Special Event- Conversation with Alister McGrath; The Power of Story: Mark Lanier, 03/03/24

Alister McGrathaudio
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[00:00:00] Okay, so I've got Alistair McGrath up here to interview. And I'm pretty stoked about it. Not gonna lie, it's gonna be powerful in so many different ways, but I put a theme together for the interview and the theme is the power of story. And this is something that Alistair's big on and we're going to get into it in a variety of ways.

But without me introducing him beyond saying, here is a wonderful man, a good friend, and a, an incredible scholar and author with great insight. Would you, let's just take a moment and welcome, uh, from Oxford, Dr. Alistair [00:01:00] McGrath. So thank you.

Okay, Alistair, um, uh, the power of story. Explain that as a concept, please. It means that there's something about us that, that responds to a story. We, we hear it, we step into it, we, we respond to it. And very often when we hear a story, we wonder, should we be in that story? It's a way that really goes far, it's far better than argument.

It's in effect trying to say, here's a way of thinking, a way of living, a way of doing things. And it almost makes you want to step in and say, I'd like to be part of that. Uh, when I teach lawyers how to try cases, uh, at, at the trial academy each summer. Uh, uh, I urge them to consider not simply reciting facts, not simply giving propositional arguments to try to sway the jury, but to envelop all of that into a [00:02:00] story that makes sense of all of the facts.

Uh, a, a story has got a power beyond proposition, beyond just argument. Have. Have you found that to be true in your life? Well, I think that's right. I mean, a story connects these things together and what we very often find is people are overwhelmed with information and they can't make sense of it. What they want is someone who's able to tie these things together and telling a story is one way of connecting things together.

So you can see there is a big picture here, and actually it's coherent. Well, so biblically. Wow. Let's come up with some examples of, of course, Jesus was a pretty good storyteller. Agreed.

Um, I, I look at the, the various, I'm, I'm finishing a, putting the finishing touches on a book on the epistles, a daily teaching devotional book, and this morning I was writing [00:03:00] from Hebrews chapter 10 and 11. And in Hebrews chapter 10, the writer talks about how you should handle suffering in faith, how you should handle struggles in faith.

And it's nice to say that you struggling have faith, but he doesn't leave it there. The writer continues with, you know, we, we, we lose track That it, because we have a chapter division in the English Bible now. But it, it didn't have a chapter division when he was writing. And so we're able to read in the story that these people who are living through these struggles by faith are not just a proposition that they need to be told.

But we go into chapter 11 and we have this amazing accounting of all of these stories to inspire people to live by faith through problems and stories about Abel. Stories [00:04:00] about Abraham, stories about Sarah, stories about Noah, stories about, uh, Rahab, stories about Moses, stories about, and he says, you know, given time, I'd tell you more stories of Gideon and all these other people.

How powerful is story in your life? Well, I think it is very powerful. I mean, obviously I'm an academic and that means that, uh, for me ideas really matter. But ideas very often seem abstract. They seem a bit, uh, disembodied. And a story in effect is about people whose lives have been changed by facts and they're able not simply to explain what these things are, but to say, here is how these things have changed my life.

And that's a very different idea because you can in effectively say, well, there are. Now these facts are there isn't that interesting? But they're at a distance. And then the the truths which change our lives, and in many ways to tell your story, is to tell how you've encountered a transforming truth and you are now [00:05:00] living it out.

So you are witnessing both to the truth in question, but you're also exhibiting and demonstrating this truth by the quality of your living. So I think that's a very important point. Christianity is not simply a set of ideas, it's a lived reality which embodies those ideas. Yesterday, you took time out of, of this trip.

Uh uh, and, and I've got to tell you, I'm so inspired by Alistair. He flew over here simply to do the library events and this class this morning, he, he got here Thursday night and he leaves right after church. I mean, this, this, this is why he came all the way from, from the Cotswolds to here today. And, and yesterday he was speaking to our.

Uh, residents, our 20 some odd seminary students who are working under contract here with the church for a year before we send them out. And, and you made a, a, an a statement that I thought was profound. [00:06:00] Well, you made a bunch, but one of the profound statements you made, um, you said that they should not consider a story as simply an ornament to tag onto a sermon or a lesson.

But to take the story further, it's not, should, should not just be an ornament, it should be part of the, the fabric, a tapestry, if you will, uh, explain what you were trying to teach them. Well, I think every preacher knows that a sermon can, can away be made more interesting if you tell a story. But what I'm saying is that, that's great, but there's something else we need to realize as well.

And that is to actually, um. When a preacher tells a story about themselves, they're not simply saying, here's something interesting that, that explains my faith. It is a witness to the ability of the Christian faith to transform something, to to give them excitement, to give them dynamism, to give them purpose.

And therefore, in talking about this, you are saying two things. Number one. Here's what Christianity is like, but number two, Christianity transforms. And [00:07:00] that's a really important point. It's not simply saying yes to ideas. It's about in effect, being changed by something for the better. Alright, so let's start with your story.

Um, I'd love for everybody to get an idea of your story. I can tell by your accent you were not born in Lubbock, Texas. Um, uh, where, where, where, where, where are you? Where are you from? Where am I from? Um, well, I, I was born in Ireland, um, and, uh, really grew up there and, um, this is back in the 1960s when I was a teenager and back then, um, Ireland was a very, very, uh, troubled place as indeed it is still is in some ways never religious tensions between Protestants and Catholics.

And so, um, I, I really, because I was a scientist, uh, came to the view that atheism was. Right, obviously. Right, because it made sense of science and also it meant that, uh, I could look at my religious friends and say, well, look, these guys are just kind of part of the problem. If there was no [00:08:00] religion, there'd be no religious violence.

So, so it's easy. Yeah. You were, get rid of it. You were in Belfast? I was in Northern Ireland, yes. And that, that was a seat for what they called, um, uh, if, if I remember it right, they were called the troubles. Is that right? That's right. It's a lovely euphemism and, and tell you, a lot of us, uh, our historical knowledge tends to be more centered around our country and, and the issues.

You know, we can talk about the sixties and the civil rights movement here and, and the anti-Vietnam War protests and, and we know our history in that era. But a lot of us don't understand what the troubles were in Northern Ireland. Could you explain them to us? Well, this is all about communal tensions between Protestants and Catholics, which led to violence.

So actually back in the late sixties, Belfast was a scary place to be. I remember once, um, crossing a road and a bullet hit the ground beside me. I think it was aimed at me. I think it was probably just, you know. [00:09:00] Bounced off something, but that sort of thing was happening and I thought, oh, I'm not sure I want to be here.

There has to be a better way. And so I think being an atheist was really a very obvious way of responding to this. It's, let's get rid of this stuff. Easy, become an atheist. Why were they Catholics in Protestants fighting? We got a bunch of Protestants. We got a few Catholics who come to this class. Why?

Why the fight? Because there were territorial disputes about who was in charge of Ireland and what the British were doing in Ireland in the first place. So there are all kinds of political and cultural things. Woven into this. So it was complicated as well as being scary. Okay. So you grow up in this, did, did your family hold any kind of faith?

Yes. My parents, um, basically were, were nominal Christians. In fact, I think my mother was really quite a committed person, but I, I kind, we didn't really connect with that at all. I, I just saw this as a relic of the past. It's a liability. It's not, not me. I'm going to walk into a brilliant, brave new future in which there's no religion, and I'm going to be an [00:10:00] example of that kind of person.

Ah, you sound like a John Lennon's song. Imagine, imagine. Well, yes. All these things were happening back then in the sixties. Yeah. Um, okay, so you grow up in this, you, you, you told me something yesterday or you said something in your lecture I did not know about you. I did not know in your youth you were a Marxist.

Yes, I was a Marxist. But then you see a lot of people were, because again, this is the 1960s and people went to several different ways. One went the hippie way, um, and a author actually came over here to, uh, California to kind of way, you know, to find them. Cells is all very exciting. I I, I didn't come here to find myself.

I stayed here. I stayed in Belfast and, and got into Marxism because this gave me a, a big picture of the world, which explained why things work the way they do, and also gave me a, a way of understanding my, my location and history. So it was really quite interesting. And for a while I really was a Marxist.

I, you, you read Karl Marx? I [00:11:00] did it a little bit dull, but I did it a little bit dull, a lot, a bit dull. Um, and so, uh, um, you graduate from high school. How did you go about getting to Oxford? Well, um, uh, it's a bit like saying how'd you get to the, to Carnegie Hall practice? You know, I had to do a lot of, a lot of hard work to get there, but, um, I, I sort of set myself this goal.

I was studying chemistry. I love chemistry. Oxford has the best chemistry course in Britain. I wanted to go there. So I kind of way Max start on this, said, this is what I'm gonna do. Let's go for it. And you clearly were a great student in high school. You, you knew how to study. You knew what. What now, looking back, seeing that God had gifted you this way, what, what is it that he's gifted you with intellectually that that made you such a good student?

I don't know. I mean, I, I think it might just be I, I'm good at, uh, understanding arguments. I'm good at identifying evidence. I'm good at [00:12:00] finding the connecting links between them and, and those always help. Um, but I think also, I, I just love knowledge. You know, it, it excites me. Okay, so you go to Oxford, you're an Marxist atheist.

Um, something happens while you're there. Uh, uh, uh, please tell us about your story. Well, I arrived at Oxford as a yes, as a Marxist, um, as an atheist. But both of those, there were now question marks over them because I was being, to say, I think that life isn't quite that simple. I, I might be more complicated than that, and I did expect that when I arrived in Oxford, I would be confirmed.

In my atheism, I meet lots of really intelligent atheists who would say, oh, Alistair, you've got some doubts for atheism. Easily sorted. Let's do it right now. But that didn't happen. I think two things happened. One was I met. A lot of really intelligent Christian students, many of whom were natural scientists, who in effect made me suddenly realize there's a different way of seeing this.

You know, that's [00:13:00] one way of doing it. Here's another and it's better. And you haven't thought about this. You know, basically I, I, I began to realize I might have rejected Christianity rather prematurely in, in haste, not thought about properly, so. I, I was kind of way thrown into, um, disarray because I realized that many of the arguments I'd used against atheism, you know, didn't really work very well.

I, I argued, you know, atheism is, is is not a belief system. It's just a fact. Buy into it. But I suddenly realized I could not prove there was no God. So my atheism was actually a form of belief. And so a lot of things began to happen where I realized that the atheism was really very vulnerable and this thing called Christianity, which I didn't really understand, but it seemed to be very exciting and I hadn't properly understood it.

So I began to really hesitate, began to really think there's, there's something here that might be even better and maybe I should be finding out about this. So is there a a a time where you're able to say, I, [00:14:00] I turned that corner? Or, or, or any event that you can tie it to where you realize, okay, uh, I can't be an atheist anymore.

I, I can't give an exact time. I know that when I arrived in Oxford in October, 1971, I was an atheist with doubts. I know that when I went home to my parents' house for the Christmas vacation, I was a Christian full of excitement. I. And that's the way it stayed. Did your, did your family notice a difference?

Um, they did, but they put it down to, well, else has gone to university and these universities are strange places of what you expect.

Uh, you pursued your first degree at Oxford and what was that degree in? Uh, chemistry. It was, uh, a great fun. I really enjoyed it. And then after you got your, your degree in chemistry. Your bachelor's degree, you, you, where did you go from there? Well, I then went on to the doctorate at Oxford, um, with, uh, a more biological [00:15:00] research group, and that was very, very exciting.

Except by this time. I was so excited by Christianity that even though chemistry was wonderful, I was thinking I'd really like to study theology. And so I had to do some very delicate negotiating with, with people to try and make the transition from studying chemistry to studying theology. And eventually we found a way ahead whereby I would keep doing my doctorate, uh, working in labs during the um.

What during day and then studying theology at Oxford in the evenings and, and so it was a busy time, but it was a very exciting time. Ahha. And you got a doctorate in, um, molecular biophysics. Molecular biophysics, physics. That's right. Okay. Just for grins. I mean, a lot of us use that in our daily work, but, but, uh, uh, there may be one or two here that, that don't use it so readily.

Tell us what molecular biophysics is. Well, um, [00:16:00] it isn't easy, but sim if I can put it like this, it's about trying to understand how. Biological systems work at the molecular level, know that you're going, you're going really down very, very small and asking what's happening inside cells. It was great fun. I know it doesn't sound much fun, but it was great fun, but I'd found something else that was even more fun.

Okay, so you, you then, so you get your doctorate in molecular biophysics. And you're pursuing also, what, what was your first doctorate, uh, in, in religious areas? Well, that, that took some time because, uh, I, I, I did a first degree in theology at Oxford and then, um, moved to Cambridge, um, which was, you know, seen as a bad thing to do by other Oxford people, but I did it.

Um, and, uh, and big. Then went into ordained ministries. I felt really, very, very strongly called, not simply to, to think about my Christian faith, but to to minister to people. And so I, uh, spent a lot of time learning how to preach, which I needed to do, I can tell you. And that was [00:17:00] a very good experience. Uh, when I was, um, doing my first sermons, uh, people in my congregation would say to me.

Alistair, um, we think you are talking about something very important, but we haven't figured out what it is yet, and, you know, so I, I had a lot of work to do there. And so you attacked that, like you attacked everything else. You decided to learn it? Yeah, I had to learn it. That was great. And kind of, I made every mistake you can make, but you know, you kind of learn from that.

Well, and, and one of your mentors along the way was. Uh, uh, uh, though he was dead. But one of your mentors along the way was CS Lewis, who similarly went through a difficult time trying to communicate to ordinary people. Well, that's right. And let's, let's talk more about this, because when I became a Christian, uh.

Um, obviously I was, um, struggling to understand what this new way of thinking was, and I had lots of questions, you know, [00:18:00] and, and that's good because there were sensible questions, you know, why do Christians believe in the Trinity kind of thing? And my poor student friends, you know, just couldn't cope with these things.

So they said, why don't you read CS Lewis? Um, and I'd heard of him. You know, I knew he'd written the book, something to do with wardrobe, something. So, um, and um, so I went and bought this book for ICS Lewis and started to read it. And, um, it was just somebody turned all the light inside my head, or, you know, scales falling from my eyes because I, I began to, to understand this better.

And so I decided I'm gonna stick with this guy. And well, you know, years more than 50 years later, I'm still reading him and loving him. You, you, I'm gonna tax your memory here. Um, and by the way, this is not a prepared dialogue. He's kind of just trusting me not to like hang him out to dry with questions that I'd have no basis for asking.

We have not prepared this. Um, [00:19:00] so running that risk, um, you and I were at Wheaton. You may not even remember this. We were at Wheaton together and at Wheaton you were addressing. Chapel, I believe, and you used a powerful illustration from Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. I believe it was the silver chair.

Where you were talking about the underground world and how the, the, the spell had been cast, that they believed that was the only world and, and the absurdity of somebody coming into that world saying, no, there are lights from the sky that don't. Hang from anything and, and things of that nature. Can you walk us through that as an example of the power of story from CS Lewis?

Well, this is Lewis at his best. Um, what Lewis is trying to do is to challenge people who think this world is the. Only world. And Lewis is saying, look, we very often get [00:20:00] locked into ways of thinking that we simply have become addicted to. And somebody needs to say, are you sure that's right? It's not that simple.

There are other ways of doing it. So in the silver chair, um, there are these people in this underground kingdom, they're trapped there, but there. They're saying, no, this is the real world. This is the only world. Anything beyond that you, there's nothing. It's an illusion to talk about there being another world.

And of course the key point is that some of those who've been to this utter world and come into this underworld are able say, but we know this world. We can tell you about it, we can describe it. And actually it's a, it's a transitional moment where you can see people beginning to realize we have trusted something that is.

That is false, that is inadequate, that that only tells a tiny part of the truth. There's a better way of thinking, a better world of there. Let's go find it live there. So it's very, very exciting indeed. Um, you, you enter into this Louis [00:21:00] Odyssey at an early age, um, uh, I would assume. Well, let's take a step back.

You got your undergraduate degree in theology. You, um, go into ministry and you learn how to preach and how to speak and how to communicate, uh, uh, complicated ideas to everyday thought. Um. Where did you proceed from there? What draw you back into school in academia? Well, I went back to Oxford to teach theology and that was very important because, um, I, if I, and put this, I'd learned how to do theology the hard way and I felt I might be able to help people who were studying it, um, do some more effectively, but also make connections between.

The, the more academic side of the Christian faith and pastoral ministry because one of my passions is that theology's at its best when it's preached and when it's put into action in pastoral ministry. So that was a very important period for me. I went back to, I [00:22:00] stayed there for a very long time and it was a really very important part of my life.

Uh, I think of Paul when you say that I, I, I, I consider Paul a practical theologian. He has theology of, of, of great high caliber, but for him it's always just practical. So what difference does it make and, and how do we preach it and teach it in a way that transforms, uh, lives, uh, rather than merely trumpets grand ideas.

Um, you, you were teaching students how to do that. You pursued your education. Now let's talk about your writing. Uh, I don't know how many books I, I asked Alistair yesterday, how many books have you written, and do you know what he said? Mm-hmm. Now, I can tell you with precision, not only how many books I've written, but how many pages if you had them all together, but he doesn't know that's a sign you've written a lot.

We've got by our count, uh, David Capes can correct me if [00:23:00] I'm wrong, but I think we've got about 88 of them in the library and, and I can kind of put them into buckets. It's kinda like I can follow what your. Yeah. Interest is right now in life by which books you're, you're, you're writing, um, you've got your CS Lewis bucket and it's filled.

You've got a lot of Lewis books, but you're still writing another one. Uh, what is the CS Lewis work you're working on now? Well, the one I'm working on now is, um, CS Lewis on the relation of science and faith because actually says more about that than you might think. And. It's time we saw that and, and broadened the public discussion.

'cause there's some really exciting discussions going on in our culture and Lewis needs to be in there and that book I think will help him get there. Can you give us a glimpse of, of sort of what you. Anticipate you might be putting in that book kind of a, a little synopsis. Well, obviously one thing would be look at our [00:24:00] science and faith incompatible and that, that, certainly Lewis talks about that.

But I think one of Lewis's big concerns is more about the way in which we abuse science. Why is it that science, which came into being to help us live better, is being used to develop weapons to, to destroy our earth. You know? And so one of Lewis's big concerns is that, is that science basically really has.

Opened up ways of doing certain things which we can't undo. And sometimes those aren't good things. So in fact, if you, like, Lewis is almost like a prophetic voice saying we need to be careful where we go with science. 'cause we might go down some very dangerous roads and not be able to turn back and come home again.

When I was at Lipscomb studying, uh, I heard a lecture by Udo middleman. Udo, uh, is, I think he's still alive. He is, uh, trained as a lawyer in Germany. In the early sixties, he married Francis Schaeffer, one of his daughters, one of Schaeffer's daughters, became a Christian through law school. Uh, he gave a lecture, [00:25:00] this would've been in 1980, maybe 81, entitled The Monster That's surrounds us culturally and the tools we have to fight it.

I may have a word wrong or two, but his idea was. That God has given us science as a tool to combat the plagues and ills and problems of a fallen world. The problem is, like everything else in this world, what God has made, it can be distorted and used by sinful people to a bad end. And so the same science that can give us.

Nuclear understanding that will enable an MRI to detect a cancer tumor is the same science that can give us nuclear understanding to make a dirty bomb that can be used to, [00:26:00] uh, wreak havoc in the hands of a terrorist. And, and so we. We've got to learn to, you know, ai, artificial intelligence can be used in some positive, great ways, but it can also be used in some very destructive, negative ways.

Did Lewis have any perceptions of those and, and will they come into your book? Yes. Lewis makes those points very well. Particularly in his essay or his, his short book, the Abolition of Man. And one of Lewis's concerns is exactly what you've just described, that just about everything we do as human beings, we mess up.

Uh, and that that science, which, you know, could be used for all these wonderful things like healing us, helping us to, to live better lives, um, grow better crops, actually can also be used to destroy us. You know, science very often is, is developed to, in effect, allow us to make better bombs, that kind of thing.

And Lewis is just saying, look, this is profoundly ambivalent science and the reason it's profoundly ambivalent is because we are profoundly ambivalent. There's something wrong with [00:27:00] us. And that means that what we do can very often lead to some very worrying outcomes. Alright, so if I put your books in buckets.

The CS Lewis bucket, you know, the, the apologetics bucket, the church history and theology bucket. Um, one common theme that I believe I see in your writing. Is the power of story, because you elicit that theme from Lewis. You elicit that theme from church history. You elicit that theme and weave it through theology as you walk through the theologians that have espoused those theological concepts.

You do the same with apologetics. Um, I'd like to delve into some of those different buckets with you. Uh, talk to us about church history. Who is it? To give us some names of people that are worth reading and, and, uh, let's talk about them a little bit. Well, I think that's a very good idea to do. One of the reason I love church history is because it opens up.

[00:28:00] People who in the past have done certain things or thought certain things, and those have an ongoing significance. In other words, we can, we can reach into that bucket and say, that can be used today very effectively. Let's retrieve it. Let's step into the bucket, take it out and do something with it. Um, the early Christian writer Augustine of HIPA, was a very good example.

He is wonderful on the ability of Christianity to transform us internally, to engage our deepest desires. And, uh, many of us use his prayer. Uh, you have made us for yourself. And our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you. That's powerful stuff. Or you might look at Luther, who's one of my favorite figures.

Luther's saying, look, we've gotta get back to the Bible. We've got a kind a way. Make sure we don't, uh, lose sight of this wonderful vision of Christianity we find in the Bible. And make sure it animates and informs everything we do as Christians and as a Christian community. And if you'd like, I find the study of church history refreshing because it keeps revitalizing my understanding of what [00:29:00] Christianity is all about and makes me want to cope.

Well, it makes me want to preach actually. Well, um, uh, I told this story. Yes. Uh, Friday at lunch. Um. That Tom Wright had told me as, as best as I remembered this story, and I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, and I really don't want you to say it is because I really like the story and I'd like to keep it the way I remember it.

Um, but, uh, uh, and, and you don't like to talk about you, I've noticed that you like to talk about other people more than you like to talk about yourself, which is a compliment, but, um. Um, Tom Wright, NT Wright tells the story to me that he was on some committee that was dealing with you as a student or dealing with your work or something like that.

He had met with you, uh, uh, on an afternoon and said to you, I think you will be more informed in [00:30:00] this. If you'll go read Luther's commentary on Romans in the original German. And as Tom told me the story in my recollection, uh, the next day he just bumps into you on the streets of Oxford and says, don't forget.

And your reply was, well, I, I read that after you told me to. At which point he said, right. And, and Tom told me, he says, I'm thinking internally. Yeah. Uh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He read it and, uh, so Tom asked you a question or two about it, and Tom looked at me and he said, I think he not only read it, I think he memorized it.

He said it was just uncanny. Um, do you have any memory of that at all? It's a lovely story,

but, well, alright, so Luther is someone that you enjoyed following, um, uh, you enjoy reading. Uh, uh, let's, um, let's see, who else? Well, first of all, [00:31:00] Augustine, that's the same fella in Lubbock. We called Augustine. Is that right? Yep. Okay. Just making sure. And, uh, Augustine of Hippo, if you really wanna know how to say his name and not sound like you're from Lubbock.

Uh, it's Augustine. Um, uh. Athanasius, there are a number of old church figures. Uh, the class heard me, one of my favorites, Polycarp, the story of Of the martyrdom. Of Polycarp. I cannot read without having tears. Um, uh, who else if, I mean, some people are gonna watch this video, they're gonna go back and they're gonna say, I'm gonna get that book.

I'm gonna read that, give us some more ideas of what to read that would inspire us with story. Well, I think going back to the early church, I mean, it's a period where Christianity is really flourishing, but it's under enormous pressure from the Roman Empire. And very often you have these, these incredible stories of Christians who in fact are not prepared to compromise and end up getting martyred for it, but they, they're saying that it's [00:32:00] so exciting.

What discovered that it's worth it. We'd look at Iron ais of Leon, a second century theologian, and basically what he's trying to do is, is explain why Christianity makes so much sense of life and so much sense of the world around us. I think that that's another writer you might go to, but one of the things I, I really find exciting is that the.

Privilege you have of reading writers from the past is that they're testifying to how they discovered something and the ways in which they understood it. And, um, it, it really helps me to understand my Christian faith better by reading other people. 'cause then I'm not limited by my. Own understanding. I can borrow other people's as well.

You know, in other words, you know, it's like going to a Bible study and you know, people come up with these wonderful ways of reading texts and you suddenly realize the way you've read them isn't good enough and this all these new ways to really enrich you. And I find that when you read church history, your in effect being challenged, being excited, and your vision of the Christian faith is [00:33:00] being expanded, which is great.

You mentioned that, uh, uh, idea. From Lewis that Lewis will frequently talk about, uh, uh, seeing something and, and, and that he could see through the writings of others, uh, things he could not see on his own. Uh, would you expound on that? Yes, that's right. That, that's, this is from one of his leg books called an Essay and Criticism where Lewis.

I will see through the eyes of others and what he, what he's getting at really is, you know, when he's reading a biblical passage or when he's thinking about something, he's got his own ideas, but he's in effect inviting other people into the conversation. He's looking at them through their eyes and he's saying, ah, that's even better than what I thought.

I'm going to kind of a go that way. And it's a way of correcting yourself, but it's also a way of expanding your vision. Or what the Christian faith is, you have this rich and very deep vision, which is helped by other people who've talked to you and given you ideas. I think about [00:34:00] how often the scriptures give the admonition of, of associating pride and arrogance with foolishness.

Um, uh, it's the, the Greek word for wisdom is Sophos. And, and the Greek word for foolishness is morros. In a sense. A sophomore is someone who's a fool, who thinks they're wise if you break it apart into the Greek. Uh, if you heard, uh, pastor Jarret's sermon this morning. Uh, he talked from, uh, Matthew five verse 13 about you are the salt of the earth and if the salt has lost its saltiness, it's not worth anything except to be thrown out.

The word for lost its saltiness is the verb form of morros of, of moronic, of a [00:35:00] dullard. If the salt is dull, if it's a moron, if it's foolish, then it's not worth anything. Um, uh, uh, this idea of us reading scripture through others only works if we've got the humility to recognize. We don't have all the answers and the only reading, there's a certain if we are so proud to think that we are the only ones who understand this.

We, we certainly will not grow in that. We will be the fool. We will be the moron. Fair to say. I think that is fair to say. One of the lessons I had to learn as I, as I grew in my faith, you know, that was that very often I got things wrong or I misunderstood things and it was always good to be corrected, to be challenged, to be redirected.

I think that that's how the initial faith of, of the Christian faith is your, your exploring a new territory and you need someone to help you to find your way and avoid false terms, but that, that's what the Christian community is all about. [00:36:00] It's about. Each of us helping each other to sort things out to, to live this wonderful way of life and to actually grow in your faith.

So it's a corporate thing, not simply an individual thing. And what Lewis is saying in terms of seeing through the eyes of others, is really how important the Christian community is in sustaining our faith and helping it to grow. Wow. Which goes back to the same concept in Hebrews. Don't neglect assembling together.

Mm-hmm. Because if you do, you do it to your own detriment. As well as the detriment of others. Um, okay, so you walk through this world, you see these stories, the Christian story makes more sense of the molecular details than anything else. Tell us the Christian story that makes sense to you. Well, the Christian story, um, is about a God who loves us and.[00:37:00]

Wants us to find flourishing. In relationship with him because that's, that's what we're here for, really. And that there are all kinds of impediments we have, which get in the way of that sin, uh, ignorance, confusion, and if you like, it's all about God, trying to do everything possible to bring us this fullness of life.

Remember that wonderful statement of Christ I've come, that you may have life in all its fullness. It's a wonderful statement. And so if you like, it's about God trying to help us to find that through, um, uh, through hearing sermons, through reading the Bible, through conversations. But it's a very powerful idea.

And of course, at the heart of it all is the life and death and resurrection of Christ or the story of Christ. And for me, one of the most exciting things about Christianity is it's not just somebody. Standing there saying, do this, do this, do this. It's much more about someone in effect, like Christ, um, living out the redeemed life so we can [00:38:00] see what it's like.

He's a model to help us understand what this is all about. So for me, the Christian faith has two elements, if you like. One is it really helps us to make sense of ourselves, to make sense of our world. So if you like, it's um, it's reassuring us we can live coherently and meaningfully in this world. But it's also transformative.

It's not just saying, I'm turning a light on. So you can see it's also about being changed, growing, discovering new insights, and being in effect. Given this vision of who you are, the difference that you can make, which means you can live like. Confidently. It's a bit like that parable in, in Matthew, chapter seven.

You know, the, the, the wise person who builds their hus on a rock. All of us needs to build our hus of faith on a rock, something stable that's not going to be blown away by the little storm, less intellectual fashion, but something that's robust and stable. And we can know that In effect, we have built our lives on something solid and reliable.

[00:39:00] That's enormously important. I, I, I don't. Amen. I, I don't presume to tell you, um, what to add to your stack of things you need to write, but I would love to read something you wrote on the stories of Hebrews because, and, and it may just be 'cause I'm working through it right now, but what you say echoes so much of what Hebrews teaches.

The, the passage that stood out as you were talking just now. Uh, it's, it's as if you're alluding to the passage where, uh, we are told that through the death of Christ, uh, a, a way has been secured once for all into the presence of God. So we can draw near with full confidence. Knowing that we belong there through the righteousness of Christ is we have embraced his death, burial, and resurrection and, and been born anew in [00:40:00] or born from above into this, this life of, of confident entrance into the presence of God that can transform who we are.

And it's something you've experienced, but it's something you've read and, and recounted to so many people. Alright. Favorite book you've written. My favorite book. Well, I have to say I, I'm very fond of the Lewis book. I wrote, I wrote a biography of Lewis about 10 years ago, and the reason I like it so much is not because.

I think it's a particularly good book, but because I like Lewis so much, so I, I have the happiest memories in writing that book of reading, Lewis, everything you wrote and, and just taking it all in and then trying to, trying to make it available to ordinary people so that they could enjoy this as well.

So if you like, it's a book which I hope will be interest instant to read, but will actually also give you a sense of the vision that Lewis has and why it's so interesting and so satisfying. Okay. Uh, uh, I go back to an, an interview with Tom Wright, or maybe it was just a dialogue, [00:41:00] but, but Tom told me once he, he viewed his books like children.

He said, you conceive them, you nurture them, you bring them into this world. You feed them, you, you mold them, and then you send them out on their own. And sometimes they do quite well. They make friends you like. They bring those friends home to you, you're happy. You just love the way your child says.

Sometimes they don't do so well and they go out into the world and they make friends you really don't care too much for, and they bring you those friends back home to you. And he says, and those are the books you look at and you say, did I ripe this wrong? That I do do something here? Are there some, or can you find any of your books where you say, I'd like to write that again.

Yes. Uh, and I, and I've done that recently. I mean, I wrote a book, um, back in, uh, 1990 called the Genesis of Doctrine. And [00:42:00] it's really, it's, it's, it's, the idea is basically simple. Why do Christians read the New Testament and then develop doctrines as a kind of conceptual framework that makes sense of that?

I wrote that book and. I thought, this isn't really that good a book, but I'm gonna publish it anyway. And then, um, you know, well then years later, in fact, this year, um, I published. A new version of that book, a completely revised version. So using Tom's analogy of children, I don't quite know how on earth you conceptualize this, something that's been completely remade.

But anyway, um, and this time I think I may have got it right. Um, so I'm much happier about that now. But, so I've had to revisit something I wrote a very long time ago, and it was good to do that. Yeah. So you've got another book that's out now that I, I want to talk about. I'm gonna urge everybody to get.

I'm gonna urge everybody to read because our hope and plan is to bring Alistair back, uh, perhaps as early as November of this year, uh, to discuss this book. The books, I think fresh out and it's doing [00:43:00] already quite well. Tell us about your book. Well, it's a textbook and it's called. Christian Apologetics, colon, and introduction.

Uh, it's very, very dull title, but it, it, it, it does exactly that. It, it's based on core lectures I gave at Oxford over a period of many years. In fact, trying to explain, um, how we can. How we can articulate our faith in ways that will connect up with our contemporary culture, how we can respond to some of the good questions people ask about our faith and how we can also bear witness to the, the immense dynamism of the Christian faith in transforming people.

So if you like, it's by apologetics in terms of, um. Answering the questions people have, showing why Christianity is so exciting. And also I think, um, showing them what they need to do if they want to, to benefit from this. So it, it's really looking at some of the greats and you will not be at all surprised to know that names like CS Lewis, uh, Francis Schaeffer, um, uh, and [00:44:00] many, many more.

Some very, very recent ones. Um, figure in this very, very prominent Tim Keller's in there 'cause he's such an excellent apologist and we can learn so much from him. Um, uh, yes, uh, uh, you've, you wrote when I was talking to you. Uh, we were at lunch and I was asking you what you were writing, and you were telling me you were writing this book.

If I recall correctly, you said the publisher had approached you and basically said, would you do this? Well, that's right. Um, my publishers wi and they're a very big textbook publisher and they published my introductions to Christian Theology and things like that, and they, they sent a little delegation to me in Oxford and said, um, we've been talking to people at colleges and they're saying.

We need a textbook on Christian Apologetics, and your name must be mentioned. So often we thought we ought to come and talk to you about this, and so it wasn't something I planned to do, but I just felt, well, if there was a need for this now, I would do it. And it was very, it was very good for me to do it because it allowed me to really, um, set up my ideas very clearly, much more clearly than [00:45:00] usual.

I think that was a very good thing for me to do. All right. What's we know about your work on Lewis with Science and Faith? Uh, we've got a couple of minutes. What, what else is in the percolator? What else? Uh, uh. Can we anticipate, uh, uh, coming out perhaps, well, um, you probably know this, but I got involved in debates with the new atheism people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, back in the early two thousands.

Really, it was about 2006, 2007 that the new atheism, uh, reached its peak. It's faded the way now. People don't really. Talk about Richard Dawkins anymore. In fact, uh, what I find now when I, when I talk to younger people at do, I have to explain who Richard Dawkins actually is. So that's, that's how much things have changed.

But, um, one of the things I was talking about in my critique of Dawkins is the nature of faith. And my argument was that Dawkins had simply failed to understand, first of all what faith is, and secondly, why faith actually is, is essential. For human flourishing. You can't get away from that, particularly if you're a psychologist, you'll [00:46:00] know all about that.

And a secular publisher, um, got in touch with me last year and said, Alistair, we want you to write a book. Um, and it basically is why belief is essential for the proper functioning of Western culture. Um, and we think you can do that. I, I said to, to the publisher, look, I don't know this audience well enough to be able to write that book.

And they said to me, well, look. We are that audience and we will decide whether or not you are doing that and we will help you if necessary. And so that's coming along very well. So if you like it, it is saying, look, um, Christians do not have a problem in having faith. The problem is those who think they don't have a faith, but actually they do.

It's just they haven't realized it's there. Alright, so, um, I've gotta ask you one more question before, uh, we, we bring this to a close. Um. How do you find time to do all of these things? How does your, give us a typical [00:47:00] day in the life of Alistair McGrath? It would be rather dull, I'm afraid, because I've now retired from my chair at Oxford, so actually I have plenty of time now.

So actually I can do this quite easily. But when I, when I was in post postal Oxford, I had to get up very early to do all these things. 'cause nobody, nobody. Calls you at six o'clock in the morning. None of my friends do. And it means you can really get things due. But my problem is that very often, um, I have all these ideas for.

Idea books or things like that. And so I just had to carry a little pad in my pocket and every time I have an idea, I'll write it down. But I think what I would say to you is, you know, if you feel something's important, you will find time to do it. And that really what I just do is, um, say, well, I, I, instead of, um, going out to the cinema, I will sit down and write this and actually have a terrible confession to make, which is.

I like writing it, it act actually, um, I, I enjoy it. I'm not very good at it, but I actually enjoy it, so it, it's quite easy for me to do this. Um, [00:48:00] you also, uh, one of the things I love about you is while you may not go to the cinema routinely, uh, you will watch certain shows. My wife, uh, asked Alistair, she said, um, or no, someone else at the table asked Alistair, do you binge watch?

Shows. He said, don't really have time to, and, uh, I think Becky then asked him, well, so did you see, uh. Downton Abbey. And he was like, well, yeah, of course. You know, I mean, do I binge watch? Well, that one, yes. How about the, it's good. That one. Yeah, I've watched that one about six times. It's, and uh, you know, and it's great for sermon illustrations.

Well, you also, one of the things I treasure about you, whenever I, I'm with you, I always ask you, what are you reading right now that serves. You, you know, really no purpose other than engaging your imagination and, and. You, uh, it's [00:49:00] almost, I think one time you actually called it your garbage reading, and that's when you were reading through all of the books, uh, of the, the Swedish detective, um, Wallander Wallander, yes.

Kurt Wallander. And, uh, um, uh, and you're reading a set right now. Tell us what you're reading just for entertainment. Well, that's right. This is, this is my new fixation for, for a couple of years, uh, in Britain, and, and I may have come across the Atlantic yet, but we have this incredible series of novels.

There are four of them at the moment, which is about four retired people in a retirement village who in effect meet every Thursday afternoon. It's called the Thursday Murder Club, and one of these is a retired police person, another, you know, civil servant. They've got, they've got good contacts and it's all about how they open cold cases and solve them.

And it, it's just, it's such fun to read because it, it's a social commentary as well as a, a rather, a rather. Brother wonky detective novel. So it, it [00:50:00] just gives me immense pleasure and keeps me sane. Yeah. Yeah. I frequently alternate between that and Augustine of Hippo. Um,

um, the, uh, we've got to draw this interview to a close. Um, uh, and, and I, I know that, uh, everyone in here would love to come up and to meet you and, and take. Pictures with you and all the rest, but I'm gonna have to ask y'all to, to honor the fact that he's got a flight that he's gonna have to get to.

You've got, uh, uh, we've all got things that, that have to be done. So I'm sorry he will not be able to just stand and visit with everyone eternally here, but I can ask him to do this. Would you please speak over us some blessing? Uh, some. Put back on your pastoral hat, your vicar, Pfizer, whatever they call him, and, um, uh, speak a word of blessing [00:51:00] over us.

I'll close us with a word of prayer after that. Well, let me just offer a word of blessing. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the richness of your love for us, for the richness of the Christian faith. And we ask, Lord, you would help us all to grow in that faith, to to know you more closely, to follow you more closely, and to capture that vision you have of us, who we are, what we're meant to be doing, and why each of us matters so much.

And we ask this in your son's name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Have a great Sunday. See you next week.