Abdu Murray: "It's not about answering the questions"

Answering the Call

Joe Fontenot: You are the North America director for RZIM, Ravi Zacharias ministry. But you're a lawyer. How did that happen?

Abdu Murray: Yeah, well funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse, as they say. So I was a partner at a law firm. Actually, I was a partner at two different law firms and was doing part-time ministry and really wanted to do full-time ministry. I'm still a lawyer, I maintain my law license, but I'm doing this on a full-time basis.

Abdu: How it happened was I was doing a ministry of my own called Embrace the Truth, which was a politics evangelism on the side and then I was doing some event with RZIM and I got to know the RZIM folks and they said, "Hey, why don't you help us to run North America, our region?" And I said, "Sounds like a good idea," and we just sort of merged my ministry into theirs and that's kinda how it went.

Joe: Interesting. Why do you maintain your legal license, your law license? Do you still practice or-

Abdu: So I do have a foot in the legal door. But I also serve in terms of a ministry capacity, I help to field legal questions, and these kind of things as well. But another good aspect of it is that I get to have my finger on the pulse of the legal community. One of the things that I'm very interested in is the philosophy of law as it applies to spiritual issues. Like transcendent foundations of law, and I wanna be able to speak at conferences involving lawyers or judges and at law schools and that kinda thing and maintaining a license among other benefits allowing me to even practice law in the first place, helps me to do that as well.

Joe: That's interesting. I wanted to ask you a few questions about a recent talk you did, and you made a comment that I thought was really interesting, and you talked about the perception of the gospel from other people and how some people can think it's harmful. So some people as I understood you, could think it's harmful maybe from a social point of view, but others could think it harmful from a theological point of view. For those listening, how do we wrap our heads around a person who could think the gospel is harmful? The gospel seems like a good thing, it's the good news. How would it be harmful?

Abdu: Well I think often times and this is part of the discussion I have in my latest book, Saving Truth, we are in a post-truth culture, and the post-truth culture is one that doesn't deny the truth exists, it simply says where in post-modernism you should say that. A post-truth culture says, "Truth exists, but I don't care. What matters more is my agenda." And so what they might see as harmful is Christianity for example, says "That there is a truth, and freedom is found within the bounds of truth." So that sounds paradoxical because freedom is found within the boundary of something.

Abdu: Freedom, we think of as boundless. But that's not really freedom. That's autonomy. And the Bible stands against autonomy which is you know, two Greek words, eaftos meaning self and nomos meaning law. So when you're autonomous, you're a law unto yourself. So today's culture wants to be autonomous. We want to have what we want, when we want, in whatever way we want. We even wanna be what we want whenever we want. Whether it's gender issues, or trans humanism or whatever it might be. We don't want boundaries. And so the gospel makes the claim, like Jesus makes the claim in John 8 when he says that, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." So truth leads to freedom and he himself says, "And the son will set you free indeed. So if the truth sets you free, and the son sets you free, then the son is the truth."

Abdu: And if that's the case, then they see the gospel message as being harmful because it puts restrictions on your autonomy. The reality is the remedy for this is to show that yes, the Bible does stand against unfettered autonomy but it doesn't stand against freedom. Freedom has to have boundaries otherwise, it leads to chaos. So I think that's why they see it as harmful, but it also can lead to I think, real fulfillment if we understand freedom in its real sense. We have the caricature of freedom now, not a reality of freedom.

Joe: I see. Do you think that post-truth will go in the same direction as postmodern. So for instance, postmodern philosophy is kinda easy to rebut in a lot of ways, 'cause it's very illogical but it's seeped into our culture in a lot of deep ways and people don't always make that connection. Do you think that we're gonna see post-truth kinda doing a similar thing or is it a different beast altogether?

Abdu: It's a little bit different in this sense, is that it looks like postmodernism on the outside, but deep inside, it's actually quite different. Postmodernism rejects truths existence by claiming it doesn't exist, which of course is a truth claim and of course, it's illogical. Post-truth doesn't reject the truth, it just says that, "There is a truth, but if it doesn't subserve my preferences, then I'm either going to lie about it or I'm going to ignore it altogether."

Abdu: So when you bring facts and logic to a postmodern person, they can see that and understand the depth of the logic. When you bring it to a post-truth person, they're ignoring it because truth matters. They're acknowledging truth exists, they just simply don't care.

Joe: So this sounds a lot like Kyle Bashir. He was here at Defend, and we talked also, and he talked about apathism. And this just this idea that it's like, how do you talk to somebody who simply does not care.

Abdu: It's a little bit similar to that except that this is gender driven. So apatheists don't care about spiritual things. Post-truth people do care about spiritual things or social things, but they care about it their way and if you come up with truth and facts that contradict their agenda or their preference of some kind, whether it's a sexual preference or a societal preference, or their narrative of the way things are going, they will either ignore it or they'll lie about it. So it's not quite apathy. They care quite a bit actually about their agenda, so much so that the truth doesn't matter.

Abdu: So my point in saying they don't care isn't that they don't care about truth's existence, they're saying this particular set of facts if it confronts me, I don't care enough about following truth to let that affect me.

Joe: They're willing to cherry pick and they're okay with that for the agenda.

Abdu: Right and that's what I call the culture of confusion. Where confusion is considered a virtue. If you're confused sexually, you're a hero. If you're confused morally, your progressive. If you're confused religiously, all paths lead to God, well then you're considered tolerant. But if you're clear sexually, you're a bigot. If you're clear morally, you're regressing. If you're clear on maybe only one path leads to God and there's good reasons to believe that, well then you're considered intolerant. So confusion becomes a virtue and clarity becomes a vice.

Joe: I wanted to ask you about that. Confusion becomes a virtue. Is this something that we have sort of logically concluded because of the actions or is this something that people in this post-truth culture, these advocates for this, actually would say confusion is a virtue. Maybe not those words, but-

Abdu: I think it's a mixture of both and I'm gonna give you an example. So now it's become sorta fashionable to say if a child expresses for example, confusion about their sexuality. It used to be the case that they just were confused and we let them work it out or we'd help them work it out. Now, we actually foist on them, oh confusion means you're not sexually normative. You're not heterosexual, you're whatever, whatever among the spectrum, LGBTQIA, whatever that might be. You're one of those. So we try to label them there.

Abdu: So your confusion becomes virtuous because you're a hero for coming out. But no one would actually say those words, "Well, I value confusion." No one says those things, but it used to be that confusion was just confusion. Now it's considered virtuous to be confused because it leads to a path that's not the norm. But it is a bit of an epiphenomenon in the sense that I'm noticing it as a virtue, not because people are saying it's a virtue, because people are acting like it's a virtue.

Abdu: Until the clarity comes, they'll say, "Well no, I'm not confused. I am gay or I am lesbian or whatever, I'm not confused." I'm not saying you're not confused. I'm saying that the confusion that started the whole process was considered virtuous at some point and if you were allowed to or you were actually forced into a lane because confusion must mean you're not heteronormative, then you're forced into that lane. I think that's what I'm trying to get at.

Joe: Right and I feel like that certainly goes back to the idea that you're saying about this post-truth because truth says that confusion ... Truth is what defines confusion, right? So we can't have confusion if we have don't have truth. And they're saying, "You know, we reject that truth because this becomes your new truth, because it's you."

Abdu: And those words, I use those all the time. I have to tell them my truth. That's sort of a new catch phrase now, my truth. What they mean is my perspective. Which I get what they're saying there but we sort of personalize truth and it's true for you for example. Let's say someone has true gender dysphoria. They really do have this wrestling with their mental sense of who they are in a gender and their physical sense are at war with each other. That's a real phenomenon. It's very rare, but it does happen.

Abdu: Their truth is their struggle. That is true. It is true, objectively true, that they are going through the struggle. But it's not true that you get to pick. That's not how that works. So I think that's where we're seeing this sort of personalization of truth which actually eventually does away with the whole concept at all. Or at least downplays it so it's not really that important. The only thing we're really clear about in this culture right now and this is the sad part I think that's going on, is that if you don't agree with me, you're Hitler. I'm clear that I'm always right and you're always wrong and if you don't agree with me, I'm going to label you something like Hitler or Stalin or Chuck Chescu, you name your despot, that's who you become.

Joe: So it's a shaming almost.

Abdu: And what's interesting is in this new book I'm writing with Robbie on the Easterness of Jesus. I'm writing a chapter right now on Easter Shame and Honor Cultures and the interesting conclusion I'm coming to is that western culture has caught up and possibly even surpassed eastern cultures in being shame and honor based. We shame people left, right and center for their political opinions, for their social opinions, all the time.

Joe: That's so true with the whole, basically the last election cycle and Facebook. Say no more. Like that was all about shame and defriending and on and on.

Abdu: Our moral enforcement is now shame. It's no longer truth right and wrong. Is this correct or is this false. Is this right or is this wrong? It's are you bucking the collective system and I'm going to shame you until you shut up.

Joe: So I wanna ask you about something that you said that I thought was really great. The official apologetics verse is always First Peter 3:15 but you said one that you hang onto a lot is Colossians 4, 5 and 6 and it is, "Walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." And then you said, "Apologetics is not about answering questions, but about answering people."

Abdu: That's right. I don't think apologetics will answer questions. They should answer people. Questions are the means by which people get their answers. But Paul's very deliberate when he says, "How you ought to answer each person." He could've said, "How you oughta answer each controversy, each question, each issue." He didn't say that, how you oughta answer each person. So making the best use of the time is, understanding what is their baggage. Every question is asked by a questioner and every questioner has their context and their baggage. I very rarely ever met, and maybe never have met and frankly I don't know, someone whose asked me about the problem of evil, who didn't experience some form of it in their life or know someone who did.

Abdu: I very rarely ever been asked a question by someone about the Trinity who hasn't tried to understand who God is in their life, or how can God exist in a certain way. There's a yearning in every question, otherwise you wouldn't have asked it. Pure, raw academic curiosity is rare and it's not because it's a good thing and it's rare. It's just that it's rare 'cause human condition doesn't allow for it, to be all that prevalent.

Joe: It's always a context.

Abdu: Always a context. So you have to answer the person, not the question. The question is the means by which you answer the person, but it itself does not need answers. People need answers.

Joe: Last question. How are you personally answering God's call?

Abdu: Well you know, so I was talking to someone yesterday, Dr. Gary Habermas was here and we were talking about ministry and all these things and I would say this, I've never been busier than I am right now. I've never worked more, traveled more with books and speaking and other things that I have to do. But I haven't toiled one day. Now there are parts of my job that are a job, you know, just life. I never toiled one day. I feel like I'm answering God's call because the drudgery of every day life and sometimes just of working is so outweighed by the joy. As we were walking over here, someone told me that they became a Christian because they heard me explain the Trinity. This is an atheist talking. So unusual. I'm gonna remember that all day. Not because I said something, but because God used me.

Abdu: Here's what I would say. I'm answering God's call by listening to what it is and following it. I have this whole discussion on finding your call where passion meets purpose. So what are we passionate about? I'm passionate about people. I went to my undergraduate degree in psychology, because I wanted to be a therapist. Then I went to law school, because I love the gathering of evidence and I love to make arguments. Now I'm an apologist, who uses evidence and arguments to answer people. And so the security, that sort of winding route to all this shows me God's hand is in everything, even seemingly tangential or weird roads you take, are actually lining up with his purposes.

Abdu: So I find my call where my passion for people and evidence and argument has met my purpose, my God given purpose. It's not a mystery to know God and make him known. That's every Christian's purpose. Every human's purpose by the way is to know God and make him known. That's my purpose, my passion lined up with that in this way. If you're a doctor or a lawyer or a mechanic, or whatever it might be a nurse, a stay at home parent. Your passion will line up with your purpose and when it does, it'll snap together like one of those pixelated paintings you see in malls where you don't know what it is exactly, you stare at it and suddenly, it's a dog.

Abdu: Well in this case, my passion and my purpose snap together and I suddenly saw it, this is my call.

Joe: That's interesting, that's amazing. Well thanks so much for being on the podcast. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you, wanna follow you, social media.

Abdu: So I'm on Twitter, Abdu Murray, A-B-D-U M-U-R-R-A-Y. Instagram, abdumurray12 and then I have a Facebook page as well. But abdumurray.com and then RZIM.org, you can see our entire team there, all of us.

Joe: Excellent. Well thanks so much Abdu.

Abdu: My pleasure, thanks for having me.