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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that

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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become

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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer.

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Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways

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Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,

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Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now,

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Speaker 1: on to today's episode of Thinking Christian.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr.

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Speaker 2: James Spencer, and I'm joined today by Dr. Cutter Calloway.

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Speaker 1: And he, in addition to doing the stuff that he

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Speaker 1: normally does, which he is a William K. Brim Chair

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Speaker 1: of Worship, Theology, and Arts and Associate Professor of Theology

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Speaker 1: and Culture. and Associate Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary.

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Speaker 1: He's also written a new book with IVP called Be Afraid,

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Speaker 1: What Horror Reveals About Facing the Darkness. And this is

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Speaker 1: part of a new series that they're doing, Discovering God

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Speaker 1: in Pop Culture. So we're going to have a conversation

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Speaker 1: about horror movies in the book and how we can

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Speaker 1: think theologically about this.

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Speaker 2: So Cutter, welcome back to the show. It's great having you.

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Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for having me in this perfect time of

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Speaker 3: the year because spooky season is upon us here soon.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 1: It's getting there. October's coming up. So, yeah, I've done

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Speaker 1: some work on Halloween, a little bit of work on Halloween. But,

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Speaker 1: you know, there are some connections there, I suppose, with

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Speaker 1: horror movies. But I'm wondering, number one, sort of what

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Speaker 1: drew you to horror in the first place? Is this

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Speaker 1: a genre of movie that you've enjoyed for a long

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Speaker 1: time or is it, you know, something that you're new to?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the opposite. So I, for most of my life,

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Speaker 3: is like a super big scaredy cat. I, you know,

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Speaker 3: because I was forced to as like a teenager or whatever,

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Speaker 3: like I'd seen, you know, I'd watched some horror movies

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Speaker 3: and they, of course, scarred me for life. But in

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Speaker 3: part because I think that occasional encounter, it just, horror

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Speaker 3: movies just affected me. Like they stuck with me, didn't

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Speaker 3: like what they did when they stuck with me. And

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Speaker 3: so I kind of had not written them off, but

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Speaker 3: had just said, that's a domain I don't need to

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Speaker 3: be worried about. And so this whole project actually came

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Speaker 3: because of, I'd say, like three kind of overlapping things

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Speaker 3: that all happened in similar sort of time. One, I'm

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Speaker 3: based out of LA here, and you throw a rock

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Speaker 3: and you hit 10 people in the industry, right? And

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Speaker 3: I just happened to get to know and have relationships

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Speaker 3: with a number of Christian filmmakers that were making not

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Speaker 3: Christian films going to quote, but we're making horror movies,

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Speaker 3: either writers and directors or actors, you know, producers, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: And many of them were some of the biggest proponents

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Speaker 3: of horror being a deeply, at least theological or religious,

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Speaker 3: if not outright Christian form of art. And I was like, okay, but,

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Speaker 3: still not for me.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: Like, uh, you know, um, I'm like, yeah, I'll hear you. Um,

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Speaker 3: but then, uh, something happened during COVID and after COVID

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Speaker 3: where these really interesting things happened. And that is, um, the,

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Speaker 3: the theater chains almost went out of business, um, after COVID,

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Speaker 3: like no one would go back to see it. Everything

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Speaker 3: was streaming and it was actually a couple of horror films,

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Speaker 3: a few actually, um, in like 2020, 2020 or 21

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Speaker 3: and 22 that essentially saved theaters. And you see this

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Speaker 3: really interesting sort of cultural phenomenon here in the US

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Speaker 3: where people, they would gather together in person in real

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Speaker 3: space and time, not for a big blockbuster like Tenet.

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Speaker 3: Christopher Nolan's Tenet came out just after COVID. Terrible box

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Speaker 3: office receipts compared to his other films, but they would

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Speaker 3: go out for horror. And you go, huh, that's interesting

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Speaker 3: of what are people willing to gather together after this

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Speaker 3: like collective trauma we've just gone through. And it was

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Speaker 3: horror films. And then since then, um, the percentage of

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Speaker 3: box office sales has just increased every year since COVID

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Speaker 3: of horror relative to the rest of, um, the, the

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Speaker 3: different movie genres. And I said, okay, my, I'm supposedly

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Speaker 3: an expert in contemporary popular culture in North America, specifically

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Speaker 3: television and film. At some point, I'm going to lose

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Speaker 3: my credentials, uh, If I'm just ignoring like 15 to 20%

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Speaker 3: of what everyone produces and consumes, like I can't do that.

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Speaker 3: And so I was like, all right, well, the only

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Speaker 3: thing I guess I can do is exposure therapy. And

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Speaker 3: so I was like, I'm going to go into this.

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Speaker 3: And my questions are like, one, why does it affect

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Speaker 3: me in the way that it has? And two, why

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Speaker 3: isn't it doing that to so many of these other people,

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Speaker 3: many of whom are Christians? what what's up with that?

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Speaker 3: And so I really kind of approached it like an

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Speaker 3: anthropologist and said, I'm going to go in and expose

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Speaker 3: myself to these practices, these strange creatures, you know, doing

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Speaker 3: these strange things and see what happens. And that's really

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Speaker 3: what sort of drove me to do it in the

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Speaker 3: first place. And I think made it a little more

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Speaker 3: interesting because it's if I had gone in as like

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Speaker 3: a horror fan, it's almost like I'm I have a

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Speaker 3: an outcome in mind that I'm going to go prove.

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Speaker 3: as opposed to like, hey, I'm kind of open-handed here.

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure what I'm going to find. And that

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Speaker 3: is what made it pretty fun for me. And I

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Speaker 3: think when people read the book, I hope it kind

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Speaker 3: of translates that they're discovering along with me what I

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Speaker 3: kind of encountered.

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Speaker 1: So when you think of like, when I think about

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Speaker 1: horror movies, when I was growing up, I grew up

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Speaker 1: in that sort of Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on

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Speaker 1: Elm Street, right?

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Speaker 2: Those kind of films.

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Speaker 1: And then as I got older, you get into things

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Speaker 1: like Saw or I don't know whether you'd count this,

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Speaker 1: but like Obsession that just came out. You know that

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Speaker 1: like they seem to have changed over time from what

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Speaker 1: were a little bit more like one of my favorites

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Speaker 1: is Army of Darkness with Bruce Campbell. You watch it

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Speaker 1: again and you're like, this barely counts as a horror movie.

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Speaker 1: This can't really be, you know, but. They have changed

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Speaker 1: over time. Did you look at any of that and

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Speaker 1: how maybe they're getting a little bit more sophisticated and

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Speaker 1: almost a little grittier nowadays?

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And the changes are interesting on a lot of fronts.

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Speaker 3: The kind of early hints of what we now have,

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Speaker 3: we're all kind of there, but the way they got

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Speaker 3: developed and played out is interesting. Kind of depending upon

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Speaker 3: the sub genre and then also the, the filmmakers themselves.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: So you can go as far back as like the

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Speaker 3: exorcist is really kind of the first horror film that

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Speaker 3: was made by like a legitimate filmmaker. And, and that

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Speaker 3: sort of set the stage for like, Oh, wait a minute.

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Speaker 3: This isn't just, you know, sort of trying to like

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Speaker 3: stimulate an audience or whatever, a provoking audience. This is,

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Speaker 3: there are possibilities within the genre that, that are what

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Speaker 3: we would call artistic, right? Like you can do this

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Speaker 3: with artistic credibility. Okay. Then you get some of the

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Speaker 3: early ones that you mentioned. And in terms of both

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Speaker 3: those filmmakers and those films, they then got developed, the

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Speaker 3: franchises were developed in very specific ways that I think

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Speaker 3: personally didn't just get grittier, but got a little more banal,

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Speaker 3: a little more nihilistic. And one of the reads that

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Speaker 3: I give in the book is, especially when it comes

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Speaker 3: to slasher films, I can find some interesting theological, even

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Speaker 3: ethical rationales for why you might watch those. But one

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Speaker 3: thing that happens in the development of those is once

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Speaker 3: it becomes a franchise, now all of a sudden, instead

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Speaker 3: of some precocious kids defeating evil, now you're going to

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Speaker 3: see a movie where the bad guy's just slaughtering people.

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Speaker 3: And like the protagonist shifts, the dynamics of the film shift.

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Speaker 3: And now I go, whether or not it's like a

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Speaker 3: good movie, the narrative now includes this entire franchise where

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Speaker 3: all of a sudden it's Freddy Krueger, who's the hero.

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Speaker 3: And we're celebrating his like the sophistication of his kills

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Speaker 3: rather than some of the moral complexities of nightmares and violence. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So that's one way to think about it. But another,

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Speaker 3: I think just in terms of, you know, going back

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Speaker 3: to Friedkin with The Exorcist and then now more recently are,

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Speaker 3: and this is more in the last 15 to 20 years,

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Speaker 3: some like, I call it art house horror. So the

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Speaker 3: Robert Eggers of the world, the Ari Osters of the world,

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Speaker 3: making like kind of high minded, high concept horror films.

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Speaker 3: And they do resist categorization sometimes because it's like, whoa, this, what?

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Speaker 3: why is this so disturbing? Cause it's not just a

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Speaker 3: bunch of jump scare, actually maybe no jump scares, no even,

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Speaker 3: you know, brutal slashing or slaying, but man, this was

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Speaker 3: deeply disturbing in a horrific sort of way. That is

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Speaker 3: a new sort of development that I think is really interesting.

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Speaker 3: The other thing that I think has developed in terms of,

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Speaker 3: it may not just be grittiness cause you know, ratings

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Speaker 3: systems have changed and all that in terms of what's allowable. Um,

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Speaker 3: now you can stream stuff, so you don't even have

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Speaker 3: to have a rating on a lot of things. Um, but, uh,

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Speaker 3: I found really interesting, uh, the different kind of filmmakers

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Speaker 3: who are now doing horror and many of them, um,

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Speaker 3: that I think are making some of the most compelling

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Speaker 3: things are, uh, people who are otherwise marginalized voices in

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Speaker 3: our society, women, people of color who are drawing upon

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Speaker 3: the genre. to, I think, communicate kind of the visceral

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Speaker 3: terror that they experience on a daily basis that a

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Speaker 3: person like you or I just don't feel. And so

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Speaker 3: I'm finding that a real interesting development in terms of,

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Speaker 3: I don't think, you designed or had anything like that

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Speaker 3: in mind. Now, same genre, similar sort of structure and dynamics,

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Speaker 3: but a really different sort of visceral experience for the audience,

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Speaker 3: being able to kind of like feel the world from

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Speaker 3: a different body than the one that some of us inhabit.

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Speaker 3: So I get into that a little bit, but the

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Speaker 3: book is really more, I focus on sort of sub-genres

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Speaker 3: and within that kind of talk about different historical moments,

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Speaker 3: more so than a full historical take. So this is

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Speaker 3: kind of the first I've really thought out loud about,

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Speaker 3: about that change. So thanks for that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I, it's interesting to me because I hear

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Speaker 1: what you're saying. And I think almost anytime you do

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Speaker 1: multiple sequels, you tend to get that sort of.

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Speaker 2: Banality in all of them.

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Speaker 1: You know, I mean, I can even think of a

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Speaker 1: non horror series like the diehard series and you look

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Speaker 1: at it and you go diehard was so interesting and

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Speaker 1: compelling as a single movie that, And then as they

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Speaker 1: went on, you're just like, how many of these things

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Speaker 1: can this guy actually survive?

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Speaker 2: Like, this is getting unreal.

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Speaker 1: No, they're still entertaining, but they don't have the same

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Speaker 1: sort of feel as the first one. And I think

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Speaker 1: you could say that about the Rocky movies. You could

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Speaker 1: say that about the Rambo movies, you know, some of

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Speaker 1: the later ones, maybe, maybe, you know, sort of bring

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Speaker 1: back something, you know, that was there in the earlier ones,

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Speaker 1: but you don't usually see, unless you're planning out those sequels,

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Speaker 1: it just feels like there's a drift that happens and

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Speaker 1: you get an unevenness in them. And you can see

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Speaker 1: that in, Something like, you know, arguably the Saw series,

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Speaker 1: which is the one I'm most familiar with. It's like

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Speaker 1: the first one I thought was fantastic. And you could

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Speaker 1: see a lot of the elements you talk about in

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Speaker 1: the book there. Yes, it was scary. It was crazy

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Speaker 1: and weird. But if you really stopped and stepped back

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Speaker 1: from some of the what people might call gratuitous violence,

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Speaker 1: you do see an underlying story here that's kind of

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Speaker 1: compelling and really interesting. You know, exploring sort of human nature.

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Speaker 1: but then once you get into saw two and now

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Speaker 1: I think probably saw 98.

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Speaker 2: They're just not the same. Right. It's just not the same.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. And, and horror is, I don't think you, it's

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Speaker 3: like you said, it's not unique in this. Um, it

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Speaker 3: might be a little more prone to it because of

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Speaker 3: the economics. Like horror films are super cheap to make. Um,

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Speaker 3: and so they don't have to make much to return

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Speaker 3: their profit. And so one, you, you're, doing it on a,

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Speaker 3: on a budget. And then two, you're just trying to

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Speaker 3: up the ante right from before. So all of your,

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Speaker 3: you know, time and resources end up going to let's

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Speaker 3: make it as cheap as possible. And as shocking compared

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Speaker 3: to the previous one, because we, you know, and so

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Speaker 3: that I think, you know, is part of the thing,

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Speaker 3: but saw is a great example of where it's like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: that initial nugget was really smart. It was well-written. It's

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Speaker 3: asking lots of really interesting questions. Every iteration afterwards, it's like,

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Speaker 3: it's hard for me to justify, because it's not doing

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Speaker 3: what that initial one was. And it is what I,

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Speaker 3: you know, when people ask me of like, oh, how

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Speaker 3: can you interact with horror as a Christian or whatever?

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Speaker 3: I'm like, well, you know, don't approach the genre. And

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Speaker 3: this is something I too learned of like, don't approach

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Speaker 3: the whole thing as if the worst case example is

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Speaker 3: indicative of the whole thing, right? Like you don't do

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Speaker 3: that with anything else. Like there are awful biopics out

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Speaker 3: there that like nobody should watch. But that doesn't mean

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Speaker 3: all biopics are horrible, right? And I could even make

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Speaker 3: the case that like a romantic comedy, the best quote

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Speaker 3: unquote romantic comedies are profoundly destructive to our imagination of relationship,

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Speaker 3: of romance, of love from a Christian perspective. And so

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Speaker 3: as we think about it as a genre and in

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Speaker 3: the goods, bads, whatever, I want to go, I want

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Speaker 3: to talk about the best of horror. And I think

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Speaker 3: the first Saw movie is, represents what i would call

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Speaker 3: the best of horror saw 10 i'm like i'm not

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Speaker 3: i'm not trying to convince anybody to go see saw

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Speaker 3: 10 you know.

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Speaker 1: Right you could probably skip that one just in general

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Speaker 1: exactly interesting So as you're doing this, I mean, what

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Speaker 1: do you think? And I saw the video on the

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Speaker 1: Amazon site for the book. And you talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about some of the misgivings people would have as

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Speaker 1: they start to engage horror. And I'm wondering if you

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Speaker 1: can kind of walk through a few of those. You know,

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Speaker 1: the first one was that sort of it seems so gratuitous.

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Speaker 2: Yes. Like, but again, I would say.

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Speaker 1: A lot of these movies we're talking about the sequels, the,

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Speaker 1: you know, the 10th saw the, you know, if they'd

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Speaker 1: have made a sequel to seven, right. You would have

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Speaker 1: seen something that was far less compelling than the actual

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Speaker 1: first movie. And so part of that gratuity, I think

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Speaker 1: comes from that dynamic you're talking about it.

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Speaker 2: They're cheap to make.

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Speaker 1: And so you make more of them, but you spend

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Speaker 1: less quality time with them and, you know, those kinds

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Speaker 1: of things. But do you think that's where that impression

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Speaker 1: of the gratuity comes in? Or is it just more

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Speaker 1: inherent to the genre?

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Speaker 2: You know what I mean?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, um, because it's

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Speaker 3: hard to know, you know, I don't, I don't remember

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Speaker 3: why people say that or think that, um, it's a

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Speaker 3: real response. Um, and I think my resistance to that

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Speaker 3: response is that it's painting with too broad a brushstroke, right?

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Speaker 2: Fair enough.

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Speaker 3: And I go, it of course is true. I like

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Speaker 3: there's evidence for gratuitous stuff out there. Um, Another franchise

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Speaker 3: that I say do not watch is the Terrifier series.

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Speaker 3: I don't find anything redeemable about those movies. And I

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Speaker 3: did the work for you. You can trust me. You

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Speaker 3: don't have to go watch it. And it is gratuitous

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Speaker 3: on purpose, right? That is true. I'm not going to

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Speaker 3: deny that. But the fact of violence or the fact

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Speaker 3: of horror or terror is itself not gratuitous. And all

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Speaker 3: of that, of course, has to be couched in What

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Speaker 3: I would say is the meaning rather than the content, right?

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Speaker 3: So what is the takeaway? What is the meaning of

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Speaker 3: the story as a whole in relationship to that content?

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Speaker 3: Not a horror movie, but I sometimes like to be

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Speaker 3: provocative and say, when I was a youth pastor, I

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Speaker 3: wished I could force every senior in high school to

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Speaker 3: watch Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream. I don't know

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Speaker 3: if you've seen this movie. It is horribly disturbing content.

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Speaker 3: horribly gratuitous and should be must watch for every teenager

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Speaker 3: going out in the world because I watched that thing

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Speaker 3: and I will never imagine doing heroin. Like there's just no, no,

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Speaker 3: I scared the heroin out of me or whatever you

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Speaker 3: want to say. So the, the point of that movie,

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Speaker 3: if you were just going to look at its content

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Speaker 3: and whether or not it's gratuitous, it's like, well, yeah,

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Speaker 3: there's explicit stuff in here. But the point of the

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Speaker 3: movie is to, shake you in such a way that

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Speaker 3: you can't unsee what you've just seen. And this is

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Speaker 3: very much to me, a Flannery O'Connor thing, right? Like

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Speaker 3: you go to the heart of hearing you shout and

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Speaker 3: to the blind, you draw large and startling figures, I

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Speaker 3: think is what she says. And I think that's what

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Speaker 3: horror movies are doing when they're accused of being gratuitous.

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Speaker 3: What they're really doing is saying like, Hey, violence is violent.

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Speaker 3: Evil is evil. darkness is dark and it is actually

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Speaker 3: a threat to you. If I tell a story about

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Speaker 3: that and it doesn't feel that way, then I've, I've

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Speaker 3: actually sanitized it in a way that, uh, that undermines, um,

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Speaker 3: the actual effect and power of it. And so, um, again,

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Speaker 3: doesn't mean they can't get gratuitous. They can, but for me,

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Speaker 3: the best of horror actually leverages the, I wouldn't even

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Speaker 3: call it gratuity, the, the, uh, the explicitness of that,

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Speaker 3: that content and does something good with.

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Speaker 1: You know, I remember when Kevin Van Hooser released Everyday Theology,

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Speaker 1: and there was an essay in there, I believe, if

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Speaker 1: I'm recalling correctly, about Eminem.

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Speaker 2: And I remember reading that.

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Speaker 1: Essay and sitting back and saying, yeah, this is a

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Speaker 1: really great way to engage with this sort of music.

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Speaker 1: It's not that we're saying, oh, absolutely, Eminem is a

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Speaker 1: moral compass for all teenagers. What it was saying was,

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Speaker 1: he's actually, a lot of what he's singing about he's

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Speaker 1: living out this is reality this is happening somewhere and

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Speaker 1: even though it may be exaggerated for the art form

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Speaker 1: or what have you the way he's putting this together

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Speaker 1: expresses something that is very real and for christians not

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Speaker 1: to engage reality is in some ways really problematic.

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Speaker 2: Now you make the argument, you don't have to engage

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Speaker 2: reality this way. Sure.

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Speaker 3: Sure.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, to your point, you know,

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Speaker 1: you've got these interesting directors who are trying to convey

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Speaker 1: through this art form, something that doesn't seem to be

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Speaker 1: getting through any other way.

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Speaker 3: Yep.

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Speaker 1: And so I just think that's a really like that

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Speaker 1: part of it. If we approach these with that in mind,

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Speaker 1: we're trying to understand what the reality is here. I

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Speaker 1: would think that would help, it would at least help

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Speaker 1: me look past some of what otherwise I might see

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Speaker 1: as gratuitous.

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Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. And, you know, a number of things to

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Speaker 3: keep in mind for any of us. My argument would

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Speaker 3: not be, and I wouldn't try to convince anyone, that everyone,

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Speaker 3: every Christian out there needs to now become experts at war, right?

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Speaker 2: Like, that's not a thing.

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Speaker 3: Like, my mom is a good example. And my wife, right?

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Speaker 3: They're not, they're just not, it's not going to be

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Speaker 3: good for them. They don't want, so, okay. so I'm

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Speaker 3: doing the work for them so they can read this and,

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Speaker 3: you know, have be thoughtful about it. But but yeah,

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Speaker 3: like to to say that Christians ought not to be involved.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, well, that makes no sense to me. We

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Speaker 3: need to be discerning. We need to know what our

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Speaker 3: own sort of sensitivities are. We also need to know

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Speaker 3: there is an age appropriateness. I'm not going, you know,

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Speaker 3: a seven-year-old should watch Saw. Like that's not, that's clearly

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Speaker 3: not what I'm saying. But to your point, I am

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Speaker 3: saying as a person who is missionally minded, one of

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Speaker 3: the key ways that I can understand how the people

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Speaker 3: in my world are experiencing reality, how they're processing it,

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Speaker 3: the fact that I would spend time and money to

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Speaker 3: go watch this thing, consume this thing says something about

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Speaker 3: the deeper desires, drives, fears, anxieties that they're experiencing. And

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Speaker 3: so I can look to this film as a way

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Speaker 3: of giving me insight into their lives so that hopefully

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Speaker 3: I can speak intelligibly to them when it comes to

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Speaker 3: what it means to be a person of Christian faith.

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Speaker 3: And that's where like Van Hooser's work is really helpful.

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Speaker 3: And most of the stuff that I do is along

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Speaker 3: those lines. Like, If I'm not willing to give this

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Speaker 3: broader society or culture a fair hearing, why do I

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Speaker 3: expect them to give me one? And the additional point

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Speaker 3: to that too is it also then, I think, gives

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Speaker 3: me insight if I can understand better what those fears are.

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Speaker 3: And in the book, I call it a theophobics, right?

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Speaker 3: That these films and stuff, they give us insight into

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Speaker 3: what fears are driving us, what our anxieties are, et cetera,

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Speaker 3: et cetera. So that I can then go, huh, isn't

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Speaker 3: it interesting? Now when I come back from that horror

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Speaker 3: film and start reading my own sacred text, all of

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Speaker 3: a sudden, a lot of the horrific parts of that

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Speaker 3: start standing out in ways that I go, man, if

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Speaker 3: you're a person out there that wants to go see

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Speaker 3: Saw or wants to go see The Witch or whatever,

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Speaker 3: and you have an inarticulate desire, you don't even know

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Speaker 3: why you love it so much, I have a story

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Speaker 3: for you. And this story is explicit. It is gratuitous.

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Speaker 3: And it just so happens to be part of this

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Speaker 3: much broader story that might speak to the pains, the chaos,

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Speaker 3: the conflict, the violence and the trauma that you're experiencing

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Speaker 3: in reality. And that to me is the other missional

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Speaker 3: opportunity to say, how can we know the way to

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Speaker 3: translate our story? If we don't know the stories that

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Speaker 3: everybody else is consuming, it's almost like we're speaking a

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Speaker 3: different language. And so a lot of what I do

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Speaker 3: really is, I would say, a sort of a missional

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Speaker 3: mindset in that in that regard.

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Speaker 1: Do you think because your second point, the video on

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Speaker 1: the website is around, you know, sort of this exposure

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Speaker 1: to dark spirits and, you know, an evil spiritual side, but.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that I've thought about just over time,

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Speaker 1: I didn't grow up really as a Christian. I grew

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Speaker 1: up Lutheran, but I didn't really have any conviction about it.

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Speaker 1: I was just sort of going to church on Sunday.

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Speaker 1: And so I can remember as a kid watching things

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Speaker 1: like Lethal Weapon early on. And, you know, I was

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Speaker 1: more the action movie genre. So, you know, you pick

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Speaker 1: up those things. And as I got older and I'd

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Speaker 1: still watch those things and I'd gotten a little bit

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Speaker 1: more theologically savvy, I saw things in them that I

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Speaker 1: wasn't seeing when I was a kid.

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Speaker 2: And so... Now, even when I watch a movie.

429
00:23:16,190 --> 00:23:19,409
Speaker 1: Even just more passively, I'm approaching it and thinking to myself,

430
00:23:19,530 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: I wonder what this is going to be telling me.

431
00:23:22,859 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 1: And I'm processing it in a lot different way than

432
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: I used to when I was just sort of like, man,

433
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: what Mel Gibson did on the screen was so awesome.

434
00:23:30,340 --> 00:23:31,260
Speaker 2: Like, you know.

435
00:23:32,060 --> 00:23:35,820
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if part of this is an approach

436
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,340
Speaker 1: that Christians need to cultivate, regardless of whether they're watching

437
00:23:39,420 --> 00:23:42,490
Speaker 1: horror or whatever else there is that they're watching, that's

438
00:23:42,550 --> 00:23:47,090
Speaker 1: sort of more reflective, more thoughtful, more engaging of this

439
00:23:47,150 --> 00:23:50,550
Speaker 1: director is probably trying to say something to me kind

440
00:23:50,590 --> 00:23:51,170
Speaker 1: of aspect.

441
00:23:52,090 --> 00:23:56,180
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think that's right. Part of why I

442
00:23:56,420 --> 00:23:58,900
Speaker 3: write about and teach on film, like horror is just

443
00:23:59,100 --> 00:24:01,909
Speaker 3: the most recent thing I focus on, but More broadly,

444
00:24:01,950 --> 00:24:06,580
Speaker 3: I do film and television and essentially like theological criticism

445
00:24:06,690 --> 00:24:09,780
Speaker 3: and not critique, like not condemnation, but how do we

446
00:24:09,820 --> 00:24:17,119
Speaker 3: develop interpretive tools that allow us to be credible interpreters

447
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 3: of these things? And I think that's what I hope

448
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 3: for with a student in my class or people I

449
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 3: talk to or, you know, if they learn anything from me,

450
00:24:24,220 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 3: it's we actually need to be more competent in terms

451
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:31,020
Speaker 3: of cultural interpretation. Because our credibility is on the line.

452
00:24:31,220 --> 00:24:36,379
Speaker 3: Like the broader society sees how Christians understand movies and

453
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,699
Speaker 3: they're like, you didn't even watch the movie, right? Like

454
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:41,310
Speaker 3: that's step one. A lot of times we protest, we

455
00:24:41,330 --> 00:24:44,750
Speaker 3: don't even watch it. It's like, well, okay. But then

456
00:24:44,930 --> 00:24:49,090
Speaker 3: after watching it, this is what's so funny. If we

457
00:24:49,150 --> 00:24:51,570
Speaker 3: did this with the biblical text, we would accuse people

458
00:24:51,690 --> 00:24:55,190
Speaker 3: of eisegesis, right? Like don't import your read onto that

459
00:24:55,270 --> 00:24:57,630
Speaker 3: and tell it what it is when it's clearly not

460
00:24:57,810 --> 00:25:00,919
Speaker 3: what's arising from the text. So are there ways we

461
00:25:00,940 --> 00:25:03,820
Speaker 3: can be consistent in our interpretation? And one of the

462
00:25:03,859 --> 00:25:05,379
Speaker 3: things that you need to know is you need to

463
00:25:05,420 --> 00:25:07,830
Speaker 3: know something about genre. You need to know something about

464
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:10,550
Speaker 3: the art form. You need to know something about storytelling

465
00:25:10,590 --> 00:25:15,090
Speaker 3: structure to be able to understand whether it's what the director,

466
00:25:15,130 --> 00:25:17,409
Speaker 3: writer-director wanted you to know or what just the film

467
00:25:17,470 --> 00:25:20,330
Speaker 3: is saying. And even that relationship, what is the relationship

468
00:25:20,369 --> 00:25:23,570
Speaker 3: between the author, authorial intent and the text and all

469
00:25:23,590 --> 00:25:26,490
Speaker 3: those sort of things should be in play in terms

470
00:25:26,530 --> 00:25:29,530
Speaker 3: of how we understand what is this particular art form

471
00:25:29,990 --> 00:25:34,340
Speaker 3: capable of and how do we understand it rightly? Because

472
00:25:34,380 --> 00:25:38,620
Speaker 3: to misunderstand it is, I think, well, one, just a miss.

473
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 3: But then two, I think really reflects poorly on our

474
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:46,609
Speaker 3: ability to be, again, credible interpreters. So the one thing

475
00:25:46,630 --> 00:25:49,810
Speaker 3: I'll say, the caveat, though, is and I've had students

476
00:25:49,830 --> 00:25:52,190
Speaker 3: come through my class and they're like, oh, you ruined

477
00:25:52,250 --> 00:25:53,890
Speaker 3: movies for me. I'm like, what? What do you mean?

478
00:25:53,930 --> 00:25:54,030
Speaker 2: Yeah.

479
00:25:54,710 --> 00:25:57,050
Speaker 3: Um, and what they mean is what you're describing. It's like,

480
00:25:57,210 --> 00:26:00,170
Speaker 3: I can't watch anymore without thinking through all these different things.

481
00:26:00,190 --> 00:26:03,830
Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, fair enough. So another practice

482
00:26:03,850 --> 00:26:05,250
Speaker 3: that I try to have people do, and I try

483
00:26:05,270 --> 00:26:07,880
Speaker 3: to do it myself is for example, I don't, this

484
00:26:07,890 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 3: is good and bad. I don't read any reviews. I hate,

485
00:26:10,260 --> 00:26:12,939
Speaker 3: I don't want to know anything. Um, and so I

486
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:14,919
Speaker 3: go into it and I try as best as I

487
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:19,540
Speaker 3: can to set those, like the critical analytical things aside

488
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:25,820
Speaker 3: and just experience it first. Um, This is, I steal

489
00:26:25,859 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 3: from C.S. Lewis on this, experiment and criticism. And he says,

490
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 3: the first demand a work of art places upon us

491
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:38,220
Speaker 3: is to look, listen, and receive, get yourself out of

492
00:26:38,260 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 3: the way. I would say something similar with the biblical text.

493
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:47,140
Speaker 3: We can get to the historical background, its situation, its authorship,

494
00:26:47,180 --> 00:26:51,010
Speaker 3: et cetera, but can I sit and let let the scripture,

495
00:26:51,030 --> 00:26:54,350
Speaker 3: the story affect me as a story, affect me as

496
00:26:54,450 --> 00:26:58,490
Speaker 3: the literature that it is first, and then come back

497
00:26:58,530 --> 00:27:01,429
Speaker 3: and say, okay, now what was happening there and why

498
00:27:01,470 --> 00:27:03,820
Speaker 3: and what, you know, that sort of thing. That's what

499
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:07,260
Speaker 3: I encourage for my own film going and others. But ultimately, yes,

500
00:27:07,300 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 3: to your point, I want us to be better, more

501
00:27:10,980 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 3: savvy cultural interpreters, specifically as it concerns film, because I

502
00:27:15,260 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 3: think it matters.

503
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,540
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, When we think about.

504
00:27:21,740 --> 00:27:24,889
Speaker 1: How these things sort of start to connect us to

505
00:27:25,350 --> 00:27:29,530
Speaker 1: dark spirits in an evil spiritual world, I wrote an

506
00:27:29,650 --> 00:27:32,470
Speaker 1: article on the Labubus.

507
00:27:32,850 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 2: Do you know Labubus? I do. I do.

508
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,220
Speaker 1: Yeah so um sadly i knew labubus we had a

509
00:27:38,260 --> 00:27:40,220
Speaker 1: foster child staying with us and she was like in

510
00:27:40,260 --> 00:27:42,500
Speaker 1: love with these labubus and they were all the rage

511
00:27:42,540 --> 00:27:44,620
Speaker 1: and so i'm like what are we talking about here

512
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: and then i find out that there's some sort of

513
00:27:46,820 --> 00:27:48,940
Speaker 1: linkage to mesopotamian demons and.

514
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:52,340
Speaker 2: What have you so i just yeah it's actually.

515
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:54,270
Speaker 3: Creepy to me like just looking at him but.

516
00:27:54,460 --> 00:27:57,530
Speaker 1: It connects through the exorcist the demon in the exorcist

517
00:27:57,710 --> 00:28:02,630
Speaker 1: is the supposedly the demon these labubus were resembling now Overall,

518
00:28:02,710 --> 00:28:04,570
Speaker 1: I kind of stepped back and said, I don't think

519
00:28:04,630 --> 00:28:06,730
Speaker 1: any of this is the case. But you had Christians

520
00:28:06,770 --> 00:28:09,660
Speaker 1: sort of saying these little boo-boos are now a vehicle

521
00:28:09,820 --> 00:28:13,020
Speaker 1: for getting into dark spirituality. You saw the same thing

522
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 1: with like Harry Potter films and all those kind of

523
00:28:15,340 --> 00:28:19,700
Speaker 1: different pieces. And so I'm wondering how this approach that

524
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:23,169
Speaker 1: we just talked about might sort of buffer people from

525
00:28:23,670 --> 00:28:24,770
Speaker 1: or give people.

526
00:28:24,490 --> 00:28:26,550
Speaker 2: Some comfort, right?

527
00:28:28,630 --> 00:28:28,810
Speaker 3: Yeah.

528
00:28:29,030 --> 00:28:29,270
Speaker 2: Right.

529
00:28:29,510 --> 00:28:32,149
Speaker 1: That the, the actual film itself is not going to

530
00:28:32,210 --> 00:28:35,460
Speaker 1: infect you with something that, you know, a whole, uh,

531
00:28:35,650 --> 00:28:37,389
Speaker 1: an evil spirit is probably not going to jump off

532
00:28:37,430 --> 00:28:37,929
Speaker 1: the screen.

533
00:28:38,020 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, it is, I, I, I shouldn't be,

534
00:28:42,340 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 3: but I do keep getting sort of like surprised when

535
00:28:44,940 --> 00:28:48,700
Speaker 3: that is one of the pieces because it is recurring. Right. Um,

536
00:28:49,100 --> 00:28:51,780
Speaker 3: I was, uh, out of the country and another unnamed country,

537
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:54,100
Speaker 3: I would say, and meeting with some like filmmakers who

538
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:56,500
Speaker 3: are Christians and, and then that came up, Oh, I'm

539
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:58,370
Speaker 3: doing stuff in horror. And it turned out, tons of

540
00:28:58,390 --> 00:29:01,370
Speaker 3: them were involved in, in horror, but they weren't admitting

541
00:29:01,410 --> 00:29:03,010
Speaker 3: it to each other. Cause this is a gathering of

542
00:29:03,050 --> 00:29:07,110
Speaker 3: Christian artists. And so, but one of the masks, it's like, well,

543
00:29:07,270 --> 00:29:10,870
Speaker 3: you know, and he literally said something like, don't you

544
00:29:10,930 --> 00:29:13,710
Speaker 3: worry that like a demonic presence is going to come

545
00:29:13,770 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 3: out of the screen. And, and I'm like, wait, what?

546
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,660
Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, back up. And I realized like,

547
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 3: I've got to unpack so many like metaphysical, theological, biblical

548
00:29:25,820 --> 00:29:28,300
Speaker 3: things that, Before I even get to just the question

549
00:29:28,340 --> 00:29:33,770
Speaker 3: of art and the movie, part of me wants to go, okay,

550
00:29:34,610 --> 00:29:37,190
Speaker 3: if I have the kind of intellectual humility that I do,

551
00:29:37,370 --> 00:29:40,570
Speaker 3: do I personally believe that watching The Exorcist or something

552
00:29:40,590 --> 00:29:44,660
Speaker 3: like that, that I'm exposing myself to demonic oppression? No,

553
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 3: I don't personally believe that. Um, and yet I want

554
00:29:49,780 --> 00:29:53,380
Speaker 3: to go, but there are enough faithful Christians who are

555
00:29:53,420 --> 00:29:57,739
Speaker 3: concerned about this that I go, okay, well, what is

556
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,650
Speaker 3: it that they're actual actually fearing? What is the thing

557
00:30:01,670 --> 00:30:05,390
Speaker 3: that's driving that? And the book, the argument I make,

558
00:30:05,570 --> 00:30:10,979
Speaker 3: and this kind of was my discovery that I went

559
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 3: along the way. I went into this whole process of

560
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 3: exposure therapy with the idea of perfect love casts out fear.

561
00:30:20,100 --> 00:30:21,860
Speaker 3: This is what I'm thinking. And then I go, okay,

562
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 3: if there's any redeemable part of the horror genre, it's

563
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,180
Speaker 3: somehow going to I don't know, I'm going to become

564
00:30:28,260 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 3: callous to these things where I no longer am afraid

565
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,719
Speaker 3: of them, right? Like they no longer scare me. And

566
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:39,250
Speaker 3: that didn't happen. They still affect me. I'm a little

567
00:30:39,290 --> 00:30:41,370
Speaker 3: more savvy now. Like I can predict things and it's,

568
00:30:41,390 --> 00:30:44,090
Speaker 3: you know, not as jarring, but there's still some that

569
00:30:44,210 --> 00:30:48,370
Speaker 3: really affect me. But along the way, I actually stopped

570
00:30:48,390 --> 00:30:52,950
Speaker 3: and I said, you know, actually, in biblically, we also

571
00:30:53,170 --> 00:30:56,410
Speaker 3: get the message that the fear of the Lord is

572
00:30:56,450 --> 00:31:00,860
Speaker 3: the beginning of wisdom. And I thought, huh, well, maybe

573
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:07,460
Speaker 3: fear itself isn't what the problem is. Maybe it's a misdirected,

574
00:31:07,780 --> 00:31:12,140
Speaker 3: misplaced fear. Maybe we're actually fearing all the wrong things.

575
00:31:12,340 --> 00:31:16,650
Speaker 3: And that's where, whether it's a film or a story

576
00:31:16,710 --> 00:31:20,170
Speaker 3: or something we experience in real life, a lot of

577
00:31:20,210 --> 00:31:23,750
Speaker 3: times we encounter this fear in a way that terrorizes us.

578
00:31:23,770 --> 00:31:26,370
Speaker 3: And I think what God's calling us to is to

579
00:31:26,810 --> 00:31:29,130
Speaker 3: experience encounter and lean into our fear in a way

580
00:31:29,150 --> 00:31:32,110
Speaker 3: that transforms us. And so I think those are two

581
00:31:32,210 --> 00:31:36,350
Speaker 3: really different ways of thinking about this. And that's where

582
00:31:36,370 --> 00:31:38,330
Speaker 3: I get back to, is a demon going to jump

583
00:31:38,390 --> 00:31:41,390
Speaker 3: off of the screen and possess me or, you know.

584
00:31:41,410 --> 00:31:41,850
Speaker 2: Affect me?

585
00:31:42,490 --> 00:31:45,930
Speaker 3: I go, well, what is it that's actually, where are

586
00:31:45,950 --> 00:31:49,850
Speaker 3: your fears aligned here? Are you fearing the one who

587
00:31:49,950 --> 00:31:53,290
Speaker 3: can merely kill the flesh or the one who can,

588
00:31:53,730 --> 00:31:56,150
Speaker 3: you know, destroy the flesh and the soul and send

589
00:31:56,170 --> 00:31:58,340
Speaker 3: them to hell? We're talking about God. And I go,

590
00:31:58,460 --> 00:32:03,170
Speaker 3: I think regardless of your metaphysics, regardless of your demonology,

591
00:32:04,950 --> 00:32:07,430
Speaker 3: there is a kind of misplaced fear there, I think,

592
00:32:07,890 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 3: to cede to evil something that it ought not have.

593
00:32:12,020 --> 00:32:15,380
Speaker 3: And that is it is directing and managing and co-opting

594
00:32:15,420 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 3: and leveraging our fear in a way that I think

595
00:32:17,900 --> 00:32:22,420
Speaker 3: is malforming us. So whether or not demons possess things,

596
00:32:23,380 --> 00:32:26,330
Speaker 3: I'll remain agnostic. But I will say, I think it's

597
00:32:26,350 --> 00:32:29,090
Speaker 3: an opportunity for us to disciple our fears and to go, okay,

598
00:32:29,770 --> 00:32:31,990
Speaker 3: where am I pointing these? And where are these different

599
00:32:32,070 --> 00:32:35,870
Speaker 3: forms actually exploiting my tendency to fear the wrong things?

600
00:32:36,470 --> 00:32:37,950
Speaker 3: And then what are the things I actually should be

601
00:32:37,970 --> 00:32:41,390
Speaker 3: afraid of? And that's where I think some of the best,

602
00:32:41,710 --> 00:32:46,700
Speaker 3: even supernatural horror, it's really interesting to me that there

603
00:32:46,780 --> 00:32:50,620
Speaker 3: is the threat of demons or demonic possession. Evil is

604
00:32:50,660 --> 00:32:54,990
Speaker 3: very real. But there's also usually the only people that

605
00:32:55,010 --> 00:32:57,190
Speaker 3: had the resources to deal with that are religious people,

606
00:32:57,830 --> 00:33:01,810
Speaker 3: usually Christians. So on top of that, though, those Christians

607
00:33:01,850 --> 00:33:05,510
Speaker 3: are usually the most skeptical about the supernatural of anybody

608
00:33:05,550 --> 00:33:09,050
Speaker 3: in the film. And so it's like everybody else, it's

609
00:33:09,090 --> 00:33:11,310
Speaker 3: not the Christians don't get it. It's everyone else that's

610
00:33:11,330 --> 00:33:14,010
Speaker 3: going like, evil is real, wake up Christians and help us, right?

611
00:33:14,570 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 3: So even that of how you understand the narrative of

612
00:33:16,930 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 3: a film, I think goes like, oh, if anybody in

613
00:33:20,980 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 3: society is worried about supernatural evil. It's everybody that's not

614
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:27,420
Speaker 3: Christian and we're the ones that are late to the

615
00:33:27,460 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 3: game and need to wake up. So anyway, that is, again,

616
00:33:31,260 --> 00:33:33,990
Speaker 3: I want to respect and honor people that are concerned

617
00:33:34,010 --> 00:33:36,410
Speaker 3: about that. It's not my concern, but I do think

618
00:33:37,430 --> 00:33:39,130
Speaker 3: it's an opportunity to go, okay, well, what is it

619
00:33:39,510 --> 00:33:41,530
Speaker 3: that we actually fear and how do we actually manage

620
00:33:41,570 --> 00:33:42,470
Speaker 3: those fears?

621
00:33:43,610 --> 00:33:46,890
Speaker 1: And I think just To reiterate it again, because I

622
00:33:46,930 --> 00:33:49,830
Speaker 1: think you'd say this, it's like, if you have those fears,

623
00:33:49,930 --> 00:33:51,350
Speaker 1: maybe don't go see the horror movie.

624
00:33:51,810 --> 00:33:51,950
Speaker 3: Yes.

625
00:33:51,970 --> 00:33:53,490
Speaker 2: That's fine. Yeah.

626
00:33:53,860 --> 00:33:56,060
Speaker 1: But then let's recognize that maybe this is one of

627
00:33:56,100 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: those sort of disputable matters and where you or I

628
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 1: might not have any problem sitting down to watch a

629
00:34:01,220 --> 00:34:04,340
Speaker 1: horror movie and trying to understand it and grasp what

630
00:34:04,380 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: it's trying to tell us. Another person may not, and

631
00:34:06,940 --> 00:34:08,100
Speaker 1: that's okay.

632
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

633
00:34:08,870 --> 00:34:11,509
Speaker 1: But I think your broader point of how are our

634
00:34:11,590 --> 00:34:16,910
Speaker 1: fears discipling us, disciplining our lives, that's a more pertinent

635
00:34:16,969 --> 00:34:20,030
Speaker 1: question that could transcend the horror genre.

636
00:34:20,410 --> 00:34:24,030
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Because I mean, my, again, my,

637
00:34:24,489 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 3: my awareness of the principalities and powers, right. That are

638
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:33,260
Speaker 3: not flesh and blood are almost entirely to me, higher

639
00:34:33,420 --> 00:34:39,910
Speaker 3: order systemic, uh, uh, pressures, uh, that emerge from our

640
00:34:39,930 --> 00:34:42,509
Speaker 3: various activities and then exert a downward pressure on us

641
00:34:42,550 --> 00:34:46,830
Speaker 3: that really does corrupt and harm us. And I think

642
00:34:47,290 --> 00:34:49,509
Speaker 3: in a lot of horror as well, you see, so

643
00:34:49,530 --> 00:34:52,370
Speaker 3: like Stranger Things, I can always recommend Stranger Things because

644
00:34:52,410 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 3: it's like horror light, even though some of the seasons

645
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,919
Speaker 3: get a little more explicitly horror. But a really fascinating take,

646
00:35:00,100 --> 00:35:02,580
Speaker 3: I think, in terms of it's the world that it builds,

647
00:35:03,540 --> 00:35:07,100
Speaker 3: you get these monstrous monstrosities from the upside down, right?

648
00:35:07,570 --> 00:35:09,870
Speaker 3: And they really do terrorize the kids and everything else.

649
00:35:10,469 --> 00:35:13,430
Speaker 3: But you would miss it. And this is back to

650
00:35:13,469 --> 00:35:16,990
Speaker 3: cultural interpretation. You miss the point if you don't realize

651
00:35:17,070 --> 00:35:22,450
Speaker 3: that those monsters were created by the government and the

652
00:35:22,510 --> 00:35:25,759
Speaker 3: schools and the industries and the tech builders and the

653
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 3: parents and all of these sort of institutional organizations that

654
00:35:30,260 --> 00:35:34,950
Speaker 3: are wielding power in demonic ways to actually produce the

655
00:35:34,989 --> 00:35:38,350
Speaker 3: monstrosities that we then all encounter, especially the vulnerable people,

656
00:35:38,690 --> 00:35:42,370
Speaker 3: the kids, right? And to me, that is a deeply,

657
00:35:42,489 --> 00:35:46,379
Speaker 3: I would describe it as demonic in the way that

658
00:35:46,390 --> 00:35:49,069
Speaker 3: it oppresses us. And that I think we should be

659
00:35:49,430 --> 00:35:53,819
Speaker 3: concerned about. We should address that should worry us. But

660
00:35:54,020 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 3: that's my other thing of like, well, are we, what

661
00:35:56,739 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 3: are we more afraid of? That maybe a spirit's going

662
00:35:59,060 --> 00:36:01,879
Speaker 3: to jump out of the screen or the systems that

663
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,930
Speaker 3: we're complicit in Yeah, and.

664
00:36:06,810 --> 00:36:09,350
Speaker 2: I think it's a really interesting example because.

665
00:36:10,810 --> 00:36:13,650
Speaker 1: Albert Borgman, he wrote on technology and the character of

666
00:36:13,730 --> 00:36:18,140
Speaker 1: contemporary culture, and he talks about technology not taking over

667
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 1: simply by just force of rule.

668
00:36:21,739 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 2: But he talks about it.

669
00:36:23,100 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: He's like, what you're going to see is the the

670
00:36:26,180 --> 00:36:30,340
Speaker 1: embedding of inconspicuous patterns that ultimately change the course of

671
00:36:30,380 --> 00:36:32,820
Speaker 1: our lives. And I think part of what Stranger Things does,

672
00:36:32,900 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 1: which is really compelling, is it makes these inconspicuous patterns

673
00:36:36,660 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 1: visible through the creation of these monsters like you can't

674
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:43,339
Speaker 1: miss them. And so it's not. In some ways, it's

675
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:46,719
Speaker 1: very subtle. You could watch the show and technically miss it,

676
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:49,930
Speaker 1: I suppose. But in another way, it's making something very

677
00:36:50,050 --> 00:36:53,529
Speaker 1: plain that is often unnoticed. And so I think that's

678
00:36:53,550 --> 00:36:56,410
Speaker 1: a great example of one of the ways they're using this.

679
00:36:56,690 --> 00:37:01,049
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Absolutely right. And it's on the technology side.

680
00:37:01,070 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 3: And again, back to our fears and what we imagine. Horror,

681
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 3: it's Scott Derrickson, who does a lot of stuff. I

682
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,700
Speaker 3: interview him. has done a lot of horror films and

683
00:37:13,739 --> 00:37:17,509
Speaker 3: he calls it the genre of non, non-deniability, I think

684
00:37:17,550 --> 00:37:20,670
Speaker 3: is what his word is. But essentially like you cannot

685
00:37:21,290 --> 00:37:25,250
Speaker 3: ignore or deny the evil that you're seeing. Like it

686
00:37:25,330 --> 00:37:27,690
Speaker 3: makes it clear and you got to reckon with it.

687
00:37:27,830 --> 00:37:31,739
Speaker 3: It doesn't give you a choice. Others, other genres, it's

688
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 3: actually kind of opaque. You're not sure. And speaking of

689
00:37:37,340 --> 00:37:39,660
Speaker 3: the everyday theology. So one of those contributors, a guy

690
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 3: named Justin Bailey, He's written some really good theology works

691
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:47,940
Speaker 3: on apologetics and sort of aesthetics as a way of

692
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:52,469
Speaker 3: doing apologetics. And I steal from him, I'm pretty sure,

693
00:37:52,489 --> 00:37:56,930
Speaker 3: that when it comes to like our techno future, that

694
00:37:57,450 --> 00:38:00,529
Speaker 3: our fear, what we have in mind is something that's

695
00:38:00,590 --> 00:38:03,930
Speaker 3: like the Matrix or Terminator or something like that, right?

696
00:38:04,780 --> 00:38:09,230
Speaker 3: But the reality is probably more like WALL-E, where we...

697
00:38:10,340 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 3: Without knowing it, we literally cede all of our agency

698
00:38:14,930 --> 00:38:18,510
Speaker 3: to this technology because it's comfortable and it's pleasing and pleasant.

699
00:38:19,030 --> 00:38:21,969
Speaker 3: And we abdicate our responsibility to this entire planet and

700
00:38:22,050 --> 00:38:24,410
Speaker 3: find ourselves, we wake up and we're like, wait, we're

701
00:38:24,450 --> 00:38:28,690
Speaker 3: like on recliners with a liquid diet consuming digital media

702
00:38:28,710 --> 00:38:33,190
Speaker 3: designed just for me. That I think is the horror. Now,

703
00:38:33,430 --> 00:38:37,629
Speaker 3: Wally's not a horror movie, but trying to go like,

704
00:38:37,750 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 3: you should be terrified of this um, this reality is

705
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 3: what the best of the horror genre does is like,

706
00:38:44,420 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 3: look at this, don't look away. It's also the best

707
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 3: of what the Bible does, right? I mean, these, these

708
00:38:49,180 --> 00:38:53,879
Speaker 3: texts that it's like, we've got to put in sharp relief, um, the,

709
00:38:54,219 --> 00:38:57,180
Speaker 3: the trauma and the violence and the chaos that you

710
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:02,700
Speaker 3: are inflicting upon yourselves. Um, and if you sanitize it, um,

711
00:39:02,940 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 3: you're not going to realize, uh, its consequences, uh, and you'll,

712
00:39:06,969 --> 00:39:10,760
Speaker 3: What did you say? It seeps in, you know, over time.

713
00:39:10,780 --> 00:39:13,779
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's embedded in those inconspicuous patterns. It just gets

714
00:39:13,820 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 2: in there.

715
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:14,640
Speaker 3: Yeah.

716
00:39:14,700 --> 00:39:19,100
Speaker 2: Yeah. Fantastic. Let me let me kind of pivot and

717
00:39:19,140 --> 00:39:19,700
Speaker 2: ask a question.

718
00:39:19,739 --> 00:39:22,690
Speaker 1: You'd mentioned earlier that, you know, some of the sequels,

719
00:39:22,790 --> 00:39:24,930
Speaker 1: as you get into horror movies, you start to see,

720
00:39:24,969 --> 00:39:27,810
Speaker 1: you know, Freddy Krueger is the hero and you're looking

721
00:39:27,850 --> 00:39:32,210
Speaker 1: for the inventiveness of his next kill. There's a sense

722
00:39:32,250 --> 00:39:34,550
Speaker 1: in which we've started to see this in superhero movies

723
00:39:34,610 --> 00:39:37,950
Speaker 1: as well, sort of the emergence of the antihero. And

724
00:39:37,969 --> 00:39:41,900
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if that's becoming more commonplace in the horror genre,

725
00:39:41,940 --> 00:39:45,819
Speaker 1: just the antihero as part of the story that we're

726
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:48,380
Speaker 1: supposed to be seeing this very gray character.

727
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 3: Yeah.

728
00:39:49,410 --> 00:39:52,010
Speaker 2: Not necessarily black hat, white.

729
00:39:51,830 --> 00:39:56,049
Speaker 1: Hat, but the gray hat, who is the one that

730
00:39:56,090 --> 00:39:59,430
Speaker 1: we are guided to emulate, let's say.

731
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:04,819
Speaker 3: I would say yes and no. So I would say

732
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 3: that kind of happened. And then I want to say

733
00:40:08,219 --> 00:40:12,390
Speaker 3: there's another new thing, newer thing that follows in line

734
00:40:12,430 --> 00:40:14,590
Speaker 3: with that. So Yes. I think the rise of the

735
00:40:14,610 --> 00:40:17,489
Speaker 3: antihero was real. Um, and you're like, Oh, whether it's

736
00:40:17,530 --> 00:40:20,990
Speaker 3: like breaking bad or, you know, uh, uh, I'm trying

737
00:40:21,010 --> 00:40:26,020
Speaker 3: to think of a good, uh, recent horror example. Um, uh, uh,

738
00:40:26,219 --> 00:40:28,300
Speaker 3: you know, some of the scream franchise, I mean, I

739
00:40:28,340 --> 00:40:30,880
Speaker 3: know it's sort of a parody, but a similar kind

740
00:40:31,020 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 3: of like, Oh, these, you know, um, I think one

741
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 3: of the responses to that has come in maybe two ways,

742
00:40:36,620 --> 00:40:40,069
Speaker 3: both in the superhero and the horror thing is, um,

743
00:40:40,810 --> 00:40:42,760
Speaker 3: what I see in like, did you see the, uh,

744
00:40:44,820 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 3: it's like the new, the new Avengers, Thunderbolt, Thunderbolts. Is

745
00:40:48,020 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 3: that what it was?

746
00:40:48,540 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 2: Thunderbolts.

747
00:40:49,020 --> 00:40:49,300
Speaker 3: Yeah.

748
00:40:49,500 --> 00:40:50,060
Speaker 2: Yeah.

749
00:40:50,580 --> 00:40:54,100
Speaker 3: And that was a good example of now that they're

750
00:40:54,219 --> 00:40:56,940
Speaker 3: the bad guy, right? These are all complicated heroes to

751
00:40:56,980 --> 00:41:00,360
Speaker 3: begin with. None of them are like complete morally upright,

752
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:05,070
Speaker 3: but then also the bad guy, the bad guy, actually,

753
00:41:05,090 --> 00:41:09,029
Speaker 3: this is what I would say. This is back to

754
00:41:09,050 --> 00:41:14,350
Speaker 3: my psych background, trauma informed research or ministries. The fundamental

755
00:41:14,430 --> 00:41:17,610
Speaker 3: reframe is not to say, what's wrong with you? It's

756
00:41:17,650 --> 00:41:21,879
Speaker 3: to say, what happened to you? And you see even

757
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:25,720
Speaker 3: the great bad guy that they have to fight, they go, actually,

758
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:30,860
Speaker 3: you're a traumatized person. You're not just born a monster.

759
00:41:31,300 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 3: Something happened to you. And part of their task as

760
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:38,450
Speaker 3: superheroes is to acknowledge their own flaws. But then rather

761
00:41:38,489 --> 00:41:42,230
Speaker 3: than celebrate them as the antihero, they're actually integrating the

762
00:41:42,550 --> 00:41:46,410
Speaker 3: the enemy back into some sort of like life. I

763
00:41:46,450 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 3: find that a really interesting move in the MCU. We'll

764
00:41:50,820 --> 00:41:54,580
Speaker 3: see what happens with, with future films. You go DC

765
00:41:54,620 --> 00:41:57,700
Speaker 3: and like the most recent Superman, it's almost the opposite.

766
00:41:57,739 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 3: It's like, he's now incredibly morally upright and pure and sincere. And,

767
00:42:01,980 --> 00:42:04,140
Speaker 3: you know, so it's, it's confusing, confusing, but then on

768
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:08,029
Speaker 3: the horror side, I see a similar move in some

769
00:42:08,070 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 3: of the best films that I, appreciate the most. I

770
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 3: think it best is, you know, um, but the ones

771
00:42:14,300 --> 00:42:17,360
Speaker 3: I appreciate the most, uh, there's a film, for example, called, um,

772
00:42:17,489 --> 00:42:19,690
Speaker 3: the Babadook. I don't know if you've seen this one,

773
00:42:20,230 --> 00:42:24,950
Speaker 3: Australian filmmaker. And, uh, it is a story of this.

774
00:42:25,190 --> 00:42:27,830
Speaker 3: The Babadook is like a, a boogeyman kind of figure

775
00:42:28,390 --> 00:42:32,700
Speaker 3: terrorizing this, this mom and her kid. And over time,

776
00:42:32,780 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 3: rather than defeat, uh, the Babadook and eliminate him, or,

777
00:42:36,900 --> 00:42:41,109
Speaker 3: you know, um, it, she learns to actually, live with

778
00:42:41,370 --> 00:42:46,350
Speaker 3: this creature that then she essentially nourishes underneath her house

779
00:42:46,410 --> 00:42:49,189
Speaker 3: in her basement. Right. Um, it's still terrifying, so hard,

780
00:42:49,210 --> 00:42:53,110
Speaker 3: but it, the Babadook for her represents her traumatic past

781
00:42:53,270 --> 00:42:56,530
Speaker 3: that continued to terrorize her. And the, the, the story

782
00:42:56,610 --> 00:42:59,410
Speaker 3: arc is her actually integrating that terror and that trauma

783
00:42:59,570 --> 00:43:02,569
Speaker 3: into her life, um, as opposed to eliminating it. Um,

784
00:43:02,910 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 3: another film called, uh, appendage, um, kind of a body

785
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 3: horror thing. And, uh, all of a sudden this lady's

786
00:43:10,090 --> 00:43:13,150
Speaker 3: like an actual thing starts growing on her side. Um,

787
00:43:13,370 --> 00:43:16,169
Speaker 3: and she has to like cut it off. But, um, that,

788
00:43:16,330 --> 00:43:18,810
Speaker 3: that movie in spoiler alert, if you haven't seen it, um,

789
00:43:19,130 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 3: with literally her, um, she tries to cut it off

790
00:43:23,180 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 3: and does, but it actually keeps living. And so instead

791
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:29,380
Speaker 3: of killing it, she, um, cares for it like a child. Um,

792
00:43:29,420 --> 00:43:32,700
Speaker 3: so the ending scene is her like caring for this monster.

793
00:43:32,820 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 3: And so, um, that I find a really interesting turn

794
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 3: in terms of how we think about, I think the anti-hero,

795
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 3: just me thinking, you know, in terms of how do,

796
00:43:42,620 --> 00:43:46,419
Speaker 3: how do we identify, how are we being called at it? It's, um,

797
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:50,190
Speaker 3: it's a little unfulfilling, I think, you know, um, it,

798
00:43:50,910 --> 00:43:55,650
Speaker 3: it's despairing a bit. Um, and I do think, especially

799
00:43:55,810 --> 00:43:59,590
Speaker 3: emerging generations are kind of looking at the older generations

800
00:43:59,650 --> 00:44:03,700
Speaker 3: going like, you people are kind of anti-heroes, like you, you,

801
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:08,070
Speaker 3: You set up society to benefit yourself and you're still

802
00:44:08,110 --> 00:44:10,969
Speaker 3: doing it and you still are making decisions that, you know,

803
00:44:11,010 --> 00:44:13,710
Speaker 3: are going to screw us all over and you're going

804
00:44:13,730 --> 00:44:17,069
Speaker 3: to you're doing it anyway. And I think that just

805
00:44:17,140 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 3: that generational thing is making people a little less open

806
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 3: to like, I'm going to celebrate the antihero because it's

807
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:26,899
Speaker 3: like a cool Gen X thing to do or something.

808
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:30,359
Speaker 2: It is a very Gen X thing to do. Let's

809
00:44:30,380 --> 00:44:31,259
Speaker 2: just be real about that.

810
00:44:31,300 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 3: I'm an anti-hero.

811
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:34,540
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

812
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 1: Nurturing the monster that grows out of my side is

813
00:44:37,420 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 1: not really something I would think of.

814
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 2: But I think.

815
00:44:41,930 --> 00:44:45,910
Speaker 1: It does express sort of, I don't know, we could

816
00:44:45,930 --> 00:44:48,509
Speaker 1: say the Vorlaga of our time, right? It's like this

817
00:44:48,570 --> 00:44:51,870
Speaker 1: sort of interesting concept of we're all trying to deal

818
00:44:51,950 --> 00:44:54,850
Speaker 1: with some level of trauma in our lives at this point.

819
00:44:55,050 --> 00:44:59,469
Speaker 1: And so these things that we suffer, we don't just

820
00:44:59,530 --> 00:45:02,730
Speaker 1: want to kill them and leave them alone. We, we

821
00:45:02,770 --> 00:45:05,370
Speaker 1: want to redeem them in some way. We want them to,

822
00:45:05,830 --> 00:45:07,850
Speaker 1: we want to incorporate them in our lives so that

823
00:45:07,870 --> 00:45:10,890
Speaker 1: we're back in control of them perhaps, uh, or have

824
00:45:10,910 --> 00:45:13,430
Speaker 1: some semblance of control of them perhaps, but we don't

825
00:45:13,460 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: want to get rid of them.

826
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 3: Yeah.

827
00:45:15,100 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 2: Um, which is really interesting. Yeah.

828
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:20,620
Speaker 3: Um, and again, we all bring our interpretive lenses to it.

829
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,919
Speaker 3: So I could be reading too much into them, but

830
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:26,980
Speaker 3: it does seem there's enough data piling up that I go, yeah,

831
00:45:27,020 --> 00:45:29,390
Speaker 3: this is, um, this is the thing that a lot

832
00:45:29,430 --> 00:45:32,270
Speaker 3: of horror is dealing with either in the story itself

833
00:45:32,350 --> 00:45:35,690
Speaker 3: or what precedes it is like a distinct trauma. Now

834
00:45:35,730 --> 00:45:40,060
Speaker 3: the characters are navigating it and that trauma is terrorizing them.

835
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 3: And the movie hinges on either it continues to, and

836
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 3: it kills them or they transform it somehow. It transforms

837
00:45:48,500 --> 00:45:52,259
Speaker 3: them and the trauma into something else. And that I

838
00:45:52,310 --> 00:45:54,390
Speaker 3: think is what people are yearning for of like, okay,

839
00:45:54,430 --> 00:45:57,609
Speaker 3: how do we actually, what then do we do right?

840
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,029
Speaker 3: Like now that we've gone through this, uh, and then

841
00:46:00,070 --> 00:46:01,930
Speaker 3: what are the resources I have to draw upon to

842
00:46:01,969 --> 00:46:05,460
Speaker 3: help me do that thing? Um, and that's, that's why

843
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 3: stories are so, I think powerful in that, in that regard.

844
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:12,180
Speaker 1: So I wanted to ask just, and, We're about out

845
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:14,140
Speaker 1: of time, so I wanted to ask this last little

846
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: arc of a question. I've been involved in the fitness

847
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:18,540
Speaker 1: industry for a very, very long time.

848
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:19,780
Speaker 2: You can't tell.

849
00:46:20,380 --> 00:46:20,620
Speaker 3: Yeah.

850
00:46:21,450 --> 00:46:22,950
Speaker 1: I started lifting when I was 14. I was a

851
00:46:22,969 --> 00:46:25,350
Speaker 1: personal trainer when I worked through my MDiv. I've been

852
00:46:25,370 --> 00:46:27,930
Speaker 1: around it and in it. My bachelor's degree is in

853
00:46:27,989 --> 00:46:29,310
Speaker 1: exercise physiology.

854
00:46:29,410 --> 00:46:33,030
Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Cool. I've been around. Yeah.

855
00:46:33,050 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: Your last chapter on the sacredness of the body or

856
00:46:35,660 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: sacredness of bodies, I find– For one, I think there's

857
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:44,089
Speaker 1: just an evangelical sort of we don't have a real

858
00:46:44,150 --> 00:46:46,529
Speaker 1: strong theology of the body. For whatever reason, we just

859
00:46:46,570 --> 00:46:49,210
Speaker 1: haven't really developed it. And so as I watch trends

860
00:46:49,230 --> 00:46:51,509
Speaker 1: in the fitness industry, I kind of sit back and say, wow,

861
00:46:51,550 --> 00:46:54,250
Speaker 1: we probably need a theology of the body as people

862
00:46:54,310 --> 00:46:57,520
Speaker 1: are moving more and more and more toward this. And

863
00:46:57,580 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: so when I saw that chapter in your book, I'm like,

864
00:47:00,020 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 1: that's great. Because I think that, you know, approaching it

865
00:47:03,380 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: from the horror genre gives it something that we can

866
00:47:06,380 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: tangibly look at. really deeply understand and then start constructing

867
00:47:11,700 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: off of. So I'm wondering if you can talk about

868
00:47:13,660 --> 00:47:17,500
Speaker 1: that chapter a little bit, the sacredness of bodies and yeah.

869
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,810
Speaker 3: Um, interestingly, so, so a lot of this book started

870
00:47:21,910 --> 00:47:25,330
Speaker 3: as this podcast that I did, same title, be afraid. Um,

871
00:47:25,489 --> 00:47:27,570
Speaker 3: so if anyone wants to go and be super scared

872
00:47:27,610 --> 00:47:29,950
Speaker 3: of scary sound design, do that. This book is for

873
00:47:29,989 --> 00:47:33,739
Speaker 3: those who can't handle it. Right. Um, but, um, when

874
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:36,420
Speaker 3: I was revising, doing some stuff, trying to like adapt

875
00:47:36,460 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 3: and see what would work and what I need to expand. Um,

876
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:42,020
Speaker 3: actually one of the, um, one of my editors said like, well,

877
00:47:42,780 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 3: all the other sub genres, you end up having something

878
00:47:45,580 --> 00:47:49,450
Speaker 3: charitable to say, but when you get to slashers, you

879
00:47:49,489 --> 00:47:52,089
Speaker 3: don't like, it's like, you know, are you even trying that?

880
00:47:52,110 --> 00:47:54,710
Speaker 3: I'm like, Oh, huh. And, and, and, and this, I

881
00:47:54,910 --> 00:47:56,629
Speaker 3: don't think she said that, but, um, it was something

882
00:47:56,650 --> 00:48:00,310
Speaker 3: like that. And yeah, that she was, she, I thought

883
00:48:00,350 --> 00:48:04,779
Speaker 3: was really interesting. She, appreciated horror genre. And then she

884
00:48:04,820 --> 00:48:07,760
Speaker 3: was the one. And a lot of the slasher films also,

885
00:48:08,300 --> 00:48:11,049
Speaker 3: they don't aren't just do violence to bodies. It's usually

886
00:48:11,110 --> 00:48:13,989
Speaker 3: to women's bodies like this. There's a, and I had

887
00:48:14,030 --> 00:48:15,950
Speaker 3: a problem with that. I've got three daughters, you know,

888
00:48:16,830 --> 00:48:19,790
Speaker 3: and I go, okay, well, let me stop and think

889
00:48:19,850 --> 00:48:23,390
Speaker 3: through what could be something going on there. Let me

890
00:48:23,410 --> 00:48:26,069
Speaker 3: just do my own method. Let me follow my method

891
00:48:26,090 --> 00:48:28,239
Speaker 3: and go like, okay, well, what is the, What is

892
00:48:28,260 --> 00:48:31,819
Speaker 3: the fear? What's the anxiety? What's driving people to consume

893
00:48:31,969 --> 00:48:34,570
Speaker 3: these in some way? And that's where I kind of

894
00:48:34,590 --> 00:48:38,410
Speaker 3: was like, well, I think maybe for it to scare

895
00:48:38,450 --> 00:48:42,190
Speaker 3: you and to trouble you. And this was specifically slasher films, right?

896
00:48:42,690 --> 00:48:47,530
Speaker 3: That these bodies are being violated. And for a body

897
00:48:47,550 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 3: to be violated means you have some working sense or

898
00:48:51,580 --> 00:48:58,049
Speaker 3: assumptions about this is actually an inviolable body. There is

899
00:48:58,190 --> 00:49:02,279
Speaker 3: a what I would call sacredness to it, meaning you

900
00:49:02,460 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 3: ought not to do that. And so the whole genre

901
00:49:06,620 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 3: functions on the fact that we respond viscerally to the

902
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:15,930
Speaker 3: violation of bodies because we as humans, we assume my

903
00:49:15,969 --> 00:49:19,310
Speaker 3: body is actually sacred in some way. And that's sort

904
00:49:19,330 --> 00:49:22,630
Speaker 3: of what I develop. in that particular chapter. And I

905
00:49:22,690 --> 00:49:25,590
Speaker 3: think you're exactly right. Where I don't, just because it

906
00:49:25,610 --> 00:49:28,339
Speaker 3: would have been taken another book, but I think you're

907
00:49:28,380 --> 00:49:31,660
Speaker 3: absolutely right that one of the core conflicts, even back

908
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 3: to the gratuitous stuff, right? Most of the concerns about

909
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:39,089
Speaker 3: gratuity have to do with bodies, right? how we experience

910
00:49:39,130 --> 00:49:41,250
Speaker 3: our body, what we show, what we don't, you know,

911
00:49:41,290 --> 00:49:45,190
Speaker 3: these sorts of things, specifically within Protestantism and then more

912
00:49:45,230 --> 00:49:53,830
Speaker 3: narrowly within evangelicalism, you go to Europe, nobody cares about boobs. Yeah. Like,

913
00:49:53,850 --> 00:49:56,170
Speaker 3: but you would have thought if I saw a boob,

914
00:49:56,210 --> 00:49:57,910
Speaker 3: I was just going straight to hell, you know, like

915
00:49:57,950 --> 00:50:00,850
Speaker 3: when you're growing up, but, but it is a deeply

916
00:50:00,890 --> 00:50:05,950
Speaker 3: impoverished sense or theology of the body. And it spins

917
00:50:06,110 --> 00:50:09,610
Speaker 3: out into, all of the worst in, you know, instincts

918
00:50:09,650 --> 00:50:13,810
Speaker 3: that we've got, including in the, um, the wellness, uh,

919
00:50:14,030 --> 00:50:16,969
Speaker 3: thing that Christians should be there because that can get

920
00:50:17,030 --> 00:50:20,089
Speaker 3: distorted too. And now you have looks maxing and stuff.

921
00:50:20,130 --> 00:50:23,370
Speaker 3: It's like, wait, wait, wait, hold on. That's not sacred either.

922
00:50:23,510 --> 00:50:23,630
Speaker 1: Right?

923
00:50:23,670 --> 00:50:26,230
Speaker 3: Like that's not, um, accounting for the integrity of the

924
00:50:26,270 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 3: human body either. And so, um, I think, yes, we

925
00:50:30,180 --> 00:50:33,259
Speaker 3: have an opportunity to go bodies right now are in

926
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:36,760
Speaker 3: play for all sorts of reasons in the broader society.

927
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:40,299
Speaker 3: And we need to articulate and develop a better, more

928
00:50:40,340 --> 00:50:43,300
Speaker 3: robust theology of the body to address all those different concerns.

929
00:50:44,580 --> 00:50:47,670
Speaker 3: I'll quote another friend. If you're interested, you might know

930
00:50:47,690 --> 00:50:50,310
Speaker 3: his work, but his name is Eric Daly. And his

931
00:50:50,370 --> 00:50:52,910
Speaker 3: dissertation he wrote turned into a book called The Fit

932
00:50:52,930 --> 00:50:56,359
Speaker 3: Will Inherit the Earth. And so it's his theology of fitness.

933
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:58,540
Speaker 3: He teaches a sports and fitness class here at Fuller.

934
00:50:59,700 --> 00:51:01,259
Speaker 3: And so we go back and forth in terms of

935
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:05,810
Speaker 3: like what What does embodied life look like? What are

936
00:51:05,830 --> 00:51:08,989
Speaker 3: the values that that assumes? And how do we actually

937
00:51:09,030 --> 00:51:13,530
Speaker 3: articulate that? And even back to the AI thing, right?

938
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 3: Part of the reason that the tech revolution that's coming

939
00:51:18,500 --> 00:51:23,080
Speaker 3: that should terrorize us, Christian, for me, my sort of

940
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:28,090
Speaker 3: line in the sand theologically is about embodiment, right? Incarnation. Yeah.

941
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 3: our bodies, physical life, ultimately with God, it's God dwelling,

942
00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:38,739
Speaker 3: tabernacling with us, is both the hinge around which all

943
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:42,310
Speaker 3: of reality turns in the incarnation and then God's ultimate vision.

944
00:51:42,910 --> 00:51:45,670
Speaker 3: And so for us to be caught up in a

945
00:51:45,810 --> 00:51:50,870
Speaker 3: disembodied technology should not just horrify us and scare us,

946
00:51:51,030 --> 00:51:56,299
Speaker 3: but should be fundamentally recognized as anti-Christian for this very reason.

947
00:51:56,320 --> 00:51:59,190
Speaker 3: But we don't currently... We have so many anxieties and

948
00:51:59,250 --> 00:52:02,910
Speaker 3: problems with the body or our bodies that it's really difficult,

949
00:52:02,950 --> 00:52:06,930
Speaker 3: I think, for evangelicals to articulate that vision. But right now,

950
00:52:06,950 --> 00:52:09,430
Speaker 3: it needs to be more than, I think, probably any

951
00:52:09,510 --> 00:52:11,439
Speaker 3: other sort of theological subcategory.

952
00:52:12,500 --> 00:52:15,620
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the reason I liked what you

953
00:52:15,660 --> 00:52:18,180
Speaker 1: did in the chapter is I do think that people

954
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:22,460
Speaker 1: would look at that and go, yes, that's disgusting, right?

955
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:24,759
Speaker 1: If they looked at it that way, I suppose. They

956
00:52:24,780 --> 00:52:26,779
Speaker 1: could look at it and they'd go, there's something wrong there.

957
00:52:27,060 --> 00:52:27,259
Speaker 3: Yeah.

958
00:52:29,050 --> 00:52:31,710
Speaker 2: And then you go, oh, okay, there is something wrong there. Well,

959
00:52:31,750 --> 00:52:32,589
Speaker 2: what's wrong there?

960
00:52:33,780 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: And that happens in a way different than when you're

961
00:52:36,140 --> 00:52:39,760
Speaker 1: scrolling Instagram and you're seeing people who are just shredded

962
00:52:39,860 --> 00:52:43,860
Speaker 1: and doing 400 pound bench presses or whatever they're doing.

963
00:52:44,300 --> 00:52:45,739
Speaker 2: And you go, wow, that's impressive.

964
00:52:46,610 --> 00:52:49,890
Speaker 1: And you start to miss that there's like a distortion

965
00:52:49,969 --> 00:52:52,450
Speaker 1: of body image there just as much as there is

966
00:52:52,469 --> 00:52:55,489
Speaker 1: in the corner. And so I think there's a way

967
00:52:55,630 --> 00:52:59,230
Speaker 1: that that chapter really sort of pulls us into that

968
00:52:59,290 --> 00:53:03,489
Speaker 1: discussion in a way that the fitness industry just probably won't.

969
00:53:03,940 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

970
00:53:05,620 --> 00:53:09,040
Speaker 1: And then I'd say the AI stuff, I agree. I

971
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:11,100
Speaker 1: think AI is going to do the same thing for us.

972
00:53:11,140 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 1: I think it's going to force us to develop a

973
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:19,450
Speaker 1: theology of embodiment. I wrote a piece on the Good Samaritan.

974
00:53:20,170 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: And I said, what if instead of the Good Samaritan

975
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 1: helping this guy, he gets on his cell phone and

976
00:53:25,700 --> 00:53:27,840
Speaker 1: dials up an AI powered robot.

977
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:28,259
Speaker 3: Yep.

978
00:53:28,739 --> 00:53:30,779
Speaker 1: And he knows it's coming. So he doesn't have to

979
00:53:30,820 --> 00:53:32,779
Speaker 1: worry about it anymore. He just keeps on going. And

980
00:53:32,860 --> 00:53:35,380
Speaker 1: Jesus ends the story. And, you know, the guy's been helped.

981
00:53:35,420 --> 00:53:37,180
Speaker 1: He goes, you know, he's flown to a hospital. He

982
00:53:37,219 --> 00:53:39,470
Speaker 1: gets all the medical help he needs. And then Jesus

983
00:53:39,550 --> 00:53:41,630
Speaker 1: ends the story and said, now, who is this man's neighbor?

984
00:53:41,810 --> 00:53:42,130
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

985
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:46,120
Speaker 1: We have a fundamentally different conception of neighbor that's conveyed

986
00:53:46,180 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: for somebody who's just going to type, you know, call

987
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:50,710
Speaker 1: somebody on the cell phone to come get this guy

988
00:53:50,810 --> 00:53:53,989
Speaker 1: versus what the Samaritan actually does in the story. And

989
00:53:54,010 --> 00:53:56,750
Speaker 1: to me, that's where embodiment has to come in. But

990
00:53:57,850 --> 00:54:01,070
Speaker 1: it's a it's a fascinating study, man, is a fascinating book.

991
00:54:01,330 --> 00:54:03,450
Speaker 1: And I just encourage people to go out and get it.

992
00:54:05,330 --> 00:54:07,589
Speaker 1: This has been a great discussion. I appreciate you being

993
00:54:07,610 --> 00:54:10,060
Speaker 1: back on the show, man. I love this kind of stuff.

994
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:11,740
Speaker 1: So really, if anyone.

995
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:16,740
Speaker 3: Wants to get it, the easiest way is beafraidbook.com. Beafraidbook.com.

996
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:19,640
Speaker 3: Beafraidbook.com is where you can order it. And if you

997
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:21,460
Speaker 3: want to follow me, I can send you links. But

998
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:24,589
Speaker 3: my newsletter where I kind of do this, I do horror,

999
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:29,690
Speaker 3: I do other sort of cultural interpretation stuff. Just cuttercalloway.com

1000
00:54:29,710 --> 00:54:33,050
Speaker 3: slash newsletter. And you can follow me in my readings,

1001
00:54:33,090 --> 00:54:34,470
Speaker 3: my musings, my various musings.

1002
00:54:35,340 --> 00:54:36,680
Speaker 1: I'll make sure we put both of those in the

1003
00:54:36,719 --> 00:54:39,430
Speaker 1: show notes. And everybody, I just encourage you to check

1004
00:54:39,469 --> 00:54:40,370
Speaker 1: this book out, whether.

1005
00:54:40,210 --> 00:54:41,850
Speaker 2: You're a horror fan or not. I think it's.

1006
00:54:42,380 --> 00:54:46,350
Speaker 1: A really helpful way into how should we think about

1007
00:54:46,410 --> 00:54:49,810
Speaker 1: entertainment more generally? How should we think about engaging reality

1008
00:54:49,850 --> 00:54:52,150
Speaker 1: more generally? And so I think it's, it's a bigger

1009
00:54:52,210 --> 00:54:55,830
Speaker 1: book than, uh, than just horror. And so I just

1010
00:54:55,870 --> 00:54:58,250
Speaker 1: encourage you to pick it up. And, um, again, Carter,

1011
00:54:58,270 --> 00:54:59,069
Speaker 1: thanks for being here.

1012
00:54:59,820 --> 00:55:01,660
Speaker 2: Um, thanks everybody. Yeah.

1013
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:04,040
Speaker 1: Thanks everybody for taking the time and sticking with us

1014
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 1: and we'll catch you on the next episode of thinking Christian.

1015
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:06,799
Speaker 2: Take care.

1016
00:55:07,450 --> 00:55:08,930
Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team

1017
00:55:08,989 --> 00:55:11,370
Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the

1018
00:55:11,410 --> 00:55:15,010
Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find

1019
00:55:15,090 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got

1020
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:21,319
Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.