Why Autonomy Is Backfiring: Late-Stage Individualism and the Crisis of Meaning
Nathan (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host Nathan Rittenhouse.
Cameron (00:04)
and I'm your co-host Cameron McAllister. In this episode, we talk about what Ezra Klein termed late stage individualism. What on earth does that mean? Well, it means individualism isn't working anymore. Nathan's analogy is that we're in a car that's been coasting on fumes, but now the vehicle is coming to a stop and we got a choice. Stay in the car and die or get out of the car, find something else or join together with other people and push the car to a mechanic. But we need more people in our lives. We're lonely. We feel an increasing sense of meaninglessness. So what do we do?
This will be helpful to you as you think about the absolutely crucial and vital role of the church, which we both think ought to be your village. As always, like, share, and subscribe. And if you want to support the work that we're doing, you can do that by going to www.toltogether.com.
Nathan (00:07)
Well, Cameron, we were just down in the Christian study center at the University of South Carolina. Shout out to those who hosted and attended that event. Braved the South Carolina snow to hang out with us. But the topic that we were discussing there was radical individualism, partly at what we see happening in the world around us and partly at the request of the host turned out to be a great night. And I want to get to some of the things specifically that you shared, but ⁓
The next morning I saw that the New York Times had posted an article. I was one of the video podcasts from Ezra Klein talking about ⁓ what not peak individualism late stage individualism and it got me thinking about this story So, let's see last Friday. We were supposed to be speaking Well, you did speak at restoration prez down in Atlanta. My thing got cancelled So instead of listening to your talk online camera Cameron, I went to my grandmother's 89th birthday So, let's see as my grandpa and grandma
Two of their sons and their wives, five of their grandsons, 11 of their great grandkids. And it was a riot. There was chaos. was food. There was candles on cakes, the grandkids singing happy birthday and pounding on the table so loud that you barely could hear in grandma's belly laughing from crying. just the hilarity and the hystericalness of big loud family pile of people. Good times had by all. So there's, there's that vision of, of community and family and togetherness.
Cameron (01:22)
you
Nathan (01:33)
But if you back up 67 years, ⁓ grandpa talks about how grandma frequently when she was 22 used to cry on Sunday afternoons because of how lonely she was.
And so there's a sense there in which it's interesting to me to see a transition in one individual's life from a time in which they had no family, felt isolated, didn't feel like they had a deep friend or social network to the other end of that, where you're almost smothered in it, to look at some of the transitions of where I think some people feel like they are today, a vision of what's possible in a village of what it means to be part of something like that.
And the tension that we seek here is that on one hand, we do want to express ourselves as individuals and be our own unique character and personality. But pushing that too far does drive us to a form and a version of isolation that does not produce the things that we probably actually really do crave ⁓ in other stages of our lives. And so I just offer that as a starting point.
Cameron (02:30)
Mm.
Nathan (02:47)
I was thinking specifically of your idea of the desire and the need for a village. Maybe you can quickly remind us of that idea and then pull these things together. But I want to work this through for people who are, yeah, maybe feeling like their social life isn't ideal or having a vision of what it could be. ⁓ and I want to say that, well, some of these conditions are built for you and you're going to have to rebuild some of them yourself.
Cameron (03:11)
Sure. Well, I mean, the fact is we all inherited a kind of romantic vision of the self. if you live in North America, but increasingly because of the internet, these ideas are sort of global. But basically I think the best picture we get of it in North America, I mean, I think probably the clearest exponent of this is Jean-Jacques Rousseau who said, you know, we...
Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains. The idea that society corrupts, but you're a noble savage apart from those societal institutions. Well, we have our own version of that here in America and it comes to us from Emerson. He wrote a little book called The Woods, came out in, I think it was 1836. And yeah, he says the same thing. He goes, well, if you want to discover who you really are, you have to leave society behind. So in other words, you have to leave your village and you have to go into the woods and there.
You know, in the primitive laboratory of the woods, your true self will be revealed. It sounds good. we're, mean, there's a long tradition. We like this in America. Think of something like Jack Kerouac's on the road. The road is immensely evocative for us in, North America. Well, maybe not as much anymore because people don't get out much. We can talk about that in a second, but it used to be at least, it was the picture of freedom. You get in your car, you hit the road and you're after experience and adventure. But.
The problem is if you just think about this for, I don't know, five seconds, it kind of falls apart. mean, Emerson was a Harvard graduated guy with the means to be able to stroll into the woods and leave it all behind. know, Nathan, you could say the same thing. You have some rather punchy things to say about Thoreau as well. I mean, how far was his cabin from town, you know, where he could go to the school?
Nathan (04:56)
I Mean when I lived in Boston,
I could ride my bike out there. There's a train track that went right. I mean it's anyway
Cameron (05:06)
Yeah. So
hardly a vision of total isolation, but here's the point. The one that you're kind of pointing to. I mean, the most, the ancient understanding, I'd rather just call it the common understanding was that for better or for worse, you're made by the village. So that is you're made by the community into which you're born and some of the big markers of your identity. You have a hand in it, of course. You have a hand in who you become, but the big markers.
things like family, nation, and faith, initially at least, you don't have a choice in the matter there.
Nathan (05:43)
⁓
you have a hand in who you become as you have a hand in how you fit into the village. So there is a personal identity that is a step back from your broader role in the broader culture.
Cameron (05:47)
Thank
Right.
Yeah. Well, and again, we, people, I want to be careful with how I say this because you don't want to get anachronistic. Historically, people weren't thinking about identity in the way we do at all. In the sense that they weren't worried about it. Not the way we are. Yes, that's so well said, Nathan. Thinking about your identity is a sign of a pathology because under normal circumstances, you take your identity for granted.
Nathan (06:17)
yeah, thinking about it is the sign of a pathology.
Cameron (06:30)
You don't need to worry about figuring out who you are. You don't need to worry about, well, what's my sexual orientation? Do I have gender dysphoria? We're mentioning serious issues, but there are also signs of profound and also quite basic confusion. I just want to point that out. The understanding was always, there's a dynamic, interactive relationship of mutual accountability within the village.
You are shaped by others and you shape others in turn for better or for worse. Sometimes you mar other people. Sometimes they mar you and hurt you. Sometimes you help them. Sometimes they help you.
Nathan (07:05)
Okay So I can imagine a young person
listening to this camera and saying blah blah blah blah blah What a nice nostalgic road trip you guys are taking us on here. What in the world does that have to do? For with me. Yeah, cuz cuz it feels like we're Okay, that that's not going to happen Or is it so so I guess I want to push you on here a little bit is as we as we kind of Imagine the engine dies on your car
Cameron (07:15)
Mayberry.
Nathan (07:35)
You can keep coasting for a while, but then slowly it's going to come to a stop. And I think we're in this moment where actually technology has even heightened this feeling of like we are drifting to a total stop as it comes to our ability to socially interact or form actual community. And here we are in the last little, you know, fragments of motion here and the thing's going to stop and we're going to have to get out of the car.
Cameron (07:43)
fumes are gone.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (08:04)
You either die in the car or you get out and start walking or figure out how to fix the car.
Cameron (08:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, boy, push the car together to a mechanic. Yeah. Yeah.
Nathan (08:11)
Yeah, everybody gets out and pushes the car.
that's the so we can we can do the analysis of it.
Cameron (08:18)
Well, let me ask you something, Nathan. If I asked you, I think you're right. How do you spell out in practical terms, this stopping point? So you said, yeah, we're, Ezra Klein used the term late stage individualism, but what do we mean, but when we say it's not working, what are some of the signs that tell us, ⁓ yeah, we're no longer coasting on fumes. This vehicle's coming to a complete stop.
Nathan (08:45)
Mm-hmm. Well, the so the desire for I don't know that we ever had to desire to be individuals we we had a desire for a certain vision of freedom and Individualism seemed to like this the fastest way to get there So if you think about it, the fastest way to gain freedom is to deny responsibility Like I don't have a dog Nothing wrong with having a dog. But when I go on a trip, I don't have to get anybody to watch my dog for me I'm free of that responsibility. So so the the more responsibilities that you add into your life
Cameron (08:54)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Nathan (09:15)
the less freedom it feels like you have. And so the most free thing that you can do is to take on the world on your own terms, to ⁓ not have responsibilities or connections to other people, to not have ⁓ deep contacts or connections that make you vulnerable or dependent on the lives of the behaviors and actions of the people around you. And so I totally get, I have a strong degree of that within myself to want to be my own man and to say the easiest way.
to free of this is to say, that's not my problem. I don't have that responsibility. That's somebody else. We pay somebody else to take care of that. Where that's a government, that's a problem so big only the government can handle it. There's that desire. Here's the thing though, is that the more you reject responsibility from your life, the more you learn that all of the foundations of meaning are linked to responsibilities. And so our desire for freedom by focusing on the individual,
by separating ourselves from responsibility has left us with less meaning. And so it's ⁓ a isolated vision of freedom that has not generated the bill of sales. So it was promised to us, gifted to us, we swallowed it, and then we found that we're still hungry. That's the issue here with late stage individualism.
Cameron (10:42)
Yeah.
Yeah. And that hunger expresses itself variously as terrible loneliness, which is a huge, huge problem right now. You mentioned it, a sense of meaninglessness, but also a sense of helplessness. mean, because people have curtailed responsibility in the name of freedom, as you just mentioned. Well, I mean, I feel this. I'm a lot less self-sufficient and independent than some of my ancestors were.
You're less so because you're kind of a, you're a cultural anomaly existing in kind of village setting.
Nathan (11:09)
For sure.
But I also,
my wife and I 10 years ago made a very conscious choice from that and probably fiscally paid the price for it in some, it, any, I guess here's what we should say, is any choice that you make is going to cost you something.
Cameron (11:27)
Sure. Yeah.
Nathan (11:29)
It's just a calculation now Cameron of do I want to door-dash and Netflix it on out from here or Do I want to suffer in the sense of making myself vulnerable to engage humanity and the people around me? And I'm not making this I don't want to make it sound like that's an easy thing for a lot of people to sort out but that's what that's it gets us back to the car has come to the stop and
The other thing that happens within individualism though, that makes this more difficult as a compounding issue is that in a world of individualism, we have to learn, relearn how to do everything that we once would have naturally been taught in the village. I think we talked about this maybe last year. I was talking about a lady who had started a reusable diaper business. ⁓ and then the, the customer service part of that was for people who
Cameron (12:02)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (12:25)
she recognized that a very high percentage of people who were having children for the first time had never held a baby before.
So your first experience of a baby was your own motherhood. So if you grew up as a single child, you weren't part of a community that had children around, you live on the Upper East Side of a young, working, professional neighborhood, when would you interact with that? You have to relearn how to do everything. it generates some weird, so scroll back to, I was listening to a thing on birthrate decline.
Cameron (12:53)
Basic,
Nathan (13:01)
cultural perspectives of this and the different countries are saying, you know, the, countries that have still sustainable birth rates, there's a huge social pressure to have children. I was like, I don't know that that's right. Did I, I never, I can't remember ever a time in which I felt pressured to get married and to have a family. I don't think my parents ever talked to me about that. Nobody ever leaned on me. I, I don't know. I described the kind of birthday party like, so, so think about my great, my grandma's birthday party.
Cameron (13:29)
Well, hold on.
Nathan (13:31)
the kids there are going to grow up with a vision of like having and being part of a family is a really fun thing. Like my mom didn't call me this morning to tell me to eat breakfast. Like I just knew that it's a good thing to do.
Cameron (13:34)
Yeah?
Well, okay, hold on here.
Yeah.
Time out for a second because different people are going to, they're going to translate social pressure differently. So some people, when their, their parents, you know, they get, okay, they grow up, they meet somebody, they fall in love. it's great. All the photos and they get married and, then sort of, you know, there's this sort of long, long time where the parents say something like,
When are we going to have grandkids or if you belong to a church, when are you going to have babies? Now, Nathan, I don't know about you. I don't translate that necessarily as social pressure, but I know a lot of people who do. know lot people who have said to me, that's so personal. People shouldn't say that. Don't say that to married couples. Don't ask. Or I'm getting so much pressure from my mom and dad to have kids. I've thought, interesting.
Nathan (14:22)
⁓ interesting. Okay. Yeah.
Cameron (14:41)
You're translating that as social pressure because you see, I guess what I'm trying to bring us to is a very elementary point that won't be so elementary for a lot of us anymore. It's not elementary, Watson. And that is the notion that you should have that having children, if you're married, having a family is a choice. That's a novel historical development because in the past, this was just like identity assumed. And if you press people on it, they might say, well,
How else does the human race perpetuate itself? This is how civilization continues to exist. I don't know. What do want me to say here? But we don't look at it like that now at all.
Nathan (15:12)
Mm-hmm.
Well, and, but
go even farther back though, I mean, let's go Plato Republic all the way back, is like you have a ⁓ moral and ethical obligation to your nation state to have children. You'll talk about social pressure.
Cameron (15:28)
Yeah. Oh yeah. As part of the polis. Yes. But
also here, let's, let's, let's dig into some of the pathologies of our age. I mentioned this before, you know, the quote from Seth Rogen, right? The actor when they asked, when he was asked about children, I don't have the precise quote in my head anymore. It's so hideous. It's probably okay that I don't, but it's, he said something to the effect of it's real. I'm really happy to be on parents. I'm pretty sure he used the phrase on parents cause it's so, it's so stupid. I, yeah, it's stuck in my head.
Yeah, congratulations. All of us are now dumber for having heard that. no, but the point is here, he said, you know, it's wonderful not having kids. mean, my partner and I, made this decision and now we get to, you know, lie around in bed naked on Saturday and smoke joints and watch cartoons. So that goes right along with that vision of freedom that you were outlining of a total lack of responsibilities, no strings attached whatsoever. But I remember when I brought this up the first time you said something like,
Nobody's going to visit them in a nursing home.
Nathan (16:30)
Yeah.
Cameron (16:31)
And it's not like a gloating kind of gleeful thing, but it's, also it's just to point out that this is, this is a very different way in which we think now, one of the, the number one objections I hear to having children from people is they're always economic, at least in my experience, Nathan. Yeah, it's always, I mean, I can't afford to bring a kid into, the world. Look at the, look at inflation, look at real estate. can't, but that's again, is that, yeah.
Nathan (16:48)
yeah.
And that's why Nigerians are having four more, four times
as many kids as you, because they're just economically loaded compared to the average American.
Cameron (17:02)
Now our
Look, yeah, are we downplaying some of the real economic challenges? No, I don't think we are. We're trying to point out that thinking and... Right, they're crying out loud.
Nathan (17:13)
Well, we're not because you and I, Cameron, live right in the middle of it. For crying out loud. What
percentage of our total annual income are we spending on kids' teeth right now? I mean, so, some of it's a little bit like, A, how would you know, childless person, what it actually costs? And B, so it costs something.
Cameron (17:22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sure. Yeah.
⁓ But then let's go back to the things aren't working. And also now we're trying, we're put in the ludicrous position of trying to figure things out that are, you talked to me about the Ezra Klein show. He was interviewing a guest and this gentleman is, this lady is is helping people to plan social gatherings. She's some sort of an expert and we need coaching in inviting people to your house.
Nathan (17:34)
to be expected.
The lady, yeah.
Cameron (18:01)
All right, so here's what you do. You get some hors d'oeuvres, you get some food, stock your fridge with things to drink, and then you invite them over. But here we are. I'm making fun a little bit, but this was a serious conversation, and here we are.
Nathan (18:20)
And here we are, but here's the, here's, okay. Think of this. You're at Thanksgiving dinner. You have a cousin who's late twenties and they're not married. And one of the aunt says, why aren't you married yet?
Okay, first of all, I bet that person had never thought of it until the aunt brought it up, right? mean, so there is some weird, the well-intentioned attempts to help people figure out relationships. So don't want us to fall into that of, like, all the people sitting here thinking, well, whoop-de-doo, I never thought maybe I should get some more friends in life. It goes back to that, what was that meme circulating that the biggest miracle of Jesus's life is that he was a 33-year-old male with 12 friends? ⁓
Cameron (18:39)
Hmm. Yep. Sure.
Yeah.
Nathan (19:04)
Because I want to go farther back than that and say actually the conditions your social conditions are very Correlated to the social conditions that you grew up in and this isn't like a blaming the generation before us kind of thing But there is a sense in what we think of as normal and desirable was formed for us not by us and so that's the framework that is challenging for me to think through is I really
This is is an honest wrestle. I've been thinking about this a lot. I really don't know What the young person in a difficult spot is supposed to do it's because On one hand it's like okay. They're gonna have to build something that isn't going to materialize for them for 60 more years That's not really a super thrilling You know, it's like well everybody cut down all the apple trees you have to plant an apple tree and just wait that will have to happen so I
outside of an already existing model for pulling people back into relationship, I don't see there being a good way forward.
Cameron (20:18)
No, and there seems to be a growing recognition that this is the case. Now where that will lead, Nathan? I don't know. I'm trying to be cautiously hopeful that we're starting to see some of the insufficiency of our vision of freedom and individualism and identity. Now, I want to also say, we've stuck up for individualism before. There's a healthy expression of individualism, for sure.
Nathan (20:46)
yeah.
But Cameron, think about it like this. It's not only do we live in a culture that prioritizes individualism. That being the case, there has been a time, and I think it's still very alive and well, where parentally, we think the greatest gift that we could give our children is total autonomy. Do whatever you want to do. Go to school wherever you want to be. Be whatever you want to be. We will fund and...
How many parents are you like, well, they're off doing this and this and this. I'm not really sure about it. I'm like, you're funding it. Like the reason they're there is you're paying for it. And so there's a, there is a little bit of a sense in which that's what I mean by the generation before you always shapes the conditions of the way that you think about what is good and what is possible and what is valuable. And, and I'm not saying we shouldn't encourage our kids to explore, but there is a weird form of like,
You know what? They're just a blank little slate and we're going to throw peanut butter sandwiches at them for 21 years and see what they turn out to be. That also seems like a denial of the responsibility of the village back to the, you got to be careful here too, because I think who was it said it takes a, uh, it takes a village to raise a child. And I think Thomas soul said, and it takes the village idiot to believe it. Um, families really are the core. can't skip the family as far as like when we're talking about children, but when it comes to our
Cameron (21:44)
Well, let's.
Yeah.
Nathan (22:06)
Continued growth as a citizen and us thinking about how we fit broadly into culture There's a it's a two-way responsibility there
Cameron (22:11)
Yeah.
It is. I want to make a distinction here. So what would, how would we on, in very practical terms, define healthy individualism? think healthy individualism is a healthy sense of the dignity and worth of each person on the basis of their shared humanity. So that would be, that holds both intention. It means that you do have your individual quirks, your idiosyncrasies and your personality and it's valuable and it matters. As Christians, we'll go further. We'll say every
person is made in the image of God. So those quirky features are part of your calling and your gifting and the Lord has them there for a reason. That's a good thing.
Nathan (22:50)
Yeah, ⁓
but every time that gifting is talked about biblically, it's always for the service of the other.
Cameron (23:00)
Right. So on the basis of our shared humanity. So you are, yeah, you are an individual, but you're also another person. And in healthy expressions of this, you're, are in a community of some sort. So a lot of people I think can hear this and they'd say, okay, but yeah, what village? You talk about the village idiots? Okay, idiots. What village? My suggestion in the talk.
And many people are going to think I'm even dumber now. My suggestion in the talk was ideally speaking, the church should be your village in the late modern world. It might be a tall, or some people do live in villages right now. Not as many and certainly not as many here in, you know, where we live on North American shores, but ideally speaking, your church ought to be your village, but it's only going to be your village if it really is your village. That is you have to be all in. You can't.
You can't keep it at arm's length. can't have this. You can't have your village on your own terms. That's the, especially since COVID, that's the real powerful illusion with church. You know, I don't like the worship, so I'll, I'll, I'll maybe sneak in 15 minutes late or heck. I'd rather sit around in my pajamas. I'll just tune into an online service and I'll only go when I feel like it, you know, when I'm in the presence of a Swede and when it's not raining, things like that. This, this kind of nonsense, these ways we rationalize. No, you have to be
Nathan (24:06)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (24:24)
Church, part of church is worship and spirit and truth, yes, but it's also being a servant. So you go, you serve, you plug in. Anyway, yeah, I've said enough.
Nathan (24:30)
Okay. So we,
so we're talking here about the, our, I think a lot of people would be on board with that camera and say, yeah, I would love to be part of the church that I saw as my village. In fact, I guarantee you there are a lot of churches out there named the village, just guessing, but it also, so this is for those of you who are listening to this or part of church leadership is start thinking about what do we, how do we start to think about a more familial village mindset of what it means to be a church?
Cameron (24:45)
Sure.
Nathan (24:56)
And I'm not talking about a form of nationalism or like build a monastery kind of thinking here of just saying.
How does that play out? cause cause here's the opportunity. Think of Lewis and Clark expedition, right? So they're going to travel by water from the East coast to the West coast. That's the plan, right? They set out there in their canoes. I lots of good literature out there. I recommend I like Stephen Ambrose's undaunted courage as a read on this. ⁓ Anyway, so they get what, you know, little over halfway across the country and recognize the rivers don't go clear across. run into the mountains.
They're done for. are dead in the water because they've run out of water. And so I think this is a vision of this is what we'd like to see happen. And we paddle our little hearts out and we get to the end and say, it's not here. So you can say the same thing with late stage individualism. We have, we have tried the meme myself and I, and we've run out of water. It's not taking us anywhere. So what did Lewis and Clark do? And there's a sense of history, right? Lewis and Clark, you know, explored the Western frontier and you know, found the passage.
Cameron (25:55)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (26:04)
When Lewis and Clark ran out of water, what they did was they asked the people who already lived there how to move forward. So it's kind of, there's a sense of like, ⁓ well, all right, I guess we're going to back up and ask the people who have actually been here for a long time and know their way around these mountains, how to navigate without a canoe. And so I think this is a parallel vision and calling for the church is to say in a time.
Cameron (26:10)
Yeah.
Nathan (26:33)
in which so many people are trying to figure out how do you build community and friendship, warts, bumps, wrinkles and all, and still sticks together. There has to be a group out there who's been doing it. so, is like, anytime that I want to learn how to do something that I'm a little unsure of, I just find somebody who's done it well already and go ask them. That's not an earth shattering revelation. But the question is, can the church be that?
Cameron (26:41)
huh, yep.
Well, you may, it's not, but you made a cool distinction.
Nathan (27:03)
for our culture.
Cameron (27:03)
Well, you made a cool distinction when you brought that up last time, Nathan, because you said I could look this up on chap GPT, but then I realized, ⁓ I got this guy in my church who's been doing this for years. He's going to give me a much better answer. I'll just go ask Mike or whoever. Well, I want to chime in on one, on a final note here, Nathan, I think this is important to say, and I'm going to issue a challenge, listeners, because.
Nathan (27:14)
Yeah. Yeah.
Cameron (27:26)
I can do that more now. It's great being middle-aged, because now you can start being crankier and you kind of have a little bit of the authority of experience to do so. But allow me some crankiness here. So I was speaking about this the other night as well, Nathan, and somebody said, all right, but how do we bridge the gap between this vision that you've cast for the church, the vision I get was the village vision, and the reality on the ground? I've, so I think...
Nathan (27:29)
Yeah
Cameron (27:54)
We have to stop being romantics about the church. And I'm going to say that people who say, yeah, the reality is the churches just aren't like that. And, you know, I wish they were, but can't find them. You know, if I look to the early church, there's a beautiful vision and it's no longer possible. I, yeah, I hear you, but here's why I hear you. Cause I used to say that too. And in my case, at least I won't speak for you. It was an excuse and.
It was an excuse. helped me. It aided and abetted me in actually not getting involved, not being all in because I still wanted to keep my options open. Being a part of a church will make demands on you. It's an inherently invasive prospect. These people speak into your life. They're going to ask you about how your marriage is. They're going to ask you about whether you're sticking to that diet. All of that is there.
We often don't like that. So my encouragement to you is that there are wonderful churches out there who do model this. Sometimes it might be a bit of a drive, but in my experience at least, when I started earnestly praying about this and really seeking the Lord, it didn't take very long before I found faithful churches. I was at one faithful church for seven years and then we decided that we wanted to be closer to the city in which we live. And now I'm at another church and is it perfect?
No, do I annoy people there? Do they annoy me? Of course, but it is a village and it fits the vision that I've outlined.
Nathan (29:23)
you
Yeah, here's there's an awkward part to what you said though is that
I think we're going to find Cameron as we dial back from our individualism that geography is going to start mattering more So what did you just say there part of a great church? But we needed to be closer to where we lived and to the people that we lived with And in a highly individual like we'll pick up and go anywhere anytime, you know there's without a sense of place because I
Cameron (29:38)
Yeah.
Yeah, that was a big one for us. Yep.
Nathan (29:55)
Yeah, anyway, I can say a lot more about that, but geography is going to play a bigger role in...
Cameron (29:57)
Here, can I?
Yes. Can I offer a few
just practical tips here real quickly? I don't usually do this because I'm not very practical as everybody knows, but these are some strategies that have actually, you don't have to do them, but they've helped me in being all in with my church. So some of the just habits that we indulge in, most of us, most people I know who are Christians for a long time have a favorite preacher. I mean, come on, they have a favorite pastor and it's usually not their pastor.
They listen via podcast and, you know, I love my pastor. He's great. But man, that Alistair Bag, that Sinclair Ferguson, or whatever, you know, I'm in Presbyterian circles. So whatever person has a Scottish accent, but I don't do that anymore. I have chosen not to, now there are some speakers, pastors who, yeah, I really love their, I love their preaching. a lot of people, let's face it, in my neck of the woods did this with Tim Keller.
Nathan (30:57)
Well, it's insight and preaching, but it's not pastoring.
Cameron (30:57)
I'm not,
yeah, exactly. And I'm not saying, you know, don't go listen to Tim Keller or whatever, but I am saying you want to prioritize your own pastors because they're the team who are your actual pastors. They're in spiritual leadership over you. Yeah, I said leadership, spiritual leadership over you. A lot of us would balk at that. We don't like that. But, but, so for me, at least part of what helped me to do that was to stop listening to
Nathan (31:16)
It has just just that doesn't fit individualism.
Cameron (31:25)
you know, not have a favorite pastor on the side. You know, so I get in my car and I turn on this podcast and I cheat on my pastor. You know, I chose, now I'm not saying everybody, but for me, you know, that was really helpful, a way to just emphasize and prioritize my actual pastor and his voice in my life, or the pastoral team, their voices, rather than, again, having it outsourced to somebody else. Because the beauty of the internet is that all these resources
Nathan (31:30)
you
Cameron (31:54)
are available. The curse of the internet is that all these resources are available and they can tear you away from your own place and time if you're not careful. And so, don't let YouTube or anything else like that become a substitute for the actual spiritual voices in your life and your community.
Nathan (32:17)
There is a reckoning that'll have to happen, Cameron, when you think of Back to Henry David Thoreau out there at Walden Pond hoeing beans.
Cameron (32:24)
Mm.
Nathan (32:28)
bumming money off people so he could do it. mean, it's like, think of somebody who gets fed up with the education system, gets fed up with the government, and hikes off into and heads west in order to live a minimalist life that's funded. He's out there writing about ice bubbles.
Cameron (32:31)
Yeah.
Nathan (32:48)
that's funded by his writing and reflection on it and also by the goodwill of the people around him. mean, you copy and paste into a modern, ⁓ you know, like some of these things are a little too on the nose is for us to come back around and say.
What really is... So you've given good advice there and I appreciate it and I like it. And I also have a deep sense that whatever the solution is that goes beyond, it will have to be brutal in our lives. Not brutal in the bad sense, but like people are going to have to start making, we all are, some really hard choices about, you know what? I don't have time to spend this much time looking at this. I actually can't move there. It wouldn't be good for me spiritually. That job makes more...
Cameron (33:26)
Sacrificed.
Nathan (33:36)
but it takes me away from my community. mean, those are the types of things that are what... So the subculture thus far has been radical individualism. And the people who go off into the woods, like the little homesteader, I'm going to build a big fence around five acres and grow my own pumpkins, is just a continued vision of individualism. And so I think we just have to start calling it out in our own lives and in the things, and saying the things that are offered to me as forms of community,
are for me to prioritize my individual choices. And that's not what we're talking about. And so when you start talking about like spiritual authority, um, well, don't like this teaching or this idea. just go to a different church. There it is again. So I'm, I, I appreciate your advice. We can look historically and see it in the lives of other people. But when we start doing the work of thinking about it in our own lives, it gets very uncomfortable, very fast. But I think we have to get, I think we have to get out of the car.
Cameron (34:05)
Mm-hmm.
It involves sacrifice.
Like you said, yeah, we've to get out the car if the engine's not running. yeah, sacrifice is involved in this. It's another word that is all too rare in that sense and we don't like it in our individualistic culture. But yeah, there'll be some real abundant challenges here. But yeah.
Nathan (34:34)
if the engine's not running.
So,
late stage individualism is a prerequisite for the desire, I think, for a healthy community to form and grow. And the question is, do we want that as individuals and as communities? And as a community, have we built the welcoming committee for a culture that so desperately wants this?
Cameron (35:11)
Turn these things over in your mind. If we've challenged you, if we've ruffled feathers, if we've annoyed you, turn it over in your mind, think it through. Consider that usually in my case, if something annoys me, that's a prelude to good thought. So the proverbial stone in your shoe. So we're doing this because honestly, we're not trying to annoy, we're trying to help. So think this over.
I it'll be good for all of us. You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope.