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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that

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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become

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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,

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Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the

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Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions

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Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto

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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody, welcome to this

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Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and I'm

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Speaker 1: joined by my co host Hashish Varma as well as

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Speaker 1: our guest, doctor Kevin Flat. He's the author of a

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Speaker 1: new book, Secularization, Social Order and World History, and a

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Speaker 1: really fascinating book.

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Speaker 2: We're going to talk a lot about it.

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Speaker 1: But he is also the professor of history and Associate

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Speaker 1: Dean of the Humanities at Redeemer University near toront On

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Speaker 1: to up in Canada, and so we're happy to have

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Speaker 1: you here, Kevin, and thanks for taking time to be

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Speaker 1: on the show and talk about your new book and

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Speaker 1: the concepts that you presented it.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on, James, I'm looking forward to

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Speaker 2: chatting about this. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So I was first introduced by to your work from

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Speaker 1: the Civitas podcast, so sort of a shout out to

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Speaker 1: those guys, and was really fascinated the idea of I

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Speaker 1: think part of the reason that I was so fascinated

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Speaker 1: by it is because I was doing a Bible study.

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Speaker 1: I was leading a Bible study through Hebrews at the time,

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Speaker 1: and you know, Hebrews does this whole sort of move

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Speaker 1: with the shadow and the copy, and then there's the substance,

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Speaker 1: as I sort of referred to it, that is the

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Speaker 1: heavenly order. And it seemed like it resonated so well

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Speaker 1: with that sacred social order that you were discussing. And

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Speaker 1: so maybe the best place to start is, you know

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Speaker 1: you're dealing with this concept that's called sacred social order.

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Speaker 1: Maybe just give a brief explanation of what that is

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Speaker 1: and sort of where it comes from and.

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Speaker 2: Your approach to it. So, sacred social order it's a

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Speaker 2: term that I coined, but it's based on the ideas

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Speaker 2: of an American sociologist named Philip Reef, and I think

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Speaker 2: maybe we'll get into his work later on the idea

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Speaker 2: of sacred social order. It's meant to capture the way

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Speaker 2: that most human cultures have tried to make sense of

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Speaker 2: their place in the world and in the cosmos. So

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Speaker 2: in most human cultures, in fact, in all human cultures

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Speaker 2: other than modern Western culture, as far as we can tell,

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Speaker 2: there's been this idea that human beings, the life that

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Speaker 2: we live as human beings, both individually but also as

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Speaker 2: a society, our social institutions, all of that ought to

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Speaker 2: align with or harmonize with something that's higher than us,

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Speaker 2: some kind of a cosmic order, usually associated with God

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Speaker 2: or the gods. So there's this idea that the social

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Speaker 2: our life as human beings that we live together in

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Speaker 2: community ought to mirror or reflect or align with this higher,

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Speaker 2: sacred thing. It's not something we make up. It's not

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Speaker 2: something that we get to kind of create or decide arbitrarily.

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Speaker 2: It's something that is part of the universe. It has

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Speaker 2: demands that it makes upon us. It demands our obedience

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Speaker 2: and our reverence. And so the whole life that we

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Speaker 2: live as a society is a human society needs to

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Speaker 2: respect that order. And so the concept of sacred social

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Speaker 2: orders is a simple shorthand way of capturing this idea

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Speaker 2: that the social order. The way we order our lives

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Speaker 2: as human beings ought to reflect this higher sacred order,

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Speaker 2: and it's meant to be an alternative term to the

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Speaker 2: term religion. Religion, which for us seems like just kind

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Speaker 2: of a common sense category, it turns out actually is

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Speaker 2: a uniquely Western and uniquely modern way of dividing up

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Speaker 2: the human experience. Most cultures historically have not done that.

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Speaker 2: They haven't had words or concepts that correspond to religion,

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Speaker 2: but they have had words or concepts to capture this

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Speaker 2: idea of the comprehensive alignment of human life and human

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Speaker 2: society with something above us. One way to think about

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Speaker 2: this is we use the word religion to refer to

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Speaker 2: like one particular aspect of life, or certain aspects of

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Speaker 2: life that have to do with God or that have

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Speaker 2: to do with the supernatural in some way. So it's

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Speaker 2: like a compartment, whereas sacred social order is like a

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Speaker 2: framework or a blueprint, or all of human life, all

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Speaker 2: of human society, all socialists institutions. So whereas religion, the

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Speaker 2: way we use the term religion, it's like an app

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Speaker 2: on your phone. You know, you can use it, it does

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Speaker 2: certain things. You can also Sacred social order is more

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Speaker 2: like the operating system that the whole phone runs on.

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Speaker 2: All of the apps have to work within that operating system.

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Speaker 2: And so we think of religion as having to do

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Speaker 2: with church or maybe certain things that happen in the

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Speaker 2: home or in private time. But sacred social order encompasses

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Speaker 2: not only those kinds of activities, but also everything from

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Speaker 2: education to the state, to the economy, to the arts.

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Speaker 2: The whole breadth of human experience is part of a

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Speaker 2: sacred social order. And yeah, that worm in human history

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Speaker 2: is to think that way.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting that you use the analogy of the app

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Speaker 1: and the software. I wrote a piece not too too

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Speaker 1: long ago where I argued that the firmware for the

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Speaker 1: United States and maybe the Western world as a whole,

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Speaker 1: but I was really focused on the United States is liberalism.

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Speaker 1: It's this notion that we have these individual rights, that

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Speaker 1: there is a sovereign individual, and then everything else is

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Speaker 1: sort of constructed within that. So in America we have

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Speaker 1: American civil religion that really feels like it reverses the

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Speaker 1: sacred social order that you're talking about, that there is

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Speaker 1: a super human component to which we that has a

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Speaker 1: claim on us, to which we are obligated. What it

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Speaker 1: feels like American civil religion sort of does, is it

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Speaker 1: draws that down from the superhuman and puts it underneath

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Speaker 1: the auspices of whatever the state slash the consensus of

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Speaker 1: the people really wants to do. And so, and I

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Speaker 1: think that gets at partly at least your notion of secularization,

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Speaker 1: which is that there's this notion that there is no

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Speaker 1: real suprah human. There is a prototypical humanity maybe to

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Speaker 1: which society is oriented, but there's not a superhuman notion

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Speaker 1: that we are beholden to for all times.

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Speaker 2: In all places.

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Speaker 3: Is that a.

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Speaker 2: Yeah? To what extent is that it's fair? And where

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Speaker 2: would you correct it? Yeah? So I think that is

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Speaker 2: that is actually quite accurate. So the thing that I

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Speaker 2: contrast with sacred social order is what I call secular order.

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Speaker 2: And a secular order is a way of organizing society

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Speaker 2: without reference to something that's higher than human beings. You

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Speaker 2: can have different versions of secular order, just like you

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Speaker 2: can have different versions of sacred social order, right, you

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Speaker 2: can have you can have Christian or Islamic or Buddhist

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Speaker 2: sacred social orders, for example. You can also have different

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Speaker 2: flavors or versions of secular order. But I think the

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Speaker 2: one that hasn't been dominant definitely in the United States

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Speaker 2: and the Western world as a whole for the past

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty years or so is a liberal version,

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Speaker 2: or what I call in the book a liberal individualist version,

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Speaker 2: and secular orders as a whole have to say, Okay,

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Speaker 2: if we're not going to appeal to God, or to

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Speaker 2: cosmic order, or to something above human beings as the

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Speaker 2: justification for our social order, what are we going to

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Speaker 2: look to? And in the liberal individualistic version of secular order,

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Speaker 2: what we say is basically, well, if there isn't anything

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Speaker 2: higher than us that we can appeal to, it's going

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Speaker 2: to be the individual, the autonomous individual who is autonomous.

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Speaker 2: And the word autonomous comes from two Greek words meaning

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Speaker 2: self and law. So you're basically a law to yourself

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Speaker 2: because there isn't anything really higher than you to which

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Speaker 2: you have to conform. And so how do we take

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Speaker 2: all of these autonomous individuals and translate that into some

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Speaker 2: kind of a social order. Well, you can do it

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Speaker 2: through a certain kind of economic system. You can do

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Speaker 2: it through a certain kind of political system that tends

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Speaker 2: to be democratic, with guarantees of individual rights and freedoms

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Speaker 2: and so on, and this can become a way of

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Speaker 2: reorganizing every aspect of society in terms of what does

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Speaker 2: the individual want and then what are people willing to

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Speaker 2: consent to as individuals, And this logic works its way

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Speaker 2: out in every social domain, not only politics and economics,

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Speaker 2: but also things like the family and sexuality and education.

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Speaker 2: We reconfigure these things as opportunities for individual self expression,

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Speaker 2: for people to kind of do what they want and

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Speaker 2: to freely enter into and exit agreements and contracts with

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Speaker 2: other individuals. There is overlap. The one thing that's not

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Speaker 2: a correct exactly, but it's a complexity here, which is

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Speaker 2: that you can also have versions of a kind of

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Speaker 2: liberal order in the political realm or the economic realm

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Speaker 2: that can overlap with a Christian understanding of society, and

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Speaker 2: a liberal order can be more or less secular, and

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Speaker 2: in fact, some of the main elements of the liberal

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Speaker 2: order as we have it in the English speaking world

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Speaker 2: actually do have some Christian roots and some Christian influences

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Speaker 2: coming from the reform tradition and coming from the English

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Speaker 2: the gradual development of English law, common law, English governing

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Speaker 2: institutions in Parliament and so on and so both in

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Speaker 2: Canada and the US and other parts of the English

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Speaker 2: speaking world. Some of that firmware of liberalism, as you,

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Speaker 2: I think quite aptly put it, some of that firmware

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Speaker 2: does have Christian origins as well, or is compatible Christian

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Speaker 2: way of looking at things, but it's also compatible with

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Speaker 2: a secular way of looking at things that says, well, actually,

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Speaker 2: individual human beings are the only authority. Yeah. And you

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Speaker 2: could say one of the things that's been going on

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Speaker 2: gradually in the United States for a long period of

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Speaker 2: time is you have this architecture of a liberal order

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Speaker 2: that is kind of being moved off of a Christian

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Speaker 2: foundation and onto a more secular foundation. Really not for everybody,

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Speaker 2: of course, but for many people that's kind of how

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Speaker 2: they've come to think of it, that it's a more

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Speaker 2: secular order. So it's a little more complicated, but I

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Speaker 2: think definitely one of the main forms of secular order

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Speaker 2: that we have in the West today is this liberal

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Speaker 2: or liberal individualistic version. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think what I find interesting and done a fair

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Speaker 1: amount of work on this. You know, when we think

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Speaker 1: about the concerns voice to buy let's say, Christian nationalism

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Speaker 1: in the United States, these desires to go back to

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Speaker 1: being a Christian nation. What I found helpful in your

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Speaker 1: book and really resonated with, was if the if liberalism,

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Speaker 1: if we continue the metaphor, if liberalism is the firmware,

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Speaker 1: then these other things Christian nation, Christian foundation. This is

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Speaker 1: software running on a different firmware, and it can actually

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Speaker 1: be upgraded slash replaced by new software, but that firmware

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Speaker 1: is the more durable element. And I think what we're

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Speaker 1: what some of those conversations about what we were found

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Speaker 1: as a Christian nation we are, you know, we want

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Speaker 1: to be Christian nationalists. What I think they're missing is that, yes,

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Speaker 1: there's that complexity of there are Christian elements that agree

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Speaker 1: with the liberal elements. They can be compatible, but they're

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Speaker 1: not necessarily compatible, and that as the liberal logic begins

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Speaker 1: to dominate the Christian logic, that's going to create friction

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Speaker 1: with the system that requires the system to upgrade the software,

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Speaker 1: let's say, right, And so you know, at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day, I just think that sometimes what we're

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Speaker 1: missing is we're trying to reinstall a software that isn't

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Speaker 1: going to work anymore. That this notion of Christian nationalism

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Speaker 1: can't really overpower the movement of liberalism, and there needs

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Speaker 1: to be some more fundamental rethinking of what does it

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Speaker 1: really mean to be Christian within a liberal society as

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Speaker 1: opposed to trying to make a liberal society Christian almost

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Speaker 1: just because if we view it as a secular order,

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Speaker 1: Christianity is not a secular order. It has to be

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Speaker 1: a top that in order to really truly be Christian,

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Speaker 1: there has to be a shift and inverting of the

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Speaker 1: authority structure. And so, yeah, those are just some random

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Speaker 1: thoughts I had on after reading through your book and

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Speaker 1: listening to the Tziptos podcast, I was like, yeah, this

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Speaker 1: sort of gives new language to something that's been itching

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Speaker 1: in my brain for a while.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. This so there's a whole world of topics that

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Speaker 2: opens up, you know, once we start talking about Christian

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Speaker 2: nationalism and how that relates to kind of a prenominantly

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Speaker 2: liberal political order that we've got in the West, and

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Speaker 2: what I think the Christian nationalism conversation, well, you know,

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Speaker 2: one of the ways that people that people tend to

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Speaker 2: think about this is that it's sort of like a

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Speaker 2: religious backlash against secularization, right that society has become more secular,

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Speaker 2: and so religious people, in this case Christian people don't

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Speaker 2: like that, and so there's kind of a desire to

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Speaker 2: reassert control. And I think, you know, there's there's something

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Speaker 2: to that. But if we start off with these categories

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Speaker 2: of religious and not religious, there's a tendency to miss

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Speaker 2: the larger thing that's going on, which is again this

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Speaker 2: question of like, what's the logic to the whole society,

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Speaker 2: what's the grammar of the society, and what is that

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Speaker 2: pointed towards. Is it a sacred social order or is

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Speaker 2: it a secular order. What's happening in conversations in the

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Speaker 2: US around things like Christian nationalism, Catholic integralism, some of

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Speaker 2: these things that really just have been in the popular

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Speaker 2: consciousness for the last decade or so, actually is not

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Speaker 2: that different from some conversations that are happening in other

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Speaker 2: parts of the world. So if you look at the

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Speaker 2: Middle East, if you look at India, even if you

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Speaker 2: look at China and kind of the Chinese cultural sphere.

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Speaker 2: In very broad terms, what has happened over the last

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Speaker 2: one hundred years or so is you had attempts to

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Speaker 2: implement a secular order in these other parts of the

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Speaker 2: world that had historically their own sacred social orders, often

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Speaker 2: very complex mixtures of multiple sacred social orders. But you

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Speaker 2: get with the advent of European imperialism. Also in some

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Speaker 2: of these countries that weren't ever colonized by Europeans, you

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Speaker 2: get what historians called defensive modernizers, who basically say, we

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Speaker 2: need to make our society more like a Western society

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Speaker 2: in order to be able to hold our own economically, scientifically, technologically,

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Speaker 2: militarily against the West. And in both cases, plus in

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Speaker 2: a third case, which is communist regimes that take over

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Speaker 2: in certain places like China, you have an attempt to

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Speaker 2: construct a secular order in these places and to really

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Speaker 2: do away with the old sacred social order, which many

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Speaker 2: of these new leaders see as kind of that's why

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Speaker 2: we haven't been able to keep up with the West.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of kept us behind. And so this reaches

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Speaker 2: sort of its high water mark in the sixties and seventies,

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, when throughout the Muzzlim world

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Speaker 2: you have these kind of secular nationalist regimes that are

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Speaker 2: Arab nationalists, people like Nasar and Egypt. You have in India,

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Speaker 2: that's kind of the high water mark of sort of

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Speaker 2: a secular conception of Indian nationalism, of Indian national identity.

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Speaker 2: In China, you have the Cultural Revolution, which is sort

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Speaker 2: of the last attempts of Chairman Now to really do

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Speaker 2: away with traditional Chinese culture as much as possible and

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Speaker 2: implement this atheistic, materialistic, communist division. But then following the

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Speaker 2: sixties and seventies, in different times, in different places and

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Speaker 2: with differing degrees of intensity, you start seeing proposals or

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Speaker 2: movements to bring back, or at least adapt for the

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Speaker 2: modern world elements from these traditional sacred social orders. The

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Speaker 2: most dramatic examples of what happens in Iran, where you

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Speaker 2: have a fairly secular, westernizing, modernizing Shah as the king

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Speaker 2: of Iran and he's overthrown in a revolution, and there's

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Speaker 2: lots of reasons for that, but the faction that ends

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Speaker 2: up dominating that revolution, the faction that's led by the

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Speaker 2: Ayatola Romani, wants to create an Islamic republic and actually

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Speaker 2: succeeds in doing so, And so you get this really

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Speaker 2: dramatic reversal of a society that seems to be on

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Speaker 2: the path to more and more thorough going secular order

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Speaker 2: in a modern Western vein rejecting that, or at least

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Speaker 2: the people who end up in control rejecting that, and

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Speaker 2: not exactly trying to go back to a previous situation,

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Speaker 2: but trying to say, if you're going to have in

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Speaker 2: Islamic in my terminology, in Islamic sacred social order, now

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Speaker 2: in the late twentieth century, what would that look like?

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Speaker 2: And they invent a new kind of constitutionalism and new

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Speaker 2: kind of republic, a whole new structure for that. There's

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Speaker 2: less dramatic examples though in other places. Right you get

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Speaker 2: the rise in India of Hindu nationalism, the Hindufa movement,

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Speaker 2: even in the Chinese cultural sphere in places like Hong

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Speaker 2: Kong and Taiwan and Singapore, but then also increasingly in

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Speaker 2: mainland China, you start to get intellectuals saying, should we

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Speaker 2: go back to Confucianism as a source of ideas for

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Speaker 2: how we could order our society? And it's this traditional system.

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Speaker 2: We don't in the West normally think of it as

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Speaker 2: a religion, but it definitely is a system of sacred

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Speaker 2: social order. Movements to kind of reinvigorate Confucianism and to

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Speaker 2: look to Confucianism for ideas for how we can organize

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Speaker 2: society and politics. Now, So I think what's happening in

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Speaker 2: the US and some other parts of the West people

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Speaker 2: are saying, is there is the Christian tradition a source

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Speaker 2: of alternative ideas for social and political order. Whatever we

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Speaker 2: think of that, the merits or demerits of that, I

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Speaker 2: think it's helpful to look at that as actually part

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Speaker 2: of a more global phenomenon where you've had this era

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Speaker 2: of dominance and very secular ways of looking that seemed

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Speaker 2: like the very secular ways of looking at society, that

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Speaker 2: seemed like the only game in town. And then you

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Speaker 2: have people saying, well, we've kind of lost confidence in

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Speaker 2: some of that, and can we go back into our

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Speaker 2: own traditions and find different ideas for how we can

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Speaker 2: organize things? And yeah, I see, I see Christian Nationalismthic

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Speaker 2: integralism as particular attempts to do that, not, of course,

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Speaker 2: the only attempts that you can write what particular attempts

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Speaker 2: to do that.

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Speaker 1: Now, it's really helpful. I know I've been kind of

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Speaker 1: fanboing this early on. You want, you have any questions

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Speaker 1: you want to through author.

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Speaker 3: I do this is this is great stuff.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 3: My own background. I grew up Pindu uh and one

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Speaker 3: of the one of the great dissonances. I suppose you

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Speaker 3: could say, I should add to this that my research

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Speaker 3: has been, especially in the last decade in coloniality, racialization, uh,

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Speaker 3: the interwovenness of the missionary, the merchant and the soldier,

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Speaker 3: and sort of the modern effects that has. And I

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Speaker 3: think what you're what you're describing and what you do

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Speaker 3: in your book gives a sort of language that prior

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Speaker 3: language has been really uneasy to and and you hone

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Speaker 3: in on it with the word of religion. And I

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Speaker 3: think of growing up Pindu, some of the sorts of

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Speaker 3: ways in which I have students talking about religion just

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Speaker 3: don't map right. So you think about the ways in

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Speaker 3: which Western Christians might speak of the committed versus the

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Speaker 3: nominal Christian. And I would, initially when I first became

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Speaker 3: a Christian, try to map that onto what I knew

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Speaker 3: in my Indian background, the Indian community that I grew

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Speaker 3: up in my family, and it did just didn't work right.

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Speaker 3: You'd have people that were I suppose you'd say, very devoted, Right,

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Speaker 3: they're keeping all the feasts they're they're doing all the poujas,

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Speaker 3: as we would call it. They're going to Temple Mundad

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Speaker 3: very often. Then you have others who would go to Manda,

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Speaker 3: but go on and off. But when they'd go, they

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Speaker 3: were happy to go, but they were also most excited

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Speaker 3: to go into the cafeteria and eat food. But then

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Speaker 3: when they were done with eating the food, then they'd

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Speaker 3: go up and pay their respects to the various altars

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Speaker 3: that were set up. And one might be inclined to

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Speaker 3: say that this latter group is nominal, but the reality

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Speaker 3: was is that you have you have a very clear

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Speaker 3: sense in everyday life that it's actually far from nominal,

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Speaker 3: even if the religious practices seem to take a backstage.

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Speaker 3: And I think, to me, the most stark moment was

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Speaker 3: growing up. I've mentioned on this podcast before, probably too

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Speaker 3: many times, my love for the Chicago Bulls growing up.

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Speaker 3: But I were watching the Bulls win their fifth title

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Speaker 3: game six. Everyone knows Michael Jordan's going to get the ball.

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Speaker 3: Game tied, Michael Jordan knows Michael Jordan's going to get

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Speaker 3: the ball. Michael Jordan turns to Steve Kerr and he says,

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Speaker 3: John Stockton's going to come double me. I need you

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Speaker 3: to step up and be ready to get the pass

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Speaker 3: and nail the shot. Steve Kurrd been struggling from three.

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Speaker 3: He steps inside the arc. John Stockton switches over and

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Speaker 3: as soon as he starts to switch over to double Michael,

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Speaker 3: MJ passes it back over to Kerr. And the thing

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Speaker 3: that from my eyes was exciting was Kurr raises up

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Speaker 3: hits the shot. Bulls take the two point lead that

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Speaker 3: becomes the game winner. To my father, who might otherwise

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Speaker 3: be considered that nominal by sort of Western religious standards,

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Speaker 3: I'll never forget it. He turns, and he says, something

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Speaker 3: must have happened to John Stockton. He must have done

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Speaker 3: something wrong in his past life. Because what I hadn't

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Speaker 3: actually paid attention to, but then noticed in the replay

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Speaker 3: was when Stockton came to double Michael and he saw

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Speaker 3: that MJ was going to pass it back to Kerr,

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Speaker 3: he stumbles out of the double team, so he doesn't

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Speaker 3: end up even he's not even able to put a

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Speaker 3: hand up to challenge the shot. Well, what my father

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Speaker 3: was expressing there was classic karma, or karma as we

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Speaker 3: say in the West. Whatever he did in the past

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Speaker 3: meant in that moment, the moment that he most needed

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Speaker 3: to stay on his feet, he stumbled. And to my ears,

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Speaker 3: that's never left me because kind of growing up in

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Speaker 3: two cultures, I wasn't quite as attuned to thinking in

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Speaker 3: those sorts of terms. But to my father just slipped

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Speaker 3: off his tongue in the most natural way, in the

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Speaker 3: most basic of moments, And that, to me is what

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Speaker 3: actually shows that the kind of nominal language doesn't work,

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Speaker 3: because there is actually a deep penetration that religion never

400
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Speaker 3: quite captured, right. And I think the way that we

401
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Speaker 3: tend to think of religion, often in Western Christianity in particular,

402
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Speaker 3: and not even necessarily in historic Christianity, is that religion

403
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 3: is in some ways tied to this this explicit form

404
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Speaker 3: of belief right, this catechism, this dogma, this creed, and

405
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Speaker 3: to the degree that you affirm that you're good, you're Orthodox,

406
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Speaker 3: and we end up with situations like in Cure Guards Denmark,

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Speaker 3: right where it's he has this critique of what what

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Speaker 3: about your life is really actually a Christian right which

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Speaker 3: you live into what I would determine our current terms

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Speaker 3: is some form of coloniality, right, And when we transfer

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Speaker 3: that to places like India. It's really fascinating to watch

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Speaker 3: from a distance now because, as you've pointed out, there's

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Speaker 3: been this this rise of religious nationalism, but it's also

414
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:11,360
Speaker 3: a bit of a reaction, right You've get this historic

415
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Speaker 3: movement in which the missionary, the merchant, the soldier all intertwined,

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Speaker 3: and through that you have the formation of this idea

417
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Speaker 3: of India that doesn't actually exist historically. What you have

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Speaker 3: is local kingdoms. But in those local kingdoms you have,

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Speaker 3: for instance, the Muslim Mughal Empire, but there are plenty

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Speaker 3: of people that we would term Hindus today within it,

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Speaker 3: and they're not living in some sort of religious persecution,

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Speaker 3: but we know the pecking order. But you also have

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Speaker 3: historic groups of Jews that exist from the diaspora that

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Speaker 3: are over two thousand years old. You have Christians from

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Speaker 3: the first century. You have Buddhists that are you know,

426
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Speaker 3: the date misses me, but it's a very old tradition

427
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Speaker 3: and it's not the sort of thing that we think

428
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Speaker 3: of in the West as a secular religious mosaic or

429
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Speaker 3: mal pot depending on your Canada.

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Speaker 2: Or the US.

431
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Speaker 3: Right, it's it's very much a sense of we do

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Speaker 3: our lives and we do our lives understanding that we're

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Speaker 3: not in the same place, but our lives are animated

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Speaker 3: in slightly different ways, and that allows us to do

435
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 3: our lives. But it's not necessarily a conflict. That makes sense.

436
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:23,479
Speaker 3: And when you have the rise of religious nationalism, it

437
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 3: really is sort of a combination of these colonial impulses

438
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 3: that have been grafted on but also these older senses

439
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 3: of reaction to it, so that you don't, you know,

440
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 3: whatever is going on with American nationalism, for instance, in

441
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 3: the current unfolding of the world, it still actually looks

442
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 3: pretty different than what say Modi is doing, and the

443
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: sorts of ways that people either affirm him or react.

444
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 3: Those who are reacting, they're reacting out of older senses

445
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 3: of difference. Right in the South, where the sorts of

446
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 3: cultures are very different history, even if we'd call it Hinduism,

447
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 3: the gods that one is worshiping are very different, the

448
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 3: languages they speak are different, the food that they eat

449
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:11,679
Speaker 3: is different, and so they're sort of saying, you're what

450
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 3: you're doing is another form of coloniality upon us. But

451
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 3: the reactions still have you know, a very It's sort

452
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 3: of like with my father, with karma, it's sort of

453
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 3: saturated with the sacred, but it doesn't doesn't work out

454
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:30,440
Speaker 3: and saying, well, I've made this explicit theological judgment. I

455
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 3: don't know if this makes sense, but I wonder if

456
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 3: you have thoughts on that.

457
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 2: This is fascinating. So there's a lot of threads there,

458
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe two that I'll pick up on initially.

459
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 2: So one is this idea. You're exactly right. So one

460
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 2: of the pieces of kind of baggage or connosation that

461
00:28:55,400 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 2: comes with this conceptual category of religion is that, and

462
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 2: especially true in places where Protestantism has has been the

463
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 2: dominant form of Christianity, it's very much based on explicit

464
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 2: commitments expressed through belief and certain practices to a way

465
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,040
Speaker 2: of understanding the world. And of course this is one

466
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 2: of the one of the great things historically about Protestantism

467
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 2: is precisely that it wants to create among not just

468
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 2: kind of an elite subset of the but among the

469
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 2: Church as a whole, a deep understanding of the Gospel,

470
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 2: a deep understanding of scripture that is accessible to everybody,

471
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 2: and a high level of kind of lived out commitment.

472
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 2: But if we then take that as our model of

473
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 2: what religion is and expect to kind of use that

474
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 2: lens to understand what's happening in other parts of world.

475
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 2: It can become very misleading. And the normal situation, if

476
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 2: we think instead of sacred social order, the normal situation

477
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 2: in a human society is that whatever that dominant sacred

478
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 2: social order is, you definitely have people who are kind

479
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 2: of the virtuosos in the sacred social order. You have

480
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 2: the people who are the scribes or the priests or

481
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 2: the legal scholars, who really know and understand the ins

482
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 2: and outs or understand kind of what the orthodox way

483
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 2: of looking at that is. But in the society as

484
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 2: a whole, you have all kinds of degrees of understanding

485
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 2: of and commitment to kind of the theory of what

486
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 2: that sacred social order is. You have apathy, you have

487
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 2: different degrees of kind of heterodoxy. You have people who

488
00:30:56,040 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 2: live with just every day much lower life level of

489
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 2: conscious commitment to that. That being said, they're still living

490
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 2: in a society where the official account of reality, the

491
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 2: structuring of social institutions, and for lack of a better word,

492
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 2: kind of the grammar of the culture has been shaped,

493
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 2: often has been shaped by a very long time, but

494
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 2: by that official version of reality, by that version of

495
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 2: reality that is guarded by those virtuosos, by the scribes

496
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 2: or the legal experts or whatever. And so you know,

497
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 2: that example of your father, I think illustrates that where

498
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 2: he's not he isn't somebody it sounds like who would

499
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 2: have considered it himself or would have been considered to

500
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 2: be a very devout Hindu. But that basic logic of

501
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 2: understanding reality that involves a concept like karma is still

502
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 2: is still operating for him, right, And this is.

503
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 3: Also should throw in too, sorry, I should throw into

504
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:02,160
Speaker 3: to your point that he would call himself a scientist.

505
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 3: He's a he's a physician. He's been in that world

506
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 3: his whole life. And yet that's one of those moments

507
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 3: where what he means by a scientist doesn't match with

508
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 3: what a Westerner would say. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you,

509
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 3: but I think that's significant with the way I describe.

510
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 2: It, significant, And that'll plan. There's a second point I

511
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 2: wanted to to respond to as well. Yeah, and that

512
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 2: plays into that. So just just a conclude kind of

513
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 2: that first train of thought, this is also true in

514
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 2: secular orders. I would say right, So our social order

515
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 2: in the West, and this is more true in Canada

516
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 2: than it is in the US, but I think it's

517
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 2: overall true in the US as well. The kind of

518
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 2: hegemonic or dominant secular social order. A part of me

519
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 2: is a secular one, right, So for the purposes of

520
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 2: our life together, most of the time we're thinking within

521
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 2: a secular frame, what Charles Taylor would call an imminent frame.

522
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 2: And that's sort of the official version of reality. Uh.

523
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 2: And it's a liberal individual stick one. And so you know,

524
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 2: you have people who are really kind of analogous to

525
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 2: the scribal class in some of these other sacred social orders,

526
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 2: also in a secular order. So you hear, you might

527
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 2: think of, let's say, a progressive human rights lawyer in

528
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 2: New York, or you might think of a tenured professor

529
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 2: teaching in the humanities or the social sciences at an

530
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 2: Ivy League institution. Right. So these are people who really

531
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 2: know and are really committed to and understand this is

532
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 2: the correct version of secular order that is dominant in

533
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 2: the West right now. But then you have all kinds

534
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 2: of other people from all sorts of walks of life

535
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 2: who might not really be that committed to that, they

536
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 2: live within that framework. It's to some extent part of

537
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 2: their subconscious understanding of things. But they might also be

538
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 2: committed to or have beliefs or values or practices that

539
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 2: don't sit very well with that. They might be people

540
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:10,359
Speaker 2: who are first or second generation newcomers to North America, right,

541
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 2: and they're at home, still living out of on a

542
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 2: micro level cultural framework and maybe even a sacred social

543
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 2: order that's from a different part of the world. But

544
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 2: you also have people who maybe haven't had as much

545
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 2: formal education and they don't know the correct way to

546
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 2: think or talk about certain topics. And so one of

547
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: the things that you find in Western societies is generally

548
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,799
Speaker 2: people who are of lower socioeconomic status, people who have

549
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 2: less formal education. They believe in all kinds of stuff

550
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 2: that doesn't really fit with the official version of reality. Right.

551
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 2: They're into astrology, they're into UFOs, they're into you know,

552
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 2: where do you find that kind of stuff, Well, not exclusively,

553
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 2: of course, but more often in these pockets that are

554
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:02,839
Speaker 2: officially inducted into the reality. So yeah, So that's kind

555
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,439
Speaker 2: of one thing I would note is that in any

556
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 2: of these in any society, you have degrees of adherence

557
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 2: to the official version of reality, like consciously, but also

558
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 2: everybody's still living within that framework. And that's the prim

559
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 2: The other thing that I would say is, I think

560
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 2: very often we tend to assume that the situation that

561
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 2: we live in in the contemporary West today, where you

562
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 2: have a relatively high degree, especially in urban centers, a

563
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 2: relatively high degree of cultural diversity, a relatively high degree

564
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 2: of diversity of worldviews and religions and value systems, I

565
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 2: think we tend to think that's a uniquely modern situation

566
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:55,280
Speaker 2: that's brought about by modern migration patterns, technology, et cetera.

567
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 2: And then we assume that pre modern societies were kind

568
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:03,480
Speaker 2: of monolithic. Like we think of ancient India and we're like, wow,

569
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:05,919
Speaker 2: well that must mean that everybody was what we would

570
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 2: today call a Hindu, or you think of China and

571
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,400
Speaker 2: you think, okay, well it's just a very straightforward everybody's

572
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 2: following this kind of unified Confucian model or whatever, and

573
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 2: that's just not the case. Actually, more often it seems

574
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 2: you do have some degree of pluralism that exists. And

575
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,359
Speaker 2: so you know, in the example of India, what's in

576
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 2: India before the British come. You have the last major empire,

577
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 2: which you referred to, is the Mughal Empire, which is

578
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 2: a Muslim empire. It's officially committed to Islam, and that establishes,

579
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 2: as you said, kind of a pecking order. Then of course,

580
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 2: actually most people living under the Mughal Empire aren't Muslims,

581
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 2: but they're following this other package of customs and beliefs

582
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 2: and deities and practices and legal structures that we later

583
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 2: kind of package together and call Hinduism. But you also

584
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 2: have Christians and Buddhists and Jews and Jains that are

585
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 2: part of the mix. Same is true in China. And

586
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,720
Speaker 2: in China you have this historically, this fashion situation where

587
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 2: you have Confucianism as a very influential tradition, you have

588
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 2: Daoism as a very influential tradition that has a long

589
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 2: history of kind of arguing with and coexisting with Confucianism,

590
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 2: making fun of Confucianism actually as well. And then you have,

591
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:38,320
Speaker 2: coming in indirectly through Central Asia but originally from India,

592
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 2: you have Buddhism coming in, and there's tensions between these

593
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 2: three systems, but what you end up with is kind

594
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:52,239
Speaker 2: of a working mo whereby these three systems exist in

595
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,760
Speaker 2: equilibrium and they kind of have a division of responsibilities,

596
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 2: a division of jurisdictions that there's a Chinese term for this,

597
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 2: which is three teachings the Sanjiao, and you have a

598
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,880
Speaker 2: sacred social order that actually is intrinsically complex because it

599
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:11,320
Speaker 2: has all these three elements. So anyway, that maybe is

600
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 2: taking us a little bit far afield from what you

601
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:19,240
Speaker 2: were talking about, but the situation of multiple sacred social

602
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:25,399
Speaker 2: orders overlapping, or there being a dominant form of social order,

603
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 2: but then also these kind of minority forms, or even

604
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:31,440
Speaker 2: the dominant form is a minority and the majority is

605
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 2: not really committed to it, but they have to live

606
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 2: within that framework. That's not unusual historically. In fact, that's

607
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:41,280
Speaker 2: very common, And in a society in the West today

608
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 2: where you have a dominant liberal, individualistic, secular order, you

609
00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:50,759
Speaker 2: can still have large numbers of people who to some

610
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:55,959
Speaker 2: degree are following some other vision of social order, which

611
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 2: in large parts of the US is going to be

612
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 2: a broadly one. It's most oftenly going to be an

613
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:06,240
Speaker 2: evangelical one, although there's also going to be other flavors

614
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:10,840
Speaker 2: and versions of that, and there's some degree of tension

615
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:14,920
Speaker 2: between that and kind of the official dominant form of

616
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 2: social order, where that dominant form does set the parameters,

617
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 2: it sets the limits within which those other things can

618
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:25,319
Speaker 2: be expressed, but it doesn't mean that everybody in the

619
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:31,080
Speaker 2: society is a card carrying proponent of a liberal, individualistic,

620
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:31,920
Speaker 2: secular order.

621
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:36,799
Speaker 1: So I want to get into Philip Reef a little bit,

622
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: and this seems like it might be a good place.

623
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 1: So what you both just described is sort of these

624
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 1: pluralistic societies where you're negotiating or people are negotiating the

625
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:51,399
Speaker 1: boundaries of when am I part of this sacred social order,

626
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: you know, this dominant sort of perspective, Where can I

627
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 1: when do I start to give up maybe portions of

628
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:00,839
Speaker 1: my culture that I brought with me, this sort microsocial

629
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: order within my family that now I'm I'm blurring the

630
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: boundaries and adopting something different. So there's what I would

631
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: call that is there's a negotiation taking place there. And

632
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 1: sometimes these negotiations can increase friction to a point where

633
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: it seems like conflict. But in Reef he uses the

634
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: chaof comp kind of language, like there's always this conflict

635
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 1: that's coming and I was a little I wanted to

636
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 1: ask this question because I think I'm sure you know

637
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: Philip Brief better than I do. But my thinking was

638
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,799
Speaker 1: that probably negotiation is almost a better term for that,

639
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: and that the conflict is more a punctuation or occasional

640
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 1: within the negotiation. But really, what's happening most of the

641
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:52,279
Speaker 1: time is this sort of like poking and prodding the

642
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 1: boundaries of your own perspectives. You know that whether it's

643
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: autonomous or whether it's uh, you know, a smaller group

644
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 1: sort of understanding and the broader what we're calling the

645
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: more dominant sacred social order.

646
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so this is you talk about my understanding

647
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:16,439
Speaker 2: of Reef, and it's an open question as to whether

648
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 2: anybody other than Reef understands Reef. And he passed away

649
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 2: quite some time ago, so we can't ask him, unfortunately,

650
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 2: if we're getting it right or not. Yeah, he's famously

651
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 2: his his this trilogy that he published at the end

652
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 2: of his life and partially posthumously, which begins with the

653
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 2: first volume is My Life among the Death Works. Yeah. Uh,

654
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 2: it's really hard to understand. It's it's it's convoluted stuff.

655
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 2: And kudos to to to you and to anybody who's

656
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 2: tried to wrestle through this. But yeah, so so Reef.

657
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 2: One of the major themes for Reef. So he talks

658
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 2: about what I what I would call kind of the

659
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 2: secular order. Reef doesn't talk so much in terms of

660
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 2: it as an order, but he talks about what he

661
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 2: calls the third world or the third culture. Yeah, third world.

662
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 2: He does not mean, you know, those of us who

663
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 2: grew up in the eighties or nineties, you know the

664
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 2: term that we used to use for what we now

665
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 2: call the developing world. That's not what he means, although

666
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 2: it's an intentional play on that terminology. By the third World,

667
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 2: Reef means a secular culture that has rejected sacred order,

668
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 2: that has become dominant in intellectual and artistic and political

669
00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 2: circles in the West, and he sees them as a

670
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 2: reaction against what he calls the Second culture, which in

671
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 2: the case of the West, is the culture that was

672
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 2: shaped by a Christian understanding of sacred order. So Reef

673
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 2: sees the West as a whole as being in this

674
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:55,319
Speaker 2: process of transition where we used to be dominated by

675
00:42:56,520 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 2: the second culture, which was Christendom. Basically, although there's Jewish

676
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 2: and Islamic versions of that as well. And there's this

677
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 2: third culture that's coming in. And for Reef, this is

678
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 2: this is this is like a this is warfare. It's

679
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 2: warfare that is happening culturally mainly, although it can turn violent.

680
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 2: And his word for this is the culture comp the

681
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 2: cultural war, or the struggle for civilization. It's a reference

682
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 2: to this thing that happened in Germany in the eighteen

683
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 2: seventies eighteen eighties, which was sort of a struggle between

684
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 2: the newly unified German government and the Catholic Church. He

685
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 2: repurposes that term for this, this this culture term. And

686
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 2: Reef really sees this third culture, the secular cultural movement,

687
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 2: as absolutely destructive. It is a negation of the second culture.

688
00:43:56,719 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 2: So he says, it's actually not a culture, it's an

689
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 2: anti culture. It exists purely as kind of this movement

690
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 2: to destroy any concept of something higher than human beings,

691
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 2: anything that is sacred, God in particular, God's law in particular,

692
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 2: any kind of commandments that are prohibitions that say you

693
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:26,839
Speaker 2: cannot do this, thou shalt not. Reef sees the third

694
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:30,719
Speaker 2: culture as its central motivating thing is to destroy that

695
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: and this is where I partially kind of dissent from

696
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 2: Reef because I think there's something he's naming that's real,

697
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 2: that does exist, that kind of destructive impulse that is

698
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:51,399
Speaker 2: targeting at the Judeo Christian tradition, that is targeting at

699
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,839
Speaker 2: any kind of moral prohibitions, and you do see it

700
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,080
Speaker 2: particularly strongly in the areas that Reef devotes a lot

701
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 2: of his attention to, which is kind of the high arts,

702
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 2: like a high culture, the avant garde artistic movements, certain

703
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,959
Speaker 2: intellectual strands in the modern West. That's definitely a real thing,

704
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 2: but that's not the entirety of the secular order that

705
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 2: we're living in. It also has, first of all, a

706
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 2: constructive element, meaning it doesn't just define itself against Christendom,

707
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:30,319
Speaker 2: but it has its own sort of positive vision, its

708
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 2: own sort of positive values that it's striving towards, one

709
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 2: of which, connecting back to something that she said earlier,

710
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 2: is the idea of science, and science is kind of

711
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 2: being revered as the most reliable, the most dependable way

712
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 2: of getting at reality and being able to exert control

713
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 2: over reality so as to better the human condition. So

714
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 2: that's just one example of many that it's not a

715
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 2: destructive value in itself. It's something that's making forward as

716
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 2: a positive goal. So it has its own constructive vision.

717
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 2: It's not just there to destroy what's left of the

718
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:09,919
Speaker 2: Second Culture, what we've calls the Second culture. And as

719
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 2: I think you say quite rightly, James, it does coexist

720
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:18,800
Speaker 2: to some degree with what's left over of the period

721
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 2: of Christian dominance. It's not simply a constant outright war.

722
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 2: There's also negotiations and truces and even compromises. And as

723
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,719
Speaker 2: I said earlier, the kind of liberal order that we

724
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 2: have in a place like Canada or the US is

725
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:42,200
Speaker 2: itself kind of like a compromise arrangement between an inherited

726
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 2: Christian vision of human beings and how society should be ordered,

727
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 2: and more secular visions coming out of the Enlightenment or

728
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 2: subsequent movements in the West. There is overlap, right, there

729
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 2: have been points of agreement. And so even if you

730
00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 2: look if you go back to the American Founding, uh

731
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:06,880
Speaker 2: the American Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,

732
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 2: that doesn't come purely out of a of an inherited

733
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 2: Christian vision. It doesn't come purely out of a secular

734
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 2: Enlightenment vision. But you know, for my money, the historians

735
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,400
Speaker 2: who are most convincing on this, they really say like

736
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 2: it's kind of an overlapping consensus where yeah, there's some

737
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 2: Enlightenment influences that that are moving in a more secular

738
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 2: or deistic direction, but there's also really strong Christian influences

739
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 2: that are very self conscious that are rooted in a

740
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 2: longer tradition in the English speaking world. It's not one

741
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 2: or the other, it's it's this overlapping kind of thing.

742
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 2: So yeah, so that's where I would you know, if

743
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 2: Reef we're still with us today, you know, that's what

744
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 2: I'd want to I'd want to kind of push him

745
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 2: on this and see what he had to say that, yes,

746
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 2: there is this destructive current in what he calls the

747
00:47:56,239 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 2: third culture or the third world. Uh, but that's not

748
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 2: the whole picture. There's also a constructive vision, and there's

749
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 2: also in many cases compromises. And yeah, again going back

750
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 2: to what I said earlier, that's the normal human condition.

751
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 2: Is not everybit in a society agrees with each other

752
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,319
Speaker 2: about what social order should look like, or how we

753
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 2: should legitimate it, or where we get its orientation from.

754
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 2: And yet we still have to figure out how to

755
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 2: live together. Yeah, and there can be more or less

756
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 2: oppressive ways of navigating that. Yeah, very helpful. Hasheesh anything?

757
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, if it's okay, zoom out a little bit. I

758
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,400
Speaker 3: think we've gotten into some really interesting conversations that the

759
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 3: nerd in me wants to just keep digging. But I

760
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 3: think it might be helpful to zoom out a little

761
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 3: bit and just think about the contours of the change

762
00:48:57,480 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 3: that you're kind of advocating and what it might mean.

763
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 3: And maybe that's that's the way to put it right,

764
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 3: As we think about a shift of imagination from just

765
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:12,719
Speaker 3: thinking about the secular as something that stands in opposition

766
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,239
Speaker 3: to the religious, and we move to a thought of

767
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:21,960
Speaker 3: the sacred secular, the sacred secular social order, or I

768
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 3: forget the exact term, but the sorts of ways that

769
00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 3: you're describing things. What change does that cause us to

770
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:35,320
Speaker 3: recalibrate in the way that we think about Western society,

771
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,760
Speaker 3: perhaps especially the way that it's it's embodied in Canadian

772
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 3: and US cultures. The way that we then think about,

773
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 3: you know, the kinds of establishment clauses that we have

774
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:49,360
Speaker 3: and the way that those are used or not used

775
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:56,359
Speaker 3: or claimed or pushed against in our sacred social sort

776
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:57,080
Speaker 3: of reality.

777
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let me let me answer this kind of

778
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 2: in three layers. One is more and this is one

779
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:11,360
Speaker 2: of the primary audiences of the book. It's addressed more

780
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:13,799
Speaker 2: to scholars and academics who are trying to think about

781
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 2: how do we tell the story of what secularization is.

782
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 2: Then there's a layer that starts to have a lot

783
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:25,319
Speaker 2: more practical implications, including political implications, which is thinking of

784
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:29,200
Speaker 2: the secular not as just the absence of religion, but

785
00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:33,800
Speaker 2: as an alternative kind of social order. And then finally,

786
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 2: like for us as Christians living in this moment in

787
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,799
Speaker 2: this world, how might this shift the way that we

788
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 2: approach certain things. So starting with kind of the academic level,

789
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:46,879
Speaker 2: and I'll keep this fairly brief, but basically, everybody who

790
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 2: writes about secularization, scholars who write about secularization, they have

791
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 2: some version of thinking of secularization as the decline of religion.

792
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 2: So religion is this thing, secularization is you just have

793
00:51:00,239 --> 00:51:05,439
Speaker 2: less of that in a society. And that's true as

794
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 2: far as it goes right, So we can look at

795
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 2: you know, there's fewer people in the United States today

796
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 2: who would claim that they have a religion. Right, So

797
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:16,280
Speaker 2: that group of people who say I have no religion,

798
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:18,440
Speaker 2: I'm nothing in particular, or maybe I'm an atheist or

799
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:21,440
Speaker 2: an agnostic. Even that that group of people has been

800
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:23,800
Speaker 2: growing for the last couple of decades and much longer

801
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:25,719
Speaker 2: than that in most western countries of the United States

802
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 2: is kind of late late to the party on that.

803
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:34,960
Speaker 2: So that's true. It's true that church attendance has been down.

804
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 2: It's true that church membership has been down. I know

805
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,360
Speaker 2: there's some early indications that maybe some of that is changing.

806
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:42,279
Speaker 2: With with what you guys down south would call gen z,

807
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 2: we would call them gen z. Maybe that's changing. It's

808
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:50,800
Speaker 2: probably too early to say that with much confidence. But yeah,

809
00:51:50,920 --> 00:51:53,520
Speaker 2: but that that's so that that's real, that decline is real.

810
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 2: But the problem is to only talk about secularization as

811
00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 2: like the decline of religion. It's like looking at what

812
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 2: happened in the Roman Empire in the fourth century and saying, oh,

813
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 2: what we had in the late Roman Empire was a

814
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 2: decline of paganism. People kind of stopped talking about the

815
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,879
Speaker 2: pagan gods, they stopped worshiping at the temples. That sort

816
00:52:17,920 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 2: of faded out, And that's true, it did, but you're

817
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 2: completely missing, like it was replaced with something, and what

818
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 2: it was replaced with wasn't just people were worshiping a

819
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 2: different god. It changed the educational structure, It changed the laws,

820
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,000
Speaker 2: It changed the way people talked about political power. It

821
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 2: changed not only the rules around sexuality and marriage, but

822
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 2: how people behaved around sexuality and marriage. It changed how

823
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:48,840
Speaker 2: people treated unwanted children. Right like, it has massive social ramifications.

824
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 2: And so I proposed that we need to think of

825
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:55,439
Speaker 2: secularization not just as the decline of religion, but as

826
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:58,920
Speaker 2: the replacement of a particular sacred social order, which, in

827
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:02,359
Speaker 2: the case of the West is is some form of Christendom.

828
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:07,959
Speaker 2: The replacement of a sacred social order with a secular order,

829
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 2: which isn't just the absence of religion, but it's a

830
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:15,920
Speaker 2: whole new grammar for how we justify and orient society

831
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:19,359
Speaker 2: across all domains of life and all social institutions. It's

832
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:21,720
Speaker 2: not just about what is or isn't happening in churches.

833
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:26,720
Speaker 2: It's about what's happening in politics, in schools, in the arts,

834
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 2: in sexuality, in literature. It shifts all of those things,

835
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:35,319
Speaker 2: just like the Christianization of the late Roman Empire brought

836
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 2: about changes in all of those domains. So it's in

837
00:53:39,239 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 2: a lot of ways a more radical and far reaching

838
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:44,800
Speaker 2: understanding of what secularization is. It's not just this largely

839
00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:49,839
Speaker 2: individualistic decline of this thing that we call religion. It's

840
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 2: you're moving the whole society onto a different foundation, and

841
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 2: that has much more radical implications. So that's kind of

842
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,480
Speaker 2: the skull or we pitch, right. So I want sociologists

843
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:07,160
Speaker 2: of religion, religious studies, scholars, historians to start thinking this

844
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 2: other way about what secularization is, because I think it'll

845
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:11,920
Speaker 2: help us to see a lot of things more clearly.

846
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:17,879
Speaker 2: The second layer is if we think of secular order

847
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 2: not just as the absence of religion, but as an

848
00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:24,640
Speaker 2: alternative set of values, that gives us a different way

849
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:28,880
Speaker 2: of thinking about how should we understand reality and what

850
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:31,040
Speaker 2: human beings are for, and how we should organize our

851
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 2: lives together. I think this helps with a lot of things.

852
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 2: So a lot of our problems that we have, I

853
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 2: think in North America around particular issues, and this is

854
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 2: maybe especially true in the realm of education, is that

855
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:50,719
Speaker 2: we think of certain things as just kind of neutral spaces,

856
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:56,600
Speaker 2: and so we think, okay, well, education is supposed to

857
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 2: be public education at least is supposed to be kind

858
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:03,680
Speaker 2: of like a neutral space, and neutral means secular. It

859
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 2: means we need to have a wall of separation between

860
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:12,440
Speaker 2: religion and the state, which includes public education. And if

861
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 2: it's secular, and then that should work for everybody. It's neutral.

862
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 2: But of course secular does not mean neutral, and in

863
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,839
Speaker 2: particular secular order, whatever version it is, let's say it's

864
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:28,960
Speaker 2: a liberal individualistic version, has its own set of core values.

865
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:33,400
Speaker 2: In the case of the liberal individualistic secular order, it

866
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:36,759
Speaker 2: includes the idea that you, as an individual are and

867
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:40,320
Speaker 2: ought to be autonomous. It's up to you to decide

868
00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 2: what is important to you, what your life should be about.

869
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:45,759
Speaker 2: Nobody else really can do that for you, and if

870
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:50,120
Speaker 2: they try to, actually they're violating your autonomy. And you

871
00:55:50,160 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 2: shouldn't accept any obligations or relationships or institutions other than

872
00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:59,920
Speaker 2: those that you have freely chosen for yourself as an informed,

873
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:04,960
Speaker 2: consenting person. So that's a particular vision of what the

874
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:07,200
Speaker 2: good life is. Right, we want a society where those

875
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:12,600
Speaker 2: individuals can be as autonomous as possible. It's not neutral, though, right,

876
00:56:12,680 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 2: it has substantive content, and that's going to affect how

877
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 2: you teach, not just some of the flashpoint subjects like

878
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:23,800
Speaker 2: sex ed or something like that. It's actually going to

879
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:26,360
Speaker 2: affect how you teach everything, right. It affects what do

880
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 2: you think the goal or the end or the teleoss

881
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:32,719
Speaker 2: of education is, which is a question that's downstream from

882
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 2: what is the end or goal of a human being?

883
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:38,640
Speaker 2: And if we think of education as I think we should,

884
00:56:38,800 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 2: as cultural transmission as handing down a culture, this becomes

885
00:56:42,760 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 2: very important. So this is helpful. Then it's not just

886
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 2: like is there religion and education? That's the wrong question.

887
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:52,960
Speaker 2: It's what vision is education oriented towards? And I would say,

888
00:56:53,000 --> 00:56:56,240
Speaker 2: and then how do we create a society in which

889
00:56:56,880 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 2: we're not having one answer to that question posed on

890
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:04,319
Speaker 2: the whole population, But how do we create room for

891
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 2: real pluralism where we don't say, okay, well, if you

892
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:13,800
Speaker 2: have a Christian or a Jewish or a Muslim understanding

893
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:16,840
Speaker 2: of this, you're kind of going to be at a

894
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:20,240
Speaker 2: disadvantage and your version of reality is going to be excluded.

895
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 2: So I think it has practical implications there. Finally, for

896
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:29,880
Speaker 2: us as Christians, my working theory is a lot of

897
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:36,200
Speaker 2: what we do and don't pay attention to is being

898
00:57:36,360 --> 00:57:41,360
Speaker 2: shaped by this mental category of religion that we have.

899
00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:49,160
Speaker 2: So in my own context here in Canada, you know,

900
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:54,640
Speaker 2: in evangelical churches, you will have people who are concerned

901
00:57:54,680 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 2: about yoga, let's say, practicing yoga, and the reason they're

902
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:06,000
Speaker 2: concerned about it is because they understand that yoga has

903
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 2: elements that register for them as spiritual or religious. So

904
00:58:11,840 --> 00:58:15,200
Speaker 2: like why I'm a Christian and if yoga has spiritual

905
00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:17,919
Speaker 2: or religious elements that have to do with Hinduism, which

906
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 2: I recognize as another religion. I have a religion, they

907
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 2: have a religion. There's a potential conflict there that has

908
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:28,080
Speaker 2: to be navigated and it might mean, you know, people

909
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:30,320
Speaker 2: come to different conclusions about this. Of course, I'm not

910
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:32,480
Speaker 2: trying to comment on that the whole debate, but we

911
00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:34,000
Speaker 2: can talk about that if you want. But that's not

912
00:58:34,680 --> 00:58:39,080
Speaker 2: that's not what we're here to talk about. But at

913
00:58:39,160 --> 00:58:42,320
Speaker 2: least my generation and probably the following generation maybe this

914
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:44,880
Speaker 2: is starting to change in Canada. Would then look at

915
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 2: education and they would not It wouldn't even occur to them,

916
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:53,480
Speaker 2: like nobody's teaching them a different religion. It's just neutral,

917
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:55,400
Speaker 2: so it doesn't matter what they're being taught in school

918
00:58:56,520 --> 00:58:59,640
Speaker 2: because the kind of secular value system that had become

919
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:03,920
Speaker 2: in our education system didn't register to them as a religion.

920
00:59:05,040 --> 00:59:06,840
Speaker 2: So it wasn't on the range, It wasn't a rival

921
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:09,680
Speaker 2: right likewise, And I would argue, and maybe I will

922
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 2: kind of show my cards here a little bit. I'm

923
00:59:12,200 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 2: less worried about Evangelical Christians in Canada today going to

924
00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 2: the yoga studio and becoming practice and Hindus than I

925
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:24,960
Speaker 2: am about them actually going to the yoga studio or

926
00:59:25,080 --> 00:59:28,440
Speaker 2: the gym or the fitness class, where actually the real

927
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 2: sacred values of our culture it's all about you. It's

928
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 2: all about being the best person you can be. It's

929
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 2: all about enhancing yourself. Won't let anybody else tell you

930
00:59:37,840 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 2: what to do about that. Those are the values that

931
00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 2: are going to be reinforced most of the time, probably

932
00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 2: even in the yoga class. Not that he wrote lots

933
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 2: of Hindu sacred social order and that would be recognizable

934
00:59:50,720 --> 00:59:55,400
Speaker 2: from that tradition. So yeah, so I think shifting away

935
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:58,640
Speaker 2: from can we work without this concept of religion and

936
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 2: instead ask like, what are the values that are dominant here,

937
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:05,880
Speaker 2: and how's it shaping the context that I'm done. I

938
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:08,880
Speaker 2: think that that would be very helpful for us to

939
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:09,160
Speaker 2: do that.

940
01:00:11,360 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 1: Kevin, we're kind of winding down here. I'll just resonate

941
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:16,440
Speaker 1: with that last point. I was asked to write a

942
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 1: piece on the La Boo Boos. I don't know whether

943
01:00:18,840 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 1: you have Laboo boos in Canada. They're these there's these

944
01:00:22,440 --> 01:00:26,520
Speaker 1: ugly little dolls that supposedly resemble an old Mesopotamian god

945
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:29,560
Speaker 1: who nobody would have known about had they not created

946
01:00:29,600 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 1: the La Boo Boos.

947
01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:31,400
Speaker 2: And so.

948
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 1: You know, there were a lot of Christians who were

949
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:38,760
Speaker 1: thinking that this could be a conduit for evil spiritual

950
01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:42,720
Speaker 1: influence because it remembers, it resembles this old Mesopotamian god.

951
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:45,160
Speaker 1: And so when I wrote the piece, I said, the

952
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:49,760
Speaker 1: bigger problem seems to me to be that the there

953
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:53,040
Speaker 1: they have a subli and demand curve that makes these

954
01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 1: things almost inaccessible and drives up the price. And I said, so,

955
01:00:57,720 --> 01:01:00,120
Speaker 1: if you're really concerned about what Labuo bo is doing

956
01:01:00,160 --> 01:01:04,440
Speaker 1: to you, it's more economic than it is spiritual. Like that,

957
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: like you need to be looking at that sort of

958
01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:10,840
Speaker 1: push that this whole industry is giving you where somehow

959
01:01:11,560 --> 01:01:13,680
Speaker 1: having a little boo boo has become a status symbol,

960
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:18,560
Speaker 1: Like that's the bigger problem. I don't think that an

961
01:01:18,600 --> 01:01:21,840
Speaker 1: ancient deity is going to come through the little Boo

962
01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:25,600
Speaker 1: boo doll and possess you. I think that if you're

963
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:28,480
Speaker 1: seeking these things out and fighting for fighting for them

964
01:01:28,520 --> 01:01:31,800
Speaker 1: in stores, you've probably already been possessed by something. It's

965
01:01:31,920 --> 01:01:34,919
Speaker 1: just not it's just not the laboo, you know, It's

966
01:01:34,960 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: just not this ancient deity. So I totally resonated that

967
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:41,640
Speaker 1: last point, and I think there's a ton of fruit

968
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 1: and I hope people who are listening understand. I think

969
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:47,680
Speaker 1: there is like a ton of productivity that can come

970
01:01:47,680 --> 01:01:50,160
Speaker 1: out of rethinking some of what we do in terms

971
01:01:50,200 --> 01:01:53,160
Speaker 1: of this sacred social order. So I, like I said,

972
01:01:53,200 --> 01:01:56,200
Speaker 1: I've already thought it begun thinking it through with regard

973
01:01:56,280 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 1: to the Book of Hebrews and how some of this

974
01:01:58,120 --> 01:02:00,800
Speaker 1: can sort of help reframe my understand ending of just

975
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 1: how that book even works. And so I just really

976
01:02:04,840 --> 01:02:07,720
Speaker 1: appreciated the work and appreciate your time this morning talking

977
01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:08,160
Speaker 1: to us.

978
01:02:08,240 --> 01:02:11,440
Speaker 2: So thanks for being here. Thanks James, It's been a pleasure.

979
01:02:11,680 --> 01:02:14,240
Speaker 2: And yeah, I hope people find the book useful and

980
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:15,160
Speaker 2: the idea is useful.

981
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:19,840
Speaker 1: Well, we'll have a link to it in the show description. Secularization,

982
01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:24,960
Speaker 1: Social Order and World History is the book. Kevin Flatt

983
01:02:25,000 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 1: is the author. Check it out in the link. I'd

984
01:02:27,160 --> 01:02:30,360
Speaker 1: really encourage you to read it. It is oddly accessible

985
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:32,720
Speaker 1: for an academic book. I will say that it really

986
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:34,320
Speaker 1: well written. I didn't have any you know, you're not.

987
01:02:34,560 --> 01:02:37,600
Speaker 1: It's not like reading Philip Rief, right.

988
01:02:38,720 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 2: It's my number one goal, James, Yeah, number one.

989
01:02:42,520 --> 01:02:44,080
Speaker 1: So if you pick this up, if you're a lay

990
01:02:44,080 --> 01:02:46,680
Speaker 1: person in church, you're interested in these kind of things,

991
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:48,400
Speaker 1: you're not going to have any trouble reading this book.

992
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:53,040
Speaker 1: Very accessible, very helpful, and yeah, we'll close it out there.

993
01:02:53,080 --> 01:02:55,400
Speaker 1: So thanks again for being here, Thanks ashish Alas for

994
01:02:55,440 --> 01:02:58,080
Speaker 1: the conversation, and we'll catch everybody on the next episode

995
01:02:58,080 --> 01:02:59,960
Speaker 1: of Thinking Christian Care. Just want to take a seat

996
01:03:00,240 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 1: to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership

997
01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:05,320
Speaker 1: with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go

998
01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:07,960
Speaker 1: to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith

999
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:11,160
Speaker 1: centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer,

1000
01:03:11,280 --> 01:03:13,240
Speaker 1: Bible study, parenting, and more.