Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1364 | John Luke’s Snake-Handling Lesson Backfires in Front of Terrified Campers

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

John Luke’s attempt to turn a four-foot rat snake into a calm teaching moment for campers goes sideways fast, leaving the kids panicked and John Luke woozy at the sight of his own blood. Al, Zach, John Luke, and Christian use Augustine’s story to dig into why modern people are so restless, why getting what we want still doesn’t satisfy us, and how our appetites quietly train our hearts. The guys contrast Augustine’s confession of sin with today’s culture of self-worship. Al points to history’s examples of Christianity’s tendency to bring order, healing, and hope out of cultural chaos. In this episode: Romans 7, verses 21–25; Romans 8; 1 Corinthians 9, verses 24–27; Philippians 2, verses 5–11; Genesis 1, verse 31 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 11 of Ancient Christianity taught by visiting Hillsdale Professor of History Kenneth Calvert. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/. More about Ancient Christianity: Christ entered the world during the reign of Caesar Augustus. The tensions between Christianity and the Roman Empire shaped the daily practice of the Christian faith and led many Romans to distrust and persecute the early Christians. But Christianity also benefitted from the Roman world. And when Rome collapsed in the West, Christianity provided the hope for preserving civilization. In this free, eleven-lecture course, Professor Kenneth Calvert will explore: How the Jewish, Greek, and Roman cultures all contributed to preparing the world to hear the Gospel. Why many Romans distrusted and persecuted the early Christians. The inspiring stories of Christ, His apostles, and faithful ones throughout the first four centuries of Christianity. The arguments of key early Christian apologists—Ignatius, Irenaeus, Justin, Athanasius, and more—who defended and defined the Christian faith amidst the animosity of the Roman world. The conversion of Constantine and how he brought stability to Rome, and how the rivalry between his sons almost returned Rome to paganism. How Augustine’s writings helped preserve the message of Christianity during the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. You will discover the uncertainties, trials, and triumphs of the earliest Christians as they confronted controversies within the faith and persecutions from outside it. Join us today to discover the improbable and miraculous story of Christianity. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Summer Camp Chaos & ER Trips 05:54 Everyone Wants a Beach Photo 10:43 Augustine’s Influence on the Church 16:10 Augustine’s Wild Past and Conversion 22:23 The Beach Ball Picture of Human Design 29:11 Appetite, Discipline & Reordered Desires 35:05 Augustine vs. Rousseau on Human Nature 43:10 Christianity Brings Order to Chaos — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Well, you shouldn't be playing with snakes. I'm just going to be honest with you. Well, it was part of a whole praise thing we were doing. Oh, boy. It's in the middle of worship. I always say that. Luckily, I was healed. I sure, don't say anything else. Don't say anything else. Camp is changed so much since I was there. Now we're snake and leave.

We ready to count it down? We're already counting. We're already rolling. We're already rolling. Welcome to Hunter Jamil. I was playing solitaire on my computer. Let me get out of that. Overhearing what John Luke said he got bit by a snake and then something about it was part of a spiritual exercise. Part of a worship thing.

Part of a worship thing. He said praise. He said praise. They did that up here. Apparently we do that down here. That's where I learned it back when my Virginia days, my Appalachian Mountain days. That's where I learned that. No, we were at camp.

So camp has started. I'm four weeks in the camp right now. Which you look way better than I used to four weeks in the camp. I guess that's what happens when you're young, Zach, because John Luke looks normal. Like, four weeks of camp into me, I looked like somebody had just beat me.

Yeah. As you said, times have changed. They're handling the stakes. They've tapped in a whole other thing down there now. Well, they've got a lot larger staff than that. We do. We do.

And, yeah, well, last night was a first night in two weeks. weeks, I've gotten more than six hours of sleep. Yeah, it's miserable. I remember. We were doing it. But, yeah, it's been fun. There was a snake, it was just a long rat snake in the, like, in the gazebo. So, like, there's a gazebo, and then there's, like, vines and was swinging so the snake was, like, you know, up top, like going around.

And so I got up there and I, like, grabbed it and pulled it down. And we were all trying to catch it. And I finally got it. And the irony is, it was me and, like, two campers and a counselor. So I was holding the snake and it was probably like, I mean, it was not small. It was probably like four feet long. I mean, like thin, long rat snake. Yeah.

And it curled around my arm and it was just sitting there. And I was telling the campers, I was like, see, like they're not dangerous. Like once you get a hold of them and you're calm, they're, you know, they're not aggressive. And so you're having this little, uh, I have like this all like teaching moment. Yeah, this little snake. What was the guy, snake, a guy that got killed? Yeah, Steve Irwin. Steve Irwin.

Yeah. You were having Steve Irwin. That was a stingray. That wasn't a snake. Well, but he was a snake handler. Similar situation to that, although too soon to even bring it up. So then I'm walking to the woods to let it go.

And it's like wrapped down. So I'm trying to like get it off my arm. And when I pull it off my arm, it like whips around and bites me on the hand. Yeah. And I was like, it was trying, even the, I was trying to get it away right after I said, if you're just calm with them, they're not going to bite you. And I mean, that thing got me so good. And it got me like right here my hand.

And they're like, if you've never been by a snake or like a rat snake, I don't know how many of y'all have. No, none of us have. Never been bit. No. I don't get near snake. They've got like two rows of teeth like inside. So it's like getting bit twice with one bite. And they're so sharp.

Like the first like bite I didn't even realize it. And then it starts to hurt so bad. And there was so much blood because it's like all. there's like needles and it really wasn't like deep or like that bad it's just like a lot of the blood and the campers are freaking out well what you should have done is you should have just thrown it off in the fire than they would have thought you were I know that's yeah if it would have turned into its staff then that would have been a great that would have been thing it really the getting bit instead you just scarred some children for the rest of their life yeah

well they were high schoolers oh they were fine well really the bite wasn't that bad but I just get so, it's really just my blood that, like, freaks me out. Oh, that's what I forgot you have a blood thing. You get that, that's inherited. Yeah, any needles, anytime I see, and it's just my own blood, like I get woozy, anytime I get a shot, I pass out every single time. And so it really wasn't the blood, I mean, the getting bit. It was just the thought of the teeth going into my hand, and I started to, like, get lightheaded.

I called the nurse on the radio. I was like, you got to get me in the nurse that right now, like, stumbled to the, nurses hug, she bansed me up. Oh, my word. So, Zach, that means that John Luke's future as a snake handler is probably not going to, not going to work out. We can't send him out there to the mission field. I know.

Well, my mom got bit by a poisonous snake. She got a bit like water moccasins because of your grandpa. And she almost died. And there wasn't a lot of compassion in that story either. I think we've told it on the podcast before. There wasn't much compassion than you telling you. it either. He said it's a matter of factly. Yeah, but rat snake, that's not a big deal. You'll hear a lot from that. Yeah. And then later that day, I did my first backflip in my life and landed it.

And then that night, we had this like whole camper situation and like multiple people went to the hospital. It was kind of crazy. Not for anything bad. It was a wild day. It sounds like a dangerous. It sounds like you're doing some dangerous stuff out there. I'd be. I was going to do a whole camp commercial, but now I'm not sure I should do that. Yeah, kids to camp. And if they survive, that's a, you know what, then that's a win. Hey, that was a-bites, back flips, and trips to the ER.

Uh-huh. It was actually a counselor, but she just got, she just got dehydrated. So it wasn't that anyone did anything. That's all part of it. Yeah. That's all part of it. But now, yeah, now we're, we got through that week, and now we're in week two.

It really, it really has been awesome. Well, Christian is, in another box so Christian can you don't tell us where you're from well you can tell us where you're at because you'll be back by the time of this area so yeah we're down at the beach and seaside so we're enjoying some enjoying some beach time with the fam but it's been uh it's been fun but we're i'm sure it's not i'm sure it's not crowded i know it's a great place down there on 30A i've heard great things about it been down there myself's a big fan of yeah yeah you hate this area yeah well david naster was like

But when he was on the podcast, he was headed down to 30A as well. And I mean, literally everybody's going down there, which is, I mean, you're going to get stacked in there like cordwood. But I will say that Seaside is probably a nice little, nice little place. It's a beautiful place, but it is, yeah, it's not the best time to come right now. It's been super hot and there's thousands of people here. So a lot of pictures have been taken. But it's been a good time. Well, that's the problem with the whole 30A scene.

I mean, I've kind of ranted on this before, but it's like an influencer's paradise. And so all the pictures look like what you, I mean, it's like they're, you got to keep in mind. If you're, if you're an influencer, like you're really good at taking pictures. And so when you go down there, it looks like it looks in the pictures, except it's like a lot more people. Yeah, I didn't mean like we've taken a lot of pictures. I meant like there's been a lot of pictures taken. What was that? Like with Sadie.

No, I'm not saying y'all were taking the picture. I'm just saying everybody's taking pictures down. There's a lot of cameras. There is a, well, we won't get into my 38th. I would pay $1,000 to see you do a shirtless beach photo shoot. Getting out of water. I'm like James Bond. Let me work out a little bit more before I start.

that. I'd rather, I'd rather talk about St. Augustine or Augustine, however you want to say it. I was, it's so funny. By the way, this is Unashamed for Hillsdale. We're going through the ancient Christianity course. This is our, we're going to hit the last lecture today, which is lecture 11, which talks a lot about the collapse of Rome and the age of Augustine or Augustine, or Augustine, depending on how you say it. I cannot say it as the academics say it. I think it's because I grew up in Florida. Yeah. And it is.

We both drip in Florida, yeah. I researched it as well, and it is two different, two different pronunciations. So when you're talking about the man, it's Augustine. When you're talking about the town, it's Augustine. You can take this course with us, all of our courses that were taken for free at unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Yeah, we'll get into it. I thought this was, I don't know, what, this is kind of like an area that I've studied extensively

the last, I don't know, 10 years or so, this kind of fits at the core of a lot of our theological framework, at least how we're, you know, operating at our church and through our ministry. So I really enjoyed this a lot. I don't know what you guys, you know, if you had any thoughts on and just initial overview. What do you think of the lecture? Well, a little bit of an irony before we get into the man. I am speaking in St. Augustine a week from tonight. And I will be going there for the first time. I've never been there. And it's kind of ironic because we we kind of split our courses here because right in the middle we were promoting for Hillsdale their movie. And so we did the course about Revolutionary America. And by the way, I think since the last time we were on,

I saw the movie, which was outstanding. So good. It picked up right where we left off and gave the whole revolution part, which was really, really good. So same guys. that we saw in our lectures, but they were just talking about the next step. So that's, I don't know where you can find that, but it's excellent, probably on Hillsdale.

But the, so we kind of were in the middle. Well, I always assumed that Jamestown and some of those places we talked about were the oldest settlements in America, you know, the now continental America,

until we got into this. And I was like, wait a minute, St. Augustine is 50 years earlier than the oldest settlement. I did not know that. Yeah. And so, I mean, really super excited not to,

not only to go. both be speaking there to a men's conference, but also to study a little bit of the history. And it was named after our guy, St. Augustine, because they first saw Florida on August 28th, which is, what they called Feastay, which honors St. Augustine. So that was pretty cool. This was new history for me. So, again, we're telling you guys to take the courses. I learned so much stuff that I did not know just by taking these courses.

So that's kind of an irony that I'll be there. So I will report back, Zach. Have you been before? I never have. Oh, it's amazing. It's an awesome town. I've been there. We played baseball tournaments there all growing up.

It's an awesome town. You'll get to see all the old cannons, Al. I know you'll be excited to see that. I love the cannons. He loves the Spanish 4th. They got the old little settlement there. It actually is, so I did know that, Al, but only because I grew up. Well, of course.

And we've already established. You're smarter than me. I don't mean like that. It's okay. There was a caveat. But thanks for reminding me. Yeah. You're actually probably more intelligent than I am.

But I grew up in Gainesville, Florida. And so when I was in elementary school, when I was in elementary school, it was like a yearly trip that we would take, a field trip to St. Augustine. And so we would get the whole history because we would take Florida history. And so it was Ponce de Leon and they came through that area looking for the fountain of youth. It's got the oldest church in America is there. It's a Catholic church. I want to go see that.

It's the basilica, I think, of St. Augustine. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, I'm excited about it. I mean, you think we don't have a lot of things in America that are that old. I mean, we just get back from Italy, Jill and I, and, you know, that was, there was so much, the history there is so rich. the buildings are, and they're building some of these cathedrals in the 12, 1,300's.

I'm sorry, no, 12 to 1,300 years ago. Sorry, I take that back. And so there's just like a, there's, like, they're old and our old are two different things. But St. Augustine's like our one kind of city that maybe you can kind of go back pretty far. And you can see a lot of the, the architecture is absolutely beautiful. But Augustine did play a key role in obviously the Catholic church, the early churches. It's interesting because a lot of different. theological camps kind of try to claim him as their own, which is always fun.

You know, I was like, when I go out, when I go out, that'd be awesome if people were debating over what, you know, what camp you were in. They couldn't quite figure it out, but they wanted to claim you for their home. That's kind of one of the roles that he plays in church history, you know, primarily through two of his works, City of God, which you'll get into today, and then confessions are two of his most famous works. but yeah he had a pretty interesting background didn't he even before he kind of came to christ yeah i i did just discover him three years ago and i read confessions and it changed my brain chemistry i mean it it was so unbelievable like how early of a christian he was and just the um the way that he put his thoughts together in his life and the commitment to god and the change and everything it just

I just felt like I'd never read anything like it. And then that kind of started me down the road of like, I want to study all things Augustine, which I really haven't had that much time or haven't spent that much time on it other than confessions. I haven't read City of God yet. But just like reading those thoughts and now reading more like summaries

about the things he believed and the things he set up and seeing recently the being able to listen to sermons and he are like, oh, that's from Augustine. Like so many of our beliefs, whether of every single delamination, Catholics, all across the board, like you can trace these like grains of seeds of thought back to him in the 300s or whenever he lived. Well, and it seemed like just from, because I haven't read any of his works, but just from reading about him in the lectures, it seems like he's kind of this transitional figure, of from everything from the old time into what then would become the next, however many hundreds

of years, right? I mean, is that kind of, does that accurately define him, Zach, in terms of, I mean, he's obviously a generational figure, which we talk about people like that. And you still have them, I mean, people. I mean, I consider dad a generational figure of our generation. I mean, are there people that do amazing things that get the attention of a lot of people? But he was, wow, I mean, the... Well, yeah, I think as when we've been reading... going through this course of ancient Christianity, and we talked about, like,

tertian origin, and they were, like, foundational church fathers, but they were, like, really out there. Like, they believe some of the things we believe, but also had some kind of, like, the crazier, you know, crazier thing, especially origin.

Whereas Augustine, I feel like, like, was that transition from, like, everyone kind of is doing their own thing to at the same time that he's kind of, forming his beliefs. Constantine's going to be pretty close behind them, like, formalizing the canon, all these creeds are starting to go. And so, like, his, he, I think, led a lot of the thought to, like, centralize and normalize a lot of beliefs that carried on all the way to our day. Yeah, right. Yeah, because up until this moment, probably until Constantine, you have what's

called, the term is called paracoresis, and it was the idea that there was, like, the spirit it kind of just kept the preservation of the church. It wasn't like a real formalized structure. It was really kind of a, it was hard to box in, hard to frame up, hard to systematize, right? The first several hundred years, obviously Constantine starts to institutionalize the church. And I think by the time that, you know, Augustine comes on the scene that, you know, heresies are emerging and counter arguments are emerging and, you know, threats against the church are emerging. And so, you know, the way I've always interpreted his work is he, I mean, if you read like City of God, which, and it's not an easy read, I don't think that his work is, is extremely accessible.

Very brilliant, but it's hard to read. I mean, confessions is a little more accessible to me. But he writes from the perspective of an apologist in a lot of ways, meaning that he's writing like defenses of the Christian faith, so to speak. He's writing kind of arguments for, I mean, obviously he was heavily influenced. by by you know platonism or neoplatanism so you have that dripping in so that which is he's he's giving really sound reasoning and arguments for for you know why christ why why the church why the kingdom and um i thought that was interesting because it said that uh in this lecture they talked about how a lot of what he wrote was in response to questions that were emerging in kind of his

cultural paradigm his friends and people in the university because he was a professor at the University of Milan. And so, like, he's getting all of these inquiries, and he's making these cases based on that. And if you go back to his origins, I mean, he grew up in the kind of a nominal Christian in the Christian faith. He goes to college. He kind of sews his what, I guess you could say was sowing his wild oats, but he fundamentally rejected Christianity and adopted manichaeism when he went while I was in the university in Carthage. And so this is

more kind of a Gnostic view of the world. We talked about these heresies early on of Gnosticism that you have like the spiritual world is good and that the physical world is bad. And so it was like this real dualistic framework. And so that's the framework that he's coming into Christianity

with. And then when he converts to Christianity because he met Ambrose and started to interact with some his work, then he starts to write the case for Christ essentially against these other forms that had formed him early on. So he comes in really as a true intellectual. He's coming in as someone who's really thinking through a lot of the arguments around Christianity. He's making very solid cases for things. And so a lot of that is the reason why he was so influential in the church is then other people started to build on his work. And we're still quoting him. I mean,

people quote him all the time. Do you think that his just his pull to this, what do you call it, the Manichaeism? Manichaeism was because of this sort of hedonistic. Obviously, from reading it, it seems like it reminded me, because, you know, I saw him part of his conversion to Christianity or coming out of that, where he had cried out to God. and he said, you know, he got a voice from God that said, read this or, you know, something that led him to the scripture. And he reads some of Paul's works, and which then leads him, you know, into Christianity. But in my mind, I imagine him reading, you know, like a Roman 7, you know, because he just said Paul's writing, where you're seeing that, that inner struggle, that back and forth, you know, that happens with any man, you know, just at some point in your life where you're just, fighting that. And I just wondered if maybe that's one of the reasons why he would go to that,

because going all the way back to the Greeks, that kind of became a way if the physical body didn't really matter, but spiritual connection does, then you could kind of do what you wanted to with the body. You know, it's kind of the idea. It was like the libertine. Yeah, like it doesn't matter. I just wonder if that was maybe part of this, knowing that his inner struggle seemed to be so much. Does he deal with that in confessions? I mean, does he talk about it? He does deal with of that in Confessions. He says that one of the things that motivated him early on in his life was basically narcissism and selfishness.

So he does actually see that depravity, right? It was just, I want to please me. And it was very selfish and very self-centered. And also in Confessions, I think this is probably one of the most important things that he contributed to of Christian faith was the idea that he says something to the effect of our hearts were made for you and you alone and we are restless until we rest in you, O Lord. And so if you think about

his contribution and particularly in the book of confessions is his work is primarily predicated on a reorientation of your affections, your desires, your heart, your love. And so a very, you know, Augustinian view of what we'd say human anthropology, what does it mean to be human, you would say something that we are primarily lovers. That's what we are. We're primarily religious beings. We're primarily worshippers, desiring beings. These are all synonyms with one another.

And a lot of that comes from this thought. So I think that how does he back into that? Well, he probably had unbridled passions. I mean, did they? That's confessed, right? He had unbridled passions of hedon. And so then he gets to the end of that road and he's like, this is, this is pointless. Like, this is meaningless.

Like, how can we take these passions and then rightly index them? And that's been, honestly, one of the probably primary frameworks for how we teach the gospel at our church is that Christ isn't just redeeming you from a penalty perspective. He's also, and more importantly, he's actually redeeming your desire. He's actually reframing your loves. He's helping us to the power of the Holy Spirit reorient our loves to God and God alone because we're restless until we rest in you. And I'll say this too. There's a book I read by a guy named James K.A. Smith.

He has two versions of this book. One's like a smaller version called You Are What You Love. The other one is called Desire in the Kingdom. In the smaller version, he gives this analogy that I thought was super helpful. on this particular quote of, you know, Augustine, he says that it's like a beach ball.

And if you go to the beach, and you're at the beach right now, so you can try this and tell me if this works, Christian. Perfect. All right. So you get into the experiment later. You blow the beach ball up.

You go into the water and you like, you submerge it. And if you're trying to submerge that ball in the water, what is the ball doing while you're trying to submerge it? Trying to come up to the surface. Yeah. And depending on how big the ball is and how much pressure you can actually put on it, I mean, that can be a pretty violent, like, struggle.

And so if you think about swimming down, you know, 10 feet to the bottom of the ocean, and you're trying to hold this ball down there, it's just going to, like, it's shaken. It's, I mean, it's hard, and it's a violent shake. It's not at rest at all. It has a place that it wants to go, a place it wants to be. And the reason why is because that's its nature. And so if you let that ball go, then it's, it's a place. It's just going to, there's going to be just a, it's going to just shoot all the way to the top of the water.

It's going to come out of the top of the water, probably go up 10 feet in the air, and it's going to land back down in the water. And if you don't touch it again, you just let it do what it's supposed to do, then all of a sudden it'll just, it'll get still and it'll rest. They'll rest. Why? Because that's what it's supposed to do. Like, that's living in its teleology, that's living in its design, its intent, its purpose.

And the point that Augustine, or, again, And the point that Augustine and James K. Smith makes in that book is that that that's us. Like all of our violent struggle, like all of our anxiety, all of that, like that rub and life, that thing that just doesn't feel peaceful. All that is is us trying to live outside of reality. It's us trying to keep that ball under the water. So he says, our hearts are restless until we rest in you. Because why? Because our hearts are made for you and you alone.

So if you try to do something outside of reality, then you're going to be met with that unrest. But if you'll rest in actually what you were created to be and your heart was made for God and him alone, then if you live that out, you'll actually find rest. That makes sense. That makes complete sense. Yeah, that's really good. I thought the other thing that was cool about Augustine, too, is that he converted back to Christianity like a few weeks before his mom passed away, which I thought was really cool. And then we, who did we study last week that their mom was also a Christian as well and had an influence on their life? Was it?

It was Constantine. That's what I thought. That is so cool that Constantine and Augustine both were influenced by the faith of their mom. So I thought that was really interesting. Don't forget, sign up and take the course with us. It's free, Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Yeah. to bring up exact point about, I guess, in his hedonism, whenever I read confessions

and started really kind of reading into the beliefs of Augustine and the formation of beliefs that he had that carried on through, I was thinking, like, why do we not study this? Like, why do, why am I not hearing pastors preach on this? Why am I not, like, studying this in school? And the more I thought about it, the more I kind of realized, like, oh, if he was alive today and did kind of the thing, live the life he confessed in confessions, he would, we evangelist, like, southern evangelicals

would not even touch them. Wouldn't even be like, you're not in at all. That's right. Why? Why do you think that is? I think it's because he, one, his like early life, of just all kinds of sexual sin and morality. And is the one thing that he goes through that, which he repents of.

And I think that is we are modern, our modern moral framework can forgive that. But he gets married. And when he kind of converts back to Christianity and gives us and goes into the church, he leaves his wife. And when I read it, I still today, I'm like, I don't think that is the, that's, that's, not something we would give anyone advice for. Like if someone is married and at 30, they decide they're going to give their life to Christ and go into the ministry. And they're like, yeah, I really feel like my wife has hold me back from what I'm supposed

to do with God. We would say, no, you should stick with her, you know, and stick it out. And Paul kind of said that too, didn't he? Yeah. Right. Yeah. So he kind of missed on that. And I think that...

That was a big miss. That was a big miss. And I think that part of that, the things he kind of talks about in that framework of like giving your all to Christ, leaving everything behind is like a good belief system and one that we all believe. But like in practicality, like there's exceptions where he kind of took it to the extreme. and I feel like that modern pastors or teachers, especially kind of in our group, we tend to be very conservative in like who we point to to trust and read about. And I think these early church fathers and Augustine being one of them is one of those,

like, we will believe what he says and we'll dwell on that, but we don't like to kind of like prop up the man, you know? And I think that's a, for us, us, the positive of that is that we don't hear about, we're careful not to teach about people that would leave us astray, but I think the danger of that is that we miss so much theology and life and ways that we could understand God because we're like a little too careful,

a little too cautious on that front. Do you? Yeah, endorsing someone. Yeah, I'm not sure how to say it. I think I would say that he's probably, I mean, from my perspective, he's probably pretty universally accepted in Western thought, maybe not in Eastern. I mean, most of the pushback I've seen on, you know, Augustine is more from like Eastern Orthodox people that I'm friends with. But, and kind of his view of the Trinity. But, but.

Well, yeah, let me put, I'm sorry, let me say this again. I think that it's not that, and I'm going to, I want you to get your opinion on this. It's not that we don't accept his beliefs. It's that we don't study his early life. I guess that's what I'm saying. Yeah, it's a little shocking. It's a little shocking. I think there is a, I will say this,

I do think that the primary thrust of his work is misinterpreted about a lot of the people I've read, primarily because they try to take his work and then they want to, they want to try to see how did he. See, he already believed what we believe. He believed our system.

And so you'll see this a lot in kind of the debate, you know, the kind of Calvinism, Armenian debate, for example. And then they wanted debate was, well, you know,

we're the original, you know, Augustinians. And, and that's where I think to, is to lose it. It reminds me of a T. T.S.

Eliot quote where he says something about the, essentially, like, they, actually, let me pull it up here. This is a quote, hold on a second, let me say this over. This is a T.S. Eliot is a quote I pulled up here.

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within by dreaming of systems. And you could add theological systems. And they're so perfect that no one will need to be good. I think that's like been the church that I grew up with and how I understood faith. I understood my humanity is primarily I have a, I'm a believing being. and if I can get the right belief system, then I'll be okay. If I can think, if I get my thinking straight, then I'll be okay. And it's not 100% wrong, but the problem is it's like, that's not how I actually operate my life.

Like there's a lot of things that I do even to this day that I know are sinful, and then sometimes I do them. But I know they're wrong. And I even know that they're unproductive and unhealthy and not good for me, but I still do them. Like, Al, Al's lost. How much weight have you lost, Al? 80 pounds. So you spent a lot of years. I remember that you, I mean, I took a decade off from really caring about my house.

Did you know when you were eating the way you were eating? Did you know that this is making me overweight? I had an idea. There's an invention called The Mirror that was quite telling. And I tried not to look. at it. It was just, I was like a man who looked in the mirror and forgot what he looked like, you know. What was your go-to? What was your go-to, like, thing that you loved the most to eat, that you're like, this was not good. What, what was that?

Probably, probably a half of a Johnny's sweep-the-kitchen pizza was right at the top of the list, but you can't say, but the, that's the, well, you got, you got that fat on me half of pizza. I can't hold a beach ball down, so, you know, come on. That's child's play. He wasn't working out either, Christian. But think about, think about that as an example. You had an affection of love and desire for this pizza. Well, I swallowed a lot of aggression, but also with a lot of pizza

and cheeseburgers. That's true. But you knew when you're looking at that Johnny's pizza, like it wasn't like, oh, you knew that if I continue to eat this, I know this is the reason why. I mean, same with me. I know I know why I'm out of shape. People say, it makes me so mad when I'll talk to

someone who's like gotten in shape. Yeah. Like, one of my buddies right now. You got to watch those former fatties. You got to watch. I got a buddy named Shane. I won't say his last name. I know that. You know that, Shane.

And when he gives me advice on, like, what I need to be. I'm like, do you don't think I know? Like, this isn't a matter of what I know. Like, I know how to get in shake. I know how to work out. I know how to eat right. I know what to do. He said, well, why don't you do it?

I don't want to. I want something else, right? And so if you take that same. approach to your spiritual life, we have to understand, and this is what I think, you know, Augustine was getting at, is that we have to get to the place where we have to understand we're primarily beings with an appetite. And so the real thing that has to be addressed is not necessarily what you know. That's important. You can't leave that behind because we are thinking machines, we are thinking beings, but we're not thinking machines. We are affectionate beings.

We are beings with appetites. And so the real transformation in the kingdom actually comes from a reshaping of your appetite. And so how does that happen? Well, it happens through liturgy. It happens through habits. It happens through rhythms. And so I was just telling some of this this week about you, Al, like, your desires for food have changed because you've gone through the program, the Ph.D. Weight Loss program.

You've gone through that. With that comes a counselor. It comes a whole other thing. And so it's a period of time that you went through a total change in rhythms that then reshaped and reoriented your appetite. That's the same thing that happens in the spiritual life. And I think the reason why the church has primarily not taught on this is because that's a lot more. And I want to assist them so I don't have to be good. And that's such a good point.

Remember to take the course with us for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Such a good point, and you're so right. And the thing about it is to kind of tie it into what Luke was talking about earlier, that decade, when I knew that, that didn't, I didn't love God any less during that period. Lisa didn't love me any less, just because there were 80 more pounds of me to love. So it's not like I was a terrible person. I just wasn't doing what I needed to do in one particular area of my life. It didn't make me less even effective to help other people or to be dynamic about it. the word of God. And that's the kind of what you talk about, by the general tenor of a person's

life. But to get into rhythms, especially when it's, you know, sinful situations, I mean, you're right, Zach. I mean, you're so much healthier, just like I am physically now, but spiritually. And it reminds him, when you were talking about that earth about the beach ball, I couldn't help but think about Paul's words in 1st Corinthians 9 when he's talking about running the race. He said, I don't run like a man running aimlessly. I do not fight like a man beating the air. And you just think about that idea about going to get that nature of what you're supposed to be.

And I love that description Paul makes there. And dad used to always quote that all the time, like a man beating the air. You know, and he would always give you the visual signal. But that's such a good point about how we're, you know, designed to be when we're in Christ. Yeah, I pulled up one of my favorite, I guess in quotes from confessions. Here it is. And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea,

and the broad tides of river, and the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without thought. And what he's saying is, like, we're searching for external pleasure, or we're searching for meaning in, like, the external things,

whereas God has put it internally. Yeah. Like, the mystery, the greatest mystery is internal. in ourselves and the things that's going to uh we'll find pleasure and comfort in is inside of ourselves not in like the travels or the world or the whatever it is externally it's actually like internal yeah that's really it's internal and it's born of the spirit yeah because if you think about um his his book the title is the one you just mentioned is confessions and then um

another philosopher years later read another book called confessions it's a very famous work by a philosopher named Jean-Jart Russo. And Russo was the one that was credited with kind of the intellectual power behind the French Revolution, but not just the French Revolution. I mean, even like we just kind of got out of this movement in American culture, the term that you've probably heard is called the woke left and all of that, which is essentially born out of a philosophy called Critical Theory, which came out of Marxism.

It's like a hybrid of Marxism with Rousseau's philosophy and Sigmund Freud and all like put in a like a blender and mixed together. But one of the things that's interesting about Rousseau's confessions, if you read it versus, you know, Augustine is Augustine's confession begins with this, that at my core, I'm actually a sinner. So he starts with like, man is sinful and needs redemption. and where Rousseau started, which I think probably was maybe a jab at, you know, Augustine, he starts with the man is actually born free and in chains everywhere. So he starts with that phrase, which is essentially, no, man is awesome. We are awesome. And then we get chained up by the world around us.

And so his whole philosophy was that you had to get back to your original self, which you're awesome. you, you, you, you. And Augustine is like, no, I'm, I'm sinful. I'm wretched. I'm a sinner for all his sin and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace. So his framework was not a move back into self for the sake of self. It was that the spirit moves in the believer, lives in the believer.

And once that happens from there, life can emerge out of that. And that life looks like a transformation of the heart. And I wanted to read this quote, because you mentioned the quote, John Luke, which is a great quote from confessions. But you can see the same thought even in the city of God when he says the earthly city has made for herself according to her heart's desire. So you can even see it in this work, this idea that we're primarily desiring beings, right? We're motivated by what we want. We're wanters. So according to her wants, her desires, false gods.

So she makes for herself the false gods because of what she wants and desires out of any sources at all, even out of human beings, that she might adore them with sacrifices. The heavenly one, on the other hand, like the Wayfarer in this world, makes no false gods for herself. On the contrary, she herself is made by the true God that she may be herself a true sacrifice to him. that's that picture of the two cities. One is Russo's confession, which is, I'm awesome. I'm going to go make gods after my own image. And the other one is that I'm not awesome. He's awesome.

And I want to be sacrificed so that I can be like him because he's the author of all reality. Those are the two kingdoms. But if you notice in both of his pivotal works, what's at the dead center of that is the human heart. It's what I want, what I have affections for, and what I desire. And he says that's what has to be reoriented by the power of the spirit. No, that's really good. And so true. And it just, I keep going back to that Roman 7 context thinking about what you just described

because that's what you see there. Paul describes this whole back and forth, you know, internal. And the beach bottle thing was so good. And he says in verse 21 of Romans 7, so I find this law at work when I want to do good, evil's right there with me. but in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am.

Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, which he gives us the answer. And then he writes, in my opinion, what is the best chapter in the entire Bible, Romans 8, which gives you that peace of the idea of the spirit. And this quote that they gave as part of the lecture in our notes, I thought was really good because it's kind of a little compilation. This is from Confessions as well. It says, man, being a part of your creation, desires to praise you. Man who bears about with him his mortality, the witness of his sin.

That's that same description Paul had in Romans 7. You move us to delight in praising you, for you have made us for yourself. And our hearts are restless until they rest in you. My faith calls on you, that faith which you have imparted to me, and here's Romans 8, which you have breathed into me through the incarnation of your son. I mean, what a beautiful retelling of exactly what Paul was struggling with. You know, he's giving you that same concept. So I feel like that's exactly where he went when he came into this moment of resting,

that he realized that. That was so good. Yeah, Dr. Cabbert talked about that the central focus of what Augustine taught was, what was about the, the, um, the, um,

the, um, the incarnation, because it was, you know, like we mentioned earlier, it was a direct opposite of,

uh, of the narcissism at the time. Yeah, yeah, and I think that is a key point. I mean, I would, I mean,

others have argued that, you know, he probably still was a little too platonic for, you know, in, in, in some ways, meaning that when you hear someone say like,

platonism or it's kind of coming out of a Plato. And, and the idea was that, that, the, the spiritual world is higher than the physical world. And I think that he probably had some of that framework that I would disagree with. But coming out of what he came out of against the Gnosticism in this heavy emphasis on the incarnation,

I mean, that is that key? That's key to the whole gospel. Because you're saying, is the physical world bad? I think about the whole, I mean, this is actually a great point. I think when we're talking about the Russo and the critical theories and all that, which basically have led many to believe. that they can escape their physical body. There's a whole movement that we just came out of that I can actually escape my physical

body, and that has nothing to do with my identity. That is a clearly anti-Christian idea, that you can somehow escape your physical DNA and that you can shed your body. Like, I can shed my gender. I can choose, that's not me. I'm separate from my body. That is not the biblical teaching of humanity. of biblical anthropology is that I'm a body that a spirit lives in.

I'm not just a spirit. I'm not just a body. I'm an embodied spirit. And he's thinking, well, how does the incarnation have to do anything with that? Because if God is infinitely valuable and he takes on human nature, Philippine's Shepard 2, what does that say about God's view of the physical world? It means he has a very high view of it, which takes us all the way back to Genesis. pre-fall, when he made, finished ever all of the creation, and he looked at man and woman after he made

them, he said it is very good. So the physical world, there is no distinction. There's no secular, sacred divide in God's kingdom. It's all sacred. The only way that the secular creeps in is through sin is that it's when we take the things that God has made, the physical universe that God has made, and we don't see that as spiritual. We don't see that as connected, heaven and earth connected. that's the story of the gospels. Heaven and Earth are going to be reconnected, not separate. We're not ascending to heaven. It's all his. The kingdom of heaven is here. And you get a lot of this from his teaching. And I think when you get into his death later on, it kind of coincides with the fall of the Roman Empire.

You know, and the Roman Empire is like in shambles, they blame the Christians for it. There's a whole deal. But in the end, short story is the Roman Empire falls. And one of the things about this lecture that I really probably underappreciated is that the role that, because he then weaves it in the very end of the last lecture, he weaves into the importance and the role that the Christians played in the Renaissance. You know, like everything, the world's going to hell in a hand basket. He talked about the river freezing over and the Germans would come in and they would fight each other. They would fight the Romans. Everybody was fighting. It was utter chaos for a while.

and the only culture that really preserved up into the Renaissance was the people of God, was the city of God, and it was that city of God that gave birth to the Renaissance. And I would argue when I was listed, and he said we owe America owes her foundation of this as well. I think that's the whole thing out of that we talk about this podcast a lot of time is we belong to a kingdom that can't be shaken or destroyed. So the city of God is actually the city that will remain,

and it will always remain, and it will always be on the forefront of, cultural renewal, always, because it is only God's people that remain. I thought it was so amazing on that note. I just love like this thinking of this visual in the way that he said in the episode. There, when Rome fell or in after that or when the Western Rome fell in 476 and it was just like 400 years of just chaos. Germans are fighting Germans and he gives that whole line. Germans are fighting Germans. Romans are fighting Romans. Everyone's fighting each other.

war, death, famine, all over the place. And out of that, the edge of the empire, the wilderness, the middle of nowhere, Irish come from the north, the North England come from the north, from these just like little pockets of Christianity out there in the edge of nowhere, doing their thing, outside of everything, like come down into Europe, down into the chaos, and let's start creating order again. Yeah. Which is just, like, so good. Like Christianity, it, it's not, it thrives everywhere, but it really thrives in hardship.

And then there's like quiet spaces of the world. Yeah, it's the, it's the balm. It's the healing bomb that's there for the heels of the world in the nations, which is very powerful. What did, what Nassar say? He said that in Iran, the most, one of the most persecuted places in the world, he said when he was on the podcast, It's the fastest-scoring church in the world. Yeah. Under the biggest oppression represented in the,

the most dangerous place to be a son or daughter of the Almighty in the world, and yet it's flourishing. That's the thing. I mean, that's what we've seen this whole lecture. It was the first several episodes were that, was that, I mean,

that was when the church got stagnant, was when the persecutions stopped happening. So it is such a crazy dichotone. me that how the church truly does flourish under the most intense persecutions. It's very powerful. I feel like we've got more, Zach, to say, because we got right up to the end, but I want to explore that more and the prodigal aspect of his life, too. I feel like there's a little bit more for our old friend, Augustine. So we'll pick this up on the next podcast. Remember, you can take the course with us for free. You're going to love it. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com is where you do that.

and we'll come back and tie off this great study of ancient Christianity next time on our podcast. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no calls to you. That's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss an episode of the Unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.