The Biggest Lie About Modern Spirituality
Cameron (00:00)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co host, Cameron McAllister.
Nathan (00:04)
And I'm your co-host, Nathan Rittenhouse.
Cameron (00:06)
A lot of ink has been spilled recently about how we are supposedly or have never been disenchanted. I have in mind especially get ready for it. It's a long name. Jason Ananda Josephson Storm. Jason Ananda Josephson Storm, okay? His book is called The Myth of Don't You? I'm disenchanted now. But anyway, he's a very good thinker.
Nathan (00:29)
Now I feel disenchanted.
Cameron (00:35)
His book I have in mind his book, The Myth of Disenchantment, which is definitely worth your time. And by the way, he he followed it up with another major book called Meta Modernism, which I haven't read yet but apparent
Nathan (00:46)
we we
talked about metamodernism like a year or so ago. Hey, actually can you give us the the what enchantment is one one? Just real quick before we throw that word around too much.
Cameron (00:49)
Yes.
Sure. I like Charles Taylor's way of of talking about it. I think it's quite helpful. But basically, if you think back to s the Middle Ages, say, where people saw themselves as porous. Now again, this is anachronistic. This is Charles Taylor's word. But basically, human beings, we we lived in a deeply spiritual world, susceptible. Yes. All sorts of influences are working upon us all the time, some of them good, some of them malign.
Nathan (01:15)
We're susceptible.
Cameron (01:25)
picture I of that comes to mind for me is an Aeolian harp or a wind chime being pl played by the elements. Human beings were a little bit in that in that category, but things have changed drastically for us today. So we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. But yeah, it was it was a world where of manifold influences, spiritual influences,
Nathan (01:46)
So
magic, folklore, spiritualism, animism, the whole package.
Cameron (01:50)
Yes.
And also it's worth pointing out that this is still the dominant view globally. It always has been and it is up to the present day. We need to n I think we've done better in recent years, especially this is a lot of academics have helped us along on this one. But the Western view is not we have tunnel vision with that still. We still have that kind of tunnel vision. We tend to assume, well, this is just the way things are and this is how everybody sees the w no, it's not. No, it's not.
It's a very narrow way of looking at reality when we think that no, we're now enlightened scientific people and that kind of thinking is a relic of the benighted past. It's not. So it's worth it's worth just saying that. But that's yeah, that's that's what we mean by enchanted. Lots of influences about the world is is filled with all sorts of surging with real vital spiritual energies and and forces and beings.
Nathan (02:30)
Mm-hmm.
So what's Storm's point?
Cameron (02:50)
Storm's point is that he is so he's playing off Entzauberung, good German word there from comes from Max Weber, famous sociologist. He's the man who and so Entza Entzauberung is translates to disenchantment. Max Weber wrote, I mean, he very complex thinker, but
Nathan (03:07)
Timeout. If I ask you to give a
one one explanation of a word, you can't use other languages. But so that's a that's at least a three one level answer, but this is thinking out loud, so we'll let it slide. Carry on.
Cameron (03:13)
All right, fair.
Sure.
Thank you. Thank you for your generosity. Max Weber was writing about what it felt like to live in the modern industrial and I mean now post-industrial world, bureaucracy, all of that. And disenchantment is the word he came up with. We, you know, we live in now this kind of flattened world that feels hollow, feels largely empty. We have a lot of good processes for everything. We have lots we have amazing bureaucratic structures, but
We're loot we've lost significance. We've lost a sense of our place in the world. So that's kind of I mean, there there is much more that could be said there. But that's that's in effect what Weber was saying. What the book is calling into question is whether we were we ever really got there in the first place. And it documents extensively and exhaustively, very helpfully, a lot of leading scientific luminaries like Madame Mary Marie Curie, for instance. You know, she's she's certainly a a paragon of the scientific world.
Nathan (04:11)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (04:15)
Well, she was also attending seances with her husband, and they were very convinced. They found what they saw her husband was more convinced than her, but she found what they saw at these seances deeply compelling and records that in her journal. But she's I mean, that's the tip of the iceberg. So many other people I think a lot of us know, you probably know this, Nathan, that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, author sh author of Sherlock Holmes, believed very earnestly in fairies. So a lot of that kind of a lot of I mean, that's all documented.
So I think it's a good book, so helpful. But my my takeaway after that is so what? Okay, we're not dis okay.
Nathan (04:54)
Don't you love it when
you read a big book and you get to the end and you think, so what?
Cameron (04:58)
Well, at no point, Nathan, did I read that and then come out of it thinking, wow, I guess I just had the wrong perspective on everything. We do feel a deep sense of integration with the world and a holistic sense of our significance and our place in this grand cosmic drama drama and structure. Not at all. Not at all. So we may not be disenchanted. So we may not have ever put away our
healing crystals or tarot cards or or crystal balls. But some seismic shift has clearly happened since the Middle Ages. We we're not we're not in the same place. Something's wrong with us right now. So okay, we're not disenchanted. So let's talk about my question then is okay, so what ails us? What's wrong with us then? Something's wrong.
Nathan (05:49)
Well yeah, and it and it might not be a something. It might be some things. you brought Charles Taylor into here earlier, so it's fair game. Taylor's sense of the developing religious landscape is not that we have systematically eliminated concepts of the divine. we haven't it's it's not a subtraction story that naturalism has helped us get o get away from d divine or spiritual references. Rather, what it's done is for the first time ever constructed
A reality in which we've assumed that we can build and generate our own meaning. Is there a parallel sense in which so he would say that that modern naturalism is a is an achievement, not a reduction. It's a it's a religious achievement to be able to think that you can, yeah, build your make your own meaning in life is is kind of a new category. Is is there a parallel here with enchantment in that the sense was in the past that maybe we were enchanted by the tree fairies and now we're just enchanted by ourselves?
What's what's the role to which the individual and and and that whole hybrid enlightenment, autonomous being philosophy changes the landscape of or does does it create a hybrid with enchantment? what's your read on that?
Cameron (07:07)
It's a good question.
Well, my read on that is that as a Christian, I'm going to say that we are inescapably spiritual creatures. So that that that dimension of human existence doesn't go away. But it can go in different directions based on the context. And so if the context now is so let me stories are really important for us in how we make sense of
The world and our place in the world. So I think in this sense, and I'm drawing my thinking here from a book called Without God, Without Creed by James Turner. And so he makes this point in the book. What Charles Darwin did was of immense imaginative significance for us. Because so he says, so Turner says about Darwin's whole spiel.
that basically it's a kind of competing tragic, dark cosmic drama.
Nathan (08:11)
But actually Darwin himself felt this, right? This isn't the Yeah, this isn't reading something into it th later.
Cameron (08:13)
He f he keenly felt it. Darwin.
Darwin was a deeply, deeply sensitive soul. He was. And very nervous person, you know, had lifelong issues with his stomach. Was very, very worried about also the public ramifications of o of his publications, what would happen. And in, you know, with good cause, by the way. People did come after him because but what he did.
Why I'm why I'm saying it's a it's a grand competing cosmic tragic narrative competing with Christianity. For the first time, what what Darwin does, I mean, evolutionary thinking had been around, but what Darwin did was to to give us a comprehensive vision. And sh he turned I mean, really a powerful story. Now, the plausibility of that story was one thing.
Turner points out that it actually, in terms of its plausibility from a scientific standpoint, had it had numerous problems at the time. It really did. But what it gave, what it, what it lost in, in that kind of sort of scientific plausibility, more than made up for in terms of its imaginative value, because it gave it was a complete story. And in this complete story, human significance is called into deep question. And also, it's not just that. So whereas
In the past, people could look would look at the natural world and they would say, Wow, look at this world of wonders and beauty and exuberance and joy. Darwin pressed into a lot of the details, and I think a key word here is predation, right? Look at look at the viciousness, look at the ruthlessness. Now, it doesn't matter that these are anthropomorphic terms that were, you know, again, I'm say it's a story, but
Look at the ruthlessness. Look at the viciousness. I think often of Alex O'Connor, Nathan, who just loves the line of the z the zebra with its with its windpipe caught in the jaws of a lion. You know, he said he I've heard him say but
Nathan (10:15)
Well no, I mean we we can make I
had to I had to rescue a bleeding chicken from a bunch of other chickens this morning. I mean that's it's there. Yeah.
Cameron (10:22)
And and think about, yeah, so that's the red and tooth and claw. I think that line
was Tennyson's, right? That is of immense imaginative significance. I w just I want us to Cameron keeps saying that over and over again like an incantation. Do you think that's gonna change? What I mean is that's right. But that changed the way we looked at reality. And whether it was true or not, it was compell it is immensely compelling. And so
Nathan (10:37)
It's because we're dumb you have to keep repeating it for us.
Cameron (10:52)
It's it's an alternative picture. Whereas in the past, in the Middle Ages, you had a a grand cosmic hierarchical vision where everything had its was was properly integrated and everything had its proper place. With Darwin yeah.
Nathan (11:07)
Well, and the shapes like the maps
were circles and there was symmetry and
Cameron (11:13)
Symmetry, spheres, the music of the spheres. People why do people pine for that vision? They don't pine for the Middle Ages because they want the primitive plumbing or crude dentistry. That that nobody wants that. We don't want sewage flowing in the streets. But what they do want, I think, I think they want that integrated vision where a place where I've said before in the past, you know, in a healthy, in a healthy world, you can take your humanity for granted and your gender and everything else.
Nathan (11:21)
Ha ha ha.
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (11:42)
In a healthy world, you can also take meaning your your own place in the universe and meaning and significance for granted. That's what Darwin unwittingly completely undid. I don't think I don't he wasn't trying to be the architect of that kind of dissolution, but he was, because he's a very compelling thinker and a very good writer, and didn't shrink from some of his what he believed to be real conclusions. You're right. The other thing, Nathan, I think I should bring in here is that Darwin
had a great love of box music, but then grew more and more tormented at it at the sound of it at the end of his life because he did feel that it in the end it was just a symphony of meaninglessness. So it was harder and harder for him to push that to the side of his mind as he was listening. So yeah, I'll pause there for a second.
Nathan (12:25)
Okay.
Well let's let's let let's
work a little bit on your on your initial question of like something is wrong with us. So say we're not post enchantment.
What if enchantment is, okay, there's obviously the role of the individual and how we see ourselves and are enchanted with ourselves is in there. But that's not totally new. I mean, it's not like the story of narcissists was written in the 1970s. That that's that's pretty pretty standard human feature for a while now. what about the element of enchantment as entertainment? So so let's say, Cameron, that I'm just seeking a sensation. I don't ultimately think that there's actually anything profoundly meaningfully.
significant about my religious experiences, but I just like the it's like the it's like the jump scare equivalent that gives me the little adrenaline wrench. I want to have something that feels like I'm touching something that transcends me, but at the end of the day, it was a a fun little rush of something, but it's not profoundly true.
Cameron (13:31)
Look at the immense difference between an ancient pagan, where there was a lot of blood and guts involved, human sacrifice, people I mean, people really self flagellation, people traveled great distances and altered the entire shape of their lives, according to the message from the Oracle at Delphi. Is that the case with people who are dabbling in paganism now? Absolutely not. Would they die for their convictions?
Nathan (13:44)
Self flagellation.
Cameron (14:00)
Absolutely not. do they even really qualify or rise to the level of convictions? No, I don't think so. So I think what's happening here, Nathan, what you're getting at is so again, I wanted to give the backstory. That backstory, so we may not be disenchanted, but here's what I do want to say. We do live in the shadow of unbelief. I I still for for my part, I'm okay with mox wavers. I th I still think disenchantment's a perfectly useful term. But okay, fine. We haven't thrown away our tarot decks and
Nathan (14:18)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cameron (14:27)
Wicanism is on the rise, even though it's a very modern development, by the way. But okay. My so so what? Look at how we're using this. Are we using these different practices like practices, or are they more like products?
Nathan (14:42)
no. Well here's how you know. Are you trying to adapt the experience to your life or are you trying to adapt your life to the experience?
Cameron (14:51)
Right.
Right. So if it is an accessory to your lifestyle, congratulations. You're preh you're behaving
Nathan (14:57)
Hang on. Time out. There are a whole
lot of people who do those Christianity too, so let's just make sure we're equal equal opportunity. Okay. Yeah.
Cameron (15:01)
No, I'm including
I'm including Christianity in this. So, yeah. So if you treat Christianity or any other religious belief system or any other pagan practice or any other pre you know spiritual practice in practice, if you treat it as an accessory or something to your life, then congratulations. You are a consumer, not a devotee. That's and that's the emptiness of this all. That's why, in the end, we may be that's why a lot of this stuff and and by the way, I don't think this this this stuff is neutral.
So don't hear me saying that. I think there are real spiritual there there is such a thing as spiritual powers, and there are good and evil powers. I do. But you're using it like that. It amounts to nothing more than a kind of empty parlor trick. Now, occasionally something might bite back and people deal with that. But even so, there is an inescapably, you mentioned narcissists, there is an inescapably narcissistic.
trend in so much of this. And we in America are uniquely predisposed to that, Nathan. I think often I've been doing a deep dive into the transcendentalists p partly because I find them interesting and think they're profound thinkers and writers. So I appreciate a lot of what the transcendentalists have to say. But Amherst
Nathan (16:17)
I think the application
of their ideas largely makes them goobers, but the ideas are fun. That's we'll we'll arm wrestle about that another day.
Cameron (16:21)
Okay. That's so that's that's a good cr that's Nathan's critical assessment is that they are largely goobers. Yeah. But Emerson
Emerson is the one who says if your if your heart is stirred by something, he says that's the God within responding to the God without. I th so Americans are that is in the DNA of our our living here in America. Whether we've read that or not, that we that's in the water. We've we've we tend to believe that.
Nathan (16:48)
No, that so so that's
but that's the gooberiness, is that that is a profound thought and a wonderful insight, and academically I think it's a fascinating thing to dwell on and it's a good articulation of the reality that we live in. The flip side is is that living it out to his logical conclusion is a disaster. The end. Rest my case.
Cameron (16:52)
Very goobery.
Let me bring in something else here, Nathan, that is just unique to my own interests and unique in the sense that it it doesn't overlap with any of your interests at all. But if you look at the shape of horror right now, it's really interesting. I have I do have in mind something. Well, it's winning, but also a particular type of horror is is winning. So there was a there was a joke recently on the internet that sh compared
Nathan (17:23)
It's winning.
Cameron (17:36)
Scary movies of the past, which had evil villains, to scary movies of today, which have backrooms or liminal spaces as villains. And basically, the joke was we seem to be scared of stuff that's not there today, like emptiness. Nothing. There there's just there's nothing really here. But that's and it might be a joke.
Nathan (17:55)
Hmm. You can't put enough
teeth or eyeballs on a monster to make them scary anymore.
Cameron (18:01)
But that's but that's kind of the point. Backrooms, which I think backrooms is really compelling, by the way. I think so what I think is so interesting about some of these newer horror films, I have another in mind, another one like Skin emerink, where it's it's some people find it deeply frightening, I did, but some people find it deeply boring because it's it's two little kids in their childhood home and it it unfolds like a miasmic nightmare. But so much of modern horror turns on old on technology.
you know, surveillance footage or sound footage or what but there's also there's another there's a deeper fear in all of this that in the end there's no real monst there's nothing there at all. There's a there's just a c we're alone. It's a complete and total kind of absence. Whereas in the past, there really was something there. There was there was an evil there was a good and an evil. But now some of these are more cosmic in the sense of HP Lovecraft. Maybe in the end we're totally alone.
Nathan (18:43)
Hm.
Cameron (19:01)
We're like two children in a house and there are no there is nobody home. We are completely alone.
Nathan (19:06)
What it what are what what's the parallel to thinking back toward some of the like the Francis Schaefer Schaefer apologetic era of the God who is there? and this idea that there is a there there. was that a different time or was he ahead of the time, or is that the a s are we in that same similar condition of when you were saying there's nothing there? That just triggered a lot of kind of Christian language of of philosophically trying to engage with that.
Cameron (19:18)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (19:36)
Are we actually alone language?
Cameron (19:38)
Yeah, I don't think we've moved past that. So I I do I do think Schaefer was quite a pioneer in a lot of what he was doing in his apologetic approach. I mean, he was one of the first people to one of the first major figures to actually take film seriously. He was the guy I mean, when a while a lot of Christians were not allowed to go to the you know, were s a lot of Christian colleges forbade their students of f from going to the movies and all of that. Here's Francis Schaefer talking about Ingmar Bergman. So I I think he was quite ahead of his time with a lot of that. Are we out of the woods there? No. I mean, I think the basic
fear here is that in the end we that that shadow of unbelief is that hey we are alone it is all hollow none of this really means anything and there's just this grand grand sense of absence and even yeah I think people even in their in some of their more I don't know in their more awake moments
Can sense that even as they're playing around with their various spiritual practices. I mean, if you hold everything so lightly, it's hard for it to feel real. I mean, if it's all just an app on your phone, or and and if the number one question you're asking is, does this work for me or do I like this? This is where we see a deep, deep longing that can turn very dangerous, actually, where people want something more, where they they want something that is bigger than themselves.
Nathan (20:45)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (21:03)
So there's a thinker here who I found helpful over the years. I don't he doesn't get a lot of attention. I mean, he's very respected in the academic community, but his name is Scott Aitran. He's an he's an anthropologist and a scientist, but he did a lot of work on radicalization, especially during so I guess this would have been in around two thousand fifteen or so when ISIS was really in the news. He he wrote extensively about how people were were recruited and were radicalized.
But one of the things that he says over and over again in various different ways is that you have this tremendous spiritual vacuum and young people need to be re-ritalized. This is his language, re-spiritualized, re-enchanted, re-ritualized. Those are the three things he said. And empty consumerism isn't gonna do it for them anymore. And if we can't if we can't offer to them some cohesive moral vision of meaning and significance.
Then he said, I think we're in for many dark new developments. And w and he said that years ago. We're seeing some of those dark new developments. Yeah, right, exactly. So
Nathan (22:09)
Yeah, hard to argue with. Yeah. And
so maybe not, you know, maybe not ISIS radicalism, but the ruts are pretty deep in most categories now.
Cameron (22:16)
No, but peop but
but yeah, maybe random shootings, assassinations, vandalism, destruction of cities, just sort of incoate rage in our cities. I mean, we we are seeing a lot of that. I mean he's he's just saying what we would say is, well, in the end, we're if we are spiritual creatures, the narcissism and the consumerism is not going to be enough.
even if we're playing around, if even if it takes on a spiritual guise, it isn't enough. There's a real hunger there, there's a real need there and w it needs w it needs to be addressed or destructive things do happen and will happen.
Nathan (22:57)
Yeah.
Yeah. so so help me with this then, because Paul seems to make an argument in Romans one. I guess because you could you could be asking yourself the question, so what is God? It seems like there's a spiritual vacuum. If there is a God who's there, why isn't he revealing himself more clearly? Why is he silent? Why is he hidden? if there if there is a there there, why is the there difficult to see? So cup Okay, so so what so Paul makes the argument that
Cameron (23:21)
Hmm. I don't think it is difficult to see. But yeah.
Nathan (23:27)
It is that God's nature character and nature is is are immediately and obviously clear, and no one's gonna be without excuse. So there's that's a pretty I was actually just recently asking a group of students, what do you think about this argument? Does this seem true to you right now? interesting discussion. so yeah, that yeah, no, it doesn't seem true. but that that might
Cameron (23:31)
Invisible attributes or yeah.
Mm-hmm.
What'd they say?
Okay. Yeah.
Nathan (23:55)
So this might I think this plays in this conversation. But then you have another layer added onto that where I was looking at just thinking here while you're talking, ideas like Second Corinthians four, the God four, four, the God of this age, referring to Satan, the God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. And there's obviously a lot more to it, but this this idea of living in a a time that is so incorrectly spiritual.
Cameron (24:25)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (24:25)
That is
spiritually blinded to being able to see, combined with the biblical sense in which the times of advanced confidence in your own linguistic abilities, your own intelligence, and your own affluence have all been the spiritual low points of all cultures, historically speaking. It it it it seems like if we took the biblical narrative that we, Cameron, in the modern West.
live at one of the worst times for this to be obvious because we've blown it out by our technological abilities to satisfy some of our own needs temporarily, by our own philosophy that tells us we can create our own meaning, and by our own capacity to distract ourselves from having to actually engage w with the world as it actually is. Where does where does chronology, where does the rise and fall of empire, where does
Cameron (25:08)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Nathan (25:21)
changes in what God's doing in different parts of the world. And you talk about the rise of Christianity in the global south. Who how do you how do you personally see moves of the spirit, acts of God? What part of this is God desiring to reveal and us being knuckleheaded about it? And what part can you give us some pointers on, I think for the Christian listening to this who's like, okay, you guys are critiquing this, but I I'm kind of feeling a little uneasy here in that I actually the argument might be too good for there is no there there.
Cameron (25:47)
No.
Well, the the obviousness of the clear attributes of God or the signs of God are only obvious if you can see it past the end of your own nose. And that's what we have such trouble with in the West. That's what we have such trouble with as late modern people. Wherever we look, our whole vision and view is circumscribed by human ingenuity and technology. You look into the sky, it's filled with light pollution, competing with the stars, airplanes and satellites.
That tends to mislead us into thinking that it's all about us that we call the shots. So we have to make a conscientious effort. That's why, just speaking in practical terms, why a lot of this stuff doesn't seem as immediately obvious to us as it did to people in the past. I mean, in the past, I mean, again, most people, the most straightforward human response to the world and what we see around us has been.
A response of awe and humility rather than saying, hey, look at all this space. We can do stuff with it. We can make it obey our every whim and wish. That's a that's a distinctly d new development. So there is that. We have to.
Nathan (27:11)
Well, but
and but we sort of can. That's this is the challenge, is we sort of can. Like there there is a high degree to which we were created to manipulate reality into a a purpose and agenda. Now we weren't created to do that for our own purpose and agenda, but we we can a little bit. But then you have things like why why are natural disasters so unsettling? Because it cracks this facade of us being actually in ultimate control.
Cameron (27:33)
Well that's where Yes.
Those are the chinks in the armor. And we get those every now and then. But our responses to them are often very deeply foolish. Where we could gain some some wisdom instead of saying the wisdom would be to s to see a natural disaster and to recognize we don't have full control. We are in the scriptural sense, we are gardeners, but we don't create
the garden itself in the in the fullest sense in the you know all the raw elements that we harvest and we don't cause we don't we ourselves don't completely cause all the growth. We're we are at the mercy of the elements, so to speak, in a in a significant sense. But no, instead we, you know, what do we do? Whenever there's a a major storm here, let's I'm just picking on, you know, hurricanes or something like that. What what's the first thing that gets blamed? You know, it's usually it's climate change. Right. And now I'm not we're not
Nathan (28:27)
humans, climate change.
We were able
to do this to us.
Cameron (28:33)
Exactly. So not not not necessarily disparaging, you know, any of the the climate change science or anything like that. It's a whole separate conversation. But my point here is, hey, we're to blame because we're in control. Or if there's some if there's a horrendous act of terrorism or mass shooting, it's always who's the culprit besides the person who what what conditions yeah.
Nathan (28:54)
Well, no, I I I guarantee I
I guarantee you, Cameron, if you're walking through your local park and a breeze blew and broke a tree branch out and it fell and hit you in the head, you could sue somebody for that.
Cameron (29:04)
Right, it's somebody's fault. Yeah. And so but again, what what are we saying here? These these examples are pictures of how deeply ingrained is the notion that we're in charge. And if you think of yourself as in charge all the time, then it it makes perfect sense that you can look into the starry sky, even if you're in some beautiful on some beautiful campsite or you've you've driven out into the country and you see the the heavens blazing beautifully and not feel that small.
Nathan (29:05)
Peace I guess.
Cameron (29:34)
Not feel as small as you used to and think, well, you know, Elon Musk is is that one thing blew up, but he's at work on another one, and maybe we'll get to Mars here soon. And all of that, you can be very y it's it's still is a species of you not seeing past the end of your nose. Rather than looking at the givenness and asking yourself, what does that say? How does that put into a different perspective my place in the world, the significance of human life?
the yeah, the ha ha the humility that I might want to to bring to bear on my interactions with other people and my treatment of the world and my comportment. So that's I'm just I'm not I'm not giving any answers here. I'm just I'm trying to point out how deeply ingrained our narcissism is. It is possible to get out of it. But you have to what what once came naturally to a lot of people, for those of us in the West, now it has to be a careful
Intentional decision. That's the difference. Just as the as it used to be natural years, you know, at one point to, you know, just believe in of course everybody believes in God. You know, you could just take that for granted. Now you do so knowing it's highly contested, there are other belief systems out there. You could as easily be something else. That's again, that's a that kind of self consciousness, that human choice being elevated to such a high position, all of that is new.
Nathan (31:04)
So if we could set aside our our craving for autonomy and even in our spiritual interactions, I think maybe the way in which we talk about Christianity could be helpful here too, in the sense that the biblical vision of our spiritual interaction and engagement is not a touch the hot stove as fast as you can and run away. It's a sense of indwelling. So to have the spirit indwelling or abiding in me.
Cameron (31:30)
Mm.
Nathan (31:30)
is
a very Jesus in John 15 kind of language. I'm the you know vine, you are the branches, this in embeddedness and indwelling as a as a full, you think of baptism as a as a statement of death, of dying to self and and rising to walk in the newness of life, that there's a an immersive sense here because enchantment is not enough. I don't want a world that's enchanted, just enchanted, because you can be enchanted with the wrong things.
You can be enchanted with silly stuff. You can be enchanted with dangerous stuff. You can be enchanted with stuff that you made up. so as Christians, we we want to recognize this enchanted world, but just because, you know, hey, the demons believe there's a god and shudder, and th th they're enchanted creatures, but that's that's not the full goal. So enchantment is not enough. We have to go beyond that. But in order to go beyond mere enchantment, there is a huge part of ourselves and our own my will be done agenda.
Cameron (32:13)
Hm. Yeah.
Nathan (32:28)
that I have to lay aside in order to step into something that is bigger than myself. My sense is Cameron, we live in a time in which everybody wants to connect with something bigger than themselves as long as that other thing doesn't tell them what to do or how to live their lives.
Cameron (32:41)
Which is the tragedy, 'cause then it can't by definition be bigger than themselves.
If you if you if you want it only, if whatever it is you're you're pursuing, if you want it only on your terms, that that that's the great tragedy. It's it's like the the Freudian joke. I would never be a member of a club that would have a guy like me as a member. So I want something bigger. That was Woody Allen riffing on Freud. But there's always i i if you say, I want transcendence, but only on my terms, is that transcendence?
Nathan (33:03)
Or was it Woody Allen?
Cameron (33:16)
You know, so it's sometimes I think we're not doing too much here other than pointing out a problem, but sometimes the the first step I suspect we we can do it part two or we can c circle back on this and talk about and offer a more positive vision of how Christianity we believe offers the kind of robust, powerful vision that exceeds our own wants and wishes. But right now I think it's helpful just to point out here's the problem. Okay.
We might we're not disenchanted in the sense that we've laid aside all of our little spiritual games. But they are nothing more for many of us than just games.
Nathan (33:51)
So, no,
there's a very practical takeaway to this, Cameron, based off of what you've said. And it's the same starting point for me on all of these conversations is hey, to what degree am I listening to this advice for myself and in my walk with Christ? The the whole plank in the own eye thing is is pretty strong in this particular category. And so that's not saying you can't get the plank out and help other people with their spec.
Cameron (34:09)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (34:17)
But it is saying that there's no way we are going to be helpful in answering this question for the broader world if we don't have clarity on this individually and then as a community and and speak and articulate it clearly in a way that there's actually a there there to invite other people to join into immersively rather than just here's a bumper sticker of an idea to slap on the back of your brain and you're good to go.
Cameron (34:43)
Think on these things if you'd like to. And thanks for hanging with us here on Thinking Out Loud. In case you missed it, this is Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope. If you like what we do, then like it, share it, and subscribe to it. Join our YouTube channel where you can watch our funny mugs, Nathan's bearded, mine not so bearded, chatting and making animated facial expressions. It's a lot of fun. And join.
Nathan (34:55)
Like it.
Rubbing our noses,
playing with pens, and not selling you vitamins.
Cameron (35:14)
Playing with pens, not selling you vitamins. Join TOL Connect. If you want to continue the conversation and you want to be argumentative and bring to bear your own thoughts on the conversation. And if you'd like to support what we do financially, you can do that by going to www.toltogether.com.