Join Dr. Dobson as he engages with Lauren Green on the complexities of faith and the quest for spiritual fulfillment. This conversation sheds light on the ‘walking wounded,’ individuals who appear successful yet remain unfulfilled, and how Christianity’s unique ethos can offer them solace. As Green delves into the unique aspects of Christianity that differentiate it from other world religions, listeners are invited to reflect on their personal spiritual journeys and the true essence of faith.
Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It’s a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute supported by listeners just like you. I’m Dr. James Dobson and I’m thrilled that you’ve joined us.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Roger Marsh, and today we’re continuing our conversation with Dr. James Dobson and his special guest, Lauren Green. Now, if her name sounds familiar, that’s because Lauren Green is the chief religion correspondent for the Fox News Channel. She’s also host of the podcast called Lighthouse Faith. For nearly 30 years, she has conducted in-depth interviews with the leading experts in apologetics and theological doctrine. She’s also a 2009 Templeton Cambridge Fellow, exploring areas of science and faith. On the last edition of Family Talk, Lauren introduced us to her book called Lighthouse Faith, exploring how God provides clarity in our confused world. She explained how the lighthouse represents both God’s love and his law, guiding us through life’s fog. Today, Lauren will continue offering wisdom for reaching out to those searching for meaning. She compassionately describes many successful people as the, quote-unquote, walking wounded. They appear to have it all while feeling empty inside. Her insights help us understand how to share our faith with those who sense something is missing in their lives. Now, Lauren Green also explores what makes Christianity unique compared to other world religions. Whether you’re strong in your faith or perhaps if you’re still searching, this conversation is going to offer hope for finding your way through life’s fog. So let’s get into it right now. Here is part two of Dr. James Dobson’s conversation with Lauren Green talking about Lighthouse Faith on today’s edition of Family Talk.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’re talking about faith. Lauren Green’s book Lighthouse Faith God is a Living Reality In a world immersed in fog. Boy, that says it all. Let me role play with you a little bit, okay? Lauren, how nice that you have a relationship with God. Obviously, I have not had that experience. I’m role playing. And I don’t know him. And I’m grown now and I have never experienced him. How do I find what you’ve got?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, first of all, I’m glad you asked because it’s so important because it shows that you have a longing inside of your heart for something greater than what you’ve got. And I would ask also, when you get up in the morning, what do you think about? What is on your mind? What gives you pleasure?
SPEAKER 02 :
Right? Not a lot. Not a lot? I’m living and I’m going through life, but something’s missing there. I don’t know what it is.
SPEAKER 03 :
At some point, you thought that job or that marriage or that relationship was going to be the joy in your life.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
And it didn’t turn out that way. Why do you think it didn’t turn out that way? Because you used it as a substitute for the living God. You see? It’s not that you don’t have faith. He’s been putting the faith in the wrong place.
SPEAKER 02 :
Do you suppose he knows me?
SPEAKER 03 :
He has seen you when you were knitted together in your mother’s womb. He has loved you even when you messed up. He has been there. And he’s been longing for you just to give him one.
SPEAKER 02 :
You have to understand I’m not a perfect person. I’ve done things that I’m embarrassed about.
SPEAKER 03 :
We all have. We all have. We’ve all been imperfect people. But that’s who we are. And that’s been the way for millennia. That’s the story of the Garden of Eden. We are descendants of Adam and Eve who messed up. How do I talk to him? Like you talk to me. Just say, God, where are you? I just – I need you to come into my life. I need you to fix this. Show me who you are.
SPEAKER 02 :
Do you know the number of people around us every day who could have this conversation with you? And they don’t know who he is. And they long for it. But they don’t know where to start. This is such a valuable – A conversation because he is there. He does know us.
SPEAKER 03 :
This is why my friends and I from church, we rent – we like to rent a house in the Hamptons, which is a really great magnet for people in New York. And we invite anybody and everybody, non-Christians, some nominal Christians, and they come out. And we have great conversations like this without pressure. We go in the pool. We have dinners. And then on Sunday morning, we pile into a couple of cars and a van or so and go off to church. And you’re welcome to join us if you want. Oh, you can stay here and have a cup of coffee. And then they realize the house is empty without everybody’s gone. So they pile in the car and they go to church and may have been their first church visit in a long time. And that happened, I’ll tell you, with one woman, young woman that happened with. And she was so impressed with the level of joy that was in all of these Christians who were intelligent, who were just enjoying life, who were friendly. And she just said, wow, I never knew that could be like this. That same woman is now in seminary.
SPEAKER 02 :
Really?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Have you had the opportunity specifically to win a person to Christ, to talk them through this and watch them make that acceptance and that understanding and begin to get it and their eyes begin to change, they begin to sparkle? Have you had that experience?
SPEAKER 03 :
In our community groups, this is what happens too.
SPEAKER 02 :
There’s no greater thrill than that. That’s why I’m here, Lauren. That’s why I care.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that’s the thing that is so important. And people ask me, why are you working in secular media? Why don’t you go work for Christian media? I said, one reason is that I know there are a lot of people out there who are wounded. And they are the walking wounded. We talk about Tommy Nelson and he calls them walking wounded. They are propped up by their wealth, propped up by their beauty, propped up by the accoutrements of success. But they’re hurting. They’re hurting.
SPEAKER 02 :
They’re in the fog.
SPEAKER 03 :
They’re in the fog, thinking that this is what’s going to save me. This is what’s going to make me okay. And at some point, some of those walls break. And I had a woman in my office and she came to me and she said, they’re taking me off my show. I’m okay, I’m okay about it, but I just, you know, how do you handle that sort of thing? So I was beginning to have a conversation with her. And see, these things don’t happen in one instance. They think, I can fix this if I just get this, right? I don’t need the God thing. But being the person who’s going to consistently say, maybe you need something else besides focusing on God. This. Maybe this is not the thing. Because whatever you focus on as your reason for being and your salvation, whatever that is, that is what you’re worshipping. Right? Not only is it what you’re worshipping, but that’s your master. You’re bowing down to that thing. And that’s what’s leaving you empty because it doesn’t give you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Jesus said you can’t serve two masters.
SPEAKER 03 :
It doesn’t feed you. In the long run, it doesn’t feed you. It keeps taking. It keeps wanting you to have more and more and more and more success. And if you fall short, it judges you. It judges you. And that’s when the depression comes in. But Jesus will never judge you like that. Never. You are my child. You are my own. I love you no matter what. Put all your deadly doing down. Down at Jesus’ feet, you are complete in me.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, there’s so many stresses in life. Just living brings stress, scary things, disappointment, sorrow, loss. I don’t know what people do when they don’t have Christ to turn to.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s a hard thing because I remember one of our Bible study people, she was talking about how she was trying to minister to a friend of hers who was going through a trauma in her life. Either it was a divorce or a death or something like that. And she wanted to talk with her about it. And I don’t think she was a believer. She might have been a nominal Christian, but certainly wasn’t of the faith in a strong way. And she said to her, well, you know, talk me through this. But don’t give me any Jesus thing, though. I don’t want to hear that. And my friend says, I don’t know how to minister to her without bringing Jesus into it. And that’s kind of the New Yorker kind of like, okay, I need comfort, but I just – don’t give me Jesus right now. It’s like, well, Jesus is all I got. And that’s going to be it. And if you don’t want Jesus, well, listen to this and just maybe it might make some sense. But if there is a Jesus, if there is a God who repaired the breach between – himself and humanity. It means he loves you so much, he’s willing to die for you so that you don’t have to be out of his presence. And if there’s a God and you have this pain, I know that that it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you. I don’t know the purpose behind this particular pain. God may have a purpose for it in 10 to 20 years or 10 to 20 decades. I don’t know. Or it could be something that’s going to happen in three weeks. I have no idea. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you. He doesn’t care about you. Put yourself in his arms and say, help me get through this.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, boy, that’s so good. And if you can get across to a person that, you know, he made the whole universe. There’s nothing that was made that he didn’t make. And yet he cares about us. Are you kidding? You know, David said, what is man that you should care about him, that you would be mindful of him? I can’t figure that out, David. I have nothing to give him. There’s nothing I have that he needs except me.
SPEAKER 03 :
One of the things that blew my mind is I heard about – think about that God controls the universe and he holds everything in like on his pinky, right? Yeah. Right? And most of us kind of treat God like our personal assistant, you know? Like I’ll call you when I need you. And I might get some advice from you, but I may not take it. But until then, you know, I control you, right? And that’s God as a concept. And that’s the way kind of most of us live. It’s God in this gray area where I take what I want and I leave behind what I don’t. But God is a living reality, which is why that book is called The Living Reality. It’s an objective truth that exists outside of me, that exists whether I believe it or not. And I’m living in God’s world. He’s not living in mine. And that’s the reality of God. When you understand God as a living reality, whether you feel the truth or not, the reality of God is still there.
SPEAKER 02 :
You have a glow about you, Lauren. It’s obvious that you know the God of the universe personally. And that comes through not only in a conversation like this but in the work that you do at Fox. You’ve been there, by the way, 20 years.
SPEAKER 03 :
Twenty years. Yes, I was the first on-air person hired at Fox News Channel. And I remember sitting there in the interview, and 20 years ago, cable was like the sure-tell relative of network TV. So, oh, my goodness, you don’t want to work for cable.
SPEAKER 02 :
Fox is changing a little, isn’t it? I don’t want to take you far in that direction.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s a good way to put it, I guess. Yeah, you know, I’ve seen a lot of changes at Fox. I’ve seen them. Probably every change there has been, and it saddens me on a lot of levels, especially since I’ve been there from the very, very beginning. I was doing mock news shows two months before we actually went on the air, getting ready to go on the air. In fact, the producer that I worked with just recently passed away. And so all of this that has happened in the last few months and the last year has been very, very – hard for me and Roger Ailes leaving that was very difficult for me the day he left the building a lot of us sat and cried because we just knew what he meant to us he hired me and now he was out of the building I don’t get involved in the legal aspects of this because I basically do a lot of reading in my office but I’m just I’m just thinking I say I see these people all the time I see them as human beings and I think that’s why it’s so hard because Like I was saying before, if I were to get information about another organization and hear the reports of similar things happening over there, I would never have as much compassion for those individuals. I would be what everybody else is saying about Fox. But because I work with people, I know them as people, I know that people are not always the best that they could be. I’m not the best that I can be. But I also don’t know what happened because I’m not privy to that. No one has talked to me.
SPEAKER 02 :
How do you get your assignments?
SPEAKER 03 :
I pitch stories through the bureau and then they go up the chain and someone decides on another level if they want to do it or not. Then other stories just come to me. That level comes down and say, Lauren, can you cover this? But I do more than just the stories. I also occasionally do overnight anchoring. Also, I do a lot on the digital now because we have what’s called a spirited bait program. where we take both sides of a religious issue and we have one issue and then we debate that for four or five minutes and it’s on demand. I also do a radio weekly, a radio piece, Fox on Faith.
SPEAKER 02 :
I didn’t know about that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, we syndicated it. It’s called Fox on Faith. But it allows us to kind of create content that’s not on the news channel. I think the news channel has a lot of – is covering a lot more politics than it did before.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re probably one of the only prominent person in news who gets to talk about God.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I feel incredibly blessed. I was talking on Easter and I was trying to explain – because they have me on for about five minutes. You’ve got to get all your theology on in five minutes. Trying to explain, you know, what is Easter? You know, why do we celebrate Easter? Easter has nothing to do with bunnies and colored eggs and that sort of thing. I mean, it’s certainly things that have grown up out of it. But – And theologically speaking, there’s really nothing to do with, you know, Easter outfits and things like that and try to explain the theology behind Easter. And the thing that I wanted to get across, I said, you know, every religion makes truth claims, but only one religion, only Christianity, the founder actually claimed he was God. Buddha never made that claim. Muhammad never made that claim. So Christianity has an exclusive truth claim that is unique in religious truth claims. And why is that? Basically it’s saying that God in the form of Jesus Christ took the wrath of his own judgment so that we didn’t have to.
SPEAKER 02 :
You talk at some length in your book about the blood of Christ and the power of the blood.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s an old spiritual that I used to hear my mom sing and my aunt sing. The blood of Jesus will never lose its power. It reaches to the highest mountain. It flows to the lowest valley.
SPEAKER 02 :
There’s an old hymn about that.
SPEAKER 03 :
The blood that gives me strength from day to day, it will never lose its power. So I started to think, what is this power in the blood? And then I started analyzing what blood is. And the Bible talks about the life of the creature is in the blood. Do not eat the blood with the creature, right? Pour out the blood. You know, when Cain slew Abel, why? Because Abel gave a better sacrifice. Abel gave the blood sacrifice and Cain didn’t. And I always thought that was just so harsh. Why would you not accept his sacrifice, you know, and then realizing it was the blood? Because there is a sin debt that existed in the world.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s why none of the martyrs, no one else who ever died in a sacrificial way can satisfy our sin guilt. It had to come from the sinless one.
SPEAKER 03 :
It had to. It had to. And this is why all of the sacrifices up until that point were just temporary fixes. It was to carve that path straight to Jesus, who was going to be the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate Lamb of God, no sacrifice. Lamb’s blood above the doorways, their escape from Israel. Now, at the Passover meal, instead of having lamb at the last supper the apostles ate, it was Jesus himself who was the lamb who would take away the sin. That’s right. The Christian faith is the only faith where God is reaching to us. We don’t have to do this to achieve God. God has already done the work of salvation. Once and for all. Once and for all. And now you can enjoy your job. You can enjoy your marriage. You can actually look at that faulted human being you’re married to and say, well, I know that in God’s eyes we’re both faulted human beings and I need to love God. him or her, the way God sees them and understand and forgive and move to the next. This is why you can enjoy your life so much more. I can forgive because God has forgiven me. And I know it’s in my past. Not only I know it’s in my past, I know it’s in my heart. That’s where the real stuff is going on. You know? I’m a child of God. And yet, I still have this sort of darkness that kind of creeps in. And that’s why I need my daily nutrition regularly. of my Bible, of God’s Word.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, going back to the power of the blood and back to our conversation, our role playing about finding a relationship with Christ. It is a relationship, but the blood plays a very key role because if he hadn’t died on that cross, we would have no remedy. So the person that I was playing in that conversation who’s done terrible things There are people listening to us now who have hidden sins that are breathtaking. And yet you go back and you look at David. And he took a man’s wife and killed her husband. And God forgave him. And he said he was a man after God’s own heart. He will forgive. There’s no sin that he can’t or won’t if you repent and give yourself to him.
SPEAKER 03 :
The Old Testament says, It’s just filled with flawed human beings.
SPEAKER 02 :
They all are. It seems like the Bible goes out of its way to say, and then Hezekiah messed up.
SPEAKER 03 :
Moses, Abraham, David, Samson, Saul. Of course, all of them are flawed human beings who messed up royally.
SPEAKER 02 :
Joseph and Samuel are two. They must have something there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Samuel, it’s hard for me to see if there’s something wrong there, but I’m sure, you know, in God’s eyes, there’s probably something. But, you know, Joseph was a spoiled, you know, young kid. He was just spoiled by the family situation and his brothers hated him for it, you know, and he was a little egotistical. But, you know, God worked that out of him, you know, through how many years of prison, you know. So – You know, the purging of our pride is one of those things that is so hard for us to take. Love handles Messiah, and one of the choruses is, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto God an offering of righteousness. That is powerful to me because the Levites were the priestly tribe. They did not get an inheritance. They got God, right? So when the scripture says, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, that to me is powerful. Absolutely powerful. Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
You don’t sing, do you?
SPEAKER 03 :
I have sung and I accompany a lot of singers and I do love my Christmas caroling party every year. But I don’t sing in public.
SPEAKER 02 :
Do you play the Messiah?
SPEAKER 03 :
We try, attempt to have the Hallelujah Chorus every time. One of my greatest inspirations in the third chapter is the Hallelujah Chorus but also Handel’s Messiah because Handel – George Friedrich Handel was a broken man by the time he composed Messiah. And he felt that he was at the end of his career. He had had a stroke. He was financially in ruin. And he had gotten a score, a libretto to Messiah from his friend. And it was all like a cliff-knot version of the Bible’s narrative of redemption. All Bible verses. Nothing else but God’s Word in Messiah. And Handel… wrote the music to Messiah, which is a three-and-a-half-hour oratorio. He wrote it in three weeks.
SPEAKER 02 :
In three weeks. Unbelievable.
SPEAKER 03 :
And one of the stories, and it may be an urban legend, but I don’t know if it is or not, and it makes sense to me. When he was in the midst of composing the Hallelujah Chorus, which is the pentacle of this oratorio, his manservant came to the door and found him weeping, And Handel reportedly said, I do believe I’ve seen the gates of heaven.
SPEAKER 02 :
Really?
SPEAKER 03 :
He only performed Messiah for charity. You would never take any money for it. It always was to raise money for charity. And the piece was actually commissioned to raise money for the founding hospital.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’ve got to go, Lauren, but if you’re ever in – the Denver area, or anywhere in here, I’d love to hear you play.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, I would love that. I would love it.
SPEAKER 02 :
You let us know.
SPEAKER 03 :
I will, absolutely.
SPEAKER 02 :
I will, absolutely. It’s been a real pleasure talking to you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you so much. It’s been my pleasure as well.
SPEAKER 02 :
And you made a long trip out here. Thank you for coming. I trust the Lord will bless this book, continue to bless it, and that you will see great benefits from it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you so much. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Even in our darkest moments, God’s guiding light remains steady and true. Friend, you’ve been listening to Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk and the conclusion of Dr. Dobson’s conversation with our special guest, Lauren Green from the Fox News Channel. Now, if you want to hear today’s conversation again, or to share it with a friend, go to drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. That’s where you can listen to part one of this conversation from our last broadcast, as well as rehearing part two. And while you’re there, be sure you also look for the link for Lauren’s book, which served as the basis for this two-part conversation. Again, it’s called Lighthouse Faith. God is a living reality in a world immersed in fog. You’ll find information about the book and the broadcast when you go to drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. Here at the JDFI, we are dedicated to preserving and promoting the institution of the family through biblical principles. Every day we receive messages from listeners just like you whose marriages have been restored, whose parenting has been transformed. And as we continue sharing God’s truth in an increasingly confused world, your support allows us to be a beacon of clarity and hope for families all across America. And I should point out that as we enter into these summer months, that’s typically when giving has a tendency to drop just a little bit as people are on vacation or out of their daily routine. So your faithful financial support right now plays a huge role in helping us to continue to successfully minister to families through these summer months. You can give a secure donation online when you go to drjamesdobson.org. You can give a gift over the phone when you call 877-732-6825. If you prefer, you can always mail your tax-deductible donation in support of our ministry. Our ministry mailing address is Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, post office box 39000 Colorado Springs, Colorado, the zip code 80949. Well, I’m Roger Marsh, and on behalf of Dr. Dobson and all of us here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for joining us today. Be sure to tune in again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
