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Unashamed with the Robertson Family
Ep 1264 | Why Intimacy with God & Their Wives Is So Hard for Christian Men
00:49:44
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- [00:02]
Zach
I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. This is our Friday episode, Unashamed with Hillsdale. We're taking these courses that Hillsdale offers for free. You guys can join us at unashamedforhillsdale.com we are in the CS Lewis course on CS Lewis on Christianity. I've thoroughly enjoyed this, but I was kind of wondering how. Because we're now. This is episode. This is the fourth lecture. It got a little hairy if you're not a philosophically minded person. But, Al, how you. You guys.
- [00:41]
Al
Zach, it. So it wasn't as bad as when I was in college and I was in quantitative methods, which was a statistics, the next level statistics course. It wasn't that bad because when the guy was talking, he was like giving the first lecture. It sounded like the Charlie Brown teacher. And all I got was, if you're not serious about statistics, you don't need to be here. And so I got up and I walked out of that class and I walked over to my advisor and I said, I'm dropping that course. He said, well, you can't get your business degree without this course. I said, then what else we got here? So it wasn't that bad, but it was about halfway through the lecture. I mean, I was. Kept backing it. I'd stop it and I'd back it up and I would listen again. And I just. I wasn't getting it. I was like, Christian, were we together on that?
- [01:40]
John Luke
Yeah. No. Halfway through listening to it, I was like, I hope me and Al are on the same page. But I know somewhere out there, Zach is just foaming at the mouth because he's enjoying this so much.
- [01:50]
Al
Two of our four are thinking, this is the best thing ever. And two of our four thinking, what is he talking about? I will say this, and we'll get there at the end of this podcast. But it all came together at the end. It would have helped. I did not read this book. And it would have helped had I read it, I'm sure, because it helped.
- [02:07]
Zach
Because the first one is on his book, Surprised by Joy, which is his. That's his really kind of a little bit like his testimony of how he came to faith right in Christ.
- [02:17]
Al
Right.
- [02:18]
Zach
But yeah, and I mean, the reason why we wanted to bring that up at the beginning of the podcast is because if you're sitting in this course, I mean, it is. Yeah, it's a little. It's. It's a little heavy in terms of the content. But I think you guys, y'. All. Both went through. We, we went through episode our Lecture five. So we were the next two podcasts. We're going to be focusing on those two lectures, Lecture four and five. But. But it's one of those things I want to encourage you. Like, like, if you're in it, you're like, whoa, this is heavy. Like, push through it. Al. You push through it, Christian. You pushed through it came out the other side. And, and. And at the end of it, I mean, we were talking at the beginning of the podcast. I mean, you're. Light bulbs are going off. You know, so sometimes when you're. You're into new content if you're not used to, you know, learning in a certain way. But I mean, this is. These are courses that you would take at their college. And so, I mean, these are. This isn't easy. So. But I mean, I think we kind of said that from the beginning. We're stepping into, you know, educating our audience. We want to be educated along with you. And, and C.S. lewis is obviously, he's a huge part of, you know, Western civilization. I don't know any preacher that doesn't quote C.S. lewis at least three or four times a year. Yeah, we quote him every Sunday at our church, but just about. But. But can you imagine, though, being with the group, because we talked about this in the previous podcast, the. The Inklings, which would. That. That name came out in this episode. These group of guys that would meet together consistently of. At Oxford and they would. They were all brilliant in their own right. John, Look, a little bit more research on the. The nature of their relationship. But it's kind of interesting that that group and that dynamic.
- [03:59]
Christian
Yeah, I got really into them for a while and started reading, like, some of the stuff the other other guys wrote that were in that group, which. The biggest ones were C.S. lewis and Junior Tolkien. And their whole thing was getting together. They would read passages from the books they were writing and they would critique them. And so it was just like a roast session on the books they were.
- [04:22]
John Luke
Writing at the local pub.
- [04:23]
Christian
At the pub, yeah.
- [04:24]
Al
Over a pint.
- [04:25]
Christian
Over a pint, yeah. And that's like, that's where especially J.R. tolkien and the early, like, Narnia books. That's where like, they were the first guys who heard them was there at the Inklings. And that's, I think, why they were so good, too, because they were critiquing them as they were writing them.
- [04:45]
Al
Yeah, yeah. Cause who knows what the versions of their work would have been without that. I mean, that was part of Their process, they vetted it, which is really interesting. And we kind of know Zach from when dad was writing his books. We kind of did it team style. It was me and you and your dad, and we kind of had that back and forth through the process of writing it. I guess we were some sort of inklings. But it was really interesting because dad was kind of the core of where we were going and it was his sort of way. But then all of us contributed and pulled back and added in and, you know, and we came out with some really good product.
- [05:25]
Zach
You know, we would process very openly. I mean, even how we started this podcast, I think it's appropriate. I mean, we're, you know, we're not drinking out of the Kool Aid here. Like, we're, we're telling you that sometimes these courses get difficult and you work through the content, but in the end, the final product is good. And so, you know, this first episode, or I say episode, this first lecture is today, lecture four. The fourth lecture is about Lewis's memoir, Surprised by Joy, where he tells the story of his early life leading up to his conversion to Christianity. And then one of his friends, one of the inklings, a guy named John Wayne, Dr. Ward pointed out, not the John Wayne that W e I n.
- [06:10]
John Luke
It'S more like wen.
- [06:12]
Zach
Yeah, see here, John Wayne don't think about the west, but one of the guys.
- [06:16]
Al
And that was his attempt to be funny, but he, the typical Brit, he said it and he never even cracked a smile or anything. It was funny, it was funny. I mean, I chuckled, but he was just like. It was just like Dawn.
- [06:29]
Zach
He said, he's an excellent teacher, by the way.
- [06:32]
John Luke
He's great.
- [06:32]
Christian
Totally.
- [06:33]
John Luke
He said, and I believe that John Wayne is 180 degrees wrong.
- [06:37]
Zach
He did say that. He pushed back because John Wayne had a criticism of, of this book and essentially said that it was lame and that it was convincing.
- [06:49]
John Luke
Dot dot, a failure, as lame and.
- [06:53]
Al
Unconvincing as it could possibly be. I mean, like, he did. He didn't just.
- [06:58]
John Luke
Point was, it's 100. It's 190 page book and there's only two pages dedicated really to his conversion. So in Wayne's defense, he. There is some credence there.
- [07:08]
Christian
No, I actually totally agreed with that assessment. I heard a lot from reading the book.
- [07:14]
John Luke
Yeah.
- [07:15]
Christian
Listening to him say that, I was like, that's exactly what I thought too.
- [07:18]
John Luke
Well, too, because Ward expanded on it of like, when, when, when. When Lewis went from atheism to being a theist. His conversion was more Grand. And the way he expl. The way he kind of explained it was more, you know, loud and those kind of things. He made that point. And then with his conversion to Christianity, it was just like a subtle. And he didn't really expect. So I'm sure people were excited to know what that moment was actually like for him. And then they were. Yeah. I can imagine them being underwhelmed with, like, all the stuff you've ever.
- [07:51]
Al
The one thing Dr. Ward said that made me feel better was that he said that he had to read the book four times to get what he got out, to get where he got to. And I thought, well, that makes me.
- [08:03]
Zach
Feel better because you listened to the lecture four times.
- [08:06]
Al
Exactly. I can't listen to the lecture. And I think, why. I feel like a goose in a fox, you know?
- [08:12]
Zach
Well, you know, I think the problem is, though, when you're, you know, this is like part of learning, I mean, even if, like, you try to pick up, for example, Beowulf and you're just going to read Beowulf, like, if you. If you're not incubated in that content and that type of writing, it's gonna, like, literally, it is a foreign language.
- [08:29]
Al
Yeah.
- [08:30]
Zach
But, you know, if you. If you force yourself and it is hard, but you push yourself into the content and into reading that and the simmering in it, eventually, like, your brain. Something happens in your brain and you start to kind of understand it. And. And it's. It's the craziest phenomenon. But I think that's true of all things. And so that's why I've always like, yeah, I should be keeping things simple. Yes. But I think that at the same time, we should also fire off these other parts of our brain and our neurons that can draw us into a deeper understanding of. Of who God is. I thought that this whole two. The. The two lectures we're going to talk about over the next two weeks for me, were. It really is the journey that I've been on for a while. And the big difference is contemplation. He mentions this in the course, contemplation versus the enjoyment. And these are two really real ways that we access reality and that we acquire knowledge. And how do you know what you know? Well, one way you know what you know is you. You observe, you know, you contemplate. You look at it and you contemplate what it is. And then. And then there's another way of acquiring knowledge, which is more of an. A relational knowledge, which is you enjoy it. And those are Two equally. I'll say, not equally. Those are two very real ways that we. We know the world around us. And what Lewis is pointing to in this. In this book, surprised by Joy and his story, and maybe his whole apologetic, is that one of those is more primary than the other, and the one that is more primary is actually at the core of your being. You are a being who desires. And I've actually found that to be true in my own life. That's more foundational to how I actually live my life than what I think about or contemplate, and to the point where I can actually contemplate something and I can actually miss the whole thing. And it never really changed. What I desire and what I actually do in my real life is what I want to do. It's what I desire. It's not what I think about or contemplate. It's what do I want. And so I think he's actually getting at really, the core of what it means to be human. You know what I mean? Does that make sense?
- [10:48]
Al
It does. We want you to sign up and take this course with us. It's free. Unashamedforhillsdale.com is where you go to get that. Yeah, I agree, Zach. And I think one of the things that. Because, you know, Smith, who was my mentor, who was a smart guy, but at the same time was very powerful with the gospel and just, you know, a straightforward type guy, too. But he told me when I was very young, he said, never be afraid to put things out for people that they have to reach up for. You know, meaning in your teaching, you know, don't just. He said, you know, we want to be always back to the gospel and Jesus, but at the same time, we want people to have to reach and stretch because that's how you grow. And so that's always stuck in my mind that it's always healthy to look at life through someone else's prism, and you learn things from that. And so I do think that the uniqueness of people's testimony to how they come to see Christ, how they come to live for Christ, is very much seen in these two lectures and in CS Lewis Life. This man looked at life completely different than me, but I've learned a lot from listening to his pontifications and who he is. So I think that's good for all of us to try to kind of walk in someone else's shoes. And then we grow. I mean, we see things that we didn't grow before.
- [12:12]
Zach
Yeah, yeah. The core of what he's Getting at here, I think. And John, located on this in the last podcast of some of the. Probably pushback against Lewis. And I can understand even more of what you were talking about in the last podcast, John Luke, after going through these two lectures thinking about why people might push back against Lewis's presentation of the gospel here, or at least presentation of his own story, when you think about this podcast, for example, I will tell you, I read a lot of the comments over the years, and we've been doing this for how many years now, Al?
- [12:46]
Al
We're in our seventh year now.
- [12:48]
Zach
Seventh year. I don't know how many. We've done a ton of podcasts. And one of the biggest complaints that we've gotten, like, just like people pushing back against what we're saying. And we've got, you know, there's. We got. We get a ton of Ton. A ton of it. I mean, just. It's the nature of the business, right? So some of it, you kind of.
- [13:05]
Al
Just gotta have thick skin. Gotta be.
- [13:09]
Zach
Jay says, don't read the comments. I do read the comments. Chase is that he wants to detach himself from any criticism.
- [13:16]
Al
I can't imagine Jace being someone who detaches himself. That seems so out of character for just the way the man lives.
- [13:22]
Zach
But you know that one of the biggest complaints, or not complaints, but. But maybe rebuttals that we've gotten is when Phil would say, I converted him, he would use that word converted. And. And what Phil always meant. Jason's used it a few times. We've all used it. Like. Yeah, I'll tell you, we. Yeah, we had a couple guys come now. We converted them. And they're always like, you didn't convert anybod Christ converts. And they have a whole thing about conversion. But even the word conversion is kind of like a. It's a weird phrase. And it. I think people have an aversion to it because what they're thinking. When you hear that word conversion, maybe you're thinking about like the Crusades or like the conquistadors that are converting, you know, the indigenous population and they're forcing.
- [14:08]
Al
Or like Constantine and his whole army, you know, like just.
- [14:12]
Zach
Yeah.
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Al
Almost like you're forcing it on. Yeah, yeah.
- [14:14]
Zach
Because they're like, no, you're actually making disciples. And then conversion just. I think what. Where. Where it gets lost in translation is when you. When, like when I would hear the word conversion growing up, what I heard was that was synonymous with we baptized him or baptized her. And it was a moment.
- [14:32]
Al
Yeah, right.
- [14:33]
Zach
And then we even had the big debate inside the churches of Christ, like, when is the moment of salvation? Like, everything was about a moment, like this one moment. And I think the reason why Lewis, the way he portrays, one of the reasons why he portrays, according to Dr. Ward too, he. He portrays his own conversion, particularly to Christ. And really, I mean, it was two pages. It was like not. It wasn't what you thought it would be. It wasn't this big, drawn out, emotional thing is because it is. It's kind of hard to identify really what that is. You said in the last podcast, John Luke, about when I was talking about, I've never seen anyone come to Christ to apologetics, but then you kind of shared your own story, which convicted me. And it's like it sometimes it's a lot more of an incubation process and it's hard to sometimes just to nail what we want, that moment. And for Lewis, it really was a process of becoming. And, and I think that's why the, the, maybe it might fall flat. If you're looking for like the. I was dark and then boom, the lights went on and everything was made sense all of a sudden. I don't think that that really wasn't Lewis's story. You know what I mean?
- [15:42]
Al
Well, I think part of that, Zach, was the. When you talk about conversion, when you go back and look at the Book of Acts, which is when we see the first conversions to Christianity out of Judaism, you know, because all those people, initial people there in Jerusalem were Jewish. And so this is the first time this has ever happened. And so we watched that unfold. And so now, 2,000 years later, sometimes we kind of look back on that and say, well, yeah, that's exactly the way it has to be with everybody now. But that was 2,000 years of context. It's quite different than it is now. Once we've had Christianity around for 2000 years and different ways for people to incubate the thought process. So you're right, Zach. We tend to look at it and say, well, it has to be this way. That was our problem, I think, in the CLC early was we were saying, well, it's got to be the example of this right here. And so everybody has to be the same. And that's not true at all. And you have to factor it in. And I think we'll get into this in the next podcast. But even when you look at the Bible, you have to look at context, genre, the books, all of it.
- [16:48]
Zach
It's different.
- [16:49]
Al
And so I think that plays in to this as well?
- [16:51]
Christian
No, I was going to say that too about. Well, just to point on conversion, because I was thinking about this too and how it was kind of a slow process for him and he doesn't really hit that like, big moment. And I knew this guy, he was a youth pastor and I think he's maybe is a preacher now, really smart guy, but really real Covenant theology guy, like Tulip, all predestination, all of it, super into it. And his whole thing was every conversion was that huge light bulb moment. And he had that like, he, like when he told his testimony, it was, I never, you know, I didn't want God. I wasn't interested at all. And then I think he had like the. He was sick or something and he like thought he was going to die and he like felt like God spoke to him. He had this like huge like moment. And then from then on he was like all on fire for God. And he believed that that is how it should be for everyone. And if you don't have that moment, like you haven't been converted. Converted. Yeah. And I was like, I just don't think that that is everybody's experience. Like, you can get, take, you know, you can go from the Bible, but just also from just talking to people and how they've come to Christ. And sometimes it is like that. But most, I think probably most of the time it's more of a long, long process of either growing up in the church, thinking about it, doubting, coming back, doubting, you know, up and down, you know, it's just like whole process. And so I thought that was a really good point that C.S. lewis was making, is that it doesn't have to be like this like huge light bulb moment, but it's just like a steady building of your relationship with God and with Christ.
- [18:41]
Al
And plus we've been talking this whole time about how the four of us, how we view life so differently. And John, Luke and Zach tend to be more philosophical in your view. Well, if that's true in just the four of us, multiply that out to all of humanity in terms of how people view things. I mean, of course it's going to be different. And I don't know about y', all, but I mean, if I were an atheist and I had then converted to being a theist and then later to Christianity, which was the process he went through, probably. I mean, in my mind, going from atheism to theism was a huge leap. That was probably bigger than going, because.
- [19:21]
Christian
Theist. Yeah, Jesus.
- [19:23]
Al
Because to say there's nothing to it and there's no God. And all of a sudden you think, well, there is a being. And then say, okay, well, now I'm willing to embrace what that being says about himself once. The being. Usually for most of us, that comes together, right? I mean, like, we're converted to God, the creator of the cosmos and to his plan at the same time. Most of us experience it that way now, but he didn't. And I mean, I could see. So I wasn't. When I read it or heard the lecture, I thought was. Well, I could see where that would be pretty magnanimous. You know, that step. That was a big step.
- [20:00]
John Luke
Well, this is what Lewis said about his conversion. He said that when he finally came to a belief that Jesus Christ was the son of God, there was quote, unquote, nothing of him left over or outside the act. The whole man had moved. He had, as it were, stepped inside the beam of Christian knowledge, which sounds great, but to me, it's kind of confusing. Zach, can you. Nothing of him left over or outside the actual. And then I was confused on the whole beam of light and how that. With the enjoyment.
- [20:36]
Al
Tell that story. I was kind of confused about the. That was kind of. It was called the Tool shed Meditation in a Tool Shed. It was an article I think he wrote, wasn't it? Or something.
- [20:46]
Zach
Yeah, he was looking at the beam of light, and there was like a difference between contemplating. That's what I started off with. Like, the big shift is the difference between contemplation of something and the enjoyment of something. And. And he plays this out throughout the, you know, these two lectures, lecture four and five. It really comes together, really, I think, in five, when he ends up on the road to Emmaus, which we've talked about on our podcast a lot, because Luke 24 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. And he's drawn the distinction between the Word of God and then the God of the Word. And so I've done this a lot throughout the years. I'll take a phrase like. Like too many of us have put our faith in the Gospel of. Of Christ instead of the Christ of the Gospel. And so what we would do is you take the formula, the death, burial and the resurrection of Jesus. Well, then that becomes a formula that you. That I'm. I'm into the formula. But. But are you into the man? You know, and so when. When on. There's a moment in John 5 when Jesus says, you study the Scriptures diligently and by them, you think you're saved yet you've missed me. The one that they point to. So the point is that you can actually look at something like that beam of light that could be the word of God, like the scripture, maybe. And then you focus on the beam, but you're not actually living in the story of the beam. And so when Jesus meets those disciples on the road to Emmaus, what he does is he takes out the Bible and he shows them from the Scriptures why Christ had to die, be buried and raised from the dead. In other words, these were all pointing to me. And so it has to move from knowledge about God to more of an intimate knowledge of God and who he is relationally. Which is why in John 17:3, the way that Jesus defines eternal life is not. He defines it as an intimate knowledge of knowing the ones you're God. So it becomes more about union than it does about spectating of what it is. Does that make sense?
- [22:49]
Al
It does. We want you to take this course with us. It's free. Unashamedforhillsdale.com so the beam part of this, just to try to break it down a little bit, if you're looking, listening or watching, is he looked into this shed. It's dark in there and there's a beam of light. The sun is shining. So when he first sees and the beam is like alongside him, he can see somewhat in there. And what's in there because the beam's not directly in his eyes. So that's the one he said alongside the beam or along the beam. That's enjoyment. Then. In other words, how you see things are different when the beam, he steps forward, the beam is directly in his eyes. Then he says he can't see anything but the beam. So then he's into contemplation because he can't see anything. So he's having to just imagine it's.
- [23:37]
Zach
Right in his face.
- [23:38]
Al
Right. It's right in his face.
- [23:39]
Zach
It's like, it turns out, terminates on him. It's like what it is is that terminates on itself where if you, if you view it as enjoyment, it's. I, I mentioned this quote. I don't know if it may come from the same story. I believe in the sun, not because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything else.
- [23:54]
Al
Yeah.
- [23:55]
Zach
So it's, it's that it illuminates the world. There, there's a. Just real quick. There's a. I think they're the. One of the issues that we have in Western thought is we typically in the church especially, but Even in society as a whole, when we think about what it means to be human, we typically think about like that we're primarily thinking and believing being. So if we can get the right set of beliefs right, we can get all of our right belief systems right, then we'll be right. But there's been quite a few authors, including Augustine, who have. Who have pushed back on this and have said, no, no, to be human. At your core, it actually, it's not. We are thinking beings and we are beings that believe. But primarily what we are at our core is we are beings who desire. We are. Another. Another word for desire is love. Another word for that is affections. Another word for that is longings. Another word for that is worship. These are all synonymous words. When we talk about what it means to be human, that's what you primarily are. And the reason why you know this to be true, because do you know what one of the biggest, probably the, maybe the most pressing crisis in the American church among young men. What would you say it is? What's the biggest crisis for young men in the church? What biggest struggle?
- [25:19]
John Luke
Pornography.
- [25:20]
Zach
Yeah, porn. And do you think that men in the church know that pornography is wrong? Yeah. Do they have the right belief system about pornography? Yep. Do they believe that it will ruin their marriage?
- [25:33]
Al
Yep.
- [25:34]
Zach
Do they believe it or run their sex life? Sex life, yes. Do they believe that it makes them miserable, yet they have all the right belief systems about it? All of their thinking about porn is right. It's right. They hold all that to be true. And then the question is, why do they still do it? Why do we still struggle? Why? Well, why? Because we want to. So the reason why someone looks at pornography is not. It's not a. It's not a knowledge problem. It's. They do what they want. So the issue then becomes here they think it's going to be a joyful, there's going to be enjoyment, somehow it's going to satisfy some longing. And I think what Lewis is hitting at here in his whole conversion story is that what moved him to Christ was not right thinking it was, that his joy, what he found joy in, was now aligned with who? The person or the persons of God. Who are they? Who is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? That dance, I think there was a term he used, paraklesia, the dance that God's invited us into. That's the big story that I think is unfolding.
- [26:38]
Al
I like that porn analogy as well, because I've always said, Zach, that I thought the biggest attraction to pornography should Be that you realize that it's not real. I mean, there are real people there, of course, and they're engaged, they're having sex, but it's not real for you. It's like once all of us have a covenant in a marriage and a relationship, that's real. I mean, to have intimacy with your wife, that's real, but that's fake. And so somehow to think you're going to get the ultimate enjoyment out of it, it's always going to leave you wanting, which, of course, Zach, is why they dive deeper in. But the results become the same, and it just is a cycle, you know, and he. He mentions that a lot about the idea of cycles, too. And that's going to come up in the next lecture. But I loved it. It began to really solidify. We hadn't gotten to the best part of it about the whole garden thing, but it's about the Holy Spirit's role in this idea of the beam. And so that was something that really spoke to me. In other words, he said, you receive the Holy Spirit in the indwelling of the Spirit. And that's this idea of looking alongside, because you can't see the Spirit, you can't see him physically, but you know he's there, and you can see the results of it. And he said, you know, when you get in tune with the divine, then you start to see the fruit of it, and then it's even better than you could have ever imagined. So I thought that was good.
- [28:05]
Christian
I think the point he's making here is that to enjoy the beam, you have to physically step in front of it. And for him, I think that was him stepping into the beam, starting to enjoy it was actually praying and reading the Bible and going to church and forgiving and trying to love. And I think that comes out in a lot of his other books. And it talks a little bit more about this in the next lecture. But that idea of going from just like thinking about Christ to actually being in Christ, is that physical? Like, not that he's saying it's that you always desire it, but you are attempting to live out the things that Christ wants you to attempting to talk to him, attempting to read your Bible and attempting by meaning you're doing it every day, whether you like it or not.
- [29:01]
John Luke
Yeah, I thought one of the things that doctor that, that Ward said, that was cool. He was talking about Lewis. I can't remember where he mentioned this at. It might have been in the next lecture, but I think it was this one. But he talks about How Lewis often talked about, like, the shyness that he had to really tell the story of his conversion. I think just because of how. I think maybe reverent and how holy that moment was for him, which is why he didn't really expound on it too.
- [29:26]
Al
Too much. I took that as humility. I mean, he seemed like a very humble. Humble person about that.
- [29:31]
John Luke
Yeah, yeah. Yes. I thought it was cool he made that point that he talked about. Lewis said that he often felt like a sort of. Like a sense of shyness to really kind of expand on what actually happened to him in that moment.
- [29:42]
Zach
Yeah. And by the way, if you guys want to join with us, you can sign up, take this course for free@unashamedforhillsdale.com we're in the CS Lewis course. But, yeah, that's a good point. He mentioned a poet. The job of the poet is to basically point people away from themselves. And so that was a cool point.
- [29:58]
Christian
Yeah.
- [29:59]
John Luke
The finger.
- [30:00]
Al
Yeah.
- [30:00]
Zach
It's like he's pointing. And. And the more that you focus on the poet, you kind of miss the poetry. Right. So he's the. The. He's pointing you away from himself, which is the point of what Lewis is doing in minimize. Not minimizing his story. I don't think he minimizes it at all. I think what he does is he. He puts the story in a way that. That draws the reader into something deeper. So when he, you know, uses the. I love the. One of my favorite parts about the whole lecture, I think it was in lecture four, when he talks about his brother who brought in the toy. Remember that? The toy garden.
- [30:36]
Al
Yes.
- [30:37]
Zach
And when he was a kid and they're playing with this, like, toy. It was some kind of toy micro garden for kids. And he's looking at it, and Lewis was basically like. This was like, imprinted into my memory of what, like what a garden is or what paradise is.
- [30:51]
Al
Well, and the reason why Zach, the word he used to. Which was the word of the book, was he says the first time that he can remember feeling pure joy. That was the word joy.
- [31:04]
Zach
That's right.
- [31:05]
Al
He said when he brought that in. And I looked at that and, you know, it's interesting to me because I thought about the time he's talking about. We're talking about the early 20th century, and, you know, our kids now have all these things we buy, but they love to recreate something into a smaller version. A little kitchen, a little whatever, a little. You know, they like to put it all in these little places and in their day you know, you didn't have any of that stuff. So the brother literally builds this beautiful garden, you know, on this. On this platform, and then brings it in. And he said that's the first time he'd ever felt joy. And so that sort of took him back to that idea of that there was joy in a garden. So go ahead, Zach.
- [31:45]
John Luke
Yeah, I thought this was cool.
- [31:46]
Zach
He said.
- [31:47]
John Luke
He said the sensation left him with a desire, but he was uncertain what he desired.
- [31:52]
Al
Yeah.
- [31:52]
Zach
Oh, that's key to the whole thing right there. Because he says that enjoyment is the most fundamental way of knowing. I mean, you got to sit in that for a minute. But enjoyment is the most fundamental way of knowing. Which is what? That's another way of saying what I said earlier, that the most foundational thing to our humanity is that we are beings who desire. Augustine said that our hearts were made for you and you alone. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, because they're made for you and you alone. And so there's an author that I read a book years ago that had an analogy of a beach ball. And he's like, this is like what humanity is like. It's like the beach ball. And if you push the beach ball under the water, then it's like you got to hold it down there, and it's like violently, you know, trying to get up above the water, and you're trying to hold it underwater and depend how much air in it is in and how much pressure you're putting on it. But. But as soon as you let that beach ball go, what happens to it? It just violently emerges and it pops out of the top of the water. And then if you sit there long enough and you watch it, what does the beach ball do? It rest. It'll just rest on the water. And so why is it resting? Well, because that's what beach balls do, right? They're made like there's air in it. This is just nature. This is just how it's how it operates. And so when Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they rest in you, what he was getting at is that like all of our strife, all of our turmoil, all of our anxiety, all of our depression, all that is is us fighting against what our true nature is. And the only way that you're going to find real peace and real joy, real satisfaction, real enjoyment, and is if you rest in God, because that is what you were made to do. Just like that beach ball. You don't have to work towards this. And so Louis is pointing towards that but it's a longing, which we talk about in the podcast all the time, that it's not fulfilled yet because the kingdom hasn't been fully consummated. So I don't fully even understand what that longing is. I just know that there is a longing inside of me that nothing in this world can satisfy it. And Lewis would say, well, you might want to consider you were made for another world. And so then we hope for the consummation of the kingdom. So it is that the way he expresses the word joy is an eternal longing that you can't quite understand what it even is. And it's even in that that makes it all the more desirable, if that makes sense.
- [34:28]
Al
Zach, isn't that with the phrase we've been hitting? And the other in our regular unashamed podcast, in first John, to make my joy complete. You know, Jesus said that several times. And John says it again in one John, to your point that you just made, that's the only place we can find that. And so I've only missed one question on the quizzes, which is unbelievable, as much as I've struggled mentally to stay here. But the question I missed was this one about joy when I watched this lecture. And here was the answer that I missed. Joy, at least in this life, is an unsatisfied desire that is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. Which is, I mean. I mean, the reason I missed this because when I read that, I thought, well, that can't be right, because, you know, you can't be satisfied. But he's right. In other words, it can't be without this connection to the divine. And even when you see it, you don't, you know, you don't want to look right at it. You look alongside it, you know, because it's bigger than we are. So back to your illustration about the garden, because you got to bring it to consummation. So he's got the. The first joy he ever felt in this little garden. And then his two pages of conversion, he goes to the Whipsdale Zoo, and basically he just says, you know, I was driving to the zoo. When I got there, I decided, you know, I'm a Christian. Exactly.
- [35:57]
Zach
Ours, John Wayne would say, lame.
- [35:59]
John Luke
Well, it took Dr. Ward the four times to read it because he talked about the quote was Wallaby Wood, with the birds singing overhead and the bluebells underfoot and the wallabies hopping all around, all around. One, which he almost describes as Eden coming again. But he made that connection to when he talked about the Holy Spirit being Above, beneath, and within. So that took him, as I'm saying, it took him four times to realize the connection to that, which is what he thought was the most beautiful point. But I think my favorite part of the lecture was the imagery of. Because he talked about with the toy garden with his brother, and that was the first joy he felt. He talked about the idea of the joy he felt when he was holding the garden and then after his conversion, when Eden became real to him, realizing that he is now in the garden. So I thought that was so cool of going from. From I'm holding the garden to now I'm being held by the garden. And just that imagery of.
- [36:56]
Al
Of that was so good of life.
- [36:57]
John Luke
In Christ opposed to that.
- [36:58]
Al
That was the payoff for me.
- [36:59]
John Luke
That was the payoff.
- [37:00]
Al
That was the payoff. I said this.
- [37:01]
John Luke
That was what made it worth it.
- [37:02]
Al
This was worth me re watching four times. Because that. That really is us. And Zach, how many times have we talked about this on Unashamed.
- [37:09]
Zach
Oh, my gosh.
- [37:09]
Al
That it is a whole purposing of Christ was to re. Establish the garden in the relationship. And so the fact that C.S. lewis came to Christ that way in a garden makes perfect sense. You know, I mean, it just. It really is the. The greater picture of the entire Bible. He just did it so subtly that you would have to read it four times.
- [37:32]
Zach
Our entire entire podcast is if you listen to this podcast. That's why I know, like, push through the lectures. I know they may be difficult for some of us, but, like, push through because you're. Because we've already been talking about this return to Eden, this Edenic vision that Christ, this is a return to the garden, but a fully consummated garden. And so the way Lewis describes his conversion experience is it is connecting enjoyment to Eden, and Eden was that original temple. So what he's actually saying is that he began to be able to live in the reality that he is a temple. The spirit above, within, around me, the guard. So he realizes that this. This is where this whole thing leads into the end. I think that's beautiful.
- [38:17]
Christian
In this section, the thing that really impacted me was the way that he described it as C.S. lewis felt like it was too intimate a thing to share. And I thought that was like such a beautiful thing, calling that moment of conversion intimate, that it was.
- [38:36]
John Luke
He.
- [38:36]
Christian
C.S. lewis almost felt like it was such a personal thing with him, between him and Jesus.
- [38:42]
John Luke
Yeah, that was what I was saying with the show.
- [38:43]
Christian
Almost couldn't, like, didn't want to share it because of how sacred that moment was. And that kind of reminded me, I think, that I've thought this for years. I think especially American men, the reason we miss Christ so often in the whole point is that is because we are the bride. But to think about your conversion to Christ is like, intimate, I think is a very like, feminine way to think about it. But that's exactly what it is, because we're the bride, Christ is the husband, Christ is the man of the house, and we are coming to him as the bride. And it's a hard thing for us to switch our thinking to, but I think once we do, we understand the holiness of our relationship with Christ and of this moment of coming to him.
- [39:35]
Al
It would be the same reason, Luke, that we don't talk about intimate things with our wives in public. We never talk about that because it would be inappropriate to do. I mean, that's something we share just with that one person, and we would never do that. And so to that point, you're exactly right. It makes sense that he would see this as such a sacred moment. And it really is. It's kind of, to me, that razor's edge of trying to. When you're telling your conversion or telling that point in time, and some people do have a moment. I certainly had a moment, and I tell the story and it is. It's a powerful moment. It impacts other people. But at the same time, it's a very intimate moment for me even to think back on what I was thinking at that time. And so when I share that, it's strictly so that hopefully someone in an audience or someone that's listening, if I'm doing this on a video, will say, oh, man, that's, that's. That's where I'm at right now, and I need to do something about it. So. But to share that and to put that out there is a. Is a. It's a very humbling and sometimes even frightening moment to do that, you know, and you don't want to. How much is too much, you know, because how deep do you go into that as to how bad you really were? You know, so it's. It's a razor's edge.
- [40:48]
Zach
I think it's kind of like the. I was, as you were saying, I was kind of thinking about the movie Jaws from back in the 70s, you know, and they got, you got the experts that. They're like the, they're the experts in sharkology or whatever that is, right? And they, and they, they dismissed the threat.
- [41:07]
Christian
I think that is the actual scientific Terror of Sharkology.
- [41:10]
Zach
Sharkology, is it? No, the sharkologist.
- [41:13]
Al
I'm going to Google it.
- [41:14]
Zach
The phone PhD sharkologists, they're like, ah, dismissing the whole threat. And then it's the local fishermen.
- [41:20]
John Luke
Sharkology refers to the study science and fascination with sharks.
- [41:24]
Al
Good job.
- [41:26]
Zach
I mean, guys, you can't make this up. Sharkology, I still don't believe that's real. Psychology is real, man. That's a real thing.
- [41:35]
Al
They got a Shark week.
- [41:36]
Zach
It was Sharkology.
- [41:37]
John Luke
And what'd you say? Edenic. I thought those were two.
- [41:41]
Christian
Eden is a real.
- [41:42]
John Luke
I've never heard of that either. I love that.
- [41:44]
Al
That was cool.
- [41:44]
Zach
Yeah, the Edenic vision or the Edenic promise. I love that. I haven't heard that. Well, I mean, finish your point.
- [41:50]
John Luke
Yeah, yeah.
- [41:51]
Zach
The point is, is like the sharkologist doesn't really understand what's happening. Well, who actually is the expert? What's the guy with the lived experience? It's the guy boots on the ground. It's the local fisherman who figures the whole thing out and is kind of the hero of the story. And so I think it's kind of the same way when, when Lewis is. The way he's presenting this. What does he call it? I wrote it down here. It's called. He calls it knowledge by acquaintance.
- [42:18]
Al
Yeah.
- [42:19]
Zach
And then, and then knowledge about.
- [42:21]
Al
Yeah.
- [42:21]
Zach
And so the knowledge about, that's the, that's the sharkologist. They know a lot about sharks, but they, they're not in the water. I mean, the guy who like, even like Phil. I got thinking about Phil one time, I was out there on his land with him and I'm thinking about how like most guys that I know that build like duck holes like he does. Like, they're gonna bring in like expert surveyors to build their dams and to build their levees and they'll have laser sights and all that. And Phil literally looks at the water line on the tree. So, yeah, I'm gonna build that thing right up there in the water. Just like, it's just like insta. It's like wisdom of just like being out there in the woods every day. He looks at it, he eyeballs it. He builds his levees and it holds water and he figures it out, you know, I mean, like, why is he smarter about duck habitat than a biologist from, from the greatest, you know, school in the world that teaches duck habitat? Bill was, was an expert because he, he was living in it. And it was knowledge by acquaintance, not knowledge about duck hunting. It was, he was in it. And in the same way, what Crisis. This is what we're being called into. We're not being called just to know about God. We're actually what we're. The invitation is to know God. And it's participatory. That's the big distinguishing probably word that he brought it up. I think he called it participatory. He's pronounced it differently. But it's participatory. Like you're invited in to participate into the inner life of God. You are invited into the dance.
- [43:50]
Al
It's funny you talked about that with dad. So anytime you do you have a wetlands, you have to. The government has to sign off on what you're doing because it's considered a federal deal. And so the corps of engineers come over and dad takes them to show him what all he's going to do. And this, that, and the other. Because you have to get a permit, I'm sure you have to pay some money. But after a session with dad, they were like, okay, you're good here. We're never coming back. Because they had never. You could tell. They're used to people like you say that are trying to do the wrong thing and do things, and they're like, this guy. But I thought you portrayed that so beautifully in the movie Zach with the blind, in that early scene when Dad's just out there as a kid in the woods. And there was just something uniquely in him that connected to nature in a way that made him different. And it really did. It was the pathway of his whole life. It's what he loved to do. And so I thought you were going to say about the shark thing, you went a totally different thing than I thought you were going. Because when I watched Jaws, which was the first big blockbuster, I was like 10 years old, 11, and we had to sneak in because it was rated R, you know, to watch the movie. And I was so scared. But I thought you were going to say, because the way they filmed that movie, you know, you went through 80% of the movie before you ever saw the shark, which was brilliant, because it made it scarier when you actually saw it. It was like a big fake shark. It wasn't even that impressive, but, man, the attention of not quite seeing what the danger was, but knowing it was there. And I thought you were going to say that was this kind of. This idea that he describes with enjoyment. And the Holy Spirit who lives in us, there's so much depth there and not necessarily having to see it, but seeing the fruit and the result of it. And so that's what I took from the Giles analogy, but I like what you said, too, Zed.
- [45:43]
Christian
One thing I thought was super interesting about this story is that Dr. Ward said that he changed the story of when it happened. So this, in real life, happened in, like, the winter when Lewis goes to the zoo, but he changes it to the springtime when he tells the story to give the sense when. Specifically when the bluebells are underfoot and the wallabies are out, specifically to change the. Give it, like, a poetic spin.
- [46:12]
Al
Yeah.
- [46:13]
Christian
And it really does. Like, if he had told the story, he goes to the zoo and there's snow underfoot and it's windy and cold. That does change the way you think about the conversion. But what Lewis was trying to say, and write it in this poetic way, was that it was such a peaceful, idyllic moment that whenever I, like, came to Christ. And that's the point he was trying to get across, not what actually happened, because he didn't want you to misunderstand his internal feelings.
- [46:43]
Al
That's really interesting.
- [46:44]
John Luke
Yeah. I thought the finger point was a great way to kind of illustrate. It was. Yeah. The longer you point your finger, the more prone you are to look at what you're pointing at, not the person pointing. So I thought that was helpful in the sense of. That's kind of why he shared it the way he shared it.
- [46:59]
Christian
Yeah, this. I wanted to say this, too. I kind of said this in the last episode, but I was. I thought about it yesterday and what I said. When you read Lewis and you go back and read these books, and if you're totally new to this. The thing I was trying to say in the last episode is that the way he writes is with this poetic spin, and he's really focusing on these internal questions, not facts. And so when you read it, if you read it thinking this man is a teacher trying to relay to me facts about God, you're gonna miss the point, like, just straight up. And that is a difficult way because that's not how we normally read.
- [47:49]
Al
Any.
- [47:49]
Christian
Book, but specifically, like, a spiritual book that we're trying to learn from. That's not the way we read it. We typically read it, like, oh, he's what theology, theological point is he trying to tell me here? But that wasn't his goal at all. His goal was really just, here's these things I'm talking with, I'm struggling with. Here's my experience. To provoke something you now think about. And think, Jesus did the parables. Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [48:18]
Al
And that. And that's going to we're talking about that next week is the parables as well. And it's interesting, it's a perfect segue because we're out of time. John, Luke, that the one thing, the only book of the Bible that he actually wrote about was Psalms, which is interesting because when you said that, I was thinking about that's kind of the way the psalmist did. Not just David, Asaph, all of them. It's that same idea. And sometimes when you read them, they're just like it's so different from anything else you read in the Bible. So it is interesting. That's the one thing that he takes on. So we're going to talk about that next week in the prayer and Bible scripture part of this. And so we want you to take this with us. Look, Luke makes a great point because I haven't read many of Lewis's works and so now I can't wait to dive into them. But I'm going to understand them so much better after having done this course. So we want you to take this course with us. It's free. Unashamedforhillsdale.com thank you for coming along the ride with us. Hang in there. It's some really good stuff and we'll, we'll hit it again next week.
- [49:21]
Zach
Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy, powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to unashamed for hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no cost to you. That's unashamed for hillsdale.com and don't miss an episode of the Unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.