Latest / Thinking Class / #091 - Fergus Butler-Gallie - Christianity’s Contradictions: Faith, Power and the Survival of the Church

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#091 - Fergus Butler-Gallie - Christianity’s Contradictions: Faith, Power and the Survival of the Church · 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 to Reverend Fergus Butler Galley.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Fergus is a writer and priest who has ministered in parishes in Liverpool and central London.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: He grew up amidst a large family of maniacs, was then educated at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and has spent time living and working in the Czech Republic and South Africa.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's the author of Touching Cloth, the best-selling Times and Mail on Sunday Book of the Year, A Field Guide to the English Clergy, and the Spectator Book of the Year Priests de la Resistance, and now Twelve Churches, an unlikely history of the buildings that made Christianity.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fergus speaks regularly on the radio, has written numerous articles for The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Church Times, The Critic, and The Fence, and he won the 2022 P.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: G.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wodehouse Essay Prize.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: He is currently Vicar of Charlbury in Oxfordshire, England.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, Fergus and I think out loud about his latest book, Twelve Churches.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: We explore the paradoxes inherent in Christianity and how significant historical events such as the Salem witch trials illustrate these.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about the role of power in Christianity exemplified by the Hagia Sophia in modern-day Istanbul, the Church's involvement in the abolition of slavery, why managerialism has nearly killed the Church of England, but hasn't yet, and why it needs to be rooted out once and for all, and how Fergus became a vicar after being an unbeliever in his teenage years and much, much more.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: We go to some far-flung places, Rome, Constantinople, now Istanbul.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: We go to Salem, we go to Zanzibar.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Great conversation, great book.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Check out Fergus Online, and make sure to like, subscribe, and follow Thinking Class on YouTube, your podcast platform of choice, and Substack.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's grow Thinking Class together.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the show, classmates.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's lovely to be here speaking to you.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it is lovely to have you in my digital ethereal realm.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, for those not watching, you'll see that uh Fergus is a reverend, uh, or you won't see that because you're not watching.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and you are you tend to have a flock in Oxfordshire in England, but you've gone and written a book called Twelve Churches, which is somewhat of a people's history of the Christian faith.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: How did you uh go about choosing those 12 churches and what drove you to write that book, Fergus?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh it it the the choice of the 12 was was not easy, but but I but it's that you know I had to sort of hit certain points, you know.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: If it's going to be a history of Christianity, it's got to be global.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it can't just be the 12 closest churches to me, convenient though that would have been for travel.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's got to represent a variety of denominations.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there are uh hundreds of thousands of different denominations of Christianity across the world, and it would need to represent that.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So um, and I wanted each one to represent a sort of particular theme, be that sort of uh the the question of Christianity and justice, or Christianity and profit, Christianity and hope, Christianity and beauty, uh, Christianity and violence.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So so once I had those parameters in place, choosing them sort of became a bit of a kind of game of uh Tetris.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Everything had to fit in, and in the end it did.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um what motivated me is a bit more of a complicated question, because at the time I I I would have probably just said when I was first writing, oh well, I've always been interested in stories and place and the way that specific places contain specific stories, how people shape place, how place shapes people, and vice versa.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: The more I think about it, I actually think that was a lot of the specific desire to talk about the importance of religious space and gathered space came from a kind of in some ways a reaction to the fact that, you know, I began writing this in 2021-22, where obviously we'd lost a lot of our public space.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the concept of the third space between work and home had essentially been abolished by the COVID lockdowns.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we're still sort of emerging, I think, into a question about what public space looks like, uh, particularly after having sacrificed it, and also after, you know, in the context of a of a thoroughly digital age, um, where much of that third space happens online.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess actually, in retrospect, what was really driving me was wanting to make an apologia, a defense of an argument for the absolute importance of Christianity of gathered physical space across uh continents, across generations, etc.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: etc.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's think about some of the representations of Christianity across the globe, which you've and uh you uh you've captured with your choices.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there are a few big hitters in there, as you'd expect.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: St.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's in Rome, Hadji Sophia and in Istanbul, and we can come on to those.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but let's start at the beginning.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: You you chose in chapter one, and we won't go through all 12 churches.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to buy your book.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: In in chapter one, uh you you bring up the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Bethlehem and explore its roots.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: You uh you talk about the famous people, uh the dignitaries and the lowly who visited it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh a very brief quote from that chapter before you can tell us more about the church itself, is its smallness and troubled history with the hope and magnitude of the message imparted there has shaped Christianity in ways beyond all telling.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also had a long, circuitous, tumultuous history.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps you can tell us, besides the birth of Christ taking place there, its significance to the people, to the faith.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, uh, in some ways you've got to start at Bethlehem, haven't you?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's sort of the the obvious starting place.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's actually a strong argument for saying, well, Nazareth or Jerusalem, but I think the story of the nativity is one that is so evocative across generations.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And specifically, I think, is really important for all of the questions that then get raised later on in the book and get raised in Christianity more generally, because what you have at Bethlehem is what we call within Christianity the scandal of particularity.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: The idea that that God is not um this sort of distant figure, not a kind of man on a cloud, isn't a philosophical um you know theory, isn't uh a mathematical particle or theorem.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um God becomes flesh in a specific place at a specific time in the form of Christ.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's really critical because fundamentally that then makes each place it it says that that the particular matters, the here and now matters, human relationships matter.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: These are not just things that are good because they help lead us to God, they are the things that God has made holy in and of himself.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: He came to a particular place at a particular time and he had human relationships.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So from Bethlehem, all of that and the incarnation, the idea of God becoming man, all of that then flows.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's necessary to include it.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: But as you say, it the building itself had a hugely tumultuous history.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you have uh fact that it's sort of the the site is lost but kept in in local tradition, and the Byzantine Empress uh Helena comes uh along with her son Constantine, and they they they sort of re they are the animating forces behind the re-establishment of the holy places in the holy land in the 300s.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then it goes through a very tumultuous history, you know, the Islamic conquests, um, many of the other main religious sites from from the life of Christ are destroyed during the Islamic conquest, and specifically there is a um caliph in Egypt called Al-Hakim, who is known as the mad caliph.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he outlaws a particular type of stew because he doesn't like it, makes people cooking the stew punishable by dead.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: He bans the sale of women's footwear, um, he orders all dogs in Egypt to be executed.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's clearly crackers, and he destroys a lot of these buildings, but he doesn't touch the church of the nativity.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly, there's something about it that gives it protection, even in the in the in the wrath of this madman.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh then you have the era of the crusades where there's all this back and forth.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: St.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Francis of Assisi uh visits Bethlehem, which he insists on pronouncing Bethlehem.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: He pronounces it like a sheep.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of his affectations that the brothers write about as if it's a holy thing.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: They clearly also thought it was it's quite annoying.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then it goes through these iterations, and it's very unusual in that it's not just a you know a Catholic church or an Orthodox church or a Protestant church or whatever, but but multiple congregations and multiple communities use it at one time.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's simultaneously a great symbol of unity, but they're also constantly fighting each other, you know, beating each other with brooms, having physical fights over who gets to sweep which step.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: There is a ladder that's been leaning on the side of the church since I think 1876, in which no one dares move because they don't know whose ladder it is.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: So Bethlehem is kind of perfect because it's simultaneously is the is the impetus for this uh making sacred of space, the physical.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: It means that Christianity is a is an enfleshed religion where place matters, but it's also a place that in its its history and its current geography, its current architectural makeup um represents both both unity and division.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a place of paradox, as so many of these places are, and that's why I felt I have to start with it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a bit earlier than anticipated, but paradox, now you've brought it up.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: You have a thread which starts to build through the book, which I think comes to a bit of a head, if I remember rightly, within the chapter about the meet first meeting house in Salem, Massachusetts.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you write about the tension within the faith, which shows that there are all these different aspects often competing against one another.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, a quote, a quote from your book to bring that out, and you can perhaps um show us some examples through some of these other churches and the histories of them that show that all of these tensions out in uh in the real world.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You you wrote the tension of a faith whose founder said, Come unto me all ye who are heavy laden, that seeks to embrace all those in need, an all-too human desire to seek a purer, safer community is ever present in any church in an environment fraught by its own doubts and insecurities, where purity is all, sometimes little differences, can prove fatal.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is this what you see even in your day-to-day as a parish vicar?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, do you do you see these tensions day to day within your own congregation, within your own living of the faith?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think often when people think about the Christian faith, uh those who are perhaps um uh either for it, they are themselves Christian, or they call themselves culturally Christian, they will see it as a good thing that there is a an attempt to be a spotless soul.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, that's the point of it.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there are others, the naysayers who would say, well, it's not going to happen.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in many ways, they subscribe to the fullness of humanity, but they they point out the hypocrisy, they point which in some ways I suppose points to the tension.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, this tension of the faith, how how how prevalent is it in day-to-day Christian life?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's constant for any Christian who takes the call to repentance seriously.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it has to be.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because fundamentally, we are called to live this deeper life, we are called to follow in the footsteps of Christ, we are called to reflect the love that we have received from God, and yet we are fallen, salable human beings.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: We cannot save ourselves.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's the un that's the fundamental message of Christianity, actually, that we cannot save ourselves.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: We cannot by our own actions make ourselves good.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Christ says, you know, the only person who is good is God.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: So so we are we are caught in this kind of in this paradox where we are called to try, and yet it is grace alone.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is the outpouring that can save us.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a paradox that that certainly I'm I experience every single day.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I experience it through through the fact, as I say, I take repentance seriously.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I confess twice a day that I've heard and strayed from my ways like a lost sheep, that I have failed to do what I ought to do, and have done things that I ought not to do.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's something that that's sort of uh inherent to to my daily discipline, the acknowledgement of that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um but that is not then to say that the the public behaviour doesn't matter, that our that our that our way we treat one another, that the way we uh what we oblige what we owe to God doesn't matter.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because because actually if we are going to live a life reflective of the love that we think has saved us, it is we we it it is behoven on us that we then that we then behave in a particular way, because that's the simple mechanisms of of gratitude, and and frankly, it's the actual expression of faith, it's the living out of faith.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I had faith that though I am not good enough, I have been saved by the great love of God that saves me even though I'm not good enough.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: The way I then actually reflect that faith as being a reality is by trying to live in a certain way, actually.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it is, but to some people that will appear to be paradoxical, but fundamentally, I think that that what increasingly emerges, particularly as I went through the book, is that often paradox is at the heart of what is actually true in Christianity, and it's the oversimplified attempts to say, oh well, if you're just good, then you'll be a good person, and that's all you need to do.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or, well, no one can ever do anything good, so don't bother.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Those simplified things actually do not reflect reality.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: The complexity and the mixed picture reflect a much more accurate reality of what it is to be a human being, what it is to live a human life, and what it is to seek, you know, God within that life, than than than these kind of slightly simplistic uh binaries that say, oh well, it's just being good or oh well it's all being bad, it's all bad.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think the fact is that that Christianity can both recognize the fact that we live in a fallen world, indeed, will tell us again and again that we not only do we live in a fallen world, but we are part of that fallenness.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just other people who are the people, we are part of that problem as well.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: You and I.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: But fundamentally, it also gives hope that actually you don't need to rely on human mechanisms to make that good because they'll always fail.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can rely on the mechanism of the grace of God, God who loves the world so much that he takes on flesh in Bethlehem.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhere like Salem is interesting because, of course, it it shows that that this thinking can reach these sort of um spirals.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the the the the the the issue that the Salem chapter deals with specifically is purity, the desire for a pure church, a church that reflects God most accurately.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think fundamentally what Salem forgets is that the people of Salem forget what the witch craze forgets is that actually we are as St.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Paul says, we are seeing through a glass darkly.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: We actually can't personally reflect um God at the moment.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when it's when we think we can and start you know condemning others for failing to do so, that's when there's a problem.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: The person we should be hardest on, fundamentally, I think, is ourselves, and then it's only when we've done that that we can begin to think about a wider culture that must be reflective of God's love and God's grace, and that's what I think fails to happen in Salem.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we see it with with witchcrafes and purity spirals ever since.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very good point.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: One that I think Paul Paul Kingsnorth, the Orthodox Christian writer, who seems to have been having a bigger and bigger impact in wider culture, the intellectual culture, uh, he has referred to it as clearing out your own inner junkyard before you go rooting around anyone else's.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um on the witchcraft point, you you you you highlight in the book that whilst you were talking specifically about what was happening in New England at the time, is that actually you can find uh witchcraft uh and accusations of it going back right up into old testament times.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And hearing you talk about it as a almost uh society having needing to needing to move beyond it so as not to fall down those purity spirals.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I suppose what's my question here is is it is it possible to get past that?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is that wired in?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is it that the church in some way, because of just how severe the witchcraft craze was, has almost shocked itself into never never ending up in that cycle again?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think we have seen the witchcraft that has fallen uh so sharply throughout human society for all of this time?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is that now in the rear view mirror, or has it just started to pop up in other areas outside of the church instead?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think I think it on one level actually, you know, witchcraft exists as a phenomenon prior to the existence of the church.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: We said in the Old Testament, within the Roman world, the Greek world, um, almost every Mediterranean civilization, and indeed sub-Saharan uh and and ones in in uh South America as well, have concepts of spellcasting, etc.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: But also of the social function of witchcraft, um, whereby there is a kind of uh the accusation of witchcraft, the necessary exclusionary nature of it.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do I say someone is outside the pale of being treated properly?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and um witchcraft functions actually, I would say, bidirectionally in that regard, um, in the way that it is both simultaneously a way of um excluding by saying they are a witch, but the witch themselves actually has power over the community because of that exclusional relationship.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: So so it's a complicated thing on which I I I should say I I don't purport to be a great expert, but but but I can point people if they're interested in the directions of some very good books in this regard that I read in the lead up to this.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say witchcraft doesn't go away.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: The church, the church sort of actually ironically, for most of its time, the church is seeking to limit the power of witchcraft and limit the witchcraft is kind of an agency of chaos, as as as as witchcrazies as being necessarily the times when the law breaks down.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at when the majority of witches are killed in England, um it is during the Commonwealth, during the complete crisis of the civil wars, and you have a complete collapse in authority.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at where witchcraft is prosecuted in continental Europe, it tends to be in areas that are out there very, very outside the areas of civil and ecclesiastical authority.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look in colonial North America, it tends to be at these communities that are sort of deliberately trying to make themselves internally coherent and self-governing.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think witchcraft as a social phenomenon is something that never goes away.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: As you say, I in the book, I'm I'm eager not to dismiss it as uh um as a theological point or as a as a paranormal phenomenon.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't um I cannot say that I have experienced witchcraft personally or directly.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I say this about ghosts and all sorts of things.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: However, I am not prepared to make the judgment simply on my own um eyes and ears.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and there is very clearly uh a phenomenon across the world where people still to this day in sub-Saharan African uh tribal communities in in Papua New Guinea, uh in parts of South America, but also in the Western world as well.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let's not pretend this is a kind of something that the West has sort of escaped.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think we just call it different names.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think the cycles of purity, the cycles of exclusion, the cycles of um spellcasting, wish fulfillment, and uh kind of showing oneself to be to be powerful through non-physical or non-political means, you know, powerful through mysticism, powerful morality, all these things that are bound up within within the social experience of witchcraft throughout history, and specifically in Salem, where it very clearly becomes a matter of power dynamics within the community, none of these things have gone away.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: We've called them different names, and we've perhaps, yeah, perhaps we've demystified them, and the church has taken a step back from them, but they still exist.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's foolish to think that the human behaviours that lead to witch crazers have gone anywhere because they haven't.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: You touched earlier on the fallenness of man and it afflicts every single one of us.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's the equality of it, uh whether it's the powerful or the lowly.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there were times in history where there were no more powerful people than the popes in Rome.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps we jump onto St.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's in Rome.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think what I really loved about your book, Fergus, is even when you have a pretty broad view of history and what happened at events and all the rest of it, is there are obviously going to be details you don't get, and there's so many fascinating things.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose one of them being Being the Pope that laid the foundation stone, he decided that St.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's was going to become this uh uh this demonstration of magnificence.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Pope Julius took the name um inspired by the Caesar, which is um darkly funny.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and uh his successor, who then finished the job, Pope Leo, who was a Medici uh Florentine merchant family, he then continued um the building of, and I suppose most people know the story of Martin Luther, uh the 95 theses being mailed to the church door as he protested against uh papal corruption, uh, about the sale of indulgences, the idea of people being able to pay the clergy to absolve themselves of sins and thus gain entry to heaven.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that I learned, which I didn't really know, is that St.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's the building of had been almost entirely built and funded through the sales of indulgences, and that um the thing that led to Martin Luther um nailing those 95 theses to the the door was a a vicar called Johann Tetzel, who is effectively a travelling salesman around the the the German lands, um jumping up business, he even had his own marketing jingle, which is very, very funny.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um but at the same token, Rome itself, St.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's uh remains this well, the place that Pope Julius hoped it would be.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we could even see it uh following the death of Pope Francis, those those enduring images we'll see from the Vatican as everyone uh all the the Catholic world rained down on it and were there for the day, and this this show of piety and faith and all the rest of it.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um that whole example shows the murkiness of uh human fallibility and yet still able to produce something of magnificence.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're obviously an Anglican vicar, but what do you as an Anglican think of Rome and its significance, even with all of those kind of examples that we've just run through?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think it's it's what's very important to remember is that that ancient Rome, the Rome of the Caesars, you know, the Rome, the Rome, particularly before the kind of plagues and the and the fires that and the sack that hit it in the kind of um the 300s, 400s, but certainly Rome, let's say Rome at around 200 AD, uh where it is the first city to reach a million people.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is completely astonishing when you consider the the the the technologies and the the reach of Rome.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost impossible to emphasize how important Rome is for the shaping of the Mediterranean world, the Western world, Europe, uh the Near East, the Middle East, you know, you name it, North Africa.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Rome is is total, it is everything.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: It is this um source from which all culture and civilization flows, from which power and money flows.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, the all roads lead to Rome thing, you know, is is basically true.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: What we forget, and you can't if you go to Rome today because we've excavated a lot of the ancient ruins, and you know, as you say, the glory of Renaissance Rome is is something that kind of almost mirrors it.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's very important to remember that Rome goes through a period where there almost no one lives there, it is abandoned.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: There are more people um employed by the UK bakery train Greg's great in the dark ages.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um that you know it it is it is it is bonkers, it is it is the size, I think, of I forget, I use a Melton Mowbray, I think, in Leicestershire.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's the population.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: It is minuscule, it is abandoned, these people are rattling around the remains of civilization, and actually, there is no guarantee that that is going to be rebuilt again.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing that does that, and the thing that captures the essence of Rome and Rome's imperial spirit and Rome's civilizational spirit is Christianity, and that is fascinating.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what again we're talking about the redemptive power of Christianity.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Range and Roman civilization is one built on blood and iron, um, of slavery, on violence.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um Christianity says, well, we can have the splendour of Rome, but we are going to capture it tomorrow.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to capture buildings, and we are going to turn them for the cause of Christ.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think I think actually the kind of period where the first stirrings around the rebuilding of St.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Peter's actually happened in the 1370s because for the popes it's a really embarrassing building because it's a little bit out of Rome.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: People kept keep on getting mugged when they go to it.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the there's a there's a papal conclave where the cardinals have to crawl across a roof because the Roman mob is going to stone them if they come out the front door of it.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a place that actually the papacy is particularly proud of.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: They don't live there, um, they live over at the Lateran Palace, um, and that's where they have their power.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: So St.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Peter becomes this embarrassment, and it is the vision of Julius that that says, I actually, if I'm going to be the new Caesar, and if the papacy is going to replace the Roman Empire as the font of civilization, if the church is now the thing that sets our laws and the thing that sets where power comes from, then we need to have something appropriate.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Fundamentally, of course, as you say, there is there is then this issue of corruption, essentially.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Money becomes a problem.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: The political realities of Europe are not the same in uh the time when Rome is beginning to rebuild be rebuilt in the early medieval period as they are at the early modern period.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: The difference in that 500 years, partly, partly brought about by the papacy's capacity to be a source for most of it of stability and authority, actually means the creation of nation-states as such that you then have powerful kings in England and Spain and France and you know in the Holy Roman Empire, for whom the authority of the papacy is no longer certain certainly totally absolute, and actually for whom the the maintenance of money within their own kingdoms is quite an important thing.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the flow of money, partly because of warfare in Europe, partly because of political concerns, stops coming quite to Rome in the same way.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: They need to think about it.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Laterally, they have people like Texel who are actually, as you said, incredible salesmen.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: However, the theological ramifications of this are such that Luther says, you know, you are essentially asking money from the good ordinary people of God to pay for your palace.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a very long-winded way of saying I think Rome is of interest for anyone who is who is part of the um Western tradition.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think of anyone who is who uh values theology, philosophy, um the kind of building blocks of what it what is interesting about human civilization.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um that said, Rome is you know, uh there's I think it's uh Shelley rights, it is both um both city and the grave.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there is something sepulchral about Rome.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Rome is a place where actually historically things have failed as well as things have succeeded.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that the um the paradox, again, I talked about this in Bethlehem, Rome is the best embodiment to that paradox of supremely beautiful aspirations, the bringing of faith and hope.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Supremely beautiful buildings and supremely um beautiful aspects of the ancient civilization and its modern expression, but also a degree of corruption, a degree of rot, and degree of sort of failure that is inherent in it, which again draws us back to that that that issue about relying on human endeavors as opposed to exclusively those of God.
• 30:05
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• 30:10
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• 30:19
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• 30:22
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• 30:35
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• 30:38
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• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the rest of the show, classmate.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll remain on the the the big the big hitters uh just for one moment before we we go off uh on a tangent on um what one of the the the less likely churches that people would expect to see in the book, and then we'll stop with the spoilers and get into some more personal uh takes on things, Fergus.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go and look at the other part of the Roman Empire, the Hadija Sophia and formerly Constantinople.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Many know of the history as, well, once a church, now a mosque, fell to the Turkish Muslims at some point in the past, within the last thousand years, if people are thinking just roughly about it.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a great shock to the Orthodox world, sent shock waves, um, both of jubilation in the Islamic world and less so in the Christian world, whether it was Orthodox or Latin Christian.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, today it's now a mosque again, once more.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the some interesting details that you include, things like the survival of um the pancakrator mosaic, uh, the Christ being the ruler of all, the judge of everything, that that is still there, despite having been subject to a conquest all those years ago, as along with all the other art pieces.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: But people know it for that, but they don't necessarily know it as the scene for lots of pretty shameful internacine rivalries uh between Christians.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh perhaps you can unpack that a little for us, Fergus.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I I talk about the fact that I visited there with a clergyman who insists on going upstairs and spitting on the grave of Hen Hen Henrikus Dandler, Enrico Dandler, who was the doge of Venice, who led the Fourth Crusade and diverts it to Constantinople.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and essentially the Latin Christians sack Constantinople.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: And there is certainly a school of thought that states that the fall of Constantinople is inevitable after 1204, which went the Fourth Crusade Crusade, and that is not a sack by Islamic armies, but a sack by Western Latin Christian armies.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's an installation of a Latin patriarchate there, there's another major sort of civil war in the 1370s, um, and essentially it never recovers.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, the the history of the Hagisophia has always been one of violence in many ways.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: A much smaller church is built there by Constantine uh in the early days of Christianization of the Empire, replaced after fires, but it is actually the Nika riots, the great uh internal riots in in Constantinople in the 6th century uh under the Emperor Justinian, where various factions of actually the sporting teams uh the chariot in the Hippodrome, they're chariot racing, they have um they have four teams uh who are based on certain colours.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: These teams end up having political uh aspirations, running themselves sort of a little bit like mafia families as well.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Huge riots engulf the city.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the emperor flees.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, when he re-establishes control, he realizes that the hagiosphere has been burnt down, and he decides as a way of restamping his authority to build it greater than ever before.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And famously when Justinian comes into the church, he says the words Solomon, I have surpassed thee.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is greater than the temple, it is the dwelling place of God on earth.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it becomes a symbol of of the aspiration of the Byzantine and then later the Ottoman empires.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it is, yes, it's conceived in blood, and it's about raw power, it's a show of raw power.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's no coincidence that when the Latins sack um Constantinople in 1204, uh, they uh commit appalling massacres in the Haggisophia, actually worse than the violence that then um happens in the Islamic conquest in 1453.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um the Latins bring in prostitutes who they rape on the altar, um, they destroy um parts of these orthodox, sacred orthodox setup, they they encourage animals to defecate in the church, and it's only when their kind of leaders take back control that they they restore any form of order.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh many people are are um massacred in there during the the sack in in 1453.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so it it and indeed Mehmet the Conqueror puts a curse on the building, saying that if it's ever converted back from being a mosque, um then then the curse of the Fatih, the course curse of the conqueror will be on them.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in fact, Ataturk, then when the Ottoman Empire falls, turns it into museum, again it's power play.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is the most important building in the city, and I'm secularizing it to show the power I have over Islam, political Islam.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then there is, of course, the return under Erdogan in the last couple of years, 2022, uh it's return to being a mosque, again, political power play.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: So so uh the theme that I try and explore in that in that chapter is about power.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: How does Christianity engage with power?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because fundamentally, no building better uh demonstrates the fact that it can become a tool, a symbol within the kind of push and pull of of political power than the Hagia Sophia does.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, power, perfect segue into last of the church questions.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is probably fewer uh more uh gruesome examples of the power that uh man can have over other men than indeed slavery, something which was a human institution since time immemorial up until the point that it was abolished by the British Empire.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you chose a church in Zanzibar in Africa, which is now a predominantly Muslim place, um, as uh a surprising example, springing up as a symbol of something, uh, without giving too many spoilers away on that church.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what was it about that church in particular that you thought you must include within the book and its significance to not just the Christian faith but to humanity?
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so it's Christ Church Zanzibar, which is the Anglican Cathedral in Zanzibar, and um it was built over the slave market in Zanzibar, and indeed the high altar was deliberately placed above the whipping post, where for probably by that point, well over a thousand years, human beings have been sold uh and had been brutalized prior to sale or after capture.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um the symbolism, I think, is very clear that that it moves from being uh a place where human beings are commodified or sold to a place where the body and blood of Christ is given out to those, all those who come, regardless of their status.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, reminding of that line from from Galatians there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, all are one in one in Christ.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: So in in many ways, it's it's symbolic of the enormous um emotional power of Christianity.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I also chose it because it's also symbolic of the practical power of Christianity.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because it is pressure by Christians, particularly people like Newton and Wilberforce.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: It is pressure by people who specifically believe it to be part of their vocation of their Christian faith to abolish slavery that brings about the abolition in 1807 and then again in 1833, more widely in the British Empire.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it is it is a very specific commitment to Christian principles that spurs on the kind of anti-slavery efforts that involve huge sacrifices of men and treasure um uh in the subsequent century.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I I wanted to point out that that not only does Christianity have this incredible symbolic power to talk about slavery and freedom, which is covered extensively among theologians, but there is also this incredible practical ability that it is Christianity or Christian principles that are the motivating principles behind slavery's abolition, and nowhere symbolizes that better than Christ church severity.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that people have lost sight of the importance, the drive, the motivations inspired by faith of the Christian people of the 18th and 19th centuries in the abolition and slave trade?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think people discount um the positive role of Christianity in not just this country but but globally and and how uh and how it was a that the the British Empire as a vector actually did very positive things?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think we live in an age of binaries where it's much easier to say, well, this was good or this was bad.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: We don't like to talk about nuance.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the reality is that there were, you know, I I served in a church, I served in Liverpool Parish Church as a curate, which had been completely enriched by slavery.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there were Christian people there who made vast amounts of money from slavery, who gave that money to the church.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there were also people who used their money and their effort and their um faith to abolish it.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I think what we have to remember is that the idea that this is a simplistic picture is and that is the great sin of our age, is its desire for binaries, it's desire for oversimplification, it's desire for things to be just so, to be either this or that.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and because I think we enjoy uh the the moral castigation of the past, we enjoy morally condemning people in the past, uh, because it makes us feel good about our failures in the present.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: It goes back to that purity culture we talked about that hasn't gone away from Salem, Massachusetts.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's just we can export it to people in the past who who can't or won't answer back.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I wouldn't ever diminish the role that the Christian people, the role church plays within slavery and and its propagation and the profit made from it.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um Bristol, Liverpool, um being cities in particular, Bordeaux, Seville, um, and much of New World as well, almost all of America.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: However, it is also important to remember that the the the the driving people principles behind its abolition are not just being nice.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: There is no secular abolition movement.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't exist.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: It is insane to think that people are simply doing this because of humanity or moral altruism.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: They are doing it entirely motivated by faith, entirely motivated by the fear of what Christ will say to them when he comes in judgment and they have enslaved people, entirely motivated by their reading of scripture and their acknowledgement that in fact, as the New Testament progresses, it becomes abundantly clear that we are not called to enslave one another, but being called to treat one another as one in Christ.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think there is uh a kind of insane uh rewriting of history that seeks to remove the Christian element from this that suggests that it simply happens because of progress.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that that I'm afraid is is is is fallacious.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fallacy.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Unless we are serious about the actual motivations these people have, and it's their stated motivation, right?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't just sort of great arc of history stuff.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: We have the letters, we have the evidence, and it is very clearly that the abolition of slavery is motivated by uh in the West is motivated by people's Christianity.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: And indeed, uh the uh then the fact that it is then extended to the rest of the world is motivated by Christianity.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um that can be true, and Christians and churches made money from slavery can also be true.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's our complete go back to something that we we've always come across.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: If we cannot acknowledge paradox, then we won't find the truth, we won't find a realistic interpretation of history because there it is a paradox that simultaneously there are good church people who are making lots of money from slavery, who believe in it as an institution, and there are good church people who are, you know, seeking to do everything they can to abolish it.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: Those two things have to sit alongside.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: If we can't acknowledge that paradox, then fine.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: But what we're doing is we're not doing proper history, we're not doing proper theology, because at the heart of Christianity is this paradox.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: We are fallen, we are sinful, we are fallible, and yet by the grace of God we can do amazing things.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think nothing exhibits that better than the paradox of of how the abolition of slavery comes about, particularly in in England.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, penultimate question, Fergus, and it's tied into this idea of institutions uh being ineffective, whether that's Through uh moral failure, practical failure, losing sight of what it was that it was all for.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't to hijack you in any way, but it's just because you are a Church of England man.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I suppose the thematic issues that it seems to struggle with today uh seem very much in line with what your your wife, Madeline Grant, the spectator, writes about the lanyard class, the idea that managerialism, which is just for the just for the avoidance of that, it hasn't just uh found itself take root in institutions like the Church of England, but every institution, public and private.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it has it has certainly found itself taking root in our religious institutions.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to say anything that is career-limiting, disqualifying, any of those things, but as someone who is clearly very driven, motivated by the faith, um, and you are uh primarily motivated by looking after your flock and indeed uh caring about Christians across the globe.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh do you have an opinion on the current institutional setup of the Church of England?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see a path away from bureaucracy and managerialism?
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to say, John, you're overwriting it is actually not too much of an issue and it's a non-starter for me?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it is an issue.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think we are we are in a kind of Babylonian captivity by a managerial class.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: But as you say, I don't think the Church of England is unique in that.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're suffering from uh increasing disconnect between the people at the top and the people on the ground.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: So on the ground, no, I don't think it is as big an issue because the good ordinary people of God are getting on doing incredible things in Church of England parishes across this country.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in particular the laity, actually, despite the clergy's best efforts offer often, you know, there are parishes up and down this country that are growing, that are doing incredible things in the service of their communities, in the service of the people of God.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um but we have had a complete kind of capture of senior leadership, a complete failure of that leadership to work out what it needs to do to support the people on the ground, um, and a redirection of resources, effort, and messaging away from the people on the front line and in favour of managerialism.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something that I think is is well, it's a necrosis, it's it's fatal.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: It will kill institutions.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: It can't kill the church, the message of resurrection will always come through.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: But fundamentally, yes, I do think that we have to excise the uh abiding managerial culture in the church of England.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: We have we we have to we have to get rid of it somehow.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have a magic bullet for that, I'm afraid.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have a magic wand.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot say that overnight can you uproot all of this stuff?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think part of it happens by simply ignoring it, by telling these, you know, to my mind, my as I said, the day-to-day uh life of people of God, the thing that draws people to to worship is is not that.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not managerialism.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and and actually a great deal can be done on the ground by simply ignoring managerialism's efforts and allowing it to wither on the vine, which is what it was doing.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is that it does control vast amounts of resource, it controls vast amounts of property, money, and it's capable of captivating great amounts of time.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: The thing is, and Christ tells us this by their fruit, so you shall know that managerialism has failed, it will fail.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: There is no doubt in my mind about that.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: What we have is a uh movement that is going down the plug hole.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, like any dying movement, it thrashes out all the more violently in its final moment.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we have to remember.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: We are seeing the death of managerialism in the Church of England, and thank God for that, because it has proved to be almost fatal.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the lead, the way the Holy Spirit will move in the future, the way the Holy Spirit always moves, is in the valley of the dry bones, in those areas that appear to be barren.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: That is the that is the moment we are now.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: We are beginning to see the stirrings of a revival.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: That will happen in spite of managerialism, and at some point managerialism will be, thank God, crushed by it.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm looking forward to.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: I only hope it can happen in my lifetime.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: If not, I shall be rejoicing, I hope, on another shore as I see it happen.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here, here, we'll raise a digital glass to that one, Virgus.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Virgus, talking of changing hearts, minds, souls, the question I ask all of my guests who come on the show is what have you changed your mind on during the course of your life?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it was an absolute, perhaps it was something more day-to-day, but that you thought was pretty certain.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what was it that made you think differently?
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, I suppose I the one the obvious answer to this is God.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't I didn't believe in God as a teenager.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um I wasn't brought up in a particularly religious household.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and but the second half of the question is I can't really answer you specifically what I did not have a road to Damascus moment, a burning bush.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: What I did have is is the kind of slow drawing into this deeper life that we call to live, a slow sense of the abiding presence of God with us of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and a kind of sort of almost sense of amusement at the fact that it got me in the end, a kind of wry smile.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yes, I can't tell you what changed my mind because there wasn't a moment where I think yes, that happened.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I suppose I'm still on the journey of being drawn into that deeper faith.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um I hope it's the journey that never ends.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it never becomes a stagnant pool, but is streams of living water.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's probably the most important thing I ever changed my mind on.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure I changed my mind about 15 times a day.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can barely choose a meal deal in Sainsbury's or Tesco, but um that's the thing that's had the most profound impact, I would say.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: And were you on a path to something else when you decided to go through um I don't know because I think a lot of those parts, I mean, I I I I read languages as an undergraduate.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I wanted to join the diplomatic service, or maybe I don't know, do other things.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: I did some academic writing.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think on uh for a for a lot of time two parts can exist concurrently, you know, going in the same direction.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I as it was in my late teens that I was drawn to this, and I was still going to parties, I was still you know behaving, frankly, pretty badly.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um I still had a very you know enjoyable student experience, but but slowly one ebbs and the other flows, and um one waxes, one wanes, and and it was the waning of that life, which is again it's still an ongoing process and of being drawn into the deeper life that's offered by Christ.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's not that I still don't you know enjoy myself or have a drink or go to parties.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's part of the infectious joy of Christianity, but I think probably two paths went in parallel for for quite a while.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's fascinating, and thanks for a full and frank personal answer there, Fergus.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: Before I let you go, we've been talking about your book, which is due out any moment.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: Where can people find you online?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: Where can they find their book?
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: When can they expect it?
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: And are you working on anything else?
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I um I you can find me online on on X, Twitter, whatever it's called now, um, and on Instagram.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not very good at using really either of them, to be honest, but but I do try.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um the book is available in all good bookshops.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's available to order um on Amazon, Waterstones, um, any website you name it, it should be there.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's available internationally as well.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's an American edition um with all the funny spellings.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: So uh if you have people listening for abroad, that's possible to order as well.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um I am working on stuff at the moment, but I am conscious I'm struck to the heart by my failure to work effectively on some book proposals.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm going to take that as a uh I can't really tell you a great deal about it because I haven't done anywhere near as much work as I need to on it.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: So really an embryonic form, and you you have sent me a corrective there over here.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um Mayor Conker, but I will be hopefully working on some books to be announced in the next year or two.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that might be one of the two confessions you are to make today.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: You you just made it publicly, so so good on you.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: Fergus, it's been an absolute pleasure.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you all the success with your book and indeed with whatever comes next once you've defined it.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'll be keeping an eye out.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: I hope we get to speak again about whatever it is you produce next.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, John.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's been lovely to speak to you.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 53:04
  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.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking Class seeks to understand the civilizational issues we face and why what our leaders do in response matters.
• 53:20
  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.
• 53:29
  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.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to seeing you there and for joining me on this journey.