THIS Is How We BEAT Hollywood | with Filmmaker Brian Godawa

Wise Disciple

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

But in these last few years, the mentality in Hollywood has become aggressively hostile, such that they're now hunting people like me.

00:08

They're hunting Christians and conservatives. In some ways, go woke, go broke. It's like, this is terrible storytelling, right?

00:14

Because you're preaching. You're like a bad Christian movie, only you're atheist and you're woke, right? Of the contingent of Christians who just want to avoid the arts, you called it a ghetto.

00:23

How can we explain to them that no, Christians should be artists? And how should Christians tell art today? So tell us about this story.

00:34

Tell us about the philosophy killer. Could you defend your beliefs if your life depended on it?

00:40

My name is Charles Cullen. They call me the philosopher killer because I ask my victims to give me one valid reason why

00:47

I should not kill them. Ideas, you see, have consequences.

00:54

Cruel Logic, the philosopher killer, a brilliant theologian, a magical thriller novel by Brian James Goddowa. Get it now at amazon .com

01:02

in Kindle, paperback, and audio book. Yeah, so Cruel Logic is a novel that began as a screenplay, actually, many years ago.

01:14

I'm a Hollywood screenwriter. And I came up with this idea that had been haunting me actually for years before that.

01:22

And the premise of the novel is there's a brilliant killer called the philosopher killer.

01:31

Why? Because he's actually a philosophy professor at a fictional California university who is actually a serial killer.

01:39

And what he does is he captures university professors at this woke university and he debates with them.

01:47

And the topic of his debate is his moral right to kill them. So he'll ask them like, well, if what you say is true about the world, he'll get like a evolutionary biologist or a critical theorist or a gender theorist or whatever.

02:01

He captures the various professors and he asks them, if what you believe is true about reality, then give me one valid reason why

02:11

I should not kill you and I'll let you go. And of course, as each of the professors seek to do so, without giving too much away, they're not gonna be very good at it, shall we say.

02:24

And in the course of that story, we have a cop and a psychologist. They have to track this guy down as he's killing these professors.

02:33

And so there's a cat and mouse game going on there and there's a higher purpose to what this killer is doing.

02:41

He's making a higher point than just what you see on the surface. But what I'm hearing on the one hand is this is kind of like,

02:47

I mean, my mind goes to like Silence of the Lambs, maybe Seven, something like that. But something that is sort of an indictment against the existentialist, maybe secular humanist worldview, yeah, our culture, which is really great.

03:06

Yeah, because what we see going on in today's world, the wokeness that we see, and wokeness, you could define wokeness as a sort of a leftist

03:18

Marxist attempt to reduce all of society to two components, the oppressor and the oppressed.

03:27

And of course, the oppressor are white heterosexual Christian males and the oppressed are everyone else.

03:33

And this is, it's a ridiculous sort of paradigm, but it's been being festering in universities for decades.

03:41

And now we are seeing the fruit in our own society. And so the decline of our culture is very much rooted in this wokeness, which is ultimately a rejection of Judeo -Christianity.

03:57

So we hear a lot about Western civilization. And now there are all arguments about Christian nationalism and all this, but the point is

04:06

Western civilization itself was rooted in a Judeo -Christian biblical worldview and a mixture with some of the

04:14

Enlightenment rationalism to be sure. And to that extent, it gets weakened, but nevertheless, there's a broad consensus of understanding and acceptance that our civilization,

04:26

Western civilization is based on that. So that's why the enemy of the woke is

04:31

Western civilization, right? And all its components when they use words like patriarchy and colonialism and heteronormativity, right?

04:41

And of course, white supremacy. And all these terms are really just code words ultimately for Christianity.

04:47

I really believe that that's what it is. So you can see how conceptually all these things are interplaying to communicate one of my dominant themes, which is ideas have consequences.

05:00

When you teach various things, whether it's relative morality, whether it's we are only evolving animals, so therefore all of our beliefs and transcendence spiritual world or whatever our delusions or fairy tales, when you teach people that all whites are inherently racist, it's no surprise that those students will start to behave in certain ways.

05:28

And it's usually the second and third generation that starts to live more consistently with the ideologies that are being preached.

05:41

So that's some of the big picture themes of what I'm wrestling with. But my goal was to write an entertaining crime thriller, like you said, a silence of the lambs.

05:51

Yeah, so it's not for the faint of heart to be sure. But I've always had a passion to write stories that wrestle with the problem of evil, the existence of God and human nature, because it's human nature, are we essentially good or are we essentially bad?

06:07

These kinds of things I think are the primal questions that still continue to go on in our culture and require a real strong understanding and communication of it.

06:20

I love it, man. It's so brilliant, the premise, the idea of it.

06:27

I maybe wanna ask you about that. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and do that. How does this become an idea in your mind and then transform into a novel?

06:36

Now, I know that this was a short that you did a while ago and then it sort of transformed over time to become this project for you that eventually culminated in a novel, but how does this even become a concept in your head in the first place?

06:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, ideas come in various different ways and sometimes it's sort of plain, boring origins.

06:59

Sometimes there are spikes of inspiration or whatever. A lot of times for me, it's usually research.

07:04

As I'm researching and just learning, as I'm learning, things start to come together in my head. So I've always loved apologetics, as you know.

07:12

And even though I love the imagination and my personal calling is storytelling,

07:19

I still have loved the life of the mind, reason, Christian apologetics and philosophy.

07:27

So I've always listened to lectures and read books and stuff on that material. And many years ago, actually,

07:34

I had been listening to this old apologist whose name is

07:41

Walter Martin. And Walter Martin was back in the 60s and 70s, and of course he's passed away since then, but he wrote

07:49

The Kingdom of the Cults. He was real famous for that. He was a rascally old guy and I loved him. He had a good sense of humor, but he would argue a lot with atheists.

08:00

And he was on this Long John Nubble show from the 60s that I was just re -listening to the tapes over and over again, because I loved it.

08:07

And I remember him saying that, so this is many, many years ago, I remember him describing his frustration he had with an atheist.

08:16

He was trying to describe to the atheist, your atheism gives you no foundation for your morality, without God, right?

08:22

And the guy said, what do you mean? I have morality. I believe in morality. And he's trying to explain to him, well, yeah, you believe there are morals, but you have no basis for it with your worldview.

08:31

And so he got so frustrated, he said, okay, all right, it's 1938, Germany. I'm a

08:37

Nazi with a gun pointed at you and you're a Jew. Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you. And it left him flustered, the atheist flustered, of course.

08:45

And it never left me, because what it was was apologetics is not just rational dialectic that we have with people.

08:55

It's not just these abstract arguments, although it includes some of that, of course, but I think the real power of a good apologetic is the ability to bring it home in a way that connects with our human existence, with our emotional capacity, but also our sense of life.

09:19

Of course, you know me, you know that I don't negate rationality. I'm not a post -modernist, but there are limits to reason.

09:28

As C .S. Lewis also had often said, there are limits to how reason can communicate.

09:34

And so sometimes a good story or a good image or metaphor or analogy can bring home with power and impact what a logical argument may not do on the surface.

09:45

And to me, this was one of the most powerful expressions of the moral argument for the existence of God.

09:54

Well, I think it's pretty powerful. And the premise alone, I'm excited to get through the whole book.

10:01

I wanna talk to you about some process questions, especially as a Christian and an artist, how to create compelling, beautiful art, compelling stories and things like that.

10:12

We have some questions too from our Patreon supporters. So I'm gonna go there, but I wanna go back in time to your initial success in Hollywood.

10:22

How did that go for you? Was it hard to be a Christian? Because you started out writing movies.

10:30

So can you tell us a little bit about that? Of course, I've always been an artist all my life. And I started out as a visual artist, illustration and graphic design and such.

10:39

And so I've always had an artist temperament, but I also have also loved drama. And of course, when

10:44

I was like college age, I just fell in love with movies and I saw how powerful they were in terms of this connecting with our souls and communicating truths or lies, as the case may be.

10:58

I saw a lot of lies in Hollywood and I'm like, I wanna see truth up on that screen. So I had had that sense and passion to do that.

11:06

And I wanted to tell Hollywood movies, but with Christian worldview, which means not like the typical Christian movies that you see and all that kind of garbage, but more like chariots of fire.

11:16

Which was my original inspiration. But now, in later years, I think my ultimate inspiration has been

11:24

Braveheart, the movie Braveheart, in terms of communicating a Christian worldview and such.

11:30

And so what I did was I actually did my own research and I read books, went to seminars, went to conferences and learned how to tell a story.

11:41

So I was self -taught in that sense. I didn't go to UCLA or USC. Did you take classes from Sid Field by any chance?

11:49

Did you read any books from Sid Field? Yeah, actually I read his book when his was, this will date me.

11:54

I read Sid Field's book when it was about literally the only book available on storytelling for screenplays in that day.

12:03

Now there's thousands of them, hundreds of them. And I've read a lot of them and draw from each of them.

12:09

What is it? Save the Cats, a great one. Truby's story structure is great. So I get to Hollywood and it took me some years before I got my first movie made, which was

12:19

To End All Wars. That was in 2001. Ancient prisoners, you are now captives of his imperial majesty, the emperor.

12:37

I'm still alive. You can understand that, can't you? Take a look around you.

12:43

You tell me what you see. Hope, Ernie, hope.

12:49

This is my first movie that got made is probably my ultimate movie expression of what

12:54

I wanted to do with my life. It was all downhill from there. Because basically it was telling the story of how these men found meaning and purpose in their life first by, because they're being starved and brutalized, used as slave labor by the

13:08

Japanese to build a railroad for a supply line for the Japanese in Thailand, Burma.

13:15

And so they find meaning and purpose by starting a jungle university where they find various books that men had,

13:21

Shakespeare, Plato, and the Bible. And so they were teaching these and then the

13:27

Bible was one of them and the Bible started to transform their lives and they learned what it meant to love your neighbor and how not to be every man for himself, right?

13:35

But to love your neighbor. And it showed their journey ultimately where they were faced at the end of the war with what does it mean to love your enemies?

13:44

That was truly the most profound thing to struggle with. And so, but it shows

13:49

Christianity in a very, it's a Hollywood movie with Kiefer Sutherland in it, right? So it was really, that was my goal and my passion.

13:58

And as years went on, I've done a few independent films but nothing to that level.

14:05

And in these later years, and I would say probably in the last five years, Hollywood has always been leftist.

14:12

It's always been very bigoted against Christians and conservatives. But I think in the last five years, particularly in the last few years, right before COVID and all that, with the

14:22

Me Too movement, that marked an acceleration into wokeness in Hollywood such that they were no, like I used to be able to get in, fly in under the radar, right?

14:33

So as a writer, I would find producers or directors who are independently making movies.

14:39

They're not with the big studios necessarily. Like -minded in their goals. And you work together to put a movie together, you know?

14:46

And a lot of times, you would just, like I say, it would be under the radar and you'd have a Christian worldview, but it's not like you're making a

14:53

Christian movie, right? And so you can get stuff made occasionally. But a lot of times people would find out what it is.

15:00

And I had people, high level people find out we're Christians and not working with us.

15:06

But rather than be victims, we just moved forward and kept, you know, trying to get our movies made.

15:12

But in these last few years, the mentality in Hollywood has become aggressively hostile such that they're now hunting people like me.

15:24

They're hunting Christians and conservatives and not working with them and deliberately, you know, as we've seen people getting canceled, right?

15:31

Everywhere. Even if you say a peep. And then of course, with all their, the Academy putting all these new woke demands on movies, it's now become the ideology of wokeness, of this, you know, like I said, this oppressor, oppressed mentality.

15:47

It's very racist too, because it's, in the name of anti -racism, it's racism against people who are not the preferred skin color.

15:57

And so it's this movement to turn everything into leftist woke ideology.

16:04

And we see this, don't we, in all these movies, right? That are coming out. And a lot like the latest

16:10

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, right? You know what I mean? It's just, in some ways, go woke, go broke, right?

16:17

You make these terrible movies and they're terrible ideologies and people sniff it out, even if they're not even political activists or anything like that.

16:25

But they just, it's like, this is terrible storytelling, right? Because you're preaching, you're like a bad Christian movie, only you're atheist and woke, right?

16:34

And so I want a new genre or a new description, bad atheist movies, you know?

16:39

They always say bad Christian movies. Well, let's have a bad atheist movie category, you know? The Razzies for atheists.

16:46

Yeah, yeah, that's true, yeah. But more conservatives have literally left

16:51

California, but also the business, and they're starting parallel economies, you know, like the

16:58

Daily Wire is now making movies that are, and by the way, they're not, like the Daily Wire isn't trying to make conservative propaganda movies.

17:05

No, they're just trying to make good entertaining movies because they're not made anymore, you know? Right. And I know lots of others like me who have also left the system because we can't, you know, we can't, they won't let us work anymore.

17:17

They won't work with us and they won't let us work. So we're gonna work somewhere else, you know? That's basically the bottom line there.

17:22

And so since I've left, I even moved out of California myself to get away from it all physically as well.

17:27

Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you was, I mean, we're, from the audience's perspective, maybe, you know, we're not seeing what's going on behind the curtains, so to speak, but we're seeing

17:36

The Chosen come out, Nefarious just came out, had some success, but you're saying -

17:42

Sound of Freedom. Sound of Freedom, but these are not made in Hollywood. These are made in your parallel economies.

17:48

Exactly, exactly. And they're proving the fact that there's a lot of money to be made if you wanna just make good movies with American values, good old

17:57

American values, you know? And that's exciting. And, you know, the last movie I made was just, within the last year, was called

18:04

My Son Hunter. And that was a political satire about Hunter Biden's laptop.

18:13

And of course it was a satire because I didn't wanna do a documentary. And the producers came to me, we wanna do a movie about Hunter Biden's laptop.

18:20

We don't know what to do, you know, give us some ideas. So I came up with these ideas and we went down this path of a political satire and it allowed us to be able to deal with a lot of information, but make it entertaining and cover a lot of territory because there's, you know, as we now know, there's just so much depth to the corruption and the crime of the

18:39

Biden crime family. But interestingly enough, our goal in making the movie, and this was the producers and me as well, and then the director who came on board, we didn't set out to write a political hit piece on Hunter Biden.

18:54

In fact, all the left -wing outlets hated our movie, of course, but there were several of them who admitted that Hunter Biden was actually a rather empathetic character because when we wrote this, we're like, of course there's political crime going on and we wanna cover that, but I don't wanna do political movies.

19:13

What I was interested in was this dysfunctional godfather mafia family dynamic going on in the

19:20

Binds with Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and his deceased brother, Beau Biden. That was really fascinating.

19:27

And it was tragic to me. I actually wasn't empathetic. I, you know, there's a way in which you feel sorry for a crack addict and a, you know, a sex addict and stuff.

19:37

And yet at the same time, the absurdity of what's going on. So again, it really, the politics is secondary because it's more about the human element, the human component.

19:50

And that's why I think it struck a chord with so many people, you know? And that's why many left, some leftists even admitted, like, in fact, it's funny because the leftists are so deluded by, they're so blinded and deluded by their ideology that some of them also said, you know,

20:07

Hunter's kind of empathetic in this movie. They must not have realized what they were doing. Like, in other words, they can't conceive of writing a story where they're empathetic with someone they don't agree with, you know?

20:19

Because their concept, they don't know how to tell stories anymore. You know, they're just, it's just everything's smearing hit piece, right?

20:25

So anyway, so that's the long, the short of that. Yeah, it's weird how things have shifted.

20:32

Cause I remember, you know, I'm not a youngster anymore. I remember when

20:37

Christians were making movies and we were super proud to have the Kendrick brothers come out and make a bunch of films, you know?

20:46

But they weren't great. And so your choice was a very secular, you know, promoting the worldview of secularism, secular humanism, all that stuff, but well -produced movie with a good story, or, you know, a

21:01

Christian movie that is basically preaching. But now it seems like it's shifted and it's bizarre.

21:07

I would have thought at least the Christians would be making better films competing with the better movies that Hollywood has consistently made.

21:14

But now Hollywood is making crap movies. So what - Oh, they really are. What happened?

21:20

Yeah, yeah. So that's ideology for you, you know? So they, because here's the thing,

21:26

Hollywood has become religious because the wokeness is ultimately religion.

21:32

It's not actually politics, it's religion. And it has a specific all -encompassing religious vision.

21:39

And so now they are acting like Christians used to act. They believe that their religion is so, is the most important thing in life.

21:47

And so they have to preach sermons through all their art. It must have sermons in it, right?

21:53

So yeah, you're right. It's just, it's funny how now they are the ones guilty of doing that very thing. And it's kind of humorous for those of us sitting over here in the peanut gallery, watching and laughing a bit.

22:03

But, you know, yeah, but I'm enjoying myself, you know, working outside that system.

22:08

And it was really quite actually a relief to get out of it, to be honest, you know? I'll bet. Yeah, so it's, the new goal is parallel economies.

22:18

But this is important to understand, not because we believe that we should have a separate conservative culture with conservative art or Christian culture with Christian art.

22:27

That was the ghetto mentality that I had always wanted to not be a part of, you know?

22:34

But the problem is, is, but there's also what we didn't take into account was, when those in power actually turn and become oppressors of us, then we have no other choice.

22:48

They won't let us work. That's the problem. And so now the parallel economy notion, we're doing it out of necessity because we can't get work anywhere else.

22:56

So we'll make our own movies and then boom, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars because people really do like good storytelling and it doesn't fit the new

23:05

Hollywood religion, sadly. Yeah, well, I'm glad you sort of went there because that's kind of the question that I was thinking was, how can

23:15

Christians be artists? So let me back up. There are still a number of Christians out there, a contingent of these

23:22

Christians who, I do not doubt their motives whatsoever, but they are highly wary of movies, you know,

23:32

Christian storytelling, if it has sort of the features of reality that we understand in a broken world.

23:39

And so whether that's, you know, cursing or other kinds of things, even the sort of display in full view in movies of paganism or something else, you know?

23:53

I remember, so the example that comes to mind is a few years ago, I think it was

23:59

Batman versus Superman came out. There were some Christians that were very upset that Lex Luthor, the villain, was basically quoting

24:08

Euthyphro's dilemma to Superman. And here I am sitting here going, but wait a second, that's the villain saying that though.

24:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they don't. So, you know, of the contingent of Christians who just want to avoid the arts, right?

24:23

You called it a ghetto. How can we explain to them that no,

24:28

Christians should be artists and how should Christians tell art today? Yeah, well, that of course has been something

24:34

I've been doing for decades. Began with Hollywood worldviews, which was my very goal was to reach

24:39

Christians. The two extremes, you know, the cultural anorexics, those who abstain from all culture because there's sex and violence in it, so it's all bad.

24:48

And they don't realize that there's a lot of sex and violence in the Bible. So what's going on here, people? There's a reason for it and there could be a legitimate reason for it in art.

24:58

And then the other extreme, maybe Christians who might say, you know, oh, it's just entertainment. So it doesn't affect me or, you know, oh,

25:03

I'm freeing Christ to watch porn because it doesn't affect me or something. And that's another extreme where, you know, you might be abusing your freedom or you may not be realizing that all art does have a worldview and it's going to affect you.

25:17

And even more so if you don't know what they're doing. So my goal was to teach storytelling to Christians.

25:24

So they basically had some idea of what to look for in movies. And it's really helped a lot of Christians over the years.

25:30

They're still using the book in Christian film schools across the country because we need to understand how worldviews are communicated, right?

25:38

But I would also say, you know, that the first time that book came out was like 20 years ago and I did an updated edition later, but, and it's still being -

25:46

Hollywood worldviews is 20 years old? I think so. Something like that. Oh, wow.

25:52

That's amazing, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it was before, it was released right after To End All Wars because what happened was because I made the movie, then the

26:03

Christian publishers thought, oh, he's an expert so we can print his book, you know? And so, yeah, it's been about 20 years.

26:11

But I gotta say this, you know, I have to say that the Christian church is a mixed bag and I think that there are a lot more

26:18

Christians that do get it now than did even 20 years ago. They do understand the nature of depiction of sin in movies and there's, you know, we have to debate these things and there's, you know, there's no absolutes, there's no black and whites, but a lot of Christians get it better than they ever have before.

26:36

I really believe that. However, there's always gonna be a certain contingent of, you know, the more stringent, not conservative, just sort of the fundamentalist strains, if you might say, who have a simplistic understanding of culture.

26:54

They don't understand what the Bible's really saying. They just sort of follow their rigid, hyper -religious, fundamentalist sort of mentality.

27:03

There are still a lot of people like that out there. I get them responding to me a lot too. But I do believe that's a small fragment of the people and I think

27:13

Christians are getting it. But there's still also just, you know, by virtue of the fact that conservative,

27:20

Christians are more conservative in general and conservatives always have a harder time with things that push the envelope or whatever things that are new.

27:29

So case in point, Nefarious was a movie that came out real recently, which is about a death row inmate who's demon possessed.

27:41

And it's a great movie. It's like a modern updated version of Screwtape Letters. That was also done outside the system because they couldn't, no one else would do it.

27:50

And it's a great movie. I highly recommend it. But it does have a guy demon possessed. It's not gory or like the exorcist or anything like that.

27:58

It's more mental. It's Screwtape Letters. You know what I mean? However, still, it's a story of a guy who's demon possessed and a lot of Christians just believe that inherently depicting that as evil or it's gonna make you demon possessed.

28:10

It's what they don't, actually, these are Christians who are superstitious. They're literally following pagan superstitions, but they don't know it.

28:19

But what I wanted to say was, that movie did well, but horror movies often, really good horror movies can do really well.

28:29

And this is a low budget too. And so they can often do really well. But because it was strongly marketed to the

28:35

Christian and conservative realm, you know, it did mediocre in terms of, you know, it did,

28:40

I don't know, I think it did six or 7 million, which is good, but it could have done so much better because the horror genre is still, you know,

28:50

Christians are still wary of that. And I understand,

28:55

I understand. But what they don't realize is that all genres can be used, all genres have been used by God in the

29:03

Bible. Actually, God uses the horror genre in some of the visions that he gives, whether it's

29:08

Daniel or the book of Revelation. And these aren't true historical, or they're symbols, but my point is a lot of times they're fictional symbols used to represent something else or fictional parables to tell these gruesome stories in order to get the point of how serious our spiritual reality is to God, right?

29:26

But God also uses romance. God also uses all these different genres and you can have a good and bad version of every genre and not every genre is for everyone.

29:35

Like a lot of guys don't like the, you know, the chick flick romantic comedies, okay? I happen to be one who does, but one of my favorite movies of all time is

29:44

Sense and Sensibility. But, you know, not every genre is for everybody.

29:50

But the conservatives often do, they're slower to sort of take on these other more risky ventures.

29:57

And, you know, I'm not against it inherently because the notion of conservative is to conserve what is good and be careful and cautious about what is new.

30:05

That's how it should be. The extreme is nothing new is acceptable, only the old, right?

30:11

And that's the extreme that's wrong actually. So it requires education, which by the way, while I'm here,

30:20

I highly recommend this book called Christian Horror by Mike Duran, Duran, I think it's, no,

30:27

I should know it, Mike Duran. Anyway, the second edition is coming out soon in the next couple of months,

30:33

I think, but even the first edition is out there. And I've written an endorsement for it because he does explain for Christians a very sensible, responsible understanding of horror as a genre.

30:46

Doesn't mean you're going to end up loving it, but at least you'll start to see how some of these envelope pushing things can actually be quite biblical.

30:56

And our reticence can be unbiblical. Does this mean we can have as much sex and violence as we want?

31:04

No, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. But as I made the argument for years, the

31:12

Bible has a lot of sex and violence. And so, and why? Why does it have it in there?

31:17

Is it exploitative or is it revolution? I'm sorry, what am

31:23

I thinking of? Exploitative or moral. Redemptive. Redemptive, exactly.

31:29

And because the Bible sometimes shows gruesome sins and even uses them, even uses gruesome sexual sins as a metaphor for spiritual depravity, right?

31:41

Just read Ezekiel 16 and 33 and you'll see what I'm saying. You won't read that to your kids. It's R -rated.

31:47

It's actually maybe closer to X, but anyway. So one of the things that I heard, because we've had you on the show before and talked to you about this.

31:59

One of the things that I heard in terms of pushback was, and I'm curious to get your thoughts, is, well, okay,

32:04

Brian, but that's the Bible it was written down. So the Bible has not filmed these horrific images for us to see with our eyes.

32:16

So what do you think, how would you respond to that kind of pushback?

32:21

If you believe in what God is doing here at this channel, I want you to join me. Wise Disciple is now live on Patreon accepting membership.

32:29

So go ahead and go over to Patreon and look up Wise Disciple here.

32:34

What I'm praying for is that Wise Disciple becomes a community where we can start making a difference in our homes, in our churches and neighborhoods for the kingdom of God.

32:43

We are in the beginning. We're gonna start out like a mustard seed. It's gonna start very small, this can get as big as you want it with our own conventions, our own events, perhaps a debate community, but it all starts with you.

32:54

This is exciting, I'm excited, and I'll see you all on Patreon. What I would say is that that displays a misunderstanding of the nature of storytelling.

33:07

What I mean by that is when you read a story, you do have the images. It's just not located in front of you, it's located in your mind.

33:16

So actually, whether you have a visual display or not, it's very, very much similar.

33:23

It's very much similar. Also, actually the emotional component of like, if you're reading a biblical story and you're following this journey of whatever, some

33:37

Judah when he has sex with a prostitute who turns out to be, was it Tamar or whatever, you know, these examples that go on, you're imagining that in your mind, you're going through the emotional journey with those characters.

33:53

That is just as much participating vicariously through that storytelling as if you were to see it displayed in front of you.

34:05

The point of it is, now, of course, there's always limits, you know, to what extent, like if you shoot someone with a fake gun in a movie, you're not actually murdering them.

34:17

But if you engage in sex and naked sex, yeah, well then actually that is a violation, you know, literal violation of scripture, you know, of showing your nakedness and stuff.

34:27

So there are some things that you could argue are violations depicting them, but most sins are not because they're not actually sinning.

34:36

You're playing a character who's actually killing someone or cussing or doing something evil.

34:44

But, you know, the Bible tells about Satan and doing

34:49

Satan doing evil and other men doing evil, and you're engaging in that vicarious story just as if you're watching it on screen and just as the actors are acting it out.

34:59

And, you know, in fact, God even had some of his prophets, you know, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah even, he had them engage in actual dramatic prophecies where they would live out the condemnation that they're, you know,

35:14

Isaiah walking around naked as a condemnation of Israel, right? It's theater.

35:21

Yeah, it's theater, exactly. So, yeah, so I mean, look, I realize that I've seen enough of this that I realize that people are not going to if people are stead set against understanding this, they're not gonna accept it because the

35:39

Bible's written and that's the only thing that's good and acceptable. And so the question comes, well, if they had movies and cameras, you know, back then would they have used them?

35:49

Of course they would have because that would be part of the culture. So it's a technological difference, but, you know, nevertheless, acting is not the same as engaging in the actual sins.

36:00

You're playing a character who lies, who murders, who cheats or steals, but that doesn't mean you're actually doing the behaviors.

36:07

And then secondly, watching those behaviors is the same thing as watching them in your mind as you're reading the story.

36:14

You know, that's, I guess that's how I see it. And I just don't see a problem with that. Where I see it, a problem is when you become exploiting, like if you, you know, if you read a story in the

36:29

Bible, you know, like I say, okay, like Ezekiel 16, you know, where he's describing, he's using a parable where he's telling a story about the faithless, the spiritual adultery of Israel and Judah.

36:46

And he's describing them as women who are having sex with every Egyptian and Assyrian and having sex with gods and goddesses of Egypt and other pagan gods, literally having sex, you know?

37:00

And that's of course an analogy, but the point is, is that's a story. And so is that evil?

37:08

Well, no, why? Because he's using it to repulse you to the sin. You read that, you see it's disgusting and you see the consequences are separation from God.

37:19

Well, many movies do the same thing. They show characters engaging in these sins or these crimes.

37:24

And eventually it comes out and you see that this, these sins that they're engaging in leads to destruction and they repent.

37:33

The good guy repents at least, right? You know, by the end of the story. But when it becomes bad is when they're exploitative and they're, you know, and we've,

37:43

I've seen movie, seen some movies and series and turn them off because they're repulsive to me where they are glorifying sex or they're glorifying the violence as if it's a beautiful dance or something like that, rather than having the violence and the sex and the sins depicted in a way that ultimately shows that they are repulsive.

38:05

Now I say ultimately, because you've got to start a story. You got to start in a story in the opposite location of where you're ending.

38:14

You have to start with people engaging in this stuff, thinking that it's good, but by the end of the story, you'll see where it's bad.

38:20

So you've got to go on that journey and you've got to take that risk. And like I said, sometimes it goes too far and you got to walk away, but to just reject it out of hand is unbiblical.

38:33

So as long as, so what I'm hearing you say is as long as the thread that runs through the story is redemptive in nature, and it reflects what we know to be true from the scripture, you know, in terms of evil is evil.

38:47

And if somebody sort of engages in those things as a character, that they ultimately see it for what it is.

38:56

So I'm thinking of The Machinist. Yeah, you may have, you probably have seen this movie. Like The Machinist is, yeah.

39:03

And famously we know about this movie because the actor, and I'm forgetting his name,

39:09

Batman. Christian Bale. Yeah, Christian Bale. Christian Bale. Lost weight, like a ridiculous amount of weight to play the role.

39:18

And ultimately what happened was it was about a guy who is suffering from anorexia because of something that he's done in his past.

39:25

He's suffering from the wicked act that he did. And so I see that.

39:32

And as Christians, we can watch those cultural artifacts and understand and hold up the scripture and say, yes, this does reflect what we know to be true from the scripture.

39:43

Yeah. And the point of it is, is not just to say, oh, you know, it's okay to depict evil accurately.

39:54

It's the context. Well, it's not just that you're depicting evil accurately, it's you're depicting it in a moral argument that's saying this is really bad.

40:01

You shouldn't live this way. And that's what, believe it or not, a lot of Hollywood movies actually still do have a lot of pieces or components of that very

40:11

Christian morality good versus evil type of thing. And I don't mean the ones that are surprisingly

40:18

Christian, like the book of Eli, you know, with Denzel Washington, that's like literally, you know, about Christianity, right?

40:26

Yeah, about the Bible, right? Yeah. But I'm just saying even movies that, you know, but again, the problem is, is that this is not a black and white issue.

40:36

It's a gray area because at what point does the depiction become excessive and therefore exploitative?

40:43

And that's where we don't always agree. And we have to debate about these things because, but in the same way, many times the

40:49

Bible does not describe details of sexuality and sin. It just says it happened.

40:55

But in many places it does, that's the problem. Many places we do get actual deep descriptions of violence and sex, not all the time, but if you were to film the

41:06

Bible the way it's described, it would be close to X rated. And so what

41:14

I'm saying is there is a moral context that does truly affect these things.

41:20

And I would even say that there's some movies that, if I remember correctly,

41:29

I think it was called Unfaithful with Richard Gere years ago was kind of like a fatal attraction, you know, where it shows the evils of adultery and I think that, yeah.

41:41

And you have to, there's a sense in which you have to go along, how should we say, that the story has to depict the sin in the beginning as tantalizing or titillating, because that's what it tempts us and draws us in, right?

41:56

But then it ends up showing the trap closing shut and destroying that person, that individual.

42:03

Just like the book of Proverbs describes, the whore or the prostitute or whatever, the beautiful woman who's, she's beautiful and her legs reach down to hell.

42:13

You know, you have to accurately depict temptation in a realistic way.

42:19

Now, how far do you go? Do you show nudity? No, I don't think that that's acceptable. And then that complicates the issue because there are many good movies like Fatal Attraction that have unnecessary, inappropriate nudity in it.

42:33

And that becomes another issue. I admit there's a lot of debate on that within the church and it's fine, it's fine, we should have it.

42:44

So why don't we, I think, because we're already almost out of time, but I just,

42:52

I love talking to you and maybe we can have you back soon and just go further in this area too.

42:59

So for anybody watching, if you have specific questions for Brian, we'll bring him back on and we can just have him, sort of go in different directions on this because there's a lot here.

43:09

Let's try to pull back the curtain a bit, Brian, on the culture right now. You wrote a really great piece at your website, this was a couple of years ago, about why people are so attracted to superhero films.

43:26

And so I think everybody should go read that article. I think it's really great, but let's just generally talk about this.

43:33

What is the regular audience, attendee, they're not saved, what are they looking for in a good story?

43:44

Is it, especially when they go to the movies, is it just to escape for two hours? Are they actually peering into and trying to find transcendence?

43:54

Is it something else? What is going on? Right, so what you're describing there, we could use the crude and vulgar terms of conscious and unconscious, right?

44:08

The idea is on one level, yeah, of course there's many people and I myself have felt like I just wanna relax and be entertaining and escape from the world for an hour or two and enjoy myself, just like amusement, there's nothing wrong with that.

44:22

Yeah. But I do think that whether we know it or not, we also, the soul, the inner soul is looking for meaning and purpose.

44:34

And it's looking for meaning and purpose in storytelling, whether we know it or not. So all the more reason why we should learn and study storytelling so we can know what it is that is the longing inside of us, what we're looking for.

44:47

But even if they're not aware of that, they're being exposed to stories which are inherently about redemption.

44:56

This is what I wrote about in my book, Hollywood Worldviews, and that is the very structure of the way a story is told is itself something that is telling a conversion story.

45:08

And so consequently, it doesn't matter what you're consciously thinking, you are being exposed to a conversion story and you're being affected by it.

45:16

So it's more important that you know what's going on so you know if they're trying to affect you negatively or positively, right?

45:22

Because a good story is basically a journey about roughly a protagonist, a hero, who wants something really badly, but they have an inner flaw, something that's the way they see the world or the way they're behaving, and they don't recognize this.

45:40

But as they seek that journey, that inner flaw causes problems in them. And also there's an external villain who's trying to stop the hero from getting what they want.

45:49

And this causes the drama of the story. That's what makes it entertaining, is that drama, the clash of the villain and the hero.

45:57

Well, the villain represents a way of seeing the world that's opposed to the way the hero sees the world.

46:02

That's why it's a clash of worldviews, which shows you which way of seeing the world, which worldview actually is a superior way of living.

46:10

And you can see where this is going. This is all about worldview and conversion and that kind of thing.

46:16

And then of course, there's near the end of the story where the hero keeps getting obstructed and is unable to achieve his goal.

46:22

He gets to the point where it looks like he's not gonna achieve it all. He's gonna lose everything. And then he realized through that story, he learns what his inner flaw is, which then helps him change and become, redeem himself and become the better person inside.

46:36

That gives him then the internal character to be able to defeat the external foe of the villain.

46:42

And that's, you got the final battle at the end of the story, right? And then also many times, the hero actually learns that what they wanted in the beginning story is not what they needed.

46:51

They wanted riches or to win the race or something or to conquer something, but what they really needed was inner freedom or repentance or something to that effect.

47:03

And so that's the basic storyline of most every story that you're watching. So whether you know it or not, whether you appreciate it or not, you're being affected by it.

47:13

And I can tell you for a fact that all we storytellers, we're all trying to do that. We're all trying to communicate our worldview through that story to affect you, the audience.

47:22

So you don't have to believe it or not. It'll still affect you. That's why I believe in the power of story, whether or not, you don't have to preach sermons through it.

47:31

You just have to embody the meaning and the worldview within your story in an entertaining way.

47:39

And the story does the work for you in that sense. There's a movie, we may have talked about this before, but there's a movie that comes to mind as you were thinking that, because I'm thinking

47:48

Luke Skywalker. I'm thinking of all of the sort of characters that apply to this formula that you've just identified.

47:57

But there was a movie that came out a few years ago. It was a scary movie. It's called The Right.

48:04

Anthony Hopkins is in it. But the protagonist in that story is a non -believer who wants, he flirts with the idea of becoming a priest.

48:13

And so he learns about exorcisms and goes through this journey, like what you were saying, and realizes, at first he rejects it, but then from his sort of atheistic perspective, and then he realizes, no, this is actually real.

48:26

And what he has to learn, spoiler alert, what he has to learn at the end of the film is he really has to believe.

48:33

He has to believe in the Lord. And when that happens, he's able to then perform an exorcism.

48:40

And I thought it was brilliant. Very well done. Yeah. There's a lot of movies like that, by the way.

48:46

Hollywood movies that have that same message in them, which shocks me too, when you see these movies. The Conjuring, right?

48:52

Deliver Us From Evil. The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I could go on and on, but it's the exorcist, of course.

49:00

A lot of these demonic movies are actually that very thing. It's forcing the modern, rationalistic, scientific man who rejects the supernatural, showing him that he's a fool.

49:14

And by facing that reality of the supernatural evil is how they are shook to their soul to realize there's more to this world than what they see with their senses and can measure with science, right?

49:26

So yeah, that's a very common theme in a lot of Hollywood movies. So my hope is that, cause

49:35

I don't know, I'm sort of carving out a little niche space on YouTube now about debates and I look at debates and things like that.

49:45

But I love art. I, a long time, once upon a time, I wanted to write movies, which is why

49:52

I love you so much. And we have such great, wonderful conversations. I was this close to moving to LA to get an agent and I had some spec scripts in hand.

50:01

Wow. So deep down, my hope and desire is that there are Christian artists that are watching this interview right now and that they are excited.

50:09

They realize that, wait, this thing that I have a desire to do, I can actually do it.

50:15

And as a Christian. And so for anyone out there, Brian, who is a creative, they're a storyteller, whatever, what should they do?

50:23

Can you help guide them? Like, where should they go? Should they take classes? Should they go to these parallel economies?

50:30

Like, what should they do? Yeah, I don't know what to advise anymore. I mean,

50:35

I used to advise, no, really, because of Hollywood, I believe Hollywood's dead and that's why

50:40

I left it. And so, like, I don't think there's room. If you really are a devoted Christian or a conservative, or, you know, chances are you'll be both and there's no place for you anymore in Hollywood.

50:53

So I would say, yeah, seek out the parallel economies. But basically, I would say that, you know, as for any artist,

51:00

I would say, get to know your creator, get to know your God and have a deep, spiritual, rich walk with Him, studying

51:10

His word, getting to know Him through His theology and through the imagery and the stories and the metaphors and the poetry of the

51:18

Bible. Get to know your God because if you don't have a deep well to draw from, your art won't have the depth that it needs anyway.

51:27

You have to live for a higher purpose than your storytelling and your art. That storytelling and the art becomes the medium through which you communicate what your inner soul has found.

51:37

And if your inner soul is not rich and full of the pursuit of meaning and purpose, well, you're not gonna have anything to really tell, are you?

51:43

You're just gonna have empty, like I have seen, you know, some of these empty special effects movies.

51:52

It's all about action and just being special effects and they don't really have much to believe in, you know?

51:58

So do that. And then, yeah, and, you know, I don't know, man. I mean,

52:04

I used to say, go to Hollywood and connect, get into a church, be with a body of believers and meet other

52:14

Christians who are in the business that you can learn to work with because you start at the bottom, you work with people who are at your level, get to meet other writers, producers and directors and try to get together and do your own little projects.

52:26

And then as you grow, you grow together type of thing. That's what I did. That's the normal advice I would give.

52:31

But now I just don't believe that, you know, there's any room for that in Hollywood. So I would say seek that reality outside in the parallel economies, which is very difficult because there's no central location for that to go to and be around it.

52:47

And sadly, it's people who already have their connections. So it's a tough, it's a tough reality.

52:53

But for today's world, so I would say that, you know, if you just want to make movies, then now you can put your movies on YouTube.

53:02

You can, you know, put your own stuff up online, do it on the side, make low budget things and just tell great stories.

53:10

And if you build it, they will come. If you make, tell great stories. Nowadays, we live in the democratized world.

53:17

Sadly, we're losing that as well with all the cancellation. And the fact that we now know that all the social media companies,

53:23

YouTube and Facebook and everything, they're all, they've all been compromised and they're all corrupted.

53:30

And in connection with the government, they're censoring ideas that they don't like, which includes some Christian ideas, right? So even there, it's tough, but there still is room for you to put your own stuff up and just, you know, and things can happen.

53:44

You know, you, this is what we see, you know. That's, that's the, I don't know, the not attractive answer is, where my brain goes is, well, you know, if you want to write stories that are good and beautiful and truthful and compelling, you just got to write, you just got to do it, you know?

54:04

And you got to recognize that the first, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 are going to be not great and just keep doing it, you know?

54:12

No, you're right. In terms of the craft, I'm thinking in terms of the business, but you're absolutely right.

54:18

I would absolutely say that is, if there's something you really want to do, whether it's writing or directing or whatever it is, telling your stories, you should be doing it right now and you should be doing it all the time at whatever level you're at, even if it's a nothing level.

54:31

And you should just keep going because those are the people who are ultimately successful. As I was,

54:37

I wrote when I, for years without any success because I loved it, I believed in it and I wanted to do it with all my heart.

54:44

But if you're expecting success right away, it's not going to happen. When I became a novelist about over, you know, like 13 years ago,

54:54

I was still writing stories that people didn't want. Christians didn't want my Bible stories, but Christian publishers and agents didn't want them because there's a lot of violence in there and there's a lot of weird stuff and supernatural stuff and sin.

55:11

Yeah, I dealt honestly with sin in that so I couldn't even get the Christian market. Praise God, because of Amazon, I was able to self -publish my novels and now

55:24

I have a complete publishing firm that does all my own self -published novels and I'm doing very well.

55:30

So you can make it on your own now if you want to write books and novels and stuff, you just have to learn the system and there is a whole system, but it can be done now outside of the...

55:43

By the way, the publishing world is the same. They're also extremely woke and even the

55:50

Christian publishing system now is becoming more and more woke. They're not as bad, but you can't like Random House or any of these publishers, they don't want your stories unless they're woke stories, you know, of people of color or people of disadvantage or marginalization, minorities, whatever.

56:08

And if you're white, forget it. They're not going to give you any... They're not going to sell your book, you know? So, yeah, we live in an oppressive environment, but because of the internet and social media, you can make it on your own now and I'm doing it.

56:28

I've been doing it for years. Yeah, that's good advice. Use YouTube, create your own stuff, put it out there.

56:35

That becomes your digital business card and then, you know, reach out to people. I know somebody,

56:41

I was a young adults pastor and I met this kid, super bright kid. I think he was like 21 and he just reached out cold to somebody who worked over...

56:51

He did special effects for Marvel, struck up a friendship, asked him, can you teach me what you know?

56:56

And now he works for Marvel. So you got to take the risks, you got to try to make the calls, emails, all that stuff, put your stuff out there.

57:04

But I'm sure, you know, and it's the Lord, you got to pray and be patient, but I'm sure it can happen. You can't, it's got to be the one thing you want to do more than anything else in the world, because the pursuit of telling stories, whether it's novels or movies or whatever, is so difficult and so cutthroat in a way that it's a pathway scattered with the bodies of, you know, failed, miserable people.

57:32

So you've got to do it because there's nothing else you want to do and you're willing to do it for free until you can become something.

57:40

But because only those people are the ones that can weather it through. And yeah, so have that perseverance in you.

57:47

I think that still applies today as it did 20 years ago when I first started out. And I too was beating the street and doing everything

57:54

I could. And just in the way that I got my first movie made was not at all the way that I was trying to get, you know,

58:00

I was doing everything you could do. You know, call producers, find out what movies they made, contact them, send my scripts, write letters, go to conferences, you know, pitch sessions, blah, blah, blah.

58:11

And the way they got my first movie made was I went to a church and I noticed that the pastor was preached a sermon and he quoted

58:17

Francis Schaeffer and Friedrich Nietzsche. And I'm like, I like this guy. Let's talk. Turns out he was doing movie producing on the side.

58:23

We made our movie to end all wars. So, you know, go figure. It happens in the way that you don't expect, but you've got to do every possible thing you can if you really love and there's nothing else you want to do.

58:36

But otherwise, if there's something else you can do, then just do that. Right. That's good advice.

58:42

If I had to guess, based on my interaction with my audience here, I think they would be also interested in the work that you have done that was highly influenced by Michael Heiser and The Unseen Realm.

58:56

So we could probably have you talk about that as well. Yeah. Last question from Alex, Patreon member there.

59:02

Thank you, by the way, Daniel and Alex, for your support. How should Christians handle world building when writing fantasy?

59:09

Is it possible to... Could a Christian write a world where the structure is very similar to that of Star Wars?

59:16

You know, that's not theistic, that's kind of more maybe pantheistic, you get the force, you know, throughout everything.

59:22

Is that idolatry or can a Christian get away with that? What do you think? Well, it all depends on what you're doing.

59:27

It all depends on your purpose. If you're doing that to ultimately dismantle it and expose it, sure.

59:35

But if you're doing it because you're thinking, oh, I'm a Christian and I can write a pantheistic type universe, but for me, it represents

59:42

God, I think that's severely misguided. Like, why would you want to conceive of a story without the true living creator?

59:53

I mean, like, it's not even feasible. So why tell that story unless you're telling a story that you're leading someone out of that, right?

01:00:04

For instance, you know, a very popular worldview now is the many universes, right?

01:00:10

The many worlds view. And that's a common thing. And it's common in science fiction.

01:00:16

Almost all sci -fi movies now operate on that principle. And, you know, can you use that as a metaphor?

01:00:24

Yeah, sure. I mean, I suppose you could. I suppose you might use that story, but if you're just telling a story that doesn't use that structure to point towards a transcendent truth that you know, then

01:00:43

I think you're making a big mistake. Because I don't believe the many worlds view is inherently anti -biblical, anti -Christian, but it's also anti -science.

01:00:54

It's like, yeah, they all think that it's science, but there's no science to it whatsoever. It's ridiculous.

01:01:00

And logically speaking, there can be no world or universe that exists apart from the creator

01:01:07

God. So inherently that doesn't work. Now, if you're thinking of it as a trope or as a genre or something like that,

01:01:17

I'd say sci -fi is the genre, but I wouldn't write a story that has a worldview to the world that I don't believe in.

01:01:28

Now, that doesn't mean I wouldn't start out with a story that appears to support that view, because that's why

01:01:34

I say stories are all about changing our minds about things. So I would easily begin with, say, an atheistic worldview.

01:01:43

I would begin with a story that appears to have an atheistic worldview, but by the end of that story, I'm going to ultimately show that this is a view that doesn't work and that it just doesn't work.

01:01:56

Otherwise, why are you living? If you don't believe this, why would you tell stories? I don't understand why anyone would want to tell a story about something they don't really believe in.

01:02:06

The only way that you would do that is if it's part of the story that you're ultimately going to redeem.

01:02:12

So that's why I have lots of godless worldviews in the beginning of my stories, but ultimately by the end, no, it's, yes, it's the creator's worldview.

01:02:22

Now, that doesn't mean every story I tell has a complete systematic theological expression in them.

01:02:28

No, it doesn't. Sometimes there's a lot of, just like Jesus left parables open -ended. I don't answer everything in my stories either.

01:02:35

So I'm not saying that either. I'm just saying, why would you want to tell the

01:02:44

Star Wars story if you're a Christian? It's deeply unsatisfying to me.

01:02:50

I don't believe it and it's unsatisfying as a story component. So I would tell stories very, very similar, but ultimately in the end, my world, my universe is going to have a creator god no matter what it is because there's no such thing that could exist without the creator god anyway.

01:03:07

Brian Goddowa, filmmaker, author, so much prolific writing and storytelling in his portfolio.

01:03:17

You definitely need to check him out. For more from Brian, go to Brian Goddowa. Or no, it's just Goddowa .com.

01:03:22

No, it's Goddowa .com. Oh man. Yeah, but the brand new book is Cruel Logic, that wonderful poster standing behind Brian right there.

01:03:31

Brian, we're looking forward to the story and more from you. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me,