The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - February 08, 2022


137. Wokeism in the Great British Church ｜ Calvin Robinson


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 2 minutes

Words per minute

189.23

Word count

11,874

Sentence count

544


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 you're more likely in this country to hear a sermon in a church about climate change,
00:00:05.480 the so-called climate crisis, or about Black Lives Matter, or about Brexit than you are about
00:00:11.660 Jesus Christ. That, to me, is sad. If I'm being charitable, I'll say that these people are well
00:00:17.780 intentioned and they're doing what they think is best. If I'm feeling less charitable and more
00:00:23.160 cynical, I'll say they've actually lost the faith or they've found a new religion. I think a lot of
00:00:29.820 people at this point are worshipping the environment. Welcome to episode 137 of the
00:00:38.780 Michaela Peterson podcast. I'm Michaela Peterson. This episode features Calvin Robinson. I met Calvin
00:00:45.020 during my trip to Oxford for the debate on the ethics of meat consumption that hasn't been posted
00:00:49.960 yet. Not sure if it ever will be. Anyway, Calvin is a political advisor, a newscaster for GB News,
00:00:56.620 a writer for the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, and a senior fellow at the UK think tank Policy
00:01:01.940 Exchange. More importantly though, at least for this episode, he's finishing Holy Orders to
00:01:07.640 Become an Anglican Priest. Calvin talks about his training to become a priest, about worshiping new
00:01:12.960 idols, things like the environment, in the absence of religion, woke culture at church,
00:01:18.860 his conversion to Anglicanism, and the Anglican Church. Calvin wasn't raised in a religious
00:01:23.960 household, so I asked about his experience finding God, rationality, scripture, and his
00:01:28.520 personal religious beliefs. Please subscribe if you enjoy this episode or this content.
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00:02:34.720 over at schwenkgrills.com with code MP at checkout. Calvin, welcome to my podcast.
00:02:48.140 An absolute pleasure, Michaela. Thank you for the invitation.
00:02:51.720 So we met when I was just in the UK and we went out for lunch.
00:02:57.000 Yeah, you had a very interesting debate while you were over. I don't think I've ever actually
00:03:01.640 walked out of a debate before, but I did walk out of your debate and it wasn't because of you.
00:03:06.860 Do you think they're going to end up posting it? They haven't posted it yet.
00:03:10.720 They probably will do. They like to get it online, but how woke has it become? It's quite
00:03:15.780 worrying, isn't it? Yeah. So a brief background, uh, I went to Oxford to be part of their debate
00:03:23.840 on whether or not we should move beyond meat. So it was theoretically like three people on
00:03:28.600 one side that was supposed to be pro meat theoretically, and three people on the other
00:03:33.000 side. And it's going up online. I'll link it below if it's out by the time this episode out
00:03:37.520 is out, but dad was there. Calvin was there. And one of the people on the other side,
00:03:42.960 how would you describe her well first of all i mean you were fantastic and someone else on the
00:03:49.300 other team was fantastic at giving arguments for or against me that's what it should have been about
00:03:53.440 but then this other lady got up and well she started linking it to every single woke clause
00:03:58.660 she could think of so apparently eating meat is racist it's a sign of white supremacy it's
00:04:03.940 misogynistic uh what were the other tick boxes she went for i can't even remember at this point but
00:04:08.360 i was like this is not even you can't argue against this because it's not logic it's just
00:04:12.480 pure fantasy and it's delusional and these people are just trying to virtue signal in every single
00:04:17.900 sentence it's all buzzwords all over the place it's what can you do you just can't i just walked
00:04:22.360 out just as a protest to let her know i'm not standing for that ridiculousness yeah i could i
00:04:27.620 could hear you i was dying i've never it sounded you couldn't write that if you tried it was every
00:04:39.180 single word was filled with like vitriol and hatred and wokeness. It was amazing.
00:04:47.480 Yeah. It's like, this is the point we're at where the good guys are full of hatred for people who
00:04:53.360 aren't like them or don't think like them. And somehow they think that they have a virtue to
00:04:58.140 signal. It's bonkers to me. Yeah. Okay. So before we, we get to our conversation,
00:05:04.680 uh, if anyone watching doesn't know who you are, could you give a brief background about
00:05:08.600 who you are and what it is you do? Uh, yeah, sure. I'm not entirely sure myself. Um,
00:05:14.040 so for your audience, I'll give them a little bit of insight that most people don't know
00:05:18.280 because, because you do know this about me. I'm in Oxford. Um, I'm training for holy orders. So
00:05:22.980 I'm reading theology at the moment. Um, so I will God willing be ordained as a priest in this coming
00:05:29.280 June in, uh, Peter tide. Um, but that's, that's, that's my vocation. My calling is, is public
00:05:35.980 ministry. But what I do is I'm a public broadcaster or a political commentator.
00:05:42.440 People pay me for my opinions, essentially.
00:05:46.380 Okay. I like that way of describing it.
00:05:49.540 Yeah, because people call me a journalist, but I don't think I am a journalist because I think
00:05:53.000 that would undermine people who have gone to journalistic school and trained in the art of
00:05:57.420 journalism. I don't report facts. I don't fact find. I give my opinion on the matter. And I
00:06:03.540 usually try to bring that down to my Christian values. And that's a good sense of what I call
00:06:07.260 morality, um, and pointing the direction of good, uh, rather than evil, which is a lot of the woke
00:06:13.420 stuff, which I'm sure we'll get to at some point, but you know, I'm very, uh, subjective in, in my
00:06:18.860 broadcasting style. So I wouldn't ever call myself a journalist.
00:06:24.600 How long have you been at Oxford and have you seen the progression of
00:06:27.860 wokeness? Like has it gotten significantly worse since you started there?
00:06:31.920 So I've only been here two years. Thankfully, my course is only two years long.
00:06:38.800 I don't know if it's been progressive, but it's certainly a mixed bag. This is supposed to be
00:06:43.900 the best university in the world. It's probably the oldest English language university in the
00:06:51.820 world, at least. And it's prestigious and renowned for a lot of good reasons,
00:06:55.340 but I don't see a lot of that at the moment. So just this week, for example,
00:06:59.020 the university have sent out, the vice chancellor sent out an email to all of the school masters
00:07:04.160 saying the government's response to the new variant isn't strong enough. We need extra
00:07:09.120 measures. All social events must be canceled effectively, immediately. Cancel your Christmas
00:07:13.560 parties. Do not socialize. Isolate yourself and have your Christmas lunch by yourself.
00:07:18.080 It's like, you know, from the top down, it's entirely woke in every aspect. I've heard the
00:07:24.280 I've heard the chancellor himself shilling for China and the student body is, it is a mixed bag.
00:07:30.240 There are good, there's a good core element of small C conservatives that are fighting the good
00:07:34.840 fight. The Roger Scruton memorial lectures are a good embodiment of that. But in general,
00:07:42.340 they are just as woke as everywhere else where, you know, queer theory, gender theory,
00:07:46.840 everyone wants to look like they're a good person. So they don't dare question what's going on
00:07:50.780 and just goes along with it. And I think complicity is, is our downfall.
00:07:55.720 Hmm. What did you do before Oxford?
00:07:58.700 I was a school teacher. Uh, in fact, I was teaching during the first lockdown. Uh, so
00:08:03.920 I applied to come here and yeah, that was it.
00:08:07.820 So how come, yeah. How come you switched? What made you decide to switch from teaching
00:08:12.640 into theology or were you teaching theology?
00:08:16.860 No, I wasn't. I was teaching computer science, but not many people.
00:08:19.180 Okay. So it's a good question. Um, well, I think teaching was the start of my vocation. So before
00:08:25.020 I got into teaching, I worked in technology, um, online, uh, mobile app development and website
00:08:30.920 development, that kind of stuff, but it was all very superficial. You know, I used to make up
00:08:35.940 quite a bit of money. I used to go out and get drunk and have fun, but I enjoyed myself, but it
00:08:40.120 was a very superficial lifestyle. And I wanted, I reached a point in my life where I wanted something
00:08:45.020 more fulfilling and I wanted to feel like I was giving back to society, not just taking from
00:08:49.040 society. And teaching was my entry into that because we were hiring a lot of people from
00:08:55.900 Eastern Europe and East Asia to do the programming side of the design projects that we worked on or
00:09:02.020 commissioned for. And I thought that was wrong. I thought, where's the homegrown talent? Where's
00:09:07.400 the British talent? And there wasn't any. And people would come to us with really good CVs,
00:09:11.020 like degrees in computer science, but they couldn't program. They couldn't get anything
00:09:14.040 done. And that showed me there was something wrong with our education system. And I was
00:09:17.480 a bit arrogant and or naive enough to think that I could make a difference. So I decided to get
00:09:22.880 into teaching. I jumped in the deep end, one of these where you learn to teach on the job
00:09:27.240 in a state school. And it was eyeopening. It really was, you know, there's a lot of work
00:09:32.340 to be done in education. So I spent a few years in education, quickly rose up to assistant
00:09:37.200 principal, managed to make quite a few changes in my school, but I thought this is just too
00:09:42.040 small scale. I need to do something else, something bigger. So I started consulting for
00:09:46.480 the Department of Education and trying that way. And I did a lot of work there. But all of this
00:09:53.200 time I was doing this, I was feeling that this is just the start of my calling. This is like,
00:09:56.840 this is a part of it. The teaching is a part of it. And I figured that we're sending young people
00:10:01.820 out into the world with really good academic grades from some sectors at least, but no good
00:10:07.580 character. And I thought we should be producing good Christians and sending them out into the
00:10:12.420 world with good grades rather than just entitled young people with good CVs. And I discerned on
00:10:19.660 that a lot and realized that while teaching is part of my vocation, it is only a part of it.
00:10:24.780 And the priestly ministry is what I feel called to. So I spoke to my priest about it and there
00:10:29.340 was a long process in getting to where I am now, but yeah, God willing, I will be in priestly
00:10:36.440 ministry soon. So it's been worthwhile. Okay. Well, I'm glad I asked that question.
00:10:41.160 i didn't know that background um what did you grow up a christian or is that something okay
00:10:47.220 so what's the story there what happened um well i always felt a connection with god i always prayed
00:10:54.080 i always felt like my prayers were heard at the very least but i've always struggled with
00:10:58.440 organized religion i think many people do because you know we see so much corruption and scandals
00:11:05.400 in the church and it's problematic for people that want to get involved and want a more prayerful
00:11:10.860 life. I think we just always have to remind ourselves that we're all sinners and everyone
00:11:16.220 is fallen. And any organization that involves people will have flaws and we can't get past
00:11:22.060 that. There is, you know, we have to accept it. So we've got to take the good with the bad,
00:11:26.640 unfortunately, with everything, everything in life has to be, you know, some element of balance,
00:11:30.260 but it took me a long time to get to that point. And I think what it was is that, so my family are
00:11:35.780 nominally Christian you know I remember asking my mother as a young child what religion are we and
00:11:41.880 she's like we're Church of England and I didn't know what that meant and my father was a Baptist
00:11:46.660 which means you know they don't believe in baptizing children they wait until they're
00:11:50.380 adults so they can decide for themselves but I later in life experienced the mass you know
00:11:58.540 ritualistic Catholic Eucharist and if I felt something and it meant something to me it was
00:12:05.660 important and i didn't know why so even before i knew the theology of the thing i knew that this
00:12:10.020 was a connection with with jesus christ and like i said i've always felt a connection with god
00:12:14.300 but not necessarily with jesus and i've always struggled with that side of things and something
00:12:19.040 about the mass just clicked with me and i explored it more and discerned on it more and prayed on it
00:12:23.400 more and i found out that this is you know this is um this is something i need to be involved in
00:12:27.700 and i'm i'm i'm not a roman catholic but i am a catholic i'm a anglican catholic in the church
00:12:34.040 Finland and quite a few of us. Okay. I've got a couple of questions here then. I guess let's
00:12:40.680 start with why, why is it? So I recently found God in like August. So this is all new to me and
00:12:48.060 I've just been like grilling everybody who comes on. So I've let's start with, you said you always
00:12:55.520 felt like your prayers were heard even when you were a kid. Do you, why do you think that is? Do
00:12:59.900 you think that's because of what your parents taught you? No, I think we're all born with an
00:13:03.640 innate sense of this, this love from God. I think we all know it deep down. We all know there is a
00:13:11.660 God and we all feel it. Some of us work hard to deny it. Some of us run from it, but I think
00:13:17.500 that connection is there naturally. Likewise, we all have a connection to natural law. We all
00:13:22.100 have a conscience is, is that part of that connection. We know the difference between
00:13:26.500 good and bad. It doesn't mean we always act on it. And it doesn't mean we don't get it wrong
00:13:30.900 sometimes, but that is a God given grace. Like he's taught us his law and we have to learn from
00:13:38.340 it and work on it and try and always head in that direction. But it's built in us. And I think
00:13:43.800 that's something that separates us from the animal kingdom, actually, not just the sense of reason,
00:13:47.680 but this innate knowledge of good and the sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves.
00:13:55.620 But it's quite humbling. And I think that's part of the reason so many people run away from it,
00:13:58.840 because we live in a narcissistic society where we have to be our own gods in our own worlds.
00:14:02.940 Everyone wants to be the main character, so to speak. And that isn't good.
00:14:09.140 I think I had a hard time. I think because I was sick, I was like, I was like wishing,
00:14:15.520 I would say it was like, I wasn't actively praying because even though dad talks about
00:14:21.020 the psychological significance of the Bible, we weren't religious in that way. So I wasn't
00:14:26.340 actively praying, but I was definitely like wishing as much as I could, that I wasn't sick.
00:14:31.080 So, and I was really sick. How would you differentiate a wish from a prayer?
00:14:35.760 I don't know. Like it wasn't an active me thinking I was praying to God. It was, you know,
00:14:42.540 I'd see anytime it seems funny now, but anytime there was some sort of coincidence. So if it was
00:14:49.100 11, 11, like 11, 11, make a wish, or you see a shooting star, make a wish. And my wish was always,
00:14:54.380 you know i don't want to be sick anymore so i don't know what the differentiation is other than
00:14:58.940 i wasn't consciously thinking god yeah i was just thinking life right or just reality reality if
00:15:05.580 you would just change a little bit yeah i think in the modern context we put different words on it
00:15:10.740 but i think essentially it's always god that we're talking to you know we're we're willing
00:15:15.040 something to happen we're putting a message out there people say the universal people say
00:15:18.740 goodness or the greater good or something but i think what it is is we're asking god for something
00:15:23.320 yeah yeah i agree so you grew up in a family that wasn't catholic but then you converted
00:15:31.780 so is that what it's called i don't even know how to talk about this properly
00:15:37.420 what would you call that that that change you could call it converted i i see faith as a journey
00:15:46.100 and it's not a linear journey it's not a linear path at all there are many ups and downs and you
00:15:50.080 know we will reach points in our lives where we struggle and maybe move further away from God and
00:15:55.340 different points of lives where we move closer to God um but I think I what I found was a structure
00:16:03.240 to my faith I found something to help me articulate what I believed and what I'd always felt in my
00:16:09.240 heart um and that was the catholicity that was the ritual and the pomp and and you know the liturgy
00:16:16.020 the liturgy is so important. Um, just knowing how to pray, when to pray and what it means,
00:16:22.880 uh, just structure is, you know, it's like any discipline. I think we are a species that
00:16:28.000 require discipline and disciplines is liberating. We're never freer than when we are conforming,
00:16:33.800 as, as irony, cause that sounds. Okay. So then I think what I've been
00:16:40.100 become more familiar with in the last number of months would be, um, I don't know if it'd be
00:16:45.060 Baptist exactly, but some sort of Protestantism, right? That's just what I'm more, and that might
00:16:49.480 have also been what I learned growing up, but that's just what I'm more familiar with. Although
00:16:52.860 my mom is a practicing Catholic. Um, but that's, there's always been like, I haven't understood
00:16:58.960 exactly what that means. And from the outside, it kind of looks like there's a lot of rules and
00:17:05.560 discipline, like you said, but also punishment that doesn't seem to be as prevalent in Protestantism.
00:17:12.400 and this is just what i've been seeing so if you could would you could you explain the difference
00:17:19.340 like why is it that protestants also removed a couple of books they don't think that those exist
00:17:24.420 maybe can we start there and then go back to what i was just asking about um so i think a lot of it
00:17:32.400 it comes down to what is god's law and what is man's law i think the reformation and a lot of
00:17:40.100 the move into Protestantism from Catholicity came from this idea that the Catholic church or the
00:17:46.920 Roman Catholic church had become too powerful and too secular. And it was impeding on people's lives
00:17:54.200 in ways that weren't to do with their faith. And I think the Protestant movement wanted to move
00:17:59.360 things back towards scripture, back towards the core books of the Bible and less and take away
00:18:07.300 the papal um infallibility and all of that that's that's a massive generalization but i think that's
00:18:13.860 the idea behind it uh which has its pros and its cons but i think what i'm getting at with the
00:18:20.580 structure is that we have thousands of years of people praying and discerning on what the faith
00:18:26.920 is and we are a faith of tradition we're not a faith that we don't have a holy book in the way
00:18:32.540 that the Muslims have the Quran that they say is the direct word of God can be interpreted seven
00:18:38.780 different ways, but cannot, you know, you can't go outside of that scope. It is fixed. Whereas
00:18:44.160 ours is tradition. You know, we have four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but they are four
00:18:49.260 among many. They're just the four that were most prevalent and survived the longest. Back in the,
00:18:54.420 in the days of probably about 40 years after Christ had died, the faith was still being
00:19:01.280 spread by word of mouth. And some people started to write things down. And some of those things
00:19:05.680 that were written down survived. But it's as much as it's inspired by the Holy Spirit, it isn't
00:19:10.760 the direct word of God, not at least not all of it anyway. So everything we take from the faith
00:19:16.460 is tradition. So some of it is written tradition, and some of it is word of mouth, and some of it
00:19:20.640 is ritualistic or liturgical. And the things that are word of mouth and liturgical are maintained
00:19:26.360 through the Catholic church and which of course just means Catholic means universal. So the
00:19:31.380 universal church, which at different times throughout history has been more universal
00:19:35.780 than it is right now, but it's just a way of maintaining what we believe and things like
00:19:39.880 the creeds, you know, just the creed is a statement of what we'd call our faith, elements
00:19:47.840 of our faith that we all agree are important to us, but there are lots of things that we
00:19:53.560 disagree on. And it's, it becomes quite tribal, but by the end of the day, we have to remember
00:19:58.020 that it's all about living life as Christ had shown us really. I hope that made some sense.
00:20:06.700 It was a bit waffly. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, it did. Okay. That works. And then I just have a
00:20:12.260 couple of other questions that have been hanging around, I think, and then we'll probably move on
00:20:15.320 to something else. But the idea, so like I said, my mom's been, I'm just learning as much as I can
00:20:20.640 and trying to like feel things out, which is going splendidly, but I'm also really interested
00:20:25.620 in it. And like, why are there these differences and why have there been so many arguments?
00:20:30.420 You know, if, if the general principle seems to be the same, then why is there so much drama
00:20:36.620 involved almost? Um, what is it, is my like understanding of Catholicism that there's more
00:20:44.980 punishment than in the reformation, I guess. Um, is that accurate?
00:20:53.100 It depends. Um, so some Protestants are far stricter than Catholics, you know,
00:20:57.680 obviously the Puritans were very rigid and this is what we are and you must not, um, drink,
00:21:02.900 you must not do this and that. Whereas Catholics are more liberal compared to Puritans, but then
00:21:08.840 there are many Protestants that are more liberal than Catholics. So it depends, but I don't think
00:21:12.560 it's about punishment. I think we have to talk about sin and many people shy away from sin
00:21:17.700 because they think, oh, you're saying everyone's going to go to hell if they're bad. It's not
00:21:20.740 about that. It's about the idea of our life is to join a relationship. So God is love. And I know
00:21:28.520 that's an abstract thing that people say all the time, but what that means, or at least what that
00:21:31.480 means to me is that God is an ever loving relationship between the father, the son,
00:21:35.800 and the Holy spirit. They are three in one, one God, three persons, and their relationship is
00:21:41.240 one of love. And God is welcoming us into that relationship, that relationship of love. And to
00:21:46.540 get there, we have to head in the direction that Christ showed us. So we have to live a life of
00:21:50.980 Christ through Christ. And the moment we step away from that, I'll move in the opposite direction.
00:21:55.280 That's what sin is. Sin is separating ourselves from God. So it's not to say that we are
00:22:01.900 bad people. I mean, we can make bad decisions, but it's not to say we're bad people by doing
00:22:07.340 bad things. It's just to say we are not doing what we should be doing and not doing good and
00:22:10.920 not moving in the right direction. And the idea to teach about sin is to say that these are the
00:22:15.760 things that separate us from God. So these are the things to be avoided. Whereas these are the
00:22:18.960 things that make us better people, live holier lives and should be encouraged. And if we shy
00:22:23.840 away from the conversation, people don't know what it is to live a life of a saint. And it's
00:22:28.340 so important because, you know, again, we shy away from the meaning of hell as well. And to me,
00:22:33.780 hell is, I wouldn't say it's a literal place. I would say hell is the separation of ourselves
00:22:37.880 from God after we die. Um, if we are, if we sin so much in our lives and don't care about that
00:22:43.940 connection and disregard it, then we put ourselves in a, in a place of hell, which is just not in
00:22:52.360 that loving relationship. And surely, um, most people would want to, when they die, live in
00:23:00.100 the beatific vision and live in heaven or, or paradise or whatever you want to call it and
00:23:05.760 living that constant relationship of love with those that we've lost previously, but also our
00:23:11.260 creator. That's, I think that sounds more spiritual than what I've been learning about
00:23:16.100 what I've been learning anyway. So from speaking with your mother, she's quite spiritual as well,
00:23:22.800 right? Oh yeah. She's been, she's been way out there forever. Like since I was little, like,
00:23:28.920 mom, what are you talking about? Like, what planet are you on? But now that I'm older,
00:23:34.740 i'm like wait a minute wait a minute maybe she's the sane one she knows what she's doing
00:23:39.980 but it took me a long time we've been pretty separate especially when i was a teenager when
00:23:44.780 she'd be i don't know talking about something some hippie stuff and i'd be like what are you
00:23:50.100 talking about but more recently i'm like oh okay i think i'm just not there yet mom yeah some
00:23:58.020 things in life you have to draw the connections for yourself don't you yeah this episode was
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00:24:58.900 that you said that you all you thought you always knew god but you didn't understand i don't remember
00:25:06.020 exactly what you said you didn't understand or you didn't know jesus christ until mass
00:25:09.400 so what's the difference what was your experience difference between god and jesus christ
00:25:15.460 oh very good um so god the father i always saw as as this almost a deist you know a vision just
00:25:27.860 some big almighty, all powerful being that created the world is looking over, over us from heaven,
00:25:34.440 like quite, almost quite literal, you know, praying up to heaven, um, as a child, a very
00:25:39.580 immature vision of, of what God is. And, you know, I've had lots of little silly anecdotes as, as a
00:25:47.560 kid, um, I was bullied quite a bit, um, in, in middle school. And that connection with God is
00:25:54.700 what helps me just knowing that there's something bigger than us something more important than us
00:25:58.500 our lives are trivial and small and there was something greater looking out for me um and lots
00:26:04.200 of my prayers for support uh whether it's for courage or strength or you know those kind of
00:26:10.100 things it was really reassuring um and silly things as well you know we had a family cat that
00:26:17.340 i really loved and that cat disappeared and i just assumed that the cat has gone away to die
00:26:22.560 as cats do. And I prayed my little heart out for the cat to come back. And my cat came back that
00:26:29.360 it did come back after the prayer. Um, so I thought, you know, that's part of my prayer,
00:26:33.840 but I took the cat for granted instantly. I was like, Oh, the cat's back and got back to my normal
00:26:39.160 life. And then the cat went away again the same the next day. And that was it. And I saw the cat
00:26:42.740 again, but I take that looking back as you know, my prayer was answered. I was given a chance to
00:26:46.980 say goodbye and I probably failed because we all have fallen real sinners. And I instantly took
00:26:52.360 thing for granted the thing that i loved um as much as any other family member um well that's
00:26:57.740 the same anecdote my point was that you know i always felt that there's something greater out
00:27:01.280 there that i could talk to and that could offer me love um and jesus is is part of that but also he
00:27:09.320 is more structural he he is the embodiment the incarnation of god because he showed us how to
00:27:16.280 live a good life and what a good what good means because good is objective um as much as the work
00:27:22.480 would like to tell us otherwise uh and that he is our connection to god the father like we if we
00:27:29.100 pray through him it's it's that's a stronger connection um he's introduced us to god and
00:27:35.280 what god means and that's why uh the eucharist although mass is so important because that is
00:27:41.640 the moment that we are closest because the priest becomes in persona Christi. So the priest embodies
00:27:47.200 Christ and offers that sacrifice on our behalf. And we consume the body and blood of Christ,
00:27:53.780 therefore, um, making us one in union with him, uh, therefore closer to God, the father at the
00:28:00.440 same time through the Holy spirit. That's, um, if any priests are watching right now,
00:28:05.780 they're probably going to be judging my theology, but that's, that's the rough gist of it for me.
00:28:09.840 okay so then i guess my the part that how do okay how do i how do i word this
00:28:19.100 oh you said the priest i can't remember exactly what you said but you said the priest embodies
00:28:24.900 christ yeah the priest is so christy so how does anybody know that that's what's happening that
00:28:32.240 that's what's actually happening and that this isn't not to be blunt but that this isn't an
00:28:36.520 a type of act yeah oh yeah good uh these are getting deep Michaela um well I think
00:28:44.600 the idea is that this this is what helps because I've talked earlier about struggling with
00:28:51.600 organized religion and struggling with people and not I didn't have no take never liked taking
00:28:55.760 leadership from other people I've never liked um looking towards other people and following um
00:29:01.200 but this is what helps with that because the priest in the moment of the eucharist is not
00:29:07.800 representing themselves they are not themselves they are um they are a vessel for christ and is
00:29:15.260 this something you can just like how do you know that is that something you can see or feel or is
00:29:20.520 it something you're told like i suppose it's different for different people so for example
00:29:27.460 that receiving of the bread so receiving a christ's body um that's something that i've
00:29:34.240 always felt i've always felt that connection i've always felt something not supernatural but
00:29:39.000 something extraordinary was taking place even before i understood what it meant and then it
00:29:44.660 does get explained through the chism so as you're preparing for baptism and confirmation these things
00:29:49.220 are taught to you it depends where you are and how well it's taught to you but it is explained
00:29:54.660 um what transubstantiation means and and that the you know it's it's that the bread and wine become
00:30:00.940 the embodiment of christ uh for for that connection and for for your spirit for for
00:30:06.280 your strengthening and yeah it is taught through theology if you have a if you have someone with
00:30:12.360 theology um but that's the catechism is lost catechesis is lost we don't very often see
00:30:18.800 sound priests passing on. Not very often. That's not something unfair of me. We don't always see
00:30:25.840 sound theology being passed on to the laity and people just assume that everyone knows what's
00:30:29.980 going on. Of course you don't. You come in on Sunday, you sit behind the pillar so you don't
00:30:33.520 feel uncomfortable. You kind of go along with what everyone else is doing. And sometimes it
00:30:38.420 makes you feel better and sometimes it doesn't, but we should be teaching what's going on. We
00:30:42.460 should be talking about it more okay interesting this conversation went in a different direction
00:30:49.720 than the questions i had planned i like it because i talk about workness and critical race theory
00:30:55.780 uh and race relations and all those kind of things and education all day every day but no one ever
00:31:00.240 asked about the religious stuff it's quite interesting i've had it's been a while a couple
00:31:04.680 months yeah it's been a while a couple it's been a while like lifetime but i'm kind of into this
00:31:09.940 right. I'm pretty into this right now. I'm just interested to see how different aspects work and
00:31:15.480 the, like how different people, you know, come to God or communicate or find them. And I literally
00:31:21.820 I'm starting from scratch. So it's pretty fun. I know it's your podcast, but can I ask you a
00:31:26.600 question? Yeah, sure. So how is it going? How do you feel that connection with God and what do you
00:31:32.280 do about it? So I had, I've talked about this a couple of times now, but I have, I've had so many
00:31:41.200 strange things happen to me that I just couldn't, I've always thought about things pretty logically.
00:31:46.200 And I've had so many strange things happen that the most logical answer at this point is God
00:31:52.200 exists. Cause I had the, I was never an atheist. I was, but I was agnostic for a very long time
00:31:57.280 like, I don't know what's going on. Um, but just through experience, I've decided the most logical
00:32:04.740 explanation is God exists. So I only got to that in August after a whole bunch of things that were
00:32:10.680 way too coincidental happened and it just, things just didn't make sense. And I think I saw like a
00:32:17.320 number of miracles within my family and it was like, well, that's it. So then I've just been
00:32:23.140 trying to understand how do you get that connection and strengthen it and live your
00:32:27.600 life in a way that strengthens that. Um, and then you, you talk to some people and it's like, well,
00:32:33.320 read the Bible. That's the main way. And then I've talked to other people and they say, well,
00:32:38.380 you need to go to church or you need to pray a certain way. Right. And so it depended and it
00:32:44.060 really just depends on who you're talking to. And most people fully believe it, whatever they're
00:32:49.260 saying. So it's hard to figure out exactly what's right. So I've just been feeling it out.
00:32:55.840 So I've noticed like, if I, if I do read the Bible and I'm able to actually not just read it,
00:33:02.380 but like think about it while I'm reading it, like actually feel it out. Um, that can, that
00:33:07.480 gives me, this simply is saying it gives me a sense of calm. So if I'm starting my day like that,
00:33:12.280 I'm just calmer starting my day that way. Right. But a real, real deep sense of calm. And,
00:33:20.660 and I've been praying to try and keep myself thankful for the good things that are happening,
00:33:27.260 not just pray when I'm in need of something. And so that's basically what I've been doing now.
00:33:31.920 And I've been going to, I've gone to a couple of churches just to listen to sermons to see if
00:33:36.300 anything kind of felt right and nothing's felt right except for one time when I was listening
00:33:42.760 to this gospel. This is not Catholic. I don't think I was listening to a gospel band and that
00:33:48.320 made me cry. Something that they were singing made me cry. And then they talked a little bit
00:33:53.300 about their experience and then that brought up emotion. So I've just kind of been going at this
00:33:57.560 by talking to people, reading, because I, and I still haven't read the whole, I haven't read all
00:34:01.680 uh, the old Testament yet, um, praying and then just kind of feeling it out to see what makes me
00:34:09.540 feel like I'm aligned and heading in the right direction. Okay. So a few things from that. Um,
00:34:15.440 it's interesting that you said you felt lots of coincidences because it's often said that
00:34:18.860 coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous in our lives, which I quite like when he said
00:34:24.000 different ways without it being evident, but in regards to the different people giving you
00:34:29.160 different advice. I think actually they could all be right. Yeah. It feels like that, that it really
00:34:34.820 does. I haven't talked to someone where it completely felt off. I don't think I've been
00:34:40.260 like, well, you, you, you're saying this, but you're saying this, but couldn't they both kind
00:34:44.120 of be right. So the one's telling you to read the Bible, if you read the Bible, the Bible will tell
00:34:48.420 you, you know, when two or three are gathered in my name, I will be the present. And that's
00:34:52.400 Christ saying, you know, go to church. So the people saying, read the Bible and the people
00:34:55.940 saying we go to church or, you know, essentially saying the same thing. And I don't know if it
00:35:00.680 would be helpful to you, but I wish someone had told me at the time. So I'll tell you about it.
00:35:03.840 There's a thing called the office. So if you want some structure where you said you pray every day,
00:35:11.020 you read the Bible every day. This is essentially parts of the Bible, but in a way that every
00:35:16.440 morning and every evening, you read something different that's supposed to strengthen you and
00:35:20.620 give you, you know, good start for the day and a good end to the day. So it is scripture, but it's
00:35:25.320 in an organized way um because that's something that i found difficult at the start like how do
00:35:29.700 i pray what do i pray um you know we all have different ideas of what that means but for some
00:35:35.080 of us a bit of of structure helps that's called the office and is that is that a catholic book
00:35:41.740 is that common yeah so it's i'm starting from the bottom here yep so the divine office is the
00:35:47.560 catholic book there but also the book of common prayer is the anglican um book and that i advice
00:35:54.580 both of them they're both fantastic at what they do what's the difference between anglicans and
00:35:59.580 catholics um so anglicans are well i'm gonna get in trouble here a lot of anglicans would consider
00:36:06.980 themselves protestants um so the church of england is is anglican in that it's not part of the roman
00:36:13.860 catholic church but there are catholics within the anglican church so i'm i'm part of it's not
00:36:18.720 a sect, but part of a traditionalist movement within the Anglican church who stick to Catholic
00:36:24.760 tradition, uh, whilst not being under the authority of the Roman Catholic church.
00:36:30.240 Okay. Oh, interesting.
00:36:33.900 But this is it, isn't it? Anytime there's a group, um, of anything of people that agree
00:36:37.960 on something, there will always be schism because there'll always be the finer detail
00:36:40.480 that they don't agree on and split on.
00:36:42.520 Yeah. So is the idea behind more of the traditional practices?
00:36:48.720 that actually physically practicing that tradition brings you closer to God.
00:36:54.660 Yeah. And why would that be?
00:36:57.060 Because I think,
00:36:58.520 I think that God came to earth in Christ in covenant to instruct us on how to
00:37:02.840 worship. You know, he institutes the Eucharist by saying, you know,
00:37:05.280 do this in memory of me, um, eat my body, et cetera.
00:37:09.240 He gave us instructions on how to worship. He taught us the Lord's prayer.
00:37:12.480 He told us how to pray.
00:37:13.860 So tradition is important because the church fathers have maintained that.
00:37:16.900 We've got something called apostolic succession, which means that the apostles have passed on the bishopric, so to speak, down the lines over the years.
00:37:28.220 But that's important because we have to shape our lives around our faith.
00:37:33.320 But in the modern context, I think far too many people actually want to shape their faith around their lives.
00:37:37.900 And this is part of identity politics and part of wokeness in that people want something that's convenient and they want it to fit their model.
00:37:46.900 So for example, there's a whole movement right now of black theology, this idea that we bring
00:37:52.480 critical race theory into the church and look at it through a racial lens. And to me, that's wrong
00:37:58.000 because theology is literally theologis. It's God's study. It's the study of God. It's not
00:38:03.160 putting our color before it or putting any of our identity before it. It's putting ourselves before
00:38:08.080 God. And a lot of the progressive movements in the different churches are trying to make us
00:38:15.480 more relevant to social norms, whether that's, you know, things like baptizing, re-baptizing
00:38:23.380 someone after they transition from one gender to the other or implementing homosexual marriage or
00:38:29.000 lots of different things is all about, we must be more relevant. We must be more progressive.
00:38:32.780 We must be more liberal. We must catch up with societal norms. And it's like, no, this is the,
00:38:37.440 this is absolute morality. This is God's natural law. This is the way that he said we should live
00:38:43.860 lives. And we can't keep updating it in line with modern standards, because modern standards might
00:38:49.140 feel more progressive. But as we know, progress isn't a linear line. There are ups and downs,
00:38:53.620 and it goes round and round. And things that we consider appropriate and relevant now, in 10 years
00:38:58.980 time will be out of date and or wrong. So the whole point of it is to be countercultural,
00:39:03.860 in my opinion. And that's why tradition is so important, because as people get sick of modern
00:39:09.140 times and trying to stay up to date with the latest phrase, whether it's, oh, we can't call
00:39:14.940 you blackmail your person of color. We can't call you person of color. You're not colored. We can't
00:39:18.060 call you that. You're not BIPOC. Whether it's the language or whether it's other things in our
00:39:22.060 culture, people get tired of not being virtuous enough and not ticking the right boxes. And they
00:39:28.340 want something else. And I think that's what the faith is. The faith is outside of that. It's in
00:39:33.480 the world, but not of the world. And it's offering a different solution. It's a light shining in a
00:39:38.420 world of darkness how do you how would you tell somebody who isn't religious or and doesn't
00:39:47.780 understand god at all or maybe understand is the wrong word but doesn't have anywhere to start
00:39:53.400 like how would you try to get them to understand i guess yeah that's something i struggle with
00:40:02.180 actually mikaela i've been thinking about this i don't think i've done much conversion um
00:40:07.360 not that i preach to the choir but whatever i'm talking about i'm always trying to
00:40:12.400 give people permission so a lot of the messages that i get from from my followers are things like
00:40:18.060 thank you for being unashamedly christian or thank you for speaking on this issue it's given
00:40:23.180 me permission to speak on this issue or thank you for saying this because i couldn't say it
00:40:26.760 um so i'm trying to help the this what i call the silent majority whether it's on faith issues or
00:40:32.820 not on other issues. Um, and that's, that's where I've always focused on, but I don't really know
00:40:38.020 how to reach the unchurched or the unfaithful. Can, do you think people can or, or not? Because
00:40:48.860 you see those, like I was always turned off from religion by like, you know, you see that bumper
00:40:54.480 sticker. I saw a bumper sticker in the UK and it was, I can't exactly remember what it was,
00:40:58.740 but it was like faith or being saved. It was either being saved or faith is as easy as ABC.
00:41:04.880 And then it was, it's all about Christ and then the Bible. And then I think Christ or something.
00:41:10.860 And I was like, that bumper sticker is why people don't like religious people being like, Oh, well
00:41:18.300 just do this. And then all your problems will be solved. Right. So, and I don't think I came to
00:41:25.140 where I'm at, wherever I am at the moment. I don't think that was necessarily, I think that
00:41:31.440 was just a whole bunch of life experiences that happened. I don't know if somebody could have
00:41:35.220 come up to me and then started telling me about it. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think you're right. I
00:41:39.860 think we're all on a different faith journey. And it's like with anything in life, we have to make
00:41:44.300 our own mistakes and failure is what makes us stronger as a person. So we have to step away
00:41:49.600 from God in order to get closer to God at times. We have to make that mistake. But I think a lot
00:41:54.100 of these people are disingenuous and, you know, saying, you know, turn to Christ and all your
00:41:57.360 problems will be solved. It's just not as simple as that. Nothing ever is. And I also think that
00:42:01.820 when someone too appreciates, it's off-putting. Even now that I'm, you know, training to become
00:42:05.100 a priest, I see these street preachers shouting hell and fury and, and, you know, you, you must
00:42:10.680 repent. Otherwise your soul is lost. It's like, that is not going to help anybody. Is it really?
00:42:16.140 There's, there's somebody that just reminds me, there's this old man in Toronto who's at the
00:42:22.360 corner of the main intersection in Toronto. And he's probably, he's been there since I,
00:42:26.780 he's been there at least for the last 20 years. So I think he's probably 70. And every time
00:42:31.840 somebody walks by him, he, he yells, believe really loudly, believe in the Lord. And it's
00:42:37.760 just, you just see people walking by him and just like this, cause it's just this old man
00:42:41.820 eventually. Anyway, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So how, how, how have you seen, uh, and do you have
00:42:53.520 any plans to do anything about this? How have you seen kind of this woke culture infiltrate the
00:42:58.580 church? Oh gosh, this is the worst. So this is what I'm fighting against. Um, you're more likely
00:43:05.240 in this country to hear a sermon in a church about climate change, the so-called climate crisis.
00:43:11.820 or about Black Lives Matter or about Brexit than you are about Jesus Christ. That, to me, is sad.
00:43:19.000 If I'm being charitable, I'll say that these people are well-intentioned and they're doing
00:43:25.100 what they think is best. If I'm feeling less charitable and more cynical, I'll say they've
00:43:28.640 actually lost the faith or they've found a new religion. I think a lot of people at this point
00:43:34.900 are worshipping the environment. Of course, we are stewards of the world. We should protect it
00:43:39.680 and look after it but we shouldn't worship it it's become an icon um it's become an idol sorry
00:43:47.280 uh so that's one way it's infesting the church but also i'm fighting against this critical race
00:43:53.100 theory nonsense in every element of my life i started out the reason i'm a political commentator
00:43:57.340 is because i was writing about critical race they're infesting education while i was teaching
00:44:00.940 but it's infesting the church too um there was a priest recently who i won't mention
00:44:05.780 by name tweeted something about um a very good uh there's a very good englishman called sir
00:44:13.460 captain tom moore who during the first lockdown he went up he's like in his 90s late 90s he went
00:44:19.260 on walks around the country raising money for the nhs for the national health service very good
00:44:23.340 thing he raised over 33 million pounds it's fantastic we're all applauding him great guy
00:44:27.800 but this priest um put out a tweet saying celebrating him is celebrating the cult of
00:44:32.140 white supremacy. I'm like, this, that's hatred. You're no longer preaching love. This is a faith
00:44:38.680 of love. You are literally preaching hatred because you don't like white people. And that's
00:44:42.720 essentially what this critical race theory stuff is about. You know, diversity just means removal
00:44:46.560 of white people, essentially. And so I looked into what this priest was saying. He was saying
00:44:50.600 things like, you know, the bread that we receive in the Eucharist is white. That's racist. The
00:44:55.980 bible mentions whiteness as cleanliness and purity that's racist um jesus is not white why people
00:45:02.940 painting him as white that's racist and people people like this priest i use him as an example
00:45:07.440 that people like him see racism everywhere but in order to solve it they become racist themselves
00:45:13.400 and they perpetuate it and they spread the hate but what's happening is the church is supporting
00:45:17.360 this and say oh that's very good this brown person said that they must be right whether
00:45:20.820 they believe it or not they didn't challenge it so people go along with it but other people think
00:45:24.480 it's fantastic. I say, yes, we must eradicate this whiteness. And then the church itself,
00:45:28.600 the Church of England put out, well, first of all, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the chief
00:45:33.340 primate of the Church of England put out a statement at General Synod saying, the church
00:45:38.560 is institutionally racist and have massive problems when everyone makes a broad claim
00:45:43.260 like that without any evidence to back it up. Because of course, there are elements of racism
00:45:47.200 everywhere in our society. There are racist people everywhere. But that doesn't make an
00:45:51.940 institution racist, unless there are barriers and hurdles put up that would prevent ethnic
00:45:56.940 minorities getting into the institution or holding them down or oppressing them in some way. And I've
00:46:02.700 not seen any evidence of that structurally, institutionally, but he put out that statement.
00:46:07.240 And then the church put out a report called Lament to Action that backs that up and said,
00:46:13.440 the church is institutionally racist. We need to look at our colonial past and everything these
00:46:17.360 days is about the British empire, how bad it was. And they forget that the British empire,
00:46:21.260 definitely had some bad elements in it, but also ended or was instrumental in ending slavery on a
00:46:28.840 global scale. The British Navy, I mean, we only recently stopped paying for the cost of ending
00:46:34.320 slavery on an international scale. The British Empire spread Christianity around the world,
00:46:41.180 the English language around the world, built hospitals, railways, schools, charities all
00:46:45.760 around the world. It did a lot of good, as well as the bad that it did, and that's never addressed.
00:46:49.220 but in the church is saying hey we have terrible ties to this british past we must be ashamed of
00:46:53.940 ourselves um and then they put out a report saying that the country is institutionally racist and i
00:47:00.760 have massive problems with that because i think this is one of the best countries in the world
00:47:04.180 to live which is why i still live here i did spend a bit of time in america but i missed
00:47:08.280 great britain um and i think you know a lot of people are risking their lives to come and live
00:47:13.900 here they're crossing the borders international borders illegally to come and live here because
00:47:18.320 it so great. I think it's wrong for anyone to stand up and say this country is racist without
00:47:22.340 proving it or backing it up with any evidence. Because everyone just nods and goes, yeah,
00:47:25.560 of course it is, because that's the right thing to say. And as a result of that, the church is
00:47:29.480 basically performing what they call positive discrimination or positive action, which is
00:47:34.140 just discrimination. This affirmative action idea that we must elect more black people onto church
00:47:39.840 leadership bodies. You know, whether, not electing, what's the word when you just put someone on
00:47:46.260 without an election um it'll come to me later but this idea that black and it's always black
00:47:51.840 people it's not that ethnic marriages in general it's always for some reason it's more fashionable
00:47:55.300 to to uh patronize the black demographic but we must put more black people on these bodies
00:48:00.720 um so if no matter where you are in the country there must be 30 percent black people and this
00:48:07.180 is a country where in london for example yeah there are quite a lot of ethnic minority people
00:48:10.940 myself included but in other parts of the country like places where i came from
00:48:14.780 you would struggle to find even 3%. And 3% of this country is black. About 15% is ethnic minority.
00:48:23.760 So you cannot get 30% black people on everybody. These things are arbitrary and made up and they're
00:48:29.820 people thinking they're doing good. And what they're doing is actually causing more harm,
00:48:33.060 stoking racial tensions and causing division where often they didn't exist to begin with.
00:48:38.540 How much of this is just coming straight from America, especially that 30%
00:48:42.080 like that is like just all of it all of it this is the problem the biggest problem with great
00:48:48.880 britain is america for some reason we just copy every cultural fad that happens over there like
00:48:53.840 three months later i don't know why you know the whole black lives matter movement was massive over
00:48:58.580 here for for a chap a poor chap that died in a different country uh and we don't have the same
00:49:04.500 race divides that america has over here you know my con my parents parents moved over here so my
00:49:10.420 father's parents moved over here in the 1950s uh there was there was quite a bit of racism but
00:49:14.900 there was no racial segregation um you know we didn't have to have a fight for emancipation
00:49:20.380 uh we had we've got equality under the law and we've had it for decades very very different
00:49:25.460 picture to what's going on in america um and police brutality issues all that stuff is very
00:49:30.340 very different over there so i don't know why we import the drama and say oh yeah black lives
00:49:34.040 matter well i mean of course black lives matter all lives matter why do black lives matter any
00:49:37.500 more than any other life. And why don't Asian lives matter? I don't understand it. I don't
00:49:42.080 get why we're copying pasting drama from another country. Yeah. Well, I mean the same thing happens
00:49:50.540 with Canada, but at least we're right above America. So it makes a bit more sense, but it's
00:49:54.320 the same thing. And for me, I thought it was, it looked like about three months, at least from
00:49:59.000 the U S to Toronto, where, where I used to be, where it was like, Oh, if something was cool,
00:50:04.140 then it took three months and it was cool and it like for everything for protests or style or
00:50:10.380 movies i mean it's maybe maybe it's a bit faster now but i mean i guess it's the same thing that
00:50:15.580 happens with hollywood style is picked up and moved over as well yeah absolutely so culture
00:50:21.460 is a big thing so over here so people often compare me for example to kandai's own so
00:50:26.920 obviously i don't have the same profile as her but people make that comparison and i always
00:50:29.840 refute it because people like that in America, she's doing a great thing by the way, but she
00:50:34.320 would address the black community. Whereas over here, I would say there isn't a black community
00:50:38.000 to address. I don't believe in a black community. We have, you know, Africa, Afro-Caribbean people
00:50:42.680 like my father's parents moved over here and integrated into British society. Whereas in
00:50:47.040 America, they have a whole community of Afro-Americans or African-Americans because
00:50:51.140 they've been there since what the 1700s and they have a whole different history and they have their
00:50:56.060 own culture and this whole hip hop culture and all of that has grown out of it like just like
00:51:00.780 the jazz culture did but we don't have that over here but what we do have is young black youths
00:51:04.660 in britain copying american hip hop culture from the way that they wear their jeans are halfway
00:51:09.140 down their backside to the way they wear their baseball caps and it's that we don't even have
00:51:13.080 baseball over here why are you wearing a baseball cap well you know everything is imported
00:51:16.340 he must have been fun to hang out with as a kid why are you wearing a baseball cap just
00:51:24.560 baseball year that's funny uh okay well so what are your plans that then it when did you say
00:51:35.280 you're graduating is it called graduating yeah yeah so i'll graduate and i'll also be ordained
00:51:40.780 god willing in june if the church wow but the church is battling me every step of the way
00:51:45.920 oh okay yikes yeah oh that's got to be a bit concerning too with a bit of a public
00:51:52.360 image going on yeah yeah so i whenever i see nonsense i call it out you know when the
00:51:58.120 archbishop said the church is institutionally racist i called that out when the bishop of
00:52:02.040 london said that um you know she was in charge of the covid stuff said that the churches need
00:52:06.620 to close even the even though the government didn't go that far so the church went further
00:52:10.600 than the regulation said and closed all the churches and i think nothing is unforgivable
00:52:15.340 because we are a religion of forgiveness but that is the closest you could ever get to being
00:52:20.680 unforgivable, denying people access to God, denying people access to the sacraments, denying
00:52:25.260 people access to God's home, the church. That was wrong on so many levels. I would say that it's
00:52:29.720 actually evil. So I challenged that publicly. So the bishops, the archbishops see me as a bit of a
00:52:37.100 problem, but I say that's on them because I, you know, of course I'm not always right, but I am
00:52:42.180 always trying to preach the truth. And at the moment we have, and this is, this is the thing
00:52:46.200 I was talking to your father about actually, that we have an issue with, there's a cultural war
00:52:50.060 against the transcendentals. And so truth, beauty, and goodness. And I think what they're trying to
00:52:55.340 do, the woke law, is erase all understanding of those things. So in truth, we used to think there
00:53:01.240 is a universal truth that we're always searching out, obtaining the pursuit of knowledge, but
00:53:06.080 that's no longer the case because truth is all about my truth. It's not about the truth, and
00:53:10.880 it's about making something objective, subjective. And the reason they do that is because that's how
00:53:14.940 they win the battle. You can't fight feelings with facts. It's just impossible. And that's how
00:53:20.120 they win. And they say, well, you've offended me. We can't just say, so what? We can't put my
00:53:24.660 evidence. It's like the crazy woman who you were trying to debate. I just, I'm like, I'm done with
00:53:29.280 that. And the same with beauty and goodness. So with beauty, you know, I think that beauty
00:53:37.040 directs our gaze toward God. That's why churches are so beautiful. That's why all the Renaissance
00:53:41.360 art is the most beautiful art in the world because it's all about God. It's about something bigger
00:53:45.520 than ourselves. But these days, art is about being provocative and offending, causing an emotive
00:53:52.640 response. And it's often ugly, to be honest. And it's often, there's a lack of mastery. There's
00:53:57.380 lack of skill. Anyone can do it. You know, Tracy, I'm in style. Take a photograph of a messy bed.
00:54:01.380 There you go. That's art. No, that's not art. It's not beautiful. It doesn't direct our gaze
00:54:04.540 toward God and anyone could do it. Therefore, it doesn't pass the test. But the same with
00:54:08.340 architecture you know we used to build things that were magnificent uh and now we build things
00:54:14.600 everything is steel and glass and it's again i think it's evil because when i use that term i
00:54:19.640 don't mean like haha the devil i just mean it's directing our gaze away from god it's sinful it's
00:54:25.360 it's the opposite of good um it's an absence of good absence of goodness and goodness is the third
00:54:31.280 transcendental that they're trying to erase in that we used to try to live good lives we used
00:54:36.800 to try to be good people. And we did that through moral authority of the church or the Bible.
00:54:41.960 And now it's easier to look good than to do good. And that's what virtue signaling is, isn't it?
00:54:48.040 It's I'm a good person because I have a black square in my Instagram, or I have a rainbow flag
00:54:53.160 in my Twitter bio and pronouns. I'm obviously a good person. And then in the same breath,
00:54:57.460 they'll, you know, they'll call me racial slurs or, you know, attack people they disagree with,
00:55:03.120 with the most hostile language, vindictive, horrible language they can think of, but they
00:55:07.580 still think they're a good person because they've got all those tick boxes in place.
00:55:10.040 So they've, they've ticked all the boxes of being good and we've broken down what it means to be
00:55:13.860 good now. So truth, beauty, and goodness are under attack. And when we've lost that, we've
00:55:17.580 lost our way of life. Hmm. Truth, beauty, and goodness. Yeah. Okay. I can see that. I can see
00:55:27.400 where you're coming from okay well do i have other questions okay i maybe i have another
00:55:33.320 uh catholic question so i i think part of what i've learned the difference between protestantism
00:55:42.200 catholicism is the idea mother mary is more involved in catholicism right yeah so where
00:55:49.980 does she come in because i i know from what i've been learning she's not really involved at all
00:55:56.000 oh interesting so yeah so mary's important because oh so many reasons but so mary is
00:56:05.160 the new eve so if christ is the new adam mary is the new eve the new first woman the new
00:56:11.940 lady that shows us how you can live a life without sin um rather than obviously the fallen approach
00:56:20.320 with Adam and Eve she's also literally the tabernacle as in she was the vessel that contained
00:56:27.820 God like she is the mother of God um she she gave birth to Christ so that's that makes her
00:56:34.960 essentially well ultimately important um so what the the reason we venerate her so much and we
00:56:42.660 don't worship Mary we do venerate her we we ask her to pray for us because she is the closest person
00:56:48.820 to God, uh, being his mother and the queen, the queen mother in, you know, the times of Christ
00:56:56.240 and in different, different cultures, the queen mother is the most important, um, person in the
00:57:00.840 monarchy after, after the king, uh, obviously Christ is the king. Um, in other cultures, the
00:57:05.820 queen, as in the consorts, the person marriage, the king is most important, but in the time of
00:57:10.240 Christ, it would have been the queen mother, the person, the king's mother would have had more
00:57:13.880 authority. So she has that authority in heaven over, over the saints. And we look to her
00:57:20.160 for guidance and for prayer and her support. And whenever we're in trouble, we can, of course,
00:57:26.540 we pray straight to God, uh, the father through Christ, but also we pray to her to ask for her
00:57:32.260 to pray on our behalf and intercede for us is the word we use. Okay. You said, you said some sort of,
00:57:39.360 what did you say uh some sort of authority in heaven yeah so she's the boss lady how how do
00:57:47.360 you know that like does it say that some somewhere how do you know that so there is a lot of this
00:57:54.060 in scripture but you really have to look for it um there's some good books on it the jewish roots
00:57:59.340 of mary is a good good one um but people far more advanced in theology would be able to break it down
00:58:05.720 for you better than I could. But it's just, I suppose we just have to look at what Christ said
00:58:11.060 and what she said. And she was the one who started his ministry off at the wedding in Cana. She was
00:58:18.020 listen to him, do as he tells you. And he was, because he was like, I'm not ready yet. And she
00:58:23.280 was like, get on with it, do it, perform your miracles, do your works. So she has the authority
00:58:28.560 in that way, but also she was the start of the church. So on the cross, Christ said to John,
00:58:34.580 you know, take my mother in, she's your mother now. And that was, that was the formation of the
00:58:38.800 church, John and Mary together. Um, so there are, there's lots of it in the Bible, but it's not,
00:58:45.340 it's not as explicit as other things. And I think that the issue that a lot of Protestants have
00:58:50.060 with Catholics and Mary is that they think that we worship her as an equal to God or something
00:58:55.180 like that. It's not about that. It is about being reverential to the mother of God, just as you'd
00:59:00.320 reverential to the mother or anyone important to your life okay and then last question what is this
00:59:06.520 idea of purgatory ah this is controversial um so we've talked about how trying to strive towards
00:59:16.220 holiness and and live a holy life live the life of a saint while we're on earth but we're all
00:59:21.680 sinners we're all fallen we're all subject to original sin so it's very very difficult for
00:59:26.820 to do that very few people manage to do that while we are alive but to get into heaven we've got to
00:59:32.200 be purified um there are script scriptural elements about you know building the tower and
00:59:39.240 god wants our stones to be smoothed before before putting us in that tower uh the tower being you
00:59:45.300 know a metaphor for building us closer to to him in heaven but we our souls need to be purified
00:59:51.940 before we reach the beatific vision, before we reach that loving relationship with God in unity
00:59:58.620 with God. So to get there, we have time in purgatory. And purgatory is just that purification
01:00:05.080 process, getting rid of the last elements of sin on our souls. And it's difficult for us because
01:00:11.020 we cling to sin as much as we cling to all the bad things in life. We love the things we shouldn't
01:00:17.460 love, you know, I overindulge in chocolate and wine and things like that. And we all have, you
01:00:22.640 know, our vices. Um, so that the instant we die, they don't get erased. We have to work. We still,
01:00:29.860 our soul has to continue working towards goodness. And is that, where is that in the Bible? Is that
01:00:36.460 in the Bible or is that through some sort of tradition that you learn that? So again, there
01:00:40.820 are hints at that in the Bible, but it's a lot of it is tradition, but again, the Bible is just part
01:00:46.340 tradition it's not it is it is an authority but it's not the authority in the church we have
01:00:50.940 tradition reason and scripture and they're all important and we can't put more emphasis on one
01:00:57.440 than the other because cool interrelate okay okay this is fun i'm i'm slowly learning i told you
01:01:05.340 i'm meeting so many people and they all have different views i'm like where's the where's
01:01:09.760 the disagreement here exactly and i think i'm slowly coming to see where it is that is so cool
01:01:16.100 Okay. Well, thank you very much for coming on. That was fun. It was nice talking to you again.
01:01:22.540 Yeah, it was great. I honestly didn't think we were going to spend like an hour talking about
01:01:25.360 faith. So it's been a pleasure to me. And I'm looking forward to seeing where you end up on
01:01:28.500 this journey, actually. Me too. If people don't follow you and they want to follow you,
01:01:34.040 where should they go online? That's another good one. I don't like to promote one social
01:01:37.860 media platform because I'm terrified that I'll be blocked and erased for saying the wrong thing
01:01:41.240 at some point. But I would say just Google me, Calvin Robinson. I'm on all the networks,
01:01:45.020 Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, but yeah, I'm there. Okay. And watch GB news. Cause I'm always on GB
01:01:50.340 news. Yeah, that's fun. Okay. Well, thank you for coming on and good luck this summer.
01:01:56.600 Thank you. Have a good Christmas and God bless. Thank you very much.
01:02:15.020 Transcription by CastingWords