Bishop Barron Presents | Jonathan Pageau - Recognizing Patterns

I'm delighted to be here with Jonathan Pau today Jonathan is a montreal-based artist he's an icon Carver in the Orthodox tradition he's also emerged I'd say in the last oh maybe 10 years as one of the most interesting and provocative commentators on Christianity and I've been following him for a long time we've been on shows uh together before delighted Jonathan to be with with you this morning glad you're here it's great It's great to finally be and having a one-on-one with Bishop we had one on my channel but we did a couple years ago but

not live yeah so no I'm delighted to have you with us tell tell our people a bit about your background I know you know you're Canadian uh you were a Protestant as a young man now Orthodox maybe just fill in the background a bit uh for our audience I'm from Quebec so French speaking French is my first language it's actually the language we Speak at home and uh in Quebec Quebec used to be the most Catholic place in the world you know before the War uh it was almost like a reaction to what was happening

in France and and there was a cultural reaction so but in the 1970s we have what we call the quiet Revolution which is basically the the 60s that happened everywhere uh and there was a mass Exodus from the church and uh some people left completely became secular some people became nominal Catholics and Then some people became Protestant and that was my family and my father and mother they really converted I would say to Evangelical Christianity out of a sincere desire to know Christ the church in Quebec had become just very cultural and very uh you'd

say the level of theological understanding was quite low in in the clergy so they had no answers to their questions so I grew up in this very strange world of all these people in my church growing up were Catholics Converting to Protestant had converted to protestantism it's a very anti-catholic culture let's say uh but in my I started doing reading on my own and kind of felt insufficiency at the in the level of understanding let's say of things I was reading philosophy and uh and there was something missing and that's when I discovered the church

tradition the church fathers and really fell in love with that way of speaking Even even mostly the poetic aspect of the tradition Sanga and these beautiful interpretations of the Old Testament that that bring them into Christ just really uh blew me away and then the Christian art brought me ultimately into Orthodoxy you know we have an interesting U I think overlap there you're younger than I am but you know kind of roughly the same time period I'm coming of age at a time when Catholicism has become very liberalized I'd say Rather protestan tized but largely

secularized I mean turning toward political ideals and so on very much away from the more sacramental mystical lurgical approach Church Fathers as a young guy I would have gotten very little of that um so in a way we overlap there we kind of reacting against a secularizing liberalizing tendency within our respective Christian you know environments You Came Upon the fathers And that that has a powerful impact on people uh I've see it over and over again when they they come across the fathers it leads them often to Catholicism uh in your case Orthodoxy but especially

the Bible tell me more about that what did the fathers teach you about reading the Bible Well you know I grew up in the Bible you know we were Protestants Baptists and so that's the one of the things I'm very grateful to my upbringing is knowing the Scripture stories like just knowing the Bible knowing all those stories uh but also feeling especially reaching in my 20s and kind of you know at that moment when your intellect starts to be curious and to notice things that there was something missing about the integration of the of all

of it together and it's really reading certain fathers St efim the Syrian St Gregor Vena St Maximus uh that they were distilling the patterns of the Old Testament and then constantly Showing doing typological reading really constantly showing how they connected to Christ and to me that created not only a synthesis of the actual text but it revealed to me a pattern of being right a structure of story a structure of image uh that is captured for example in the structure of the Tabernacle but that is repeating the Garden of Eden and that is brought all

the way ultimately into the Heavenly Jerusalem that there is a a way an ontology a structure of being That is being presented in scripture and it's through those fathers that I discovered it and it became in some ways the backbone of everything that I'm doing you know whether it's talking about symbolism I have in my mind a map of reality but that map comes from scripture right and we'll get more into that because but but I I want to stay with this idea for a bit because when I was coming of age even in seminary

years the approach the was very rationalistic It was opposed to a fundamentalism so that was going of take it for granted that you know we shouldn't read the Bible in a literalistic naive way okay the corrective was what we call the historical critical method which in a very rationalizing way very Enlightenment inspired manner try to understand you know what was in the mind of the of the human author at the time so the situm laan of the situation uh who was his audience what was he trying To convey U that was the main focus it

also broke the Bible down into little bits and pieces because we were actively discouraged from doing just what the fathers did we weren't to look to what are these great connecting patterns and trajectories and themes because you say well look there's Isaiah and his SSM lab and then you got whoever the author of Jonah was and and then whoever wrote Genesis and they're all addressing different audiences with different Literary genre and so don't do this game of thematic connection and less so make connection to Christ because see that's not honoring the historical author because Isaiah

didn't have Jesus of Nazareth in mind come on the author Jonah he went think about Jesus of Nazareth so we effectively broke it down in in the modern scientific manner like under Bright Lights dissecting a body and analyzing it so all of that lyricism I would say was Lost my generation uh talk to priests even in my generation who were formed that way in the Bible wouldn't have a clue how to preach in the patristic manner yeah when I found that through a series of accidents later in my life it's like the Bible began to

sing and and also I realized these are people that were much closer to the Bible than we are so like the church fathers you know irenaeus is writing in the in the second century and In origin in the third Century why do we think we inheritors of the Enlightenment are somehow were we can read this more effectively so we both found it in this funny almost despite our own Traditions yeah I I mean to me it was such a it was such a revelation and I I get I get a reaction myself because people have

those two images in their mind they're say either you're a fundamentalist or you're a liberal in the sense that you're an analytical kind of modern Reader and and I'm neither and I present the I say we take the text seriously like what's in the text we take it very seriously we look at what's there but it the analytical mode is not a mode of being it's not a mode that is entering into the story the way that the an those ancient authors also were doing and the people who transmitted those stories to us were doing

as well and so understanding why why in some ways what is happening in scripture is a the Building of a story and if you don't like the fact that a certain author for example had this or that intent and you don't know it then the editors certainly did the people who put those stories together into one uh text who lived in those stories they saw the connections and so to not to say well now I'm G to break it down back to whatever was happening in the time of Elijah and not realize that the reason

why I put Elijah next to King David and I put King David Next to Moses is because these are stories I see them as one story and so we have to treat it that way as well let's talk about patterns you're sort of famous for that idea uh sort of a overarching fundamental pattern which is then repeated analogously at lower levels of the biblical story imitating in a way you know you is example of a tree there's the tree the grand pattern but then within that underneath it so to speak are little trees so the

the Branches and the twigs and so on look like little trees so that fractal quality as you say overarching a pattern that's mimicked you know for me in the Bible one of those is the temple that the temple is such a master idea in the Bible talk about that a little bit as you as you read it well so the temple the the first thing we need to start with even to understand and the temple is the basic structure in Genesis 1 of the the notion of Heaven and Earth and Then that man is the

anchor between the two right so man is a gathering of earth right you gather dust together and then you actually put Heaven inside you blow air into it and that man anchors the world together and that anchor has a function which is to bring multiplicity into purpose right to bring multiplicity into name into purpose into pattern all the things that are invisible that manage VIs ible things and so you can do that at the individual level that's what Adam is that's why he then names the animals he's the you know the the the function that

he has in the garden but then those can be brought into larger forms and the Tabernacle and the temple that's what they are they basically gather reality together into a secret place where Heaven and Earth are touching each other which gives the reason why we're together you know gives us a way back into that into the garden really is what's happening in the temple Uh but then also the influence of that place where the glory of God touches the world then let's say ripples out into reality in a very specific way that's manifested symbolically by

the elements that are used the veils the different Metals the different quarts uh but then also the way that even especially the Tabernacle the way that then Israel is gathered outside in an ordered pattern in order to represent that the reason why they exist is one is that hidden Secret place where Heaven and Earth are meeting and the church fathers and starting with St Paul you know reminds us that that's how you're made too you're the Temple of the Holy Spirit the heart of the human contains Heaven and Earth and is a little place where

that is is happening so when we talk about soul and body these types of structures it's all connected from Genesis to the temple and then to how we live our lives every Adam's a priest isn't he I mean so Eden is a kind of Temple yeah it's a mountain and the rivers flow out from it so like Mount Zion true pole of the earth Etc Adam is operating as a priest reconciling Heaven and Earth and we see in him therefore the purpose of of our human life right is that we're meant to be Priests of

of the new creation Etc um I've often said Genesis is all about right worship and false worship uh the basic problem with us is we worship Incorrectly what gets highest praise highest worth and it's sex pleasure money power all The Usual Suspects that means we become bad priests we're like the priests of Baal right we're hopping around the wrong altars uh Adam is a rightly constituted priest and then Israel there's the fractal thing Israel becomes a Priestly people right they're meant to worship a right and God teaches them what right worship looks like and you

can you can understand it it's it's Pretty simple once you see that when we talk about the fractal so basically you have all things are given up into their higher participation of in the fractal so you have the the root or you have the the top that comes down in and multiplies itself and every time one element of the fractal doesn't see itself as owing to that which or giving up or celebrating to that where it comes from then that's pride and that's the fall it's the fall because it's it's the It's the whole of

Lucifer right it's like the the whole imagery of Lucifer is actually very powerful you think about it you know it's like this morning star that comes up and it's the brightest star and then it starts to think that it owns that light it actually is the brightest star it is the one that's bringing the light of the sun to us but it it if it forgets where it its light comes from then it become then it's fall then it becomes Fallen uh and that's What happens to Adam but then that's the structure again of the

entire Bible of seeing like you said as soon as you turn your the the highest attention if you put it on something that's not God then it gets cut off and it starts to decompose and that's that's Augusta right love God and love everything else for the sake of God right but the basic problem is is we turn to creatures rather than to the Creator and then all the disintegration follows including a Body and soul are a part and I would argue um a lot of the it's up and down the centuries is it's a

a mark of sin but especially today the disease people have with their own bodies the disassociation between the real me whatever that is and then my body which has to be manipulated to bring into line with the real me all of that is a is a disintegration of this biblical anthropology I say healthy even philosophical anthropology yeah it it Really is and if you understand Christ and you understand Adam even already as the the union of meaning and purpose and name and all these invisible things with the created world then as we move away from

from God and actually as as Christianity starts to fragment and to break down then that gets separated yeah then Heaven and Earth become separated again and that represents itself in all the different forms of alienation that we find the most recent one being the One of people actually hating their own bodies and and and thinking that what they think of themselves and and the constitution of their their body are so completely separate that they have to like you said manipulate the world in order to realign them but it's it's such a rich vein to be

mining here because think of materialism which is the dominant philosophy of the secular world it's in biblical terms Earth has moved off here and Heaven is Up there somewhere in some fantasy world when in fact in fact what the scientists investigate is heaven they're investigating intelligibility right intelligible patterns which are not reducible to manner right they're they're kind of above they're an organizing principle of manner and so you can't really do science even without Heaven no and there I think of that famous essay by Eugene vigner you know the he was a secular Jewish Scientist

contemporary of of Neil's Bor and those people but what he was noticing in his physics was mathematics you can't do physics without the highest mathematics so he writes an article called the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the physical sciences and what he's he's not a religious man he says that but he he's wondering at it and he he uses the word miracle over and over again how miraculous that as we look at the physical world we have to Use high achingly high mathematics to describe it yeah well see I have say in biblical terms that's

the logos right that which creates all things in end Dow them with intelligibility and then Adam who names the animals that's the move isn't it the father saw him as the scientist philosopher right but see it's Fallen apart I totally agree and it's funny in some ways it's a uh in some ways it's a blind spot of the of the materialist uh It's like it's it's as if they can't see that they that they need identities and they need these structures and what they're looking for is regularity in the world and that regularity manifests itself

as a cohesive pattern of being yeah and and that is exactly what you know if you read St Maximus you read some of the church fathers that's what they're talking about and you read the neop plist that's what they're talking about it's not because the material Wants to at at least you know the thrust is to reduce everything to these kind of mechanical causation right uh they want Spirit to be something that acts like mechanical causation but it isn't it's The Binding of identity it's The Binding of name it's abiding of purpose that makes you

actually see that something like let's say a scientist is a good example for a scientist to study something they already have to identify it yeah right because when you're Studying flowers you're not studying rhinoceroses and so you have to say oh I'm studying a flower that binds the phenomena into one into a pattern and then you analyze phenomena to see to what in what way it fits with the pattern if it doesn't fit with the pattern you have to either change your theory or you have to adjust the way you're studying it but that's actually

the union of Heaven and Earth that's described in Genesis one yeah I wonder If you agree with this um you know this oldest problem in philosophy in a ways you how to bring together soul and body how do you think them together you have day card's famous solution through the pineal gland in the brain you know the the ghost in the machine links up to the body and all this stuff the solution to all that is don't think of matter and spirit as two phenomena with within one plane yeah one's like at a higher dimension

of existence so just as a line Can contain an Infinity of points because it's a higher Dimension the the the cube can include an Infinity of squares it's a higher Dimension that the pattern isn't alongside of matter it's higher than matter it it organizes it so the all these questions that that are predicated upon competition how do we think them together don't play that game that's the wrong game yeah it's it's really constraint on multiplicity that's for a modern uh like a modern person It's probably the best way to understand is that there are constraints

on multiplicity which brings it together and makes it act together into one body yeah and that's what heaven is and it it appears at every level of being and it's difficult for people to understand understand because let's say in the in the world let's say you you exist in a country right and that country is a Little Bit of Heaven in the sense that the country binds all of us Together brings us together now the country also has physical phenomena right and so that's what makes it difficult for people to understand that there are things

that actually have physical phenomena above us but that constrain us and act in a manner that's heaven but the way constrains is invisible you can't right like there there's nothing how can I say this like there's nothing in a country that makes it exist as a country that which is can Be completely contained by visibility right it's like why do I recognize an American if we're both in Italy it's because there's an invisible constraint on us yeah well same with inv visibility for a second because David Tracy now long retired but professor at University of

Chicago one of the most prominent theologians of the last like 50 years he wrote an article where he said today the prime ACC access to the invisible is mathematics and he he meant viger's Point that if you're doing mathematics well you've left the cave behind in platonic L you've moved into a higher mode of being and so mathematics does order you toward this world of patterns this world of meaning but somehow we think everything's reducible to the material but you can't begin to analyze material without some appeal to the numeric or the the pattern right

so ber and Russell many years ago the Great atheist said uh I think mathematics is The prime source of belief in in Gods and my answer is like yeah it's one of them it's a route of access you know because you're noticing something there that mathematics is different than this world of ordinary you know material experience hey tell me before I forget about uh Noah and the Ark because I always think the ark is an interesting uh fractal if you want of this Temple language definitely what what you see in Genesis like from Genesis 1

to the flood Basically you see the the a world that starts and ends right so it's like it's a little it is it's also a fractal like it's a little world that you see start at the beginning and then end into dissolution but then at the end of the of it you gather the world together into a little version even smaller version a little microcosm that that then survives the the chaos and so the arc itself is structured in a way that is a little earth like it's a and so it it has you Even

in the way that it that it's made you know it has different tear and it has the you can imagine like the birds kind of on top and the the animals at the bottom and man kind of gathering it all together uh and and then we it moves over the waters and then the world starts again the way that the world starts again is repeating Genesis 1 right and so especially if we know the story of Jesus that we know that it's repeating the beginning of the world Noah takes something from above bird and then

sends it out to connect to to the Earth right and so the bird comes down and it finds what does it find it finds a pattern that's what a tree is right we talked about how it's a fractal and that's how the world starts again it's a it's a recasting of when it says that the spirit of God floated above the waters in Genesis 1 Noah has the same structure for the world to to repeat itself and then in the story of Jesus we Have the ultimate version of that because Jesus just crashes everything together

he goes down into the water comes back up and then a bird Spirit comes down on him to repeat the story both of Noah and of Genesis and to say that this is a new world that's beginning uh it's a it's a I mean it's you know if you don't like the idea that the old stories are pointing to the new one I mean Jesus is showing us the pattern of those old stories and how They connect there's like because you he's he's revealing it in a very powerful way yeah the best commentator on Noah

and I stumbled on long after my Seminary studies is origin of Alexandria origin who t to the rabbis it was very close to the biblical thing and he laid out exactly what you're talking about uh the ark is this kind of Temple there's the priest on it Noah there's all the different animals microcosm of God's good order and the first thing Noah does When he comes off the ark sacrific he's a priest right so he's reestablishing the priesthood of of Adam and I think you trace that one all through the Old Testament all these priests

being reestablished um so now let's talk about Jesus because uh the pattern of patterns in a way the the logos and I think you could render logos's pattern maybe you know the word the the idea whatever but the pattern the pattern capital P became flesh and dwelt Among Us that gathers All the other patterns kind of in that fractal way right so talk about that how is Jesus the pattern well the what there are different ways to do it like one of the ways is of course to understand that the the structure of the world

is like a mountain right the Genesis is like a mountain the temple all of these SI all of these images are like mountains and it's not a it's not arbitrary it's this it's really a mountain is multiplicity Moving into one that's what it is so you have a bunch of stuff at the bottom then you move towards a summit where if you stand at the summit of a mountain you have a view of everything right you see the entire phenomena in its Unity so the image of a mount is not arbitrary it's completely coherent but

that mountain moves towards a point right and that that point is the prophet the priest sometimes can be the king it's the place where things come together the true pole Of the earth idea and in Christ what you have is a cosmic a complete version of that where all the little prophets all the little mountains are now brought into one mountain revealing the the order of the entire Cosmos uh and that sounds very arbitrary it sounds very abstract but what you see in Christ interestingly enough for someone who loved the Bible for example you see

see how he does that for the Bible itself he takes the Bible stories and he crashes Them together in his own story and the stories of Jesus have layers upon layers of of structure that are that are just amazing like a little example that I I I want to show you that is related to the imager you've already been talking about is when Christ walks on water yeah you know we always we often forget that before Christ walks on water he goes up Mountain he goes up a mountain to pray and then he sends his

disciples out on a boat so we have a structure that is Genesis one to the flood in the image you have the mountain with the priests at the top and then you have the people on the boat being lost in the chaotic Waters and then Christ shows that he fills the World by coming down the mountain and then ordering the chaos walking on the water at first appearing as a ghost because he you know it's like he is coming down from heaven you could say and until they finally realize that he is fully incarnate and

then he calms The entire world that's a little it's a very small little little version but it shows you Christ story does that constantly every one of the little aspects of his story repeats and shows the different ways in which Christ brings that story back together and that one speaks too to the resurrection narrative too they think he's a ghost and and then oh no they they touch him and there they are in anguish in the upper room and he brings them you know Peace and also the connection to the church um the church fathers

would have seen Noah's Arc is very much an archetype of the church yeah I spent three years in Paris doing my doctoral studies and I used to love to go down to the sun I'd sit behind notredam and I just I'd read I would look up at notredam and notredam is is a boat with the ores coming out the side and there's the Nave you know the the the ship and when you're you're in it or even better On top of it I used to climb up all the time you'd feel I'm on this great

boat and so the church symbolized by that church building is Noah's Arc isn't it it's a place where a microcosm of God's good order is preserved I I don't hear the rockus voice of the world I hear the word of God uh we come together from our different places and we sing in harmony and then the sacrifice of Christ takes place we eat his body and drink his blood and we're ordered to heaven so on That boat we're like Noah and his family and were gathered with all creation together but you know I was coming

of age the church build it's place where the pilgrim people gather and then you just strike the tent and you move on that that all that symbolism of what the church meant was rationalized I would say you know it it is the church is the image of the world it it is you know we the church is the beacon so think about like a medieval Village you can really understand this right so you have a medieval village and in the center of the village or what is the church but it's a it's a micro it's

a fractal it's a microcosm so the church gathers the people of the village together reminds them that they actually exist as one we always think that just because people are in the same in the same room it means that they're together that is not true there's a difference between there could be people in the Same room fighting with each other people in the same room just ignoring each other or people in communion and the church does that and reminds people of the village it's the highest point in the village it acts as a mountain it

has a cross at the top and everybody in the village can see the church anytime during the day and think about like a let's say 17th Century Village where you know at 12 the bells ring the angelist is is is called and everybody stops and Everybody remembers what unites them inside them what unites them to the people around them because they can see everybody praying at the same time what makes them one and so it the church is really an image of how you know the word Church in in Greek right it's it's EC Ecclesia

it means the Gathering and that's what it is it's taking the sand taking the dust in Genesis one Gathering it together and then receiving the influence from above To remind it to to to bind the world together what do our cities look like today in Canada or the us anything but that right we're I think of Chicago my hometown Holy Name Cathedral little tiny thing here and towering around it are are the the glass office Towers but in Chicago you have the Hancock Building John hanock insurance company you have Aon insurance company and you have

the Willis Tower and insurance they're all insurance insurance companies are what Dominate what would Gather Chicago would be we to ensure ourselves against you know the danger of losing our our homes and so on no but that's I think very eloquent it tells you exactly what the city prioritizes when I was in Europe you know I just love to go to these the older you know places you go to the center of the Old Town there was always the cathedral I'd want to climb to the top that was always my instinct but that's what they

were designed for Wasn't it yeah you go to the top of that and it gathers the city together but see what what does it mean that we've lost that yeah we lost that it is a coral are of materialism it's a coral of scientism and a kind of rism when we where we think that all things are equal and then what you get is the suburbs right the suburbs is the ultimate monster because there are no center right and people actually don't know their neighbors like maybe you know your first and second Neighbor but you

don't know the people down the street because you actually never gather together the modern world uh forgot what it means to be why we're one that we why what makes us a city what what binds us together and that is extremely dangerous because it happens at the level of the person and people's people have mental health crisis it happens at the level of the family people start to break down and then it happens at the level of cities and Nations uh but it is in some ways forgetting that we need religion in the strictly eological

sense we need a binding agent in order to to be one why why have we lost our nerve we people you know it bugs me because as we're talking about all this and it seems like a sweet reason to me and like of course and people for centuries knew it and believed it but I think from schlocker on you know we've been giving speeches to our culture despisers so when the Enlightenment culture emerges doesn't like religion for all these reasons and then we feel oh we better explain ourselves to our rationalist critics but then we

did so on their terms instead of drawing them into into the religious world we kind of fell into their world and was the result of that was a very truncated U desiccated form of religiosity right and that's the Catholicism I came of age with it's kind of hand ringing unsure of itself and man Has the society suffered because we lost our nerve yeah but I think I think there's more I mean there is a loss of nerve but I think there is in some ways a great deception that happened and it's not completely anybody's particular

fault but there is in some ways a forgetting of these elements taking them for granted and therefore forgetting that they actually bind us together and reducing religion to religious sentiment to your personal experience uh you know Like you know it's like you can believe what you want and I can believe what you want H what I want uh but religion from Genesis like from Genesis and the construction of the Tabernacle and the temple to what the church is which is a gathering that's what religion is it is the Gathering of the faithful into communion with

God communion with each other and communion with God uh and you know in some ways like you said the Catholicism you grew up with that's why The elements that would manifest that communion were being constantly you know poo pooed and and and and thrown out anything that looked like ritual anything that looked like hierarchy all of these elements that are actually reality holding together were said oh no we have to get rid of that we all we're all the same we're all equal we're all nians now I think we you know God is dead and

it's the will to power and we read everything through the Michelle fuk Nii lens of power relationships so things like Temple and hierarchy and ritual oh wait a minute there's a there's a man up there in a special vestment running the show and he thinks he's the most important so we we read it in that very reductive way we and what what happens is that they're not they're not completely wrong that there is a parasitical element to power and to hierarchy that can install itself and we've seen it happen nonstop in the History of the

world the problem is that you actually can't avoid it you do need the world to be ordered somehow in some way into proper order the question is what are you going to put at the top are you going to put the insurance building or you going to put the crucifix because what the crucifix at least reminds people when they become corrupt and power hungry that they're going away from the thing that is at the highest at least there's hypocrisy I know people Hate hypocrisy but hypocrisy is much better than flagrant you know tyrannical power that

installs itself without even having to hide it you know a couple years ago I was in um London giving a series of talks and they arranged for a talk at Parliament I wasn't in the House of Lords but I was there at Parliament speaking to parliamentarians and I gave my talk about Christianity and then I said at the very end you know I was in my hotel Looking up at the at the Union Jack over the parliament I said you know it's three crosses uh you know placed upon one another is that interesting that at

the very tip top of of your government building is the cross of this um young Jewish rabbi who was put to death by by the Romans and who was declared to be risen from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit I said you got it right there and a number of them afterwards to me I never ever thought about that you Know it's it's embedded in your flag and it's on top of your government building but exactly that not some you know Earthly king or a tyrant but this young Rabbi put to death

by the Romans whom God raised from the dead but he's on top of your building yeah and he's still on top of a lot of our buildings in our Western culture but do we know what it means yeah and we we have the 20 Century to remind us what happens if you completely and deliberately remove that Image from the Pinnacle of your Society yeah then you get tyranny and a tyranny let's say tyranny without excuse like a tyranny without 1984 you know the boot in your face is how the world functions and so saw it

in the 20th century and we're always kind of in danger of that happening again uh if we don't remember the difference between you know the a social order that is based on self-sacrifice and that has this powerful transformative image of the Cross at the summit and one which has the the the Emperor God at the summit those are not the same and if we're saying the pattern of patterns is that that's right is is Jesus crowned with a crown of thorns reigning but reigning from across that's the pattern yeah that's the pattern we're we're the

weirdest religion around you know what I mean I wrote a book years ago called the strangest way and I was trying to make that point that oh yeah or you know that Domesticated Christianity we all know what Christianity is but no no no we're the weirdest religion around we eat the blood in body right we're the weirdest religion around by far yeah um but at the same time like I want to I want to be careful too it's like it's true that we are the weirdest religion but we're also I think accurately reveal the manner

by which reality functions that is the idea that self-sacrifice is the structure of being isn't just like a Nice hopeful thing that we're saying it's that you know if the world is made out of a fractal and that all things have to participate in their higher purposes they there has to be a self-giving that's part of the structure it can't just be either top- down you know Authority or you know kind of equality at the bottom and the idea that that which is at the highest is giving it s up and giving itself down like

in love towards that which constitute it That is actually revealing how the the the world functions it's not and it is the best world possible and to bring those two thoughts together it's like Chester we live in a Topsy Turvy world so we live in a fallen world so when you reveal the true pattern it looks crazy yeah yeah that's right ex it looks insane to our world that says no no get as much wealth and power and pleasure and honor as you can and and fill up the EGO with all those things when you

say No no that's not the pattern that's the anti- pattern what are you talking about are you out of your mind why would you put a a crucified Criminal on top of your building yeah it's because we live in a in a world that's off-kilter and that brings it back online but it'll seem weird it'll seem weird at the outside but I love one of my favorite images in scripture is when Christ washes the feet of his disciples I love that image because it's an image some People take it to be an image of oh

we're all equal we're all the same and you know it's like and then but that's not what's going on right Jesus is the master you call call me Lord master and rightly so I am he says and he says I'm going to wash your feet and then Peter doesn't say oh it's about time like it's about time that you lower yourself at our level and you become one of us he's like no no no and then Christ insists I am the master and I will wash your feet To me that is the most paradoxical but

beautiful image of a hierarchy that remains a hierarchy remains a structure of order but gives itself in service to that which constitutes it and it's like and that's how we understand a hero that's how we understand honor right that's how we understand a knight or like this image of a powerful thing that is nonetheless in service of the weakest and that's a Christian idea that's got into our culture we take it for granted It's in every movie that's right but we don't recognize it as a Christian reality that's where Tom Holland comes in not not

Spider-Man Tom Holland but the historian is to say look these things that you think are just oh that's the way it is it's not just the way it is that's what was given to us by Christianity yeah and as we as we move away from that we will see older images start to appear again and fragmentations of the Christian Vision start to to take Their place uh and uh it's going to get very weird and and very scary like it did in the 20th century and it and it can happen again at any time I

agree hey let's shift gears a little bit um you know him very well I'm kind of coming to know him Jordan Peterson who's you know been such a phenomenon in our culture the last what you know 15 years or so I remember I discovered him on YouTube someone told me about him and it was this this kind of mild mannered looking Fellow in a in a u folding chair like a metal folding chair had a you know microphone hooked up bad lighting and he had um nich's you know one of the nich's text be goil

or something and he's speaking um you know about this complicated text and I thought this is the guy that that and then I look at the number of views it was like you know three million or something and it just it opened my eyes like wa what he's doing something here with this fellow You know so then I began to to watch him then eventually he and I you know made contact and I've been with him and I have great admiration for him you know and he's had this massive impact um explain it what's your

you've been close to him explain I mean why he's been I put it this way he's lived up to his name he's like the River Jordan for a lot of people crossing into the promised land a lot of people come to Faith and religion because of his lectures yeah What is it and I think that that's in some ways the role he plays you know when I heard him on the radio uh a little bit like about a year before he became famous uh that's what I saw as I is I realized because I had

like we were talking about these patterns and we're talking about this and this is something that I've been my brother and I have both developed over the past 20 years uh but there was something missing like there's a way of there was like a a Bridge missing to secularity and when I heard Jordan I realized that that he really had the capacity to fully Bridge into the secular even new atheist type world and that's the that's what he's been able to do and he's able to connect uh cognitive science phenomenology uh you know Union kind

of archetypes and and bi and very much biology in ways that are so organic and how can I say this so natural that he surprises people he surprises the Secular people he surprises the atheists and he I think almost single-handedly put new atheism on the defense you know because when he became famous 2016 you know uh Harris and Dawkins were filming stadiums like huge stadiums all across Europe and in the United States and Jordan came and just started to scratch at that uh and and trying to show the inevitability of these stories and these religious

patterns that you know even now without talking about the Fundamentalist questions of how historically this or that or whatever like I'm not even talk about that I just want to talk about the story and how meaningful and Powerful it is uh taking it very seriously uh and I think that very few people were doing that at the time and it's opened up a whole new way of talking about if it's not a new way it's an old way it's the way that the fathers talked about it and that's why a lot of Christians were recognized

the Way he speaks as akin to kind of typological reading that we find in in the fathers right that's I told them one time so I think you kind of stumbled upon what the fathers would call the tropological or moral reading of the Bible so to the four senses famously you know those who say oh you know before the Scientific age the Christians were just these simple-minded fundamentalists give me a break I mean from the second century Christians had extremely complex Hermeneutical programs for reading the Bible most famously the four senses one of which is

the moral sense today we might say the psychological sense or how it helps you you know and I think Jordan found that his his uh Mentor Carl Yung you know said the first psychologists were the church fathers and there's a lot of Truth to that I mean they understood the Dynamics of the psyche and the mind and all that now they related it then to higher senses of the Scripture but I think Jordan um almost stumbled upon that began talking about it and of course people responded I told my brother Bishops one time I was

chair of our committee on evangelization and I was laying out some of the data and you know what's going wrong what's going right and I said well you know one I think sign of Hope is this fellow Jordan Peterson and a lot of them didn't know who he was and I said you know he's filling stadiums of young people Especially Men We famously can't reach them we the official church people and as he's talking about the Bible he's talking about our book but he's doing it in a more uh compelling way than we are yeah

so I've been um just sort of long intrigued by that I I think it's intriguing I think that there are many things going on it's not just him he in some ways he it's a Ze guy he said you know there's this things were kind of falling I think that new atheism was Kind of coming to its to its end and there are different threads being pulled together and then uh you know you had weird things that happened like for example I think the Trump election in 2016 uh was was very powerful in the sense

that it revealed certain story patterns to us because things were happening in an almost mythological way and and everybody was like what is going on like reality is being being let's say folded in certain directions that people Were surprised and then even covid helped that as well because in Co we fell into religion fell into religious practice where Co was presented to us as a kind of religious thing with rituals and and and you know and a hierarchy of Truth and authority and all of that and I think just unconsciously that broke so many people

and Jordan just appeared in that time as a way to help people see the inevitability of this and how if we don't align it properly then we will end Up with a you know like 1984 techno uh techno religion that will rule over us and you know think of how many of the new atheists refer to the Bible as you know Bronze Age mythology and because I heard all of this the years I started doing uh YouTube stuff and reaching out to the whiter public Dawkins and Harris those guys they were very good evangelists I

mean they got their message out and these young people paring lines from them all The time I heard it every single day but that's a favorite know Brown's age mythology they didn't even know what a you know Malu was and how can we take them seriously and it just me they have no idea how to approach those texts yeah but part of it is our fault oh yeah we did not teach people well how to approach those texts and we got caught up in all the SCH mocker you know culture despiser game and we lost

our nerve you know and and then oddly Jordan Peterson kind of comes into that breach and begins you know opening up our own text again yeah for our people hey tell me about um I can talk to you all day but we're limited on time um so the fathers you know we've both been referencing a lot uh I came to love them you came to love them you're in an orthodox tradition which tends maybe toward the Eastern fathers I'm a Catholic we tend toward the west but you know my great hero Thomas Aquinus um augustinian

to be sure loves Augustine but he's very geared as well toward the Eastern fathers he loves for example irenaeus of Leon he loves Gregor of Nissa he loves Maximus loves John of Damascus you know um what is it some of those people Maximus you cite a lot he's a fascinating figure Maximus because he suffered a lot for his views definitely I think we're were saying this before we started filming I think a really pivotal player in contemporary conversations so Tell me about Maximus a little bit yeah I think I think Maximus is probably at least

right now is a very important father because he he presents Christ at the cosmic Christ he he really brings together these elements which were already there in St Gregory which are which already there in dianis uh and I think are there in St Paul himself and he's able to bring it together to in some ways present to us a synthesis of thinking about Christ as Really it's a metaphysics that he's giving us and in it's a metaphysics that is useful for us now because he talks about complexity even though he didn't use that word he

basically talks about the Gathering of Multiplicity into its logos into its purpose into its name and he collapses a lot of the he collapses things like purpose name reason uh story logos all of these he just collapses them into one which sounds weird at the Out but it makes so much sense right that a name of something is also its purpose and it's something we're seeing now like we're seeing that right now cognitive science is noticing that we see purposes we actually don't see objects and that the the identity of something is bound in its

purpose so I think Maximus offers us uh a world in which we can live as Christians I mean St Paul offers that right Christ offers that obviously but Maximus you Elaborates it in a way that can help us make sense of of how it is that we can live as Christians and have a world view that is coherent and makes sense and doesn't and is in some ways above the scientific worldview yeah that it affords the scientific worldview it can include the scientific scientific world can be included into it but it gives a frame for

it to exist it's like it's almost like what Maximus offers the structure that he offers which is really I think the biblical structure is metascientific it gives us so I mean sorry I'm going back to Genesis but like if you look at Genesis one God calls the Earth to produce multiplicity and then he judges it he says it is good and that's it like that's actually how it functions the good of something its identity it's purpose are all coming from heaven in order to bring phenomena together into one and St Maximus does it so powerfully

By interpreting the church building by interpreting the person as related St Maximus says that we're macro anthropos yeah that no not us that the universe is macro anthropos that the universe is what we call now anthropic right more a microcosm but then the cosmos Cosmos is a macro man that it is in some ways Bound in our capacity to join Heaven and Earth uh and I think that it is the most relevant thing for people to understand today yeah so Maximus uh another one we Call him the pseudo dianus the areopagite Thomas aquinus would have

known him as simply dianisha the aropa he was the guy that St Paul preached to on the areopagus and he had a quasi Apostolic Authority they we know him now as a what sixth Century Syrian monk who wrote These marvelous texts including this Celestial hierarchy right so what are you getting from pseudo dianus who very much influenced the west through aquinus well one of the things that it's Really important to to understand because we're so used to it now it's like one of the things that Christianity offers and dianus really captures it is an orderly

procession yeah from Heaven down to earth that is it's it's not the Gnostic idea that there's a complete division you know between the highest God and these Fallen lower Gods uh you know and it's not also the Olympian gods that are fighting amongst each other in order to attain Supremacy like you feel Inside you these things that are fighting he he presents us an orderly procession that comes down from the highest uh and not only highest but infinite unnamable you know beyond beinging source and lays itself out in in orderly into the world and he

and I mean and that's one of the most powerful gifts we can have it is in some ways the origin even of our understanding of of of just taxonomical categories right that there is a good That can be then seen qualities that can then be then seen as falling down into all their examples and that there's a coherence of goods that can be seen now it's not like he just made it up obviously there were threads of neoplatonism but the way that he brings it together is basically the origin of how we see the world

as a CO coherent uh as a coherent order that lays itself out from you know we don't say from Heaven anymore but let's say from mathematics You could say all the way down into all the the the smallest phenomena do you agree with this so go back to Genesis 1 and as this procession is unfolding you know first day evening came the second day and then this that people like us who come out of lurgical traditions we say I know what that is that's a lurgical procession at the end of which comes the human beings

I know who comes at the end of procession that's the priest or the bishop who's going to lead The praise so now we see oh that's the purpose of the universe is all these elements are meant to give praise to God and we're the voice we're the priest Adam again we link Heaven and Earth so the Liturgy is not just you know the community Gathering to get inspired to go out and work for social justice that's how it's presented to me when I was a kid yeah and I mean I'm all in favor of social

justice and that's that's part of you know what our work is In the world but the Liturgy as a recapitulation or a symbolic representation of the ultimate purpose of all of creation and of humanity yeah an that's the Liturgy it's the anchor of the world the Liturgy is the anchor of the world and you know when you say it like that it sounds like something gratuitous but it really is and the way that we describe the village as holding together into its in its local Parish that's we need an anchor to hold the World together

and the Liturgy the the the the joining of Heaven and Earth that happens in the altar is the the most perfect image of that but it happens every day it happens when you're having a family meal it happens every time you're with a friend and you're you're kind of in a Synergy coming together towards higher purposes but the the the Eucharist and the the the Liturgy is is the cosmic uh version of that it is man acting in it in his highest capacity as This anchor Between Heaven and Earth as priest yeah Merton you know

Thomas meron when he became a Trappist before he became a trapist he went on Retreat to get semin Abbey and he wrote in his diary I I found the Still Point around which the whole country revoles without knowing it and it was it was a lurgical sensibility that's what he was sensing right yeah hey before we run out of time and I I'm going to be I hope not I don't want to get into Catholic Orthodox pmics but I wonder can I propose something to you in light of everything we've been saying this way of

thinking and and hierarchies and and Gatherings and all that an argument that y Adam Mueller you know he was one of the so-called tubing in school early 19th century that had a big impact on later Theology and eventually Vatican 2o he makes this argument in his dialogue with Protestants about the papacy he said every Community needs some visible Unifying you know uh principle so um a parish needs a pastor that that gathers the people around himself a dicese so I'm I'm Bishop of a dases here and that's in a way my purpose I'm I've got

a juridical role I make certain practical judgments and I financial decisions and so on but my basic job here is to is to gather the people this dases I'm the sign and instrument of their Unity so Mur says the entire Christian family needs a singular figure Who gathers the many into the one so it was not so much a juridical argument it was a I would say mystical symbolic kind of argument how would you engage that let's say from an orthodox perspective I think that's how I would defend the papacy is a very important yeah

element within Christianity so I think how can I say this it's like I think that Christ foresaw in some ways this issue and the way that Christ foresaw it is not just The way Christ foresaw it it's there in the very structure of the biblical story which is that God puts an intermediary God sets a represent res ative for him in the world and that representative is constantly it's it's important but it's also constantly in danger of becoming uh prideful yeah I think that in the story of of uh St Peter Christ does it in

a crazy way because he says you are the stone on which I'm going to build my church and then he turns around and he Says Get Behind Me Satan right away so the the the intermediary can easily become the opponent and I think that you know you know I think that the Primacy of Peter which is something that the entire church recognized uh in the first centuries uh at least for the rest of the church for the Orthodox Church at some point it seemed that that it was the pride of Peter that we were facing

and that Peter was acting like a king that was was trying to basically control Everything and and I think that the consequences of that you know whether it is the the the the difficulty of the you know the Eastern Christian Catholic churches you know and the conflict that were born in those those those realities are still live and they make they they make it difficult I think for the for the church to to fully come back together uh you know and I don't think that it's impossible I think that eschatologically And so maybe orth some

Orthodox will be annoyed that I say that but I think that eschatologically we have to see a a a return of the body uh you know in order to for the bride to receive to receive the the bridegroom but I don't I really don't see that I think that at least for now the the Orthodox tradition uh represents a a powerful check on Peter's Pride which is inevitable in some ways yeah think of John Paul II you know 1995 proposes Is there a new way we could think about this you know uh Pope Francis recently

kind of reiterated that is there a new way we could imagine the Petr privacy and so on but it's a it's a SC it's a scary thing like and I say this like even as an Orthodox Christian is that the strength of Peter and the strength of the Catholic church is its capacity for Central action and its capacity to mobilize right the the weakness of the Orthodox Church is its fractiousness and It is fractious you know they can't even have a sinate but at least for now everything that's happening in the world I am grateful

for the sins of the Orthodox Church in the sense I'm grateful for their fractiousness because the world is moving in directions that is so frightening that if centralized action was made completely possible we might see rather dark things happening in the future and I like the fact that that that we can't actually reach Consensus because it's not clear that that consensus at least at this moment would be something that we would want right and one reason I'm to the Yan ader argument is again it's it's it's more symbolic you know it's the the sort of

sacramental quality of of the unity of the church that the pope would embody now indeed we're priest prophet and King so there's the archetype of Christ and so the the high priest of the church Pope Prophet he's the one that Adjudicates dispute so he's the final word but also King you the one that makes decisions practically about how the church is to move in the world um you know I would recogniz all three of those is important but I I totally get you're right about the the original scene in the gospels and that Peter right

away is named as a as a problem just after being named The Rock I think we'll see a beautiful I I I trust God and I trust Christ and I think that we Will see the story that we see in scripture the Peter's story that we see in scripture we'll see it play out as well which is the beautiful image of how Peter encounters Christ after the resurrection is is is one of the most beautiful images in Scripture feed my sheep and feed my Lambs he actually and you have to see it not just that

you have to see it in line with the story of Peter trying to walk on water because now he doesn't even try to walk on water He Dives in to the water yeah and he Dives in in order to encounter his Risen Lord and then Christ basically tells him what his function is and so you know I think that you know I I believe that we will see we will see something like that happen I don't know when I know you know is it is it es is it completely eschatological but I don't see there's

another way yeah do you read him there as um sinful Adam he's naked but then throws on clothes before he comes to the Lord so he's it's a it's a fascinating image because it doesn't make sense right narratively like why is he actually putting on and I think it does have to do with this is going to sound weird to people because they don't know the way that like I think it has to do about it has to do with the healing of malus's ear actually it has to do with it has to do with

with Christ making the the exterior whole right it has to do with the Heavenly City and so it's not That you remove the garments anymore you know like remove the sandals in order to enter this central place is that Christ is making the garments full like in the Transfiguration of of Christ garment becoming illumined I think that that's what I think that that's what's happening in that story where Peter actually now puts it all on in order to come into the final his final encounter with Christ it is weird isn't it uh in The New

American Bible I think some Years ago the translation of the word is gimos in in Greek naked right it says Peter was lightly clad well not lightly clad the fact that why would you be naked in the boat I I get maybe maybe I get lightly clad but why would you be naked in the boat which reference the unless there's something it's a reference to Genesis yeah all that and and Adam ashamed in the presence of the Lord I think that's I think that's right I think there's something about all of That Adam ashamed in

the presence of the Lord is a good is a good image yeah yeah hey let's do one more thing even over time but the book you should write I think is just a do a book on the New Testament take us through the New Testament from this patristic but let's do one last one um uh because I think when we were together for the Peterson thing on the gospels this came up is Jesus asleep in the stern of the boat while the storm is going on and linking That to u to Jonah tell me about

that yeah I mean I think Jonah's In Jonah is a very powerful story obviously right because it has a it has again that Cosmic structure the one that we mentioned earlier when we talked about the the boat on the outside and the mountain on the on the on at the top and Jonah goes to the bottom of the world and then moves up into the City and so there's this beautiful and then ultimately even into the garden but when He's down he goes down into the water and he has to repent and his beautiful image

story of repentance is that he remembers the Tabernacle he remembers the temple remembers the holy place and that's how he turns his sin and death into a remembering now and and in that story there's a little version of that is before he goes down into the water that he goes down into the boat and he basically there's a huge storm going on And he's responsible and he forgets and he's like he really is it really is this image of death and of distraction and of all the things that bring us into sin and he's just

sleeping at the bottom of the boat while everything is going Going to Hell Above and Al he's made responsible and he's thrown in and it's like Jesus the Ser of Jesus is playing on that in a beautiful way because Jesus goes down into death really goes down into the bottom of the boat and now it's Not like the sleep of distraction it's like this it's like the rest of the Creator you know on on the Sabbath he goes and peacefully sleeps and death is to him not a threat it's not dangerous and he's calm and

they wake him up and you're like you know don't worry about it everything's going to be okay and he comes back up it's almost humorous because even the S of Jonah's is funny that story is one of the funniest I think in scripture you know it's a Beautiful image of how Christ is going to conquer death ultimately you know in his resurrection yeah listen we have to stop uh one we're over time and secondly you've got to get to work on this book on the New Testament I want you to go right from here to

start working on it delightful talking to you Jonathan thank you for it's always a joy taking so much time and you know I do think we we Christians have to claim our you know this great tradition and we've got Something to say to the wider culture so you're doing it better than almost anybody so God bless you thank you Bishop it's a great talk to [Music]