This conversation brought tears to my eyes throughout. It's probably the best video Marcas ever put up on his fantastic channel.

Ooh exciting! Thanks, Paul. Looking forward to this! 😄🙏

Just listened to this conversation over my morning coffee and was delighted to find that I had a few moments spare to listen to your impressions. The world has gone mad but God is at work in the hearts of all who truly seek Him. Heart warming and encouraging. Thanks, Paul!

Great shout referencing Bill McClay, Paul! I asked Tom Holland if he'd be up for a chat with McClay but he didn't know who he was. It's a shame as that would be a magnificent conversation. Bill is a wonderful historian.

Re 19:14 - My event with Jonathan Pageau, Martin Shaw, and Paul Kingsnorth is in Dublin in June, Paul. :) Not Benburb Priory this time.

I really loved this talk and wish some of my friends I shared it with were able to enjoy it as much as this corner does.

Trusting the water when you don't know how to swim. I'm still in the shallows but what a great conversation between two incredibly sane and eloquent souls (I listened to the full podcast after this, as Paul recommended).

This was such a brilliant discussion - brilliantly hosted by Marcus. I feel very much like Tom Holland - a british teeterer? He asked many of the questions I'd like to ask Paul Kingsnorth. Kingsnorth seems to have had the 'believing gene' for some time and has been searching for a true place to point it. I'm more like Tom, I know where I want to point it but I'm desperately searching for the gene. Off to buy THE PILGRIM’S REGRESS - thanks for a great commentary Paul.

I'm currently writing my story. Exploring my past has me feeling like a molting lobster outside a shell. This discussion and your additions are helping sorry and sift in so many ways. The part of the discussion on faith blew me away. PVK, your distinction of enchantment and apocalypse framed the interaction so well. When I came back to Christ I experienced extended moments of rapture that were far better than any of my psychedelic happenings. I was taken behind the veil. Sometime later, the feelings faded and the tests came. Would I continue trusting and seeking even when I couldn't see or feel God? I was longing for enchantment.

Started to make a clip distillate of this and fell into listening :)

Big respect to Marcus (sp?). A lot of people’s pride would’ve pricked them as the host to get their voice in from time to time. He was wise enough to let a good thing unfold. Well done!

Thank you Pau, your l commentary was wonderful. I've been exploring the possibility of Eastern Orthodoxy, from the context of Northern Ireland, so this has been helpful. Blessings from Ireland.

Thanks for the commentary Paul. You'll be pleased to know we have an Estuary group running now off the back of your event at Benburb and we were all hoping you'd do a video in this one. The event Marcus has arranged with Pageau, Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw in June should be really great. Maybe another commentary on that one if you have time!

"Slip in where there are a few but the real thing is going on" sums up why I'm here listening! Thank you Paul for the videos.

The Bible as a "mansion with many rooms and each ones contains a key to the other room." Or as Peterson says, a hyperlinked text cross referencing itself.

Rene Girard really helped me with the “True” part. The necessity and impact of Christian belief on human behaviour. Without it we fall back into sin and the pagan world. In many ways we are there already.

People should treat politicians the way Christianity is treated in England ;)

Defo watch the whole thing on Marcas’s More Christ Channel, lovely convo 🙏

"Like some kind of computer game, the key to one room is in another room" Yep. Obsessing about one passage when it's contradicted by other passages has gotten us into a lot of trouble over the years, and still is now.

The issue really boils down to Paul saying "We preach Christ crucified". In the modern day, we are COMPLETELY divorced from the cultural shock significance of this. This simple reality is that the verse that says that such a thing is "madness to the greeks, romans, jews, etc" just simply doesn't apply to us. It applied to the first century, but not to us. The great service Tom has accomplished is to help us reconnect with the shock and horror of the proposition of a "god crucified and then resurrected". The psychological shock of this was so profound in the first century, but that "shock and awe" has completely worn off for us, hence the "nominal christianity" we see everywhere. If modern Christians can't reconnect with the truth of this, that spells trouble.

It's the journey, not just the destination. It's your adventure into the unknown.

Martin Shaw is a kooky dude, very similar to Paul Kingsnorth in the new agey journey through life, followed by mystical conversion. He is very interesting and his moment of conversion story sounds like the miracle everyone dreams of.

Thanks, Paul. Definitely going to watch the original, so exciting!

As usual, listening to this via your perspectives adds a lot that I didn't get listening to it directly. Thank you!

Thanks Paul.

Thanks Paul!

I love your understanding of 'piercing our armor' and how God does so for each one of us in an individual way. It's so true -- it's why I became a Christian. And everything after that has been, like Paul, trying to justify or at least figure out what the heck happened. My question as of late: For those we love who are struggling, is there anyway we can help God find a way into their hearts?

Thanks for the commentary!!

It's strange how I used to read Holland and think just how Christian his perspective seemed at times and dropped the odd prayer for him. He is a great historian and I hope he finds the truth. Even though I am not myself a Christian I appreciate his honesty.

35:10 “if you can’t swim, trusting yourself to the waters.” Walking on water. Faith. Yep. And you’ll never learn to swim or walk on water, until you do it. That’s how EVERYTHING works. Being (life) vs having (control/fear/scarcity)

Great video Paul! Your old videos covering Dallas Willard and his worldview/spiritual life definitely played a part for me getting a feeling of the heart on my journey to Orthodoxy. His book The Spirit of the Disciplines helped me a ton on the heart side and his worldview lectures opened my intellect. Just wanted to post something from a book called Aristotle East and West to try and explain what that monk means by the approach of the heart in the east vs intellect in the west. This comes down to the essence/energies distinction that you’ve heard of. We see this specifically in the defense of the hesychasts by St. Gregory Palamas vs Barlaam in the west who denied this and took the western scholastic approach. “What particularly aroused Barlaam’s wrath, was the use of certain bodily methods of prayer. The hesychast method consisted of sitting with the head bowed so as to gaze upon the area of the heart., breathing slowly and with as little depth as possible saying “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” The purprose of this exercise is to lead the intellect (nous) back to the heart so that the prayer would be the act of the act of the whole and undivided person.” There’s a lot more to explain of the history of this but the east has the apophatic approach but the general idea is to move the intellect to the heart for protection. This purifies the human person, enlightens the nous, and begins theosis. Barlaam disagrees with using the body and since God is beyond being he can only be approached by purifying the mind of concepts. Orthodoxy rejects this by showing the mind needs to be moved first to the heart since it has been corrupted by the senses. Basically it’s foolish to think clearing your mind alone will allow you to connect with God. Palamas won this and Barlaam was condemned at Constantinople 1341.

it was a delightful video - a shame it couldn't have gone on longer!

31:08 - it’s not a punishment it’s the result of being impatient and rushing to the next level without understanding (Aaron’s sons). They are warned " for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die" following which "Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they perceived that they were naked..." this is the description of birth - the fall from walking in the garden with god (divine consciousness - pre birth ) to self consciousness.

Hi late to the conversation Regarding the swimming analogy, DC Shindler in his conversation with Vervaeke makes a similar remark. He refers to a specific person (Was either Kant or Hegel) wanting to learn how to swim before getting in the water

Tom really seems to be on the doorstep, with the door open before him, just needs to take that final step of faith.

I know..., sitting on the graas, looking to the Neckar, in the sunny silber of a road, like a could...

Holland's office is always so dark

Tom Holland is such a lovely man, and my heart breaks for him (and for myself, in the same boat) because he's hoping that someone like Paul Kingsnorth, who seems to have figured out how to unlock the doors, might be able to give him one of the keys. Where's our near-death exprerience? Where's our Tim York moment of overwhelming realization that it's "all true"? (one of my favorite randos, by the way). We want it so much but we don't get to have it. Paul Kingsnorth has been my lifeline in the last year or so, explaining the culture of inversion and the Machine, how we ended up here and what we might be able to do about it. He's convinced me to spend much less time paying attention to politics and much more time on things that are more worthwhile and enduring. All for approximately 5 dollars a month (depending on the exchange rate). What a deal. And Marcas is such a gem for bringing these two together. This was even better than Pageau and Shaw.

Just found your video, very much enjoy this content. I'd be curious what you think of the Sovereign Nations conference called Mere Simulacrity

Not the Tom Holland I was expecting 😅

15.16 Nathe Hyles? I could not quite catch the name.

We have gone from the Salem Witch Trials to The Witches Of Eastwick ;-( I was raised secular as a small child and took the opposite trajectory over the last 60 years.

Tom needs "a shot of love" to become "property of Jesus"!

“Out of the head and into the heart” would not have been a normative thought before the 1960s. That’s a quote from Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894), by the way

That strange persistence of guilt piece is good

Nothing is like orthodoxy Paul. Not any version of Protestantism. It is not chaotic at all.

Another explanation that I’ve heard about the difference between the East and the West is: The Western church is about self assertion, whilst the Eastern church is about self emptying.

Maybe a slightly unusual way of framing the genesis myth but it could be that when the language faculty emerged in evolution (the thing that makes us distinct from any other species since we can construct an infinite number of linguistic propositions or ideas) we then made an infinite number of ideas, the thing that makes us distinctively human therefore can separate us from communion with the devine. This could be an evolutionarily plausible account for how the genesis myth is true, idk

Quizzes is spelled with two z's. I wasn't sure if this title was even English at first

I have the same reservation as Tom Holland. If God loves all His creation, why would he postpone His incarnation leaving out pre-Christians from the knowledge of Him? From a contemporary perspective, much of humanity still has very low exposure to Christianity. Is this commensurate with the love of God?

It was apocalyptic for Kingsnorth too, but in a very different way. That's why he went nuts for global warming activism.

Kingsnorth is seeking the Kabbalah (tradition) of Bereshit (Genesis) and Holland is seeking the Kabbalah of Merkavah (Ezekiel). There are plenty of mystics in the Post-1000 Western tradition ... De Imitatione Christi of Thomas à Kempis or Lectio Divina of Ignatius of Loyola.

Read the Bible like an escape room

"Believing this, it's like trusting yourself to the waters" This, from the man who has outlined at least as well as anyone how Christianity is the rock that our civilization is built on?

If anyone remembers, one of the first things I said in the charismatic Christianity convo with PVK, Nate and Sarah, was how surprised I was upon reading Life of Moses by the lack of novelty I experienced. As I had had similar analogical preaching of the OT in my charismatic service experiences. (This is not to compare Gregory to a contemporary Pentecostal preacher.) And in this vid PVK you make a similar point: that the novelty Kingsnorth describes experiencing upon being welcomed into Orthodoxy has sort of been around evangelicalism for a while. Again, I’m NOT comparing Orthodoxy to charismaticism, I just continually find myself hearing a sort of apologetics of novelty that doesn’t hold up.

27:25 if you listen to king's store snory

Does this all end with a marriage between the west and east? Christ and anti-christ united? Light and dark? Is Christianity being reborn? This was a lot of fun Paul!

Not sure if I heard the following metaphor on this channel, but it's worth repeating: We in the West, and especially in the UK, are immune to Christianity because we were inoculated with a weak version of it through the culture. Actually, I think i heard it on the The Sacred podcast. 😊

First!!! Good morning Paul

Around the 7 minute mark, interesting observation but I don’t think that’s quite it. Paul seems to have experienced and believed in the enchantment, but was seeking its source. Tom I think has always experienced the enchantment as well. The modernism comes in because he holds it at arm’s length as something that can’t necessarily be believed.

Christ: “pick up your cross and follow me.” Dostoevsky: “suffering is the source of all consciousness.” Truth.

If myth is a superposition of all stories, why is it so jarring to Tolkien (and the rest of us) to see Father Christmas in Narnia? What is proper separateness, and what is proper oneness?

It's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of recognition. JBP shows millions what's in plain sight through Jung and evolutionary biology.

13:21 - This, to me, is such an interesting narrative that I hear a lot of Eastern Orthodox people say, especially if they're converts. I think it's a little too convenient and ignores groups like the Oriental Orthodox, Miaphysitists, Arians, etc. Catholics also tell this narrative to some degree, but tend to set "Year Zero" at Reformation Day.

Mornin paul.

At 28:30, I think the Orthodox would view this as God #2, not God #1. God’s energies fill all things, which is his direct work in sustaining the world.

Listening to the original conversation now. Early on they throw around the idea that Dominion is centered around, with similar vibes of what John Vervaeke says, about everyone in the West rejecting Christianity on Christian grounds and how we are still running on the cognitive grammar of Christianity even today. I’ve found myself enjoying that perspective, but I’m starting to wonder if it conflicts with another narrative I’ve also come to resonate with and that’s Jonathan Pageau’s idea of Christianity being the most true story, where other stories are but fractals of it. Paul Kingsnorth comes back to this towards the end and talks about the ancestors of Christianity, such as the Greeks. But wouldn’t that suggest then that Christianity doesn’t “own” the morals that the West has largely operated on, and when the atheist says “I don’t need Christianity in order to be good” they may be on to something?

As the story in Genesis is told, Adam/Eve were tricked into eating from the tree of knowledge before they were prepared for it, and were therefore expelled as punishment. But how does one become prepared for how to handle the knowledge of good and evil without having this knowledge. Was the "plan" a form of gradual awakening to knowledge, which unfortunately went awry, or is our exile from paradise simply a part of an educational plan, a kind of preparation to be able to return and for the first time really know (self-consciously) that we are in paradise .

"The idea that the solution to the problems caused by technology is more technology, is like saying the solution to a flood is more water - no that's going in the wrong direction" "Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink" Technology really does solve a lot of problems, and those problems will only come back if we get rid of technology, so going back along that path makes no sense. A better solution? Ask people with a more human set of priorities, who are working on a different path entirely -- the housewives and the mothers.

"Hunted by Christ." Yes. Seems that the pandemic was one of His hounds for many of us

28:20 so would you say your God #1/2 distinction bears similarity to the Orthodox essence-energies distinction ?

I wish TH had asked PK to unpack "you just have to believe". From other things they've said, they both know that the harder you try to believe something, the less real it seems. Eg. in this convo, PK says it was more believable because he didn't want it to be true. If "living as if it's true" isn't good enough, how about "deciding to assume it's true"?

Ahhhh! Why does everyone deny the creation story! It’s so aggravating!! Especially from the orthodox? Ever heard of a hexemaron? St basils? It’s so annoying “religion of the heart” except for the beginning.

Grey Havens.❤😉

Rabbi Lord sacks thumbnail?? Have you read his books Paul ??

For an Eastern Orthodox account of the original state of creation which is closer to the early Fathers and traditional Orthodoxy (as against the modernist adherents who have swallowed the Darwinian lie), look at the book by Fr. Seraphim Rose "Genesis, Creation and Early Man".

Yes, the sweet blessings of living in Christian England. No crucifixion of course. "The official punishment for treason in England from 1283 to 1867 was drawing and quartering. “Drawing” apparently referred to dragging the prisoner to the place of execution, either behind a horse or on a sledge. The traitor was then hanged, but not to the point of actually dying. No, more was to come: Cut down, the semi-hanged prisoner got to watch himself being disemboweled and see his own entrails burned. Finally, he was beheaded and then “quartered”-his body cut or ripped by horses into four parts, one limb to a quarter." Fryxell, David A.. Good Old Days My Ass . Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

How did the Orthos steal our Reformed Evangelly language, PVK??

@Paul vk As a Christian I truly don't understand my white privilege, my wealth privilege, my etc privilege. All that I am and have is a gift from God. (What have we that we did not receive?) Seems to me all the manipulative guilt tripping is anger against God taken out against the privileged, while sanctimoniously ignoring God, or, mischaracterizing God's ways and his Character. This is not to say that the privileged shouldn't concern themselves with the less privileged, because after all were all created in the image of God. But, even then there is a hierarchy of kingdom concerns under which Christians especially are bound.

Is Tom stuck in the Propositional?

46:00 mystical faith is fundamentally relational, not rationalistic (I have all these opinions about facts and info that I’m never gonna change.)

Tom Holland's first sentence "...even those who sit in judgement are not perfect..." Let's distinguish between debate and judgement...and judgement of arguments ( logical fallacies, bad historical-philosophical construction, etc. etc. ) and judgements of people. And assessments of people...how their actions strike us, what seems to motivate them ( like Marxist ideology...Nietzschean resentment...wokey academic indoctrination...anyone? ). The goose and the gander, once again. The kettle and the pot. Like MMA or poker , debate is a battle...ruthlessness is not unheard-of or unexpected or unwarranted. When the game is over, after the final bell in the octagon it is very common for combatants to embrace and praise the other's determination and grit. Or you have the Mc Gregor/ Khabib fiasco of extracurricular assault , mass melee for which people could legally have been put behind bars. But, you know...Vegas and money and all. The live debates were not a tea party. Stop snowflake crying about people playing too rough in the octagon of intellectual battle. The extended real-life consequences only touch on whether we shall remain a constitutionally run democracy or some form of one-man rule...women still in the workforce or pushed into the non-public domestic realm...Presidential politics ( now mulyiplr candidates for SCOTUS are running to be interviewed by JBP...maybe a new gate-keeper of conservatism ? ). Quoting PVK " we're all big boys and girls in here." Magic speech, fudgey English confuses legit battling in an exchange of ideas with personal condemnation , the sort of which flies in the face of the Biblical injunction against judging one another, as Paul laid out ( Bible Paul ). Snow-flakes, quit snow-flaking. There's no crying in baseball.

Why are you videos so quiet? Compared to other channels, it seems yours is very low volume. I thought it was my headphones or speakers etc. It isnt.

16:55 “I can only understand if I…listen carefully to people…” Idk, Paul. How do we understand properly? This gets very little attention in the post-scholastic, modern mode of seeking understanding: 1) the medium is the message and all that means & space & initiation being necessary to understanding. This is all personal. What does it mean to really know someone? Can you know someone just through talking to them about ideas or even their stories? I don’t think so. That’s only part, and I would say a small part, of knowing someone. The knowing facts and information, constructive mode of “knowing” is an illusion. But you can’t reason with a rationalist that rationalism (scholastic knowing) is irrational. 🤷🏼‍♂️ And I keep trying. Oh the irony.

32:00 “to become a Christian is to accept that it’s a myth that’s true.” No. Or depends on what you MEAN (personal, not merely objective) by “true”. This is Downriver Scholasticism at work.

As much as Protestants like to think they are the ones with more heart when you say after someone dies “well I think he was a believer, I think he professed his faith, or I don’t think he was baptized but I don’t think he was atheist” you can clearly see all they do is think their way into heaven

I have been seeing here and there people saying that they converted to orthodoxy or protestantism or catholicism when they have been Christian all the time, just under different church. I find it weird to use the word "convert" in these stories. Really weird.

mulyipil...that was supposed to read "multiple".

11:25 Tom:Was the east split from the west good? Kingsnorth:Yes and no i suppose. Is this not the answer of this corner of the internet? Is this not were all of us are trying to get to this superposition found only in the critical modern enlightenment thinkers. started by Hegel and brought to a head in thinks Zizek who peterson was so perplexed by and John Vervaeke. Paul please look into have a conversation with og rose youtube channel/ Daniel gardner. Who is doing estuary basically with his net conversation every week. a wonderful cs Lewis Scholar who even rivals you in his knowledge but also great knowledge in hegelian Christian thinking.

I remember the moment when God injected into my marrow the knowledge that the bible is real and true!

Yeh, what about, do you have something t' say?

These guys are on to something … because they speak with British accents :) When a Brit says something is ‘nonsense’ it must be nonsense .

Science and progress are too scary! Let's go back to the "good old days" 381-1450 CE! LOL! "The rationalist, however, can respond by pointing out that the preference for using reason and not faith as a justification for beliefs is not assumed but rather justified by facts which even religious people cannot deny, namely, the significant advances in human well-being, progress, and happiness made possible by the use of reason, especially over the last four hundred years or so, and unmatched by faith." Schoenig, Richard. Where Christianity Errs: A Fair and Clear Philosophical Assessment (p. 75). Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

I don't see much difference in a westerner choosing to become a buddhist or becoming an orthodox. Both are more "exotic" and cool, The really cool choice would be to go to the "boring" church that you think you already know and decide to commit to it no matter what. Stop church shopping tourism and come to the real home that has been home all the time. Home is often messy and there is a stale smell and something sticky on the kitchen floor. Start from opening the window and wiping the sticky stain off.

"How do you get rid of that feeling of guilt, with white guilt and such" The point of embracing Wokism doesn't seem to be about getting rid of the guilt, though. It's weird. It's a twisting of total depravity and the inadequacy of works righteousness. It's all accuser, no savior. Post-Christian, post-Christ?

The idea that our culture is soaked through with moral and political assumptions whose unacknowledged source is Christianity, for which Holland makes such a good case in Dominion, seems at odds with the idea (which he expresses towards the end here) that Christianity has now become countercultural. Presumably it is Christianity considered as a dogmatic theology - or as a spiritual discipline? - which is considered countercultural, while the aspects of it which have formed modern society are the ethical values, specifically the valorisaton of the poor and downtrodden. But the spirituality and theology are meant to provide some sort of grounding for the values, aren't they? So how can they be countercultural if the culture has adopted the values that they ground? I ask this not because I reject either of the ideas in question, - both seem very plausible to me - but they do seem to be in tension with one another. Would it perhaps be more accurate to say that it is only a very restricted subset of Christian values which have been adopted by our culture, which in the absence of the rest do not really cohere or make sense, while other Christian values remain wholly inimical to it: in other words, that our culture's values derive from a partial and truncated understanding of Christianity - that they constitute a very modern form of Christian heresy?

status, not stars

I can't think them because I'm not them. Universals reavls its self thru particulars. Dang it God allowing yourself to come thru degraded humans. Wait you don't see us as degraded 😒

Tom Holland strikes me as intelligent enough to go to church for months or years before mentioning it publicly

As someone who's Orthodox, I've never liked the over-simplistic answer, often given to intelligent converts in the west, that the difference between east and west is the dichotomy of spirituality vs rationality. Just read the eastern church fathers; they were hardly fideists. In fact, most Pentecostals today would call them rationalists. Where the western church went wrong, according to Eastern theologians of the 10th to 15th centurties, seems to be: 1) Papal supremacy 2) Addition of the filioque to the creed 3) Denial of the essence-energy distinction 4) Purgatory 5) Eucharistic unleavened bread 6) Banning beards Some of these issues may seem trivial compared to others, but this is what Eastern theologians wrote about during the high middle ages, not heart vs head.