Ep. 308 - The Moral Arc of the Universe with Speak Life's Glen Scrivener

Hot topics, the news of the day, in depth interviews, and a whole lot more. This is the. Outlaws Radio Show. Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcast today. That's O U T l A wus The Outlaws Radio Show, n FCB podcast. This is the FCB Podcast. Network A brands that we won't totay, then we won't to say oh we got it? Does? No one can tag that? Owady, this is gonna be okay. I bread that we won't to stay and then we won't to say oh we got it does No one. Can take that away? May be okay? Well, hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Just Listen to Yourself. This is the podcast where. We take hot topics, button issues, we discuss the talking points on those issues, and we draw those talking points all the way. Out to their logical conclusion. Because I feel like sometimes when we really look at the things we're saying, we're not saying the thing we think we are. Today is a special episode. It's a jlty plus. This is where I get to talk to somebody else. It's not just me giving you my opinions and working through issues. I actually get to bring another living, reading, human being into the conversation and we get to talk about whatever is on my mind. And today I am thrilled to introduce a very special guest where Technical Church today jlty audience. As you know I like to do, and this guest I have had the privilege of meeting him in the past and hearing him speak. He is a wonderful teacher, Glenn Scribner. He's the CEO of Speak Life, which is an evangelist organization, and he is also an ordained minister in the Church of England. He is an author. He is a poet and poet, which is one of the things that I first came to love about Glenn. So, Glenn, thank you for coming to the show today. I'm so thrilled to have you. Oh, thank you. Don't set the bar too high, Kira, Okay. I'm sorry I'm any pressure. I know I tend to do that, but I feel like you will be able to meet the moment. As our polists like to. Say here in America. Glenn, tell us a little bit about yourself before we get going. So I'm from Australia. Originally I live on the South coast of the UK. Because I'm married to an Irish woman. So Emma is from Belfast and I'm from Sydney. And my wife thinks that the south coast of England is halfway and I let her think that and that's the secret to a good marriage. And yeah, so I am ordained in the Church of England, but my day job is to work for speak Life and that helps me to go around the place and talk on university campuses, college campuses and speak to church but also to write things and we try to make some noise on YouTube, in particular. If there are two and a half billion monthly users on YouTube, it seems like a pretty good place to be. So yeah, we've got our speak Life channel there and podcasting and that sort of thing. So yeah, by any means possible, just shooting my mouth off about Jesus. What is the visit mission of speak Light. Well, our strap line is love Jesus, Share Jesus, because we kind of think that you speak about what you're passionate about. My Australian mother says, what grips your heart wags your tongue. That was sort of a saying that she grew up with, and I think it's just true like this, like you will talk about the latest deal that you got on the gadget that you've just bought, or you will talk about the holiday, the vacation that you've just been on. You will Yeah, whatever is filling your heart will overflow in words of witness. And so actually, we're not really about making people busy as evangelists, because I think Christians get a bit burdened by that and it can feel like an incredible millstone around your neck go and tell the world about Jesus. But if we tell you about Jesus in a way that is memorable and captures your imagination, then I think, yeah, when the heart. Is gripped that the tongue starts to move, I get we. Could end it right there. You guys can see why I love Blend so much. But one of the things I should tell people that my friend Wendy, Wendy Lemont, my best friend, really turned me onto the Speak Life Mission and your podcast and then we went to the unbelievable conference in London. I guess it was twenty eighteen. Now or it was a year that Harry and Megan got married, because that wedding was happen that weekend. Yeah, it was a crazy it was basic Yeah before COVID, so yeah. It was. It was a whole different world, it really was. It feels like a different lifetime ago. So I can't place everything exactly in the timeline we're in, and then it's a crazy I don't know what it's like where you're at, Glenn, but here in America, as you can imagine, it's absolutely insane the pace of change. So I can't keep anything straight right now. I really can't either. And it's your faults because you're American and you are exporting your culture wars all around the world and we're all fighting your culture was for some reason. Oh well, we're finding that out, Glenn. You want to know why we are there's a reason for that. Actually, this may have made it overseas, this news, but as you know, Elon Musk is leading up the DOGE Department, the Department of Government Efficiency, is looking into Well, we found this program called us AID, which funds a lot of foreign influence programs, among other things. And one of the things we do is we import our culture wars to other nations, and not the good kind, so like the not the freedom kind, but the weird kind that y'all are fighting right now. So yeah, there's the reason for it, Glynn. There is a really Yeah, you are a cultural behemoth, and you you have been exporting them via kind of legacy media and via Hollywood and that kind of thing. But now it's at the speed of Twitter. So yeah, and it's funny. Last week I made a joke with an American guest, Patrick Miller, who hosts the Truth Over Tribe podcast, and I made a joke about how I wish America. I wish we could slap some tariffs on American culture wars, because if we're going to get into a trade war, can we at least slap some tariffs on the American culture war? And I made that joke, and then three days later the podcast came out and already it was out of date. Already nobody's thinking about tariffs anymore, because the USAID thing came out, and because Trump said You've going to buy up Gaza and make it into Mara Lago or whatever it's it's the pace of change is bewildering. It's insane. I think it's going to get a little crazier. Glenn. If you want like pro tip coming up. I was just telling my husband this morning, I think we may be on track to overturn gay marriage this year, which. Is weird and crazy. Yeah, that will be That would be a nuclear bomb, So keep an eye on us. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like all those sorts of moves in one direction, and we always kind of imagine that the ratchet only goes in one direction. Even to think of the ratchet going in the opposite direction, it's it's almost difficult to conceive of, but isn't it. I'm so glad you said that let's just let's just dig into this path because I'm so glad you said that, because I do feel that it does plug into what I've been talking about on this show and just the way that things are changing. But this idea that it's seems like we've all been conditioned to believe that there is only one way. This is what made me reach out to you to get you on the show, because you had Rob Dreer on your show and you were talking about sort of the coming chaos, the coming spiritual battle. We need to sort of break out of this materialist mindset and understand that there's other things going on, and they're going to come to a head pretty soon, and if somebody doesn't have the answers. It's going to be mass confusion. And so the idea that we've all been, even us Christians, who really we think we're outside the box thinkers with Jesus, we all have this idea that it's just well. And I think Christians are guilty of this too. Western Christians especially, we're settling in as well. We're settling into the culture. This is the way the culture's going. It can't be changed. Best we can do is just keep telling me about Jesus. But we really don't have any any real kind of influence in this culture. And I think what we're seeing, prompted by this political shift in America, which is really launching a vibe shift across the globe as I see it, I think what we're seeing is the idea that God is bigger than our assumptions about what way the ratchet turns. Yeah, and imagine if God was on the throne rather than just historical inevitability. And we're constantly told historical inevitability is in charge. But you know what if a personal God is in charge and a personal God, as Proverbs tells, us can turn the course of a king's heart one way or another, just as a water course changes from one way to another. And I think we've bought into this historical inevitability thing for some christian Ish reasons. You know, Martin Luther King Junior preaches, you know, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice, and you know some and he's actually picking up from another preacher of abolition one hundred years earlier. Theodore Parker was the one who originated that phrase, the ark of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. And so the. Abolitionists were preaching that, and they were preaching it with Bible in hands. They were preaching it with the prophets behind them, who were saying that, you know, justice will roll down like a mighty river and that we will beat our swords into plowshares. And they had. Biblical hope, and therefore they believed in a moral universe, and they believed in an arc. But interestingly, I think the Biblical arc is that things kind of go down and then up they go sort of into death and then resurrection cross and then sort of easter hope whereas I think there's a more worldly sense of progress that we have developed since the nineteenth century. And it's really interesting to think in the nineteenth century there are some very non Christian prophets of progress. You know, we're thinking about people like Mars, and we're thinking. About hegel and and they are looking at things like the moral shift that happened because of abolition, and they're thinking, well, things can get better. And they're looking at in industrialization and look GDP is going up, and look, you know, people are living longer. And so there's a material improvement in the world that is just kind of the result of industrialization. There's also a moral improvement in the world that actually came about through the Bible, but they tend to forget that. And what then happens is you have these nineteenth century profits of progress who just think, you know, you're on the wrong side of history and we're on the right side of history. And what it leads to is the twentieth century, which is the murder century. And like, never forget that. Chairman Mao presided over the great leap forward, and because of his Marxist belief in progress, presided over the deaths of perhaps forty million Chinese through starvation and through other atrocities. And we've got this real kind of tussle in the Western mind. Are we going to go with a biblical idea that there is a moral universe and it is going to work out in the end, and that's a quite Christian thing. But then there's this this quite post Christian idea that you're on the wrong side of history and it's all inevitable. And I think, yeah, even Christians can fall for the historical inevitability thing and forget that God is actually on the throne and he might surprise us. In fact, it's kind of his mos, That's what he loves to do. I love I love that, Yeah, he might surprise us. And of course I'm guilty of this same thing as a Christian, just not really again making God small, making God into someone like me, which I think is what we're seeing, especially in the West again, people do with God, right, I'm making him like me. This is why we see I mean, you're in the Church of England and I know you guys have had your own battles with this. That's why we see this. Cultural incursion and into the church. We have a lot of people in church who want to make God like them, and it's really when we think that God is anything like us, it feels dangerous. It feels dangerous, and instead of us thinking we should be like him. I want to shift a little bit on that note on that topic because one of the things you have discussed on your podcast Blend is this recent celebrity shift or influencer shift into Christianity. We're seeing sort of these big pillars in the institutions fall for lack of a better term, but you know Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson and they're leading a lot of others. And you've had a lot to say about that. You've discussed a lot, and I love your approach. It's very careful, right. You're always saying, we're excited to have these people, We're excited to see these people are feeling passionate about finding God. But there's this other aspect. We need to make sure that there's you know, proper pastoral leadership and what is going on though, because we are seeing a lot of people like even I was watching Tucker Carlson and he's been a very a religious guy, and even he was like, wow, you know, I had this really spiritual experience. He said he had a demon sitting on top of him. You know, he didn't know what it was. He had to go to a crazy Christian that he knew to, you know, find out what we asked as crazy Christian producer, he was like, have you ever had this? And it opened his mind to a lot of other things. What do you think is happening here? Do you see? First of all, do you see what I'm seeing? And what do you think happen with this happening? I totally see what you're seeing. And you know, the conference that we were both at together in twenty eighteen was run by Justin Briley who has a wonderful podcast called The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, and. He's tracing exactly what you're talking about. And the podcast, as well as his book by the same name, discusses the rise and full of the new Atheism. And that's just a fascinating thing. Since since nine to eleven there was this. Really it was a kind of a public phenomenon, and Richard Dawkins was able to write some very spite filled books that earned him millions, and he here has got a lot of money and then. Christopher Hitchens and Harris and Daniel Dennett and and there was this mood I guess, and all of a sudden. You know, because of nine to eleven, people were like, oh, religious extremism is the problem. And then let's even just knock off extremism and let's lump all the religions in together. And you know, apparently, you know, Methodists are as dangerous as Islamists, and let's just kind of take out all our angst on Christianity largely. But that's now in the rear view mirror, and it's really interesting, like what becomes plausible for people, and so much of it is intangible. That's why people are talking about a. Vibe shift even more than like a culture shift, because it's not like different institutions are changing. It's just the something in the air that is intangible. And so you get somebody like a Joe Rogan, who is, as my friend Paul Vander Clay says, he is the archetypal dude of the cultural zeitgeist, and he is this sort of bellwether of what is going on in the culture. And you look at the sort of things that he was saying ten to fifteen years ago and he was like angry against Christianity and he just thought every Christian was a moron. And you know, we've put out videos on our channel just like little compilations of what he used to say about Christianity and now what he's saying about Christianity and it is night and day. And then my friend Wesley Huff went onto Joe Rogan recently. That was amazing, wasn't that great? Yeah? Three hour conversation. And there were three aspects I think that that Wes got into with Joe Rogan that I think, ah emblematic of the sorts of conversations that we're going to be having in twenty twenty five and beyond. So, I mean he starts off by talking about miracles and like, were's experienced a miracle? He was a paraplegic for a year, right, and then walked again, and that really yeah, yeah, he had this very rare condition and just instantaneously, well after after a year of suffering it and being in a wheelchair, just was instantaneously healed and no no muscle atrophy and that kind of thing and that and that really it didn't surprise Joe in one sense because he he doesn't mind the idea of the supernatural, you know. He he kind of accesses the transcendent through psychedelics and that kind of thing, But he has no problem with the idea of the supernatural. He's not Jordan Peterson. Oh sorry, he's not Richard Dawkins, right. He has been influenced by Jordan Peterson in lots of ways to think that, you know, there are more things in heaven and on Earth than I dreamt of in our philosophy, and so and so he's open to miracles. He was very open to like talking about the place of humanity and the very surprising exceptionalism that humans have on planet Earth. We are not like our you know, our the apes. You know, we are not like other members of the animal kingdom. And it's so obvious that we're not. And just the human value and human distinctive distinctiveness and human dignity was another really interesting area of conversation that they got into. And then morality, and I think Joe Rogan is just very interested in what works. He's a practical guy, and I think he's surrounded by some Christians who are brilliant witnesses. To him, it sounds like and I think he is just he is noticing that in a culture where community is not working anymore and where there's so much breakdown, he is noticing that in churches there is embodied, practical, sane, livable humanity that's going on. And I think that is, you know, aside from all the people who are telling him wonderful Christian things like Where's half is? And Jordan Peterson preaches to him, even though Jordan himself is not a Christian. But I think even over and above all the all the Christian preaching that is happening to Joe Rogan, I think if he becomes a Christian in twenty twenty five, I think it will be ordinary Christian witness around him. It'll just be the life of the church. I think that gets through to him because when there when there are storms, and when the rest of the world is on sinking sand, well, you want something solid to stand on. And I think the Church of Jesus Christ kind of offers this solid rock. And I think people, if not Joe Rogan himself, I think people like Joe Rogan, are flocking to that rock. I agree, we definitely are seeing, for lack of a better term, I think jen Z got this one right vibe shift. You know, I think we are seeing it and to see west Huff just blatantly, you know, bringing the gospel to Joe Rogan, you know, the biggest podcaster. We had a big thing here in America during the election, Glenn, when Kamala Harris would not go on Joe Rogan and everybody was like, that's the craziest move ever. He is the most listened to podcaster on planet Earth. I mean, you just couldn't get more ears. And so to have Wes Huff represent the gospel there, now, Jesus doesn't need Wes you know, he doesn't need Joe Rogan, he doesn't need podcasting. I get that, but it. Is still an incredible sign of the power of the Gospel that there is no wall that will stand against it, even cultural. And I think in the West it has felt like we have lost that cultural battle and when we stood so strong for at one time, at least on the surface biblical values and biblical freedom and that that type of idea. You mentioned that there. Are a lot of people like Rogan who are looking for more solid foundation. I definitely see that. I would like to say also, Glenn, what happened to Rogan between then and now is he became a father, and that is something that changes people a lot. And I think I'm writing a book now about the holistic nature of politics and how all of these things go together to create a situation where people can't reach God. And one thing is the breakdown of the family, right, because family changes people. When you become a parent, you become a different person. So what do we do tell people? Abort your babies, divorce, you know, abandon your marriages, families, whatever you make it, you know. And then so that's just my observation there. But the other thing I want to say is that I recently wrote an article on my substack. Y'all can go to my substack just Ciadaevis do subtack dot com. Go look me up on Twitter at real Cura Davis. I wrote an article about Denzel Washington. Denzel Washington recently became a pastor in his congregation Church of Christ, I think, which I have issues with, but whatever, that's besides the point. He became a pasteerw He's been in the church forever, he's been a Christian forever. I thought, why now is he becoming is he getting baptized. First of all, he's getting baptized. I think he got rebaptized, and then he got ordained. But the article I wrote, Glenn, and I'd like you to speak to this was about how I am seeing a lot of people in Hollywood either convert because I live in California, so I live in southern California. I live in the entertainment industry and I work in it sometimes, so I see a lot of people are either coming to Christ or they are beginning to come out of the closet, so to speak, to be a bit more bold. And somebody asked a question, why is this happening now? And I said, I don't think it's necessary. Because people are feeling sad and realizing their lives are empty and they want the Lord. I do think most of those people know God exists. I do think most of those people know that there is a spiritual realm and they're operating in it in Hollywood, and it's about to come crashing down. I think a lot of people are looking for protection. And if I've learned anything in this fiftieth year of my life, it's that the loving and kind and tolerant and understanding God that I have been learning about my whole life is real. But there's also a powerful, wrathful warrior God who understands we are strangers living in a strange land, and who stands between us and the enemy, who tells us there is no one to save us. I think a lot of those people are watching the enemy bear down on them. They've given themselves to something they think they can't get out of, and God is the protection they're looking for. Your thoughts? Does that sound easy? No? No, I mean, and I think it's important to say that. Because God is love, therefore God is angry at evil, and like a warrior riding on the storm clouds, will will bring about a day of wrath on all evil. But because He is so fiercely and all consumingly loving, therefore he judges and must do because if you are able to look at the evil of this world, and if you're just nonplussed, and if you just sort of smile benignly at the evil of this world, you are a sociopath like that that would not make you loving like if you are to not be angered by evil, it is because God is love that therefore, yeah, he does judge, and there is evil and there is a day of reckoning and all that kind of stuff. And interestingly, in the UK setting, probably I meet as many people now who say, I'm not sure I believe in God, but I do believe in the devil. I meet a lot of people wow to say that I'm not sure I believe in goodness with the capital G, but I definitely believe in evil with the capital E. And that idea of protection that you mentioned, I think is very important, and I think churches need to be ready for it because the sorts of people that are coming into our churches, and there are people coming into our churches, and I think some of it is to do with the fact that it's just suddenly it's just okay to be looking into your faith. It's suddenly just okay to order a Bible from Amazon, it's suddenly just okay to binge Bible Project videos on YouTube. Suddenly it's just okay to go to church. Like literally, like three near neighbors of me in my in my street and on the next street, three since lockdown have just said to their family, right, we're going to church. You know enough. We need some wisdom and sanity in our lives. And so like the vibe shift accounts for that. But the sort of people that are coming to church having just ordered a Bible from Amazon are the sort of people who have dabbled in the occult, are the sort of people who have taken psychedelics, and it's it's kind of done a number on them that they are the sort of people who believe that definitely believe in Satan, and they're trying to figure out whether there's God. And so I think that the church needs to be really ready for very thorny pastoral issues but also some some real wrestling with the supernatural too. And the Western church isn't really ready for it because we have been steeped in this materialism. One of the things that brought me eventually to you into the Unbelievable conference with Justin Brierley was that, and into his Unbelievable podcast, which any longer hosts, was that I apologetics. I love this is what I do on the show. I do critical thinking on this show, and I love that aspect of C. S. Lewis is a big fan. But the downside of that is that it can get us mired in practicalities and we forget the magic for lack of a better term, of the kingdom. And I don't feel that I've been running into people who have I'm fifty now, so I'm gen x. I'm running into people here in California who have grown up in the occult, and I'm running into people. I'm not making this up, everybody. I'm running into people from the music industry who are telling me that occult practices are happened, that it's very common. It's not weird. It's not an accident that all of your favorite artists suddenly turn into witches or like. That's not a joke. It's not a comic book thing. There's something going on. So there are there, and when you're dealing with the we do not. I guess this is what I'm worried about, Glenn. We don't have a proper in the West as Christians, as people of the Book, we do not have a proper understanding of the spiritual realm, and we are not prepared for the powerful and dangerous elements that come out of that. And the people who need an actual systematic approach to freeing themselves from the grips of occult life like that stuff follows you. It follows you in your spirit. You can be cursed, your family can be cursed you. The way you need a doctor to cut out your cancer, you need specialists too to deal with this kind of stuff. I'm worried that the Western Church isn't ready for what's about to hit us. Yeah, And like I was never convinced actually that the way we should have approached even the new atheism was to sort of out apologetic the clever philosophers on the material. You have been a poet at heart, yeah. Well yeah, yeah, capturing imaginations and that kind of thing. That the stronghold are much stronger than just a philosophy or just bad ideas. That, yeah, that the heart is gripped by that which will kill it. You know, we're addicted to the things that kill us, and you know the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, and that that remains true whether you're talking to a Richard Dawkins, he needs a deliverance too. Write. But certainly, you know, my next door neighbor they've just moved out actually, but my my next door neighbor, yeah, she she's one of those people who would say I definitely believe in the devil I'm not sure I believe in God. Her father was a spiritualist minister, and so seances were just a regular part of her life. And it's interesting. She she was talking to me about some intractable problems that she had in her life, and she said, I just feel like I'm cursed, you know. And it was interesting because I think ten years ago, if I was in an evangelistic setting and somebody said I just feel like I'm cursed, I think I would have done what everybody does in those circumstances. He said, Oh, you're fire, you're lovely, You'll catch a break. Don't worry. Things will turn around for you. The sun will come out tomorrow, that kind of thing. Instead, I just said, yeah, do you believe in curses? She said, I think I do. I was like, yeah, I believe in curses too, And we just pressed into the spiritual side of that, because I think in Adam there is you know, there's no spiritual neutrality, there's no spiritual Switzerland. And we don't just live in a world of thorns and thistles. We live in a world of domination by an enemy who has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the lights of the Gospel of the Glory of Christ, who is the image of God. That's two Corinthians, chapter four, verse four, like that, there is a blindness out there and there are these intractable kind of problems. Praise God's The next verse in tewod Corinthians four, verse five says, we preach not ourselves but Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for jesus sake, which is interesting. You've got the proclamation and the life of service in the church that goes on. And then it says, the God who said let light shine out of darkness, will let his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the Gospel of the Glory of God in the face of Christ. And so in all this talk about the darkness, you know, wonderfully she's started reading the Bible and she's just absolutely thrilled with Jesus. And I think it is important to say that in the Proclamation of Christ, the light is stronger than the darkness, and we mustn't have a George Lucas theology in Star Wars, the dark side is probably the equal opposite of the light side, which of course is not the way light in darkness works, George, there are several light switches in this room. There are no darkness switches, because darkness is not an equal opposite, sopposed to push back against. And so you're absolutely right. We need to take the darkness really seriously. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. But I have come that you might have life and life and all its fullness. And life is stronger than death, and light is stronger than darkness, and love is stronger than disconnection. And we do need that robust conviction in our hearts as well. In this moment, I. Think you know what I've been doing, Glenn lately. And I'm embarrassed to say that It's taken me until my fiftieth year to do this. But I've been taking the Bible more literally lately. And of course I'm an artist, so the Bible is full of beautiful prose and poetry and imagery that makes me see the wonder of God's grace, plan and universe. But I it started with giants, right, like, where are the giants? Where did they all go? Why is it why do we never talk about the giants in the Bible? And then I thought, what if I just really took that seriously, and then I started thinking about things Glenn, like when God tells us that we have like if we had the faith of a mustard seed, we could move mountains, And I think about things like, I hope this doesn't sound too crazy. I don't do this on my show, So this is a new direction on my show. If you see me struggling here. I look at things like Tesla's idea that there is this unlimited, untappable energy that's sort of fleet free flowing in the universe, and if we understood how to form some receptors to tap into it, we could do things like levitate and levitate objects to build them instead of having to move them with We could do things like that. What if I took that literally. When God says I that all even the rocks cry out my name, and then somebody tells me that the Earth has an energy pulse, that you can measure the energy of a rock, that they do actually give you an energy read out, it makes me wonder, Yeah, if I understood the mechanics more clearly of God's working, maybe I literally could move mountains. You know, maybe I literally could look at a mountain and move it. I'm thinking about COVID and how we've been so disconnected from the mechanics of our body and how we heal ourselves and what God has provided in our bodies to help us survive. Can't beat death. Only one person did that. But there's actually a lot. He's given us, a lot to heal ourselves. He says it. He says it in Matthew right, he says, why are you worrying? You know, I give the birds everything they need. You don't think, Keith, what if I took that literally? Even right now, inside of my body, I have everything I need to make myself well, to make myself a part of my community, to make myself, you know, open to God's grace, Like all of these things. I just feel we've been so disconnected from that that I've been taking things more literally, Glenn, and I've been doing it in everything. I don't think Western Christians have a concept of how powerful the soul is and why there's a universal battle over all of time for it. Yeah. Well, I think in the last three hundred years, probably the last four hundred years, certainly since the scientific Revolution, we've looked at oh Newton was able to explain gravity in the orbits of the planets, and like, maybe the universe is just a machine. And even though science was this absolute gift of Christianity to the world, it was Christian scientists at Christian universities studying the natural world according to Christian assumptions about natural philosophy. They because they believe that humans are the sorts of creatures who can fathom the mysteries of the cosmos, because they had that incredibly spiritual view of what humans are like. Isn't it amazing to think that, you know, Homo sapiens are able to fathom the depths of the cosmos. You know, like that was it was. Incredibly spiritual undergirding to modern science, which has now been kind of forgotten. And we feel like, okay, well, we don't need Christians and Christian universities with Christian assumptions to do it. Science just works. And Newton kind of explained that we're just living in this grand machine and it's like and and for you know, for the next couple of hundred years, we sort of thought, okay, there's probably a double deck in universe, and you know, on the on the lower ground floor of the universe, it's just a factory space and we pull the levers and mechanically the conveyor belts runs, and that's the way the world really works. And if you are so inclined, you can go up to the second floor where all the spiritual faith heads exist and they believe in their wo and their nonsense. But we all know really that the real world is basically mechanical. Now you trace that through, you know, into modern times, and one of the things that happens is that science hits the buffers, because now, how do you explain consciousness? How do you explain the person in terms of mechanics? And if you try to take that seriously, like you will want to kill yourself, like you're just a machine in a machine like world. And no wonder, we've got a meaning crisis. And then you might think, oh, I know what you need to do. You need to just jump up to the second floor. Maybe take some iowasca, maybe just you know, psychedelics will open you up to a spiritual side, and like, no, well that that probably takes you some some bad places. We need to rethink. It's not a double decker universe, and there's faith stuff up stuff upstairs. If you're a faith head and the rest of the world is just a machine. No, we live in your father's house. And Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, just the idea that not a sparrow falls to the falls to the ground without your your father knowing it. Like you say, the stones crying out, or the psalms talk about, you know, the trees clapping their hands, and and stars are worshiping and all this kind of stuff, and and like Eustace, in which which one of the Narnia books, Eustace like ends up talking to a star, like the stars are people, right, And Eustace says, in in our world on Earth, stars are just balls of gas. And then the person who's speaking to says, even in your world, balls of gas is what they might be made of, but that is not what they are. And I think that was a There was a brilliant kind of line from from Lewis to kind of say, we have been so deceived into thinking everything is just matter in motion when we're living in our father's house in which you know, the stones would cry out if only we had ears to hear, if only we could we could see the heavens are declaring the glory of God. The skies are proclaiming the works of his hands. We're living in the theater of God's glory, minute by minute, hour by hour, and we just need to like, the crazy thing is just materialism. That's the crazy thing, because of course, of course you're a soul. Of course you're a soul. The most obvious thing about you is that you're a soul. Like this this table here, you might say, that's the most real thing because listen, you know I just tapped on it. No, you just experienced the sound of my my tapping on the on the table, and you are having a response. And I, through reason and rhetoric and emotion and language and communication, are communicating with you another mind. And it's like mind is communicating with mind via all these immaterial means. The last thing you should be as a materialist, the very last thing. And yet it is just so dominant. So it's not as though materialism is not spiritual. It is the greatest spiritual stronghold in the West. And it's a profoundly spiritual captivity that blinds our minds to what is really there, and what is really there is. A profoundly spiritual reality. So good. I could keep you forever. I promised not to because you have other things to do and apparently have a family to support or whatever. But but I yeah, I do think I want to close up, close out our discussion. Welly have our fun questions, but I do want to just invite you to drill down a little more on the idea of clarity, of people getting clarity, because I think it's very interesting. I had on last week. I had on Mark Gober who wrote a book called The Upside Down Mind, and he talks a lot about how, yes, most human communication is not material, and how we need but it is ridiculous to assume we are just material and nothing else. He talked about how, uh when when CIA spies are going into training, when they're trained, when they're surveilling not to stare directly at a person, because a person will feel that they're being stared at. Right, That's like these are there are all kinds of things flying around out there, people that we have been I think we used to understand, at least in the West, and we don't so Glenn. As we move forward with this vive shift, and it's shifting every day, who knows where it's going to be next week by the time this podcast comes out. But I do feel that one thing that's going on is people are looking for clarity. There's strange things afoot, weird things in the skies, weird weather, weird leaders, weird culture things. People are becoming more aware that there are bad things out there, may be less aware that there's good things out there. It does feel like we are at. A turning point in global culture right now, and it's always that's always the best time for a Jesus moment. But how how do you see your mission at Speak Life, but even more so the Christian Church in general, our mission as the world keeps spinning. I think we're going to see a lot more spiritual things become reality to us in the coming two to. Four years, and it's going to cause a lot of people confusion. What is your message to people. On our YouTube channel? I usually start videos by saying I'm Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus, and so we believe that Jesus is the mediator and the one who makes sense of heaven and earth, and he is the integration of heaven and earth. He is the integration of the spiritual and the physical. He is the Word who has made flesh. You know, when you come to him, you come to the purest picture of God. He is the most divine thing you've ever seen as he walks around planet Earth just like overflowing with love. He's also the most human person you've ever seen, as you see his towering personality and his stooping love. He is the integration points and he is what will make us sane. He is the anchor. The Book of Hebrews calls him. You know, he's on from Earth to Heaven as our brother and great High Priest, to kind of anchor us to our true home in Heaven. And I think, in a in a world that feels like it's entirely storm tossed, is is there an anchor? Yeah? His his name is Jesus. And every day people are finding sanity and healing and wholeness and a center in the midst of the storm. I think what people are noticing when they when they do come to church, no matter what their backgrounds are, whether they've been captive to materialism or whether they've been captive to spiritualism and seances, they are finding in Jesus like a steadiness and a wisdom for life and a sanity in the embodied life of the church. And even though it's it's scary out there, I think churches are and will be these places of refuge for people who are tired of the culture wars and the unforgiveness of the culture wars, that they are hungry for meaning because of the meaning crisis. They are utterly burned out and discarded and twisted through spiritualism and experiences with the demonic, experiences with drugs and that kind of thing. And I think the church is always coming into its own when it is a hospital for six centers, when it is a place of refuge for those on the outside of things. So it's not going to be neat, but I think I'm very hopeful. I'm very hopeful. People don't flee to the rock when they don't experience the storm, when they don't like there's a storm, people are happy building on sand. So to some degree we can thank God for the storm because at least it's revealing the foundations, and Jesus is good and can be trusted and he will see us through. It's that amazing that we have a God, but we can thank for the storms. You won't have to curse him for the storms. Yeah. I think that's amazing. I don't know as a thinking about Okay, well that's thank you, Glenn. Well, before we go, I like to ask my guests a couple of fun questions, just too I don't know, just to entertain me. I guess that's what you're here for. First of all, I would like to ask, I would like to propose you are the Emperor of America. Let's just say, by some miracle. We've been talking about miracles today, Glenn. Let's just say, by some miracle, you are the Emperor of America. But you can only do one thing. Then your emperorship is gone. You gotta go back to your regular life. You can enact one law or do one thing, change one thing about America. What is it. I'm going to enforce the playing of cricket for the entire nation. We are going to We're going to teach you a true civilizing game called cricket. You say that baseball is played at the speed of life. No, No, you. Want a sport that will really teach you. Patients play for five days and you still might not get a result, this is what would be good for you. You're so pragmatic, you Americans. Okay, you're so instant gratification. You need this. I know you don't think you need this, but I am. I am a benevolent dictator, and I am imposing cricket on you. You're welcome. Wow, that was by far the most diabolical order I have received so far. Some people say that they would, you know, make it illegal to double park or something. Back, I'm Canadian by birth and grew up in the Canadian grew up in the Commonwealth, and so we did like cricket in pe class and gym class, and I remember it being pretty exciting, and then becoming an adult and watching it and going this wasn't nearly as fun as I remember. Your formation is not yet complete, Kira. Just keep going, well. We're this is America, and if we can make money off it, we will. So who knows cricket, Well, cricket will come here. All right, and the second most watched sport in the world after soccer. Yeah, right, which is another thing that we don't really care about. America has too much. I think this is the thing, right, we got too much going on there's too many things to focus on as opposed to be from the Netherlands, where your skiers are your bake super So you'll. Just cool it the World series, even though like you know, Toronto gets to play, so it's the World anyway. Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes. We just renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the America. This is a surprise called the Gulf of America. I believe me. I believe there were some proposals for that. Let's get into books. So before I let you go, what is a book outside of the Bible that influenced you or had a big impact on your life. I'm going to name my wife's book called a New Names. It's her memoir really about struggles with anorexia as a child and then again in early adult life. And it's actually, like I'm an evangelist, so I'm always talking to people from outside the faith, and it's the number one book that I actually recommend to people because she talks about the darkness of that addiction in a way that like you can really feel what she feels and you can understand the grip that it has on her. But then when Jesus show up towards the end of the book, he shines up like he turns up like light in a in a dark place. And it's an absolutely beautiful book. And you know, we lived through some of it, and so it's it's more than a book to me. But it's probably the number one book I recommend to people if they want to if they want to feel what Christianity really is rather than just you know, I can you know, I write books where people can sort of think it through. But but Emma has written a book where people really feel how Jesus comes into the darkest valley. What's the name of the book again? A new name, A. New name by Emma. Is she Scrivener Rive? Yeah, this means writer. Yeah, the name Scrivener means writer. So I always tell her, however good your book is I made you a writer. Or she just fulfilled her original purpose of making you feel like you made someone. Glenn, it's been a real joy talking to you, and I recommend everyone go. I think the best place to start always is just go follow his x account, go speak Life UK, or you can just go to speak Life. They all connect. Look up Glent on YouTube as well. But I feel very strongly, Glenn that Aslanta is on the move, and so I think it is time for those of us who have a voice and who are plugged into the kingdom. I operate in the political space, but I think we should always be speaking christ because I think weird times are coming. I feel very strongly about that. What we would say is weird. So I thank you for just taking the time to remind us that there is there is a hope that is truly miraculous. Tell us, Glenn, more about where people can find you and what you're doing there. Yeah, so look us up on YouTube, whether Speak Life or Speak Life Media. You'll you'll find the channel. And if people go to Speaklife dot org dot UK, they'll find all the different links. There's one free resource that people might be interested in three two one course dot com and it's it's my attempt to sort of boil down Christianity in a way that I hope refreshes Christians. But also for those leaning in on the outside, if you've been listening in and thinking, okay, I might be interested in finding out more about this Jesus. It assumes no prior knowledge. Yeah, you can binge it in a couple of hours, or you can do it in eight sessions, but go to three two one course dot com and it's free. Sold. I like the price and the topic. Alright, well, god bless you, Thank you so much, everybody. Don't forget you. Please share this podcast like it subscribe. Those are all the easy free ways you can help support people like Clent and myself. Subscribe to me on substack. Just here David dots up dot com, go to Twitter at real Hira Davis, and don't forget. Every once in a while, just stop and listen to yourself. O braiders, all masoda day that we won't with bathe then we won't to say oh we gott it does. No one can take that owen. This gonna be okay. O praid it is all masodad that we won't with maath then we won't with say oh. We gott it does. No one can take that owen. Don't ma don't be okay. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where Real Talk lives Visitors online at Fcbpodcasts dot com.