In this interview for , Acton Institute senior fellow Marvin Olasky talks about his book, The Religions Next Door. Olasky says, in part, on the importance for Christians to learn about other religions,

Number one, as part of general knowledge, we should know about other religions if we want to understand something about American history, world history, and different cultures of the world. For the purpose of understanding the world and people, then sure we want to do that. Number two if we want to take practical policy actions in regard to say Islam as well as other religions then we have to understand how that works out. That’s going to heavily influence our judgment on what we can do in Iraq and lots of other places. Number three, there are evangelistic purposes that are significant and I think the approach of taking a bullhorn and shouting out Bible verses is not particularly effective. It’s much better to discuss something with a person, find out where that ing from, and be able to deal with the real questions that person has.