February 25, 2024 • 47 mins
Historian Dr. John Dickson joins the show to discuss his book, Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History.
Dickson provides an insightful, nuanced perspective on some of the most controversial episodes in Christian history, from the Crusades to the Galileo affair. He argues that while Christians have certainly made grave mistakes throughout history, the influence of Christianity has also been profoundly positive, pioneering hospitals, abolitionism, and education.
Dickson is candid about the church's failures but also highlights inspiring figures like Eligius, Gregory of Nyssa, and the courageous early Christian martyrs. He aims to provide an objective account that combats overly negative portrayals of Christian history while also avoiding Christian triumphalism.
Key topics discussed include Constantine's role in the Christianization of Rome, myths about the "Dark Ages," the confident humility of early Christian martyrs, myths surrounding Galileo's persecution, and more.
Dickson provides illuminating historical context and thoughtful analysis of these complex issues. His book provides a thoughtful corrective to biased accounts on both sides, appealing to secular and religious readers alike.
Links:
* Bullies and Saints book
* John Dickson's website
* Dickson's Undeceptions podcast
================================
We appreciate your feedback.
If you’re on TWITTER, you can follow Chad @TBapologetics.
You can follow Brian @TheBrianAuten
And of course, you can follow @Apologetics315
If you have a question or comment for the podcast, record it and send it our way using www.speakpipe.com/Apologetics315 or you can email us at podcast@apologetics315.com
Dickson provides an insightful, nuanced perspective on some of the most controversial episodes in Christian history, from the Crusades to the Galileo affair. He argues that while Christians have certainly made grave mistakes throughout history, the influence of Christianity has also been profoundly positive, pioneering hospitals, abolitionism, and education.
Dickson is candid about the church's failures but also highlights inspiring figures like Eligius, Gregory of Nyssa, and the courageous early Christian martyrs. He aims to provide an objective account that combats overly negative portrayals of Christian history while also avoiding Christian triumphalism.
Key topics discussed include Constantine's role in the Christianization of Rome, myths about the "Dark Ages," the confident humility of early Christian martyrs, myths surrounding Galileo's persecution, and more.
Dickson provides illuminating historical context and thoughtful analysis of these complex issues. His book provides a thoughtful corrective to biased accounts on both sides, appealing to secular and religious readers alike.
Links:
* Bullies and Saints book
* John Dickson's website
* Dickson's Undeceptions podcast
================================
We appreciate your feedback.
If you’re on TWITTER, you can follow Chad @TBapologetics.
You can follow Brian @TheBrianAuten
And of course, you can follow @Apologetics315
If you have a question or comment for the podcast, record it and send it our way using www.speakpipe.com/Apologetics315 or you can email us at podcast@apologetics315.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello, and welcome to the Apologeticsthree fifteen podcast with your hosts Brian Auden
and Chad Gross. Join us forconversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics,
evangelism, and the Christian worldview,real Wrath of God type stuff,
fire and Brimstone. Hello. Thisis Brian Auden and I'm Chad Gross and
(00:25):
joining us today will be John Dixon. And in today's interview, we're really
honored to have John Dixon with us. He's the author of a book called
Bullies and Saints, an honest lookat the good and evil of Christian History,
and so he's going to be joiningus to talk about that book.
But he's written a whole lot ofbooks. We'll talk a little bit about
his background and stuff in a minute, but let's just talk a moment about
(00:47):
the book and why we are doingan interview about a book. Yeah.
So this book is one that Ihad heard about off and on through different
podcasts that I hear and different thinkersand authors. And I got a copy
of it through the mail last yearand it kind of sat on my shelf
because I was reading other things toget ready for the podcast, and so
I was excited when we were ableto set something up with Dixon and picked
(01:08):
up the book and started reading itand couldn't put it down. And I
love the approach that he takes asfar as being open and honest about the
pluses and minuses, if you will, of Christian history. His writing I
find is easy to read, butat the same time very challenging. And
I was really shocked at some ofthe things that he uncovered, particularly about
(01:32):
the Dark Ages, some things aboutConstantine and how are we to understand things
like the Crusades and the Inquisition.And of course there is an overarching theme
in the book about a composition thatJesus initially played and that Christians have been
trying to play it ever since.And we'll get more into that. But
anyway, such a well written book, and it's one of the books that
(01:55):
we've read and prepared for us toprepare for a podcast that I would definitely
say everybody should have on their shelf. What did you think of it?
Yeah? I liked it a lot, because you know, sometimes I've heard
you know, if you remember backwhere Christopher Higgins was on like his debate
tour, you know, God's thisbig old bully and look how religion poisons
everything. And he would go onthis big die tribes about all the evils
(02:19):
of Christianity and religion generally, andthe common sort of apologetics response, you
know, think of like Danesh Desusaand all the different people who were debating
him at the time. You know, he wrote a book was still great
about Christianity, and you sometimes seethe response to critiques of religion being like,
no, no, it's really good. Christians did all these things like
(02:43):
make hospitals and look, we've madethis great thing. And look art and
culture and education, and we wouldn'thave universities if it weren't for Christians.
But this book is like, let'sjust put everything back together. Let's not
play everything's bad, everything's good.It's like here, it's a whole big
mix, and you know, we'vegot dark chapters and we've got bright chapters,
and we're going to look and seewhat happened and sort of divide out
(03:06):
the myth from the truth, andyou know, try to draw out a
true picture historically of the good andthe bad of the Christian Church. So
I like it because he's really tryingto get at a sort of a frank
examination of Christian history. If wewant to sort of blurbify the book,
we could say, you know,we're looking at the dark chapters of the
Crusades and the Inquisition, and thenmoments of virtue and compassion. He's showing
(03:30):
Christianity's place and civilization for anything fromthe Sermon on the Mound to the present
and uncovering the role of the churchin imitating the teachings and life of Jesus.
So I think it's got a greatapologetic value because just knowing the history
will allow someone to respond better tocritiques of Christianity with honesty, with you
know, compassion, not trying tocover up past things like oh well,
(03:53):
but saying no, no, here'show it really was. Yeah, and
just to kind of put a bookendon that. I also think that one
of the things I like, andthis is kind of alluding to what you're
saying, is that he's willing toown certain things in Christian history, but
also to give a fuller picture becausesometimes, unfortunately, when we heard it
(04:14):
from the likes of Harris and Dawkinsand Hitchens and things like that, it
was always how can we use thisto make Christianity look as poor as possible,
right or as bad as possible,And so he's willing to say,
Okay, yeah, there's some truthto what Hitchins said here, but that's
not the full story. And soI think it gives us a broader context
(04:35):
in which to understand some of theseevents. And I also think readers will
find that when it comes to thingslike the Dark Ages, for example,
that they'll be very shocked to learnthat the Dark Ages aren't exactly what we've
always been told they are. Andso again, definitely worth picking up.
But yeah, let's talk about JohnDixon. Well, he's a multi talented
(04:56):
individual. He began his career asa professional singer songwriter, but he's also
delved into various fields, including beingan author. He's a speaker, a
historian, and he's a media presenter. He's widely recognized as the founding director
of the Center for Public Christianity,where he served from two thousand and seven
to twenty seventeen. He's got areal impressive collection of published works, totaling
(05:17):
over twenty books. Two of thesebooks were even adapted into television documentaries,
and his latest release, For theLove of God, How the Church Is
Better and Worse Than You Ever Imagined, premiered in Australian cinemas in June twenty
eighteen. So throughout his career,John has held teaching and research positions in
esteemed institutions such as mcquarie University,Sydney University, Ridley College, Melbourne and
(05:41):
the University of Oxford. And hecurrently resides in Wheaton, Illinois. And
he has a very busy public speakingschedule. It was hard to arrange this
interview. So he's also got agrade to podcasts called Undeceptions and you can
find out more about that at wwwdot ondeceptions dot com like here on Deceiving
Yourself. So it's good stuff andalso Johndison dot org. Find it in
(06:05):
the show notes as always, Andlet's get ready for the interview. Let's
get ready. Switch me on.Well, there's John Dixon coming into the
studio right now. Hey, John, how are you. Hey, Brian
Chad good to chat with you.Yeah, we just had to get Joe
Rogan out of the way here.So well, John Dixon, thank you
(06:28):
so much for joining us. Tellus a little bit about yourself. People
are going to notice your Australian accent, but you're in the States. They're
going to need a little bit ofcontext, So would you introduce yourself?
Okay, Well, I am nowat Wheaton College in Illinois, where I
was offered a chair that would allowme to use it as a platform to
(06:48):
make christ public but also train thenext generation of leaders in how to reach
a rapidly changing America. And Ithink the logic of the invitation that I
come do that was that I've spenttwenty five years trying to reach the quintessential
post Christian nation, which is Australia, and doing that through media and books
(07:14):
and academia and so on, andhaving a great time trying to work out
how do you engage a nation thathas put Christianity well and truly in the
rear view mirror and has said aboutsort of recasting, retelling the story of
our good culture that excludes Christianity entirely. So that's what happens in post Christian
(07:38):
cultures. It's not just that Christianityis criticized, it's that people actually rewrite
the story that all of the goodthings of our western humanitarian culture came from
us in the Enlightenment. They don'tcome from Christianity. So I've been trying
to reach out to that kind ofculture for twenty five years, as I
(08:00):
say, coming to the US onceor twice a year for at least twenty
years, and so to get theinvitation from Wheaton to take up this position
was both surprising daunting, but inthe end we felt compelled to come here,
which we did fourteen months ago,and we're loving it. Wow,
that's a big move. I meanyeah, And has it been a real
(08:22):
culture shock or do you feel likeyou're fitting in? Yeah? I mean
the thing about America is we're sosimilar, and that is deceptive because you
think it's just like Australia, butin fact there are things that are that
are very different, and you know, politics is one of them. Just
(08:43):
how divided and hot politics are inthis country. Really I haven't noticed that.
Yeah, well, you know,so we've really struggled to find a
good sensible TV news at the endof the day, I mean classic Australian
gets home from work and watches theseven pm National News half an hour.
(09:05):
You get a little bit of international, little bit of national, little bit
of local and it's not too crazyleft or crazy right, and it's great.
I have gone all over the TVstations of America and haven't done so
well. Finding finding an account newsis sort of a news program that doesn't
(09:31):
think half the country are idiots interms of culture. Shock, that's been
that's been a big one. Yeah, wow, no interesting. Well,
if you find that objective news outlet, please please let us know so we
can send it out to our listeners, because we know what's worrying is.
I've asked really thoughtful Americans what's theTV station to watch at the end of
(09:52):
the day to get world news,local news, and they have all said,
oh, no, we don't haveone. Just watch BBC. Wow,
Wow, Wow, I'm patriotic.Yes, yes, indeed, indeed's
super interesting. So I refuse,I'm still on my journey to find the
TV station. It's no such thing. Yes, we'll keep searching, We'll
(10:13):
keep searching. Well, we havefound an objective look at the events and
Christian history, indeed, and it'sin this book you've written. As we
transition to this book, tell usa little bit about the book Bullies and
Saints. Why you wrote it.I know you've done historical work and things
like that. Is this was justright up your alley, I suppose,
But what's the goal and motivation behindwriting it. It's always hard to self
(10:35):
analyze, right, you know whyyou did X versus why? But I
think it's partly personal therapy. Youknow, because as a trained historian,
I know where the bodies are buriedin Christian history. There's a lot of
bodies buried. The cemetery of Christianhistory is very large, and so so
(11:00):
I wanted to puzzle through the obviousquestions that throws up. I also want
to engage in as fair a wayas I possibly can with the claim that
you increasingly hear that Christianity has onlyraped and pillaged its way through history.
And in twenty seventeen, there wasan IPSUS poll of twenty nations asking do
(11:24):
you think religion has done more harmthan good? And Australia came in at
second, as in the second greatestnumber of people think religion has in fact
done more harm than good. Sixtythree percent of Australians agreed religion's done more
harm than good. The only nationto beat it was Belgium. Belgium was
(11:46):
sixty seven percent. Now America's downat thirty nine percent. So a minority
thinks would be better off without religion. That religion's done more harm than good.
But it's that feeling out there,and I know Americans can feel growing
this sense that secular culture thinks religionis not self righteous and holy and too
(12:09):
good, but that it's evil andviolent and abusive and bigoted. So I
wanted to confront that in a waythat you know, it wasn't knee jerk,
you know. I didn't want towrite the book that just showed you
how awesome Christianity is and we've notdone any bad things, But nor do
I want to join the chorus ofcritics of the church, which is,
(12:31):
you know, very cool. Andas a Christian, you can often get
points from the secular media by criticizingyour own kind to exlaming the church,
you know, and you find alot of Christians rush to this. I
was very conscious of all of that, and I wanted to write something that
you can put in the hand ofa genuine professor of ancient history in a
(12:52):
secutor university and they would recognize it, first of all, as a work
of history. I wanted something thatwould correct a kind of Christian triumphalism that
we've only done good things, andyou know, those crusades that's not us,
that's the naughty Catholics. I wantedto bring us a correction to that.
But I also wanted to bring acorrection to those who think Christianity's just
(13:16):
harmed the world, when in factChristianity has given us some of the things
out secular humanitarian culture loves most.Yeah, I was thinking about that as
you were answering that question. I'mcurious as to being a Christian historian as
you are, and you come tothis topic A lot of times, people
(13:41):
often want to bring out the objectionof well, you know, he's a
Christian, so therefore he's bias.But one of the things I was so
impressed about as I read through yourbook was your ability ability to be objective.
You were willing to own the errorsand the mistakes, but then you
were also willing to say, buthey, there's more of the story,
or don't forget about the good that'sbeen done or whatnot. And so,
(14:05):
as a historian, when you cometo topics such as the Crusades or the
Inquisition, or some of the varioustopics you hit on in the book,
how do you keep your own biasesin check? What are some ways that
you work to do that. Partof the answer is just my background.
So my doctorate was in ancient historyin a secular, big state, secular
(14:31):
university. So professionally academically, I'vehad to engage with the secular outlook.
And I taught at McCarey University andSydney University. To big state universities,
both would be described as sort ofprogressive universities. And so having taught for
twenty years in those kinds of institutions, I think I have developed enough of
(14:54):
a sense of the importance of objectivityand the tools to come to that.
So that's that's one answer, Okay. The other answer is a kind of
theological one. Actually, I allthe way through the writing of this book
had the Lord's words in my ear. Look at the log in your own
(15:18):
eye, take it out, andthen you'll see clearly the speck in your
neighbour's eye. And that was saidto disciples. That wasn't said to the
you know, the Pharisees or someoneelse. It's in the Sermon on the
Mount, and so in the actualteaching of Jesus is what I call in
(15:39):
the book the ultimate self corrective mechanismthat should always as a disciple be wondering
what is the log in my eye? There's boundery one. And if I'm
honest with you, you know,my sort of takeaway from having done all
the research and then writing up thisbook, My takeaway is not, oh,
(16:00):
wow, how could that Christian mobhave murdered Hypatia, the great fifth
century philosopher, or how could thecrusaders have done that? Although I am
shocked. Actually my main takeaway isI wonder what mind blind spot is.
I wonder what the log in myeye is? You know that prevents me
from seeing clearly. So it's thattheological thing that drove my willingness to accept
(16:27):
that Christians have done terrible things whenthere's evidence. Now, when there is
not evidence, you know, likethe classic claim that Christians destroyed the Great
Library of Alexandria, Well there's noevidence of that, so I didn't include
that in the book. So wherethere is not evidence, I'll point that
out. But where there is,I've got Jesus in my ear saying,
(16:49):
ah, there's a log that's reallycool. One of the things that you
write in the book, and Ilove this. It was one of the
things that's tracted me to the bookbecause I had heard people like Frank Turk,
for example, use it is youwrite this, you say Jesus Christ
were at a beautiful composition. Christianshave not performed consistently well. Sometimes they
(17:11):
were badly out of tune. Butthe problem with a hateful Christian is not
their Christianity, but their departure fromit. I was wondering if you can
provide our listeners with a bit ofbackground and kind of explain to them what
in the world Christian history has todo with a cello and Bach. Well,
(17:33):
musicians in the audience will know thatthe Cello Sweets, and in particular
the prelude to the Cello Swets BoxCello Sweets is widely regarded as one of
the most sublime, mathematically perfect piecesof music ever written. I mean,
the way he has composed it isjust extraordinary. I've listened to this for
(17:56):
thirty years and I'm still a raisedit and still moved by it every time
I hear it. And I thinkof the Gospel, the Life, Teaching,
Death, and Resurrection of Jesus asthe ultimate cello suite, as the
ultimate beautiful melody given to our world. No melody has ever matched it,
(18:21):
And at the heart of that melodyis the teaching love your enemy, do
good to those who hate you,which for Jesus isn't an arbitrary ethic.
It is actually the whole arc ofhis life, according to the Gospels,
loving the enemy, giving his lifeon a cross for enemies. So this
(18:42):
ethic of love of the enemy isactually the ethic that is the immediate reflection
of the Gospel of Salvation. Sofor me, that's the beautiful melody,
and it has transformed audiences to carryon the metaphor a little bit in every
single century. And it has beenplayed in every single century. I'm not
(19:07):
one of these good Protestants who thinksafter Augustine, you know, the whole
thing's gone to hell, until fifteenseventeen when Martin Luther, you know,
went public. There's a lot thismelody has been played in every century.
Agreed. However, However, Christianshave sometimes played that really out of tune.
(19:30):
And you only have to think ofthe anti Semitic laws that Constantine the
Great built into Roman law that thenbecame European law, that sidelined Jews at
law. Well, that's a departurefrom the tune. Or I mentioned the
murder of Hypatia in four fifteen inAlexandria. That was Christians who did that.
(19:52):
We even have names. It wasthe bloke sorry I shouldn't say bloke
speaking to Americans, the person theman for me. Okay, so I
was a bloke, the okay.The bloke who killed her, who led
the mob to kill her, wasPeter the Reader. His gig every Sunday
was to read the scriptures to thecongregation in Alexandria. Well, he led
(20:15):
the mob to kill this woman philosopher, Hypatia, whom everyone loved, who
had actually taught many of the Christianleaders of that period. But because of
politics and jealousies, she was killed. So this is clearly a departure from
the tune. But what I findso wonderful, even about a story like
(20:36):
the tragic killing of Hypatia, iswe know about this event because our best
source was written by a Christian leaderutterly outraged that Peter the Reader and other
Christians in Alexandria had done that.So right in this very incident, you
have the worst of Christianity, theChristianity played out of tune, and then
(20:57):
you've got this other Christian source sayingthis is despicable. This is worse than
non Christians. But it's a Christiansource. And right there you see this,
this self corrective mechanism, this spotting, the log in our eye,
and and and the arc of thewhole book is there is there is a
beautiful melody. And Christians have sometimesplayed it well, sometimes poorly, but
(21:21):
the melody is there in every century. And when Christians hear it again and
are drawn back to it, wonderfulthings happen in our world. Yeah,
I find I find that so helpful, and I've gotten a I want to
thank you for it because I've gottenso much mileage with it in conversations with
people who bring up some of thethings that challenge them. And and it's
just a great way to point themback to Jesus and say, if you're
(21:42):
going to accept or reject Christianity,let's let's do it based upon, like
you said, his his tune orhis melody. Yeah, and so,
and our friends who don't believe theyknow what Jesus stood for, even in
vague terms like and and so it'salmost like the criticism of the church is
borrowing jesus melody, because that's themelody by which we're judging the church.
(22:07):
So it's our friends who are Christians, who are critics of the Church are
actually using the ethic of love andhumility and compassion to criticize the Church.
Good on them, go for it, But in doing so, they are
actually vindicating the melody, the beautifulmelody. Yeah, you can't call someone
a hypocrite unless you know what standardthey're breaking. Yeah, and as sure
(22:30):
as anything, we didn't get thatethic of love and humility from Rome or
Greece or Egypt or Babylon or Saxonsor Gauls or Celts. You know,
it came from one place. Itcame from the Jewish Christian environment that reshaped
(22:51):
the Western world. That's good.I wanted to find out because you're more
familiar with Christian history and so maybefor you this was like going back through
and just sort of like, Okay, how can I talk about this?
And for a lot of people therethis might be new information in this topic,
new information, and then this topicmaybe they've never delved into Christian history.
But as you were writing the book, I'm wondering if there were certain
(23:14):
aspects that had come to late foryou that you didn't you weren't aware of
before that maybe surprised you, orwow, that what an interesting revelation here.
How many do you want I haveabout it? Well, you stop
me when you're on. I mean, I a couple of realizations. One.
I don't think i'd ever realized justhow confident the earliest Christians were when
(23:38):
they were being criticized and ridiculed andkilled for the faith. So we know
of five or six certain periods ofpersecution of the Church in the first three
hundred years. And I think Ihad always imagined, you know Nietzsche's critique
that was Christians were all from theslave class, so they were like beaten
down dogs, So of course theywere going to be humble. You know
(24:00):
that if you kick a dog longenough, it just it thinks submissiveness is
the norm. And that's what Nietzschesaid explains early Christianity. But actually,
when I have read and studied thesources of the first three centuries, the
thing that is amazing to me isthey thought they'd already won. The reason
they felt they could be so humbleis because they knew Jesus had been raised
(24:21):
to life, sitting at the righthand of God, was coming to judge
the world so they could love theRoman governor that was trying to kill them.
So Titualian writing a letter to GovernorScapula in two fifteen in Carthage,
and Totalian can say, oh,I know your gods are just demons.
You don't know the truth, likeabsolute boldness. But at the same time,
(24:45):
I'm going to love you no matterwhat. You could kill us all
and we're still going to love you. And I find that everywhere in the
second, third and early fourth centuries. That's one thing that really stood out
to me. The other was thestory that Constantine wrecked everything that you know,
when he came to power. Heforced everyone to be Christian and then
(25:07):
suddenly Christianity was just an institution,is rubbish. Constantine, for all of
his career had a tolerance approach.Yes, he favored Christianity very much,
but he had some really important Christiansin his ear, like Lactantius, one
of the greatest think Christian thinkers atthe early fourth century, who was in
(25:29):
Constantine's ear saying, no, youwill turn people off Jesus if you force
them to worship Jesus. Christianity mustbe a thing of the heart, and
Constantine adopted that policy not just whenhe first became Western Emperor in the Edict
of Milan in three thirteen, butalso when he became sole Emperor in three
twenty six and could have imposed religionas he saw, but he actually wrote
(25:52):
to the provinces saying, there's noway I'm going to do that, because
I don't want to turn you offJesus. So we've got to wait seventy
years before Christianity really begins to imposeitself and sideline Pagans and outlaw worship in
the temples. So the myth ofConstantine has fallen apart as I've prosecuted those
(26:14):
sources. And I'll give you onemore, that's okay, Yes, one
more. I didn't know anything aboutthis before starting to crawl through the so
called Dark Ages. There never wasa Dark Ages, by the way,
but you know that classic idea thatcome the year five hundred, Rome in
the West has collapsed and it's alldarkness and plagues and ignorance, and okay,
(26:34):
sure, But as I crawled throughthose centuries, I came across a
name. I'm ashamed. I'd neverheard of Iligious. He was the greatest
jewelry maker in Europe in the earlysix hundreds, and he had some kind
of spiritual experience which led him tobelieve that he should be using his vast
(26:56):
wealth as the person who made thegold crown for kings, he should use
his vast wealth not just for thepoor, but to go around France wherever
there were slaves being sold, buythem all with his money and set them
free with a little bit of atravel money if they just wanted to go
(27:18):
back up into Saxony, or downinto Spain, or back over to England.
Now he did this for twenty years, to the point where there was
this period in the mid seventh centurywhere you could not have owned a slave
if you were in the orbit ofthis man. They eventually he became a
bishop in the head of the churches, and he didn't even allow royalty to
(27:41):
hold slaves. How did I notknow about this? And what is remarkable
to me about someone like Lydias ishe was a red hot evangelist as well.
He's not just what you know wesometimes dismissed now as a social justice
warrior, you know, just lookingafter the poor and freeing slaves. He
was preaching to to pagan areas inthe northwest of France, up toward the
(28:04):
scary Frisians right who hadn't yet beenconverted, And from the sources that we
have, we know that he convertedmany of them to Christ and then taught
them the gospel life. That youknow, if you've been so loved by
God, you're to love everyone else. That was a special gift to come
(28:25):
across Bishop Oligius. That's good.Yeah, it was so funny. A
couple of the things I wanted toask you about in the interview as I
was thinking through the topics I wantedto hit on were Constantine and the Dark
Ages, and so you hit ontwo of those. That's because those were
I was so appreciative of how youbrought out the truth of what had happened
with Constantine and also what happened atthe Council of Nicea. I found both
(28:48):
of those things to be very helpful. I was wondering, though, when
you're talking about some of these thingsthat Christians often are very shy about talking
about, is as far as theyou know, whether it be the Inquisition
or the Christian aids or some ofthese things, what would you say to
a Christian who would challenge you that. You know, John, you're kind
of kind of air in our dirtylaundry here. You know, you're making
(29:08):
us look bad. We don't wantto put a stumbling block in front of
people. Yeah, of course that'snot my view. But what would you
say to somebody who would maybe challengeyou in that way. Well, I
got a long list of names offriends and colleagues who have said exactly that.
Look, my reply is the onethat I brought up at the very
beginning. It's Jesus who said,take the log out of your eye,
(29:30):
Christian, and then you'll be ableto see clearly. So I think of
my project as you know, searchingfor the logs in our eye and being
open about them. You know,we, we of all people in the
world, should be quick to admitfault because we don't believe we're good through
and through. That's that's the kindof secular myth, you know, good
(29:51):
through and through and only getting better. Christians have never bought that. Christians
believe even the best of us havefeet of clay, and it is just
right to admit fault where where thefault is there. Now, I should
qualify that by saying, sometimes thesefriends and colleagues who say that have confused
me with the other sorts of christianthat I've mentioned at the start, who
(30:18):
only criticized the church, who aretrying to get brownie points. Do you
use the expression brownie points? Wedo not sure? Okay, get brownie
points from the media for criticizing thechurch. Well, I'm not in that
camp either, because a big partof my book is saying, look,
what oligiist? Did you know?The first abolitionist was not William Wilberforce or
(30:40):
those beautiful Quakers. It was Iligious. In fact, before that, Gregor
of Nissa in the fourth century wasan abolitionist. The whole notion of free
education for all came to us viaal Quinn of York in the eighth century.
Right, the notion of a freehealthcare. Now, I know that's
(31:00):
controversial in America, so maybe Ishould go carefully, But the fact is
no one had thought to open hospitalsfor everyone free of charge until Basil the
Great had his idea in about threepoint sixty AD, where he used the
best of Greek medicine. He himselfhad had some training in Greek medicine.
(31:22):
He had gone to the Great Academyof Athens, and he opened this massive
complex which had a leprosorium for thosewith leprosy right through to aged care,
a place that looked after infants thathad been collected from the streets, but
also a hospital proper where he employeddoctors and nurses to look after them.
(31:44):
Now, once he did that,about twenty years later, you've got your
second hospital down in Rome, startedby Fabiola, one of the wealthiest women
of Rome. Done it as aChristian. She's deliberately. They all thought
they were doing sort of the goodSamaritan, you know, putting oil on
the sick and so on. Andwithin a few hundred years you've got literally
(32:05):
hundreds of hospitals, all of themrun by the church. It was just
seen as a normal thing. Whenyou established a church and a dioces you
would make sure you had a healthcarecenter and it was available for all.
Now that came into our culture becauseof Christianity. Now we can debate the
best way to fund it. Nowadays. I don't want to tread on anyone's
(32:27):
toes and sound like a communist.I'm just saying. I'm just saying that
I'm not one of those Christians whois shy about the beautiful things Christianity has
given our world for which we shouldbe very grateful. Yeah, and that
speaks to some of the balance Iwas talking about earlier in the book.
I think it's a both, andwe've got to earn the mistakes, but
at the same time, let's notemphasize the mistakes so much that we're also
(32:50):
forgetting much of the good that's beendone. I think that's right. I
want to swing back around and talkabout the Dark Ages again, or the
so called Dark Ages, and well, I want you to go a little
bit deeper on that. You whatdo you mean by what do people commonly
think of the Dark Ages? What'sthe sort of myth and then what's closer
to reality? If you could unpackthat, the myth is mother Church became
(33:12):
so powerful and sidelined all the beautifulGreek and Roman learning that had been built
up over the centuries, and theChurch turned its back on learning and just
became an ignorant, power hungry monsteruntil the Renaissance. And only in the
Renaissance where there was this resurrection ofGreek and Roman learning in the early thirteen
(33:37):
hundreds, that's when we can saygoodbye to the dark Ages, so it's
dark from say five hundred to let'ssay thirteen hundred, fourteen hundred somewhere around
there. So that's the myth,and it is a myth. It completely
misconstrues many things. One of themis how powerful the Church was. The
(33:58):
Church in the East, the socalled Byzantine Empire, was powerful in the
fifth and sixth centuries, that's true, but the Church in Europe in the
West was not powerful. It wassubject to once the Romans fell. Once
there was disorder in Europe because theRomans were beaten by the Goths, it
(34:19):
was quite disorderly, and different warriortribes fought, and the Church wasn't running
things at all. It for centurieswas just trying to modify the violence.
Sometimes they went along with the violence, but they were still setting up churches
and monasteries and hospitals and doing theirbest in a very fractured Europe. But
(34:42):
by the time you get to theeighth century and you have Charlemagne, Charles
the Great, who sort of unifiesEurope, I think that's when you can
begin to talk about Christendom, likeChristianity having power. Okay, before that,
Christianity wasn't running the show. Butin but in Charlemagne, let's put
a let's put a pin in it. Let's say seven seventy. In seven
(35:07):
seventy, I think we can sayyou've got the beginnings of Christendom. And
what was the first thing they did? They educated Europe. Charlemagne employed the
smartest man in the world. Imean, that's literally what one of the
sources says, the smartest man inthe world, guy called Alquin of York,
a pom from York, and gothim to leave York and come and
(35:31):
set up an educational system and liftEurope out of this kind of fractured environment
to start learning once again, allof the liberal arts. So you could
barely say there was a dark age'sas a result of the collapse of the
Roman Empire. But the only thingbringing social cohesion and charity in that period
(35:54):
was the church. And as soonas the church had enough power to really
run things, they instituted schools,and by the end of Alquin's life there
were hundreds of schools for boys andgirls, rich and poor. And so
people talk about from the year eighthundred on the Carolingian Renaissance. We normally
(36:15):
think of the Italian Renaissance from thirteenhundred, you know, the great Italian
scholar Petrarch and so on. Butfew people, too few people have heard
of the Carolingian Renaissance, that isthe Renaissance started by Charles the Great Charlemagne,
where he gifted back to Europe thisnotion of education that studied arithmetic,
(36:38):
rhetoric, grammar, astronomy, andthen once you'd passed the seven basic liberal
arts and you were good, youcould go through and learn natural history,
what we call science now, philosophy, law, and theology. And this
is what gave us the first cathedralschools, which of course became the first
(37:00):
universities in Bologna and in Oxford andCambridge. I guess what I'm saying is
if there was a Dark age's itwas only because Rome was destroyed by the
Goths and the Church saved Europe fromthe Dark Ages. It certainly isn't responsible
for it. Yeah. I hesitateto say this because I'm always afraid it's
(37:22):
going to downplay other parts of thebook. But I personally could say to
listeners that the bid on the DarkAges in your book for me, if
nothing else would make it worth buying. That's how eye opening. It was
for me. I mean, therewere a lot of AHAs throughout the book,
but that was one part in particularthat I found especially eye opening.
(37:43):
You had mentioned that the three surpriseswere Constantine and then of course the Dark
Ages. I know there were morethan three said, but then you also
said the surprise you were surprised bythe confidence of the early Christians. Did
I get that right? Yeah?Yeah. So as one of the things
that speaks to that is in thebook you refer to the early Christians as
(38:06):
good losers. Particularly we're talking aboutthe period from AD sixty four to three
twelve, and you say, throughthis losing the message of Christ, death
and resurrection spread. Can you talka little bit about what you mean by
them being good losers? Can youexpound on that a little bit? What
I mean is when they were mistreated, they didn't say things like, oh
(38:29):
how dare you? We have ourrights? You know, they said,
oh, yeah, we expected this. This is what they did to the
Lord and you know what happened next, so kill us all you like.
Where the death and resurrection people?That was the mentality And it isn't just
historical speculation to say that this mentalitythis good loser mentality led to the growth
(38:55):
of Christianity, because we actually havesources that say this to two very important
ones. It's Italian who makes clearthat persecution only promotes Christianity. He almost
dares Scapula the governor, to keeppersecuting, because you know that every time
you kill us, a thousand moreof us pop up, you know.
(39:17):
And the other is I mentioned himearlier, Lactantius, who himself was a
professor of rhetoric at the School ofNicomedia when the Great Persecution broke out in
three to three. In three three, there was this devastating persecution. The
Roman Empire was trying to wipe outChristianity once for all, and its first
(39:37):
policy was to sack all Christian academicswho had made their way up into the
academies, and Lactantus was one ofthem. But he wrote a book while
in hiding and throughout it is thisincredible confidence, this willingness only to love,
to turn the other cheek, tobless those who curse, you know,
all the sort of stuff we associatewith Jesus. But he actually makes
(39:59):
the point that our losses, whatseen losses, are actually victories because every
time a Christian dies, well forJesus one hundred onlookers think, I wonder
if there's something to that, Andlike Tansas says, this is why the
more you kill us, the morewe grow. It's such a contrast with
(40:22):
an attitude you often here today thatto my mind, comes from too many
years of being in charge, thatsays, you know when CNN, when
a CNN host criticizes Christians, we'reoutraged, and you know, we'll say,
how dare he? You know,we have religious rights just like anyone,
which might be true, But it'sthe outrage of it that I don't
(40:45):
see in early Christianity. Early Christianityjust knew they were from another place,
knew that no matter what you didto them, where the death and resurrection
people. So so we've won,and our Lord has already won. So
come and you know, smack usaround the head. We're only going to
smile sweetly back and keep telling youthe truth. That spirit is everywhere in
(41:07):
the early sources, and I findit inspiring. Yeah, I wanted to
say that. I wanted to thankyou because that part that you just expressed
there challenge me in my own discipleship. On Peach fifty two or my own
Walk with Christ on Peach fifty two. You wrote this, you said their
role, meaning the early Christians,was simply to remain true to the way
(41:30):
of Christ, seeking to transform theworld through prayer, service, persuasion,
and suffering. And I couldn't helpwhen I read that to think to myself,
is that what my life looks like? You know? And so I
really really appreciated that. Well,I appreciate you saying it. I mean
I felt the same when I comeacross the sources. Yeah, I feel
(41:51):
so challenged by those early centuries.And I have to make clear that in
talking about losing, well, Idon't mean you go out of your way
to try and lose. That wouldtry to persuade anyone. They would jump
in. They would jump into anydebate, and they weren't shy about the
hot topics. But it's just thatwhen they were smacked across the head,
(42:12):
they just smiled sweetly back, saybless you in Jesus name. You know
that was that was the vibe.It's, as I say, it really
inspiring to me. And I'm gladyou know it had the same effect it
did. Yeah, great stuff.We're starting to run a low on time.
So I'm thinking, maybe we'll wrapup with this final question. And
the reason I want this to beone of the final questions is maybe someone's
not going to go read the book, shame on them. And so I
(42:37):
think, in my mind one ofone of the most you know, iconic
things. I mean, you hearit all the time, like, oh,
Galileo, he wanted to be scientific, but the Nasty Church just suppressed
scientific advancement. And hmm, soclear that up, because if anybody's going
to take anything away from this episode, you know, maybe correct the most
(42:59):
common street nat you know. Yeah, well, I mean there's a lot
of research into Galileo, and thebottom line is in the best history of
science volumes you get today, theywill criticize using Galileo as a parable,
which is how it's been used asa parable of what the Church always did
(43:20):
to persecute knowledge. For one thing, Galileo himself firmly confessed belief in the
Creator God and in Jesus Christ andhis best buddies were churchmen, and so
there's no way it was a Churchagainst science thing. The Church was the
biggest supporter of science. No onesupported science more than the Church. The
(43:42):
evidence for this is just overwhelming,which is not to say the church wasn't
an idiot in the trial with Galileo. Galileo had publicly slandered the current pope
in his work, made him outto be a complete dunce. Well,
that was politically a very stupid thing, and probably partly explains the politics of
(44:02):
it all, as does the factthat there was a whole bunch of scientists,
equally skilled scientists advising the Church thatGalilea was wrong. So it wasn't
just oh, our Bible says something, you know, therefore Galilea is wrong.
It was actually a scientific discussion aswell, which the Church got absolutely
(44:22):
wrong in the end. Okay,great, but it wasn't that they were
just going Bible versus science. Andhe wasn't tortured, he wasn't executed.
He was put up in a villa, very flash villa with one of his
church prelates for a while, andthen he was allowed to go to his
own home. I'm not minimizing thatit was censorship on the part of the
(44:43):
church, and the church, youknow, has egg on its face as
a result. But the myth thatthis is an example of science versus Christianity
just doesn't wash in the biggest scientifichistorical volumes about the origins of science.
Yeah. I think that's a greatexample of how you go about in the
(45:04):
book, like, hey, noway, let's correct this. It's not
all or nothing in one way orthe other. Here's all the little nuances.
And I really appreciate that. Soit's sort of undeceiving the listeners.
Speaking of that, can you talka bit about your podcast? And you
have a website called Onderceptions. Wheremight people find there and what's the goal
(45:25):
behind that? Well, underceptions isa word C. S. Lewis used
to use all the time. Infact, there's an out of print collection
of his essays called Undeceptions. Becauseit's out of print, I pinched it
and now I own underceptions, allright, And it's basically, you know,
it's a good sixteenth century word.It means to reveal the truth.
(45:45):
To undeceive is to reveal the truthat the opposite of to deceive, and
that's what the podcast is trying todo. You know, we interview major
scholars in all the disciplines but ethics, philosophy, history, science, et
cetera. And we take difficult questions, and we unpack it, and we
do it in a way that's notinterviewed. We turn it into a kind
of audio documentary. So there's it'ssoundscape, it's clips from CNN and BBC,
(46:12):
it's actors reading historical sources, andthen you know the talking heads as
well. Mysterious footsteps. That's sortof thing. Yeah, yeah, I
just want to personally thank you forthe book. I know it's one I'm
going to be reading again and recommendingto many people. So thank you so
much for all of your work andtime and for your time today. Absolute
(46:34):
pleasure. Thank you guys, thanksfor listening to the podcast. If you
have a question you'd like us toaddress, or just a message for us
feedback good or bad, you caneither email us at podcast at apologetics three
fifteen dot com, or leave avoice message for us using speak pipe.
Just go to speakpipe dot com slashapologetics three fifteen to leave us a message.
(46:57):
And remember, if you include aGhostbusters quote in your question, we
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percent better quality answers. Also,if you've enjoyed today's podcast, please leave
a review. In iTunes or thepodcast platform in your choice, and please
share this episode with a friend ifyou've found it useful. Remember you can
find lots of apologetics resources at apologeticsthree fifteen dot com, along with show
(47:21):
notes for today's episode. Find Chad'sapologetic stuff over at truthbomb apologetics. That's
truthbomb dot blogspot dot com. Thishas been Brian Auten and Chad Gross for
the Apologetics three fifteen podcast, andthanks for listening.
Hello, and welcome to the Apologeticsthree fifteen podcast with your hosts Brian Auden
and Chad Gross. Join us forconversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics,
evangelism, and the Christian worldview,real Wrath of God type stuff,
fire and Brimstone. Hello. Thisis Brian Auden and I'm Chad Gross and
(00:25):
joining us today will be John Dixon. And in today's interview, we're really
honored to have John Dixon with us. He's the author of a book called
Bullies and Saints, an honest lookat the good and evil of Christian History,
and so he's going to be joiningus to talk about that book.
But he's written a whole lot ofbooks. We'll talk a little bit about
his background and stuff in a minute, but let's just talk a moment about
(00:47):
the book and why we are doingan interview about a book. Yeah.
So this book is one that Ihad heard about off and on through different
podcasts that I hear and different thinkersand authors. And I got a copy
of it through the mail last yearand it kind of sat on my shelf
because I was reading other things toget ready for the podcast, and so
I was excited when we were ableto set something up with Dixon and picked
(01:08):
up the book and started reading itand couldn't put it down. And I
love the approach that he takes asfar as being open and honest about the
pluses and minuses, if you will, of Christian history. His writing I
find is easy to read, butat the same time very challenging. And
I was really shocked at some ofthe things that he uncovered, particularly about
(01:32):
the Dark Ages, some things aboutConstantine and how are we to understand things
like the Crusades and the Inquisition.And of course there is an overarching theme
in the book about a composition thatJesus initially played and that Christians have been
trying to play it ever since.And we'll get more into that. But
anyway, such a well written book, and it's one of the books that
(01:55):
we've read and prepared for us toprepare for a podcast that I would definitely
say everybody should have on their shelf. What did you think of it?
Yeah? I liked it a lot, because you know, sometimes I've heard
you know, if you remember backwhere Christopher Higgins was on like his debate
tour, you know, God's thisbig old bully and look how religion poisons
everything. And he would go onthis big die tribes about all the evils
(02:19):
of Christianity and religion generally, andthe common sort of apologetics response, you
know, think of like Danesh Desusaand all the different people who were debating
him at the time. You know, he wrote a book was still great
about Christianity, and you sometimes seethe response to critiques of religion being like,
no, no, it's really good. Christians did all these things like
(02:43):
make hospitals and look, we've madethis great thing. And look art and
culture and education, and we wouldn'thave universities if it weren't for Christians.
But this book is like, let'sjust put everything back together. Let's not
play everything's bad, everything's good.It's like here, it's a whole big
mix, and you know, we'vegot dark chapters and we've got bright chapters,
and we're going to look and seewhat happened and sort of divide out
(03:06):
the myth from the truth, andyou know, try to draw out a
true picture historically of the good andthe bad of the Christian Church. So
I like it because he's really tryingto get at a sort of a frank
examination of Christian history. If wewant to sort of blurbify the book,
we could say, you know,we're looking at the dark chapters of the
Crusades and the Inquisition, and thenmoments of virtue and compassion. He's showing
(03:30):
Christianity's place and civilization for anything fromthe Sermon on the Mound to the present
and uncovering the role of the churchin imitating the teachings and life of Jesus.
So I think it's got a greatapologetic value because just knowing the history
will allow someone to respond better tocritiques of Christianity with honesty, with you
know, compassion, not trying tocover up past things like oh well,
(03:53):
but saying no, no, here'show it really was. Yeah, and
just to kind of put a bookendon that. I also think that one
of the things I like, andthis is kind of alluding to what you're
saying, is that he's willing toown certain things in Christian history, but
also to give a fuller picture becausesometimes, unfortunately, when we heard it
(04:14):
from the likes of Harris and Dawkinsand Hitchens and things like that, it
was always how can we use thisto make Christianity look as poor as possible,
right or as bad as possible,And so he's willing to say,
Okay, yeah, there's some truthto what Hitchins said here, but that's
not the full story. And soI think it gives us a broader context
(04:35):
in which to understand some of theseevents. And I also think readers will
find that when it comes to thingslike the Dark Ages, for example,
that they'll be very shocked to learnthat the Dark Ages aren't exactly what we've
always been told they are. Andso again, definitely worth picking up.
But yeah, let's talk about JohnDixon. Well, he's a multi talented
(04:56):
individual. He began his career asa professional singer songwriter, but he's also
delved into various fields, including beingan author. He's a speaker, a
historian, and he's a media presenter. He's widely recognized as the founding director
of the Center for Public Christianity,where he served from two thousand and seven
to twenty seventeen. He's got areal impressive collection of published works, totaling
(05:17):
over twenty books. Two of thesebooks were even adapted into television documentaries,
and his latest release, For theLove of God, How the Church Is
Better and Worse Than You Ever Imagined, premiered in Australian cinemas in June twenty
eighteen. So throughout his career,John has held teaching and research positions in
esteemed institutions such as mcquarie University,Sydney University, Ridley College, Melbourne and
(05:41):
the University of Oxford. And hecurrently resides in Wheaton, Illinois. And
he has a very busy public speakingschedule. It was hard to arrange this
interview. So he's also got agrade to podcasts called Undeceptions and you can
find out more about that at wwwdot ondeceptions dot com like here on Deceiving
Yourself. So it's good stuff andalso Johndison dot org. Find it in
(06:05):
the show notes as always, Andlet's get ready for the interview. Let's
get ready. Switch me on.Well, there's John Dixon coming into the
studio right now. Hey, John, how are you. Hey, Brian
Chad good to chat with you.Yeah, we just had to get Joe
Rogan out of the way here.So well, John Dixon, thank you
(06:28):
so much for joining us. Tellus a little bit about yourself. People
are going to notice your Australian accent, but you're in the States. They're
going to need a little bit ofcontext, So would you introduce yourself?
Okay, Well, I am nowat Wheaton College in Illinois, where I
was offered a chair that would allowme to use it as a platform to
(06:48):
make christ public but also train thenext generation of leaders in how to reach
a rapidly changing America. And Ithink the logic of the invitation that I
come do that was that I've spenttwenty five years trying to reach the quintessential
post Christian nation, which is Australia, and doing that through media and books
(07:14):
and academia and so on, andhaving a great time trying to work out
how do you engage a nation thathas put Christianity well and truly in the
rear view mirror and has said aboutsort of recasting, retelling the story of
our good culture that excludes Christianity entirely. So that's what happens in post Christian
(07:38):
cultures. It's not just that Christianityis criticized, it's that people actually rewrite
the story that all of the goodthings of our western humanitarian culture came from
us in the Enlightenment. They don'tcome from Christianity. So I've been trying
to reach out to that kind ofculture for twenty five years, as I
(08:00):
say, coming to the US onceor twice a year for at least twenty
years, and so to get theinvitation from Wheaton to take up this position
was both surprising daunting, but inthe end we felt compelled to come here,
which we did fourteen months ago,and we're loving it. Wow,
that's a big move. I meanyeah, And has it been a real
(08:22):
culture shock or do you feel likeyou're fitting in? Yeah? I mean
the thing about America is we're sosimilar, and that is deceptive because you
think it's just like Australia, butin fact there are things that are that
are very different, and you know, politics is one of them. Just
(08:43):
how divided and hot politics are inthis country. Really I haven't noticed that.
Yeah, well, you know,so we've really struggled to find a
good sensible TV news at the endof the day, I mean classic Australian
gets home from work and watches theseven pm National News half an hour.
(09:05):
You get a little bit of international, little bit of national, little bit
of local and it's not too crazyleft or crazy right, and it's great.
I have gone all over the TVstations of America and haven't done so
well. Finding finding an account newsis sort of a news program that doesn't
(09:31):
think half the country are idiots interms of culture. Shock, that's been
that's been a big one. Yeah, wow, no interesting. Well,
if you find that objective news outlet, please please let us know so we
can send it out to our listeners, because we know what's worrying is.
I've asked really thoughtful Americans what's theTV station to watch at the end of
(09:52):
the day to get world news,local news, and they have all said,
oh, no, we don't haveone. Just watch BBC. Wow,
Wow, Wow, I'm patriotic.Yes, yes, indeed, indeed's
super interesting. So I refuse,I'm still on my journey to find the
TV station. It's no such thing. Yes, we'll keep searching, We'll
(10:13):
keep searching. Well, we havefound an objective look at the events and
Christian history, indeed, and it'sin this book you've written. As we
transition to this book, tell usa little bit about the book Bullies and
Saints. Why you wrote it.I know you've done historical work and things
like that. Is this was justright up your alley, I suppose,
But what's the goal and motivation behindwriting it. It's always hard to self
(10:35):
analyze, right, you know whyyou did X versus why? But I
think it's partly personal therapy. Youknow, because as a trained historian,
I know where the bodies are buriedin Christian history. There's a lot of
bodies buried. The cemetery of Christianhistory is very large, and so so
(11:00):
I wanted to puzzle through the obviousquestions that throws up. I also want
to engage in as fair a wayas I possibly can with the claim that
you increasingly hear that Christianity has onlyraped and pillaged its way through history.
And in twenty seventeen, there wasan IPSUS poll of twenty nations asking do
(11:24):
you think religion has done more harmthan good? And Australia came in at
second, as in the second greatestnumber of people think religion has in fact
done more harm than good. Sixtythree percent of Australians agreed religion's done more
harm than good. The only nationto beat it was Belgium. Belgium was
(11:46):
sixty seven percent. Now America's downat thirty nine percent. So a minority
thinks would be better off without religion. That religion's done more harm than good.
But it's that feeling out there,and I know Americans can feel growing
this sense that secular culture thinks religionis not self righteous and holy and too
(12:09):
good, but that it's evil andviolent and abusive and bigoted. So I
wanted to confront that in a waythat you know, it wasn't knee jerk,
you know. I didn't want towrite the book that just showed you
how awesome Christianity is and we've notdone any bad things, But nor do
I want to join the chorus ofcritics of the church, which is,
(12:31):
you know, very cool. Andas a Christian, you can often get
points from the secular media by criticizingyour own kind to exlaming the church,
you know, and you find alot of Christians rush to this. I
was very conscious of all of that, and I wanted to write something that
you can put in the hand ofa genuine professor of ancient history in a
(12:52):
secutor university and they would recognize it, first of all, as a work
of history. I wanted something thatwould correct a kind of Christian triumphalism that
we've only done good things, andyou know, those crusades that's not us,
that's the naughty Catholics. I wantedto bring us a correction to that.
But I also wanted to bring acorrection to those who think Christianity's just
(13:16):
harmed the world, when in factChristianity has given us some of the things
out secular humanitarian culture loves most.Yeah, I was thinking about that as
you were answering that question. I'mcurious as to being a Christian historian as
you are, and you come tothis topic A lot of times, people
(13:41):
often want to bring out the objectionof well, you know, he's a
Christian, so therefore he's bias.But one of the things I was so
impressed about as I read through yourbook was your ability ability to be objective.
You were willing to own the errorsand the mistakes, but then you
were also willing to say, buthey, there's more of the story,
or don't forget about the good that'sbeen done or whatnot. And so,
(14:05):
as a historian, when you cometo topics such as the Crusades or the
Inquisition, or some of the varioustopics you hit on in the book,
how do you keep your own biasesin check? What are some ways that
you work to do that. Partof the answer is just my background.
So my doctorate was in ancient historyin a secular, big state, secular
(14:31):
university. So professionally academically, I'vehad to engage with the secular outlook.
And I taught at McCarey University andSydney University. To big state universities,
both would be described as sort ofprogressive universities. And so having taught for
twenty years in those kinds of institutions, I think I have developed enough of
(14:54):
a sense of the importance of objectivityand the tools to come to that.
So that's that's one answer, Okay. The other answer is a kind of
theological one. Actually, I allthe way through the writing of this book
had the Lord's words in my ear. Look at the log in your own
(15:18):
eye, take it out, andthen you'll see clearly the speck in your
neighbour's eye. And that was saidto disciples. That wasn't said to the
you know, the Pharisees or someoneelse. It's in the Sermon on the
Mount, and so in the actualteaching of Jesus is what I call in
(15:39):
the book the ultimate self corrective mechanismthat should always as a disciple be wondering
what is the log in my eye? There's boundery one. And if I'm
honest with you, you know,my sort of takeaway from having done all
the research and then writing up thisbook, My takeaway is not, oh,
(16:00):
wow, how could that Christian mobhave murdered Hypatia, the great fifth
century philosopher, or how could thecrusaders have done that? Although I am
shocked. Actually my main takeaway isI wonder what mind blind spot is.
I wonder what the log in myeye is? You know that prevents me
from seeing clearly. So it's thattheological thing that drove my willingness to accept
(16:27):
that Christians have done terrible things whenthere's evidence. Now, when there is
not evidence, you know, likethe classic claim that Christians destroyed the Great
Library of Alexandria, Well there's noevidence of that, so I didn't include
that in the book. So wherethere is not evidence, I'll point that
out. But where there is,I've got Jesus in my ear saying,
(16:49):
ah, there's a log that's reallycool. One of the things that you
write in the book, and Ilove this. It was one of the
things that's tracted me to the bookbecause I had heard people like Frank Turk,
for example, use it is youwrite this, you say Jesus Christ
were at a beautiful composition. Christianshave not performed consistently well. Sometimes they
(17:11):
were badly out of tune. Butthe problem with a hateful Christian is not
their Christianity, but their departure fromit. I was wondering if you can
provide our listeners with a bit ofbackground and kind of explain to them what
in the world Christian history has todo with a cello and Bach. Well,
(17:33):
musicians in the audience will know thatthe Cello Sweets, and in particular
the prelude to the Cello Swets BoxCello Sweets is widely regarded as one of
the most sublime, mathematically perfect piecesof music ever written. I mean,
the way he has composed it isjust extraordinary. I've listened to this for
(17:56):
thirty years and I'm still a raisedit and still moved by it every time
I hear it. And I thinkof the Gospel, the Life, Teaching,
Death, and Resurrection of Jesus asthe ultimate cello suite, as the
ultimate beautiful melody given to our world. No melody has ever matched it,
(18:21):
And at the heart of that melodyis the teaching love your enemy, do
good to those who hate you,which for Jesus isn't an arbitrary ethic.
It is actually the whole arc ofhis life, according to the Gospels,
loving the enemy, giving his lifeon a cross for enemies. So this
(18:42):
ethic of love of the enemy isactually the ethic that is the immediate reflection
of the Gospel of Salvation. Sofor me, that's the beautiful melody,
and it has transformed audiences to carryon the metaphor a little bit in every
single century. And it has beenplayed in every single century. I'm not
(19:07):
one of these good Protestants who thinksafter Augustine, you know, the whole
thing's gone to hell, until fifteenseventeen when Martin Luther, you know,
went public. There's a lot thismelody has been played in every century.
Agreed. However, However, Christianshave sometimes played that really out of tune.
(19:30):
And you only have to think ofthe anti Semitic laws that Constantine the
Great built into Roman law that thenbecame European law, that sidelined Jews at
law. Well, that's a departurefrom the tune. Or I mentioned the
murder of Hypatia in four fifteen inAlexandria. That was Christians who did that.
(19:52):
We even have names. It wasthe bloke sorry I shouldn't say bloke
speaking to Americans, the person theman for me. Okay, so I
was a bloke, the okay.The bloke who killed her, who led
the mob to kill her, wasPeter the Reader. His gig every Sunday
was to read the scriptures to thecongregation in Alexandria. Well, he led
(20:15):
the mob to kill this woman philosopher, Hypatia, whom everyone loved, who
had actually taught many of the Christianleaders of that period. But because of
politics and jealousies, she was killed. So this is clearly a departure from
the tune. But what I findso wonderful, even about a story like
(20:36):
the tragic killing of Hypatia, iswe know about this event because our best
source was written by a Christian leaderutterly outraged that Peter the Reader and other
Christians in Alexandria had done that.So right in this very incident, you
have the worst of Christianity, theChristianity played out of tune, and then
(20:57):
you've got this other Christian source sayingthis is despicable. This is worse than
non Christians. But it's a Christiansource. And right there you see this,
this self corrective mechanism, this spotting, the log in our eye,
and and and the arc of thewhole book is there is there is a
beautiful melody. And Christians have sometimesplayed it well, sometimes poorly, but
(21:21):
the melody is there in every century. And when Christians hear it again and
are drawn back to it, wonderfulthings happen in our world. Yeah,
I find I find that so helpful, and I've gotten a I want to
thank you for it because I've gottenso much mileage with it in conversations with
people who bring up some of thethings that challenge them. And and it's
just a great way to point themback to Jesus and say, if you're
(21:42):
going to accept or reject Christianity,let's let's do it based upon, like
you said, his his tune orhis melody. Yeah, and so,
and our friends who don't believe theyknow what Jesus stood for, even in
vague terms like and and so it'salmost like the criticism of the church is
borrowing jesus melody, because that's themelody by which we're judging the church.
(22:07):
So it's our friends who are Christians, who are critics of the Church are
actually using the ethic of love andhumility and compassion to criticize the Church.
Good on them, go for it, But in doing so, they are
actually vindicating the melody, the beautifulmelody. Yeah, you can't call someone
a hypocrite unless you know what standardthey're breaking. Yeah, and as sure
(22:30):
as anything, we didn't get thatethic of love and humility from Rome or
Greece or Egypt or Babylon or Saxonsor Gauls or Celts. You know,
it came from one place. Itcame from the Jewish Christian environment that reshaped
(22:51):
the Western world. That's good.I wanted to find out because you're more
familiar with Christian history and so maybefor you this was like going back through
and just sort of like, Okay, how can I talk about this?
And for a lot of people therethis might be new information in this topic,
new information, and then this topicmaybe they've never delved into Christian history.
But as you were writing the book, I'm wondering if there were certain
(23:14):
aspects that had come to late foryou that you didn't you weren't aware of
before that maybe surprised you, orwow, that what an interesting revelation here.
How many do you want I haveabout it? Well, you stop
me when you're on. I mean, I a couple of realizations. One.
I don't think i'd ever realized justhow confident the earliest Christians were when
(23:38):
they were being criticized and ridiculed andkilled for the faith. So we know
of five or six certain periods ofpersecution of the Church in the first three
hundred years. And I think Ihad always imagined, you know Nietzsche's critique
that was Christians were all from theslave class, so they were like beaten
down dogs, So of course theywere going to be humble. You know
(24:00):
that if you kick a dog longenough, it just it thinks submissiveness is
the norm. And that's what Nietzschesaid explains early Christianity. But actually,
when I have read and studied thesources of the first three centuries, the
thing that is amazing to me isthey thought they'd already won. The reason
they felt they could be so humbleis because they knew Jesus had been raised
(24:21):
to life, sitting at the righthand of God, was coming to judge
the world so they could love theRoman governor that was trying to kill them.
So Titualian writing a letter to GovernorScapula in two fifteen in Carthage,
and Totalian can say, oh,I know your gods are just demons.
You don't know the truth, likeabsolute boldness. But at the same time,
(24:45):
I'm going to love you no matterwhat. You could kill us all
and we're still going to love you. And I find that everywhere in the
second, third and early fourth centuries. That's one thing that really stood out
to me. The other was thestory that Constantine wrecked everything that you know,
when he came to power. Heforced everyone to be Christian and then
(25:07):
suddenly Christianity was just an institution,is rubbish. Constantine, for all of
his career had a tolerance approach.Yes, he favored Christianity very much,
but he had some really important Christiansin his ear, like Lactantius, one
of the greatest think Christian thinkers atthe early fourth century, who was in
(25:29):
Constantine's ear saying, no, youwill turn people off Jesus if you force
them to worship Jesus. Christianity mustbe a thing of the heart, and
Constantine adopted that policy not just whenhe first became Western Emperor in the Edict
of Milan in three thirteen, butalso when he became sole Emperor in three
twenty six and could have imposed religionas he saw, but he actually wrote
(25:52):
to the provinces saying, there's noway I'm going to do that, because
I don't want to turn you offJesus. So we've got to wait seventy
years before Christianity really begins to imposeitself and sideline Pagans and outlaw worship in
the temples. So the myth ofConstantine has fallen apart as I've prosecuted those
(26:14):
sources. And I'll give you onemore, that's okay, Yes, one
more. I didn't know anything aboutthis before starting to crawl through the so
called Dark Ages. There never wasa Dark Ages, by the way,
but you know that classic idea thatcome the year five hundred, Rome in
the West has collapsed and it's alldarkness and plagues and ignorance, and okay,
(26:34):
sure, But as I crawled throughthose centuries, I came across a
name. I'm ashamed. I'd neverheard of Iligious. He was the greatest
jewelry maker in Europe in the earlysix hundreds, and he had some kind
of spiritual experience which led him tobelieve that he should be using his vast
(26:56):
wealth as the person who made thegold crown for kings, he should use
his vast wealth not just for thepoor, but to go around France wherever
there were slaves being sold, buythem all with his money and set them
free with a little bit of atravel money if they just wanted to go
(27:18):
back up into Saxony, or downinto Spain, or back over to England.
Now he did this for twenty years, to the point where there was
this period in the mid seventh centurywhere you could not have owned a slave
if you were in the orbit ofthis man. They eventually he became a
bishop in the head of the churches, and he didn't even allow royalty to
(27:41):
hold slaves. How did I notknow about this? And what is remarkable
to me about someone like Lydias ishe was a red hot evangelist as well.
He's not just what you know wesometimes dismissed now as a social justice
warrior, you know, just lookingafter the poor and freeing slaves. He
was preaching to to pagan areas inthe northwest of France, up toward the
(28:04):
scary Frisians right who hadn't yet beenconverted, And from the sources that we
have, we know that he convertedmany of them to Christ and then taught
them the gospel life. That youknow, if you've been so loved by
God, you're to love everyone else. That was a special gift to come
(28:25):
across Bishop Oligius. That's good.Yeah, it was so funny. A
couple of the things I wanted toask you about in the interview as I
was thinking through the topics I wantedto hit on were Constantine and the Dark
Ages, and so you hit ontwo of those. That's because those were
I was so appreciative of how youbrought out the truth of what had happened
with Constantine and also what happened atthe Council of Nicea. I found both
(28:48):
of those things to be very helpful. I was wondering, though, when
you're talking about some of these thingsthat Christians often are very shy about talking
about, is as far as theyou know, whether it be the Inquisition
or the Christian aids or some ofthese things, what would you say to
a Christian who would challenge you that. You know, John, you're kind
of kind of air in our dirtylaundry here. You know, you're making
(29:08):
us look bad. We don't wantto put a stumbling block in front of
people. Yeah, of course that'snot my view. But what would you
say to somebody who would maybe challengeyou in that way. Well, I
got a long list of names offriends and colleagues who have said exactly that.
Look, my reply is the onethat I brought up at the very
beginning. It's Jesus who said,take the log out of your eye,
(29:30):
Christian, and then you'll be ableto see clearly. So I think of
my project as you know, searchingfor the logs in our eye and being
open about them. You know,we, we of all people in the
world, should be quick to admitfault because we don't believe we're good through
and through. That's that's the kindof secular myth, you know, good
(29:51):
through and through and only getting better. Christians have never bought that. Christians
believe even the best of us havefeet of clay, and it is just
right to admit fault where where thefault is there. Now, I should
qualify that by saying, sometimes thesefriends and colleagues who say that have confused
me with the other sorts of christianthat I've mentioned at the start, who
(30:18):
only criticized the church, who aretrying to get brownie points. Do you
use the expression brownie points? Wedo not sure? Okay, get brownie
points from the media for criticizing thechurch. Well, I'm not in that
camp either, because a big partof my book is saying, look,
what oligiist? Did you know?The first abolitionist was not William Wilberforce or
(30:40):
those beautiful Quakers. It was Iligious. In fact, before that, Gregor
of Nissa in the fourth century wasan abolitionist. The whole notion of free
education for all came to us viaal Quinn of York in the eighth century.
Right, the notion of a freehealthcare. Now, I know that's
(31:00):
controversial in America, so maybe Ishould go carefully, But the fact is
no one had thought to open hospitalsfor everyone free of charge until Basil the
Great had his idea in about threepoint sixty AD, where he used the
best of Greek medicine. He himselfhad had some training in Greek medicine.
(31:22):
He had gone to the Great Academyof Athens, and he opened this massive
complex which had a leprosorium for thosewith leprosy right through to aged care,
a place that looked after infants thathad been collected from the streets, but
also a hospital proper where he employeddoctors and nurses to look after them.
(31:44):
Now, once he did that,about twenty years later, you've got your
second hospital down in Rome, startedby Fabiola, one of the wealthiest women
of Rome. Done it as aChristian. She's deliberately. They all thought
they were doing sort of the goodSamaritan, you know, putting oil on
the sick and so on. Andwithin a few hundred years you've got literally
(32:05):
hundreds of hospitals, all of themrun by the church. It was just
seen as a normal thing. Whenyou established a church and a dioces you
would make sure you had a healthcarecenter and it was available for all.
Now that came into our culture becauseof Christianity. Now we can debate the
best way to fund it. Nowadays. I don't want to tread on anyone's
(32:27):
toes and sound like a communist.I'm just saying. I'm just saying that
I'm not one of those Christians whois shy about the beautiful things Christianity has
given our world for which we shouldbe very grateful. Yeah, and that
speaks to some of the balance Iwas talking about earlier in the book.
I think it's a both, andwe've got to earn the mistakes, but
at the same time, let's notemphasize the mistakes so much that we're also
(32:50):
forgetting much of the good that's beendone. I think that's right. I
want to swing back around and talkabout the Dark Ages again, or the
so called Dark Ages, and well, I want you to go a little
bit deeper on that. You whatdo you mean by what do people commonly
think of the Dark Ages? What'sthe sort of myth and then what's closer
to reality? If you could unpackthat, the myth is mother Church became
(33:12):
so powerful and sidelined all the beautifulGreek and Roman learning that had been built
up over the centuries, and theChurch turned its back on learning and just
became an ignorant, power hungry monsteruntil the Renaissance. And only in the
Renaissance where there was this resurrection ofGreek and Roman learning in the early thirteen
(33:37):
hundreds, that's when we can saygoodbye to the dark Ages, so it's
dark from say five hundred to let'ssay thirteen hundred, fourteen hundred somewhere around
there. So that's the myth,and it is a myth. It completely
misconstrues many things. One of themis how powerful the Church was. The
(33:58):
Church in the East, the socalled Byzantine Empire, was powerful in the
fifth and sixth centuries, that's true, but the Church in Europe in the
West was not powerful. It wassubject to once the Romans fell. Once
there was disorder in Europe because theRomans were beaten by the Goths, it
(34:19):
was quite disorderly, and different warriortribes fought, and the Church wasn't running
things at all. It for centurieswas just trying to modify the violence.
Sometimes they went along with the violence, but they were still setting up churches
and monasteries and hospitals and doing theirbest in a very fractured Europe. But
(34:42):
by the time you get to theeighth century and you have Charlemagne, Charles
the Great, who sort of unifiesEurope, I think that's when you can
begin to talk about Christendom, likeChristianity having power. Okay, before that,
Christianity wasn't running the show. Butin but in Charlemagne, let's put
a let's put a pin in it. Let's say seven seventy. In seven
(35:07):
seventy, I think we can sayyou've got the beginnings of Christendom. And
what was the first thing they did? They educated Europe. Charlemagne employed the
smartest man in the world. Imean, that's literally what one of the
sources says, the smartest man inthe world, guy called Alquin of York,
a pom from York, and gothim to leave York and come and
(35:31):
set up an educational system and liftEurope out of this kind of fractured environment
to start learning once again, allof the liberal arts. So you could
barely say there was a dark age'sas a result of the collapse of the
Roman Empire. But the only thingbringing social cohesion and charity in that period
(35:54):
was the church. And as soonas the church had enough power to really
run things, they instituted schools,and by the end of Alquin's life there
were hundreds of schools for boys andgirls, rich and poor. And so
people talk about from the year eighthundred on the Carolingian Renaissance. We normally
(36:15):
think of the Italian Renaissance from thirteenhundred, you know, the great Italian
scholar Petrarch and so on. Butfew people, too few people have heard
of the Carolingian Renaissance, that isthe Renaissance started by Charles the Great Charlemagne,
where he gifted back to Europe thisnotion of education that studied arithmetic,
(36:38):
rhetoric, grammar, astronomy, andthen once you'd passed the seven basic liberal
arts and you were good, youcould go through and learn natural history,
what we call science now, philosophy, law, and theology. And this
is what gave us the first cathedralschools, which of course became the first
(37:00):
universities in Bologna and in Oxford andCambridge. I guess what I'm saying is
if there was a Dark age's itwas only because Rome was destroyed by the
Goths and the Church saved Europe fromthe Dark Ages. It certainly isn't responsible
for it. Yeah. I hesitateto say this because I'm always afraid it's
(37:22):
going to downplay other parts of thebook. But I personally could say to
listeners that the bid on the DarkAges in your book for me, if
nothing else would make it worth buying. That's how eye opening. It was
for me. I mean, therewere a lot of AHAs throughout the book,
but that was one part in particularthat I found especially eye opening.
(37:43):
You had mentioned that the three surpriseswere Constantine and then of course the Dark
Ages. I know there were morethan three said, but then you also
said the surprise you were surprised bythe confidence of the early Christians. Did
I get that right? Yeah?Yeah. So as one of the things
that speaks to that is in thebook you refer to the early Christians as
(38:06):
good losers. Particularly we're talking aboutthe period from AD sixty four to three
twelve, and you say, throughthis losing the message of Christ, death
and resurrection spread. Can you talka little bit about what you mean by
them being good losers? Can youexpound on that a little bit? What
I mean is when they were mistreated, they didn't say things like, oh
(38:29):
how dare you? We have ourrights? You know, they said,
oh, yeah, we expected this. This is what they did to the
Lord and you know what happened next, so kill us all you like.
Where the death and resurrection people?That was the mentality And it isn't just
historical speculation to say that this mentalitythis good loser mentality led to the growth
(38:55):
of Christianity, because we actually havesources that say this to two very important
ones. It's Italian who makes clearthat persecution only promotes Christianity. He almost
dares Scapula the governor, to keeppersecuting, because you know that every time
you kill us, a thousand moreof us pop up, you know.
(39:17):
And the other is I mentioned himearlier, Lactantius, who himself was a
professor of rhetoric at the School ofNicomedia when the Great Persecution broke out in
three to three. In three three, there was this devastating persecution. The
Roman Empire was trying to wipe outChristianity once for all, and its first
(39:37):
policy was to sack all Christian academicswho had made their way up into the
academies, and Lactantus was one ofthem. But he wrote a book while
in hiding and throughout it is thisincredible confidence, this willingness only to love,
to turn the other cheek, tobless those who curse, you know,
all the sort of stuff we associatewith Jesus. But he actually makes
(39:59):
the point that our losses, whatseen losses, are actually victories because every
time a Christian dies, well forJesus one hundred onlookers think, I wonder
if there's something to that, Andlike Tansas says, this is why the
more you kill us, the morewe grow. It's such a contrast with
(40:22):
an attitude you often here today thatto my mind, comes from too many
years of being in charge, thatsays, you know when CNN, when
a CNN host criticizes Christians, we'reoutraged, and you know, we'll say,
how dare he? You know,we have religious rights just like anyone,
which might be true, But it'sthe outrage of it that I don't
(40:45):
see in early Christianity. Early Christianityjust knew they were from another place,
knew that no matter what you didto them, where the death and resurrection
people. So so we've won,and our Lord has already won. So
come and you know, smack usaround the head. We're only going to
smile sweetly back and keep telling youthe truth. That spirit is everywhere in
(41:07):
the early sources, and I findit inspiring. Yeah, I wanted to
say that. I wanted to thankyou because that part that you just expressed
there challenge me in my own discipleship. On Peach fifty two or my own
Walk with Christ on Peach fifty two. You wrote this, you said their
role, meaning the early Christians,was simply to remain true to the way
(41:30):
of Christ, seeking to transform theworld through prayer, service, persuasion,
and suffering. And I couldn't helpwhen I read that to think to myself,
is that what my life looks like? You know? And so I
really really appreciated that. Well,I appreciate you saying it. I mean
I felt the same when I comeacross the sources. Yeah, I feel
(41:51):
so challenged by those early centuries.And I have to make clear that in
talking about losing, well, Idon't mean you go out of your way
to try and lose. That wouldtry to persuade anyone. They would jump
in. They would jump into anydebate, and they weren't shy about the
hot topics. But it's just thatwhen they were smacked across the head,
(42:12):
they just smiled sweetly back, saybless you in Jesus name. You know
that was that was the vibe.It's, as I say, it really
inspiring to me. And I'm gladyou know it had the same effect it
did. Yeah, great stuff.We're starting to run a low on time.
So I'm thinking, maybe we'll wrapup with this final question. And
the reason I want this to beone of the final questions is maybe someone's
not going to go read the book, shame on them. And so I
(42:37):
think, in my mind one ofone of the most you know, iconic
things. I mean, you hearit all the time, like, oh,
Galileo, he wanted to be scientific, but the Nasty Church just suppressed
scientific advancement. And hmm, soclear that up, because if anybody's going
to take anything away from this episode, you know, maybe correct the most
(42:59):
common street nat you know. Yeah, well, I mean there's a lot
of research into Galileo, and thebottom line is in the best history of
science volumes you get today, theywill criticize using Galileo as a parable,
which is how it's been used asa parable of what the Church always did
(43:20):
to persecute knowledge. For one thing, Galileo himself firmly confessed belief in the
Creator God and in Jesus Christ andhis best buddies were churchmen, and so
there's no way it was a Churchagainst science thing. The Church was the
biggest supporter of science. No onesupported science more than the Church. The
(43:42):
evidence for this is just overwhelming,which is not to say the church wasn't
an idiot in the trial with Galileo. Galileo had publicly slandered the current pope
in his work, made him outto be a complete dunce. Well,
that was politically a very stupid thing, and probably partly explains the politics of
(44:02):
it all, as does the factthat there was a whole bunch of scientists,
equally skilled scientists advising the Church thatGalilea was wrong. So it wasn't
just oh, our Bible says something, you know, therefore Galilea is wrong.
It was actually a scientific discussion aswell, which the Church got absolutely
(44:22):
wrong in the end. Okay,great, but it wasn't that they were
just going Bible versus science. Andhe wasn't tortured, he wasn't executed.
He was put up in a villa, very flash villa with one of his
church prelates for a while, andthen he was allowed to go to his
own home. I'm not minimizing thatit was censorship on the part of the
(44:43):
church, and the church, youknow, has egg on its face as
a result. But the myth thatthis is an example of science versus Christianity
just doesn't wash in the biggest scientifichistorical volumes about the origins of science.
Yeah. I think that's a greatexample of how you go about in the
(45:04):
book, like, hey, noway, let's correct this. It's not
all or nothing in one way orthe other. Here's all the little nuances.
And I really appreciate that. Soit's sort of undeceiving the listeners.
Speaking of that, can you talka bit about your podcast? And you
have a website called Onderceptions. Wheremight people find there and what's the goal
(45:25):
behind that? Well, underceptions isa word C. S. Lewis used
to use all the time. Infact, there's an out of print collection
of his essays called Undeceptions. Becauseit's out of print, I pinched it
and now I own underceptions, allright, And it's basically, you know,
it's a good sixteenth century word.It means to reveal the truth.
(45:45):
To undeceive is to reveal the truthat the opposite of to deceive, and
that's what the podcast is trying todo. You know, we interview major
scholars in all the disciplines but ethics, philosophy, history, science, et
cetera. And we take difficult questions, and we unpack it, and we
do it in a way that's notinterviewed. We turn it into a kind
of audio documentary. So there's it'ssoundscape, it's clips from CNN and BBC,
(46:12):
it's actors reading historical sources, andthen you know the talking heads as
well. Mysterious footsteps. That's sortof thing. Yeah, yeah, I
just want to personally thank you forthe book. I know it's one I'm
going to be reading again and recommendingto many people. So thank you so
much for all of your work andtime and for your time today. Absolute
(46:34):
pleasure. Thank you guys, thanksfor listening to the podcast. If you
have a question you'd like us toaddress, or just a message for us
feedback good or bad, you caneither email us at podcast at apologetics three
fifteen dot com, or leave avoice message for us using speak pipe.
Just go to speakpipe dot com slashapologetics three fifteen to leave us a message.
(46:57):
And remember, if you include aGhostbusters quote in your question, we
guarantee that we'll read it on thepodcast. We also ensure up to fifty
percent better quality answers. Also,if you've enjoyed today's podcast, please leave
a review. In iTunes or thepodcast platform in your choice, and please
share this episode with a friend ifyou've found it useful. Remember you can
find lots of apologetics resources at apologeticsthree fifteen dot com, along with show
(47:21):
notes for today's episode. Find Chad'sapologetic stuff over at truthbomb apologetics. That's
truthbomb dot blogspot dot com. Thishas been Brian Auten and Chad Gross for
the Apologetics three fifteen podcast, andthanks for listening.
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