Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm, um, Zach Weirock, and in today's episode, we're asking the question, are all religions equally good? This is prompted by a heartbreaking article I read in the New York Times about what's happening to Kenyan migrant women in Saudi Arabia. But if you give me just a second, let me take a little bit of a circuitous route to this. You know, the idea that all religions are basically the same is a pretty common one in our culture, especially among those who themselves consider are considered to be irreligious. The idea is they all talk about God, they all talk about different kind of patterns and rituals, and in the end, aren't they all going the same place? Uh, it's a crazy idea and an idea that really anyone who's ever studied the world religions knows is patently false. But it's also false not just because the religions disagree among themselves as to who God is, often how many gods there are, all those things, but also because all religions don't produce the same good in the world. And in this case, here's what I mean. Uh, Kenyan women are being sent to Saudi Arabia to get jobs. The thinking behind the Kenyan government working with labor agencies is that, hey, Saudi Arabia Arabia has a booming economy. There is work for you there. When the women get there, they are not given citizenship. They're left, uh, to work but at an as a non citizen. And here's the problem. Eventually they have children in Saudi Arabia, oftentimes outside of a recognized Saudi Arabian, um, marriage. And as a result, they are not able to leave the country with their children. They're not given birth certificates, legal status, and so they're really left to fend for themselves and to have their children, uh, be cared for only by them, because the children have no rights. And the reason for this is kind of a double whammy. One is the Kenyan women are women. Saudi Arabia is a country informed by Islam, a religion that has a very low view of women and really seeks to give them very few rights and privileges. Add into the fact that they're not Muslim and a, uh, religion that sees non Muslims as themselves inferior and not worthy of rights and privilege. In other words, the fruit of Islam is the marginalization of these Kenyan women and treating them as though they were a little bit better than animals. You can read the article for yourself. It's incredibly heartbreaking. I think people underestimate this because let me Just start here. Christianity has produced countless good in our world. Not saying that no one under the banner of Christianity has ever done any harm. What I'm saying is in its purest form, Christianity has led to the creation of hospitals, the creation of humanity, universities, the advancement of the study of science, that much of what you know as Western civilization, the idea of equality, the idea of equal access, these are Christian concepts rooted in Christian doctrine. The fruit of the purest expression of Christianity is good. Whereas as in the heart of Islam and Saudi Arabia, the fruit is bad. And there's a reason for that. So I'm not saying Muslims are bad. I'm saying the ideology itself is, is flawed. Let's just start with this. The Bible tells us that God made men and women in his own image. If you get disconnected from the biblical God, inevitably you get a world set up on power. The strong have it and the weak don't. And they write laws that way because they're not appealing to a higher source of authority that is rooted in equality. You see, in Islam, Allah likes men more than women. But in the biblical version of God, in the biblical expression of God, the one true God, men and women are made in his image. Men no more have any right to pass a law that marginalizes a woman than they have to pass a law that marginalizes another man. People are made in the image of God and God determines the value of people. Here's the other thing is that power, apart from the gospel of Jesus, exploits. That's its inevitable consequence. Uh, that's because people in power don't look to anyone else in power who has served them. If you grew up in the church, this idea might not seem novel to you, but it really is. Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came not to be served, but to serve. And as a consequence, the challenge for every leader following Jesus is to be a servant. This whole concept of servant leadership that maybe you've heard and seen everywhere, that comes from Jesus. Jesus is the one who laid down his life. Well, what happens if you have God but you don't have the expression of Jesus? You end up with a God who is himself a power hungry, power leveraging entity. So when you get power, you use it the way you think he does. The gospel actually counterbalances this, which is why Jesus says in Luke 11:46 to the Pharisees, you load people with burdens hard to bear. He's telling them, don't you remember that your authority is meant to be used in service to the people, to show them the love of God. You see, the problem was the Pharisees were using power to leverage themselves over and against everyone else. Jesus was going to show them, not just in his teaching, but on the cross, how wrong they were. The gospel message is unlike anything else because it echoes the message of Jesus, which was this. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. This is Matthew 11, and I will give you rest. But you see, if you're receiving rest from a God who should be judging you, if you're receiving rest from a God who has forgiven you pretty hard, eventually, in legal circles, not to extend that rest to these Kenyan women. The gospel of Jesus Christ leads to human flourishing. And not only are, uh, all other religions not true, they don't take us there. And my heart is broken for these Kenyan women. And my prayer for them is that ultimately they will come to know the God who does see them, who does see their children, who loves them and their children so much, his own son came to die for them. They don't have that as a part of the Islam of Saudi Arabia, but they can find it in the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up. Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.