Jennifer Rothschild Show: Why Christianity Is Still Relevant with Alister E. McGrath

**NOTE: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors, misspellings, or mistranslated words.**

Dr. Alister McGrath: People are asking how Christianity can help them to find meaning, how it can really enable them to live a good life. And they don't really want to talk all that much about, you know, the rationality of belief. What they want to know is, tell me the difference it's going to make to me.

And, you know, we all can tell them good things that will really help them understand that. But the rethinking we need to do is making sure we can answer those questions about how our faith helps us live good lives, Helps us hope in the face of a suffering world, and also helps us to find meaning and purpose. Those are such wonderful things.

And the great news is they're all there waiting for us to unpack them and unfold them. And that's what Christianity is like.

Jennifer Rothschild: Welcome to the Jennifer Rothschild Show. I'm so glad you are here. This is where thoughtful people come to grow.

And today, one of the most thoughtful people I have ever read is He is a highly respected Christian scholar. He's an author and a professor at— wait for it— Oxford University. His name is Dr. Alister McGrath.

And y'all, he is used to very deep conversations about faith, like whether he's in a debate with the New Atheists or in just helping people understand the legacy of C.S. Lewis. Mm. Dr. McGrath is passionate about inviting people, including you and me, to consider or reappreciate the depth and the meaning of our Christian faith.

Oof, that's what we're gonna do today, and you are going to love this, mate. So let's grow. Well, hey people, I'm so glad you're here.

Wow, I hope you've had a good week. I've had a good week. I thought I would bring 2 things with me to the microphone that you cannot see.

But there are 2 things that I keep on my desk. Well, actually not on my desk anymore because I've knocked them off too many times. I'll be honest.

I keep them on my shelf because they're tiny. 2 rocks. Now let me tell you about these 2 rocks because it has something to do with what we're going to talk about with Dr. McGrath today. The first rock is a little bigger.

It's actually part of like a brick, a broken piece of brick. And I got it the first time I went to Oxford, England. Okay, so you may know if we've been friends for a while that like Oxford is my happy place.

Well, when I'm in the States, Target, I'll be honest, is my happy place. But when I get to travel internationally, I love Oxford, England. In fact, I am convinced on the new earth, that's where the Lord's gonna let me live, in the renewed, restored Oxford, England.

And so when I was there the first time, it was because I was studying C.S. Lewis with the C.S. Lewis Foundation. This dear man. Kim Gilnett was kind of my mentor that week in teaching.

And he just a dear, he became a dear friend. I just love this, this guy. And so anyway, he knew what an affection I had for C.S. Lewis and how much his works had meant to me.

And so on the very last day, he had me hold out my hand and then he said, he put this like broken piece of brick in it. And he said, do you know what this is? I said, no.

He said, this came from near the foundation. It's just a broken piece of brick from C.S. Lewis's home. the kilns. Oh my goodness, y'all, I burst into tears.

It was so meaningful. And so I have cherished that little piece of brick because it came from C.S. Lewis's home. And the Lord has just used C.S. Lewis so much in my life.

In fact, one of the first books I ever read about C.S. Lewis was written by Alister McGrath. Okay, so that's one rock. Now, the other rock that I have on my shelf is super meaningful because I got it another time when I got to go to Oxford, England, when I was walking down what's called Addison's Walk.

It's there at Magdalen College where C.S. Lewis taught there in Oxford. And so I was walking with my hubby, and it's just kind of a gravelly, rocky path there at the college. And the story goes that C.S. Lewis, one night when he was a professor and he was still really grappling with Christianity, he was walking with his 2 friends, J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson.

And they had already been discussing Christianity and how C.S. Lewis was just so enamored by myths. You know, he just loved the beauty of myth. And a lot of the myths that he was so enchanted by were these myths that talked about just these gods who would surrender themselves and die basically for their people and rise again like Baldr.

Okay, so knowing that context, as they're walking that night, again talking about Christianity, J.R.R. Tolkien basically just, you know, challenged, um, just challenged C.S. Lewis to say, hey, why is it that you can believe in these beautiful myths or not believe in them, but why do they enchant your heart and your heart gravitates to them?

But you can't believe the -- what he calls the true myth of the dying and resurrecting God, Jesus Christ, because all the other myths that came before were merely shadows and echoes pointing to this true myth, the reality of Christ stepping into our world. Well, God used that conversation with friends.

Catch that. God used that conversation with friends, among others, to really shape and draw C.S. Lewis to understand and receive the truths of Christianity. Okay?

Now, you need— this is why you need to read Alister McGrath's book, because he tells the story better than me. But I want you to hear the importance of what relationships are and how God uses relationships to draw us to Christ. So with that in mind, I do wanna introduce to you, uh, to Dr. McGrath because, oh my gosh, he, he is, he's just an amazing man.

And not only has he taught, but he'll tell you in this conversation that it's through relationships with students that he's found such meaning in sharing his faith and in seeing faith come to life in relationships. Okay. So, but I gotta give you this formal bio because dude, Like, he is amazing, okay?

Alister McGrath, he discovered Christianity when he was an undergrand— did I say undergrand? He was grand, but he was an undergrad at Oxford University. And y'all, it changed his life.

So, okay, check this out. He received first-class honors in chemistry at Oxford. Then he earned his first doctorate.

Okay, did you hear that? First doctorate in biomedical sciences, and then 2 others, which makes 3, for those of you who are listening, 3. So the 2 others were in theology and intellectual history.

Like, I barely know what that all means, okay? But he started teaching at Oxford in 1983, and now he serves as a senior research fellow at the Ian Ramsay Center for Science and Religion at Oxford. Okay, all right, so can we be honest?

He probably scored a little higher than, than we did on our SATs. But don't worry. Oh, he is so warm and charming and makes all this so accessible, and he's wise.

And you're gonna love Dr. McGrath. So let's listen in.

[INTERVIEW BEGINS]

All right, Professor McGrath, it is an honor to speak with you.

As I told you before we got on mic, yours was the first book I read on C.S. Lewis, and it just really shaped my, my love for Lewis. So I'm really honored to get to speak to you today, and we're gonna talk about your new book, Rethinking Christianity. But before we do, I want, I want our people to get to know you a little bit.

I want to get to know you a little bit because my understanding is you were a former atheist and you came to faith while you were studying chemistry at Oxford University. So take us to that part of your story and let us know a little bit about that transition.

Dr. Alister McGrath: Well, that's right. Yeah, I grew up in Northern Ireland and I was an atheist then. I was really convinced that was the future.

It was back in the late 1960s and every intelligent person seemed to be an atheist. And I thought, hey, that's the way things are. And also, I was a scientist.

So I thought, well, you know, science and religion don't mix. Therefore, you know, if I'm a scientist, I have to be an atheist. But of course, then I arrived at Oxford University to study chemistry.

And guess what happened? I met some really articulate and really intelligent Christians. They began to explain what their faith was all about.

I began to realize, you know, I've got this one wrong. It's much more exciting and interesting than I had thought. And really, I began to rethink everything.

And my friend said, this guy you might enjoy reading called C.S. Lewis. I hadn't really heard of him very much. I knew he'd written a book about lions, but that was about as far as it went.

But then I read Lewis and actually just Lewis really helped me take off as a Christian. You know, he really gave me encouragement to give me a framework to think. And so that's really how I came to be a person of faith.

And I'm very grateful to my Christian friends and to C.S. Lewis for helping me along the way.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, it is similar. Your story and his mirror each other because it was there at Magdalen College and his friends. I mean, what a beautiful example.

And look now how God has used C.S. Lewis, how God has used you. And so part of the way he is still multiplying and deepening this message in you. And by the way, I just love to— I wish we had time to go into all of it, how faith and science are not mutually exclusive.

I mean, you've done so much work on that, which is such a gift to the body. But we're going to talk about this new book, Rethinking Christianity. Okay, so here's what I want to know, Professor.

What are you asking us to rethink? Like, have we gotten something wrong?

Dr. Alister McGrath: No, we haven't done anything wrong. It's just we haven't really appreciated Christianity for all it's worth. And the kind of rethinking I'm asking us to do is to begin to think again about the difference that Christianity makes to us.

Because one of the really interesting things is that people are asking how Christianity can help them to find meaning, how it can really enable them to live a good life. And, and they don't really want to talk all that much about, you know, the rationality of belief. What they want to know is, tell me the difference it's going to make to me.

And, you know, we all can tell them good things that will really help them understand that. But the rethinking we need to do is making sure we can answer those questions about how our faith helps us live good lives, helps us hope in the face of a suffering world, and also helps us to find meaning and purpose. Those are such wonderful things.

And the great news is they're all there waiting for us to unpack them and unfold them.

Jennifer Rothschild: And Yes, it is. Absolutely. And people, we can't share what we really know unless we've really thought through it again.

Sometimes it's the peril of the familiar. So, I appreciate the book giving us that chance to do that. And one of the things you talk about in your book is you contrast the difference between what you call moreness and lessness.

Okay, unpack what that means.

Dr. Alister McGrath: Yeah. Yeah, well, thank you for that. I mean, basically, it's all about this idea that Western culture is going through a period where it seems to have locked itself into a completely inadequate, unhelpful, unsatisfying way of living and thinking.

And what I'm saying is, look, that's a vision of lessness. Christianity gives us the vision of moreness. It gives us a bigger vision of who we can be.

It gives a bigger vision of what the world's like and says, let's bring God into the picture, because that changes everything. And in many ways, what I'm saying is that we find that in Western culture, there are so many people who are looking for something deep and satisfying, and that they're being given all this junk food by secularism, by materialism, and so on. And we really need to help them see what Christianity can do to give them a bigger, richer vision of life.

In short, more-ness, bigger vision of life, because you and I both know what that is, and people want us to talk about that. And that's why I think that's such an important idea.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, it is, because that's where our satisfaction really is. And so, in a lot of your earlier stuff, Alister, you focused on— oh, I don't know how to best say it, but maybe defending the rationality of what we believe, of Christian belief. But you have said that this new book that you've written, you're talking about why that matters.

Like, what difference does it really make? What difference this belief makes in our life. So, why is— because both matter, so why the shift?

Dr. Alister McGrath: Well, I think I want to begin by just saying it really is important to help people see that Christianity does make sense, that you're not an idiot if you believe in God. And those are very important things to say. But the difficulty is that sometimes by defending the rationality of faith, we're in effect giving people the impression it's just about ideas.

These ideas are okay. But what I'm worried about is this, and I discovered this for myself after the New Atheism movement, where I'd done a lot of work to, in effect, defend the rationality of Christian faith. And one of my friends said to me, look, Alister, you've been very, very good at, you know, showing Christianity makes sense, but you're just limiting it to ideas.

There's so much more to Christianity than that. And so I began to say, right, let's talk about the difference that Christianity makes to us. Not just it's right and reasonable, but it really is utterly transformative and trustworthy.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Dr. Alister McGrath: And people like that a lot. I remember one person said to me, look, Alister, I used to think Christianity was true, but you've helped me realize it's real. It really connects with me.

It makes a difference. It actually is transformative. And that's a very important point to make.

And it's a big theme throughout this book. And the good news is this, you don't need to have a PhD in philosophy to defend Christianity. You can say to people, look, let me tell you the difference this makes to my life.

And that's what people are really looking for. They're looking for a life-changing, a transformative way of thinking and living. That's what Christianity is.

And we don't need to give all these academic arguments. We can simply say, look, my experience is this. This might help you as you begin to explore your own personal journey of discovery.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love that because that's so unintimidating, and especially coming from someone like you who has more terminal degrees than probably I could count on one hand. We do think in order to really defend, we need to know, we need to have, we need to have the relationship with Christ, not the relationship with the idea of Christ. And so, I think your book helps us to just press into that.

And I appreciate it. And one of the things you do is you really dive in. Well, I'll put it this way.

C.S. Lewis has that concept of chronological snobbery, and you deal with that in your book. It runs throughout your book. So, Tell us what that is.

And because our culture is so obsessed with novelty and the next shiniest thing, why is it that this— the historicity, the ancientness, the 2,000-year history of Christianity— has such a strength in our lives right now rather than a liability?

Dr. Alister McGrath: Oh, I just love that question because it just cuts to the heart of what this book is all about. What Lewis is saying is, look, old ideas don't disappear because they've been discredited. They just go out of fashion.

But someone with vision can bring them back into fashion and say, look, can you see the difference they make? And in many ways, that's one of the things Lewis does so well in his own writings. He, in effect, helps people to see these ideas are not outdated, they're not wrong, they are incredibly powerful and justified.

And in many ways, what my book is saying is really quite simple. Christianity has been around for 2,000 years for a very good reason. is able to speak to us deeply. It's able to transform us.

It's able to give us something that nothing else is able to do. So while many people say, oh, you know, 2,000 years old, that means it is just so old and boring, I say to them, it's been around for 2,000 years because it speaks truth to the human heart. It's actually utterly transformative.

And what I'm saying to my readers is, let's, let's, let's regain confidence in our faith. The fact it's been around for so long is not an embarrassment. It is a demonstration.

Here is something that really can change people's lives, capturing their imaginations, transforming their hearts. And it's that central idea: Christianity is not some transient movement. You know, that's what we have in Western culture at the moment.

You know, cultural change is so rapid that you believe something today and a year later it's out of date. Christianity is saying, here is something stable and secure. It's like that Wonderful parable in Matthew 7 where Christ asks us to build our house on a stable rock.

That's what Christianity is, a rock that endures the storms of life. So I think we need to rediscover that and rejoice in that.

Jennifer Rothschild: And you speak truth, my brother. Christianity— Christ has changed my life, and we stand on the shoulders of many who have said the same thing for 2,000 years. And there's a reason, you're right, that it endures.

One of the things that you deal with in your book that I thought was interesting, you connect this modern experience that we all have of status anxiety— I say we all have, maybe not all, but a lot of people do— status anxiety, you connect that with this Christian doctrine of justification by faith. Now, I think this is going to bring some freedom, so I want you to talk to us about that.

Dr. Alister McGrath: Well, I think this is a very good question. I mean, when I was young, I looked for assurance from everybody. I kind of had status anxiety in that.

So it is a really important issue. And one of the remarkable things about the Christian faith is In effect, it's about God accepting you as you are, enabling you to begin a new walk, a new journey. And as you journey, you grow in faith and you become more and more like Christ.

And this whole idea of justification by faith is about recognizing God's done everything necessary in Christ to redeem us, to say to us, look how much you matter to me. Christ died for you. That means you really do matter.

And in effect saying, look, stop fretting, worrying about anxiety, embrace the fullness of who God is and the difference he makes to you, and be confident in the Christian faith and be confident God loves you and wants to do something special in you and through you. So for me, really, Christianity has this powerful message for anybody who's suffering from status anxiety. We're just saying, look, once God accepts you, you matter.

You matter profoundly. And God wants you to discover what's special about you, the difference you can make. And that's a really important point because it gives you a new vision of who you are, what you can do.

And it means you stop worrying. You just trust God and you get on with things.

Jennifer Rothschild: Amen. Trust God and get on with things. All right, let's take that a little deeper because in your book, you identify 4 fundamental human questions: identity, value, purpose, and agency.

Okay, so talk to us about how the Christian story answers those major needs and questions.

Dr. Alister McGrath: I think we all want to be reassured that we really matter. I think it's a very deep anxiety. We touched on it, in fact, a moment ago.

This idea of mattering, psychologists call this existential mattering. It's really very important. And Christianity doesn't make this stuff up.

It's integral to the Christian faith. God loved the world so much that Christ died for us. That's how much we matter.

We see ourselves in a completely new way once we see ourselves through a Christian lens. And also, we have this sense, actually, God does love us, but something God wants us to do, he helps us to achieve things, a sense of agency. God's grace enables us to do things that We could not do on our own.

And the history of the New Testament makes it very, very clear. God is in the habit of taking people who think they are inadequate and weak and doing great things in them and through them. So that's really, really important.

And also having this sense of meaning that actually each of us really is significant in some special way. And very often God is the one who puts his finger on, here is what's so special about you and the difference that you make. That's one of the things I think Christianity is just so good at.

It's saying we're all individuals, but God's able to take us and use us in ways that are tailored to who we are. He's able to take us and use us in very special ways and taking us sometimes by surprise in what he wants us to do. So what I'm saying is modern psychology has made it clear these 4 questions are really, really important to people.

Christianity didn't rely on modern psychology to discover this. It's built into the deep structure of Christianity that these questions matter, and there are deeply significant Christian answers. And my anxiety is that we don't always appreciate what those answers are.

Hence the need to rethink Christianity and make sure we realize how Christianity gives very good answers to those questions you've just raised.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, that's so good. Isn't it interesting and beautiful that God provided the answer before we even recognized we had the question? It was already there in Christ.

Thank you, Lord. Okay, but let's just go. We've got a couple more questions here.

And Professor, this one's a hard one, okay? Because I think one of the things that believers who have walked with Christ for years— in fact, I spoke to one yesterday, and she just told me how because of some personal suffering and suffering in her family, It just shook her faith. Okay, well, that's for someone in Christ whose life has been built on that rock that you described from the book of Matthew.

But then there's those who look at Christianity and they think, okay, but what about suffering? So, in chapter 12, that's what you cover, and you say that suffering is not an intellectual riddle that we can hope to solve. Okay, so then here's the question: how then does Christianity respond to suffering?

Dr. Alister McGrath: He responds to suffering by perhaps the best answer that could ever be given, which is, look, you are not on your own when you suffer.

You don't want intellectual answers. You want to be reassured that God is still here, that God is still with you, that in effect, we have a God who knows what it's like to suffer, that in effect, this is a God who in effect journeys with you through suffering, holding you by the hand so that you can cope with this, and you'll come out the end A better and wiser person.

And, you know, I get a bit tired of sometimes reading all these philosophers talking about solutions to the problem of evil. God's solution to the problem of evil is to say, I am with you in your sufferings, in your pain, and I'm standing with you, standing by you. I'm going to lead you through this.

Remember Psalm 23?

Jennifer Rothschild: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alister McGrath: It's all about God walking with us, even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We have this reassuring presence as we walk our way through a difficult and complex and suffering world and just know that God is with us as we travel.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's so good. And, and then he will walk us right into the house of the Lord forever. Thank you, Lord.

Oh, Professor, this has been so good. I, I just really don't want to wind it up, but we're going to have to wind it up. So I'm going to ask you this as our last question.

So, so I say that this podcast is where thoughtful people come to grow. And so I would love to know, what is one thing in your life that has in the past or is currently helping you to grow that you could recommend to us?

Dr. Alister McGrath: I think understanding what the word grow means is really important. Sometimes we think, you know, growing your faith means, oh, understanding more ideas or learning more about the geography of Israel or something like that. No.

Growing in your faith is about realizing increasingly how every aspect of the Christian faith touches us in different ways. And sometimes, you know, we, we know some areas of our faith very well, but we don't know others. And in many ways, it's like stepping into a deep, rich lake and going deeper and deeper as we discover how wonderful Christianity is and the difference it can make to us.

And so if you like, Growth is about not simply understanding more. It's about, in effect, taking it all in, allowing it to change us, and saying, thank you, Lord, for leading me deeper into this wonderful faith. And it's just so wonderful.

And I long to go further in your power and in your presence. So for me, growing is a really important thing. So thank you for that wonderful question.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, you just summarized what C.S. Lewis would have said, further up and further in. Well done. Thank you so much, Professor.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Did you realize that no matter what I asked Dr. McGrath, he came back to relationship? He came back to relationship and meaning, not information and rationality. Christianity is at its heart a relationship.

It's not just true. It is real. Did you catch that?

It's not just true. It's real. And I hope this conversation helps make the truth of Christianity even more real to you.

All right, his book comes out soon, so you can go to Amazon and preorder it. It's called Rethinking Christianity. And y'all, it's gonna help you to really review the truth that you believe, but it's also gonna help you feel prepared to live it and share it.

And by the way, if you are a Lewis geek like me, I highly recommend his book on C.S. Lewis, and I'll have links to all of his books, including that that one and the transcript on the show notes. So let me just remind you though, as we head out today, a little seed of thought that he dropped when I asked him what helped him grow. I loved it.

He said it's not from understanding more that he grows. It's not from learning more ideas or gaining more. It comes from taking it all in and going deeper.

And did you hear him say? Thank God for leading me deeper. Let's have the same praise on our lips.

Thank you, Lord, for leading us deeper. All right, my friends, keep thinking, keep growing. I'll see you next week.