What does your heart love?

“A world view is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story/myth or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being” James Sire (The Universe Next Door, IVP)

We all have worldviews though we may not realise we do... and we might have a false or partially false one... we probably all have inconsistencies.

Looking at the world John Calvin wrote: “There is no colour in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice” And yet, from the Bible he observed, “the heart is an idol factory” People are lovers but we love the wrong things, turning created things into our gods.

CS Lewis warns, tread carefully around idols:

 “It is our painful duty to wake the world from an enchantment. The real universe is probably in many respects less poetical, certainly less tidy and unified, than they had supposed. Man’s role in it is less heroic. The danger that really hangs over him is perhaps entirely lacking in true tragic dignity. It is only in the last resort, and after all lesser poetries have been renounced and Imagination sternly subjected to intellect, that we shall be able to offer them any compensation for what we intend to take away from them. That is why in the meantime we must treat the Myth with respect. It was all (on a certain level) nonsense: but a man would be a dull dog if he could not feel the thrill and charm of it. For my own part, though I believe it no longer, I shall always enjoy it as I enjoy other myths. I shall keep my Cave-Man where I keep Balder amid Helen and the Argonauts: and there often revisit him.” (The Funeral of a Great Myth)

What's your myth? What's your idol?

 “If you really knew me you’d know that my life only has meaning if….”
[the following list was compiled by Tim Keller] 
•   I have power and influence over others” (Power)
• I am loved and respected by___” (Approval)
• I have this kind of pleasure experience, a particular quality of life.” (Comfort )
• I am able to get mastery over my life in the area of _____. (Control )
• people are dependent on me and need me. (Helping)
• someone is there to protect me and keep me safe. (Dependence)
• my parents/other family members are happy, and happy with me.” (Family)
• I am completely free from obligations or responsibilities to take care of someone.” (Independence)
• I am highly productive and getting a lot done.” (Work)
• I am being recognized for my accomplishments, and I am excelling in my work.” (Achievement)
• I have a certain level of wealth, financial freedom, and very nice possessions.” (Materialism)
• I am adhering to my religion’s moral codes and accomplished in its activities.” (Religion)
• this one person is in my life and happy to be there, and/or happy with me.” (Individual person)
• I feel I am totally independent of organized religion and am living by a self-made morality.” (Irreligion)
• my race and culture is ascendant and seen as superior.” (Racial/cultural)
• a particular social grouping or professional grouping or other group lets me in.” (Inner ring)
• Mr. or Ms. “Right” is in love with me.” (Relationship)
• I am hurting, in a problem; only then do I feel worthy of love or able to deal with guilt.” (Suffering)
• my political or social cause is making progress and ascending in influence or power.” (Ideology)
• I have a particular kind of look or body image.” (Image)

How does that connect with you? Does something resonate? Does it feel uncomfortable? We all have things we love. Few better ways to get to know someone than asking what makes their life worth living, when do they feel most alive... What do they love?

Discuss....  Part 1. IDOLS. Share your story. 
• What’s your idol, or the myth that enchants you?
• How did/does that show in your life? 
• How does your idol make sense to you emotionally? 
• How does your idol make sense to you intellectually? 
• Tell your story as persuasively and attractively as you can – talk about why you love your idol/myth. 

Discuss... Part 2. JESUS. Help one another. 
• How did and does Jesus confront the longings you pursue from your idol? 
• How did and does Jesus comfort the longings you pursue in your idol? 
• What does it cost you to follow Jesus? 
• How is Jesus better? 

Jesus is out to confront our idols, to put our love of them to death and through his resurrection to win us for himself, comforting our longings. He comes saying: “Therefore, behold, I will allure her… and speak tenderly to her…. Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people’ and her who was not my beloved I will call ‘beloved.'"

Hearing God speak through prayer

People pray. It doesn't seem to matter too much what you believe. Muslim or Hindu, Christian or Atheist cry out to someone or something. Who hasn't found themselves in a hard place and cried out "O, God..." or in better times and cried "Thank God..."

Download MP3: Hearing God speak through prayer (30mins).

We pray. Yet, it's hard. You lie on your bed to pray and it feels like the words bounce back off the ceiling as you address your petitions to the light fittings. You find a quiet place to pray and suddenly everything you've procrastinated about for days seems urgent. You pray and you pray and you pray and nothing happens and so you give up. Or, you think my life is already too full and too busy, I have no time to pray. And the biographies of the greats who rise before dawn to pray make it worse.

When I'm weak I think I can't pray until I'm stronger. When I'm strong I don't feel the need to pray so much. I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. I wont when I'm weak. I wont when I'm strong. Yet my gut instinct is still to cry out....  perhaps Ole Hallesby is right: our best prayer is our helplessness.

LEARN FROM THE SON
Jesus' friends observed him praying (Luke 11:1, 10:21). He prayed! And they approached him, "teach us." A humility I struggle to find. Too easy to observe greatness and run. To see another and disqualify myself. Yet they ask. And how does he respond? Does he swat them away? Surely the eternal Son of God has better things to do! No, he says... "When you pray, say..." He smiles and welcomes their learning.

SPEAK TO THE FATHER
What will he say? They've seen him praying "Father". And he says, "pray, Father." Pray like I pray. My second son started to call me Dave. I want to take him aside gently and say, "You're one of three people on the planet who doesn't need to call me that. Call me Daddy." We learn. It's messy. Jesus invites us to step inside his own relationship with the Father. He prays as the eternal Son, we can pray as adopted sons. Not to Jesus' father but to He who now is also our Father.

Fatherhood is complex and broken in our world but there is hope if we let Jesus introduce his Father. There is no Father behind Jesus who is unlike Jesus.  And this Father loves those who have the impudence (ESV) to ask. He invites cheeky, shameless audacity (NIV). Knock on the door at midnight for three loaves to feed a friend. Not one, nor two, but three. Come, as Paul Miller says, to the Three-Loaves-God!

RECEIVE THE SPIRIT
And what will he give? Stuff? Yes but he's more interested in something more. The best fallen fathers give good gifts much more does the Father in Heaven... much more... much more... much more does he give not good gifts but the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Father may change our circumstance but he's more interested in moving into our lives in the middle of our story.

Jesus invites us into his relationship with his Father, by the Holy Spirit - caught up in these eternal loving relationships. Feeling like we can't get through? The way is open - you can't break in or buy in but he opens the way through his body, his death. Feeling distracted? He comes to us in the middle of it all. Feeling cynical? He welcomes our questions and our struggles. Feeling busy? This is no extra thing to add into life, it's a new life.

We might exclude ourselves, I can't call you Father! But he wont have us as slaves - only as adopted sons. Seek and find. We might think ourselves above asking, but he invites us to come into his party. Knock and he will open the door. Ask and much more than you could imagine is yours, freely.

Do you want him? Do you want to be in this family?

And, hearing God speak through prayer is not just for private personal prayer (which Jesus does speak about elsewhere) but for us together to come, to ask for our daily bread and our forgiveness together. To develop the habits of community who learn together from the Son to speak to the Father and receive the Spirit. Going through the motions is part of the messy business of learning, exploring, and growing. We hear as we live in communion with the Triune God, on the basis of the death of the Son who was cut off from the divine family to bring all kinds of people, even me, into that life with him, his Father and the Spirit.

When the waves keep crashing in: 10 thoughts to prepare us for suffering

The destruction of the Dawlish sea wall and railway feels like a pretty good image for the experience of hardship in this life. Recently life has felt quite like wave after waves crashing in relentlessly... health, circumstances, finances... each wave leaves its own small mark but the culmulative effect of all of them is where the destruction comes.

The problem of suffering is suggested by some to be the issue that nails Christianity. What it certainly is is the issue that arises most commonly because our shared experience of life here is of a world that while laced with beauty very often seems quite brutal.

Don Carson very helpfully says, 

"you only have to live long enough and you will suffer."

Every worldview has to deal with it somehow... James Sire writes:

 “A world view is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being” (The Universe Next Door, IVP)

Everyone has a worldview - true, partially true or false... consistently or inconsistently... consciously or subconciously... we all have stories that attempt to make sense of the world.

In 1999, England football manager Glenn Hoddle was interviewed about suffering and answered 

"you and I have been given two hands and two legs and half-decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The Karma is working from another life time. I have nothing to hide about that..." 

And no job to go to soon after.

Karma appealed to me as a teenager near the top of my class, healthy, middle-class... but when you become a smaller fish in a bigger pond and enough of life's waves hit you it turns out to be neat maths but nasty news. Pastorally it says - your suffering is basically your fault. Try harder. Be better. And maybe things will be better now or in a future life or in heaven. It's hard to really live that unless you keep winning though many of us subconciously think good things should happen to good people.

Others say - no this world looks pitilessly indifferent. It is brutal, it always has been brutal and always will be brutal and your selfish genes might get you to high enough ground to survive. This approach is honest but pretty hopeless and doesn't give much reason for compassion. Few can get close to holding this view consistently.

Darwin cried out at the misery of this world. Marcus Brigstocke says he wishes someone would be watching over us. In the moment of suffering, the Christian is told: weep with those who weep.

It's said that

the best time to talk to someone about their suffering is before it happens. 

Sometimes that's not possible and things have to be considered afterwards, but few can think clearly in the middle of the storm.

Paul's letter to the church in Rome suggests 10 approaches if you take a worldview shaped by Jesus... (Romans 8:18-39)

1. Futility is real but not the only story. 
This world has been subjected to futility. The brutality is real. But it wasn't always brutal and it wont always be brutal. It's not a bad world but a good one. Hope has been dashed, like Abel killed by his brother. But one day glorious freedom will come. Brutality alone isn't a big enough story.
That heart-cry that says: It shouldn't be like this! ...is biblical.
That heart-cry that says: Will it one day not be like this? ..is biblical.

 2. Life hurts
The experience of suffering is describes with words like GROANING and WAITING. That resonates with my heart. Gut-wrenching groaning and the frustrating pain of waiting and waiting. And its not just that we groan - all creation groans. And doesn't it! Who doesn't cry out "What just happened..."  I need a world-view that can handle that.

3. Through death to life.
The image offered is the pains of labour. Here it's vital to know that the talking needs to happen before not in the middle of the pain. A woman in labour - something I've witnessed close up three times - does not want to be talked to... she wants to break your hand and punch you in the face. Afterwards maybe some talk, but better before. In pregnancy a woman needs to know that pain will come... and that it's what precedes birth. When it happens get to hospital and know that good is meant to come from it. Thus Paul says - our suffering is incomparable to the glory to come. Say that in ante-natal classes not in the labour ward.

4. Life is bewildering.
The gut instinct in suffering is to pray. But, Paul says we pray in WEAKNESS and WE DON'T KNOW WHAT TO PRAY. Again, what a real resonance with our experience! We hide behind masks of strength and confidence but most of time it's no more than a veneer. While we look at the world or our own situation weak and bewildered God's Spirit who lives in the believer will pray on our behalf - joining with our groans. We might imagine suffering takes us out of the life of God. No! We participate in the Triune life in our suffering.

5. There is purpose.
The suffering occurs in this futility-subjected world in which God's purpose is to make Christians life Jesus. Like the man of sorrows who suffered even to death. But like him. Not healthiness and wealthiness but Jesusiness. What's begin will come to its conclusion. That's not easy. That doesn't remove the pain. But it prepares me to understand that there is purpose.

6. Pain isn't punishment.
Does suffering mean God is against us? No, he gave up his Son for his people. God doesn't say - I'll give you my son and then I'll beat up on you cos I don't like you. Does suffering mean God holds things against you? Satan, like Job's friends, tempts us to despair..  and in that moment, with the hymnwriter we cry: "Upward I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin." Yes I have sinned, but God justified me freely on account of Jesus. He doesn't hold anything against me - he's not against me. He's for me. No condemnation for those in Jesus. We still suffer but what's 100% sure is that God is for us not against us.

7. Empty hands are ok.
What if I have no food, no clothes and live in danger, has God's gospel failed? Not on your life! Suffering people aren't directly to blame, they aren't left without compassion - rather they can know the God of all comfort. A worldview that promises good people get good things, or strong people progress is going to struggle in suffering... You might lose everything in this world but you can still have Christ.

8. Life is dying.
What's it like to walk with Jesus? Psalm 44 is quoted: dying all day long. Ever feel like you're dying? That's Christian. Very Christ-like. Led like sheep to slaughter... just like Jesus. Dying because this isn't a world that can be reformed and redecorated, but one that needs to pass through death to life. Seeds die to produce life. Stars empty themselves to give light and life to those nearby. Mothers are stars.

9. Winning looks like losing.
In a world subjected to futility are we defeated? No in suffering we're victorious. The Jesus way is subversive. What looks like defeat is triumph, never brash self-confidence but rather a bruised quiet-confidence. Safe and irrevocably loved in union with Christ.

10. Jesus shines in suffering.
Is Christianity defeated by suffering? No - its claims are rooted in historical evidence not experience so whether it 'works' pragmatically isn't the decisive issue.... but more than that, far from nailing Christianity, suffering is where Christ's story shines brightest, for the Christ follower views the world from the perspective of one who hung on a tree when the sun stopped shining. The waves crash in and the man of sorrows freely offers us refuge in and with himself.

[With thanks to Bath and Exeter students with whom I've been reading Romans 8 recently]

Evangelicals shouldn't be anti-intellectual

The Guardian carried an article today from an Anonymous academic. The subtitle alleges: Evangelical students cannot tolerate diversity of opinion and resist secular critiques of their views.. The story essentially being that Evangelical Christians at a Russell Group University are playing up in class... manipulated by a student-approval-centred model of education.

It feels a bit laughable that this Anonymous Academic makes Evangelical Students and their societies the bogeyman who is ruining Universities. We long to turn the world upside down but if we were I think someone would've noticed.... usually Christians

"As citizens they participate in everything with others, yet they endure everything as if they were foreigners. Every foreign land is like their homeland to them, and every land of their birth is like a land of strangers" Letter to Diognetes

The early church out-thought, out-loved and out-served their contemporaries...

The academic also says: "The fee-paying culture has given rise to a predominantly white, economically-privileged, middle class student body, in which any diversity of religious or non-religious students has been overpowered by a particularly influential form of evangelical Christianity" ... I suspect most top Uni's were already mostly white/privileged/middle-class... I think diversity is rising rather than falling, and evangelicalism really isn't overpowering anyone... Evangelicals are probably 1-2% of the student body.

My guess is that this Academic might be from Exeter (where I work with the CU!) though it might be one of a few other RG Universities. The CU at Exeter is relatively large, visible and currently has a good reputation.

Nonetheless I want to take some of the critique on the chin.

Christian Unions are the unnamed target of the article, promoting a cheap and shallow evangelicalism that refuses to engage in academic rigour. I find myself challenged - Christians Unions spend a lot of time thinking about sharing their faith ('evangelism') but we need to think seriously about engaging with people, about being intensely curious people, about being those who value everything.

A great many evangelical students do exactly that - working hard and serving others. I know of evangelical students who've been elected to Students Union president, who serve on the academic committees in their departments, who get first class degrees, who do postgraduate study... and so on. They're great examples, on which more later.

I'd already been chewing on this subject for a seminar in March... 

1. We need to engage positively
The article says "a group of students in a lecture refused to undertake the work set..." Any student can do this but they should expect to fail. That'd be fair. That's not evangelicalism that's disgraceful immaturity dressed up in super-spiritual clothing. I can well imagine some who would carelessly brand others as heretics and celebrate any hostility returned on them with a persecution complex... Not the posture an evangelical (gospel-centred) person should be taking.

Christian students need to get their heads down and work hard, really hard, being really committed to their workplace (the University) and to learn from those placed above them. [I say that having failed to do that. I take the responsibility and career consequences of that. I simply wasn't good enough at my subject to achieve highly, but with a bit more personal responsibility and perhaps some good mentoring I could've achieved a low 2:2 instead of a 3rd class degree in Maths.]

Christians should never be afraid of engaging with other people's ideas That's shallow and unthinking. If you can't handle engaging with other people then you don't want to be at University. If you find it hard then talk to lecturers, talk to church leaders, talk to UCCF staff, use bethinking. You're not alone. But it takes humility to listen to others and to get help.

2. We don't need to be scared of ideas
The different ideas that other people hold are no threat to Christian faith - Jesus came into the world and Paul took Christian faith into the debating arenas of Athens. No need to hide or play power games.

I love it when CU members know that it's ok to put the biggest questions on the table. I've been a a follower of Jesus for nearly 17 years. I think I have more questions today than I did back then. And that's really not a problem.

If you don't know your faith well - think harder, read the Bible, read excellent books - and not just stuff you think you'll agree with. Read widely. Get someone to guide your reading to that end. Someone has said if you read one book you think you're an expert, two and you're confused... but read ten and you start to find your own voice.

There seems to be an anti-intellectualism in evangelicalism (as, one might argue, there is in British society more widely...) But it's nothing to do with the roots of the Christian Unions... though I'm not sure we always live up to our legacy.

The Christian Unions early moves include founding a Cambridge University research house (Tyndale House, and later the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics) and a popular & academic publishing house (Inter-Varsity Press). This is no anti-thinking movement.

The Christian Unions, these evangelical societies, are a movement founded on theological precision (especially over the atonement), an outpouring of the Spirit and a divinely given vision to see generation after generation stand for Christ in the University.

We can do more.

3. We should listen to more people
A suggestion: We have too many pastors teaching at CU meetings. We need entrepreneurs and academics and accountants and linguists and and engineers and educators and administrators and many more to come too. UCCF staff and church leaders will know who these people are in your locality, or who are Alumni from your Uni etc.  Stories of the origins of CUs include significant training and evangelistic input from local business people and senior academics.

Pastors can talk about these things (and should - see below) but invariably they only get asked to do Bible exposition. Please do that - nothing feeds like exposure to the Scriptures. But, we need people who can model what it means to live that out as student and a graduate and a Christian. There are some outstanding Christian academics, and students who go on to postgraduate study in all kinds of fields as well as excellence in their field.

If you're a CU Leader of a reasonably large CU... especially a Russell Group Uni... Include 3-4 meetings a term that directly engage developing a Christian Mind, thinking about leadership and learning in the workplace, offer multiple choices that let people explore their passion for business or politics or education etc. and pick the brains of those who are running well ahead of us.

I think we need to help first years (and sixth-formers...) particularly to develop a Christian Mind. UCCF pioneer and evangelical statesman Dr. Oliver Barclay spent his life helping others develop a Christian Mind - a deeply rigorous faith. It's easier than ever to access stuff today - see UCCF's Bethinking and Theology Network resources and L'Abri Ideas Library, The OCCA, Theos, CARE, to name a few.

4. We must know that work is good
There is a (sometimes unspoken) assumption that spiritual maturity is church leadership. The fact is one or two percent of Christians may be set apart from normal work to equip the saints for ministry: and note well that most people will spend a substantial amount of their waking hours at work. We need to think hard about equipping people about attitude at work, about engaging their Christian worldview with those around them.

Work is good so you can resource the church. But work is more importantly good because you want to eat. And even more importantly because work is what divine-image-bearers do in this world, to cultivate this world, to resist the futility of this world, and to spread goodness in this world in all parts of society.

I can imagine naive and well meaning students, mentioned in this article,  wanting to make a stand for Jesus... but I think they'll live to regret failing to engage more deeply - it'll cost them an opportunity for their lives to be enriched by learning, it'll have defamed the gospel where they could've adorned it, it'll have harmed those who might've been led to consider Christ...

I weep when I fail to represent Christ well, and I feel motivated to go up a gear. 

If Christian Unions are serious about giving every student the opportunity to hear and respond to the good news of Jesus then serious participation in the life of the University is essential.

Seven no-brainer moments for a CU in the University year

Christian Unions exist to give every student at their University the opportunity to hear and respond to the good news of Jesus. Exactly how they do that it's hugely flexible and open to amazing creativity... but the context of the student world and the calender offer up some great opportunities that shouldn't be missed. Cut your cloth to fit the resources and people you have and the context you're in... be aware of where people are...

1. Freshers Week

A massive event at the start of the year when people are trying to work things out. Some times it seems possible to hit the major life questions... but it can be just as good to just be there. To be the people who think it's good to ask honest questions and want honest answers. Be the people who want make the most of the University experience, be people who embrace its opportunities, who draw some ethical lines for themselves without judging others for theirs, who pour themselves out for others. The last thing Christians need to do in Freshers Week is to hide away with lots of other Christians. There's all kinds of wrong going on when Christians clique.

Freshers week is also the opportunity to kick of an excellent Church Search programme to help students find their way into the local church community, to integrate into the life of their city as thousands benefit from every year nationally. Liase with churches months earlier to enable people to find a family fast.

Don't blow it with...
1. An exclusive in/out tone from the mic or in converasation... CU exists for everyone. The word "We" refers to any student at the Uni not any particular tribe of Christians. Create a context where all people can freely explore... where it's safe to do that. 
2. A dodgy hoodie/publicity etc. A Bible verse on a hoodie is not good communication or theology. Try to avoid naff jargon too. If you use slogans for a series of event keep your audience in mind. If you have a CU hoodie make it a whole  year thing that reflects a sense of intense curiosity and the value of all people and every thing. If you don't have the skills for good design and language then get help from somewhere rather than doing it badly. 

2. Halloween

Pete Dray's work on God Loves Halloween is outstanding as is Glen Scrivener's poetry Trick or Treat. Dig into them and see what you could to seize the opportunity of this ever increasing occasion around which there is much confusion. Creating a sub-culture alternative is best avoided... and just ignoring something that's significant for people seems a shame. Be aware of other cultural and religious events in the year - engage respectfully and servant-heartedly.

3. Christmas

At Christmas everyone wants a sense of traditional festivity.  A Carol Service, with all the traditional carols and readings, mince pies, a traditional venue etc. Think big - Exeter CU weren't filling the hall they used but two faith-filled students booked the football ground (this breaks the 'traditional' venue rule but the location works in Exeter)... A decade later 200 Christian students invite more than ten friends each and a great crowd gathers. If an Events Week fits in your year - use the speaker for this too. Invite the gospel choir, a brass band, the SU president to do a reading, involve people. Held a few days after the Exeter Carol Service is Exeter's massive Safer S ex Ball. It's great for the Christians to get out and help people make it safely home. Distinctive and yet dying to self in the cold and wet to serve people. 

4. Valentines

A tricky one - doing something on the evening of Feb 14th isn't easy but when love is in the air there are opportunities in the surrounding days. The way Christians conduct relationships should stand out all year round and Valentines can be an opportunity to ask some big questions about love and that's central gospel ground.

A Spring events week is probably fairly near to this date... An opportunity to invite friends, but also to raise a flag and get beyond existing friendship circles... clear talk of Jesus... thoughtful engagement with real questions in safe environments... space for real creativity - loved the look of the 1920s Jazz Cafe in London and an exploration of the roots of Jazz....   use food and film... enjoy life and culture, music, art. It also makes sense that Christians would be engaged in the life of the University and the Students Union - leading other societies... running in Sabbs elections. Embracing academia, politics...  You can't just start that in the Spring - authentic involvement in our culture is an all year thing.

5. Easter?

Christians understandably want to make the most of this but it lacks the impact on our culture that Christmas has. Plus in the student world its usually out of term time. You might be able to make use of it but you might not.

6. People

Nothing gives better opportunity for the gospel than being with people, enjoying life deeply and developing a listening ear, being the kind of person people want to share their life with. Interested people are interesting. Be a dinner party host. Be a person who is there for people all year round. Don't just live with Christians... don't create a sub-culture, shine at the heart of student life. And any one can lead an Uncover 'seeker study' to give those they know the opportunity, in the middle of life and the middle of questions, to see for themselves who Jesus is.

7. And...

[Photo from Royal Holloway Christian Union]

Six hours on Science and Faith

Questions about Science and Faith are among the most common objections to the Christian faith today - along with questions about suffering/evil - issues that often go very closely together. 

My friend and former UCCF colleague, academic and member of Christ Church London, Chris Oldfield spend six hours with my team in January to walk us through the subject. His approach of considering story, with journey's into art mean that these sessions about the philosophy of science aren't just for scientists. They're stretching and well worth your consideration.

1. Science and Story PDF - MP3 (alternative mp3)

2. Darwin's Dangerous Idea PDF - MP3 (alternative mp3 pt 1, alternative mp3 mp2)

3. The Fall of Nature PDF - MP3 (alternative mp3)

4. Reformation and Two Books PDF - MP3

[We double-recorded three of the sessions and the alternative mp3 open should be a bit cleaner to listen to]