The Dark Spell Over the West: An Interview with Dr. Joe Rigney

They burned kindly old ladies peddling herbal remedies , calling them witches . They made no progress in the natural sciences . They knew nothing of the world beyond their time and place and had no desire to know .

Their studies were narrow and dogmatic , and few great minds of their era applied their intellect to discover how many angels could dance on the head of a pin . Life was so miserable that most people , especially the dirt peasant majority , lived only for the next world , placing all their hope in heaven , beyond the stars .

Let's set the record straight From 962 , the crowning of Otto the Great as Holy Roman Emperor , to 1321 , the death of Dante , europe enjoyed one of the most magnificent flourishings of culture the world has seen .

In some ways it was the most magnificent , and this was not despite the fact that the daily tolling of the church bells provided the rhythm of men's lives , but because of it , because the people believed they lived in a comic world , that is , a world redeemed from sin , wherein the Savior had triumphed over darkness and death .

They could love that world , a right . They were pilgrims at heart , who yet passionately loved their native , local food and drink . They enjoyed the freedom of hope . They were not pressed to death with urgency to create a heaven upon earth , a longing that ends in despair or the gulag . You won't hear this tale on television or in school .

A powerful church should be a regular monster , destroying the intellectual endeavor and enforcing dreariness upon art , long before academia made artistic dreariness a mark of sophistication , fersuering instant gratification . Not that everyone in the Middle Ages did ferswear .

It should produce a continent of mopes , of seething villains , or something miserable which Americans with their dropout factories and nearly 3 million incarcerated men know nothing of . Besides , because we all believe in inevitable social progress , everything must have been terrible in the past , at least comparable to today .

We would shy away from the Middle Ages not because of its drabness , but because its vitality would fray our weak nerves . We'd have to rub our eyes to get used to the light . Why do modern historians classify Christendom as the Dark Ages ?

Why is this time period obscured by an incantation , like a Jedi waving his hand saying these are not the droids you're looking for . Authors of Protestant Church history are as much to blame as modern secular historians for attempting to hide or at least obscuring this time as a time to be ignored or , at the very least , to be ashamed of .

There is a sin at root of these narratives and motivations . By condemning this time in our history , these men fundamentally show that they hate their fathers of the faith . They are ashamed of the courage they displayed , of the things they built and of their failure to measure up to the task of our own time .

This modern incantation is an attempt to hide the truth from us . This incantation is reminiscent of the following story told by CS Lewis in his book Silverchair , in which the power of a tyrant can only be maintained by obscuring a world of light so that men would settle for darkness .

In the story , the ruler of the underworld was an evil witch who had enslaved the Prince of Narnia . The Prince's faithful companions had freed him from his prison and were making an escape when the witch interrupted their efforts .

Now , the witch said nothing at all , but moved gently across the room , always keeping her face and her eyes very steadily towards the Prince , when she had come to the little ark set on a wall not far from the fireplace , she opened it and took out , first a handful of green powder . This she threw on the fire .

It did not blaze much , but a very sweet and drowsy smell came from it and all through the conversation which followed , the smell grew stronger and filled the room and made it harder to think . Secondly , she took out a musical instrument , rather like a mandolin .

She began to play it with her fingers , a steady , monotonous thrumming that you don't notice after a few minutes , but the less you noticed it , the more it got into your brain and your blood . This also made it hard to think . After she had thrummed for a time and the sweet smell was now growing strong , she began speaking in a sweet , quiet voice .

Narnia , she said . Narnia , I have often heard your lordship utter that name in your ravings . Dear Prince , you are very sick . There is no land called Narnia . Yes , there is , though , ma'am , said Puttleglam , you see , I happen to have lived there all my life . Indeed , said the witch , tell me , I pray you , where that country is .

Up there , said Puttleglam , stoutly , pointing overhead I don't know exactly where . How , said the queen with a soft musical laugh . Is there a country up among the stones and mortar of the roof ? No , said Puttleglam , struggling a little to get his breath . It's an overworld . And what or where pray is this ? How do you call it Overworld ?

Oh , don't be so silly , said Scrubb , who was fighting hard against the enchantment of the sweet smell and the thrumming , as if you didn't know . It's up above , up , where you can see the sky and the sun and the stars . Why , you've been there yourself . We met you there . I cry you , mercy , little brother , laughed the witch .

You couldn't have heard a lovelier laugh . I have no memory of that meeting , but we often meet our friends in strange places when we dream . And unless all dreamed alike , you must not ask them to remember it . Madame , said the prince sternly . I have already told your grace that I am the king's son of Narnia .

And shalt be dear friend , said the witch in a soothing voice , as if she were humoring a child . Shalt be king of many imagined lands in thy fancies . We've been there too , snapped Jill .

She was very angry because she could feel the enchantment getting a hold of her every moment , but of course the very fact that she could still feel it showed it had not yet fully worked . And thou art queen of Narnia too ? I doubt not pretty one , said the witch in the same coaxing , half mocking tone . I'm nothing of the sort , said Jill , stamping her foot .

We come from another world . Why , this is a prettier game than the other , said the witch . Tell us in Little Maid , where is this other world ? What ships and chariots go between it and ours ?

Of course a lot of things started in a Jill's head at once Experiment House , adalia , pennyfeather , her own home , radio sets , cinemas , cars , airplanes , ration books and queues , but they seemed dim and far away . Thrum , thrum , thrum , and the strings of the witch's instrument .

Jill couldn't remember the names of the things in our world and at this time it didn't come into her head that she was being enchanted . For now the magic was in its full strength and of course , the more enchanted you get , the more certain you feel that you are not enchanted at all .

She found herself saying and at the moment it was a relief to say no , I suppose that other world must all be a dream . Yes , it is a dream , said the witch , always thrumming . Yes , all a dream , said Jill . There never was such a world , said the witch . No said , jill and Scrub , never was such a world , there never was any world .

But mine , said the witch , there never was any world . But yours , said they , puddleglam , was still fighting hard . I don't know , rightly , what you all mean by a world . He said , talking like a man who hasn't enough air . But you can play the fiddle till your fingers drop off and still you won't make me forget Narnia and the whole overworld too .

We'll never see it again . I shouldn't wonder . You may have blotted it out and turned it dark like this for all . I know Nothing more likely , but I know I was there once . I've seen the sky full of stars .

I've seen the sun coming up out of the sea of a morning and sinking behind the mountains at night , and I've seen him up in the midday sky when I couldn't look at him for brightness . Puddleglam's words had a very rousing effect . The other three all breathed again and looked at one another like people newly awakened . Why ? There it is , cried the prince .

Of course , the blessing of Aslan upon this honest marsh wiggle . We all have been dreaming these last few minutes . How could we have forgotten it ? Of course we've all seen the sun by Joe . So we have said Scrub , good for you , puddleglam . You're the only one of us with any sense , I do believe .

Then came the witch's voice , cooing softly like the voice of a wood pigeon , from the high alms of an old garden , at three o'clock in the middle of a sleepy summer afternoon , and it said what is this sun you all speak of ? Do you mean anything by the word ? Yes , we jolly well do , said Scrub . Can you tell me what it's like , asked the witch .

Thrum , thrum , thrum , went the strings . Please it , your grace , said the prince very cruelly and politely . You see that lamp . It is round and yellow and gives light to the whole room and hangeth , moreover , from the roof . Now , that thing which we call the sun is like the lamp , only far greater and brighter .

It gives light to the whole overworld and hangeth in the sky , hangeth from what ? My lord , asked the witch , and then , while they were still all thinking how to answer her , she added with another of her soft silver laughs you see , when you try to think out clearly what the sun must be , cannot tell me . You can only tell me it is like the lamp .

Your sun is a dream , and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp . The lamp is the real thing , the sun is but a tale , a children's story . Yes , I see now , said Jill in a heavy , hopeless tone . It must be so , and while she said this it seemed to her to be very good sense .

Slowly and gravely , the witch repeated there is no sun . And they all said nothing . She repeated in a softer and deeper voice there is no sun . After a pause and after a struggle in their minds , all four of them said together You're right , there is no sun . It was such a relief to give it and say it . There never was a sun , said the witch .

No , there never was a sun , said the prince and the marsh , wiggle and the children . For the last few minutes , jill had been feeling that there was something she must remember at all costs , and now she did , but it was dreadfully hard to say it .

She felt as if huge weights were laid on her lips and last , with an effort that seemed to take all of the good out of her , she said there's Aslan . Aslan , said the witch , quickening ever so slightly the pace of her thrumming . What a pretty name . What does it mean ?

He is the great lion who called us out of our own world , said Scrub , and sent us into this to find Prince Rillian . What is a lion , asked the witch . Oh hang it all , said Scrub . Don't you know how can we describe it to her ? Have you ever seen a cat ? Surely , said the queen . I love cats .

Well , a lion is a little bit only a little bit , mind you like a huge cat with a mane . At least it's not like a horse's mane , you know . It's more like a judge's wig , and it's yellow and terrifically strong . The witch shook her head . I see . She said that we should know better with your lion , as you call it , than we did with your son .

You have seen lamps , and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and call it the sun . You've seen cats , and now you want a bigger and better cat , and it's to be called a lion . Well , it is a pretty make-believe thought .

To say truth , it would suit you all better if you were younger and look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world , this world of mine , which is the only world . But even you children are too old for such play . As for you , my lord prince , that art , a man fully grown , fee upon you .

Are you not ashamed of such toys ? Come , all of you , put away these childish tricks . I have worked for you all in the real world . There is no Narnia , no overworld , no sky , no sun , no aslan . And now to bed all and let us begin a wiser life tomorrow . But first to bed , to sleep deep sleep , soft pillows , sleep without foolish dreams .

The prince and the two children were standing with their heads hung down , their cheeks flushed , their eyes half closed , the strength all gone from them , the enchantment almost complete . But Puddleglam desperately gathered all his strength , walked over to the fire . Then he did a very brave thing .

He knew it wouldn't hurt him quite as much as it would hurt a human , for his feet , which were bare , were webbed and hard and cold-blooded like a duck's . But he knew it would hurt him badly enough , and so it did . With his bare foot he stamped on the fire , grinding a large part of it into ashes on the flat hearth , and three things happened at once .

First , the sweet , heavy smell grew very much less , for , though the whole fire had not been put out , a good bit of it had , and what remained smelled very largely of burnt marsh wiggle , which is not at all an enchanting smell . This instantly made everyone's brain far clearer . The prince and the children held up their heads again and opened their eyes .

Secondly , the witch , in a loud , terrible voice , uttered different from all the sweet tones she had been using up till now , called out what are you doing ? Dare to touch my fire again . Mud filth , and I'll turn your blood to fire inside your veins .

Thirdly , the pain itself made Puddlegum's head for a moment perfectly clear , and he knew exactly what he really thought . There is nothing like a good shock of pain for dissolving certain kinds of magic . One word , ma'am , he said , coming back from the fire limping because of the pain . One word All you've been saying is quite right . I shouldn't wonder .

I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put a best face on it I can . So I won't deny any of what you've said . But there's one thing more to be said even so . Suppose we have only dreamed or made up all those things trees and grass , and sun and moon and stars , and as-in-himself . Suppose we have .

Then all I can say is that in that case the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones . Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world . Well , it strikes me as a pretty poor one . And that's a funny thing when you come to think of it . We're just babies making up a game , if you're right .

But four babies playing a game can make a play world which licks your real world hollow . That's why I'm going to stand by the play world . I'm on Azlan's side , even if there isn't any Azlan to lead it . I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can , even if there isn't any Narnia . So thank you kindly for our supper .

If these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready , we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for overland . Our lives will be very long , I should think , but that's a small loss if the world is dull a place , as you say . Oh hooray , good old puddlegum cried Scrubbin' Jill .

But the prince shouted suddenly when , look to the witch . When they did look , their hair nearly stood on end . The instrument dropped from her hands , her arms appeared to be fastened to her sides , her legs were intertwined with each other and her feet had disappeared .

The long green train of her skirt thickened and grew solid and seemed to be all one piece with the writhing green pillar of her interlocked legs . And that writhing green pillar was curving and swaying , as if it had no joints or else were all joints .

Her head was thrown far back and while her nose grew longer and longer , every part of her face seemed to disappear , except her eyes Huge , flaming eyes . They were now without brows or lashes . All this takes time to write down . It happened so quickly that there was only just time to see it .

Long before there was time to do anything , the change was complete and the great serpent , which the witch , had become green as poison , thick as Jill's waist , had flung two or three coils of its loathsome body round the prince's legs . Quick as lightning , another great loop darted around , intending to pinion his sword arm to his side .

But the prince was just in time . He raised his arms and got them clear . The living knot closed only round his chest , ready to crack his ribs like firewood . When it drew tight , the prince caught the creature's neck in his left hand , trying to squeeze it till it choked . This held its face if you could call it a face About five inches from his own .

The forked tongue flickered horribly in and out , but could not reach him . With his right hand he drew back his sword for the strongest blow he could give . Meanwhile , scrubb and Puttleglum had drawn their weapons and rushed to his aid .

All three blows fell at once Scrubs which did not even pierce the scales and did no good on the body of the snake below the prince's hand , but the prince's own blow and Puttleglum's both on its neck . Even that did not quite kill it , though . It began to loosen its hold on Rillian's legs and chest . With repeated blows they hacked off its head .

The horrible thing went on coiling and moving like a bit of wire , long after it had died , and the floor , as you might imagine , was a nasty mess . What if the Dark Ages were not dark ?

What if they want you to believe , like an incantation , that the Dark Ages were actually a time of light , a time of human flourishing , a time of global dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ ?

What if the beauty of the cathedrals that were built were not a sign of an impressive Christian empire , but were the work of men who feared God and loved the light of Jesus Christ ? What if their work was a testament to the works of God and his glory and not merely the works of a dark and evil people living in evil times .

In the 12th century , the Abbot Sugar engraved the following on the doors of the Abbey Church of St Denis All you who seek to honor these doors marvel not at the gold and expense but at the craftsmanship of the work .

The noble work is bright , but being nobly bright , the work should brighten the minds , allowing them to travel through the lights To the true light where Christ is . The true door , the golden door defines how it is imminent .

In all these things , the dull mind rises to the truth through material things and is resurrected from its former submersion when the light is seen . The King's Hall podcast exists to make self-ruled men who rule well and win the world .

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All you Anans , you know who you are . You know who you are . So we don't know you are in every case , we do not know .

They've got way more followers than us , way more all everything . And you guys showed up and you said no .

We have one of the coolest buildings in Ogden booked , more than a thousand seats available to us , and we are going to be talking about building Christian burrows , building thick Christian culture with Dr Steven Wolfe , dr Rigney who you're going to hear more from later in this episode the obviously the Ogden folks and more . So come , hang out .

We got a singles mixer that's going on . I'll be doing a live concert and then stay through Sunday , because we're going to probably book the same room and just do church , our church service , so we can fit everybody at the venue as well , since we can't even fit our normal people yeah .

We were 99% full on Sunday , so probably more like 106% full , to be honest . Yeah With the little , yeah With the little people .

have a lot of fun . It's going to be so much fun .

It's why we chose the cold open the way that we did His reference to Puddlegloam , a really interesting character . We're asking who your favorite characters are in Narnia and he pointed to Puddlegloam . And it's interesting because we've said that there's sort of a disenchantment going on with the way history is told about the West and it's made to dishearten people .

But it was interesting , dan , that he pointed out actually there's a dark spell over the West .

And so , as we started to dig in , you realize there's a reason . I think that historians , secular and Protestant , don't want us to look in this time period , mm , that there is actually an enchantment , like I said , in the cold open .

These aren't the droids you're looking for , like just trying to avert your eyes from this time period , and I think there are many reasons for it . But I'd be curious to hear what you guys have to say about , like , what are the motivations ?

She has kidnapped him , killed his mother and is imprisoning him so that she can magically enslave him and dig a big tunnel up into Narnia and come up and conquer all of Narnia and rule through King or through Rylian like a puppet Right . But he's enchanted , he's insane under her magic spell . And Puddleglam is just this character who is comically pessimistic .

Every you know he feeds the kids a meal and he says , well , we've got a meal for you , but it probably won't agree with you . You'll probably be sick for days and it'll be sunny in here , like well , you know , probably a thunder clap coming in the .

You know he's always pessimistic , but then at the end of the story and you've had like 70 years to read it , guys . So calm down and I read the portion . And he literally read it . He you see that whole exchange where Puddleglam stands , stalwart , as this kind of like gloomy , principled , just immovable , courageous figure .

He's one of the I think one of the top five characters in the Narniad .

But not only that the motivation for why he stamps out the fire and he breaks this incantation is because of faith , because of his faith in Aslan and his faith in the world that Aslan created .

And so part of our whole goal with this episode in particular like why aren't we just diving into the crusades is because I contend that there is an enchantment over our time in trying to hide our past and in trying to disrespect our fathers that came before us .

Because if we actually have faith in the work that the Lord Jesus Christ has done in the narrative of history , I think it would stir courage in the hearts of men , and I don't think that people want that . I don't think the enemies of God want that . Amen . And so that's why I really resonate with the Marshwiggle . Yeah .

They'll call you an enemy yeah you're making a mistake . You're filling the room with burnt Marshwiggle , but we must nonetheless put our foot in that fire , otherwise the enchantment will never be broken . Eric always smells .

But what we've seen , part of the dark enchantment of since the Enlightenment , has been the reduction and reduction and reduction , more and more , one step at a time , from cosmic origins to human origins , to intellectual origins , to philosophical truth , all of these different steps down the ladder .

So we got to brute materialism , where people are positing that the world is just stuff , that everything that is is material . The world is not just stuff .

And I'm telling you , but what's crazy about this whole process of deracination , where we've cut ourselves off from the root of the spiritual , is that it's so dominant and untenable because the world really is not just stuff that eventually it stops working .

And you find that just under , when you scratch the surface of materialism , all of the old gods are there , right under the surface , all of the old demons they turn out to be the ones through , through human wickedness , certainly , and human unbelief and human hardness of heart , they've been propping up and orchestrating an assault and a war against the kingdom of

God via these materialist follies . Right ? Oh , there's no sun above . There's no , there's no overworld , there's no aslan . What a silly . You've just gotten your idea of the sun from this lamp , like they've been pulling that crap . It's so stupid , it's completely nonsensical when you think about it . At the end of the day , all of their materialist claims .

But as that withdraws , the high tide of that has already happened . As the tide pulls back and the wave pulls back , what it's going to leave and what people are going to turn to are supernatural , spiritual , overt spiritual forces of darkness .

And you'll find that the same forces orchestrating that materialist play are the demons and the old gods that are going to continue to enslave people via paganism and witchcraft and all of these other evil , overtly demonic practices wearing lots of different faces .

So I think it's important to see that one of the ways that they have to , one of the areas they have to succeed if they're going to the demons are going to succeed in this battle and their servants is they cannot allow for the glory of Christian history to shine through .

They can't allow for that , because that is the story of the advance of the kingdom of God , putting down all of those old gods . If we apostatize , they will come back . In fact , they'll bring seven of their friends worse than themselves . Yeah , but that's the story .

He had an interesting thing and this gets to putting your foot in the fire . Eric was asking him about like how is this to speak truth to power and all that stuff , and he said you have to settle in yourself that your price can't be 10 million , it can't be 20 , it can't be 200 million . The price has to be your life , he said .

And when you realize that you're going to have to put your life on the line , he said , trust me , things get spiritual real quick , yeah , and so I think that's one of the realities in a materialist quote , unquote world .

You're finding out like no , there's actually more going on here and you see that when you go to battle and we've certainly seen that when you go to battle with some of these ideas One of them , brian , you mentioned the Enlightenment One of the ideas that we'll unpack , especially as we get into next episode in the first crusade is the Enlightenment idea that there

were a thing called the Dark Ages . So , dan , I'm going to ask you about that in just a second , but I want to reread this quote from , I think , anthony Esselin . He said we would shy away from the Middle Ages not because of its drabness , but because its vitality would fray our weak nerves . We'd have to rub our eyes to get used to the light Dang .

So Esselin for the win , obviously . But , dan , I want to ask you about that . This is one of the big lies is that this great period of Christendom was actually dark , and so I want to ask you just to unpack that for me . Why is that so important that we get that right ?

So this term , the Dark Ages , originally meant that the world of Christendom was light and it was surrounded by darkness . Interesting Because they were being attacked by the pagan hordes . Yeah , remember the Muhammadan . The Muhammadan , yeah , they were being attacked by them .

What's really interesting is that , through the Reformation , the Protestants actually latched on this idea that originated in the Renaissance , that it was actually a Dark Age , and they added anti-Catholic perspective , saying that the light of the gospel was lost during that time or it was diminished .

Wait , so you're saying that the Protestant reformers were saying , yeah , it was dark because it was Catholic , it was dark because it was Catholic and they contrasted it with the classical antiquity period as being rich in Latin and it witnessed the beginnings of the Christian faith .

And so they promoted the ideas that the Middle Age was this time of darkness because of corruption Interesting Within the Catholic Church , because there was the papacy , there was obviously some serious problems , like sentious priesthood .

And so what they did they did this with the Crusades , I think they did this with the medieval period , they did it with lots of different aspects of Christianity is that they would take some of the ethical framework of Christians and then they would find problems and sins , and then they would say aren't you ashamed of these people ?

Look , they didn't even follow your book , right . Look , though , they killed some people unjustly . Look , they were greedy . This person was sexually licensed In overtime .

What they did is they got , they averted our gaze to settle entirely on the faults of our forefathers until we forgot their glories and until we , and also they did that without the introspection of looking in the mirror of our own lives and time and recognizing that every age has its evils , every age has its follies , but the Christian gospel was weaponized against

us . Similarly to people who say like hey , yeah , I'm not going to do this , people who say like hey , yeah , just let the illegal immigrants come in and take your country , and that because turn the other cheek guys .

We're finding them in Luther , and we're finding them in Calvin , and we're finding them in Augustine , or finding them in all these . Does that make sense ?

He could think their thoughts after them , understand where they were coming from , he could value the things they valued and even though I don't think Lewis agreed with everything they did obviously he didn't but he sought to understand them because that's If you love somebody , you'll seek to understand them charitably .

The enemy doesn't want us to do that with our forefathers . It wants us to be uncharitable and ungrateful , fundamentally Because to do that is ultimately just practice for being ungrateful towards our Father in heaven and then accusing him of sin .

But a lot of people would say I think , particularly if you're like a political right-wing type person , but especially not a Christian , or haven't really thought through a lot of the things we've unpacked in the show they would probably say to something like this this is stupid . You guys are talking about Narnia and CS Lewis in fiction .

Fiction is stupid and fiction doesn't matter . We need to change the political structure . So the look on Brian's face I wish we had video for that look . But , dan , I want to kick this to you because you're a big story guy . You're a big story guy . We have seen , even today , as we're talking through this episode , dan's reading to me from the silver chair .

I mean , my eyes were getting moist just thinking about it . It moves you , it makes you want to go put your feet in the fire . But , dan , why story when there's so many practical political things ?

There's a really good quote from Robert Howard and it goes like this Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split as a general thing .

And so Puddleglam can accomplish more in that story over the last 60 years or whenever it was published , than the best defense of courage from an intellectual viewpoint . Because I can look at Puddleglam and say you know , puddleglam's my guy .

I want to be like Puddleglam and I can say that to Brian , and Brian has read the story and Eric hasn't , but he will , and Ben has , and I can say hey , man , today be Puddleglam . And we all know immediately in our heart that it rings with courage .

Yeah , so that's why story is so important , because it gets past those , those defenses and right into your heart . Did you guys know that I'm going to be turning 40 this year ? What , what ? Yeah , looking back , one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't know the basics of investing .

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Yeah , but Brian , in fact , don't care about your feelings . So I want to hear Brian's answer because , once again , I think this has been the conservative movement . We talked about it , but it's like we need another white paper . We need another argument . A lot of those people aren't doing anything . Why Story ? Why Narnia ?

Joe's obviously this great mind on Narnia , but why spend your time reading it ?

The way that the Lord works in his telling of truth , which is that you think about it like when God created the world , which is full of truth . His word is truth . What does he do ? Well , he wraps it all in beauty and majesty and glory and mysteries and wonders , and then he uses it .

He creates time and he uses it to create a great story that he tells through history . And most of that story will never read . Like Andy Wilson has talked about this before like this will never know the story of the last stand of a valiant ant , carpenter ant who saved his colony at the gift of his life from the invading wasps .

That story is playing out a billion billion times daily on this planet . And the mother , the mother deer , that gives her life to save from the wolves , because Dan shot the deer but he did not shoot the deputy . I think that you look at how does God tell the truth ? How does God ? Well , he wraps it in beauty and glory and mystery and majesty .

It's not all . Just , jesus didn't come and give us a systematic theology . No , he came as the truth incarnate and he lived a life . So it doesn't mean those things . We're actually not pitting those two things against one another . You ought to have systematic theology .

However , one of the errors and the reason I think we've lost , one of the reasons we've lost so much ground , is because conservatives have they have cared not enough about story and beauty and they've let the enemies take those weapons that are force multipliers on truth or error and they've let them use them to force multiply their errors .

Well , we have told , we've told the . By the way , first of all , before I say this , we've told the best stories . There's a reason Lord of the Rings , I think , is the greatest work of fiction in the English language and that's a Christian story . So , before I denigrate , we've told some of the best stories of all time .

But we've also told , by volume , a lot of really sloppy and lazy stories that are thinly veiled , packaging for propositions in ways that doesn't actually win people's hearts .

Most recent story we've been telling is of Sir Gavria Boyan , and let me just say that if you cut a man in half with your sword in one stroke and half of his body rides back into town and disheartens all the other Muhammadians , then that's a good story . Dan , sounds like a great story .

So , gentlemen , until next time we'll part ways here , but , listener , enjoy this interview with Dr Joe Rittney . Well , welcome to this episode of the Kings Hall Podcast . Today we have a special guest , mr Joe Rittney . Joe , thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the Kings Hall Podcast .

You're teaching now at New St Andrews but just fill us in on kind of who you are as a person .

It's where I met my wife and then we moved to Minnesota right like right when we were married and I was a part of the Bethlehem Institute .

It was now Bethlehem College and Seminary , so it was at John Piper's church there , bethlehem Baptist Church , and so I went through the apprenticeship and seminary there and then was kind of at the ground zero when that was becoming more than just an institute but was a full degree degree granting full college , full seminary .

So I did that for about 18 years , from about 2005 until a couple of months ago when we moved West , and I am now here in Moscow teaching at New St Andrews and working at Christchurch Right on .

But then when I started having kids , we were baseball family so I got big baseball history so we did baseball all through , uh , when we were in Minnesota . But then we moved out here and so my boys started playing football Like this is the first time they've played football .

So I got a sixth grader playing football for a team and then my ninth grader uh , is on the uh place for the Logos here . Eight man Idaho football and we are in the state playoffs on Friday . Oh yeah , wow , perfect . Are you coaching , joe , or are you ?

I am , I've been coaching baseball for years but then came out here and was like I want to dive in with both feet and so I'm an assistant coach and kind of helped out with the junior varsity team , which is what my son my son's ninth grade , so he's on that , but also helping out with the high school football team here .

So I'm I'm definitely just I'm like the low man on the totem pole . I don't know . These guys definitely know football better than I do and I'm just there to like hold the card , to like show people what , what the thing is , but uh , but it's sure a lot of fun .

And I don't think until I was I don't know like yesterday , realized how formative some of that stuff was really into a couple of things Like the uh , the teamwork dimension of just like men doing things together and the sort of shared mission and the camaraderie that comes and that that sense of brotherhood and accomplishment that comes when you do things together ,

hard things together . But I think that there was something there that was just sort of woven into natural good . It's not a spiritual good in and of itself , but it's a good thing that can be sort of taken up . And I don't think I realized how formative that was . And then I think just , yeah , the really doing the hard , the hard part of it .

So you know you're doing two days , it's August , it's West Texas , it's 105 and it's just brutal and and it's and you have to push your body through it and or it's winter and you're not playing baseball or you're not playing football again for another like nine months , and yet there you are , like in the weight room and and you're , uh , you're doing .

I remember distinctly like we would have these I don't know sequences of stuff where , like different stations during the winter and we would do like the monkey bar type thing and just go through and like , have to like do the hand pops and stuff like that , and your hands would just be bloody and it's like it's January and you're not playing football again until

August . And it's like why are my , my hands are bleeding because I'm doing this ? Why am I doing this ? This is so , but it was like because you needed to have a certain mentality , you needed to have a certain fortitude , and so I don't think I appreciated that in sort of the philosophical step out of this and think what , what's good ?

What is this good for ? But now I would say that was really that it sort of put something in the , in the character that then I would say later has been sort of taken up . Uh , natural good , that sort of was elevated by grace to a spiritual good , and so then when I look at my boys , I'm like that's what I want , I want . So I've , I've seen it .

I've seen it kind of in baseball . My son uh , one of my sons is a pitcher , and so there's that that moment when he's on the mound and like things aren't going right , guy makes an error , and like just there's a mental thing that has to happen .

There I'm just like pushing through , and he needs to experience both the the oh no and the disappointment as well , as then , in all right , push through it .

So I've seen that sort of in the mental side and though you know , baseball is great for the , it's a team sport with the one-on-one dynamic , like it's pitcher versus batter and and everything's on your shoulders and you're either gonna get a hit or you're gonna strike out , or you're gonna strike him out or he's gonna get a hit , and so I love that aspect .

And then adding football to it I think now has really helped me to appreciate just the yeah , that that brotherhood of like you do it all together . Everybody has to be moving as a unit . Everybody's got their job . If one guy fails , the whole thing fails and there's a . There's an element I want .

Our head coach talks a lot about just the sacrifice that's that's required in a sport like football that you don't get credit for , so like the quarterback is gonna be in the newspaper , you're the old linemen and nobody cares you get no love but you get no love .

You get no love but like you're throwing your body on the line every time to help him get yards so your team can win and nobody knows who you are , and so there's a kind of self-sacrifice and a yeah , lose your life and it's not gonna be for your . Your name is not gonna be written in lights , but it's still what you're built for . You're built to die .

You're built to lay yourself down for the good of the mission and the good of the the team which is in our coach . This is one of the great things .

When I was in high school , I did it at a public high school , so I went to public high school all the way through and so all of them that stuff like there was West Texas , it was christian e-culture , but it was still very worldly .

You know , all of the guys in the football team were professing Christians who would get , you know , they would let a lot of drink in and sleep around and stuff like that , and the coach is sort of winked , laughed , encouraged , a lot of that sort of stuff .

Now I'm at a Christian school and it's like you get all the stuff and then it's been , you know , baptized , it's . Uh , this is , you know , and and now we're gonna connect the dots for these guys of you know , you know how hard it was today . This is so that you can love your wife someday . When it's hard , you can lay down your life , and so it's .

It's making the connections explicit , which has been really cool , honestly , like I was like , oh , it's all of the things that I loved about high school football , but now , with Jesus , like in the middle of it and boy , that's , that's even better .

You know , masculinity isn't just about being physically fit , although we would say well , yeah , well , where does it fit ? So , as you think about sons , especially in raising young men , how do you kind of work through those issues , both as a pastor and as a father ?

It does matter . Physical training is of some value , but training godliness is of ultimate value . Right , that's the . That's Paul's point is take this , take the thing that's of some value , of natural value , and then Use it to sort of better understand the spiritual dimensions of life , like that's the thing that needs to govern it .

So when I look at my sons , I can see areas in their life . You know , I want them to be Motivated , I want them to take initiative , I want them to sacrifice , I want them to have fortitude , I don't want them to crumble , I want them to be passive and so , and I can exhort them to all of those things in a spiritual sense .

But where does the sort of intuitive Knowledge of what that even means come from ? So this is , I mean , this is a , it's some of those like a things of earth point , right . So like I , you know I've got the things of earth stuff , and this is just an application of that where it's like you .

In the same way , bible says eat honey because it's good , dripings of the honey cone or sweet to your taste . Know that wisdom is such to your soul . So I can't just say , hey , if I say just wisdom is good , you're like , okay , what does that mean ?

But if I'm like wisdom is good , the way that honey is good on your tongue , and you're like , oh well , I know how honey is good on my tongue , and so you're saying wisdom is like that and it's the connection between the sort of natural , physical thing and then and then the elevation of that into the , into the spiritual , into the soul level .

That is how the Bible works . It's the same thing here . Like my boys need they , they need the hardship of physical reality because God made us as physical beings . They need that .

And then the goal is hey , do you remember when you know you got your legs got taken out and you and it hurt and you wanted to come out of the game and I said , no , you don't get to come out of the game , you have to Laugh and keep playing , shake it off and go , and you and you did Like you were limping and it hurt , but like you pushed through

it . Okay , you're gonna need that in all kinds of places spiritually in your life . You're gonna get your leg . You're just gonna get . You know Something's gonna sweep you off your feet spiritually .

Right , something's gonna something , calamity is gonna happen , and you don't have the luxury of saying I'm gonna take a time out now and Tap out it's like you've got it .

You've got to get back on your feet because God has it , has something for you to do , and so I need they need that lived experience , basically in order to have categories to see and this is what this is how Paul does it right like the , the run , the race set before you , or the you know compete , as though you want to win the prize .

All of that imagery . Paul assumes that you know what races are , you know what boxing is , you know he , you know these sports and you have some intuitive Sense of them , and then that's gonna give you categories for thinking about the Christian life .

Was there something in life and study what was going on that you said hey , I think this is an issue we need to address most of the physical as well as the spiritual realities kind of coming of age in early 2000s young , restless , reformed , supremacy of God and all things like pipe , you know , john Piper is based .

go wrong in certain sorts of ways , and in predictable ways . There was a kind of asceticism which the Bible has , a certain kind of asceticism , but it had a . It could kind of get twisted . You know everything , good things can get twisted . So it would get twisted and and so it was basically like Okay , jesus is supreme , what does that mean ?

For all those stuff , though , like , what do I like ? Okay , I Jesus is better . Now what do I do ? and it was the now , what do I do ? Thing that I felt personally as a young married guy and then started kind of working through . That , you know , doug actually was really helpful in a lot of ways , is kind of like the parent .

Like that book , I , you know I've described a sort of like this you know , union of three rivers , it's like Jonathan Edwards , john Piper , cs Lewis and Doug Wilson , just kind of like oh and , and it's like pull those together and that's you get things of earth . That's me .

And so it was like building out how do I actually engage with created reality in a way that's faithful , that knows Jesus is better but also doesn't despise , it doesn't does , it can say thank you for it , can enjoy it rightly . And so that's where that book kind of came from .

And then I think I've just a pre , you know , over the years it's just kind of like a deepening sense of like yes , and there's ditches on every side , like it's , it's not , like there's one way to like okay , now we don't have to worry about any dangers , idolatry , enough to worry about that in gratitude .

Like no , you're always got to worry about all of it , but it's an attempt to kind of to get it right to order it rightly .

Obviously is gonna be crucial in sort of that fatherly training of sons . But why this book and what is your approach , I guess , in it to Wrestling with that issue and being a good discypler of young men ?

And so God , do a great work in my life in , you know , beginnings of marriage and in Beyond there , to to sort of see like , oh , change is really possible here . Got , the gospel is really powerful against this , this issue , and and yet it's not an automatic thing . It's not like you can just wave the gospel at your sin and every .

It's not a magic word , it's not a talisman , it's not like you know . You actually have to understand how sin works , how it corrupts and and what goods are underneath it that are getting twisted so that you can restore them rightly .

And so you really got to get into the muck in order to , like , you have scrub and you got to then know what the thing is that you're scrubbing and and so that was kind of where that book came from was a recognition of like I think Sometimes sanctification for Christians in all areas is like just just preach the gospel to yourself and it's like , okay , but

how , like what does that actually mean ? How does the gospel do something to this ? And then , and then the wisdom stuff of it's not just this one that came later in the game for me , but was like a light bulb of just that in the in the scriptures .

Sanctification is both a matter of like sort of your mental life , mental , the mind and the will level , but also the bodily level , like they're both included . So you think about a passage like Romans 12 offer your bodies living sacrifices and then don't be conformed to the patterns world , be transformed by the renewing of your mind .

So like there's this bodily thing , you're supposed to offer your body in a certain way , and there's this mental thing You're supposed to be transformed by the renewal of your mind , and you need both . Or in Romans 6 , where it's Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ .

So , in light of what Jesus has done , consider yourself , think of yourself in a particular way . You know , think about yourself in a particular way . And then the next passage is don't present your members as instruments of unrighteousness .

So there's that bodily thing again , and so I think it was both of those recognizing like our bodies or can be shaped , they can be molded , they can be habituated , you can cut brain ruts .

That's what porn does Not just porn , but like some smartphones in general , do this right , like they're designed as sort of these addictive deals and and so you're habituating yourself , your your cultivating habits and Therefore your body would like with porn . Your body is your enemy .

You've , you've weaponized your body against your soul , basically , and so that's not something that's going to be fixed with like a snap of a finger . Oh , you got converted . Didn't fix it right , right away , like instead , what it did is sort of there's this new principle Like new birth , new life at the core , but now it's got to work its way out right .

Work out your salvation Right . You've got to work it out , and that's something that takes intentional , wise effort , usually with other , with community , to help get eyes on it and to hold you accountable to it . And so that's kind of the approach of the book . The good , the goal was Sanctification is a community project . It's not , it's not a solo deal .

And if you try to fight that fight particularly solo , you're gonna just gonna get , you're gonna lose badly .

And so how do we , how do you , cultivate groups of men who wisely , faithfully , are in each other's corner right , like I'm for you , gods for you , and in fact I'm I'm for you in the way God is for you , which means I'm not gonna leave you wallowing in this pit , but we're gonna try something different . And so let's what ? What ?

What hands do we need to cut off ? What eyes do we need to gouge out ? Let's wage war . And then not just war , but thinking about like other , like we . The warfare imagery is helpful as one lens , I think , to view the fight with sin . But there's also this sort of like Slavery element , like you're a slave to sin .

So that's not just war , that's like you need to be delivered , you need to be freed . And then there's there's this sort of broken , this element , which I think is a real one . Like that , you know you're broken , you're weak , you need to be healed , you need to be restored .

And so it's like , okay , those are three different lenses , three different sort of metaphors or Word pictures to think about the fight with sin or the struggle against sin , and I wanted to kind of bring all of them and say like , hey , there's certain things probably need to get healed , certain certain fuel that's underneath this struggle .

It's like it's like lust is not just for most guys . Lust is not simply a matter of , like , physical release , like there's that element and they get hijacked , but there's often a deeply emotional component to it . They're seeking something else .

Like it's a pursuit of manliness , it's vicarious , manual manliness , you wanting to see your own Sort of manhood reflected in the sexual satisfaction of a woman , but you're doing it on a screen or something like that , and so it's like what are you actually ? looking for .

It's not just sexual release , it's some sort of validation and approval , but it's interesting like that's . So then where's that supposed to be met ? And so you're just broadening it out , so that that's . That's the kind of things broadening it out , deepening it , trying to figure out the subtleties To where you're fighting at earlier stages .

So that whole book is basically like a guide for men's groups , really for both mentors and guys who are in the pit , to like work together , to like try different things In order to wisely apply the gospel and walk by the spirit .

So in other areas , so whether it's just their emotions and impulses in general , like are they , you know ? Do they know ? Like I have to talk to my kids right , like I've got three boys , I got 14 , 12 and 4 , and Especially with the older ones , it's like you know there's they're in that kind of junior high age and you're like , hey , okay , you're .

You're kind of your passions are going , you're just kind of being crazy . Can you reign it in , do you know ? Do you know where the line is ? You know how to not cross the line ? I'm not saying don't have fun , I'm not saying don't be silly , I'm not saying don't have you know all that sort of stuff .

But do you know where the lines are and are you in control of you , or do your passions run the show ? Like are your impulses in charge ? And so that's something that you can do from like , okay , are they you know ? Are they too you're ?

You're like , okay , we're trying to help you with your , you know , control your passions , because sexual lust is just one passion , right . So , controlling passions , you know whether it's anger , whether it's , you know , anxiety , worry , all of these things are passions and so you're working on that .

That's proactive , all all the way through and and you need to be thinking about it as I'm doing this , partly so that when they hit 1516 , they've got some ballast to be able to deal with the new challenge that the hormones just turned on .

I think on the other side and this is something I actually where my wife , I think , is even has been a real help to me in recognizing just like , so like these things , right here I , these are , these are like it's like having a brothel in your pocket . Okay , so like Sexual sense is all this dirt ?

You , it's always been there since , you know , early days , lamex got two wives , right so Nephilim , whatever , you know that all that stuff .

So all of that , it's , it's old as dirt and sexual morality , fornication are all through , but like you had brothels , but now you have a brothel in your pocket and that sort of changes the game and it means that you know it's in the old days .

It's like let's just make sure our kids don't go to that store or to go down that street or whatever , and now it's like they carry the street with them in their pocket , and so that requires a different level of diligence and vigilance in trying to guard them from things so they don't stumble into it .

And I think I don't think that Christians really fully reckoned with this , both on the porn side , but just the technology side in general , like what are these devices and what do they basically open our families up to ?

And so , and this is a place where I think it's not simply it's a household thing at one level , but I think it's a broader Christian community thing , because at some level you can go like okay , I'm going to guard my family , my kid's not going to have a smartphone until he's , you know , 18 years old .

You know we'll get the dumb phone if we need to get ahold of him whenever he's in high school . That's what we've got . We've got like one of these gab phones which is like it talks and it texts and that's all you need , so you know , none of the other junk . And so it's like that's what that's .

It's a phone we can get ahold of him , but it's like okay , so that's true of him , but it's not true of all of his friends . And so now you've got like okay , so how do I guard against that ? Well , that's a , that's a function of just like community and culture in a you know .

So they're like the shared customs of like , hey , we all do this , and it's necessary for that , because your kid's going to come home and say , well , so , and so has the phone , all of my friends have the phone , all of my friends have this , and I can't . I .

And there's a constant and drip , drip , drip of frustration on the part of your son , who's like all the other Christian kids have this and I don't . And so which is which is sort of removed if it's like well , some of the kids in your class do , but a lot of the kids don't . And here's why we've , we've , we've talked to our kids .

Now , at this point of like , there are things we don't want you to see . There are images , there are , there's immodesty . They know what it is , we've talked about it once they started getting older . There's a set of books I forget what they're called , but like they're kind of age appropriate .

Somebody talked to your kids about sex kind of books , and it's like when they're , when they're really young . It's like you know mommy and daddy's laying bed together and then a baby comes .

You know , it's like it's real basic , and then you kind of every , every book , kind of like graduates up a little bit and it's more like hey , this is how it works , this is the mechanics . It feels good .

And so we've been doing that periodically , just kind of checking in , giving them some more info so that they hear it from us and not from somebody you know in the playground , you know somebody in the baseball team , and that they have a context for like , hey , he said that , somebody said this .

And now we're like , yeah , remember when we talked about that , okay , he's just making jokes about it , and so you're , you're kind of working with them all the way .

And then there's a category for , okay , some people take off their clothes and and have sex with each other and other people watch it because it feels good and this is not what God wants , it's not what God intends . That's , that's for marriage .

That's a good thing , but it belongs in God's boundaries and we don't want you to see it before then , we don't want you to be a part of it before then , and it's a snare and we , you know I can , I can say stuff like guys . There's stuff that I saw when I was young that I can still remember .

Like it just it's in your , it gets locked in there and they act .

My kids actually have categories for this , cause they've seen stuff like like scary stuff , you know , like when they're little they see a commercial for a horror movie and when they can they they like it's burned into their mind and so you can appeal to that and say , hey , you remember when you saw that and it really scared you , and like you still think about

it . No , yeah , it's like okay , there's other things that are like that and so mom and dad are trying to guard you from those because we love you and so you need to trust us . So that's kind of how you I think , like that's just I was like that's how we're talking about it .

And and yet , mindful of the fact that , like , this is the world we live in , I wish I could give . I saw somebody the other day in an article was like I wish I could give my kids a world in which porn was not ubiquitous . But I don't have . It's not in my power to give them that world .

Instead I have to guard against that world and and that's a harder thing but it's a necessary and it's where I think men , families together , have to like kind of band together so that everybody's on the walls and not just I have to guard my little household by myself .

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So , great awakening here's this great work of God , whitfield's preaching , all these guys are preaching and people's lives are being changed . Yet Edwards is like and as soon as that happens , satan's going to so weed among the tears . This is just how it goes .

There's going to be counterfeits , there's going to be fakes , there's going to be stuff that looks like the real deal , but it's not the real deal . He writes like multiple books . Edwards literally writes multiple books about how do you tell the difference between a true work of God and sort of its counterfeit .

What's a reliable sign of genuine religion , of true religion , and what's not . And there's lots of things that are not that sort of . It's not that they're not that they're bad . So like a good example in . Edwards is like if you talk a lot about religion , about Christianity , he's like that's not reliable , like Pharisees do that , hypocrates do that .

But it's not that it's negative , it's just not . You can't trust it . And so I think , in some ways , what happened with young restless reform was like that sort of thing . And so there's all sorts of good happening and then there's all the counterfeit . There's all , there's all , there's all the counterfeit stuff that comes with it .

So I think a couple of things the function of celebrity culture in pushing young guys to the foreground too early , so I think , like when you think about Josh Harris , like I mean , that's clearly an issue in play .

This guy's , he's writing books at 17 about dating , you know , and it's like , and I think that there was sort of this , I think this has been an affliction of certain kind of Christian groups .

Classical Christian education can sometimes fall into this where it's like , hey , we're going to outdo the world , like , look what our kids are going to be able to do , like we're going to get them there quicker , better , faster , and it's kind of like this valid , like , look what we did .

And you start showing off the fruit when it's like still , it's not ripe yet . It's like the fruit , the fruit that you want to see , the , the as a , as a dad , the fruit that you want to see is like look at , it's not mainly like look at my 17 year old , but it's like you're 60 and it's like look at my 45 year old .

I guess that's not right numbers , whatever the numbers be like . Look at my , you know , look at my 40 year old son raising his own kids faithfully , like that's the fruit , when you can really go .

Hey , look at it like look what God did , as opposed to kind of like preemptively , going like hey , here , the here he is at 12 and he can recite the catechism , and it's like that's great , but it's still too early . And so I think that there was kind of a rush to like put some young , young guys out there , too young , I think .

You know , this is what's going on with Driscoll at some level , like he's 26 , plants a church , it blows up , and then like he's just kind of thrust out there and kind of is willing to roll with it and so I think a lot like there was a lot of that basically in that movement and I think the the healthier versions of it typically were those that emerged

under the leadership of godly older men . Does that make sense ? So like I feel really like blessed . It was a great kindness that , like in my zeal , it wasn't like I'm going to go run out , I had this impulse like I guess I'll go plant a church at 25 .

Like Mark Driscoll did , because I , like I read him in college was like let's go do that and instead was like no , I'm going to , I'm going to go to Bethlehem and like learn how to do it .

And then , therefore , there was kind of like there was wise old hands , you know , kind of helping to guide and lead and temper and direct , and I think that was a great protection . I ran into stuff or things happened . There was people with , with some ballast that I could look to , like John Piper and the other elders at Bethlehem .

And it's like it was at some level because there was other people's hands on the , on the steering wheel a little bit . So that's one thing .

I think the other thing to learn from is part of why I think the movement cracked up was because the feel like the theological center , like we're not theological unity but we're not necessarily going to insist on other kinds of commonality .

Like the like , diversity was our strength , right , like and and at some level I like there's a good impulse there of like hey , the big battles are not over , baptist , heydo Baptist , or even like charismatic cessation is like we can , we can together for the gospel , across that line , like but let's , let's hold firm on sovereignty of God , conflaterity , biblical

authority , that's the core . And we have this diversity and I think that that's actually right . I think that's helpful , healthy , mere Protestantism , mere Christendom sort of mentality . But what I think was missed is as the culture sort of went off the rails over , you know , beginning in the run up to Obergefell and then now over the last decade .

I think what was missed is now we have to have a certain kind of posture Like how do we relate to this thing ? And like how , how do we respond to it ? Actually didn't matter , and it was that that's a culture question .

And so some of the crackup was people who could sign the same affirmation of faith , but their orientation towards the present moment was fundamentally different and therefore different men of mystery philosophies , and then that's where you see kind of the parting of the ways .

And so I think that that one of the things that you're seeing right now is actually folks who have a shared theology but also like a shared approach to cultural stuff , both internal culture building and external culture warring or not culture warring , whatever you want to call that other view .

Like those people are finding each other and going like , yeah , we want to build together and it's really hard to build if we don't have a shared mentality on culture building and culture warring , you can't build well .

So we started , you know , here at New Christen and Press we were going through old , old literature , old books , especially with the school , to our kids are reading them . They're like , dad , you haven't read the song of Roland , what's wrong with you ? You need to read this book .

So it's interesting the more we've gone back and looked at stuff you can sort of trace . You know the history of revivals and reformations throughout you know the last couple of thousand years , and it always seems to be tied to education .

You know Alfred the Great maybe being a good example where it's like , yeah , he defeated the Danes , that's definitely true , but he was also leading his people in learning how to read , and you know translating the Bible into the vernacular and stuff like this .

So I want to ask you why , as we think about , you know , reformation and wanting to do great works of God in our culture and our day , in the church and society . Why is it so important to tackle and deal well with this issue of education ?

worship . Okay , so that's one of the things we emphasize out here in Moscow . So when a dog's long term sending is like worship , is like the foundation , it's the heartbeat . It pumps blood to everything else . Okay . I think education is like the backbone , it's the skeleton of the body .

So you need a heart to pump blood , like if you take out the heart , that body's going to die , it's not going to make it right . You got to have the heart beating , pumping the blood , but then you also have to have that skeleton , otherwise it's just a blob , it doesn't act , it can't actually do thing .

So the teaching ministry of the church , so teaching and preaching in the church , but also this sort of educational thing , christian education , the Pide of God , that's the backbone .

And then it's when you have the heartbeat in the backbone and then you start putting flesh on it , which is when you get into like Christian vocation , like vocation and mission and all of the other elements of body , life , that community , all of that is like flesh , but it's like built on this foundation of worship and education , and so it's really originally

important and I do think that that's one of the you know , people can say a young restlessness and reform kind of like has dwindled .

But I think what you did , exactly what you said is it introduced a whole generation of people to like the riches of our tradition which had sort of been neglected , lost , and all of a sudden guys are like reading these books , and I think actually some of what's happening right now in the present divisions among Christians , that kind of all came from that

movement , that sort of stream is a bunch of guys kept reading , right . So it's like , you know , it was like hey , let's go read the Puritans . Hey , let's go read the Reformers , hey , let's go read these guys . And we're reading them on , you know , doctrine of God and sanctification and the gospel , and like , men , this is great stuff .

And then some guys are like , hey , have you read them ? On political philosophy , you know ? And other people like no , don't do that Right . Like like stop that , they got that wrong . And so that the debate is like are they helpful ? How helpful are they ?

And how , all of all of their stuff , some of their stuff , where , where did they get it wrong , where did they get it right ? And the debates are . Some guys kept reading and were like this makes sense too . And then other guys are like , no , no , that's not it , and so that's . But it was the introduction to that great tradition of Christian reflection .

That that was , I think will be one of the great legacies of that kind of resurgent Calvinism is that it introduced us to a rich tradition , which we can then sort of revitalize and apply in our own day .

There's a little bit of division , I would say , but we're discussing this and you know , one of the things that came to mind was these guys were both great . You mentioned that .

You quoted GK Chesterton , but as you think of both of them , we've sort of talked about them as I think in a thousand years , people will read Tolkien and be like Great , still great . They'll read Lewis and they'll say , still great .

What is it about these guys , particularly their education , what they were reading , that made them the titans of literature that they were , among other things ?

They were very bookish and they lived at a time when education was what it was .

And so they're , they're reading these texts and they're soaking in them and it's just marinating , you know , tolkien talks about like it bubbles up from the leaf mold of the mind , and so it's just like all of this stuff is just churning under the surface , so that when it comes time for them to write , it's like they're channeling all of the things that they've

digested . They've eaten the tradition like they've eaten it , digested it . It's a part of them . And then now they're able to kind of speak , and so they speak with the wealth of the ages , the wealth of of the you know , and , and so that's , that's their real , that's the secret sauce . And you don't , there's no shortcuts .

You can't , you cannot shortcut that and just try to get it on the cheap , which is , I think , the modern temptation , is to say , oh yeah , we've got . Look at all the technology we can get from here to there really fast . Like , yeah , you can't short circuit wisdom , you can't short circuit that kind of imagination and creativity .

And so you're you're right to say I think we'll be reading those guys for centuries and people will look like when there's always , like you know , when we look back at the past , it's like there's certain thinkers that are like that centuries thinker , like that you know , like there's a few guys is like , oh , you know , aquinas , like 13th century and like , and

some like you know , 1100 and Augustine's , like you know , when he is so like there's like these guys and it's like Tolkien and Lewis , I think , will be those kind of thinkers for the 20th century .

So like great divorce is just Dante's Divine Comedy , updated for the 20th century , like it's the same story , okay , and there's in Virgil the Aeneids in there and the Aeneids you know .

So Lewis loved the Aeneid , like wrote a translation , like started writing a translation of it , and he loved Dante , and so then he does his own little journey to the afterlife thing and it's basically George McDonald is his Virgil and this is just , it's the same thing , it's just he's updated , he's internalized it and so that's that's what it is .

The space trilogy Paralandra is , is Paradise Lost , it's the Paradise Lost , but it's not actually lost , like ransom's there to save the day and and and so . But if you read , for example , lewis wrote a book called the Preface to Paradise Lost and it was that was written .

At the same time he's writing Paralandra and you can just see like , oh , he's just doing . If you read Milton , you read that and I think that there's that sort of dimension of his . So Virgil , dante , milton , and then I think , like the romantic poets , I think that's another big kind of influence on him is .

He read the romantics and there was the , and it called him out of himself . It was where some of the words were , some of the places where the light from beyond , the sun , the longing for joy and this ache for something greater , like that , it , it touched him there .

Even though they weren't necessarily Christians , they were getting at something and he kind of wanted to follow the path that he had come from . I want to go find where that came from .

And so then he's , he's chasing that back and he eventually finds it , you know , in Christianity as sort of the thing that reconciles his imagination , which was stoked by that , and his reason , which up until that point had sort of said well , it's all materialism , it's all atheism , and he couldn't bridge the gap and it was like Christianity was like no , they

can't , they come together . I think those are some of the influences .

I also think if you read his letters , like the Jesus guys just reading novels all the stinking time , like he's reading like Jane Austen , he's reading Shakespeare , like I think Shakespeare is a big influence in , like Narnia and places like that , the whole you know , my whole deal on manhood right comes from King Loon in Narnia .

This is what it means to be a king to be first in every desperate attack , to be last in every desperate retreat , to hunger in the land , as must be known again , in bad years . To wear finer clothes , laugh louder to scan to your meal than any man in your land , that little speed , first and last out laughing loudest , is basic .

It's a basically a summary of Henry the fifth , shakespeare's written in the fifth . So like like Henry the fifth is like the . Before there was Braveheart , you know , before there was gladiator , there was Henry the fifth , you know , once more , under the breach , right , he , henry , is like the one leading them into the battle .

They're surrounded and he's like going through the camp and it's the Shakespeare talks about how he's like encouraging his , his men . He's like the son giving him a little touch of Harry in the night , like he's just he's bucking them up when everything's dark . Well , that's . Laugh louder to scan to your meal .

So , like all of that stuff , like he's channeling Shakespeare in Henry the fifth in that , in that story , and so I think that again he's he's just soaked himself in all this great literature and so it's at his fingertips whenever he gets creative .

As you think about that , and particularly the Chronicles of Narnia , a lot of people said , oh , this is a child story and then I read as an adult and I weep and I you know and moved by the story . But why this story ? Why do you think this story is so important ?

Why is it important that you look around Christian communities and , like most parents are like reading this , or kids or the kids are reading it . But why is Narnia so important ?

But I think also like the medieval stuff , the weaving together of the medieval cosmos and mindset and approach . And I think that Lou and I honestly think that , like some of it is , he put it in a fairy tale . So , and when he talks about fairy tale it's like it when it provided for him with certain kind of constraints .

It meant he couldn't do , it wasn't going to , there was not going to be a love story Because you know , like like . In other words , it wasn't going to be there's no way to do junior high or like high school . Young adult fiction .

So he had the form suited it well , and then he had both the Christian stuff and the medieval stuff at his fingertips to to tell this story , to really , and then , I think , to follow it through and go like I'm going to .

You know , this is the argument of Michael Ward and his stuff on on Planet Narnia is basically , he had certain kind of qualities that the medieval mind associated with the planets and he wanted to like capture them in a story , like weave it into a story , and he did really effectively .

And so I think that's part of why I think that's just why they work is that he's tapping into something perennial university , if they're the universal , their permanent value to these themes , and he was qualified to be able to weave them in .

And what's funny is this is the token thing , like Token did not like it , because he was like you , you're not allowed to mix those . And and Lewis is like but watch me .

And then Father Christmas , for goodness sake , like you can't mix those together , and Lewis is like , but I can actually , I really will , and there's a unity to it , like this jovial , always winter , never Christmas , giving way to spring and new life , like that idea .

He's like that's the thing that's going to , you know , pull all this together and he's going to do something similar with martial virtue and heartiness and doing hard things . You can do the same thing in Prince Caspian oldness woods , all of these things . Like there's a center . He's going to like pull it all together and token didn't see it . That's what's funny .

And he token was such a detail oriented guy that he could not get past the hodgepodge and I think Lewis just thought that was probably the funniest thing ever .

That's that scene in the silver chair at the end when they're underground and the witch comes in and the harp and the conversation there .

I think it's probably one of the most profound analyses and diagnosis of modernity and like the dark and the dark enchantment of the modern world , like ever , like it's like he just pegs so much and packs so much into that , like the perceptiveness of , like what's actually going on and then like the antidote to it , like Puddlegum's stick in his foot in the fire

and then answering which is I'm going to live like a Narnia and even if there's no Narnia speech , is I just think it's like this really tightly packed analysis and diagnosis and cure for the dark enchantment of modernity . And so like I'm probably going to build that out at some point because I think I do think that that's a it's going to be needed .

It's just like this is the world we live in and we do live , have this like dark enchantment thing like it . What this is , what Lewis is so brilliant at , is that a lot of thinkers have talked about the disenchantment of modernity . Right , like , the world used to be enchanted .

We believed in fairies , we believed in supernatural beings , we've been angels and demons and God and it was all . We lived in an enchanted world . And then , like , the enlightenment came along and just , and then modern technology and they crushed it and now the world's disenchanted .

And Lewis is like actually it's the modern world that is enchanted , the modern world is under a dark enchantment . So he flips on his head . It's not that it's been disenchanted , it's that you're right now , this minute , under a dark enchantment .

You've fallen asleep , you've been listening to the witch , she's been playing her music , there's something in the air like it smells bad , it makes you drowsy , it numbs you to sleep . That's the enchantment . It's not that it was enchanted and now it's not . It's that before you were sober minded and the world was just magic , because the world's magic .

And now you've been put under an enchantment and so you don't recognize it as such and just flipping that on the world on is like whoa , ok , wow , what is ? What implications does that have for for how I think about reality .

Is it naturally a disenchanted world that we need to add some special magic to in order to like , hey , let's enchant it everybody , let's reenchant the world . Or is it like we can wake up ? You know , like you're , you're under a spell . And Lewis talks about this in other places .

In his , in his weight of glory , he talks about this where he says , you know , he he's sort of talking about this longing that we all have for something more and that like hunger and the kind of romantic impulse . And he's like do you think I'm trying to weave a spell ? And you're like , maybe I am , but remember your fairy tales .

Spells are useful for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them , and we have need of the strongest enchantment to break the dark spell of modernity that all of our education has been inculcating in us for the last 100 years . She's like we are all under an enchantment and I am trying to wake you up .

But I get back to something I think that you're talking about earlier , which was really a division , I think , but even between the reformers and sort of the magisterial side versus radical .

You know reformation guys like myself , you know we've been reading things that Cannon puts out , like Stephen Wolfe , and we're reading about what did some of our fathers in the faith think about ? Classical , two kingdoms , et cetera , and then you've got another camp that's saying , no , this is dark magic , we don't need to read about this .

This is , this is bad juju , and one of the questions I was going to ask you is I know that at some point , I think on Twitter , you had offered like , hey , I'll step in a debate , help foster this to happen . But first of all , why ? Why do you think this issue ? I've often asked this . Why this issue among all issues ?

Why is this so important right now ? Why are so many people talking about it and getting kind of heated at points ?

So you think of like Christendom is like when the prodigal son he's at home and then he goes , he says take me the money , and he goes , and that's like neutral world , where he's like spending the money on the hookers and everything's okay , and then at some point he runs out of money and it's like now we're in negative world , like you ran out of money and

you're in the and you're in the pig side and so . But the thing about negative world that I think is the thing that has to be underscored , is what it's , what it's our fundamentally rejection of is Christian ethics , and Christian ethics are just universal ethics . It's not . There's nothing .

The whole point of biblical law is not that it's like this special law imposed on reality , but it's just like natural law , like it's like the God baked this , these standards , into the cake , and it's the rejection of the ethics that's different . So , like Thomas Jefferson wanted to like cut up his Bible , he had scissors .

Jefferson's Bible was with Jefferson scissors , but he wanted to cut out all of the peculiar doctrines , all of the , the miracle stuff , the you know deity of Christ and the cross and the resurrection he wanted all that , but he wanted to keep the ethical . Okay , modern Thomas Jefferson's want to cut out all the ethical right .

They actually don't mind the miracles they could , they maybe , you know , like the world's , you know Hanukkah's most right , like the world's spooky , they're fine with spooky mediums and and um , necromancy and all this sort of stuff , that's all fine . Yes , that's miracles , that's supernatural , maybe , that's true .

But all the ethics stuff , that's the parts that we got to cut out , especially the sexual ethics , and so that shift to negative world um , really marked , I think , a turning point . And what we're seeing then in the Christian response is well , what do we do in light of it ? And some people are like well , let's , what did our fathers in the faith do , what ?

How did they build Christendom and was it good that they did it ? And then I think part of what's happening with a lot of it's not .

It makes sense that it's among Baptists that some of the pushback to the recovery of Christendom or the recovery of a Christian nation or that sort of thing is coming from Baptists , but it's because I think Baptist political philosophy was birthed in Christendom . All of them , these were birthed in Christendom .

But Baptist was a was like the dissidents and the separatists within Christendom . And so there's a way in which Baptist political philosophy , I think , assumes Christendom conditions it actually .

It actually it implicitly relies on it for a lot , and I don't think it's it's recognized how much it relies on Christendom for it to work , because it assumes that the moral , the ethical teaching and instruction , sort of the first and second uses of the law , are present and active .

And then Baptists come along and are like , yeah , and you really need to believe the gospel before you're baptized , like it's not enough to just be born into Christian nation , you have to actually believe the thing , and which is a good , that's a good exhortation . It's a danger of Christendom is that you just coast .

And so what happens then when you take away those background conditions , when those cultural conditions in the background , that we're sort of reinforcing the biblical morality that we're giving the law , when those are just removed , I think that Baptists have a hard time and I think that that's why .

And so then when you and then , and so then you say no , but you have to , there's some foundation , it's going to be something . It's either going to be God or it's Christ or chaos . You've got to , you can't have . You can't hang horizontal earthly justice , man to man , no murder , no killing , no adultery . You can't hang that in midair .

It needs to stand on something and it stands on the confession of the living God of the first table . The second table of law depends on the first table of law , basically , and Baptists are really reluctant , but it's like they've , I think they've been relying on that for it to make sense . And so that's where a lot of this discrepancy comes from .

Is Christendom is sort of in shambles , even more so , especially the moral stuff . And so now there's some Baptists , I think , who are like well , what do we do ? And they're kind of like oh , is there a way to do ? Baptists , christian nationalism , baptists , mere Christendom , and the other guys are like absolutely not .

And that's where the that's where that debates come in from .

So , yeah , what do you see as the way ?

You guys know those guys , Christ overall they're a bunch of Baptists , so like SBC guys by and large , but they through October , I think in November , they've been hosting like basically a bunch of podcasts interviewing different people .

And the thing I've been impressed with them about is that they've been able to get folks from across the spectrum , not just their camp , so they got everybody from like a Jonathan Lehman and an Andrew Walker on the Baptist sort of side , and then they but they interviewed Stephen Wolf and Doug and time incline on the other side , and so like they're pulling

different guys asking them same questions like hey , what is this , what are the differences ? And I think that that's a really healthy thing . I think the thing that people that won't work is just trying to say don't , don't read that , Don't , don't go there , this , you can't , it doesn't work . That kind of pressure you have to win the argument .

You can't just exert sort of the pressure and say no , but it's really bad . You're going to have to actually have the debate and suppression is just going to make it get worse . It's just going to make it people more curious . Like , well , why can't I read it ? I'm hopeful , you know , like we're .

You know , one of the nice things about being out here has been like this , just willingness to kind of go anywhere and talk to anybody and have the discussion . Maybe if I have folks come out here and I think I'm hoping at some point that more people will take us up on that and we'll be able to to .

The first step is just clarity , Like what actually is the differences Right ? So like I hate confusion , I just hate it . Like few things just get under my skin as much as like but that's not what that guy thinks , and it doesn't matter I think I can think that guy's totally wrong . I think he's way out to lunch , but I'm like that's not what he thinks .

He thinks this and say it the right way , and then it's bring the clarity it's either this or that , and then and then leave it in people's hands Like you got a Bible , it's either this or that , and I'm content to leave it there and just let it go .

But oftentimes people are like , well , we're going to straw man this so that you hold on to what we think . And if you do that , if you straw man , eventually you burn your credibility because people are going to go read the thing , they're going to go read the source and you told them that that guy believed X and he doesn't .

And now you've just burned your credibility .

So don't like there's just there's a lot of dangers in that , I think , for a lot of pastors who are just trying to tamp it down as opposed to like honestly , forthrightly , engaging , representing brothers fairly , getting it clear , and then saying and this is why we disagree , this is why we agree , you got to make the call .

So it's like Calvin Althusias Hooker , classic Protestant magisterial , all of all of that stuff . That's where . That's where I land with appreciation for the theonomist , but like I don't . So the general activity theonomy , I think is just a way of that's the way that guys around here will talk . I think that's just a way of talking about classic Westminster style .

And the funny thing is I just talked about this on Monday at in our freshman theology class on the law and on the question of like , what aspects of the law still apply , there isn't a dime's bit of difference between the London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession , like they're identical on this point and so you know it's .

It's the moral laws , the natural laws summarize the 10 commandments , but like it's not the you know . So , like there , this is actually a place where I'm like , hey , we should all be friends , we all agree on this . This is not like we disagree on other stuff , like , but we don't disagree on this .

So there's a there's the possibility of coming together to kind of to kind of get that , but that's , that's where .