SPEAKER_02

You know, I used to love all that new atheist stuff.

SPEAKER_04

Me too. But a lot of those guys fell apart. And a lot of those guys get real persnicky. You don't they don't seem very enlightened. Don't seem like they're at peace. Which is interesting.

SPEAKER_02

If you really do believe that, it definitely will help you. I haven't got there, but I have started going to church every now and again. Yeah. Yeah. Do you enjoy it? I love it.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. It's a b I do too. It's a bunch of people that are going to try to make their lives better. They're trying to be a better person. And they're trying to, I mean, for me at least, the place that I go to, they read and analyze passages in the Bible. I'm really interested in what these people were trying to say. Because I don't think it's nothing.

SPEAKER_05

Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus. We've had Constantine Kisson on this channel in the past.

SPEAKER_02

I've tried to get him enthused about church, and he says, You're gonna struggle to get a lot of us, and particularly younger people, to, you know, to go to church on a Sunday.

SPEAKER_05

I tried to get him enthused about Jesus, and he suspected that I was trying to convert him.

SPEAKER_02

Is this a live conversion? Is this what you got me on the show for?

SPEAKER_05

Which was probably indeed the case. Uh but he has gone on a spiritual journey. So has Francis Foster, uh, his uh co-presenter with the trigonometry podcast, and they got onto Joe Rogan just a couple of days ago. It was a fantastic conversation, and together with my friend Nate Morgan Locke from the Reformant Mythologist Channel, we are going to look at the last 11 minutes of this incredible conversation and what it means for us today. Are you subscribed to the Speak Life channel? Are you subscribed to the Reformed Mythologist channel? You're gonna want to catch uh all those videos, but we get into this conversation. It is a fantastic and exciting moment that we are seeing right now when people like Joe Rogan and Constantine Kisson are going to church, they're interested in Jesus, and they think that you too should go to church and get interested in Jesus as well. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02

And that's why I really worry about the fact that people think political violence is justified. Not just justified, but celebrated.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. That was the creepy part. The creepy part was the celebration, the people that were celebrating. Some lady recently just lost her job because people were driving by, she was doing a No Kings protest, and she started mocking, getting shot in the neck. And she was a school teacher. Yeah. Elementary school teacher. Yeah. Crazy people. There's a lot of crazy people out there. And some of the I mean, the people are, you know, they're they're correct in worrying about the impact that these people have on their children. You're correct. Correct. You have a lot of crazy people that are teaching your kids.

SPEAKER_02

I know so many people now who are homeschooling, and to be honest, there's something I'm thinking about.

SPEAKER_04

It's not a bad idea. I mean, the problem socially is like it's kids need to hang out together. Yeah, it's really important. I worry about that too. Yeah, but I mean I think you could probably replace that with sports and good friends. And especially if you lived in a community where multiple people were homeschooling.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

But then, you know, people get weirded out about homeschooling because they think it's gonna oh that leads to religious radicals. You know, you don't have to be religious to homeschool. People in this country connected to r uh religious Christians, like radical Christianity.

SPEAKER_02

I just don't want some twenty-five-year-old with blue hair teaching my son that communism is brilliant. Exactly. Can I not have that?

SPEAKER_04

And the weird one is people that have no desire to have children of their own. You know? And they want to indoctrinate people's kids into their way of thinking. It's like a part of why they teach, you know?

SPEAKER_01

It's because they're so this is I I was we we were having this conversation yesterday, I s and I said to Constantin: the great thing about an ideology is it gives you certainty. The terrible thing about an ideology is it gives you certainty.

SPEAKER_04

That is so true. And it's also the appealing thing about it. Oh, yeah. You know, I've always been uh attracted to the idea that these people like really believe. Like it's fascinating when I watch like super religious people that are praying five times a day, and I'm like, like that is amazing. Like, look how dedicated they are to that thing. Like, you there's an attractiveness to that. Like, God, I wish I was like if I was that dedicated to something, I'd probably be like way more stable in my life. Yeah. You know, because you're just locked in and everybody believes, and you know, you see people talking about the religion with utmost certainty, like I wish I was that certain. Yeah, wish I was that certain. Those guys are so certain they're willing to die.

SPEAKER_01

Like it also gives you like a lot of inner peace. It does. Like if you don't have that, which I don't, and I like I've got a friend who's who's a devout Muslim, and he's and he's going through tough times at the moment, and I say to him, like, how how do you get through this? And he's like, Bro, I've got my religion, I've got God, and I know everything's gonna be okay. He's a great guy. And he goes, I pray five times a day, it really helps me, and it makes me realize and understand that what I'm going through is part of his plan. It's part of his plan.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, if you really do believe that, it definitely will help you. I haven't got there, but I have started going to church every now and again. Yeah. Yeah. Do you enjoy it? I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

It's about I do too. It's a bunch of people that are going to try to make their lives better. They're trying to be a better person. And they're trying to, I mean, for me at least, uh, the place that I go to, they, you know, they read and um analyze passages in the Bible. I'm really interested in what these people were trying to say. Because I don't think it's nothing. There's a lot of like atheists and and secular people that just like to dismiss Christianity as being foolish. You know, it's just fairy tales. I hear that amongst you know, self-professed intelligent people. Like it's it's a fairy tale. I'm like, I don't know if that's true. Um, I I think I think there's more to it. I think it's history, but I think it's a confusing history. It's a confusing history because it was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_05

So much there to begin with. Uh it seems to me like we've got a storm, we've got sinking sand, and we've got people fleeing to a rock here. We we've got there's a storm, and and perhaps the most um the the sharpest example of that where they begin here is with the Charlie Kirk assassination and people celebrating murder, and that seems to be kind of waking people up. There's Constantin's kind of uh uh talk of you know blue haired teachers who are saying communism is great, they don't have kids of their own, but they want to indoctrinate yours. Um so there seems to be a storm, there seems to be sinking sand, there seem to be multiple rocks that uh people are fleeing to. Um perhaps radical Islam or perhaps church. Um, and uh I I think they're kind of they they're naming things correctly at that stage, would you say that that there is indeed a storm, there is indeed sinking sand, and not every rock is equal.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think they're totally trying to trying to find something that they can build their lives on. I mean, you know, Joe Rogan being jealous of people um because they've got conviction or faith, and you think, alright, you're probably the most successful person in the new media ecology and you're jealous of people. So you've got more influence, you've got more success, you can basically you've got freedom to choose basically to do whatever you want to do, and yet you're looking at other people who are praying five times a day and going, I wish I had that. And yeah, it so for all the other people who are thinking, Oh, maybe I could get my podcast as big as Joe Rogan's like, okay, but if he's at the top of the pile and he's saying, I'm actually jealous of people who have faith or who have something that they are certain about or confident in, that that is really telling.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, and especially like the the gym is not enough. So, you know, my is my podcast big enough? Are my biceps big enough? Is my social circle big enough? Joe Joe's got a lot of friends, and he you know he knows how to have a good time, and and clearly not none of that is sufficient. And so he goes to church, and and the kind of church he's going to is a church that's interested in the Bible and interested in getting down to the nuts and bolts of biblical history. And I think that's really significant because what they are talking about in this podcast is the pragmatics of Christianity and whether certain beliefs lead to a certain kind of a lifestyle. And you could at that stage think all I need is to have the right story of the world. I just need to get the mythology right, um, and and it doesn't need to be true. But there's a there are a few points, such as here, where Joe seems to also be be just fascinated with this is earthed in in real human history, or is it, but that that question seems to be really captivating him.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, he's he's completely I was so fascinated when he said um the ana yeah, they analyse parts of the Bible. I don't think I've ever thought of a sermon as being that before, but for a guy who's less you know used to going to church and hearing expository preaching, that's what he's picking it up as. We analyze parts of the Bible, and it's really strange. I'm like, ah, yeah. I suppose it when you think about it like that, it probably is a bit strange, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05

It sounds like he's found the perfect church for him. A church that really gets down into the deep weird of the stories of the Bible and and analyzes stuff. That sounds like a very Joe Rogan uh place for him to be. Um Should we hear him keep on talking about that?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah. And it's people telling things in an oral tradition, then writing things down in a language that you don't understand, in the context of a culture that you don't understand. And I think there's something to what they're saying. I think there's a reason why they all have a flood myth. I think there's a reason they all have a very similar story of catastrophic floods and chaos, and then that jives with what geologists are finding and what these people are finding that are exploring the younger dryest impact theory that there was there was floods, massive, enormous amounts of water that are instantaneously released from melting ice caps all over the world because of comet impacts. Like it happened. There's evidence, physical evidence of this happening, and I think that's what they're trying to say in these stories. I just think it's so confusing. It's so confusing because you're dealing with a time so long ago you you barely when we talk about how different people live today on earth, but way more similar today than we would be reacting or interacting with a society that existed 6,000 years ago. Like, what what are we even talking about? Like, what is that like? What is the world like then? What is what is discourse like? Like what is what rules are there? What what you know what protections do you have against being robbed and stolen from? And how often is war? What is life like back then? It's fing nuts. And so you're writing things down on animal skins frantically and hiding them in clay, clay jars and Qumran, and like, I hope somebody finds this someday. And then thousands of years later, someone does. They find these ancient fing scrolls and they pull them out, and they're they're versions of stories from the Bible. So these people have been telling these same stories for thousands of years. Like, well, okay, what were they trying to say? That's what's interesting to me. I don't think it's nothing. No, no, I think there's something to it, and there's a reason why it resonates with people. And Christianity in particular is the most fascinating to me because there's this one person that everybody agrees existed that somehow or another had the best plan for how human beings should interact with each other and behave, and was the best example of it, and even died in a non-violent way, like it didn't even protest, died on the cross, supposedly for our sins. Like it's a fascinating story. What does it represent, though? That's the real thing. What was that? Like, what happened? Who was Jesus Christ if it was a human being? What was that? That's wild.

SPEAKER_05

So so much of that is just Joe Rogan and his own fascination. He's just infinitely curious with things, and uh, you know, that's part of the reason why he's built the biggest podcast in the world. But I think part of it is also our cultural moment where we had been traveling along in late modernity, just thinking Western civilization is self-evident and self-replicating, and it's it's just it's the air we breathe, you know, and it's it's just something that's um that needs no explanation and you know requires no fascination from us. But I but I think when a storm hits and foundations are are revealed, you start to think, oh, you know what? Like our little slice of time is incredibly contingent, and um and one of the ways that you wake up to the fact that our way of seeing the world is a thin slice of of humanity and a thin slice of reality, is to go back you know thousands of years and and engage with these these sort of strange stories. So it's just interesting that there's the destabilization of the strangeness of the Bible, and then he returns to but right at the heart of it, there's this Jesus figure, and it it's it's like it's beautifully, it's beautifully done. Like, like as a cultural apologist, Joe Rogan is doing really well for us to sort of take us out of our modern sensibilities to show us that the world is much more you know strange than we had imagined, and then to focus us on Jesus. I think it's a masterclass.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, completely. And I what I love about that little clip is how basically he moves from a kind of okay, there's geological evidence apparently for some kind of polar ice capped melting instantly thing, and that accounts for the flood narratives. Now I don't even know what he's talking about there, like that is kind of prime Joe Rogan podcast experience, you know, territory that you know scientists have just discovered this one thing and it's blowing our minds because it's kind of unearthing all this kind of ancient mythological like narrative. So there's that. Then the way he tells the Dead Sea Scrolls story, the the parchment hidden in the jars in Qumran, and you just go that is such an in again, such an interesting way of putting that. I've heard that describe the history of it told in you know seminary lectures or or whatever else it is, or if you go to a biblical scholar the way that they'll talk about the the amazing finds of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but Joe Rogan's way of of telling that story is really like it feels like you're watching a film, like and then these guys and they put it in there thousands of years later, they found it, and then they realized it was all kind of matched up with the old testament. So he does that, and then exactly as you say, like he moves eventually and then goes, but let me tell you about Jesus and then does that description of here's the guy who lives the perfect life and dies the exemplar exemplary death, and maybe it was for to forgive our sins. And I like at that point I genuinely thought, Is this like an AI-generated ideal, wishful thinking version of the what if Joe Rogan explained the gospel in a very Joe Rogan way, but he's using the like the talking points of you know Christian cultural apologists for the last you know ten years? So that was just amazing. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_05

I think though if a Christian wrote the prompt for that, they would they would try to make it far too Christiany.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

That's interesting. That what has captivated Joe is the sense that so he he has explained the best way to live, and then he dies in the most extraordinary way. Um and and I think that that is captivating. That that is uh certainly remarkable to to think that the character in the greatest story that's ever been told, who dies this exemplary death, also happens to be a moral genius, like also happens to be the greatest teacher the world has ever seen. I I think the the the congruence of those those two things is is kind of weird and kind of extraordinary and the sort of thing that's that's captivating Joe. Um but let's let's see what uh Constantin and Francis Foster think.

SPEAKER_02

Well, Jordan's idea is as I understand it, is that the point of the of the story, if you like, is it's about voluntary self-sacrifice. It's about the fact that to have a good society, people have to be willing to sacrifice something of themselves for others. And that's what what Jesus is and that story is supposed to inspire in all of us.

SPEAKER_04

Well, but it's a historical human being too, though. Yeah. It's a historically documented human being. That's where it gets weird because there's a there's a universal depiction of what this human being was like that doesn't seem to vary that much between all the people that knew him. That gets weird.

SPEAKER_05

There's so much there. Um it's it's the myth that became fact. Yeah. To use kind of Lewis's phrase, is is is is that what's sort of resonating with you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, completely. So the whole point that, okay, so this is just the inspiring story, it's the archetypal story, it's the story that motivates you to self-sacrifice, is a story of self-sacrifice, and it's voluntary. And so Jordan Peterson obviously getting the kind of shout out from Constantine Kissing. And then literally the very next thing that Brogan says is just yeah, but it it's historical, right? As well. It actually happened, and then you just go, it is like watching almost an ideal conversation about the impact, the meaning, the person of Jesus from from guys who've just started going to church because they think it might be, you know, I don't know, might be useful. It might be a useful, and that I think that comes up in is the usefulness, the utility of the gospel story, but which is what Constantine is talking about. And then Roger's just like, yeah, but the validity of it, like the historicity of it, not just its utility, it actually did happen, and everyone seems to agree what that Jesus was amazing, so yeah, it's it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_05

So if if there were microphones and cameras back on uh September the 19th, 1931, and and Lewis and Tolkien having having that chat in Oxford, it would it sound like this? Because at that stage, Lewis is a theist, not yet a Christian, and they get talking about the the stories that are told, and Lewis just said um they are uh lies, even though breathed through silver, which is a beautiful of course it's C.S. Lewis, so it's a beautiful phrase, but um, and then Tolkien famously says to Lewis, his friends, no, they are not lies. Um, and the entire conversation is is it it's kind of a version of this, isn't it? You know, um Constantine Kisson is saying, you know, that Jordan Peterson is saying that they are lies breathed through silver. And and Rogan is like, yeah, but don't forget, like, is this the myth that happened? And as soon as Lewis back in 1931 gets on board with that, he becomes a Christian within weeks. Yeah. Like like the uh he goes back to the Gospels, he starts to encounter them as mythological in the in the sense of telling a grander story about the victory of light over darkness, etc. But this is historical reportage. This actually happened at a time and a place, and just as the word became flesh, so myth became fact. Um these these guys better watch out, they might be becoming Christians very soon. Yeah, and let's see what uh Francis Foster says about it all, because uh he he too is gonna bring in the historical the groundedness of it all.

SPEAKER_01

If you go to Jerusalem, you can go to the Garden of Gethsemane. And for those people who don't know, that's where Jesus was arrested by the Roman soldiers. It still exists, you can go there 2,000 years later. And you just literally walk around this place, you're just like, my God. Like you the connection to those stories, it's just it's right there. And also, I think well the the lessons that you learn from going to church are incredibly profound. Something as simple. So I was raised Catholic, is you know, they'd say, Peace be upon you, uh towards the end, let's show each other a sign of peace. Yeah, and you literally shake hands with the person next to you.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_01

You don't know this person, you may have never met them, but you shake hands with the person behind in front and whatever else. Yeah, what an incredibly profound gesture that is. Just to shake hands with someone, and all your anger and all your resentment and everything you feel, which is natural and jealousy, and you go and but you make a literal physical connection with another human being. That is so powerful.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. That stuff about um yeah, okay, so we'd had kind of the Lewis Tolkien Addison's Walk conversation, that's what um they were doing. Uh, maybe Constantine and Joe, and then what uh other than saying, yeah, okay, you can go to Gethsemane and this is a historical place, and you can see where Jesus was arrested, which is such a specific part of the narrative, and completely goes with what Lewis is saying in uh Myth Became Fact when he says he suffered under Pontius Pilate, like this is a Roman government. We never would have heard of, and yet his name is going to resound through history as people recite the Apostles' Creed. But then when Francis goes into like you know the perspective of the church pew, right? This is what it's like in church on Sunday that you have this connection with the human being sitting next to you as you share the peace and you physically interact with them. It made me think, so Lewis does talks about um about your neighbor is the holiest thing presented to your senses other than the sacrament well by which he means communion. When so when you're sitting in church, the person you're sitting next to, you would be tempted to worship them if you could see them in their kind of truth nature, you know, like you'd either flee from them or you'd worship them because the image of God is so powerful in man and yet we kind of don't see it. So there's that, and then it also reminded me of um in the screw tape letters when Lewis is talking about how you get your patient to kind of you tempt him, is almost always it's through these other human interactions. And so the patient in the screw tape letters is supposed to get irritated by um his neighbours singing or someone who hands out the the the hymn books or something, is like he knows them to be a scoundrel or whatever the line is, and yet what Francis Foster is saying there is not diabolical at all. It's like, oh no, the only way to ground that that horizontal piece is that there is this vertical piece that has come to us in the gospel, and that's going to be the only basis for this kind of physical interaction or this physic this human, you know, peace and and erenity. It's like you need the gospel to do that. And you go to church because that's the place to make that happen. So it's so it's so interesting.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, it's a place where myth became facts and and and where our higher ideals kind of meet our neighbor in grounded, embodied community. And what Francis is talking about, like sharing a sign of peace, you know, it's it's which one of the most commonly repeated commands in the New Testament is greet one another with a holy kiss. And um I was listening to um Peter Williams at Tyndale House in Cambridge recently, and an incredible scholar, and um he was talking about you know what it was that started to grip the ancient world and meant that within medieval Christendom slavery would just melt away. Um and he actually he hit he calls it the kissing campaign. He said he says, like the new the New Testament basically puts the church onto a kissing campaign, which is utterly radical in the ancient world because you certainly did not kiss your social inferiors. Um and and yet like bursting across the lines of male and female, citizen and barbarian, master and slave, is this determination to embrace one another, to kiss and to eat with one another, which is also another thing that you just did not do uh you know across these class boundaries. You you you did not eat barbarians, did not eat with with you know citizens and all that kind of stuff. And just just and that seems to be what Francis Foster is saying, you know, I remember that from church, and that was that was amazing. And in the quiet revival statistics that came out, the Bible Society published this report in uh in April of this year, and they they talked about a surprising rebirth of belief in God and and people coming into church. They also asked questions about your mental well-being. And one one of the interesting findings is that if you go to church, you are two and a half if you're if you're under 34 and you go to church, you are two and a half times more likely to say that you feel connected to your locality than anyone else in that demographic who doesn't go to church. Two and a half times is it's uh I forget what the the stats are. So something like you know, 75% say um I we I feel connected to my locality. Because I'm going to church and I'm hugging people as opposed to to those those who do not go to church just don't have that sense of groundedness, or you know, we we talk about touching grass, but like just going to the gym doesn't seem to do it. You need to go on a kissing campaign.

SPEAKER_00

Or yeah, press in the flesh, that's the one, yeah. Touch grass, press the flesh, greet one another with a holy kiss.

SPEAKER_05

That's it. It was all in church all along. Now, what is Joe saying?

SPEAKER_04

And if you don't have something to believe in, there's you don't there's not a thing that you follow that you believe is making you be a better version of yourself, be a better person. If you're just relying on your whims and your, you know, whatever you think is the moral thing to do, you know, then you know what you get? You get those people that are unable to answer the question of whether or not you should protect an unborn fetus or whether or not they have human rights. No. No, no, they don't. And they just oh and they just like that's what you get.

SPEAKER_05

Now, what are they referring to? Um, very early on in the podcast, I don't know why this occurred to Joe to bring it up. Um, he had just been watching something online where basically a pro-life advocate went to people outside of like a human rights convention, and he asked people, you know, do all human beings have human rights? And everybody gave the good liberal answer, of course. And then he says, but what about what about the unborn? Do the unborn have human rights? And I want us to look at what Joe and Constantine and Francis are looking at, and I want us to notice that now they they feel like the pro-life advocate is obviously right, and that the liberals who are made to look foolish are obviously wrong. It's so fascinating. Can you refresh? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

We're in favor of them.

SPEAKER_07

Uh for everybody?

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_07

How about the unborn?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_07

For everybody?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_07

Even people in the womb?

SPEAKER_03

Uh well, it all depends on uh if they're actually a baby or not.

SPEAKER_07

Science says they are.

SPEAKER_03

Well, it depends on what science you're talking about.

SPEAKER_07

96% of all biologists according to the NIA. Thoughts on human rights? I'm all for them. Yeah, me too. Especially now, right? Yeah. For everybody, right? Yeah. Yeah. Even the unborn? Um an unborn what? Unborn in the womb. Yeah. No rights for them. Thoughts on human rights? That's what we're here for. Uh for everybody, right? Yes. Including the unborn? No. Everyone has autonomy to not build it, right? He's like not taking it and he just pulls it up.

SPEAKER_04

Stop taking rights away.

unknown

Get out of here.

SPEAKER_04

Nazi lives don't matter, it says on that guy's shirt that's just screaming.

SPEAKER_05

I hadn't noticed that. Stop taking rights away. That's not the argument, buddy. The argument is let's apply human rights more universally. So that's what Joe Rogan is referring to when uh he he talks about these people who are unable to answer the question. Let's just go.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, okay. You get those people that are unable to answer the question of whether or not you should protect an unborn fetus or whether or not they have human rights. No. No, no, they don't. And they just oh and they just like that's what you get. That's what you get when you have no religion. Yeah. If you have religion, you go, wow, that's a good question. That's a very good question.

SPEAKER_05

I think I'd want to complicate that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I was just gonna say, well, if like religion, like well, you've got you basically you've created some other thing out of the religious position. Like I don't think it's I think religion is inescapable. We are all gonna be religious. The question is just what is that religion? And so for yeah, from from Joe to say it's n it's that these people are irreligious at one level, yeah, okay, they are, but I think they have a religious fanaticism on their on the tenets of their worldview, like of what they're committed to, which is why they can live with that insane contradiction.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah, what we mean.

SPEAKER_05

Is is the human rights thing, you know, like everybody is assuming this thing, which has not been self-evident. As much as we tell ourselves that the, you know, we hold these truths to be self-evident, if they were self-evident, then they'd be more universal. Um the the one thing that's self-evident about human rights is that they're not self-evident, then they're not these human universals that people around the world and down through history have believed. Um they are profoundly Christian to it, it's profoundly Christian to see humans in this light as equal individuals before the eyes of God and in the eyes of the law, who are these possessors of these inviolable rights that cannot be trampled down. That's a profoundly Christian thing. And you know, that that that pro-life advocate was just trying to get the application of that Christian truth to be more thoroughgoing, and the sort of the the progressives there did not want to apply that Christian truth more broadly. But now Joe Rogan, Constantine Kiss, and Francis Foster are all laughing because they think, well, it's obviously true that the unborn should be accorded these these human rights. It's that's that's obviously true if you know, and and actually there are a whole bunch of pagan religions that would be characterized by not having a sense of the inviolable worth and dignity of all people, and and especially including those in the womb. And you know, infanticide is practiced very, very, very broadly. So it it seems like this cultural moment is reminding at least the Joe Rogans of this world about some profoundly Christian truths. Yeah. So let's see where it goes.

SPEAKER_01

And it it's it's also as well, you know, when we look at the new atheist movement, and that's something that I really followed, you know, Dawkins and all these kind of people who pointed out the ridiculousness of certain religions, etc. etc. And then we don't need religion. Um I think that's fundamentally inaccurate. I think human beings need religion. I don't know if you need it, but it definitely can help. But I think societies need it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

But I don't I just think it's silly to dismiss all these stories as being useless. Totally. I just I I think they were trying to say something. Right. And I don't know what that something is, but the deeper you dive into it, the more interesting it gets. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, last time we had Richard on the show, if you remember, we kind of pushed him on this. Yeah. And his aunt his as far as we could get is he was like, Well, you know, maybe it's a f it's a story that's useful, but it's still not true. And I'm going, well, if it's useful, maybe we should hang on to it for a little bit. You know, do we want to throw away something that's useful because we're so fixated on literal truth? When this is um perhaps a metaphor for something, right? Perhaps. Yeah. You know? Um, so yeah, I've kind of moved on on that. I I was, you know, I used to love all that new atheist stuff.

SPEAKER_04

Me too.

SPEAKER_02

But a lot of those guys fell apart.

SPEAKER_04

And all those guys get real persnick any. You don't, they don't seem very enlightened, they don't seem like they're at peace, which is interesting, you know, because uh that's the the true Christians that I've met. And I've met some like legitimate, like very charitable, kind Christians. They're some of the happiest and kindest people I've ever met.

SPEAKER_02

And that's borne out in the in the statistics as well. However, I will say this though, right? I and I think this is worth like the best people I've ever met are Christians, but also some of the worst people I've met. Oh, sure. You know what I mean.

SPEAKER_04

Well, that that's there's a real issue with in Texas, where there's these very wealthy guys that are trying to put they they succeeded in getting the Ten Commandments put in every public school, but they essentially want Texas to be a theocracy. They're they're nutters, right? They're out on the fringe, you know, they're uh they're firing brimstone type Jesus is coming. Like them folks. Those folks are real too. That scares the shit out of me. Because like uh I was talking to Ron White about that. Like Ron White's a southern guy, been here his whole life. Like he's like, be careful, them fucking really crazy Christians. Because don't think they're like regular Christians. He's right. There's you get to the fringe where you know and it's the same with other religions.

SPEAKER_02

This is not specific to Christians.

SPEAKER_04

Yep, yep. It's fun, it's nutters. It's just nutters. Whether they're nutters as a Mormon or nutters as a Baptist, they're just nutters. They're crazy people that take things to the utmost degree.

SPEAKER_01

Do you remember do you remember Richard Pryor in Live at the Sunset Strip where he was talking about being in jail and he talked about meeting Islamic fundamentalists? He called them double Muslims.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, Richard Pryor.

SPEAKER_02

And that's why there's so much info. Have you ever seen that Emo Phillips bit uh about the the bridge? No. It's the greatest jokes of all time. Really? Oh, you're gonna love this. What is it about?

SPEAKER_05

They're not able to bring it up for copyright reasons, but you you know the joke, don't you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's the one about oh, you're a Baptist, oh I'm a Baptist too, oh, what kind of Baptist? Oh, well, I'm a you know, whatever, seventh Seventh City Baptist, or oh, okay, that's interesting, so am I, and then it gets more and more specific, and then eventually you just kicks.

SPEAKER_05

During Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or of 1912. He says 1912.

SPEAKER_00

Which when and that is fascinating, like that bit towards the end where yeah, Constantine wants to talk a bit more about institutionalized religion and the ideas of denominations, and how do you have like genuine denominational disputes and argument and precision, theological precision on various things, which at one level is probably quite a long way off for these guys in terms of exactly working out what they're, you know, um you know, where they stand on kind of the history of of uh theological discussion and and disagreements. But the point is that they are still on this very they're in this very strong tide, or or current, whatever you want to call it, because each of them says, Yeah, I used to be down with the new atheists. I loved that stuff. I thought it was amazing. And we're talking, what's that, two decades ago, 2000, I don't know, 2008 was probably like a high point of that, I don't know. But they've all moved, they've all changed. They're they're all in a different place now than they would have been when they were younger. Now, I don't think that's just a process of they got a bit more mature and older. The point is new atheism stopped being persuasive and none of them were reasoned out of it. It wasn't that someone came and brought a logical syllogism that kind of went, Oh, see, this is why atheism can't be true. They went, oh, it fell apart. It was unsustainable, it was a d it was an unsatisfying narrative to try to live your life by. It did not have a complete enough story to explain the world and reality. It wasn't sufficient, and that's what we and they all went a bit nuts and so it fell apart because not because we all sat there and we thought through these logical arguments, but because Yeah, it just the characters in the story weren't strong enough. The the the plot was had too many holes in it, you know. It it was a narrative thing rather than a kind of a purely philosophical logical thing.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. And the thing that Joe points to is they they didn't have any peace to them, which I thought was interesting because he he then goes on to say, well, that you can get all sorts of religious nutters, and we don't want that. Um but what what he failed to see in the proponents of the new atheism was the kind the kind of peace that he was looking for. So he's found incredibly kind, sacrificial Christians, and then they you know they notice what Christians have been noticing for you know 2,000 years. And Blaise Pascal said, you know, men never do evil so cheerfully as when they do it in God's name. It's it's um that is the double-edged sword of how powerful the Christian story is. Uh, it can be harnessed by people for um for some very negative ends, and they they kind of notice that, and then obviously Constantine noticing about the fracturing of of Christianity and and you know the emo Phillips joke, kind of you know, the the the guy on the bridge is not the right denomination, so he just says, die, heretic! And you know, and it's funny because it's true, it's funny because it's uh it resonates with some of the dark side of religion, but these guys are now saying to themselves, um, it's worth it, it's worth it to to try to find the healthy expression of this. Constantine going to church, Joe going to church, and that's that's not what Constantine was saying even a couple of years ago. You know, we we can play a clip of you know me talking to Constantine about going to church, and um, and he ends up saying this.

SPEAKER_02

There's a bigger conversation about which is where do we get this idea in the West from? And yes, of course it's from religion. Of course it is. There's no there's no argument about that. My point from a much more practical perspective, I I, as you probably, if you watch my conversation with Jordan Peterson, you know that I'm much more empirically minded about these things. I'm interested in how how we make society better now. I recognize that um there are a lot of people of my generation in particular who are sort of children of Hitchens and Dawkins. You want you're gonna struggle to get a lot of us, and particularly younger people, to you know, to go to church on a Sunday.

SPEAKER_05

And later on in the conversation, I I you know try on him some some various evangelistic moves to try and um get him to see the the goodness of Jesus. And uh Constantine was was quite resistant at that stage. You know, in Christ, what you've got is the God who becomes man, and he's the sort of man who who kind of resonates with us. And I I wonder, like, have you have you had a look into the like the Jesus stories, read the gospels, that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_02

And and it's sort of I not really not since I was like very young. Yeah, yeah. That would be Is this a live conversion? Is this what you got me on the show for? Just to see just to see Constantine, yeah. Well Constantine was of course the the emperor who brought Christianity to the Roman Empire. Exactly, exactly. Uh three to me. You you what you want me to follow in his footsteps, I take. I do just for the clicks, obviously. Yeah, that that would get a lot of views if I could convert live on air.

SPEAKER_00

Um I mean the other thing, that almost almost an identical conversation that you had when you first spoke to Louise Perry, and she says, Oh, this is all I know this is all from Christianity, blah blah blah. And just thinking how she's moved to the point of going, okay, there is a sociological utility to Christianity, there is a usefulness for society, and life seems to work better when people put into practice uh the teachings of Jesus. But then, of course, recently she's come out and said, Okay, I I'm now actually a genuine Christian because it's sociologically true, led me to think it might be supernaturally true, and so I'm now confessing the virgin birth and the resurrection from the dead and all of this sort of stuff. So that that is such an encouraging kind of story, the story of what God is actually doing in it seemingly at the moment, uh in bringing people to faith, bringing people to church or back to church. It it's there's a very exciting thing happening there, and yeah. Yeah it's great.

SPEAKER_05

And like Ayan Hosey Ali is another similar story, um, somebody who was very much a proponent of the new atheism, um, who didn't find any peace, and so there were some existential reasons. There were there was some addiction that she needed release from, and she was flat on her back, flat on her back and and you know, cries out for deliverance, um, and and finds Jesus as savior, and and then there's that hilarious kind of moment where she goes on stage with Richard Dawkins last year, and he just can't understand it. He's just constantly saying, Do you do you really believe in the virgin birth? Do you really believe in the resurrection of Jesus? And Ion is just like, Yeah, I choose to believe that. Yeah. You know. And and that's similar, I think, to Louise in in lots of ways. I think you know, she she would she would commonly say that of course we can think of any number. Of objections to Christian faith. It's just that all of them have been raised in the last 2,000 years by people much cleverer than us and then answered by people much cleverer than us. And so I choose to dive in with both feet to the Christian community. And I think people find themselves believing within that Christian community, as opposed to what we might have imagined. We might have imagined that people, through logical syllogisms, convince themselves of the truth and then do some research into which church they should now join at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning. And it's no, it's the other way around. You belong and then you believe. And I think that's getting us in touch with something that's that's a lot more true theologically.

SPEAKER_00

And and the fact that you don't uh we as Christians, those of us who are in the church, we don't get to decide what it is that brings someone to church. We've got all of our pathways, like, you know, I've decided this is how you're supposed to come to faith in Jesus, like this is this is the plan I have for your life, right? But things like um, I just want to be a better person, and there's part of us as evangelicals that may sort of go, that's not what Christianity is, it's not about you improving, it's actually about you're not being good enough, and God has done, you know, it's about by grace you've been saved, this through faith, and it's you've got to we've got to correct that thinking. Well, let's correct that thinking whilst they're listening to the preaching, rather than to sort of say anyone who's just come to church because they want to be a better person is is wrong. Similarly, with that stat you shared about if people are connected if people are attending church, they feel more connected to their local community. You can put that in both ways, because you could say, Well, it's people who feel more of a desire to be rooted locally who seek out local fellowship, and so you've got that kind of somewheres, anywheres kind of dynamic at play where people you know they they might be more traditional in their values, they might be people who are more conservative politically, who are thinking, well actually going back to church might be the right thing for me to do. And we've just got to be careful to just say, okay, there are the Lord moves in mysterious ways, He's gonna draw people into his into his the body of the church in ways which may feel uncomfortable to us because we've decided that actually that that needs to be dealt with. Now it can all be dealt with, but it's only gonna be dealt with as we open up the scriptures and you know, as uh Joe Rogan says, analyze them, you know, which I again like a weird phrase, but like as as Christ is preached from the from the scriptures, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

And I love that point about uh we're we're not in charge of all these people showing up in church. I you like I I don't know what the evangelistic um methodology was that made Constantine first go to church. I mean it was a friendship with Winston Marshall, actually, the the the love of Christians around him. Um I I think you know with Joe again he's surrounded by Christians that he respects. And then, you know, and I think I think the Wes Huff moment was important for him in respecting the the intellectual side of things. But like these people that there hasn't been a great plan to have brought about this this movement, which like praise God and it's all it's all to his glory. But I think I think it also yeah, it's incumbent on us to do the kind of cross and resurrection thing with either kind of person who comes to us because there are there are people who come um into church um more along the Tom Holland train of of kind of saying, I believe in human rights, and I've come to see that human rights don't really have a secular foundation, they're more of a Christian thing, and they they come through more of the the progressive liberal route, you might say. Um but they they they need to have a death and resurrection moment in which at some point you sort of say, okay, yeah, but those human rights things, um that humanism does not work on a secular footing, does it? No, to a human-centric humanism. Yeah. But then on the far side of that, yes, to a Christ-centered humanism. You sort of do a no and yes. Yeah. And I think to those who come from the more anti-woke side of things, um, they they might be showing up in church and they they want um they want challenge and they they want to better themselves, you know, um, and they want to press into gender difference and distinction, and you know, maybe the manosphere has brought them, brought them here, and uh, and all that kind of stuff. And at some point you need to do a no and a yes as well, a cross and a resurrection as well, where you where you kind of say, um, well, no, Jesus didn't die just to make you a better version of yourself. Um, and the heart of Christian faith is is not just you know learning um 12 more rules for life. Um no, but when Jesus saves you because you can't save yourself, on the far side of that, some of Jordan Peterson's stuff will be really, really helpful to you, and all that stuff about improving yourself can really help as as you now are set on your feet and and go and um you know share the wealth with others. So I think that that movement has been the same for 2,000 years of church history. We've we've always needed to sort of people will show up for the wrong reason. Yeah, and at some point we need to sort of embrace them. You sort of say yes, no, yes. Tim Keller used to always say that in in preaching, you know, preaching is always, oh yes, you're right to believe in human rights. No, they're not huge, they're not humanly grounded. Yes, you get them back with Jesus. I think we need to do a yes, no, yes for people.

SPEAKER_00

And yeah, it's it's repent and believe the good news. You know, it's like you know, you can't come to faith in Christ without repentance. Like that is part of what is in you know in believing, you are rejecting that which you believe before. The old operating system has to be has to be shut down, and you need the new one. Like there is a repentance and faith. It's just that we'll all have our own little you know um peculiarities about exactly which types of people we are sort of wanting to embrace and you know, and and how much they need to repent, you know. It's like, but repentance and faith is is the call, is the it's the as you say, it's the death and then the light, the resurrection. It's um it is the gospel call. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

So Nate, you are a reformed mythologist, you want to think very hard about stories through a Christian lens. Um, you've got uh a video coming out on your channel, the Reformed Mythologist Channel, uh, on this very conversation with Joe Rogan. Uh yeah, sell it to us.

SPEAKER_00

So basically, I'm just looking at um there have been different arguments for the existence of God, whether it's the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the um ontological argument. And uh the more I've been thinking about story and storytelling and and the the the amount that these guys talk about story and storytelling in that 10-minute section has made me think we probably need a mythological argument for the existence of God. And that might just be giving a title to something that people have been doing in various ways, but it may also be um it's a kind of call for me to try to pursue what doing apologetics or defense of the Christian faith or evangelism looks like from a through a storytelling lens. Um yeah, that that story sense is what I'm I'm trying to get at. So yeah, it's a shorter video than this, but um yeah, just a monologue and I'm just going through some of the the storytelling or mytho um mythic parts of their conversation and trying to dive into that.

SPEAKER_05

Love it, love it. And Reform Mythologist is very well worth your time. So uh head on over there, subscribe to the channel, uh, watch the videos, and uh, if you guys want to inhabit the story that has built our world, we've uh done a little course called 321. You can go to 321course.com and uh over eight different videos you'll be uh shown life according to Jesus, uh the threeness of God, the two-ness of the world, the oneness of you. What do those numbers mean? You can go to threetwoonecourse.com and find out. It's totally free. We won't spam you, but it might be uh might be a way of orienting yourself to the greatest story ever told. Nate Morganlock, it's been so great to have you on our channel. But I think uh we're going to be on your channel as well. This is a collaboration that YouTube uh is making possible nowadays, and that's uh that's very exciting. Um, but uh yeah, thank you so much for helping us think through this moment.

SPEAKER_00

Good stuff.