“The Great Instauration” by Francis Bacon w/Brian Bagley & Jesan Sorrells

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Foreign hello,

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my name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership

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Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode number

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177 and

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reading from our Book Today the Preface

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from Our Book Today the Introduction form for our Book

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Today it seems that

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men do not rightly understand either their store or their strength,

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but overrate the one and underrate the other. Hence it

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follows that either from an extravagant estimate of the value of the arts which they

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possess, they seek no further, or else from too mean an estimate of their

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own powers, they spend their strength in small matters, and never put it fairly

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to the trial in those which go to the main these

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are as the pillars of fate set in the path of knowledge, for men have

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neither desire nor hope to encourage them to penetrate further

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and since opinion of store is one of the chief causes of want and

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satisfaction with the present induces neglect of provision for the future,

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it becomes a thing not only useful, but absolutely necessary,

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that the excess of honor and admiration with which our existing

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stock of inventions is regarded be in the very entrance

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and threshold of the work, and that frankly and without circumcision

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stripped off and men be duly warned not to exaggerate or

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make too much of them. For let a man look carefully

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into all that variety of books with which the arts and

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sciences abound, he will find everywhere endless

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repetitions of the same thing, varying in the method of

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treatment, but not new in substance in

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so much of the whole stock, numerous as it appears at first view,

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proves on examination to be but

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scanty.

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Now Christians have known

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something for about the last 2,000 or so years

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roughly, that apparently must be rediscovered

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once every generation in the west, without fail,

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at least by the more secular and pagan oriented believers

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among us. This knowledge isn’t Gnostic, and this knowledge

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isn’t secret. It’s recognizable to anyone who

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has lived long enough and been surrounded by frustration, particularly with

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unmet goals, unquenched desires, and suppressed

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appetites. And what’s worse is that Christians,

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if any of the secular oriented folks around them were paying attention, or

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maybe even giving them their due, have been providing the solution to

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all the problems this knowledge creates, or this lack of knowledge

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creates for at least the last 2000 years as well.

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But as John Wayne once infamously said, I think my

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kids might have bought me a shirt with this on it. Some

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people just can’t be helped.

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The knowledge that Christians grasp loosely is now in our own time being

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rediscovered by very secular people, such as

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it was at the start of the Enlightenment project back at the 17th century

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last episode which I would encourage you to go back and listen to

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episode number 176. We read from Candide by

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Voltaire and the author today would have been, would have influenced

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Voltaire’s writing and approach to the narrative restructuring

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via human reason and human skepticism that our author today

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absolutely championed. Of course, he

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championed it only after knowing the thing that all Christians in

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his time, particularly Puritan Christians,

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knew in his time by heart

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today on the show. Today, on this episode of the

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podcast, we are reading and examining the

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themes for Leaders from an essay by the great grandfather

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of empirical skepticism, a man who laid the

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foundation for the scientific method that created the technology

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that brings you this podcast today.

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But it’s the same empirical

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skepticism that can’t tell you what

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bringing this podcast to you actually means.

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We are reading from a very long essay certain

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select parts of the great

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installation by Francis Bacon.

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I’m going to hold it up here. That way you can see my copy of

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this today.

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Leaders, there is no secret to restoring the world and

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there is nothing new to be quote, unquote discovered.

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In order to fix things for the future, in order to restore things

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for the future, I would assert we’ve got to go backwards,

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disciplining ourselves and doing the same hard work that those in

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the past committed to doing that got us here

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in the first place.

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And of course, anytime I talk about

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theological based

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works or works that touch on theology or place where

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works maybe should have a theological bent,

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I have to invite my good friend and theological

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backstop, Brian Bagley to the show.

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How you doing, Brian? I’m doing great. Thanks for

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having me. Brian, how is your new year

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going? It’s going, it’s going well. You know,

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we’re staying busy with work and

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kiddos. I’ve got older, older kids. They’re still in the house.

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And so as they are active in

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school and, and kind of becoming adults,

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things, you know, activities, just, you know, you don’t get fewer

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things to do, I’ll put it to you that way. So. No, but we’re

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enjoying, enjoying that season of life and, and staying

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busy with work. So, yeah, doing, doing well. How about yourself?

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I am. I’m doing just as well as I could possibly be

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doing. You know, we’ve got a lot of work. We started off with a bang,

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you know, because I still got my, still got young kids, you know, living in

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my house, so. Larger age ranges than your children, but

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fewer children have a larger age ranges. So it’s. A buddy of mine was joking

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with me about it the other day and he Said, you know, it’s like you’re,

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you’re, you’re going from one developmental challenge to the next developmental challenge and

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you have to like shift gears really quickly because the

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20 year old and the 9 year old, while it looks like on the surface

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they have the same developmental challenges, they really don’t they things going on

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in a bunch of different, a bunch of different places. And so you’re just, you’re

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constantly shifting and downshifting and it’s true. You are.

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Yes. Yeah. That is so true. So true.

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So let’s, let’s dive in a little bit. Let’s talk

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a little bit about, let’s talk a little bit about

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Francis Bacon. And we covered

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a lot of him and we talked a little bit about his background on

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our shorts episode, which you should listen to before you listen to this

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episode shorts number, I believe it’s 208. The great

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inspiration in Francis Bacon. We got to do a little bit about his, about who

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he was as a philosopher,

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as a writer and of course, and this is going to be where the main

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focus of our episode here today is going to be about as

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a political and philosophical actor, really coming

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to his conclusions around scientific

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empiricism and natural philosophy that have laid the

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foundations for a lot of the things that we find ourselves in now in the

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United States of America overall and in the west in general

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over the last, you know, 300 and some odd years of the

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Enlightenment. And so we’ve covered a lot of that

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already. We cover a lot of that ground. But for the benefit of Brian, who

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I’m sure has not listened to that episode and perhaps

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knew very little about Francis Bacon before I sort of accosted him

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vigorously about the head and shoulders with this book.

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Let me just, let me just, let me just cover a couple of things here

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on old, on old Francis that we could sort of jump into this. So

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as I said before, Francis Bacon was a writer, a scientist, a philosopher, a

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politician, and as a human being, he presents an enigma to the

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postmodern, of the postmodern mind, as do a lot of

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Enlightenment authors, like even Voltaire. We even had a vibrant conversation

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about Voltaire. Bacon believed

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fervently that the world could be remade through empiricism and

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observation. But he also recognized, weirdly enough, the

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barriers that idolatry presented. And we’re going to talk a little bit about that

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today. Raised in England during a time

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of religious conflict and tutored under the precepts of

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Puritanism, Bacon was the original postmodern

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secular man. Before that was actually a thing. And he

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stated that the point of his life was, quote, to uncover truth, to serve

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his country and to serve his church. But then if you go back and look

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at his biography, look at how he actually lived, he proceeded

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in the course of his life to behave just about as nakedly and

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grasping as any social climber in

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the 21st century would in

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the 17th century. Elizabethan court and of

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course, the Parliament. And. And Bacon was sandwiched. His

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career, his entire career and his entire life in Parliament and in politics

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was sandwiched between Queen Elizabeth the First and King James the

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First, during a time when Catholicism

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and Catholics were being run to ground in England.

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And he even advocated for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots

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in. In Scotland, who was the cousin of Queen Elizabeth.

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And he was also there during the rise of

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Puritanism, which much later on in America would become a dirty

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word. But he was there at the beginning of that, the beginning of the

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Protestant Revolution, and was educated in the principles of the

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Protestant Revolution, just as later on, Voltaire would be educated

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in France by the Jesuits. And just like Voltaire

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wound up biting the Jesuits in the butt with his particular brand

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of writing and satire, Bacon wound up.

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Well, I would assert Bacon wound up taking Puritanism, or at

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least Protestant thought, to his logical conclusion

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once it was divorced from, in his mind,

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God.

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Now, where Bacon actually proved to be influential was not

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in the pursuit of empiricism in and of itself and

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in observation in service of the scientific method. Other folks would eventually

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take on that, take on that ground. Where he proves to be influential,

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though, for leaders, particularly in our time, almost exactly 400

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years later, is in that he recognized precisely what

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the spiritual problems were that would prevent humans from attaining

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greater heights materially. And this is the kind of

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dichotomy that existed inside of Francis Bacon. If you look at his life

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from how he, like I said, was a grasping social climber in the court and

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in the Parliament. How he drifted from one position, I’m not really drifted.

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He moved vigorously

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and I would say intentionally from one

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position to another and really played the court like it

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tried to play the court and tried to play the Parliament like a chess game.

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And sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t, all the

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way to his alleged homosexuality, which is also something very

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interesting about him during a time when you could actually

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get killed for that in the West. He

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was an enigma of a

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man, and he’s forgotten or

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confused with the writer or, I’m sorry, not the writer, the painter, Francis

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Bacon. And we

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forget that in spite of all of his

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dichotomies, and this is something I think, that we’re going

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to talk about today with Brian, with his theological background, the

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theology still mattered. And this is the thing I think, one of

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the major things I think, that we have to revisit if we are going to

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engage in any kind of restoration project for the west in

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general and for America in particular, moving forward into

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our next, dare I say, golden age.

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So that lays the foundation for Francis Bacon and I, I. Brian, I

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sent you a bunch of links, and I hope you had a chance to look

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at some of those, but what do you know about Bacon? What are your thoughts

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on this man? And I know I don’t think you’d read the Great Inspiration before

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I brought it up or even heard of it, but I. I hope you had

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a chance to take a look at it sometimes. It’s published, by the way, underneath

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the title of Novum Organum, because he wrote a bunch of different essays

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and he sort of cobbled them all together, and then they’ve been reordered and put

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together over the last 400 years. So my order, or your order, may not

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match. But, um. But what did you think of Bacon? What did you

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think of his essays? What did you think of his writing? You’re a deep. You’re

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a deep thinker in these theological areas. And of course, the history. Lay out the

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history of Puritanism for us, for those of us who don’t. Who don’t know.

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Yeah. So I would just say that I,

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I hadn’t delved too much into Bacon before you and

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I talked about it originally. The, the one thing that

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is interesting about his lifespan is

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that, you know, he was born in kind of the early.

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I believe it’s the early 1500s. I thought something like that. And. And

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then, you know, was lived into the. Into the 16. Maybe it was the

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mid-1500s or something. I don’t know. But yes. January. January

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1561. So he was born 61. And he died in.

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And he died in 1626. Yeah.

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And I think. I think the Protestant Reformation didn’t

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quite end until. Or, or run its course fully

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until after he had passed away. So he, he was born

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after Martin Luther nailed the, the 95

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theses to the church door in Fintenberg, Germany, and then

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he passed away. So you could even say before. Before it was all

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over or had run its course. So he really.

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His whole life was spent in that development

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of, Of. Of Protestantism. And so

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it was not even fully developed by the Time he had

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passed away, it wasn’t, it wasn’t done developing. And so, so

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what, what I find very interesting about this essay, the

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great inspiration is. And, and

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again, not knowing much about him personally, of course. I, I mean, I

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understand kind of a surface level about all the complexities and everything, but

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what struck me was the, the humility

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with which he wrote. You know, like he, he’s,

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he’s talking about, hey, I want to propose this new way, but

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here are the limitations. And, and, and he talks about. At

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one point, I think he said, you know, human reason. He didn’t say it this

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way, but he said human reason has its limits. There are limitations on what we

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can actually know and what reason can do.

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And anyway, he, he made a, and he made another point in there about

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the, the, you know, we, the

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senses, the a person’s ability to

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sense, you know, it’s limited in a couple of different

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ways. It, it can just be flat out wrong

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and, and then it, and then it can’t sense every single thing like,

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you know, it. And so I was just really struck by

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his willingness to pursue something difficult, which

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is a renewal. Okay, renewals are always difficult, but they’re always

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necessary. A renewal of, you know, how, how do

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we think through empiric empirical information in the, the

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collection and organization of, of knowledge of our universe.

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But he did so with a warning and

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saying, hey, look, these pursuits have their limitations

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and I think with, to kind of tie it all together for you.

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The, the Puritans, I think, were

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largely misunderstood in, in many ways by the

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modern mind. I think they were an attempt to try to

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ground the Enlightenment that was kind of,

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in a lot of ways a loose cannon in, in some, some

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sense it, it did some great things, but it, it took

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some excesses. I think the Puritans were in a sense

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trying to sort of ground the reground the reality

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in, in, in Christian thought, in,

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in what is true, with working from the assumption that Christian

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thought is true. And, and, and I was just struck

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by Bacon’s humility. And I, I was one. You know, I,

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I haven’t studied it thoroughly enough, but I wonder if there’s not a connection

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there, you know, with, with Bacon trying to,

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to trying to just say, hey, look, I want to start something new, but also

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want to just from the outset just say, hey, we face

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real limitations and we face pitfalls in this, in

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this endeavor. Well, he seemed

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to be a person who, as I, as I’ve said before,

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he seemed to be a person that was full of Contradictions. Right,

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so. And it’s interesting that you

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sort of grounded him at a particular historical moment because

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he was writing about

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renewal during a time of chaos,

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during a time where. And of course we

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don’t have, I mean, we don’t have writings like

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we do on.

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Well, no, I’ll frame it this way. The, the, the

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average English person, English peasant, okay.

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Was not, for lack of a better term, tick

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tocking out to their objections to the Queen

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or to the King. And even if that technology

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had existed, they would not have been allowed to, allowed to tick tock out

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their objections. Okay. We live in such a time. And I,

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I’ve said this in the previous episode too. We’re talking about Voltaire and, and

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Candide and the Enlight. I fundamentally believe that

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America is the final

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argument on the Enlightenment. We’re the place, we’re the shores

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where, just as a philosophy, if you could take America as a

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philosophy, which, okay, but if you’re going to take America as a philosophy,

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the United States of America is a philosophy. We’re the philosophical end of the

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Enlightenment. Everything that comes afterward, either we are going to

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be philosophically the seed for the next thing,

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or it grinds out here and it’s just done, it’s over.

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And then whoever picks up that, that,

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that baton, whether it be the Chinese or the

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Russians or the Brazilians or the Saudi Arabians or pick

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your poison here, they’re not going to do it the

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way we did it because they’re going to start from a completely different set of

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historical assumptions that are not Enlightenment

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based. And so that will be a completely different thing. And I think, I think

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there’s some, there’s some in my brain, there’s some

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truth to that argument. Now,

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with that being said, if you go back and look at

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Bacon and it’s interesting that you brought up this idea.

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So Bacon looked at scientific experimentation

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as a way of glorifying God and fulfilling Scripture. He didn’t

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think or he didn’t believe as we do now as post

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the post modern folks or post postmodern. How many posts were past, and

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I have no idea how many posts we are past modernity.

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But he would have been, I think,

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shocked to. Just as I think

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Voltaire would have been shocked, but for different reasons. He would have been

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shocked in that we have to explain

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the assumption of Christian, of a Christian

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grounding to people. Yes, he would have been shocked by this.

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He assumed a Christian grounding even before he got

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to the Scripture, in spite of all of his personal failings by the way

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or his personal predilections, which is of

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course what we moderns focus on because we think that that then

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allows us to deconstruct Bacon and then we can just throw them out with the

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bath water like we’ve thrown out everything else. Right.

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When writing in a chaotic time,

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like the time between, you know, I mean, like he was the Lord High

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Chancellor of England between 1617 and

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1621. He was the Attorney General of England and Wales

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from 1613 to 1617. You know, he

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served underneath James the First, by the way, James I was the person who

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authorized the King James Bible, you know.

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So, you know, I’m not, I presume he was somewhere

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floating around the edges of that project as well.

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I guess the question is, talk with us a little bit because you said the

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modern mind doesn’t understand Puritanism ground.

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Bring the modern mind or the postmodern mind or

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post postmodern mind, bring us back to the

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grounding in Puritanism. I’m going to ask you how that is going to help leaders,

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but bring us back to that grounding. Well, Puritanism was a

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project of the

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believers in Christianity in England at the

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time to try to

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reestablish, reassert

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the primacy of Scripture. Right. And so there were,

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there was so much tumult and so much like you,

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you’re talking about, you know, that Francis

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Bacon’s life was a dichotomy or, you know, there’s so many

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different. On one hand he was, you know, he

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spoke in this pious way, but on the other he was conniving and he, you

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know, he might have indulged himself in,

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you know, affairs and things like that.

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And I think that was

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not abnormal in that day. I think there were,

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there since there was a lot of moral tumult that

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the, the Puritans said, hey, we need to re ground

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the, the Church of England. And the Puritans were

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hated for that in a lot of ways. They were not.

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They were in the way they were constantly trying to pull,

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pull England back towards a, a

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much stronger grounding in the Bible and, and, and

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towards a more firm understanding of the Christian

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tradition. And

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as a result they were persecuted. And so that’s why you have a lot of

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Puritans that fled on the Mayflower

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to other places. They, they, they first they went back to the

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European mainland. They were in Holland because they were allowed to be safe there. Then

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they were, many a group of them took off to

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the New World and settled New England. And so you have a, a

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very heavily Puritan influence in New England. But

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anyway, all that to say, you know,

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Francis was in was

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part of the, part of that, that cultural landscape. He

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was breathing that same air that the Puritans were breathing

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and not just, you know, and from a, from a cultural perspective

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is what I mean by that. But, but anyway, so,

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so I, I can’t help but think that

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he, not only was he aware, he may have,

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I mean, and I don’t know, I’m totally conjecture he may have agreed

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with them on some points. He seems to be a fair, open minded person.

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He, you know, I’m sure he probably didn’t agree with him on everything, but, but

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anyway, I, I did appreciate his humility and his willing to,

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his willingness to, like I said earlier,

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acknowledge limits, which is something that I think the

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modern mind has, has a hard time doing.

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But anyway, does that, I don’t know if that answers your question or if there’s

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00:24:55,970 –> 00:24:58,810
more you want to say. Yeah, no, no, I mean, so if you go and

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look at his, you know, you scroll through his Wikipedia article, I’ll, you know, again,

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where fact checking ourselves on the podcast this year.

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So if you go and look at the Francis Bacon Wikipedia entry,

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you scroll down to where it says his personal beliefs, says underneath

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religious beliefs, it says. Bacon was a devout Anglican.

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He believed that philosophy in the natural world must be studied inductively,

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but argued that we can only study arguments for the existence of God.

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Information about God’s attributes, such as nature, action and purposes can only come

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from special revelation. Bacon also held that knowledge was

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cumulative. That study encompassed more than just a simple preservation of the past.

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Bacon’s well, we’ll talk about that in a minute. I’m going to skip. Bacon was

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against the splintering within Christianity, believing that it would ultimately lead to

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the creation of atheism as a dominant worldview, as indicated with

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his quote that quote. The causes of atheism are

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divisions in religion, if they be many, for any one main

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00:26:00,510 –> 00:26:04,190
division addeth zeal to both sides. But many divisions introduce

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atheism. Another is scandal of the priests when it

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is come that to that which Saint Bernard saith, one cannot

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now say that the priest is as the people, for the truth is that the

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people are not so bad as the priest. A third is custom

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of profane scoffing in holy matters, which doth by little and

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little deface the reverence of religion. And lastly

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learn in times, especially with peace and prosperity,

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for troubles and adversities do more

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bow men’s minds to religion. Close

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quote.

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I think he was right.

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And I’m not asking our heroes or our villains to be

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morally, to, to match my moral framework

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of the, of the world. I think we can learn both from, from those who

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have matched the moral framework and those who have not. It just depends upon

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00:27:03,630 –> 00:27:05,990
what you want to keep and what you want to throw away. Right.

429
00:27:08,950 –> 00:27:12,670
He. Well, okay, so let’s,

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I want to ask you a question here to sort of. And then we’re going

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to, going to kind of maybe take a turn and talk about his, his perception

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around idols, because I want to talk about that. I think that’s a good framing

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for our time. When you think about Bacon, you mentioned humility,

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you mentioned regrounding reality during a time of chaos. We are

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in a. Well, depending upon who you, who you talk to,

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Right. If you’re among the people who are perpetually online,

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we are in an endless cycle of chaos, and

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we’re going to be in a civil war, shooting each other in the face in

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00:27:42,100 –> 00:27:45,900
10 minutes. Okay. And maybe not even 10

440
00:27:45,900 –> 00:27:49,650
minutes or down. Maybe we’re already doing that. If you talk to people who are

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not perpetually online, who is everybody

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00:27:53,290 –> 00:27:56,570
else or for whom, what is happening online is

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for them a sideshow and irrelevance and an

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irrelevancy to their real life. We’re not, we’re close to a civil

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war, and there’s just some wackadoos that just need to come along,

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and we’ll eventually get the wackadoos to come along because there’s always been wackadoos

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and it’s not going to be any different. Okay.

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I think both of those perspectives would agree that we are

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in a chaotic time. If

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we could transpose the spirit of Francis Bacon to here

451
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and now, which I think we can, via the great inspiration,

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what would Bacon tell us tell both of those folks right now? What would

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he tell leaders? Because he’d be looking at leaders because he,

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he had a, he had a, he had a. What do you call it, a

455
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strain. He had a sense. He had an instinct for

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00:28:45,240 –> 00:28:48,960
politics. Right. So he would probably try to get involved

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00:28:48,960 –> 00:28:52,680
in Trump’s White House and he would probably try to get

458
00:28:52,680 –> 00:28:56,000
involved in the Congress because that’s where he would understand

459
00:28:56,240 –> 00:28:59,760
that spirit, understands the spirit of Francis Bacon, understands that that’s where things happen.

460
00:29:00,800 –> 00:29:04,480
What would that spirit, grounded in Puritanism, say to us now

461
00:29:05,200 –> 00:29:08,800
around regrounding reality for our chaotic times?

462
00:29:09,610 –> 00:29:12,810
Yeah, well, I think you hit the nail on the head earlier when you said

463
00:29:13,290 –> 00:29:16,970
that they would have a difficult. That, that he would have a difficult

464
00:29:16,970 –> 00:29:20,010
Time understanding that we,

465
00:29:20,810 –> 00:29:24,290
that we’re so far removed from a Christian

466
00:29:24,290 –> 00:29:27,690
understanding of the world. I think so. I think

467
00:29:27,770 –> 00:29:31,610
first he would, he would want us to try to

468
00:29:31,610 –> 00:29:34,970
reclaim that and understand what that.

469
00:29:35,360 –> 00:29:39,040
What that means. Exactly. So we’ve.

470
00:29:39,680 –> 00:29:43,480
Have you ever seen the movie? It’s an old movie. Sa. Old

471
00:29:43,480 –> 00:29:47,200
movie that’s not super old, but Gods and Generals. Have you seen that movie?

472
00:29:47,200 –> 00:29:50,840
Yeah. Okay. So in that movie, what is

473
00:29:50,840 –> 00:29:54,360
so fascinating to me is the way that the

474
00:29:54,360 –> 00:29:57,600
characters talk to one another. They use

475
00:29:58,480 –> 00:30:02,180
very direct biblical language as just part of

476
00:30:02,180 –> 00:30:05,780
everyday speech. And, and I believe

477
00:30:05,780 –> 00:30:09,100
that, that that movie was produced

478
00:30:09,260 –> 00:30:12,900
by Mr. Turner. I forget

479
00:30:12,900 –> 00:30:16,540
is his first name that used to own cnn. Do you know I’m talking

480
00:30:16,540 –> 00:30:20,340
about. Yes. Jane Fonda’s husband. I can’t remember who

481
00:30:20,340 –> 00:30:24,180
his name was, but yes, but, but he, and he was not a Christian at

482
00:30:24,180 –> 00:30:27,740
all. But it was very important to him that the

483
00:30:27,740 –> 00:30:31,190
dialogue capture accurately the,

484
00:30:31,350 –> 00:30:34,630
the. The Christian understanding of the world.

485
00:30:35,030 –> 00:30:38,870
And that was just what, 160 years ago?

486
00:30:38,870 –> 00:30:42,670
It wasn’t that long ago. And so in a relatively short

487
00:30:42,670 –> 00:30:46,408
amount of time, matter of fact, I believe it was in 1892,

488
00:30:46,652 –> 00:30:50,390
the, the late 1800s, there was a

489
00:30:50,390 –> 00:30:54,070
very famous court case, the United States versus

490
00:30:54,070 –> 00:30:57,710
the Holy Trinity. And it was a. It was a

491
00:30:57,710 –> 00:31:01,430
Supreme Court case and the United States declared in a

492
00:31:01,430 –> 00:31:05,130
landmar that the United States is a Christian nation. And then it went and

493
00:31:05,130 –> 00:31:08,810
cited pages and pages and pages of evidence to

494
00:31:08,810 –> 00:31:12,490
support that finding. And so I think by the time

495
00:31:12,490 –> 00:31:16,090
you get to, you know, I don’t know, 100 years

496
00:31:16,090 –> 00:31:19,330
later, the American culture is largely

497
00:31:19,490 –> 00:31:23,090
secularized, divorced itself from that Christian

498
00:31:23,090 –> 00:31:26,370
understanding and, and

499
00:31:26,370 –> 00:31:30,090
imposed sort of this neutral. All religions are

500
00:31:30,090 –> 00:31:33,870
the same. Not. And freedom. Freedom from. Freedom of religion

501
00:31:33,870 –> 00:31:37,710
became known as freedom from religion. In other words, we don’t have to

502
00:31:37,710 –> 00:31:40,590
have any religion at all. I think

503
00:31:41,550 –> 00:31:45,270
for Francis and for a lot of

504
00:31:45,270 –> 00:31:49,030
men of that age who had such a firm Christian understanding

505
00:31:49,030 –> 00:31:52,830
of the world, I think they

506
00:31:52,830 –> 00:31:56,590
would ask us. And

507
00:31:56,910 –> 00:31:59,710
it seemed like Francis said this in his writing that

508
00:32:00,700 –> 00:32:04,340
when. And, and maybe this gets to the, the point of idolatry that

509
00:32:04,340 –> 00:32:07,180
you’re talking about earlier is that

510
00:32:08,380 –> 00:32:12,100
every single person is religious. Like we

511
00:32:12,100 –> 00:32:15,420
are hopelessly religious. Nobody can

512
00:32:15,660 –> 00:32:19,100
not worship something. So.

513
00:32:20,460 –> 00:32:23,260
So in other words, everyone is.

514
00:32:24,060 –> 00:32:26,380
Is going to elevate some,

515
00:32:27,820 –> 00:32:31,380
some type of God to, to the point of. Of

516
00:32:31,380 –> 00:32:34,780
worship and to. And

517
00:32:35,260 –> 00:32:39,020
we’ve kind of lost our way in. And when we, when we

518
00:32:39,020 –> 00:32:42,380
said, when we sort of declared this religiously neutral

519
00:32:42,380 –> 00:32:46,180
landscape academically, everything else we said, okay, hey, you

520
00:32:46,180 –> 00:32:49,980
know, Islam Christianity, Buddhism,

521
00:32:50,060 –> 00:32:52,860
atheism. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s anything goes.

522
00:32:53,770 –> 00:32:57,610
And, and you just pick what’s best for you. Well, that,

523
00:32:57,850 –> 00:33:01,650
that in itself is a religious belief. And so

524
00:33:01,650 –> 00:33:05,450
to adhere to that is to adhere to a new religion. And so

525
00:33:05,450 –> 00:33:09,050
I think France, I think one of the things that, that Francis and, and those,

526
00:33:09,209 –> 00:33:13,010
those philosophers who had such a strong Christian

527
00:33:13,010 –> 00:33:16,570
understanding of the world would. Would want us to kind of

528
00:33:17,130 –> 00:33:20,940
reclaim that, get back to that understanding of. Of the

529
00:33:20,940 –> 00:33:24,780
world in a. In a Christian way. So

530
00:33:24,780 –> 00:33:27,780
I just looked up Gods and Generals.

531
00:33:28,420 –> 00:33:31,860
That was a 2003 movie, so 23 years ago,

532
00:33:33,300 –> 00:33:36,500
starring. It was directed by Ronald F. Maxwell.

533
00:33:37,380 –> 00:33:41,020
And yes, it was. It was. It

534
00:33:41,020 –> 00:33:44,300
was personally financed by Ted

535
00:33:44,300 –> 00:33:47,810
Turner. Ted Turner, that’s his name? Yep. Personally Financed by Ted

536
00:33:47,810 –> 00:33:51,650
Turner, ran over budget, and interestingly enough, here’s the numbers, because

537
00:33:51,650 –> 00:33:55,330
I’m a movie guy about the numbers. It had a

538
00:33:55,330 –> 00:33:58,570
budget of $56 million and the box office was

539
00:33:58,570 –> 00:34:02,329
12.8 million. So that was back in the day, which you would call

540
00:34:02,329 –> 00:34:05,770
a disaster of epic proportions.

541
00:34:06,330 –> 00:34:09,690
And apparently both the director

542
00:34:10,330 –> 00:34:14,050
and one of the. Or not the director. Yes, the director and

543
00:34:14,050 –> 00:34:17,410
the author of the novel, Jeff Shara,

544
00:34:17,810 –> 00:34:21,650
both expressed displeasure at the theatrical edition of

545
00:34:21,650 –> 00:34:25,170
the film. And the Poor Returns, this is, according to Wikipedia,

546
00:34:25,570 –> 00:34:29,050
forced Ted Turner to cancel Maxwell’s planned adaptation of

547
00:34:29,050 –> 00:34:32,290
Sharer’s final Civil War novel because apparently this guy wrote three of them,

548
00:34:32,530 –> 00:34:35,970
including Gettysburg. The. The Last

549
00:34:36,130 –> 00:34:39,890
Full Measure. The Last Full Measure did not

550
00:34:39,890 –> 00:34:43,220
get made. So. Yeah,

551
00:34:43,220 –> 00:34:47,060
anyway. And apparently Shara wrote Gods and

552
00:34:47,060 –> 00:34:50,540
Generals, which. Killer angels. Yeah,

553
00:34:50,620 –> 00:34:54,140
killer angels. That’s right. And then the. And then the last.

554
00:34:54,220 –> 00:34:57,660
The last Full Measure. So, yeah,

555
00:34:58,060 –> 00:35:01,580
you know, I. Well, it’s

556
00:35:01,580 –> 00:35:05,100
interesting because we have to. On the one hand, we want.

557
00:35:06,300 –> 00:35:10,130
We want people with. With power and authority

558
00:35:10,130 –> 00:35:13,530
and money to lead the charge on these things,

559
00:35:14,410 –> 00:35:18,250
on these areas. But when people with power and authority and money

560
00:35:18,330 –> 00:35:21,690
are corrupted, as is in our era,

561
00:35:23,130 –> 00:35:26,810
I wonder how we get there right

562
00:35:28,090 –> 00:35:31,530
from. From here. And maybe one of the ways we get there is by

563
00:35:31,530 –> 00:35:34,490
confronting some of those idols. So let’s

564
00:35:35,800 –> 00:35:39,640
pick up with. With Francis Bacon’s essay.

565
00:35:39,720 –> 00:35:42,920
We’re going to. We’re going to move away from the preface and we’re going to

566
00:35:42,920 –> 00:35:46,440
go into the sections called the Idols of the Mind.

567
00:35:47,080 –> 00:35:50,760
So the way that this is divided up, at least in. In my. My.

568
00:35:51,960 –> 00:35:55,640
The way that my copy of the Great Inspiration is divided up,

569
00:35:55,640 –> 00:35:59,360
the Idols of the Mind is separated out and it has

570
00:35:59,360 –> 00:36:02,950
the various. The various headings. And so it starts

571
00:36:02,950 –> 00:36:06,760
with, let’s see. 38. Ryan goes 38,

572
00:36:06,860 –> 00:36:10,710
39. The different headings go down. And so we’re going to start

573
00:36:10,710 –> 00:36:14,030
off here with. Well, with 38. Well, we’re going to read a few of these

574
00:36:14,030 –> 00:36:17,790
just to kind of get a flavor of what Bacon is talking

575
00:36:17,869 –> 00:36:21,390
about here. And I quote

576
00:36:21,790 –> 00:36:25,590
the idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding and

577
00:36:25,590 –> 00:36:29,270
have taken deep root therein. Not only so beset men’s minds that

578
00:36:29,270 –> 00:36:33,030
truth can hardly find entrance, but even after entrance obtained,

579
00:36:33,110 –> 00:36:36,910
they will gain in the very installation of the sciences meet and trouble

580
00:36:36,910 –> 00:36:40,350
us, unless men, being forewarned of the danger, fortify

581
00:36:40,350 –> 00:36:43,750
themselves as far as may be against their

582
00:36:43,750 –> 00:36:47,590
assaults. There are four classes of idols which

583
00:36:47,590 –> 00:36:50,910
beset men’s minds. To these, for

584
00:36:50,910 –> 00:36:54,670
distinction’s sake, I have assigned names, calling the first class idols

585
00:36:54,670 –> 00:36:58,370
of the tribe, the second idols of the cave, the

586
00:36:58,370 –> 00:37:02,170
third idols of the marketplace, the fourth idols of the

587
00:37:02,170 –> 00:37:05,730
theater. The formation of ideas and

588
00:37:05,730 –> 00:37:09,290
axioms by true induction is no doubt the proper remedy to be applied for the

589
00:37:09,930 –> 00:37:13,610
keeping off and clearing away of idols. To point them out, however,

590
00:37:13,610 –> 00:37:17,330
is of great use. For the doctrine of idols is to the interpretation of

591
00:37:17,330 –> 00:37:21,010
nature, but the doctrine of the refutation of sophisms is

592
00:37:21,010 –> 00:37:24,740
to common logic. The

593
00:37:24,980 –> 00:37:28,580
idols of the tribe have their foundation in human nature itself

594
00:37:29,140 –> 00:37:32,740
and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a

595
00:37:32,740 –> 00:37:36,460
false assertion that the sense of man is the measure

596
00:37:36,460 –> 00:37:40,140
of things. On the contrary, all perceptions, as well as of

597
00:37:40,140 –> 00:37:43,820
the sense of the mind, sense as of the mind, are according to

598
00:37:43,820 –> 00:37:47,300
the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe.

599
00:37:47,700 –> 00:37:51,220
And the human understanding is like a false mirror which

600
00:37:51,300 –> 00:37:55,140
receiving rays irregularly distorts and discolors the nature

601
00:37:55,140 –> 00:37:58,580
of things by mingling its own nature with it.

602
00:37:59,220 –> 00:38:02,580
By the way, pause for just a second. I absolutely agree with. That

603
00:38:05,220 –> 00:38:09,060
is a stellar examination of the idols of the tribe. I’m going

604
00:38:09,060 –> 00:38:12,820
to ask Brian. Actually, I did not put in our notes here for today,

605
00:38:12,900 –> 00:38:15,780
but I’m going to ask Brian. So I’m going to tee this up right now.

606
00:38:17,310 –> 00:38:20,790
The challenges that we are currently having in Christianity that I’m seeing

607
00:38:20,790 –> 00:38:24,430
rising on the Christian right around ethnos in particular

608
00:38:24,510 –> 00:38:28,310
coming out of anti Semitism, which I suspected this is

609
00:38:28,310 –> 00:38:31,150
where this was going to go, but it’s not something this weekend that I want

610
00:38:31,150 –> 00:38:34,270
to get your commentary on. Back to the book.

611
00:38:34,750 –> 00:38:38,030
The idols of the cave are the idols of the individual man.

612
00:38:38,590 –> 00:38:42,030
For everyone, besides the errors common to human nature in general,

613
00:38:42,490 –> 00:38:46,130
has a cave or den of his own which refracts and discolors the light of

614
00:38:46,130 –> 00:38:49,930
nature, owing either to his own proper

615
00:38:49,930 –> 00:38:53,530
and peculiar nature, or to his education and conversation with others,

616
00:38:53,690 –> 00:38:57,370
or to the reading of books and the authority of those whom

617
00:38:57,370 –> 00:39:01,130
he esteems and admires, or to the differences of impressions

618
00:39:01,290 –> 00:39:04,690
accordingly as they take place in a mind preoccupied and

619
00:39:04,690 –> 00:39:08,250
predisposed, or in a mind indifferent and settled, or the like.

620
00:39:09,250 –> 00:39:13,090
So that the spirit of man, according as it is meted out to different individuals,

621
00:39:13,250 –> 00:39:16,770
is in fact a thing variable and full of perturbation and

622
00:39:16,770 –> 00:39:20,370
governed, as it were, by chance, whence it was well

623
00:39:20,610 –> 00:39:23,810
observed by Heraclitus that men look for

624
00:39:23,810 –> 00:39:27,450
sciences in their own lesser worlds, and not in the

625
00:39:27,450 –> 00:39:30,370
greater or common world.

626
00:39:31,810 –> 00:39:35,090
So I’m going to tee up those two right there first,

627
00:39:35,920 –> 00:39:39,600
because I want to talk about some of the idols of our

628
00:39:39,840 –> 00:39:43,480
secular age. So Bacon lists

629
00:39:43,480 –> 00:39:47,320
those four idols, right? Those idols of the mind, which in our time we might

630
00:39:47,320 –> 00:39:51,120
call secular beliefs, right? The, the idols

631
00:39:51,120 –> 00:39:54,400
of the tribe, the idols of cave, the idols of the marketplace, the idols of

632
00:39:54,400 –> 00:39:58,240
the theater. And in our time,

633
00:39:58,320 –> 00:40:01,950
I think, and I wrote this in notes in my book, these

634
00:40:01,950 –> 00:40:05,710
idols manifest themselves as personal and social identity.

635
00:40:05,950 –> 00:40:09,310
That’s idols of the tribe. Individual hedonistic freedom.

636
00:40:09,710 –> 00:40:12,990
That’s idols of the cave. Vagueness and sheer

637
00:40:12,990 –> 00:40:16,510
incompetence in our language. That’s idols of the marketplace.

638
00:40:18,030 –> 00:40:21,230
And of course, propaganda and entertainment in media,

639
00:40:21,550 –> 00:40:25,270
social and otherwise. That’s idols of the theater. And

640
00:40:25,270 –> 00:40:29,060
in the 21st century, we have become, 26 years now into

641
00:40:29,060 –> 00:40:32,220
the 21st century, we’ve become increasingly weary of these idols

642
00:40:33,660 –> 00:40:37,340
because the worship that they demand has judged us and has found

643
00:40:37,340 –> 00:40:40,820
us wanting because ultimately we are judging ourselves and our

644
00:40:40,820 –> 00:40:44,220
judgments are always harsh. Now,

645
00:40:44,620 –> 00:40:47,500
we’re recording this right around the time of

646
00:40:49,340 –> 00:40:53,100
civic social strife in Minneapolis. And you can go

647
00:40:53,760 –> 00:40:56,320
Google that if you want to find out more about that. I’m not going to

648
00:40:56,320 –> 00:41:00,160
address that specifically only because it is only

649
00:41:00,160 –> 00:41:03,680
because it serves as a current flashpoint in our

650
00:41:03,680 –> 00:41:06,920
cultural moment of chaos that

651
00:41:06,920 –> 00:41:09,840
reflects the power of these idols. And so

652
00:41:11,040 –> 00:41:14,840
let’s start off with this. How does the worship of our modern

653
00:41:14,840 –> 00:41:18,640
idols, Brian, manifest now in the culture of the United States?

654
00:41:18,640 –> 00:41:21,160
Are you seeing the same things that I’m seeing, or am I way the far

655
00:41:21,160 –> 00:41:24,710
off? Yeah, no, I, I would say, if anything, that

656
00:41:25,030 –> 00:41:28,390
the, you know, and I, I, I find this

657
00:41:28,390 –> 00:41:32,190
fascinating that Francis Bacon, what he the, the four idols,

658
00:41:32,190 –> 00:41:35,990
the four main idols categories. I guess maybe I would say it might

659
00:41:35,990 –> 00:41:39,750
even be, well, not might. I would say it’s exploded well beyond that

660
00:41:39,910 –> 00:41:42,630
at this day and age. I think our idols Are

661
00:41:43,430 –> 00:41:47,070
many, many idols. And I was reminded, as I was reading

662
00:41:47,070 –> 00:41:50,800
this, I was reminded of. It’s in Acts.

663
00:41:50,800 –> 00:41:54,520
I believe It’s Acts, chapter 17, where Paul

664
00:41:54,760 –> 00:41:57,720
confronts the Athenians in the

665
00:41:57,720 –> 00:42:01,080
Areopagus. And in that place,

666
00:42:03,400 –> 00:42:07,080
the Athenians are just inundated with, I mean, there’s

667
00:42:07,080 –> 00:42:10,800
gods, there’s statue to all kinds of gods, and there’s idols all

668
00:42:10,800 –> 00:42:14,440
over the place. And hey, you go here

669
00:42:14,600 –> 00:42:18,400
and you find the God that you want to worship and you

670
00:42:18,400 –> 00:42:22,130
worship that God. And, and if there’s no God here that suits

671
00:42:22,130 –> 00:42:25,770
your fancy, we have one over here called the Unknown God. And you can just

672
00:42:25,770 –> 00:42:29,530
go over here and just, and that way we, we got you covered. We

673
00:42:29,530 –> 00:42:33,170
got, you know, Heinz 57 sauce of

674
00:42:33,170 –> 00:42:36,530
religious preferences. And, and I think,

675
00:42:36,770 –> 00:42:40,410
you know, what’s interesting about our day is we have

676
00:42:40,410 –> 00:42:44,210
a, a cascade of religious preferences, right? I mean, it’s,

677
00:42:44,290 –> 00:42:47,740
it’s. And that itself kind of becomes,

678
00:42:49,180 –> 00:42:53,020
in a way that becomes the dominant religion

679
00:42:53,020 –> 00:42:56,300
of the day is the cascade of religious

680
00:42:56,300 –> 00:42:59,340
preferences. And so I think

681
00:42:59,900 –> 00:43:03,500
to establish, like, what is, like getting back to,

682
00:43:03,900 –> 00:43:07,660
okay, what is truth, what is

683
00:43:07,660 –> 00:43:10,620
actually true? And

684
00:43:11,340 –> 00:43:15,020
it’s, it’s not. The, the, the, the freedom

685
00:43:15,100 –> 00:43:18,900
to have a religion is important, but I think what we’re starting to discover is

686
00:43:18,900 –> 00:43:22,180
that what’s more important than the

687
00:43:22,180 –> 00:43:25,740
freedom to have a religion is actually having

688
00:43:26,300 –> 00:43:29,820
the correct religion. And that not all of your

689
00:43:29,820 –> 00:43:33,340
religious preferences are equal.

690
00:43:33,500 –> 00:43:36,620
Right. And in fact, some are true and some are false. And,

691
00:43:37,380 –> 00:43:41,140
and so getting back to what I think all of the Christian

692
00:43:41,940 –> 00:43:45,420
writers, or these, what I’m going to call them, Christian

693
00:43:45,420 –> 00:43:49,180
thinkers, even though they may or may not have been Christian, who knows? But like

694
00:43:49,180 –> 00:43:52,540
Sir Francis Bacon was clearly operating from a Christian worldview. Like he

695
00:43:52,540 –> 00:43:56,180
understood the medieval structure of the world.

696
00:43:56,180 –> 00:43:59,900
Like all of those things, those were profoundly

697
00:43:59,900 –> 00:44:02,820
Christian and that gave them the framework

698
00:44:03,990 –> 00:44:05,590
from which they could

699
00:44:08,230 –> 00:44:12,030
reintroduce the idea of dominion. You know, when you think about,

700
00:44:12,030 –> 00:44:15,670
like in the, in the Old Testament, what it, what did God tell

701
00:44:15,670 –> 00:44:19,430
human beings to do in the Old Testament? Genesis chapter one, he said

702
00:44:19,430 –> 00:44:22,870
do two things. He said, God creates the world and he puts man in the

703
00:44:22,870 –> 00:44:26,310
garden. He says, multiply and

704
00:44:26,950 –> 00:44:30,790
fill the earth. And then the second thing is have dominion over it.

705
00:44:30,790 –> 00:44:34,310
In other words, I’ve given you the tools. I’ve given you this

706
00:44:34,310 –> 00:44:37,910
creation. You’re my stewards. Rule it and make

707
00:44:37,910 –> 00:44:41,110
something beautiful out of it. And so,

708
00:44:42,070 –> 00:44:45,350
and so I think, and, and he, even

709
00:44:45,990 –> 00:44:49,670
Bacon, he actually references the creation story in

710
00:44:49,670 –> 00:44:52,710
here. I believe it’s in the preface somewhere.

711
00:44:54,070 –> 00:44:57,350
And, and he, he assumes that mantle,

712
00:44:57,730 –> 00:45:01,450
okay, of, of dominion. It’s almost like he’s saying, I’m

713
00:45:01,450 –> 00:45:04,770
assuming that role of dominion by introducing

714
00:45:05,650 –> 00:45:09,330
or reintroducing maybe even. I guess we can talk about that.

715
00:45:09,330 –> 00:45:12,610
But, but, but this concept of,

716
00:45:12,930 –> 00:45:16,290
hey, let’s, let’s ask questions and begin to explore

717
00:45:16,690 –> 00:45:20,410
and take dominion, take the dominion that was, that was

718
00:45:20,410 –> 00:45:23,650
charged to us by our Creator, by the One who made us.

719
00:45:24,600 –> 00:45:27,920
And, and I don’t think if, if you don’t have a Christian understanding of the

720
00:45:27,920 –> 00:45:31,600
world, you’re not gonna, you’re not going to be

721
00:45:31,600 –> 00:45:35,000
able to receive that dominion mandate

722
00:45:35,880 –> 00:45:39,640
because, you know, I mean, in so much of our secular minds, human

723
00:45:39,640 –> 00:45:43,440
beings aren’t the solution, they’re the problem. I mean, think about, you know,

724
00:45:43,440 –> 00:45:47,080
if it’s, if, especially if you’re, I mean, think about all the climate hysteria. I

725
00:45:47,080 –> 00:45:50,360
mean, the human beings are the scourge of the earth. You know, if we weren’t

726
00:45:50,360 –> 00:45:54,170
here, this place would be, you know, just a hunky dory. But that’s

727
00:45:54,170 –> 00:45:56,530
not true in any stretch of the imagination.

728
00:45:57,810 –> 00:46:01,650
There’s a, there’s actually a, an old

729
00:46:01,650 –> 00:46:04,450
story, kind of a humorous anecdote that.

730
00:46:05,410 –> 00:46:08,930
So there was a. Charles Wesley was a,

731
00:46:09,730 –> 00:46:12,930
a Methodist preacher in, in England.

732
00:46:13,250 –> 00:46:16,650
And he was going around, he was an itinerant preacher and he would travel around

733
00:46:16,650 –> 00:46:20,450
and visit different estates and he would preach at different places while he was

734
00:46:20,780 –> 00:46:24,140
riding around on his itinerant journeys.

735
00:46:24,620 –> 00:46:28,300
And he, the, the story goes that he drove up on this or he wrote

736
00:46:28,300 –> 00:46:31,940
up on this estate. And, and there’s this farmer

737
00:46:31,940 –> 00:46:35,340
working hard in the, in the pasture. And,

738
00:46:36,060 –> 00:46:38,940
and he said, he, he went up to the guy and said, and it was

739
00:46:38,940 –> 00:46:42,300
this beautiful farm. I mean, the guy just, you know, it made this, this

740
00:46:42,300 –> 00:46:46,140
beautiful estate. And he approached the, the, the farmer

741
00:46:46,140 –> 00:46:49,350
and said, he said, hey, God has really blessed you

742
00:46:49,750 –> 00:46:53,390
with a wonderful, with a wonderful property. And the

743
00:46:53,390 –> 00:46:57,230
farmer looked back at Charles Wesley and said, well, yeah, that’s great

744
00:46:57,230 –> 00:46:59,750
and all, but you should have seen it when he had the place to himself.

745
00:47:00,710 –> 00:47:04,070
And Eddie, he’s getting at the,

746
00:47:04,390 –> 00:47:07,790
the fact that, you know. Yeah, that’s right. It is beautiful, but it’s

747
00:47:07,790 –> 00:47:10,990
beautiful because I put in the work. Yeah, God gave it to me, but he

748
00:47:10,990 –> 00:47:14,480
gave me the talents and the abilities, but, but I employed those

749
00:47:15,200 –> 00:47:18,960
and, and, and we turned it into something beautiful. And I think that’s kind of

750
00:47:18,960 –> 00:47:22,760
what Bacon is getting at. He’s like, hey, grounded in

751
00:47:22,760 –> 00:47:25,920
Christianity ground grounded in, in, in

752
00:47:26,480 –> 00:47:30,160
the Christian understanding. Let’s explore some things. Let’s try to

753
00:47:30,160 –> 00:47:32,880
renew and, and recapture this dominion mandate.

754
00:47:34,720 –> 00:47:38,200
So in recapturing the demand, the dominion mandate, I want to pull up the reference

755
00:47:38,200 –> 00:47:42,020
to Acts that you made. So that was Acts 17, Acts 17 16.

756
00:47:44,260 –> 00:47:47,580
And I’ll read from that because I think it’s worthwhile. We’re also going to read

757
00:47:47,580 –> 00:47:51,380
from another piece of scripture in the, in this podcast as well, because I want

758
00:47:51,380 –> 00:47:55,180
to talk about Nehemiah here because I think that that’s, that’s an

759
00:47:55,180 –> 00:47:58,940
important point to get to when we talk about what to

760
00:47:58,940 –> 00:48:02,700
do, how to get to restoration. But, but

761
00:48:02,700 –> 00:48:06,460
Acts 17, 16, 22. While Paul was waiting for them in

762
00:48:06,460 –> 00:48:10,130
Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

763
00:48:10,930 –> 00:48:14,730
So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God fearing Greeks, as

764
00:48:14,730 –> 00:48:17,730
well as in the marketplace. Day by day with those who happened to be there.

765
00:48:18,370 –> 00:48:22,210
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began

766
00:48:22,210 –> 00:48:25,810
to debate with him. Some of them asked, what is this babbler trying to say?

767
00:48:25,970 –> 00:48:29,690
Others remarked, he seems to be advocating foreign gods. They said

768
00:48:29,690 –> 00:48:33,090
this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

769
00:48:33,890 –> 00:48:37,210
Then they took him and brought him to a beating of the Aropagius, where they

770
00:48:37,210 –> 00:48:40,880
said to him, may we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?

771
00:48:40,880 –> 00:48:43,960
You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears and we would like to know

772
00:48:43,960 –> 00:48:47,800
what they mean. All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their

773
00:48:47,800 –> 00:48:51,280
time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.

774
00:48:52,320 –> 00:48:56,000
Verse 22. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagius and said,

775
00:48:56,240 –> 00:48:59,920
quote, people of Athens, I see that in every way you are

776
00:48:59,920 –> 00:49:03,280
very religious. For as I walked about

777
00:49:03,820 –> 00:49:07,620
and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar

778
00:49:07,620 –> 00:49:11,380
with this inscription to an unknown God. So

779
00:49:11,380 –> 00:49:15,220
you are ignorant of the very thing you worship. And this is what I

780
00:49:15,220 –> 00:49:17,900
am going to proclaim to you.

781
00:49:18,940 –> 00:49:22,060
Close quote. By the way, that is from

782
00:49:22,060 –> 00:49:25,786
BibleGateway.com that is the New International

783
00:49:25,880 –> 00:49:29,500
Version. Acts 17, 16, 22.

784
00:49:29,740 –> 00:49:33,100
Less rolling language in the King James Version, but I guess it’ll have to do

785
00:49:33,780 –> 00:49:37,540
for our show today. Gets across the point.

786
00:49:40,260 –> 00:49:44,020
Can I just add one thing to that? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So

787
00:49:44,500 –> 00:49:46,820
what’s, what’s interesting to me is

788
00:49:48,020 –> 00:49:51,700
I’ve been doing some reading and you know, there’s,

789
00:49:51,940 –> 00:49:54,580
it’s, it talks about the rise of.

790
00:49:55,780 –> 00:49:58,740
I’ve been doing reading. I’m sorry, I’ve been doing reading about the rise of

791
00:49:58,980 –> 00:50:02,780
spirituality and religion in America recently, in

792
00:50:02,780 –> 00:50:06,510
the last, you know, 10 years or so. And I think

793
00:50:06,510 –> 00:50:10,310
it’s worth pointing out that just because you’re religious

794
00:50:10,550 –> 00:50:14,230
does not mean that you’re right.

795
00:50:14,470 –> 00:50:16,710
And so in other words, the type of religion

796
00:50:17,750 –> 00:50:21,470
matters. And just like in the areopagus, you know, there

797
00:50:21,470 –> 00:50:24,470
were many types of religion, but only one of them was true.

798
00:50:25,350 –> 00:50:29,070
And so I think what could happen

799
00:50:29,070 –> 00:50:32,720
that would sort of maybe derail our renewal would

800
00:50:32,720 –> 00:50:36,320
be this multiplicity or, you know, these,

801
00:50:36,320 –> 00:50:40,080
these cornucopia, the smorgasbord of

802
00:50:40,080 –> 00:50:43,240
religious renewal. But it’s not Christian, it’s,

803
00:50:44,040 –> 00:50:47,840
you know, it’s pagan or it’s, you know, Islam or

804
00:50:47,840 –> 00:50:50,840
whatever. Like in other words, that the, the

805
00:50:51,640 –> 00:50:55,480
recipe for success has to be and must be

806
00:50:55,480 –> 00:50:59,040
explicitly Christian in order for this

807
00:50:59,040 –> 00:51:02,830
project to actually work. Now

808
00:51:02,830 –> 00:51:06,550
it’s interesting that you bring this up because one of the challenges that we

809
00:51:06,550 –> 00:51:09,790
have as a, as a nation state polity

810
00:51:10,510 –> 00:51:14,270
being at the, again, the logical end of the Enlightenment, one of

811
00:51:14,270 –> 00:51:17,230
the challenges we have as a nation state polity is that

812
00:51:17,870 –> 00:51:21,630
we have taken to its logical end

813
00:51:22,750 –> 00:51:25,790
multi ethnos and multi

814
00:51:25,950 –> 00:51:28,730
religios practice

815
00:51:29,450 –> 00:51:32,490
within a sprawling country

816
00:51:33,210 –> 00:51:35,290
that goes across a third of a continent.

817
00:51:37,450 –> 00:51:41,050
And even in Christianity itself,

818
00:51:41,850 –> 00:51:44,250
okay, the

819
00:51:45,050 –> 00:51:48,410
splits, the conflicts,

820
00:51:49,050 –> 00:51:52,810
the challenges, forget in our own era,

821
00:51:53,780 –> 00:51:57,460
just five minutes after the Puritans showed up, because the people

822
00:51:57,460 –> 00:52:01,140
who started off in the Massachusetts Bay Colony

823
00:52:02,340 –> 00:52:06,180
were not the same people as those who started off in Jamestown. Those

824
00:52:06,180 –> 00:52:09,660
were two fundamental different strands that then

825
00:52:09,660 –> 00:52:13,260
moved out over, over the continent over the course of 150 to

826
00:52:13,260 –> 00:52:15,700
200 years. And

827
00:52:17,220 –> 00:52:19,460
the interdenominational strife

828
00:52:20,910 –> 00:52:24,750
because of a full throated, I would

829
00:52:24,750 –> 00:52:28,270
almost say idolatry, but let me not be harsh. A full

830
00:52:28,270 –> 00:52:31,230
throated commitment to freedom of religion

831
00:52:32,350 –> 00:52:36,190
then creates a dynamic where the pagan

832
00:52:36,190 –> 00:52:38,750
secularist person looks at

833
00:52:39,310 –> 00:52:42,990
Christianity and says, okay, well, you got Methodists, you

834
00:52:42,990 –> 00:52:46,750
got Baptists, you got Congregationalists, you got Mormons,

835
00:52:46,750 –> 00:52:50,470
you got Seventh Day Adventists, you’ve got Church of

836
00:52:50,470 –> 00:52:53,950
Christ, you’ve got Christ Church, you’ve got the Branch

837
00:52:53,950 –> 00:52:57,470
Davidians, you know, you’ve got the Scientologists.

838
00:52:57,630 –> 00:53:00,510
And I’m not saying all these are correct. We know what the differences are in

839
00:53:00,750 –> 00:53:04,590
inside of the game, we know what the differences are. But to the person

840
00:53:04,669 –> 00:53:07,950
looking at it from outside the game, they don’t understand

841
00:53:08,270 –> 00:53:12,070
the difference, nor are they interested, quite frankly, in the difference between the

842
00:53:12,070 –> 00:53:15,910
Lutherans and the Baptists. At a doctrinal level, they’re not interested

843
00:53:15,910 –> 00:53:18,830
in it. And it doesn’t help

844
00:53:20,430 –> 00:53:22,950
when, and this is something that I was going to bring up again, something that

845
00:53:22,950 –> 00:53:26,270
occurred to me this weekend, something that I saw. It doesn’t help when

846
00:53:27,390 –> 00:53:30,430
the intervarsity arguments between Christians

847
00:53:31,550 –> 00:53:34,110
are about things that, quite frankly.

848
00:53:35,470 –> 00:53:38,910
And look, I have a lot of problems with post World War II American

849
00:53:38,990 –> 00:53:42,800
Christianity, don’t get me wrong. But one of the

850
00:53:42,800 –> 00:53:46,640
things that Post World War II, particularly big evangelical Christianity did

851
00:53:46,640 –> 00:53:49,160
correctly was

852
00:53:52,000 –> 00:53:55,320
put a kibosh on the intramural fights around,

853
00:53:56,440 –> 00:54:00,120
quite frankly, ethnos, race. And

854
00:54:00,200 –> 00:54:03,960
because of the deconstruction and the

855
00:54:03,960 –> 00:54:06,920
collapse of the big evangelical church post Covid,

856
00:54:07,840 –> 00:54:10,560
we are now seeing the intramural

857
00:54:11,280 –> 00:54:13,920
sniping, starting first with anti Semitism

858
00:54:15,360 –> 00:54:19,120
and whether you support the Jewish nation state and what they

859
00:54:19,120 –> 00:54:22,760
did after October 17th or not. You know, all that now devolves into a religious

860
00:54:22,760 –> 00:54:26,480
argument between the dispensationalists and the end time folks and then

861
00:54:26,480 –> 00:54:30,120
the folks who are not right, who are not dispensationalists and the newer, the newer.

862
00:54:30,120 –> 00:54:33,600
More, more, you know, the dispensationalist folks who say more radical.

863
00:54:33,970 –> 00:54:37,130
But, but again, the newer folks who have a different, different

864
00:54:37,130 –> 00:54:40,810
philosophy based on a different reading of the theology that

865
00:54:40,810 –> 00:54:43,330
then devolves into what I’ve been seeing recently

866
00:54:44,370 –> 00:54:48,130
from like, Joel Webin, who’s getting turned inside out

867
00:54:48,610 –> 00:54:52,450
around interracial marriage. Oh, you knew I was going to

868
00:54:52,450 –> 00:54:54,210
bring this up. And so,

869
00:54:56,290 –> 00:54:59,690
and, and me, for me, I look at, I look at the work, I look

870
00:54:59,690 –> 00:55:03,170
at, I look at neither Jew nor Greek. I look at the history of

871
00:55:03,170 –> 00:55:06,250
ethnos, I look at the history of ethnicity in the Middle east

872
00:55:06,890 –> 00:55:10,010
and, you know, I look at the arguments that

873
00:55:10,730 –> 00:55:14,530
not just Weybond but other folks are making, and I

874
00:55:14,530 –> 00:55:17,610
see where they come out of and I go, shut up,

875
00:55:18,570 –> 00:55:22,410
number one. Number two, you’re out of your lane. Like, you clearly haven’t,

876
00:55:22,650 –> 00:55:26,410
haven’t understood the right thing. But yet again, this is one of

877
00:55:26,410 –> 00:55:29,690
those intramural fights that causes division within the body

878
00:55:31,110 –> 00:55:34,950
and in a society that claims freedom of

879
00:55:34,950 –> 00:55:38,070
worship and freedom of religion and by the way, freedom of association.

880
00:55:38,870 –> 00:55:42,510
I shall not be coerced into associating with somebody I don’t want to be coerced

881
00:55:42,510 –> 00:55:46,349
with, into being associated with. Okay, fine. You have freedom of the

882
00:55:46,349 –> 00:55:48,470
association. Okay, that’s fine. Now

883
00:55:50,230 –> 00:55:53,670
we’ve got a stew inside of the Christian body

884
00:55:54,710 –> 00:55:57,750
that I don’t think can successfully. No, not I don’t think.

885
00:55:59,140 –> 00:56:02,900
I wonder if it could successfully mount an eschatological

886
00:56:04,340 –> 00:56:07,940
framework that can restore them. Not

887
00:56:07,940 –> 00:56:11,380
necessarily restore, but bring back the modern secular mind.

888
00:56:12,180 –> 00:56:15,940
And I’m not saying that everybody needs to get on the same page.

889
00:56:15,940 –> 00:56:19,660
I’m not even saying that big evangelical same page is the

890
00:56:19,660 –> 00:56:23,340
way to go. I’m not stating any solutions to this problem. I’m

891
00:56:23,340 –> 00:56:26,820
merely pointing out that these are the fractures. And my

892
00:56:26,820 –> 00:56:30,620
challenge question to you is if I’m on the outside looking at this

893
00:56:30,620 –> 00:56:34,420
and I don’t even understand the thing from the beginning, all

894
00:56:34,420 –> 00:56:37,900
of this just seems like more of the same from what I’m already coming out

895
00:56:37,900 –> 00:56:40,820
of. So why would I jump over to that? I’m already comfortable with the thing

896
00:56:40,820 –> 00:56:43,820
I got. Oh, and I don’t have to get up on Sunday. I can have

897
00:56:43,820 –> 00:56:47,660
mimosis. Yeah. Well, to

898
00:56:47,660 –> 00:56:51,300
that I would just say. And there’s a lot in there. I threw a lot

899
00:56:51,300 –> 00:56:54,660
in there. Now there’s several layers, there’s several layers of things

900
00:56:54,820 –> 00:56:58,660
there. But, but the, you know, back to the original

901
00:56:58,660 –> 00:57:02,100
point of, you know, somebody on the outside looking in and they’re like, there’s so

902
00:57:02,100 –> 00:57:05,860
many differences. You know what, you know, you, you may not be interested

903
00:57:05,860 –> 00:57:09,660
in the differences, but the differences are interested in you.

904
00:57:11,020 –> 00:57:14,780
And, and so, and you will be impacted by

905
00:57:14,780 –> 00:57:18,620
those differences. And so I think I, I

906
00:57:18,620 –> 00:57:22,350
think for someone who’s on the outside, I

907
00:57:22,350 –> 00:57:25,990
think you should make a, I, I, Francis

908
00:57:25,990 –> 00:57:29,190
Bacon. Okay. For all his faults,

909
00:57:29,750 –> 00:57:33,190
at least he seems like he’s making a good

910
00:57:33,190 –> 00:57:36,989
faith effort to exercise humility and to try to

911
00:57:36,989 –> 00:57:40,470
figure this thing out. Okay. And, and not a prideful way.

912
00:57:40,630 –> 00:57:44,310
And so here, here would be my challenge. Here, here would be my ask to

913
00:57:44,470 –> 00:57:47,430
unbelievers out there to say, hey,

914
00:57:48,180 –> 00:57:51,900
yeah, the, the, there is truth that is

915
00:57:51,900 –> 00:57:55,740
out there there. And you owe

916
00:57:55,740 –> 00:57:59,540
it to yourself and to your society to do your best

917
00:58:00,180 –> 00:58:03,300
to come to a, A, an honest

918
00:58:05,220 –> 00:58:08,660
and thoughtful and nuanced understanding

919
00:58:08,740 –> 00:58:12,420
of, of, of reality as it exists and not to bring your

920
00:58:12,420 –> 00:58:15,460
own, you know, we’re all going to, we all have our own biases, we all

921
00:58:15,460 –> 00:58:19,130
have our own presuppositions. That’s, I got that. That’s part of it. But,

922
00:58:19,130 –> 00:58:22,290
but we have to also come at it with the humility that

923
00:58:22,770 –> 00:58:26,210
maybe I don’t have it right? Maybe there’s something

924
00:58:26,210 –> 00:58:29,730
I’m missing and what is it. And I think Christians

925
00:58:29,730 –> 00:58:33,330
to, to our credit, you know, and

926
00:58:33,330 –> 00:58:36,850
to having lived in negative world for so long

927
00:58:36,930 –> 00:58:40,690
where, you know, you go to a university and you say you’re

928
00:58:40,690 –> 00:58:43,970
a Christian and, and you, oh, God forbid, believe that the

929
00:58:43,970 –> 00:58:47,430
Genesis account of creation laughed out of science

930
00:58:47,430 –> 00:58:50,950
class, right? Like having had to endure that level

931
00:58:50,950 –> 00:58:54,710
of scrutiny, mockery, all of that. You

932
00:58:54,710 –> 00:58:58,390
know, we, we had to spend a lot of time understanding

933
00:58:58,390 –> 00:59:01,910
the secular mind and understanding the atheist arguments and

934
00:59:02,310 –> 00:59:05,950
understanding evolution and, and why the evolutionists believe

935
00:59:05,950 –> 00:59:09,550
what they believe. And so I would say out of

936
00:59:09,550 –> 00:59:13,270
necessity, I think the secularists have to do the same thing. They have to apply

937
00:59:13,980 –> 00:59:17,660
this. And they, for. And they haven’t had to. They haven’t had to.

938
00:59:17,980 –> 00:59:21,740
Yeah. And, and now they have to. And you should. And, and what I

939
00:59:21,740 –> 00:59:24,940
would say is approach it with humility, with

940
00:59:24,940 –> 00:59:28,740
understanding. Maybe I’m not right about everything. And, and

941
00:59:28,740 –> 00:59:32,060
that’s something that, that I’ve had to say about many, many things

942
00:59:32,620 –> 00:59:36,380
to the point about the, the ethnos. I think what’s interesting,

943
00:59:36,700 –> 00:59:39,180
when you, you brought that up, I, I would say

944
00:59:41,580 –> 00:59:45,340
that we, of course,

945
00:59:45,340 –> 00:59:49,060
you know, you’re familiar with the, the concept. You and I have

946
00:59:49,060 –> 00:59:52,740
talked a lot at length about the fourth turning and

947
00:59:52,740 –> 00:59:56,380
the, you know, the four turns. And so, you know, in a period of unraveling,

948
00:59:56,940 –> 01:00:00,620
there’s, there’s going to be chaos. And, and so what

949
01:00:00,620 –> 01:00:04,340
I would say about the, the, the, what’s important to

950
01:00:04,340 –> 01:00:08,170
understand from a Christian perspective about the ethnos, okay, is

951
01:00:08,170 –> 01:00:11,810
that, you know, a lot of people want to attribute

952
01:00:13,330 –> 01:00:17,130
culture to race. And,

953
01:00:17,130 –> 01:00:20,890
and I would say that’s not true. Now that’s

954
01:00:20,890 –> 01:00:23,730
not to say that ethnicities don’t take on

955
01:00:24,610 –> 01:00:28,450
particular, you know, cultures

956
01:00:28,530 –> 01:00:32,050
or, you know, tendencies or something like that.

957
01:00:32,530 –> 01:00:36,240
But, but culture is way,

958
01:00:36,880 –> 01:00:40,600
it’s not tied to the, to the melanin, the color of your melanin or

959
01:00:40,600 –> 01:00:43,760
your facial structure. That has nothing to do with culture.

960
01:00:44,320 –> 01:00:47,440
Culture has everything to do with religion.

961
01:00:48,000 –> 01:00:51,360
Everything to do with religion. So you’re so,

962
01:00:51,840 –> 01:00:55,440
so culture is downstream from religion. Religion is the headwaters,

963
01:00:55,440 –> 01:00:59,240
okay? Whatever your religious beliefs are, that forms the

964
01:00:59,240 –> 01:01:03,060
headwaters of your existence. And from, from your

965
01:01:03,060 –> 01:01:06,740
religion flows your culture, and from your culture

966
01:01:06,740 –> 01:01:10,500
flows your politics, forms your family formation forms everything

967
01:01:10,500 –> 01:01:14,060
else. And so if you want to critique

968
01:01:14,700 –> 01:01:18,380
someone’s some ethnicities, ethnicities, culture,

969
01:01:19,420 –> 01:01:23,220
it’s, it’s not to just, it’s not to critique their skin color or

970
01:01:23,220 –> 01:01:26,980
their facial structures or the, the geography of where they came from or where

971
01:01:26,980 –> 01:01:30,720
they, they’re found. What you’re critiquing is their religion.

972
01:01:30,880 –> 01:01:34,520
I mean, everybody says Christianity is a white man’s religion. It’s only

973
01:01:34,520 –> 01:01:38,160
the white man’s religion because it took root in Europe.

974
01:01:38,560 –> 01:01:41,520
Europe was profoundly pagan. Europe

975
01:01:42,800 –> 01:01:46,240
was just as godless as any other place on the face of the earth.

976
01:01:47,600 –> 01:01:51,120
And so the fact that Christian society

977
01:01:51,120 –> 01:01:54,960
took root in Europe has nothing to do with skin color. It just

978
01:01:54,960 –> 01:01:58,400
has to do with the providence of God. And oh, by the way,

979
01:01:58,800 –> 01:02:02,080
the providence of God is that all nations

980
01:02:02,400 –> 01:02:05,520
would come to know him. That’s not to say that all, all

981
01:02:06,080 –> 01:02:09,920
nations would become European. That’s not what that says at all. It just says that

982
01:02:09,920 –> 01:02:13,440
all nations would become Christian. And so there should be

983
01:02:13,440 –> 01:02:16,960
some similarities. We would think that, that,

984
01:02:17,120 –> 01:02:20,850
that if everyone has a Christian understanding of, of the world,

985
01:02:20,850 –> 01:02:24,490
of creation, of their own human

986
01:02:24,490 –> 01:02:28,170
anthropology, that, that certain things would

987
01:02:28,170 –> 01:02:32,010
follow. That would be kind of basic to every

988
01:02:32,170 –> 01:02:35,929
society. And, but would there be variations within

989
01:02:35,929 –> 01:02:39,690
those cultures? Of course, of course there would be. But, but

990
01:02:39,690 –> 01:02:43,450
the basic, the, the, the, the basic bones would be

991
01:02:43,530 –> 01:02:47,270
the same, right? Christ died for, for sinners, right? We,

992
01:02:47,590 –> 01:02:51,390
we need, we, we are all sinners in need of a savior,

993
01:02:51,390 –> 01:02:55,230
right? I mean all of these, all of these basic

994
01:02:55,230 –> 01:02:58,830
presuppositions would be the same. Now how would they

995
01:02:58,830 –> 01:03:02,550
play out in certain instances? You know,

996
01:03:02,550 –> 01:03:06,350
like you mentioned Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, all these things, okay, There,

997
01:03:06,350 –> 01:03:09,670
there may be some differences in understanding

998
01:03:10,630 –> 01:03:14,390
the more nuanced portions of, of our faith,

999
01:03:14,950 –> 01:03:18,590
but we can all agree on the Apostles Creed, okay?

1000
01:03:18,590 –> 01:03:22,350
That’s what defines a Christian church. Can you accept the

1001
01:03:22,350 –> 01:03:26,030
Apostles Creed? Can you accept the Nicene Creed? Those

1002
01:03:26,030 –> 01:03:29,510
have been the historic standards by which Christian

1003
01:03:29,510 –> 01:03:33,270
churches have been marked. And then from there people can

1004
01:03:33,270 –> 01:03:36,870
make, they can read about the

1005
01:03:36,870 –> 01:03:40,630
ordinance of baptism in a different way, right? Is it, are infants

1006
01:03:40,630 –> 01:03:44,320
baptized or are believers baptized? But there are certain non

1007
01:03:44,320 –> 01:03:48,120
essentials, okay, that, that would mark every Christian

1008
01:03:48,120 –> 01:03:51,960
culture, regardless of skin color. Ethnos. And if you

1009
01:03:51,960 –> 01:03:55,320
think about where did the ethnicities come from?

1010
01:03:56,200 –> 01:03:59,680
Ethnicities came about at the Tower of

1011
01:03:59,680 –> 01:04:03,400
Babel. And the reasons that the ethnicities came about was

1012
01:04:03,400 –> 01:04:06,840
because when mankind was joined together

1013
01:04:08,120 –> 01:04:11,760
in defiance against God, when, when man raised

1014
01:04:11,760 –> 01:04:15,600
his fist and said, I’m going to build a tower to heaven,

1015
01:04:15,600 –> 01:04:19,240
I’m going to reach out to God on my

1016
01:04:19,240 –> 01:04:22,840
terms. The, the human race was on

1017
01:04:22,840 –> 01:04:26,320
the verge of destruction. They were on the verge of

1018
01:04:26,320 –> 01:04:29,520
destroying themselves. And God in his

1019
01:04:29,600 –> 01:04:33,040
mercy struck them with language and

1020
01:04:33,040 –> 01:04:36,880
confusion, struck them so that they could, they couldn’t understand one another, they

1021
01:04:36,880 –> 01:04:40,540
couldn’t conspire anymore to bring about their

1022
01:04:40,540 –> 01:04:44,060
own annihilation. In other words, God saved them by

1023
01:04:44,060 –> 01:04:47,820
creating the nations. And then

1024
01:04:47,820 –> 01:04:50,900
in the, in the Gospels, right at the end, he says, go into all the

1025
01:04:50,900 –> 01:04:54,540
nations, baptizing them, making them, you know,

1026
01:04:56,460 –> 01:05:00,140
making them basically Christians who would, who would follow me.

1027
01:05:00,460 –> 01:05:03,900
And if you look at, in Acts, I believe it’s Acts chapter two,

1028
01:05:04,460 –> 01:05:08,010
where the, the Bible talks about the day of Pentecost. That

1029
01:05:08,010 –> 01:05:11,850
is a reversal of the Tower of Babel. So now

1030
01:05:11,850 –> 01:05:15,490
all of a sudden people are hearing the Gospel in their own

1031
01:05:15,490 –> 01:05:19,330
tongue and they’re asking Themselves. How is it that we’re able to communicate

1032
01:05:19,330 –> 01:05:22,890
with one another? How is it that all of a sudden

1033
01:05:22,890 –> 01:05:26,250
we understand this story in our own language,

1034
01:05:26,810 –> 01:05:30,530
in this place, the temple? And it’s the

1035
01:05:30,530 –> 01:05:34,080
spirit of God enabling the nations to understand

1036
01:05:34,160 –> 01:05:37,840
the message of Christ and the message of which ultimately brings

1037
01:05:37,840 –> 01:05:41,560
about peace amongst the nations. So, so I would

1038
01:05:41,560 –> 01:05:43,440
just say to, to anyone on the outside

1039
01:05:45,280 –> 01:05:49,000
who maybe hasn’t taken an interest, maybe because you haven’t had to, maybe

1040
01:05:49,000 –> 01:05:52,760
because just lack of interest. I don’t

1041
01:05:52,760 –> 01:05:56,360
know, maybe you just don’t see the point. I would say that the. You may

1042
01:05:56,360 –> 01:06:00,110
not be interested in the differences. The differences are interested in you. And

1043
01:06:00,110 –> 01:06:03,870
those differences will have you, they will. And

1044
01:06:04,910 –> 01:06:08,750
if you don’t take the time to understand them correctly,

1045
01:06:10,030 –> 01:06:13,830
you could very easily end up either missing out

1046
01:06:13,830 –> 01:06:17,150
or in the wrong place. And I say that with a lot of humility, like

1047
01:06:17,550 –> 01:06:20,470
I don’t even know. I pray to God that I’m in the right place. I

1048
01:06:20,470 –> 01:06:23,590
pray to God that we’re all in the right place. And so I think we

1049
01:06:23,590 –> 01:06:27,280
just have to approach this with humility. Understanding there are

1050
01:06:27,280 –> 01:06:31,000
non essential or there are non negotiables. And

1051
01:06:31,000 –> 01:06:34,720
then there are things that we can negotiate on. We can have

1052
01:06:34,720 –> 01:06:37,760
our differences and still have a unified

1053
01:06:38,080 –> 01:06:40,800
base from which a,

1054
01:06:42,240 –> 01:06:45,920
a healthy culture, a healthy nation can emerge. Does

1055
01:06:45,920 –> 01:06:49,040
that make sense? That was a lot. Yeah, no, that was,

1056
01:06:49,600 –> 01:06:53,200
that was good. That, that again, that, that rolls us back into the book,

1057
01:06:55,050 –> 01:06:58,570
back into the great installation

1058
01:06:59,290 –> 01:07:03,130
by Francis Bacon. This allows us to, to pick up. Because I want to

1059
01:07:03,130 –> 01:07:06,650
pick up something else that, that,

1060
01:07:08,090 –> 01:07:11,930
that Brian has, has brought up. Because

1061
01:07:12,170 –> 01:07:15,210
the question now becomes, what do we do

1062
01:07:16,010 –> 01:07:19,560
in order to get there? How do we. How do we. Which way

1063
01:07:19,560 –> 01:07:23,200
Western man like that, that meme shows up

1064
01:07:23,200 –> 01:07:26,800
occasionally, sometimes. So back to the book, back to the

1065
01:07:26,800 –> 01:07:30,440
great inspiration. I’m gonna pick up with. I believe it

1066
01:07:30,440 –> 01:07:33,880
is 53. We’re gonna read.

1067
01:07:33,880 –> 01:07:37,080
33, 54, 55.

1068
01:07:37,720 –> 01:07:41,240
Little, little snippets. I think he would have really liked Twitter, by the way. Or

1069
01:07:41,240 –> 01:07:44,960
maybe substack. Actually, GRI strikes me as more of a substack

1070
01:07:44,960 –> 01:07:48,750
guy than a Twitter guy. Yep. All

1071
01:07:48,750 –> 01:07:52,270
right. Speaking of idols, and I

1072
01:07:52,270 –> 01:07:55,990
quote, there are also idols formed by the intercourse and association of men

1073
01:07:55,990 –> 01:07:59,190
with each other, which I call the idols of the marketplace on account of the

1074
01:07:59,190 –> 01:08:03,030
commerce and consort of men there. For it is by

1075
01:08:03,030 –> 01:08:06,870
discourse that men associate and words are imposed according to the apprehension of

1076
01:08:06,870 –> 01:08:10,510
the vulgar, and therefore the ill and unfit choices of words

1077
01:08:10,590 –> 01:08:14,380
wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or

1078
01:08:14,380 –> 01:08:18,140
explanations, wherewith in some things learned in men are wont to guard and

1079
01:08:18,140 –> 01:08:21,780
defend themselves by any means set the matter right. But

1080
01:08:21,780 –> 01:08:25,460
words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw

1081
01:08:25,460 –> 01:08:28,820
into all confusion, and lead men away into numberless

1082
01:08:29,300 –> 01:08:32,100
empty controversies and idle

1083
01:08:32,500 –> 01:08:36,234
fancies. 53. That’s 53.

1084
01:08:36,326 –> 01:08:39,980
54. Lastly, there are idols which have immigrated into men’s minds from the

1085
01:08:39,980 –> 01:08:43,380
various dogmas of philosophies and and also from wrong laws of

1086
01:08:43,380 –> 01:08:47,100
demonstration. These I call idols of the theater,

1087
01:08:47,340 –> 01:08:51,020
because, in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage

1088
01:08:51,020 –> 01:08:54,660
plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an

1089
01:08:54,660 –> 01:08:58,420
unreal and scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the

1090
01:08:58,420 –> 01:09:02,180
systems now in vogue, or only of the ancient sects and philosophies that I

1091
01:09:02,180 –> 01:09:05,780
speak for many more plays of the same kind may yet be composed, and in

1092
01:09:05,780 –> 01:09:09,350
like artificial manner set forth, seeing that errors

1093
01:09:09,350 –> 01:09:13,030
the most widely different have nevertheless causes for the most part alike.

1094
01:09:13,510 –> 01:09:17,190
Neither again do I mean this only of entire systems, but also

1095
01:09:17,190 –> 01:09:20,550
of many principles and axioms in science, which by

1096
01:09:20,550 –> 01:09:24,070
tradition credulity and negligence have come to be received.

1097
01:09:25,750 –> 01:09:29,470
But of these several kinds of idols I must speak more largely and

1098
01:09:29,470 –> 01:09:32,790
exactly, that the understanding may be duly cautioned.

1099
01:09:34,800 –> 01:09:38,600
55. The human understanding is of its own nature prone to

1100
01:09:38,600 –> 01:09:42,320
suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than

1101
01:09:42,320 –> 01:09:45,920
it finds and though there be many things in nature which are

1102
01:09:45,920 –> 01:09:49,520
singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them

1103
01:09:49,520 –> 01:09:53,360
parallels and conjugates in relatives which do not exist. Hence

1104
01:09:53,360 –> 01:09:56,840
the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and

1105
01:09:56,840 –> 01:10:00,610
dragons being accepted name utterly rejected. Hence too the element

1106
01:10:00,610 –> 01:10:04,370
of fire, with its orb is brought in to make up the square with the

1107
01:10:04,370 –> 01:10:08,010
other three which the sense perceives. Hence also is the

1108
01:10:08,010 –> 01:10:11,610
ratio of density of the so called elements is arbitrarily fixed to 10 to 1,

1109
01:10:11,850 –> 01:10:15,690
and so on of other dreams and these fancies affect non

1110
01:10:15,770 –> 01:10:19,050
dogmas only, but simple notions also.

1111
01:10:20,250 –> 01:10:23,890
And then this from 56. The

1112
01:10:23,890 –> 01:10:27,450
human understanding, when it has once adopted an opinion, either as being the received

1113
01:10:27,450 –> 01:10:31,120
opinion, or as being agreeable to itself, draws

1114
01:10:31,120 –> 01:10:34,960
all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be

1115
01:10:34,960 –> 01:10:38,080
a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet

1116
01:10:38,080 –> 01:10:41,720
these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and

1117
01:10:41,720 –> 01:10:45,120
rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious

1118
01:10:45,599 –> 01:10:48,800
predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain

1119
01:10:48,800 –> 01:10:52,640
inviolate. And therefore it was a good answer that was made by

1120
01:10:52,880 –> 01:10:56,200
one who they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had

1121
01:10:56,200 –> 01:10:59,940
paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether

1122
01:10:59,940 –> 01:11:02,700
he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods.

1123
01:11:03,340 –> 01:11:07,100
Ay. Asked he again, but where are they painted

1124
01:11:07,100 –> 01:11:10,900
that were drowned after their vows? And such

1125
01:11:10,900 –> 01:11:14,580
is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine

1126
01:11:14,580 –> 01:11:18,420
judgments, or the like, wherein men, having delight in such vanities, mark the

1127
01:11:18,420 –> 01:11:22,220
events where they are fulfilled. But where they fail, though this happen

1128
01:11:22,220 –> 01:11:25,730
much oftener neglect and pass them by, but with far more

1129
01:11:25,730 –> 01:11:28,850
subtlety does this mischief insinuate itself into

1130
01:11:28,850 –> 01:11:32,210
philosophy and the sciences.

1131
01:11:34,690 –> 01:11:38,530
Francis Bacon talking about cognitive dissonance and cognitive biases

1132
01:11:38,530 –> 01:11:42,210
long before 20th century psychology got a hold of it,

1133
01:11:43,010 –> 01:11:46,290
proving, of course, that there is no new thing under the sun.

1134
01:11:48,130 –> 01:11:51,290
Yep, I want to take a turn here. I want to talk about a little

1135
01:11:51,290 –> 01:11:54,810
bit about what we’re going to do as we sort of round a corner towards

1136
01:11:54,810 –> 01:11:58,530
the end of our project here today, the end of our book today, talking

1137
01:11:58,530 –> 01:11:59,690
about restoration.

1138
01:12:02,010 –> 01:12:05,650
There’s an idea from 2nd

1139
01:12:05,650 –> 01:12:09,010
Chronicles 34. 7 so

1140
01:12:09,010 –> 01:12:12,730
Israel had a king, several kings, and they all

1141
01:12:12,730 –> 01:12:16,410
fell into idolatry. And eventually they had a good

1142
01:12:16,410 –> 01:12:20,020
king named Josiah. And in 2 Chronicles

1143
01:12:20,020 –> 01:12:23,060
34. 7, the good king Josiah was noted as

1144
01:12:23,620 –> 01:12:27,260
having taken the. Taken this action which I’m about to

1145
01:12:27,260 –> 01:12:30,900
describe upon becoming an adult and ruling over the folks

1146
01:12:30,900 –> 01:12:34,659
in Judah. And I quote and when he had broken down the

1147
01:12:34,659 –> 01:12:38,060
altars in the groves and had beaten the graven images into powder and cut down

1148
01:12:38,060 –> 01:12:41,540
all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to

1149
01:12:41,540 –> 01:12:45,310
Jerusalem. That’s second Chronicles

1150
01:12:45,310 –> 01:12:47,790
34. 7 KJV.

1151
01:12:50,350 –> 01:12:54,030
There is not yet a quote unquote good King Josiah on the

1152
01:12:54,030 –> 01:12:57,790
political horizon of America. But the groundwork, and I think this is what

1153
01:12:57,790 –> 01:13:01,150
we were just talking about in that last section, the groundwork is being laid for

1154
01:13:01,150 –> 01:13:04,790
that person’s coming. I believe a tidal wave of idol

1155
01:13:04,790 –> 01:13:08,590
breaking with youth and vigor will accomplish what old age and weariness

1156
01:13:08,830 –> 01:13:12,400
cannot. But waiting for the appearance of a

1157
01:13:12,400 –> 01:13:15,920
savior before doing the work yourself is a foolhardy waste of

1158
01:13:15,920 –> 01:13:19,600
time. And leaders owe to their followers to gird their loins

1159
01:13:19,600 –> 01:13:23,400
for the upcoming work. By the way,

1160
01:13:23,400 –> 01:13:25,880
doing the work without the benefit of the Holy Spirit.

1161
01:13:27,720 –> 01:13:31,332
Brian referenced acts. That’s Acts 2:1,

1162
01:13:31,548 –> 01:13:35,360
13, which I believe fundamentally, if

1163
01:13:35,360 –> 01:13:39,060
you read the Bible, is, is fundamentally the third entry

1164
01:13:39,540 –> 01:13:43,100
of the Spirit of God into the world. And we’ll just

1165
01:13:43,100 –> 01:13:46,620
leave that at that. I think the first entry came in with creation. The second

1166
01:13:46,620 –> 01:13:50,180
entry comes in, in the, in the. In the manifest body of Jesus

1167
01:13:50,900 –> 01:13:54,340
and his life, death and resurrection. And then the third entry

1168
01:13:54,580 –> 01:13:57,900
comes in with the Holy Spirit coming in at Pentecost, by the way, if you

1169
01:13:57,900 –> 01:14:01,660
don’t believe me, if you go back

1170
01:14:01,660 –> 01:14:05,370
and look historically at what happened after Pentecost, the Roman Empire fell,

1171
01:14:06,250 –> 01:14:09,130
took a little while, but this was,

1172
01:14:09,930 –> 01:14:13,650
this was the start of something interesting happening that has wound up with all

1173
01:14:13,650 –> 01:14:14,810
of us here.

1174
01:14:19,930 –> 01:14:23,690
At a practical level. So let’s move this out of, out of theory

1175
01:14:23,690 –> 01:14:27,530
and theology. Let’s move this to practicality and more pragmatism, right,

1176
01:14:27,530 –> 01:14:31,340
Brian? So at a

1177
01:14:31,340 –> 01:14:35,140
practical level, if I’m a leader in my home or

1178
01:14:35,140 –> 01:14:38,860
I’m a leader in the civic world, or I’m a leader at

1179
01:14:38,860 –> 01:14:42,620
work, right? And

1180
01:14:42,620 –> 01:14:45,540
I, I, I, I, I’ve read a little Francis Bacon.

1181
01:14:46,180 –> 01:14:49,660
Maybe I’ve, I’ve taken the time to actually treat Christianity

1182
01:14:49,660 –> 01:14:53,460
seriously. Maybe I don’t necessarily believe it, but I’ve

1183
01:14:53,460 –> 01:14:57,060
decided to treat it, treat it seriously. And I’m

1184
01:14:57,060 –> 01:15:00,820
being moved to something about the idols I see around me, either in my

1185
01:15:00,820 –> 01:15:04,100
home, my community, or in my, in my work.

1186
01:15:05,220 –> 01:15:08,340
Now, the idols that we worship in our time are not

1187
01:15:08,900 –> 01:15:12,700
physical and material, although you could say the phones is probably the

1188
01:15:12,700 –> 01:15:16,260
material essence of the, of the, of the temple

1189
01:15:16,420 –> 01:15:20,140
the Greeks were worshiping at, that Paul showed up at. You can

1190
01:15:20,140 –> 01:15:23,780
maybe make that parallel. But how do we begin to

1191
01:15:23,780 –> 01:15:27,380
tear down, how do we begin to tear down the idols in the

1192
01:15:27,380 –> 01:15:31,140
groves, the psychological idols in the groves?

1193
01:15:31,140 –> 01:15:33,860
And by the way, I think people like Jordan Peterson are doing some of this

1194
01:15:33,860 –> 01:15:37,379
work. I think people who are questioning the shibboleths

1195
01:15:37,379 –> 01:15:40,940
of a modern society, like Doug Wilson

1196
01:15:41,100 –> 01:15:44,940
are doing some of this work. I think the tearing down process, or at

1197
01:15:44,940 –> 01:15:48,460
least the beginnings of the tearing down of the idols process

1198
01:15:48,780 –> 01:15:52,430
has started. But there’s so many idols, it’s like whack a

1199
01:15:52,430 –> 01:15:56,270
mole. And I’m not, I’m phrasing this question from the perspective

1200
01:15:56,270 –> 01:15:59,510
of a person who’s not Jordan Peterson. I don’t have a platform. I’m not Doug

1201
01:15:59,510 –> 01:16:03,230
Wilson. I didn’t spend 50 years, you know,

1202
01:16:03,230 –> 01:16:06,750
building a church. I’m not that guy. I just am the

1203
01:16:07,310 –> 01:16:10,990
precinct chair of my local political party in my community. I’m just

1204
01:16:11,550 –> 01:16:15,390
the, I’m just the small business owner who has like,

1205
01:16:15,800 –> 01:16:18,920
you know, two gas stations. I’m just the

1206
01:16:19,400 –> 01:16:23,080
person who’s trying to show up and be a good coach at my, my

1207
01:16:23,080 –> 01:16:26,840
kids soccer game. And I’m surrounded by all these wackadoo parents. Or maybe

1208
01:16:26,840 –> 01:16:30,520
not wackadoo, maybe they’re fine parents, but I See, because

1209
01:16:30,520 –> 01:16:33,920
I’m coaching their kids, I see the effect of the idols, the

1210
01:16:33,920 –> 01:16:37,240
psychological, spiritual and philosophical idols in their lives.

1211
01:16:37,800 –> 01:16:41,480
This is very much a pastoral question. So how do you advise

1212
01:16:41,480 –> 01:16:45,100
a leader who wants to begin to sort of cut down the sun

1213
01:16:45,100 –> 01:16:48,940
statues that are the spiritual groves in our time?

1214
01:16:49,420 –> 01:16:52,660
Yeah, I think. I think it

1215
01:16:52,660 –> 01:16:56,020
begins in our own hearts. And we have to

1216
01:16:56,020 –> 01:16:59,660
realize that we are blind to our

1217
01:16:59,660 –> 01:17:03,380
own idols, that we all, like I said earlier, we’re all prone

1218
01:17:03,380 –> 01:17:07,180
to worship something and, and even

1219
01:17:07,340 –> 01:17:11,110
the most pious hearts. Okay. Out

1220
01:17:11,110 –> 01:17:13,830
there, that and that. And, and I mean that in a

1221
01:17:14,870 –> 01:17:18,470
generous, you know, kind way. What I’m saying

1222
01:17:18,470 –> 01:17:22,110
is even. Even the. The best of

1223
01:17:22,110 –> 01:17:25,750
us can be. Can be prone to mistakes and

1224
01:17:25,750 –> 01:17:29,030
to believe or say things that are not true or we can be misled.

1225
01:17:29,350 –> 01:17:33,110
Even good people. I say. And I say good people. And I. Again,

1226
01:17:33,110 –> 01:17:36,910
I’m saying that as if, you know, in reality, what I’m trying to say is

1227
01:17:36,910 –> 01:17:40,550
none of us are good. Okay? Even, you know, regardless

1228
01:17:40,550 –> 01:17:44,310
of what we might think is that our hearts.

1229
01:17:44,310 –> 01:17:47,830
The Scripture tells us that our hearts are deceitful and desperately

1230
01:17:47,830 –> 01:17:50,870
wicked just in nature. And so

1231
01:17:52,070 –> 01:17:55,430
in order to. We’re not even capable of truly

1232
01:17:55,430 –> 01:17:59,270
recognizing the own idolatry that we have in our own hearts. And so

1233
01:17:59,830 –> 01:18:02,310
I think the Psalms are instructive

1234
01:18:03,650 –> 01:18:07,330
in how to begin. Where do we start? And

1235
01:18:08,770 –> 01:18:11,730
I believe it’s Psalm.

1236
01:18:13,250 –> 01:18:16,650
I believe it’s Psalm 139. It’s either Psalm 139 or

1237
01:18:16,650 –> 01:18:20,370
137. The Psalmist, he’s. He.

1238
01:18:20,450 –> 01:18:24,130
David is calling out to God and he’s saying

1239
01:18:24,210 –> 01:18:27,970
a. He’s saying, lord, search my heart and

1240
01:18:27,970 –> 01:18:31,810
try me and see if there’s any unclean way in me

1241
01:18:33,110 –> 01:18:36,790
and, and. And lead me in the way everlasting. In other words, there’s a.

1242
01:18:36,790 –> 01:18:40,190
There’s a humility involved in, in

1243
01:18:40,190 –> 01:18:43,910
David. And David was, you know, was one of Israel’s

1244
01:18:43,910 –> 01:18:47,710
godly kings. You mentioned Josiah earlier. David

1245
01:18:47,710 –> 01:18:51,270
was. Was one of the. The godly kings as well. And, and

1246
01:18:51,510 –> 01:18:55,230
he was actually referred to by God as a man after my

1247
01:18:55,230 –> 01:18:57,970
own heart. A man after God’s own heart is how the scripture refers to him.

1248
01:18:58,840 –> 01:19:01,240
And so this idea that.

1249
01:19:02,440 –> 01:19:06,240
And even the prophet Isaiah says, all we,

1250
01:19:06,240 –> 01:19:09,080
like sheep, have gone astray. We’ve turned everyone to his own way.

1251
01:19:10,040 –> 01:19:13,680
And our tendency is to reject God. Our tendency

1252
01:19:13,680 –> 01:19:16,440
is to be blind, to be helpless.

1253
01:19:17,800 –> 01:19:21,320
And so we have to be utterly

1254
01:19:21,320 –> 01:19:25,100
dependent on God and realize that that’s the starting point for.

1255
01:19:25,340 –> 01:19:28,940
For identifying idols and, and tearing them down, which

1256
01:19:28,940 –> 01:19:32,300
is part of the reason why I really appreciate Francis

1257
01:19:32,300 –> 01:19:35,660
Bacon’s humble approach to this whole project, saying,

1258
01:19:35,980 –> 01:19:39,340
you know, hey, we, you know, we. I want to start a a new

1259
01:19:39,979 –> 01:19:43,660
a new renewal process, right? Let’s renew the sciences. Let’s,

1260
01:19:43,900 –> 01:19:47,540
let’s try to take dominion over the earth again

1261
01:19:47,540 –> 01:19:50,950
and with with something new. But he approaches it with,

1262
01:19:51,190 –> 01:19:54,910
with a lot of humility, with recognizing his past and trying to build

1263
01:19:54,910 –> 01:19:58,230
on the shoulders of of the the

1264
01:19:58,950 –> 01:20:02,710
spiritual giants before him. So I think that’s where it starts.

1265
01:20:08,470 –> 01:20:11,910
All right, folks, so we actually just lost

1266
01:20:11,910 –> 01:20:15,710
Brian there, and we’ll be inviting him back in a future

1267
01:20:15,710 –> 01:20:19,160
episode of the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast,

1268
01:20:19,800 –> 01:20:23,560
but wanted to wrap up today’s show by wrapping

1269
01:20:23,560 –> 01:20:27,080
up with the Great Instauration by Francis Bacon.

1270
01:20:27,480 –> 01:20:31,080
So I’m going to pick up here in the book and

1271
01:20:32,120 –> 01:20:35,880
we’re going to round the corner and close our

1272
01:20:35,880 –> 01:20:39,320
show today. And I quote from the Great Instauration

1273
01:20:39,480 –> 01:20:43,160
the Preface for my own part, at least, in obedience to the

1274
01:20:43,160 –> 01:20:46,680
everlasting love of truth, I have committed myself to the unto uncertainties and

1275
01:20:46,680 –> 01:20:50,480
difficulties, and solitudes of the ways, and, relying on the divine assistance,

1276
01:20:50,480 –> 01:20:54,200
have upheld my mind both against the shocks and embattled ranks of

1277
01:20:54,200 –> 01:20:57,600
opinion, and against my own private and inward hesitations and

1278
01:20:57,600 –> 01:21:01,240
scruples, and against the fogs and clouds of nature, and the

1279
01:21:01,240 –> 01:21:04,800
phantoms flitting about on every side, in the hope of

1280
01:21:04,800 –> 01:21:08,160
providing at least, or at last, for the present and future generations,

1281
01:21:08,160 –> 01:21:10,800
guidance more faithful and secure.

1282
01:21:12,090 –> 01:21:15,530
Wherein, if I have made any progress, the way has been opened to me by

1283
01:21:15,530 –> 01:21:19,290
no other means than the true and legitimate humiliation of the human

1284
01:21:19,290 –> 01:21:23,010
spirit. For all those who before me have applied themselves to the

1285
01:21:23,010 –> 01:21:26,570
invention of the arts, have but cast a glance or two upon facts, and examples

1286
01:21:26,570 –> 01:21:30,370
and experience, and straightway proceeded, as if invention were nothing more

1287
01:21:30,370 –> 01:21:34,170
than an exercise of thought, to invoke their own spirits to give them

1288
01:21:34,170 –> 01:21:37,510
oracles. I, on the contrary, dwelling

1289
01:21:37,820 –> 01:21:41,580
purely and constantly among the facts of nature, withdraw my intellect from them no further

1290
01:21:41,580 –> 01:21:45,380
than may suffice to let the images and rays of natural objects meet in a

1291
01:21:45,380 –> 01:21:49,180
point, as they do in the sense of vision. Once it

1292
01:21:49,180 –> 01:21:52,740
follows that the strength and excellency of the wit has but little to do in

1293
01:21:52,740 –> 01:21:56,500
the matter and at the same humility which I use in inventing, I employ

1294
01:21:56,500 –> 01:21:59,980
likewise in teaching. For I do not endeavor, either by triumphs of

1295
01:21:59,980 –> 01:22:03,590
confutation, or pleadings of antiquity, or assumptions of authority, authority,

1296
01:22:03,830 –> 01:22:07,630
or even by the veil of obscurity, to invest these inventions of mine

1297
01:22:07,630 –> 01:22:11,150
with any majesty which might easily be done by One who sought to give

1298
01:22:11,150 –> 01:22:14,510
luster to his own name rather than light to other

1299
01:22:14,510 –> 01:22:18,150
men’s minds. Then skipping

1300
01:22:18,150 –> 01:22:21,790
down, wherefore, seeing that these things do not depend upon

1301
01:22:21,790 –> 01:22:25,070
myself at the outset of the work, I most humbly and fervently pray to God

1302
01:22:25,070 –> 01:22:28,870
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, that remembering the sorrows of

1303
01:22:28,870 –> 01:22:32,630
mankind and the pilgrimage of this life wherein we wear out our days, few and

1304
01:22:32,630 –> 01:22:36,350
evil, they will vouchsafe through my hands to endow the human family with new

1305
01:22:36,350 –> 01:22:40,150
mercies. This likewise I humbly pray that things human

1306
01:22:40,150 –> 01:22:43,990
may not interfere with things divine, and that from the opening of the ways

1307
01:22:43,990 –> 01:22:47,510
of sense and the increase of natural light, there may arise in our minds no

1308
01:22:47,510 –> 01:22:50,990
incredulity or darkness with regard to the divine mysteries, but

1309
01:22:50,990 –> 01:22:54,790
rather that the understanding be thereby purified

1310
01:22:54,790 –> 01:22:58,340
and purged of fancies and vanity, and yet not the less

1311
01:22:58,420 –> 01:23:02,180
subject and entirely submissive to the divine oracles, may give to

1312
01:23:02,180 –> 01:23:05,740
faith that which is faith’s. Lastly, that

1313
01:23:05,740 –> 01:23:09,460
knowledge being now discharged of that venom which the serpent infused into

1314
01:23:09,460 –> 01:23:13,260
it, and which makes the mind of man to swell, we may

1315
01:23:13,260 –> 01:23:17,100
not be wise above measure and sobriety, but cultivate

1316
01:23:17,100 –> 01:23:19,940
truth in charity.

1317
01:23:24,190 –> 01:23:27,630
For my part, I agree at the close here of our

1318
01:23:27,630 –> 01:23:31,470
episode today on the great installation, I agree with

1319
01:23:32,510 –> 01:23:35,230
Brian Bagley. I agree with our guest today.

1320
01:23:36,110 –> 01:23:39,950
We are blind to our own idols. We are

1321
01:23:39,950 –> 01:23:43,790
blind to the things that grab

1322
01:23:43,790 –> 01:23:46,790
hold of us and the things that we put the highest, the things that we

1323
01:23:46,790 –> 01:23:50,040
worship. We are blind to those things. And Bacon.

1324
01:23:50,200 –> 01:23:54,040
Bacon was more aware of this empirically probably, than any

1325
01:23:54,040 –> 01:23:57,720
other, any other thinker or philosopher or

1326
01:23:57,720 –> 01:24:01,480
even scientist who was working through the chaos

1327
01:24:01,880 –> 01:24:04,680
of the transition from a world of

1328
01:24:05,240 –> 01:24:08,640
medieval thought and medieval processes to a world of

1329
01:24:08,640 –> 01:24:12,200
Renaissance, Reformation and through to a

1330
01:24:12,200 –> 01:24:15,830
world that would be dominated by human reason,

1331
01:24:15,990 –> 01:24:19,830
human skepticism, and above all, be driven

1332
01:24:19,830 –> 01:24:21,990
by an endeavor towards human enlightenment.

1333
01:24:23,430 –> 01:24:27,230
We are on the other side of that endeavor. And the idols we worship as

1334
01:24:27,230 –> 01:24:30,550
a Western culture have been tested in various ways

1335
01:24:30,710 –> 01:24:34,510
over the last 80 years and they have all been

1336
01:24:34,510 –> 01:24:37,270
found wanting to provide meaning.

1337
01:24:38,310 –> 01:24:41,590
However, we cling to them because we don’t have leadership

1338
01:24:42,240 –> 01:24:44,880
that has any better ideas.

1339
01:24:46,640 –> 01:24:50,000
We don’t have any leadership that has any better ideas than rampant

1340
01:24:50,000 –> 01:24:53,680
consumerism, more marketing and propaganda, more

1341
01:24:53,680 –> 01:24:57,440
entertainment, more media driving

1342
01:24:57,520 –> 01:25:01,360
behavior, and of course, more use

1343
01:25:01,600 –> 01:25:05,440
of slovenly language. We don’t have

1344
01:25:05,440 –> 01:25:09,260
leadership that has any better ideas than putting

1345
01:25:09,260 –> 01:25:12,740
CCTV cameras on every single street corner

1346
01:25:12,900 –> 01:25:16,540
and AI inside of every single device that you have to

1347
01:25:16,540 –> 01:25:19,860
monitor your clicks and of course, control

1348
01:25:20,340 –> 01:25:24,139
your behavior before the

1349
01:25:24,139 –> 01:25:27,940
husk of historical Christianity is completely sucked dry. In the west,

1350
01:25:27,940 –> 01:25:31,780
though, there needs to be a restoration project that begins by first

1351
01:25:31,780 –> 01:25:35,530
pointing out the ideas, approaches and opinions, opinions that don’t

1352
01:25:35,530 –> 01:25:38,290
produce optimal outcomes, and then second

1353
01:25:38,690 –> 01:25:41,970
rejects those ideas, approaches and opinions

1354
01:25:42,370 –> 01:25:45,410
and proposes new solutions and new ideas.

1355
01:25:46,850 –> 01:25:50,610
This is why while Christian nationalism might be scary

1356
01:25:50,610 –> 01:25:53,930
sounding to people with a secular or culturally Christian

1357
01:25:53,930 –> 01:25:57,090
mindset, at least it’s a proposed

1358
01:25:57,490 –> 01:26:01,300
solution. No more banging

1359
01:26:01,300 –> 01:26:03,740
about about the problems.

1360
01:26:05,180 –> 01:26:08,780
We do need solutions and we do need new

1361
01:26:08,780 –> 01:26:12,460
ideas. But we also need to appropriately position

1362
01:26:13,020 –> 01:26:16,860
the people who have given us the ideas that have led to so much

1363
01:26:16,940 –> 01:26:19,900
trouble. We talked about

1364
01:26:19,980 –> 01:26:23,700
Voltaire and this time, this episode, we’re talking about Francis

1365
01:26:23,700 –> 01:26:27,400
Bacon. But we’ve covered Nietzsche on this podcast and we’ve talked

1366
01:26:27,400 –> 01:26:30,680
about Derrida, Kant, we’ve talked about

1367
01:26:30,680 –> 01:26:33,960
Rousseau, these men of the Enlightenment, these

1368
01:26:33,960 –> 01:26:37,640
philosopher thinkers, Marx, Lenin.

1369
01:26:38,840 –> 01:26:42,360
We’ve talked about these individuals, Freud, Young.

1370
01:26:43,320 –> 01:26:46,920
And what we have noted is that all of these

1371
01:26:46,920 –> 01:26:50,360
people, these people who were

1372
01:26:50,440 –> 01:26:54,210
people who were well, believed in the

1373
01:26:54,210 –> 01:26:57,850
primacy of ideas rather than products, believed in the

1374
01:26:57,850 –> 01:27:01,050
primacy of thoughts rather than the primacy of

1375
01:27:01,050 –> 01:27:04,450
actions, and whose words were taken by others

1376
01:27:04,690 –> 01:27:08,410
and then led to the building out of utopian

1377
01:27:08,410 –> 01:27:11,650
schemes that didn’t work. These men,

1378
01:27:12,450 –> 01:27:16,250
we almost never look at their lives. We almost never look at how

1379
01:27:16,250 –> 01:27:18,530
they actually lived, what they actually did.

1380
01:27:19,630 –> 01:27:23,390
Rousseau fathered anywhere between five and seven children and abandoned them

1381
01:27:23,390 –> 01:27:27,030
all to orphanages. Marx beat his servants and

1382
01:27:27,030 –> 01:27:29,470
sat in the library all day and couldn’t hold a job.

1383
01:27:31,070 –> 01:27:34,270
Kant, well, Kant elevated his own

1384
01:27:34,669 –> 01:27:37,990
personal ability to basically be slightly

1385
01:27:37,990 –> 01:27:41,830
autistic to societal level. And I’m not saying

1386
01:27:41,830 –> 01:27:45,560
that’s a bad thing, but that’s what he did. Diderot,

1387
01:27:45,560 –> 01:27:49,160
if you’ll look at him and the French Revolution, he hated women

1388
01:27:49,560 –> 01:27:53,200
and could not make a relationship with them. And Francis

1389
01:27:53,200 –> 01:27:56,920
Bacon, well, Francis Bacon was a social climber,

1390
01:27:56,920 –> 01:28:00,440
a schemer, a man who at the end of the day

1391
01:28:01,480 –> 01:28:05,320
may or may not have had predilections that we would look on

1392
01:28:05,400 –> 01:28:07,000
as ghastly.

1393
01:28:09,400 –> 01:28:13,120
I’m not saying that we should hold these men to be gods, but

1394
01:28:13,120 –> 01:28:16,880
I am saying that if we’re going to take on their ideas and

1395
01:28:16,880 –> 01:28:20,120
look at the results of their ideas, and if we’re going to go in a

1396
01:28:20,120 –> 01:28:23,400
different direction, we need to pick different

1397
01:28:24,600 –> 01:28:28,400
ideas. Because if you don’t have the

1398
01:28:28,400 –> 01:28:31,880
power to walk the idea out yourself that you’re proposing for others,

1399
01:28:32,840 –> 01:28:35,800
how good can that idea actually be?

1400
01:28:38,370 –> 01:28:42,050
I would also assert that we need to confront and repent of the

1401
01:28:42,050 –> 01:28:45,650
idolatry deep in our own personal lives,

1402
01:28:46,290 –> 01:28:50,050
away from work, away from civic leadership, away from community

1403
01:28:50,130 –> 01:28:53,890
volunteering, away from social media, away from the show,

1404
01:28:54,770 –> 01:28:58,330
away from our hobbies, away from our friends. We need to

1405
01:28:58,330 –> 01:29:02,050
confront and repent of the idolatry in our own lives and hearts, and

1406
01:29:03,010 –> 01:29:06,560
to paraphrase from Second Chronicles and break down the

1407
01:29:06,560 –> 01:29:10,320
altars and groves and beat the graven images into powder that exist inside

1408
01:29:10,320 –> 01:29:14,120
of ourselves and cut down all the idols throughout all of the

1409
01:29:14,120 –> 01:29:17,680
land, the psychological land in particular, that exists

1410
01:29:17,680 –> 01:29:20,040
inside each and every one of our minds.

1411
01:29:21,320 –> 01:29:24,840
That is the first work we have to do

1412
01:29:26,120 –> 01:29:29,960
in order to begin the restoration project and

1413
01:29:29,960 –> 01:29:33,620
abandon approaches that no longer, quote, unquote, quote work.

1414
01:29:35,540 –> 01:29:39,180
This act will be in the beginning of the

1415
01:29:39,180 –> 01:29:42,940
restoration of an individual narrative more lasting

1416
01:29:42,940 –> 01:29:46,700
than the false individual narratives we’ve all been fed by

1417
01:29:46,700 –> 01:29:50,420
those individuals who proclaim themselves to be leaders but have no

1418
01:29:50,420 –> 01:29:53,460
better ideas than constant surveillance

1419
01:29:55,220 –> 01:29:56,260
and scolding.

1420
01:29:59,870 –> 01:30:03,550
I want to thank Brian Bagley for coming on the podcast

1421
01:30:03,550 –> 01:30:07,350
today. Always a pleasure to talk with him, and it’s really too bad we

1422
01:30:07,350 –> 01:30:11,150
weren’t able to complete our conversation with him today. I want to thank you all

1423
01:30:11,150 –> 01:30:14,830
for listening, as usual, to this episode of the Leadership Lessons

1424
01:30:14,990 –> 01:30:17,230
from the Great Books Podcast. And well,

1425
01:30:19,230 –> 01:30:20,350
that’s it for me.