7/28/26

For the past few months, I've met and conversed with a young man named *Arnold who is a student at CSUF. We initially met him on campus during this last semester, but his openness to continue our conversation led us to continue meeting through the summer break. Our initial engagement with *Arnold was certainly a peculiar situation, and now that I've met with him more, it seems that there might be a common thread to the hostility that springs up. I wrote some about one of our conversations here, so feel free to get some more insights into *Arnold's worldview by checking that out!

When we first met *Arnold, he came up to the whiteboard and asked me what we were doing and why we were doing it. I told him about what we do and began to inquire about his religious beliefs. This led to an interesting dialogue about his ungrounded faith in eternal souls, reincarnation, and advanced alien technology. We talked about this for a while before pressing him with evidences for the Christian worldview - namely the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. At this point, *Arnold became very defensive and hostile, coming close to striking Nick, who had presented some of that historical evidence. *Arnold was unable to hold a conversation with Nick due to this hostility (which he later attributed to previous religious hurt from his dad and others), but *Arnold was open to continuing the conversation with me. It seemed to me, for quite a while, that *Arnold was repulsed by the stronger assertion of historical evidences, but I now wonder if it's simply the evidence that's offensive to him.

*Arnold and I met this week to continue our conversation and pick back up where we had previously left off: would the world remain orderly with the complete abolition of religion? *Arnold had previously taken the stance that religion was a tool to keep humans in check until technology could surveillance everyone and maintain morality. I strongly disagreed with him, claiming that it is only through the objective morality afforded by a higher Power that we can have order in society. He was eager to hear my reasoning in our next meeting, but it turned out that I didn't even have to share it as he came and told me that he had changed his mind on the issue during our time away. This sounded like the beginning of a great meeting to me! From there, we reopened the cosmological argument for the existence of God and weighed his worldview against my worldview to see which is more reasonable. This led us all over the place as his beliefs are strangely disconnected from evidence and rely on merely hypothetical theories. The conversation really took a point, though, when I reintroduced the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

I believe he asked me about the evidences for the Christian worldview, and that's where we began discussing the possible explanations for the historically attested events. We went through a number of the common swipes at this approach: "we can't know what actually happened because we weren't there", "these stories were just fabricated or inflated over time", "Jesus was an alien", etc. As I began to address these various objections, I told *Arnold that there are actually many other possible explanations for the empty tomb that he hadn't mentioned that I think we should consider together. I told him that I would send him a resource and bring a printed copy for him in our next conversation so we could look through it together. There was more to the conversation than merely that, but our one-hour conversation went about two hours and we had to conclude so I wouldn't be late to my next meeting. I thought that our conversation was productive and made good strides towards the root of the issue; however, I soon discovered that *Arnold did not have the same perception. Here is the document I shared with *Arnold as well as a summary of our text conversation following our last meeting:

Jesus Resurrection Document

I reached out to *Arnold after we met up and sent him that document about the historical evidence surrounding Christianity and the resurrection, asking for his thoughts and which explanations he found most compelling.

*Arnold then said he felt it would be safer to stop having our religious conversations because he was concerned they could eventually become hostile. He said he hadn’t realized I worked for a religious nonprofit and worried that because religion was part of my job, I might be too biased or defensive to objectively consider opposing views. He felt my faith was currently very strong and questioned whether I was genuinely open to changing my mind. He also shared that he has trust issues stemming partly from his Christian/religious background and said returning to Christianity was the furthest thing from his mind. He said he felt secure in the beliefs he had developed through his own spiritual journey and wished me well in my faith.

I thanked him for being honest and told him I would respect his desire to stop the conversations if he wanted. I also apologized if anything I had said or done had made him feel unsafe or threatened, because that was never my intention. I pushed back on the idea that my religious work prevents me from thinking critically, explaining that I’m committed to discovering what is true even if that means discovering that some of my current beliefs are wrong or even changing work. I also acknowledged his negative experiences with Christians and said I didn’t want to minimize them. I explained that my goal wasn’t simply to convert him or win an argument, but that I genuinely care about him and believe Christianity is true and beneficial.

*Arnold clarified that he thought I was a good guy and didn’t want to jeopardize anything good I had going with my religious work. He said he didn’t want to potentially convince me that there might not be a God, especially if my faith was so strong that I wouldn’t be convinced otherwise. He felt our conversations could become one-sided. He said that if we were going to continue discussing religion, he thought I should research other possibilities outside Christianity, particularly Buddhism and reincarnation. He explained that he had been Christian for much of his life but had developed his current beliefs through things he had learned and experienced. He still wanted to hang out socially, such as playing pickleball or poker.

I responded that I’m genuinely willing to study Buddhism, reincarnation, and other worldviews, and that I’ve actually spent time exploring various religions in the past. I said I’d especially like to hear what evidence and experiences had led him personally to his current beliefs. I emphasized that I’m willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if it challenges Christianity, and that I’d be happy to examine the evidence together as long as we both approach the conversation with that same openness. I also clarified that while I’m happy to hang out without making every interaction about religion, my faith is a major part of who I am and will naturally come up sometimes.

I haven't heard back from *Arnold, but I'm trusting that God will use the conversations we had to cultivate the Word which was sown into his heart. I was intrigued, as I reflected, how it was the historical approach to the reliability of the resurrection that caused his fight or flight response in both situations. It seems that it was not primarily the assertiveness or direct nature of the conversation, but rather it seems it was the threat the information posed to his security in his worldview.

Please pray for *Arnold's heart to become fertile soil, receptive to the truth of the Word and honest with itself.