Latest / Millennial Mustard Seed / S4 82. Video Ep - Brian Godawa – The Philosopher Killer, Cruel Logic

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S4 82. Video Ep - Brian Godawa – The Philosopher Killer, Cruel Logic · Millennial Mustard Seed

0:04
OK, welcome back to the show everybody.
0:06
I have an awesome episode in store for you guys.
0:09
I am joined by the one and only Brian Gadala.
0:12
He doesn't need much of an introduction with my audience,
0:15
but we're going to go over a couple amazing things that is
0:18
going on with Brian right now. He just released a book on
0:22
September 12th. Cruel Logic, Brian, welcome to
0:26
the show man. It's great to have you here.
0:27
Thanks for having me on, Rod. Absolutely.
0:31
So let's jump right into it, man.
0:33
What stirred, what was stirring up in you to to get you to want
0:37
to write this philosophical killer novel?
0:41
I mean, this is epic. What was going on in your mind?
0:44
Yeah, I call it a theological thriller.
0:47
Reason why is because it's basically a psychological
0:50
criminal thriller, psychological crime thriller.
0:53
But I'm definitely dealing with. I'm definitely telling a story
0:57
from a very unique perspective that.
0:59
Probably hasn't been done as much in the way that I'm doing
1:04
it, in that I'm sort of engaging in some philosophical dialogue
1:10
within the thriller genre, which, you know, risky to say
1:16
the least, but people have been finding it to be exciting so
1:20
far. So the basic principle of or
1:22
premise of the story is Cruel Logic, the philosopher killer.
1:25
That's the title, and the premise is that.
1:29
It's a story of a serial killer on a woke university campus.
1:34
And so this guy is basically he's a professor who's a
1:37
brilliant professor, philosophy professor, but he's also a
1:41
serial killer. And what he does is he captures
1:43
university professors and he debates them and videotapes the
1:49
debate. And the topic of the debate is
1:52
his moral right to kill them. So he'll ask.
1:55
You know, he'll he'll ask him something like, okay, if what
1:58
you say is true about reality, give me one valid reason why I
2:02
should not kill you, and I'll let it go.
2:05
In other words, he's plumbing their moral theories and their
2:08
their theories of ethics. And each of the various
2:12
professors you know, evolutionary biologist, trans,
2:15
queer theorist, you know, feminist, All these various
2:19
world views. I'm exploring in in through the
2:23
the story in the novel and at the same time that this is
2:28
happening, I'm telling the story also of a evangelical Christian
2:35
who goes to he's a freshman first year at a fictional, you
2:39
know, California campus and he's introduced to social justice and
2:46
it draws him in and we see a lot of.
2:49
Well, we see everything that's going on on the college campus
2:52
these days with whether it's DEI, diversity, equity and
2:56
inclusion, indoctrination, queer theory, trans ideology, all the
3:02
protests, BLM, antifa, all the stuff that's been going on on
3:06
campuses in the in this last decade or so.
3:10
I've sort of bring bring to bear on the story because that's the
3:13
context of what this is going, that of what this is taking
3:16
place. And I was inspired by the notion
3:20
of the idea that Western civilization is no longer taught
3:28
in most universities. The curriculum, like many
3:31
universities for decades, had had at least a basic Western Civ
3:36
requirement. You know maybe they would have
3:38
take some classes, a series of classes is all it was part of
3:41
the basic requirements. You know, learning the the
3:44
history of Western philosophy, Western civilization and
3:48
culture, music, some things like that.
3:51
And that's all been done away with in in the context of the
3:54
modern woke university because the the higher education has
3:59
been captured by this, you know this deal Marxist.
4:08
Left wing paradigm that has reduced reality to oppressed and
4:14
oppressor and all this stuff that's going on and what does
4:17
that lead to? You know, I I've been I've
4:20
thought a lot about it. A lot about you know what
4:22
happens when you when you take God out of a culture.
4:25
What happens when you get rid of Western civilization, and that
4:29
is what the higher education has been doing, is.
4:32
It's been seeking to get rid of Western civilization because it
4:36
conceives Western civilization as the as an oppressed, an
4:43
oppressor worldview of racism, sexism, homophobia, and and all
4:53
the other phobia you can imagine.
4:54
Right? And patriarchy.
4:56
And ultimately, they believe that Western civilization, they
5:00
understand that Western civilization is rooted on
5:03
Judeochristian values. And so there the the university
5:09
is up, has uprooted all this. And I've thought a lot about
5:13
what happens when you do that. And on the surface, you think,
5:16
oh, you know, we're getting rid of all this oppression and all
5:19
this fundamentalism or whatever, But what are you really getting
5:21
rid of When you take away the foundation of civilization?
5:24
What are you going to get? And so the one of the dominant
5:27
themes in Cruel Logic is ideas have consequences.
5:33
And so I'm I'm, yeah, I'm wrestling at the higher level
5:37
with these big ideas and concepts, but this very related
5:40
to our everyday life. And of course it's in the
5:42
context of this thriller serial killer where a cop and a
5:47
psychologist who who is hunting down this this killer and the
5:52
psychologist is kind of like a Jordan Peterson character.
5:55
He's actually a professor at the university trying to bring back
5:58
Western civilization. And so he's we're seeing through
6:01
his eyes this, this battle for the soul of the of education,
6:08
but really of society itself, right, of civilization itself.
6:13
So that's that's the big picture themes that I'm wrestling with.
6:16
But on that, on that personal level, it's these, this cop and
6:20
the psychiatrist trying to track down this killer.
6:23
And at the same time, an evangelical Christian is brought
6:27
into social justice. And how does that whole paradigm
6:32
tend to seduce people and draw them into to to thinking that
6:38
way? And I think that it's rooted a
6:40
lot in the ill equipment of a lot of Christians these days to
6:45
deal with real skepticism and doubts and such.
6:50
But also I think that there is a component of this woke campus
6:54
culture that learns how to manipulate the desire in people
7:01
for compassion. You know, we want to love
7:03
people. We want to accept people even if
7:04
we disagree with them. And so it's it's learned how to
7:07
manipulate that conscience in order to try to drive them into
7:14
guilt into doing what they're supposed to do.
7:17
That kind of a thing. So that's the, that's the big
7:19
story introduction to it all. Wow, that.
7:23
That's amazing. I want to talk a little bit
7:26
about like character development for one second.
7:28
So like you're, you're zooming out, big picture.
7:30
These are big topics. They're relevant.
7:32
We need to be going here. Thank God that we have you to do
7:36
this for, for us as podcasters, as listeners, as just people
7:41
that are, in a nutshell, wrestling with these topics
7:44
ourselves. So let's talk about character
7:46
development here. When you're writing this book,
7:49
what was the inspiration like as these characters are developing
7:53
to enter into these these very controversial topics?
7:57
Yeah, well, you know what? I I come from Hollywood, so I
8:01
love entertainment and I believe entertainment.
8:04
So while I have a why I have that higher level interest in
8:08
these things, the bottom line is you got to tell a great thriller
8:12
story. And you know, one of my biggest
8:14
inspirations of all time has been Silence of the Lambs.
8:16
As well as the movie 7. Those are my two favorite
8:19
thrillers and I sort of write within that direction and from
8:23
that perspective and that kind of you know, dealing with the
8:26
scares and the fright but not going gory, too gory or or too
8:30
extreme, but but wrestling with that that primal human nature,
8:37
you know, and evil. The problem of evil and.
8:40
And and the desire in human nature and how that works itself
8:43
out. But so my main characters end up
8:45
being like I said this this character Joseph Calinger is his
8:52
name. He's a a professor of psychology
8:54
and he's like a Jordan Peterson. And so he's trying to bring back
8:58
Western civilization into the university.
9:01
And of course he's being attacked by all the students, by
9:03
and, and he enters into all the politics of the university.
9:07
You know when when you go against the grain and when you
9:11
go against the establishment, what do they do?
9:12
They try to take you out. They try to, they try to cancel
9:15
you. So they're trying to cancel him
9:17
and and get rid of him and accuse him of things.
9:20
So basically I have what goes on on these modern day campuses.
9:25
I actually drew from real events that have been happening in the
9:29
in the last years that you can read about in the news.
9:32
You know you've got issues like the Evergreen University where,
9:35
you know, famous. Secular professors Brett
9:38
Weinstein and and his wife, you know, stood up to the mob of
9:44
student protesters who were racists trying to force white
9:48
people to white professors not to come in and teach white not
9:52
to have white people even on campus for that whole day.
9:55
And they got shut down and cancelled because they refused
9:58
to follow that racist thought. Or you know that racist demand
10:04
but yet this is the kind of thing that's going on in a lot
10:05
of universities, right. And so then the students didn't
10:09
became violent in their protests and some of the professors were
10:14
actually endangered at at moments, you know, because of
10:18
their their violence as well as you know BLM and Antifa and that
10:22
the kind of things that they are doing all over the country.
10:25
So I'm bringing in all these. Components of our culture, and
10:30
I'm basing them all on what's really been going on.
10:32
So when you read this story in cruel logic, it's not going to
10:34
be outrageous things that I've made-up.
10:36
It's going to be this is stuff in the news.
10:39
In fact, I've even footnoted some of it because I've I've
10:42
sort of wanted people to realize, you know, this is not
10:44
crazy stuff I'm making up. This is really going on and I
10:47
just want you to know that. But you can enjoy the story and
10:50
and be entertained by it, and hopefully have this thrills and
10:52
chills that that that that a good thrill is supposed to have.
10:58
So, yeah, so I so I've, I've been inspired by Silence of
11:01
Lambs. My my main killer, Charles
11:03
Cullen is a brilliant philosophy professor.
11:06
So he comes from that, that background.
11:09
He's an Englishman. So he's got that English accent
11:11
and which I have in the audio book as well.
11:14
But and then then the character is evangelical Christian.
11:17
And you know, my goal was to to tell a story of.
11:22
I've been really sort of moved by what's called Christian
11:27
deconstruction or Christian deconversion.
11:30
This is happening a lot now where Christians will go to
11:34
college and they'll lose their faith.
11:36
But of course that's been happening ever since we've had
11:40
schools, right? But recently that's just been a
11:43
phenomenon. I think because of podcast a lot
11:45
of people have. Started their podcasts and they
11:48
share their stories and a lot of them are Christian celebrities.
11:51
Christian musicians or what have you right.
11:54
And so they're telling their stories about how they lost
11:56
their faith. And and I think that it's really
11:58
sad because this is an issue that I think all Christians have
12:01
to wrestle with and dealing with the doubts in their life and the
12:05
troublesome things like evil. You know how how can there be a
12:10
God with such evil going on in this world?
12:12
How could he let this go? You know, that kind of thing.
12:15
And and to honestly wrestle with these issues, and that's what I
12:17
do through this character Danny and as he also gets introduced
12:21
to the social justice movement, how he gets sucked into it.
12:24
Because I think a lot of that is connected.
12:27
And my my contention is that a lot of Christians today we're
12:31
we're really ill equipped to deal with doubts and skepticism.
12:36
And so for instance, a lot of churches, you know, they'll tell
12:38
you all about Jesus and your prayer life and church and and
12:42
reading the Bible and the Bible's a word of God, but they
12:44
won't really give you the, the background to defend that.
12:49
It's sort of like just believe, just have faith, you know.
12:52
And what happens is these Christians will then go to
12:54
college and they'll, you know, they're taught, just believe the
12:57
Bible's a word of God. Every word's perfect.
13:00
And the trouble is, is that. It's not.
13:03
It's not that way. It's the word of God.
13:05
But it's not perfect in the the the translations are not perfect
13:09
in the way that you would expect them to be, but they're not told
13:12
this. So when they go to college, they
13:13
get introduced to Bart Airman, and they see the facts that have
13:18
been hidden by Christians because they're afraid to deal
13:20
with it, which is transmission errors and all these kinds of
13:23
issues. There are apologetics.
13:26
People who deal with this stuff, but not a lot of Christians,
13:28
know much about it. So when they get introduced to
13:30
it, they lose their faith because it it.
13:32
These are facts that you can't deny, but they go against what
13:35
what they've been taught is what the Bible is.
13:38
So they've been misdirected, misinformed, miseducated, and
13:43
they're not equipped to be able to deal with atheism with
13:46
skepticism and doubts. In a real deep way, and I think
13:50
this is part of the reason, part of the reason why they're losing
13:53
their faith is that the other part is also I think the
13:57
sociology of a lot of Christianity, you know with the
14:00
seeker seeker sensitive churches focusing more on trying to be
14:04
relevant rather than truth oriented and I think also not
14:08
dealing with. Some of the personal issues that
14:12
are, shall we say, The Dirty little secrets that that many
14:16
Christians struggle with but we don't hear a lot about, such as
14:19
pornography. So I have my character in the
14:22
story actually struggling with pornography in an honest, frank
14:26
way. So I'm not here to make, I'm not
14:30
here to write cliches or stereotypes.
14:32
I want to be honest with all my characters.
14:34
And the Christian character has his struggles, has his sins.
14:38
Has his issues, but he's not a a fake person.
14:40
He's not some, you know, judgmental fundamentalist
14:44
homophobe running around. Oh, you're going to hell, you
14:46
know, No, anyone Christian. But he just has a a faith that's
14:51
not really founded on much of anything and which makes him
14:54
easy. Pray.
14:55
And you know, by the same token, you know, I seek to show this
14:59
woke university what it's like on the woke campus.
15:02
But again, I'm not. Coming up with extreme scenarios
15:07
to make the the the bad guy look look extremely evil and you
15:12
know, like the kind of thing that they do with Christians,
15:14
you know The Handmaid's Tale, right?
15:16
So look at the dystopia that the Handmaid's tell this.
15:19
This one's got in control of the country.
15:21
Look what they would do and like none of it looks like anything
15:24
that any Christians think or believe, right?
15:26
That's so absurd. And it's amazing how people buy
15:29
it because of their prejudices and biases.
15:32
So I don't want to be like that. I want to be honest even to the
15:36
to the viewpoints that I don't necessarily agree with and to
15:39
this what's it like, what's going on in the woke
15:41
universities? What's really going on?
15:44
And so therefore I also show what is drawing people, not just
15:48
what's bad about it, but. What is it that's good about it
15:51
that is making people be drawn into it?
15:54
And how do these things interplay and what's what's
15:57
really going on? So yeah, I don't try to make
15:59
straw man or cliches. I really, my goal as a
16:04
storyteller is to be honest and frank about every viewpoint in
16:09
the story. So that even though I definitely
16:12
have a viewpoint as a storyteller, I want to depict
16:16
all the different viewpoints, all the different.
16:19
Kinds of people that there are as best as possible and not
16:23
slander them as you know, cliches and stereotypes, which
16:26
is what most people do to their Christian characters when
16:29
they're attacking Christianity and stories and such.
16:32
I don't want to do that back to them, you know.
16:34
I want to tell a good story and one that might might at least
16:38
draw people in with a with an honesty that that I hope will
16:42
will ring true. Superlative.
16:47
That's amazing, Brian. It's just a couple things that
16:50
stood out. It's like how many men in the
16:52
church deal with the struggling with pornography.
16:55
So as people are going to be reading this, they're going to
16:58
identify struggles that they've either had in the past or
17:01
currently dealing with. So it's really going to
17:03
emotionally tie them in now and just it's it's phenomenal you
17:07
you covered so much there and we don't really have anybody else
17:12
that that I'm aware of that is bringing into a it right into
17:17
your home into your lap real life issues that are taking
17:21
place real time under our news where we can take this journey
17:26
through a nonbiased but but Christian perspective.
17:29
And I think it's, it's crazy cool that, you know, this guy is
17:34
hitting up the campuses and just taking out, you know, all these
17:37
false ideologies because it's kind of like that's what the
17:39
gospel really does at the heart of it.
17:42
And it's phenomenal. Phenomenal, so.
17:45
Now do get me wrong. He's a bad guy.
17:46
He's the villain. And he's not just making a
17:49
philosophical point. I'm not going to reveal the
17:51
twists that occur in the story. There are definitely he's he's
17:54
there's more story than just that and but that's where it
17:58
begins. That's that's the sort of press,
18:00
you know, I I actually got this idea from a Christian apologist
18:06
that I love to listen to years ago he was.
18:09
Back in the 60s and 70s, he was famous.
18:11
His name was Walter Martin. And Walter Martin, he wrote
18:16
Kingdom of the Cults. Anyway, he was a Rascal.
18:18
He was a he. He had a good sense of humor.
18:21
That's why I liked him. And so he was talking on this
18:24
old radio show that I was listening to, and he was
18:27
describing his frustration with some atheist one in particular
18:30
he was debating with. He was trying to say, hey, look,
18:32
look, you know, he's like. He he's, he's like, you know,
18:35
your atheism doesn't provide a foundation for morality.
18:38
He's like, what are you talking about?
18:39
I believe in morality. I believe murder's wrong and I
18:41
don't believe in God. He's like, yeah, that you True,
18:44
you do, but you don't have a foundation for it because your
18:46
atheism is contradictory. And he got so frustrated that
18:50
the atheist couldn't think about his thinking.
18:53
You know, he couldn't realize what's the foundation of what
18:56
I'm thinking. And so he just got so
18:58
frustrated. He got to the point.
18:59
He's like, OK, look, it's 1940s. I'm a Nazi with a gun pointed at
19:04
you. You're a Jew.
19:05
Give me one reason why I shouldn't shoot you, you know,
19:09
And that always stuck with me. That haunted me for years
19:12
because I felt that was a that was a powerful, dramatic way to
19:18
Incarnate the moral argument for the existence of God.
19:22
In other words, you know, we can make these logical arguments and
19:25
and and they're legitimate. They're valid but but in some
19:29
ways if you can embody. A concept or an argument into a
19:35
human dramatic story. It could be more powerful and it
19:39
can hit home in a more powerful way, just like a an analogy or a
19:42
metaphor, right? And that's kind of what that did
19:45
for me. It like, wow, that really
19:47
encapsules encapsulates the the moral problem that atheists
19:51
really have because they will attack Christianity.
19:56
You know, if there's a loving God, if there's, if he's all
19:59
powerful and all loving, then why is there evil, Right.
20:02
And yet the truth is, is wait a minute, wait a minute.
20:04
You're you atheist. You're the one that has the real
20:06
problem. Because if there's no God, why
20:09
are you calling anything evil? Why do you have a problem with
20:12
murder? Why what?
20:13
There is no such thing as evil there.
20:15
Everything is permissible at dos, as Dostoevsky had said.
20:18
Right. And.
20:19
And interestingly, I find Dostoevsky's.
20:22
You know his Sort of. Expression of this same argument
20:29
in Brothers Karamazov was one of the best expressions of it, with
20:34
Ivan debating Alyosha about, you know, this, this, you know,
20:40
against the love of God. You know, how could a loving God
20:42
create a world in which this girl is beat up and tortured and
20:44
raped by her own parents and smeared with excrement, right?
20:48
And it's just this horror that he but he he really captures the
20:51
profound emotional movement and psychological disturbance that
20:58
evil should give all of us, including Christians.
21:01
So I'm actually trying to wrestle through with this
21:04
problem of evil in God's existence and how do these
21:07
things coexist in a world? I want to wrestle with it,
21:11
honestly, because I do believe it's the universal conundrum or
21:16
it's the universal struggle in all of our hearts.
21:19
And as you get older, as the more I live, the more I become
21:23
acutely aware of the suffering and evil that's in the world and
21:26
how unjust it is in in many levels, right.
21:29
And I think that that when you have that concern and you're and
21:33
you think through, if you're an honest person, you're going to
21:35
say, hey, look this does cause me trouble.
21:37
It's not easily answered just like that.
21:40
And so I wanted, I want to wrestle through with that issue
21:43
too, on that deep human, psychological and spiritual
21:48
level. So.
21:51
What do you hope that like let's just say a non believer would
21:54
take away big picture and and even personally like what kind
21:58
of goes through your mind and then let's let's make this a
22:02
two-part that with a Christian what are you really wanting them
22:05
to see highlighted big picture and what is your hope through
22:09
the this story to to really grasp them deep on the inside.
22:15
Yeah I don't know I mean that's an interesting question do you
22:18
know? I don't know.
22:21
I guess I don't know if I have a specific, if I have a specific
22:26
thing I want a an unbeliever to know or get out of it or a
22:30
believer. When I write a story like this,
22:33
I come at it from, you know, as we mentioned, these big picture
22:37
issues. And so I'm wrestling with a
22:41
deep, multifaceted, multiperspectival issue.
22:47
I'm actually, rather than seeking to prove something or
22:51
seeking to make my readers see something, I'm seeking as a
22:56
storyteller to honestly enter into the story, enter into the
23:02
issues that I'm that I'm wrestling with and to try to
23:06
explore it from many different viewpoints and to be truthful
23:11
and honest about them and fair. So don't get me wrong, as a
23:15
storyteller, I definitely have a viewpoint, but in order to be a
23:18
good storyteller, I want to, even if I have opposing
23:22
viewpoints, I want to show the best of those viewpoints in a
23:25
story. Because people embody these
23:29
viewpoints in the way they live and the choices they make, the
23:31
moral choices they make, right. And like I said, I'm, I'm not
23:35
out to make. I'm not to you know make paint
23:39
stereotypes and cliches and and political propaganda.
23:43
I want to I want to wrestle with the human condition in an honest
23:46
way. And that means you know, giving
23:50
giving your opponents their fair shake so to speak.
23:53
You know, depict all the varying viewpoints with the best they
23:56
they've got and then seek to try to tell a story how I think
24:00
this, this can work out how I think this works out in the real
24:04
world because the the ultimate, you know, one of the dominant
24:07
themes in the story is ideas have consequences.
24:11
So if you really lived consistently with some of these
24:14
ideas that people have, what would it really look like?
24:18
I think many people really do have a lot of beliefs and
24:21
they're very convicted about them.
24:22
Whether believers or unbelievers, it doesn't matter.
24:25
They have strong convictions. But I found actually both
24:28
Christian and nonchristians have not thought through a lot of
24:31
their beliefs. They'll believe contradictory
24:33
things, you know? And they're not really.
24:36
They really haven't thought it through.
24:38
And but while while I am intrigued by philosophy, by
24:44
worldview thinking, I also understand that not everyone
24:48
thinks in those terms. Not everyone cares about
24:50
philosophy or, you know, theology, right?
24:53
And so I'm also have that dual interest in, like I say,
24:57
entertainment, drama, thrillers, You know, I love that kind of
25:01
stuff. And so I figure, you know what,
25:04
let me let me tell a story that it combines both my interests
25:07
and maybe people will be drawn in to to something that's a
25:11
little different and and sort of make things interesting, you
25:15
know? And who's your favorite
25:18
character that that you wrote about?
25:20
Who? Like when you were writing from,
25:22
you know you're talking about all these other perspectives,
25:24
Like you wanted to give everybody a fair shake and just
25:26
have a brief good overview that just connects all these things
25:29
together. But who was your personal
25:30
favorite to write about? Well, yeah, I know that's a good
25:33
question. I do have a favorite.
25:35
So like I said, I, I have all these different, you know,
25:37
professor characters, right. And again, I I don't, I don't
25:43
seek to make them into cliches. You know, I I do try to paint
25:46
characters that are common in, in these various fields.
25:50
You know, there are certainly patterns of behavior, patterns
25:54
of look and dress, right. You know, just like nerds look
25:56
very similar, jocks look very similar, right.
25:59
So. So there are very many
26:00
professors who also look very similar, but but that's a
26:03
shallow understanding. My goal was to sort of capture
26:07
the a common archetype so to speak of each of these different
26:11
characters. But my personal favorite
26:13
character was the was the main protagonist of the story which
26:16
is Joseph Calendar. Like I said he he is a professor
26:20
of of psychology and what I like about him is he represents a
26:25
kind of a Jordan Peterson character to me.
26:27
And this is also something I've noticed is there is there are,
26:32
It's almost like another there's almost like a backlash against
26:36
this woke anti western civilization movement.
26:41
There is more intelligent men who are standing up up and
26:47
fighting for western civilization, including fighting
26:51
for the judeo-christian. They understand that there's a
26:53
judeo-christian basis to it and that we get rid of this at our
26:59
peril. Right.
27:00
But interestingly, a lot of these men are not even
27:04
Christians. So they're sort of you know,
27:07
like a Jordan Peterson where well he certainly has a kind of
27:10
a belief but he said so himself that it it's not the it's not
27:13
the typical sort of with the way we understand having sort of an
27:17
evangelical understanding of you know having a personal
27:19
relationship with God and and but there's others like Douglas
27:23
Murray you know who defends Western civilization and I love
27:27
these guys. Tom Holland they write about
27:30
this stuff but I find it so interesting they're not
27:32
Christians. And so I I wanted to what's it
27:35
like to be that kind of a person you know and and and where might
27:40
that lead you know and what's the difference Why is it that
27:45
they can believe in Western civilization believe that
27:48
judeo-christian you know Bible worldview is good for society
27:54
and yet still not believe it for themselves.
27:56
What does that what is that like and what what might that end in
27:59
you know. And so that was my personal
28:02
favorite journey because I literally was trying to
28:06
understand I I I because I'm I'm a Christian and so I'm like how
28:10
could you be for all this stuff and yet not fully embrace it.
28:13
And in in terms of the faith and and it's sort of like you
28:16
believe it but you don't believe it.
28:17
I don't understand that. You know and this isn't a this
28:20
isn't a I don't say this as a criticism.
28:22
I love these guys. I I have other respect for them.
28:24
I just truly don't understand and I wanted to try to
28:27
understand that and that that was the most interesting part of
28:31
my writing for me personally. Fascinating.
28:35
Yeah. I mean, you have so, so many
28:37
previous popular series, you know, The Chronicles of the
28:40
Nephilim. I mean just you have so much.
28:45
Ferocity in in your writing that just is it's the ripple effect
28:50
is can't really determine it Brian it's it's fascinating just
28:54
to hear you talk because it as many people has been affected by
28:58
this it's it's amazing so do you are do you have a Part 2 in mind
29:04
for this cruel logic or do you think it just stands alone or or
29:08
does the development of the things that were.
29:12
Dealing within the world, determine what may be.
29:16
You know, putting some time on it and saying, yeah, Part 2
29:18
could develop, but let's see how things shift in turn.
29:21
You know, who knows what the future may bring.
29:23
At this point I I see it as a standalone novel, but I have a
29:26
series of novels called theological novels that I am
29:29
interested in exploring. And again, it's it's sort of
29:34
like combining philosophy and serial killers.
29:37
I, you know, I'm hoping this will be a a a new interest in
29:42
people, you know, putting together 2 opposite things, so
29:44
to speak, to make them interesting, you know make
29:48
philosophy interesting again, I don't know.
29:50
But all I know is that that's what I that's why I look, I
29:53
love, like I said, I love, I love serial killer stories and I
29:58
love philosophy. So I I'm, I'm putting the two
30:00
together. And so I do have some other
30:02
stories that I'm I'm working on and they're actually rooted more
30:07
in in true stories that have happened.
30:10
But I'm going to be, you know, adding some fictional characters
30:13
who who interact with the story that I think might be very
30:18
interesting, but we'll see. Now I want to bring up.
30:24
So you're an awardwinning screenwriter, right?
30:27
You've been doing Hollywood movies for the past 20 years.
30:30
A more recent controversial film is My son Hunter.
30:34
This is 2022. Let's just talk a little bit
30:36
about that. Just.
30:37
How did that work out and what was that process like?
30:43
Yeah, So my son Hunter is a political satire, not a
30:46
documentary. It's a political satire.
30:48
It's a drama that's based on Hunter Biden's laptop.
30:54
Now, of course, when we when I first started writing it in 2021
30:59
or something like that 22, it was of course still being
31:02
suppressed, right? And and now all the facts have
31:04
come out about how it was suppressed.
31:06
Now it's all true. And and but at the time it was
31:09
still not promoted or it's suppressed.
31:13
It was suppressed in mainstream media and so but there were
31:16
journalists like Miranda Devine who put out her book Laptop from
31:20
Hell. Although that came after my I I
31:24
read that I found out about it after I wrote the movie.
31:27
It wasn't released until we started making the movie.
31:30
But she had done a lot of reporting on it and and so there
31:33
was a lot of reporting in the New York Post and other sources
31:36
that actually gave a lot of the details of what was on the
31:39
laptop and we want. So the producers came to me and
31:43
they said, you know we want to do a movie on on to buy his
31:45
laptop, but we don't know what to do.
31:47
You know what give us some ideas And and I said, you know, I
31:49
don't want to do documentary and they didn't either because you
31:52
know there's a place for documentaries, but I don't know.
31:55
And there's. But also I found it was so
31:58
complex because here you have this, this, you know, as we now
32:02
are seeing, all these complex connections to all these, you
32:06
know, countries, whether it's Ukraine or China, Russia and
32:12
dirty business dealings with the Bidens, you know, and and of
32:17
course the sensational stuff was the prostitutes and the drugs,
32:22
you know, and that's you got to have that in Hollywood movies so
32:24
that, you know, on one level I'm like, well, this is a Hollywood
32:27
movie because it's got the sex and drugs and rock'n'roll.
32:30
But there's more to it, right? You know but here's the
32:32
interesting thing, both the producers and I, when we
32:36
developed the story and and so they they they came to me and
32:40
said you know yeah what can we do And I thought well you know
32:42
what I was really inspired by The Big Short and and The Wolf
32:48
of Wall Street kind of. I mean the the technique that
32:51
was used where they they do a political satire and and they do
32:55
a lot of creative things like they break the 4th wall where
32:58
they talk to the audience and you know they do all these you
33:01
know funny quirky things that allows them to cover a lot of
33:04
time and a lot of issues quickly.
33:07
And that's what this was and and I didn't want to get bored and I
33:10
want to pick the most highlights but how do you, how do you link
33:13
all these things together or you can do it through satire because
33:15
it's comedy and that allows you to make a lot of jumps and make
33:19
connections that you couldn't do in a normal traditional story
33:22
And and I realized that's what it needs to be.
33:25
But also secondly this wasn't a it wasn't a it was not a
33:31
political hit piece. I mean like and both the
33:34
producers agreed with me. We did not want to you know
33:39
write a movie that will show how bad Hunter Biden is and look at
33:44
how you know this is what Hollywood does right with all
33:45
their political enemies. You know, the Comey rule does it
33:48
to Trump and and the with the loudest voice in the room to
33:53
Roger Ailes, they just, they make these their their enemy,
33:57
their the the politicians they're critiquing or attacking.
34:02
They just making them into these absurd monsters, you know?
34:05
And what was the Dick Cheney one?
34:08
I can't remember what that one was called.
34:10
But anyway, they're all just ridiculous sort of cliche
34:13
stereotypes and like, you know what?
34:15
I wasn't interested in that. And I actually felt the kind of
34:19
sense of sadness for Hunter Biden because I saw this as this
34:25
is a interfamily dysfunction. That's deep.
34:28
Father, son, but also elder brother who ended up dying.
34:31
But it's a, it's a 3 way sort of father, son relationship and
34:35
there's a lot of dysfunction, but a lot of it's driven by this
34:38
desire to be loved, to be accepted.
34:40
You know, it was very deep, personal, typical universal
34:44
family dysfunction stuff only on an extreme level because of the
34:49
drugs and the sex and the crimes of the bind family, right.
34:52
And so we wanted to actually delve into that personal
34:57
relationship with the Bidens, you know, and that was the human
35:03
drama that actually made me want to do the movie.
35:06
And what's interesting about it is although every leftist outfit
35:11
attacked the movie, which is a sign that we did a good job
35:14
because they felt they needed to attack it.
35:16
And. Right.
35:17
But some, it's interesting because some of them were like,
35:20
yeah, but, you know, they kind of made Hunter Biden a kind of
35:24
empathetic, you know, and they didn't understand this.
35:27
Some of them thought we did it unwittingly, like we didn't
35:30
realize we were making him empathetic, and others couldn't
35:34
figure out why. And it's so funny because it's
35:37
like they are so blinded by their ideology that they could
35:40
only imagine demonizing their opponents.
35:43
They don't understand how to humanize opponents.
35:47
And here we are, conservatives, filmmakers.
35:49
We're humanizing our opponents and we're telling a good story
35:54
about them and they don't get it.
35:56
It just doesn't jive in their minds.
35:58
They're that blinded by it. But that was also affirming and
36:01
confirming to us that we did the right thing.
36:03
And we did it well. We did it right.
36:05
You know. So yeah, I was kind of proud of
36:07
that. And, you know, yeah.
36:09
And and of course happy with. The performances were excellent
36:12
by Lawrence Fox playing Hunter Biden and James John James
36:18
playing Joe Biden. Of course, in Hollywood,
36:23
normally you can get characters that look exactly like them,
36:26
that are great actors, but of course not when you're doing a
36:29
movie about the Bidens, right? So nobody in Hollywood would
36:32
hardly work with us. We had to get only those who are
36:34
willing to give up their careers, right?
36:36
But fortunately they still we still did a pretty good job
36:39
because Lawrence Fox looked pretty good as a hunter and he
36:42
was fantastic. Actor John James was quite heavy
36:45
and and and a lot more deep of a voice than than Joe Biden.
36:49
But his acting was so well that you know you, it drew you into
36:56
the story. Anyway, I was able to put aside
36:57
the fact that OK, he doesn't look exactly like Joe, he
37:00
doesn't talk exactly like Joe, but he's got the character down
37:03
and that's the most important is finding the soul of the
37:07
character. So all that was happening, I
37:09
think all that that happened with that, with that movie,
37:11
pretty well. But of course Hollywood would
37:13
not distribute it. They couldn't get it distributed
37:15
anywhere. So even to this day you can only
37:18
see it online. Streaming@mysonhunter.com and
37:24
you know for pretty, I think pretty good price.
37:25
I don't know if it's rentable or or you have to buy it or not,
37:28
but yeah, so that's where we were with that and I was kind of
37:32
surprised that oh, so, so now that all this stuff that's now
37:35
coming out and being covered on mostly in Twitter, not on in the
37:39
mainstream media still. It's X now, right?
37:41
It's X. It's like you could, so I can't
37:44
even keep up with it. Yeah, it's kind of funny, but
37:47
but the stuff that's now coming out, it's so funny because I'm
37:49
looking at this stuff and it it's not new.
37:52
None of the stuff that they were and this e-mail is where he's
37:56
called him the big guy. It's like this stuff was, it was
38:00
known years ago when I was writing the script.
38:02
So nothing is new. So I'm kind of proud of the fact
38:05
that I ended up picking all the most interesting things for the
38:08
story. That also happens to be the the,
38:12
the revelations now that are coming out about what was really
38:16
going on and and so it's like, oh, we picked the right, we
38:18
picked the right component elements for the story.
38:22
Yeah, so proud of that. Wow.
38:25
Yeah, that that's, it's quite, quite a journey, man.
38:30
I love. One of the highlights I'll just
38:32
comment on real quick before the next question is you didn't try
38:35
to demonize Hunter Biden like you just were honest to the
38:40
process. And I think I mean, he's a
38:43
pathetic. He's a We all know that.
38:46
He's tragic, right? And and he's kind of a hero, but
38:49
he's a tragic hero. In other words, his bad choices
38:52
lead to his demise. And that's what a tragedy is all
38:56
about. But of course in this, in the
38:58
reality, it's not going to happen that way, right?
39:00
He's going to get away with his crimes, sadly.
39:03
So we actually deal with that in the movie as well.
39:05
I deal with the fact that we all know that justice is not going
39:08
to be played out. And so let's have a let's see
39:11
what a fairy tale ending really is like in a movie.
39:13
That kind of thing. Amazing, amazing.
39:17
And I'm going to put links in the show notes, you guys.
39:19
So as we just kind of go through these different, you know,
39:21
screen rights and movies and and Brian's books, you guys will be
39:25
able to find all those details in the show notes.
39:27
So let's kind of like even walk back to 2011 alleged, right.
39:31
Let's talk a little bit about this is a screenplay.
39:34
It's awardwinning feature film. What one best narrative?
39:40
Feature and actors awards and six major film festivals.
39:44
That's phenomenal. Just let's do a brief overview
39:46
on that real quick. Honestly, I, I forgot about all
39:48
that. But yeah, that was a fun, that
39:51
was a fun movie to write. So that's based on the Scopes
39:54
Monkey Trial, right. So we, you know and Fred Foot
39:57
was the investor and the and the producer and and executive
40:01
producer that he really wanted to tell the true story that had
40:03
been, you know, when you hear Scopes Monkey Trial, what do you
40:06
think whatever it is you think it's all based on this?
40:10
This propaganda of like these podunk ignorant Christians
40:19
standing up against the great edifice of science and
40:23
knowledge, you know, it's just ridiculous.
40:25
What does everyone know? Inherit the Wind, which was a
40:28
play and a movie, even though it's like, you know, I don't
40:31
know from the 60s or something 50s, everyone knows that.
40:36
And yet that is a complete farce.
40:38
It's a complete falsehood. And so Fred wanted to sort of,
40:43
well, let's tell the the true story.
40:45
But be fair again, we're not going to demonize the way they
40:48
demonize Christians. We're not going to demonize the
40:50
atheists. But we wanted to show, you know,
40:53
from from both sides, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings
40:56
Bryan. And of course, we had some great
40:59
actors. Fred Thompson, they're both
41:01
deceased now. Brian Dennehy and Fred Thompson
41:03
played those two Titans, you know, and we show that that
41:06
battle Royale as it's called, as it was called, but in a way that
41:11
we also wanted to show the cult. Again, this is one of my themes.
41:15
Ideas have consequences. In that story, I said I wanted
41:18
to deal with the consequences of this idea, not just the trial
41:23
and and the battle that was going on at the time.
41:26
But we, we brought in something that was actually historically
41:30
occurring at the time, which was euthanasia and how euthanasia
41:35
was based on the social Darwinian view.
41:37
It took Darwinism and brought it to its logical conclusion in
41:42
society. And of course, now people say,
41:44
oh, it is that, you know, that that was misinterpreting
41:47
evolution. That's twisting it.
41:48
No, actually, it was just being consistent.
41:50
And that's the bottom line. And Clarence Darrow actually did
41:54
believe in in evolution and he actually did believe in
41:59
euthanasia. So he's really a villain.
42:03
It's interesting because he's one of the greatest, you know,
42:07
defender lawyers in, in liberal history.
42:11
But he was quite, a quite the monster.
42:13
In fact that was the guy before. And we brought this into the
42:15
movie too. The fact that before the trial
42:19
he had also defended Leopold and Loeb, who were these two college
42:27
kids who murdered a 14 year old boy.
42:30
And their defense, literally because of evolution, was still
42:37
popular and well known. And these kids were upper elites
42:43
who just killed some kid that they happen to know, but they
42:48
did it more out of a nihilistic sort of curiosity.
42:53
And so they were educated and they had actually studied.
42:57
They were actually known about Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche
43:00
and his worldview and as well as evolution.
43:05
And so Clarence Darrow in the trial actually made the argument
43:08
that, you know, hey, these, these boys believe that and and
43:13
and we're being taught this. So can you blame them if they've
43:17
been taught that we're animals and there's no morality?
43:19
You know, there's they're soup. They're overmen, Ubermensch.
43:21
They're overmen. Why not?
43:25
You know, I mean, how can you blame them?
43:26
The point was they're not to blame.
43:28
Society has taught them this, and and here he believes in it,
43:32
but he's also justifying it. He was truly an evil monster,
43:35
you know? And so anyway, we brought a
43:37
little bit about that reality. And in other words, this is all
43:41
ideas have consequences in society.
43:43
It's not just this, Oh, Christians are Christians are
43:47
idiots because they're suppressing science.
43:49
No. It's if you're teaching this
43:51
stuff, if you teach people that they're animals without
43:53
morality, it's no surprise that they're going to act like
43:57
animals without morality. So these are the issues that we
44:01
wrestle but of course the the movie alleged was definitely not
44:06
you know, not like my R rated you know cruel logic or anything
44:09
like that was definitely a you know G rated for Christian type
44:12
of story. But but I felt like, you know,
44:15
we tried to deal with, like I say, wrestle with that with a
44:19
with a fresh, more true to history perspective.
44:24
Yeah. And I just wanted to bring up a
44:25
couple other things, just stir up some interest.
44:27
Just so people, you just have such a long list, Brian.
44:31
I just want people to just be aware of of what you've done,
44:34
what you're doing and and even what you will be doing in the
44:37
future. So let's talk a little bit
44:39
about, you know, your founding member of the Arts and
44:43
Entertainment Ministries in LA. We'll just take it from there
44:47
and just tell us what you're a founding member of, what you're
44:50
supporting and what's close to your heart in these days.
44:52
Right now, these are organizations that I've been
44:56
involved in mostly when I was in LA.
44:59
I've since moved out in the last few years.
45:02
But yeah, I've been on boards. I've been in like the Biola task
45:06
force, which is for film. It's it was like with Hollywood
45:09
professionals helping students to to you know adapt and come
45:15
into the real world of filmmaking and the arts and
45:17
entertainment as a ministry to Christian artists that was in
45:20
LA. Yeah.
45:23
Several of these these organizations I belong to where
45:25
I've just tried to be a part of something that is is helping to
45:30
inspire the next generation. And also and also communicate to
45:34
the church a better appreciation for the arts in general because
45:39
we have not had the best reputation.
45:40
The church has not had the best reputation with the arts.
45:44
You know it's often rejected it because of the the risk taking
45:47
that art is the the, you know, the yeah, it sometimes pushes
45:52
the pushes the envelope and sometimes it goes too far.
45:54
But the point is, is the church has tended to have less of a
45:58
support of of art and but we, you know, we've had our good
46:04
days and bad days I think. But that's sort of the other
46:07
part where you know I have even written books like Hollywood
46:10
World Views which was my my desire to help Christians watch
46:13
movies more intelligently. Don't just throw out all the sex
46:16
and violence. So I don't it's all bad.
46:18
Yeah. But also don't say, well, it's
46:19
just entertainment, so it doesn't.
46:22
Is that still being used in Christian colleges to this day?
46:25
Yes. It's build be still being used
46:27
in classes is 20 years old and I did have an updated version.
46:30
But because I talked a lot about Hollywood world views, literally
46:33
how world views are communicated through storytelling in movies
46:37
and television series, right? And you know, the more that you
46:42
understand about an art, the better you can appreciate it,
46:45
but also the more you can discern and not be manipulated
46:48
by it or not be, you know, bamboozled.
46:50
So just like you know. So the more you learn about
46:52
storytelling, you can watch a movie more intelligently
46:55
appreciate it, but also see where you disagree and where you
46:58
you don't want to be controlled. Because storytelling touches us
47:03
in the soul in an unconscious way in some ways.
47:05
You know it it it moves us, it affects us in non rational ways,
47:13
right? So you might be thinking
47:14
rationally on this one level, but that it's touching.
47:17
The story can be touching your heart in a way that's very
47:20
different. And so the more you're aware of
47:22
what that, what that is, how that story does that, then the
47:26
more you're protected, but the more you can also appreciate the
47:30
good as well. So it's discernment between the
47:33
good and the bad. So talk really quickly about, is
47:37
it the Mick Lat Ministries for for Michael Heiser, Mick Lat.
47:42
So yeah, just talk a little bit about that.
47:44
I'm just unfamiliar with it. I'm seeing it here and it's, oh,
47:47
I was drawing some curiosity. Mick Lat is now going to be
47:50
called the Michael S Heiser Foundation, and I'm on the board
47:53
for that because I discovered Michael Heiser's theology a
47:59
decade ago and he was writing about the Divine Council world
48:04
view in the Bible. He's an he passed away about a
48:08
year ago and he he, he. But he wrote about strange
48:14
things in the Bible. Shall we say the stranger things
48:17
in the Bible. Nephilly watchers, the divine
48:20
counsel, all these weird things. You know, but he's a Bible
48:23
believing so. But he's also not afraid to
48:26
address real scholarship in the Bible that other Christians are
48:29
afraid to address. And I discovered him because I
48:32
was writing my what became my first novel Noah Primeval.
48:36
I was actually writing it as a as a screenplay and I discovered
48:41
his book on the Internet before it was a book.
48:43
It was. He was just.
48:45
Starting to write manuscript. Yeah he wasn't he wasn't famous
48:49
yet he's now famous but he wasn't famous at the time.
48:52
And and I discovered and it blew my mind and it opened my opened
48:56
my eyes like Eliza's servant could then see the the the all
49:00
the spiritual powers up there. Well, that's what happened with
49:03
me. And I realized there's a lot of
49:05
stories here that I want to tell from the Bible that has this
49:08
supernatural component that is kind of we miss.
49:11
We miss a lot and and and all these weird things in the Bible
49:14
that we that we're afraid to deal with.
49:17
And that became my series, Chronicles of the Nephylene,
49:20
which is now 8 novels. I've got Chronicles of the
49:23
Watchers, which is about 3 novels now, and they're all
49:26
integrated. And Chronicles of the
49:28
Apocalypse, these are all these novels that I wrote inspired by
49:31
Mike's theology. So I got to know Mike real well
49:33
and. And he put me on his board and.
49:36
And yeah, so. So that was, that was something
49:40
that was life changing for me in terms of theology, but in a way
49:43
that helped me to alter my my relationship and understanding
49:47
of God in a very deep way. I mean it's you're changing the
49:52
world with with this, this story that you just covered here about
49:56
knowing my causer and then seeing these these threads and
49:59
him being this scholar that is, you know, willing to go into
50:03
these areas that other people weren't.
50:04
You know, I'm just looking at it's some stats here, Brian.
50:07
Since 2012, your first novel series, Noah primeval, it's been
50:12
#1 bestseller in the top five biblical fiction spot for the
50:16
past 10 years. Yeah, yeah, even right now.
50:19
Go there. Right now it's it's number one
50:21
in like several categories. In the series of 15 novels have
50:25
dominated for top 20 in biblical fiction.
50:28
So it's just it's phenomenal and.
50:31
I know who Mike Kaiser is. I've known of known of him for
50:34
years. And I just think it's it's noble
50:36
and it's just honorable for you to be on that board because you
50:39
speak so well of him and he's really loved it just in the
50:42
community of my listeners. You know, I never got Mike on
50:46
the show. I reached out to him saying like
50:48
21 and he was busy because he really was drumming up a lot of
50:54
interest. A lot of interest.
50:56
He was just exploding. I mean, oh man, it is one of the
51:00
things we're like, Lord, why, why do you take some of the best
51:02
people, you know. But God used them in a great
51:05
mighty way and he's inspired many of people like me who have
51:08
taken his teaching and we we pushed it further and in the
51:13
other realms. And so it's just sort of the
51:16
form of. Storytelling, just in this form
51:18
of storytelling, what you're doing, which we we talked about
51:21
a few years ago. Last time I talked with you,
51:23
Brian, the power of storytelling.
51:25
And just it's that's what the church is lacking in, like you
51:29
were speaking about earlier. The church does lack in that
51:32
power of storytelling because it's kind of like mundane.
51:34
They just kind of read some churches.
51:36
Not all, not all. Mike Kaiser's church would have
51:39
been, you know, if you would have been at church with him and
51:41
he would have been at the podium, you would have been
51:43
gripping your seat. But yeah, and I love to see how
51:47
you know. God has this calling for you.
51:49
You're obviously on the path he's been opening doors for
51:52
year, year after year after year and the abundance and the
51:55
blessing, yes, that you're you are in God working in and
51:59
through you to just open up these other paradigms.
52:02
Some of us can see this really well.
52:04
Some of us see this but but to get bigger picture revelation is
52:08
is key especially in this age of technology, Brian.
52:12
So let's as we kind of start to wind down a little bit, just
52:14
tell us like. Anything cool going on lately?
52:18
Did you get any cool vacations this past summer?
52:21
And what's on the horizon? Just what's going on in Brian
52:23
Goodell's world, Not a lot, to be honest.
52:26
You know, we moved to Texas, actually a few two and a few
52:29
years ago and just loving it here.
52:30
We escaped Los Angeles and just been loving it.
52:35
But, you know, just try just enjoying living a normal life
52:38
and being, you know, heavily involved in our church and
52:42
trying to resettle in this. Listen, we lived in California
52:46
for 30 years, so it's an. Adjustment.
52:49
It's a big adjustment because as bad as California has become and
52:54
as bad as as the cities definitely are, there's much
52:57
beauty and there's much that we do miss from California and we
53:01
realize how much we become Californians.
53:02
You know, and how we don't certain ways that we don't fit
53:05
in, even though our values are very much like the Midwest and
53:09
Texas and such. There's still much of us that
53:11
yeah, we we're different people now too because of where we've
53:14
we've come from. So, you know, it's it's been,
53:16
it's been a lot of adjusting to that.
53:18
And in the meantime, then I'm just been, you know, trying to
53:21
continue to do my writing ministry, my writing calling.
53:26
So, you know, I usually write like a script a year, a movie a
53:29
year and a book or two a year. But I've slowed down lately and
53:33
I'm trying to get speeding back up again.
53:36
And so now, you know, I'm continuing my Chronicles of the
53:40
Watchers series as well as the next theological thriller novel.
53:45
So now I've kind of got two pathways that I've got to work
53:48
on and we'll see if I can keep up the the pace there.
53:51
But yeah, nothing, nothing big, nothing special, actually, just
53:55
enjoying a normal life, but one that's I've got to focus on this
54:00
storytelling. And it really is a calling
54:02
because as you mentioned, what I write is I do, you know, my I
54:07
love to, I love to tell entertaining stories, but I also
54:11
love to communicate truth and the Kingdom of God in as in as
54:15
entertaining way as possible to people.
54:17
And I really have received, been receiving a lot of responses
54:21
from readers, you know, contacting me and just saying,
54:24
you know, you've brought the Bible alive.
54:26
The Bible is getting dry to me. You've brought it alive again
54:29
and it's but I'm going back to the Bible to reread it.
54:32
In other words, the my storytelling is inspiring to go
54:34
back to the Bible, not just just read more of my books, but it
54:37
was like, yeah, go back and reread that Bible, seeing it in
54:40
with fresh eyes. And that's exactly what happened
54:43
with me. And reading Michael Heiser's
54:44
material and and discovering this new thread line that's been
54:49
there all along. And yeah, and it's just
54:52
inspiring Christians to be able to understand and interpret the
54:58
Bible through the ancient Near Eastern and Hebrew mindset, not
55:04
our modern Western mindset. That has just transformed many
55:09
people. And it's been a pleasure and an
55:11
honor to be part of that. Yeah and we're we're just
55:15
excited to see as you just keep working in your gift and and
55:18
keep doing these things, you're just bringing greater revelation
55:21
and getting people to read their Bible again and ultimately
55:25
develop a personal relationship with Christ.
55:27
From my perspective, that's kind of the goal here on the podcast
55:30
as we have a really wide spectrum of topics we cover.
55:33
I don't want to leave anything out, I mean.
55:35
Don't get me wrong, there's certain things I'm like, Nope,
55:37
don't want to go there. But, you know, we don't want to
55:40
be a stranger to these bigger ideas.
55:42
The church is kind of boxed in, a lot of this thinking and what
55:45
you're doing is blowing the roof off of it.
55:47
And we're shooting up 510 stories in the ideas of what we
55:52
really need at least a minute basis.
55:54
We got to have some language for this stuff.
55:57
And one thing I want to say earlier with the question that
56:00
you know I had asked you with cruel logic.
56:03
Was there anything that you wanted a Christian to see versus
56:06
maybe you know a non Christian that was reading it.
56:09
And like the reason I asked that is because I'm like visualizing
56:12
and thinking just about when you're talking and I'm going.
56:16
So many people are stuck in these narrow trajectories of
56:19
what they they just want to stay right here.
56:22
And whether it's politics or whether it's everybody has hurts
56:26
and pains and and the way that they were raised.
56:28
But I'm hoping that it would just cause them to take one
56:31
little step over. And go, Oh well, that's
56:34
interesting. And it opens and widens this
56:37
track. Not saying that, you know,
56:40
that's the answer, but getting people out of this narrow,
56:44
aggressive you can't tell me anything.
56:47
We can't communicate, we can't sharpen on each other ideas.
56:50
That's really helpful. So I highly recommend you guys
56:55
go pick up Brian's new book and Brian, let's close out.
56:59
Just give us some motivational words.
57:01
For my listeners, you know, give us some edification here real
57:05
quick. I don't know, Rob.
57:08
We're living in crazy times. Give us a little bit of
57:11
edification here. Just, you know, let me tell you.
57:13
Yeah. In fact, that a lot of my
57:14
storytelling too is a response and reaction to the extreme
57:18
polarity, the extreme hostility that is building in our culture.
57:22
And I'm capturing that reality as well in my story.
57:25
And I'm trying to show at least point in the right direction,
57:28
because stories aren't systematic theologies.
57:31
They're not complete philosophical discourses, you
57:33
know? I mean, like, stories challenge
57:37
you to think things through a little bit more.
57:39
They challenge you to think from a different perspective.
57:42
That's my goal. Not to complete everything and
57:45
to provide a complete summary of all truth or, you know, that's
57:48
ridiculous. But but I I'm telling my stories
57:51
to try to help people to start to see things differently and
57:55
not fall prey to that very hostile polarity that is
58:03
breeding violence in this culture.
58:06
It and I see it happening and I see it coming, and it's getting
58:09
stronger. And I deal with that very issue
58:13
in in cruel logic. Ideas have consequences and
58:15
violent ideas have violent consequences.
58:18
And we've got to. We've got to somehow we've got
58:22
to band together against this, and I don't know how.
58:26
You know, there are people who are of differing viewpoints who
58:29
are banding together, you know, like those who support free
58:32
speech. You've got left and right,
58:34
Democrats and Republicans who do believe in free speech and
58:38
supporting it. But we need more and beyond
58:41
that, because the the commanding heights of the culture have been
58:46
captured by this woke monster and at the heart of it is hatred
58:52
and violence and separating people.
58:55
So we're we need to seek to draw together and stop this
59:00
demonization of your of your opponents.
59:04
Very, very well said, very well said.
59:06
That's, that's important. Yeah.
59:10
Brian, it was an honor to have you here with me and just to go
59:15
over this. And I don't know if you knew
59:16
this or not, but you're actually in the introduction for the
59:18
show. So when you were on, I think it
59:20
was 2020 or 2021 at the very end of the episode I asked you for
59:26
some wine down words and you yelled freedom and you said in
59:30
the words of William Wallace, right.
59:31
So that's actually in the intro to the show.
59:33
So for all you guys listening where there's this like climax,
59:37
you know when you hear freedom being yelled, that's that's
59:39
Brian here and that's cool. Yeah man.
59:42
Tell people where they can find you and where where you prefer
59:47
people to purchase the book. You know if we can get some
59:49
people over there to to get a copy.
59:52
Is this on Amazon? You know just go through that
59:53
real quick and look if you're if.
59:55
We'll close out if you're really curious about me as an author
59:58
and all the things I've done in movies and all that, gaddala.com
1:00:01
is my website. There's a lot of stuff there to
1:00:03
look through, but if you just want to go straight to the books
1:00:05
and just find out information about the books, what are the
1:00:07
books about and all that, the best thing is just go to Amazon.
1:00:10
Because all my books are exclusively on Amazon and
1:00:12
paperback, Kindle audio book, and some are even in hardback.
1:00:18
And you know, you go there and you find like the Gadala's
1:00:21
author page or the series page for Chronicles and nothing and
1:00:24
it'll it'll give you a big lowdown on what what the books
1:00:27
are about and what you can expect right there on Amazon and
1:00:30
and buy it right there. So yeah, everything exclusively
1:00:33
on Amazon and my name is spelled GODAWA.
1:00:40
It was a pleasure to have you with me and you guys.
1:00:42
That's it. That's the episode.
1:00:44
I'm blown away. This is something I'm gonna re
1:00:46
listen to after I launch it for you guys to listen to here and.
1:00:50
Brian is really pushing the boundaries.
1:00:52
He's stretching the boundaries here and this is, this is
1:00:56
honorable you know and we're we're a working body.
1:01:00
So his function is important because we all work together and
1:01:04
we we're supposed to be processing this information and
1:01:07
encouraging each other through the process.
1:01:09
So that's it. That's the show.
1:01:11
Share this one with a friend, family member with your
1:01:13
coworker. God bless and goodbye.