3/4/25

This morning, I went to a nearby coffee shop to work on some textual observations through John's account of the gospel. I got a cup of coffee and sat down to begin my work for the morning. I was focusing on John 14-15 before I was joined by an older woman, Danny, who was waiting for her drink to be made. She asked if the other chair at the table was open, and I happily welcomed her to join me. She noticed my Bible and made a comment about the small text size (I was using my pocket Bible at the time). I replied back and asked if she was familiar with or read the scriptures. It wasn't the most seamless transition, but it worked! She went on to explain, throughout our two-hour long conversation, how she is an ex-Jehovah's Witness, agnostic, ordained minister, universalist, with a PHD in metaphysical studies, and a strong distaste for definitive beliefs and authoritative sources. Pretty gnarly setup, am I right??

I asked her more about what her degree meant and what she does and discovered that she has studied many religions (not very well unfortunately) and is a life coach for those who have just lost loved ones or experienced severely traumatic events. She expressed that one of her primary goals in her interactions is to get people back to their religious beliefs, regardless of what they are. I was fascinated by this and asked why she wanted them to not abandon their religious views even if they seem incoherent and wrong. She said that it is pragmatically more beneficial to have a religious belief and that it is less important how literally accurate it is. She holds that there is an all-powerful Spirit that exists, but doesn't think any religion is right about their understanding of It. I asked her what she thought this Being was like, and she said that it is all-good and all-powerful; therefore, It could not send anyone to destruction that has lived a good life. This was an interesting statement that we discussed for a while, but we truly only scratched the surface of the topic.

We talked about many different things that she "believes", but my observation and conclusion from it all is that she only wants to believe what explicitly benefits herself and supports what she wants to do in life. It's an intellectually awkward conversation to have as the other person doesn't want to actually arrive at any particular truth claim because it would create exclusivity. Unfortunately for her, Jesus was big on religious exclusivity, and it was fresh on my mind from John's gospel.

As I continued to listen and ask her questions about her beliefs, I realized that we were not truly getting anywhere as she rejected anything that could actually be used in a conversation about truth. So, I decided to explicitly ask her about her thoughts on Jesus of Nazareth. In many words, she told me that Jesus is a false teacher that just preached exclusivity because He wanted to have an exclusive club. She saw Jesus as a judgmental, power-hungry, human who oppressed people by making objective claims as to who can be saved and who cannot. I knew that she had a bad experience with the Jehovah's Witness cult, and I believe that this led to many of her current rejections of authority and exclusivity. I can empathize a lot with her hesitation to these as the JW cult abuses scripture, authority, and manipulation to control people and gain power.

She made many false claims about the Bible and what it teaches, but I didn't want these heresies to consume the conversation as there is a much more decisive target I wanted to address. When the opportunity finally arose, I pressingly asked her what would change if the Bible is true and Jesus is God. She was not necessarily a fan of my question and tried to evade it through ungrounded philosophy that truly stood on nothing. I asserted that the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is God, that God was pleased to have His fullness dwell in Jesus, and that faith in Jesus is the only way to the Father according to the Bible. I provided scripture to support these, but it became abundantly clear that she didn't want to discover what is true, but only what is in support of her desires and perception of God. She asserted that the things in the Bible that didn't align with her perception of God were falsely added by the men who were used to record the inspired word of God. There were so many false claims that she made, theologically and philosophically that I wish I could've addressed with her, but our time ran out and her hunger was not for truth but rather acceptance and worldly promotion.

We ended our conversation in a fairly stark disagreement, but she thanked me for our conversation and said it was a pleasure to have. I pray that the words I said might be used by God in reaching Danny, and that she might have a profound encounter with God that sparks the true investigation of true doctrine and true living. May God again cross our paths and continue our conversation about the exclusivity of Jesus!

With love and peace,

Ivan Penrose