If you’re interested in the future of society and human culture (and who is not?) then you’ll be fascinated to hear what Sean has to say in this podcast episode.
A recent Sean Carroll podcast considers the future, and in particular how humanity lives and how this may change. He discusses the nature of predictability, and its limits. Fascinating stuff!
Sean Carroll is an American theoretical physicist and philosopher specialising in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the philosophy of science. He’s the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University.
He’s also active on the internet with his website, Preposterous Universe and interviews experts on a host of topics on his podcast Mindscape. For fuller details about Sean and his work, it’s worth reading the Wikipedia article about him and/or visiting his website (both linked below).
Episode 270
Most episodes of the podcast are interviews with scientists, philosophers and others. But Episode 270 is a solo appearance in which Sean thinks aloud on a topic by himself, and that’s not to say he ignores the ideas and work of others – far from it. He discusses his own ideas and those of others, explaining why the early stages of exponential growth may not be easily distinguishable from other kinds of curve such as asymptotic (where growth eventually slow and creeps ever closer to a maximum) or even a singularity or a phase transition (where growth may suddenly settle into a new and altogether different pattern).
Sean unpacks a lot of ideas here, and he’s careful to express his thoughts in ways that most people will be able to understand and digest. Sean is a mathematician (a necessary skill for any physicist) but even non-mathematicians will be able to follow his arguments here.
If you’re interested in the future of society and human culture (and who is not?) then you’ll be fascinated to hear what Sean has to say in this podcast episode. He will certainly cut the ground out from under your feet if you hold the opinion that we will go on expanding and thriving indefinitely.
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Have we come to a time when the church is perfect and is missing nothing? I don’t think so! What fresh revelation will be next?
In a recent, very brief conversation on Twitter I suggested that something was ‘ground breaking’. Specifically it concerned some ideas about following Jesus, and whether one particular idea was ground breaking.
Thinking about this afterwards I realised that a useful conversation requires that we agree on what we mean by ‘ground breaking’ in the context of the lives and activities of believers interacting together in groups.
Arguably, ‘ground breaking’ might originally be a farming or growing term. Before taking a harvest, it’s necessary to plant seeds in fertile soil, get them to germinate, and wait for them to grow. The farmer has much to do during that process, but the very first requirement is to do some ground breaking. Turning the soil with a plough (or a spade) loosens it, damages any weeds growing there, makes it easier to sow seed, and enables water and air to penetrate (both are needed). A bit of ground breaking can work wonders!
Jesus, ground breaker par excellence
In one sense of course, Jesus did all the ground breaking that could possibly be needed in church life. He only did what he saw his Father do, and only said what he heard his Father say. And he told his followers, ‘My Father is a gardener’. He also told a striking parable about seed falling in different places, including well prepared soil as well as several kinds of unprepared, unsuitable, or poorly prepared ground.
His is a foundational kind of ground breaking that we cannot and do not need to repeat. But there’s something else I would call ground breaking; something that happens every time principles, knowledge, or behaviour that the church has forgotten is restored. It’s happened over and over again.
Lesser ground breakings
One relatively recent example would be the spiritual revival that took place in the 1960s and 70s. I’m old enough to remember the excitement of discovering two things in those days. The understanding that the Holy Spirit poured out gifts on his people and wanted us to put them to use, and the idea that small groups meeting outside the denominations were capable of rapid and dynamic growth. They were exciting times. Out of this sprang three phenomena that are still with us today; multiple streams of new organisations like New Frontiers, New Wine, and many more; a re-invigoration of parts of most denominations, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic and more; and thirdly the house church movement based around small, intimate groups of friends.
Going back a little we can see that the Azusa Street events were ground breaking in the same sense and resulted in the two main streams of Pentecostal churches.
Before that we might identify the Welsh revival when a new sense of unworthiness and Father’s forgiveness resulted in large numbers of people praising and worshipping, encouraging one another, and preaching to their neighbours in towns and villages. Before that the Wesleys and Methodism flourished and it was understood that small groups can be a powerful way for people to grow and develop together. And there are many more ground breaking events like these right back through the centuries.
When I talk about ground breaking I definitely include developments like these, discoveries that there was, in the earliest state of the church, some other element of following Jesus which has since fallen into disuse or even faded from memory entirely. Rediscovering how things used to be and might be again is ground breaking in this lesser sense.
New, vigorous growth
Such freshly re-broken ground almost always seems to result in new, vigorous growth where previously things had become somewhat tired and wooden. Think in terms of a neglected, weak, dehydrated plant that has just been potted up with fresh compost, is being watered regularly, and now stands in a new spot where there is fresh air, adequate humidity, and plenty of light. A plant like that will put on a sudden spurt of growth, form new shoots and leaves, and perhaps flower for the first time in ages.
We need to see more ground being rebroken and experience that fresh flush of growth and energy again and again. Have we come to a time when the church is perfect and is missing nothing? I don’t think so! What fresh revelation will be next?
Note: Ground breaking can also mean a ceremonial turning of soil at the start of a construction project. It can be instructive to think of Jesus’ work as the start of a building project – the New Jerusalem, which is the church (see Revelation 21:9-10). But that’s a whole topic on its own.
Journeys of Heart and Mind 
