Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Harrison Clewes: Has Tommy Robinson Put Christ Back Into Christmas? || SLP624

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Harrison Clewes: Has Tommy Robinson Put Christ Back Into Christmas? || SLP624 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello and welcome back to the Speak Life podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thorgood, Media Producer at Speak Life.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: And before we begin, I'd just like to draw your attention again to release four of 321.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have updated our evangelistic course 321.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: There are some extra videos associated with it, and we've changed the discussion questions, and there's a new church leader's guide.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: All sorts of exciting developments based on feedback that we have received from people like you.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So why not go to 321course.com and check out 321 if you haven't done so already.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what's today's episode about?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, on the 13th of December, Unite the Kingdom put on a carol concert in London.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it was called Putting Christ Back into Christmas.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there were some very clear presentations of the gospel, and you're going to hear some of those in this episode.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: But there have also been a lot of concerns around this event because, well, it was put on by Unite the Kingdom, and Tommy Robinson was there and he gave a speech.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is a challenging issue to discuss because lots of people, lots of Christians feel very differently about it, feel very strongly about it.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we thought it would be good to hear from someone who was actually at the concert.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Harrison Clues, he has an incredible testimony.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: He was part of a nationalist right-wing group when he was younger.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: He encountered Jesus.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: He became a Christian, and that had all sorts of implications for his views.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And now he is keen to share the gospel with people who were who are part of similar groups, including the followers of Tommy Robinson in this kind of current movement that we're seeing.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you are about to hear a conversation that Glenn Scrivener had with Harrison.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Harrison very kindly came down to our studio in Eastbourne and we had lunch with him.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was great to get to know him a bit.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he just shares so warmly about the impact that Christ has had on his life.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: He shares his thoughts on being at that Carol concert.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: There are things to be affirmed, things to be questioned and challenged in light of the gospel.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, over to Glenn and Harrison.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to hear a short preview of the conversation and then we'll just let it play out.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_08: When I started in 2009, the church stood against us.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_08: That drove me away from Christianity.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_08: In fact, I hated the church for them betraying us.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_08: We, all of us, were their lost sheep.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: You can forgive certain churches for being very wary of Tommy Robinson himself having gone to prison for mortgage fraud and for assaults, and some of the ways that I fear the movement is trying to co-opt Christianity for other purposes.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: I think that is all a serious problem.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: But I do suspect that some of the antipathy towards this movement is class related.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_09: A lot of working class English people, they feel like their local church isn't for them.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_09: They might feel like they've been spoken down to.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_08: I struggle again just because I live a life of sin and I've just I struggle with it.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_08: But then I realise we all do.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_09: But I'm sure that if um a Christian leader in the UK wanted to reach out to him and be like, listen, I hear you've got a rally going on.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_09: I'm not saying I fully agree with everything you say in the rally, but can I just come up and preach the gospel?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_09: I reckon you'd bite your hand off.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: Would that be something you'd be in you'd do or like so Harrison Clues on Saturday, everybody's talking about the putting Christ back into Christmas event that Tommy Robinson and friends put on.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think six years ago, you probably would have gone, perhaps, as a kind of a punter, um, not knowing Christ at that stage.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh this year in 2025, you go there to share Christ.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um we're gonna hear all about that story, what's happened in the last six years, but tell us what it is that you discovered when you went to Whitehall just near Downing Street.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, what what were you encountering?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_09: So I heard a lot about the Carol service uh from like the news, and then you there was a lot of controversy around it, wasn't there?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_09: You had you know the Church of England saying stuff about it, you had all stuff all over Facebook, yeah.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and so it kind of piqued my curiosity.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_09: But I didn't decide to go until a few hours before.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_09: Okay.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_09: So we just messaged one of my friends who was going, we both went down together.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_09: We weren't really sure what we were gonna see.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_09: Uh, but we went with some gospel tracts on our bag, wanted to hand them out to some people.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and yeah, when we got there, there was yeah, there was quite a sizable crowd starting to gather.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_09: We got there a little bit early.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, but there was actually another protest as well, right?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_09: Just behind about something to do with digital ID.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_09: So there were two protests along this road, but you know, we went to the Carol service.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_09: And um, yeah, instantly we got there, and the first thing I was met with was another Christian handing out a tract.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_09: So he was put a tract into my hand, and I took it and I was like, yeah.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_09: And then, you know, we're looking out, and yeah, there was yeah, a crowd gathering with flags, um families coming, body union flags going up and crossing George, that's St.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_09: George's flags, but then you also had, you know, things like you know, the big wooden crosses that people carry in, and then you had um, you know, Renaissance paintings of Jesus on a placard or something like that.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um and did you manage to get into conversation with with any people?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, we did.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_09: Um we were so so as the carols were praying, um I'm there with my friend who's who's also a a believer, he's a he's a Christian.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_09: We used to go to the same church, and you know, we're you know, w worshiping um doing the carols, and then um a guy comes with a camera and and then comes, excuse me, I see that you're like really into these carols that are being played.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_09: Can I ask you a couple of questions?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_11: Okay.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_09: And we're like, Yeah, of course.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_09: And um, it was just a young guy with his own, you know, YouTube channel.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_09: Okay.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and then he just interviews us and starts questioning us.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_09: Um a lot about you know politics and um yeah, where Christianity fits into that.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_09: Um yeah, Christian values, do we do we believe they're under attack?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_09: Do we believe that Christ is out of Christmas?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_09: Um, but really um he was quite open.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_09: There was something open about him to the gospel.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_09: So as we were, you know, chatting about what what we believe he would just yeah, he were just receiving it, and yeah, we did it was a good gospel it turned into a good gospel conversation actually.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_09: It started as a ballistic one, but it did actually end in it, yeah, quite yeah, good gospel chat.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: And that sounds quite emblematic about the whole thing.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's it's strange to talk about a carol service at which you're trying to evangelize the people who are there.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: Because usually a carol service is like people are sort of showing up, and I guess the people from the front are meant to evangelize you, and they and which they did on Saturday.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: But there's this dynamic also going on uh uh going on that a whole bunch of Christians are recognizing that this is a kind of a pond to fish from.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_09: So um there was a a protest um last year, I believe, um, and it was it was more of a march, like an overtly political march, organised by um, you know, Tommy and and and friends, uh the guys at um Unite the Kingdom.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_09: Um and then I I just went with another friend and we just thought we could hand out some gospel tracks here.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_09: And um some of the it was it was really surprising because you years years ago, I would have gone on to one got gone along to one of these marches myself.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_09: Um and I wouldn't have been interested in the gospel or Christianity or anything like this.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah um but the people there when we went to that march, there was an openness there.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_09: And and and we're chatting to people in and and and people see people see the identity as being Christian, which has its negatives, but also has its positives.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_09: Uh-huh.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_09: You know, because um it it it presents a bit of an openness to to to learning, oh, you know, what did my granddad believe?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_09: What did my parents what what did I used to learn in s in the Church of England primary school I went to, or something like that.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_09: Um people are more open to it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah, in my experience.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because back in the day you would have been called I'm I'm sure you would have been called a far right activist, or you would have been called a right wing activist at least.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_09: It depends on who you ask, you know.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_09: So yeah, let's say right right wing activists, I would yeah, I was yeah, put maybe on the the further right end of things.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: You're a person of interest to prevent and to hope not hate and and those kinds of groups.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_09: So yeah, hope not hate.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_09: There are um like a government like you know, like a left-wing organization that you know takes an interest in yeah, people on the on the right wing and yeah, and then prevent counter, yeah, counter-terrorism.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: So you're sort of you're s the sort of person who would be on the Tommy Robinson mailing list, you're the sort of person who would would have gone perhaps to the Trafalgar Square March uh you know the a a year earlier and that kind of thing.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'd love to get your reaction to what Tommy Robinson said at the end of this particular um event, because he's he's been in prison recently, he came out having been in solitary confinement and having had a chaplain kind of share the gospel with him, and he's now professing faith in Christ.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um so let's let's have a look at what he says now, and then I'd love to get your your reaction to that.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_08: I'll just say in 15 years of activism, hundreds of demonstrations, hundreds of gatherings, this is the most beautiful moment I've had in my life as an activist.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_08: It's been beautiful.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_08: I'd like to thank Ricky for what you've done.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_08: Ricky put this together.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_08: You can give me the shout out, but I didn't do this.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_08: Ricky done this, that's the total truth.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_08: They put this together.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_08: And I just say, when I started in 2009, the church stood against us.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_08: In every city we went into as a cry for help at what was happening in our towns and cities, the church leaders stood and opposed us.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_08: That drove me away from Christianity.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_08: In fact, I hated the church for them betraying us.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_08: We, all of us, were their lost sheep.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_08: The way they've acted this week is the reason that churches are empty.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_08: But when I went to prison, I met a pastor and betrayed by the church and away from Christianity.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_08: As I knew the Quran and I knew Islam and I didn't know the Bible and I didn't know Christianity.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_08: As I started understanding the Bible and the pastor done lessons with me for the life of Jesus, I understood that Jesus would have stood against the establishment.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_08: He would have stood with the sinner, he would have stood, and I'll be honest, I found it hard to even even betray myself or say I'm a Christian because I know I live a life of sin.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_08: But then I realized that Jesus stood with the sinners.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_08: So I've been on my own path, and you know, today that is I've stood there and watched every second of this, and it's been the most beautiful moment standing there watching every minute of it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_08: And it's brought and moments like this bring me closer to faith.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_08: So I'd like to thank every one of you because I've never it's been beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_08: And I say, why people say, why are we here today?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_08: We're here to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, and every one of us, including myself, need to ask what that means to us.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_08: What does it mean that Jesus lived for us, he died for us, he rose again?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_08: And every one of us, I I struggle.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_08: I struggle again just because I live a life of sin and I've I struggle with it.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_08: But then I I realise we all do.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_08: So I'd like to thank everyone that's come today.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_08: I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_08: I'd like to see, do you know this, let this be the foundation, you see.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_08: Next year, we're gonna get a website up very soon with the help of Ricky and his team.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, we're gonna start planning next year's Christmas celebration.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_08: We're gonna film, we're gonna fill Trafalgar Square.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_08: This is gonna become United Kingdom's yearly event.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_08: People are gonna travel, people are gonna travel from across Europe and across the world to take part in putting Christ back in Christmas every year in London in Great Brian.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well that's that's Tommy's thing, isn't it?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: He's a real activist, he's a real organiser, he's always thinking about the next the next thing he's going to to put on.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: But what's your reaction, kind of watching him say that?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, um I guess yeah, three things probably jumped out to me, and just from just from as he was talking, I think the first thing is that um he feels betrayed by the established church.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_09: Uh the second thing was that he said, you know, he's he's he's exploring faith.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_09: It seems like just looking at that, it seems like he he would say that he's not yet there, but potentially, he's not yet there at the point of giving his life to Jesus.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_09: But he said the third thing, which is really interesting, where he says he he knew Islam and he knew the Quran, but he didn't know the Bible and he didn't know Christianity, right?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_09: You know, and it's yeah, those three things I think yeah are really interesting.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_09: I think you know, someone like Tommy, he he's not just an individual, he's not just one person, yeah, he represents a whole community of people, yeah, a whole culture of people in the UK.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and you know, those three points will probably be true of that whole community.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: Because it was true of you, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_09: You it was yeah, it w it it was true of me, but I I'm not sure I would have articulated it in the same way as as Tommy Um just because I was um you know quite active maybe like six, six to eight years ago.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_09: Um and this was at a moment when Christianity wasn't really on the tip of anyone's tongue, like no one was chatting to each other about Christianity within that kind of movement.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, um so I to be honest, I wouldn't really know what I would have said in this current moment.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_09: I I'm not sure, but um yeah, I can I can see I and I can sympathize with some of the stuff that you're saying as well, actually.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_09: In what way?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_09: So just just that feeling of lostness, you've been yeah, potentially that feeling of rightly or wrongly being rejected by some of the established churches.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_09: Um, you know, do you've got I think really I think he is talking about the Church of England.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_09: I c I could be completely wrong, I'm not sure, but um, yeah, it seems from other things that he said that he is talking about potentially the Church of England or maybe even the Catholic Church, I'm not too sure.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_09: Um and there is a feeling of yeah, we've we've been rejected by a lot a lot of working class English people.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_09: Um, they feel like um th that their local church isn't for them.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_09: Um they feel like there's there's there's such a difference in culture there.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_09: Where if they would walk in on uh on a Sunday morning, they're not sure how to act, they're not sure where to sit, they might feel like they've been spoken down to, they're not speaking their language.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_09: Um and also the Church of England generally, and you know, this isn't for um individual churches, there's so many faithful, amazing Church of England chur uh churches, but as yeah, the the general sentiment is is that the institution of the Church of England has is has gone this way when it comes to cultural issues in the working class English, have gone that way in terms of cultural issues, and both are quite outspoken, and there's no middle meeting place, so they feel like there's no place for them there.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: Man, there's so much going on there.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, one issue though is you you can sort of forgive certain churches for being very wary of Tommy Robinson himself having gone to prison for mortgage fraud and for assaults and for you know expressing himself in in ways that's you know are are very alarming in in in lots of ways.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: So I I think there's a there's a limited degree to which okay, Tommy Robinson himself, you know, being a member of the BNP, you know, which which I think was I I think was an actively racist kind of thing.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: You couldn't you couldn't join the BNP if you weren't white.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, and yeah, I mean so I I do know a bit about Tommy, Tommy Robinson just because um I w I would have followed him and perhaps before becoming a Christian, I was a bit further to the right than than than than Tommy Robinson.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_09: So th there's people on the the the the the further right end of things, the the far right, who would look at somebody like Tommy Robinson and say, listen, you're not going far enough.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_09: So, you know, and so so I do know um yeah that with for example like the BMP, like I think he said, you know, in an interview he he joined, but the then when he realised that the the he he he came with some of his black mates or something like that, and then when the BMP guys were like your mate can't come in, yeah, and then there was a bit of a kickoff going on.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, so yeah, to give him the benefit of the doubt, like he wouldn't describe himself as is as as racist.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_09: I don't feel yeah, well, I know he wouldn't.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_09: No, no.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_09: Um but yeah, there there is probably um yeah, a wisdom in in in um practicing discernment, like um yeah, looking at the character of Tom Robinson and and and saying, you know, is is there things to to look at which we can pick apart and and and discuss, because there is.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_09: I think he he said and I just noticed he said in the last part of the interview, he was like, Listen, I'm a sinner.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_09: I'm a sinner.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_09: He said it twice, I think.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_09: Like we one of the reasons why I'm not fully going into this is because I'm a sinner, I struggle with this, I think he said.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_09: Because of my of my life of sin, which is yeah, which is interesting to me.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, if this is the only sort of frame of reference that we're sort of approaching this question from, it's giving a strong vibe of um, you know, in Luke's gospel, Jesus tells the story.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: The the tax collector and the Pharisee both go up to the temple to pray, don't they?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a fascinating story.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um in and and what we've got here is, you know, Tommy Robinson is going to pray.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: He's going, you know, he's going to do this Christmas carols kind of service.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: And as I was watching this, I was thinking in my mind of any number of Archbishop of Canterbury's Christmas sermons, right?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: Which um, and it doesn't matter, the it doesn't matter the Archbishop, and it also doesn't matter the political issue that they bring up in their Christmas Day service, but they almost always bring up something, you know, something cultural, something political.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and very much, you know, and so you know, not not saying anything about any one particular Church of England's, you know, minister, but just the whole establishment is quite comfortable doing priestly things, doing religious things, and bringing politics into it, kind of as a as a matter of course, but a certain kind of politics.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then but then if this is the only lens we've got to look through, then Tommy Robinson, I guess, in through these through this framework, he at that stage is the publican, he's the tax collector coming up, basically beating his breast and saying, God have mercy on me, a sinner.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: And and viewed through that lens, I I would want to give hope to the followers of Tommy Robinson that if you show up in my church on a Sunday, um, you you would be so welcome.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you you but but I'm I'm not sure they they feel that necessarily.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_09: And um, yeah, and I'm not I'm not sure they would.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_09: Well, well, I don't know about your church, but just generally when they think about a church, they feel like they are just not like you know, you talk to somebody, oh, if I went to church I'd burn off or something like that.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_09: And everyone's got their own reasons.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_09: Um but yeah, yeah, so yeah, people from from my background, it's quite weird somebody going to church.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, it's it's a it's an odd thing to do.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_09: It's it's not culturally accepted, it's a strange thing.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_09: Um and yeah, some of that is really just because it's we don't fit in in a church, like this isn't this isn't for us.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_09: Um but also yeah, like for Tommy Robinson followers to to to come into church and be accepted.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_09: But even Tommy Robinson, like for him to just be accepted into a church family, yeah would would would be amazing.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_09: And and and and because Tommy, yeah, in in a way he people see him as their representative, he's speaking for them.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_09: Um for for Tommy to be, yeah, to be born again, welcomed into a church family, loved.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_09: Um yeah, I think that would trickle down to people who yeah, who who sympathise with him.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: So do you think this is quite an opportunity with this segment of the I I guess self-described patriots, that the that kind of community?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think this is a big moment, him coming out of prison and saying, I'm gonna I'm gonna profess faith?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, like it's it's a huge moment because this wasn't something he was doing before.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_09: It it it just wasn't there.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_09: And it and it and it's coming at a time when for this patriotic movement, it's it's it's almost not a patriotic movement in i i in a in a vacuum.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_09: It's it's it's it's a movement that's come out of th them feeling in danger from another religion, primarily.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_09: Um from from Islamification.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_09: Um and and they see a religion as kind of gaining strength and and it it's going to take over and and all this kind of stuff.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_11: Yes.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_09: And it's making them look back and think, you know, what do my like what what do I believe?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_09: Like what what what do British people believe?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_09: What do they historically believe?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_11: Right.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_09: And as people are starting to think this, you know, this is the perfect time to to go in there with the gospel, show them Jesus and welcome them into our churches.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: There's an opportunity.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: There's also a danger which is to then think of Christianity as the same kind of cultural bulwark against Islam that Islam is against other religions.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah yeah.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_09: And it and it's not that Christianity is so much more than that.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_09: You know, like you know the the the God of the Bible he he presents himself as just being so far above any religion or you know political philosophy or or anything like this.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_09: And and the fact that he is so over in transcendence against the gods like him like Allah and and all these different religions.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_09: That the the fact that he is that is the strength that these people need.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_09: Like the the fact that this world isn't all there is there's a God of heaven who's going to come and take you to to a new life to to eternal life and he's so far above anything you can compare him to.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_09: But then that does have an impact on your life today.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_11: Yes.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah yeah well it's a little bit like in in the book of Joshua you know Joshua is about to go into Jericho and and and bring the Israelites into into the promised land and you might expect when he meets the Lord which he does in chapter six and and he says to the Lord are you with us or are you with our enemies?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: And the Lord gives the the best answer he just says no you know it's just like in a word no right which is which is not the way of human religion.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: The way of human religion is we've got God on our side right and so and and by nature um everybody's going to think that Christianity is just one more human religion just like the others and there there is a turf war for the heart of Britain and maybe if you feel the threat of Islamification then what I need now is a robust Christianity that is the equal opposite to Islam.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: But what you're saying is well Christianity is kind of coming from up here.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's not coming from you know this this equal opposite force that's gonna that's going to wage war in the same way that that you know political forces and military forces wage war.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah for sure and in and like the the God of the Bible is so much higher than than anything that we can possibly conceive.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_09: The main thing is the the facts the reality that God's real yeah yeah yeah that's that should blow your mind that should get you out of your yeah your kind of lesser identities and just be yeah just right be the the fact that you're you you're now someone who believes in Jesus believes in God becomes a Christian that's now at the foundation of your identity below your your your culture and in in nationality and history.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_09: It's not saying those things aren't important.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: They are important God made us like that we're embodied creatures yeah but if God is real then that reality should transcend every other every other way we think so let's get into the reality of God and how the reality of God kind of confronted you because like interestingly in your life sort of um your scepticism let's say or you be being anti-Islam came before being pro-Jesus right?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah yeah yeah yeah um and that will be that's that's certainly been the same in Tommy Robinson's story I'm sure it'll be be the same for for those coming in in in this wake you know maybe maybe there is a movement of of of people discovering true faith in Jesus through this but there was there was a kind of an anti-Islam thing um that you were convinced of before there was a pro-Jesus.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_09: So so take us through some of that what were what were some of your convictions eight years ago yeah so um I remember I'm assuming about yeah 16 around 16 um and it was a time when you know there was a lot of terror attacks going on in the UK I'm not sure if you remember um exactly that which year it was but yeah arena and all that yeah it was it was around that time um there's a there's a a conversation beginning online kind of outside of the accepted like public forums um that Islam's a problem that you know this is what you get when you get Islam the more Islam the more terror attacks um you know um a growing discussion about mass immigration a growing and and the reality is is that a lot of these conversations were had outside of BBC question time.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_09: Right because you you you can't really have those conversations on um mainstream shows.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah um so it it it kind of led me to look online like to to look in some of the online spaces what are people saying a lot of YouTube yeah like digesting out of YouTube like when I was about 16, 17 um looking a lot of looking at a lot of channels like learning a f a kind of fair amount and and I just yeah I kind of got sucked into the to the conversation sucked into it and I just felt really compelled to kind of do something to do something and to combat what I saw was you know the this this um uh the loss of our people loss of the English people and I thought if if this has happened I've got to do something about this.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_09: So um yeah I looked online and then there was this group and they were they were you know quite um good with their um you know their media so they had like videos which were really you know well put together and quite expensive and it kind of drew you in it was like this youth activist um pan-European group um that just started this branch in the UK and I've been following them and they just started this branch so I'm like sweet I'm gonna go join them.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_11: Okay.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_09: And so uh you go through your vetting and it it was it was quite a long process.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_09: Okay.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_09: Um and then yeah I joined this group and that started about two years two to three years yeah about yeah doing different things around the UK and Europe.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_09: What do you mean things like what do what would you meet to do?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah so yeah it's like the right wing the right wing green piece kind of thing about that we were doing uh yeah all sorts of banner drops like you go to a building and you weren't saving Wales you were you know you were saving England yeah there we go yeah yeah yeah so we yeah banner drops um kind of um what would the banner say?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: Drop the banner like like over a motorway or something like that.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah like so so so so so to pet um defend Europe re migration now.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_09: Okay.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_09: Um we did yeah there was quite uh there was one we did that was quite provocative.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_09: We went to SOAS um you know and then and we knew that they didn't really School of Oriental and African studies very sort of left leaning kind of university and yeah and like we knew that they didn't really like us very much so we went to yeah we went to went to SOAS and then we we get went to the top of their building and dropped a banner saying like Merry Christmas SOAS or something like that.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_09: And then we got like driven out as well.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_09: That's fascinating.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah yeah like given what we've just talked about like like Christmas was at the heart of your message.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah and and I believe I believe it's Christmas and yeah so it was yeah all sorts of stunts I believe that the um in the covered like a a a huge statue of a woman in Europe with a big burqa um the the block to the pass um between France and I believe Spain or Italy to stop migrants coming through.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_09: So they had a helicopter they did all sort and it was for the video and it was quite you you watched it and you're quite interested in it.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_09: But one of the so it was yeah so it was it was an activist group it was it was a nonviolent group yeah it was very different to what you might see like they they wouldn't usually march there would you know some people in the group would look down on people who would who would march it was very like student professional um young professional so guerrilla publicity messaging and the message is defend Europe because Europe is under attack.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_09: Europe's under attack from uh from mass immigration okay yeah yeah um and so part of the kind of the stunt I guess the whole some of the mindset behind it was to go into the public space like go to an iconic recognizable landmark that people might walk past or see on TV multiple times a day and you would kind of um yeah go to that space and then make your point and then yeah the next time someone walks past it and they know what you've done there then it you know you've kind of planted the the the the message there's a real philosophy behind it yeah yeah it's called metapolitics and yeah yeah yeah so I don't I don't fully understand it.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: I've never heard of metapolitics that's not what Facebook is trying to do metapolic okay metapolitics.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_09: Ha because it's yeah because it's about the message that you want to cut through yeah yeah you yeah you want the message to um to to cut through and and you want to shift the overton window.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah describe the overton window for people.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_09: So the Overton window is a belief that at any one time in a in a moment um there's an accepted range of political discourse like there's an acceptable range of political discourse so um you would um you would um there's a different majority opinion in society so say if you say something a bit far to the left if the overton's window is is a bit far to the right you're outside of the bounds of accepted discourse yeah and and they believe that for these issues to be talked about what first needs to happen is the Overton window needs to shift to the right unsayable thing needs to shift become said.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah yeah yeah so that's the philosophy behind some of the activism it sounds exciting it was quite excited yeah it was he's a young guy like yeah quite exciting um yeah you go into some of these different places every now and then and and you know you like you made good friends like a lot of people in the group were just nice people yeah you know you just are they are they are they young guys like you or what's the demographic it was it was a mix it was it was very middle class right very middle c class group um a mix between um guys and girls very young maybe like 18 to 30 was the was the normal yeah Android a lot of uni students a lot of uni students and a lot of people who would work in media actually and a lot of people work in the city and yeah yeah yeah yeah so where are they now because I don't uh is does the group still operate?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_09: No the group doesn't operate no um and to be honest the the the sad thing is is that um a lot of the people that that are new in the group they they might have used fake names like a lot of us didn't actually know each other's real names yeah just because of the yeah the the the the belief that there's a pressure coming from the government and if your identity gets found out then there's going to be some sort of crackdown on you or something.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah and to an extent it was actually a bit true.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah in what sense because I didn't you make it onto the list of some counterterrorist lists and things and yeah yeah yeah yeah so it was one um yeah it was one morning um I just go outside my my door and I'm just on the way to work and you know I'm like 19 at the time and then um a prevent um yeah counterterrorism officer comes up to me and and and says listen we know that you're doing this and that the other we need to meet or or would you like to meet or just something to that effect and then I'm like I wasn't really gonna do it and then he's and then he's sending me messages um yeah and he and he's sending me messages being like listen um yeah it's some of it wasn't actually yeah the best maybe yeah some of it wasn't the best um way to it didn't help your view of or authority at that stage.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah perhaps it was overreach but um um yeah either way like I remember he called me and then we met and then and then the first thing he did was like he put put out this little bag and then he was like put your could you put your phone in the bag before we chat and I was like oh no no I don't want to put my phone in there and then and then he goes no put your phone in there and there was people with him and he said he was it was it was a bit weird you know but anyway I left and that was last eardom so it wasn't it didn't really amount to much but yeah that that was just an example of like the low level yeah yeah kind of in in like when they knew about you and they wanted you to know that they knew about you.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_09: Kind of yeah and and and when that low level stuff is going on like it's easy to believe that you know there's something higher going on here or yeah I could go to prison or yeah or s or something like that.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: So that's 18 19 years old.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: When did your nan become a Christian?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: Because that was that was quite important in your story wasn't huge.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah yeah so so my nan uh one of the people that raised me um called Elizabeth um she became a Christian when I was around about 13.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_09: How old am I now?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_09: So yeah it was about 14 years ago she became a Christian.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_09: And she got a knock at the door from from from the local church one morning.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_09: So yeah not from a Christian family none of us are believers um except my nan you know when after she got the knock at the door from the local church invited her to go and yeah she became a Christian.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah and um just became just this she's just changed almost overnight and and we're looking at her like what's going on with Gran like she just been and she said oh I've been born again and she gives us a Bible and it and then um her life was just completely changed.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_09: Huh and um and I I I actually have some of her notes she used to write notes in her little Bible studies and she did with her friends at church.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah and and I read them and and she just yeah pouring her soul out yeah to the Lord God really changed it was amazing yeah to read um but for you that's just an alien thing like like yeah like yeah like at the time yeah I just thought it was a bit odd yeah yeah I d I didn't really think much of it if I'm honest I was just like yeah I mean my grand's an elderly person she must have gone into that stage of life where she's decided to start going to church or something like that.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: It'll it'll happen to to all of us eventually but yeah yeah okay but it wasn't happening to you un until like like how did God start breaking through with you?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah it was it's it was it was it was a one day thing almost but looking back it was potentially a bit longer and you know it is because God you know works in people's lives for for years and yeah so um when I was on the group I I I left um the group um just came a bit disenfranchised um and yeah and then that just began a few years of me just thinking yeah I'm just gonna do what I think somebody my age should do and that is going out and and drinking and and yeah and drugs and and all and all that kind of thing.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: So your activism was kind of an alternative actually to to the sort of the dissolute kind of freedom loving you know young person lifestyle.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah kind of yeah and and like I'm sure in the back of my head I thought I've wasted a few years here I may as well go out and make the rest of it but yeah so I did that for for a um for a number of years yeah just um drugs on on the weekends and yeah yeah and kind of falling into like this weekly cycle that I find it quite hard to break out from actually and then yeah I found that yeah that really wasn't something that yeah really could satisfy me in the sense that you might expect it to um and then by the time um I became just before I became a Christian um yeah I I wouldn't have said that I was looking for something more but and I also wouldn't have said I wasn't happy with where I was but as you know a lot of people know and like from my experience when I became a a believer I would have just realized how miserable you are before actually knowing Jesus.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_09: It's night and day isn't it but yeah if you would have spoken to me at the time I would have said yeah things are going well.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_09: But yeah yeah Jesus really changed yeah changed my life and part of that was kind of social media coming in and and you sort of starting to see things in the algorithm or actually no no no it was um it was very random seemingly random to me it was it was a Sunday morning I had I had a bit of a night out the night before and then I come back in and then I wake up and then just for some reason I just feel like a bit of an impulse to pull this Bible out from under my bed that my gran had given me years before.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_09: Wow and it I just I just don't know I don't really know why but I was it was curiosity um and then yeah I just was like okay I'm I'm gonna do it and I pulled it out and then I opened it to Matthew I remember I opened it to Matthew and I thought that the Bible was just a book full of wise little sayings and myths and things that contradict one another and it's just that yeah and it's just and and no one's ever read the Bible and people can interpret it the way they want.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_09: I guess I would have thought that um but yeah I was I was I was really surprised when I the Bible was presenting itself as true.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_09: Like no this actually happened like this guy Jesus this is a story okay about Jesus walking around doing stuff yeah um that's supernatural.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah I was like wow okay so this is either a load of rubbish or it's true um and then I thought and and and I read stuff in there which which I I just feel was quite poignant and spoke to me quite deeply actually.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_04: Can you think of anything?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah yeah so um probably two stick out to me when when Jesus um he looks out I believe in Matthew he he he he looks out on the on the crowds when he's going around teaching with his disciples yeah and he looks around about around at the crowds and it says that um he saw that they were helpless like sheep about a shepherd right I was like man like yeah I mean I feel like that harassed and helpless harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd such a good description isn't it I thought wow yeah yeah I thought that yeah that's that speaks to me quite deeply actually because I I feel like that like I I never would have said that I do but I did I almost recognize that I've always felt like that after reading that you know I feel harassed and helpless.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah so I've got no sh no shepherd and I'm a sheep um and then yeah well maybe three actually I'll just yeah so so this other one was when John was um and when Jesus was speaking to his disciples in John just before he's crucified and I'm and I'm flicking through it and then Jesus says you know don't be afraid I won't leave you as orphans I'll come to you and you know he's he's I didn't really know at the time that he is talking about the Holy Spirit and all this kind of stuff but just just just the heart behind it like don't be afraid I'll I'm not gonna leave you as orphans I'll come to you that was just super powerful for me.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah super powerful for me um yeah I feel like a a harass like for the first time reading the Bible I was like well I'm a harassed helpless orphan orphan so but it was it was weirdly a positive experience yeah and then because it was because it understood you it understood your feeling of lostness yeah it was reading me yeah as I was reading it yeah and and I was just kind of blown away just because man this has given me a character diagnosis that you'd have to pay quite a lot of money for yeah and exceeds any of that.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah so yeah and then it really did it for me when I opened to Romans chapter one and then you know it gives the state of the world talks about what the world's like talks about who you know um what's true of everyone in terms of our sin and in like the way that we are and then I I read the end of the chapter and I don't have a a context for sin like I don't have a category to fit the word sin into and then when I read Romans when it comes to the end and it has this really long punchy list and every it was talking you know disobedient to parents haunty proud haughty proud haters of God insolent bozo all these kinds of things and each one is like a little like punch in the gut yeah and um and I was just like man this is me like this is me.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_09: There's something real about this and and and it just something came up in my mind and I thought is this true right it could it be true and I'm like no don't don't be silly it's not true.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_09: And and I thought okay I'm gonna look at a little debate on YouTube and and see what people are saying.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_09: Okay.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_09: And I forgot what the exact debate was but it was a bit yeah it was William Lane Craig okay and then a d another little video with Frank Chorick who's a great guy does cross examined in America and I just thought okay I didn't understand all their points I understand I understood like what they were trying to communicate I think but it just struck me man these guys are a lot smarter than me and and these guys are Christians so I thought okay maybe I should humble myself a bit and maybe listen to what these people who are evidently smarter than me have to say.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: So whatever it is it's not silly.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_09: It's not silly yeah yeah it's a reasonable belief like you know it's a reasonable belief to hold that Jesus was resurrected for example when you look at the historical evidence um but yeah yeah so since then after um yeah being exposed to who I was in in in the morning and then after being convinced that it could potentially be true in the afternoon I was I was I was I I I just thought okay um I'm gonna try and pray maybe I'm gonna try and then I I close my eyes and then I'm and I was just hit with a sense of fear like deep fear like wow you know when you when you close your eyes and you don't believe that there is a God you're just looking into nothing but if there is a God and he's there in some way that's quite a scary thing to know that God's eyes are on you and he's and he's as powerful as you know he's he's he's tanning your ears and his word and all that and it was a terrifying experience because I was thinking because also I I didn't really have my theology on and I still don't in a lot of ways but but less than one day into this thing but yeah there we yeah there we go I I was thinking okay so if God's real he's gonna jump out at me when I close my eyes and scare me or something like that.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah um no but yeah and and really what what happened throughout the course of the evening is I had a real profound spiritual encounter where I was filled with the Holy Spirit and I was convinced in a moment that all of it was true my mind was changed um and I went to bed happy okay and I was like wow and and as I'm going to sleep I just feel the love of God in my heart.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_09: Wow this is amazing.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_09: This is a big day honestly mate yeah yeah I think of yeah small as well do you know the date actually don't no no no I don't know the date to be honest I kind of forget the year people say how long have you been a Christian I'm like yeah four years ago oh wait it's probably six now isn't it but um yeah and then I woke up the next morning and then I'm I'm I'm you know going to work you know doing my normal thing and I'm I'm looking at the looking around and I'm thinking is it just me or does is everything a bit more colourful here?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_09: The world's laced with a better hope now and I can't speak in the same way I can't say the same things and I didn't even know you'd be Born again was a thing.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_09: But you know, as I as I'm talking to my mates, and you know, I used to have a really, you know, not used to have, yeah, I used to have a bit of a filthy mouth, like sweater and making you all kinds of jokes all the time, think yeah.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_09: But I just couldn't do that anymore.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_09: So like my mates are like, oh, what do you think about this?
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_09: And he he wants me to my normal reaction, and then I and then I'm a bit quiet, but contently quiet.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's Boulder Dash.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, big sweat.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_09: And then and then um, and then and then and then they're saying to me, you know, you know, Harrisonite, you're right, what's going on?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_09: And I'm thinking, I've never been better, like in my head.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_09: And yeah, it was only months later I found out, oh yeah, being born again was a thing, but I wouldn't have known it was.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_09: I experienced it way before I knew it.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_03: So tell me how how did how does church come into your life?
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: Because we we've we've already mentioned, you know, what kind of difficulty it would be for somebody who went, you know, on Saturday to that Carol thing to to wind up in church on a Sunday.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_03: How did how did church happen for you?
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_09: Do you know what I spent about yeah, maybe maybe three, four months after being a Christian, just spending time with the Lord on my own.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_09: I didn't really know that you should go to church or that it's a good thing to go to church.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_09: Didn't really think about it until I joined this online group um yeah of people who were exploring Christianity.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_09: Um and I joined it, it was online and it was somewhere in London, um, based um yeah, church from London, we're running this ministry, uh, we're running this group.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_09: And then I joined it online, we're chatting to people, and like once a week I've got this weekly call.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_09: And in our group, we have like a Muslim guy, we have an atheist, we have someone who doesn't really know, we have someone who's like a a Christian who's on fire for the Lord and he's telling everyone about it.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_09: And then I'm in this group chat, um in this chat, and then um, yeah, it was just a time when yeah, I experienced a bit of fellowship for the first time actually, but it was through a computer screen, yeah.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and I got my a lot of my questions answered, and I got in touch with the pastor who was who who was running it.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_09: It's called it was it's called the salt course, and they meet in person now, but this but this was when COVID was happening, this was online.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_09: Um and then yeah, I started becoming more familiar with the pastor, became closer friends with people in the group until it got to the point where I thought, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna go to church this Sunday.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_09: And I was pumped, I was I was buzzing about it.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_09: I'm like, oh sweet, I'm gonna go to church.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_09: And then the pastor, he's this amazing guy, he's called Jeremy, um, Jeremy Moses.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and then yeah, we just made friends.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_09: I'm I'm I'm sending this guy like four questions a day on WhatsApp.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and I'm like, sorry if I'm asking you another question.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_09: He'd love that, and he'd love it.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_09: He was like, Harrison, don't be silly, I love it.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_09: And I was like, all right, sweet.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_09: I'm just asking questions like as soon as he popped into my head.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_09: But yeah, we I made good friends, and then he meets me at the train station where the church is.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_09: Love that.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_09: And we we have a conversation and we we chat and we get like um a little coffee and then we go into church together.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_09: Um, yeah, and he and he just made the experience, yeah, a lot.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_09: That first church experience.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_09: What was it like?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_09: Joe, it was weird, it was weird, mate.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_09: Because I go in and this was when COVID was going on.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, so everything was so like not because it was church, but because of how it was, yeah, like everyone's like sat in their seats and the like a chair away from each other, people have got face masks on, yeah, and and no one's communicating, no one's talking because yeah, you can't really do it properly, yeah.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, it's just yeah, how it was.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, um, but sitting under the preaching and like worshiping, it was just amazing.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_09: I was thinking, man, this is like I just felt God there, you know, through the sermon and through the the worship, and yeah, I was it was yeah, amazing.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_09: I just couldn't wait to go back.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that church always isn't like that.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_09: People take their masks off and people So what is happening?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: So so you've you've met a guy, Jeremy, who's answering your questions, you're part of now a worshiping community, you've been born again, you know, the Holy Spirit.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_03: So all sorts of stuff is is starting to transform you.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_03: When do you when do you start thinking again politically?
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like when when does that start to have an impact on on how you consider all sorts of questions like immigration and race and Islam and all that stuff?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_09: Mm-mm-mm, yeah, yeah.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_09: So um I remember I just didn't think about it.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_09: I was like, I'm not thinking about it.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_09: Um I see verses which really help me because it is a struggle, like when you know it's it's when someone's coming from a certain worldview, it is it can be quite painful the sanctification process, you know, and and God is so gracious in like you know, you know, teaching us his worldview and and having us live holy lives with with thoughts that are pleasing to him and that.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_09: Um so like Hebrews, like we've we've come to a kingdom that can't be shaken.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_09: That was a big one for me.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_09: So reading verses like that, I'm like, wow, you know, I feel this anxiety about losing my country.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_09: But now you're telling me that not that that doesn't not that nothing matters and we're all gonna go to heaven, it's all fine, but now actually my my main identity is as a citizen of heaven, right?
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_09: And no one's shaking that.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_09: No one can shake it.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean the the revelation stuff about every tribe, nation, people, and tongue is is fascinating because you've got it's it's both uh uh proclamation of the diversity and the unity of the races, isn't it?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like all at once, all at once.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_03: Preserved on into eternity, nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues are nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues in all their distinctive glory, and preserved into eternity is there is a profound level of oneness, you know, from north, south, east, and west.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_03: We're all gonna sit at table with Abraham, Jew and Gentile together, all the races together in a kind of unity that, as you say, is is not um is not a melting pot.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, so um, yeah, somebody uh was really helping me um think through diversity in the church lately, actually, because you know he he basically makes the point that you know we love and rightly diversity of of of class and and race and culture and ethnicity, and that's a good thing, and and it's God's manifold wisdom, you know, revealed to the world, bringing all these different people together and and and stuff like this.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_09: And it's a good diversity that that we love, but one diversity that we might not always love is diversity of opinion within the church, um, which I find quite interesting because it's it's it's a topic that you're really gonna have to face head on with people who go to Tommy Robertson's carol service, yeah, walking in the front doors of your church on a Sunday, maybe, yeah, yeah, sitting alongside someone who's voting for Labour or the Green Party, yeah.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_09: And um, you know, in the in the in in Romans, you have Paul, he's he's writing to the church in Rome, and he says something really interesting.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_09: He says um to one person, he says, you know, you know, you're you're a vegetarian, you you're you you made the decision not to eat meat to another person you are eating meat, one person is honouring the Sabbath or whatever, and another person isn't, or something similar.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, um, but instead of just saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah, like how about it, like make war in time to like see who's the smarter thinker or the better communicator or whatever, yeah.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_09: He says, you know, see the faith in it.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_09: One person honours one day in honour of the Lord, and one person honours all days.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_09: So there is a possibility that unity can potentially be arrived at.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_09: This person has been telling me, and I think I agree.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, that um we can look at somebody and we can potentially disagree with them, yeah, but God's potential would encourage them us to see the faith in in that person while they believe the things that they do.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_09: Um, you know, somebody who's who's who's like voting, some people would say, Oh, they're far left.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_09: Like that person might be wanting to honour the Lord because you know, they they they kind of read the scriptures where it talks about welcoming the foreigner and the stranger and and and and the you know, all that kind of stuff, and and they're doing it in honour of the Lord.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_09: But somebody who is further to the right, they they that they might be zealous for the gospel and and they want England to be a Christian nation to get the gospel and to honour the Lord, and they feel like you know, we might have been um yeah, like the name of the Lord might have been yeah, smeared in some ways by Christ by um uh England's kind of departure from the faith.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_09: But there's faith in both of those, potentially, whether the right or wrong, yeah.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_09: There's faith at work potentially in these people's decisions.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_09: And that could yeah, could be the answer to how we could be more unified across the spectrum.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_03: I and and you know, I'm I'm naive enough to think that yes, the uh the and I I hope faith-filled enough to think that the Church of Jesus Christ might be the answer to some of this.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_03: That um that to to the person on the left, you have a yes but no but yes kind of response to them, and and you kind of say, you know, yes, your um your preference for the marginalized and the downtrodden um is a wonderful thing that God agrees with.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um but no man-made efforts to bring about the kind of equality, diversity, and inclusion um are are a dead end.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_03: But yes, again, through repentance and faith in Jesus, the the Church of Jesus Christ is meant to be the sort of place where where there is the true anti-racist, the truly anti-racist movement on planet earth for the last 2,000 years is the Church of Jesus Christ, right?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_03: And if you if you like that, then come to Jesus, you know.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, no, yeah, no, yeah.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_03: And at the same time, on the on the right, you know, you want to unite the kingdom.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_03: That's why that's why I think it's fascinating.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's Hebrews 12, isn't it?
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_03: A kingdom that cannot be shaken.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: I believe.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it I think at that point you you you're like a yes but no but yes.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: Again, like you you really want a people to belong to, that has a history behind it, that is that you know you can walk with your head held high belonging to a nation.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_03: You're right, that that um that that is to be celebrated, yes.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_03: But no, um if you lean fully into just human nations, then um it will crumble beneath you.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um beneath the weight that you're putting onto just just the just the human nation.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, just the human nation for sure.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the true kingdom that will never um that will never divide and that will endure is the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_03: But yes, in him you can you can actually be a better citizen of this earthly kingdom because you put Jesus first.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so you're doing a yes but no but yes to both sides, and you're saying, look, the true anti I I get the anti-racism thing, and yay and amen.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_03: The true anti-racist movement is is found in Christ and in his people.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_03: The true unity of the kingdom that really matters, again, is found in in Jesus and in his people.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm naive enough and I hope faithful enough to say that in the church, you know, we we we get both those people worshipping side by side.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_09: Oh yeah, wouldn't it be amazing?
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_09: And and yeah, it's something to be embraced, isn't it?
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_09: Like, you know, um and yeah, I think you know, when it comes to discipling these people who who who seem to be coming in and we want to welcome them and love them, all that's true.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_09: When it comes to evangelising, potentially um, yeah, people feel quite strongly.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_09: And so some of these guys they feel quite strongly about their nation, and there's a lot of pain there.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_11: Yes.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_11: Tell me about that.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_09: Um so there's pain there because you know the reality is is that yeah, a lot of them potentially are looked down upon by people, they hear their accents, and they dismiss them and put them in a category.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and even potentially even Tommy, Tommy Robinson, you know, like you have other speakers who say the same things as Tommy, potentially, some of them a bit more um incendiary, um, you know, like uh uh Douglas Murray, uh people people like this, people in the Conservative Party.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_09: And you know, they they and and and yeah, they they're not saying anything crazy, but they they they're speaking with yeah, yeah.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_09: They're a bit more well-to-do, they can speak the language.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, not Luton and London, yeah.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: There we go.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_09: And and I'm sure there is a class component to it, and people feel it, I think.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_09: Um yeah, people feel it, and and there's pain there, there's pain, you know, um from potentially being looked down on.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and also like you know, the reality is is that some of these people that like they could have come from communities that have changed without them wanting it to change.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_09: That that could have happened.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_09: And um they are somewhere, not no, not nowhere, you know.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_09: Like they they're gonna be.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me more about the the David Goodhart thing, isn't it?
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_03: The somewhere's versus the anywhere.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_03: I believe so.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, so so um yeah, I mean, a lot of people tend would tend to think of themselves as being an individual, they're not really based in any particular community, they might um you know grow up there and then move to there and go to uni there and although that's what they that's how the elites think.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_03: So David David Goodhart, who I think his book's called The Road to Somewhere, and he was trying to explain Brexit.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, like, why why did it take everybody by surprise that 52% of the UK like decided to leave the European Union and and be ruled more locally from Westminster?
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_03: And and so he yeah, he came up with that the there are the somewheres and the anywheres.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_03: And he he reckoned through all his sort of research that about 30% of Britain are actually the they're the anywheres as you're describing them.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_03: That the yeah.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_03: I could go to school here, I go at a university there, I then might work in Hong Kong, and then I might go like like and your sense of place is much less if you're in anywhere, but then the people you're talking about are the the somewheres, right?
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_09: So the somewhere they feel deeply rooted to their area, yeah, which is why local church over there is so important.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_09: Um and you know, yeah, some of them do feel pain because they they they live in a community, they they view the world a different way to people who don't see themselves as you know being born and raised somewhere.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and so that comes with all sorts of yeah, yeah, different concerns, different pains, different sins, all kinds of stuff.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_09: But but also like it means that yeah, so when somebody is, you know, quite transient, they go from one place to another, and they go to a church, that church is their community.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_09: And sometimes they're experiencing community for the first time.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_09: But in some of these places, some of these estates and some of these, you know, more working class towns and cities, when there's a church plant, it's a community in a community.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_09: Like you're reaching out to the community, not just the individual.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_09: Um, so you become the community centre.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_09: People sometimes would rely on you for a whole bunch of different things.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_09: You have different, yeah, just different concerns.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_09: It's yeah, it's a different way of reaching out to people.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_03: But like, s but this is the thing, like 70% of the UK, David Goodhart would say, are more somewheres.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_03: But the media and the political class are all anywheres, right?
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_03: Which is why something like Brexit utterly takes them by surprise.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_03: They're just like, I had no idea that people felt this way.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_03: And and and the church has been caught up in this.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_03: You've mentioned the Church of England, and you know, I I remember, I remember the Brexit vote.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I have no dog in the fight.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_03: I'm an Australian, you know, I I don't think Australia belongs in the Eurovision Song Contest.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's my contribution to the to the whole debate about I think Australia should leave the Eurovision Song Contest.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_03: I, you know, I don't have a dog in the fight of should should Britain be in the in the European Union.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_03: But I was very struck that people were so shocked that anyone would want to be kind of ruled more by Westminster than by than by Brussels and those kinds of concerns.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: And what I noticed was of any of the bishops in the Church of England that said anything about the referendum, um, dozens were on the remain side.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I think maybe one or two um actually said that they'd be voting leave in, you know, in that vote.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_03: And like whatever whatever you think the right vote was back in 2016, um, it's just interesting that the great majority of bishops picked a side that lost the vote.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_03: The great majority were on the side of the 48%, and very few were on the side of the 52%.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_04: I don't care about your politics.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm I'm an evangelist, I don't I'm and I'm not a Brit.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_03: I don't care about any of that stuff.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_03: Is this a problem?
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's a problem.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and and again, I'm I'm I would be very happy to say Brexit is a mistake.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be very happy to say that.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's fine.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_03: But missionally, how is the nation hearing the national church?
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_03: They're hearing the national church as the anywhere, and 70% of the country the somewhere.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, well, it it potentially like yeah, so so what you've just had, two two bishops have said something like that.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, so it it it if anything, it sposes a a a misread of of the room, you know, like or a lack of care that you've that you misread the room.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_09: Like, these aren't the people who you you'd you'd especially like to reach out to.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you you'd maybe prefer to reach out to the people who agree with your views and would be nicer to have around for dinner like in a dinner party context because you know you both come from the same culture or something like this, maybe.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_09: Um, but yeah, it's there's there's a huge disconnect between yeah, the established churches and some of these more working class areas.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, in my opinion.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_09: People feel it, yeah, people feel it.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_09: Um, which is why um somebody going along to that carol service, yeah, when I was looking around, I was thinking, for some of these people, this might be the first time that they've heard the gospel.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_09: But for many of them, I'm sure it was.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_09: And you know, and and yeah, it can only be a good thing.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_03: And they really did hear it.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, let's we'll we'll have a look at some of the things that that people were saying.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_07: And the wages of our sin is death, hell, and judgment.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_07: The gift of God in Christmas and Easter is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_05: Notice this is not just another religion.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_05: This is an intimate relationship with a life-changing, powerful, dynamic God who can change your life and not only your life, but who can change this nature to make it great again.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_06: God bless you all!
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I what strikes me is, well, obviously, with open-air preaching to the people, you're gonna have to be a lot more direct.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you can't do sophisticated, nuanced, balanced, you're gonna have to be direct because there's a whole bunch of people, and most of them are distracted, and they might be on their phones, and it's et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_03: So you're gonna have to be a lot more direct than the queen giving the queen's speech on a Christmas Day, you know.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_03: But the sort of the sort of the sort of Christians on the on the left, we we don't mind a mixture of politics and religion.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_03: If it's interesting, you know, if it's someone as quintessentially posh as the monarch on Christmas Day, like getting into the Jesus thing.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_03: We don't, we don't mind that.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and there are all sorts of reasons why I think it's legitimate to be very uncomfortable with the Tommy Robinson thing, because I think um the internal messaging of that event on Saturday was things like, well, this is a this is a flag, this is a you know, this is our country, and that's why we're putting the Christ back into Christmas.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_03: And uh and I get that people will feel that is to use Jesus as a territorial marker.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I get that people were like, I and I I don't want Jesus to become an emblem of the kind of politics that you already believed, whether you had Jesus in your life or not.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's a it's something that's to be wary of on the right.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's definitely something to be rare of on the left, you know, that we're only interested in Jesus because he was a refugee, or we're only interested in Jesus because of his ethnicity, or something like that.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_03: And and it's possible on the left to foreground issues about Jesus where you're kind of like, are you interested in Jesus, or is he an emblem for the kind of politics that you believed in before you came to Jesus?
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, and it and it and it can't be that way.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_09: Um there can be no um yeah, in in a Christian's mind, there can't be a flag at the top and then Jesus below the flag and then you have your family or whatever, in terms of your list of things that you care most about.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_09: Um what I see it as is Yeah, potentially maybe a need for discipleship in some of these circles.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_09: Like what are we saying, what are we doing, what what do we believe?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_09: Um so yeah, like I do see yeah, some of these people like like Tommy and um you know some of his like some of his mates who like do this kind of stuff.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_09: I do see people like that as the people to be evangelized to, yes, rather than how are they doing their evangelism.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_09: If that makes sense, yes.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_09: Um in and yeah, like some of this stuff, it's yeah, like you can't have the flag and then Jesus, like it just can't happen.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_09: But um there is something there where that could be a bit of an evangelistic in to have people potentially look at their nation's history and culture and be like, oh wow, yeah.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_09: I mean, I would like I want to be a proud Englishman.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_09: What do what a proud Englishman like, and then they start looking at history, yeah, and then the they find a diamond in history because they have the true gospel there, and you know, the the beliefs that potentially pe their family had, and but it can't you can't just stop there, like you're not right.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_09: Okay, there you are, you're you're you're a gent you're an English gentleman who goes to church.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_09: Yes, that's it, that's the goal.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_09: It's it's it's like no, like that yeah is uh are you is Jesus your life?
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_09: Have you given your life to Jesus?
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_09: That's that that's what that's what all of it should lead to.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_09: It can't just stop with right, you know, a kind of recognition that we're a Christian nation or anything like this, even though perhaps that that's that it it's needed in a sense, and we do have resources that are still there which we can use to bring people to Christ.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_09: Yes, yes.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_09: Um but it can only it and it ends in Christ and Christ is all in all.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_03: And you're sort of you're you're referring to the um uh the publicity around it in which putting Christ back into Christmas, Christ was sort of um as a as a union flag, we can put it put it on the screen.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um and yeah, you're you're you're saying that's unfortunate.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_03: I guess it's unfortunate on the left if Jesus is just an emblem of environmentalism or feminism, or like like whatever it is.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_03: And and there's all sorts of university talks that I'm invited to to sort of go and give, and it's sort of Jesus is also an environmentalist and Jesus is also a feminist, and and I'm very happy to go in there, and people will be already interested in environmentalism, and I can say, well, here's a Christian doctrine of creation care.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_03: And actually, there's a yes but no but yes that I need to do with you guys.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_03: And and you know, you're interested in the environment, but no, human, you know, humans are not the answer, and God is the answer, and and and he then helps us to be into creation care.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_03: In the same way, is is there a possibility?
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_03: Is that what you're saying here?
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_03: That that that those who are foregrounding nation, they they they need a kind of a yes, you need to belong somewhere, but no, not don't don't lean on the flesh in that sense.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and I will say, yeah, I mean perhaps yeah, because of just who we are, like as is an event is the evangelical church in the UK, it it probably would would would be wise for us to think through what kind of instinctive view, like what what reactions do I have when I hear this kind of stuff at this carol service.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_09: Because um, you know, I I saw this stats, I was like, no way, it's crazy.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_09: In in in the UK, something like yeah, um over seven uh no, sorry, just over 30% or something of people in the UK have a university degree.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_09: In the evangelical church, I think that's over 70%.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_09: I mean, which is great, we have educated believers, and that's awesome.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_09: Um I didn't go to um university personally or anything, but but either way, that that that that means that there must be something that yeah, that that we're carrying into the church that potentially is influencing the way that we do ev evangelism and stuff like this.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_03: It is an utter sickness, Harrison.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_03: And and and we should we should look up um we should look up Thomas.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_03: Are you able to look up?
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think there's there's a statistic about um if you're a graduate, you are so much more likely to be in an evangelical church than if you're a non-graduate.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's it's just of like the proportion of graduates versus the proportion of non-graduates.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's an art of sickness.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like like class absolutely divides the United Kingdom, right?
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it divides the church.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_09: And it's it's kind of a big thing, uh, you know, class, I guess.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, um 81% of practicing Christians in the UK have a university degree.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: In the US, 32%.
• 1:08:49
  unknown: What?
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_09: That's crazy.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_03: And but but the 32% is basically like commensurate with like what proportion of the US population actually have a degree.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_03: So like the as many graduates as are in the population are in the church.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas in the UK, like 81% if you if you've got a degree.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_03: You're only 30, like a third of the UK population, but you're four-fifths of the UK church.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_09: So watch him that is.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's been strategic.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_03: I th I think, well, the UK is already cr class riven.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um and a whole bunch of people wanted to leverage that for the gospel, you know, for good purposes.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so you want to take your Etonians and your Harovians and your you know, your your Winchester kind of schools and your Oxford and Cambridge, and you've you've wanted to take the cream of the crop and convert them and sort of in, you know, if you've heard of trickle-down economics, kind of trickle down evangelism, right?
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_03: You you get the cream of the crop and then the rest of the the it's it's been it's been a strategy, right?
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_03: And and yet the elitism is is there on the surface of things.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_03: And yet it's church people for church reasons, it's Christian people for Christian reasons who are actually pulling the strings of a strategic preference for the rich over the poor.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_09: Wow.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_09: Which is, in a sense, the opposite of the of the gospel, God chose the poor in the world to be rich in faith.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_09: Consider the poor.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I I chuckle and I laugh, and yet it's tragic.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_03: It really is.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I I I think some of what's going on is class related, you know, in terms of people's reactions to the Tommy Robinson thing.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_03: I also think that some of Tommy Robinson's behavior and many of Tommy Robinson's views and some of the ways that I that I fear the movement is trying to co-opt Christianity for other purposes, I think that it that that is all a serious problem.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_03: I do think that is all a serious problem.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_03: And at the same time, I think a lot of the snobbery that people have, not not even against Tommy Robinson, because I I I think, you know, as a convicted felon, I I think there are there are reasons to be suspicious of him.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_03: You you still want to listen to him, but but I think there are reasons to be suspicious of him.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_03: But I do suspect that some of the antipathy towards this movement is class related.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_03: And to that degree, I just I just want the the elite side of things to kind of reflect on that and and repent of that.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_09: And well, I guess maybe even a potential solution could be that these people they want Christian leaders to come and chat to them.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_09: You know, so I mean, I'm sure that if um a Christian leader in the UK who's you know, quite prominent prominent, wanted to reach out to them and be like, listen, yeah, I hear you've got a rally going on.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_09: I'm not saying I fully agree with everything you say in the rally, but can I just come up and preach the gospel?
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_09: I reckon you'd bite your hand off.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't think I would speak on Saturday, not which is not to throw shade at anybody who did speak on Saturday.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think the messages that I heard were very um direct, clear gospel presentations, and I was very glad of that.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I think God will use that preaching.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I think God would use my preaching if I if I stood on that stage.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_03: My problem is, though, that the movement was framing that gospel event, and it was a gospel event in which the gospel was preached, but it was framing it almost as a way to own the libs, right?
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_03: In the in the internal messaging, um Tommy Robinson was sending emails to people about, you know, the London Mayor is gonna hate us doing this, and the libs are gonna hate us doing this, and the globalists are gonna hate us doing this.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_03: And and and that was part of the internal messaging, part of the external messaging was putting Christ back into Christmas, and Christ was a union flag, and so making Christ an emblem of a political view that the movement is all about.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_03: The movement is fundamentally a political movement, and and which is fine.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's fine for it to be a political movement, but to then you know get Glenn Scrivener, the Reverend Glenn Scrivener, to come up and and and preach the gospel, and no shade to anybody who made this choice, but for me, I I would see I would see the movement as framing what I'm doing as owning the libs.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd and I I just don't I don't I don't want to risk that, even if um it would do good.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_03: I take it that you know some people will take different views strategically that it's worth that risk in order to reach people for the gospel.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think I I think I would much rather take your your your route to things, which was just I'm gonna go as a punter and as a punter towards punters, kind of get into conversations and and things like that.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I think at that point I'm speaking the gospel into that situation.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think the danger of just standing on that stage for me would be that that would be um a movement using my gospel preaching for a political end.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that that's why I would resist that.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I I would I would love I would love Tommy to come into our church.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_03: I would love anyone who Tommy has influenced to come into our church.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I would I would hope that they would feel welcome in our church and and and not feel you know sneered at and not feel like they're in the basket of deplorables and and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um but yeah, I I I think the danger is that that movement um as as much as it was solely about Jesus Christ, and I think within that little frame it was solely about Jesus Christ, but it was solely about Jesus Christ within a movement that's trying to do something else.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, it's interesting.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_09: I think, yeah, some of the just some it's changed to where some of the conversations we were having people with people who were there, they would never normally go to anything like that.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_09: Like they would never go to anything like that.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_09: Some of them, I'm not saying all of them, some of them might be like, yeah, well, yeah, but like some of them would never go to anything like that.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_09: And yeah, just the chats that we had with some of the people there would yeah, pretty special.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_09: And I could just couldn't see myself having the same conversation at a similar place, maybe five, six years ago.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_03: So you think something's going on at the moment?
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think there's there's a greater awakening to faith among just just regular Brits?
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_09: I think so, yeah.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_09: I I do think so.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_09: Like just um just was some of my friends who who aren't Christian, just there's just an openness there, there's just a change.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_09: There's something's changed, and I don't I don't know what it is, but yeah, I'm happy that it's changed.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_09: And yeah, and I think people who who go along to this, yeah, to these protests and and go to um this carol service, they they they wouldn't normally find themselves going to uh yeah, going to anything Christian, like but yeah, but like the facts, like perhaps perhaps the Lord is used the fact that if Tommy Robinson asks them to go somewhere, they'll go to put them in the right time and the place to have the gospel preached to them.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we're both saying at that point we're so happy if a Tommy shows up in our church, or B, someone shows up in our church because of Tommy, right?
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_12: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um we're so happy, but I I love your your your sort of statement.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_03: We're we're we're so glad that that stuff gets them to where they are, but we just don't don't want to leave them there.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_09: He cannot stop there, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_09: It can't, yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_09: And yeah, I definitely share with you, yeah, Christianity, it can't be contained in a in a kind of protest movement or anything like this.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_09: Like it it has to lead to something.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_03: It can't be it can't be a movement of the flesh.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like like the flesh and the spirit is just a massive New Testament concept.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_03: And and obviously, flesh at its most vulgar is like the skin and skin colour.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_03: Like it it certainly can't be I'm I'm proud of being British because I'm white or or or anything like that.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_03: But is there a possibility for saying, you know what God has done in Britain?
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_03: It isn't it is not to do with the flesh.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Perhaps it's a movement of the spirit, right?
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_03: And if it's a movement of the sp of the spirit, it will resist kind of fleshiness.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_03: And you can you can kind of have a gospel identity that that transcends flesh and transcends that kind of of way of characterizing yourself, and then you're off, you know, you're off to the races on a much more rich and it at that stage you are then doing the true anti-racism, right?
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_03: And that's th those are the sorts of conversations that I'd love to have.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think do you think reform are gonna get in?
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I think it seems that way.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_09: I think yeah, I think it's quite inter like we're in a quite interesting moment because you know, the mainstream political parties have just yeah, almost dissolved, haven't they?
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_09: And it seems that you know the nation is you know, um been split from the middle and people are more there and people and the in the the views contrast so much more.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_09: Um in reform, yeah, it seems like reform is gonna get in.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_09: Well, just looking at the polls, but yeah, I don't know.
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_09: But yeah, speaking to people that I know, yeah, um, especially on the estate, but not everyone on the estate thinks that.
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_09: There's more people voting reform who I know were voting for other other people.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_09: And and you know, like it's it's quite interesting actually, because um, you know, my wife was telling me she was like, um she went to a a friendship, she went to a dinner and she was talking to her friends, and then I I think something like they were saying, um, oh like, can you believe that this person at work has been voting for reform?
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_09: Or like, or like, can you believe that anyone would vote for reform?
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_09: And then down to some of my friends, and then like we're just in a car, and I'm in a car, and I just I'm just sitting there, and then one of them was like, So we're voting for, and everyone's like, Yeah, reform, reform, reform.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_09: And I'm just like, wow, like these this group, this this car of friends don't know about like this other friendship group of these opposite views and wouldn't really tend to mix with them and the other way around.
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_03: And therefore, are we going to have referendum 2.0 in which the church again is is kind of like so against what turns out to be the will of the people, right?
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, and and all of this will bite me on the backside if it turns out that Nigel Farage is Hitler, and all of this will bite me on the back side if it turns out the reform are literally the Nazis.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_03: And and but I'm I'm persuaded that they're they're not.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I don't think they'll do a brilliant job, but I don't think anyone's doing a brilliant job, to be to be fair.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and I'm not aware, and people will say in comments what you know egregious views that reform has.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_03: I I haven't looked into them, I don't know.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_03: But all that to one side, my deep fear is that we will have a rerun of 2016 in in which the church once again will find itself, what?
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_03: We had no idea there were anyone, there's anyone who would vote for reform.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_03: None of my friends would vote for reform.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, that that's that's on us.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, but you this is a good opportunity, in my personal opinion, yeah, to actually kind of yeah, just be like, guys, we we all love each other in this church family.
• 1:19:49
  SPEAKER_09: And like when you have a local church, yes, because it's the local church, people are just people aren't gonna go to the conservative church, then go to the more left-leaning church.
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_09: People go to their local church.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_09: Because they're in there, there will be you're gonna have to deal with it, these different opinions.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_09: And a lot of them are disputable matters.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_09: Like we need to learn to love the person who was voting the thing that would defeat our political opinions or something like that.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_09: You know, because we're all in the church, and just yeah, to see the faith and the reason why some people might be even against reform and the faith into which some people might be voting for reform if we can't see nothing else with brothers and sisters in the Lord.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_09: Gotta go to the same church together.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, we're not gonna kick anyone out for voting, hopefully not.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and therefore the church is the is the answer to some of these problems.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm I'm naive enough to think that, you know, perhaps in the same church is the sort of person who would want to put uh a across of St.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_03: George up a flagpole or up a light po uh up a lamppost somewhere because he feels that it's okay to be proud of your nation, aren't you?
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_03: And next to him is a Ghanaian kind of you know, immigrant who just feels that, you know, he he sees that on a Sunday morning and he he thinks that's just a territorial sign and he feels incredibly unwelcome.
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_03: And and um is it too much to ask that the church is is a place where both those two can sit down together, worship the same Jesus and talk about it?
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like is is that is that possible?
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_09: And yeah, and it and it's an opportunity that has, you know, potentially like who knows what's gonna happen, but if the nation gets further and further, you know, polarized, isn't it an amazing opportunity for the church to show God's wisdom in his people by having diversity of opinion in the same church, loving each other, right, and viewing Christianity as their you know foundational identity?
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_09: Like that's a good opportunity, I think.
• 1:21:33
  SPEAKER_11: Like that'd be great.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_03: Here's the church, it's the true, it's the true city, it's the true kingdom, it's the true anti-racism, it's the it's it's the true people that can never be shaken.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_09: The answer to all of life's ultimate you know questions and issues if are found in Jesus, like the only true happiness is in is in Christ, giving your life to Christ and being with his people.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you know, that's the only way that you find true eternal happiness, like a kingdom that can't be shaken.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you know, and you know, these things are are important in the impact people's lives, and you never want to downplay it.
• 1:22:09
  SPEAKER_09: You know, some of these beliefs are quite tightly held by people, and for good reason for some of them, but I think you know, uh from my experience, you know, tightly holding on to beliefs so much is is actually yeah, it just exposes your your need for something greater.
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_09: Um yeah, which I've I've found in the Lord, and you know, and yeah, yeah, and I think I want everyone to have that.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, totally.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_03: So, Harrison, um, so you are in training to be a pastor.
• 1:22:34
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you wanna you want to pass on the good news uh to all sorts of people.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_03: I want to close with a couple of questions uh around that.
• 1:22:42
  SPEAKER_03: And um one is let's say that you were successful on Saturday and you got into a conversation and you say, come back to my church on Sunday.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_03: They come in, they're they're not yet a believer, but they've got the sort of sympathies that took them to that event on Saturday.
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_03: What sort of what sort of journey, what kind of steps do you would you would you try and help them to take as you shepherd them towards faith in Jesus?
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:09
  SPEAKER_09: So yeah, as they come in, um, yeah, a lot of them are are kind of looking for the unadulterated, like raw like gospel message in a sense, like they might not know it, but that's what they're there for.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_09: And they certainly have less um barriers pushing against it, you know, because they're they're coming in with a disposition of uh believing it's true.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_09: So they they might come in believing they're a Christian, you know.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_09: So so so they're coming in not as people who okay, wow, this is um yeah, I'm coming into a church and I don't know whether it's true or not.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_09: But potentially they're kind of coming in thinking, yeah, I'm a Christian and this is what Christians do, and this is my first week as a practicing Christian, and I'm and I'm coming to church, and and yeah, it's just to give them the gospel, like to give them the gospel, a gospel of grace, and um, yeah, the gospel of mercy.
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, for them to just sit there and and hear, wow, like I'm a yeah, I'm a sinner.
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_09: I'm a sinner and I and I need Jesus, you know, from the front.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_09: Um, but also, yeah, like um like a big thing would be yeah, just to have people yeah, making friends with them, chatting to them, um, inviting them around people's houses, and it's it's kind of just a community stuff, you know.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_09: Like for example, we found that um in our church which is on accounts of the state.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_09: Um, well, at least I found it.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_09: In my previous church, we're a city church and we're we're serving and ministering to young people and professionals, but this is an estate church and people see truth a different way.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_09: Like I really found that out.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_09: Like people in in at least in my experience, whereas people who would come into our city church and like and if the the they know whether they're a Christian or not, and that if they said something like, Oh, you know, I believe that Jesus was raised again from the dead, then you're thinking, Oh man, this person's gonna get baptized, gonna join a life group, we're gonna disciple this person, our mates this.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_09: Um, but in the estate, yeah, if multiple people would come in and they come from quite a theistic culture where they believe that God's real, it's not really controversial to say that Jesus rose from the dead.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_09: But we see them, yeah, potentially come into faith when they feel welcomed in part of the community and they associate with that church as their friends and their family, and and that's where they go.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_09: Like that's just where they meet with the friends, and yeah, I'm a Christian.
• 1:25:32
  SPEAKER_09: And it just almost yeah, almost naturally happens, and obviously there's a danger there because we're not just inviting people into a community, but also, yeah, it's it a trust is a big thing.
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_09: It's if they trust you, which could take time, then yeah, then yeah, they're more likely to become believers, in my experience, which is is an interesting thing.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then what kind of journey have you gone on, and what kind of journey would you try and help other people go on?
• 1:26:00
  SPEAKER_03: In some of those things that you mentioned at at the outset, um, you held certain views on race, Islam, and immigration.
• 1:26:12
  SPEAKER_03: So what's what's the sort of the what's what's the sort of pathway of discipleship on those sorts of questions?
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think?
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:20
  SPEAKER_09: I think I think the Amalgo Day is huge.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_09: Okay.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_09: The image of God.
• 1:26:25
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_09: Um, you know, James, you know, James says, you know, we use our mouths to bless God and with it we curse people made in his image, like may these things not be so.
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_09: And you know, the teaching of the dignity of all humans is it's quite confrontational, actually.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_09: Is it?
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:26:40
  SPEAKER_09: Because um, yeah, there's and and maybe not even just among different groups of people, but even in people in your own life.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_09: Like, you know, you you're telling me that that person who who um you know who who who did that horrible thing to me when I was a kid from a certain yeah, or whatever, you're telling me that they're also made in the image of God.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_09: Like you're telling me that this person you actually don't really like is made in the image of God.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_09: And you're telling me that, you know, this Muslim guy who you know potentially have an animosity towards, you're telling me he's made in the image of God.
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_09: That that's that's quite confrontational, challenging, you know, it's it's but it's a place where Jesus wants to shine his light into.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_09: And um he wants to change you, and it's a long journey and it's tough.
• 1:27:24
  SPEAKER_11: What was that like for you?
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I mean I think yeah, I think God God was super gracious to me.
• 1:27:30
  SPEAKER_09: Like where he just did a work in in my heart where I just, yeah, I just I was just so fixated on God.
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_09: I didn't really care about any of these political differences or like people groups or anything like that.
• 1:27:43
  SPEAKER_09: I was like, wow, I can't believe God's real.
• 1:27:44
  SPEAKER_09: This is amazing.
• 1:27:45
  SPEAKER_09: So like I can't really like tell you what my journey was like in that place.
• 1:27:50
  SPEAKER_09: It was just God was just so gracious to me.
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_09: I was just looking up, yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_09: And then just yeah, things naturally changed.
• 1:27:56
  SPEAKER_09: Um, it was quite a natural, it it was less of a logical.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_09: Okay, a a series of changed decisions and you know and like arguments that I've I kind of acquiesced to and stuff.
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_09: It was just yeah, over time God just yeah, graciously changed me by me look at him.
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_09: And I think that's a solution for everything.
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_09: But yeah, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:14
  SPEAKER_09: Um yeah, so yeah, the the the the amago day, massive, the image of God.
• 1:28:19
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 1:28:19
  SPEAKER_09: Um also um yeah, for some of these people, there's there's fear going on, and in a human perspective, it's probably quite right fear to have in a sense.
• 1:28:32
  SPEAKER_09: Like, like if God's not real, you know, there's there's there's a there's Islam is is is here and you you know and and and and it can be seen to be dangerous and all this different stuff, and you know, and and but the fact is that God is is real, like God is real, God is in control, right?
• 1:28:49
  SPEAKER_09: And it's like this burden that for some people can just be lifted off their shoulders, given to the Lord.
• 1:28:53
  SPEAKER_09: That's so interesting.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_09: You know, and it and it's a journey, and it's a painful journey for some people.
• 1:28:58
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_09: So yeah, that's that that's a big one.
• 1:29:00
  SPEAKER_09: The government is on Jesus' shoulders.
• 1:29:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good Christmas verse.
• 1:29:05
  SPEAKER_03: Isaiah 9.
• 1:29:05
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, so yeah, the the image of God, the government's on Jesus' shoulders, yeah.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_09: The stability of the kingdom of God can't be shaken.
• 1:29:12
  SPEAKER_04: Can't be shaken, Hebrews 12.
• 1:29:14
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, and just just the amazing sovereignty of God.
• 1:29:18
  SPEAKER_09: Like God's sovereign.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_09: Like you don't actually you you can't you can't be and and God's sovereign and and he's controlling the the nations and he's controlling you, and nothing happens outside of his job, and everything is actually working together for his good in this crazy mysterious way, yeah.
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_09: Um, but also, yeah, like I'd say potentially the fourth thing would be the sphere of that your your spheres of responsibility, yeah.
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_09: Because you know, the psalmist uh David, I think it's David, yeah, where he says, you know, I don't lift up my mind to things that are too high for me, and you know, and we don't really like yeah, think we're higher than God and all that stuff, but also yeah, like um you you people have certain amounts of powers to impact, and this is for every kind of activist-minded person, like you you God has given you a life, and you have um yeah, you you have responsibility over the things that He's given to you, and He wants you to live a quiet, peaceable life, dignified in Christ, yeah, right and and and like He He he doesn't want everyone to be a kind of outspoken He can raise people up, like you know, and and that's grace, but yeah, it's it's it's quite a liberating thing to be like, you know, first work on yourself.
• 1:30:26
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, are you like, yeah, what's your what's your walk?
• 1:30:29
  SPEAKER_09: What you're you're thinking about, yeah, what's this protest that's gonna happen in a few weeks?
• 1:30:33
  SPEAKER_09: And and it might be good to think about that.
• 1:30:35
  SPEAKER_09: And the Chris, yeah, the Bible says that you can't go to the protest, but yeah, you know, it's this this is coming up, but yeah, let like before you start thinking about changing the world, why don't you yeah, maybe start thinking about yeah, changing your own life in in some ways and trusting the Lord with this and letting him help you with that.
• 1:30:50
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and then you know, you have your work that God's giving you to do, like you know, and it God's given us enough to to occupy ourselves with in a sense.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 1:30:58
  SPEAKER_09: Um, but yeah, some people it does raise up.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_09: I'm not discrediting that, but yeah, but for for for the for the for most of us, he just wants us to live a quiet, peaceful life.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_09: Right.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_09: And and just follow the Lord and and sit in that rest that he gives.
• 1:31:10
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 1:31:10
  SPEAKER_09: You know, he d he doesn't want us to be constantly in fear, like, well, what's gonna happen here if I don't do this?
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_09: It's like, just chill out, man.
• 1:31:18
  SPEAKER_09: In a sense, like, you know, that you're a church member and that's great, and you have your church family, you love you.
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_09: But yeah, but at the same time, yeah, I'm not saying that things in the world don't matter and it's not helpful to think about them, or discrediting the pain that some people feel, yeah.
• 1:31:33
  SPEAKER_09: Or or saying, oh yeah, well, because because we're all going to heaven, we don't care about what happens in the world or anything like that.
• 1:31:38
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 1:31:38
  SPEAKER_09: But yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a discipleship journey.
• 1:31:41
  SPEAKER_09: But first, these things need to be in order, I believe, or start to be on a journey there before stepping out and you know, right being an activist on either side.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, on either side, because you know, I could think of some Extinction Rebellion people who I'd love to sit down and say, you know, like God's in charge.
• 1:31:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_03: And what would it be like for you to really know that God's in charge?
• 1:32:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's so the brain, isn't it?
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that that far left activist, like how liberating would it be, you know, for them to discover that the government is on his shoulder?
• 1:32:15
  SPEAKER_03: And then the far right activist, like, how liberating to know, yeah, you it's yeah, the government is not on your shoulders.
• 1:32:23
  SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
• 1:32:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:32:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so much, so much of politics on both sides is is very fear-driven.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I just think about, you know, the the slogan that really won it for Brexit was take back control.
• 1:32:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 1:32:36
  SPEAKER_03: And what's that all about?
• 1:32:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's and and there's it's it's it's tapping into that real sense.
• 1:32:42
  SPEAKER_03: We are out of control.
• 1:32:43
  SPEAKER_03: And there used to be a time when we were in control, and you identify, you identify stability and peace with a moment in history, and that moment in history is gone.
• 1:32:53
  SPEAKER_03: And if only you can fight against the progressives and and and get back to that moment, then you'll then you'll take back control and you'll have the peace that you lost.
• 1:33:02
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, well, sure, and yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:33:03
  SPEAKER_09: And and and I like I do think that in our like in in or hopefully in my chats with people, is as we're talking to people, like there's a difference between yeah, discipling a believer and then chatting to an unbeliever.
• 1:33:15
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 1:33:15
  SPEAKER_09: Because you know, like yeah, it's it's like you know, like if if someone's a Christian and you're discipling them and you it and like like like it's not like yeah, people are like dots on a map and they're either there or there, and you're trying to get them there or something like that.
• 1:33:28
  SPEAKER_09: Everyone's got his own their own journey, but yeah, that's stuff like yeah, um things being uh driven out of fear and like and it's true, so true, isn't it?
• 1:33:37
  SPEAKER_09: You know, and like with politics and and all that stuff, like for for a believer, it's good for us to know, like it's good for us to know that and sit in Jesus' like you know, his authority and his governance.
• 1:33:47
  SPEAKER_09: But yeah, for people for people on the outside, yeah, like we yeah, I just I'm just thinking about people in my life, like, yeah, we can't we can't be yeah, loading them with a burden that's too hard to bear, yeah.
• 1:33:59
  SPEAKER_09: Because the yeah, people do care about that kind of stuff, and we need to, in a sense, meet them there and show them point them towards the more important thing, but not be like, oh yeah, this is just a load of rubbish, like you've been yeah, you need to put come to the truth or something like that.
• 1:34:12
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, but we are saying, yeah, come to the gospel, reshape the way that you see the whole world, reshape who you are as a person.
• 1:34:18
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and then if you want to think about these things, yeah, yeah, so yeah, you do do it, but yeah, yeah, in light of the gospel, in light of who God is, you know, redeem it.
• 1:34:26
  SPEAKER_03: From the from the confidence of a kingdom that is unshakable, yeah.
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_03: Now what?
• 1:34:31
  SPEAKER_03: Now what?
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:33
  SPEAKER_03: Love it.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um Harrison, you've been so generous with your time.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for coming down to our studios.
• 1:34:39
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's been a pleasure, yeah.
• 1:34:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's lovely here, isn't it?
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:42
  SPEAKER_03: It is it is nice, and I'm and I'm very hopeful that I think as as you are engaged as very much a somewhere in a somewhere church, engaged on a council estate in London, and then wanting to be engaged as a church leader among somewheres as a somewhere.
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_03: I I think you've got so much to teach us.
• 1:35:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's a lot that the UK church needs to repent of in terms of its somewhere, and in in terms of its anywhere, elitism.
• 1:35:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I think we all need to to think again about these things, but you've really helped us.
• 1:35:17
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks so much.
• 1:35:18
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much.
• 1:35:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I hope I've been of some help.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.