The Irish: Rough-and-Tumble Saviors of Civilization

As our story opens , at the beginning of the 5th century , no one could foresee the coming collapse . But to reasonable men in the second half of the century , surveying the situation of their time , the end was no longer in doubt . Their world was finished . One could do nothing but , like Ausonius , retire to one's villa , write poetry and await the inevitable .

It never occurred to them that the building blocks of their world would be saved by outlandish oddities from a land so marginal that the Romans had not bothered to conquer it , by men so strange . They lived in little huts on rocky outcrops and shaved half their heads and tortured themselves with fasts and chills and nettle baths .

As Kenneth Clark said , quote looking back from the great civilizations of 12th century France or 17th century Rome , it is hard to believe that for quite a long time , almost 100 years century Rome , it is hard to believe that for quite a long time , almost 100 years , western Christianity survived by clinging to places like Skellig Michael , a pinnacle of rock 18

miles from the Irish coast , rising 700 feet out of the sea . End quote . So writes Thomas Cahill about the strange moment when Rome fell and Western civilization hung in the balance . We may take it for granted today , but our literature , christian culture and heroes almost did not make it after the sack of the great empire .

And yet , as Cahill points out , a strange people from Ireland , all too often disdained by their English neighbors and the rest of the world , would save the day for the West .

As we tell the story of the Irish who saved civilization in this episode of the King's Hall podcast , we're reminded that small backwoods communities can play a pivotal role in securing a future for Christendom .

It may be tempting to read our time with the darkest shade of black-pilled glasses , but it's helpful to remember that civilizations have collapsed and been rebuilt before .

As we look around the political , cultural landscape of America , we see moral degradation , chaos everywhere , child sacrifice and genital mutilation , sexual debauchery , grotesque government taxation and overspending , and an elite political class that is feverishly committed to forever wars , lawfare against conservatives and the promotion of the Frankensteinian trans movement .

Our borders are open to the barbarian hordes from the third world and , as a result , our daughters are being raped , murdered and trafficked into oblivion .

Our food and water supplies are contaminated with castrating chemicals , life and health spans are diminishing by the year and the total state steals the value of our wealth through overspending , excessive taxation and hyperinflation .

Meanwhile , our sons are sent to die in the forever wars fomented by globalist elites and the military-industrial complex , wars that serve as little more than sophisticated money laundering schemes . All the while , our brothers and fathers in Appalachia are left to die because we're told there's no money to send for aid .

Natural affections for people and places have been replaced by globalist calls to love everyone equally . What can men do against such reckless hate ? How can we stop the onslaught by the leftist elites against Western civilization ?

How can we resist those who want to poison us against our fathers , rewrite our histories , rob us of generational wealth and obliterate our culture through mass immigration and DEI education practices ? Well , first we should take heart .

We aren't the first Christians in world history to have the deck stacked so radically against them , as our story about the Irish will prove and as GK Chesterton once wrote . Quote on five occasions in history the church has gone to the dogs , but on each occasion it was the dogs that died . End quote .

Dark and bleak as the future may seem , there is yet hope for the men of the West , if only we will find the courage to stand and fight when all else fails . God seems to delight in using the most unlikely characters to preserve the light of Christian civilization . Could God do it again through unlikely places and peoples ?

The answer , it seems , has to be a resounding yes . As Rod Dreher pointed out in his book the Benedict Option , small communities of Christians have been the real potential to preserve that which is being otherwise lost , abandoned or attacked by the broader culture of death and decay .

It is our hope that an episode like this inspires future communities of Christians to band together for the purpose of keeping the great culture and literature of Western civilization alive . But in Ogden we've actually gone one step further .

Not only are we trying to preserve our rich cultural heritage , but we're also willing to go on the offensive in the culture war . Christians must fight One household , one church , one community at a time , as Winston Churchill once said . Quote nations that go down fighting rise again , but those that surrender tamely are finished , end quote .

Wherever you live and whatever the outcome , you must decide whether you will surrender tamely . Here in Ogden , we choose to fight . Christendom , we're sure , will rise again . The Irish are a hot-blooded , mirthful people who yet understand the depths of sorrow and tragedy . They are , as author Jim Webb once described them , born fighting .

It was this jovial fighting spirit that saved Christianity and the West from utter extinction . As we turn now to their history , it is our hope that it will inspire you and your people to build , fight and win , no matter how strong the enemy seems , no matter how certain our doom or how small and unlikely we may seem .

As we turn now to their story , it is our hope that it will inspire you and your people to build , fight and win , no matter how strong the enemy seems , how certain our doom , or how small and unlikely it may seem . That will affect real change .

Galadriel once asked Gandalf why he put all his chips and trust in Bilbo Baggins , a rather small and insignificant hobbit . Why the halfling she asked , to which Gandalf replied thoughtfully I don't know . Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check , but that is not what I've found . I have found .

It is the small things , everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay , simple acts of kindness and love . Why Bilbo Baggins ? Perhaps it is because I am afraid , and he gives me courage . So may the Irish small folk with ordinary ways steal us with courage today .

In the year 29 BC , augustus Caesar commissioned a Roman poet named Virgil to write an epic poem . He wanted the poem to commend the themes of sensibility , hard work and devout religion , all things that Rome needed to reclaim following its chaotic civil war .

Virgil then spent the last decade of his life crafting , honing and shaping what would become one of the greatest works of classic literature , a Latin masterpiece that would rank among the best of all masterpieces . In fact , the Aeneid would become one of the most important works of poetry in world history , maybe even the most important .

The Aeneid would prove foundational and inspirational to nearly every great man in every age , following from Augustine to Napoleon Bonaparte , to CS Lewis , thomas Stern's Eliot . The great 20th century poet called the Aeneid the classic of all Europe .

It would indeed be safe to say that the world would have been vastly different without the publishing of this great work . Such an important work was cherished above all others , preserved from generation to generation . It was taught , read and studied , and then passed down to children and grandchildren .

It was , and arguably still is , a culture-defining work , and yet , like the whole of the Western canon , it was almost lost forever . There were three periods in Roman history . The first lasted from 625 BC to 510 BC and was known as the period of kings , when Rome was a monarchy . The second period was Rome's Republic era , which lasted from 510 BC to 31 BC .

The final period , the Empire of Rome , lasted to 476 AD . The total Roman span of power lasted a staggering 1,480 years . For nearly 1,500 years , this all-powerful entity known as Rome dominated the world . The empire dictated culture with a classic learning style similar to , but also distinct from , that of the ancient Greeks .

Roman literature , art , construction and politics were a central force in shaping what Christian Europe would ultimately become . In many ways , rome was Europe . The Romans punctuated their economic and civic domination with a ruthlessly effective and brilliantly efficient military . They conquered large domains with one of the greatest militaries in world history .

They were , in essence , the greatest political entity ever to be . For all their greatness , the Romans were pagans , and rather godless ones at that . But then , a pivotal moment in world history . Christ came , died for the sins of the world and arose At first . Directly after the Jews murdered Christ , it seemed as if Christianity had been stamped out .

Nothing could happen now , or so it seemed , for their Messiah was dead . But in the wake of his resurrection , the apostles evangelized the world and the empire along with it . Slowly and surely , with careful and passionate preaching from the apostles , christianity infiltrated every rung of society . But as it initially grew , so did its opponents .

For centuries , christians were persecuted and martyred for their beliefs . Then a Christian prince , constantine , delivered the Christians from their agony and legalized Christianity in 313 with the Edict of Milan . Even more impressive , christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire . The pagans had at last conformed .

The greatest empire ever was now a Christian one . What would follow is rather impressive . Not only was Rome Christianized , christianity and Europe with it was Romanized . Though the Roman Empire became an empire through military conquest , the inside of her borders were , to a great extent , peaceful .

The late Thomas Cahill , the American scholar and author of how the Irish Saved Civilization , asserted that quote the world has never known anything as deep , as lasting or as extensive as Pax Romana , the peace and predictability of Roman civilization . End quote there was virtually no crime , no instability , no insecurity . There was only peace .

And yet , like most good things , the Roman peace was destined to die . After centuries of peace , the Romans began to take their tranquil environment for granted . As a result of centuries of unparalleled military success , the Romans grew overconfident . No one had ever beaten them and indeed no one ever would .

As Bane once told Bruce Wayne , peace has cost you your strength . Victory has defeated you . You're welcome . The Roman Empire's arrogance was soon exploited by the roaming Germanic tribes from the north . Visigoths and Vandals came storming into Roman territory , intent on conquering it . Still , there was no cause for fear in the Romans .

Quote the Gauls had been the first barbarian invaders hundreds of years before and now Gaul lay at peace . The verses of its poets and the products of its vineyards were twin fountains of Roman inspiration . The Gauls had become more Roman than the Romans themselves . Why could not the same thing happen to these vandals , alans and Sweeves ?

Contrary to their self-trust , the Romans were soon overrun by the fearless Visigoths , who sacked Rome in 410 AD . The sacking of the capital of Rome , the first outside attack on Rome in 800 years , marked the end of peace in Rome . It showed the vulnerability of the Romans and marked the end of an empire .

Rome would decline for the next 60 years before the last Roman emperor would be deposed in 476 . Rome would , in the end , lose everything , but what exactly would be lost with the death of Rome ? Following the demise of Rome , europe was plunged into chaos .

Cahill is quick to point out that , quote A world in chaos is not a world in which books are copied and libraries are maintained . It's not a world where learned men have the leisure to become more learned .

It's not a world for which the grammaticus schedules regular classes of young scholars and knowledge is dutifully transmitted year by placid , year end quote In short , europe was in danger of losing her rich heritage of learning , which was at the heart of this powerful culture . The empire , formerly peaceful , had turned chaotic .

The empire , formerly peaceful , had turned chaotic . The famously safe Roman roads were transformed into a den of robbers . The German barbarians were illiterate Aryans , and so they were at odds with both Orthodox Christianity and so-called book learning . Greek and Hebrew literature were safe in the East , but what was almost lost was all of Latin literature .

By losing Latin literature , we would have lost the foundation on which the greatest civilization in world history was built Cahill says that , quote we would have lost the taste and smell of the whole civilization .

12 centuries of lyric beauty , aching tragedy , intellectual inquiry , scholarship , sophistry and love of wisdom , the acme of ancient , civilized discourse , would all have gone down the drain of history . End quote . Not only were the Romans losing classical antiquity and civilization , they were losing confidence .

Again , cahill writes , quote what is really lost when a civilization wearies and grows small is confidence , a confidence built on the order and balance that leisure makes possible . As the art historian Kenneth Clark said , civilization requires a modicum of material prosperity , enough to provide a little leisure , but far more .

It requires confidence , confidence in the society in which one lives , belief in its philosophy , belief in its laws and confidence in one's own mental powers , vigor , energy , vitality . All the great civilizations or civilizing epics have had a weight of energy behind them .

People sometimes think that civilization consists in fine sensibilities and good conversations and all that . That can be among the agreeable results of civilization , but they are not . What makes a civilization and a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid ? End quote . Obviously , we didn't lose all Latin literature .

It's still here , still inspiring , still epic , still making the Biblicists mad . The Aeneid still inspires great men , virgil's brilliant verses still burn on the pages and his dazzlingly intricate Latin is still the pinnacle of classical antiquity . No , latin culture wasn't lost . It was saved from the fire . But someone had to do the saving . So who saved it ?

Across the world from Rome there is a tiny island where the people called the Irish dwell . The Irish are part of an ethnic group called the Celts . The Celtic ethnicity is not limited to Ireland , the island where the Irish live . They first became known to Western civilization in 600 BC when they ventured across the River Rhine and into Roman territory .

Some of them settled in France and would later become the Gauls . Some traveled as far as Turkey and received a letter as the Galatian Church from Paul the Apostle . Others branched out to the island later known as England and became the Britons . In 350 BC they reached Ireland . At present , ireland is the only Celtic nation state in the whole world .

The Irish are the lone survivors of the Celtic heritage . What were they like as a culture ? Thomas Cahill describes the Irish as an illiterate , aristocratic , semi-nomadic , iron Age warrior culture , its wealth based on animal husbandry and slavery . They were a semi-nomadic cattle people and , due to their nature . The Irish changed very little .

Some cultures usually only undergo change when it's brought by an outside influence and can go for long periods of time with little to no cultural oscillation . It seems that for centuries Ireland did just that , remained relatively unchanged . As far as their history and literature goes , irish character is abundantly clear throughout their ancient epics .

It is especially clear in their epic Tyne Boculna or the Cattle Raid of Cooley . Again , cahill says that , quote . The first thing that will probably strike any modern reader who opens the Tyne is what a rough , strange world . This is both simple and full of barbaric splendor . Here is no deliberation or subtlety , no refinement or ambiguity .

We know immediately that we are at a far remove from Virgil , cicero , plato and the whole literary tradition of the classical world , excepting perhaps Homer . The characters of the tine do not think profoundly , they do not seem to think at all . But they do act , and with a characteristic panache and roundedness that easily convinces us of their humanity .

End quote . In reading the Tyne we see the Irish to be confident and frank . They were very rough , very human . They were especially open sexually , apparently having no qualms about anything in that category . They were unab sexually , apparently having no qualms about anything in that category . They were unabashed , very fiery and jovial .

Their people were lighthearted and free . The slave industry was also a big part of the Irish economy . Ironically , given that last sentence , the Celtic slavery field was incredibly effective and a huge part of their financial prosperity came from it . The Irish were adept at kidnapping or man-stealing , which is a horrible sin .

Little did they know that their deliverance would come from the same place as their condemnation . See , once upon a time , a very long time ago , in Roman Britain , there was a boy . The boy's name was Patricius or Patrick . Roman Britain , there was a boy . The boy's name was Patricius or Patrick .

Patrick lived with his father , Copernicus , who was a deacon and local official . Patrick was hardy and well-fed and lived a typical comfortable Roman life . But his situation changed rapidly when he was a young man . When Patrick was just 16 , he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and ripped from his father's home .

He was transported to Ireland where he became the slave of a petty king named Miliuk . Under Miliuk , patrick became a shepherd , a lonely and isolated profession . There was little human interaction , as Patrick often spent months at a time alone in the rolling hills of Ireland . He knew little of the Irish language at first .

So any encounters that he did have with strangers while in the wilderness were particularly nerve-wracking and sometimes dangerous . During the six lonely years that Patrick spent as a shepherd , his only two companions were hunger and nakedness .

He was exposed to the cold and hunger , gnawed in his belly , abandoned by humanity , patrick turned to the only thing he could the God of his fathers . As a boy he had never really cared for Christianity and he had thought priests to be foolish . Now , desperate , patrick began to pray . Here's how he described how he made it through his captivity . Quote .

Tending flocks was my daily work and I would pray constantly . During the daylight hours , the love of God and fear of him surrounded me more and more and faith grew and the spirit was roused , so that in one day I would say as many as a hundred prayers , and after dark nearly as many again .

Even while I remained in the woods or on the mountain , I would wake and pray before daybreak , through snow , frost and rain . Nor was there any sluggishness in me , because then the spirit within me was ardent . End quote . Finally , patrick's prayers would be answered .

He received a vision from the Lord in which a strange voice said to him your hungers are rewarded , you're going home . The voice then told him that his ship was ready , even though Patrick was miles and miles inland . Dutifully , patrick set out in search of this mysterious ship . His feet carried him .

He knew not whence , but eventually he arrived at the seaside port of Wexford . Patrick took it as a good sign that a runaway slave such as himself had made it through the entire country unmolested . In Wexford , he attempted to board a ship , but the sailors recognized him as a runaway slave and refused him passage .

Scared that others would recognize him too , patrick returned to his rented cabin and prayed to the Lord . Before he finished his prayer , one of the sailors knocked on his door and told Patrick that the crew changed their minds and had decided to take him with them . Finally , it seemed that Patrick would escape his island prison .

It took three days to cross to the European continent and once there , patrick and his crew found only devastation . Patrick later described a desert through which he wandered for two full weeks . It's suspected that this was the year 407 AD , when the Germanic tribes had all but destroyed Gaul , leaving a veritable wasteland in their wake .

Unable to find sustenance , the sailors turned on Patrick and taunted him by saying how about it , christian ? You say your God is all powerful , so why can't you pray for us ? We're starving to death and there's little chance of our ever seeing a living soul .

Uncowed Patrick said from the bottom of your heart turn trustingly to the Lord , my God , for nothing is impossible with him . And today he will send you food for your journey until you are filled , for he has an abundance everywhere . Right on cue , a herd of pigs came stampeding over the hill .

Patrick and the men took their fill of the pork God had provided for Patrick again . After a few more years of wandering , he eventually made it back to his parents in Britain . Patrick was joyfully welcomed back , but something just wasn't right . He was too different . He'd become calloused and hardened as a result of his difficult lifestyle .

He was too far behind in his education to keep up with the other young men his age . He'd had experiences that no ordinary Roman citizen could relate to . He was still isolated , even in civilization . One night Patrick had a vision . A man named Victoricus , whom Patrick had known in Ireland , visited him .

In his sleep , victoricus handed Patrick countless letters which spelled out the term Vox Hiberonicum , meaning the voice of the Irish . Immediately following that , patrick saw a forest in Ireland crying out we beg you to come and walk among us once more . Upon waking , patrick reported feeling stabbed in the heart .

The visions increased and Patrick became aware of his new mission . Christ affirmed that mission in a vision with the words he who gave his life for you , he it is who speaks within you . What was Patrick's mission specifically ? He was going back to Ireland , this time with a mission . He was to be St Patrick , apostle to the Irish nation .

In other words , he was to be the voice of the Irish . His mission now clear . Patrick departed from his parents' house . First he went to Gaul , where he received a theological education at the Island Monastery at Lorenz , because he had a complete lack of education up to that point .

Patrick struggled mightily in his scholastic pursuits , but he persevered nonetheless and was soon made bishop and , which is more , the first missionary bishop . What made Patrick unique was that he was one of the first , if not the first , to attempt to evangelize outside of the boundary lines of the Roman Empire . Even Paul had never strayed from the Roman borders .

What Patrick was doing was entirely new and without precedent . There was real danger in his mission , but he expressed complete lack of fear in his writings , he was confident that God would deliver him . Patrick devoted the last 30 years of his life to evangelizing the Irish , or , as he called them , his warrior children .

It's worth noting that the period of change in the world during those 30 years has rarely been matched . Rome was falling into chaos , but the opposite was occurring in Ireland . Patrick was helping his people transition from chaos to peace . But how exactly did Patrick win over the Irish ? Part of it was his personality .

He was earthy and warm , and so he was above suspicion by the locals . He was also courageous , a trait that the Irish favored . Patrick was not scared of the Irish , which greatly increased their respect for him . But the other part has to do with the Irish consciousness itself . The Irish pantheon of gods was greatly disturbing , not comforting to the people .

The Irish gods were fear-based . All of the ancient figures of Irish gods would give most people nightmares , just like their gods . The entire Irish life was based on fear and violence , which was an unfulfilling and unsettling way of life . Ultimately , the Irish had a deep cultural fear of death .

What Patrick offered the Irish was the satiation of their deepest fear , because as a Christian , there is no fear of death , there is no wondering about the afterlife .

The entirety of the Irish people converted to Christianity , in large part so easily , because it satisfied this fear , and they saw in Patrick that a man could be both courageous and peaceful at the same time . Patrick transmuted the Irish virtues of loyalty , courage and generosity into the Christian virtues of loyalty , courage , generosity and peace .

The Irish were perfectly primed to become Christians and Patrick was the perfect messenger fitted by God to them . The Irish were also unique because they didn't completely eradicate the ethnic and cultural influences in their lives , even after converting to Christianity . Christian virtues became preeminent , to be sure , but they retained the flavor of Irish culture .

Here's where we find the typical understanding of Irish character , that of the jolly , sometimes tipsy Irishman . Cahill says that quote . After Patrick , the eviler gods shrank in stature and became much less troublesome , became , in fact comical gargoyles of medieval imagination , peering fearfully from .

Even though the Irish civilization and lifestyle changed , having converted to Christianity , the Irish character did not change . Freud once muttered to himself that the Irish character did not change . Freud once muttered to himself that the Irish were the only people who cannot be helped by psychoanalysis .

Throughout our exploration of St Patrick and the Irish , the one thing it seems that the Irish did not particularly care for is scholarship . However , the Irish love of learning was coaxed into blossom by Patrick , a talent always there but in need of a nurturing father to bring it to fruition . Why did Patrick do this ? An uneducated shepherd himself .

For this reason , patrick understood that although Christianity was not completely tied to Roman custom , it wouldn't survive without Roman literacy . So the first Irish Christians became the first Irish literates . It is a good lesson for us today .

To create , maintain and cultivate the kind of culture that has the potency to change the world and endure great tribulation , the people must be educated . Literacy must be a central component of cultural creation and transmission . From this new love of learning sprang Irish monasticism .

The difference between typical European monasticism and that employed by the Irish is that the Irish version did not seek the ivory tower of isolation . Instead , the Irish openly sought a community with which to worship God together . Cahill says that quote . Openly sought a community with which to worship God together . Cahill says that quote .

Since Ireland had no cities , these monastic establishments grew rapidly into the first population centers , hubs of unprecedented prosperity and learning . End quote . The learning in these communities was extensive . The Irish turned out to be passionate scholars and learned about everything they could .

Again , cahill says this quote Irish generosity extended not only to a variety of people , but to a variety of ideas . As unconcerned about orthodoxy of thought as they were monastic unity , they brought into their libraries everything they could lay their hands on .

They were resolved to shut out nothing , not for them the scruples of St Jerome , who feared he might burn in hell for reading Cicero .

Once they learned to read the Gospels and the other books of the Holy Bible , the lives of the martyrs and ascetics , and the sermons and commentaries of the fathers of the church , they began to devour all of the old Greek and Latin pagan literature that came their way as well .

In their unrestrained Catholicity , they shocked conventional churchmen who had been trained to value Christian literature principally , and give a wide berth to the dubious morality of the pagan classics . End quote . The Irish saw no need for self-imposed censorship , and indeed they thought along the classic lines of I am a human being , so nothing human is strange to me .

It was precisely this lack of censorship that was about to give the Irish their unique role in history . The newly Christianized Irish , with their newfound fascination for learning , immersed themselves especially in the copying of manuscripts and books . They copied literature of every sort . The Irish tackled their new passion with characteristic levity .

And books they copied literature of every sort . The Irish tackled their new passion with characteristic levity and humor . Meticulous scribes copied books day and night , often leaving notes in the margins . After the death of Hector in the Iliad , one scribe wrote quote I'm greatly grieved at the above mentioned death .

End quote Students also worked as scribes as part of their course load , and one student left this poem behind . All are keen to know who will sleep with blonde Aideen . All Aideen herself will own is that she will not sleep alone . Classic .

During their renaissance , the Irish also developed scripts that were an incredibly beautiful combination of Latin , greek and their own native languages . Though it is forgotten by many today , the reality was that the Irish became the saviors of Western civilization . As the Roman Empire and all of its literature came crashing down , the Irish were rising up .

They sent missionaries to Europe who carried their books with them . Once more , cahill says , quote Latin literature would almost surely have been lost without the Irish and illiterate Europe would hardly have developed its great national literatures without the examples of the Irish , the first vernacular literature to be written down .

Beyond that , there would have perished in the West not only literacy but all the habits of mind that encourage thought . And when Islam began its medieval expansion , it would have encountered scant resistance to its plans , just scattered tribes of animists ready for a new identity .

Wherever they went , the Irish brought with them their books , many unseen in Europe for centuries and tied to their waists as signs of triumph , just as Irish heroes had once tied to their waist their enemies' heads . Wherever they went , they brought their love of learning and their skills in bookmaking In the bays and valleys of their exile .

They re-established literacy and breathed life into the exhausted literary culture of Europe . And that is how the Irish saved civilization , end quote . They also played a pivotal , central role in converting the Carolingian dynasty to Christianity .

Saint Boniface , a British missionary who had been converted to Christianity by the Irish , crowned Charlemagne king of the Franks in 768 AD . Again , it was Boniface who chopped the trees of the pagans down in Europe . Although the Irish saved civilization , their history is still somewhat tragic .

Throughout their history they've been largely a heavily oppressed people group . The British , for example , continue to deal harshly with the Irish even to the present day . This attitude toward the Irish goes a long way back in history . The British have long disdained them because they weren't Roman stock .

When the Vikings invaded Ireland they crushed all the Irish monasteries , wiping out the scholastic hubs in Ireland . This cost the nation its leading role in Christian world politics . Later , queen Elizabeth even contemplated genociding the Irish race altogether . The 18th century penal laws denied Catholics , and therefore Irish , the rights of citizens .

This crushed the spirit of the Irish . All of their nobility fled the island and , as a result of the Irish , all of their nobility fled the island and , as a result , nations like France inherited Ireland's best and brightest .

The Great Hunger killed one million Irish citizens from 1845 to 1851 , while another one and a half million emigrated away from their homeland . For the most part , the British stood by and did little , if anything , to offer assistance . By 1914 , the Irish population was reduced by a third , down to around four million .

The anonymous poem Kilkesh epitomized the Irish suffering . What shall we do for timber ? The last of the woods is down . Kilkesh and the house of its glory and the bell of the house are gone . The spot where that lady waited , who shamed all women for grace when earls came sailing to greet her and mass was said in the place , my grief and my affliction .

Your gates have taken away , your avenue needs attention . Goats in the garden stray , the courtyards filled with water and the great earls where are they ? The earls , the lady , the people beaten into the clay . However appalling the anguish of the Irish , they knew it was coming .

Somehow this great ability to endure suffering had been ingrained in the soul of the Irish people . All of their literature , vernacular and history is sad and tragic . The qualities they believed a true hero needed were a perfect example of Irish tragedy .

Cahill says , quote what we can rely on are the comeliness and iron virtue of the Irish hero , his loyalty to cause and comrades , his bravery in the face of overwhelming odds , the gargantuan generosity with which he scatters his possessions and his person and with which he spills his blood .

Though this combination of virtues is epically noble , the culmination of their conclusions almost always leads back to tragedy . Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed up the Irish destiny when he said that to be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart In the final telling .

The Irish are a hardscrabble people who have suffered much and endured through tears and laughter . They fought in the face of certain defeat and somehow didn't lose their jovial spirit . And somehow didn't lose their jovial spirit , though they scarcely get the credit they deserve . It was the uneducated , rough-around-the-edges Irish that saved Western civilization .

Once Christian , they became literate , once literate , they became saviors . And so , despite their tragic moments , it is to this proud race of warrior poet Christians that we owe our entire Western culture and way of life . The next time you read Virgil's Aeneid , thank God for the people that preserved it for you .

And to return to a theme we touched on at the beginning of this episode , we have to ask would the Lord be pleased to use unlikely Christian boroughs to preserve Western civilization once again ? If we were to engage in such a preservation effort , what resources , talents and energy would it take ? Many see the writing on the wall .

The left is actively seeking to destroy the West . Who will rise in the spirit of St Patrick to keep alive this sacred cultural heritage , as Rudyard Kipling once wrote in his poem "'If' . So we are in the position to dream great dreams of a new Christendom and to go about rebuilding in the ruins with worn out tools and lofty ambitions .

The ashes of civilization smolder around us , but we nonetheless rise to the challenge of rebuilding , if you can dream and not make dreams your master , if you can think and not make thoughts your aim , if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same , if you can bear to hear the truth .

You've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools , or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools and , which is more , you'll be a man , my son . The King's Hall podcast exists to make self-ruled men who rule well and win the world .

Scottish Presbyterian minister had come over but there were signs all in New York that said Irish need not apply , because even in America they were sort of looked down on in this British Protestant project of America . Brian , I'm curious for you is there a piece of this that is inspiring ?

As you think about again , our cultural moment can seem bleak , but something is helpful about reading histories like this and saying , well , this is not the first time that Western Civ has been on the ropes .

You just see that God does like to write this story in history where he likes to take a small and insignificant sort of people or place , or even individual persons , like Patrick , a slave boy stolen from his homeland , and use them in these pivotal moments that you could never in the moment predict how they're going to shake out .

You could never predict that , oh , that Patrick guy is going to be he's going to be pivotal not only in the conversion of the Irish people but then the subsequent salvation of Western civilization by the Christianized Irish .

Those kinds of stories they give you hope when the times are hard , but they also there's such a call to you know , like the key theme of the Aeneid , the Pietas , the you know , where Virgil aims to put in you , this devotion to family and country and your God , the gods I mean in the case of the Aeneid but this pietas that you would care more , not just

about the individual hero , like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey , where you have this individualized glory and heroes , but the Aeneid itself gives you this Pietas love for your people , love for your country , love for your God .

What he could do , and it's your individual pursuit of mastery and love and virtue is set in the context of this greater story you're a part of .

So I think it's so fitting that it would be someone like Patrick who really does end up embodying that virtue of Pietas in going back to this people that literally enslaved him to be there , humanly speaking , the one who brought salvation to their land , and then they would be the ones who saved the Aeneid .

That embodies Pietas in its story , in the Roman ethos . So it's just like all of these layers weaved together in the story of the Irish and Patrick and so many of them .

They call us , in a time where there is not love for family and nation and your God , in our land , where there's a dearth of those things , it calls us to embody and aim , to imitate a man like Patrick and give ourselves to that same sort of devotion in a time when , frankly , how could he have expected to succeed ? He couldn't .

We're in a time where it's like Gimli small chance of success , what certain death . What are we waiting for ? It's like , yes , that's where we find ourselves , and so you need stories like this .

Even if you do end up going to your death , even if you do go into obscurity , even if you fail , you need stories like this in your backbone to steal you for doing your duty . In a chapter like this in the story God's writing .

Even today we have sort of these , you know , on Twitter disputes or on X , where people will say , you know , we don't need to read Aristotle or Virgil . But I was even thinking back to CS Lewis , who said , you know , he listed the great works that influenced him that he would recommend to other people . I think he listed five books .

Four of them were , like , explicitly Christian , and then he said the fifth was probably his first , which was the Aeneid . So just talk about why that literature is so important , Like , why , as a Christian , even as a Christian pastor , you know we have a men's book group going on and some people on the outside would say , well , why are you reading the Aeneid ?

Why is something like this so important ? Why shouldn't Christians , you know , push that to side and say no , no , no , we have the Bible , we don't need that .

But the thing is , if you look at the scope of world history and you're going to emulate just common grace , the wisdom of men and the greatest civilizations that ever existed , the wisdom of men and the greatest civilizations that ever existed , why would you not pick one of the greatest , which is the Roman empire , and look at what actually made it great ?

Because the thing is just looking at at the world , humanly speaking , with natural law , you have a culture that flourished . For what was it like ? 1,480 years ? I mean , obviously they had problems .

Uh , in my church history class I actually went through a lot of the Lord God is that part of what he input , instilled or created in us were certain common grace laws in which the Roman Empire truly embodied Even things like they didn't practice polygamy , even things like they didn't practice polygamy , they were faithful in their marriages .

I mean , as much as pagans can be Right , amongst other things , but some of the greatest thinkers , philosophers , that have ever lived were produced from that culture , and so I think it's a great testimony to the early church that they saw the wisdom in the Roman Empire and in the Roman way of thinking and really used that as part of an organizing principle in

which to really organize Christianity . I don't think it influenced the theology , but it definitely influenced some of the hierarchical practices , for good or bad . I mean , roman Catholicism definitely has its pitfalls . But it really helped give it ground in which to grow .

It's also interesting , I think , that the Irish they're converted under Patrick's teaching and his ministry , but Cahill's quick to point out they didn't like eradicate their ethnos .

It wouldn't be because they would just be continuing to war and there would constantly be this friction with peace and was . It wouldn't be because they would just be continuing to war and there would constantly be this friction with peace and war . They wouldn't have the foundational ground of thinking and understanding the world that God made if they couldn't read .

There's a clear understanding that some cultures , particularly Western Christian culture , is superior to something like tribal , pagan Irish culture .

You would have most certainly produced some sort of syncretism with the Irish gods , and then with the superior God , right , jehovah , and then they would have their other gods . You know , but you didn't see that happen .

You actually eradicated the old order of the gods Cahill put that beautifully in which their gods shrunk and , pretty much , were relegated to the corners , and where this joviality , laughter , made them hide in the shadows and they were gone . It's not like a Haitian syncretistic sort of weird , you know , bastardization of Christianity .

Yes , but when you think about those cultures and what was going on , I've read elsewhere that even with St Patrick and like the Druid culture , you had to be like extremely learned , and so these were people that could take a culture like Christianity , be converted and be transformed by it .

But then there was something that God was working through in the nature of those people to be able to pass on a cultural heritage too . And there are , there's visions and there's all these things . We say that that's kind of strange to our hearing , but I'm just curious , like , how do you read that story through your haunted cosmos lens ?

Well , read that story through your haunted cosmos lens .

Because sort of the materialist rewiring of Christianity tends to , whether tacitly or overtly , act like those gods were nothing , that they didn't really exist , they were mere superstitions . I mean , people were sacrificing their children to nothing .

They were just sacrificing their children because , hey , you can see how sort of this evolutionary line of thinking like in order to we've learned this pattern that went to get something good , you have to sacrifice and give your strength . So what is the greatest strength that I have ? Well , it's my children . What is the greatest of my children ?

It's my firstborn son . So what do I need to give to the gods in order to get blessing from them ? The greatest blessing ? My first , the greatest of my strength . And so they developed this naturalistically reasoned , supernatural practice of human sacrifice and a belief in a higher . Like that . There's this idea . These are all materialist superstitions .

Against that I would posit that both reason and the biblical record would teach us that instead , the nations were given over to subjugation to spiritual powers . You see , even an overt hint of this in an example like in the book of Daniel , where the prince of Persia resists this archangel of God for weeks , so he is hindered in bringing his message to Daniel .

And the idea isn't that this is like a literal , the human king of Persia , but it's a spiritual , angelic type power behind the throne . And so my conviction is that the nations in the old covenant , aeon and epic , were governed by , or they were enslaved to varying degrees to , false gods that were real and so ancient myth and is myth of history .

It's a garbled and an errant account of real things , so real spiritual beings that really did subjugate and enslave people and demand their worship and teach them the arts of idolatry . And so it's no . But then , when Christ came , one of the things that he was doing is he was retaking the dominion of man ceded by Adam to Satan , to the adversary .

He was retaking that through his death , burial and resurrection , such that a man , a perfect , glorified man , could rightly take dominion now over the earth again , so that now Satan is bound and the nations can no longer be deceived Revelation 20 , in the same way during this age of the world .

So what we see post-Christ is the advent of Christ , leads to the binding of Satan and the plundering of his house , which is the world . So as Christians advance , first through the Roman Empire , the house of the Roman Empire , they kick out the old gods . Christ kicks them out , binds them .

People now worship the true God , and then , with Patrick , outside of the bounds of the Roman Empire . Now they're going and they're conquering these lands of the false gods . And what I love , though , is that Christianity demands . It doesn't demand syncretism .

It won't permit syncretism where we just add Christ to the pantheon , but it also doesn't demand the total annihilation of a human culture and people into some now globalized , universalized , somehow ascended beyond the human Christian culture .

That's like a generic Christian culture that now , every land that becomes Christian is going to have this exact same language and folkways and customs , and instead of that , what we see is that Christ truly conquers their gods , and so they become funny gargoyles carved into the stones of churches to make fun of them , but we retain cultural celebrations , and they're

now Christianized . That's not syncretism . We're not adding Christ to the pantheon . Christ conquered that , whether it's a harvest festival or whatever it is , or the mythic history of a people , and you see this throughout the land .

One of my favorite examples is the stave churches in Norway , where you go and you'll see these wooden stave churches that are built and in art , across them will be retellings of their myths , but Christian versions of them . So it didn't eradicate their Irishness or Nordicness or whatever it is .

Christianity saved them as a people in a place that's shaped by this people and place and folkways and language and customs and food and all these different things , and it just suffuses back in the saving and the soul of those people , such that they are no longer totally depraved , which doesn't mean they do the worst thing possible all the time .

It just means that their nature was enslaved in every part of what it means to be human . It's now freed and so you can see a reclaiming of their culture and a reestablishing of it .

So that's a really really long answer of the story of the world and how the Irish are an example of Christ's conquest over the false gods , but I think it's important because this is what we're participating in today .

Some of the I think even just the vernacular that the people say in the basement in Ogden use is distinct and multifaceted and glorious , I might even say Dan Rich , it's rich .

One of the things , dan , I want to ask you , though , is , as we think about lessons we might learn from the Irish , one of the things that sort of inspires me to is saying well , what if God would be pleased to build some of these boroughs and havens of Western civilization literature today , somewhere like in Ogden , utah ?

And we start to get into what would it take to do that sort of thing ? To get into , you know , what would it take to do that sort of thing ?

First , though , I just want to ask you do you see Ogden you know you guys really were here before I was starting a school thinking through liturgy and worship and the right worship of a people from the ecclesiastical sphere ?

We're sort of getting into economics , hopefully one day the political as well , but do you see Ogden as playing sort of a preservation role in a similar sense to the Irish .

Right , that's what we just learned and I think that there's a need for that definitely , especially if maybe we get like a short break with the current political environment , but then at some point Virgil will be erased , that will be . The goal is to erase a lot of the canon of Western history . We actually saw this a few years ago .

One of the motivations for starting New Christendom Press was actually the preservation of literature . But I think the greatest benefit and different boroughs will have different skill sets and different emphases and different strengths One of the things that has to be preserved here is actually a boots on the ground culture .

It's not just literature but it's actually a historic culture , and I say that as meaning like one of the things that people probably know about us is that we've reformed quite a lot .

We've changed quite a lot from our Calvary Chapel days , from your standard big Eva sort of flavor church , to where we are now , and really the trajectory is not forward necessarily , it's actually backward .

It's back to the old paths , the old ways , even our emphasis on family and sexual piety and on the confession yeah , patriarchy , things like that and roles and responsibilities , and all of that is actually a preservation of culture itself Western culture , itself Christian , keeping the old paths , but not in a stodgy way to where it ends up being some Anabaptist ,

amish , mennonite sort of culture , but it's still an American culture . I'm an American , we're Utahns Like there's certain emphases in a certain time that we live in that are going to naturally be who we are .

Like that's , we're going to have the errors of our time and we're going to have the strengths of our time and the competencies and the shortcomings and all that .

But one of the things that we have to place a focus on is not forgetting the old ways , not treading , not neglecting the old paths to where they become so uh , grown over with briars and brambles that they're forgotten , and a lot of that is just confessionalism is the teaching of our fathers and the honoring of our fathers , and not removing or moving the

landmarks of our fathers .

They're teaching , like you know , metallurgy and trades . So it was also like it goes beyond just you know , greco-roman literature . It's also like trade , economic , and that's why you get these . You know this idea , even the West , of like churches at the center of a town or a city or something like this .

Brian , just curious your thoughts on on Ogden , some of the stuff that we've done here . Did that influence like this sort of ideal ? Did it also influence like why a school ?

I think it's important to find that when you set about the work of reform and resourcement , going back to the older paths and you , some of the work that you often end up doing is clearing away modern accretions or clearing away or going back on a path and finding that you took a wrong turn .

And so one of the purposes of preservation of these works and of thought from something like even take the 16th century , 17th century work of Protestant theology and things like that and the Protestant theological resourcement movement that we've seen in the last 20 years and continues today , one of the things that it does is it challenges your modern suppositions and

it will often demonstrate that some part of your thinking and practice is actually fairly modern . Sometimes even things that you thought were very old turn out to be actually from the 1960s or the 1980s or something like that , and that you actually thought that those things were classically reformed ideas .

So it's a dangerous work , resourcement , because it can end up turning you back and finding that , wow , we're aliens , like the way we think is alien . This is why not to beat a dead horse .

But this is why the post-war consensus conversation can be so challenging is because a lot of the time what we find in post-war thinking or in modern thinking even if you don't like post-war consensus , just stick with me Like , as you call this , post-enlightenment thinking too , and I think that's true as well , but especially in a concentrated way post-World War II ,

1960s onward , that kind of thing you find that things that we thought were very old or automatically correct ways of thinking are not how our fathers thought at all . And then when you start going back , you have this dangerous moment where you go am I going to think and talk and speak like they did , or am I not ?

And it doesn't mean that every thought that's older is automatically correct or anything like that , or that you can critique and grow and I think the church grows in knowledge and there's possibility of real progress . We're Christians so we can progress towards an ideal , towards a heavenly ideal , even a heavenly ideal that shapes our earthly life , that's true .

And that means we can really critique aspects of former belief , thought and culture , but preserving these things and even seeking to understand them properly and not in a shallow way , can challenge and help us at the same time when I think of you kind of put what you guys are saying together like you're challenged by these ideas .

But when you actually start living that out in culture and community even if you know , like here , it's not like we're mandating it , we allow for the practice but even seeing 20% of the people , the ladies with head coverings on Sunday , people will automatically walk in and think what kind of weird place is this Totally , and that will create theological controversies

and , you know , friction at multiple points . I think you could say the same thing honestly about Christian nationalism , nations and political .

I grew up reading right-wing political stuff but of the like normie con , right , like Sean Hannity and stuff like this , and so it was kind of the idea that you know , religion and the government should be separated , you should have a secular state and but this was condoned in Christian circles substitutes on what a magistrate is for , you're like uh , this is

completely alien to everything that I've thought . Well , that's fine if you have that as a thought experiment , but what happens ? When you start advocating for these policies in the political sphere , dan ? You actually run into real issues , don't you ?

It's also , um , it really shakes you when you start treading these old paths and then you look behind you and you're like , wait a minute , it really shakes you when you start treading these old paths and then you look behind you and you're like , wait a minute , there's a fork in the road there , like , or this was the older path or whatever you know , like

you said with Calvin and the magistrates , and then you start speaking that way and thinking that way and you meet a lot of resistance . It's very uncomfortable for people and and so it's funny because we have two different ministries , if you will .

So we have our church ministry , our local ministry , and then what we're doing right now , which is a more public ministry , and so what people don't see is the speed in which we actually change locally , and this is just an outflow .

So a lot of what probably seems shock , jockey or novel or whatever to a lot of people in our more public ministry is work that we've been doing on the ground for years here locally and didn't just change your mind overnight and then go .

We've reasoned with one another and spoken with godly men and have gone to original sources in order to really become convinced of these changes . And then you hear about it for the first time .

You know the person in Tennessee , texas , alabama , washington state , whatever , uh , from us , and you're like , oh man , that's shock jockey or that's that's novel , or I , I , that's crazy that you'd think that way . It's patriarchy thing . Yeah , not realizing that this is .

Oh wait , we , we did the reading , we've been thinking about this for years and we've actually implemented it here and this is the fruit that it's producing .

I do have a thought about education on this front as well , as it relates to our practice and sort of this , like the danger of resourcement , the danger of preserving the history through 12 , but instead having four forms of multi-year groups that learn together .

And then even as we go , like there's a never-ending thinking and going back and looking at the past and saying how did education happen ? And you find that in the past , in monastic system is a good example of this is that learning and education was largely a matter of the clergy and the nobility .

In history Classical education and then what became classical Christian education , the history of that . Really , until the Protestant Reformation and onward , and then even into the Protestant Reformation , generally the people who were educated were the clergy and the nobility and they would receive a particular type of education .

In rhetoric , you know , cahill mentions a grammaticus in that Irish section .

A grammaticus is like a teacher who would teach a student when they were young , before they would go to a rhetor who would then take them through their later education and become trained in rhetoric and classical learning , and then nobility and clergy would have different sorts of inputs educationally .

And so you look at that , and there's a good element in which Protestantism , introduced through the priesthood of all believers , the idea of universal education , that all men should have a certain baseline of education and literacy , and that's a good thing . I agree with that .

But then what we've done , particularly in the last 110 years or so from World War I on , especially accelerated after the Great Depression , is we've really intensified universal education to the point where people are now cutting folks off from .

This also has to do with the industrial revolution , cutting people off from family trade and family business , putting them through this universal ideal of education that takes them at first through about 12 to 14 , and then it gets older and older .

Then it was 18 with high school and functionally now it's more like 22 , where most people are expected to go get an undergraduate degree in general studies basically , before they master in something particular and maybe even pursue a doctoral degree or something like that .

But when you go back and you start doing this dangerous work of resourcement , you actually start to realize that , oops , we're not paying attention to the world God made or the reason people educated the way they did . Now there were resource problems . You needed a super abundance in cultural , in terms of money and food and with leisure time .

To afford to send all of your people for 22 years of education , you have to be exceedingly wealthy . So that wasn't possible until some of the extremes of wealth today in the modern West and in America and things like that , especially when the economy went from the home to outside the home To global .

But one thing you do start to notice , and we've noticed it and we talk about it a lot , and we look to the future of our communities . We have many young children , hundreds of children under the age of 12 in our community , literally gathered on Sunday . Even if you just reduced it to that .

We're looking , how can we critique our modern ideas of the household , of education , of trade , of business , of family , of things like that ?

And one of the elements that you have to go back to and critique and , I think , change and become alien to the modern world , is this idea , is to reclaim this idea that there is such thing as an elite class of nobility and clergy that ought to be educated in a certain way , the fullness of a classical education , but that a lot of people don't actually need

, nor will they be benefited from spending through age 22 studying these things , and instead they need to be given a baseline , that priesthood of all believers level of classical education and reading , and giving them the tools of learning and access to the great works of the West and how to think well and read well and write well and speak well , those sorts of

things . But many of them are actually .

They were gifted by God to go and be tradesmen or to be homemakers or to be entrepreneurs or things like that that won't be super benefited from the education of clergy and nobility all the way through that extreme edge , that right edge , that might be 10% , 5% , 3% , and so I give this as an example of a way where we're thinking in Ogden of like , how can

we really put our money where our mouth is , looking back at these cultures that have preserved greatness from the West , but also then to let those riches critique our modern presuppositions that are hardwired into us and maybe even do the shocking thing of operating differently , of rejecting the modern and sometimes even painfully rejecting the near modern , the 20th

century innovation theologically , and the theological apparatus that came post hoc to justify the post-war consensus thinking , and to say instead , we're going to go back , we're going to look like aliens to a lot of people and how we talk and think and build and employ our children and educate them and all this stuff and but , but we believe it's going to be more

fruitful . Someone's going to hear this whole rant and they're going to sum it up by saying Brian doesn't believe in educating children , or something like that . But um , cause .

And you start going back to the old paths , you know , and the school is really a , a , a cultural formation . You know , factory , if you will , that's a word that people in the education movement hate , but it's really produces a particular culture .

Getting back to the Irish , though , with the monasteries being like the center of human flourishing and culture , and towns and cities and everything like that , this has been one thing that I've noticed we've been moving more into , but it hasn't been as much intentional .

As a consequence , organic yeah , exactly An organic thing that we've been doing is that , with the monasteries , they weren't an ecclesiastical ecclesiology , they weren't in every single sphere . So when the priests are teaching metallurgy , they're not like the foreman over all the metallurgists , you know , union or whatever .

They were instructors in forming a certain class of people and educating them , but they weren't in charge of everything . And so what ended up happening , I think , in Ireland was that you had these monasteries that were essentially cultural centers .

They were cultural centers for which education and economic and political activities all would surround themselves by , and that's kind of what's been happening here in Ogden is that the pastors aren't in charge of every single thing . Like you can't do a business unless you have the blessing of the pastors or something like that .

But naturally business relationships and connections occur here in the cultural center because you have culturally similar people with similar values worshiping the same God , similar people with similar values worshiping the same God , you know , and so that naturally happens , and same with education and with just all relationships and politics and everything like that , is that

the borough ends up being the cultural center for an entire people , which is really what happened in Ireland .

Well , sometime later , centuries later , you've got Boniface , who will become a missionary back to Europe , and they will take everything that they've learned and they'll go back to Europe , mainland Europe , to re-catechize the continent . And one of the people that is most influenced is Charlemagne .

And it's because of men like Boniface , who's bold and courageous and , yes , we know him for chopping down Donner's Oak . That's been kind of a well-told story in our circles . But the other thing that is often missed is that he spent a great deal of time reforming the clergy .

So you had gross sexual morality going on and , because of that , infanticide , hiding the sin that these priests had committed . So Boniface goes around like purifying the clergy , being courageous , not just attacking the pagan idols but also addressing the problems within the church . And Charlemagne gets wind of this .

These stories inspire him , and so he says we want to bring people from Ireland to re-educate our nobility , to train our kings to be in our courts .

And again to Dan's point , they weren't in charge of the kingdom , but they had a vast role and one of the lessons I think that we can take from it is that element of the warrior poet , the courageous pastor .

When you look at the compromise going on in the American church , it's hard to fathom why any king would value your input on civil matters Because you haven't been courageous , and vice versa . If you're able to culture build again to Dan's point , we've seen this in Ogden you can kind of plant a business anywhere in America right now . But where can you go ?

Where you have like a base community that's going to support you and where pastors are going to have your back right ? We have all this kerfuffle in the reform circle and I think at the heart of a lot of what's going on is actually that there are pastors willing to betray congregants for laughing at the wrong things , right .

So there's this great distrust right now , I think , within the American church , and one of the things that you can do if you're a pastor first and foremost is be courageous and then you have opportunities to influence other men who will be attracted to that .

No , it's not a naive sort of thing and they've been a very hard-pressed people in a hard scrabble land . You know that kind of thing and I think that shapes you as well . It is funny , Like I don't want to just be like , oh , we're exactly like them . But Ogden , like being a Christian church in Utah , it does .

There's a certain cultural , it's a fusion that happens because of that . It can be for ill or for good , and we've seen both ministering on the ground here in Utah .

But one thing it does do is it gives you the sense of you are you're not the dominant culture , so you have to figure out how to , and there's not many of you're not the dominant culture , so you have to figure out how to , and there's not many of you , so you have to figure out how to work together with people who are not exactly like you Christianly .

And like this week one of our deacons we sent him down and talked to a local minister that we'd been hearing some things like hey , that church is a cult , or those people at refuge are really weird , and so we didn't blast him Like hey , that church is a cult , or you know , those people at refuge are really weird , and so we didn't blast them .

We sent a guy down and said , hey , go have lunch with them , talk to them and build a bridge . And that's our instinct . We send it and it works . Like they go , hey , ask us anything you want for a couple hours . Great , cool , and that's very helpful .

But the other thing it does is it makes you realize that Christianity really is a religion of world conquest and that you're constantly faced with the task of bringing conquest , the conquest of the kingdom , to a place that hasn't tasted it yet , and it just shapes you , in terms of your culture , to where there's not an ease , there's not abundance .

You have to build anything if you want it to exist .

That's really built . Let's be honest on transfer growth a lot of these Going and starting a new franchise that wins people from existing churches . That's how a lot of church planting works and that simply doesn't work in Utah because there is no transfer growth to be had . It's a colonizing missionary sort of endeavor .

Transfer growth to be had it's a colonizing missionary sort of endeavor and that's a hard hardship . But it's also a gift because it does teach you to build . It teaches you and since you're building everything from the ground up , it teaches you how to do that , which requires you to look backward and go how did people used to do this ?

And it also makes you critique some of the modern things that only work in cultural Christian areas . You can't just use those . So you have to say , like , how did Patrick build ? How did this work in the early Roman empire ?

How did this work and that creates a certain edge and camaraderie in the church , a unity , a oneness and a depth , I think a strength there , that is . It's a tested sort of thing .

You know there's a level of competence and courage that's required , but it's also attractional , like when you find other competent , courageous people . You say , great , I want to be a part of that , and it can thrive that way . Brian , one of the things I want to do , just as we close down , is give people , I guess , some plugs .

We've got a very exciting book that's been on pre-order .

We'll have that book out out of pre-order and into just normal ordering . So newchristendompresscom , slash , cosmos , c-o-s-m-o-s , and you can find the book there or just in our store if you forget that it's there , but definitely order , so you have time for Christmas .

Yeah , the cutoff that we're saying , I'm pretty sure , for getting there by Christmas is December 10th , so make sure you just , if you want a copy for Christmas or a couple to give out as gifts , pick it up . It's a historic book .

It's the first internal New Christendom Press book written by one of the founders you know like , written by one of us , and Ben and I both wrote about half each of the book . It's not a recapitulation of previously published material or on a Cosmos episodes .

It's a serious look at the world that God made , the seen and the unseen , and doing your duty in that world , and so I hope that it's a book that causes people to marvel in the Lord , to look at the world , the seen and the unseen , and marvel in the Lord and then also be challenged to live boldly as Christians in this world as well , curious and know how

to approach these things . So yeah , check it out , it's going to be great Hardcover . Yeah , check it out , it's gonna be great Hardcover nice . Premium hardcover . It's really cool Goldfall stamping design like a classic custom slip cover , that whole or whatever . It's called dust jacket , not slip cover . And yeah , man , I'm really excited to finally hold it .

But if you want to build , I think coming to the conference , connecting with other guys , Dan , one of the big things I think for the conference is actually like the economic and political networking that can be done with other business guys . We'll have a great number of booths . A lot of our sponsors will be there with booths .

We've got a lot of guys going to the business VIP , mixer stuff so there's going to be a lot of that to interface with people . Pastor's lunch . Pastor's breakfast .

Wedding by that was November , yep .

I just read this morning from Ecclesiastes to the students in chapel about the threefold cord is not easily broken and gave the story of Shadrach , meshach and Abednego how they were able to stand in courage in the face of certain death and in our culture of death .

In a time where it's very hard to build , what better opportunity do you have to find like-minded men and women in which to build churches , businesses and households Like this is a great opportunity .

Um , it's . It's one of the lowest cost conferences I'm aware of in terms of showing up and bringing your booth and advertising your business . So it real low entry point . If you just want to have a booth , come get in touch with us . Vip business mixer and we'll also have .

We'll have a VIP mixer and the business and a business networking , this networking event that are both different things this year , yeah , so that , uh , if you're like business only you want to really network with other high cap business guys , come to that one if you want to meet the speakers yeah , that's something and and guys .

We don't invite speakers that are like the biggest platforms on earth . Who do ? We could just move tickets with big Eva or big evangelical normie world , which we try to bring guys in that these are our guys that we believe in , that we've fought with , that we that are our , our men , men that we are shoulder to shoulder with , and so we got Trump .

So we got Trump . Don't lie to the people .

The last two have been so much fun .

So in this time , when we face what looks like overwhelming odds , what I would ask is that you call back to our ancestors , to our fathers , the great men that have come before us , and remember the stories that God loves to tell , because if you were to write the story of St Patrick yourself as a fictional tale , nobody would believe it , nobody would find that

compelling . And yet God took this man , who was a slave , shepherd boy , and he used it to save the entirety of the West .

And so remember that you should put yourself in the way of blessing , that you should surround yourself with good men and with righteousness , and be quick to repent so that you don't God doesn't have any excuse to do anything but to bless you . And if , in the face of overwhelming odds , you never know what the Lord may do through you .

So , festinalente , make haste slowly , until next time . The King's Hall , Thank you , thank you .