Martin Shaw on the Liturgy of Myth

18 snips

Jan 14, 2026

Martin Shaw, a celebrated mythologist and storyteller, dives into the intersection of myth, wilderness, and spirituality. He explores how modern culture is numb and how Christianity can be an initiatory path filled with risk and curiosity. Shaw reflects on his personal journey back to faith, the strangeness of Jesus as a mythical figure, and the importance of ritual over fleeting psychedelic experiences. He also encourages practical steps for local rites of passage, emphasizing a return to sincere, heart-focused practices to break free from cynicism.

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INSIGHT

Safety Breeds Numbness

Shaw argues that avoiding risk and domesticity produces safety at the cost of growing numbness and loss of curiosity.
He links initiation and risk to fuller life, saying moving closer to death can make you live more fully.

INSIGHT

Christianity As An Initiatory Path

Shaw defines Christianity as essentially initiatory and contends modern church often domesticated it into safety and routine.
He connects ancient rites, myth, and vocation as technologies for deeper transformation.

ANECDOTE

Tent Apprenticeship For Storytelling

Martin Shaw lived alone in a tent for four years to learn oral storytelling and lit about a thousand fires while learning new tales.
He finished with roughly a thousand stories circulating in his head from that bardic apprenticeship.

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What do myth, wilderness, and ancient story have to teach a culture drowning in information but starving for meaning?

Russell Moore sits down with mythologist, storyteller, and author Martin Shaw–called our “greatest living storyteller”–in a conversation centered on Shaw’s upcoming book, Liturgies of the Wild (releasing February 3).

Drawing on folklore, wilderness tradition, and Christian theology, Shaw argues that Christianity is not merely a belief system but an initiatory path—one that modern culture has domesticated into something safer, quieter, and far less demanding.

Shaw reflects on his own journey from Baptist church pews to decades spent studying myth, living in a tent, and eventually returning—reluctantly—to Christianity through Eastern Orthodoxy. Their conversation touches on his 4-day-retreat-turned-conversion, myth versus fact, the resurrection as “disturbingly strange,” the dangers of cynicism and sarcasm, the rise of psychedelic spirituality, and how practices as simple as memorizing a poem or sitting by a fire can begin to re-form the soul.

If you’re beginning the year considering longing, risk, and what it means to become fully human in a world that prefers comfort to transformation–and you’re wanting to hear poetry recited in a British accent–this conversation is for you.

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

Liturgies of the Wild — Martin Shaw
The Moviegoer — Walker Percy
The Pilgrim’s Regress — C.S. Lewis
Against the Machine — Paul Kingsnorth (Listen here for Paul’s interview with Russell)

The Hero with a Thousand Faces — Joseph Campbell

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