The NXR Podcast - March 07, 2023


THEOLOGY APPLIED - A Christian Primer On Magic In Fantasy⧸Entertainment ｜ with Joe Rigney

Topics
vulvarism demonic forces
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Leslyn Lewis Aslan Sigmund Freud Doug Wilson Kuyperian Abraham Kuyper John Calvin Joe Rigney Darwin James Marx G.K. Chesterton Charles Taylor Ezekiel Bolver Ezekiel Bulber Charles Hodge R.C. Sproul Katie Wilson Joel Webin John Piper and 12 more
DAILY TRUTH - Strange Teachings In Ancient Judaism DAILY TRUTH - Why “Judeo-Christian” Is An Oxymoron!

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 3 minutes

Words per minute

201.06

Word count

12,717

Sentence count

463

Harmful content

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

38

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Pastor Joel Webin is joined by Dr. Joe Rigney, who is the President of Bethlehem College and Seminary and author of the book, "Live Like a Narnian: A Christian's Guide to Fantasy and Magic."

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 All right, listen, guys, I get it. Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry
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00:00:39 For several decades now, Christians and conservatives alike have surrendered the 0.78
00:00:45 hill of media, entertainment, and the arts. Christians have gotten rather lousy when it 1.00
00:00:52 comes to telling good stories. I think that in our desperate attempt to hedge our bets, 1.00
00:00:59 to keep from being defiled by the world, we've surrendered things like fantasy and magic. That's
00:01:07 one of the things that we're going to talk about in particular in this episode of Theology Applied.
00:01:13 What is a Christian view of magic? How should Christians feel about certain fantasy novels that
00:01:20 contain elements of magic, like the Narnia series or the Lord of the Rings. Our special guest is
00:01:28 Dr. Joe Rigney, and I think you're in for a treat.
00:01:33 Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.
00:01:42 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel
00:01:47 Webin with Right Response Ministries. And in this episode, I'm privileged to welcome for the first
00:01:52 time as a special guest, Joe Rigney. Joe, would you go ahead and introduce yourselves?
00:01:58 Yeah. Yeah. There's only one of me. Yeah. No, I'm the president of Bethlehem College and Seminary
00:02:05 here in Minneapolis. I was born and raised in West Texas and moved up here after college in 2005
00:02:13 uh, in order to do a pastoral apprenticeship here at Bethlehem. And then, uh, we thought we were
00:02:18 coming for two years and then, uh, we ended up staying around now for 17, my wife and I. And so
00:02:23 we raised three boys here. Uh, so we got 13, 11 and four. And, uh, I was a professor for 12 of
00:02:29 those years and then have been the president now for about two and, uh, and love it. I'm also a
00:02:34 pastor, uh, at a, at city's church in St. Paul. Uh, and, uh, and I write for desiring God pretty
00:02:41 regularly. Great. Um, did you, did you actually know Tim Cain? I think he might've done a similar
00:02:48 pastoral internship around the same time. Yeah. I knew Tim back in the day before he, uh, he's,
00:02:53 uh, uh, came up here, did a residency and then, uh, it's now out in San Diego. Uh, and, uh, yeah,
00:02:59 we've been out there to see them a couple of years ago when we first planted our church,
00:03:02 kind of went out and did some, did some stuff there, but yeah, I love Tim and Molly. Cool.
00:03:06 Yeah. I, I was, I pastored and planted a church in San Diego for a while and then handed it over
00:03:11 and I knew Tim when I was there.
00:03:12 Yeah, that's great.
00:03:13 All right, so what we wanted to discuss
00:03:15 is your book, Live Like a Narnian.
00:03:20 Can you give our listeners,
00:03:22 if they haven't read the book,
00:03:23 just the brief synopsis
00:03:24 and your purpose of writing the book,
00:03:26 what you were trying to accomplish?
00:03:27 Yeah, that was the first book.
00:03:29 I've written about five or six books now.
00:03:31 That was the first one,
00:03:32 and it was the most fun.
00:03:34 The other ones have been work.
00:03:36 That one just kind of I pulled and it came.
00:03:39 uh so about 10 years ago i'd been kind of teaching classes on uh on narnia uh kind of here in the
00:03:45 church and uh and at bethlehem and had just kind of lots of thoughts about the ways that um these
00:03:52 books had shaped me as a christian um not just as sort of you know i read them as a kid with my
00:03:57 my mom uh and then i remember picking them up again in college probably to avoid homework it
00:04:02 was like hey i've got a paper to do and that book over there i'm gonna go read some some narnia
00:04:06 instead. But really kind of beginning like 07, 08, kind of really got back into them more as like
00:04:12 legitimate literature, not just sort of children's stories, but that there's really
00:04:16 profound things happening that Lewis is doing. And so began to put some of my thoughts together,
00:04:23 taught some classes on it, and then put together a book that was basically how does living like a
00:04:29 Narnian basically mean living like a faithful Christian? What do these books do? What do they
00:04:34 get into your bloodstream as a kid, because I think that's what Lewis is intending for them to
00:04:38 do is he's writing stories that children will love and they do, but that also are doing things to
00:04:45 them that are shaping them, molding them, setting trajectories, habits of their mind, habits of
00:04:49 their heart, so that when they grow up and they sort of encounter Christ, if they're raised in a
00:04:54 Christian home, they've maybe known Jesus all along, but there's a way in which they've been
00:04:58 prepared to know Jesus more deeply. And then as adults, there's stuff in there that I find that
00:05:03 I'm like, this is the most profound thing I think I've ever read on this subject.
00:05:07 And it's in a children's book.
00:05:08 And so basically that book was an effort to, in a couple of short chapters, kind of two
00:05:14 or three chapters per chronicle, just kind of lay out some of those lessons, some of
00:05:19 those truths and the way that those seven books have shaped me as a husband, as a father,
00:05:25 as a pastor, now as a professor.
00:05:28 That was the basic goal.
00:05:30 Cool.
00:05:30 So one of the major themes that, you know, pops out of the Narnian series is, you know, a free Narnian, that, you know, like freedom and, you know, not being a Talorman or, you know, like a slave, but being a free Narnian.
00:05:46 One of my questions, I guess, is with that, you know, I always think of the book of James and, you know, the law of liberty and that freedom, you know, G.K. Chesterton is, you know, freedom is found within the bounds.
00:05:57 um with with that idea of free narnians do you do you see that the narnian experience as being
00:06:04 a freedom that comes from a plural pluralistic society or do you see it as no the freedom comes
00:06:10 because there's clearly one king over all of it yeah um it's it's the latter it's it but it's an
00:06:18 interesting way that lewis does it so narnia you know people wrestle a lot of times with you know
00:06:22 how christian should we think about it is it an allegory and lewis says it's not an allegory he
00:06:27 calls it a supposal so it's basically imagine that god became incarnated in that world just
00:06:33 like he became incarnated in this world but that world has talking animals what would that what
00:06:36 would that be like so just it's kind of it's that kind of imaginary deal but it actually is
00:06:40 structured a little more like the old testament in some way so narnia functions in its content in
00:06:46 its in its world um the kingdom of narnia is like israel um and then there's sort of these friendly
00:06:51 nations that are next to it like arkenland um which would be sort of like you know remember
00:06:56 when the king of Tyre helps Solomon build a temple.
00:07:01 And so this is like, they're not Israelites, but they're friendly.
00:07:04 And then there's sort of the great nations around it that are more of the threat. 0.99
00:07:07 So you've got Kalorman, which is, you know, 0.90
00:07:10 Lewis depicts very clearly as a kind of Middle Eastern Turkish empire type place
00:07:15 that worships other gods and is tyrannical. 0.98
00:07:19 And there's a despotism built into it.
00:07:22 And then you've kind of got the giants to the north,
00:07:25 um which are their own sort of um you know uh different different animal so the kingdoms are
00:07:32 set up that way in a very kind of old testament sort of way but the the in terms of narnia itself
00:07:37 i think it's i think it's in the line the witch in the wardrobe after the four kids become king
00:07:42 it basically says they made good laws and basically minded their own business um you know
00:07:47 kept people from from being busy bodies um and so there is a way in which the sort of political
00:07:52 picture in Narnia is one driven by we serve Aslan, Aslan governs, and yet there is a real
00:08:01 sense of freedom and liberty that is a sharp contrast to Kalorman with its more slavish, 0.97
00:08:09 servile, everybody's, you know, there's hierarchy in Narnia, but it's more of the dance 1.00
00:08:14 versus the goose step where, you know, you're at the bottom and so I can step on you,
00:08:21 you have to bow and scrape um that sort of thing and and lewis seems to think that the kind of god
00:08:27 you worship shapes the kind of social order you'll have um and uh and that comes up pretty
00:08:33 most clearly i think in like voyage of the dawn treader is a good example where you know as they're
00:08:38 journeying and they get out some of those islands and they've got slavery on them uh and and there
00:08:43 the slavery is presented as sort of a progressive thing like hey this is sort of progress this is
00:08:48 um you know you can't turn back the clock the the governor gumpus um of jackson's you can't
00:08:53 turn back the clock um this is progress man and uh and caspian's like uh yes we can and and sets
00:09:01 everybody free and so there's sort of that like progressive element there uh within uh of course
00:09:06 in his boy you get the contrast with the the colormans and and the narnians when they show up
00:09:11 one of the things shasta notes as they're walking through the first time he sees narnians he is one
00:09:16 but, or he's Arkenlander, but he sees Narnians is that they're walking with like a free swing
00:09:20 in their arms. They're, they're, um, they, um, they're whistling. They have, you know,
00:09:25 the colors of their clothes is very different and they just seem to have a different quality
00:09:29 about them. And he said, uh, they, they look like they were ready to be friends with anyone
00:09:34 who was friendly and don't give a, it didn't give a fig for anyone who wasn't. And which is
00:09:39 basically my philosophy of friendship in a nutshell. It's like, I want to be friends with
00:09:42 anyone who's friendly and i don't don't give a fig for anyone who's not and so there's there's that
00:09:46 quality that comes from who their lord is who their king is um that runs all the way through the books
00:09:53 yeah yeah um no i like what you said in terms of you know the god shapes you know the god that you
00:10:00 worship shapes the way that you live um thinking of like you know even the last battle with you
00:10:04 know tash versus yes um versus aslan what do you know i i'd be remiss if i didn't ask you uh what's
00:10:11 take on you know where lewis talks about i forget the the character's name but the individual you
00:10:15 know he's been serving me aslan this whole time but by a different name yeah so emeth uh the
00:10:21 the faithful clorman um i do think lewis thinks something like this is true um and uh and that
00:10:28 sort of i don't know if you call it like the noble pagan idea i think that he thinks is there a way
00:10:32 um he kind of he kind of is in that stream i do think it's important to recognize though that in
00:10:38 it is more this is like an old testament world more so than a new testament world in some kind
00:10:43 of weird way like there's no narnian great commission like there's no you know go go
00:10:47 therefore and make disciples of aslan everywhere you go like they're not the narnians are not
00:10:52 called to go evangelize the clormans there's not quite the same new testament thing happening and
00:10:57 so the the rules are set up a little different so is this more like um the queen of is is emeth
00:11:04 more like the queen of sheba who eventually finds her way to solomon's palace and emeth just finds
00:11:08 away. So there's a little bit of that. I think I heard Doug Wilson one time say this isn't a swing
00:11:13 and a miss, but it is a foul ball on Lewis's part. Okay. So it's like, yeah, okay. That's probably
00:11:20 not the way it is, but that's, but Lewis probably did think something along those lines, or at least
00:11:24 hope for something along those lines. Right. Right. Okay. Well, so one of the things that
00:11:33 you talked about was um you know before we started recording was uh in the silver chair um puddle
00:11:39 glum and his kind of pessimistic spirit but uh the way that he stands up uh to the witch you want to
00:11:45 flesh that out for us a little bit yes this is something i've been working on there's a chapter
00:11:49 in live like an artian where i i talk about this this really important scene and i just think as
00:11:54 time has gone on you know that book's been out for about a decade almost now and that scene has
00:11:59 become more profound. And there's layers and depths to it that I don't think I recognized
00:12:03 when I wrote it. And I'm trying to work those out. But the basics of it is, there's sort of
00:12:10 a modern narrative that Christians buy into that says, the world in the old days used to be
00:12:17 enchanted. Middle Ages, Reformation was an enchanted world that believed in both the physical
00:12:22 and the spiritual, angels, demons, fairies, dryads, all of that sort of stuff. And then
00:12:28 the enlightenment came along modernity came along and basically disenchanted the world
00:12:32 and it basically debunked all of the all of the spiritual stuff and there's a kind of common
00:12:38 narrative that christians do and that and that then for us as modern christians are always kind
00:12:42 of going how do we re-enchant the world how do we re-enchant it the world was enchanted then it was
00:12:47 disenchanted and now our call in the 21st century is to kind of re-enchant it and uh that's a pretty
00:12:53 common uh you know max weber has that as a kind of his disenchantment thesis and uh charles taylor
00:12:58 kind of leans into that with some of his stuff on a secular age the interesting about lewis is that
00:13:03 he actually doesn't think that he thinks not that the world has been disenchanted but that we've been
00:13:08 put under a dark enchantment so as he thinks about modernity it's not that the world used to be
00:13:13 enchanted now it's not it's that the world used to be enchanted sort of in a good way well or
00:13:17 semi good way there's dark spirits there too but that now what we experience as sort of the drab
00:13:23 dullness of modern life is actually itself a kind of dark spell like we're under the spell of a dark
00:13:29 sorceress and so in silver chair he kind of depicts this is there in underland and the prince prince
00:13:35 really has been under a spell for you know 10 years and then he gets that they rest set him
00:13:39 free and then she comes back and she starts trying to put him to sleep and um and so she's got some
00:13:45 some magic powder she throws in the fire it gives a drowsy smell that kind of gets into your blood
00:13:50 and the more it gets into you the less you notice it and the more you're kind of coming under the
00:13:53 spell um she's playing a little bit of like soft music from from from thing happening and then just
00:13:58 starts asking them questions and the questions are basically uh sort of the modern ideologies
00:14:03 that we see around us that basically say um religion is just a fairy tale um for children
00:14:10 to help you cope with the fact that life is hard and you'll die so you know and or that um
00:14:15 god is just a projection of human ideals and desires into the sky so in the in the story it's
00:14:21 um you know what's uh what's a lamp she says what's the sun they talk about the sun and she
00:14:25 says what's the sun what's that what are you talking about and and they say well have you
00:14:28 seen a lamp and she's like yeah it's like well a sun is like a big lamp in the sky that hangs
00:14:33 from the sky and she's like oh no see you just took a lamp and you imagined a bigger and better
00:14:38 lamp. And then does the same thing with, with the Aslan, with Aslan the lion and says, what's a
00:14:43 lion? It's like a cat. You like cats? Yeah, of course I love cats. Well, a lion is like a big
00:14:48 cat with his mane, you know, terrifically strong. And she's like, oh, see here again, you're just
00:14:53 taking things from my world, the real world, the sort of physical world that you can see,
00:14:57 and you're just projecting it. And this is the sort of thing that guys like Freud and
00:15:01 Feuerbach and some of those, you know, late 19th, early 20th century thinkers would say is
00:15:06 All of us, when we're kids, have fathers who take care of us and they provide for us and they protect us and they love us.
00:15:13 And then as we get older, we sort of realize dad's not strong enough to do that.
00:15:17 But I still have this sort of psychological need to be cared for and somebody to be looking out for me.
00:15:21 Things are going to be OK. And so religion is basically a projection of that desire, fear, wish into the sky.
00:15:28 And so now we have God, our father. That's sort of like the debunking of religion.
00:15:32 And so the witch is just running this play on them with sort of the music in the background and something in the air that makes that make sense. 0.76
00:15:43 And it's playing on a reality that's basically true, right?
00:15:46 That there is a connection between divine fatherhood and human fatherhood.
00:15:49 It's just got the projection the wrong way, right?
00:15:51 She says we're projecting human fatherhood into the sky, whereas the scriptures teach us that God is projecting his fatherhood down through your dad, right?
00:16:00 Your dad is like a is meant to be a mini representation of God.
00:16:04 That's why, you know, around here at Bethlehem, when we talk about child rearing, we talk about be the smile of God to your children.
00:16:09 That's the heart of fatherhood is be the smile of God to your children as a sort of projection of divine fatherhood into your family.
00:16:16 So there is a real connection that's just got it backwards.
00:16:18 and uh and so that's sort of this modern enchantment and and lewis presents it as the um
00:16:25 the the children and puddle glum and the prince all basically start to fall under the spell and
00:16:30 they go to sleep that they and there's a relief as they go to sleep as they kind of give in
00:16:34 it feels like oh this feels good to kind of give up to to the truth of things or or quote unquote
00:16:39 reality the real world um and she gets them to sort of repeat the catechism she says things like
00:16:45 there is no sun and then they echo back there is no sun there never was any sun there never was
00:16:51 any sun and so there's this way of like the repetition of it sort of reinforces the enchantment
00:16:55 and this is this is very similar to the way that you know you go to a um you go to a museum you go
00:17:00 to you watch anything on tv and just sort of the godlessness is sort of assumed and you're supposed
00:17:06 to repeat back the narrative you you repeat back every science documentary right 65 million years
00:17:12 ago, right? You're going to have all, they're going to, they're going to recite the story.
00:17:15 They're going to recite the catechism and they're going to expect you to recite it back. And that
00:17:19 becomes a kind of mythology. This is how Lewis actually talks about it in some of his essays
00:17:23 is it's like a mythology. Evolution is a modern myth. He has an essay called the funeral of a
00:17:29 great myth in which he says, the real appeal of evolution is not to your reason, but it's to your
00:17:34 imagination. It's a, it's a mythological, it's the underdog story, classic underdog story of,
00:17:39 you know this black void cosmos and then life kind of pops up and like the little he's the
00:17:45 infant hero who's going to struggle against all odds and overcome it's like rocky but like life
00:17:50 and then he does it again when like now you have humanity with like these giants and you know 0.90
00:17:55 dragons and monsters and like this little bitty biped is going to be the one that rules everything
00:17:59 and and it's appealing to all of the pathos and that grandeur of a myth and that's actually what
00:18:05 captures our imaginations and becomes the background furniture or the mood music in the
00:18:12 story that sort of shapes us and that even Christians can kind of fall prey to. We can
00:18:16 start to fall asleep. So there's this really great, it'd be an exaggeration to say this,
00:18:21 but not much of one. It's probably the most profound analysis of modernity that I've ever
00:18:27 read. And it's like 10 pages in a children's book written in the 1940s. It's just this amazing
00:18:34 thing and then you know the the the glory of it is then how puddle glum you know as everybody's
00:18:40 finally you know giving in they're succumbing to the enchantment puddle glum breaks it right by
00:18:46 sticking his foot in the fire and having this you know glorious act of defiance uh so it's a it's a
00:18:51 beautiful picture uh i think of what what the struggle of faith is in the modern world and how
00:18:56 we can fight together that's great um as you were talking about you know sigmund freud it made me
00:19:01 think of, I think it was R.C. Sproul who once was commentating on that and saying that, you know,
00:19:06 one of Freud's, you know, popular, more popular arguments to kind of dissuade people from the
00:19:12 notion of God was to say that, you know, God was invented in the imaginations of men because like
00:19:17 what you were saying about fathers, right? So it's like, I have an earthly father. He's my hero. I
00:19:21 start to get older. I see his flaws, his deficiencies, his inability, you know, to care for
00:19:27 me when I'm a 30 year old grown man. But I still have this, you know, innate need for protection
00:19:34 and provision, a father figure. And so I'm projecting from, you know, from fathers on the
00:19:39 ground to, you know, this divine father in the sky, rather than the opposite, which is actually
00:19:44 the truth that there is the father of lights from whom every good and perfect gift comes.
00:19:49 And, and our human fathers are actually meant to be a reflection of the one true father of all.
00:19:56 And so all that being said, you know, Freud is making that argument.
00:19:59 And he says, you know, that the reason why people invented God or the notion of God is
00:20:04 because as they're getting older and those kinds of things, they recognize, you know,
00:20:08 and it is kind of that fatherly, you know, in the protective sphere, they realize that
00:20:12 there are certain threats that cannot be appealed to, right?
00:20:16 So if there's a mugger or a robber, you know, or a murderer who finds you in a back alley,
00:20:21 um there's there's he's an evil man a malicious man but he's a man there's um there's personhood
00:20:27 there and so there's something that you could actually appeal to you could plead for your life
00:20:31 you could beg you could try to barter or trade or i'll give you all of my money if you spare my life
00:20:36 um but how do you barter with a storm you know how do you how do you appeal to um to the better
00:20:42 nature of uh of cancer you know and like you you don't and so then what people did was they tried
00:20:49 to take these impersonal threats that are inescapable, like a storm, like famine, like
00:20:56 a drought, like cancer, like sickness, like disease.
00:21:00 And, you know, and as humanity was facing, you know, whether it be a plague or whatever
00:21:05 it might be, these natural disasters, they needed to find a way to personify them so
00:21:10 that there would be something, someone, namely to appeal to.
00:21:14 And so the notion of God was invented out of the imaginations of men, um, to, so that
00:21:20 they would at least have some sense, some silver lining, some sense of hope in the midst
00:21:24 of desperate situations, you know?
00:21:27 So there's a famine and even, you know, the pagan notion, it's still a deity.
00:21:31 It's not the true God, the triune God, but this sense of, well, if, if we make enough
00:21:36 sacrifices, then, you know, then the famine will go away, you know, or that propitiation
00:21:40 kind of idea, you know, that, um, that there's a God, uh, this, the storm is, is, um, there's,
00:21:47 there's a person in the storm, um, you know, or behind the storm. And so the storm is this
00:21:53 inanimate object that can't be appealed to, but there's a person behind it. And, uh, the gods
00:21:58 are angry or this God is angry and we need a propitiation and atonement, a payment, um, to
00:22:04 satiate his wrath. We've done something wrong. And if we can satiate his wrath, that at least gives
00:22:09 you this sense of hope, other than, you know, the alternative being that there's just a vicious
00:22:15 hurricane and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except for a hunker down and just
00:22:19 and then wish upon a star, you know, just, you know, hope for good, you know, good luck. And so
00:22:25 that was Sigmund Freud's idea. But Sproul, I like what he said. He said, if that were the case,
00:22:29 that would explain the invention of many gods, but it would not explain the invention of the
00:22:35 Christian God. And he uses, you know, the example of the disciples on the boat with Jesus in the
00:22:40 midst of a storm and Jesus, you know, he speaks, he has authority over wind and waves. But the
00:22:46 problem with Sigmund Freud's theory is that the disciples, it says there was a great storm and
00:22:50 they were afraid. But then after the storm is calmed by Jesus, it says they were exceedingly
00:22:56 afraid. So now they're actually more afraid because what they're afraid of is no longer the
00:23:01 storm, but this God who has power, who's more powerful than the storm. The Christian God is a
00:23:08 terrible are his judgments, right? He is a God to be feared. He is a fearsome God. It's a terrible 1.00
00:23:14 thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And so the triune God, the Christian God would not 1.00
00:23:20 be a logical answer to the fear of inanimate tragedies and calamities like a storm. You would 1.00
00:23:28 want to come up with a nice god you know sugar and spice and everything nice but the triune god
00:23:33 of the bible is is not that god um he's actually more fearsome and so anyway sprawl was arguing and
00:23:39 saying that um freud's you know his theory doesn't account for the triune god um the only thing that
00:23:45 accounts for that is the fact that he's real yeah it's true yeah the uh lewis has some great um
00:23:51 essays where he he tackles this you know one thing he notes and this is this is actually a precursor
00:23:56 to um some of the conversations we have about either whether it's post-modernism or um critical
00:24:02 race theory or some of that that sort of stuff lewis is dealing with the subjectivism that kind
00:24:06 of runs through all of that and uh so when dealing with the freudians or he actually uses marxists as
00:24:13 an example who basically try to debunk ideas by showing the psychological needs that they meet
00:24:19 so the freudians have that one the marxists say you know you're all a part of the class or whatever
00:24:23 Now we would do identity politics in the same vein. And they basically say that the trick is assume that your opponent is wrong.
00:24:31 So just assume it. They're wrong. Their beliefs are false. And then rather than refute, you explain how they came to believe it, like what motivated them,
00:24:39 what sort of, you know, it's a power play or you, you know, you believe that because you're a man or whatever.
00:24:45 And and then once you've kind of shown the psychological conditions that led them to accept it, you can then dismiss it.
00:24:54 And Lewis says, that's a fun game, but can we all play?
00:24:58 Like, there's a way, like, that's a universal acid.
00:25:01 Because do the Marxists have psychological needs that their philosophy is meeting?
00:25:07 Does, you know, do the Freudians? 0.74
00:25:09 Everybody, you know, if Christianity is sort of a wish fulfillment dream, 0.96
00:25:14 religion's a wish fulfillment dream, we don't want to, we're going to die,
00:25:16 we want to survive after death, and we want God to look out for us.
00:25:19 So it's wish fulfillment.
00:25:20 He says, well, aren't there fear fulfillment dreams too?
00:25:23 um, like that it works the other way. And, and might there be some atheists who don't want God
00:25:29 to be there? And that's precisely the ground of their atheism in terms of how they came to believe
00:25:33 it. And his point in sort of turning the tables is not to say, these are reasons to not be an
00:25:39 atheist. He's to say, this is a stupid way of arguing. This is assuming it's a fallacy. He 1.00
00:25:45 calls it vulvarism. He invents a name for it called vulvarism. Um, and he says my, the, the
00:25:50 The mythical founder is Ezekiel Bolver, who, when he was five years old, overheard his parents arguing and his mother seeked to refute his father, who was maintaining that, you know, the two sides of a triangle, you know, the angles of the triangle equal the other angle or whatever it is, you know, some kind of mathematical theorem.
00:26:07 And she responded to that by saying, you just believe that because you're a man.
00:26:11 And Bolver said, you know, the world will be at my fingertips.
00:26:16 I don't actually have to disprove anybody.
00:26:18 I don't have to deal in questions of true or false.
00:26:20 I just have to explain why someone might believe something from in psychological terms and then treat it as refuted.
00:26:27 And then the world will open up. And so Ezekiel Bulber became one of the makers of the 20th century.
00:26:33 Right. So Lewis Lewis names this fallacy and says Christians can play this. 0.98
00:26:37 It actually can be useful sometimes in pastoral situations like are your doubts, say if I'm dealing with someone who's dealing with doubts,
00:26:44 Are your doubts pure and simple intellectual questions, or is it, you know, you've been sleeping with your girlfriend and it would be really convenient if God wasn't real?
00:26:54 Right.
00:26:55 That like that we do motivated reasoning is a thing, but it doesn't actually tell you whether something's true or false.
00:27:01 And so Lewis sees clearly through this kind of smokescreen of the Freudians and the Marxist and the subjectivists who try to reduce everything down and says that's that can't be all there is because you'll just see through everything.
00:27:13 and then therefore you won't see anything.
00:27:16 If you see through everything,
00:27:18 everything becomes invisible
00:27:19 and you don't see,
00:27:20 you're just, you might as well be blind.
00:27:22 Right.
00:27:23 It's funny because even,
00:27:25 so yeah, first like,
00:27:26 hey, that's a fun game.
00:27:27 Can I play too?
00:27:28 So like that, you know,
00:27:29 that you can, you know, 0.82
00:27:30 Christians can play the same game, 0.89
00:27:31 but even with that, 0.99
00:27:32 and it is a logical fallacy.
00:27:34 So Christians have to do more than this
00:27:35 in disproving false, 0.53
00:27:38 you know, false truths.
00:27:40 But even by that standard,
00:27:42 by that standard,
00:27:43 I feel like the triune God would win, even though it's a flawed standard, because, you know, when you think of like the need for a father, the things that we've referenced earlier, these are virtuous needs.
00:27:55 They're inherently, they're not evil.
00:27:57 There's nothing inherently morally wrong with, you know, the need for protection, the need for provision, the need for a father, the need for love, the need for purpose, the need for, you know, whereas you think like just Marx, Freud and, you know, Darwin, if we took those three.
00:28:13 Um, Freud is it all three of these, the need that that's being trying to be met is, um,
00:28:20 is basically in a, um, assuaging of, of guilt for desiring something that's actually not
00:28:27 a virtue, but a vice.
00:28:28 So like I would say, you know, in the case of Marx, it's, um, it's, it's condoning envy.
00:28:33 Yeah.
00:28:34 In the case of, of Freud, it's condoning lust.
00:28:37 In the case of Darwin, um, I think it's, uh, condoning guilt, um, right.
00:28:43 Like that God doesn't exist. And therefore man is the measure of all things. You know, I can,
00:28:48 I can do these things where the gospel doesn't condone guilt. The gospel covers guilt. It pays
00:28:54 for guilt. It deal, it actually deals with guilt. You know, that like the Christian faith, you know,
00:28:59 there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but, but the gospel is not a guilt
00:29:04 free zone. As a Christian, I feel more guilt now for, for my sin than I, than I did before I was
00:29:11 saved. The difference is not that we live in a garden that's a guilt-free zone. It's just that
00:29:16 there's a tree that I can go to, to have my guilt actually paid for and dealt with. And so I actually
00:29:23 have a heightened sense of guilt as, you know, post-conversion than I did before, but I have a
00:29:29 place to go. And so anyway, so I was just thinking that as you were talking. One other question that
00:29:38 I'd love to hear your thoughts on because part of the frustration for me is, you know, so we
00:29:45 talked a little bit before we hit record, you know, my, my, you know, personally, my theological
00:29:49 convictions, I would be more in the Kuyperian sense. And when I say Kuyper, like there's plenty
00:29:53 of things by Abraham Kuyper that I don't agree with, but I say I'm Kuyperian in the same way
00:29:57 that I say I'm a Calvinist, right? I'm one of the few individuals who've actually read John
00:30:01 Calvin's Institutes. And I don't agree with everything that Calvin says, but when someone
00:30:05 says they're a calvinist they're not saying i agree with every jot and tittle of the institute
00:30:09 right they're saying i agree with the five points yeah and and every square and then kuyper's it's
00:30:15 every square inch exactly so when i say i'm kyperian i think there's a lot of good things
00:30:19 that kuyper gave us but i mean it's funny like it's some of the kuyper's sentiments are what i
00:30:24 would consider to be anti-kyperian like he kind of has a pretty low view of art as an example
00:30:29 you know and i'm like wait that's not kuyper you're not keeping it with kuyper and you know
00:30:33 but anyways, so Kuyperian is every square inch. Exactly. So all of Christ for all of life,
00:30:38 not just the home and the church, you know, but, but every sphere of life, we want to see the
00:30:43 gospel and the law of God in its first use, revealing our need for a savior. Its second
00:30:47 use being a restraint, a shield, you know, against not changing the heart, but, but holding
00:30:52 back outward manifestations of sin that the world would be a better place to live in. And the third
00:30:57 use that, that the law of God, we delight in it, that the law of God is bad news in its first use
00:31:02 that it shows us we need a savior, but it's not bad news in the third use. We delight in the law
00:31:07 of God. It's a compass, a guide, a lamp unto our feet, showing the Christian how to respond
00:31:12 in love. If you love me, you obey me and how to respond in love out of gratitude for the free
00:31:18 salvation we have in Christ alone. And so all that being said, my point is, you know, with this
00:31:24 Kuyperian, you know, applying the law and gospel to every sphere of life, I'm constantly talking 0.89
00:31:30 about the need for Christians to redeem the arts and culture and media and entertainment and
00:31:36 everything in medicine. My goodness, we need Christian doctors and politics to be sure and 0.98
00:31:42 all these things, but particularly with the arts and media and story, right? Christians have gotten 1.00
00:31:47 really bad with story. You know, conservatives are really bad with story. And I think part of
00:31:50 it is like the Ben Shapiro sentiment, right? My facts don't care about your feelings because we
00:31:54 have the true content. We don't feel like we need to dress it up just, but, but a lot of people
00:32:00 aren't won, won over by pie charts. You know what I mean? Pie charts, like maybe true, but it's not,
00:32:06 it doesn't grab, you know, it's, it's gotta be that the Puritan view of the pulpit, right? Light
00:32:10 and heat, you know, the pathos, you know, of, of, of the preacher and, and that's the way God
00:32:16 created us. And so with that, you know, I'm constantly encouraging Christians, make stories,
00:32:20 let's make movies, let's, let's write books, let's, and not just books on, you know, penal
00:32:25 substitutionary atonement, praise God. And I'm sure there's more work to be done. Charles Hodge
00:32:30 seems sufficient to me, but let's write fantasy. And this is what I come up against is I've noticed
00:32:38 that it's a very, very thin margin. If you had like a Venn diagram, the circles barely overlap.
00:32:45 There's your progressive individuals, non-Christians, unbelievers, and then some of them
00:32:50 may be professing Christians that are unbelievers and some professing Christians that are just in
00:32:54 sin and confused. And then, you know, so the progressive circle and then the conservative
00:32:58 circle and not all conservatives are Christians, but, but I would argue more, many more in this
00:33:03 circle are actually, you know, Christians. And then, and then the place where it overlaps is
00:33:08 where I'm trying to live and where I'm trying to encourage others because most of the people in
00:33:13 the conservative circle are, have the bunker mentality. Jesus is going to come back on
00:33:17 Thursday. The world is destined by God to only get worse and worse until he does. And that
00:33:23 eschatology influences the way they live in the world. And so when you think of like,
00:33:27 you know, like independent fundamental Baptist would be an example, you know, like, you know,
00:33:33 you don't, you don't drink or chew or date girls who do, you know, and we're not even going to go
00:33:37 to movie theaters. And I've noticed that like, so I'm highly theologically and culturally and
00:33:42 politically conservative. And so I attract my ministry, my church, I'm a local pastor as well.
00:33:47 we attract people who are, you know, anti-vaccine for COVID, which I, I'm anti-vaccine for COVID
00:33:53 also, you know, but, but people who are much, much more anti, you know, certain things than I am. 1.00
00:33:59 And then I start talking about the need for, I want to see Christians write fantasy books with
00:34:04 magic, like Narnia. And some of the conservative guys lose their mind. They're like, like, there,
00:34:10 there are a lot of Christians who are very conservative. They like me because my conservative
00:34:14 takes on things um but they they won't like this episode there's people who watch this and be like
00:34:19 joel is pro narnia yeah yeah that's witchcraft right talk talk about how can yeah what's a
00:34:25 christian argument for you know what i mean can you help me with that yeah yeah for sure um you
00:34:30 know there's a chapter in live like a narnia where i talk about you know lewis does the deep magic
00:34:33 and deeper magic and and uh and thinking through more clearly what do we mean by magic um i think
00:34:40 that if um you know many of the things that we know there's there's a all christians believe at
00:34:46 some level in magic because you believe in miracles right if magic just means um an exertion
00:34:52 of power that's sort of unexplained and undefined like in other words you don't you don't know the
00:34:56 mechanism you don't know how it worked you just know that it worked um jesus healing someone or
00:35:01 multiplying you know there was a little bread and then there was a lot of bread um that that there's
00:35:06 an element of if you saw that if you if you like right now if you walk down the street and someone
00:35:11 was like you see you know 5 000 people on a hillside and a guy's got a little bowl of bread
00:35:16 and fish and then all of a sudden everybody's eating you're going witchcraft that's magic now
00:35:22 now i'm saying that not to say jesus was some kind of you know um sorcerer or something like
00:35:27 that what i'm saying is that the exert that kind of exertion of power um in the scriptures um is
00:35:34 can be good. Like, and it's, and it has to do with what's the source of the power? Who's wielding
00:35:39 the power? What's the purpose for which they're wielding it? All of those kinds of questions
00:35:43 become relevant. Is it, is it a power that you have sort of like as a person that like is,
00:35:48 you're over it, like it's a power over, or is it a power of like under, like, you know,
00:35:53 God, I thank you that you've, you hear me. And then here we go. So it's an answer to prayer and
00:35:58 an appeal to ultimate divine power. So, you know, I love what Nate Wilson says that the first wizard
00:36:05 duel in literature is in the book of Exodus. You know, Moses with, you know, with a staff that can
00:36:11 turn into a snake walks into Pharaoh's court and, and then you have a wizard duel between the
00:36:16 sorcerers of Egypt and Moses and there, and it's, you know, for the first couple of rounds, it's
00:36:21 tit for tat. He does it, they do it. He does it, they do it. And then at some point he does it 0.50
00:36:25 And they're like, we can't do that.
00:36:28 Right.
00:36:29 Watch out, Pharaoh.
00:36:30 And Pharaoh doesn't listen.
00:36:32 But like there's that escalating.
00:36:34 And in both cases, you have sorcerers tapping into demonic power.
00:36:37 But then you have Moses, the servant of the Most High God.
00:36:40 You have Moses, the servant of Yahweh.
00:36:42 And it's a wizard's duel.
00:36:43 It's like it's actually the foundation in sort of like the Western imagination for that scene.
00:36:47 Gandalf, Dumbledore, all of those guys.
00:36:50 Like what's the original?
00:36:51 It's Moses with his magic staff.
00:36:53 I'm thinking of the Red Sea now. 0.96
00:36:55 you know the israelites have already passed over and now the egyptians are trying to do it i'm just
00:36:59 picturing moses saying you shall not pass right puts his well and all he does does is and i mean
00:37:05 you see this in the battles you know like in the when the israelites are fighting amalekites
00:37:10 and you know joshua's down there fighting moses up on the mountain with aaron and her and it's
00:37:15 like as long as his arms are up they win he gets tired and they lose and it's like right like win
00:37:20 lose win lose and it's that and you're going what what is god made the world that way god made the
00:37:26 world that way and moses is not over that power as though he's the master he's the servant that's
00:37:31 how moses is most consistently i'm about to preach hebrews for our church hebrews three uh for our
00:37:36 church and moses is the servant of the lord that's his fundamental title he's under he's in god's
00:37:41 house and it's christ who's the son over god's house and is the sort of source of that power
00:37:47 So all of that, there's a kind of theological thing there that underneath that when we think about magic, there's faithful magic and unfaithful magic.
00:37:55 There's, you could say, godly magic.
00:37:57 And if you just put it in an appeal to power for the good of others from the God who made the world, if you just do that and you say, OK, now call that magic for a minute.
00:38:07 It's supernatural. It's spiritual. All of that.
00:38:10 all that um that's fundamentally different than what the necromancers and the sorcerers and the
00:38:15 guys drawing circles in the ground and doing x's in their attempt to manipulate dark powers into
00:38:21 giving them power so that they can lord it over others this is one of the places where lewis
00:38:25 actually says um he he talks about the fact that uh you know in the science and magic were both
00:38:34 birthed at the modern science modern science and magic the heyday of magic were the same time the
00:38:39 guys who were doing chemistry were also doing alchemy trying to turn base metals into gold
00:38:43 the guys who were doing astronomy and you know hey galileo and topernicus and these guys trying
00:38:48 to figure out the orbits are also doing astrology right these these different we just give them
00:38:53 different names now because one of them succeeded in the sense of discovering the way god made the
00:38:58 world and the other didn't or at least didn't consistently enough right i'm sure dark powers
00:39:03 used it. And Lewis recognizes the family resemblance between our science and technology,
00:39:10 especially our technological science, where our goal is to sort of take reality and shape it
00:39:16 according and bend it to our will. So reality- Which is really just pushing back against the
00:39:20 curse. That's what that is. It's the dominion mandate. It's exercising dominion over the world
00:39:26 that God gave us, but the world that is under a curse and resisting man's stewardship and dominion
00:39:32 and finding tools technology just being a high powered tool to to ultimately to to push back
00:39:38 against uh the curse yeah so that's the good element is the sort of dominion but but faithful
00:39:43 dominion means cutting with the grain of reality as opposed to trying to you know sort of you know
00:39:50 it's kind of like if you work with you're like you can you know and i'm trying to turn it but 0.82
00:39:54 then you just break it and so that's the you know when you think about the transgender sorts of 1.00
00:39:59 stuff that's what that is is it's reality is plato and it needs to bend to my wishes and i can break 0.99
00:40:05 i can there's no grain of reality that i'm trying to cut with and if i cut with the grain then
00:40:10 everything works that's dominion that's godly dominion right but so the way i was just gonna
00:40:15 say the way that i communicate that is uh the distinction between pushing uh back against the
00:40:19 curse on nature versus pushing back on nature itself that's exactly right it's exactly right
00:40:24 When we push back against sickness to expand lifespans of people, which has happened just in the last 150 years, you know, and like when we put, you know, find cures for diseases, like we're pushing back on the curse, which when you're trying to turn a little boy into a girl, you're pushing back on nature itself, which is the basic plot line for every, you know, sci-fi horror movie, you know, Jurassic Park, like life finds a way like nature.
00:40:50 You're not going to beat nature.
00:40:52 nature is stubborn and will have her revenge when lewis you know of course in that hideous
00:40:57 strength that's his his space trilogy is sort of his attempt to do this kind of fantasy
00:41:02 sci-fi um you know the uh that he is strength is a fairy tale for grown-ups and it is this kind of
00:41:09 um the contrast is between those who sort of want to cut with the grain of reality and have true
00:41:14 dominion and then between the nice sort of the bad guys in the book who are tapped into dark powers
00:41:20 um in the name of science and are trying to like reshape reality into their own in based on their
00:41:27 own instincts and impulses and whims uh and in the abolition of man lewis unpacks that in sort
00:41:34 of prose form this is what you're talking about with the imagination so lewis knows hey i'm going
00:41:37 to do these lectures very academic lectures on education and uh the conditioners of society who
00:41:44 are trying to take man under their wing and reshape humanity into their own image and all
00:41:48 that kind of stuff. He can do that in three lectures and say, this is a fundamentally
00:41:51 different view of education than what's come before us. Old education was about us conforming
00:41:57 ourselves to reality. This is about bending reality to the wishes of men. Those aren't the 0.73
00:42:02 same. And so that's, he does the prose version, but then he says, you know, I need to be able to
00:42:07 like sort of incarnate this, express this in a form of a story. And it will stick with people
00:42:12 like those images in the story and the narratives and the plots will have a kind of punch
00:42:17 that simply a lecture lacks.
00:42:20 And so this is one of the reasons,
00:42:22 you know, here at Bethlehem,
00:42:23 like I love teaching classes on Lewis
00:42:24 because what I'll do is it's like,
00:42:26 hey, let's read the fiction version
00:42:27 and let's read the prose version
00:42:29 and let's compare.
00:42:30 And then we're going to hit both the reason
00:42:33 and the imagination.
00:42:35 We're going to get both to the head
00:42:36 and to the heart
00:42:37 because you see Lewis make the same arguments,
00:42:40 commend the same virtues,
00:42:42 blast the same vices,
00:42:44 show all of the same things.
00:42:45 I can show it to you in an essay.
00:42:47 and i can show it to you in a fantasy novel or a fairy tale or whatever and it's in seeing both
00:42:54 of them you see it better and then as a result our students are able to to live better they're
00:42:59 able to like navigate the world with with a greater degree because it's not simply intellectual
00:43:04 but like their imaginations have been shaped and molded that's one of the things we love to do
00:43:08 that's great yeah and i think that's that's what i'm getting at is that you know i think we've got
00:43:12 um, plenty of essays, not enough fantasy novels, you know, at least in recent, you know, American,
00:43:20 you know, the West, it just seems like we've kind of surrendered that hill, um, to the pagan and,
00:43:26 uh, and said, we'll keep the essays. We'll keep, you know, the theological treaties, but you can
00:43:31 have, uh, you can have the arts. And, uh, and I think that that's a mistake. One other thing I was
00:43:37 going to say is, uh, I kept, as we're having this whole conversation, I keep picturing my mind, um,
00:43:42 the debate from once upon a time is probably 15, 20, I don't know.
00:43:46 It's old at this point, 15 years or so, but it was Driscoll and Wilson.
00:43:51 And it was on cessationism versus continuationism. And, you know,
00:43:55 and so I'm a cessationist. I'm, you know,
00:43:57 I adhere to the 1689 and I understand there are some guys who say you could,
00:44:01 you know, but I, I, I feel like the 1689 is cessationist. And so,
00:44:05 so I raised, you know, cessationism, you know, five years, six,
00:44:10 seven years ago, I wasn't always a cessationist. I was raised in the vineyard church. The church
00:44:15 that I planted in California, actually in the very beginning was a vineyard church. And then
00:44:20 we became an Acts 29 church. And then we left Acts 29 and just became a confessionally reformed
00:44:25 Baptist church. And so all that being said, and that's kind of where I've landed and where I am
00:44:28 today. So I'm on the cessationist side of things, but one of the things I so appreciated about Doug
00:44:33 was, you know, I think some cessationists are, I think I'm persuaded this is the correct,
00:44:40 you know, theological position, but some cessationists, it's like, it affects their
00:44:46 whole person, their whole, you know, their personality. They're, they're just not a lot
00:44:49 of fun. They're, they're, they're grim. They're, you know, they're dreary. They're, you know,
00:44:54 like puddle glum, you know, like whereas Doug Wilson is, you know, he's, he's jolly. And,
00:44:59 you know, and so like, you know, as he's having this thing with Driscoll, it's like, uh, you know,
00:45:04 this debate and back and forth, he, he gives Driscoll like almost like, uh, ammunition that
00:45:10 you typically wouldn't want to do in a disagreement with someone, you know, where he's recounts this
00:45:15 story of, of a phone call that he, you know, had with someone and how he basically knew that that
00:45:20 was going to happen ahead of time because he had like a dream or, you know, whatever. And, you know,
00:45:24 driscoll of course is saying prophecy yeah it's called prophecy you know and and at the time when
00:45:30 i watched i was like yeah driscoll get him you know yeah that's profit and and i didn't have
00:45:35 the categories that i have now um but the retort that wilson gave was like i live in god's magical
00:45:41 world um and that that's not to say you know without making a strong argument because i assume
00:45:45 that you're a continuationist is that correct yeah and so we would disagree on this and so i'm not
00:45:50 even making an argument for cessationism at this point i'm just stating the position that i hold
00:45:54 but I liked that like, here's, here's a guy who is a cessationist who believes there's no new
00:45:59 revelation. Um, and yet, and that was one of the hardest things I think for me was, um, I didn't,
00:46:05 it was like Calvinism. So cessationism, Calvinism, similar in my testimony, when I came into reform
00:46:10 doctrine, one of the hardest things was I felt like I had to surrender my personal testimony.
00:46:15 Um, but, but one of the things that helped me tremendously was having an older brother in the
00:46:21 faith who had been reformed for, for, for longer than me and helping me realize you don't have to
00:46:28 surrender your testimony. What you have to do is see it through a new lens. All these things. So,
00:46:34 so where you were seeking after God, he was drawing you and calling you and wooing you when
00:46:40 this, when, when, so the same things happen. You don't have to give yourself a lobotomy.
00:46:44 you know it's the same things those things were real but but you need to you're seeing them now
00:46:51 through a new lens and so for me you know like things like well I really felt like God spoke to
00:46:56 me in this way where I felt like but then having categories and say I don't have to throw out the
00:47:01 baby with the bath water discernment is still a thing you know and so on you know and living in
00:47:07 God's magical world is still a thing and as a cessationist miracles are still a thing I just
00:47:12 personally don't hold to a worker of miracles who on demand, you know, can, can slap a river and it,
00:47:18 and it crosses, you know, and healing is, I pray for healing per James chapter five, the elders,
00:47:23 take them to the elders and anoint them with oil and, and, you know, and lay hands on them and pray
00:47:28 and the sick person will be made well, but healings versus healer. And, and so that was so
00:47:34 helpful for me coming into, you know, a cessationist position, which I personally think
00:47:39 is more conducive with a, with a confessionally reformed position. Um, but, but not having to
00:47:45 discount every experience that I had and say, well, I must've just been, um, I must've just
00:47:51 been underneath a spell of manipulation from emotions. And, uh, and I just thought that that
00:47:56 was so interesting as we're talking about magic. And as we're talking that like Doug Wilson,
00:48:00 here's the cessationist giving, in my opinion, more credence to, to the magic of God's world
00:48:07 than the continuationist was in in that particular moment any thoughts on that yeah i think that's
00:48:12 right and i think you know some of the debate on those two sides often is a matter of definitions
00:48:17 you know what yes what a cessation is trying to keep out of the conversation and what are
00:48:22 continuation is trying to get on and so there's actually frequently um you can find more common
00:48:28 ground than you find because we're all supernaturalist like the common thing that's
00:48:32 what that's what doug was getting at with the god's magical world is we're supernaturalist
00:48:36 which means not just supernaturalists in the sense of there's a heaven someday and God's up
00:48:41 there somewhere. But then like the entire universe is shot through with divine agency and not just
00:48:48 divine agency, but with other kinds of agencies. Like we believe that angels are real. We believe
00:48:52 that demons are real and we don't know a ton about them. And sometimes people can speak more
00:48:57 dogmatically about what they know about how angels and demons work than maybe is biblically warranted.
00:49:02 But like the little glimpses we get is that like there's this whole other world sort of intersecting with ours that involves battles and fights and warfare, that involves temptations, that intersects with our own personal lives, that affects our bodies and our minds and all of these sort of things.
00:49:19 We get these little glimpses and we go and as Christians, we have to go, I may not be I don't have the bird's eye view of that.
00:49:25 There's things, you know, it's like there's things into which angels long to look.
00:49:28 there's things right for us. We're like, Hey, so that whole thing where Daniel prays and then
00:49:33 Michael comes, but then he's like, you know, like I'm up in Persia for like a half, you know,
00:49:38 a couple of weeks and had to fight that guy. And now I'm here. Um, we're like, can we have
00:49:42 timeout? Like we have some details. I'd like to write that down. Um, but we don't get that.
00:49:48 God doesn't give us that because, and I think the reason is you don't need to know that in order to
00:49:52 live faithfully. What you do need to know is that that's real and that you're wrestling with
00:49:56 principalities and powers when you fight your sin when you resist temptation and and that god is
00:50:03 active right that god is present even when he doesn't seem to be and i think this this is another
00:50:08 thing maybe with with the narnia chronicles that i found so helpful um and it's actually from that
00:50:12 the silver chair the silver chair is the one book of the seven where aslan never actually appears
00:50:17 in narnia itself he's in his own country up on the cliff but he never comes down into narnia
00:50:22 he only gives them their assignment sends them and then they come back there whereas the other
00:50:28 ones he always comes into Narnia himself like he leaves you know he leaves the fight or he he
00:50:32 rescues whatever um he doesn't actually come down and I think that they're Lewis is intentional
00:50:36 there to kind of say this is a this is a book of sort of divine absence this is a book of Aslan's
00:50:40 absence but the point is he was guiding them anyway all along he was like they're as they're
00:50:46 making they're blowing it left and right like missing the signs missing the signs missing the
00:50:50 signed. And it's like, Aslan's guiding them anyway. He's going to accomplish purposes anyway.
00:50:55 Right. He is there. It makes me think of, you know, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader with Lucy,
00:50:58 you know, she does the spell that makes invisible things visible. And all of a sudden Aslan appears
00:51:04 and, you know, and he essentially says, what makes you think that I wasn't, you know, I was here and
00:51:09 I keep in step with my own word. So you're reading my magic book. This is my spell. This is my,
00:51:16 you know, and, um, I'm not going to contradict my own word. And so, um, you made, I didn't come
00:51:21 to you. Um, I've been here the whole time and you just made me visible by using my own word.
00:51:26 And so like that he's, that he's always there. So I completely agree with you. The last thing I
00:51:30 thought about, maybe we can end here, but just as a fellow post-millennial, um, yeah, the, the power
00:51:35 between, uh, angels and demons. And, and for me, I'm, I'm old fashioned in the sense that, you know,
00:51:40 like I, I just, God wrote a book and I believe the book, you know, and so I believe in, I'm not 0.95
00:51:46 a biblicist and, you know, in taking that too far. But I believe in six literal day creation. 0.83
00:51:52 I believe in relatively young earth. I believe, I believe in Nephilim. I believe in the sons of
00:51:59 God, that they weren't kings and princes, but that they were angels. And per the usage in the book
00:52:05 of Job, sons of God, and that they saw that the daughters of men were attractive. And, and I see
00:52:09 that as one of Satan's ploy, whether it be, you know, Herod at the time of Christ, you know, 0.53
00:52:13 and killing all the boys or Pharaoh, killing all the Hebrew boys or the Nephilim. I see what I see 0.55
00:52:19 again and again and again is, is Satan knowing the prophecy given in the garden that, you know,
00:52:26 that the woman will have a seed and he's going to crush your head and Satan trying to pollute
00:52:31 the line of the seed. He's trying to stop the messianic lineage from happening. And so he's
00:52:37 doing this by trying to take out whole lines of people or corrupting even bloodlines. And I think
00:52:42 that's part of what's going on with the Nephilim and these kinds of things. However, the post
00:52:47 millennial piece, I think that demonic forces are still at play. That is still very much a thing.
00:52:54 But I think part of the reason why Jesus in his earthly ministry before his crucifixion and
00:52:58 resurrection is casting out so many demons is almost to say that, you know, showing so much
00:53:06 the extent of Israel's rebellion, the extent of a demonic presence at that time that Satan is at
00:53:15 large. But, you know, the parable of, you know, if you're going to plunder the house, you must
00:53:19 first go in and bind the strong man at the cross and resurrection of Christ, that the strong man
00:53:24 has been bound and he still has some minions at work. And Satan still does in a sense prowl
00:53:31 around. I would argue maybe a shorter leash. But, but I guess part of what I'm getting at is we live
00:53:37 in a magical world. Demonic forces are apart. That's one kind of magic in this, you know,
00:53:42 different agencies, but it does seem as though that has been severely limited. You've got the
00:53:48 third Reich as Wilson would say, that could be measured in a matter of months, but you don't 0.92
00:53:52 have Babylon. You don't have Assyria. You don't like something, something objective switched in
00:54:00 real human history would you would you agree with that yeah that's a good question um i think as
00:54:06 long as it's not a so i i do think that the spread of the gospel does inhibit limit restrain
00:54:15 uh even maybe in prison in certain ways how you know again how the mechanisms of how this works
00:54:20 i don't know um the work of demons insofar as the gospel spreads and everything and but i don't know
00:54:26 that it's a um it's not a um fixed reality like once you've taken the territory it's now taken
00:54:34 for good so um in the sense of i agree at one point north africa was largely christian right
00:54:41 it's where augustine lived there and now it's not um and so the and i you know i think that uh
00:54:47 a plausible understanding of islam is both as a sort of a christian heresy it's a knockoff of
00:54:53 christianity um right also demonic influence there um in that kind of imprisonment and so 0.70
00:54:59 and so with that there was sort of like a it is a pitched battle and so even you know with our
00:55:04 um hopefulness about the penetration of the gospel between the first and second coming of christ
00:55:09 um there's room for um you know moving the battle line forward and then having and then having times
00:55:15 where it's in retreat and part of that retreat i guess if if as we're is if the gospel is spreading
00:55:21 the demons are subdued through our rebellion and apostasy um right they get they get let out again
00:55:29 the the the gods come back and i think in some ways when you you see that at some level in
00:55:35 the post even the post-christian west where um there's a sort of a reassertion of pagan of
00:55:41 paganism and uh and uh you know i've been talking friends about you know the ai everybody's talking
00:55:47 an AI chatbot thing. And I'm like, if that thing does start talking back to us, Christians should 0.95
00:55:51 not be like wrongly freaked out. It's like, well, what would, what a great mechanism for demons to
00:55:56 use. Right. Like, it's just, it's just technology. Why wouldn't they be able to manipulate it? And
00:56:00 so if it does seem like, Hey, it has a mind of its own, like it actually might. Um, that's not
00:56:05 a crazy thought that like, like, you know, you're, you're, you just think you're asking Google,
00:56:09 but like, so those are all, I think on the table because, because we're Christians and we believe
00:56:15 that the world is suffused, not just our own body is suffused with a spiritual reality,
00:56:20 the soul, the material thing that survives the death of the body. And so also there's other
00:56:27 kinds of spirits out there and we don't need to fear them in an absolute sense, but there needs
00:56:33 to be like an acknowledgement of they're on the table and they're at war. And so we too have the
00:56:39 same sort of zeal, which is first and foremost about our own holiness. I love, you know, it's
00:56:44 important to remember that the only the weapon that the devil has against us um is only the
00:56:51 weapons that we give him as christians at this point right like his greatest weapon condemnation
00:56:56 god disarmed him disarmed the principalities powers they don't have that weapon anymore
00:57:00 so now it's all trickery manipulation power games but like he who is in us is greater than he than
00:57:07 the one who's in the world that's that's the promise so we don't need to fear but we need to
00:57:10 actually live into it through our own uh devotion and holiness and pursuit of of christ amen and
00:57:18 even apart from demonic influence with like chat gpt i think of um it's just one more example that
00:57:26 uh you know for me within the presuppositional framework that uh that nothing is neutral and
00:57:32 that um that you know that i so you know right now the point that we're at with narrow ai you
00:57:38 You know, we haven't, it's not AGI, it's not transhumanism. 0.52
00:57:42 So I personally, my position is I think some of these things actually are impossible because man can only, we're lowercase C creators.
00:57:48 God alone creates X in the helo out of nothing.
00:57:51 We can only take the materials in the world and in the cosmos that God gave to us.
00:57:54 And I think there's a lot more we can do.
00:57:55 I think, you know, the sky is the limit.
00:57:57 There's materials that we haven't even gotten to.
00:57:59 You know, some moon, you know, floating around this planet over here that has some kind of, you know, precious metal that can create this.
00:58:06 You know, like, so I, I think, you know, the sky's the limit with that.
00:58:09 I personally don't think that, um, that, that we'll ever be able to create AI at the point
00:58:14 where it's sentient.
00:58:15 Right.
00:58:15 Um, but even apart from that, even in the realm of narrow AI and what we, the developments
00:58:21 that we currently have, you can see that, um, you know, you can see that if, if there's
00:58:27 not a demonic imprint on it, which there, there may be, um, there's certainly, um, a
00:58:33 man's imprint on it.
00:58:34 uh, chat, chat GPT is not neutral. Um, uh, it's, it's created by certain men and they built into
00:58:42 it, um, a framework, a certain blueprint, certain codes that it cannot, you know, it can't, it can't
00:58:49 say this because that would be offensive. It can't say that. Um, if it, it's funny because I feel
00:58:54 like if it actually was made in, in a, and they actually did it in a completely neutral way,
00:58:59 um then i i think that chat gpt would be one of the uh the best apologists and evangelists and
00:59:05 which you know because it would it would have no choice uh people would ask questions you know and
00:59:10 and people have already kind of hacked it and and and done some funny things where they're like you
00:59:14 know uh what's the best way you know um to to solve the energy crisis and you know and it's like well
00:59:19 fossil fuels duh you know and then they have to go back in and say oh you're not allowed to say
00:59:24 that oh never mind not fossil fuels that's way too logical it makes way too much sense you know
00:59:29 so it must be this other thing. So anyway, so I say that to say that, you know, I think that
00:59:33 with technology, apart from even the demonic possibilities, there's certain people have to
00:59:40 realize that nothing is neutral. The person who makes something, they're imprinted on it. They've
00:59:46 built it in such a way that they're giving it commands. They're giving it guidelines and a man
00:59:51 is either for Christ or against him. And, and that's reflected, I think, in everything that
00:59:56 people do and so it's great yeah all right any uh final words for us if not tell tell people how
01:00:02 they can follow you tell people a little bit about uh your seminary and give us a sign off
01:00:07 yeah good uh i'm on twitter i don't i use it mainly to promote our school so i'm not i may
01:00:13 not be the most engaging follow but joe underscore rigney there uh i write regularly for desiring god
01:00:18 and yeah we have a college and a seminary undergrad and and graduate programs uh we're
01:00:22 intentionally small school here in minneapolis at our college we teach great books in light of
01:00:26 the greatest book for the sake of the Great Commission. And so some of what we talked about
01:00:29 here today is a pretty good snapshot of the sort of thing that our faculty love to do with students
01:00:35 in order to shape them so that they're rooted in Christ and ready for the world. We want them to
01:00:39 be mature adults who are ready to witness for Christ with wisdom and wonder for the rest of
01:00:44 their lives. And that wisdom and wonder are both integral to it. We want them to know their Bibles,
01:00:49 to love their Bibles, and then we want them to be in awe of the world that God made and equipped
01:00:53 to, to face, uh, to face it, both the good and the, and the bad. And then we have a seminary,
01:00:58 of course, where we're training shepherds, uh, intentionally small cohorts of students.
01:01:02 We take about 16 guys a year. Um, so the four years program, about 60 guys total in the seminary,
01:01:08 60, 70 guys. And, uh, they go through that program together and get their Bible, learn to preach.
01:01:13 Uh, we, we major on, we want to create preachers. We love preaching the word. Um, it's one of,
01:01:17 you know, John Piper's greatest legacies, I think will be his handling of the scriptures.
01:01:21 and so we're seeking to create more pastors like that.
01:01:25 And so if any of your listeners are interested
01:01:27 in either college or sim, bcsmn.edu
01:01:32 and our team would love to talk to you.
01:01:34 Great, well, thanks for coming on the show, Joe.
01:01:36 Yeah, thanks, Joe, it was great to talk to you.
01:01:37 Can I be frank with you for just a second
01:01:39 right here at the end?
01:01:41 Look, some of you guys,
01:01:42 you're financially supporting this ministry
01:01:44 and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you.
01:01:47 I cannot thank you enough.
01:01:49 However, some of you, you just can't afford it.
01:01:53 In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it.
01:01:56 Let's be honest. 0.91
01:01:58 I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy. 0.96
01:02:01 Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds over the last three 0.91
01:02:09 years due to COVID.
01:02:11 We have written checks that we simply cannot cash.
01:02:15 It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession.
01:02:18 We are living in a recession right now regardless.
01:02:23 Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store.
01:02:28 You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should you, but you could
01:02:34 still help us tremendously.
01:02:37 I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, take one minute of your time.
01:02:42 Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify, whatever that
01:02:49 might be. This is the way the system works. We want to be innocent as doves but shrewd as vipers.
01:02:56 We need to be strategic. You leave us a five-star review and our podcast shows up for more people.
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