CIRCLING JESUS: What's afoot with the new interest in Christianity? Elizabeth Oldfield & Mark Vernon

A number of public figures, in literature and ideas, have recently been talking about discovering Christianity, or perhaps it'd be better to say, being discovered by Christianity.
So what's going on with this renewed interest? Why now? How can this be talked about? What kind of Christianity are they being draw to and captured by? And what does their experience say about the inadequacies of much Christianity in modern culture?
These questions are asked by Elizabeth Oldfield, host of The Sacred podcast and former director of Theos. Mark Vernon, who often writes and talks about Christian things, is intrigued by and feels something of their lively reality.
For more on Elizabeth - www.elizabetholdfield.com
Mark more on Mark - www.markvernon.com

[@aidanmckeown]

That was fascinating, warm and deeply engaging. Thanks to you both for your unguarded openness and letting us eavesdrop! I find myself recently being greatly influenced by Karen Armstrong’s writing - particularly in her highlighting the drift in meaning of the words ‘believe’ and faith’ : originally a heartfelt commitment to a course of action, ethical undertaking and spiritual practice - as well as on ever- ongoing, engaged reinterpretation of religious texts. Now, instead, we understand these terms as solely assenting to a set of particular propositions. This literalism has led to such a narrowing of the religious path that many - including myself - have inevitably stepped off it. An older understanding of tradition offers an opportunity to expand the path once more to accommodate more of us in our diversity.

[@tomemery7890]

You might get something out of Paul Tillich's "the New Being"

[@markr5251]

I loved this conversation. It struck a deep chord in me regarding the “winds of change” I feel in me and in the world.

[@jimmieoakland3843]

I think that Christianity has been so ridiculed and marginalized over the last half century, it has been an unthinkable option for any of the "smart" people in the West. Now, having taken detours into Eastern religions, Wicca, New Athiest, etc., they are ready to look at Christianity with relatively fresh and less biased eyes. Perhaps because Christianity has been so off the cultural radar, it looks like something new and people are ready to give it a new hearing. I know I have had some interesting conversations of late.

[@PlatosPodcasts]

I recall Neil McGregor, when he put on an exhibition at the National Gallery on Christianity, saying something similar.

[@jimmieoakland3843]

@@PlatosPodcasts I wonder if that was the exhibition where descriptions accompanied each painting so that people could understand what was being depicted. Someone at the time wryly commented on the irony having to explain the meaning of, say, the Resurrection, to residents of a Christian country.

[@PlatosPodcasts]

@@jimmieoakland3843 It was called Seeing Salvation

[@williamoarlock8634]

Christianity has ridiculed itself for the past two millennia.

[@williamoarlock8634]

@@PlatosPodcasts The National Gallery...No wonder you're 'not of the world' (reality).

[@TheIndigoVat]

A very interesting, moving & deep-felt conversation, thank you both.

[@stephenwinter5958]

I first listened to this conversation when it was first posted on KZbin and came back to it again today. I am an Anglican parish priest of 35 years experience in various roles and I look back over this last year or two. Again, like Elizabeth Oldfield, I know that the plural of anecdote is not data but that observation is true of the gospels too. But I am struck by the number of thoughtful conversations that I have with young people, of the small number of young adults that I have baptised in the last year. Both of these seem to be expressions of cautious curiosity. But I also agree that the direction of the wind seems to be changing. It bothers me that the Church of England seems to want to promote certainty and not to provide safe spaces for exploration. But I feel more hopeful than I have for some time.

[@MrHwaynefair]

Rich and textured - a wonderful exchange - my favorite observation that so well summarizes a disposition of Wisdom: "It means more than I can know... and God is in all places and people - so why shouldn't I listened out for it in all places and people..." Thanks for this, Mark!

[@maggen_me7790]

When someone has mystical life-changing experiences, it is a blessing to be an artist/writer who has a tool to communicate and express a sublime experience to those who are unable to. Contemplating icons or a text is participation mystique

[@eggboy-uk]

Excellent discussion, thanks to both. I have been very lucky in my life and had a very significant mystical experience, about 23 years ago. I saw a large blue eye in the sky. It had a steady calm gaze and seemed to exude deep serenity and love. It was calm, serene and ecstatic, full of Love, very beautiful. I had the impression absolutely everything is alive and connected. Love runs everything, and I felt I understood how everything worked and functioned, all together. It was wonderful, ecstatic, awesome… From this I realised, everyone is fine, everyone and everything is loved, regardless. The longer I live since this experience, the more life makes sense. Shakespeare compared the World to a stage. Alan Watts said life is best viewed as an enormous cosmic drama, Bill Hicks described it as an enormous ride. In a good eternal drama, you have to have everything. Every possible thing and every possible person, every possible situation. Good, bad, saints, sinners, all of it including all the really nasty stuff and nasty people. Yet, everyone gets a round of applause when their part of the drama ends, good guys and bad guys, everyone experiences full unconditional love which they realise at death if not before. No one should fear death, we’re all automatically ok. And in the meantime, life is meant to be fun. I have found that life is full of signs and symbols, indicating its intimate connectedness. I have very occasionally been able to forsee things, usually brought to my attention by something in the surroundings such as particular bird song, or in a dream. This doesn’t really seem so peculiar in an intimately connected universe. And the main key to everything is love, which is easy to do and starts at home with your nearest and dearest. Makes it easy really and is the route to happiness and fulfilment :-)

[@dianagoddard566]

Couldn’t agree more. How can all thing be well? The question was answered in a mystical - what would be called a non-duel experience when I was 20 that all things will be well and that love is the meaning . Living it out is the problem.

[@kennycoffey3988]

Thank you for such an expansive conversation, it feels like people are ripening towards what Steiner has to share about the Mystery of Golgotha ;)

[@belindanorrington7951]

A wonderfully honest conversation, thank you.

[@mariabyrne1954]

An amazing conversation

[@MarcusBarnabassisSystersSonne]

Wonderful discussion, thanks! Ms Oldfield's cursory mention of "apophaticism" is, in my opinion, the crux of the matter, for in the Corpus of Dionysius there exists a supreme example of recognizing Christ as the exclusive mode of salvation, yet at the same time--and by the very words of St Dionysius himself--an ineffability to actually name That which is, by definition, beyond all names and categories of mind (for That Which created the mind exists outside of it, at once ineffably beyond, yet of course resides tacitly within, that which is created).

[@WhiteStoneName]

Just finished. You’ve been killin’ it lately, Mark. Keep ‘em, comin. I’d love to see you talk to Paul Vanderklay again also. As that’s my main online “community”. I’d love for you to share with him your thoughts or impressions of how the “Little Corner” is more apologetics-oriented vs mystical. I’m on Team Mystical. 🎉😊

[@ZeeHilal]

I like the attitude. It is starting to outshine the darkness. PLEASE dive in. We on the internet appreciate to the point

[@amywas1]

I am always noticing those beautiful English gardens in so many of your recordings. As an Australian of European ancestry who has pursued the "indigenous" voice of spirituality deep in the harsh Australian wilderness, and in it found consolation and occasional ecstasies, might I suggest that much of the nourishment which may sustain us in our hopes of salvation could be found in cultivating such gardens along with other simple pursuits in the natural world by which we might protect ourselves from the onslaught of the current technological invasion and its vast pantheon of false gods; a Christianity restoring itself by restoring our sense of awe and wonder, by drawing from the landscape and delving deep into the natural world and which finds its purpose in defending the rights of those people whose ancestors are buried in it - that these rights are far more universal than the limited perversion of it dictated to us by the WEF in which somehow it is only reindeer farmers and such who can lay claim the benefits of being victims of "colonisation". As for the historical dangers associated with such conversation, I believe that sincerity here is really the key and that there are no bureaucratic shortcuts to be had.

[@jimmieoakland3843]

I believe you are right, and you don't have to look too far for confirmation. It is not coincidence that so many religious traditions started in silence on a mountain top, or in a cave, or during forty days in the desert. I am entranced by the American Southwest myself, and always feel a spiritual elevation when I return there. There is something about nature and silence, which was every person's daily experience until the last few centuries, that naturally draws us into the spiritual realm.

[@amywas1]

@@jimmieoakland3843 There are places in the Australian Landscape which are as significant to me as Mecca to Muslims or the Vatican to Catholics, Jerusalem to the Jews Muslims and Christians. And even though solitude is a large part of what makes these places so sacred to me, I cannot over state how much I sense the presence of so many others who have also felt those qualities which make such places so special - each according to their kind. As I get older, these places, and one place in particular, have become not so much places where I physically go but more something akin to a world that has taken root inside me and it has somehow developed into something profoundly ecumenical in its broadest possible sense.

[@davidfee46]

Richard Rohr put it nicely. God has to come indirectly (divine ambush if you like) and catch you off guard …when you are empty rather than full of yourself.

[@WhiteStoneName]

21:11 the mystical side of Christianity is the real side. 😁 It’s the iconic, personalist side. The embodied irreducible. The subjectively objective. It can’t be abstracted or named. Rob Bell once said something close to “God is he about whom we must never speak and yet always keep speaking.”

[@CaptainPhilosophical]

"There is something about the divine becoming human that pulls us towards what we are afraid we are capable of. " It seems to me like the story of Christ is showing us what we are ALL capable of. Perhaps what we are adraid of is as Wilber puts it, the need for us to not only 'wake up' but also 'clean up, and grow up'. We are afraid of the truth of who we are because then we would have to embody it. We would have accept that the Truth in this form is flawed and that's ok. Limitations and flaws are necessary when the Truth comes out of infinite formlessness and into finite form. The very act of creating a specific form creates limits and boundaries. We must include our limitations and flaws yet transcend them as well.

[@The-Aion]

For all it's shortcomings, Christianity is the basis of the modern European/ American experience. Yes I used to identify as Atheist as well, and pointed to all the terrible things that Christianity has done. Yet now, I have let go of such a convicted viewpoint, and have leaned in to the spiritual abundance that this religion can provide. After all it is the one I grew up with. If we don't wish to appropriate other religions or spiritual practices, we can take a second look at Christianity and reinvigorate it with the mysticism that it was founded upon. Christianity has very mystical origins, with some attributes relating to ancient Mediterranean mystery rites. Jesus (doesn't matter if he was real) is this priestly figure who's words echo mystical philosophies of his time. The Bible is a highly symbolic, philosophic, mystical text that we can now choose to stop taking so literally and see it for the fountain of mysterious knowledge it truly is.

[@Mataharifilms]

“Is there anyone out there?” It’s an inside job, the axis mundi resides within each human heart. So maybe “Is there anyone in here?” is a much more specifically local way to frame it? That source of depthless unconditional love must first be imagined and quested for within. And we only come to that through pain, grace, gift. Philosophers who don’t or can’t admit this aren’t the people with the wisdom we’re looking for! We’re all by definition deluded - ego does that to us ‘for our own good’. Transcendence through ecstatic release isn’t everyone’s cuppatea but at least it acknowledges that ego doesn’t possess the information we’re looking for…x

[@logoimotions]

Sitting forehead to forehead - lovely way of putting that

[@aidantreays6497]

❤ lovely people both, enjoyed the rich warmth and honesty .

[@WhiteStoneName]

6:48 Holy cow! Was NOT expecting Sara Groves yo be quoted in this. Have always loved her stuff. Haven’t listened in a while. I will today. :)

[@user-ji6mc7qe5x]

Thank you so much. I have really enjoyed exploring thoughts in this way.

[@elektrotehnik94]

This is great ❤️

[@joshshortt9599]

Gotta admit, the idea of a godless universe never made existence feel meaningless to me, but I can't articulate why.

[@necksugar]

It's a shame to lose the point as it suffers the death of a thousand qualifications. This is the brilliant mind of God's timing. His perfect communication and the timing of it when and where it touches us. Just concider the languages and the treasures within in types that the meanings take.

[@WhiteStoneName]

36:19 “there are very few female transhumanists.” 😂 I’ve never thought about it, but I can see that for sure. There’s a lot in that sentence.

[@bobbiechitwood632]

many women who give birth experience deep surrender to the Mystery and recognize that what is personally happenng to them is beyond their control. In that surrender a child is born. In that surrender the mother may die.. It is a truly holy place of struggle toward surrender as so much in life is. Men dont experience this great opening.

[@WhiteStoneName]

37:00 The Gospel of Just Try Harder More will. More action. Fix things. Phallogocentrism

[@WhiteStoneName]

48:00 “so pretentious” Don’t tell Vervaeke! 😅 I think he’s inventing new words in order to revive the ones that we’ve turned into static, dead, de-spirited objects. 😘

[@PlatosPodcasts]

You're right.

[@daddycool228]

Isnt Christianity about psychology rather than morality. That statement of Jesus that the Kingdom of heaven is within. The deep psychological work of the early church fathers and mothers to " clean the inside of the cup' in order to be transparent to the divine. Only when attaining a level of this work do we really know what it is to be moral...because we know if we miss the mark we are violating that level of " consciousness" we have attained. Basically it seems to be the case that we have a responsibility. We can't delegate it to clergy or to any external authority. We need to go through suffering volunatrily and learn to carry our cross. Nobody can carry it for us. Grace is there to help because we can't do it all on our own.

[@danielmcdonagh2889]

Hi. Just to help clarify something you mentioned. “Within you” comes off as an unfavorable translation, seeing that Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees at the time. Jesus was surely not saying that the kingdom of God resided within the Pharisees’ hearts. The Pharisees opposed Jesus and had no relationship with God. Jesus in other places denounced them as “whitewashed tombs” and “hypocrites". The better translation would be “in your midst” or “among you.” Jesus was telling the Pharisees that He brought the kingdom of God to earth. Jesus’ presence in their midst gave them a taste of the kingdom life, as attested by the miracles that Jesus performed. Elsewhere, Jesus mentions His miracles as definitive proof of the kingdom: “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20). There are three popular interpretations of Jesus’ words in Luke 17:21 that the kingdom of God is within you (or among you): 1) the kingdom of God is essentially inward, within man’s heart; 2) the kingdom is within your reach if you make the right choices; and 3) the kingdom of God is in your midst in the person and presence of Jesus. The best of these interpretations, it seems, is the third: Jesus was inaugurating the kingdom as He changed the hearts of men, one at a time.

[@RonCopperman]

@ 00:16:26 I've heard a theory that Jesus had not yet ascended and offered himself up as the sacrifice. And if she would have touched him he would have been made unclean... ( wonky idea?) Regardless, great video. Cheers : )

[@WhiteStoneName]

1:47 “a safe Christian” what a sad phrase. What does this show? That many have experienced “Christians” and “Christianity” as identical replicant conversionism?! A “you must be me to be ok”? Cultural colonization? That is incredibly sad that this is what Christianity has become.

[@danielmcdonagh2889]

It would be unfair to label all Christians under an umbrella term, particilarly one so disparaging and false. Christians everywhere are immersed in the Word of God and serving within the body of Christ - the church. The Holy Spirit is indwelling in millions. We judge people by their fruits. We must remember we are all of us broken, and sinful. No church is perfect. But the slate is wiped clean by Christ. We must always focus on the Lord Jesus Christ.

[@danielpotter9629]

Full spectrum medicine