Can a Buddhist follow Jesus and still be a Buddhist? What about a Muslim? Fuller Seminary professor William Dyrness joins Phil and Christian to talk about the “insider movement,” where people become Jesus followers without leaving their cultures and religious communities behind.
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You guys are costing me money. How much money have I spent gobbling up the books of all your guests? Well, no one else is directing me to these great thinkers. Another episode knocked out of the park.
This was a very thought provoking podcast and it’s very exciting to hear about the church all around the world. God’s truly is an “upside down kingdom” and I doubt we will know the full reach of it until the end. My issue with this is when you consider the kingdom of darkness and the evil one. I have been through training for healing prayer and deliverance ministries and have seen the havoc that false religions can cause on the spirit, soul and body, and have seen people set free from physical oppression as well as spiritual (depression, anxiety thoughts of suicide ect.) when they have renounced false religions. Even missionaries who have taken their shoes off in certain temples have needed healing prayer, as that is an act of submission to a being, that is not a god, but is still real. I know that what effects us on earth will not effect our salvation and that God’s grace is so much deeper than the work of the enemy, but I have also seen the danger in saying that one can be a Christian and a _________ at the same time. That being said I do agree with the political/missional reasons for people choosing to stay within their culture, and perhaps I do not know well enough what it means to be “A christian and” but coming from the background I have and having seen firsthand the pain and oppression people who have chosen to be “a Christian and” in the past I wanted to offer another perspective.
Very interesting. Very cool discussion as a missionary. It reminds me of other books and dialogs like the book Building Bridges by Accad. I think my two thoughts that I wrestle with on this for William Dyrness are – 1) How does becoming a Buddest Christian, or a Hindi Christian create a struggle for Hinies, Muslims, or Buddists, that totally convert to Christianity? They see the flaws, and they have a full conversion? I’m not saying that those who mix the two do not have a full conversion, but for people like Ravi Zacharias, who completely came out of this culture. How do these two conversions mix or compare? They seem at odds. 2) Does this approach only work in places where there is no example of Christian already? Or can it work in places where there are Christians as well? For example: USA. Where to the progressive culture, Christianity is being painted as not relatable and intolerant. Could this example be used to see evangelism to the inner city as a way to create “progressive Christians”? – Or is that taking it too far in terms of compromising and softening the message?