the church.” I’d want to take every step and ask them, “When you say you followed Jesus, that means what? Out of the church? The church was hypocritical, and Jesus isn’t hypocritical? How is he not hypocritical? He lived a life consistent with the moral truths that he claimed? You think that’s good? Okay, so, the moral truths that he claimed, do you think those are good? Then how are you spiritually agnostic? If Jesus had some aspect of truth, how are you a spiritual agnostic?” It doesn’t make any sense to me.
Amy: Well, it sounds to me like she’s moving from one to the other. So, she’s probably just finding an easy way out of the church. So, first, she’s saying, “I still follow Jesus, but I think the church is not representing him well.” But, now, she’s moved away to the point of saying we can’t know spiritual truth. So, I really doubt she was following Jesus originally. I think this has just been her working her way out of the church slowly, by what she’s saying.
I have two different things I’m thinking here—if you should talk about whether spiritual truth is knowable or if you should go back to Jesus. Because, if you want to take her at her word when she said that she followed Jesus out of the church, it might be worth going back to him. “Well, let’s talk about Jesus. What do you think about Jesus now? Who do you think he was? What do you like about him?”
Greg: “What was wrong with the church that you left?”
Now, anything she is going to say in response to that question is going to be an example of a spiritual truth that she knows—or she thinks she knows—and the church did not embody adequately, which is why she left.
So, part of this is maybe not going to sound charitable. I’m trying to be descriptive, but you and I know—we have had plenty of conversations with people and heard plenty of things—people say things that don’t make any sense when you look closely at it. They’re all kind of jumbled and contradictory, and it has a kind of certain authentic ring to it, but it’s just a jumble of stuff that hasn’t been thought through. All our questions are meant to do is to help get more clarity on each of these statements to see what they actually mean. I don’t think they have a lot of meaning to this person.
Now, she might say, “I used to go to church, but then I started reading Jesus, and when I started reading Jesus and focusing on him, then I realized the church isn’t doing what Jesus is doing. So, I got out of the church. Then I went into a new phase, and I started thinking nobody knows any spiritual truth anyway. And, so, now I’m a spiritual agnostic.” Those might be the steps, but I don’t know. That would make a little bit more sense out of her comments. But I wouldn’t at all be surprised if there was really no cohesion here at all.
Amy: I can remember when I was hiding from God. My excuse in my head was, “Well, how do I even know he exists?” So, I actually suspect that she hasn’t thought too much about this, but she doesn’t want to be in the church. So, I think the question I would ask her is, “If we could know spiritual truth, would you want to know it?” And then, at least she has to be honest about whether or not she really wants to know it. Now, if she says, “Yes, I’d want to know it,” then you can say, “Great! Well, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about what we can know about spiritual truth.” And then you can start at the beginning. Start with the kalam cosmological argument.
Greg: It’s a good start.
Amy: Now, I suspect that this is not an intellectual problem her sister is having, but it could be. It absolutely could be. So, maybe she is feeling, “How can I know this? I don’t want to commit myself to anything.” That’s possible. So, just start with asking her, “Would you want to know it if you could know it? Is this something you want to know, or do you have some other reason for backing off?”
Greg: Here’s what I think she’s going to say: “But you can’t know it.” That was my question—if you could, would you want to? So, there’s that standard parry. But I think your question is really good when it gets right down to the real issue. What’s interesting to me, Amy—and this happened in my own life before I was a Christian, and I’ve heard it many, many, many times over—is that things begin to change in a person’s spiritual journey to Christ when they pray the skeptic’s prayer. They say, “God, if you’re real, I want to know. Show me.” I prayed that prayer. It was the summer of 1973, and by September, I was a Christian. So, lots of people have had that experience where they prayed it, but it was genuine. This gets to your point. If you could know, would you want to? And when people get to the point where they are willing to genuinely pray that prayer, lots of incredible things begin happening.
Amy: And then, the second question, after you talk about that, would be, “If Jesus really was who he said he was, would you follow him?” Then, if she has objections to Jesus, you can find out what her objections are to Jesus.
Just getting people to think about if they really have an objection or if they just don’t want to follow Jesus—if you can just start them thinking about that, then at least they know where they are, and you know where they are, and you know where you need to start.