Latest / Thinking Class / #087 - Fr. Benedict Kiely - Why The Media Is Silent On The Global Persecution Of Christians

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#087 - Fr. Benedict Kiely - Why The Media Is Silent On The Global Persecution Of Christians · Thinking Class

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, classmates, and welcome to Thinking Class.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm John Gillam, and today I'm speaking with Father Benedict Guiley.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Father Benedict is a priest of the Anglican Ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: He administers aid and advocates on behalf of persecuted Christians in the Middle East and founded the charity Nazarean.org.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Father Benedict shares his mission and concept along with stories about the subsidiary nature of the support provided to small family businesses.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, Father Benedict and I think out loud about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Nigeria, the day-to-day struggles faced by Christians in predominantly Muslim countries, the nature of Christian persecution in Britain and what's behind it, why the media pays little attention to the massacres of Christians across the world, the future of Christian and Islamic relations in Britain, and whether adherents of the two faiths can live in peace, whether it is possible to be a Christian and a patriot, the impact of aggressive secularism on political life, the importance of hope and the role of faith in overcoming despair, and much, much more.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Before you begin to listen to this episode, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow the show on YouTube, your podcast platform Choice and Substack.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, John, for having me.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Father Benedict, I we're to have a very important conversation today as I see it, and it's one that doesn't typically find its way into mainstream media.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's certainly not given the attention that perhaps the impact or influence on other faiths is given, and that's the persecution of Christians at both home here in Britain and abroad.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you are um the founder and leader of the charity Nazarean, which I believe is the Arabic word for Christian, and perhaps we can understand a little bit about what that means.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: But before we start looking at the picture of the persecution of Christians worldwide and here at home, perhaps you can tell us why it exactly was that you decided you were going to advocate and educate people about Christian persecution throughout the world.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, funnily enough, since I was a boy, um way back in the 70s, uh I was always interested then, of course, in the persecution of the church behind the Iron Curtain.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I had an interest in um places like Ukraine, uh, Poland, obviously.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then I just went through my career as a priest, and I was based in Vermont in the United States, and I remember hearing back in 2015, uh, 2014, when ISIS was sweeping across Iraq and Syria, etc., that the the city of Mosul in Iraq, which is for those who know the Bible, Mosul is Nineveh, where Jonah preached, the tomb of Jonah is in Mosul.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, ISIS blew it up.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember hearing that there was no mass in Mosul, effectively for the first time in about 2,000 years, because Christians have been there for 2,000 years.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I I just was thinking how terrible this is, what can we do?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So those were the days where people were wearing those rubber bracelets advertising different things.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I just thought, well, I had a parishioner.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: We can make those rubber bracelets marked with the Arabic Nun, the N, which is uh in fact, it's somewhere behind I think I've oh I've got it right here.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna turn around and show you the view as what the Nun is.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: The the Arabic N, it looks like a uh a smiley face, but it's not with the one dot.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: The Arabic N for Nun, N-U-N, uh was marked by ISIS, but it's been marked by Islam for centuries of the non-believer, the Christian, stands for Nun Nazarani, Nazarani, Nazarean, um Christian.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And ISIS marked the houses of Christians, um, meaning a Christian lives here, leave, die, or convert.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen them with my own eyes in Iraq, on the walls of houses and churches.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, as I say, we we pr produced um little lapel pins and and just to support money went to house and feed Christians.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then as the couple I went to Iraq for the first time in 2015, when the place was full of refugees, IDPs who'd been driven out by ISIS.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: All the Christians had been driven out of the Nineveh plain.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And slowly but surely I felt that call, call within a call as a priest, to devote my priesthood to the persecuted church throughout the world, reminding Christians, Catholics, Christians, that this is so important.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then the charity was founded in 16, 2016, with two specific aims, very small, uh, just effectively me and some my good helpers in the background, but to uh aid and advocate.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So advocacy is me as a priest speaking, writing, talking, doing what we're doing, trying to get Christians to pray for their persecuted brethren, but to do something.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then aid is very specific.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: We many microfinance small family businesses to keep Christians in their countries.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, excuse me.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So they, for example, we uh somebody wants to start a little coffee shop in in in Iraq, one of the we give them the money, we don't loan, and small amounts, anything from sort of$3,000 to$10,000, maybe a bit more sometimes.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And now, thanks be to God, we're in six countries.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, six countries.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: We just started in Jordan, and literally it's supporting a business, a family business, anything.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: It can be a farm, it can be a taxi, it can to keep a Christian and his or her family.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a number of women run businesses to keep them in their ancient homelands, because when you have a job and a business, uh and you're working for yourself, you there's not much we can do about the security situation, but they stay and it gives them dignity.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just giving charity to do nothing.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it has been uh remarkably successful.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um quite a lot of businesses in Iraq and and now in Egypt, uh a few in Syria.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've been to Syria as well before Assad, before Assad fell, um and uh the other countries.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's just a joy to go there to see to see Christians um surviving and thriving.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: You you alluded to the security situation, not being able to do much about that, and you mentioned earlier on in your response that the N was used to mark the homes of uh Christians and that there were general demands placed upon them, uh get away or convert, or or worse.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: What does a day-to-day uh or day in the life of a Christian in these lands as a as a distinct minority look like?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: What is the security situation for them?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then of course it was terrible.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: They they were literally driven out.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: They they all left famously the night of August the 6th, the thousands and thousands in a convoy or from Nineveh to Erbil in in Iraqi Kurdistan.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a few stayed for a little bit longer, but the jizya, the the is ISIS demanded the the jizya, which is the tax, to in theory be allowed to stay and not die.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um the jizya was incredibly expensive.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't possible, so they all had to leave.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um now a number are back, a a good proportion, but not not um anything like the number before uh and across the Middle East.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: But this the thing to remember as well, John, is this happened long before ISIS.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: ISIS is just a name, especially since 2003, since the invasion, um sort of very appropriate at the moment that um that unleashed just just so many problems for Christians across the Middle East.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the day-to-day life, um, no one at the moment is being killed in Iraq, at the moment, although ISIS is re-emerging, particularly in Syria in a big way.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the day-to-day life for all Christians across the Middle East, wherever there's a Muslim majority, is just a fact, it's not being prejudiced, they're second-class citizens.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: For example, in Egypt, where I was just earlier this year, we've got some businesses now.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: The Christian population is the biggest in the Middle East, is at least 20%.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: But they are second-class citizens.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: They have always been second-class citizens.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can only rise to a certain rank in the military, etc., etc., etc.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and you'll they won't let you build churches, and you're always a second-class citizen.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so it in waves of persecution and waves of violence, um, which happens again in in Egypt, we just saw again in Syria just a few weeks ago, a whole mass slaughter in in a church in Damascus.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the lot of ordinary Christians.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: But the the amazing thing is for us Christians here, is these people, their faith is the most important thing to them.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I often wonder, would would we go to church on Sunday if the thought was we could easily be blown up?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they do.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and they were back in church the following Sunday in Damascus, and that's tremendously um encouraging for us believers who we'll get into it later uh about here, but we're we're we're pretty weak and pretty soft.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh when when, not if the persecution increases here, will we be uh will will we have the fortitude that they have?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's uh an open question and one that I think most people wouldn't uh have a positive answer to.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get there, Father Benedict, you were talking about the uh erasure of Christian heritage.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: You firstly the the blowing up of the tomb of Jonah, and then uh you haven't mentioned Egypt there, even with a minority of Christians, though a sizable one, 20% of the population.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um in the news recently, it was um it was shared that St.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Catherine's Monastery, the one of the oldest monasteries in the world, Coptic Christians having worshipped there for uh almost 2,000 years, uh and in uh an incredibly huge number of years, has um since been uh ordered by the state to to close and it's now going to become a museum.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is this a a theme that recurs throughout uh places where there's a Muslim majority that that is an erasure of what came before?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's a policy the the the case in Egypt at St.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Catharines is very complicated and there are different views, but it does seem that yes, the government has claimed it as a they want to claim it as a museum owned by the state, but they'll allow them, allow the monks to live there, who have, as you said, lived there for at least 1,500 years.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's very it's very tricky.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, the the building of churches, for example, I went to a a village near Alexandria, and they've been trying to build their church for for years, and they don't get permissions, and uh there is actually a very large police van and a fire engine parked outside because the dangers they'll get attacked at night or something.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that there's one example I could use about the erasure, which is a good word.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's a policy of uh of denial.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a bit in fact what's happening also now in in Armenia in Artsak.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I was in Iraq one time we got to a village called Karamlesh, which is not far from Mosul.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, the Allied bombing was going on at the time.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: We could hear the the the bombing.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: But the priest had just got back, just got back into the village.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: ISIS had had burnt the church, they'd shot the altar, they'd smashed the statues.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the interesting thing was they had also gone into the graveyards and dug up the bodies of the Christians.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: They literally had dug up and thrown them away.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the point was to say effectively, well, Christians were never here, Christians didn't exist.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And this is exactly what the Azerbaijanis are doing in Artsakh, which they've taken from Armenia, the oldest Christian country in the world since the third century.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: They're destroying crosses, they're destroying churches.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh apparently they've literally just turned one ancient church into a mosque to pretend that no Christians were never.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's a denial of history, a denial of facts, uh, which is which is very, very dangerous and very worrying.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's bring the conversation closer to home.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we've alluded to uh Britain.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Britain is undergoing uh uh a demographic change which is likely unparalleled in in history, particularly at this scale and pace.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there are now, I think, 10% of the country um or 7% of the country are Muslim.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we are starting to see um the increasing presence of Islam in public life, whether it's the uh the the Eid lights that are being uh put around London by Sadiq Khan, there are also conversations uh which seem to be gathering pace day to day of the um the institution of um an is Islamophobia law here in in Britain.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think it's fair to say that there are increasing levels of um combativeness going on in parliament between independent MPs uh that are typically pro-Gaza and those who are either broadly allied with them um or against them, and there is even talk of um Halal and all the rest of it being um under the spotlight.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there is certainly some conflict going on here between Islam and Britain.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what does the the state of civic relations here look like?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And can you find examples of persecution of Christians here in Britain?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think most people would not consider it to be on a par with the Middle East, Nigeria, for example.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that would be um absurd, in fact.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I again, I one time I was in Iraq early on when the when the um all the IDPs, as they're called, internally displaced persons, were in the refugee camps, and I was talking to a priest from Mosul uh who said, he said to me, My my church, my 800-year-old church, uh has been taken over as a torture center by ISIS.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: My house has been stolen by my neighbors.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then I said to him sort of rather stupidly, I said, Well, Father, you know, we're getting persecution in in England and the West as well.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You haven't had your head cut off.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a kind of a point.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: However, what we are seeing across Europe, this is not just Britain, although it does seem to be uh almost the worst in Britain now, although you know we just saw in in Brussels some incidents, and we think of again, perhaps a lot of um listeners and viewers don't know the case of Paive Ryson, the the Finnish MP Paive is was a member of the Finnish Parliament, a minister, and she tweeted uh a Bible verse and and she objected to pride um as a right of free speech, quoting the Bible, and she's been tried, she's on her third trial uh for free speech.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Effectively, if she was found guilty, it would mean the Bible would be considered a hate speech, a book.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um so people call her the the canary and the coal mine for for free speech in Europe, but Britain is increasingly, and it's often by the state, the organs of the state, to it's across the board, it's free speech, which is critical.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have the right.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Christians are very um I'm not s we're not gonna say are easily offended because we're attacked all the time, but it has it's to be expected that uh Christianity will be attacked and rudely and vilely, perhaps.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: We just have to bear that.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's very interesting how any kind of criticism of Islam uh a and not a vile and unpleasant criticism, just factual criticisms of Islam seems to be almost verboten now and will perhaps be.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's uh some kind of Islamophobia law coming in.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: We have Christian street preachers, these are not anecdotal, again, these are facts.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Christian street preachers are uh arrested, uh cases of the nurses who wear crosses, being told you can't wear the cross.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I haven't seen a case, I may be wrong, of for example, a Muslim being told you can't wear the crescent moon, or uh it just doesn't happen.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not Christians sort of whining and being, we're a minority.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's also a fact which perhaps some of the clergy, maybe the bishops, don't quite realize that we are a minority of a minority now.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but we have rights, and Britain, England is the is really the home of free speech and democracy, and that is being eroded, there is no doubt.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And Christianity, while it's still in theory the official religion of this country, and we have a veneer of Christianity.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: If a tourist comes here, they look at the cathedrals and think the king is the head of the Church of England, and but the reality is it it's A, it's a very secular state now, and I I really speak of England more than more than Britain, but it's a very secular country.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but in that secular country, as we know, I think Pope Benedict once said um uh about a vacuum, and we know nature causes a vacuum.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: When there's a vacuum of spirituality and of faith, something will fill it, either aggressive secularism, or if a new religion is growing, um that also gets more and more power, and Islam, uh quite aggressive Islam, is growing in this country, and Christians can work with Muslims on many things, for example, on some certain family issues, etc.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we can I've always said we can live in peace with Islam.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: The question is, can Islam live in peace with us?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and this is all to do again with um not just tolerate tolerance and toleration, it's to do with integration.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there are a lot of questions, but the situation for what I call Orthodox Christians, small O, Bible-believing Christians, etc., uh is getting tougher.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked a little about why persecution of Christians doesn't really make the columnches.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and there are some pretty shocking examples of not just persecution but widespread massacres.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think in Nigeria almost daily uh we're talking about hundreds of people who can be massacred in one go.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I I don't want to make up a number, but we're talking tens of thousands in uh a few decades of Christians that have been massacred, and as you've mentioned, we're we're talking about uh public beheadings and rapes and um the the ransacking of villages um uh unless people forcibly choose to be converted.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um why don't you think or why do you think the the media doesn't attend to these issues in the same way apart from secularism?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well it's an aggressive secular the media without tarring them all with the same brush, but media academia, etcetera, is now across the West, particularly um Europe and here, is is is is secular.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's Christianity, I think it's probably one of the main causes is Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, uh in terms of sexual ethics, seems to be against very much against the Zeitgeist, and so it's opposed.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Nigeria, I'm glad you brought up Nigeria, though.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is just not on the map.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at least between three and four thousand Christians are being uh massacred every year now in Nigeria.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this just this would be this should be non-stop news.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I, for example, I'm waiting uh for um Kemi Badenok to say something.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: She was born in Nigeria, she has a Nigerian background, but I I may be wrong again, but I haven't heard her making a big issue of this.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is uh uh a genocide.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's that is the word to use.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: There is an attempt to really wipe Christians out in Nigeria.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the media, I think, as I said, there are various reasons.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: There there are some stories, absurd stories that what's happening in Nigeria is to do with climate change, because um some of these so-called Falani herdsmen are uh who are all Muslims are driving Christians out allegedly because climate change means they have to move their flocks.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well you don't have to kill a village and uh because of climate change.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact I was with a couple of years ago you might remember I think it was only two or three years ago on Pentecost Sunday about 40 plus Catholics were martyred at Mass, all shot at mass and the president of Ireland, the current president uh diminutive little fellow Mr Michael Higgins uh in his letter of condolence alleged that climate change was part of the issue and I actually was with at a conference with the bishop of that diocese in Nigeria and he his eyes were flaming and and he said uh he got to his church about two or three hours after and was was walking in blood of his parishioners he said my people were not killed because of climate change they were killed because they were Christians and for some reason multiple reasons uh the media does not want to highlight I I had a journalist once a very high um qualified journalist for a major network US network very friendly to me we had a chat and then we started to talk about Syria and Iraq Syria was still controlled by Assad Iraq of course had been controlled by Saddam and she literally her face changed and she said they deserve what they get because oh the strong men looked after them in theory.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well they were they were secular states so yes the strong men did but they killed some of them as well but that atmosphere of they d deserve what they get is extraordinary.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I I know that um it is common to speak of um uh anti-Semitism as being the world's oldest hatred and that's a a separate conversation and one that is absolutely valid but uh given that we're focusing on the Christian question I often try to grapple with the reasons that it seems to find itself in the crosshairs of its enemies with regards to Islam it it makes sense Islam considers itself to be the one true religion the Quran and uh Eid and all the rest of it is effectively the the culmination of um universal truth and everything else that went before it was a lead up to to that perfection and so they believe theologically that it's supreme and so that makes sense for them whilst why they would go after Christians because Christians are in the eyes of them uh inferior infidels and not to be treated in the same way.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to do too much working out as to why that might happen.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: But with regards to secularism and you're you're a a priest who's followed his vocation um and I I would be interested to hear what you make of the notion that is Christianity in the crosshairs of those who are secular because it's almost too high an ideal for people to follow that it's it's the ultimate judgment on a person's conscience and character because it calls you to be more every day and it calls you to recognize your own faults and sins and imperfections every day.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And people are just too proud to want to deal with that and have these people who are trying to uh straighten the themselves the the the crooked wood as it were um there as a as a sign of their own inferiority and I and I don't say that through my own supposed superiority but it just seems to me that Christians get a seriously raw deal and people want to dismiss it and disminish it uh diminish it but clearly it's bequeathed so much to the world in terms of human dignity regardless of faith and it feels like people are quite willing to turn a blind eye to that take the fruits as they think but basically get rid of all the annoying Christians at the same time because it it it puts a mirror on them they they're not willing to look into what what are your thoughts on that?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well yes um what you're saying partly is of course the the theory the central theory of Tom Holland's book Dominion that all or all these so-called values I always it's always I find it interesting whenever they talk about European values or British values whenever there's a terrorist attack we they say the politicians say well we won't let this destroy our values well what are our values if it's just tolerance that's nothing do we tolerate a mass murderer um the values are essentially Christian that's Tom Holland's point secularists don't uh um want to acknowledge that it's it's a very deep question part of what you say I think is correct perhaps in the past sometimes Christians have have uh imposed Pope John Paul St.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: John Paul used to say beautifully Christianity now Catholicism proposes it doesn't impose so yes we propose the highest ideal the greatest ideal for humanity of what we're called to that we can be great um but there is uh there's a there is a peculiar hatred of Christianity um as I said earlier about for example sexual ethics people obviously feel we have we're bigots we've got no right to tell people how to live all this kind of thing um partly of those well it's it's it's I'm thinking for example of the European constitution remember that great debate when when Christianity was was removed the the the foundation of Europe uh was not mentioned um a denial of history once again a delight denial of reality um I'm thinking of our for our readers and um our viewers who read their Bibles well that passage in the letter of St.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: James when he talks about looking in the mirror and walking away and forgetting what we look like there's an essence of that about this who are we as people well can we live I think T.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: S.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Eliot said I'll I'll paraphrase him badly but something like obviously writing probably in the 30s or 40s he said that there's an F an attempt to live without these foundational values um and he said it it will fail but we have to somehow live through this moment and this has obviously increased massively now to to that's why I talked about a veneer sometimes Britain can look a bit like a stage set with the cathedrals and but if you sort of look behind it there's nothing there.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's empty um even though there's a little bit of a religious revival which is also very interesting um but secularism itself as an ideology is almost we could go the way all the way back to the Roman Empire that you can't have two gods.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to serve the emperor and if now the emperor is the secular state in all its ways including controlling family life including controlling education which is not the business of the state to control education of your children completely or you bow to the true God and live in a plural state we're not talking about a theocracy or these are always thrown at us again we we want to be oh you're the Christian ayatullahs or something.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a place for that freedom of religion which I would also give to Islam within those parameters of living in that plural state um so that but I think the secular states attempt it's a once again Bible verses Jesus said house built on sand has no foundations and when the wind and the rain come it will fall and what a fall a house built on rock will survive.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus wasn't uh well he was the divine architect but um it's just a fact that you can't this building built on sand will one day collapse and it will be a mighty fall dear classmate John here this isn't an advert so you don't need to reach for the skip button.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you're enjoying the show then show your support by liking subscribing and sharing on whichever device or platform you are watching or listening to Thinking Class on.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can find me in the show on YouTube at Thinking Class.
• 30:52
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• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can also follow me on X at Thinking Classes.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening thanks for sharing thanks for showing your support enjoy the rest of the show classmate you raised some interesting points there as you referenced the the European Union talking or at least when it was instituting the um the constitution for uh the EU and it reminded me um of walking the Camino de Santiago with my fiancee very soon to be wife um and we uh what I noticed along the way on the signs uh which had the uh the scallop shell that was uh that um uh is synonymous with St.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: James was that beneath each of those signs it was something along the lines of this has been brought to you by or this has been gifted by the Cultural and Historic Association of the European Union.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh almost nowhere did it even really reference the Christian story nor the fact that that pilgrimage network going all the way to Santiago which spreads all the way through the Iberian Peninsula all the way through France to the Low Countries to northern Italy to Switzerland to beyond Poland I think even you could join on to it this is you could it it's clear to anyone who even looks at it for two seconds that it was it was this faith and it was the the institution uh based in Rome itself that was was building anything that we could say was was Europe.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there is this um uh a total uh it's an erasure it's in a different way it's not the same as the Islamic erasure but it's almost like an institutional laundering look what we give you but uh you know you're just you're you're just parasiting off it in some way and and another point as you were talking and and thinking about that erasure I I just saw a clip um from a conference which Eric Kaufman at the University of Buckingham had arranged at the Centre of Heterox Social Science and he had Matt Goodwin speaking about the changing demographics the changing uh religious makeup and what that might mean and how it's it's having a serious impact on identity uh and some some of Britain's citizens are not integrating very well and another speaker there who writes for the Free Press which is a Barry Weiss um run publication she's called Batya Ungar Sargon um I didn't know actually that she might have uh been from a Muslim background but she she's Jewish oh she's Jewish is she's Jewish yeah very very interesting which is interesting which is interesting yeah she I I I I've met her once she's she's a very very interesting lady but I know I know the carry on but I know the clip you took I literally saw it this morning as well yeah yeah same so so she effectively told Matt that Goodwin that he was um he was effectively being inflammatory and dismissive and there's no way to talk about citizens of a country because the West is built on Judeo Christian and Muslim yeah values.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now that is interesting I don't I've never heard that combination before and I'm not entirely sure now I know she's a Jewish woman why she would launder that in but I I just can't see even the most uneducated person about these matters finding that believable at all or why she thought that was appropriate.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's very peculiar I I I've as I said I've met her once I've heard her speak I I like her a lot.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think she says some very very interesting stuff she's sort of um on economics and things she's she she's really pulled the the fact that the Republicans now are the party of the working class in America and she's been but that was that's very odd um and not true because yeah you could say well some of the West just built on uh Islam because it was the conquest of Islam um but no that that's peculiar and I think perhaps sometimes that's an American um issue of not living under what we're Islam is quite well integrated in in many ways and I was talking to someone about this yesterday that there aren't the sort of cities which are completely almost completely majority Muslim and um we're almost we're um not what's it called Sharia law is in place.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah I th I think that's rather peculiar it it's yeah I don't I don't have an answer of why she brought that up it's it's it's peculiar.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah so I think I think I uh I brought it up because it it felt like if that somehow gets traction it's another path down towards erasure or as you were talking about earlier on a changing or a dismissal of historical facts.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well it's a denial it's sorry to interrupt John it's it's just not not just this is the thing it's erasure but it's it's deliberate like you said about the Camino it's one sounds you can get very conspiracy theory ish but but I think it's it's a denial denial of reality a deliberate denial of reality it it's a pretense that at some point there'll be some well unfortunately it is happening in some cathedrals when crazy golf and and helte skelters and things are put in there.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: What what what what were these buildings created for?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: They had only one purpose uh which are w is and was the worship of the the true God the Christian God they weren't mosques uh they they're not synagogues but there'll be a point where they are and they are in many ways museums when you when you go into a cathedral Catholic or or Anglican yeah people are wandering in as tourists um we could be walking into a Shinto temple in Japan with the same attitude um to be positive though I think perhaps it's good to have a little bit of a positivity as well or optimism not optimism perhaps hope is better it's a theological virtue um there is this seeming revival small but that is also very interesting that that the the major I I think the clergy or particularly bishops leaders in the church who are still many of them the boomers and and people educated in the 70s 60s 70s 80s um are are not picking up the fact that for an average English person again I will speak only of England for an a young person in England let's say under 30 35 or whatever they really have no concept of of Christianity basic concepts so in some ways they're um there's a lot of talk of inoculation and immunity and in many ways they're ready to be infected by Christianity because it it's it's a new i the concepts are new and when you look at uh Western society we hear of this tragedy the the loneliness and the young people's suicides and um when Christians offer back to our earlier part of our conversation when we propose a vision of what it means to be a human of what it means to be a man and a woman which apparently is controversial now to say that there are such things and and there's no other such thing um when we call people to the highest ideal knowing that we're weak and sinners and failures but also Christianity is the great religion of offering hope to people who fail and fall, letting them get up again the religion of the second chance, the third chance, the fifth chance um when we offer that to people who've had no exposure to that it's not surprising that apparently the churches are seeing Orthodox churches are seeing quite significant numbers of young people men and women coming into into the church across Europe last year in apparently this no this Easter apparently they said there were 10,000 baptisms in France secular France that's extraordinary so something is happening.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's good the Holy Spirit is is um is working in peculiar ways sometimes though the church is the last to realise that he he's working I wonder what might be behind this um besides the uh people being drawn in by the Christian faith for all of its mysteries and obviously the the majesty of God could could it also be down to the quite rapid changing demographics we've seen where people are now starting to see civilizationally culturally that things are changing to a place they don't like and it's and it's almost forced them to introspect into what this place is that they ever valued and perhaps they took for granted growing up and that actually anything good that is received needs to be maintained and enhanced and lived and it can't just be talked about and as a as an abstract ideal.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether you're seeing that within your own vocation uh people coming to you for these reasons.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well the the church I help out when I'm not traveling and doing that this ministry the church I help out with sometimes in Kent is seeing that thanks be to God that families coming especially young families coming um who are it's an ordinariat parish I'm a priest of the ordinariat so ex-Anglicans who became Catholics so we have the liturgy is the is is a traditional liturgy in in English but Cranmer in English etc so people are coming for that for Orthodox preaching etc so no it's it's very encouraging.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I obviously it's small but I think as I said if if if the the demographic thing is a good point you obviously have to be a thinker though to be perhaps the the ordinary person day to day I think COVID also showed that um we can get into very deep stuff but unfortunately I think COVID showed that if give people give people their Siggies and their beer and and and sort of some sort of entertainment bit brave new worldish but they're kind of okay with it suddenly all their freedoms are gone.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose for a lot of people that's the same case that that well again I'll give you a very silly story but it's illustrative in a one for a brief time very brief time before I was a priest I've been a priest 30 years but for a very brief time I drove a double decker bus in London just to sort of get some um uh that kind of experience uh and I remember I was just happy it sounds very pretentious but I happened to be reading a book in the in the um we had to just wait in the in the garage to be assigned which bus we were going to drive uh in Shepherd's bush and I remember a chap I was training with he he said what's that book you're reading I said well oh it's about philosophy he said what's philosophy of course I should have said there you are you're a philosopher but um I said you know it's about the meaning of life and all that kind of stuff and he sort of paused for a second and and then he said he said I'm not really interested in all of that he said I like fishing.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: I said well okay but that's kind of probably for a lot of people that's that's reality but for people who are really thinking especially those moments in life when God breaks through either a death or a or a birth a baby um people do think sometimes what's it all about and if the answer is all around us well aggressive Islam uh which is changing the nature of this country or aggressive secularism which is an empty vessel a booming gong um Christianity proposed beautifully beauty truth and goodness should draw people like like um bees to to pollen it should just just draw them uh if the church uh wakes up and is aware of this and it is obviously in certain places but as I said across across the board it's not giving people sort of a watered down version of secularism is is is absolutely doomed to failure let's let's dive into um identities is probably the strong word uh uh the wrong word let let's start talking a little bit about um whether it's possible to both be a Christian and a patriot I I use patriot instead of nationalist because it it has been utterly tarnished as a word but I think it is still useful.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll start off with a A brief um story about uh a chap who was once in a think tank uh in Washington, DC.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: He then got bored with the circular conversations and he started to write some very influential substacks under a pseudonym N.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: S.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: Lyons.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I know him.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's a good guy, he's a very good guy.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Convert to orthodoxy now.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which I believe happened during the process of writing these substacks about the state of the world, managerial technocracy, globalism, all of these things.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he um did an interview with Freddie Sayers at Unheard, and within that, uh very interesting interview, Freddie Sayers said, Are you a Christian?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Yes.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Are you a nationalist?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Yes.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, Are you a Christian nationalist?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: And trying to trap him.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was trying to trap him somewhat, and uh he he managed to um uh to to push that one back because in America in particular that has quite um quite bad connotations.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say that it is deemed amongst Christians and non-Christians alike to be rather uncouth to be a Christian and a patriot in some way.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I I know a lot of work is done on passages like there is no Jew or Gentile, and that we should welcome the stranger.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea of a Christian uh worldview married with a nationalist one in some way is seen as being totally counter to one another.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think, Father Benedict?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is that something that can coexist and that uh the Christian faith accommodates?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is this is when we get cancelled and and and get all kinds of horrible comments that they probably already get plenty of horrible comments, but of course.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: Do we do you love your family?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh do we all belong to one yes, we belong to the family of man, of humanity, but but we are uh we're incarnated beings.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the argument I would use, because I did give a talk at a conference about can you be a Catholic and a and a and a uh conservative nationalist?
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and the answer is yes, is um there's a great book called The English Way, published I think in the 30s, uh, by Maisie Ward, who was Chesterton's biographer, um uh using different great saints and figures from our history, our 2000 almost year history of Christianity in Britain.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things though, Maisie Ward said in her introduction was uh because Christianity, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity is sacramental, it takes on a shape and a form in different places.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Spanish, old-fashioned Spanish Catholicism is not like English Catholicism or German Catholicism.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh even now, when it's all a bit more of a mishmash, uh it's different.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so, of course, the love of our country, our nation.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: Some people could say, well, nations are a consequence of the fall and the Tower of Babel, and but even if it is, it's not perfect.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: We don't there the the there's never such a thing as my country um right or wrong.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: That then goes into a dangerous territory.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, Chesterton also said um a true patriot uh can criticize his country.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: He said uh the opposite of a patriot is a courtesan, someone who just uh accepts whatever it is and to advance.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, no, we can love our country, we can have the church has always taught we have a right to uh borders, proper control borders.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that doesn't disallow welcoming uh um not welcoming all uh but welcoming those in need, uh true refugees, etc.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, sorry, long sort of answer to to the answer is yes, um precisely because it's the way we're incarnated.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: Racism has nothing to do actually with nationalism or patriotism.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: Racism is absurd.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've for example, of course, someone born in this country, whatever the colour of their skin or whatever, if they are born in this country and loyal to this country, they are a citizen and a member of this country.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Back to where we were going earlier, though.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you propose a kind of a different system for the country which you're born into, let's say Sharia law, there's a problem.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I would agree with that, and I uh it is uh it's quite staggering that uh somehow the national conversation hasn't quite gotten there with regards to um people within the country proposing systems totally counter to anathema to the inheritance that they have received, and done in the spirit, in some respects, of um conquest or at least uh attaining uh a kind of power and influence for whatever their preferred worldview is.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think it is a fair conversation to be had uh around what that means for the nature of citizenship if people are not willing to have pre-political, pre-religious allegiances to here, the people.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: But if that's oppressed, John, which is what is is in many ways being proposed, this is why it's so dangerous.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because we can have that conversation and rightly uh challenge um Islam or or a Christian's uh can you live within this system happily?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: If the answer is yes, no problem.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're not allowed to have that conversation in itself, because it's a phobia, well, phobia, of course, is an irrational fear.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: You might have a very rational fear.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the opposite, apparently, the uh word I've only seen recently appearing is Islamophilia.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and the French, of course, have this thing, uh, Islamo-Gauchism, the marriage of the left and Islam.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but once again, if we're being historical and truthful and factual, Islam is a religion of conquest.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: Of course it is.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a religion that believes, as you said at the beginning, it's it's the truth, the absolute truth, the final revelation, as they call him the Prophet Muhammad, is the last of the prophets.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: They do accept Jesus as a prophet and have a reverence for him and for Mary.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: However, the religion is spread, uh, and very interesting that word re- I I I hadn't picked that up until I heard it, someone actually use it.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um people re they don't convert to Islam, they revert, apparently.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Even so you, if we uh either of us became uh Muslims, the a Muslim would say, yeah, he reverted.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we're all actually Muslims, apparently, but we just don't realize it.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, once again, that's also a problem um that we have to say uh we can't you can't spread that you can try and convert.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: Got nothing wrong with Muslim preaching either, if it's again, not preaching to go out and kill people, whatever, but convert by word and thought and uh and even good action, but not by force and not suppressing other not suppressing any criticisms.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen uh for example of um you know any criticism of Muhammad, um, as I said at the beginning, think of how Christianity has been uh abused over the years.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's fashionable, in fact, because no comedian will tell a joke about Islam.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh think of that poor um teacher up in in in Yorkshire who's still in hiding four years later.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is and in France a teacher was beheaded for criticizing Islam.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is unacceptable, and we should be everyone of good faith should should be speaking out against that.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: But there's either that uh principally fear, principally fear, um, but then that strange, peculiar marriage of of uh Islam or Gushis of the the left or liberal left and and and Islam, which um uh useful idiots, uh very useful idiots, unfortunately.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're useful for them, uh but also I think they don't realize what Islam actually does think of them, really, deep down.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: They'll discover.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here here, and I think as a footnote to that, is I think there's also uh a group of people, uh, and maybe it exists in many people's heads who see that things aren't quite right, um, that they just there's an optimism that everything will turn out okay in the end.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I given that there's there's quite a lot of despair around and a lot of black pilling from people who don't necessarily share that optimism, um, it brings to mind um uh a quote, uh and I can't remember his first name, but he's called Bonanos, and he's been George Banalos, yeah.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: There you go, the French author, yeah.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and and the the quote is optimism is the false hope of cowards and fools, which speaks to the fear bit you were talking about.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then he said, true hope is despair overcome.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I have certainly been a black pillar in some respects, but I see that it does no good.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so in I do retain that Christian virtue of of hope, but with hope, as you are doing in your ministry, it requires action, it requires getting your hands dirty.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's something that I have to tell myself every day that you can't just live in this world of abstract ideals and and and talking about things uh alone, because that in itself becomes a kind of optimism that that might be enough.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I I am I'm hopeful that we can we can find our way and I'll I will I will try to do whatever small part I can to influence the small corner of the world I I inhabit.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I'm certainly very, very grateful for you, Father Benedict, going out and doing what it is that you do.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's incredibly important.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the more that we can raise uh awareness of this, I think people will realize that things aren't uh as they seem because they just don't see it in the in the papers and wherever else they get their news.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um so thank you, Father Benedict.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: But before I let you go, I want to ask one question that I ask all of my guests, which I planted at the very start before we pressed record.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and that is what have you changed your mind on during the course of your life?
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it was something that was an absolute, maybe it wasn't, maybe it was something a bit more trifling.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what was it that made you think differently?
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first, thank you, John, for having me and what you said.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's not really the answer to the question, but it is something one changes one's mind upon that ultimately it is about um small things.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: Small is beautiful, and we're only we do what we do, uh, we leave the rest up to God, we do the best we can do.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: That is probably something I I've changed my mind upon, uh, realizing that you answer your vocation, we each one of us has a unique vocation in some way, shape, or form.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: We live that to the best of our ability, and the rest is up to God.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and even if it all collapses and falls, we've done what we should should do.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: We have to live perhaps um well, I can finish with just a recent experience that I was just in Kazakhstan, which is amazing.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: We we put a shrine in to pray for the persecuted.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Kazakhstan was a giant gulag.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: Stalin sent millions of people from all over the Soviet Empire to Kazakhstan.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh I was with Bishop Schneider, who was actually a child of the gulags.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: He grew up in a gulag and baptized by by an underground priest, and um, and I said to him, Bishop, what was it like growing up in the underground church?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he said it was the greatest experience of my life.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um so when the faith is when the faith is weak and flabby, and and I've I happily admit that for much of my life it was it's been very easy to be um a Christian or Catholic um without much challenge.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: But the more it gets challenged, one is is hopefully trying to become a better person, failing and falling, but um realizing what's important.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: But with with what you said, with w the the thing we've all if we're all we're all tempted sometimes, often to to head towards the um uh having every silver lining having a cloud, we've got to we've got to stay on to hope that it's the the chur um ch uh Tolkien called the long defeat.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we've won.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Christ has won, Christ is the cross is behind me, Christ has conquered sin and death, uh the resurrection is now.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's perhaps something that's happened to me most perhaps in recent years is that realization of the resurrection is not high in the sky when you die, the resurrection is now.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_01: We live uh as especially sacramental Christians, we live uh in touch with the divine on a daily basis to be fed.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Bishop Schneider actually said as the Eucharist, he said, the Eucharist was became so important to me to to know that we have Christ, we can touch Christ and receive Christ.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's what we've got to hold on to in the midst of um whatever whatever comes.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Father Benedict, thank you for that.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: Keep fighting the good fight.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: And in case my viewers would like to check out where your work, your writings, anywhere they can find speeches, what what dark corners of the internet do you inhabit?
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the best is to go for our work is nazarean.org, but it's it's important for the spelling.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's N A S A R E A N, N-A-S-A-R-E-N-A-N.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you'll find most of that sort of stuff there and um usually articles and things, but also just the work.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the best place.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I do recommend everyone check it out and donate if you can.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Father Bunnard, I hope we get to continue this conversation.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: I dare say there's there's there's quite a lot more that we can get into, but thank you very much for coming and we will speak again in the future.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, John.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: To keep up to date with all that I am doing, please subscribe to the Thinking Class YouTube channel at Thinking Class and follow me on X at Thinking Classes.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking Class seeks to understand the civilizational issues we face and why what our leaders do in response matters.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: Here I seek to explore the ideas, values, and culture that made our civilization, those that are unmaking it, and how leaders at our public and private institutions should respond.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: Engage with me on YouTube or X or write to me at thinkingclasspod at gmail.com to tell me who you want me to speak to and what topics are important to you.
• 59:16
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