This interview with Jordan Hall marked my 100th podcast interview of all time! So it’s a good time to stop and reflect and think - where is this all going?
RIP to the Wisdom Dojo
It's been five or so years since I started putting things up online, and my online work has gone through many iterations: a slightly unfocused general self-improvement phase, a philosophy as a way of life focus, the issues of technology and artificial intelligence, and recently Christianity and the return of the sacred. The constant through-line in all this work is the meaning crisis - what kind of worldview, culture, mythos do we need to recover from the meaning crisis without sacrificing the truth?
As you might have noticed, this Substack is no longer called The Wisdom Dojo. This name was inspired by John Verveake's argument that we needed wisdom dojos to counter the meaning crisis, and so I set about trying to create one, albeit digitally. It worked out pretty well, and I had some great conversations and made some real inroads into the meaning crisis, but I think ultimately, the idea that we are going to create a new institution to resolve the current crisis of the West is a red herring.
When I started out on this journey ten years ago as a philosophy undergraduate, I was an atheist and would have bet all the money in the world that Christianity was not 1) true and 2) the answer to the meaning crisis. But after following the truth for as long as I could unexpectedly I found myself at the foot of the cross. I was shocked,
“You?” I said to Jesus and Jesus looked down at me and replied, “You?!”
God has a much better sense of humour than people give him credit for. For the longest time, I tried to put off this growing change within me, a growing connection to God that could not be ignored. It's a bit like getting to know someone you always hated and then realising they are actually the best and begrudgingly having to admit you really like them now. But then as you accept your new friend, you become at odds with all the people who still don’t like him? And all you can say is a somewhat impotent,
“you don’t know him like I know him, give him a chance!”
Jesus, a much maligned figure in the modern world, has had a similar effect on me. He was popular with the people I didn't want to have anything to do with, and seemed outdated and out of fashion. But in reality, it was I who was in the wrong, and he and those who followed him were correct. If pride takes you away from God, only humility will bring you back:
"For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." Mathew 16:25
Embracing humility and submitting myself to God in baptism and mass and confession were all part of this process, and who could remain the same person on the other side? It's a transformation, not dissimilar to quitting drinking with difficulty and obstacles and trials and demons, but a waking up on the other side to realise you were living a lie in a way before. Luckily for us, he's a forgiving God. He rejoices in welcoming back sinners like me with open arms, which is probably more than I deserve, considering all the nasty things I said about him.
Raising the Cross
There's a thing you learn in story writing: that the end of a story makes the story what it is. So before you know how the story ends, you don't really know what type of story it is in the first place. As the Greeks would say, “call no man happy until he is dead”! My end (ironically) is the Catholic church, which to my younger self was like Darth Vader's evil empire in Star Wars, but what can I say? I was wrong and foolish and arrogant?
Unexpectedly for me, the end of my meaning crisis story was to return to the tradition and faith of my Catholic ancestors, albeit with my new learning and modern experience. Once you have the end in place, you can look backwards and see that in many ways I'd been walking a narrow road towards God the entire time. Hence my purpose now was to help guide others on the same rocky road back to the faith with as much love, patience and wisdom as I can muster.
Since I was genuinely and absolutely a radical atheist, I can offer insights to Christians about atheism and insights to the atheistic and the secular about theism and Christianity. In some sense, I’m a bridge now back into the traditional religious worldview for those who have left but are hungering for something more. Hence, why I’m changing the name of the publication and the entire direction of online platform. It’s not a huge 180 degree turn and hopefully you are not too surprised. In some sense, The Wisdom Dojo was a seed that had grown into the more mature plant of Raising The Cross.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus predicted that he would be "lifted up from the earth" (John 12:32) in order to draw all men to himself. In many ways, in our secular societies, the cross has been allowed to fall. We are seeing in real-time the failure of our institutions and social cohesion, and in many ways sanity, arriving at peak fragmentation and a desperate search for unity amongst the pieces. Some are searching for this unity in a trans-humanist AI super god, others the typical 20th century political and economic ideologies, but I have come to the conclusion that the only true unity comes from the cross.
The mystery of the cross is that in embracing the greatest suffering we get the greatest happiness. Edward Leen described our human condition as being like a broken bone that must be re-broken and set in order to properly heal. Paradoxically the cross, a symbol of profound death and suffering, in Christ’s sacrifice becomes the instrument of our happiness and salvation: we become happy by being like god and to become like God we must take up our cross.
The cross is the symbol that unites all people as suffering mortal beings on a loving pilgrimage home to the infinite. It calls us to particular transformation of the heart and mind, a path that requires self-denial and courage and endurance and this transformation is the alternative to the political extremism or pseudo-religious ideologies. The cross promises redemption through suffering and transformation but all utopians try to get the redemption without the suffering and the sacrifice. These short-cuts are doomed because the suffering and the transformation are one and the same: no suffering means no learning and no learning means no healing, and no healing means no salvation.
No-one can do the transformation for you, but the work of religious formation is to get the right attitude with which to approach the problem. For modern, secular, practically atheist people, who aren’t even aware of what the problem is, this can prove particularly difficult. I see myself as a guide, an intermediatory, to get the right attitude. I’m not a priest, but rather one who managed to crawl back to the cross on his belly like a sorry snake from the garden of eden. Remember - If pride takes us away from God, only humility can lead us back.
Things are getting weirder and weirder in the modern age and without this relationship to God, ultimate reality, you are in danger of falling into it’s many snares and traps. To do battle with the powers and principalities that beset us on all sides, we must again as St Paul recommends, wear the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation and wield the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith - to put on the full armour of God again.
I'm fully armoured up at this point, and so Raising the Cross is to help others donning the armour and arms of God once more to fight whatever evil is coming down the pipeline. The modern world doesn't have the answers and will happily leave our generations as cannon fodder - no market economy or secular state will save your soul in the coming age. I'm all in at this point, arms and legs inside the rollercoaster of becoming a defender of the faith, but only because I finally understand the true value of the faith and so can do no otherwise:
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one very precious pearl, he went away and sold all he had and bought it…" Mathew 13:45
An Honest Warning
I hope this is not a totally unexpected item in the bagging area for you and that you are on board with where this is all going? But if not, and if you do not feel in yourself even 1 % openness to the possibility of God or a deeper understanding of God, you should probably unsubscribe from this publication now - because this shit might get annoying!
I would not want you to be annoyed by what is essentially a good-faith project, simply because you are not the target audience - I get that. But if your heart is not hardened, Raising the Cross, will be an attempt to help you embrace the faith without sacrificing your intellect, don the full armour of God, raise your cross and start out on the way of life. I will do what I can, but more importantly I will bring together people who are far more spiritually advanced and wise than I am to help where I cannot. The vision of the work is the vision that bookends the bible in the book of Revelation,
"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands" Revelation 7:9
This is the true vision of unity, and all others are bumper stickers or ponzischemes. You might still have doubts, and in truth, there is not one doubt or question about Christ and Christianity which I have not had myself. If you are skeptical, critical and doubtful, you are in good company, but I am confident that I pursued every intellectual avenue thoroughly before making this decision and at least optimistic that I can articulate the journey in a way that will put your critical mind at ease.
In summary, my work has always been about addressing the meaning crisis, and I discovered unexpectedly that Christianity is both true and the solution to the meaning crisis. To be intellectually honest and morally upright, I have to shift all my work towards this end now and hence I am changing the name and direction of the publication and my broader online work. I hope that you will come with me, but if not, I understand - not everyone will make the journey. In fact, very few will because it is a narrow gate, but it is the narrow gate that to leads to life and not death:
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matthew 7:13-14
Your lectures earlier this year encouraged me to crack open Plato's "The Republic," but this seems like a bigger ask. I've been hoping you'd get back to the philosophical tête-à-têtes with academics I barely understood, and I want to follow (on Podcast Addict and Substack) the artist who wrote that phenomenal play, but religious faith is a bit like that cloud-touching cathedral in Limerick: striking from a distance, interesting up close, but closed to someone like me, I'm afraid, even if I peek inside or hear the hymns when the rain lets up. I don't want to unsubscribe though, even though you promise to be annoying. Hope that's all right.
How does your new outlook change your position on Plato? Do you feel that the philosophy of the dialogues is compatible with your Christian perspective? If not, which part most so?
I am not a big fan of Paul's trashing of the Greek philosophical tradition but I know how big of a part it plays for many intellectual Christians. Wondering if you are following party line with this one? . . .