What Others Believe

How to Study Another Faith

This course is different from the two before it. In Rooted you learned to hold your own beliefs; in The Christian Family Tree you learned to walk charitably among fellow Christians. Now we step outside the family altogether — to the neighbors, coworkers, classmates, and friends who follow other gods, or no god at all. Rooted called this the third tier: not in-house disagreements among believers, but genuinely different accounts of God, the world, and salvation. The goal here is not to win arguments. It is to understand accurately and to witness with love — and before either of those is possible, we have to learn how to study a faith that is not our own.

Most of what people "know" about other religions is secondhand, thirdhand, or cartoon. We inherit a caricature — "Muslims worship a different god," "Buddhists worship idols," "atheists just want to sin" — and repeat it without ever asking a real Muslim, Buddhist, or atheist what they actually believe. That is exactly the strawman Rooted warned against, now aimed outside the family. So this course commits to a discipline: we will represent every faith the way its own devoted followers would, fairly enough that they would say, "yes, that is what I believe" — and only then name honestly where the gospel differs.

²²Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.Acts 17:22-23 · NIV

Watch how Paul does it in Athens, a city full of gods that were not his own. He does not open by mocking their idols, though the sight of them distressed him. He has clearly walked around and studied their altars — he even quotes their own poets a few verses later. He begins, "I see that in every way you are very religious," and builds a bridge from an altar he found: "To an unknown god." Paul studied before he spoke. He found the point of contact before he named the point of difference. That is the model for this whole course: study first, build the bridge, then tell the truth about Jesus.

The Frame We Will Use Every Time

To study any worldview fairly, you need a consistent set of questions — otherwise you only notice what already alarms you. Every session in this course walks the same frame, so that by the end it becomes second nature. For each faith we will ask: What is its authority — where does it get its truth? What is its view of God — one, many, or none? What does it say is wrong with us, and what is the solution? What does it hope for after death? What are its key practices? Then the two questions that matter most for a Christian: Where is the common ground we can honestly affirm? And what is the real distinctive — the actual place the gospel diverges? We close each time with how to have the conversation.

The eight questions we ask of every worldview:

Listen First — It Is Not a Trick

Listening well is not a sales technique for softening someone up before the real pitch. It is love, and people can tell the difference. When you genuinely want to understand a person’s faith — asking questions, learning why it moves them, honoring what is beautiful and good in it — you treat them as a person rather than a project. Jesus asked questions constantly; he met people before he confronted anything. If our only interest in someone’s beliefs is finding the crack to drive our argument through, they will feel it, and rightly close the door. Curiosity that is real earns a hearing that manipulation never will.

Two fears usually keep Christians from this. The first is the fear that understanding another faith too well might weaken our own — as if studying Islam or Buddhism could quietly convert us. But the opposite is more often true: the more clearly you see what other worldviews actually offer, the more the gospel of grace stands out for what it uniquely is. The second fear is that being kind means going soft on truth. It does not. This entire course will hold both — real understanding and real conviction — because that combination is precisely what makes a witness trustworthy. You can respect a person completely and still believe, with all your heart, that they need to meet Jesus.

Go deeper → This course is the third step in a path. If you have not taken Rooted: Essentials, Liberty & Charity, start there — it teaches the three tiers this course depends on. And for actually sharing your own story and the gospel simply, pair this course with Sharing Your Faith.

Be honest: what is one belief you currently hold about another religion or worldview that you have never actually checked with someone who holds it? Where did that impression come from — and how could you find out whether it is accurate?

Which fear is more real for you — that understanding another faith might weaken your own, or that being kind might mean going soft on truth? Write honestly about which one you feel, and why this course’s claim that you can hold both understanding AND conviction is hard or freeing for you.

Check Your Understanding

Anchor verse: "People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious." — Acts 17:22