Is God using Vishal Mangalwadi to disciple Jordan Peterson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tom Holland, and Elon Musk? Today, we discover the transformative power of Christianity on Western civilization through the eyes of Indian Bible scholar and good friend Vishal Mangalwadi. Join us as Mangalwadi unravels the often-overlooked impact of the Bible on modern life. Although many in the West have taken values such as freedom, justice, free speech, forgiveness, the list goes on, for granted, a future in which these values are canceled is becoming a reality. We've recently noticed a resurgence in people who realize these values are essential to Western civilization’s future and go on to connect these virtues directly to the Bible. In the last couple of years, Mangalwadi has played an interesting role in helping non-Christian leaders such as Jordan Peterson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tom Holland, and even Elon Musk make this connection between the rich history of Western civilization and the Bible. During this discussion, you will hear Mangalwadi's thoughts on why this revival in Biblical values is happening now, how Christians can support and encourage this movement, and an admonishment to hold fast to a biblical vocabulary under pressure. Our conversation is an invitation to reassess the past and reclaim the biblical underpinnings of Western achievements, providing a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of our civilization's foundations. This episode is a compelling examination of the intertwining threads of faith, history, ideas, and the future trajectory of Western civilization.
Is God using Vishal Mangalwadi to disciple Jordan Peterson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tom Holland, and Elon Musk? Today, we discover the transformative power of Christianity on Western civilization through the eyes of Indian Bible scholar and good friend Vishal Mangalwadi. Join us as Mangalwadi unravels the often-overlooked impact of the Bible on modern life. Although many in the West have taken values such as freedom, justice, free speech, forgiveness, the list goes on, for granted, a future in which these values are canceled is becoming a reality. We've recently noticed a resurgence in people who realize these values are essential to Western civilization’s future and go on to connect these virtues directly to the Bible. In the last couple of years, Mangalwadi has played an interesting role in helping non-Christian leaders such as Jordan Peterson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tom Holland, and even Elon Musk make this connection between the rich history of Western civilization and the Bible. During this discussion, you will hear Mangalwadi's thoughts on why this revival in Biblical values is happening now, how Christians can support and encourage this movement, and an admonishment to hold fast to a biblical vocabulary under pressure. Our conversation is an invitation to reassess the past and reclaim the biblical underpinnings of Western achievements, providing a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of our civilization's foundations. This episode is a compelling examination of the intertwining threads of faith, history, ideas, and the future trajectory of Western civilization.
Well, welcome again, everybody to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. My name is Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by my colleagues Luke Allen and Dwight Voet. And our special guest today is our old friend, longtime friend, vishal Mongolwadi. It's so nice to have you back on Ideas have Consequences, vishal, great to see you.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Thank you for having me and thank you for what you're doing around the world.
Scott Allen:Oh, it's a joy to have you back with us, and for those of you who are unfamiliar with Vishal if you've missed our earlier podcasts just a brief introduction.
Scott Allen:Vishal is born and raised in India. He's a Bible scholar, philosopher and just brilliant thinker when it comes to the subject of the impact that the Bible has made on shaping culture around the world, I really don't think there's anyone that understands that topic as clearly and deeply as Vishal does. He's the author of many books, probably most famously a book by the title of the Book that Made your World how the Bible created the soul of Western civilization an outstanding book that I highly recommend everyone get a hold of and read. We had the privilege of working with Vishal on a couple of other books Truth and Transformation, another outstanding book that I would recommend that you look at. And then, of course, he's got a number of new books that kind of continue in these same themes. But anyways, there's so much more I could say Vishal. I just encourage you to learn more about him and his writing, his teaching, and anyway, it's great to have you back with us again, vishal.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Well, thank you again. Yes, I've enjoyed the support and publicity that DNA has given me.
Scott Allen:Well, we feel like we're team members, even though we're not in the same organization. We very much are working in the same ministry, the same mission, and you play such a vital role in it. Hey, I thought we'd get our conversation started today with something that Luke just brought to my attention. Before you came on. I thought this was really fascinating, a little exchange that happened on X, formerly Twitter. Luke, do you want to explain what you were seeing there?
Luke Allen:Sure yeah, I thought this was really interesting. I think this happened over Christmas on Twitter, on X, and this was a tweet that I know, vishal, you saw Actually on your Instagram is where I saw it because of the screenshot but Zuby, who's a Christian rapper, he sent out a brief tweet Just sounds like one, just a thought of his, and it says quote I don't think I've ever said this publicly and directly, but I think the West is absolutely screwed if we lose Christianity. Explaining this in full would require an entire book, but I've thought about it a lot over the years and I've reached this conclusion. So he sends out that tweet and then, right there, elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, just decides to comment and he says I think you are probably right that we're absolutely screwed if the West loses Christianity. And then I love this because you screen-shotted this, Vishal, and you said this is the book you're looking for and you pointed to the book that changes everything, which I would agree with.
Luke Allen:I think that book does an excellent job explaining why the West and the world at large needs Christianity. And, yeah, so I heard that you sent Elon Musk the book and I hope he reads it, because this tweet just it reminds. It seems like a reoccurring event that we're seeing right now amongst a lot of critical thinking people in the West, all over the world, but people that are recognizing the importance that the Bible has played in shaping the culture and the world that we live in, the importance that the Bible has played in defining right and wrong and morality and things that we all agree are good and we want to see continue in the world. But more and more people that aren't Christians are drawing the line back to the Bible, which I think is really encouraging. Is that something that you've noticed?
Vishal Mangalwadi:Yes, this is something which is amazing because what Elon Musk is saying is exactly what comes to mind. It's crazy about this and it's incredibly, truly incredible, the place where Tom Holland, an atheist historian, science fiction writer in Britain, he had come to the same conclusion, which he outlines in his book the Dominion, and Jordan Peterson is perhaps the most famous public intellectual around the world who has come to the same conclusion. Two years ago, I gave him the copies of the book that made your world, and this book changed everything, the two books in which I developed the thesis. I have four or five books about India, how the Bible created modern India, but these are books about the Western civilization. And when I gave it to him, he looked at the book that made your world, the book that you mentioned, and he asked me did you write this as an Indian? So I said yes, I wrote these books before coming to the USA, that particular book. So he said, I'm looking for a book on this topic. So two, three days later, my friends, I had deliberately not signed the book or put my contact information because I wanted him to engage with the thesis rather than with me. So three days later, people began calling me from Africa, from Germany, india, that Jordan Peterson is looking for your contact information. So then he told me that he's read the book. He's now reading the second book. This book changed everything and he would like to interview me. Then he did that one hour 47 minute interview which has had almost 300,000 views. But David Gress I'm looking forward to a public dialogue with him in Scandinavia in April. He was one of the first in his book from Plato to NATO. He's a proper professional historian. His book is most famous book is called from Plato to NATO, where he was the first to expose the modernist myth that the enlightenment, rationalism, created the modern world. So he has also moved very close to the position which Elon Musk is expressing, that it is Christianity which has created the modern world and if the West loses Christianity it will be devastated.
Vishal Mangalwadi:You have Neil Nile Ferguson, another public intellectual. It's very interesting that Nile's wife, ayan Ali Hersie she is a Somali refugee who became a member of parliament in Holland Opposed Islam after 9-11, her one of her intellectual partner, so political partner. He was stabbed to death by Muslim terrorists and on the knife which they left on her body was a note that she will be next. So she had to flee Holland and come to North America. She became a public atheist, a very close friend with Richard Dawkins, sam Harris and the other atheists.
Vishal Mangalwadi:But in London, during Ock, I gave her a copy of the book that made your world. She asked me to sign it, which I did, and then four days later she made a public statement that she is now a Christian. So from a Muslim to an atheist and having become a Christian was very interesting. So you're right that there are number of these public intellectuals who are admitting now. Most of them have not yet declared themselves to be Christian, but they're declaring publicly that the Christianity, the Bible, is the force that has created the modern world and the only way to revive the West is to return to the Bible. So you're right and I'm grateful that the Lord is using these books.
Scott Allen:Vichal, I wanna talk more about this. I find this one of the most fascinating things that's happening in the world right now, this movement that you're speaking of. You mentioned many names Ion Hersey, lle, jordan Peterson, douglas Murray, tom Holland and now I didn't know this until this morning apparently Elon Musk, right, is saying I think you're right, we would be screwed without the Bible. I just find this fascinating and I think I really was looking forward to having you on to get your perspective on this. I call it maybe it's a movement I'm not quite sure what you would call it. It's a movement that, the way I look at it, it's a returning and a valuing again of the role that the Bible and Christianity has played in building the West and particularly the parts of the West that these public intellectuals really treasure, these things like free speech, freedom of religion, a lot of these traditional liberal values that they apparently are seeing as under threat right now. You're right.
Scott Allen:In my lifetime you called it the modernist myth or the modernist narrative that has held sway in the West in my lifetime. So you would expect people like these folks to basically reinforce that narrative that the West was a messed up dark ages type of place with all sorts of religious wars, and it wasn't until the Enlightenment and kind of the age of reason, when we got rid of the Bible and God, that things started kind of moving in a positive direction. I mean, you do a much better job, vishal, of kind of describing the modernist narrative than I would, but that's kind of it in a nutshell. I mean, that's all I've heard from people in kind of leading intellectual circles in my lifetime and all of a sudden here comes this group almost out of nowhere that are kind of rejecting that and saying no, it turns out that the Bible really is something that's essential. I would love to hear your take on why. Why is this happening now?
Vishal Mangalwadi:Well, there are many factors. One is the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s, when the students in Berkeley University and others places shouted slogans hey, hey, ho, ho, western civ got to go. The western civ that they were talking about was in fact that modernist myth that had been invented in the first decade of the 20th century in New York and promoted by people like Will Durant. Will Durant was a lapsed Roman Catholic. Every Monday evening he gave a lecture in a presbyterian church across the main entrance to the New York University and his lectures were published as story of civilization, story of philosophy, et cetera. So in those lectures he had promoted this myth.
Vishal Mangalwadi:And the sad thing was that because the Christians in North America and Europe had abandoned universities and moved into Bible seminaries, the best Christian minds were training seminary students. They were not training historians and sociologists and philosophers, thinkers. So the Christian interpretation of the western history was became unknown. Average pastor didn't know. Average theologian who had studied in seminary could be very intelligent, could know Greek and Hebrew, but he didn't know how the modern world was created. So the only voice that was heard there were a few exceptions, such as Francis Schaefer's. How should we then live? That was one of the series that helped many of us, but it was not a serious academic work but since-.
Scott Allen:If I could just interrupt really quick, michelle, on that. I have just my own personal story just relates to this, because I grew up here in the state of Oregon, went to a very liberal arts university and studied history and I was a young Christian at that time, but the portrayal of history that I was taught in my undergraduate years was uniformly shaped by the modernist myth. And so, for example, especially in early American history, you know, when you study the Puritans and the pilgrims that settled here, I mean they were these backwards people and they were killing Native Americans and violent and they enslaved people and this, and that it was all uniformly negative and I kind of absorbed that right. And so even as a young Christian I'm kind of ashamed to be a Christian because of so much negative things that have happened in the past in the name of Jesus. And it wasn't until I got out of college.
Scott Allen:I read a couple of books that, by the way, I never was introduced to in college. One of those books was William Bradford's book. You know he was the governor of the Plymouth Plantation, very famous. You know biography and I was stunned by you know just the depth of his thinking, biblical thinking, his compassion. It wasn't at all like this portrayal, the stereotype that I'd learned. And then I met UV Shall and you introduced me to the work of John Wesley and all that had happened in England during the Wesleyan revivals, and I thought I never studied this Like I, just it was completely wiped out, you know, and it wasn't until after I got out of college that I was first exposed to some of these ideas. But just, you know, my own personal story intersects with this so much and I remember just being I felt like I was ripped off, like I was. Yeah, I spent a lot of money and I was just had, you know, by my education, right.
Vishal Mangalwadi:So you know, just go ahead. Well, you're absolutely right. And Tom Holland, for example, who has written now extensively that the Bible, christianity, created the modern world, all the best things in England, europe, come from Christianity. He made a statement in one of his Zoom events that freedom and democracy came from Greece and I wrote in the chat that no, they didn't, they came from the Bible. So the organizer, Jeff Fountain, of his Zoom, he asked if I would be willing to discuss this with Tom Holland. I said sure. So Tom Holland and I had a Zoom dialogue in which it is on YouTube three times. In that one hour Tom Holland's acknowledges that he had never studied the history of freedom and democracy and I gave him all the reasons why modern freedom and democracy came from the Bible, not from Greece. The only political system Greece ever exported was totalitarian imperialism. Through Alexander the Great, it began the empire in India. The Greece never taught freedom and democracy because the greatest of Greece.
Scott Allen:As an Indian, you have a particular perspective on this here as well. That's right and the greatest of Greek thinkers Plato and Aristotle.
Vishal Mangalwadi:They both condemned democracy as the worst of all political systems. So that was very interesting that here is a professional historian who has already written books saying that the best features of the best came from Christianity. But he has no idea that freedom and democracy came from Christianity. So that video is online. But if I may mention a few more names that your listeners might take care of, I mean follow up One is Rodney Stark.
Vishal Mangalwadi:He was a sociologist in the Washington State University, then Baylor University. He wrote a number of very good books in which he helped demolish the modernist myth and the attack that you referred to about slavery and this and that the birth of modern science. So there are many good books that he wrote. The best one is For the Glory of God. For the Glory of God, how monotheism created a number of features that he talks about. The Victory of Reason is another one.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Now there is a Australian sociologist, peter Harrison. He spent seven years in Europe studying. Why did modern science begin in Europe, not in China, not in India, not in Japan, but in Europe? And why did it begin in the 16th, 17th century? Why not in the 15th century? What were the sociological factors, and he has many books on the topic published by Cambridge University Press. He's. The best one that I love is called Protestantism Bible and the Rise of Natural Science. So there were many Roman Catholics involved in the birth of modern science, but they had accepted a Protestant hermeneutic which was inductive method of studying God's revelation, both in the Word of God and in nature. The God has written two books the Book of His Words, which is the Bible, the Book of His Works, which is nature creation, and both of them have to be studied inductively, not imaginatively, not allegorically. So Peter Harrison has this whole thesis that the way Protestant movement began to study the Bible, paying attention to the data, the revealed data, the grammar, the words, et cetera that was the most important factor, what he calls the inductive method of study being faithful to facts, faithful to data.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Now David Lendis, a macroeconomist at Harvard, he is one who, after 78 years of the university world condemning Max Weber's thesis that modern economic miracle happened because of the Protestant Reformation. So Max Weber is one of the fathers of social sciences and he wrote during the first two decades of the 20th century in Germany. His father was a Lutheran, mother was a Calvinist, so one vacation they will go to the Lutheran side of the family, another vacation to the Calvinist side of the family. And as he was growing up he was not a Christian but he noticed that the Calvinist community, not just his immediate family, but as a community, they were doing better economically than the Lutherans and Lutherans were doing better than the Roman Catholics and the Catholics were doing better than the Orthodox and the Orthodox were doing better than Muslims and Hindus. A lot of information was available about India through the East India Company, the economic information. So as he began to see, he saw that religion plays important role in economic development or as hindrance to progress, and he wrote about it, that how, not all his ideas, the details, like he said that faith and predestination helped economic progress, et cetera, but the overall piece is that religion, religious ideas, either hinder progress or motivate progress.
Vishal Mangalwadi:So this, the whole of the university movement for a century, almost at least 80 years, condemned this because they were materialists who had accepted Karl Marx's presupposition that economics determined philosophy, morality, ethics and sociology, that it's called economic determinism, that life is shaped by economics, by matter. And Max Weber was saying no ideas come first, word come first. In the beginning was the word. The word creates, the word communicates ideas. So it is the ideas, the belief, the values that that shape society. So for decades Max Weber was condemned or ignored.
Vishal Mangalwadi:But David Lendis, this macro historian who wrote a book called the wealth and poverty of the nations Adam Smith had written in 1776 the wealth of the nations, david Lendis writes the wealth and poverty of the nations why are some so rich and some so poor? And In that he argues that Max Weber was right. And since then he's published many things, in which in one of his as is, he Begins the as a bluntly to for his Academic colleagues that Max Weber was right. The university movement has been wrong for that same implication for almost a century. So Peter Harrison on science, david Lendis on economics, rodney Stark on sociology, you know, are just a Some of the examples that your question is why is this movement now happening globally, that public intellectuals are Saying that Christianity is the reason for the in whole progress of the last 500 years, of the West coming out of the dark ages, middle Ages and then blessing and transforming the world, like DNA is trying to do in Africa, in in Asia, in South America, making an impact to change the destiny of the nations?
Scott Allen:So, if I could summarize, you're saying, you know, hey, there always has been some faithful people in the academic world, even through the, the heyday of the modernist myth, that we're still trying to keep alive the idea that, no, you know, in these different realms of Economics and other realms, it was really the Bible and biblical ideas that were, that were heavily influential in, in shaping the modern West. I still, yeah, I have a theory. I'd like to run it by you because as to why this, this new movement, is bursting onto the scene right now, I I read a book. I'm sure you probably read it as well the madness of crowds by Douglas Murray. He's an Oxford professor, you know, non-christian guy. He wrote this in response to.
Scott Allen:I read this when I was researching my book on on Cultural Marxism and social justice. You know my most recent book and he was writing on the same thing. You know he was saying, wow, you know we're seeing this Really radical move now back to a kind of a cultural Marxism. You know that it's not new, right, it came out of the Frankfurt school, you know, after World War two. You know it led to the Marxist movement in the United States during the 1960s, but then it was kind of squashed and now it's kind of been reborn. And it's Not only been reborn, it's been moving from strength to strength to the point that it's captured our institutions.
Scott Allen:And I think that that you know, so that now when you look at you know any of these major institutions of the West government, business, education you know they are all kind of captured by this Radical ideology. And Douglas Murray's writing about that and he's going, he's observing one facet of it and I thought this was so fascinating. He said this ideology is Based on grievance right, that the problems in the world Are because of a particular group right, and in the new, in the new iteration, there are white Christian men or whatever it is you know whiteness white supremacy, you name it.
Scott Allen:You know it's the problems in the world or because of a particular group. We have to, you know the response to that is we have to, you know, tear that group down. You know it's a retributive, it's grievance oriented, it's about taking back. And he was looking at that and he's observing that. He got on to the, the, the topic of forgiveness. He said there's no forgiveness in this ideology, like there's no sense of, for you know, there's no Reconciliation, no forgiveness. And then he was just reflecting on that. What would that mean in a culture If you eliminated forgiveness? Right, you know, reconciliation, what would it mean in a family? What would it mean in in entire civilization? And he was alarmed like, oh my gosh, that you know everything would fall apart and it. And then you saw him go. Oh, you know, he turned from that to oh, that comes from the Bible, right, that idea, you know, forgiveness and loving our neighbor and you know, loving our enemies, and he goes, that just doesn't spread From anywhere. That doesn't come from the modernist myth, that comes from the Bible. And here's this non-Christian guy, you know, you know, homosexual guy, who starts talking very positively about the Bible. But what it did for me, v shall, was it? It made me think it.
Scott Allen:The reason, part of the reason, as you said, I'm sure there's many reasons for it, but part of the reason that this movement is coming on to the scene now Is because things have gotten to the point in the West where you can't take these for you. All these good things that have come out of the Bible and Christianity cannot be taken for granted anymore. It looks like they literally could go away and the threat, you know, of this new ideology coming on the scene is so serious and I think, before you know, they just there wasn't. That's, you know, we, all of these good things forgiveness is just one example could just be taken for granted, but they can't be anymore. Like we could lose these things and and it's causing great alarm amongst these, these folks- Anyways, what are your thoughts about my?
Scott Allen:fear of what's kind of causing this right now. Yes, we should talk about the movement and how to respond to it.
Vishal Mangalwadi:But if I mean, if I may add to what you've just said, with two more illustrations and the academic work that DNA, particularly Darrell Miller's books on family, and marriage, wives, women, has been very important.
Vishal Mangalwadi:And and when Freud in early 20th century, sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, proposed that he was an atheist. So love was not a spiritual thing, love was a physical instinct. Sex was, and physical, chemical instinct for him. A Repression of sexual urges, he said, causes all the mental problems. Schizophrenia, insanity, what is called even possession, everything is a result of Sexual repression.
Scott Allen:Everything that's wrong with the world basically is is sexual repression, sexual repression.
Vishal Mangalwadi:So sex should not, the sexual fantasies should not be repressed, they should be expressed, which is at the base of the modern pornography. That if father and daughter have Affection for each other, that should not be repressed but expressed. And practice, practices your fantasies, implement them now. If this is true, if Freud's overall thesis is true, then Societies that had loose sexual ethics should be better and healthier. So there was an Oxford, a professor. He was teaching both in Oxford and Cambridge.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Joseph Unwin hidden a massive sociological study of Are those societies that have of free, free, merit, freedom for pre-medical sex or extramarital sex Are they better, stronger, healthier? Then Puritan societies, societies based on Puritan ethics. That even if you're personally not a Puritan, you may be a president of America who is having a face with other women, women other than your wife, and American culture would still impeach a president who lies about his private sex life. So the American culture is still Puritan, even if Individuals don't believe that. So so he looked at this was a massive study, something over a hundred Society for which anthropological data was available of what exactly are their sexual norms and how is their health as a society. And Joseph Unwin concluded in his massive book On sex and civilization, that in fact these Societies, which are called patriarchal, christian, puritanical, they have produced the healthiest men, women, children, families, nations, now the academic world. So this was a proper academic anthropological research.
Vishal Mangalwadi:But for a hundred years the Anthropological I mean the University world has suppressed this study and kept on promoting the Philips, the atheist philosophical Outlook that the spirit should not rule over the flesh, flesh should rule, which is pornography, which is permissiveness and which has proven Disaster us that the Caucasian population in Europe and and also in North America is declining. The women do not want to get married and if they get married they do abort their babies, they do not want to have children. Self-interest is above the interest of sacrificing yourself for your children, building up the next generation. So here is one area with Joseph which for hundred years we have had scientific evidence that Christian sexual ethics Actually creates the strongest men and women and children, families and economy. In politics I can give more illustrations, but if the people are turning Back to explore Christianity, we, the. The real question is what do we do? How should we as the Christian community, as the church, respond to this growing phenomenon, the? If I may articulate what exactly the movement is?
Scott Allen:Yeah, please.
Vishal Mangalwadi:At the end of October, 30, 31st, november, 1st, george Peterson and other initiated a conference in London called arc Alliance for responsible citizenship.
Scott Allen:And this really bright. I'm familiar with this V shallon. I know you went, you were a part of that. This was really the kind of the first gathering of this movement, in a sense. Right, I mean, yes, yeah, go ahead, yeah, so yes the second one is planned for 2025.
Vishal Mangalwadi:One of the key figures behind it is John Anderson of the former vice-president Prime Minister, a deputy prime minister of Australia, philip Stroud, who is coming to the USA. She's a baroness Lady, a member of House of Lords in Britain. She was the chair, so she was really moving, leading back the overall thesis. Oz Guinness was one of the important speakers from the first day.
Scott Allen:Just just on that, there wasn't a lot of you know again, these folks, as you said, many of them are not Christians or they haven't come out yet and said you know, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, or had some kind of confession. Many of them are, I think, right on the cusp of doing that, some of them have I on her, see Ali. But even in her testimony, which I read, I thought it was fascinating. It was such a fascinating testimony because you didn't talk about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It talked about the fact that I've come to recognize that without the Bible, you know, we can't have all of these things that I so treasure and cherish in the West. Yeah, and so now I'm a Christian. It was, it was very much a civilizational kind of testimony.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Yes, that was yes.
Scott Allen:I thought was very fascinating.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Yeah, yes, you're right. So yeah, there was For devotions. There was poetry in the morning.
Dwight Vogt:No very good poet.
Vishal Mangalwadi:You know Christian very good Poetries.
Scott Allen:Not like you would have if you get a bunch of evangelicals together at a Los Angeles conference or something like that, right yeah it was not a Christian conference.
Vishal Mangalwadi:In fact, the very big difference between Los on and our and and many people are seeing Jordan Peterson as Contemporary Baleigram that he can fill the stadiums and he can fill Mega halls wherever he goes, and people would pay hundreds of dollars to come and hear him. It's so. He is becoming, if you're not, but he wouldn't call himself a Christian, though he's come very close and his wife and his daughter are believers. His wife is her own Catholic and she told me that she gets up four o'clock every morning to pray, find her rosary and pray, but for a while and they she does organize special Mass services for him.
Vishal Mangalwadi:So for Christmas, new Year, easter, etc. He would go to some of these mass. But he has very good friends both amongst Roman Catholics, orthodox and Protestant evangelicals, so which is Interesting.
Scott Allen:Yeah, I remember what I was gonna say, because you, vichel, I think, had the, you were kind of honored and so was Osgenis. There weren't, there wasn't a lot, but they kind of reached out to you out of the kind of the. You know, let's say our side, you know, you know the kind of the evangelical group and brought you in which I thought was that's quite an honor, you know well, to be a part of that. Yeah, it was actually.
Vishal Mangalwadi:There were many Christians, many believing Christians, in the conference that were a part of prominent roles.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Paul Marshall was an important figure behind Philippa Stroud. So amongst the organizers they were more British evangelicals with whom I do did not have personal relationship who were really hot-touching and running the thing got it. Both Peterson and John Anderson personally wrote inviting me and I've just received their request for input in planning the next session. But but the important point is that overall thesis of Ark which emerged Through Christian and non-Christian speakers. So these are public intellectuals, poets, politicians, who are speaking and they, as well as economists, businessmen. They agreed with the overall thesis that Western civilization is a beautiful bouquet of flowers and these flowers have been cut From their roots. Therefore the flowers are fading. So the Western civilization is fading, withering because it is cut from their roots. And To reconnect the West to its roots is the big challenge. And they acknowledge that the roots is the Bible, even the non-christians who would call themselves atheists. Now, this was a thesis that Pope who, before he became the Pope, joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict 16.
Scott Allen:Not the current Pope, but the previous one.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Right, not the current Pope previous one and with an American Roman Catholic intellectual, marcelo Perra.
Vishal Mangalwadi:They wrote this book Without Roots the West Relativism Christianity in Islam. That's the subtitle. The West Relativism Christianity in Islam. The book is called Without Roots. So this was their thesis. But Osginus has used this thesis. Osginus, for those who do not know, is a Christian public intellectual, sociologist, who is written in many books. So he articulated this Joseph Ratzinger's thesis in ARC with John.
Vishal Mangalwadi:We receive general consensus Nobody challenged it that yes, the western civilization is a beautiful bouquet of flowers. These flowers are withering families, withering economies, in debt, etc. Etc. Business is no longer trustworthy because the flowers have been cut off from their roots. So the one important weakness of ARC was not acknowledging that the flowers don't flowers and fruits don't come directly out of the root, they come out of stem. So it is the connected. Flowers are connected to the roots through the stem, through the branches. This is what Jesus says I am the wine, you are the branches, you bear fruit and leaves for the healing of the nations.
Vishal Mangalwadi:And this has been a very important point that Bob Moffitt, the co-founder of DNA, has been making consistently that it is not just the worldview, the roots, which produce flowers, but the church, which is the stem out of which has come. So the impact that the Bible has had is because of the church, which preserves, translated, publishes, distributes, teaches the Bible and established all the colleges, universities, schools, etc. So this is a missing piece in the ARC movement. Yes, yes, davidson Hunter. He makes that point in changing the world that it's not just ideas. Ideas have consequences, but ideas need institutions, groups, networks of groups, which has been a very strong point that Bob Moffitt has kept emphasizing and that was missing in ARC. And if ARC is not able to really mobilize the church, then it will be a movement that goes nowhere because, this is really the key that you have great ideas, you have the truth, but actually truth was downplayed.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Very few of the speakers could utter the word truth. Their emphasis was story. They used the word story, particularly Jordan Peterson himself and Philippa Strout. They called Christianity a better story, and by the word story they meant worldview. So what you and I would have called 20 years ago a worldview, they are calling it the story. The story is the lens. Your worldview is the lens with which you even read the Bible. So instead of the Bible shaping your worldview, you impose your unconscious worldview derived from your own sociology, whether that's your Hindu culture or Muslim culture or Western secular culture. You impose that upon the Bible. So that would be another important thing to discuss, unless you have something else.
Scott Allen:No, I would any of these threads. I'm just so fascinated in this movement, vishal and I. Yeah, I've heard Jordan Peterson speak on on story in a very moving way. I think you know he's exactly right. He says that you know people as individuals and whole civilizations. They can't live apart from a story. We all live out of stories, and you know he's speaking, I think, as a psychologist. They are the importance of these stories, with story lines and heroes and villains, and you know things like that and that the story. So you can't take story for granted. Everyone's living out of some story, whether you know it's Karl Marx's story or you know it's in the Bible. I mean, darrow's book is called the Transforming. You know his famous talk is called the Transforming Story. The Bible is a story, you know. Now you're right, though, that it's not just any story. It is. It's not just a better story, it's the true story, it's the story that aligns with reality.
Luke Allen:So that's a problem if we can't come around and saying, hey, and, yeah, go ahead If you can't use the word, if you don't want to use the word truth, then you know. That's where. That's where the importance of the word truth comes in, because there is a true story. Right, well not just better stories, but you know yeah, true stories, the capital T truth story.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Yes, Francis Schaefer would have disagreed with both Jordan Peterson and Darrow Miller. Because 50 years ago Schaefer saw that this Jungian category of story why, if it is true story, why can't you call it true truth? So he pleaded that let's use the phrase if you have to qualify, because the true story means that this is true for you, something else is true for him, but true truth that this is actually what it is, that God is a triune person, etc. That Jesus died for us and rose again from the dead, why can't we use the phrase true truth? This was very important for Schaefer. Many other people picked it up Douglas Grooth house in truth, decay Osgin is in time for truth, etc. But as a culture, the Western epistemology has definitely accepted the Jungian Joseph Campbell's perspective on. So Peterson does not use the phrase story as a story but as a worldview, but mostly at an unconscious level. So in his specialized sense, it's okay, what he called story, we will call it worldview.
Vishal Mangalwadi:But the real problem with that is that last night was a historic movement for India, where the Prime Minister breathed life into an idol of Lord Rama in an attempt to make India a Hindu nation, deliberately, consciously built upon a myth, a Hindu story of a young prince, ram, who kills a demon, god Ravan, who had abducted his wife, and rescues his wife, only to abandon her while she was pregnant with twin boys.
Vishal Mangalwadi:So this is the temple. The new temple has been described as the national temple, like the National Cathedral of Hinduism, which a secular state is not supposed to be building, but enormous amount of money was spent in building this movement, the temple, etc. So the Hindus will say that, okay, the Bible is your story, ramayana is our story, and is the Bible a story they would acknowledge? For them, the word story means myth, mythology. So to go back to our when, jordan Peterson, particularly Philippa Stroud, the baroness, she is very good, she's an evangelical, she was the leader of the three-day conference. When she describes Christianity as a better story and she picks some things of Christianity, such as the equal dignity of male and female, which Islam does not believe.
Scott Allen:It isn't really a better flowers that we were speaking about. We were talking about flowers and cut flowers and, yeah, that's an example of one of the beautiful flowers, right?
Vishal Mangalwadi:But is human, equal dignity of male and female, husband and wife, is it a better story or is it a disastrous story that has is destroying the family in the West? Or is Islam a better story in the sense that women are not equal to husbands, they have to submit to their husbands. So, pragmatically, islam is succeeding in Europe where women can have eight, ten children. The modernist idea that a man should have only one wife and the wife should be able to get rid of the husband as soon as she's fed up with him and has someone better, and she should not have children. So the concept of human dignity without the concept of human depravity and in a depraved with depraved heart, rotten heart. How do a man and women live together? A man and a woman, his wife, how do they live together?
Vishal Mangalwadi:So, by turning Christianity into a story and picking up few themes such as equality and human dignity, actually has made the Western European. I'm thinking mostly of Europe where Caucasian in any school in Holland, in a city, population may still be 60% Caucasian, but in the school 60, 70, 80% of the children would be Muslims and Hindus and Africans, because the white population is not having children, because the family is not working without the rest of the biblical ideas of how, the concept of leadership, concept of headship, etc. But this is where you need not to pick a better story, because a better story without the full of biblical worldview becomes a disastrous story, a destructive story, which in fact then hurts the women the most. So feminism picked up a few ideas from the Bible and has hurt women more than Islam is hurt.
Scott Allen:So, vishal, just to summarize what we've been saying here, if I could, just because I'm trying to track with our, I think, really important discussion. We're talking about our the, the movement. It's got a lot of promise, you know, in the sense that these are public intellectuals with large platforms that are saying, hey, the Bible is really important and we, so much of what has been good in the West has come from the Bible. We need to recover that. So that's good, but you're saying there's some real dangers with it as well. One of them is picking and choosing particular things that they like about the Bible, but not seeing it as a comprehensive worldview in a kind of holistic and integrated way.
Scott Allen:I think another thing that you said was a weakness is that it's still, you know, it's kind of in the realm of ideas. These are biblical ideas that are good ideas, but ideas separated from the people right, the institution, the people of God, or I might even say this is where I thought, you know, when I read I on her see Ali's testimony I thought, you know, I really hope that she can get past the point that she's at right now. It's great where she's at recognizing that the Bible is good and that Christianity has given so many good fruits to Western civilization. But she needs to get to the point where she sees not just biblical ideas but the person of Jesus and actually falls in love with him and devotes her life to him, right? You know? I mean there has to be that level of commitment or this isn't going to work.
Scott Allen:And I that's kind of what I'm hearing you say when you were talking about the church. The church, the people of God, the people that you know have. You know, you know we're in this, not, I mean it's we love the ideas, but it's not about the ideas. At the end of the day, you know, it's about the person of Jesus, right?
Vishal Mangalwadi:any thoughts? Yes, yes, I think you're making a very important point and I would like to actually go in two different directions. One is this practical issue that you have said about the relationships, human relationships, networks, but but so how do we take this, these ideas, to the people, the movement, the global movement, to?
Vishal Mangalwadi:actually change the future. But let's let's take a few minutes to talk about the individuals themselves, individual such as I am Ali Hirsi, jordan Peterson, tom Holland yeah, these people represent what happened to America's greatest philosopher of the 20th century, mortimer Edler. Edler was born in a liberal Jewish home in New York. At the age of 14 he was distributing newspapers. He started reading Aristotle. From Aristotle he went on to Thomas Aquinas and began mastering the great classics of Western civilization. So when Chicago University, with the president Hutchins, decided to have the great books curriculum in Chicago, he invited Edler to create the great books curriculum. The idea was that since the Bible Bible has been rejected by Western universities, how is the West going to live? So an alternative Bible which is the great books of the West. This curriculum was created by Edler and Cyclopedia Britannica published the 50 initially. These are 54, well volumes, or 52 volumes, which grew to be 60 or so now at the.
Vishal Mangalwadi:So Edler is a liberal, jew and atheist, kind of a person, agnostic at least. But he was married twice. His first wife died. Both his wives were Anglicans, high Anglican's, episcopal. So he became an Episcopal when, by the time, he was 70, 80.
Vishal Mangalwadi:But this was the phase of American Christianity of mass evangelism by Billy Graham, kind of Crusades. Here is a secular intellectual who is struggling and realizing that actually the great books of western civilization contradict each other much more than so-called contradictions in the Bible which Thomas Paine had highlighted in the Age of Reason to discredit the Bible. So, after his second wife died, finally Hitler converted to Roman Catholicism because for 50, 60 years some very intelligent Roman Catholics had become his friends and remained his friends, not trying to impose their religion or Catholicism upon them. But the Protestants had not cared for this public intellectual who was recognized or acknowledged by many circles as America's most important philosopher of the 20th century. So he became a Roman Catholic.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Now, thankfully, these number of names that I have given, including Elon Musk, that you have given of people who are recognizing that we have to get away from the modernist myth of enlightenment, creating the modern world back to the roots.
Vishal Mangalwadi:These individuals need the community, the church, the friendships, the relationships, and thankfully there are a number of very good evangelical thinkers. Ozganis is just one who is being widely respected and accepted by these people, but they need a whole group of us to pray for them, befriend them, minister to them which is necessary for them to eventually enter into a relationship not just with Jesus personally, but with the body of Christ, which is the church. Now, this is one aspect where, on different social media, you would see silly Christians attacking Jordan Peterson because he doesn't follow our details of our theology. He says this and he says that Of course he is not a Christian yet. But while the evangelical protestant Christians are condemning these individuals for not accepting our vocabulary and our ideology, but loving them, sticking with them, supporting them without compromising our faith, but sharing openly the reality of Jesus in us, we in Jesus. So the building of this sorry go ahead.
Scott Allen:Just on that. I would again back to Ayan Hursiali. When her testimony was published I think it was in the Wall Street Journal- was it?
Vishal Mangalwadi:Yes, several places, I saw it yes.
Scott Allen:Okay anyways. Yeah, I was kind of surprised in the days following that that a lot of evangelicals responded critically to it and they recognized that, oh, she doesn't really have a relationship with Jesus. She's talking about ideas and civilizations, but she doesn't really know Jesus, and I thought it was unfortunate, because when I read her testimony I thought, well, but she's seeing things that you don't see right, she's seeing the power of these biblical ideas to shape a civilization which we in the church we kind of completely have forgotten.
Scott Allen:It's just all about getting people into the church and getting them saved and we don't talk about culture and civilization. That's not important, right? I mean, you know, and that's been my great frustration, it's like, no, we have to, you know, see our faith as something not just personal and individual and pietistic, but as something that actually shapes cultures for the good, you know. And she said that's what she's seeing, you know, praise God for that. So it's kind of like could we have some? We, being evangelicals, have some humility here. Yes, she needs a personal relationship with Christ. We understand that. Right, that's our side, we get that and she needs that. But we also need something. We need to kind of recover what she's got, which is this bigger picture of what Christianity is, that it's a powerful worldview that shapes a flourishing civilization. Right, we need to recover that 20 years ago, it's almost like as Christians, we've over, complicated it.
Luke Allen:In a way. We get into the theological debates and this and that, and we've in a way, forgotten the the true story or, as you said, vishal, the true truth you know, and then these people from outside the church see the true truth and how absolutely influential it's been in the world and they're pointing to that and as Christians we lose sight of that and we get stuck in our little arguments.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Yeah, 20 years ago, the same thing happened with Jane Fonda, when she became a Christian, having been married for the second time to with Turner, the CNN, the founder of CNN, and seeing the emptiness of the secular, atheistic worldview, and she turned to Christ. But because she had taken a stand against America in Vietnam, the Christian community, the Christian right, would have nothing to do with her except as a judgment, and so, yes, so the good thing about ARC is that at least 60 70% of the participants identified themselves as Christians somewhere Roman Catholics, somewhere Orthodox, but vast majority were evangelical. And because there was such a strong Christian presence, the good thing is that Christians have the freedom to speak, although not all the Christians who got an opportunity to speak spoke clearly, including about their personal relationship with Christ. One of the best voices actually was the producer, director, of the movie sound of music, a sound of freedom. He's running become the president of Mexico, so he's in the race. And if he's the.
Scott Allen:If he wins that Mexican yeah, he's a. He's the other yeah, really, if he wins.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Mexico. You will suddenly have a president in Argentina and a president in Mexico who are very close to us, and in his case he was the best Christian witness from the platform in ARC isn't that something?
Vishal Mangalwadi:yes, but he was only one. There were a few others, but many, many other people who should have been clear in the testimony were guarded, unfortunately, and that's a problem. So, but the good thing is that these public intellectuals who are realizing they would call the Bible as the root of western civilization, they will call Christianity as the root of the West. Now I prefer to insist on the Bible because Christianity has been so messed up, which which the Bible is under attack, was under attack so, and people have legitimate concerns about promoting the Bible. But I think if the Bible is God's word, then defending the Bible is easier than defending the so many mistakes that the church has made. But ultimately, of course, people would insist that, no, we only talk about Jesus, but everything you know about Jesus comes from the Bible. So, separating Jesus from the Bible, then you have a Jesus story rather than revelation. That so.
Dwight Vogt:But we shall, we have a jump in, hope my internet works right you're. I'm pushing back because about 30 minutes ago, you said the critical issue was the church, it wasn't just the story, and you were relating to how Bob Moffitt said it's the church that holds the story, and and and and. So now, yes, and I'm thinking that that's I thought of three founders, all of whom believe the story yeah, well, you got cut off all right, but I think I got your question. I'll go on you want to try again.
Dwight Vogt:Do it no, I'm thinking of three founders Thomas Jefferson believed the story, sort of. Benjamin Franklin, who signed the Constitution, believed the story sort of. And John Adams. But I think of those three, john Adams knew the story and embraced the story, and and Jesus, because he was the only one that sold his life and said this is wrong. So I think there's a place in Western Civ where Christians really have been salt and light and have made a difference in institutions as believers in Jesus and with the spirit of Jesus in them, and I think that's that's the deepest route there is yeah now I wish we had half an hour to talk about it, because that is a very important point.
Vishal Mangalwadi:The problem they wouldn't have used the phrase story at all. They use the phrase common sense or self-evident truth because America's fundamental mistake or intellectual fall of America began on July 4th 1776 in the Declaration of Independence, where Jefferson wrote we hold these truths to be self-evident. He didn't write we hold the story to be self-evident. We hold these truths to be self-evident. So originally Jefferson wrote we hold these truths to be sacred, sacred meaning derived from sacred scriptures.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Right, benjamin Franklin put pressure to change the language. We hold these truths to be sacred, to be. Hold these truths to be self-evident, meaning derived from common sense. Uh and uh, jefferson agreed. Now, irony of this was that all of them knew that the idea of human equality had come to North America, 13 colonies, through George Whitfield. Whitfield was the first white preacher in America who began to preach to the blacks. He had slaves and Jefferson, and everybody had Washington. Everybody had slaves. Uh, it was not self-evident to slaves and slave owners that they are equal. It was not self-evident to most Americans that male and female husbands and wives are equal. But these were not self-evident ideas, these were sacred ideas, revealed ideas. Truth must transform society. We don't observe these truths being practiced in society, but these are the truths, reveal truth that must change society. But the reason they said that we hold these truths to be self-evident was because of Thomas Paine.
Vishal Mangalwadi:The epistemology of common sense, which is really epistemology or the theory of knowledge, is the heart of the problem. The, the first great awakening of, with Jonathan Edwards, george Whitfield, etc. Was built upon teaching the bible. But because George Whitfield died in 1770, 30 years earlier, jonathan Edwards had died. So the war began. In 75, 76 the declaration is being written. But then there is a new kid in the block, thomas Paine, who is a self-conscious deist who believes that god exists, but god doesn't know how to speak. The bible is not his words, it's full of contradictions. So he insists.
Vishal Mangalwadi:And Benjamin Franklin, who used to be a amplifier of George Whitfield, he would. He, he loved George Whitfield, he was a fan of George Whitfield. He became influenced by Thomas Paine, who brought this Scottish. Thomas Reed was an apologist who invented the myth of common sense and he wrote his book common sense in America, which was really a biblical defense of revolutionary war, why we must get rid of the tyrant king George and why America should become free and republican. So on every page of his book common sense, thomas Paine quotes the bible left, right and center. But he calls it common sense, not divine revelation.
Vishal Mangalwadi:And under that intellectual pressure Benjamin Franklin then puts pressure on the drafting committee in the declaration that we hold these truths to be self-evident. So nobody at that time called anything a story, they called it truth. Except that this was truth derived from common sense, not from revelation. But it's only after Joseph Campbell, first Carl Jung, because Joseph Campbell lived in America and became a lot more influential that the power of myth, the power of story has taken over, and this is where Daryl Miller has unconsciously slipped into the language of story rather than in the language of true truth, that these are not speculations of the human mind. These are revealed truths and the firm foundation of true truth.
Vishal Mangalwadi:But of course, that's not your question. Your question is the importance of the church, which is where I think that DNA, particularly through Bob Moffitt, has made a tremendous contribution. It's not yet implemented because DNA is itself a parachurch group and the church has being a product of the seminary. Education has deep problems over the last hundred years, but at least in theory, to say that a great awakening of the church is needed, a revival of the church, where church would see itself as the stem, the branches on which the flowers, the fruit, the leaves grow for the healing of the nations, giving life to the nation, instead of waiting for a UFO called the New Jerusalem to come with the tree of life that will have the leaves for the healing of the nations, that the church exists. The church has actually healed the nations, which is what these people are saying, people like Elon Musk.
Scott Allen:That brings us back to Ark again, vichel, and I'm glad we're going back there, because I do think I don't know what God's doing, of course, but I do wonder if that's not part of the reason that God has raised up this group right now is to kind of remind the church of these things that we are to be about the flourishing of the nations, the discipleship of the nations with these powerful biblical ideas, and they're seeing it, these folks from Ark, in a way that the church hasn't or has lost sight of, and you've been such a passionate advocate for, you know, in your career, vichel.
Scott Allen:So I certainly hope that that's the case, and I really do. I like your message that we need to be building bridges and reaching out, and not just because they need what we have, meaning, you know, this kind of deep, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, the church, the body, but we also need what they have, and that is what I hope that we can see realized through this movement that's kind of arisen here, the whole discussion you're having about the United States and our founding I think is fascinating.
Scott Allen:We probably should make that a separate episode. Yes, yes.
Vishal Mangalwadi:That's a really interesting.
Vishal Mangalwadi:If we do, we should talk about nation, because that's part of your name, disciple, nation, dna, alliance and nation became important in Ark. So there was one principle of one of the top schools in London. She spoke and she really emphasized nation and nationalism, which was interesting and she wasn't coming from the perspective of American Christian nationalism. She was struggling with the issue that you are in London. You have a Hindu prime minister and a Muslim mayor of London with such a powerful majority of Muslims and Hindus, influential, who are taking over the British economy and leadership. What is going to hold public schools together? Are the values going? What is going to unite? And she was arguing in Ark that she emphasizes nation and nationalism, that Hindus in London, muslims in London, Sikhs, jains and Inch Christians they should all come together not around truth but around nation.
Vishal Mangalwadi:So, nationalism, what is going to hold these pluralistic societies together? So the question of nation became very important, although they didn't pursue it very much, but there were voices like her. She was the strongest and she is a very influential educationist, has won all the top awards for running a successful school in London for a multi-ethnic, pluralistic community. So the significance of your name discipling nations, because during Since Los Angeles, since 1974, the dominant definition of nation was coming from Pasadena, missiology, from Fuller and US Center, where nation was a people group, and so if we do another discussion we should talk about nation. What is discipling nation and what is the significance of nation? I discussed it in my book. This book changed everything, but I think that would be a good 45 discussion.
Scott Allen:I would love to have that discussion, that we just focus on this topic of nations and, yeah, because you're right, I mean we built in God's movement. I believe the movement of the DNA around that concept of discipling nations and nations is so important and it's become there's such a revival, if you will, of interest in that, for good reasons and bad. But, yeah, let's make a note of that. Let's have Vishal back on, if you're willing, Vishal, and we'll talk more about that movement, about the concept of nations. I do think, and we probably need to wrap up Vishal, but I see ARC as well as kind of a reaction against what just wrapped up last week in Davos, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum. It's kind of an antidote to that. Did the founders?
Scott Allen:or the movement leaders see themselves as kind of an alternative, Because the group that just met, they're globalists, right. They don't believe in nations, they want one world kind of globalized government. And they're also I think it's just an assumed thing God doesn't exist. They're secular, right. They're not outspoken proud atheists, maybe, but it's just an assumed thing, right. There is no God, right. So they would be very much in the stream of the modernist myth, if you will right.
Scott Allen:And so you've got this group now saying, okay, we need other intellectual and key kind of leaders to get together that have different ideas. Any thoughts on that?
Vishal Mangalwadi:Just as we yes, you're absolutely right. The nation is a very self-conscious, deliberate part of ARC and it isthey chose England to launch ARC because England Brexit had rebelled against the globalist idea of EU, the European.
Scott Allen:Union, the European Union right.
Vishal Mangalwadi:The whole world is overshadowing the nation's states. England is a nation right, yes, so, yes, nation and nationalism is a very important theme, which they did not confront head on. But since this is so much behind your name, the disciple of nations, the healing of all the nations, god's call to Abraham, isaac and Jacob that you follow me, I will make you a blessing to all the nations. This is such an important theme and without the Bible they cannot have a philosophy of nation.
Scott Allen:That's right.
Vishal Mangalwadi:And the evangelical movement in America, because of the influence of Fuller and the US center of World Mission, which no longer exists, has confused global Christianity about what exactly is a nation and therefore ARC is trying to recover something which is a Christian idea of nation which began in Europe only in 1648. And the piece of Westphalia was when Holland and Switzerland became the first two nations in Europe.
Scott Allen:Just quickly on that, vishal, because I know we're kind of drifting into our next conversation. I was always taught that the Treaty of Westphalia was the rise of modern nation states and before that we had empires and there wasn't nations. But then I read who's the Jewish scholar?
Luke Allen:Yes, yoram Murn, yoram Huzoni, yoram Huzoni.
Scott Allen:Yeah, his great book. He said no, it was because I thought this was fascinating. It wasn't a new idea with the Treaty of Westphalia. It was a recovery of an old Jewish idea the nation of Israel. It got lost because the Bible wasn't opened. And then it was opened after the Reformation and it was like people opened the Bible. The Bible was now in the vernacular of these different languages. People were reading the Bible and they go oh, nation is important. Yes, yes.
Vishal Mangalwadi:So what happened in Holland when Holland was fought? 80 years of war against the Holy Roman Empire. The last 30 years everybody was fighting, but before the 30 year war, for 50 years Holland was fighting against France and Spain. And then, in that study of the Bible, the idea of the Jewish idea of nation was accepted. So the Peace of Westphalia was the climax of Reformation, of the birth of nation state. But Switzerland, which already existed as a confederacy of three cantons. They sent the mayor of Basel to the Peace of Westphalia to argue that Switzerland should be recognized as a sovereign nation, not as a colony of the Holy Roman Empire. So the two first nations, and both of them impacted America, the 13 colonies becoming a nation, because America could have become an empire, america could have become 13 kingdoms with 13 colonies, but America becoming one nation was a biblical idea taken from Holland and Switzerland.
Scott Allen:So going way back to Israel. Let's pick that up as a second discussion. Michelle, it's no problem to talk for hours with you. I think we probably just need to wrap this up. It's so helpful for me, though, and I just am so grateful to kind of get your perspective on this movement and the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship ARC from your being there. I'm excited by what I'm seeing there and seeing what God's doing, so God bless you for your influence?
Vishal Mangalwadi:Sure, and if you wanted a third discussion, we could discuss story and common sense and revelation, the true truth. That would be a very important because there's a lot of confusion in America whether should we be talking about true truth or should we be talking about story. We cannot follow Jordan Peterson and ARC in seeing Christianity as a better story, is it true?
Scott Allen:Exactly.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Yeah, no, if it's not true.
Scott Allen:This is at the heart of our faith. If these things, like Jesus' resurrection, didn't really happen, if they weren't true, then our faith is worthless. It's meaningless. Yes, go ahead. Luke. Did you want to. I'm disagreeing.
Luke Allen:That was one of my favorite parts of the discussion is that's going to be one of my takeaways? How can I not make the same mistake that John Adams did when he was discussing the language behind the Declaration of Independence? There the language really matters. When you say story, people think myth. They think Cinderella's no white. When you say truth, you think of something fixed. That's an important distinction.
Scott Allen:Let's have two discussions then, vishal, we'll talk about nations, and then we'll talk about story and truth.
Vishal Mangalwadi:I think that will be very good. Both will easily be.
Scott Allen:Those are essential to what we're trying to do with the Disciple Nations Alliance. Those are really bedrock. Great Vishal, keep up the good work. Let us know how we can be praying for you, and may God continue to use you. I know we didn't even touch on the work that you're doing in India right now Really important work. You did touch on it briefly, but keep it up and we're behind you.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Well, India now has, as of today, India now has a Napoleon.
Scott Allen:Yes, I'm looking at the very much on the outside in barely so I'd love to talk to you and learn more about what's happening in India right now. But anyway, listen, thanks, vishal, and thank you all as well for listening to another discussion, or really great discussion, on. Ideas have consequences.
Vishal Mangalwadi:This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm sorry that we did not have enough of Dwight, but thank you, luke, for not just being providing the technology, but also interaction.
Luke Allen:My pleasure. It was a great time, thank you.
Scott Allen:I'm sure Dwight, and maybe Darryl, is on next time too.
Vishal Mangalwadi:Thanks, Vishal Thank you so much God bless Take care.