{"id":7371,"date":"2017-10-14T14:19:01","date_gmt":"2017-10-14T19:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=7371"},"modified":"2017-10-14T14:19:01","modified_gmt":"2017-10-14T19:19:01","slug":"our-deepest-desires-interview-with-the-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=7371","title":{"rendered":"OUR DEEPEST DESIRES: INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR"},"content":{"rendered":"
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https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Our-Deepest-Desires-Christian-Aspirations\/dp\/0830851828<\/a><\/div>\n

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I met Greg Ganssle thirty-seven years ago. I was a senior in college and Greg was a young Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU) staff member. We were on the North Myrtle Beach summer project. Greg was the kind and patient (!) discipler for eight of us guys.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Greg has a long-standing interest in philosophy so he eventually got his PhD from Syracuse. He teaches at Talbot School of Theology. Greg writes both scholarly and popular books. His latest, Our Deepest Desires: How the Christian Story Fulfills Human Aspirations<\/a><\/em><\/strong> frames this interview.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Moore: Is your goal in this book to demonstrate that the Christian claims are true, or have you staked out different territory?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ganssle: David, I am not trying to show that Christianity is true. I think most people think something like the following: \u201cI am pretty sure Christianity is false, and I am glad.\u201d I am trying to get at the second part of the claim. I want people to see that, if they think about what they care most about, they will see that they want<\/em> the Christian story to be true.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: It is all too rare to find Christians who do a good job of shrewdly sneaking up on you with their creative and clever arguments. For me, the writings of Augustine, Pascal, Newbigin, Chesterton, and Lewis are examples worth following. Tim Keller is a good modern-day example, but he is always invoked in this regard, which makes me believe the landscape of the \u201ccreative and clever\u201d is far from glutted. Why is there a dearth of this kind of approach to Christian persuasion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ganssle: This is a good question. I think many times we speak and write as if the most important thing is convincing someone of the truth of our position. Thus, we tend to focus on arguments and evidence. What we often fail to see is that people are often not persuaded by our presentations. We don\u2019t pay enough attention to identifying the things that constitute a person\u2019s real objections to the gospel.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: I\u2019m sure you know some happy non-Christians. They have meaningful work, good relationships, and are content. My next-door neighbor is like this. How does your book help us address folks like those?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Ganssle: I make the distinction between local meaning and global meaning. On an atheistic view of reality, there is no global meaning. The universe does not care if you are fulfilled. The fact that there is no global meaning, however, does not mean that the atheist cannot find local meaning. Many of our family or friends find real meaning in the people they love, the work they do, and the things they care about.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: Let\u2019s assume the trinity is the correct view of God. Do Christians have an advantage over Jews and Muslims in articulating the beauty and coherence of what they believe?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ganssle: I do discuss this in the book. One advantage is that on the distinctly Christian picture of God, relationships are part of God\u2019s very nature. God is his own community, so to speak. The fact that our relationships are so fundamental to our lives, then, makes sense. It reflects one aspect of the deepest reality.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: You have some wonderful things to say about goodness and beauty. Why does it seem that many are not so interested in such things. And to be frank, beauty is not high on the list of many so-called Evangelical Christians in America. Why the lack of interest?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ganssle: There is a long historical answer to this question. With the rise of the Enlightenment, the discussion about God has centered on truth. Believers have entered this conversation and aimed to articulate a compelling case for the truth of Christianity. In the middle ages, truth was linked to goodness and beauty as the \u201ctranscendentals.\u201d These were grounded in the very nature of God. I think believers today are recovering a thicker vision of both goodness and beauty, and this trend will solidify our witness to unbelievers as well as our own delight in God and the world he has made.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: What are a few things you would like your readers to take away from your book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ganssle: For those who are not yet believers, I would hope they would be prompted to think deeply on their deepest desires and how the Christian story provides a solid base for these. For those who are believers, I hope they gain a deeper appreciation of their own faith. In addition, I hope they become more adept at holding forth the gospel as a vision of life that is intrinsically attractive.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Our-Deepest-Desires-Christian-Aspirations\/dp\/0830851828   I met Greg Ganssle thirty-seven years ago. I was a senior in college and Greg was a young Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU) staff member. We were on the North Myrtle Beach summer project. Greg was the kind and patient (!) discipler for eight of us guys. Greg has a long-standing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,12,43,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-book-review","category-christianity","category-interview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7372,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7371\/revisions\/7372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}