The New Christians, Rewilding Christianity. A dialogue with Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon

A renewed interest in Christianity? Old traditions of myth and place revived?
In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon consider the significance of recent conversions, as confessed by figures such as Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw, as well as the prominence given to Christianity by writers such as Marilynne Robinson and Jordan Peterson.
They explore what has been called the “rewilding” of Christianity and whether traditional apologetics has run out of steam. Are surprisingly common religious encounters with divine and supernatural presences becoming more acceptable? What of the challenge to mainstream forms of Christianity coming from the pens of Radical Orthodoxy and, unexpectedly, C.S. Lewis? And what might full strength Christianity invite and promise?
This ripple of fresh encounters with Christianity won’t stop the general decline of church-going in the West. But maybe that very decline is making space for reinvigorated spiritualities.
For more on Rupert, including other dialogues with Mark, see - www.sheldrake.org
For more on Mark, including other dialogues with Rupert, see - www.markvernon.com

[@jasonbrown1807]

I didn't realize Rupert S. was also Christian. Watching with joy as my heroes become Christians.

[@christopherroberts7472]

Wonderful conversation - thank you!

[@justinbirkholz7814]

I really like this idea of "Rewilding Christianity" and thought this was a very interesting discussion that deeply resonated with me in many ways. I was raised in a very conservative Protestant American Christian home and went through a phase in early adulthood when I was very much a materialist agnostic and was very hostile towards religion and spirituality and have since come back to Christianity, though a very different form than what I was raised on. But during that time that I was very hostile to religion, I happened to live right down the street from a cathedral which I ended up visiting many times. The beauty of the cathedral and the choral and organ music performances that were held there drew me in and I felt myself wanting to go back over and over again for the experience. I believe Western culture is going through something very similar at this moment and I believe this conversation elucidated that very beautifully. People are being drawn back into Christianity and they might not even be fully conscious of the reasons why. I love the idea of a movement towards a "Full Strength Christianity" as well. For me, that means Christianity that isn't entirely focused on propositional knowledge but that embraces the full human experience and all of the modes of knowledge. That means a form of Christianity in which personal spiritual practices have a place alongside group worship. The form of Christianity in which I was raised seemed empty to me precisely because it was lacking in this domain and therefore failed to be transformative, as Rupert said, and I agree, it should be. Christianity without prayer, pilgrimage, meditation, contemplation, fasting, etc., is certainly lacking.

[@schmetterling4477]

So basically you are addicted to the original Nigerian Prince scam. :-)

[@WhiteStoneName]

Loved this. Thank you both.

[@willjames7095]

Christianity is totally supernatural. Becoming a Christian is a totally supernatural experience.👍

[@emil_rainbow]

Oh, how so?

[@elizadaphne5501]

You have to experience it ❤

[@emil_rainbow]

@@elizadaphne5501 in an escapist sort of way?

[@elizadaphne5501]

@@emil_rainbow no

[@emil_rainbow]

@@elizadaphne5501 kzbin.info/www/bejne/jX6wlZSva6uboqs

[@lindacarroll5018]

Re-awakening to the original sense of spiritual experience. Many thanks to you both.

[@WhiteStoneName]

27:15 - 28:20 Amen! Preach. I couldn't agree more.

[@traviswadezinn]

Excellent!

[@MrHwaynefair]

Mark - wonderful discussion - thank you both for this. RE: the "medieval Lewis" - may I highly recommend David Downing's book, Into the Region of Awe - Mysticism in C.S. Lewis? I rarely read a book from cover to cover - but could not help myself with this one :) -wayne fair

[@WakingUpToday213]

On this Canadian Thanksgiving Day, thanks to Rupert and Mark for this wonderful discussion illuminating many facets of an emerging whole.

[@Autobotmatt428]

I hope this does lead to a revival in someway.

[@TheWorldTeacher]

Dr. Alfred's theory of morphic resonance is ASTONISHING!

[@wendyfarrall1355]

Excellent Thank you

[@NGC-catseye]

I pray that one day Rupert would come and show us how he would take back space🙏

[@tara_artist]

So inspiring and beautiful. THANK YOU

[@300387ful]

Amazing discussion. This renewal of Christian and general western spirituality will have quite interesting effects everywhere in the world I believe. Many springing forth from the psychedelic-adjacent crowd with the use of technology for both material and spiritual ends (spirituality through chemical substances or drugs, a form of technology) and the desire to transhumanize humanity (not in the sense Dante meant) with all kinds of augmentations or enhancements. Think like a more widespread and stronger phenomenon seen with the microdosing done in silicon valley and other environments. With the sooner than later push for psychedelic therapy and mainstream acceptance I believe it to be highly probable, as a sort of strengthening yet at the same time surrender of the materialist world view when faced with this spiritual revival and the realization that what they held as solidity and as truth before, is no longer enough.

[@maggen_me7790]

I find Mark's "in depth" mystical approach is a great supplement in regard to " this Little corner"

[@dlt4videos]

This week I was re-reading CS Lewis ransom trilogy and found myself wishing I would be able to hear Doctor Sheldrake's views on CS Lewis's scifi work ... 3 days later I'm watching this, I don't know maybe. Thanks Mark

[@RepairRenovateRenew]

Absolute brilliance and on par with my desire since a recent experience of tasting heaven. Always a enlightening experience listening to your dialogues.

[@matthewstokes1608]

I have followed your talks and must say you seem to be getting into something far more powerful with this chat on ‘full strength Christianity’… It is soaring into full Faith - and into the praise of the glory of God - that reveals the abolition of death as inevitable fact and informs everything that matters in a life of joy and the attempts to perfect the self that God wants.

[@jimmieoakland3843]

Lately, I have thought a lot about the questions of "belief" in Christianity, as opposed to "practice" lately, and have come to the conclusion that a great mistake has been made by de-emphasizing the latter. Belief, in my experience, is something the can change, depending merely on my mood, and sometimes my beliefs are held with flagging enthusiasm. Yet it is the practices--attending mass, adoration, rosary, etc.--are what keeps me grounded in the end. They have a kind of magic, separate from belief, that work on me at a much deeper level. We are, after all, creatures who feel, smell, hear, and taste, in addition to be able to think. I believe that engaging all the senses, instead of just making left brain judgments on veracity claims, makes us more whole ("holy").

[@schmetterling4477]

The only thing that matters to god are deeds.

[@leonoraperron4751]

@@schmetterling4477 Go deeper: What is in one's heart determines deeds.

[@schmetterling4477]

@@leonoraperron4751 What is in your hear is muscles and connective tissue and nerve cells and blood. Nobody gives a crap what's on your mind, either. We don't punish people for mind crimes and we don't reward them for what they are thinking, because we can't know. We only punish and reward for what a person does. Nothing else matters.

[@adrianthomas1473]

Very good talk - we need to encounter Jesus directly and not mediated by the clergy. Suggest reading the Quietists such as Miguel Molinos, François Fenelon and Jeanne Guyon.

[@WhiteStoneName]

@PaulVanderklay should check this out. Mark, how would this relate to the Little Corner crowd, ie those who are involved in the communities of Vanderklay, Pageau, and Vervaeke? Those are all Jordan Peterson adjacent communities.

[@PlatosPodcasts]

I sense they are more drawn to relatively traditional apologetics. But I might be mistaken...

[@WhiteStoneName]

@@PlatosPodcasts I sure hope not. I’ve been in the PVK circle since the beginning, and that’s definitely not my bent. :) Although there are some rationalist types in there. There’s a huge Protestant and post-Protestant contingency there.

[@TS_Apostolos]

PVK has tweeted about a coming intellectual Christian revival. I would think the coming revival would have the fringe on the fringe instead of deified, but not necessarily intellectual. Aye?

[@WhiteStoneName]

@@TS_Apostolos I'm not sure what you mean by "not necessarily intellectual" or who you are implying should be fringe (or center). The revival (a true further up and further in, think spiral or the non-closed world of the Serpent - Tomberg) will come in the spirit of these quotes: "The Christian of the future will be a mystic or not at all." - Rahner "All institutions are inherently demonic." - Tillich (I also said the exact same thing before I knew he had said it first) An institutionalized, confessionalist "Christianity" will not renew anything. It is the spirit of the Machine or the System or the World. It's 666 in Pageau-ian language. A true renewal or rebirth is only gonna happen through a non-dual, mystical faith...which is traditional Christianity as far as I'm concerned. AntiChrist and Christ are a hair's breadth apart. Live into the reality of Christ.

[@TS_Apostolos]

@@WhiteStoneName im staying the fringe will be back in its proper place, it won't be an intellectual revival, at least not for the majority 80/20 pareto. and totally agree with the mystical aspects of what you & Vernon/sheldrake saying in this video. For there is no having mode of atonement, only being.

[@WhiteStoneName]

19:30 When you get here, Paul, do you hear that...panentheism. Weird...who was talking about that years ago...I forget? 😜

[@cynthiao.543]

All this intellectual silliness. Knowing and living daily with Jesus has little to do with the intellect. But perhaps that is your path to it….prayer and meditation are not the same thing, I was a meditating Buddhist for 6 years. …not even close to where one can go with Christ. ✝️✝️✝️❤️🙏🏻🕊

[@schmetterling4477]

So you never grew up. That's OK, but why tell us? Why be proud of it?

[@jonathanskeet5076]

I think you missed something Cynthia O. - Rupert emphasised exactly that point, the importance difference between meditation and prayer - did you watch the whole video or give up after a few minutes perhaps?

[@WingraWonder]

I am so sorry I've come upon this discussion a year late, as I would have loved to be actively involved in the discussion. I agree that cathedrals are awe-inspiring, but so is an ant, so is the burning mass that is a star and its children planets, so is an eyelash blinking 15 times a minute. We just have to hone our sense of wonder. Meditation does this in part by teaching us to attend to the moment. But, yes, it's all about experience.

[@user-qj8zs4nj2b]

Can you share the title of the book you referenced on the history of belief? Thanks!

[@user-ef2rf3xx4b]

Cool

[@jonathanskeet5076]

Well it doesn't look like Mark Vernon's garden needs rewilding, judging by the view out of the window.

[@user-uo4cc2gc9w]

Thank´s for a very inspiring podcast. Mark says in this episode that Jesus talks to the disciples about "the divine within them" and that they are gods. I would very much like a reference for this quote. Anyone know where to find it?

[@PlatosPodcasts]

Thanks. It's John 10:34, and also John's long sections on Jesus and the Father as one, and then the disciples as one in him too.

[@user-uo4cc2gc9w]

@@PlatosPodcasts Thank you, Mark!

[@Jacob011]

Always excellent. Except the Rings of Power is where the strength ends, or rather, it has nothing to do with Tolkien, really.

[@davidgreenwood5602]

I love Francis Spufford and Marianne Williamson.Francis is a superb novelist,IMHO.

[@MarcusBarnabassisSystersSonne]

It's both: God is outside of time AND present within it.

[@clarekuehn4372]

Christ is not just in us and nature. He is Himself. Panentheism is insufficient. It is part of it, but transcendence is also part of the truth. Tolkein resisted anything but the Tridentine Mass, and was a deep Catholic for dogma and aesthetics.

[@schmetterling4477]

Tolkien wrote incredibly boring books, too.

[@leonoraperron4751]

Good discussion. But how does all you've said have anything to do with Christianity? It sounds much more like Quantum-Taoism.

[@conantheseptuagenarian3824]

had no idea sheldrake was a christian.

[@theonlymeaning]

There seems to have been a lot of Protestants going into Eastern Orthodoxy.....Russian Orthodoxy mainly...this is growing in the Bible Belt of the US of all places. The first person I heard about was Francis Schaeffer Jr. who wrote a scathing book about the evangelical leaders in the US.....I believe he became Greek Orthodox, I could be mistaken. The Russian aspect troubles me somewhat as it seems tied to a view of Russia today as a "Great Christian Nation" exactly what Putin claims ands wants for Russia...Actually I am suspect of this Russian Orthodox connection/movement...it is obviously tied to far Right politics. .........far Right politics is now a worldwide movement.....THAT truly disturbs me...the FAR Right aspect I mean. Yet the Far Left is actually now anti-science and has become anti-free speech.

[@susanmcdonald9088]

This was a very thoughtful discussion, thank you so much. I certainly weary of very aggressive atheists posting how religion has done all the most horrible things since the species began, lol. Then those who post bible verses as if that will convert anyone, sigh. And then separation of church & state, become the likes of trump and loss of women's rights to their own bodies, I find shocking! Our "reps" & supreme judges, totally rejecting the majority of American citizen's opinions. At any rate, it seems stories, symbols, and metaphors are like the air we breathe, essential. Why, who knows. But we kill over them! Our best stories are classical ones, not studied in public education any more, but clear vestiges of it in christianity. As Aristotle said, "The education of the mind without the education of the heart is no education at all." Please realize the origins of it all; a new theory of EXTREME explanatory power! Thank you kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmiocp-KmL95rbs

[@Nigel-uw7it]

Praying to saints and angels? Yeah the Bible has a word for that. Idolatry

[@risin4949]

Sorry Rupert but the reason that many of us left Christianity is nothing to do with anti-clericalism. Many decide that there is or may be a god is one thing, but to leap to immaculate conception, virgin birth, dying for our sins and resurrection is stretching things far too far.

[@toybokz]

Then why you here

[@mikestirewalt5193]

Sheldrake's associated himself with Christianity invalidates all the interesting work he's been involved with throughout his life. In one sense his caving in to his lower self is sad. It's also infuriating for those who once considered him to be a brave and innovative person. He's turned out to be just another flake.

[@13sempere]

Christianity is profound, that is, if you have it in you to go deep.

[@19battlehill]

The medieval cathedrals our Energy Zones --- everyone should go into them --- Frequency affects our bodies these cathedrals off wonderful frequencies -- go listen to choirs and organs when they play.

[@matthewstokes1608]

I think the decline in Christianity will indeed be reversed, Mark… I think you’re wrong - especially to say these things with such a happy grin on your face... I think Christianity will certainly revive quite soon in Britain - certainly among intellectuals. How could it not? The Truth is simply eternal - the victory of Time is already won by Christ - for obvious reasons. God Bless.

[@brianharris6437]

You may be right, except I don't agree with your optimistic timescale. The "obvious reasons" underlying the Christian outlook have come to seem less and less evident to most Westerners. Those who deepen or recover their faith are likely to remain a minority for quite some time or to attain only a thin semblance. And we should make peace with that remnant status. Trying to be socially relevant and capture the culture will only cheapen the Christian coin further. I share your trust in Providence, but it will take a much deeper renewal over many phases to restore the Church; there are no easy panaceas. We had best pray for sun but carry an umbrella.

[@matthewstokes1608]

@@brianharris6437i hear you… My faith came late and with such vigour that it explained then unleashed my raging inner sense of optimism. It’s a gift from God. I know in ‘Orthodoxy’ Chesterton outlines why he is not an optimist (even as he misdefines optimism) - but anyone who has read him must surely be as skeptical as I am concerning his self-diagnosis! …He’s a majestic optimist - all devout Christians are by dint of having seen the ending! The fear of God means fearing nothing else. Christ (the only Time traveller) before going to the cross said in passing, “I have overcome the world”. Christ never lies. The Triumph of man is the final Victory of God - into Eternity. I admit it might take longer to have the ancient parishes full again of a Sunday - but, it will happen… And, intellectually, as materialism and scientism become ever more deadeningly dull and authoritarian… weaponized through AI and politically wedded to the ghastly and dull internationalist figures that seek to straightjacket dissent and to control us - there is little doubt that the true wild power of full scale Christianity will flood the more deep thinking of healthy rebel minds with a passion for God to such an infectious extent that the artistic imagination of this reborn nation will once again smother the tiny left brain secular mouse of today… Nothing can stop God Almighty, or His flock, worldwide, from that inevitable appointment back in Eden’s eternity of “Now”.

[@williamoarlock8634]

'New' Christians - still middle-aged at the youngest.