Live Dividing Line at ReformCon 2022!

Christian Nationalism, the Church of England, and the Need for Regeneration

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. We are at ReformCon 2022. I will confess that I Really didn't know what to expect. I did not know how many people were gonna be here or from where or anything like that at all and It's a really nice venue and so far.

We've been having a lot of fun. Hopefully we'll be having some. In fact, we have a guest coming right now. In fact to join us, but I've already spoken this morning, which means everyone has gotten their nap and are rested up now that I'm out of the way and.

But we have some other folks that haven't spoken yet and come on in brother. We're we're we're doing it we're doing things live here and One of the folks that will be speaking I think primarily tomorrow tomorrow.

Greetings and welcome and let's turn the no this this camera here. There you go. Should be familiar to the audience of The Dividing Line except you're normally sitting on a flat panel screen. And in fact, I I don't think we've had you on from England yet.

You haven't been over there all that long.

No, just a couple of months actually. Yeah, I mean that is home. It is home. Yeah. Yeah, so.

Honestly, where would you rather be England or Canada?

Well, let's just say I'm I'm glad at this stage in my life with my family to be back in England. Okay.

With with your World Economic Forum Prime Minister. And and your digital currency and yeah, it's it's all. Anyway, we won't go into the depressing things right now even though one of the funniest things I saw was a book that has yet to come out about the rise to power of Liz truss and the authors are like Getting ready to jump off a bridge or something like that.

Because that didn't really Know even though she's got quite the nice pension. Yeah. What is it?

140 something. Yeah somewhere in the region of her. Yeah, if you've been Prime Minister you get this. Oh, I think it's about a hundred and ten, maybe a hundred and seven. That's yeah. Especially because she's not that old.

I think there is a question mark over whether she's gonna accept it being the shortest serving Prime Minister. I think she has a legal right to it. Well, she probably does. She probably does. Yeah, so.

And I'm very thankful that you were able to join us after your period of mourning for the Queen. You know, I actually you know when I heard about it, I've been thinking for a long long time. That's I just I I thought she was most classy world leader around.

There was a level of stability there, you know when you think of 70 years is a long time fairly fair amount of time and The king I could ask you lots of interesting questions about theologically and Just real quickly.

I heard confirmed for me whether this turn up Bishops in the Church of England. The new Prime Minister has a role in help in in actually in Picking them with the king. Is that true the most senior bishops?

Yeah, okay, like the Archbishop of Canterbury the the Prime Minister does have a does have a role and the Prime Minister is a Hindu. That is now correct. Yes. In fact, I think he was just I think I just saw that he hosted some sort of yes a celebration at Downing Street.

Yes, he was lighting candles. That's right, which. All this raises some interesting questions. Because we're talking about Christian nationalism in the United States but England has. The church baked in.

Regeneration Versus Nominal Christianity in Cultural Christianity

Yeah, but Looking at the church in England and what has happened with it. Is there something to learn about? The necessity of regeneration when we're talking about. When we talk about the kingdom of Christ and an application and culture a lot of what My background was is.

You push that away because every time it's been have it's been tried in the past. It ended up in nominalism. How do you how do you avoid that?

I'm not sure. There is a Way to entirely avoid the possibility of nominalism. I mean, we've seen it in even in new church movements. Amongst the independents. I mean if you look at some of the most apostate churches today Methodism Presbyterianism.

Where there would have been an emphasis on regeneration holiness and holiness and holiness movements and yet they've slumped into Formalism nominalism and then eventually, you know apostasy, I mean you've hit on some really interesting things and actually even as you were kind of Reading them back to me the recent history a few things were occurring.

The I mean the one of the interesting things about the Queen's passing the timing of it this year. She wrote she designed her own funeral. Yes years and years ago. Yeah. Yeah, it's like 20 years ago. And if you actually there was there were actually two services what one was at in London, of course at the Abbey and then the other was that Windsor Castle and Both were actually quite powerful I found the the second one perhaps a little bit even even more powerful than that than the main than the first one and four billion people.

Yes, nearly four billion people were watched in whole or in part that funeral and the scripture readings. It was incredible it was that it was like watching a gospel message. So and that kind of spoke to the the issue you mentioned of with respect to Elizabeth that there was a kind of soft power.

We talk about soft power she had very little formal power when people sort of say why didn't the Queen put a stop that is and the Queen could have Put a stop to that. It's like well Monarchies changed over the over the centuries.

And so the power that she had was soft power and if she had turned away some of these bills from Parliament Immediately created a constitutional crisis and a question of you know, what does politics look like?

Essentially a revolutionary Political action would have been to say I'm not signing that that bill into law. And it would have created now some might argue. Maybe she should have created a constitutional crisis perhaps but the point is it that her influence was soft power and when she died and I actually was Much more affected by it than I thought I would be.

I mean she is you know what people say, you know that when they when you referred to the Queen There was only one person that people had in mind. Yeah, even though there's lots of Queens in Europe. It was the Queen Elizabeth because she projected this incredible sense of stability.

She was there in many respects the last Touchstone of old Christendom. She was the last referent for people to that from that older Christian era and there was an interesting article in the Telegraph a major British broadsheet a Couple of days later that I was interested in and the headline of it was Britain is yearning for traditional Christianity.

Secularism, Wokery, and the Collapse of Western Culture

Mm-hmm and it was this it was this incredible moment where Very few people are relatively speaking now Church of England's fallen below a million people Are in church on a Sunday morning in an Anglican Church Listening to the gospel and yet four billion people tuned into the gospel At the end of the Queen's life the point being The the the mainline churches have thought that if we water down the gospel if we have a if we have a More politically correct woke version that we think is going to be less offensive.

It's gonna draw people. It's gonna be more attractive. It's gonna be more relevant and actually the opposite is true and even the Daily Telegraph realized that this is what people think Christianity should be there at the Queen's funeral.

So it was it was hard on from that perspective. It was also difficult. From the other point you raise which is who's following her and Into the into into the role now, you know There would had been talked previously about well when Elizabeth dies it's going to be a constitutional crisis and people are gonna be calling for the for the end to the Establishment in England and so on.

Charles is gonna be defender of the faiths plural and everything. That didn't really happen. And in fact, he said that he made quite clear that he was committed to his mother's faith. And that he was going to defend the faith and take his role seriously as a as an Anglican.

How seriously one can take that given his track record? That's a problem and I think the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. I also think it was significant that Liz truss was the last prime minister that Queen Elizabeth invited to form a government and Basically in a few weeks has been a coup because she wants a small state.

She's a nominal Christian, but she wants a small state. She wants to cut taxes. She wants to basically put a have a war on woke and The market said no. Yeah, at least the markets influenced by the articles from the elites from the banks from the and that all of the Opposition that she immediately now one kids one could argue and it has been argued.

Well if she did delivered these Punches slowly. And the presentation had been better for a budget and you know quasi quiet. I had done it slightly differently. Maybe there's some merit to that that it could have been handled differently and therefore gone over better.

But I was speaking to one of our fellows Graham Leach is a Remarkable Christian economist in the UK thought it was the both the best budget and the best cabinet since the era of Margaret Thatcher. Mm-hmm, but that's not what the the elites want.

They don't want the state rolled back. They don't want the The state largesse and the handouts and and they don't actually I would argue not sure they even want incredible growth and productivity to release the small business businessman and the ordinary working person and the have the self-employed into prosperity and so within a few weeks you have a coup giving us the shortest-serving prime minister in British history and then the coronation really of Our new prime minister Rishi Sunak.

Who happens to be Hindu now and credit and wealthier than the king and healthier than the king? He married a billionaire I think she's a billionaire and and I think he also has a green card. Now it's been interesting to see what some of the Christian Commentators have said because they've sort of said well better a competent Hindu than an incompetent nominal Christian.

And on the surface that sounds plausible, but then the next minute, you know, you've got Diwali Celebrations happening at Downing Street and I would say that and in fact, I was in the process of writing a short article on this is that I Think that Rishi Sunak is a reasonably competent politician.

And he's actually got some some solid people in his cabinet including people like Kemi Bonadek. Who I'm not sure. I've got her name quite right there, but that's close Kemi who's a who's a devout Christian an evangelical and the only reason that in a certain sense Rishi's Perspectives don't represent a direct his religious perspectives Don't currently represent a direct threat to British politics is because he's been radically watered down by Christianity.

Hmm, and that's the point. He's operating within a Christian constitutional arrangement and I'd have to sit down with the man to discover what he really believed about Hinduism and so forth, but presumably he's not going to try and institute the caste system in the UK.

We're not gonna be reintroducing the burning of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, so he's got a Christianized Western version of Hinduism. That allows him actually people a lot of Christian commentators fail to appreciate that they say oh What a triumph for religious pluralism and you know, he's a Christianized.

He's a he's in the Conservative Party. He's a he's a Christianized Hindu who is now operating within that framework and the the Actual root religious motives of the faith. He professes don't have can't take Can't take the reins.

And you know, I'm not even sure that he would. How committed he would how much is he a nominal Hindu is difficult to answer? But I do think there's been something of a coronation there of a prime minister who wasn't picked by the Conservative Party faithful.

But he was the elites choice and And the first prime minister therefore that King Charles the third invites to form a government is a Hindu. Whereas the last one that Elizabeth the second invited to form a government was a nominally Christian Conservative so it's an in very interesting time in the UK, but there is some Growing pushback against Wokery.

There's been a closing of the of the of the the gender clinic. Yes. There's Mermaids, which is a radical trans organization in the UK is now under investigation and you've got several in the current cabinet who are Basically being tasked with pushing back against some of this woke agenda.

We've had a piece of legislation that's enforcing Freedom of speech in the college campuses because it was disappearing. So there are a few small positive signs, but they are few and far between and what people seem to want is bread and circuses, yeah, yeah and.

Canada, Bill C-11, and Medical Assistance in Dying

The the same situations you all were facing in Canada remain as far as the restrictive legislation and. You don't see much in the way of bright lights. Well, it's getting worse. Well, but but the in Alberta.

Yeah in Alberta, you did have at least the new premier there. Yeah, it's pushing back a little bit.

So the that's the most conservative province in Canada and the premier there would be the equivalent of a governor of a state correct. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so. How much authority does she really have? Over against.

Yeah some decree from Trudeau.

Well, there is actually a the Wild Rose Party in Alberta is is pushing for Either full separation or at least a much greater degree of independence for Alberta. Alberta is the is the one province that has talked about this for a long time and there are certain Constitutional potentialities in Alberta that would allow them to to separate.

How much traction wild rose really has is is is difficult to say but she is certainly where the new premier is certainly aware that there are a lot of people in Alberta who are sick to the back teeth of the federal government and historically that's often been true in in in that part of the of the country and so She's pushing back a bit.

She'd so in in Canada. You've got certain powers are Devolved to the provinces including things like Education and health and a certain amount of taxation, too. So the powers actually interestingly of a provincial Parliament in Canada are actually probably even greater than a regional governor in a state governor in the in the USA but they never used mainly because or they're very rarely ever used mainly because much of The Canadian provinces are on the take from the federal government.

And so it's always about the taps being turned off if there's any kind of pushback, so That's that's part of the issue. But in terms of the broader Canadian landscape over the last Six months 12 months things from a legislative point of view just keep getting worse.

So we've now got bill c11 Which is now in a in its final readings in the Senate Which is basically a bill to put it bluntly and if people want to check my Twitter feed they can see an article from the Justice Center for constitutional freedoms on this bill be bill c11.

It's going to give basically control of Internet content to the federal government Videos podcasts, it'll be it Basically hands to the hands the key levers of authority and power To the federal government to essentially start controlling the Internet in Canada.

It's it's a highly dangerous bill bill c11. And then you've got the expansion of what they call made coming up now in March next year in Canada Which is medical assistance in dying. So again when this starts you're told well It's just gonna be for people who've several doctors have said they're terminally ill and they're like They're almost about to die and we're just gonna give them dignity.

Well, lo and behold, it's been expanding and expanding and expanding and now Canada is facing in the new year children and depressed people being legally Euthanized they call them mature minors. So children who are deemed mature enough to make the decision and people who are depressed will have assisted suicide made available to them and To top it all off.

I just had a pastor contact me from Canada. I was in Canada last week speaking and a pastor of a Large church in Ontario contacted me said Joe. I've just had a situation This week. He said the police came to the church and They are threatening me with being charged with criminal harassment because we are exercising church discipline a member of the church received a letter from the elders about church discipline and He's being threatened with charges of criminal harassment for church discipline in the life of the local church These are some of the things that are actually Are going on at just north of the border with no sign of letting up at the moment, so.

Christian Nationalism Requires a Truly Christian People

With all that said obviously the subject of Christian nationalism in the UK has a different Obviously could be a different background the the state church situation there makes In Correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection is in the mission of God there was a section and I think rush Juni was quoted a number of times in regards to the nature of What would have to happen as far as a move of God To Bring about true conversion.

Yeah, so as to any type of Quote-unquote Christian culture would have to be Christian in reality. Not merely in name. Yes, and I'm hearing a lot of people pushing back because again, as I said from my tradition the idea is We've already tried this and it it fails every single time.

So what has to be different? I mean, you know, you look at a Charles you look at You look at his life. You look at Diana you look at Marriage, you look at his view of sexuality and everything else and you just go ouch That that's not what we would we wouldn't.

Well, we'd be facing doing discipline. Yeah. And in that in that situation, and of course you can't when he's the head of the church. But there's so much discussion of it now in the context of well, what's your other option?

Because we're seeing now what secular Globalism in essence is. And then on the other side you simply have political anarchy. Yes. There has to be some guiding principle and yet to have obedience to God's law that is something other than Formalistic that's that actually flows from the heart.

There has to be a large number of actual Christians in a society. Yeah, isn't that isn't that required shall we say before you can even be speaking? And so what are we talking about when we talk about Christian nationalism?

Are we simply saying to our society? You need to have objective standards that are that can be passed from one generation to the next and secularism cannot provide you with anything like that and therefore Christ or chaos?

Yeah, is is is that all we're doing? Until there is this major move of the Spirit of God that changes hearts and minds because right now I look around the hearts and minds and my my heart breaks because there is a Love of death.

There is a love of self-destruction. There's a hatred of God's law and the hatred of God's way that is all around us.

That doesn't that have to change. Yeah, yeah, I see where you I see your thought process in this. It is a It's an interesting question because part of the situation we're in now is is uncharted territory.

I mean before we were pagan and then we Christianized and it was because people were becoming Christians and because of the Transformation this degree and it was gradual. It was steady it was it was gradual change and it took of course the Reformation and men like John Knox and and John Calvin and the Puritan Revolution in England and even the the Glorious Revolution post 1688 to actually get us to the the point Where we could have something like the the evangelical awakening in in England.

So I I think if you look at the history of it, you see both things going on you see What we might call political struggles and squabbles about which states are going to be Catholic and which you're going to be Protestant which probably which were not primarily driven by regeneration of matters of the heart and then at the same time without the There would have been no lasting Impact for some of those political changes hadn't if there hadn't been incredible fruit in evangelism and Christian education and so on going on at the same time.

So we are in this uncharted territory because we've with this decrystallizing point. Secularization and secularism is fade failing all around us is collapsing multiculturalism is is imploding radical Progressivism is eating itself alive and Where does the where does the culture actually go now if we look at say the the arrangement in England?

And of course you have the slightly different arrangement in Scotland with with Presbyterianism. King Charles the third is the titular head of the Church of England. So it's a ceremonial role and the 39 articles make clear that he has no Authority inside the life of the church.

He hasn't the authority to teach the word or administer the sacraments. So there is a there there is a maintenance of a distinction between the role of church and state. Within the constitutional arrangement in England that of course has allowed the proliferation of freedom for all kinds of denominations historically.

They didn't need to enforce Anglicanism. That was a struggle, you know that you know the history of all of that and you know that for a time even some of the Presbyterians would have liked and would have liked it a Presbyterian establishment in England.

And so these different Protestant reforms denominations. It took time to figure out what was going to be the the the ideal arrangement. Where we are I think now in a place like England is we're surrounded now with these cultural vestiges of Christianity.

It's like the archaeology of Christian, but it's a kind of living archaeology. I mean, that's what you saw with the Queen's funeral. Yeah, you see this sort of living. Yeah, that's probably the best term for it a living archaeology of these vest cultural vestiges of the Christian faith and people.

Casting about now for some kind of sense of identity some kind of sense of security as all of the Areas that we used to think of was sure and firm. I mean a lot of the grief over the Queen. Is people grieving over the fact that that there was a symbol of security of stability and now she's gone.

They'd actually fully appreciate that. The only reason she was that symbol and that she had these Virtues that people so appreciate it was the depth of her Christian faith. That's what Made her who she was and you know people sort of praising her sense of duty and loyalty and all this.

Well, those virtues don't just drop down out of the sky. They're the product of a deep religious commitment which speaks to the your point. Which is where is the society going to go if you've not got virtue and duty and responsibility?

And justice and righteousness and so on and these things being in central to society what's going to happen to it? So it's I think that part of the key is despite the Reformation and despite the English Revolution we get to a point in the 70s at the 1700s.

So the 18th century where things are a terrible mess and There's a there is a real very real threat of a revolution. Breaking out in England like in France and there was a genuine fear that that might happen but then you had men like George Whitfield and John Wesley taking who were Anglicans actually and who remained Anglicans taking to the fields because some of the ministers and the bishops would not let them into the pulpits to preach to preach the fullness of the gospel and Regeneration and repentance and renewal was was a big part of it and that produced men like William Wilberforce and Who was about the political?

Cultural reforms and it wasn't just the one that he's most remembered for which is of course the abolition of the slave trade but it was also the what he called the Essentially the recovery of morals right for for for Britain, what would it mean to?

Have a Reformation of morals and so there were various instruments of government to suppress vice. Wilberforce talked about the fact that if you can Culturally suppress the small things that are considered the smaller vices.

You deal what you naturally would deal with the bigger ones. And that he realized took education. And so there was a big educational movement at that time and by the time Queen Victoria Is Queen Victoria as a child and she's being prepared for the throne.

She's got an evangelical chaplain so. Yet at that point only a relatively small percentage of the Anglican clergy were truly evangelical so it was you see there I think of both and now I'm not trying to suggest that that the 18th century was Analogous to our situation in so far as it was a still more Christianized culture.

From a structural from the plausibility structure point of view than our own. But I think there may be a lesson there in this. I mean John Wesley's last letter the very last letter he ever wrote was to William Wilberforce hmm and it was a letter of encouragement and it was telling him that you know, if if if if God before you who can be against you but men and devils are gonna wear you out if this isn't the work of God and Wesley understood certainly as did Whitfield the importance of this of Regeneration the power of the Holy Spirit to even get these cultural political tasks actually done.

So I think of course, it's a both and Where are things gonna go now if we were looking into if we're asking ourselves as we look at scripture and history. You know, how do we prophesy into this situation?

I do think we're getting pushing towards a point where it's Christ or chaos where We're gonna we are increasingly seeing the radical decay of Of course in Britain. There's the threat of Islam too as you will know because of the sheer numbers of Muslims in the country and their aspirations and their goals for European society.

The question is are we gonna see a turning back towards Christ or are we gonna see a further falling off? And I think the the only way to That what will determine that question in the sovereignty of God, of course is how the Christian Church responds now.

How Christians respond in these next couple of decades? To what is taking place if we if there is if there is a continued retrenchment in pietism in retreat ism in escapism in creating two kingdoms doctrines of Radical separation of of this age or the age to come or of nature and grace then I don't see anything but a falling away of our cultures into complete decadence and then it will be a missionary effort from the global south to try and recover our nations for the gospel in the future, but if the church now can Get a hold of a transformationalist vision of the gospel.

Regeneration, History, and the Future of Christian Civilization

Rooted in the transformation of the regeneration of the heart to touch every single area of life. You don't need a massive majority to change a culture. We know this from looking at the radical woke queer movement tiny tiny percentage of radicals radical intellectuals getting into.

Largely from the Frankfurt School, of course getting into US universities spreading their poison. Of course it. There was a similar movement of coming out of the French Revolution. And we've been living in the wake of that ever since but that radical movement, you know pre-world war two.

That then exported itself to the West tiny numbers of people radically changing the culture. 120 in the upper room filled with the Holy Spirit. And so I think there it's hard. I struggle with sometimes flip-flopping between Hope and despair.

Yes on this one yes, and so it is hard to live in that that middle space of well we can only be faithful in our time and generation and God is able to do the miracles that. That we perhaps can't even imagine right now in our cultural moment.

Just kick the camera down there.

That's that's the that's the challenge for me is holding together the the promised hope Together with the reality that there are. There are some real deep valleys that we've already gone through in the past and and could be facing another situation.

We're we'll be looking at that again. If that's God's will then our role is to be faithful and wherever we're placed but you said something there and this wasn't what I was thinking about talking about but I I Really wonder What happened in the UK and in Europe as a whole because of the horrific loss of life and death in World War one into and World War.

I mean World War one was just a slaughter pen you just you know. The numbers were astonishing for you know for ten yards worth of land and then you had the the bombing in World War two and and in Germany, you know.

You know, we think about the bombing in England. Yes, but by the time the end of the war it was the Allies that were taking out entire cities. Dresden. Dresden did not have to happen. I think we can honestly say that was just completely inappropriate and wrong and it just seems to me like there was a A Fundamental cultural change after because it was two wars, but they were so close together and so they impacted two generations massively, but it just seems like the 60s and the rebellion and the collapse of ethics and morality and and a recognition of The worth of life that's the generation coming after the ones that experienced the horrors of the war and I think it happened more slowly here because the war didn't happen here.

That there was there were no buildings. There was you know, yeah, it all took place over here. And yeah, we lost a lot of people but in comparison to the UK or Germany or as light as infinitesimal. It just seems like wars like that If they're undertaken on Cultural There was some when when there's when the guys jumped off those boats at Normandy there there was still the impetus the momentum of a Christian culture and self-sacrifice.

Yeah, and these people were fighting our evil and and So we're doing it for this reason. That's gone. Yeah, and so it just seems like there was a massive change as the reason as a result of this huge loss of life and Maybe the maybe the church just didn't address it.

Maybe the church just didn't see it coming. But I feel like we're still dealing with the results of all of that and have just never really realized How much changed? Yeah, when all those men did not come back or as we know now many of them that did came back so damaged and so Destroyed internally and we just didn't we just told people to get over it get back to doing what you're what you were doing.

And it just makes me wonder a little bit. Yeah, if In hindsight, we could have done something a whole lot better. And if if that did not hasten the abandonment of any type of commitment to the Christian faith and to the idea of God and purpose and Yeah things that made such a difference in the past in Western culture, I'm sure that's right, I mean.

Can you I don't think you can look at those two conflagrations that the worst in all of human history so fun So far and not imagine that they wouldn't have a radical impact culturally. We have to of course see an element of the judgment of God on Western culture in those two great wars.

The Churchill called World War two, of course that the fight for the survival of Christian civilization. So you're right when those men were landing on the beaches and whatever arenas of war they were in in World War two they saw themselves as Fighting for something that really mattered fundamentally religiously.

That it was a fight for the survival of civilization itself of Christian civilization itself. And of course after the war Churchill is is stunned by the fact that he's thrown out of office having delivered victory and the people vote for socialism and so.

There's a there's a there's some other factors here and you know this history better than me but at the end of the 19th century by the end of the 19th century, you've got these philosophies and theologies developing of progress of Utopian basically philosophies at the end of the 19th century that really see man on this Inextricable upward curve and Marxism has this inbuilt notion of progress and utopia inbuilt and What you're seeing is the secularization of post-millennialism, right?

You're saying the secularization of they think that they can they can Deracinate they can they can strip a Christian eschatology of the Christ and the God and the kingdom of God and a Christian anthropology and a Christian anthropology and Build the kingdom of man and you can retain that was liberalism's essence, wasn't it?

You can retain the morals you can retain the virtues. But you don't need the Christ of Scripture. And this was already happening in the churches and it was happening at the end of the 19th century it was making deep inroads and I Think then that with the wars and then the men going away and I think you make a very important point there.

The this loss of the men of fathers and the ones that did come back Are so broken. I'm in my own grandfather Radically damaged and broken by the war post-traumatic stress and they didn't fully even understand that then they didn't they didn't know.

Shell shock, yeah, and.

He was so Incapacitated emotionally and mentally until actually later his conversion, but even then, you know, the damage was there. By the war that he wasn't able to raise his four sons and daughter in the way that he would have wanted.

And that damage gets it gets passed down. And to the next generation and I don't you whether you remember Mary Aber starts book how the West really lost God and She talks about. Sociologically, we usually make the assumption that people stop believing in God and then they stop believing in the family.

And the family collapses so you stop believing in God the family collapses. She says that's only half true when you study it sociologically as. Family collapses as fatherhood and family ebbs away. People stop believing in God the father.

And so I found that a very interesting book. She talks about this reciprocal relation between collapse of the family and then collapse of belief and so I think that it's interesting that with those wars and The steady because what followed as you said was, you know in the 60s.

Was the radical destruction of the normative structure of the family and sexual ethics and morals? Well it from a fatherless generation. They called my grandparents generation England the silent generation.

The silent generation you didn't pass on the values of that older world. To to the next generation and so partly because you may have lost.

Faith in them. You'd seen such terrible horrible things. Exactly that. Why bother?

Yeah, precisely and I think that that following that as then the family starts to collapse and. And the men started emptying out of the churches. That was followed by the women and you know. The decades that followed but the men left first and then you'd so then you start getting this radical process of de-christianization.

So I think the the these false secular eschatologies that were all about the Parliament of man and his inconquerable greatness in in in in taking over all of history and bending it and the universe itself.

To his will and then he's hit with two World Wars shows his own failure at doing all of that shows the absolute failure of. Of the of the liberalism that had made such inroads into the churches, too. And then because that was already sewn that was already there.

I mean one of my ancestors was involved in the formation of the United Church of Canada. Which was a merger of the Methodists and the Presbyterians in 1925 became the largest Protestant denomination in Canada 20 years later 34 30 35 years later.