How can Christians today interact with people in a way that shows respect to those whose beliefs are radically different but that also remains faithful to the gospel? Bestselling author Timothy Keller and legal scholar John Inazu bring together a range of artists, thinkers, and leaders—such as Lecrae, Tish Harrison Warren, Kristen Deede Johnson, Claude Richard Alexander, Shirley Hoogstra, Sara Groves, Rudy Carrasco, Trillia Newbell, Tom Lin, and Warren Kinghorn to provide a guide to biblical living in a pluralistic, fractured world.
Bible Gateway interviewed Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc) and John Inazu (@JohnInazu) about their book, Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference (Thomas Nelson, 2020).
Why is this book necessary?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: We wrote this book to encourage Christians who are seeking to be gospel witnesses in our deeply divided age. Christians can—and must—continue to engage with those around them, while both respecting differences and maintaining our gospel confidence.
What is “the fact of pluralism”?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: The fact of pluralism is the recognition that people in our society have deep and irreconcilable differences over the things that matter most. Some of these differences have always existed; others have materialized or become more apparent in recent decades. The fact of pluralism is a descriptive reality, not a moral of whether these differences are good or bad. Some differences, like our favorite ice cream flavors (John likes mint chocolate chip and Tim prefers chocolate), are good and make the world more interesting. Some differences highlight mutually exclusive truth claims and are cause for lament and engagement.
What is the difference between common ground and common good?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: The common good represents what’s best for a given society—its people, its laws, and its communities. It depends on ends or purposes that can be named.
Theologically, Christians can and should name the common good for the created order restored under the reign of Jesus—our faith tells us the purpose of creation. But naming the common good politically is much harder—the fact of pluralism makes it unlikely that we can name with any particularity ends toward which all members of society agree we should be directed.
We can, however, find common ground even when we don’t agree on the common good. Common ground includes the beliefs and experiences that unite us even in the midst of fundamental disagreements. Finding patches of common ground is often difficult and uncomfortable work. But it’s a worthwhile task, for the sake of our gospel calling to live with patience and love.
What does it mean for Christians to remain true to the gospel message while embodying humility, patience, and tolerance? And how do these three qualities fit with the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: We think that embodying humility, patience, and tolerance are essential to our gospel witness—because they’re some of the ways that we live out the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love.
Our confident faith in God allows us to live with humility. We acknowledge that we walk by faith and not by sight. We can thus likewise acknowledge the limits of human reason: we cannot always prove why we’re right and others are wrong.
Our gospel hope makes us patient. As Christians, our hope lies in Christ and his coming kingdom—not in our immediate political moment. We can thus patiently listen to our neighbors, sympathetically looking for common ground. We need not be threatened by our differences.
Finally, we can tolerate each other—enduring the beliefs and practices we do not share—because of our gospel love. This doesn’t mean that we accept beliefs or practices that we don’t share. Instead, tolerance means distinguishing people from their ideas, and then seeking relationships with all who are made in God’s image. Our love of God overflows into love of neighbor. And this love of neighbor calls us to tolerance.
How did you select the 10 other contributors to this book to write chapters on their particular topics?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: Because God reveals himself through stories, we decided to approach these issues with stories—our stories, and also those of friends, old and new. We think these stories offer hope, encouragement, and practical guidance for maintaining a faithful presence in our divided world.
We wanted to reflect the different ways that Christians engage confidently in the world today, in a way that highlighted different gifts and passions but also modeled the kind of roles to which all of us are called to pursue in our own ways and in our spheres of influence.
How do the biblical images of children, exiles, and trees speak to Christians engaging modern culture?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: The biblical images of children, exiles, and trees help us to reorient our identity, even in our deeply divided age. Kristen Deede Johnson explains these ideas in her chapter, “The Theologian.” First and foremost, our identity lies in Christ, not our political affiliation or social status. We’re God’s children.
Because we’re God’s children, we’re also exiles here on earth. We’re strangers in a strange land, sojourning on this side of eternity. But in the kingdom of God, part of being exiles means that we must seek the peace of the strange land in which we dwell. We engage modern culture so we can work together in seeking the good of our earthly city.
And finally, we’re to be like trees: life-giving to the environment around us. Like trees, we’re firmly rooted—in the gospel—so that we may find overlap with others—finding common ground—to seek peace, justice, and goodness.
[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post by Melanie Shankle, My Words Matter]
How are Christians to be “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13)?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: To salt the earth, we must be actively present in the earth. Although we may be tempted to withdraw from the world, we’re called to both bring out the best in our society and to push back against the effects of the Fall. Here, too, we can find common ground with others—protecting the dignity of all image bearers and pursuing justice for the poor and powerless.
[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, Annie Downs: Words That Kill… And Heal]
What is the “vocation of translation” for Christians?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: Translation is the process of making words, ideas, and practices accessible to audiences unfamiliar with them. As Christians, we’re called to translation as a vocation: we’re Christ’s ambassadors because God “makes his appeal through us” (2 Cor. 5:20). To translate effectively, we must understand the object of our translation—the gospel—and the world into which we’re translating. Understanding the world into which we’re translating the gospel requires relationships—the kinds of relationships that we form when we find common ground with our neighbors.
What do you want your book to accomplish?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: We hope the stories in Uncommon Ground will inspire readers. We hope they’ll give readers a starting point for finding uncommon community through common ground—so that you may be a faithful witness in these relationships. We hope our stories will also fill you with confidence. Our hope is not in this world, and our identities are not in our present political or social order.
What is a favorite Bible passage of yours and why?
Timothy Keller: The book of Psalms—because it takes every possible human situation and shows how to process it before God in prayer. 1 Corinthians 1:22-24 because it shows how to relate the gospel to different cultural narratives. Mark 10:43-45 because it shows that, as Christ saved us through laying aside his power and privilege, so we should serve each other.
John Inazu: 1 Corinthians 15:19-20. Verse 19 is the “all in” verse, reminding us what’s on the line: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” And then the answer follows immediately in verse 20: “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.”
What are your thoughts about Bible Gateway?
Timothy Keller and John Inazu: We think Bible Gateway is a great help—a literal at-your-fingertips concordance. We both use it regularly.
Uncommon Ground is published by HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., the parent company of Bible Gateway.
Bio: Timothy Keller is The New York Times bestselling author of The Reason for God, The Meaning of Marriage, The Prodigal God, Jesus the King, and The Prodigal Prophet.
John Inazu is the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of Confident Pluralism.
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