George Farmer
Appearances
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Like I started to become more interested in why my family had a faith life, had a religious life versus the rest of the kind of secular school boys who didn't. And so for me, that kind of started a long journey of becoming quite interested in theology and faith. By the time that I was 12, 13, 14, I was very aware that faith was a huge part of how I saw the world. So it just, it's different.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I mean, if you are brought up in a faith-filled home, you will realize that faith, religion, has a huge impact on the way people are shaped. And that was equally as being played out in the UK during my formative years by radical Islam as it was being played out by my own faith formation in Christianity.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Because at the end of the Cold War, of course, we had this great 10-year window where historians and philosophers, famously Francis Fukuyama, said, this is the end of history. Neoliberal capitalism has won. We will never see the rise of another ideology again in the same way that communism and capitalism had to face off against each other.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And in the early 2000s, that couldn't have been proved more wrong because this was when the rise of radical Islam happened. And particularly in Europe, this was felt very strongly. And so for me, I was witnessing things like London bombings going on in my teenage years versus my own faith formation in Christianity. And this made me realize by quite a young age that faith, religion,
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
it's just a huge part of people's life. It is a huge part, it is almost the greatest force which drives, it is the greatest force which drives the world.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, yeah, a faith in nothing, yeah, exactly.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, I mean, in the UK, and again, this is because of the UK's advanced secular culture, In some ways, you look at radical Islam in Europe. Well, what's Islam reacting to? Why are so many young men in Europe being drawn to Islam? The reason being is because the void, it's the void. Nature abhors a vacuum. And so you've had the churches in Europe
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
whether it be the Catholic church or the Protestant churches, they have stripped themselves of true theology. And the Catholic church in Europe is as guilty as this of anyone else. You've had this progressive, weak, wishy-washy, liberal gospel being preached by every pastor under the sun. And then you've got this religion which crops up, which shows,
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Affirmative action absolute strength, you know, these are the tenants which Appeal to young men particularly in Europe and of course in the Middle East but you know predominantly in Europe a lot of the Radicalism within Europe is now homegrown. It's not come. It's not being imported. It's being homegrown. And so this is the key
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
know driving force is the fact that theology like christianity in europe has been stripped of its actual truth its eternal truth and that's not to say that okay you know there would be no conversion to islam if christianity was standing on its own two feet but it's definitely the case that if you look at the uk for example
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
you've got this progressive weak anglican church which is basically saying that you know left-wing politics is good and you know the predominant role of the church is to care about the environment and you know all this kind of nonsense and actually Of course, people don't just they don't just want a social gospel. They want eternal truth and they want real faith.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
They want to be told this is how you should live your life. Right. This is the real meaning of life. It's not just about, you know, the environment and net zero and whatever else that we're coming out with.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Correct. I did what I've done for the past six years. I just said nothing.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And it worked. It absolutely worked. And then you married me, so I have no idea why.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I sort of thought about history at one point, but it was quite clear to me, I think, that theology was the answer. I was very interested in it. As I said, I was just very, very interested in it. By the time I was 15, I had begun the conversion experience that I then went through for the next five years to Catholicism, which culminated in me converting when I was at Oxford.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
The whore of Babylon, no. That is, some evangelicals would say that. But it, yes, of course, I mean, it was, I was brought up in a home where I think it was viewed with suspicion at best. Although, to give my parents credit where it was due, they had always basically said that it was a personal relationship with Jesus which mattered more than anything else.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And so, my dad has frequent examples of Catholics he had spoken to who he definitely knew, had personal relationships with Jesus, but generally speaking, the Catholic Church was perceived of as nominal, like nominalism, where people just went, they didn't really understand where they went, and filled with superstition was the two phrases that were kind of stuck out.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Well, for the corruption of the Catholic Church, and we started with him for sure, but the persecution actually, I should say, but basically, you know, smells and bells was a phrase that frequently stuck around in my head from when I was growing up because that was how the Catholic Church was perceived. For me, in part, there was kind of a numbers component to it.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And this is just something which I think is how my brain works. But I didn't really understand how we could be saying that before 1517, We just had this big kind of black hole of Christianity from the time of the apostles until Luther crops up. And so for me, that was like, okay, well, what's going on?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
There must be some living faith in this 1500 year window, even if you want to call it like a 1200 year, 1300 year window, because for the first 200 years, you have the kind of apostolic age.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
know what's going on in that period and for me that was like a well we're not just going to write off this entire period of history and i'm also i do like to challenge ideas and concepts and just figure out what's going on and for me i was like okay well you've got doctors of the church you've got some of the greatest minds
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
ever like Thomas Aquinas ever in human history who occupy this period, as well as countless popes whose writings have been imbibed and kind of consumed by Western civilization since. So what's happening with these guys? Like, are they Christians? Are they not Christians? And so that was really kind of where it began for me. That was the early church.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Well, most of my friends thought that I was crazy and I'm still not sure they've recovered from that opinion. But the family took it pretty well. I mean, my parents were pretty, they again were like a bit kind of like, okay, this is very crazy, very odd, but sort of we'll go along with it and see where this goes. And then they met you.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
The first 700 years was what I then went on to study. But that was kind of really where I began my inquiry was like, this doesn't make any sense. I just don't believe that there are no Christians here. So let's figure out what's going on. And so that was kind of where I started. And I had this great priest at school who was actually an Anglican priest, but he ended up becoming a Catholic as well.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
But he was very good at rebutting many of the preconceived ideas that I had about Catholicism. And so he started to really kind of challenge me on a lot of my positions. And that was kind of where it all began.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I wouldn't say, not really, no. I mean, there was a moment, I remember the first time that I went into a Catholic church with the There were two, I guess there were two moments probably. There was once where I was in a Dominican monastery in Croatia where I very much felt that there was a calling.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
You know, it was, in some ways it was, I know this is a weird thing to say, but it was kind of the silence of the place. You know, I just felt, I'm drawn to silence. I think you know that. But I...
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
i like the silence i like the reflection time it's like the early church fathers who were the desert fathers have always had an appeal to me because they they wanted to lead this contemplative life studying the lord like in silence and so for me it was something about the silence of this church which I just found very kind of inspiring, overwhelming in some ways. So that was one moment.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I think I was about, I must've been about 15 or 16 at that time. And then there was another moment, which was the first time that I went into a church and that was in London, Westminster Cathedral. And I sat at the back and...
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
i prayed a rosary for the first time in my life and i didn't really know what i was doing but i i i just wanted to make that first step and then when i did that i and i played before prayed before the blessed sacrament which was also a huge kind of for me that was something which i had really begun to appreciate like this is this this is christ this is not just bread this is christ
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I was very nervous about it. And I didn't really know. I was confirmed. And then I sort of carried on living. And for me, it was something that I didn't want them to kind of know about, set off with.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Because my parents were big-time evangelicals, really.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, I did want to keep the peace. I guess it was quite cowardly of me now if I think about it, but I guess I was sort of afraid of one of those kind of medieval reactions of being like, get out of my house, and
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
crying and you know I don't know I don't know to be honest what I thought the reaction would be at the time I probably I probably thought it was something going to be something like that kind of quite dramatic and and arguments and explosions and all that kind of stuff.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I actually don't know how they found out. They found out, but they never... But then they confronted me about it and we had a conversation, but they already knew by that point. So clearly somebody else had told them.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, exactly. So I think they kind of knew that it was coming because I kept on... talking about the Catholic Church. And I sort of started talking a lot about that. And I was talking more and more and more about it. And I think they kind of figured something was going on. But then when it actually happened, I didn't tell them. And then they confronted me about it later on.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I think that was a big game changer for a lot of people because when they meet you, they're always... as in awe as I was when I first met you. But they were very receptive. And after a while, I think everyone realized that it was real, you know, and that was the really big hurdle to get over. Was that everyone initially thought, is this crazy? Is this just, you know, like a fire-flung romance?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, I mean. Faith obviously is one that I've spoken about already. I mean, abortion is something which is an interesting one because again, abortion is not really discussed in the UK. It's kind of a settled topic, which over here it is very much not.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I mean, the funny part is, is that the perspective of many Brits to America, and I'm sure there'll be people in the comments who will be like, I'm British and I disagree with you on this, but generally speaking, The perspective of Britain is that America is kind of a bit crazy.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And Europe as a whole, Europeans tend to, and I don't agree with this, but this is often the way, they tend to look down their noses quite a bit at American culture. Europeans think of themselves as quite highfalutin, and they're kind of like, Americans are crazy Americans. But of course, really what that actually is a reflection of is the freedom of the intellectual mind, right?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And actually the reason that they say it's crazy is because Americans have this great inquisitive attitude to things. They don't accept standard norms. They are willing to challenge. And that confrontational attitude then reflects itself in the way that they debate topics. So abortion, like take that as an example. Americans are not willing to just, those who are pro-life, and
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
even those who are pro-choice, neither side are just willing to accept the standardized norm. They are prepared to fight for whatever they believe. And that is the same on other topics, such as vaccines, for example, which I know is something that you and I talked about when we first got married.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
You know, in Britain, the vaccine schedule is just accepted by everybody and nobody really talks about it. It's, you know, I think I give the illustration that when we first got married, you sort of asked what I thought about it. And I
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
answer was kind of like well it's the same as sort of what i think about tuesdays you know just like it happens i mean who cares kind of thing um and over time you know obviously you and i have talked extensively about these and and that's changed my mind about a lot of things but also it's it's been very interesting to see how americans fight for this particular topic um
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I was like, I don't really care. Like, what's the big deal?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And then it was like, okay, this is actually real. This is happening. They're going to get married. And then they kind of moved, the mood sort of moved to acceptance and people got on board and then they realized how great you were and then everyone was pretty happy about it.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, you're still willing to fight and be aggressive, which is, and that's, but you know, the worst thing is apathy. I mean, that's kind of the whole point, right? It's like, that's how Europe feels. It feels apathetic and lethargic and stagnant. And it's like, you come over here and people are willing to fight.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
They're willing to stand up for what they believe in, you know, whether it's the second amendment through to,
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
the rate of tax through to the department of government efficiency because they want to cut federal waste or vaccines or immigration or whatever it might be people are willing to just fight for what they believe in which is so refreshing and that is that is the greatest difference between europe and between the uk because as i said in the uk there is this kind of It's just, it's like a malaise.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
It's a malaise of the mind. You know, it's a malaise where people go, ah, you know, life's kind of okay. And, you know, we're fine and we're just plodding along and all this kind of stuff. And it's an unwillingness to better oneself or to improve the world in a better position. And that's a terrifying place because then you just become subject to all kinds of tyranny.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, I mean, I think... My answer to that, when people have confronted me about this personally, is always like, well, do you agree with everything your wife says? Or do you agree with everything your husband says? I mean, it would be weird if everyone thought with a hive mind, because it would just become the de facto. That's weird. That implies that you share...
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
an absolute belief in everything, right? Which is very odd. And I've never met anyone who has had that. So I think that what we agree on because the individual topics themselves are highly nuanced and quite difficult to always reach conclusions on. But I think what we agree on is the process. And I think that that actually is more important than almost the end result.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Because the process that you and I have is one of a dialectic, and it's one of a discussion, a process where we challenge each other on what we perceive to be, well, there is truth. We know that there is truth. We know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that is truth, and here's a transcendental.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
um truth is a transcendental but the point being is that beyond that truth how does that truth reflect itself in the world that we live in that then becomes the process the hermeneutic if you want to call it that through which we then try and establish other truth and we don't always reach the same conclusions now there are certain areas where like it would be very weird if we didn't like we both obviously agree that you know abortion is wrong and we both agree that the transgender lobby
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
is far too powerful and is seeking malevolent aims and all these kinds of things. There are plenty of areas where we obviously do reach the same conclusion, but there are other areas we don't and that's fine. And also it's a process which I've changed my opinions about lots of things over the past few years. I became a Catholic.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, probably... I think it's a credit to them, yeah. I mean, I think my best man, Nick, who you obviously know very well, his original reaction was... you're crazy and this is never gonna happen. That was really when I first met you.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I was just overwhelmed with the inbound traffic that we had. I was just like, Lord, please help me deal with this crazy woman that I'm married to. No, I'm joking, of course. It was, look, C.S. Lewis writes that how absurd it is to think that the lost sheep can find the shepherd, you know, and the shepherd has to come and find the lost sheep. That's not to say that I was fully lost.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I think I had probably emerged from my lost years. I did have lost years in my 20s, there was no doubt about it, where I had no faith life, so to speak. I mean, I maintained a... a comatose, heartbeat relationship with Christ in as much as I infrequently attended church, I prayed infrequently, I talked about God. I would have said that I was a Christian, but I was very weak in my faith.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And really, for me, I think there were so many things which kind of pulled me in that direction when we got married. I think that the whole process of how we met and how we got married and all that kind of stuff, it was a miracle. I said that to you many times in those first six months. I was like, this is a miracle. There is just a...
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Like on the first night that we first met, people were very, when I went back from that night, I was like, okay, you know, there's this girl, very interesting, like this could go somewhere, all that kind of stuff. And his initial reaction was, you're completely insane.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
there is too much providential alignment here for me to unpack this all. I was kind of overwhelmed with it at the time. It was something which I just thought was beyond my comprehension. Like I, I could, there were so many things that, I mean, even now when I think about it, I mean, now the kind of mystery has faded. So the surprise is less than it was at the time, but
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
were things like going back into decades ago where i could suddenly see having met you that this had been the steps that god had put me on to get to this place in my life you know even the fact that like you know i mean i had a us visa and like all this kind of i mean it was just it was it was crazy you know at the time like what
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
what I unpacked in those six months and just sort of how I thought about the world after that. That was definitely something where I felt the presence of God. And then there was a recognition, I guess, that the political debates we were in, I mean, there were many things, but the political debates we were in required truth. And that is something where
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I still, to this day, I think that if you're a conservative and, or you call yourself a conservative and that's even that word is kind of just a bit meaningless in some ways, but If you want to call yourself a conservative on the American right, you have to say, well, what are we seeking to conserve?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And you have to say, well, what is fundamentally at the heart of everything that we believe in America or even in the West, in the world? What is the truth that we are aiming for?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And particularly when you get to these kind of radical fringes of politics where you're talking about the ability of men and women to change their genders or even the LGBT lobby or whatever it might be, like whatever it is, whatever these topics are, you start to realize that truth itself is breaking down into like nothing, it's just being destroyed.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Um, but then by, you know, come January, come February, come March of that, of the next year, which was 2019 when we got married, it was like, yeah, this is happening and this is good. This is good. Everyone likes you.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Truth is being slowly chipped away at until the kernel of truth is so small that it's so difficult for people to find in those debates. So you have to start, okay, well, where's the starting point? Like, what do we go back to? What is the very heartbeat of truth? And the heartbeat of truth has to be absolute. It has to be an objective reality. And the objective reality for truth is Christ.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And for me, I started realizing that the more and more I talked about politics, or the more we were involved in politics, or the more I saw, witnessed politics, the more I realized that truth was absence, like truth was absent from those debates. And so for me, I was like, okay, well, I need to discover what truth is again.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And I need to reform a relationship with that 15 year old boy inside of me who was really fascinated by theology. And for me, that was kind of, I was like, okay, this is the big missing part of my life. Like this is where I don't really have a relationship with God like I used to when I was a teenager and in my very early twenties. So that was what drew me back.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I was like, I need to discover what truth is again. And then that was the kind of the first stepping stone. And then it became very apparent to me that re-engagement with my faith was something which I needed to do in a very serious way.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
No, it is. I mean, yeah, being a dad is huge. I mean, you want the best for your children, you know, and so I want... you know, I love my children. I mean, there are so many ways that fatherhood changes you. I mean, being a father both motivates you to be the best dad you can be. It motivates you to stay alive, which is a funny thing to say.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
You become very aware, I became very aware within moments, within months of our first child being born of my own mortality. I suddenly became very aware of like, I'm gonna die. And in a non-morbid way, I think about death a lot. And that is because I think our world has lost the perception of death. We do everything to try and avoid talking about death. We don't wanna cover the topic.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And death is perceived of as this great, like, we mustn't talk about death, like we must avoid death. And even everything we do is kind of like in the constant culture of trying to extend life, like plastic surgery. It's trying to make yourself look beautiful because you are denying the aging process, you know?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And even now, when we are inevitably gonna die, we must be in control of that process through euthanasia. Like the UK has just voted through this assisted dying bill, which is a complete abomination. But this is how we are now perceiving death. We like have to control this process. And so natural death is totally pushed to one side.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
But when I became a father, I suddenly realized that I was like, okay, I'm gonna die. And that's just gonna happen. And I need to sort out my relationship with God and I need to be aligned with him and not just be aligned with him, but I need to promote Christ in this world. And I need to promote Christ to my children. And I want them to be raised in the faith.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
So I want them to have the best relationship with God because that's the ultimate gift that I can give them, more so than money, more so than anything else. Stability is good, of course it should be sought, but there are plenty of children who don't grow up in stable homes who I would still wish the same for them, that they know the truth of Jesus Christ.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah. I mean, I think I mean, I think I would just to build on that, Christ has won. You know, it's not that he wins, he's already won. And what that means is, but the Bible is very clear about this. And actually the church has taught the same thing for ages, which is that this world is The devil is called the prince of this world. It's his domain, right, in many ways. The world is his domain.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And so in many ways, the armies of Christ are actually, we are the aliens here. And the Bible is kind of very clear about this. We are the aliens in this world because we are the people who are living a totally different life to the majority of the world. Like Christianity has always been a religion on the outside.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yes, it became, it had its great kind of medieval heyday where it became the dominant religion
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
uh you know temporal force if you want to call it that but of course what happened during that time like the church was infected with secularism as well like you know there was much there was corruption in it and there was you know the seeking of power and you know there were many there were many problems with it but you know really christians live as outsiders in this world like our home is not this world our home is the world to come and so
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
you know, when you look at it from that perspective, you just say, okay, well, what's really going on? Like the devil is fighting with everything that he has to destroy all good things in this world. That is what he is seeking to do at all times. And he never takes a day off. You know, it's like,
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
you never get a day off you are always vulnerable you know there's always this constant awareness like if i've learned one thing of being a christian it's that prayer is like oxygen it is as needed on a daily basis as it is needed
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
you know, like oxygen or food, you know, you need it every day because the devil certainly doesn't care whether it's Tuesday and you're having the best day of your life or whether it's, you know, the day your father dies, it doesn't make a difference. It, it's the same battle. He will be there always seeking to destroy you. And so that for me is just something where I'm like, politics, forget it.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I mean, like politics is, it is tertiary. I mean, Andrew Breitbart is famously said that politics is downstream of culture, and I would add that culture is downstream of faith, because at the heart of whether it's conflict, global conflict, societal change,
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
the rise and fall of ideologies, and this segues back into what we talked about at the beginning, the understanding of faith, the understanding of theology. Like why was I interested in this? Because at the heart of everything is faith. And it's something which is like very misunderstood because The whole of our economic system is built off rationality.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
It's built off humans making rational choices at all times, right? That's kind of our entire economic model is based off rational choices. But humans make what would be perceived of in economic terms as irrational choices the whole time. It's not good necessarily, you could argue that it was, but there's a strong economic argument to say it's not good to give money away. Why would you do that?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
You've earned all this value, you should accrue it to yourself. But Christianity teaches and proposes that you should do that, and actually that you should turn outwards and not just look inwards. And actually, of course, when you start doing that, the rewards do flow because then you will become blessed beyond measure. It's like you give things away, the Lord gives more to you.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I think it's like, is it bad for your brand now?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Thank you. I was being tested. You know, that's a really good question.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, so... But it's funny because that book... That book was very transformative in my early 20s. And when I was a young man, it was huge to me. You know, when I read Out and Shrugged, I was so overwhelmed by the diagnosis that it provided on our society. But Ayn Rand, she is a very complicated character.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
She's not somebody that now I would say I'd want to be affiliated with because she's vehemently anti-faith. She's vehemently anti the church. She perceives of the church as superstition.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah. The work itself, there are shadows within the work itself, which I would still want to say are relevant. Like from an economic perspective, I think that Atlas Shrugged provides a very apt synopsis of much of what the Western world is going through. It is going through a period of like internal cannibalization, right? We are cannibalizing ourselves from the inside. We don't
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
We are not faced currently in America or the West. Okay, you could say like we have proxy global conflicts going on, but part of those to one side. We don't suffer currently a external threat militarily or ideologically, which is going to crush us, right? It's not like communism.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Of course, what Ayn Rand was writing, and I've read pretty much every book Ayn Rand wrote, but she wrote extensively about communism, and that was the threat at the time. And so economically, I agree with a lot of her analysis. She is right on the money, economically, there's no doubt about it. But the sad part about what she does is that she also throws into the same diagnosis, religion.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And so if you read out of Shrugged, you will, even though she doesn't, and I'm sure there'll be someone who'll fact check me on this and say, well, on page 572, she does. But, you know, she, I don't recall within the book, she doesn't actually name the church or name religion. Sort of paints a board. She calls it superstition, right? Yeah. Because her principal motivation is the I, right?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And that is, she's talking about the I and how I should come first. She basically... promotes the theory of selfish motivation. And from an economic perspective, the West has fallen so far from that where we're leeching from people, we take from people who create things, we destroy wealth, we are intent on making misery, right?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Our governments are determined on taxing and suppressing the creation of wealth. And from that perspective, I would agree with her, but I would not... say that I would not align myself with, I would definitely not at the age of 34 align myself now with where I believed that I was when I was like 22, right? I read the book in three weeks.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Gosh, that's a really good question. I would probably have to think about that.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
No, Pope Benedict XVI. I read a daily reader from those two guys, the Pope and C.S. Lewis. I do read a daily reader from those two because they are treasures of wisdom. Now, do they have a specific book? Like C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, obviously, which has seemed to undergo quite a popular resurgence. Russell Brand, for example, our Cupid in our story.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
How long have we got? Um... Well, I like to joke with you and you know that I tell you this joke. So really this is just for the audience, but I like to joke that there are many different women I'm married to because I'm never quite sure who I'm going to get in one day.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
He did a book club on it recently, which I thought was very interesting.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
But on top of that, I would say... like there are really interesting books that i've read in um the last few years which i've i find to be very interesting on like totally different topics i mean i would say the rise and triumph of the modern self which um was written by a professor called carl truman i think which i read last year was a really really interesting analysis on um
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
how we have ended up. It's basically this, it's basically the politics of sexuality. And it's been a fascinating book. It was a fascinating book just to, because to the untrained mind, you get here and you get to 2024 and you're like,
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
what on earth went wrong like where did we go wrong what has happened like how have we ended up just talking about this and what he does a really amazing job of and it probably was the most it was just the most interesting book that i've read in the last five years probably but it was well maybe not the last five years but definitely the last couple of years it's it's it it
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
it weaves the thread of how we started talking about, you know, the romantic literature poets and how we ended up at transgender. And it's basically saying that, you know, you have this kind of like fine thread which has been woven all the way through
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
countless like generations and centuries where the politics of sexuality have become the all it is like now that is the biggest thing for people and for them sexuality is the number one it it is the new god right and so how do we end up in this place he does a great he does a great job in explaining it i would also say things like
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Another great book which I read in the last five years was The Great American Gamble, which is a weirdly kind of academic book about
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
america's nuclear policy in the last 70 years and when i say nuclear i mean like nuclear weapons and it really demonstrated to me that and in some ways this goes back to what we're seeing the dangers of um like conformist thinking because really what it shows you is that america
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
put itself at a position of unbelievable weakness by doing what it did, which was kind of saying, we will have this great policy of mutually assured destruction. And mutually assured destruction was a complete nonsense. And actually that, it just changed the way I thought about It changed the way I thought about defense. It changed the way I think about America's role in the world.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
So it's like someday I'm going to get one personality and the next day it's this personality and then you've got your investigative journalist hat on and then you've got your mother's hat on and then you've got your... Catholic hat on. There's a few hats that you're wearing at any one point in time. It's always fun. I wouldn't say that's difficult.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And so that was another fascinating book. Like, you know, there are so many, I mean, you know, you can name so many. Thucydides is a great read too, if you're into ancient history. I mean, there are so many great books which I've read in the last few years, which I would really recommend, but those are just two which stand out.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
You know, your skills are in front of the camera. Mine are behind them.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Peaceful. Quiet, yeah. A quiet year. Nothing happened.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
It's really just a joy of who you are as a person.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yes, I know you are. No, but it's a team effort. It's a team effort. That's what it always is. It's always a team effort. But, yeah, look, it was the most challenging year we've ever had, for sure, in so many ways, and we both know that. I would say...
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
that there was a a big component to just saying to the lord like help you know help just kind of help how do we do this like how do we do everything you know whether it be from you know lawsuits to the new business to um you know raising children uh son starting school like
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
you know setting up a studio i mean just everything that we've done this year and there's been a lot and i haven't even mentioned half the things in that you know little synopsis there but it's been really tough and I would say that it's been, it's been good to do it because, you know, fire does strengthen, like it does strengthen.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And I would think, I think that our marriage has definitely got stronger because of it. You know, like I think I said this when we were at the Catholic identity conference, but like, you know, our Tuesdays are not kind of average Tuesdays. Like they're kind of, you know, it's not like waffles or cereal. It's kind of like, yeah, like, What are they gonna publish?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Okay, we better like do something about this. It's just different. And that also means that we do just have this kind of constant need to be brutally honest with each other, which I really enjoy.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
and i think that actually in some ways i know that you've said this like you were very grateful for being fired um you know you said in your thanksgiving message that you were thankful for being fired and i think like what that did is it for me like the year of change has been in some ways like ripping off it's exposed like the rawness. You know, I feel like this year has been very raw.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
It's been like very brutal to just be like, okay, we're gonna get this done and we're gonna get this done and we gotta get this done and we just gotta do it and we just gotta buckle up and it's gonna be painful and it's gonna be grim and we just gotta get it done. And we've got three kids and, you know, it's like how, where's the money? And like, it's just, it's been a lot. But in some ways that's,
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
it's built a much better relationship that we now have. Not that our relationship before was, I would say our relationship before was like as good as it gets, but now it's kind of like, you know, really battle-tested.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, and then just, it's been tough, but yeah.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I like to let you do your thing. I do my thing. We do our own things, you know?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, I know. That's a big one. I mean, they're all great.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah. It is the meeting of the two cultures is perfected in our marriage, I would say. Yeah. The bombastic Americanism versus the retired English persona has definitely been like... fine tuned. But I think that like, I mean, I enjoy, I love America. I mean, it goes without saying, but I love the American spirit and culture. And you obviously embody much of that.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I should just say for the record that, first of all, in answer to the first one, I have no known relations who are Rothschilds, as far as I'm aware. Like, I don't know that.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Number two is that the House of Lords is not like... I don't know what people think it is. I mean, it is an American thing where they're like, the House of Lords. I think people still think that England is an absolute monarchy.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And that the king is in charge. And I'm like, do people know that we had a civil war?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah, they're like, what is this? Like, we had a civil war. We chopped the head of the king. Like Charles I, he lost his head. We had a republic. We had a commonwealth for like 12 years where the Puritans were in charge. And then we restored the monarchy, but a constitutional monarchy. So the king has no power. And the House of Lords is...
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
a second chamber, much like the Senate, but with much, much, much less power, like basically no power. I mean, that's some Lord being like, I have power, but they don't really have very much power. And certainly my parents, to the best of my knowledge, I spoke to my parents today, but as far as I'm aware, they don't hate you. They've never told me that they hate you.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
It's, it's much more exciting in so many ways than England. And that's not to say that I don't love England because I do love England, but there are parts about England, which really are just quite like melancholic, I would say, and quite nostalgic. And that is not who I am necessarily as a person. I'd sort of grown tired of that by the time that we had met.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I was much more like needing to reinvigorate my life and to like find the next big project to move on to and kind of not saying that America was a big project, but it is definitely a different culture. It's one which I really enjoy.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I think it's faded a bit now, under Sadiq Khan, who's a pretty terrible mayor.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
We've had a kind of peak age, but it is beautiful. It's a great city. It's a nice city. But it's also, it's changed a lot. But England as a whole is a very beautiful country. I mean, it's filled with beautiful history, tradition, churches, culture.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
The universities, the ancient universities like Oxbridge, Durham, you know, they're wonderful places to visit, but it is in danger of kind of slipping into that like European psychosis of just becoming a beautiful museum, you know, and there's no like, there's nothing invigorating about it. It needs to be revitalized.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Like you actually need to have something which is growing and producing goods and making society work, you know, and kind of it's slipping.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
The bacon. Obviously the bacon, which is infinitely superior in America, I would say that. I think it's really important to be honest about your own country and culture. American bacon is just much better than English bacon.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yep, the burgers too. Driving on the right-hand side of the road is the right side of the road to drive on. Definitely having now driven a lot of miles on both sides of the road. But there are other things like, you know, people dress better in England. There's just no doubt about it. They dress better. What would I say is the biggest culture shock in general, though?
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I would say that there is definitely an aspect of what I just mentioned, which is kind of that willingness to get up and change things and do things, which is really powerful in America. That is one of the biggest culture shocks. And there are other people who have said the same thing.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I was reading something the other day where somebody who previously lived in Germany moved to America and they basically said, before I moved to America, my father worked in a nonprofit and my mother worked for the federal government of Germany. And so no one in my life and no one that I really knew in my life had ever worked in a for-profit business.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Like everyone had either been subsidized by other people or subsidized by the state. And so when you move to America, like for me, that was one of the hugest things. You just kind of move over here, there's people just doing things the whole time. And it is a culture of activity and entrepreneurial spirit. And so that for me was a huge eye-opener when I moved here. I would also say that
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
The other big thing, which has kind of faded in my acknowledgement of how revolutionary it is in some ways is just because it's now, I'm now part of that culture in America. So I've become less receptive to how big it is. But I remember how big it is when I go back to the UK is faith. Because in America, faith is a default. It's almost...
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
It's almost something which people open with in conversations, particularly, obviously, where we live in Tennessee, you will come across people the whole time saying, what church do you go to? And I was listening to a faith-based podcast or I was reading the Bible or something like that. And in Britain, I would argue it is one of the most advanced secular cultures in the world. And
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
You talk about faith in the public domain in Britain, and people look at you as if you've got five heads. And it's really just very demoralizing. It's quite hostile, really, to actually organized faith. There's a difference between continental Europe and the UK.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Continental Europe has predominantly been Catholic, and there's much more of a kind of hardcore Catholicism in places like France and Spain. Obviously, Italy is completely separate because that's where the home of the church is. But you've got these countries in Europe where there's kind of a hardcore Catholic movement. And so if you say, I go to mass every day, or I
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
I take my faith life seriously. And you said to one of those people, they would be very receptive to that. And there's a whole branch of society, which is kind of built around preserving the faith. But in Britain, The Anglican Church, which is the state church, is very liberal. I mean, it's incredibly progressive. And as a result, most people have, most of British society have no real faith life.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And so faith in the public domain is just not something talked about. And so over here, you come over here, it's amazingly refreshing to be in America where people are so open, not just to the idea of talking about faith, but so open to learning about faith, so open to talk, that conversion experiences happen the whole time over here, whereas they're kind of rare in the UK.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
But yeah, that's probably one of the biggest culture shocks, I'd say.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
Yeah. So, I mean, my parents are both evangelical Christians. And as you know, my sisters are also like, they have a mixed faith life. One of them is very devout. The other one is not. I was raised in a home, which is
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
still to this day, like my parents' house would be very built around the Bible, would be very built around a daily prayer life, a weekly church attendance, like that would be something that is just Bible studies, like very regular, involved in the church. Faith was a huge part of our life growing up.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
You quickly became aware of that in England, just going back to my previous answer about how secular it is, because when you say that you go to church on Sunday in the UK, that is not normal.
Candace
Meet My Husband, George Farmer | Candace Ep 119
And so as a result, by the time that you're cognizant of kind of having that discussion with your peers at a very young age, like seven, eight, nine, 10, at a boys' school in London, you become very aware that faith is different. That for me was probably the starting block because then what happened was, I started to become more interested in why I was different.