Jordan Hall - Game B Christianity: Network Theory, Medieval Mind, and Participatory Truth
Date: August 29, 2025
Source: Beyond The Fundamentals YouTube Channel
Participants: Jordan Hall, Kevin, Nick
Topic: Christianity through the lens of network theory, media evolution, and the emergence of a new post-modern consciousness
Executive Summary
Jordan Hall, tech entrepreneur turned Christian convert, presents a revolutionary framework for understanding Christianity through network theory and media evolution. He argues that the church naturally embodies three fundamental network topologies (centralized, decentralized, distributed) and that we're transitioning from the "modern mind" to something more akin to the "medieval mind" due to digital technology. His core thesis: authentic Christianity requires moving from propositional to participatory truth, from chronological to kairotic time, and from third-person to first-person relationship with God.
Key Insights & Powerful Quotes
On His Conversion Journey
"I guess in some sense you could say I was always a Christian, but two years ago I found out I was and then told other people I was formally and got baptized."
"When I sit here now and go back and think about moments in my life... I have a sense of oh yeah, okay, that was God working in life... now when I look back I'm like oh yeah okay that was sort of the hand of God more forcefully than normal."
"Game B is just a very nerdy way of trying to get to Christianity. Game A is what we might call this world and game B is the kingdom."
Network Theory Applied to Christianity
The Three Network Topologies:
"There are three fundamental types of networks: centralized networks, decentralized networks, and distributed networks. God created reality. God probably knew that networks had certain capabilities. Probably created it for purpose. When Christ created the church, he partook in all three of these network topologies."
Christ's Implementation:
"When he took the apostles and pulled them up the mountain to him, he created a decentralized network... And then he points to Peter and he creates this Petron archetype which is the standin for the centralized network... And then of course we have Pentecost where we have a perfectly distributed network where everybody who's participating... everybody's speaking in voices and prophesying."
Denominational Mapping:
"Catholics obviously are the petron archetype [centralized]. The Orthos are the decentralized archetype and Protestants are the distributed archetype."
Media Evolution and Church History
The Scribal Era (Medieval):
"The medieval period in the west at least was scribal in nature... You have one network which is happening between the priests and monks who are literate which is a very tiny fraction of the population... And then the rest of the whole population... receive what they're getting in an aura, which is also means, by the way, presence."
The Printing Press Revolution:
"The printing press enables everyone to be directly connected at the level of the written word... creates a whole secondary effect of modernity... very central to the birth of the reformation and ultimate Protestantism."
The Digital Age:
"Now we're in the internet. We're in the digital and we're in the network digital... What the internet tends to do is it enables this really interesting fluid movement. Its natural state is decentralized... but occasionally it actually becomes quietly quite centralized."
The Tyrannies of Modernity
Chronological Tyranny:
"One of the aspects of propositional tyranny is also Kronos tyranny... Kronos is a titan who devours his children. This is in fact literally one of the fallen, one of the children of Satan. And so if you're dominated by Kronos, then you are in league with the devil."
Kairos vs. Kronos:
"Kairos time says your experience of what's happening is qualitative. So there's a difference in a moment where your child is born and a moment where you're waiting in traffic to get to work... The event that is occurring is what matters."
Third-Person Tyranny:
"Third person tyranny is this absurd reality that you live life from a third person point of view... if your systematic theology tells you that your primary responsibility is to be in relationship with the Lord your God, then you have to be present. You have to be in first person... You can't be present to God third person. It's physically impossible."
Decontextualization vs. Relationality
"What unifies them [the three tyrannies] is decontextualization... to enter into third person is to background or decontextualize, to carve out all of the richness of your actual life and experience and foreground just those particular elements that can be shared with other people in their third person."
"When I share my context with you, I contextualize. And by the way, you share your context with me, we contextualize. We become related to each other. We become intimate... one direction is decontextualization. That's the devil. One direction is contextualization or relationality. And that's the essence of the triune God."
The New Image Emerging
Post-Literacy Consciousness:
"We are reaching post literacy and as a consequence there are minds many many many minds that have been more conditioned on the natural characteristics of the digital than on the natural characteristics of the book. And what that means is a new image must emerge."
"We're working at something that is going to be much more like the medieval mind than it is like the modern mind... because of this ability to create a new sort of hyperorality."
The Nature of Participatory Truth:
"We can say that many many many of the characteristics of the modern image, specifically things like chronological tyranny, third person tyranny, propositional tyranny, are antichrist, meaning they are upside down. They turn us away from God."
On Divine Guidance and Practical Faith
"All possible, all finite time sits within the infinite moment of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ."
"Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, bearing in our body the death of the Lord Jesus that the power of the light of the resurrection might be also manifest in our mortal bodies. So it should be a constant lived thing. The crucifixion and resurrection, the order, disorder, reorder."
Forest Landry and Transcendent Logic
On Meeting the "Smartest Guy in the World":
"Daniel introduced me to Forest. He said, 'Hey, I think I found the smartest guy in the world.' And by the way, he happens to be Delaware. Isn't that funny?... I have come to the conclusion that of the people who I know and I know a lot of very interesting and smart people, he is in fact the smartest by some meaningful amount."
Transcendent Return Experience:
"He took me through an axiom 2 argument that was able to move from the omniscient through the transcendent... from multiplicity transcending into the imminent and from the imminent back into the omnition... you actually move through different qualities of being. You can't run that in your mind. Your mind can't do that."
Strategic Implications
For Church Leadership
- Churches need to fluidly move between centralized, decentralized, and distributed modes rather than being locked into one topology
- The future church will look more like medieval participatory community than modern propositional institution
- Digital natives are naturally oriented toward participatory rather than propositional truth
For Christian Formation
- Emphasis must shift from third-person systematic theology to first-person lived experience
- Training in kairos (qualitative) time consciousness over chronos (clock) time
- Integration of mystical experience with intellectual rigor
For Cultural Engagement
- The "meta-crisis" is fundamentally a religious crisis requiring spiritual solutions
- Authentic conversion stories (like Hall's) bridge secular-religious divides
- Network-based thinking provides frameworks for addressing civilizational challenges
Notable Characteristics of Hall's Approach
- Intellectual Honesty: Willingness to admit profound ignorance and undergo genuine seeking
- Systems Integration: Ability to connect abstract network theory with lived spiritual experience
- Historical Consciousness: Understanding of how media shapes consciousness across eras
- Practical Mysticism: Grounding transcendent insights in daily decision-making
- Ecumenical Vision: Framework for reconciling denominational differences through network theory
Conclusion
Jordan Hall represents a unique voice in contemporary Christianity - a tech entrepreneur who found authentic faith through philosophical inquiry rather than cultural inheritance. His integration of network theory, media ecology, and Christian theology offers a compelling framework for understanding both the church's past and its digital future. Most significantly, his emphasis on participatory over propositional truth provides a path forward for Christians seeking to move beyond the limitations of modern systematic theology into a more embodied, relational faith.
His work suggests that the emerging "new image" of consciousness will be more compatible with authentic Christianity than the modern mind has been, potentially opening unprecedented opportunities for spiritual renewal and cultural transformation.