"Why Can't There Be More Than One Way to God?"

[00:00:05] Hey and welcome to Basecamp. This is a podcast of all things, all people. And the whole point of Basecamp is for you and I to be able to come back together to brief and debrief from our explorations into the darkest places in world views, looking to share

[00:00:22] the gospel with anybody and everybody we might find there and in and around those places. And this week's episode is addressing the question that I get all the time, which is why cant there be more than one way to God. And I have received this question in

[00:00:42] many iterations and a lot of different places. Like back when I was a student pastor, I get this question in my university course that I teach. I get this question on Instagram all the time. But today we're actually going to listen in to a meeting from the Clemson

[00:01:01] Branch of Campus Outreach which is a ministry that I am very proud to speak to usually once a semester. I live in Western North Carolina. I'm a big tar heel fan, University North Carolina Chapel Hill but one of my favorite places to go every semester is down

[00:01:19] to the campus of Clemson University, specifically to talk to Campus Outreach which is a ministry down there led by my good friend, Lane and Tucker. And so we are going to listen into this message which I gave in September of this year 2023 and it's actually

[00:01:41] an opportunity that I took to address a question that I had gotten the previous time I was there which was in fact why cant there be more than one way to God. And so we're

[00:01:54] going to dig into that and I really enjoy speaking on college campuses and I really enjoy speaking to college students because I feel as if what you experience when you're talking to a college student, especially an undergraduate is that really for better for worse.

[00:02:12] This is the first time in their life where they feel as if they have all of the faculties and necessary information to make the biggest decisions that they're going to make. And so I think

[00:02:20] it's really important for them to hear the truth as clearly and deliberately as possible. So that's why I actually pretty much any time I ever speak on a college campus I do so

[00:02:31] for free. And so if you happen to be a campus leader, especially here in the southeast, I'd love to come speak at your campus ministry and would do so whatever way possible to

[00:02:42] not be a burden financially on you. Of course if I have to travel much more outside of the southeast than in all likelihood we could find a way to make that happen but the point really is that

[00:02:53] instead of just talking about how bad things are on our campuses and things about how woke they are obviously we know that that's largely true but what good is talking about it

[00:03:05] going to do? I think we should be about the gospel and taking it to those places and so that's what this episode hopefully exemplifies. And so before we get to that I want to invite you to two things.

[00:03:17] One is to sign up for the Exploration Society Journal. This is ATAP's email magazine essentially that goes out every two weeks and features articles from myself and other ATAP writers and features on podcast episodes, exclusive content, access to merch and financial partnership

[00:03:36] with all things all people. And so follow the link in the description in these show notes for this episode to sign up for that and make sure that you get the next iteration of the journal

[00:03:46] and then also with that. This month October 29th, 2023 in Forest City, North Carolina we are having our ATAP Exploration Society Fall Lecture. We are going to be doing one lecture in Fall and one lecture in spring bringing people into Forest City, North Carolina specifically.

[00:04:07] This one will be a Hope House Coffee which is actually a coffee shop connected to the same building where ATAP has our offices and we are going to be hosting Dr. Joel Mootemali. Joel is a friend

[00:04:20] of mine and he's been on this show. He and I interact quite a bit on social media and he is the director of theology and research for Proverbs 31 Ministry, ministries in Charlotte, North Carolina

[00:04:34] but really even more than that he's a brilliant scholar, writer, off speaker and he is going to be talking about the spiritual realm and cosmic geography. He was a disciple of the late Dr. Michael

[00:04:46] Heiser and really is doing a lot to carry on the legacy of Dr. Heiser which is opening the eyes of so many Christians to the reality of the unseen, the spiritual realm and what makes it

[00:04:59] up and how does that affect us. I'd love to invite you if you're in the Western North Carolina region, the Upstate of South Carolina or even if you just want to travel into our little small town

[00:05:10] here, Joel and then be a part of Q&A conversation that he and I are going to have after that presentation. So go ahead and get your ticket in the link in the show notes below. But the point

[00:05:25] of today's episode is addressing the question that I think is probably on our minds more than we care to admit and that's okay because we're going to address it today, the best that I can at least

[00:05:35] and that is why can't there be more in one way to God? And so let's head to Clemson CEO. Let's do it. Tonight as Landon said and as I've reiterated I've been here quite a few times and so it's hard

[00:06:01] for me to figure out like what did I say last time I was at Clemson? And I feel like I'm a broken record, I say a lot of the same things and I know that I haven't said this to you yet because the

[00:06:11] Genesis of tonight's talk actually popped into my mind the last time I was here. One of you likely it might even be one of you asked the question during our Q&A, hey why can't there be more than

[00:06:22] one way to God? And that's a really good question. The way that I know it's a good question is because I've had to think deeply about it over a long period of time to really develop what I

[00:06:31] think is a sound answer and even more than that, people who are smarter than me have been talking about it for thousands and thousands of years because just because many if not most of us are

[00:06:43] Christians it's arrogant to say that hey everyone agrees with us. It's arrogant it's foolish even to say hey everyone thinks that there's one way to God and so what I wanted to share with you

[00:06:55] tonight somewhat quickly because I want to leave time for our Q&A at the end is that part of my answer to that is this God is not a destination God is not a destination and looking out just looking at you

[00:07:11] and then like turning the mirror on myself I see a lot of youth group kids I see a lot of young life kids I see a generation of Christians you and I both that have never been told this

[00:07:28] right we grew up in a culture that was extremely Christian but was also extremely pluralistic and very friendly to other worldviews and would make room for other people at the table which is certainly

[00:07:38] an admirable thing but what's happened is that when we get to questions like hey why can't there be more than one way to God is that we leave so much room that we leave room for more than one path

[00:07:51] we leave room for more than one answer and God is not a destination and what I want you to walk away tonight with is this we can't work our way to him we don't get to pick which way we go

[00:08:06] he isn't a place to arrive at or a mountain to climb and I'm gonna leave those up there so if you're taking notes please write that down because we can't work our way to him we don't get to pick which way we go

[00:08:19] and he isn't a place to arrive at or a mountain to climb what do I mean by that well we can't work our way to him John chapter three verse 19 and a very famous chapter just before this is the very

[00:08:30] famous for God's soul of the world but right after it a less quoted passage says this and this is the judgment the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light

[00:08:45] because their works were evil as a pastor as a professor as a student pastor for a long time and just honestly like as a human who's equal to you I stumble upon the belief over and over and

[00:09:01] over again that we can somehow be good enough and if there's a hundred people in this room there are a hundred people who at various times in in various ways have all believed whether out loud or in the quite

[00:09:16] our own hearts and minds that we're good enough to get to God but the belief that we can somehow be good enough or work our way to God is what I call the most ancient lie ever told it goes all the way back to the

[00:09:30] garden when Adam and Eve were in the garden in the serpent came to Eve and said has God really said to not eat of any tree in the garden and Eve said no he just said not to eat of this one tree

[00:09:44] the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the serpent said no listen God doesn't want you to do that because then you will be like him and so when we participate in the lie that we can be good enough

[00:09:59] that somehow part of the reason why we might even buy into the belief that there's more than one way to God is we believe that we can ascend to him on our own power through our own morality

[00:10:13] through our own intellect and that's the most ancient lie ever told going all the way back to the very beginning and honestly as I look at it as at a crowd of what I imagine is mostly

[00:10:22] undergraduate students some of your parents left you here three weeks ago and you're still getting used to being on your own and so you are beginning to feel heavy burdens the burden of independence that you desperately wanted all those years in high school and you're like

[00:10:40] wow choosing what to do all the time actually kind of tires me out sometimes like my mom was right you're going to experience that one a lot more by the way as the years goes on my mom and dad were right

[00:10:51] when they told me that's not good for me you want to have the heaviest burden is to bear it's the one that says I can be good enough to become like God if the us the us that we think could

[00:11:05] somehow be good enough is often the us that we portray to the rest of the world let's be honest when you think hey I can be good enough I can be moral enough to go to God are you talking

[00:11:19] about the real you or the you that everyone else sees the one that you curate the one that you select the behind the scenes to show to everybody else but in the quiet of your mind in the depths

[00:11:33] of your heart in the loneliness of your insecurities I think each and every one of us realize there's something missing there's something broken an independent from the grace of God I really struggle

[00:11:51] human history proves this for us since can and able there hasn't been a time where humanity has exemplified much holiness at all and so if it if it were our works that saved us it would suffice

[00:12:04] to say that works done in any name would be sufficient if it was you that got you to the top of the mountain then it wouldn't matter what path you take and there might actually be different ways

[00:12:15] to get to God but that's not the case it doesn't matter which path you take it doesn't matter which religious philosophy you're interested in this week if we're all being honest with ourselves

[00:12:28] if we evaluate humanity on your best day we're still not there so with our works insufficient we must then ask so which name is it then that we must be saved which path is it then if you're saying

[00:12:44] that it can't be all of them which one is it well then we get to the unfortunate thing for some of us which is this we don't get to pick which way to go and man for an individualistic society

[00:12:56] like the Western world and for college students no less right like I just said some of you are getting your first dose of real God honest independence it's so for someone to say you don't

[00:13:10] get to do whatever you want can be somewhat hurtful and some of you might even just the mere notion that someone like me is telling someone like you hey you don't get to choose everything you

[00:13:21] don't get to you don't get to pick your own truth some of you might not like that just inherently you might even agree in principle with some of the things I'm saying but the mere fact that someone's

[00:13:31] drawing the line in the same you might say I don't like that well you're not alone a lot of people don't like that actually a bunch of my friends and I Josh who's sitting in the back we were in South

[00:13:43] Asia recently we were in India and in New Delhi India there's this huge beautiful temple called the Lotus Temple and it belongs to the Bahaifa and the Bahaifa is a universalistic faith they

[00:13:58] believe that pretty much every religion that's ever existed all came from God in that it's man who corrupted them and so they believe that people like Muhammad and Jesus are all prophets in the same

[00:14:13] line all coming from God so we went to this this beautiful building and when we walked out there was this library it's a small little informational stand and I'm just attracted to those types of things

[00:14:26] because I go oh there's somebody there who has to talk to me about religion and so I go in there and I'm talking to the guy who runs it and he's super nice and I ask him hey what do you do

[00:14:39] since you believe that all religions are kind of going down the same path ultimately or they're leading to the same place what do you do when you see them contradict and he looked at me

[00:14:50] if you're familiar with Indian cultured all it's very nice very hospitable he smiled kind of shook his head and he said no it's fun and so I assume that the language barrier was the problem

[00:15:02] so I said no no hold up understand like what about in Islam where it says God is one and only one and in Christianity where we say God is triune those two things can't be true at the

[00:15:16] same time and he smiled again and shook his head and he said no it's fun it's said we only think they contradict they don't so I kind of gave him my best Indian head nod walked away and my

[00:15:31] friends and I looked at each other and we said when you make room for all truth you end up with none at all when you make room for circles and squares through the same thing you ultimately just end up

[00:15:45] saying nothing at all and this is what I think I think that a guy like Coral Marks when he says that religion is the opiate of the people I disagree I think universalism is the opiate of the

[00:15:58] people and I think that your generation is being immersed more than ever in the idea that the most peaceful thing we can do is agree so no wonder though have you thought about the

[00:16:14] fact there's around eight billion people on planet earth and if every single one of us is a Christian which I don't assume that that's the case but let's for just for the exercise say that we are

[00:16:24] six billion people on the planet disagree with us about everything that can be a little unsettling and in our Christian clubs like CO in our churches in our exclusive friend groups and clicks

[00:16:40] it's really really easy to be bold about our faith but when we venture out of the protection of these coasters when we find that allowing for forms of inclusivism and universalism is much more

[00:16:55] comfortable and can even seem to be the most loving thing yet if I truly believe what I say if you truly believe what you say you believe how loving is it to pretend as if all of the

[00:17:10] contradicting claims found in other faiths are just as true let's let's say this humbly we don't want to be so bold as if we we have nothing to overcome in communicating with people who

[00:17:23] disagree with us let's say this maybe I'm wrong about Jesus and the gospel but I don't think I am in my humility to say that I could be wrong shouldn't lead me or anyone else to a devaluation of truth

[00:17:40] in saying that because I could be wrong then we're all right then there's no point in disagreeing instead we should humbly walk together in our disagreements and finding out which of us is

[00:17:56] actually right this actually is the most loving thing you can do very difficult not because you need education or anything else but because it's awkward it's hard sometimes it can lead to division

[00:18:15] what we need to know what I want to encourage you with for these last few minutes before we get to our Q&A is possibly the most important thing what we are inviting our friends to what we might even be

[00:18:27] causing arguments and disagreements over is not just your philosophy it's not just your individual set of beliefs it's not your preferred truth it's the most beautiful thing it's the most important thing

[00:18:43] it's the most true thing humanity has ever encountered and that's the gospel and good news of Jesus Christ and so the last thing I want you to take away tonight is this he isn't a place to arrive at or

[00:18:55] a mountain to climb he is a person to know we have allowed over time the Christian theological view of God to be a mountain that can be ascended can be a destination to arrive at

[00:19:12] to be something to be accomplished like a merit badge when you were a kid in Boy Scouts hey I earned this I did enough I picked the right path and I made my way up a mountain but that is not who God is at all

[00:19:25] John 14 versus 6 and 7 Jesus said to him Thomas said I am the way the truth in the life no one comes to the Father except through me very famous verse you've probably heard it but for some reason we don't include verse 7 enough says if you had known me

[00:19:44] you would have known my father also from now on you do know him and have seen him he didn't say if you had known about me if you had known enough of me he said if you had known me

[00:20:00] in Christ we have actually met God the author of life and the creator of the Cosmos a God who is high in above all creation yet is lovingly near creation we have met the God who actually took on

[00:20:18] flesh to redeem humanity so how do we know God if he's not a destination to arrive if he's not something to plug into a GPS and just follow the steps that are laid out neatly in front of you

[00:20:30] then how do we know him will we know him the way he has revealed himself in the way that I put this is this how do you know anybody how do you know anybody that you know well you spend time with them

[00:20:44] you ask questions to learn about them you think about like the first dates that you've been on think about this the silly trivial questions that you ask right and then with each day and for the

[00:20:54] married couples in the room now it's like you you know everything about one another well when we come to know God we are not coming to somebody who we can learn everything about we are in a forever

[00:21:10] relationship with somebody who we can continue to explore and we don't get to make up attributes about him in the same way that I can't make up attributes about you I can't say that because I like

[00:21:23] this thing about God that makes me feel better that I can place that attribute upon him we have to be subject to what he has revealed to us about himself in the same way that after this evening you can't

[00:21:38] go to your dorm and say yeah the guy who talked at CL last night was six foot seven I'm not six foot seven right he was fluent in Spanish spoke Spanish pretty much the entire evening I don't know any

[00:21:52] Spanish unfortunately right you can't say those things about me they're not true about me and if you talk to one of my buddies back there and said yeah I talked to your boy last night

[00:22:02] six foot seven fluent Spanish speaker what they would probably say is I don't think you talk to the same Jeremy and in the world that we live in today especially the Western world where we're so afraid

[00:22:13] of arguing in division because we think that is the height of evil what we've allowed happen is for the name God to be applied and attributed to all sorts of different things and because we use

[00:22:27] the same word we think we're talking about the same person so this is where the apologetic gets to be more livable and invitational to those around you who might be Christ curious this is my

[00:22:39] invitation to you think for a moment about the married couple who has the relationship you most admire and I know for for some of you you might not have been on campus very long so you don't you might not

[00:22:53] know very many here you might not know many of your staff members here at CL so think about somebody at home maybe it's your parents maybe it's one of your pastors or youth pastor maybe it's a friend

[00:23:03] think about that relationship that when you look at this husband and wife you say man that's that's my goals for me in my future spouse right who's relationship do you admire you have the opportunity

[00:23:17] to live in relationship with God in a way that just by doing what God has invited you to do you can be that for someone else around you you don't have to stand up in front of CL on a Wednesday

[00:23:34] night you don't have to go to the mission field all you have to do is what God has invited you to do to know him and to be known by him you don't need to be educated eloquent outspoken or anything else

[00:23:47] you simply need to start by living out your relationship with God so he may say this this is one of if not the most unique aspect of Christian life there's so many things that I could say that about

[00:24:01] but potentially the biggest one when you compare it to other faith is it's the idea that as you walk around this campus you are doing so as someone who is in harmony and relationship with the creator of

[00:24:16] all things who knit you together before you were born not many of those six billion people can say that they believe that about the one who created all things that they are known by that God and they know

[00:24:31] him in return God is not a destination to be worked towards or picked he is a person to know a king to serve a God to worship and strangely a friend to be had a father to love

[00:24:46] and you my friends this first semester for some of your college journey some of you sophomore juniors and seniors you're beginning to look at the rest of your life and wonder what has got to have for me my invitation to utilize this do you know who you are

[00:25:02] you are a sojourner walking a path hoping it is the right one because they do not all lead to the same place you are a servant serving a Lord and Master even if it might only be yourself

[00:25:16] you are a worshipper everyone worships you are a worshipper who gives your reverence and admiration to something perhaps it's money perhaps it's success or even a God who desires nothing more

[00:25:30] then your your waywardness and destruction you are each and every one of you a child looking for a father to love and to be loved by and God stands on the one true path that he has set out for us

[00:25:44] and he stands with open arms ready to receive you and he desires to know you and to be known by you so there's two groups in this room it doesn't matter if you're a freshman a senior staff or me and the guys who came here

[00:25:59] there's two groups in this room some of you don't know God but you can inscriptors tells us in a number of different ways that we are to repent

[00:26:11] which just means to change our mind and orient ourselves towards God and believe in our hearts that Christ is Lord and that God raised him from the dead and to follow him to give him your life which doesn't mean anything

[00:26:26] super spiritual just means to follow him to orient your life in the direction in which he's going so some of you don't know God but some of you do and I've had the privilege and I have coming here

[00:26:36] like four or five times and so I know the faces of the ones who every time I come here it seems like you're more mature you're walking with God even more intimately some of you are following Christ

[00:26:47] in my encouragement is this begin to live a life of inviting others to know him as well despite the awkwardness intention this is actually the most loving thing that you could possibly do

[00:27:04] because God is not a destination he's a person to be known and he desires not just to know everybody but he desires that which he deserves which is to be worshipped by everybody and if there's eight billion people on planet earth and let's be generous let's just pretend

[00:27:22] as of all two billion people who say that their Christ followers are actually following Christ well then what tells us is this is that there's six billion people whose worship God is not

[00:27:32] getting and he deserves it and so all it would take all it would take to turn Clemson upside down is for the hundred people in this room to live a life that in some former fashion maybe it

[00:27:52] looks like it does for me it's a lot of talking sometimes it's difficult conversations but maybe that's not you at all maybe you're somebody who has a quiet way about you somebody who has an

[00:28:04] easier time worshiping and serving it doesn't all have to look the same in fact it's amazing that it won't look the same but if all 100 people in this room or if all the people who say yes

[00:28:17] I I boldly would say I'm a Christ follower if we all left here tonight and those of you who are going to be on campus tomorrow woke up and said Lord I want to live my life for you as if I really

[00:28:29] believe what I say I believe tomorrow someone would see something in you that would cause them to be Christ curious and who cares if they come to see you they don't need to come here they

[00:28:43] know you and so the God that you're inviting them is not a destination it's not a longitudinal latitude point it's not a mountain to ascend it's not a path to pick God's a person to know

[00:28:58] I want to pray for you and then we'll we'll go into our our Q&A time Lord we were so blown away by you and as I look at it this faces I see some who are Christ

[00:29:13] curious some who are questioning some who there might be a barrier to believe what I pray that you by the power of your Holy Spirit would give the grace to work through those things

[00:29:27] and Lord for each and every one of us Lord to interact with you tonight in a way that would bring us closer to you and I pray that for myself for for for the staff on down to the newest

[00:29:39] student in this room so we'll re-give you this evening we give you everything we have to give when we do it in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Thank you for listening to this

[00:29:58] episode of Basecamp if you want more help engaging the least reached people and the darkest places with the gospel I want to invite you to join the all things all people engage network by joining the engage network you will receive training in worldview and world religions leadership,

[00:30:16] discipleship, evangelism and apologetics you'll also receive demographic analysis and outreach strategy that will help you to accurately target your city with the gospel and access to all of a taps educational materials if you want to learn more just go to all thingsallpeople.org

[00:30:35] and click on Engage Network. Thanks for listening I hope you love the show.