Living for Jesus When People Think You’re The ‘‘Bad Guy’’

Guest Bios

Show Transcript

Let’s face it. Christians—and especially, evangelical Christians—have a huge PR problem. Though at one time, society considered us the good guys, we’ve become the bad guys. So how do we live faithfully for Jesus in a culture that hates us?

On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie tackles this difficult issue with pastor, blogger and author, Stephen McAlpine. 

As Stephen concedes, we’ve brought some of this hardship on ourselves by behaving badly. 

“It’s very easy to have a persecution complex when we’re misbehaving,” he says. “And I think evangelicalism is going to have to take its licks . . . and just say, 'How do we untangle where we’ve behaved poorly?’”

But some of what Christians are experiencing has to do with the fact that what we believe is offensive to most people. 

Yet, instead of fighting to try and win a culture war and convince everyone we’re right, Steve has a radical idea: Just own that you’re the bad guy. And be the best bad guy you possibly can.

“We want to be curious to people in the sense that they look and go, ‘Oh, I know my parents said Christians are crazy. But that doesn’t look awful,” he said. “When they get together as community and do life together, it looks amazing.”

This Weeks Guests

Stephen McAlpine

Stephen McAlpine is a blogger and ex-journalist who writes on issues of theology, culture and the church. He is a pastor at Providence Church in Perth, Australia, and also works at a national level for City Bible Forum, developing and presenting evangelistic material for a project called Third Space. He is married to Jill and loves running in his spare time.

Show Transcript

SPEAKERS

JULIE ROYS, STEPHEN MCALPINE

JULIE ROYS  00:05

Let’s face it ,Christians, and especially evangelical Christians have a huge PR problem. Though at one time society considered us the good guys, we’ve become the bad guys. So how do we live faithfully for Jesus in a culture that hates us? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And today I’m tackling this difficult issue with pastor, author and blogger Stephen McAlpine. Stephen has just written this fantastic book. It’s called Being the Bad Guys: How to Live for Jesus in a World That Says You Shouldn’t. And there’s no doubt our society doesn’t like Christianity, and it doesn’t like Christians. In fact, in a 2019 Pew research study, fewer than one in three non evangelicals view evangelicalism favorably. And some of this is our own doing, right? There’s no doubt some of our political engagement has not helped. And I think the rise of so called Christian nationalism has been so incredibly hurtful to the cause of Christ. But then we also have all the church scandals, and it’s no wonder that our culture doesn’t have a high opinion of us. They think we’re all shysters. And though I still believe that the majority of Christians are loving, honest people, we have some extremely serious issues that we need to address as the body of Christ. On top of all this, we have a message that’s always been countercultural. Yet now, we’re living in a post Christian world, and what we believe is an offense to almost everyone around us. So how do we live as Christians when everyone thinks we’re the bad guys? Well, Stephen has a radical idea. He says we should just own that we’re the bad guys, and then be the best bad guys that we possibly can. And I’m really looking forward to my conversation with Stephen. But first, I want to just take a minute to thank my sponsors, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. I so appreciate my friends at Judson University who have been tremendous supporters of The Roys Report. Judson is a t