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On Faith, feat. Archbishop Greg Venables | TRACES Appendix 29
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As always, find me at cristian@ccb.life
About the Episode:
A conversation with Archbishop Gregory Venables about faith, Christianity, truth and logic, objective reality, Paraguay, education, and more.
About the Guest:
Gregory James Venables (born 6 December 1949) is an English Anglican bishop. He served as the Primate of the Southern Cone in South America (now called the Anglican Church of South America) from 2001 until 2010, and again from 2016 until 2020. He was also Bishop of Argentina from 2002 to 2020. Greg and his wife Sylvia now live in Asunción, Paraguay where their three children and eight grandchildren live. Greg continues to serve as Archbishop Emeritus of the Province and Rector of St. Andrew's College.
References:
- Frank Schafer's God is Not Who We Think They Are: It's Time to Clean House (book): https://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Who-Think-They/dp/1667876481?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.t0BAo2KTREEWF2J4K1F3Eqws-I9wmbHasbevNYOXmleJmD2Se6XsRBBoRZ81Seo7KPR_0PLC_lmEWVB-RzPgO1pgshccW4emQg1egLM0hNTz8-_BtNul0pUpNBzRjvue5sIsZCTfV2c0LDndNiABoTcm6wQS62eMLQvvuk7djvrwWG0GSLz8UN9J6j7kH1JAneSmybXXGGPTDwNTQK5zUjUM4bPeb17UwDf-aY1-FX8.AhiZPm_pRv9CCZ3Hicjk92Wf98jfhwkS8TuJZUjL1sw&dib_tag=se&keywords=frank+schafer&qid=1712352332&sr=8-1
Set Up:
- Camera: https://amzn.to/3PZVscb (don't laugh)
- Microphone: https://amzn.to/46f3pB5
- Teleprompter Stand: https://amzn.to/3tgS98y
- Telepromter App: https://amzn.to/46jdH31
- Teleprompter Screen: https://amzn.to/3PNfKFI (yup)
- Headphones: https://amzn.to/46gMSwo
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to the Conversation with Archbishop Gregory Venables
01:07 Archbishop Venables' Personal Journey to Faith
02:28 Encountering the Divine: A Life-Changing Experience
12:12 The Role of Christianity in Today's World
15:56 Navigating the Complexities of Faith and Reality
19:18 The Challenge of Communicating Faith in a Postmodern World
21:35 Understanding the Exclusive Nature of Christianity
22:47 The Importance of Aligning with Objective Reality
23:37 Christianity's Inclusive Love vs. Exclusive Truth
34:09 The Role of Institutions in Shaping Faith
38:53 Exploring the Essence of True Christianity
39:45 The Evolution of the Church and Its Governance
40:13 Personal Connections and Views on Different Denominations
41:02 The Importance of Scripture in Understanding God
42:20 Critiquing the Institutional Criticism of Christianity
42:46 Authority and Its Perception Through Time
44:58 Unpacking the Layers of Scripture and Its Relevance
47:30 The Journey Through Postmodernism to Faith
01:01:53 Exploring the Concept of Faith and Its Personal Impact
01:08:01 Confronting Modern Mythology and Embracing Faith
01:09:43 A Mission in Paraguay: Reflecting on Remote Service
Alright, Most Reverend Archbishop Gregory Venables Mr. Venables, how are you, sir?
squadcaster-ebg5_1_03-19-2024_160603:I am very well Christian.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:Thank you so much for being here. I've been looking forward to this conversation. Um, I've had talks with leaders in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, uh, nutrition, uh, all kinds of zeitgeist topics. Um, but I hadn't really addressed a key theme in my upbringing and a key theme of my identity. That was my Christian. background, and I couldn't imagine a more fitting person to talk to, uh, uh, at length about this, uh, given where the journey has taken me and I think the time and place that we're in as a species today. Uh, so why don't we begin with a bit of your background and your story to see what your story with, uh, Christianity is and how we can take it from there.
squadcaster-ebg5_1_03-19-2024_160603:A little bit about myself you say.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:Yes, sir.
squadcaster-ebg5_1_03-19-2024_160603:I was born after World War II in the UK. I'm one of the baby boomers, all that goes into that. And I grew up in a professional, well read family. My parents would do the Times crossword in the first few minutes before breakfast. Very interesting and very good atmosphere to grow up in, and we were always open to talk about whatever was going on, including Christianity and so on in a very intelligent way. And then I, as I went through the 1960s with all my friends and colleagues, we entered into that state of rebellion that we all went through in that period. And I ended up in the late 60s, living in London, ostensibly at university studying, but really playing rock guitar at night, hair well down past my shoulders. And I got to a place in 1969 when I took a decision. I was going to live as if there was no God. And having made that decision, I tried to live it through consistently and without entering into details. God came after me. And I had a very personal meeting with God in August, 1969, which completely transformed my life. And it wasn't just that I went back to church. It isn't just that I began to believe my life was turned upside down. by God, by the Lord Jesus Christ. And later on that year, I met a London secretary, red haired London secretary. If you watch the last performance of the Beatles playing on the roof in London, you'll see in the street as you watch that video, secretaries looking up at the roof to see what was going on. Well, that's where Sylvia was. And she also had had an encounter with God that year. We met and the next year we were married. And since then, here we are 54 odd years later on seeking to serve God. The only major problem I had in my, in my pilgrimage serving God was when God asked me to go into the church.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:Hm.
squadcaster-ebg5_1_03-19-2024_160603:that a difficult step, not because I didn't like the church or didn't believe in the church, but I didn't want to get taken out of the fast lane.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:Hm.
squadcaster-ebg5_1_03-19-2024_160603:I hope, I was consecrated bishop 30 odd years ago, made an archbishop 22 or three years ago. So I hope I've managed more or less to be able to cope with that. And thank you. Here I am now living in Paraguay where all three of our children chose to live. And so this is where we came for our, uh, for this time of our life. So there we are, Christian. That's more or less how I got to where I am now.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:That is fantastic because I, I, I want to start painting this picture around the conversation we're going to have that is going to bring elements of music, is going to bring elements of faith, it's going to bring elements of navigating institutions, and, uh, this is the perfect starter to get a sense of where you come from. Um, but I want to double tap on the idea of that encounter with the logos. The, the, the meeting with the mind. Um, can you elaborate a bit on that or is it too personal? Yes. Oh, wow. It's marvelous. I mean, it's a marvelous story, and there's layers there to unpack, but there's, beginning with the sincerity of the request in the prayer. Right. The, the, the real exhausting of, say, the intellectual route of parsing the world, uh, and the discontent with the lack of meaning that that may leave you with, and then the sincerity of, of silencing the ego to let the, to let the message come through, um, and then to have the, you know, incontrovertible evidence of something like that. And I, you know, it's so interesting. To say evidence in this context, because it is it is evidence in the sense that you were looking for that that specific answer to that specific question. And I think it's easy for people that might to get lost in the specifics of the evidence where, um. Everybody has their own requests and their own, uh, um, prayer, silent prayer, the silent hope about the nature of the world. Um, and often struggle with silencing the ego and letting the message come through. There's something mighty powerful about when the, uh, the, the things aligned in such in perfect imperfection and alignment that it, it, Generates a change in you and I can't and I think about this personal the amount of lives and where the journey took you and how you know generations after, uh, I get impacted by that note that landed on your on your, uh, on your lap. Um, I think that the causal chain of events is just a beautiful thing to think about, um, especially in the context of a world that I think, as you were saying, was built by a post modern generation, a nihilistic generation, um, that seems to be devoid of meaning, right? It seems to be inherently devoid of meaning, um, and that brings me to my next question, which is, um, what, how do you think about the role of Christianity in the world today? All right. Um, Well, sorry that the communication cut off. I mean, we still haven't figured out proper, the perfect way to communicate across continents just yet, but we'll get there. Um, you, you were saying, you were saying about Christianity being reality and, and how living in a state of unreality leads to chaos. Um, I think. Intuitively, of course, that is an easy statement to grapple with that, you know, being living aligned with reality is the path to fruition and living in accordance with fantasy is, is, is problematic. Um, there's another layer there that, given the context that I come from, the very secular world, the very, um, uh, sort of secular materialist worldview, um, that pushes back against a statement like Christianity is truth. Out of instinct, because, because of the lack of context of, at that point, the word Christianity means something different to you than what it means to the people that might be listening to this, right? Um, think, objections of the sorts of, of how do we reconcile Christianity as a tradition with other traditions who are also seeking, seeking truth. Uh, the, the, um, Judaism, for instance. Uh, you know, further away things like Confucianism. uh, Buddhism, Hinduism, uh, and, and how do we ascertain the, the, the nature of these things fitting together and arriving at the conclusion that Christianity is the truth?
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:I think first of all, we have to realize that if reality is reality, there's a difference between our perception and our idea coming from us out. and what God has told us. Most religions in the world are human attempts to understand things and to interpret things from their own perception and their own experience. And there's nothing wrong with that. We do it all the time. From our earliest days, we are looking at the world from the center of the universe, which is me and you. Trying to make sense of it, and we make sense of it in different ways, and it's quite rational and reasonable to come to the conclusion that there is some sort of meaning, that there is a unified answer, that there is a God, if you like. But that doesn't tell us about it.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:to come to the concept of a deity, but who is he or is he a he? And I think a major problem for us now in the 21st century is that when the world tried to come to terms with our growing understanding of science, We tried to reconcile at that time, and I'm talking about late 19th century, early 20th century, we tried to reconcile the Christian story brought out in scripture with what science was telling us. Now, really, obviously, there's no problem. I guess if there was a problem, it was the idea that we were now understanding everything fully. Which is what, of course, every generation believes we now understand. And when the conflict came, because modernism didn't enable us to fit God into our worldview, we either had to reject God completely and come into a place of pessimism, and try and find some sort of hope within the pessimism, or we had to go back to believing the Bible. And what we did was to produce a synthesis. We took Christianity from our idea of the real world, and we put it into a kind of my real world, my subjective real world. So that now, when I talk about my faith, people say, oh that's fine, that's what you believe. And they have no idea that what I'm talking about is something that is as real for them as it is for me. And Only they're ignoring it. They simply believe that that is my perception. Rather than, that is God having revealed himself. I was on an aeroplane once, flying into Buenos Aires. And when people see these things, sometimes, well they all react in different ways. I remember one gentleman saw it and he realized he had to sit 8 hours. And he started off saying, well, I suppose you'll want to know what I think of God. And I was able very quickly to say, well, how about me telling you what God thinks of you? This particular lady, after trying to make a confession to me, she was a Roman Catholic, and I was trying desperately to explain the difference between an Anglican Archbishop and a Roman Catholic Archbishop before she told me too much about her sins. Then she came out with that statement. Oh, well, it doesn't really matter, does it What you believe as long as you believe it. That's postmodern faith. Doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe it. And I smiled at her because it's always nice to be friendly towards people when you're going to destroy their basic underlying thought patterns. And I said, uh, tell me madam, when you send somebody to do your shopping and they say, what shall I buy? Do you by any chance say, it doesn't matter what you buy as long as you buy something. Or when you're planning a trip and the agent says, where do you want to go? Do you say, it doesn't matter where I go as long as I go somewhere. Or when you're sick and you go to the pharmacy or the chemist and they ask you what medicines you want, you say, well, it doesn't matter. Just give me anything. She said no. I said, well, don't you think it's rather dangerous to risk your eternal destiny to something as unrealistic as what you've just said? It matters very much what I believe. I can say it's
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:Uh, it
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:to be a Christian, but the universe is intolerant. Having to breathe oxygen is intolerant. Having to drink pure water is intolerant. But try breathing something else or drinking impure water and you'll soon appreciate that intolerance is not always a bad thing. Christianity is an exclusive reality. Now, obviously we respect and we treat everybody with the same respect. and we don't think people are stupid because they don't believe, of course not, but We believe in Christianity as real truth. Otherwise, we are living in a false idea, Christianity, which of course, the Jews who rejected Jesus, not because they were Jews, but because they chose not to accept Jesus as the Messiah, denied it, Just as people today deny it. Why? Because it didn't fit in with what they wanted it to be. It was sincere, but it's possible to be sincerely. Truth is truth. Reality is reality. And we treat everything with enormous respect and with the humility that it. demands. Either it's
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:something that there's two layers that I want to explore. Um, there's, I, I think that there are generation and especially the one that comes after mine needs a reminder of the objective nature of reality that that there is a structure. That is, that is what it is. And you can conform to it or you could not. And examples that you brought of oxygen and basic biological needs are sort of, you know, like, we can think of them as unjust burdens on sentient creatures, but I think you're right. It's just what it is Right? And so we have the project of life is figuring out how to deal with these constraints. Um, there's another aspect that I think I want to maybe paint a rounder picture of what you said so that people don't, don't immediately react to it. That Christianity is exclusive in its beliefs. Um, because I I, while I agree that there is a very strict standard of what falls within the canon and what doesn't, the, the the um, core belief itself is very inclusionary. Everybody's welcome, come as you are, And you know, God will meet you where you're at. So there's those two forces that are at tension with each other. And, and I think the modern zeitgeist flavor of Christianity, the one that we hear about, uh, Through 2 hops in a network, you know, people talking about talking about Christianity has the connotation of it being intolerant. Um, but I think that that is a, is a semantic battle that was you know, Lost by Christianity in the sense that it was it allowed itself to be defined that way when originally the message of Jesus was doesn't your racial background doesn't matter. Your, uh, the, the statute of your bloodline doesn't matter. You know, like, who you are is the sentient creature that decides how to navigate in the world. Um, so I think I want to take this chance just to reclaim that a little bit, because I think it gets lost and. Um, And Even though there's, there's merit to the fact that we need to align ourselves with objective reality and that we can't forfeit the idea of objective reality. Um, I think we, it's a good time to remind everybody that this is, this is a belief system that, uh, has way more breadth and flexibility and, and range than the narrow prescriptions that we get. The narrow drops of misinformation that get spread about it.
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:I think it's how we, Jesus talked about Christianity as being narrow. It is narrow in the sense that it is truth and it's reality. He says it's, it's narrow And it's exclusive in
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:the narrow path.
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:it is truth, but God's love. and God's attitude to us is love for everybody and it's an inclusive love. that does not mean that we can live any way we like and That's all right, but it. does mean that God comes to me where I am and talks to me where I am. and seeks to help me to understand things where I am in my cultural views, in my language, in my way of seeing things. And God, who knows me better than I know myself, treats me with perfect love and perfect justice. Now there is There are two stories going around, neither of which is the truth. One is that God is love and therefore everything's all right, really. it is all right, really, but that doesn't mean I can do what I like. the other error is to say only people that agree with my understanding have any hope. That is equally wrong. Universalism is false because it doesn't mean I can just do what I like, but narrow, what could we call it, fundamentalism, whatever the correct politically correct word is today, is not right either. Jesus came to the religious people who believed in God And they rejected him because he didn't fit into their pattern. Now, there are two things I have to always take into account. One is that God has spoken in his word and that the Bible is the word of God. Every time we read in church, we say this is the word of the Lord. This is God's word. It's true. but my perception of it. my understanding of it. it needs to be. thoughtful, worked out, And fitting into the whole picture. The trouble is we tend to treat the Bible like we treat a lot of things in the world today, with a kind of pick and mix mentality. We take what we like and we leave on one side what we don't like. You can't do that. So first of all, we have to take scripture in the light of scripture. Now, I know when I get to glory. When I get into the presence of God, very likely I will say, oh, didn't get that. Wow. But I know there won't be a contradiction between what I've read in the Bible and what I see there. There might be a contradiction between my understanding, might even be a contradiction between reality and the way I've experienced it But there will be no contradiction between what the Bible has told me. And the other thing that will never change is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is always the Son of God. And he said, I am the way, not this is the way. I am the truth, not this is the truth. I am the life, not this is the life. God's name when he presents himself to Moses is, I am. So what do I do? I have, as You can imagine, taken any number of funerals in my 40 years as a priest in the church. I have taken an incredible number of funerals, most of them for people I'd never met, and never did I commit somebody to God without knowing that God was just. That I had no trouble saying to God here is this person who we love Now that doesn't mean automatic Salvation for everybody the Bible doesn't say that But God is just not me So God deals with that so I take into account Everything I have it in the Bible if you ask me, I'll tell you but at the end of the day I believe in him And it might very well be when I get there that I'll say, Oh, didn't get that. Oh dear. But there'll be no contradiction. And I know I am loved. And I know what it means to say I am loved. My mother was an English lady. I've already said she committed me to God when I was conceived. She was English. I once rushed into the kitchen as a small child and threw my arms around her and she said, what are you doing? She was English. English people today are probably different. I'm not talking about present day English people. So you don't have to disagree with me, those who are watching this. But one day, driving my mother somewhere, in the car, she said, Gregory, you are loved. And I knew that that was true. She never hugged me. She never kissed me. She never called me her little prince or anything like that. But I knew I was loved and God loves us and knowing you are loved is what makes the difference. But God is also good and holy and there are things you don't do I've been married to my dear wife Sylvia for 53, 54 years and I have always sought to be faithful to her. Now, how would you feel if I said, having been married to Sylvia for 53, 54 years, I've been 90 percent faithful to her? I think most people would disagree with That Why? because it doesn't work like, that. It's the same with God. It's the same with God. But
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:there's,
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:am not in any way going to be surprised when I get married. into the presence of God and I realized that my understanding was much more limited than I ever thought it was. God will still be God and he will be the God that I've sought to know and who knows me.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:um, I want to put a pin on the you are loved comment because I want to I want to eventually get to Paraguay and San Andres and how that was one of the core tenants of my education, a feeling of being loved. So I want to, I want to make sure we get to it in a bit. There's, there's another underlying thread there that is Um, in the project of figuring out the mind of God, the personality of God, we draw from scripture, we draw from commentary on scripture, we draw from, uh, from, uh, you know, spaces that are created to explore and to let the spirit come and sort of, like, speak through different people. Um, and there's, there's a tradition built around that, there's institutions built around that, and and some of the greatest. Conflicts have come from disagreements in those, in those rooms, right, the, the the Martin Luther's theses that create the big, you know, the separation from the Catholic Church, the rejection of the Pope, the subsequent alignment that happened throughout all of Protestantism. Uh, and, and so there's these layers upon layers of. Um, institutions that affect, say, the every person's connection to God, right? Not, not everybody was there in Nazareth when Jesus was born. and there's a chain of, of, of, uh, um, uh, you know, of imperfect messaging from source to, uh, recipient. And,
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:Yeah.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:um, Even things like, you know, the Pharisees rejecting Jesus, you know, there's, there was a process there, a human system established to, you know, reason around these ideas. And we know that those institutions are imperfect because the failings in humanity that we're all too familiar with in our own selves, right? Um, How do we make sense of the fact that we have many versions of these institutions, uh, or flavors of the of these beliefs claiming to be truth, having gone through this process. And, you know, you can say you could make an argument both ways in the sense that you, the closer you are to the source, uh, the More pure the message is that's one way to think about it. But then there's the other way that is, no, no, no, you need to go through iterations of refinement to really distill the core message, right? Um, how do you think about that in the in a world in which like we're all part of structures within structures and we're, we're reasoning with models of reality. Um, how, how's your take about how an agent in a structure thinks about that?
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:Well, I said earlier that perhaps for me the biggest problem I faced was choosing whether or not I would go into the ordained ministry in the church. What started as one united church that Jesus called my church, his church, is now divided into whatever, 35, 000. denominations. So scandal is the result of history And whatever we do to seek to get together to dialogue, it's a very big question. Perhaps the biggest question is, okay, so I believe. Now, where do I go if I want to meet with others? And the only way I deal with that is to say I believe that some churches depend more on the Bible than other churches. Now you remember when you were at school at St. Andrew's in Asuncion, although it's an Anglican school, you were taught the Bible, not Anglicanism. And I think that. is how the church should be. Welcome to my bit of the church, But my job is to teach what God has told us not the way we have turned it in our particular institutionalized form. Now, this is not easy. It's a real, really difficult problem. But! We have to belong to something that we recognize as a part of the church. We have to realize what its errors are, and we have to be a part of it. And I really don't know the real answer to that, other than, when it's down to me, I seek to teach what this says, I seek to clarify, I've spent my life, as you can imagine, Christian, teaching, trying to teach church history. There's a book. Uh, in Spanish, I put together a few years ago about the Anglican way of, of seeing Christianity, but also what's gone wrong in the Anglican side. If God. hadn't put me where he's put me in the bit he put me in, I don't know what I would have done. and I don't know what I would do to be very honest about your question. But I know when I'm talking to another Christian. And I know whether I'm talking to somebody who's religious and very loyal to his institution, but not somebody who really has believed what Jesus has told us about Christianity. I don't judge them, but there's a difference between being religious and being somebody who knows God and is known by, um, I don't believe there is an institution today that that we can say this is the true church. I don't believe there ever was. I believe in the first century, the church was local and what we call Catholic, not Roman Catholic, but Catholic in the sense of one sort of universal body. But the government of the church wasn't vertical. The government was local and synodical. It was councils, people who met together and prayed and sought to hear what God was saying. I have no problems with my friends, for example, in the Roman Catholic Church, the present Pope happens to be a good friend of mine. We were very good friends when he was a Cardinal in, uh, in Buenos Aires and I was there as Archbishop. He knows what I think. I know what he thinks. But we could always give each other a hug as you do in Buenos Aires because we consider ourselves brothers and family. I think there are some denominations that have gone off the rails, and I think there are some that are trying very hard but have got their basic, uh, ideas wrong. But I think we've got to keep everything open, keep in dialogue, keep working it out together. But always remember, this is where we find truth. And this says, nobody comes to the Father but through Jesus. This says, God is like this. So I can't come to that with my idea of God and change it. I submit my view of God and my view of the church to what the scripture says. But I recognize I can get it wrong and I listen and I try to learn and I try to hear what others are saying and I try to adjust my thinking in the light of what is. I learn as I go through it all, but I've found no contradiction between what I consider to be the church, as revealed in scripture, and my relationship with other Christians in the world. My problem has always been with the institutions. not with them as authority, but the way the institution manages itself, when it tries to do that in a way which doesn't tie in with the scripture. And
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:Yeah, I think that's all that's, I think it's the, it's become the primary, primary criticism of, of, of Christianity is that the institution This is a criticism that I think is is flawed. present for every institution these days. I think there's, there's been an unveiling of the, the, let's call it the feigned sanctity of institutions, not just religious one,
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:thing, the whole
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:the whole authority. thing.
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:I'm an archbishop. I was a headmaster. In my time as a headmaster, when members of your family, including your dad, were at school my authority was quite different from a headmaster's authority today. When I walked around the school, there was silence. Not because people were necessarily afraid of me, but because we had a certain view of authority. Now, when I was in Buenos Aires as Archbishop And the Bishop of Argentina for 21 odd years, most people called me Che, Greg. Che is a sort of equivalent of in English, English, or you, and that's fine. Same degree of respect and affection, just different language. but I agree with you fully, Christian, it is a major problem. and We have to get to grips with it. Because the whole image of Christianity is confused with people's perception of the institution, whichever one that happens to be. And, you know. But it's Jesus's church and he said I will build my church And so I trust that, it's not a situation that can't be faced and dealt with. But remember what I said right at the very beginning. my biggest decision was, do I really want to work in the church within the for the very things you're talking about.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:Mm hmm. I can see it. I mean, especially coming from your, uh, rebellious background, you know, I, I, I see the picture of somebody who is discontent with authority in the first place and, And and I think I can't even begin to imagine the, the kinds of, uh, challenges that you went through in navigating the internals of, of, of the career you've made, um, yeah. But I want to also explore this, this theme with you that is, um, on scripture, uh, on the concept of scripture, where, um, there are statements in scripture, like, I am the way, the truth, and the light, that to the, to people without the right context, May appear disconnected from their model of the world, right? So it would be as if hearing somebody somewhere really long ago said that they were God and we just take that at face value. Why should you take that at face value? That would be the inherent criticism of it. It's not until you get a bit of context and you understand where the con, the context of the words and the, the, the, the layers of meaning that are stacked on not just the words, But the choice of the words, The placement of the words, the numbers associated with the words. Like there's so many layers of harmonies that get you to actually appreciate what the words mean and how they apply to your life. Um, How do you, how do we, and, and, and I think this is important to mention because if without the context, the, the statements may be rejected, right? But they may be rejected offhand because they haven't been appropriately contextualized. Um, I wanted to sort of open up, you know, because we're talking about scripture and I think this is, this would be a good chance to touch on some of these concepts going with the, you know, the very beginning of, The, um, of John and in the beginning was the word and sort of do a little exercise of exploring in the beginning was the word and what does that mean for somebody? and I can bring some context in the sense that I can link it to things like computer science and code. And there's an analogy that is inevitable there in between the word of God and how it shapes reality and code and how it shapes, you know, whatever it is you build with software engineering. Um, But why don't we start there and sort of start to unpack how these layers are actually built, uh, so that people can then approach something that, you know, earlier on in this conversation they may have disagreed with, because like, because of cultural conditioning, um, and begin to see how these layers may affect their perception of what's real.
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:I think we have to, first of all, understand how we think and why we think the way we do. I remember coming to a kind of epiphany of thought in my late teenage years before I had an encounter with God. When I realized what postmodernism was all about, and we have to think through what is My paradigm. We have to ask ourselves, how do I think And why do I think like that? I came to a place where I understood a little bit about my postmodern thinking, and I grew up. Through that period, I can put months and dates to it. For example, the Beatles conquered the States with a song which nobody had any trouble understanding. I want to hold your hand. It was clear. So, they were able to win the hearts, Not just of the young people, but the acceptance of the parents. because oh, well, all he wants to do is hold our hands, so that's alright. The Rolling Stones had bigger problems with their lyrics, but we won't go into that Now, I want to hold your hand. Three years, later, the Same Beatles were singing, I am he, as you are he, as we are we, and we are all together. I am the Eggman, we are the Eggmen. I am the walrus, goo goo ga choo. That was the shift. We shifted from literal words that we can understand. to anything goes. the same thing happened in our morality. Let me take you down to strawberry fields. Nothing is real. And that was post modernism. And in my postmodern thinking, I was totally sold out to relativism. Whatever you think it's true for you. I had to get to a place where I acknowledged that there was truth that was true, whatever I thought about it. and I came to that place through, for example, John's Gospel. Jesus is the Word. In other words, God doesn't just speak ideas. He speaks words. And the words have a meaning. And the words have a propositional meaning. So when Jesus says to the disciples, they say, well, show us God and everything will be fine. He says, I'm here. Haven't you seen me? In other words, God was telling us that he had become a man and that man lived and talked and did things and then died. on a cross, a cruel death. He was rejected almost fully by everybody. the crowd shouted, crucify him. And he died saying, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. That comes back to what we were talking about earlier, about how far do I understand all this, So we have to understand how we think and why we think the way we do, and then we have to understand what we learn from what Jesus said about how people think. Now, the Bible says we were created in the image of God. That means God has given us qualities which are in common with him. And one of, them is to be able to think and to reason and to understand and to work things out logically. Anglican theology is scriptural and we take into account reason, how we think, our understanding. That doesn't mean that I'm going to understand it all, but I think when we're dealing with the present world and you will understand it far more than I do, Christian, because you've grown up in it and you're living in it at the moment. We have to understand how the world thinks. We have to take how the world thinks in the light of what the Bible tells us. And we have to learn how to share with words. We have learned from the Bible. And help other people to come to a place. Always bearing in mind that before I'm talking to anybody, God is, already loving them. Amen. And working in their lives and seeking to help them to understand. But if you remember your school days, and it was the way it was at the beginning when I was doing my job in St. Andrews, we taught this every day. Not what I thought, or what the teachers thought, but what this says. And we left all of you, and some of your parents and all, the rest of it, with the job of working it out, because that's what does. It's not easy, and living in a sort of liquid. deconstruction, whatever we call it these days. It's not easy, but there's nothing new under the sun, Christian. And if you go to the time of Jesus, Greek philosophy, Roman pluralism, everything that was going on in the first century. You remember When Paul preached in Athens and he talked about, the unknown God. You've got gods here as many as you want. But you've got one dedicated to the unknown God. Well, I'm going to tell you about him. and I think you know, that? is somehow maybe relative to this, to this also. Not an easy question though, Christiana. Not one you can deal with. But you have to work it. through. There is an author that was helping a lot of us when I was young, when I was a student, called Francis Schaeffer. And it's good to read Francis Schaeffer and his way of helping us to understand how we got into at least post modernism. Then you'd need to go into post post modernism and all the things that came after that. But, uh, Francis Schaeffer, okay.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:I, I, The reason I asked this question is because I have been very interested in the, the chain of events from source to recipient, uh, from, and I'm the, and all the way, all the way down to the very beginning. And, And there's layers there and harmonies there that have been extraordinarily surprising to me. Um, things, for instance, like the fact that the Gospels are written in Greek, which is not the original language of Jesus, but the, the, it's the English of the time. It is the most widely spread language and, uh, it comes with all kinds of cultural mannerisms and all kinds of, um, definitions. Uh, of words that have carried, you know, layers upon layers of meaning. And the one I'm referencing specifically is when in the English translation of In the beginning there was the word. The word, the word was actually in Greek logos. And And just exploring that. Yields So many dividends for me in the sense that Oh, where does the word logos come from? What has the word logos impacted and logic comes from logos and reasoning, uh, logos as in symbols brands comes from the same idea. So then, so then you start to paint a more comprehensive picture of what this statement is really trying to say is that there's upon the layers of exploration, there's. Okay, there's a symbol, but the symbol has a rational structure to it. and that you know, you know, you can take that all the way to the calendar and you can take that all the way to all of the cultural, um, call them affordances that have been inherited by Christianity from traditions of the past and traditions of The past And traditions of the past going on to time before memory. Um, and, So I think that there's, there's a unique opportunity these days to explore, um, these, uh, offhand, I don't want to say offhand statements, but the greatest hits of Christianity and really peel back The layers a little bit and see that there is a connection there that resonates with the rational soul, uh, that seeks to make sense of this world, right? Um, and there's another really interesting version of That the same idea that, you know, logic gives birth to computer science and computer science gives birth to code. And all of a sudden that starts to paint a different picture of what this statement is trying to make. This is like, in the beginning, there was the code, there was the code and the code gives rise to everything. And the code is the same thing as, as the creator. and and that is a fun set of stories to play around in your head as it informs your model, right?
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:G. K. Chesterton in one of the Father Brown stories, I think it's in the first Father Brown story he wrote, which is called The Blue Cross, came out about 1910, says through the priest, through Father Brown, God himself is bound by reason. Now you have to unpack that a little bit. but as I've said on a number of occasions during this conversation, whatever I find out about what I haven't understood when I get to Glory, there will be no contradiction with what I have found in the Word. It will help me maybe to understand something I hadn't understood. and the fact that the Word is a person, Hebrews chapter 1 says God has spoken to us through, obviously, through the Old Testament, through the prophets, through the Lord, but now He's spoken through His Son. And the fact that God's Word is His Son, He is the Word. Therefore, in Jesus, we don't just hear, We can see and experience the Word. And words are far more than just sounds And things with meaning. When Jesus says, you know, what he says, he is talking to us as the word. It was very good that you brought up, uh, John chapter one because that really makes a big difference in the way. One thing that people need to do if they want to understand. the word of God is go to. Bible gateway and find, uh, the book of the Bible you're looking at and if It's new Testament, go to the Greek translation and that will then tell You not just the word in Greek and the word in English or whatever, it will tell you what the Greek means and why the Greek means that And all the things that Christian is here talking about layers, this, whole thing about. The Greek language, which has all this uh, behind it which is obviously why God chose to have the epistles and the gospels and so on. written in the Greek language. That was God's decision. that wasn't an accident that just happened. And it's interesting that. the, the Greek you find in, uh, in the New Testament is, there are different Koine Greek, which is street Greek and all the rest of it. It's, it's fascinating thing to do. But Bible Gateway is a great way of getting to grips with the text. And getting to grips, not just with the meaning of the Greek, but where those words appear in different places in the Bible and how you can understand all the various, uh, layers of the meaning there.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:It's, it's beyond interesting and I think it, it, it, it helps clarify, it helps denoise the, the source message from, the the regurgitation of the, regurgitation of the regurgitation. But it's somehow there, It does this really beautiful thing where you can see. You know, the version that you consume and, compare it to more, you know, different flavors, different dimensions of The same idea. and so in the in the intersection is where the really beautiful things start to appear, or at least that's where I've gotten a lot of fruit, uh, sort of in, in my journey of being raised Christian, living in a very Christian country, going to a very secular context, uh, with a lot of technological prowess and might and uh, and you know, Uh, empowerment and then sort of trying to put it all together into this picture of how do I make. this, This picture of the world fit in my, in my mind, there's another, there's another element there that is, um, coupled with the the elements of, of, um, scripture that is faith and the idea of faith as a, As a subscription And as, a commitment that we must make And, there's and I wanted to sort of let you freestyle on the concept a little bit as you've, you know, experienced faith in your life and how faith has taken you places that you probably never would have imagined. Um, what's faith? What? Go for it
squadcaster-9e4j_1_03-19-2024_162216:First of all, uh, and let's make clear to those who are sharing this moment, I did not ask you to tell me beforehand what you were going to talk to me about because I wanted to come to this the way we're coming to it. So I haven't got a bit of paper here with everything that I worked out at three o'clock in the morning. Faith, for me. Relationship begins with relationship. I believe the Word of God, but I believe it because, first of all, Jesus is the Word of God, and I know God through Jesus, and I trust Jesus, and I trust God, and that's faith. I believe His Word, and I believe in His personality, and Like everybody in this world, I have been through some extremely difficult circumstances, some of them very, very, very, painful. But at the end of the day, I trust God, even when I don't understand And that is faith. Now, believing in God is more than faith. It's a relationship. but it isn't just that I Take a leap in the dark And close my eyes and hope I get to know, him because he has come to me and he has opened my eyes and helped me to see he's done something in me. It's not just me looking out into the darkness, it's the light coming to. me. in a person and knowing the person I know light and I see things in the light and faith is trust and trust leads us it's a difficult word but we can say obedience it doesn't mean just doing what I'm told It means living in the light of the love that a person has for me and the love I have for that person. and that causes me to do things in a certain way so That I don't go against what That person is and who that person is And what that person means. For example, in marriage, there are lots of things I could have done, But a number of them I didn't do because I wouldn't have hurt my wife. Doesn't mean I didn't have the right maybe to do certain things but love And obedience go together now. We don't like the word obedience. I know because it all comes in as if this As if i'm not free But I am free because i'm loved every time we do a wedding the first question to the couple is do you want to marry this person? Because love is free Love is free And love is about trust and faith. And that's friendship, but it's much more than friendship. Jesus said, you are my friends, I'm your friend, because we're in a relationship. So faith means knowing God, knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in me, and he helps me to know him. And knowing him, I believe him, I trust him. And even when I don't understand, and there are many things I don't understand there are many things in Christianity which are, in our way of seeing things, antinomies. They seem to be contradictions. They're like parallel lines that don't mean we trust. we trust. because we know God. We know God. And the worst thing I can do about someone is to say you can't trust what they've said. I trust what God has said even when I don't understand it. So faith is relational, and it's knowing God and being known by God. When I made that decision sitting on a railway bench in August 1969 in the southeast of England, it wasn't just that I decided to believe in God, it was that I knew. God. knew him in a personal way. Same as I know you, Christian, same as you know me. It's, a relationship. It means, and the person is a person. Yeah. But, wow. What a question. What a subject. Yeah.
cristian_1_03-19-2024_120603:mythology of the modern times. and uh, and I think, I mean, the reason I brought up faith was because, you know, you know, you get to that point where you Um, where you are dissatisfied with the worldview and, uh, and then you, you have to make that sincere change that is unprovable. That is, you're out of the model that you've been in, you have to leave the house, and, and, and there's a very real sense of, I know that I am artificially putting myself in this position, and I have to trust that, and I think that that is, that is, that is something, but in that very difficult process, a humbling process, uh, uh, you know, an incredibly life flattening process, uh, is the cure to the nihilism. The cure to the nothing has meaning, the cure to nothing matters anyway, we're all going to die, uh, all of that goes away as soon as you believe. As soon as you allow yourself to believe that there could be something more, right? That there could, that this could be not enough, this is insufficient. and and faith. is a difficult Word, I mean, it's a difficult world in word in a world, that, Institutions have abused of the faith that we put in them Right? And now, you know, sort of with the flood of information that we have, we can see where those failings were, and it becomes even more difficult to have faith. Right? Um, But it is also the only bomb that I have found to navigate all of these, you know, Yeah. radical changes that society is going through. Um, I wanted to dive deeper into the, the, the places that your mission and your calling took you and talk a little bit about Paraguay, because as somebody who's seen what you've seen and to have landed upon perhaps one of the most remote places in the world, and then to have chosen to stay there and come back after it, even after a while of being gone.