Today on the Evangelist Podcast, Glenn talks to Scott Jones. The Evangelist Podcast. Encouragement to speak light to a needy world. We're back on underground.
SPEAKER_00Yes, we're back into our underground lair. Yes. Underneath a volcano deep in the heart of the Pacific. That's what we can't see each week. Having emerged from our Christmas celebrations. How was that for you? How was your Christmas? Oh, Christmas was good? I was at the Inlords. And I don't know if if uh Emma's mother has heard the Evangelist podcast, but on Christmas, for Christmas launch, she gave me the tiniest sliver of turkey. Like massive gamma and a tiny bit of turkey. And she said, I I hear that you don't actually like a turkey. Is that right? I'm not sure she listens to the podcast, but um Yeah, I was very cheapish for Christmas. But the gamma was very nice. I have to admit. And then uh yes, we've come back and uh it was Ruby, our three-year-old's birthday, uh, a couple of days ago. So we're just recovering from that. A toddler a toddler's birthday party. Just full of howling three-year-olds and e-numbers. Uh quite a pepper pig cake. Pepper pig? Anna spent like a week making this pepper pig cake. It looks it looks fantastic. And I'm a bit disappointed it doesn't taste of bacon. Because you'd expect taking a knife to Peppa's body and hacking her up like that. You would expect a moist kind of bacon-y flavor, but it's mainly strawberries. Okay. I'm not sure bacon cake will take off, but I don't know. I mean, wouldn't you expect if you if you're gonna you know dig into Peppa Pig? Yeah, wouldn't you expect all sausages or something? Yeah, gamony, something.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, if it comes out on the shelves, remember you heard it here.
SPEAKER_00Is there anything that can be improved by the flavor of bacon? I struggle to do that. Yeah, certainly turkey. Turkey is definitely improved by a bit of ham on the flavor. But anyway, we digress.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we digress. Um let's uh have a little bit of an update on uh meet the nativity because we've had half a million views on it.
SPEAKER_00Something like that, yeah. Across the four different episodes and then the supercut that came out just before Christmas. Um so that was yeah, that was amazing. And uh gave away 1700 books to interested inquirers. Um a lot of them paperbacks and some of them um a lot of them ebooks as well. So yeah, we're praying for people to help make with Jesus in that way. And uh already um I've been sort of talking with the executive producers of of Mate Venativity about what we're gonna do this year. So yeah, James Carey and uh Nate Morgan Lark and Barry Cooper, we've been thinking putting our heads together, thinking about what's possible, and lit literally we've got three our next three Christmases planned. So we better get to it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, lots of work to do. So uh actually the uh we've got an announcement today that this is gonna be the last uh podcast of this name. That's right.
SPEAKER_00The evangelist podcast is dead.
SPEAKER_01Long live the speak life podcast. Yeah, so actually nothing changing. We're just uh renaming.
SPEAKER_00Yes, a little refresh. Um bringing things under under you know the same banner, really. So yes, so no longer the evangelist podcast. We will be uh the Speak Life Podcast uh sharing Jesus in everyday life. I think that's is is the strap line for the right. And we're kind of combining this to together with our sort of Facebook activity. So if you don't like us on Facebook already, what are you doing? Take a good look at yourself in the mirror, um figure out what your priorities are because twenty eighteen is at you and and you need to like us on Facebook so that you can then get our Thorny Questions videos, which we're gonna launch uh on Mondays, and and we've been doing a few thorny questions from last year. We uh spoke about a uh a few different ones. And uh coming up this Monday, we've got uh our first thorny question for 2018, which is uh about hypocrisy. Uh yeah, isn't the church full of hypocrites? And uh how do you respond to that? Well, we have a go in about five minutes on a on a Facebook video. So we'd love you to have a look at that and share it. And then on Tuesday, we're gonna be um well we'll see about the technology. Uh we might we might aim at some point to do some Facebook Live uh about these uh these videos and and that will be a sort of a longer form discussion, and then those will turn into uh the Speak Live podcast, which we'll get on on Fridays as per normal. But uh yeah, that's the shape of things. And I think if you if you don't want to miss out on what what what we're up to uh with Speak Life, you'll you'll certainly keep getting these uh podcasts in your in your pocket. Um but uh yeah, like us on Facebook because that's that's where a lot of uh a lot of new stuff's gonna drop.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well uh we're gonna talk to or you have already talked to Scott Jones. Uh Scott Jones has a number of podcasts, yes, uh one of which you are on.
SPEAKER_00He is Mr. Podcast, Scott Jones. He's amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01From America. From America, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so uh this is the Give and Take podcast where he has sort of long form interviews with different people, and I tricked him on uh tricked him uh enough to have him let me on his show, which is fantastic. Um we speak about meet the Nativity, but also the Queen and Donald Trump and uh other things besides. Turkey? Uh not sure about that. I didn't I like if Turkey is a bit of a sacred cow, so in the UK, it's also you know, it's Thanksgiving in the States. But I mean Yeah. I mean they they just wrap that stuff in in kind of like marshmallows and all sorts of maple syrup and bacon over there. I imagine. But yeah, no, no, we didn't talk about turkey. Uh good.
SPEAKER_01So you you can listen to this uh if you've without fear, yeah.
SPEAKER_00A turkey-free podcast. Is that possible? Speak about it. Yeah. So uh yeah, no, I I I uh I love uh tuning into uh the Give and Take podcast. So do um yeah, give uh give that a follow on your uh favorite podcatcher, um, Give and Take with Scott Jones, and uh you'll listen to loads more uh interviews with much more interesting people than me. But uh he let me on the show and uh and this is what happened.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Glenn, welcome to the podcast. Great to be with you. You are a pastor, rector of uh an Anglican church, right, in in England, in the place where the whole movement started.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, the Church of England. So I'm ordained in the Church of England, and uh I don't actually have a parish of my own. Uh I'm not really grown up enough for that. I I was a curate for four years, which is like a uh a pastor with your L plates on, and I and I did that for four years, and then Curate, meaning cure of souls, right?
SPEAKER_02You're learning to cure souls. That's right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which, you know, interesting, psycho psychotherapy is to be a doctor of of souls, and uh, I guess, yeah, to have the cure of souls is is something like to be a psychotherapist. And uh so I I did that for four years, and I'm still ordained in the church in England, but uh now I work for a charity full-time that frees me up to speak in lots of different churches. Yeah. And tell me a little bit about the charity. So we're called Speak Life, and uh we we were founded in the 1950s as the Hour of Revival Evangelistic Association, um, which is a a name that is very of its time. And uh yeah, the the founder was uh uh a big Billy Graham type guy in the UK, and he did his Crusades, and they still called them Crusades back then, unashamedly, and uh he also had a big radio ministry, and uh so he did his thing for for thirty years really, and uh and then I was only the second evangelist to be employed by this uh by this ministry. Um there was basically a 30-year gap between him dying and then uh the trust kind of uh had a little legacy left, and they decided to uh yeah, to interview for an an evangelist, and I got the job back in 2010. So I've been working for them, and we changed our name a couple of years ago uh to Speak Life and and interestingly, you know, it was founded as a ministry of preaching and the media, with uh a lot of radio back then, and I guess we've we've kind of continued that legacy. I I do quite a lot of preaching, and we do quite a lot of media as well, and that's that's where we try to spend our time.
SPEAKER_02Now, what's the job interview for an evangelist like? Do they have an atheist there or something that's unchurched and like the first person that converts them gets the job? I mean, what are it like do they say, okay, yeah, let's role play? I mean, it what I mean what was your competition like? I mean, did you guys did you have to line up, hey, you got my wife uh my wife uh grew up in a church where this pastor had his notebook of souls he had saved, like all the written. And then if I was some if somebody renounces the faith, I wonder, do you erase them or what what what what's an interview like to be able to do that?
SPEAKER_00I just I just show them the notches on my belt, Scott. Just the notches on my belts, and and that speaks for itself. All the all the conversions. Uh I it was it was uh no, it was uh there was a whole panel of people asking me uh tricky questions, trying to wrong foot me, but I I I managed to trick them all. So uh got the got the job back in 2010 and have a look back. Have you seen the show The Crown on Netflix? Absolutely. I've seen season one, I haven't yet seen season two.
SPEAKER_02Season two there's a really great episode where she's her uncle who um was sort of renounced the throne and you know was a Nazi sympathizer, he wants to get back in on public life and she's pondering forgiveness. And Billy Graham is in town, and the Queen is so taken with Billy Graham, and none of the royal family is, right? I mean, everybody is just like the the Queen Mother's like, I think it's awful for someone so young to have such certainty in religion. Right. Yeah, you see Philip, she invites him to preach at Westminster, and Philip is just like so uncomfortable, and and and and he you can tell that she she's a woman of very sincere faith. Yes. And these conversations she has in the episode with Billy Graham are fantastic. I mean, they're just um it they're wonderful. And it it really it paints I mean, people I I think often, right, uh both royalty and evangelists, right, can be harangued in media and all the like but it's the the beauty of their conversations is just wonderful. I mean paints a really beautiful human portrait of the souls connecting um around faith.
SPEAKER_00Uh I will have to watch that. I I um I worked for a little while at All Souls Lang on Place, which is a sort of a famous church in the in the heart of London, and John Stott's. Was that John Stott's so author of you know 40 plus Christian books and and uh he was still alive at the time and and uh he was chaplain to the Queen as well and and would speak very warmly of her her personal faith. Uh and and and I mean she is the UK's greatest evangelist. I mean, every every Christmas she has this Christmas message, it goes out at 3 p.m. And if you're a particularly righteous family in the UK, you do not open your Christmas presents until after the Queen's speech. This is how seriously uh people take things. It's it's that sort of sense of delayed gratification and and uh you're you're able to wait until the Queen's speech, but it's such a fixture, and uh and every year she she slips something in that's just beautifully uh yeah, beautifully articulates the good news of Christmas. You know, uh a couple of years ago, she she just um yeah, she just talked about the the final uh verse of O Little Child O Little Town of Bethlehem, you know, O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray, cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. And she was she was preaching the gospel at Christmas uh in a way that would put many uh many Christmas preachers to shame, actually. So yeah, well done, the Queen.
SPEAKER_02Well, we're blessed on this side of the Atlantic to have uh head of state that is making America great again. And also we can say Merry Christmas. The secret police no longer I mean, I'm just walking around saying Merry Christmas, because we have a defender of the faith. Yeah. Uh uh that's uh Yeah, you know, I want to talk uh a little bit in a couple minutes about some an interesting Christmas film that you've produced. But I I want to ask you first because it is interesting, right? There is there is something, it seems like, uh going on in the United States, in Europe, where there is a kind of populist nationalist uh impulse. And you see it with Brexit, I think. You see it in the election of Donald Trump and in America's uh subsequent kind of uh pulling out of trade agreements and and and global uh enterprises that you know have kept have been part of the post-Cord War legacy of building a new world and and the and in the post-cold world kind of legacy. But I wonder, you know, in America that movement has is so shaped um people's perception of Christianity, right uh particularly especially evangelical Christianity, right? Which gets a lot of media coverage, although you get a sense that uh the media uh doesn't quite get it other than sort of uh the the uh sort of positions that those sorts of Christians vote on reliably. I I I wonder, has has this movement affected um Christianity, evangelical Christianity in the in the UK in in in similar ways? I mean, what what is it like on the ground there in in in this kind of cultural and political moment? How does that affect life among the churches?
SPEAKER_00Well it's interesting that you know Tim Keller, uh a very famous pastor in New New York City, um, just came out with an article in the New York Times to try to differentiate between evangelicalism as uh you know a capital E evangelical voting block uh as opposed to evangelicalism as this kind of reforming movement within the church that's been you know around for centuries. Um and it's interesting that that kind of differentiation uh in a sense doesn't need to be made anywhere else but in North America. I think in North America, evangelical is uh a voting block and has been appealed to and pandered to as a voting block, I I guess, since Reagan would you say? Sort of the moral majority.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean it's 70s, I mean it it it's interesting, abortion was the decisive issue here. In the early seventies, lots of evangelicals were pro-choice. I mean, it it wa i but people like Jerry Foe and the moral majority galvanized the abortion movement. And some of this also was uh they had an agenda around segregation. Like they wanted these sort of um like if you go in certain parts of the southeast, there are these um such and such Christian academy, which are really segregation academies. I mean, after integration. But yeah, I think in the 70s, um and you know, famously Reagan said to um like one of this group of evangelicals, I know you you may not be able to endorse me, but I can endorse you. You know, and yeah, I mean there was this kind of it's funny too because it's almost like evangelicals what killed the main line in the United States was a kind of uh uh left-wing politicization where where church became well, one of the things that killed it was church became just uh identified with every kind of trendy left-wing movement. And now the evangelicalism has sort of in many sectors seemingly replicated it on the right, where people reject the faith because of of they think, well, it involves certain political kind of things. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, uh thankfully in the UK there just aren't those political uh ramifications, although, you know, more and more as we get our news from the states and you know, and statistics like, you know, 80% of white male evangelicals voted for Trump and that sort of thing, you know, we do hear those statistics over here. So people people do hear through those filters if they're not particularly churched. But if you're in the UK and you're a you're a Christian of whatever stripe, um, you simply cannot predict who someone will vote for just because they're a Christian or because they're an evangelical, you know, in our churches, people are split right down the middle between, you know, Labour and Conservative and and Liberal Democrats, um, split right down the middle in terms of whether we're for Brexit or for for the EU. So I in in a in a sense, I guess evangelicalism isn't a big enough movement to be a voting bloc to be pandered to. Um and and maybe that's a blessing. But uh but it's it's just not as politicized over here at all, which which is great. I'm very glad of that.
SPEAKER_02I I have a friend who uh he actually married my prom date. I actually married them. I was the fishing at their wedding, but um he's um he told me that nobody uh would talk about their faith in an election. Oh, no one would make these it just wouldn't um i it just he just couldn't imagine somebody and even somebody like Tony Blair, who's a person of deep Christianity. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00We don't do God. Yeah, that's f famously his spin doctor, when when uh Tony Blair was asked that question by a member of the media, his spin doctor just interjected immediately and said, we don't do God. And that's become a really a really famous comment about UK politics. And it's absolutely true, you know, if you you would absolutely hemorrhage votes um to nail your colours to any kind of faith mast. But, you know, it's it's yeah, it's it's it's an absolute vote loser, which is fascinating when you think that in in America you've got separation of church and state absolutely written into your constitution and and yet politics is is you know absolutely full of faith issues. Whereas, you know, in in England you've got the the governor of the church of England is the queen, and yet you've got a far more secular politics. It's just one of those deep ironies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and if you were a Muslim in France, which is completely secular, you'd have less religious freedom than in England, which has a state church.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and the laicite in in France is just yeah, that's that's that's a really uh fundamentalist kind of secularism, which is uh yeah, hard to hard to live with.
SPEAKER_02And so for you as an evangelist who's also ordained in the Church of England, I mean, are you uh Do you would say, hey, state church good thing for us? I mean, I I you would you rather have a state church than not have a state church?
SPEAKER_00Um, I don't really mind. I mean, I grew up in Australia and the the Anglican Church there, which I guess is an expression of the Church of England in Australia that is not um established. Um and yeah, so I if if the Church of England was disestablished tomorrow, I would not I would not cry. I would I I wouldn't uh mind at all. And I just think what's interesting is if you've got an intellectual issue with separation of church and state, it it is just interesting that on the ground, what actually happens in the state church in the UK, if you want to call it that, is is not this kind of politicization of the church, and it's and it's not you know politics being you know preached too constantly by a whole bunch of angry prophets on the church side of things. Actually, what what happens in in practice um tends to be just I I think uh a healthy distinction of church and state in practice, even though we've got an established church. So I I don't get too hed up about it, but if if people want to, you know, get rid of bishops from the House of Lords, people can get rid of bishops from the House of Lords. I just think you know, there's no such thing as a spiritual vacuum. And at that stage, the country then needs to figure out what it really does believe and what it's gonna fill that hole with, um, and make sure that what it fills that hole with really is good for the nation. Um but yeah, I'm I'm I'm happy being in the Church of England for now.
SPEAKER_02I I'm rereading T. S. Eliot's notes toward an understanding of culture right now, and I mean this is what he's addressing, you know, like uh uh the notion of Christian culture. And I find myself when I was watching The Crown embarrassingly sentimentally moved at this head of state and her these deep acts of piety. And and and again, it she's sort of depoliticized, right? She's a nonpartisan head of state. And I found that uh I found this sort of longing for something. I do have a head of state that's making America great again. And we won we won the war on Christmas, so now we can go to war with North Korea because we've won the war on Christmas. But uh yeah, I mean there's a as a you know, do you think also it seems to me that the lack of something like the fundamentalist modernist controversy in England, like the m most the evangelical Protestants I know from England are uh not uh skeptical about scientific endeavors. They don't they're not reactive about evolution, they're not react like they tend to not be reactive on the kind of hot button issues that still shape uh American conservative Christianity.
SPEAKER_00Right. Right. And I think I think the you know the majority of evangelicals in the UK are in the Church of England. And and maybe that kind of has a an influence. I mean the the Church of England is kind of plays chaplain to the nation and in a sense cannot afford to be um I uh cannot afford to I I don't want to say begetta-wise, but you know, can cannot afford to uh go off by itself. Um we still do hatch match and dispatch, we still do the baptisms, we still do the marriage preparations, we still do the funerals, and if anyone in our in our parish, you know, wants a funeral, we do their funeral. You know, if if they live in the parish, they can have uh, you know, a a Christian wedding in our church, and you know, we we kind of play that role. And so um so evangelicalism certainly of the Anglican strife just can't can't really afford to separate itself off from the society in that way. And and I think that's that's largely for the good that we maintain this this kind of chaplaincy to every single every single soul in our parish is kinda in our in our care. And you know, and as as I was ordained and as the bishop ladies. Hands on me and gave you know gave me the cure of souls. It wasn't just the cure of souls for my tribe. It was the cure of souls, you know, for the nation and in particular for the parish in which I would minister. And and I think that's that's given our kind of evangelicalism a healthier kind of feel, I hope.
SPEAKER_02That's beautiful. You've done something, you've um produced this film called Meet the Nativity, right? Yeah. And I it's I mean, you you wrote the script, right? Yep. And this was produced by I mean, none of the actors in it are Christians, right?
SPEAKER_00I've just I've since discovered that one of the wise men is a is a Christian. And uh and the the mother, uh the woman who plays the the stepmother, she's she's a Christian. Um but in terms of yeah, most of the people in front of the camera and most of the people behind the camera uh were not Christians. Um but basically, yeah, it's it's a kind of an an idea that I had listening to a podcast of yours, actually. Um you you mentioned a sermon by uh Father Raniero Catalomessa.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, yeah. Chaplain to the uh to the Pope. He would preach Advent in Lent to the Papal House. What a gig, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know. What a gig. He's the he's the one man who gets to lecture the Pope. So uh and what a beautiful sermon. It was uh I guess it was an Advent sermon from like 2015 or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Where he m he mentions a a beautiful little uh you know, apocryphal tale, a legend of the shepherd who makes his way to to the nativity. Um and he's empty-handed and he feels like a loser, he feels like an outcast, he he brings nothing to the table. Uh, and yet precisely because he's empty-handed, um, he gets given the Christ child, because you know, Joseph's hands are full of the gold and the frankincense, and Mary's, you know, got the baby Jesus, and in order to receive the myrrh, she has to offload Jesus. So who does she give Jesus to? She gives Jesus to the empty-handed shepherd who brings nothing to the table, and that's Christmas. And uh and as soon as I heard you mention that story, I thought, wow, we've got to we've got to make that. We've got to somehow represent that um visually, because you know, in in the last sort of six years, um I've been doing little Christmas films, and so I I've always got my ears, you know, pricked up, ready to uh yeah, ready to hear illustration ideas, ready to hear um ideas for these Christmas films. And when you said that, I thought we've we've got to make that happen. Um and then as soon as you you have an idea of that scale, you realize it's gonna cost money, and you realize you're gonna have to get some good talent behind it. And so really, yeah, we we were just looking for the best production company we could uh to make this happen, and they didn't happen to be Christian, but that was okay. It was it was important to us that we made it well and that it that it looked right. And so that that was the that was the number one prior priority, and I and I think they really delivered on that.
SPEAKER_02And you you know, the first video, you have this couple who are visiting uh their his in-laws, right? Right. And are they married or is it just the boyfriend? No, I couldn't yeah No, they're not married. They uh Yeah, that's what I thought. I thought they weren't married. Yeah. And you can tell he's like he's got the experience of many, many people visiting um in laws. Right. You know, uh uh th that feeling insecure, inadequate, am I gonna be accepted? Yeah. Well actually, you know, uh in law not visiting family at all at the holidays. I mean uh uh for at least as many people. Right. If not, I'd say maybe majority of people. There are so many wounds and you know and and unspoken things, you know, sores of fastering, and you're walking across broken glass oftentimes, you know, to do the to go home for the family for the holidays, you know, this thing that we ought to do. He uh he is just uh he you could tell that there's all sorts of tension. You could cut it you know with a die for the air. And the family uh goes away to to masks uh and he's there by himself and uh he stumbles right into this um out into the sort of guest house or something. Yeah, the pool house. Yeah. The pool house, yeah. Uh and I I don't I I don't imagine pool houses in the UK. No, I know.
SPEAKER_00I uh you you yeah, you're right not to imagine them. They are they're exceptionally rare. So uh yeah, we we basically looked for a uh a house to to film this in, and it had to be an intimidating house for the boyfriend to feel like he's a fish out of water. And so we yeah, we found this sort of six million pound mansion in North London and and the f the family uh actually go to all Souls Langham Place, and so that's that's how I knew about this family, and they said you can film in our house. And so, yeah, the house is like one of the characters, because it's meant to be intimidating him. And the f yeah, the fact that it has, you know, a tennis court and and uh a a pool in this pool house is another thing that intimidates him. But he he is our shepherd, he is our outsider who doesn't belong. Um and yet, yeah, he makes his way down, he follows a star down the garden path and makes his way into the pool house, and uh through the the magic of cinema, um arrives at the first century nativity. Um yeah, in order to have this this same moment. And and I guess what we wanted to do really was to bring the story of the shepherd into the 21st century. And between myself and Nate Morgan Larke and Barry Cooper and James Carey, sort of uh us four have kind of come up with this story idea, we we kind of tried to think who who is an outsider at Christmas, and we could have gone down many paths at that stage, we could have um talk yeah, talked about all sorts of people who feel like outsiders, but but we wanted to do a comedy really, and so our best way into a comedy outsider was the boyfriend who feels a fish out of water at his girlfriend's parents. And uh and so, yeah, so he's the guy who shows up empty-handed to the Nativity, and precisely because he has nothing, he ends up receiving Christ, which um yeah, I I I think it worked well in the films.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and then you know, it's interesting because you you then see in a subsequent video, well, first up, you the he's got like someone's bathrobe on, and they're like, How do you have this bathroom? You look so weird, and the the rector comes over and this androgynous-looking rector who is so awkward, and he's surprised he is awkward, he tries to hide behind the tree, and all I mean they're all and then his girlfriend is taking a pregnancy test. And you know, he is um pregnant, and uh he's like, I want to take you somewhere, and I'm so ready for for this to be like a Narnia moment where um, you know, he says, Go in and see this, and nothing's there. Right. You know, like I'm thinking that he's gonna be uh that he's gonna like that they're gonna think he's crazy. Uh and no, she encounters the nativity as well. Right.
SPEAKER_00So having had the idea for the boyfriend to meet the nativity, we then thought, you know, can we tell there's there's three other 21st century characters here, can they all meet the nativity in various ways? So episode two is the girlfriend, and she's just figured out she's pregnant, what's she gonna do? And she discovers Mary, and in a conversation with Mary, um, yeah, she kind of realizes that, you know, yeah, basically the girlfriend says to Mary, Look, this is not what I planned, and and Mary says, Well, we have our plans, but life is what you're given. And uh, yeah, and Mary says, and and the girlfriend says, This sounds terrifying, and Mary says, It is. Um, but then yeah, so the girlfriend gets to hold the baby Jesus as well, and and that's a lovely kind of redemptive moment. And then episode three, um, the mother, who turns out to be the stepmother, you know, she's one of these neat nicks at Christmas who, you know, needs everything to be just so, needs everything to be perfect. Uh, she goes and she meets the Nativity, and uh and again, in the mess, um, she gets given Jesus, and and there's a lovely moment when she sort of says to the baby Jesus, you know, welcome to the mess. And I and I think that's that's really resonated with a lot of people. Um a lot of people feel like at Christmas they need things to be absolutely perfect. Um, but actually, when you think about the original Christmas, it's Jesus showing up in a manger for goodness sakes. It's you know, it's God yeah, God meeting us in the mess of our circumstances, um, and all we can do is with our dirty hands say, Welcome to the mess.
SPEAKER_02Um, so that's kind of her moment, and then in the in the final episode, we've got the the potential father-in-law, and and and he has Who is the least sympathetic character in Aside from the Androidist character. He is the least sympathetic character.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's trying he's he's kind of channeling Robert De Niro in in Meet the Parents, um, yeah, being that that difficult father. Uh difficult yeah, he finds it difficult to let go of his child Claire, and he has a a meeting with Joseph, who we can imagine would have difficulty, you know, letting go of of Jesus into a dangerous world, and and yeah. And so the the idea is that over these four episodes, these four characters get what they need from the original first century nativity, and it puts together their family for the 21st century. Um so yeah, that's that's the idea behind the whole thing.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting. As as I watch the videos, I was thinking of this passage in Robert Jensen's uh brief theology outline where he's talking about the resurrection of Jesus, and he says at the end of this chapter, and these were lectures uh originally delivered to undergrads at Princeton, many of whom were not Christians. And he's just kind of you know explaining Christian theology to them. And he says, My body is simply me insofar as I am available to you, or insofar as you can get at me, or you can see me, you can touch me, or if you get close, you can catch my cold. The body of the risen Christ then is fundamentally whatever it is by which he is available to us. So when we say in the Christian church that the bread on the table of the Lord's Supper is the body of Christ, we do not mean that it is a chunk of an organism. We mean that it is something available, and that this is where the risen Christ is encountered. And I thought about that pool house. And and like and and you know, I mean Jensen talks about what it means to be in heaven, and heaven is just the created place where God dwells, you know, the sp it and and then sometimes in heaven connects with earth and and and the veil is lifted, and you know that and I thought that that pool house became where cr where where reality was available. Right. You know, where where the reality of the Christmas miracle was available, and it's a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_00Right. And simply to be given Christ, like simply to be given this baby, this child to hold in your arms, is is kind of the epitome of the self-givingness of God. And what's been beautiful to me has been just just to reflect on how each of these characters just literally just got to hold the Christ child, and how that is enough to transform a life, to to to know that God has made himself available to you in just that way, is yeah, is absolutely transformative. What's fascinating to me is in like in the comments sections, you should never read the comments sections, but um, as people have kind of reflected on on the the videos, there've been a number of Christians who have been sort of upset, um, you know, upset that Jesus is just portrayed as a baby. He grew up, don't you know? Don't you know he went on to become a carpenter, though? There was literally this guy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no one like no one knows that. Oh yeah, we were presuming that no one, yeah. I mean, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. But it's just it's just this idea. Most of the pictures of him, he's got a beard.
SPEAKER_00It's it's just this idea that in order to save God from becoming as vulnerable as a little baby, they want to say, Oh, but don't you understand he became a 30-year-old carpenter? And you're you're like, I well, I don't if like if you want to protect the infinite majesty of God, I don't I don't think that's helped you. To then say, Oh yeah, but you know, don't you realize he was good at swinging a hammer? Um but so often I I think, you know, Martin Luther used to talk about the difference between a theology of the cross and a theology of glory, and for him, a theology of glory is this negative thing. It's this idea of the way you get to God is by climbing a ladder up to heaven. Uh the theology of the cross basically says God comes down and meets you in the pit. Um and so I think both Christmas and Easter preach that message to us. But how beautiful at Christmas that actually God meets us in utter weakness in the mess of our everyday lives. Um but I think so often Christians reveal themselves as theologians of glory in that negative sense because they they don't want to focus on the manger. They want to they want to say they want to save Jesus from the manger and say, Don't worry, you know, he he grew up, he got a beard, he's a he's a mature man, he can handle himself. And and they always want to say, you know, don't focus on the manger, Jesus grew up. And I always want to say, no, no, no. In in a sense, if you don't want to focus on the manger, realize he kept on stooping. Like that's the trajectory he's on. Not that he grew up from the manger, but that he kept on shrinking, that he kept on becoming the little Lord Jesus. He kept on, you know, in the words of Philippians chapter two, this great hymn uh describing the the trajectory of Christ, that he not only took on the nature of a uh of a human, he took on the nature of a slave who then became a sacrifice, and it's it's just this sense of God coming down and stooping, stooping, stooping, suffering, bleeding, and even dying on a cross. Um but that I think gets revealed at Christmas. Like, what is your reaction to Christmas? Is it is it that you don't want to focus so much on this small little Lord Jesus? Or is it that you embrace this little Lord Jesus, realizing that he's made himself little for you, he's made himself available for you, and as Robert Jensen kind of says, that you know, to have given himself bodily to l to us like that is to give us everything. Like literally you've received everything in receiving him. And and if all he has done is is show up as a little child, then what does he want from you except that you draw near, you know? Yeah, so I I've just loved being able to present some of that visually.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting. Um Chesterton Orthodoxy says, you know, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. No, but the Lord thy God may tempt himself. And he starts talking about Gethsemane and Jesus praying Gethsemane. And and then he talks about the cry of dereliction on the cross. You know, my God, my God, why have they forsaken me? He says, No, let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay, the matter grows too difficult for human speech. But let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will o they will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation, only one religion in which gods seem for an instant to be an atheist. And the presupposition of that is the manger, right? Is I mean all of us, right? Most of if if uh modern psychology tells us anything, and I think it tells us a lot of things, but so much of uh what of who we are, the best and the worst, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and the compulsions and the things that keep us in bondage and frustration and uh uh you know are the formation takes place in like zero to two. You know, when we have real when we're really powerless to uh to uh engage any of it, right? We're we're passive reset and even Mary is passive. I mean, this there's the whole way God comes into the world, right, eliminates this kind of human wealth of power. And and we and all of us are our our own personalities are formed out of the matrix of our powerlessness, and to know that that is the beginning of the story um uh uh of God made flesh.
SPEAKER_00Right. You know, I mean and it's Luther's great old line, you know, no other God have I but the born in a manger died on a tree. And you know, and if that's not what God's like, then I'm not interested, frankly.
unknownYou know.
SPEAKER_00Um, I I always say in my preaching, and uh and you know, my job is really to address mainly secular people or mainly those who don't believe, is is I I kind of say to people, look, I'm not I'm not generally interested in spirituality or religion, and I've just found my brand called Jesus. It's uh I'm a lot more like the the woman who's just always been against the institution of marriage, but then she meets a guy, and then maybe she ends up marrying the guy, you know, why? Because sh she now believes in religion, or she now believes in marriage? No, she believes in him and he's kind of converted her, and and really it was a case of me in my early twenties kind of reading through the gospels and and encountering in Jesus this this one who would stoop and serve and suffer for me, and thinking to myself, you know, if that's what God's like, count me in. You know, if it if that's not what God's like, then you know, I'm not I'm not sure the concept of a deity is going to sustain me through the valley of the shadow of death. Um and I probably wouldn't be any kind of religious believer, but if it's this one, you know, no other god have I but the born in a manger died on a tree, then yeah, count me in, sign me up. I w I want this god.
SPEAKER_02You you have like an accompanying book called Four Kinds of Christmas. Right. Right. For the video and um you say that there's the Scrooge who says uh darkness is all around, it's always gonna be, act accordingly. There's the shopper who says the light's going out, so let's celebrate what we can. We've got the Santa who says darkness, what darkness? Um they kind of see light everywhere. And then the stable, um the manger kind of Christmas, which preaches the original message. Oh, here darkness is taken seriously. It's not denied, but by entering into the darkness we're offered the true light, right? There's a real it's not by denying the darkness, but by accepting it's again, it's Luther's theology of the cross. He talks about theologians of glory see past what's there, right? They see that with the right. A theology of the cross sees what's really there. Right. Um and that's the hope, right? We're able to deal with reality, not a reality we wish, but the reality on the ground. Right.
SPEAKER_00Um Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And yeah, are these do these correspond to characters do you see that it's like uh in the film?
SPEAKER_00Not so much, but I I do see it corresponding to you know the debates that we tend to have about religion. I I think the debates we tend to have about religion are between the shopper and the Santa. You know. So so I think when most people hear about a religious person, they think of the Santa person. And when I talk about the Santa person, I'm not talking about someone who believes in there's a fat man at the North Pole. Uh it's someone who believes there's some kind of deity, but they're essentially like Santa, you know, he's this God is this distant individual, high on power, low on personality, who might show up, you know, once in a blue moon, who you give your requests to, and you know, whenever I whenever I encounter people who tell me, Glenn, you know, your time is wasted on me, I'm not I don't believe in God, I always say to them, Well, which God don't you believe in? And they end up describing some distant individual, high on power, low on personality, who, you know, who might give you good things if you're a good boy, or they'll give you, you know, coal in your stocking if you're a bad girl. And and at that stage I just say, well, I don't believe in Santa either, you know. Um but and I think I think in the culture we we're we either, you know, you you either have this religious person who's a Santa figure, basically, who believes in the distant god, or you default to the shopper, which is just, you know, we are biological survival machines hurtling through an insignificant, you know, universe towards eternal extinction. Um but, you know, Starbucks has a new flavoured latte, so Merry Christmas one and all, you know, and and you just eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. And and and I think what I see is a debate between the shoppers of the world and the Santas of the World. And the whole time I just want to say, can we remember the stable? Because the the stable takes the darkness seriously, but like genuinely offers you hope. There's there's someone who has met me in the pit and will walk will walk with me through the valley of the shadow and out into feasting joy. Um so that's that's the God that I always want to, you know, keep on preaching to people.
SPEAKER_02As you uh uh uh engage in this work of of evangel evangelizing it, you're trying to spread the faith. Do you know this? I mean, what do you think uh is uh are uh ways of telling the story uh that in years past have been popular and prominent and don't resonate anymore? And what do you find in your own experience uh res now and again every uh encounter is unique, uh but what across your own experiences and co encounters, what what themes do you find that have continued resonance now?
SPEAKER_00I mean I mean Jesus. So um I mean, my fa my favorite kind of evangelistic books are things like you know, the there was a book came out a couple of years ago over here in in England called Um Unapologetic by Francis Buffett.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic, fantastic book.
SPEAKER_00Right. Fantastic book. You know, and I mean he's too his two really standout chapters for me. Um one on sin, um the you know, was it the human potential to really, you know, mess things up.
SPEAKER_02Let me let me guess the second one. It's the Yeshua chapter. Yeah, I yeah, yeah. I I I think that's one of the best I think I said this recently somewhere, like that Jensen's way of summarizing Jesus theologically is one of the most compelling I've found in history foundly. And I think Spufford if I was just if somebody said to me what's Jesus all about, that's the thing I that wasn't familiar with the story. That's the thing I'd give them. I mean I think that I think that his chapter there is masterful.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And there's I mean, there are things I disagree with in that book, and and you know, if I gave it to a friend, I'd want to, you know, chat chat to them about it. But interest interestingly, his God chapter, as it were, kind of left me a little bit cold. Um God was sort of you know the the the shining light who is, you know, everywhere present and that sort of thing. Um whereas actually his Yeshua really did blaze really and really did shine shine his light. And so um yeah, so so what I find what I find compelling and what I find works is is constantly to challenge this idea of, you know, the God you think you already believe in or don't believe in. Yeah, yeah, let's leave that to one side for a second. Can I just reintroduce Jesus to you? You know, here is this guy and you know And quite often I'll I'll just get, you know, John's Gospels into everybody's hands. And literally I could be looking out at a room of like five hundred people and I'll ask the I'll ask the the Christian Union at the university or whoever has invited me in, can you can you pay for everyone to have John's Gospels in their hands? And I'll just open up and we'll have a look at John 1 and I'll just say, look, if Jesus is the word of God, that means he's the explanation of God. Okay, so let's let's see this picture of God that John's gonna give us, and let's turn the page. Chapter 2, Jesus goes to a party and he brings wine. That's interesting, isn't it? And then let's turn the page, the very next thing he does, he goes to a temple and he brings a whip. This is an interesting God. You know, he goes to the party and he brings wine, he goes to the temple, he brings a whip. Is this the kind of God you can believe in? And literally it's it's just representing Jesus to people and saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I know the God stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the religion stuff, but can we can we seriously talk about this guy? Because this guy is compelling and has an attractiveness all his own. So that that's really what I what I try to do. Um and in terms of like resonances, it's it's interesting. I I've got a an evangelistic outline called 321. Um I'll tell you about the three and the two and the one referred to in a second, but but basically, you know, in in the book, I basically say, look, Christianity is this weird house, and it's got all these different bolt-on kind of rooms, and you can hear the kids squabbling upstairs, and it's it's an imposing place, and it might not even be a particularly attractive place. I don't know what you heard about this house, but I'm just flinging open the door, and will you just suspend your disbelief just for a minute and I'll I'll stick the kettle on and we'll have a cup of tea, and let me give you the grand tour. And in a in a sense, I kind of think introducing people to Christianity is a lot more like that. It's a lot more like hospitality and saying, can you just step into this you know strange new world of the Bible, as Carl Barth would call it? You know, this this this really weird thing that might not resonate with you at all to begin with. But then as as I kind of introduce the Christian faith to people, I do it according to three and two and one, and three refers to a truth about God. God is a loving union of three, and actually I unpack the Trinity in there. And then the truth about two, the world is shaped by two representatives, and I talk about Adam and Christ. Um and then one is a truth about you, you know, um you are one with Adam, be one with Jesus. Uh, and so it's union with Christ. And in a sense, I've kind of picked the three weirdest, non-resonating kind of um uh you you could think, obscure doctrines that Christianity has ever come up with. And yet what I try to do is say, well, let's press into this truth about three, the threeness of God. And when when you get it, I think we press through the weirdness, and on the far side you get you get something that resonates far more deeply, because now don't you see why love is the most important thing? You know, now don't you see why personal relationships are are just the epitome of of of life? Um because God is persons in relationship, don't you see why persons in relationship is ultimate?
SPEAKER_02And so actually do you know Peter Lehart's book, The Trinity? Oh, love it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean I just as you were saying, I mean, I I remember reading that a couple years ago. I thought, this is so this is such a great dis description of the world we live in. Right. Whether he's talking about sex or music or rhetoric or and and this paracare, this kind of interpenetration of the one and the many that seemed to make sense of most of everyday reality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Colin Gutton's The One, the Three and the Many was just a huge book for me. I mean, I I studied politics, philosophy, and economics a as an undergraduate, and I kind of read that book straight out of um, you know, thinking about the history of Western philosophy, and I wish I'd read Colin Gutton's book first, and just seeing how the Trinity absolutely kind of uh dissects and then makes sense of the history of Western thought and the and the difference between the one and the many.
SPEAKER_02And so he was one of the most creative theologians. I mean, he died too early. I had lunch with him about a year before he died. He was here in Princeton. I mean, he was just such a genuinely beautiful soul. But I mean his work I he I mean he he really uh I I feel like he he took theology on the ground into the world and yeah it it was scary. I I I that book I think is fantastic. Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And so and that's kind of infected me. And I guess when I wanted to start articulating, you know, if I was to go back to basics and explain the face to an unbeliever, you know, where would I where would I begin? And actually, you know, the the way through to one is structured, you begin with Jesus, and Jesus introduces you to the kind of God who is a loving union of three. And and and so, yeah, and so my my way in is really to to point to Jesus and just to say, well, what what vision of God, the world, and yourself does Jesus give you? And to begin with, it's weird, it's nuts, it's crazy, it's you know, it's it's not what you would have dreamt up. But I think you press into these visions of reality, and on the far side, I think uh life becomes the world becomes a lot more familiar to you. Not just Christian theology, but the world itself becomes more familiar to you. So my my whole thing with with evangelism, if you want to call it that, is is not we don't build a stepping stone, you know, kind of approach, you know, here's your house over there, here's my house, the Christian house over here, and let me try and, you know, figure out what the neutral ground is between us, and let me try to, you know. If you believe this, then what about that, and if that, then this, and then it's a hop, skip, and a jump to Christianity. Um so I don't want to build stepping stones, I don't want to throw stones at other people's houses. I just I just want to open up our Christian house and just say, have a look. I know it's weird, but stick with me because there's good news here.
SPEAKER_02So basically what you're saying is you you need like I and I think this is a real well for I mean, a lot of developments in modern philosophy have told us this, right? That there aren't neutral places to start and think. Right. That everybody starts from so you're not saying, hey, let's l let's meet in the middle and you say, hey, look, can you try on the inner logic of this way of being? Right. You know, just uh just like you know, you you could try on the sensibilities of a film or a novel or another culture. Or can you try that and then see if it doesn't resonate. If you might want to live here a little while, if you might want to stay and twell yeah, and that's a what what what to you is the is the thing that's hardest, the question or or issue that uh leaves you scratching your head that consistently is the hardest thing that are people who are resistant to uh uh engaging uh faith or its possibility. I mean what do you are there things you find consistently that that are tough in the here and now?
SPEAKER_00I mean the biggest issue is just apathy and and people um people aren't asking questions. You know, i i it used to be said of evangelistic books written sort of twenty years ago that they were answering the questions that no one was asking and and um and the questions have you know shrunk since then and so so apathy is is you know the the major issue and and then you know I I guess um the the kind of why isn't it obvious to me? You know, so if if if a guy comes to you and just sort of says, look, I you know I'm open to there being some kind of God, some kind of spiritual reality, um I've searched after God in this way or this way or this way, why is God not obvious to me? Um and at that at that stage, you know, I I do kind of um fall back on what you were kind of mentioning um earlier about you know if if the kind of God who shows up in this world is the kind of God who can be, in a sense, reduced to a manger and then allows himself to be excluded at Golgotha, if he is that kind of God, um then I have an intellectual kind of framework in which to understand how God can feel absent to people. Um but that still doesn't, you know, solve a person's existential problem. You know, if if they're crying out, my god, my god, why have you forsaken me? You know, I've I've got the intellectual framework for saying, yeah, I know a guy who said that too, and and preaching to them the the God of the cross is the beginning of an answer to that. Um but I guess that issue goes much more yeah, much much deeper than that in a personal and existential way. And I wish I wish I had a way of solving that for people, but I I I guess, you know, you you fall back on Romans chapter 10 says faith comes by hearing. Um and and so it it always just is that sense of you love people and you're hospitable to them, and you say, and yeah, and c can I can I continue to invite you into this world in which maybe even your sense of godlessness makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Um thanks for talking with me, and I hope uh many, many more people see the film and uh blessings in your work. Thank you so much, Scott. It's great to be on.
SPEAKER_01So that was you, uh Glenn and Scott Jones. That's right. The Give and Take podcast. So you can find that uh probably just search Google search for give and take podcasts.
SPEAKER_00Give and take with Scott Jones uh everywhere that podcasts are available. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And we'll have a link on the page for that as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I guess that's that's all for the events that podcast. Yeah, we're gonna give it the last right. Uh the event that's a good question. What is the most hypocrisy resistant institution in the history of the