Star Wars, Apologetics, & Other Stuff

All right, all right I love the sound effects are actually what

I love about Star Wars sound effects the characters the weapons all that kind of stuff Welcome to another episode of revealed apologetics.

I'm your host Eli Ayala and Very excited to be here with two friends and fellow

Star Wars nerds and some pretty not too shabby Apologists, so I'm looking forward to getting into a really really good discussion today

So, why don't you guys take an opportunity to introduce yourselves? Tell us a little bit about your channel what you're doing what you're all about and then we'll jump right into our discussion on some

Star Wars and apologetic so Tim since he's the most hardcore I mean dag bro, like he literally before we went live.

He literally just pulled that out from under his table. I Can't compete with that Braxton Braxton looks like Darth Vader after he

It's like Luke takes off the mask and he's like, but but you'll die and Okay, we're gonna put the mask, right

You guys all right. All right. So Tim, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself your ministry what you do?

what you're all about and Take it away Well, I just got to start with this red 5 standing by Now Now I can you know, one thing that's good about kovat is it allows me to wear my

Boba Fett mask? That's awesome. Yeah, see so, you know, it's just I actually need to get a

Mandalorian helmet a Mandalorian mask because then I would love kovat Because that would give me an excuse to just wear that around all the time and never take it off.

So Yeah, so anyway, all right now I look more like Darth Vader myself

All right, so yeah, my name is Tim Stratton and Run free thinking ministries comm also have a

YouTube channel called free thinking ministry. So I encourage people to check that stuff out I love theology and apologetics and whenever I have a chance to Bring Star Wars into the mix and use that as illustrations to help people think about Apologetic issues or theological issues.

I love to do that. So I have quite a bit at least several articles Relating Star Wars to apologetics.

In fact, I have one called the Apollo Jedi and the power of the force so cool I Have another one called ten reasons why the

Mandalorian is my favorite Star Wars character And I do have to say, you know,

I grew up with Luke Skywalker as my hero. He's still my hero But I gotta say man,

I think the Mandalorian has become my favorite Star Wars character well, maybe I'll talk more about that later, but Just just you know a little bit of my background or my origin story right before my fourth birthday

So when I was still three years old my great -grandpa died I didn't know anything about death at the time and my mom

Tried to explain to me how he's no longer in his body how his body We're gonna bury under the ground, but he's up in heaven.

And so Two weeks later, I should say I gave my life to Christ She get she shared the gospel with me that and so I gave my life my life to Christ three years old almost four

About two weeks later Star Wars comes out And so it made total sense to me to see obi -wan

Kenobi get struck down but to become more powerful than Anybody could possibly imagine it made sense and so I've been walking, you know, basically with Jesus and Luke Skywalker since I was four years old and Christianity and Star Wars my parents would use

Star Wars to explain things to me In fact one time I'll never forget my parents telling me they said

Tim this if you want to be a Jedi Well Christianity is actually a Christian is actually more powerful than a

Jedi I'm like, well, what do you mean? And they said well Tim I think they called me Timmy at the time Timmy the same power that created the universe and raised

Jesus from the dead is The same power that lives in you if you're a Christian and that's much more power

Jedi could ever have so literally I've been Using my parents have used

Star Wars to help me understand theology Basically my whole life and so I have a passion to do the same for others today

I don't I don't know Braxton there. There's there's a heresy somewhere in there I'm sure the super reformed folks watching.

They'll be like that is unacceptably Well, you know and this is and One of the things about Star Wars that is interesting and kind of separates it from a show that is not entirely but Primarily focused on a naturalistic perspective like Star Trek Which is instantly why

Star Wars wins in which it was better because Star Wars has a seemingly supernatural element although maybe we could talk about that later, but But that more adequately reflects the way the world actually is

There is a supernatural element rather than the naturalistic explain everything of Star Trek. And so Star Wars not only is more like Christianity and at least that minor way and that it has something supernatural, but also

Lucas clearly borrowed from a variety of world religions. Everybody knows that there's obviously Eastern stuff in there like the

Brahman Being like the force and those sorts of things. But of course at least in the prequels we have

What appears to be a virgin birth? because of the force So there's Tim isn't it funny that Rex is

Braxton looks like we like we've invited a Star Wars scholar You know way too much about the background bro, this is pretty intense right now, but go ahead

I'm sorry No, no, that's pretty much it is just you know I've made that point many times is that One of the things

I actually didn't like about the prequels and I'm a defender of the prequels I think people trash the prequels way too much and far too easily not say that there aren't parts of it that we don't like or that we can't take issue with but One of the things

I didn't like about it is I think that there I think that in trying to explain the force in some kind of a naturalistic way with the midi -chlorians actually detracted from What was great about star one of the great things about it, which is that there seems to be the supernatural element

It may have been you Eli or someone telling me something maybe is in the expanded universe that Disney may have decided to get rid of or to keep they seem to be willy -nilly about doing that but But they but but somebody told me it could be that the midi -chlorians are not actually

The ones causing the power of the force but but are simply attracted to the force and therefore are strong there's most more of them in a person who with whom the force is strong like moths on a flame or something, but I didn't actually introduce myself, but I'm Braxton Hunter.

I run training radio and that's really all that matters After he's exercises expertise in Star Wars ology is like by the way,

I'm Braxton Much like the Mandalorian busting into a cantina getting everyone down and then introducing himself

You did a good job there. You jumped right in. I was like, okay. All right, we're doing this right now That's good and I want to explore a little bit of what you said there with regards to some of the religious background there but um, but before we start so Tim said that his favorite character was

The Mandalorian or at least he's becoming his his favorite character That was gonna be my next question.

But since you gave it away early that that's completely fine So I'm going to ask you a question Tim and then maybe

Braxton could let us know who his favorite character is and why and Then I'll share mine So my question for you

Tim and then I'll ask you also Braxton is What is one thing that you love about Star Wars in general?

Not not like a specific character, but just Something of maybe the themes or the sort of movie that it is

What is one thing you absolutely love about Star Wars that that it draws you to you know Those movies those stories and what's one thing you absolutely hate like like oh, man

I love Star Wars, but there's this one thing that really gets me annoyed and you can't say Jar Jar Binks, but oh, man

Yeah, so what I love about Star Wars We're just you know, the the classic story of good and evil.

It gets good and evil, right? and Especially in a day and age where everything is being confused with relativism and post -modernism and all that Star Wars gets good and evil

Right. I mean clearly and and redemption as well So I mean seeing a the redemption of Darth Vader and Kylo Ren Or Ben's Ben, you know

Anakin Skywalker and Ben Solo Seeing their stories, you know, so good and evil and redemption in general along with as what what

Braxton already said a Supernatural element to the stories. That's what I love the most about them.

I think okay. All right and and Braxton. Who's your favorite character? without question Han Solo Okay Ha so I was a big

Harrison Ford fan growing up Indiana Jones, in fact if there I mean

I probably Prefer Indiana Jones to Han Solo, even though I'm a huge Star Wars fan although in many ways that's the same character set in a different setting and So so Han is my favorite and what

I love about Star Wars in general Is and it sounds like me and Tim are on the same page here is yeah

I like so one of the things that used to be true So you have these stories that kind of serve as the myths of a particular society or culture and If you read a great, there's a great

Oxford published book by I forget the guy's first name. The last name is Hunter He's not related to me but but something

Hunter and and it's on it's called how to change a culture or how to change the world or something like that and it's

Fantastic because what he's talking about there. It's a Christian book. He's talking about Christianity But he's talking about how cultures don't really change from the bottom up now most of our

Evangelical leaders and probably the three of us too many times preaching and teaching will say, you know

We need to reach the world for Christ We need to the way we're going to change America is to see people come to Christ That's the most important thing and of course for our personal evangelistic strategies

That is the most important thing but cultures really change from the top down more than they change from the bottom up That's why it is that the majority of middle

America didn't want Biological evolution taught in the classroom, but yet it's taught in the classroom in their

County Why is that because these things change from the top down the majority of Americans were not on board with Same -sex marriage, but but it changes from the top down because the people that are making the entertainment the music the policies

Those kind of people are the ones who really impact and shape a culture And so all that to say we have these cultural myths and Star Wars is one of our most beloved

Cultural myths we all grew up with at least people from our generation and younger and maybe even a couple of generations older than us

And younger they they grew up on Star Wars And so as a result of that it becomes a part of how we look at the world

Even though we would never think about that. So And what what Tim said is absolutely right.

So you had the good side the dark side You had I mean you you had

Luke Skywalker who was the as much as he sounds whiny Sometimes I wanted to go to Tosche station and pick up some power converters, but he's still very much that the good he represents

What is pure what is undefiled what is good and Darth Vader is the most perfect expression of an evil menacing villain

Even more so the Emperor, you know, and you have all of that. It's very clear The lines are very clear now the criticism of that is obviously that well, yeah, but that's not how the world is

I mean in the world there are people that are complex and there's some good and bad in all of us Yes But in the cultural myths that we tell ourselves

It is very good for a culture to have a clear good guy bad guy set up Because we want it we want to that way we can aspire to be the good guy.

I want to be Luke Skywalker I want to be the good guy that saves the day and I don't want to be the bad guy

And so that's very very important and I'll hush after this, but I feel like we're offering now about Yeah Somebody just play just as I am without one plea and we're gonna have an altar call but but but real real quickly

What is happening today is what we're seeing is take the Disney movies the non Star Wars Disney movies like the fairy tale movies

What we have there is very much Most of the stories are your parents don't understand

I mean think about Ariel in the Little Mermaid your parent your dad doesn't really understand or in Moana your parents

They just don't get it. They don't understand follow your heart even if it means going against what your parents want because they don't get it and the villain is not really a villain the villain is

Just misunderstood Now obviously that can happen But what it does is it destroys that important cultural myth that becomes a part of the fabric of who we are that no

There's good guys and bad guys. We want to aspire to be like the good guys not like the bad guys Well now you said something that I thought was interesting and it reminded me of a line from a movie not

Star Wars it was from Jesus of Nazareth that old movie from the 70s.

Are you ever see that movie? I don't think so okay, there was this really cool line that I thought was profound, but then you said something that kind of Seems to contradict it which is fine because it's just a

Jesus movie it wasn't a quote from Scripture where when it was talking about the Roman Empire and The people who are subject to them

And and the mission that Jesus was doing was not so much to overthrow the the top, right?

He said that before kingdoms change men must change When he said that I kind of always saw that as kind of a changing society from the bottom up But you suggested that society changes from the bottom from the top down Do you think that there is a sort of balanced way of looking at that that depending on what it is?

Society can change from the top down but in some other areas the change really, you know real change comes from the bottom up Yeah, well,

I don't think I think So there's the ideal what we think should be the case And I think most as I said most of our evangelical leaders from Chuck Colson to you know in the 80s

To Jerry Falwell to every you know, they would all say hey We got to reach America and change America about reaching people for Christ Well, amen to that that should be our goal as Christians.

That should be how we Seek to do it But the reality is it just seems to be a fact about world history that when you see a paradigm shift in a culture not individuals, but in a culture

That that comes from the top down But here's what has to be the case you have to have you have to have the the movement at the grassroots

Available if someone or several someone's at the top is going to catch wind of it This is exactly what happened with Christianity and whether you know

Whatever good or bad we want to say about what happened with Constantine and all of that It was a change at the top that then threw

Christianity onto the world stage in a way that it never had been before so that and that's of course something that guy in The book goes into as well.

So, you know, it's just like with you know, Jesus saying you've heard it said That you know an eye for an eye tooth for a tooth

But I say to you if someone strikes you on your one cheek turn your other cheeks him also Jesus wasn't going against Yahweh and saying that the courts like the actual court system shouldn't dispense

Precisely the kind of justice that they dispense. It's just that he was saying interpersonally if you're one of my followers you don't have to Turn someone into the courts and you don't have to get that sort of vengeance.

So there is this governmental higher -level societal Institutional change that affects the culture and then there's this grassroots level and we as Christians I think should impact both if we can it's why

I want to see Christian movies and Christian books be better than they are

And of course it brings to mind that C .S. Lewis quote that we don't need more Christian books and Christian He wouldn't have said

Christian movies, but Christian movies what we need are more good Christians Christians making good books and movies

Yeah, and so because that impacts culture So the grassroots has a role to play in being there and being present

So that people at the top can be impacted by it and then you see the top -down change Yeah, that's very good.

Very interesting I want to share a real quick my favorite character and why and then I want to ask Tim something that I've always admired him

With regards to how he writes and how he words things and how he comes up with some very creative and interesting ways to make his articles

Braxton can you hear Eli? No, but I can hear you. Okay, we're here Eli froze up Yeah, I don't know.

Well, I guess until he comes back We could have our own conversation about Star Wars or we could just talk about Eli behind his back

That's right, did you actually say what your least favorite thing about Star Wars is I don't think

I did I guess I Can talk about that probably my least favorite thing about Star Wars is the last

Jedi that movie really made me sick to my stomach for a while get left a really bad taste in my mouth and Actually, you know,

I Contemplated not even liking Star Wars anymore Because it just rocked me because Luke Skywalker had always been my favorite

Character, and I think there's still something going on with me today the reason why

I say the Mandalorian has become my favorite is because he hasn't let me down yet, but man

Jon Favreau and his team talk about redemption. Maybe Luke Skywalker has been redeemed as well with their

Last Episode of the Mandalorian, but yeah, maybe my hopes were set too high for the last

Jedi But you know there there was some good parts about that movie. I thought the lightsaber battles were awesome

But yeah that I had a tremor in the forest to say the least Saw that movie because my childhood hero was

Luke Skywalker everything that I That I'd been imagining about Luke Skywalker Over the you know the past 30 years or so went down the drain during that movie and in my mind

You know Luke had become the most powerful Jedi to ever live and he'd mastered the ways of the force

Even surpassing Yoda and more than that, you know Of course that Luke Skywalker's confidence and faith in the force would be so strong Surely he'd be so strong by now that that he would never doubt

You know the will of the force as Qui -Gon Jinn put it all those years ago in episode one

But instead what do we get in the last Jedi? We got Luke who?

Is is now only Luke warm Luke warm Luke's Luke warm Skywalker.

We should say he he's much older but less mature and the last Jedi You know warm Skywalker.

That's good. That's what we got You Know he's still he's worse than the the whiny kid who wanted to go to the

Tosche station to pick up some power converters With his friends before his chores were done.

I think that's how it worked but yeah, so in that movie Luke Skywalker now in his 60s is still an immature and emotional brat who was leaping to conclusions that Didn't logically follow in fact

I thought the the Luke Skywalker of the last Jedi had regressed and maturity from the

Luke Skywalker that we saw in return of the Jedi over three years ago and Yeah, why did this happen?

Well this immature Jedi master seems to suffer and I wrote an article about this about that he's suffering from the emotional problems of the dark side of The dark side or the dark side of evil the so we hear about the answering the problem of evil logically

But you also want to answer the problem of evil with emotions in mind Yeah, and Luke Skywalker was suffering from the emotional problem of the dark side

Not the logical problem and for a Jedi master. That's a problem. I mean, that's like You know, dr

William Lane Craig suffering from the emotional problem of evil and forgetting the logical answers all the work that he's done on William Lane Craig is the

Luke Skywalker we want and need That's right so yeah, you know

Luke abandons the Jedi Order and and closes himself off from the force all together in that movie and a friend of mine summarized the last

Jedi Into this kind of a parody and so imagine this conversation between Rey and Luke Skywalker and so Rey says so Master Skywalker, are you are you going to join the rebellion and fight against the evil

First Order and Luke is like nah And Rey says well that sounds like the exact opposite of what

Luke Skywalker would do and Luke says Not only is every word in that last sentence wrong.

I'm also gonna end the Jedi Right says what why Luke for over a thousand generations the

Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy But then they screwed up a couple times so I'm ending it

I'm closing myself off from the force In fact, the force is dead to me Ray, well, that doesn't make any sense

Luke I was the one who screwed it up last time so that Ben Solo would turn evil and become

Kylo Ren So therefore the galaxy is better off without the Jedi people in the galaxy shouldn't even think the force exists

Ray no because without the Jedi the dark side has an

Unchallenged champion Snoke who has nearly destroyed the Republic Luke.

Oh, right the dark side. I Guess completely withdrawing from the force was a really dumb idea

Maybe I should have joined the rebellion against the first the evil First Order which would probably

Be much more within my character the Luke Skywalker who everybody knows Oh, well,

I'm old and grumpy now and absolutely nothing can change my mind Then r2d2 comes along and plays an old recording of Princess Leia Luke Changed my mind.

Let's go. So anyway, it just That's how I summarize The last

Jedi and really didn't like it. I After the first time I saw the movie with my son, you know we went at midnight and I was like I remember about halfway through the movie and I started thinking

I'm not really enjoying this It's kind of dragging and I don't really like where it's going.

This is weird I'm sure they're gonna fix it and then it never got fixed. It seemed to get worse and He Luke Skywalker then kind of dies, you know spoiler alert

Yeah, the thing that's great about it like okay, so I have the same concern, you know

The fans are divided over last Jedi. I'm on the side of not a fan of last

Jedi I thought there were several opportunities that were missed I thought that everything you said was true about Luke the way

Luke came off and everything but but in spite of that so in In the force awakens we have created

Exactly what we what you imagined of Luke Skywalker He's this Messiah figure

Rey is kind of like when she first hears about him. Is he real? Really It's a legend.

It's almost like Jesus, you know And we need this character to come and to save us and deliver us and he's the only one that can and she gets there

And the setting is perfect. It's just what we would imagine, you know, some mysterious island Oh, yeah

And and and when we see him Somehow they took Mark Hamill the way he's been looking for the past couple of decades and made him look awesome

I mean he looked amazing But then all of a sudden you hand the baton a hand the lightsaber over to what's -his -name who did last

Jedi and Rian Johnson. Yeah, and and I mean it's like I Mean all this has been said before But but even in spite of all of the bad stuff and the weird blue cow milk thing that looks like a

Muppet and all That stuff we get to the end and it's like okay because I was like you watch the movie

I'm like this isn't we've now taken half the movie to go to planet Prequels over here where everything's computer -generated this gambling planet and when we finally get to the end.

It's like Okay. Now this is this could be good because we have Luke Skywalker getting shot down by Like 15

AT -AT walkers. That was awesome. And yet he's walks out like nothing

But then we find out he literally phoned it in And then he kills over of a stroke, yeah, he dies cuz he got tired or something

I don't know Yeah, there were some good good moments. Yeah that going against the the ad ads there.

Those were you know, I was freaking out I was like, yeah, everything's gonna get better here And then it didn't man it, you know, what a wasted opportunity, but I did think

The I was the third one the third of the of that night at Skywalker, what's that rising?

Yeah, I thought the last one was good. I Wrote yeah,

I've got an article called five reasons. The force is strong with the rise of Skywalker I talked about redemption and the prodigal son, you know again we get to see

Ben Solo or Kylo Ren And we get to see his parents, you know

Han and Leia their Unconditional love for their son and it reminded me of the the parable of the prodigal son how they'd do anything

To get him back and their love for him never stopped no matter how evil he became and they were constantly going after him and You know that part of the movie and that trilogy with Kylo slash

Ben Returning leaving, you know as Jesus said and John 8 -11 go and leave your life of the dark side, you know, that's the

TSV the Tim Stratton version You know, he does that and he comes back and he helps to help save the day.

I love that I also loved in that in that movie And the rise of Skywalker the theme of adoption

You know and you see the the the old lady at the end of the movie ask

Rey who she is and she says I'm I'm Rey Skywalker, you know, even though her DNA is related to the most evil person in In the universe, you know

Emperor Palpatine She says no I'm Rey Skywalker and then the force ghosts of Luke and Leia show up and and approve they give give her that stamp of approval and Rey has been adopted into the

Skywalker family So, you know adoption is one of the main themes of Christianity. It doesn't matter if one is red yellow black or white

I Like my computer bugged out.

I have no idea. It was it was like freezing up. Oh my gosh the host was back

Yeah Took over the show You see it was but God got angry because of all that heresy

Tim was saying towards the beginning, yeah Instead. Well, I don't know if you could hear us when we were talking but You know that he was just talking about the beautiful in in rise of Skywalker the adoption you were born literally of the most evil

You know The Emperor, you know Palpatine and and yet that bloodline and yet you're adopted into the

Skywalker family That's beautiful and you know there's another thing that I liked in Skywalker and it goes back to the evil the good and evil thing that Star Wars captures so well, at least in the

Skywalker family saga and that is because you do have like the the

Antihero type thing with Mandalorian a little bit and and those sorts of things so that those stories are there

And Rogue One has some antiheroes and stuff. I mean we find out a part of the rebellion is is maybe a terrorist group.

So But but but anyway, did we lose him again? Well, anyway, one of the things that's great about it is

I heard this clip from I know this is a divisive character But Jordan Peterson Jordan Peterson was on Joe Rogan and he was talking about He and I thought this was just so incredible.

He said he was talking about archetypes and he said if you take Everything that is great

If you take all the good qualities out of like the ten best people, you know and put them into one person

That's like a hero. That's like a literary hero and then he said but now if you took all the literary heroes and Take all their best qualities and extract those and not any of the bad qualities and put those into one figure

That's Jesus. That's a meta hero and What I thought was great was that actually happened in Rise of Skywalker in a sense because in the end

I forget how they you know She channeled like all the great Jedi of the past and he's channeling all the

Sith of the past But you have literally the most evil archetype at least in the

Star Wars universe and the most good archetype Battling each other at the end and of course good overcomes and so so not only is

Star Wars already a great Setup for that sort of thing, but but it actually literally embodies that in Palpatine and Rey there at the end.

Mm -hmm Well, that was pretty good. Yeah Makes me want to go watch the movie again well, but you know and that's some of the stuff there that people think is maybe not kind of goofy in Rise of Skywalker is the over -the -top nature of some of that stuff but If but and I don't know

I can't say that like the writers were thinking that way about archetypes and stuff But it is a great analogy and and maybe since Eli is not here

Maybe we could we could segue into that sort of a thing. Like you already talked about how your mom used and your dad used

Star Wars to illustrate spiritual truths to you and so You do that a lot with movies like the

Avengers movies and stuff and I've done that quite a bit, too So clearly there's value in looking at the cultural myths and stories that we have that are the biggest and Drawing these things out.

So you want to talk about that? Yeah, I mean obviously

With my parents doing that for me, you know, shout out to my mom and dad Russell Suzanne Stratton.

Hey guys And my sister Jessica, you know, we just grew up in that environment

My parents were Always reading us the Chronicles of Narnia or the

Hobbit Lord of the Rings those books And then going to movies

Buying comic books and talking about them. That's just the culture. I grew up in and they did such a great job of whenever there was an opportunity to connect it to reality to connect it to Scripture They would do that and so that's how

I was raised so it's kind of second nature for me and so although I love to discuss the you know and debate things of theology and philosophy when it comes to Christianity and things like that whenever there's an opportunity to help people see hey

If you like if you if you're if you're watching this movie and you're connecting Let me let me tell you why you're connecting to it.

It's because Reality is this You share the gospel message and then you see

I mean every time you see a good story I always say it's really kind of ripped off. Something's been ripped off from the gospel.

Think about Thor the first Thor movie You could really summarize it like this

God Odin sends his son Thor to earth to Die and be raised back to life to conquer evil.

I mean where we heard that before, you know It's not a perfect analogy, but you get every good story is really stolen from the best story

Which happens to be history? in the gospel and the atonement of Christ, so Yeah What would you add to that?

No, I think you're right another so I think that Christianity is The meta narrative of the history of the world.

It's the best story. It's the Beth It's I mean, obviously we believe that it's true, right? It's it actually historically these things happened.

Look who it is, but my own show Some people complain about the hiddenness of God, but I think a much bigger problem is the hiddenness of Eli Hey, I just want to I just want to I have to interrupt you.

Thank you so much You guys see I got the right guest you guys love the topic so much I have no idea what's going to happen, but I'm just going to If I don't if I get knocked off, you know, you guys could finish to to whatever your heart

You know is content and then wrap it up for me The last question you asked and what we're talking about right now

Yeah so so like But but but Christianity is a meta narrative and Jesus is the greatest

Archetype of a hero and of course, we believe that these stories are historically true but but they're also they're also stories that capture your heart and imagination and like you said the bet if you're if you're if because these stories are so enduring in the human experience of redemption and Fallenness and forgiveness and all these things that even though secularists don't realize that's what they're watching when they're watching the best stories

Those stories will parrot the gospel in some way. I mean even like like you think about well, the

Dark Knight Rises is a great example of a lot of these things and I think that was intentional in the in the

Nolan Batman series, but then also like even old stories, you know, like Snow White for example

You've got this this character that eats a forbidden fruit. She because someone tempted her with it she falls into a deep sleep and the only way that this can be overcome is true loves kiss and so this

Prince of goodness comes and and provides that kiss that then She comes back to life.

So to speak. I mean, it's just in there and in the original Snow White story It's my understanding that the the

Queen then has to dance in shoes of fire for all eternity or whatever so so I mean

It's all all of the great stories are gonna some way parrot the gospel because the gospel is the story it's the story of humanity of the world

Yeah, amen to that And Eli's gone again. So yeah, but you know you brought up Thor a minute ago

Thanos there's also good stuff in movies and literature and films like that will capture philosophical or theological ideas even if we get away from the pastoral kind of stuff like for example, if you're trying to explain to someone what

Annihilationist Christians like conditional immortality people like Chris date might hold to well

One of the things one thing you can do is go to the Thanos snap where he snaps his finger and suddenly they wither away they die or for a long time in philosophy when we talk about the

We talk about the notion that and oh man Eli should be here because he would love this That if you try to go back to the most fundamental things you can know

Ultimately your human experience like you have to you have to look to if you don't have this transcendent

Foundation of reality in God then for all you know, yes, everything seems real. But how do you know you're not in the matrix?

That's what everybody says the matrix becomes a great way of explaining things So I just think that the you know, movies are good illustrations for not just spiritual truths

But also theological and philosophical stuff as well so Eli is trying to Send me a text here right now

He says this shows up something went wrong, please ensure you are connected to the

Internet Because so yeah Eli sent me this text I don't know if he's coming back

Yeah Well while you're doing that I'll see a couple of questions or interesting things in the in the

In the live chat If you got my text there's

I think there's something up with stream yard I just got a It's acting up never happened before so I do apologize.

Well, it's kind of adds to the excitement. Yes. That's right That's right. I Have no idea how long

I'll stay in We'll appreciate the time we have with you as long as that lasts.

That's right Maybe you just need to make it like a graphic of a force ghost for yourself to put up Yeah Well, I was gonna actually there's an interesting thing here that is a good corrective as we're talking about these things angel a says a

Problem is happening in communication where we stress stories and our worldview quote -unquote, etc But not but yet not the actual most very real substantial

God of our world view our story, obviously So what what you know, like I'm out here.

He's gone again, but like I said a moment ago What's that Keep talking.

I'm gonna answer you last. Yeah. Yeah So, you know, I said like I said a moment ago the story of Christianity is a story, but it's true

It's a true story, right? And if it was a film that would say at the beginning This is a true story, right?

We obviously believe that Jesus was a real human being the God man

God incarnate But did this really happened in space and time and that if we could go back in a time machine

We would see all these things unfold in the death burial and resurrection all those things are real And so obviously we want to make sure that people don't just look to films and things.

Those are mere analogies What we want most is for people to become grounded in the Word of God So they know the story of the

Bible itself and they they can go there. So that's a good that's a good thing to To point out she continues you guys

He or she continues you guys mean but to outsiders the difference is all the difference at times our worldviews

View does nothing our stories do nothing. The very real God of our worldview is the one that makes it.

So Yeah, I know what you're getting at And of course, we need to make sure that we that we stress the real story These just serve as analogies and talking points.

And in fact, I don't know if when when he'll be back But you know there was a movie several years ago with Matt Damon called the

Adjustment Bureau and perhaps some of you all remember the Adjustment Bureau and the whole topic of the film was

Obviously God or some godlike figure is controlling things and the question was okay

So to what degree and what kind of free will do does man have? Well, obviously if you walked out of that movie, that's a good thing to talk about when you're talking about Theological real theological matters.

I mean between the three of us here. There are at least two different Views of human freedom, but if you watch the

Adjustment Bureau Both of us both we and Eli would say that we believe in free will we would just describe free will differently and That's of course been the subject of many vigorous debates between us and Eli But that's something that Christians hold to as some form of free will

So a movie is a jumping -off point to talk about a really deep theological issue like that So I think that these because here's the thing that you know for sure

You're right that outsiders don't necessarily have know the gospel to the degree that hopefully

Christians running YouTube channels do Although there's problems there too with some Christians running YouTube channels, but the fact is

When you're out with your friends or you're talking about things in life Whether it's something that happened to you or a book you read or a movie you saw one thing that we want to be good at as people who want to reach the world for Christ is drawing things back to that Presentation of the gospel and so if you are able to do that from Star Wars or the

Adjustment Bureau or Snow White then that gives you a door that might not have been there.

Otherwise What about the book of Eli? the book of Eli Eli by the way,

I don't think he's gonna be back here. So you and I Have some Well, how do you bring up the book of Eli because I think that does that is if I remember correctly, it's a post -apocalyptic world and We find out by the end of the film that the most valuable thing they have is the

Bible, right? Right? Yeah In fact that movie came out a little over ten or about maybe eleven years ago now

Yeah, because a year ago. I wrote an article called the book of Eli Ten -year anniversary and I talked about how it's one of my favorite movies of all time

Oh, here's the I just got this up here. Here's the conclusion. I say I love the book of Eli In fact,

I believe it's one of the best Christian movies of all time I say the violence is sometimes graphic and the language can hurt the ears of a churchgoer

But this movie provides an awesome example of the importance of studying the

Bible Memorizing scripture applying the words of Christ to our lives and ultimately how

God's Word can transform Individuals as well as culture itself after seeing the book of Eli I made a commitment to read the

Bible daily and memorize it as Eli did a decade later This commitment has clearly transformed my life.

So I love the book of Eli And encourage people to see it. I actually do refer to it as a

Christian movie In a certain sense It's well done.

Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean it's kind of surprising that it got made right with that sort of a right emphasis I just want to jump real quick angel a set is saying that no, that wasn't my point

Her point seems to be something like the idea that we can't have Rational justification and knowledge claims without God as the transcendental

Foundation of all of knowledge and reality, you know kind of a Vantillian or Bonson Bonsonian Presuppositional perspective, which

I don't know where you're at on this Tim, but I actually agree with presuppositional About the fact that God is the reason that we're able to know anything

And that our ability to reason and all of that is and I do agree that when the atheists

Uses rational argumentation to try and show that God does not exist as Van Til said It's like a child crawling up into her father's lap to slap his face

You wouldn't be able to slap his face if you weren't sitting in his lap, right? So I I agree with all that We have methodological differences between Presuppositional.

Yeah, my only yeah, I agree with that too. The only difference is I feel like we can rationally conclude that that's the case

Instead of starting with that presupposition But that's just but yeah, ultimately we're both agreeing that nobody could be rational apart from apart from God if we weren't created in God's image or likeness

We we couldn't do that. So actually Tim Someone Steven Revered said hey

Braxton talk about the castaway movie analogy any news on that banned video of yours? so that video was banned and I actually wrote a

Article for your website Tim. Oh, yeah On basically what I talked about in that video and the the reason it was banned was because I used footage from Joe Rogan now in with fair use you're allowed to use footage if you from someone else's

Copywritten show if the point is to provide commentary and there are several other little nuanced things about it

And so it was banned. I could have challenged it and the person's asking me Have you have you decided to challenge that or whatever?

I'm not gonna challenge it But I think I'm gonna remake the video and just read from the transcript instead of showing the footage

But the reason this person is asking is if this is the person I'm thinking of they told me that that video They thought was so powerful that they made

Actual paper flyers with that video link on it and gave them away to people during evangelism

Wow and so what the point of that has to do a castaway and the point of that video was Joe Rogan and Sean Carroll Sean Carroll's a theoretical physicist and They were talking about and he's he famously as you know had a debate with William Lane Craig It's the one debate that some atheists.

Well some atheists think that Craig loses all the time But the atheists that might have a case would be with the

Sean Carroll debate and I don't think they have a case there either Shout out to another article on your on your page.

There's a there's an article where someone else Explains why why he won and why that bit that is often misunderstood

Looking that up here really quick Yes Sean Carroll's dishonesty the debate of 2014 that's written by Ronald Cram April 15th 2020

If anybody out there thinks that Sean Carroll won that debate go read this article and get back to us Yeah, so but but but he was on so that's the guy

Sean Carroll and he was on Joe Rogan show and they were talking about Through the course of the video

Sean Carroll ends up saying like okay Look, it's it feels like we have real free will but we don't but we can basically live like we do and and Pretend is basically what he was saying

He also says it seems like morality is meaningful But ultimately people can't help it if they do something, you know that we would call evil

That's what they were determined to do and they couldn't really help that So it's we don't really have that kind of morality where we can choose to do otherwise and so we're responsible but we got to assume that we got to pretend like we do and You know, he even says it really looks like the universe has things in it that are designed, but we know that's not true

So we act like we don't and the multiverse single a little multiverse on it and don't think much He doesn't say those things.

I'm caricaturing him, but that's basically what happens and so what I said in the article on your site and in the video was it reminds me of the great

Tom Hanks movie castaway which is one of my favorite movies of all time and everyone knows one of the most memorable things about that film is that he took this volleyball a

Wilson volleyball and Put a face on it with blood and called it Wilson and that became a character in the film

But it wasn't really a kid I mean it wasn't a real person and the only value that Wilson has is that he is an icon of sorts of Real humanity of a real personal connection that Tom Hanks craves and that we all need so you put a little you put some eyes

On it. Well, yeah, that's like we pretend to have free will put a mouth on it Well, we pretend it's designed even though it's not and at the end of the toward the end of the film

When when Wilson floats away into the ocean Tom Hanks is crying out for it, but it's not real

It's it's not a real person and in the end that even though it was meaningful to him during that time

It's just a volleyball floating in the ocean, man Yeah The thing is if if we really don't have morality free will if it's not really designed if there's not really any intrinsic worth

And value to people we're just a volleyball floating in the ocean of the cosmos man Nothing nothing really matters

What a great illustration. Yeah, your article can be found on free thinking ministries calm

It's called Sean Carroll Joe Rogan and a volleyball called Wilson. You wrote that April 27th of 2020 and that's a

Just a fantastic Article encouraged me. I I tried to share it, but I realized

I can't share it without Eli's Approval and he's not here and I see he just made a comment question

Why did God actualize a world in which I can't join my own show? Yeah, that that might cause me some concern if I was

Eli but I'm here so God wanted a world where we're here Yeah, God created a world of which two

Molinas would overtake his show He's thinking the problem of evil, you know

But yeah Vera I see Vera slam are in these are all people that yeah, no and thank you all for being here

Actually, it's funny because Vera and I'm probably gonna butcher this Vera, but she asked in the Trinity radio Group on Facebook the other day.

She said I think it was during Christmas she was in some cabin or something somewhere and all she had was a

VHS of Star Wars episode 2 and she said I have never seen anything

Star Wars I'm gonna start with this and so I said, okay Now obviously, I love that film but I said, okay, here's what

I want you to do and I'm gonna put this in intentional non -geek terminology and that is Watch it until Ewan McGregor gets to the rainy baby factory and Then turn the film off and go to bed and imagine that it just ends there

Her rainy baby. Yeah. Yeah, because you know the the where the clone armies being

Right, but but that's a great scene the fight between Jango Fett and obi -wan there is really really great

I think yeah after that it gets a little wacky at times and but she comes back and she says

Okay, I never saw a rainy baby factory, but I saw master Yoda die.

I saw young Darth Vader flying a boat in space and I'm like,

I don't know what you saw because Young Darth Vader flying a boat in space is episode 1 and Yoda dying is

Return of the Jedi. I don't know what She said she found the rainy babies

So, okay, so Braxton, what's your favorite Star Wars movie out of all of them?

I think I'm gonna sound pretty predictable here and say Empire is probably my favorite.

I agree Well, which is partly what's why

I'm upset about Last Jedi because if you do take the jumping -off point from Force Awakens as Okay, we're kind of in some way following a kind of a narrative a kind of a story

You know, it's kind of following what happened in the first trilogy like Force Awakens obviously borrows a lot from from episode 4, right

Maybe too much. Yeah, maybe too much. That's the criticism Yeah, and so if you think about that and you think that Last Jedi is supposed to be like Empire Whoo, right, you know, but that and and I really liked

Rogue One as well but but now that the problem there is

Rogue One doesn't you know this good and bad Clear lines of distinction that we've been talking about that's for the

Skywalker saga. That doesn't necessarily extend to Solo or Mandalorian for sure or Rogue One, but taking that out of the equation.

Those are great. I enjoyed even Solo I know it didn't get a lot of praise, but I like Solo Do you think that I mean

I kind of feel like there's a good and evil in the Mandalorian. I know That got blurred a little bit and it started out kind of blurry

But I mean he seems to have really kind of turned a corner as he's become a father figure

He's become very pro -life. That's for sure and and adopted the child

You see him go from somebody who's willing to slice somebody in half even you know or to vaporize

Jawas as they're running away, you know to somebody who is then willing to fight to save life later on in the

In this. Yeah, I mean we do see in the beginning of season 2 the first episode of season 2

We see him string up the guy who runs that truth and leave him there for whatever creatures to devour

So that was very much. He was a he was a bad guy But I mean that was a very much an anti -hero move, but yeah, you might have a point there because We are he does have a story arc that we see him as very much a hardened bounty hunter who then when he discovers this seemingly supernatural special child

Becomes someone who wants to protect that and So there may be a and he meets

Luke Skywalker who is arguably meant to be the the messianic character in Star Wars But all that's

I can't believe I'm talking about this on a live stream This sounds like I'm the crowd that I'm used to talking to you They'll let me do a little geek stuff, but I feel like I'm going way too far here

But this is what I was asked to do. Yeah, but but but I'd still think with the introduction of Boba Fett and and that sort of thing

It seems like we're we're capitalizing on the anti heroes in the Star Wars universe, but we'll have to wait and see.

Yeah, I see Mando and Boba Fett is two completely kinds of people

Yeah there. I mean, I think Mando is the John wick of the Star Wars universe But at the same time,

I mean you see there's there's there's clearly instances where he needs help But Boba Fett, I mean he he's kind of like the bad guy that you're rooting for I just don't see

Mando as A bad guy. I mean, I don't think he's a bad guy.

Yeah, but that's kind of the point, right? I mean, it's like He he's imperfect.

We can write. He's morally imperfect Which that you know the anti hero narrative for?

More grown -up care, you know viewing I guess Has a has a thing to it too because we're imperfect

And so there is that there is something there When I talk about and when you talk about the clear good and evil in the

Star Wars saga those films those official Star Wars Luke Skywalker storyline or Skywalker storyline films are the are the cultural myth the

Mandalorian is Maybe it's in that category too. I don't know but I think of it more as an anti here

I don't think he's a bad guy. I think he's an imperfect guy. Yeah Well, I've got got article

I wrote called ten reasons why the Mandalorian is my favorite Star Wars character I'll just run through these really quick.

Number one. Love the original vibe, you know Favreau and friends were able to get to the original vibe of that first movie

And you know, it's kind of that sci -fi Old West thing That they that Lucas had going on and I feel like Favreau understood

He he might some people have said that he understood he understands George Lucas's vision better than Lucas understood it.

I don't know. Does that make sense? Yeah, and on paper, I mean Jon Favreau On paper.

Okay, who is the cool like if you asked a hundred real Star Wars geeks who is the coolest?

Character you're gonna get a lot of people answer Boba Fett. Yeah, so he took basically the look and feel of Boba Fett, which is a

Mandalorian right and and made him look maybe even a little bit cooler right or at least newer and fresher right and and Then introduced a super cute character and and it just all it just all it seems like all the right obvious moves to make if you're gonna do a

Sidequest, you know from them, but but you know, it's like I saw that meme I think that means so great and we're not saying anything about the consumption of alcoholic beverages here.

That's not the point I was raised to believe growing up that tasting alcohol was akin to assassinating the president, but But it's like there's that mean that that has

JJ Abrams saying you can't make a Star Wars thing that both

Satisfies the old fans and brings in new fans and Jon Favreau's they're going to hold my beer

If Favreau is just a genius, I mean What what else he is he done, you know

Favreau I've called him a storytelling genius who should Be the the only one allowed to pilot the

Star Wars cockpit You know everything that he touches seems to turn to turn to gold He he directed the

Elf movie and it instantly became a Christmas classic. He launched the MCU You know the Marvel Comics universe with Iron Man and it's now decided, you know, like you said hold my beer

Let me save the Star Wars franchise so Man, I love the guy. I think he understand maybe maybe he's the

C .S. Lewis Storyteller of our day. I don't know Yes Lewis that but No, he gets it.

He does and and I'll tell you maybe we need to close this out soon but one thing we didn't talk about is

Okay, so we have What happened in the last

Jedi basically for me and you anyway? Really tarnishing our our

Luke Skywalker hero vibe, right? Right, but then we have in the end of Mandalorian season 2

Oh, yeah The return of Luke Skywalker and for those that don't know who are just here because you know us

Luke Skywalker after the original trilogy that ended in the 80s He's he's still young ish, right?

He's not Mark Hamill today And he's and we don't know what happens We know we knew when people like me and you probably read the

Star Wars books But now that Disney has said no more to those That's not canon anymore.

We don't know what happened to Luke Skywalker and Here he shows up and he's everything we hoped he would be.

Yeah. Yeah that that's why I said I kind of felt like Fabro saying. All right,

Rian Johnson. You had your fun Let me show you the Luke Skywalker that everybody knows including

Mark Hamill This is the Luke's this is the Luke Skywalker that even Mark Hamill knew was supposed to exist

And so Fabro says hey, even though I'm writing about Mandalorians here. Let me save Luke Skywalker.

Let me let me redeem Luke Skywalker. So again, I just another reason as to why the

Mandalorian is Not just my favorite character now, but the the series

It's just so awesome because Jon Favreau and friends. They understand what Star Wars is supposed to be.

They grew up not just as fans who loved these characters just as much as you and I did and They they know what they're doing.

It makes me wonder. It makes me wonder because for those that haven't seen it In Rogue one they did this and they did this in the final episode of Mandalorian for season two is they used that I think they call it deep fake technology to map

Mark Hamill's face on to this younger character so that it is almost

Indistinguishable and if you weren't looking for it, like if you didn't know you probably wouldn't raise any eyebrows

Real it makes me wonder. Are we gonna see more of the original characters in their own series?

Mm -hmm, you know like Luke and Leia training to be Jedi or whatever. I don't Man, I wish

Eli was here because I know Eli was geeking out During the the final episode of season two of the

Mandalorian, you know when that x -wing fighter Came to the ship. I was like, all right big deal.

We've seen x -wing fighters before You know, I wasn't You know,

I wasn't freaking out yet. And then I saw somebody get out and he's wearing a cloak and I was like, hmm that kind of looks like Luke Skywalker's cloak from Return of the

Jedi, but It's not I thought it's just some Jedi Or somebody looking like a

Jedi not a big deal Then I see a lightsaber then I see a green light a green lightsaber

And I was like, they're they're messing with us right now, but it's not Luke Skywalker Then you get a quick quick glimpse of the jet or you know

The guy in the cloak with the green lightsaber you see his belt buckle now. I'm an artist I grew up drawing pictures of Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett and all these guys all the time

I drew that belt buckle probably a thousand times and I was like, oh That's Luke Skywalker's belt buckle.

I mean if they're messing with this they're going above and beyond just to mess with us and then it showed his hilt of his lightsaber held by a gloved hand and I paused it and I got up I was watching it over the lunch hour by myself and I got up and I was just freaking out and you know,

I think it was I was starting to cry tears of joy at this point and And I thought well, okay.

This is so awesome It's clearly Luke and you see him using his powers the way you knew that Luke would use his powers and How he would use the force

But I thought well, okay, this is great, but they're not gonna show his face, but I don't care I don't need it. And then when he starts to pull his cloak down,

I couldn't take it anymore. I had to pause it. I Was I was totally holding back tears of even more joy and felt like I was 10 years old again and You would have been how old were you when the first Star Wars came out or when

Return of the Jedi came out? What year was that? I was a 83 so I was two.

Oh, man, so so Yeah, I was 10 years old I was in fifth grade when

Return of the Jedi came out but you know The the the joy that you had at that Imagine all of that feeling because this was my experience.

I'm watching that My wife and two daughters are sitting over on the couch who care nothing about about this

Yeah, and it's right at that penultimate moment where he's coming through and yeah, and I'm just like you

I'm oh my gosh Oh my gosh, they're gonna do it. Are they doing it? They're doing it and then all of a sudden my family thinks it's a good time to start talking about some

Mundane detail of life and I'm like, do you all not realize what's happening?

It's like but anyway Well, listen, we've talked about a lot of this stuff. It's probably time to close this down I think we should dedicate this stream to the memory of Eli Allah who once ran this channel

But But I think in the end, I don't know what you want to say that to kind of close it off But I would just say that we are all

Star Wars geeks So part of the fun of this is just us geeking out on a live stream about a topic But we don't usually get to talk about to this degree like this

But also it really is true that we that these are

Things that are out there in our culture There's a lot out there that can't that that is hard to redeem because it's just explicit and and this is something that families watch kids watch and You know a lot of people who watch this stuff, even if you don't think you do and there are analogies to draw there are ways of helping people to see the beauty of number one a world that Includes the supernatural because it's more real because that's the way reality is and drawing analogies for today

Obviously Star Wars is imperfect. There've been a lot of people who point out That it dropped the fact that it draws from other world religions

Tarnishes it to the point that Christians should have nothing to do with it But I don't think that necessarily needs to be the case because that's a good moment to talk about Those things so I just think that they're the overwhelming message

I think Eli wanted to get across with all of this is there is Spiritual benefit from drawing from the stories of our day to Illustrate the faith that we know is so real and I think that's important Tim.

What do you have to say? I'll just add to that you know that we can take these stories and Use them as analogies or illustrations and and with that consider the

Mandalorian's daily Commitment to his armor his daily commitment, you know,

Amanda is always focused on his armor He's constantly looking to strengthen the armor. He wears, you know, he wants the best car.

He wants the best stuff And and he's made a commitment To you know, almost never anyway take his helmet off around others

And you know Christians are commanded to do the same. We we've got to guard our hearts and minds with With it what

God has given us that's even better than Mandalorian best scar armor We got to guard our hearts and minds with the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation and we must make that same daily commitment a lifestyle

Because there's always a war if you realize it or not You you're targeted by the enemy every single day an enemy who hates you

So with that in mind consider the sixth chapter of Ephesians Ephesians 6 13 and on Paul says therefore

Put on the full armor of God So when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist and the breastplate of righteousness in place and With your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace in addition to all of this take up the shield of With which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation

And so this is the spiritual armor and you know I've used the

Mandalorian's commitment to his armor to help other Christians make that same kind of to see the importance of that lifestyle and that you know of being in a war you need to protect your head and your heart and And know the truth, it's really knowing truth and taking

Thoughts captive to obey Christ and before they take you so I'll just leave it with that Yeah, I'll let you have the last word.

What's your favorite Avengers character? Man, I'd have to say Captain America. I knew it

All right, well, I don't actually know how to close a stream that somebody else is running So I'm I think what we'll do is

I guess you and me Tim will just log off and leave it to Eli to Figure that out, but I want to thank you live for having us on This has been fun and and maybe a unique sort of thing

And I hope it gets a lot of views just because it's fun and different and not like all the other theology and apologetic stuff

Out there. That's right. You know and when Eli called me He said maybe the two of us can join him again in another few weeks and No prequel.

Yeah That sounds good All right, brother

Well always good to talk to you Braxton and it's always good to talk with Eli So really bummed that he wasn't here for most of it, but we'll do it again soon.

All right. See you guys May the force be with you. I think