The “soul” is such an antiquated concept. You’re trying to retcon the idea (away from the semi-eternal magical body of the hellfire-and-brimstone preachers) into some rather vague and ethereal and feel-good intangible.We’re atoms combined into multicellular life. Accept that.

— freetoken fights fecking fascists (@freetoken) August 10, 2019

The guy is one of those shifty types, not really a fundamentalist but plays to the evangelical crowd (to sell books.)

From his article:

It’s crucial to highlight this element for at least two reasons. First, because our crises today are, at root, existential crises: I fear that soulless accounts of our evolution deepen and exacerbate the problem. Second, and more importantly, because there’s good evidence a soulful account of human evolution is true.

I prattle on here about the root cause of contemporary American political angst is a worldview collapse. We are moving (slowly, more like meandering) to a post-Christian society, and that bothers a lot of people.

Mark Vernon explicitly is trying to provide a third way, a kind of triangulation if you will, where the idea of “soul” and some sort of Christian belief can still be maintained in light of contemporary science.

But it’s a folly, I think. Sort of like the Church of England today is really just a expression of fondness for the past, a nostalgic trophy of what was… and that is all that can come to pass for the Mark Vernon view of Christianity and the “soul”.