“What part of you has come here to die?”<br /><br />It’s a question that Martin Shaw—one of our great living storytellers—is famous for asking.<br /><br />Shaw offers these kinds of provocations to a Western world where Christianity has largely been domesticated and desperately needs to recover its wildness.<br /><br />Prayer doesn’t feel real to you? <br /><br />Rip up a twenty-dollar bill every time you pray. <br /><br />On your phone too much? <br /><br />Smash it with a hammer.<br /><br />Have something you need to confess but are afraid to tell another living soul? <br /><br /> Dig a “confessional hole” in the ground with your bare hands and shout it into the earth.<br /><br />In this episode of <i>A Commitment to Reality</i>, Shaw joins Dave Hanegraaff to explore how to recover a wild Christianity in a world where faith for many has become cold, abstract, and domesticated.<br /><br />Thank you for joining <i>A Commitment to Reality</i>, hosted by Dave Hanegraaff. Follow <i>A Commitment to Reality</i> wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube for full episodes + clips: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ACommitmenttoReality" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.youtube.com/@ACommitmenttoReality</a><br /> <br />(Timestamps below.)  <br /><br /><br /><br />0:00 — Intro / Friends in Common Recovering Wild Christianity<br />2:20 — Belief is cool again—Atheism is for old people<br />3:45 — Aesthetic Arrest<br />6:45 — You don’t want persona, you want presence<br />8:00 — Make a covenant with limit in a culture of excess<br />13:55 — Growing up the son of a preacher man<br />17:15 — The cost of becoming religious<br />23:05 — What is myth? (And why is it not what we think?)<br />27:30 — On Sectarian Christianity<br />30:00 — Theology without practice is the theology of demons<br />31:35 — Night vigils and reclaiming initiation rites <br />35:50 — What part of you has come to die?<br />42:15 — His home burned down—Discussion of losing everything.<br />45:00 — What is a saint?<br />46:35 — Death — how can we breathe new life into death?<br />50:40 — The value of a good cry<br />53:45 — How to tell our stories differently<br />56:00 — On your phone too much? Smash it<br />57:10 — Struggling with prayer? Rip up money when you pray<br />59:20 — Confessional holes—dig a hole with your hands and confess into the earth<br />1:00:40 — In a world that feels unreal, what feels real?<br />1:02:30 — Johnny Cash had a Boy Named Sue. Glen Hansard has a Boy Named Grace: Dave tells the story of naming his son Grace.