Hello and welcome to the live cast where today we are discussing surrendering to the story. Hi, my name is Glenn Scrivener, and uh joined as ever from Crowbra today is the ever lovely Paul Feasy.
SPEAKER_01Greetings, hello. I'm not feeling very lovely, if I'm honest. Really? How are you feeling? Yeah, not too bad, but I'm I'm coming up, yeah, coming out of um whatever this is that I've got, but um feeling we're gonna be able to do that. We are unsure what you have tough. Yes. And what are we awaiting test results?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It could be the big one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it seems very unlikely. If it is a big one, I've had it distinctive, uh distinctly mildly, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_03So yes, we're we're all voting that you're gonna get negative. I think I think you know it's it's it seems obvious to us that you're negative. All you've got negative written all over you.
SPEAKER_01All the evidence has been there for many years.
SPEAKER_03So it will be nice to get medical confirmation, actually. We'll we'll frame it and put it up in the in the studio. So yeah, neither of us are in the studio because uh one of our other team members actually did test positive. Um, and so we are now isolating until well, many of us are isolating until Wednesday, which will be two weeks from the day uh when we were last uh together with him. But uh he is doing absolutely fine, and everybody else is doing absolutely fine um at speak life. Uh thank you guys uh for all your interest and uh thank you so much for um all the traffic we're getting online. It's been very exciting. I I guess two weekends ago we broke the 10,000 subscriber mark um on YouTube, and then last weekend we broke the 11,000, and then this weekend we broke the 12,000. So um things are hotting up on YouTube, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. It seems to be going very quickly, doesn't it, all of a sudden?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Very exciting.
SPEAKER_03So getting lots of lots of people viewing and uh lots of people commenting as well. Um so let's do a little bit of uh mailbag before we dive down into our Tom Holland interview, which we released about nine days ago, and discuss uh what he means by surrendering to the Christian story. But uh what what kind of uh what kind of correspondence have we had, Paul?
SPEAKER_01Uh absolutely well I th I think uh the most important one obviously to talk about is an email that I received personally. Um although it was addressed to both of us, and I shall read it to you now. Paul and Giglain, I love your videos. I don't give a Baldy. I'm from Nor N Iron. Is that how you say it? Normally, yeah. I was really is that what they mean?
SPEAKER_03Nor and Iron. A Baldy or Noran Ireland. Nor and Ireland means is the Northern Irish way of saying Northern Ireland. Yeah. Oh really? Okay, yeah, it was a place. My way of my way is just of going har har har hoi har hoy, har hoy. You know I love you guys.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, this person says, I don't give a baldy either whether Glenn wears a cardi or not. My hubby has some great cardis. At least Glenn's has some colour in it. Please, Paul, get yourself a cardi or a sweatshirt with colour so we can see you. I almost lost you in the bleak dark background with your rather bleak dark hoodie. Just so negative. You've always been negative, Paul. I was like, man, this is what I need, you know, in a week where you know the kids are off school. Yeah, yeah. You know, we're sick has struck the feasy household. Taking children for testing. I'm getting tested, and now I've got to worry about the colour of my jumpers. You know, I deliberately put on this before we started this. This is the this is the most colourful jumper I have.
SPEAKER_03And you're very backfit as well. So you yeah, yeah, just you're popping from your background. I like that.
SPEAKER_01I apologize for my bleak, dark demeanor that I've done.
SPEAKER_03I love that they emailed you. They emailed you. That's brilliant. The most the most personal social media feedback I've ever had was when I was um blogging back in the day. Do you remember blogging kids? Um ask, ask your granddad what blogging was. But I I wrote this um thing about um Richard Dawkins who said something silly, and I said, I said this was a silly thing to say. Uh surely not. And I know, I know. And and um so this is when I was on staff at All Souls Eastbourne. I still go to that church, but um, this is while I was still working at All Souls Eastbourne. Somebody had put um a note into the collection plate that gets passed around on a Sunday. And it was a handwritten note, and it just said, Richard Dawkins is not, capital letters not, underlined, underlined, a silly man exclamation. And it wasn't addressed to anybody. The church treasurer kind of called me on Monday and said, Do you know what this you know message is all about? And literally, someone someone had like tracked me down. They knew that I went to this church.
SPEAKER_01They must have gone on a Sunday, and instead of putting anything in the plate on the Sunday, wow they put real commitment to the cause right there. Yeah, like instead of actually just flaming you in the comments, like no, I'll come to your church. I know where you worship. I'm not gonna speak to you, but I'll I know what you worship. That is brilliant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. So that's that's my favorite kind of mailbag mailbag. Um my my least favorite uh social media interaction, I think, was just this weekend. With somebody um, somebody who I kind of know and sort of follow from a distance. Um, and I I quite enjoy his writings at times. Um, but somebody tagged him in a tweet that I had made and said, Hey, so-and-so, what do you make of Glenn Scrivener's tweet? And he said, Oh, I find it tiresome when people say X, Y, and Z. And so this is like the first thing I get. Like, like I'm waking up on Saturday morning, and don't worry, I I got into my Bible first and I had my breakfast and I spent some quality time with the children. But then when I got onto my Twitter, the first thing I get is this tweet that you know calls me tiresome from somebody I quite respect. Um, so how do you respond? I just I just tweeted back a little gif of like a child with a single tear coming down his cheek, like to express the you know the sadness that I had that you know somebody I respected. Yeah, man, that stings. Yeah. And then he tweeted back and he said, That has to be the most passive aggressive tweet I have ever received in my life. And that's saying something.
SPEAKER_02It's like, dude, I was just trying to make light of the fact that you called my thing tiresome. Anyway, have a great day.
SPEAKER_03Um, apparently he wasn't having a great day, but oh well. No, it all got smoothed over in the end. After I insisted like two or three times that no, seriously, it was just a little joke. I was just trying to make a good-humored kind of response to the fact that you called me tiresome, but you know, hey. And eventually said, okay, fine, I will I will I will trust your self-report about what your motivation was. Um, which I do think is a good rule of thumb. If you're on social media, kind of just assume the person means what they say they mean when they when they tweet something. But anyway, a little a little lesson about social media interactions. Any anything else from the mailbag, Paul?
SPEAKER_01So on the Tom Holland interview, someone said, like Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland is arguing what, as a Christian, I've always believed the Christian message contains riches and comforts that transcend what pure rationality can comprehend. The answers to the existential questions of life presented by the Bible are far more profound than the barren and ultimately nihilistic perspectives of postmodernism postmodernism. Will the church awake, appreciate what great treasures it holds, and turn back to its source? There you go. I thought that was a good one there. Um I thought it was good just because not only is it he's obviously picking up on the good stuff Tom's saying, but um I think that bit at the end there is something Tom had said. Tom Tom was a little bit scathing about the church's response to things recently. Actually, Douglas Murray has been a little was a little bit kind. I think did he actually say like that the church were being quite cowardly was of late? Yes. Um so there's a sense in which you know it's interesting that the people calling the church to be the church are not necessarily people who are embedded in the church correctly or at all. Right. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03And that could tick us off a little bit. You know, you could think, well, you know, at our church we have amazing Zoom calls. They they should tune in, or you know, like um, and and that's probably true. And and you know, may maybe your church is do just doing the most stellar job of responding to coronavirus and the lockdown and all of that. Um, but it's worth at times just taking the temperature of those who are well-wishers who are from the outside and looking in. And as as Tom said a number of times, he says, I'm just speaking for myself, and maybe I didn't look hard enough to find good expressions of church in 2020. And he made a joke, you know, I've been playing cricket all summer, even on the Sabbath. Um, so you know, I it it might just be me, it might just be that I haven't found those expressions that I'm looking for. Um, but you know, it should be at some pause for thought that those who are wanting to find robust, courageous, faithful, Christian expressions of hope in 2020 haven't quite been able to do it. Um, so I think we should take that on the chin a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Although, interestingly, that just reminded me of a tweet I retweeted that I saw where someone had said, yesterday I chatted with a 21-year-old of no faith who wanted to know whether the media portrayal of Jesus and the church were correct. During lockdown, he'd started accessing church online and was amazed at what he saw, heard, and who he met. He felt he'd been fed a lie all his life. Wow. Wow. So, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, obviously, this season with with church being online in some ways has been positive for people, and there is some kind of witness there that people are seeing um that's challenging their views of Jesus in the church, which is cool.
SPEAKER_03Totally, totally. And it's still true that like alpha courses and Christianity Explorer courses are doing much better than usual. I I think that's still that's certainly still the case at our church and at a couple of different churches that um I've been involved with that are launching new Christianity explored and new alphas um just here in the autumn. Uh and certainly we're we're finding that um, as we've mentioned, you know, with our numbers on on YouTube, that you know, there are twice the number of people online daytime as there were this time last year. Um and I think that is translating into more interest in on online mission. That is no substitute for face-to-face in-person gatherings, and and the church is meant to be gathered 100%. But um, yeah, there are silver linings as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Someone had commented on the Catherine Burble Singh interview. That one's gone down quite well. Um, too. Fascinating. You should warn her, she's dangerously close to Christian conversion, she's halfway there with a solid understanding of the bad news. We pray she soon understands the good news. There you go. So I think that came off the back. She has a really interesting bit on original sin, didn't she, where she talked about that. So she's very much got this notion that there's there is this kind of thing in us that that needs correction. Although I guess at the moment she's very much kind of come to come to our school and we'll steer you on the right path. But um, you know, I think that's interesting, isn't it? Because definitely I don't know, I don't know if it's true of the last few years, but there's certainly a period, hasn't there's certainly been a period, hasn't there, where talking about sin is very um very old school, considered to be not the thing to do, you know. Why are we talking why are we talking about sin? Why can't we talk about love? Um course, you don't understand the bad news, you don't really know why the good news is good. So yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And there's been a bit of a renaissance of um interest in original sin, because I think we've seen where Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theory has gotten to. And Jean-Jacques Rousseau Rousseau kind of preached the exact opposite of original sin. He said man is born free but is everywhere in chains. And his idea is that our natural state uh, you know, is free and you know, wonderful, and we need to release the spark that is within us, and it's the structures out there that get in the way, and we need to disrupt the structures and release what's within, which is the exact opposite of original sin. But I think we've we've seen where Rousseau's thinking takes him, and a lot of people are waking up and saying, Oh no, hang on, you know, maybe maybe that vision of humanity is not right. And you go to a psychologist like Steven Pinker, and you know, he he writes a book like The Blank Slate and just says this idea of us being born neutral and we're just blank slates when we're born, it's totally nonsense. And he brings all sorts of um psychological studies to bear on that topic, as does Jonathan Haid, as does David Sloan Wilson, as does a whole bunch of different people from the psychological point of view. And now we're I think a lot of people are waking up to the fact that Rousseau's vision is not right, and therefore maybe the thing he was reacting against might be right, to the point where you even get non-Christians like Catherine Burbel Singh saying, the thing that sets us apart is our belief in original sin. What a thing to say.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting, isn't it? That I think both uh well, not both her and Tom Holland and Douglas Murray, I think, have all made reference to original sin in their discussions so far. So it's clearly clearly something in there to be talking about. Totally. Um and then finally, one from the mailbag on our video, uh, if phones were bibles, um, someone says, and I just thought this was a great little comment. I think one reason we prefer our phones to the Bible is that we consider the Bible's content to be static, but our phone's content is living and active. If we really believed Hebrews 4 12, maybe we would reach for our Bibles more often. I thought, oh, that's really interesting. That's a great little comment there. Wow. And this idea that uh, well, the Bible's always the same every time I read it, you know. And I've read that bit already, so we've done done that. I've completed the Bible, but there's always new content on the phone, you know. Um what a lie that is.
SPEAKER_03It's the same 12 friends on my Facebook feed, always the same ones, and and I love them, but you know, yeah, there's there's nothing new on your phone, actually, is there? Like you that's that's the lie, isn't it? You you think you think you're going to get refreshed, so you hit you you try to refresh your phone. But you know, maybe maybe the Bible is the thing that's you know reaching out to refresh us. That's the very good, very good. And if you haven't checked out any of those videos, especially that that's a great fun one to check out if phones were Bibles. Um it's Paul's Star Turn. A star is born. People will look back to that video and they'll they will recognize this was the this was the moment when uh Paul's career really took off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Don't worry, I won't forget you when I'm in Hollywood. I'm happy to come back on the show, you know, thinking to you about what it's like. Thank you. That would be really good. Give us the fee factor, just a little bump. Speak to my agent and I'll let you know.
SPEAKER_03So today we're gonna think about surrendering to the story. Um, because that was uh one of the phrases that Tom Holland used in his um uh interview with me that we released about uh nine, ten days ago now. And I I thought it was a terrific way of putting um Christian faith. What is Christian faith? I think it is surrendering to the truth and the power of the story, letting the story be true. And Tom Holland, um, interestingly, he didn't use the language of faith, but he did use the language of I've decided to surrender to the story. And uh we'll have a think about what he might mean by that and might what he might not mean by that. Um, but we've uh lined up quite a few uh clips for you from that interview. And uh and I think the the first one we've lined up for you is gonna um really give you Tom Holland's thesis from the Book of Dominion. Um, what is it that Christianity has uh has done to the world? He'll let us know in about a minute, and uh that will bring everybody up to speed on what we're talking about. For those who uh haven't yet read the book, obviously they need to go out and grab the paperback now. But uh what what is the the thesis in a nutshell?
SPEAKER_00The thesis of the book essentially is that um uh Christianity is the most transformative uh and revolutionary um ideology that has ever existed, and that um in its distinctively Western form, it it continues to completely saturate the way that people in the West Um view the world, uh, not just um morally or ethically, but uh and issues as fundamental as how they uh the things that they take for granted about how, say, sexuality operates, um relations between men and women, um how society is structured, um, the nature of progress, all kinds of things that um people might be tempted to take for granted and just assume exist out there um in the in the sky. Um but but but on at all, they're very culturally contingent and they're very specifically bred of deep the the the deep roots that the West has in Christian history and theology.
SPEAKER_03There it is. That's the that that was a very good elevator pitch, wasn't it, um, in 60 seconds. Um and I think um interestingly, on on just on the weekend, Tom Hollands um gave an even more succinct version of that same thesis just in a tweet. Um he said uh on Sunday, if you live in the West, no book has had a greater effect on your life than the Bible. You don't have to have read it or even know the first thing about it for that to be true. Yeah, yeah, I saw that. That was great. And it's kind of I mean, I I'm always saying, you know, the Bible is such an immense book. Even your problems with the Bible have been given to you by the Bible. Um and in my head, I've I've kind of got this um this kind of picture of, you know, you've got you've got two different people standing, and there's there's one person um that seems to be standing outside the church, and he's kind of yelling at the church, and um um, you know, talk talking about, you know, something, some matter of the church that's that's out of whack and and horrendous and should get with the times and it's on the wrong long wrong side of history. But then you zoom out and you realize that actually the other person is just standing on a a a different bit of the church, you know. And that that actually all the things you assume when you critique Christianity are Christian. Um and you know that and that's just true in just a hundred different ways, you know. If if you think that um if you think that, you know, I could never be involved with Christianity because what about the crusades? Um, how you know, how dare anyone in the name of Jesus go and and conquer another land and and bring the sword? Um in order to say that, really, you've learnt from this guy who says, you know, put away your sword, those who live by the sword will die by the sword, turn the other cheek, you know. Um, you know, when you look at the crusades, for instance, um, what do you notice about them? Well, from within a Christian worldview, the crusades are an abomination because how on earth can you under the banner of the cross, which is the the emblem of dying for your enemies, how can you sit under that banner and then kill your enemies? What do you call the crusades from Christian from Christian perspectives an abomination? But what do you call the Crusades when judged by the standards of Julius Caesar or Genghis Khan or Muhammad or any number of different you know people who have, of course, you know, expanded their kingdoms forcefully. What what do you call them? Um, well, business as usual, basically.
SPEAKER_01So I I mean I guess if you if you were uh someone from the the time of of Jesus, you you were a Roman, the idea of people, you know, if you're a Roman, the idea of going and invading someone else by the sword wouldn't really have been particularly objectionable to you. That would be your as your bread and butter, I suppose, as a as a Roman. You know, you wouldn't have objected off the back of that. So you know, very much like you're saying that that the re the reasons you know we we object to that is is actually based on this assumption that that is entirely wrong. But of course, that comes from the Christian faith. Um but I yeah, it's it's how aware we are of those things, isn't it? That often we're standing on the shoulders of these things um without even realizing it.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, yeah, it's the water we swim in. Um is one of the other analogies, you know. Um you ask one fish, you know, how's the water today, and the other fish says, What's water? Um water, yeah. Um but you know that that leads to the second clip where I kind of asked Tom, given that this is the case, um, he's basically saying everything is Christian, even criticisms of Christianity are incredibly Christian. Um doesn't that doesn't that mean it's an unfalsifiable hypothesis? I I put that question to Tom and I thought his answer was quite interesting. It's it can be very difficult to disagree with your thesis, can't it, Tom? Because in in some ways, you know, a cr a critic of Christianity comes and they they give some critique of of of of Christianity and um your response can be how very Christian of you. Um there is there is that kind of um there's a is is your thesis unfalsifiable? Or if not, what would falsify it?
SPEAKER_00I mean I think I think that it that that it it um first it it it requires you first of all, I think, to question your own assumptions. You know, this is what I've written the book. I was questioning my own assumptions, not allowing any, saying, where does this come from? Where does this idea come from? How saturated is it in assumptions that I haven't acknowledged? It's kind of biased training, I suppose. I think that when you do that, you're forced to acknowledge, or at least I was forced to acknowledge, that it's actually very, very, very difficult to stand outside the Christian influence. Because essentially, the West is Christian in the way that the you know the Islamic world is is is Muslim. The way that radioactivity lingers in the air after a radiation leak, that it's just there. It's just you breathe it in. You can't really help it. Now, of course, there are ways to um, you know, there are the there are very different ways of seeing the world, and and um, you know, what's happening in India gives you one example of that. I think what's happening in China gives you another. Um, in our own um European history, we have the example of the Nazis who um absolutely repudiated um not just doctrinal Christianity as the the French revolutionaries had done, as the Russian revolutionaries had done, but um some of the most fundamental tenets of Christianity, among which um, you know, we talked about the the image of Christ on the cross, that is about that is a profoundly um visual statement of the notion that the slave will conquer the master, that the tortured will conquer the torturer, that the oppressed will conquer the oppressor, which the Nazis regarded as ridiculous. Um everything that the Nazis were about was to reject that. Uh and also, of course, they they rejected what you were just talking about, the the idea of Genesis, that um uh all human beings are created equally. You know, the Christian refinement in Paul that there is no Jew or Greek, the Nazis completely thought that there were differences between Jews and Greeks. Um and and they they launched genocide on the back of it. Um so we do we we do have that example, and and so if what is if we want to know what uh what what what an un-Christian world looks like, we can for starters look at the Third Reich. What is it? The Nazis thought what they were doing was right, they didn't sit down and say, you know, it's like the Mitchell and Webb sketch, are we the baddies? They didn't think they were the baddies, they thought they were the goodies, they thought what they were doing was right for the German people. The fact that we have enshrined them as, you know, literally demonic. We don't need Satan because we've got Hitler. We don't need hell because we've got Auschwitz, we don't need devils because we've got we've got the Nazis. But we regard them as as diabolical because we bring Christian frames of reference to their ideologies.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I just think that's dynamite.
SPEAKER_03You know, you you you ask you asked Tom Holland to say, what's the okay, what's the alternative to Christian civilization? And he's like, Well, you could have the Third Reich, I suppose. It's quite a statement. Yep. Um and then, you know, and and later on in the in the conversation, I tried I tried to push him for a quote. I think, you know, you're saying it's either Christ or the pit. You're basically saying it's Christ or the pit. And he kind of he kind of backed off that and he said, no, no, because you know, even the Romans love their children too, and they they they lived and loved and loved and all that sort of stuff. Um, true, true, but it's such a as did the Nazis. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, yeah. So that's that's his that's his thesis. Um, and you know, he kind of says to to stand outside um the the Christian tradition is is to line up with some people who every sensibility within us says uh the baddies. Um but where do those sensibilities come from? Christianity. Um and I kind of think that um Tom Holland historically is in a sense doing what people like um Cornelius Plantinger and and um Alvin Plantinger and and Cornelius Van Till kind of do apologetically, um which is presuppositional apologetics. Um now, for those who don't know what apologetics is, apologetics is is giving a reasoned defense of the faith. Um and presuppositional apologetics is basically to say that in any conversation about the faith, what is more interesting to talk about is not the objection that is coming from the critic. What is more interesting is to stare at the shoes of the critic and to look at your own shoes, to look at the foundations that you're both standing on in order to have the conversation. And so a presuppositional um apologist might, you know, in a debate about Christianity or something, say, Well, isn't it interesting that you're appealing to reason, which is an immaterial thing? And isn't it interesting that you um uh are claiming to be rational and to have a mind and that we can both appeal to these transcendental properties that are immaterial in order to have a conversation? And they're constantly doing bias training on you, and they're constantly saying, for us even to have a conversation, what do we have to assume? And they're doing that philosophically and theologically, the presuppositional uh apologists. Um, Tom Holland is doing it historically, and he's saying, well, what are what are the historical things we're taking for granted? And and what are the cultural things that we're just taking for granted as we're having these conversations? And so, like, I I I do think I do think there's a parallel in some senses, um, which is not at all to say that Tom Holland would um be a an apologist or be a presuppositional apologist, um, but just that um instead of having the conversation that's just about the criticism, what Tom Holland really helps us do is to to look at the foundations and to figure out what it is that we're assuming and what our biases are, even as we have the conversation. I just I just think that's a really fruitful way forward, actually, when you're trying trying to have a chat about the faith.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because I guess sometimes in our conversations you can get you can get so bogged down in the you know, someone comes with a a question, an objection, um and it's easy to get bogged down in the detail of that, but without even thinking about it, we like you say we're they're they're building that objection on some kind of basis, which is effectively probably a Christian basis because it's a Christian worldview, they've been shaped by the Bible, whether they've read the Bible or not. Um just unpacking those things, you know. I mean, I think we've probably talked about this in terms of um when we talk about good and bad and you know suffering and evil. Um C.S. Lewis, you know, and his his crooked line and stuff. We must know what a straight line is to know something is crooked, you know, there are all these things we bring um you know in a discussion like that where we assume you know certain things are wrong and bad. Um but we're basing that on a kind of Christian worldview as to what we believe is is good. Um and I guess that happens in lots of different spheres of conversation, doesn't it? So it's always good to kind of unpack those things. I mean I I I hope it doesn't feel for the you know for someone who comes with a question in a sense it doesn't feel like you're dodging the question to just be like, well, let's just take a step back from that. But I I think it is important though to to do that because I don't think most of us, I don't think even most of us as Christians are aware how Christian our society is. Right.
SPEAKER_03Right. But you're right, it it it is um it can be really wearisome. Like if you're on if you're on the other side of a presuppositional apologist, um, it could be really wearisome. Um because yeah, whatever criticisms you come with, they're like, oh, how very Christian of you. And even as they're angered because they feel like their you know desire for justice and and truth is being violated, and how very Christian of you to feel that. Um but you know, is there is there something inescapable about um where we are situated? And I and I think in in one sense, the post the postmodernists um point that out and and point that out um quite well, that everyone is is situated somewhere when they make a statement, when they make a criticism, everybody um is already oriented towards the truth in one way or another. They're already inhabiting a story, they're already they've already got all sorts of biases and prejudices. Um and so if as a first step, as Tom Howen says, we should be aware of that, then he's done us a service. Um yeah, let's let's examine our foundations. It it's kind of it I I see it having worked really, really well in the Jordan Peterson, Kathy Newman um interview. I was gonna call it a debate. It kind of was a debate. Um this is this is where um Jordan Peterson showed up on so many people's radar screens when uh Kathy Newman tried to get the gotcha moment out of Jordan Peterson um over half an hour. And literally it was Jordan Peterson who got the gotcha moment. Um but for those who are unfamiliar, or even if you are familiar with it, I think the gotcha moment was exactly what we're talking about. Jordan Peterson was urging Kathy Newman to look at where she was standing as she was asking her question. And I think that is what made the moment so delicious. Let's uh let's have a look. Okay, well, Channel 4 uh have made a copyright claim against us using this tiny 90-second clip, which is ridiculous because uh these things can be critiqued and spoken about, and this is one of the most critiqued videos of all time, really. Well, certainly of the last two years anyway. Uh so let me just read a transcript of what happened in the Kathy Newman, Jordan Peterson interview. Uh Newman asked, Why should your right to freedom of speech trump a trans person's right not to be offended? Peterson, because in order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive. I mean, look at the conversation we're having right now. You're certainly risk willing to risk offending me in the pursuit of truth. Why should you have the right to do that? It's been rather uncomfortable. Newman pauses and says, Well, I'm very glad I put you on this part. Dot dot dot. Peterson said, You get my point. You're doing what you should do, which is digging a bit to see what the hell is going on, and that is what you should do, but you're exercising your freedom of speech to certainly risk offending me, and that's fine. More power to you as far as I'm concerned. Newman. So you haven't sat there and dot dot I'm just dot dot I'm just trying to work it out. I mean long pause. Peterson says, Ha. Gotcha. Newman, you have got me. You've got me. I'm trying to work that through my head. Yeah, it took a while. It took a while. That is the clip, which Channel 4 does not want us to show.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Back to the show.
SPEAKER_01But did he love that moment where she pauses there? And it's like, error 404, you know, an unexpected error has occurred. Please restart your computer.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And what was the error? The error was he he said, let's have a look at the conversation we're having. Right? So Jordan Peterson was not just saying, you know, let me let me just answer the words coming out of your mouth. It's let's have a look at the environment of the conversation we're having. And it was like, well, let's look at where you're standing, Kathy Newman. You're a journalist, you're digging around, trying to get the truth, and you're saying things which could be offensive. But that's what you should do as a journalist. Um, you're pursuing truth and you're risking being offensive. And that's all I'm saying, says Jordan Peterson. And and I think that is the source of this cognitive kind of blow-up that that happened in that moment. I think he was doing presuppositional apologetics, aren't I? You know. Yeah. Yeah. Um, not just dealing with the words coming out of her mouth, but understanding where she's standing and understanding um, yeah, the beliefs that she already holds in order to make the criticism that she's making.
SPEAKER_04So a little plug.
SPEAKER_03I'm, you know, I don't, you know, don't pin me down as a presuppositional apologist, because I'm not um uh I I use whatever is to hand in, you know. Um they always say in military strategy that a plan gets you into the battle, but once you're in the battle, all bets are off. You you you use whatever is to hand. And and um, but I but I think as as I survey the the scene of interacting with the questions of those outside the faith, I very much value the the insights of those who are presuppositionalists. Um but yeah, I'm not solely a presuppositionalist. You know, once I get into the fight, I'll I'll use whatever whatever tactic, which probably makes me unscrupulous. But uh but yeah, so that th those were two quotes, uh two clips from uh Tom Holland. We we saw his thesis um unpacked in a minute, and we uh have questioned really is his thesis um unfalsifiable? Um but we've also got a a great little clip about original sin. And I think I think he brings something very interesting to the table as he discusses original sin in this little bit.
SPEAKER_00I I think that one of the um the very profound shifts since the 60s has been a reaction against the the doctrine of original sin. And in the 60s, the idea that we are all born with sin was seen as as a kind of repellent. And so we've we've in a sense become Pelagian, Augustine's doctrine of original sin, you know, he he formulated in the context of a disagreement with um with a British theologian called Pelagius, who argued that that we can in a way we can become perfect through through our own efforts, that that it is possible to become perfectly virtuous. And I think that that there is a sense in which um in its more radical manifestations, those who condemn sin in others are reluctant to contemplate that they too may share in sin. Um there is a kind of Pelagian sense that it is possible to become virtuous, completely virtuous. And in a way, I think that the doctrine of original sin stands as as revealed as something that is profoundly democratic. Because if we're all sinners, then we're all at fault. And you can tell other people uh you know to take to take the beam out of their eye, but you should be aware of the fact that you have a moat in your eye as well. Um and if you don't have that, right and if you don't have that, then then um then you feel all the more qualified to sit in judgment on on those who you feel have have failed to kind of emancipate themselves from sin. And in a way, you then become this, you know, the the um the anti-theist stereotype of of a kind of persecuting, judgmental um person who refuses to accept that the the person you're sitting in judgment with that the that you are you are you know you you are bred of the set the common stock of humanity. We're all in that sense, you know, in Augustinian terms, we all we all share in the same sin, we all share in the same fall.
SPEAKER_03What did you like about that, Paul?
SPEAKER_01I think um I I I think he's bang on the money, really. Like it's particularly when you think about kind of the modern day culture wars, um you can see this thing springing up, can't you? Of kind of well, one side if you're on I believe a certain thing, we are the ones who are the good ones, and then people on the other side, therefore they are the the bad ones. And it and if we we often use the phrase, don't we, like you either agree with me or you know you're worse than Hitler, it's that kind of thing, isn't it? There's there doesn't seem to be any kind of middle ground, there's there's just good and there's terrible. Um and um I think yeah, it's interesting what he says in the about the Augustine and Pelagius, this idea that you know we've we've sort of imbibed this idea that we can um make ourselves morally good, and therefore if someone if we look at someone and we don't deem them to be morally good, it's because they must be worse than you know, worse than worse, they must be worse than us. We are morally superior, for we have we have obviously climbed up higher than them in uh in making ourselves virtuous. Um so I think you know it's it's it's interesting he he uses original sin there as a leveler. And actually, I've seen a few people in the comments section talking about that, that they've been struck by this idea that actually original sin is is profoundly kind of democratic in some way that it it kind of puts everyone on the same level. Rather than it being a kind of oppressive thing, it makes us all examine ourselves. I mean it's interesting he says, doesn't he, that often those who are at the most extreme, at least those who are quick to condemn sin in others are reluctant to consider that it might be in them themselves, but yet actually under the banner of original sin, we can certainly point to sin in others, uh, but we must be aware of you know the the plank in our own eye, you know, compared to perhaps the spec in others. Um I think that's really really relevant, you know, just like I say, particularly given the mood of the day and the the way we're dividing kind of more tribally and um along different lines like that, and very does very much does seem that people believe there are those of us who believe this, we're the good ones. If you disagree, you're in the bad camp. And so yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so it's a theological problem, you know. We we we're siding with Pelagius rather than Augustine, and you know, you ask most people in the streets, are you more Augustinian or more Pelagian? You know, no one's got any clue. And yet we are being swept along in all these sorts of move moves, and um, yeah, we do we do tend to we've we've still got the Christian notion of there's good and there's evil, and there are those who need to be cancelled and those who need to be um you know cast outside the camp and excommunicated and all those sorts of things. Um but yeah, we've we've lost this notion that the the chief problem is me.
SPEAKER_01Um I think as well when you take away original sin or this idea that we're all kind of in this boat, I think somehow it it also takes away the ability for redemption. Um because you know, I suppose when when you feel that everyone's a sinner and we all have this same sickness, we we we can see, can't we, that well, God can redeem people out of that. Um because He's redeemed, you know, He's redeemed me, He's redeemed you, He's redeemed the church and these people who are uh Christians. Um whereas, you know, if you just believe if you don't believe that you're the sinful, if you believe you're the just virtuous people, um it's easy to see how you can very quickly just see other people as irredeemable uh in every way.
SPEAKER_03Um you start to really nervous because you're you're like, well, I'm I'm on the right side of history right now, but what about in five minutes and then in ten minutes and you know when when things shift.
SPEAKER_01And I think one of the things that original sin does when you take that out is it's it makes it quite difficult for people. If if you think there are just there were those of us who are good and there are those of us who are bad, I mean we obviously know that um just it doesn't work like that in real life, that there are people who hold views that we definitely agree with, but yet they may have something as well that we disagree with. Um and there are people who we strongly disagree with who do things as well and believe things that we also agree with, and it's not as black and white as kind of just the good bad. Um but it makes it quite tricky for people to know what to do with those kinds of people. We don't have a space for kind of you know that that nuance of how you know how do you deal with someone whose whose views largely line up with yours, but there's something in there you're uncertain about. Um I think you know that's that's that's a struggle for particularly in the culture wars of today, where we see it just amped up you know to 11, don't we? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So what do you do with Churchill? What do you do with George Washington? Um, you know, both of whom were men of great integrity and character, and both of whom, you know, um, you know, Washington when he died um freed his slaves, but didn't free his slaves, you know, during his lifetime. Um, you know, Churchill said some stuff which I wouldn't ever want to say um about about different races. Um yeah, but are we are we able to to have a view of people that is rounded and and says that they are not the enemy and I am not the enemy, but something of the enemy lurks within me and something of goodness lurks in them.
SPEAKER_01Um that helps you, doesn't it, as well, to think if it could there be something lurking in me. If you don't believe that that can be the case, then you're you're very unlikely to think critically about what your you know, your positions on things, you know, and and be open to to challenge, you know. And You know, I can think of some discussions I've had with people where I've tried to say, look, I think you're making you're making some good points on this. I think your your motive in why you believe X, Y, and Z is this good thing. And I think, you know, you obviously know that's a good thing, and I know it's a good thing. But I think in the process of chasing that good thing, you're also causing this bad thing. And I don't think you're really opening your eyes to that. You know, you want to get rid of injustice and oppression, but yet in doing that, you're creating another form of injustice and oppression. And I think if people aren't open to the idea that they could be fallible and making mistakes too, if they just think we're the morally morally virtuous ones, then then it's very difficult for them to hear that side of it and be open to considering that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03And one other thing to say on original sin before moving on is that um people like Jordan Peterson um sort of make make something out of it, and people like Douglas Murray, and and as we've said, you know, our first three um interviews in Reset, they've all mentioned original sin. I think the danger though is I think people people think of original sin as though um I'm I'm born in error, I'm on the wrong side, and I need to work my way back into God's good books, you know. So it's a kind of an Adam and Moses um account of of salvation. Right. You know, I'm born in exile, but if I obey the law, then I'll get back. Or, you know, or if I just you know if I just use the right structures around me, um then I'll kind of ascend the ladder. Um but that's that's um that's not right. It's it's an Adam and Christ Christology and doctrine of salvation that we have. So that yes, we're born in exile, but that's precisely where Christ comes to meet us. Um I often sort of put it as as the Anne Forbes thing. So my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Anne Forbes stole 10 yards of printed cotton from a London market and she got transported to Australia. And so one of the reasons why I'm Australian is because one person um centuries ago committed one crime, she was exiled, and I now have been born far from the mother country. Um and if the whole goal of my life was then to get back to England, um, then you might think it's really unfair that I'm kind of born in Australia and I've got to scrimp and save and urn and you know, save up for a plane ticket, and then I work my way back to the mother country. That would be an Adam and Moses doctrine of salvation. The real doctrine of salvation would be like Anne Forbes gets exiled to Australia, and then the king decides to emigrate, and he puts himself into Australia and you know, makes that into his kingdom so that he meets Anne Forbes and he meets the descendants of Anne Forbes in the place where they are born, so that all they need to do is acknowledge his rule, and they're in. And that's what Adam and Christ is. You know, I'm born, I'm born into sin, but that's the one thing that qualifies me for Jesus, right? Because that's the only thing I contribute to my salvation. What do I need? What do I need in order to get saved? Oh, you need to be a sinner. Good news! You are one. That's your birthright, baby.
SPEAKER_04You know.
SPEAKER_03So actually, original sin, I think, is even better news than um than what some of the sort of the more cultural Christians are saying it is. That's just a little a little caveat to say. And then, you know, let's let's get to the meat of um the the Tom Holland interview because right at the end um I kind of asked him about his own faith journey, and he describes how he has lost faith in the old secularism. Um and is he discovering a new kind of faith? Let's have a look. We spoke back in uh November and I I said the lots of lots of Christians praying for you, Tom, and you said keep the prayers coming. Um so in the in the in the last year or so, um, where where where do you where do you find yourself as you consider you know that one on the cross? Do you do you think do you think of that as a kind of a dead end um in terms of uh the the end of a story? You're in the Valley of the Shadow and and that's that? Or do you think he might be a a doorway through to hope and peace and joy?
SPEAKER_00Um I think that um well I've said that that I've realized that all my um the the kind of the liberal assumptions I had uh uh r float on faith. That without faith they have no func, you know, they they have no validity. So essentially I've I have lost my faith as uh you know as a as a liberal. I've lost my faith. I don't really believe in it. Um but in my gut I still do. I I I have no objective reason for thinking that anything that I thought is liberal is true. I I I you know I don't believe that human rights objectively exist or anything like that. I I don't objectively think that there's anything in the arc of history that suggests that um the strong won't crush the the weak, um that that powerful states won't enslave parts of the population that they want to enslave. I mean, all of these things. I I you know it just and so does that open up a kind of existential abyss? Kind of, but what it also does, I and I'm speaking entirely for myself here, um, is that because I now understand where my beliefs and values came from, that that rather than just drown completely beneath a kind of despair, um I I can cling to stories. And I think that ultimately um the power of Christianity is expressed most potently through its stories, and those stories are not just in the New Testament, but but in what Christians call the Old Testament as well. And those stories don't have to be literally true. So the Exodus doesn't have to be literally true for the story itself, in my opinion, to be true. So I think that stories have such a power that you can surrender to them. And so essentially that's that's what I feel that I'm doing is that I have surrendered to the truth of the stories and therefore of the the kind of the poetry and the mythology that they express, and I'm happy to identify myself with the truth of those stories and to see them as true in in a kind of a moral, a poetic, uh a mythical sense. Um and I realize that the whole issue of of whether I think they you know, is are they literally true? Did Moses literally part the Red Sea? I've just decided I'm I'm not worrying about that. Um because I think I think the power of those stories is sufficiently great that I can say, well, I'm gonna believe in them.
SPEAKER_01What did you make of that, Paul? Yeah, it's interesting. I mean it's I mean obviously when he talks about he's he's lost his faith in liberalism. I mean, it's it it's clear to see that he he obviously realizes that a lot of things he uh holds, he he still holds to believe, you know, his his values and things, whilst whilst I suppose those haven't hugely changed, it's just he he sees that the foundations that he thought were there were not there. Um I think the thing I came away from when from those comments at the end was just unclear still exactly what he did make of Christianity, um, in the sense of surrendering to the story, you know. If he's saying I does this need to be literally true, um I think the thing I would have I would really like to have heard from him is you know to be just pushed on um do you do you think Jesus literally rose from the dead, you know? Because I think for us as Christians, and I mean I think Thomas knows this as well because he's done quite a bit of reading. We know that it all hinges on the resurrection, don't we? You know, if Christ is not raised, you know, then we're to be pitied above all men and so on. Um so I'd be really interested to know what he thinks about that. I mean, I I and I I I I think Yeah, I mean it's just interesting to try and get to it to try and work out what he really means by surrendering to the story, I think. So I'm still intrigued as to where he's at exactly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the story is the story is true and it has the most incredible power, and you can submit yourself to it whether or not you think it happened or not. And then the example he kept on returning to was did the exodus happen and did Moses really part the Red Sea, which he knows isn't the center of the story. Um he knows where the center of the story really lies. And um, you know, um last year I was at a lecture that he gave in Cambridge, and Julian Hardiman, who's the um pastor at Eden Baptist Church in Cambridge, was there and uh asked him a question, um, which I've got the text of it here. Um during the QA, uh, Julian asked, I wonder how far you think the cross of Christ will have genuine potency without an historical resurrection. To put it conversely, belief in an historical resurrection is what gave the Christian message such extraordinary attractiveness and power, because it meant that they might kill you, but you'd be raised again. Whereas without an historical resurrection, that promise seems a bit thin. And this is how Tom Holland responded, this is a year ago. He says, yes, and that's what Paul says. Without it, there's nothing. If Christ is not risen from the dead, it's folly, and all our hopes are vain. Absolutely. It's the historical specificity of it that makes uh ideas that it's just a recalibration of Adonis or Osiris so ridiculous. It's the fact that it's rooted in historical specificity, and without that, there's nothing. And then he moved on. Um so he knows that when he's submitting himself to this story, this historicity matters. Yeah. You know, Exodus less so, but did Jesus rise again from the dead? He knows that it really, really matters that it did happen or not. But I just I just wonder, it I I think what he points towards is here is an avenue for um discussing the resurrection with people that's not limited to the five minimal historical facts about the empty tomb, um, which can be a quite barren way to have a conversation. You know, do you believe in the resurrection or not? Um I think I think one thing that you know evangelicals default to when they're having that conversation is let's let's describe what the minimal facts are. Jesus of Nazareth died on that cross, you know, the tomb really was empty, they knew where where the tomb was, they had experiences of the risen Jesus, you know, and so you kind of you you you talk about what all historians of all stripes will agree to, and then you say, and the only you know feasible explanation of that is that Jesus did in fact rise. Um I think there's there's definitely a place for all of that. I think but I do think what Tom does, first of all, is even more necessary. Because what Tom does is he says, okay, the victim on that cross has proved himself to be the victor in history. Like over the course of 20 centuries, the victim really has proven himself to be the victor. Um, that makes you think, doesn't it? And he gets you that far, and I think that that is a very long way along the the route towards faith to say that the victim really has proven himself to be victor in history. Um the next step is to say, ah, the reason why the last 20 centuries have unfolded the way that they have is because in the first century the victim really was the victor. Um so I think he points the way towards a a a good conversation about resurrection. But he doesn't he doesn't quite nail his colours to the mast there.
SPEAKER_01No, maybe not. Maybe not. Who knows? Maybe he will. He's certainly moved a long way since he uh started thinking about Dominion as a as a project.
SPEAKER_03So who knows? Yeah, who knows? And and he's he's been so very transparent and and open about his his journey and and he's shifted. I mean, who who actually changes their mind on things and who actually changes their mind on things um as a published author, you know, going down one route and now saying, actually, as an historian, the narrative that I bought into, the Edward Gibbon, you know, idea that the church kind of you know held humanity captive through the dark ages and then wonderful secularists liberate it into light, you know, he was like, that is the dominant thing that I believed and wrote about for years and bunk them. Right, sure. So he's he's throw he's shown himself very willing to um to change. And uh he's a he's a work in pro progress, as as are we all. So if you uh if you guys haven't checked out the uh Tom Holland interview, uh then the links will be in the description below. And do check out the one that I had with him back in 2019 as well. Um, because I think he um he dropped some excellent truth bombs at that stage as well. Uh the next reset interview is going to be with Miroslav Wolf, Professor Miroslav Wolf, um, who uh, among other things is the author of Exclusion and Embrace, one of the great Christian classics on conflicts and a gospel answer to global conflict. And we talked together about uh Cain and Abel and other kinds of stuff, and uh it's a terrific conversation. I loved my time with Miroslav Wolf. So check that out on Friday. And if you are not already subscribed, uh you know what to do. If you're on YouTube, just go and hit subscribe and uh click on the bell so that it will notify you of the new stuff that's coming out. And uh, what are some other ways that people can keep in touch with us, Paul?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, you can follow us on social media. So Speak Life UK can be found on Facebook and on Twitter and on Instagram. Um and then, of course, you can always go um go onto our website, I think speaklife.org.uk forward slash sign up. I think you'll be able to uh sign up to our weekly emails as well, just to keep on top of stuff. But that'll give you a number of different ways, whatever your kind of chosen method of delivery is, we'll be able to reach you through those.
SPEAKER_03Excellent, excellent. And uh I guess this time next week will we be back in the studio? We might be.
SPEAKER_01With any luck, as long as as long as I get a result that says I'm I'm negative, then I should be good to go.
SPEAKER_03COVID allowing and Lord willing and all yeah, all those other caveats. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, you guys have a great week, and we'll see you next time. Bye bye. Bye bye.