#2 The reenchantment of the West

Show Notes

In this episode, we look at society’s response to secularism and disenchantment. God is not dead, as evidenced by the rise of spirituality in the Western world. How is conservative Christianity responsible, in part, for the rejection of organized religion? What can the church do to answer the spiritual questions greater society is exploring?

Read These Books: https://www.anthonydelgado.net/read-these-books

Music: Deep Future Garage by Royalty Free Music

Podcast Transcript

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This light momentary affliction is preparing an internal weight of glory for us. Beyond all comparison, as we look, not to the things that are seen but to the unseen. Second Corinthians 4 17 and 18, in a post materialistic world filled with immense spiritual noise.We're here to uncover the ancient near eastern context of the Bible to recover the truly mystical faith of our spiritual forefathers. Welcome to the biblical re enchantment podcast where we bridge the gap between the Ancient Hebrew story and modern insights.I'm Anthony Delgado, your host for this journey into the often overlooked mystical dimensions of the Bible. This is episode two. In the last episode, we looked at the disenchantment of the West. And today, we're actually gonna look at the re enchantment of the West.First part, looking at spiritual but not religious people as a consequence of the disenchantment of the West. And then in the second part, we're gonna look at the de exo application of Christianity in light of uh the spiritual awakening that is currently happening in society, right?

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Why this podcast we see an increase in secularization or disenchantment that came out of the modern period And today, we're actually in a new position, we're seeing an increase in spirituality, an increase in re enchantment in the post modern world.But the Western world is re enchanting in the wrong direction. We have new or hybridized mythologies that are not the mythologies of our forefathers and they lead to different spiritual conclusions.So in this episode, like the last one, we're gonna be engaging with some of the ideas of Christopher H Partridge from his book, The Re Enchantment of the West 2004.Uh It's a little old as I said in the last podcast, given the amount of scholarship that's being produced all the time.But this work I highly commend to you if you're interested in more of this topic, this is the last one that we're gonna do specifically based on this work. Um You can find it in my recommended books list. There's a link to that in the show notes.

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All right, let's delve into part one. We're gonna look at people who are spiritual but not religious.This is people who are experimenting and with spiritual ideas, uh trying to figure stuff out on their own and uh looking to what other people who are also spiritualists are doing and trying to interface with what they're doing and create a personalized spiritual experience, but who don't, don't belong to any organized religious system.

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Um So before we do that, I wanna talk about disenchantment as the precursor to re enchantment. OK. The, this idea that the, that the Western world has effectively disenchanted is birthing uh new spiritual ideas.This response to the claim that secularism leads to the idea that God is dead, which is what Nietzsche said that, that there was an inevitable trajectory that secularism would lead to the death of uh not just religion itself but to the death of a need for any type of spirituality.

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We're far enough from the, you know, the bulk of the de secularization that's happened in the West to be able to see definitely in, you know, Britain and some of the other Western countries and increasing in, in many of the United States major cities.We we're far enough into this to see that Nietzsche wasn't, right. Uh secularization is doing something but it's not doing what he thought it was going to do. So let's let's look to Partridge.He says that in line with the global trend of a gradual upsurge of religion and along with streams of fundamentalist religion, there seems to be a gradual yet ubiquitous growth of spirituality in the West. So he said that actually fundamentalist religion is growing outside the West.

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So certainly religion is not dying uh as, as far as like a worldwide thing. But he actually says that in line with the growth of fundamentalist religion in the rest of the world, that the Western world is seeing a consistent growth, both of spirituality, right?Let let's talk about streams of fundamentalist religion. He, he, he cites three. He says that there's an increasing number of young Asians and Africans that are both, you know, in both settings, attracted to conservative forms of Islam. Uh And, and notice he doesn't say radical forms.

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He just says conservative that they, they hold closely to the Koran, very highly religious. Ok. So there's an increase in that there's an attractiveness even among young people in Asia and Africa.Uh Second, he cites uh the challenges made by Hindu fundamentalists and secularism in India that uh sort of the, the Hindu fundamentalists that hold to the historic Hindu beliefs are causing many uh many problems in Indian society because they want to revert to uh the Hindu teachings rather than the modern secular teachings.

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Uh And so there's societal challenges that are happening there. Um Also, he cites the emergence of conservative Christianity in Latin America and Sub Saharan Africa. And uh it's, it's common in Latin America to find uh cultic Christian groups, to find Catholic Christian groups.

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Um And to find Pentecostal Christian groups. And yet more and more, we are seeing an emergence of uh a desire for conservative sort of an evangelical conservative type of Christianity in Latin America.That's very much Bible based and similar things are happening in Sub Saharan Africa where um again, a lot of cultic, a lot of uh uh a lot of Pentecostal and sort of, you know, especially of the non orthodox branch of oneness, apostolic movements has been so rampant and uh proving not to be effective that now, uh they're actually seeing a lot of conservative Christian groups, uh moving in and a lot of people converting into, uh, sort of a conservative evangelical brand of Christianity.

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There. In other words, secularism, um, incites a response from conservative religious authorities that I think is as though the world around us and maybe even in the maybe not the world around us, but the world around these um other non Western countries as secularizes.It's actually inciting a response from conservative religious authorities to develop the conservative Christianity there or to develop the conservative form of the religion in these places. OK.So that's what's kind of happening in the world broadly, that there actually is an increase in conservativism, but what's happening in the West. So in the West, um secularization has definitely caused an aversion to fundamentalist or, you know, conservative religion, organized religion.

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But we now live in a post fundamentalist society where um in many in many cases, uh sort of fundamentalist or conservative Christian groups are having to find creative ways to continue to share the gospel that sometimes look rather spiritual and experimental and things of that sort.

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And so um I'll just kind of let that hang out there.But Partridge says that there is a ubiquitous growth of spirituality in the West that sort of mirrors what's happening in the rest of the world, but here in the post fundamentalist, you know, sort of society, um, we're ahead of the rest of the world.We've already gone through the conservative forms of religion and, and, and society has kind of secularized out of that. And now they are seeking spirituality in other ways. Um So, so there was a uh 2000 poll by Opinion research Business.This aired on the BBC series, Soul of Britain. And, and they found that traditional Christian belief is indeed declining. That as far as like conservative Christianity goes. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's declining in the West.And if it was happening in the year 2000 in Great Britain, it's probably happening here now in the United States and it's probably continuing in uh all parts of the western world.

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But they also found some other interesting statistics that don't seem to agree with the idea of a, of the decline of traditional Christian belief.I think a lot of people would have you to believe that atheism is on the rise and that, you know, secularism is winning and God is dying.But this poll um found that people who claimed to have a non everyday awareness of the presence of God rose from 20% in 1987 to 30% 38% in the year 2000.In other words, in a, in a 13 year period, there was an 11% increase in the amount of people who have at least a periodic uh awareness of God's presence. And, and that's really interesting because that's not even saying a spiritual presence. It's saying a God presence.It's sort of uh not sort of an agnostic spirituality, but a actual, you know, the idea that there's some sort of deity and involved, at least to some degree in everyday life.

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And so people want to find that they've rejected traditional Christian models, but they still want to go and they want to find that spiritual. And so there is an increase in spirituality, even though there's a shift away from organized fundamentalist religion.Um There is a broad spiritual awareness and so, you know, this, this poll seems to prove that Nietzsche wasn't exactly right now, Peter Berger in his book, The de Secularization of the West. He called this a mutation of the species and species being used somewhat metaphorically there.

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But the idea that because uh organized religion wasn't doing whatever it, what you know, it wasn't accomplishing whatever spiritual need the Western Westerners had that they ever now mutating to seek it out in a different form of religious discovery, which is, I think we're just gonna call it spirituality or general spirituality.

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Um He calls it a quest for meaning that transcends the restricted space of empirical existence. And, and what that means is that secularization is mutating the human need for religious religious experience, but it is not killing it. It's not killing it.That, that very much this idea of religious experience or spiritual experience is a, is, is alive in the world. It always has, has been and it always will be. Um And so I think Nietzsche was wrong here. Secularization maybe pushed people out of organized religion.But it has not um it has not uh removed the intrinsic God uh God, given awareness of spiritual things that our hearts uh do indeed cry out for eternity.And so empirical observational uh data that really doesn't answer the, the really deep spiritual questions of the human heart, it doesn't answer the questions of the human quest for meaning.And so if fundamental religion fails to provide the answers to this deep spiritual longing that people have, then yeah, this makes sense. People are gonna go, they're gonna explore it elsewhere.

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There is gonna be kind of a spirituality that emerges when the, the so called experts, the conservatives can't seem to answer true spiritual questions. Secularization then doesn't lead to the demise of religious discovery.But to the pursuit of new religion or, you know, new, new experimentation to answer questions that old or fundamentalist religion just plain and simple isn't answering. Let's look at three forms.I wanna look at actually internally that, that within organized religion, I, I see three distinct responses uh to this need for spiritual discovery. And so I wanna go over those before we talk about sort of just the general spirituality that's happening outside.So these three forms of spiritual discovery within the, within the church. The first I see is a rise in Charismatic and Pentecostal theology.There's a, there's a spiritual engagement factor that happens here that within Charismatic movements, maybe even distinctly within Pentecostal theology, that there is a focus on spiritual things. And so I definitely see that and I think there is a rise in, in people being attracted to the Charismatic faith.

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I've even had many conversations with conservative uh uh Christians, Bible believing Christians, sometimes, you know, kind of conservative evangelicals, they wanna push Pentecostals out on the, on, on to the fringes.And yet many conservative Christians are kind of starting to read Charismatic theology and, and to engage with charismatic movements to the, to, to kind of seek out and see what, what did, what did you find spiritually that we seem to be lacking?So there's definitely something there in the rise of Charismatic and Pentecostal theology where, where that movement is trying to engage these spiritual questions that people have. Um And, and I think, I think sometimes they do it very well. I think sometimes they don't.Um So that's one, the second one I see is, is uh an, a number and it's hard to gauge how many people are really converting.But there is a, there are definitely conversions to Catholicism and Eastern Eastern orthodoxy that are happening out of sort of conservative Protestant theology that as we talked about in the last episode that with all of the beautiful things that happened theologically with the reformation, there was still like a focus on sort of rationalistic thinking that I think has deconstructed this sort of a, a historic spiritual factor that existed within the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and those traditions that if, if you understand church history, they go back um maybe, maybe not in every way to the apostles themselves or to Christ himself.

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But, but they go back into a time in history that just Protestant Christians, we, we just can't even reach back that far. Um without engaging. Um This is things that seem distinctly Catholic and Orthodox. Um There, now there is a deceptively mystical.So actually, let me, let's not move on to that yet.That, so that's what I mean that there is something in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, a spiritual historical factor that people are willing to sacrifice even some theological, you know, dogma, they're willing to sacrifice some of that to go and seek out this historical spiritual thing.

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The third one I have. So, so it's a rise of the Charismatic a uh a convergence to Catholicism and orthodoxy. And then the third one is a deceptively mystical nature of dispensation of pre millennial eschatology.And, and I, I'll explain in a, in a moment when we return to these three points, what I mean by that.Um But there is sort of a uh a rise of like hype factors like like that, we, we pinpoint things that are happening in society and we attach those to theological or prophetic ideas and they, and they, that's what I mean by hype factor that we tie those together and it creates an emotional response.

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So that when you turn on the news, you, you immediately start to think about things that are uh biblical and prophetic in the scriptures. And uh and it toys on emotions more than more than rationale.And so I'll pick on rationale with the reformers and here I'm gonna pick on sort of that, that emotional engagement. And I think whenever we talk about things that are emotional, we're getting very close to, although not precise, but we're getting very close to things that are spiritual.

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And so I think from kind of psychologically the, this focus on, you know, pre millennial millennial eschatology, especially in the dispensation of form, it's going to play on things and sort of feed that need for spirituality that people aren't getting in other places.So let's talk about some foundations for spirituality sort of in the non organized sense, Michael York. In his book, The Alternative Spirituality In Europe.He wrote this, he said change occurs against a backdrop of ubiquitous experimentation and innovation with regards to spiritual practice, one which excuse dogma, conformity and belief and emphasizes both individual autonomy and direct experience.So he's writing about um sort of this general disorganized or non organized forms of spirituality. And he's identifying some key factors in there that there's experimentation and innovation. We actually talked about that in the last podcast last week, right?So there's some an experimentation, go figure stuff out for yourself, invent new things if you can, right? Like, like let's go see what works and, and, and, and then there's also an individual experience.

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Um this a auto autonomous spiritual belief, that's a part of this because if organized religion seems to fail to produce this, then the last thing that spirituality wants to do is organize um and create a dogma that maybe someday isn't gonna work or maybe isn't gonna work for all people.

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And so there's a focus on individuality and uh you know, my direct experiences and how I, I see things and how I experience things.Um And so then I can, can, can, you know, form my beliefs and practices around my own um experiences, whether they be my own experimentation or things that I picked up from other people.And, uh and, and my religion is my thing or my faith is my thing and nobody else can tell me that I'm doing it wrong or that I'm even doing it right for that matter. So that's sort of the foundation of like general spirituality.And, and I actually see this playing out in these three forms of religious discovery that I just mentioned pentecostalism conversion to historic forms of Christianity and sort of this rise of dispensation of pre millennial eschatology. So let's, let's look at those now.Um I think these are all ways that experience or that experimentation and innovation are a skewing dogma even within uh sort of the conservative or frontal fundamentalist movements um within historic belief and practice.

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So let's look at pentecostalism first or the Charismatic movements, maybe it is a, is a broader way to, to talk about this.Um even in its orthodox forms, because there's definitely, you know, within all forms of, you know, all traditions of Christianity, you always have an orthodox form and then usually some sort of radical fringe group that's taking on an an unorthodox form.And so I'm not picking on Pentecostal theology here. I'm just saying there are both or orthodox and un orthodox forms, but even in both forms, um Pentecostalism Charismatic movements generally favor spiritual practice over biblical rationalism. They favor spiritual practice over biblical rationalism. And that's fine.

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I picked on biblical rationalism with reforms, theology literally moments ago. So it's not a, not a cri criticism here. But what we're seeing is that although the Bible and theology are important, spiritual experience is really the centerpiece of faith and practice for these Charismatic movements.

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And uh so they, they can, they can engage with some of these like innovative and experimentation types of ideas and within orthodox forms of the Charismatic movements, they're gonna gauge those against what the Bible teaches and they're gonna say, well, the Bible doesn't teach against it.

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So then we can do it or they're gonna say the Bible um maybe teaches that we should pursue spirituality in this way, but it's not really clear and practice how we do that. And so there's room, there's wiggle room for innovation, there's wiggle room for experimentation.Um And, and so pentecostalism historically has not been afraid to go and explore those things. And so pentecostalism I think is, is, is growing in the western world um among uh you know, in comparison to the way that maybe other groups aren't growing.Uh And the reason is I think because they are trying to meet sort of that spiritual need that society is, is asking for, OK, the second one, so that's Pentecostal.And the second one is this idea that people are convert, converting to historic forms of Christianity name, namely Catholicism and uh and, and Eastern orthodoxy.And it's a return to, I think if you're well read broadly, if you're well studied broadly, you see, it is a return to tried and true spiritual practices that are really millennia old, right, that these are things that go back in many ways to the times of the apostles and, and definitely further than sort of Protestant or evangelical faith goes back um that only dating back to the, to the reformation.

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Um And so sometimes a lot of these conversions, they downplay the rationalistic influence of the reformation.Um They're gonna say that, yeah, maybe if I'm going to, you know, criticize the grammar and the, and the historicity of word usage and all of that, then maybe, you know, this reformation doctrine might be right?But they're gonna now uplift the spirituality that exists in the traditions and the practices of historic Christianity. Uh even, even sometimes to the compromise of dogma. And I think that's, that's partly what Michael York meant.Well York meant when he said one which Kews dogma, um that, that this pursuit for spiritual things is so ingrained in the heart of humans.Um that, that we're even willing to uh conform our dogma, conform our doctrines uh in, in ways that allow us to pursue and meet these needs.

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Now, you may have a question, why would I say that a return to historic Christian traditions is innovative and it's because sort of this evangelical Christian subculture that we've been a part of for so long.And II, I think that's who I'm talking to in this podcast, by the way, everyone's welcome. But I think I'm talking to primarily sort of like Protestant evangelical Christians, especially from a con conservative uh standpoint.And, and, and so it's kind of foreign to us uh to think about uh like maybe Catholic practice uh being a good way to pursue spirituality.And I think that's just because of the reformation itself, that the reformation itself sort of breed breeded an anti Catholicism idea within the Protestant movement that, um, once you have, uh Catholics and then those who protest against Catholic doctrine, you've driven, you've drawn a very clear dividing line where, I mean, I've met, I've met, you know, Christians who, um, won't, in any way, they'll call Catholicism demonic and they'll say that they won't in any way, engage the idea that a Catholic could, you know, be a faithful Christian who, uh show, show shows up in the eternal kingdom of God and that you might spend eternity with like I've met Christians like that, I've met Christians who will take, you know, other, you know, they'll attach themselves to specific dog dogmas, maybe even like Pato baptism and say that well, then, you know, if Catholics baptize infants, then anybody who baptizes in infants, they're as bad as a Catholic.

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And this is sort of the, I'm gonna call this folk religion within conservative evangelical subculture, these things that people happen to believe, even though our doctrine in no way actually teaches that, right?Um Martin Luther was not trying to reform the Catholic church um because he thought the Catholic church was demonic and apostate, he thought they were wrong about a few things. He didn't think that they were demonic and apostate.And so, um that's just something that people happen to believe. Not something that really scholarship has ever really taught.I mean, I bet, I bet you can challenge me on that and go find some guys with phd S who are saying, you know, the Catholic church is demonic or whatever. You can probably go find that.But I just don't think largely that's what even, even Christians have actually believed in our dogma. And so it's just like, so, so then for conservative Christians who sort of live amongst that folk religious culture thinking that Catholics are something completely different than us.

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Um They, they, it's now innovative to start to look, to start to look towards historic forms of Christianity and to start to entertain those ideas. And a, a lot of times it starts with experimentation.Well, let's see what happens if we, if we think about, you know, the liturgy of the Catholic church and the, and, or the liturgy of the orthodox church, and we start to think, you know, about things like that.And then maybe some people start to think about, about their forms of baptism or whatever it is like whatever traditions that they have and you start to toy to experiment with those things.And I think for a lot of people, um as they start to see the spiritual value of it, then that for a lot of people is gonna cause a conversion, they're actually gonna leave the Protestant faith and they're gonna, they're gonna join a Catholic or orthodox church.And so I think there is a sense that of innovation and experimentation in that, even though it's a moving to something that's a lot older than us actually. So they, so that's the second one. So pentecostalism uh definitely innovating and experimenting.

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I think people who are converting to uh historic forms of Christianity, they are innovating, they're experimenting. And I think that sort of what we've seen in the rise of, I'm gonna actually say the rise in fall of dispensation, pre millennial eschatology.I think what we've actually seen there is, is something similar that there's an innovation, there's an experimentation that takes place and, and here's why I say that. Um Well, actually, first let me explain what I mean by dispensation, premi eschatology.Um dispensation is, is a, a, as I define it as a hermetic, a, a means of or a set of tools for interpreting the Bible. Um that leads to particular conclusions and probably foundational to dispensation. Hermans is an idea of a literal interpretation of prophetic passages.And so, um dispensations are gonna look to certain passages of prophecy in the scripture and in that they happen precisely as they are written in, in their chronology, in their grammar.And so when Jesus returns, he's gonna have bronze feet and an actual sword coming out of his mouth. That type of idea, they're gonna insist on the, now they'll usually say that they're gonna insist on a literal interpretation unless the literal interpretation is ridiculous in some way.

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Um which I don't know that just doesn't really sound like that sounds like that leaves a lot of wiggle room for personal preference because everybody's gonna define what's ridiculous or absurd in a different way. But anyway, they're gonna, they're gonna do that.They're gonna, they're gonna emphasize a literal reading of prophecy. Um And obviously, in some ways that's gonna cause um it's gonna cause some crossed wires in the systems.And so as scholars have tried to put together dispensation systems of thinking about the scriptures, they're gonna have to, they're gonna have to give in some areas and, and be literal and areas other areas. The Bible frankly wasn't meant to be read literal.Specifically, it's not a history book, it's not a science book. Um There are historical passages, there may be shout outs to things that people thought were, were scientific at points, but it's really not a science book.But when, when we're reading it through a dispensation lens, we're insisting it's history, we're insisting it's science and if it's not both of those things, then it's not spiritual either. And so it's this sort of that's dispensation.

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Now, when I say millennial, what I'm kind of talking about is a difference between pre and all millennial. Uh an all millennial is a person who um doesn't recognize or doesn't care about a millennium. Um And a pre millennial is someone who sees a future millennium.And this idea of the future millennium is something that flows out of a literal reading of the scriptures that, that, that insists on a chronology to certain passages of scripture that puts Christ's reign uh as king, as future of where we sit in history right now.And so they're gonna ignore um all of the passages throughout the New Testament and frankly, the prophecies in the Old Testament that put Jesus on the throne immediately after his ascension to the right hand of the father.They're gonna ignore those things in order to put the millennium future. OK? So when you put the millennium future, it drags all kinds of other eschatological or ends times events with it.So a lot of the things that might be a pre present reality, things, the ideas that we're supposed to engage with in our face right now in the here and now they become issues of the end of days, of the, of the day of judgment, right?

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And so they go forward in history, sometimes this dispensation of premi eschatology is called futurism because since then, none, since it doesn't work out with history right now in the moment we're in, it's gonna push it future. OK?Now that it, it's not necessarily all future because then you watch the news and you start to see things um that sound like uh that sound like what the prophecies are saying. And so then now it raises the question, are we in that end of days now? OK.And so this is kind of where it goes the spirituality and rationalism. Aside that this, this end time system is a hype based system. It toys on people's emotions.It, it, it says, it says, well, look what's happening in politics and, and maybe this person is the antichrist and you know, and, and it starts to, to plug pieces in the system together and to say, well, this Great War is on the horizon, right?Um Part of the reason that World War One was called World War One, it's part of the reason that World War Two was called World War Two because maybe the, this is that the war to end all wars.

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And it's one of the reasons that Christians often talk about in these circles, about a World War Three that is going to be the end uh the war that ends all wars.And I just wonder, um what world war we're going to get on to before they stop saying that. But anyway, that's just my thought on it. Um this uh height based system, it feeds the human psyche.It's been popularized um through media, not scholarship, it's only been in recent history that true, like scholars are, are producing like peer reviewed research on this dispensation systems, eschatology system and trying to produce, um you know, any kind of real scholarship on the idea.

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Um It, it emerged because of, because of the hype things that were happening in, um I guess you could call it historical fiction type of film and historical fiction type of, uh, literature that, that they're talking about things that seem biblical, right?And they're trying to cast it in a biblical light. Uh, and, and then you're getting all sorts of, you're getting people thinking about and, you know, reading scenarios of what the end times might be like and all of this stuff is height based.It's, it's, it's, it's, it's supposed to be entertaining. It's toying on the human psyche, but it's actually teaching theology is what, what is, what has actually happened. And so it became this widespread where maybe you've never even heard like you're like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Future rapture, anarchist, you know, future millennium. Yeah. That's just the Bible, right? Maybe that's what you think. Well, actually that's a new idea. Um, that's come about and really only been strengthened in the last, less than 200 years. And so, um it's really not a historic position.

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Why do I bring this up? Well, because it's something that people latch on to, it's a hype based system that will never be without new anchors in history.You know, that there's never been a, an era of history where somebody wasn't trying to figure out who the antichrist was, right? Like it, like you, like, if there's no antichrist now, maybe in the next generation, we're gonna find somebody who can, we can call the antichrist.

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And John actually says in first John 2 18 that there are many anti-christ that there's lots of people who are against Christ. So how are you even gonna know if you figure out who the anti-christ is?Like, the reality is you're, you're not, and we're constantly trying to call people the anti-christ within the, because of the hype of the system and, and I think also because of the hope of Jesus return, like, I don't think it's all bad.Um I think we should hope for Jesus return. But I think that this, this type of um emotional um theology, if you will, um it's playing off of that or it's fulfilling that same spiritual desire that people have.And so I think that, you know, flocking to churches that really the focus of their ministry is on the end times.Uh I, I think that type of thing, it's meeting the same spiritual need as other groups of people who are off experimenting and with, you know, otic and animistic ideas and stuff like that. I think it's really trying to meet the same need that they have.

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And so these are three ways that innovation and experimentation are affecting organized religion. Um But Partridge sees a rise as of 2004 anyway when he wrote this book and, and that, and it's a rise that is on the upswing, it's increasing.And I think um this idea of an increase of broad spirituality in the Western world, I think if, you know, Partridge wrote in 2004 and it's 2023. Now.Um, I, I think I've observed this even just personally that, um, I've asked our church many times, like if somebody says they believe in God or if they believe in a God, please don't take that to mean that they're a Christian. There's more questions to be asked.They may even say they like the Bible or they like Jesus, right? They may say they believe in Jesus and it all has to do with their way of experimenting, you know, seeing. Does the Bible have something that's interesting for me.Does the Koran have something interesting for me? Maybe in my experimentation with other ideas, I've found something that works for me, right? But it's not a submission to Jesus as King. Uh It's not the same thing uh just because somebody likes a couple of Christian ideas.

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And so spirituality has been popular long enough now that people are actually interfacing, I think back with real ancient forms of the spirituality of the ancient world and, and really things that are still present in certain third world countries today, namely occultism and animism.

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And I think this is kind of where some of the the scholars, the secular scholars are that they, they did see a pattern, you know, that Nietzsche kind of thought that like um Nietzsche kind of thought that like people had answers, needed answers to the way that the world operated.

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And so they sort of invented religion. Um, well, that's kind of actually what we see in spirituality that people are actually starting to interface with ancient forms of spirituality, occultism and animism. Um, because it gives them a groundwork for experimentation.So let's, let's actually talk about some of these, talked about these in a, in a recent sermon on spiritual warfare. The first one is spirituality. And, um, that's, that's kind of what we're talking about this, uh re you know, spiritual but not religious.And, and I think that, you know, when somebody is in this type of setting, they're, they're really, I think one of the problems with it actually is that they're really saying that my intellect and my experience how I experience the world, how I want to identify spiritually, if I can use that word, identify, um is what speaks my truth, right?

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And it's a way of saying that I will be the arbiter of truth and not submit to anyone else as the arbiter of truth.So that even if there is a God of the universe, um that they're not gonna listen to the God of the universe as the arbiter of truth because I create my own truth. And that's foundational to this idea of spirituality. Why is it foundational?Well, because it base it's based on autonomy, it has to be you and what you believe in your faith and nobody else can tell you that it's right or wrong, right? And and that way you can experiment, right?And you're safe even to go to a church and to listen to a sermon and take some parts of that and attach it to your spirituality. If you like it, if you don't like it, you don't have to keep it.If you don't wanna go to a church, don't go to a church. If you wanna go to a church, go to a church, you wanna go to a mosque this week and to a church next week, you do your thing, right?

00:36:07 - 0

You wanna go practice some occult magic that we after that, that's your thing, right? And, and it, and it basically makes the individual, the arbiter of truth that that unique individual is the one who decides what is true and what is not true. Ok?Um And, and obviously, I think that if there is any such thing as truth that it has to be, um it has to be some kind of sense of historic truth.Um that, that there can't be, there can't be one truth for one person that isn't true for another person. I just think that doesn't make any kind of sense. And so, you know, you can't have a true for you but not true for me.You can have a like for you but not like for me, but you can't have a true for you and a not true for me. So this kind of general sense of spirituality really elevates the, the individual as the arbiter of truth.And, and one of the ways that I see spirituality bridging into some of these ancient forms of spirituality is through a cultism, occultism. And um there's a lot of different things that we can say about occultism.

00:37:14 - 0

Um, occultism can be practicing magic, it can be practicing necromancy, um like, like, like trying to communicate or even, I suppose, even raise the dead in sort of like an undead sort of fashion like zombies. Um It, it can be very ritualistic, right?Where, um and, and because magic is intrinsically, I don't know if you know this, but magic, we kind of get this idea from like Harry Potter and, and that like, or, and, and I don't know, maybe even some of the older magic movies and books and stuff where you open up the old dusty tome, right?

00:37:46 - 0

And you read and if you say the magic words just right and you have all the right pieces for the spell then and, and then you, you flick your wand or whatever, you know, it's the double, double toil and trouble and we mix the pot and we make the o and, and we do the thing with it, right?

00:38:01 - 0

And then it works and, and so we have sort of a scientific perception of magic that like, there's a way that it works, but much like science actually. Um it's not really about two plus two equals four. It's not really about, about getting the right pieces in order.Magic. Historically is more about innovation and experimentation. It's more about, let's see what happens if I add some things that symbolically have to do with, you know, death or symbolically have to do with love and, or symbolically have to do with life.And so you start to mix items, you know, to make potions that really bear more symbolism than they do. You know, any actual medicinal quality.And, and then you, you, you know, it's this and, and, and then it's, it's this, it's this bringing together of ideas that actually goes forth, this experimentation of, with ideas that goes forth to theoretically impose some sort of um effect in the world.Now, I, I think that I, I think that's our perception of what magic is in the ancient world, but at least in its mainstream sense as, as we've seen like the opening of the Dusty Tome, what we have to realize is that there's not power in the individual things that are being mixed together that in magic, there's actually power in some kind of spirit or at least in some type of spiritual influence.

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So the spiritualist who is getting involved in a cultism is actually, yeah, they love the experimentation factor and the innovation and let's try to figure out, you know, what's gonna produce different types of effects in my life type of idea, right?And it usually is about me, like I want to fall in love. So I'm gonna make this kind of do this kind of ritual and, and post for myself, right? It it usually is individually focused when it meshes with spirituality because spirituality is individually focused, right?So this makes sense. And but what, what's missing is this binding of something in the spiritual world that historic magic, at least in, in its most ancient form.It's not all like this, but in its most ancient form, uh magic is about binding spirits in the world, uh supernatural beings and forcing them to do what you want essentially. Uh And that's what magic really, really is about.You get, you get elemental magic sort of a little bit later in history where it's where it is more like, you know, like, I don't know, I guess it could fit better with like sort of atheistic thinking because now it's about binding the elements that make up the world.

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And so it becomes a slightly less spiritual, but it really is the same thing. So occultism tends to engage with spirituality in the same types of way. But I, I think the misnomer for me is like, like occultism elevates the human as the one with the power.And I think this is where the thinking on it falls apart.Like, like if there's a spiritual being who has power that I want, how is it that I think I can have authority over that being like, obviously they're more powerful than me or I would just get what I want without them. Right?And so there's sort of this, this, um you know, this play that doesn't make a lot of sense to me because what power does the being really have if a human can bind it? Right? Why would I go and try to bind this, this spirit? Right?And, and this is where as a Christian, I think we need to remember that Christ's power is something that's given freely. Like every believer receives the Holy Spirit for, for the, for the reason that Christ wants to empower us, we don't have to bind the Holy Spirit.

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We don't have to go through, you know, when we worship on a Sunday and we go through whatever liter liturgical practices, you know, our church does or doesn't practice, I guess, you know, some people will say they're nonliturgical.Everybody has some sort of worship practice, but that's not about binding the Holy Spirit and forcing him to do our bidding, right?That's actually just celebrating that Christ has poured out his spirit freely on us, that he has indeed empowered us to go forth and to accomplish his work. So, um you know, so it's occultism doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.Um Because I don't really believe that I have my own accord, have power over any spirits, um especially not over any spirits that can do anything good in this world. So um that's a cultism.I think that spirituality also interfaces with animism and animism is almost like I describe it as like the other side of a coin from a cultism.

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Animism is when you believe that there's spirits in the world and that maybe everything, especially everything living, maybe not a rock but um in every sense, sometimes it's a rock but it's this, this idea that everything living has a spirit in it that gives it life.And there's a little bit of truth to that, I suppose, biblically, we can make an argument for that out of Genesis one.But, but really, it's this idea that then um these spirits, if you want something like if there's spirits that animate your fields to grow and, and, and you, so you need, you need your crops to grow and your crops aren't growing for some reason, then you might need to do some kind of sacrifice to, to those spirits so that they make you crops grow.

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And maybe if your crops aren't growing, you've actually angered them and, and the gods must be angry. And so you have to go and you have to, you have to sacrifice to make things happen and then you don't want that to happen again.So now you find every arena of your life that's important. So if you live in an agrarian culture, you're going and you're, you're always sacrificing, always doing these religious type of rights to those spirits that oversee your fields, right?Or if you're a fisherman and that's your livelihood, then you're having to do, do things for the, the spirits of the seas and the spirits of the sea creatures.So that, so that you can actually get your fishing boat out there and actually bring in a hall and actually thrive in life instead of starving to death. And that's kind of what animism is. Now.I say it's kind of the flip side of occultism because in animism, it's the spirit that has the power, but the spirit is wielding that power over you. And so now your religious right is to actually, instead of to bind the spirit, it's to appease the spirit.

00:43:46 - 0

But it's really in both senses, ancient occultism and ancient animism are really, they, they really are just to get what you want out of life. They're the same thing.It's saying I'm I'm king and I want to get what I want and I need to build my life the way that I've designed it. And so I'm either gonna ease the spirits or bind the spirits to get what I want.It's kind of where, you know, in some ways where the thinking about karma comes from, you know, or you hear people say that they, they're gonna ask the universe for things, you know, they're thinking animistic that there's a spiritual essence that's out there in all things.And so you know, it's, it's somewhat animistic, even if it sounds just more generally spiritual. Sometimes people elevate the importance of animals to a status.Now, obviously, I don't think we, I'm not a proponent of abusing animals or anything like that, but we, we elevate animals to some type of spiritual and holy status. Um And I think again, I think that flows from animistic thinking.

00:44:44 - 0

I think even Christians sometimes fall prey to that thinking karmically about asking the universe for things elevating animals and then even elevating ecological concerns. Now, I'm not one that thinks that we should just like say, hey, Jesus is returning so burn the planet to the ground.

00:44:59 - 0

I certainly don't think that I think that Adam's Adam's Commission, the Dominion mandate given to him in the garden to care for the things that God had created. I think that stays right. I don't think that I don't think that's gone.I think that if we are going to live out a life of Godliness, there's gonna be some care for the creation that comes with that, whether animals or just the planet in general.Um But I also don't think that we should elevate um our concern for the planet over human life, which is something that I keep seeing. I keep seeing people saying things like, you know, maybe, maybe the problem with, with the planet is humans and all humans should die.And I'm not sure if the people are really posing a solution when they say that or if they're just, you know, into the shock and awe of things. But that's what I see.So there is a rise of this general spirituality um this and that's turned into kind of like a contemporary neo, neo spirit spiritualism where this generally uh this general search for expe, you know, for spirits in the world.

00:45:55 - 0

And this for spirituality that through experimentation and innovation has actually led people into occultism and animism. Um at least into some of the thinking and they're interfacing with those ideas and really things that historically, the church would always say are decidedly pagan.

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And so, um I think there's a hope in this type of reen, but I think what's so misguided about it is that, um you know, Christianity has uh has become so non spiritual to the point that we don't answer enough of the spiritual questions of reality that people are just going to find their own answers now.

00:46:31 - 0

And so in the next part, we're gonna talk about the de exo of Christianity and hopefully, you know, begin to pose some solutions.Um Although in a way, that's what this podcast is about is how we can re mythologize, we can re enchant, we can re exotified if you will.Um the Christian faith, not in innovative ways, not in new ways, but in the ways that have always been historically true and the ways that have been laid out by Christ and the scriptures and the ways that are laid out in the Old Testament and the, the, the sort of the core ways that the, that the world and the spiritual world function.

00:47:06 - 0

And so that's what we're gonna look at. We're gonna start looking at that in part two. All right, let's, uh, start part two. We're gonna look at the de exo application of Christianity as Partridge calls it.And, um, I think first of all that, a lot of what we're talking about here is really media driven media drives secular thinking.And I think what's really interesting about um media, driving secular thinking is that they're really not, um they're really not effective and they don't really, they do drive secular ideas, they perpetuate nonspiritual I uh ideas publicly.Um But really, I don't know, I think of like what happened recently with this revelation about uh alien cover ups that really, you know, didn't go anywhere in the news, it came out, it was talked about, but it was all talked about from a very speculative secular nonspiritual perspective.

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And nobody was asking really, at least in the media sphere, like asking any deeper questions. It was all just like about the legality of it and everything like that.Now, sort of the response to it in the, you know, sort of in the culture was all kinds of ideas of like, let's talk, let's talk about aliens, let's talk about, let's talk about angels and demons. Let's talk about, let's talk about what's happening in the cosmos.And, you know, what about UFO S? And should we even call them UFO S or should we call them, you know, other things and there's three or four different things that people want to call them and all of this type of stuff. Right.And then, you know, the secular media would have us to just believe that, um, it's all, you know, just government covering up government things. Uh And yet it doesn't stop society from wanting to look in and see cosmic and even spiritual things behind these types of events.And I, so I just think it's really interesting the way that the, the harder that media hits with secularism. Um It, it seems like the more spiritual questions arise and Christianity I think is gonna have to have to have some answers for that.

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Um I think of a handful of spiritual beliefs that really over the last, I don't know, some of these have been going on forever.Um But I think that three of the ones that I think are really popular uh to talk about right now are, you know, that aliens, first of all, there's actually in some ways like organized UFO religions as some people have come to call them.I think it's pretty ubiquitous that people believe in extraterrestrial life and all that means is, you know, extraterrestrial just means life outside of this planet.So, yeah, for some people that's just gonna be like, yeah, I'm sure there's like, bacteria on Mars or something like that for some people it's gonna be as, like, you know, insignificant as that for some people.It's gonna be like, well, no, I believe that there's, you know, probably other planets out there that at least have animals and plants on them, you know, and so some people will go there and obviously there's no like theological issues with that.

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Um I think where we find real theological issues is only if we believe that there are actual humans on other planets that like uh if we actually found human life on another planet.But even if we think about what sort of, um uh you know, the folklore surrounding aliens and UFO S and stuff, um you know, really, whether we're, you know, whether we're seeing them as like malicious forces, malevolent forces that are outside, out, out in the cosmos or we're looking at them as good forces, you know, that could come and potentially teach us things about how to thrive as society.

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I think the myths go both ways. Um That really, I, I think we're giving a, a more divine description to what we see in aliens.And I think that's why sort of like, sort of just a general scientific understanding that there might be life out there um has turned into actual, like UFO alien based religious, you know, groups And so I think there's definitely a broad fascination with aliens, um, that even the person who's willing to say, yeah, there's got to be at least like bacteria on some other planet life in that form, um, has to then be open to there being all kinds of other things out there.

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Um, you know, maybe what the Apostle Paul would call cosmic powers and Ephesians six, for example. And so that's one of them. I think there's also a fascination that's fairly broad with the ends times.I think maybe, maybe some of the, the hype of dispensation of pre millennial eschatology, just as that's been perpetuated. There was a time when probably 80% of evangelical Christians subscribe to that.That's definitely I, I referred to it as a rise and fall because it's definitely a dying idea. Um It's something that's not historic.And, uh again, I think there is a sort of a, a return to historic forms of spirituality that whether people are, I don't know whether they're, they're getting into, um, you know, other, other church traditions that have, they never adopted dispensation or, or if they're just adopting ideas into their own, you know, sort of denominational preferences, whatever it is, you know, people are starting to return, you know, to turn away from that to a degree.

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But then again, I think they all is sort of like this apocalyptic thinking, um which apocalypse really just means revelation. It's, it's sort of a word related to prophecy, the revealing of truth.And uh but, but because the Book of Revelation is presumed to be all about the end times, I think maybe only a couple of chapters are about the actual end of days.But, but anyway, because it's presumed to be about the end, we've started to use the word apocalypse or revelation to describe a coming um of a series of bad events.And I think that like, as we see sort of ecological problems on the globe, as we see writing rising, I, I don't know if they're rising.But anyway, as we see, you know, consistent problems with, uh, you know, be between other, you know, our nation and other nations and you see the political conflicts internationally.

00:53:40 - 0

I think these types of things, um, play into a lot of the, the, a lot of the, the religious hype that is also now a cultural hype, uh where there seems to be a fear of the end times, you know, that you can be an outright atheist and still be still be afraid of, you know, like nuclear warfare, wiping human, humankind off the planet.

00:54:02 - 0

And so, you know, I do see that, that this broad, you know, kind of end times thinking, but I, again, I think for most, it's not going to be an end time thinking that's atheistic because if you're truly an atheist and um then I don't know, being hit with a nuclear warhead might not be the worst, worst way to go.

00:54:22 - 0

And if you don't think there's anything on the other side of this life, then I don't know. It's kind of fatalistic if you ask me that, that why, why not bring it on sooner rather than later?I think for most people thinking about the end times actually raises spiritual questions, it's gonna raise more spiritual questions than it's gonna answer.And so I think that as, you know, different political events unfold and, you know, uh it's gonna force people to choose not just political categories, but to start to differentiate or to uh maybe differentiate isn't the right word there, but to actually start to camp out with certain spiritual ideologies.

00:55:00 - 0

And so I actually kind of see like this idea that, you know, even spiritualists are gonna have to start to, you know, think about how world events, you know, especially looking towards a potential end of days, how they, which I don't think is coming any time soon, soon personally.

00:55:16 - 0

But, um, you know, whether you do or you don't, I guess it doesn't matter for the conversation. There seems to be a fascination with a coming end of days society wide. And so the spiritualist is gonna have to find a way to answer some of those questions about.First of all, how do, how does the, how does the, how does their spirituality affect the way they're gonna live up until the end of the days, how does it affect, you know, the world and, and also how does it affect their eternity?So, this fascination, I don't know, it ends it, it definitely raises more spiritual questions than it answers.Um We see the, you know, in science, the expansion of the universe and people say that like at a certain point, you know, even, you know, the different molecules that hold, you know, that come together to form planets and things like that, that it, that it'll all eventually be torn apart.

00:56:03 - 0

Um that it can't be sustained that nobody really believes that the universe that exists currently in its current form is going to last forever. And so we've got to start to formulate answers for how we think about these things.And if we are as humans, intrinsically spiritual beings, which I think this existence of general spirituality proves that it is that we are, um then we're gonna have to start to organize and find ideas around these things.Now, Christianity has been de exotified uh to the point that outside of sort of the sensationalist, you know, ends time subculture that we're not answering a lot of those questions. We're not, we're not talking about uh war and the, you know, we use the word spiritual warfare.

00:56:48 - 0

But what we mean by that is like I lost my job and therefore the dev the devil must hate me. And spiritual warfare is a broad motif in the scripture that expands from beginning to the end.Um And, and really comes to a culmination in the end with the conquering of evil spirits before uh before the Christ brings down uh the new heaven and the new earth.And so, I don't know, I think that, I think that like, we need to get back to a real spiritual eschatology and a real spiritual way of seeing the world. Um that the, that, that the beautiful, the or the exotic to use partridge's word.Um the exotic things about the scripture have been um really downplayed and in many ways lost to the rationalistic thinking of the enlightenment. I, I actually find one other um spiritual belief really interesting. Have you?I don't know if you've ever wondered, like, why is there so much discussion about flat earth? And how does has flat earth seemed to be um seem to have like formulated around itself? This idea of the earth being flat?

00:57:49 - 0

How, how is there a broad philosophy that that comes around that? And I think it's because flat earth broadly, um it represents it, it sort of represents the idea that society is lying to you, right?That, that, that not just mainstream media who we know is that, you know, biased to say the least and out outright lying and, and I don't care what media outlet you're listening to on the left, the right, the center.I don't really care that there's, I think there's an obvious bias that at times um is manifest in outright lying and, and, and now that we see that and it's so blatant in our face, it's like, why not?Um you know, why not believe the opposite of what people say. Right? And I think that's what flat earth sort of thinking represents.It's like if I can't believe the news, then how am I supposed to believe a scientist that says the earth is round, then it creates this giant conspiracy around itself. And in some ways, I think it's healthy.

00:58:44 - 0

I think we need to, it, it, it reminds us, you know, and, and I've known people with great theology who also have this one, what I would consider a flaw in their theology that they believe the earth is flat and it's like, how does that happen? Right.Um Well, because again, it's a, it's a representative idea. I don't think most flat earthers actually care nearly as much that the earth is flat as, as much as they care about the ideological foundation of a flat earth.They, they, you know, they want you to believe the other things that pour out of that way of thinking. Um And flat earth is just a representative. I do I I ideology. And so I love this, this clip.There's this clip by Ron, I'm gonna mess up his name Ron. Fun, I think. And it's a comedy sketch where he talks about conspiracy theories and I think he's dead on. It's silly. It's short.I'm gonna play it for

00:59:35 - 1

your record. Now.There's just certain people I have no time for, like, if you're sexist are homophobic or if you don't believe in conspiracy theories,

00:59:53 - 2

just don't understand.How do you not believe in any conspiracy

00:59:56 - 3

theories? I understand. Not all of them, not most of them, but you don't believe in any conspiracy. You just think the government's just batting 1000 and telling us the whole truth. That's a strong stance to take.

01:00:14 - 0

Yeah. So I think that clip kind of epitomizes like the, the appeal to flat earth theology or flat earth thinking just broadly as a philosophy because yeah, it, it, it, it represents the idea that everything is not above board, right?Um Now let's talk about supernatural beliefs in the church, what we might call fringe theology. You know, some people might say, well, a aliens aren't mentioned in the Bible and um like humans on other planets, maybe they, maybe they exist because humans are mentioned in the Bible.

01:00:48 - 0

And, you know, but again, it does indeed pose a threat to traditional, not all theology but to christology and soteriology specifically that are, you know, foundational to everything we believe as Christians. I won't get in that to that today. Maybe we'll do an aliens episode.

01:01:04 - 0

Um You know, uh some of it's gonna be outside my wheelhouse when it comes to just like the research that's out there on extraterrestrial life in general. But I can certainly talk to, um, what the Bible says about aliens. Um, again, I don't, who's looking for humans though.I really don't think most people are thinking humans on another planet when they think about alien life forms. I think they're thinking about, um, a superior race to ours that might be a superior humanoid race.But, but it, it would be something that is more along the lines of so scientifically advanced that uh that the life is supernatural. It's not like what we have here.And so I think, you know, when we talk about fringe theology and aliens, I think that's there a again with the ends times, traditional perspective on the ends times is, is pretty simple. Um you know, uh and, and we'll do some end time stuff here in the future.But uh if you have time to read John of Damas, you know, John of Damascus is uh considered one of the, the last church fathers. And uh he, he's pretty clear about how the end times are gonna unfold.

01:02:10 - 0

Uh You can tell in his writings that he's following Paul.If you read all the, just the Pauline literature in the New Testament, you walk away with something like the end times is the entire period that we live in uh from, you know, as the church, you know, from Jesus first advent to his second advent and all we're waiting for is the return of the Anna Christ and the end, right?

01:02:32 - 0

Judgment Day. And, and that's it as far as this era is concerned. So we we'll we'll dig into that at some time in the future.But really just as we talk about fringe theology, whenever you start to speculate and to try to force like pro you know, passages of scripture, specifically prophecies to mean things that don't fit within the clear paradigm um of, of, of the, of the, maybe that you could say just the epistles, you know, John John doesn't have or I'm sorry, Paul doesn't have really a dog in the race as far as what, what theological system is supreme.

01:03:05 - 0

And yet he seems to be pretty clear about the unfolding of things. Um, you know, and then we do see to see um like a biblical hyper literalism where sort of the broad flat earth philosophy um bleeds into the church as a flat earth theology.And, and I think it actually happens for a different reason. Um that some of it is the dispensation is hyper literalism that if, if you're gonna believe in a six day creation, then why not a flat earth? And I think those are fun questions to ask too.Like should we believe in a six day creation? And um why might we not and why maybe should we and things like that?And so, um you know, I, I think the flat earth falls into sort of that same category and where, where if you're gonna be hyper literal about one thing, then maybe you need to be hyper literal about other things. Right?And, and, and at the end of the day, just to say a word about that is when you make a non science book, teach science, you, you're, you're, you're getting into dangerous waters.

01:04:07 - 0

And so, um the, the ancient people weren't scientists, um, they weren't doing science, they didn't write the Bible for science purposes. And so I think we do need to be careful with, you know, some of the way we read different things.And I think there's a herman that allows us to filter and get through some of those things. But there is definitely um some, some fringe theology that that's, that's going on there. I think there's some helpfulness to these ideas of aliens and Symes and flat earth, right?So, like it's not all about it being fringe theology and these broad societal fascinations, I think that there's some helpfulness when we think about aliens, I think it's gonna cause us to, to ask and answer questions about non human cosmic beings.Um Again, I don't think they seem human, you know, um again, sometimes they're benevolent, sometimes they're malevolent depending on what, you know, alien story you're hearing. And I think, I think that's important. I think we should engage those. I don't think we should push them away.

01:04:56 - 0

We're, we're talking about how the, um, you know, the church has been disenchanted or to use the parts were de exotified. That sort of what we believe as Christians is absolute. It's exotic. It's fascinating. It's not like anything we encounter on a regular basis.And, um, I, I think that in most church cultures we've really filtered out a lot of what's in there. That's, that's, that's, that's really beautiful and really interesting. And, uh, you know, so, so let's bring some of it back.Let's talk about aliens, you know, ideas that are largely downplayed in scripture, but pretty present in historic Christian theology. So, um when we talk about the end times, like, let's, let's not, let's not fan boy out on it, but let's talk about it.You know, the, the end of the world has kind of become a symbol in modern culture that's been harnessed by ecologists and spiritualists alike.Let's, let's engage the conversation, you know, apocalypse doesn't, doesn't mean revelation anymore, but we can use it sort of in its new, culturally appropriated way and just say like, yeah, that there is an end and, and that end is a destructive end for, but it's not a destructive end for everybody.

01:06:04 - 0

Let's have that conversation about apocalyptic apocalypse. If that's what one, you know, people want to talk about, you know, so there's helpfulness to these ideas, I think even in post apocalyptic literature, which I think is interesting.Um think about the word post apocalyptic literally means like what is after the apocalypse?And, and most post apocalyptic literature has a very bleak view of humankind after um after the, whatever this apocalypse is, whatever this giant destruction is, you know, that's a, that's an engaged in an idea we can engage and I suppose it has to be bad or there's no conflict.

01:06:39 - 0

It doesn't make for a good story, but it's something that we can engage and say, you know, the, the apocalypse of the Bible um or the post apocalypse of the Bible is not like the post apocalypse of literature that we have so engage the end times. Absolutely.But I think, engage it, you know, less dogmatically and engage it more literarily. Um you know, toying with the ideas literally philosophically instead of uh instead of dogmatically. And I think that there's conversations that can be really helpful that we had.I think even the, the flat earth question is something that we could talk about. You know, uh you know, there's, it's, it's a symbol, it's a symbol of a, of a distrust for things that are out there.And um you know, as Christians, we, we are followers of King Jesus and King Jesus is opposed to the kingdom of the world. So like, um I don't, I don't think that we need to agree with things that are coming out of society.I don't think that we need to affirm everything that's coming out of society, you know, I don't think that we need to believe all conspiracy theories but, you know, I don't think we should believe none of the conspiracy theories.

01:07:43 - 0

I think, I think that the existence of conspiracy theories themselves, you know, should really signify to us that, that, that everything can't be true. Everything that society perpetuates, it can't be true. I think even probably everything that science teaches can't be true. Right?

01:07:58 - 0

Like I, and I think symbolic, symbolic symbolizes that, right? And so uh there's a, there's healthy conversations to be had. I think sometimes if you can get over the hump of why does somebody believe the earth is flat that you're gonna have a lot better conversations?Um If you just sort of sidestep that to get to some of the foundations of that. So um the Bible, it can stand up to the scrutiny of it, right? That whether or not the earth is flat is not a theological deal breaker for us.And so we can set that aside, we can, and we can start to answer the harder questions that underpinned it. And you know, because we are followers of King Jesus, right?We believe that he's given us his word and that his word is, is, is demonstrated in the scriptures and full of the Holy Spirit, we can read it and it'll stand up to the scrutiny of any of the questions that they can be asked.And so again, it's it's somewhat to a degree the point of this podcast that we want to engage some of the, the supernatural world we wanna bring back in uh the, the excitement of the, of the story line of the scriptures from beginning to end. OK.

01:09:00 - 0

Um And so I think we can conclude there um just to kind of recap, I think the world is not actually secularizing, but we are definitely seeing the world rebel against traditional Christian models because I think Christianity has been disenchanted in its modern form formulation.

01:09:18 - 0

It's, it's not what it used to be. And uh it's been de exotified. It's been de my my, right. It's been been turned into something that's, that's, that's flat and, and, and lifeless in many, in many circles.And so um we wanna see it brought back to life, you know, bring, bring it back to life, make it as, see, see the Christian faith as a, as a spiritual awakening, a spiritual thing that happens when we come to faith in Jesus, right?And we want so we want to return to the historic, symbolic ways of thinking about the scripture, the literary ways of thinking about the scripture. Um And I think it's the only move for Christianity.I think that in a world that's begging for spiritual answers and we have them, it's um it's kind of a cop out to dig in our heels to rationalistic thinking and, and reject things that um the Bible is totally about. So, yeah, so that's enough today.Again, I wanna mention like I did last week that this uh episode is a bit theoretical in nature. I know you came for with myth, you came for with the weird stuff.

01:10:21 - 0

You came for giants and dragons and, and well, we got to talk a bit about aliens and flat earth and stuff today and we're gonna get into a lot more of that in future episodes.We're gonna dive into the enchantment of the Bible, the myth, the Lord, the legends, all of the fun stuff.Um We're gonna do a lot more biblical, you know, you know, dancing with the text and, and seeing what the church fathers thought about that, seeing what the second temple Jews thought about that. That's all what we're gonna do.Um But I wanna to cast it in the right light. We, we're not doing this for hype's sake. We're not doing it because we're, we're Bible fanatics.Uh We're doing it because there's a mission at stake and Christ has set us on a mission and we have answers to spiritual questions and I want you to be empowered to go forth with those. So next episode, we're actually gonna talk about the power of story.

01:11:04 - 0

Um We're actually gonna talk about biblical theology as story, the terms uh the term biblical theology can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. So we're gonna do that we're gonna go, we're gonna define it. We're gonna, we're gonna tease it out.We're gonna talk about biblical theology as story and, and maybe you can bring some application of communicating scripture stories. We're gonna do that in the next episode, maybe in two or three episodes, depending on how my outline is coming together.And then after that, we're, we're, we're gonna talk about the gospel as story.Um and, and in a podcast to kind of wrap that up and talk, talk a little bit pragmatically about how it is that we can communicate to a spiritual world, a spiritual story that comes from a spiritual God um through his spiritual scriptures. OK.So subscribe, like, share, do all the things you're supposed to do. Blessings and uh um we'll get a podcast out to you in another week. God bless him.