Well, I, I would say something that could almost sound heretical -
I would say that I think there is truth in every religion.
It doesn't mean that the religion is true, but the point is that
the Bible says that everything that is good,
everything is of God, right?
So if somebody is ideologically totally
crazy, but there's one thing they say that's true,
then I can say yeah, that's, that's true. I don't need to reject you,
and your whole tribe because you don't agree with me on everything.
So I think that
we need to understand that there can be truth and beauty in other religions.
Ultimately, I would say that they're not,
they're not going to lead you to the whole truth, and that's really the issue,
but I would even say that most of Christianity historically
has confused people and has not represented God.
In other words, you're, you're talking about, you know, when you're talking about God,
you're talking about something so beautiful, so amazing
that it's easy for people to get it wrong.
So when Christians sort of argue
that like, "I've got the best religion," on some level they're off-base
because what's true is true, and you're not,
I'm not trying to sell somebody on religion.
I'm trying to sell somebody on God.
In a weird way, Jesus, when he came to earth, like, destroyed religion.
The whole, the whole idea that he comes and he offers us free love,
and says, "I love you, and I died for you,
and I want you to, to, to know me."
It's the opposite of what the world traditionally calls religion,
which is "you gotta do this, you gotta do this, you gotta believe this, gotta believe this, gotta believe this,
otherwise you're going to hell." Like, that's religion.
In a way, Christians can sometimes be a part of that kind of religious
thinking, which really is antithetical to the love of Jesus.
And so it can be really confusing, so I guess I would say
in a nutshell, people who are, like, arguing, "it's all about ideology, it's all
about theology," and they get into these arguments, it's besides the point.
When you think about the thief on the cross
who Jesus says to him, "I tell you this day
you'll be with me in paradise," what was his religion?
What was his theology? It's so simple.
This was a human being turning to Jesus and saying,
"I'm looking to you for, for truth. I'm looking to you."
That's not very ideologically or theologically complicated.
It's really simple. So I think that
ideology, theology - these things are important.
Doctrine is important, but a lot of times people,
and again Christians included, have used that
to kinda beat people over the head and act as if what you believe intellectually
is what gets you into heaven, or, and it's,
it's a little bit more than that.