Paul Kingsnorth: The Church needs to tell its story
Вставка
- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- Recent convert to Christianity, author & poet Paul Kingsnorth, shares what he thinks about where The western Church has compromised the most, and what it needs to do to get back on track.
Watch his full Big Conversation with Rowan Williams: • Rowan Williams & Paul ...
For updates, bonus content and more conversations sign up at: www.thebigconve...
The Big Conversation is a video series from Unbelievable? featuring world-class thinkers across the religious and non-religious community. Exploring science, faith, philosophy and what it means to be human. The Big Conversation is produced by Premier in partnership with John Templeton Foundation.
• More shows, free eBook & newsletter: premierunbelie...
• For live events: www.unbelievabl...
• For online learning: www.premierunb...
• Support us in the USA: www.premierinsi...
• Support us in the rest of the world: www.premierunb...
“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it” - C.S. Lewis
I burst into tears after hearing this - because I've been thinking exactly this for a long time and never thought to hear it anywhere other than in my own head. Thanks Mr Kingsnorth.
Me too. I'm sitting here at the bottom tip of Africa, with Irish, Scottish, English, German, French and Jewish ancestry, and this makes such absolute sense. There is no other salvation for our poor benighted world. It's our separated ego-minds that got us into trouble in the first place.
A great & simple way out of the morass the Church has made for itself by wanting to be loved by modern society. Well done Mr Kingsnorth. You clearly see !
That's so true we do need saints and to respect them and try to be like them. Not treat them as trivial.
Love this, well said! (From a protestant Christian)
I so, so agree with what is being said here. We need to completely (re)position and talk about Christianity as the mystery that it is. Blow people’s minds in a most beautiful way! I’ve been thinking about how we might do this as a series of personal testimonies, for example.
It's not a 'mystery' and certainly not 'beautiful' (God so loves suffering he 'holy' self-gratifies through a crucifixion and resurrection). Christianity is contrived consumer status serving (render unto Caesar) and ego feed (the kingdom is within) mythology as Christians' solipsistic testimonies further attest.
Christianity in the west is to deeply know, hold to, teach, live and preach the Biblical gospel of Jesus Christ. He is the head of the church, his words are our absolute foundation and salvation is only found in him through the gospel.
Affirmative: this gentleman who leans into orthodoxy and what he says in this brief clip is Right on Target and that's what describes the accomplishments of various restoration movements around the world; many that have sprung up on simultaneous timelines and a few on other timelines.
Back in the early seventies I chose to become a part of the American Restoration Movement which began around 1789 as part of the Second Great Awakening in the USA. We are not the only Christians but we are Christians Only and that is just the recipe needed for expanding His Kingdom now and into eternity.
"a simple change of heart..." lyric by Carrie Newcomer
Paul, you have hit the nail on the head. Western churches have drifted into a doctrine-based faith, rather than an experiential and transformative view of the divine. I have studied Franciscan Monk Richard Rhor, and Trappist Monks, Thomas Keating, and Thomas Merton, who have taught the way to experience God that has been lost to the West.
Bang on, unabashed.
The 'Church' has told its stories plenty.
Im hearing a real Light Art and God go hand in hand Saints yes
Subbed Your Channel, It is very interesting and beautiful :) thank you for sharing-==
There was one holy catholic church before schism . Petrine office, petrine succession, the see of Peter, the holy sea where the succession of Peter was honoured, the world was Catholic.
The Orthodox Church always points out the lack of lineage in the Western Heterodox denominations (including non- denominational which is a denomination)
As saints we do not "have" in the world, we are with our Father after Jesus. From him we are given eyes after we give up what we "have" to see with the Holy Spirit. On earth.
This from God through us, to the world. Not ever from us. That possessive self dies so the Holy Spirit can be born through us instead.
Paul Kingsnorth reminds me of the perennial complaints of all the older generations of the past, “everything is going to rack and ruin today, it was so much better in past ages” And his answer is religion, not just any religion, but the past saints of his religion.
He should read Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature. In it he writes, “believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. Despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history” Exploding the myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity.
Not peaceful for the billions of murdered children in the womb
@@jordantheriverman6143 - Or the millions of the babies, pregnant women and children killed in the biblical flood, of course they were all sinners and deserved it, but god still loved them all.
If Christianity is true then the life we live in this world is just a footnote to eternity so why does it matter if it's saved or not
couldn't agree more.
Funny how what's "spiritual" always seems to be whatever the person describing it is in favor of.
It's a humpty dumpty word all right - but then, what is "spirit"?
@@ritawing1064 I think it's usually whatever someone likes about themselves and doesn't want to die.
"We need saints! More saints in the world" ... but is the world ready for these saints so as to achieve holiness or become more saintly-like? Very much doubt that, or, at least, it's one big question to ask before declaring with such emphasis what this world needs.
It was during one of those horrid times such as the English 17th century of civil wars when oh so many saints were roaming the landscape, so many righteous people were calling people to virtue, while waging war against heretics, 'sensuals', persecutors, false brethrens, just as this voice in the clip would point his righteous finger at scientism, for example. But is it scientism that tears the world apart, or the need of people to mis-use something like science to wage their battles against one another, tearing the world apart in the process? Address the scientism and people will replace it with something else.
And, more important, will the saints be used to fight some of these battles? Will holiness be brought on the barricades? If so, then I guess we're already looking at it, it's just we don't know where this sainthood is anymore. Strangely enough, holiness has mingled, it's on every side, it's in the Church story as well, sometime shouting, sometime whispering, like much in this world that has lost its clear lines of good and bad, of things to mourn and to be proud of.
And then there's the ego. Of course, lose the ego! But sometimes I think this is just an excuse. A mission and a technique for exceptions, of exceptional individuals, that will never get to change the world because you cannot have a world of saints, of holy men, of ascetics. And their truth that is so out of this world that needs to have a world to be out of touch with for it to actually work unto this world. Although, it's that sometimes I doubt that truth has set anyone free - does the truth set you free from the conditions to arrive at it?
people are realising God doesn't exist and that's hard for humans to come to terms with.
Perhaps it is better to believe in His existence than not.
hmmm, not completely convinced. We are where we are, the new Jerusalem is a city not an eden, and cities require technology in order to function. Yes we need saints, but saints now, people who will witness to Jesus in our modern setting. Yes the Orthodox Church has some great things but so do other churches, like charismatic and pentecostal which major on the immediacy of Gods presence. I do think they struggle to differentiate between capitalist culture and the kingdom of God, so this is where the Orthodox Church could help them maybe
Read the Philokalia (the Love of the Good and Beautiful) to understand the narrow gate towards salvation through the Cross as explained by the Church Fathers of the first 1000 years of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christian Orthodoxy. It teaches the way one can overcome the passions that lead to sin and suffering.
Are non-believers going to hell, Paul?
Does it take a saint to get the churches to get the Catholic Church to properly atone for its systemic enabling of child abusers? If so, lets have some saints. Personally, I'd have thought ordinary, decent people without a vested interest could do it
How saints are made? Its the vatican that make people saints... you need money & the power of vatican..
There is no monopoly about the authority of God.
You haven't even got the basics of NT worship right. You're both wrong
It should be a political challenge, and you should be calling for activism in the name of Christ! Why not...
Erm, no.
But what I want to know is when is your Ethereum coin offering dropping... 😉
It’s missing any sense of reality
Nothing worse than science.......looking for rational and natural explanations of how the universe works. It will be the death of us.
We need to stop and accept magic as the only way to live a full and spiritual life.
And we need to stop questioning every claim theist make. It is really bringing us down and causing the price of gas to skyrocket!
The emotional and psychologically abusive childhood I had in the Catholic church and a Catholic education is not the solution to out boken society and search for 'spirituality.' It didn't have my well being as its central purpose. A Christian story is awful in the old testament. The new testament is not much better - so many more life affirming acts a 'god' could have done than a blood sacrifice in the unbelievable resection story. There are some great teachings in the bible on forgiveness etc but there are also great vales, spirtual teachings and practices in other regions and practices. I've been involved in other non Catholic Christian activities as an adult, but I've never got from prayer the deep peace, and connectedness I've found in Buddhist meditation and teachings.
"A Christian story is awful in the O.T. and N.T. isn't much better?" Not sure what you mean?
Indeed. The last thing we need is another generation of the religious wittering endlessly about the special "mysteries" of the Christian blood sacrifice. Disband the Catholic Church and all those that have been the vehicle for centuries of abuse, and use their assets for repair.
The core is story telling from some Greeks about a dead jewish preacher who got executed by the Romans for rebellion.
A bit more to it than that. The truth is stranger than fiction
you missed out the one important bit: after the persecuted guy died, he came back, he came back to life, he rose from the dead, thats why we tell the story
There is nothing "radical" about the Christian story... it is not unlike some other religions of it's time, and, although it has it's own unique expression, it is full of holes in plot lines, inconsistencies and even some very unhealthy, primitive ideas to go along with it's flashes of kindness. It is a dualistic religion, which simply makes zero scientific sense, given modern insights into the nature of reality... material reality has been literally debunked... consciousness is all that exists, and, therefore "nondualism" is where truth leads. So, for something "radical" (and true) and wholly loving and exceptional I would invite you to bark up Eastern philosophical traditions such as Advaita Vedanta.
Scienticism is destroying the civilisation.
- Someone with his webcam and microphone on the world wide web.
There’s a difference between science and scientism
@@markarmstrong8613 scienticism is a word that only non scientist use anyway.
The very fact that you can’t distinguish science from scientism proves his point.
Science isn't destroying civilisation! Unbridled capitalism, consumerism, a limted political and economic system not designed to handle complex issues of climate change etc is the problem. Appealing to a single religious world view like christianity in a modern pluralistic society isn't the solution either. We need values and practices for a modern world that transcend different groups and unight us with shared visions.
@@nickb6260 Where do we get the values from? What standard do you use to judge the values?