Cancelled for a Tweet: The Cost of Biblical Courage | Dr Aaron Edwards

Most pastors say they value both truth and compassion. Dr Aaron Edwards thinks that framing is already the problem.
In this episode of The Examined Faith, Tuppy Morrissey speaks with theologian, author, and preacher Dr Aaron Edwards — a man who lost his academic post for a tweet, and hasn't stopped talking since.
In this episode:

Why "pastoral" and "bold" are not opposites — and what shepherds actually do to wolves
The slow drift of evangelical institutions: how churches and colleges get absorbed into the systems they set out to resist
Aaron's firing from Cliff College, the Twitter mob that preceded it, and what it taught him about cowardice in the church
Kierkegaard as prophet: why a 19th-century Danish philosopher is still the best diagnosis of nominal Christianity — and why he's harder to read than he should be
Social media as the new Areopagus: why Christians need to speak where it costs something
Marc Guehi, Kaka, and what genuine public witness looks like — and doesn't look like
Raising seven children in the faith: Psalms, arrows, and telling a five-year-old the truth

Aaron's Substack, That Good Fight, is at aaronedwards.substack.com. His forthcoming books include a study of David's mighty men and the battle for Christian masculinity.
https://www.faithwave.app/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Examined Faith. I'm your host, Tuppy Morrissey, and joining me today is Dr. Aaron Edwards. Aaron is a Christian theologian, author, and preacher. He's the author of works, including a theology of preaching and dialectic, and writes regularly about courageous evangelical witness on his excellent substack, That Good Fight. Aaron, it's great to speak with you today.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Thanks, Taffy. It's good to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

So let's dive in with my first question. I was wondering how you think Christian leaders can balance boldness and pastoral sensitivity, especially when approaching more controversial, controversial topics.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Yeah, it's an interesting one. Because I think um many people see firstly I think many people see the term pastoral. I don't think they understand it the way in the fully fledged way that the Bible presents what a shepherd is for. A pastoral is to be is shep shepherdly connotations. And I think we tend to say you can either be bold, you're a bold person, or you can be a pastoral type person. A pastoral type person is basically empathetic, compassionate, kind, and gentle and nice. And the bold person is not nice, doesn't care about people, only cares about being right, only cares about their opinion being uh seen as correct and winning an argument or whatever. And I just think that's not what shepherds are supposed to be. If a shepherd is supposed to protect sheep from wolves, they have to be bold by necessity. So you don't get to be a pastoral person who isn't bold if you want to follow the New Testament. So you can choose to say, yeah, you can do a fake version and go, yeah, I'm I'm choosing selectively elements of what it means to be a pastor and then boldness. So I would actually say boldness and pastoring go together. Lots of pastors who may be listening to this will be, oh, absolutely, I I agree with that. But I don't know if they actually practice it entirely when it comes to some of the more, as you say, controversial issues. So again, because of this false narrow notion of what pastoral means, it means, well, in order to not offend people, that's the way you can look after the sheep by not offending them. So if somebody has felt needs, if somebody comes and says, I feel this way, and I feel that um if you speak like this, if you say this, or if you speak about this particular topic, then I will feel like you're, you know, offending me or hurting me in some way emotionally. That's just a big part of what you know, there's a guy called uh Joe Wigney in the States who's written a book called Leadership and Emotional Sabotage, where where, you know, he's he's speaking about this exact problem affecting churches and institutions over the last hundred or so years, where the the the loudest voices of the most dependent people who are um most fragile tend to be those that dominate um at an institution. So we kind of the leadership kind of deflects to them and goes, right, oh god, we we must placate these needs right now because they're felt needs. We must, and that's what Jesus would do, because Jesus had compassion on people and he loved people and he was gentle, and therefore, of course, you'd be a Pharisee, you'd be the people on the other side of the divide over here who are mean and only care about the truth. And I actually think that Jesus it Jesus' castigation of the Pharisees isn't that you care too much about the word of God, it's that you don't care enough about the word of God actually. You neither, you know, you neither believe the scriptures nor the power of God, he said to them. It's um well you search the scriptures and you don't understand that I'm the fulfilment of the scriptures, so look to me for life. And I think that that's part of the problem, that we have this weird um dichotomy, people who care about people versus people who care about the truth. Whereas if you care about the truth, you you will care about people, and if you care about people, you'll care about the truth. I think that's how the scripture presents it to us. So in in terms of practically how I you go about that, we first understand that those things go together to be pastoral and bold isn't is a necessity. Um and then you and then it's about really going, well, looking at how scripture informs that, and you go, well, how how did Jesus relate to different kinds of people? Of course, he doesn't go blasting in in the same way to every person. You can see a contextual approach, you can see the fact that he's aware of different people in their situations. But Jesus is always bold. I mean, even in the way that he speaks to the woman at the well, um, he isn't like nice, effectively he actually he calls her out and and and and says, Yeah, I know you've you're you know, the you've had five husbands, and the one you're living with right now isn't your husband. That's not very nice, that's offensive. She she could have got away and said that was spiritually abusive. He made me feel like I was a sinner. And you're like, Yes, that's the point. He did. You are. You're supposed to be convicted. And so so there's got to be these things going together. But of course, Jesus does it in such a way where he's he's not just putting a sugar coating on it, he's actually genuinely cares about people and genuinely cares about them knowing the truth, knowing that the truth will set them free. And so basically, if you if you don't really believe the truth will set people free, that's a big problem. And I think that's what has been a huge problem for many leaders. They haven't really believed the truth can set people free, and so they allow them to continue in their false delusions of reality, whether it's doctrinally or just anthropologically about who they are as a person or whatever. Um, and that really keeps them more shut in and enslaved to their sin or enslaved to their delusion or confusion, rather than liberating them with the light of the truth. And that's just so that so once you have the understanding of those two coming together, I think it allows you to be a bit more free to adapt to different situations of who you're talking to one-on-one into a group online or whatever, and you can decide, well, this person needs something a lot stronger, this someone this person needs something um with it with a little bit of you know s something else in there that that shows them that you're on their side, whereas this person actually just needs to have their hard heart um of stone kind of smashed a bit with the word of God, which actually all of those images are appropriate. You know, Jeremia talks about the word of God as a hammer that breaks the rock, and we need to think more like that sometimes with the with the power of the word of God going out.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah, using discernment and basically a bit of common sense um can be pretty crucial. Um so you said you've written a lot about such issues. Could you explain a little bit to our listeners about your path into theology and how does your reformed charismatic perspective shape your work today?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah, it's funny really. I I um I started off well, I became a Christian when I was 16. Um and quite unexpectedly, I've I'll I'll I'll take all of our time to tell our our my whole testimony, I could I'll do that some other time maybe. But um I didn't intend to become a Christian, and um when I start when I w I immediately I had many ways in which God I felt God speaking to me directly, no I say directly in ways that will scare people who aren't charismatics, but um way I guess God leaving an impression upon me which was quite strong of to do this or to do that in a certain direction. Um quite normal, really, when you read the Bible that God will direct people in their life in some way or another, with coincidences or someone speaking or opening scripture and and scripture coming alive to them in a profound way. I had quite a lot of that going on early on in my in my Christian life, um, to the extent that I in in in some ways it's almost as though I wasn't purely making decisions myself. I was called of course responsible for my decisions, but I felt like I was being led, um, which I think is a good thing. It can lead people into a uh irresponsibility sometimes, but I've you know, many of the decisions I made of what I should do next, like going to university, studying English literature, which I did, I didn't study theology as my undergraduate. I did lit English literature, even though my English literature teacher at A-level said there's no chance in hell that you're going to be doing English literature at university. Um and I felt God speak to me through 1 Corinthians uh um about you know your your faith not resting in the wisdom of men but in the power of God, in a quite profound way. Uh God speaking to me in a time when I knew virtually nothing about the Bible. I was just a brand new Christian, had just been told that my kind of tentative plan of I guess I'll do English because it's the only thing that I thought I liked as an as a as a pretty rubbish AS level student, um, getting not very good grades, and then suddenly um it all kind of transformed and I did pretty well in the end. Um and then from there I thought I was going to just go into writing, um, literary type writing, and um I guess I still harbour hopes of that in some way, but god god kind of interrupted my path, and then I sudden somehow found myself doing a master's in theology, um, which opened up because I wanted to do a literature master's, that didn't work because that they changed the schedule or something, and and I was already booked in to stay in my my student house after my degree. Um and I prayed about it, and then I did an MA in theology because I was already always debating with people about theology anyway, and people used to say you should really be doing theology. Um in fact, my English literature teachers used to say that because they were mostly atheists who uh who would who would try and try and project atheism to everyone. They were preaching atheism and secularism and absurdism, post-modernism in every lecture and seminar, and I was the one who's standing up and going, that's not right, whatever, we'd have these debates, it was quite fun. So um then I did an MA in theology, and I got one of my literature professors, the one I argued with most, he wrote my reference for me, which was quite fun, a nice uh um bit of irony. But and it was just in, yeah, so I had a really interesting time at university, um, of course, engaging with lots of ideas which were contrary to the Christian faith. Um, when I was not too I probably was only a Christian a couple of years when I was at university, I think, yeah. And um having to sort of argue those out. And then so when I came to theology, I was quite surprised really at how um unbiblical uh and unevangelical the approach was. I mean, I guess I wasn't entirely surprised, maybe when I I had to come across theologians and and and things before that, but I I wasn't reading academic theology, I was just debating with people and talking about scripture and talking about the church, etc. Um, and so all of those things uh, you know, fed into my academic path really. Again, you know, without going on too long, I'll I'll there's many other things that happened along the way that led to me doing a PhD in the end, which were very unexpected and not in my normal um imagined path of what my life was going to be like. But it was that openness to the spirit, openness to God's leading, which I think I'd learned early on in how I became a Christian into a reformed charismatic and uh movement called New Frontiers, um, and you know, led by the at that time by Terry Virgo, who was fantastic at just giving you that real clear sense of bringing the Bible to life and you're feeling that as it's being preached that you're really uh wanting to go and do it straight away. You're wanting to go and put this into practice in your life because he's bringing so much pathos into it, not because he's doing it by by some technique, but by just saying this is supposed to be for you to live out now in your life, and um and God's real, God is real, he's that he's there, and he's he's there to be engaged with and to be related to um and and wants that fellowship and that relationship with you, and that's it's such a huge part of it. So for me, it was I remember one thing, one more final thing, I know I've been rabbiting on a bit, but um I remember when I started my PhD, some very prestigious fellow from uh Cambridge was there doing some kind of four-year postdoc in Aberdeen where I was doing my PhD, and I was there in my first year, and he asked me, he asked me, So what so what brings you to Aberdeen? Um what are you doing, and you why are you doing a PhD? And I said, Well, God told me. And uh it's just a bit and apparently he went around telling everyone, this is a wild fanatic. He said, God told him to come do and then and then thankfully my professor actually uh stook up for me and was saying, Well, yeah, what are you saying you don't believe in prayer? You know, it's kind of fundamental to theology. Um you should pray and you should actually think that God is actually listening to your prayers and is directing your life. And I think that cuts into the heart of some of the fakeness in a lot of academic theology, uh, where I guess it's just merely cerebral, merely abstract, and doesn't touch your your everyday life.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

So it's clear that um from that anecdote that you're not afraid to express your views and you've been a vocal advocate for what you call shamelessly biblical Christianity and free speech for evangelical Christians. What do you see as the greatest threats to that freedom of expression today? Maybe particularly in the UK, but perhaps uh globally as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, and yeah, you're right, we have a particular problem about it in in Britain because we have a and I actually say Britain in particular, I think Northern Ireland is stronger. They would lead the way in terms of in terms of boldness. There are far more bold evangelicals in Northern Ireland than there are in England, for example, or or or Scotland or Wales. And I think that it's interesting that um yeah, we we have this cultural trait, don't we, where we want to be understated. Sometimes that can be good, it can be in a sense of dignity, and we can be more restrained in a noble way, a stoic way. Um but I also think that it it very easily has drifted into cowardice, and so it's the sense of like I you know that you should go down this trail, you know you should you should speak this now in this context, but you know you don't want to because you have to expend a certain amount of socio-political credit to do so. And so if there's a a fashionable sin, um you won't denounce it, or if there is an unfashionable truth, you won't extol it or promote it. And you might say, I c I privately agree with that unfashionable truth, but I'm not going to go and get in trouble over it, it's not really worth it, because I've got some bigger long-term game, some bigger long-term strategy, and I'll use my credit more more, you know, wisely later on. And I just think either that time never comes, or by the time that time comes, um you've actually shriveled and shrunk in your boldness even more, and so you're less willing to say it. And I've met many, many evangelicals over the years in different denominations who think that they're in it to win it. Of course, that's a phrase that Anglican evangelicals have often used, who by the time they get to the chance where they could win it, so so to speak, they've just been sort of submerged into the system, and it and it kind of gets its tentacles into them, and they still think they're playing a long-term strategy of slowly, trojanically dismantling the bad stuff from the inside. But really, they've been being slowly dismantled and they've been absorbed into the furniture or to the walls. And I think that's a huge, a huge temptation. And it it actually happens in the free evangelical churches as well. So that's m more my background is from that free church tradition. Um, and I was just shocked really to see that that had started happening, it had been happening for a long time. So I've always said, you know, been in a situation where I've probably been the weird person in the in the environment I'm in, whether in the academy or or whatever. And actually, for for for being conservative or or holding certain convictions, but I I usually had a strong ecclesial backdrop. So I could always know that there was a a strong sense of a whole tradition, any evangelical tradition which I could point to as living and now that I could say really I'm entirely in alignment with. And it surprised me that increasingly, as culture got more f further and further drifting away from the moorings of the Word of God, evangelicalism was supposed to be the thing that was the stall staunchly standing against it, and sacrificed lots of other stuff, lots of cultural engagement in order to hold the line on certain doctrines. And even even those churches started to slowly drift, either in the way I said earlier by just quietly not saying what they could and should say to defend the truth, but in some cases even overtly, you know, drifting off and and uh embracing liberalism. And so that's been something that I've I've observed, and I think that's still the biggest challenge is it's cowardice and being unwilling to stand up for the truth when it matters and how it matters when the time comes.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

And I think that takes us nicely to your experience at Cliff College where you were a lecturer and I think you led one of the masters programs there. Um, but you were dismissed after a tweet you posted about human sexuality and the whole issue became quite public. I'm sure you've had to speak about this uh far too often. But what did that experience teach you about, I guess, your own your own faith and how to be courageous, but also about uh cancel culture today and the state of the church here in Britain.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah. Yeah, I think it did it was it was a very traumatic time, really, but it was uh one that was very um eye-opening. I think I already had um in many ways some run-ups to that in terms of thinking, well n knowing basically that I needed to speak more publicly. I think before two years before I was fired, I'd sort of felt God calling me to speak more publicly on certain issues on social media. I had really traditionally been more of a Luddite. I think I occasionally put something out on Facebook. I hadn't I did I wasn't on Twitter or Instagram, and I actually probably looked down upon people who spent too much time engaging with comment threads and stuff like that. I just thought, what's what a complete waste of time. Um and then I started, I remember writing a research article for the International Journal of Public Theology, and in my conclusion, I was talking about street preaching and the need for us to bring what's called what I would call radical enculturated proclamation, the sense that you're bringing a completely seemingly foreign truth that's kind of dazzlingly different, and yet it's enculturated and within the terms and understanding of the people you're speaking to. I think that's what missionaries have always done. I just don't know, that's what academics do. We invent fancy phrases to make it look easier. Yeah, radical. But I like the fact that it the acronym is R.I.P. because you're cut you kind of have to die to yourself in order to be radically inculturated, but not radical like by like a street preacher is radical, aren't they? In the sense that you I don't even like most street preachers. We walk past, and you can just you just cut them off because you kind of think in your head, I try to encourage them if I think they're actually doing a good job, and and I want to just say amen, brother, or something. But I recognise, of course, that most average people aren't hearing them because they just can it's easy to separate them and they can go, oh, crazy person, doesn't matter, off I go to Greg's or Primarch or whatever. I don't really I wasn't here to have an existential life change anyway, so I can just separate them off as a mad person. And I think we need to appear mad in the way Paul says we should be foolish, seeming seemingly foolish and stumbling blocks as it were to the Jews and Greeks. Um, but we also need to be enculturated and the New Testament gives us that, and the mythological history gives us that as well. Um so we need to do both. Somehow we need to show people that we're mad, because we are relative to their worldview, but also that they're actually wiser than them as well, because we're bringing wisdom that is above and beyond. And it's something that we can look to and point to in the good things that those people already recognise about creation, about their about the world, about truth itself. So that concept of bringing those two together, I felt actually needs to be brought on social media. And I was writing about this, thinking, yeah, and I'm not really doing it. I'm not doing social, I'm not doing anything on social media because I haven't got time. I think it's a bit lowbrow, I think it's a waste of time, it kind of doesn't really, it's not as significant as writing a book or an article. And there are there's truth to that. There are there are spectrums here of how engaged you can be online, but I realised I needed to speak boldly um because I saw how much it's affecting the lives and opinions of everyday people. So that's really the public square of today. It's the equivalent of Paul street preaching in in the Agora or in in the marketplace in uh in Athens um and later in the Areopagus, so in Act 17, that is. So I think that we need to do that, and that that's why I think social media is the place where opinions are shaped and formed, um, and you need Christians speaking boldly on those things. Now, when you do that, of course, there are repercussions. Um, but I was doing that for quite a while before my you know my particular tweets that you mentioned um got you know massively Twitter mobbed and and uh you know all the Methodists, all the high-up archbishop equivalents of Methodists, and they think they don't have those, but they do. Um and they they were trying to literally directly get me fired. I'd met loads of these people when they'd come through the college. I was at the college for seven years, I worked with loads of Methodists, I knew loads of gay Methodists that I would talk to, and I wouldn't be like, you know, frothing at the mouth trying to like, you know, throw holy water on them. I would actually try to engage them, persuade them, or have banter with them even, and and and I'd tell them straight what I believe. They knew that I was as conservative as I was, but I think they still I was trying to slowly point out, you can't tell people they're not allowed to speak strongly against what you believe, even if you feel it's sacred and the most important part of who you are. You have to recognise that within a Christian context, you're not allowed to say that the other person can't strongly oppose you because they have to. If they believe what they believe, you're telling them that they don't believe what they believe otherwise and that they have to keep it quiet, and that means they have to not love you, because they believe that what you're doing is under God's judgment. So it's really not fair to just say, hey, we can just live in harmony. We'll believe our liberal view of marriage, gay marriage, you can believe your conservative view, and just keep quiet about it and just let's just let's get on. It doesn't work. It puts the conservative in a position where they um uh where they can't really express what they really believe fully. And so when I did that, that's when and I had been doing that on podcasts and other things for the a couple of years, but this particular tweet just went viral and it put the college in a position where they felt compelled to suspend and sack me because of the pressure that'd been put on them by the denomination that they were connected to. And that's just I think there's so many examples of that kind of cancel culture where there's public pressure and the institution has to protect, feels has to protect its reputation. In the in the case of Cliff College, I you know, as I've said many times, they uh they believe that I brought them into disrepute, but them sacking me brought them into greater disrepute with their actual base, which was the evangelicals. I mean, probably liberal leaning evangelicals uh increasingly, now I think they'll still call themselves evangelical, but just aren't, because the they've just accepted so much of the of the pride propaganda. Even if even if leaders at the college technically they they do the thing I said earlier. I'm personally against gay or I'm personally not in favour they don't want to say they're against gay marriage I'm personally not in favour of gay marriage does that mean you're against it well I wouldn't put it like that I wouldn't put that I'd say I'm not in favour well what does that mean then okay and they just don't really believe their convictions and so they want to be able to hold out their I'm we're evangelical please come and send your children here please send your students here so we can keep going but actually we want to be palleying up with the liberals who are giving us a big grant every year. So this is a it's just a perpetual problem people protecting their reputation in front of to the wrong people placating the wolves rather than actually treating the wolves as the wolves need to be treated and protecting the sheep pastorally by speaking the truth in love. And I think that's something that requires sometimes to speak the truth very strongly especially in the public square when when that public um sort of perception is being encroached upon by I would say lies and ideological propaganda every single year. And so it was getting worse and worse and worse. And if Christians aren't the ones speaking out even when it comes into the church well I mean what chance have we got if if the Christian leaders like me who are teaching people how to preach apparently I was teaching the preaching course among you know probably about dozens of other modules I was teaching on. I was overseeing all the whole master's course on on mission how if I'm teaching people to be good missionaries and good preachers and I'm not willing to speak up boldly then what what chance have they got? They're going to look at me and go, well that's the ceiling the leaders are to are not doing this I guess they're wise and we better not go with what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

That's just part of the pathology of secularise modern acad uh academic theology and mystiology and pastoral practical theology in all these institutions because they have to protect the reputation first before the wrong people rather than their reputation in the eyes of the Lord or the eyes of the faithful so what's the alternative what's the solution perhaps how can we rebuild our confidence in biblical authority which you definitely have is it just a question of prayer and putting your faith in God or are there also practical steps that institutions like Cliff College could take?

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yeah I mean some some institutions are almost um uh irredeemable because of the the links that they have to systems or to um insu other institutions which will only continue to feed them a certain um you know a certain I want to say flavour of trash uh to put it in a not so academic term. So if you have this pump if it's if you're being pumped constantly and and and it also comes with money it's very difficult for an institution to then say oh but we're holy we're being shamelessly biblical when oh yeah of course you could be shameless we're not ashamed of the Bible because we're evangelical that's that's what we have to be right we're not allowed to be ashamed of the Bible or the gospel or the truth but if you can just put your own spin on it and so that actually it seems that the trash actually isn't trash after all and so practically institutions and churches need to realise how they are being fed and how they are being shaped. Otherwise they're playing a kind of I would say exegetical pantomime where they are let's say their evangelical churches or institutions will do their nice expository preaching series and they'll just never touch the issues that actually need to be spoken of today but they can get away with saying I've done my 17 sermons on on this on these four verses or whatever and I've carefully avoided any way in which those verses can be put to use in the actual challenges that this church or the this community is facing right now. And so I think that it's it comes from a heart posture to be open to the word of God which I think is easier said than done. It's like I'm talking about like Sunday school stuff which adults don't apply. So the people who end up teaching Sunday school often might be saying these things, oh Jesus told us parable about building your house on a rock. Listen to what Jesus said, put it into practice and you build your house on the rock. Well the leaders in the actual churches aren't doing that because they're they're finding verses that are embarrassing that are putting things in ways that they would never put them or their institution leaders wouldn't put them or the websites the nice clean well designed websites wouldn't put them and so they need to do something with that. So they need to put a bit of you know spin on it they need to put a bit of left hand side or whatever to use a snooker analogy in order to um check side maybe um to in order to you know make it see do something different with it because I don't think we can actually just allow the text to speak because it's so complicated actually it becomes really complicated when it's challenging to us and it's really clear when it isn't challenging to us. That's when you pull the scholars out of the wardrobe you know they say we've got these scholars waiting on hand to get us out of trouble when the text uh challenges us and so I think that's something that um practically leaders need to be really aware think of and and and prayer so it does require prayer because it does require you putting yourself honestly before God and going where have I deliberately undersold what the Bible says or over maybe oversold some other element of what the Bible says and um and haven't been open to the leading of your spirit in what I should be emphasizing here and now because it's not as simple as going pick up the Bible and just say what it says you're always making decisions. You've always got to make wise decisions about how you speak but I think the Bible speaks into that particular issue itself anyway and we need to be led by that. So for me personally the big the biggest thing that challenged me was just reading the Bible in such a way that I was asking God how could I apply this today? I know that's again it's ridiculously basic because it's what we all say but it really is different in reality. When you look at when you're reading like a chapter of the Bible I I would write it in a I'd write about you know my reflection in a book. I've got I've got lots of them on my bookshelves. But I I I I just write a kind of daily reflection on a on a chapter and and um it it forces me to be open to what the Bible is saying and I'm I'm so often astonished by how the Bible speaks um in in in contrast to how the professional Christians like me um speak today. So I think that that's that's something that would that needs to be done. Just how can you find yourself in a situation where you're prayerfully open to what the Bible says and find yourself pushing yourself to be willing to actually put it into practice as Jesus told us to um again easier said than done sometimes you're dealing with different kinds of text etc of course I'm aware of all these arguments I am an academic um I know that there's complexities and genres etc but I do still think that fundamentally there's there's been a disconnect and evangelicals especially trouble uh they do their own version of this so like liberals do this obviously oh yeah a challenging verse well that's something that's to do with the uh a first century you know barbarian culture that we don't do anymore evangelicals don't do that they want to defend the inerrancy or the infallibility of scripture depending on what side of the pond you're on maybe what word you might use but um they will tend to the the infallibility of the Bible will sort of just be filtered through a narrow lens of the gospel how does this tell me something about Jesus immediately because if I don't do that I'm not being a good evangelical and so they then sort of end up just sideling m swathes of scriptural teaching both Old and New Testament which actually are applicable and important and could challenge the way the evangelical lens has has um has been sort of uh smeared a little bit in in recent decades. So I think there's lots lots for people to think about in terms of just being open to what the word says and being willing to put it into practice.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

I think someone who was willing to do that was Soren Kierkegaard who you've about whom you've written a lot.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

I'm currently halfway through your your book on him enjoying that very much why do you think he is such an important figure for the contemporary church to be aware of yeah so yeah yeah so Kierkegaard which again I'll just put the caveat for those who are you know who who are in the know you're supposed to say Kierkegaard but you know it's hard to get away with that kind of pretentiousness always for you know and American American scholars say Kierkegaard so let's just you know debase ourselves and and and and uh and uh say it say it the way most people would say it so um I I think that Kierkegaard was particularly unique um as a as someone who stood outside the ecclesial establishment of his time um and he I don't I don't think he he could have done more I think he could have built something but in a in a way I think his whole voice was to be a prophetic witness to the establishment of the time. I think he had he was he could certainly be accused of being hyperbolic and he could be accused of um overstressing certain elements but in a way that that that showed the need to correct the balance. He was a corrective kind of thinker and so he had to emphasize things that he thought that nobody else was willing to see at the time. And in his time that would be Christendom he would see Christendom as the the worst kind of cancer upon the church. I'd like to think if I could get in a room with Kierkegaard um one day, which I hope we will be I could try and convince him that Christendom has more going for it than he could see in the 19th century. And and the reason he he was troubled by Christendom was because it it created the kind of nominal fake Christianity which he thought was the the problem in in Denmark at the time which I think is unquestionably true that it had that effect but it wasn't necessarily there there's more complexity to how you think about Christendom and which I think he might if he saw the effects of secularism the decline of Christendom he might see oh actually no this this idea that we can have this pure church which is completely um doesn't want doesn't have aspirations of transforming a culture to the extent that it could make Christianity normative that that has equal problems and it doesn't actually lead to the greater purity of the church as we've seen. So anyway that caveat aside Kierkegaard's m my first introduction to him and I and I've written a few chapters on this in the book that you're gladly glad you're you're halfway through. You're giving up the sin of this it was just prepared that's right you'll be doubt no I won't I'll carry it what's the point exactly yeah yeah yeah it's um as so I think that he he was someone again who ex embodied the approach that I was speaking about before of wanting to do what the Bible says. Now does he do that always perfectly does he overlook certain elements about uh a high view of the church for example yes certainly but I do think in his time he could see the way the church was corrupted and was refusing to hear the word of God and so he he was someone who um regularly saw the the need to chastise you know um pastors who were hypocrites basically he he had you know he'd think of think of Jesus to the Pharisees is kind of Kierkegaard to the the Danish Lutheran um pastors who who regularly seemed to be those who didn't practice what they preach who who would you know various very um very sort of alert and bright analogies he would draw upon um to reflect upon this problem who's a great parable writer he was a great um poet really um prophetic kind of poet and he was um wanting to s for people to see just how ludicrous and ironic this posture was of of these pastors who would be paid um to tell people the message of the New Testament which was to die to yourself um and to you know and to give up to give up your possessions for the kingdom etc um and then to you know go off to the country to recuperate for several months uh on on a on a high salary and so I think he he um though overstressing some of those points because you could certainly say there's biblical arguments for all you know things that paying pastors properly etc honouring um I do think that he was trying to do as the prophets did, which is to speak very strongly and boldly against the misuse of the word of God and the peddling of the word of God for profit um at a time when you could just see that there wasn't that kind of heart connection and heart religion that he was looking for that Christianity seems to require and it does require that. And so that is that certainly for those of us who are thinking about Christendom in a different way in a new way today that's certainly going to be a problem. That's something I'm always aware of to ensure that we're not just talking about Christian values completely separate from Christian faith. He was dealing with the opposite problem where he already had that Christian values supposedly in the in the culture in baked in so everyone went to church on a Sunday because it was the thing that you did on a Sunday. He preferred to go to church on a you know a Friday to the communion service in the in the in the week when actually not everyone would go and only the people who would go were the truly existentially committed people. And so he was very very dubious about um mere public professions of faith when they weren't um met with a genuine sense of inner character and integrity. So he certainly overstressed the inwardness in a kind of pietistic way but I do think that he had a really powerful message and and really I think it's quite an interesting contrast to how to to have Kierkegaard's message and then to talk about Christendom being not such a bad idea after all is a good combination because Kierkegaard kind of keeps you on your toes really.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

And I mean I love reading about Kierkegaard but I find when I open up some of his works I think oh this is gonna be great I really want to get into this and then I slog through it and sort of passages I think oh this is a genius and then others you know I read either or and by the end I was just you know trying to finish it. You mentioned your book AB reading the the journals is that a better approach because I would like to understand his thoughts firsthand.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah I mean by all means yeah yeah like I'm glad you're in yeah I hope you're enjoying my book as a good secondary uh way in and it it is you're right it is challenging even I could pick up a random you know hundred odd pages of Kierkegaard and be like this is you know it's not it's not this unedifying he's in a way he might be too clever for his own good so he his his his his writing project is is absurd. Like his his strategy is unbelievably like unbelievably ambitious like writing whole books in the character of somebody that you don't actually agree with and like spending ages to try to like express that poetically philosophically when you don't even fully agree with this perspective in order to try to trick people into seeing the falsity of their perspective secondhand in an indirect way and then publishing books another whole book that you spend ages writing on the same day in your own name hoping that they'll read that one and not know that you wrote the other one but then you don't it's just absolutely insane really but like that that was he he had yeah he thought a lot of it I mean he had money to s to to get his books published so I think he wouldn't have managed to do this had he not had I funny enough an inheritance from his father who was a m uh a merchant and so he was not quite self-published because he was it was a proper publisher but it was funded by him a lot of the publishing so he was able to be l have a lot of control over the editorial process. And you could argue that Kierkegaard might have done well with an editor but they might have also cut out all of the the gold as well. But he you're right picking up an a an average Kierkegaard book you don't that might be known as a classic is is is can be hard work. But once you have the framing for what he's doing you can actually understand why he's going about it. So when you understand it is it is he's an absolute genius the indirect communication method is genius if a little um mad and in its own time it wasn't particularly effective but you could argue that Kierkegaard it was effective longer term because you still have people wrestling with his thought you know some nearly 200 years later um after his death so I think it's kind of um amazing but at the same time it does it it it's so there are elements of it that are so ambiguous that it allows the sort of worse, you know, bad faith actors, atheists, postmodernists, etc, to think that they are in line with his thought because he said so much against the church that is it's as though he's on their side when really he was an embarrassingly bold, almost almost evangelical Christian. I would argue he's people have critiqued me and said oh he's making Aaron's you know Edwards is making him seem uh like he's just a standard evangelical I'm not saying that quite but I am saying many of his views and his postures are so close to how most evangelicals think about the posture of the heart and the and the importance of the word of God and its authority over us as individuals. There's so many correlations with with with things and some of those have been negative in the in the in the way we move towards a kind of reclusive pietism but I don't think Klikkick was entirely reclusive. He was someone who was really willing to get involved in the battles of his day and it cost him dearly to do that. Arguably some of those battles led to his very shortened life at the end dying at the age of forty two.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

And so I think um yeah he's a a great person to persevere with I definitely wouldn't start with either or I mean that's like No I had read even though that's unto death and maybe one other outgojournals you know writing out music and you know there was this sort of the lover section.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Yeah I thought it sounded really up my street I love music but then I got bogged down yeah and and and in that particular in either or in particular he's trying to show the problem that the aesthetic the merely aesthetic life in the either section as it were of and in the or of the merely ethical side. So so you've got the person who's uh yeah is um is going through the f the phase of the I'm just living for myself almost a kind of hedonism and then you have the other approach of I'm going to be ethical and do things that are good for society but without a true um existentially changed heart I guess behind it. And so you can critique him on those things but I think the the way that that's his sort of general sense. That's why it's it's quite simple in in the Uber mechanism but when you get into the details it's quite um you know it it can feel like a real rabbit hole or a series of rabbit holes or hobbit holes to go through. But that's quite what makes him interesting. And arguably this is kind of why like behind it all as I said he's pretty um he's a very orthodox Christian and that's what I find fascinating going to Kierkegaard conferences, I'll be get one in a couple of weeks' time in the US to give a paper and loads of people in Kierkegaard scholarship but like it's such a massive field of people because there's so many of these hard to understand books. But really like so the average person who had his views in the 19th century wouldn't be being read by at academic conferences 200 years later. But because of all these weird interesting things he wrote people are still reading it and they have to be confronted with the truth at some point when they read his embarrassing like sermons which are just scriptural expositions. And I think that you could argue that in the long term whether he knew this would happen or not I don't know. But like he did say that he he did have you know he was very he had some interest in the journals he does talk about having this kind of you know a this this long this strap he knew that people would read his journals long term for example and he knew that they would puzzle over his books etc long after he was dead and I think it's actually proven correct that people have done that because of that um way he wrote and the strangeness of it are mixed in with the very direct straightforward Christian um apologetic or maybe not apologetic but you could say proclamation you could say um yeah that he he forces people to confront the truth of Christianity who wouldn't otherwise confront it and that's definitely happened in in secular academia people have to deal with him because he's such a uh a massive figure because he's been recognized by so many scholars in different ways over the years.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

So perhaps we need someone to step up and follow that kind of trajectory today. Because you were mentioning sort of street preachers and how people might write them off as slight sort of crackpots. But I do think if someone can uh work their way into the cultural zeitgeist that could be a really exciting possibility for for Christendom especially as I mean I like you I uh love literature and I don't see uh a lot of sort of budding Christian novelists um today whereas in the past you did have particularly in the Catholic tradition um like Chesterton Graham Green David Lodge and obviously C.S. Lewis um but like you I have done some fictional writing so perhaps I'll have to work on a on a project. I have embarrassingly I I actually have written a fake interview between Soren Kierkegaard and a golden age bodybuilder called Vince uh Gironda because uh you might not believe it but I used to be quite into you know going to the gym um and yeah so uh Kierkegaard sort of trying to understand why this man would spend all his life uh in the gym and you know he ate sort of for periods almost exclusively steak and eggs um and Kierkegaard sort of saying is that is that a worthwhile use of your time on on earth I'll have to edit it and yeah put it out there.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Yeah interesting wow um great if we know you're right but we do definitely need people to be doing these creative um creative pursuits. I used to teach one of the courses I taught on the MA at Cliff College was lit o on literature, theology and culture and I had two parts to it. One that was um had that their assignment was creative writing that was a different module but that was there was a whole pathway for the whole MA and it was and the other one was more didactic and going through some of the great literature we've seen and the and the interaction with modernity but how it's all you just you don't really get strong, properly strong Christians Who are capable of writing things that will be respected literarily. And I think some of that's inevitable because of the secular mindset. They're just going to look for something that's dark and pulls everything down. But you could also say that a Christian Christian literature in general, whatever you call that, it just ends up being kind of rubbish because it's trying to do a sermon and sneak it in, and so it ties everything up in a way. And and then you get the people who are Christians who do literature who then just embrace the darkness so much that they're like, oh, it's um I'm so and they look down upon the the Christians who are trying to communicate the way C.S. Lewis did, of trying to um almost teach people in and in and through what he was writing, which he certainly was doing with with Narnia. Um and Tolkien obviously didn't like that for that reason, because he wanted it to be just be pure and you know, he's right he's writing the languages before he's writing the stories, which is kind of mad as well. And I think that um but but why it's so deep, uh Tolkien's world. But um you just don't have people who are committed to I don't think I think it's partly because we're not committed to like reality. So if you're committed to the goodness of God's whole earth, and that's maybe that's why Catholics are better than Protestants, or have sometimes been, um, because they have a greater sacramental view of all of creation um than we have tended to be. We tended to be more Gnostic as evangelicals and maybe Protestants in general. And so we're then we're we're so didactic, we're so much about the word, we're trying to convince people and and sneak it in. So you have you'll have bits of literature where there'll be a long speech in it back and forth, which will be trying to teach you something, um, whereas I don't think that's always as obvious, at least, in um in some of the former great works of literature. But it it it it it can just be as simple as like glorifying God through creation and um and bringing that out in the literature. But again, I don't I don't think it's it's not straightforward and not easy to do, and it's certainly not easy to do if someone sets out to write a so-called Christian novel. There are many people who think that isn't even possible, because um they would say that it it would you want to write a novel that's um that's good, that's that's therefore based in reality. Then some other people would say, well that is a Christian novel, isn't it? Because that because Christ is Lord of all. So there there's lots of different sort of schools of thought in there, but I would absolutely encourage Christians who are solid, proper Christians to think about um the good and to think about as Paul does in Philippians 4, you know, to to to think about what is noble, worthy, excellent, praiseworthy, and dwell upon those things. Um that might not win you the Man Booker Prize, though. Um they might prefer you to talk about, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

Um another area where I see some uh signs of renewal, I think, um, is is sport, actually. Um I saw on your subset that you are a Liverpool fan, so I'm sorry about your your season, but I'm thankfully an Arsenal fan, so I'm finally happy. Oh, well done. I'm happy for you. I'm happy for you. I'm I'm pretty delighted. But I saw a fantastic photo um of the Arsenal Christians um celebrating their title victory, doing this sort of cross uh symbol, and one of them you know wearing a t-shirt like made for God's glory, and they had um one of the young players, Max Dalman, who's only sixteen, in the photo, so perhaps they've kind of been encouraging him, which I think is really um encouraging and uh exciting. Are there any other areas where you see um hope for the the future of the church in England or elsewhere amidst all our cultural challenges?

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it? For years, it has been increasingly over the last maybe ten or twenty years I've seen, maybe since the Fabrice Muamba thing, remember that years ago? They had to pray for Muamba when he when he collapsed. Um so that since then public professions or expressions of faith have been a lot more normal. Maybe even Kaka, when he beat when they AC Milan beat Liverpool in the 2007 final after we beat them in 2005, when Kaka was like on top of the world, what a player he was, and he was a really overt evangelical Christian, wasn't he? And he wore the I belong to Jesus um after winning the Champions League, like the very best player in the world. I think he won the ball, maybe he won the Ballon d'Or that yeah. Yeah, I think around that time, yeah. Um around that time, and so he's best player in the world, just won the best competition in the world, and his I belonged to Jesus overtly. And it's amazing. And I I don't know if they were that that overt before that time, and then it became more common. But of course, you also have Muslims doing that kind of you know, Salah will do his kind of bowing down. Maybe that's why we didn't win this year, because God was just like, right, I saw our Islam.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Putting on the comments, uh, I know we're going a bit lowbrow now, but you know, sort of saying um this is why we won the league, um, and then saying these man sissy Christians need to get in the closet and and pray more, um which I thought was very funny.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

There you go, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean it is but the funny thing is obviously it's like yeah, people can look at it um it can it it can be fodder for atheists, obviously, because you'll have Christians in every team. Um I think Liverpool have Cody Gakpo and one or two others who who've who've done the I belong to Jesus thing as well. Um but I like it, oh look whoever wins, you're just choosing to, you know, it becomes their their sociological view of religion, um, of it, it just helps people to feel better or whatever, and it helps them to feel that they've got meaning and purpose. Um that kind of props up their argument to some extent with with that. But I do actually think that there's something it's just great it's great to see people who are um respected within the secular world, so they'll be heroes to people, and to be extremely overt about their faith. That is something that I think has changed and is a really positive thing. And because they're so big, they're worshipped, or you know, these celebrities and footballers especially are worshipped as kind of demigods by many. It's a great example of them sort of, you know, he must increase, I must decrease. They're trying to give God the glory. That's a basic biblical principle, which I think is really good when you have success and wealth, etc., to give honour and glory to God, and they're doing that. So that does lead the way in lots of ways. You do have it in other celebrities doing it, but it's still within that framework, isn't it, of a form of neo-pagan worship of these sub-gods. Like I think celebrities do become like demigods, and so because of that, you still have to convince people to have an existential life change, uh, or you know, the existential being a key word that Kierkegaard loved, of course, that there is a difference between, oh yeah, I like religion, like I think that's nice for them, that's good over there. But like when it affects you personally, when your life will change, when you have to make a decision to do this rather than that, when you have to break off that relationship or get in trouble for having this view, that's when it really matters if you're with Christ or not. And so I think I'm a pet especially glad when I see people, I think it was Mark Gay, wasn't it? He was Crystal Palace. Oh he was a Crystal Palace player, should have been a Liverpool player, and went to the city.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

He was one of the city players mentioned in these comments that he needs to pray more.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

So was he? Oh, there you go, yeah. Well he see he stood against pride, didn't he? So he was standing against LGBT. I think by having by saying, I'll wear the rainbow armband if I can put I love Jesus on it, and I think he was told he couldn't do that and he did it anyway. Um and I and I think um that that's like that's a bit bolder, isn't it? Because you I don't think you get in trouble for saying Jesus loves you anymore. I don't think you get in trouble for saying I love Jesus or you know I worship Jesus. You might have been sneered at in a previous era, and I think now that's not the thing you get in trouble for. You get in trouble for standing up for the things Jesus stands up for, or or Jesus stands against, really, more likely. So if you stand against what Jesus stands against, and people just naturally think that he never doesn't stand against anything, he's just this very nice, you know, hippie who goes around loving everyone, irrespective of anything, and that's just nonsense. And I think that um but people still have that weird view of Jesus, even if they have no connection to him whatsoever or to the church. They have this view that you're not allowed to desecrate Jesus. I mean, like I I was at a I was at the Tommy Robinson rally last week and I had a cross, and it was funny how people were so angry with me because I had a cross walking along the road with the Union Jack under my arm, and it was like, How dare you sow division? Jesus never sowed division, Tommy Robinson is a horrible racist and a fascist, and and Jesus and it's like, oh that's interesting. You you seem quite divisive. Uh do you uh you know, and and it's just fascinating how people have this weird view. They really they they almost worry about the desecration of Christianity, they don't care about Christianity, they don't care about Jesus, and so it's actually this public profession stuff. Uh I think it needs to be where it hurts and where it's costly, and that's I think is the way of the cross. And I think it surprises people because they think the way of the cross is just being a Christian and just not talking about it when it matters. But I'll I'll be ready to say I love Jesus. When someone comes to me and says, What must I do to be saved? Um, I will, you know, I'll I'll be ready to tell them the gospel. That's what I've been trained to do as an evangelical, for example, or whatever tradition you're part of. But the thing is, the Philippian jailer comes to Paul and Silas because they've been singing in prison in in an embarrassing way, that like raising their voices in praise with all the other prisoners around them. Most Christians who are trained in this modern, embarrassed, reputational, safeguarding way wouldn't do that. That they'd be in a difficult situation, they'd either be lamenting it or they'd be desperately, how do I get out of this? They were just singing to God, they were just so enraptured with who with who Christ is that it it was it spread the fragrance all around, and of course, then the earthquake happens, and then and then um it it's that this sort of uh amazing sense of God's deliverance, and then that's when he gets asked, What must they do to be saved? You don't just get people don't just run randomly come up to you. What is the hope? Yeah, what Peter says, what is the hope in which you live your life? Because you don't look most Christians don't look like their hope is in Christ, they look like their hope is in their social standing or their reputation before others. So of course, no one you've got to be ready to with your with your apologetic answer, but what's the point? No one's gonna ask you because you don't look like you're living a life that's where Jesus is really your Lord. And I think people haven't really thought about what does that mean for Jesus to be the Lord of your life? It doesn't just mean saying I'm a Christian, of course it means that, but it means expressing that in the way that you live your life, and that's usually what will get you in trouble. And that's usually therefore when you need to say I belong to Jesus, when they associate Jesus with something that they don't like. So I I do see hope in these things, and I hope that these professions of faith get increasingly bold, not just at saying they're with Jesus, but at speaking um into those issues that really matter today. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Yeah, and I was this morning I was just reading um the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, and you know, see I see blessed at those who are persecuted, and um there is a there is a blessing in in what we're discussing for sure. Um I probably shouldn't keep you for too much longer, but I was wondering as a as a husband and a father of of five children, how do you navigate all these theological battles? Is your wife happy for you to to go off to the Tommy Robinson uh rally whilst leaving her with your your children?

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Um Yeah, so uh uh well firstly you're out of date on your on your on your intel. I've now got seven.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

Seven. Oh fantastic. I'm I'm one of nine, so um yeah, you need to be.

SPEAKER_01 55:27

It is well behind, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. So it's uh it uh yeah, so I have a s very much a socially embarrassing amount of children. Um I think I think I think three is now is generally seen as socially inappropriate nowadays, isn't it? Um so I I think that uh yeah it's it's a huge challenge, but you bring your children along with you, and and if you have this sort of sense of you know, the fatherhood of God and and the massive responsibility on you as a father, I've always sought to bring my include my children in the mission, even when I'm away, which I am away, I'll have intense periods of being away for a couple of weeks or a few days, and then I'll be away at home a lot of the time. I work from home really, but I'll go away and speak of various things occasionally, or I'm writing in a coffee shop or something. Um and they know why I'm doing it. You know, I have to remind them of that and I have to um include them in it, but I'll talk to them about things that other parents wouldn't talk to them about. Well, my children know about abortion procedures, for example. My five-year-old knows how abortions work and what they do to babies. Um lots of children who are even, you know, lots of parents who are even very pro-life activists wouldn't do that, I think, because they worry about the yeah, I understand that, you know, they don't want to, you know, weird them out, whatever, too early or something, but I just think it helps for them to understand um there are limits of it. I mean, but there's lots of stuff I keep my children from as well. Influences, but there's also things that I wouldn't keep them from because I want them to see the reality and I want them to know why this really matters. So they need to know how evil abortion is, and that's why daddy has to go away to speak at this conference or to go and um be part of this protest or whatever it is, because this is so evil, we need to stand against it, and and God is for that. And so it helps them to see the reality of it. You know, we get we occasionally get the um literature from open doors and things like that, which would talk about the persecuted church around the world and getting them to pray for different countries and different people, getting them get getting them to read out the story so they understand that what our our faith is as a family, we're we're connected to something beyond just ourselves and even just and even beyond just our local church. I think lots of Christians can end up being focused on whatever the local churches, their particular local church is doing, and there is no other Christianity beyond that. And I think that can be a real parochial problem that needs to be dealt with. The local church is absolutely supposed to be there to support and sustain the faith of Christians in their locale and then to connect them more broadly to the church, as you see in the New Testament, with l with with the Macedonians hearing about um this group, the Thessalonians, etc., Paul is is connecting people together um and getting them to realise their brotherhood throughout the world, as Peter says, you know, to pray for them and you and your the suffering you're going through is also being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. So um getting them to think about those things, pray into those things is important. It's not easy. It's it I would I wouldn't at all pretend that we have this like perfect situation at all, but we're just striving and endeavouring to keep keep our children um in the faith and to and to see them see that it means something, it costs something, it costs something, um, and so they know about my situation, of course. They were they've been praying into that uh from the very beginning when I got fired from Cliff College. Um they're all they're part of the whole story, so they see everything going on. In fact, at the for the Tommy Robertson rally, they were watching it live on YouTube with my wife, and then so my wife put it on for them. So um uh I don't know whether what they thought of some of the less savory uh uh um you know chants. I don't know if they came out, they didn't I didn't have them mentioned, so I'm I think they must have not seen all of it. But they certainly they were um they've seen some of it. And I think that um yeah, that's again a part of it, to understand they even understand things like that. So again, people might say, Oh, that's a grown-up thing to worry about, to that get them to think about. But they understand why the political realm matters and why it's important to not think and to think about this party and what this party is standing for, and this party is a uh a better one. We will talk about those things so they understand the world that they live in. And I think so, in some ways, we probably would look to like to some like a family that's um you know very different to the average modern family, like in terms of like the way you might think of a fundamentalist family, because they you really don't let them have phones, we don't let them um get on, you know, play video games extensively, etc. So there's that, but we don't thereby cut them off from the real world. But we're kind of hoping and training them, um, like the psalms call fathers to, to think of their children like arrows to be sent into the world and to have impact. And I think that's part of what we aim to do. It doesn't always work perfectly, and you and it's increasingly challenging when they get older. Um and teenagerdom uh arrives and you you want to regale against the stereotypes, and you there are challenges with children growing up and becoming more independent, um, which you have to m wade through in a different way, but still it's trying to keep that vision for what the family is for and what God is uh where God has placed them and why it matters. So and again, other things we do together as a family are singing psalms regularly, um, and you introducing them to things in the Psalms which again wouldn't might not cross their path otherwise, and and you can dwell upon those things and they can have a love for um for God's word by singing it out and then reflecting upon the words and then and it's lovely to hear my children walking around the house some you know, singing melodies to psalms um and rather than random trash songs or whatever. So um that's that's uh there's various things we try to do keep to keep them on side with that. Like it's not not at all projecting any um image of perfection at all, but it I think it's uh just something that we we strive to do and it's a bit a thing that we hold highly, but it it's um yeah, it can be a challenge at times. But certainly with seven, but we also want to remain remain um committed to what we really believe, which is that children are a blessing and not a curse. And so we don't think of them as a curse, even if it they're difficult. We we think of our children as a blessing, and they are most of the time we do you you find that that proves itself true even even now, even through difficult times, um, let alone in the long term. So, yeah, that's kind of how we try to we try to follow we sing the psalms and follow the psalms and apply the psalms in our life and then hold as a kind of gateway to the whole of scripture and uh and bring them along with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:37

That's great. Um well I think I heard one of them crying in the background, so just one more question. Um do you have any final um thoughts or indeed upcoming projects that you'd like to share with our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Yeah, I do I have um projects-wise, I have well obviously as you would already mentioned my substack, um That Good Fight, um, and I have a couple of books. One that I need to still finish, which is on other religions um with Christian focus publications. That's um is Jesus uh really the only way to God, is the question. It's part of a kind of Ten Questions apologetics series. So I've enjoyed digging into that because I think the other religions question is a big one. And that's one that publisher's been waiting a long time for, because that was in the works before I got fired. So they were they were gracious at not cancelling me uh after I got fired, because um for some it might be like, oh, that's a terrible thing, but actually I think they they haven't been, they they they seem like a good uh good eggs uh for that, especially, because I think a lot of the evangelical publishing world wouldn't certainly wouldn't want to be tarred and tainted with someone like me uh now. Um and then I have another one for a publisher in the US called New Christendom Press, um, which is on David's Mighty Men and the battle for Christian masculinity. So I've been working on that for a while, finally got that finished and in. I'll probably get a load of copy edits to do, and that will be out either later this year or maybe early next year. But that'll be about that that's taking the the motif of David's Mighty Men and applying it, those as masculine heroes for us to imitate in and through the lens of Jesus and his disciples and the and the New Testament. So um it's and the kind of contemporary um battle for masculinity, which I think has gone wrong in lots of ways um within the church and beyond the church. And I think the Bible offers us such a strong um voice into that world that we overlook because we um have sort of cut out a lot of the boldness of some of these examples because we just don't know what to do with them. And there's a lot more application, I believe, for thinking about wider culture-kingdom stuff as well. So a lot of that that's why the book was took a longer time to write, because it it it involves not just talking about what the Bible says about David and his mighty men and Jesus and his disciples and the kingdom of God, but when you start to apply those to masculinity and the cultural war, and what how can men play their part in that in defending Christendom and extolling it and advancing the kingdom in the world, um a lot of it's a lot more challenging uh for people to think about those applications, and so having to get that right um in relation to how we think of loads of themes that that brings up. So I I take three kind of virtues for each each each kind of chapter. Most of most of the chapters are about a um particular figure like Eliatsa or Jashabim or or Benaya, who's and taking the kind of you know uh different masculine motifs that their stories bring up and that you reflect upon. So yeah, uh that'll be out sometime later this year, I hope, anyway. So that'll be a comment.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:42

Sounds like a very uh needed project. That's brilliant. Um well Aaron, it's been a pleasure to chat to you today. And to our listeners, if you've enjoyed our conversation, please uh give this video a like and subscribe to the Faithwave channel. Uh that is the app um on which this video is appearing. So please support the project uh and return for more episodes soon. Aaron, thank you very much again and yeah, God bless you in all your work. Great, we'll just let it up.