Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

My guest this week, in my first face-to-face interview since lockdown, is Justin Lewis-Anthony, Rector of Chingford. Justin talks about how he ended up doing a PhD with me and why the topic of leadership was something that made him angry. He refers to how cinema is the functioning mythological delivery system of the age and how many people expect Church leaders to function like John Wayne. Justin would rather teach people to be disciples.  We discuss Bonhoeffer and Pratchett and Jesus films and what counts as a historical fact and being taught by David Starkey. Justin speaks about nostalgia as one of the processes whereby we apply meaning to things that have happened and we learn why Justin is suspicious about authenticity, and he draws on Little House on the Prairie to illustrate his point. We learn why he’s bored by dark superheroes and we find out about the problem with thinking of authenticity as an empirical standard and why it’s not a goal for human flourishing. We look at Robin Hood, Led Zeppelin,