Hello and welcome back to the Speak Life podcast. My name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life, and today we have a very special episode to mark the launch of Glenn's brand new book, How to See Life: A Guide in 321. We did an Ask Glenn Scrivener Anything event live on our YouTube channel in partnership with Ten of Those who are publishing the book. The book is available on the Ten of Those website, tenofthose.com. And Karen Swallow prior has endorsed the book. She was on the Speak Life podcast a while back. She said, How to see life is a book like no other. In it, Glenn Scrivener engages the imagination, the intellect, and the heart. Filled with wonder and joy, stories and questions, this little book is a block party for the soul. Well, there we go. I read that out because uh Glenn and Nate do reference uh Karen's uh wonderful endorsement at certain points uh during the conversation you are about to hear. So you're in for uh a thought-provoking podcast, and I will hand straight over to Glenn and Nate. They begin with a question from Joshua. Joshua has asked, What has changed in the discussion of using the Trinity in evangelistic presentations compared to ten years ago? So, of course, our evangelistic presentation 321 begins with three. God is a loving union of three. So we lead with the Trinity in our evangelistic course, and so this was a great question to begin.
SPEAKER_08What has changed in the discussion of using the Trinity in evangelistic presentations compared to 10 years ago?
SPEAKER_05Good question, because I've been doing 3-2-1 with people for uh over ten years now. So it was it was first a blog post back in 2010, and then there was like a video that came out in 2012, and a course came out in 2013, the book came out in 2014, the first book. And so I've been talking about Trinity for at least these these last ten years and foregrounding Trinity in evangelism. And I think 10 years ago, in fact, I remember a conference up in London, and Mike Reeves, a great theologian of the Trinity, um, sort of spoke and was trying to infuse a whole bunch of tr of evangelists that it's really important to talk about father, son, and spirits because it might be helpful to name who the living God is.
SPEAKER_08Um was he promoting the good God at the time?
SPEAKER_05He might have been, yes. That's a book I often recommend to people. It's a fantastic book on the Trinity. If people if people want a great book on the Trinity that gets you in to a deep doctrine in about a hundred pages, the good God, you can't do better than that. It's a book like no other, really, I would say.
SPEAKER_07It's I think Carab Swallow Prime should actually trademark that sentence because that's gonna get put in every commendation now.
SPEAKER_05And um at that conference he was challenging a whole bunch of evangelists to be more Trinitarian explicitly in how they um proclaimed the gospel. And then we sort of broke up into groups afterwards and we tried to apply what Mike Reeves sort of said, and nobody knew what to do. It was it was like there were tumbleweeds kind of blowing through the room as people one person sort of said, Oh, I kind of talk about how God's like a heavenly group hug in the sky, and you might want to join the heavenly group hug sort of thing, and and you know, uh nobody really had much of a much of an angle on being Trinitarian. Whereas like what Mike was saying and what 321 is trying to do is that if you put Jesus front and center in your evangelism, then you are Trinitarian, because he's the Christ, the Son of God. Christ means he's filled with the Spirit, Son of God means he's the Son of the Father. So it's all about Jesus' identity. And from a relentless Jesus focus, you then are encountering a God who is constitutionally love. And at that point, everything kind of un unlocks because ultimate reality is love, and you've got an explanation for why is the greatest thing love. Why don't people feel like the greatest thing is love? Well, because love's not the greatest thing, but the greatest thing God is love, and that starts to be very uh have a great explanatory power for people. And I think there's much more people thinking in those terms and speaking in those terms and explicitly speaking of Christ, the Son of the Father, in their evangelism rather than just God in the abstract. I think I think we've come along uh quite some distance in the last ten years, and yeah, happy for 321 to be part of that journey.
SPEAKER_08So the way you are evangelistic or sorry, trinitarian in your evangelism is that you're relentlessly focused on Jesus. Yes. Okay. So here's a little question. Where people probably would have said for a while that they have been preaching Jesus, okay, we preach Christ. Okay. Right. Um how are those presentations of Jesus maybe not as Trinitarian as they ought to have been? And how does 321 try to help people to see him as you say the Son of the Father?
SPEAKER_05If you start with a God who is defined in the absence of Jesus, and then you bring in Jesus, you start to have a problem. Either Jesus kind of dissolves into the great God that you began with that didn't include Jesus, and that there's God and then there's sort of Jesus and and at that point he kind of like ascends into the godness and kind of dissolves in all the crunchiness of Jesus the Son of the Father filled with the Spirit, kind of disappears. Or he descends beneath God and he is someone who is other than God and less than God's, at which point you're a sort of a heretic that's called an Arian, and and that's one to avoid. And and so if you start with a doctrine of God that is Christless, you can't really inside and and then however much you kind of jump up and down and say Jesus is really, really, really, really important, if you've defined God in the absence of Jesus to begin with, then you're def you're you're jumping up and down about a Jesus who is not God, or who is outside of God, or who is less than God. Or you're jumping up and down about a Jesus who simply is the God that you defined in the beginning, but the God you defined in the beginning is just a single person. And that's a heresy called modalism, it's one to avoid. And so that's a problem.
SPEAKER_08These Trinitarian heresies are quite uh they're quite easy for people to fall into, especially when people try and illustrate the point. Right. The illustrations often often fall down. Uh as St. Patrick found uh when he went on the Lutheran Satire YouTube channel. Man, he was slayed by he didn't come back from that one. He absolutely didn't. Let's move on to another question. So we thought about Trinitarian evangelism. We've done the three, if you like. I've got a question which is potentially more of a two sort of question. Yes. Let's see how you think this is a two sort of question. So uh this question again was submitted uh a couple of days ago by someone called Heled. Or if I'm right, those D's are supposed to be pronounced as Helev. Yeah. And it's Welsh.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Help. I would have thought so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Right. How is it fair that we're born into a see? Turns out she was Welsh.
SPEAKER_04Sorry, Heled.
SPEAKER_08Come on, you've got the whole thing. I'll do the whole thing and then do it again broccoli. How is it fair that we're born into a world with original sin?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_08We have no choice in the matter but to be fundamentally sinful. Now, the question then is if we're born into original sin and we can't help it, how is that possibly fair?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And really, I have a strong instinct of answering this question by saying, Well, life's not fair, but with Jesus you get something that is better than fair. And I and I think actually the doctrine of original sin is it needs to be cast in the context of the two atoms. That yes, in the first Adam we have gone down with him into sin and death, and we're under curse, and we're born into that state. And there's a great danger in kind of stopping the story there, and then saying, Well, how is that fair? And in a sense, that's not fair at all, right? Yeah. Um, but the story is only half done. The story then goes on, Christ the second Adam comes and takes all that sin and curse on himself, rises up again, so that just as you were one with Adam, now you can be one with with Jesus, and you share in all his blessings. And so at that point, fairness is not really the category to think about in in terms of that story. It's a story that you are kind of carried along in, and you find yourself swept up in the Adam story, and then you find yourself swept up in the Jesus story, and at the end of the story, it's better than fair, far better than fair, and you get far better than your just desserts. I also want to say it is what life is like, because I find myself in this world, and physically speaking, I share in Adam's kind of life, don't I? Physically speaking, I'm perishing. And if you were to map my genome, you'd find all sorts of gene deletions and you'd find some ticking time bombs health-wise. And that's why I'm speaking for yourself. Um but I'm like that's that's why I don't want to map my genome. Like I don't I don't want to know like what the ticking is. I think it costs quite a bit of money, but but like, do you want to know all the things that probably will kill you? Um you've got that issue, I've got that issue, we've all got that issue physically, and the Bible is just holistic enough to say, and that's true spiritually and morally too.
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_05That I've got some ticking time bombs. Yeah. That and and just as you might have a predisposition towards kidney failure, and I've got a predisposition towards heart failure, so you might have a predisposition towards pride, and I've got a predisposition towards greed or whatever it is. Um and it's it's it's as holistic as that to say that we're all in the same boat, we all have different kinds of sins, different kinds of expressions of this dysfunction that we're born into. And that's that is just life, you know. And we're not born neutral in a medical sense, and we're not born neutral in a moral sense either. But here's here's the good news. Like, I I often tell my the the story of my ancestor Anne Forbes, like she was sentenced to death uh back in 1786 for stealing ten yards of printed cotton from a London market, and then her sentence was commuted from from death to life transportation to Australia, which was considered a fate worse than death at at that at the time. Convict island. Convict island. And therefore, why was I born on convict island? Like, I didn't do anything. How is that fair? Um you know, and you might you might think, oh, and now the story is I was born on Convict Island and I need to get back to the mother country, and I need to scrimp and save and earn and make my own passage back to Blighty. And is that is that the story? And some people cast the original sin story as like that. You're like, we're born in Adam and we're full of all these kind of genetic and moral like failures. How is it fair that I now need to earn my way with God? Oh no, you don't. Because the Jesus story is not that we have been exiled like to a spiritual Australia and we have to make our way back to Britain. The story is the king exiles the criminal and then emigrates and then makes his own palace and home in Australia, such that if you really want to run away from the king, you can run away to the desert if you like. But you are born into exactly the condition that the king will meet you in. And we are born into sin, and the good news is Jesus says, I'm I'm the spiritual doctor for the six sinners that you are, and so we are born when we are born into this sinful condition, we are born qualified for the Savior. Right. Just as your sin doesn't disqualify you for the doctor, it qualifies you for the doctor. So actually, the sinful condition we're born into doesn't disqualify us from the gracious Jesus who saves us, it actually qualifies us. So is it fair? It's it's actually far, far better than fair.
SPEAKER_08So two things I just want to come back on on that. Just to say, if you are on the aha slides.com uh page, thank you so much. It's great to have some questions going in there. You'll know that you can also upvote uh different questions as well. So uh that'd be really handy for you to do just so that we can see uh we've got a bit more of an idea of of which questions people really want to have uh answered. So let me come on to back to that point on um so you're you're there in Australia, are you supposed to just try and swim back? Is that the gospel? Um I was it I think it was a Christopher Hitchens issue because he said, I'm born sick, commanded to be well. Right. And that was supposed to be back in the new atheist time, that was like, Whoa, then you can't come back from that because he just said he just got you on biblical thing because you're born in Adam, and you're told you have to be good enough.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_08And so how is so so you're saying the gospel is no, you're not told be well, you are given the one who makes you well, you're asked to receive.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, you're given the doctor, you're given the doctor that healthcare is free at the point of access. And and the Christopher Hitchens caricature, born sick, commanded to be well, yeah, is an Adam and Moses story. Yeah, right? Moses, the the giver of the law, the Ten Commandments, as though, yes, we're born into sin and then we've got to earn it back by being good boys and girls. That would be an Adam and Moses story, the Christian story, and the two of three, two, one is an Adam and Jesus story, born in Adam, and therefore we are born exactly in the place where Christ meets us. Just as the king might emigrate to Australia and make that his kingdom, so Christ has entered into our condition as the second Adam, so that we're born into precisely the place where Jesus meets us.
SPEAKER_08And the second follow-up on that is when we're thinking about this idea of inheritance, the idea that you inherit all these various conditions medically and things, and so the Bible's holistic and says, Well, you've also inherited your sinful nature. Do you think part of our the reason why we ask that question that Helad asked, which is about is it you know, sort of fair because we are so disconnected from our uh ancestry or our our unity as a human race that we're all totally convinced that we're isolated individuals with our own individual will and story and need to express ourselves. Is that do you think this is a peculiarly Western question?
SPEAKER_05Western post-Christian question. Because I I think, you know, thinking about my book from 2022, The Air We Breathe, that that the West has been so Christianized that the the notions that we tend to have, even if we don't think of ourselves as Christian, are particularly Christian. And Christianity has sort of invented the individual. Um and it's a very good thing to to think that I I don't get lost in the shuffle of a collective humanity. Um I have my own rights and my own dignity and my own worth, and and isn't that a wonderful thing? But the problem in a post-Christian society is detached from the Jesus story, that becomes a very individualistic way of thinking about myself, and I'm just this atomized person all by myself, and I want to consider myself um purely by myself, and and that's not just a social truth, we also think that way when it comes to God. And no man is an island, you know, and and the the biblical teaching is is a much more rounded picture of who we are, and we are our families, and we we kind of know that. You know, I I was in the in a restaurant when I was in Australia over Christmas, and I made a stupid joke to the waitress, and and I just thought, that's my dad. My my dad just said that. Yeah, yeah. You know, I open my mouth, my dad comes out. Like, it's happening, you know, and our families.
SPEAKER_08Why would you stop there? I open my mouth, my dad comes out. I mean, that's that's pretty much it. It's our next video, isn't it? That's a pretty Trinitarian thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you see me, you've seen the father. That's what the waitress said. No, and she didn't, she was looking at you and she was saying that. Um I think we've completely resolved that question.
SPEAKER_05I will mark it as answered and move to if you've got any issues with Nate's accent, um, please do write to info at speaker.
SPEAKER_08We'll go for a frothy coffee next time I'm in South Wales. Yeah. Um here's a question. Here's one from someone called Boydie or Boyd. It could be boy die. Could be, yeah. It's a bit aggressive, but anyway. Uh Boydie West against it could be well she got. Is it okay to say I'm really proud of what I've achieved? And that kind of thing. People say it regularly, and it always grates because I was brought up good old Calvinistic ways. Okay. So the idea, so talked about this idea of being in Adam and being in Christ, but then is there a point to which we've lost the individual in in this kind of you know, sort of federal thinking?
SPEAKER_05Um Yeah, I mean it's so interesting that in um Romans, the same in the same book that Paul writes to the Romans, he'll say things like, in Romans chapter three, there is no one who does good, not even one. But then as he explains the gospel and he gets the end of Romans and he gets to like Romans 15, and he says, I'm convinced that you guys are full of goodness. Oh come on, which is it? Like can you can you do no good whatsoever?
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Or can we be full of goodness? And Paul, in the very same letter, I mean he he would have sat down and like he he wrote or he spoke out, and the the the dictator, the amenuensis, the person writing down what he said, um is writing down what he's saying within a matter of minutes of one another. No one can do any good. I'm I'm convinced that you guys are full of goodness. And the Bible's always doing this in terms of the vertical and the horizontal.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_05As regards the vertical, um, what could I ever give to God that he hasn't already given to me? Which is what Romans 11 says, right? Everything that we we ever do has come from God. So whatever you offer to God, it's never you climbing the ladder towards him, because he gave you that thing in the first place.
SPEAKER_08Um all things come from you, O Lord, and of your own have we given you David praise. Yeah, one of the favorites about the uh building of the temple.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. And so um as we give, it's it's not we don't earn a wage. And again, again, Romans chapter six, you know, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Like our sinful ways are all about earning, but you can never earn with God, you can only ever receive a gift. So, like vertically speaking, um, yeah, we could never we could never be proud. And again, Romans 4 goes into this, like um when it talks about uh Abraham and and he could be proud of certain things, but never before God.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Because there are things on the horizontal level um that we can do and we can pass on the gift of God to others. And actually, Paul is able to identify in Christians, oh, it was it was great the way that you shared in the ministry of giving with me, and it was great the way that you poured yourself out in service in the gospel. And so he can identify goodness in people. In Philippians chapter 2, um, he says, I plan to send Timothy to you very soon so he can bring back all the news. Um uh and and he says, Timothy is loyal and genuinely concerned for for you. Most people around here, oh, this is this is a very funny translation of the message translation. Um, NIV. Um, I have no one else like Timothy who will show genuine concern for your welfare. Everyone else looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself because as a son with his father, he has served with me in the work of the gospel. So he's able to identify like the goodness within people. Jesus and Nathaniel, he is a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false. Yeah. Jesus is able to say that to Nathaniel in in John chapter one. In John chapter two, it says like he would never entrust himself to a man because he knows what's inside of him. So but again, in that in that vertical sense, um, we can never earn it with God, but in the in a horizontal sense, we can acknowledge that the that there is goodness in people, and you can even acknowledge that in yourself, right?
SPEAKER_08And so specific to Boydie's question, I'm really proud of what I've achieved. That's okay to say, because whilst we are never going to be capable of achieving what is re required of us before the Lord by ourselves, that's we can tell when we've done a good job, or we we know when we've It's a funny one, like the word pride um just has quite a semantic range, and and one of the meanings is oh gosh, isn't that one of the deadly sins?
SPEAKER_05In fact, isn't that the chief of the deadly sins? The mother of all sins is is is pride and that sort of self regard. But I think in English, pride is also kind of the opposite of being ashamed, you know, walking around with your head held high rather than walking around with your your your face downcast. Christians are meant to walk around unashamed. Like we are meant to be unashamed with our head held high. And there there's some times when you can be proud in that sense of a job well done. And there will come a time when Jesus will say to people, Well done, good and faithful servants. And I think by the Spirit we can kind of enjoy his good pleasure in the things that we've done. Yes, that can kind of edge into pride in that negative sense. And you might want to watch that. And maybe you prefer not to use the language, I'm really proud of myself for doing that. Um but you could you could say I I feel really blessed by God, I'm really pleased with what happened, I'm I'm glad that I was I got to do that. I think I did a good job, actually, and I got great pleasure out of that. All praise to God.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. And I suppose it'd be no to put it in another way, we might say of you know, uh children, I'm proud of you in doing this. There's a way you actually something people need to hear. They need to sort of hear that they they can contribute in some way. They're not contributing to their eternal salvation, they cannot do anything. Yeah. But certainly as as reg as goes um people's understanding of themselves as an agent in the world, yeah, they need to recognize that they have capacity.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and and I think there would be a faithless way of saying, Oh, I haven't been given gift. I'm not gifted. I'm not gifted. Like that would be a faithless thing to say if God has actually given you like I've just given my children gifts at Christmas, and like, oh, I'm not gifted. How dare you! Like I spent money on this gift, like like and God has given you things, and and and there's a way of owning that and celebrating that. And there's a blessed self-forgetfulness to use the the title of a famous Tim Keller sermon. You can you can be so released from the gospel that actually my ego is not caught up with whether I did a good job or not. And my ego is is taken out of it because I was crucified with Christ, and it's only Christ's righteousness that really counts at the end of the day. But therefore, I can just enjoy the good stuff that God has accomplished, and some some of the things God has accomplished, he's accomplished in me and through me. And for that I celebrate. And like Moses is able to say in Numbers chapter 12, yeah, that Moses is the most humble man in the world on the face of the earth. And and lots of people are like, how can you know, ah, if he was truly humble, he couldn't say he was humble. No, I I don't think that's a correct view of humility. Like I think the truly humble person could recognise that they're humble and just say, and they could they because their ego is not part of them anymore.
SPEAKER_08Because it's a sort of objective view that they're taking, and you need to sometimes be able to stand outside yourself and look at things. Yeah. I mean, I always think when you know, so uh one of my favourite buildings in the world, uh St. Paul's Cathedral in London, built by Sir Christopher Wren, and you just think someone had gone, uh, that is awesome, and he'd been like that, oh my goodness, that is trash. I'm so bad. Yeah. Oh goodness, I'm like the worst cathedral people. He probably did because it was English. He probably did. Started saying, Well, yeah, it's getting a bit chilly though, isn't it? Anyone want some tea? We're gonna just uh get to one couple more questions in a second. However, I have realized that we haven't really done a bit of a push on the 321 course itself. So here's a quick question, Glenn. What is 321?
SPEAKER_05321 is life according to Jesus, and so uh it exists in many different forms, and and the book is one way that you can enjoy 321, but uh we really want you to experience it in a multimedia way, and so you can go to 321course.com and you can be taken through Life According to Jesus. He's our tour guide, and over the course of eight sessions, you are shown who is Jesus, what is his picture of God, what is his picture of the world, what is his picture of you. And in these eight sessions, you're asked questions and you can um think deeply and richly about these things. We've got some beautiful animations that help you to uh imagine your way into the gospel stories. And uh, we've put a lot of of work and energy into this, and uh well over a thousand people are on the platform right now. Well, I mean not right now watching, but um that they have gone through the course. And uh so it's a way of doing it online, and there are plenty of resources that you can check out at 321course.com. It's completely free. You just uh type in your email address, it'll ask you for a password, come up with a password and enter that in. We won't spam you. Uh it's utterly free. There's no in-app purchases or anything like that, but there's there's tons of material there, so go to 321course.com or you can do it in person. And uh we've had around 60 churches already do it since October. Um, and they again usually do it over four evenings, and uh it's another way of with others exploring life according to Jesus.
SPEAKER_08Very good. You answer that question incredibly well. Thank you. Do you get a book, by the way, for that? Do I get a book? Yeah. For me, it's a book like no other.
SPEAKER_07Like no other.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. I mean, it really is if you if you don't like computers and screens and stuff, video, then we've put books onto some pieces of paper and glued them together. Wow, we've printed it out. We've printed our website. Yes. We printed out the uh the course and you've got it there. So and that goes actually, if people are running in churches, yeah, we might have some church leaders on this uh uh live chat. Um they might want to buy this for people they're gonna invite onto it. Yeah. And they could buy ten of these from ten of those.
SPEAKER_01Hi folks, it's Thomas Thoroughgood here, media producer at Speak Life. You might recognise my voice as the guy who does the filler bits on the podcast. It's part of my job to think of how we can include you more in the work of Speak Life and bring you behind the scenes, if you will. And so we have a very exciting thing called the Speak Life Discord server. It's an online platform where you can interact with other Speak Life supporters and the Speak Life team. We have bonus content, creative theological discussion, and lots of fun along the way. So if you want to join that, you can just go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash give. Okay, back to the podcast.
SPEAKER_08Uh right, we're gonna do another question now, and this one it's got so many thumbs up. Okay. Everyone wants this question. Uh, and that's because it's probably the most typical question that comes up in these sort of gorilla Christian type events, uh, or ask anything. Uh, and it's from a uh man named Martin. He says, uh, why does God make people suffer? I know a lot of my friends and family are suffering a lot.
SPEAKER_06Hmm.
SPEAKER_05I know a lot of my family and friends are suffering a lot too, uh Martin. And it's and sometimes it goes in seasons, doesn't it? And sometimes it it it feels like it's one thing after another after another after another. And uh the oldest book written down in the Bible is the book of Job. And it is this story of Job is going along happily in the world, and then it's one thing after another after another after another. One servant comes and says, All your crops are being destroyed, another servant says, All your livestock are being destroyed, another servant says, Your children are dead, and and then he's struck with boils, and it's just one thing after another. And that tends to be the way with suffering, doesn't it? And and it's just so interesting that the the oldest thing written down in the Bible is wrestling with that question, the suffering question. It's the big one, and I'm not going to be able to um satisfyingly uh answer that. But I think three, two, and one point to some truths that that have really helped me in my suffering. And I think the the first one is to think about three and to think about who God is. And according to Jesus, God is a father who has always been loving his son Jesus in the joy of the Holy Spirit, which means that in the beginning there was not suffering, in the beginning there was love, and God is compassion, God is mercy, God, God is one who wants our best. He really, he really is love. And at that point, that makes the suffering question harder. And in in a sense, with suffering, you know, my goal is never to explain suffering as though as though I could s you know tell you something in the next five minutes and you go, oh, alright, well, that makes sense then to me. That would that would be a very unsatisfying answer, wouldn't it? Um in a sense, uh what Christianity does is it allows you to have a problem with suffering. Because if God wasn't so good, we would still be in pain, but we wouldn't be shaking our fists and we wouldn't be expecting anything different. You know, if if it wasn't for the utter goodness of God, then the the evil and suffering of this world wouldn't strike us as outrageous.
SPEAKER_08Quite eas quite straightforwardly. So if there's you know stuff that is evil in the world where we need to have something, you know, to be able to call it properly evil, otherwise it just becomes this kind of relativized mush of different things that different people like or don't like. On the on the suffering question, how does that sort of is it is it that it's kind of what's the opposite of suffering?
SPEAKER_06Bliss.
SPEAKER_08Bliss or joy or or whatever it would be. And that that is part of who God is in the first place. So that distinction between the bliss and the the blessedness. Yeah, yeah. The joy suffering. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Yeah, I was preaching last night on um there's a verse in Luke chapter 10, verse 21, Jesus full of joy through the Holy Spirit, praise Father, you know. And so if that's that's who God is, the joy of the Holy Spirit filling a son who says Father, filling the father who says, My beloved boy, that that is that is the goodness of God that actually makes the problem of evil a problem, and the problem of suffering a problem. Um and so then you think, well, where where has it come from? Well, this God of love has made a world that is not himself, right? And if it's not himself and he is good, then there's there's actually something about the world that's that's going to go through a process of being not good. Almost by the nature of the case, if he is light and he's not just gonna extrude a part of himself in into reality, but actually grant a distinct existence to this other thing called the world, then there's gonna be a darkness there. It's a darkness that he will want to overcome with his light. But almost in in the creation of the world, there is almost a there is almost an inevitability about you know that that that kind of journey that creation will have to go through. That doesn't mean humanity has to fall, that doesn't mean sin has to happen, but there does almost have to be a journey in which there is something that is different from God that is then uh redeemed by God, that is then um reconciled, or that that is then reclaimed. That's nice. Yeah. And so the story of the two is is the story of well, humanity um didn't just exist um as as distinct from God, but actually turned from God. And we have wanted to go our own way, and if you want to go a different way to the way of light, then you're going into go into darkness. If you want to go a different way from life, you're gonna go into death. And if you want to go a different way from love, you're gonna go into disconnection. And there we are in darkness, death, and disconnection. And and so the Bible does say, you know, part of the problem of of suffering and evil is me. You know, I'm the sort of person who actually makes things worse, you know. I'm I'm the sort of person who doesn't make things better but actually makes things worse, and I'm caught up in a in a problem of suffering. And then the good news is, well, what does love do when love sees the beloved in trouble? Love comes and and and reclaims and reconciles and redeems and joins us in that suffering. And and you know, the the the the question most literally um was asked, you know, why does God make us suffer? And what's really a stark truth is is in Isaiah chapter 53, it was the Lord's will to crush him, it was the Lord's will to crush Christ, right? That somehow in the in the wisdom of God, the the journey down into suffering and then up into resurrection is at the heart of God's glory, is at the heart of of who this God is. And it's that's a massive truth to wrap your head around, and it's it's it's not something that I like fully understand. But there is there is the journey that we have walked away from God. God has come to us to take our suffering on himself and rise again. And then the the truth of one is well, we were born one with Adam. We can be one with Jesus and share in his future a future that is without suffering and a future that that that goes on forever. And and our hearts crave that. Our hearts we we want the time of shadow to be over. We want to step out, you know, into the light. And and if you walk away from Jesus, that doesn't help you with suffering. You know, all of a sudden you're suffering now without him and without hope. With him, it doesn't solve all the questions about why did this happen now and why did that happen to that person in that way. I don't think we'll know that this side of heaven. But we get his presence with us through the suffering, and we get the promise of a a world without that that suffering. And and I think trying to do suffering is it's hard enough, but trying to do it without him is uh is too hard.
SPEAKER_08So mm-hmm. And because in a way outside of Christ, what hope is there that suffering can ever be resolved?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_08That that that blessedness might be next. Yeah. You know, yeah. Um and so there's that great verse about you know who for the joy set before him um went to the cross. And you think, well, that it's it's a through suffering, it's a through death story, it's a through the darkness back into like there is light at the end of the tunnel, yeah. Light at the end of this tunnel, yes. Um within a Christian perspective. And I in many ways the you know, the God of all comfort who you know can comfort us because he himself has suffered. Yeah. Um and that doesn't yeah, it it's not a oh, learn that one single fact and then you'll never suffer again. Or if you are suffering, you'll never really struggle with it. Because we do often.
SPEAKER_05And that's what's interesting about Job is Job asks twenty times. So he's praying to the Lord and he's crying out, and he asks twenty times why, and he never gets an answer. He does get an experience of God at the end of the book, and he does get a happily ever after, but he never gets uh an answer. And and in a sense, like you're reading the book and you you kind of if you've read chapter one, you kind of know in one sense why he's suffering. But if he was told chapter one during his suffering, it wouldn't really have helped him that much. And we always we always feel like, oh, if I could just get an answer to the question why that would help, I'm not sure that's true. I'm sure I think what we need is Christ in the midst of it and hope for beyond it. The calculus of why did this happen and when and for you know for what purpose um we certain it's really understandable. Of course we cry out why, just just as Job did. It doesn't actually help us the way we think it might help us. What we really need is Jesus himself in the midst of the valley, in the valley of the shadow of death, to to bring us through. And that's that's that's uh what I'd I'd I'd pray for you, Martin, that that you and and your family would would less know like reasons and more know Christ Himself in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_08That's um very helpful. The next question is is uh I'm gonna put up is a it's been upvoted several times, but it's it's by anonymous. So if this is your question, then um and you know you would like to have a copy of 321, uh, so that you sorry, how to see life, a guide in 321, um then please do uh pass along your email address uh well your postal address for us by contacting info at speaklife.org.uk. So here's the question Um would sin be forgiven for a child murderer or a paedophile? Surely this is pure evil.
SPEAKER_05I think everyone can agree this is pure evil. And so let's let's start with the end of the question. Uh you know, C.S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia Chronicles, he he went on this journey from atheist to theist, meaning believering in God. He went from not believing in God to believing in God, and then to Christian. And the thing that turned him from not being a believer in God to believing in some kind of God was this idea of pure evil. And he said, Well, what am I calling evil if there is not good? And if I want to call something pure evil, then surely I'm by implication saying that there's something that is capital G good. If there's a capital E evil, there's a capital G good. And you use the illustration of, you know, if if there's never been anything such thing as a straight line, then you could never call a line crooked either. Um lines would just be like if there was no such thing as a straight line, lines would just be lines. It would all just be a mess, and you wouldn't expect it to be anything other than a mess if there wasn't such a thing as a straight line. And if there wasn't such a thing as pure good, then we wouldn't expect anything else in the world, and we wouldn't call pure evil evil. It would just be the way things are, if there wasn't such a thing as pure good. That took him to a belief that there is a capital G good, there is God. Now therefore, if we are looking at something like child murder and and paedophilia and we are calling it pure evil, we are saying there is something as uh something that is good. But could that good God forgive a perpetrator of such pure evil? And the the Christian answer is, well, if God cannot forgive that evil, what hope do we have for the other evils that you and I perpetrate? And and have I committed child murder or paedophilia? No. But uh but by comparison with the capital G good God, um do I also need forgiveness? Yeah, I I hundred percent need forgiveness. I'm banking on forgiveness because I am crooked in my own way. Maybe not in this way, but in my own way, I am crooked and absolutely need forgiveness. And that's the uh the other interesting thing about this question. Forgiveness does not imply that a sin is not so bad after all. And again, C.S. Lewis said this. You know, forgiveness actually implies that the sin was so terrible there was nothing else for it but for it to be forgiven. It could not be justified. So can paedophilia be justified? Never. Right? Can can child murder be justified? Can it can it can it be um just forgotten, right? Can can it be accepted? Can child murder be accepted? Never. Can paedophilia be accepted? Never. Can it be forgiven? It must be forgiven because it's evil right now the question asks us to put ourselves into the sh you know, to imagine the person who is the child murderer or the paedophile, somehow making some confession and saying, I'm sorry, God, and then getting, you know, accepted into the the the pearly gates of of of heaven. And that that is a difficult thing for for all of us to kind of grasp hold of. But I would I would urge Anonymous to read another C. S. Lewis book called The Great Divorce, where he talks about this this story of it's a fictional story, this is not how C. S. Lewis thinks the afterlife works. But he says, Imagine if a busload of ghosts from hell are taking a day trip to heaven, and the bright men of heaven are inviting them in and saying, Please come. And he's got this conversation there, and there is someone who has not committed murder, who is the the the ghost from hell, and he is outraged that the that the murderer is in heaven and that he's and that he's been left um in hell, and and the the bright man, the murderer, says. I don't know how it works, but just come. And then the ghost from hell says, I don't want anyone's bleeding charity. And the murderer who's been forgiven says, Oh, then do ask for the bleeding charity. Um this is the only basis on which anyone is ever like in invited into heaven. And in the scene, the the man from hell kind of curses the the murderer and and slinks off back down to where he came from. And it's it's a very psychologically believable scenario, actually, where the murderer has has shown true contrition and there has been something of a reconciliation, and it's in the it's in the hands of God, and you can sort of you can sort of even though in the abstract I can't picture the child murdering pedophile being transformed, C. S. Lewis does a great job of of of portraying how that might happen. He also does a great job of portraying how regular sinners like you and me can harden ourselves and justify ourselves so much that we turn our back on the bleeding mercy and the bleeding charity and and curve ourselves in on ourselves. And so I I don't have a great answer for this question. I th I think any sin can be forgiven. I really do. Um and I'm banking that every sin I've committed will be forgiven in Jesus. And the alternative is to think of a God who kind of has a certain bar that you've got to meet. And I'm just not not sure I could ever be sure that I've met that bar. So I'm I'm glad that he sets the bar way down in the gutter and offers it for free.
SPEAKER_08And that is by grace you have been saved. And just if it's by grace, then it it can't be by um works or or failing to commit certain sins. I want to move to a couple of questions now, which are around the same sort of thing. Uh which is to do with I'm just gonna mark that on there, uh, which is to do with kind of this I suppose it's like this kind of meaning crisis conversation. Lots of what we do on this uh YouTube channel in terms of engaging with people who are really thinking through um big ideas. Um I'm gonna start with this one by Aristotle Jedi.
SPEAKER_05Great name. Hello, Aristotle.
SPEAKER_08Um although the way that works is a bit like Randy Days of Mondays. Aristotle Jedi always gets me down. You know when you certain phrases just because of the number of syllables, yeah, yeah, the arrangement. Just Yeah. It's like Bethany Rigby.
SPEAKER_07I'd be I mean you don't even need to know it's got the same last name.
SPEAKER_08Um okay, here's Aristotle Jedi's question. Given Justin Briley's uh not of this parish, but good friends, given Justin Briley's recent book, do you think the current crop of people sympathetic to Christianity are more on the conservative side of things? Does this affect apologetics?
SPEAKER_05So Justin Briley's recent book is The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. And uh it's a brilliant book, and and um I've commended it. I haven't said that it's there's no other book.
SPEAKER_07It's no block party for the doll or anything.
SPEAKER_05But it's all right. It's more a cheesy wine party, ethical. But um which is fine. Um his podcast is is f fascinating and going from strength to strength. And he's he's noticing lots of different people. Are they more on the conservative side of things? Interestingly, I was on his podcast with Elizabeth Oldfield from the Theos Think Tank, and she's noticing a lot of the same stuff in that space of the meaning crisis, but she's noticing a lot of people actually on the left of things and a lot of people on the a lot of people who are environmentalists, for instance, um who are coming to see, like Paul Kingsnorth has come to see, that there is a deeper issue going on than sustainability, right? As as though, oh no, the you know, nature is in crisis. What we really need to do is make sure we can keep our late modern capitalistic society show on the road, yeah. And figuring out, oh, it's actually a um spiritual problem and not just an economic or technical problem to solve. And Paul Kingslough, that that um thought has sort of led him very deeply into Orthodox Christianity, um, coming very much um from the left and Elizabeth Oldfield, a lot of the people that she she's got a kind of like a Christian commune, Christian community, really. Yeah. Um, and is noticing a lot of people on the left coming coming to to faith or to start to consider Jesus from that side of things. Um so I I I could name a number of different people. Um some of them might be more right-leaning, some of them might be more left-leaning. I would say there's been quite an overreach on the progressive left that has caused a kickback, and so you get your Constantine Kissens and your trigonometry people.
SPEAKER_08But the far right surely has been been active too, right?
SPEAKER_05Far right is active too. Um but that they've been very uh very explicitly, you know, non-Christian, you know, if you're you know, if you're thinking about the the um the marches through Virginia and whatever the the Proud Boys and that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_08Um I suppose it wasn't with those things, it wasn't quite so much in terms of an intellectual it wasn't part of the you know the the the chatter arty. It wasn't all these people kind of engaged in these deep kind of fundamental questions. Yeah. It was a bit more sort of just disgruntlement and yeah. And violence and and that sort of stuff. Which of course on the on the far left with the you know, the rioting and 2020 and things like that.
SPEAKER_05Um but uh uh but I I think the campus stuff, um, especially from sort of 2014-2015 onwards, um was sort of brought to light, and absolutely figures on the right with kind of shining a spotlight on the craziness. And it's and it's happened, you know, very recently, Claudine Gay, you know, the the whole plagiarism thing was because people on the right Harvard president. The Harvard president who has just recently resigned after it was revealed that there was a whole bunch of plagiarism. And you know, they say, well, they were shining the plagiarism spotlight on her for political reasons, and they're like, Well, yes. And she was guilty. Um and so there has been that dynamic of of sort of figures on the right kind of really shining a spotlight on some of the craziness on the left, you know, on on campuses. And and I think it that that craziness, like evergreen, like that that place in Washington.
SPEAKER_08Near Seattle. They sort of turned the whole thing upside down, didn't they?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Brett Weinstein wrote an email and it turned into a like a absolute farce. Um and and I think that has woken up a lot of people, like the Brett Weinsteins of this world. They've woken. They have woke awoken to the woke. Okay.
SPEAKER_08There's been a an awakening of a lot of people.
SPEAKER_05And there's been a backlash to woke stuff, and then and then they just become anti-woke, and and then it's then it becomes a kind of a battle between the woke and the anti-woke. But I'm very um pleased that people like Constantine Kisson are kind of s getting sick of I'm sick of just bashing the woke, right? And there's gotta be something that goes deeper than woke or anti-woke. And his next book is on gratitude. And you know, like what were you thinking? Who wants to be Mr.
SPEAKER_08Thankful? He wants to be thankful. Yeah. Yeah, that's a speed life video, by the way. Just uh you can check. I'm sure they know, but yeah. Yeah. If anyone hasn't seen it yet, you can watch it on this channel.
SPEAKER_05So, like, is it all on the right or or people I think of Eloise Perry, um, you know, a a writer for the New Statesman who is now much more comfortable, or or rather the Telegraph and the Daily Mail are much more comfortable employing her than the New Statesmen were.
SPEAKER_08She's based.
SPEAKER_05She's become based. Right. Properly based. So there is that journey, but then there's Hulk Hogan, isn't there? And uh who knows where he is politically.
SPEAKER_07We saw that little side shift from Little Louise Perry, sweet Louise Perry to the Hulkster brother.
SPEAKER_05I cannot wait to see this on the uh Justin Bradley podcast.
SPEAKER_07What's the Hulkster done? He's got himself.
SPEAKER_05Like, I don't know the story behind it, but like he he seems to be going hard for Jesus right now. I don't know what the story is behind it.
SPEAKER_08It's so tricky because of course his just on a little professional wrestling thing from the 80s and 90s, his whole thing was he was the real American, and so it was all about say your prayers, eat your vitamins, yeah, yeah, all this sort of stuff. So the whole God thing was right there, and yeah, yeah. So it's interesting to see, and I have not I did get it sent a WhatsApp message about the Hulksters Baptism and was excited for it. But um, yeah, in in for so many people they're so steeped in so much Christianity anyway. Yeah, we might even say it's the air they breathe that we are likely to look in a Christian direction when we realise that the bottom has just fallen out of our worldview, yeah, and we need somewhere somewhere to go.
SPEAKER_05One thing I'll I'll say that's a bit crunchier um to to Aristotle Jedi's question is that I think I think ten years ago, if I was invited onto a UK university campus, and given a question either about the environment, let's say, or or the sexual revolution or things like that, I th I think I would have probably tried to appeal to just the soft left liberal sensibilities of the room and hey, Jesus is an environmentalist too, or whatever. Okay, right? Or yeah, I would not have gone in on the the sexual revolution with Louise Perry's book and said it's a big bit of big mistake, isn't it? Right? Right.
SPEAKER_08Um I I and so it I I I think Well that see that's really interesting because is it that the there were voices within the church who were doing apologetics, who are doing those lunch bar talks on on university campuses and everything else? Is it that there were a whole bunch of people who were saying what people like Louise Perry were saying in terms of the sexual revolution? And so that holding to a Christian sexual ethic was something that definitely was happening, or was it that where there's a bit of soft peddling of the the call to Christian discipleship and the call to the beauty of the Christian sexual ethic, which then needed a bit of a kick up the backside from effectively a voice from without outside the church, even if she is kind of quite Christian adjacent in lots of ways now.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's it certainly does strengthen our arm, I think, to have other people and to hate you know to have JK Rowlings and and people you know saying saying certain things, and um it it certainly helps when non-Christians have a courage that sometimes Christians haven't. I I think there's a whole bunch of Christians who've been very courageous on a whole bunch of issues and and have held a a faithful line for ages, and and in a sense it's harder for Christians because people just roll their eyes at Christians when they when they if a Christian writes the case against the sexual revolution, like big yawn, right? Like nobody takes notice. Um but Louise Perry writes for the New Statesman, and suddenly it's you know, um so it in one sense it's easier for for non-Christians to to say these sorts of things. Um but in another sense there there has been courage shown by a lot of these people um that is a rebuke, I think, sometimes to Christians and and an encouragement for for us to to be sure of our guns. And there are people who are saying things on some of these issues, and they're they're just so yeah, they're just they're just so sure that when other people are saying, you're harming X, Y, and Z, you know, members of the population, you're erasing their existence, and they're just like, no, no, I'm I'm very I'm very clear, I'm protecting women's rights or whatever it is. Um and on they go, and there's there's yeah, there definitely has been a courage shown by by certain people that Christians can learn from.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Hmm. Uh let's move on to a similar sort of question. Again, this is from Anonymous. Uh maybe it's the same anonymous as before. Maybe it's a new anonymous. Either way, uh, if you would like to get hold of your free copy of How to See Life for Guardian 321, uh, please send your uh name and address to the info at speaklife with the question that you had read out. Here is that question. Stop waffling, Nate. If you had were talking to a pretty progressive liberal. How pretty. What intellectual slash imaginative slash narrative apologetics would you use? Ditto for a conservative.
SPEAKER_03I would write the air we breathe. Okay. Essentially. Another book advertising.
SPEAKER_08Promoting one book isn't enough tonight.
SPEAKER_05There is something about saying, look, um, you already believe in human rights, let's say. And I think you probably believe in human rights more than you believe that this is a godless universe, right? I I, you know, my my my friends who absolutely believe in the inviolable worth and dignity of all people and you shouldn't, you know, tread down the week. They believe in that far more. They are certain of that. Far more than they are certain that this is an absolutely godless naturalistic universe. They are so much more sure.
SPEAKER_08Otherwise, they couldn't claim the title of pretty, progressive, liberal, or conservative. What are you c you know, what are you conserving at that point?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and yeah, and why believe in progress and all all that. And and so um I have found it useful um to talk about all people as believers, that those beliefs are not obvious, natural, universal, they are not the result of science, logic, mathematics. They are beliefs. They are beyond reason in in in that sense, and they have a Christian pedigree to them, and if you pull at the threads of these, you will find something incredibly Jesus-y at the other end of it. So, um for the pretty progressive liberal person, I would do that kind of thing. Ditto for a conservative, um well, again, what what are you trying to conserve? And the the liberal and the conservative are existing within the world that Jesus has built, and we're all just hurling Bible verses at each other, we've just forgotten the references, and the progressive is is hurling certain Bible verses, and the conservative is hurling different verses perhaps back. But I think what the church is always trying to do is to conserve the Jesus revolution and to continually get back to Jesus in his revolutionary ways, and as we continually get back to Jesus, he actually drives us forwards for his vision for for humanity. So if you want to be conservative, well, why why don't you actually go back to the force, the movement, the revolution that has built your world? And again, um I would yeah, take them to the Jesus Revolution.
SPEAKER_08And on those Bible verses that people are hurling, is there a point at which those Bible verses haven't been sufficiently understood as Christian Bible verses? Right. So that they've been removed from their Christian context. Completely. And therefore they don't actually make an awful lot of sense together. Whereas once you've got Jesus as the one you know uh who is the word of God, then the Bible verses make sense in so far as they are understood in relation to him or so much of the madness of the post-Christian world is because we have detached the the values from the scriptures and distorted them.
SPEAKER_05And so instead of having the image of God, right, which is the the biblical phrase from Genesis chapter one, instead we have human rights, and then we just go to town on human rights, and of course we're all now noticing that like as these atomized individuals all thumping our chests saying, I've got my rights, you know, I've got a right to Wi-Fi, I've got a right to everything. Like, what are you talking about? It becomes entirely detached from sanity when you detach it from the scriptures, and and so a return to the scriptures that actually gave rise to what human rights are actually describing is is what will help people who are recognizing that like rights detached from responsibilities just end up with chaos, or you know, there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, for we're all one in Christ Jesus, is the biblical verse, and that gets detached, and it's just like for we are all interchangeable individuals, like in the collective Lego Gnosticism.
SPEAKER_08Mary Harrington. Um Right, I'm gonna move to a again a similar sort of question, uh, and this one is uh from Isaac Simmons. Pin this one. Uh Isaac says uh with new atheism declining, should Christian apologetics now focus more on Islam considering its growing Western and global influence?
SPEAKER_05One thousand percent. And we should have been doing it throughout the naughties and twenty tens too. Um because atheism was shrinking all throughout those years as well, globally speaking, you know.
SPEAKER_08And a atheists don't have kids as well.
SPEAKER_05Well, exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. There'll be any left.
SPEAKER_05It's I a crazy I mean, everyone in the West has a crazy I know some atheists do have children, so just to qualify that. And some atheists love their children too, as Sting might have sung. I have been told. But um yeah, I mean the um uh yeah, so the the new atheism is absolutely um declining, and I think Justin Briley's book does a great way of uh does a great job of of describing that and showing how that is. But I think it's always the case that we should have Islam on our radar. Um I mean for one for one reason out of many, I I think Islam is basically a seventh-century Christian heresy, and the new atheism was basically a seventeenth century Christian heresy. Um because everything's Christian, air we breathe, right? But when you are talking to a Muslim, actually, um, you're gonna end up talking about who is God, what is the word of God, what is salvation, who is Jesus, did he die on the cross? Is he the Son of God? Um It's gonna be talking about some amazingly like weighty matters, interesting matters, matters right at the heart of three, two, and one, right? When you're talking to your average atheist, secular person nowadays, um, you might end up talking about anything, right? When you're when you're when you're engaged in Muslim apologetics and when you're engaged in in just understanding Islam from the inside and and and talking with Muslim neighbours and friends, you you really get much more of a Pepsi challenge, taste and see the difference. Like when you're like when I when I talk to a a a Muslim for for ages about like who is Jesus and and why my Muslim friend doesn't think he dies on the cross and why I think it's so vital to believe that he does, I go away like admiring the glory of the crucified Christ so much. Yeah. When I speak to Muslims. So just for that reason, I think um we we need to be doing that, but but for demographic reasons as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Um let's do uh there was a question down here that is I'm just gonna sort of try and wrap up this little sort of section. Apologies if you're asking questions uh around this sort of thing.
SPEAKER_05Do we have a cutoff time?
SPEAKER_08A cutoff time, I think we're gonna say uh 9.20. I'm gonna say 9 20. There was a 9 15 thing. We've got a couple more questions and do. So nine twenty.
SPEAKER_05Isaac gets a book. Well done, Isaac.
SPEAKER_08Well done. And we come to Julia. So this is sort of uh finishing off this sort of conversation around um well. Hopefully around apologetics. Uh Julia says, Have you explored the impact of other faiths and beliefs around the world to know that Christianity is as truly exceptional in, for example, protection of the weak than claimed in the air we breathe?
SPEAKER_05It's a very good question. I should clarify that what I'm not saying in the air we breathe is that other cultures cannot care for the weak or cannot put Westerners to shame in the ways that they they care for the weak. And certainly the strength the strength of families in non-Western cultures when compared to atomized jaded Westerners absolutely puts us uh to shame. And I'm not saying that only Christianity has produced protections for the weak around the world and down through history. I guess what I am saying is when we look around the world at admirable traits in other cultures, it's interesting that we identify protection of the weak as one of the first things. We don't think to ourselves, oh gosh, the the Vikings, their cruelty. Something to behold, isn't it? You know? They they really do did know how to pillage, didn't they? You know, like we don't admire that kind of glory that the Vikings sort of had, but we do admire compassion, as uh Buddhists kind of speak of. Or we we do admire the umma, the the brotherhood of Muslims around the world and and and the way they kind of look out for one another. So so my claim is not that other cultures do not or cannot protect the weak, or that Christianity is necessarily best, but I but I do want us to notice that we think of those things as ultimate and we judge other cultures according to whether they are compassionate enough. And when I what's interesting about is when I talk about um other cultures might not consider compassion in the same way that we do, people will instantly say, Oh, but other cultures are moral. Oh no, they are moral. But not everyone's conception of moral morality is identical. Um and so what what what have I looked at? In particular, I've looked at Islam and I've looked a little bit at Buddhism in in terms of those worldviews and of and of course, you know, atheism and the way it's sort of worked itself out. Um and in particular, the the the particular area in Buddhism is that area of compassion. Um because um yeah, it's a it's a it's a um it's a big concept within Buddhism, but so is attachment and the dangers of attachment such that there's there's lively debate within Buddhism about uh you know how do you balance compassion with attachment. You don't want to get attached, but you do want to be compassionate. Um and I I think from a distance, um, the reasons why the compassion revolution type aspects of uh medieval Christendom and how it sort of played itself out in hospitals and hospices and um orphan care and that sort of thing. And um the the reason why it played out in the way that it did is because attachment and suffering, redemptive suffering, is a massive deal for Christians.
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_05In a in a way that it is not for for Buddhists. That that actually jumping in with both feet the way that Jesus did, the second Adam, who dived down into our pit and mess and suffered and voluntarily embraced that that attachment that entailed suffering. Um that that is the definition of his kind of compassion.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But I think that births a different brand of compassion.
SPEAKER_08Interesting.
SPEAKER_05To what is in in in Buddhism. Um but as I say, Islam probably is the the the religion that I I know best um other than Christianity. And yeah, I I would I would absolutely say that it that again because of Islam's conception of Allah has no partners, and to associate partners with Allah is shirk and it's it's the sin of all sins. Um Allah does not descend to the earth, let alone to the cross. Um and he is the compassionate, the merciful one, you know, and and you know it part of the names, the 99 names of of Allah is is always about his compassion. But in in dialogue with uh uh an imam on Justin Briley's um Unbelievable show, I um I actually asked the Imam like what concrete example of compassion has Allah like shown? And interestingly, his example was that um Allah revealed to Muhammad that he could relax the divorce laws for a certain woman um whose husband was was doing her out of like um her estate.
SPEAKER_00Let me share one story which the Quran mentioned. This is Surah Al-Mujala. This is about the woman who comes to the Prophet and she's arguing with him. Look, my husband has been very disloyal to me, he has divorced me in this particular manner complaining for me. You know, the Quran mentions this. So he is the God who is listening to leading to me.
SPEAKER_04Does he answer her? Does he come down to embrace her? What what does what does Allah ever do?
SPEAKER_00God needs to come down and embrace his situation. He gives complaint he gives his message to the prophet, we will help her, and it was new legislation case, and her misery was sorted out. He doesn't have a physical form because it would make him a creature. It's just like as essentially this idea of robots in the future when we have this fantastic. Human beings will never be robots. Human beings will be human beings, robots will be robots.
SPEAKER_02And how we put into this.
SPEAKER_04Well, I think if Masharif was on the way to the mosque, uh on the way towards Friday prayers, and he saw a seven-year-old girl in a muddy canal drowning, we all know what Masharif would do. Masharif would jump in, and I think his religion would command him to jump in. I think we would call him a good Muslim and a good human being for jumping in and saving that girl. Why would Allah do any less? Why would he not enter into our mess in order to save us and redeem us? The big problem with with Islam is that its doctrine of God forbids God to actually show even human decency, let alone something that is proper to the nature of God.
SPEAKER_05We're gonna have to leave it there. And that was the compassionate thing that Allah had done. He relaxed a certain divorce law so that one woman could um could have the estate that was was left to her, you know, through her divorce.
SPEAKER_08Now compare that with the compassion. Yes, it's it's quite the sitcom episode, isn't it? Um the yeah, I you know, and that's a that is fascinating because I've not done a huge amount in comparative religions, but in terms of uh mythologies and what is the story that's at the heart of it, mm-hmm. And of course, Christianity is is the myth that became fact, the myth that is fact, the true myth, which is true history, is of the dying and rising God as the great salvific act, the great way in which people are saved. And so it's interesting that on that you know clearly there's a conversation to be had about okay, what system would you like to uh put into play um to protect the weak?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_08What philosophical system or theological framework would you like to use that you think will have the greatest outcome for people, you know, will be the best one to use. Uh but it is interesting that the the Christian one is not just based upon, oh, this might work best. Yeah. This is the one that's actually happening.
SPEAKER_05And and I I don't think I can be contradicted in saying that the story of compassion at the heart of Scripture is unimprovable. Right? Like 'cause you could not have a higher figure descend to a deeper depth in order to have compassion on a greater number of people for a greater duration of time. Yeah. How wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, says Ephesians 3. And I don't think that can be contradicted. Um there there will be much more compassionate Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus in the world, much more than me.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um and it's interesting that the story of compassion that Jesus tells is a story in which a Samaritan is the hero, the person who is not the Bible guy, the person who's not the priest or the Levi, it's the guy who is the other religion. And so, right at the heart of our story of compassion is not that only Bible people can be compassionates, and this is not rah-rah, yay Christians. Um, but I do think the story of the Good Samaritan, the ultimate Good Samaritan, who actually descended all the way down to to our level in order to save us and redeem us and to go to hell and back for us is a story of compassion that not only hasn't been superseded or surpassed, it can't be surpassed. You know, it's an it's an unimprovable story of compassion. Christians are um you know, whether whether we're very good at living it out or not is a different different question. The answer to that is it's a mixed report. But the story itself is the ultimate story of compassion.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Uh well that's a great way, I think, to to sort of wrap uh this up. I would say um that many of the things that have been discussed already uh this evening in terms of the answers uh Glenn has given are available in this book if you prefer reading to watching or listening. Uh that is How to See Life of Guardian 321. It is now available. This is the launch party. Woohoo! It's launched. Uh go to ten of those party for the block party. It was. In fact, have a block party when you get hold of the book and then send your photographs to at Glenn Scrivener and uh what's what's current one of prior Twitter. She needs to be tagged in even more stuff to do with Glenn and Speed Life. Uh but the other way to uh engage with this uh sort of material, the other way to, if you like, put on the Jesus spectacles and to see the world, to see God, to see yourself the way Jesus sees uh God, the world, and yourself, uh, would be to go to 321course.com. Uh, you click on a button, put in your email address, uh, pick yourself a password, and there you go. All the goodies are available there, all uh all the sessions you can be part of. There is a Discord uh community that Speak Life uh runs. You can get hold of that if you go through 321course.com. Uh you can also go to 321, uh sorry, www.speaklife.org.uk forward slash give if you would like to join the discord there. And if you'd like to become a regular donor to speaklife, we would be very appreciative. We'd be almost as thankful as Constantin Kissin is about to be when his book about gratitude goes out, and I'm sure we'll be chatting to him about that book when it does.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_08Um okay, I think that's about all we've got time for. Thank you very much, Glenn Scriver. Thank you, Nate.
SPEAKER_03It's been fun.
SPEAKER_08It's been a pleasure to do this. How many questions have we asked you anything?
SPEAKER_03I think it was about eight, nine?
SPEAKER_08Ten? I think it was like ten or eleven. Hey, awesome.
SPEAKER_05Good job, everybody.
SPEAKER_08Anyway, uh, I'm uh reform mythologist Nate Morgalock. He is Glenn Screvener. We are very glad you were here.
unknownSee ya.
SPEAKER_01Well, there we go. Thank you so much for listening. I'll just draw your attention to that that clip we played from Unbelievable, Glenn debating Musharraf Hussein. Is Trinity in the Old Testament? So that's uh back in the uh the back catalogue of Unbelievable. I think it was released on the 25th of August 2017. Uh, if you want to go and check that out, do go and check out the new book, How to See Life, a guide in 321. Glenn's new book available from tenofthose.com. It's a wonderful companion piece for the online course, whether you're doing it with a friend or on your own or as a church. Uh, the book really complements the the online material. So enjoy that. Thanks for listening, and we will be back soon.