The Speak Class Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to the livecast, everybody. Hello, good to see you all again. Here we are. I'm Glenn Scriber. I'm Paul Feasy. And here we are in our studio space. Yeah. Developing by the week. It's all looking a bit new and shiny, isn't it, at the moment? Yeah. And another thing that's new, it's Monday. It is not Tuesday. That's true. That's true. It's Monday. This is the top news item for Friday. In other news. It's Monday. And it's 2 pm, not 1 pm. Yeah. Let us know what you think about our change of time.
SPEAKER_04A bit of a different time, but yes, hopefully you like all this. Our interns have been working very hard to make this place look great. And I hope you agree it does look great. So we're still going to be, I think, working on it a bit more, doing some other bits, aren't we, as we find our way around the studio, but it's all coming together.
SPEAKER_03Working on the sound, working on the videos. We are getting there. This week on the LiveCast, we're going to talk about Thomas Cook going bust, number one story on BBC and everywhere else. We're going to talk about FIFA enforcing gender equality on Iran. What do we think about that? We're going to think about Richard Dawkins and his new book called Outgrowing God. But have we actually outgrown Richard Dawkins? And then we're going to think with uh one of our new interns, Pete Collison, about the key to finding your purpose. But first of all, Thomas Cook shuts down and 150,000 people are stranded. What's the story, Paul?
SPEAKER_04Sure, Thomas Cook. So, I mean, if you're in the UK, you probably know exactly what we're talking about. If you're not UK based, Thomas Cook is a holiday travel company. It's been running for what, 178 years?
SPEAKER_03Yes, since 1841.
SPEAKER_04And it's recently, well, as of today, um, or late last night, it's gone into liquidation. And so it's been in the news in the last few days. They were looking uh for a bailout, see whether someone could uh buy the company or shore them up a bit. Um, and particularly they were looking to the government, the UK government, for £150 million, uh, which the government refused them. Um, and then it emerged today that they were going into liquidation. So 150,000 people have been stranded around the globe, is it Europe, presumably? Maybe Europe, mostly Europe, I think.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I mean the headlines should be like Britain's trying to exit Europe in a meltdown and looking to the government to solve to solve that problem. I don't uh yeah, if you want to exit Europe, I'm not sure the government is really. No, the track record isn't excellent at the moment, is it? Um It'll take three years to get them back, at least. Yes. Yeah, so um Juncker is holding them in a basement somewhere, demanding a ransom payment, no doubt.
SPEAKER_04So they were looking for £150 million from the UK government. The UK government uh said no, they weren't gonna do that. Um and it just struck you know, as I was hearing this thing, I uh w when I was looking at the news story about whether they were gonna bail them out or not. Um the thing that struck me initially is I just sat there and I thought, well, no, they shouldn't bail them out. Of course they shouldn't. This is a private company who have, you know, for through whatever reasons they've mismanaged their finances in some way, shape, or form, and now they're going under. I don't see why the taxpayer should step in. I mean, because you know, if my if my company goes under. You're on your own, buddy. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, I mean I'd love the government to give me £150 million. You know, I'm seriously considering. No, but it's worth a try, right? Sorry. But um, you know, I thought surely no, they shouldn't do that. And and and the and the the question or the kind of phrase that went through my head was, you know, how do I how do I feel about people being bailed out when they don't deserve it? Right. And then I was just painfully aware of the irony really of myself as a Christian feeling that way about a company.
SPEAKER_03That's our story.
SPEAKER_04Because that is the Christian story, being bailed out when we certainly don't deserve it at all. Yes. Um and a higher power steps in, pays off your debt, absolutely, helps you to go free. And we completely don't deserve it. Yeah. Um That's the good news, right? That is the good news. But then the question is, well, you know, surely if I've been if I've been forgiven in that way, I've been, you know, my debt has been paid, you know, whatever, I've been bailed out in that in that sense. Redeemed. Yeah, how much more so should I show that to others? The question then was where does that end? You know, does it extend to a company like Thomas Cook? You know? And and I can understand people saying, oh, well, you know, they should be bailed out because think of all the people stranded. But it from what I've heard, yeah no one is really going to be stranded. No. They're all getting back, it's all being protected. It will all be paid for, the civil civil aviation authorities stepped in, um, and that money was. Well, I did see a wonderful picture on Twitter of someone saying, like, you know, emergency, we're stranded, this is really hard, and they're just sitting around the pool, like going, oh, this is terrible.
SPEAKER_03A particularly British crisis. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04But you know, people should be covered by by the protections. Not at least the EU protections.
SPEAKER_03But does the gospel mean? Are you saying that the gospel entails that we bail out every unworthy, like incompetent? Is that it can't mean that, can it?
SPEAKER_04Well, no, well, surely that's the th that's that's the thing, isn't it? Like, how far do we extend to extend this? And I think actually to people. Uh I I because you could be, as a as a as a non-Christian, you could look at the Christian view of people being bailed out when they don't deserve it, and just say, well, that's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_03Right. Um and that's kind of you can understand that. And Jesus kind of exacerbates that. You know, he tells the story of the the workers in the vineyards, and there's the workers who start at like nine in the morning and they bear the heat of the day and the burden of the work, and they're paid one denarius, and then the the the Johnny come late, lease. Then at like 5 p.m. they they clock on and they get the same at denarius, and it's not fair. And Jesus taps into the fact that if we're if we're in the financial world, if we're speaking economically, that's just totally unfair, and we realise that's wrong. But Jesus is like, yeah, that's how the gospel works then. The gospel totally we're we're all Johnny Cum Latelies, and we're all like bailed out in this in this lavish way. So why should we not bail out? Well, I I I guess you've got to kind of distinguish between church and state, and you gotta you've got to distinguish between how things operate at a at a state level, at a governmental level, at a market level, and how things operate in the family and in the church and and those kinds of things. Because like we already we already realize that the the family operates economically very differently to the market, you know. Yeah. So my family operates as a communist state, like totally, is you know, from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs.
SPEAKER_04I can honestly say my my children are contributing nothing towards the uh family, like they're a drain on the feesy purse. And they are told that every morning. On the benefit system of the fee households, that's what it is.
SPEAKER_03The breadline every morning queuing up. Please, Daddy, can I have some more? And then you teach them to pick up on their own.
SPEAKER_04I've removed all their means of labour anyway. So they're they're now mine.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, the family works in a very different way to the way the market operates. You know, and and like at a state level, where you know, if you are traveling with Thomas Cook to another country, you probably look up like whether that country is has a rule of law, like, because you think a state ought to operate with a rule of law in which justice is the bottom line. And I'm not expecting mercy from politicians, I'm not expecting mercy from the police force, I'm not expecting mercy from judges. Whereas, so uh so the state should have a rule of law, but the family, like if you come from a family and you the first thing you say about your family is there was a rule of law, uh, you probably need counselling. There's probably a lot of expensive therapy that ought to be coming your way. Like there ought to be a law of love and mercy and bailouts. Like you should you should bail out your kid if they get in problems, right? Probably. Although, you know, although if they're a drug addict, maybe giving them 50,000 pounds is the is the helpful thing. It's the fast track to them killing themselves, actually. So you gotta even there you gotta draw lines around it. But it's different, you know. We don't bail everybody out. There's there's a law of love and there's a law of kind of justice, and and and and those two things aren't the same, really. Yeah, yeah, I would say. Did you look into Thomas Cook's history at all?
SPEAKER_04Because yeah, it was quite surprising actually. So Thomas Cook turned out he was a former Baptist preacher.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um actually a very religious man, and his whole thing um kind of in the 1800s, he believed that all the ills of Victorian society were caused by uh drinking, and so he was big on the temperance movement, and actually his first kind of uh kind of packages that he started doing were trips for the temperance movement. And so his first one was a trip from Leicester to Loughborough, yeah. It's a 12-mile journey, and in the price you got your ticket and you got your lunch or your food. All inclusive. All inclusive. But we were just laughing because we thought, you know, how how funny it was that uh, you know, these here was a guy who said all of the ills of society have been caused by drinking, the temperance movement, and now through his company, or at least until recently, you could have, of course, booked an all-inclusive package to Marbella where you could get a margarita at 9am in your package, you know.
SPEAKER_03Just so there's been some mission drift.
SPEAKER_04Mission drift, I think, is what you put out, definitely.
SPEAKER_03That's what I was cool. But it it is interesting, when you think about 1841, so this is right when Wesley and Whitfield were getting going, right before the evangelical revivals and and and you know, I I read um so George Whitfield's um uh biography written by Arnold Dalimore. He he talks about in like 1837 or some sometime around then, that literally there was only like six people who took communion on Easter Sunday at St. Paul's Cathedral. Like we c we tend to think that you know the church has always been strong and it's just been this this gradual decline. But but actually, one in four houses in London in in the 1840s was a gin house. So you can understand how if someone is actually wanting to do Christian ministry, they they probably are into the temperance thing and they do this different thing. But right around the time that Thomas Cook is getting going, Wesley and Whitfield are getting going, so that by 1850, actually about 50% of the country is going to church. Um and so it's interesting that that Thomas Cook was kind of a part of that, and actually his business model was to take Sunday schools and take them on day trips, and from that we've got you know the modern world. And when you when you dig into where so much stuff has come from in the modern world, you actually you actually see some really interesting Christian roots. Um Warren says uh on Facebook, uh, unless you're a bank.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so talking about bailing out there. We've talked about this a bit before saying, well, you know, did we think the banks should be bailed out? And saying, I I mean, obviously that's uh a nightmare anyway, but I think there is a difference between a worldwide banking crisis recession that when it's not on effects and the holiday company down the road. You know, yeah. Otherwise, yeah, otherwise, where do you draw the line? Like and and already, like I said, Thomas uh this Thomas Cook Thompson have already jumped on the bandwagon Thompson holidays and have started recruiting the Thomas Cook people. So I mean, you know, yeah, I think these guys are gonna rec recover. Yes, you know, on the whole. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Um that's that's the Thomas Cook story. Should they be bailed out? No. Um but and they've not been. Thank god, and they have been. But thank god thank god we have been. There we go. Absolutely. Uh the other story, um, one one of the other stories I wanted to uh think about today is um FIFA has just come out and has insisted that Iran change a 40-year-long policy of excluding women from uh football stadiums. So ever since the Ayatollahs kind of took over from the Shah in 1979, women have not been allowed uh to watch men's football in in those stadiums. Uh and there was uh a very high-profile, very tragic case of uh a woman who uh dressed up as a man to try and get into uh the football, she was uh arrested. And then the next thing uh that she did was to set herself a light uh outside one of these stadiums, and she actually uh died from her injuries. Sah Kodayari, uh Saha Kodayari, uh known as Blue Girl, actually died on the 10th of September this year. And um fascinating that, in a sense, her martyrdom uh has been something that's woken up the the world uh to this issue of gender inequality in Iran. And now FIFA have come along and they've have insisted that uh unless Iran allows women uh into its stadiums to watch these games, uh then they will have their World Cup status uh removed. So uh an interesting story here because FIFA is doing something that all of us think should happen. Yeah. Unless we're the Ayatollah. Yeah, absolutely. U and unless you're the Taliban, you think this is right. But it is this very Eurocentric organization that is imposing its views on a foreign culture.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I wonder how how do we feel about that? What what what are what are the clashes that that that are occurring at the worldview level there?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean I think it's fascinating, isn't it? So uh I I you know I think we would all agree, wouldn't we? Probably those of us who are listening to this, that this is absolutely the right thing, that of course there should be that gender equality, that women should be able to go into the stadiums and watch the matches as the men do. But then there is that kind of flip side where you want to say, okay, but you know, are you are you therefore saying that their culture is wrong? Um because that is their culture and their belief. And actually in the in the West, um particularly the way things are going, people have been very uncomfortable saying, you know, this is wrong and this is right. There's been a kind of well, everybody's allowed to believe what they want to be, and everyone's equal and valid, your truth is your truth, and so on. Um but here that's kind of clashing a little bit, and we're saying, well, how you know, whilst we do agree that you know, certainly the women should be allowed in the stadium, for us as Christians that's no problem.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04To to because our we have an authority that we can look to, an objective standard, we can say about from creation and you know, from scripture, um that the equality of men and women, it's very hard to ground that in anything if you've thrown away all your objective standards um in the West. And so, you know, I think it's it's an interesting conversation to be having, you know, with non-Christian friends to say, well, you know, what do you think about the FIFA situation? Because they're likely to say that they think it's absolutely right what FIFA are doing, but then you can push down these roads and say, well, why why do you think it's right? And do you think do you think their culture is wrong? Do you think it's okay to say people's cultures are wrong? Um and I think there's some interesting discussions in there.
SPEAKER_03Especially because, you know, what if what if women voted for it? Or, you know, what if what if you go to Afghanistan and you ask women, do you think the Taliban are right about, for instance, not educating women and that and that sort of thing? And you you might even get to the stage where democratically women vote for the Taliban and vote for that kind of regime. But still we've got the very deep, strong sense that no, no matter where you're from, no matter what your culture, there is right and there is wrong, and gender equality is this kind of moral absolute that is not to be contradicted in any way, shape, or form. So we've got we've got this equality, the sexist thing, which is a deeply Christian idea, and we've got this impulse that we want to be able to say that there are moral universals that transcend culture, which is a deeply Christian thing. But we've also got this postmodern thing that it's all relative. Yeah, exactly. It's all relative. You're not allowed to question. And it's cultural imperialism to try and force on another culture these Western values that are very specific.
SPEAKER_04I mean, this is fascinating, isn't it? I mean, it's just the way this has all gone. So people have stripped away from the idea of gender equality, the idea its Christian roots, and they will criticize Christianity and they will say uh often people will say it is a Western, um it's a Western religion that's imposed itself on other cultures, which obviously is nonsense anyway. But here we have a a a Western organization imposing its culture on another culture.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04Um but can people just not see that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. Emma Lawson says, is this not a human rights issue and doesn't that transcend culture? And yeah, um, it totally is. But where do we get our human rights from?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, human rights are not a not uh a given, are they?
SPEAKER_03They're not as universal as we might imagine. No. The ayatollah does not sign up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
SPEAKER_04No, you know So we would we would absolutely have no problem with it being a human right thing, would be, but if you if you don't agree with the basis of human rights. Yeah. But then it and then if you've stripped away an objective standard above you to to give you any human rights, it's very difficult to argue that human rights are even a real thing with any foundation apart from your preference.
SPEAKER_03Apart from your preference. Or very interestingly, um one of the one of the spokespeople for FIFA um before this ruling came out, he he said, I very much hope that Iran changed their mind on this because history will not judge them very well. Um for the future. Yeah, the future won't be. Sorry, yeah, for the future. So when people in the future look back on Iran, um they will realize how wrong Iran was. Well, that is to assume that the Islamic Caliphate doesn't dominate the world. That is to assume that Iran does not go on, you know, as a sp you know spree of you know world domination, and that's that is to deny that Islam might well hold sway in the future, and and certainly Islam will probably have more adherence than secular humanism will.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um it does right now.
SPEAKER_04And yeah, so who is to say that his uh the future or history won't look kindly on on liberal Western values? Right. But of course there's this assumption, no, we are right. But you know, if you'd say, well well what what it comes down to if you don't have any objective foundation outside of you, is simply, you know, you say, Why do you think gender equality is the right thing? Well, it's obvious.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_04When you say to the Iranian Ayatollah, why is it the case that women shouldn't be allowed into stadiums? Well, it's obvious. That's all it will come down to ultimately if you have nothing outside of you apart from preferences.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um we are going to interview Tom Holland very soon, actually. He's he's just written uh a wonderful book called Dominion about how the West has been made by Christian values and very specifically Christian values. He's a uh an historian who's written uh six books of of popular history. And uh Dominion will go into, you know, the idea of human rights is a profoundly Christian idea, actually. Um which is not to say that we, you know, it can't be held in common with secular secular humanist ideals, but those secular humanist ideals have roots, and those roots are totally biblical roots. So just a little thing that kind of helps you in your evangelism. I I'm often talking about the Taliban. Like, do you think the Taliban are wrong? And I I I talk in those terms because people want to do the whole cultural relativism thing. And uh you know, imagine female genital mutilation, you know, there are a whole bunch of cultures, and everybody in that culture believes in female genital mutilation. Does that make it right or not? Is there something above democracy, above cultural preference that says what's right and wrong? And cases like uh FIFA versus Iran help you with that. Uh before we get uh another one of our interns um to uh discuss with us why they have come to be uh an intern with the Foundry, um something else that's in the news at the moment, he's got a book to flog, and flog it, he will. Um Richard Dawkins, 13 years ago, Richard Dawkins released The God Delusion. And um, and as a friend of mine often says about Richard Dawkins, he owes God a lot of money. That sophomoric uh entree into the world of philosophy and theology by by uh Richard Dawkins um did earn him millions and millions and millions of pounds, and he's back at it uh writing a book called Outgrowing God, and this time he's aiming at uh a younger audience and trying to help them to uh outgrow God. Um but the reception to the book has been mixed, to say the least.
SPEAKER_04Certainly has. I mean I was quite surprised he even had a new book out because to my mind Richard Dawkins from an atheist point of view had become pretty much irrelevant. Yeah. I mean, a lot of atheists had uh thrown him out because they weren't pleased with him, um, and we'd not heard of him for quite a while, and then suddenly this book appeared and I was just taken by surprise, he was actually still bothering. Yes. Um and I I mean I likened it earlier to um the film Independence Day. You know, when Independence Day came out in like 1997, it was a big, huge thing. It had its moment. Yeah, you know, it was a you know, it's it it's not aged well, but it was a it was a great kind of thing, huge movie at the time. And then in 2017, 20 years later, they were like, We're doing a sequel, and we're like, oh yeah, no no one asked for this. I didn't even know. They did it, they've done it, they've done it, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you just kind of think, well, did do we need this?
SPEAKER_03Like they want to do Princess Bride. Have you heard that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, remake it. They want to remake the thing. Yeah, they're doing a lot of that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But um but yes, the reception hasn't been particularly good online, and particularly there's been a um uh a tweet by a seriologist um who has just basically already a few pages into Dawkins' book, just gone, well, all this stuff he says is yeah complete nonsense and just historical stuff, conflating different things together, and he's saying, Well, you're completely mixing up stories and ideas here that are not from the same historical places and sources. And that's been fascinating to kind of see. And and I think what did he say? He he from what he could tell, Dawkins had compiled a lot of his information from a website called HistoryWiz, is it.com.
SPEAKER_03You've got to check out. Which you need to go and have a look at.
SPEAKER_04And it's fascinating that a man who is so hell-bent on saying you must have reason and facts and evidence has done so little work on finding facts and evidence. Because this historywiz.com, check it out, it's hilarious. It makes Wikipedia look like an information. Informed, reliable website, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_03I think it was last updated in 1998 or something, and it's it's steam-powered as a website. Absolutely. And it is contradicted at every point by Wikipedia, which is which is by far, you know, the more reliable on these facts, and nonetheless he's used historywiz.com in order to talk about ancient mythologies and that sort of thing. But that's just made so ironic by the fact that he's come out saying, you know, it's all about facts, facts sweeping away mythology. It's all about the facts of the matter, an evidence-based inquiry, um, just getting rid of religion and the old ways of thinking. Um we've got a clip of Richard Dawkins talking to Krishna and Guru Murphy uh on uh Channel 4 News recently, and just a couple of minutes of this clip uh really sets up why it is that his factual errors are just so hilarious. Let's have a look at uh Richard Dawkins talking to Krishna and Guru Murphy.
SPEAKER_01You'd want to change the world by ridding us of religion altogether.
SPEAKER_00Well, I would, but I think I generalize that to anything that's not evidence-based where factual knowledge is concerned. Um so I would also like to rid the world of superstition of all kinds. And um, I mean things like astrology and water divining and and homeopathy and uh all sorts of things which are based on emotion and tradition, uh, revelation, um, authority, rather than on evidence.
SPEAKER_01I mean, a lot of people would say you you want to get rid of sort of anything that's based on feelings.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I'm very fond of feelings where art is concerned and music is concerned and poetry is concerned. I'm I'm deeply moved by great art, great poetry, great music. Um but and that's fine. That that's feelings, but that doesn't that's not about what's factually true. So what things that that that might or might not be factually true, there we we need evidence and evidence only.
SPEAKER_01Why do you think that would make the world a best place?
SPEAKER_00Well, um, for one thing, because facts are so wonderful and scientific facts are so beautiful and elegant and such a treat for everyone, children especially perhaps to understand. So to deprive children of the great knowledge that science has provided, especially in the 21st century now, is a great tragedy for them. But also, of course, because if you base your beliefs upon anything other than evidence, then it's very hard to change your mind. And so people who have been brought up to believe that it's the righteous and good thing to do, to, I you know, kill apostates, bomb buildings and things, um, it's very hard to sway them because they've been taught from childhood this is right, this is just, this is what your God wants you to do. And so if they're not trained, if they don't they don't subscribe to the view that evidence is what matters, then how are you going to change their mind?
SPEAKER_01You'd want to change the world by ridding us of religion altogether.
SPEAKER_03So that's basically Richard Dawkins saying, Facts, reason, evidence, evidence, evidence, evidence, evidence, reason, facts. Um But what's what's hilarious about that is like he wants to sweep religion from the face of the planets, whereas every bit of social science evidence is that religion is a force for for good in the world. And like, you know, even like recovery rates from from operations and from cancer are are markedly better for those who are, you know, religious. Life expectancy, markedly better, prosperity in every on every measure is you know, the evidence is in Richard. Like religion is a force for good in this world. But but he doesn't really care about the facts. No, it's just it's just a placard. Facts, facts, evidence, reason, reason, facts. But only when they're on his side. And so that that's why we've called this week's episode, you know, Feelings Don't Care About Your Facts. Uh which is to reverse a famous saying of Ben Shapiro's facts don't care about your feelings.
SPEAKER_04But but it it it's it's worrying, isn't it, that many people will just pick up that book and they'll read what he says and go, ah, this is this is truth. Um and and and even as even Christians will read through and just assume that bits he's saying is kind of the you know, this story here, you know. Uh so bit the Assyriologist Assyriologist was talking about you know the flood stories from Gilgamesh and all that kind of stuff. It'll be very easy as a Christian just to read that and take it at his word.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Because who who honestly has got the time to Google every fact that gets mentioned in a book?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's why you've got a history whiz, guys.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Richard Dawkins didn't have the time.
SPEAKER_03I think he was getting paid to know about that.
SPEAKER_04But my question I wonder that my question would be whether he knows he's doing that. Yeah. So is he doing it in ignorance or not? Because because because on the other side, because if he's doing it in ignorance, well, I mean, obviously that's just that that's ignorance and stupidity. You should be better sourced if you're gonna do that. I mean, if he's doing it deliberately, well, I mean, he's not doing himself any favours. No. I mean, because equally you you hear about the kind of Christian you you heard that phrase, you know, lying for the Lord. No. You know, like Christians who kind of make up kind of like stories to like bolster the gospel. Yeah. You know, like some kind of miracle story or something that happened, they see, even though it wasn't really true, but they're like, well, we know God's real. Like, you're not actually doing yourself any favours by making stuff up. Right.
SPEAKER_03So anti-theist YouTube is constantly talking about this evangelist is lying for Jesus.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, but what about Dawkins? Absolutely. So yeah, but it interesting on the comments of that uh Guru Murphy um interview, like so many people were just going like, Ah, he speaks with such clarity and truth, and I think he's talking nonsense. Yeah, yeah. And it's like the Stephen Fry, you know, the Stephen Fry clip on QR you talk about with Mithras. Yes, yes, yeah, where you know he's claiming that Christmas is based on old kind of Roman and Persian kind of gods and mithras and all these things. Yeah, yeah. And and that's been thoroughly debunked. Yeah. And it's ironic that he's doing that on a show which is supposed to debunk classic misunderstandings.
SPEAKER_03So, you know, feelings don't care about your facts, and I think it is that way around. I think like the human person ticks heart first, and then we justify things with our with our brains. You know, Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind, he said that the mind, um, or rather, he says like the ego is not like an investigative journalist, like doggedly seeking out the truth. The ego is like a press secretary for Donald Trump, right? The press secretary for Donald Trump just has to get out front and center, and whatever Donald Trump has been tweeting about that weekend, you've got to you've got to justify it. You know, but that's our ego. It's all good. It's all good. But that's our egos. We we are constantly trying to um justify ourselves. And feelings don't care about your facts. Even if you're Richard Dawkins and you trade in the language of facts, reason, evidence, evidence, reason, facts. Um that that's just that's just fascinating. But I think the thing about Dawkins is 13 years ago the God Delusion came out, and I think Christians were running scared, thinking, oh, the new atheism, it's gonna eat us alive, and it's the new atheism that's been the blip. Yeah. We've we've moved on from that. Absolutely. You know, let's let's have a bit of courage that that that actually these these forces that seem just so like they're gonna sweep us away. Um, like 13 years later, you know, Richard Dawkins is is is the laughing stock of so many atheists. So many atheists I talk to, they say I'm an atheist, but I'm not like Richard Dawkins. He is the independence day too. Yeah. No one cares. So just hang on in there, guys. Hang on in there. Um, right, well, we need to meet our next intern. So uh last week we met uh Matthew Schaefer, uh, who came all the way from Indianapolis in the States, sold up, and uh moved over here. And uh over the course of the next six weeks we're gonna introduce you to our six different interns. Uh we've had Matthew down there in the middle uh at the bottom, and uh we've got uh Max from New Zealand, we've got Nick, we've got Pete, we've got Benjamin, we've got Kezia. But um what we really want to do is uh introduce to you Pete from Ipswich, all the way from Ipswich. This is this is not quite the most glamorous thing, you know. Last week we had crossing an ocean.
SPEAKER_02What have you crossed in order to be with us, Pete? Uh very slightly crossed the M25, DAFA Crossing. You've crossed the DARPA crossing. That can be very tricky. Yeah, yeah. Financial burden, man, you know. Yeah, we didn't quite sell our house. We just drove a couple of hours. Brilliant. Tell us about yourself, uh Pete. Sure. Uh so hello, internet. Uh I'm uh Pete 31 from uh from Ipswich. I've been working as an evangelist for the last three and a half years um in in East Ipswich. Absolutely love that. Um, just love sharing the gospel, uh sharing the good news, telling people about Jesus, and uh yeah, just jumped at the opportunity to come and come and do that as part of Speak Life's uh internship.
SPEAKER_03Terrific. Last week um Matthew brought us uh Matthew chapter 19 as a key verse that's helped him to process why it is that he wants to uh throw himself into uh this internship. Uh have you got some scriptures in mind as you uh think about why you're doing what you're doing?
SPEAKER_02Sure, yeah, just uh kind of piggybacking off of uh what Matthew was was doing. Uh so I'm going to 2 Corinthians 5. Uh this is the 2 Corinthians 5, verses 17 to 20. So it says this. Uh therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old is gone, the new is here. All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as although God were making his appeal through us.
SPEAKER_04Great. And so, what was it about those verses in particular that kind of struck you and made you want to bring them?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, specifically it's that word ambassador, isn't it? That that word ambassador, because I I think for me, um I was I became a Christian in my early 20s, and um I think throughout my kind of late teens and early 20s, one of the live issues for me was um actually what should I be doing in my life? And I I don't necessarily feel like I can get away with referring to myself as a young person now at 31. But certainly back then I feel like what was what was live for me and and for a lot of youngsters now is this idea of um what are you gonna do when you grow up? What are you gonna do when when you leave school, when you leave home? Um and and actually for me, I I think a more important question is uh actually who are you? Right. Who are you? Um because for me, I think when you know who you are, um then it follows that you know what to do. Uh and so for me this this verse really spoke for that specific reason because it's very much um it's very much paralleling those those two ideas, isn't it? You know, you see this is who we are, and because this is who we are, then it follows that this is what we do.
SPEAKER_03So, what is it about being an ambassador? Because I guess like when you think of an ambassador, you think of like the British ambassador to the United States, and you know, I guess you're on show at that point, and even your personal emails um become you know picked over by other people, and everything everything you do at that stage is is kind of seen in a different light because you're representing the whole time.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_03Is that what it is that sort of spoke to you?
SPEAKER_02What I I think part of it is it you know, you see in the text, you are now ambassadors, and so it's kind of like, well, I'm gonna be one whether I whether I applied for the job or not, right? So I might as well try and be a good one, you know. And that's that's not reliant on me, you know. God God makes the best of of the little that we're we're holding out, of course. Um but I I I think for me, uh for so long just searching for that that purpose, what am I supposed to be doing in my life? Um, and it was really answered ever so simply in um you're supposed to represent, you're supposed to represent uh represent the king, and uh and yeah, that's a great reason to get out of bed in the morning.
SPEAKER_04So and and for you then, I mean, if we think about being an ambassador and what that actually looks like kind of in in practice, for for every Christian, I suppose their context will be a bit different, it will look a bit different, but for you kind of personally, what does it look like, do you think, to be an ambassador?
SPEAKER_02Good question. Um I I think for me it's kind of um I I kind of think of it as just being the baseline for everything else. And so that's not to say that I get it right all the time, there'll be a probably more times that I've got it wrong than got it right, but you know, by God's grace I'm convinced he still uses that for good. Um but but for me it's I I'd kind of compare it to the difference between joy and happiness. And so, you know, if you're if you're happy, that's that's fleeting in many ways, it can come and go. But if you're joyful, underneath that, regardless of whether you're you're happy or not, you you've got that joy. And I'd kind of compare it to that. You know, I think if you've got a job, that can come and go, but if you've got a purpose, then that remains no matter what your your job is or your situation or circumstance. So uh for me I think it's it's just really about remembering that's that's the foundation for everything else.
SPEAKER_03I love in verse 20. Um, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Um I remember reading uh C. H Spurgeon talking about uh how we are to have the same tone in imploring people to come to Christ as a lawyer would have if you were representing your best friend who was on trial for their life and that they were going to be you know strung up on a on a um uh on a gallows if you couldn't implore the judge, you know, and and that's the tone that you're meant to use. I mean that's it's that's really heavy language. I I wonder if I've ever preached like this. I wonder if ever if I've ever preached, you know, when I'm a pretty spirit.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Yeah, 100%, 100%. And and for me, there's with that word implore, there's kind of this uh this sense of um your eloquence and your your glamour kind of goes out the window because it's you're it's more like begging, isn't it? It's more like just please come home, come home, come home. Just desperate. Um and so yeah, there's a big challenge in that because we uh we don't want to be undignified, do we? But interesting, interesting.
SPEAKER_03Well, Pete, thank you so much for coming and uh joining us, letting us know uh where you're coming from in all this. We've got a really uh exciting ten minute ten months ahead. And uh if any of you guys want to join us uh here in the Speak Life Foundry, uh then we're gonna be doing it again next year. And and uh you can find out more about the Speak Life Foundry, go to speaklifefoundry.com. Uh if you want to find out more about the live cast, go to speaklife.org.uk slash cast. And there are ways that you can give uh towards this ministry. We exist because of the generosity of supporters like you guys. So uh go there and it should be really easy to give there. And you can find links to our YouTube channel page, our speaklife page, our uh Facebook page, and uh podcasts. You can pick this up as a uh podcast, uh, as well as uh one other podcast that we do called Reading Between the Lines. But I reckon that will kind of do us.
SPEAKER_04And we now have Instagram. Oh yes. Don't forget, if you're on Instagram, get over onto Instagram. We've had it for a long time, but we've just not been very good with it. So you can follow us on there as well.
SPEAKER_03It's terrific, terrific. And next week we'll be meeting another intern and uh finding out what it is that fires them up for the foundry. But uh, between now and then, God bless and keep speaking life. Take care, we'll see you next time.