Today’s episode reckons with a common question about Christianity today: Are its truth claims too exclusive for a pluralistic and democratic society?
You’ll hear from the late Tim Keller (1950-2023), pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and author of best-selling books like The Reason for God. In this talk, he unpacks five ways people try—and fail—to deal with the divisiveness of religion, and offers a way forward in our pluralistic society, where belief continues to persist despite skepticism.
This forum was held at UC Berkeley in 2008. Thank you to the student planning team for making this event possible. A link to the full forum is in the podcast description.
There's something in the human heart that is so inexorably religious that you can really say it's a permanent condition.
Narrowness is disdaining and sneering at and belittling people who've got a different exclusive truth claim than yours. What you really need in this world is people who've got an exclusive truth that humbles them.
The only way you can say, "No religion sees all the truth," is if you believe you see more of the truth than they do. You're claiming the very thing you say no religion must claim: superior knowledge.
A fact isn't narrow. I wish very often that I didn't have to eat or sleep. I've got so much work to do. It's a fact: you're going to wither and die if you don't eat. And if Jesus Christ is the Son of God, your soul will shrivel without him. That's a fact or it's not a fact, but it's not narrow.
Timothy J. Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. Dutton, 2008.
Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. Vintage, 2008.
