Today on the Live Cast we look back at the second half of 2020. Well we've uh already had a look back at uh 2020, the first six months, and uh what were some of your highlights in the first six months?
SPEAKER_02Uh I think I think in terms of just the discussions around it, I think the Matt Delahunty interview was um a really interesting one, lots of good stuff there. Um I'm not sure I would describe I was gonna say the the other one, the plagued one. Not sure I describe it as a highlight, yeah, but it certainly stands out because of the season we're in and we were going into at that time.
SPEAKER_04So Right, right. And uh as we continue on into uh the second half of 2020 in our look back. So in June I was asked to uh do the speech at the March for Life, and um they decided not to do that in person during the pandemic, but instead to have an online event, and they said, Could you produce uh a piece of video for it? Um and I thought, you know, how do you bring together the realities of what people are facing with the pandemic with um another plague, uh a plague on the unborn, which we are inflicting on them? Um how do you bring those two things together? And uh we came up with numbers.
SPEAKER_03Sadly, 39,045 people have died with coronavirus. An increase of 2,095 cases since yesterday. That's an increase of 1,900 fatality.
SPEAKER_07And that is an increase cases of 3,200 fatality. That's an increase.
SPEAKER_03An increase of 2,400 fatality. That's an increase of 2,000 and 4 cases since 800 and 87 cases since yesterday.
SPEAKER_04Numbers. That's what we get each day. We're beset with numbers. Numbers doing what numbers do, numbing the me, numbing the you, numbing our sense of the she and the he, numbing the sense that they are me. With numbers, they stay they. It's what numbers have allowed. So each life lost is lost in the crowd. The shroud of death enfolds the heap, costs it cheap. We try to weep, but numbers can put us all to sleep. Except for those we have known. Our flesh and blood, our very own, who, when exhaling final groans, heard our goodbyes on the phone. And then we're buried all alone. How can each loss be shown? Each mum, each son, each dad, each wife, each irrepressible, iridescent life, each gift a vast amount, each one too much to count. Beware the numbers, our dose each day, until we're numbered all the way, until we're deadened to the toll, till each one's lost into the whole. But no. Awake my soul. Make each figure strike like spurs into my flesh to stir me afresh, to see galactic worth distilled in each daughter of earth, in each son brought to birth, and near infinite crime in stuffing them out. Let me shout to the skies with full-throated cries and desperate despise when the least of them dies. Let me prize each one. And when COVID is done, may the numbers not numb. May I wake from the slumber and say it out clear, Lord, let me hold life dear. Because someday soon you will hear that the peak is long past and we've got the all clear. The lockdown has lifted and friends can draw near, and we will cheer. But let's be clear: the numbers are not what they appear. Each year in this land, understand we have four covers. In this nation, 200,000 terminations. A fourfold pestilence devours these isles. The dead in piles, a hideous mount. But do they count? In heaven's account, but what will we say? Each day, 550 slain, they are able, we are cane. And the righteous blood cries out in vain. It does not enter our calculation. We deem it beneath our briefing the nation. We only make public explanation of these when disease is pursuing, but not when they are our doing. And maybe you say it doesn't compare. I say that's fair. Cause with the virus, we were afflicted. This black death is self-inflicted. Are you convicted? I'll depict another figure. This one's bigger. As I bring this number, I hear you numbing. You are, you're Ring and umming, you're drumming your fingers. Your mind is elsewhere. There you go with that thousand-yard stare. Are you there? By June, worldwide, half a million have died of COVID. As I've said, each one is plenty. But if we're counting in millions, abortions kill 20. And that's just by June. It's not stopping anytime soon. Every four days it kills more than the virus. Let this truth fire us. In 96 hours, it devours just the same, but without the fame. This friend is our silent shame. So awake my soul, make each figure strike like spurs in my flesh to stir me afresh, to see galactic worth distilled in each daughter of earth, in each sun meant for birth, and near infinite crime and snuck in the mouth. Let me shout to the skies with full-throated cries and desperate despise when the least of them dies. And when COVID is done, may the numbers not know. May we wake from the slumber and number each one? Brutal, brutal beeps. To not say, Ah, forget COVID. It's about abortion.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_04How do you how do you honor both? Because both are plagues of of sorts. But yeah, yeah, I think that's the that's the the challenge is that when the whole world is being awakened to our mortality, um how do you how do you get that in a perspective in which um so much of the the mortality comes to us from elsewhere. Um and so much of the mortality is what we inflict on others. Um our secret shame as we called it there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's one of those things, isn't it, that it's it's it's hidden away. So uh it's easy to be out of sight, out of mind, and yeah, in many ways the church hasn't hugely woken up to to it yet, I don't think. No, let alone society.
SPEAKER_04No, no. But yeah. But yeah, when COVID is done, there's still this um to focus on. And and I I did a little seminar um around about the same time in June, there was a book coming out, co-authored by uh Vaughan Roberts, and um we did a QA session afterwards, and uh somebody asked, you know, should we be addressing abortion in our sermons? You know, if if it doesn't come up as I'm working my way through Amos or as I'm working my way through 1 Corinthians, if if the subject of abortion doesn't come up, why should I mention the topic? And and I I just sort of thought to say, you know, I wonder, have any of you mentioned COVID in your sermons? Right. You know, like um because by by by January 4th, we'd lost as many to abortion as we had to to COVID by June, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And if we're not if we're not mentioning abortion, but we are mentioning this other cultural phenomenon called COVID, where are our priorities? So that was uh that was numbers back uh in June. And another thing that happened back in June. Um do you remember Dominic Cummings? Yes, yes. How do you respond to the um gosh, it it it felt really intense, didn't it? The the the media kind of spotlight shining down on Yeah, absolutely. It did. On on Boris's uh aid. Um let's have a look at the the beginning of uh one response to Dominic Cummings. Passions are running high.
SPEAKER_00The whole country wants to hear that little word. Oh sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. There he said it. There he said it. Say it again, Dominic. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
SPEAKER_04Actually, that apology was for getting the order of journalists wrong during the press conference. The media do not have their apology or their resignation, and this story will run and run. The story for those who've been blissfully unaware of the splenetic rage fest engulfing the UK right now is of Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister's chief aide, having driven from London to his parents' property in Durham during the height of the lockdown because he and his wife had suspected COVID-19, and they were concerned about childcare for their four-year-old son. So yeah, that was the uh that was the story. Yeah. And man did it light a fire.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I and I think at the time I remember saying it's the kind of thing that would have blown over more quickly had had someone just stood up and said, you know what, you shouldn't have done it. Yes. Um even if, you know, a lot of people were saying, Oh, he should have lost his job, and I mean of course he's he's gone now anyway. Um but um but people saying he should have lost his job. I think even if he hadn't lost his job, but he'd apologise, and if Downing Street had said no, that wasn't yeah, it was wrong.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think a lot of people felt I think particularly it it because you've got to remember at that time this was the point where people were dying, and people were saying, You can't go to the hospital to see your dying relative, you can't go to the funerals.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They were like people burying their teenage children and not going to the funeral. And then you've got this guy saying, Oh, I just wasn't sure my eyes were okay, so I drove half an hour in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02And I think a lot of people just felt well, I certainly felt, isn't you know, there is nothing but contempt for you know the average person, yeah, you know, in that.
SPEAKER_04Um yeah, yeah, totally. Um, but yeah, how do you how do you then speak into you know a situation in which like the fever pitch of of people's views on this were like like really religious. Um and so I I you know in that video, and then I I did an article for for Premier in which I I spoke about the ten things that everybody agrees with, no matter whether you're a Dominic Cummings, you know, um defender or um you think he's the scum of the earth. Um here are ten things that everybody kind of agrees to, and and these are the rules of the debate. Um but what do people notice about all these ten things? Like one, you should not be wise in your own eyes, there is a law above. And there was very definitely that sense of you know, Dominic Cummings, you know, he's he's probably off the spectrum IQ-wise, you know, in that in that you know narrow sense of intelligence. But um there was that sense, wasn't there, that yeah, he he thought he was cleverer than the public health announcements, and that his you know his reading of the law allowed what he did. And we we say you should not be wise in your own eyes, there is a law above. Um secondly, the spirit of the law is as important as the letter of the law, and sometimes the spirit of the law is more important. Um because maybe he could have you know got himself off the hook. Maybe there are you know various loopholes. Um but we all seem to have this sense, no, the spirit of the law. You know, we're all locking down, people are dying. Come on. Um thirdly, there is complete equality, whatever your station in life. It doesn't matter if you're the Prime Minister's aide, like we are one. I think the fourth one is huge. Hypocrisy is intolerable. Like, you hypocrite. It's just the you know, and there'd been and and it happens on every side of the political divide. So um, you know, there are all sorts of videos of um like in in America, whether they're Republican or Democrats, saying, like, like at Thanksgiving, we you just gotta hunker down, and then literally having like given those videos, they then get on a flight and come and free family, and and in a sense, we love those videos because it it points the finger at other people's hypocrisy. And that might distract from my hypocrisy. But we all feel like hypocrisy is intolerable. Self-justification is ugly. Uh admitting your errors is a strength, right? You you said he should just come clean and admit his errors.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I think I think that would have been a simpler thing for all involved, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. But you know, like every other culture thinks that's weak, right? What what do you have to believe in order to think that admitting your errors is a strength? Um, rulers are not above the law, they should put themselves under it. Number eight, leaders are servants, they're ministers, even. Number nine, no one should lord it over others. And number ten, self-sacrifice, even of an innocent victim, can be the very noblest act. So let's let's even imagine Dominic Cummings um was entirely innocent of all charges. Um he could then fall on his sword, couldn't he? And and there's there's a nobility to self-sacrifice. Sure. You know, in that in that as well. And yet, what do you notice about all these ten? Like they're they're nuts. Like, according to like pagan philosophy, um, it's entirely Christian. Like, like, yeah, I I keep saying, you know, we're we're hurling Bible verses at each other.
SPEAKER_02Although even most of the pagans will agree with a lot of this, won't they? Because they're so Christian.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. They know it. Well, exactly. Exactly. We're all we're all h hurling Bible verses at each other, we've forgotten the the references. Yeah, yeah. So but we had noticed before 2020 how religious things had gotten and the heightened you know tensions around issues, you know, to do with identity and race and gender and um and all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_02But we've talked everywhere about the removal of God.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then politics moves up and all these things move up a level. So now the politics side of things is the religion, is in the religion spot.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02So people are very prepared to go all out for their political views. Yes. Um It's heaven or hell.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then what has to get sucked up as well is entertainment and sports now has to be political.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it's just like, you know, Hollywood actors now are now telling me how to vote. Like, ah yeah. I think we tell you what to say. Isn't that your job? We give you what to wear, we give you what to say, we make you look really pretty. Right? Stand on the cross, say the line, all right? Wear what we told you. We give you a shiny orange statue.
SPEAKER_02I do remember last time we did have to issue an apology for our denigration of actors, but you're affected by anything we're discussing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we're sorry if you're an actor. Really, we are sorry if you're an actor. But that was Dominic Cummings. Remember that? That was just six months ago. Um and another thing that got very heated and intense were issues of race. Obviously, after the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, um, that sort of lit the touch paper for all sorts of movements of um seeking racial equality. And that's kind of the backdrop. Um, that's not why we did this survey. Um we did this survey for a very different reason. We we wanted to do a survey of unsayable opinions. What was what was the thinking behind that?
SPEAKER_02Well, really, it was just to s it was to kind of see what um, you know, what what is it that people would say if they didn't think there were any consequences, I suppose. Yeah. Um, it was really what do you feel what do you believe that you don't feel you can say out loud in public? Yes. Um and yeah, I mean, I won you know, maybe you've not seen it, you've not seen that episode. I wonder what you think would come out of it.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Yes. People people assumed that there would just be the most flaming trolls imaginable, like in there, just with kind of bigoted views.
SPEAKER_02Yep, and there were some. There were some. But you know, how many responses did we get? Like 2,000 or 1600 or something? Something like that. It was a lot of responses. Um and the the the amount that were proper, just like my goodness me. That's beyond the pale. I wouldn't say this out loud.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm hesitant to say oh like. You ought not to think that's a good one. I'm hesitant to quote someone else who said this, let alone believe this myself. Yeah. Um probably you could count on one or two hands. Yeah. Like the really extreme ones. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Which I think is comparable to Twitter itself. Like as a public website, you you could probably, you know, there's there's there's probably uh a fraction of one percent of views that are equally and if you go to YouTube, there's probably more than one percent of comments. Uh a little too spicy for public consumption. But um so yeah, we did this uh unsayable opinions thing. And actually what I think the the incentives were um to state your beliefs as sanely as possible in order to say, isn't it crazy that I can't even just say this? Yeah. It's just it should be obvious, right? And and then you know the number one category was was something like men are not women.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was just around transgender issues, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_04That was that was the winner. Um but there was a lot of stuff about race um because it was June 2020. Um and so uh here here were the responses of number 343, and uh here's Paul and I uh discussing them. So uh number one, descendants of transatlantic slaves ought to receive individual financial reparations. Uh the same person to differing degrees, most white people are racist. Um and yeah, so that's I can I can agree to that to the to the degree that you say um a white person in a majority white culture um could go along with the majority bias of the majority, and whether explicitly or implicitly have all sorts of bias. Um I'd just be reticent to attribute that to the race more than to the majority um nature of that white person who happens to live in a white white society. I I personally think it's unhelpful to bring race into that. Um I think all kinds of people can be racist in all kinds of ways. And and so my my argument is um not to have a narrower definition of racism, but to actually have a more expanded definition of racism. I think it's very helpful to think in terms of you know that is a liturgy of um you fight valiantly against sin, the world, and the devil. Um the um the things that are against us and the things against which we strive, uh individual sin, but then these world structures that are political and social in nature, and then there's this demonic realm. And so I I think we don't want to have just a narrow definition of sin so it's just me and my personal discrimination. I'm I'm totally with you, number three four three, I'm totally with you. If you want to say there can be systemic racism and there can be unjust structures, I'm totally with you, number three, four, three. Are you gonna be with me on this other definition of sin that's also the individual sin thing? Because I think at that individual level, um, I just want to go back to a bog standard kind of Martin Luther King Jr. definition of racism. That when you judge me by the color of my skin and not the content of my character, too is racist. So um so I I have a pushback against number two, and then uh opinion number three kind of followed on from that. Um but again it it kind of spoke in in this way about white people uh in general. White people are more offended by being called racist than they are with the existence of actually racism. Um that's true. I mean, people have pointed to white fragility, people like Robert D'Angelo, who's made a lot of money with um number one book on uh Amazon about white fragility. That's that's a thing. Um and um that is a thing, but also a thing when you push push against the narrative of white people this and white people that, it might just be that you want to preserve a richer definition of racism than just going for the structural one. And you don't want to just have the individual one either, but maybe you want to have all kinds of um definitions of racism. And then number four, I I kind of agree with number four. Again, if you take the racial overtone out of it, um white evangelical Christians who always grow CSM as a intellectually lazy. Yeah, I I can totally I can totally get to that.
SPEAKER_02It's a bit bizarre as you say you take the racial overturn out of it. I mean, is it only intellectually Lazy if you're a white evangelical Christian. Yeah. If I was the voice of rationality. If you're an Indian evangelical.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. So lots of lots of stuff is being racialized here. And then number five B-A-M-E, that's black and uh Asian minority ethnic people, can be white supremacists in the same way that slaves can believe that slavery is just. That's one to think about. And again, it's it's one of those ones like have you ever noticed how blackface and drag might have relevant similarities? Okay, well, maybe we need to think about that more. But it's that's very inflammatory as a way of putting those two things together. Um I'm glad these views are out there so that we can engage with them then. Um but then number six this survey will unearth deeply held racist convictions. And this is this is this is why I took notice of number three four three. Um and and and I think I think there is uh a view out there that um to have a survey that's anonymous will just you know attract all the alt-right kind of bigots or whatever. Um but ironically, the the very next opinion um that number 343 shared after saying I fear that this is going to unearth all sorts of um racist opinions. It's brilliant. Umder white men are normally the problem. There it is.
SPEAKER_01I'm more than a little bit.
SPEAKER_02It was there was an as there's an assumption in this person that everybody well it's defin uh all white people are holding all these racist views. And as I read through most of the comments, the line the the the the the the answer that's um predominant or you'd think I could be diplomatic whose views I felt were most overtly racist. Or racialized anyway. Yeah, maybe, yeah. Were the views we've just read out in this line. Because it was just like if you're white, this, white that. And and I said to you as well, my assumption is that this person is probably white as well. You know, obviously I'm making an assumption there. But as I said to you and I mean you said you want to preserve the idea that uh if you're using uh an immutable characteristic of somebody to draw conclusions about them and whole groups of people, that is a racist thing to do or a discriminatory thing to do. It struck me that out of most of the comments, this this these comments were the ones that did that the most. But as but they're probably I imagine this person assumes they're the least discriminatory racist person. Whereas I came away feeling like they were probably the most discriminatory I'd read.
SPEAKER_04Well, and that that's all down to definitions, isn't it? What's what's our definition of racism?
SPEAKER_02Um that last one there, older white men are normally the problem. Okay. If I change that and said young black men are normally the problem I mean outcry. Um Rightly, rightly so. Rightly so, rightly so. Because I read saying saying older white men are normally the problem, whilst it seems very socially acceptable to say at the moment, to me reads as nothing less than probab well, sexist and ageist and racist.
SPEAKER_04Um if we're gonna talk about immutable characteristics, those yeah, can't change any of them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I would say that that is just not saying just as bad, necessarily, if we we want to look at the the history of things maybe in this country. Yeah. Uh but it's certainly it's not not racist.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you know. Yeah. And I guess the the the push cat pushback from number 343 might be we've got very different definitions of of racism going on, you know.
SPEAKER_02Or maybe we're just white people who are more concerned about being called racist than actual racism. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think my comeback to that would be no, I look at this and I I I'm not offended that you're calling me racist for being white. I think this is actual racism. That you're you're grouping all white people together. There's a clarity this or that about them, things which are negative. Um and I think that is racism, and it concerns me that someone could could think that they are perhaps not racist or discriminatory when they're saying things like this. That they are to me, it it reads as someone who is blinded to their own racism and discrimination and to uh uh a darkness in their own heart. Um you know, if I was saying this about white people, I'd be think yeah, you know, I I I I'd hope I'd be thinking there's something's gone wrong. If I was saying this about any culture, any culture at all, any race, whatever it might be, I would be warning I was hoping someone would be saying to me, you know, you need to ask yourself some serious qu serious questions, Paul. Why you think you can say about a whole race of people, regardless of who they are. They are like flipping around. Um and just because you say it about white people doesn't mean it's not terribly discriminatory and and bad.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And even if it's only 10% as bad as when you flip the races, which I've done, I'm I'm up to hearing an argument. You know, that's that's only 10% of the the kind of discrimination that you would have if if the more powerful um class of person was saying it about the weaker class of person structurally and societally speaking. You know, maybe maybe it's only 10% as bad, but you know, I I I think the goal is you know, the the the way to fight racism is to have less of it. So let's just let's just try and have less of it.
SPEAKER_02There you go, solved it, solved it. I was really surprised. I thought there was gonna be, I remember like after we'd done that and prepping for it and go it going out. I remember kind of really tentatively like heading back to look at the comments and things that people were putting. Because I really thought like this is gonna blow up, like we're gonna get some serious blowback from people who watched it, and it wouldn't have surprised me if people watched it and were like, Oh, this is awful. I'm gonna post this somewhere else, and it's the kind of thing that it could easily blow up into something like you know, you don't have to do a lot to blow up into something like that. We're risking it twice now. I know, I know. I was like, why are you bringing it up again? Because it didn't get the trolls. They weren't angry enough the first time. Um but yeah, I mean, I I mean I I I as I look back at what I said, I mean I'm happy to stand by what I said. Yeah, yeah. I don't feel I would change my views um on it. Um and I I still think as as you read those comments that come across there, even though there may be truth in in some of those statements that this number 343 was making, um there's a lot of anger and let's I mean you want to use the word hatred, I don't know, whatever, there's a lot of anger and hatred in those comments for a certain group of people. Um and even if there's a bit of justification in some of that, sure. Um it's it's still a pretty bad thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, and you know, as I said at the end, if if if I was saying that about any culture, yeah, you know, it it we should be asking serious questions about our own selves. You know, and as I read that, I think it was their second one, wasn't it, that said most right people uh most white people are racist in some way. As I just heard it then, I don't know if I thought about it at the time. I thought, well, you know what, I I think it everybody is racist in some way. It's not just white people. And you kind of draw it out a bit about just the bias, you know. Um and that doesn't necessarily mean that you're racist in oh, I dislike this group or I dislike that group, but we all have a preference for our own. Um even even not even race-based, you know, just in every setting. You know, we we like to hang out with people who have the same interests and kind of demeanours as us, you know. They they we enjoy the same things, we have the same sense of humour, you know. Very few of us, you know, even in the church, right? We we might know lots of people and interact with lots of people and get on well with them and and share with them in various ways, but probably you're the people you're closest to are probably quite like you, yeah. Even within those settings. So we always have a preference for that which is familiar to us and the same.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um I think that that that goes to race as well. That's that's true of everyone. That doesn't make everyone a racist, though. Um maybe I'm just a racist. I'm sure Twitter will let me know if it's the case. YouTube comments, perhaps. Should I give out my address and number now just to save time?
SPEAKER_04Self-dox. I will self-dox. That's peasants. But I mean, you I mean, you saw the way we were both caveating. Me, me the most. I was kind of pussy-footing. Man, I was just watching it going, just say it for me. I was like, do it. And then when you said it, I was like, but you could see it from a different perspective.
SPEAKER_02Just trying to I think I think particularly at that time, it didn't feel as bad watching it back, actually. I think at that time everything was so intense as well, just because of the situation. Um and it, you know, obviously the time has um gone past since then, so it didn't it doesn't feel quite as intense at the moment. Um and I mean all those things as well. I mean, I would say through the uh we talked about this on the live cast in the in the in the light of the the George Floyd stuff that had had arisen, and that I found it really, really tough because it was like, well, what I I what do I do? There was this kind of should I say something on social media? That was one thing to talk about.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, maybe I feel I feel like I should say something because I do think this is terrible. And and as I was hearing people, we talked to people like um uh Jason Roach and Richard uh excuse me. Um and hearing their stories, you're going, oh my goodness, this is terrible. Um and you so you feel you should say something, but you think, well, if I say something, it just feels very token. Here's the thing I've posted on social media, you know, I've changed my picture to a black square on Instagram or whatever. It feels it just feels very showy but with no substance. Then of course, if you don't say anything, well silence is violence and you're a part of the problem and it doesn't it wouldn't matter, you know, it wouldn't matter if every day I was working in some project to help. It wouldn't matter at all because you know, well, you didn't say the right thing online.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you I think I said to you at the time, you know, there's a damned if you do, damned if you don't type thing. Um the thing is though, the reality is I don't think many people, I don't think many people care what you put on social media. Like in the real world, right? I doubt anybody on my feed was going, I've not not seen anything from Paul. So let me know. And and you know, I remember having this conversation with my my brother-in-law and and his wife about it, and it's just saying what you see on Twitter is not the real world. You know, that where whereas Twitter and people are calling, like, you must do this, or you must say that, or you mustn't say this, or you mustn't say that. The reality is 99% of us on the street will be against these awful things, will want to love people of colour who are our neighbours and our friends and our families and things. Um, but we will know that making some kind of display online really probably won't make any difference at all.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and you know, it will just be still saying, yeah, it may have been saying, Hey, can you tell me if there's anything I've done that I've inadvertently, you know, things we do in the church. And that was something that came out of the conversation with Jason Roach, wasn't it? That he said, you know, um, how many of our songs or the books we promote are just white people? And I never even thought about it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know? Yeah. Um and that's just a helpful thing to go, okay. Look at your modernity bias. Um look at the bias there. Um But so so much of it may st it may have just been saying things like that to people and saying, look, if there's anything I've done, please let me know. If there's anything we're doing as a church or whatever it is, please let us know. Um but so much of it will just be in a sense, still, you know, in the same way I say to my my white friends. I don't even think in terms of like my white friends, but yeah, in the same way you think you say to your white friends, hey, we're going to the pub, should we go to the pub? You just keep inviting all your people to the pub.
SPEAKER_04All my people are. All the people.
SPEAKER_02You always say, you know, it there's not kind of like, oh well, this person isn't, you know, maybe they're different in this way. This is why, I mean, even now, it's such a tightrope, isn't it? Yeah. You know, I want to recognise difference and celebrate it and say, what do you bring that's different to what I bring? But at the same time, I don't want to bring that so high up that basically all the time I'm just saying, you're you're very different. You're so different to me in every way, you know. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I I love our conversation with Richard Awiami and and uh Jason Roach, and we got to the end, and we we actually talked about the doctrine of the Trinity because we were like, it's about distinction and unity. Like you've got particular persons, but they are one, you know, together in community. And what a model for our communities that we that we should, you know, kind of honour the particularity of the nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, because apparently they've got a future, you know. The future is bright for nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues. Um but they are not steam, their differences are not steamrolled, um, and they're not dissolved into one another. There's a kind of a crunchy unity, you know, together in Christ. Um, but yeah, I I think we we have swung very far towards the particularity side of things rather than the oneness side of things. Yeah. I I think, you know, speaking as a 42-year-old Australian male, you know, living in Eastbourne, you know, because that, you know, we we we're an immigrant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. This changes everything.
SPEAKER_04Um we swung so far to the particularity. I think we've we've lost a lot of sight of the oneness. And I think partly in 2020, we were just online the whole time. So we we did think online was the whole world. We did think Instagram was more important than it was.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_04Because people are twice as much online, like during the day, as at regular times. So I think the big test on where we put the lessons we've learned from 2020 into practice will be 2021. You know, what happens when we get out there into the world and actually actually love people? Um we must go to this video. Um uh I think uh uh talking about moments in which Paul shined. Uh Paul Paul Sean. Sean Sean shined. Sean one of the moments where Paul Sean was um uh during the um this survey we'll uncover um deeply racist views. Another was when we discussed the impact of social media and how much we are enslaved to our devices, and we had an idea. Why don't we uh do a film called If Phones Were Bibles? Let's have a look now.
SPEAKER_02I really didn't know this.
SPEAKER_04There's no steam coming up in the cup. That was a problem. I put it in in post, I thought.
SPEAKER_06You're nearly done. It's 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_04Uh Emily out of the bubble sing clip lined up. Uh yeah, sure, I'll ready in a minute. Cheers. The triple tick, quadruple tick.
SPEAKER_01Perfect music. Oh yeah, it just really print out, isn't it? Oh yeah, this is the meaning. It was actually quite scary when it came with me. I've never seen Max so under Perfect.
SPEAKER_04Perfect.
SPEAKER_02This is what about better performing videos of the year, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, quite rightly so.
SPEAKER_02You know those things, not the things we plow hours of time into, but the took a couple of hours, didn't it?
SPEAKER_04Are you getting stopped in the street now? Oh yeah, yeah. Just getting recognized over time as a Bible stuff. Yeah, yeah. We did this together with uh uh an analysis of uh the social dilemma, which big Netflix documentary on the effects that social media is is having on all of us. And you can uh check that out as well, in which we basically uh are apologists for the entire social media ecosystem because we are very dependent on it. So um yeah, don't don't don't put away your phones. Like and subscribe. I think we're you know making the point that it's a technology the same way as a personal Bible that you hold in your hands is a bit of technology, and it you know it's not been around forever, and it's changed the way that we've encountered the word of God and that kind of thing, and phones are another kind of technology, um, and technology can amplify the human heart for good and for ill, and it gives opportunities, uh, but there are also very definite dangers, and being aware that they are trying to harvest your attention and doing all that they can to enslave you to your device.
SPEAKER_02You need to be aware. And I think, yeah, I mean it I think the big thing people talk about with social media is like harvesting like data in the sense of you know, your date, where's my data going and privacy? And actually, I think the biggest thing that came out of it wasn't so much what they're taking your data and doing with it, it it was more that how they're sucking your life, yeah, you know, your attention is constantly on this thing. So, in one sense, I know they're using my data to do that, but but in one sense, I I don't care what they're doing with the fact I liked this page once. Right, you know, right? Um, but it's more the fact that when I wake up in the morning, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna pick up my phone when I'm sitting with my kids while I'm on my phone? You know, that's that's the thing whether you go, oh that's not healthy, that's something wrong there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like I'll I'll always remember my my daughter saying, put away your phone, daddy. And it's it's just this thing, like put away your phone, daddy. Yeah, you idiot, put it away. Um so what are we gonna finish with? We were gonna finish with reset, but we've talked about reset loads.
SPEAKER_02And reset will still be going on whilst this when this comes out, won't it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, totally. So uh we'll finish with Christmas. Uh Christmas was our 3D animation, our trip into a snow globe. A boy looks into a world, a dark and beautiful but dangerous world. And the big question is, will he go there? Uh let's uh have a look at this as we uh leave, because it is it still is like the 12th day of Christmas. It's right up until the 5th of January. So it's still we're we're still allowed to do Christmas, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. 12th day of Christmas. Um so we'll uh have a look at that. Um guys, please do uh like and subscribe uh to us because if you're gonna have your attention sucked by anything, at least have it sucked by you know biblical, theological, meaty, Christ-centered stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, which can be found elsewhere.
SPEAKER_04And funny videos about phone phones with Bibles. Um Brilliant. Well, guys, uh, thank you so much uh for watching. We're gonna uh watch our animation in a second, but uh, we'll catch you next week. See ya. If it cost you everything, would you go there? That's the question asked by Speak Life's Christmas film for 2020. It has been years in the making. Ever since I first came across a haunting Christmas poem called The Coming, I knew that I wanted to make this animation. The Coming is by Welsh poet R. S. Thomas. It begins with the words, and God held in his hands a small globe. Look, he said. The sun looked. And what we then see in the poem is a world that is darkness and light. It is dangerous and compelling. It is beautiful and broken. It's the world that we know, a world we love and a world that will be the death of us. The poem asks us to consider the world from God's perspective. It imagines a conversation between the Father and the Son. Where the Son of God sees the world, where he loves the world, and where he knows that the world will be the death of him. So the question is: if it cost you everything, would you go there? I mean, we are born into the world. We have no say. But if you had the choice to join this merry-go-round, and if you knew it would cost you everything, would you go there? Christmas is God's answer to that question. At Christmas, the Son of God says, let me go there. Let me join the world. This world that is darkness and light. It's dangerous and compelling. It's beautiful and broken. Let me go to my people who have wandered from my light and who have embraced darkness. Let me move towards them personally so that my healing light can transform them. The final scene of the poem, the final scene of the film, has the Son of God at a lonely bare tree. It's called a crossbowed tree, in R. S. Thomas' words. This is the place where our darkness met the light of the world. That is the place where Christmas leads. Christmas leads to Easter. When the Son of God decides to enter our world, he decides to shoulder all our burdens, to experience all our suffering, to take on all our darkness. He does that at the cross and then rises to share his light. It cost him everything. But this is why he said, Let me go there. As the Bible puts it, the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world. So here's the question. If you had to shoulder the burden of the whole world, if you had to sacrifice yourself for the world you'd made, would you go there? The Son of God did. And at Christmas we celebrate that he embraced us. He embraced everything that that involved. He went there, no matter the cost. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.