Navigating a world in crisis: Hope beyond the headlines

Mark Turman: [00:00:01] This is Faith and Clarity and I'm Mark Turman, your host. We're glad to have you along for our conversation today. We want to equip you to find hope beyond the headlines. I say that a lot of times as we start a podcast, but it's never more true than it is today. We want to have a conversation about hope. Uh, you probably uh had some very significant moments of reflection and pondering over the last few days as we marked the 25th anniversary, hard to call it an anniversary, um, but a milestone about 9/11 and the attacks that happened on our country 25 years ago that took almost 3,000 lives. And uh as we kind of continue to ponder that, think through that, we want to talk about how we gather our hope and look forward to the future. 9/11 was a stark reminder of how surprising and how tragic uh life can be, the future can be. Uh, most Americans I would say didn't see anything like that coming. We've never had that kind of an experience on our homeland. And uh we've continued to live in its aftermath, very much a turning point for a generation of people. And so we want to have a conversation today that uh helps to frame that in a way that uh allows us, enables us to see it uh through a biblical lens, through a spiritual lens that God uh has and is continuing to work in our lives and even in our culture, uh both nationally and globally. And so, uh we're going to talk about hope in an in the face of an uncertain future both then and now. So joining me for the conversation, Dr. Jim Denison, our founder and chief vision officer. Jim, welcome back to the podcast.

Jim Denison: [00:01:46] Glad to be with you, Mark, always. Appreciate the opportunity.

Mark Turman: [00:01:49] Well, looking forward to the conversation. We also have Dr. Ryan Denison, our chief uh officer when it comes to theology, senior uh editor for theology and many of you follow him on the focus as well as on his DA writing and other work in our ministry. We're glad to have you back with us, Ryan. Thanks for joining us.

Ryan Denison: [00:02:07] Thanks for the chance to be here.

Mark Turman: [00:02:10] Well, we're glad to have a conversation. These guys are always so consistently helpful uh in strengthening our faith, equipping us for the ministry that God wants us to do and today in lifting up our hope that we have in Christ Jesus. [00:02:25] Uh, Jim, I wanted to start with just a question to you. Um, I feel like we are back in seminary in some ways, but I'm going to put the question to you as my professor. Uh, reading through some of the work of the Apostle Paul, uh, I just keep just keep encountering the number of times he likes to come back to these keywords of faith, hope and love. And uh wondered if you could give us a little bit of an overview of how Paul thought about those keywords. And you recently wrote a little bit about how uh optimism and hope are not the same thing. Maybe explain the difference between the two.

Jim Denison: [00:03:03] Yeah, I found that to be an interesting uh kind of uh difference myself. There was a counselor that I came across, a Christian counselor who had done a great deal of work at that very point, who made the point that hope has a plan. Hope is the idea of expecting a better future but then making a plan to get there. Optimism is, you could say a hope for a better future but has no plan. It is left to luck or chance or the activities of other people. But if you have hope for the future, that means you have a pathway to get there. You have a goal that you're trying to accomplish and you have an optimistic sense that you're going to be able to accomplish that. In her research, she discovered that hope leads to much more significant outcomes relative to mental health, physical health, relative to societal health as well. Whereas optimistic people by nature are not nearly as healthy with outcomes as those that are hopeful, if we make that distinction between the two. And that's what the Bible speaks of often when it speaks of faith, hope and love. It's not speaking of faith, optimism and love in this kind of just naive sense that everything's going to be fine, everything's going to turn out well. You can't read the writings of Paul as you said, Mark, without coming up against a great deal of difficulty that he faced in his life about which he couldn't be optimistic. Couldn't be optimistic that the world's just going to get better, optimistic that the Roman Empire was going to turn to Christ overnight or optimistic that he was going to be released from prison when he writes second Timothy, but he still has hope because he has a a larger goal, which is serving Jesus and a plan to accomplish that and a belief that that plan and that goal are worthwhile and are going to give his life the the encouragement and the direction that he needs. So his faith and his love all conspire to accomplish that hope. He has faith not in himself, but in Jesus. He has love for the Lord and therefore for others. And because of his faith in Jesus and his love for the Lord and for all of God's people, he can have hope that God is going to use his love to bring others to God's love. The God's going to bring his love for neighbor to bring other neighbors to Jesus. And so they all come together. If we have faith in Jesus, if we have love for God and others, we can have hope that God will use our faith and our love to change the world and to change our hearts as well.

Mark Turman: [00:05:11] It just it sounds like that Paul came to understand that God had a plan and that could be his plan. That's right. Um and that uh and and also kind of sounds like optimism is more wishful thinking rather than intentional and uh active kind of thinking. And that's a significant difference. Am I am I in the same ballpark with you?

Jim Denison: [00:05:31] I think you're right. Exactly so. Wishful thinking in the sense of wishing for something but no idea how to make it so. Whereas hope wishes for something but then has a plan to accomplish it, has a goal and a purpose and a means by which to get from here to there.

Mark Turman: [00:05:45] Yeah. Well, that's a good way of setting the stage for our conversation today. And I want to let our audience know, I'll talk about this again at the end, but uh we're releasing here in the days after 9/11, uh a series of articles uh that deal with this topic of hope, uh especially hope as we face an uncertain and sometimes daunting future ahead of us. Uh those articles will be coming out. Matter of fact, two of them today are already out. You'll find them on our website, denisonforum.org. You'll see a tab at the top of our website that says certain hope or maybe just hope, but I think it's going to be called certain hope. And you can click on that tab and find all of these articles as we release them across the month of September. And we hope that putting all of them together will strengthen and build and encourage your hope as we move forward. So you'll find that again, denisonforum.org, look for the hope tab uh at the top and you can follow along in this conversation through this entire month as we look to things coming down the pipe. Uh we'll have midterm elections coming this fall. Uh we don't know what else will come our way, but there'll be a lot of things that do challenge our hope and we want to try to equip you and strengthen you through all of these eight articles. [00:07:04] Uh, Jim, part of what you wrote about in the material that's coming are some of the things that concern you. Uh, I know that you uh are a man of Issachar in terms of the Old Testament. You're trying to understand the times on a consistent basis. You read widely uh and deeply. And uh you mentioned several really big areas of concern. Can you kind of overview what those are so that we set a framework for this conversation?

Jim Denison: [00:07:33] Yeah, I'd be glad to try to do that. And the fact that all of them are at one time is what makes them even more difficult. It's what they call a meta crisis because we have a number of crises that are all conspiring together in a way that any one of them would be worthy of attention and concern, but you put them together and it's a perfect storm in a number of ways. So already we've begun talking about Islam in the context of 9/11, radicalized or jihadist Islam, uh terrorism and the continuing threat of terrorism in the world today. That's not abated. We would like to say it has 25 years after 9/11, but that just is not the case. Al-Qaeda is still working, ISIS is still working. A number of jihadist groups are still working. We think about Iran and its plans and uh its ultimate eschatological sort of uh theocratic sort of dreams for the Middle East and beyond. So that's one category. Artificial intelligence. Not long ago, uh Bill Gates issued a statement claiming that we should be far more concerned about AI's threat for human survival in the future than we're being right now, than even the experts in the space are being. Uh it's an existential threat potentially, perhaps as AI becomes cognizant on a level that could perhaps create a science fiction scenario by which humanity itself is threatened. But that scenario is out there. Genomics is making it possible right now to alter the species in ways genetically to alter the species in ways that cannot be predicted relative to outcomes and and what could happen on the other side of that. China sees itself as the major geopolitical power in um in opposition to the United States. They see us as the major threat to their narrative as they're going forward. There's been just in recent days warning about uh Chinese attempts to hack infrastructure in the United States, water systems and electrical systems and and all that goes into that and Taiwan being a major issue. And so China as a lurking sort of geopolitical threat is certainly out there as well. There are others, but those all by themselves, as I said, any one would be worthy of concern. Together, it becomes this meta crisis that really is somewhat unique in its uh cultural moment.

Mark Turman: [00:09:38] Yeah, I just just seems overwhelming when you start listing them really.

Jim Denison: [00:09:42] Yeah, and now isn't everybody glad they're listening to us today, right? We were going to talk about hope, we promised. And so, you know, at some point we may get there.

Mark Turman: [00:09:49] Yeah, and we will. And so yeah, let me let me just let our audience in on the secret that the first half is, uh what are those things that are hindering or even attacking our hope? And uh in a second half of our conversation, we're going to talk about the plan that God has for strengthening our hope so that we can flourish in every good way. [00:10:07] Ryan, I wanted to uh frame this a little bit generationally. Uh, your dad and I are of a generation and uh we're not going to say uh anything more particularly about that to describe it.

Jim Denison: [00:10:20] I'm not sure what you mean, Mark. Don't don't have any idea what you mean.

Mark Turman: [00:10:23] I don't yeah, I don't know what what what I mean either, but um we are of a certain generation.

Ryan Denison: [00:10:27] I'm starting to get there a little bit, but yeah.

Mark Turman: [00:10:30] And I I got to tell you that when I think about this conversation and uh what your dad just listed, uh these challenges that we're all facing and all trying to understand, uh we're doing that in many ways with a sense of very little agency to do much of anything about these things because they are so massive. Um and we most of us have not been put in positions where we can address much of them. Maybe God will make that happen for some of us and that's great. But I when I start thinking about this in terms of what this might mean for my kids, who are a little bit younger than you, uh even more when I start thinking about what this may mean for my grandkids, the conversation starts to change in my mind and in my heart and I start to become in many ways more anxious and less hopeful. Um, uh, I just wonder how this you're you're a dad, um, you you are slightly younger than us generationally. But I just want to see how this conversation hits you uh as the ones coming behind us and as a father yourself, um, how does this make you react? What do you sense in the wider culture, how this may be affecting the overall sense of people's mental health, their spiritual health, uh their sense of flourishing. What do you see in response to that?

Ryan Denison: [00:12:01] It's a good question and I as you were asking it, part of what came to mind is just I I do think part of the generational gap here is I've kind of grown up in this world to an extent where I haven't felt I've had agency over most of the threats, like geopolitical threats to my life for most of my life. I mean, I was a freshman in high school, I think when 9/11 happened. And so in the world since, uh most of kind of my all of my adult life has been spent in a world where I've been very aware of the threats that were so far beyond my ability to influence that to some extent, you just kind of resign yourself to the idea that these big things are out there, but what happens is not really anything you can you can control. And I do think there's a bit of a difference there generationally uh between growing up in that kind of world versus growing up in a world where you were far more likely to get drafted into a war if there was a big geopolitical threat or in a world where you were during the Cold War even, there was a constant threat, but you knew who your enemy was. And now it seems like the enemy changes so often as regards to who we're fighting or what it is that we're trying to accomplish, what larger what larger danger is going to wreck our world this week kind of thing that it's really I I've kind of grown up in that world to the point that it's hope doesn't necessarily for me at least, it it kind of has driven home the idea that hope can't be tied to a reconciliation of those threats or removal of those threats because if one goes away, another's just going to take its place. And in some like that and so I think for my generation, for my kids and uh and eventually God willing their kids someday, I I do think to a large extent that's kind of the world we live in now where we're so hyper aware of what goes on everywhere else that if one threat goes away, another's just going to take its place. And you are kind of left to realize if I want to have hope and if I want to find peace, it can't be tied to the outcome of these events or else I'm I'm never really going to get there. And so I think that's part of God's redemption of all of this is that it really does drive home that point because to an extent that's always been the way we've been meant to approach hope and the way we've been meant to approach these trials is to realize that one of the things I think God does with them is remind us that our if our hope is found in anything but him, it will be fleeting at best. And it really does drive home that point in a way that should be helpful, but we have to be willing to accept that and um kind of give up that idea that I can create my own sources of hope. I can create my own positive outcomes out of this and realize that at the end of the day, what we need is just God and to learn to rely on him for that hope.

Mark Turman: [00:14:51] Yeah, while while you're talking, I I hear some voices coming in the back of my head. One of those is the the really cynical voice of Solomon when he writes the book of Ecclesiastes and it's just like all of this is just feudal. Um and we need to see past it, see through it if we can because it feels so empty. And then I I hear the voice of the Apostle Peter in his letter uh near the end of the Bible where he addresses people who think this is just an endless cycle that never changes. And like you said that when one crisis is over, the next one shows up. Um but the the thing that strikes me, Ryan is that you're kind of describing that being in a meta crisis is normative to you. Um because it just and and I want to pitch this back to your dad and ask, Jim, would you say that that's really the case in this life here on earth and that it's been that way for us that we just constantly that part of the reality that is always here is that we are in a meta crisis.

Jim Denison: [00:15:58] That's a really good question. I hadn't I hadn't thought about it quite that way until Ryan said it just now. But uh when I was Ryan's age, you know, back when dinosaurs were roaming the earth and the planet hadn't cooled yet and all that sort of thing. You know, but we were coming out of the Vietnam war. Uh we were still in the Cold War, but that didn't feel as existential as a crisis because uh the Soviets had not done a 9/11. They had not ever actually attacked us on our soul and we knew about the nuclear threat, of course, that's been there since World War II or shortly thereafter. But that didn't feel as existential either. It was something we just were aware of, but it didn't feel as personal to us as AI that is now living on my cell phone and living in my computer and could be doing things to me I don't know about right now or uh Russia hacking our water systems as we speak and can I trust the water I'm getting ready to drink, you know? So I really do think, I hadn't thought about it, but I think I did go through a period in my life of a number of years where there wasn't this same meta crisis sense. We went to Israel three or four times a year for a number of years. I've been to Israel more than 30 times and a lot of that was during that period. There was an intifada in 2000 and around 2005, we were able to go back again. And from 2005 until October 7th, we had really unhindered ability to go to Israel as often as we wanted and feel completely safe there in the Middle East. We could travel all through Greece and Turkey as well and go places I wouldn't go now. I took several groups to Egypt that I wouldn't take to Egypt now. And so I do think that's true that uh at least I came through a period of time where I didn't have the same sense of existential meta crisis that Ryan has grown up with. That's just part of how life has been for him and for people of his generation and even for his perfect kids, my perfect grandkids, you know, a a sense of that reality just being the way the world works. You know, why isn't it always been this way? Well, I think I could make an argument that my experience has been more the exception than Ryan's has. I think I could probably go back and connect some dots to say that from Second World War all the way through Vietnam, there was the threat of being drafted into the service and World War I before that and not much time before that. A lot of people that were fighting World War I had ancestors still living from the Civil War. My wife and I just finished watching History Channel's three-part biography or uh documentary of Abraham Lincoln. Uh and one of the things that makes clear is how horrific and horrendous that war was and for how many years, decades after, it scarred American psyche and survival. So maybe you'd have to go back pre-World War or pre-Civil War, if you were going to make an historical argument that there was a generation of time when there wasn't a meta crisis per se. Even then you'd have to think about the war of 1812 and some things around that, but yeah, I think there really is a point that perhaps I'm surprised by this meta crisis in a way that Ryan and his generation isn't. And I can therefore be assuming there's something I can do to get us back to the way we were when that's really not possible. And I'm just euphemistically and optimistically thinking, well, maybe if it was this way, it could be this way again, when really it never probably was and it certainly isn't now. And finding hope in the world is always a false hope, always optimism versus hope and I just need to be reminded of that fact.

Mark Turman: [00:19:16] Yeah, and we and we can we can um sometimes take a a run down the idea of the down the pathway of, well, if just this or that would change, then it would all just get a lot calmer, it would all get a lot better. And we we sometimes falsely think that way. I, you know, we ought to we ought to always be working to make things better as we understand the Lord leading us to do that, to be engaged. Um but the world is broken and it will be broken until Jesus brings it to its consummation. So we're always going to have challenges that are are challenging our hope.

Jim Denison: [00:19:52] There's a 24/7 news cycle now also that I didn't grow up with. You know, if it bleeds, it leads. And now you've got so many people that are making a living by getting clicks and and views. And so there's a constant barrage of bad news if for no other reason than to accomplish a business end. And that again is not unique to Ryan, but is something that I didn't experience before and have to be aware of as I'm consuming news today.

Mark Turman: [00:20:15] Yeah, you and I remember the days when the television signed off at at midnight and you didn't have anything but a staticy snow screen. And we got irritated by that when we were younger, but we kind of wish we could go back there now. Yep. News was half an hour at six and half an hour at 10. That's right. And that was all we thought we needed. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Jim, I wanted to… Ryan, there used to be a thing called a newspaper. It was in print and they would they would send it to you, they would actually throw it on your front yard and you would go out and pick it up and you could open it up and and read it. It's called a newspaper. And it's kind of a cool thing. And it had and it had multiple uses after you finished reading it. So we're not going to chase that rabbit. We're not going to go there. That's right. Okay. [00:20:58] Jim, one of the areas that you've done a lot of work on over the years has to do with the relationship between Christianity and Islam, Christianity and multiple religions. Uh here in the recent aftermath of uh the 9/11 anniversary, part of what you have written, uh you said that 9/11 didn't happen in a vacuum. Can you explain that as we continue to ponder uh just our relationship with Islam?

Jim Denison: [00:21:25] Yeah, there's been a movement uh really across the uh 20th century. You could start from about the 1920s forward, try to do this very briefly, that believes inside Islam uh that the original four uh followers of Muhammad, um the rightly guided prophets, um were the ones that architected Islam as it should be. And that 100 years or so is what Islam should be getting back to. Uh a scholar named Sayyid Qutb made this argument. And um so therefore, any Muslim government that doesn't govern itself by very puritanical Sharia law, there's all different kinds of Sharia law. It's more a category than a thing, but very puritanical version of Sharia law is not true Islam. And any nation that opposes this ideology is opposing Islam itself. Since the Quran in Surah 2 verse 190 requires Muslims to attack those that attack Islam, this ideology back in the 20s and 30s started gaining currency in the Muslim world that says the West has been attacking Islam since the Crusades. And then when Israel was created in 1948, then it got enormous fervency because the idea is that the creation of Israel stole land from its rightful Muslim Palestinian owners and by America supporting Israel, we're supporting this theft, this attack on Islam. So way before 9/11, there's been this idea among some, a small percentage in the Muslim world, that they must attack the West to defend Islam since the West has been attacking Islam since the Crusades. Well, Sayyid Qutb's work was very, very significant in the mind of Osama bin Laden. It helped move him to create Al-Qaeda and it it framed 9/11, not as an attack on innocent Americans, but as a defense of Islam striking back at the heart of Western Crusader imperialist aggression. The twin towers representing the financial, the Pentagon, the military and the White House or our Congress, obviously, the political and but even that, while it woke us up to this threat, was just an expression of this threat. Iran has been about with the Islamic Republic of Iran, this same idea since 1979. The belief that America is the great Satan that is opposing Iran's uh view of a theocratic kind of Mahdi sort of Messiah future and so this idea that the West must be opposed because it opposes Islam has been around for a very long time. You could even take it back to the 18th century and the Wahhabi movement back in the early 1700s as a puritanical reformist kind of puristic sort of Islam, but certainly in the 20s and 30s, you begin to see this gaining a great deal of currency in the Muslim world. And 9/11 is just one expression of this ideology that is still very popular among some in Islam today.

Mark Turman: [00:24:07] So much so much history and so much complexity uh to this reality. Uh and in our current environment, we have this war going on and uh so many things to think about and in some ways it is really discouraging to think that we haven't made uh a whole lot of progress in 25 years uh in this conversation and in this this situation. Uh but it also has both kind of global uh implications, foreign policy, uh things having to do with war and that is currently going on. But it also has things that are more local or national in nature. Uh let me get you to react to this, Jim. I recently heard a leader uh talk about political Islam. And he was seemingly trying to reframe the conversation and really reframe the threat around a term that I had not heard anybody use before, this term political Islam and as something that we need to be very wary of in our own neighborhoods, in our own cities and nationally within our country. Um, given what you just described uh about how long this has been going on and what 9/11 represents in that conversation, give us a word just how do we live, can we live peaceably as Christians and as citizens where we share the we share the street with some Islam neighbors? Can can we do that and how would you encourage us to think through that?

Jim Denison: [00:25:47] Yeah, thank you. And I'm glad you came back to me with that because even as I was finishing my earlier conversation, I was feeling bad that I didn't make this point. What I described just a bit ago relative to this militant or jihadist Islam represents a very small minority in the Muslim world. If you would characterize a radical Muslim as someone who believes number one, the West has been attacking Israel since the Crusades and number two, we must attack the West to defend Islam. According to Gallup, that's 7% of the Muslim world. But I need to even add relative to that. That's across the entire Muslim world. That may be 50 or 60% in Saudi Arabia or in Yemen, less than 1% in America. I am not saying, categorically not saying that 7% of Muslims in America think attacking Americans defends Islam. I am not saying that. I want to be very clear about that. That's a very small minority in the Muslim world that believes that. There are some that do. And back to my earlier point, that's an ideology that can't be defeated with militaristic means. You can't defeat an ideology with weapons. You have to defeat it by ideology. And that's a larger issue that we can be talking about. But there's a category within this conversation now being called political Islam that's a little different. To again, try to do this very briefly, Sharia is a category. Sharia is basically a the term by which we speak of the application of Islam to life. The Quran itself, and I have read the Quran in its entirety. I've studied it over the years. I can say the Quran itself is essentially a rule book. It prescribes how loans ought to be made without interest, how kosher dietary laws ought to be followed, how families ought to be created and ought to be governed. It's a little like the book of Leviticus in that it offers very specific uh descriptions and prescriptions for how life ought to be lived. There are basically four categories within Sharia, four different schools of Sharia, just like in in ancient Judaism, there was the school of Hillel and Shammai. There are various schools, that sort of thing. Uh there's a version of Sharia law you see in Indonesia, which is a democracy. A version of of Sharia that you see in Jordan, which is a constitutional monarchy, but functions in many ways as a democracy. But there's also a version of Sharia that you see in Saudi Arabia, which is a theocratic monarchy and that you see in Iran, which is a theocratic system as well. So to say that a Muslim wants Sharia in America doesn't have to mean that that Muslim wants to replace democracy with Sharia or that Sharia is incompatible with democracy. Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation on earth and it's a functioning democracy, a very healthy democracy. So it's it's untrue to say that democracy and Sharia cannot coexist. What is an issue, however, I'll try to do this briefly. There are some in the Muslim world, again, a minority, who want Sharia to be more intrusive than simply how civil rights ought to be administered or how how kosher dietary laws ought to be followed or how alternative banking arrangements should be made that don't involve charging interest and that sort of thing. They not only want the freedom to do that, they already have that freedom. Already in American democracy, they can have kosher dietary laws as Jews can do. Already they can have the freedom by which to have alternative banking laws. The Royal Bank of London has a whole division that's devoted to allowing Muslims to do banking according to Sharia lending principles. But what some Muslims want is more than that. They want the the ability to carve out at least a segment of society where Islam can be practiced in a more what would one say proactive way than that. For instance, the Quran permits a man to have as many as four wives. There's an argument to be made that would say that if the government has no right now to prescribe what gender I can marry, it has no right to prescribe how many I can marry. And isn't it religious discrimination to say to a Muslim he cannot have four wives? It's estimated as there's many as 100,000 polygamous Islamic families in America today. The man marries his first wife legally and the others in a civil ceremony down at the Islamic center or the mosque, but it's functionally a a polyamorous or polygamous family. Well, polyamory is becoming more popular in America, unfortunately, these days. Polygamy is still illegal, but perhaps it shouldn't be is a claim or a question that can be asked here. There's a version of this, a political Islam that doesn't want to recognize civil courts when they come in conflict with Islamic beliefs or Islamic courts and want the rights to be able to govern divorce in their own terms or to or to govern their family in their own terms and when it comes in conflict with the democratic civil society that is um that that is in a part of the larger culture. And so one concern about political Islam is this idea that Muslims could get elected through the democratic process and then amend or end the democratic process so as to bring about a more overt Sharia law in that community. The reason, Mark, I have no advice for us here is regard whether that's good or bad is that is such a sliding scale. That is such an impossible future to predict. I can't read minds. And so I have no way to say that a Muslim running for office intends when they come into office to use that office to advance what I've been saying or not. Or whether or not they're simply owed the exact same religious freedom that we want and we want our Jewish friends to have and our Buddhist friends to have and our Sikh friends to have and our atheistic and agnostic friends to have, that we ought to have exactly that same freedom of religion. And once we start discriminating against one because we're afraid of the outcome of electing them to office, where do we stop? Could there be a radical Jewish sect out there that wants to come into office and abolish Judaism so as to live by the Talmud? Could there be some radical Buddhist sect that wants to live by the Bhagavad Gita or by the four noble truths and the eightfold noble path? I mean, you could make a scenario by which no person that's a follower of any religion can be trusted into office because they might then use that office to advance their own particular religious ideology. It becomes a very difficult sliding scale. Last thing I'll say, we are doing a disservice to Muslims and to America when we make any assumption that just because a person is Muslim, they therefore de facto by definition must be a radicalized Muslim, they must be wanting to abolish uh democracy to impose strict Sharia law, that must be what they're about because they're a Muslim. That's unfair to Islam. That's unfair to many of the Muslim friends I have who I am absolutely convinced would disagree with everything I just said relative to their understanding of their place in our culture. And does violence to the larger um fabric of our multicultural, multi-religious society that has been part of the secrets of America's consensual democracy. It was Martin Niemöller that said, I won't get the quote exactly right, but he said something to the effect of, they came for the trade unionists, speaking of the Nazis, they came for the trade unionists and I wasn't a trade unionist, so I didn't protest. They came for the Jews and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't protest. They came for me and there was no one left to protest. Once we start discriminating against one religion, we must be very careful lest that sword be turned against us and other religions as well. So I'm not trying to minimize the possibility that some could seek to enforce a theocratic version of the Quran on society in a way that wouldn't be the case with the Bible because it doesn't have that same theocratic sort of prescription that the Quran does. But neither would I want us to take that possibility and drive it into probability and do something that is unfair to the Muslim world and really unfair to the multicultural fabric of America.

Mark Turman: [00:33:43] It's a very challenging subject. Yeah, very challenging and you get a sense of the complexity of this. And um, let me just let me just call out a couple of things uh that that come to mind when you're talking, Jim. One of them is, let's not make the assumption that just because you're a Christian, that means that you actually believe in democracy. That's true. That's that's that is not necessarily the case. You by no means. There are many people who are Christians who do not believe in democracy and the reverse is not true. You can believe in democracy without being a Christian. So we need we need to learn that. Now, let me ask you one quick question as a student in in your former class. Um, as you describe Sharia, which is a big topic in our culture today, what would be the closest equivalent uh or similar concept in Christianity? Would we say that what Sharia is as you've described it to Islam, the word discipleship might be a similar concept, a very broad concept within Christianity. Can you even make something comparatively close to what to what the category of Sharia law is to Islam?

Jim Denison: [00:35:00] That's a great question. I don't know that we really can in the Christian faith because even what the New Testament describes relative to social order, it doesn't prescribe. You have in the early uh parts of the book of Acts, for instance, the people selling their goods and giving to anybody that has need. That's described, not prescribed. No place does the Bible say, thou shalt do that in a socialistic sort of a way. So even the socialist or democratic socialist that want to use the Bible toward their ends are misusing the Bible if they make it a prescription instead of a description. But the New Testament just doesn't do what Sharia law does, what the Quran does relative to describing how lending principles should be done and how how dietary codes should be followed and how families should be administered. The closest thing biblically I could think toward would really be the book of Leviticus. It really might be the uh the theocratic system in the Old Testament as you had it where there really was a desire to live according to the 613 laws of Judaism. You'd see a kind of pharisaical sort of application of those laws uh in ancient Israel as perhaps being an equivalent to to Islamic Sharia law. Uh but again, a major difference there being Judaism never sought to bring that into other cultures. There was never a belief, Judaism has never taught, no Jew has ever taught to make all nations live under our 613 laws, where some, again, it's a minority, some Muslims believe they're not being fair to Islam unless they're giving the entire world the opportunity, they would say, to live under Sharia law as they understand it. That's what Sayyid Qutb believed. He didn't believe that Islam should be imposed on people, but he thought Sharia should be so that individuals could then decide whether or not to become Muslims once they're living in a true Islamic society, living under very puritanical Sharia as he understood it. That idea was very, very influential as I said for Osama bin Laden and for others in recent generations. And that really is something that comes closer to Leviticus, but certainly not to anything I find in the New Testament.

Mark Turman: [00:37:01] Yeah. Okay. All right, well, we're going to take two more short questions and then we're going to take a break and I'm promising our audience, we're going to start talking about hope rather than challenges to hope, right? We did say that, didn't we? We did say that. We're going to get to that. So real quick before we take a break, Ryan, I want to just make sure that our audience has a good handle on a couple of terms. Here's the first one for you. What do we mean when we what do people mean generally when they make the statement from the river to the sea as an agenda item by some Muslims toward Israel? Clarify that statement so people have a good handle on it.

Ryan Denison: [00:37:37] Yeah, it's generally speaking, it it honestly, I think most of the people that say it probably don't even know what they mean by it. But at its origins, the phrase was a rallying cry to remove Israel from the map of the Middle East and to take all that land back for Muslim nations and to remove the Israeli government, to establish a Palestinian state. And so it became a rallying cry after the um kind of the war with Israel and Gaza in the midst of that, um as a way to for many people that used it as a way to denounce the Israeli government and so think they were supporting the people of Gaza. That is not the phrase's origins and the what the phrase actually means is the removal of the entire culture. It's essentially in some ways kind of equivalent to the genocide they accuse Israel of perpetuating. And so there's a level of hypocrisy to those that use the phrase and know what they mean by it that should just make it invalid from the start. But it sounds good, it's catchy and it kind of took off among people that didn't know what they were talking about. And so that's kind of why it went viral in that sense. But um yeah, at the end of the day, it really is a call for the destruction of Israel and that is mistakenly used as a way to denounce the government of Israel when that's not what the phrase means.

Mark Turman: [00:38:56] No. Okay, that's helpful, very helpful. Um, Jim, I feel like um I feel like I'm back a couple of several decades and that I missed a class that you were teaching. So, uh I want to ask you to comment. Yeah, probably yeah, probably did and shame on me. I'll give you a test later today. In in recent years, I've heard you a number of times talk about the Islamic expectation and anticipation of the coming of the Mahdi. Uh can can you give us a little bit more understanding of what Muslims believe about the coming of the Mahdi as a savior-like figure and what they believe the Mahdi will do when he arrives?

Jim Denison: [00:39:40] M A H D I is uh how that is spelled in English. Uh that's a common idea and construct across the Muslim world, Sunni and Shia, but it's especially operative and especially motivational inside 70% of the Shia world that are known as Twelvers. So, very quickly, the idea here, and Mark, we didn't talk about this in um in world religions when you and I were together. So I think you're okay there. Don't think you need to, you know, expect a test in the in your email later today. Uh but uh so after Muhammad dies, he doesn't appoint a successor. And so uh according to the Shiites, which is about 15% of the Muslim world, uh Muhammad's son-in-law should have been his successor, Ali. That's why they're called Party of Ali or Shia. And then 11 more successors, they call them the caliphs, uh or the Imams rather. Uh and that uh caliphs are on the Sunni, Imam is more on the Shia. And the 12th of these in the 940s disappeared. He was occluded is the word they used, 942, I think. But he is still alive and he will appear again at the end of history to dominate the world for Islam. That's their version of a Messiah. That's the Mahdi. He's the 12th Imam. That's why they're Twelvers and uh and that's why they're the party of Ali, the Shiites. Uh but that's by far the dominant version of Islam in Iran. That's why this is so motivational inside Iran. So there's always been in the in the Shia world this idea of this Mahdi coming at the end of the world to dominate the world for Islam, their version of a Messiah. What makes that important our conversation, makes it relevant today is since the coming of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 and the Khamenei who followed him and now his son today, there's arisen within within Iran this idea that the reason the Mahdi has not yet come is because Islam tolerates the existence of Israel. And if Islam were ever to eradicate Israel, the Mahdi would then appear to protect Iran or the Muslim world from retribution. He will come and he will dominate the world. Jesus will return with this Mahdi, by the way, as kind of his right-hand man, as the guy to help bring the world under the rule of the Mahdi. That's another part of their apocalyptic sort of ideology. But there's this idea now in, I don't know how strongly they believe it personally, but they say it, that if they were ever to attack Israel, and you think about, well, what about retribution? If they got a nuclear weapon and launched it on Israel, well, the West would eradicate Iran, right? No, the Mahdi would appear and protect Iran from retribution. That's the idea. That's why Netanyahu and others are saying Iran is an existential threat to Israel. Not that they can defeat them militarily today, but if they ever had a nuclear weapon, they know Israel has them as well. But if they launched, the Mahdi would appear to protect them. There are some in the uh Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and there's some in the theocratic governance of Iran who apparently believe that. So that makes this idea of a Mahdi very existential, very relevant to geopolitics today and very frightening as well.

Mark Turman: [00:42:47] Yeah. Yeah. One more thing to challenge our hope in these interesting times that we live in. I think we're running out of time now, Mark. I don't know if we're going to have time to get to hope on the… Well, we're going to get to hope and uh but we're going to we're going to take a moment. We're going to uh catch our breath, take a a sip of coffee and we're going to be right back and we're going to talk about claiming the hope that we have in Christ for all of the challenges that we've been talking about. We'll be right back. All right, we're back talking about hope in the face of uncertain future. Uh talking with Jim and Ryan Denison as we continue our conversation. Guys, let's focus on the hope that we have. We've spent a good amount of time framing the challenges. Uh Ryan, let me ask you, uh as you look at our culture, do you think that most people realize that they need hope, that they don't have enough hope, that they keep attributing uh their struggles uh spiritually, relationally, mentally to something other than a lack of hope and how is an how is an understanding of what the Bible says about our sinfulness important to this conversation?

Ryan Denison: [00:44:02] It's a great question and I think a lot of it goes back to the distinction that my dad talked about at the start of this podcast, which was the difference between hope and optimism. I think there's a lot of people in our culture that equate the two and they're their idea of a better future is tied to a level of optimism that is divorced from reality. And I think as one of the things we can offer as Christians is a hope that goes beyond the the details of the day or goes beyond what we're capable of doing ourselves. And a way that that's that's what the culture needs. It's not necessarily what the culture wants though. And I think that's the hard part is that most people want a kind of hope that allows them to be the one that brings it into their lives or allows them to be the one that brings about that better future for themselves that retains a level of agency that I I don't think we necessarily are capable of in terms of really addressing many of these problems. And and I do think there's a bit of a generational gap like we talked about before with that. Um but I I do think there so there's a desire for hope, but not a lot of clarity on how to achieve it. And I think that's maybe one of the biggest issues that our culture is facing right now.

Mark Turman: [00:45:14] Yeah, it just makes you wonder how people are thinking about just the culture and uh what part of it they might be able to address. And um where, you know, there's just seems like a desperate a desperate pursuit of hope in some ways, um without much willingness to realize the the spiritual implication, the spiritual reality that's driving uh so much of this. [00:45:42] Uh, Jim, again, referencing 9/11, so much suffering uh in our minds around what happened on 9/11, nearly 3,000 people lost their lives on that day. More people uh have continued to suffer and lose their lives who were down there helping in the aftermath. Uh more recently, we've seen just the horrendous reality of the problems in the Middle East, the situation in Gaza, uh many, many people suffering that uh have no agency in this conflict, uh which is always the case within the the reality of war. But whether we're talking about that or we're talking about health and problems like cancer, uh issues related to AI getting out of control, that type of thing. Part of what you write about regularly is just the struggle um that people have when it comes to faith because of the reality of suffering, particularly innocent suffering. I I see this on a regular basis. Every time my wife and I hear a story uh personally or on social media or other means where a child is suffering. Um, part of what you've written and write about a lot is just what the Bible says about suffering. Um, can you kind of pull some of those ideas together? What does the Bible says a lot about what God may be doing in, with and through suffering. Can you kind of summarize some of those ideas for us?

Jim Denison: [00:47:10] Yeah, I'll be try glad to try to do that. First of all, the Bible says suffering is inevitable. We live in a fallen world. We live in a broken world. Romans 8 says the all creation now groans under the travail of the fall. And so we ought not be surprised by storms and hurricanes and natural disasters and floods and diseases and all the things that come about. Second, the Bible says that we are fallen as well. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So we ought not be surprised when humans misuse their free will and accomplish a great deal of the evil that exists in the world today. But the Bible also says that God is sovereign. That God is in charge, that God is still the king of kings and Lord of lords. Nothing happens without his permission. And he's working in all things for good to those that love him and are called according to his purpose. And so I want to come along and offer us a constant reminder. I I say this a lot that God redeems what he allows. God allows all that happens, causes or allows everything that occurs. The sparrow doesn't fall without his knowledge, but then he comes along because he is all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful. He comes along to redeem what he allows to a greater good. We may not be able to understand that good in this world. We look through a glass darkly, but one day face to face and one day we'll know what we don't know now. I don't have to understand how technology works to be in this conversation with you or understand how airplanes fly to get on an airplane. But we can nonetheless believe that because our father loves us, because he is love, he can only want our best. His character requires him as it were to only want our best. And so he works even through evil for good. He works through hard to redeem that hard in ways that advance his kingdom and and bless his children. What Joseph said to his brothers, the Lord says to us says about the world, what you meant for evil, God used for good. We see it in Jesus' crucifixion that enables our atonement and his resurrection so that we can be raised from the dead. We see it again and again and again in scripture. I've seen it in my own life. God leads through limitations and God redeems what he allows in ways that glorify him and bless us. And so when we're at a place where we don't see that redemption, where we don't understand it, where we don't know why God is allowing this, doesn't seem God is answering prayer as we wish, doesn't seem that God is present, we can understand at that point that we have hope, not optimism, but hope because his word promises that we're in his hand, nothing can come to us that doesn't come through him. He promises us as in Isaiah that when we go through the river, he's with us, when we go through the fire, we will not be set ablaze. Psalm 23, when we walk through the valley of the shadow of evil, we need fear no evil for he is with us. The fact that I can't see him doesn't mean he can't see me. When the kids were little, sometimes we'd play hide and seek and I remember when we were living in Midland, we had this tablecloth that went over the dining table and one of the kids would stick his head under there thinking if he couldn't see me, I couldn't see him. Well, I'm that way with God. I can't feel him, I can't see him. So I think he must not be there. Well, the fact that I can't in my own finite fallen brain understand an omnipotent infinite God makes him no less real. I need to measure his character and and his and his activities not by my circumstances, but by his word. If I reject what I just said, I I I exempt myself. I I forfeit the blessing he wants to bring in my life. He'll still use my disobedience even. He used Judas's disobedience and Pharaoh's hardened heart for a greater good, but they missed that blessing. If I instead will believe God's redeeming what he allows and I position myself by praying and reading and trusting to be a part of that redemption, then that redemption in this world and especially in the world to come will make me understand that God really is good all the time. And that's a word that I need even in the hardest places.

Mark Turman: [00:50:56] Absolutely. And let me get you to chase the supernatural aspect of what you're describing right now out a little bit further because you you wrote something a few months ago uh about our struggles with suffering, particularly innocent suffering that has really just stayed with me. Um, you're a very rational thinker, very logical thinker and a great explainer. That's why so many people love to read and follow Denison Forum. Um, but you also make a statement even in this most recent material about hope that we're releasing that even if you can get your mind around the various things that the Bible says about suffering and how God will work in and with and through suffering, that if you pile them all up together and you rationally, intellectually understand them, on their own, they may not be sufficient and strong enough to to give you hope that there is a spiritual supernatural element that happens in faith to make those things powerful enough to give you hope. I I don't know if I'm describing that well enough, but what I'm getting at is is you can't simply get to hope by understanding some intellectual biblical truths. Is that does that make sense?

Jim Denison: [00:52:20] I believe that's absolutely true. Yeah. All relationships require a commitment that transcends the evidence and becomes self-validating. You can decide before you're getting married, well, you examine the evidence, but at some point if you agree to get married, you're stepping into a relationship you couldn't prove before you experienced it. Same thing with with choosing a job or going to a school or really any kind of relational decision, we have to make a decision that transcends that evidence. Well, that's true of the rational evidence as well. We can marshal together all of the biblical arguments demonstrating God's goodness and his grace and his mercy, but we have to step beyond what our mind can understand to what our heart can experience. There comes that time where we have to say, okay, with all that I've heard and all of that, I still am going to trust personally that you are who you say you are. I'm going to trust personally that your love sustains and your grace is sufficient. And I'm going to step beyond what I know to what I believe. And it's in that stepping, it's into that stepping into the light as Kierkegaard said as opposed to the dark. It's in that leap of faith that we find ourselves in the hands of Jesus. To get in his hand, I have to get out of my hand, right? To put to make him the king, I have to get off my own throne. And so there comes this moment where I step beyond what I know to what I trust. That's true of all relationships. That's especially true of him. And when I'm looking for that intuitive comfort and that pragmatic work of his spirit, I have to step beyond the rational into the personal. That's a step a lot of us who are rationalists by nature don't make often enough and wonder why our arguments aren't sufficient for our hearts. We wonder why our our rational arguments relative to evil and suffering aren't solving the problem for people in their hurting in their hurting spirits. And it's because all of that's a means to an end. The end is a personal experience with a personal Lord, with a living Lord Jesus. One of the many things that makes Christianity so different from any other religion on earth is we worship a living Lord who lives in us. Buddhists don't believe that Buddha lives in them. Muslims don't believe that Muhammad lives in them. We believe that Jesus lives in us by his spirit and that we can have a personal relationship with him just as transforming as Paul had on the road to Damascus or John had on the island of Patmos, if we'll step beyond what we know to what we trust. And it's that step that changes the world and changes our hearts.

Mark Turman: [00:54:41] Yeah, and is is something we sometimes think that we can quantify or create into a formula and it just doesn't work that way. Um, that's that's not the way faith works. [00:54:53] Uh, Ryan, I wanted to pivot a little bit in this conversation uh to to something that the Bible says in this area that I think really is helpful to this conversation. Christians are sometimes um criticized by people who are not Christians as being um uh foolishly uh optimistic, we could say, Pollyannish, um in their uh in their approach and understanding to suffering, particularly innocent suffering. Um, I recently was spending a little bit of time in Romans 8. Romans 8:18 says this, Paul is writing about suffering. He says, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us. Uh, he says it here in Romans, he is inspired by the Holy Spirit, we believe to say it in a few other places. Is is he saying that part of what God is telling us right now is that we just need to toughen up for a while? Is is that that's at least one possible reading of those words. Um, tell me what you think, tell me where I might be getting it wrong here.

Ryan Denison: [00:56:04] Well, to be honest, there is an element of that, I think to the text where but it's not because we need to just be tougher. It's because we're looking, we're gauging the blessings to come as somehow lesser than the pain we're suffering right now, I think. And that's part of like there is it's not a Pollyannishness to it to say that heaven is going to be so amazing for all of eternity that by the time we get there, the suffering of the moment will seem fleeting because it will. But that doesn't diminish the suffering of the moment. In the moment, it's life can still be awful at times. And I I think as Christians, one of the things we really need to do, especially when we're trying to help others deal with their own pain is to not minimize that pain or act as if if they just had more faith, it wouldn't bother them as much because that's just none of us act like that in our own lives. And to the extent that we do, we are being Pollyannish to a to a degree that the Bible does not command. I mean, our the Bible doesn't say we have hope in God because this life will always be good. As my dad was saying earlier, it promises suffering. It's very honest about the fact that in this fallen world, we will experience horrible times and times that feel very difficult to get through. And it's in those moments when we need the hope of what's to come most. But it's it's a hope based on a relationship we can have right now. And I think that's the other that's the unique thing that Christianity offers is the idea that as we suffer, God is coming alongside of us. He doesn't abandon us in that suffering. He offers us a sense of a sense of hope, a sense of peace, the opportunity to find solace in him to get through the pain and through the suffering, um rather than simply be stuck in it. And I think that's one of the things that as Christians, we have to offer to the culture, but we're only going to be able to offer to the culture if we've accepted it for ourselves. And it's it's why I think part of the reason that God allows us to go through suffering is so that we can better understand that truth when we're trying to help others do the same. Because there is an extent to which like the worst thing you can say to someone that's going through a really hard time is I understand is like I know what you feel or I know what you're feeling. That is not helpful. Like when I had cancer, the idea of like I know that some people were able to when people would come up and try and relate that to something they've had before, even if it was equivalent or similar, it was not helpful. And I could tell they were trying to be helpful. I didn't I tried very hard not to be overly critical of that. But there is a degree to which like suffering every bit of suffering is personal and unique because we're unique. And so that's why we need God's help. That's why we need God's hope. And it's why especially we think about suffering on a broader scale, why we need to understand that our hope is based in the fact that we have God to help us in the moment. It's not a hope that's based in the idea that our circumstances can get better or that um if peace if world peace ever happened that that would solve everything. If the war in Ukraine ended, that would solve everything. If China decided to back off and not threaten Taiwan or not threaten geo or stop trying to hack our water systems and all that kind of stuff that our lives would get better because something else would just take its place in this fallen world. And it's why if we're going to find hope for the future, it has to come from our personal relationship with Jesus and it has to come from the knowledge that no matter what happens around the world, what happens in our lives is more important. And I think it was I'll finish up by saying this. I think it was Dave Ramsey that said something along the lines of what happens in the White House doesn't matter nearly as much as what happens in your house. And he was talking about finances, but I think the principle applies well beyond that as well. If our focus is tied up with all that's going on in the world around us to the point that it distracts us from what God's trying to do in our own lives and in the spheres where we do have influence, where we do have agency, where we can make a real difference in our own lives and the lives of others, then we're not going to be able to live out God's purpose to the degree that he's calling us to. And so that's why at the end of the day, it has to go back to a personal relationship with Jesus and with finding hope in the fact that no matter what we face, no matter how much suffering we face, God is there with us. And it didn't take him by surprise. He has a plan for it. He has a plan to redeem it. But if we want to be part of that redemption and experience it in our own lives, we have to be able to let go of that pain, to let go of that suffering. And not to the extent that we say that we just ignore it or become naive about it, but to the extent that we put it in the larger perspective of eternity and know that even if the present moment is really awful, um it doesn't compare with the joy of what's to come in Christ. And there is a sense of hope that we're meant to take from that that I think is relevant um to both our lives and to the mission and calling God has given us.

Jim Denison: [01:00:59] Yeah, really good insight. My next book, lump it and like it. Is that is that is that the idea here? You know? That that's that's what that's what the Bible wants us to do, right? Uh thank you, Ryan. I I I love the way in which you made it clear that there is a dimension of that by which we really are supposed to take heart and take courage and try harder to do better. But it's not because we can make this world less fallen than it is. At the end of the day, there there is that sense only God can do what only God can do.

Mark Turman: [01:01:35] Yeah, and we and we are we are a people who are future oriented. Um we don't we're not called to fear the future and we're not called to escape it. We are to move toward it confidently because of what God continues to promise us. Uh which which Jim leads me to the curve ball I want to throw at you this today. Okay, which is you've often said uh that one of the things we need to remember is that God is God and we're not and that there are certain things that we're not capable of understanding right now, but that God has promised we will understand later. I I love the way you put this. You you there is a reason why we don't teach calculus to kindergarteners. Even though I think my kindergartener can probably handle it. Most people their kindergartener people their kindergarten kids can't, right? So there's certain things. My grandkids are perfect as I recall, so yeah. Right. So here's here's the question. So the book of Job, I've just recently been trafficking through the book of Job, the biggest, longest story in the Bible about innocent suffering. Okay? And some would say, some scholars would say perhaps the oldest book in the Bible. I don't know if that's true or not, but some would hold that to be true. One of the oldest at least. One of the oldest. So, but here's the interesting thing. I don't know that I ever had this thought until recently, which is God pulls back the curtain in some ways and he kind of explains the story in the first chapter and then he tells you the story of Job's struggle or at least in the first part of the first chapter. Here's my question. Why didn't God just explain what was going on in the testing of Job, in the conversation that God has with Satan about Job? Why doesn't God just explain that to Job as a way of comforting him and strengthening him, giving him hope in the face of all that he was about to go through?

Jim Denison: [01:23:28] Yeah, that's a great question. I've not thought of it either. But why doesn't the Lord just come along and say, well, Job, here's what you don't know, dude. You know, we've been having this conversation up in heaven and Satan's been claiming that people that are really faithful to me aren't faithful if they if they face suffering and so I'm using you as my test case here. I'm using you to prove to Satan that that's not true and that somebody really can be faithful to me even in the midst of their sufferings. And so buck up here, lump it and like it, you know, uh because um I'm sorry you won the lottery here, but you get chosen to be the guy to prove Satan wrong and me right, you know? And that would I think you would think if he did that, Job would say, well, I'm sorry you chose me of all the people you could have chosen. You know, Mother Teresa says God doesn't give us more than we can handle. I just wish he didn't think so highly of me, you know? And so Job would probably say that, you know, well, God, thanks a lot for the compliment, you know, but at least he'd have a framework here as opposed to why me with no answer when there really is a larger answer behind the scenes, you know, that he's just not made aware of here, right? I think it's a great question. I off the cuff, I would think of two responses. The first is, had he done that, Job's Job's response would have been less authentic than it was. God would have been gaming the game relative to Satan. If I was Satan, I'd come along if God did that and say, well, you just messed up the whole experiment here because you gave him an understanding of why he's suffering that no one else gets. Unless you're going to give that same understanding to every human being when they suffer, if there's this larger cosmic thing going on behind the scenes and encourage them in that way, this isn't a fair test of one of your faithful people trusting you even though they don't understand because you just explained it to them. I'm I'm alleging that people won't continue to trust you if they don't understand you. Well, you just gave away the plot. You just did the spoiler alert here. And so it's no longer a fair test. And so that would be one thought I would have would be if God had done that, then the test isn't the same test. But then there's another way of looking at this too. I have read every year, I read the Bible through every year, so I read Job every year and there's some years I read Job with a great deal more empathy than other years depending on probably what's going on in my life. But there really is a current of scholarship out there that doesn't see Job in the same kind of positive light that the rest of us tend to do so. They come along to say, look, Job isn't as innocent in this stuff as we say he is. He is not this exemplar of of faithfulness in suffering that uh maybe we would like to make him out to be so we can hold him up as as an example that we can emulate. He is willing to ask really unfair questions of God, hard questions of God that God doesn't answer at the end. That God ultimately says, Job, you don't have a right to ask me that. I'm God and you're not. Rather than sit down with you and explore all your questions and give you the logical answers you're looking for, where were you when I created the world? Where were you when I spoke the universe into being? What right do you have to question my authority, to question my sovereignty? Seems to be how God's relating to Job. And so Job's reaction to his suffering is a little more prideful than I perhaps would want to consider it to be. is a is a little more um God's in the dock as C.S. Lewis would say, is a little more judgmental toward God than than would be ideal in our response to the Lord. And so maybe it's not so much that Job is this purely innocent sufferer that should have been given the larger story because it would have helped him out, but maybe he's not as innocent as all that. Maybe the maybe the righteous indignation he has toward God is itself its own form of if not sin, at least not the best the best response. Maybe the best response is to say, God, I don't understand why this is happening, but I'm not going to assume that there therefore isn't an answer. I'm not going to assume that therefore the answer is a bad answer. I'm going to assume that the reason I don't understand is only because you're God and I'm not. And you're teaching calculus and I'm a kindergartener. And I'm going to not assume that if I don't understand, it's because you're holding out on me and you ought to tell me but you won't or there's something defective with your character that's being revealed here. And that's really not Job's response. Job's response is more to defend himself with his friends who keep accusing him of the sins for which he's now paying a price, which he has every right to push back toward that, I think. But his his defense of his purity, I think kind of inflames his ego to a place where God has to kind of set him down at the end of the book and not answer his questions, but put him in his place. I don't want to be at that place. I don't want God ever to have to say to me, where were you when I created the world? But I'm afraid I sometimes do that. I'm afraid I sometimes respond just like Job did and say, God, I want credit here for not sinning in response to my suffering, but I also want to know why you allowed this because I think you're not being the God that I would be if I was you. And in that position, I got to remember what Louie Giglio said all those years ago. He's the great I am and I'm the little I am not. Remembering that is a remedy that I need to keep in mind pretty regularly.

Ryan Denison: [01:08:34] One thing I might just add to that too is like I I love that in our Bibles it kind of pairs Job and Job and Psalms because I think when you go from Job into Psalms, you see examples of how to have that conversation better at times where David will vent in some of the same ways Job does, but by the end of it, David gets to the point of saying, but you're God and I'm going to trust you. And because I do think one of the keys to suffering well and suffering biblically is the understanding that it's okay to be angry. It's all right. We don't have to hide that. We don't have to just tough through it or be afraid of taking that anger to God. But we're never going to be able to fully understand or accept God's answer to that anger until we've moved past it. And so venting is a necessary step in that process. God says vent away. And we see examples of that in Psalms. But what we also see is that if we want to get to the point where anger is not the thing we're holding on to and we can instead accept God's love and joy and peace and hope instead, then the venting has to be a step towards a larger a larger statement. It can't be the end itself. And that's what's really hard when we don't get the answers, when God's answer is, okay, to some extent, you're not God and so you can't understand all the implications of this. You can't understand why this is happening. If we can't get to the point that we can accept that, then it really does put a low ceiling on how much of God's redemption we can experience on the other side of it.

Jim Denison: [01:09:43] That's a great point. I hadn't thought of it quite that way, but in so many of the imprecatory Psalms, after David vents, he then at the end comes back to say, but I trust you. I love you. Job at the end has to say, I repent in dust and ashes because God has finally had to put him in his place. David puts himself in his place in a way Job doesn't. And so I think you're right. That's why in canonic criticism, it's so good that you see Psalms just after Job is almost the antidote as you had a better way to suffer. How to suffer biblically might be the subtitle to my book, Lump it and like it, question mark. How to suffer biblically. I think I'm writing a book right now as we're having this conversation. Well, we'll alert the publishers now, Jim. We'll alert the publishers now. But but you know, it's such a good call out, right? That God is so merciful. He does give us an amazing amount of room to vent our anger, which is often times a face for our fear because we don't know where this suffering is ultimately going and and we have promises from God about heaven, but they won't self-validate until we're there. Okay? And so we are anxious and fearful about how this actually plays out in its final detail, but God gives us a lot of room um to to express that anger and that fear and hopefully we'll learn consistently to get to that place of, you know, hey God, I'm going to trust you. Reminds me of what one spiritual leader said. He said, look, God is always doing at least 10,000 things in your life and you might be aware of three of them because because he's God and you're not. And we need to move back to that place of humility over and over again. All right, so we're going… just quickly, the sinless son of God and a man after God's own heart were the two people in scripture who said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? If David could write that in Psalm 22 and Jesus could quote that from the cross, we can ask that question. As long as we eventually say what Jesus says, Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.

Mark Turman: [01:12:04] Yeah, so good. So good. All right, well, we have gone longer than we usually go and so we're going to let we're going to let our audience uh pick up on the rest of what we are offering to them in this series called Certain Hope that they can find on our website, denisonforum.org. You'll already find two parts of this eight-part series. Uh remember, click on the hope tab at denisonforum.org and you can follow this conversation as we talk about not only the things that hinder, uh threaten our hope, uh but more importantly, those things that God has provided to strengthen, build and grow our hope so that we can flourish. It's essential to having that abundant and flourishing life that Jesus promised. And it is forward-looking, forward-facing and something that God wants to improve and grow and develop in our lives. We want you to follow along, denisonforum.org, get on the hope tab and you can follow this conversation all through the month of September. There'll be two new articles every week from now to the first few days of October. We hope that you'll follow along. We'll remind you through the daily article and through other uh opportunities that we have, but we hope that you'll join us for this conversation through the month of September as we look in hope to all that God has promised. I want to thank you for joining us, guys, for being a part of the conversation. So many good insights. I want to thank our audience for tuning in. If this has been helpful, please rate, review us and share this. And uh if it is also helpful and you'd like to see more resources like this, we would encourage you to consider donating to our ministry so that we can provide resources that are biblical, relevant, digital, and free to anybody that is looking for the hope that comes to us in Christ. We'll see you next time on Faith and Clarity.