¶1Hi there. Welcome to Premier Unbelievable. I'm Luke Martin and today my guest was Oz Guinness. Oz is an author and social critic. He's written over 40 books.
¶2He was born in China and educated at the Universities of London and Oxford. [music] And we talked about his life. We talked about one of his books, our civilizational moment. We talked about Christianity and politics, decline in the West, and [music] hope for the future. I hope you enjoy the show.
¶3Oz Guinness, welcome to the show. >> Thank you for having me. >> So Oz, you're here with us in London during this heatwave and you've been speaking at ARC, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. What is ARK and why are you supporting it? Well, it is what it says, the alliance for responsible citizenship and its central vision is to renew Western civilization.
¶4Although to be honest, I'm trying to press them to see that can come across as conservative whereas we got to think of the future and that can come across as western only whereas I think today we got to think of the whole global world. But the idea of a pro-human or a human friendly future over against I see the supreme menace of our time to be global authoritarianism and we need a counter to that and many of the liberal democracies of the west are not really alternative. They're sliding to what Christopher Dawson called a soft desperatism. >> Do you want to say a bit more about that? this this um authoritarism.
¶5What do you mean by that? >> Well, you think at the end of the 19th century, Friedri Ner, you know, his last words in his postumous book, he says, "Do you want a name for my world? This world is the will to power and nothing besides." And you can see people talk about the shift from the weak gods, reason, tolerance to the strong gods of blood and nation. And you see a focus not on the west but Eurasia. And look at Eurasia.
¶6You got Putin in the west, Xi Jinping in the east, North Korea and Iran. All authoritarian. And as Christopher Dawson says, countries that had an autocratic background, Russia or a military background, Germany, they went for a harsh authoritarianism, totalitarianism. Whereas Dorson warned 100 years ago, countries with a liberal background like Britain and the United States would fall for a soft authoritarianism. So that's the great danger the left and increasingly on the right and I think as Christians and certainly that's what Oxen said about we need a human friendly future that's a genuine counter.
¶7Is your concern similar to Rod Dreers? We had Rod on the show a few months ago. He talks about soft totalitarianism. This has to do with concerns around freedom of speech for for Christians. Is that similar or all part of it?
¶8But I think it's much wider than just, you know, problems for Christians. You think of the overregulation, all sorts of things. On the left, they can't wait to put more laws that tied up tie up everything. So, yes, all that Rod's talking about, but it's uh continentwide. >> It's broader than that.
¶9Yeah. So, how did art go? Were there any highlights? I, you know, when you come back another I've been to all three. People want to talk and talk and talk.
¶10So, I probably only heard a third of the speeches, but some of them were very very good and worth listening to. For example, Bill Anderson who is the CEO of Bayer Bayer as understood in Europe, the big pharmaceutical company, you know, fertilizers, medicines, all he was terrific and how we combat bureaucracy because bureaucracy is part of this sweeping authoritarianism covering up more and more of life. His one is well worth listening to and there are several others. >> Mhm. and those are on YouTube if our viewers and listeners want to have a have a watch.
¶11>> So Oz, tell us a bit more about yourself. Uh you've written over 30 books. Uh you're a hugely influential public intellectual. You were born in China. Uh you were educated at Oxford.
¶12Do you want to give us a bit more of a sense of of your life? Well, I was born in China, as you said, a few weeks before Pearl Harbor. And my parents were medical missionaries. And we were caught between the Japanese army who killed 17 million in the invasion and the communists on the another side and then the nationalist army in a third side. And there was one terrible summer when the locust came in and in a week or so no food.
¶13And there was a terrible famine in which 5 million died in three months including my brothers. We made it out. I nearly died. My mother nearly died. She was a surgeon.
¶14Uh there were 10 million on the road. So my first years were I don't remember that of course. >> I'm sure your brothers died of these young. >> We then moved to Nanjing which was the capital of the old Ming dynasty but also the capital of so-called free China. And I well remember the day in January 49 when my dad said to me, "Son, we're in trouble.
¶15Jiang Kaishek has abandoned the city, went to Taiwan, and we're at the mercy of the Red Army. And in they came, and the reign of terror began two years. >> And my dad used to come back from standing on the wall, lovely old city walls, and you can see every day the batch of people tried ex then led out to execution. Many of our fellow church members and people we knew, but the terror was palpable. I mean, if you met a friend, they'd walk right past you without recognition.
¶16If they recognized you, they were in trouble. >> Mhm. >> It was awful. But it left me with an incredible I was 10 when I left. >> What to ask?
¶17Yeah. Yeah. >> It left me with incredible realism about life. Whatever your faith and world view is, it has to be realistic. >> You've seen how bad things can get.
¶18Yeah. But also very realistic about Marxism, whether classical or cultural. >> You know, I often say the revolutions never succeed. The oppressions never end. And the promises they make are never delivered and all the time the pyramids of sacrifice mount and mount >> apart from as they said at Arc, the American Revolution.
¶19That's the one revolution where they >> Oh, well that's very different actually. Well, the English revolution now the English revolution failed. It it's the lost cause and the notions of freedom went on to enter the glorious revolution in 1688. But the lost cause of the Puritan revolution in 1642 became the winning cause in America. And Christians, even American Christians need to understand the primary roots were not Greece and Rome.
¶20Rome was hierarchical and you can see how the church copied Roman structures. So you had Caesar, consils, senators and lo and behold you had pope, cardinals, bishops and you know the famous saying all power tends to corrupt and so on. That's by a Catholic layman Lord Actton criticizing his own church. It was hierarchical and hierarchical structures are always oppressive. The Reformation said, "No, that's not the Bible's way." What's the Bible's way?
¶21Covenantal. And that's what shaped America. >> Now, I distracted from That was wonderful. I distracted from your story. So, continue.
¶22So, you're in China. And then, how did you eventually find your >> Well, my parents were allowed to send me back to England. >> Uh, I came back in 1951 when Churchill just got back in power. Um, and I went to a boarding school here in England. and then got a degree at London University and then I went now this is the by then the 60s.
¶23I mean imagine Luke the 60s swinging London drug sex rock and roll Bergman films Fellini films you know it it was fascinating we had wonderful teachers in London John Sto Martin Lo Jones Michael Green you name them but it was rich deep blocks of theology and faith and no relationship to the culture >> and into that world came this unusual little American with a goatee and very strange pronunciation of English. But Francis Schaefer connected all the dots. He'd seen the films. He'd read the books and he he understood the the meaning of them in contrast to the Christian faith. And that was revolutionary for me.
¶24You know, the old 60s saying mind-blowing. >> It was truly >> a CS Lewis figure. >> Yes. But with a a wider culture. I mean Lewis I I actually came to faith through reading Lewis right in my teenage years my parents were in China so I didn't have their immediate influence they prayed for me and loved me but they were under house arrest so my own journey to faith was much more reading and thinking and I read na I still read ner you know Satra and Kamu Kamu is my hero as a teenager and then I read Pascal and Chesterton and of course CS Lewis.
¶25So I was convinced it was true. >> Um but Schaefer by conversion is more important of course but understanding you could think freely about anything and everything as a Christian. Think Christianly. >> That was more practically liberating to me even than my conversion. So for our viewers and listeners, Francis Schaefer, an American, he set up the Libre Fellowship in Switzerland >> and their their slogan is honest answers to honest questions.
¶26So you eventually found your way in out to Switzerland. You spent some time there with us, three weeks. Yeah. And it was mind-blowing. So much that I went back and I lived there five years and lived with him.
¶27It was truly incredible. and tell us more about that. Yeah. >> A third were Christians who want to understand. A third were Christians or people who dropped out of the faith who want to give one last chance.
¶28And a third were seekers, wild people, lots of disciples from Satro, Kimu, people who come directly from Paris, people on their way to Indian ashrooms. We had Timothy Liry, the psychedelic drugs guru, and people like that. We had members of the Charles Menson gang and non-stop talking from early breakfast right through to 1 2 in the morning. Non-stop talking questions from all fronts. I mean when Schaefer was away well in his chalet and there were 12 shalets.
¶29>> There were 40 seats in his chalet for dinner and it was usually three hours. beginning with soup and then after soup Schaefer would say anyone got a question and it flowed. Now, when he was away, I was put in the hot seat and I was 26. You know, you someone angry about Vietnam or why is there something rather nothing philosophically or one night a woman said to me, um, you know, I think you can have 12 orgasms a night. How many do you think is a Christian?
¶30I thought, you know, single man. I had a clue. I never even asked that before. Oh, one night a man about 10 ft the other end of the table. He said to me, "I have a power far stronger than Jesus.
¶31You're going to look into my eyes and be locked into my eyes and 2 minutes you'll bow your head to the table." And I felt my mercifully Edith Schaefer, a great woman of prayer. She heard this in the kitchen. >> Mhm. >> Stopped to pray and whatever power he had was broken. >> But you went from the philosophical to the political to the sexual to the occult.
¶32And did you feel that you had the training needed for that or do you throw feel you throw it in at the >> end it up? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds amazing.
¶33It sounds almost more vibrant than a university. >> Oh, far more. I've been at London University. >> Of course, English university at that time really taught you to think. >> Mhm.
¶34So, these fellowships are still going. There's one in Switzerland, there's one in England, there's some in America and and in Holland. And >> I'd recommend the English one. and the American one especially. >> Uhhuh.
¶35Brilliant. So you did that and then you you went back to Oxford then. Is that right? >> Well, I met my wife at Libra. She from America and then we went to Oxford and where I did a defill because Schaefer was brilliant in the history of ideas.
¶36But I realized that's only half the story. And I did my doctorate on Peter Burgerer who's the great sociologist because the way culture shapes us >> is equally ideas are very important but the way culture shapes us too is also important. >> So that's how I did my doctorate on. >> Fantastic. Yeah.
¶37And uh and you find Schaefer to be um just an incredibly influential and stimulating thinker. >> He was a gatekeeper. Mhm. >> Now, he wasn't a scholar, >> right? And he wasn't a particularly good writer.
¶38>> Passionate thinker. Yes. You people ask me, "What made the difference for you with Schaefer?" Well, I put it boiled it down to three things. >> He was passionate about God. >> Mhm.
¶39>> Not the greatest preacher I've ever listened to, but often in a sermon, his voice would break. >> He was overcome with the immensity of what he was talking about. He was passionate about people. He talked to someone, say a hippie of the time or whatever, and you could see his eyes slowly welling up with tears. >> He was so empathetic.
¶40>> But then he was passionate about truth. You know, nature saying, "All truth is bloody truth to me." Schaefer was like that. He never joke. He was he often he was full of fun. full of fun but always serious when it come down to truth and those three things passion about the Lord about people and about truth that's what you caught from him I don't think he taught it specifically he did he had wonderful little phrases like there are no little people everyone mattered that was his way of saying you know the dignity of the image of God in everyone um and he had his little phrases but the way he behaved saved was the real secret.
¶41>> Mhm. Brilliant. I could keep chatting about it because I love Liberty and everything, but uh but let's keep moving. So, you've I mean, I say you've written over 30 books. One of your books >> is 40 now.
¶42>> Over 40. Oh my. [laughter] Um so, one of the books that I read a few months ago is called Our Civilizational Moments. Uh I loved it. I thought we could discuss some of the points you made in the book because it ties in quite well to some of the the recent episodes we've had.
¶43So, what is uh the civilizational moment that we're living through? Well, the idea a lot of people think that's just a fancy term for where we are. No, it comes from the great historian Christopher Dawson who is probably the best historian of Western civilization. And he has the idea that at a certain moment every civilization has an inspiration, a dynamic, something that makes it what it is. But everyone at a certain point over time loses touch with its inspiration, its dynamic.
¶44When that happens, you only have three broad choices. You can renew it, you can replace it, find an adequate one, or decline. And where are the great civilizations of history? They're in ruins. They're in museums or history books.
¶45In other words, they declined and they fell. And the west is there today. Clearly, the central inspiration is the Christian faith. We owe a lot to the Greeks. >> We owe considerable lot to the Romans.
¶46But the Christian faith through the conversion of the barbarians in Europe made Christendom and then western civilization. So you have to say the Christian faith rooted in Judaism. >> But over 500 years modernity has prevailed over faith. So that for much of the west today faith is either marginal >> or meaningless. Now then the search is on for the alternative.
¶47That's the 18th century enlightenment. But that has clearly failed too. >> Mhm. >> And so now we're facing either there's a renewal of the inspiration Christian faith rooted in Judaism or the West is finished. So you feel like the West is in decline >> at the moment.
¶48You've hinted that already. So what sort of indicators of that decline are there? don't where they're not. I mean clearly I mean China already is pronouncing the west as finished. You can um look at the chaos in Europe.
¶49The chaos in Europe you just take the uh unfiltered immigration for example and the crisis of identity this has created across across Europe. The same is true in America. >> Mhm. I mean, if you focus on the American thing specifically, you know, when I was at Oxford, I would have dinner with Isaiah Berlin, Sir Isaiah Berlin, the great Jewish philosopher of freedom. And it turned out that he was a seven-year-old in the Chinese in the Russian Revolution, and I was the seven-year-old in the Chinese.
¶50And he would always end by saying, "But thank God, although he didn't believe in God, thank God the English-speaking people stood against totalitarianism." As a Jew, he would be horrified to see America today massive anti-sem well here in Britain too. But then you have the red green alliance, Noah's cultural Marxism hand inhand with radical Islamism. M >> they are not just at the gates of the west, they're within the walls. >> So you think of the mayor of New York and now the mayor of Washington DC, >> you know, and in other words, these are alien. So I say to my American friends, you know, which revolution are you supporting?
¶51You think of the Apostle Paul in Galatians, you know, he says, um, who bewitched you? You came to faith through grace and now you're living by legalism works. And I say to my American friends, all right, your revolution has come from the Bible and Jewish understandings. It's very different from the French Revolution. Which are they going to choose?
¶52There's a huge polarization and the country is torn in half. So there's a lot to unpack there. Why don't we go back and start with with Christrysendom? So, I can I can hear that you're a fan of Tom Holland's work, although I but I also hear you pushing back a little by really emphasizing that we do owe a lot to the Greeks. But Tom Holland Dominion, you know, he comes out and he says even though he's not a Christian, wasn't a Christian at the time, he just realized that that we in the West owe so much to to uh the Christian tradition and in a sense he is a Christian uh without without being a practicing Christian because all his values are are Christian >> now.
¶53>> Yeah. Well, I I've I've heard that. But let's go back then. So to Christendom. So 312 Constantin wins his his battle just outside of Rome and quite quickly uh there's tolerance for all Christians in the Roman Empire and then couple of decades later when Rome became Christian officially beginning >> yeah so a couple of decades later 80 380 so then so then nine Christianity becomes the state religion >> but there are some Christians who oppose this they they they think this was a bad thing when Christianity really got tangled in with politics.
¶54But this set up then decades of what's known as as christendom. This this period of European history where >> Christians you have the church, but you have Christians in in par and the setting up of institutions like Oxford and Cambridge and great schools and museums and great art and just a period of of of of great uh European Christian history. So some people push back against that the merging of politics and Christianity. How do you view it? >> Well, I the problem isn't politics.
¶55The problem as I see it is as the church became dominant. You know, when Theodocious declared Rome officially Christian 380, it was only 15 years before the barbarians were at the gates. They didn't have much time to think Christianly. And you know, St. Augustine had the goths at the Visigoths at the gates in North Africa as he was dying.
¶56So they didn't have much time. I'm not tagging them. But in my view, the problem was they copied Greek ideas uncritically. And you would think how Aristotle through Aquinas has shaped the church or that part of the church in a very rationalistic way. And they copied Roman structures uncritically.
¶57And so you have what I called this authoritarian power through ranking. And so you have oppression and corruption because power not only oppresses the weak, it corrupts the powerful. And so you have the Inquisition. You have dreadful notions in the Catholic era like error has no rights. Now that's the cancel culture today or were still under the communists, but Christians were doing it.
¶58And so you see it was in the reformation when they rediscovered covenantalism. You know there's a wonderful Jewish idea called simsum tz iim tz u m >> which is the way god who's all powerful. If he was everything everywhere we'd have no space. Timum is God's self-limitation >> and the one thing God will never invade is the human heart. You think of Revelation three or you know behold I stand at the door and knock or Hullman Hunt's great picture the light of the world no handle on the outside.
¶59In other words, God's respect for human freedom which we can use or abuse. Now a lot of that came from the reformation. So freedom, think of the levelers, John Lburn, freedom is the man who will turn the world upside down. Or you think of religious freedom, you know, people like Roger Williams. All of that came out of that rediscovery of the Bible.
¶60And you know, this year is the 500th anniversary of Tinddale's translation of the Bible from Greek into English. Now that was revolutionary. But you know, while he was translating, a Scotsman was discovered with in his hand with the Lord's Prayer written in English. He was burnt to the stake for it. >> In other words, for a thousand years, the Bible had been confined to the Vulgate and to the priests and the scholars.
¶61Nobody else. And literally, they were burnt at the stake for it. as Tindel himself was. In other words, if you think back and many of our Catholic friends should admit this much more honestly, there was a thousand years of knowledge is power and a control that was highly oppressive and the revolution brought freedom. problem though you put it was not politics but you have to have a biblical politics and the reformation produced covenantal politics the consent of the government and many other good things so the problem isn't politics in fact in America I don't know about Britain today in America you've got evangelical split between the overly privatized >> privately engaging publicly irrelevant no politics millions of evangelicals don't vote vote.
¶62That's disastrous. Then you have the overly politicized. >> Whatever is the politics, especially Mr. Trump, is their position. >> That's not Christian either.
¶63But the problem isn't politics. It's they're not thinking and acting Christianly in politics. >> We'll keep getting into that. We're just going to take a quick break. We'll be back in a few minutes.
¶64We need to take a short break. Make sure you're following us on social media. That's @ unbelievable fee onx and @ premier unbelievable on Instagram, Facebook, and on YouTube if you're watching rather than just listening. And if you're enjoying this new show, do leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back after a short break.
¶65We are launching a brand new course which helps us to consider the evidence and questions around the birth of Jesus. It's called Did It Really Happen the Birth of Jesus? Why not sign up for the course or [music] gift it to a friend? Find out more at premierunbelievable.com. Oh, some people are critical of this uh this bringing together of Christianity and politics during the period of of Christendom.
¶66Stanley Harvas is is is a very influential theologian who's wanted to push back against against the period of Christendom. Um and you've talked about issues. There was coercion, there was corruption. But what what uh is it from this period? It lasts for hundreds of years.
¶67What is it that you want to bring our attention to? What are the positives from that period that you think we we perhaps have forgotten and we need to relearn and and revalue? Well, the positives are what we need for a simple reason. We're going forward. And let me begin there because the challenge of our day.
¶68Can we create free societies with a high view of the sanctity of life, of the dignity of the person, of the equality of the dignity of all people and liberty and justice and self-government for everyone. You know, societies that are rightly ordered. That's the definition of the foundation of peace. So, we're concerned for that for our societies today. Now, where do you have that in scripture?
¶69Where is there a higher view of human dignity in all human history than Genesis 1:26 and 27? We're made in the image of God. You know, the American Declaration, we hold these truths to be self-evident. They were only self-evident to Americans because they were readers of the Bible. The idea that people created equal to Plato would have been nonsense.
¶70Aristotle nonsense, Charlemagne, I mean not Charlemagne, Napoleon nonsense. You go on down the line to Hindu nonsense. You know, I've been in India. You look at the Dales and the Brahinss. The Daleid is simply untouchable and not the equivalent of the Brahman.
¶71In other words, those ideas are biblical >> and freedom is biblical. The ancient world believed in fate. you know, it's in your stars for Babylon or it was uh the Delphic Oracle. You think of Edypus Rex. The oracle had said this.
¶72He and his parents did everything they could to beat the oracle. And everything they did made the oracle even more sure. Why? It was fate. You couldn't.
¶73It's written. That's not biblical. But many people forget the modern atheist. There's not a single leading atheist who has a good view of freedom. For Marx, it's economic determinism.
¶74Freud, it's psychological determin. For Dawkins, genetic. You know, Sam Harris, his book on freedom has a puppet on the front cover. Freedom is a fond illusion. They believe not in fate, but determinism.
¶75Where does real rich view of freedom come from? The Bible. >> Mhm. >> And so, we got to bring these things out. Or you could say a high view of truth.
¶76>> Mhm. or one that's incredibly relevant today is what the Romans call but Christians deepen it civility. In other words, if you have a respect for people and you have a high regard for truth and you have a real veneration for words, you will speak differently. >> So modern discourse in America led by Trump himself descends to the level of the locker room. >> Mhm.
¶77It's disgraceful. You can't have a free society when people insult and doxrol and all these things. You know, the one thing I learned from Rabbi Saxs, but actually I quoted it once and Charlie Kirk told me he got it from me and sadly it became true with him. >> Yeah. >> You know, is the Jewish notion when words break down violence is never far away.
¶78And that's our modern culture because disc in other words, the Bible gives us all these rich foundations for the way to live humanly. So yes, there's dangers in mixing politics wrongly. And you can see I'm very critical of the oppression and corruption of the church, whether Catholic or Protestant or whatever. You look at evangelical corruptions in America today. You know, we're all go wrong.
¶79>> Mhm. But we've got to keep coming back to those first truths of the gospel and the scriptures as a whole. >> Yeah. So, we had Professor Brian Brock on a few weeks ago on the show and he was sharing his concerns about this bringing together of of a close relationship between Christianity and and politics. Uh pu pushing back for him very strongly on the idea of a Christian nation.
¶80So I guess what how in your view should these biblical values that you've been talking about or the values that the Bible sort of entails to do with freedom or whatever else, how should they interact with our politics? What are you hoping for? Do you hope for a Christian nation? Do you hope for Christian values being um enforced through through our laws? Or do you just hope for people to become Christians and and be men and women of good conscience and and serve as MPs or whatever else?
¶81Huge question, but let's see. Now, if you believe in freedom, everything has to be a matter of persuasion, not coercion. So, it's not a matter of power. So, again, you look at President Trump, he relies on power, neither principle nor persuasion. Well, you take your notion of Christian nationalism.
¶82We got to clear that up. >> Yeah. Not my notion, but Yeah. Well, the notion you're quoting, >> sure, >> the attack on us for that. >> You know, every human needs three things.
¶83Meaning, belonging, and purpose. Now, the middle one, belonging. That's what patriotism speaks to. And I agree with George Orwell. He was an atheist, but very close to the biblical understanding.
¶84Patriotism is good. We all come from somewhere. And you should love and appreciate, but be willing to criticize where you come from. You know, my family is Irish and I grew up here in England, living in America. Now, I believe in patriotism.
¶85But that's not nationalism. Nationalism is my nation right or wrong. And that's when patriotism becomes an idol. And that's very dangerous. So Christians in America now who are delighting in calling themselves Christian nationalists, they're wrong to do so.
¶86But at the same time, you know, soon as you're a patriot, some secularist person will say you're a nationalist. No, we're not Christian nationalists. We are patriotists and willing to say where we believe our country is right and where it's wrong. You know, the fallibility and the courageability. They're biblical principles.
¶87Iron sharpens iron and so on. These are very very important. So you look at the American Constitution, part of its brilliance, it takes seriously human sin. You have checks and balances, separation of powers. Why?
¶88We're sinners. You don't have that in the French Revolution or the Russian and the Chinese. They were utopian. And whenever you have a topian re revolution where there's a gap between the real and the ideal, you've got to close the gap somehow and they close it by force coercion. And that's why those revolutions are utopian and murderers whereas we should be realists.
¶89In other words, I'm against mixing faith and politics wrongly. And the great danger today is what the left used to call and they used to like they still like politicization. Turning everything into politics. That's deadly. Politics is downstream.
¶90Say from the family, the church and the school. >> Mhm. >> And it should always be downstream and not upstream. So you want Christian values to be um to be well ideally to be held by our politicians. You can stop.
¶91>> You hope it'll be held by Christians. >> By Christians, >> those will win office >> and they'll they'll be in office. >> What will our Lord say? You'll be salt and light. >> Uhhuh.
¶92>> Penetration engagement. >> Mhm. And they will try and um you know try and push for laws that that reflect those those values. But what you what you're you don't want >> again not coercion. >> Uh yes although although we do we coersse no no but we coersse people who you know if someone says I want to murder that person we we say there is a level of coercion in the law when we say you can't you can't you literally can't do that.
¶93>> Well the law is coercion. >> Mhm. >> But you've got to win the hearts and minds to pass the law. So take the difference between the abolition and prohibition. >> Mhm.
¶94Wilforce took nearly 50 years to change hearts and minds and as you know it it was passed three days before he died but that was persuasion. >> Mhm. >> Now prohibition we had the numbers and there was a temperance movement and >> drunkenness a problem. So we had the numbers force it in. >> It wasn't even biblical.
¶95Our Lord clearly drinks wine. I'm coming from a brewing family. So you're right strongly brothers. I'm But that was an example of coercion, not persuasion. And it backfired.
¶96>> Yeah. >> See, we've always got to win the troubleness now with pro-life. We're we're not winning the argument today. >> And we got to raise that. You always begin with persuasion and then pass the law.
¶97The law certainly is authoritative and in that sense coercive. >> Okay. Yes. Because some people I think have the idea that the state could be neutral, free of free of ideas, but I think yeah, you're going to push back against that. Yeah.
¶98I mean I to professor Brock uh a few weeks ago I put this quote from Danny Krueger MP when he gave this talk in the House of Commons and he said uh all politics is religious and in abandoning one religion the Christian religion he was referring to we simply leave space for others to move in as dominant faith and his concerns that he talked about where radical Islam and sort of the radical progressive movement Well, socialism is very obvious, but I would argue even the same with secularism. >> You know, my one of my professors uh at Oxford who was actually at LSC and became a close friend was David Martin, the man who eventually shattered the secularization theory. But he often used to point out that Marxism was a theory that said the beginning of all criticism is the criticism of religion. But it ended as a religion criticizing everything. >> And that's you can see how many of these quai ideological movements they they end as functional religion.
¶99>> Mhm. So I put that to you. I put it to Professor Brock and he he very much wanted to push back against it. Um I guess his view was that he he didn't want Christianity to be dominant. Um I put it to him.
¶100Krueger talks about what if you know radical Islam becomes dominant, radical progressivism becomes dominant. And uh Professor Brock's view was that well it would be better for Christians to live in community and let the light of that community persuade these other dominant forces in society. Uh but I want to put it to you because uh well Krueger was at ARC so you may have a little bit more sympathy for his position or you you might not. So where do you >> I don't know his full position the position but what he's putting forward there >> at AR he was arguing for the English settlement and my quarrel at that was simply he forgot there were Americans in the room there were continentals in the room there were Africans and Asians for goodness sake speak to the world if you're talking in that way now I think you can do that as a Christian he was incredibly parochial bless his heart but I don't know his general position >> I think well just to simpl lify this idea that something has to be dominant. There's no neutral.
¶101There's no neutral. So, there has to be some sort of worldview either in radical Islam or it could be something else in in other countries, but there has to be something dominant. And if if you know, if if there isn't something good that's in control that's dominant, then it leaves room for something something bad uh to come in. >> Well, put it another way. >> Mhm.
¶102There's no question that the strongest ideologies, Marxism, all that are able to play on the weaknesses of the West, which were the corruptions of Christendom. So, think of postcolonialism preying on European colonial guilt, or you think of critical race theory in America twisting the knife in Americans racial guilt. Now, the tragedy is the Christian and Jewish views. We're prepared to say we screwed it up. >> We're unashamed to confess.
¶103>> You know, Michelle Fukco, the great postmodernist thinker, he hated the Christian faith. But I once heard an interview and he said there was one thing only that he admired and that was confession. I thought, what? >> Yes. He said with voluntary confers, with voluntary confession, you have a rare moral act.
¶104Someone is going on record against themselves. >> You know, I put something forward to a group in this United States this year. I won't mention who. And they turned it down because they thought any mention of confession was weakness. >> It's actually strength.
¶105I lied. I screwed up. I committed adultery. I fiddle my income tax returns. >> Confession is the key to repentance.
¶106and turning round and if we're on the wrong direction, better to turn around and go in a good direction >> and think but there's no doubt that the church's weakness in each case has been the wound into which the left had been able to twist a knife >> and so there are natural I don't know your your professor but Christians have made so many mistakes you can line them all up and say we don't want Christian faith today I think Christians got to say where went wrong. I I mentioned error has no rights. That's an abominable idea >> that led to the Inquisition and leads today to the cancel culture. >> Mhm. >> So, we need to confess those >> and go a different way.
¶107So, the gospel is attractive as it is in Jesus. >> Mhm. >> You know, Nigel Big R from Arc because we've had him on the show as well >> at Oxford. Oral Oral College Oxford. Yeah.
¶108he was chaplin there. Um so he cuz he's written on this because there is very much a sense we should confess he also thinks that in in the west we're essent essentially we're too hard on ourselves. Yes in the past we've done wrong at various times but we've also done uh had great moral successes the the main one being uh abolishing slavery. Do you have any sympathy for that view? And I I would agree with Nigel very much.
¶109But that's part of confession. Once you confess something and it's forgiven, >> forgiveness is the key to a second chance. You think of the jails where so many people are in prison, murderers and others have come to faith in Christ and been forgiven and started new lives. You know the old saying that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. Why?
¶110Because of forgiveness. >> Now, we got to practice these things. I say to Americans, the guilt of racism still hangs. No, Lincoln did an incredible amount. And they paid the carnage of the Civil War.
¶111Martin Luther King did an incredible amount, but there's still guilt, especially in the South. >> And critical race theory goes pokes in the night. >> Interesting. Yeah. One of the most powerful talks at ARC, this conference we were both at, was was about forgiveness.
¶112>> Yeah, I remember that when the Australian Australian couple whose three of their children >> uh were mowed down by a driver, a reckless driving incident and um immediately the mother forgave the driver and the father found his way to that drawing upon their own Christian faith. And it was really remarkable because uh the man went to prison for 21 years or something like that. But the man in prison, he then um heard about this on the TV, heard that they'd forgiven him and he converted uh to Catholicism. They're both Catholics >> and now they now they go to mass together. >> Mhm.
¶113>> And I just had the former prime minister >> Yeah. >> who with him had started the I forgive Foundation. >> Incredible. Well, now you had a similar thing in America in Charleston where a young racist went into a Bible study for an hour and a half, went along with and the end I can't remember how many killed, but a huge number of them >> in order to start a race war. >> Mhm.
¶114>> And in the hearing the very next week, the family, the black families, they went, "I forgive you." >> And that stopped the race war in Charleston. And the governor who is a believer was able to pull down the flag, the Confederate flag as a no, we got to show that things like that make them routine and national and if you look at say Yamapour, the day of atonement in Exodus, what was it for? Individual sins? No, it was for the scandal, the national scandal of the golden calf. And I say to Americans, the cross has, which is wonderful, has become purely spiritual and private.
¶115Why doesn't the cross apply to southern racism or wherever the racism is? We've got to take these great biblical truths >> which are so key to freedom and justice and liberty and so on and make them practical in our cultures. Again, >> I mean, we eur I'm European. It was the con we're barbarians. It was the conversion of the barbarian us or St.
¶116Patrick with the Druids in Ireland or Bonafas with the Germans or whatever. We're basically barbarian unless the gospel remains. You know the great in 1834 Henrik Hina he has this incred poet Jewish not Christian. [clears throat] He he says if the taming talisman of the cross is weakened then the stony gods of the pagans will rise again and one day they will in a berserker rage will smash the cathedrals. >> This is hundred years before Hitler.
¶117>> Mhm. >> We're barbarians underneath and only the gospel changed us >> and dark things will come again unless we're careful. How do you think Christians can I mean and our audience is a mixture of Christians and seekers but how do you think they can um you know reach out to to wider culture at the moment because I think our discussion about forgiveness you know it's so powerful and has a hu it can have a huge effect on the person who receives uh forgiveness from a Christian but but what do you think because 15 20 years ago I discussed this with John Lennox 15 20 years ago is all about the arguments for the existence of God and the big Richard Dawkins versus Lennox and McGrath and everything. We're in a slightly different moment now. What do you think?
¶118What do you think's most effective in terms of communicating the gospel in this moment? We're much further down the decline. Sadly, my own way is whoever you meet, love them by listening to find out what makes them tick, where the heart and mind is. And you get down to someone's that we're talking about politics. They might believe in a good thing like justice or freedom.
¶119Marxists do believe in justice the better of them. If they believe in a good thing, then the question is what's the foundation? And we don't just rude this you have no found. No, we we ask them to see without a foundation they're believing in something in a cut flower. It'll die.
¶120They're sitting on a branch they're cutting off themselves. But there are a lot of people who believe in things that are not good. And you have a different tactic with them. You you take seriously what they say and press them. This is Schaeer, but also Elijah.
¶121You press them out to see the logic of what they're into and where it leads to until they hit their heads against the wall. The biblical example is Elijah. He doesn't say, "Come back to God. Come back to God or we'll all fall apart." He he says, "If Baal is God, follow Baal." Now, that's pretty daring >> because he knows Baal is not God. >> And when they try and they pray and so on, he mocks them and it all and then he's able to say, "The one who brings fire is the Lord." And and and so on.
¶122That that's actually what Schaefer does in apologetics. That's good apologetics. You take the bad ideas people have and press them out to the end. If Schaefer were alive today, what do you think he'd be saying in your view? We're in a much greater state of decline now than we were during his day.
¶123I mean, I know he he raised concerns. He was very involved in the in the abortion debate in America and whatever else. What what do you think his message would be now? You know, roughly the same as it was then. you know, you always pressing the crazy ideas out, but he loved people.
¶124He always loved people. So, he could communicate with the wildest and most desperate people. Um, because he loved the people even while he hated the crazy ideas, but I think he'd be saying much the same things as he said, things are just got a little further down the line to put it mildly. Mhm. >> You know, I often quote uh Hemingway, how did the bankruptcy happen?
¶125It happened in two ways. Gradually and then suddenly. >> And that's where our west is today. Things are accelerating. And I guess I part of what I mean is that do you think the reason we are where we are is partly for the reasons that Schaffefer was was predicting decades ago?
¶126>> Of course. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. >> Of course. people have not returned.
¶127I mean, I often quote the Titanic, you know, the engineer and the captain and others are debating with the intensity and u the engineer says, "If you puncture four compartments, fine, but five, no." Someone says, "But the ship's unsinkable." Of course, you Irishman from the north built the darn thing. And he said, "It's made of iron. It can and it will sink. It's a mathematical certainty. >> And if you think of freedom, there are only certain way free societies are rare.
¶128Lasting free society, the rarest still. And if you go about them certain ways, it won't work out well. It won't last. >> It's a mathematical certainty and a folly of many of our political leaders and others thinking we've done it ourselves. is going to last for it.
¶129It won't. >> We're going to take another quick break. We'll be back in a few minutes. >> The mind and brain are connected, but the scientific data doesn't enable you to establish the nature of that connection or the relationship. Just because science can't demonstrate that physical processes and mental processes are the same thing, that in and of itself doesn't give you any evidence that that's not the case either.
¶130Some people talk about seeing deceased relatives and communicating with them. >> This idea of floating up out of your body and watching things happen and being able to describe it afterwards that could be formed in your imaginative mind. >> Conscious experience and brain processes are two fundamentally different things. I wonder if we're talking about >> You like me to go out for a bit? You guys seem really happy.
¶131So Oz uh we have let's go back again. We've got Christendom, this period of European history and then you you spoke about the enlightenment. You you write about it in in the in the book. So, so what went wrong during the enlightenment? This is sort of 17th, 18th century.
¶132We're thinking of figures like John Lock, David Hume. What What do you think happened there that has in a sense caused some of the problems that we're seeing today? Well, the Enlightenment became the intended replacement. The Christian faith had slowly failed and was rejected and the Enlightenment was a replacement. And as uh Dedra has put it, the enlightenment in one word was reason.
¶133And it became too rationalistic. And the fact is the enlightenment pursuing reason alone produced some of the most irrational ideas, modern postmodernism for example. And so it failed on its own terms. But its great ideologies each of them communism making the state sacred uh fascism no communism making class sacred rather fascism the state and Nazism race each of them became semi-religious a functional equivalent to religion and so there's almost no question that World War I was the carnage that showed people the enlightenment had failed people couldn't just be quote rational. There's more to us than that.
¶134But yet people hold on to it even today. >> Steven Pinker, Harvard, right? >> Many people like that. But very much in the face of reality. >> Yes.
¶135So is that just in a sense they have faith or they have hope that we can hold on to this dream of being self-sufficient rational creatures and ordering society. >> The world is improving all the time and things like that. >> Yes. you replace heaven with progress on earth. >> So what would your message be to somebody who who is committed to that to the sort of Steven Pinkers of the world?
¶136Uh what what do you think they're what do you think they're getting wrong? Well, you have to get into the specifics very much, but basically you basically you're saying, "God bless you." >> And if you think the world's like that, let's try and work in the world, and you'll soon come up against reality. Mhm. >> There's something wrong with humanity and most people can see that you know whether you even K talks about the crooked timber of our humanity which he got from the book of Ecclesiastes or you have Solzen the line between good and evil runs down through every human heart. You know we are now post Awitz post Hiroshima and pre- singularity.
¶137There's a much greater realism. there's something wrong with humanity. Now you can argue what it is >> and then you have to argue how do you put it right and in each case it's the [clears throat] gospel that comes in brilliantly in their mind where there are few are real enlightenment optimists in the old style. >> Yeah. to enlighten humanists, they will say, "Yes, we have a we've got a moral framework." Uh maybe it's something like utilitarianism, but you're saying, "Fine, you you've come up with a a framework, a way to try to decide or decipher right from wrong, but but how do you explain wrong?
¶138How do you really explain why people choose to do evil?" And you think the the the the humanists don't have a convincing >> not at all answer. Now you look at nature. God is dead and the sky is unhinged and we've murdered. We are the most murderous of all murderers who will wipe the blood off our hands. This is nature.
¶139And then you have people in England like John Stewart Mill, George Elliot. He called them the odious windbags of progressive optimism because they believed God was dead and everything had gone as before. Well, the 20th century surely shown us it didn't. The death camps, ballpot, and all that. Clearly, there's something wrong with humanity and our enlightenment optimists were clearly out to lunch in terms of humanity.
¶140Yes. And I think, you know, if you think Katab society at the moment, there is a lot of talk of say the need to educate young people and try and teach them, I don't know, about ideas like toxic masculinity. So in a sense at the moment we we do seem to be in a phase where Christians but but also I'm referring really to to to non-Christian to secularists at the moment do see that there's something wrong and they're trying to teach young people about it. They just have a different um prescription to the to the to the different diagnosis too. I mean you take say American school massacres the constant the liberal says is the gun.
¶141Of course it is. They're a massacco. >> The real constant is not the gun. The gun is the how. The real question is why.
¶142And the real constant is the loner. So if you look at all the American school mass, some by women, some by men, mostly by men, they're people from broken families or broken communities. and they want to take revenge on their family or their school or whatever it is. >> That loner is actually the key >> and you don't solve that by gun laws. >> Mhm.
¶143So what does the Christian say to to that problem? >> Well, you try and rectify the families and the family breakdown is disastrous. Disastrous for identity, disastrous for ethics, all sorts of things. So in other words, a free society needs what uh Alexi detoxville, the great French thinker, calls schools of citizenship. You need strong families, strong churches and synagogues and strong schools.
¶144And when you have each of those, you take the families, it's quite obvious. It's two people who love each other who get married and form a family. Then their love literally making love produces life. And then life and in the family you grow into identity. You begin to understand rights and wrongs and ethics.
¶145You begin to form character. The family is the matrix of good people and therefore good citizens. And you can spend the same thing with the church and synagogue and the school. Each of those has broken down. >> Mhm.
¶146>> And so the west is in chaos. We've got very unhealthy families, schools, and churches and synagogues. >> And the New Testament has a lot to say about how to restore families have. Yeah, indeed. All of them.
¶147>> Okay. So, let's >> No, the basic things are relatively simple, >> right? >> I mean, I often think of this like a sort of gigantic Lego except, you know, it's dynamic, not just static. Mhm. >> But you pull out this piece or that.
¶148No. No. >> Yeah. Yeah. And that goes back to forgiveness as a as a key building block.
¶149Yeah. So, let's just think about Krueger's uh these threats because there's overlap between what Krueger and what you you write in this book. So, he talked about these threats from radical Islam, radical progressivism. You talk about both. Here we had Andy Bannister on the show few weeks ago and he uh we we spoke a lot about Islam but he mentioned this sort of incompatibility between uh core beliefs of of Islam and Western civilization.
¶150He felt that really the issue of freedom of speech was an issue there. Um what what what's your message? We'll start with radical Islam first. What how do you see that as as a threat? Well, I wouldn't start with them first because they're more recent for me.
¶151I call I don't know what Danny Krueger thinks. I only know little Andy Bannis is a good friend, but I'm speaking for myself. >> Yeah, of course. Of course. >> The three waves, as I see it, have come washing in to the west.
¶152The first is the the red wave radical Marxism and that goes back to KL Marx although today >> it's not classical Marxism which is more economic it's cultural Marxism and so on that's the first way the second the sexual revolution and that goes back very early too in fact it goes back to the same place in Paris that the political revolution comes from in other words people think, oh, sexual revolution, Hugh Hefner, Playboy Hustler, 1960s, the pill, permissiveness and all that. No, no, far more radical. And their intent is really to undermine the west quite deliberately. And they say so if you read say Bill Reich who gave us the term sexual revolution, but that's the second way. The third is radical Islamism, not Islam, radical Islamism.
¶153And that goes back to a fateful meeting in 1941, just before Pearl Harbor, one month after I was born, in fact, when Hitler invited the Grand Muy of Jerusalem to Berlin and they made a pact against the Jews. And Hitler supported the Grand Mufty the rest of the war. And even after he died, the ideas went from the Grand MUI down to the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood. And today, those ideas are behind Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. And they are deadly because they're not only anti-Israel, they're anti-America, they're anti- the West, they're basically antihuman.
¶154They're dominating doineering. And so I'm not I'm not objecting to Islam. And what's wonderful if you look at the whole Islamic world, the largest Muslim country is Indonesia. And the Indonesian Muslim leaders are in favor of freedom of conscience. That's the key.
¶155Will Islam modernize peacefully? Yes or no? Depending on whether they accept freedom of conscience for non-Muslims. the Indonesian leaders who are the majority, they will. Now, will some of the the rest of the Arab world go that way?
¶156I hope so. Clearly, the Islamists will not. And that's why the radical Islamists are a deadly danger wherever you have them. Whether it's uh literally in 9/11 or whether it's the growth of Sharia in this country and the terrible rapes of young women and so on. That's radical Islam and incredibly dangerous.
¶157But that's not all Islam. >> And so hopefully we can persuade good Muslims freedom of conscious essential. Not just freedom of speech. >> You take the big three, you know, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. Freedom of assembly assumes and requires freedom of speech and freedom of speech assumes and requires freedom of conscience.
¶158So that's the first liberty. >> Mhm. So that's radical Islam. Um what about you called it Marxism or >> cultural Marxism? Tell us about that because I think that ties on to Krueger's radical progressivism.
¶159I think you're talking about the same thing. Or do you see that as a threat? Well, Marx's original thing was a class struggle economically, the rich and the poor. And then in the 1920s of people like Antonio Gshy and later the Frankfurt school and said, you know, many in the west were immune from Marxism and so on. They were they were doing too well.
¶160The rich and the poor didn't cut it. And so they began to shift from classical communism to cultural Marxism. So it's the majority and the minority culturally or educationally or sexually. And so everything is power. So you're asking who's the majority, who's the strong one, who's the minority, who's the weak one, who's the oppressor, who's the victim.
¶161And the victim is the great thing. everything. Now, you know, uh, fascism makes the state sacred, cultural Marxism makes the victim sacred. >> And that's what's behind an awful lot of this stuff on the left today. Very, very dangerous.
¶162>> So, there's an incentive, if you like, to be the victim. >> Oh, yeah. >> Mhm. >> And then you stay that way. >> And that's that's absolutely deadly.
¶163And the you know the best of the black intellectuals like Thomas soul right >> they say no no no we refuse to be victims >> we refuse to be victims because then you become eternally dependent on whomever it is the government handout or whatever. >> Yeah. So the victimology is very very dangerous and the Jews classically have been one of the most victimized people in history. >> But to their enormous credit they refuse to play the victim card. >> So how how in your view should Christians respond to this cultural Marxism?
¶164um as we respond to all of the waves, you know, showing where they lead. For example, uh we agree with them, justice is at stake. But what they do is set up a conflict of powers. You find the majority, minority, oppressor, victim. You set up a conflict of powers through protests, all sorts of things.
¶165But when you only have a conflict of power and no ideal of liberty or whatever, the Romans predicted the outcome of this. It's what the Romans called the peace of desperatism. By that they meant eventually the only way you will have peace is when you have a power so strong it can put down all other powers. So you have peace, it's the peace of the graveyard. So, China is remarkably peaceful compared with the West, but that's the peace of a police state and totalitarianism.
¶166Is that what we want? No. >> And the the Russian revolution is all and the communist revolution have always led that. That's why I said earlier, their revolutions never succeed. Their oppressions never end.
¶167And their promises are never delivered. >> And we've got to learn from history. And this is where I go back to the Titanic. You know, will that happen? It's a mathematical certainty.
¶168Ideas have consequences. >> Bad ideas have bad consequences and victims. And it's I guess some people will just take the sort of cultural Marxism movement. Some people, some Christians will say that some of this stuff is is good that that you can find it in in the gospel that there are these these minorities, these victims. There have been them throughout history and that Christians should uh embrace maybe not all of this movement, but some of this movement.
¶169What would you say to someone who who disagrees with you like that? Well, >> a lot of really sloppy thinking. Would you say you've you don't find victimology in the in the Gospels? You find people are wounded. The good the uh you know man beaten up in the road, the good Samaritan helped.
¶170He was helped. Of course, there are victims. Our Lord healed people and and so on. Of course, there are victims all the way across life. And the church has always reached out to them.
¶171So, we're there to care for the poor. My parents were missionary doctors. They heal the sick, of course. But you don't then leave them as victims or use this as a way to gain power and state control. No, the victims are a means to an end.
¶172They don't give a damn for the victims. >> You take George Floyd or whatever, you know, you have all the victims names on a law to be passed or whatever. They don't care about the victims. They just care about means to power. So yes, we care about victims, feeding them, clothing them, delivering them from jail.
¶173But that's not what the Marxists are about. >> Anyone who thinks they it is. >> So there's something crucial about seeing seeing that seeing that yes, language of helping those who are oppressed, but really seeing the underlying ideology that's at work in your view? >> No. Uh Jesus is all compassion.
¶174His heart went out to the crowds. I mentioned earlier Francis Schaefer who talked to Solomon. His eyes you could see it. He didn't weep but you could see his eyes filling with tear. He loved people.
¶175>> Of course, love, compassion, caring, >> but but be on be on the lookout for for ideas >> to rescue them and put them back on their feet. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I heard you say uh a year or two ago, I think it was a previous arc, that what's needed in the west is for uh a lot of people basically to convert to Christianity, for Christians to take the faith more seriously and for people to convert to Christianity. So in a sense you these aren't your words but you have a Christian country just in the sense that there are a lot of people in that country who take their faith seriously and are enacting it in the world around them.
¶176Um do you think that in a sense is uh do you want to expand on that Christian faith is not a theology >> it's a life principle it's a world view of how you see things. It's a life principle how you live. So you think of the pagan emperor, you know, he was bugged by Christians. He says, "These Christians not only care for their own poor, they care for ours too. It was the way they lived and cared for the poor and the imprisoned and so on that so striking to the pagans, you know.
¶177But I we've got to begin with the gospel. You said something we need." No, I don't begin civilizationally or Britain or America. No, we who follow Jesus got live the way he called us to live as salt and light. And you know, a culture is a way of life lived in common. And every culture needs its faith to produce the values and the way of life in common.
¶178Civilization is simply a culture rises high enough and spreads far enough lasts long enough, but we don't get the cop before the horse. Yeah. I Yeah. I think what I what I meant was that, you know, if people are hearing all this, there's all these threats and and we're in arguably in a state of decline. What What can they do?
¶179Well, well, what I'd heard from you was one thing you can do is if you're a Christian is you can live out your faith. >> Absolutely. >> Be a light in the world and help the poor. thing we can do >> forgive others as we go back to this example of the people who forgave the man who who who mowed down their kids that transformed that life that man's life. So live your faith and if and if you're not if you're not a Christian and you're you're worried about everything that's going on.
¶180Well, one option I guess would be to to to think seriously about the faith. Um to turn into to one's own soul and and and ask those big questions yourself. Absolutely. No, I urge that. >> You know, if you're talking culturally, civilizationally, as historians say, it's always the creative minority that creates a civilization.
¶181And in a time of crisis, will renew it if if there's enough of a creative minority. So Christians and I'm saying the Christian faith rooted in Judaism. They should be the creative minority, the salt and light. The people have a high view of people, freedom, truth. We should talk differently and and and so on.
¶182The trouble is Christians are often same as everyone else. And in America, a good deal of hate swirling around. And some of the Christian language is pretty appalling, too. No, we should be different by the way we speak and we love and we persuade, not trying to beat people over the head and so on. >> That's a challenge.
¶183>> We got to live it. >> And it's a challenge to each of us. Um, you know, to to forgive >> when we're when somebody wrongs us, either if it's a if it's a if it's a big wrong, but all those just small wrongs people do to us every day um in the workplace and families, whatever. It's a challenge to to each of us, to me to to forgive. And you you mentioned earlier that the basics a lot of this is pretty simple >> and the more more we can put those basics into our lives the >> Yeah.
¶184But I just like it because you know we're thinking of these big civilizational issues. >> Mhm. >> But each of us can get going on ourselves. >> Yeah. We always have to start with ourselves.
¶185>> Yeah. >> So final thought then. Are you optimistic about the future of the West? were in decline. Um, we've got Peter Hitchens coming on in in a few weeks.
¶186And as you as you know, Peter is uh is pretty pessimistic, although his his optimism. Well, he talks about hope and the hope is in is in heaven for him. What's your how do you feel about the future? >> Well, I resist optimism can go on for a simple reason. It's either psychological, you know, do you believe the glass is half full or half empty?
¶187That's purely psychological. Or do you believe the market is bullish or bearish? That's purely circumstantial. You know, I think as as a follower of Jesus, we've got to be totally realistic. Look at the world in the white of the eye.
¶188And it's pretty troubling to put it mildly. But at the same time, we have grounds of hope. You know what I was saying at Ark, you take the whole notion of decline. The Jewish and Christian faiths have an answer to that. >> In the secular worldview, you only have decline and fall.
¶189And those two words have an ironclad pairing. If you decline, you fall. And ever since Edward Gibbon, decline and fall of the Roman Empire. You know, those words go together. They aren't the biblical pairing.
¶190The biblical pairing is exile and return. In other words, if someone doesn't want to live God's way, they're free, but they'll pay for it. >> And there'll be consequences personally, socially, nationally, or whatever it is. But the great thing in the Bible is there's this call to to repent, to turn around. Um, if you return to me, the Lord says, Moses said it, Malachi said it, >> if you return to me, I'll return to you and restore your fortunes.
¶191And you look at the church times it's been oppressive and corrupt and despicable. And the great GK Chester, he once remarked, I love this, six times the church has gone to the dogs, but in each case it was the dog that died. Why revival? When people turned back to God. So my ancestor Arthur Guinness who founded our family brewery, he came to faith in the first awakening in Ireland under John Wesley.
¶192>> Mhm. >> And he brought in [snorts] social welfare and medical things, all sorts of things for the workers at Guinness out of his faith coming from the revival. And the revival saved England from what led to the French Revolution and laid the groundwork for what became the American Revolution. >> Mhm. >> So revivals are very real things.
¶193And so both Jews and Christians have the grounds >> for hope in revival and restoration even in pretty dark times. >> And we are seeing something of that at the moment. We obviously the Bible Bible society's data was false and and and they're they're going to have they're going back and they're redoing that. But uh certainly anecdotally we are seeing a renewal of interest. So just speaking to a publisher uh in the last couple of days who was saying that Bible sales are up 400% in the last four years.
¶194>> Mhm. >> But I I make a difference personally >> Yeah. between renewal >> that you can explain sociologically. >> It's real, but there are natural explanations. Like when I went to the US, there was a headline in the Washington Post, boomers turned to God.
¶195>> Well, the fact is the boomers got to a place they wanted their kids to have values and went back to church. >> So, it was real, >> but it wasn't profound. It was a renewal, not a revival. Now I reserve the word revival for the real thing. If you look at the first awakening or my greatgrandfather in the Irish revival, you know, we we have newspaper accounts where he'd stand on the top.
¶196He was 23. Stand on the top of carriages. There were no loudspeakers, crowds of 20 or 30,000 like Whitfield. And the spirit would fall. There was a conviction of sin.
¶197And in that whole region of Ireland which include where you came from too now Ireland was united then >> there was only one recorded crime in the year after the revival and it was right genuine revival is a profound and socially transformative event. Mhm. >> So I I distinguish in renewal, which is good, >> takes a young men going back to faith in America >> because of the murder of Charlie Kirk, >> right? >> It's real. But for me, that's not revival.
¶198>> It's like a a sort of renewal. And some people can be skeptical of revival, myself included, when it includes bright lights and noises and people shouting from the stage. But you're not talking, you're talking about someone standing on top of a carriage, no lights, no sound, literally no sound. Uh, and just something >> Jonathan Edwards was about the driest preacher in the world compared say with Whitfield and but the spirit fell. >> Yeah.
¶199Yeah. Well, Oz, this has been such a wonderful conversation. We've covered so much your parts of your own life and your thoughts on the on the situation we're living through at the moment. And it's been hopeful. I think it's hopeful just going back to this this push to all of us whether we're Christian or not to think about our own souls and and and and to start from there.
¶200So, thank you so much for joining us. >> You're welcome. Thanks for having me. >> And to our viewers and listeners, thanks for joining us and we'll be back again in two weeks time. Take care.
¶201That's it for today's Premier Unbelievable the interview where we bring you deep conversations at the intersection of culture, theology, and personal story. We'd love to know who you'd like to hear from next and what questions you'd like me to ask. So, get in touch at unbelievable premier.org.uk or follow us on Instagram, [music] Tik Tok, or YouTube. I'm Luke Martin and I'll see you next time.