Ep.41: Addressing Christian Bigotry in Christian Circles

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, this is Andrew. Welcome to THE INDOUBT SHOW. We got a terrific show today. We have Kaitlin Febles, and she’s going to be joining us to talk about what to do, how do we respond when coworkers or non-believing friends and family accuse Christianity of being bigoted. And so, a very important topic. Let’s dive in and enjoy today’s program. All right, so we have Kaitlin Febles all the way in Nashville, Tennessee. How are you doing?

Kaitlin Febles:

Hey, Andrew. I’m good. Doing great.

Andrew Marcus:

Awesome, awesome. Hey, so I’m so pumped that I was able to, I mean, we had not like, I won’t say bets because we’re not gambling people, but we were all trying to figure out, okay, how do you say the last name? I think Spellman’s like, “Oh, it’s Febles for sure. It’s Febles.” I’m like, “I’m pretty sure it’s Febles or Febles. Maybe she’s French living in Nashville. I didn’t know.”

Kaitlin Febles:

That’s what I’m feeling fancy. I go by that when I’m feeling fancy.

Andrew Marcus:

When you go to Targé, you’re like, “Hey, Febles.”

Kaitlin Febles:

Yes. But on my average nine to five day, just Febles.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s hilarious. So did you say that you’re transitioning from Kaitlin Miller Febles? Are you newly married?

Kaitlin Febles:

That’s right. I am. I got married in January of this year.

Andrew Marcus:

Nice. Congratulations.

Kaitlin Febles:

So nine and a half months in.

Andrew Marcus:

Come on. Congratulations.

Kaitlin Febles:

Thanks.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s amazing.

Kaitlin Febles:

Thanks so much. It really is.

Andrew Marcus:

And so, you’re in Nashville, Tennessee, which is my favorite place in the world. And you work at my favorite restaurant. You’re at Chick-fil-A, which is amazing.

Kaitlin Febles:

It’s a phenomenal place. I love the restaurant and then everything I know about the inside, it just makes you love it more.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, that’s amazing. Honestly, every experience I’ve had there has been amazing. And so, you work at Chick-fil-A, you’re in the support center. So why is the chicken so good?

Kaitlin Febles:

Wow.

Andrew Marcus:

I thought it’s because maybe they deep-fried in oil from Israel or something, and it’s like they baptized the chicken. I don’t know.

Kaitlin Febles:

Listen, I can neither confirm nor deny on the record exact source of it all, but hey.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s amazing. That’s so funny. Okay, so we’re talking about something very, very important today, and I love that you are bringing this up and that you wrote about this, just this idea that what do we do when coworkers, and it even extends to non-Christian friends or non-believing family members when they just assume and just accuse Christianity of being bigoted. Now, we’ve heard the term bigoted, bigotry, bigot. It’s been used more and more, and I’m very blessed that you’re writing about this because I feel like as culture continues to be anti-God and go away from the truths of scripture, believers are going to be accused of this more and more. And so, maybe before we even dive into it, give us a little bit of your definition. What would you say the definition of a bigot would be when you’re talking about this?

Kaitlin Febles:

Yeah. So two things, because I’m a nerd, I go back to the actual literal definition pretty often.

Andrew Marcus:

Yep, that’s good.

Kaitlin Febles:

Which just a true literal look at it usually means something along the lines of someone who holds to a belief unreasonably. So two things there. One, I would argue, and I think you would probably be with me, that we believe Christianity is the most reasonable explanation for who we are, why we’re here, how this earth got here, why we should believe what we do about life and mortality and life after death and all of that.

So the idea that Christianity is about throw logic and reason out the window and just take a blind leap of faith into some crazy ideas is not what we actually believe. This is a reason-anchored faith. So that’s one in terms of really addressing the literal definition of the word.

But I think in conversations, what’s probably most important is to understand what that person means by the word bigoted when they use it, to really press them on that. Not to try to nail them down to a dictionary definition necessarily, but what do they mean by it? Because to your point, we hear it everywhere. And my suspicion is that we could get 100 different definitions if we asked 100 people on the street right now, and we’re going to have the most effective conversation with that person when we best understand what they mean and what they’re actually thinking and where they’re coming from. So I’d probably start by asking them to define what they mean for it.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s a really good point. And I feel like we just finished a series, a three-week series going through, it’s called World Religions Unraveled. We walked through Mormonism and Catholicism.

Kaitlin Febles:

It’s so good, Andrew.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, thank you. That’s amazing.

Kaitlin Febles:

It’s a good.

Andrew Marcus:

But you know what’s really fascinating? When we asked for advice for some people, how do we engage and we’re trying to create resources for young people, a few people said, “Ask questions.” Even when we did the Buddhism one, it was like, okay, we talk about karma. It’s like, well, let’s define karma for me, because most people might not have a proper definition of the legit meaning of karma. And so, I love how you say that, we got to ask questions instead of just going on the attack. No, no. Tell me, what do you mean when you say the word bigot? I think that’s very, very helpful that we’re asking questions.

So, now that we know, okay, so it’s unreasonable and we believe that the gospel and the Word and Christianity is the most reasonable thing. I love how you say that. So now, what made you even talk about this? Did you have a personal experience being in the mainstream world in Chick-fil-A?

Kaitlin Febles:

Yeah, totally. So a couple of things. One, the source of this writing with the Gospel Coalition is a series called Thorns and Thistles, and it is about answering questions that are written in by other readers.

So I say that just because clearly, you’ve already said this is something that a lot of us are considering and dealing with. The reason that really stood out to me and resonated as something I’d love to jump in and try to offer an answer to is because absolutely, I’ve lived it as we all have, to your point, it’s coworkers, but it’s also classmates and neighbors and friends. I was a public school kid all the way through from first grade to college, so it was always in a secular school setting, always surrounded by people of all kinds of belief. That’s true, by the way, even in a private Christian school sometimes, but was especially true in a public school.

And then, I’ve always held jobs since college in not the nonprofit or ministry sphere, at least. Chick-fil-A is a phenomenal organization with a corporate purpose that literally starts with to glorify God. So there’s a beautiful weaving of faith into everything we do, but still just by the nature of our work. I work in fast food and I work with partners and business partners inside and outside Chick-fil-A all across the spectrum there, in terms of belief. So just encountering that in my own life made me really excited to write about it for sure.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s huge. And so, I feel like, okay, so how do Christians balance this need? Because it’s there. Bigotry is present and it’s amongst us. So how do we balance this need to address the misconceptions of Christianity while also being respectful, loving? How do you find we can do that well?

Kaitlin Febles:

Yeah. For one thing, I, in my experience, have been surprised to see how often the opportunities come to me instead of me having to seek them out. This is rarely me trying to press coworkers for, “Excuse me, what is your perception of Christianity on a scale of one to bigoted?” Normally, it comes up. It comes to us. It comes up whether it’s somebody’s response to hearing what we believe and then voicing their concerns or frustrations with it, or we find ourselves in the break room at a lunch table where this suddenly comes up because of some headline yesterday about some atrocity committed in the name of Christianity. I think a lot of times we find ourselves put in the position either of being asked to respond or at least we’re at the decision point of whether we’re going to say something or just hide from it a little bit and let it pass us by.

So to quote the classic verse, we want to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in us and be prepared to give a reason for why we still believe this stuff, even in wake of some legitimately terrible things that all Christians, including us, have committed.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. You mentioned in that writing just the importance of affirming Christ while denouncing un-Christlikeness. That’s really hard to do.

Kaitlin Febles:

And surely, it’s got to be both. Because the danger is if we affirm Christ without denouncing on Christ’s likeness, we don’t meet people where they are with the barriers of how can I believe this based on what I’ve seen Christians do? They’ve likely still got such a callousness and hardheartedness and frustration built up with blinders that they have no interest in even looking to Jesus first. They feel like we’re not hearing them, we’re not acknowledging it, we’re not contrasting the difference here between Jesus and what they’ve seen Christians commit. But then, on the other hand, if we do the flip, if we are willing to denounce on Christlikeness without affirming Christ, we stop too short. We denounce what is not Christ-like, but we don’t leave them with any hope of turning to the Christ that we still believe all the more so because of on Christ-likeness that we see throughout the world. We see him as all the more our desperate needed hope as the only perfect human life. So it’s got to be both for us.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, it has to be. Yep. That’s so good. And what’s it like if you’ve had personal experiences, how would you encourage Christians, who are engaging in this conversation, how would you encourage them to engage in conversations with family or coworkers or neighbors when they’ve been hurt by other Christians? Because we all fall short.

Kaitlin Febles:

Absolutely. We’ve said it already, but I just don’t think we can emphasize enough the power of listening with humility. I mean truly listening, not what I’m guilty of at times, which is the, I’m just forming my response to what you’re saying while I’m being quiet, but actually actively listening with open hands and a soft heart. We need to be willing to let our heartbreak over what some people have been through. We need to be really clear about calling things out and being willing to acknowledge what is not okay.

I think a lot of times, people just don’t feel heard, and the old adage of people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care, I think there’s a blocker up for people’s willingness to listen to and seek to understand us if they don’t first feel heard and understood themselves. So, that’s my first piece of advice for myself, for all of us, is that we truly listen and hear what their real concerns are because our conversations with them will be so much more effective and specific and powerful if we’re able to actually address what their hangups are based on their unique story, instead of us just coming with our canned stump speech of the eight points that we think are the perfect case.

So, that’s the first. I think we’ll just learn so much by asking good questions and listening with humility. But then going back to what we just talked about, I think there’s a really powerful way to denounce in Christ-likeness while affirming Christ, and we can be that confident in it because that’s what Jesus did. I mean, Jesus had no problem calling out the behavior of “religious people” in his day that was not actually representative of God’s word. And we can do the same thing. Without being disparaging or unnecessarily judgmental towards other Christians, we can both acknowledge their un-Christlikeness, affirm what the beauty and goodness and truth is of Christ, that we believe that person we’re talking to by the way is most desiring and seeking, whether they know it yet or not. Everything they would find in Jesus is actually what they know and want most.

But we can also approach that with the humility of acknowledging our own sin. I mean, whatever egregious thing is their bigoted Christianity explanation there, any parts of that that are un-Christlike, at least, even if those aren’t sins that we feel like we may have directly committed in that sense, Lord knows literally I’m full of sin, and so is whether that person yet acknowledges that the person across from us too. And we both have had hateful thoughts that are at the same root of those hateful actions that they may be decrying as bigoted. So using all of that to point to all of our need for some sort of salvation, for some sort of source of what is good and true, but then also the ability, enter the Holy Spirit, to actually carry that out and move forward with that power, I think that just sets us up for a kind of gospel presentation.

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing. It takes a lot of confidence in your faith to even begin to have these conversations and to listen well, and a lot of people I know are. And myself too sometimes is like, “I’m just overwhelmed to even confront something because I’m worried to offend, I’m worried to hurt.” I mean, I know we want to engage in conversation, so we listen and we hear, and I mean the reality is every person has a different story. And so, you can’t cookie-cut this and apply all. But say, we engage, we listen, we hear, do you have any advice for someone who, okay, now it’s time to present?

Kaitlin Febles:

Yeah. I obviously don’t know for sure, but if I had to guess, I wonder if two of the most powerful tactics the enemy is using right now to thwart apologetics is either one Christians who go at it with such lack of love for the person that they’re talking to, that it comes across aggressively, hostilely, just not compassionately and without a listening ear on the one hand.

But then I wonder if another tactic the enemy is using a lot is the discouragement and fear and believers of, I don’t know all the answers yet, so I can’t enter into this at all. I think a lot of times we feel such a, “Yeah, but what am I going to say if they ask me about the dinosaurs?” I can’t enter into this conversation because I haven’t formed my full thoughts on that yet from an apologetic standpoint. And we let that fear paralyze us from a conversation.

I think that’s why just starting with listening is so powerful because we can listen. We don’t even have to have any answers just to listen, to have the humility of that and then to use that to start building a relationship of love, and remembering too that we can always come back with answers later. We can always pause in a conversation and say, “Gosh, that’s a great question. I don’t know either, but I want to dig into it too because I’m with you and that I want to believe a faith, going back to how we started that’s reasonable and trustworthy and good. So I’m just as invested with you and us figuring this out together.”

I think also too, it helps to just level the playing field a little bit by remembering that instead of this being us against them or we’re supposed to have all the right answers, and they’re the ones putting us on trial, we’re both humans on this earth trying to think through and discern these theological issues together. Theology is just what you think about God. So we’re both on the same playing field here with what we think about God, and both of us have to have some sort of explanation for how the earth got here, how humans have mind, thoughts and emotions and souls and beings, and we’ve got to have some sort of explanation for how evil is dealt with in the end, and who even gets to decide what defines good and evil anyways.

So as you’re having those conversations remembering, it’s not like the whole burden of proof here is on me and I’ve got to have a sure case for everything. Me and this coworker, me and this friend, me and this neighbor, me and this family member are both seeking truth here, I hope, and are both at least just trying to have a conversation about what we think truth is and why we can believe what we do.

And I think the last thing is, again, to the point of just being prepared to give a defense for the reason for that, that’s in you, I think especially in our world today, that can become increasingly universalistic, not wanting to be nailed down on one specific set of beliefs, knowing someone who really believes what they believe with conviction, even maybe especially in the face of opposition or at least those who disagree with them, is really compelling. Even to those who might disagree with them, it’s compelling to meet somebody with conviction. Even if that’s conviction over a diet plan, someone who’s really convicted about this diet plan really worked for me, people start to get intrigued. They’re like, “I don’t know if I’m going to buy it, but sure, tell me what paleo is.” It is just intriguing. It’s compelling to hear somebody with conviction.

So, being able to give people a reason for, I may not be able to answer every single one of the 10 thousands of apologetics questions out there, but given all that I know in the world and all I’ve studied, not thought about, here’s why I really believe Jesus is who he said he is, enough that I’ve leveraged my whole life for him, that alone is about all the preparation you need certainly to start.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s so good. And just the reminder of that the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

Kaitlin Febles:

Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

The Word.

Kaitlin Febles:

That’s right.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s not an us versus them or them versus us. It’s hey, we all fall short of the glory of God, and we’re trying to navigate together. And I love what you’re saying where it’s just, if you’re just super convicted, people see it and people are intrigued. I don’t have all the answers, but people, my neighbors can tell that I love Jesus. I talk about them all the time. Even when you bring friends to a church and people are worshiping and there’s so much passion and hunger for God, they’re like, “Wow, there must be something.” They’re intrigued. It’s contagious. I want a piece of that. And so, I love how you’re just saying, when we’re convicted in God’s word, when we stand on truth, people take notice. I had a buddy. He became a buddy. He was also helping me with my backyard. We hired him.

Kaitlin Febles:

That’s a good friend.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s a good friend to have. But anyways, we were just talking on the driveway before we left and started talking about… I just brought up God and different things, and we ended up talking for a long time. But he said, “I tried Christianity. I went to a church.” But they were saying yes and amen to a whole bunch of stuff that he thought was against the Bible and he’s right, but they were trying to be not offending anyone, whatever, blah, blah, blah, whatever the case is. But I do see a lot of churches doing this to avoid being called bigots and be offensive or whatever.

But the churches are doing this to love and accept and to almost be like seeker-sensitive and make space for all people. But then non-believers are coming and they’re saying, “Well, that’s weird. I went there because I wanted them to have a firm stance and be solid in what they believe, and they just weren’t even doing that.” And so, non-believers are attending the church, and here we are thinking we’re doing a good service to just be really loose in all of our theology and our beliefs. Non-believers are coming saying, “wait a minute, I want you to tell me what you believe and I want you to believe it.”

And so, for Christians, I’m noticing they’re becoming more and more loose with their theology so that no one’s offended and they don’t get called a bigot and all that kind of stuff, but actually these non-believing friends, they’re hungry. And now, we’re doing a disservice in hiding the gospel and not telling them the truth because we’re worried it’s going to hurt them, but they’re actually desperate for truth.

Kaitlin Febles:

Yeah, I mean, goodness, we’re always doing a disservice when we hide the gospel. That’s just always true. We’re always doing a disservice and that’s the case. But gosh, I think you’re right. I mean, I think your friend is an example of more than we might assume. I think people are hungry for the ability to tether themselves to something that’s true, something that is true and good and right. We obviously live in a world where the headlines sway from one place to the next every day. We don’t know which news source we can trust because of its bias, and the fashion trends are going to change next year. We’re going to be embarrassed by what we’re wearing today and probably like three years max. But we live in a world that’s just so shifty that I think people are hungry for that. We’d be foolish not to be hungry, any of us, for the confidence that we have tethered ourselves to what’s true regardless of what the waves are going to try to toss us to and fro from throughout our whole lives.

So I mean, the question for that kind of church that he’s going to, that is if they’re honest with themselves or not, seeking more to pacify the people than to stand for what’s true, it’s just a question of what they’ll be preaching in 20 or 30 years because it’ll just be a matter of whatever the tides of culture or telling them that they should. And again, this is so scriptural because God’s word from Genesis through the end of the book.

And then now I’m going in the church, was constantly rejected by culture and the people around them for a whole host of reasons. It just depended on what that culture held to and in what way that contradicted God’s word, but God’s word didn’t change. That’s the hope and anchor of our whole faith. So if we’re not tethered to that, we’ll shift to whatever the sands could be in whatever years. And I think people are just hungry for something they can trust. They know that they themselves can just adapt to whatever the culture’s doing. They don’t need the church to help them do that, they need the church to be a beacon and an unchanging pillar of what’s true, come what may from the world.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so good. And I think that’s such an important word that we need to hear, Christians need to hear, the churches need to hear. So in this context of this topic of bigotry and being bigots all that we’re talking about, can you share some examples like if we want to have a biblical perspective, I know we’ve been talking about different scriptures, but can you share some examples of maybe individuals in the Bible or communities that faced this criticism or this backlash because they were going against culture? I mean, obviously there’s so many. Are there any that stick out to you?

Kaitlin Febles:

Right. There are so many. An easy answer is just to look at the Christian as in post-Christ who was first killed for their faith. So I’m thinking about Stephen in the Book of Acts, and I think a couple things that are really compelling about Stephen’s story is one, the way that he caught people’s attention by the evident presence of God in his life. In this case, it was Stephen’s face literally glowing, which is not necessarily what I expect to happen to mine or any other Christian’s faith would love to see it, to be clear.

But regardless, there was a compelling evidence to the people around him that he had God’s presence in his life. And I say that just because take the fruit of the spirit alone to live in our day and age with patience in the midst of a hurried, frazzled culture, to live with peace and an anxious culture, to live with gentleness and a combative culture, you can walk through every fruit of the spirit, and those are extraordinarily compelling things, that the world will see as being counter-cultural and unworldly if it’s being honest, if they see those in our lives because the source isn’t in us anyways. The source is truly of the spirit. So that’s one, just the fact that he lived in a way and had a presence about him that was compelling.

The second is Stephen knew his Bible. I mean, just as a side note, if you want quick cliff notes of the Old Testament, just read Stephen’s debrief in that little on the spot testimony. He knew the word. What’s interesting though is that as the people give him a chance to talk and Stephen’s walking through the history of God’s people, they’re willing to listen. The crowd that’s persecuting him, that’s wanting to seek his death is listening all the way up to the point where Stephen becomes really clear about their sin, God’s judgment apart from saving faith in Christ, but also Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, who is able to be their atonement, and that’s when the whole ruckus breaks out and they lose it and start throwing stones.

So I say that because as much as we absolutely should listen with humility, denounce on Christlikeness, seek to meet them on common ground, there is a point where I think the spirit, surely, to the point of not masking the gospel, will lead us to lay out the exclusive claims of Jesus that may or may not be accepted at that point or in the span of our relationship by that person, a point to lay out the fact that Jesus does claim to be the way and the truth and the life and why we believe that’s the greatest news and laying that out. But Stephen obviously didn’t shy away from laying out that truth.

And we can expect that at times. Goodness knows, if the world killed our founder, we should expect no less. I mean, Jesus told us that if the world hated me, it will hate you also as my followers, which isn’t that we should be going out seeking to stir up people’s hatred. But just knowing, being prepared that people hating us for the message of Christ is not necessarily proof that we’re doing something wrong. It could be an indication based on our means or our word or our attitude or our unlovingness, but it’s not necessarily proof.

And then I think the last note just with Stephen is the way that even at the end of Stephen’s death all the way through to just when he is looking up at heaven, still Stephen’s compassion for those people. I mean, Stephen’s last prayer in that moment is, “Father, do not hold this sin against them.” So in our conversations as we’re approaching it with love for this person, all the way through the conversation, all the way to the end, the goal for us is never just to win the point. The goal is never to win the argument, to have the mic drop moment, to rile up aggression. The whole point is to love this person all the way through and seek to point them towards the God who is drawing them to himself and trust the Lord with the work that’s out of our hands. But all the way through, we’re trying to prove and demonstrate our love for them as a reflection of God’s love for them first.

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing. Well, we really appreciate your time today.

Kaitlin Febles:

My pleasure.

Andrew Marcus:

No, seriously, it was our pleasure having you on THE INDOUBT SHOW, and we are grateful for what you’re doing. You’re amazing. Thank you so much.

Kaitlin Febles:

Thanks for having me today.

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out THE INDOUBT SHOW on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcast. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out INDOUBT.ca. We have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day.

Hey, INDOUBT listeners, we have some cool opportunities for you to get something free for the month of November, two Christmas resources. The first one is Quiet Spaces for Christmas, a 30-day devotional to take you through the advent weeks. Or you can get Jake and the Christmas surprise, our dear friend, Phil Callaway at Laugh Again, a delightful story of mischief and mercy for all the young ones. I’ve actually been reading it with my son and we’ve been loving it. You can go to INDOUBT.ca and get one of these for free. For the month of November, we encourage you to do that and we hope you enjoy it. God bless.

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