Early listener of Justin's too. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now without the influence of his show. Great to see you two talk!
I am another early Unbelievable listener, back to radio times. Not too surprising that you two intelligent, thoughtful, gracious hosts should find each other, and share a crossover audience. Thank you both for bringing all this excellent content, you both continue to shape and inform my faith.
Thank you Paul. I really like Justin Brierley. About Jordan Peterson: I know Justin is telling his journey as a host and in terms of Christianity. I experienced Peterson as the voice of passionate truth. I think the identity politics had gotten so oppressive (still is) that his stance voiced so clearly & strongly, without apology, of TRUTH is what attracted so many.
Two favourites. I discovered Justin before I found you Paul, so you're my number 2 (sorry!). 😀That said, you have over taken him in my viewing time, so I guess you are number one!
I think he nails the diagnosis and rightly is open minded about what the right prescription is. That’s the essence of why I find the corner so compelling- i’m convinced we’re bumbling around the right prescription for our time and yet I have no idea what that will look like in the coming years.
Great to see you talk with Justin. I feel as though I only comment on UK guests, but honestly Justin has been the first (and perhaps only) public UK Christian figure to pick up on what has been happening since 2016. With that, plus Unbelievable he’s been doing important work for so long. The book is great too. And I do share his hope in this opportunity for the severely diminished faith in this country.
@@lafamigliabazzani499 That’s true, I’m just not convinced Glen’s as open to allowing the traditions of the faith to speak in the discussion. As Justin points out, people who are coming to faith also seem to be looking for those ancient roots, and the “strangeness”. I’m not convinced as a newcomer myself, respectfully to whoever might read this, that the more reformed elements can provide that.
Ritual is what keeps people faithful, not belief. For most of human history, belief was secondary to ritual, which is why humans survived: ritual kept us together. However, contemporary Christianity, especially Protestantism, is too concerned with belief. Belief is still important, but beliefs can easily be undermined by new information, which is free, abundant, and always available in the digital age. The harder, more important task, is convincing the unconscious mind, and that is what ritual is for. Rituals are sacred habits and habits are only formed by repetition. The only religions that have a chance of thriving into the future are ones which rich liturgies that are challenging and demand serious focus from their practitioners.
Hot take: liturgy can become an alternative for (more holistic?) Christian praxis …and by that I mean direct obedience to Christ’s commands If that is remotely true then the [theology vs liturgy] (or maybe better said: [propositional vs participatory] battles could both be at risk of missing the point
@@williambranch4283Propositional, at some level, is unavoidable though. I agree with the concern about over-intellectualizing things (“all head no heart” maybe?) but even if no one ever asks me [Who is this ‘Christ’ and what does it mean to follow Him?] I still have some implicit/internal framing of that - which is in some sense a ‘theology’ 👍
I hadn’t listened to unbelievable in a couple years, and for some reason it struck me to look them up. I was curious if they had done a podcast with Pageau and didn’t see anything, so then I searched Vanderklay and see this interview from just two hours ago. I thought I was seeing things at first
I met Justin a couple years back when he did an event in Costa Mesa California and brought Dave Rubin and John Lennox to have conversation and I made him sign my bible because I hadn’t bought his book yet but I think I agree with you Paul that unbelievable would not have been what it was without Justins manners and the way he interacts with people he use to read praises and criticism from people online at the end of every show I think that kept him humble I loved unbelievable because it introduced me to the apologetic/intelectual side of Christianity that obviously had its ups and downs because it’s all presuppositional knowing to use vervaeke terms but it nevertheless brought me out of my fundamentalist thinking
Christians often throw out guests that they’d love to go on Rogan. No one ever mentions Justin. I honestly think he’d be the best; wouldn’t be fireworks of course, but he has a breadth and tone to talk to a large audience that most people don’t. Most Christians would just talk past Rogan; Justin would be able to communicate.
16:20 sounds like a great illustration from Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis regarding rigidity of “faith” or confessionalist “belief” (abstract relations of ideas to self-identity). He uses the illustration of one’s face being equivalent to a brick wall, or a trampoline and doctrines being bricks versus springs. If you remove a brick or a certain amount of bricks, does the wall collapse versus removing a few springs… Can you keep jumping? By the way, if you, RUclips, the few appearances of Rob Bell on Unbelievable, they are pretty cringe-worthy. He was not treated very charitably in my opinion. Not necessarily by Justin, but by his interlocutors.
Very much agreed- I’ve listened to a “Velvet Elvis” audiobook a number of times while doing backpack treks (wonderful book!), & it would be so interesting to see Mr. Rob Bell interviewed nowadays by Rev. Paul &/or Mr. Justin 👌🏻💯
I'm very interested to hear that someone who has been exposed to so many perspectives arrived at Annihilationism. Biblically, Ecclesiastes 9:4-6, Psalm 146:3-4, Psalm 6:5 and other passages support it, and it does make intuitive logical sense.
Paul. The death of the Queen and the following coronation in UK surprised . suddenly we faced weeks of televised ceremony, where the whole of our system was revealed, again to be held together by christian fabric. It was amazing. Can still see it all online. I thought it was significant and remembered your comment about those “pesky brits” who wont commit . Its almost like christian nationalism was/is a given in so far as it appeared that the whole country/system was held together by it. As individuals perhaps we “protest too much.”
How would you describe the natural proclivity for Americans to grok UK peeps vs vice versa? Butter over size of bread matters? Happy to debate the details. But my point is: teenagers intrinsically understand their parents in ways foreign to themselves. Similarly, America is downstream from UK.
JP brought psychological/scientific approach to religion brought a different brand of cogency to the conversation around religion He cared about men/people more than he cared about destroying religion/people
This video had me thinking of what kind of church it would take to attract someone like Tom Holland or Jordan Peterson to become a regular attendee. Most people would assume it would be a "smells & bells" type of high-church liturgical service, something the Orthodox do so well, or the Traditional Latin Mass. But I'm not so sure, as beautiful as those services are, they have a high bar of entry, and really do not hold one's attention very well. The biggest reason the Catholics shifted to the "New Right" in the 70's, were the priests noticing that most people in the pews weren't really paying attention to mass at all. I went over to the "First Things" website soon after watching this video, and then I realized what needed to be done: build a Christian church that fully embraced ALL of Western Civilization since the Greeks, and especially since the Resurrection. All of it. How should one do this? Simple: create classical Christian schools as a function of the church. This is what I'm calling "The Tom Holland Option", or simply "The Holland Option". I was going to call it "The Spider-Man Option", but I didn't think too many people would get the inside joke. So what's involved in "The Holland Option"? Well, it involves a lot of what CATHOLICS are already doing. The following are excerpts from three articles that all appear on the FIRST THINGS website: A PILGRIMAGE TO TAYLOR, TEXAS 09.14.23 by Samuel D. Samson "When I first walked through the doors of St. Mary’s as an undergraduate at the University of Texas, the interior was subdued. The marble floors were covered by musty carpeting. Choir equipment (including a drum set) was stacked at the front of the church. The hardwood confessionals were slated to be torn out. The organ was collecting cobwebs. St. Mary’s was, in fact, a dying rural Catholic parish, smothered by sixties interior design and slowly fading into history. Still, behind the scenes, change was afoot. "Led by Heidi Altman, a convicted mom and seasoned educator, the financially-strapped parochial school was converted to the classical model. At a time when many Catholic schools were secularizing, St. Mary’s went the opposite direction, attracting droves of families seeking an authentic religious education. Enrollment has only increased since. "After this influx of new students, St. Mary’s next turned to building a community that both welcomed and incentivized large families. The church launched new initiatives: multiple sacrament times for busy parents, a new cry room, and adult faith formation courses among them. St. Mary’s became a place families wanted to go, a source of community for parents and children alike." THE FUTURE IS CLASSICAL 09.19.23 by Mark Bauerlein "Atlanta Classical Academy opened in 2014, as a K-8 school. Today, it runs to twelfth grade and has 690 students, with a waiting list of 1,500 kids. "A sister school opened in 2021 a few miles north in Kennesaw, Georgia, called Northwest Classical Academy. At that time, it served grades K-6. Now, two years later, it runs through ninth grade, enrolls 700 students, and has a waiting list of 1,000. "It's a pattern that's becoming commonplace. A few parents and an entrepreneur come together to envision an alternative school built on classical lines, and within a few years they have to turn away dozens or hundreds of applicants because they don't have the space. Demand exceeds supply." EDUCATION TOWARD SANITY 09.25.23 by Dan Loesing "The Chesterton Schools Network, for example, consists of more than fifty academies, with more opening this fall (including one in my native Columbus, Ohio). Their high schoolers read Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante, Dickens, and Dostoevsky. They learn math-from geometry to calculus-and how to relate it to philosophical inquiry; they learn science-astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics-and how to relate it to God’s creative act. Every student learns to draw, to debate, to sing, and to act. Students read the Bible, the Church Fathers, and the Church Councils. They attend daily Mass, weekly confession, and pilgrimages to Rome and Assisi. They become, in short, universalists." What's amazing, is this return to a CLASSICAL education is super popular amongst Catholic parents, and is almost entirely being driven by the LAITY, not the priests and bishops. So again, we take what the Catholics are doing and expand upon it. Hence, "The Holland Option" Here's just a few thoughts of what it could look like: 1. SUNDAY SERVICES: not just biblical exegesis, but CLASSICAL TEXTS right along with the biblical texts. And instead of the exegesis model, we move to a STORY TELLING model, showing how great works of fiction and literature throughout the past 3,000 years or so are tied to what the bible is teaching us. 2. CLASSICAL SCHOOL: Yep, make a K-12 school that brings the classics to every grade level. Even 5 and 6 year olds will love C.S. Lewis' "Narnia" series, and Tolkien's "The Hobbit." As for dinosaurs, we will go as hard into dinosaurs as humanly possible. Yep, 5 and 6 year olds all love dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts, so teach them, at the very least, how to identify them all. And once you start with dinosaurs, you can move to Latin, the language used to name the dinosaurs. And then move into geography and geology, where the dinosaurs are found, and what type of rocks contain their fossils. We can also talk about the age of the earth. And then we can go to biology and comparative anatomy, so we can identify dinosaurs, even when just have a few bones to work with. From the earth, to the stars, when we talk about the big asteroid that fell to earth and killed off the dinosaurs and created the K-T boundary. For adults: offer all sorts of classes and book clubs to learn the great authors and books that western civilization was built upon. 3. WEEKDAY SERVICES: Have some sort of service EVERY SINGLE DAY, even MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY. You could do three services a day just following the Liturgy of the Hours. In the evenings, you could have a full blown Charismatic worship services every single night, with prayers and singing being the main show. Have something for everyone. Obviously this would go way beyond what just a single pastor could do, so you have the laity all step up for all these additional roles. You'll just have to trust them. 4. THE DENOMINATION OF NO DENOMINATION: The future of Christianity belongs to the non-denominational Christian church. The reasons for this are too numerous to list, but the most important reason of all is that the most robust model for an "institution" is that of an organization that makes it a priority to distribute power rather than concentrate it. It offers far greater flexibility and adaptability, and with the speed in which the world throws things at us, we need flexibility more than ever to meet the needs of our fellow man. There's a ton more I can say about all this, but the important thing is that we have two thousand years of Christian history that is filled to overflowing with truth, goodness and beauty, and we need to start mining these riches RIGHT NOW, and start distributing them to our children. The simple fact about all humans, even tiny little babies, is that we are all designed to be information vacuums, we can't help ourselves. Our job, as adults, whether we like it or not, is to give our little information vacuums the best quality information we can possibly provide. Thankfully, as members of Western Civilization, we have freight trains full of extremely high quality information in the form of books, literature, philosophy, science, art, architecture and music, more than you could possibly absorb in multiple lifetimes. Paul VanderKlay talks about "the ongoing development of doctrine and dogma" as an inoculation against heresy. But few people care about theology, it's just too abstract of a discipline for even nerds to get their hands around. So instead, just make use of all that Western Civ. has so richly provided us, and you will not just have a person who is not only inoculated, but they will be riding in their Sherman tank right in the middle of Patton's 3rd Army, crushing and devouring anything that comes against it. As always, the best defense is a good offense, and Western Civ. provides us with the best weapons and tactics you could possibly want. We just need a mechanism of unlocking the armory, and getting those weapons into the hands of the people. The snarky question of the day is "Just what are you conservatives trying to conserve anyway?" Well, the simple and most direct answer to that is we are trying to conserve all the riches that Western Civilization has put into our hands since the days of Homer. This is as much the church's job as it is to exegete bible verses once a week, if not far more so. Maybe instead of Masters of Divinity grads, we hire pastors who are English majors, or history majors, or even philosophy majors. Shoot, even physics majors would be awesome. We need to start finding ways to tell our stories to the next generation, instead of this constant obsessions with putting the bible under an electron microscope and trying to figure out the Greek and Hebrew original meanings. Shoot, sometimes I think it would be far better to teach out of "The Message" translation every Sunday, just to get people to think about THE BIG PICTURE of theology, instead of dissecting it like a frog. Perhaps I feel this way from the incredible impact that the science fiction novel "A Canticle for Leibowitz" made upon me in my youth, I don't know...or maybe it's that I'm angry that our "educational system" is aimed at the lowest common denominator. Whatever the reason, the answer is putting our faith into the context of two thousand YEARS of Christian history, and being proud of what has been accomplished.
James Lindsay identifies the problem why the divide between believing Christians and new atheists is so profound. We share a common vocabulary but use definitions from diverse and irreconcilable dictionaries......
Its very interesting, and rather validating of what I have thought for a while and what I increasingly know other people have been saying for longer, Atheism either is itself a positive ideology, or it will create a space for a positive ideology, because sociology and biblically religion is religion even if the person in question doesn't say they're a believer in that religion. The Bible considers a greedy man an idolater, Atheism must also either be a religion or become one.
Deconstructing something isn't that hard. It's a tired schtick to only ever point out absurdities. People are trying to positively build a worldview and it's not as easy as making fun of fundamentalists.
STOP POSTING SO MANY GREAT VIDEOS!!! I can't keep up with all the goodness!!! Oh well....better too much than too little. The most significant take-away for me from this interview, is that your faith needs to be tested. Not just from the rigors of life, but also tested against other systems of faith, philosophy, ideology and so on. We need to know if this "faith" we hold onto is really worth while, or just one game amongst many. What's so fascinating, is if you do honestly, Christianity comes out on top almost all the time, at least in terms of rational, intellectual arguments. It makes far more sense than we realize. So why isn't Christianity more popular than it is? Well, to be of the greatest benefit, you need to deal with Christianity with brutal honesty, which most people aren't willing to do. Living a life of self-deception is as common as dirt, even amongst Christians.
Oh, I've got a special one for you. Before you posted that comment about Bethel I was going to make a video comparing Bethel with Doug Wilson's outfit. I talked about it on a livestream on the Randos channel. You've been reading my mind lately. :)
@@PaulVanderKlay - Yes! I've been following Bethel (from a distance!) for YEARS....and find them endlessly fascinating. There's some aspects of their system I really don't like, but I could probably say that about any church...
@@PaulVanderKlay - I was just watching this video from Skye Jethani: "Skye Jethani: Why You're Sick of Church" -- Wow! The video is seven years old, but on point even here in 2023. Why do I bring this up? Skye mentions the FACT that the reason why highly committed, mature Christians leave the church, is because it's all about "church" and has little to do with God. I have a feeling this is not an issue at Bethel, as the charismatics often do a much better job of combining contemporary worship with that age old need for a mystical connection to the divine. I could be wrong about that, but it's my hunch.
Early listener of Justin's too. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now without the influence of his show. Great to see you two talk!
I am another early Unbelievable listener, back to radio times. Not too surprising that you two intelligent, thoughtful, gracious hosts should find each other, and share a crossover audience. Thank you both for bringing all this excellent content, you both continue to shape and inform my faith.
Thank you Paul. I really like Justin Brierley.
About Jordan Peterson: I know Justin is telling his journey as a host and in terms of Christianity. I experienced Peterson as the voice of passionate truth. I think the identity politics had gotten so oppressive (still is) that his stance voiced so clearly & strongly, without apology, of TRUTH is what attracted so many.
Two favourites. I discovered Justin before I found you Paul, so you're my number 2 (sorry!). 😀That said, you have over taken him in my viewing time, so I guess you are number one!
36-38 minutes was articulated really well. This was a fun trip down memory lane.
I think he nails the diagnosis and rightly is open minded about what the right prescription is. That’s the essence of why I find the corner so compelling- i’m convinced we’re bumbling around the right prescription for our time and yet I have no idea what that will look like in the coming years.
Great to see you talk with Justin. I feel as though I only comment on UK guests, but honestly Justin has been the first (and perhaps only) public UK Christian figure to pick up on what has been happening since 2016. With that, plus Unbelievable he’s been doing important work for so long. The book is great too. And I do share his hope in this opportunity for the severely diminished faith in this country.
A young British Christian, Luke Avery aka Lambda ... is another reason for hope.
Fellow Brit praying for revival here.
Glen Scrivener is pretty up to speed too if you haven’t heard of him
@@lafamigliabazzani499 That’s true, I’m just not convinced Glen’s as open to allowing the traditions of the faith to speak in the discussion. As Justin points out, people who are coming to faith also seem to be looking for those ancient roots, and the “strangeness”. I’m not convinced as a newcomer myself, respectfully to whoever might read this, that the more reformed elements can provide that.
@@lafamigliabazzani499 Just catching his interview of Brierly ... more British version of this interview.
The annihilation argument (while not conclusive) is clearly the strongest. Well heard, Justin!
This conversation was great.
I know Justin's now freelancing but if he needs free labour to help with his project, I would love to help.
Ritual is what keeps people faithful, not belief. For most of human history, belief was secondary to ritual, which is why humans survived: ritual kept us together. However, contemporary Christianity, especially Protestantism, is too concerned with belief. Belief is still important, but beliefs can easily be undermined by new information, which is free, abundant, and always available in the digital age. The harder, more important task, is convincing the unconscious mind, and that is what ritual is for. Rituals are sacred habits and habits are only formed by repetition. The only religions that have a chance of thriving into the future are ones which rich liturgies that are challenging and demand serious focus from their practitioners.
I am trying to increase ritual. Learning is reinforcement, and that is not only visual and aural, but kinesthetic.
I like this. And it maps right onto marriage. Imagine if most married folks applied this…
Hot take: liturgy can become an alternative for (more holistic?) Christian praxis
…and by that I mean direct obedience to Christ’s commands
If that is remotely true then the [theology vs liturgy] (or maybe better said: [propositional vs participatory] battles could both be at risk of missing the point
@@lafamigliabazzani499 I find theology overly intellectual. Better to be an illiterate but pious Tudor woman than an Oxford divine,
@@williambranch4283Propositional, at some level, is unavoidable though. I agree with the concern about over-intellectualizing things (“all head no heart” maybe?) but even if no one ever asks me [Who is this ‘Christ’ and what does it mean to follow Him?] I still have some implicit/internal framing of that - which is in some sense a ‘theology’ 👍
The colour and video quality looks gorgeous PVK.
I hadn’t listened to unbelievable in a couple years, and for some reason it struck me to look them up. I was curious if they had done a podcast with Pageau and didn’t see anything, so then I searched Vanderklay and see this interview from just two hours ago. I thought I was seeing things at first
I met Justin a couple years back when he did an event in Costa Mesa California and brought Dave Rubin and John Lennox to have conversation and I made him sign my bible because I hadn’t bought his book yet but I think I agree with you Paul that unbelievable would not have been what it was without Justins manners and the way he interacts with people he use to read praises and criticism from people online at the end of every show I think that kept him humble I loved unbelievable because it introduced me to the apologetic/intelectual side of Christianity that obviously had its ups and downs because it’s all presuppositional knowing to use vervaeke terms but it nevertheless brought me out of my fundamentalist thinking
Christians often throw out guests that they’d love to go on Rogan. No one ever mentions Justin. I honestly think he’d be the best; wouldn’t be fireworks of course, but he has a breadth and tone to talk to a large audience that most people don’t. Most Christians would just talk past Rogan; Justin would be able to communicate.
I just ran 'i speak for the krill' - I hope he's seen it
Did he say Zune?
Yep
16:20 sounds like a great illustration from Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis regarding rigidity of “faith” or confessionalist “belief” (abstract relations of ideas to self-identity).
He uses the illustration of one’s face being equivalent to a brick wall, or a trampoline and doctrines being bricks versus springs. If you remove a brick or a certain amount of bricks, does the wall collapse versus removing a few springs… Can you keep jumping?
By the way, if you, RUclips, the few appearances of Rob Bell on Unbelievable, they are pretty cringe-worthy. He was not treated very charitably in my opinion. Not necessarily by Justin, but by his interlocutors.
Very much agreed- I’ve listened to a “Velvet Elvis” audiobook a number of times while doing backpack treks (wonderful book!), & it would be so interesting to see Mr. Rob Bell interviewed nowadays by Rev. Paul &/or Mr. Justin 👌🏻💯
28:34 Tim McGrew! Bethel shout out!
Season 1 of Big Conversations was excellent 👌. I guess the Anglican methodists were weird hence the nickname 🙂. Great convo gents, thanks 🙏
I'm very interested to hear that someone who has been exposed to so many perspectives arrived at Annihilationism. Biblically, Ecclesiastes 9:4-6, Psalm 146:3-4, Psalm 6:5 and other passages support it, and it does make intuitive logical sense.
Nice!
When Sam Harris pulled the religious rabbit out of the secular hat was the moment I saw the tide turn
Paul. The death of the Queen and the following coronation in UK surprised . suddenly we faced weeks of televised ceremony, where the whole of our system was revealed, again to be held together by christian fabric. It was amazing. Can still see it all online. I thought it was significant and remembered your comment about those “pesky brits” who wont commit . Its almost like christian nationalism was/is a given in so far as it appeared that the whole country/system was held together by it. As individuals perhaps we “protest too much.”
Another early unbelievable listener right here.
Paul you asked some great questions!
How would you describe the natural proclivity for Americans to grok UK peeps vs vice versa? Butter over size of bread matters? Happy to debate the details. But my point is: teenagers intrinsically understand their parents in ways foreign to themselves. Similarly, America is downstream from UK.
Ok but then how do you explain me? I’m an American Anglophile.
Dammit Paul! Sometimes I swear we’re just gonna be opposite bears from one another!
@@phlebas9204 aww 🥰
Spirit by Judah, heart by England, body by America. Has taken a lifetime to grow into myself.
@@catejames6453It’s the accent - we intrinsically think people with a nice British accent are more sophisticated 😏😅
JP brought psychological/scientific approach to religion brought a different brand of cogency to the conversation around religion
He cared about men/people more than he cared about destroying religion/people
This video had me thinking of what kind of church it would take to attract someone like Tom Holland or Jordan Peterson to become a regular attendee.
Most people would assume it would be a "smells & bells" type of high-church liturgical service, something the Orthodox do so well, or the Traditional Latin Mass. But I'm not so sure, as beautiful as those services are, they have a high bar of entry, and really do not hold one's attention very well. The biggest reason the Catholics shifted to the "New Right" in the 70's, were the priests noticing that most people in the pews weren't really paying attention to mass at all.
I went over to the "First Things" website soon after watching this video, and then I realized what needed to be done: build a Christian church that fully embraced ALL of Western Civilization since the Greeks, and especially since the Resurrection. All of it. How should one do this? Simple: create classical Christian schools as a function of the church.
This is what I'm calling "The Tom Holland Option", or simply "The Holland Option". I was going to call it "The Spider-Man Option", but I didn't think too many people would get the inside joke.
So what's involved in "The Holland Option"? Well, it involves a lot of what CATHOLICS are already doing.
The following are excerpts from three articles that all appear on the FIRST THINGS website:
A PILGRIMAGE TO TAYLOR, TEXAS
09.14.23
by Samuel D. Samson
"When I first walked through the doors of St. Mary’s as an undergraduate at the University of Texas, the interior was subdued. The marble floors were covered by musty carpeting. Choir equipment (including a drum set) was stacked at the front of the church. The hardwood confessionals were slated to be torn out. The organ was collecting cobwebs. St. Mary’s was, in fact, a dying rural Catholic parish, smothered by sixties interior design and slowly fading into history. Still, behind the scenes, change was afoot.
"Led by Heidi Altman, a convicted mom and seasoned educator, the financially-strapped parochial school was converted to the classical model. At a time when many Catholic schools were secularizing, St. Mary’s went the opposite direction, attracting droves of families seeking an authentic religious education. Enrollment has only increased since.
"After this influx of new students, St. Mary’s next turned to building a community that both welcomed and incentivized large families. The church launched new initiatives: multiple sacrament times for busy parents, a new cry room, and adult faith formation courses among them. St. Mary’s became a place families wanted to go, a source of community for parents and children alike."
THE FUTURE IS CLASSICAL
09.19.23
by Mark Bauerlein
"Atlanta Classical Academy opened in 2014, as a K-8 school. Today, it runs to twelfth grade and has 690 students, with a waiting list of 1,500 kids.
"A sister school opened in 2021 a few miles north in Kennesaw, Georgia, called Northwest Classical Academy. At that time, it served grades K-6. Now, two years later, it runs through ninth grade, enrolls 700 students, and has a waiting list of 1,000.
"It's a pattern that's becoming commonplace. A few parents and an entrepreneur come together to envision an alternative school built on classical lines, and within a few years they have to turn away dozens or hundreds of applicants because they don't have the space. Demand exceeds supply."
EDUCATION TOWARD SANITY
09.25.23
by Dan Loesing
"The Chesterton Schools Network, for example, consists of more than fifty academies, with more opening this fall (including one in my native Columbus, Ohio). Their high schoolers read Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante, Dickens, and Dostoevsky. They learn math-from geometry to calculus-and how to relate it to philosophical inquiry; they learn science-astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics-and how to relate it to God’s creative act. Every student learns to draw, to debate, to sing, and to act. Students read the Bible, the Church Fathers, and the Church Councils. They attend daily Mass, weekly confession, and pilgrimages to Rome and Assisi. They become, in short, universalists."
What's amazing, is this return to a CLASSICAL education is super popular amongst Catholic parents, and is almost entirely being driven by the LAITY, not the priests and bishops. So again, we take what the Catholics are doing and expand upon it. Hence, "The Holland Option"
Here's just a few thoughts of what it could look like:
1. SUNDAY SERVICES: not just biblical exegesis, but CLASSICAL TEXTS right along with the biblical texts. And instead of the exegesis model, we move to a STORY TELLING model, showing how great works of fiction and literature throughout the past 3,000 years or so are tied to what the bible is teaching us.
2. CLASSICAL SCHOOL: Yep, make a K-12 school that brings the classics to every grade level. Even 5 and 6 year olds will love C.S. Lewis' "Narnia" series, and Tolkien's "The Hobbit."
As for dinosaurs, we will go as hard into dinosaurs as humanly possible. Yep, 5 and 6 year olds all love dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts, so teach them, at the very least, how to identify them all.
And once you start with dinosaurs, you can move to Latin, the language used to name the dinosaurs. And then move into geography and geology, where the dinosaurs are found, and what type of rocks contain their fossils. We can also talk about the age of the earth. And then we can go to biology and comparative anatomy, so we can identify dinosaurs, even when just have a few bones to work with. From the earth, to the stars, when we talk about the big asteroid that fell to earth and killed off the dinosaurs and created the K-T boundary.
For adults: offer all sorts of classes and book clubs to learn the great authors and books that western civilization was built upon.
3. WEEKDAY SERVICES: Have some sort of service EVERY SINGLE DAY, even MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY. You could do three services a day just following the Liturgy of the Hours. In the evenings, you could have a full blown Charismatic worship services every single night, with prayers and singing being the main show.
Have something for everyone. Obviously this would go way beyond what just a single pastor could do, so you have the laity all step up for all these additional roles. You'll just have to trust them.
4. THE DENOMINATION OF NO DENOMINATION: The future of Christianity belongs to the non-denominational Christian church. The reasons for this are too numerous to list, but the most important reason of all is that the most robust model for an "institution" is that of an organization that makes it a priority to distribute power rather than concentrate it. It offers far greater flexibility and adaptability, and with the speed in which the world throws things at us, we need flexibility more than ever to meet the needs of our fellow man.
There's a ton more I can say about all this, but the important thing is that we have two thousand years of Christian history that is filled to overflowing with truth, goodness and beauty, and we need to start mining these riches RIGHT NOW, and start distributing them to our children.
The simple fact about all humans, even tiny little babies, is that we are all designed to be information vacuums, we can't help ourselves. Our job, as adults, whether we like it or not, is to give our little information vacuums the best quality information we can possibly provide. Thankfully, as members of Western Civilization, we have freight trains full of extremely high quality information in the form of books, literature, philosophy, science, art, architecture and music, more than you could possibly absorb in multiple lifetimes.
Paul VanderKlay talks about "the ongoing development of doctrine and dogma" as an inoculation against heresy. But few people care about theology, it's just too abstract of a discipline for even nerds to get their hands around. So instead, just make use of all that Western Civ. has so richly provided us, and you will not just have a person who is not only inoculated, but they will be riding in their Sherman tank right in the middle of Patton's 3rd Army, crushing and devouring anything that comes against it. As always, the best defense is a good offense, and Western Civ. provides us with the best weapons and tactics you could possibly want. We just need a mechanism of unlocking the armory, and getting those weapons into the hands of the people.
The snarky question of the day is "Just what are you conservatives trying to conserve anyway?" Well, the simple and most direct answer to that is we are trying to conserve all the riches that Western Civilization has put into our hands since the days of Homer.
This is as much the church's job as it is to exegete bible verses once a week, if not far more so. Maybe instead of Masters of Divinity grads, we hire pastors who are English majors, or history majors, or even philosophy majors. Shoot, even physics majors would be awesome. We need to start finding ways to tell our stories to the next generation, instead of this constant obsessions with putting the bible under an electron microscope and trying to figure out the Greek and Hebrew original meanings. Shoot, sometimes I think it would be far better to teach out of "The Message" translation every Sunday, just to get people to think about THE BIG PICTURE of theology, instead of dissecting it like a frog.
Perhaps I feel this way from the incredible impact that the science fiction novel "A Canticle for Leibowitz" made upon me in my youth, I don't know...or maybe it's that I'm angry that our "educational system" is aimed at the lowest common denominator. Whatever the reason, the answer is putting our faith into the context of two thousand YEARS of Christian history, and being proud of what has been accomplished.
Free book with this comment
@@PaulVanderKlay - What? Did I win a free book?!?!?!? Do I get to pick the title??? 🙂
James Lindsay identifies the problem why the divide between believing Christians and new atheists is so profound. We share a common vocabulary but use definitions from diverse and irreconcilable dictionaries......
Great guy
Its very interesting, and rather validating of what I have thought for a while and what I increasingly know other people have been saying for longer, Atheism either is itself a positive ideology, or it will create a space for a positive ideology, because sociology and biblically religion is religion even if the person in question doesn't say they're a believer in that religion. The Bible considers a greedy man an idolater, Atheism must also either be a religion or become one.
Pvk is up
Wonderful exchange, but both of you using “sort of” and “kind of” multiple times in almost every sentence was maddeningly distracting.
That last 5 minutes is key. Also interesting that neither of you understands why Peterson is different. I have videos on that.
Navigating Patterns is it?
Thinking of oneself as impersonal, is a disassociation diagnosis. The level of general mental illness is staggering (Peterson as a psych gets this).
The annihilationist case is philosophically weakest by a wide margin and actually more problematic than ECT.
Philosophically and personally/relationally, yes. I agree.
But rationalistically, with sola scriptura as a frame, it appears to be “biblical”.
The sinful hope for annihilation.
Keep Christianity weird. Keep Austin weird. Who lives in Austin and is having more Christian adjacent people on his show
Deconstructing something isn't that hard. It's a tired schtick to only ever point out absurdities. People are trying to positively build a worldview and it's not as easy as making fun of fundamentalists.
Deconstruction of Christianity is urgent, it is counter-intuitive, only Christianity thinks grace is not merited, though in the NT grace is for grace.
"New Atheism compared Wokie ideology to Christianity, and decided better the devil you knew"
Inverse of true -- better the God you knew.
G-d won't approve of their depravity.
First?
It seems that this 'first' game has become pay-to-win with the channel members early access.
@@alttiakujarvi yes it has.
STOP POSTING SO MANY GREAT VIDEOS!!! I can't keep up with all the goodness!!! Oh well....better too much than too little.
The most significant take-away for me from this interview, is that your faith needs to be tested. Not just from the rigors of life, but also tested against other systems of faith, philosophy, ideology and so on. We need to know if this "faith" we hold onto is really worth while, or just one game amongst many.
What's so fascinating, is if you do honestly, Christianity comes out on top almost all the time, at least in terms of rational, intellectual arguments. It makes far more sense than we realize.
So why isn't Christianity more popular than it is? Well, to be of the greatest benefit, you need to deal with Christianity with brutal honesty, which most people aren't willing to do. Living a life of self-deception is as common as dirt, even amongst Christians.
Oh, I've got a special one for you. Before you posted that comment about Bethel I was going to make a video comparing Bethel with Doug Wilson's outfit. I talked about it on a livestream on the Randos channel. You've been reading my mind lately. :)
@@PaulVanderKlay - Yes! I've been following Bethel (from a distance!) for YEARS....and find them endlessly fascinating. There's some aspects of their system I really don't like, but I could probably say that about any church...
@@PaulVanderKlay - I was just watching this video from Skye Jethani: "Skye Jethani: Why You're Sick of Church" -- Wow! The video is seven years old, but on point even here in 2023. Why do I bring this up? Skye mentions the FACT that the reason why highly committed, mature Christians leave the church, is because it's all about "church" and has little to do with God. I have a feeling this is not an issue at Bethel, as the charismatics often do a much better job of combining contemporary worship with that age old need for a mystical connection to the divine. I could be wrong about that, but it's my hunch.
Calling Jordan Peterson an intellectual is as big a stretch of the imagination as claiming the inerrancy of the Bible.
@phlebas9204
Indeed I could.
But Jordan Peterson would still not be an intellectual.
Now go tidy your bedroom 😘😘
@phlebas9204 he's insecure and just trying to get attention ignore him
It's Unbelievable that Justin Brierley believes his own bullshit.
It's unbelievable that that's as in depth a critique as you're willing to give.
It may well be quite believable.@@ProfesserLuigi