Pagans and Protestants: How the West Was Spun

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Andrew Wilson
You realize this is not a relativist culture at all. And so although at the heart of Western culture at the moment, there is a still a post truth problem, which is we are affirming Christian things based on premises that don’t support them at all because they’re materialist in nature. Nevertheless, that the the tenor of our culture is still one that believes certain things are absolutely are true, and you must live by them. And if you don’t, you will, you are a heretic you and language like that might even be used. You do need to repent, you do need to be awakened, and all these sorts of things. It’s very religious language, as many have pointed out.

Glen Scrivener
Hello, and welcome to post Christianity. My name is Glen Scrivener. And I’m Andrew Wilson. And together we’re thinking about our cultural moment in historical perspective, and thinking about the ways in which our culture is Christian and post Christian and maybe even pre Christian. We’ll see if we get there. Yeah, later in the episode. Let me read a quote to you. This will be familiar to a lot of people. And if you’re in the United States, maybe you have seen this driving around, it’s a yard sign. And it says in this house, we believe Black Lives Matter. women’s rights are human rights. No human is illegal. Science is real. Love is love. Kindness is everything. And it’s an incredibly faith filled statement, isn’t it? It’s pretty

Andrew Wilson
literally creedal has it in this house? We believe there’s obviously a creed of its own.

Glen Scrivener
Yes. And well. In a sense, this whole podcast is kind of an answer to this question. But in terms of where that comes from 45 seconds. Yeah, yeah. So things like I mean, kindness is everything. Let’s take that one. Yeah. Kindness is King hashtag be kind. It’s often noted that some of the most censorious

Andrew Wilson
Yes, the people most likely to use the hashtag are the people most likely to want to read cruel as people

Glen Scrivener
use the hashtag be kind. And I think that’s interesting as a symbol of how Christianized we’ve become. Not that those virtues have necessarily like embedded themselves in our hearts, but they are certainly the slogans that we can use. That will gain instant a sense, we ought to be kind ortant way. And yet, I guess for an ancient person that’s up for debate, isn’t it?

Andrew Wilson
Absolutely. In fact, I think there’s a lot of ancient people, as we’ll probably touch on in other episodes would have completely rejected a whole bunch of those things. They added that compassion or humility or things like that a virtue is would be, you know, not just up for debate and be like, it’s not up for debate. It clearly is not a virtue, kindness, probably a little more. But the centrality of something like love in the in the way it plays the role in the biblical story and the fruit of the Spirit, kindness, goodness, yes. Being long suffering, the first one being love, fun, self control, those sorts of things. In many ways, the only ones that you would have assumed would be on the list of the fruit of the spirit for an ancient pagan would be something like self control and impermanence. Yeah, they’d miss something quite different from what Paul meant by it. Yes. So yeah, it’s it’s remarkable how those things are almost their conversation stoppers now, yes, but very, very contingent on the influence that Christianity has had.

Glen Scrivener
And that’s a really interesting comparison. So, so the four stoic virtues, which sort of Aristotle would have taught as well as as well as Plato, in terms of wisdom, justice, courage and temperance would be those for which they belong really in the military barracks. You can you can think of that on on a poster telling the soldiers to be more virile because the word virtue is taken from the Latin word for via men, right? It’s it’s manliness. It’s, it’s quite militaristic. Whereas you just quoted the fruit of the Spirit and love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, gentleness, self control. This sounds like it’s it belongs in the family home. Yes, we’ve gone from the military barracks to the family home. And Larry Hurtado does a great job in lots of books, including the destroyer of the gods, of showing how love was right at the heart of the early church’s ethic. And that was that was blowing people away, in the centrality that love has had. Now it’s just a Beatle song. And now it’s just you know, love, love. Love. Is is everywhere. So how, how are we going from here to there?

Andrew Wilson
Yeah. So it’s a beautiful irony, because, of course, the Beatles were the ones who said, We know we’re bigger than Jesus now, but actually, of course, the songs they sang, right. So they’re often seen, at least in the context of the early 60s. I think people in the early 60s complaining about the Beatles would not have enjoyed returning in 2020 2023. But at the time, they were seen as the sort of almost anti Christian certainly in North America, by the church, but actually they they are just the most obvious poster boys for how imbedded Christian ideals have become that you could sing, love, love, love, love is all you need and everyone would go well obviously that’s a song of love all that stuff. Now obviously they putting new meaning into it, but the idea that that value was not up for debate. And you could say it as a as a truism, and everyone would accept it. Yeah, it goes right back to Paul. And probably and before you know, even just even back to the you know, the Love the Lord your God love your neighbor as yourself being the summary of the law. So very, very old and Judeo Christian ideas that have just become normalized to the point that people don’t think they’re making a theological statement at all. They think simply stating the obvious. But as you say, if you read Homer, you don’t get that impression at all. Achilles is not pacing around after Patroclus, you know, and just sort of thinking, oh, yeah, well, this is, you know, love is all you need, I should just basically forgive my enemies. And that’s not the dynamic of that, and the story would collapse, if that was what the Odyssey was about, is the need, you know, that’s just not the way they work. So, it is a powerful testimony. How that happened, of course, we’re gonna say, in a large part is due to the influence of Christianity in all sorts of ways. And we could talk a bit more on some of the specifics. But yeah, over time, more and more explicitly, Christian virtues seep into the culture, to the point that those virtues get eventually become reasons to object to Christianity, right, which is where we are now. And that’s why it’s fascinating that when people complain about Christianity, now, they don’t complain for the same reasons as they did in the ancient world. In the ancient world, this is insufficiently Vera, this is for stupid people, this is for women and slaves is how they would the right Celsus. That’s what the reason Christianity is obviously for fools is because all these women and slaves who come whereas now you’d say, even though it’s far, it’s dramatically more inclusive of, you know, you might say women and formerly enslaved people than the ancient view, now people would attack it for, for being oppressive against women and slaves rather than to inclusive of them. And so it’s a fascinating transition. And the reasons why people object to Christianity now call themselves Christian reasons, right? Because love is all you need. And love is only been slightly tweaked in order to mean, you just you need to accept everything everyone does. And effectively the critique of Christianity as a Christian one is a weird,

Glen Scrivener
wow, we’re all throwing Bible verses at each other. We’ve just forgotten the references. Yeah. And that’s that’s that’s the sort of this is the house that Jesus built, you know, that the house this house that believes these things is inconceivable without the house that Jesus builds? Yes. So going back to Celsus. His great critique of Christians writing in the second century was that it was a religion for women slaves and and children. He’s he identified the chief error of both Jews and Christians was that it was insufficiently. It was it was far too anthropocentric, far too man centered. You know, it is not obvious that the gods would put their affections on men, over and above all the celestial bodies and all the other gods and why, why is humanity so front and center, but in Judaism, man would be in God’s image. And in Christianity, God would become men. This is this is a disgustingly humanistic, this kind of religion. And that’s what struck the ancient world is how humanistic and again, you know, nowadays, we think, Oh, humanism is the alternative, I think a Celsus might see things a bit more clearly. That actually, again, humanism is utterly inconceivable with without the Jesus revolution,

Andrew Wilson
because of God takes flesh and that there’s no higher way of validating as a god, the god. But from a pagans perspective, your God has taken flesh and has given the biggest possible validation tick, just human nature and flesh ran matter and you know, physical stuff, as we touched on in the previous episode, but not just physical stuff, but the form of humanity and the idea of being a creature with an upright spine and opposable thumbs and a large cranium, all that that’s just been given the biggest sign off, you could possibly be given by God, yes, by both, we’ve made God has made man in His image, but also God has then been taken on that image and, and in a sense that, then the values that flow from it, they love your neighbor as yourself is, you don’t just love your neighbor for food, because because God tells you to you love your neighbor, because they themselves have a dignity and a value that wouldn’t be seen as belonging to human beings in another belief system. And that, in part is just because God himself as a confession said, you know, with, as James says, you know, with our, with our mouth, we praise our God and Father, and then we curse humans who are made in God’s likeness brothers, this shouldn’t be anything. Yeah, that’s because human beings bearing God’s image is so radical, that it now again, taken for granted, in a sense, even by people who don’t believe in God, that there is something uniquely dignified about a human being. Yes, but that idea is, is just the very, very long after echoes of Judeo Christianity becoming normalized in our culture.

Glen Scrivener
Yes. And the, the stark juxtaposition of a naturalistic account of the world that says, you know, man has descended from apes. Yes, that Therefore, we must love one another which who is the philosopher? Who’s Vladimir?

Andrew Wilson
Solovyov? I exactly how to pronounce it. I don’t know. But that Yeah. And it’s just a remarkable the non sequitur at the heart of the West is basically you believe man is descended from apes therefore love one another you think? Yeah, that conclusion clearly doesn’t follow from this premise. Yes. But but they’re also eat fervently held. And of course, the reason why they can both be held at the same time is because Christianity gives us this belief, and is but just gradually been eroded from the discourse, but it’s so widely assumed. Yes, you can continue to function as if everyone knows it. Yes. Yeah, no, you don’t actually have the rational foundations for it anymore. Yeah. So

Glen Scrivener
in the seven values that are exploring the air, we breathe, you know, equality, you know, no human being is the inferior of any other no matter what their race, religion, sexuality, is, we are all equal. We all believe that compassion that a society is best that treats its weakest members, the best, you know, and that’s how it should be judged. We all take that for granted consent, elite males do not have the right to access others. Consent must be central to sexual relationships, enlightenment, education is a good and we must further our ends by persuasion and not by force, science, we believe that science can be done, and that it is good to be done. Freedom, no human is the property of another human and progress. You know, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But I often do with with people like, like, that sounds like humanism doesn’t like those, those beliefs sound like humanism. And people just sort of say, well, we don’t need Christianity for that, we’ve got secular humanism. And I always want to pull apart those two words, or the secular that the non religious view is that we are the product of blind evolutionary forces. And we’re all equal to one another, you know, we, you know, is a brutal, you know, survival of the fittest. And we should be kind to one another. You and me, baby. We’re nothing but mammals. So let’s honor one another sexual boundaries at all times. Yeah. And you think the secular humanist pick one. And I’ve got two arguments at that stage. One is historically that great humanism that you believe in did not come from here, historically. But then the more philosophical argument is, and that great humanism couldn’t could not have come from there. And I think Christian Smith does a great job on atheist overreach on the could nots. And I think someone like Tom Holland does a great job on the historical did not Yes, but I think we really need to be pulling apart secular humanism in people’s minds.

Andrew Wilson
Yeah, I mean, what again, so it’s always John, bring it back to the 70s and his ex, but I think I figure who is probably well known, at least an outline, but very few people have read partly because his writings are just so horribly offensive is the market Assad and he is an extraordinary. You know, he’d be willing sadism sadist, you know, we all know that there’s obviously a very, very bad man. You know, grotesquely fat, you know, frogs, widows and paws hotwax into their wounds. And as a sort of sexual turn on and rapes multiple people starts the relationship with a teen, you know, a teenage child when he’s 70. I mean, he’s just a vile, vile man, who obviously talks about the need for, you know, how it celebrated the role of of pain and violence. And you know, what we now call sadism and cruelty, and celebrated it. But it’s fascinating, because there is a strong theological or anti theological underpinning to his project, which is essentially, if you don’t believe he’s so angry, he hates the Christian God so much that he wants to get rid of not just the Christian God, but the Christian morality that flows from it. And you could say, well, the man is a loon. And of course, in many ways, he is a very odious one. But actually, what he’s doing is quite intellectually consistent, because what he’s saying is that if you get rid of God, the alternative God you have to hold up is nature. And if you look at nature, and how nature functions, it is characterized by, you know, the strong heating, the weak and the survival of the most, when you say the survival of the fittest, that’s to make it sound like a gym rat is actually the survival of the most if the violent double Yeah, well, the most efficacious new violence or the one that yeah, that’s how, and in a sense, we’re here, because somewhere in the distant past, our ancestors survived, in a in a fight for resources with other people’s ancestors. And that’s it obviously, if you’re a thoroughgoing evolutionist you go back into other animal species, the same is true. And so sad is it as much as it’s just honest, he is literally diabolical to read, and I haven’t deliberately avoided reading too much for my soul, but read enough to see that the moral consistency strangely in a horrible way of what he’s doing was just to say if you get rid of the Christian God, the only other way of making an effective establishing morality would be just to look at nature the way the world actually is, and you would end up okay, you might end up With the Homer version we were mentioning, or you might end up with a more vigorously violent and unpleasant one. But in the end, your moral framework would have to be formed by the way that the world truly is rather than in nature, red in tooth and claw, rather than by the Christian values we’ve inherited. Nietzsche does the same 100 years later. And I think that, in some ways, they they are making the point that this could not have come from not just this did not come from Christianity it couldn’t have because where what other foundation Do you have other than the way the world actually is? To establish a moral framework? So as as much as I don’t recommend anyone read? So I think he is making a compelling version of the argument you’re making? Yeah, the opposite side?

Glen Scrivener
Yes, some would come back. And they would say I was that very popular book nonzero. Saying that, you know, evolution involves cooperation. Yeah. And they would make certain certain arguments about, you know, we could only get so far if we did not cooperate, families, clans tribes. I think the pushback on that and Christian Smith does a good job on this is to say, yes, they cooperate, they cooperate in order to compete. Yes. And that is the driver, you need the differential between two different species in order for the for the ones that have the advantage, and for that,

Andrew Wilson
there’s, you’re not benevolent towards all human beings, you’re benevolent. So the human beings with whom you are collaborating, and right, so establish some degree of tribal advantage against other human beings. Right. Right. Which may or may not be right, but that’s your but you’re not. It’s not sort of un you know, the humanitarian intervention type that does that does not grow in sort of evolutionary soil. It’s growing right Christian soil, and they’ve been transposed into an evolutionary narrative.

Glen Scrivener
Yeah, I often tell the story of the Good Samaritan and imagine different tellings of it. Whether I’m a kind of a if it was an Aesop’s fable, for instance, you know, once upon a time, there was a guy who was out late at night where he shouldn’t have been he got beaten up, idiot. Yes, don’t be like that guy. That’s like that’s only Aesop fables. It’s kind of know your place, live wisely within your limits. Don’t get ahead of yourself. That’s that’s kind of a Aesop’s fable. And that’s kind of Greco Roman wisdom. And, and I think the stoics are the best are kind of in a different era, but that they are kind of living living wisely within their means. And, you know, don’t Don’t be an idiot about it. But you know, keep to yourself. And then, you know, Jesus tells the actual story in which he gets beaten up, and then the priest and the Levite walk on by and and I think there is a certain trench of Old Testament believer who thinks well, no harm no foul. Yeah, right. They were sticking to their Leviticus Levitical laws.

Andrew Wilson
He’s not on the ditch, because of me. Is that Yeah,

Glen Scrivener
so how is he on me? And how do I know if I’m intervening in this situation? Am I intervening against what God wants? Maybe, maybe, you know, on a classical understanding the gods wanting them, maybe the village wants him there? Who am I? Shala? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So a very Muslim understanding, absolutely would walk on by, and not only would they walk on by, they would not know what was wrong with walking by. And now we all know what’s wrong with walking by because the Good Samaritan has so thoroughly shaped us because here’s an intervention. And it’s taking nature. And it’s doing something about nature. It’s a supernatural thing, isn’t it for the good Samaritan to come and raise up the man, you know, a certain man, you know, Adam, let’s say, you know, the to raise up Adam from his natural state, and to save him and heal him in this way, is a real interventionist supernatural kind of value. And yet, we all take it for granted nowadays, you know, to the point where I gave a sermon on this last year in Cardiff, and a friend drove me to the church. And I began the sermon by saying on the way to church, we passed underneath this underpass, and I looked up and there was a guy in great distress. And he had one leg on one side of the barrier and another leg on the other side of the barrier, and it looked like he was going to jump. And we drove on. You could have heard a pin drop. It was just like, you did watch drove on, as well. There was an ambulance member up there. There were two police guys there, like the Good Samaritan had already shown up. But we know we rely it Yeah, exactly like you booked on by how could you and yet that kind of it’s a supernatural value we now have that we’ve inherited from the Jesus revolution that we now sort of take for granted. We can’t even think ourselves into the sandal of the priest of the Levite. Yeah, or any priest or Levite affirming person, like how could you or at best,

Andrew Wilson
we might say, I have been the priest or the Levite. But I realized I shouldn’t have and I felt bad about it.

Glen Scrivener
Yes. Yeah. And I would confess that in that in that Augustinian sense and be in touch with that internal struggle that I have and and so we just live in a thoroughly different world and we’ve what we’ve been shaped by this Good Samaritan and some people nowadays, I guess on the right to politics would say well, personal charity can do the job of you know, and the more libertarians would say, okay, the individual charity can take care of the guy by the side of the road. And that’s that’s a good Samaritan, some would say all welfare programs and but nobody walks on by anymore. It’s it’s utterly taken for granted, the State’s

Andrew Wilson
got to do it or an NGO has got to do you have that? Yes, it has to be done.

Glen Scrivener
Yeah. Yeah. To the point where that bringing up the Makita side, or Nietzsche, is really important, I think, at times to VA, just saying, Well, why why not? I mean, Nietzsche absolutely nailed that the cross was the transvaluation of all values, in which, well, of course, it’s, you know, in a world of survival of the fittest in the sacrifice of the weakest, the most egregious appending of what is natural, would be the fittest sacrifice for where the weakest so that we the weakest might survive and not only survive, but thrive and pass on the commandment, compassion revolution. He absolutely identifies what is at the heart of our culture, what is at the heart of our moral moral presuppositions? Yeah. And it’s interesting, when I’ve been in conversation with Tom Holland, the historian, you know, he speaks in those terms, and he mentioned about maki decide, he mentioned about nature. And, you know, I’ve said to me in the past, you know, it is you sound like you’re saying, Tom, it’s either Christ or the pit, right? It’s Christ or this diabolical thing? And, and he sort of has said, Well, yes, but you know, the path of Western culture has been to try to navigate a third way to try to just be a good chap, you know, in the midst of that stark choice. But I think that middle ground kind of evaporates, the more you look at it, the more you look at the stark choice, because on what grounds? Are you going to do the compassion thing? Where is that foundation? If it’s not going to be Christ? I don’t know where it is. Yeah.

Andrew Wilson
Yeah. And one of the things I want to ways I like thinking to go back to our yard sign for a moment, I just that they’re very, it’s not just the things that are on the belief statements, all of which are, of course, you know, grown out of Christian soil, and in many ways are taken at least as they stand. I know, they would, they would connote some things that I wouldn’t agree with, in terms of you know, what public policy ought to be on a particular area, but, but when it comes to the statements as they are, as they stand, you’d say all of those things are true. And all of those things grow from Christian foundations, I know they’re being used, often refer to other things. But as they stand there, they’re true. And they’re Christian. But it’s not just the the statements themselves. It’s the form of the statements. It’s the fact that in this house, we believe, and I know we joke about the idea of that being a secular creed. But you think even the even the fact that you can do that you say I’m identifying myself by affirmations I make by things I believe, and it is obviously modeled on the Nicene, or the Apostles Creed. But what defines me is a set of it is not just love, it’s also faith. It’s also stemming, I affirmed this thing I believe that is you actually can’t see my life necessarily, and tell me any, my art is in my yard, it’s not in the next door neighbor’s there might be a much nicer person than me they must be might be much nicer to, you know, women or minorities are heavier than I am. But I believe these things. And obviously, social media is a massively exacerbated battery. Because what I say, I believe, is the only thing you can measure, you can’t measure what I’m actually doing. And so again, that I did not just have the primacy of love, but the centrality of faith within the context of a worldview is itself a very Christian thing, and particularly very Protestant thing. Talk a bit in the book about the idea that we are, in the end, the West is made up of Protestant pagans, yes, because we’re people with very strong Protestant like convictions. That that really takes its cue not just in in substance, but in form from Protestantism. Yes. But mingled in with actually a pagan more like market Assad vision of the way reality actually is, right. And the the fusion has made us, you know, very unstable, I guess, you know, morally and theologically. And I think we there’s plenty of scope to press into that with people as we discuss with them. You know, well hang on this, this part of you you’re, in a way your vision of reality is very pagan, you only believe in one kind of reality rather than two, there is matter. There is not God and spirit, or at least that’s what you say, you’re right. But at the same time, you’ve got these these very transcendent moral absolute views which are taken the form of a credo put a high emphasis on faith, homelessness and love are drawn from Grace rather than nature. But you’ve brought the two together in a sort of slightly strange thing that I have learned come to call Protestant paganism as a way of trying to capture how odd it is yes, and yet how widespread it is.

Glen Scrivener
Yes. And so what we have nowadays is sort of discernibly Christian ish but distorted in significant ways. So if I’m talking about equality, in a Biblical sense means we’re all welcome at the same table, we all have a seat to share it the same, sharing the same meal. Yeah, I think nowadays it has become a kind of an individualism where equality means we all are meant to be equally high up the same individual ladder. Yeah, all compassion has kind of been detached from the Christian story and distorted a little bit to the point where instead of go and do likewise be the Good Samaritan is, like, let’s be the guy by the side of the road and, and competitive victimhood is the thing, you know. And then consent, you know, Christianity injected consent, right to the heart of the sexual relationship and praise God for that. But now, it’s almost as if there’s nothing else now except consent in the sexual realm. And then you sort of weave those things back together again, and you’ve got individualism, you’ve got competitive victimhood, and you’ve got choice being the thing in the sexual realm. And so you know, it doesn’t that help to explain gender ideology, and all that kind of stuff. And we might think, that is incredibly anti Christian. And I can see yes, to follow through some of these arguments to their conclusions, you end up in a place that is diametrically opposed to Genesis chapter one. And yet, you can see how they got there, that you because there is a place for the individual and there is a place for victims and minorities and protecting them being compassionate towards them, is there not? And it’s a profoundly, it’s proudly Christianized arguments. Yes. Even on even on the other side of the ideological aisle to you. You’re dealing with someone who has profoundly Christian ish views. Yeah. And I think that’s important to kind of be aware of.

Andrew Wilson
Yes, it absolutely is. And it’s, it’s fascinating, the extent to which the even the inconsistency of taking those values and using them as a means to attack what Christianity is, and purports to be, is often not seen, partly because I think it’s it’s Christianity, as we’ve said before, is has been so successful at baking the ideas into western culture that people don’t think of them as Christian anymore. They think of them as self evident, right back to, you know, the word from a couple of episodes back. But I think the then the reality is that often what’s happening is you are whether in a private conversation or in the public square, you’re engaging with debate with somebody who is using a Christian arguments object to your Christian belief, right. And I personally, that I see that as an opportunity rather than as a, you know, obviously, it’s strange. But the it’s very strangeness is is a point in our favor, in your sense. Because I think, well, I’d rather be arguing with that person than it would be with the market Assad, because I think he’s got, it’s awful, but there’s a, there’s a grim consistency to that view, and or even with Nietzsche, who I just thought he was a brilliant opponent of Christianity, because he knows exactly what Christianity is. And he’s understood, it’s much better than a lot of modern critics of Christianity would. And he’s seen how radically different from what he believes it is, and is prepared to tackle it for what it is. And I’d rather be debating with someone who’s effectively holding a Christian view and hitting me over the head with it than I would with somebody who has consistently rejected everything that it stands for, because I just don’t really know where to start. Yes. So I think that evangelistically There is a lot of opportunity. As like, you’re a preacher, I spent a lot of time thinking, How do I help make Christianity comprehensible to a contemporary person, I think the amount of common ground you have, because of the influence of this worldview, in your society, is, is massive, and it is just a great opportunity to be able to say, I actually buy much of what you’re doing when you’re yelling at me for this. Yes, much of it. I agree with the church has done this, this and this and that. And I affirm it. And I say the only thing I’d add is the critique you’re making is grown out of ultimately, who Jesus is, is grown out of the incarnation and the dignity of humanity has grown out of the cross and the inversion of the powers of the world going under the resurrection in the hope of a new world. It’s Christian creedal in its shape, even as the content has been filled with other other things. So I’m, I’m quite a fan in that sense.

Glen Scrivener
Yeah. And I think even on some of the most hot button issues imaginable, we’ve mentioned gender, let’s let’s, let’s mention abortion. Okay, so here, here is something that I mean, the early church, absolutely, you know, pioneered looking after the discarded infants that were cast off, you know, the very first manual of midwifery in the first century, chapter one of this manual midwifery on how to discern the offspring that are worth raising. Because if not, then we know what happened to them, and they put them on rubbish dumps or throw them down wells and that kind of thing. And Christians eventually started to collect them in the orphan care and all this kind of stuff. And so the pro life instincts of Jews and Christians were always weird to the classical world and you know, Tacitus even remarks on this one Germanic tribe and they don’t actually practice infanticide. Isn’t that weird? Like like that? That’s what struck him. But then suddenly, Jews and Christians have this incredible pro life kind of mindset and practice and they back it up with you know, costly womb to tomb kind of care. What’s interesting nowadays, because one of the objections to the thesis We become Christianized as well, we’ll have a look. Have you seen how many abortions are happening? Like a million a week in the world now? Have we really become so Christianized? And lamentably? I think our Christianization has has not changed our behaviors on this so much, but it has certainly changed our rhetoric and our justifications around it. Because I’m on the pro choice side. I just mentioned choice, right. Okay. Consent writer that right at the heart of female autonomy, the bodily integrity of women and the full equality of women. Abortion is health care, what a profoundly Christian, they healthcare. And so even with something that I think is antithetical to biblical Christianity, yes, it cannot, it can’t wait without Christian premises. Yeah, without being closed in some kind of Christian. It’s a very thing clothing, and you can press beneath it. But But then that tactic of in those sorts of conversations, are being able to say, I see, you want to stand up for the weak and the marginalized, don’t you? straightaway, you know, so on that pro choice side you like, what about the women? And you’d like, absolutely. I affirm that let me stand with you shoulder to shoulder in your desire to look out for the little guy. But yeah, let’s be honest, yeah, there was another little guy here. And, and I think that’s one example of how affirming and understanding the Christian ish kind of values that people have really helped you rhetorically, to stand shoulder to shoulder with them to look at and to look at a common enemy. And then to look at your feet and say, Now, what are we standing on? Here? Yeah, and it’s the thoroughly Christian thing. Yeah.

Andrew Wilson
Yeah, it is. No, I It’s such a it isn’t. I think an opportunity is not an easy one always to navigate. Because sometimes people are so the, as I say, the norms are so baked in that people don’t think of it as a problem that they said they take, take it as a given. So when you say that, you’ve got that from Christianity, a lot of people’s response to that point is, you know, or you have to do it exactly. Well, they might exactly they might deniers and say, I’m not Christian at all. But if you were to start telling some of the story that we’re telling in the in these conversations, they even then might go well, you know, a lot of people do, I’m I don’t really care doesn’t matter where it comes from. We’ve now moved beyond that. And the the analogy I’ve sometimes used is the is the idea that we are post Christian, in the same sense that we are post industrial. So people talk sometimes about a post industrial area of regeneration or something in a city. And, in fact, you know, you may have been there, we were together in New Yorker a lot last week, and you had this sort of area, which is almost like a post industrial, the highline the this sort of idea of like an urban garden, that kind of thing. Of course, post industrial environments are post industrial, because they are able to build on and benefit from the legacy of the Industrial Revolution. And then say, because we’ve got all of this power, and all of this metal than all of this machinery, we are able now to move beyond it and make certain lifestyle choices like installing a wood burner or going vegan or because I know I’m not worried I’m going to run out of calories. I’m not worried I’m going to run out of heat. I’m not worried that there’s going to be nowhere to live. Because I’ve got industrialization, I can move beyond it and dabble in other things. And I think that’s how the modern world relates to Christianity. We are post Christian in that sense. We say, I because Christianity has done all this for me. I can now say, Oh, I will. I will have some pagan spirituality. I’m going to get this kind of prayer. Well, I’m going to think about the spiritual in this way or no way at all. Because I’m not worried that my morality will suddenly end up with the market. Assad’s Yes. Or the I think Game of Thrones is a good illustration of it isn’t a game of thrones, kind of the way morality, what Lord of the Rings would look like if there was no Christianity in it? Yes. And he said, but I’m not worried that Western morality is suddenly going to turn up in Westeros. Right, or Assad or Nietzsche or the Roman Colosseum, ripping people to pieces for public pleasure. Yeah. And because I’m not worried about that I feel I can build on the legacy of Christianity and move on. Yes. And I think that means that people often don’t, they don’t initially see the problem. But I, of course, I do think there is a Christian, what would happen if the Christian capital ran out? Is that a thing? We haven’t been? We haven’t been in this post Christian environment long enough to know what happens when it runs out or if it runs out. But I think sometimes showing people that heritage. I think it’s apologetically compelling and intellectually persuasive, but some people will just go I don’t really care. And I think that sometimes there is there can be hard work in almost I know his language use a lot about joining the dots to help them see what it is about Christianity that they actually need to be able to sustain that and on what basis does this other maybe fringe group in Western society, but they’re going there? Yes. On what basis? Are you going to say that’s wrong? And would it worry you if they didn’t, you know, and you can see flickers of that in the last five years and even Yeah, you know, political movements in the West, which is unnerving enough. So, yeah, that was a long comment. But I think is it’s an opposite of double observation that there is sometimes a challenge with showing people why it’s a problem. Yep. But I think the effort still needs to be made, because otherwise people will assume, like industrialization Oh, well, that’s past. Now, it’s a new thing. I think you can only do that thing, if you’ve still got this thing.

Glen Scrivener
So to say we’re in a post Christian moment does not mean that Christianity is entirely in the rearview mirror. And we’re in a different kind of unrelated moments, because it’s not unrelated at all. It’s entirely continuous with the Jesus revolution that has, you know, got us to where we’ve gotten to. So I was thinking yesterday about you know, whether post rock was a was a an analogy, the danger with this analogy is that nobody knows what to explain to me. It’s like this thing that you’ve never heard of. But you probably have heard Sigur Ros, or you’ve heard this may destroy people. Yeah. And as soon as you hear it, you’ll understand okay, it’s a lot of guitars and it’s ended this drums in this and with Sigur Ros, this kind of nonsense lyrics over the top and they’ve broken down the verse, chorus verse chorus structure. But it’s rock, but it’s post rock. And what I like about sort of thinking about post Christianity in that sense, is that post rock is a fad, actually. Right? And rock I think will be a lot more enduring than post rock has been I think post rock is a kind of an offshoot of this bigger, more enduring thing. And I think that’s that’s, that’s what we’ve got with with Christianity. And the other thing you talked about sort of joining the dots. I often think in evangelism, what we’re trying to do is when we show people compassion when we show people that black lives matter, women’s rights or human rights no human is illegal. Science is real love is love. Kindness is everything. Where we’re showing them the imprint of the asteroid that has fallen, you know, in our in our world, and it’s a very Jesus II imprint that they’re kind of responding to and when they see compassion enact and and hopefully they see compassion enacted in us, so that we don’t just talk a pro life game, but we are what does it look like to actually look after the least the last and the last in our communities and to live these embodied lives and they see compassion lived out and fleshed, they’re starting to see Jesus in a in a really, in a really concrete sort of a sort of a sense. And I think that becomes very attractive when the alternative is this House believes and it becomes a shouting match. And I think post Christian society has become everything they accused Christians of being this this very Ferris aichele. Yes. You know, without Without God, everything is not permitted. Without God, everything is very preachy. And all of a sudden, yeah. And so I think there’s a real opportunity as well to wean people off the pure dogma of I believe this, this is my virtue signal to here is a Christ like, you know, way of life that’s embodied. That’s rich. That is, is compassion incarnate. And as soon as you start talking about compassion and kindness, yeah, on the way to Jesus, Fascinating,

Andrew Wilson
isn’t it? Because I think I’m just processing that idea for the first time. But I think when I was at maybe a universe, 20 years ago, university, young adult, whatever, starting to work, I still heard a lot of talk whether or not it was actually the reality, I don’t know, but a lot of talk, as if relativism was the defining spirit of the age, there’s actually all beliefs are equally I think there was some of that, but I must admit that my encounters with with friends, obviously, many, almost all my friends at university were not Christians. And in my first jobs, that I thought, I don’t think I encountered very much of that sort of relativism anything like a meaningful I mean, there’d be people who say, Oh, I’m glad for you. But what they really mean is you carry on believing that if it works for you, it doesn’t work for me. But they didn’t mean there is no such thing as true. That wasn’t when people didn’t think there was a spasm of that, perhaps, but it quickly subsided to be replaced by more like, yes, what were the preachy, what you call bridging what I’m calling in the Protestant paganism? It’s like, yeah, it is declarative, it’s it’s assertive. It’s morally confident and grounded in Yes, in a sense of certainty and progress, and conviction. And actually, it’s quite absolutist. And it’s just interesting that you quite often get this where the church will we will respond to a couple of fairly outlandish claims, even post truth, there’s a bit like That’s, oh, of course, everyone’s going post everything. They aren’t really what they’re saying is, they’re moving past the trust of institutions, perhaps the respected arbiters in a society are changing from legacy media to whatever or from politics. So that’s clearly happening. But the idea that people say no, we don’t believe anything’s true. You just have to look at the yard sign again, or even anyone who would resonate with any of the statements in the yard sign right and the reaction you’d get if you stood even in my hairdresser and said, I don’t believe in it. One of those times, it’s a very, you realize this is not a relativist culture at all. And so although at the heart of Western culture at the moment, there is still a post truth problem, which is we are affirming Christian things based on premises that don’t support them at all because they’re materialist in nature. Nevertheless, the tenor of our culture is still one that believes certain things are absolutely are true and you must live by them. And if you don’t, you will, you are a heretic you and language like that might even be used. There. You do need to repent, you do need to be awakened, and all these sorts of things. It’s very religious language, as many have pointed out, and I think it shows, yeah, relativism, to the extent that it happened at all was a very short lived phenomenon. We’re really dealing with a much more strident and morally certain worldview. Yes, but

Glen Scrivener
those certainties have shifted. And we’ll get into this in future episodes. I think, in that what the certainties were in Luke chapter 10. And the Good Samaritan, the certainties were a wolf is Leviticus, and there’s what we were taught to do. And that was the certainty. And then there’s this weird compassion thing as the supernatural grace that happens. Now, what’s interesting is nobody believes in that in the Levitical thing. But we’re all very certain that if you walk on by You’re a monster. Right? And so what did become the certainties? Are all the things that are not provable by nature, like compassion has become a certainty? How did that happen? The idea that there’s progress to history has become a certainty. Like, what what test tubes? Did you Did you see that in what, what laboratory conditions sort of gave you that? All the things we’ve now become certain of graces, that are echoes of the Christian revolution, whereas what we’re not certain about is nature, nature, biology and all the rest of it. So nature and Grace have switched places. Places, but we’re equally certain. Just certain of the nature thing. Yeah. All wine No, wineskins Yes.

Andrew Wilson
And we were both I just thought it was such a good story, but I thought was point to well made. And maybe, I mean, we’re gonna finish soon, but but we were in a meeting just last week, where somebody was making the point is such a powerful illustration said what so when a Christian is being hit over the head, with the stick of tolerance and diversity and inclusion, they can while carrying on to the bloaters, at least say to the person hitting in, wait a second, that’s my state. Because the because the the stick itself, the things with which Christianity is being confronted are themselves, things that come as you say, from grace, not from nature, and then is that may or may not stop the person hitting you with them and probably doesn’t. But actually, there can be something reassuring to understanding that’s the cultural dynamic in play here. And and often people do come to a place of realizing there is a, even if all that happens is the person concedes there is a disconnect between my my metaphysical what I claim I believe about nature, and the values I claim to hold. Even if all I do, I might say, I don’t care. But I’ve often said to people, even if people get to the point of seeing there is an inconsistency there. That is progress. That is that’s an achievement. Because it’s just taking a brick out of a wall. It’s destabilizing, the the convenient resolution that people feel like they have of Christian fruit without Christian roots, right, and be able to say these two things don’t go together as well as you think they do. And that is itself worth doing.

Glen Scrivener
Right. And we will press into some of the tactics that we can use in one to one and perhaps in preaching and that sort of thing in future episodes. Brent, thank you very much, Andrew. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please do be sharing it on social media, perhaps give us a rating and review on your pod catcher of choice. And that would really help us to get seen but Andrew Wilson, thank you so much. Thank you, Glenn. And we’ll see you again soon.