The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.
SPEAKER_07In Christchurch on Friday, fifty people lost their lives to a wicked and cowardly racist armed to the teeth. The New Zealand government has responded to the massacre by pledging to tighten its gun laws. Others have responded by demanding looser gun laws. After all, if you can't stop evil people getting guns, then why not give their would-be victims a fighting chance? That's a debate that has ignited before the bodies are cold. A debate the gunman wants us to have. Some have responded to the massacre by saying, the real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place. Stunningly, this was not an anonymous post on 4chan, this was a published statement released by Australian Senator Fraser Anning. Anning looks on at a white supremacist slaughtering innocent Muslims, and he concludes pretty much what the gunman concluded, there are too many Muslims. Fraser Anning actually had those thoughts run through his mind, and rather than check himself in for twelve years of therapy, he wrote them out on letterhead with his own name fully visible, and he hit send while the bodies in Christchurch were still warm. That was his response to the shooting, and it was another response that the gunman wanted. Moving from right to left, we then saw this response to the massacre at a vigil in New York. Apparently, Chelsea Clinton should have the shooting particularly on her conscience. What Chelsea failed to appreciate is that censuring a politician who happens to be Muslim is Islamophobia, and therefore when Chelsea stood against anti-Jewish bigotry, it was basically anti-Muslim bigotry, and Chelsea now has blood on her hands, because no doubt the gunman, a self-described far-right eco-fascist, was a huge fan of Chelsea's work and hung on her every tweet. It makes no sense. And yet, can't you feel the anger? Can't you feel the agitation? Can't you feel the need to make a response? Events cannot be senseless, can they? And and I can't be helpless, can I? So you did this, this is on you. And that attitude has multiplied online. People are blamed, whether whether it's those on the right, Melanie Phillips, Boris Johnson, Rod Little, Douglas Murray, or those on the left, Bill Maher, David Aranovich, Sam Harris, Ian Hersia Lee. It's no coincidence that the terrorist's manifesto describes his politics as eco-fascist and green nationalist. He wants to start a right-left war, and many, while declaiming him, are doing his bidding. And all because we cannot see events as senseless, we cannot stand ourselves being helpless. Here's another response. Let's praise the heroes, those who lunged unarmed at the terrorist and were then guns down. To be honest, I I don't know what to think of that. My heart goes out to each of them, and it goes out to those cowering in a corner awaiting their turn. As Leonard Cohen saying, there is no decent place to stand in a massacre. Primo Levy, a Holocaust survivor, said he was often asked about why more people didn't try to escape the concentration camps. Why didn't he pick up a shovel and knock the guard out and steal his gun and wear his clothes and escape the camp? Levy despaired at that myth of violence preached by Hollywood and believed by millions. We imagined that a plucky young rebel will stand up to tyranny and through a greater show of force will win the day. It wasn't like that at Auschwitz. You were shipped like cattle in a sealed train for a week, you arrived at the camp, and the vast majority were herded into gas chambers within minutes. It wasn't a movie, it wasn't a game. You did not survive. But we are so primed to think like it's a movie, like it's a computer game. The terrorist wants you to think that. In his manifesto, he said that Fortnite trained him to be a killer. Though there's no doubt more than a dollop of trolling in that statement. He certainly livestreamed his killings as though it were a computer game, a first-person shooter, and millions have watched. Facebook had to take down 1.5 million videos of it in the first 24 hours. On 4chan and 8chan, anonymous posters praised him and millions more watched silently. Again, this is what he wanted. And as unarmed worshippers lunged at that evil coward, kudos to them. And to those who shielded others, and to those who could do nothing but wait their turn. But let's not buy into the killer's own myth of violence. It's not a movie, it's not a computer game, it's real life, and they are real deaths, and maybe for a bit we need to realize there is no response. When Job in the Old Testament lost his wealth, his health, and his family all on a single day, his friends came to sit with him in silence for a week. It was the best thing they did. They sat in silence. When they felt they had to respond, that was when the trouble came. But we don't like that. We we have a 24-hour news cycle and we need reactions. It wouldn't work to say, today, fifty people lost their lives in an act of chaotic evil, reminding us all that this world is full of evil and death, the doors are locked and no one gets out of here alive. Now here's Bil with the weather. We can't handle that. But it's true. This is a world of evil and death. I am full of evil and death. The doors are locked and no one gets out alive. Can we sit with that truth? I'm not saying there shouldn't be legislation and debates about legislation and counter-terrorism measures. Sure, absolutely. But can we first face our helplessness and mortality? The doors are locked for you and me, and no one gets out of this place alive. And then people want to know where is God in all this? Well, let me give an answer that only complicates matters, but the God of Jesus is a God who not only cares for victims of religious violence, he became one. In a world of evil and death where the doors are locked and no one gets out alive, God came in. And he didn't come in with an AR-15 assault rifle. He he became a victim with us and for us, shielding us from the evil and death that really matters, and rising to a new life of cheek-turning love. He's not the hero we deserve, he's not the hero we expect, he is the hero we need, and for now we sit in silence, we pray, we repent, we point the world to those two realities. This is a world of evil and death, and there is a God who has joined us. It's March 19th. You're watching Speak Life, and this is the live cast. Hey everybody. Hello, good afternoon. Yeah, a subdued uh live cast talking about a very serious subject. Um when did when did you uh hear about the the Christchurch massacre? Um I heard about it on Friday.
SPEAKER_05I think it was Friday, wasn't it? Friday. New Zealand's quite a way ahead of us, but I was mostly I was mostly working that that day, mm-and and then I w I was driving to Wales in the evening, so and I was away all weekend, so in a sense I missed it I missed quite a lot of it. You know, I didn't I was kind of aware of it, but um not a lot of the details.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I was I guess I woke up and I think yeah, I I certainly knew about it before the chapel service that I preached at. So Paul and I were both at uh Felstead School doing the Lenten addresses at that school last week, and uh so I knew about it before then, and and at that stage it was 40 dead, I believe. And and it's something that I guess we've had a lot of practice at uh when we hear death tolls, we we know that they always, you know, they always rise. Um and so yeah, at at that stage, really praying that it would not rise too sharply. And I think there are still something like fifty people receiving treatment um for gunshot wounds. Right. Um so uh the death toll, as far as I understand, still stands at 50, but uh but again, um it's it's really worth praying, really worth praying for for the injured um because lives are in the balance right now, uh even after uh the events of Friday. Um but we last week were at this school in Felstead and uh uh doing an outreach there to to students and and speaking. You spoke uh a couple of times and went into classes and I spoke a few times uh morning and evening, and uh wonderful opportunity to get to get in there. Uh but then on the s on a Friday night I went to Worcester to a church uh called uh Woodgreen Evangelical Church, fantastic church. Uh we had a a number of events there over the weekends, and one of the questions I was asked was, where is God in in that massacre? And it was interesting, you know, as as I was, you know, grasping for words in in answering that, in you know, in front of a hundred people, um it really did occur to me, and and I said, Well, you know, how does God feel about the victims of religious violence? Well, he doesn't just care for them, he became one. Um and I think Christians have a really uh profound and complicated answer to the question of where is God in uh in a massacre like that, and and but one of the answers is where is God? Um he became a victim. Um he became the silent one in the corner shielding others and absorbing the evil, absorbing the violence and not striking back. Um That's a you know, that's a really shocking answer when what you want is God to step in and Yeah, just strike, yeah, yeah. Or smite him or whatever. Um it's really odd, but uh it has the ring of truth to it to me, that that actually the the God who looks on at a world where uh the doors are locked and no one gets out alive, he actually enters into that room to become a victim. Gosh. What kind of God is this? And then to rise up again and and offer us a new way of of forgiving love. This is this is the kind of God we we follow, but those aren't the first reactions that most people make. Um you know, and you can understand that. Um there have been a lot of responses to the the the Christchurch massacre. What what are some of the responses that you've uh you've been seeing in the media?
SPEAKER_05Well, I guess the kind of very quick one was to do with the the the calls for the the regulation of weaponry and guns over there. Yeah, very fast. Um yeah, super quick. It just stru uh it just struck me that you know th with an event like that happening, they they're they're such a quick New Zealand seemed very quick to to start considering these things. It just struck me how how different that is to what we've seen so often uh over in the States. Yeah. Um but yeah, there has been a there you know, there there has been a similar response as well over there from what I understand. There are others who are saying no, mm-hmm actually uh access to you know a a firearm would have been a helpful thing. Right now. Um Although I I can't imagine any Muslim would be carrying their a weapon into a mosque.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Was was there was there a report that in the second mosque there was a guy outside with a rifle? But yeah, I vaguely remember seeing something about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um if you're gonna boil down the issue to guns, then like, in a sense there are arguments on both sides, because you know, you're you're not going to be able to stop every bad guy getting a gun. If a if a guy is willing to go and kill fifty people, um he's willing to break a gun. He's willing to break a gun. Yeah, of course. Um and so, you know, maybe we need to loosen the gun laws and then you arm the the would-be victims and um but but interestingly, in his manifesto, the terrorist basically chose those weapons because he wanted to start uh a debate about guns. And he wanted to start it in the States so that you know the the the two sides of the Second Amendment would sort of go to war with one another. He wants to stir that up. And it just seems like Yeah, and we fall into he's like uh he's everything. He's a coward, he is despicably wicked, and he's a troll, you know? And I and I think like with his manifesto, he's utterly trolled the world's media. Um he's stirred up this you know conversation about guns, he stirred up a conversation about immigration, and Fraser Anning, uh the Queensland Senator in Australia, he kind of fell into that one. Computer games, right? That's his thing, another one. Yes.
SPEAKER_05He talks about Fortnite, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_07Fortnite taught him everything he knows. And you and you wonder like how much of that is him trolling us. Um but you know, he he then filmed himself as a first-person shooter, and millions of people watch. And loads of loads of anonymous comments on 4chan and 8chan, the sort of like, this is amazing, this is the greatest video ever, greatest video game, and and treating it like it is a computer game, and just just sickening, really. And then other responses, people say it's about it's about the rhetoric. So we saw that woman who accosted Chelsea Clinton in New York, saying, This is on you. Um and and the back the backdrop to that is that Chelsea Clinton had recently um called out what she saw as anti-Semitism in a politician who happened to be Muslim. And so other people were saying, Oh, how dare she call out anti-Semitism? That itself is anti-Islamic. And it's the anti-Islamic rhetoric that is cool as this that stoked that fire. And you're like, I'm not sure. I'm not sure he's following Chelsea.
SPEAKER_05Not sure you can more closely. Yeah. Not sure you can draw a direct line there, really. Not even a a particularly wavy line, I wouldn't have thought. No. Um No. But people want to blame people want to blame someone. That's it. You know, that's it.
SPEAKER_07We want an answer.
SPEAKER_05Point a finger somewhere.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Because otherwise, if there's no reason for it, gosh, it's just chaotic evil. We don't want to live in a world of chaotic evil. That can't be that can't be the case. So it's gotta be Chelsea Clinton or it's gotta be it's gotta be Candace Owens. So um, you know, he mentioned Candace Owens in his um manifesto. Um but I've read around this and and a number of people are saying that that is a tactic of the alt-right, to sort of say, Oh, I I really praise Candace Owens. And of course, you know, we're we're talking about white supremacists here who probably don't probably aren't the biggest fans of Candace Owens. Seems unlikely. But they want to pin on her any any slurs that are coming their way and sort of tar her. You know, but all sorts of people have been blamed, you know, Douglas Murray and Sam Harris, so you know, people on the left and on the right, um, people of all different kinds of faith and none, are being blamed um for their rhetoric, and you just think, well, what about the guy? What about this terrorist? You know?
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. And then and then we've got people talking about the heroes, and I and I really understand this move, uh, where people want to say, um let's shift the conversation from him, absolutely, and we haven't named him, we're not gonna name him, um, except as an evil coward. Um but to shift shift the the the the attention to the heroes, and then the heroes are those who have lunged at the at the gunman and been, you know, gunned down, but they almost pulled it off. They were almost Bruce Willis against you know the the terrorists. Um and I just wonder how much of that kind of buys into a Hollywood vision of the myth of violence. That the one thing that's gonna overcome a bad guy with an AR-15 is a good guy with an AR-15. You know? And just and it does it does just buy into that myth of violence, but but we fall for it all the time. I remember going through Auschwitz um a few years ago, and uh my my my mind a number of times ran to okay, well if I was in this scenario, how would I pick up the shovel that I was using and bash the guard over the head and pick up his gun and wear his uniform and escape out of Auschwitz? Or how would I get over, you know, these lots of barbed wire? Or how how would I tunnel my way out of here? And like the answer is, you know, I wouldn't. I'd just die. You know, which is what happened to everybody. But we never want to cast ourselves as the victim. We never we never want to cast ourselves as you know the one facing death and there's no way out. But I just I just wonder whether this kind of atrocity is a time for us all to actually say we are victims. We are the doors are locked, no one gets out of this world alive. There is chaotic evil, it's out there, it's in me. It's a hell of a world at times, and there is no response, you know? There is no way out. Um it's just that that never plays on BBC News. You could never say, the doors are knocked, no one gets out, here's Bill with the weather. Instead, it's just um it's just a real wake-up call to our own mortality. Um and that the helplessness of those victims is what really is affecting a lot of people, and I can really understand that. Um But I wonder whether we need to sit with um that that atrocity and pray and um and realize our weakness and our helplessness. Um I don't believe that life is ultimately senseless, but sometimes events like this um they resist an easy answer, that's for sure. And easy responses. And maybe.
SPEAKER_05And and you know, e people might think the easy answer is you know, let's let's regulate the weaponry or whatever, but I mean you're only gonna I mean, we g here in the UK, I mean we've we've done a very good uh job of regulating firearms ever since kind of Dunblane kind of time, I think, wasn't it? That was the kind of era. And I think we I don't think we've had a mass shooting since then. But yeah something else always rises up in its place. I mean knives and acid are the big ones at the moment. Um the issue is partly weaponry, but you know, the the weaponry doesn't get up and do these things by themselves, like the human heart is always gonna be full full of evil and darkness, regardless. So I mean, even if you take the guns away. That's not gonna be uh you know, you're sticking a plaster on the over your chicken box, really, that kind of thing. It's right over your your terminal cancer, it's not gonna make any difference.
SPEAKER_07Right. Um Right. But that's what we want to do. We w and we want to simplify and we want to point the finger and we want it to be on this issue. Um so that we can keep it at arm's length. And and really what we're struggling with is is is our mortality. Um Eric Neil makes a great point. He says, We are all made imagodei, all lives matter. Um It's interesting. On uh in in Woodgreen Church in in Worcester, I was asked, you know, does God care for the Muslim victims um of such an atrocity? I was like, uh absolutely, on page one of the Bible, they are made Imago Day, which means in the image of God in in Latin. Um and and absolutely God identifies with the victims of this atrocity, so much so that he became a victim of of of religious violence. Um so we definitely need to say that. And and I've I've s seen Christians online who have, you know, given good wishes to the Muslim community then get called out by other Christians as as though uh like they're doing something wrong. They're shills for the media and leftist agenda and and like, oh my goodness, like hor horrific, absolutely horrific. Um so our hearts just just break uh for those those two mosques and their families, and and we pray that they would know the comfort of the kind of God who joins us uh in our evil and death and becomes a victim of that evil and death for us. We pray that they would know the comfort of Jesus in the midst of this. Um but it's it's uh a terrible atrocity. Um and it strikes at the heart of all of us, because we all face our mortality. Um but it's just that that's never said on the news. You'll you'll never you'll never tune in to Sky News and somebody say, uh, we're all mortal and you're next. Here's Sue with traffic and travel.
SPEAKER_05Well, we talked about that the other week, didn't we? That we're uh we're we're not familiar with death like many cultures are. So if you're a kind of westernized society we don't see uh death particularly in the way you might have done in in the previous centuries or in cultures that exist today. Um and someone asked me last week at Felsted during after the suffering uh talk I gave, they s the question was along the lines of Isn't Isn't kind of faith or Christianity just a way uh uh of making yourself feel better. Because of like a fear of death. Um and I basically said, Well no, I don't think it is, but I mean I th I think the reality is there is truth in it. You know. I said, but then the flip side is I want to say, Why are you not scared of death?
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_05And I basically just said, you know, we live in a culture where we don't see death a lot, but the reality is we're all going. Right. You know, each one of us here in this room. Um just because you don't think about it doesn't mean it's not a problem. And we should you know, there is a we should fear death. You know, the Hebrews talks about being set free from you know the fear of death. The fear of death. The fear of death. You know, death is uh you know I think even as Christians we can fall into the trap of saying, you know, death is just a part of life and you know, the natural and you say, well when Jesus looks at death, he doesn't seem like think it's very natural, he's you know, raging at death, you know, when Lazarus is in the tomb.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um you know uh either either he, you know, whatever the translation is, either he's gr you know, angry, indignant at death, or he's yeah, you know, moved with compassion or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Both, you know, where you just you're supposed to look at death and say death is not good and natural. Right. Yeah, death is an enemy, the final enemy, right, you know.
SPEAKER_07Right. Um David David Hume was one of the guys who famously said, um, I don't fear death because I was non-existent before I was born, and I didn't feel it. I'll be non-existent after I'm dead, and I won't feel it, so there's nothing to be afraid of. And he he's kind of made that argument. Lots of atheists have made that argument. Sure. But Samuel Samuel Johnson, um, the Christian diarist, was told that Hume had said that. And they said, you know, David Hume says he's not afraid because he'll be non-existent, and he was not afraid when he was before he was born, he won't be afraid after he's dead. And Samuel Johnson said, Press a pistol to his chest and see if he says the same. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, we yeah, we don't see death. And so and so therefore I wonder whether that's why there are 1.5 million Facebook videos of the shooting that have to get taken down. I wonder why there are such threads on Reddit before chan.
SPEAKER_05There's a kind of morbid curiosity because people don't see see death.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Um there are there are videos with absolutely millions of views of of just of of massacres and car wrecks and and death, and we have this this morbid fascination with it, but we don't know what to do with it. You know. Um especially because we don't know what the escape is. There is there is no escape. Well, here comes Jesus and and he takes that death in himself and he wants to bring us through death. He doesn't beam us up out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He leads us through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and then he promises feasting joy at the end. But only he's got the answer to death. So why why wouldn't you turn to him uh through all of this? So those are just some thoughts about uh this this terrible massacre. Um we've had uh Eric Neal uh also saying um there is ongoing slaughter of Christians around the world, and that's true, there's ongoing slaughter of all sorts of people. Um but there was uh a shooting in a a church in Nigeria, uh thirty-two Christians, I think, l at last count, uh had died um from that. And yet, you know, had you heard of that? Have you had you had you heard No.
SPEAKER_05No, we talked about there there was uh was it some kind of was it a cyclone Right?
SPEAKER_07Cyclone in Mozambique.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it could be a thousand thousand people and literally I mean literally zero I heard about that. Malawi, huge floods in Malawi, um many dead. And it makes you wonder, like, you know, why like what what is it that pushes certain things into the news and not something else? Why is it that we we see this this thing so clearly, but uh actually not that so clearly. Um I I mean I don't specifically know the answer on these uh these particular ones.
SPEAKER_07Um it's like that, you know, the the famous case of the the Titanic goes down and that made it to number two of like a local Scottish newspaper because the first page was a a fisher boat, a fishing boat went down and and two locals died. Um and you can understand that, you know, the the two local lives versus the thousand lost to the Titanic.
SPEAKER_05And it's yeah, I mean it's the I suppose there's what gets picked up is news. I mean you're uh so Australia so so for us here in the UK and I guess uh for the states as well, like Australia, uh kind of New Zealand, that kind of uh side of the the world there we still s we still see them as being very much like us. So their civilizations look very similar. Yeah, their civilization looks very similar to ours. So when something happens in those civilizations, we can f we feel a oh, you know, that that's just like our that that could have been our street, that could have been our building or whatever. Um whereas I suppose when we see other cultures um that don't look so much like ours, I mean the reality is that a as a on on mass on the whole, there's a kind of it's not so much to do with us. Yes. You know, and that obviously that's a terrible thing. Yeah but that's just the reality of the way our media is, isn't it? Yeah. I mean that the thing I always just think, well I still think it's terrible. You know, it's the old you know, 200 people have died, three of them were British. Right. And you're like, oh, those are the ones we should be really concerned about, you know. Like this is why we had a plane crash.
SPEAKER_07There was like six there were six Britons who died in the plane crash where 130 died. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But I was like, okay, you're telling us we should care now because six of them were British. They were like us.
SPEAKER_07There's part of that that's that's inescapable, that you know, those who are two degrees of separation away from you, you will feel their loss more than those who are six degrees of separation away from you. Sure. But but yeah, the imago day, the s the sense that yeah, all lives matter um really needs to be asserted very strongly. Um especially when you've got this racist who's like killing people, and then you've got whole different wars of right versus left, people lining up on different sides of the Second Amendment, people lining up on different sides on computer games, people lining up on different sides on immigration. Um yeah, it really it really needs stressing and restressing that yeah, we are his offspring. As Acts chapter 17 says, we are God's offspring and and we really should care uh for all people. All lives matter indeed. Um now before we uh talk uh about our thorny question from last night, which is about the gospels and are the gospels fairy tales, um, we just want to let you know uh that here at Speak Life we are getting into um really exciting territory. We have an internship coming up uh beginning in September. Would you like to join us? Uh, as an intern, you can come study with us, go on mission together with us, and produce videos and other resources together with us. I think it could be a really exciting venture. And uh, Paul, why don't we have a look at uh a video to let you know about the Speak Life Foundry? With the Speak Life Foundry, we want to forge evangelists and evangelistic resources to bless the church and reach the world. Why not come join us? We will study together, go on mission together, and produce resources together that will reach this online space. YouTube has 1.8 billion monthly users. Facebook has 2.3 billion monthly users. If they were countries, they would be the biggest countries on planet Earth. But who are the missionaries? Come to us and let's forge this missionary activity together that will reach this online space and make a noise for Jesus.
SPEAKER_03It'll be great to have you join us as we learn together how to project manage the whole creative process from scripting, coming up with ideas, filming and editing. We'll be working together as a team, developing some incredible resources.
SPEAKER_07And we want to train you theologically. Jesus said that we'll be fruitful as we abide in the vine, as we spend time with Christ in his word. And so we want to spend time having a robust, Trinitarian, Christ-centered theology that will stand us in good stead to produce all these great world-reaching resources. We're starting in September 2019 down here in Eastbourne.
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SPEAKER_07Great. And now you can see that the t-shirt that was underneath that jacket actually says radical. So I hope that clarifies things.
SPEAKER_05I do have those moments where I think, you know, we show a video like a thorny question, and I think I'm just wearing the same clothes. You know.
SPEAKER_07I hope I I was in Worcester this weekend and uh somebody said, Oh, you're wearing that jumper. Wow. Yeah, I was like, I've only got three jumpers. And then he said, I know. Gosh. But anyway, if you want to join us at the Speak Life Foundry, go to speaklifefoundry.com. If you can think of others who are creative minded, uh evangelistically minded, then um yeah, let them know. We'd love to come together and as a team do this stuff.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's gonna be a new thing, it's gonna be quite exciting, and there's gonna be a bit of a new building, you know, to work from. So where we are sitting right now in a couple of weeks, the hammer's are coming in. Yeah, these walls are gonna be down. Yep. Kind of gonna be a new studio and new teaching space put in and everything. So uh big people. It's gonna be big. Yeah, so who knows? We we won't be sitting in this setting anymore. We'll be uh we'll be doing something else. So it will be good though. It will be good.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, come join us. Come join us. Yeah. Now, last night uh we released Is this our third Thorny question about the Bible? I think it might be.
SPEAKER_05Well we did the five mini ones, didn't we? Oh yeah. It was that first week of kind of That's true. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
SPEAKER_07Yes. Okay. So is this our fourth week? Yeah. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, it's about number yeah, I don't know. On the Bible. So uh basically the the logic that we're working through. So Thorny Questions, if you don't know, um, are sort of little five-minute uh apologetics kind of videos that equip Christians to to discuss uh tricky questions that uh non-Christians might ask. And uh we've been dealing with the Bible, and I guess the logic has been okay, the book in my hands, is that what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote? Yep. And we had a a Bible kind of a an answer to that, which was uh Yep. Yep, good, yep. Really? Yes, really. Uh and then the next uh sort of video was kind of looking at all right, well, but did Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell the truth? And the answer was Yes. Yes. Really. Really? Really, yes. Um but now uh last night we had a look at the question have you ever been asked the question? Uh it's just fairy tales, right? It's just made up stuff. How do we respond to that? There are a number of different ways you could respond to that, but we uh thought we'd respond to it in this way. Shall we see the first minute or so? Yeah, sure, here we go.
SPEAKER_05Previously on Thorny Questions, we've thought about the Bible. In particular, we've looked at the Gospels as a way into the Bible. Now first we asked, is what we have in our modern Bibles what the Gospel writers first wrote? The answer is yes. Next we asked, can we trust what those authors wrote down? Well the answer is also yes. Now we ask the question, are the Gospels just fairy tales? When we read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, do we just say Are the Gospels cool stories? Are they just fairy tales? It's a question many people have asked, and if it's your question, you're in good company. C. S. Lewis had the exact same question. You do know who C. S. Lewis is, right?
SPEAKER_08C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia films? They were great. I first two were killer, I hope he writes another one.
SPEAKER_05The author of the Narnia books once asked whether the Gospels were just fairy tales, but the answer he got changed his life forever.
SPEAKER_07On the 19th of September 1931, C. S. Lewis was speaking with his great friend J. R. R. Tolkien. Uh, you do know who Tolkien is, right? Uh there will be an exam later. And if you get this question wrong. Yes, Tolkien was the author of The Lord of the Rings. So in 1931, Mr. Narnia was chatting with Mr. Middle-earth. In fact, they were best friends. Tolkien at this stage was a Christian, but Lewis was not. In fact, Lewis had a big problem with Christianity, namely the Gospels. He could understand that people might believe in a god, he could appreciate that God might want people to live in a certain way. That kind of religion sounded reasonable enough. But that isn't Christianity. Christianity insists on telling a story all about God coming to earth to die for his creatures. More than creeds or rituals or moral codes, it is the gospel story that is central for Christians. And that was Lewis's sticking point. He didn't understand how Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection, related to the rest of Christianity. Surely the Gospels are just fairy tales, right? Like all the other fairy tales. Lewis said, when it comes to the old myths, they're great. Lewis loved the Norse and Greek myths, and he thought the Gospels were just the same. But fairy tales are fairy tales. In Lewis's words, they are just lies, even though breathed through silver. They are beautiful, but ultimately empty. Tolkien's response shocked Lewis. There you go.
SPEAKER_05If you want to know what the shock was, yeah, we have to tune in. You'll have to watch the whole thing and find the video. But it will be up on Facebook tonight. Tonight. 7 pm GMT. Drum roll.
SPEAKER_07Drum roll. Brilliant. Uh so have you ever had people say to you Bibles just kind of just like Shakespeare? It's just like a interesting story. A cool story, bro. Cool story, bro.
SPEAKER_05Um I get I mean, I don't think I've I've had like someone specifically say to me that, but I know like I've definitely read it, you know, in the comments, like you'll be you know, believe your book of fairy tales, you know, whatever that kind of thing. So you know, it's definitely out there whether it's it comes in that exact wording or not. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07So and I I say that there are lots of different ways of answering that question, because one one uh way of saying, you know, the gospels, they're just copycats. Maybe maybe people have said to you, um, it's just like Horus, or it's just like Mithras or whatever. Um and that's you know people need to be a little bit literate in these matters to actually know who Horus and Mithras is. But you know, people do say there are the dying and rising gods, aren't there, in those old myths, in the Norse myths, and and um didn't didn't Thor wasn't he basically strung up on a tree for fifty days and kind of crucified and then and that was to save his people in in one way, shape, or form? Or you know, and so people yeah, where's your hammer? Um so yeah. Um so what do you do at that? Do you do you just say no, because you know, the the the the the earliest copies of what we have about Thor is written from about eight eight eight eight eight the eighth century AD. And so people are probably just copying the Christian myth rather than the Christian myth copying the you know um the Norse myth. But what do we do? I guess I guess you've seen the uh Lutheran satire. Of course. Of course, yeah. At Christmas we we reel out this one. So Lutheran satire takes one uh response to the is Christianity just a copycat? And should we should we enjoy just a few minutes of that? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Well, thanks to all of you for coming out to our service this morning, and I pray that the rest of this Christmas day is wonderful for each and every one of you.
SPEAKER_01Not so fast, creature man. Behold, it is I, Horace, Egyptian god of the sun. And while you all believe that you've been celebrating the birth of your Lord Jesus, you've really been celebrating the birth of me. For you see, thousands of years before your Jesus came around. I am Horace was born on December 25th. I Horace was born of the Virgin. I Horace was baptized by a man, come the baptizer, was crucified, and was resurrected three days later. So you see, your Jesus is nothing more than plagiarized puppy coming, and I Horace have come to feast upon the sorrow of you foolish Christians.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, none of the stuff you just said is true. Yes, it is. No, there's no reference in Egyptian mythology to Horace being crucified or resurrected three days later. There's no documentation anywhere for the existence of a figure named Anup the Baptizer. Horace's mother was not a virgin woman, but the goddess Isis, and there is no specific date anywhere tied to the birth of Horus. I'm pretty sure there is. Actually, no. All of these claims and many others, indicating that early Christians yoinked the mythology of Horace and stuck it on top of Jesus were all completely made up by Gerald Massey, a 19th-century cuckoo banana bird, self-taught Egyptologist who never provided the slightest shred of evidence for any of these claims, and who was laughed out of the room by every serious Egyptologist on the planet. So thank you very much for your attempt to ruin our celebration of Christ's birth, but I'm afraid we're all still having a very Merry Christmas, Horace.
SPEAKER_01Horace? Did I say my name was Horace? No, no, no. What I meant to say was, behold, it is I, Mithras, Roman cultic god of the something, something, and why you all believe that you've been celebrating the birth of Jesus. You've really been celebrating the birth of me. For you see, I, Mithras, was born of a virgin. I, Mithras, had twelve disciples, and I, Mithras, gave those disciples a meal consisting of my body and my blood. Sound familiar Christian dummies.
SPEAKER_00Actually, Mithras was born from a rock, not of a virgin. He had two companions, not twelve disciples, and the Mithraic meal was one he shared with the sun god, where they feasted not on his own flesh, but on the flesh of a bull. But even if those claims were true, Christians were already confessing the virgin birth, recognizing the twelve apostles, and celebrating the Lord's Supper before they ever encountered any Mithraic cults. So I'm afraid that you've taken neither the holly nor the jolly out of our Christmas Mithras. Oh, you must have misheard me. I'm a Mithras. I'm a Ketsikotal as to God of the wind. And Volus thinks that you've no Christian on the face of the planet ever heard of Ketsakotal until the 16th century.
SPEAKER_01Then I'm Baldur.
SPEAKER_00Not God of the wind. There were a hundred and ninety-three popes before Bald.
SPEAKER_05We could have gone on. You should you gotta see the whole thing.
SPEAKER_07That's that's three man three minutes out of six that uh it's pure gold. They will repay they will repay your investment if you go to Lutheran Satire on YouTube. The uh link is in the the comment section. Yep. But that's that's one way of coming back on Christianity is just a copycat of all the other myths.
SPEAKER_05And you go, yeah. So okay, provide some evidence about this. Where where have you getting that from? And and it I think he points out later on if what if this is all untrue, if if none of this is true, why does everybody believe it? You know, why do everyone say this? He says, Well, you know, it's amazing. All these people who insist on evidence for something are happy to believe something else with entirely no evidence at all, as long as it agrees with the thing they want to believe.
SPEAKER_07Check out, and maybe I'll have time, but check check out in the comments, I'll look up Stephen Fryer on QI. Falls into it. He does Mithras. Oh, it does QI. There you go. On one of their Christmas specials from about ten years ago. Gotcha, Stephen. Well, it's it's it's amazing. And and Stephen Fryer was like, Yes, Mithras was born on the twenty-fifth of December and he had twelve disciples, and blah blah blah, and he gives all this nonsense. Really? You know, and the whole thing about QI, if you haven't seen it, someone back in the Wikipedia behind the scenes. Yeah. But um, yeah, it's it's all about, you know, debunking myths. Yeah, yeah. And he thought he was debunking the Christian myth by actually falling through for another one. Um but you know, you believe what you want to believe, you know, and confirmation bias and motivated reasoning and all of that. So one thing when people bring up all the copycats about the dying and rising gods and why are all our stories the same, isn't it convenient that Jesus is the prince that slays the dragon and gets the girl? Um so you know the church. The dragon is Satan, but yeah. Um read Revelation 12, man. Um but you know so one response is to say, um no, Christianity was pr Christianity po predates all of that, and everything else is a copycat of Christianity. Sure. Which in a sense I think is true, because I think Christianity date dates back to Genesis chapter one. So, you know, I I think right from the Garden of Eden, you've got the the foretelling of the the myth of the you know, the great serpent slayer. You know, sure. Yeah, he's gonna be the champion and all of that. So, in a sense, I think that's true. But C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien have a different take on fairy tales that I think is fruitful, and I've seen it work in evangelism when people sort of say, ah, the Christian story is just like all the others. Just to start noticing, why do we happen to have all these stories of dying and rising gods and of the prince beating the dragon to get the girl? And why why do we have all these stories? Maybe we're living inside a story. Um and then and then the the key kind of move is to say the fact that we have all these counterfeits. Means there is a genuine article. There's no such thing as a counterfeit three pound note. Yeah. Because there's no such thing as a real three pound note. And you wouldn't go to the the expense of trying to generate a three pound note and trying to fool the shopkeeper. No shopkeeper's going to be fooled because there's no such thing as as the real thing. The reason why you have counterfeit ten pound notes is because there's the real note. There is the ten pound note. So why do we have so many copies of the gospel, of the gospel story? And that's and and Lewis and Tolkien would say, Yeah, yeah, we have so many copies because there is an original. And the Gospels is the re is the original.
SPEAKER_05They're all kind of just shadows of the greater story. Right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And then and then Lewis's conversion was basically Tolkien tells him that, and Lewis is like, Oh yeah, that is interesting. Let me have a look at the Gospels. And when he reads the Gospels, then he sees that it has the inner consistency of truth to it. They are it's written as as written as history, not as fictional.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So there's not there's not kind of like once upon a time a land far, far away, you know, a long time ago in a galaxy, whatever. Yeah. But it's that kind of thing, isn't it? You know, and and also if you i if you were in the if you wanted to if you did want to make something up, it's you you don't make up a story about people you live with. Right. You know, in your local vicinity. Right. You know. Right. So you wanted to if you wanted to like we last week we had the sock puppets coming up the hope. I mean you if you were gonna come up with something, you the b the the way you could not get caught is to come up with something happening a long way away that happened. Yeah, you could never verify. Yes, you know, what you wouldn't do is say, Oh yeah, Bob down the road, you know, us guys, this happened.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And everyone could just go down and ask them.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, exactly. Thirty years ago, in nineteen eighty-nine, this this thing happened.
SPEAKER_05And this is yeah, and it was in this place, yeah. And this person was in charge, you know, at the time, so and so was president, so and so was prime minister. Right. You know, you mean that's not how fairy tales work. No, exact exactly.
SPEAKER_07And you would either just the the the myth would not get off the ground because you know, um because you've tied yourself to history and history uh has dragged you down. Um but so Lewis is is going through the gospels and he's just saying, look, it's written at history, and it has this quality of the ultimate fairy tale. And so he would just say, just as in the incarnation God becomes man, so in the incarnation the myth becomes fact. Um and so and so at that say I I like that answer because you don't you then don't throw all fairy tales under the under the bus. You actually say um that the the gospels are not less than a fairy tale, they are more than a fairy tale. Uh and then interestingly, on Saturday nights, one of the one of the questions um that was asked by uh a not yet believer, they said, Isn't this too good to be true? And I just think that's a brilliant question for somebody to be asking. If they're if they're if they're actually wrapping their heads around the gospel and seeing how good it is and saying, Yeah, but it's too good to be true, isn't it? That that's the way around you want to do things. I think you want to show them such an amazing story that they wish were true and then show them that it is. And what I said to that person, you know, on on some on Saturday night is, well, if we're talking about God here, then we're not gonna be talking about something that's it's kind of alright, you know. If we're talking about the God of the horsehead nebula and the Grand Canyon and the Swiss Alps at at sunset, then we're talking about a God who can actually bring about some some really good news. So that you shouldn't say it's too good to be true, you should say it's so good it must be true. Um But yeah, that's one that's one way of answering the question, are the gospels fairy tales? And we've got lots of quotes from Lewis and Tolkien, and um uh it's come really out of a book that I wrote a couple of Easters ago called Love Story, and um uh if you want to get a copy of that, you can go to myth that happened.com, myth that happened.com. And uh yeah, that's that's been a a fruitful little evangelistic tool in people's hands. Takes people about an hour to read, and especially if people are interested in Lewis and Tolkien and uh storytelling, um that's that's one that can show them that yes, it has the the the quality of a fairy tale, but this is the myth that really happened. So cool. Shall that do us for today? I think so. I think so. It's one forty-eight, and you you guys have places to go, people to do. You know, I'm sure you do. So Yeah, absolutely. Um next week, who knows what we're doing?
SPEAKER_05Next week could cause will next week be Will it be the final live cast before building work begins? It'll be the final live cast in here. Yeah, yeah. I feel like we should mark it in some way, but with a with a sledgehammer, maybe the final bit is just us taking the wall down.
SPEAKER_07But um if that's what you want to see, we want votes in the comments. Brilliant. So tonight on Facebook uh we are releasing that Thorny Questions video uh on Friday. This will be uh a podcast. Um I hope you do know also about the Reading Between the Lines podcast. That's our daily podcast that takes you from Genesis to Revelation uh with five-minute Bible thoughts. Uh, do tune in to that. Don't forget about the foundry.
SPEAKER_05So show the video earlier. But if you notice people if you're interested in getting on board with that, or you know people who might be, do point them uh in our direction, because we'd love to hear from them.
SPEAKER_07Brilliant. And uh if you want to see other thorny questions uh for us to tackle in future weeks, then just leave a comment uh on whatever platform you're listening to this on, and uh we'll have a go at answering some of those. Sure. Brilliant. Well, thanks for joining us this week, and uh see you next week. Take care. Bye.