Olasky on world religions
Religion & Liberty Online

Olasky on world religions

In this interview for Crosswalk.com, Acton Institute senior fellow Marvin Olasky talks about his book, The Religions Next Door. Olasky says, in part, on the importance for Christians to learn about other religions,

Number one, as part of general knowledge, we should know about other religions if we want to understand something about American history, world history, and different cultures of the world. For the purpose of understanding the world and people, then sure we want to do that. Number two if we want to take practical policy actions in regard to say Islam as well as other religions then we have to understand how that works out. That’s going to heavily influence our judgment on what we can do in Iraq and lots of other places. Number three, there are evangelistic purposes that are significant and I think the approach of taking a bullhorn and shouting out Bible verses is not particularly effective. It’s much better to discuss something with a person, find out where that person’s coming from, and be able to deal with the real questions that person has.

Jordan J. Ballor

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.