Hello everybody, welcome to the live cast. We're not live, but we are in person because with me in the studio is Paul Feasy. Hello! Woop! Hello! Back in the building. Here I am. Yeah. Back in the studio space. And uh you guys you can't see it now, but on the far side of the studio, we are set up for our new series called Reset. Coming soon. Yeah. Coming soon. All about coming back to the beginning, and uh, we're gonna start in Genesis 4 and move our way backwards to In the Beginning God. And uh we've got some pretty impressive guests. Who have we got? Can you remember some of the people we've got?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, so uh we've got Douglas Murray. Right. We've got John Lennox. Yeah. Uh we've got Tom Holland. Wow. Um so there's some some big names. We've got uh Rupert Sheldrake. Yes, awesome name you spoke to today, actually, didn't you?
SPEAKER_02Professor Rupert Sheldrake, who has invented a scientific concept called um morphic resonance, which is like it's like if that was in Doctor Who, you it would not be out of placement.
SPEAKER_10No, absolutely not. Morphic. Morphic Revenant. Yeah, yeah. So it's gonna be interesting to hear lots from them and those interviews. And then I mean there's other people, Esther O'Reilly, yeah, um, and then Catherine Burble Singh. Right. So, I mean, loads of people, you know, loads of people, probably there'll be names you recognize, some you won't, but there'll be they're all gonna be great.
SPEAKER_02So Christians and non-Christians, uh, because we want to pitch this at those who are noticing that there's a little bit of a meaning crisis, uh, and starting to wonder whether actually the ancient original origin story of the Bible might have something to say to our meaning crisis today. Um, and one of the one of the things we thought we'd do um in our episode today is talk about this kind of phenomenon of people recognizing that Christianity has shaped the West, and therefore um we are more Christian than we think.
SPEAKER_10Yep.
SPEAKER_02So we've come up with um three different representatives of three different kinds of Christian atheism or secular Christianity. And uh we've got Slavoj Zizek, uh, the Slovenian um lecturer, academic. Um we've got uh Douglas Murray, uh, editor of The Spectator and um author of many books, and we've got Tom Holland, author of many books, including Dominion.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um but where should we begin with? I I think we should probably begin with uh Slavoj Zizek. Sure. Um because he he is I I guess he is this kind of impish misanthrope. Um in the mould of Ricky Gervais, I kind of think what is a misanthrope, Glenn?
SPEAKER_10Yes. For those of us that aren't you. Come on, Paul.
SPEAKER_02You you know your Greek. You know Greek.
SPEAKER_10Uh is misanthrope is it's something to do with and with people. Miso is the verb that means uh hate. Oh yeah, hating of people. Right. Yeah, yeah. Anthropology.
SPEAKER_02Philanthrope is a lover of people.
SPEAKER_10Lover, not a hater. Exactly. I'm a philo, not a miso.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Whereas, yeah, uh Slavoy, he's he's an interesting guy. I mean, he's very jolly with it. He's he's kind of a he has a jolly, tragic view of life. Um which I think I think it's very similar to Ricky Gervais in so many ways. Like we've we've played that clip before of um um Unsailable. Come and give us your unpopular opinion. Yeah. Yeah. And what what was what was Gervais's unpopular opinion?
SPEAKER_10Oh, human beings are a plague, and the world would be better if they weren't here. Right. I hope we all die.
SPEAKER_09Right.
SPEAKER_02That is the Ricky Gervais shtick. Yep. Um, that is that is the Slavoj Zizek stick in so many ways. Um, but we thought we'd play you two different clips of the ways in which he has noticed that Christianity has shaped the West. Uh, first, we're gonna have a look at uh a clip taken from uh a kind of a debate stroke dialogue that Zizek did with Jordan Peterson as they debated uh socialism. Um but in the midst of it, he just sort of dropped this truth bomb about what Christianity is really like, and uh I thought it was fascinating.
SPEAKER_00Something unheard of, and I as an atheist accept the spiritual value of it, happens in Christianity. In other religions, you have got up there, we fall from God, and then we try to climb back through spiritual discipline, whatever, uh training, good deeds, and so on and so on. The formula of Christianity is a totally different one. As we philosophers would have put it, uh you don't climb to God. God, you are free in a Christian sense when you discover that the distance that separates you from God is inscribed into God Himself. That's why I agree with those intelligent theologists like my favorite Gilbert Keith Chester, who said that this the cross, the crucifixion, is something absolutely unique because in that moment of Eli Eli Lama Saba God uh Father, why have you abandoned me? For a brief moment, symbolically, God himself becomes an atheist in the sense of you know, you get a gap there. And that is something so absolutely unique.
SPEAKER_02So God himself becomes an atheist at the cross. What do you make of that? Bizarre, quite frankly.
SPEAKER_10So yeah, hard to know what to make of that. I mean it uh it it he's he's in in his identification of the difference of Christianity with other faiths and the idea of other faiths or spirituality say climb up to the top and God and Christianity says no God comes down. Like I mean, he's absolutely bang on there, um, in a in a in a way very clear in a way so clear that he he's more clear on that than lots of people are. Yes, you know, yes, um, who've should you know who've written lots of books about Christianity and who claim to be Christianity. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um but yeah, that's a strange where he goes with that. It's strange. God becomes an atheist. Atheist.
SPEAKER_02Because I mean he points he points to Eli, Eli Lama Savathani. My God, my God, why have you why have you abandoned me? Um which is interesting. I mean, certainly you can say from that that Christ enters into the very depths of our hell, of our curse, of our estrangement, of the judgment of gods. But the fact that he says, My God, my God, yeah, means he hasn't lost faith.
SPEAKER_10No, it doesn't seem like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it's uh it's often pointed out that um I mean psalms were only called Psalm 1, Psalm 2, Psalm 3, like a thousand years ago. Before that, they would just refer to the first line of the Psalm. And when you said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's also the title for Psalm 22. And so it kind of encompasses everything that's going on in Psalm 22, which is an incredible prophecy of the cross. And you've got, you know, my hands and feet have been pierced, and a band of evil men surround me, and they're telling me come down from the cross, and all that kind of like amazing prophecy. But it ends with a note a note of triumph, you know, people in a future generation will say, He did it. Um, so you can go too far with you know the cry of dereliction, as it's called. Yeah, yeah, sure. And you can kind of say, Yeah, like Jesus lost all hope on the cross. He didn't lose all hope on the cross, he was saying, My God, my God. But in the middle of that thing, Zizek says um that the distance between us and God was inscribed into God's own being at the cross. I think that's a pretty that's a pretty cool way of putting it, actually. Yeah, like whatever distance there is between you and God, Jesus has bridged the gulf. The trouble for Zizek is it's kind of like, yeah, you don't climb to God, God comes down and dies. And stays down.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because in another in another video, when he he goes on and he says, Yeah, there is no resurrection. There's a resurrection in the the spirit, right? In the sense, not even in the church, the church is the resurrection, in the power of the spirit, you know, but like Jesus is dead and didn't actually rise in any real way.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, God's gone.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, yeah. And that's what freedom is, that you're now free to do. Yes, you know, just to struggle along by yourself was kind of his thing.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it seems like for I mean, without without the resurrection, you you're totally stuffed, aren't you? I I often say when I'm preaching on the resurrection, like to have a cross without a resurrection would be like you're sinking in quicksand and you say, Somebody help me, and somebody comes to the you know, quicksand says, I'm here to rescue you. They dive in and sink like a stone in front of you.
SPEAKER_10It's a bit like that video of that that truck that drops the boat in the water and falls in, and then the other truck comes to lift it out and falls in. Eventually there's like three lorries all stuck. Right.
SPEAKER_02If there's no one now to lift you out, like you know, and I I loved those, like when I was a child, I used to think that quicksand must be everywhere because like in all these sort of adventure stories.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, yeah, it's true, true.
SPEAKER_02It always happens. You do you know, you see the scene of a guy struggling, struggling, and then cuts away and then cuts back to the guy. You just see a hat. Yeah, he's gone. But like if you're there struggling in quicksand and your rescuer sinks without a trace, um, you're kind of sad for him. You're mainly sad for you though, in that moment. That's true. Um, but I think Zizek, yeah, he feels free. He's like, well, got God off our backs, haven't we? Yeah. It's interesting.
SPEAKER_10It's interesting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So he's got he's got some things right. Um and and as you say, he has identified the difference between Christianity and other other faiths, in that the the direction of travel is not us climbing up to God, but but him coming down to us. And that has built um the Western world in in so many ways, I think. Um and I think we'll we'll see um how that's been shaped in in our next clip. So there's a uh there's a lecture that Zizek um has. You can find it online, we'll put a link in the show notes uh on Christian atheism. And uh he goes into a little bit of a spiel about predestination and how it is that predestination has shaped uh our view of God and virtue and and life. Let's have a look at that.
SPEAKER_00Insight also of the big Protestant topic of predestination. You mean God was simply playing a brutal game with us, he didn't care. God decided in advance you are redeemed, you are lost, totally irrespective of what we are doing. And I think this is the right line. I think that as intelligent Protestants saw it, this Catholic way of linking our salvation to our good works introduces immediately an element of handling, of financial transaction. I see the child drowning, should I do it or not? Well, I may gain salvation, so I do it, why not do it, you know? It makes our good deeds part of a almost, I would say, financial investment into the future, no. But as Luther put put it very intelligently, if there is predestination, then uh the solution is pure goodness. Because you see a child drowning, sorry for this pathetic example, and you know very well that it will not help your salvation in any way if you help the child or not. So it's only goodness that uh it's only goodness that makes you that uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Pure pure goodness as opposed to so if you think you're earning your salvation, what are you what are you going to be walking around the world trying to do?
SPEAKER_10Well, so yeah, and his example there, isn't it, that you you might help the child who's drowning, but it's with that kind of thing in the back of your head going, but this is really for me. Yeah. Because I'm trying to in some way earn my way, climb my way up to God. Um, but when you've had that taken away, that notion that you need to earn your way up, um, and that either you've been, I guess, in he's using the example of predestined, isn't he? So you've been chosen, or I guess we would want to talk more clearly about grace. By grace alone. By grace, yeah, grace alone. You can do those deeds um altruistically, I suppose, is in some sense, you know. Although I'm not sure we'll ever do anything completely altruistically, but yeah, yeah. Um but it frees you from that kind of I'm doing these things. You're doing it for the sake of goodness, you know, be good for goodness' sake, you know. Yeah, it's that thing, isn't it? The Christmas carol, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So and I think that's interesting, isn't it? Because we that that is something that's kind of permeated thought because people are very kind of critical, aren't they? Of people who do things for their own benefit, right? It's like, yeah, well, it might help someone, but really you were doing it to build yourself up or to be seen by others, or yeah, yeah, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_02So we've got a very developed sense that it's just hypocritical to do something to be seen by others. Like, where do we get that sense from? Um, and I and I think Zizek is interesting because he he he obviously will point to to Jesus and and say, you know, have you ever read the Sermon on the Mount? It's it's basically don't do anything for anyone else. You know, we we naturally hide our sins and make our righteousness public. And literally Jesus says, no, no, do the opposite. Sure. Like come clean with your sin and keep your righteousness private, which nobody naturally does. Like we're we're always, you know, self-justifying fools. But it really was the Protestant Reformation that that kind of brought that out, and and Luther in particular saw the the toxicity of self-justification that just winds its way through through every kind of aspect of of your life. Um, but I mean Luther was not really into predestination. I mean he believed in it, but like he was like, like, we don't know about predestination. Let's talk about Jesus, let's talk about the gospel, let's talk about grace alone. So I don't know where Gizek's getting this stuff about. Luther's always on about predestination. Actually, he was always on about like, don't spend too long looking at predestination. You'll go a little bit crazy. Um, but Gizek's is-I mean, one of Luther's great phrases is God does not need your good deeds, your neighbor does. And as soon as you got this understanding that God has closed the gap between heaven and earth, and now I'm totally cool vertically, now the only kind of reason to be good is is horizontally. Like, you know, it's out of a fullness that I flow out to the world. And I think I think it has built built the modern world in so many ways. You know, we've we've got this sense of um even economically, like free grace leads to free markets, and and I think a really good case can be made that um the teaching of Jesus that's been understood by the church is that he gives us talents, which is a you know, you know, currency in the Bible, but it's it's it's you know money that you're not meant to bury, you're meant to actually invest it and pass it on because you've got a generous master. Um and that kind of breaks the the habits of like all civilizations before that, because what people used to do with money was they would either hide it away or they would build great statues to themselves and display it and say, check out my bling, and it was just just for ostentation. And of course, people still do both those things today, but there's a third thing you can do, which Jesus taught and which the Reformation really zeroed in on, is you can actually put it to work, invest it, yeah, get it out there. And so you know, for better or for worse, um capitalism is kind of well yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_10But even even that, even money, you know, people might say people who are scrubbing that money away, they're not doing anything with it. But what we mean by scrolling it away is keeping it in the bank, yeah. Not and that's even that's even that's doing what we're talking about because because the bank take your money, it doesn't just sit in a vault, does it? They no, yeah, yeah, they give it out to others, yeah. To you know, they invest in businesses or whatever to they give a loan, and it kind of works a bit like that, doesn't it? So unless you're sticking it in the mattress, yes, that's you know which people used to do, yeah. Yeah, that's the difference, isn't it? I suppose so yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so it's really that that sense of receiving the free gift and passing it on, and it has built the the modern world in so many ways, and it's built it morally, you know, such that we have this sense that we don't do good to be ostentatious, um, we do good just for the out of the good out of the kindness of the heart, um, which is why I think Ricky Gervais is a great example of like the reason why so much of his comedy works um is because he's doing the opposite of that. Like David Brent is just a selfish so-and-so who loves comic relief because he gets to stand with a big check and get into the local newspaper, you know. And so this clip from Comic Relief is just hilarious, I think.
SPEAKER_04When my brother was in the hospital, the doctor played in this cassette. The doctor was from England and he played this. I keep it because it reminds me of my brother. My brother died. Okay.
SPEAKER_09Alright, we're up to make it just doing one of those quick relief appeals to Africa. You like Africa's BBC television technique. You can't fake being in Africa. Yeah, get a blue screen, right? Pop the hat up of your uncle. Obviously, technically you can fake it, I mean that you can't fake it morally. Right. I'm not going to go to a country where you need injections to get into. That's a good holiday. Also, you get just as good publicity faking it as actually going there, so everyone's a winner.
SPEAKER_02What a monster. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Good stuff, though. I do enjoy that it is that first kind of section. There was a first section of it where you're going, is this a genuine thing? And you're like, oh, it's not genuine.
SPEAKER_02Like, am I meant to feel something?
SPEAKER_10Am I watching an actual segment from comic relief?
SPEAKER_02Or am I chuckling at a real genuine tragedy? Am I as much of a misanthrope as Ricky Javose? No. Um, but yeah, that that idea that you do stuff just to be seen to be doing it. Like, totally commonplace in the Roman world. Like, totally totally commonplace, like in all these other worldviews, and then you get Jesus and says, Don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing. Do it in secret. Your father knows what you're what you're doing in secret. Yeah, you your father's cool with you. So now out you go. So I I think to that degree, Zhizek has put his finger on on some things that have built the modern world, and they are distinctively Christian.
SPEAKER_10Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02But let's uh move on to another Christian atheist. And um, yeah, Douglas Murray uh often uh self-identifies as as a Christian atheist. He used to be a Christian Christian and then in his twenties kind of walked away from uh an Anglican faith. But I wonder, I wonder, yeah, where that journey will take him. Um because he recognizes absolutely that where we've come from is very distinctively Christian.
SPEAKER_08Something incredibly deep has happened underneath our societies, which we're in if not in denial about, we don't face up to, which is we're we're living at a stage where we might be among the first people in human history to have absolutely no explanation for what we're doing here. And no story to tell about what we should do. It's very hard to live as a complete nihilist. It's very hard to live as somebody who actually believes that there's absolutely no purpose to what we're doing. Now, the the the the the crossroads then is are we hardwired to believe there is meaning and there is meaning? Or are we simply meaning-searching beings and there may be no meaning? Now, if we are meaning-seeking beings, it's probably a very bad idea to say we are meaning-seeking beings and there is no meaning. Something intrinsic in us tells us that our lives are not as purposeless as that. What is what are we doing? And the only thing that can answer that as I see it are religions. That doesn't mean that religions are true. It doesn't mean that specific religions are true, but there's no doubt about it. I completely concede the point that the only thing that can address that fully is going to be religion. There are things which atheists miss and are, I think, very worried about admitting that they miss. The uh German philosopher who uh Rowan Williams has already quite quoted tonight, Jürgen Habermas, coined the term a few years ago. A beautiful term, it's worth bearing in mind. He said it's it he wrote an essay called The Awareness of What is Missing. It just posits the fact that in the secular state, an atheist mindset, there are some things you miss. And the non-religious very rarely want to mention this. But there are things that they miss. If we were to get rid of religion entirely in the 21st century, very many people, not only themselves, would miss it very deeply, but there would be all sorts of questions which people have in their lives, which would remain, if not completely unanswered, then answered incredibly quietly. Secularism and atheism have all sorts of truths to argue, but their voice is very quiet on many things that matter to many people. The voice of atheism is at least quiet in the face of death, in the face of human tragedy, of suffering. It has very little to say to people who seek, for instance, some kind of reconciliation or forgiveness or repentance, all sorts of things which religious traditions have addressed. Believe it is true or not, religion provided, and I would say provides and will provide in the future, an opportunity for people to ask serious questions about themselves, ask serious questions about the universe and their existence. He says in Church, a serious house on serious earth this is, wherein all blend in whose blend uh all our compulsions meet. Richard Dawkins said at the very opening, is it true? That was what you you said you wanted to address. No. And yes. No, it is not true. It is not literally true. But can religion carry truth? Yes. Schopenhauer says in his dialogue on religion, he says truth may be like water. It needs a vessel to carry it. We don't have very many vessels. And if you believe that we can go into the 21st century not only saying we don't need a vessel ourselves, but nobody else should have one, I don't believe that would be a period of greater understanding. Even if people aren't believers, there are things they can learn from religion and from tradition. And I've always thought that the um I've always thought there's one central insight to the Judeo-Christian uh tradition, which I wish that the social justice warriors bore in mind, and that is that's the Garden of Eden and and and the the the what Kant would call the crooked timber of humanity. Just to recognize the central truth which is in that tradition and in others, that that we we're not born in this situation of Rousseauan uh perfection uh or goodness, but quite quite otherwise, we are we are this very, very uh uh contorted being uh which is pot which is capable of incredible greatness and beauty and kindness and forgiveness, and also capable of their opposites. And that's and that it's not it's not that you are one and other people are the other, but all of us, all of us uh uh are both all the time. And so there never is a victory and there never is a win, other than trying to uh deal with and restrain your own worst impulses in the life that you have. I mean, I'm not asking people to be believing Christians, I'm not a believing Christian. Um, but uh one of the things I say is that we are Christians anyway, whether we like it or not, and we're probably finding that out at the moment. I mean, where the hell do people think that human rights came from? We still have a lot of the structure of the Christian faith and the Judeo-Christian religion, but without the answers that it provides. So that we have all of the thing of guilt, but there is no way to alleviate guilt. There is no redemption. There is only the guilt. It's totally shallow. Who says, God, I just can't wait to lead my tolerant, diverse life? It answers none of the questions which we as people, as human beings and as souls ask. And so we uh we have this strange thing where the culture says nothing to you and uh uh uh it it has no no reason for what we're doing. I don't say it because of any prosmatizing desire. God knows. But but I think you cannot take Christianity out of the West and have anything that's recognized to be the West. Because, as I've often said, uh citing the radical atheist priest, theolog theologian Don Cupid, even the dreams we dream are still Christian dreams.
SPEAKER_01Th there are a lot of people who say, well, I'm totally opposed to what Islam's doing, and then they suddenly, but they say I'm a secular, rational atheist.
SPEAKER_08No, they're they're a secular, rational Christian atheist. Right, right. They ne they may not want to be, but they are. Yeah. They still dream Christian dreams. Yeah. They still have Christian thoughts and impulses.
SPEAKER_02So whether we like it or not, we're Christians, I guess. Um and he would say that to an incredibly secular audience and people who would consider themselves to be atheists. Um, but he would say, No, you're well, yes, you're an atheist. You're a Christian atheist.
SPEAKER_10Um and they the like the the things that you they hold on to, such as the human rights thing, right? He's saying, well, that is an inherently Christian belief, that has come from Christian things. And if so if you if you if you want to cling to human rights, um you are you are clinging to a Christian worldview, even if you've chucked away Christ and God. And um I think that's the interesting thing, you know, is is that is both uh with uh Murray and Slavozh is that um there there's a sense isn't there that it's so it's so deep in our culture that we almost don't see it. Yes. You know, yes. It it it it's so obvious, you know, you can you can't see the forest for the trees kind of thing. Yeah. Um bit of that. Um you must have seen the video probably, you know, where they say there's the white team and the black team, and they're gonna count how many times the the white team. Yeah, Glenn.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, sorry, sorry gave it away.
SPEAKER_10You know, and they say, you know, say watch the video, watch the white team, how many times do they pass the ball, and then you do it and you kind of go, Oh, I think it was 16 or something, and then they go, but it says at the end, Did you see the dancing gorilla? And you're like, What are you talking about? Yeah, and then you watch it back, and actually this guy dances through the middle of the thing dressed as a gorilla, like right in the bang smack in the middle of the frame, not even like hidden, yeah, but you didn't notice because you weren't focused on it, and again, it's that thing, it's so much in plain sight, you know. You know, people some people would really rile against this kind of thing, wouldn't they? They say, Oh no, I'm not a Christian, like I think Christian is terrible, and and and there's another clip we've got of Murray that we've used in something else where the guy says, like, I think Christian Christianity is the enemy of the West. And Murray basically says, like, well, if you take Christianity Christianity out of the West, what you've got left isn't recognizably the West. Yeah. But you know, it's so it is the kind of the water we swim in, you know, so much so that you're almost oblivious to it, or people are oblivious to it. Yeah. And pointing out to people, yeah, you know, that this is actually a Christian thing is kind of news to people, really. Right. They assume it's a universal, right?
SPEAKER_02You know, which itself is testimony to how Christian they are. Like they think it's a universal. Like, why why do you think the whole world operates according to this logos, you know, this this understanding, this meaning, this, you know. Um, yeah, even you know, even our criticisms of Christianity are are Christian, you know. Um, you know, I mean and we're thinking about things like human rights, which um which it's true to say, if we step away from that belief, um we step away from civilization as we know it, um, to think that somebody possesses dignity and value simply because they're a member of the human family, not because of anything they contribute. Um that's that's just being a nice person, right? That's just that's just the foundation of morality. And you're like, well, that's that's not what other peoples have thought in the past.
SPEAKER_10It's the assumptions thing, isn't it, that people just assume well people who are who would not identify as Christians will assume of course everybody has a value, everybody's equal, and then you kind of pick away and you want to say, okay, but you know, I can say that because as a Christian I believe people are made in the image of God, and therefore there is that kind of uh divine, you know, dignity about all people. So that's my foundation. What's your foundation? Yeah, you know, and that's when you you can try and chip away. That's why I find this stuff really interesting, because it's it it is really kind of questioning people's foundations and assumptions. Yeah. Um, and I think sometimes in our discussions with non-Christians, we almost start too far along the line, you know, and sometimes it's just winding it back and say, you know, people might ask us a question, and actually sometimes it's better to come back with a with a question, very Christ-like anyway, yeah. And to say, okay, but you know, you're you're saying about maybe they're asking you something about isn't it bad that this happens or where do you get that concept of good or bad or you know, or that these people deserve X, Y, and Z. Yes. Just trying to unpick stuff like that. Um the interesting thing, I mean, I think that's the interesting thing is that's kind of something that's happening here in the West, isn't it? That as people people have wanted, I suppose, for quite a while, to have the Christian values without Christ. Right. And that's kind of been okay for a while.
SPEAKER_11That's kind of just about limps along. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10But it seems like we're at a phase where that's beginning to fall apart a little bit because people are kind of going, but if we what why? Why should I believe that these you know these people are equal or that, this, that, and the other if there's no real foundation.
SPEAKER_02Right. Um Right. And it it seems like, I mean, what Douglas Murray might say in a book like The The Madness of Crowds is that we've got these hyper-Christian ideas of equality, diversity, inclusion, which um are precious ideas when grounded in you know a larger story. Um, but when they're just sort of taken out of the Christian story, and then it just becomes, you know, identity politics and intersectionality and and the oppression Olympics and all this all this kind of stuff that Douglas Murray would say is tearing us apart. Uh, in a sense, it's it's it's hy hyper-Christian, you know, it's woke, right? And what is it to be woke? It's it's to be awakened, it's another great awakening, it's a it's a spiritual movement, it's reformation, as Tom Holland would say.
SPEAKER_10The scales fell from my eyes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Educate yourself, go you know, come back to the light, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, be it be awakened to this spiritual renewal that's gonna convulse society and bring about new birth. Um and and yet there is it's the it's the kingdom without a king. Um and Douglas Murray is is very worried, and a lot of people are very worried, that we're just gonna tear ourselves over nothing and tear ourselves apart and then have nothing as a center, you know, to hold us. Because something like equality, diversity, inclusion, it's great medicine, it's terrible food. You know, you need you need something far more solid. And um, I'm gonna ask Douglas Murray in our interview, in just a few minutes, in fact, I'm gonna be interviewing him and and asking him, you know, what is your hope for actually depoliticizing people? Because he wants to, you know, let's let's stop being so caught up in identity politics. Let's let's find a different you know center to our lives, let's unite around something. You're like, okay, what? Because we've we've got this story that did build the West and it did a good job of it. Maybe maybe we need to get back to it.
SPEAKER_10Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02So we'll see what happens on on Douglas's journey. Um, but the third person we wanted to have a look at uh when it comes to Christian atheism, um, is to speak of the secular historian Tom Holland and to figure out what's going on uh with him because he seems to be making a a journey in in a different direction to Douglas Murray. Um it's his investigation into the culture of the West and the water that we all swim in that actually led him back to some very uh Christian distinctives. Let's have a look at uh a couple of clips. Uh, the first of which is where he explains to Tom Wright um his journey to figuring out where our values in the West come from. And then in our second clip, we're gonna have a look at him to A.C. Grayling, uh, who challenges him to uh talk about what is it that Christianity has distinctively given to the West. Can you name just one thing? Yeah, Tom Holland can name more than one thing.
SPEAKER_07Cicero's great contemporary Caesar is, by some accounts, slaughtering a million ghouls and enslaving another million in the cause of boosting his political career. And far from feeling in any way embarrassed about this, he's kind of promoting it. And so when he holds his triumph, people are going through the streets of Rome carrying billboards, boasting about how many people he's killed. And this is this is a really terrifyingly alien world. And the more you look at it, the more you realize that it is built on systematic exploitation. Um, so the entire economy is founded on slave labor. Right. The the sexual economy is founded on the absolute right of free Roman males to have sex with anyone that they want, any way that they like. And in almost every way, this is a world that is unspeakably cruel to our way of thinking. And so this worried me more and more. And it was kind of like I was thinking, well, you know, where I I'm clearly not, as I'd vaguely imagined, the heir of the Greeks and the Romans in any way, really. And and so where am I coming from? And it was like a kind of itch, you know, you get up on your back and you say, but you can't find it. And this was then enhanced for me by then writing a book about the about late antiquity and the emergence of Islam from the the late religious con the religious and imperial context of late antiquity, and again finding in Islam a a profound quality of the alien. That you know, there were aspects of Islam that were very familiar, but there were many aspects of it that again seemed deeply, deeply alien. And I began to realise that actually, in it in almost every way I am Christian. And I began to realize that actually Paul, although in many ways he seems a much less familiar figure than Cicero, the kind of you know, a bane man with his property problems. Uh you know, Paul never had any property, he just made made tens. Um, the the the that in almost every the you know the what is it, seven that is the seven letters that are conventionally people absolutely accept. As Tom Wright was saying, you know, this is not a very lengthy amount of writing. But compacted into this very, very small amount of writing was almost everything that explains the modern world. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_05Well, the Western world, as we take for granted. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_07Yes, but also the way that the West has then moved on to shape concepts like international law, for instance. So the th the the the the the fact the bait you know the concepts of human rights, all these kind of things, ultimately they don't go back to Greek philosophers, they don't go back to Roman imperialism. They ri they go back to Paul. His letters, his letters, I think, are along with the the the the the four Gospels the most influential, the most impactful, the most revolutionary writings that have emerged from the ancient world.
SPEAKER_05When when you penned that that that article, I think it was for the uh New Statesman where you said what I got wrong and and you you sort of came out as it were and said, uh as far as my values and you know background are concerned, I am a Christian. Um it was interesting to see the response to that because I saw lots of atheists and humanists saying, Oh, hang on, you know, we democracy that goes back to the Greeks. You know, that's don't pretend that Christianity gave us everything we're grateful for. But you honestly think that actually people simply haven't appreciated just how much we owe to Christianity.
SPEAKER_07I think I think um I mean if we're talking of Paul, I think of him as a kind of depth charge, deep beneath the foundations of the classical world. And you know, it's it's not anything that you particularly notice if you're you know in Corinth or Alexandria. And then you start feeling this kind of rippling outwards. And you know by the time you get to the 11th century in in in Latin Christendom, everything has changed. And you have this gr I I I I I think essentially what's Paul's significance is, is that he sets up ripple effects of revolution throughout Western history. So the 11th century, where with the Papal Revolution, essentially it establishes um this idea that society has to be reborn, reconfigured, that vested interests have to be torn down. And then the Reformation, what we call the Reformation, is a further ripple effect of that, and the Enlightenment is a further ripple effect of that. And that's very interesting. You know, it it's spilled out so much that now in the 21st century we don't even realize where these ripple effects are coming from. We just take them for granted.
SPEAKER_06I I would ask Tom this, and this is a a surprising question, maybe, to nominate for me one thing, just one thing, that Christianity has introduced that doesn't have some source, some parallel, some analogy in in previous and in other civilizations. One novelty, one innovation in thinking about anything, ethical, metaphysical, or anything you like. And I must say I've racked my brains over this uh often enough, and I cannot think of one, and we'd love to hear if there is one. Do you accept that challenge?
SPEAKER_07Absolutely. I think the um the the ideal of of lifelong uh matrimony, I think that's a a very distinctive Christian concept. I think the the category of of what by the 19th century is coming to be categorized as as homosexuality and heterosexuality, I think they have no precedence. I think the notion of secularism, the idea of there being religions, I think all these are entirely exclusive to uh Christian civilization. I think the concept of science as it emerges in the 19th century, I think, is entirely exclusive to uh to Christian civilization. I think the idea that um human beings are created in the image of God, that is obviously something that Christians share share with uh with Jews. But that is a uh it it uh gives a degree of dignity to human beings that no other cultural tradition that I'm aware of even remotely approximates to. So I think that all of those are essentially what I'm talking in giving that is I am talking about what makes Western civilization distinctive. And one of the things that absolutely makes Western civilization distinctive, and it's an inheritance of its Christian past, is its assumption that its values are universal. This has been fundamental to the way that Christians have understood their faith, that it is for all of humanity. And to this day, the heirs of that cultural tradition want to believe that their values are not contingent, but somehow are the property of all humanity.
SPEAKER_10So um yeah, I I always enjoy that clip because it it always reminds me so much of um the life of Brian. Yeah, but what have the Romans ever done for us? Oh well, there's the aqueduct, isn't it? Yeah, but apart from the roads, like apart from the aqueduct and the roads. It's just like that, isn't it? I'd like just one thing. Give me one thing in any realm and he kind of where he delves deeply isn't he metaphysical anything, yeah, and uh and Tom's just like bang, bang, bang.
SPEAKER_02And he gives seven, which is such a Christian answer.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, yeah, so uh yeah, brilliant to to kind of watch. But um yeah, I mean Tom Holmes's another one, isn't he? Who's you know, through his uh well, his book Dominion uh of late has has kind of just shown how uh everything that we hold dear in the West is pretty much built upon Christian values, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um so what do we do with that, you know, in in our own personal witness to people? Um how do we how do we make use of Slavoi or Douglas or Tom? Um what what are some of the moves that we can make in in making Christianity both appealing to people and and and calling them to Christ?
SPEAKER_10I th I mean I think I mean I'm sure there's lots of ways, and maybe some of it touched upon earlier, it's just there's there's a lot of assumptions that where people will assume hey, we're just to be good, nice people and love other people and be kind, and of course, people are valuable. And equal and stuff. And you go, okay, I agree with you. But what is your basis for that? Yeah. Because it seems to me that you've taken the basis out of it. And I think there's there's there's another part of um another interview Tom Holland does with James Delling poll where he says something at the same but I think the same thing he said in his interview with you. Once you've got rid of those foundations, you say to someone, you know, someone says does something terrible and you turn around and say, Hey, I think what you've I think that what you said is racist. And that person goes around turns around and says, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a racist.
SPEAKER_11Yeah.
SPEAKER_10So what? Yeah. Like if you've got no foundation to kind of say what is good and what's not, what's right and what's wrong, or that all people are valuable regardless of race or gender or whatever, it's quite difficult to actually come back at that and condemn someone for it.
SPEAKER_11Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Um, you've kind of got no recourse for that. Yeah. Um and so it's kind of, yeah, I think it's it's helping people to see that you know, you you already believe a lot of Christian things. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_10You all yeah, that maybe that's the way you you already believe a lot of Christian things, probably without even realizing it.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_10And you can't just keep on believing that without Jesus. Because when you say that way, the foundation falls apart.
SPEAKER_11Right, right.
SPEAKER_10And you've got no and and I I'm sure maybe you can come, you could say to people, here's an example, you know, why you you and I think this is wrong, but why is it wrong?
SPEAKER_02Um, in the interview I did with Tom, he he talked about how like if you believe that the evolutionary process was always aiming to get us to the stage where we'd write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that that is as theological, you know, belief. You know, if if you think that human rights are out there in the ether, in the ether, and that we have somehow evolved to kind of correspond to this Platonic ideal called human rights, that is as theological a claim as that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father. And what's fascinating is that so many people say, Oh, I don't have the faith to believe in Jesus. And you're like, Well, you've got you've got the faith to believe in all sorts of stuff, right? What but what it is that you're believing in actually has no foundation. Like you kind of believe in that belief, but why do you believe in that belief? Um, so we're all dealing in in beliefs, and for some people who say, Um, I I believe in the metaphorical truth of the Christian story, but just not the metaphysical realities. That's that's quite a common thing that's said by, you know, like Brett Weinstein, for instance, will talk about this metap metaphorical truth to religion. Douglas Murray will talk about this metaphorical truth to religion. It's not true, but it is true. Um but at that stage, if you're going to wager your life on living in a cross-shaped way, you know, if if you're going to keep your righteousness hidden and pour yourself out for the poor and the vulnerable and the weak, um, and if you're gonna if you're going to identify with the oppressed and not with the oppressor, why are you gonna do that? Like if you are just worm food in 70 years' time, like why would you do that? If you're just this biological, you know, this bag of protoplasm? Why why would you why would you walk the Jesus way without having faith in the you know the resurrection that vindicates that way and and will raise you up? In in that sense, they've got more faith than I've got, you know. They've got you know, they're they're living, they're living out kind of the ethic of Jesus, but without the without the reality behind it and without the hope of the resurrection. So, yeah.
SPEAKER_10Doesn't Tom Holland draw an interesting comparison? I try to think what the two things he compares are. One of them was environmentalism, and I can't remember exactly what he pitted it against. But he was kind of saying I think it was just against this idea of you know everyone being valuable and yeah, you know, kind of having this dignity that we all kind of agree that, but yet interestingly, he talked about environmentalism and like how people are actually bad for the planet. If you're a plague, as Ricky Gervais is taught. Exactly, it's very much like the Ricky Gervais thing, yeah. And you know, the the the best thing we could do for the environment if people are having this terrible impact would be just get rid of the people, yeah. Um, but of course, the there are voices in the environmental side of things who would say that, but they're very much on the fringes, and we look at that and go, no, no, no, no, no. Like it's it's a bad thing.
SPEAKER_11Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Um and but he was saying, you know, you've kind of got these these things that are playing against each other, but we kind of know that like just getting rid of all human beings is a bad thing, right? Because we because we do have this this thing ingrained in us that there is human dignity and value in all lives. Right. Um just pulls out lots of little things. Yeah. You kind of go, oh, that's really interesting. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's so deep in us. But yeah, totally. But I I I think it's it's said more and more boldly by environmentalists. I mean, certainly to the point where just don't have another kid, right? Don't because that kid will impact your carbon footprint more than you know more more than never going on holiday again and stay Asians forever.
SPEAKER_10Um well, and the thing that I suppose not just in environmentalism, but just in general, another thing he pulls out about how we've been so influenced by the Christian world is the idea of how you treat the the ones who don't agree with you, the heretic. Yes. You know, and how you know Christians obviously get a lot of flack for what has happened over the years in terms of there's there's an there's those who believe the right things and those who don't, and those who don't are the heretics, and they end up being burnt or whatever. And people go, Oh, look what Christians have done, they've done these terrible things. But yet that idea of there being the right thing, and you you punish those on the outside in some way, it comes through, he said, like the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the culture wars of today. So actually, you see it all the time on Twitter, like everyone's saying, like, hey, we we should be loving and tolerant of people and inclusive, but you're a hateful bigot, punch a Nazi, let's do this, kill them, dox them, you know. Yeah, I don't care if so and so dies, you know. Yeah, and it's all that thing about like, and then he says, even that he's kind of saying has come out of this idea that there's a uh a truth that is truth for everyone. Yeah, the reality, you know, there is the real truth, and then there are those who are going against that. Um so even that's fascinating to see, like what he says there.
SPEAKER_02Which is why I uh yeah, getting back to a doctrine of original sin, which Tom Holland kind of talks about as well, is is so important as well. The baddie is within me, yeah, not just the guy over there who I need to you know exclude. Um, but yeah, I mean, all of this stuff I think helps when you're talking to someone who says, I just couldn't believe, I could never believe the Christian truth claims. And you're just like, you believe so many metaphysical truth claims that actually don't make sense without the actual physical resurrection of Jesus. And Paul Vanderclay is um he's often you know called the pastor to the intellectual dark web. He's got a great YouTube channel commenting on Jordan Peterson and and loads of other people like him. Um but he he just made this throwaway line in one video, and I'm I'm not sure he said it again, but I'm I've been thinking about it for the last like year or two. Um he said, if the resurrection is true, it's true at every level of analysis. Um and what he meant by that is um a Jordan Peterson type person will say, you know, expend yourself, speak the truth, and even though they crucify you for it's who knows, you know, something might this this is the way of virtue, this is the way forward. Um and he kind of he he would in that instance want you to live in a quite Christian way. Um, and people who have taken his words on faith and lived in that in that way are kind of living lives of faith, um, and trusting that that there is some way forward in in doing that. Um and I'm I'm I'm just wanting to say to such people, you are living out a Christian kind of a life and almost a Christian belief in resurrection. Um but if if that is really true, and you're staking your life on it, if if that is really true, then it's going to be true at every level of analysis. And so it's not just metaphorically true, it's also metaphysically true, it's also historically true. Um, this really is Christ's universe, and one of the evidences that this is Christ's universe is the way in which he has built the world, just like he said he would. You know, I I just I just find it fascinating. You you go to Matthew 16, for instance, and Jesus is like, Yeah, I'm gonna build my kingdom on on this guy, Peter, and his proclamation of me as the Christ, and the gates of hell won't even, you know, make a dent on our kingdom. In fact, we're gonna overrun the gates of hell. Yeah, says this like retired carpenter, age 33, to a bunch of losers. And he says, Peter's gonna be my spokesman, yeah, we're gonna take over the world. Like, you're not gonna take but he did. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But he totally did it, and then like the other parable I'm always thinking of is is um Mark chapter four. Um, having talked about the parable, the the the scattered seed across all the different soil types, and you know, the birds at the beginning of Mark chapter four are like identify with Satan, evil, you know, opposed to Christ, and they gobble up the seed. Um, but he keeps sowing the seed and the kingdom grows, and then he tells another couple of you know parables about this growing kingdom that's going to take over the world. And then he he talks, it's it's like the mustard seed that's the smallest seed, and it grows into the biggest plant, and even the birds perch in the branches of this this growing seed. So that which you know began opposing the the word ends up somehow like inhabiting the world that Christ has built, you know. And I I do see that as as kind of speaking to the ways in which like everybody's far more Christian than they think, even those who think themselves of themselves as opposed to Christ and the Word of Christ, they're sitting on uh they're sitting on a branch of the tree that Christ grew. And again, he's he's speaking that parable in his early 30s, you know. And the reason why he doesn't get out of his early 30s is he's crucified as a blasphemer and a criminal. Um, why how on earth has he built the modern world?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I mean, that's the interesting thing to think about, isn't it? That when we look at the things Jesus says, we kind of go, it to us, we it seems self-evident that these are good and right things. Yeah, but when he said it in his day, this was blasphemous and terrible, and we had to get rid of him. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, nuts.
SPEAKER_10Nuts. You know, it was that countercultural. Yeah. It wasn't that the Romans were living like this anyway, or that you know the Roman Empire was that way, and so on.
SPEAKER_11Right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Which is why Zizek and his stuff on the cross is um it it does bring you up short, and it's helpful as a Christian to see the cross again through Zizek's eyes. When he talks about, you know, Christ became an atheist. I don't think he became an atheist, but he's he's pointing to like the radical nature of Jesus doing something totally different. And the fact that we've like completely pacified the cross and domesticated it just shows what a revolution it's done on us.
SPEAKER_10Well, and Tom Holland, again, he talks about in the Delling Pole interview about the being in, I can't remember exactly where he was, but where IS were not far from and see where he was, and they were actually crosses up. Kinja or something, yeah. Something like that. And there were there were crosses that had were up that had been used weeks before to crucify men. Yeah. And he said, you know, every time we see the cross, we just think of the cross as this kind of symbol of hope, you know, it's on an ambulance or whatever it is, you know, it's it's it's this or or or or the actual cross, kind of this symbol of life and things in the yeah. And he said, and then he was confronted with the idea of the cross without any of that, right? Actually as a weapon of torture and execution. And he said, and that's just that's a very terrifying world. But I mean, that's just not how we see it at all. Yeah. Because again, we're so in the Christian world.
SPEAKER_02Right, you know. Right. That of course the strong should serve the weak, and of course you should sacrifice, and of course a king should put himself under the law and like, what? No, it's only because he did that. Yeah. So you go back to that that you know, there is the crucifixion, there is the Roman centurion with a spear thrusting it up into the Son of God's side, and and like on either end of that spear are two totally different visions of power. You know, you've got the the centurion who is the emissary of Roman power, who will crush the opposition and crush that which is weak. And then you've got Christ, the victim, and you're like, who does the world belong to? Belongs to Jesus, and history has borne that out. You know, lots of things bear that out. Scripture bears it out, you know, reason I would say bears it out, all sorts of things, but but history bears it out.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. There's no where there's no Roman Empire now.
SPEAKER_02Right. Right, yeah, and Jesus, Jesus is Lord. Uh well, we hope that's uh been helpful for you as you think through uh talking to your friends. They are far more believing than they might believe themselves to be. Uh so let's keep uh talking about where all these things come from. Let's keep talking about Jesus. Well, stay tuned for more about Reset. Uh, we're gonna have some fantastic interviews for you. Uh, if you're not subscribed already to our YouTube channel, we are Speak Life Media on YouTube, we are Speak Life UK on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. Uh, do uh keep up with us because I'm sure you're gonna want to hear more uh about this uh very exciting series. But uh it's great to be in person, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, really good to be back in the in the building, back in the saddle, and uh we'll see you again next week. God bless. Take care.