Sacramental Knowledge and Ontology of Education with Sam Burrows

In this conversation, Joey Millington and Jon Hoskin sit down with Sam Burrows to discuss what knowledge is and how teachers should approach knowledge within a Christian sacramentality of the world.

00:00 Introduction
01:32 A theological account of reality
5:52 Christian education needs to start with theological reality
10:47 T. F. Torrence and theological reality
20:50 Knowledge is a relationship
30:22 Knowledge is embodied
36:17 Is Distance Learning Problematic
50:00 Sam's Favourite "Makerspace" guests
52:25 Sam's 3 Proposals for teachers
1:00:15 Where do we learn this new way?

Check out Sam's podcast with CEN, "Makerspace," where he interviews world-leading Christian thinkers to help teachers/educator in Australia. https://open.spotify.com/show/1DklD6kT4wEWUaF64y8pRh 

Lunch on The Way is a podcast that deeply discusses Christianity, Church, Culture, and Jesus.
Available on ALL podcast platforms https://lunchontheway.buzzsprout.com/share

Podcast hosts are Greame Flett, Jonathan Hoskin, and Joey Millington.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any affiliated organisations or ministries.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What might be the the best way to describe knowledge then? Maybe communion. And I think we're still in that kind of period where knowledge is a convenience store for us to go and get it and then do with it what we will. And what Sam, I think you're saying, right, is that no no no, it's a relationship. Like it tells us what it needs to do with it as well.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

A teacher is someone who helps a student to be brought into a true relationship with the world, with God, uh, within themselves, with other people and the world. I mean, are you imagining a bit of a revolution in the classroom?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Ontological? Is that the right word to use? Ontology of education? Yeah. Dang, here we go.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Here we go. Here we go. This is gonna be on the internet.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

What about this foundational incarnational presupposition to education? How does that interact with online learning? Which is just, it's gonna happen. It's it's here. So we really hope you enjoy this conversation today. So we've been we've been weaving a lot into kind of the sacramental idea of the world. I'm just gonna jump right into it. And you sent me a message, Sam, uh, when the Alexander Schmemman conversation, I had just published it, and I think it was like less than 24 hours. And you said, Man, I wish I was there in the room with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

We find a spirit in the room, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

I wish you were too. I was like, dude, man. I don't know how to do four cameras. I gotta we have an interview uh in a month where I need four chairs, and I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna shoot this thing. But anyway, just straight off the hop, what about that conversation piqued your interest? Like, why did it take a lot to send a message, to be honest, after listening to podcasts. I've sent you a couple from stuff that you've published, and usually it has to be something that really resonates with you. So, what really resonated with you in that conversation, kind of as a starting point to maybe moving into here a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Well, I mean, great theologian to be looking at, uh, great book to be to be reading, and I just I probably just missed the conversations with with you guys, and so there was that. But also I think um it starts to get in you start to talk about reality and and like a theological account of reality, and I think that's a very interesting conversation to be having right now. Yeah. Um and I think why right now? Because I think uh people are becoming quite interested in in metaphysics in a way which um like out of a sense of necessity, you know, like maybe they they want something to plant their existence in that's a bit more meaningful, a bit of like order in the in the chaos a little bit. And so I think the the metaphysics question is interesting to people, and I think I've just seen some research come out about Gen Z spirituality, and interestingly enough, a whole chunk of those young people who turn back to some form of organized religion, one of the words they use is cosmos. Like, what is the world and how can I explain the world? And so that's fascinating to me. So I just think this is this is a good time to be talking about being and reality.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Do you feel something shifting within yourself as well? Like over the past five years that is kind of new and different within that, you know, what you what these other younger people are describing?

SPEAKER_03 3:48

Within myself, yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think I'm I'm really interested in in that question. I think part of that is is John, you know, like um in asking like what is being, and it's a really important question. And I think when it comes to teaching, you know, we talk a lot about practices and principles, um, and then you know, how basically you're asking how do we ask how do we teach students to learn about reality? And the question behind that is what is the reality we're asking them to come to know? Yeah, yeah. So that's why it becomes important to me.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah. And why are you into being so much? Like I know you wrote a PhD thesis on being from a Heideggerian perspective, whatever that means.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Um, but it seems like you're you're a little bit of like the nexus of all of our interests in in this topic of like a sacramentality of the world and what being is, and are we actually seeing what there actually is?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yeah, I think there's two streams to it. Well, I mean, one, I think I've always been interested in um what's the right way to live, what's you know, what are we doing here, um you know, what what should we be doing here? But I really fell into it, I think, w during the PhD, where I read started reading Heidegger, I think totally by accident, and he was talking about things I had no idea he was talking about. Like he you know, he was asking basic questions about what is the nature of reality. And through my whole f uh theological training, we'd never talked about that. And that seemed to me to be the basic question, and then we just go to it from there. And he was. Which was exactly his point that the whole question had been lost. And in fact, if you don't start with that question, then you're already off the path.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

So let let's ask that basic, basic question. And what I realize and what I came to realize is that the most important theologians are always working with that question. That is the question that they're working with. It's like the clay that they build their whole kind of theological um works out of. And if you're if you're not working there, you're just plain plain on the side.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder, I wonder if we do skip to this. Because you sent through a book chapter that you've written that isn't published yet, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:55

No, uh, yeah, published in in a few weeks.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

In a few weeks, so there we go. And so for my take, you basically are are making an argument for a sacramental understanding of education. Not in the sense that it is a sacrament, but in the sense that like if if being itself is charged up with a sacramental world as a presupposition, then there is no such thing as Christian education. Christian education is just a silly phrase that means like that's that's already you're conceding a point, right? You're concede you're giving way to a different understanding of the world that's not Christian by just saying Christian education.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Do you still do you still stand by that state of that?

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Because if I had to summarize, and I want you to push back, if I had to summarize from what I understand of that of your chapter, is that education itself is predicated on Christ Himself, which is predicated upon the being and created order that has been established in him. And that that all we are doing is actually coming into communion with Christ is actually fundamentally education. Yeah. Yeah. Do you still think that? Because you you sent this through a little while ago.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Yeah, I mean, I I do think there is such a thing as Christian education. I but I hear what you're saying. Yeah. I think um I start this chapter talking about first principles, and so um you you're asking the question straight off the bat, what what is it that enables everything else to be what it is, or structures everything in the way that it actually is? What is the first principle that grounds everything else? So I think uh immediately went in to say, well, I don't really think that question gets asked of Christian education. So so if I can rewind a little bit, um if you look in a lot of the current literature around Christian education, uh it tends to operate among sort of among the the principles and the practices space, so which kind of mirrors John Mark Comer and people like that, right? They're into practices and liturgies and stuff like that. So in the in the Christian education space, there's writers like uh James K.A. Smith and and David Smith, who and their the whole point of their books are we understand that this is a tricky conversation, so let me break it down for you so it's easy. If you want to do Christian education, you know, form young people or form people in this way, um, where you can give them some practices and you get to draw them into a sort of life. So their whole point is not to ask the big metaphysical question. So I won't don't want to say that they're doing they're not doing it. I think that's just not what they're about. But it does mean that the literature can sort of be a little it can leave the the being question alone. Yeah. And it's exactly what you're saying, like it kind of just assumes it. And so what can happen, unfortunately, in the Christian education space is you have um education, which is we're gonna teach you about maths and and science and English, and we're gonna teach you about you know skills and and content, and we're gonna get you ready for university or get you ready for a job. Um, we're gonna give you give you these things that are normal.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

And then um what we're also gonna do is we're gonna give you this Christian content. So, you know, you've got all this other stuff like atonement theories and and who is Jesus, and like what is the Holy Spirit, and gonna teach you uh doctrine, and gonna teach you worldview questions like how do you live well? Um, but those two kind of operate in completely different spheres, and never the twain shall meet, you know? Yeah. Um, and that's a bit of a problem. Um, and what we and what Christian education kind of wants to do a lot of the time in these conversations is how can we pour that into this to make it Christian? How can we get the Christian content and make it in? And then we want to put practices in there as well. So what I'm kind of seeing is a gap in the literature, and I've done a lot of hunting now, actually, uh, is no one is asking really in the Christian education literature, they're doing it in theology. Yeah. In the Christian education literature is um, what is this reality we're coming to know? And if we start there, can we get to those principles and practices? So, yeah, that's probably where I'm coming from.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Yeah, that's probably a better way to phrase it as opposed to you think Christian education doesn't exist. That'll be the title of the episode. Probably. Sam hates Christian education. Don't do that to him. No, I won't do that to you. No, because you work for an organization that helps me job. I'm just kidding. Uh also, if you're watching this on YouTube, you might notice that uh Jonathan and I have coffees and Sam has water. I said, Would you like coffee? And you said, uh, nah, I don't want to be too complicated for you. I said, no, plunger. Have a plunger coffee. He's like, no, I'll get my own. That's because I'm a decaf guy, man. Oh, are you?

SPEAKER_03 10:28

Yes. Dkef oat cappuccino. Extra hot one sugar. I'm not putting that in a message just too embarrassing.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

I've never I've never made an order beyond just uh like a flat white in my life. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. God bless you. Is that the Sydney rubbing off on you?

SPEAKER_03 10:41

No, I've been like that for a while, and then I took that Abu Tazi with me. So no excuses.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Okay, so that's where you begin. And so I think this one person I I think is grounding a lot of this interaction that you're making, and it's Torrance. Yeah. I know almost nothing about this guy, Torrens. I know that everybody here who's in a graduate program at Laidlaw is like, Torrance is the man, and I'm just like, what are you talking? Who is this Torrance guy? I know I know a little bit, but it's like just scratching the surface. So where should we because he's a foundational person to who you're interacting with, right? So should we begin there?

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Well, Torrance, TF Torrance, the guy you're talking about, is a Scottish well was a Scottish Reformed theologian. Um so he operates within the reformed world, but he pushed the pushed the thinking of that space really well. Now, if I could uh sum up his thought into one thing, it would be he takes the mediation of Christ really seriously. He basically he basically says this none of this has any meaning unless it's related to Jesus in some way and he holds meaning in his being. Uh and so that becomes a very fertile soil, you know, you're talking about Schmimmen and all these other guys. Yeah, they're all kind of saying that in different ways and with slightly different um you know slants on it. Uh but that's really what he's what he's getting at. So when I use the word sacramental, for example, yeah, it would probably be a little bit different to to some Catholic understandings, for example. Good.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

So how would you like can you explain that difference? Because I'm my mind is is stuck in an Eastern Eastern Orthodox sacramentality. I can't escape it. I actually don't know of other sacramentalities, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. So what what do you mean by sacramental?

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Um well I g I think probably most sacramental uses would be similar, like um in some way you're saying God is real related to creation. Um so uh some would have a more pronounced version of that. Um but Torrence is really saying Christ in the incarnation has made reality or has joined reality to his being. So in in doing that, he's rescued reality from futility. So we nothing is meaningless because it is bound to him, um, especially human beings, right? So we're basically saying um you know, one way you could put it is if if Jesus is the thread that comes out of God, sews into the the human fabric and sews them back together, and it's like God can't ditch us because he is one of us, you know, he's bound us to his being, and that won't be undone. This is what Paul says as well, right? So I g I guess what you're what we're saying is all of all of reality now is bound and caught up with him. That would that would be Torrance's view of it. So just because he's distinct from creation does not mean he's distant.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Oh okay. And so is it everything I think I think that's I don't know. I don't yeah. Yeah, you're about to say something.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

No, I just have questions about about that. Because it it makes it sound like incarnation is something that's a different thought that happens after the fall. Like it incarnation wasn't gonna happen at all. And so therefore the incarnation is a rescue mission. But in fact, you can I mean there are different readings of that where the incarnation is was always gonna happen, yeah and that the world itself, creation itself is is is Jesus like an archetype of creation itself. So it was already primed for the incarnation to happen. So therefore, the world is already in sacramental before Jesus becomes incarnate. So it's a it's a different reading and it takes you down a totally different path. Because what happens is that without that, you just get brute creation and God. So if you don't have a relationship right at the beginning, underlying the whole thing, then what's then then then I think that leads into his understanding of this is the real and this is not the real. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, but that's not sacramental. That's not what the sacraments that's not what Schmeman is saying, I don't think. Yeah, exactly. So so I'm all I'm saying is that there's two different ways to read this thing, and they'll take you down slightly different paths.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

I'm a novice in this, so you guys keep talking and I'm gonna try and pick up and summarise things.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

No, no, no, yeah. I I think um importantly, I mean there's lots of things he says about this, and I haven't read all of it. So but one of the things he'd say is um Christ as the logos, yes, what he does in the incarnation is entirely consistent with his being in action. So something it's like saying creation was always loved and in relationships and the incarnation was like the marriage. Yes. You know, so that was the that's where it happens. But but it doesn't mean that it w was just brute matter before. Like the logos always sustained it. But then something absolutely crucial happened in the incarnation which confirmed or if you want to use that language, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there are important distinctions, but I think ultimately I think torrents and Eastern Orthodox tradition Eastern Orthodox tradition is is pretty home with each other, actually.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

I think that's exactly right. I do yeah, I think that's right. And it and lot as long as you get down to that kind of level and you're talking at those things. So Logos is really good. Logos is really good, yeah. But Shmemon and um yeah, sorry, Torrence was yeah, or he was in conversation with Eastern Orthodoxy. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, h they had a h high regard for each other. Yeah, and soaring each other. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Because I think what what Shmeman would say uh that I might I don't know, I haven't read Torrance, but he would say that what's the what a distinct among many things, but a distinct feature of the incarnation of Christ and the totality of what that means is that the the ecclesia, the church, is then gets to participate simultaneously in the future and the present. Yes. And so th he would say the liturgy reveals this in a very very meaningful way. Yeah. Symbolizes in its full sense that we're being brought into the future, but simultaneously we being brought back. And so it's kind of like that's the shift that's taken place if from like a pre-incarnation to a post, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Yeah, I think so. What I would also sorry, I'm just on another thought to to add about Terence is and so there's always a saving of the language. So the Eastern Orthodoxy take on Greek uh Greek uh th language, they take on Greek concepts and kind of bring them to their fullness, which is the Christian understanding of them.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

When I read Tyrrhens, I still I see him I see that needing to happen. I think he doesn't. I wonder if the followers of Terence need to do this too. They take scientific language, leave it at a mo leave it still at that modern period, talking about objects and the real and all this kind of stuff. But what they what needs to happen is they need to then they need to save that language for the modern period and bring it up and Christianize it again. There's an there's an extra work that needs to happen with torrents. Because otherwise, and I say that because he's using he wants to talk to science.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

And to talk to science, it's the modern scientific project. He needs to use modern scientific language. But there's a danger in that. There's there's there's a saving grace in it that you can Christianize it, but there's a danger in it that people only hear you talking in a scientific mind f mindset. And I think that's that can be dangerous because it's not sacramental. It's not sacramental at all. So that's all.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

I think it helps to understand where Torrence is because he's he's you know mid-20th century, he's dealing with people like Rudolf Boltman, yeah, who like wants to do this demythologizing stuff. And he's saying, no, we just we need to we need to theological science is not so much applying scientific language to theology, but saying we need to be as rigorous with our thought theologically as we we do with everything else.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

And so that's what he means by theological science. And so he applies that to Christian thought. And he's and so when you're talking about basically he if he's addressing these early 20th century guys who just want to say, well, maybe this is human construction and projection, and this is a redaction in John's gospel. It's nominalism, you know, and and Torrance is like, no, no, no, no, this is something we're cut we're in contact with something real here. Can we be really rigorous with our thinking? We start from the logos and move out, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So in many ways he's a bridge between two different ways of viewing the world.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

I think that's right.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

And as a bridge, you aren't totally one or the other, right? So your criticism of him being not sacramental enough because of his object-subject dichotomy language and some other language that he uses is like, well, fair enough, but he at least gets to communicate with people who aren't even there, who can't see even begin to see what you see, Jonathan. Yeah. And are only here and can only see this point.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Yeah, for and I and I think Torrance is what you were saying. He is actually pushing further and further further into that space, but you need to be very attuned to his language and you need to read him very, very clever carefully. You can't just read it off the page and say understand what he's saying. You have to watch what he's you have to really watch what he's doing. Yeah, yeah. And that's a whole different ballgame.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Well, one one phrase that he uses a lot is um the phrase onto relations. So I don't want to read too much into it, but that sounds very similar to what Heidegger's doing. So Heidegger is like you're a you're bit you're being in the world. You are you are entangled, you are um caught up in something from the moment you are you're born. Um you don't start as a detached observer. And Torrence uses onto relations to say, yeah, ontologically in your being, what's most real about you is the fact that you're related to everything else. So you're not a discrete observer. So they're kind of saying similar things there, and he's not allowing you to do the detachment stuff. He's saying you're bound to this world and you're bound to other people, you're relation to constituted, God upholds you, like everything about you is relational, and in fact, everything about everything is relational. He listens to a lot to quantum physics, he's really into quantum physics, and so yeah, he's coming from that kind of view. So he's trying to push that theology out to consider the being question, I think. So yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Okay, so he he he begins with the incarnation as as the as as understanding being itself and the creation in the world, everything kind of is seen from the incarnation perspective. Exactly. That's Torrens. Yeah. So where does that lead you then with how you then shift the view of education not being just liturgical practices and um and uh and just information that people need to know? Like how does that actually inform education? How does the incarnation do that?

unknown 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

On a on a I don't know, is this like on a meta-level, I guess, right? Like we're talking about ontological, is that the right word to use? Ontology of education. Yeah. Dang, here we go. Here we go.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Here we go.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

This is gonna be on the internet.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

Um Yeah, I think um one of the one of the struggles within some Christian institutional spaces is that it can use legal language or judicial language a lot um to say that we've moved from one side of the ledger to another because of Jesus. And and that's an important part of stuff. But I think um where torrents pushes things uh and where other fingers push things. So I I think I've used other people as well as as well as torrents, is to say that no, something much bigger went on than just moving from one side of the ledger to another. Like we understand reality very differently. And first thing we've we've Seeing that the order that we all kind of see in some way or one form or another, you know, go stretching back to ancient Greece and onwards, of looking around the world being like, there's some sense to this somehow. Yeah. Um, the New Testament is like, yeah, that's Jesus. Yeah, yeah. So so reality is personal. Um, and then the other thing is is the the other sort of if you could say the other first principle, which makes no sense, is the resurrection, because that kind of s kicks off something completely different. And so these first Christians are navigating a world where suddenly reality is saying totally differently. They're like, oh, it's all rooted in Jesus, and entropy isn't where where it's all heading, it's not heading towards death, it's like something new has begun. So death doesn't have the final say. And if that's true, suddenly you're in a world where death doesn't have the final say on you, so you're free. You're free to live in a personal world where God is clearly for you because that's what Jesus has revealed. Death doesn't have a say, so what are you going to do with your life? And suddenly obedience becomes a very creative act. And so this is why Paul is saying things like, in whom and through him all things hold together. You're like, that's a pretty big Jesus. You know, a lot of us are pretty comfortable with Jesus of Nazareth walking around doing miracles and teaching. What if he holds everything together? Or in Hebrews, he upholds things through the power of his word, or is uniting all things together in Christ, you know, in Ephesians. These are pretty big concepts. That's what we might call the cosmic Christ, right? Yeah. And I want to take that really seriously and be like, okay, so you know, this comes back to a sacramental understanding. So if you're teaching science, you're not just teaching about brute matter, you're teaching about matter that is related to Christ in some way. It's all an echo of him. Well, what happens if you if that's your first assumption about the world is that he's it's all racing towards risenness in him. Well, some of the ways of approaching knowledge begin to change because you know, we have, especially with the the rise of AI, a certain way of of coming across knowledge might be, you know, conquering or mastery. But that that implies that that's we have all the agency. Or maybe it's a constructivist version of knowledge where we're the ones discovering. Well, there's a certain truth to that where we want to co-create with with God, but at the same time there is stuff to come to know. Um and so what might be the the best way to describe knowledge then? Maybe communion. So yeah, so what does that mean to start with communion?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah, I wanna sorry, I don't want to make up on mute right now, but I wanna I want to go back to those categories of how we come to how we view knowledge in the first place. So I forget where you started that, but that was really helpful. I don't know if you could find it, but I think there you go. Communion's the last bit. So you said so that's actually really important. Like then what what is knowledge? Because uh the what you're using. When I keyed in here, yeah, because that's what education is from our perspective, right? It's it's a giving, it's a gnosis. It's like it's a giving of knowledge. And so what are you even giving? What is the knowledge that's being given? And so when I saw those, they were subtle, I don't know if people picked up on this, but you said knowledge as conqueror, or as to be conquered, or like knowledge as construction, or what you're saying is knowledge as communion, right somewhere there, or here, or conquering, there we go. Yeah. So those are meta like that's that's a metaphor, right? Yeah, and so that's deeply that that's just like trade in my head. I was like, ding ding ding, PhD thesis, here we are. What what does the metaphor of of conquering imply when it comes to knowledge, you think? Like what what I think we kind of see it a little bit, but what if you had to like elaborate a bit more on that?

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Well John, you'd probably be very good at this.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

I mean Yeah, I mean yeah. I mean, one of the things is that um knowledge is there to take hold of and to conform to what we need it to do. So it's a resource. And Heidegger was very big on this, and he saw this move happening, and so did many others. Guardini, a lot of the other kind of kind of Catholic thinkers and Protestant thinkers saw this move happening very early in the modern period, that they saw us uh that the the whole world and knowledge was a standing reserve. That's it. It was there something for us to it was just out there for human beings. So everything became very uh individualized. And I think we're still in that that that kind of period where knowledge is a convenience store for us to go and get it and then do with it what we will. And what Sam, I think you're saying, right, is that no no no, it's a relationship. Like it tells us what it needs to do with it as well. It's not just about us doing something with this dead matter out there, this resource of stuff. It's like no no no, how do we come into a relationship with it? How do we work with it? How do we make it flourish? Yeah, and the same time is helping us to flourish. If we're truly in an on-to relationship, there's got to be a bit of give and take. We just can't take everything from the land because it's just gonna die. We need to learn how to take stuff and let it lie furrow and then let it grow again.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

That is the relationship that we're coming into. And I think in my mind, Christian education is giving people that disposition. That it's not just here, you're just here to learn stuff, go off and get your best job. No, how do you come into a relationship with the world around you? Australia. How do how do we commune with it? You should have written this thing. Yeah, how do we how do we commune with it?

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Give me the appendix. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

How do we and how do we commune with it? Yeah. And then the sacramental comes in here right and it says, How is God speaking to me through this world? When I make let the land go far for a while, let it to let it come back to itself, let the soil come back. What's it telling me about the kind of person that God is?

SPEAKER_02 27:44

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

So that that's a sacramental view of the world. The the the the the natural world tells us something truly about God.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

What that keys in for me, this might not be the most apt analogy, but I think of all all the all the people who read self-help books or books that have like deep application, because you're trying to mine knowledge, you know, conquer it, grab it, but then they don't do anything with it. Yep. But they're just extracting it and not actually applying it. And even one step further, I would say if it's a if you're actually living in a sacramental world, as a Christian, and this is your perspective. Well, if you read any resource you read, you should in it if if knowledge is communion, then probably you need to be asking the question, Lord, what do you have what do you have for me here? Yeah. Even in the most mundane things.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Because it's you know, you can read fifty books that are like highly uh application oriented to help you change your life, you know, habits or you know, whatever, nine to five. Make your bed, whatever, just twelve simple rules for life, Jordan Peterson, right? But if you actually don't do it, then it means it's like that's that's the missing, like the gnosis means nothing if you actually aren't being invited into something new.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Can can I then ask a question? Because yeah, so that kind of practical um uh way of that we've just been speaking about, that it's our actual way that we move in the world that tells us something about what we think about the world and how we interact with it. So I notice that you go to epistemology, which is in my mind, it comes back to the mind again. Fair enough. Not so much about the body and how the body moves in it and how we come to know the world around us by how we move in it. Um what do you think about that? Do you do you think there's a do you think there's a uh a big shift here? I mean, is this maybe this is the reformedness of torrents? He he seems to me, when I in my reading on him, he's very very heavy on epistemology, very heavy on how you know. But in as we know, the body already knows how to move and move in the world. What do you think? Do you have a opinion on that?

SPEAKER_03 29:46

Well, this is interesting because yes, I use torrents, but I this definitely isn't like a torrents paper. But we can talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Um But you quote him so I do, yeah. As a as a very authoritative source.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

I do, yeah, you're right. Um I think get your coffee so that'll be great uh ASMR.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

It would be a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to point out that uh these guys have poured themselves coffees, and poor old Sam over here has more than yeah, I think to bring it back to Torrance, yeah. He has a couple of phrases. Um cataphysic knowledge is this idea of of what a guy.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Cat huntagenesis.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

What you get in the weeds, you're you're in which means knowing according to the being that you're coming to know. Right. So he he's doing that work. What's also really cool about him is that he talks about concepts as being uh always uh r revisable. So everything we have is always revisable in light of reality. And so um he look he uses the um he uses the example of the atom quite a lot. Like we had an example of the atom, or a concept of the atom thousands of years ago, like with I think it was Heraclitus or Democritus, I can't remember. Um, and it was like a grain of sand, a tiny grain of sand, or the basic building block of reality. And you know, if you fast forward now and real we realise that an atom is mostly empty space and it's energy and it's protons, neutrons, and electrons. So the actual content has changed, but the concepts that we started with helped us to interrogate reality further to see what it is and to then revise our assumptions. And he thinks we should do that with theology as well. So he's not sort of um he he wants to take Christ really seriously, and as we as we look and gaze at that, that should revise our concepts. But to come back to your question about um about embodiedness, yeah. I I don't think that's something that um he addresses so far and that what I've read of him. But when it comes to teaching, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Students in classroom with teacher bodies, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Because I've noticed that and I've noticed that how the teacher moves in the classroom says teachers so much. So I come away from the the blackboard, I walk into the classroom, I bend down with the students, I look them in the face, and that there is more teaching going on in that moment about hey, what we're doing here really matters. And I'm showing you by the my disposition and the way that I'm comporting myself amongst you. Uh that is that is it that is the teaching moment in my mind.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

But I think you can get that from the incarnation. So God didn't just say, here's the new ideas that you all need to believe. I'm out of here. Yes. He came and he dwelt, you know, in a culture and a particularity with emotions and the psychology and a and a history and a geography. Yes. And he's working with his hands and he's working with people and getting them amongst their lives. And washing their feet. He's washing their feet. Yeah. And and all of that says something. It's like, oh, particularity is really important and presence is really important.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

And onto relational stuff is really important. And and so what you're saying before about you want to st you want to be brought into a good relationship with the world. I think I think that's it. I think a teacher is someone who helps a student to be brought into a true relationship with the world as much as possible, obviously. With God, uh within themselves, with other people and the world. Um and so you're helping them to resonate with the right things. Yeah. Of course it's going to be through your body. Um, but you you know, this can't just be about ideas. You're gonna need when you're teaching, let's say a teacher is teaching Christian studies or teaching biblical studies, and it's all like you need to believe these things. Yeah. Um one example could be um you could read the book of Luke and notice that Jesus mentions the poor 30 times. Yeah. And you could be like, learn that fact. Okay, Jesus mentions the poor 32 times or whatever. Um He talks about money 117. That's not doing yeah, that's not doing Christian studies. Yeah. What you should be doing there at that point is like, okay, he talks about them 32 times. How are you feeling right now? Yeah. I feel quite uncomfortable. Why? Because I don't think about the poor. Exactly. That's your teaching. That's your teaching moment. I'm I'm uncomfortable, and that tension is the generative place where you now get to learn how do I relate to the world. Yeah. And what's that tension teaching me, which I know you'd be. It's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Are you are you I mean, are you imagining a bit of a revolution in the classroom? No. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

I don't set my sights that highly.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Okay, okay. Well, because I'm I'm seeing like the implications of it. So so I love what you said about the being in the worldness of Christ. Because I know people are like, but why can't why couldn't we have just been given propositional facts and information and truths about Jesus and what to believe and stuff, and why we why are we given theological stories? Like, why is that a median? I'm like, well, because you don't actually you don't know anything if it's not storied. You don't because story invites you in, it's communion, it invites you to participate. And so when when you said it used that point about Jesus, I learned this kind of this is an aside, but it was so profound. How uh Jesus, his posture towards, I think it was Jairus' daughter who was dying. Yep uh he wasn't rushed to get there. He just he got there, it was obviously what, two or three days later, something or more. And and you're like, okay, so that's a dispositional thing. He wasn't rushed. There's that's a way of being, but the second thing uh so this person was teaching on the Aramaic, and they said actually the translated he he speaks Aramaic to the tomb to the to Jairus' daughter. He doesn't say little girl, he says little lamb. And and then when he said that, I had like a little a tear went down my eye because he's like, Well, that's probably what Jesus would have said to his sisters, you know, in like in terms of endearment. He's like, Come little lamb, rise up. And you're just like, you know, it's like you can't teach that in propositions, right? Like there's so much in that that just invites you in. And that's like the incarnation is like you're building a good case. Like it's that's that's why we have the gospels as we do, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:48

And that's and that's the danger of turning Jesus' life into a set of precepts. Like he did this in this situation, what would Jesus do? Yeah. But I think what he's doing is is who have I got in front of me? And therefore, what do I do? Like he's he's responding to a whole bunch of different people. You get a very different Jesus when he's responding to the Pharisees, to people from other nations, to the Jews themselves, to the poor. Like which Jesus are you gonna take? Well, he's yeah, he's doing it in a certain relationship with with different people. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Second thought, I I don't know if we want to go down this rabbit hole, but uh a number of months ago, I will not name names, a number of months ago we had somebody from Australia come in to talk about um to talk about distance learning education and how it's inevitable things are going online and there's that screen between the persons, because we're talking about being in the world, right? And that's education. And so someone and it it there wasn't a criticism of the model on a philosophical level at all. It was just an assumption that this is the future. We need to adapt or else institutions are gonna die as a result of not adapting. Okay, cool. So just do it better. So someone asked had the audacity to ask the question. I didn't see their face or their name, but they because I was listening to the recording of it. And uh they said, Well, what about the implicit Gnostic implications of the screen that's actually teaching us? It's like the be our being in the world through that screen in education is actually teaching us more about what it means to be human than it is just about tr knowledge transfer. Yeah. So what about this foundational incarnational presupposition to education? How does that interact with online learning online learning? Which is just it's gonna happen, it's it's here, and people are pushing into it just for survivability reasons. Uh yeah, what do you have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 37:36

Yeah, I actually spoke to um a woman called Diane Hockridge from Ridley College um a little while ago, and she's exploring this option. And I think there is a certain inevitability of a of occurring with that because it actually allows more people to study as well, so it's actually really good. Yeah um but she she looks at it and says, what we need to do is uh leverage the ecologies that people are already in. So what you've got to say is whatever happens with this learning platform probably isn't the primary space to do life. So they're already in an ecology with other people, um, or a network of relations, or whatever you want to call it. So let's let's make that the place where this real world stuff happens. So we set them a task where they go and talk to this person, interact in this way, and then come back and report on it. So we realize that the screen stuff isn't this is helpful, but this is where the the stuff actually happens, is in is in that. So using their actual communities that they're already in to make the stuff happen.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Is recognizing the limitations of the screen and overcoming it. Yeah, and with some of the students we have, we have a cohort system set up just for that. Like they're in a con and that's what I really like about not to promote it, uh our distance learning program on a cohort level, is that it is it is that, right? Or you can be a student who just completely disengages from your community and just engages on a screen, and that's kind of up to you. But you could be a part of so it's a bit more of an ownership almost. Because within my education at in university, you just we were on campus, you lived in a dorm. It was a small university, like uh 300 people maybe at its height, and you just you couldn't check out. People were not going to let you check out or just skim, like just coast, like you were gonna be dragged in, and so that's lost though, with this shift in education. Yeah, because it's now on you to kind of unless you have some really overbearing parents or a spouse who just like won't let you, you know, but it's it's on you. Yeah. And I wonder if something's lost in that.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Yeah, I think I in my mind the the what's lost is is the relationship with the teacher. Yeah that that gets lost in it because what happens is that the teacher just just becomes someone that gives you uh access to information. And what man, the best learning I've ever had is where you have spent three years with a lecturer, you've watched them drink coffee in the in the cafeteria.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Do you know what I mean? You've seen them get out of bed and they've had a really bad day, but they still come back to wanting to teach their subject. Do you know what I mean? There's something about the closeness of a mentor and a mentor that you truly become, you you are brought into the field that you're studying in. And without that, I just don't think you're doing deep learning. You're doing content learning, but it's you're not learning how to be uh a theologian. Yeah. What it means every single day of your life to think theologically or as a teacher, you're not learning how to be a teacher, to struggle with the material, to have to write stuff all the time, and watch someone go through that that's been through it. You lose the the relationship. And I I think this is a big problem in the church too, where we're not accompanying the the people that are coming after us and showing them what it what it looks like to have faith in every single moment of your life. That's lost.

SPEAKER_03 40:49

Yeah, I'd love you to. Um I'm just throwing out No, I I think you're absolutely right. And this is where I think um I mean Augustine of third century says the first subject that the that the students learn is the teacher. Oh. Which is exactly what you're saying, right? Fourth century. Um but before that you've got Paul saying, Imitate me as I imitate Christ. And he hammers imitation, imitation, imitation the whole way through. And you're like, why is that? Well, because what is wisdom? Well, it's learning to see what this knowledge looks like embodied in a life. That's right. So if we're going to take this relationality seriously, which is you can kind of swap sacramentalism out for this word a lot of the time, which is relationship.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Because it's your relationship to the created order with Christ. I think that's right. Totally.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Basically, what we're saying is it's relationship all the way down. Yeah. Whether it's you are formed by your mother's gaze from from the moment or actually before you come out, right? So you you are literally formed in relationship. You are. And then you're neurologically formed. That's a very crude way of narrowing everything down to simply the mind, but through your interactions with your mother, and then through your community, and then everything you're doing is making you who you are, from your accent to your the way you laugh to what you find funny to what's dangerous and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

Community makes you a person. Um, and at a quantum level, obviously, we're all related to each other as well. So what's most true is actually the relational part. And so, how does a teacher take that seriously? Well, this is this is sort of comes into employment for Christian schools, actually, into um quite an interesting conversation, which is teaching primarily is about sharing your being and then helping students to share their being with the world properly. If that's the case, it really matters who's in there. So for a Christian uh educator, uh sharing your being um becomes the main thing we're we're up to. And so, what does it mean to do that well? I think that raises the bar, actually. And I think for employment discussions, like can we employ non-Christian teachers? Well, on a certain level, it's like, wouldn't it be nice to pull people in from outside and to taste what it's like in the community? I think in some cases that's probably okay. But in general, if you have you want a Christian teacher that is also in relation to Christ, explicitly knows that, and they're helping to share their being. And an example that I'm that I would probably pull from um a sociologist called Hartmitt Rosa, who I know you're aware of here.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

I just ordered his book Revenus and it's on my desk right now.

SPEAKER_03 43:12

It's awesome. Yeah. So he uses the metaphor of a tuning fork. Yeah. And what he what we could basically say is, according to him, is it's resonance we're looking for, which is right relationship with the world. You can go off key or on key. But theologically, what we could say is Christ is the true tuning fork. Yeah. He is that which helps all of reality to sing in the way it's supposed to. And what we need to do is to be the secondary tuning forks and to tune into him so that we're not off key and we're not deformed or or distorted. But in some situations, in a in a real way, we are the primary tuning fork in our communities, helping students to do that too. So you could see it as a as a you know, different circles of tuning forks if you like, but it all has to be grounded in the person of Christ. I think that is. A very powerful metaphor for what are we actually doing when we educate? Well we to be a Christian is not to be lived by a certain ethic and to to be a good little Christian, is to wake up to what reality actually is. To be like, oh, I'm suddenly um in I understand what reality is and I want to align myself to that.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

It's like you're singing the tune of of the incarnation as you walk. You're humming a melody in your head and then people just feel it from you. Yeah, yeah. Not because you didn't go to the R-rated movie.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

But sometimes you might want to make that.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

You know? Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Which is why Paul can then go outside, that's the lore of love. Like what are you loving right now? And and exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

What are you desiring? What are you loving? Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

When I was when I was a student, we had two chapel services a week. I think it was Tuesdays and Fridays. And just we had a guest speakers all the time. And if anyone said anything, you know, from the pulpit that was like I thought was questionable or like interesting, every single time, where did my eyes go? I went to the lecturer I most respected. And I'm like, what is their body language indicating in this moment?

SPEAKER_03 45:11

And you could always see it. And you could always see it.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

You could always see it. I'll tell you what, they were good though. They were just they knew. They knew we were watching, and they intentionally sat closer to the front half than the back half of the lectures. And so they were good. They just smiled. Chin up, nodding. Yeah. No nod. If there was no nod, then you knew something was up.

SPEAKER_03 45:30

And I was like, oh, you know. You ever had a no nod, John?

SPEAKER_01 45:35

No doubt. Most people in my church are not nodding.

SPEAKER_03 45:39

It's like we're not in charismatic churches in the yes vibe anymore, so we have to explain.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Well, that's a big difference. Like my church is not that level of charismatic where the person talks back to the preacher, right? But I know I'm hitting home when there's when you can hear a pin drop. That's the difference. You go to a Pentecostal church, it's like you know it's going well when you can't even hear yourself. I miss that little support, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, no, that's that's a good distinction.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

And so you have, did you yeah, you're I know I just I think there's implications here for the idea of what truth is, what you said before. So truth isn't can't then, if we just extrapolate from what you are saying, it's about the tuning fork, it's about being tuned to the to the world properly. Then truth just can't be a bunch of facts is what you are saying. It's about a correct reading of those facts. It's a you know what I mean? So it's it's to how knowing so if take a scale, it's not just knowing the names of all the all the notes on a scale, it's it's knowing how to play them correctly in the right tempo and to understand how they work together, uh where the spaces are between them, where you need to hit them. Totally. You learn that by here I come back, it's not just about epistemology. Yeah, it's about listening to the world and being able to, you knowing learning from the other person, playing it, you you you you pick up on the vibe, uh that the and you know then when it's off. Yeah. That's how you know that it's not working properly because you're close to the source. You're like that's in that note. You learn from a virtuoso. You have to learn from a virtuoso. You have to. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, that's right. And it is, yeah, there's knowledge, content in there to learn, but really it's it's about the feel and how they are embodying that piece of work. That's right. That's how you know that it's working.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

To substantiate that further, I I interviewed Fiona Rush, who's in the comms department up there, but she did a I think an undergrad or graduate level something in education. And she said that they've this pretty well established fact that you can change the the number of kids in the classroom, you can change uh everything. You can change who's the qualifications of your teachers and the only thing that dramatically shifts student outcome or at least student engagement, student success, whatever you want to define that, is the teacher themselves. It's just a teacher themselves. It's not curriculum, it's not you know, new strategies, it's all those PE days is really just need to be about the teacher themselves. Totally. And I guess from a Christian perspective, it's just like, well, if Christ is the teacher and you're teaching under the teacher to the students of the teacher, and pretty intense stuff, but then then it it's Christ himself whom you are learning from. And it's actually in all aspects of that incarnation to then be somebody different in the space you're in. Yeah. That's the invitation that actually ch that people shift.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

I do want to just get jump on that language a little bit because um that is what a lot of the literature does is like how do we learn from Christ as the master teacher? Yeah. But I want to go a bit further than that. He's not just an example we follow, he continues to ground all of our being all the time.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

Exactly right. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_03 48:53

So it's not just I mean, this a lot of uh actually a lot of theology, not just in education, but goes there, like how do I live like Jesus? How do I do that? And it's like, you can't. Yeah. So you actually have to throw your being on him. Yeah. You actually have to fully depend on him existentially. You can't do what he did.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

That's why I like I like the language shift. I don't know why I guess could there are contextual reasons why the gospel writers use the word disciple to refer to our relationship to Christ, and Paul didn't. But I prefer Paul's language more because it's it's more of a being shift. Because it goes from follow me to being in Christ. Yes. So the the distinction is come and follow me, be my disciple, and Paul is basically saying, No, you're you are in Christ. Like at the end of every big thing he says, it's like in Christ. We are doing everything in Christ. Yeah. Not just following his example, but our being is swept up in him. Correct. And that shift is kind of what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's not the what would Jesus do, it's the who am I now? I'm dead. You know, that's the shift. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's the shift. Yeah. So you've got implications, I think, in the last half. We haven't even gotten there. I think you got implications.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

I love this. Hey, as an aside why Joey finds that, who's been who's been some of the most stimulating conversations that you've had on your podcast?

SPEAKER_01 50:15

Oh, true.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

Uh, over the past the past what, six months, a year? Who are the who are the ones that just off the top of your head, who who have jumped out for you and why?

SPEAKER_03 50:24

Oh, so many. Yeah. Yeah. But uh I mean, Chris Watkin, um who wrote Biblical Critical Theory, he's across so many different things. Uh so he's really good. He he's I think he's doing really good sort of cultural theological work. Um he's great.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Um people should go and listen to that podcast.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

People should. Yeah. I mean What's the name of the podcast? Make a Space. Thank you, bro. You're really Yeah, he's got me. Yeah, yeah. We we scratch each other's back too. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. Um, we'll put a link uh below. In the show notes if I remember. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Yeah. So he's been one that's jumped out for you.

SPEAKER_03 51:00

I mean, Noreen Hertzfeld, who's a lead leading theological scholar in AI, she was great. Um who else have I talked to? I've talked to I've actually just recorded a conversation with Hans Borsmer. Great. And he talks a lot about sacramental reality. And so he'll be up soon. Great.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

Was that a good conversation?

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Yeah, I think it'll be deeply challenging for people. Okay. But in a really good way. Okay, cool. We're asking these same sort of questions. Right. Like, what does it mean if God is distinct from reality but not at all distant? What if he is?

SPEAKER_00 51:29

What if he is really So this is the this is the identity or the yeah, this is I mean basically the univocal, the equivocal and the the analogical understanding of how the world works.

SPEAKER_03 51:40

In that Schmirman podcast that you guys did, you were talking about Resourcement and the new theology, that this this retrieval of patristic theology that the Catholic and Protestant church have.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

And Protestant, yep. And he's a good corrective, actually. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

He's one of the leading th thinkers in that at this moment. So if you if people are listening and and are interested in what we're saying about reality, that podcast will stretch it.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

And on top of that, can I just put a plug in here? I've gone back to reading Baltazar. And oh my goodness, this this is exactly what he's talking about. Um Yeah, and there's a very good book by I'm gonna butcher the guy's name. Oh I'll call I'll come back to it. We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah. Alright, you've got to send me a text.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

Or else we won't put it in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah. Um excellent. So you I think you said there's four points I highlighted. There's actually three. There's three. It was a type of I'm like losing my mind trying to find point number three. So you said implications, maybe just real quick reference. That's the transcendent point. All right. The transcendent point.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

It's not the third one. You have to go searching for it.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:40

In the searching, you actually discover that you are the third point.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

Yes. So good. So speak as much or as little as you want to this. So you have three implications from kind of what we just talked about broadly, uh for Christian educators specifically, those who are in schools, and you can probably broaden it out beyond that, but let's just say schools. That first, if all of reality is in relation to Christ, then it follows that Christian educators should not see their roles as the ones to integrate Christian thinking into every uh subject area. That sounds relatively controversial. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 53:12

Yeah, um, well, I'm just basically arguing against dualism. But you're not trying to bring two worlds together. In Christ, they already are together. Like in him and through him, all things hold together. You don't make reality Christian, it's already in relationship to Christ. So what you're doing is trying to see it for what it actually is. Um so I wish I didn't have to make that point. But in a lot of the literature, there are people that want to say, like, how do we make our schools Christian? That's the wrong question to be asking. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Yeah. All right, second point is uh there is no aspect of our teaching in which the teacher can be divorced from the content. We kind of talked a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03 53:49

So it is it's about you. You know, the big part of it is about you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

And then the last one, point four, is whilst it is uh de whilst it decenters the learner as the prime agent in their education as they come into communion with Christ, they are simultaneously personalized as they learn that their ground of being is found in him. I actually kind of want to dwell on this a little bit more. But what what do you mean by that? Gonna be really honest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:15

I believe that, but I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to exhaust what that means. Yeah. I think that's that's a life's work to understand how your being is grounded, but to bring students into that reality, at least a little bit, to say the most important thing about your life is who you're in relationship with ultimately. So you are upheld, you the ground of your being is in this person, Christ. Yeah. That changes, you are not someone simply acting on reality or living your life as you want to. You are in relationship with him, whether you like it or not. So I think you know the probably the most controversial part of that article is is a quote from Torrance where he says like everyone is in r has their being in relation to Christ, whether they know it or not. That sounds universalist, but it's not what he's saying. He's basically saying Christians probably a way of putting it is Christians are the ones who have woken up to and accepted that reality.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

They they accept the invitation to dance with Christ. Exactly right. Everyone else is just sitting on the sidelines. Yeah. Metaphor broken down. Or dance in their own dance. Yeah, dance in their own dance.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

I mean, and in and it makes it makes sense. I mean, this ontology is the study of the what grounds everything. So what does everything, every particular thing have in common?

SPEAKER_03 55:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

Life. Okay, it's all in life. Yeah. Okay, so what is life? And the Christian would say it's Christ. Yeah. Everybody has it, everybody is already in it and grounding in it. And if you don't have life, you're dead. Okay, so basically everyone already has is already living in Christ. I mean, so you know, we could say that's God, we could say that's being, but the the Christian view would say, and in the end, that's Logos, and Logos is Christ, right? So what's particular to everything? Life itself, Jesus is life itself. I am the life, the truth, you know, the way and the truth and the life. A great little uh metaphor I've heard of this is is like cut flowers. So we're all we're all like cut, you know, many people are living like cut flowers in a vase. They have put their roots or they've been cut off from the source, they've cut themselves off from the source of all life, and they've planted themselves in something that isn't in the end going to give them life. So it could be their work, they've planted themselves in their work. In the end, that's gonna come to nothing because you will die and you will not have life or any kind of existence. So you could whatever that is. So m and the whole of our kind of culture is living like cut flowers. We're cut off from that very source of life. And Christianity is saying come back and be planted in the source of life.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

Yeah. And flourish. Which interestingly and non-surprisingly, Jesus names himself. He says, I am the vine, you are the branches. 100%. Why don't you just get grafted into the source of life and stop trying to find your source of life and other things? Exactly. Yeah. That's yeah. That's basically it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

One of the I know it sounds like we've wrapped this thing up a few times, but w w the reason why I like your third, fourth point is that is that um I fixed that, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

That's not on the INSECO.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

Who has who has nine-year-olds here? Um so it's that decenters the learner as the prime agent. Like one of the things that is definitely happening is this is this, I think, superficial deconstruction of secularism broadly within the West. Because everyone's like, oh, secularism is being deconstructed. I'm like, no, this it's superficially being deconstructed because even Christians ourselves are deeply secular. Where we can see Christ obviously as the main character, but we see his characterness as fulfilling our agency. And that's still deeply secular. So the fact that you've made that distinction is the prime agent is not us as the center, we're the learner in relation to Christ who's the center. And so I like everything we've been talking about is pretty well, at least intellectually, counter to that implicit sec uh secular worldview. Um but to live into that's really tough, especially if you're like me, who grew up in a deeply implicitly secular worldview where I am the center. I am I am looking to plant my c cut roses in different gardens, even if I do claim the identity of Christian. There's still that temptation. And I would say almost like it's like a revelation. You're just like, oh gosh, I am in a vase, and I I thought I wasn't. And then you repent and you hopefully you try and it never goes away. It never goes away.

SPEAKER_03 58:53

I mean, you know, to be really vulnerable, like I often feel about like that in my job. Yeah, my job can often make me feel really important.

SPEAKER_02 59:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:01

That's me planting myself in a vase. Yeah. None of that matters. If I'm gonna be really real about what we're talking about, my whole being rests on nothing else but the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yeah. Well, that's really awkward for someone like me who starts to feel important in their job. Yeah, um, because the stage can feel really good. Yeah, uh, it can feel like I'm doing it and my life means something. And what we're really saying here is the freedom that you already have, your life is already deeply meaningful because you are related to the only person who's making anything meaningful in his being all the time.

SPEAKER_02 59:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

Exactly right. Yeah, I love the word freedom there because I think it is a freedom. Christ Christ came to set us free, set us free from those things that we thought are important. And when he says, look, I'm already, I am already your life.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

I'm already giving you life, you're completely free. You become detached from everything, the freest person in the whole room. And and it means and I mean you look at the again, I come back to the saints. This is this is how the saints lived. Yeah. So they could be they were the s some of the smartest people in the world, and they became like they just they gave all that up because they knew that wasn't where life was. It didn't have to be there. So I I think you're right, it's a good way to put it, Sam. Yeah. But my my question is, where do we learn this? Oh like where do we learn this? So I I'm good on time.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

I got I'm fine with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

If we're embodied if we're embodied, where do we my I I guess when I was reading your thing, I was like, this is fantastic. Where does the teacher learn to be this person? That's a great question. And I I mean I I think I kinda know, but um yeah. No, what do you what do you think? I think it I think we have to learn it in the church. And and it worries me that the churches aren't aren't doing this work. They aren't doing the deeply sacramental work. And I think I think we truly learn it at the communion table, which is probably the most sacramental part of the whole service.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:02

You all come just as needy to the table.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I it it's it's a I in many kinds of ways I saw this as a real challenge to the church. That's how I read it. Maybe that's just because where my mind is, saying, guys, if we are not teaching, if we are not setting up our whole churches to give people, to teach people how to live in the world, then we're not gonna put people out into the workplaces that know how to do that deep work.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

So this this is like the I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:31

This is No, I think you're right. I think it I usually the simplest answers are the most right ones, to be honest. It's like, well, what's the answer? Well, Jesus, but then what does that actually mean, right? Yeah. It's like true, but I think you're like the liturgy in the church. So the James K. Smith disciple in me wants to be like, yes, 100%. During COVID, I realized that oh wow, we are putting all our eggs in the basket of Sunday morning, and now we have fallen short of our discipleship models. And then when we got back together, I was like, oh my goodness, Sunday morning is simultaneously so incredibly important. So it's like a dual critique and appreciation. Because I think it's that being in the world. It's like I I do wonder if if Western society, the radical individual side of Western society, has has kind of truncated that level of of knowledge education from being in the world, yeah, because of our understanding, our presupposition that we are the primary agents, and everyone else is almost like an obstacle in the way of our own fulfillment and self-actualization. 100%. Yeah. Whereas what you're describing, Jonathan, is like, where do we find this? Well, it's actually it's it's in genuine Christian community where we actually interrupt and disrupt each other's lives.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, to bring it back to the tuning fork analogy, right? Yeah. This is what you're saying. It's like what we do on a Sunday is we all gather around the primary tuning fork to get retuned and to remind each other, to imitate and to remind each other how to be. Yep. And so that when you go out and do your own thing, you're retuning. Resonating with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:02

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:03

It's not a perfect metaphor, but it's a powerful one. It is. Um, and I think, yeah, I think this is the challenge to church, Christian schools. Like, how are you sharing your being? What is, where are you? We're planted right now. Yeah, yeah. Because that's what you're going to teach from, whether you like it or not. I mean, you could teach correct doctrine to your blue in the face and completely inoculate a child from Christian thought because of the way that you do that. And I know plenty that have gone through Christian schools that that's happened to. They don't want anything to do with it anymore. Because it didn't give them any life. No. But what has kept us in here? We're compelled because we've seen something, right? Yeah. And so we're not I th I think we can approach this without any fear. Like, this is this is a high, high bar, but we're not alone. Like, one of one of the things that I keep coming back to when I'm sitting with teachers is there's this mentality of like God, it's a transaction. So God has created the world, given us life, and then he's also sent his only son to die, and that's a lot. So you should be very thankful for that. And what are you gonna do in response to that? Well, it's over to you now. Now you do the good things for God. And so, oh crap, I better be like a really good teacher, and so I'm gonna teach really well, I'm gonna not mess up, I'm gonna jump through the hoops and all that kind of stuff. It just becomes a big transaction, it completely wears you out, and you're like, I have to do all the saving of the world, teach these kids and get them through the hoops and all that kind of stuff. You're not alone. If we have a properly trinitarian understanding of what's going on, you don't walk into a classroom being like, um, okay, how am I gonna do this for God? You walk into a classroom and ask, God, what are you already up to? How do I join in? How do I participate with what you continually do by the power of your spirit everywhere? How do I join in? You're not alone, you're not there to save the world. The world's so bad you can't do anything about it. It's anyone who can, and you've got to try and join in with what he's already up to. It's not a transaction, you're caught up in a life as you go about doing this.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:59

Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, but that's the shift. That's the shift. Totally. Yeah. That's great. Thanks for coming in, Sam. Flying all the way from Australia just to be here for an hour and a half. Yeah, well, you know, the green room was sensational. Yeah. There's no AC here. I'm feeling the heat. It's hot, man. It's hot. So thanks, Sam, for making the time. Uh always good to hang out with you guys. It's go well, man. And you too, Jonathan. You're very great. You're now a guest. It's good. I'm not a guest. No, you're now a guest hanging out. No, thanks so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:25

Well, Jonathan's done a bit of um writing with me for some for some documents, and so oh, happy.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

Just throwing in my soup.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:32

Yeah, so he's he's shaping Christian education as well. Um, he he wouldn't tell you everybody's uh He's doing it from the background. He does. In the shadows. He is the phantom of the I've got some things as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

Man, I need to talk to you about them.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:45

Well, fucking note. Thank you so much for listening to Lunch on the Way. And if you've enjoyed this episode or any past episodes that we've published, please hit the subscribe button. Subscribe button and like button on YouTube, and the follow button on whatever podcasting platform you are using. It goes a long way. Jonathan Graham and I back in 2022 started this podcast because we wanted to have open-ended conversations that were exploratory and a little bit risky and allowed us to venture into uncharted territory, not only theologically, biblically, philosophically, culturally, but also anthropologically as well, to help us follow Jesus better and to think better about the Christian faith and our discipleship to him. And so we are so glad that you've been joining us since 2022. And if you haven't, we have a whole back catalog of conversations and episodes that I still think are very relevant for today.