How is the Faith Conversation Changing?

why did you want to speak to Tom Holland the idea that human rights kind of hangs in The Ether waiting to be discovered is as theological as believing that the Lord Jesus Christ ra from the dead sits at the hand of God the Father wow yeah how do you both uphold the equality of of the Sexes and the difference between I mean it's all derived from Christianity in the end isn't it I mean this is the thing with with so much secular ethics and politics everything in the end comes back to Christianity even not explicitly so why is it surprising to hear this from Louise Perry we're at a very interesting time it might not be possible to cover over the god-shaped hole that's an interesting use of language isn't it we yeah we do try to cover over the whole that's very different from feeling it the sort of more organized religion side of it that's a bit I find a lot less appealing Constantine actually said you you're going to struggle to get people my age going to church I'm not that much older than you Conant we're always chur we're always supposed to be sharing life sharing the joys and sorrows and being there for each other why do you think that was our most uh listened to episode Glenn scrier Thomas th good you know something what's that we have made a thousand YouTube videos so we thought it would be a good time to you know just chew the fat okay take a look back some of it 10-year-old fat as well going to chew how does it feel you you've been doing this for a while been doing it for a while you getting bored you can tell as we look at some of these Clips you'll see we so max Patterson was kind of media producer be before you Thomas and I remember on one of his first days at Speak Life he was looking at an older video of ours that must have been like two or three years old and he looked at it says oh young Glenn and I was like you young Glen what do you mean young Glenn but yeah he he lost the job and then we got you in and you've been on Center hooks ever since try not to thought I fo wrong but you're going to see you're going to see a few clips from Young Glenn I should just clarify Max left on very good terms and he does come back quite a lot okay so first up a video from 12 years ago the anti Santi ranty it was for a Christmas carols uh concert I think it was like on the 21st of December and a friend said Andy Andy Brinkley said um why don't you do the poem that you did on the 21st of December we'll just film it I think we filmed it on the 22nd and we uploaded on the 23rd and it was It was kind of the origins of a lot of the Speak Life channel because it was like okay here's here's a spoken word video that actually you know did quite well and it spawned a whole bunch of other things I can't really watch it these days though so I'm going to cringe while you hit let's put that to the [Music] test I don't think I've seen this they say there's a big man who lives far away supposedly Jolly but it's hard to say I've never seen him and neither of you but the children believe and I suppose that'll do he's known as a loner with many a quirk no time for a chat he's embroiled in his work he keeps to himself for most of the year I reckon we're grateful he doesn't appear we send him requests for particular need you never hear back who knows if he hears that's enough there was something very powerful about that idea of yeah we do often think of God the way we think of Santa right yeah IM Emmanuel is a totally different thing to the the Santa in the sky that that most people think of as as this is what God is like so that's what we did 12 years ago a couple of years after that we sort of refilmed it a bit more properly and I'm I'm a little more happy for this to be out there and public so what's next so 321 uh is something that I've been working on for the last 13 14 years and it started off as a Blog and then I sort of Drew some diagrams and then I made a really bad PowerPoint presentation and uh and then Jeremy poiner who's a great animator said we could make a video out of this I sort of sent it to a friend who had a like a major blog at the time and I I probably failed to let him know that this is just a draft don't let people um know about this yet and so he put on his blog back in the days when blogs were a thing and it just went viral and we've scrambled to make a website off the back of it but um this is sort of 321 which has been the way that I've kind of unpacked what the gospel is uh yeah like I say for for well over a decade and uh let's let's see the orange version [Music] 3 2 1 the story of God the world and you three God is three persons United in love in the beginning there were three the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit not three different gods one God who is an unbreakable Unity of three a tri-unity or Trinity the Trinity is not a Math's problem or an ancient riddle it's the good news that God is love forever the father has loved his son in the unity of the spirit going straight for Trinity you know like what are you talking about leading an Evangelistic presentation with the Trinity I know what are you what are you think what was I even thinking yeah and in a sense it doesn't start with three it starts with Jesus and then once you get to know who Jesus is well he's the Christ the son of God that means he's full of the spirit and the son of the father and once you meet Jesus then of course the God that he reveals his father son and spirit and Away you go but um yeah but that's that's been 3 2 one and so much of the channel um even when I'm commenting on something like you know we're going to talk about Bishops later on or we're going to talk about you know sexual abuse crises or things like that um so much actually has God is three persons United in love in in the background the world is shaped by two represen is Adam and Christ and then you're one with Adam be one with Jesus is is these are the three doctrines that kind of really are functionally driving the way I I see all things and what been interesting is that with th those sets of lenses it's enabled us as a channel to have a look at all sorts of things in society and in culture and be able to bring a theological perspective to it so then we fast forward a little bit to when you sat down with sitcom writer James kry and you chatted about Easter and comedy and this was off the back of a book you did called Divine Comedy right Easter is funny what's what's so funny about Easter everything's funny about Easter um not only the big picture so at a big picture level uh Easter is the grand comedy uh you Plumb the deepest depths and then you go to the highest Heights because that's actually the shape of Comedy classically speaking Dante said that a a tragedy is a story that begins in joy and ends in pain and a comedy is a story that begins in pain and ends in Joy so what is a comedy well Easter is the the ultimate comedy isn't it because Jesus plums the ultimate depths enters into our tragedy to give us the happily ever after so from that angle yeah Easter's a total comedy yeah and then there's the issue of just the ironies of Easter um the the way in which this story unfolds is at times it's not laugh out loud funny but but it it is yeah you know I wouldn't open with it at the comedy store right yeah but it it's comic it works comedically because although I uh so I think your overall thesis of well Dante's thesis of tragedy ending in you know sadness and comedy ending in joy is true from a if I may say as a sitcom writer myself uh the um jokes and comedy on a small level tend to work in terms of in congruity things that things that shouldn't be that are next to each other are put next to each other yes I'm not con I me trying to write a book on this at the moment I'm not convinced that there is a grand unified theory of Comedy because the moment you you have a plan a joke comes up which doesn't fit any of the rules and that's what jokes do they kind of break rules they're pretty anarchic yeah but at the same time Easter throws up loads of really weird in congruities not only about who Jesus is but then what happens to him the story of E from Palm Sunday through to Good Friday through to um the the Resurrection on on Easter day which this year in 2018 is April Fool's Day hence talking about Easter and comedy yes so how has that helped you in your evangelism to frame life as either being a tragedy or a comedy I think once you re recognize that tragedies can still be grand dramas and they can be tremendous Adventure because when you when you say you know to somebody you've got a tragic view of Life they're like oh no because my life is still meaningful and I can still have a laugh along the way well that's true tragedies you you do go up first in a tragedy and there is all kinds of struggle but the end is tragic and I think what it one of the things that it does is it just opens people's eyes to the fact that our modern view of life is already tragic and your only shot at the comedy is Jesus because he's the only only one who's offering a hope for these bodies in this world he's like he's genuinely the only one there is no hope apart from Jesus which might sound like a a bigoted fundamentalism but but actually when you do comparative religion it's just true you know Islam the future is not this world Paradise is far away the Eastern religions it is not an Earthly future an embodied future that you have in atheism there's the heat death of the universe there's literally no hope for these bodies in this world apart from Jesus and so you say look the only hope for the comedy ises and isn't the shape of your life right now quite tragic and even the stuff that is sold to you as so attractive in life it's basically try and get on top have as many experiences you as you can enjoy your brief moment in the sun because it's all ending really really badly right cost to have a new flavor of that's right have you tried the pumpkin spice latte and all that kind of stuff and and that that's the and I'm going on holiday to maresh so that's that's nice to look forward to uh you know alongside the heat death of the universe it's a it's an utterly tragic thing and so actually saying there there is a view of the world that is unique and it's it's your only shot at avoiding the the tragedy will you consider Jesus I think that's that's been fruitful over the years yeah I heard Richard Dawkins say once that the atheist view that you know this is all we have and we have our perhaps 80 years and then that's it he said that almost makes life more meaningful because it's so fleeting what would you say to that I think Christians are not simply saying that there's a a greater quantity of life that we will receive when we're resurrected it's not like you know it's it's a very rainy day in eastborn today it's not it's not like that but for forever yeah it's not just a greater quantity of heartbeats it's a different quality of life and I think when you see the Resurrection Life that Jesus pioneered years in in in the Eastern narratives it is long country walks you know talking about the stuff that's really important laid into the night and it's lots of feasting and joy and reunions and barbecues on the beach and fishing with your mates and seeing Jesus face to face you know this battle scarred lover you get to the end of of uh of the gospels and and you see there's a quality of life that when you look at it you think that is the life I think you know that the Bible would make us expect that we are acorns now we're going to be Oaks yeah there's a continuity between this life and the next but we we see through a glass Darkly now then we will see face to face there's there's a qualitative difference that means all the life in the world will not be enough and we will we will require eternity in order to live that life at the moment what we've looked at so far has been quite a lot to do with the new atheism but then the conversation began to change didn't it and just Bry has picked up on this brilliantly in his his new podcast the surprising Rebirth of belief in God so in 2019 you reached out to the historian Tom Holland and you asked him for an interview why did you want to speak to Tom Holland he was just coming out with his book Dominion which was sort of summarizing and and popularizing an argument that many people have made which is that the West is far more Christian than we like to imagine and the fact that we don't think the West is very Christian is because Christianity has done such a number on us that the things we take as self-evident and obvious um are the fruits of Christian civilization and they've become so successful in shaping our ways of seeing that they don't feel revolutionary to us anymore and yet Tom Holland was continually saying that no the Christian Revolution is the most profound it's the most disruptive it's the most enduring it's the most influential Revolution that there's there's ever been so I reached out to him on Twitter he loves Twitter I love Twitter and uh he was an absolute gentleman and said yes and so that's the first of three or four interviews I've I've done um with Tom and uh yeah went up to London and and chatted amazing and in this clip he talks about human rights some of the things that are often kind of um said to me especially by by humanist friends they will they will say um um obviously Christi has played a part in Western liberal values um but uh uh even without Jesus Christ we we would have gotten to where we've gotten to no I mean I mean and and it's so odd that it tends to be people who who valorize science and Darwin and the theory of evolution but I'm I'm entirely with Stephen J G on this who says who famously said that um if you rewound the clock of Earth's history you would not get humans there's nothing inevitable about the way that that evolution has gone and and I think the same is true of historical contingency there's nothing inevitable at all about the emergence of um the qualities or the Val the values or um the teachings of of Christianity at all could we though have generated some kind of universal human rights and that that sort of stuff I see why you would materials why would you I mean the idea of Human Rights I mean the idea that human rights kind of hangs in The Ether waiting to be discovered is is as theological as believing that the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead and sits at the hand of God the Father yes I mean it's it's it's it's it requires a leap of faith yes the difference is is that Christians recognize that belief in in in in in the Divinity of Christ requires belief whereas you know lots of people just assume that human rights are something that exists yes but they're not they're they're they're the the result of specifically legal developments in medieval Christendom the emergence of of um this Theory by the Canon rights lawyer by by by the Canon lawyers in from the 12th century onwards it it doesn't just spontaneously emerge yes but you hold dear to your heart those liberal values you personally hold dear to your heart the that the weak should not be cast off and that there's there's an equality but I recognize now that they're not you know that they're Christian values wow yeah believing in human rights is as theological as believing that Jesus was raised from the dead that's a pretty killer line isn't it yeah and and the link should be obvious really because that is the vindicate like Christ rising to the right hand of the father is the man for all men who has been exalted to the right hand of the father and therefore to the place of dignity and honor that is unlosable so that is the vision of humanity having an inviable worth and dignity forever more and take away Christ risen from the dead um at what at what stage can you have human rights well some people come along and they say well humans we just decided to grant ourselves human rights at which point you like who's we and why why is it like like like everyone in Homo sapiens and is that not speciesist so we've Shrunk The Circle that far why don't we shrink the circle ever F ever further so that it's a Tighter and Tighter Circle where we've we've granted ourselves these rights but if you're granting yourself rights then you're basically inventing rights rather than discovering them so Tom Right Tom Holland really kind of opens up this this question are human rights discovered or invented and I think at a gut level Tom Holland wants to say human rights are a discovery rather than an invention because I don't think anyone wants to say we've we have just decided to grant worth when you look into the eyes of a child who's about to be cast off on the rubbish Heap I want to believe that there's an inviable worth and dignity well is there or isn't there and the Christian at that stage can say no there is and that's why certain Christians have a certain language for describing human rights but that's not an invention that's a discovery it's a thing that's already there but to imagine that human rights are there waiting to be discovered is a theological vision for the universe and so and that's the challenge for Tom at that stage like um surely there is actually a theological account of the universe that says when humans finally got got around to naming human rights they weren't inventing them were they they were naming something that is that does kind of hang there in The Ether that is woven into the universe that Jesus is Lord and that's why and so that's that's where the conversation is at and Paul blackham and I had a had a great conversation on this channel talking about Tom Holland and Jordan Peterson and yal Noah Harari and the interaction of all those things but yeah we talk about that a lot at Speak Life yeah and another figure who's played quite an important role in this meaning crisis conversation is Douglas Murray you interviewed Douglas Murray for our reset series what were you trying to do with that reset Series going back to Genesis and and how did you get hold of Douglas Murray well it wasn't part of the Great reset even even though it was it was around the time of lockdown and I think there was an independent invention of that title reset because I think a lot of people were thinking um yeah okay after the pandemic or after certainly the first round of lockdown um yeah what is it that can ground us what is it that can be foundational for us now now that so much uh has been swept aside and so we actually went back to Genesis chapters 1 2 3 and 4 and I wanted to talk to a whole bunch of people uh whether Christians or not about whether those chapters can actually provide some Foundation for us moving forward and it was it was great that that Douglas Murray said yes you've expressed many times a hope that we could somehow depoliticize ourselves I mean everything is so fraught everything is is everything is heightened to the level of of a kind of a religious truth claim at the moment and I I I think in the in the absence in you know after the death of God there is a power vacuum and suddenly politics is taking that place and then entertainment has to take the place and and sport has to take the place of politics everything gets promoted and you've many times said you know can we cool our Jets a bit can we step back how how can we do that without having something else properly in that sort of highest place of our ideals and Imagination it may not be possible and I should put that out there because you it's an argument against self-interests in certain ways but it may not be possible I there are an awful lot of things that you can point to in society at present uh that have a god-shaped hole um so maybe it's not possible and maybe when I describe the change in the metaphysical system that we're currently going through it may be that that change is um is a boomerang of some kind uh it may be that we become something totally different or maybe we would go back to something that we would recognize um but but it may be the case I just stress this because it it might not be possible to cover over the god-shaped hole I do think that the various um attempts to make other things fill that Gap are almost uniformly difficult I me I almost use the word problematic hashtag problematic yeah not a word I'm fond of but there is something highly problematic about people replacing god with politics because you end up with a fervency that might well we recognize it when it's used in religious terms you might end up with that same feverishness in political terms and they may actually make the business of politics impossible among much else his voice is almost at the level of it really is and I love that you got him to say the word problematic and then he just owns it afterwards as well yeah yeah but what touching on there at the end that's quite profound isn't it about how have we become less religious as a society in walking away from the the Christian story or have we become more religious in some ways yeah yeah and I I've said with you know the air we breathe my book that's kind of about all of this that the culture wars are just we're hurling Bible verses at each other we've just forgotten the references and it seems like we're built to hurl Bible verses at each other it seem it seems like the religious aspect of human beings is ineradicable and therefore yeah getting getting rid of gods there is no God substitute and Douglas Murray as he says he's got a lot of self-interest in trying to come up with one um I I think you know he would his best shot at that would be sort of art and literature which is you know what what he tries to go for um but I mean it's interesting to note that the art and literature that I would say probably captivates Douglas Murray more than any other is stuff that was generated during the high medieval period and or at least the classical music for instance that that he so loves has has certainly grown out of a distinctly Western and Christian tradition um and so absolutely can we put goodness and truth and hierarchy goodness and truth and Beauty like high up in the hierarchy we absolutely can but only only because those things are the fruit rather than the root of that which is which properly belongs to the top of the hierarchy which is God himself and so yeah Douglas and Tom are in this interesting place where they recognize the huge costs of the so-called death of God um and they don't have a replacement for it I think Tom Holland is much more willing to say um yes the the route is probably let's get back to church um whether Tom himself can can believe um Douglas Murray was uh a a believing Christian into his 20s actually before sort of walking away and becoming great friends with Christopher Hitchens and the and the new atheists um he is on a journey does that mean he'll come back to Faith he doesn't know I think he's less less sure about that but it's a really interesting moment to be in when lots of people are pointing out that the the Western story has run out it comes from a Christian place there's nothing to replace that Christian story that that looks like it could do the job now what and Speak Life is here trying to say how about Jesus should we should we try Jesus yeah yeah the god-shaped hole can only be filled yes by the Jesus God it was interesting that he he says that you know we've tried to cover over the whole and I think that's that's that's an interesting use of language isn't it we yeah we do try to cover over the hole that's very different from feeling it and yeah and with Jesus and and especially especially actually the god-shaped hole at the heart of the West is not simply God in the abstract when we think about something about like human rights it is very much the God man that that we have at the heart of of the West the this humanistic desire to elevate humanity and as Tom Hollander said you know that is as theological is saying that Christ rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the father Yes because the the the shape of the hole that the West has is not simply there's a Celestial North Korea let's return to that and and that I fear is what makes a lot of people say I don't want to go back to God because actually they're fearing the Christopher Hitchens vision of of God but again what Speak Life are trying to do is we're trying to say okay but what you can return to is a much more compelling Vision it's the Jesus God it's the it's the God man it's it's the one who went to Helen Back for you is that a God that you could uh you could find yourself trusting again and we're finding that there are some people making that journey and we pray that there'd be more now for this next section that perhaps we're an Evangelistic Ministry and perhaps some people were surprised that this was an area we started talking about so February 2021 we were making videos and podcasts about church abuse and in particular the Ravi Zacharias Scandal and that led to a conversation that you had with laurian Thompson so could you just take us through from that first video you made to speaking with laurian Thompson why do you think she wanted to speak to you in 2021 I I did a video that was by a lot of different measurements sort of our most successful video of 2021 and was a very surprising success because it was talking about the the grotesque evil of Rabbi Zacharias and you know here is this apologist with an apologetics Ministry with uh absolutely catastrophic fall from grace and the way I attacked it was by sort of preaching verse by verse through an obscure Old Testament passage and it was 2 Samuel chapter 13 and I talked about the rape of Tamar which is just this shocking event in which there are four different men who actually end up abusing her and it's it's not just uh amnon who is the Crown Prince of of Israel but he has this wicked adviser called jonadab and then Tamar's brother Absalom kind of tells her hush up and be quiet my dear and and then David the king is just totally impotent through the whole whole thing and it actually takes four different men to create the environment in which this poor woman is abused and I I kind of said look um Ravi Zacharias is amnon who are you in the story and and I think that resonated with a lot of people and we had loads of people saying I've been able to because somebody named the evil I was able to see things a bit more clearly I was able to see like the explanatory power of the scriptures that this you know 3,000 year old document is is like speaking into the into the modern world and people be began to be able to trust Jesus again be able to trust church again and perhaps you know get back into church and so it was it was a surprise that that video did so well and laurianne Thompson reached out and she was um at that stage probably the the most prominent uh victim of Ravi Zacharias and somebody that he while he was alive was trying to silence and and through all sorts of legal means and and uh and so I was just so amazed really that she um she wanted to tell her story and she wanted to tell her story to me so I was it was probably the most nervous I've ever been um being an interviewer I had I I was like sitting at this table and I had all sorts of pieces of paper saying remember to hit record and but she was amazing and the wisdom of that woman having gone through what she's gone through and she was just wasn't just the the apparatus of the Ravi Zacharias and and his people around that were arrayed against her she was just disbelieved by everybody and for her to actually cling on through that she came out the other side with profound wisdom and I'm sure she wouldn't wish her experience on anybody else but I I'm glad to call her a sister in Christ who is now offering such wisdom to to other people in difficult circumstances so I've got I've got big respect for lauran yes and we've got this clip of her talking about the difference between Christendom and Christ I notic in your in your victim impact um statement you you used the word Christendom and you've used it you know in this in this interview as well um um you said you know I trusted Christendom that trust is irreparably and catastrophically shattered I yet believe Christ and then you go on um about him um is is there a difference in your mind between Christendom and the body of Christ um my circle of trust is really small now as you can well imagine uh and uh the concept of family is really really important to me I I'm a mother in a family and I savagely protect my children probably a little too much um and so I have been deeply wounded in the by the body of Christ uh and more recently since the spa allegations and the Miller Martin report have come out I've uh people who have reached out to me have been and been part of the body of Christ have been really healing for me um so I do hope that there will be a time when I can return to the body of Christ and it will feel safe and actually not just feel safe but be safe um Christendom I I think one of the problems for me and I think many people would identify with this is that I came from a pagan family a non-Christian family and I just presumed and I presumed so wrongly that predation was something that was outside of the church uh and so I just I presumed if you if you profess the name of somebody so beautiful as Christ that you must be beautiful too and I was just really wrong about that um dead wrong almost and so uh I'm Wiser now and I would be much more careful and conscientious in the future yeah so we've got we've got sort of Christendom the sort of the military-industrial complex um and they you know may that go to the wall um we've got but the yeah can we yet distinguish that between that and the body of Christ and can we yet distinguish between that and Christ himself um who who is Jesus to you and who who has he been to you through this whole process when people are abused by a religious professional cleric of any sort there are many wounds Financial sexual physical um social cultural but by far the worst wound is the spiritual wound and there's all manner of evidence you know that I could quote for that but also that just personally when great evil is perpetrated in the name of great good it conflates the two so uh at one point I saw a trauma-informed therapist for a really long time and and in fact still do about once a month and she said make a list of what what is Satan and what is Christ and then compare that to some of the abusers that you've known in your life one of the things that saved my faith is actually seeing Christ as a sexual abuse victim when I even when I was a weak girl evil scared me and um you know I was drawn to the body of Christ my neighbor took me to an anglian church and I just loved going to church you wore a skirt and um you know the people sang and they said beautiful things and words have always been important to me and you know I had a lot of Shame and and forgiveness of sh sin and shame was freely offered and I had no identity and Christ said he would bestow an identity I had hardly any family and here was a family willing to have me and not only have me celebrate me and give me important things to do even if they were small it felt important to me and you know after all of this I really sort of presumed that the body of Christ and its head had been sort of severed uh but actually through all of this more recent events I have met the most delightful and beautiful people who um you know maybe don't have the biggest platform but have but do have the biggest hearts and it has really restored um their love and their apology not only their love their apology but their action um has been a deeply Faith restoring process for me yeah wow I remember editing that from home during lockdown and found it an incredibly hard listen for obvious reasons but there's there's a real note of Hope in there isn't there in how someone who is been so wronged by people claiming to act in the Name of Christ but she can still see Beauty in the person of Jesus yeah yeah yeah and he was someone who was stripped naked and left for dead and yeah became a victim for all victims and and so when she speaks of Christ like that that's so beautiful and can reach people in in ways that that that I can't and um there's a wonderful interview that she gave to Karen swallow prior who's also been on this channel but in 2022 at the restore uh conference and people should look look up Karen SPO interviewing laurianne Thompson and and again the she just is like this this big sister wise kind of warrior who has been who has been through it all and she's battle scar and she's come out and the hard one wisdom of laurianne just shines through in in that video I really I really commend it and you can you can see the way in which yeah God has used and is continuing to use laurian Thompson so yeah God bless her so that was a conversation across across the Atlantic the next one we're going to turn to was much closer to home so Paul fezy who used to work for Speak Life I remember this day well it was June 2021 we were recording a video in here so you both turned your phones off for the the video we recorded the video Paul turned his phone on at the end and had just received news from his wife Becca that his daughter Libby had been rushed to hospital they were convinced she was going to die and it was it was it was really really really really bad you know and and Paul and Becka were just amazing about it and yeah after after a lot had blown over uh we decided to do a video entitled my child almost died um because yeah that was the reality of it but the the wisdom again the hard one wisdom um coming out of Paul's mouth was um was something to behold yes so here is a clip of Paul sharing some Reflections on that in terms of in the church so I mean I think what we saw was just like this is what the this is how the body of Christ should work because everyone rallied round us you know people were praying people were bringing us meals the even though the kids were at home they were being dropped off at um people were saying you know oh they can come and have a sleepover you know like with some of their friends from the church and things and it really I was brought to mind of you know it is that stuff in one Corinthians about the body and we will rejoice with those rejoice and mourn with those who mourn and stuff and every you know we every part um you know every part has its own function and stuff yeah um so there was a real sense in which I was just like well we're seeing seeing what the church should look like in action really um and Steve AR via said you know he said you're teaching us to pray um you know and he was he said you know thanks for sharing what was going on kind of in detail because it meant we could pray um I remember him saying like he came up that first Friday and he said you know we had a he said we had a prayer meeting this morning you know was I think it was all on zoom and he said and oh so many people were there he said no ever comes he said so he like he's like it's like Revival's broken out um but I remember one of my one of my friends said you know this whole thing is like an Evangelistic event because not only was the church praying you know you you you'd put a post up and you'd get hundreds of comments on it and people were praying and but there were lots of non-Christian friends you know from school or whatever who were obviously looking in and seeing all this and and there was a real awareness of just like this is on display for them to see like there seeing what we're going through and I suppose they're seeing our faith there was never a sense of like well we've got to we've got to make it look like we're you know holier than holy you know like really coping if we weren't you know it wasn't like that but there was an awareness that like wow people are looking in on this and you know Becka had said she had people say like you know your church is amazing because I just boggled by the idea that there was that kind of community because you you take for granted I think when you're in the church that kind of community because it's just normal to you yeah but it's not for other people and the more I think about it I I mean I look back over you know however many years we've been Christians I think I can't I can't think of a another event that's gone on in my Christian Life which has been more of an Evangelistic witness you know where you know you'd have to do a million men's breakfasts to to get to this point you know so there are things I don't think you can you can know about Jesus and not I'm not saying you have to go through something like this but until you go through sort of the desert the furnace whatever yeah there's things you can only learn there how many men's breakfasts have you done less than a million but yeah it just goes to show doesn't it the the life the these kinds of Crisis moments we spend our lives trying to run from but like just witnessing Paul and Becker and and the and the family go through that from the outside and you you see they are really living the kind of life that you wouldn't want to wish on on your worst enemy but there's something about the reality of Christ carrying them through and there's something about the the reality of everything else that's unimportant burning away and the church come together and praying and you know family sort of pulling together and like friends from all over and that Reliance on on God and it's and it's like you don't want to say that you know life is really all about catastrophe but catastrophe brings out what really life is about and we saw that up close and personal with with Paul and Becker and and and I think they were shining lights for Jesus through that and yeah and the good news is that Libby is is doing well and yeah yeah yeah and it was incredible to see the response of Speak Life followers and listeners I would get emails from listeners of the speed Life podcast saying oh can you pass on best wishes to Paul and the family were praying for them and yeah it was just it was amazing wasn't it yeah we now turn our attention to another important figure in this current meaning crisis conversation Louise Perry and you interviewed her about her book the case against the sexual Revolution which had quite a big impact is it in terms of a feminist has written a book called the case against the SE Revolution that's quite significant there I am on Twitter again being cheeky on Twitter saying Louise how about an interview and she was she was very keen to do one and uh it was it was fantastic I loved it I can understand why sort of a third wave feminism would third wave feminist would say ah if you press in too much to the differences between men and women you're going to lose the equality now I think if you've got a spiritual Dimension there's a little bit of a back stop there in that men men and women can be equal before the eyes of God and different in their sort of material reality but if you're going to have a materialist feminism how do you both uphold the equality of of the Sexes and the difference between them well I mean I think you can still say I mean it's all derived Christianity in the end isn't it I mean this is the thing with with with so much um secular ethics and politics and you know everything everything in the end comes um comes back to Christianity even if not explicitly so I think it's quite possible to say in a secular way that you can you can affirm the moral equality of the Sexes um and our equal value as human beings without necessarily insisting on our sameness you know as Tom Holland points out we are we are um we may be a post-christian culture but only just and I think that that it's still very much in the waters um that we do still we do still prize egalitarianism for instance um and protective the weak and charity and modesty you know all of these virtues which actually um many people would be surprised to know come directly from history of Christianity in the west um so yeah I suppose I can't help but kind of touch those buttons yeah in talking about these issues even though but I think it is quite possible to to do so without without without necessarily having the theological Foundation and without being a believer I'm speaking to people who also aren't Believers um who have been some of my most positive readers yeah I'm sure I'm sure they have been yeah yeah and like I guess like the whole Western experiment is is sort of based on you know can can can we preach these virtues without having to go you know upstairs and um and and I guess as as Tom Holland says you know it remains to be seen whether we can you know maintain the fruits if we cut ourselves loose from The Roots um yeah yeah that yeah that's an ongoing experiment isn't it yeah yeah and I say why take the risk Louise um come on home to nice try again it's amazing to bit isn't it when she's just like oh yeah it all comes from Christianity Christianity fine although she isn't like that is she's now she's sort of not really ashamed to say yeah fism is an outgrow for Christianity right right she made that she went out of her way to make that point to um to Jordan Peterson when you know when she spoke to him recently and on her own podcast she's always talking about going to church and you know she classes herself as religious not spiritual in that you know she wants to do um that thing that dougas Murray has pointed towards and Tom Holland is attempting which is you know can we go back to Christianity and and she doesn't yet sign up to the metaphysics of it um which is another way that Tom Holland puts things but um she's very open to all that so yeah really interesting things are going on a lot of the things she says in the the chapter headings of her book wouldn't sound surprising coming from a Christian right why is it surprising to hear this from Louise Perry yeah you could sound like sour grapes couldn't you like if a Christian just wrote that it it would sell 300 copies and uh and that would be that but yeah because she wrote for the new Statesman and um uh yeah there is something about that but it's we're we're at a very interesting time and and Louise Perry will say this herself you know she wrote the book at exactly the right time when saying obvious things sounds wild and controversial and innovating when when it's just things like like literally her chapter headings like marriage is good actually men and women are different actually you know the most obvious things yeah know radical monogamy radical monogamy it's just monogamy people that's all it is well on the subject of marriage MH we now come to our most listened to episode of all time episode 445 you talked to Reverend Dr Paul blackham who is a one of our favorite guest is absolutely and you asked him about the gay marriage debate within the Church of England so this was around the time I think it was around the time of syod wasn't it so the prayers of love and faith had kind of started to be introduced and there was the next level of yeah debate and why did you want to get Paul blackham on the channel I knew he'd be spicy I knew he'd be fiery and I knew he would uh issue a pox on both your houses and uh and so he did here it is the strategy would be not to say the problem is same sex attraction it isn't the problem is fundamentally being unfaithful to Christ across the whole Board of sexuality gender identity marriage and the shape of life that we have as church together instead of showing life together instead of church being my actual family you know water is thicker than blood in the Bible right and yet it hasn't been it's like oh see you next week and you mean by that the water of the water of baptism binds us far more than than familial ties that's it and instead church is all too often and I'm going to carry to slightly but it's just that sense of oh see you next week for another another long lecture lovely see you next week for another lecture Jesus will be like what are you doing oh this is church whatever that is that ain't church church is all day every day it's how we live all day every day and yet we get together sometimes to remind ourselves of the words of Christ and feast on his body and blood and things but we're always just we're always supposed to be sharing life sharing the joys and sorrows and being there for each other how can a person who is locked out of a heterosexual marriage have family if it's see you next week for another uh long lecture it's ludicrous that's where the repentance has to happen there's a rotness and a sickness that's meant that that has been acceptable and tolerated and then we wonder why we're a lunatic fringe at the edge of society and nobody believes it no believes we have the answer to life of course we don't have the answer to life that is absurd we're we're like we're you know anyone looking on go they don't know how to live let's get together once a week for a long lecture like loads of communities are better than that Pub go to your pubbies that has a better family life than that and and obviously gay and lesbian people have often had much better communities than that and sometimes when people have become a Christian they find they stick with their old family because it's there for them in know and that's true people with all signs of addictions the addiction group is a much better family there for you sharing life the joys and and church and now go I will get together for a lecture once a week what's that this look I'm I'm rambling on but you get my [Music] point why do you think that was our most uh listened to episode oh you just have to poke him and out comes just like glory and and and well I I think look there's a there's a way of saying aox on both your houses that is just oh we're just Centrist dads in the middle and we're just and we're just going to sort of poke a little bit that way poke a little bit that way but you know in the end we're just compromised whereas I I think Paul has a a a richly Christ centered Vision that that does say yes the Bishops failed the Church of England England land with those prayers of love and faith they absolutely did um but I think there are conservative Christians that fail the the vision of Christ in that we we don't actually prioritize Church's family and instead we make into the centerpiece the nuclear family and then put you know put all our attention on that and Paul rightly calls yes the Bishops to to repentance and you can listen back to the podcast you can see the ways that he he calls the Bishops back to repentance but he also just calls regular churches back to Focus On Christ himself and I think that's the that's the that's the vision where actually you know how how are we going to navigate all these controversies and it's got to be by repenting and believing you know not not just by we've had it right all along and the other guys just need to catch up what do we need to repent of and I think Paul blackham challenges us and it was a very popular episode as as well as being uncomfortable it was very popular because I think people recognize that that he's absolutely right that you know if if we're going to have a a Christ centered vision of sex and marriage it's going to require of us a a more radical vision for what church life is and what the you know the family of of God is meant to be day by day not just Sunday by Sunday and I think people have responded to that Vision because it is what we're actually after and you know put put that together with the clip about Paul fezy and and family and it and it was at those crisis moments that you got to see ah church is suddenly we suddenly broken out of our tiny little you know um nuclear family bubbles that we Silo ourselves away into and suddenly the needs of a brother or sister kind of break through Modern Life That's incredibly atomizing and actually force people back into being the family that we're made to be and and Paul is just saying that's what it should be like the whole time and and so I think it's a challenging message but it's also an attractive message this is this is actually what we want H well we come to our final clip which was from Fairly recently you had a conversation with Constantine kissen from the trigonometry YouTube channel and in this clip you ask uh Constantine if he'd he'd ever be up for reading the Bible H if somebody ever says to me they don't believe in God my next question is well which God don't you believe in and they end up describing some kind of an individual high on power low on personality Zeus basically with a thunderbolt ready to hurl and I kind of say well I don't know about the Thunderbolt but the rest of it the rest yeah yeah as though God is kind of a super being within the created order and I at that stage I always sort of think you know if if Hamlet ever wondered where Shakespeare was you've got you've got two different answers to Hamlet if Hamlet's like where is Shakespeare I don't believe in Shakespeare show me Shakespeare like one answer is is Shakespeare is is actually nowhere in your universe and another answer is Shakespeare is your Universe in him you live and move and have your being and and and I think that's I mean that's a that's a a line from so how does how does the universe have a sun that it sends down into itself to spread a certain message and to die for the sins of the people that it's created so imagine that Shakespeare wanted to make himself known to Hamlet he could write himself into the play as William Shakespeare and you know do you know think it's quite a weird thing for Shakespeare to do though apparently so Dorothy Sayers did did this in a in a detective novel um she sort of fell in love with her protagonist and and decided to write herself into the story so they could they could actually meet yeah have you had a look into the like the Jesus stories read the gospels that kind of thing and and so I not really not not not since I was like very young yeah yeah yeah that would be is this a live conversion is this what you got got me on the show for just to theion of Constantine yeah yeah well Constantine was of course the the Emperor who brought Christianity to the Roman Empire exactly exactly you want you want me to follow in this footsteps I take I do just for the clicks obviously just that that would get a lot of views um if I could convert live on air um no this is all very interesting and look by the way the conception of God that you were talking about which is God being the universe in which we all exist uh that isn't really particularly counter to the way that I experience or or think of the world um the other stuff which in which human beings get involved uh the sort of more organized religion side of it that's where I have um that's that's a bit I find a lot less appealing yes for sure good I'm for coming on yeah yeah maybe you're not quite as subtle as as you think is this a live conversion yeah I want it live on YouTube that would be great wouldn't it I I love that I made the joke and then Constantine explained the joke to me comedian the professional comedian yeah yeah but it was a great conversation I do recommend people check out the whole thing where you talk to him about how yeah God is is like Shakespeare is to Hamlet not quite the same as what he was saying there as God is the the universe which is interesting yeah cuz that that's why he said you're saying God is the universe and I could get on board with that which is just interesting just in in general conversation and Evangelistic conversation as well you know what you're saying what gets heard um can be can be two different things but interestingly when I said that to Constantine you know what if we're hamlets and like God is not so much like the king of Denmark as opposed to the prince of Denmark he's like Shakespeare he's not like one more character in the character list he is the author of the whole thing and then then Constantine said well well then why are the whole Jesus stuff and why did he have to come and die which was great that he then said that because it's just like well because then the author can write himself into the show I know quite a few people who are like Constantine in that they're very happy to say yeah I think I think my values have been profoundly shaped by Christianity but I can't imagine going to church I can't imagine people from my generation coming to church now really is that still a thing we do so what what's going on there and is this kind of the next step in the meaning crisis conversation is like now people are on board with the Tom Holland thesis what what's actually going to get people to come to church well Constantin actually said you you're going to struggle to get people my age going to church and I'm like I'm not that much older than you con we're pretty much the same same age but um so yeah but there there is certainly that that sense that oh church is just something for other people um but I think I would relate that back to what Paul blackham was saying like no one's going to believe our message if we don't actually have life you know we say we've got we've got the meaning of life we'll show us how you live oh a long lecture every every week okay um there is there is better Community there will be better Community down the pub there will be better community in the LGBT community there will be better Community among YouTubers there'll be better community in lots of different places than the local church um and so that that's our challenge really is is not just to have all the right answers but to but to be the family of God that's living out the Life of Christ with one with one another and we get those two things coming together and let's point to the good news stories you know when Paul fezy you know had that catastrophe actually the church came around him in remarkable ways that made the rest of the world kind of s sit up and listen and there are people like Tom Holland going to church and there are people like Louis Perry going to church and they're finding things um that that that are kind of scratching where they're itching so um it's it's not it's not like this whole negative story but we've got to not only have the right arguments we've we've got to be the family that Christ has made us to be and I think you get those two things coming together and and that's that's when Revival happens really yeah if the church is a healthy body it will just grow that's kind of the nature of right the case rather than pointing fingers at people outside the church and just saying oh why don't you just come in kind of thing yes like sort out the the house no exactly and and and at that stage so growing the body is is the same as reaching the world if you really understand you know how the mission of God actually works growing the church is the same as reaching the world um so yeah it's not it's not about wagging the finger at Constantin kissing it's it's about you know living the life that Christ has given us to live and the world will be reached in that Way Glen scrier thank you very much hey pleasure

Channel: Speak Life

Views: 17,987

Keywords: tom holland, louise perry, konstantin kisin, glen scrivener

Id: z-bdFG49GT0

Length: 57min 52sec (3472 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 12 2024