Michael Knowles discusses important cultural topics and their relation to faith.

About this clip

This is part of the curated Thought-Provoking Content and People collection on Face of Faith, voices, interviews and teachings that helped shape one person's journey into Christianity. If something here lands with you, explore more from Michael Knowles or dive into bite-sized faith snippets, real testimonies and why Christianity.

Reflection

Cultural commentary and Christian conviction do not always sit neatly together, since public debate tends to reward certainty and sharp lines while faith often requires humility and patience with complexity. Discussing important cultural topics through a lens of faith is a worthwhile exercise, provided it resists the temptation to treat every issue as equally clear or every opponent as equally wrong. Micah's summary of what God requires remains a useful check on such conversations: 'To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God' (Micah 6:8). Justice and mercy, held together, resist both harsh moralising and easy relativism. Christians engaging cultural topics publicly bear a particular responsibility to model that combination, since the way an argument is made often teaches as much as its content does. Listeners can ask not only whether a position is correct, but whether it is expressed with the humility scripture actually commends.

Questions to sit with

• Which cultural topic do you find hardest to discuss with both conviction and humility?
• How do justice and mercy work together in your own views on difficult issues?
• What does 'walking humbly' look like in a public argument?