Sep 21, 2026 · 52 min · 11 segments
In this episode we interview Elizabeth Oldfield, a much sought-after public speaker and writer whose honesty & enthusiasm for community are contagious. She gives…
Elizabeth OldfieldGuest
Barnabas AsprayHost
Austin StevensonHost
You know, it's such an interesting process to to sort of think through why people have that reaction to faith and and sort of I think, you know, I find it helpful to begin by just saying if we can talk about what it means to be human, what it means to sort of live a good life and find common ground there.
then it kind of opens up possibilities of thinking about like what's the basis for that and that sense of kind of hope and goodness there um yeah that i think that i find really really helpful as opposed to sort of let's argue about god and if we don't agree on that then we can't talk about anything else which is sometimes i think what what christians offer the world um and it's just yeah i think difficult to get anywhere often if that's sort of where you begin
And I think just sort of social sign, like if you look at the sociology and the social psychology, that's not how anyone changes, right? If we take seriously that Christianity is a missionary faith, we have received something beautiful.
that we want others to know about then we should be thinking what is actually effective in terms of other people being given the chance to really hear it if they want to and what's actually effective is friendship what's actually effective is people feeling heard and respected actually and That when we demonstrate that we're sufficiently interested in other perspectives and we're sufficiently non-defensive and fragile, frankly, I talk about confident non-defensiveness.
If we have a steady rooted groundedness, sufficient that we can just go out and want to understand and want to listen and want to be in real human to human conversation, not this, like I have the answers and I'm about to tell you why everything in your life is wrong.
That in that thread of relationship, again and again and again, we see that's when people go, huh, maybe there is something in this.
When it just looks like people who hate you think this, that's not how persuasion works.
And I think I always, you know, a lot of my students, I think, are really interested in doing apologetics.
But it's, you know, I think what I'm often trying to sort of show them is like...
If you want to be a witness in the world, then grow in maturity so that you're the kind of person that people want to be around, that they can trust, that they can see that you sort of care for them and that you have some sort of insight about life.
And that's not something that you can get from like, you know, reading a book about arguments about God or something.
um and uh and so it's not you know it's not a process that you can sort of short circuit so they're always asking me like well how you know how would you do this and how would you do this and i'm like i you know i think it's a it's a really different question honestly if you're if you are really thinking about being you know faithful in your calling and not just about feeling like you're right when you go talk to people on the street or something yeah
honestly that like i i did some apologetics training with the so many of the institutions that have been formative in my Christian life now have very complex legacies, but with the Zacharias Trust apologetic stuff, I can't remember a single argument I was taught and I've never used one.
You know, it's such an interesting process to to sort of think through why people have that reaction to faith and and sort of I think, you know, I find it helpful to begin by just saying if we can talk about what it means to be human, what it means to sort of live a good life and find common ground there.
then it kind of opens up possibilities of thinking about like what's the basis for that and that sense of kind of hope and goodness there um yeah that i think that i find really really helpful as opposed to sort of let's argue about god and if we don't agree on that then we can't talk about anything else which is sometimes i think what what christians offer the world um and it's just yeah i think difficult to get anywhere often if that's sort of where you begin
And I think just sort of social sign, like if you look at the sociology and the social psychology, that's not how anyone changes, right? If we take seriously that Christianity is a missionary faith, we have received something beautiful.
that we want others to know about then we should be thinking what is actually effective in terms of other people being given the chance to really hear it if they want to and what's actually effective is friendship what's actually effective is people feeling heard and respected actually and That when we demonstrate that we're sufficiently interested in other perspectives and we're sufficiently non-defensive and fragile, frankly, I talk about confident non-defensiveness.
If we have a steady rooted groundedness, sufficient that we can just go out and want to understand and want to listen and want to be in real human to human conversation, not this, like I have the answers and I'm about to tell you why everything in your life is wrong.
That in that thread of relationship, again and again and again, we see that's when people go, huh, maybe there is something in this.
When it just looks like people who hate you think this, that's not how persuasion works.
And I think I always, you know, a lot of my students, I think, are really interested in doing apologetics.
But it's, you know, I think what I'm often trying to sort of show them is like...
If you want to be a witness in the world, then grow in maturity so that you're the kind of person that people want to be around, that they can trust, that they can see that you sort of care for them and that you have some sort of insight about life.
And that's not something that you can get from like, you know, reading a book about arguments about God or something.
um and uh and so it's not you know it's not a process that you can sort of short circuit so they're always asking me like well how you know how would you do this and how would you do this and i'm like i you know i think it's a it's a really different question honestly if you're if you are really thinking about being you know faithful in your calling and not just about feeling like you're right when you go talk to people on the street or something yeah
honestly that like i i did some apologetics training with the so many of the institutions that have been formative in my Christian life now have very complex legacies, but with the Zacharias Trust apologetic stuff, I can't remember a single argument I was taught and I've never used one.
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