90’s Grunge, Jordan Peterson, and What the Arts Point To | Megan Almon - The Michael C. Sherrard Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
What the arts do is they point us to something beyond the material world. Is it that simple?
I mean, there's probably more to it than that, but is that overly simplistic to put it?
That when we look at the world, it's not that the material doesn't matter...
Well, hello everyone. Today I get to talk to my friend and colleague,

(00:22):
speaker and apologist Megan Allman, a former gym dog on the gymnastics team for UGA.
Megan has been speaking on pro-life
and apologetic and Christian worldview issues for a long time now.
And yes, Megan, I just called you old.
But she got her start with Scott Klusendorf at the Life Training Institute.

(00:45):
She's done a lot of work with Stand to Reason. Maybe you've seen her at the
Reality Conferences, which are fantastic.
They reach tens of thousands of students every year. Maybe you've seen her there.
She lives at Summit Ministries.
Her husband, Tripp, works for Summit Ministries. Maybe you've come across her there and her work.
But today we talked about what the arts point to.

(01:07):
We talk about 90s grunge bands, live, and the lead singer, Ed Kowalczyk's conversion. version.
We talk about Jordan Peterson and what he thinks about the transcendence and
what this means practically in the life of a non-believer, in the life of a
Christian, and what this means for artists.

(01:28):
Man, I loved this conversation. I could have had two more hours of it. So I hope you enjoy.
Megan, I want to talk to you today about what the arts point to.
This is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
It's not a topic that I feel like I have mastered and I have a lot of questions.
And so this might be a very messy conversation.

(01:51):
But the good news is there's a delete button and this isn't live.
And so if this is terrible and we show ourselves to be fools, nobody else has to know.
So assuming that this conversation maybe even leads to our own understanding
on this topic a bit better, maybe it could be helpful for some other people.
But this morning, fun enough, I was out doing a run here in Georgia where it's still cold.

(02:16):
And the song Heaven came on by the band Live.
Do you remember the band Live? We're similar age here, I think.
I don't know that song, but I know the band. Lightning Crashes.
That's great. So Lightning Crashes is their biggest hit. It was on the billboards
for 10 consecutive weeks. Heaven is a later song.
But growing up, I loved the band live. 94 is when Throwing Copper came out that

(02:40):
the Lightning Crashes came out. So dating ourselves here.
And one of the things I loved about their music
and this is what I love like I have some favorite bands
and they all have the same quality it's not just
that the music sounds good to me there's something
about the songwriting that elicits something in me and again it all comes together

(03:00):
right the music itself the progression of notes and chords has can have an emotional
you know an emotive impact and that's not divorced from the lyrics but you know
what I'm talking about there's songs that just have a nice beat but the lyrics are garbage.
But those bands that I really love, they have both of them and Live was one of them.
As a teenager listening to their music, I always thought, what are they really saying?

(03:25):
It always felt like he was trying, this lead singer, Ed Kowalczyk,
who has the hardest last name in all of rock music to pronounce,
I think, so I may not have even said it right.
But I always felt like their songs were pointing to something.
And it turns out they were.
But I remember this one song, Not Lightning Crashes, what was called I Alone.

(03:46):
And it starts off setting the stage in the garden.
And it has this line in it. What is it?
He's describing this kind of searching kind of loneliness.
And he has this line that comes in before the chorus that says,
and the greatest of teachers won't hesitate to leave you there by yourself, chained to fate.

(04:11):
And then the chorus is, I alone love you. I alone tempt you.
Fear is not the end of this. And I thought he was writing about Satan and how God has abandoned us.
And Satan is the one that really loves us. And if you read that story in the
Garden of Eden, that's kind of the role Satan's playing, right? God is the oppressor.
I'm the one who's really for you. You don't need to be afraid of me.

(04:34):
Fear is not the end of this.
And though that's not exactly what the song was about, Ed was writing about
a time in his life where he was spiritually searching.
So he is expressing some of his bitterness towards God of where are you if you are there?
Why are you not giving me any answers?

(04:55):
All right, so coming back to the song Heaven, which just comes on my,
I'm listening to Apple and Apple's getting to know me really well.
It knows what songs I like and it picks them for me. It's getting to know you.
What's that? It's getting to know you. All those algorithms.
Go ahead. AI, man. The world has changed.

(05:16):
So the song Heaven comes on and it's written much later and it's written about his daughter.
And I got this here. I didn't want to try to,
Just do this from memory. But here were the lyrics in heaven.
I don't need no one to tell me about heaven. I look at my daughter and I believe.

(05:41):
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth.
I can see the sunset and I perceive. Eve.
So when I heard that this morning, I'm thinking, well, dang,
is he saying what I think he's saying?
That the beauty of his daughter, the beauty of the sunset answers the question for him if God exists.

(06:09):
So I do some searching and find a quote where he says that he points to the
birth of his daughter as the moment where his spiritual quest ended and Ed is now a Christian.
He says the lyrics of Heaven are about his daughter ending his search for spirituality.
This is a quote. A birth is so non-abstract, so real and touchable.

(06:31):
It's really easy to abstracize, which is a word I've never heard before,
concepts about spirituality, God, and love. These are concepts, not reality.
At their best, they are potential reality, but they are still thoughts.
The birth of my daughter kind of terminated my adolescent search for God or
the higher that lasted about 10 years.

(06:52):
So long setup for a question here. Thanks for indulging me. my long-windedness here.
But I am too, because there's something about music itself that I think a lot
of people get that points to something. The arts itself points to something.
Here is a band live that I loved growing up, and I always thought his music
was pointing to something. Turns out it was. He was on this quest for.

(07:14):
To understand if God was real for 10 years and long, probably longer,
but he, anyways, 10 years,
he says what ended the debate for him was looking into his newborn daughter
and looking into sunsets, that the beauty of these things ended his search and
gave him a kind of evidence,

(07:35):
for the existence of God, like nothing else.
So what do you make of that? Tell me, how's that for a question and a way to get into this?
Well, what is it about the arts that point to
something and tell me even what you think about the ed's journey
here yeah i well first of all i'm glad you said you have a lot of questions
because i have a lot of questions about this but that's why i'm so fascinated

(07:57):
by it and by the way that song i alone the second you mentioned it so this speaks
to the power of music i was transported to a particular place in a a particular time,
I remember I was, I was, this is strangely enough, I was visiting my aunt at the beach.
She lives on the beach in near Charleston. And I was a teenager.

(08:18):
I was in her bathroom, like getting ready for the day. And that song,
she always has the radio on, but that song was on the radio.
And I just remember, it was just like, I was there.
Sensory, every, every sense was alive thinking about that moment and that song
and how much I connected with it.
So music, some Some would say, philosophers say that music might be the highest

(08:39):
form of the arts, interestingly enough, because music is one of those things,
like you said, it's not just the lyrics, the notes, it's the meeting of all
of these things, but in music.
You can hear the songs that are not being played or the harmonies rather that are not being played.
You know, in music, you can intermingle that with mathematics.
People forget when we separated values like beauty from the hard sciences,

(09:03):
you know, Johann Sebastian Bach's music,
which makes you work really hard because in that higher forms of music demand
things of us is so beautiful.
It will bring you to tears if you are honestly listening.
But it is so mathematically perfect that computer programmers use it to write code. It's crazy.

(09:25):
It is. That doesn't seem like a real statement, but it is, right?
The mathematical nature of music is, it's crazy that it's there,
but it sounds like something that's just made up, right?
Right, but it's not. It's like all this comes from the same source of order and also art, right?
We have these lenses that we look through the world, look at the world through.
We can talk about that in a minute, it. But I think there are several things going on with Ed.

(09:51):
I can't pronounce his last name, so I'm not going to try. Yeah,
I'll let you stick with that. Say it with authority, like you mean it.
Kovalchik. Sorry, Kovalchik.
No, I think there are several things going on here. So Ed is a creative.
I mean, he's a songwriter. He's a musician.
And I think that there are those among us where some people are are just more tuned into aesthetics.

(10:16):
I think for those people, our current society in a lot of ways is harder because
they're sensitive to the air of the culture, right?
Artists have always been that way. So artists are like canaries in the mine shaft.
You probably heard that analogy before, but when coal miners would go into the
mines, they would take caged canaries with them because the canaries knew when

(10:39):
the air was bad, they're very sensitive to the air.
So if there was a gas leak in the mine, that could kill the miners,
the canary would start going berserk in the cage because it would sense it first
and the miners would watch the canary and be like, we've got to get out. The air is really bad.
And so artists are sensitive to the air, so to speak, of a culture and they respond to it.

(11:00):
I don't know that they always respond to it, you know, in all the disciplines,
such as that you could scientifically wrap your mind around the mystery of it,
or you could, you know, these these different things, but it comes out in their art.
And so for Ed, I feel like he was sensing there has got to be more to it than
this, than what we have right before us.

(11:21):
You know, we live in this post-scientific revolution age, post-industrial revolution
age, where our tendency is, I want to know it, master it, conquer it.
And that is the quest of science with regard to the natural world.
But Ed is seeing that maybe that's not all there is.

(11:42):
And if there's something more, of course, that's going to cause some kind of
internal wrestling and reaching and longing.
Yeah, you were going to say something. So do. But I want to come back to his
daughter because that was significant. But yeah, go ahead.
No, I've already I was wrapped up in what you were saying. So if I was going
to interrupt, it was probably good that I didn't. So no.

(12:03):
What about his daughter? it was interesting that
that's the thing that ended his spiritual journey
like his spiritual searching for this is there
more i feel like that's what he was searching for and he
found it the more that he found thankfully and i think truthfully
is the christian god that we'll
talk about but i think the birth of his daughter

(12:25):
being the thing that brought him to that is significant significant because part
of the mystery of these things we're talking about especially beauty
is just that it is mysterious we can
define it somewhat like we can talk about that i'm still working through i'm
reading people much smarter than me to try and understand how do we even begin
to define it but part of it is going to always be a mystery because it is wrapped

(12:49):
up in us and we are are largely mysterious to ourselves for this reason.
You and I are selves. We are subjects.
And, you know, scripture kind of gives us the punchline here.
We are made in the image of God.
God is the ultimate self, right? Three selves, one essence.

(13:10):
But we are also a self, an essence, in embodied essence here.
And so what I cannot do as an I, a self, is step outside of myself and then
fully objectify the one doing the objectification.
So there's always going to be this mystery involved.

(13:32):
And I think that's what's so, in the good sense of the word,
magical about human beings is that we bear God's image And therefore,
this eternally, and it is eternal.
Lewis talked about, you've never met a mere mortal.
You've only met people who are either, I'm going to get the words wrong,

(13:53):
like everlasting horrors or eternal splendors.
Those weren't the exact words, but that was the idea.
Everyone you meet is an eternal soul, a person who will exist forever in one reality or another.
And the Christian story tells us about that. But because of that,
when you encounter a person, you're encountering kind of the closest thing to

(14:15):
what we're longing for on earth, if that makes sense.
You're encountering the image of God. And we too often see people as things, right?
You kind of, when you encounter other people, it's easy to stop at their image.
Appearance. It's easy to stop at just their words or whatever they give to you

(14:38):
sensory, physically, I guess I could say.
When we stop there, they're objects to us.
And we tend to objectify other people. But I think if we see past,
and artists will tell you and others, you know, the eye is the window to the soul.
When you can just see for a minute, the imago deus of that person automatically

(15:01):
there's more and there's this mystery wrapped up in that of for him and his
for ed and his daughter so to bring this full circle,
who is this life and who who will she be and what can she be and what will she
do and what will she be like day to day to day to day as she grows and changes
the thing that we forget is that growth Growth and that change goes on forever.

(15:25):
What a wonderful. So is it that what the arts do is they point us to something
beyond the material world? Is it that simple?
I mean, there's probably more to it than that. But is that overly simplistic to put it?
When we look at the world and it's not that the material, that's not that the
material doesn't matter, but it's that we know there's something beyond it.

(15:49):
So he apprehends his daughter. And it's more than just his daughter's more than just matter.
Right. She matters in a way greater than her matter.
And it points to so that that that the beholding of something where you perceive this beauty,
it draws your mind and heart, your very being to something beyond the material

(16:10):
world to something transcendent.
And is that what we're saying here, that the arts, they don't ignore the material world?
Because, of course, you're beholding the material world, but there's something
in it that you're being drawn past it, in a sense.
Yeah, no, I don't think it ignores the material world at all.
I mean, it's kind of a provocative thing to say, but Christianity might be the

(16:32):
most materialistic of all of the world religions because it redeems the material
world and it calls it all good.
It doesn't say leave it. It doesn't say ignore it. It says, pay attention to
it and steward it. But the reason we pay attention to it isn't to stop at the material.
So yes, to your point, there's something more. It points to something transcendent.

(16:53):
But it does more than just like, oh, there's something more.
I think that great art or those moments where we behold, and when I say great
art, yes, we can talk about art as a vocation, but even just being in nature
and beholding the art of the creator, right? The supreme artist.
Genesis 1 talks about how God brought to the earth when he created it,

(17:18):
he gave it form and he gave it content. That's in the first two lines.
Right? Those are the two necessary components for art, form and content.
And so to look even at nature and have moments like the sunset,
like when Ed talked about that, it doesn't just point to the transcendent.
I think it links us with the transcendent.

(17:40):
And I think that's important because we were made for goodness, truth, and beauty.
And those are ultimately found in God.
And He's relational. He wants us to know Him.
He wants us to revel in those things and to see Him through them,

(18:01):
not to stop at the things. That's our problem.
And because we were made with those things, you know, going back to even a person,
when When we objectify a person, I'm thinking of one of my heroes,
the philosopher Peter Craift and him talking about when you objectify a person,
all you see are the limits.
We are truly limited as creatures, right? In that sense.

(18:25):
So all you see is the limits and we become disappointed with the limits. Yes.
That's true of any, any movie, any book, any whatever that any song,
you know, you listen to heaven enough by by live, and you're going to be just sick of the song.
It's limited in a sense. And you're like, ah, moving on, what else will get
that feeling in me to come out, right?

(18:48):
So we're stopping at the thing and not seeing what the thing points to that's
beyond that we were made for.
I don't know how to sum that up, except to say it was more than just,
there's something more, I think that starts the journey, but it links us with the something more.
And if we pay attention to that, then there are depths to be explored.
So there's one of the things that stands out to me is the importance of the aesthetic.

(19:14):
We live in a Western world that, I don't know, has valued the truth portion for some time.
I mean, it's been a wavering, you have post-modernity, of course, questioning it.
But for the most part, we live, the Western world values the truth side of it, the rational side of it.
The goodness side of it, I think, is still valued too.

(19:38):
And even despite the influence of things like relativism, you have people today
willing to march and burn down cities because of their sense of justice.
So the goodness piece, people still value. The aesthetic, I wonder how much
it is valued in this way beyond just the satisfying of subjective desires.

(20:01):
But if what we're saying here is true, that the aesthetic or beauty is as important
in life as truth and goodness,
ultimately for our well-being or as as you're describing, helping us to understand
fully the source of these things and to be linked with him in a meaningful way.

(20:22):
Am I on the right track there? What do you think about that?
No, I think you're definitely on the right track, but I think we've lost beauty.
And some of that, it goes both ways. So one way is that beauty is the first
thing that grabs us Out of the three transcendentals, truth, goodness, beauty,
beauty is the thing that that sneaks past everything.

(20:45):
It is so powerful and potent.
I mean, this is why it's more enticing than truth and goodness.
That's dangerous to say, but I think that's because it is. Yeah,
it is. That's why we that's why we have temptation. Yeah.
So that explains that. It's the thing that sneaks past reason.

(21:07):
Lewis said it would sneak past those sleeping dragons. I think Lewis and Tolkien
both said something like that. And I might be conflating.
Yeah, no, you're right. It's the sleeping dragons. dragons it sneaks
past the sleeping dragons and grabs hold before we
even know what's happened it has an effect on us which
is why it's hard to define not only is the mystery wrapped
up in us but beauty has these psychological effects

(21:29):
that are so difficult to we can talk about the experience of them but they're
hard to like pin down and go oh well here's the you know in our scientific minds
here's how we master conquer no this it doesn't work that way yeah i think to
what you're talking about,
though, beauty grabs us first.
And we have a culture that is so emphasized, or has the emphasis placed so much

(21:53):
on a particular kind of truth.
And I think that is the knowing conquering truth.
This is again, scientific revolution, there's a lot more that goes into that,
because none of that happened in a vacuum.
But ideas led to this, to this place where something like beauty isn't concrete,
where I can like grab it and like, Like, oh, this is, I've got this.

(22:14):
It's elusive to us because of the mystery.
Yeah, beauty is something hard to master.
And if you can't master it, you can't really leverage it.
And so in a corrupt world where power is really important, how do you,
what is the utilitarian value of beauty?
It's hard to define, much less how would I master it and then use it for my

(22:37):
advantage in some kind of self-serving way.
I think that from the other direction, that emphasis on goodness and truth,
I think it's as we define those things, right?
Because postmodernity did a number on that. But you're right,
people still innately have because they were made for truth,
goodness and beauty. I was listening recently to a lecture again by Peter Kreeft,

(23:01):
and this just came up because I thought it was interesting.
He talked about our primary problem not being that we're all bad or that sin
is a problem, obviously, but with regard to this topic, the problem is more
that we're bored. bored.
Ordom is the problem. And he was talking about a world that has become relativistic, is bored.

(23:22):
Relativism can only lead to that in a sense, because with relativism,
there are no absolutes. He said, there are no sharp edges.
And, you know, so when we're made for truth, goodness, beauty,
and we know that the end of those things is in God, but we're not seeking him,
all we can really do is absolute, absolutize, is that a word?

(23:45):
The relative. And that's idolatry.
And so we find these things that we think are good or these causes or whatnot,
and they may very well be, but why are they good?
It's the looking beyond that we're missing. You stop at the thing and you worship
the thing. So with regard to art, that happens all the time.

(24:05):
When you stop at the art and worship the art, it just becomes idolatry.
Great art points to something beyond.
So, yeah. Yeah. So I want to talk about Jordan Peterson here.
I'm a fan, if I can just say that. I think he's incredibly witty.

(24:26):
And what I see from afar, right, of course, I don't know him personally,
is someone who is on this quest for understanding and truth.
He seems to exhibit intellectual honesty to me, which I can really admire and
appreciate. It's actually hard to be intellectually honest and to see the logical
conclusions of your belief and live in a consistent manner.

(24:47):
And as I see it, that's what he's aiming for and pretty good at.
But I came across an episode of his podcast and this one segment that I just
thought was unimaginably profound.
And it's right about it. It's exactly what we're talking about.
In fact, it meaningfully impacted the way I was thinking about what we're talking about here.
But he was in a conversation with a friend, colleague of his,

(25:10):
Andrew Doyle. Andrew's not – he's an atheist.
And I forget what Doyle's profession is or what he does, but –.
He asks Doyle, when they start talking about the arts, and Peterson thinks that
they point to something.
And he asks Doyle, is there a subordinate unity, which this is a very Peterson phrase, right?

(25:31):
Is there a subordinate unity at which the arts aim?
And is that unity not equivalent to the monotheistic spirit?
So you see what he's asking here. And he knows it too, because he could see
Doyle's face in the interview. He goes, I know I'm asking a major question,
but Peterson's basically asking, do the arts point toward the existence of God?

(25:56):
And Peterson, he elaborates. He says, something makes the arts the arts,
and it's their movement towards beauty.
So his question is, are the arts unified? If they're moving towards something,
if we accept that premise, what is that something that they're moving to?
And Doyle comes back real quick and responds. I mean, he's interested and curious

(26:20):
himself about this question.
He's not defensive. This isn't a combative, you know, thinking like Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse atheists or whatever.
This was very friendly back and forth. And part of Doyle's response is that
art, you know, is mysterious.
It's hard to define these things. It's hard to define beauty.
And he makes a point about that part of the beauty in the arts is the diversity

(26:42):
and how they manifest different perspectives on life through different temperaments and whatnot.
And he's focusing on the diversity of manifestations. And that's what makes,
you know, art beautiful.
But Peterson comes back pretty strong, pretty quickly and animated.
He says, it's not just there's variety.

(27:03):
And you know it, he says, and you know it. And Doyle's quick to go,
oh yeah, I agree, I agree.
Because Peterson argues there's a qualitative difference between presentations of worldview.
And in a really witty remark, he says, Dostoevsky trumps Fifty Shades of Grey.
And even if, and this is what Peterson's getting at, he doesn't say this,

(27:25):
this is my added commentary here.
Even if you have a pleasurable experience in consuming Fifty Shades of Grey,
Peterson's making an argument.
You still know that Dov Stoyevsky trumps it, even if reading his works were
harder, that maybe not even in a sense, not as pleasurable.

(27:46):
He's saying Dov Stoyevsky trumps Fifty Shades of Grey.
And so what Peterson said, what he thinks this means is there's a hierarchy
of rank with the arts. And the hierarchy isn't the standard for where you rank isn't simply pleasure.
It isn't simply I enjoyed this more than this. Therefore, it's better.

(28:10):
And what was interesting is Doyle agreed with this 100 percent.
They find they found they were on the exact same page.
They both believe that there's a hierarchy in the arts that the hierarchy and
the ranking isn't built upon simply pleasure.
So Peterson goes on to say that this hypothesis that he's putting forward is

(28:32):
that there is something great that the arts and the artists are aiming for.
And Doyle chimes back in and he says, well, he, what he thinks it is,
is that the arts produced the numinous in us.
And numinous is the feeling of the divine, like the feeling of transcendence.

(28:55):
And Doyle believes it exists, that this is something we feel.
We have this experience that is spiritual in nature, religious in nature,
whatever it is, it's a feeling of it.
So you can think of times in your life where you've had this,
you know, if you're a Christian and you're at church, you're part of a service
and you have this feeling of the divine.
That's what the word numinous is used to refer to.

(29:16):
And even atheists believe that it exists. It's a real thing.
But he goes on, Doyle says, but so he agrees the arts produced this in us.
He says, but I don't think that proves there is a God.
God, it just points to the existence of something beyond ourselves that we require

(29:37):
in order to have a satisfactory life.
And then Peterson, y'all, everybody should watch this. It's a great,
it's a great bit, great clip, not a bit.
It wasn't like a comedic joke, but Doyle says, I don't think it points to God.
It just points to something outside of us that we require in order to have a satisfactory life.
And there was this moment's pause where Peterson then just gets this wry grin and goes,

(30:02):
That sounds a lot like God. And then he laughs.
And so, and then they move on because they're at a place where Doyle doesn't agree.
And in respect, they find something that they can agree on is how the postmodern
movement is essentially godless.
And the conversation is over and they've moved on. But you see what's nagging Peterson, right?

(30:25):
If we believe that the arts do point to something and atheists,
many atheists would agree, Yeah. The arts point to something.
There's a hierarchy here, which means some art is closer to this greatness than others.
Well, what is that thing then? What is it that it points to?
And Doyle has no answer for that.

(30:48):
And his answer just left Peterson at a place like, well, that's what I'm thinking
all along. What you just said sounds exactly like God.
Now, I've got a notion of what Peterson thinks is God, but we'll come back in
a second. Second, first, I know you've seen that clip. What's your take on it?
I do. I remember the exact part that you're talking about. So many things come

(31:09):
to mind, but I'll try to... The first thing I was thinking as you were going
back through the clip is a quote from a professor of mine that has stuck with me all these years.
He said, it was Dr.
John Mark Reynolds, and he said, it was a prayer.
And he said, it came across that way. Dear God, let me desire happiness enough to avoid mere pleasure.

(31:36):
It was the most profound thing to think about that.
So to your point about one brings you pleasure and that's great.
But there's something about the higher art, you know, Dostoevsky,
which admittedly I've not read through Dostoevsky.
I've read excerpts. He at least acts like he's read a lot of it.

(31:56):
Well because he has he's a friend of ours who
does read a lot of books and knows how to read them well um
and then shares that to where i know i want to read all the books and
i don't have time but what i know enough about dostoevsky and works like that
is that there it it does something to us and this is the psychological stuff
that we can't explain this is where it probably links for those who are familiar

(32:20):
with lewis's argument from desire because when you When you encounter beauty,
first of all, you know it when you encounter it.
Philosophers agree on that. Even Aquinas, he said, you know it when you see
it, basically, like what is beauty?
Well, you know it when you see it. And then he had some components that beautiful
things tend to share or some attributes.
The psychological things is what those attributes don't fully cover, right?

(32:43):
When we encounter beauty, beauty causes us to do things that make no practical
sense whatsoever, like build a house on the edge of a cliff, right?
Why do we do that? I wouldn't sleep. I know that.
I would just dream of falling off the cliff, but people do it because it's beautiful, right?
It's why when you're reading a great story like Dostoevsky, or if we're going

(33:07):
to go in in that vein, you know, Lord of the Rings or Narnia,
whatever it is you're reading.
For those of you out there who you've watched movies or you've read books and
somebody interrupts you and you like, it's, it's a sweat. It's not even like a thought.
You are just furious with that person.
I absolve you of, you know, we need to grow in our, in our, you know,

(33:30):
our patience or or whatever.
But the reason we do that is because the story is so great that it transcends,
it takes us somewhere else, right?
We kind of have, not that we can be absent from our body, actually,
because we're embodied beings, but for a moment, it's as if we are.
So if I'm reading Lord of the Rings, and somebody taps me on the shoulder,

(33:52):
and they say, you know, Megan, what are you doing?
I'm going to look at them and be like, well, I was taking the ring to Mordor.
What are you doing, right?
Because you weren't in the chair, you're in the story.
You're in that other reality, you've transcended and there are many who talk about that.
And then something happens when you encounter beauty and you kind of pointed to it a little bit ago.

(34:16):
I can't remember exactly what you said, but beauty does bring us pleasure.
That's true enough. So beautiful things, even Even things that are beautiful
in a lesser sense can be very pleasurable, right?
But beauty also, when we encounter it, does something else to us if we're honest.
I think it brings us pain.

(34:38):
I think it hurts us. I think that's when they're... Like a longing pain,
not like someone's poking me with a needle, but like a deep longing kind of pain?
I think it can physiologically feel like that sometimes.
It can be a sharp pain. I think that's why some people see things that make
them catch their breath or even cry and they can't explain why they're doing it.

(35:00):
But yes, the longing is where it stems from. And that's to Lewis's point with
his argument from desire.
And even he writes about this very thing in The Weight of Glory when he talks
about, you know, to see the sunrise, that should be enough, but it isn't.
And he goes, I can't explain it. And the writers of textbooks on aesthetics, like they can't either.

(35:24):
Not really. But the poets and the writers of mythology, they know all about it.
And he says, so to see the sunrise, to see these things here,
it should be enough, but it isn't.
And we want in, but we can't get in. We long for this something,
and he calls it even a homesickness.

(35:44):
And that goes back to what we've been saying since the beginning of this discussion,
that we were made for this home that we find in God.
We were made for the fullness and the simplicity. And by that,
I mean, the full unity of truth, goodness, and beauty.
That's where we find our home. This is Augustine's restless heart.

(36:04):
This is, you know, all the ones are like, we can't find it. It's there.
And so we have this hope of heaven, of this kingdom.
And yet we still find all these glories here that whisper of it and that tell us of it.
So there are people that are more tuned into this, like you had said before.
And I think that's fine. There's people that are more tuned in to truth and

(36:26):
rationality, if you will.
There are more people that are tuned in to goodness and have a driving sense
of justice that maybe overshadows the others.
And there are some that have a strong intuition or sense or connectivity to the aesthetic.
And for those that do, like Peterson here, he's bothered by this.

(36:49):
It's an itch in his mind that he has to scratch because he's convinced that
if, it seems as if the arts point to something and it seems as if there's a hierarchy.
So what is this thing?
Now, there's a lot of talk out there about how close Peterson is to becoming a Christian.

(37:11):
And I'll be careful what I say here, because I have no, I don't know him.
I have no insight beyond.
I know. I'd love to ask him. Well, here's what I think, though.
People keep saying he's really, really close. Well, maybe,
but there's also a point where that closeness, what's the way to put this,

(37:34):
becomes a kind of blindness that now you start drifting further and further
away, even if it seems like you're close.
Because he keeps using this language like, well, he says that sounds an awful lot like God.
But if you listen closely to what he says afterwards, he explains a bit his conception of God.
He does talk about this transcendent unity that he said, I've been tapping toward.

(38:00):
So he's really plagued by this idea and convinced that there's something beyond,
and there's a unity to it.
And this unity grounds meaning meaning and purpose, even in things like the arts.
But he offers a definition there. He doesn't say, here's my definition of God
per se, but this is his definition of God that he then offers.

(38:24):
Is his notion of this transcendent unity, this God, he would call it the central
animating spirit of mankind at its best.
Peterson has many times made comments regarding evolution and he seems to come
from an evolutionary perspective on just humanity.

(38:47):
And so it seems to me that what he's trying to figure out is what is it that
evolution produced that it's in some way transcendent, that it is this subordinate unity.
That at its core is the central animating spirit of mankind at its best.
So you can see what he's trying to build here. In a sense, this is something objective.

(39:09):
It's not subjective entirely, although it might be hard to argue how something
objective can come through an evolutionary process that benefits the human race.
There seems to be an element of subjectivity there, but you see at least what he's trying to do.
This is something that's beyond us in a sense, that is the best of humanity
and it is the animating spirit behind all of it.

(39:32):
It goes beyond us. It's something that we can be bound to in a sense,
something that grounds meaning and value beyond arbitrary, subjective preferences
because he keeps coming back to it's not just pleasure. It's not just pleasure.
So what I think he's after here, though, is this kind of new form of spirituality
that makes sense of ethics, makes sense of truth and makes sense of beauty.

(39:55):
But it is not the Christian God. So before I get too carried away,
and this is all, of course, speculative.
If I were sitting down with him, he might say the exact opposite.
This is what it seems like to me. And if I'm going to bolster my argument,
those that are really pursuing the God of the Bible don't leave things like

(40:16):
this in such, how do I want to say it?
There's a little bit more clarity,
I think. So it's another way of me saying, I think I'm right here.
Eat those words later. I'll be happy to eat them, by the way.
But what do you think about all that?
Well, that was a lot. So I got to I think that first thought I want to get to

(40:39):
with that, sorry, is, is what are we to do with this?
You know, that's kind of what I want to, you know, move this conversation to
if if what we're saying is true, that the arts point to something as even like
Peterson and Doyle, who's an atheist belief, what do we do with that?
I think what Peterson is doing with that is he's trying to find a rationale
for the belief in something transcendent, but not a creator God in the way that

(41:04):
Christians understand who God,
you know, the Christian understanding of who God is.
So that's that's where that's I know it's a lot to take in as a very I just
ran my mouth a ton. But that's kind of what I'm after is what do we do with this?
We see what Peterson's doing this. So what do you think of what Peterson's doing
with it? And then we can move into that more broadly.
Yeah, so I'm going to try and articulate what I think here, because it's all,

(41:26):
this is the way I think. I got to get it out.
And it's all just shaken up in there like a snow globe.
Maybe some of you are listening and be like, I get you, Megan. It's okay.
No, I think that this answer is going to be very unsatisfactory to people who
are as rational as Peterson.

(41:46):
But it is not an irrational answer.
Because I am thinking rationally, but I know that my rational thinking is limited.
And so here's where it comes in. And no disrespect, my respect for Jordan Peterson is very high.
I think it takes a certain amount of humility that I'm learning to have.
And I'm gonna make that part very clear of going and something like what Chesterton talked about.

(42:12):
You can make a rational explanation for just about anything that you want to justify.
Whether it's something like this or whatever, we can spin it in a circle and
make it to totally, totally rational.
But that's only looking through the world with one lens and we have two, right?

(42:35):
So the reality is what we're talking about this whole time is that not only
can we talk about truth and goodness, can we talk about science,
can we talk about reason and rationality?
We can do that, but we also have this whole other lens that is imagination,
that is beauty, that is the simply, I just want to revel in it.

(42:57):
I don't know that I need to explain it all. I want to try because that's my tendency,
but the sunrise can be just appreciated because it's so much bigger than me
and so much more than I can capture on a canvas or in a photograph or in my words or whatever it is.
And there's a part of me that just has to lay myself down and go,

(43:17):
that was meant for more than me to wrap my head around.
And that part of us, that imagination, that thing, I think has been so deadened
because of the reductionist thinking of our culture.
And by that, I mean, again, back to the revolutions that we've been on the tail
end of between the Enlightenment of the 17th century that took things like morality

(43:40):
and religion and values and relegated them to the realm of the unknowable.
Right. So that you just play with those. That's what ultimately led to the postmodernist
movement, but not all by itself. Again, that didn't just happen in a vacuum.
History, people is all complex.
Back on track here what was I trying to say I think that.

(44:01):
What my fear is, is that if Peterson is going that route,
he may find a rational way to explain what he's trying to explain,
but the universe that he's just created will be far too small and he'll go mad.
Not like, I don't know about literally mad, like in a straitjacket, but in a sense, mad.

(44:24):
Such speculation here, but Peterson has a high admiration for Nietzsche.
Nietzsche. He said it several times.
He wouldn't view himself as the modern day Nietzsche, of course.
No. But Nietzsche went mad and Nietzsche was obsessed with the aesthetics.
That's an interesting thing there. You know, he totally disregarded,

(44:48):
he abandoned any hope in finding an objective referent for meaning and purpose
because he believed, you know, in the death of God.
He viewed that as a cataclysmic event, like the earth being unchained from the sun.
He did not believe there was anything objective, powerful enough like the sun

(45:08):
to ground, you know, to bring that, you know, gravity, gravitational force such
that there would be something to order life and reality around.
He believed you had to look within and create tables of values for yourself.
And what's that? That was devastating to him.
Well, it was, but, and I'm curious what, like what he found in the aesthetics

(45:33):
though, because he became obsessed with them.
He, he viewed like poets and artists and painters in particular as almost as
if they were, were, were God-like. But the simple point here,
not point, but the reason to bring it up is your comment of going mad.
Nietzsche went mad and he was obsessed with the arts.

(45:54):
And again, not being a prophet for Peterson's life here,
but to your comment of when you're trying to find universe and you're trying
to account for what the arts point to in this purely rational fashion,
the universe you create for yourself is too small.

(46:15):
And that can be something that drives you crazy. Meaning if you do all this
work to find an answer and it's not really a satisfying answer, what's left, right?
What's left to keep you from succumbing to nihilism or some kind of,
and the insanity that follows a true apprehension of nihilism without suicide.

(46:37):
That does lead to- Terrifying thought. This is this reminds me a little bit
of what happened post-Enlightenment, right?
Post David Hume and empiricism and the fact value split that Francis Schaeffer talks about.
Again, there was a lot that came into that.
Because there were people in that time who were looking out at the universe,

(47:01):
and they began to adopt this new truth that came from empiricism,
that if all that we can know are the things that we can touch and taste and
see and hear and smell, if that's what's knowable,
then that means something.
And here it means that there is no real meaning out there.

(47:22):
I mean, it was a time when they... And by the way, let me just point this out,
because this is important.
Like people like that and perhaps even Nietzsche were, it takes a lot of courage
to adopt the truth like that, if it's true.
Right. To look out at the stars that you're, perhaps even at that time,
your grandparents had said, these are the heavens.

(47:44):
And the music of the heavens is something that we can, if we just sit still
long enough and appreciate, you know, it tells us things about ourselves and
about what's beyond. And here we have people going, no, this is space.
This is, I can explain this. It's vast and dark and meaningless.
And that star, that's a burning ball of gas.

(48:08):
And it has a lifespan and it looks like this. And we can quantify it and we
can talk about all of the components and the atoms and the way that they work and all of that.
But there's no real meaning. And at that time, the reaction to that,
which is, I mean, Nietzsche's not too far after all of this,
right, was romanticism.

(48:28):
Because the reaction was, as things like this in history tend to do,
the reaction was very much a pendulum to the other extreme to say,
I reject a world that is that hideous.
That's an ugly world and I will not live in it. And so the reaction was to turn
and worship the limited things and nature in this case.

(48:51):
We got some of the most beautiful poetry and art that came out of that period. period.
But the idea behind it was that there was enough residue, I think,
to where we have that beautiful art and that beautiful poetry that still like
is clinging to know there has to be meaning.
But we come on down the line through modernism, which, you know,

(49:12):
kind of that was following that line of what we can know and master and conquer
are in the hard sciences.
The rest of it, we just kind of have to either make up as we go along and the
residue fades over time. This is is a gross overgeneralization.
Like I want to apologize to all the philosophers who might be listening to this.
But there's something here, right? If we tug on that strand,

(49:33):
we see we get to this point in time where we're this far removed and the split
is still there running through our culture and our day and time.
And we have people, and Mike, I've heard you say this before.
We have people operating in those realms because we were made to.
They're making moral decisions.
They notice these things about the world, But they're untethered from any kind

(49:53):
of grounding that would make it meaningful, like truly deeply meaningful.
So all that, I don't know where I was going with that, except to say this sounds just like that.
Nietzsche to me sounds like that going, I see that, and again,
I don't agree with his conclusion, but if he was, if he believed he was right

(50:15):
in saying God is dead and saw saw how cataclysmic that would be.
It took a lot of courage for him to swallow that truth. And yet there was probably
a part of him going, I cannot live in a world this ugly.
Yeah. Well, this is why I think that this topic matters in a really big way.
If the arts and the aesthetics are not grounded in something like the nature

(50:38):
of God, I think nihilism is the outcome.
I don't see how you can escape it.
Because even if Peterson, Let's assume, for example, a naturalistic world,
a world that is the product of an evolutionary process.
And let's say even in some sense, this subordinate Unitarian spirit on a theistic

(50:59):
spirit is the result of that.
And it's the animating spirit of humankind at its best.
What is that thing? If it's the product of an evolutionary process,
why am I bound to it? Why is it really that great?
Why does it really give grounds to meaning and value and purpose?

(51:20):
How is it not also, in a sense, subjective and arbitrary?
And why shouldn't I just forsake it? I don't see how that really gets us anywhere.
You can almost pretend that it does because you at least have something that is rational.
It's rationally produced.
It is beyond humankind in a sense.

(51:41):
It could be something, if you were to build an ethical framework off of this,
it could be something that people then look to together.
And it's not, you know, all cultures everywhere could look to.
So it's this, it has this transcendent quality, but I don't,
I don't think it truly is transcendent in that sense.
And I think that it just, it will become that thing you're looking at.

(52:03):
And no matter how hard you want to believe that it is real, you know,
it isn't. And I don't think it will provide the lasting meaning and significance there.
It will not be the strong, it will not be a sure enough a foundation to support
what people like Peterson hope it would support.
Yeah. No, even when you, even before that, when you were saying,

(52:25):
imagine a world of evolutionary processes that came about that way,
you know, I'm sitting here going, okay, I'm really, let me imagine that for a second.
And the only question I can bring up out of that is what, not why. Yeah.
The question why doesn't even come out of that. So, so it's too big of a leap.
I mean, the first, the first problem is how do we get to the leap of consciousness, right?

(52:48):
Which is something that people much smarter than me have grappled with and talked
about that evolutionary processes cannot explain how non-conscious material became conscious.
Unconscious so even if there's an explanation of that when
did that material begin to ask
questions of meaning at all i don't i

(53:09):
don't know that there's a a why there it's just a what it's just surviving it's
just atoms and molecules and molecules and then matter and and eat and live
and defeat what's the threat is i boy maybe i just went off crazy in a crazy direction No.
So what do you think then? OK, if the arts point to something and I got to believe

(53:34):
there's a lot of people that just think they do.
I mean, as as a scene, we have 90s grunge band superstars searching for it.
But you have 30 years later, more than 30 years later, super intellectuals like
Peterson grasping for it and believing that the arts and beauty points to something else.

(54:00):
Okay, so what do we do with that? Well, let's maybe ask that for different kinds
of different kinds of people.
Like, what is the non-believer do with that?
The non-Christian. What would be the appropriate response for the one who believes
or is inclined to believe that the arts do point to something?
What should they do with that knowledge or that belief?

(54:24):
Once they, I think, have the inclination that there is something more. Right.
I think they must do the same thing that others have done. When there is something
that is true, you have to have the courage to adopt that truth and to move from
a place of thinking that the world is less,
which is the reductionist world we live, like the thinking, I say world we live

(54:47):
in, it's not a reductionist world, it's the reductionist culture.
To move from thinking that everything is less and can be quantified to thinking
that maybe there's more.
And from there, I was just thinking about our colleague at Apologetics Inc.,
Emily Marasco, who is a brilliant young thinker in this area.

(55:07):
She's thinking a lot about beauty and the arts. And so we have these fun conversations pretty often.
But she was talking about how in her generation, she's part of Gen Z,
right? Right. So she said, Megan, I don't think that I don't think that my generation
is just thinking that nihilism is the answer.
She goes, I think a lot of people think that. She said, but that's not what I see.

(55:31):
I said, what do you see, Emily? She said, I think that when my generation encounters
these things, they sense that there's something more, but they can't bear the weight of it.
It's so big this this deeper meaning like
they know there has to be meaning but it's too much to

(55:51):
bear and maybe because that's we've lost the
practice we haven't flexed those muscles i don't know what the answer to that
is but i do know this i don't think that we were meant to bear it all i think
we were meant to revel in it yeah and it's it's a fear that man oh that really really got me thinking,

(56:14):
if you're processing that fear.
From an atheistic worldview, that would be a burden too great to bear.
But if you're processing that in a non-theistic worldview where God does exist,
it isn't a burden for you.

(56:36):
It is liberation and a pathway to true life, abundant life, meaning in joy.
I had a young woman, same generation.
But on the other side of it, it's interesting, as a side note,
there's a lot of sociologists that think Gen Z,
it's the way culture changes so rapidly that the label of Gen Z is meaningless

(56:59):
because those at the one end of it versus the other are meaningfully,
so meaningfully different that one label can't describe them.
And there's many that speculate that generational markers like X,
Boomer, Z, I mean, they served a point in the past, but they no longer will
because of how rapidly things change. I don't know if that's true or not.
And that's a side note that I probably shouldn't have introduced here.

(57:19):
But I had a young woman after one of my lectures on my book, Why You Matter,
which talks about what grounds meaning and is the pursuit of a meaningful life,
is it worthwhile if God doesn't exist? Is it actually possible?
And she comes up to me afterwards and she expresses actually the same idea that Emily was seeing.

(57:43):
So I think Emily's observation is spot on. on.
She comes up to me and she says, I'm tracking with you. I agree.
I agree. If God does not exist, then there's not objective to meaning to life.
And there's a certain nihilistic part of it.
She goes, but that's actually freeing. She goes, life can be so stressful.

(58:04):
Then she tells the story of like, ever since you can, as soon as you can talk,
people are asking you, what do you want to be when you grow up in life?
And they never stop asking that question, she said.
And then it's what club are you in? What sport are you playing?
What's your political stance?
Have you made a post about this cause? And it goes on and on and on and on and on and on.

(58:26):
She said, so the thought that nothing really matters in an objective sense is
a stress-free kind of life.
Make millions of dollars or bake cookies for the rest of your life,
solve a problem in another country, play video games in your parents' basement,
it doesn't really matter. And that's very freeing.

(58:47):
So to that burden point that Emily's making, she goes, but on the other hand,
it would be kind of nice to know that my actions actually mattered in a way
of greater significance.
So I think Emily is spot on with that, where they're kind of caught in the tension
here between the freedom and the futility, if you if you will,

(59:10):
of a meaningless world. But if there is true meaning.
Can I, you see the, you see the, you see the, yeah, the tension and the wrestling
master. Can I bear this weight?
It's weight. And it's so interesting, the weight of glory, right?
That Lewis, that Paul talked about first, that we will have this,
this tremendous weight of glory and we must be ready to bear it.

(59:32):
I think that Mike, that she's, she's telling a story, right?
This girl that you encountered, she's telling a story of the way life is.
And it makes me wonder if I could tell the same story and just shift the perspective
just ever so much and say, well, maybe what you're believing is that all of
these things are determining your worth, right?

(59:55):
That these things are what determine your value and give you meaning,
ultimately, your performance.
Performance and maybe you're believing that because the world is so messed up
and because generations prior have dumped on you representative of gen z you
know this young woman that you're going to have to be the one to fix all of
it so they're demanding a perfect performance,

(01:00:18):
that would be a weight that's too much to bear but what if what if there was one,
who came to us from beyond and gave the performance that was perfect and gave
your life all of its ultimate meaning such that your performance,
doesn't dictate that meaning.

(01:00:39):
It's already there just by virtue of you being.
And that's, I mean, that is the gospel. That's the gospel story.
And it provides a way of letting us know that perfection is not up to us to
achieve because it's already been done.
It's up to us to revel in and then aspire to with help.

(01:01:03):
That's what the indwelling Holy Spirit, all of that.
The Christian story is still the one at the end of the day that says,
let me account for for all the things you're accounting for and all the things
you're not, in order to show you that you weren't meant to bear it all, it was made for you.
That's a really good point because I think that is the weight.

(01:01:24):
If you accept there's real meaning, now there's an actual standard and the weight
of can I live up to that standard?
Well, part of the Christian story is no, you can't. Nope. And that's okay.
And this is the beauty, right, of the gospel. There is actual meaning which
grounds Sounds provides a firm ground for the, for our lives,
provides justification to believe that actions have a real substance,

(01:01:49):
substance to them, that they actually matter.
But with the gospel is, and you will fail at that standard, but there is one
who has atoned already for your failings. And in him, there is forgiveness and there is life.
And yeah, so that, that goes to it, right? If you accept meaning without a Savior,
it is a burden too great to bear.
But if you accept meaning and believe in the Christian story and the gospel,

(01:02:14):
there's such freedom there.
That's another way. This is just, I mean, I know you're trying to wrap up.
I just, I have to say this in that context.
There's a way of talking about beauty. This goes back to John Mark Reynolds,
the professor who talked about pleasure and happiness, right?
Happiness meaning like ultimate satisfaction.
But he said that when we think about beauty, there's a different way of looking

(01:02:36):
at heaven and hell. And this is provocative.
So I'm just going to give a warning. I haven't like begun to figure this fully out.
And I hope it's not heretical. I really love statements that are prefaced by,
I hope this is not heretical.
It was my favorite kind. I know it's at least thought provoking. So that's all I intend.

(01:02:57):
You know, this, this coming from the idea of heaven and hell and that God lets
people's know me know, but perhaps in this sense, give me grace.
Hell is the most gracious. Well, until I hear it, then maybe I won't have your back. Right.

(01:03:19):
And I'm thinking through Old Testament lens, right? When God appeared to Moses
and his face was glowing and it wasn't even a direct thing, but he had to cover his face.
And then in where Paul talks about how this greater glory, when he's talking
about the weight of glory is going to be so much more than even that lesser
glory of the New Covenant.
It so perhaps for those who choose it

(01:03:40):
hell is the most gracious thing god can do
because they have not been able to stand in the beauty of heaven it would obliterate
them entirely that's the thought that's so and it makes just no he had it i'm
just trying to poorly articulate it but,

(01:04:02):
I don't know. I think this comes full circle to your beginning of this.
What you were saying, there's one who came who not only offers forgiveness and
a way and all of that, but to the point of our conversation,
he offers complete, simple within the theological sense, nothing missing, nothing extra.
He is complete, whole, simple unity of truth, goodness, and beauty,

(01:04:24):
all the things that we look for.
And he is that infinitely, which is something we cannot, and you said it,
we can't do it apart from a savior.
We can't rationalize it fully apart from God.
And even with him, we just can't. And that's the humility piece.
He's so much bigger, so much greater, and yet so rational.

(01:04:47):
It means that we will go on delving into the depths of truth,
goodness, and beauty literally forever. And we will never exhaust it.
So that longing within us is met by him in every way forever.
And it won't be something we master and conquer. Anyway.
No, that's good. And I'm not, well, yeah, we do have to end this,

(01:05:09):
but I'm hoping we can go maybe even 20 more minutes because there's two things
I really want to talk about.
And if you got to go, that's totally fine. We can pick this up another day.
But I think to just offer another, just a summative statement for the non-Christian,
if you will, the non-believer in God who's inclined to think that the arts do point to something,

(01:05:34):
I think the humility and the courage to explore that is an appropriate response.
And to consider the consequences here of your conclusions.
Is it possible that,
For this aesthetic to be grounded in something other than God, is that truly possible?

(01:05:57):
And if not, are you willing to count the costs of coming to believe in something
like the existence of God?
So, yeah, I think that humility and the courage to not ignore that thought,
but to pursue it and ask real honest questions along the way.
I think that's an appropriate response for the nonbeliever, if you will.

(01:06:18):
What about for the Christian who's hearing this? And there's going to be a number
of people that are Christian.
I've had some friends that are like, I just don't ever listen to music.
I'm like, are you even human?
They have no consideration for the arts. And I'm like, we're definitely not friends.
And when we're in heaven one day, let's make sure we stay on opposite ends of

(01:06:41):
the street kind of thing.
That's assuming a lack of restoration for his complete humanity there.
So there's going to be some people that are listening to a conversation like
this. Maybe they haven't even made it all the way to the end because they're
like, this is just nonsense stuff.
But what is it? So if the arts do point to something, what does this mean for
the Christian, even in your daily life or in terms of discipleship?

(01:07:02):
If you have parents, what does this mean for that? What does this mean in evangelism and outreach?
What does this just mean for your normal, if that's a stupid way to say it,
but your normal everyday kind of follower of Jesus? What does this mean for them?
It means a lot of things. One thing, if I could just tell one thing that it
means that I think, you know, if you take away nothing else,
and you've made it this long, maybe take this away in this conversation.

(01:07:26):
But I think that it means that our everyday acts of things that we do,
that we didn't really have to do.
But we did have things that we take for granted as just just normative,
everyday, mundane things.
It could be, and I'm thinking of like, after this conversation,

(01:07:49):
I'm gonna go do homeschool math, sixth grade, so fun.
It is, but not all the time.
But I'm gonna go do that. I'm gonna sit with my son and we're gonna talk about
the math and then we're gonna read history together and then I'll probably make
him lunch in just a little while.
And it's easy to get caught up in going, ah, these are just the things I have

(01:08:09):
to do to check off of my list.
But I actually think that the things that we do each day where we just give
that little extra that we didn't have to can be thought of through this lens.
As full-blown declarations of war.
And that's a lot to think, take in at once. What I mean by that in a very simple

(01:08:29):
way is that the making of a sandwich,
is something that, I mean, I could have done, I could have just told him to
go get some chips out of the cabinet, but I'm gonna do this with him and sit
with him and put it on a plate and we're gonna have conversation.
We're going to be human today in spite of all of the brokenness and things that
are wrong in the world around us right now.

(01:08:50):
And that could mean right in my own home. It could mean with my neighbors in
my immediate community.
It could mean globally. The world is a broken place. We all agree on that.
But in living with this type of very true and grounded and rational and deep
meaning, Meaning, those things are ways to push back the dark,
those human things. We were made for more.

(01:09:12):
Yeah, I think that's brilliant. Finding the small ways to bring beauty to an ugly world.
And there's such small ways that can be done.
And the opportunities are endless for that.
I'm already thinking of all the things that you can bring a little bit of beauty
to the mundane. That's so good.

(01:09:33):
I will say this. This is a challenging thing because the flip side of that coin
is these things do take an intentionality and a little bit extra time.
And we live in a culture that does not afford us time.
I mean, we have all the time there is in one sense, but in the other sense,
the demands on our days right now, we are very busy people.

(01:09:55):
And I don't know that that's for our good all the time. I mean,
there's a lot coming out right now about that.
And we're all a little bit aware of it between the technology and the emails
at 10 o'clock at night and the, I don't have time for this or that.
I got to schedule every second of my day.
I think that this is related to conversations about being human,

(01:10:16):
because we live in a culture that prizes productivity and efficiency.
I'm thinking right now of the work of Dr. Kelly Capik in his book, You're Only Human.
He's a theologian who's talking about limitation.
And he says, you know, productivity and efficiency are great things.
God is certainly productive, and he's certainly efficient.

(01:10:37):
But those are not his highest virtues. virtues however they're
the highest virtues of our culture god's highest
virtue is love it's the greatest commandment love
god love your neighbor and love is
about the most inefficient thing you can do right it
is inefficient to love and wonderfully so i

(01:11:00):
think beauty is similar to that to appreciate beauty
takes time and depth right and
we don't often take the time to love love like the
only manifestations of gratuitous things
seem to be in film that violence and
sexuality gratuitous meaning like

(01:11:20):
seemingly serving no purpose right over the
top doesn't have a real that's what gratuitous means but there's something about
love that is gratuitous right that it's it's not that's simply utilitarian or
you know focused on productivity so i i love I love this notion of the gratuitous nature of love.

(01:11:42):
Its inefficiency, and how that can be manifested in small acts of things of beauty.
Like I'm thinking of your new friend, a little bit longer friend for me,
I still would consider a new friend, Kara Kennedy and her husband Juan,
who are tremendous hosts, right?
And there's something about you could be served the same food on paper plates,

(01:12:03):
but having it come out in the presentation with which they often will do.
It just brings life, right? And it's a way to love and it has this gratuitousness to it, if you will.
That's really good. Feasting. Yeah, Kara, by the way, wrote a book called Supper.
And it's a collection of essays that kind of plays this out,

(01:12:24):
this theme that we're talking about. And feasting is an ultimate act of war.
I'm not the first to think or talk about that. I mean, it goes,
it was all tied together and this wonderful united mystery of Jesus, right?
With communion and coming to the table and all of that.
But just a simple example, like Narnia in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,

(01:12:44):
it was the feast in the forest that got the white witch's attention.
And it was because Father Christmas had come to the forest and he brought a
feast and the animals were having a feast.
She came across the feasting in the forest and she went berserk.
And she said, where did you get this? It was forbidden.
In her forever winter, right? And the animals told her that Father Christmas

(01:13:07):
had come. He'd brought them a feast and she didn't, she said, you're lying.
Like, take it back. She went crazy.
And the little squirrel like lost his mind for a second. Yes, he did. Yes, he did.
And she turned them to stone just like that.
And cause she couldn't bear it. And the reason was that if Christmas had come, oh, this is good. Okay.

(01:13:29):
If Christmas had come, that means that the thaw had begun that spring was on
its way and that her reign was coming to an end,
i love it so much and their feast shouted that
to the rafters and beyond their feast was an act of war so when we feast when
we when we do that it's not just about food we've talked about food but it's

(01:13:52):
about other little things too food is just a big one that we that christians
uniquely are are suited to use to go not to day darkness.
You get to, you're pushed back.
It is, but then we come to the, you know, Easter and the incarnation.
And I don't know, when you talked about Ed earlier and the song Heaven and thinking

(01:14:12):
about his daughter and seeing his daughter born into the world and that birth
something in him, right?
I couldn't help but think about the incarnation.
That there was one born who showed us there was so much more.
All right. So what does the Christian do with this?
And maybe this is the way to say it, is to give your permission to gratuitously

(01:14:37):
love others with acts involving beauty.
I think that's really good. I think another one, this is probably a whole talk
show by itself, is to understand the power of story and to have a home filled with good stories.
One of the ways to do this is through literature and good books.

(01:14:59):
A lot of homes are not reading homes. And this sounds like we're now the keynote
speakers at a homeschool convention or whatnot. It doesn't matter.
It's like doing great stuff.
I was blessed to be, to grow up in a reading home. And the first books I fell
in love with were the Hardy Boys books.
My mom would take me to Kroger once a week and there was a shelf with Hardy Boys books.

(01:15:21):
I'd pick one out and loved it. But another interesting idea that I think I'm
going to spend some time talking with our friend Paul Gould about in a couple of weeks.
It's just how the fact that we primarily orient ourselves in the world through
story, that the way that we make sense of life and our place in it is through story.

(01:15:43):
There's a lot of competing stories out there. One of the more prominent stories
circulating right now is the oppressor oppressed narrative.
And it's a way that people fundamentally now apprehend what's really real.
I live in a world of oppressors and I'm one that that is oppressed.
The reason that there is brokenness within me isn't because of my innate brokenness or anything sinful.
It's because I've been corrupted by someone with more power than me.

(01:16:06):
A lot of the stories that are now out there in print and in film are following
that narrative, the oppressed oppressor.
If you even notice, gosh, I'm really getting long-winded, the villains in Marvel
movies, they're becoming less and less that they're innately evil,
more that they're a product of a bad situation.
Namely, the situation caused by somebody else who had more power than them.

(01:16:30):
Even the latest, the new Marvels one, which I'd heard so much bad press about
it, but I watched it with my kids. And I mean, it's entertaining.
It's certainly not trash, but that's the story it follows. It's the oppressed oppressor narrative.
And so one of the practical things that, you know, for parents even to think
about here, if it's true that the arts point toward something and that's just.

(01:16:52):
The world that we live in, and we have to recognize the power of story,
you must be aware of the stories that are being told to you and your kids all the time.
And it's not that you shut off Disney Plus per se, but that you use it as opportunities
for meaningful conversation and critique.
Enjoy it and critique. Critique can be enjoying and not just simply the cancel

(01:17:14):
culture kind of way. That's trash.
Let's boycott it. Some things need to be boycotted, but some things just need
to be criticized and to be to do this in an insightful way and so you can enjoy something,
while being aware of its flaws or maybe
its potential harm and then it can also
be enjoyable to critique it with one another in a spirit of love and in this

(01:17:36):
you know quest for truth so i think another practical application of this for
parents is just to recognize the power of story to be sure that you and your
family are hearing good stories and to be aware of the harmful ones that you
are encountering and to criticize them.
Yeah. I mean, I agree. And it's not just even the stories we're taking in,
but the stories we're believing in a moment, we need to call those out in one

(01:17:58):
another and, and narrate what's happening.
Right. So when we're in a disagreement with a friend, like, wait,
wait, wait, or with my children, oftentimes, wait.
So what you're believing of me in this moment is this, that I don't want good
things for you, that I don't love of you well, or whatever, I'm keeping you from something.
And what if it's through that, what's actually happening is this.

(01:18:20):
That's story. That's a that's I'm believing this narrative right now.
But yeah, the stories that we're hearing and that oppressed oppressor attacks
at the very heart of the gospel because it alienates human beings from one another.
And it's true there are oppressors, but it's not the fundamental story of reality is the problem, right?

(01:18:41):
So anyway, all right, last question. And this again is such a fun one that I
would enjoy just spending an entire hour talking about all together. other.
I have a bit of a past in music. I got to play guitar.
If I could turn my camera around, you'd see all the guitars in my room.
I got to play guitar in a band for about seven years.
And we never heard of our band. We never made it famous, but we got to play

(01:19:05):
with everyone else who was.
And it was a really fun seven years where we were opening for the people whose
songs we were singing in church and things like that.
And mostly my experience with these artists was that They were horrible people.
And I'm not going to tell you these fan themes, but most of them were not good
people. And that's just kind of a side story to my point here.
I really want to know what, if it is true that the arts point to something,

(01:19:28):
what does this mean for artists?
And in particular, what does this mean for Christian artists? artists.
Funny enough, I just gave a talk on sexuality, but afterwards I had a conversation
with a young man who was wanting to pursue music.
I have no idea why or if there was even anything in my talk that led to him
wanting to talk to me about this, but we did and it was a great conversation.

(01:19:49):
And he is a follower of Jesus, kind of wanted even permission to go pursue music.
And if so, what is my path?
Because there's kind of this vision in the Christian community that if If you're
an artist, you have one job, produce
crappy songs that are mindless and repetitious that we sing on Sunday.

(01:20:10):
And so he was looking for a bigger vision, I guess, of what the role of arts
is, even as a profession for a Christian.
So I don't know what you think about Christian movies. I think they're all terrible.
I don't know that I've ever seen one that I like, and I'm sorry for who I offend,
but they always just feel forced.

(01:20:31):
They don't feel real. They feel
like a cover for evangelism and that we shouldn't be about evangelizing.
Evangelizing. I just don't know that you have to do it through film.
And if it's true that the arts point to something anyways,
what we're saying is a good story will by nature cause someone to consider the

(01:20:54):
existence of God and the very nature of reality.
So what do you think if what we're talking about here is true?
What are some of the practical applications for Christians who are also So artists.
Good. I mean, the passion of the Christ might be one exception, but. Fair enough.
Probably others. I tend to overstate when it comes to music and arts.

(01:21:14):
Right. No, that's an overt story from scripture.
It told the story as scripture told the story, right? With a few artistic license things.
But so maybe that's why it worked. It told the truth in a beautiful way.
I think that often we are so wrapped up in trying to get the truth across overtly
that Christian artists do so at the expense of beauty.

(01:21:39):
There it is. And so the intent is very, very good.
But art, it doesn't exactly work that way. It should tell the truth and it should be good.
But to be beautiful, I think artists, and I do think art is a particular vocation.
So I'll clarify this. We all have creative capacities.

(01:21:59):
We are all capable of cultivating beauty in the world through our particular
gifts and talents, whether it's organizing a room or organizing thoughts,
whether it's bringing repair to what's broken or we fix a mind or a body or
whatever it is, or it's art itself, people who are artists.
I think that artists must, I'm going to borrow from another hero,

(01:22:23):
Dorothy Sayers here, artists must serve the work.
Their art cannot be about propagandizing. Is that a word?
It can't be about that. It has to be about what is born in them that has to come out.
So what artists do, says the contemporary poet Malcolm Gite,

(01:22:44):
is that they comprehend the things that the rest of us only apprehend.
They incarnate. It's a picture of the incarnation because they put into concrete
reality these true things that we didn't know we already knew.
And when we encounter that art, we're reminded of those things.

(01:23:05):
So maybe this is another way of saying it too.
Great art makes us remember and not forget.
And the word remember literally means to put the body back together, to re-member, right?
We remember who and what we are. We remember from whence we came.
We remember those things. So great art does that.

(01:23:27):
And it doesn't do it by, you know, overtly like shoving a message down your
throat. In fact, in the stories we were talking about that are truly great, it's the subtlety that.
The nuance of the truth that makes it so much more powerful because it sneaks
through the story and grabs hold.
So I love that notion of serving the work. And that's a tricky one to work out, right?

(01:23:49):
Because you're not going to want to make an idol of your work.
And it's not as though you create art in a vacuum without a public that's going
to behold it, use it, appreciate it.
But I do love this serve the work thing because i think
it lends to a couple of things one of them would be
authenticity of course where you can just see a phony

(01:24:10):
piece of art a mile away and maybe that's partly of why what i
just my distaste for christian music and film tends to be but i remember dave
chappelle was on doing uh what was it comedians and cars with jerry seinfeld
and they were talking about this very thing and chappelle talks about when gonna
reframe it in our discussion here, but when it's reversed,

(01:24:33):
when you're not serving the work, but somehow the order's reversed.
Chappelle says real brilliance comes when an idea takes over in the driver's
seat and I'm thrown in the trunk kicking and screaming.
He says the projects that I've been a part of that were terrible were when I
got in the driver's seat and there was maybe an idea in the backseat.

(01:24:57):
He says, but real genius in art
comes from when the idea is driving it and you're just along for the ride.
And so there's that element here of authenticity in the artistic world where
the work is almost your master, again, with some wisdom.
And you can't take that metaphor fully because then I think you're moving into idolatry in a sense.

(01:25:20):
Yeah. But there's something about that that is very, very true to me.
There's something about just making great art. And we get caught up in this
question about, well, I want to make Christian art.
And so my response, and I think Dorothy Sayers' response also,
and others who've given this a great amount of thought would be, then make great art.
And it will be inherently Christian.

(01:25:42):
Because goodness, truth, and beauty come from the same source. Yep.
It's propaganda and people see it from a mile away. So I think there's a lot.
You've made it to please an audience.
You've made it to please an audience rather than serving the work itself.
And it becomes about giving people what they want instead of what was birthed

(01:26:04):
and needs to come out that's inherently true.
And that, yeah, we lose all kinds of things. That's how we get like Kung Fu Panda.
Like that's, which, I mean, it's fun. It's fun, but it won't stand like the test of history.
Yeah. There's more to say about this. And I'm really interested in these things.
But going back to where we started here with live and Ed Kowalczyk,

(01:26:28):
he was, if I said it right, I still question myself every time I say his name.
So I saw an interview with him where the host, you know, discovered seemingly
through the interview, he kind of was sensing it.
But then that's when Ed said flat out, no, I'm a Christian now.
And his comment was, it must have been very hard for you on the next album to

(01:26:51):
not make it overtly Christian.
And I thought Ed's response was really insightful.
He said, I just wanted to make it personal and people connect with that.
So I think that's also a nice guiding piece for artists where you can live in

(01:27:12):
this authenticity, make something personal, not propagandist.
And in doing that you will create something that
honors god glorifies him points people
to him and it is something that others can appreciate and
something that is used even by god in their life to awaken them to what is really

(01:27:32):
real hey this has been great yeah it's a lot of fun thanks for the question
i got like 15 000 things to think about now well we'll have to do another other
one and we probably should,
we ought to find some other people that are asking these same kind of questions
and, and do it with a couple other people.
I think that could be a lot of fun. Cause I really want to get in.

(01:27:53):
I'm really just really curious about this, the power of story,
what the arts point to, the applications from it, the apologetic applications
from it, the practical applications from it, and just the insight for good, good creativity.
Cause we're both creative creative people and, uh, just enjoy it and want to

(01:28:13):
be better at it. So anyhow, Hey, nice work.
And, uh, until next time. Yeah. Thanks Mike.
Music.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}90’s Grunge, Jordan Peterson, and What the Arts Point To | Megan Almon