The Air We Breathe

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Collin Hansen
You might be an atheist, you might never step foot in a church, you might indulge in a few pagan rituals, maybe you even identify as a Jedi Knight. But if you live in the West, in much of Europe or North America or Australia, you don’t know the world, apart from Christianity is the water you swim in, it’s the air you breathe. That’s the main point of Glenn Scriveners new book, the air we breathe, how we all came to believe in freedom, kindness, progress, and equality, published by the Good Book Company. Glenn is an ordained Church of England minister and evangelist who preaches Christ through writing, speaking and online media. And I’d like to note, he’s our third Australian guest so far, in this season of gospel bound.

Collin Hansen
He writes this in the air we breathe, the extraordinary impact of Christianity, as seen in the fact that you don’t notice it. You already hold particularly Christian ish views. And the fact that you think of these values as natural, obvious or universal shows how profoundly the Christian revolution has shaped you. As an example, it’s just think of the cross you might see it as a symbol of power, or an oasis of relief amid crisis, a national flag perhaps, but of course, it’s originally a subversive artistic appropriation, at the very least. In fact, to identify this crucified man as God is the most revolutionary notion the world has ever entertained. Glenn argues, what would a Roman breathing Roman air kept in check by Roman brutalities raised on Roman myths make the Christian claim? They would of course, consider Christ and ass his worshippers fools, and his religion, a perversity? Well, on that note, Lynne joins me on gospel bound to discuss the patriarchy, consent, Christianity for weirdos, and more. Glenn. Thanks for joining me and gospel bone.

Glen Scrivener
Thank you so much for having me.

Collin Hansen
Basic question here to start off what’s the most memorable thing you learned while writing this book?

Glen Scrivener
I think probably researching the consent chapter. So I talk about seven different values that constitute the air that we breathe. I talk about equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom and progress. But in especially reading Kyle hoppers work, his book from shame to sin was really eye opening for me in terms of seeing the ultimate sexual revolution not being the 1960s. But But happening about 1900 years earlier than that. And this, this idea of equalizing the sexes is what holds common between the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the sexual revolution of the first century. But whereas the sexual revolution of the 1960s was saying to women, you can now be as liberated as men always have been.

Glen Scrivener
The first century sexual liberation really, or the second sexual revolution was saying to men, you must be as restricted as women have always been. And learning between Kyle Harper and between Joseph Henrich neither of whom I don’t think are Christians, but he wrote a book called The weirdest people in the world. And and he just says that the modern world has been built from the marriage and family program of Jesus. And that restriction of male sexuality has been absolutely for the blessing of the world. And to learn those truths from those who would not identify as Christians was was kind of news to me. And it’s been a real blessing to me in thinking through how do you navigate the modern age of sexual rights and sexuality and that sort of thing. So I think probably researching the consent chapter was the big learning for me.

Collin Hansen
You’ve cited I think, two of the most important books for For me working on this podcast, as well as for any of you out there who who love listening every week. There’s an interesting observation and I think it requires some some clarification. Glenn, explain what you mean that our problems with Christianity come from Christianity?

Glen Scrivener
Well, if you just reverse the seven values that I just mentioned in terms of equality, consent and compassion, enlightenment, science, freedom and progress, you get something that is unequal, cruel, coercive, unenlightened, anti science, restrictive and regressive. When I describe anything in those terms, you think of them as that is the worst that is. And yet, there’s a number of ironies about that. The first irony is, this is the way most people consider Christianity these days. And then the the irony on top of the irony is we would only consider Christianity to be problematic in those terms, because it has first given us those positive values.

Glen Scrivener
So in a sense, I’m kind of making a kind of a presuppositional argument from an historical perspective. And just whereas the presuppositionalist is more concerned with sort of laws of logic and metaphysics and epistemology, I’m more concerned with the historical development of moral values. But with both, you’re saying to people who have a problem with Christianity, by what standard? By what standard? Are you making your complaint against Christianity, and when people have a moral complaint against Christianity, it is almost always because they are holding it to some kind of Christian ish standard. And you have to ask, Where have you gotten that standard from? And I make the case in the book that it’s from the historical development of the Jesus movement.

Collin Hansen
Now, maybe the most provocative way to ask this next next question is to say, how do Aesop’s Fables go over today? But another way is, is I mean, the broader question is to say, how did the classical world view justice?

Glen Scrivener
Yes, very important. I think of a parable like the Good Samaritan, which historian Tom Holland is, has called the most influential short story in history. And I agree, when you tell the story of the Good Samaritan, you have a man who is left for dead. And if nature takes its course, he will be overcome. And perhaps an Aesop’s fable, telling of that story, it would be foolish man, he should not have been walking that road at that time, what did he expect, and yet the most influential and disruptive and revolutionary short story that there has ever been says, maybe all of that is true.

Glen Scrivener
And yet, there is a beautiful stranger, and the beautiful stranger, the Good Samaritan is is not like the law, because I think the best that the natural world, the best that the classical world can expect, is for certain members of society to maintain standards. And that’s what the Levite and the priest were doing, that we’re maintaining standards, and they were doing what was right, according to a kind of a legalistic interpretation of the rules. What you get, though, with the Good Samaritan is intervention. And this This is highly disruptive to a classical minds. You would have someone like an Aristotle or Plato thinking of justice and writing politics, you know, right writing works of moral philosophy and political philosophy, that are absolutely about justice, but justice is enforcing the natural inequalities that exist.

Glen Scrivener
And, and they exist for a reason and to live in tune with reason is to honor those inequalities. And if that man is dying, we let him die. There is an interventionist ethic, in the Good Samaritan that comes along and, and says, we are, we are going to turn death into life, we are going to turn calamity into restoration. So I think I think birthed out of the Jesus movement, you get a very different sense of what justice is, for an Aristotle or Plato, absolutely nature, intense inequality. And it’s so interesting, modern, modern people look at Aristotle and Plato, and they say things like, they defended slavery, which is absurd, because nobody was attacking slavery. They didn’t defend it, they assumed it. They spoke of certain classes of people as obviously being unfit for ruling themselves. And they said, when you look at nature, there are those who rule and the there are those who should be rolled. And one of Aristotle’s causes of just war was you could go to the barbarian nations, and it is just for you to take barbarians as slaves. That is, you know, that is just because nature teaches you inequality and we must enforce the inequality that is there.

Glen Scrivener
A Christian understanding of justice is the the overturning of those kinds of inequalities and the preservation of the weak and the poor and the marginalized, and those left by the roadside, when actually pre Christian and non Christian cultures. Let people bleed out on the road, because who knows the village might have wanted him dead, or the gods might have wanted him dead. Who are you to intervene? And I think we’re in an interesting stage these days where a lot of fun People are outraged by the thought of an interventionist God. I don’t believe in an interventionist God, you know, things Nick Cave. And yet we do believe in humanitarian intervention, don’t we do we do believe in the good Samaritan coming along and reversing the way of nature and and bringing about a compassionate world rather than the nature that is red in tooth and claw?

Glen Scrivener
And so, yes, the ancient world was very interested in justice, which is why one of my none of my chapters are entitled justice, because everybody wants justice, and but the title, but what does the word mean? does the word mean the enforcement of what nature has intended or doesn’t mean an intervention from beyond a gracious interruption that brings about the reversal of calamity and death. Under the Christian revolution, Justice starts to be that and so justice starts to be lifting up the poor and the oppressed and the marginalized, which is a totally different understanding of justice than anything that Plato or Aristotle kind of spoke of. So, yes, Aesop’s Fables, teach a kind of justice as, as do the the classical philosophers. But the kind of justice Jesus speaks off is absolutely revolutionary.

Collin Hansen
I think you’ve probably given already an excellent answer to this question. But I want to see if you want to expand on it, what difference does your book make, for someone who don’t read the latest apologetic works, they don’t really even know at all how to talk with non Christian friends, family, or coworkers,

Glen Scrivener
I have lots of friends who don’t think that they are believers. And I think of a friend who wrote me a letter and said, of course, you realize I could never share your faith. And the way they said, that was just so revealing to me about the way they conceive the faith, and reason, and whether they could ever conceive of themselves as being a believer, and they absolutely could not. And yet, this person has spent different years of their life in some of the poorest parts of the world, serving, considering themselves absolutely a humanitarian, believing in humanism, and believing in all the values that I put across in this book in terms of equality, and consent, and compassion, and all the rest of it. And what do you notice about all those values, none of them can be proved none of them are the punch line to a philosophical argument. No, none of them are the result of logic or scientific experiments.

Glen Scrivener
They are all faith positions. And my friend, lives by those faith positions in a costly way. My friend ventures out into the world, not treating everyone they come across as though they’re mischievous little apes, but as though they’re they are people of immense dignity and worth. My friend is always going on about how society should look after the weak, the poor and the marginalized. And that society should be judged by how it handles the weakest members. All of these are very profound faith positions that, as the book says, don’t make sense, apart from the Jesus revolution. And so in step one, have a conversation with your friends, who do not consider themselves to be believers, I think it’s really, it’s really significant. And it’s really helpful to be able to say, you do have beliefs, and let’s pull at the thread of that belief. Because I think on the other end of that thread, there is a man you really ought to get to know.

Collin Hansen
I think there’s a step there in the middle as well, of showing that these things that you love, in fact, are not possible without that man. Not just that he sort of explains it, but that he is the entire fulfillment of it. And a world without Him will not necessarily hold to these faith commitments any longer. Here’s a another topic is very, I mean, it’s very current. Right now, Christianity, widespread belief across much of the West that it’s a cruel purveyor of patriarchy. But I’m pretty confused about this. Glen, and you’ve already alluded to this. Pre Christian ancients would have choked on the idea of male and female as equal you referenced Cal Harper’s work and that first sexual revolution. How did we get to this point, where Christianity is seen as being the regressive force against women, when this history tells an entirely different story?

Glen Scrivener
Well, I guess what we’ve done with So many of these values is to secularize them to depersonalized them to take the Christ out of them and to take them out of their gospel narrative. And so for instance, the first value equality, what happens when you divorce it entirely from the scriptural story, I think one of the very, one of the very western directions we’ve taken the truth of equality towards is an individualism. Whereas in the Bible, Jew, Gentile, male, female, slave, and free, are all one in Christ Jesus.

Glen Scrivener
We have in secularizing, that truth come to the view that all these people in their different socials, statuses are individuals. And therefore, they ought to be equally high up their own individual ladders, as opposed to equally welcome around the same table. And the individualism that has kind of grown up from that has taken us in a certain direction, and then you think about the value of compassion. Christ has taught the world about servant leadership, and Christ has taught the world about the value and the dignity of the victim. One of the ways though we have secularized that truth and taken Christ out of it has been not so much to honor and prize and help the victim as to race to become the victim. And so sociologists will talk about competitive victimhood and that sort of thing. And then the third value that I speak of is consent in and especially in the sexual realm.

Glen Scrivener
Now, were in the Christian story. Consent is part of a very rich theology, of gender, and sexuality and marriage and children and family. We have taken the consent thing, and kind of elevated it to be almost the defining ethic when it comes to sexuality, and therefore my sovereign choice, in all matters, sexual becomes, well, it becomes the ultimate, and in a world that lacks a sense of transcendence. It is almost the the most transcendent truth about me that I get to choose my own sexuality. So now we’ve got a heady brew, let’s, let’s put those three truths back together. And we’ve got individualists who are competing over becoming the victims in certain areas of social life. And who’s one sexual ethic is I get to sovereignly decide who I am.

Glen Scrivener
And with a cachet to sort of victimhood status, I think you combine all those things, and you get to the you get to the modern world now is, is the modern world with its very individualistic, kind of, and very fractured sense of sexual identities. Is that a Christian world? No, in in so many senses, it’s a post Christian world. But it is also inexplicable without the raw ingredients that Christianity has given to the world. So I sort of trace that out in the in the book that when I say that everything has been kind of Christianized. And there are so many Christian ish values out there in the world. That is not to say that anyone who makes any claims these days is making an essentially Christian claim, because so many claims in the west today are anti Christian. And yet, even in their anti Christianity, they cannot help but bear witness to the original

Collin Hansen
Glen, why couldn’t consent fill the gap? You know, we’ve lost christian ethics. Okay, thank you. We move past that. Now. We have the idea of consent, we’ve secularized it, we’ve universalized it. That’s our ethic.

Glen Scrivener
What an unfulfilling kind of thing. Did you read in a vise of all places? There was an article that came out a couple of weeks ago in Vice magazine called Radical monogamy. And have you heard about this incredible thing called Radical monogamy? And spoiler alert, it’s monogamy. But it has become this sort of niche interest in those who have tried everything else. And now people want to get back to you know what, I’m going to give myself awkwardly to my partner. And essentially, in in my sexual relationship, I am saying the very essence of marriage vows all that I am I give to you all that I have I share with you. And people in the article is sort of saying what makes us Radical is that we are choosing this radical monogamy and, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Glen Scrivener
But they are also putting their finger on just how radical monogamy is the way that Jesus kind of has given it to the world. And what I really want to do in the book is take people back 2000 years, and figure out if you’re wearing, you know, if you’re wearing sandals in the first century, and you’re hearing the Jesus revolution, as applies to sexuality, you’re, you’re actually encountering the most romantic vision for sex and marriage the world has ever seen. In which, what, as the Apostle Paul says, in one Corinthians seven, that the wife’s body belongs to the husband. And everybody in the ancient world says, yes, absolutely, you know, nothing, nothing surprising there.

Glen Scrivener
And then Paul absolutely reverses and says, and the husband’s body belongs to the wife and like, what, wow. So that’s actually where consent has come from, has been a covenant relationship, in utter self giving, in which what you do with your body is also what you’re doing with your life. And one of the, one of the spin offs of that covenant relationship is we speak now much more of the autonomy and the rights of especially women who, who had not had such rights. But to focus on that when actually what you’ve got is the covenant relationship of self giving love is, is really, you know, to sell your birthright for a mess of pottage, you know. Yeah. Consent all by itself just leaves me all by myself with my sovereign choosing will consent as the scriptures give it is the mutual belongingness of people to one another, which is a real, rich and relational truth. And I think that’s what we’re made for.

Collin Hansen
Talking with Glenn Scrivener. About his book, the air we breathe, how we all came to believe in freedom, kindness, progress, and equality. It’s new out from the Good Book, company. What do you mean, Glenn? When do you encourage the church to embrace its weirdness?

Glen Scrivener
I think there’s a danger that if I’m saying that the world has become Christian ish, the danger is, I’ll be heard to be safe to be saying, therefore, the church should be world ish. And I’m saying the very opposite actually. The Jesus revolution has been so disruptive, so radical, and the ways in which it has shaped the world have always been, because it has been different. If you think of, in the consent chapter, I talk about how pederasty, for instance, was just this this very celebrated practice. And literally the word means child love, where an older male would initiate younger usually boys into sexual activities. Christians came along and Jews were saying this too. This is not Petr St. This is pied authorea. This is child destruction. And they created a category for child abuse that as Pearl Harbor says, was just invisible to the ancient world. But it did so by being very, very different and speaking out on matters sexual when there started to be laws in the Christianized Roman Empire. That said, you must raise your own children, and therefore laws against exposure, exposing exposing infants infanticide.

Glen Scrivener
That was because Christians had stood against this basically, it’s a human universal, really, I mean, I mean, Tacitus does talk about some Germanic tribes that were so odd that they did not practice infanticide. It was it was so notable to Tacitus that there were these odd Germanic tribes. So I won’t say it’s an absolute human universal infanticide, but it pretty much it has been. And Christians and Jews were always standing against it. It was by being odd that they actually brought about revolution, ending the gladiatorial games, I mean, the story of telemarketers, the monk, you know, in a roundabout 400 ad, he goes into the arena to stop a fight between two gladiators and he gets stoned to death by the crowd. So clearly, it’s it’s not popular to take the stands that he took, but but news of telemarketers, you know, sacrifice reaches the ears of the Emperor, and he sort of legislate against the bloodsports and so that The ways in which the revolution has happened, have been by Christians being weird by Christians being against, or Christians being a counterculture, not just doing what the world does.

Glen Scrivener
But with a Christian spin. We are the origins, you know, the origins of the culture ought to be where Christians follow their radical Lord in radical ways. And the world is the one that is meant to be catching, playing catch up to us. So I end the book by saying, yes, the West is weird, if you know Joseph Henrichs, acronym Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. But Christians are the ones that are meant to be really weird. In following Jesus in radical ways.

Collin Hansen
Well, let’s, let’s give some examples. Who do you see doing this? Well, anyone around the world that you see making disciples, especially among the unchurched, and the D church, because I love I love your book, I love your videos I love. I love your perspective that you’re sharing here in this interview, and just give me examples of people that you see doing this doing this well out there in the masses.

Glen Scrivener
You know, although it’s a book of cultural analysis, I think the places I see this happening the most in unsung church plants, among people who, who do not have their finger on the pulse of cultural trends, I think of a church planting friend who has, you know, given up very prestigious positions in flagship churches that everybody has heard of, and has gone to, you know, start a church in a fruit and vegetable shop in the north of England, and going from there to plant another church to plant another church and has seen literally 1000s of people come to Christ in the in the last sort of 15 years. Among the least in the last in the last, and I think, maybe maybe one of the maybe one of the places where we can learn from history is actually in the grassroots nature of the Jesus revolution. Jesus began in Luke chapter four preaching good news to the poor.

Glen Scrivener
And, you know, I mean, I’m in two minds, even as I answer your question, Colin, because I’ve I’ve written a book that is spotting intellectual trends. And yet, I think one of the trends that that is being spotted here is that the Jesus movement works among the poor and the weak and the marginalized. And so I hope that my book is never mistaken for an academic argument that I hope triple trickles down to the little people. I hope it’s never seen as that. Because it is the movement of a carpenter turned preacher, who was crucified as a slave. And his movement has world domination today. But it has world domination, never forgetting the ways in which it has spread. And I think I think it has, I’ve just done in a debate with Bart Ehrman, who he’s written a book about the triumph of Christianity. And in in his book, he doesn’t have any space for the growth of Christianity via women’s slaves and children, which, and being particularly attractive to women, slaves and children. He just says it’s because they made miracle claims and people believe them.

Glen Scrivener
And yet I think there were there were sneering critics of Christianity that were saying, like people like Celsus in the second century, saying it is women slaves and and children who are flocking to Christianity. And I think that always has been the attractive thing about Jesus. So as you asked, you know, for modern examples, it will be not in the cultural centers, not not Washington, Washington, DC and Westminster in London. It will be the global Christian movements whereby by the end of this decades, if it hasn’t happened already, by the end of this decade, there will in all likelihood be more Christians in China than there are in the USA. This this is where the movement is really gripping and overturning the world.

Collin Hansen
Tell me a little bit more about that debate with Ehrman. What were some of your impressions walking away?

Glen Scrivener
I didn’t know it was going to be with him. It was I just

Collin Hansen
You debated Bart Ehrman and didn’t know you were going to be

Glen Scrivener
Well within within 24 hours beforehand. I knew it was professor. Yeah. Yeah. So it turns out that he is he is doing a debate with Michael Okona. And he really wanted to promote his debate with Michael Okona. And so he was just taking Get every request going. And of course, he’s never heard of me. But that’s, you know, that’s the one thing I’ve got going for me.

Glen Scrivener
Um so, you know, I went into that debate and I, what I found interesting is that he agreed on the compassion thing. He said, Absolutely, Christianity uniquely brought service to the world, when the when the rest of the world is talking about dominance, Jesus came preaching service. And the fact that we now think of that as a virtue and not a weakness is definitely down to the Jesus revolution. So that was an interesting point, part of kind of common ground that we had. The other reflection I had was that he kind of brought out brought up equality of the sexes in in our debates, and which is like equality of the sexes is an implication of some of the things that I’m talking about in the book, but it’s not something I addressed fully in the book. But I think people can make their own minds up as they see the debate.

Glen Scrivener
But I think it demonstrates that even criticisms of Christianity ended up having to assume Christian values. I do think that as as he is seeking to criticize Christianity, he is criticizing it for being unequal and coercive and cruel and regressive, and anti science and unenlightened. And all the kind of brickbats that he threw at Christianity. Were really the reverse of the seven values of my book. So people, people can have a look at that for themselves and see, but I do think it was an example of Christianity being so immense that even our problems with Christianity have been given to us by Christianity.

Collin Hansen
Do you see Glen any reason for hope for a widespread return to a recognition of these Christian values coming from Christianity or to create vibrant Christian faith itself? Anywhere coming soon in the West, or basically just for see continued marginalization and, hey, that’s okay, because the center of gravity has shifted to the global south and east.

Glen Scrivener
Yeah, the center of gravity has shifted. And that’s, that’s a good thing. I don’t, I don’t want to see a return of values in in a sense, I mentioned in the book that to have a restoration of values is to leave us in a very vitriolic and volatile state. Spurgeon said, if you if you have about half of Christianity, you’re the most miserable creature on earth. And he was talking about individuals. But I think that’s also true about society, I think to have a semi Christianity is almost the worst of all worlds. Because if we’re all holding each other, to these Christian ish standards of compassion, and consent, and equality, and all these sorts of things, and we’ve divorced it from the narrative in which it makes sense, then we’ve got some, we’ve got some high octane values to kind of to wield and into.

Glen Scrivener
We, you know, I often say the culture wars are just we’re hurling Bible verses at each other, we forgotten the references, but that doesn’t have any, we’re just we’re just gonna take each other down. And without, without knowing the Christ, who embodies those values, and the Savior who forgives us, when we fail at those values, there’s such a lack of dearth of forgiveness, especially in the culture wars. So we must not simply agitate for a return to Christian values. I think, in a sense, you know, Dostoyevsky said, Without Gods, everything is permitted. I think what we’re noticing, and that’s in the early 21st century is that without God, everything is preachy, really, really preachy. In a fiery kind of a sense, and it’s, and it’s not much fun.

Glen Scrivener
So, but I do have hope that we can grasp the person of Jesus again and have an actual spiritual revival. And one of the things that made me most hopeful was reading accounts of the times when the tide was out. In terms of Christian influence in the world, tides go in, and tides go out again. And there’s a there’s a hilarious chapter of Rodney Starks book, the triumph of Christianity, where he just collates together all the biggest horror stories of how dreadful the clergy were during the Middle Ages. And like, every now and again, the bishop would kind of summon everybody to church on a Sunday and then realize what an absolute mistake that was, because there are just women in the front row dropping their babies because they’ve fallen asleep and there’s a dogfight breaking out of the back. It’s an absolute zoop. And then the bishop basically banned him from coming to church the next week. And, and, and as woeful as all that is, is sort of thing. You know, it is not the case that everything was hunky dory until the 1950s.

Glen Scrivener
And then we just went into this nosedive, it has been the tide has been going in the tide has been coming out, and the and that’s, that that is the way of all these things. And, you know, I finish with a mention of, of Jordan Peterson, who is just an interesting figure, I don’t make any claims. For him being on the Christian side, I don’t make any claims for me being on his side or whatever, whatever side might be, might be kind of emerging as he processes things. But he is an interesting figure of someone noticing that the values we’ve inherited are uniquely Christian and unusably. So and him spiritually wrestling with that where that will take him I don’t know, but I do know that there have been a lot of people leap frogging him into the kingdom. And, and coming to faith in the Christ figure who he speaks of, and they’ve come to know Him for the for the person who he really is. So might that be a way interfaith, I don’t know, certainly the fracturing of society and these these culture wars that are just killing us, or making us long for a person above and beyond the values and, and forgiveness, beneath the, the values. And certainly in the conversions that I’m seeing, I’m seeing people come to faith in very,

Glen Scrivener
in ways that are surprising me in ways that I would not have foreseen 10 years ago, people just picking up the Bible, and just reading it and falling in love with Jesus. And, and they might end up in an orthodox church or they might ended up in the Catholic Church, they might end up in an Anglican church or a Baptist church. And, and, you know, there’ll be a lot of discipleship issues for people but there’s such a hunger and and why not? You know, the church has been in a lot worse state than this, before revivals are broken out.

Collin Hansen
In fact, a problem with the church is a necessary prerequisite for revival. You don’t have a revival unless you have something that needs to be revived. I think you’ve probably covered this with with heartburn with Henrik. But if someone wanted to go deeper Glenn, on the topics that you’ve covered in your book, what three books or authors should they should they pick up?

Glen Scrivener
I really liked Larry side and Topps inventing the individual. So he wrote that in about 2014. And he came at it from just an academic perspective, figuring out where our modern notions of rights and equality and individualism have have come from. And he gave me a he gave me quite a deep appreciation for the ancient world and how ancients saw things. I mean, my first degree was was really in philosophy. And I did study quite a lot of Plato and Aristotle and that sort of thing. But But I think setting it in its social context was really important for me, so Larry side, and Tom’s book is great. Tom Holland’s book dominion. So I’ve, I’ve gotten to chat to him a few times, and he’s come on our YouTube channel a couple of times. I think it’s beautifully written as a history of the last two and a half, 1000 years.

Glen Scrivener
And I think he’s come to an interesting place where he recognizes that we’ve got a pale imitation of Christianity with modern secular liberal values. It’s a pale imitation of the Christian thing. And he’s basically like, I’ve given up on the pay limitation, and I’m surrendering to the story. I don’t know what that means. For him. I think he’s figuring out what that means for him as well. So, but beautifully, absolutely, beautifully written. Dominion, and I’d recommend that for, for people, what would be another good one? I think, you know, Vishal Megawati wrote a really interesting book back in 2011. I might point people to his book, the book that made your world where he takes things thematically, or David Bentley hearts, atheist illusions, the oh, what’s the subtitle? It’s brilliant. It’s the the Christian revolution and it’s fashionable enemies. Because David Bentley Hart cannot write an uninteresting sentence. Even subclause but um, yeah, that’s actually yeah, the atheist delusions is fascinating world of bullies and saints by John Dixon, that will be another great one that’s just come out. I think, I think, yeah, he does a great job as well.

Collin Hansen
Several of those we’ve covered here on gospel bound and encourage people to go back and listen to those interviews as well. Glenn was to final three. With you here, we’ll do these rapid fire. How do you find calm in the storm?

Glen Scrivener
This one verse that calms my heart. And Tim Keller talks about, you know, there are some verses or their intellect some illustrations or stories that have a radioactive power to do something to your soul. And Matthew 18 verse three, is that for me, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom. And I quote that to myself, probably every day, it probably is at the start of every prayer time. I just, I need to remember that I am not a busy soldier, coming to my commanding officer. I’m a child coming before a generous father who knows how to give good gifts to his children. And I think, coming to enjoy God. You know, I’m from a kind of a tradition that always speaks about having a quiet time. And temperamentally, that does not work for me. I don’t understand quiet times. I always think it’s hilarious, isn’t it at the beginning of one Samuel, when Hannah is praying before the Lord and her lips are moving, but nothing is coming out.

Glen Scrivener
And Eli, just he just assumes she’s drunk. Like, who prays silently does that only a drunk person would pray silently. It might be part of that hyper individualism that I’ve been talking about that sort of Western. Yeah, overextension of the of the individual type thing. So I need to, I need to pray out loud I need and I need to not think of it as a quiet time but as a time to enjoy God. Enjoy the Father. In the sun, the the high priesthood of Christ is absolutely essential to my spirituality really before the throne of God above I have a strong a perfect prayer plea, a great high priest, his name is love, whoever lives and pleads for me. And again, I quote that to myself, I have to quote that to myself, because I’ve got monkey mind and I’ll be all over the place. That’s again, why I can’t be silent, or I’ll just be all over the place. But taking my soul in hand and in the name of Jesus coming to a father, as a child. It’s got to be that or the busyness just gets me.

Collin Hansen
Where do you find good news today, Glen?

Glen Scrivener
I talked to my friend who’s planted all these churches and so much fruit around the place. The other day he emailed me he’s sign off it’ll literally his sign off was I think it’s the most exciting time to be in judgment history since the 12th century.

Collin Hansen
What was it about the 12th century I’m trying to think

Glen Scrivener
I hope it wasn’t the Crusades.

Collin Hansen
I was gonna say got a Bernard. Was gonna Bernardo Claire.

Glen Scrivener
Unfortunately, yeah. Thanks, Tom fully know. Knowing him, it’s probably it’s probably, you know, the Ethiopian Coptic Church and the way it reached out to the Taiwanese or something like but I guess that’s a silly example. But in one sense, it’s like I find good news by just friendships are just utterly crucial, aren’t they? And especially in an age when your friendship has been commodified by Facebook and and just and turned into a posture that you hold publicly towards the for health actually actually having a private category for friends who absolutely know you get you and and speak gospel good news to you so like life together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Glen Scrivener
I just I just love the line where he says that the the Christ in the word of a brother is stronger than the Christ of your own hearts. And what he means is you know, you can nurse a sense of the goodness of Jesus in your own heart. Sure, you can encourage yourself about Jesus Sure, but when a brother or sister eyeballs you and says Glen, the Son of God loved you and gave himself for you. That is that is good news. I’ve got I’ve got some good Lutheran friends are very much about extra Noce the outside of ourselves. And the and they’re very good at demonstrating their belief in the external righteousness of Christ. just declared to you, idiot sinner that you are. So I find I find good news in in friends who know me who know what a fool I am. And who declare that good news to me.

Collin Hansen
Anyway, last one, Glen, what’s the last great book you’ve read?

Glen Scrivener
I should have read this. I should have read this while I was researching the book. And I don’t know why I didn’t but Christian Smith’s atheist overreach. It’s just a lovely, crisp, kind of philosophical unpacking of some of the things that I sort of researched for the book. In a sense, he’s he’s a much gentler guide to this and he’s a, he’s a Christian guide to things on on the other side of the coin to Nietzsche, you could go to Nietzsche and Nietzsche will teach you that it’s Jesus who is responsible for your belief in compassion and humanitarian ideals. Nietzsche can teach you that in his way. But Christian Smith is just there’s a real concision there’s a real clarity of of insight and expression. There’s a kind of a crystal clarity to Christian Smith writing that I is lovely in an understated which, which appeals to me because I’m the other way, you know, I just like them the cover of my book, the very first word is punchy. I’m Ignatius and Christian Christian Smith, you know, knows knows how to sort of slip the knife in without you even noticing. So yeah, atheist overreach by Christian Smith.

Collin Hansen
He saved the pugnacious nests for writing against Protestants.

Collin Hansen
My guest gospel bound this week, somebody I’ve wanted to feature for a long time, Glen Scrivener, and go ahead and check out his book, the air we breathe, how we all came to believe in freedom, kindness, progress and equality, published by the Good Book Company, Glenn. Thanks so much,

Glen Scrivener
Colin. Thanks for having me.