Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Be Afraid: Horror, Trauma, and What Our Fears Are Discipling Us Into (Kutter Callaway)

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Be Afraid: Horror, Trauma, and What Our Fears Are Discipling Us Into (Kutter Callaway) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer.
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  Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways
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  Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,
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  Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now,
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  Speaker 1: on to today's episode of Thinking Christian.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr.
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  Speaker 2: James Spencer, and I'm joined today by Dr. Cutter Calloway.
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  Speaker 1: And he, in addition to doing the stuff that he
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  Speaker 1: normally does, which he is a William K. Brim Chair
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  Speaker 1: of Worship, Theology, and Arts and Associate Professor of Theology
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  Speaker 1: and Culture. and Associate Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary.
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  Speaker 1: He's also written a new book with IVP called Be Afraid,
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  Speaker 1: What Horror Reveals About Facing the Darkness. And this is
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  Speaker 1: part of a new series that they're doing, Discovering God
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  Speaker 1: in Pop Culture. So we're going to have a conversation
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  Speaker 1: about horror movies in the book and how we can
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  Speaker 1: think theologically about this.
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  Speaker 2: So Cutter, welcome back to the show. It's great having you.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for having me in this perfect time of
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  Speaker 3: the year because spooky season is upon us here soon.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: It's getting there. October's coming up. So, yeah, I've done
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  Speaker 1: some work on Halloween, a little bit of work on Halloween. But,
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  Speaker 1: you know, there are some connections there, I suppose, with
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  Speaker 1: horror movies. But I'm wondering, number one, sort of what
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  Speaker 1: drew you to horror in the first place? Is this
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  Speaker 1: a genre of movie that you've enjoyed for a long
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  Speaker 1: time or is it, you know, something that you're new to?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the opposite. So I, for most of my life,
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  Speaker 3: is like a super big scaredy cat. I, you know,
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  Speaker 3: because I was forced to as like a teenager or whatever,
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  Speaker 3: like I'd seen, you know, I'd watched some horror movies
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  Speaker 3: and they, of course, scarred me for life. But in
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  Speaker 3: part because I think that occasional encounter, it just, horror
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  Speaker 3: movies just affected me. Like they stuck with me, didn't
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  Speaker 3: like what they did when they stuck with me. And
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  Speaker 3: so I kind of had not written them off, but
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  Speaker 3: had just said, that's a domain I don't need to
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  Speaker 3: be worried about. And so this whole project actually came
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  Speaker 3: because of, I'd say, like three kind of overlapping things
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  Speaker 3: that all happened in similar sort of time. One, I'm
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  Speaker 3: based out of LA here, and you throw a rock
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  Speaker 3: and you hit 10 people in the industry, right? And
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  Speaker 3: I just happened to get to know and have relationships
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  Speaker 3: with a number of Christian filmmakers that were making not
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  Speaker 3: Christian films going to quote, but we're making horror movies,
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  Speaker 3: either writers and directors or actors, you know, producers, et cetera.
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  Speaker 3: And many of them were some of the biggest proponents
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  Speaker 3: of horror being a deeply, at least theological or religious,
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  Speaker 3: if not outright Christian form of art. And I was like, okay, but,
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  Speaker 3: still not for me.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Like, uh, you know, um, I'm like, yeah, I'll hear you. Um,
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  Speaker 3: but then, uh, something happened during COVID and after COVID
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  Speaker 3: where these really interesting things happened. And that is, um, the,
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  Speaker 3: the theater chains almost went out of business, um, after COVID,
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  Speaker 3: like no one would go back to see it. Everything
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  Speaker 3: was streaming and it was actually a couple of horror films,
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  Speaker 3: a few actually, um, in like 2020, 2020 or 21
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  Speaker 3: and 22 that essentially saved theaters. And you see this
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  Speaker 3: really interesting sort of cultural phenomenon here in the US
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  Speaker 3: where people, they would gather together in person in real
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  Speaker 3: space and time, not for a big blockbuster like Tenet.
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  Speaker 3: Christopher Nolan's Tenet came out just after COVID. Terrible box
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  Speaker 3: office receipts compared to his other films, but they would
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  Speaker 3: go out for horror. And you go, huh, that's interesting
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  Speaker 3: of what are people willing to gather together after this
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  Speaker 3: like collective trauma we've just gone through. And it was
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  Speaker 3: horror films. And then since then, um, the percentage of
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  Speaker 3: box office sales has just increased every year since COVID
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  Speaker 3: of horror relative to the rest of, um, the, the
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  Speaker 3: different movie genres. And I said, okay, my, I'm supposedly
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  Speaker 3: an expert in contemporary popular culture in North America, specifically
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  Speaker 3: television and film. At some point, I'm going to lose
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  Speaker 3: my credentials, uh, If I'm just ignoring like 15 to 20%
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  Speaker 3: of what everyone produces and consumes, like I can't do that.
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  Speaker 3: And so I was like, all right, well, the only
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  Speaker 3: thing I guess I can do is exposure therapy. And
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  Speaker 3: so I was like, I'm going to go into this.
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  Speaker 3: And my questions are like, one, why does it affect
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  Speaker 3: me in the way that it has? And two, why
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  Speaker 3: isn't it doing that to so many of these other people,
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  Speaker 3: many of whom are Christians? what what's up with that?
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  Speaker 3: And so I really kind of approached it like an
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  Speaker 3: anthropologist and said, I'm going to go in and expose
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  Speaker 3: myself to these practices, these strange creatures, you know, doing
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  Speaker 3: these strange things and see what happens. And that's really
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  Speaker 3: what sort of drove me to do it in the
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  Speaker 3: first place. And I think made it a little more
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  Speaker 3: interesting because it's if I had gone in as like
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  Speaker 3: a horror fan, it's almost like I'm I have a
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  Speaker 3: an outcome in mind that I'm going to go prove.
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  Speaker 3: as opposed to like, hey, I'm kind of open-handed here.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not sure what I'm going to find. And that
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  Speaker 3: is what made it pretty fun for me. And I
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  Speaker 3: think when people read the book, I hope it kind
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  Speaker 3: of translates that they're discovering along with me what I
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  Speaker 3: kind of encountered.
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  Speaker 1: So when you think of like, when I think about
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  Speaker 1: horror movies, when I was growing up, I grew up
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  Speaker 1: in that sort of Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on
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  Speaker 1: Elm Street, right?
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  Speaker 2: Those kind of films.
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  Speaker 1: And then as I got older, you get into things
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  Speaker 1: like Saw or I don't know whether you'd count this,
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  Speaker 1: but like Obsession that just came out. You know that
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  Speaker 1: like they seem to have changed over time from what
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  Speaker 1: were a little bit more like one of my favorites
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  Speaker 1: is Army of Darkness with Bruce Campbell. You watch it
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  Speaker 1: again and you're like, this barely counts as a horror movie.
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  Speaker 1: This can't really be, you know, but. They have changed
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  Speaker 1: over time. Did you look at any of that and
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  Speaker 1: how maybe they're getting a little bit more sophisticated and
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  Speaker 1: almost a little grittier nowadays?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And the changes are interesting on a lot of fronts.
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  Speaker 3: The kind of early hints of what we now have,
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  Speaker 3: we're all kind of there, but the way they got
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  Speaker 3: developed and played out is interesting. Kind of depending upon
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  Speaker 3: the sub genre and then also the, the filmmakers themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: So you can go as far back as like the
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  Speaker 3: exorcist is really kind of the first horror film that
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  Speaker 3: was made by like a legitimate filmmaker. And, and that
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  Speaker 3: sort of set the stage for like, Oh, wait a minute.
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  Speaker 3: This isn't just, you know, sort of trying to like
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  Speaker 3: stimulate an audience or whatever, a provoking audience. This is,
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  Speaker 3: there are possibilities within the genre that, that are what
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  Speaker 3: we would call artistic, right? Like you can do this
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  Speaker 3: with artistic credibility. Okay. Then you get some of the
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  Speaker 3: early ones that you mentioned. And in terms of both
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  Speaker 3: those filmmakers and those films, they then got developed, the
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  Speaker 3: franchises were developed in very specific ways that I think
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  Speaker 3: personally didn't just get grittier, but got a little more banal,
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  Speaker 3: a little more nihilistic. And one of the reads that
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  Speaker 3: I give in the book is, especially when it comes
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  Speaker 3: to slasher films, I can find some interesting theological, even
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  Speaker 3: ethical rationales for why you might watch those. But one
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  Speaker 3: thing that happens in the development of those is once
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  Speaker 3: it becomes a franchise, now all of a sudden, instead
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  Speaker 3: of some precocious kids defeating evil, now you're going to
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  Speaker 3: see a movie where the bad guy's just slaughtering people.
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  Speaker 3: And like the protagonist shifts, the dynamics of the film shift.
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  Speaker 3: And now I go, whether or not it's like a
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  Speaker 3: good movie, the narrative now includes this entire franchise where
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  Speaker 3: all of a sudden it's Freddy Krueger, who's the hero.
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  Speaker 3: And we're celebrating his like the sophistication of his kills
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  Speaker 3: rather than some of the moral complexities of nightmares and violence. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So that's one way to think about it. But another,
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  Speaker 3: I think just in terms of, you know, going back
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  Speaker 3: to Friedkin with The Exorcist and then now more recently are,
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  Speaker 3: and this is more in the last 15 to 20 years,
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  Speaker 3: some like, I call it art house horror. So the
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  Speaker 3: Robert Eggers of the world, the Ari Osters of the world,
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  Speaker 3: making like kind of high minded, high concept horror films.
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  Speaker 3: And they do resist categorization sometimes because it's like, whoa, this, what?
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  Speaker 3: why is this so disturbing? Cause it's not just a
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  Speaker 3: bunch of jump scare, actually maybe no jump scares, no even,
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  Speaker 3: you know, brutal slashing or slaying, but man, this was
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  Speaker 3: deeply disturbing in a horrific sort of way. That is
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  Speaker 3: a new sort of development that I think is really interesting.
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  Speaker 3: The other thing that I think has developed in terms of,
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  Speaker 3: it may not just be grittiness cause you know, ratings
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  Speaker 3: systems have changed and all that in terms of what's allowable. Um,
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  Speaker 3: now you can stream stuff, so you don't even have
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  Speaker 3: to have a rating on a lot of things. Um, but, uh,
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  Speaker 3: I found really interesting, uh, the different kind of filmmakers
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  Speaker 3: who are now doing horror and many of them, um,
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  Speaker 3: that I think are making some of the most compelling
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  Speaker 3: things are, uh, people who are otherwise marginalized voices in
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  Speaker 3: our society, women, people of color who are drawing upon
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  Speaker 3: the genre. to, I think, communicate kind of the visceral
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  Speaker 3: terror that they experience on a daily basis that a
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  Speaker 3: person like you or I just don't feel. And so
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  Speaker 3: I'm finding that a real interesting development in terms of,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think, you designed or had anything like that
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  Speaker 3: in mind. Now, same genre, similar sort of structure and dynamics,
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  Speaker 3: but a really different sort of visceral experience for the audience,
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  Speaker 3: being able to kind of like feel the world from
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  Speaker 3: a different body than the one that some of us inhabit.
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  Speaker 3: So I get into that a little bit, but the
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  Speaker 3: book is really more, I focus on sort of sub-genres
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  Speaker 3: and within that kind of talk about different historical moments,
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  Speaker 3: more so than a full historical take. So this is
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  Speaker 3: kind of the first I've really thought out loud about,
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  Speaker 3: about that change. So thanks for that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I, it's interesting to me because I hear
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  Speaker 1: what you're saying. And I think almost anytime you do
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  Speaker 1: multiple sequels, you tend to get that sort of.
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  Speaker 2: Banality in all of them.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I mean, I can even think of a
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  Speaker 1: non horror series like the diehard series and you look
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  Speaker 1: at it and you go diehard was so interesting and
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  Speaker 1: compelling as a single movie that, And then as they
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  Speaker 1: went on, you're just like, how many of these things
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  Speaker 1: can this guy actually survive?
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  Speaker 2: Like, this is getting unreal.
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  Speaker 1: No, they're still entertaining, but they don't have the same
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  Speaker 1: sort of feel as the first one. And I think
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  Speaker 1: you could say that about the Rocky movies. You could
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  Speaker 1: say that about the Rambo movies, you know, some of
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  Speaker 1: the later ones, maybe, maybe, you know, sort of bring
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  Speaker 1: back something, you know, that was there in the earlier ones,
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  Speaker 1: but you don't usually see, unless you're planning out those sequels,
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  Speaker 1: it just feels like there's a drift that happens and
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  Speaker 1: you get an unevenness in them. And you can see
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  Speaker 1: that in, Something like, you know, arguably the Saw series,
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  Speaker 1: which is the one I'm most familiar with. It's like
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  Speaker 1: the first one I thought was fantastic. And you could
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  Speaker 1: see a lot of the elements you talk about in
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  Speaker 1: the book there. Yes, it was scary. It was crazy
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  Speaker 1: and weird. But if you really stopped and stepped back
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  Speaker 1: from some of the what people might call gratuitous violence,
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  Speaker 1: you do see an underlying story here that's kind of
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  Speaker 1: compelling and really interesting. You know, exploring sort of human nature.
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  Speaker 1: but then once you get into saw two and now
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  Speaker 1: I think probably saw 98.
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  Speaker 2: They're just not the same. Right. It's just not the same.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. And, and horror is, I don't think you, it's
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  Speaker 3: like you said, it's not unique in this. Um, it
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  Speaker 3: might be a little more prone to it because of
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  Speaker 3: the economics. Like horror films are super cheap to make. Um,
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  Speaker 3: and so they don't have to make much to return
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  Speaker 3: their profit. And so one, you, you're, doing it on a,
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  Speaker 3: on a budget. And then two, you're just trying to
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: up the ante right from before. So all of your,
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: you know, time and resources end up going to let's
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  Speaker 3: make it as cheap as possible. And as shocking compared
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  Speaker 3: to the previous one, because we, you know, and so
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  Speaker 3: that I think, you know, is part of the thing,
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  Speaker 3: but saw is a great example of where it's like, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: that initial nugget was really smart. It was well-written. It's
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  Speaker 3: asking lots of really interesting questions. Every iteration afterwards, it's like,
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  Speaker 3: it's hard for me to justify, because it's not doing
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  Speaker 3: what that initial one was. And it is what I,
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  Speaker 3: you know, when people ask me of like, oh, how
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  Speaker 3: can you interact with horror as a Christian or whatever?
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  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, you know, don't approach the genre. And
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  Speaker 3: this is something I too learned of like, don't approach
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  Speaker 3: the whole thing as if the worst case example is
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: indicative of the whole thing, right? Like you don't do
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: that with anything else. Like there are awful biopics out
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: there that like nobody should watch. But that doesn't mean
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: all biopics are horrible, right? And I could even make
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: the case that like a romantic comedy, the best quote
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: unquote romantic comedies are profoundly destructive to our imagination of relationship,
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  Speaker 3: of romance, of love from a Christian perspective. And so
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  Speaker 3: as we think about it as a genre and in
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  Speaker 3: the goods, bads, whatever, I want to go, I want
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  Speaker 3: to talk about the best of horror. And I think
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  Speaker 3: the first Saw movie is, represents what i would call
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  Speaker 3: the best of horror saw 10 i'm like i'm not
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  Speaker 3: i'm not trying to convince anybody to go see saw
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  Speaker 3: 10 you know.
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  Speaker 1: Right you could probably skip that one just in general
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  Speaker 1: exactly interesting So as you're doing this, I mean, what
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  Speaker 1: do you think? And I saw the video on the
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  Speaker 1: Amazon site for the book. And you talk a little
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  Speaker 1: bit about some of the misgivings people would have as
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: they start to engage horror. And I'm wondering if you
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  Speaker 1: can kind of walk through a few of those. You know,
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  Speaker 1: the first one was that sort of it seems so gratuitous.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. Like, but again, I would say.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of these movies we're talking about the sequels, the,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: you know, the 10th saw the, you know, if they'd
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: have made a sequel to seven, right. You would have
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: seen something that was far less compelling than the actual
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  Speaker 1: first movie. And so part of that gratuity, I think
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  Speaker 1: comes from that dynamic you're talking about it.
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  Speaker 2: They're cheap to make.
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  Speaker 1: And so you make more of them, but you spend
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: less quality time with them and, you know, those kinds
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  Speaker 1: of things. But do you think that's where that impression
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  Speaker 1: of the gratuity comes in? Or is it just more
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  Speaker 1: inherent to the genre?
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  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, um, because it's
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  Speaker 3: hard to know, you know, I don't, I don't remember
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: why people say that or think that, um, it's a
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: real response. Um, and I think my resistance to that
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: response is that it's painting with too broad a brushstroke, right?
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Fair enough.
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  Speaker 3: And I go, it of course is true. I like
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: there's evidence for gratuitous stuff out there. Um, Another franchise
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: that I say do not watch is the Terrifier series.
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  Speaker 3: I don't find anything redeemable about those movies. And I
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: did the work for you. You can trust me. You
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: don't have to go watch it. And it is gratuitous
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  Speaker 3: on purpose, right? That is true. I'm not going to
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  Speaker 3: deny that. But the fact of violence or the fact
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  Speaker 3: of horror or terror is itself not gratuitous. And all
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: of that, of course, has to be couched in What
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I would say is the meaning rather than the content, right?
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  Speaker 3: So what is the takeaway? What is the meaning of
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: the story as a whole in relationship to that content?
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  Speaker 3: Not a horror movie, but I sometimes like to be
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  Speaker 3: provocative and say, when I was a youth pastor, I
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: wished I could force every senior in high school to
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: watch Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream. I don't know
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: if you've seen this movie. It is horribly disturbing content.
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  Speaker 3: horribly gratuitous and should be must watch for every teenager
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: going out in the world because I watched that thing
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: and I will never imagine doing heroin. Like there's just no, no,
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  Speaker 3: I scared the heroin out of me or whatever you
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  Speaker 3: want to say. So the, the point of that movie,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: if you were just going to look at its content
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  Speaker 3: and whether or not it's gratuitous, it's like, well, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: there's explicit stuff in here. But the point of the
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: movie is to, shake you in such a way that
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: you can't unsee what you've just seen. And this is
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: very much to me, a Flannery O'Connor thing, right? Like
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: you go to the heart of hearing you shout and
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: to the blind, you draw large and startling figures, I
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: think is what she says. And I think that's what
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  Speaker 3: horror movies are doing when they're accused of being gratuitous.
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  Speaker 3: What they're really doing is saying like, Hey, violence is violent.
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  Speaker 3: Evil is evil. darkness is dark and it is actually
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  Speaker 3: a threat to you. If I tell a story about
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: that and it doesn't feel that way, then I've, I've
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: actually sanitized it in a way that, uh, that undermines, um,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: the actual effect and power of it. And so, um, again,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean they can't get gratuitous. They can, but for me,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: the best of horror actually leverages the, I wouldn't even
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: call it gratuity, the, the, uh, the explicitness of that,
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: that content and does something good with.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I remember when Kevin Van Hooser released Everyday Theology,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and there was an essay in there, I believe, if
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I'm recalling correctly, about Eminem.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: And I remember reading that.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Essay and sitting back and saying, yeah, this is a
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: really great way to engage with this sort of music.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: It's not that we're saying, oh, absolutely, Eminem is a
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: moral compass for all teenagers. What it was saying was,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: he's actually, a lot of what he's singing about he's
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: living out this is reality this is happening somewhere and
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: even though it may be exaggerated for the art form
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: or what have you the way he's putting this together
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: expresses something that is very real and for christians not
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: to engage reality is in some ways really problematic.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Now you make the argument, you don't have to engage
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: reality this way. Sure.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, to your point, you know,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you've got these interesting directors who are trying to convey
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: through this art form, something that doesn't seem to be
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: getting through any other way.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And so I just think that's a really like that
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: part of it. If we approach these with that in mind,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: we're trying to understand what the reality is here. I
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: would think that would help, it would at least help
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: me look past some of what otherwise I might see
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: as gratuitous.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. And, you know, a number of things to
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: keep in mind for any of us. My argument would
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: not be, and I wouldn't try to convince anyone, that everyone,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: every Christian out there needs to now become experts at war, right?
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Like, that's not a thing.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Like, my mom is a good example. And my wife, right?
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: They're not, they're just not, it's not going to be
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: good for them. They don't want, so, okay. so I'm
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: doing the work for them so they can read this and,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: you know, have be thoughtful about it. But but yeah,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: like to to say that Christians ought not to be involved.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, that makes no sense to me. We
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: need to be discerning. We need to know what our
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: own sort of sensitivities are. We also need to know
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: there is an age appropriateness. I'm not going, you know,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: a seven-year-old should watch Saw. Like that's not, that's clearly
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: not what I'm saying. But to your point, I am
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: saying as a person who is missionally minded, one of
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: the key ways that I can understand how the people
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: in my world are experiencing reality, how they're processing it,
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: the fact that I would spend time and money to
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: go watch this thing, consume this thing says something about
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: the deeper desires, drives, fears, anxieties that they're experiencing. And
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: so I can look to this film as a way
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: of giving me insight into their lives so that hopefully
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: I can speak intelligibly to them when it comes to
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: what it means to be a person of Christian faith.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: And that's where like Van Hooser's work is really helpful.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: And most of the stuff that I do is along
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: those lines. Like, If I'm not willing to give this
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: broader society or culture a fair hearing, why do I
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: expect them to give me one? And the additional point
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: to that too is it also then, I think, gives
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: me insight if I can understand better what those fears are.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: And in the book, I call it a theophobics, right?
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: That these films and stuff, they give us insight into
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: what fears are driving us, what our anxieties are, et cetera,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: et cetera. So that I can then go, huh, isn't
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: it interesting? Now when I come back from that horror
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: film and start reading my own sacred text, all of
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: a sudden, a lot of the horrific parts of that
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: start standing out in ways that I go, man, if
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: you're a person out there that wants to go see
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Saw or wants to go see The Witch or whatever,
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: and you have an inarticulate desire, you don't even know
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: why you love it so much, I have a story
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: for you. And this story is explicit. It is gratuitous.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: And it just so happens to be part of this
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: much broader story that might speak to the pains, the chaos,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: the conflict, the violence and the trauma that you're experiencing
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: in reality. And that to me is the other missional
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: opportunity to say, how can we know the way to
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: translate our story? If we don't know the stories that
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: everybody else is consuming, it's almost like we're speaking a
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: different language. And so a lot of what I do
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: really is, I would say, a sort of a missional
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: mindset in that in that regard.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Do you think because your second point, the video on
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the website is around, you know, sort of this exposure
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to dark spirits and, you know, an evil spiritual side, but.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I've thought about just over time,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't grow up really as a Christian. I grew
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: up Lutheran, but I didn't really have any conviction about it.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I was just sort of going to church on Sunday.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: And so I can remember as a kid watching things
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: like Lethal Weapon early on. And, you know, I was
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: more the action movie genre. So, you know, you pick
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: up those things. And as I got older and I'd
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: still watch those things and I'd gotten a little bit
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: more theologically savvy, I saw things in them that I
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: wasn't seeing when I was a kid.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: And so... Now, even when I watch a movie.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Even just more passively, I'm approaching it and thinking to myself,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I wonder what this is going to be telling me.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: And I'm processing it in a lot different way than
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I used to when I was just sort of like, man,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: what Mel Gibson did on the screen was so awesome.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Like, you know.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if part of this is an approach
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: that Christians need to cultivate, regardless of whether they're watching
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: horror or whatever else there is that they're watching, that's
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: sort of more reflective, more thoughtful, more engaging of this
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: director is probably trying to say something to me kind
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: of aspect.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think that's right. Part of why I
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: write about and teach on film, like horror is just
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: the most recent thing I focus on, but More broadly,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: I do film and television and essentially like theological criticism
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: and not critique, like not condemnation, but how do we
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: develop interpretive tools that allow us to be credible interpreters
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: of these things? And I think that's what I hope
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: for with a student in my class or people I
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: talk to or, you know, if they learn anything from me,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: it's we actually need to be more competent in terms
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: of cultural interpretation. Because our credibility is on the line.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Like the broader society sees how Christians understand movies and
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: they're like, you didn't even watch the movie, right? Like
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: that's step one. A lot of times we protest, we
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: don't even watch it. It's like, well, okay. But then
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: after watching it, this is what's so funny. If we
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: did this with the biblical text, we would accuse people
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: of eisegesis, right? Like don't import your read onto that
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: and tell it what it is when it's clearly not
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: what's arising from the text. So are there ways we
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: can be consistent in our interpretation? And one of the
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: things that you need to know is you need to
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: know something about genre. You need to know something about
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: the art form. You need to know something about storytelling
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: structure to be able to understand whether it's what the director,
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: writer-director wanted you to know or what just the film
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: is saying. And even that relationship, what is the relationship
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: between the author, authorial intent and the text and all
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: those sort of things should be in play in terms
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: of how we understand what is this particular art form
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: capable of and how do we understand it rightly? Because
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: to misunderstand it is, I think, well, one, just a miss.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: But then two, I think really reflects poorly on our
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: ability to be, again, credible interpreters. So the one thing
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I'll say, the caveat, though, is and I've had students
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: come through my class and they're like, oh, you ruined
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: movies for me. I'm like, what? What do you mean?
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Um, and what they mean is what you're describing. It's like,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I can't watch anymore without thinking through all these different things.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, fair enough. So another practice
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: that I try to have people do, and I try
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: to do it myself is for example, I don't, this
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: is good and bad. I don't read any reviews. I hate,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: I don't want to know anything. Um, and so I
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: go into it and I try as best as I
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: can to set those, like the critical analytical things aside
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: and just experience it first. Um, This is, I steal
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: from C.S. Lewis on this, experiment and criticism. And he says,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: the first demand a work of art places upon us
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: is to look, listen, and receive, get yourself out of
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: the way. I would say something similar with the biblical text.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: We can get to the historical background, its situation, its authorship,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: et cetera, but can I sit and let let the scripture,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: the story affect me as a story, affect me as
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: the literature that it is first, and then come back
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: and say, okay, now what was happening there and why
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: and what, you know, that sort of thing. That's what
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: I encourage for my own film going and others. But ultimately, yes,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: to your point, I want us to be better, more
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: savvy cultural interpreters, specifically as it concerns film, because I
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: think it matters.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, When we think about.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: How these things sort of start to connect us to
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: dark spirits in an evil spiritual world, I wrote an
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: article on the Labubus.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Do you know Labubus? I do. I do.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah so um sadly i knew labubus we had a
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: foster child staying with us and she was like in
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: love with these labubus and they were all the rage
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and so i'm like what are we talking about here
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: and then i find out that there's some sort of
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: linkage to mesopotamian demons and.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: What have you so i just yeah it's actually.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Creepy to me like just looking at him but.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: It connects through the exorcist the demon in the exorcist
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: is the supposedly the demon these labubus were resembling now Overall,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I kind of stepped back and said, I don't think
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: any of this is the case. But you had Christians
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: sort of saying these little boo-boos are now a vehicle
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: for getting into dark spirituality. You saw the same thing
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: with like Harry Potter films and all those kind of
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: different pieces. And so I'm wondering how this approach that
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: we just talked about might sort of buffer people from
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: or give people.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Some comfort, right?
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: That the, the actual film itself is not going to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: infect you with something that, you know, a whole, uh,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: an evil spirit is probably not going to jump off
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the screen.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, it is, I, I, I shouldn't be,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: but I do keep getting sort of like surprised when
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: that is one of the pieces because it is recurring. Right. Um,
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: I was, uh, out of the country and another unnamed country,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: I would say, and meeting with some like filmmakers who
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: are Christians and, and then that came up, Oh, I'm
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: doing stuff in horror. And it turned out, tons of
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: them were involved in, in horror, but they weren't admitting
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: it to each other. Cause this is a gathering of
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: Christian artists. And so, but one of the masks, it's like, well,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: you know, and he literally said something like, don't you
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: worry that like a demonic presence is going to come
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: out of the screen. And, and I'm like, wait, what?
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, back up. And I realized like,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: I've got to unpack so many like metaphysical, theological, biblical
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: things that, Before I even get to just the question
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: of art and the movie, part of me wants to go, okay,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: if I have the kind of intellectual humility that I do,
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: do I personally believe that watching The Exorcist or something
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: like that, that I'm exposing myself to demonic oppression? No,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: I don't personally believe that. Um, and yet I want
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: to go, but there are enough faithful Christians who are
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: concerned about this that I go, okay, well, what is
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: it that they're actual actually fearing? What is the thing
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: that's driving that? And the book, the argument I make,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: and this kind of was my discovery that I went
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: along the way. I went into this whole process of
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: exposure therapy with the idea of perfect love casts out fear.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: This is what I'm thinking. And then I go, okay,
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: if there's any redeemable part of the horror genre, it's
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: somehow going to I don't know, I'm going to become
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: callous to these things where I no longer am afraid
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: of them, right? Like they no longer scare me. And
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: that didn't happen. They still affect me. I'm a little
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: more savvy now. Like I can predict things and it's,
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: you know, not as jarring, but there's still some that
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: really affect me. But along the way, I actually stopped
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: and I said, you know, actually, in biblically, we also
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: get the message that the fear of the Lord is
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: the beginning of wisdom. And I thought, huh, well, maybe
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: fear itself isn't what the problem is. Maybe it's a misdirected,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: misplaced fear. Maybe we're actually fearing all the wrong things.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: And that's where, whether it's a film or a story
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: or something we experience in real life, a lot of
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: times we encounter this fear in a way that terrorizes us.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: And I think what God's calling us to is to
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: experience encounter and lean into our fear in a way
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: that transforms us. And so I think those are two
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: really different ways of thinking about this. And that's where
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: I get back to, is a demon going to jump
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: off of the screen and possess me or, you know.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Affect me?
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: I go, well, what is it that's actually, where are
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: your fears aligned here? Are you fearing the one who
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: can merely kill the flesh or the one who can,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: you know, destroy the flesh and the soul and send
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: them to hell? We're talking about God. And I go,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: I think regardless of your metaphysics, regardless of your demonology,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: there is a kind of misplaced fear there, I think,
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: to cede to evil something that it ought not have.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: And that is it is directing and managing and co-opting
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: and leveraging our fear in a way that I think
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: is malforming us. So whether or not demons possess things,
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: I'll remain agnostic. But I will say, I think it's
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: an opportunity for us to disciple our fears and to go, okay,
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: where am I pointing these? And where are these different
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: forms actually exploiting my tendency to fear the wrong things?
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: And then what are the things I actually should be
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: afraid of? And that's where I think some of the best,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: even supernatural horror, it's really interesting to me that there
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: is the threat of demons or demonic possession. Evil is
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: very real. But there's also usually the only people that
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: had the resources to deal with that are religious people,
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: usually Christians. So on top of that, though, those Christians
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: are usually the most skeptical about the supernatural of anybody
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: in the film. And so it's like everybody else, it's
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: not the Christians don't get it. It's everyone else that's
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: going like, evil is real, wake up Christians and help us, right?
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: So even that of how you understand the narrative of
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: a film, I think goes like, oh, if anybody in
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: society is worried about supernatural evil. It's everybody that's not
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: Christian and we're the ones that are late to the
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: game and need to wake up. So anyway, that is, again,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: I want to respect and honor people that are concerned
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: about that. It's not my concern, but I do think
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: it's an opportunity to go, okay, well, what is it
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: that we actually fear and how do we actually manage
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: those fears?
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: And I think just To reiterate it again, because I
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: think you'd say this, it's like, if you have those fears,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: maybe don't go see the horror movie.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: That's fine. Yeah.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: But then let's recognize that maybe this is one of
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: those sort of disputable matters and where you or I
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: might not have any problem sitting down to watch a
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: horror movie and trying to understand it and grasp what
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: it's trying to tell us. Another person may not, and
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: that's okay.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: But I think your broader point of how are our
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: fears discipling us, disciplining our lives, that's a more pertinent
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: question that could transcend the horror genre.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Because I mean, my, again, my,
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: my awareness of the principalities and powers, right. That are
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: not flesh and blood are almost entirely to me, higher
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: order systemic, uh, uh, pressures, uh, that emerge from our
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: various activities and then exert a downward pressure on us
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: that really does corrupt and harm us. And I think
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: in a lot of horror as well, you see, so
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: like Stranger Things, I can always recommend Stranger Things because
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: it's like horror light, even though some of the seasons
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: get a little more explicitly horror. But a really fascinating take,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: I think, in terms of it's the world that it builds,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: you get these monstrous monstrosities from the upside down, right?
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: And they really do terrorize the kids and everything else.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: But you would miss it. And this is back to
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: cultural interpretation. You miss the point if you don't realize
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: that those monsters were created by the government and the
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: schools and the industries and the tech builders and the
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: parents and all of these sort of institutional organizations that
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: are wielding power in demonic ways to actually produce the
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: monstrosities that we then all encounter, especially the vulnerable people,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: the kids, right? And to me, that is a deeply,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: I would describe it as demonic in the way that
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: it oppresses us. And that I think we should be
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: concerned about. We should address that should worry us. But
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: that's my other thing of like, well, are we, what
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: are we more afraid of? That maybe a spirit's going
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: to jump out of the screen or the systems that
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: we're complicit in Yeah, and.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: I think it's a really interesting example because.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Albert Borgman, he wrote on technology and the character of
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: contemporary culture, and he talks about technology not taking over
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: simply by just force of rule.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: But he talks about it.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: He's like, what you're going to see is the the
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: embedding of inconspicuous patterns that ultimately change the course of
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: our lives. And I think part of what Stranger Things does,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: which is really compelling, is it makes these inconspicuous patterns
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: visible through the creation of these monsters like you can't
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: miss them. And so it's not. In some ways, it's
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: very subtle. You could watch the show and technically miss it,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I suppose. But in another way, it's making something very
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: plain that is often unnoticed. And so I think that's
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: a great example of one of the ways they're using this.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Absolutely right. And it's on the technology side.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: And again, back to our fears and what we imagine. Horror,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: it's Scott Derrickson, who does a lot of stuff. I
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: interview him. has done a lot of horror films and
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: he calls it the genre of non, non-deniability, I think
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: is what his word is. But essentially like you cannot
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: ignore or deny the evil that you're seeing. Like it
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: makes it clear and you got to reckon with it.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: It doesn't give you a choice. Others, other genres, it's
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: actually kind of opaque. You're not sure. And speaking of
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: the everyday theology. So one of those contributors, a guy
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: named Justin Bailey, He's written some really good theology works
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: on apologetics and sort of aesthetics as a way of
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: doing apologetics. And I steal from him, I'm pretty sure,
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: that when it comes to like our techno future, that
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: our fear, what we have in mind is something that's
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: like the Matrix or Terminator or something like that, right?
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: But the reality is probably more like WALL-E, where we...
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Without knowing it, we literally cede all of our agency
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: to this technology because it's comfortable and it's pleasing and pleasant.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: And we abdicate our responsibility to this entire planet and
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: find ourselves, we wake up and we're like, wait, we're
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: like on recliners with a liquid diet consuming digital media
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: designed just for me. That I think is the horror. Now,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: Wally's not a horror movie, but trying to go like,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: you should be terrified of this um, this reality is
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: what the best of the horror genre does is like,
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: look at this, don't look away. It's also the best
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: of what the Bible does, right? I mean, these, these
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: texts that it's like, we've got to put in sharp relief, um, the,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: the trauma and the violence and the chaos that you
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: are inflicting upon yourselves. Um, and if you sanitize it, um,
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: you're not going to realize, uh, its consequences, uh, and you'll,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: What did you say? It seeps in, you know, over time.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's embedded in those inconspicuous patterns. It just gets
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: in there.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Fantastic. Let me let me kind of pivot and
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: ask a question.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: You'd mentioned earlier that, you know, some of the sequels,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: as you get into horror movies, you start to see,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: you know, Freddy Krueger is the hero and you're looking
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: for the inventiveness of his next kill. There's a sense
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: in which we've started to see this in superhero movies
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: as well, sort of the emergence of the antihero. And
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering if that's becoming more commonplace in the horror genre,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: just the antihero as part of the story that we're
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: supposed to be seeing this very gray character.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Not necessarily black hat, white.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Hat, but the gray hat, who is the one that
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: we are guided to emulate, let's say.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: I would say yes and no. So I would say
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: that kind of happened. And then I want to say
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: there's another new thing, newer thing that follows in line
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: with that. So Yes. I think the rise of the
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: antihero was real. Um, and you're like, Oh, whether it's
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: like breaking bad or, you know, uh, uh, I'm trying
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: to think of a good, uh, recent horror example. Um, uh, uh,
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: you know, some of the scream franchise, I mean, I
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: know it's sort of a parody, but a similar kind
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: of like, Oh, these, you know, um, I think one
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: of the responses to that has come in maybe two ways,
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: both in the superhero and the horror thing is, um,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: what I see in like, did you see the, uh,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: it's like the new, the new Avengers, Thunderbolt, Thunderbolts. Is
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: that what it was?
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Thunderbolts.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: And that was a good example of now that they're
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: the bad guy, right? These are all complicated heroes to
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: begin with. None of them are like complete morally upright,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: but then also the bad guy, the bad guy, actually,
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: this is what I would say. This is back to
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: my psych background, trauma informed research or ministries. The fundamental
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: reframe is not to say, what's wrong with you? It's
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: to say, what happened to you? And you see even
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: the great bad guy that they have to fight, they go, actually,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: you're a traumatized person. You're not just born a monster.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: Something happened to you. And part of their task as
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: superheroes is to acknowledge their own flaws. But then rather
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: than celebrate them as the antihero, they're actually integrating the
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: the enemy back into some sort of like life. I
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: find that a really interesting move in the MCU. We'll
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: see what happens with, with future films. You go DC
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: and like the most recent Superman, it's almost the opposite.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: It's like, he's now incredibly morally upright and pure and sincere. And,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: you know, so it's, it's confusing, confusing, but then on
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: the horror side, I see a similar move in some
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: of the best films that I, appreciate the most. I
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: think it best is, you know, um, but the ones
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: I appreciate the most, uh, there's a film, for example, called, um,
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: the Babadook. I don't know if you've seen this one,
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Australian filmmaker. And, uh, it is a story of this.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: The Babadook is like a, a boogeyman kind of figure
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: terrorizing this, this mom and her kid. And over time,
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: rather than defeat, uh, the Babadook and eliminate him, or,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: you know, um, it, she learns to actually, live with
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: this creature that then she essentially nourishes underneath her house
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: in her basement. Right. Um, it's still terrifying, so hard,
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: but it, the Babadook for her represents her traumatic past
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: that continued to terrorize her. And the, the, the story
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: arc is her actually integrating that terror and that trauma
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: into her life, um, as opposed to eliminating it. Um,
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: another film called, uh, appendage, um, kind of a body
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: horror thing. And, uh, all of a sudden this lady's
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: like an actual thing starts growing on her side. Um,
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: and she has to like cut it off. But, um, that,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: that movie in spoiler alert, if you haven't seen it, um,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: with literally her, um, she tries to cut it off
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: and does, but it actually keeps living. And so instead
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: of killing it, she, um, cares for it like a child. Um,
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: so the ending scene is her like caring for this monster.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: And so, um, that I find a really interesting turn
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: in terms of how we think about, I think the anti-hero,
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: just me thinking, you know, in terms of how do,
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: how do we identify, how are we being called at it? It's, um,
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: it's a little unfulfilling, I think, you know, um, it,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: it's despairing a bit. Um, and I do think, especially
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: emerging generations are kind of looking at the older generations
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: going like, you people are kind of anti-heroes, like you, you,
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: You set up society to benefit yourself and you're still
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: doing it and you still are making decisions that, you know,
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: are going to screw us all over and you're going
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: to you're doing it anyway. And I think that just
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: that generational thing is making people a little less open
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: to like, I'm going to celebrate the antihero because it's
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: like a cool Gen X thing to do or something.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: It is a very Gen X thing to do. Let's
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: just be real about that.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: I'm an anti-hero.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Nurturing the monster that grows out of my side is
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: not really something I would think of.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: But I think.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: It does express sort of, I don't know, we could
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: say the Vorlaga of our time, right? It's like this
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: sort of interesting concept of we're all trying to deal
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: with some level of trauma in our lives at this point.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: And so these things that we suffer, we don't just
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: want to kill them and leave them alone. We, we
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: want to redeem them in some way. We want them to,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: we want to incorporate them in our lives so that
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: we're back in control of them perhaps, uh, or have
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: some semblance of control of them perhaps, but we don't
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: want to get rid of them.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Um, which is really interesting. Yeah.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: Um, and again, we all bring our interpretive lenses to it.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: So I could be reading too much into them, but
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: it does seem there's enough data piling up that I go, yeah,
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: this is, um, this is the thing that a lot
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: of horror is dealing with either in the story itself
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: or what precedes it is like a distinct trauma. Now
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: the characters are navigating it and that trauma is terrorizing them.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: And the movie hinges on either it continues to, and
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: it kills them or they transform it somehow. It transforms
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: them and the trauma into something else. And that I
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: think is what people are yearning for of like, okay,
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: how do we actually, what then do we do right?
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Like now that we've gone through this, uh, and then
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: what are the resources I have to draw upon to
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: help me do that thing? Um, and that's, that's why
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: stories are so, I think powerful in that, in that regard.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to ask just, and, We're about out
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: of time, so I wanted to ask this last little
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: arc of a question. I've been involved in the fitness
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: industry for a very, very long time.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: You can't tell.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I started lifting when I was 14. I was a
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: personal trainer when I worked through my MDiv. I've been
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: around it and in it. My bachelor's degree is in
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: exercise physiology.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Cool. I've been around. Yeah.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Your last chapter on the sacredness of the body or
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: sacredness of bodies, I find– For one, I think there's
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: just an evangelical sort of we don't have a real
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: strong theology of the body. For whatever reason, we just
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: haven't really developed it. And so as I watch trends
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: in the fitness industry, I kind of sit back and say, wow,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: we probably need a theology of the body as people
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: are moving more and more and more toward this. And
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: so when I saw that chapter in your book, I'm like,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: that's great. Because I think that, you know, approaching it
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: from the horror genre gives it something that we can
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: tangibly look at. really deeply understand and then start constructing
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: off of. So I'm wondering if you can talk about
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: that chapter a little bit, the sacredness of bodies and yeah.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Um, interestingly, so, so a lot of this book started
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: as this podcast that I did, same title, be afraid. Um,
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: so if anyone wants to go and be super scared
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: of scary sound design, do that. This book is for
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: those who can't handle it. Right. Um, but, um, when
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: I was revising, doing some stuff, trying to like adapt
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: and see what would work and what I need to expand. Um,
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: actually one of the, um, one of my editors said like, well,
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: all the other sub genres, you end up having something
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: charitable to say, but when you get to slashers, you
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: don't like, it's like, you know, are you even trying that?
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: I'm like, Oh, huh. And, and, and, and this, I
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: don't think she said that, but, um, it was something
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: like that. And yeah, that she was, she, I thought
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: was really interesting. She, appreciated horror genre. And then she
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: was the one. And a lot of the slasher films also,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: they don't aren't just do violence to bodies. It's usually
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: to women's bodies like this. There's a, and I had
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: a problem with that. I've got three daughters, you know,
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: and I go, okay, well, let me stop and think
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: through what could be something going on there. Let me
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: just do my own method. Let me follow my method
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: and go like, okay, well, what is the, What is
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: the fear? What's the anxiety? What's driving people to consume
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: these in some way? And that's where I kind of
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: was like, well, I think maybe for it to scare
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: you and to trouble you. And this was specifically slasher films, right?
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: That these bodies are being violated. And for a body
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: to be violated means you have some working sense or
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: assumptions about this is actually an inviolable body. There is
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: a what I would call sacredness to it, meaning you
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: ought not to do that. And so the whole genre
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: functions on the fact that we respond viscerally to the
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: violation of bodies because we as humans, we assume my
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: body is actually sacred in some way. And that's sort
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: of what I develop. in that particular chapter. And I
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: think you're exactly right. Where I don't, just because it
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: would have been taken another book, but I think you're
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: absolutely right that one of the core conflicts, even back
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: to the gratuitous stuff, right? Most of the concerns about
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: gratuity have to do with bodies, right? how we experience
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: our body, what we show, what we don't, you know,
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: these sorts of things, specifically within Protestantism and then more
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: narrowly within evangelicalism, you go to Europe, nobody cares about boobs. Yeah. Like,
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: but you would have thought if I saw a boob,
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: I was just going straight to hell, you know, like
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: when you're growing up, but, but it is a deeply
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: impoverished sense or theology of the body. And it spins
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: out into, all of the worst in, you know, instincts
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: that we've got, including in the, um, the wellness, uh,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: thing that Christians should be there because that can get
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: distorted too. And now you have looks maxing and stuff.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: It's like, wait, wait, wait, hold on. That's not sacred either.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: Like that's not, um, accounting for the integrity of the
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: human body either. And so, um, I think, yes, we
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: have an opportunity to go bodies right now are in
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: play for all sorts of reasons in the broader society.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: And we need to articulate and develop a better, more
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: robust theology of the body to address all those different concerns.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: I'll quote another friend. If you're interested, you might know
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: his work, but his name is Eric Daly. And his
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: dissertation he wrote turned into a book called The Fit
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: Will Inherit the Earth. And so it's his theology of fitness.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: He teaches a sports and fitness class here at Fuller.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: And so we go back and forth in terms of
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: like what What does embodied life look like? What are
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: the values that that assumes? And how do we actually
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: articulate that? And even back to the AI thing, right?
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Part of the reason that the tech revolution that's coming
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: that should terrorize us, Christian, for me, my sort of
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: line in the sand theologically is about embodiment, right? Incarnation. Yeah.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: our bodies, physical life, ultimately with God, it's God dwelling,
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: tabernacling with us, is both the hinge around which all
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: of reality turns in the incarnation and then God's ultimate vision.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: And so for us to be caught up in a
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: disembodied technology should not just horrify us and scare us,
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: but should be fundamentally recognized as anti-Christian for this very reason.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: But we don't currently... We have so many anxieties and
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: problems with the body or our bodies that it's really difficult,
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: I think, for evangelicals to articulate that vision. But right now,
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: it needs to be more than, I think, probably any
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: other sort of theological subcategory.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the reason I liked what you
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: did in the chapter is I do think that people
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: would look at that and go, yes, that's disgusting, right?
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: If they looked at it that way, I suppose. They
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: could look at it and they'd go, there's something wrong there.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: And then you go, oh, okay, there is something wrong there. Well,
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: what's wrong there?
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: And that happens in a way different than when you're
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: scrolling Instagram and you're seeing people who are just shredded
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: and doing 400 pound bench presses or whatever they're doing.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: And you go, wow, that's impressive.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: And you start to miss that there's like a distortion
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: of body image there just as much as there is
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: in the corner. And so I think there's a way
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: that that chapter really sort of pulls us into that
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: discussion in a way that the fitness industry just probably won't.
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: And then I'd say the AI stuff, I agree. I
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: think AI is going to do the same thing for us.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to force us to develop a
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: theology of embodiment. I wrote a piece on the Good Samaritan.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: And I said, what if instead of the Good Samaritan
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: helping this guy, he gets on his cell phone and
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: dials up an AI powered robot.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: And he knows it's coming. So he doesn't have to
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: worry about it anymore. He just keeps on going. And
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Jesus ends the story. And, you know, the guy's been helped.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: He goes, you know, he's flown to a hospital. He
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: gets all the medical help he needs. And then Jesus
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: ends the story and said, now, who is this man's neighbor?
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: We have a fundamentally different conception of neighbor that's conveyed
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: for somebody who's just going to type, you know, call
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: somebody on the cell phone to come get this guy
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: versus what the Samaritan actually does in the story. And
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: to me, that's where embodiment has to come in. But
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a fascinating study, man, is a fascinating book.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: And I just encourage people to go out and get it.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: This has been a great discussion. I appreciate you being
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: back on the show, man. I love this kind of stuff.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: So really, if anyone.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: Wants to get it, the easiest way is beafraidbook.com. Beafraidbook.com.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: Beafraidbook.com is where you can order it. And if you
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: want to follow me, I can send you links. But
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: my newsletter where I kind of do this, I do horror,
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: I do other sort of cultural interpretation stuff. Just cuttercalloway.com
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: slash newsletter. And you can follow me in my readings,
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: my musings, my various musings.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: I'll make sure we put both of those in the
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: show notes. And everybody, I just encourage you to check
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: this book out, whether.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: You're a horror fan or not. I think it's.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: A really helpful way into how should we think about
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: entertainment more generally? How should we think about engaging reality
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: more generally? And so I think it's, it's a bigger
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: book than, uh, than just horror. And so I just
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: encourage you to pick it up. And, um, again, Carter,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: thanks for being here.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: Um, thanks everybody. Yeah.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Thanks everybody for taking the time and sticking with us
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: and we'll catch you on the next episode of thinking Christian.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Take care.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.