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Reality and Other Stories || Matt Lillicrap and Peter Dray || SLP421 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_01: Hello, and thank you so much for downloading episode 421 of the Speak Life Podcast.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: My name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life, and I'm really excited to bring you this brand new interview.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: It's Nate Morganlock talking to Matt Lillicrapp and Peter Dre on their new book, Reality and Other Stories: Exploring the Life We Long For.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: So obviously, Nate is in his element in discussing story and storytelling with these guys and how that links in with the gospel.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: So I hope you enjoy this interview, and I will catch you at the end.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: Well, hello there.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Speak Life.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: My name is Nate Morgan Locke, and I am thrilled because today I get to express my identity as the Reformed Mythologist in a deeper way than I've perhaps ever done before.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: Because I am joined for this conversation about reality and other stories by two other men who could be described in similar terms as reformed mythologists.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: They are Matt Lillycrapp and Pete Dre.
1:19
SPEAKER_02: Hello.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: How are you?
1:21
SPEAKER_04: Good thanks, Nate.
1:22
SPEAKER_04: Doing well to be here, yeah.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: Very good.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: Now, a couple of things that I want to talk about because you've got a book coming out, and I want to get to the book itself.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: I want to get to the themes that you're drawing out from that.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: But because we're talking about stories and storytelling, I kind of want the two of you to tell me a bit of your story.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: So to start off with, um this is a thing I sometimes do with married couples.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: Um we're a married couple already.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Not at all.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: But there's a sort of strange kind of uh relationship that happens through writing a book together, I'm sure.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: Um But basically I like to ask people if there was a romantic comedy made of your marriage, what are the three essential scenes that would need to take place?
2:13
SPEAKER_02: We can do like who plays each of you in the movie version, right?
2:17
SPEAKER_02: But if there was a romantic comedy, so that one of those scenes is often when when these people first met.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: So um I'm gonna ask you, Matt, you can kick us off.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: When did you first meet Pete?
2:30
SPEAKER_02: Take us, pick picture the scene for us.
2:32
SPEAKER_04: I I this is it's always embarrassing, isn't it, when one uh part of a married couple says, Oh, yeah, no, I first met my wife then, and then she goes, No, no, no, no.
2:40
SPEAKER_04: It was three years before that.
2:42
SPEAKER_04: Um, and I've got the terrible feeling that this could happen now.
2:45
SPEAKER_04: But I think we first met at um a Cambridge CU Freshers Getaway.
2:52
SPEAKER_04: I think was the first time we properly first met when I just arrived at Eden Baptist Church as the assistant minister in Cambridge.
2:59
SPEAKER_04: Um, and uh Pete was the speaker for the Cambridge CU Freshers Getaway.
3:05
SPEAKER_04: I remember you did some talks on Daniel Pete, which were excellent.
3:09
SPEAKER_04: Um, and I was kind of completely green, had just been at Oak Hill for four years, had been in medicine before that, um, and was going student ministry.
3:17
SPEAKER_04: I remember doing this a few years ago, and I've been doing dabbling a little bit.
3:21
SPEAKER_04: Um, and Pete is the kind of the absolute stalwart, um, was just brilliant, just kind of mining his wisdom um those few days, uh, as well as having fun with the students and getting to know them as well.
3:32
SPEAKER_04: Oh, glory.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: Now, just so was it the first half of Daniel or the second half of Daniel?
3:37
SPEAKER_02: Were you doing the story bit or were you doing the tricky bit?
3:40
SPEAKER_03: Shall we let you have a guess?
3:44
SPEAKER_02: And where was this taking place?
3:46
SPEAKER_02: Where was this retreat?
3:48
SPEAKER_04: That was down in uh Ledbury, wasn't it?
3:51
SPEAKER_04: At the Poplars in Ledbury.
3:54
SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, which uh I think quite a lot of the Christian unions uh use for, particularly that time of year, just before the beginning of the academic year, getting incoming freshers to come and uh sort of catch the vision of what Christian unions on campus are.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: And so what time of year?
4:11
SPEAKER_02: So it's sort of October-November time, is it?
4:14
SPEAKER_04: Or what yeah, late September, I think.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: Round about then.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: And the year, what year, what vintage is this?
4:20
SPEAKER_04: It would have been 2000, wait, what didn't when did I start?
4:24
SPEAKER_04: Uh 2017?
4:27
unknown: Okay.
4:28
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so not that long ago.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
4:30
SPEAKER_04: No, no, so we've not known one another.
4:32
SPEAKER_04: Uh I've known of Pete through some of his involvement with UCCF because I I was doing some student ministry and things, even alongside medicine, um, for a few years.
4:42
SPEAKER_04: And so I'd kind of come across some of the things Pete was doing.
4:46
SPEAKER_04: And and Pete was uh is now in Leeds.
4:49
SPEAKER_04: I was in Newcastle for quite a while, so we were geographically not that far apart.
4:53
SPEAKER_04: Um, but I don't think we'd actually properly met until then, so only a few years ago, really.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: So late September 2017.
5:00
SPEAKER_02: I imagine people were bottle flipping, there were dabs going on.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh ironically, of course, because this was student ministry.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: Fidget spinners, was that still happening?
5:11
SPEAKER_02: 2017.
5:13
SPEAKER_03: Ganglam style almost certainly.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, all right, that's good.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: We've got we've got to get the soundtrack for this movie.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: We've got to have that as well.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: Um, Pete, tell us then what was your first impression of uh this uh fresh-faced minister who's come out of the medical scene.
5:30
SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, that's that's the intimidating thing, isn't it?
5:33
SPEAKER_03: I think whenever you meet uh it's like when you meet somebody who tells you they used to be a dentist and all of a sudden you're you're aware of your teeth.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: Um I've gotta hide my mouth behind my microphone.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: So you know, I didn't uh you know give my medical history to Matt, although you know it's always there in the back of your mind, isn't it?
5:53
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
5:54
SPEAKER_03: Um, but no, it was uh I I think it was great to be able to I I think we've had a sense of click probably uh from early on, and we had lots of mutual friends.
6:05
SPEAKER_03: Um those those precious getaways are that they're a wonderful occasion, not only for giving Christian students a bit of a boost, um, and helping those who aren't sure whether or not they're Christian to figure out what the questions are at the beginning of their time, but also I think to draw together um people who are in a similar field of ministry but don't who who don't often get to spend very much time together.
6:29
SPEAKER_03: I think you know it's true of lots of ministry, isn't it?
6:31
SPEAKER_03: But student ministry, a lot of it you're plowing a fairly lonely furrow a lot of the time, and so those occasions where you can draw together are particularly enjoyable, particularly sweet.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, and the other thing which would be nice to hear from each of you is what do you think?
6:50
SPEAKER_02: So that's the scene when you first met October 2017.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: There is this, you know, um students everywhere just getting thrilled by the glory of God revealed in the early narratives of Daniel.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: And then uh what is the what is the the story that makes most sense of you as a person?
7:10
SPEAKER_02: As in an anecdote, a moment in your life, a day in the life where you'd say, actually that that sums me up pretty well.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: And it could be the birth of a child, it could be the your your wedding day.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: What do you what what might it be?
7:26
SPEAKER_02: Who wants to go first on that one?
7:29
SPEAKER_04: Do you know at risk of of um going back to the the married couple rom thing?
7:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it was probably the day uh a good day that would sum me up.
7:39
SPEAKER_04: It was probably the day I met my actually met my wife, or the day that we consciously remember meeting one another.
7:45
SPEAKER_04: We were at school together, right?
7:48
SPEAKER_04: And I had been um I'd sort of been slightly in awe of her for a little while because I wasn't a Christian or was the but was from a Christian family.
7:58
SPEAKER_04: Um and Anika, my wife, was the Christian at school.
8:01
SPEAKER_04: Everybody knew was a Christian.
8:02
SPEAKER_04: And I sort of looked at her and thought, I that's the sort of person I apparently should be, but how on earth am I ever going to be like that?
8:09
SPEAKER_04: Um, she was also in the year above me at school.
8:12
SPEAKER_04: Um, and I was, you know, so there was all sorts of kind of ground worshipping to be done.
8:17
SPEAKER_04: Um and then around about 15, I became a Christian um at a at a summer camp that summer.
8:23
SPEAKER_04: Um, and uh someone from school said, You need to find someone at school who you can support and be supported by.
8:29
SPEAKER_04: And as a new Christian, I thought, great, that's a brilliant idea.
8:31
SPEAKER_04: Let's do that as quickly as I can.
8:33
SPEAKER_04: How do I do that?
8:35
SPEAKER_04: Do I just go around everybody at school going, Are you a Christian?
8:38
SPEAKER_04: No, like finding out.
8:40
SPEAKER_04: And then I realized, of course, this one person that everyone at school knows is a Christian because she's living it out.
8:47
SPEAKER_04: And so I need to go and introduce myself to her.
8:50
SPEAKER_04: So aged 15, um like painfully shy, um, I sort of caught a glimpse of Anika exiting the dining hall and sort of finished up my lunch really quickly, went and stacked my stuff and followed her and followed her through the school building.
9:09
SPEAKER_04: There is a door called the Green Door at our school because it was a green door.
9:14
SPEAKER_04: Um, and I caught her just by the green door and sort of went, Hello, um, I'm Matt.
9:21
SPEAKER_04: Um, and introduced myself to her and and I asked if she wanted to go to a Bible study with me.
9:28
SPEAKER_04: Genuinely, that's actually what I asked.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
9:31
SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah.
9:33
SPEAKER_02: And this was a Bible study, this was a Bible study that you were going to be running specifically for her.
9:40
SPEAKER_04: No, not even not even that.
9:43
SPEAKER_04: Not even that.
9:44
SPEAKER_04: Um, yeah, so I it sort of feels like that sums me up because I spent so much of my life just could like trying to just blend into a wall.
9:53
SPEAKER_04: And it was coming to faith in Christ that began to give me a little bit of confidence that I that there was actually somebody in me worth because the creator wanted to know me, that perhaps actually I was worth something.
10:04
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
10:05
SPEAKER_04: Um, and uh it gave me just a little bit of confidence, not very much, to say hello to Anika.
10:12
SPEAKER_04: Um, and slowly but surely as we got to know one another, the Lord worked in both of our lives deeply.
10:17
SPEAKER_04: And well, it's a long story, but 18 years later, well, many years later, more than that, I got married.
10:22
SPEAKER_02: So, what year was this conversation happening by the green door about the Bible study?
10:26
SPEAKER_04: That must have been 1998.
10:31
SPEAKER_04: So, yeah, no, yeah, many, many years ago.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: 98.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: What was what was your hairstyle like in 1998?
10:38
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it was curtains.
10:39
SPEAKER_02: I had the curtains too.
10:40
SPEAKER_02: I was there.
10:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: I had curtains.
10:42
SPEAKER_04: So I think I'd just about finished because the the the curtains, the evolution of the curtains hairstyle is quite important.
10:48
SPEAKER_04: It it sort of started short and went longer and longer and longer and longer until everyone had curtains down to their chin.
10:53
SPEAKER_04: That was me.
10:53
SPEAKER_04: Okay and then it got shorter and shorter and shorter again until the curtains disappeared and it just became the front quiff, you know, the ski, the ski slope.
11:00
SPEAKER_04: And then the front quiff went backwards, and it did that at around about when I was around about 18.
11:06
SPEAKER_04: And as everybody knows, unless you start losing your hair, every man pretty much the hairstyle you have at 18 is the hairstyle you're gonna have until you're 45.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
11:15
SPEAKER_04: At least, maybe 50.
11:16
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and so I've just stuck with that since.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: I see.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: But nine ninety-eight, we're talking, we're talking Beckham being sent off against uh Argentina in the world.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that just happened.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: It was September that you're presumably having this conversation with your future wife.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so uh that's that's that's your uh origin story.
11:38
SPEAKER_02: That's the one we need to see.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh Pete, how about you?
11:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think I would take you back to London 2012.
11:46
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I, you know, I was recently asked, would you rather live 10 years in the past or 10 years in the future?
11:55
SPEAKER_03: And uh absolutely, I think the summer of 2012, you know, it's just so magical, wasn't it?
12:02
SPEAKER_03: I um I've always loved the Olympics.
12:04
SPEAKER_03: I've been a total Olympics geek for as long as I can remember.
12:10
SPEAKER_03: Um, our church, my dad was a pastor, our church uh in London was extremely multicultural.
12:17
SPEAKER_03: I was the only white English person in my class at school, and so just grew up absolutely fascinated by global cultures and foods and nationalities.
12:29
SPEAKER_03: And um, for that to all come together in that kind of magical bubble in which, you know, just just briefly, um, the news cycle is all about the Olympics.
12:41
SPEAKER_03: I, you know, we're just very happily camp there.
12:45
SPEAKER_03: And I remember arriving in Stratford and walking along the underground, just for you know, all of these languages everywhere.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: Um, walking into this Russian lady quite literally, you just found it hilarious.
12:57
SPEAKER_03: You know, that wouldn't normally happen on the underground, would it?
12:59
SPEAKER_03: You know, Jamaican people sharing their food with us.
13:02
SPEAKER_03: Oh, total heaven.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so Super Saturday, particularly, when was it Mo and Jess Ennis and Greg Brotherfish?
13:11
SPEAKER_02: Three goals.
13:11
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
13:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's uh and the following Saturday, in fact, we were at a wedding.
13:17
SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, it's not very often, is it, that you have you know the big screen and everyone's there watching Tom Daly and out of one corner and then Bride and the Groom out of the other corner of your eye.
13:30
SPEAKER_03: We've all been to weddings like that, shortly.
13:33
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: And the last the the last ten years has been you know just carried on in that great halcyon bliss of uh of happiness and joy for for all nations, really, since well, you know, a quick glimpse at our continent, and we would see that that's the case.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the high point of uh human civilization was reached uh in uh summer 2012.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: Um okay, so I I mean I like doing that.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: I you know it's good to start with stories and good to kind of get to know you guys a little bit, not through just lists of your many and various achievements, but through uh some of these sort of stories uh as well, because your book uh which you've written together is called Reality and Other Stories.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: And its basic premise, and I love this, is to take hold of uh Christopher Booker's seven basic plots and to really investigate those and to wrestle with those from a Christian point of view.
14:33
SPEAKER_02: Um would one of you share with us for those who don't know, what are Christopher Booker's seven basic plots?
14:41
SPEAKER_03: The seven basic plots is the name of Christopher Booker's Magnum Opus, uh, which um runs to nearly 800 pages.
14:52
SPEAKER_03: And over about 40 years, um he traveled around the world and he read stories from a whole number of global cultures, and he reckons that there are seven plot lines that keep occurring and reoccurring and reoccurring.
15:08
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so one of those, the the oldest he says, is called overcoming the monster.
15:13
SPEAKER_03: The idea that there is this fearsome uh creature uh that's causing havoc and needs to be overcome.
15:21
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, you think about Jaws, for example, or you think about Jurassic Park, or uh biblically speaking, you think about Goliath and some of these others, they they seem fearsome.
15:31
SPEAKER_03: There's no way uh that you can uh defeat them, and then in some subversive way, they're fouled, they're killed.
15:39
SPEAKER_03: Uh, the second one he would talk about uh is rags to riches.
15:44
SPEAKER_03: Uh, the idea that you have this figure who is overlooked in life, uh, who is quite often an orphan.
15:53
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and again, you'd see biblical examples of this as well as popular culture, uh, you know, Harry Potter, others like that, and then Cinderella, and then dramatically uh their circumstances change and people see who they really are.
16:10
SPEAKER_03: Uh, the third one, uh, the third plot line he would talk about is the quest, where normally one protagonist is joined by other characters on a long journey, and there are all sorts of challenges, both internal and external, uh, to preventing them from getting what they want, but eventually they get there.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: But the key thing is that they're changed along the road as well.
16:34
SPEAKER_03: So you think about the Wizard of Oz, uh, you might think about uh the hobbit, and there'll be others that would fall into that as well.
16:41
SPEAKER_03: Uh, the fourth category uh is called voyage and return, and that's where a protagonist goes away from home and then they come back home, but the experience that they've had whilst they were away um means that they can never see the world in quite the same way again.
16:59
SPEAKER_03: And so you think about every time travel story really is a voyage and return story, but all you think about, for example, the the story of the prodigal son, which is a voyage and return story as well.
17:12
SPEAKER_03: Uh booker then talks about tragedy where a protagonist wants something and they're so driven by it, and normally it starts as a kind of harmless desire, but they want it so much uh that you know, within the Christian world, we'd probably talk about idolatry.
17:28
SPEAKER_03: They want it so much that it destroys them uh from the inside out.
17:32
SPEAKER_03: So you think of someone like Macbeth, for example, there.
17:35
SPEAKER_03: He talks about uh sixthly uh comedy, and that's not necessarily ha-ha comedy, although very often it is that, but this idea of there's a happy ending that we long for for the central characters, but we can't possibly see how they'll ever experience that happy ending.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: There are too many challenges, there are too many twists and turns, and particularly in comedy, there are too many misunderstandings.
18:00
SPEAKER_03: And then suddenly the lights come on, and the ending is so perfect that we couldn't imagine any other ending.
18:09
SPEAKER_03: Uh, so lots of romantic comedies would be that.
18:11
SPEAKER_03: The book of Esther uh would be that in the Bible as well.
18:14
SPEAKER_03: And then finally, uh the story of rebirth, which kind of merges all of these other stories together and provides a totally fresh new start for somebody that beforehand just seemed beyond the pale, or um where circumstances seemed so locked in that there was no prospect of change.
18:35
SPEAKER_03: Um, so again, there'd be lots of examples of that.
18:38
SPEAKER_03: Uh Le Miserable would be a very popular one.
18:42
SPEAKER_03: Um, and in the Bible, this is all over uh pretty much every book of the Bible.
18:48
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
18:49
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: So um, Matt, you buy that?
18:52
SPEAKER_02: You you think he's right.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: There are seven basic plots, and uh that's how it works.
18:58
SPEAKER_04: I think to a degree, I think he's he's right that there are there is a we recognize patterns and stories, right?
19:06
SPEAKER_04: So so whether so well I I think I would might I'd be very happy to say seven, nine.
19:12
SPEAKER_04: In fact, Booker actually has two other ones that he throws in there, even though his book is called Seven Basic Plots, he throws in another two, just you know, bonus material towards the end.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Is it behind a paywall?
19:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:23
SPEAKER_04: And you have to go through the menu and yeah.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: That's all right.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: You've got a you know, if you've got the people who are supporting you, you want to give them extra content, you know.
19:30
SPEAKER_04: Well, exactly, exactly.
19:31
SPEAKER_04: And and so I guess even in his mind, he's he's not saying this is definitively an answer, there are only seven options here.
19:39
SPEAKER_04: Um But uh sorry, my I'm in my dad's office and uh his phone just started ringing.
19:44
SPEAKER_04: I'll just turn that off.
19:46
SPEAKER_04: Um uh yeah, he's he's not saying there are seven, um there are definitively seven, but he's offering it out as a to say almost like a roadmap to say, look, we we can navigate our way through stories, and look, these stories tend to follow similar paths.
20:02
SPEAKER_04: It makes sense that that's what that's what happens.
20:05
SPEAKER_04: And and so I would say I I'm whether there's seven, um, whether there's nine, some people go, nope, there's only three, we can reduce some of those other ones down.
20:14
SPEAKER_04: Quest and voyage and return can get kind of you know um and and I and I I'm kind of well in in a to a degree, I don't mind how many there are.
20:22
SPEAKER_04: It's the fact that they exist and that we can identify them and say, look, that story is like that story.
20:28
SPEAKER_04: And and then actually those stories are like things that happened to me, or like that story of you know, of real of real life, that person that we know about that their life has followed a story a little bit like that.
20:38
SPEAKER_04: Um, that's the thing that really, you know, I think really kind of we it's really helpful for us to focus in on and and think about.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: And clearly, I mean, Book is not the only person who's kind of had an approach to this, you know.
20:51
SPEAKER_02: The two of you I'm sure will be very familiar with Joseph Campbell and his idea of the monomyth and the hero's journey, and there is just this single story which kind of underpins everything, and that has been used as a bit of a blueprint for uh you know, writing your your your screenplay to get success in Hollywood.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: You know, you can actually most of the books on this stuff are actually how-to guides in terms of writing your first novel or or or writing your your thing.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: I mean, another thing in terms of categorization of stories, the particularly in folklore this happens.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you've either of you familiar with the I think it's called the Arna Thompson, I'm probably pronouncing that incorrectly, but Arna Thompson Index, which is basically they categorize all folk stories into, you know, there's the story of the um the human becoming the beast or the beast marrying the tree or the like and they've the the heart replaced by a piece of fruit stories, and you're like, how on earth have you found these these kind of categories?
21:57
SPEAKER_02: And that there is something that is undeniable.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Incredibly fascinating about categorizing narrative and story and tale and folktale in this kind of way.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: What do you think the value of that sort of analysis is?
22:12
SPEAKER_04: It helps us to see that there is a pattern to the way that we interpret and understand reality.
22:22
SPEAKER_04: I mean, we've called the reason we've called the book reality and other stories, is because in the end, the claim we're making from that is that reality itself is a story.
22:32
SPEAKER_04: And and the reason why the stories that we tell um have these recognizable patterns, however many of them you you want to say there are, is because they echo reality itself.
22:49
SPEAKER_04: And so I think one of the values, I mean, there's loads of value in recognizing these patterns, but one of the biggest values, I think, is to start to recognize that reality itself is story-shaped and that meaning is there to be discovered.
23:07
SPEAKER_04: That would be the big claim, and that that's a huge claim to make.
23:10
SPEAKER_04: That would be a huge claim.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: Um I think.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: And I think well, uh when it comes to you, Pete, on this, on in terms of evangelism with students, right?
23:20
SPEAKER_02: This might I we'll get to that, but that it feels to me as though maybe around the time that you guys were meeting for the first time in Ledbury, 2017, um, key moment, um it feels to me as though there was a point not too long ago in which the word story was just put up everywhere, and we it all felt very trendy and as though, like, oh, we've got to talk about story and story and story and story and story.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: Why do you think that was that it seemed to kind of burst into bloom about five, ten years ago that the the church at least seemed to recognize the significance and the power of story as a way to engage with people around them?
24:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that's an interesting question.
24:14
SPEAKER_03: I think um what was happening in the church to some extent, I think, has mirrored what's happening in the broader culture.
24:22
SPEAKER_03: Um and so again, around the time that we would have met would have been the time of um the Brexit vote.
24:32
SPEAKER_03: And uh even at that time, the the the remain campaign was saying that the the weakness is that we don't have a very good story to put forward.
24:44
SPEAKER_03: Um uh, you know, we we can put forward facts and facts and facts and facts, but actually, regardless of whether or not our you know our facts are true, um, what persuades people and what moves people um is not so much facts as it is story.
25:00
SPEAKER_03: And and you know, Jonathan Haight's book, The Righteous Mind, um was I think a huge uh I mean it's been taken up very widely by the church.
25:11
SPEAKER_03: And essentially what Haidt says is we like to think of ourselves as these rational individuals, you know, we're kind of economic people who make uh decisions that um are rationally trustworthy.
25:25
SPEAKER_03: He says, no, no, there's way more that's going on, and actually the psychology and the emotion which uh we also hold to is is often functionally speaking much more important than than the facts and the details that that are put before us.
25:41
SPEAKER_03: And so I think that's that's part of it.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: We we've come to, I think, uh, you know, in some ways, a more helpful, a more sophisticated understanding of how we reason, um, how we how we might make arguments.
25:57
SPEAKER_03: Um, and then within the world of theology, I guess there's an idea that uh the scriptures narrative is not only uh a kind of something that we we hang scriptures categories upon, but itself is persuasive, itself is beautiful, um, and and itself which which which moves us and forms us in certain ways as well.
26:23
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26:32
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27:16
SPEAKER_02: So would you say it's a it's a it's the persuasive power of a good story that's that's really we're all becoming aware of, whether it was you know, Project Fear or whatever it was called back in in 2016, um, or it's an evangelistic approach.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, I I think it's both.
27:39
SPEAKER_03: So I I think absolutely we're aware that um that there is always an imaginative um aspect to decision making, that we're always telling ourselves stories, and and you know, that's as Matt said we're storied beings.
27:56
SPEAKER_03: I think one of the things that um I've appreciated more having worked on the book, and maybe this comes back to your earlier question about categorizing stories, the more that you realize that there are these um kind of broad categories that are out there, the more you can pay attention to the details of the story.
28:14
SPEAKER_03: Um, so you know, I've just finished reading a book uh called The Power by Naomi Alderman, and in some ways you just say you could just stamp tragedy uh on the front cover, but you but we don't do that.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:27
SPEAKER_03: Because actually, once you understand it's a tragedy, you then think, yeah, okay, so what is it about the details of what's going on here that makes this a fascinating story?
28:36
SPEAKER_03: What is it that makes this story resonate with me or come alive in me or or appall me?
28:42
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I so I think uh yes, we've understood more broadly that we can't but help in stories.
28:50
SPEAKER_03: Even if we were to talk about what happened in this weekend, we would turn to categories of story by which we go is then to realize that there is this untapped formative potential, both for um causing Christians to grow and for those who are outside of the faith to realize, oh goodness, there is something more resonant and substantial to the Christian claim and to and to the person of Jesus than I'd I'd imagine before.
29:16
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
29:18
SPEAKER_04: I wonder as well, I don't know, you you it you guys have have done so much thinking about this as well.
29:25
SPEAKER_04: I just wonder whether now in the history of kind of certainly our culture, if you're gonna be a reformed mythologist, Nate, now is a pretty good time to be in business because just the sheer amount of storytelling that we are exposed to, humans have always told stories, right?
29:43
SPEAKER_04: We've always been storytellers.
29:44
SPEAKER_04: So you can trace that back.
29:46
SPEAKER_04: The oldest texts are either kind of legal text exchanging land between two people or a story.
29:52
SPEAKER_04: Um, and we've always been, but we just we are producing so much story at the moment, you know, that since kind of the rise of streaming um kind of platforms and stuff, that there are numbers amount of stories that are just being pumped into our culture feels like it's gone gone up exponentially um in the last 10-15 years, which I think just means people are becoming more and more awake to what these what this is doing to me and what I and also what I'm then doing to it as I receive a story and then retell it.
30:28
SPEAKER_04: Now, when I have the conversation about, you know, when my my friends are having conversations about stranger things or whatever, which is not something I've watched yet.
30:35
SPEAKER_04: And I just the other day, yesterday, a couple of friends are having, and they were retelling it to me in a kind of their own sort of filtered way.
30:42
SPEAKER_04: This is what it's about, this is why you should watch it.
30:43
SPEAKER_04: And suddenly I'm being told a story about why I should engage with the story, kind of quite a persuasive one.
30:48
SPEAKER_04: I think I might start watching it.
30:50
SPEAKER_04: Um it's just everywhere uh in a way which maybe hasn't been quite so in such a tangible way.
30:59
SPEAKER_04: So I wonder if that's partly it as well.
31:01
SPEAKER_04: We've become more aware because it is something we are we are producing much more as a society.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: Let me try this out.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: I think this is a thing for the medium in which we tell a story, right?
31:13
SPEAKER_02: So one of the challenges is that that moving pictures and sound has become the most efficient and you know profitable way of telling stories, right?
31:24
SPEAKER_02: So when you think about storytelling now, as a general rule, people will will will m lean over towards movies and TV.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: That that's just the way that we end up going.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: Um but I wonder whether there is something about uh social media and its kind of atomizing kind of uh uh shotgun of information, isolated little incidents, fragments of stories which are just being constantly shot at you.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: I wonder and you might be able to tell I've just finished rereading Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, where he's talking about television having this same kind of decontextualized kind of uh uh uh effect on people.
32:15
SPEAKER_02: And I wonder whether because we're so used to receiving millions of different isolated stories into our uh into our newsfeeds and as we scroll that what we've we've found ourselves doing as in inescapably storied creatures.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: I love that phrase.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Um that what we've done is to is is to uh organise the information into stories.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: And and to sort of basically and the part of the problem with social media, I think I often complain about social media, even though I often deliver whatever I'm doing on social media, but uh is that it falls into very simple categories of of good and bad, like dislike.
33:05
SPEAKER_02: And and that is pro possibly what's leading to um the sort of polarization that we feel on every single cultural issue, that that everything is just sort of sort of ammunition for the one great battle between good and evil.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: Um and our stories have sort of become slightly uh one-dimensional as a result.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: It it can only really say one thing, which is that you know it it's about this cultural moment and what's happening globally.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: Any sort of thoughts on that?
33:43
SPEAKER_02: I I know it just rambled, I should be asking questions, but any thoughts on that?
33:47
SPEAKER_03: When you were speaking, it reminded me of a conversation I had with a student at Northumbria University around 10 years ago, and we were talking about what her favourite stories were.
33:58
SPEAKER_03: And she talked about um the Harry Potter series, and she used a phrase which stuck with me.
34:04
SPEAKER_03: She said, I feel as though living within that story it makes more sense of me than real life makes of me.
34:11
SPEAKER_03: Now, you know, at one level you could say, Well, that's you know, that's just pure escapism.
34:17
SPEAKER_03: Actually, I think you could say, no, there is something.
34:21
SPEAKER_03: Um, there are certain things that carry that stories like Harry Potter can say with a clarity that the real world says that that you can't say with that sort of level of clarity.
34:33
SPEAKER_03: Um I think as we were writing, what came home to me was when it comes to the overcoming the monster theme.
34:42
SPEAKER_03: Monster stories say things about evil with a clarity that it's very difficult to say within our culture, particularly if you're kind of coming from a kind of naturalistic or even a kind of existential background.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: Evil is just this it's a word that you'll use, but you can't use it with very much clarity.
35:02
SPEAKER_03: You can't hang it onto things, even if actually deep down you want to place that label onto them.
35:08
SPEAKER_03: And so maybe one of the attractions of story within our culture at the moment is that they paint with primary colours in a way that that that we yearn for, even though our culture is saying no, you can't do that.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that that's a helpful point.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there are obviously quite a few situations where I mean, for example, the latest Pixar movie, uh, Lightyear, um, and without giving any spoilers away, there is a there is a a suggestion that there is not a distinct category of evil and yet there are simply just shades of personality which personally need to be dealt with and overcome.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: Um I think that's a reasonable job at not giving the flow.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: Um but um yeah, it is is there a sense in which much of the storytelling that we're uh receiving and hearing at the moment is uh is less confident about calling evil evil and good good.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: Um and that's sort of adding to a kind of subjectivity, perhaps, in in terms of people's uh sense of the world, uh, which is why in some ways an old story like Harry Potter um is reassuring because it it you know it's it's not blurring the lines between good and evil.
36:38
SPEAKER_04: I think there's something in that, and I think I was chatting with my my eldest uh daughter is 13, I was chatting with her the other day, and we were just noticing that how many villain narratives there now need to be in order to explain why somebody is a villain.
36:55
SPEAKER_04: So she was thinking about the film Cruella, for example.
36:58
SPEAKER_04: Here's a story of trying to explain how one of the, you know, ostensibly one of the most kind of villainous Disney villains became so bad because we need to explain it.
37:07
SPEAKER_04: She needs some kind of a backstory.
37:09
SPEAKER_04: And do you know, and and she and she was sort of kind of commenting and just sort of noticing this and thinking, it's strange that, isn't it?
37:15
SPEAKER_04: Because in some in some of the older Disney films, she's really enjoyed it.
37:18
SPEAKER_04: It's just been somebody bad, but they've just been bad, and there's been no explanation.
37:22
SPEAKER_04: You just know that's the bad guy.
37:24
SPEAKER_04: There are baddies and goodies, and that's how the film works.
37:26
SPEAKER_04: Now it's kind of like there are baddies, but we really need to understand the baddies and kind of understand kind of and every single Marvel ambiguous, ambiguous hero has a you know, well, that's every single Marvel hero, good or ambiguous, has a backstory that's you know filled with tragedy, but certainly the ambiguous ones.
37:42
SPEAKER_04: We've got to try and understand that.
37:44
SPEAKER_04: And I it's interesting because I think one of our responses to that can be to say, yeah, this isn't great, because we know the structure of reality, we know from the story of scripture that there is such a thing as objective evil and objective good.
37:58
SPEAKER_04: Um, and that we know that that monster has been overcome through the death and resurrection of Christ.
38:04
SPEAKER_04: At the same time, I've just been working my way through um uh for sort of preaching uh and things, um, some of the wisdom literature in in scripture, particularly Ecclesiastes, um Proverbs a bit two.
38:17
SPEAKER_04: And one of the things that that consistently draws us back to is to go, life doesn't always work black and white.
38:24
SPEAKER_04: There are always ways in which it whenever thing falls out, there are always kind of shades of things.
38:29
SPEAKER_04: It's difficult to understand how things are going.
38:31
SPEAKER_04: There are always reasons why people sin is sin, but there are reasons why sin grows and bears its thorny fruit in people's hearts in particular ways, based on their background and based on their experiences.
38:45
SPEAKER_04: And what do we what do we do when we those are stories in themselves?
38:51
SPEAKER_04: And so I think I don't know, I I this is perhaps a this is me rambling rambling now, but um maybe I I wonder if we we get getting slightly too concerned over oh, we need objective good and evil.
39:05
SPEAKER_04: And what we actually need to be saying is, no, no, there is such a thing as good and evil.
39:09
SPEAKER_04: But isn't it interesting that the stories themselves are showing that that that evil influence somehow influences us in different ways?
39:17
SPEAKER_04: So I think there are even ways of of kind of subverting and fulfilling even those stories.
39:24
SPEAKER_04: And yeah, Nate, I I appreciate I listened to your um other podcast um online uh with James and really appreciated your your kind of pushback against that, for example, and and other places that you know I share your sadness about the direction that Pixar is going in uh in some ways.
39:40
SPEAKER_04: But um I think there are even there, there are places that we can still grab because however hard, whether it's conscious or subconscious, however hard the storytellers try to tell a story that is antithetical to reality, in the end, the building blocks they're working with is still reality, they haven't got anything else.
40:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and so somewhere in there, there are still echoes of truth.
40:03
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh, which I think we've uh we we can continue working hard to find.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I I sometimes pull David's words out of context at the end of um One Chronicles when he's uh talking about the gifts for the temple, the dedication of the temple.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember David allowed to bring all the stuff in, but he's not allowed to build it.
40:25
SPEAKER_02: And when he's got all the Cedars of Lebanon and all the bits and bobs that he's got from all the different places, uh he says, All things come from you, O Lord, and of your own have we given you.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: And I often use that in this exact point of saying the human beings can't escape the reality which is the story of the gospel.
40:48
SPEAKER_02: And so the the basic building blocks, as you say, that we're using are those which have been given to us because we are sub-creators, we're not you know, uh creating from nothing.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: Um so yeah, I I think that's you know, it's probably terrible exegesis, or maybe it isn't.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: That's not the place for this to be discussed.
41:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, let's have a little think.
41:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, Pete, I've only just realized that you're sitting in front of a blackboard.
41:19
SPEAKER_02: This is bringing me great joy.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: Is this in your home?
41:22
SPEAKER_02: You have a blackboard, a roll blackboard in your own home.
41:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is.
41:26
SPEAKER_03: We live next door to a primary school, and the house that we live in is the old schoolhouse, which I think back in the day when the school was started, I think in 1841, um, this was the school.
41:41
SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, when we moved here, I just thought, oh goodness, I wonder if I could find a blackboard.
41:47
SPEAKER_03: And then happy days on eBay, there was a school just a few minutes up the road selling theirs off.
41:54
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, this is my my scribbly blackboard behind me.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: Glory.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I insisted when I got to Speak Life that we paint an entire wall with chalkboard paint so that I could uh make everything nice and dusty.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh so no, love to see that.
42:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, I want to just have a little think then.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've uh we've dived into some of the nerdier kind of story analysis kind of reformed mythologist um uh safe places, but what about the challenge of of not just analysing stories but of telling them and of writing them and of sharing them?
42:33
SPEAKER_02: Um okay, here we go.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: Are evangelicals especially bad at storytelling?
42:40
SPEAKER_02: And if so, why is that?
42:44
SPEAKER_02: It's a viewpoint.
42:46
SPEAKER_02: Not saying it's mine, but uh do you think that as as Christians, as as evangelical Christians, we're particularly bad at telling stories?
42:58
SPEAKER_02: And if that is true, why do you think that is?
43:00
SPEAKER_03: You may have a point there.
43:02
SPEAKER_03: There is, I mean, there is some there are some wonderful evangelical storytellers.
43:07
SPEAKER_03: Um you know, you look at the the Nate Wilsons and you know uh the wing the Wingfeather saga, which have been picked up not just by Christians but but by those outside of the church as well, but they'd be fairly few and far between.
43:23
SPEAKER_03: Um I interestingly, when we finished our script, uh one of the things that Tom Creedy at IVP suggested would do is that we send our script not just to Christian friends, but also to those who aren't Christian.
43:42
SPEAKER_03: And also he had a third category of deconstructing Christians.
43:47
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
43:48
SPEAKER_03: Um interestingly, some of the most uh positive feedback certainly that that I received was from that third category.
43:57
SPEAKER_03: People who've come from a Christian background.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: But who, for whatever reason, are massively struggling uh in their walk of faith.
44:07
SPEAKER_03: Um and uh there were two or three emails that were broadly the same, which is I have all sorts of troubles with the church, I have all sorts of intellectual questions, but I found aspects of what you have the aspects of how you portrayed the gospel here just totally beautiful and that I can't walk away from.
44:31
SPEAKER_03: Now, that isn't something particularly that we thought about as as we wrote the book, but I guess the the flip side of your question is sometimes I think story has just been held up as that amongst the evangelicals, a kind of prop to see you through um when you have all of these other intellectual objections, and and sometimes the intellectual objection will be thrown down to Orthodox Christianity, but I would rather just hold to um a kind of storied view.
45:03
SPEAKER_03: And sadly, I think that probably does mean that um uh we throw out the baby with the bathwater.
45:10
SPEAKER_03: The other thought which I've had, just talking to a friend of mine who's Roman Catholic, and he he asked exactly this question: why are there so many more Roman Catholic and Anglo-Catholic authors uh than there are evangelical ones?
45:25
SPEAKER_03: And I just his answer was, and I've not had time to think on this, it'd be interesting to hear what you both think.
45:33
SPEAKER_03: But essentially he thinks that when it comes to kind of creation for redemption consummation framework, that still within evangelicalism, we turn up the volume so high on fall that it ends up essentially drowning out some of the aspects of creation and the creative goodness of the world.
45:56
SPEAKER_03: Um and and even just potentially being able to notice some of the details the good story hang on, and and you know, which which turn upon.
46:07
SPEAKER_03: So I don't I don't know if if that's right, but that's certainly what this this friend was was saying, and it is undoubtedly true that um Roman Catholicism seems to have a much uh stronger history of story writing.
46:24
SPEAKER_04: I wonder if we I wonder if we have a a bit of a because historically there's been that we we we prep we build up the full column of those four so high, the redemption column becomes slightly skewed because of a lack of create lack of focus on creation, um, the goodness of creation, the givenness of creation.
46:48
SPEAKER_04: So the redemption becomes the story, simply only the story of the individual being rescued from their fallen state, um, and set on the trajectory towards the new creation, without recognizing that there's a whole creation column going on that then works through fall, redemption, new creation.
47:10
SPEAKER_04: Paul speaks in Romans 8 of the creation itself crying out, groaning in um subject to frustration, awaiting the redemption of our bodies, which in itself is a remarkable thing.
47:22
SPEAKER_04: The number of times I've I've with different groups have read that and just you know just to try and you know mess around, said redemption of our souls and just carried on, and no one notices.
47:32
SPEAKER_04: Like because redemption of our bodies isn't a thing, is it?
47:35
SPEAKER_04: Um but I think because as a result, we sort of have a slightly skewed view of the Christian life where we've got this one story, which is all about what happened to us in the past being a fall, what's happening to us in the future, but in between, in the middle midline, we don't really have a middle to the story.
47:52
SPEAKER_04: We've just got a beginning and an end.
47:54
SPEAKER_04: And every story, as I'm sure you both know, needs a beginning and a middle and an end.
47:59
SPEAKER_04: And without a middle, then what is it that we're doing?
48:02
SPEAKER_04: We don't have anything to any, we don't we have no imaginative fuel, yeah, um, or very little, uh kind of an anemic imaginative fuel.
48:12
SPEAKER_04: And I wonder if that as a result leads to this sort of problem that we we're just not very good at telling, we have the best stories to tell, and we do our best to try and tell those stories, yeah, but we're not very good at telling stories of the on along the way, um, in of in the middle, uh and what that how that might be and how imaginatively that might um that might take us into different worlds.
48:39
SPEAKER_04: And um, and it's really it's a real tragedy.
48:43
SPEAKER_04: It's it's it's very sad because we should have the best imaginative fuel.
48:49
SPEAKER_04: Um and uh I think we we're anemic there and we need to do some deeper thinking.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: I think that's a very good point in terms of as you said, Pete, potentially the um the turning up the dial to eleven on uh on the fall, and then what that does to the balance of the biblical narrative and and if you if you haven't got a a a rich enough, dense enough doctrine of creation that you sort of will struggle then to um to to properly teach redemption and and um new creation.
49:29
SPEAKER_02: Um I mean I w I wonder whether because in the very name evangelical it's about the goodness of the good news.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: And so we're so we're very concerned as as we ought to be to sh tell people how good the good news is.
49:46
SPEAKER_02: The trouble is I I think that just telling something, and this is a you know, we haven't mentioned Lewis yet, we we should do.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: Um, when he says, Don't tell me how to feel, make me feel it, and so much of our evangelicalism about saying, Do you know what this is amazing?
50:03
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing, it's really, really good.
50:04
SPEAKER_02: If you met Jesus, he's amazing.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is so amazing, he's like the most amazing.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: You think about something amazing, right?
50:10
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is more amazing than that, if that were possible.
50:13
SPEAKER_02: Think how amazing that would be.
50:15
SPEAKER_02: It's just really amazing, and don't you find it's really amazing.
50:19
SPEAKER_02: And and we're not actually very good at describing the person of Jesus in his his beauty and his majesty and his mercy and grace.
50:29
SPEAKER_02: We're not actually very good at dealing with the specifics which story absolutely relies on.
50:36
SPEAKER_02: And so I sort of think um there's a great book called Wired for Story by Lisa Cron.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: She's a uh basically it's it's how to write your novel is is basically the story.
50:50
SPEAKER_02: She says, using the latest brain science to um hook your reader from the beginning.
50:56
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things so she's not coming from a Christian point of view at all, but she's got some very interesting observations about the way stories work.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: And she talks about the stories in the specifics.
51:09
SPEAKER_02: And I think of it, you know, unless you give me a specific instance, it's actually quite difficult for me to step into a world in which that's a real that's a real thing.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: Um one example is one of my favourite uh picture books is called The Boy in the Ocean by Max Licardo.
51:28
SPEAKER_02: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful book.
51:32
SPEAKER_02: The thing that drives me a bit nuts is that he doesn't give the boy a name.
51:37
SPEAKER_02: And so the boy's always referred to as the boy.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: And we see a picture of him, we see his dog, and we see his mother and his father, but there's no ne he's not named, and so I don't sort of relate to him in the way that I do I relate to Max from Where the Wild Things Are.
51:52
SPEAKER_02: Right, he's called Max, but great, he doesn't need to be called Max, it could be called the boy.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: But there's something about the specific that allows us to to sort of um step into the world.
52:05
SPEAKER_02: It's it's a bit like if we're too analytical, if we're always one step removed looking at well, how do stories work and and what's the function of this and how is this protagonist engaged with the antagonist?
52:18
SPEAKER_02: But it all then becomes a little bit abstracted, and story actually requires us to uh to uh to capture the whole imagination and and to to draw people in.
52:31
SPEAKER_02: And specificity is really quite is is essential in that sense.
52:37
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the C.S.
52:38
SPEAKER_04: Lewis is um we you've mentioned him, let's let's open that door.
52:41
SPEAKER_04: Um in it's in myth become fact a wardrobe door.
52:45
SPEAKER_04: The what indeed let's go into the magical world.
52:49
SPEAKER_04: Um uh he he speaks in myth become fact about the the our experienced realities being concrete, we only experience a I think the quote is this man, this dog, don't isn't it?
53:02
SPEAKER_04: And we we experience in the concrete specific, as you say.
53:06
SPEAKER_04: Um, but then when we try and speak about realities, loving someone, friendship, very often we we're we're struggling to describe, to explain what that really is.
53:21
SPEAKER_04: And the only real way to do it is to tell a story, because we can't experience it and describe it at the same time.
53:29
SPEAKER_04: You can't analyze you can't in order to analyze, you have to stand outside something.
53:33
SPEAKER_02: It's brilliant.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: It's so brilliant.
53:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's just brilliant, isn't it?
53:38
SPEAKER_04: And and it reminds me of and what the pretty much one of the best tips I received at um at preach of about preaching um was from an actor, um from a storyteller.
53:48
SPEAKER_04: And and he he basically said, right, application.
53:50
SPEAKER_04: One, why is it that evangelicals are really rubbish at application so often?
53:54
SPEAKER_04: It's because we don't get specific enough.
53:57
SPEAKER_04: And it's not just that we don't get specific enough about this this passage is is applying to this specific sin in this way.
54:03
SPEAKER_04: No, we don't tell stories that are specific enough.
54:06
SPEAKER_04: He said, if you want me to apply a passage, apply something you've you've preached to me for 20 minutes, whatever it is, um, to my life, tell me a story of how someone else might do it.
54:17
SPEAKER_04: And I can go from the specific example of them to the more abstract reality to my life much more easily than just going from the abstract reality to my life.
54:28
SPEAKER_04: And I think that's the essence of it.
54:30
SPEAKER_02: No, that brilliant bit in Myth Became Fact when he says, I if only this toothache would go away, I could write a chapter on pain.
54:38
SPEAKER_02: But once the toothache's gone away, what do I know about pain?
54:42
SPEAKER_02: And you just think it's you absolutely it.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, uh the way that he describes myth as being as being the way that we have both personal experience of and an abstracted understanding of of reality uh is essential.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: But um yeah, I mean that that's obviously a great one to read.
55:01
SPEAKER_02: And that's what's so great about being a reform mythologist, is that there's so much to read about this.
55:06
SPEAKER_02: And you, the pair of you, Matt and Pete, you have put another book into my hands.
55:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, although I have actually held it.
55:13
SPEAKER_02: Have you held the copy of the book yet?
55:16
SPEAKER_04: No, I bring you to it.
55:19
SPEAKER_02: I was at You managed to receive a physical copy.
55:22
SPEAKER_02: I was at the Hotchmoot uh UK uh week ago, ten days ago, in Oxford, uh, with some guys from the Rabbit Room, which you can read all about.
55:32
SPEAKER_02: Andrew Peterson's already been mentioned in this uh this conversation.
55:37
SPEAKER_02: And um Caleb Woodbridge was there showing off his wares from the um Intervastity Press, and I said to him, Have you got a copy of that?
55:46
SPEAKER_02: And he he put into my hands this book, and I was like, Oh, I bet they haven't even touched it yet.
55:51
SPEAKER_02: So, reality and other stories, it has a concreteness to it.
55:56
SPEAKER_02: I've I've had it in my hands, it doesn't just exist in your imaginations.
56:01
SPEAKER_03: Another example of myth became fact.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: There it is, yeah.
56:04
SPEAKER_02: It has become incarnated.
56:07
SPEAKER_02: The scriptured word, yeah.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, guys, it's it's so much fun.
56:11
SPEAKER_02: And I once we stop this, I think we should chat for another couple of hours um about stories and storytelling and uh and the gospel and how all these things relate.
56:20
SPEAKER_02: Um when is the book out?
56:22
SPEAKER_02: Where where can we when will you be able to get hold of a copy of it?
56:26
SPEAKER_04: Release date is August the 18th.
56:28
SPEAKER_04: Um I think it'll be available from IVP, but then I guess it's available from uh wherever you like to buy books as well.
56:35
SPEAKER_04: Um yeah.
56:36
SPEAKER_02: Very good.
56:37
SPEAKER_02: And uh how about the two of you if people want to catch up with you, hear you talk about these things?
56:44
SPEAKER_02: Do they need to go to Ledbury in 2017 or are there opportunities to engage with the two of you um online or elsewhere?
56:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're both pretty easily uh Googlable.
56:58
SPEAKER_03: Uh both of us have uh um findable uh about enough names.
57:03
SPEAKER_04: You don't have the name surname Lilycrap without having that around your neck.
57:08
SPEAKER_02: Search engine optimization, I'm sure, was what your your great ancestors were thinking about.
57:14
SPEAKER_03: I'm still working with students.
57:16
SPEAKER_03: Uh I am based with UCCF um and now work out of Leeds, but across the UK.
57:25
SPEAKER_04: Um and I'm I'm now pastor of uh a small church on the east edge of Cambridge called Hope Community Church.
57:32
SPEAKER_04: Um uh yeah, Hope Community Church, Cambridge is is where we are.
57:37
SPEAKER_04: Um and but I as Pete said, um we're we're around on Twitter telling our atomized stories um uh and on Facebook and that sort of thing.
57:48
SPEAKER_04: Um and we we do often seek to try and interact on stuff like this.
57:51
SPEAKER_04: And then um I'm sure that there'll be other things coming in the future.
57:54
SPEAKER_04: I may well be at um at Word Alive next year doing something off the back of this.
57:59
SPEAKER_04: Um so it'd be really great to interact with people on this stuff because we need to uh as a constituency, I think, more and more.
58:06
SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
58:07
SPEAKER_02: Well, fabulous.
58:08
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you very much for your time, gentlemen, and uh thank you very much, uh, viewers or listeners, whether you're on the podcast or not.
58:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's been great to have you to dive into these issues, reality and other stories available from IVP uh in the middle of August.
58:24
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you could buy one for yourself and give one to a friend, as is the way with Christian books.
58:30
SPEAKER_02: Um, great, we'll catch you again another time.
58:32
SPEAKER_02: Thanks again, gentlemen.
58:34
SPEAKER_02: Cheerio.
58:34
SPEAKER_02: Bye-bye.
58:35
SPEAKER_04: Thanks, Dave.
58:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, there we go.
58:40
SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed that discussion.
58:42
SPEAKER_01: Just one thing to draw your attention to.
58:45
SPEAKER_01: I've mentioned it before, but on the 3rd of September, Oak Hill College is hosting two events exploring the meaning crisis, and they will be attended by our very own Glenn Scrivener.
58:58
SPEAKER_01: So the first event is at from 4 to 5:30 pm, and it's about meaning, trust, and truth with Glenn Scrivener, Christy Mare, and Paul Vandle.
59:09
SPEAKER_01: So that will be discussing the contours of reality.
59:12
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
59:14
SPEAKER_01: Gotta go to find out, I guess.
59:16
SPEAKER_01: And uh Christy Mare will be leading the seminar and opening up a discussion with Paul and the audience.
59:22
SPEAKER_01: She is a re research fellow and lecturer in philosophy, ethics and apologetics at Oak Hill.
59:29
SPEAKER_01: And then the second event is at 6.30 pm, 6.30 to 7.45, and it's about mission and the meaning crisis, and that will be with Tom Holland, who of course wrote the very uh well-known book Dominion, which we've talked about a lot on the Speak Life podcast.
59:46
SPEAKER_01: And Paul Vanderclay and Glenn Scrivener will also be part of that discussion.
59:51
SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's going to be a great event.
59:54
SPEAKER_01: You the first talk is free, but you need to reserve a place.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: The second one is for five pounds.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: And all the booking links can be found at speaklife.org.uk forward slash meaning.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: So it would be great to see as many of you there as possible.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_01: Really looking forward to it.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that's all from me.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Speak Life Podcast, and we will be back next week.