Last night we I tried to sort of reframe how we would think about discipleship and

Christian formation by revisiting this question the very first question that Jesus
poses the first words that Jesus utters in the Gospel of John which is this piercing
question what do you want and the reason why that such a piercing invasive
fundamental question is because then asked what I want is actually to bury down
to the deepest sort of core and fibrin who I am because it's really asking what do
you love and fact there's this wonderful sort of book ending function in the Gospel
of John where the first words and the first question that Jesus asks is what you
want and the last question that Jesus asks is do you love me and what I'm
suggesting is that those are in a way the same question and they are the most
fundamental question of Christian discipleship because you are love you not just
what you think your not just what you know you're not just what you believe those
are in fact as defining and is orienting is this more basic question what do you
love so what you want what you love this morning I want to pause and I want to
drill down a little bit deeper on that question because I think if you start to realize
that our very the very core and fabric of our identity is located in what Scripture
calls the heart that I am what I love that I also think we have to face this
disturbing reality you might not love what you think you are what you love but you
might not love what you think this was sort of an epiphany for me when I was
watching his film that probably no one has seen unfortunately but I will try to
describe a little bit to its by the Russian filmmaker Andre Tarkovsky does
anybody know torque on skinny films share I see that hand so okay let me to
sketch a little bit of the plot is actually pretty straightforward and then there's this
gem of a revelation in the middle of this is a Russian film that was appeared in
1980 it has this simple plot that has three key characters the movie by the way
did I tell you is called stock but is not really scary it's not like freaky it's it's in this
story there's a there's a person a character named stalker who is really kind of
Fort I feel like there's something lost in translation here because really we he's
the guy he's somebody this is going to lead these other two characters named
the writer and the professor super creative names in the spill but you have a
stock or the guy in any of the writer and the professor what you have to do is
picture a world that is this kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland it's it's like Cormac
McCarthy's of the road it's this it's it's mad Max fish it's this this dark bare and sad
tragic landscape but there is in this world a region called zone which is like an
oasis of joy amidst all of this Chernobyl like destruction and loss and within the
region called zone there is then this inner sanctum simply called the room array
with me so you've got to stalker the guy who is leading the writer and the
professor because everybody wants to get to the room everybody is wants to
make a pilgrimage to the room and the stalker is the one to take you there why
because in the room you get this is a magical and this is where the movie sort of
shifts from from being like Cormac McCarthy's the Road to something like the
eternal sunshine of the spotless mind also becomes the sort of magical
possibility it moves into this sci-fi imaginative reality and the room draws them
there the room is the goal of their pilgrimage this long arduous journey because
in the room they will achieve their hearts desire in the room you get exactly what
you want and so part of the movie is this the challenge of making it there they get

into the zone there now making it to the threshold of the room and write if that
happens all of a sudden professor and writer get cold feet and a remarkable book
by Jeffrey Dyer the critic called zone and he describes a seamless toilet limit let
me repeat buyers description he says this they are a big abandoned derelict dark
damp with what looked like the remains of an enormous chemistry set floating in
the public in the middle as if the zone resulted from some ill-conceived
experiment that went horribly wrong off to the right through a large hole in the
wall as a source of light that they looked for a long while no one speaks the air is
full of the true picture cheap cheap of bird song if the opposite of those places
where the sedges withered from the lake and no birds sing the birds are whistling
and chirping and singing like mad if stalker tells writer and professor he tells us
that we are now at the threshold of the this is the most important moment in your
life he says your inner most wish will be made from here so here we are this is
the place where you wanted to get to this is the place we can have what you
want who wants to go first both the professor and the writer stop and don't want
to go in why would that be what you just done as long arduous journey write the
whole point was to get to this place where you can have what you want why
wouldn't you step into that room both the writer and the professor have this
disturbing doubt the kind of bubbles up in them and they start asking themselves
this question what if I don't want what I think well says Dyer that's for the room to
decide the room reveals all what you what you get is not what you think you wish
for but what you most deeply wished for and also there's this very disturbing
epiphany that's creeping up on the professor and the writer what if they don't
want what they think they want what is the desires that they are conscious of the
ones that they have chosen so to speak what if those are not in fact their most
innermost longings their deepest what if in some sense their deepest longings
their most unconscious longings that are been humming under their
consciousness unawares what if those are for something else would you want to
step into the room do you know what you wants do you love what you think I
think as Christians we should have some sense of identifying with this struggle
this tension this worried because most of the if I ask you as a Christian to answer
the question what do you want right if I ask you to answer the question what do
you really love of course we all know the answer to that question is not a problem
intellectual knowledge or conviction here you know what you want to say you
know what you ought to say and you and and you will be entirely authentic and
sincere in your your articulation of that if I ask you what you want you know what
to say and you know what you want because you have an intellectual conviction
about that but what about if your wants and your longings are actually shaped
bugle below the radar of what you are consciously aware what if you stepped into
a room that showed you not just what you think you want but the what you really
sort of a oriented your life towards would you want to step into that room are you
confident that what you think you love actually aligns with your innermost
longings this says Dyer is one of the lessons of the zone sometimes a man
doesn't want to do what a man thinks he wants to do now I think one of the great
blessings and gifts that God gives us is that the practices of Christian worship
face this disturbing reality head on by the free little footnote for second one of the

things that struck me last night and another friend pointed out his you know I've
been talking about the role that worship plays in shaping us changing us
transforming us really recalibrating our hearts loves and long I do want to say I
just point out one technical think when I say worship I don't just mean music that
is already with me and others I know every time I say worship your thinking
singing which is absolutely part of worship but I will I actually want to today get us
to zoom out in an and more expanded sense of what we think counts as worship
as the entire story that the people of God rehearse when they are gathered
around Word and table right so when I talk about worship were not just talking
about being transformed by a song service were actually talking about the entire
repertoire of what the people of God are called to rehearse when we gather
around Word and table as the body of Christ and it if you think about this tension
when I step into this room do I know what I really love I think one of the great
gifts of historic Christian worship is that it faces this tension this reality this gap
between head and heart right straight head on and it invites us then into a
practice of confession in which we own up to our own worries and doubts and
struggles about this gap between what we know what we love what we ought to
love it where our longings are really oriented toward let me give an example of
what I think is a beautiful prayer of confession from the Anglican book of common
prayer that names this tension beautifully and imagine being a people who are
regularly invited to own this reality in this prayer goes like this Almighty and most
merciful father we have aired and strayed from byways like lost we have followed
too much the devices and desires of our own hearts we have followed too much
the devices and desires of our own hearts spiritual maturity is becoming the kind
of people who have this realization that I know the devices and desire of my own
heart sometimes outstrip what I know and even what I believe and that if God is
going to make me and mould me and alter me he actually has to transform the
devices and desires of my own hearts the body of Christ then is that a unique
community of practice of rhythms of routines of formative worship that owns up to
the fact that we don't always love what we say we do we don't always love what
we say we that the devices and desires of our own heart often outstrip our best
intentions are best knowledge are best believing effective practices of Christian
worship will be precisely the kind of tangible practised re-formative way to
address that tension in gap we talked about last night of closing the gap between
head and heart but I think I will spend a little bit of time this morning from talking
about why I think this change is how we should look at our own sort of rhythms of
cultural immersion that the routine the daily Monday and routines that we are
involved in an outright types of subtitle the message this morning taking a
liturgical audit of your life and I want to work towards explaining what I mean by
that if if you were there last night I tried to emphasize that love is a habit right
love is it just an emotion love isn't even just a choice when Paul describes love
as a habit is a virtue what that means is love is like this this interior disposition
this this inclination that is cultivated in you so that you become a certain kind of
person who is leaning in a certain direction and toward a certain and only call
something a habit that means it's second nature it comes to you without having to
think about it just part of the fabric of who you are is like breathing and blinking

and to make love a habit in that way is to forge become so woven into the fabric
of your character that now it bubbles up from who you are but here's the deal the
way you learn to love is through practice is not just there's not a direct channel
from the intellectual deposits into your mind about what you ought to love to then
all of a sudden that just flipping a switch and you now have the disposition the
formation of our love actually takes time of being part of a people that is oriented
towards a certain and so not only is love itself in some ways unconscious the
formation of our love can also be unconscious if you learn to love and how to
love and what to love through the rhythms and routines and rituals that you are
part of friends one of things I want us to realize is that means that you might be
learning to love in places you didn't even realize but it also means you could be
learning to love the wrong things in the wrong way you can become a people
who consciously and intellectually art have all the right convictions about who
you want to be and who you want to worship and yet because your loves are
shaped at this unconscious level you don't even recognize the way that your
heart is being bent and missed oriented and mis-calibrated and as we said last
night to some rival God to some rival kingdom our idolatries are not primarily
intellectual conviction they are effective capturing to consider the implications of
that for what you love it if you think of let's let's call love shaping practices
routines rituals I want to call those liturgies. Not just that use a sort of high church
in word but to say that we are talking about a loaded love the shaping practices
liturgies are the most formative kinds of practices if if liturgies are love shaping
practices however what that means is they are not just something that you do
there doing something to their not just expressions of something that you believe
they are forming what you will believe now if that's the case if liturgies are these
love shaping practices then it also means that liturgies are not confined to
churchy spaces and in fact there are liturgies everywhere there are the the week
we tend to have a sort of cultural awareness where we are worried about the
messages and ideas out there in a culture and because we have that narrow
band with a focus on sort of intellectual content we completely miss what's going
on under the radar and don't realize that in many ways the culture isn't trying to
change what you think the cultures trying to change what you and the way it's
doing that is not by trying to change her mind to give you a couple of examples to
see if this works several years ago and my oldest son was a teenager I
remember one day he asked that you take me to the temple is like all and then I
remembered this was actually a mild parenting win because it came out of the
conversation we had one time in which I tried to describe to him why the mall is
the most religious site in any city and so I was telling him about game this law
this is what it's terrible to be the child of a philosophy professor is this is our
dinner conversations go is that just waxes eloquent about why the mall is a
liturgical space it's really functions as a temple and so went when he asked dad
would take me to the temple hot I think he's kind of mocking me I'll take it as an
easy remembered the idea right what's what's going on your wife about what way
did you think about the mall as a temp because the mall doesn't care what you
think but the mall really cares about what you want and it actually wants to make
you the kind of person who thinks the satisfaction of certain wants will make you

happy the gospel of consumerism is not a message that you are convinced that
the gospel of consumerism is a vision of a way of life that you practice your way
into by participating in the liturgies of the mall now these work fantastically that
first off the mall has an unbelievable evangelism program that is called marketing
rights and in this I'm actually dead serious because what the way marketing
works because this is kind of what breaks my heart I think the mall has a better
appreciation of the fact that we are lovers than the church does I think the mall
actually has a better insight into the fact that the centre of the human person is
the heart while the church is trucking water to her mind because when you get to
the mall that will what draws you there is marketing the evangelism of the mall
and how does that work the evangelism of the mall is not trying to provide you
with any knowledge or information watch any 32nd commercial spots and see if
there is any information about the product in that commercial is not hardly ever
write why instead what happens is in 30 seconds some of the most brilliant minds
and our culture work in advertising right and because one of things and some of
the most creative mind because what they are able to do is in the space of 30
seconds actually within the space usually about 23 because they need seven
seconds or shoulder logo and so on within the space of 23 seconds they will tell
an entire story it's a narrative the way the evangelism of the wall mall works is it
doesn't appeal to your intellect it appeals to your imagination and it pictures a
story in which you say I want to be a character in that story all and it turns out all
the characters in that story drink Starbucks drive Volkswagen's will Jeremy that's
that's sort of like left unstated but what happens is is you are captured by a vision
of the good life that is painted for you in this aspect of imaginative medium of the
story and so you are pulled in and then imagine when you get to the mall right
the mall is this the wall by the it's not an accident that the mall harkens to sort of
ancient cathedrals vectors and architectural historian at the University of Virginia
that is documented the sacred architecture of the mall or think of work or the via
the Temple like Buddhist space of the Apple Store writes all of this is intentional
because what it's doing is it's inviting you into a space the mall the mall has its
own liturgical calendar right you has its own seasons and colours in space and
when you walk into the mall it's almost like space and time or transform your
nose there are no windows right once you're inside a mall it's very very hard to
see outside except for the sort of heroically folded light that comes through
skylights and think why because now you want to be in a space that is almost
time and the best thing that could happen at the mall as you lose track of time
right and as you are walking down the labyrinthine corridors of the mall hopefully
getting lost is their goal one of the things that you'll notice is all along the wall are
the icons of the good life the call manikins they are dressed in the sort of vision of
what will make you happy in the way that this that of the mall's gospel is
predicated on the thrill of novelty right that I need that and I needed now even
though in three months that can be old boring and I did throw it away and get the
next new thing but the way the gospel of consumerism gets a hold of you is not
by changing your mind but by captivating your heart and if you are immersed in
these rhythms and rituals without realizing that they are in fact doing something
to you right the mall wasn't just the place that you go the mall is a place that is

forming shaping you at this unconscious level then you could realize now you
can start to feel the nervousness about stepping into the threshold of the room
because on the one hand you're good by all the students and you're getting you
know and believe what you ought but if you're not aware of all the ways that your
loves and longings and desires are being captured by cultural liturgies you might
not realize that your deepest inner most unconscious longings are still are still
mis-calibrated dis-orient the ugly one more example of the way these kinds of
secular liturgies worked he noticed we haven't talked anything about what's being
sold were just talking about the way of life that's associated with a given one
other example this comes from I'm convinced that if Martian anthropologists ever
wanted to really understand North American society they should just study beer
commercials because beer commercials are like this this portal into a worldview
right and and I remember one day watching this beer commercial and muscle
watching sports or something this beer commercial comes on as is for really
lame beer cold Michelob ultra which is a so I've heard at least I think is not
friends if you're gonna backslide don't do it with Michelob ultra anyway so there's
this is fantastic portrayal in which so okay and we also all know the beer
commercials are inherently sexist right so just stick with me for second these
guys are the office at the end of the workday they come out of the office building
is time to go home is a car sitting at the curb it's this guy's car is a terrible car
who would ever want to drive that car and so the guys come out they don't like
that car and so they simply do this beautiful new car it's a beer commercial that
magically cuts to the beach right also these guys on the beach they see some
young ladies off in the distance that they go to these might be interested in this
but can't really quite well and so what they do is this and all of a sudden the
ladies are up close and they can see them in their drinking global so they're
totally into these guys and everything is going fantastic rights cut to another
scene there at the club now the DJs up there to the display stuff they don't want
to hear and and so once again now they're hearing exactly what they want to
hear and I stepped back and I thought is fantastic heartbreaking but fantastic
because actually what they've just shown me is that this device is training me
how to relate to the world due to reducing what they've done all those
movements is they taken the tiny little micro rituals of how I engage with this
device and have shown that in fact kind of what I want the world to be and it it
were not even talking about the content that you're looking at here Steve Jobs I
was totally looking up to see if I could get an early showing of the Steve Jobs
movie since as Los Angeles but it's not leave Steve Jobs is the absolute master
of desire and wants that's actually all Steve Jobs really had going for him and he
knew that there would be something effective informative about the intimacy of
our interacting with the device in such you don't touch an iPhone racer to caress
for something sort of inherently effective about it but notice what this commercial
is illustrating is that quite apart from what I'm looking at this micro rituals has
effectively taught me that I am the centre of the world and I should never be
bored I should never be up on entertained and I should always have what I want
at my fingertips when I want that friends is egoism but the way you learned that
the minute the illustration is beautiful because is not because only came along

and give you an argument about why you had to be an egoist they just gave your
phone and the phone comes loaded with liturgies and rituals and in an implicit
way in this unconscious way you don't realize all of the ways that you are
learning of disorderly so what we need to do what what I want to suggest
something this is about as close as practical as I'm in to get right I think there are
two important implications of this first of all I want to encourage you and you you
could make this a sort of a theme for meditation for for your prayer experiences
this week I encourage you to take what I'm in a call a liturgical audit of your life
and what I mean is this find us some way and some quiet contemplative space to
sort of look at the rhythms and routines and rituals of your life through this lens
and and be especially attentive to the things that you give yourself to that you
might've thought are just something that you do and start to realize that they are
doing something to take a look at the things that you give your time to that you
give yourself away to and ask yourself what story of the good life is sort of
implicitly carried in this practice in this cultural liturgy and is it one that aligns with
the Kingdom vision of Christ take take time to take a liturgical audit of your life
what shaping what's forming you what's working on your loves below the radar of
your conscious and I think I would say that that is not necessarily the the
outcome of that is not necessarily that you retreat from it or withdraw from it
although there will obviously be something for which that is certainly true but
sometimes also it is not like I don't go to the mall although I try to go as little as
possible but it's almost like once you see something for what it is it de fangs
some of its liturgical power a little bit right so that's the beginning of asserted
defence mechanism however it's insufficient because what you also need now
more positively is ask yourself what formative practices do I need to commit
myself to that are going to re-calibrate my heart and actually my biggest hope is
that this would reframe what you think is at stake in short what you would see is
at stake in worship friends worship the gathering of the people of God around
Word and table is precisely the space into which God invites us so that we can
have our hearts retuned to sing the songs of Zion right and to have those have
that sort of unconscious orientation become our true and you can be heard this is
all preacher's joke that that gets at this there there's a there's a flood happening
in the village and one man in the village has had the heard this this confident
revelation that God is going to save him and so he's confidently trusting in this
promise that God is going to say that as the waters are rising in that it never a
sort of sloshing around some folks friends come by in a canoe and they say hey
jump in were here to save your site on an ongoing God to save like fine waterski
prize and keep rising he's now up on the roof of his house and motor board
speed spices come on jump in order to save you ignore I'm all good gods go to
save me I have it your way flood waters rise rise on the peak of his house is
holding onto the chimney the waters up to his chin Coast Guard chugs in on a
helicopter grabbed the wrong side were going to say God to say may doesn't
work out so well gets to the proverbial gates and says I thought you promise to
save me to which God says I sent you a canoe I sent you a motorboat I sent you
a helicopter what more were you looking for friend I think that there's an
important spiritual truth in their which is this the recalibration of our loves is not

about the next new thing it's not about finding something novel is not about
finding the right conference of the right book for the right retreat or the right event
or some sort of cataclysmic shot at some thunderbolts of of of transformation the
secret to recalibrating your loves is to get in the boat that Jesus sends you and
the boat that Jesus sends us is the body of Christ that is the arc that is the space
in which we are invited now not the worship of the body of Christ is not just us
showing up at a club to demonstrate and express our praise and worship to God
we don't go to church to show something to Jesus we go to church because we
are called there by God the primary actor in worship is not us the primary agent
in worship is not us the one who is leading and acting and doing in worship is the
ascended Christ who calls us to himself as his body and meets us in worship and
his moulding and making and remaking us into his image that's the incarnational
lesson so there's not something about what's the next new way that we can do
church that it's cool and hip and relevant and will keep people in that the new
way is the ancient way which is to find the practices of the body of Christ and to
see that they are just something that we do but that they are doing something to
us that this is the space in which Christ will transform we keep looking for God is
if the new it in the new as if Grace was always bound up with the next best thing
in the midst of that Jesus encourages us to attend a weekly meal it's like having
some it's been all it's mundane in some ways it might even be boring every once
in a while but it's doing something to you it's immersing the gospel story in you is
a great quit from Mark Twain where he says he who carries a cat by the tail learn
something he can learn in no other way make sense right so if I imagine I I've
carried By the tail and now I'm in a describe it to you and that I do it in wonderful
pros that's never to be the same as me saying here's a cat right why because
there is an irreducible kind of understanding that comes with that experience
friends I'm suggesting that there is an irreducible way of absorbing the gospel
that happens in the practices of worship that for me to be part of the body of
Christ that prays a prayer of confession over and over and over again and then
over and over again always immediately here's the good news and outs of my
absolution my pardon the mercy that God gives me that is for me to start getting
a story that syncs into my ball and it's one of the reasons to why this is about sort
of knowing things in your gut and now you can also start understand why worship
has a bodily component to and you start to realize why was that ancient Christian
when they would gathered to hear God's word and to celebrate the Lord's supper
when they would go through this rhythm of reminding themselves of God's
holiness and their sinfulness in God's confession they would do it on the because
this is like carrying a cat by the tail it's like my old rickety knees know something
about God's mercy but that's not near as powerful as being told to stand up when
he says your forgive there are ways that we absorb the gospel in worship that
now sink into your bones and become the orienting story that guides your very
orientation to the world so you don't have to go looking for the next best thing the
most potent to the most charge the most transformative site of the Spirit's work is
found in this really unlikely place the church with spring by only university offers a
variety of degree grants ranging from business in the eye and sign this and I'll
contact you to find out how I can get

I will ask's I feel like something I want to change gears a little bit and I want to
ask your permission to work in a little more subtle workshop kind of mode what
what want to do is I want to think through I want to build on what we've been
doing but also change gears I want to build on this sentence that human beings
are lovers that we are what we love and that our loves are shaped by what we
worship so in a sense to say that you are what you love is also to say you are
what you and so everything hinges on what you worship right because that's
what's going to order your loved and one of the things I've tried to emphasize is
that this is just a structural feature of being human to this as this is just the claim
I'm making for Christian I'm saying that every single human being who is made in
the image of God has this kind of orientation to the world the question isn't
whether the question is what you love and so I think that makes a difference or
how we will think about cultural analysis cultural engagement but I also think it
should make a difference for how we think about evangelism and missions and
this is kind of the meat of what I would like to explore with you this afternoon I
also think it changes how to understand a secular society and others what I want
to do is think about with you this afternoon is what are the implications for what
we've been talking about for understanding our secular age is a secular age and
age at which people no longer worship this is a secular age and age in which
people no longer love or instead is a secular age secularize society one in which
in fact that still remains in the radical ineradicable part of being human so that
something else is going on there in fact couldn't be the case that a society could
be at once more secular and more spiritual that's part of what I want to think
through and I want to build on the the really remarkable work of a Canadian floss
for all the best work is done by Canadian philosophers by the name Charles
Taylor but I want to sort he's out some of his reading his understanding his
account of what it means that we live in a secular a in order to show that first of
all it's not what we usually think that we have to sort of retool our understanding
of what it means to say we live in a secularize society but I also I guess I'm I'm
kind of want you to come away with a sense of opportunity rather than threat that
I actually think we live in a very unique age in which we don't need to back down
the hatches and retreat into our fortresses but instead should be there boldly
giving witness to what it looks like to be human and we should come at that with
a sense that people might be looking for exactly what we are bringing that there
that we don't need to its it's really really easy for people to lapse into some sort of
nostalgic disappointment about an age gone by that I actually think might be an
age that was well lost and instead I actually think Christians are people of hope
people are current part of Christians are people of a transcendent eternal
conviction in which in a sense any age is the same for us but I actually also think
that they're very unique opportunities in the society in which we find ourselves so
let me start by by giving you a few case studies of why a secular society is and
what we usually think of and and I I guess I'm assuming that most of us I think
functionally assume that a secular society as a godless society it's an atheistic

society of the naturalistic society its it's it as if a secular society was one in which
Richard Dawkins is Pope and every bend but he bends in the right and
everybody is on board with a kind of naturalistic anti-supernatural program think
that's true in fact I think that most secular risks that is most really dogmatic
secularists like Sam Harris Richard Dawkins Christopher Hitchens late in his life I
think actually most of those accounts of our current age are reductionistic flat
stunted and unhelpful and unilluminating and not true I don't think they are true to
the experience of all kinds of people in our late modern world and so part of what
I want to sketch is an alternative account of a secular society I think we as
Christians should be interested in the kind of enduring expression of belonging
and hunger for something ultimate that continued to manifest themselves in our
society there is Charles Taylor says there is this unshakable human quest for
some kind of full and all the lectures and books by Richard Dawkins can't
eradicate that from the Hume and I think it's it's one of the ways to understand
what's behind the notion that people are spiritual but not religious and I think as
Christians we sometimes write off these kinds of expressions as mushy and
misguided and even I don't idolatrous but in a sense I actually think that we
should be in tree that such longing endures in a secular age. Instead of
something to attack it might actually be something to build the start from and I
would suggest that this is exactly in acts 17 Mars Hill Areopagus strategy for
engaging and encountering those who disbelieve don't believe what we believe
that we give you I want to give you a few examples of why I don't think Richard
Dawkins understands a secular society look around at the sort of cultural
moment in which we find ourselves and you will find all kinds of cultural
expressions of a kind of hunger and longing for something more some kind of
fullness even some kind of transcendence effect Charles Taylor says that there is
a generalized sense in our culture that with the eclipse of the transcendent
something has been lost I remembered this is really hit home for me several
years ago when I was living in England and there's a British novelist who forces
still not very well known decided upon them is Julian Barnes is both anomalous
and does nonfiction work and several years ago he published a memoir called
nothing to be frightened of is a remarkable remarkable book now just remember
is so England is a DCT three secularize society and Julian Barnes in a sense is
almost a poster child of a postwar generation who grew up never going to church
know nothing of God have absolutely no interest in anything to do with religion or
Christianity and yet in Julian Barnes memoir nothing to be frightened of it one
point says this I don't believe in God but I miss how fascinating they were
originally Barnes is no sort of religious state in anything and and just very
honestly says I don't believe in God but I miss you on there what what sort of of
longing is expressed in that sort of memory right or I think of the lyrics of so much
of the music that I listen to it which is now I'm an old middle-aged white guy but
this is and so for me the kind a high point of music was well after U2's Joshua
tree it's the 90s in Seattle okay but I'll give you one example what what intrigues
me is listen carefully to the music that we hear around us and listen for the
longing for transcendence of the one example this is a lyric from the Postal
Service from a song called Clark Gable pretty much anything Ben Gebhard

writes fits as an example here here's the line I'm not missing but kinda want to
but I'm not going to as I think lyrics just don't the lyrics are are meant to be some
I want so badly to believe that there is truth in love is real and I want life in every
word to the extent that it's absurd I'm looking through the glass with a light bends
at the cracks and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs pretending the echoes
belong to someone someone I used to know I want so badly to believe that there
is truth in love is real life that that the expression of a longing and a pension that
shows that even in our supposedly secularize society and in some ways Seattle
is like a slice of Norway dropped into North America and in terms of
secularization process and yet here you still here this longing for something
second case study so I have this kind of in ordinate fixation on Steve Jobs who I
think was such a tragic broken brilliant man and if you ever get a chance to read
Walter Isaacson's biography it's such a chilling haunting disturbing and yet oddly
fascinating story of jobs we all know them of course as the founder of Apple and
many other things but in his biography jobs one of things that happens for those
you don't know jobs really died prematurely young from a cancer that could have
been treated if it weren't for his own hubris in thinking that he could master this
with his diet is always really sore refusal to submit to a medical regimen that led
to his premature death and so at the very end of his life this this giant in
technology write this this champion this idol of the bay area is being interviewed
by Walter Isaacson and Isaacson recalls the story this way one sunny afternoon
when he wasn't feeling well job sat in the garden behind his house and reflected
on death he talked about his experiences in India almost 4 days decades earlier
his study of Buddhism his views on reincarnation and spiritual transcendence
about 50-50 on believing in God he said by the way time to stop there for sick
everything depends on the posture you want to take if I'm in the middle of San
Francisco and somebody tells me that there 50-50 on believing in God that
sounds to me like an opportunity right I'm not just I like how can you not be
signed up for the rapture right I'm I'm thinking really you're at the centre of one of
the cultural engines of the world in one of the most progressive cities in the world
and you're 50-50 on believing.I will take that bet right that some I want to start
there do you remember when Paul is walking around Mars Hill in Athens and he
sees how incredibly religious the Greeks are and he sees this altar that is
devoted to worship of the unknown God what is Paul's response he doesn't come
around six how stupid can you be to worship an unknown God he says that's
interesting you want to cover all your bases don't you you worship your let's talk
about this right you see the difference in posture in stamp so when I hear Steve
Jobs say I'm 50-50 on believing God I might we talk here so he continued for
most of my life I felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye
he admitted that as he faced death he may be overestimating the odds out of a
desire to believe in and after I'd like to think that something survives after you die
set it's strange to think that you accumulate all this experience and maybe a little
wisdom and adjust goes away so I really want to believe that something survives
that maybe your consciousness and war he fell silent for a long time but on the
other hand perhaps it's like an on-off switch click and you're gone he paused
again and he smiled slightly. That's why never like to put on-off switches on Apple

devices right that you hear again I'm not when I'm in you some sort of
announcement about Steve Jobs cultural or eternal destiny were saying is do you
hear that in the middle of one of the most secularize sectors of our cultural world
is somebody who is longing to believe in eternity is longing to believe in a
mortality is actually 50-50 on believing in God that's not the world that Richard
Dawkins's painting the secular aide a secular age is much more complicated than
maybe a third example of just why why are are are secular society is not the
simply atheistic society that you would think it and it's and a documentary that
was produced or and and broadcast by HBO probably maybe four years ago now
the documentary is called God is the bigger Elvis has anybody heard this as it's
actually it's a bit of a sleeper okay so I my work here is done you will find out is a
bigger Elvis and watch as it is available free online okay it's a story of a woman
named Dolores Hart who in the 50s and early 60s was a kind of rising Hollywood
starlet was really just living the dream like what was on her way to achieving the
pinnacle of what Southern California counts as success and the reasons called
God is bigger Elvis because she was starting alongside people like Elvis born
baby are all the sorts of grades of that era and she was on the pinnacle of her
success and in fact she even become engaged to a man to be married but one
all weekend she was home back in New York City and she was invited by a friend
to attend a spiritual retreat at the Regina Law this convent a nunnery some some
people and she spent it with with it was just a place with a welcomes people who
were on spiritual quest to come and spend time in this religious community and
when she left there was like a bird that was stuck in her side that she couldn't let
go of and in fact she later gave up her entire Hollywood career she even had to
abandon her engagement to this young man and entered the model to the young
convent for the remainder of her life and lives now cloistered devoted to a life of
prayer and work and is now mother prioress of that community one beautiful
coder to the story is that the man that she was engaged to has come to see her
every single week since 1963 and they have the most beautiful spiritual
friendship you could ever imagine now there are two things that intrigued me
about the story one is that a woman who is achieved what looks like the dream of
Hollywood of liberation is willing to submit herself to the disciplines of a
community and thus keep in mind sign up for a life of chastity and celibacy in
1963 right talk about a countercultural move that up so that that's interesting in
and of itself here's the other piece that I find fascinating HB O play this movie
while why on earth is this on HBO this is the same people who broadcast game
of thrones game of thrones also broadcast God is the bigger Elvis which to me
has been one of the most powerful cinematic expressions of the gospel I have
seen what's going on with that couldn't be that a culture that has now lived 4050
years with such a distorted view of freedom as licentiousness is now looking
around at those who have a very different understanding of freedom to think that
freedom is actually found in submission is that portrayal of a way of life so
strange so fascinating and looking so fulfilling that actually we might be reaching
a cultural moment where people are starting to say we might have got this raw
right you can even mount all the screeds you want about how the world is ending
but God is the bigger Elvis was broadcast on HBO that's an interesting time to

live what we do with that I think we need to realize that a secular age is not the
simply godless thing that we take it to be that it's not synonymous with a
secularized or are is not synonymous with an atheistic society even if it's still a
disordered way of the 20 one last example comes from one of my favourite
writers novelist and nonfiction writer named David Foster Wallace and David
Foster Wallace when there's there's see that hand, there is also a new movie
about David Foster Wallace that has recently come out called the end of the tour
has anybody heard of this it's kind of minor art-house kind of film I really need to
pick movies let people know about what I need to come up with some illustration
that is based on frozen but I would have to see frozen which I have can you
believe I never heard the song let it go judge so David Foster Wallace is another
one of these I'd like to have this attraction I guess to these kinds of tragic figures
David Foster Wallace was in many ways seem to be the poster child of the kind
of postmodern generation of novelists the United States he wrote incredibly
experimental fiction really challenging the kind of genre format of of novels as we
receive that is most famous for an 1100 page novel called infinite jest of which I
think 250 pages or footnotes in a novel right that Mike I can get into that kind of
know my love for he was also an incredible nonfiction writer effect if you ever
want a way sort of into I think there are all kinds of reasons why we should be
reading David Foster Wallace and a great nonfiction collection is called a
supposedly fun thing I'll never do again sadly Wallace committed suicide in 2008
and what makes it even more unspeakably sad is that he was so clearly a
seeker's whole life he was tormented by demons of mental illness from which he
never could find liberation and true freedom and yet he was looking at what's
interesting to me is again this this postmodern novelist who is in many ways a
poster child for sort of postwar secularized generation what intrigues me is how
much the world created by David Foster Wallace nevertheless still make room for
Transcend they still make room for Faith to give you one example shortly after his
death the New Yorker which is no friends to religious faith the New Yorker
magazine published posthumously short story by David Foster Wallace called all
that it's a fascinating little story which is based around this kind of trope this
conceit a young boy well actually set up this way the narrator is an adult who is
looking back on his boyhood and remembers the time that his parents gave him
a magical cement truck that you might you know cement trucks of those ones of
the big barrel on the back of the terms of the concrete doesn't get hard the battle
narrator is looking back on his younger self he remembers this episode of
receiving and playing with this magical cement truck and he remembers that
what made it magical is something that his parents told the parents said truck
had a string on they said when you pull the truck by the string the wheel the tank
turns unless you look at the see that the trope here right so here son this is a
magical cement truck if you pull the rope the tank turns unless you look at right
so you can imagine what a young boy is doing is pulling the system right is a still
turn but what's fascinating is this impossible to confirm and waive rights and
seeing it would stop it the grown-up narrator now looks back on this episode and
he identifies a longing he says this as an adult I realize that the reason I spent so
much tribe time trying to catch the drum rotating was that I wanted to verify that I

could not if I had ever been successful in outsmarting the magic I would have
been crushed now at this point right you got the battle narrator looking back on
his boyhood life and you would expect remember what interests me is the world
that the novelist David Foster Wallace's you would expect a mature adult to now
look back on this period of his life and now you'd expect the story of kind of
rational maturation right of putting away childish things like magic growing up and
learning to no longer be duped wake up and smell the disenchantment should be
the narrative arc here especially if you're publishing it in the New York but that's
not what Wallace does to the contrary the grown narrator looks back at his
younger self and he sees in this episode quote origin of the religious feeling that
is informed most of my adult life a fundamental attitude of reference what passes
for atheism he observes is still a mode of worship a kind of anti-religious religion
if that is in the description of Richard Dawkins I don't know what it an antireligious religion which worships reasons scepticism intellect empirical proof
human autonomy and self-determination but the rare the narrator is not going to
convert to that anti-religious religion to the contrary he says in fact the most
powerful and significant connections in our lives are at the time invisible to us
that seems to me a compelling argument for religious reverence rather than
sceptical empiricism as a response to life's meaning in other words he owns up
to the fact that the world is haunted by the sense that were just making this up of
the religious is fiction may be but in fact when he remains open to is the
possibility that there is someone and is not willing to relinquish this the religious
ghost can't be exercised from this world it's mine and again what I want us to be
at as sort of cultural observers I want us to be intrigued by the fact that that sort
of thing is happening in the centre of cultural elite institutions like New York make
the New Yorker right that's a sign that the secular world is not what we might
have thought it was maybe our secular age remains haunted in the really
intriguing ways that keep making cracks there are cracks in the second year the
great line letter: ring the bells that still can ring there is a crack in everything that's
how the light gets in that's how the light gets in what I what I what I'm intrigued by
her these little instances that represent cracks in the secular where the light can
get so in the secular age then isn't just the sort of godless atheistic sort of
rationalistic cultural moment what is and here's where I want to help others do
this very briefly goes after lunch and your hot and tired I want to summarize him
to try to summarize Charles Taylor's account of what constitutes a secular age
and it will build on that and see what difference that makes for faith and
evangelists the first thing he emphasizes this secularity is not synonymous with
unbelief. So when you hear something's being secular or or about secularism or
that we live in a secular aid don't assume that that means an unbelieving
atheistic age secularity is not synonymous with unbelief it is however
synonymous with the contest ability of the leaks the V the set what it means to
live in a secular age and and by the way friend we need to wake up and be
honest about this type part part of what I'm saying is as Christians we need to
wake up to the moment that we live in and that is not in any way a threat to faith
it's about us being responsible ethnographers of our current cultural we live in an
age in which belief is contested and contestable what what does that mean

simply this nobody can take their worldview to be axiomatic across the side
nobody can assume that their belief system their worldview is just taken for
granted by everybody else in the society now that should interest you because
enemy to simple as this none of us are surprised by neighbours who are
Christians right like like a like a stunning shock to us with interesting however the
only people I think who refused to really bone up to this that all beliefs are
contested and are contestable are dogmatic secularists in the centre of elite
culture who can't imagine the people still believe in God. So the Charles Taylor
he frames the question this way is kind of a history lesson it's like asking how do
we get to where we are in this current moment and the question he asks is how
is it in Western societies that we went from a time and say 1500 when it was
virtually impossible not to believe in God to a time in the year 2000 in which in
certain elite influential sectors of society it is virtually impossible to believe in God
the ready feel that I honestly that's not by only university but it it is it is Seattle it is
Manhattan) that this there are there are influential cultural centres in which the
default assumption is that anyone who is rational can't possibly believe that we
all know that that there's obviously exceptions to that and that's why it's also
important to articulate the rationality of Christian belief all I want is all I want to
point out is that we need to be honest and recognize that we live in a secular
society in so far as we live in a society in which no one's beliefs can be taken to
be axiomatic or uncontested and I think I think the gospel actually expects that's
why we're sent on mission right there do something in a very logical mission that
recognizes that that work needs to be done on a second theme that I think is
important to to understand about a secular society is that the secular age is in
some sense a kind of accomplishment it's not it's not just what's left over when
you take religion out it actually has to come up with its own alternative beliefs its
own alternative morality its own alternative even spirituality you could say and
that's what Charles Taylor calls exclusive humanism exclusive humanism hears
what he means in a secular age one of the things that change as one of the
things that changes in the 1700s 1800s 1900s that but of the shift the kind of
cosmological shift that takes place in our our Western world is that functionally
and practically we've all assume we live in what Taylor calls an imminent frame
that is we all maybe in ways that we don't even realize functionally assume that
the universe is kind of close and so then what happens is that the humanist has
to look for ways to articulate significance meaning morality and obligation that
don't make any reference to transcendence and don't make any reference to
eternity and the and the resulting for an end Taylor by the way thinks that that is
absolutely unprecedented in the history of humanity right even if your talk even
Greek paganism wasn't doing that right so the real sort of significant cultural
accomplishment of a secular age is to have come up with this mode of exclusive
humanism which has has come up with sort of viable ways to imagine
significance and meaning and morality without any reference to God or
transcendence without any reference to return now why would that make a
difference for for us I think responsible evangelism and mission has to realize
that people are not asking the questions you're bringing the answers to in other
words we we sometimes come armed with the gospel imagining that those that

we are bringing the gospel to our sitting around wondering whether God exists
the fact is they are not asking those questions in hard because they have so
significantly forged lives of meaning and significance without having to appeal to
the other you can't come along and say Christ is going to bring meaning to your
life Christ is going to bring significance to your life friends they already have
pretty significant they already remarkably have a sense of a kind of meaning this
I think this is one of the ways to understand precisely why rising generations are
so committed to justice issues because it is the way for them to make significant
out of a life that is natural does that make sense in other people are going to start
people start clinging to their political ideology with a kind of religious fervour
because all they have within an imminent frame as a part of recognizing the
challenge is realizing that sort of religious significance that people are now giving
to earthly realities you can't just come in and say you based you can't do the
donut man thing anymore do you happy you can't you can't quite say oh I know
you will walk around you had this big empty hole and and I've come to fill it
people don't always experience it that way because they've come up with all of
these alternatives now I don't think that's the end of the story but I think it's part of
us being responsible in how we bear witness in a secular age the reason why
that's not the whole story is this third point Taylor says that in a secular age
everyone however feels themselves to be when he calls cross pressured
everyone we all live in the space in which belief is contested and contestable
there are all these and and the result of that Taylor says is it that people stop
believing is that they believe 1 million different things a secular age is in an age
of unbelief it's an age of the explosion of belief all kinds of different ways of
believing you and Richard Dawkins was right about the world you wouldn't have
right which is why I'm not picking on over you wouldn't have Elizabeth Gilbert eat
pray love you wouldn't have all this kind of stuff which are actually people looking
for and trying to find a kind of spiritual religious like significance in their lives
there is an explosion of believing but Taylor says now we all experienced this
kind of cross pressure in which we feel existentially the temptation of other
stories or maybe that's putting it to strong we all are going to struggle with doubts
now I don't know if this is tricky Trina Bio I I want to say this doubt is not the
enemy of faith in some ways doubt companies faith because only believers can
doubt right and so it's not I think is really really crucial for the church to be honest
about this that doubt isn't a failure to believe I believe helped thou my unbelief is
our prayer right as a part of this is owning up to the fact that we live in this
contested cross pressured space and for believers that mean that that there are
there are rifle stories of meaning and significance that we will if we are honest if
we don't do stick our heads in the sand we have to be honest about the way that
they can be compelling I'm not saying that their true but I'm saying that they can
be compelling and I think we need to own up to the fact that doubt accompanies
faith in very very natural ways and I think being honest about that is better than
pretending that it's a sin friends I I think if I'm freaking you out I would just pointed
to the Psalms because what you get in the Psalms is the inspired canonical
divine endorsement of doubt that is expressed in lament in which people who
believe in God come to God and say what are this is not the way it's supposed to

be they are questioning God they are challenging God God is not scared of any
of those questions God is not threatened by our doubts and in fact I think
Scripture makes room for that to voice those precisely so God can envelop us
and fold us back into the but your okay so here's the other flipside of this the of a
secular age is an age in which everyone is cross pressured it means that
believers are going to struggle with doubt but here's the really interesting thing it
also means that doubters are to be tempted to believe you see that the doubters
doubt his faith right that the if if the unbeliever feels cross pressure actually what
that means is there are going to be days in which the unbeliever has to wonder
I'm I have this wrong and there are cracks in the secular that are opportunities for
the proclamation of the gospel to what we do with this what what are some of the
implications of this for what faithful Christian witness looks like in a secular age
1st of all I do think that Taylor's model helps us to understand this kind of spiritual
but not religious phenomena in a new way I think what's remarkable is how rarely
you meet people who say I'm a naturalist I'm not spiritual have you ever met
somebody who says that people want people want to still cling to a kind of
spirituality or nobody comes long as a I am a devotee of calculating rationality not
spiritual note another something else going on here so people regularly quit I'm
spiritual but I'm not religious that to me is a signal of an enduring longing that
characterizes human creatures made in the image of God that still this little echo
of the fact that to be human is to be worshipped the explosion of these different
modes of believing continue to a test of the fact that we long for something and
that someone might be calling to us and I think too often Christians just kind of
lament and regale against the state of affairs is a loss of some suppose a time
when everybody was a Christian but in fact the religion that is rejected by the
spiritual is more often a kind of deistic civil religion that Christians should
consider well what and in fact in that sense in some ways being spiritual but not
religious could actually be a better prelude to Orthodox Christian faith than the
kind of vaguely nominal use of that is like God on our money due to me that the
of the sort of longing for this kind of 40s and 50s sort of assumed picture in which
everybody in America is a Christian is not the gospel of Jesus Christ that was
never the worship of the triune God and if people are saying that if you are being
honest that they're not signing up for that certain vaguely American deity I'm all
for the because that's not a prelude to the gospel anyway and in fact their
openness to spirituality could be a better entre to inviting them into the fullness
of Jesus Christ now what might this mean for the church I do think we need to
own up to the ways in which Christianity in some ways has been the source of
this prophet and I want to pick on my own Protestant tradition in this regard and
this is where we'll build a bridge back to what we've been talking about Taylor
interestingly says one of things that happen in modernity is that Christianity was
ask car needed deal you although the term incarnation right the incarnation as a
second person of the Trinity becoming the fun taking on flash incarnation is this
process of becoming and body ask Carnation then is a process of sort of this
embodiment what Taylor points out is that in many ways the sort of unintended
consequence of the Protestant Reformation was a kind of X coordinating of the
Christian faith so it did it just became this kind of intellectual phenomenon the set

of beliefs and doctrines that you affirm and we become these brains and a stick
to sit down for 40 minutes to hear another lecture ironic when in fact historically
the Christian faith was an embodied way of life in the rhythms and routines of a
community worshiping around the Word and table and it remembered that Jesus
came to us in the flesh and so I think one of the things we need to do to roll back
the effects of a secular aid is reincarnate the assignments strike that for the
record is is to re-embrace and incarnate embodied Christian faith that finds itself
in an expression of worship that is material I will say I think there are two
powerful expressions of that one is a sort of ancient heritage of historic Christian
worship that you get in a Catholic Anglican Lutheran Orthodox tradition the other
however I also will say I think that this is part of what explains the explosion of
Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity around the world because for for those
in Pentecostal traditions worship is a bodily activity right it's a material activity
and something about posture makes a difference for how we encounter the I
think my sense is if I was a futurists which I'm not but if I was to sort of hazard a
guess of what sort of faith and expression of outreach would reach a secular age
it's not going to be slick messages it's not going to be angry apologetics is going
to be a live community of faith inviting people to bull all to the body of Christ in all
of its weird strange historic transcendent by right I actually think the future of the
church is ancient I think that the most postmodern way to be faithful is to
remember ancient ways of being Christian I think it's it's that kind of robust
historic expression of the Christian faith that will actually capture the imagination
of that kind of spiritual so that Christian communities need to cultivate these
robust communities of incarnate faith that the spiritual will come looking for when
the kind of single rule of their do-it-yourself spirituality turns out to be isolating
lonely and unable to endure crisis what Christian communities need to cultivate
in our secular age is a full patient's even a sort of even I think receiving the
secular age is a is a kind of gift for us to renew and cultivate an incarnational and
body robustly Orthodox Christianity that will look like a genuine alternative to
these other rival versions in other words the future of the church the future of the
church's witness actually depends on us renewing our worship and in that sense
lived embodied communal historic formative worship is its own evangelist in the
ancient church is interesting there the catechumenate was though the people
were invited to faith were in a way invited to belong in order to learn how to
believe I think that's what we need to be thinking about going for want to close
with the poem the reading of the poem that I think captures this kind of possibility
it's by one of my favourite poets a friend named Jeannie Murray Walker at the
University of Delaware it's called staying power the Palm has a little epigraph to it
that's important because it sets up a context epigraph says this in appreciation of
Maxime Gorky at the International convention of atheists 1929 to think of that as
frame here's the poem it's called staying power like Gorky I sometimes follow my
doubts outside to the yard and question the sky longing to have the fight settled
thinking I can't go on like this and finally I say alright it's improbable alright there
is no God and then as if I'm focusing a magnifying glass on dry leaves God
blazes up it's the attention maybe to what is in there that makes the emptiness
flare like a forest fire and like to spend the afternoon dragging the hose to put the

smouldering thing even on an ordinary day when a friend calls tells me they
found melanoma complains that the hospital is cold I say, I say as my heart turns
inside out pick up any language by the scruff of its neck wipe his face set it down
on the lawn and I bet it will toddle right into the God fire again which really say it
doesn't exist can send you straight to the burn unit all we have only so many
words to think with say God's not fire say anything say God's phone maybe you
know you didn't order a phone but there it is it rings you don't know who it could
be you don't want to talk to you pull out the plug it rings you smash it with a
hammer to live lead springs and coils and clobbering metal bits it rings again you
pick it up in a voice you love whispers we hope you enjoyed by only University
offers a variety of the descent of Man ranging from business managing the
reaction time and my dialect that