Gary Sheng and Jordan Hall Truth Dialogue and Spiritual Warfare

Date: September 17, 2025 Participants: Gary Sheng, Jordan Hall Format: Video dialogue Context: Deep theological and philosophical exploration of truth, faith, obedience, and spiritual warfare in the context of civilizational transition

Executive Summary

This profound three-and-a-half-hour dialogue captures Jordan Hall and Gary Sheng exploring the nature of truth, religious reality, and spiritual warfare in unprecedented depth. Jordan presents a comprehensive framework for understanding different types of truth (scientific, technological, spiritual, religious), ultimately grounding all truth in Christ as the Logos - that which enables multiplicity to come together in integral wholeness. The conversation reveals Jordan's evolution from tech entrepreneur to complexity theorist to committed Christian disciple, offering unique insights on navigating the meta-crisis through radical obedience to divine guidance rather than human strategy. Key revelations include the distinction between instruments and idols, the necessity of good faith dialogue for accessing truth, and the critical importance of discernment in spiritual warfare where the adversary operates through subtle deception rather than obvious evil.

Key Themes and Strategic Insights

The Nature of Truth and the Logos

Six Types of Truth Framework:

"There are at least six different kinds of truth... Scientific truth, technological truth, spiritual truth, religious truth... When Christ says 'I am the truth,' what he's saying is I am that which enables symbol on. I am that which enables relationships of multiplicity to come together into a unity."

Christ as the Unifying Principle:

"The Logos is that which brings together... When I say dog and point and you look and you see dog... There's nothing about sound dog and phenomenon dog that is the sameness. And yet there's a way to notice that they are in fact now brought together into unity. That's the Logos."

Reality as the Way:

"There actually is a reality. Reality is real. And we live in it. And there's just one and we're all in it. And we can call that him."

The Bookshelf Metaphor:

"Imagine that Christ walks into your living room... He walks up to the bookshelf [of religious texts]. And he pulls one of the books off the shelf... As he reads the Vedas, you hear the words for the first time. They are made true... But what happens is as soon as he touches the Bible, you realize that the Bible is not actually a book sitting on the shelf. But rather it actually is the shelf."

Spiritual Warfare and Obedience

The Adversary's Superior Strategy:

"He is smarter than you. He has more information than you. He's more knowledgeable. He can think faster than you. His strategy is better than you... If you're trying to become subtle enough to fight against the adversary... you're in fact the most right version of his instrument."

Becoming God's Instrument:

"You must become the blade, not the swordsman... You must become exactly what he is honing you into. And you must have zero will other than to do precisely, and exactly, and completely what it is he is wielding you to do."

The Danger of Self-Will:

"Literally the second, the instant, the moment that you endeavor to strategize, to plan, you insert your will for his will, then you're done... If it's you deciding, then guess what? That's you. And that means that it is possibly completely wrong."

Biblical Examples of Obedience:

"Saul goes out and does what God says... A little tiny hesitation. Done. No more king for you, your entire lineage... Moses kind of hits the rock... God's like, what are you doing, dude? I didn't tell you to hit the rock. No more promised land for you."

The Current Profanity of Modern Life

The Insidious Holocaust:

"The devil's very subtle... I'm not going to round up your kids. I'm going to leave them where they are and I'm not going to kill them. I'm letting you do that... I'm going to inject you with a whole false image of what life is... So that you're more and more likely to trade life for the simulation of life."

Trading Relationships for Success:

"Our culture has so radically profaned [relationships] that we are willing to trade things that are qualitatively irreplaceable in exchange for things that are quantitatively measurable... None of them knew me when I was a baby. None of them actually care about me the way that my grandparents do."

Decontextualization as Evil:

"One direction is decontextualization. That's the devil. One direction is contextualization or relationality. And that's the essence of the triune God."

Good Faith Dialogue as Prayer

The Nature of Good Faith:

"Good faith dialogue... we are gathering together in his name. That's what dialogue is... Our faith, our good intent, is to come into a quality of relationship that is harmonious, that is curious, that is open, but most importantly, that is well-tuned such that our relationship begins to embody itself and we can now support him, support spirit coming into us."

Truth Through Relationship:

"Everything that I've said, 90% of what I've said so far has been produced in this moment in the context of our relationship. In other words, it's only because we are in dialogue that I can say the things I'm saying."

Rectification of Names

Reclaiming Mythology:

"Mythology is a kind of story where the line between the natural and the supernatural is dissolved... Christianity is mythology and Christianity is the most true mythology or if you'd like, capital T, true mythology."

Religion Properly Understood:

"Religion is a binding exercise... that allow us to bring heaven and earth together properly... Religion is the collective version of spirituality."

Faith Redefined:

"When I say faith I do not mean maximally unevidenced belief... That is a defamation. That is in fact a lie... Faith is the boundary between the unconscious and the conscious threshold when properly ordered."

Civilizational Transition and Future Scenarios

The End of Post-War Order:

"We are leaving the post-war... blue church, the post-war institutional order and the post-World War II narrative or moral order we're leaving. Both are done. There was no coming back."

Three Competing Narratives:

1. Transhumanist/Accelerationist: "When you detach liberalism from constraint, it becomes nihilistic transhumanism. It just accelerates to the question of there is no flesh."
2. Ethnic Paganism: "A cleaving into ethnic groups... And then paganism, meaning a reassertion of a real deep commitment to the spirit, but where the spirit is ultimately the nations."
3. Transcendent Spiritual: "Some universal spirit that transcends ethnic boundaries, of which there's like two. There's Allah, and there's the Trinitarian God."

Five to Ten Year Forecast:

"Society is doomed... We're going to have a statistically relevant increase in the magnitude, intensity, and by the way, variance of negative surprise... But as a consequence, more and more people will be forced to wake up to the reality that society was always doomed and to try to find their way back into communion."

Personal Transformation and Current Challenges

Jordan's Personal Evolution:

"I became a committed disciple of Jesus Christ two years ago. And prior to that, went through a... seven-year journey into... the realm of the spirit... And then prior to that, I was actually a pretty straightforward kind of smarty pants tech entrepreneur slash complexity enthusiast type."

Current Life Disruptions:

"My body's all wacky. I can't settle in my family. My family's all wacky. I can't settle in my church. My church is all wacky. I don't know if you've noticed, but our larger social environment is not particularly well settled."

Spiritual Disciplines:

"I'm getting pretty close to like 80% of the time. I notice when I wake up in the morning, I pray... Scripture, I'm just beginning to get back to my sort of reading scripture first thing in the day."

Darkness and Temptation:

"The biggest darkness that I've been facing most recently is this desire to wreak unholy vengeance upon my enemies... And or to engage in vengeance porn by consuming what's going on."

The Divine Economy and Strategic Action

Anti-Strategic Approach:

"There is no selling. Okay. Um there is only telling the truth as best you can... showing up are you try to show up as you are called by God... How do you sell people on showing up as you're called by God? You show up as you're called by God. That's it."

Everything Matters:

"You're on the hook for literally everything... your tone of voice, the way you comb your hair, it's the way you walk in the world, the way you breathe. I mean, everything matters... It's either towards God or away from God. There is no neutral and there is no irrelevant."

Move at the Speed of the Holy Spirit:

"It's more like move at precisely the speed of the Holy Spirit... And by the way, stuff may break. Stuff may be healed. Stuff can be created. That's irrelevant to your point of view. Move at the speed of the Holy Spirit."

Technology and Idolatry

Instruments vs Institutions:

"An institution is something that moves into becoming an idol. It terminates on itself... An instrument sits in this middle zone... If you cleave the icon piece of it, then the instrument will collapse to become an institution."

Technology as Icon vs Idol:

"If the technology is an idol, it is damnation. If the technology is an icon, it is salvation... How do you tell the difference? ... Where are you coming from?"

The Calculator Example:

"If I never learned math, if I was separated from an intimate relationship with what's actually going on here, then two things happen. I'm actually doing sorcery. I'm given a power but I've actually not cultivated faith adequate to that power."

Building the Body of Christ

Exponential Growth Through Unity:

"When you and I enter into a relationship and work on each other... our capacity to find and convey gets stronger. The instrumentality to which we are attached, the ecclesia, the body becomes more capable of faith, stronger, richer, larger faith. And that's the real task. The task is not my faith. The task is our faith."

Discernment in Community:

"In a proper body... somebody has said something, and it's very clear that God's speaking through them to me, it landed on my heart, and it immediately moved me... That's what it should feel like."

The Challenge of Unity:

"Can we figure out how to get the body of Christ to act together? ... Can I get the Orthodox, the Catholics and the Protestants to actually be able to play nicely together... That feels like something that God has been putting on me."

Jordan's Current Mission

Children's Literature Priority:

"In my discernment... it seemed like God wanted me to help Jonathan Pageau get his fairytale books more widely available... It is mythology, at the child level, and children are the most leverageable place, and children have been the subject of the adversary's most pernicious attacks."

Internet as Fertile Ground:

"You've made the internet so much more... more possibilities for people to feel like their internet time is helping them come closer to truth than all the other things that are not truth."

Permission for Authenticity:

"There's something about... cultivat[ing] in people a willingness or a permission, self-permission... to show up in a fashion that allows and enables these kinds of encounters to actually occur."

Personal Reflections and Mutual Recognition

Gary's Recognition of Jordan's Role:

"You are like one of the few people that knows what propaganda is and really does not want to convey that or embody that in any way... You were one of the few people that... were helping people understand the unseen world in a tangible way."

Jordan's Gratitude:

"These days I'm finding the increasing fruitfulness of these kinds of collaborations. People like yourself who are showing up... in life in a way that is very heartening... Seeing people who are showing up in a way where love is very present is quite beautiful."

Prayer and Conclusion

Opening Prayer (Gary):

"Father, I come to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. This dialogue I declare is anointed. Holy Spirit guide every word. Jordan's journey will inspire thousands. I bind confusion. I unleash clarity. This conversation becomes a portal where seekers encounter you."

Closing Prayer (Gary):

"Father, for blessing me, blessing us with this dialogue. We do believe that you reveal truth in important ways through loving, good faith relationship. And we humbly ask for your continued wisdom and guidance as we each and together discover our callings in this, and possibly these end times."

Notes

This dialogue represents a watershed moment in articulating a sophisticated Christian response to the meta-crisis that doesn't retreat into fundamentalism or compromise with secular frameworks. Jordan's unique synthesis of complex systems thinking, network theory, and deep theological insight offers a framework for understanding how truth operates at multiple levels while being ultimately unified in Christ. His emphasis on obedience over strategy, discernment over planning, and faith as embodied competence rather than blind belief provides practical guidance for navigating spiritual warfare in an age of unprecedented deception. Most importantly, his lived example of following truth wherever it leads - even at the cost of prestige and position - demonstrates the radical nature of authentic Christian discipleship in our current moment.