[[LOCATION OR EVENT]] · [[DATE AND MOMENT]]
[[OPEN WITH A REAL SCENE, CLAIM, OR QUESTION]].
[[CONCRETE DETAIL OR CONTEXT]]
[[WHY THIS MOMENT MATTERS]]
The Argument
[[CENTRAL CLAIM]]
What Happened
[[SHORT VERIFIED SUMMARY]]
At first, I answered the way I had prepared to answer. I explained that the Bible presents sexual intimacy as belonging within marriage between a man and a woman. I tried to make clear that sexual sin is not somehow worse than lying, lust, pride, hatred, or the many other ways all of us fall short.
I still believe that.
I believe every person is made in the image of God and deserves dignity, patience, and love. I also do not believe love requires us to call every desire good or every boundary cruel.
What John Said Next
The conversation did not stay focused on sexuality.
John told me he did not take the Bible “word for word.” Some of it might be God’s word, he said, but people had to write it. In his view, human opinion and dogma had entered the text.
He was asking how anyone could know which teachings came from God and which came from people claiming to speak for Him.
WHAT I HEARD
John was confident in Jesus, but less confident in the Bible, the church, traditional teaching about hell, and the moral boundaries Christians said came from God.
MY INTERPRETATION
The encounter exposed a tension between familiar Christian language and an unsettled source of authority. It does not prove what a generation or a country believes.
THE FAIREST VERSION OF JOHN’S CONCERN
Christians have sometimes treated sexuality as though it were the only sin that mattered. Churches have sometimes spoken about hell with more excitement than grief. Leaders have used “the Bible says” as a way to end a conversation rather than begin an honest one.
John may have been questioning the Bible. He may also have been questioning the people interpreting it. Those are related questions, but they are not identical.
The Question Beneath the Presentation
Watching the conversation now, I can see that I was trying to answer one question while he was asking another.
I kept moving through the presentation. John kept reaching underneath it.
I moved through a familiar path: the Ten Commandments, guilt, judgment, the courtroom, and Jesus paying a debt we could not pay. John kept asking why he should trust the framework itself.
Some of what I said still communicates truths I believe. Sin is real. None of us can make ourselves righteous before a holy God. Judgment matters. Jesus died and rose for sinners. Forgiveness is a gift, and the response is repentance and faith.
I also believe Scripture is God-breathed, trustworthy, and authoritative, given through human authors rather than invalidated by them. Christians must interpret it carefully, humbly, and in context. But we do not become its final editor, keeping what agrees with us and dismissing what does not.
At the same time, some of my method needed more care. My answer about predestination was far too quick. The Purge analogy made a sweeping claim about what people would do without civil law. Repeatedly assigning John labels like liar, thief, and murderer at heart may have sounded more like a verdict than an invitation to consider the condition we share.
I would still tell John the truth about sin and grace. I would try harder to listen to the question beneath his question.
THE CONTRADICTION
Religious authority can be misused.
But rejecting a flawed authority does not remove the need for authority. It may only move the final word to ourselves.
Religious authority can be misused.
But rejecting a flawed authority does not remove the need for authority. It may only move the final word to ourselves.
If Scripture is partly God’s word and partly human opinion, who decides which is which? If a teaching feels inconsistent with love, what definition of love makes that judgment? And when two sincere consciences reach opposite conclusions, what corrects either one?
That does not make John’s faith insincere. It reveals how much can be contained inside the sentence, “I believe in Jesus.”
Two people can say those words while relying on very different authorities to explain who Jesus is, what He taught, why He died, and what following Him requires.
John is not a survey. He does not prove what young adults or Americans believe. He is one thoughtful young man who stopped and answered a stranger’s questions.
THE QUESTION
What happens to a country still filled with Christian language when Jesus remains familiar, but we no longer agree on who has the authority to tell us who He is?
Editorial note: Quotations and descriptions were drawn from the recorded September 18, 2023 conversation and lightly cleaned for production noise and readability. John’s questions are presented as his own, not as proof of what any wider group believes.
— Jared
MID STORY MEDIA
Culture, belief, and the questions shaping modern America.
Culture, belief, and the questions shaping modern America.