mean if we were to put our tom holland tats on from it and you do you write about tom holland quite a lot of the book um his thesis of course in dominion being that actually an enormous amount of contemporary culture in the west is derived from Christian principles we just don't always um acknowledge it explicitly a lot of what was going on in new atheism particularly in the atheism plus faction which kind of turned into the progressive woke or whatever you want to call it faction as time went by was actually very like very strongly influenced by Christian principles like equality for instance you know that is not a universal principle by any means but that's very fundamental to the work worldview and is clearly descended from 2000 years of um Christendom what you see maybe with Peterson is that and similar kind of figures is is is uh it is just you know making that Christian influence just a little bit more explicit but bringing in some of the other I

mean my view on why the woke Christian

thing doesn't actually work very well is that what they've done is obviously they've taken away the theology and they've also taken away um the sort of structuring uh principles of the faith and just plucked out there's another chested to the court I mean we can just throw chest in court all day um about kind of untethering virtues actually produces

chaos yeah

because they only work in concert with one another and if you only take say

equality

on its own that doesn't work it needs to be sort of balanced by the other things so Peterson brings an order famously right talks about hierarchy is actually a potential good um so it seems as if we're all just playing with the same Christian principles it's just sort

of yes yes as as another slightly different recipes another mutual friend of mine Glenn Val's Glenn's Crivener says he says we're we're all hurling bible verses added to each other we just forgotten the references and I think that's right we kind of we're taking all the the values and virtues in a sense that do of course under undergird our sense of who what humans are and and why we you know the fact that we believe in equality but which as Tom Holland says is essentially a theological belief it's certainly not based in a kind of purely scientific or rational kind of you know bit of reasoning but we do and and the problem is as you say I think some groups tend to just focus on that to the exclusion of all the other things that kind of undergirded it and came with it and the structures of our society that sort of helped us to embody that so I I engaged in counter-jaw work Louise sort of at the point where I was really finishing the manuscript for this book you know over a year ago and um and I was just surprised though when I I you know I remember over one half a day of holiday reading the case against a sexual revolution I thought oh I wish I'd read this book before I started writing my book because so much of what you were writing chimed perfectly with with this what I was trying to express this idea that you know we we have a culture that's kind of riding on the coattails it to some extent of of Christian morality but has kind of expressing some of those things you know you talk obviously about consent but without everything else that then gave that you know a meaning and a sense of of location in in all the other sorts of things that we need in a to have a good sexual relationships with each other and um I I was obviously when you wrote that book you didn't do it from a Christian perspective but I I was

very struck as a toddler would say I did but well that yes at a

subconscious level of course we all write a Christian way according to Tom Holland but the but nonetheless you were coming to these very Christian friendly Christian adjacent conclusions and and I I thought well isn't that interesting because I was noticing other people you know doing the same thing secular intellectuals who were sort of surprised to find themselves you know you know in in something of an agreement with with some of the ways in which Christianity had had actually brought about this culture at least and I think that the problem was with the new atheist they wanted to have their cake and eat it they they did want the benefits but they wanted to kind of jettison the underlying story or the the practices that had kind of actually inculcated these values of equality dignity human rights and everything else but as you say it's very difficult to hold on to those things in in the absence of of it um I think I think that's the big question obviously for our culture generally is you know um can we hold on to these these fruits of the Christian revolution in the absence of people really believing the Christian story any longer and I I do wonder whether whether that is possible how how long can you sort of keep going on the the faded embers if you like of a story that's only half remembered any longer but my my big case is in a way optimistic case you may say in this book is that as these stories kind of do run out of steam the kind of either the the woke left stories or the you know religious right stories or the the atheist story or the material story or this I just think people get to a point where they're willing to consider that old old story again and I think it's interesting to see that as secular intellectuals from people outside the church start reminding them about it I just wonder whether we might be sort of living in some kind of moment between tides where the sea of faith yes it's gone out but as Douglas Murray reminded me in an interview a few years ago said the thing about the sea of faith is it can come back in you know that's the point of tides and and I I suppose my optimistic thesis is that as we see sort of these secular intellectuals sort of starting to rediscover you know some value in the Christian faith and I find myself surprised by interesting people converting to Christianity occasionally whether there might just be something in the atmosphere that's that could herald the turning of a tide and the you know their Christian story could be ready to come back in again and and and sort of give people meaning and it feels like on one level I feel crazy even saying that because it feels like well you can't put this genie back in the bottle now but the other hand I don't know you look back on history and big changes have happened you know we turn from the pagan Roman Empire to a Christian culture now you know a long time but it happened you know it's not like big changes can't happen again even in our lifetime

and indeed religious revivals within Christianity are not unheard of at all

I suppose the the difficult question to answer though first of all that we're going to predict a Christian revival is why exactly there's been a why exactly the tide has come

out I and I I don't really have an answer to that it's very difficult it probably I mean it correlates with so many other things that maybe it might have something to do with affluence maybe it might have something to do with communication technologies I don't know I mean as you say new atheism was in many ways forged by the internet and the fact that all of these sort of contrarian arguments if people were able to find one another that equally I suppose could end up forging religious revivals with different kinds too I

think that it's

what do you have a leading theory for exactly we became so much less religious before we start talking about becoming more religious I don't

know I guess lots of people have written on the sort of secularization thesis haven't they and you know most people linking it to the enlightenment and kind of just it's sort of this disenchanting effect it had across our culture so the extent that even you know more modern forms of Christianity Protestantism etc tended to be more left-brain they they were not sort of just about being surrounded by you know a story it was more about having to make sense of this story in a logical fashion and and I so I think to some extent that that that sort of way of thinking has has kind of just increased over the last several hundred years at to the point where you eventually end up with you know basically the end point of that being highly kind of materialistic ways of understanding the world including faith and and people kind of buy this story that will that that must be the way it is that that's the sort of way that the world works and and so we're sort of just telling ourselves these stories about Christianity and God just as a sort of placebo for you know for the reality which is probably what the new atheist you know that this kind of mindless mechanistic universe is so I think that that's that's all something to do with it this this kind of materialistic story of reality has kind of just been encroaching increasingly across all spheres of life it's sort of just the default view in academia and everything else these days whereas it wasn't once I think technology has a huge part to play in that almost accelerating really within the 20th century and obviously in the last couple of decades it's it feels like that as it's sort of all kind of if it was a sort of gradual thing it is to have only accelerated thanks to technology making everyone head in that same direction and just forcing a kind of material not just a philosophically materialist but a kind of culturally materialistic individualistic culture that we now live in so all of that I think plays into why religion institutional religion has been not no longer flavor of the month arguably it's not just religion that's seeing that you know there are all people don't tend to join political parties much these days either because we're more individualistic we don't sort of do those communal things that once shaped us the problem is and I think now a lot of the psychologists and others are recognizing we it's a problem for humans because we evolved to be these communal creatures who are shaped by the stories that we tell each other and seeing ourselves as part of something bigger I believe there is a a story you know as a Christian that that we're meant to see ourselves as part of it as we lose that we kind of we kind of now imagine ourselves as sort of free floating entities and everyone's having to make their own story and as that sort of is accelerated to a kind of fever pitch in a social media age where we're now sort of bombarded with all manner of ways in which you could potentially shape and determine your own identity I think it especially for young people crazy is kind of intolerable burden it's a one of the reasons I think behind the mental health crisis the sort of anxiety depression suicide and so on and what you know again psychologists labeled the the meaning crisis in our culture where we feel alienated from the world and each other by technology and the loss of this shared story and I think all these new you know trendy secular intellectual thinkers are kind of onto something they're they're recognizing it the question is what's the answer because those you'd be very good at coming up with a solution and it can't simply be let's just start believing again because it is like how do you how do you put that genie back in the model but there's got to be something about for me it's it's about helping people to realize that we don't have to live in the story of reality that we've been sort of born into in western culture in 21st century western culture at least that actually there is this this other story that still has immense resonance and power once people discover it and this thing that as much as it's a very faulty and broken thing called the church which has been the bearer of that story and still has the capacity to be transformative agent for culture and society on earth so that's um that's kind of where I land I don't have a lot of solutions I but I do believe that rediscovering that story that sort of ultimately makes sense of all those other stories people are trying to live their lives by is is for me the ultimate key to to how we make sense of of where the world's gone

I've made this argument around a few dinner tables and a few sort of panels when it's quite common for people who are critical of work politics but are not religious to say something like you know it's not enough well increasing I mean there was a phase where there was just lots of criticism of brokenness and now that's sort of that's being said and there's a more of a move towards saying well what you know what next what's the kind of what's we know that there's this meaning crisis we know that young people are lonely miserable all the rest of it what what can we offer in their place because clearly people are finding meaning in

politics to some extent even if politics is quite a poor source of meaning

ultimately and um and I've had the experience a few times of putting up my hand neatly and saying

have you considered Christianity

you know I'm not saying I'm not evangelizing but I'm saying that it's probably the story that has been believed by more people you know throughout human history than any other just in terms of sort of the raw numbers and

it has a remarkable ability to adapt itself to different cultures and sort of work in different registers and

um and

so far that hasn't gone down very well because it's seen as sort of moving backwards which of course it is

but the problem is yeah exactly

I think I think the reason you probably meet such incredulity is that's the word yeah yeah it's because I think people think well not only are you potentially asking me to believe in something that just seems weird and outdated and irrelevant but you're also potentially asking me to change the way I live because of it you know to make different decisions about my life and I mean that was I mean that was the remarkable thing again about your book you know if I may come back to it which is the kind of solutions you suggested for how people might have a happier more fulfilling sex life or relationships well what kind of you know basically will don't just go with the flow with what culture says is the best way to find personal expression and freedom and everything you know be choosy oh wait um and you know Christianity sort of says that about yes you know that that issue um in fact even more draconianly it suggests you should wait until you're married and stick to the same person through thick and thin um that's that's a high bar in our culture to kind of cool people too but equally it's not just that I think I think there are all kinds of things that a thorough going Christianity will challenge people too so it's no surprise to me that just presenting it as it's not like just saying have you thought of picking up this self-help book because I think in its true form Christianity will be a very challenging road for someone to walk down which is partly why I think almost the meaning crisis is going to have to get worse before a lot of people would even begin to consider it I think it's almost like uh as long as we've still got the luxury of kind of complaining about it and but you know we we we've still I don't know got enough in our lives to sort of that we don't have to make those kind of big sacrifices I think a lot of people will will choose to reject it I also think if I'm honest as well um it's just harder to make that change as an adult I think there's a reason why you know most people if they're going to be a Christian they've probably made that decision by their late teens and early 20s that's not to say I haven't met plenty of adult converts I do and I'm surprised actually by how many I'm meeting these days interestingly but I think it just is harder to make a big U-turn in your life when you're you've reached a certain age and it's it's harder to change the trajectory and the beliefs you have and you know the way the patterns of your life you know it's much much more of a sacrifice so so I don't uh I'm not as all surprised to hear that kind of response around the dinner thing most

Christians are very positive

in their responses to my book

but