Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

conscience

The Drivetrain: The MacArthur Center’s New Podcast Episode on Theological Triage

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The MacArthur Center’s new podcast episode is on theological triage: “The Drivetrain.”

Austin Duncan and his team produce this podcast with excellence. They obviously put a lot of work into their podcast episodes because they are clear, engaging, and high-quality in both content and form. They piece together various interviews and add sound effects and music. It’s high-caliber audio journalism—like NPR but with good content. It’s the best quality podcast I know of in confessional evangelical circles.

It was my pleasure to contribute to “The Drivetrain” episode on theological triage. Al Mohler popularized this terminology for distinguishing the importance of Bible teachings in his 2005 article “A Call for Theological Triage and Christian Maturity.”

Here’s how I like to present three levels of importance (a version of this table appears in my forthcoming book Predestination: An Introduction, p. 18):

It’s easy to misunderstand and misapply that taxonomy. That’s what “The Drivetrain” is about.

Two Recent Interviews on the Conscience

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Here are two recent podcast interviews I did on the conscience:

1. “The Conscience and the Home” with Abigail Dodds and Tilly Dillehay for their Home Fires podcast (recorded 10/8/2020)

(By the way, you won’t regret subscribing to that podcast. Lots of wisdom and encouragement. My family loves the Dodds family. No pretense. Genuine. Hospitable. Earnest. Joyful. Delightful. Faithful and fruitful.)

2. “Applying the Bible to Conscience Issues” with Mark Ward for Faithlife’s Bible Study Magazine Podcast (recorded 5/15/2020, about two months into the initial COVID lockdowns)

(Mark Ward is a longtime friend. As I wrote a few years ago, he’s a sharp thinker and witty communicator.)

Five Reflections on Pastoral Disagreements

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9Marks just published my short article “Five Reflections on Pastoral Disagreements.”

I originally prepared this article as a devotional to present to my fellow pastors at the beginning of an elder meeting in which I anticipated we would be divided on a challenging pastoral issue. I had just finished reading Rhyne Putman’s When Doctrine Divides the People of God, and I riff off his five reasons we disagree about doctrine:

  1. We read imperfectly.
  2. We read differently.
  3. We reason differently.
  4. We feel differently.
  5. We have different biases.

Related: As churches consider when and how to reopen after closing for the past several months during the COVID-19 crisis, fellow pastors (not to mention fellow church members!) may disagree with each other. Should we open on this particular date or wait until later? Should we require or encourage or welcome face masks? How should we celebrate the Lord’s Supper? In light of that, Jonathan Leeman and I talked on May 22 about the crisis of Christian conscience. (When I first wrote about the conscience, I never envisioned applying it to when a church should regather in the midst of a pandemic and whether people must wear masks!)

Related (update on 6/2/2020): On April 17, 2020, I recorded a podcast with Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman for the 9Marks podcast. It released today: Episode 130: On How Can I Love Church Members with Different Politics (with Andy Naselli). For more on politics, the conscience, and the church, see here.

Politics, Conscience, and the Church

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I recently teamed up with my friend Jonathan Leeman to write both a book and an article on politics, conscience, and the church:

New Book (Crossway)

Leeman, Jonathan, and Andrew David Naselli. How Can I Love Church Members with Different Politics? 9Marks: Church Questions. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020. (63 pp.)

[Update on 9/2/2020: The book is available for free as an audiobook.]

New Article (Themelios)

Leeman, Jonathan, and Andrew David Naselli. “Politics, Conscience, and the Church: Why Christians Passionately Disagree with One Another over Politics, Why They Must Agree to Disagree over Jagged-Line Political Issues, and How.” Themelios 45 (2020): 13–31. (PDF | Web Version)

Here’s the abstract:

Today many evangelical churches feel political tension. We recommend a way forward by answering three questions:

(1) Why do Christians passionately disagree with one another over politics? We give two reasons: (a) Christians passionately care about justice and believe that their political convictions promote justice, and (b) Christians have different degrees of wisdom for making political judgments and tend to believe that they have more wisdom than those who differ.

(2) Why must Christians agree to disagree over jagged-line political issues? After explaining straight-line vs. jagged-line political issues, we give two reasons: (a) Christians must respect fellow Christians who have differently calibrated consciences on jagged-line issues, and (b) insisting that Christians agree on jagged-line issues misrepresents Christ to non-Christians.

(3) How must Christians who disagree over jagged-line political issues agree to disagree? We explain three ways: (a) acknowledge leeway on jagged-line political issues; (b) unite to accomplish the mission Christ gave the church; and (c) prioritize loving others over convincing them that your convictions about jagged-line political issues are right.

How the Book and Article Compare

The message is basically the same in the book and article, but we target different audiences. In the little book we target laypeople, and in the more academic article, we target church leaders. (The book contains no footnotes.)

3 Recent Presentations

I recently presented the gist of our work in three settings:

1. Bob Jones University Seminary (November 12, 2019)

I addressed this topic for the annual Stewart Custer Lecture Series: Part 1 | Part 2.

Sam Horn interviewed me about it (5.5 minutes):

2. Bethlehem College & Seminary Chapel (February 12, 2020)

3. Thabiti Anyabwile’s Just Gospel Conference in Alexandria, Virginia (March 6, 2020)

In the final video above, Thabiti’s introduction starts about 7 minutes in. About 49 minutes in (at the end of my talk), Thabiti joins me on stage for about 11 minutes to dialogue. He is a gracious man.

I spoke on Day 2 of 3 at the Just Gospel Conference. On Day 1 and at the beginning of Day 2, I got the sense that many of the Christians attending this conference were more left-leaning politically than I am. Rather than mask any differences or throw out red meat, I decided to try to love my brothers and sisters by uncomfortably addressing a controversial topic—political parties in America—in order to encourage some hard conversations. The controversial content I added is not in the book or article. It illustrates how I am wrestling with political issues in my American context this election season. Here’s that section from my manuscript: [Read more…] about Politics, Conscience, and the Church

That Little Voice in Your Head: Learning about Your Conscience

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A few years ago my friend J. D. Crowley and I wrote a book on the conscience. Our target audience was adults, not children.

Then my daughter Kara, who was eight years old at the time, asked me if I would write a book on the conscience for children. How could I say no to that?

So I attempted to write my first children’s book (which releases this week):

Andrew David Naselli. That Little Voice in Your Head: Learning about Your Conscience. Illustrated by Julie Carter. Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2018.

[Read more…] about That Little Voice in Your Head: Learning about Your Conscience

Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ

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This book just released:

conscience

Andrew David Naselli and J. D. Crowley. Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016.

I am grateful to J. D. Crowley for coauthoring this book with me. His rich wisdom and life experience will serve readers in a way that I can’t. He has spent most of his life in Asian cultures, and he is a veteran missionary. [Read more…] about Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ