Skip to content

Jay Smith and David Wood on religious confrontation vs. dialogue

We mustn’t offend people in other religions, right? That’s a standard of behavior many present-day Americans, Europeans, Indians, and others accept. And it’s a standard assumed as obvious in many academic contexts.

But is it consistent with Christian values? The two bold apologists in the video below argue that it is not, citing New Testament precedents.

We could also ask whether this no-offense standard is consistent with classically “liberal” political values? Another question: is that standard consistent with traditional Islamic values?

I’d have to answer: no, no, and no – the no-offense demand violates all three of the aforementioned sets of values.

  • Smith and White are correct about the New Testament precedents for offending with Christian preaching. Truth and the spread of the gospel have traditionally been valued over people’s feelings.
  • Traditional Islamic law forbids anything that might defame the Prophet or Islam, but has no problem with offending others, e.g. by outlawing idolatry and idols, or calling out people in other religions for the sin of shirk.
  • Traditional “liberal” political value of free speech, as enshrined in American law, doesn’t forbid merely offensive speech, even speech which offends a whole religion of people, or nearly so.

Obscenity is one thing, but mere offense is another (i.e. what in India they call “hurting the religious feelings of a community”). All three traditions restrict obscenity to some degree.

It’s an interesting question why so many people think the no-offense standard to be obviously correct, a indisputable sine qua non of any diverse, tolerant society. And among them, many professed Christians, Muslims, and supporters of free speech.

Another interesting question is how so many of these people loudly denounce offenses against some (e.g. Islam, Buddhism) while gladly participating in offending others (e.g. Roman Catholics, Hindus, Evangelicals). It’s not just that offending no one is difficult… though it is, if you’re going to discuss religions at all.

I’m a big supporter of inter-religious dialogue. (What other alternative is there?) But I don’t see how it can really proceed on a deep, honest level while a no-offense rule is assumed, and I also don’t see how it could replace the traditions of religious preaching, apologetics (positive and negative), and arguments in the philosophy of religion or religious studies.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

5 thoughts on “Jay Smith and David Wood on religious confrontation vs. dialogue”

  1. @ Dale “Yeah, obviously people should be honest.” Don’t you think you can find biblical justification for lying, if you want to?

  2. Dale,

    Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong: I do indeed think that some of the ahadith are indeed very ridiculous, and I realize that even the context of most of the qur’an relies mainly on them. The qur’an, from what I’ve looked through, looks like a narration with no context nor premise set, but like a peek into the sayings of someone without an explanation – not that I’ve looked at it too much, mind you…

    What I meant is just to say that there was a real reason for Jesus to be angry with them, and I guess I am trying to contrast that with the misunderstood antics of some preachers, who think it’s “holy” to just yell for the fun of it while preaching a sermon. You know, like they have that “fire”, wink wink.

    When Jesus was in the temple, however, I don’t think that He calmly and yet angrily began to turn over tables, but I think that he zealously was infuriated and wanted to get them out of there as soon as possible, for instance. Obviously, this is because they were doing a grievous sin. So as far as anger and offense, I see it here, as other places, being that sin specifically is the reason that Jesus or others in the Bible would be offensive or forceful/violent in their approach. As far as being upstarts against potential converts, I am just saying that of course they weren’t trying to do that as far as can be recorded, but that the hypocrites were always treated with a more severe judgement. For instance, Jesus told the disciples to dust off their feet against unbelievers, and Paul called the high priest a whitewashed tomb; yet for those outside the church, Paul says not to judge, since God will be their judge.

    Part of the post had to do with the main message being that Jesus is God. Now I think we are both certain that this wasn’t the focus of the Gospel back in the days of the apostles, so one is often left wondering in such a circumstance what the Jews and others could possibly be angry about, considering the Gospel. If it’s as John writes in his epistle(s), then it’s probably primarily due to the types of things they would get mad that Jesus would point out about them: that they are arrogantly wicked individuals who only care about themselves. Now, how do we put such a thing into context when speaking with people who have never heard of God? I don’t think that we can, considering the hypocrites are those who claim to love God, but refuse to do what He says.

    I guess what I am trying to say is that those things which offended others that the Apostles and prophets at the beginning of the Christian faith, I don’t think were little jabs given to people just to anger them, but that they were a result of their hearts being pricked or their worldviews being challenged. With the Jewish religious leaders, I see two main things:
    1) jealousy of His rejection of them while he was continually proved to be approved of God, with the realization that they sinned
    2) fear of being destroyed by the Romans for a “non-Christ” (considering that they were antichrists) upstart causing an unfruitful revolt, while they were waiting for a warrior powerful enough to destroy the Romans. If those who went to arrest Jesus fell backwards when He told them that He was the one they were seeking and even had to reassure them that He was, certainly the Jewish religious leaders must have had a lack of faith, especially considering all of the jeers of them while He was crucified, and even of the co-crucified with him there. After all, isn’t that Paul’s point when he says that the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing, but that for us it is the wisdom of God?

    I mean, consider what got Paul thrown into jail during one of his adventures: in Acts 19, he was persuading people away from idols so that the idol-makers were upset that they would lose their livelihood over it! He didn’t even have to offend them with doctrine in this instance, but rather just the thought of them losing money was enough to drive them to try to get him imprisoned or murdered.

    One of my main points is that the method we go about offending people ought to be understood. The idea is often presented that, “who could be offended by anything else other than that they taught that Jesus was God? What else could POSSIBLY have upstarted the faithful, monotheistic Jews so much?” It then goes on to follow in that regard that certainly, that must somehow be the center of our preaching, and that, since the apostles offended people, we must STRIVE to offend people with the doctrine. You know, rather than it being an effect, I hope that people don’t try to offend people just for the sake of being “righteous” to the same effect that some yell when preaching just for the sake of appearing to be righteous.

    You know what I mean?

    Not so much against Jay himself, and especially not David Wood in the years I’ve watched him; yet, I am just trying to be a reminder and a clarification for those who might set out just to offend people, trying to imitate the apostles and the effectual preachers.

    In love,
    -Jon

  3. “because Jesus was angry that they were sinning”

    Do you think that Jesus flew off the handle, lost control? Or that he acted only with anger, and not out of it? Because if he wasn’t out of control, then he meant to be confrontational, and not polite like we are nowadays.

    “attributing things to Muhammad that aren’t true based on known errors in translations, etc. just for the purpose of discrediting Muhammad”

    Yeah, obviously people should be honest.

    This is huge gray area in Islam, and uniquely so. They have volumes of ahadith – oral reports about the life of Muhammad, which vary greatly in plausibility. The official collections were done I think mostly in the 800s, while Muhammad died in 632. And the different wings of Islam acknowledge different collections of these reports. So it’s very easy to get accused of being unfair, when quoting these sources. But they must, in general, be fair game. Islamic law is based more on them than it is on the Qur’an. They are a goldmine of material for negative apologetics. See Mr. Wood’s many youtube videos for this.

  4. I think that the examples that Jay Smith gives are without understanding. Each of the examples that he gives (Jesus throwing tables, Jesus calling them sons of dragons) are all because Jesus was angry that they were sinning. Jay Smith seems to feel that this is a sign that Jesus was preaching to offend people particularly, and that the Gospel (in certain ways that people think of it) is offensive, but does not seem to be distinguishing between what is offensive to someone about the Gospel and what should not be. Jesus did not have to pick fights with people to be offensive, but of course to point out that if people don’t stop sinning, then God will destroy them. Because they thought highly of themselves, the authorities were offended and wanted to kill Him not only because of that, but also because He said He was God’s beloved Son, which they found all the more offensive since He was saying that the judges of Israel there were sinning.

    As far as the offense that was used, it was an “offense” of faith – that is, pushing forward with a message. We don’t have records of Peter starting fights, nor of Paul starting fights, but that people were angry because Jesus was being called the Messiah. I guess that is irrelevant to us, some of what he says, because he says that he won’t preach unless he preaches the Gospel which, to him, is essentially that Jesus is God.

    Because of the arguments between Christians and Muslims about Jesus being God, they forget about Jesus being God’s Son, the Messiah. It’s like the fact that Jesus being Messiah means that everyone in the world must serve Him (since this Messiah was promised the nations) or else suffer death, is being forgotten in favor of worrying about whether or not Jesus is “God”.

    If Muslims don’t believe God because they don’t believe what He said as written in the Bible, then how can you prove both the Christ and what He is given (His authority) to such a person? You can’t… Is it your job to somehow prove it apart from the Bible? No, because “if you knew My Father, then you would know me”.

    How about using “Jesus is God” for the main focus? Yeah, well you’re going to make two types of converts:
    1) Those that pretend holes in that idea don’t exist
    2) Those that have doubts about their newly found “faith”, who, if they do come to terms with doubting it, might actually fall INTO Islam or atheism or non-Christian Judaism.

    I agree that it’s good to refute Muhammad, but If you also do it in the wrong ways, it’ll make peoples’ unbelief even more reinforced if they catch it. For instance, attributing things to Muhammad that aren’t true based on known errors in translations, etc. just for the purpose of discrediting Muhammad (even if he is discreditable based on other things). As such, we would of course want people to have an unbreakable foundation in Christ, and not one that could cause them to doubt in the solidity of it inasmuch as they feel that they want the Muslims to have their foundations cracked; unless it’s just a game of “as many converts as you can get”.

  5. It’s an interesting question why so many people think the no-offense standard to be obviously correct …

    It’s obviously the prevalence of the politically correct, Dave … 🙂

Comments are closed.