Theology in the Raw - 749: #749 - Understanding our Cultural Moment: A Conversation with Mark Sayers

Episode Date: July 22, 2019

Mark and Preston talk about where the Western church is in this cultural moment. Various topics came up like the global reaction against the liberal values of America, China’s control over Hollywood, how we are living in harmony with where we were in the 18th century, probable revival of the remnant on the horizon, the similarities and differences in politics and Christianity in the U.K., U.S., and Australia, and many other topics related to faith, culture, and history.

Hello, Theology in the Raw listeners. Thanks for tuning in to this podcast. If you want to come to one of my speaking events in the fall, I will be in Indianapolis, Indiana on September 5th, Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 16th and September 17th. I will be in Richmond, Virginia, September 24th and September 23rd. Not in that order. 23rd and then the 24th. I will be in New York City, September 27th and September 28th. I will be in Colorado Springs, October 8th and October 9th and several other

cities. You can check out centerforfaith.com, go to the events page. And most of these events, in fact, all the ones that I mentioned, you have to register for. So please do that very soon that those events are right around the corner, especially the one in Indianapolis. If you want to come to that event, you got to register like right now, or maybe tomorrow, or maybe the next day, but don't wait too long. Otherwise, you might not be able to attend the event. So I have on my show today, a guy who I've never talked to in person. I've only recently become aware of who Mark Sayers is. And by recently, I mean like in the last, I don't know, year, year and a half. In fact, as you'll hear in the podcast, I was living in Melbourne, Australia for about five

weeks, a year and a half ago. And Mark is a pastor in Melbourne, Australia. And I didn't know who Mark was at that time. I am kicking myself because Mark, as you will see is he's just, I mean, obviously he's incredibly intelligent and a clear thinker, a provocative thinker, a prophetic thinker, but he's also a pastor at heart. And he's, he's one of the most able voices I have listened to who's able to think comprehensively and clearly about our cultural moment and able to help guide Christians in how to think through where we are in our cultural, political, and societal moment. He's just, I mean, several, there were several times in the podcast where he was just talking

and talking and pulling together different things and saying things that I've never even heard of. And I was sitting there kind of stunned. I was like, oh my gosh, I just have a thousand more questions and I have, I'm just, I'm just soaking this in. So I hope you do the same. I was like, oh my gosh, I just have a thousand more questions and I have, I'm just, I'm just soaking this in. So I hope you do the same. This was such a fascinating conversation. Please welcome to the show for the first time and hopefully for the first of many times, the Mark Sayers. I am so excited about this podcast. I've got several, we have several mutual friends, Mark.

I don't know if you know, John Mark Comer is probably the biggest one. But several of my pastor friends have really been following you longer than I have. I've only recently come across your work, but have been so like impressed with your ability to pull so many different strands of, you know, culture and faith and history and all these things together so well and so clearly. So I want to get into that and talk about some of your books, but why don't you just give a brief background of who you are, what you do, and we'll just kind of go from there. Yeah, well, Mark Sayers from Melbourne, Australia. And my primary thing is,

I'm a pastor of a church here in Melbourne called Red. But then also, I guess I sort of write and speak and try and lead into, I guess, really the interface between faith and culture, which for me is like, you know, because I'm as a local pastor, I'm interested in how you do discipleship. How do you, you know, do evangelism? How do you lead in this place? And I think that's where it led me into that. And then I think I've been able to share with others some of the stuff

that I've learned from those spaces. And you've written how many, a half a dozen books or so? Seven now. Seven. Okay. And tell us about the one you're currently working on. And maybe we can use that as a springboard to chase down some thoughts. Yeah. So I just wrote a book called Reappearing Church, which comes out August the 3rd. And I wrote a book, a couple of books ago called Disappearing Church. And Disappearing book, um, a couple of books ago called disappearing church and disappearing church was really about the rise, I think of post Christianity and, and what that meant for the church. And, and I think like maybe sort of like 2000, I wonder, right? Like 2015, 2016, there was a real sense of like,

which I think there is in a lot of places still of almost like, Oh my goodness, the hugeness of this secular moment. And, um, but I've actually rediscovered a sense of hope about what God could do at this moment. So I think it's a reframing of what if the rise of post-Christianity is actually an opportunity for the church in the West? I've often thought that like, you know, I know in America, and especially in religious conservative circles in America, people kind of bemoan the secularization of our culture and how America is losing its quote unquote Christian values, you know, and you know, there's a debate whether those values were ever really there. But I don't know, like I look back and it seems like the pre Constantine era of the church, even though it was a time of persecution, was also a time when, when, when our faith

thrived, you know? So I don't know if, if the church thrives very well in a quote unquote, Christianized somewhat moral culture. I just don't know if historically that's always been when our faith has thrived. Is that a naive assumption? Or have you thought about that, the kind of pre-constantine, post-constantine, and now moving away from our kind of Christianized culture? I mean, this is kind of the work you do. Yeah, yeah. I think it's like, I mean, the danger is that when things are comfortable,

success can be a threat. And, you know, I think you look at a sports team, you know, as soon as they've won a few championships they can start to get complacent and the rock can often set in and that can be disguised and you know i think particularly if you look at the anglosphere the english-speaking countries after world war ii particularly there was a real high point for the church and i think there was a lot of good things that happened but then also i think some assumptions you know set in and um you know i think we're dealing with some of them coming apart now so i mean i look at the pre sort of constantinian era at the you know when the church was in its early phases as a combination of a few things one you had you know obviously you had the

work of the spirit and christ the apostles you know setting up the church but then what you also had was just this coming together of a number of sociological historical factors you had the roman empire which i had set out um this global empire really uh which had a lot of problems with it but then there's also this setting up of an infrastructure um the Roman road, the Roman imperial system. And it's interesting. The gospel seems to come at this time where that's set up. There's still some level of peace in the Roman empire, yet it's also this serious period of dissatisfaction

is entering into the empire. You know, you have, it's fragmenting, you know, the sort of high point of, you know caesar's rule is now splitting and you've got all this sort of social unraveling happening so it's this perfect mix and so i sort of if you look forward if you look at say the great awakenings or revivals 18th century even some of stuff that happened in the medieval times um 18th century 19th century again you have this social dislocation intens intensified globalization, which pushes people out of the places where they're found home and found a sense of meaning.

And people have these new frameworks. I think George Hunter talked about people in transitions are open to the gospel. And he's talking about that from a personal evangelistic thing. We see at our church, we are running Alpha at the moment. And we ran it last time. We're going to do it again in Farsi and English. Because there's so many Iranian people in Melbourne who have left, you know, because of the revolution, they've left. They've come to Melbourne. They're questioning everything.

And many are coming to faith. So when you have transitions in your life, people are coming to faith so when you have transitions in your life people are open to faith well i'm sort of taking that concept and say what does that look like at a social cultural level um so i think we're entering an even more intensified version of that there are cultural dislocations at multiple levels it's not just happening in the united states it's happening all across the world like ind it's happening India has a right-wing populist who's pushing into in Narendra Modi who's pushing into you know an anti-foreigner anti-minority viewpoint which is making the country question what its identity what is it

to be Indian this is happening everywhere this is happening in South America this is happening in Europe this is even happening in Asia Pacific. China has a, is it an incredible turning point? Also with an authoritarian populist, you could say leader, Xi Jinping, who has a platform called China Dream, which is getting back to what China was always about. So you see these things around the world. So everybody has their own Donald Trump then it or he's essentially copying so xi jinping had china dream before make america great again um so i think what a lot of these leaders are doing and a few people have noticed

this i think a lot of these leaders are opportunists i mean to go on don't try for one second there's a fascinating video of donald trump when there was i think it was the independence party and he ran against pat buchanan um and he attacks pat buchanan and he and he's saying i think your associations with right-wing figures are very suspect i'm paraphrasing i don't like you know you're hanging around with a lot of nazis it almost seems like you know hang on this is what's said of him so that says to me there's an opportunist there um and i think a lot of these leaders are opportunists but what are they opportunist about they're opportunist about the fact that in a highly globalized world where we're pushed into increasing isolation by technology people have a meaning deficit

so i see that as an opportunity for the gospel if there's people around the world going wow like who am I everything's up for question from nationality to sexuality to identity to gender to technology to meaning to hyper individualism that's a world where the big touchstones that humans find meaning are actually in flux yeah and at those moments, there's almost always religious renewals. I have so many questions. Let me, before I forget this one, oftentimes history repeats itself. And you kind of alluded to that earlier. So if you, as you look at our specific cultural moment, and specifically where the church is, let's just say where the Western church is in this cultural moment, what other time in history,

what other cultural moment in history looks like this where we can learn from this situation and where is it going to, where are we going to end up? I mean, that's kind of a prophetic question, I guess, but yeah. I mean, again, too, I think, I think there's, you know, as it was a Mark Twain, I can't remember who said, you know, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. And, you know know i've been looking a lot at the 18th century um and i think the 18th century what you have is you have a british empire which is globalizing it's rising in technology uh you know you have like sailing ships connecting the world um you have the move over the next century into steamers which brought the world closer together and the telegraph, which was the internet of the industrial era. You have this incredible

moment where people for since the medieval period have been arranged in parish boundaries, you had these very set, almost since the Reformation religious systems. And then they all start breaking down. So people are on the move. So the 18th century to the 19th century was a time of mass migration. And I think people miss how much migration is one of the driving forces in the world at the moment interesting and so you have people who don't no longer fit into parish boundaries so for example australia is just a classic you know you have near my house about a few miles that way is a small stone chapel made by Methodists who would come from downtown Melbourne. You know, I mean, it was literally like going to Mars for them, you know.

But the fact that that's there on the other side of the planet, you know, speaks of a missionary movement that came out of this time of intense social dislocation. Wesley, you know, was like, I'm not going to preach in the parish boundaries. I'm actually going to go and preach in the fields. So the 18th century was really an early globalization. And you can trace all these movements back to East Africa, to Malaysia, Singapore, India, the United States, the Western frontier of the United States, all of those moments go back to the social dislocation that happened at that time, technological rise, global politics,

and we saw this incredible great awakening. I mean, just even Jonathan Edwards, it's fascinating. I was reading Marsden's biography, and he talks about the fact that just before the revival that happened there, you had a transition from almost a sort of older sense of agriculture where people had these inherited farms. All of a sudden, the economy was sort of changing. And so young people weren't like they couldn't just inherit the farm and get married because they couldn't afford to do it. So they're delaying marriage until 30.

All of a sudden, they start sleeping around. They even talk about self-harm in those communities. Really? Amongst young people. Fascinating. Depression. When you read it, when you read it, oh, this is actually what's going on.

So the young people are actually dislocated. They're adolescence. And then this renewal comes amongst those young people. Absolutely fascinating. People don't realize these factors are at play. So I think we look often at the past and go, I'd say to us, everyone was sort of like a nerdy square Christian. But when you look back, I mean,

there was just before sort of the Wesleyan renewal and, you know, Edwards and all that, in St. Paul's Cathedral, I don't know what year it was, but St. Paul's Cathedral in London, this huge, you know, Edwards and all that. In St. Paul's Cathedral, I don't know what year it was, but St. Paul's Cathedral in London, this huge, incredible building, had six people turn up to Easter service. In the 18th century, Australia was called a post-Christian society. The first church in Australia was burnt down in the 18th century. So a lot of these factors in the West have always been there.

So this is fascinating fascinating so you're saying and i want to i want to mention again you said the telegraph and you said in passing you know the internet of the 1800s 1800s or 18th century 1800s oh 18 cent oh it's yeah you sort of get into the 19th century so you sort of get this from the 18th century into the 19th century this rise of technology probably more than 19th century was the telegraph. I've often talked about the printing press as kind of the internet of 500 years ago. Would you say, I mean, and I think that's, you know, we could agree just the exponential, you know, spread of information and literacy and everything. But I never thought about the telegraph.

You're saying the telegraph was another kind of spike in that spread of information in a context when there's globalization, technology, post-Christian culture, the church trying to find its way. And then on the other side of that is revival and renewal. So you're saying in as much as our situation imitates or what was the phrase you used? Not repeats, but history doesn't repeat. It rhymes. what was the phrase you used not not repeats but um history doesn't repeat it rhymes it rhymes in as much as our situation now is rhyming with that situation would you predict i mean if if uh a prophetic kind of renewal on the other side of this is that what you're kind of hoping for is this what your book is touching on or that's what i'm hoping for and and i just want to preface that

with one thing like i think what what you notice is you never have it's rare that you have this culture-wide everyone becomes a christian you do have these incredible moves you know um but what you tend to have in revivals and renewals is actually a bringing together of a remnant that becomes significant um and i mean you know the wesleyan revival profoundly changed the face of England. Yet at the same time, you still have this very polite cultural Christianity. You know, the enthusiasts were still called enthusiasts and Methodists were insults, you know. So I think we can fall into this trap because of what I would say is the contemporary view of public relations. So what I mean by that is this belief that Søren Kierkegaard talked

about this idea that was emerging in the 19th century in his book This Present Age that there is a public, that polling says 97% of Americans now believe a. Now, do they? And it gives you this myth that somewhere there's the American public walking around and operates like an individual with one singular mind. People believe so many different things. And, you know, one of the things, particularly since the election

of Donald Trump and Brexit, is we realise that people don't even tell the truth in polling anymore. So I think there's a mistake that we can think about revival and renewal like, oh, that'll be when 92% of Americans or 90% of Australians, polling anymore so i think there's a mistake that we can think about revival and renewal like oh that'll be when 92 percent of americans right 90 percent of australians again are biblical christians it's always a remnant having said that that's my preface i do think there is i think it's already happening um in some ways particularly amongst migrant populations which we're not registering in the West,

there is significant renewal movements happening. And I think we're moving to a point where particularly if you look at some of the factors, I mean, you look, number one, that the dominant household increasingly across the West and in the West's most influential environments, I think it's like in the city of Hamburg in Germany, it's just under 50% of people live single person alone in a house. Scandinavia is becoming normative. Melbourne and Sydney in the inner cities, it's becoming normative. There's places in the United States, San Francisco,

places like this where that's normative. That's never happened before. And that is a demographic disaster um coming why so why so i'm curious okay because you don't pass on that house to anyone huh and you don't replicate after yourself so basically knowledge wealth and i'm not saying these are good things i'm just saying these are sociological realities okay knowledge wealth you pass on you pass on those values to the next person so for example if you have like in what's happening in melbourne is people talk about millennial values so millennial values you know they have all these things are they more progressive blah blah blah there was a survey done here by one of our newspapers and it interviewed our two largest migrant groups people born in india people born in china millennials they have more children

they get married they're more educated they have more children. They get married. They're more educated. They have more money. They're better savers. They vote more conservative and they're more religious. Now, if you've got those two groups competing, one's going to win. Now, I don't see, you know, people would use that as an argument against immigration. I think, well, maybe bring it on if that's a renewing.

So you see that. if if if that's a renewing so you see that so basically you've got a the contemporary progressive western individualistic life script is a one generation phenomenon because it doesn't actually have a view to live on beyond itself so even that creates social dislocation some of the social discussions that we've seen in politics are that people who, and this is nothing against people, this is just sociological fact, that people who don't have children tend to vote more extreme left or right. Really? Because they're not thinking forward. There's not that moderating viewpoint. So, you know, these things I see creating increasing social dislocation going forward.

I think we're just in phase one. That's interesting. Wow. I want to shift gears just slightly because obviously you're from Australia, you're Australian, yet you speak, I mean, in America, you speak in Europe, the UK. Can you give us a snapshot for the similarities and differences between the American culture, the Australian culture, in particular the intersection between faith and culture? I mean, America and Australia have a fascinating parallel history. Yeah. You know, really Australia, in terms of white settlement, is kicked off because of the War of Independence.

Britain was dumping a lot of, well, really, you know, convicts, which is the term people know, but many of them were really indentured workers. There was a fascinating debate amongst the Clapham sect as, you know, should we call these people slaves? And because of some of the racial elements that a lot of them were white, it's not all, you know, whether they use that word. So when the War of independence happened um

where does britain dump these people because again to going back to that 18th century social dislocation the cities were being flooded as feudalism ended and agriculture ended people come into the cities and all of a sudden there's homeless people everywhere in poverty etc etc so they're trying to do this mass sort of social, you know, like really get rid of them. So, you know, it's, this begins in many ways as a protest against Europe. It happened. That means religiously and politically. So there's a sense of pilgrims and Puritans and different religious people

coming to the United States, but also politically as well. Simon Sharma points, you know, makes the argument. He doesn't use this language that in some ways America is Britain 2.0, and some of its more liberal political traditions. So you've got this sense of utopianism, both religiously and politically, and America is more based on an idea. is these convicts coming down. America begins as a utopia. Australia begins as a dystopia. America has a prayer meeting. Australia, the men's ship comes in and the female ship comes in

and the female ship is primarily sex workers and then they send them off into the bush with rum and it's essentially an orgy. So that's the differences in the countries. But interestingly, the two countries grow and actually are very similar today. I think, you know, after Canada, Australia would be one of the most similar countries to, you know, I mean, you've been there.

Melbourne's maybe a little bit different, but I would say that there's a much longer sceptical view of religion in Australia, primarily because of convicts you had sex workers british soldiers who were being punished and convicts and criminals from the lower classes that were the three most unchurched people group yeah you know people groups um in the in a british empire at the time so you also have a an enlightenment much more british enlightenment government system in australia who are much more British enlightenment government system in Australia. So they built a science sort of research center before they built a church.

So you have these moves. So that doesn't mean, you know, faith in Australia has always been seen as negative. But there seems to have been, particularly in how the story is told, a much more innate suspicion of faith. And I think it's very different to the United States. Yeah, yeah. When I was there, I noticed similarities and differences. In fact, the way, and this might be totally artificial, but, you know, I lived in the UK for three, a little over three years and still have connections there and has spent time a couple

of times in Australia and have friends that are Australian. And it seems like Australia is almost like somewhere between America and the UK in terms of how the conservative and liberal, the political scheme and how that interacts with the church. And, you know, I was surprised at how, for lack of better terms, conservative the church is in Australia, but maybe, you know, in a place like Melbourne, Melbourne is kind of like the San Francisco of Australia, right? I mean, very multicultural, very kind of progressive in many ways, it seems like. And the churches there, you know, I spoke, I spoke at a church there on sexuality and they were, they were very excited to have me, but they, the warning was, you know, they said, Hey, just so you know, there's a lot of hyper conservative people here that if, you know, if you don't just

condemn, condemn, condemn, they're going to think you might be, you know, on a slippery slope, you know, towards liberalism, even, even if you're citing scripture or whatever. And, and, um, I know Sydney has its own kind of the, the Americans talk about the Sydney Anglicans as being kind of the, the fighting fundies of, of Australia. I don't know if that's true or not, but, um, but yeah, I did notice, yes, a lot of overlap. So when you, when you think through and look at the American church, it's pretty, I guess this is where I'm going, it's pretty easy for you to kind of imagine that relationship because you're not too far from that where you are.

Would that be pretty clear? I think I still find it profoundly different and dislocating, to be honest. So I think like you will have, I think also like, I think what a lot of Americans probably don't realize is that American conservatism in many ways is very different to Australian conservatism. Okay. And British conservatism.

I mean, an argument could be made if, if American conservatives were really conservatives, they would be reinstating the King. So, so, so, you know,

so bring back the British. So the jokes aside, I think that Australian conservatism, so there's an element where people will be theologically conservative, like you just mentioned. Yeah. So, for example, and, like, it depends what church you're at. You know, probably, and denominations would be different.

So, like, the experience you just had wouldn't be as much my experience. So I know in Melbourne that you've got, you have both extremes. Okay. So, you know, so some anglican circles and so on but i've been at things where i've been with very conservative theological anglicans okay um who then will switch to a conversation where there's a complete critique of market capitalism really okay and an attacking of the american presidency and um the idea that you have guns would just be abhorrent, like, and militarism.

And so there's some theological, that's what I find interesting. There's theological, I'll sit down with, say, people who like maybe evangelicals, and I'm like, okay, here's this theological cause. But then you get off that, and I'm just like totally dislocated. Now, I know about it, but I think it's still surprising. So in America, there's a lot of unanimity between social conservatives, political conservatives, and religious conservatives.

Like if you're a Christian conservative theologically, you are going to be a political conservative as well. Whereas I've noticed in the UK and what you're saying in Australia too, that that wouldn't necessarily happen. I mean, I remember I was in the UK a few years ago in 2016. And, you know, I was with a broad range of Christians, but some of which would be like head covering, hyper conservative brethren, right?

Who were, I mean, appalled that American Christians could actually consider voting for Trump. So here you have hyper right wing theological conservative people who are would be either moderate or at least nowhere near kind of the right wing political conservative. Where in America, it's one and the same. Is that would that be a big difference between these three continents? Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, you know, so for example,

like guns in Australia wouldn't seem like a conservative issue. Like that's a very liberal issue. Like if you're being conservative, you have restraint on that and that creates social disorder. So why are you then just giving them to everyone? Or welfare or the death penalty. Like, you know, Australia got rid of the death penalty in the 1960s um and that would just seem like an extremely excessive thing to do so again so much of this in terms of social conservatism is is how you look at it and and

probably that's where australia has again you're right australia's in between america and the united kingdom yet some of it would be influenced by British, it'd be more like Britain, where you'll have people who are, you know, evangelicals, but then we'll vote the Labour Party. Interesting, interesting. Okay. Now, so I have to ask you, I mean, you've referenced several pretty high powered scholarly books, you're obviously thinking at a pretty high intellectual level. And I don't want to, this is going to be a stereotype, but I mean, but you're a pastor. You're not a university professor. So can you explain to me maybe your desire, your background, passion for both thinking theologically, intellectually,

sociologically, and wanting to be a pastor? are are you like applying for you know academic posts at university you know i mean i only have high school certificate are you serious yes um so so i i struggled at high school and just got through my final year. My principal wanted me to leave. Not because I was being like a bad boy, but just didn't feel I could academically get there. And I think God really came into my life when I was 18. And I did go start studying at seminary. I studied, I did advertising, but left it at university. And I became an intern with the Salvation Army.

Really? And so I sort of was with the Salvation Army. Really? And so I sort of was doing stuff with homeless youth and then they would pay for you to do some seminary studies. I did some but I failed and just couldn't do it academically. Yeah, but I think the whole time just fascinated and reading and trying to learn about culture. And I think it's one of those things where the first subject I ever did at seminary was on evangelism.

And the first lecture, the guy just gets up and does this Western culture history. And like you talk about the Enlightenment, Renaissance, I'm lost. I'm like, I'm bad at high school. What the heck's going on? And so I just thought I've got to actually work hard at this. So I went back and started reading. And I assumed everyone in that room knew who Kant was or, you know, like I said, I'm just like, oh, okay. So it's almost like you work harder when you presume everyone else

is better than you and knows everything. So I just started reading in my spare time and working hard and making it a discipline. And then you sort of start to go, oh, hang on, people are listening to me. And, oh, okay. So it just became part of my personal discipline and interest. And I think in melbourne

too there is a sense where melbourne is the thinking city yeah and i think to preach in this area to to do that um and to also deconstruct some of the world views that people just brought um yeah i i it just sort of happened it's just an interest so and i loved reading and my parents didn't have a tv for a while when I was a kid. They just got used to reading as a form of relaxation. And so I think the benefit of not doing seminary or university was that I then read what my areas of passion were and learned more. So that's in your pastoral routine now, I mean, is reading and thinking outside just what I'm going to preach on this next Sunday. I mean, is that a discipline? Is it part of your job? I mean, because I mean, you become such a, and I don't know if people have heard of you or not, but I mean, from my vantage point,

a real prominent voice in terms of helping Christians understand where they are in the cultural moment. I mean, is that something that that you've been are you released to continue to do that work yeah so one thing i do is i get up early and and you know i i have my like devotional time with god and then i have another hour where i just study and um and but then also like i'll read before i go to bed as well like okay uh so just outside of it i'm just reading as much as i can and i just have these two sort of set things where I'll be reading. But I'll read whole, you know, yeah, I sort of read voraciously, but I'll sort of have projects and stuff like that. And just little cute.

I mean, I've become fascinated with different things like, you know, like China, I'll try to understand, get my head around because I know it's so, but I just do that for fun. Like it's a hobby. And then it'll come out in some podcast and people are like, wow. And do you preach on this stuff at church? And do people enjoy it? Do you have a pretty intellectual church?

Yeah, I think people do like it. I mean, it's a balance always. I think people need to see. It's the balance between people can see there's actual intellectual rigor here, but also there's pastoral concern for someone who is not operating that you know like is not thinking that level it's coming real heart issue so it's trying to balance the two i think is is good but you know that john stott thing of preaching with you know the scripture and the and the newspaper idea i think you know i really i really like yeah you guys in australia you had a recent forgive my ignorance um a pretty major political

decision recently right well can you explain that a bit more am i um well we did have an election recently which which um this may be what you're referring to let me know if it's not yeah where basically um it was completely predicted that the conservative what we call the liberal party which shows you how you know different things are so our liberal party which that the conservative, what we call the liberal party, which shows you how, you know, different things that say a liberal party, which is the conservative party would get absolutely smashed in the election. And we actually, interestingly had a Pentecostal prime minister for the first time,

who was sort of not open about his faith in terms of pushing it in terms of policy, but, you know, it was photographed worshiping with his hands up in the air at his church. And everyone just thought he was going to be destroyed and end up winning, which was just fascinating. So that caused a lot of ripples around the world. Yeah. And so two years of being behind in the polls and everyone just predicting he was gone. So that was, yeah, maybe that.

I think so. If I remember correctly, it was like, you know, the, you know, so I guess back up in America, you know, Hollywood is 99.9% hyper radical left leaning. Most media outlets are hyper left leaning. We're surrounded by what seems to be a culture that is 90% hyper progressive. When in reality, I like to remind people that we elected Trump. Okay, so at least 40 to 50% are not that. Um, now in my,

from my vantage point, it seems like these, like we have a very, very loud minority of voices that would be considered, you know, radical progressive left, not just left leaning, but far on the left.

It makes it feel like most of society's there, but I don't think most of society is there. So when Trump gets elected, people are like, what in the world's going on? I can't believe anybody would have voted for this guy. And it sounds like something similar happened there where people were so shocked that there were enough conservatives to vote this person in. Would that be a good assessment i would love for your thoughts on that too i mean how do we get to a place to where we have such a loud yet at the end of the day kind of a minority of hyper left voices yeah what it's really interesting like

chris hayes wrote a book on elites and i think understanding elites is is a key factor in this so for example going back to britain say in the 18th 19th century you had an aristocracy and the aristocracy lived in its own universe yeah it had its own accents um fashion ways of doing things but it actually wasn't huge you know oxbridge you know which is oxford and cambridge they'd been to those institutions they all passed through the same institutions everyone knew everyone they controlled the times newspaper they controlled certain areas of the country but their social conservative and religious preferences were totally different to the rest of the population um and they also saw themselves as having an enlightening function for uh everyone else so when you talk about they're handing down victorian values and whether that's to working people whether that's to the middle classes but that's to people

in australia or africa that was part of elite c so i think there's this dynamic when elites find themselves at the top you've got to unless you just want to be genghis khan or something and not care you've got to justify your place at the top with a moral religious framework almost and and chris face talks in his book about how we had this shift particularly in america and other countries away from an inherited aristocracy which america did have you know it is water talked about was it a 300s or 400s if the people could fit into her ballroom in new york new york you know so there was an american aristocracy but that then moved into what was a more diverse arist like like elite

yet elites always end up protecting themselves they get the same but the amount of people who are in the same classes at harvard and these things is fascinating when you when you look at people in silicon valley hollywood politics etc etc they all know each other and yeah and so they then have to you know sort of like the Davos group, you know, they all meet together, you know, and people go insane with this stuff with conspiracy theories. I'm not saying that at all. I'm more saying there's just a dynamic when you've got these groupings

who are all talking to each other. The other thing I think social media, because these people then took over or inherited media, particularly social media, entertainment in the United States um that boosted their voice so there's a boosting of the voice of a minority viewpoint um and so i think that's why now i don't know i honestly don't think that the public is like here's this group of dalhousie conservatives i think what we're seeing is a pushback against elites. Increasingly, we're seeing a coming together.

So Italy is fascinating, you know, with Five Star, which you've got a left-wing populist party. It's in a coalition with the Liga Nord, a right-wing populist party under Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. So actually you're seeing it's more about populists and people who feel left behind, whether they're on the left or right. So there's more just a general frustration which where things are going and inequality.

And particularly globalization raises the level of wealth for people in other countries, but isn't the best for working people in Western countries. And that's the bit that people have missed out. So there's a pushback against what they see as elites are leaving them behind, hence the immigration pushback as well. Yeah, yeah. No, that's interesting.

I mean, can that loud minority of elite voices, again, Hollywood, media outlets, social media platforms, like you referenced, I forgot that one. But I mean, that's, there's not a social media platform that's not led by very left leaning or radical left people, you know, and even there's a massive debate, I don't know how aware of it you are, you know, the people being kicked off of Twitter or YouTube almost in almost every case seems to be kicked off for right wing violation, violations from a right wing perspective when people on a left wing perspective can get away with all kinds of things. You know, you have. Yeah. Where do you, do you see that going somewhere? Will that end up cannibalizing itself in two, five, 10 years? Because now when any ideology, whether it's the far right or far left, when you have such a narrow circle that you must match up to, the second you step outside of

that ideology, you're done. And there's no, here's the thing with secular right or secular left wing ideologies or tribalism, there's no, there's no redemption. You know, you have several people that might make an offhanded comment on Twitter that could be possibly interpreted as maybe slightly racist. maybe slightly racist. And they're done for life, for life. And so there's no redemption at all in that kind of scheme. And then the same thing goes for radical right-wing people. You step outside, you don't toe the line on this issue or that issue, and you're done. And there's no way to get back into the tribe. From my vantage point, it seems like that kind of tribalism will just end up cannibalizing itself. Like it can't sustain itself with that kind of tribalism will just end up cannibalizing itself. Like it can't sustain itself with that kind of rigorous legalism, whether it's a left-wing

legalism or right-wing legalism. I mean, and again, I'm just thinking out loud and from a place of a lot of ignorance. So am I at all touching on anything or have you thought through this, you know, where does this radical left or right end up leading? I think there tends to be a bit of a pattern. There's a pattern here that we saw in the 1930s in Europe. So basically what you had is all across Europe, the center struggled to hold, particularly with the shocks of the Great Depression. And we've had the global financial crisis.

And I think a lot of that, this is this playing out. And what other people don't realize you know like i mean literally i think it was timothy geithner um you know we talked about you know he was in you know one of the people in charge of the u.s economy that we were like the u.s was like two or three days away from the cash machines atms being out of money like it was it was intense like um so what didn't happen in europe is you had these tactics that then the further left and right instigated now they were mostly on the street so you had bolsheviks um radical leftists communists who basically started going into the street in leather jackets and doing you know attacks and stuff like that you then had the fray call which was like the german soldiers who were then defending and these two like groups got more and more they copied each other more and more and more and and

and you know like made each other more extreme i think that's happening politically so you know i think i think i don't the left thing is weaker than it seems because actually what you've got going on is you've got your more establishment left figures let's say hillary clinton and joe biden represent yeah yeah um they're sort of left leaning they have some sort of center left they're really center left with some socially progressive values so maybe it's like gay marriage or whatever right but then their threat is not from the right their threat is further from the left so what people don't realize is your biggest threat politically is not from the people in opposition to you it's the more extreme version of your position so what happened with the republicans is everyone was like oh george w bush is a nazi

war criminal and then all of a sudden you know there's like romantic pictures of him and obama like and everyone's missing the good old days of the you know the trump inauguration so what you had is the republican party was in in a sense, subverted from within from the right. Same thing happens in Britain. The Brexit right subverts it within. The British Labor Party was subverted by the hard left of Jeremy Corbyn. That will happen to the Democrats.

That is happening to the Democrats. So this current 2020 election, you've got an insurgent Democrat left who are more extreme on certain things. So they have more of a, I mean, Elizabeth Warren is talking about breaking up big tech. Yeah. You know, AOC is talking about, you know, she's getting rid of social media. So they're looking at, I would say that social media has been more in the center left position because they still

want to hold economic power, but you've got now in a more insurgent. So, for example, even in sexuality, you would have, you know, you've seen this within the trans movement. We just had a split in the New York Pride Parade between a hard anti-corporate gay left who are more pushing into trans stuff versus the more mainstream corporate-friendly gay movement. So you're seeing this everywhere, this splitting into more extremes, even seeing it. And we can get really nerdy.

It's even happening within far right movements are splitting. No one, no one's seeing this, but fascism is completely mutating and creating new forms. Yeah. So that that's all happening. So you're right. So we go to the extremes and then what you tend to look in history, there's a point of exhaustion yeah where it just gets so exhausting and then people tend to return to the middle after a lot of carnage so do you think so so my main i don't even know if you have a clue who i am or what i do but i and you don't need to but i you know my main world right now is lgbtq related

questions and the church and culture specifically the t or or gender. And I'm fascinated at how LGB questions, both politically and religiously, are somewhat left of center. But some of the, some, not all, obviously, but some of the radical transgender activists are so far to the left and now they've poked the bear of the radical feminists. And so now you have two extremely liberal, anti-Christian, anti-whatever people that are just, the ideologies are just clashing, you know? And it's fascinating to see, well, it's fascinating, but also troubling to see how this is affecting children. And the second, you know, a boy exhibits any kind of feminine kind of traits, you know, he's pushed to identify as trans or non-binary and vice versa for biological females. And, you know, and it seems like people are resurrecting these kinds of gender stereotypes. And it's just, it's just, it's such a complicated mess. And yet there's been a lot of people really damaged and affected by this on so many levels. And, you know,

I think in this cultural moment, 2019, it's like, where's this going to end? Because we are, we are pushing up against, you know, Orwell's 1984, almost to the T. In fact, just a few hours ago, I watched a video of a high school teacher in Aberdeen where I spent three years. And somebody caught it on video where a student simply said, I think there are two genders. I think people are male or female. Did you see this? Yes, yes. And the teacher said, don't you kind of like, don't you dare question the authorities? I mean, it was almost a quote from Orwell's 1984 book, which I just read. Cause I'm like, oh my gosh, this could literally be in that book where you question the party.

And now he's being kicked out of the classroom for saying that there's two genders, which, you know, he's like, yeah, it was fascinating, but I'm like, where does this end up? This can't, Yeah, it was fascinating. But I'm like, where does this end up? This has to either cannibalize itself, recapitulate, start over, deep breath, and maybe move forward. Or we just end up just collapsing as a society, it seems like. I think the big disruption, which no one is watching, particularly in the United States, is what everyone's failing to see. So let me give you an example. So this year at the Academy Awards,

which increasingly has pushed into an advocacy around these issues. This year in China, the live feed in China was censored heavily. Any LGBT references were censored by Chinese state TV, and they did it very sophisticatedly. I'm like, in five years, because basically China owns Hollywood. Really? Totally. Like Hollywood's got no money.

Like it's all foreign money now. Wow. Increasingly, China is doing globalization a very different way, which is through debt and lending of money. You've got huge investment from the Gulf states in the United States, owning many ports, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, et cetera, et cetera. China is increasingly, and Russia,

are increasingly realizing they can't control their internal internet, and they're now talking about controlling the outside internet. So there's a great firewall of China controlling the outside internet. Some of these forums that people like elizabeth warren uh investigating around some of the hate speech stuff online if you see he's funding these forums it's actually the chinese government china is very invested at the moment in creating internet censorship and controls now this is just me speculating so in 10 years does the china are those references

being censored live actually at the ceremony um so what i'm saying by this is that no one's recognizing in the u.s that in 10 years at the current rate china's gdp will be double that at the u.s now i'm not saying war you know there's people who have a few few cities trapped or whatever i'm not saying that there's an inevitable war between the u.s I'm not saying war, you know, there's people who have a feudicities trap or whatever. I'm not saying that there's an inevitable war between the US but what we are going to see is increasing non-Western intervention in the politics and culture wars of the United States.

The 2016 election saw that with Russia. Russia a number of the Black Lives Matter's main websites were actually they were, they were Russian. There was an amazing thing where there was a pro-Islamic group in Texas and an anti-Islamic group in Texas,

two Facebook pages who got people to organise for a downtown demonstration. And they then would discover they both ran out of St. Petersburg, those two accounts. So that's not, hear me right, I just want to make, I'm not saying that Black Lives Matter is a completely thing made by Russia. All that Russia saw, and they didn't do a whole lot, it really, in the last US election,

what they did was boost current cultural stuff already happening. So increasingly, you're going to see China, you're already seeing the Gulf States wading into all of this. So what people don't realise is most of those countries, Putin literally came out the other day and said, liberalism in the West is dead. It's dying. People are saying this.

If you guys don't get it yet, you will soon, essentially is what he's saying. China is against all this stuff. So let me just have you repeat that because i this is my ignorance on these just on globalization in general so you're saying russia and china uh have an anti kind of western liberal though more i don't want to say conservative to make it sound like they're you know toe-to-toe with kind of american conservatism but they're not on board with western liberal values that keep getting more and more and more progressive so you know, toe-to-toe with kind of American conservatism, but they're not on board with Western liberal values

that keep getting more and more and more progressive. So, you know, you've got the Gulf states, the Gulf states, which are extremely powerful, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, which have huge investment in think tanks in Washington. They're not down with this agenda. They actually, at the end of the day, they're very conservative Islamic countries.

China is not at all down with Western liberalism at all. You know, it is at the end of the day, a socially conservative country with a communist party. Russia has very deliberately in the Eastern European world and with a lot of other countries positioned itself against Western social liberalism. European world and with a lot of other countries positioned itself against Western social liberalism You currently have in the EU the Visegrad states, which is Hungary Poland Czech Republic Austria have all gone put in right-wing governments and one of the big platforms is creating I think it was Victor Orban the president or Prime Minister. What it is of Hungary said we're creating an illiberal democracy And they're creating a blockc in the EU against this.

You know, African Union, forms of Pacific nations, you listen to these people, they're saying, hang on, we don't want this. We do not want this. So you've got not just an insurgency within the West, but you've got actually a global insurgency against a lot of this stuff. So it's a fascinating parallel in some ways to what I think the irony in all of this is, if you look at some of these leftist ideas, where do they emerge from?

They emerge from Western neoliberal institutions. What so many people have missed in the West, and I would say politically in America, is why is it that there's, you know, argue tinder is a coming together of the left and right and people don't see it so it's a left social social ethic with hyper capitalist right wing and that's actually the reality of where we're at we're actually at a reality that the far the right of say the republican party and the left of the democratic party end up achieving the same thing which is atomized floating individuals devoid of any historical um you know antecedents all come together through

one is deconstructed by the deconstruction of social norms the other by hyper capitalism deconstructing everything yeah so so you know like I see like universities in the United States are completely bizarre places. They're super left-wing, but then they're sponsored by big tech, big corporations. And people go, oh, well, that's a contradiction. What if it's actually not? So out of those Western institutions,

they now have their new missionary mandate to the world, which positions itself as anti-Western, but actually is still trying to tell the rest of the world what to do with their social values. So it's another, you could argue it's post-colonial colonialism. Well, that's fascinating. First of all, I'm going to go back and re-listen to the last 10 minutes of this episode, probably several times. And you said a couple of times already, you're not a conspiracy theorist. And I know some people might say, I don't know, but do you have any, um, real quick, do you have any resources that you can recommend to people that are like,

I don't know who Mark is. I don't know if I trust them, but I'm, I'm, I'm curious now, what would you encourage them to go read in terms of especially like China controlling Hollywood, the anti hyper-progressivism of the West? the west um is it are you pulling from tons of different resources or is there a couple of different resources um uh i mean probably my book strange days which was my last book i wrote is really my book on global politics and looking at through a theological theological lens i gotta check that i haven't read that. Okay. Strange. Which is basically the idea that the, almost the old Testament temple ideas of sacred space,

whether you're in and out. Yeah. But that can be applied to the entire world. Interesting. Oh, that's fascinating. That's the battle between nationalism and globalism. Who's in,

who's out. Yeah. Yeah. Sacred boundaries. You made a statement and we're going to wrap this up in just a few minutes, but, you know, colonialism 2.0. And I saw this happen a few months ago,

and I don't know how much you know about this, but the United Methodist Church had a big conference on sexuality and I believe it was last February. And one thing I really appreciate about the UMC is they've done such a wonderful job at not just doing missionary work or overseas missions, but actually empowering and valuing the voices of people outside of America. Well, there was a bit of blowback because, you know,

80% or so of American UMC leaders would be very progressive in their sexual ethic. But when they invited 30% of, you know, 30% of the bishops there were African and 48% were global leaders. And they actually voted to reaffirm traditional marriage. And I think the American UMC church was just all up in arms. But some of the speeches made by white, all up in arms, but some of the speeches made by white, quote unquote, progressive bishops sounded eerily similar to like, almost like a racist, I don't want to say racist, but like a very colonial-ish condescending kind of perspective on these African leaders who really haven't, you know, they're just, you know, they haven't done their homework on a true sexual ethic. They're not up to speed. It was almost so condescending on these African voices. And

they hear the African voices push back and basically say what you said, like, this feels like colonialism 2.0. We don't need your Western enlightenment on telling us how to read the Bible. Thank you very much. We're doing okay. And it seems like that might be a microcosm to everything you're you're you're saying i mean that was on a church level with sexuality but um oh absolutely like like it's it's it's this sense that the west is still being the west yeah and i think it's it's cloaked in in an anti self-hatred there's an element of self-hatred like the west is horrible so when are you going to tell everyone the west is horrible i mean i i got this a little bit early days i was you know in my 20s and i went

and spoke and i was probably a bit more like let's deconstruct everything in the west probably a bit more crazy uh radical in my younger days giving this talk and i spoke to a group of it was a church it was a men's thing and it was i was the only white guy there was people from all different countries outside of the west um asian african indian you know and i got up there and they were just so nice with me like one just guy goes hey listen um just wanted to have you lived outside the west do you really know what it's like outside the west and i'm like i've visited and and they just very gently just were like okay buddy we buddy, we lived through this. We lived through this revolution. We know it's like blah, blah. And I just felt so chastened.

And that was sort of, you know, the radical, you know, Western guy just got, yeah, taken to school a little bit that day. So I think that's, yeah, there is a reality where we're still doing what we've always done, but we mask it. And, you know, that's what I say. Are the new left visions coming out of the favelas of brazil or from poor coffee farmers in kenya it's not they're coming from the most powerful neoliberal elite west institutions elite institutions of the west interesting wow

uh so real quick uh mark sayers thinks dot com is the website. If you're interested in learning more about Mark Sayers, a number of books, you said you've written seven. You're coming out with your eighth book. Your last one that has been published is Strange Days, which has the coolest cover, by the way. Is it playing on Stranger Things, the TV show? Well, apparently, apparently. So it was fascinating because we wrote it during the Trump election and we didn't know which way it was going to go. So apparently, I think it's actually Trump Tower in Chicago. I had nothing to do with this.

Yeah, so it's Trump Tower in Chicago is apparently the reference. Oh, no way. So I see several books with Moody, a few of your early ones with Tommy Nelson. Have you worked with Drew Dick, the editor over at Chimutti? Is that your... I just, I haven't met with him, but I do know. I just had coffee with,

lunch with him in Portland at some stage this year. Yeah, yeah. He's wonderful. He's, oh, I love that guy, man. He, you seem to think very alike. Real quick, can you give a final word on everything we've been talking about?

I imagine if anybody is a theological, spiritual, pastoral leader listening to this, which was quite a few pastors that listen to this, they might be overwhelmed a little bit. I mean, you've gone way outside, like, you know, exegeting Romans or whatever, but like, can you give a final word, encouragement, maybe even challenge to, let's just say pastors in, well, not just in America, just pastors of, you know, churches, you know, after hearing all this. What are some things that they can and maybe should do to try to prepare themselves to pastor in the coming days? The first thing is

God has sort of called me and used my strange brain to help other people understand this stuff and interpret so that they don't have to. Like I don't feel people need to go and read policy statements from the chinese communist party to understand how to preach that examine um so you know thomas kelly wrote a book called testament of devotion and he talked about the fact that we're sort of called to singly focus on god's spirit in us and like us what's the one or two things that we're called to do i think that's really important okay and i think also like um where we're heading is there's all this cultural chaos but there's intense personal chaos anxiety

this creates tremendous anxiety in the individual we're sexually you know pornography is in invaded people's personal worlds choice anxiety we live in the hyper Protestantism of you the church of youtube i think as my friend david kinnaman calls it um this is affecting people like this is this is the people in your church there's no longer can you hide from in a christian ghetto because the phone brings the world into your pocket um so what i've realized is my friend tori walling says his mantra is personal renewal precedes corporate change. And there's an element that I think at this time,

it's as I was rebuilding of broken down places, but what if those broken down places are actually in us? And what if the starting point is how you walk daily with God? All I feel, all of the, what I feel like what's happening is actually the powers and principalities of being humiliated. And that's big tech that's the republican party that's the chinese communist party in hong kong as we speak um that is possibly large parts of american evangelicalism

um that's the me too movement it's it's it's it's all these things are tearing down what we look to for sustenance security and, and meaning outside of God. So what an incredible opportunity to meet Christ face-to-face, to put all our trust in him. Do that in your personal life. That overflows. And that's what people are looking for in pastors at the moment, real people walking with God and that overflowing,

not from a sense of expertise, ideas. I don't want at the end of the day, people go, wow, Mark knows all this stuff. He's a smart guy. I want people to see someone who walks humbly with God. And so I would encourage anyone to do that. That's the cut-through thing that's going to work at this moment. Humility

and the presence of God. Gosh, what a great word to end on. That applies obviously not just to pastors, but any Christian who wants to take their faith seriously. So Mark, thanks so much for being on the show. Again, it's MarkSayersThinks.com. Check out his books, check out his blogs, his podcast, his ministry. And thanks so much for being on the show, Mark. Pleasure.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast as much as I did. If you want to support Theology in the Raw, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw for and support the show for as little as five bucks a month and you get access to premium content in return. So thank you so much to all of my Patreon supporters. You truly keep me going and keep this show going. If you want to join the Patreon theology in the raw community and be part of the team, then go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. So thanks for your support. Thanks for listening. And we will see you next time on Theology in the Realm.