Andrew Isker and Alex Petros from the Cost of Glory podcast join me to discuss the idea that the Old Gods have been sealed away in the Oracles of Delphi, and that they no longer speak to us.
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00:01:07.320All right, guys, so I have been re-reading Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. It's actually one of the first major political works I read in college.
00:01:15.700I did my first, like, big research paper on this, but it's been 20-plus years at this point since I actually read it, and a lot has changed since then, so I wanted to revisit it.
00:01:26.000One of the things that struck me about it was during the text, Hobbes just, out of nowhere, mentions that Christ obviously, with his resurrection, ended the old gods.
00:01:40.140He sealed them away. They no longer can speak to us or influence us anymore, and I found that interesting because he dropped it very casually, as if this is just a fact that, of course, everybody knows.
00:01:49.900And, you know, I was familiar with it. It's actually something of a fascination with my wife.
00:01:54.500She's read a couple different kind of accounts of this, and she's really fascinated by this concept, so it's always something that's been in conversation with us about, you know, kind of what has happened in the spiritual realm since Christ's victory.
00:02:07.520And so I thought it would be really interesting to talk about this because, honestly, this is something that I eventually learned about, but I never heard about in church growing up, and I think the majority of modern Christians are probably not super familiar with this idea of both history and theology.
00:02:22.740And so today I've got a great opportunity because I've got two returning guests, one a historian. Alex Petkus is here from the Cost of Glory podcast, and then I have Andrew Isker, obviously pastor, and he has his own podcast over with CJ Engel. Thank you both for coming on.
00:02:44.040Absolutely. So, like I said, I wanted to hit this from both angles because I think what's really interesting about this is that it's something that shows up in the historical record in multiple places from multiple sources who I don't think are particularly motivated to tell the story that it tells.
00:03:00.540And that's always a good sign of historical veracity when you have people who would rather not admit something talking about it along with those who are celebrating.
00:03:09.260It gives us a cross-section of people who observe the event.
00:03:12.040And then, obviously, it also has deep theological implications, which I thought would be very good to have Andrew on since he's more familiar with that aspect.
00:03:20.420So, let's start from the historical to set the frame. Alex, can you give us a little bit of an idea of where this comes from?
00:03:28.440Who is talking about this event of the old gods being sealed away, no longer being able to contact them?
00:04:03.100And so he's rebuilding temples all around the empire.
00:04:05.100And he sends a friend of his, Oribasius, this doctor, you know, vizier sort of figure, to go, you know, inquire, how can we rebuild the temple?
00:04:15.560And he gets this oracle back that says, go and tell the emperor the ornate hall has fallen.
00:04:23.360No longer does Phoebus Apollo have his chamber, nor prophetic laurel, nor prophetic spring.
00:04:28.580And the speaking water has been silenced.
00:04:35.020There's some interesting multiple interpretations of this.
00:04:37.520But essentially, it's seen as kind of the last oracle of Delphi being offered.
00:04:43.300And yet, this was the end of a long process that you can see in earlier sources.
00:04:51.120One of the earliest sources that we have for an actual decline in oracles and in prophecies is Plutarch, who was a first century AD philosopher, biographer, very dear to my heart, who wrote a treatise on the decline of oracles.
00:05:11.520He wrote several treatises on the shrine of Apollo at Delphi.
00:05:17.320He was, you know, from the neighborhood.
00:05:19.060He ended up later in life becoming a priest there.
00:05:21.180So he's, you know, very knowledgeable about the goings on at the oracle of Delphi.
00:05:26.020And he, you know, asked this question.
00:05:29.480Well, for one thing, the oracle seems to be not speaking in the way that it used to speak.
00:05:35.360So if you read Herodotus or a lot of the earlier ancient historians, the typical process was when you consult the oracle at Delphi, which is in central Greece, about this or that issue, you get in response, usually a verse of hexameters, which is the epic meter that you use by Homer and Hesiod and this very ancient dialect.
00:05:59.980And what probably happened is, you know, as a petitioner, you go and consult the Pythia, the prophetess, and maybe they let you watch as she sits on this tripod and, you know, kind of mutters something interesting but incoherent in this trance-like state, possibly brought on by ethylene gas emitting from the cracks.
00:06:23.060This is interesting theories about this.
00:06:24.380And then the priests are there, and they kind of, you know, listen and go consult among themselves, and I'm sure that rituals are offered, but they come back to the petitioner with this hexameter.
00:06:37.500They kind of process it into something slightly more rational, but usually also ambiguous, that is supposed to guide your action.
00:06:45.720And Plutarch says, well, now the prophet or the oracle doesn't speak in hexameters anymore.
00:06:57.120And he says, well, kind of tying in with this broader theme that you see in Plutarch of the decline of the oracle of Delphi and of other oracles, you know, the prophet or the oracle doesn't have the same kind of
00:07:14.500needs that he's serving today because in the archaic and classical periods, the oracle of Delphi was this very important, not just a religious shrine, but a political shrine.
00:07:36.760And then the oracle would give something, you know, action guiding.
00:07:41.320And part of the way that this worked, if you're, you know, a cynical rationalist, is the oracle of Delphi, the priests there get embassies from all over the Greek world.
00:07:50.580They have the pulse on everything that's going on, the broader political spectrum.
00:07:53.960And they're kind of able to actually offer some real concrete third party neutral advice.
00:07:59.100But in Plutarch's day, the oracle is, you know, in the Roman Empire, the Greeks are, you know, they have some modest liberty and within their city-states, but they're basically subjects of Rome.
00:08:14.560And, you know, you have the Pax Romana, it's peaceful, great, we can build wealth and stuff, but there's not the same kind of political stakes operative in the Greek world.
00:08:24.980And so the oracle doesn't have the same kind of charge over human affairs.
00:08:31.240And so now mostly people are going there and asking, you know, should I get married to XYZ?
00:08:41.580And Plutarch says, well, that's why, in point of fact, there are fewer priestesses operative.
00:08:47.980There's, they went from three in the glory days down to one, and they managed to get all the work done.
00:08:55.520It used to take three priestesses to see all the petitioners, and now it's only one.
00:09:00.140So it's not that the oracle was totally silent at that point, but it clearly declined in political significance.
00:09:06.120And so Plutarch is an important source, but beginning with the second, third centuries, and especially the fourth century, you start to have debates among Christians and pagans.
00:09:18.420You know, as Christians are becoming more prominent, some of the pagan intellectuals are saying, this stuff is nonsense, and we've got to do something.
00:09:27.320And one of the sources of evidence that they use, actually, is the veracity of oracles that prove that the pagan gods are still operative in the world.
00:09:37.800And a lot of the Christian church fathers push back, and they cite other pagan sources that talk about how the oracles are declining.
00:09:48.280And there are various prophecies that they cite where somebody will petition, say, the oracle at Delphi or Klaros or Didyma.
00:09:55.600I mean, there's many of these, and some of them have already been shut down by this point, like the famous oracle at Dodona in central Greece.
00:10:04.980And, you know, a lot of people are getting back oracles saying, sorry, the god doesn't have anything to say.
00:10:10.440Maybe you should just offer a sacrifice and kind of pious contrition and hope that things will change someday.
00:10:17.400I mean, you get the sense that these priests are sort of starting to see a decline in their finances because people are consulting the oracles less.
00:10:24.080One of the explanations that some scholars have offered that's very interesting on this is you get the rise just kind of organically within paganism in the second and third centuries of astrology and various forms of, you know, magic, divination, you know, becoming a medium.
00:10:44.160You can, you know, if you perform certain rituals, a philosopher will, you know, be able to offer you some kind of, you know, rubric where you can just sit in your triclinium and consult the gods on your own, kind of become your own oracle.
00:10:59.520And, you know, clearly this would take from the market share of an important oracle like Delphi, especially if it's just, you know, what god should I sacrifice to to make the crops grow this year?
00:11:11.220Kind of petty, as it were, personal private matters.
00:11:15.960And so the Christian apologists are able to draw on this tradition.
00:11:21.400Eusebius quotes from Plutarch's Decline of Oracle's Treatise extensively.
00:11:27.600And one of Plutarch's theories that Eusebius quotes is the idea that maybe, Plutarch himself says this, maybe the god Apollo kind of can't be bothered with these, you know, petty private affairs.
00:11:44.320And he sends a subordinates, subaltern, you know, emissary in the form of daimones, you know, lesser spirits, the daimones, as the actual producers of these prophecies.
00:11:59.720Like it's like a lesser divinity because, you know, Plutarch is already in this sort of early Neoplatonic world of seeing the gods as sort of above material concerns, which is a new thing compared with the classical period.
00:12:12.360And so Eusebius takes this and says, well, actually, the oracles are, just like Plutarch says, demons.
00:12:22.420Because daimon has this very different resonance in the context of the Christian tradition and, you know, starting with the Septuagint, the demons are bad, right?
00:12:32.560For the pagans, the daimon is, you know, just like a hero, maybe, or a demigod, a lesser divinity.
00:12:42.280Or you can take it the way that Athanasius takes it on the incarnation.
00:12:46.760He talks about, let me see if I can pull up the quote here.
00:12:49.620He says, whereas formerly every place was full of deceit of the oracles and the oracles of Delphi and Dodona and the Boeotia and Lycia and Libya and Egypt, et cetera, et cetera,
00:12:59.620that they were held in high repute in men's imagination.
00:13:03.220Now, since Christ has begun to be preached everywhere, their madness has also ceased, and there is none among them to divine anymore.
00:13:11.420So I think he's, you know, on the one hand, these things, these archaeology does tell us that these centers are still, you know, somewhat operative, at least as economic and political centers.
00:13:23.080I mean, there's still like, you know, settlements and cities around these temples.
00:13:26.960But there's also a lot of evidence that people are not consulting them anymore, and sometimes they're consulting them and not getting any answers.
00:13:34.880And so the Christians really pounce on this until at the very latest you get, you know, the last oracle of Delphi or, you know, Theodosius in 391,
00:13:44.960the emperor, the great Orthodox emperor, Theodosius, puts a stop to all pagan ritual and sacrifices.
00:13:53.660And so he sort of outlaws the going to of temples for the sake of, you know, consulting the divinities.
00:14:00.860So it is a very real, well-documented phenomenon.
00:14:03.060There's a lot of, and one could say more about kind of internal pagan skepticism of oracles and jugglery, as Hobbes talks about.
00:14:13.340And Hobbes is, you know, very funny when he talks about the way that pagans divinize things like snakes and onions and such.
00:14:22.680But he's actually drawing on this tradition kind of within paganism of saying, you know, these guys are mostly just charlatans, aren't they?
00:14:36.500I think it's fascinating as well that it, you know, of course, we will go into more depth on this.
00:14:42.440But from, you know, that beginning there, it does sound that like, yes, we see from multiple sources, you know, that the great God Pan is dead and the oracles are no longer speaking the way they used to.
00:14:53.960But it's not exactly slamming the door shut.
00:14:56.580It seems to be more of a process that is occurring, you know, notably right after Christ's death and resurrection, but continues along a progression of a few hundred years before we hear what might be complete silence.
00:15:11.540And we can speculate on this a little bit, but, you know, my understanding at least is that, you know, while this veil is much more closed than it ever was, this is the reason that many people, well, not many people, but the people who do interact with these spirits today basically do so through occult practices.
00:15:29.740Because it's a more difficult, I guess you have to go a little harder in the paint.
00:15:34.100You have to commit yourself to something more evil, I think, and unfortunately for the people who decide that they want to go down that path.
00:15:40.640And so perhaps the veil is never completely sealed, but it becomes much, much more difficult.
00:16:31.700Yeah, I'll try to keep it to 15 minutes then.
00:16:33.700But, yeah, I think, I mean, just to start with, I mean, growing up in the church, you know, I grew up in, you know, barely normal, regular evangelicalism.
00:16:47.980And, you know, you would read in the Bible or you'd read in Sunday school about, like, ancient Israel and how, right, all throughout the Old Testament,
00:16:58.340they are tempted by worshiping the foreign gods, the gods of the Canaanites, Baal and Ashtoreth and all of them.
00:17:08.060And, you know, I think it was just a very materialistic, you know, sort of impulse that's just present everywhere that it was always read in such a way where it's like, that's really stupid because everybody knows those are fake.
00:17:25.600Yeah, everybody knows that's not real.
00:17:26.980So why would you worship just, you know, idols of stone and metal and things like this?
00:17:32.720And it wasn't until much later, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, reading, reading things like Hobbes or early church fathers and things like that, that I was like, wait a minute, what if, what if all those were real, right?
00:17:49.280What if Israelites were burning their children to Molech because they saw their neighbors doing it and then, yeah, they sacrificed their baby and their firstborn and then they get 10 more kids and all their crops grow really well.
00:18:03.240And everybody else not doing that isn't doing quite as well, right?
00:18:08.760Just the bare material incentive that would exist if those things were real, right?
00:18:16.220Why someone would be tempted or an entire nation would be tempted to do such things.
00:18:21.960And it's like, well, then it really like changes your whole perspective on the Old Testament where it isn't just like, oh, they're doing this stupid, stupid, silly, superstitious thing that everyone knows is fake.
00:18:32.860Like, they're actually doing a real thing that, that is very evil and, and you have to, you know, maintain the faith and hold the faith strong in order to resist those temptations.
00:18:46.700Then it, then it becomes very, very different, those stories.
00:18:48.980And, and, and just, you know, biblically, like you see, you see all sorts of stuff.
00:18:53.880You see, you know, a material, you know, modern, you know, materialistic Christian might read, you know, the Old Testament law, right?
00:19:05.780The law of Moses and see, you know, that witchcraft is punished by death.
00:19:12.460Things like, you know, idolatry are, are faced to death.
00:19:15.400And you think, well, that's really extreme for just, for just something that is silly superstition, like going to a palm reader or something.
00:19:26.820Then it, then it, then you can see why it merits such severe punishment in the Old Testament.
00:19:32.260And, and then you also see things like, like Moses in, in Egypt doing, doing miracles and Pharaoh's magicians and priests, right, are able to replicate the first few of them themselves.
00:19:44.860Or you look at, you know, like the, the Magi in, in the gospels and they're able to, they're able to discern something from the heavens to be able to know, okay, Jesus is being born.
00:20:01.840These guys are astrologers that are able to read the sky in some, some way that people can't anymore.
00:20:09.220And, or in, in the book of Acts where a girl who's possessed by a demon is being used to do fortune telling, much like Alex describing the orca of Delphi.
00:20:21.680And it's like, whoa, like the Bible's treating this stuff as real.
00:20:25.260It's not, it's not like modern people do where it's like, oh, it's just hokey, silly, superstitious stuff.
00:20:30.280Like, no, it's very, very, very real, much less all like the, the man possessed by, it was actually our lectionary reading on Sunday, the man possessed by demons.
00:20:38.900And it's like, he has so many, he's not in his right mind.
00:20:44.080He's living out in the tombs and, and, and stoning himself.
00:20:48.440And Jesus cast them out and the people make him leave.
00:20:53.620That's something that, you know, Rene Girard points out as like the, the reason for that is they needed, they needed that guy to be demon possessed for their whole society to function.
00:21:04.940Um, and, and, and yeah, Girard makes a lot of hay with, with, uh, those points.
00:21:10.300Uh, and so, yeah, once you realize that the world is not, not just mere matter and stuff, uh, that it is, that there, there are things behind it, that they're very real things, or, or at least there, there were, um, then, then so much of the Bible makes a whole lot more sense.
00:21:27.900Um, but from a larger, you know, theological, you know, almost metanarrative, um, I mean, the way of, the way of looking at, at, at all of these things is that, okay, you have, you have the fall where Adam, uh, prior to the fall is, is created as, as a son, right.
00:21:47.640Inheriting the entire world and ruling over the entire world, giving, giving, has been given rule of, of the creation.
00:21:54.720Uh, but he falls and he's no longer, he's no longer in that position to rule.
00:22:00.220And so someone, someone else does rule.
00:22:03.120And, and, uh, and you begin to see some of these things, especially like if you take, um, you know, the, the Septuagint translation of Deuteronomy 32, that, that all the nations are divided at Babel and each of them is given their own God, right.
00:22:19.680Lowercase g God, uh, then, then the ancient world, the old Testament world makes even more sense, right.
00:22:26.960That they have, they have all their own particular gods that, that rule over them.
00:22:31.900Uh, and it makes like the book of Daniel make a whole lot of sense as well.
00:22:36.380Where, um, where the archangel Michael is like, yeah, I had to stop.
00:22:41.100I could, I had to, I had to take a break.
00:22:43.860Uh, I couldn't get to you right away, Daniel, because I was busy fighting the Prince of Persia.
00:22:49.080And, uh, and it's like, Oh, I wonder what that is.
00:22:52.260Like, it's not, it's not a human being that he's fighting.
00:22:54.900He's fighting the, um, this principality, this, this power that rules over Persia.
00:23:00.320Uh, and you, you see that in, in Paul's, uh, Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, uh, to the church at Ephesus, that he says like explicitly, right.
00:23:10.520You're, you're not doing battle against flesh and blood.
00:23:12.540You're doing battle against principalities and powers and, and, uh, the spiritual forces of darkness in, in the heavenly places that, that there are, there are things far beyond what we can see.
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00:23:55.320And they exist in the real, um, and so right within, within Christian theology, like the, the fact that, that Christ comes, takes on flesh, uh, dies on the cross and is raised again.
00:24:08.480And then, um, he ascends to heaven to rule, right.
00:24:13.280That is the, that's the thing, especially like modern American Christianity is very, very much downplayed, right.
00:24:19.380We don't have many categories to think through the ascension and what it, what it actually means.
00:25:30.880Right. It's a real temptation that Jesus was facing, uh, that he wouldn't have to go through all of this or, or the other thing that people will say is, well, he doesn't really want it.
00:25:40.620Right. My kingdom is not of this world.
00:25:48.280And so if you take what Satan tempts Jesus with in, in the wilderness, uh, as real, as something he actually possesses and as something Jesus wants, then, and you can see why you want it.
00:26:02.340Like you look at all the Psalms, like Psalm, Psalm two, asking me, right.
00:26:07.200Uh, uh, the father is saying to the son in that Psalm, uh, ask of me and I'll give the nations to you as an inheritance.
00:26:13.220It's like, ah, it seems like he really wants it.
00:26:25.520I'm going to, I'm going to die and be raised again and, and ascend to heaven to rule, um, which is precisely what he did.
00:26:32.720And, and then, especially like, if you get into, or you get into the book of revelation, which is always precarious because, you know, there are,
00:26:43.220all sorts of different ways, uh, to read the book of revelation that many people do.
00:26:47.060Uh, it's, uh, currently probably a very, uh, contentious, uh, political issue right now at this exact moment, as we saw with, you know, Tucker and Ted Cruz, uh, last week.
00:26:57.420Uh, but, uh, in the book of revelation, right.
00:27:04.260You see the, um, the Ascension from, from the perspective of heaven, right.
00:27:08.860That the lamb, uh, comes and takes the throne and, um, all of the, you know, the ancient ones surrounding the throne, the 24 ancient ones and all of the angels, right.
00:27:27.440And so if you think about like the, the spiritual theological symbolic meaning of what that is, is, right.
00:27:34.760You have this, this interregnum almost, um, from Adam to Christ, where the rulers of the world were, were, um, you know, the, the, uh, the smaller, you know, lowercase g gods, uh, or the, you know, created being the angels and demons, right.
00:27:55.180All of the, all of the spiritual beings are ruling over the world and he ascends to heaven and they take off their crowns and, and give them to him.
00:28:03.640Now, now all of that power belongs to him.
00:28:06.400Uh, and it isn't just like the heavenly ones.
00:28:12.760And, and you see that transition from, from the heavenly host ruling the creation to, to humanity in Christ, in Jesus and in, in his, in his church and his people.
00:28:25.600Um, and you also see this later in revelation where, uh, the, the instruments, right.
00:28:32.440The instruments of spiritual warfare that the heavenly host has, um, are, are their instruments that they're singing with, uh, in, in heaven.
00:28:40.660But, uh, the, the transition takes place where the saints now pick up the heavenly instruments.
00:28:47.260I think it's in chapter 17, uh, where they, they take up the heavenly instruments.
00:29:02.120Uh, that's who I believe, uh, that's, that's the great replacement that's taking place in, in the Bible.
00:29:07.140Uh, that, uh, that, that, um, the, the powers of, of, of the heavenly host, both the ones faithful to God and the ones in rebellion against him, um, are replaced.
00:29:19.820They're replaced by the church and they're replaced, uh, by Christ himself.
00:29:24.120Um, and so, uh, yeah, you, you, you see this, uh, and, and it, it makes, it's, it's particularly important, especially with a lot of the things that, that, that Alex just said, um, to look at like the book of Daniel and what's taking place there.
00:29:38.800And you have, especially like within dispensationalism, you have people reading the book of Daniel as though it's describing, you know, today things taking place today.
00:29:46.700But what it's actually describing is, is that period, um, of what's often called the intertestamental period, those hundreds of years between the end of the old Testament and the beginning of the gospels, where you have a Babylon take over, then, then Persia, then Greece, then Rome.
00:30:04.200And, and, and you see that this is, this is part of God's plan to build, uh, what's called in the New Testament, the Oikimene, right?
00:30:16.440This, this huge empire, um, that it begins to be consolidated.
00:30:21.800And in Nebuchadnezzar's vision that Daniel describes, right?
00:30:26.800The thing that, that finally replaces it is this stone that grows into a mountain, um, which is the kingdom of Christ.
00:30:34.660And, and so, right, if all of these great world empires are, you know, backstopped by, by demons, right?
00:30:43.600Um, like you see in sort of glimpses in, with, um, the vignette about the Prince of Persia fighting Archangel Michael, uh, ultimately the thing that replaces them and is handed over, uh, to, uh, handed over is, is, um, is to the church, is to the kingdom, kingdom of God.
00:31:03.660Yeah. And so, uh, that's like it, within this period, like that, that is the thing that is, is taking place that, that God is raising these, these peoples up.
00:31:12.680Right. And it makes it like, when you have this understanding of, of what's actually going on, it makes, it actually makes reading about Alexander and it makes reading Herodotus and it makes reading all of, all of the ancient histories, uh, take on a completely new life.
00:31:28.320Uh, because it's like, well, actually God is the one orchestrating all of this to hand over that world to his son.
00:31:35.840Um, and, and, and then, right. So you can extrapolate from that, um, all, all of the conquests of over, over paganism by, by the church, by the gospel, uh, to, to the rest of the world, beyond the Okimene, right?
00:31:51.060The barbarian world, right? The world of, of my ancestors, uh, in, in Northern Europe, uh, because like Norse paganism kept going on for another maybe thousand years, but it too was, was conquered.
00:32:04.680Um, and it's, I mean, it's fascinating reading, you know, reading the stories about, um, about the wars between the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons in England.
00:32:15.680I mean, they completely conquered England except for, except for Wessex and, and yet they were defeated ultimately.
00:32:23.800And, and so many of the, the Danes converted to Christianity. It's, it's wild stuff. And it's like, well, why did they? And it was the same kind of thing. It was, uh, their gods started going silent.
00:32:37.300They, they wouldn't, they wouldn't speak anymore. And, and the only conclusion they can have is that the, the Christian God is more powerful.
00:32:44.460Um, and I mean, yeah, even, I'm, I'm glad that like, uh, yeah, that Alex brought up Julian the apostate, uh, because it's also fascinating too, that, uh, one of the things that Julian did in his, you know, program to try to, you know, try to return, um, is he really wanted to spite the Christians by rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem.
00:33:07.040And so he gave a whole bunch of money, uh, to, to the Jews and the empire to return to, uh, return to Judea, rebuild the temple.
00:33:16.180And like, you can go on Wikipedia of all places and read about, about the, uh, attempted reconstruction of the temple in, in the fourth century.
00:33:25.660And like day one of construction, they get all the materials together. They spend all the, you know, spend all the money to, to get it ready, uh, get it planned.
00:33:33.460And like day one, the earth opens up and swallows everything up and, and fire comes from heaven and destroys all of it.
00:33:41.380And it's like, and these are pagan sources.
00:33:44.980Alex and I actually already did a episode on this, like a full episode on it. It's amazing. But yeah, you're the fact that this is reflected again, once again, in pagan sources, uh, you know, across all of this is really fascinating.
00:33:57.700And the world you're describing is one that I think is itself, you know, a lot of people in, uh, kind of the online, right. We'll talk about the need to re-enchant the world, right.
00:34:07.540Like to re-understand it in a way like this. And I think that is increasingly important because when we look, you know, the funny thing about Hobbes is while he is making this casual reference, most of Hobbes is him kind of trying to say, well, angels and demons, these are just kind of delusions.
00:34:23.760You know, these are ultimately not, uh, direct forces. They're not material. It's kind of, kind of demystifying the Christian. And this is of course the, one of the first steps down the enlightenment path of, okay, the world is just this clockwork mechanism.
00:34:36.320And if God does exist, he just kind of made it and walked away and it kind of runs by itself.
00:34:41.640But when you look in these ancient sources, like when you, when you look at a work like the ancient city by Kalanj, he talks specifically about how each God is particular to those nations, how important it was for them to be personal in particular and how they bound the nations together.
00:34:57.380And if you could go in and trick the God of one city state into, you know, taking your sacrifice, then that would open them up to attack. And these are not minor things. These are not just like stories that they told. These are very real and important beliefs and that, that were held and understood.
00:35:12.960And it really jives with this idea that there are these spiritual entities that these nations have been given over to until they were defeated by, by God's instruments.
00:35:23.540And, you know, I always think of CS Lewis's out of the silent planet, right?
00:35:27.580And you, you think about that book and he says, you know, the, the humans go to all these planets and the natives there seem so simple and they're so backwards and we can control them because ultimately, and they don't realize that all of those people look at them with a sadness because actually their ruling angel, Lucifer fell.
00:35:46.740And so your planet is silent. All the other planets get to communicate with God. All the other peoples get to sing with God.
00:35:53.540But you're silent because your guardian spirit fell and is now corrupted you.
00:35:58.440And this is why everyone looks at you with pity because you don't really understand what it means to be communing with God in a very real way.
00:36:06.040And so I just find that fascinating because, you know, we, we see this concept echoed in non-Christian thinkers as well.
00:36:12.800You look at someone like, like Spangler talking about metaphysical, you know, animating spirits of different civilizations.
00:36:20.720There, there, everything about this isn't necessarily always Christian, but it's recognized across many different disciplines.
00:36:27.000And so I just think it's hitting on something really critical that we've lost in the modern day.
00:36:31.420But the more we look at events around us, I think it becomes more and more obvious that the spiritual warfare in my mind is ramping back up.
00:36:52.360It's important to note that this option was available very much to ancient thinkers.
00:36:57.920And, uh, there's a philosopher Oinimaeus of Gadara that Eusebius quotes at length.
00:37:04.840And this guy wrote a treatise, um, like, uh, you know, go a tone for, uh, the, the exposure of the charlatans.
00:37:12.940And so he goes around to all these oracles and, uh, he goes, I think he, it's, it's the Oracle of Apollo that he goes to where he, he asks the priest, okay, I bought some land.
00:37:23.400I'm trying to figure out what, what I should plant in the land.
00:37:26.140And, and the priest comes back with this Oracle, like, oh, in the, in the fields of Hercules, the, the, the flowers bloom and the plants are rich and the rains ever, ever fall.
00:37:37.600And it's kind of like ambiguous and vague, but maybe encouraging if you're, if you're a man of faith.
00:37:43.500And then Oinimaeus says, well, this, this was encouraging at first until I started asking around other people were there.
00:37:49.400And, oh, it turns out Callisthenes got exactly the same Oracle.
00:37:53.320And, you know, upon further research, he discovers that dozens of people got this exact same Oracle.
00:37:58.840And it, it seems like, as he tells the story, the priests kind of have this, you know, uh, fishbowl of various.
00:38:09.220And so, you know, so he's saying, well, this is all nonsense.
00:38:12.180These are charlatans, uh, you know, that the, the gods may exist, but, uh, they don't really do this sort of thing.
00:38:20.600That's not the line that a, a lot of the pagans took, uh, about the, the, the decline of Oracle's.
00:38:27.840And it's certainly not the line that the Christians took, you know, Eusebius, like we said earlier, certainly thinks that there are spiritual forces operative at these, at these sites.
00:38:37.640And I think Athanasius would take the same.
00:38:39.660And it's the, the, the fact that they're falling silent is not some kind of, uh, you know, historical process of purely at least of, you know, you know, declining Greco-Roman liberty and political independence.
00:38:51.000There's, there's like a lot more going on there, um, despite the, what the, what the demystifiers would tell you.
00:38:57.380Um, and I think this kind of connects to, you can kind of have it both ways actually, because there is on the one hand, this very lively ancient economy.
00:39:08.620I'd say a modern economy too, of kind of charlatanry and, you know, um, I don't know, getting people to go on ayahuasca trips and, you know, my, my ayahuasca startup and stuff like that.
00:39:23.340There is a kind of economic force driving this and, you know, the, the, the crystal sellers on Etsy and that kind of thing has an economic dimension to it.
00:39:33.760Kind of kind of grift to it, but that could be precisely the very effective tool that malign spiritual forces use to kind of draw you in.
00:39:45.020There's all these people out there who have a stake in persuading you to experiment and contact the dead and they can make some money on it.
00:39:53.360And that might make you think that it's fake.
00:39:57.200In that passage, he's talking about how, um, religious authority kind of becomes less credible when it, when it's seen to be upholding the personal interests of the, the religious authority itself.
00:40:09.500Of course, this has to do with this critique of the Catholic church, but it could also be both and, you know, overdetermined that there are spiritual forces that kind of use that as a hook to draw you in and, uh, send you down the slippery slope.
00:40:21.200So, Andrew, um, looking at all these different sources and the, the, the, the possibility of ability of this, you know, uh, process that has started with the death and resurrection of Christ, but continues on, as you point out, even in, you know, a century later with some of these other pagan peoples that are being contacted.
00:40:44.120What do you think? Uh, and, and again, this might just be speculation, you know, if, if, if, if it's not something that you want to go into, or if you're, it's something that, you know, you feel is, uh, you know, on some level of speculation, just feel free to make that clear.
00:40:58.100But, uh, do you think ultimately that whatever spirits be they, the old gods, demons, you know, whatever was being contacted previously through these religious rituals, do you think they have been removed from contact with this plane?
00:41:13.400Do you, do you have the inclination that I have that they're still contactable through, through evil, buried evil rituals that require more, you know, uh, effort?
00:41:22.320I think by some, do you think that they could come back? Is there, is there any indication, uh, that any of these things might be something we still interact with on a regular basis?
00:41:31.460Yeah, that's, that's a good question. It's a question I get a lot. It's one I've thought about a lot as well. Um, no, I, I think that, that it isn't, it isn't so much that like, okay,
00:41:43.240now they're, they're completely gone. They're eradicated. They are totally defeated forever and, and sealed away.
00:41:51.080But, uh, I do think that their, their power is greatly attenuated, uh, by, by the victory of Christ that, um, I mean, if you take,
00:42:01.600if you take my, my perspective on, on the book of revelation, that, that, you know, Satan is power sealed, right.
00:42:10.400That we're living in, in that period, um, after the Ascension. And, uh, but, uh, within that, um, right. They, they're still, there still is something there.
00:42:22.320Right. Even, even though they are not, um, they don't have the power to, to dominate entire civilizations any longer.
00:42:31.120Um, uh, and, and, and you see it as it's played out in history, right. First, first in the Greco Roman empire, then, then throughout all of Europe, you have, you have Christendom, you have the, the destruction of the power of the old gods everywhere, everywhere that, that Christianity went. Um, and I mean, you even look at, at things like, I mean,
00:42:53.240it's interesting to me, uh, in college, I had to, I had to read, uh, you know, uh, African history. Uh, there isn't, you know, obviously a whole lot of, of sub-Saharan African history, but we read, I had to take this class for my degree.
00:43:09.240And, and one of the things that had us read was, uh, was Chinua Achebe's, um, uh, things fall apart. Maybe you had to read that too, uh, when, when you were in school and, and Achebe is a Christian.
00:43:23.240And he's describing the period of Christianity coming to Nigeria, I believe. And, and one of the, one of the things he describes is like when the missionaries came, uh, the, the people there are like, oh yeah, you can, you can set up your church or your hospital or school or whatever over there.
00:43:40.580And that part over there, not telling them, well, that's, that place is haunted. That's full of evil spirits. And it's going to, they're going to be cursed and, and, um, tormented.
00:43:50.320And what happened when he described is not only were they not cursed and tormented by, by the demons that resided there, the, uh, all of the magic of the witch doctors in the village just ceased, just stopped.
00:44:07.300Right. They'd, they'd roll the chicken bones or whatever, and to do divination. And, and it was like taking the magic eight ball and saying, ask again later every single time. And it's like, that's interesting. Uh, that's fascinating. Or even, even if you think about, uh, the Spanish conquistadors, uh, like Cortez, uh, conquering the Aztecs.
00:44:28.120Right. And, and how miraculous that was. Right. Um, how the, you know, this tiny little band of Spanish conquistadors that don't have massive technological superiority over, over the Aztecs. Yeah. They have horses and cannons, but it's not like they had.
00:44:45.120Yeah. Yeah. M249 saws and, and, uh, no attack helicopters spring. Yeah. It's not like when you play civilization on easy mode and you're like two ages ahead of all the other civilizations and you're, you know, using stealth bombers against, uh, you know, against, uh, swordsmen or something. Uh, and, uh, and so anyway, uh, they, they, they completely overturned the, the Aztec empire.
00:45:10.120Like overnight. Right. It's, it's really this miraculous story. And it's like, well, what caused that? Why did that happen? And you think about the Aztecs and what their civilization was and how it was dominated by these just disgusting gods that sacrificed, I don't know, hundreds of thousands or millions of people, you know, building entire, uh, pyramids of skulls, things like that. And then boom, they're gone. They're done. And, and like all of their own prophecies had said, like,
00:45:39.940this is going to happen is fascinating stuff, man. And so, um, you, you think, you think about those things or even, I mean, even the conquest of the Americas, it's very similar. Um, that, that, um, as, as Europeans came, as European Christians came, uh, that all, all of the power, uh, all of the, the witchcraft and, and things like that just stopped working.
00:46:05.140It doesn't work anymore. Um, but even, so I say all that, but even, even as like Christendom came in, in Europe, there still was an undercurrent of folk religion and occult practices and witchcraft and things like that.
00:46:19.180That was very real. Um, we, uh, we often look at like the Salem witch trials and the things that happened there as, as like, Oh, all of these superstitious people just started to burn women for no reason.
00:46:29.900And it's like, no, like weird stuff really did happen. That was testified by multiple people. And that has no rational explanation whatsoever. And, uh, and it's like, yeah, like the Americas was a, was a very dark place, very evil place that, that Christianity, uh, helped to, um, mostly eradicate.
00:46:52.520Um, but is the question though, is like, can these things come back? I think it's, you know, I think it's ultimately a spiritual battle and, and the fact that some of these things appear to be coming back shows, it shows the weakness, uh, of the church.
00:47:10.680And it shows, um, the decline of, of Christianity as a public religion, um, that, that it's, uh, yeah, that the fact that it's coming back, I think is, it points to that, that we are, you know, rapidly de-Christianizing and, and it is funny that, that like the new atheism that existed in like the early two thousands.
00:47:35.320Like, like, like when we were in college, um, like that's not really a thing anymore. I mean, the, the fedora Shrek meme really killed it. Uh, but, uh, but, uh, well, and the fact that like the, the, the, the guys who pushed it are now opining about waiting. Oh, what happened to my Christianity? Yeah.
00:47:53.600Being like, Oh, I got rid of Christ. And all of a sudden, you know, these Muslims control every building and they're just talking about civilization. What happened? Yeah.
00:48:01.100Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Uh, yeah. And, and, and some of it too is like, it just created a vacuum, uh, that is filled by something. Right. And so, uh, all of these people, right. That profess to be atheist or agnostics or whatever. Now they're, yeah, now they're like, I mean, like Aaron Rogers, for example, I think is like kind of the poster child for this, like grows up in an evangelical Christian home.
00:48:24.000Then becomes, uh, this kind of like neckbeard atheist. Um, and, uh, and, and, but then from there it progresses to like Ayahuasca trips and, and sweat lodges and things like that. Right. Like, yeah. Like demons filled that vacuum. Like that's what happened. And, and that's like, he's a microposm of, of all of these things. Um, and so, right. Why, why, why is it happening? Well, it's, it's because Christianity has lost its teeth.
00:48:54.000Right. It's, it's no longer, um, operates as a very potent spiritual force in our society. It's really just this kind of self-help thing for many people. Um, it's not a real powerful, um, actual religion, right. Where you are communicating with God, where God is, is, uh, bestowing his grace upon you and in, in very tangible, real ways. Right. We don't, we don't view it that way anymore because, uh, I think, uh,
00:49:23.360we've been given over to the same enlightenment thinking, uh, created by men like Bobs.
00:49:28.740Yeah. Well, you know, uh, it, it is interesting, you know, you point out here that in a lot of ways, perhaps it's not immediately just the death or resurrection of Christ, but it is when, you know, when God decides to move a civilization towards Christianity, when the Christians arrive and it's, it's time to, uh, uh, you know, be witness to the magic shuts down. Right.
00:49:50.460That all of a sudden the, the, the power is stolen. Uh, but you know, if it's, if that vacuum is created again, then that evil can rush back.
00:49:59.520And it's very interesting because I obviously talk a lot about people doing political theory, doing very pretty radical out there, uh, understandings of political philosophy.
00:50:08.860And a lot of these guys are talking about hyper agents, uh, you know, and hyper agents is a fancy word for demons.
00:50:17.700It's what rationalists want to call demons because all these people who don't have a word for spiritual warfare are looking at what's happening around them.
00:50:25.980And the, there are, there are entities that are not human that seem to be reassembling themselves before our eyes.
00:50:33.700We're, we're starting to watch powers that we cannot totally grasp and understand who are very different on our own start to mobilize people in different directions.
00:50:43.240Uh, and that's one of those things that I, you know, again, people who are totally unconnected to religious traditions are trying to describe to me.
00:50:51.140And I'm like, yeah, I feel like I'm doing the Michael J. Fox.
00:50:53.820I mean, like I've seen this one before.
00:50:55.020Like, I know, I know what this is, you know, this is, I know something you don't know here.
00:50:59.380And so, uh, you know, I know some people out there just tuning out.
00:51:02.680They're like, okay, these guys are nuts or whatever, but I don't care.
00:51:05.420Like, sorry, I've seen around these corners and this is, this is very real.
00:51:09.440I've talked to people who completely have no idea about Christianity, completely are disconnected from theological traditions and are still recognizing exactly this pattern.
00:51:18.700Very serious, very learned people repeatedly coming to this conclusion.
00:51:23.340And so, uh, Alex, I know we've, we've kind of been deep into the spiritual side on this, but I don't know if you have anything that you, you want to, uh, kind of bring up in reference to this process of, uh, you know, the possibility of these different powers or these different forces returning in different areas.
00:51:38.180Well, there's certainly, you know, this story about Africa that, uh, Andrew was talking about, it's, it's the kind of thing occurs a lot in the early saints lives.
00:51:47.080Um, and in fact, in, I think it's in Ammianus, the emperor Julian has this, uh, half brother Gallus, who was a Christian kind of nuts, but you know, he was a Christian and he, uh, transferred the relics of the martyr Babelus.
00:52:03.180Babelus to right in the neighborhood of the temple of Apollo at Daphne, which is an Antioch and it silenced the Oracle and Julian, you know, took this seriously enough that when he got there to Antioch, as Gallus had died by this point, he took the remains of Babelus and moved them way far away again.
00:52:27.960And then, and hit, I think he hid them or something, but you know, it actually worked, you know, there's all these instances of, you know, planting a church near a pagan, um, Oracle or, you know, burying some martyrs remains near, near a pagan Oracle.
00:52:42.720And it kind of, you know, the, the pagan priests are like, what the hell is going on?
00:52:46.980Maybe it's a saying that they, you know, execute him, things like that recur all over the place.
00:52:52.420And, you know, it can't just be all a trope.
00:52:55.300Um, but there's a really interesting story about Julian, um, this specific Oracle that we were talking about that I'm not sure how to make sense of it, but one interpretation of the prophecy, uh, that was given to Julian by Apollo.
00:53:10.180And there's some debate might, it might've been Apollo at Daphne actually, but either way, um, one way of reading the prophecy, if you change the punctuation, it goes from being, uh, no longer does Phoebus have his chamber, nor prophetic laurel, nor prophetic spring.
00:53:25.300And the speaking water has been silenced to something like, um, Phoebus no longer has his chamber, but he has not fallen silent with regard to the prophetic laurel or the prophetic spring and speaking water.
00:53:37.460So there's a kind of a grammatical ambiguity that essentially if on the second interpretation, the Oracle is kind of positive, like, yes, okay.
00:53:47.860The roof fell in, but Hey, Apollo is still there, Julian.
00:53:51.320So if you, if you want to repair his temple, he's going to come back and the Oracle is going to be restored.
00:53:56.820And, um, this is a, uh, a modern scholarly conjecture, but if that's right, then, um, essentially what happened is the story you could tell is the, the, the Oracle is doing the same thing that it's always done, which is deliver these ambiguous kind of tragic prophecies.
00:54:16.600Like famously the Oracle delivered, uh, to, to Croesus, uh, of Lydia, when he was thinking about invading Persia, you will topple a great empire.
00:54:26.920If you invade Persia and certainly no modern residences today.
00:54:30.380Um, uh, and of course the empire that he toppled was his own empire when Cyrus, uh, you know, retaliated and toppled Lydia and captured Lydia.
00:54:40.080Um, so, so this could be, you know, if you wanted to go on this line, this is like the, the kind of this, this, the forces of good co-opting the, the, the Oracle of, of Apollo to kind of drive Julian deeper into his tragic blindness and misinterpretation.
00:55:45.560Well, so two, two reasons for this one, obviously just, we scheduled this previously because you know, the world ended up right after I asked you guys to do this.
00:55:52.780But also, you know, um, you know, this is not a breaking news podcast.
00:55:56.940There's a lot of people who do that and you know, they, they, you know, obviously it's a huge niche and there's, there's, there's big audiences there.
00:56:03.900But right now I've got a very large stream count.
00:56:07.140You know, this is one of the larger streams I've done in quite a while watching this.
00:56:10.900I think people, you know, we, we can sit there and wring our hands about what's going on, but we don't know everything that's happening.
00:56:18.100Look, I have the same impulse as everybody else.
00:56:20.160I'm concerned, but ultimately, you know, we're, we're not sure how this is all going to shake out.
00:56:24.620And I could sit here and speculate and throw out a lot of useless stuff.
00:56:27.400That's going to be wrong in two minutes, or we could talk about eternal and powerful things.
00:56:32.380And then when the dust settles and we have a better idea of what's going on, we can delve into the geopolitical issues and their implications.
00:56:38.200So I, and honestly, like we're talking about here, and as Alex just pointed out, there are plenty of parallels inside this story that apply to our current situation.
00:56:47.220We don't have to run out there and look for the breaking news in order to kind of better understand our world.
00:56:52.840In fact, in some ways, understanding these foundations and these eternal truths are just as, if not more important than the current relevant facts for grasping what's happening.
00:57:01.980But before we go to the questions of the people, Andrew, I want to ask you this.
00:57:07.100One problem, and I feel this a lot, not to insult our beloved boomers, but, you know, I did the episode on boomer eschatology and I've made this point before, but I want your take on it.
00:57:18.540I think one of the big problems we have, especially as Christians and especially as American Christians, is because American Christian, you know, Christianity has been so central to America.
00:57:29.380It's been so powerful. America has been so deeply blessed and has not really like we've faced difficulties, but compared to other nations, we're isolated.
00:57:38.640We're not being invaded all the time. No one's coming to massacre us here. Let's be real.
00:57:43.060You know, we're, we're, we're financially powerful. We have a world spanning empire.
00:57:46.200And so it's been very easy to take the Christian story of God wins in the end, right? Christ wins in the end, which is of course true.
00:57:54.500And I believe, and I affirm, but it's been easy to take that story and graft it into the United States that United States and Christianity are one thing.
00:58:02.680And like, of course the United States will always be Christian and the, and the, and the victory of America will be the victory of Christianity and America can't lose because Christianity doesn't lose.
00:58:11.920And I think this creates a hubris in the American spirit, but also it creates a, a lax understanding for Christians of their duty because they look around and say, well, God's going to win at the end.
00:58:27.220And so, uh, you know, maybe I play with the Ouija board. Maybe it doesn't matter if, you know, uh, my kid ends up, you know, practicing a little witchcraft, maybe, maybe, you know, if the, the spiritual forces around me that are attacking, they're, they're all probably just, you know, bonk.
00:58:41.860They're all, that's, that's a bunch of nonsense from the old days. And we rationally arrived at this Christian understanding. And so we got that locked down and now just Christ wins. And I never have to worry about that again.
00:58:52.220What do you think about the complacency that I think is sometimes bred by what I believe is a true fact that of course, eventually Christ will conquer all, but at this moment, we still have a duty to be mindful of the spiritual forces around us. And the fact that that battle is ongoing.
00:59:07.640No, I, I think you're absolutely right that, uh, there is a tremendous amount of complacency, right? It, it, I mean, there's, there's so many factors involved. I mean, some of it is, yeah, just, um, uh, being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple, uh, that, that, you know, the, the peace and order and stability that we enjoy is really like all we've ever known.
00:59:34.920And so you just assume that's the baseline. Um, I think part of it also is, is the, the impact that the enlightenment has had on all of us and all of our thinking that, um, a lot of us like functionally are deists, right? Even though we, we don't profess to be at all, uh, our day-to-day lives are very deistic where it's like, yeah, God just winded up the clock and he's not really involved at all.
01:00:02.820Um, and so part of the, the effort, you know, yeah, when people, and I, I actually hate like using, uh, the language of enchanting the world, things like that, even though I maybe said that in my book, uh, but I don't, I, I, I, I've grown to not really like it so much, uh, because it, uh, it, it takes on a certain flavor, uh, that, that sometimes is very silly.
01:00:28.400But, um, but the reality is like the people that, that are beginning to look at the world in a, in a different way and, and, and paying attention to metaphysics and, and thinking about the world, that, that, that it is more than just matter and stuff.
01:00:46.100That, that there are things, uh, far beyond what we can, what we can know and see.
01:00:50.920I mean, so much of it too, is like, you have a massive amount of the population that is suffering from various degrees of mental illness, right?
01:01:03.420Um, whether it's anxiety or depression or things, you know, even more severe than that.
01:01:08.820And, uh, coupled with that, uh, a tremendous amount of drug use, right?
01:01:13.340Whether it's, you know, uh, just, you know, marijuana or whatever, or, or, or many other things, uh, that like that stuff, like pharmakia, man, like that is, uh, it is not just like ayahuasca, you know, uh, going, going to the shaman in, in, in Belize or something.
01:01:30.800But it's, it's like, like, like drug use is a real thing.
01:01:34.320Like it's, it's like pharmakia, uh, that is talked about in the new Testament.
01:01:38.700Like you are, you're opening yourself up to who knows what, um, and, and rather than looking at it in materialistic terms, like, oh, well, different chemicals are affecting your brain, uh, and altering your mind.
01:01:51.780It's like, well, yeah, on the material side, yes.
01:01:54.800But like what, what's happening in the spiritual side with, with these things, like, um, all of these things.
01:02:00.540Um, I, I think have, have caused many people to begin looking at the world differently, uh, begin looking at it, uh, from, uh, a non-enlightenment perspective.
01:02:12.060And there definitely is a need and a demand for answers.
01:02:16.920And, and it's one thing that, that I think the majority, or at least the mainstream of the, of at least American evangelicalism is very reticent to, to give, right.
01:02:28.660They don't want to get into sort of speculative theological things, even though, even though all the stuff that I've said, isn't like, it isn't really on the skinny branches of speculative theology.
01:02:39.600It's like right there in the, in the new Testament, right there in the, in the old Testament.
01:02:43.740Like it's, it's, it's right there for you to see if you're just willing to take off, you know, your enlightenment goggles for one second.
01:02:51.260And, and, and so, yeah, I think, I think the big part of it is right.
01:02:57.160If you, you, you begin understanding that, all right, the, the things that I'm doing, the life that I'm living, the, the, the day-to-day Christian piety that I pursue, that, that my family pursues, worshiping on the Lord's day, all of that is, isn't just like, oh, this is good stuff to do because God wants us to do it.
01:03:15.060But it's also going on the offensive, right?
01:03:18.040It's also, I mean, it's, it's like, it's, it's like the story of Achebe's, of the missionaries going to Africa and going on the offensive against their gods.
01:03:30.480And you have no idea what, what the effect is of, of faithful living and faithful worship and how, how it silences these old gods that then in many ways are, are coming back to haunt our world.
01:03:46.320And, and, and I just look at it from like the broad, broad, like geopolitical side of things as well, right?
01:03:53.680It's just so interesting to me that it's, there's this like demonic screeching at the idea of Christians who want Christianity to be a very public religion and to have, you know, political and societal impact, right?
01:04:10.180That's like the only thing they freak out about more than anything else is like, we can't have that anything, anything but that.
01:04:23.820So, yeah, I think, I think there, just as there are big, massive geopolitical things happening right now in the world that, that we're living in, right?
01:04:34.260There's stuff beyond that, that we can't see that just by, you know, to, to throw a bone to the, the, the sweet old boomer folks that were just, you know, living a faithful Christian life for, you know, 60, 70 years, right?
01:04:49.940Them, them, them praying and worshiping and, and following Jesus, right?
01:04:55.600Had this massive impact on the world that they can't even see or know, or, and maybe are not willing to recognize.
01:05:01.240I just wanted to jump on that, the way you put that beautiful, Andrew, and like the, speaking of people that were born on third base and thought they hit a home run.
01:05:15.740And, you know, the ancient Israelites, for example, did that and God sent plagues and chastised them and he, you know, burned their temple down and sent them off to, to, to Babylon.
01:05:25.240And I, I've just read, uh, recently Ernst Junger's On the Marble Cliffs and if you want a kind of depiction of what that might look like when you, when a society thinks it's fine and kind of allows itself to slip and lose faith and the encroachment of terror and chaos and tyranny and lesser divinities, hostile divinities, kind of creeps in and sweeps through a land.
01:05:55.240And it's, uh, a chilling depiction of that.
01:05:58.560It's a quick read, less than 150 pages.
01:06:01.380So, um, and of course, you're Ernst Junger, you know, writing in the thirties, of course, but he eventually becomes a Catholic, uh, seriously.
01:06:10.020And these things, these things really have material historical consequences when you, when you lose faith, even if you're unsure about whether it's God's chastisement, which I think is very reasonable to think.
01:06:22.780You know, they, just because you have a Christian nation that might actually hold you up even more intensely to, um, the punishment of God.
01:06:32.320If you turn away, uh, the, the ensuing chaos that comes from the collapse of an incredibly ordered system is much, much worse than, you know, just typical village destruction.
01:06:58.380Another excellent book that I have to add to my incredibly tall stack that I might get through.
01:07:03.040If, if God is kind enough to me, I keep trying to write a book about this.
01:07:06.180And every time I get a chapter or two done, I'm like, Oh no, now I have to read an entire, another book to understand the next chapter I'm going to write.
01:07:27.140Uh, but before we go, or at least before we start taking questions from the people, Alex, can you tell people where to find your great work?