Jessup professor Derek Zahnd joins the show to talk about his recent book Hope for Unity and Diversity: How To Be A Christian Without Being A Jerk.

TRANSCRIPT

0:01

Everyone welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host Mark Moore

0:04

and your co host, Rex Gurney.

0:05

And Rex on the show. We have one of our own today, Professor Derek Zahnd. He is leader of our Master of Arts in Leadership and teaches with our theology and leadership division. And

0:16

I think he has the office like right next to you is He's right

0:19

next door, right? I can actually hear him through the wall. Sometimes he's here promo in his new book, which is hope for unity and diversity, how to be a Christian without being a jerk.

0:31

I think you'll enjoy the episode.

0:38

This is our first show of 2022. So Derek, thank you so much for joining us for this new year.

0:45

So glad to be here.

0:47

It's good. We're looking forward to a good year. Yeah. Good year, we've had a stream of not so good years. So I feel like you know, although don't they say things come in threes. So that's probably not sometimes. That's hope that's not true now. But as we, as we look at 2022, I was thinking this, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, as we begin has nothing to do with the book or the topic, but Well, I was thinking we're not, you know, we're not going to make it. But 2222 That sounds like a pretty magical time to be alive. I wonder if they're gonna really appreciate it. Like how, like, that has only happened, what, you know, 1111 I guess each of the numbers so on

1:31

2020? Did people like you know, appreciate that too? Or is it sort of the last year

1:36

2020? But you know what, I never thought of it in 2020.

1:40

I probably never thought of saying something about it. But I never thought of it that either.

1:45

Now I didn't even think about it. Because it was just like now 2020 Is, is kind of the year that didn't happen. Yeah, sort of feels like kind of a year that bypass and then 2021. But and kind of was it in the midst of that that kind of inspiration for the book?

2:04

Yeah, that's a great question. I think we've all been kind of watching the news and listen to friends and folks and just saw those things coming together and actually tied back to some work I'd done in a doctoral program years ago and felt like, Hey, I think there's some alignment here. So I just wanted to sort of explore it and see if this could line up into something meaningful.

2:26

Yeah, I think it's such a timely message. Right, this idea of hope for unity and diversity. It's not homogeny. Right. It's, it's unity within the midst of diversity. Right. But we also I think, at the beginning, we have to hone in on the subtitle, because it's the thing that grabs you the most right how to be a Christian without being a jerk.

2:48

And so my question with that Derek is, and I mean, there may be multiple answers to that is when and how did those two things become synonymous and a lot of people's minds? Because I know they are actually. So like, when did that happen to that sneak up on us? Or has that been brewing for a while? And you know, we obviously have at least a public relations problem with that if those two terms are synonymous? Yeah.

3:14

Isn't that something? Yeah, I think a lot of us came to Christ, looking at our own weaknesses, and sin and so forth, and encountering Jesus and thinking, This is awesome. I've been forgiven and equipped to serve and love. And I'm, I'm part of the good here, you know, and there was a time our culture might have agreed with that. And then, you know, although we worship, a God of love, increasingly, forces in our culture, saying, Hey, we don't always experience Christians is all that loving. Yeah. And so, you know, maybe in our grief is we've lost some cultural prominence. Sometimes maybe our behavior in the eyes of others has looked like the behavior