An Undeceptions Podcast.

I do not have an explanation for what this specific object is. Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray raising more eyebrows when answering this question. There have been no collisions between any U.S. assets and one of these UAPs, correct?

We have not had a collision. We've had at least 11 near misses. Defense officials testifying that there were at least 18 cases where they had data from multiple sensors showing objects that moved in ways that could not be explained, adding they would share more details during a closed-door classified setting. In the past, fighter pilots and former Pentagon...

That's a report from the show today, covering a recent US congressional hearing about sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, UAP for short. We used to know them as UFOs. I admit, I find it weird that aliens are being discussed semi-seriously by the US Congress.

The idea of real ETs is fun to consider, but it also gets pretty nutty pretty quickly. And of course, it does raise theological questions.

I'm not one, usually, for alien stuff, but I make an exception for the Undeceptions end of season Q&A episode. How we think about God and Martians is just one of a bunch of questions we've received from you guys this season. We'll also be covering some Old Testament history, casting an eye over some of the bad stuff the Bible says about women, and we're going to look in the face of the devil.

And much more. I'm John Dixon, and welcome to our 10th Q&A episode for Undeceptions. Undeceptions

This season of Undeceptions is sponsored by Zondervan Academic. Get discounts on master lectures, video courses and exclusive samples of their books at zondervanacademic.com forward slash Undeceptions. Don't forget to write Undeceptions. Each episode here at Undeceptions, we explore some aspect of life, faith, philosophy, history, science, culture or ethics that

that's either much misunderstood or mostly forgotten. And with the help of people who know what they're talking about, we're trying to undeceive ourselves and let the truth...

Our first question is anonymous, but it's one we've been meaning to cover for a while on the show. At least, I think so. A mysterious listener asks, With the US claiming the presence of aliens, there are so many questions. How does this affect the Christian belief system? Does God love aliens too? Are aliens angels? What does this mean going forward if the Bible teaches us that we are made in God's image?

Okay, the first thing to say is that I don't believe alien life is a statistical probability. You sometimes hear that kind of reasoning, even from Christians, who reckon that because the universe is so vast, there is just a general likelihood that on one of the billions of planets out there, there will be some other lifeforms.

But I don't reckon life or any kind of existence is a matter of statistical probability. Everything that exists, exists by the will of the mind behind the universe. For me, this is philosophically axiomatic. Nothing comes from nothing.

The fact that there is something rather than nothing is to my mind only explained by the prior existence of something eternal, non-material and volitional, something with a will. Yes, I'm getting my Thomas Aquinas on here early in the show.

In other words, God wills everything into existence and maintains its existence in every moment. So, if there are aliens, it's got nothing to do with statistical likelihood and everything to do with God willing them into existence. Now, I'm perfectly open to God doing that. I wouldn't even be surprised if God has done that.

But I don't think it poses any problem to Orthodox Christianity or to the notion that we're made in God's image or anything like that. If God has made other creatures, it follows that he has a similar relationship to them that he has with other creatures on our planet. Fish at the very bottom of the ocean that we've never met before.

God wills them into existence and he relates to them as an artist to the work of art. If those creatures happened to be sentient, I think that relationship is probably two-way.

You may remember our episode on animals where I toyed with the idea, grounded I think in scripture, that animals in their own way have a relationship with God. A kind of primal dependence and wonder toward the cause of all things. And if on other planets there are intelligent creatures who have a conscious awareness of God,

I'm with C.S. Lewis in assuming that it's possible they have not fallen out of relationship with God and that they live in a state of perpetual unity with God, sort of like the angels, I suppose, and that they don't need redemption in the sense that we experience it, just like the angels, actually. But they are no less dependent on God for their existence.

But maybe those creatures are fallen, just like us, and they do need redemption. C.S. Lewis also wondered out loud about this. Could it be that Christ's redemptive work here on earth was effective elsewhere in the universe? Possibly. Colossians 1 does say that his death on the cross reconciled all things in heaven on earth back to their creator. Okay, we're speculating now.

All I really know is that whatever exists, aliens or whatever, exists at the pleasure of the creator and that the creator loves all his works and that whatever we discover to be true about all of this in the future, it will simply underscore the divine love. Producer Kayleigh here. Our next question is heaven focused and it comes from 10 year old Peter. Hi, Peter. Here he is now.

Hello, my name is Peter. I'm 10 years old and I live in Cambodia. I have a question about heaven. So if you have free will in heaven, how can it be that no one ever sins? Hey Peter, good question. The simple answer is the Holy Spirit.

In God's kingdom, or what we call heaven, all of creation, including we ourselves, will receive the full outpouring, the enveloping of God's life-giving Spirit.

We, according to the New Testament, only have a deposit of that spirit now, a kind of small down payment. But in the kingdom, everything is fully animated by the spirit. And that is the guarantee of our walking in fellowship with each other and with God and with creation itself forever. And that is not the case with our life now.

Right now, we and the creation are part of a decaying world. And part of that decay is our own wills, which are not powerful enough to obey. We'll need God's full gift of the Spirit to do that. So right now, you might be able to say to yourself, I don't ever want to sin again. But the fact is, you will. And you know you will. I certainly know I will.

But in the kingdom, in the power of the Spirit, I'll not only be able to decide not to sin, I'll be able to pull this off. Now, the obvious follow-up question is, why didn't God start things that way instead of going through all the trouble of this time in creation?

And the only way I can get my head around that is to think in terms of a story. The best stories move through a period of tension and battle, climaxing in the resolution and relief. These stories are inherently more satisfying, more meaningful than a story that just starts with a happy ending and continues like that forever.

I'm not saying our lives are just a story, but I am saying that whatever it is that makes stories more beautiful for having moved from tension to resolution is a faint analogy of why God might choose the path he's chosen for this creation.

where now we don't have the full power to love God and neighbor as fully as we want to. But in the future kingdom, because of the full gift of the Spirit, we will have that power. We'll be back with more great questions after this short break.

This episode of Undeceptions is brought to you by Zondervan Academics' new book, ready for it? Mere Christian Hermeneutics, Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically, by the brilliant Kevin Van Hooser. I'll admit that's a really deep-sounding title, but don't let that put you off. Kevin is one of the most respected theological thinkers in the world today.

And he explores why we consider the Bible the word of God, but also how you make sense of it from start to finish. Hermeneutics is just the fancy word for how you interpret something. So if you want to dip your toe into the world of theology, how we know God, what we can know about God, then this book is a great starting point. Looking at how the church has made sense of the Bible through history, but also how you today can make sense of it.

Mere Christian Hermeneutics also offers insights that are valuable to anyone who's interested in literature, philosophy, or history. Kevin doesn't just write about faith. He's also there to hone your interpretative skills. And if you're eager to engage with the Bible, whether as a believer or as a doubter, this might be essential reading.

You can pre-order your copy of Mere Christian Hermeneutics now at Amazon, or you can head to zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions to find out more. Don't forget, zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of suffering. 1 Peter 5, 8 and 9. That's a reading from the first epistle of Peter. It's addressed to Christians suffering persecution in the Roman Empire, specifically Galatia, Cappadocia and Bithynia, basically what we call Turkey.

Peter is urging Christians in these regions to live obediently to God, and he warns them that a real threat is posed by the devil himself. Talking about the devil like this is weird for modern readers. Western culture usually associates the devil with folk tales, horror movies, and religious nuts.

But the Bible is pretty clear. The devil, Satan, is real. He's active. So why don't we talk about it more? That's the basic thrust of the next question. Hey, John actually shared an article with us earlier about a satanic cult that had set up some statues next to a Christian statue in Iowa. Did you read that? Yeah, that's right. Actually, the Iowa State Capitol now is home to a

demonic figure that has been set up by the local satanic temple. So, you know, in the nature of freedom for all, right next to a manger, they've set up this new goat-headed figure that's pointing back to a particular medieval picture of Satan. We'll put a link in the show notes. I guess it's their idea of being fair. It's horrible. Yeah.

Okay, we're going to move on to our next question, which is about this, actually. So Chris asks,

Is it because references to Satan or the devil are not fashionable and sound archaic? Or are we saying that sin comes from somewhere else, like our innate rebellion against God or just our fallen human nature? I'm sure there is a bit of embarrassment about the devil and Satan in modern Christian circles. And I think that part of that is because for the last 50 years or so, the media has portrayed the devil as a ridiculous figure.

I can hardly say the word devil without thinking of a couple of Simpsons episodes where the devil appears. There's one where he appears as Ned Flanders with horns and a red cape and everything, and he gets Homer to sell his soul for a donut. And if you get enough of this kind of portrayal of Satan, it becomes impossible to say the word devil without feeling like an idiot.

That said, the ridiculous portrayals of the devil are really just caricatures or exaggerations of the idea of the devil portrayed by Christians in medieval art. So in a sense, it's Christian's own fault.

They first tried to make the devil visually spooky, and then the modern media picked up the idea and ran with it into absurdity. So I'm of the view that we need to find a way to talk about the devil that doesn't trigger those silly images. And actually, the best way to do it is just to read the Bible. Satan and the devil are mentioned there. There's no getting around that. But they are not given this ludicrous, spooky persona.

In that one Peter passage just read, it's clear that Peter just means the devil, a real being, is somehow behind the persecution that Christians are experiencing from Roman authorities.

No one was dressing up in a cape with horns and attacking Christians. It's just that the Romans had some very bad ideas and had come to believe some terrible rumors about the Christians. And as a result, they mocked Christians and sometimes locked them up and worse. But behind it all, Peter says, is the central work of the devil. And that central work, according to the scriptures, is

Here's Jesus' famous, I don't know, job description of the devil in John chapter 8. He speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

So the devil harms, even murders, through lies, through deception. That makes perfect sense to me and actually explains how the devil got the Romans to persecute the Christians. Partly by convincing the Romans of some terrible moral and religious ideas that led them way astray. And partly by prompting rumors about the Christians.

We have ancient evidence of some of those rumors, and it's to do with eating babies, having orgies, and so on. Christians had a really hard time in the second and third centuries combating these rumors, but they eventually did with the truth. The truth dispelled the lies.

We should talk more about the devil, yes, but we should place it in the context of the lies that our world tells. That's where you see the devil. The lies about violence, sex, unborn babies, money, refugees, power, and so many other lies.

And that's why, for me, the very best work outside the Bible on the topic of the devil is the Screwtape Letters, written by friend of the pod, C.S. Lewis.

Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the enemy's ground. He made the pleasure. All our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our enemy has produced at times or in ways or in degrees which he has forbidden."

We're moving into some Old Testament questions now, thanks to all who tuned in to our recent episode on Old Testament violence. First up, we have a two-parter. Rosie asks, It sounds like archaeological evidence is sketchy on whether or not the historical city matches the biblical account of the city of Jericho from the book of Joshua.

How does archaeology work for events so far back in the past? And if there really were no walls, or sizable ones at least, to come tumbling down, then what does that say about the veracity of the biblical accounts in that period? We've also got a similar query on this from Jackson, who got in touch with an audio question.

I have a question about the historicity of the Old Testament, particularly surrounding the Exodus narrative. From my understanding, it's quite contested whether that historically happened in the exact way it's written down in the Old Testament. My question is more so, how do we approach the Old Testament in the sense it seems like a bit out of historical focus, and then how does that affect the way we interpret and approach it as a God-breathed text? Over to you, J.D.,

Thanks, Rosie. Thanks, Jackson. Look, the truth is there is nowhere near as much historical evidence for the things in the Old Testament as there is for the things in the New Testament. And that's not an indictment of the Old Testament. It's got to do with the nature of evidence from very different historical periods.

There is an explosion of culture, writings and architecture in the centuries immediately before and immediately after Jesus. As a result, we have, relatively speaking, a wealth of different kinds of evidence. Even so, most specialists would speculate that we probably only have in our hands today less than 1%.

of the literary and physical remains of the ancient world around the time of Jesus. And it's from that 1% that we have to make our judgments about things. 99% of the evidence is missing, which means we have to be really careful when we're trying to deny things simply because they're not mentioned in the 1% that survived. How can you deny something when almost all the evidence is missing? Now, if that's true of the period around the 1st century,

It is doubly, quadruply true of 10 centuries earlier, the period of King David, or 13 centuries earlier, the period of the Exodus and the conquest of Jericho and all that.

Some evidence remains. There are certainly ruins of giant walls around Jericho. I've stomped on them. I mean, very carefully, of course. It's just that things are so fragmentary, there's loads of room for debate amongst scholars. It's perhaps true that a majority of scholars are somewhat skeptical about how the archaeology lines up with the Bible.

But there is a solid minority of scholars who think the archaeological evidence does support, or at least isn't contradictory, of the biblical evidence. The same is true of the Exodus. There is very little evidence for the Exodus. I don't mind admitting that. But there is very little evidence for anything at all 1300 BC.

If there's 1% of surviving evidence from the first century, there's probably 1% of 1% of surviving evidence from the 13th century BC. Even still, there are three or four highly relevant pieces of evidence that at least lead some pretty sensible scholars to the conclusion that the Israelites had at one time been captives in Egypt...

and did, right around the time the Bible says so, end up outside Egypt in the land of Canaan. One of those pieces of evidence is the Menneptah Stellar, a stone monument, which says, "'Israel is wasted, its seed is not.'" Now, this comes from one of the sons of Ramses II, the possible pharaoh of the Exodus story. And it places the Israelites out of Egypt.

But here's the thing. We did a whole episode on this. So instead of me hashing the details, go to episode 46 titled The Exodus with James K. Hoffmeyer, professor of Old Testament and Near Eastern Archaeology at Trinity International University. It was a really compelling interview. We're staying in the Old Testament for our next question, which comes from Alison. She writes, Hey there, Undeceptions team.

A dear friend and I often have chats about the seeming misogynist perspective of the Old Testament writings. We love the Bible, but there are some tough parts of the Old Testament to grapple with as a Christian woman living in 2023. We grieve over stories of violence against women that don't seem to be explicitly condemned.

Certain laws also would seem to perpetuate power imbalances between women, like in Deuteronomy 22, and seem to paint women as of little worth, say Genesis 19, or like property in Deuteronomy 21. Men who are highly regarded by God, David and Solomon, seem to treat women like objects. We are curious why the protection of women wasn't a clearer mandate of living as part of God's chosen people.

How do women read the Bible without feeling angry and forgotten by God? Thanks for the amazing work you produce, which is always thoughtful, kind, and humble. Alison, your question is a good one. I really feel the awkwardness as a man when I read these texts, so I can only imagine what it feels like to read these texts as a woman.

I don't claim to be able to resolve all the issues. And that's not just me trying to be, whatever you said, kind and humble or whatever. I really mean it. The older I get, the more comfortable I am not being able to resolve everything. I've come to realize that the ocean of things I don't know is probably a hundred times larger than I thought it was when I graduated with my PhD, back when there were just a few things I didn't know.

So when it comes to things like this, I often just ask myself, is there enough solid and good stuff on the positive side of the ledger for me not to chuck my faith in over the negative things? And my answer is invariably, yes, there's enough.

And it invariably has to do with the solidness of Jesus, who, it's pretty clear, loved the Old Testament and thought it was God's precious word. So I find myself willing to trust that he held all the oceans of knowledge in his hand, and knowledge I can barely glimpse. And so I just trust him. But there's probably a little more to say than that.

For one thing, it's a basic principle of interpretation, especially in the Old Testament, that the Bible frequently reports things without condemning them because they're part of a larger matrix of teaching. And that larger matrix is what helps readers know that we're not reading a moral example.

I think of the Old Testament judge Jephthah, look up that terrible story in Judges 11 and 12, who pledges to offer and sacrifice the first thing he sees if the Lord gives him victory in a battle. And it turns out to be his daughter. Or there's that horrible story of the concubine who was abused all night in Judges chapter 19 and then left for dead and then chopped up into bits and sent around Israel.

When you're reading the book of Judges, your mouth just drops after story after story. And you have little indication when you're in the story that the book is actually critiquing these awful events. Not until you get to the very end of the book and you read this subtle little expression. In those days, Israel had no king and everyone did as they saw fit.

That little bit at the end functions as a clue to reading the whole thing. It turns out we're meant to be reading these repugnant examples of human behavior as departures from God's will until God gave them a king who would rule righteously. I reckon something like this holds for the examples you give. Genesis 19 has a man offer his daughter to a crowd saying,

It's awful, but if we read this in light of the whole Old Testament law, not to mention the whole Bible, including the New Testament, it's obvious we're meant to be shocked at this behavior, even if within the narrative, it's not criticized.

Then there are a few exceptions to this where behavior like this is criticized. And these are meant to provide the clues to reading all the other stories. Now, you mentioned King David, the most powerful man in the world, using and abusing women. I guess you mean the story of Bathsheba. David spots her naked, summons her, has sex with her, makes her pregnant, which comes very close to full-on rape.

And then he kills her husband. But if you turn over a few pages to 2 Samuel chapter 12, the prophet Nathan does indeed damn David in the strongest prophetic terms. You explicitly mention one of the trickiest cases, the one we mentioned in the episode with Dr. Helen Painter, the episode called Violent Faith.

It's the passage in Deuteronomy 21 where the law says that Israelites in a war situation can take female captives of war and marry them after giving the women a month to mourn the loss of their families. Now, that's a hard one. In fact, just the other night at dinner, a friend of mine said, I wasn't happy with how you dealt with that passage in that episode, John. Hi, Mel, if you're listening. Hi.

Okay, let me see what I can say about this. Christians don't live by this law, obviously. All of the Jewish law has been transposed by Christ's law. So the question is, would this law have made any sense in that original ancient setting? And in particular, would the law have seemed just or at least bearable to the woman in this setting? I dare to say it would.

It was normal to rape women in war, everywhere, in all ancient cultures. The Israelites were forbidden to do that. A pagan soldier who wanted to marry a captive woman would have no obligation to wait for a period of mourning. But the Israelites had to. And worse, in ancient cultures, if a man decided he didn't like the girl after all, he could on-sell her to others and make some money out of it.

Deuteronomy 21.14 explicitly says Israelites can't do that. They must let the woman go free. They must not amar her, which means mustn't treat as merchandise. It's a really weird verb. And I venture to say that in an ancient setting where this woman's family is all killed in war,

This kind of treatment, this kind of marriage would have seemed just by comparison to ancient standards and at least bearable. I think. I'm not certain. All I'm certain of is that the new covenant of Jesus transposes all of this into another key, the key of love and humility.

Alison, that's all I've got. I'm sorry. I can't give more. But as I said, it's Jesus that convinces me. Scripture is true and good, even where I can't find an interpretation that makes that clear. Bless you. We'll give John another quick breather and be back with more of your questions in a sec.

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and make a tax-deductible donation to help this wonderful organisation give people like Turat a second chance. That's anglicanaid.org.au forward slash Undeceptions.

Hey guys, if you've been watching the news, chances are you've encountered some pretty strong opinions about our next topic. We're about to talk about the state of Israel and what the Bible has to say about it. We'll be trying our best not to wade into any political or cultural war territory here, but it is Israel. So here's Paul's hot potato question.

Now, with Israel so much in the news, I'm wondering if you can help us understand how to think of modern-day Israel as opposed to the nation of Israel that God made so many Old Testament promises to. And even modern-day people who follow the Jewish faith, are those three groups the same?

How should we understand those biblical promises? Are those to modern day Jews? Are those to the political nation of Israel? How do we make sense of this country in the Middle East, as well as promises to an ancient people group? Thanks so much for all you guys do.

Okay, so this is basically a biblical question I'm hearing. So let me get out of the way my socio-political perspective. I think the modern state of Israel has a right and necessity to exist. So I just lost a whole lot of friends right there.

I accept that some terrible things were done back in 1948 and afterwards as the State of Israel was founded. The violence that erupted with the UN-backed declaration of Israel's establishment led to hundreds of thousands of local Palestinians being displaced.

up to southern Lebanon, across to the West Bank and down into Gaza. And later conflicts, such as when multiple Arab nations attacked Israel in 1967, the Israel victory led to Israel gaining even more territory and displacing even more people.

But to my mind, none of that removes the social and political necessity of establishing a Jewish state in the historic land following centuries of mistreatment of European Jews and, of course, the catastrophe of the Holocaust. And just to lose some more friends, it has to be remembered that while many powerful local groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have vowed to destroy Israel and Jews, they

20% of Israel's citizens and plenty of members of parliament are in fact Arab Muslims. Arabs live at peace in the state of Israel in a way that is not true for Jews in any Islamic country today. Just Google Jews in Iraq or Jews in Lebanon, Jews in Egypt, even Jews in Jordan, and you'll see what I mean. But here's the thing.

My views on this are 100% historical and geopolitical and 0% theological. In fact, to get to your particular question, Paul, I don't think the modern state of Israel has any theological significance at all.

Zionism, the political support of a Jewish state, started in the late 19th century as an entirely secular solution to a European and Middle Eastern problem. It only picked up theological significance among Jews and Christians in the decades that followed. It's something of a coincidence that political Zionism was picking up steam just as the famous Schofield Bible was published in 1909.

In passages like Ezekiel 37, where Ezekiel sees a valley of dry bones coming back to life, the notes in the Schofield Bible explicitly describe this as a prophecy about Jews coming out of the nations back into Israel and the nation of Israel being reborn.

And so when 40 years later, the modern state of Israel was born, fans of the Schofield Bible saw this as a glorious fulfillment of biblical prophecy. And the whole thing spawned an industry of Christian Zionism, where articles, books, and videos were produced interpreting many parts of the Bible as relating to modern Jews and modern Israel. Let me not be subtle here.

I reject all of this. All of it. Just as political Zionism was an invention of the late 19th century, theological Zionism is an invention of the 20th century.

It's a brand new idea in the sweep of Christian history. And that makes me very suspicious. The fact is, none of the greats of Christian history had anything like a Zionist perspective. Not Justin Martyr, not Irenaeus, not Basil the Great, not Augustine, not Aquinas, not Luther or Calvin. It really develops as a 19th century phenomenon that comes to full flourishing in the 20th century.

I hold the view that was the majority view through virtually all of church history, that all of the apparently unfulfilled Old Testament prophecies about the flourishing of the land of Israel...

are fulfilled in the promise, both Old and New Testament, of a new creation. Nothing to do with politics today. The prophecies are not about a new political nation. They're about the culmination of creation, the renewal and surpassing of Eden.

After all, that's what the land of Israel in the Old Testament was always about. It was a new Eden pointing forward to Edenic blessing coming upon the whole creation. I think there's no other way to read those Old Testament prophecies if we're wearing New Testament lenses. As for the Jewish people themselves, as opposed to sort of the political nation, I accept what the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 11.

that descendants of Abraham who don't believe in Christ are, and here I'm going to quote, as far as the gospel is concerned,

They are enemies for your sake. But as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you Gentiles were at one time disobedient to God and have now received mercy as a result of Jewish disobedience, so they too now have become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of

of God's mercy to you. There's a mystery there. In fact, Paul calls it a mystery in this very passage. Somehow, descendants of Abraham are peculiarly loved by God because of his promises to Abraham.

And one day, who knows when, who knows how, these descendants of Abraham will receive the same mercy from God that the Gentile church currently enjoys. They will receive their Messiah. Our next question comes from Joshua and draws on another excellent podcast. He asks, Dan Carlin on an episode of Hardcore History described early Christians as ISIS-level fanatics in a peaceful sense.

Is there a place for Christian fanaticism in a peaceful sense? And do we just send them out on a mission? Here's the extract from the episode Joshua is talking about.

and often went smiling and singing to their deaths. It's one of the amazing cases in history of people standing up for their beliefs. These people were religious fanatics. Make no mistake about it. By modern standards, they were religious fanatics. But they were religious fanatics for peace, which again is a strange concept. We think about religious fanatics today as being dangerous in a blow-you-up kind of sense. Well...

These people would never have blown anyone up. As a matter of fact, killing was against their rules of existence. But make no mistake about it, the Romans considered them dangerous. The Romans considered them dangerous because their ideas would undermine the entire Roman system. One of the main concerns in early Christianity is when it starts...

I kind of like Carlin's take on this, Joshua. Christian extremism involves a zealous imitation of Jesus himself. That couldn't be bad for anyone. We can understand how an extreme devotion to a warlord would lead nowhere good. An extreme devotion to a political dictator would lead nowhere good. But an extreme devotion to the one whose central story is one of self-giving and the love of enemy...

That would be a gift for the world. Dan Carlin also hits on another thing that has always struck me about the evidence of the early Christians. They were weirdly confident, almost arrogant, while at the same time being humble and cheerful in defeat. This is a paradox that you find everywhere in the sources. Christians seem to have been narrow-minded and broad-hearted. They were assertive and humble.

So on the one hand, Christians cheerfully critiqued the sacred cows of Greco-Roman culture, whether idol worship, sexual decadence, or the excesses of the rich. The critiques are everywhere from the New Testament right through to St. Augustine. There was no hiding the ball on controversial issues, I guess that's what I'm saying, unlike some contemporary Christians who think faithfulness is all about never rocking the boat.

On the other hand, Christians also just as cheerfully accepted mockery and persecution for their views as just, you know, going with the job of being a Christian. And they often responded by telling their persecutors that no matter what they did, they were going to continue to love their enemies. So there was this strange submissiveness to the Christian outlook right alongside the assertiveness.

Now, Friedrich Nietzsche, in his Genealogy of Morals, a famous critique of Christian and Jewish morality, argued that this early Christian submissiveness and willingness to lose was because they had a slave morality. That was his term for it, where power and nobility and wealth are viewed with suspicion and the downtrodden are celebrated.

His logic was if you kick a dog long enough, like the ancient Christians were kicked, it'll develop an entirely submissive outlook. But our ancient sources point in the opposite direction. And I think Dan Carlin is sort of hinting at this. Christians walked and talked like they were the winners, not the losers.

The wellspring of their ethic of non-retaliation and humility was in fact a victor's mentality, not a slave morality. I often read in classes here at Wheaton the open letter of Tertullian, a Christian leader in Carthage, and he writes to the governor of the city, the Roman governor called Scapula. It dates to 215, right in the middle of some awful mistreatment of Christians.

But listen for the victor's mentality and his cheerful willingness to put up with anything that comes his way. Here it is.

We are neither dismayed nor greatly disturbed at the persecutions which we suffer from ignorant men, since we joined this way of life with the understanding that we pledged ourselves to enter into the present conflicts at the risk even of our lives. For we are commanded by the teachings of our religion to love even our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.

we then are saddened by your ignorance. We have compassion on human error. We worship one God whom you all know since nature is your teacher, at whose lightning and thunder you tremble, at whose benefits you rejoice. The rest of the deities you yourselves think to be gods, but we know them to be demons.

There are two very clear postures here, and we find it everywhere in the ancient evidence. There's a confidence, almost arrogance, that Christians are right and the empire is wrong. And yet there is this cheerful resolve humbly to love even persecutors. That is Christian extremism. May there be more of it today. Our next question relates nicely to the Puritan episode we did recently.

Jim asks,

Ha, thanks Jim. Yes, I mentioned the Book of Common Prayer in that episode, only in passing to point out that the Puritans were not big fans. They thought it retained too much from that ancient and medieval period. It was therefore too Catholic for their tastes. But this is where the beloved Puritans were dead wrong. Ooh, I'm losing friends all over the place today.

They weren't wrong that the Book of Common Prayer retained ancient and medieval traditions. They were just wrong that everything from the Catholic Church is by definition tainted.

As we pointed out in our double episode on the Reformation, that's episodes 91 and 92, the original reformers, Luther, Calvin, and the gang, didn't think they were turning their back on the previous 1,500 years of church history. They thought they were reforming, restoring the actual Catholic faith.

It's in that spirit that the English reformers conducted their work, not turning their back on the past simply to have some imagined, pure, fresh start. They believed that many traditions from the previous millennium or more were true and could bolster our dependence on the grace of God.

As our scholars made pretty clear in that podcast, the Reformation was really a renewal of the theology of St. Augustine from the 5th century. And in that sense, it remained truly Catholic. It just wasn't Roman Catholic.

So the basic approach of Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of England at the time and the principal architect of the English Book of Common Prayer, was to reframe Christian devotion, including rewording some of the ancient prayers, in order to make sure that people who used the prayer book would always realize that salvation is a pure gift of grace.

and that even the life of obedience is a gift of grace. In fact, even the will to obey is a gift of grace. And that's very Augustinian and very Book of Common Prayer.

I'll give you some examples. Let's take a really important part of the prayer book. It's the so-called litany. This is the oldest part of the prayer book, and it's a simple series of confessions, praises, and petitions. It takes about 15 minutes to pull off. In fact, just this morning, my darling Buff texted me when I asked her how her day was going, and she said, "'Just done the litany over a nice cup of tea.'"

Lovely. And for the record, I was the one who left her the cup of tea in a thermos. Anyway, loads of elements of this litany go right back to people like Basil the Great in the 4th century or John Chrysostom in the early 5th century. For example, the opening Trinitarian petition goes like this. God, the Father, creator of heaven and earth, have mercy on us. God, the Son, redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God, the Holy Spirit, the Strengthener, have mercy on us. Holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God, have mercy on us.

It's an awesome way to start your prayer time, and it just gets better from there. This originally comes from the ancient Greek church. It was eventually adopted into the Latin or Western or Catholic church, and it was finally adopted by the English reformers. Good on them. I love the idea of not reinventing the wheel, spiritually speaking.

And one of my other favorite prayers in the prayer book comes directly from the 8th century, specifically from Alcuin of York, who was like the Secretary of Education for Europe under Charlemagne. It reads...

Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. These are just two very specific examples of a general principle in the whole Book of Common Prayer.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it. I love the Book of Common Prayer. It is the heartbeat of my daily devotion. And when you consider its influence on English-speaking Christianity, including today's 80 million Anglicans who, in one way or other, still hear from the book or use it, the Book of Common Prayer is arguably the most influential single book ever composed in the English language.

Our next question is from Elizabeth. She's asking for any update on the recently announced Undeception's first Hymn documentary. John, what have you got for us?

If you don't already know about this, the First Hymn Project is a documentary we're filming that traces the resurrection, for want of a better word, of the oldest Christian hymn ever discovered, complete with a nearly 2,000-year-old lyric and melody. We travel from the sands of Egypt, where this thing was found on a piece of papyri, to the climate-controlled rooms of the University of Oxford, where the fragment is lovingly stored.

But it's not just a history documentary about an amazing ancient find that would be good enough. It's a music documentary where we track two of the best Christian songwriters in the world today as they rearrange this ancient song to turn it into a modern praise song for the whole church.

I'm talking about the amazing Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding. If you've been in any kind of church for more than about, I don't know, three weeks, you've probably heard one of their songs.

We've already filmed in Egypt, Oxford and Nashville. I reckon we're about two thirds of the way through filming, but we have produced a little teaser video, which we're going to be making a lot of noise about in the coming weeks. I'm not sure how this video will transfer to audio only, but for you undeceivers, here's the teaser. See ya. And I, uh,

I love the energy. When the vocals start to lay out, particularly on that last chorus, I think that's... Those guys are the hit machine singer-songwriters Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding. And that's not just any song they're working on.

They're rearranging the oldest Christian hymn ever discovered, complete with a nearly 2,000-year-old lyric and melody. It's ancient, it's in Greek, and it's been buried in Egypt a long time. Our plan is to bring it back to life.

Almost 1800 years ago, in the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, Christians gathered together to sing a hymn of praise, a hymn that was eventually buried in the sands of time. This is where it all began. This is where ancient Christians put pen to papyrus to compose the first hymn.

Lost for centuries, this scrap of ancient music was found by two English scholars, Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt.

The papyri themselves were found in rubbish dumps actually at the city of Oxyrhynchus. So I guess after they had finished using these texts, they had thrown them away, swept them away, and they were in these massive mounds that were all littered on the site. The fragments range from about the late

1st century BC up until the 7th century AD. And we have information about ancient cities, about the people, what they were doing, but also of things like their religion. It was a monastic city, so we have this Christian evidence as well.

Among the half a million fragments discovered here was our song, a song that hasn't been heard in this place since ancient times. MUSIC PLAYS

Grenfell and Hunt had only a vague idea of what they'd uncovered. These fragments were simply catalogued, packed in biscuit tins and sent here to the University of Oxford. And the Christian hymn is a remarkable discovery because it is Christian, it's the only Christian

piece of music using the ancient pagan notation, it isn't really any different from that earlier music in terms of the way it uses the melodic structures. So the tune was typical of the period. We could almost call it pop music for ancient Greek-speaking Egyptians. It's the ideas in the song that are anything but typical.

Beneath the squiggles indicating the melody are lines of Greek poetry, proclaiming a message that would come to define all forms of Christianity. And some have claimed this message wasn't believed by Christians this early. And what do we sing? Patera huion hageion pneuma, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Now scholars often say this line is of some interest and what they mean is it's amazing. This is the doctrine of the Trinity, the Christian idea that the one God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And you sometimes hear that that idea was only invented much later, say in 325 at the Council of Nicaea when Emperor Constantine forced this doctrine on the church. But the thing is

Here's the idea in a song from the previous century. The unknown composer of P.Oxy 1786 didn't use the lofty sacred music we associate with later monasteries and churches. The melody is just the sort of thing you'd hear in an ancient Greek theatre or down at the local tavern. It's music for everyone, not just the holy huddle.

So we're giving this song back to the public. Well, if architecture is for admiring, food and wine for tasting, songs are for singing. We've talked to the ancient experts about P.Oxy 1786, but if we want to resurrect this hymn for a new audience, we've got to talk to a couple of my friends, some of the most accomplished Christian songwriters in the world today. Shining stars, night sky, rushing wind.

Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding have examined the original melody and lyrics to produce a new song of praise suited for the 21st century.

From tentative beginnings, we'll witness the hard creative choices, the recording sessions, the mixing, and finally the release of the new first hymn on album and in concert. Our hope is to return a song that the church and the public hasn't sung for nearly 2,000 years.

Join us on this historical, spiritual and musical journey from the tombs of Egypt to the libraries of Oxford and then on to recording studios in one of the music meccas of the world as we work to bring this first hymn back to life. Welcome to The First Hymn Project.

We've reached our final question, a really good one. It comes from Wendy on Facebook. She asks, I love the 500 Jesus spots as they explain simple questions that kids want answers to. How would you explain living a Christian life to primary age kids?

Thanks for that, Wendy. I'm really glad you like the five-minute Jesus. It's funny, when producer Kayleigh and director Mark sat me down, I don't know, a little over three years ago, to try and convince me to do a podcast, I had about 10 ideas of what should be in the podcast. Kayleigh and Mark said, nope, that's not the podcast you need to do. And they described instead pretty much what you hear each week at Undeceptions.

But one idea of mine that they let through was, I'm happy to say, the five-minute Jesus. Anyway, how would I explain the Christian life to kids? Well, I'd start with the same idea I teach adults, that Christian living is basically a life of gratitude for the grace and mercy of God toward me.

I don't mean to get all prayer booky on you in this episode, but one of my other favorite prayers in the prayer book, which I say pretty much every day, captures this theme perfectly. It goes like this. And we pray, Lord, give us that due sense of all your mercies, that our hearts may be truly thankful, and that we may declare your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service.

In other words, devotion to God is the overflow of a heart that is thankful for God's mercies. It's not about chasing God's mercy to earn it. It's about joy in God's mercy, a joy that makes you want to obey. So that's the principle. How would I describe it to kids? Fun fact from the Dixon household. We were so keen to impress this point on our kids when they were young that we used to even joke about it.

Having taught them repeatedly that salvation is a gift and that obedience is a response to that gift, we sometimes out of the blue would say things like, if you don't do this, God won't love you. And we'd wait for the kids to spot the error or notice the wry smile on our face. And they would invariably say something like, no way, Dad, that's not how it works.

Teaching the doctrine and then joking about its opposite has left my children, who are now in their teens and twenties, with a pretty high sensitivity to anything that smacks of mere do-goodism.

Anyway, that's not really what you asked. That's just for free today. I think for primary age children, the way forward is to offer analogies from daily life to explain the difference between striving to win something and joyfully responding to a gift. For example, you could ask them to imagine how they feel when there's a big school test or when they have to give a speech in class or when they're trying out for a sports team or something like that.

That feeling is what most religions feel like, trying your hardest to win a spot on God's team. Then, by contrast, ask them about how they feel when someone they love does something awesome for them. It could be the best gift they've ever had at Christmas or for the birthday. It could be inviting them to a wonderful party or a fun park.

Ask them how they feel they would treat that person, the gift giver, in that moment. In their own words, I'm sure they would speak of gratitude, inspiring love and kindness toward that loved one. That's what the Christian life is like. It's a life of joyful love toward God, the giver of all good gifts. It's about a joyful love toward other creatures because of all that the creator has done.

Hey, we're nearing the end of the season and I want to put in a special request if that's okay. If you like our show, would you consider chipping in to help us continue to create content like this?

We hope to be around for years. We certainly have years of episodes we'd love to make, but we need your help to maintain the staff and the production. You can do a couple of things. You can head to underceptions.com forward slash plus to become a plus subscriber and get loads of bonus content for just $5 a month.

But if you're feeling particularly fond of us here at the end of the season, would you go to our landing page and click the large donation button and, you know, just see what thoughts come next? We could really do with a boost. That's undeceptions.com and find the donation button. The whole team really appreciates it. See ya.

Undeceptions is hosted by me, John Dixon, produced by Kayleigh Payne and directed by Mark Hadley. Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership. Alistair Belling is our writer and researcher. Siobhan McGuinness is our online librarian. And Lindy Leveson remains my wonderful assistant. Editing by Richard Humwe and special thanks to our series sponsor, Zondervan Academic, for making this Undeception possible. Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com, letting the truth out.

An Undeceptions Podcast.