Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't || With Gavin Ortlund || SLP450

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Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't || With Gavin Ortlund || SLP450 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back to the Speak Life podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Thomas Thorogood, media producer at Speak Life, and today we're bringing you an interview that Glenn recorded with Gavin Ortland on our YouTube channel, so you can watch it there if you want, youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Gavin Ortland is a theologian, pastor, author, and YouTuber.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: You might hear at a few points in this conversation, Gavin makes a reference to The Air We Breathe, which is Glenn's book.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And shortly after this conversation was recorded, Gavin actually interviewed Glenn for his own YouTube channel, Truth Unites.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you'd like to go and see, you know, the tables turned and uh Gavin interviewing Glenn, you can just search TruthUnites on YouTube and it will come up.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's all from me.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the conversation, and I will catch you at the end.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm Glenn from Speak Life, and I'm joined by Gavin Ortland, who is uh an author, a theologian, and a YouTuber.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thank you so much for joining me.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, great to be here, Glenn.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: One other thing that you are, Gavin, is you are a fellow of the uh Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, have I got that right?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: I should know this because they've made me a fellow.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: We are fellow fellows of the the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what that is?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: We are both still learning, probably along the way, but we I think probably have a sense of the vision of it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, it's just such an exciting opportunity.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think the heart behind it is just thinking about how do we make the gospel compelling and intelligible right now in the culture and as we move forward, especially in the West, but everywhere, uh amidst all of the current objections and uh cultural dynamics right now.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the project, that's the task, and a lot of us are coming together to work upon it, and I'm just so honored to be involved.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there are a couple of dozen of us who are so terrible at this thing of sharing Jesus that we really need help.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: We we need remedial help, and uh we need to gather together and and help each other to figure this thing out.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I think, yeah, we are in a very uh in a new cultural moment.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think it was C.S.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis who said that um the difference between pre-Christian and post-Christian culture is a bit like the difference between a virgin and a divorcee.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um that coming out the other side of this thing called Christendom, there are different questions, uh, there are different barriers to faith, and there are different opportunities.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's all about kind of figuring out what this moment is and and how we can help each other to reach out with Jesus.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm I'm excited for what's for what's possible.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um me as well.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: One thing that just helped me that I've heard Tim Keller say himself that has helped me so much is a simple way to explain it is you know, 20 or 30 years ago, if you explained the gospel to people, there'd be some basic uh categories that people probably would have, uh probably some awareness of God, moral absolutes, and an afterlife.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Not always, but that'd be more of the majority view in most places in the West.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: And uh but if people so evangelism is a matter of connecting the dots.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but then you ask, well, what do you do when the dots aren't there?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: And just it's like uh Acts 13 versus Acts 17.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Paul's speech in a synagogue looks one way, his speech in the pagan context looks another.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: It looks like we're more in an Acts 17 type culture now.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that word uh apologetics mean to you?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I I was doing some teaching in um 1 Peter or 1 Peter, as you would say.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: You see, I'm contextualizing for a US audience.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um so in uh Peter's first letter, he has that phrase in chapter 3, verse 15.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: He he says, always be prepared to give an answer to those who ask you for the hope that you have.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the word for answer is apologia, and we get the word apologetics from it.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I was I was noticing with people last week that it's a very interesting context in which apologetics is happening.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: In 1 Peter, you've got people who are just refugees, who are clinging on by their fingernails, they're struggling, they're they're suffering well, they're clinging to Christ, and at some point somebody asks them, How are you still standing after all that you've gone through?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they say, I guess Jesus.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: He gives me hope in the midst of that.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so to me, that's quite a there's there's quite an existential thing that's going on in 1 Peter 3, verse 15, which I think sometimes we we miss when we we when we speak about apologetics today.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is that an issue, do you think?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, yeah.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: I I thought very similarly about that passage and then the Colossians 4 passage, uh walk in wisdom toward outsiders, and there's the little phrase, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that phrase combined with giving an answer in 1 Peter 3, it looks like there's this responsive dynamic to apologetics.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're not knocking the door down to insist upon a conversation, you're explaining something that's been inquired of you, which is interesting.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: And in 1 Peter 3, there's the context of slander.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this is not a not just uh doing whatever you need to do to win people over in a in a context where there's no uh friction.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: The assumed context is that you're being perhaps maligned for your good deeds, you know.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just interesting, and I I think um, yeah, I I I think sometimes that word apologetics, we've got lots of ideas that may go in unhelpful directions at times, and maybe we've seen it not modeled in the best way.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: But uh to me, the word I just want to come back to again and again is the word love.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: We want to show love to the people we're uh sharing Christ with, and that love will constrain us to be as compelling as we possibly can be, to help them, to help position them, to see how the gospel interacts with their deepest fears, their deepest longings.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so that love is the constraining burden in both those texts and hopefully in all that we do in apologetics.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's so key.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll we'll we'll get on to talk about uh your book about uh why God makes sense in a world that doesn't, which is very much seeking to offer an answer to those who ask you for the hope that you have within you.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but that that context that wraps around these arguments and the thoughtful contextualized evangelism that you want to do in this book, the the loving community that wraps around that seems so key to me.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was speaking to somebody uh just two weeks ago, and I said, Well, how did you become a Christian?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, um, I was like C.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: S.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis, I was the most reluctant convert in all of Christendom.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: But somebody explained to me the five minimal facts of of the resurrection and how, you know, Jesus was definitely buried in that tomb, and that tomb was definitely empty on the Sunday, and you know, people had experiences of the risen Jesus that went on for 40 days until he went back to heaven, and those experiences stopped, and the body was never found.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And at one point I just submitted and said, Fine, you are Lord, and and that's kind of how I became a Christian.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm always suspicious of those stories.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: I hear them a little bit.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're not the usual story about how comes someone comes to Jesus.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: But then when I hear that story, I kind of want to press in, and I sort of pressed him a little bit further.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out, yep, he grew up in a Christian home.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, he'd been hearing the gospel since he could remember.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, he had just broken up with his girlfriend and had all sorts of existential questions about me and am I sufficient and can I be loved.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he was encountering a Christian community that was loving him in this counterconditional sort of sense, and he was experiencing grace.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just so interesting that when I asked him how did he become a Christian, one story he told was, you know, there was an argument that was convincing to him.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: But from another perspective, it's a whole of life existential thing.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Have you found that in your own uh seeking to win others to Christ?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I have.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, what's interesting about that story and so many others like that is the person may even be experiencing it as a somewhat intellectual process.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: They may be thinking of this argument that's affecting them, and they may be uh not even fully aware of how the intellectual is intersecting with all these other factors.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that even in my own life.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what makes me find an argument convincing, and then maybe five years later the same argument isn't as convincing.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's you know, it's not like we're saying, well, it's the affective or the social rather than the intellectual, but all of these things can flow together.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so it's just a reason to constrain us to put focus upon the whole person.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the the heart behind where we want to go, is we're not wanting to uh, you know, sometimes people react against arguments as though arguments are a bad thing, but arguments can be really helpful tools, but we just want to bring them into the full orbit of all that goes into our psychology and all that goes into our decision-making.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: So the arguments, and this is the great uh effort of my book that that the arguments would go and touch the heart.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to me a little bit about that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as you come to to write this book, uh, Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't, and uh you you touch on all sorts of um different arguments that that might be persuasive people coming at it from loads of different angles.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: But what's the genesis of the book and what's what's the heart behind it?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the the basic idea behind the book, and and you know, I have a real heart for apologetics from several different angles.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: One is friends I've had who have deconstructed their faith and and left the church and a desire to be helpful to them and just listening to them and trying to understand where they're coming from.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Another is seasons of angst I've been through about my faith, two in particular throughout my life, and apologetics has been a nourishment and a help to work through those.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then the third is just as a pastor, I see so many younger people who are struggling in their faith in one way or another and just wanting to be helpful for them.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: So the book is basically to describe it real briefly, I go through four of the biggest arguments for God and I cast them in a narrative frame and with a view toward their affective implications or how they touch human emotion, human desire.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: So uh the first chapter is about the uh cosmological argument, the argument for God is first cause, the second about the teleological or design argument, the third chapter a moral argument, and the final chapter a argument from Christ, from his claims and then from his resurrection.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: And each of these is a part of the story.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: So the first, the cosmological is the start of the story, teleological is the meaning of the story, moral is the drama of the story, and then Christ is the hope of the story.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm taking classical arguments and trying to kind of cast them in a narrative frame and then say, is this a better story?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Not only in the sense of is it more plausible, but is it just a better story than the alternative, or or at least I'm focusing on one of the alternatives, naturalism, that there's nothing beyond nature.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I just found that a refreshing, for me personally, a refreshing way to kind of think about these classical arguments.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think the arguments are great, but I find it helps to put them in that kind of framework and then also consider, you know, let's suppose you come to believe in the cosmological argument.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's take that just out of the realm of just the intellect and consider what does that mean for your imagination?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you believe in that, you're you've now actually gone into an expanded view of reality.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Reality has just become more complicated, more intricate, and in my view, more interesting, more mysterious.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm trying to look at considerations like that.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's and that's great.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you can you can look at these different arguments, and you could dive in at chapter three if you wanted, and you could look at the moral argument in isolation.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: But the order here is very important because you're telling a story, you're immersing us as as the reader in this story that that goes from creation and and it starts to tell the story and the drama, and it's fulfilled in Christ.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: What is your doctrine of humanity?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you think people tick such that this is your approach?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh I guess two of the pieces would be one is storytelling is so powerful for human beings.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the way we tend to make sense of reality as human beings is through stories.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think in the book I referenced the famous statement that there have been human civilizations that don't have the wheel, but there have never been human civilizations that don't have stories.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: In our culture, movies, for example, although I've actually heard recently, just in the last week, that movies are becoming less popular because social media is accelerating our attention spans so much that people watch less movies.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of an alarming thought that may change this.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: But uh traditionally, movies have been so formative in our culture, and you can s you can tell so much about our culture from watching the movies that we produce.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: And stories are a way we uh make sense of reality.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: That the idea from a Christian perspective about that is Tolkien's idea, J.R.R.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Tolkien's idea of sub-creation, that because we're made in the image of God, one capacity of that, I think he even says, kind of the main capacity of that, the driving capacity of that is we are storytellers as well.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we tend to tell stories that are patterned after the great story, reality itself.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, the fact is that it's significant that every story we tell tends to have a moral dimension, good and evil.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Almost all the time.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's not just raw power struggle.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: There's one side that is right and another side that is wrong.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's interesting to ask, well, why is that?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Almost all the time, the good defeats the evil in the end.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: There are some exceptions to that, and sometimes those are unsatisfying.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: You leave the movie theater with an unsettled feeling if the the good guys didn't win in the end.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it's another feature.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: You say, that's interesting.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so Tolkien's idea of subcreation is one way of making sense of that, but that's one reason why I find stories so powerful.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then the other consideration would be the human longing for happiness, but not just happiness, for I'm gonna say, transcendent redemption.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: There, you know, yeah, there's something in the human heart that longs for transcendence, that longs for harmony and meaning, that longs for some kind of closure and resolution, that this life means something.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's so hard to articulate this even for me, but one way I can get at it is from the novel Contact by Carl Sagan, which was made into a movie many years ago with Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Fascinating movie.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: I read the novel about four years ago, and uh I I I'll I'll try to summarize this very briefly.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: But the I read it because Carl Sagan is a kind of father like figure in some secular circles.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh people look to him uh with respect and and rightly so, a brilliant man.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: But he um I wanted to understand his way of thinking.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so I thought, well, in addition to his other works, let me read his novel and see what kind of worldview is reflected in that.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I wrote a long post about this, but to sum it up, it's surprisingly mystical.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's surprisingly open to the supernatural.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, in the last two pages, it basically has a teleological argument.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: It says there's a design to the universe, and that points to some kind of designer.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing to me.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Also, there's this sense of religious experience that happens.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: You see that in the movie when Jodie Foster at the very end is trying to explain I was given this vision.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: I wish I could share it with everybody.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: I can't share it with you.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: My life was given a meaning.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, now one of the conclusions I draw from that is that look here, even in this book I'm reading to understand a secular way of things, there's still this longing for something transcendent, longing for something more than the kind of story that naturalism will tell.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: So the book is trying to touch upon those needs in the human heart.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And does that give you pause for thought a little bit that even Carl Sagan cannot escape a sense of an enchanted world, uh, cannot escape a sense of purpose and meaning ultimately.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: That um if if our sort of imagined target in evangelism or apologetics is a thoroughgoing naturalist, there aren't too many of them in the wild, actually.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we just did a uh an interview with someone in the UK, and and she's done a lot of research uh into um attitudes towards Christianity, into Christ.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And she has found, and this this figure held up over two um quite large studies, one in 2015, one in 2022, uh, in which 44% uh of respondents in the UK uh believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ in some way, shape, or form and that that that is not reflected in the fact that 44% of the UK are in church on a Sunday.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's quite interesting that that she drills down, and um uh about half of those think it happened word for word, pretty much as it happened in the Bible, and another half think it happened, but perhaps uh some some elements of the Bible have been embellished.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that always shocks people because I think we always have in mind everybody's Richard Dawkins, and as I'm about to embark on a conversation, I need I need to evangelize the Richard Dawkins in my friend, when actually your friend might be a lot closer to like Mystic Meg the astrologer or um or any number of spiritual spiritual beliefs.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I just wonder whether sometimes our evangelism is too focused on um a consistent naturalist, because it's it's it's kind of easy to make the argument, make the comparison with a consistent naturalist, but it's almost impossible to be a consistent naturalist.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so is our is our evangelism targeted at the wrong thing?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think about this as well.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if some examples I've just been thinking about recently would be the human longing for justice, and then also the human sense that love is significant.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: These would be two human intuitions that are very common, at least in our culture.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I know when we talk about your book, we'll talk about the influence of Christianity upon these intuitions.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: But uh to some extent, in each heart there's some moral framework, some sense of good and evil in the conscience, for example.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, most people aren't going to deny that love is significant and that the desire for justice is a good thing.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Some might, but most people will affirm those things.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: So then the task is to say to gently and lovingly and without any sense of condescension, try to press into the implications of that and say, what worldview makes the most sense of those facts?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because in a naturalistic worldview, it actually really is hard to ground either of those things and then so many other things that make life meaningful that we all tend to assume.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: So this is one really interesting way to try to do apologetics, is we it's kind of a more abductive approach, which means uh inference to the best explanation.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're taking a present phenomenon, the human heart, and the the things we all need to assume to just get by and to have a society, and then we're saying, what's the worldview in which these make the best sense?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: And the more I think about it, naturalism is a is a very tough sell from that uh angle.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's exactly that's it, that's exactly my my approach as well, to um to point to the assumptions and the gut instincts that people have and the intuitions by which they're already navigating their lives.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then you point to to their feet and where they're standing and say, you're not standing on the ground you think you're standing on, because um cold hard reason did not get you to believe in love or human rights or compassion or equality or th those sorts of transcendent values.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, describe to me a little bit more.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: You you sometimes use that phrase abductive in terms of um your your kinds of uh arguments, but um what yeah, g give us another explanation.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: What what what what what is an example of an abductive argument?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is these are uh the one I like to use is let's say you have uh this is a strong abductive argument.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: If you have a roommate who loves eating Wendy's, I don't know if you have Wendy's in the UK.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully I didn't message that's good, yeah.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yes, loves eating fast that'll make it broader too.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, roommate who loves eating fast food, you wake up in the morning, there's some fast food uh left over on the counter, you abduce.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's probably from my roommate, but that is not a logical inference in a deductive manner.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's very possible, you know, it it you may there may have been someone else who was there.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: So abduction is a is a more modest form of logical inference.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it works in the opposite direction from deduction and induction.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, deduction is the strongest where you have premises and conclusion and it follows certainly.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: I like using abductive arguments because it gives you more.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: More wiggle room.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: I often find, I don't I'd be curious your thoughts about this, but I find that sometimes a more modest argument can be more compelling for people.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because a deductive argument, and obviously this depends hugely on which person you're talking to, but some people, especially I find younger people, a deductive argument, especially if it's said in a triumphalist way, but even if it isn't, excuse me, it can cause someone to feel like a deer in the headlights.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: It can cause someone to feel a bit defensive.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I like to say, here's an abductive argument, you know.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm saying uh here's a present set of conditions, we're we're making an inference to the best explanation, but it's not a certain explanation.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I like to say, if you here's an argument for why I think God makes the most sense out of the human conscience.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you want to oppose this argument, here's how you can do so.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I show them the back door, I show them the way out.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to accept this inference.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I but then I'm inviting them to see, well, which is the best inference.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Now I don't want to be too formulaic about it, but for some people, I think that kind of appeal puts them on the defensive less, is more invitational, and uh can sometimes be even more compelling.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: And the other thing is it doesn't put you in the hot seat as much to absolutely prove something.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because there's usually some counterargument that the person can give.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: So the the conversation moves from what can I prove to what's the best answer?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's how most of human life is lived in the realm of abduction.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: We usually don't have mathematical certainty about most decisions we make.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's a that's an approach I find helpful.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's much more human.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's and it's much more the realm in which we we live most of our lives.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the the other thing of trying to back somebody into a corner where you make them into the most reluctant convert in Christendom, to to quote C.S.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis again, is you give the wrong impression about how good you think the truth is.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because you feel like you've got to force someone in, you know, they've got to they've got to have their arm up behind their back until they go, alright, fine, Jesus is Lord, fine.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas we happen to think it would be the best news in the world.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is the best news in the world, that Jesus is in fact Lord.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and sometimes I think we can give the wrong impression by by trying to back people into a corner that what we've got is more of an ultimatum and less good news.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas, yeah, I think the abductive thing um complet is completely more human and it and it communicates um that we have uh a broader story that you can inhabit and it's good, rather than there there are a series of facts that compel you into a into a certain um into a certain position.
• 24:52
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• 26:04
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• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Just tell us what is an inductive argument then.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: We've had deductive, we've had abductive.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: What is inductive?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: So inductive moves in the same direction as deductive from premises to conclusion, but it yields only a probable conclusion.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just a more modest and less certain form of argument than deductive.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: Abduction works in the reverse direction.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: It starts with a present set of conditions and then asks, what's the best explanation for that?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very good.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, someone is listening in at the moment and they're saying, Well, this is all very philosophical, and it's all very clever.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but last time I read my Bible, Jesus just gave us marching orders.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: He just said, Here's the Great Commission.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Go out and through word and sacrament, baptism and teaching, um, go out and preach the gospel to all nations.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: That is our uh those are our marching orders.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that somehow, I yeah, if if apologetics is something different, um uh are we not being disobedient to Jesus, um, saying, make disciples in a preaching and teaching mode.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to that?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, okay.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to start with some sympathy for where the person may be coming from.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: It is possible to become too theoretical and to too complicated.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: There are times, I mean, the Lord has put me in several situations where someone is in a position where they really just need the simple, a simple articulation of the gospel in a sort of John 3.16 manner, and then an invitation to receive Christ.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and sometimes uh in those moments I am reminded that uh sometimes uh a simple approach is very appropriate.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing is, you know, in when it comes to how we just preach the gospel, we have to think about what does that mean?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus himself is a good model.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus preached the kingdom of God, but he spoke to different people very differently.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh with Nicodemus, it's you must be born again, John 3.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: But in John 4, the woman at the well, it's uh you must drink living water.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: He approaches different people differently, and I think that reflects love for them, wisdom, uh, insight.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Another example, I think we might have mentioned this, is the Apostle Paul.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: There are people who think Paul was unfaithful to the gospel in Acts 17, because it is such a different presentation of the gospel than in Acts 13 and other earlier portions of Acts when he's preaching in the synagogue.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: In Acts 17, he's preaching in Athens in the Areopagus to these uh pagan philosophers, and his uh his words are so different.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't quote the scripture, he quotes their own poets, and he starts way further back with the doctrine of God and then with the doctrine of creation.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: He clarifies what is the nature of idolatry for them.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: So he's starting where they're at.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I would say um we can learn from Paul because he's an apostle and he's his wisdom can help us.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: He he does faithfully preach the gospel, um, but he does so in two very different ways.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that is because of this idea we call contextualization, that is, bringing the gospel to people in a language they can understand.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean compromising or softening the gospel message, it means speaking it in a way that will be compelling to our actual hearers.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: So those are some things that help me.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I may not have totally addressed your question if the question was more about also, well, we should just focus on discipleship of Christians rather than apologetics to non-Christians.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: That would be a kind of different objection.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: But I find a lot of Christians have this worry.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I understand where they're coming from from a good motive, if they're worried, are we going to compromise on our message if we focus too much on contextualization?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: That could happen.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: It could be done poorly.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: But I I think contextualization is actually an unavoidable reality and something that's modeled so well for us by Paul, by Christ, by the prophets in the Old Testament and in so many other places.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I I agree with that.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I think if apologetics means thoughtful, contextualized evangelism, um, yeah.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Sign me up, sign me up all day long.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you've got to be genuine about the thoughtfulness of it and the contextualization of it.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um But though those things uh if if they need to be added to somebody's simple gospel message, well, I I I think that person's simple gospel message is inadequate because I think it should always be thoughtful and contextualized.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think these things um inform one another.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um so okay, Gavin, give it give us um give us an argument from anywhere in the book.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: I we we we've said where you go, uh you talk about the cosmological argument, the cause uh of the world, the meaning of the world, the teleological argument, you talk about the moral argument in terms of the conflict of the world, and then you zero in on Christ with the hope of the world.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um but okay, we are in a pub in the Yorkshire Dales, and we are we are sipping a warm pint of ale.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Aren't you are you there?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Are you are you enjoying by a fire?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I'm just not convinced by the Christian stuff, but I say to you, give me your best shot, Gavin, give me your best shot.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: What what what are you gonna give me?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm, okay.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if it's the best shot, uh what I would uh try to offer is a cumulative case, and I would put it in the form of personal testimony.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say, uh, as one who knows what it's like to ask deep questions and to struggle and doubt and not and genuinely be perplexed at times, ultimately what I come back to is some basic questions of what's the best way to make sense of the world we inhabit and of my experience as a human being.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: The philosopher Kant spoke of the starry host above and the moral law within.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I like to kind of chop it down to two categories the world out there and then what I need to get by day by day.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: And on both fronts, it seems to me that the thought of something like we what we call God, a personal agent that is transcendent and behind the world, separate from the world, makes so much more sense.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: It makes sense of how the world seems to have started.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: It seems to be a contingent world that has not always been here and doesn't explain itself.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: It seems to be exquisitely well ordered and well designed.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: The physical constants of our universe seem to be mathematically set to a very precise degree such that our universe can be life permitting.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Within the human experience, we seem to require a sense of morality in order to have civilization and uh in order to function in interpersonal relationships.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: If we get rid of the categories of good and evil as objective categories, it doesn't seem like we're able to function very well societally or personally.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that fact and so many other aspects of human experience, consciousness, uh our thirst for meaning, our desire for love, our sense of justice, all of those things seem to me to be better explained in a theistic framework where human beings are made in the image of God and these capacities reflect something that is transcendent and objective.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: The reason for that is in a naturalistic worldview, all of these aspects of human beings are explained reductively, meaning exhaustively, by evolutionary psychology.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: So basically, our thirst for love, our thirst for justice, down the line, everything is there because it helped our animal ancestors survive.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that is it.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that evolution played a role in the process, it's that that's the full show.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: And therefore, there is no ultimate, transcendent referent to those things.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: They also become arbitrary.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: We could have evolved such that our moral compass would be entirely different and compassion would be seen as evil.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: There's no nothing outside the evolutionary process to pass judgment on which way it goes.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: There's no objective standard for the evolutionary process and what it spins out in human nature.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh existentially, I can't live with that.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's devastating to me.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh logically, that's less persuasive to me.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and then I come to Christ.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I so the the basic pattern of thought is from out there and from in here, I'm open to the idea of God.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: Then I come to Christ and I'm just personally gripped, overwhelmed, amazed, astounded, and in the depths of my soul, if I'm honest, just struck uh struck to the point of wanting to surrender to him because of the beauty of his teaching and his life, because of the compelling authority with which he taught, because I think there's some good historical reasons to think that he did claim to be God, and that uh I think there's even compelling historical reasons to think he did rise from the dead.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I could unpack all those a little further.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: But so that's the basic framework.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm I'm open to God based upon what I'm seeing in the universe, based upon what I'm seeing in humanity, and then I'm seeing Christ, and I'm saying, what if it's true?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: What if this is God?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Come into our world, and it's the most beautiful story I can imagine.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: It also seems to me like it's true.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: You paint a beautiful and compelling picture.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm sipping on my pint, and I say to you, oh sure, yeah.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Naturalism, Gavin, of course, naturalism, it's it's just nonsense.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm not I'm not one of those atheists, you know, there's there's more things in heaven and on earth that uh than I dreamt of in your philosophy, and and um, you know, maybe I'm a bit of a platonist.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of um think there are kind of objective values and morals and yeah, your arguments about maths and the the surprising usefulness and utility of maths, uh yeah, yeah, there seems to be there seems to be a higher power, and um so and and you seem to be helped by the Jesus guy, which is really that he's he therefore seems to be um a great representation of the transcendent, a great representation of of all that we long for.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I I wish you well um in your Christian expression of that kind of theism.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'll stick with my my kind of belief in God.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um where do you go in the conversation at that point?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this is the kind of conversation I'm more I'm could also well imagine having here in OHI, uh, because what I serve here in Southern California is a very spiritual but not religious kind of place.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: When people find out I'm a pastor, there's very much a mentality of kind of, well, that's great for you, kind of a way of thinking.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um and in these kinds of conversations, uh, I think the larger goal is we're wanting to try to steer the conversation toward the claims of Christ.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I find that it helps to take the pressure off of me because the authority is not in me.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just a messenger.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I want to direct people to consider, as I've had to consider and bow the knee to, uh, the claims of Christ.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because the claims of Christ are such that He He can't just be one option among others on the smorgasbord of options.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: He is claiming to be uh, you know, if you do not eat me, uh you need to eat me to live forever.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if two or three are gathered in my name, uh there I am with them.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: If you give your life for me, you will find it.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, think of the level of malevolence if Christ was knowingly deceiving people there.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: He's saying, Go get crucified for me.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good thing for you.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what if he's lying to them?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well that so we face a couple of different options.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: He could have been mistaken, he could have been genuinely wrong, but uh we we've got to reckon with some kind of interpretation of Jesus of Nazareth.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: And uh if the interpretation is, well, he's a good person and he's not a crazy person, and he did really say those things, we go through these options of Lord, liar, legend, lunatic, then at a certain point we've got to say either he's he is the Lord or he isn't.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the last thing I'll say on this is I also want to encourage a person to consider the reality of death, which seems kind of morbid, but fact is that if we just have a generic spirituality, that often won't meet that particular need in the human heart of what happens when I die.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: But with the claims of Christ, we have these unbelievably nourishing, comforting promises to protect to save us from that specific problem.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's another avenue the conversation could go down.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: And just on that, with I I find with people in the new age, uh and people who are more spiritual like that, that pressing into the question of okay, there's more going on in the world than we can see, touch, taste, and feel, but um, is that reality personal, genuinely personal, or is it an energy that we we kind of connect with?
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Is there is there love and is there isn't there kind of ultimate hope?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because um quite often I I I find in in a lot of the new age stuff um yes, there is a spiritual side to things, but that spiritual side to things turns out to be very impersonal in the end.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: And in the Eastern religions, you know, the great the great the great goal is kind of detachment and dissolving into the ocean of being like a drop of water in the sea, and and there's a uh there's a depersonalization that that happens.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas, yeah, Christ, if Christ is ultimate reality, um then there's something personal and loving that you can kind of get to grips with in a in a different sense to the new age.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um in in your book, Gavin, you you you talk in the the conflict of the world uh chapter um about the longing for moral hope, why movies almost always have happy endings, and you paint uh a great picture about um Rocky Balboa or Richard Kimball or Disney films or Star Wars um or the Autobots versus the Decepticons and Transformers and all that um uh about the shape of story.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I think you you you paint the correct picture that our hearts do resonate with this sense of um there is a moral conflict, there might even be a hero, there's probably a struggle, and there's a happily ever after.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: And even if we don't get the happily ever after, we're disappointed that we didn't get the happily ever after, and we kind of feel like we ought to have.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um my question is is that a feature of the human heart universally, or is that a feature of Christianized civilization that has been sort of immersed in the Jesus story for two thousand years?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if if it is to some degree the latter, does that change your apologetic?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Does that change your evangelistic um kind of encounter with people?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: This is a question I've been asking lately, and I'm not sure that I've settled on the answer exactly.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm curious, as we'll talk in just a few moments, about your your fantastic book.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: I want to uh get your thoughts about this as well.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um what I'm wrestling with about it is this.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: On the one hand, some aspects of the human intuition of good and evil, of conflict, the desire for happy ending, some aspects of that seem to be universal throughout humanity.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: Some aspects of that seem to be influenced and directed by Christian influence.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I've not yet quite sorted it out how much is here and how much is there, how much is universal, how much is Christian influence.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: For example, in the book I talk about how suffering and sacrificial love is frequently a part of our stories that we tell.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: So there's the moral framework, good and evil, the eschatological or end times framework, a happy ending, and then there's this um this dynamic of suffering and sacrificial love so often is a piece of the pie.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, just a an example that pops into my mind is a great film that I love called Stranger than Than Fiction with Will Farrell, where at uh without giving a spoiler, there's uh sacrifice that he makes.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: And in the in the context of sacrifice, he finds himself.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: So often we find this in movies.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, I don't know how much, I just don't know history well enough to know.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: To what extent is all of that uh would you find it in ancient China and ancient Brazil?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, would that be there?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I I I'm my intuition is that Christianity has shaped all of this, but there's some things that are universal because everyone has a conscience.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: So the base and when Tolkien talks about sub-creation, I think he really does mean that as kind of a just innate human capacity because he and Lewis will talk about myths and how even in ancient myths this is a dynamic.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: So where to slice it out, I'm not sure.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: Curious your thoughts and others.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: You've done more work on that.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but some things seem universal, some things seem through Christian influence.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how that sounds to you.
• 43:41
  unknown: Yeah.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think I that's exactly right.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think what's universal is um is a sense of justice, and like the moral sense in all civilizations is um a driving force for all people.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: And like you you've never met people more driven by justice than.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: the Romans, for instance.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: And in Greek tragedies, you know, the there is very much the sense of fate is a one-way arrow and it grinds along.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and you might try to kind of kick against the the the conveyor belt of fate that is leading you towards the in the inevitable finale.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: But in the end, fate is fate.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you are at the at the whim of the gods.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's very much a there's a very strong sense of what is moral, what is just, what is inevitable.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's a moral grain to the universe and you go against it and you get splinters.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that sense that Tolkien spoke of of the you catastrophe, a good catastrophe, that sense of everything sad becoming untrue, I I do think there's something I do think there's there's something distinctively Christian that has been injected into the bloodstream of civilization such that we now expect the hero to give all not to prove that they are the great hero but out of sacrificial love for the other.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know there there is there is some sacrifice that happens in in the you know the ancient Greek myths and things but it's it's usually a demonstration of the the the glorious strength of the hero rather than a salvific thing that is utterly for the sake of the other and then the the happily ever after.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: I remember um in Deep Comedy Peter Lighthart talks about the difference between sort of um ancient comedies and modern comedies because there were such things as comedies in the Greek dramas.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: But what happened in the comedy like like most of the most of the plays were drama were were tragedies but every now and again you would have a comedy in which there is some fool who ends up getting his just desserts and the audience are laughing and he is in tears.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then Peter Lightheart says what what happens through the medieval period and and the sort of storytelling that we started to have was a genuine comedy in which there's such a turn of events that the character on stage is laughing and the audience is laughing.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's something about resurrection that has been taught to our cultures that um that makes us sort of believe in the happily ever after.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what what then is interesting is in a post-Christian moment what's going to happen to all our romantic comedies?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well they're gonna end like you know marriage story and they're they're gonna they're gonna um they're gonna end like La La Land and and s and do do we continue to believe in resurrection in that you know profound sense?
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I I just wonder whether the stories in a post-Christian age will will change again.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and therefore yeah it's are these stories deep wired into humans as humans or are they deep wired or ha or have they been enculturated?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's that yeah I don't know if you've got reflections on that.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I know it's fascinating yeah well I mean it is interesting how much you can see into the human heart through the stories we tell and I have to say that I feel a difference when I watch movies and TV today versus 20 years ago.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it does I feel more despair.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: I see more nihilism in the arts and and and so that that is interesting to reflect you know what what is causing that?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: Will that continue and what does that mean?
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah so it is interesting there's definitely variation in the kinds of stories we tell but there's also I think some baseline realities that the the human heart longs for you know the even just the basic conscience you know we know from Romans 2 that the conscience is just a human phenomenon it's not something that you have to be a Christian to have a conscience.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: So there's some basic line base baseline realities like that but then there's that Christian influence but that's interesting.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: But it is worrisome sometimes to see at least from my vantage point maybe it's because I have five young kids I'm becoming more of a pessimist and always worrying about them and what they're will experience as they grow older.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: But it does seem like in the arts there's a lot more nihilism these days.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah well and that then throws it back on us we need to keep telling our story you know because how is it how is it that the culture started telling stories with happily ever afters it's because the church kept on telling its story with its central hero, its central sacrifice and its happily ever after so um I I really heartily commend uh this book to people it will help you tell the Jesus story um and it will do it in a thoughtful and contextualized way and uh so yeah Christians get a hold of this those who are doubting get a hold of this those who who feel that they're deconstructing get a hold of this um and uh I think it will do you much good.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now now Gavin uh you're also a YouTuber so uh can you can you tell us um just in the in the last minute or so that we've got together um tell us where where people can find you um online and what you're hoping to do with your YouTube channel Truth Unites.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yes the channel's called Truth Unites as you mentioned uh shouldn't be too hard to find on YouTube and I do a mix of things there theology apologetics um sometimes I'll do videos on things like theological triage which means ranking doctrines a big part of the uh goal for the channel is to try to have an irenic approach when we're talking about disagreements or when we're working on theology because we live in such a time of fragmentation and division and uh outrage and so I think uh just trying to uh talk about differences in a conciliatory manner is itself countercultural now and something we that is helpful for how we commend the gospel.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's a goal of course uh it's hard to do that perfectly but um uh and then I've gotten involved in defending Protestantism on that channel and uh also but all but at sort of a mixture of an ecumenical approach combined with seeking to do Protestant apologetics uh there's not many people on YouTube who defend Protestant beliefs but there's many people who commend uh uh non-Protestant traditions and so I've got a lot of people who will email me or send me a Facebook message and and say hey I'm really struggling with whether I should still be a Protestant Christian and so I try to put out resources that can be helpful to them as well.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and you've sort of fallen into that that that that wasn't sort of the intention when you started the channel was it?
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah that's exactly it I I never set out to do that.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know it's interesting I someone might suppose that those who are seeking to defend Protestantism have something against these other traditions.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: I really admire the non-Protestant traditions and learn from them but I have some disagreements with them as well.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: But um yeah I just f fell into it simply and purely because of the need.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: There just what weren't many resources out there in that space and I was just seeing the need and so you know how it is where you start doing something and then it it just pulls you into certain conversations, certain topics, certain points of research.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so the great thing I've been wrestling with is to what extent to keep focusing on that and to what extent to to also focus on general apologetics and how what the proportion there is.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I haven't quite sorted that out yet but I know I want to have a a a bit of uh contact with each of them.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a question of how much.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that's something I'm still thinking about.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah well it is social media and so the yeah the fact that it's an ongoing conversation and it's dialogical and you're moving in directions where people have an ear to hear this thing and so you're saying it I think that's all for the good and I think that content is very necessary and I think your tone is very necessary.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: As you say the the ireneic tone is so needed today and you model it beautifully and I hope that people uh take note not only of what you say uh but how you say it because I think it's a model for for others.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: Gavin I hope people will go straight and uh and subscribe to your channel Truth Unites I hope that people go and pick up the book but uh thank you so much for joining us here at Speak Life.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks Glenn great to talk with you there we go thank you so much for listening.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Speak Life podcast.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back soon with more interviews uh conversations that get to the heart and reactions uh to news and culture from a Christian perspective that's what we do on our main YouTube channel youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia and uh do also stay tuned on our Reformed Mythologist YouTube channel youtube.com forward slash at reformed mythologist Nate is going to be doing his thing reacting to popular culture and entertainment from Christian perspective uh so we've got some exciting things coming up there uh do stay tuned well god bless it's been an absolute privilege as always to bring these resources to you and hope you have a good week we will see you soon