Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / What Can Franchises Tell Us About Jesus? || Christians and Harry Potter || SLP431

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What Can Franchises Tell Us About Jesus? || Christians and Harry Potter || SLP431 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_02: Well, hello, and thank you so much for downloading episode 431 of the Speak Life Podcast.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: My name is Thomas Thoroughgood, media producer at Speak Life.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: I produce media.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: And today we have an episode, a conversation with the Speak Life Trio, Glenn Scrivener, Paul Feesey, and Nate Morgan Locke, talking about Harry Potter and other films, franchises, shows, books, pop culture, and how that can point us to Jesus, how that can lead to conversations about Jesus.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: And this is kind of off the back of a recent video that we put out on our channel by Nate Morgan Locke about Harry Potter.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: So you can find it on our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: And Nate kind of takes us through the theology of Harry Potter, what JK Rowling was drawing on when she wrote those books, and Christianity played a very big part in that.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: And also obviously touching on some of the concerns that Christians have about Harry Potter.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: Um, so it was it was really fun to work on that video, and that's part of a series which is an ongoing series on our channel about franchise storytelling.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: So they're kind of 20 25-minute videos coming out weekly on our channel.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: They're only available as videos, we're not going to make them as podcasts as well, because they're very visual.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: So if you'd like to see them, do go and check them out on our YouTube channel.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: But this conversation is notable for another reason, and it's that this is the last podcast episode featuring Paul Feasy.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Paul Feasey is leaving Speak Life, which is it's it's yeah.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna um get into that towards the end of the episode and and uh talk about reflect on on Paul's time at Speak Life.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: But without further ado, I will hand straight over to Glenn, Paul, and Nate.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: Enjoy.
2:26
SPEAKER_03: Hello and welcome to the Speakeasy.
2:28
SPEAKER_03: My name is Paul Feasy, and today I'm joined by I'm Glenn Scrivener.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: And I am Nate Morgan Knock.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
2:33
SPEAKER_03: Hello.
2:33
SPEAKER_03: Uh so recently you might have seen that we put out a video to do with Harry Potter.
2:37
SPEAKER_03: Uh you would have definitely seen that, don't know.
2:38
SPEAKER_03: I'm looking at you, you'll know.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: I've I've seen it at least once.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: You've seen it.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: That's right, yeah.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: We'd we made a um we'd we started a series on franchise storytelling, and so we're going to move through different very popular franchises.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: So we started with Harry Potter, nice and uncontroversial.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: And then uh we have I'm not gonna give tell you everything that's coming, but uh there might there's there's talking of uh some books about elves and hobbits and things.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that might be next.
3:07
SPEAKER_03: And obviously, people should go and watch the Harry Potter video if they've not watched it.
3:10
SPEAKER_03: They really ought to.
3:11
SPEAKER_03: Could you give a very brief though kind of summary for those who maybe push for time?
3:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, I basically argue that though the evangelical backlash against the Harry Potter books when they first came out was was understandable, that the Harry Potter story and stories taken on their own terms are deeply Christian.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: So that's the thesis, and then I sort of unpack that and go through some objections and think about different people's theories and viewpoints on those Harry Potter books.
3:47
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
3:48
SPEAKER_04: Can we summarize the evangelical backlash in nine seconds?
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Um what are you doing reading those books?
3:55
SPEAKER_01: They are advocating for witchcraft.
3:58
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
3:59
SPEAKER_04: That's your version of uh summarizing the backlash in nine seconds.
4:02
SPEAKER_04: Should we get the Simpsons version of uh the evangelical backlash?
4:06
SPEAKER_01: This is the click to have included in the world.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: And Harry Potter and all his wizard friends went straight to hell for practicing witchcraft.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: There it is.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: Yes, Harry Potter destroyed by Harry Shearer.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Nice Flanders there.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: Oakley Dokley Flanders.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so Ned Flanders obviously a figure of fun within the Simpsons as uh as the worst of evangelical Christians, or is he?
4:38
SPEAKER_01: If you really watch that show, he's actually a bit of a hero.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Um compared to Homo, yeah.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: And um, yes, of course, he's uh yeah, just showing that witchcraft and wizardry is not to be played with, dabbled with, or if you get the the slightest sniff of it, you should throw the book into the fire.
4:59
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
5:00
SPEAKER_04: And and there is uh to steel man that site, you know, there is a case to be made.
5:04
SPEAKER_04: And I guess we'll press into some of that's problem with Harry Potter.
5:09
SPEAKER_04: But there was another problem that people had with that video that you made, which is okay, you say Harry Potter is Christian, but like kind of can't you do that with any story, or couldn't you press Harry Potter into a different framework and say that it's a Buddhist tale or a Muslim tale or a a naturalistic tale?
5:27
SPEAKER_04: Um what is that that makes it Christian?
5:30
SPEAKER_01: So I as I say, if you I think if you push into the books themselves, you'll push into the storytelling that's taking place, you and study J.K.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: Rowling's kind of influences as she's pulling that story together.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's very clear that she is using the Britain of the 1990s, turn the millennium, as the as the sort of bedrock for the story, and so the story takes place in a Christian country.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, we could have an argument about was Britain really Christian at the end of the uh 19th uh 20th century, but uh there are certain elements of British life and British culture and British society which are clearly Christian, um, and the the Harry Potter books really take place within that context.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: Not only that, the stories themselves bring out um Christian motifs, Christian imagery, and the shape of the Christian gospel.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: Now I I I when making the video, uh, as people will be able to see, I leaned heavily on the work of uh an American scholar named Dr.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: Carrie Birmingham, who has a fantastic lecture where she talks about Harry Potter and the baptism of the imagination.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: Uh so people will be able to find that uh video online.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh and she does kind of a deep dive and it all gets very alchemical.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, she studies that stuff quite intensely.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, I think it's it is there, uh though I get the backlash.
7:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
7:00
SPEAKER_04: Do you buy it, Paul?
7:01
SPEAKER_04: Like having read through the books, do you do you see sort of Christian motifs throughout?
7:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think so.
7:07
SPEAKER_03: And you know, I guess the question is w you know, is it is it more than just the air we breathe stuff?
7:14
SPEAKER_03: Um or is there a you know how deliberate is you know rolling in uh wanting to draw out some of those things?
7:21
SPEAKER_03: Um I don't know what she said specifically about it herself, whether she's claimed it is or whether it's just a kind of because I'm not even sure where she stands faith-wise.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, so she is a she is a a Christian, she's not a an especially conservative Christian.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: And certainly when the books first came out, people a lot of conservative evangelicals or reformed Christians would have been aghast that you know she's very pro-LGB.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: But of course, what's she most known for since the closing of the Harry Potter Canon is of course her work uh to protect the rights of women.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: Um and so there's a kind of strange ally there as people confront the whole kind of transgender debate and uh issues around that.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: So so from but from her faith perspective, certainly she she would consider herself to be a Protestant Christian, though would not probably align with the vast majority of conservative Christians on a lot of social issues, though clearly one at the moment is very hot.
8:24
SPEAKER_04: And I mean I think she has said in interviews before that you know, if you understand my faith, you'll understand where the story was heading.
8:30
SPEAKER_04: And I think she said that even before book seven came out.
8:33
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
8:34
SPEAKER_04: Um and certainly the ending, are we allowed to do spoilers?
8:37
SPEAKER_04: I would have thought so by now.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll dive into a couple of bits and we can do some spoilers in that if you really want to.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Should we do that?
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, because again, that was one of the things that in this series I'm not wanting to tell you absolutely everything that could be said about Christianity and Harry Potter, because it's a 25-minute video.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to really address the principles of how did rowling, rolling, I can never pronounce I always switch it.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: Rolling, yeah, rolling, rowling.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: It's apparently rolling bowling.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: Not yeah, yeah, rolling rhymes with bowling, rowling rhymes with growling.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Put a G on the front of it and be growling.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: But um, so uh she how did she write those books?
9:18
SPEAKER_01: What were the influences?
9:19
SPEAKER_01: What's the kind of deep structure within them, and how can you then take some of those principles and think through other literature or other franchise stories that you might be interested in or that might be kind of very popular in your in your sphere.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in your sphere.
9:35
SPEAKER_04: So that's the that's where the whole series is going.
9:39
SPEAKER_04: And you're gonna use like five different examples?
9:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, five five or six possibly.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: Um there might be another one, and then we might even do a sort of Christmas type special thing.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll look into that.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: But um, so yeah, look wanting to kind of show some of the um architectonic, you know, stuff that's there in in storytelling and in our most celebrated stories.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: So the ones that are making the most money, which is kind of a pretty good measure for what people like.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: Resonates, yeah.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, are what are the ones that have been owned by the big film studios and are being you know, merchandise are being churned out until you can get all of it.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yes, I've certainly not exhausted the things that could be said about uh the gospel according to Harry Potter.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: But let's do that now.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: But let's do the whole thing, yeah.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: We've got several hours.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, so um so there are there are loads of different kind of scenes within the films which I think are helpful.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: I've only got a couple of books here.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: Um but ones that I wanted to just have a little think about because you I think they I've used some of them in sermons before and said, now this, if you really want to understand this thing, I think this part of the Harry Potter book series gives you the sort of the emotional resonance that will help you to feel what's going on, um, as well as there being some nice little kind of lifted mythic uh motifs that she uses.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I mentioned the three-headed dog.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: How do you get past the three-headed dog with a song that you do that in the labors of Hercules, and you also do it in uh Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's another great one in there, which is the mirror of Erosed.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Do you know this one?
11:28
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: So Erased is the word desire backwards.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: And you look into that mirror and it shows not your face but your heart's desire.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: So, as you know, as Christians, often when we're speaking to people, we don't just want to say, Hey, this is what I really love, and I would like to share it with you.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: We're actually trying to help people to see what is it that they really love, like what is it that they're living for, you know, and and with idolatry as a kind of category for helping people understand uh sin, um, that's been used in in various different ways.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: So Miravera said from uh the Philosopher's Stone Um the Chamber of Secrets.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: Now we did go into this a little bit in the video, and I think Carrie Birmingham does a better job of it than I can do right now.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh, in her video where she talks about Harry going to rescue Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets from Tom Riddle, and Forks the Phoenix comes in, and there's a sword that gets pulled out of her hat.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: It's all very, very exciting, but it's got some very deep set Christian themes and Christian uh mythological themes set into it.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: So won't do that one.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: The one I want to do first because it's I think it's the most surprising.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: It's one that people don't realise because and we talked about this before, so often when we're thinking about a Christian illustration from a story, here's how it maps onto the gospel.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: We go straight to substitutional penal atonement.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: We're like, how is this person dying in the place of someone else to save them?
13:02
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: And we're looking for that and we're saying that's the Christian bit.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: When you've got a book series which is as kind of well planned out as these, and you have a number of motifs and threads that are running through the whole thing, you actually see that she can bring out some elements of the gospel that I think we can overlook or that we don't realize.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: So this is from uh what's this?
13:28
SPEAKER_01: Half Half Blood Prince, the penultimate book, and uh this is uh a situation in which Dumbledore and Harry are on the hunt for whorecruxes.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: Now, just as a brief explainer of a whore crux, do you know what a whore crux is?
13:44
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: You do?
13:45
SPEAKER_01: There are seven of them.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: So there are seven, which is talked about as being the perfect number in the book, which is a big biblical idea.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: So there are seven of them, and if you have killed someone, you can split your soul into different parts, and then you can put those parts of your soul into different objects.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: And so it's a brilliant literary device because then it sort of allows you then to do the MacGuffin thing seven times.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: You think about the the infinity saga, it's like, oh, what are we doing this time?
14:17
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna go and find a gemstone.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh, off we go, right?
14:20
SPEAKER_01: Whereas in this is what a MacGuffin is.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: A MacGuffin, so it's this I it's this kind of object which you would then that pulls the plot forward, so it so it's it's it's quite helpful.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: So you could argue that R2D2 is one in um uh the first Star Wars film.
14:35
SPEAKER_04: Pulp fiction, the the gold in the suitcase.
14:38
SPEAKER_04: The suitcase full of gold that you don't see.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: And so you have this kind of driving thing.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that's to explain the context.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: So Harry and Dumbledore are in a cave, and they think they found where there's going to be this uh Hawkrux, and they go to this island in this middle of this lake in this cave, and they've had to pass through all these horrible, kind of ghoulish figures in the in the water as they crossed, and they get to this middle bit, and then there is a great big kind of basin with water in it, uh, or some some liquid in it, and then in the bottom of it is a goblet.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: And so the question is can you get to that goblet?
15:15
SPEAKER_01: Because that's one of Horcruxes, and you can't put your hand in, so you're prevented from doing it.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: So Dumbledore then magics naughty magic, but he magics a little goblet so because he realizes uh that this must be uh this liquid must be drunk.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: You need to drink the liquid, okay?
15:38
SPEAKER_01: So that's the context, right?
15:39
SPEAKER_01: You've got Dumbledore and you've got Harry.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: And um this is what uh Domelore says as he's about to start to drink from this basin.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: Undoubtedly, he said, this potion must act in a way that will prevent me taking the whole crux.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: It might paralyze me, cause me to forget what I'm here for, create so much pain I am distracted, or render me incapable in some other way.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: This being the case, Harry, it will be your job to make sure I keep drinking, even if you have to tip the potion into my protesting mouth.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: You understand?
16:14
SPEAKER_01: Their eyes met over the basin, each pale face lit with what's that strange green light.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Harry did not speak.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: Was this why he had been invited along?
16:22
SPEAKER_01: So that he could force feed Dumbledore a potion that might cause him unendurable pain.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: You remember, said Dumbledore, the condition on which I brought you with me.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: So you you got the setup.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna gr drink, and as he drinks, he is going to refuse to drink anymore.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: But before they start, Harry has to commit himself to the plan that Dumbledore gives him whilst he is still compass mentis, right?
16:51
SPEAKER_01: Whilst he is still able to think clearly, we make this pact and you keep drinking.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Come on, you guys, obviously.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: Gethsemane.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Right?
17:06
SPEAKER_01: So when you think about so it's it's no accident that he gets a cup.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: It's not like he gets a straw and just like, oh, magic's a straw, and just no, he's gonna have to keep drinking this cup, right?
17:16
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: And as he's drinking the cup, he's gonna keep on saying to Harry, I don't want any more, right?
17:22
SPEAKER_01: I do I don't want I don't make me.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: Harry stared into the whitened face, he knew so well, the crooked nose and half moon spectacles, and did not know what to do.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: Don't like, want to stop, moaned Dumbledore.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: You can't stop, Professor, said Harry.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: You've got to keep drinking, remember?
17:38
SPEAKER_01: You told me you had to keep drinking.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Hating himself, repulsed by what he was doing, Harry forced the goblet back towards Dumbledore's mouth and tipped it so that Dumbledore drank the remainder of the goblet.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: So when we think about Christ the night before uh the night of his betrayal, we see him praying in the garden.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: And what does he pray to the father?
18:02
SPEAKER_01: He says, if it's possible, take this cup away from me.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not my will but what but your will.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: And at that point, in a way, the pactum salutis, right?
18:13
SPEAKER_01: The the choice to save humanity through the death of Christ on the s on the cross that was made before the foundation of the world, the father has to kind of hold his nerve, in a sense, and to keep Christ drinking that cup such that the dregs will be drunk and the wrath of God will have been poured out and justice will have been done.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: That none will be lost.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: So, so just that as an as a as a really like I I don't think I got Gethsemane to the depth that I I think I've got now got it until I really kind of paused and thought about why is she setting up this story in that way.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that was about 40 minutes on that one.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: So we might not have time for another one.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, certainly I think you've got these scenes and and they are profoundly theologically informed, yeah.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: And and may well intrigue people or or deepen people's understanding of what they they read in s in scripture.
19:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
19:19
SPEAKER_04: Um that's interesting about what stories should do in a in a way that okay, I read Matthew twenty-six and I might not be in tears.
19:26
SPEAKER_04: I read a made-up story about stuff that did not happen, and I can be in tears.
19:31
SPEAKER_04: What and are those tears real?
19:34
SPEAKER_04: Like, is my emotion um Am I just being whipped up by somebody who's manipulating me?
19:41
SPEAKER_04: Or is it is it actually organically connected to what Christ did?
19:44
SPEAKER_04: And and yeah, so much of art can get us in touch with kind of what we're meant to be feeling when when we when we hear the scriptures.
19:52
SPEAKER_04: Um and should we do the ending as well?
19:55
SPEAKER_04: Just because I because someone in the office, so M Emily in the office was interesting on this.
20:00
SPEAKER_04: She she said um some of perhaps the evangelical backlash against Harry Potter was because you had to get to book seven before the really truly you know Harry Potter dying for the world sort of thing kind of kind of happened.
20:14
SPEAKER_04: And so you can kind of understand why people they don't know where the story's going.
20:18
SPEAKER_04: And put yourself in in the shoes of someone in 2000.
20:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
20:22
SPEAKER_04: Um, where is the story going at that point?
20:24
SPEAKER_04: You don't know.
20:25
SPEAKER_04: But where the story does go.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's absolutely right.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: And that's partly the thing about someone who's not just writing a single book, but then writing a whole series, which are then going to be, you know, delivered over a period of time.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: And and and we talk about this in in the next um uh French storytelling episode, about uh the need to you have to submit yourself to the piece of art in front of you, the work of art, the the the creation in front of you.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Um and kind of suspend both disbelief and belief to allow the the text to to say what it has to say.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Only once you've done that are you then able to to really critique it, critique it.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: Now, if someone said uh don't want to get involved in that, then great, fine, you know, it's gonna be a theme of the series.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: You are under no obligation to read these books or watch these films or see these TV shows.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: If you do and you want to engage them, there are some interesting things for you to explore.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, but of course, people uh people who who held back and said it didn't want to get involved.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, you're fine, you know.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: There's no obligation.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: But in the end, how is this Christian?
21:45
SPEAKER_04: Let's do it.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: So uh this this is probably one helpful bit to to look at.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh this is a passage from the vinyl book, Deathly Hallows, and this time it's Harry and Hermione are in a place called Godric's Hollow, uh, which is Is a graveyard.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: The headstone was only two rows behind Kendra and Arianus.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: It was made of white marble, and this made it easy to read, as it seemed to shine in the dark.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: Harry did not need to kneel or even approach very close to make out the words engraved upon it.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: James Potter, born twenty seventh of march nineteen sixty, died thirty first of october nineteen eighty one.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: Lily Potter, born thirtieth of january nineteen sixty, died thirty first of october nineteen eighty one.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Harry read the words slowly as though he would have only one chance to take in their meaning, and he read the last of them aloud.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: A horrible thought came to him, and with it a kind of panic.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that a death eater idea?
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Why is that there?
22:54
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean defeating death in the way the death eaters mean it, Harry, said Hermione, her voice gentle.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: It means, you know, living beyond death, living after death.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: But they were not living, thought Harry.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: They were gone.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: So you've got this biblical quotation, which you reference in the in the video, um, from 1 Corinthians 15, and on the topic of resurrection, and it is written on the gravestone of Harry Potter's parents.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: And Harry's then wrestling with that question.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: Later on in this book series, we will discover that uh one of these um Warcruxes may well be not an object, but a person.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: And so, in order to be able to defeat the evil, this person may have to sacrifice themselves, and in sacrificing themselves, will then overcome the evil that has been um abroad in in the books.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: So it is done at King's Cross, which is a nice, easy, open goal for any uh anyone watching.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Um and it is at the point of that that the self-sacrifice is made, and this is the thing which will undo the evil that has come.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: So the the whole series is kind of on that trajectory.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: As I say in the again in the video, there is a kind of uh Fibonacci sequence.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: So you've got a a l a little mini version of that story happening in the first book, as evil is overcome, how is it overcome?
24:31
SPEAKER_01: But then some more clues as to how it'll then be overcome.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Um now I'm not saying it's perfect, I'm not saying there aren't you know better fantasy books out there, may well be, um, but there is a very clear Christian trajectory and a a what Tolkien will call a euk catastrophe that comes through at the end.
24:52
SPEAKER_04: Um we have a mutual friend Caleb Woodbridge who is quite the pot ahead.
24:59
SPEAKER_04: He has made the claim that uh in some senses uh the world that J.K.
25:06
SPEAKER_04: Rowling has invented and is is superior to Narnia in in the way that it can communicate the gospel truth.
25:16
SPEAKER_04: And he he did an interesting comparison between um okay, why does Aslan's death on the stone table why why does that work again?
25:25
SPEAKER_04: Oh, there's a there's a deep magic before the dawn of time sort of thing.
25:30
SPEAKER_04: And he said, and and I I it was a new thought for me, but I think I kind of agree with him, that there's an arbitrariness to why the death of Aslan ransoms Edmund.
25:41
SPEAKER_04: And it only ransoms Edmund.
25:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
25:43
SPEAKER_04: Whereas, you know, Harry Potter turning evil back on itself such that it is a it is evil itself that slays the wicked, and and um there's something more Christian about the Potter world than about Narnia.
25:59
SPEAKER_04: That sounds almost sacrilegious to say, but yeah.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I and I I think absolutely, and and you and and part of the reason why I think that sounds so odd for people is because of course Aslan is such a clear Christ type.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: And whereas was Harry is is a much more kind of almost kind of generic Cambelian hero, right?
26:20
SPEAKER_01: The hero's journey from the He is the herald of the Potter though.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: So but but in that sense, the the the struggle you get with this protagonist was Aslan dips in and out, right?
26:32
SPEAKER_01: He's he's in in a way Aslan could be called a bit capricious, he just arrives, turns up, and then he goes away.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: He's not particularly incarnate, right?
26:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, whereas Potter is definitely one of us.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Um Aslan's not one of us.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: But and and also understanding what is the nature of uh of the Narnian world, right?
26:49
SPEAKER_01: So it does have a clear geography, it's not a kind of wonderland in terms of this kind of shifting, fluid, dreamlike space.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: You can go back to it.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: There is a real history that takes place with lantern waste and the thrones at care paravel, all that stuff is going through, and yet our engagement with that world is is sporadic.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: We jump into it right through a picture on a wall, we jump into it through a magic ring.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Translation There's all sorts of different ways, and so it it isn't laid out structurally in the same way as this kind of school book, you know.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Harry's in the second year now, and now Harry's in the third year, and you and you're just watching someone go.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: So that combination means that you have a a have a less systematized uh theology and mythology, in a sense, and also the argument that that uh Lewis is doing the whole planets of the medieval solar system thing, which is a different kind of um poetic structure.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh so Michael Ward, Planet Narnia.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: The theory is that each Narnia book relates to we're gonna do the franchise on Narnia, so I don't want to Yeah, yeah.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: It's I mean it's it is the best story ever told.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, whether it's true or not is a different matter, but it's a record.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: It is the most compelling story.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: That was historian Tom Holland speaking about mission in the meaning crisis, and there's plenty more where that came from.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: With the help of Christy Mare, we'll be diving into this very topic during the Speak Life Vision evening.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: And you, yes, you are invited.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: It's happening from 8 to 9.30 pm UK time on Thursday, the 20th of October.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: To sign up, go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash vision.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: Along with hearing from Christy Mair and the Speak Life team, you'll get a first sneak peek at our new evangelistic course, and you'll be the first to know about our exciting plans for creative evangelism.
29:08
SPEAKER_02: This really is a unique opportunity, and it's completely free.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: Whether you've been following Speak Life for hours or for years, whether you live in England or Djibouti, join us over Zoom as we think about the future of Speak Life.
29:25
SPEAKER_02: That's Thursday, the 20th of October, 8 pm.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: Let's tell the greatest story of all time.
29:37
SPEAKER_04: Isn't that interesting that yeah so you your your typical knee-jerk Christian reaction is that Potter is is less Christian, but actu actually Lewis is m might well be being structured by astrology, actually.
29:51
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:52
SPEAKER_04: And yeah, and Harry Potter might be a more authentic Christ figure than than Aslan in some senses.
30:00
SPEAKER_04: Although, yeah, pot Potter is a sinner, whereas Aslan is definitely not.
30:04
SPEAKER_04: This is true.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: But what you what you sort of gain in the in the the tangible character with a desire and and issues to overcome, you lose in the transcendent.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: And so you know of course none of them.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: It's not a perfect analogy.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: No, yeah.
30:21
SPEAKER_04: There we go.
30:21
SPEAKER_04: Yep.
30:23
SPEAKER_04: So is there a sense, is is there something to the claim that, all right, well, Harry Potter's Christian in this broad sense of it sort of follows some kind of Christ pattern, but then couldn't you do that with every story?
30:34
SPEAKER_04: What do we say to that?
30:36
SPEAKER_01: Say yes.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason for that, Glenn.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: That's because we live in in Jesus' world.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and the uh yeah, all things come of from you, O Lord, and of your own have we given you.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: Is a very so it is the Lord who makes the heavens and the earth, he is the Lord who has made man in his image, and we're living in the story that he's telling, and therefore the human creative expression is governed by the materials that it has to work with, it is governed by you know either accurately or or distorting the the the story, the mythos that is is woven through history.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: And so I don't I I'm not surprised to come to a text and find something that's that could arguably be compared with with the Christian gospel.
31:30
SPEAKER_04: Um brings us to a game that we could play, I think.
31:36
SPEAKER_04: Um a game which I put into Paul Feasy's hands.
31:41
SPEAKER_04: Uh well yes.
31:43
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
31:44
SPEAKER_04: Do you want to explain the game?
31:44
SPEAKER_03: Well, Thomas and I were tasked with coming up with take a film and try and Christianize it.
31:50
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's it give it a description.
31:53
SPEAKER_03: Bring out Bring out the Christian aspects that are in there.
31:56
SPEAKER_03: Now it's quite tricky because you don't want to be so obvious about what it is, but also you don't want to make it so vague.
32:02
SPEAKER_03: So we'll give it a go.
32:04
SPEAKER_03: We threw a few together and you can see whether you can guess any of these.
32:06
SPEAKER_03: So here we go.
32:07
SPEAKER_04: If we put our hands up when we think we know it's a very good thing.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Bruce Almighty.
32:16
SPEAKER_03: Uh no.
32:17
SPEAKER_03: Truman show?
32:18
SPEAKER_03: No.
32:19
SPEAKER_03: So here's the thing.
32:19
SPEAKER_03: We did say though, this highlights.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: Evan Almighty, no.
32:24
SPEAKER_03: This just highlights how these would be so good things.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: So say again, a man plays God.
32:29
SPEAKER_03: Creating a kingdom for people to enjoy, but it goes badly wrong.
32:32
SPEAKER_03: To enjoy Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
32:34
unknown: Oh.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Italians.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that what's the one where the guy uh is it Ben Stiller makes a a world with little soldiers that come to life?
32:44
SPEAKER_01: I might have just made that film up.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: He's pitching that idea to Hollywood.
32:47
SPEAKER_03: Well, we we were trying to do something for Jurassic Park.
32:50
SPEAKER_03: Jurassic Park creating a kingdom that you're gonna enjoy everybody goes.
32:53
SPEAKER_03: In fact, it becomes a fallen kingdom.
32:55
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
32:55
SPEAKER_03: There you go.
32:56
SPEAKER_04: Is Willy Wonka coming?
32:57
SPEAKER_04: I think I should masculine.
32:58
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
33:00
SPEAKER_03: Uh whatever else we've got here.
33:02
SPEAKER_03: So we've got um a messiah enters a world to free its people from deception.
33:09
SPEAKER_03: Matrix.
33:10
SPEAKER_03: Matrix straight away.
33:11
SPEAKER_03: Uh here we go.
33:12
SPEAKER_03: A girl from another land is able to unite warring tribes, sharing her crown among her people.
33:19
SPEAKER_04: Uh mean girls.
33:20
SPEAKER_03: That is correct.
33:21
SPEAKER_03: It is mean girls.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Um Lindsay Lowen, a type of Christ.
33:25
SPEAKER_03: A promised child can save humanity from a dystopian future and must be protected at all costs.
33:31
SPEAKER_05: Lanking?
33:32
SPEAKER_03: No.
33:33
SPEAKER_05: Um the prom a promised child.
33:35
SPEAKER_05: Luke Skywalker.
33:36
SPEAKER_05: No.
33:37
SPEAKER_03: No.
33:38
SPEAKER_03: But this just shows the overlap between so many films.
33:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:41
SPEAKER_03: A promised child.
33:42
SPEAKER_03: Promised child, he can save humanity from a dystopian future.
33:45
SPEAKER_03: He must be protected at all costs.
33:47
SPEAKER_03: Oh, a terminate.
33:47
SPEAKER_03: Oh, terminators again.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: Dystopian.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: Let's see what else you've got.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: The hunger games.
33:56
SPEAKER_03: Figure from beyond must return to the sky when her work is done.
34:00
SPEAKER_04: I was about to say E.T.
34:01
SPEAKER_04: I was gonna say E.T.
34:02
SPEAKER_04: and then you said her.
34:05
SPEAKER_03: But you're on the we we did re I can't remember if we actually used this in our ascendancy.
34:10
SPEAKER_03: We used our uh Ascension videos, didn't we?
34:13
SPEAKER_03: Where we had films with ascension clips.
34:14
SPEAKER_03: Can't remember if we used this one or someone said afterwards, you should have used this, and we went, oh yeah.
34:18
SPEAKER_05: Oh, from another land.
34:20
SPEAKER_05: Was it a boss?
34:22
SPEAKER_05: No.
34:24
SPEAKER_03: Was uh Mary Poppins.
34:27
SPEAKER_04: Mary Poppins! Oh, but she's she's horrible.
34:31
SPEAKER_03: She's I refuse to think of it.
34:33
SPEAKER_03: She's Christmas.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: Practically perfect in every way.
34:36
SPEAKER_03: Thomas came up with this one's a good one.
34:38
SPEAKER_03: A man has to let go of his life in order for his companion to live.
34:43
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it could be anything.
34:44
SPEAKER_03: Could be any like that's the thing.
34:48
SPEAKER_03: I'll give you every war film.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh, gravity.
34:52
SPEAKER_03: Gravity.
34:53
SPEAKER_03: Gravity.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: This is one of those ones that he didn't need to let go.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I don't know anything about physics.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: The physics of storytelling and the physics of reality.
35:08
SPEAKER_03: So that's the interesting that the interesting thing though is immediately you hear something and you go, oh, that's that thing.
35:12
SPEAKER_03: And you go, no, it's not that one.
35:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:14
SPEAKER_03: Or it's that thing, and no, it's not that one.
35:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:16
SPEAKER_03: Because there's so much there are a lot of those themes crop up in lots of things.
35:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:21
SPEAKER_04: I I really enjoyed um so in my book, The Air We Breathe, where I talk about seven um values, um, the reason why I couldn't have an eighth is because you can't have eight, you've got to stick with seven.
35:33
SPEAKER_04: I couldn't have six, I couldn't have eight, I had to have seven.
35:35
SPEAKER_04: But one of them I was I was gonna talk about heroism um in storytelling um because I think there has been a change that Christianization has brought to the to the West in terms of the you know, the knights of the round table and that kind of chivalry.
35:51
SPEAKER_04: There's a kind of heroism that sort of Jesus brings to the world that's different from ancient heroes.
35:57
SPEAKER_04: You know, ancient ancient heroes can be as you know capricious as the gods at times.
36:04
SPEAKER_04: And then and sometimes they'll act for for their family, but mostly they'll just they'll just act for glory and to be a hero.
36:13
SPEAKER_04: And and they will they will be clever enough to sing the song to or to ask the the other sailors to sing the song to get past the um the sirens that are singing you to shipwreck.
36:23
SPEAKER_04: Um so that they can be clever and they can be powerful, they can be wise, but um they do it to save themselves rather than to save you.
36:32
SPEAKER_04: And so there's there's something about the the kind of heroism that we recognize as truly heroic, and there's something about the kind of ending that we recognize as a fitting ending.
36:43
SPEAKER_04: So the Greek the Greeks would have tragedies largely, and if they ever had a comedy, then the the reason why you have a comedy is because the fool who has calamity fall upon himself is just such an idiot that all the audience is laughing at him.
37:00
SPEAKER_04: The audience is laughing, he's in tears.
37:02
SPEAKER_04: It's a comedy! That's the only kind of comedy they would have.
37:05
SPEAKER_04: Whereas for us, we tend to want our hero to be laughing even as we're laughing, so that it's a joyous experience and the hero has gone through a journey and come out the other side with a happy ending, a eupatastrophe and that kind of thing.
37:19
SPEAKER_04: So I think I think it's true that we live in Jesus' universe, but I think there's also a layering of culture that means we resonate with a story that has a certain kind of heroism, a certain kind of ending.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: But also that the the nature of her heroism is changing, and the number of stories in which a hero is the one who is true to themselves, choosing not to sacrifice themselves, but to remain, you know, them the for whatever reason.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: And um I mean a classic one we've I've talked about um on the popcorn parenting podcast, we did an episode on Moana, and then we did a comparison of Moana and um George Bailey and the way in which they save their respective communities.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: One does it by s sacrificing his wonder lust, the other does it by fulfilling her wonder lust.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Right.
38:09
SPEAKER_04: You're talking about a wonderful life as George Bailey.
38:11
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
38:11
SPEAKER_04: Yes, what did I say?
38:12
SPEAKER_04: No, you said I said George Bailey.
38:13
SPEAKER_04: So it's just for me.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: Um so yes, so there is there is something about the nature of what we believe is is right for us as individuals.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: And when other people have claims upon us, and how that that is that is a slightly shifting definition of what being a true.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: There's now a post-Christian here.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: Um I think that that's one of those challenges that we face as we as we look at the stories the culture is telling, and as we think about what is being sort of celebrated within within the various stories.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: So so there is a backlash against Harry Potter at the moment.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: Not just because people you know don't want J.K.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: Rowling to Rowling to have written the books, but because they say, look at this hero, he is a trust fund jock who becomes a policeman.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: This is your hero.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like uh well, actually he was.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: Um but when you put it like that, he sounds like a bad person.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, so how do we know?
39:14
SPEAKER_01: Well, why do we actually look at the book itself and see the way that this plans out rather than starting off with the labels and and let the story judge your labels, absolutely not the other way around.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: And that I think is the play, is whatever whatever cultural artifact you're looking at, particularly if it's if it's a narrative form, as Lewis says, stop, listen, look, right?
39:36
SPEAKER_01: Um again, we might look at this in the in the Lewis episode.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a wonderful bit in The Magician's Nephew when Uncle Andrew is jabbering on while Aslan is singing Narnia into being, right?
39:50
SPEAKER_01: And the cabbie's standing next to him, yeah, yeah.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: And Uncle Andrew's going, Oh, what is all this?
39:55
SPEAKER_01: Terrible, terrible things.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: And the cabbie says, Would you stop stop talking?
39:59
SPEAKER_01: Watching and listening is the thing at present.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: And and and lots of the time, so we're very good culturally at watching and listening.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: We do an awful lot of it, people are doing it right now, but there is something about submitting yourself to the story, letting it speak for itself, and then you will be better placed to speak about it.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: Whereas when we come to it with our you know, pitchforks and our um you know, cans of red paint to throw in it immediately, well, you didn't actually hear what was being said, and had you given it the time, you you might have realized it it was saying something a bit different.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: Um but it's optional, as we say, you know, you don't have to.
40:42
SPEAKER_03: So the second kind of pushback people might say is well, if you with things like Harry Potter, if we read Harry Potter, watch the films, does it not just open us up to getting involved with things we shouldn't be involved with, the occult and stuff like that?
40:57
SPEAKER_03: Is it the gateway drug into this stuff?
41:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: Um I think there is a level at which uh people ought to be wary of uh things that have labels about witchcraft on them, right?
41:11
SPEAKER_01: I I think it's an absolutely um appropriate thing when the Bible speaks about you know witchcraft and sorcery a lot of the time.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh it is done in very negative terms.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: Um and so yeah, completely understand that people will have reservations about doing that.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: As I say, if if you read the books, um I think you notice certain things about this kind of witchcraft and wizardry, in which it doesn't map on to the occult as we would see it practiced in the UK today.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: Um however, very interesting, a book by Tara Isabella Burton, I referenced this in the video, um, called Strange Rights, uh, the remixed religions.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: That's not exactly the right subtitle, but she she's done some research into American expressions of of religion and religiosity over the past uh 20, 30 years.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things she highlights is the impact of the Harry Potter books on the kind of pick and mix religion that a lot of people are um practicing.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: Now I d it doesn't seem that there's been a massive upturn in the number of people who call themselves witches or or wiccans.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: Um but of but people have found in online communities discussing the books that they will call themselves potterheads, and that now fictions, like quite demonstrably, books of fiction, not claiming to be anything else, are becoming totemic for people to say, um, tell me about what you really believe.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, what I really believe is I'm a Jedi, right, and I'm also a potterhead, and I uh was raised a Buddhist.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: In the Shire.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
43:06
SPEAKER_01: But so but you could you pull all those things together because where are you where are you looking for your your sense of of meaning and and and ethics and and things?
43:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, you're drawing from pop culture as much as you're drawing from the official institutions of religion um and of the church, and that's an that's a very interesting development within people's um self-identification, yeah.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: That that that is that when Jedi was being picked as as a thing on um the census way back in 2000 or wherever it was, um you felt like oh, there's a whole bunch of people kind of being ironic.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: The rise of the internet rise of f fandoms that's a legitimate thing to be able to say, no, I I actually do follow the way of the Jedi.
44:01
SPEAKER_01: If someone has said that, you sort of go, oh yeah, whatever.
44:03
SPEAKER_01: But that's they actually do.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: And and similarly with Harry Potter.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: Now, uh it doesn't mean I think that they're you know, maybe there are people buying uh buying the skeletons of animals in jars and keeping them on their shelves with their their gemstones and stuff.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: Um but what you haven't got is a whole bunch of people.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: No.
44:25
SPEAKER_01: You haven't gotten it.
44:26
SPEAKER_04: They're playing Quidditch, they're not joining a covenant.
44:28
SPEAKER_04: Perfect.
44:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, perfect.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they are doing that and and then because of their morality that they believe they've got from their online fandom, they are cutting off rolling out from the world of Quidditch because um she is now beyond the pair.
44:45
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
44:46
SPEAKER_04: I wonder if there's something about the re-enchantment of the world as well.
44:50
SPEAKER_04: I mean, but starting in the 1950s, and so Narnia is kind of doing that for a people who um are living in a modernistic and disenchanted world, and how much more of we, you know, are we reaping the consequences of of that kind of turn?
45:03
SPEAKER_04: But what Lewis was trying to do was re-enchant our vision of the world, and he did it with well, there's the magic on this hand, but there's also the deep magic on the other hand, and there's a magical universe that you can access through a wardrobe or or or or anything else.
45:19
SPEAKER_04: And I wonder whether um there's something about in a very modernistic naturalistic age, talking about magic in a narratival form and in story is very different from even talking to animistic cultures around the world today and talking about magic, or going back in history in biblical times and talking about magic, the you know um, you know, that that platform of is it nine and three-quarters?
45:52
SPEAKER_04: Um, in St.
45:54
SPEAKER_04: Pancras, um you know that is a a proxy for there is another world.
46:03
SPEAKER_04: And it's just just out of reach.
46:06
SPEAKER_04: It's just through that wall there.
46:09
SPEAKER_04: Um and there's something very different about saying what if and what if magic is real to a world that of course doesn't believe in magic.
46:19
SPEAKER_04: And so the audience the audience is different to the audience of what Deuteronomy is talking about, right?
46:25
SPEAKER_04: Or the audience of what John the Revelator is talking about.
46:28
SPEAKER_04: That seems important to me.
46:30
SPEAKER_04: Um and and all those points about the the kind of magic that we're talking about in in Harry Potter.
46:35
SPEAKER_04: And um with all that said, obviously, if you've come out of a new age back background or um then absolutely uh you know, I I I would never want to force anything on on anybody and insist that they dive into the Harry Potter world and in order to get more of Jesus, because you know, in in the same way that I wouldn't say go and eat meat sacrificed to an idol when you've been involved in idolatry the whole time.
47:01
SPEAKER_04: And that's what 1 Corinthians chapters 8 to 10 is is kind of all about.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: And and there is something very interesting about uh I keep sort of coming back to this, but this is capitalism, like capitalist storytelling is that not only are you do you own the rights to the story and you can just bring out even more, even more shows and even more TV stuff, but the level of merchandising, right?
47:26
SPEAKER_01: So how are you expressing your new devotion to the world of witchcraft and wizardry?
47:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, you wear Slytherin pajamas.
47:35
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right.
47:37
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: So it it's actually done through very oddly merch.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, unreligious um remarkably calculated and profit-making things.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: Um you are you are you're actually you are investing huge amounts of money in this, but uh you're doing it in this most sort of playful of ways.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: Um because it's so because it's meaningful to you, right?
48:07
SPEAKER_01: I I've got buzz light year pajamas, right?
48:11
SPEAKER_01: It's there's a Toy Story world is meaningful to me.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Um and I understand it in the context of my my Christian faith.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: Um but for for people who who don't have a defined personal faith, they are pulling in uh as you know, items they're liking on on their social media accounts and things that they can buy branded on you know the branded launcher boxes.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: That's my identity.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: That's that's who I am.
48:41
SPEAKER_01: That's that's what I find value.
48:44
SPEAKER_04: And therefore, is is there a way of talking to um modern secularized people who d who would never identify as Christian, but they might identify as a potter head?
48:56
SPEAKER_04: Um is there a way of talking to them that that can make Christian faith sound plausible?
49:02
SPEAKER_04: Like what do you what do you think?
49:03
SPEAKER_04: Is is is this an opportunity to say, you know how you felt when Harry Potter gave himself, and you know the kind of values by which you live as a potter head, um that that that that might make plausible to them Christian faith?
49:19
SPEAKER_01: I think there's something about this world building idea and about this idea of these sub-creations in which it in order to communicate with the people inside the fandom, you sort of need to go inside the fandom.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: You actually need to go inside and show them from inside that world how this is pointing to something greater.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: And so in a in a way that you might have a conversation with someone who um who wouldn't claim to be in any kind of fandom or or wouldn't claim that they're but they're uh uh invested in a in a world of of franchise, um you would say to them, now look at the world that we're in and see how it's full of meaning, and and you would do the air we breathe, look at what the values we've got, look at how we're sort of put together.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: You can kind of do that inside Hogwarts, if you like.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: You can sort of say to people, okay, now can you see what is governing this school and how atrocious it is when we don't have Dumbledore sitting in the headmaster's chair, when we have Umbridge, what has happened to this place?
50:29
SPEAKER_01: It has become, you know, um, and it needs a a kind of a rebel group to to to come over it.
50:37
SPEAKER_01: Now, where did where did she get these these ideas from?
50:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, much of it is drawn from the the the deep Christian story.
50:47
SPEAKER_04: But you're going deep though, you're not you're not just doing the trivial thing that I did, which is uh Harry Potter, Harold of the Potter.
50:53
SPEAKER_04: Turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 19.
50:55
SPEAKER_04: You know, you're doing the deep thing of yeah, diving into that world, enjoying that world, submitting to that world on its own terms.
51:03
SPEAKER_04: And with the confidence that of course there's going to be Christian resonances here.
51:09
SPEAKER_04: But yeah, it's not it's not the trite thing of, hey, this reminds me of that.
51:12
SPEAKER_04: Let me yok you into the Christian thing.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: Um Yeah, I but I think there is there we have in fact that's part of the way that we think I know there was a classic conversation.
51:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, a classic conversation.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: An anecdote that you heard um uh Andrew Peterson tell after he'd done the glorious behold the lamb concert, and which some guy came out and told the story about how would a man communicate with ants.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, if he became an ant, he might be able to do that.
51:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, that was clunky and awful and and ought not to have happened after the gospel presentation that had that had actually taken place already.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: However, there is something to say when you are com when God is communicating with us, he communicates in his humility in in human flesh, and he enters into our world.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, the world became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us, and there is that strong sense in which when we have people who, because of their relative comfort, because of the circumstances of Western society as it currently is, live a lot of their lives inside uh a created world, in inside a sub-creation.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: And whether they're playing video games or they are a part of uh, you know, just cannot stop watching uh, you know, Marvel films or whatever it might be, there is a longer conversation which takes seriously their interest in this and yet can reveal to them you know what it's really pointing to.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: Um and and Carrie Birmingham's argument to mention her again, she she suggests that the Harry Potter books are the biggest missed evangelistic opportunity for the last 50 years.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: Because when people had their questions about life and meaning of the universe from Harry Potter, the church had backed away, put up a vent, and gone, you know, throw the book in the fire.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: Once the church had done that, where else were they gonna go for those conversations?
53:14
SPEAKER_01: They were gonna go online, the fandoms all went, you know, the the the chat rooms as they used to be, um and that's where their their questions were answered.
53:26
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
53:26
SPEAKER_04: Um, but we're not missing the opportunity, it's just we're a little late.
53:33
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
53:34
SPEAKER_04: We're just doing all the hot takes book coming out.
53:37
SPEAKER_04: Um the hot takes, C.S.
53:40
SPEAKER_04: Lewis, I love his Chronicles Nunny.
53:42
SPEAKER_04: I hope he writes another one.
53:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's Ignatius the youth pastor.
53:46
SPEAKER_04: Ultimate youth pastor.
53:46
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
53:48
SPEAKER_04: Um speaking of ultimate youth pastors, uh, Paul Feesey has been the ultimate youth pastor for many years until he joined Speak Life 2017.
53:57
SPEAKER_04: Do you see the segues right there?
53:59
SPEAKER_04: Beautiful.
53:59
SPEAKER_04: Nice.
54:00
SPEAKER_04: Um In fact, Paul Feese, you started coming here, I guess it would have been two years before that.
54:06
SPEAKER_04: 2015, I think, when we were doing the union 2015.
54:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, grad dip.
54:11
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
54:12
SPEAKER_04: You were students getting your graduate diploma in theology and pastoral studies.
54:16
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, day a week.
54:17
SPEAKER_04: Day a week with us.
54:19
SPEAKER_04: And then uh we thought, this this kid's he's alright, isn't it?
54:22
SPEAKER_04: He's alright with it.
54:23
SPEAKER_04: He's got chops.
54:24
SPEAKER_04: Whoa, give him a run.
54:27
SPEAKER_04: And brought brought you on onto the team, and uh we kept wanting to bring you on full-time.
54:32
SPEAKER_04: You're like, no.
54:34
SPEAKER_04: So because Paul Paul Feasy's always been too much of an evangelist to be a full-time evangelist.
54:37
SPEAKER_04: You're like, I'd actually quite like to, you know, just be with people who aren't Christians.
54:47
SPEAKER_04: And uh you've been an associate evangelist with us for the last five years, um, but this might come as news for people, and uh it is uh with great sorrow that we say this is Paul Feasy's last speakeasy with the Feesey.
55:03
SPEAKER_04: And uh it's a hugely sad day uh for us at Speak Life, because Paul Feasy has been and you are an absolute gem, and we've loved having you, and uh even right up till today, I think laughter.
55:16
SPEAKER_03: Even up to today.
55:18
SPEAKER_04: Well, on a sad day.
55:19
SPEAKER_04: On a sad day, which is Paul Feasy's last day.
55:22
SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, the laughs have been flowing.
55:25
SPEAKER_04: I think pretty much everyone has been in tears with of laughter actually today.
55:29
SPEAKER_03: We have, yeah, we've had quite a funny day, actually.
55:31
SPEAKER_03: It's quite an amusing day.
55:32
SPEAKER_04: And I think that's a a sign of how emotional we've been, because uh we've loved having you, Paul, and uh we've put together a little compilation of some of your best and worst bits.
55:45
SPEAKER_04: Your best bits.
55:47
SPEAKER_04: From the last five years.
55:48
SPEAKER_04: So uh Thomas Thoroughgood, roll VT.
55:55
SPEAKER_04: Cup of tea?
55:57
SPEAKER_04: You don't believe in tea?
55:58
SPEAKER_04: Sure, not for myself, my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, but I don't personally have a thing attempt, but it's your ten.
56:10
SPEAKER_03: Some of my best friends work in the drinking industry, some of my best friends work in the drinking industry, some of them, some of my best friends in tea drinking is defenders.
56:17
SPEAKER_04: Well, do you want to tell me what you are?
56:21
SPEAKER_04: Someone for me to return.
56:23
SPEAKER_04: Excuse me.
56:26
SPEAKER_03: I don't think that's a thing.
56:27
SPEAKER_03: Uh oh it's a thing, and you want that thing.
56:29
SPEAKER_03: You sir return.
56:32
SPEAKER_03: White supremacists too messy.
56:35
SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, team number.
56:38
SPEAKER_03: I'm really gonna think that's a thing.
56:40
SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry, I'm cutting me a random exclusion hatred anymore.
56:42
SPEAKER_03: You sir are the worst person I've ever met.
56:56
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
56:58
SPEAKER_04: And the th the thing that I was just remembering about the if phones were Bibles is that we actually wrote it with me and you both obsessed with the Bibles in their own particular ways.
57:08
SPEAKER_04: And then all of my bits just were on the on the cutter and floor, but thankfully, I don't think we've salvaged any of my bits.
57:14
SPEAKER_04: We just had to have Paul alone.
57:16
SPEAKER_03: Well, and that it's been good.
57:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we've had a good uh it's been a good time, and yeah, lots of good stuff, you know, and memories from that.
57:22
SPEAKER_03: Like it's half that stuff.
57:23
SPEAKER_03: You I mean, some of it I've not seen for years.
57:25
SPEAKER_03: You forget you've done some of it.
57:27
SPEAKER_03: Um it's been forget.
57:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
57:31
SPEAKER_03: No, I'm gonna miss it.
57:32
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna miss it.
57:32
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna miss working here, miss you guys.
57:34
SPEAKER_03: And um, yeah, so you know, thanks so much for having me.
57:38
SPEAKER_03: And you know, I'll pop my head back in.
57:41
SPEAKER_03: You must.
57:42
SPEAKER_03: You better.
57:42
SPEAKER_03: I'll I've I reckon I'll be uh I said, you know, next week when you do your speakeasy and you'll start off and you'll say you know, hello.
57:50
SPEAKER_03: My name's Glenn Scrivener, and welcome to the speakeasy.
57:52
SPEAKER_03: I'll be like rubbish, don't even rhyme.
57:56
SPEAKER_03: Worst intro ever.
57:58
SPEAKER_04: Feasy on the speakeasy.
58:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, we've absolutely loved having you.
58:03
SPEAKER_04: Um what could what can be people people be praying for?
58:05
SPEAKER_04: Paul Feasy and the Feasy clan?
58:07
SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, well, I mean, it'd be good if you just pray for work.
58:10
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I've got a few things in the pipeline that you know I won't kind of say too much about, but just you've got various bits of interviews coming up, so uh do please pray for that, that'd be great.
58:19
SPEAKER_03: Um and yeah, I mean I guess I mean that for us really as a family, as we move into a different season and uh a different rhythm of life, whatever that might look like, um, you know, kind of appreciate people's prayers on that.
58:33
SPEAKER_03: You know, and I you know actually what I will say, um not as a uh a specific prayer point for that, but uh I mean one thing I will say actually is is a big thank you to everyone, particularly like last year, um, you know, when Libby was so ill, and like I know here at Speak Life, Speaker Life were amazing um in supporting us through that and appreciate everyone at home as well, because I know lots of people were praying and have continued to pray as well, um, because you know she's still you know, although she's kind of better in the sense that she's you know up and about and doing things, she's she's still a sick child, and she will be.
59:03
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, that w she will live with this condition.
59:06
SPEAKER_03: Um so you know, we've really valued everyone's prayers and support through that.
59:10
SPEAKER_03: Um so thank you.
59:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you for that.
59:13
SPEAKER_04: And Libby right now, like how's she doing?
59:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, she's doing great.
59:16
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like I say, most of the time she's living a normal sort of looking life, and um day by day you wouldn't know there was anything wrong with her, so it's it's just a matter of um looking after her and and keeping on top of her condition, hoping that the medication keeps doing the work.
59:30
SPEAKER_03: Um and I mean yeah, I mean actually she's I mean you can pro one thing she's got, she's got a little feeding tube that we still use for a couple of things.
59:36
SPEAKER_03: Um that's being changed in the next few weeks to a button so it won't sort of hang down.
59:40
SPEAKER_03: Um so you know, do please pray for that.
59:42
SPEAKER_03: It's coming up in the next two weeks.
59:44
SPEAKER_03: It should it's pretty routine, but um obviously it's another surgery, so you know it's another trip up there and probably stay overnight and things.
59:52
SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
59:54
SPEAKER_03: And that's always kind of on the calendar, isn't it, for you guys.
59:57
SPEAKER_03: There's always always be another trip up to Gosh at some point, um things like that.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_03: So um but it's not, you know, it's not sort of super regular, which is which is good, and um most of the time, you know, you get into the routine of life and uh what you're doing, so yeah.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_04: Well bless you, bless you guys, and uh we love you and thank you.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_04: Um, seven years since you first started as a student, and five years.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, gosh.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_04: You're on staff, it's been it's been glorious.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_04: So thank you.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gutted I missed all the fun stuff.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: You just do boring videos talking to camera now.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: So you'll be much missed.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm gonna miss it as well.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_03: I'll miss you guys too.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_04: Well, guys, if you want to um catch up more with Speak Life, uh you can go to speaklife.org.uk and you can sign up there for our vision evening, which is happening on the 20th of October, and you'll get the inside track on uh some of the things that are happening at uh Speak Life, including you'll get a world exclusive premiere of our new evangelistic course or our new incarnation of our evangelistic course that's been called 321 down through the years, and I think that'll be exciting.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_04: I'll also be talking to Christy Mare uh about the church and the meaning crisis, and there's uh well over a hundred people signed up for that actually exciting Zoom call.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so yeah, go to speaklife.org.uk slash vision and uh you can join us on the call and ask questions live then.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_04: Exciting.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_04: Uh do you want to round us off?
1:01:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well guys, uh thank you very much for joining us.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_03: Hope you enjoyed that chat.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_03: Uh for the last time, this is Paul Feasy ending the speakeasy.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_03: And uh big thank you to Nate and Glenn.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_03: And uh we won't catch you next week, but these two probably will.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_03: So until then, take care.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_03: Bye-bye.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_03: Bye-bye, bye-bye.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_02: My first memory of Speak Life actually features Paul because when I was an uh a student at the Speak Life Foundry, I was a year out student in 2020, and I remember arriving at the Speak Life building for the first time.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_02: I got lost in Eastbourne because it was my first day.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_02: I'd I'd walked too far along the seafront, so I overshot it.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: So I was I was rushing a bit.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh no, I'm gonna be late on my first day at Speak Life.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_02: And I turned up at the at the entrance to the Speak Life building, and Paul Feasy was there, and I vaguely recognized him because I I'd I'd followed Speak Life on YouTube for a short time before I applied, so I recognised him, and he was lovely, of course, as you would expect, and introduced himself and the two of us went into the building together.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_02: So I think he's the first member of the team I actually met uh face to face.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_02: You might remember if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, that it was Paul Feesey that did these intros and outros and and filibits uh before, and he showed me the ropes and we did a few together, maybe not the most uh on topic intros and outros when we did them together, but he he certainly uh uh showed me the ropes.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_02: And so, Paul Feasy, if you're listening to this, may I join the others in in saying a massive thank you and goodbye, and please keep in touch.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_02: We're very excited for what the future brings for you, and so yeah, let us know.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_02: Keep us posted.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_02: And uh if anyone listening would like to send Paul a message, uh feel free to send an email to infoatspeaklife.org.uk and we'll forward those on to Paul.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_02: Do say that it's it's a message for Paul, just just to make that that clear.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_02: But so Paul will no longer uh feature as a regular member of these podcasts and YouTube videos at Speak Life.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_02: But Paul hasn't left YouTube entirely.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_02: The two of us actually have a a little channel called the Shallow Proclamation, which is reacting to all of Doctor Who content from the 60s onwards.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_02: So if you are interested in that, uh feel free to check that out, but completely understand that um that's quite a niche thing.
1:04:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's all from me.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for listening.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_02: We'll be back next week without Paul for another episode.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_02: God bless you all.