Understanding the Post-Modern, Neo-Pagan, Post-Christian World

a presentation by Dr. Michael S. Heiser

I found this “sequel” to Dr. Michael Heiser’s presentations at Future Congress 2013 (which I covered earlier here and here) on YouTube. He presented this years later (2018?). The channel is Houseform Apologetics and I am sure they would appreciate a follow. The transcript is below and I will add links & footnotes as time permits in the future. This is one of those videos that is especially important for Christians to watch, post-2020 Great Reset.

Transcript:

Michael Heiser 0:00

Tonight,

if you're I'm assuming most of you are going to be able to

be here for this evening, be here tomorrow. Because what I've done there's, there's 10 sessions, two of them are going to be q&a. But the the content sessions, believe it or not, you may not be able to tell right away, they do have interrelationships with each other tonight is going to be more or less.

Some things of an apologetic bent, we will get some of that, of course, tomorrow as well, tomorrow will be the the really Biblical stuff, this is going to be, you know, biblical related tonight, because of just issues like worldview and how to think well, and I hope, again, just giving you a little bit of insight as to how

kind of how we, our culture has found itself in its, I want to say it's mess, I mean, one of its messes, is just the propensity really to think poorly, generally, and to also think poorly about anything that you sort of put in the traditional Judeo Christian bucket. Okay, there are reasons for that. And so I want to talk about some of those things broadly. And then it kind of steer the discussion into how,

you know, popular culture, sort of pedals, certain ideas. I think the big takeaway that I'd like you to come away with tonight, is that what you are, you and I are prone to consider harmless entertainment,

is really, more than entertainment to lots of people. And I'm not going to say that you can't watch, you know, Star Wars and The Avengers and things like this. And you shouldn't do that as a Christian. And what I'm not going to say anything like that, because if you think Well, I mean, you know what entertainment is, and you can look at something and sort of parse where it's coming from. But a lot of people just can't do that. And they're, they're really, they're trained not to do that. And when it comes to truth, anything again, as you put in the Judeo Christian theological bucket, they are actually trained to sort of either be apathetic toward that, or really hostile. And so we want to talk about, again, this concatenation of ideas as to why are people thinking the way they're thinking, what makes them prone, you know, to do this, and then how popular culture really sweeps in to reinforce these things. And in some cases, for those of you who might have seen on my presentations online from future Congress a couple years ago, about how pop culture sort of pedals the idea of utopia.

There are some instances where this is quite deliberate.

There are other instances where it's just not it's sort of unconscious. The reason that film and TV and whatnot is what it is, is because the people who create the material, that's where they are, and they're not being militant about it, but it just is what it is. But in other cases, there is an agenda. So I want to try to introduce sort of the spectrum, the concatenation of those ideas to you tonight, and give you a little insight as to how I think about them. And some of what you'll hear, you'll sort of be able to plug in mentally,

to when you might have heard me on the radio, there gonna be a few things, I think that would help orient you, by the way, my slides are really not this boring, I only have two that like don't have any color. And it's these two,

I am aesthetically challenged. But I'm a little bit beyond this.

But my general approach, and what I want to want you to try to go away with is when you get into a conversation with someone who just will not, not only won't accept the gospel, or won't accept, you know, truth claims about scripture or some other theological point, it's important to the so the core of the faith, even even beyond that, when they just sort of are prone to not really think that really anything's true at all.

And they want to either peddle that idea on you or some other really strange idea.

My approach is, look, show me the data. I want you to be data driven, and you're going to I'm going to impress that upon you. It's about

quantifying what it is, you're asking me to believe, because when you get into these conversations with people at work, even at church rarely, but just sort of out about in life, and they are they're not accepting what you're saying what, in many cases, they want to convert you. They want you to be on their side. They want to they want to win you over. They want you to agree with them.

And they need to know that in order for that to happen, they need to have something to say. It's not sufficient that they just believe something

You want to know why they believe it? So I want to impress again on you that you need to be data driven. I'm big on primary sources, don't tell me what somebody said, Show me. If it's an ancient text, this usually kills the conversation.

Give me the citation number, give me the chapter and verse, give me the line of that tablet, and I'll go look. And if you're right, well, then we can further the discussion. But usually, people are just passing on things that they've heard.

So it's important, again, to take people back and get them to realize that, especially if they can't produce it, well, maybe this thing, I believe,

is sort of like a vacuum. There's just nothing there.

So that's an important idea, context is always important for what they do talk about coherence. I'm really big on that.

What you say needs to make sense.

The fact that you can say it, and present it to me as a worldview doesn't mean that I'm either impressed or even interested, because if it doesn't make sense, I don't know how you're going to convince me that I should adopt it, and hang anything in my life on it.

And right away again, in this culture, we're going to talk about the whole postmodern mindset.

Well, Mike, you know, you're just operating from, you know, that elitist, white, European Western system of logic.

Okay, just just trust me on this, the best thing to say to that person is, well, what other system of logic would you like to have a conversation.

Because if you're opposed to logic, you can't have a conversation that makes sense about anything. I could just give you the mother names of my dog and cat for the rest of the afternoon. And that qualifies, because we're having a conversation, you need to make sense in what you say, how you say it, why you're, you're saying it, it's not adequate just to have something to say.

And you need to insist upon that and do it nicely. You also need to play fair, if you're going to insist upon these things from other people, for what they want you to believe you need to be able to do the same, it's just courtesy. So with that said, let's get into a little bit about post modernism.

And what my whistle here a little bit.

Now, this is a term that we've all probably heard.

And I'm going to suggest to you, it really means two different things, and I'm gonna leave that

on button.

Postmodern, Neo pagan, post Christian.

These are overlapping, but not necessarily synonymous terms. And we'll talk about why tonight are lots of worldviews out there, we know this, they're secular people be able to just don't believe anything about reality beyond the material world, as science tells us that exists. We know that. You have book religions, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, again, their theology is oriented to a specific book that they hold as sacred. Then there are spirituality, people, they don't care about anything written in terms of a book to follow. They're more or less about looking inward, mystical experience, sort of inner knowledge, their own experience, that sort of thing. And there's really no boundaries, there's really no rules. And then you have an RMS new religious movements and cults, now, they all compete for space. But there's there are certain core ideas that drive them. And one of these is pluralism. Anyone who

I think if anybody, any of you have been paying popular attention to popular discourse in the last 20 years, okay, it has become the mainstream idea that everybody has something to say, deserves to be heard. And they deserve to be given equal status. Okay, it's just, you know, it's wrong to insist that someone's wrong. And someone overhears right. There's this inclination to essentially try to affirm everyone, okay. didn't used to be that way, but it's more and more part of our culture. Now, in Christianity.

This cultural shift has led to something that, again, is sort of a little nebulous term, the Emergent Church and

I'm not here to pick on the Emergent Church necessarily, there are good aspects of what is called Emergent Church and there are bad aspects.

We're going to talk a little bit about specifics tonight, but it the good part of it is we want to think well, too

This cultural audience to this time period to this wider culture, we want to be able to think well and connect with them about truth, and about the way we should live without giving up orthodoxy. So there's this all that, you know, churches everywhere have this internal turmoil and debate about how to how to reach the next generation, how to reach this generation, how to reach the young people how to reach anybody under 50. You know, that sort of thing. And it's because of these cultural shifts. So those are good questions to ask. They're important, because they're real.

There's another side to this, though, that really has altered the meaning of Christianity.

Where truth is something that's inward, again, it's experience oriented, we don't really do theology, we do social justice, that kind of thing that I'm not saying, Hey, Mike, you know, I don't want anybody going away and saying, Mike said, it's a good idea to treat people badly, you know, or Mike is just thrilled that we have all these social problems, and he just thinks they're great. Okay, that is not the point at all.

I'm not a believer, that it's a good thing that the church, hands over.

Ministry to people to the government.

That is a huge mistake. But that's really where we find ourselves. Someone else will take care of that problem, or that person. And our minds immediately go to welfare, some government program, put a label on it, there's something that exists for all of it. The church has abandoned

its responsibility in the world at that point.

But that is not an argument for not caring about doctrine. Okay, that is not an argument that we can just sort of set aside.

Because we assume people in our congregation are content intolerant, that we're not going to talk about theology, we're not going to do theology here, we're going to do works where, you know,

why does it have to be either a well, it's not an either or situation, or at least it shouldn't be. So that's not where I'm going.

What I want to go to, though, is, again, sort of the intellectual side of it, how in the world did we have this, this mind shift happened. And that brings us into this whole thing called post modernism. Now, I'm going to suggest you that there are two ways to look at this term. One is historical. The other one is where we're living right now.

And in the words of the great philosopher Boromir.

One does not simply define post modernism. So if you haven't seen the movie, this is just not effective. But who has not seen don't answer?

Okay? There's this thing about you can't really define post modernism, I get that I understand it, but I'm going to disagree with it a little bit, I think you can describe it. post modernism is a reaction against drumroll, please. Modernism, you say, Well, what's modernism? Well, modernism is the modern mind, well, what's the modern mind? And really, what it's reacting to, is not only the way

modern thought has sort of propelled Western culture, Western civilization, but also that Western culture assumed certain certainties. about life, about knowledge about reality about the way things are. So a person today, for some reason, again, we'll we'll see why really objects to the idea of scientific omniscience and human progress. These are myths to them.

Science can be wrong.

Science is not about truth. It is about discovering things that are real. But it's not omniscient. Nothing is nothing can be certain. human progress is an illusion. It's something we talk about that never happens. Truth propositions, there are no such things to the postmodern.

Nothing you can say is universally true.

It's not true in all times, in all circumstances, for all people, they reject that idea. Well, that idea is really core to Christianity, and Christian ethics. And so they reject religious Christian truth claims, you know, just

don't want to hear about it. Don't want to hear about it at all. What they're really shooting at is epistemic certainty. Epistemology is the study the philosophy of how we know things.

And so they're saying, Look, nobody can know anything with certainty, at any point, so don't talk to me about Jesus.

Don't talk to me about anything that will require

For me to say, this is true. And this other stuff, isn't

it just culturally, there's been a shift that has led to that point. This is not new. This is actually good news. This is not something that just sort of sprang up.

The term itself coined in 1979. That's new. But this has been happening really, since I would put it at the 16th century, the modern era, as we, as historians, if you went to take a college course in history have served the modern era begins after the Renaissance. Why is that?

It was in the 1500s that we have the age of exploration.

Europeans, getting in boats, crossing lots of stretches, you know, miles of water and discovering what

new worlds new people how they get there. Are they really even people?

Okay, that whole question.

The Age of Exploration wasn't just crossing the Atlantic, it was going to places like India,

China a little bit earlier than this.

It was only the late 1800s.

Mid, the late 1800s, where people really got a grasp of what happened in antiquity in Egypt, Mesopotamia. And that's because the languages were deciphered and translate. And we get to read what those people thought about creation, about how humans got here, about how old their own civilization was.

Okay, all of these sorts of things that really derive from the simple act of

war, mostly Europeans, in China with some part of this as well. But getting in boats and just going places and discovering things, bringing them back. And eventually, we uncover.

Here's the point, knowledge that isn't in the Bible.

Okay, think about where you are in Europe in the 16th century, this is the 1500s, you've had 1000 years or more of one institution telling you what is truth, the Catholic Church, okay. Now, you had a reformation in 1517. And there abouts, and little later in Geneva, Switzerland, and Scotland and some of these other places. So a little few bumps on the road, but it's still again, oriented around the Bible.

Key when you start discovering other things, and again, being able to read their own literature, their own primary sources, all this stuff, and this stuff ain't in there.

You know,

it creates a bit of a crisis.

What do we do? How do we look at the Bible anymore? How do we look at its truth claims? Its truth assertions?

How do we think rightly about it? Now, of course, if you didn't like the Bible to begin with, this is a great opportunity. It's like, Yeah, this is like ammunition. I've been waiting for this day. Now I'm going to use it to go shoot it at the Bible. Darwin sort of goes without saying Darwin publishes in the mid 1800s 1859 Origin of Species. Okay, that again, converges with again, some of the, the expansion, the explosion of all this knowledge that isn't in the Bible.

So that doesn't help. Again, when the Christian person stands up and says, this is true, this is not.

Okay. You also have little later on in the late 1800s, early 20th century, I have here in the notes Einstein and relativity versus Newton, do you realize this might sound foreign? But do you realize that

up until Einstein, or he's the one that gets credit for it, but up until the people working on

in theoretical physics, associated with Einstein in the, in the early 20th century, everybody thought that Newton had the, the way the universe ran nailed.

If you think back way, way, way, way back into your history of Civ course, you might have either in high school or college. You might remember the phrase clockwork universe.

That was Newton. Newton came up with mathematical formulas that explained everything you know, and astronomers were a big deal. They were the celebrities of the age because they figured out all sorts of things, you know, they this is why we were able to do navigation, you know, centuries prior to this mathematicians astronomers figured out based upon astronomy, how to detect your location at any given point.

on the globe, you didn't just go Google, you know, hey, where's Google Earth here? I'm lost in the Atlantic, okay, you don't do that.

Everything is based upon naked eye observation and math.

And they were the celebrities of their age. And Newton is sort of the capstone of all this. And so by the time you get to Newton, everything is figured out.

Well, not really. Einstein comes along and comes up with this crazy idea that things like space and time are relative

theory of relativity. And when he's right, and when other physicists start doing crazy things, like proving that, you know, something happens to this particle over here, and a million miles away that its counterpart, particle, distance doesn't matter. It's affected by this. And they're sort of connected, but there's nothing connecting them. But yet, that's what we see. That's just weird.

And modern cosmology, that spooky distance, you wanted to Google that you could look it up all sorts of really strange things that Newton could not explain and really couldn't even imagine.

And when that happen, people are like, Well, what else? Don't we know?

What else is uncertain? I mean, if even things like space and time are like, you know, could be this could be that.

What else is there just you got Darwin, in the life sciences. Now you got theory of relativity. And people are just wondering, how do we know what's real? And and not only that, but then they're going back to the Bible and saying, look, look at all this stuff, these guys are digging up,

you know, that they're proving that they're discovering, I don't see by the Bible talking about any of this stuff.

Fascism and nationalism.

I don't want to say too much about this. But basically, when you go through a few World Wars,

the phrase human progress doesn't mean a whole lot.

There was just again, this feeling that we're never going to sort of turn the corner, on,

utopia, or even really, people treating each other the way they ought to be treated. And some of that is an outgrowth of Darwin and some of these other things. Because once you start to lose the idea of the sanctity of life,

well, well, it's a statistic, you know, for progress. Lots of people have to die. It's just you know, it's life is tough survival of the fittest, all that kind of thing,

you know, just apply to humanity. So there are lots of forces going on, from, you know, within this thing we know is the modern world all the way into the 20th century. And the 20th century, is when all of these all this stuff starts to hit, you know, critical mass, and there's this shift.

Where really, if you're living in the mid 20th century and beyond,

you are post modernity just by being alive. Your world is not the world of people living a few 100 years ago,

they were certain about lots of things.

But now, lots of people are not certain about lots of things.

And you add to it, this thing we call the Internet,

where no law, you know, in the 1950s, if somebody had a religious or theological question, Who would they go ask, you know, Johnny comes home from school and says, Hey, you know, this popped into my head while I was studying. And I have this question. They're gonna ask mom or dad, maybe the grandparents or the pastor. Okay, those are the gatekeepers of knowledge

in a bygone era,

who are the gatekeepers of knowledge now?

Google, YouTube.

I mean, just the, these portals where yeah, you know, you you might stumble across something good there.

You go to my white website, you of course will.

But you, you find a really a lot of a lot of bad stuff, too. A lot of just either misinformed nonsense, or downright hostile material.

But those are the gatekeepers of knowledge.

And so there's this constant exposure and really overexposure

to ideas that are very much in the stream of our culture

that rejects things like certainties in anything that rejects the idea that there are true statements to make that are really true. They're always true.

People grow up

unaccustomed to that idea,

and, you know, as Christians, I mean, we can, you know, instruct our children, try to get, you know, get the point across the hey, there are some things that really are true and will always be true. And, you know, let's talk about some of those things in our churches and whatnot. But I think we've we've all all of us could probably come up with some anecdotal story

that

in our efforts to try to reach the culture, the unchurched culture

that we are,

or we can minimize the need to just think well,

about theology to think well about why we have different worldviews and to really sort of know kind of how to approach you know, someone who really just grew up in this

era, if we're not telling our people how to do that, or even that they ought to do it. That it's important. It's not just important that someone come to church and have a good time and meet somebody and form a relationship, you know.

Church should not be intentionally boring, okay, relationships should not be ridiculed and shunned, okay, I'm not saying any of those things. But if that's all that happens,

then you are forfeiting your status as a gatekeeper of knowledge to the people in your congregation. People you know, in church, people, you know, outside church, you are, you are just forfeiting that role. And, frankly, you're just telling them, I'll go YouTube it,

see what you find there.

It's just not a good thing. Now, what we're used to thinking again, is, hey, post modernism means things just aren't the way they used to be. That's true. But it's a lot more complicated than that, again, people have just, they're at the place where they throw off traditional religious ideas, they embrace evolution in some form. And I'm not saying that's a necessary evil, you know, if whatever evolutionary theory says is correct, rollin, then it's true, because why? Because this is the way God made the world, okay? I mean, I'm not here to argue about evolution, I know Christians, really good, committed Christians on all sides. And there's more than two sides of that debate. That's sort of incidental, because you can do that and still do theology.

But again, since that's a big part of our culture, you need to become conversant into what it says and what it doesn't say, and all that sort of thing. And again, embracing science that's just sort of feeds off uncertainty, where it's LED is that there's almost a militant skepticism in our culture today. And that's really what people get currently, if you go off to your college classroom, and your philosophy presser professor or someone else starts talking about post modernism, it's this extreme sort of radicalized skepticism and antipathy toward anyone else who's not skeptical. Anyone. I mean, you can talk about truth all you want. But if you claim to have discovered any, then you're like a target.

So that's where it's gone.

People today, at least many of them think that

only what is discoverable is true.

So they'll look at science and say, science is not synonymous with truth, but it detects truth now and again.

And so we need to pay attention to what science says because they're busy discovering things that are true. And it could be wrong. We can't assign omniscience and certainty to it. But it's trying to do the job. Whereas the look at theology, religion,

and saying basically, everything you people are saying is not discoverable.

You just have to sort of, believe it or not.

And when the debate is cast, and framed in that way, don't don't you just feel like

you know, so some of you are probably thinking, oh, yeah, maybe there's some truth to that. But don't think don't think that don't allow them to frame the debate that way. But I'm telling you, this is how it's framed.

Only that which is discoverable

by the human senses and human procedures, the rational mind, the tools of science. That's the only stuff that's true.

That in and of itself is a presupposition,

that is an assumption.

But this is why people are intellectually inclined in that direction.

Because they have been fed this idea.

It can only be true if it's discoverable by tools that we can actually

utilize and use people we call scientists. You know, we're not going to make the magician's anymore.

You know, we're not going to make them high priests and just say whatever you say is absolutely certain because you could be wrong. But you're at least trying to lead us to the right path, you're at least trying to do something that's discoverable. So when you when you go down that path,

that means theological ideas, ethical ideas,

that stem from a Judeo Christian worldview, which is really

sort of driven by the idea that there is a God

and that God has certain expectations of humanity.

And if God isn't discoverable through science, then they're going to say, Look, the bottom just fell out of what you believe. Because they frame the discussion that way.

There goes your ethics. Don't tell me that there's absolutes and ethics. Because God cares if you do this, or this or A or B, or x or y.

What you're saying that I need to believe it is not discoverable again, they're continually framing the issue that way. And pop culture drives people this way. Any movie that has the scientist as a hero, and the person who believes something that's not discoverable is the you know, the doofus, okay? Or the someone who just gets shown to be wrong in the end? That reinforces the idea.

Now, a lot of people are really forced into a decision then.

Is there a reality beyond science? Some will just say, forget it, no.

And they're going to be the atheist materialists kind of person.

There is no reality beyond the material world. And science is trying to figure out how it works. It's trying to discover it for us. That's it, draw the line right there. Then you have other people that say, Well,

I'm not really sure about that. And then you have to ask yourself, well, why aren't Why isn't that person? Sure? Why am I not sure why you person I'm talking to Why aren't you Sure. And in the old days, it would be something like, because the Bible tells me so or, because I read this in the Bible, or my pastor said this, or my penis isn't the way my parents taught me? Well, now, again, in the absence, we've had this, this cultural shift.

And this message has been beaten into the minds of so many.

If you're not an atheist, materialist, there are multitudes of people around you at work. And yes, even in your church, and in your own family, that the only reason they're not that is because of some experience they've had.

Or an experience that someone else has had that they know and trust.

It has nothing to do with rational, theological articulation.

They want to be spiritual. This is what people mean, when they talk about spirituality. I want to believe that there's something beyond this world. But I don't want a pope, or any religious authority telling me it is.

I'm just not interested in any authoritative teaching. What I'm interested in is my own experience, experience with someone else, something anomalous in life, that science really doesn't have, you know, nailed down, that convinces me that there's something else out there. And I'm going to do what I can maybe through meditation, maybe through reading, maybe through listening to lectures, or podcasts, I'm going to do what I can, to sort of learn about the mystery that's out there. And that's within so in other words, it gets what fills the gap

is not the notion of biblical authority.

It's not the notion of any authority, the authority to becomes

me, you.

Again, driven by experience and things that you can't explain and don't know that anyone else can. And so that that keeps you going. And for some people, it drives them and compels them to all sorts of really strange beliefs.

You know, later on tonight, you know, we'll get into some of those just what people sort of replace God with what they replace biblical authority with, because they don't want to just bag the whole thing. They don't want to think that when they die, that is just totally it.

They want to think that when they die something there's something else out there there is an after life

Unknown Speaker 34:59

but they

Michael Heiser 35:00

They reject the idea that the truth about this after life is in a book somewhere, or is it a religious authority because their culture has told them to reject that idea. And history, the transition out of the modern world into the postmodern world has trained them to reject that idea. But they still want it.

If I can, if I can rabbit trail here in biblical speak, it's the God shaped void in every human heart that Paul talks about in Romans one, that's what that is.

There's a sense, even if you can't define it, and you don't know what to fill it with, there's a sense that, you know, it's there.

You know, something's missing.

But again, the culture has sort of beaten, one answer out of you. And this is what people are left with again. And when you when you turn inward,

then what's right and wrong is really determined by you, and your circumstances. And you may have the best of motives.

But you know, maybe it's, maybe it's just time to end my marriage, maybe it's just time to do this or that, and maybe it's okay, if I steal a little bit here from the company. And you know, I don't really have any alternative. And I'll put it back. And I'll do this. And I'll do that. I mean, there's all sorts of ways to rationalize decisions. And maybe I'm doing it to give to somebody else, or I'm doing this thing that someone would call evil so that someone over here will benefit.

Again, your ethics just sort of gets contorted.

And that's pretty much what you're left with, you want the feeling of knowing God, whatever that is, or whoever that is. But you don't want any sort of discipline,

disciplining of your thoughts and your thought processes with this crazy notion of biblical authority.

That's, that bothers you

get a truth to the postmodern is individual and internal.

There's an appeal to experience into it sounds like Oprah, doesn't it?

Yeah. Oprah, Oprah, the systematic theologian, and this is this is from her textbook on theology.

It's from Eckhart Tolle textbook,

which was big in Oprah's book club. But this is where they're at. I mean, how many times have you heard this stuff? I mean, these are catchphrases. Now. They're buzzwords you hear them everywhere.

And don't you know, when you hear him don't think, Boy, this person is really a flake, or man, this person just is like, one brick short of a load, you know, don't think that what you should think is they're looking,

there's a void there, and they're searching.

They're trying to fill it.

I know what the Void is. And that's actually like, it should be a signal to you that this person is ripe for discussion. Even though they're, you know, they're gonna resist, they're gonna fight you the whole way. All that's we all know that that's true. But that person is ready for a discussion. Because they know something is missing.

You This is just people are trapped in that. So for the postmodern, the postmodern is someone not troubled by ambiguities, why?

Because they don't think anything is ever really true for sure.

You will not be able to

convince someone that their thought processes are incorrect and yours, what you're trying to tell them is, you have to lead them in such a way so that they draw their own conclusion.

Okay, this is why I say you must insist on coherence. Okay, you New Age, postmodern guy. I mean, I do this all the time on the radio, if any of you ever heard me do a radio interview, I do this all the time with people who ask questions. Well, Mike, you know, I think this, I read this thing on, you know, here's the next slide, you might have two degrees, but I read something on Wikipedia, you know, and I get these questions. And, and what I like to do is say what's kind of interesting, and I

said, you know, you know what I would need for me to abandon my position and adopt what you're saying,

I need this, I need this, I need this. And I need this and I need this.

If you can give me coherent reasons for why this makes sense to you.

Why this orders your world well.

Why this is coherent

in your life, and would make the world a better place.

And it would just make sense to everybody if they just discovered this thing you want me to build

Leave.

If you can give me the grocery list of the five or six things I need to come to your site, then you got me.

And if people really do that, you know what they what usually happens. And again, in my experiences, most of them won't do that, because they'll get about one question, and then they'll know like, oh, boy, I have no idea why I think that.

And then they're either that either scares them. And it's like, I don't want to talk to that guy anymore. You know, who's who's George nori having on next, you know, tomorrow night.

I don't want to talk to that guy anymore. Or it'll click.

And it might take more, it might take 1015 20 100 conversations, but just keep coming back to them. Well, I want to believe that you're a nice guy. You're a nice girl. You know, I don't think there's anything sinister going on here. Man, I'd love to believe that. But you know what, here's, here's where I stumble. I don't understand it for this reason, this reason, this reason, this reason this reason? Can you clear that up for me?

If you can, I'm with you.

I know that the five or six things that I gave them have no basis and rational thought.

I know that that's the dirty little secret. I know that what they believe cannot be proven through any real data. They believe it because it sounds good. They heard it somewhere. And it helped them feel good at a certain point in their life. That is why they believe it.

They don't believe it for any objective reason.

And so what I'm trying to get them to to stumble across is that fact. I don't know why I believe that. Just somebody said it on TV. And if you have a conversation with people, and they tell you that it's like,

well, I you know, don't take this wrong. But

do you believe everything you hear on TV?

I mean, do you believe everything that guy says like, does that work over here and over there? And I mean, I'm not trying I'm not suggesting you do this in a surreptitious deceptive way. Okay, because when I, when I try to do this to people, I'm being totally honest, if you really can do this,

if you can really provide the data for that and answers all these? Well, yeah, you when,

you know, I want to know.

What I'm suggesting to you is that don't shy away from people who oppose what you believe.

engage them in conversation, you will discover a lot about why people believe this stuff they believe.

Don't consider it a threat. It is not a threat, it is a step in the right direction. They want to have the conversation.

So don't get scared by post modernism, you know, now in our culture, what comes next? Well, if we're like the postmoderns, now, then what's going to happen next, what's already happening?

We're living in a post Christian Era, whether we like to admit it or not, that pretty much is where we're at.

We have lots of doctrine, less religion,

even in our churches, we have lots of faith talk. But we have very little doctrine. And when I think of doctrine, I think of people being able to explain why they believe what they believe.

With scripture. It's all doctrine is.

I am convinced, and not just because I got nearly 200 people looking at me here, which is, I mean, I'll be honest, I didn't expect to get 200 people. So I consider this a rebuke to me.

I do I do.

But But I will tell you this, even though even though I didn't expect a big audience, I am convinced that the average person in the pew is dramatically underestimated by pastors.

We assume that people have a low tolerance for content.

Okay, a lot of them do. I'll admit that. But a lot of them don't.

A lot of them, they can tell you the last time they got hit by content. They might not ever, they might not know what it feels like. But then when they when they do get hit by it. A lot of people don't reject it. A lot of people don't say, Well, that was a waste of time Sunday morning. A lot of people think like, wow, I never saw that before. That's really interesting. There's something here to think about. What do you know?

That's what I mean, again, by doctrine, just being able to,

to coherently explain why it is you believe what you believe. And yeah, it goes back to the Bible. And your question is, well, why do you believe that? Well, that you know, what, we'll talk about some of the presumptions the presuppositions that go with it.

Unknown Speaker 45:00

But

Michael Heiser 45:01

what I see in Christianity is basically you got you have three things happening. There's a resistance to the modern world as we know it, which is really the postmodern culture. And that's where I would put something like fundamentalism in there, sort of just a resistance to really engaging any of this stuff, and a lot of proof texting.

You know, as much as I think that's a flawed approach, I'm appreciative of it, because they're trying to hold on to something rather than just bagging it. So I can appreciate that. Some want to challenge modernity, again, the the culture, and this is also a good thing, even though it creates turmoil

within churches, you know, just try to you know, what's the best way to, to build bridges to people who come and visit our church are people out there that are, you know, our church members meet, what's the best way to do that. We want to do that we might have to change the way we do certain things. But we're not giving up the identity of the faith, we're not going to do that. We're drawing a line there. But we need to think creatively about how to do what we do, and also how to articulate

what it is, we believe, maybe do a better job of that. That's good. But then you have another group that basically they acquiesce. And they they

pardon the pun, they have a facade of Christianity,

about them, but it's unrecognizable. When you get to talking about what it is they really believe.

I want to focus on these two and really, mostly the last one in what's left of this session. And as we keep going,

both strategies, let me go back, both those who want to challenge modernity and keep orthodoxy and those who

have abandoned orthodoxy, they both use the term emergent.

And that's again, a problem for lots of people because you go and visit churches, you talk to other Christians, you don't quite know where they're at.

Again, the bad part of it is you define the faith out of existence. And what you're left with, is you're left with what I would call evangelical paganism.

I don't mean paganism. Like we all dress up in Rhodes robes like druids and we, you know, lay look, is this is, is this the year that the church is going to start that annual trip to Stonehenge, and then we all get to dance around? And I'm not talking about paganism like that.

I'm talking about paganism in the sense that truth is now something that is internal truth is found by connecting ourselves and appreciating nature. Truth is found in relationships and appreciating the synchronicities of light. I hate that term, by the way, synchronicities because you know what, you know what it is, it's a replacement for Providence. Okay, I hate that term, because that's out of my system now.

But, but this is what it is. It's all this sort of relational mumbo jumbo stuff. And then we have to throw in the name of Jesus in here in there so that people like don't don't conclude that we're not really Christians anymore. And that's what you're left with.

I see too much of that happening, as well. Yeah, we replace again, activism with doctrine. Now.

I want to say before we wrap up, I want to say a couple of things that don't want to leave you hanging about just addressing the criticisms of post modernism. And the way it sort of attacks.

Really thinking the way it sort of attacks, yes, traditional Judeo Christianity, but also some of its claims. Now, I would

just try to make this a little a little practical.

I'll just jump in. You might have to pardon myself with a few illustrations here, but I think they're good.

I would say, first of all, that the whole notion that you're going to meet many people out there again, don't tell me that something is true, and other things are not true. That's just not fair. It's not good. It's not politically correct, whatever you want to call it.

The idea that everything is uncertain, to denial of certainty, is self defeating in life.

It's unlivable. No one lives like that.

That I can't believe what I'm hearing. I can't believe what you're saying. Because there's no such thing as certainty. No one believes that no one really lives it. Communication is impossible if that's where you're coming from.

I would say illustration.

Show me the postmodernist who walks into the hairdresser

and doesn't assume that what they're asking for you to do to their hair.

or is understood.

Okay, when you go into the hairdresser and say, hey, I want this and that the other thing, you assume that your communication to that person is just fine. And you assume that they hear it, and you feel certain that they hear it. And you're okay with that.

How many people walk into their urologist

and say, hey, you know, your doctor, you know what, I'm what I'm here for? Procedurally, they never, I would doubt that you could find anyone that thinks that they're going to come out with something other than what they get went in with. Okay, but if you're a postmodern, this is what you're asked to believe. You're asked to believe the communication, successful communication, accurate communication is just impossible. Or it's so hopelessly uncertain. And I can't successfully interpret anything. You know, I'm not omniscient, so I'm just going to throw it all out. You don't live that way. You don't live that way. When you go to a restaurant, you don't live that way. When you discipline your kids. You don't live that way. When you fill out your tax form. You don't live that way. When you when you call the helpline, and you know, some appliance, you know, that doesn't work. No, buddy lives this way.

But it sounds so good.

You know why? Because no one no one will admit they're omniscient, because you're not. We all know that we're not omniscient. So well, he's right. I can't really know everything. So I guess I shouldn't believe anything. That's what post modernism asks you to believe. It's insane.

It just doesn't conform to reality, as every person knows it to be.

So the whole assumption is just dumb. I wouldn't say that to a postmodern person. I've tried to find a better way to say that. But the whole thing is just dumb. It's unlivable. So imperfect interpretation is livable. Requiring omniscience or total certainty is just not.

I think it's the either or fallacy on steroids, you know that? Again, without omniscience I can't know anything.

And I shouldn't act like I can know anything for sure. And I should just say whatever anybody says, is equally good.

Really.

I mean, to get ever go through not even 24 hours, you ever go through like two hours of your day think really living that out?

You don't No one does.

So I would put it this way, just because we don't know everything doesn't mean that we don't know anything.

To conclude otherwise. Again, I would. If it's bad, Mike, he would say,

go ahead and show me that.

You know, I want to see you live that out for just an hour.

But if I'm in a better mood, it's like, look, have you really thought about what this asks you to believe and how it asks you to live?

It, it just doesn't work.

And not only that, it's just not necessary. When you're when you go home and your spouse tells you that he or she loves you. Do you quake with fear?

Because you're a postmodern person?

Do you sit there and think well, I can't I can't just can't No,

I can't No, maybe I should just divorce. Go live on an island somewhere where it's just me.

It's just absurd. But this is really what the whole approach asks you to accept.

Because you can't know everything, then you can't know anything.

It's unlivable. It's really what it comes down to.

So as far as religious claims go,

I would say that religious claims, pick any any any one from any religion, they can be tested, okay? They're not discoverable with the tools of science. We didn't dig that up. We didn't put it under a microscope, but they can be tested for coherence.

So let's test yours.

Let's test my we're gonna play fair here.

Which one makes more sense? You know, you get theism and very specific ideas that extend from it.

What we believe is actually really simple.

We believe things like okay, what makes more sense that there's a God or not.

And we're not talking about oh, is it 24 hour day creation? Is it day age, create

Who cares? Okay.

Does it make more sense to have a God or not?

Unknown Speaker 55:06

Well,

Michael Heiser 55:08

you know, I would say, of course that it does. And I have reasons for saying that it does things that can be tested ideas that can be tested.

But you could do something like this.

You know, the person you're talking to says, Well, I just, I think it makes more sense that we don't have a God. Well, why?

Well, look at look at science, this is always where the conversation is gonna go. Look at science. Well, can you explain to me?

And this is a real question. I'm not going I'm not poking people in the eye. What's a serious question? Can you explain to me why there are

1000s. Today, maybe even 10s of 1000s of scientists who went to the same universities, as the scientists, you like that? Don't believe any of this don't believe in God, they went to the same universities.

They had the same professors, they have the same degrees, they write for the same journals, they belong to the same academic societies. And yet they draw a different conclusion.

Can you explain why that is?

I mean, think about the limited number of answers that person has now. Well, I just don't believe that. Well, you know, walk them down to the to a Christian university and introduce them to the physics faculty. Okay. I mean, any number of places you can go? And yeah, there are that many. Because if you go to the American scientific affiliation, or the Council of Christian colleges and universities and look up all the schools that belong to that, and there's a few 100 of them, and let's say they each have, you know, I don't know, 10 scientists in all the fields of the sciences do the math. Okay. It really is that many?

It really is, it's easy for me to quantify my assertion.

Well, I just don't believe that it just Well,

that isn't really an answer. I already know what you believe and don't believe but what I want you to do is explain why this is the case.

Well, they're all lie.

Can you show me the study that verifies that?

Can you provide me empirical and scientific proof for that?

Show me your work.

Show me the data.

It is not adequate for you to just tell me you believe something.

The fact that you can articulate it does not make it true.

I want to know why you are parked on this idea.

Can you show me that?

Unknown Speaker 57:59

You know,

Michael Heiser 58:00

another question? Why is it that we've been discussing this question, you know, for millennia, but even in the modern era, and the postmodern era, and you still have lots of people

that believe that it makes more sense that there's a God than not.

Why is that? So the point is, if you can't empirically explain that, then you either have to be honest or dishonest, the honest answer is, well, the alternative, the view that I want them to embrace might be true.

It's on the table.

The dishonest answer is just to walk away.

Once you believe there's a God, what can God like do anything. I mean, if we believe in a God, and we talk about creation, and there's lots of scientists that believe God is creator, again, regardless of evolution, or whatever, there's there there, you know, some really famous ones too. So we have to assume that this God can do stuff and that he's like, actually interested in doing stuff. So is it possible that he could like look at humanity and sort of influence somebody to write something down today?

Or prepare them for their lie, you know, throughout their lives? For a moment when he can use another person or the spirit to prompt them to write something down? I'd like it preserved for posterity.

It may sounds kind of squirrely to somebody living 2000 years from now that's okay. Get it down.

Can kind of God do that? mean I can do that. Okay. I can influence somebody to write something down.

With these these are really simple ideas. Could a Creator God become incarnate

if he has power over creation can

Did he resurrect someone who's dead? Even if it's him incarnate while he exists somewhere else? Could he do these things?

Again, it's a simple set of ideas.

And until you can topple the first one,

you really don't have anything.

So again, this might be post modernism when you go through it. It sounds kind of impressive, like they really got Yeah.

You know, and the only reason that they you feel that way is because you know that you you, you don't know everything.

So you feel like you gotta go along for the ride you don't.

The fact that you don't know everything doesn't mean that you don't know anything.

No one lives that way.

Ask people to show you their work. Ask people to tell you how they live out what they believe.

And again, don't don't be nasty about it. You're not trying to poke them in the eye.

Get them to explain it to you.

And probe them a little bit. Ask them questions, have a conversation.

I have to confess I have no idea what time it is. So I'm going to end there.