sharing their deconversion stories. With its growth in popularity, questions are more and more being asked: "Is once saved always saved a true statement?" "Can you truly lose your salvation, or did you just not have real salvation in the first place?" "Is deconversion or apostasy the unpardonable sin?"
Right off the bat, RD and Greg affirm
John MacArthur's comment "If I could lose my salvation, I would. I can't keep my salvation, and neither can you. God must hold onto it for us." Greg follows this comment by MacArthur by stating that there is a difference between deconversion and having questions about your faith - deconversion is the willful decision to walk away from Christianity, whereas wrestling with questions about the Bible and your faith is normal and healthy in the context of a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus is not threatened by your questions, He is bigger than any question you could have. However, if you are asking questions, you have to remember that you can't reject the goodness of the Bible, and you have to trust in the Bible even through your questions.
On the subject of losing your salvation, RD quotes
Hebrews 6, to which Greg clarifies that we should still be praying for our lost friends and family because only God knows their hearts and where they are spiritually. Just as it says in
Jude, we have to be merciful to those who doubt.
This leads RD and Greg to discuss why, in their own experiences, they have seen people walk away from God. Greg describes how the main reasons he has witnessed people leave Christianity are either because that person was asking questions without God as their theological center, or because there is a sin in that person's life that they wanted to justify but they couldn't. These two reasons are vastly different than someone simply asking questions while still trusting in God's sovereignty. RD chimes in that the church should be a safe place where people can wrestle with questions and grow in wisdom in Christ through their questions. Two of these questions that are prevalent right now in the Christian community are:
1. How do you follow a God who allows so much suffering?
2. How can we love the LGBTQ community if we think that the lifestyle is sinful? Aren't we creating an exclusive community by doing that?
With both of these questions, Greg is quick to mention that most people follow these up with, "How can a good and loving God send people to hell?" but no one ever asks, "How can a just and righteous God allow people into heaven?" Greg also voices that
God Himself rejects and excludes people in the Bible. We cannot put inclusivity as the highest feature of God, or give God boundaries by saying things like, "I can't believe in a God who would do x, y or z." When God says in the Bible that something is wrong or sinful, we cannot pretend we are wiser and know more than God and say that thing is right. That leads to a
postmodernism way of thinking ("This is my truth and that is yours") and a
Dunning-Krueger Effect way of thinking, and makes you lose your anchor. It also can lead to wanting the Kingdom of God (meaning the peace, love, kindness, etc. that Christianity offers) without the King (meaning you forget about the God who is just, righteous, and
jealous for His people).
In this same vein, RD and Greg expound on the discussion and talk about how we as Christians have to learn to not be afraid of the outside world. Obviously we need to learn what things of the world are okay and what are not okay, but we need to approach how we let outside things into our world in wisdom and not in fear. This goes back to the concept of having trust in the Bible and an anchored theology.
To offer real-life examples of everything they have been discussing, RD and Greg end the podcast sharing their own backgrounds and walks with the Lord over the years.
