Hello, welcome to this edition of the Theology Putcast. Good to have you with us. I'm C.R. Wiley. I'm a pastor. I serve a church in the Pacific Northwest and I am a senior editor for Touchstone Magazine. How about you, Tom? I'm Tom Price. I teach theology in Christian ethics, Gordon Conwell, theological seminary, and serve a church in Connecticut. Glad. And I'm a Glenn Sunshine. I retired history professor and writer, speaker, all kinds of messolania stuff right now. Okay. And your hair is coming back. It's growing. Yep. My mind isn't. You notice? That's right. Well, maybe if you get brain surgery, it'll restriker. That's right. It must be something to it. Well, today's my day and I decided I'd like to talk about the shakers. We did a show years ago on them. And I've had an interest in the shakers for a range of reasons. But the reason that I'm interested in talking about them today is there's a new biopic on the founder of the shakers, mother Anne Lee, who was a heretic and kind of nuts. But she did have, you know, the shakers to her credit as her legacy. The shakers today hardly exist. I think there are a few clingers up in like Sabbath day. I think it's with Sabbath Lake or Sabbath day Lake Maine, where one of the old villages is located. By the way, in terms of tourism, shaker villages are pretty cool places to visit. The best one is in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, not too far from Tanglewood and Stirbridge and all the kinds of cool things like the Norman Rockwell Museum there. If you ever want to get out to the Berkshures and just enjoy a few things to look at and get some cultural enrichment maybe go out there and visit, you know, the summer home of the Boston pops or is it the symphony? I can't remember. But anyway, that's where they go out some time to do their concerts for the super wealthy people out in the Berkshures. And while you're at it, you might want to hit Berkshure Brewing Company. They produce some very nice beers. Yeah. And if you're familiar with James Taylor, the kind of folk rock guy, that's where he was located to. So there are all sorts of really interesting people out there, artists, musicians to kind of hang out. But anyway, the Pittsfield shaker village is there. That's the location of the famous round bar. And if so, if anyone's interested in seeing some really interesting architecture, that's a good place to visit. And a number of other things. I'll get into some of the other things later. But as I noted, the reason that I thought it'd be good to revisit the shakers is there's a film coming out of biopic. I'm an elite. And I didn't know this until I was cited in a critical review of the film in the spectator world. So here's the addition. I wrote a piece for Touchstone magazine all the way back in 2011 entitled Stirred by Shakers. And I was born yet. It's a long time ago. But I think I was actually my first piece published in Touchstone. And I didn't give it the name Stirred by Shakers. That was Jim Kushner. So if you have any thoughts of like on James Bond and all that kind of stuff, it wasn't my idea. But anyway, so I'm quoted in this article because apparently probably did some kind of Google search. It's written by Damien Thompson. He's one of the film and arts critics that publishes in spectator world. By the way, spectator roles are pretty significant magazine is the oldest continuously published magazine in the world. And so it's got big readership. Some of our friends, at least a couple of friends of mine, right for it. There's Dan McCarthy. I don't know if you guys know who Dan is, but Dan is with ISI and does stuff with like modern age and so forth. But he's a member of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. I've known Dan for a few years. He writes a lot for the New York Post. And he also has stuff that comes out every once in a while like Wall Street Journal and New York Times. But another guy who writes for them is a guy that is just hilarious and Bill Kaufman. He's got a little monthly editorial entitled American Life. And Kaufman is one of these guys where you like he could have been a comedian. He could have been like a stand up. He's just hilarious. But anyway, so those are a couple of friends of mine who write fairly often for the magazine. And anyway, so let me give you the opening to this review, this critical review of the film. And the title of the review and it's not a positive review is a testament to ignorance. And basically what he gets at in this film is that they get a lot of things wrong historically. So he's critical. But they also he's critical because this is just another example of the left trying to put a gloss on somebody that they want to like lion eyes and make like one of their heroes. By the way, Ken Burns speaking of that sort of person. Ken Burns is who gave us the Civil War documentary, which was pretty good. In my opinion, you probably have different opinions, but anyway, there's that. But then he also did something on the shakers. I think it was back in 1984 is I think his first documentary or might have been pretty close to his first was on the shakers. And Hans to work hearts to God is the name, so it's shakers, Hans worked to hear us got. And I saw that when I was in seminary in the mid 80s and it really affected me. I mean, I was it it stirred me in certain ways. Obviously not to become a shaker, but but in some some respects. And then he's also responsible for the notorious documentary on the revolution that's come out not too long ago that everybody is like critical about at least people. Yeah, good. If I if I may just jump in. Sure. There's something that I rather immodestically call sunshine's first love history, which is never learn history from a movie. It's being applied to bio picks. But the corollary is kind of interesting. The first corollary is films tell you more about the period in which they're made than the period in which they're set. Yeah, yeah. I think I think what what you're what you're telling us about this film is that it falls right into that that pattern. Yeah, except it does kind of present itself as like historically sound. But that you know, this is kind of amusing. I was on. I never are. Well, I was fact I'm get it to underscore your point. I was on a call yesterday with the Joseph Gronda who's a who's a Hollywood guy. You know, he's been involved in a number of films. He was actually involved in the apostle with. Rolled off. Yeah, but anyway, so he's he's pretty guy. We were talking about something I want to do on my on some of my ancestors. And he said never let the truth get in the way of a good story. So he would he would underscore and say, man, do you just said they're glad. But anyway, it is important though to note that you know, we're talking about history here. And so certain things were the case, whether we want to use the history to maybe further a particular project or or political program or what have you. And I suspect that's what's going on at least partly. I think and we talked about this before the show started. I think that the left is finally realizing they can't. They can't run this country or they can't rule the United States and have the kind of antipathy for religion that they're known for. They've got to find religion again. So they're they're desperately flailing about trying to find people that they can point to and say that's our guy. That's our gal. Now, obviously you got Martin Luther King, but they've been downplaying his Reverend Martin Luther King for such a long time that lots of folks probably don't even know you was a Reverend. But but getting to this, I think that the NPR crowd. And that was one of the things I picked up in my piece for Touchstone. The NPR crowd love the shakers. They just love the shakers. And the reason is, well, I'll get into it in a minute. But let me begin by just reading the opening to this critical review. And lead was a sharp, tongueed woman from the back streets of 18th century Manchester who joined a maverick Protestant sect that became known as the shakers or shaking Quakers. In fact, there's shaking was the least of it. They howled, uh, journey and gibbered while flirting with the notion that God would return to earth in the form of a woman. All sexual activity, even between man and wife was forbidden and then had a series of visions that according to subsequent shaker accounts identified her as the woman clothed with the sun, whose appearance in the book of Revelation heralds the end of the world. In 1774, mother and a small band of faithful emigrated to America, they settled near Albany, New York. Why? I don't know, but they did. It's my little aside about Albany. But anyway, where they were persecuted for their pacifism, their routiness, their surprising success and winning converts and the suggestion that to quote a leader source, Christ did barely make his second appearance in Anley. And herself did not quite claim to be a female Messiah reportedly preferring to think of herself as incarnating the Christ spirit. But the distinction was lost on many of her followers and so on it goes. So this is how things start. But the thing that appeals to so many people on the left is what I'm quoted as saying, referring to in terms of the reference to me and the article. And so let me, let me read that part where I mentioned here. He says back in 2015. So actually he has the date wrong. The conservative S.S. and Pastors see our while he wrote an article stirred by shakers on the elegant heirs of a failed sect began when it comes to the opinion of the people who matter. The shakers are hip. They had all the correct views. They practiced sustainable air culture and gender equality and they even reduce their carbon footprint to almost zero today. Shaker villages appear to be populated mostly by supporters of national public radio. I'm a community is to not seem to have the same appeal to the NPR crowd. And of course the obvious reason is because the M.P.R. crowd likes the egalitarianism and has got questions about the value of children, whether or not we should have them. So anyway, that's kind of a quick introduction to the origins of shakerism. I don't know, man, I've got tons and tons I can say, but I don't want it. This to be a monologue. Anything that you guys wanted to say at this point. Yeah, I have one question. What would fun sustainable agriculture in 1800? I meant it should have been sustainable agriculture. Well, I know, I know, but what's the alternative in 1800? Oh, I don't know. But basically, well, if you if you visit the villages, there's a great deal of emphasis upon how they rotated crops through irrigation methods, the kind of the efforts that they put into making certain that there was no waste. In other words, the way that it's spoken of today is that they were the model or a model that we should try to try to learn from when it comes to sustainable agriculture. Now in terms of their branching from movements because they obviously have what what is the line there? So I don't know their specific their specific lineage. Well, it's it is quakerism. So they were shaking quaker. So they were a break off from the quaker movement and they had nothing resembling, for example, the components or the things that we associate say with the reform tradition. There was no preaching. There was no there were no sacraments that were administered. It was a basically a well, if you remember, when it comes to quakerism is basically kind of a gathering of friends who sit and wait for the spirit to move. And when the spirit moves, then they they stand and they share what they've received to share. So there's something to it that could remind you of the penicostal movement in the late 19th century or early 20th century, but without the preaching. That sort of thing or the or the clerical offices, there was no there were elders, but the elders functioned a little differently than we think of them functioning saying a church. The movements to kind of enthusiasm, spontaneity, the breakdown of of of ritual to spontaneous reactions to yeah that whole that whole world was, you know, was part of what was also happening in the undercurrents everywhere else is certain things were breaking down and. And so yeah, they so they were carrying on certain legacies of spirituality, but they were getting they were getting more you know they were more getting they were moving further and further away further away from what we understand by historic forms of Christian faith and. Yeah, well, I'm pretty confident we could say that they had already departed from the faith from it. Yeah, now they would go ahead. And wouldn't that be a another reason why they might appeal to the left today the complete rejection of tradition and anything connected to it well that's yeah that's it the they're already moderns in in the way that the you know the NPR crowd would like it I mean they've already basically there their metaphysics is already the same one the NPR crowd likes it's just a early you know form of it yeah. Yeah, I think that one one way to understand it is is and it's an over realized eschatology so if you think about you know the end of Matthew and you know the statements that Christ makes about the kingdom and its fullness one of those things you know when he's responding to the to the questions or the or the. The load of questions of the Sadducees you know and he speaks to what status of the elect are in the kingdom and he notes that the that there's no marriage in this and giving and receiving marriage but that they're like you know the the a jealous host that's the frame of mind that the shakers had they believe that with the second appearing with handly. That the essentially that say this this the end had been realized and that now is time to behave that way in many ways you could say that the secularist. Left and liberalism really that develops out of our just further immunizations of that that's where they're not stemming from something that came outside of that they it's just a further interiorizing of that and making it seem natural. That next state they call it progress it's a secularized. Providence and it's beat not being governed or led necessarily by any kind of deity although you could have one if you want it it could be just blind evolution but somehow it's moving towards this you know this state of of finality in which this is us moving closer to it. I think that's a great way to to frame it's sort of the interest of the left in the shakers to this day and other kinds of I think takes on the end so you know we've talked a lot about transhumanism I think transhumanism is another form of of radical eschatology which is drawing on the Christian faith but is radically reinterpreting. Certain features of it to harmonize it with you know what's going on in the you know the basically the world of technology yeah and that's I think we mentioned before Augustine saw that in his criticism to stoicism he saw it as almost a type of transhumanist approach it was it was a this side rather than the the kingdom side attempt to to perfect that the world of the world of the Disciple of the world of the world. So I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that and Neona, oh yeah I think that's right. So if we think about the shakes communities, just give people a sense of how they how they functioned when a family who has converted to Chakres and the family who's broken up men and women lived in separate quarters, children we're housed in a common sort of a house and educated together and the men and women would generally speaking continue to perform traditional male and female roles in terms of working the land and the things that they had to do in order to support themselves. Because basically a shaker village was an agricultural commune. And so generally speaking the men were working the fields working with the heavy animals and stuff like that in the workshops. And the women were often invested in the kinds of crafts that we have historically associated with women. But in terms of the oversight of the community you'd have two boards of elders you could say or two parallel boards, one of the main of men and another main of women. And they oversaw the two parts of their community. And of course you wouldn't see new little shakers being born. Now maybe they were but they would be kicked out for violating the vial of celibacy that they entered into. So in a weird way you could say that this is a kind of Protestant recovery of the nunnery and the monastery. And they're living alongside each other. Yeah and actually in the Middle Ages especially in the early Middle Ages you have these things called double monasteries where there was a men's monastery and a women's monastery. And the curious thing is that double monasteries tended to be governed by the Abbas. They had to monitor the monastery rather than the men's. I mean it sounds very much like that. Yeah it really does. It also reminds me the community of Jesus on Cape Cod. I don't know if you ever got either of you guys ever gotten out there to take a look at it but the community of Jesus had a connection to Peter Marshall. I don't know if you may repeat a Marshall. The the chapter of the Senate. Anyway it's a beautiful place. They've got a Basilica that's a magnificent but they have a nunnery. It's not Roman Catholic. It's a basically I think their understanding is ecumenical and then also a monastery. And there are significantly more nuns than there are monks. I think it's like maybe four to one or something like that but anyway getting back to the shakers. The thing that most people know them for today are their crafts. And they really were innovative and really developed an aesthetic that anyone who has an interest in say fine furniture or just good craftsmanship can't help but admire. So that's that's kind of the part of the shaker legacy that has a hook for me. The other stuff I'm saying that's just nuts. I'm having no interest in your theology. I have no interest in your pacifism or any of that kind of stuff. Certainly not in your celibacy. But I do like shaker furniture shaker craftsmanship. There's this beautiful and really remarkable workshop at the Pitzfield village and it's all driven by a water dynamo. So there's this workshop with every possible piece of power equipment that you can imagine but it's not power equipment that's run by electricity. It's all by water. And so everything is connected. So you have these belts that are running all over the place. It's like right out of like chitty, chitty bang bang or something. It's just that kind of 19th century almost steam punk but it's all wood. And when they would put on the dynamo, in other words when they would just bring the stream through the dynamo, the whole thing just takes off simultaneously all the all the world working machinery. And it's it's pretty impressive. And then the round barn. Again one of the things they were really good at is finding the most efficient way to get things done. So the round barn is famous for its central silo. And there's a way you can take a wagon up because they built it into a hill. And you can drive the wagon right up to the center silo that runs right down into the very very middle of the round barn. And then all the stalls are like spokes in the wheel that surround it. And so they just put all the feed and all of it feeds all of the different stalls simultaneously. So you don't have to like go in and with the pitchfork and like move stuff around. It's just jump it down and then let the animals have at it. Fast it's been great stop. And all they invented the circular saw, the flat broom, just all sorts of things that we today take for granted. But anyway, that's an interesting thing to think about. Well, there is a mindset there. And that part of it's interesting. And you know, it's one of those places at which we're seeing the transition with a lot of these kinds of spiritual movements in their vision to having on the one side a very innovative and in many ways very helpful. And and still kind of very, if you say organic approach to doing things, it hasn't been so removed from that, which which has allows for kind of elegance and and ingenuity and everything else that we would look at today as much healthier. And yet the seeds are in it that some, you know, similar just like in in its religion, the seeds are in it where few generations on it goes, it goes wrong. And so there is a turn to the practical and the useful that starts to be removed from the aesthetic. So they clearly had even if it was as simple as that, it was still very much there in the precision that they, you know, almost the mathematical precision that they worked with. But the seeds were already there towards technological disposition that begins to take over and I think less cautious ways. No, there is that. Yeah, I like the word elegance that you use there, Tom, because, you know, when we think about things that are elegant, there are a variety of ways we might look at it. But I think elegance is a good word to use to describe the shaker aesthetic. It's simple, it's clean. In mathematics, for example, when they talk about an elegant solution, that's what they're looking, you know, they're looking at something that does the job, but does it in a, you know, as I said, a simple and aesthetically pleasing way, believe it or not, you can get that in math. But their furniture has the same kind of elegance to it. It's not elegant, you know, in the sense of opulent or anything like that, it's quite the opposite. But that is, I think that's a really good word to use to describe what they were about. Yeah, I think the only other kind of maybe aesthetic that would be similar that I can compare it to would be sort of the Scandinavian, so that same simplicity and functionality. But there is a kind of, and this is one of the things that they actually get into in the documentary, there is a kind of sensuality to shaker furnishings in shaker art and the theory is that are profited in the film by different scholars is that it had to do a sublimation because they're, they had foregone any kind of sexual lives, any sexual gratification. It was the drives were sublimated into their work. And I think there's some sense to that, but I, I, but I think there's also something to be said for kind of how their theology did influence their craftsmanship. So even though I think they're heretics, I think, I think there are certain things about the way they looked at the world that are actually worth maybe thinking about and learning from. So they really did believe that they should be building for eternity because they thought that the kingdom had been fully realized. So they, they believe that, you know, they should be thinking in terms of like centuries. And so their craftsmanship was known for its durability and sort of a long life. So for example, when I was, I was at the Enfield Village, so I've been to a number of shaker villages, but when I was at the Enfield Village, the space that was set apart for worship and worship for the shakers had to do with a very initially, it was kind of ecstatic dancing, but it became very ritualized and patterned later. Well, that's the thing about these rituals of spontaneity is lower branch teaches us as they still end up being ritualistic and patterned. And I want to get back to that because this is something that this author gets into, but, but what impressed me about this space is that it had been painted like 150 years ago and there were no cracks in the paint. And it was impressive. Nothing, you know, you would think after that much time just with the expansion and contraction of the buildings due to the change in temperature and the humidity and stuff that you would see, you know, just a natural decay occur, but they had been able to formulate with, with milk paints, a very durable and long-lasting pigment and paint that they used. So it was, it was just remarkable and he saw that all over the place in terms of even like the fence posts, the original fence posts that had been set like 150 years ago had not rotted out just different things that they were, they applied their minds. Well, it's interesting. You say that as well, because it's, it almost reminds me of certain types of Platonism and the sense that there is, even though they have a very, there is a turn towards this world and the realization of its eschatology, there is something of an otherworldly transcendence that is important to them and that's what's driving this kind of higher, they move away from kind of earthly, fleshly desires and practices and they move into this, which you would classically call contemplative zone, where you contemplate the forms and in a way that is kind of what's giving, you know, you were mentioned mathematics with elegance and assert elegance to what they're doing. It almost is a spirituality similar to certain mystical schools of Platonism, which would have that kind of aesthetic as a byproduct because that's what they, that's what they tended to focus on and put their energy towards, but there could be a kind of eros erotic dimension to that too and like the mystical schools of neoplatonism. So in some ways it's that it's, you know, one, for all of its this worldly emphasis, it still is, is trying to balance itself with a certain kind of platonic transcendence. Well, I think that's exactly right. Yeah, go ahead, Glenn. I think that just simply goes along with the Erasca, eschatology, which is overly realized. Yeah. If they believe that that, you know, the second coming has happened in some sense that eternity has now manifested itself in the world through them. Of course, they're going to be building things that are going to last. You know, just the eschatological impulse by itself would give you that. I know that lots of folks aspire to the same kind of, you know, sort of investment of spiritual truths into our work, you know, particularly our handy work architecture, that kind of things within the post-millennial frame of mind. And I think that that, so there is a, and I think it's one of the best things about post-millennial outlook is that. But with regard to this, you have this set of strange sort of features that again are very appealing to particular sort of a person. So like when you go to the, when you visit the Pitzfield Shaker Village, you go into this sort of area that's intended to be, you know, like he's not quite the gift shop yet, but you know, it's kind of intended to orient you to the shakers before you actually go into the village itself. And there are all of these photographs, large photographs of luminaries, people obviously that can burns, but also Yol-Yol-Mah and others who are all praising the shakers and and kind of comparing them to their own favorite, you know, I guess, sort of cultural parallel. So like, I think it was Yol-Yol-Mah was brought out to Zen, you know, basically kind of the shaker aesthetic and the Zen aesthetic, you know, kind of having some similarities. But I think probably just because, you know, shakers are an expression, kind of heretical expression of the Western tradition, your comments about Neoplatanism, I think are probably much more online, you know, with what's really going on with them, or used to be. It's amazing they grew as large as they did, because at the, I think they're peak, there were maybe a few thousand of them spread out over like maybe ten different villages. They had villages all the way from Maine to Kentucky. And there is kind of a, also an interesting kind of distinction between northern and shaker and southern quakers, I mean, not shakers, I should say, instead of quakers. And it had to do a tobacco and whiskey. So the southern shakers were into tobacco and whiskey. I'm pretty sure it was, I know for a fact, tobacco, but I'm pretty sure whiskey as well, but I could be corrected on that one. So somebody if you think, if you discover I'm wrong and that one correct me. But, but there was a kind of it, even sort of a, you know, within the United States, this, as the movement grew, this interesting splintering of things, I mean, I think there were villages in Indiana. I don't know if any were in Pennsylvania, but definitely New York, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, those places. One of the things that Thompson gets into in this is something I'd like to just kind of think about it some more with you is what happened at the beginning and then what the shakers became. So he makes a really strong case for a kind of a chaotic period that was the period in which mother-and-it-her thing that she dies. And then there's the legacy and kind of the mopping up and cleaning up of her memory and then kind of the ritualization, as you noted, of some of the forms and things that they do to the point where it's almost like a whole different animal by the time, you know, the shaker movement, early flowers, and becomes this pretty impressive institution. And it affects everything from not just their dance and their and their craftsmanship, but even down to their political outlooks and how they're involved in various movements in the history of the United States. They became involved with the abolition of slavery. They got involved in that. And things related to pastivism. They were obviously kind of a piece, what we would today call piece-necks, or maybe we used to call piece-necks back in the 60s and 70s, but anyway, so interesting though to think about what happens over time with a movement. So the second, the third generation, what they do with the legacy that they've inherited. Well, it's interesting that they won't go on without those patterns, and yet, you know, that's one of the things. All that spontaneity becomes a tradition. I always say this to my very low low church Protestant churches, you've got your patterns. And to sit here and act like there, there's somehow superior because they weren't those other patterns. We ever wrote them down, so they're not really patterns. That's right. But they're there. And it really cultures and institutions can't be handed on without them. And they're fundamental to our human nature. So unless you're going to die out in this specific generation that you have, if you're going to have any kind of demarcating point that distinguishes you as these people, that's going to be one thing. So that's one thing. But yeah, I guess the downside is, unless you can just make convert after convert after convert, the biggest, I think, way in which historically the church grew was through families and children, and societies built around that. And so what do you do then? Unless you're just a missionary society, going to places that are having children, cutting it off there is going to end you out pretty quickly. Yeah, there's a lot to think about there. Tom, I mean, Glenn. Yeah. One of the, I did my doctoral dissertation on the way the French Protestant Church institutionalized itself during the War Zero Religion. Basically, they invented respiratory news and the how and why of all of that. And the reason why I think that that kind of thing is important is that anytime you have a movement, it cannot survive without some form of institutionalization. You have to find a way to preserve and pass on the legacy of the first generation, the concepts, the beliefs, the, you know, whatever, from the first generation. If you don't have that, the movement dies within a generation or so. Right. And so the rituals are part of that, but I would be really interested if they didn't actually develop some form of institutional structure, formal or informal to preserve and to consolidate mother Anne's ideas. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there was an attempt to preserve her ideas, but this particular writer, and I don't have any reason to to fuss with his take, his ideas that they more or less clean them up and laid them a little more socially acceptable. And also very likely. And also kind of eliminated some of the, maybe some of the contradictions, some of the embarrassing things that maybe would call into question legit, the legitimacy of her, of her you know, apostolic status or whatever. Getting back to your comment earlier, come about, you know, this challenge that they had to continue growing, but only through conversions. I think that there's a degree to which that you could say that that is a problem within the evangelicalism today. Yeah. I think certain places. Yeah. I think that's exactly right. I think, and of course, mainline Protestantism. And I think, you know, Western Christianity altogether, in some sense, even even I mean, you can even go to to certain places in that what you would call the higher educated areas of Latin America and through, be those that have gone through the universities that have been influenced by the West are finding those generations not wanting to have children. They want to travel. They don't believe in marriage. So you're seeing that globally spread out. But I think evangelicalism, especially US and Europe, the strands of it. Yeah, they've, that is not a mark of a core mark of Christian identity or a created order kind of mandate that is part and parcel to to living the faith out in the world. Yeah. I've even, I kind of think of it almost like we have in some some corners of evangelicalism kind of a two tier understanding of of who a Christian is. So it's almost like if you're our convert, your, your Christianity is more authentic and genuine than if you were raised in a Christian household. Yeah. And a lot of the kids who grew up in Christian households kind of feel it. They feel like I wish I had a great testimony, which means I guess I better go out and kind of become a drug addict and like, so I'm a really horrible lifestyle so that I can be converted. That's it. Again, the authenticity of this intense experience, the reality of of someone and rather than then a formed experience throughout one's life takes on this, this significance. I'm doing a lot of work right on that period of time where that begins to happen, where ritual begins to again think of itself as as legitimate if it's spontaneous, like a spontaneous prayer rather than a shared prayer tradition. And the same way with that kind of immediacy of of Christian experience rather than formed experience over a lifetime of discipleship and why they became so, so viewed so favorably, you know, in a culture that was also valuing the immediacy of experience, still knowledge through empiricism. I think these things go very hand in hand. And I think we've talked, we did a show years ago on, was it Lundin's book on nature and experience, a shift from natural order to I think that period of time, you see it in literary work very clearly, the literature of that time. But the whole concept of the self changes and everything else, but those the sets of problems, but it is interesting is the kind of religion, especially in America that is growing up around that. And this is where I think you start to get a lot of these cult groups also, Mormonism. I don't know for all the histories of these, it's been years since I've read them, but you see them crop up, you know, over and over again as these these many of them in the area of Albany, New York. That's right. That's right. Yeah, I'm going to say something. Yeah, so the second great awakening is kind of famous for all that. Yeah, that's right. The issue of conversionism is one of these that I've been pondering, really for a few years now. When you look at the Reformation, you don't see an emphasis on conversion. Yeah. You know, the first generation, yeah, Luther had to have some sort of conversion and so on, but but for them, you grow up in the church and you you adopt the faith and you just sort of go forward that way. Conversionism starts, it seems to me where I see it showing up first is among the Puritans where you know, you've got Perkins golden chain where you can tell where you are on this with what stage you're in in conversion. It's sort of a flow chart of what happens during conversion. And then it's picked up by the British evangelicals and therefore the American evangelicals, Methodists, Wesley, Tradition, really. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I never connected it to the growth in empiricism. That is that's an interesting connection. I've never really made, you know, I've never made that one before that I think that might help explain some of what's going on there. But you start to see it because that becomes a kind of experience. It becomes an evidential manifestation that can can show its legitimacy. This is this is and that's how they're measuring truth now. It's not metaphysically. It is empirically and that is something that you can know through, you can see. So you see, I mean, think of like the Pentecostal experience, you can see the manifestation of the gifts and this, this, it's right here and and they this is where even the rituals are authentic because they're spontaneous and your bound your enthusiasm is bound up with them. This is something visible and manifest or the altar call, you can see God working in this person who move comes forward. So there is this, you know, measuring and testing on a on a empirical level that wouldn't have been something that that historically the church would have found accredibly would have been suspicious of that usually, not found that, you know, the ground for for true conversion necessarily. Yeah. It raises some really interesting questions about the first great awakening, some of which John Bennard himself wrestled with. Yeah, that's right. But then when you get to the second, the altar call replaces communion is the high point of the service, which is yeah, I really bad move there, I think. Yeah. Well, and I spent a lot of time in a tradition that that's the way it functioned. Yeah. And getting to this whole, kind of this whole sort of liturgical sort of reworking that we see because of this. So if your if your understanding is rooted in creation and has a assumes an intergenerational passing on of the faith, in other words, that's considered the norm, not not second rate. Yeah, that's right. Okay, we got a conversion here and then we got passing on the faith, you know, generationally, which is, well, I guess we have to accept this legitimacy in some way. But probably the best thing to do is make sure those kids go to camp and go to the altar, you know, and experience for themselves. And that's what ends up getting pushed and pushed and pushed. Yeah. But what ends up happening kind of in a, you know, market driven sort of reworking of the faith is that instead of looking to the patterns that we see in scripture, but also in creation in terms of a generation passing the faith on to the next, that we instead try to think about how can we get people who aren't in church excited about the things we're talking about. Yeah. And so that becomes the forming sort of frame or sort of idea, there's a sort of sort of like the conceptual framework that leads to the reworking of the liturgical framework. So now we have to do things in a way that appeals to the unconverted rather than doing things in a way that helps us pass on the faith to the next generation. Yep. And then when we do that, we, what ends up getting converted is really the theology because it hasn't got those forms enough in the right way. And a lot of times they're not amenable to each other. And so how can you have a play to the desires that a consumerist culture has and find that as a valid means of expressing a faith that requires a certain loosening of one's attachment to those very desires. You know, how is it? You know, and so those those things, a little contradiction here. Yeah, there is. Don't let that hold you back. It's all about the end. Yeah, it's just by the means. Yeah, it's right. You know, the ever has spent any time thinking about that. You say, of course, that doesn't follow, but if you ever look very closely at certain expressions, particularly of evangelical Christianity in the United States, it's obviously that what's going on, the end of justified the means, which gets us back to, you know, the alter-call and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Anyway, getting back to the shakers. So the lesson, one lesson we can, I think, take from the shaker experience quite apart from the nuttiness of their theology is that if you are exclusively working in a framework of a conversionism, you will die out. Yeah. But it is inevitable. You will die out. Yeah. But your furniture will last. The furniture lives on. And it's only for a high price in the antique's Rocha. But the response to that is, well, we just have to make sure our children convert. Well, and that's why you end up with the kind of the approach that sometimes you see where you treat your children as though they're not really part of the church until you drive the camp and have an alter-call experience. So there is a sense in which evangelicals have tried to kind of find a middle way on this, you know, where they, on the one hand, do want to bring their children up in the faith and, you know, read to them scripture as children and pray for them and with them and so forth. But the idea that they're members of the church because they belong to a Christian household, for many people in the evangelical world, that's one bridge too far. They just can't go there. They, vipers and diapers is what sometimes babies are referred to in that way of looking at things. Yeah, that was a Vodibachum. Vodibachum is famous for saying vipers and diapers. Anyway, he was a great guy. He just was wrong about a few things. And it was a good preacher at me. He was a very, very, very, you know, great exposure. And if he's just trying to say that they, they, they to participate in an original sin, yeah. But the means the grace aren't for them until, until they get to the plate, the age where they can make, you know, exercise faith. So they're not really considered part of the church until then. They're kind of like a probation. Anyway, so we probably have some Baptist listeners who are probably screaming at the radio at us right now. But anyway, the point that we're just trying to make is, you guys, I mean, if, if you think that the household and intergenerational passing out of the faith has to somehow be, you know, modified. So as to, according with what you really think is the way it works, then you're, you're fine, you're going to find yourself in an awkward spot. And I also find that just on a pastoral level, I also find something that happens a lot is that, you know, sometimes you can have families all part of a church, but they are all still kind of individual in their devotional lives, which I'm not saying we shouldn't have them, but there should also be, right, a more connectedness because I think that also makes us realize it isn't, you know, you go off in your corner, they go off in their corner, everybody goes up because that too foster something, I think that these, these groups were very, even though they had a strong communal sense, they also had a very, it was very much about there. That direct connection and, and it eventually ended up with what we do see in certain forms of, especially in America, forms of Protestant sectarian faith is hyper individuality, disconnectedness, buffered self as buffered as, you know, to use Charles Taylor's word as anyone else from God and each other. Yeah. Getting back to this particular film, I'm mother Ann, I think that, um, basically the critical review that we see here in the spectator is a cautionary, sort of a note to take with you. If you find yourself wondering, you know, should I check it out, be aware that there are a number of inaccuracies in terms of how the shakers are presented for one thing, but also that there really is something going on here and this reviewer notes this that has to do with maybe a larger sort of cultural project and I hinted at this or noted it early on in my introduction of the subject for this discussion that I think the left uh, is at a point where in one of the same moment they're like, the hair is on fire because of Christian nationalism. Like watch out, the Christian nationalists are about to take over that kind of thing. Um, you know, uh, we're all going to be wearing red, you know, outfits and white hats and stuff, you know, and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Um, and on the other hand, they, they know that America has such a significant connection to the Christian faith at a popular level from the beginning, then unless you can in some sense, root what you're trying to promote in the Christian faith, you're, you're going to be, you're, you're going to be limited in what you're going to accomplish. So just, you know, think about all the great sort of um, and influential figures in of course, of American history. There was often some kind of, um, there was actually, always some, some dimension to the, to the work that had some kind of a either, uh, appeal to the, to the faith or an attempt to, to reconcile it to the faith. Um, you know, just thinking about civil rights movement, which would be a favorite of the left. Uh, you know, the, the person who, uh, you know, we, uh, still note as being the most important figure was a preacher, Reverend Martin Luther King. Now, whatever you think about him in terms of his personal life and his, his foibles and his personal shortcomings and all that kind of stuff, let's just put that aside to say he was, uh, I know, a Reverend. Right. It was a clearer. And then we think about, you know, uh, you know, you're going back to the revolution or going forward to the Civil War, particularly during the Civil War. I mean, the United States was at a, you could say it was like a, a fever pitch when it came to the connection between, uh, the Christian faith and the, the, the great debate of the day. Um, and there were Christians on both sides of the debate, but they were really making their arguments often by appealing to scripture. So you can't really even understand the American experience without, uh, the sort of centrality of the Christian faith, uh, you know, at the heart of it. And I think the left, uh, right now is in the early stages of saying, you know, what we better get, or we better get religion, but we don't want the same religion those guys have. Yeah. Yeah. We, who, who are, uh, you know, uh, models who, who gives us inspiration, maybe mother Anne, maybe mother Anne. Well, it's interesting that they, because on the one hand, they've hijacked so many of the mainline and, you know, basically turned it into a rainbow cult, you know, and, and, uh, but on the other hand, I, I, you know, like you say, that there's something fundamental about that that is not going to be able to go on generationally. It is not. And it doesn't have any appeal to anybody outside it. That's right. And they're definitely not reproducing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Get a, get a, get a camera, just get a camera picture of any of it. There's no reproduction happening in trust me. That's why they're after other kids, you know, right? Right. Right. Right. And, and increasingly, they're, they're being cut off from those kids. Yes. I think there's more and more, uh, sort of, uh, well, uh, conviction that these people shouldn't be permitted to get at your kid anymore. There was this, this moment in time where people said, well, they're not so bad. They're just regular people with a little bit funny, you know, sort of, you know, sort of, uh, way of looking at things. But now people are like, no, you know, the more stuff kind of comes out about what has been going on and who the, some of these people are, more appalled people get. And, you know, so the, you know, in the center of the American experience, we have the normies, the, you know, the muddled middle, you know, those, those people, and they're going to vacillate back and forth, back and forth. But they're getting pretty sick and tired of having this LGBTQ stuff shoved down their throat, uh, just, uh, it's, you know, without stop. And they're like enough. I don't care if you think I'm, uh, whatever, uh, no, I'm not going along with this anymore. Yeah, we're calling it a sort of loss that's, uh, it's power. Yeah. And it will, it will be, it will be curious to see, I mean, I think you're seeing already in, you know, because the tends to be, especially in the US kind of polarities that develop conservative, liberal, it all under a kind of, you know, uh, a kind of overall, you know, enlightenment liberalism that both kind of function under, but then you're seeing, you know, breaks within it, you know, um, you know, and fragments within it happening. And you see this already happening in, you know, conservative or right wing circles, people starting to divide over issues. But a curious thing, like you said, the hyper woke and what would be have considered something less, less woke, still liberal, where they're turning in terms of identifying the religious center of their vision. The enlightenment isn't going to work anymore as, as an appeal court. So that, you know, especially as people are turning to ID, you know, kind of religious type ideas. And so these very movements, I mean, you saw this young Democrat, I think it was, it was at Texas who, yeah, very left wing outspoken that Jesus would have been for abortion kind of guy if I'm thinking of the right guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that will definitely be if someone looking for, you know, looking for a different, the old kind of more liberalism rather than necessary wokeism. And that has lost its voice in those circles. It's been crowded out by the woke. So I'll be curious to see, see what happens there. And if something, where the interest in something like the shakers would fit in in those, those worlds. Yeah, this brings me to the final paragraph of the article. You're going to see something in the Glein and I'm going to cut you out. Well, I just a quick note. I believe it was Rodgerair quoted somebody who said one of the appeals of neo-paganism is that it fits handily into the causes that the left and that young people are really engaged with. The problem is, I don't think neo-paganism works as a mass movement in America. Yeah, I think America is different. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not really a mass movement anywhere yet. But the this idea that they're grabbing the shakers or some Christian offshoots as a way of reaching America and making their political ideas palatable, that I think sounds very convincing to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's one thing to make a neo-pagan move if you're from Germany. Yeah. And so my ancestors, you know, before Christianity came along, this is what they did. In America, anybody over here who can't decide doesn't have that option, can't make that play. Anyway, so here we go. This is the last the last paragraph in this this particular treatment by Damian Thompson. He says, seen in this light and it is an amusing irony, the doggately progressive testament of Anli. So that's the name of the film, Testament of Anli is reminiscent of nothing so much as an old Hollywood adaption of the New Testament, milking a Christian audience by depicting the miracles of a handsome Aryan Jesus, whose armpits have been shaved for the crucifixion scene. Not that there is much money to be made milking shakers according to the recent report. There are just three of them left, but fancier is a fine furniture. We'll love it. But I think, you know, his point is is that there is a kind of attempt by the left to find a little bit of religion that they can live with. And if there is a religion they can live with, it's one where you don't have kids and you practice sustainable agriculture and you produce really handsome furniture. Anyway, that's enough for now. Thank you for listening to The Theology Podcast and making it all the way to the end. As a reward you get to hear about Patreon. We have bills to pay and we love it for you to help us pay them. That's our offer. Anyway, we do have a number of people who do help us every month and we're very grateful for them and we're grateful for you just for listening, but we could be even more grateful if you became a patron. Anyway, there are also some links in the show notes to some things I've referred to. I will have a link to this article in the spectator link to my article in Touchstone and also a link to the Ken Burns documentary on the shakers. And if there's anything else that comes to mind, we'll throw those in too. Okay, that's enough for now. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. Bye. Theology Podcast is a ministry of Westminster Presbyterian Church and Battleground, Washington. The Theology Podcast is produced and edited by Wileycraft Productions of Nashville, Tennessee.