We have reached the end of season four! After a season of listening and learning from a variety of people, ideas and experiences, Jo and Peter sit down together and pull out some of the threads and themes woven throughout this season.
This season spanned a wide range of topical subjects, from young people and mental health to class and heritage, to identity and power, revealing a resounding common theme of crisis. Our world and sometimes our own faith feels fragile and fractured. So, in this episode Jo and Peter take three of the major cultural stories – secularism, expressive individualism and postmodernism, and ask: ‘what do we mean by each, why are these stories here, and why are they creating crisis?’.
Ultimately, the hope-filled news is that these cultural stories exist within a wider and deeper one. A good, true and beautiful story of what it means to be human, that we are invited into to bring about cultural renewal.
Although season four has come to a close, you can dig even deeper by reading Jo and Peter’s book and staying up to date with the latest content here, on our website.
Part one (00:00)
02:29 – The wrap up episode: reflecting on what we’ve heard and noticing commonalities within the themes of the cultural stories throughout the podcast season.
06:00 – Why are we feeling as though we are living in crisis? Increasingly people are reevaluating the story they are living, but what if there is another story that doesn’t inhabit crisis?
08:27 – Exploring story one: Secularism. Why aren’t we as secular as we pretend to be and the lack of coherency this story offers.
Part two (15:30)
15:43 – Exploring story two: Expressive individualism — what do we mean by this, why is it here and why is it creating crisis?
19:00 – Some of the challenges of expressive individualism, and why receiving an identity from God and belonging to Him is so important in light of this story.
21:10 – Exploring story three: Postmodernism. Understanding the goodness that can be found in this story – from calling out power abuse to tearing down injustice. However, there are challenges to this story that leave us fumbling, searching for truth.
29:30 – Our cultural stories run within the larger, wider one that God shares with us. As kingdom-carriers, we are to be a light to the surrounding world, to partner with Him to bring about cultural renewal.