The Exchange with Ed Stetzer

Usha Reifsnider's research among Hindu-background converts in Britain found churches that welcomed them but had not heard them. She and Ed Stetzer discuss muted group theory, language, and evangelism.

The conversation

What is muted group theory, and what does it say about the church?

Reifsnider describes muted group theory, defined by Edwin and Shirley Ardener, through the workplace of the 1970s, where a woman admitted to a dominant group had to act as the men did. Ed Stetzer distinguishes the theory from critical theory and asks why the church should attend to unheard voices. She answers with her doctoral fieldwork: pastors told her their churches were united and multicultural, and she concluded that the people she needed to hear were the converts themselves. In church settings, she says, they used the words that earn recognition and left their pain and struggle unsaid.

How should a church start hearing people unlike its majority?

Ed Stetzer observes that people in a majority culture can feel fear when they stop being the majority, and asks how to respond. Reifsnider says it is easy to point to scripture, and that Christianity is lived through experience. She starts with relationship: coffee, a meal, friendships with Christlike people, built without the obligation to place someone who looks different in the pulpit. She argues that a multicolored church is not always a multicultural one, that words such as family carry different weight for a Western Christian and a Gujarati-speaking migrant, and that pastors should read majority-world theologians alongside their usual authors. Inclusion, she says, does not negate the voice of the majority culture in its own country. Asked by Ed Stetzer about Christian obligation, she grounds it in who Jesus was and says friction produces energy for growth. On the pace of evangelism, she says evangelical urgency produces templates that discard more than they hold. Stetzer replies that his concern is whether Christians share the gospel at all.

From the conversation

"The truth of the matter is that we live our Christianity through our lived experiences. And so people say all the time, 'Your identity is in Christ.' But sometimes the challenge for me is how a majority culture identifies me." - Usha Reifsnider

"Build that relationship without feeling the obligation that I've just have to find somebody who looks different and plonk them in the pulpit to prove that I'm actually being as diverse as I can be." - Usha Reifsnider

"I think the gospel was always meant to be one of movement. The gospel was never meant to be stuck in one place. It was never meant to be just one language or one location." - Usha Reifsnider

About Usha Reifsnider

Usha Reifsnider has served in cross-cultural mission since 1988, with a focus on migrant engagement. She holds a PhD at the intersection of cultural anthropology and practical theology and serves as a Lausanne Europe regional director and on the board of the European Evangelical Alliance. Her book is Unmuted: Speaking to Be Heard. 

Website: https://www.ushamattreifsnider.com  

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Historian John Dickson and Ed Stetzer teach an evangelism course together at Oxford and air their disagreements in front of the students. Here they take up two of those disagreements, and a question with stakes for American churches: what Christians should do with cultural power?

The conversation

How did the early church spread the gospel?

Dickson opens by defending his refusal of the title "apologist." Secular usage now means propagandist, he argues, and apologetics that selects only favorable evidence will fail the first skeptic who has read further. Ed, dean of a school with a large apologetics program, holds to the word and agrees about the practice. The sharper disagreement is historical. Dickson reads 1 Peter 3:15, the Great Commission, and Psalm 96 as one pattern, in which conviction that Christ holds all authority comes first and the readiness to speak follows. He calls the decline of evangelism a spiritual crisis first.

Should Christians use cultural power to change laws?

Ed challenges the phrase Dickson uses to unsettle audiences: Christians should learn to lose well. In America, Ed notes, that can sound like a loser's mentality, and evangelical influence can change laws for good. Dickson agrees influence should be used, through persuasion, gentleness, and respect, and warns that power makes it easy to sound like a bully. His measure comes from Bullies and Saints. Jesus set a melody of love for enemies, and the church's record shows departures from it that were often exposed by the Christians who condemned them. He closes with a test for American churches: whether skeptics would describe Christians as people who give themselves for others.

From the conversation

"The way the early church grew in antiquity was in more subtle ways. Yes, every Christian was on the lookout for opportunities to give an answer for the faith, but it's these other dimensions of prayer, godly life, and money." — John Dickson

"It seems to me the thing that inspires evangelistic activity and zeal is a fresh vision of Christ's majesty over all things." — John Dickson

"Let us allow the truth to be the offense, not the way we present it. And let us, whenever we defend the truth, sound like we're not protecting our tribe." — John Dickson

About John Dickson

John Dickson is a historian of early Christianity and Judaism, an ordained Anglican, and the Jean Kvamme Distinguished Professor at Wheaton College. He hosts Undeceptions and is the author of more than 20 books, including Bullies and Saints. More at johndickson.org.

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Alister McGrath says no one can prove what matters most, so atheists and Christians alike live by belief and live with doubt.

The conversation

Can Christians hold beliefs they cannot prove?

McGrath begins from a claim about human life: meaning, moral value, and purpose cannot be established by reason or the scientific method, yet people do not flourish without them. He extends the point to atheism, recalling that when he pressed Richard Dawkins on whether atheism could be proven, Dawkins conceded it could not. 

Does a Christian worldview compete with science?

Ed raised the objection McGrath's debate partners would make: that the Christian lens is a fantasy laid over the observable world. McGrath answers that science is a tool built for particular questions, and that using it to settle moral values is like using a thermometer to find the meaning of life. McGrath closes on what he calls Christianity's existential payload, a truth that changes a life.

From the conversation

"There are certain places it cannot go. It cannot talk about things like the meaning of life. It cannot talk about moral values, for example, because these both lie beyond the scope of the scientific method." Alister McGrath

"I can prove really shallow truths, but not deep truths of meaning or moral value or purpose." Alister McGrath

"The great big pictures of life which held sway for so long are just being junked, and there's nothing obvious that's going to replace them." Alister McGrath

"Doubt is saying, 'I need to go into this deeper. My present understanding of this is not good enough.' Doubt is an invitation to explore, to go deeper." Alister McGrath

About Alister McGrath

Alister McGrath is emeritus Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford and President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. He holds doctorates in molecular biophysics, theology, and intellectual history, and his books include Dawkins' God and C.S. Lewis: A Life. His latest book is Why We Believe: Finding Meaning in Uncertain Times. 

Website: https://alistermcgrath.weebly.com/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlisterMcGrath 
Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/086154921X

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Lisa Harper says church leaders, herself included, have watered down theology, and that doctrine that leaves character unchanged falls short.

The conversation

How should pastors teach theology to their people?
For years Harper gave her neighborhood Bible study a story, a short exegesis, and a takeaway, following homiletic rules she learned in her thirties. She now says it was her desire to be understood that was watering down her doctrine. Her test case is the hypostatic union. Stetzer frames the vocabulary question in plain terms: people who learn to order at Starbucks can learn theological language at church.

Does correct doctrine excuse bad character?
Stetzer names a pattern he sees: leaders who check every doctrinal box, treat people poorly, and get a pass. Harper rejects the assumption that their theology is good. She claims gaining information is important, since it informs our understanding of Jesus, but she believes that theology solely bound to academics is lifeless. 

How much of your own story belongs in a sermon?
Harper’s test on whether a story is appropriate to share is if Jesus remains the hero. She names two failures she has corrected in herself: telling stories that belong to someone else, and humor at her own expense that made her the emphasis. She argues that stories of darkness can also become self-aggrandizing when listeners rally around the speaker's pain. On the opposite end is editing so much that teaching becomes performance.

From the conversation

"Show me somebody who has strong theology but doesn't have humility, and I would say that the information hasn't softened the heart yet." — Lisa Harper

"I think the onus is on us, and I don't think we've done a good job." — Lisa Harper

"I don't want to edit so much when I'm teaching that it becomes performative instead of testimonial." — Lisa Harper

"If you can learn to order coffee at Starbucks, you can learn some theological language at church." — Ed Stetzer

About Lisa Harper

Lisa Harper is a Bible teacher, speaker, and author of more than a dozen books and Bible studies, including A Jesus-Shaped Life: How Diving Deeper into Theology Can Transform Us and Our World with the Radical Kindness of God. She hosts the Back Porch Theology podcast and founded The Kerygma Summit, an annual gathering of theologians and Bible teachers. She holds a Master of Theological Studies from Covenant Seminary.

Website: https://www.lisaharper.org
Podcast: https://www.lisaharper.org/backporchtheology
Instagram: https://instagram.com/lisadharper
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialLisaDHarper
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Shaped-Life-Theology-Transform-Kindness/dp/0800744764

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Villodas arrived with a definition of anxiety that implicates confident leaders as much as worried ones. Stetzer spends most of the hour testing whether a congregation can hold that much internal difference and still teach anything difficult.

Why do confident pastors still lead anxiously?

Villodas separates anxiety from worry. Worry is a feeling a pastor can honestly deny. Anxiety, as he uses the term, is the automatic response to a real or perceived threat, and it shows up as manipulation, coercion, anger, or avoidance. That definition does real work in the conversation, because it moves the diagnosis away from the visibly stressed pastor and toward the one who cannot leave room for dissent. His own test is whether he can tell a staff member to push back and mean it. When he cannot stand disagreement, he reads that as anxiety rather than conviction.

Stetzer sharpens this into something a listener will recognize, noting that pastors can grow worse at formation than the people they lead because they treat sermon preparation as their spiritual life. Drawing on the pastors moving through his cohort, Villodas says the average pastor has no plan for personal formation and is living off someone else's spirituality: podcasts, books, other people's sermons. 

Can a politically mixed church still teach hard convictions?

Villodas describes his congregation as split roughly in thirds between Trump voters, Harris voters, and people who abstained. Stetzer asks the difficult question: does a spread like that indicate a pastor avoiding the sharp edges of Scripture? Villodas responds by saying that a single message cannot form anyone, so a church that wants to hold a hard conviction has to build multiple spaces for conversation, listening, prayer, and self-examination around it. Alignment is a low bar for a pastor to clear. Discipleship is the actual assignment.

He frames the pastoral task as creating an environment where difference does not automatically produce disconnection, which he ties to differentiation: staying close to God, to yourself, and to others under high anxiety. He also insists on understanding how people arrived at their conclusions, since depersonalizing someone strips the story that produced the conviction.

Where does pastoral burnout actually begin?

Burnout, in Villodas’s account, is the attempt to give what you do not have, which is why he starts with relationships rather than Sabbath. Villodas argues that emotional pain persists when there is no relational home to hold it, and he applies this directly to pastors carrying criticism, hard emails, and board conflict without anywhere to put them. 

Is the narrow path about salvation or discipleship?

Villodas grants that Matthew 7 is usually read salvifically, as a statement about how few are saved, and argues instead that Jesus is describing discipleship. He works from three categories he takes from Dale Bruner: successism, moralism, and individualism. Against successism he sets the Beatitudes as a reframing of what counts as blessing. Against individualism he sets love of neighbor as the proof of love for God. He also inverts the usual sequence between prayer and mission, treating mission as a root of formation rather than a result of it, and points to his church's health center, pantry, and youth organizing work as the setting where that formation happens. 

From the conversation

Ed Stetzer: "I'm of the view that pastors sometimes are worse than regular people when it comes to their spiritual formation 'cause they just sort of rely on their preparation as their formation."

Rich Villodas: "But anxiety is not simply about worry. Anxiety is what is the automatic response to distress or disagreement."

Rich Villodas: "I think the average pastor's living off the spirituality of someone else. Podcasts, other sermons. There's not a cultivation of being with God and speaking out of that place."

Rich Villodas: "It's a narrow path that leads to the kind of spacious life that we long for."

About Rich Villodas

Rich Villodas is the Brooklyn-born lead pastor of New Life Fellowship, a large multiracial church in Queens with more than 75 countries represented. He is the author of The Deeply Formed Life (2020), Good and Beautiful and Kind (2022), and The Narrow Path (2024).

• Website: https://www.richvillodas.com/
• Books and links: https://linktr.ee/richvillodas
• Instagram: @richvillodas
• X: @richvillodas
• Church: https://elmhurst.newlife.nyc/ 

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Barna's research puts practicing Christians ahead of the general population in regular AI use, and ahead of the pastors who lead them. David Kinnaman argues the church's answer is not better tips, but a theology of technology, and a clear line between fluency and authority.

Are Christians really using AI more than everyone else?

Kinnaman opens with a caveat: research is good at telling us what is happening, less good at why. What it shows, he says, is a reversal. Practicing Christians, usually late adopters, are at the leading edge of this one. He cites Barna findings that 44 percent report using AI often or very often, against 31 percent of the US adult average and 29 percent of non-practicing Christians. Ed's framing: leaders still file AI under future issues, while the data puts it in their congregations' ordinary week.

Why are pastors more cautious than their congregations?

Ed pushes hardest here, asking whether the gap is healthy or a leadership problem. Kinnaman does not concede that caution is wrong, but he does argue pastors are behind. His explanation is sociological rather than theological: practicing Christians are more likely to be parents, volunteers, and members of community groups, so they meet more of the daily friction these tools remove. Pastors use AI too, he says, for ideation and sermon material, with cautions attached. The more consequential finding is what congregants want from their leaders. Not tips and tricks, but a philosophy, a kind of theology of technology. Kinnaman calls that a gap the church can fill, and does not say who fills it otherwise.

Should Christians use AI for prayer or spiritual growth?

Ed brings the question down to a case. During a recent hospitalization, ChatGPT told him it was praying for him before surgery. He posted about it and heard from the Washington Post. He asks where spiritual engagement with AI should be encouraged and where it should worry us, and Kinnaman declines to draw a bright line. His position is that the question has to be re-asked continuously, because what holds today may not hold in a few months. What he rules out is abstention. He tells a story about sitting out Facebook, and says AI is not that.

What does the church have that AI does not?

The argument lands on a distinction Kinnaman credits to another leader, whose name the transcript garbles. Language models are fluent, and fluency reads like knowledge because it moves in patterns we recognize. Authorship, not fluency, produces authority: you have standing on a subject because you did the work. The theological turn follows fast. The algorithms are never silent, which trains people to treat God as instantly summonable, a lamp to rub. Kinnaman's counterclaim is that the church holds what no model holds, the human word of forgiveness, spoken by a person, grounded in the cross. Asked what we have underestimated, he names what technology has always offered: comfort and control.

From the conversation

"So first of all I just think we have to have an adaptive, leaning in posture. This is not a revolution you can sit out." — David Kinnaman 

"Authorship gives you authority. When you write something from scratch, you have an authority on that subject if you do your work and do your homework." — David Kinnaman 

"We have to recognize I think this is going to be over the next five years, quite a bulldozer of all the things that we held dear" — David Kinnaman 

About David Kinnaman

David Kinnaman is CEO of Barna Group. Since 1995 he has directed interviews with more than two million individuals and overseen thousands of research studies. He is the author of unChristian, You Lost Me, Good Faith, and Faith For Exiles.

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