Soul Boom - The Collapse of Christianity by David Bentley Hart (BONUS!)

Episode Date: June 14, 2026

Philosopher and theologian David Bentley Hart explains why Christianity must abandon political power, cultural domination and the mythology of “Christian civilization” to rediscover the radical compassion of Christ. He challenges common interpretations of Paul, faith and salvation before exploring Christology, divine manifestation and what it truly means to say that God became human. They also dive into Lewis Carroll’s spiritual absurdity, the childhood genius of Alice in Wonderland and the revolutionary filmmaking of Orson Welles. SPONSORS! 👇 ZipRecruiter (try it FREE!) 👉 ⁠https://ziprecruiter.com/soulboom⁠ Nutrafol ($10 OFF + FREE shipping w/ promo code: SOULBOOM) 👉 ⁠https://nutrafol.com ⁠ Fetzer 👉 ⁠https://fetzer.org⁠ Rocket Money 👉 ⁠https://rocketmoney.com/soulboom⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⏯️ SUBSCRIBE!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👕 MERCH OUT NOW! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📩 SUBSTACK!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  FOLLOW US! IG: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://instagram.com/soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tiktok.com/@soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  CONTACT US! Sponsor Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Work with Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Executive Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different, locked in, loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to. And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo.

So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify Advertising. You're among fans. A quick shout out to our sponsors. Please support our sponsors and help support the show. ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.

Now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Soul Boom. Neutrafall men. Visit neuterfall.com and enter promo code Soul Boom for $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping. Fetzer. You can explore their spiritual solutions library

and learn more at Fetzer.org. That's FETZR.org. Rocket money. Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at RocketMoney.com slash soul boom. Enjoy the show. What do you hope for the future of Christianity as a whole? And it's hard to say Christianity because that encompasses so many thousands of different sects. I'm hoping for vast historical failure, which has already happened. But I mean, as long as the temptation of power, the discourse of rescuing civilization in which we love the preeminence of the throne and altar

accommodations of the great age of Christendom more than we love the humility and kindness and compassion of Christ. I mean, look, we have people in the American Christosphere, I don't know what to call it, colluding with a government that is, you know, torturing, abusing, killing the stranger in our midst, or even though it's right. Sure. Well, I mean, what's Matthew Chapter 25? What does Christ say? I mean, it's precisely these persons where you'll find me.

As much as whatever you do to them, you've done to me. I mean, that, and if you want to love Christ, according to Matthew 25, you had better love the little five-year-old boy in the bunny hat who was taken away to a hellish prison. You should love all these people whom ICE is and the DHS general are abusing and arresting and tormenting and making the objects of hatred. I want to see the whole project of Christianism, of Christendom, collapse under its own weight in an absolute abject historical failure so vast that the very words Christian civilization will have to be nothing other than soup kitchens.

Those are some mighty words. And then out of that collapse, out of the ashes, rises the phoenix of what? Maybe an actual attention to God is love, you know, the love of God and neighbor as being the whole of the law and the prophets. Didn't Paul screw everything up by saying, by saying, that Paul is, I know you're a big Paul fan. That's because Paul is always misrepresented by the people who choose. Well, but tell me about that because, you know, James says faith without works is dead, but then you have a whole legion of Christians feeling like, I can do whatever the hell I want.

As long as on my deathbed, I say, Jesus, please forgive me. I give myself over to you and then they're saved and their actions don't matter. That is not what Paul says. Okay. Tell me. Paul insists on works of love and works of charity. As I said, I quoted to you, are works that will either be rewarded. awarded or works that'll have to be burned away and you're saved through fire.

Okay. Erga, ta erga, the works. That's a term of art in late antiquity meaning specifically ritual observances. It doesn't mean good works at all. So in James? In James, it does mean good works. Okay. Because he's making the point that, okay, the things you do, he's using erga in a different

way. Okay. Paul is specific about what he's talking about. Circumcision won't save you. Circumcision is a mark of covenant. Yeah, it's fine. if you're Jewish, you're born in this. That's not what saves you.

And when he uses faith, again, remember, peace these sounds so it means fidelity to faithfulness to practicing the life. It doesn't just mean epistemic assent to doctrines. But Paul is very clear on this. Ta erga, it just means things like keeping kosher. So tell me the exact quote that you're referring to. How is it commonly? Well, no, there's several times.

he talks about Taegra. You know, so when he talks about in Romans, the long meditation of Romans 9 through 11, how was Abraham, how was it saying, well, Abraham comes before there works, before there's Khashrut law, before there's circumcision and all. It's that God speaks to him and he speaks back to God and says, yes. You know, that's the foundation of our union with God is communion with God. the observances of the law, the law he says, was a pedagogue. Now, he's not even using that the way we use it. We mean it use it to be teacher. Actually, pedagogos literally, it literally means

leading child. It literally just met a custodian who would accompany, usually a slave, but who would accompany the child to say school and back. It's sort of like a governess, you know. And the law did that for us. It gave us a sense. For those within the boundary of Torah, gives us a sense of a sense of duty to God, to our neighbor and all that. But the ritual observances, ta erga, the works, but ta erga, in the plural like that, especially with the article, is, as I say, it's just a common phrase at the time,

meaning ritual observances, you know, like certain kinds of sacrifice, certainly. And Paul makes it clear that's what he's talking about. He's not coy about it. He's talking about, well, you know, it's talking to like an early letter when he's still such a fire brand. He's talking to the Galatians who've been convinced that to be good Christians,

they now have to go get circumcised if they came from a pagan background. And he says, you don't need that. I told you you don't need that. If you're going to do that, you might as well just go castrate yourself. I mean, he's just, you know, he was a bit of a fiery character. But his point was very clear. Love of God, love of the neighbor, the works of love, faith, and also in the sense of really believing,

but not faith in the sense of just assent to it, you know, on your deathbed. I believe that Jesus is my personal. You know, nowhere in the New Testament does the phrase personal Lord and Savior occur. I mean, that would have made no sense to anyone. You know, he's not my personal anything. I'm part of a body. Right. And I have my role in that body, but that body performs works of love. We hold all things in common. The early Christians were clearly communists in that sense with a small sea. They held all things in common. They looked after one another. They became well known for extending their charity to people outside the faith. Which was a revolutionary idea. Times of plague, they stayed behind to nurse the sick while others fled the cities.

So this was the early, and that's the Polon version. And that's where you would like to see Christianity end up in the future. Yes. Is people that would remain behind in the plague. I want to see the last illusory trace. of Christendom, the last temptation of the sword rather than the cross, just utterly destroyed by historical misfortune. And we may be heading there.

I'm very hopeful that, of course, we may take the world out with us. That could be a bit of an inconvenience, but yeah, no, I mean, but this is the rising. It's all the time. I mean, this talk now of the young men gravitating to the church. a lot of them are gravitating there for politically reactionary reasons. This is like, this isn't Islam. This isn't secularism, which has disappointed me because I'm an in-cell, you know, that I'm not. I want to make that clear.

I'm married. But yeah, and they're embracing Christianism, to use a phrase that was popular in Russia at one time, rather than Christ. And this is very much a part of this surge towards. the right wing that we see going throughout the four. I've met a number of young, new Catholics. No, there are very sincere. Don't get me just. Who want to be a part of something bigger and a part of a tradition.

No, no, they're always the person who motives are good. It's just the motives are confused. That's why I want a discrimination between fidelity to this ideal of Christendom and fidelity to Christ. Many who go in these young persons who are being drawn back to orthodoxy or Catholicism or want Christ, but the two things are still united in the minds of a lot of them. And then there are real culture warriors who, you know, who if they could, like Pete Hacks, I don't know, they might have tattoos of crusader crosses on their, on their chests.

And that's actually the most dangerous temptation at the moment is not, certainly not from atheists. It's from a certain kind of reactionary traditionalism that prefers, as Peter Thiel put it, the Christ of Constantine to the Christ of Mother Teresa. Wow. He said that. He was saying that as something desirable. He prefers the Christianity of Constantine to that of Mother Teresa. Wow.

Well, as Elon told us, you know, empathy is a sickness. Yeah, empathy as a disease. Yeah. Apparently, nearly half of hiring managers say a candidate's enthusiasm about the job is the most important factor when considering them for a role, which makes sense. Enthusiasm matters. Enter ZipRecruiter. When you need to hire for your business, ZipRecruiter can separate the candidates who are really

excited about your opportunity from the ones that are just, eh, meh. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that quickly lets you see the most interested candidates first, so you meet the right people faster, and now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Soul Boom. ZipRecruiter's smart matching technology connects you with qualified candidates instantly, and candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job, which is very helpful. Because I am passionate about spreadsheets hits differently when you hear the sincerity. Plus, ZipRecruiter's new feature puts the most qualified candidates at the top of your list.

Use ZipRecruiter and find enthusiastic talent fast. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Soul Boom. That's ziprecruiter.com slash soul boom. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. When you hit a certain age as a man, there's a few things you start paying close attention to, your cholesterol, your lower back, your waistline,

and your hair. I started noticing more shedding in the shower drain, which frankly is a horrible place to discover anything. I started taking Nutrafall men. Since taking Nutrafol consistently, four pills daily with a meal, I've genuinely noticed my hair feels thicker and healthier. Neutrophol now offers hair growth supplements, tailored to men at every age because the root causes of hair thinning change over time and your

routine should too. Neutrophal men for ages 18 to 49 to help improve hair growth and achieve thicker, fuller hair in three to six months, and new Neutrophol men 50 plus, the first and only hair growth product specifically formulated for men 50 plus. Neutrophol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people. Start Neutrefall today and make the hat optional. Visit neuterfall.com and enter promo code Soul Boom for $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping. Find out when Nutrafall is the best-selling hair growth supplement brand at NutraFall.com,

N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com, promo code, soul boom. That's Nutrafall.com, promo code soul boom. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if.

Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. How can working at your local Timms take you further? Sure, you can level up your teamwork skills. You also get a chance to receive a Tim Horton's scholarship award. Ready for what's next? Apply today at careers.timhorans.ca.

Your work is so wide-ranging you've written. Novels, short stories, poems, translations, children's books, books on theology, philosophy, consciousness. what are you working on next? And, theologically speaking, what interests you, what ideas are captivating you right now?

Where next do you want to explore? Well, the next book that's coming out that's already published is a translation I did of the Daughter Jing. Oh, cool. You know, I did some studies in Asian languages. I'm not the greatest Asian linguist, but I, yeah, I, I, I, oh, fantastic. When is that coming out?

Next month. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. Oh, great. We can promote that in our, in our subsection. And I did just, did just, just finish a novel that you mentioned. But the thing, and I'm actually writing a book on English prose style editor at Norton got me, but on theology. So I just want to pause one second and just say, you did a translation of the Tao teaching, wrote a novel, and are now writing a book on prose style.

Yeah. In theology, and the last book of theology, my most recent book came out, it was lectures I gave at Cambridge a couple years ago. So in Christology, that is, understanding what we mean when we say that Christ is both human and divine. Yeah. And Christology fascinates me more than any other thing right now, because if you look at the history of it, a series of dogmatic decisions that really came about as a result of really deep and profound thinking on what it means to be human. A lot of what we understand about humanity, about what it is to be human, you know, is like, well, is it just having a human body that's in the very early? days that you're, yeah, it's just like the Lagos is just like a mind and a body. And, you know, that's what do we mean. But more and more, but we didn't say that it's not, what Christus belief isn't that God became embodied.

It's that God became human. So what is it to become human? What would it have to be, not what it would mean for him to be fully God? What would it mean for him to be fully human? And more and more, this riching, you know, lay. there has to be a real human will. There has to be real human mind. There has to be a human soul.

And so much of what we think of as the humanist tradition in the West actually unfolds from these early Christological debates, how we think of the human. And of course, my book was called The Light of Tabor, its subtitle was toward a nether. monistic Christology. I mean, because I think, you know, if you, if you really, and this is true not only of aspects of the theological, the dogmatic tradition, but the mystical tradition is everything you say about Christ is true of everyone. Now, in Christ, it's a perfect, you know, it's a perfect revelation of God, perfect presence of God. The person who Christ is also, is also, yes, is also the person who is the eternal son of God. But in Nucche, this is true of all of and that's the end.

I mean, you find this throughout the early patristic literature. When Gregory talks about the mirror of the soul, he is talking about becoming ever more Christ. And Paul talks in that language, too. It talks about, you know, now I see as in a glass starry when he says, I know even as I am known, that's a claim about divine knowing. I'm going to know with the knowledge of God, the truth of things. And it would get very technical and boring if I tried to reduce the argument of the book to a few lines. But that's what interests me right now is Christology. And the discovery of the human in the course of trying to say how it is that God was a human being.

Yeah, yeah. Who said it was Thomas Aquinas who called Jesus a God man, right? Well, you're probably thinking of Anselm from the late 11th, early 12th century, Cordeosoma, why the Godman, you know, or why God. But Godman is a common phrase, actually, throughout the tradition, East and West. The Baha'i take on this is very interesting to me, obviously, because I'm a Baha'i, but this idea of manifestation. And I love that word because it's God made manifest. You look through the different faith traditions, you know. You look at Krishna was a, in the Baha'i faith,

Krishna is one of these manifestations of God. But from a Hindu tradition, Krishna's literally a blue-skinned, like, God descended. In Vaishnav tradition, there are different understandings. There's no one thing called, we talk about Hinduism. Yeah. So there are branches of Hinduism that see Krishna as, more of a god man than just a god appearing in a chariot? Yeah, I mean, you know, and even Krishna, even in Vaishnav tradition is really mortal and human.

He does get killed, you know, ultimately by a hunter who mistakes him his feet for a rabbit when he's sleeping or something. I can't remember. That's one version. In Buddhism, you know, Buddha is the awakened one, the enlightened one. And in Christianity, it's the son of God. in Islam, Muhammad is the prophet and Abraham is the friend of God.

Baha'u'llah to us is a manifestation of God, but in the Baha'i tradition, these specially anointed divine teachers hold a station both above man and of man

at the same time. And there is a great mystery in that. I think it's interesting that, You know, all of the faith traditions look at these incredible spiritual avatars, these, you know, these perfect stainless mirrors they're called in the Baha'i faith that perfectly reflect all the virtues of God. They're not God himself, itself, they self, but they are perfect manifestations of God. And I'm wondering how that could possibly fit into this cosmology

of the triune God, the Father of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Well, I mean, you do realize maybe you don't, but I think you do. Right. You know, that there's plenty of that manifestation language in the talk of Christ. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And that's, I think the manifestation language fits into every religious tradition. And it's always just kind of like, you know, in Christianity it became, well, Christ is Lord.

And then in Islam, as a counter against Christ is Lord. Well, Muhammad is not Lord. He is just the prophet who's delivering the book that is Lord. But even then as Rasul Allah, you know, is the prophet of God. Muhammad is so elevated, you know, he's the prophet of prophets. But also in a lot of Islamic spirituality as kind of mediatorial role, he can speak for the UMA right before Allah in a sense. You know, it can be. And the hadiths, the saying of Muhammad, oftentimes are given as much.

credence as the Quran itself. Yeah, although there are so many different hadiths and they come with varying, varying authority, obviously. Well, you might like the book, the Light of Tabor, because the Light of Tabor refers to the transfiguration. And interesting, the Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the canonical Gospels, as Bildura has a very particular structure. The center of the gospel is the transfiguration. Tell me what the transfiguration is again. Forgive me. Well, Christ with Peter James and John going up on the mountain, it's associated with Mount Tabor, because that's the one great eminence. Is that being baptized and seen the dove? No. No, no, no, no. That's a different thing. That happens at the baptism in Jordan. This is during the ministry.

And while he's up there, he's transfigured, the light. He becomes radiant with divine light. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. I didn't see that. Well, Moses. I didn't see that in the movie, The Rope. Yeah, well, the Rort. Charlton Heston. Not Charlton Heston. It's Victor Mature, isn't it?

Oh, Mr. Mature. I mean, really. And you were a man devoted to cinema. Charlton Heston's in Ben Hur. That's the one. That's where Charlton met. That was a good film. That's a good film.

The robe isn't. No. But I love Victor Mature. He had a sense of humor. The Transfiguration. Is Robert Taylor in the robe? And then Victor Mature. Marr, yes, I think it's Robert Taylor in the robe and Victor mature in the sequel, but whatever.

This is important. No, it's Victor Mature. Okay, I was right. And Richard Burton was in it, too. Oh, that's right, yeah. Not exactly on the same level when it came to acting, but both quite charismatic. Burton is way better than mature. What are you talking about?

But anyway, yes, I, yes, I was actually saying Victor Merton. No, Victor Mature was the finest thus being. The light pours through and they see Christ. Now, in this, in the first century, this notion of divine manifestation of theophania, theophony, God, is very important in just the spiritual aspirations, not only of Judaism, but of the Hellenic world, the Hellenistic world. And taking that, as the image that governs the book.

I'm talking about how Christ is the perfect mediation, the perfect manifestation of God. But when you make too much of a distinction between substance and manifestation, it seems to me you can make a philosophical error because to be is to be manifest. So you can say that the true manifestation of God is God. You know, that's not, that's not a blasphemous thing.

Well, it might be in Islam if you're saying, if you make that as an equation. But God made manifest on Earth. But God made manifest is God. It's not simply a symbol of God. And this was very, because remember the early... And there are Baha'i writings that are kind of like, these manifestations are God. And there are Baha'i writings of these manifestations are human. And this is one of those divine mysteries.

The claim of the uniqueness of the Eternal Sunship. the eternal filiation of Christ, is specific to Christianity for a reason. And in the Gospel of John, you get the birth of the Logos Christology. That is, in the beginning was the Logos, and it's usually translated word, but that just doesn't capture the full range of meaning. The Logos is a figure in a great Jewish thinker of the time, Philo of Alexandria, who was contemporary of Jesus, actually. But the whole idea of the Logos, was the medium, the eternal medium by which God, in inaccessible transcendence, the unseen father, beyond all imagination.

The unknowble essence in the Baha'i faith. It's also fully revealed as an infinite logos, as infinite utterance, infinite reason, infinite beauty. And the logos is, you know, in a lot of both Jewish and Christian thought and in pagan thought, too, there was this deftoros Theos, a secondary, a manifestation of God that is, continuous with God, but the one through whom God creates and deems and saves and reveals. And that's how Jesus was understood as literally the Logos as a human being. Word made flesh. Right.

But as I say, made human too. You're right. It's word made flesh. The metaphor made human. How's that? Not meta. Well, no, again, I prefer symbol to metaphor. Because symbol doesn't divide.

The symbol unites the substance with the thing. the thing signified with the signifier. Yeah. Can we switch gears here completely? And recently you posted on your magnificent substack, leaves in the wind, if people want to follow more of David Bentley Hart. Available at a very reasonable price.

I think you gave me a free pass. I think I did, yeah. Thank you. But that's only because Dwight Shrewt is one of my heroes. You are an honorary Shrout. Thank you. I would love to put you in overalls with a pitchfork. And maybe you've already got the Amish beard, maybe an Amish hat.

Yeah. And if we ever shoot something else on Shrewd farms, I would love you to be there. I'd love you. I know you don't fly much, but I'd love to fly you out to. I fly for Dwight, yeah. For to be an honorary Shrout. Yes. David Bentley Hart, honorary Shrew.

I might even have my name officially changed. David Bentley Shrewd. David Bentley Shrute. You heard it right here. You came out recently and Leaves in the Wind with an interview someone had done with you about Louis Carroll. I'm a huge Lewis Carroll fan. I don't, I've read a little bit. I think I've read a biography or two, but I'm not like a scholar or anything like that.

But what is the essence of your love of and scholarship of Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland? I'd love to hear. Well, the Alice books, I mean, they've been with me all my life. Me too. And they remain among my favorite books. I just did a podcast and someone said, what is the, what is the, what is the, what is the, work that transformed your life. And when I was five years old, I read Alice in Wonderland, Alice to the Looking Glass, and a world of imagination, of wordplay, of impossibility, of ludicrousness,

and profundity. And it also rigorous logic, too. Yes. If you follow it through it, it totally makes sense. Sorry, but I'm sorry. There's a kind of logical rigor there to the absurdity, to the nonsense. The nonsense. The nonsense always makes sense in the terms that the characters. Maybe similar to the office. And of course, you know, so the ambiguities of language, you know, I don't see anyone coming down the road in the White King saying, I wish his eyes were good enough to be able to see no one. I don't know. I mean, the sensibility of Lewis Carroll so much informed me, my sense of humor.

I do see a profundity. In that interview, I don't think you've listened to it yet. I haven't heard of yet. I caution against trying to turn it into some sort of symbolic or didactic meeting because those were the questions I was the first asked. I believe that absurdity is a transcendental. It's a good in itself. It's good a... Well, in the Quran, he's known as God the humorous too, isn't it?

Well, and also in the Psalms, you know, he sits in the high places and laughs them to scorn, you know. Actually, through the looking glasses of my... It's the better of the two of my heart, I think. And the scene with Humpty Dumpty especially is sort of a touchstone for me. I've read it more often than I've probably pronounced my own name, and yet it still makes me laugh every time I go back to it. But as I say, there's also, there is through the looking glass, there is a sort of mystical philip there. And, you know, the figure of the Red King, you know, the one who's dreaming all reality. and if he were to wake up, you'd go out bang like a candle, you know.

And he shows up again first when she, just before she meets the white night and she says, Emily, you know, the dream of the Red King. I don't want to be just a dream. I want to be a queen, you know. But then at the very end, she's talking to the kitten and, you know, I was a thing in his dream. He was a thing in mine, you know. And the last question is, who do you think dreamt it all? And that's, now, you know, Lewis Carroll had an interest, developed later in life, about that time and then when he was writing the less successful Sylvia and Bruno novels, practicing this sort of contemplative technique of waking dreams, which would have been popularized by, I don't know, sort of Indian Sadhu who was visiting Britain or whatever. And so that is there, you know. So I think that even at an early

I picked up a sense of the mystery of that character, you know, of the Red King. But I just love the books. I mean, they just are hilarious. There's such pure genius in them. Every joke is incredibly clever. None is obvious. Alice is not a saccharine sweet little girl. She's actually quite opinionated and doesn't approve of much of what's going on.

And everyone around her is incredibly rude, which to me is perfect. how children experience the adult world. Adults are always being rude to them thoughtlessly. Right. You know, and they're talking nonsense from the vantage of the child. So the absurdity that you get when, you know, she's at the tea party or whatever, is probably not conspicuously different in quality of a child from the nonsense they hear at a real table from their parents and others all the time.

That's interesting, too, because I never thought about me reading that at five or six. and experiencing the world through Alice's eyes with a bunch of nonsensical, very rude people all around me, which was kind of like the world. So that makes a lot of sense. Adults will quite all. Well, we've gotten more sensitive to these things in recent years, but you and I grew up in the 70s. Yeah. Don't be stupid, kid. Yeah. Shut up, kid, get out of here.

Come on, I'm busy. Go talk to your mother. You're always in my hair. You know, people are rude to children all the time. But then also, they have conversations that make no sense whatsoever. Well, I agree once in a while you get a glint of plain meaning that's obviously true. Like, God looks like the gardener. Right. You know, I understood that.

But for most of, you know, four or five people are talking about paying the mortgage and things. I mean, this is obviously all a lot of arbitrary nonsense that people are engaged in for reasons that it's just no one could comprehend. In 1975, if you came into your parents and you're like, Billy punched me. The answer was, go punch him back. Yeah, go punch him back. There was no like. I was going to my mother once and saying that there's this girl, you know, before you hit the age of 13, the girls can be stronger than the guys, you know, sometimes.

And there was this girl who was the bully of the, you know, and it was funny. She was running around in these socks and a skirt, but she was just terrorizing this. And she hit me. And I told my mother, you know, Jane, I wrote whatever name was, hit me. And said, hit her back. I said, I can. You said not to hit a girl. She hit you. She's no lady.

You know, and that was the reasoning. Go hit her. That's very Lewis Carroll right there, just that little interaction. Yes. Not quite as amusing, but nonetheless, typical of the time. This episode is brought to you by Fetzer. You know, there's this tendency in modern life to believe that every problem has a material solution.

More technology, more productivity, more money, more apps reminding you to breathe while you ignore the fact that your soul feels like a raisin. But the folks at the Fetzer Institute leaves something deeper. believe that behind humanity's biggest challenges are spiritual ones. Loneliness, division, disconnection, our inability to see each other, the planet, or even ourselves, as sacred. And they're asking a really beautiful question.

What if shared flourishing begins with the sacred? Fetzer supports stories, communities, and spiritual solutions from people around the world who are healing division, caring for the earth, and creating deeper human connection through faith, spirituality, and reverence for love itself. Not dogma, not forcing one belief system, just the radical idea that, hey, maybe the soul matters. Honestly, that's a conversation we care deeply about here at Soul Boom. You can explore their spiritual solutions library and learn more at fetzer.org. That's fetezer.org. Thanks, Fetzer. There are few modern terrors more chilling than realizing you are still paying for something you forgot you signed up for.

A subscription from three eras of your personality ago. That's where rocket money comes in. And Rocket Money helps you see your subscriptions in one place and can help you cancel the ones you don't want in just a few helpful taps. Which is useful because apparently my bank account has been quietly funding side quests. I no longer remember accepting. Rocket Money can also monitor your spending, categorize transactions across accounts, set budgets and roles, and give you alerts for upcoming bills, large transactions, and low balances. And Rocket Money has helped users save over 880 million in canceled subscriptions. That is a lot of forgotten monthly charges being escorted out of the building.

Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at RocketMoney.com slash soul boom. That's rocketmoney.com slash soul boom. Rocketmoney.com slash soul boom. This spring, Denham gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg,

a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. It's very funny because my first dramatic monologue

when I took Children's Theater was the Jabberwock poem. for you. And I think I still haven't memorized. And I was doing some therapy as I want to do. People know this and trying to kind of more deeply have empathy and compassion for my inner child. And the therapist was like, he was like, what is something that's super important to you? And as a child and blah, blah, blah, blah. And we talked about it. I got to the Jabberwock. And he's like, I want you every morning in your prayer and meditation practice and your journaling. I want you. You. You want you. you to say the Jabberwalk to kind of. So your prayers begin twas brilling and the slide.

It's like, Guy who gimbled in the way. Oh, Lord. Tvers did Geyer and Gimble in the way. Yeah. But. And Lindsay, where the more goes, the mom rats. Yeah, great love. And we share a great love for besides pistachio and mint chocolate chip ice cream for

Orson Wells. What is what started your interest in the great Orson? Well, I love cinema from an early age too. I actually, when I was a kid, sometimes fantasized about going into cinema. I always knew I wanted to be a writer, but I thought about maybe writing for the cinema. I think you haven't done a screenplay. You've probably got some screenplays in you. You have to, you know, get in the habit of doing these things.

But yeah, but it was actually... Well, listen, you have a great love of Paul. I do. And a love of cinema. We should figure out a movie... Oh, I don't like. A movie... No good political book.

Yes, we can make one. We can make good... And I don't think the chosen is that bad, by the way. Oh, okay. Well, I haven't seen it. Yeah, it has a lot of very interesting things in it. I think you'd enjoy it. You'd roll your eyes sometimes, but its heart is good.

It is a well-meaning television work. When we were kids, of course, Orson Wells was also part of the cultural landscape. Yeah. He was going to show up on Johnny Carson or Dick Cavett. Those were the good conversations. Or he would guest host for Carson. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, which is bizarre.

But, yeah, no, at a very early age, even before I quite understood, I certainly knew nothing about Hearst or anything, but I was just captivated by the visual style, the Rosebud mystery. But in an age when the studio had perfected the use of light and shadow in black and white, he took it to a different level

and then told a story in a way that even when I was young, I had a strange sort of hypnotic power. Let's not forget that before Citizen Kane, he had completely revolutionized theater and completely revolutionized radio and then went on to movies and completely changed how movies you're made. At the age of 24. Yeah. And then I saw the Magnificent Ambersons. It was kind of disappointed because I didn't know at the time that it was chopped up and I could see there were moments of genius and then there were bits that just seemed like, well, he's slumming it here. So at very early, but I love, I mean, that many.

I mean, many of my favorite directors were also quite influenced by Orswell's like Mitsoguchi and Renoir. And I don't know. I mean, I know. It's a tragic story, really, because he got to make one film according to his lights. I mean, unless you include what was the stranger, the one with Lurretti. Well, but again, but I mean, even then, the trial had to be done on a shoestring. What I mean is when he made sense again, he had the studio resources. the trial is filmed, you know, Tony Perkins there and it's, and it's, and it's, it's, it's, it's a flawed film, but it's, it's, it's still fun.

But when you look at Chimes at Midnight and every shot is a masterpiece. And actually, and touch of evil, I think, is a masterpiece, too. Well, that open, that, that beginning crane panning shot. I mean, that's, that defined cinema from that point on. He was, he was the creator of the, of the tracking shot. And no one's ever done another nearly as impressed. as that open, especially given given the limitations. The constraints.

Yeah. Massive cameras. I had a mover. Let's not forget his performance in the third man, which is one of the great. And he also came up with the best line in it. Yeah, he wrote that. Yeah, he added the thing about the cuckoo clock. That's not in Graham Green's script.

So he was a great writer too. You know, he also obviously inspired Carol Reed. Carol Reed was a great director visually, but the third man, again, is a notch. I've always felt that with Orson Wells there he had to make sure that not a frame was wrong, you know. It seems like Orson Well's fingers

coming out of the grating and I mean, just that's an Orson Wells shot in a Carol Reed film. Perhaps the greatest British film ever made. Yeah, no, well, I think that definitely the case. Greatest highbrow film. I love the Ealing Studios, comedies,

you know, and the Alex Guinness films. Right, right. Yeah. Kind hearts and cornets. Yeah, the Lavender Hill Mob, the Man in the White Soap. What's the only one they did in color that was then remade badly by the Coen brothers? What am I thinking of? The lady killers. The lady killers. Right.

I love that. I love that. That original one is great. Yeah, yeah. Putting on the record. Yes. So they're practicing the classical music. Alec Guinness running through the steam with his arms like this, this ridiculous, stork on the run. Yeah. And then chimes of midnight. Chimes of midnight.

Well, first of all, it's brilliant the way he conflated the two Henry IVs into a single play. But taking the battle scene there, nothing else like it. I mean, because it starts. You think you're going to get the grand panorama of a historic, of, you know, a carpet, not not carpet, of epic historic historical drama, celebrating, you know, the grandeur of, and it just keeps coming closer and closer to what you're confronted with is just. just the utter brutality of men cutting one another down in a mire of blood and soil, you know. And, yeah, I mean, he was the greatest American director and the greatest influence on the directors around the world that I can't do that. He did a production of, and you can buy the script right now called Moby Dick Rehearsed, which is he did, I think at the Abbey, did they take it to London?

can't remember, but that is a precursor to all of modern theater because it is this meta-construction of Moby Dick, of these actors putting on a play of Moby-Dick. You're watching their rehearsal. So there's no set. It's completely stripped down. They're talking to the audience. They're using Melville's words. And it's kind of like this rehearsal meta-theater and influenced Peter Brook and and everyone who was doing... What year was that? And that was years ahead of its time. I think that was late 50s.

And he directed the premiere of rhinoceros with Lawrence Olivier on the West End as well. Well, I was just thinking actually of Lawrence Olivier's version of Henry V in which he is the actor. You know, it's not... It does the play straight for the most part, but you have him at the beginning. It's the actor going on to play Henry V.

And it's just right. is obviously nothing on the same scale, but I was just trying to place, wondering how the influence is radiated out from Orson Wells. It was, you know, it's tragic, because after the studio butchered the magnificent Ambersons,

which I think would have been a greater, even a greater film than Citizen's character, and destroyed the negatives and made it impossible for him to reconstruct it, he never again had that kind of liberty and those kinds of resists. sources. And there's, again, the stranger, right, the one with Loretta Young and Admergy Robinson, which is just a sort of adventure mystery story about a Nazi who's come to the States

and has pretended to be someone else. Okay, he had a studio there, he directed it, but it's not, no one's going to mistake that for an Orson Welles film. So there's only the one film that really gives us a full sense of what he could do with everything at his command. And after that, it was always trying to get enough money to do Othello, you know. Yep, yep. The Soul Boom podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.