Hollywood, Media and Critical Thinking with Eve Franklin

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:03

Welcome to The Wrap Report with Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

00:11

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content, or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

00:24

All right, welcome to another Wrap Report, and if you like movies, if you like to follow media, this will be an episode for you.

00:37

Anyone who is a follower of The Wrap Report, if you follow me on social media or on my podcast in any way, you know

00:46

I am so totally into what Hollywood puts out. I mean, every time

00:51

I'm at the movie theater, first thing, and anyone who follows me knows that is a huge joke.

00:57

So, if we're going to talk Hollywood and media and things like this, I had to bring in an expert, and so I have.

01:05

And so, for folks, I'd like to introduce you to Eve Franklin, and she is from a podcast called

01:11

Are You Just Watching?, and we're going to talk about her podcast that she does. She has a co -host,

01:16

Tim Martin, we're going to talk about her podcast and her new book coming out by the same name, and we are going to discuss, well, movies, we're going to discuss media and how that influences us.

01:28

So, Eve, welcome to The Wrap Report. It's wonderful to be here. You at a young age, you actually had a love for reading.

01:37

Mm -hmm. Yes. So, how did that come about, and then how did that morph into a love for movies?

01:43

Well, I had a mom who loved to read to us growing up, and since we traveled a lot, we were always moving, what she would do was to keep us quiet and to keep my brother and I from bickering in the car, she would read to us while we were driving wherever we were going.

01:58

And we learned, that's my introduction to C .S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia was on trips when mom would read them to us, and then when

02:06

I learned how to read, I ended up reading every one of those books at least 10 times, except the last one, I didn't care for the last one.

02:14

And I think that I just kind of grew into reading, it was just something that I could escape from, and my friends could be in books, and it didn't matter where I lived,

02:24

I could take my friends with me everywhere, and I just started devouring books.

02:30

In fact, mom would have to come take my books away from me to get me to clean my room, because she would send me to my room to clean it, and she'd come in a little while later and I'd be curled up behind my bed on the floor reading a book instead of cleaning my room.

02:43

Do you know how many mothers are out there right now listening to this and going, how in the world do I get my kid to be doing that?

02:52

I don't know. Yeah, I went to a father -daughter banquet, obviously with my daughter, and when my kids, from the moment they could eat solid food, when they were well -behaved, we rewarded them with fruits and vegetables.

03:09

So if my kids were good, like they did something well, it'd be like, oh, that's so good, you want a carrot?

03:15

Or you did so well, you want some broccoli? So my kid grew up thinking like, hey, if I do well,

03:22

I get vegetables, like that was a good thing. And we're at this father -daughter banquet, and I almost gave this father a heart attack.

03:29

There was a table with me because my daughter's like, daddy, can I have more stream beans? I'm like, no, honey, not until you finish your meat.

03:36

And this father just looked at me with these big eyes like, what in the world is with your kids?

03:41

They're aliens. I'm sure that there's people thinking that with your mother right now.

03:50

Yeah. Yeah, so reading was just my fallback. I still do a lot of it, though, now that I'm getting older, my eyesight's going and I pretty much have to read on my tablet where I make the words really big.

04:03

But I still love to read. You're only 25, though, right? Oh, yeah, 25 for at least for at least 20 years.

04:11

Yeah, well, I could date myself and say that I saw Empire Strikes Back. Well, I didn't see

04:17

Empire Strikes Back in the theater because my mom thought it was too old of a movie for me.

04:23

And so she took me to see The Black Stallion while my dad and my brother went to see Empire Strikes Back.

04:30

Well, I don't know. I actually did see Empire Strikes Back with my brother opening night. And OK, so this is this will give you a little bit of background into my character.

04:43

So we go to Empire Strikes Back. It's opening night. There's this huge, long line of of people waiting to get in as we're coming out.

04:53

And oh, no, what was it? Yeah, I think it was Empire Strikes Back or it's the other one.

05:00

I forget which one now, but it's the one where Luke finds out that he's his sister is Leia. Whichever one that was, was that Empire Strikes Back?

05:09

It was the end. That was the third one. It was the third one. Yeah. Return of the

05:14

Jedi. That would have been 81. OK, so we were walking out of the theater and asking us as they're waiting to go in, what happens?

05:25

What happens? Which like why in the world are you asking this when you're online to go see this movie opening night?

05:30

Like that's why you're there opening night, I believe. Right. Yeah. So you before any of the spoilers. Right. So my brother and I and our friends are telling people that Leia and and Luke get married.

05:45

Han Solo dies. And so there's people like watching this and they finally like, wait, their brother and sister, how do they get married?

05:58

We said it's at the end. So that's what was so funny about Marvel's Endgame was that everybody was so concerned about spoilers.

06:09

And it was like, come on, folks. They didn't even want to hear people make fun and give wrong things as as possible spoilers.

06:18

They were just scared to death of somebody spoiling the movie. Well, as I found out, we'll get to this, but that's because they built up 20 movies to get to that one.

06:27

So but we'll save that. We'll save that. So you got into movies. How did you get into following movies?

06:34

Well, I just my dad always liked movies and we always had them in our house. And even back when

06:41

VHSs were a new thing, it was, you know, we watched movies on TV and my dad was a massive sci fi buff.

06:47

And so we were always watching science fiction. And I just, you know, something

06:53

I could do with my dad. And I I like science fiction. I actually liked science fiction a lot all the way up until I hit college.

07:03

And I started to really get into creation science. And then the evolution of indoctrination of most high science fiction, high concept science fiction really got on my nerves.

07:15

And I started stopped reading it and watching it as much. But it's still something I enjoy. I just watch with a little more critical thinking than I used to, which is kind of the point of my podcast.

07:27

So it's a good thing. That's true. Now, let's OK, we're going to see. We're going to see if you can date yourself.

07:34

You met in VHS. OK. Did you take a position,

07:39

VHS or Betamax? Which one? It's always VHS. But you understand the battle.

07:47

Yeah. Yeah. So, OK, there's much of the audience is going, what's a Betamax?

07:52

OK, most of them are even saying what's a VHS. They are these little things. They were like these cassette tapes. Oh, wait.

07:58

They don't even know what those things are. Yeah, OK. This thing that it was a rectangle that would have on tape the movie and you'd stick it into a big opening that, by the way, is the perfect size for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for kids to also stick into this opening, which makes a mess of your machine, peanut butter and jelly and electronics.

08:24

They don't go together. I'm not speaking from experience.

08:31

Actually, it wasn't my kids, but it was my pastor's kids that did that. But it was kind of fun to watch.

08:39

And it's it's the advantage was I didn't have to clean it up. Yeah. So. So. All right.

08:45

I want to start talking about the podcast. You have a podcast that's been going on. Well, it's a relatively new podcast, isn't it?

08:53

Well, we started it in 2009, so it's been a while. It's 10 years old. Yeah, that's more than that's longer than most people have been podcasting.

09:02

So you are one of like the pioneers, shall we say, of podcasting? Well, we actually can't say it because your your co -host in the early editions was really one of the pioneers.

09:15

Yes, he was a huge impact on podcasting. Yes, he has. He's he's really made it his niche.

09:23

Yeah. And so, you know, we're talking about her original co -host. I believe the show was originally wasn't it was

09:30

Daniel J. Lewis's. Originally, he did a show about a TV show. And then he's then you and he started doing this one,

09:36

I believe. Right. No, actually, the the background on it was there was another podcast called

09:42

The Sci -Fi Show, and that was spelled S -C -I -P -H -I. And it was a gentleman in Australia who liked to talk about philosophy as he could find it in science fiction film or science fiction books.

09:57

And what he would do is he would, you know, pick a topic of philosophy and then he would pick and choose from multiple media where he could show examples of that philosophy and use.

10:09

And I started listening to it. I put Daniel Lewis onto it, and then we ended up after a little while, this gentleman was looking for he was needing to take a break and he needed other people to fill in and create episodes for his podcast.

10:25

And so we decided to do a podcast on the movie Tron and kind of flip his thing around instead of doing, you know, one philosophy in multiple media.

10:37

We'd pick one media and try to pick out all the philosophies in that were presented in that one piece of media.

10:43

And we did that for him and we had so much fun doing it. We decided to to create our own podcast to do that.

10:51

Neat. And that was a long time ago. Yeah. Daniel, Daniel ended up leaving and doing a whole bunch of other things like the

10:58

Audacity podcast, which anyone who listens to my So You Want to Be a Podcaster podcast has heard his name and his podcast.

11:04

I probably mentioned it like in every episode. I just I just think

11:10

I've learned so much from. But you now have a new co -host, which is Tim Martin. Yes. And the two you get together once a month and pick a movie.

11:20

Right. So for folks who haven't listened yet, what is it? What is it you do on the podcast?

11:26

What is it you and Tim are evaluating? What is it you're looking to teach people? Well, we the point of our podcast is, are you just watching?

11:36

We are trying to get people to not just turn their brain off when they sit down to watch a movie.

11:41

We want them to think critically about what is being presented to them, because video especially has a high retention rate.

11:48

So when you watch video, you tend to remember more of what you are seeing because it's visual and visual retains better.

11:57

The problem is, is that the vast majority of the video we watch these days is put together by people who are anti -biblical and anti -Christian, to say the least.

12:09

And we wanted to and we enjoy it. We love watching movies, but we don't want to turn our brains off when we watch it.

12:16

So we want to kind of break open the surface of a movie and look to see what kind of values are being presented and think about them critically, maybe go to the

12:30

Bible a little bit and find out what God says about the issues, the themes that are prevalent in a particular movie.

12:37

And then we, you know, try to turn it on end and present the gospel with it. As if we can,

12:43

I mean, not all movies kind of go to the gospel, but for the most part, you can usually find something in there that, you know, you can show, well,

12:51

God, God would do it better this way. Or this is, this is how sin, this is this, all the, the all of the problems that our characters are facing in this movie are because of sin.

13:03

And this is where sin, you know, leads you. And or the big one is

13:09

Hollywood always wants you to follow your own heart, that you're, you know, in the end, a vast majority of movies boil down to trust your own heart and your heart will, you know, lead you out of this trouble that you're in, which, as we know, biblically is is completely wrong.

13:25

Well, yeah, Jeremiah spoke about our heart. I think he said, yes, you can trust your heart in all things.

13:31

Oh, no, wait, wait, it's not how that goes. I think it's more like the heart is deceitfully wicked.

13:36

Who can know? Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, this should be like our theme verse because we go back to it all the time.

13:45

Yes, I could see why, but I've now folks may get surprised because most of my audience who follows me regularly knows the common joke with me with anybody is the fact that I do not follow pop culture.

14:00

I don't follow media. I don't really watch movies. I just don't have time. You'll get a kick out of this.

14:07

One of the guys that's on my board of directors, I was at his house. It was him and a friend of his.

14:14

And literally what they were doing was using movie quotes in a natural conversation, but ones that were clearly movie quotes where the other people in the room picked up the movie quote just to see if I even knew it was a quote from a movie.

14:32

I mean, I started to realize something was up when after like a couple of sentences, everyone else in the room is laughing.

14:38

And I'm like, what? What? Oh, no, nothing. What? Oh, we were just quoting this from this movie.

14:43

And I'm like, well, OK. And literally a whole night. That's all they were doing was just cracking themselves up at how ignorant

14:49

I am of movies to the point where when I do get a movie reference, I recently referenced some children's movie that my kids watched.

14:58

Now I don't remember what it was. I think it was it was Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story. And I said something about falling with style.

15:06

And people are like, wait, Andrew got a movie reference. It's that much of a shock.

15:15

But I have listened to your podcast, several of them. And, you know, there's it's not that you go through discussing very much like movie critics would do.

15:25

You go through the score, the movies, the music score. You go through the theme. Then you start evaluating what the movie is teaching.

15:35

Right. Why do you think it's important for a Christian to consider what it is that a movie is teaching?

15:45

Well, if they're not paying attention to it, they can absorb the lessons without realizing that they are, you know, imbibing non -biblical content.

15:57

And if you're not careful about that, it can actually skew the way you look at the Bible and it can affect your

16:03

Christian walk. So some people are going to make a case because I know that I've heard this, whether it comes to music or movies, that this is just entertainment.

16:15

You can just shut your brain off and just enjoy it and be entertained. Is there a message that a majority, maybe not all, but a majority of movies are trying to that they and the message could be different, but do they have a message or trying to communicate to people and is turning our brain off something we really should do?

16:36

Well, obviously, I would say, no, you shouldn't turn your brain off because, I mean, saying that something is just entertainment is for a

16:46

Christian, nothing should ever boil down to a question of entertainment, because as Christians, we are should be taking every thought captive.

16:56

That's what 1st or 2nd Corinthians 10, 3 through 5 says is that we demolish arguments and every high minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God.

17:08

We take every thought captive to obey Christ. So we don't let anything just flow into our brains uselessly, because if you do, you're not properly shaping your your thought process to follow

17:21

Christ. That if if you want to shut your brain off while you're watching movies, then

17:27

I think maybe you shouldn't be watching movies because you're not in you're not in the correct. You don't have the spiritual maturity to deal with the the information the world is forcing on you.

17:40

So when we when we look at this, I mean, is the Hollywood or who's ever putting the movies, do they have a message they're trying to communicate in this form of media, of entertainment?

17:54

I would say if you ask them that they would say no, because they don't they don't understand the concept of worldview and well, they don't understand the concept that there are different worldviews.

18:08

Hollywood thinks that the reality they live in is the reality that they present.

18:14

And that is reality. But as Christians, we should be conscious of the fact that worldview is a real thing.

18:20

And when I say worldview, I mean the way you the lens by which you look at the world. And as Christians, we should be looking at the world through a biblical lens.

18:28

We should be examining everything that comes at us through the understanding of scripture.

18:35

And that is a different worldview. We're looking at the world a different way than people, secular people are.

18:41

And secular people have certain assumptions, presuppositional assumptions that they make about, you know, the origins of the world and what's right and what's wrong and how we the subjective nature and the relative nature of morality and all of these things that they just look at it differently than we do.

19:00

And because they look at it differently, they present messages that are completely antithetical to what we believe as Christians.

19:08

And if we turn our minds off when we're watching what they want us to watch, then those social mores start to, you know, impede our ability to see things from a biblical standpoint.

19:21

Yeah, I mean, I know years ago, people used to try to argue. And I'm dating myself because I'm going back to the early

19:28

Star Wars series. But, you know, people argue that it was just entertainment.

19:34

There wasn't any religious aspect to this. And I remember seeing

19:40

George Lucas in an interview. And they said they were actually trying to argue that he wasn't trying to promote any religious view.

19:49

And he corrected. Oh, no, I absolutely am. He's like, this is a this is a religious view of of a new age.

19:57

I was like, there you go, folks. He knew exactly what he was doing. And he was actually arguing that the medium of movies provides a tool to indoctrinate without people realizing it, because this is one of the things

20:13

I know from counseling. The strongest way to defend against sin is with your mind.

20:20

The first defense is your thinking. The second is your emotions and then your volition.

20:27

So if you get anything past the brain into the emotional realm, it's that much more likely to influence you for good or bad because it's it's past the brain.

20:41

So if they want to influence your your behavior, your volition, the best thing to do is get your brain shut off.

20:49

It's just entertainment and get into the emotion, which everything in the movies, you know,

20:55

I forget which one of your podcasts you were talking about this, but you mentioned something about the music score.

21:01

And you and Tim were talking about the way the music score was was affecting the emotion of of the preparation for what you were about to see.

21:11

And that is so true. I mean, in Hollywood, they don't leave anything to chance.

21:18

I mean, they they evaluate everything, you know, they they and I know this one for a fact that they will purposely put in logos of companies.

21:27

And I worked for AT &T and we had years and years ago, Hollywood, some producer called me up because they wanted our telephone that we that I had been working on.

21:39

And we hadn't actually been out in production yet. We had these patents on it and they wanted in their movie set.

21:46

And they needed me to rig one up so that the the lights would be on, even though there was no dial tone, there was there was no connection.

21:56

And so but but the big thing was it had to be placed just right and it had to look like it was working, but it had to have the

22:04

AT &T logo, like because that's what AT &T was paying for. I'm sure.

22:11

Yeah, they leave nothing to chance. I you know, the music that you brought up in their podcast, it's there to affect the emotion.

22:21

Yeah. And so I think when these a lot of these people do have an agenda.

22:28

In in not all of them, maybe that is open, but I think you're right. You nailed one thing that I see so common is so many of these people think everybody thinks like us because the only people we hang out with thinks like us.

22:41

You know, they're in an echo chamber. Right. And because they don't know that anyone else has a different way of thinking.

22:48

They just assume everyone's like, this is what we're seeing in our culture. With all of the people who with homosexuality and all this other stuff, it's like people just expect that everyone must agree with me.

23:00

And you're intolerant if you don't. And it's like, wait a minute, you're throwing the word intolerance on its head. Like you've just flipped it.

23:10

I'm tolerant of you when I'm accepting of your view. But when you're forcing me to accept your view, that's that's your intolerance.

23:19

Like and they don't see it. Yeah, they don't see it. And the thing is, is that media has actually led to acceptance of some of that from an emotional standpoint, like you said, because now homosexuality, transgender, all that stuff, abortion, even sex, lots of sex and bad language is all in all of the content that we watch.

23:40

Now, even TV shows, it used to be that that stuff was filtered out for TV because they expected young people to be in the room when the

23:46

TV was on. Now they don't even bother. It's just in everything. It's even in kids shows now. And it's just become that's the way that they're breaking us to thinking that this is just socially acceptable by putting it in our television.

24:00

And we see it happening all the time. And we get conditioned to thinking, oh, well, this is a normal thing.

24:05

And that changes the way we think about it. And that is one of the reasons why we encourage people from our podcast standpoint to not just watch

24:14

TV, to be paying attention to these things that they are introducing to us, because they want us to think they're normal and they want to change the way we think about some things by the way we watch.

24:25

And if we're not careful in our entertainment choices, we can end up being completely indoctrinated into a different way of looking at the world other than the biblical one.

24:36

Okay, after this break, what I want to do is I want you to provide for us some ways that when we're watching movies for people who are going to go out into a movie theater or put something on their

24:47

TV, what are some things they could do like you do on your podcast?

24:53

What are the tools they could have to start thinking critically about what they're watching? So I want you to answer that right after this.

25:16

In this crazy world, we don't have all the answers, but we know where to look. Subscribe to us on iTunes and follow us on SoundCloud as we seek the kingdom of God and find out what we are even doing here.

25:32

Ding dong, Jehovah's Witnesses! Ding dong, Mormons!

25:37

Christian, are you ready to defend the faith when false religions ring your doorbell?

25:42

Do you know what your Muslim and Jewish friends believe? You will if you get

25:48

Andrew Rappaport's book, What Do They Believe? When we witness to people, we need to present the truth.

25:54

But it is very wise to know what they believe. And you will get Andrew Rappaport's book at WhatDoTheyBelieve .com.

26:02

Yes, so that was a book that I spent a long time writing, and it was to help you learn how to identify what other religions believe.

26:10

It was basically some critical thinking for other religions, and that's what we want to talk about now with movies.

26:15

So Eve, tell me something. I'm going to a movie theater. I'm going to go watch, I almost forgot the name of the one that I watched, but it was

26:23

Avengers Endgame. I'm going to go watch Avengers Endgame. We'll have to explain the humor behind that because I actually did watch that movie and you've seen a photo of it, but I go to watch that.

26:36

What are the tools? What kind of things can I have going into the theater to be prepared to think critically about what

26:43

I'm going to watch? Well, the number one thing, of course, is to be familiar with your Bible. And when

26:49

I wrote my book, the first chapter I did was on counterfeits, because what we have presented in media today is a counterfeit reality, and the truth is in our scripture.

27:01

And if we are not familiar with God's word, God's love letter to us, then we will not be familiar enough with the real stuff to be able to determine where the counterfeits are in what we're watching or reading for that matter.

27:16

And so reading the Bible, in fact, this is probably kind of, you know, a stereotype or something that everybody's heard before, is that when bank managers are teaching clerks to be able to find counterfeit money, what they do is they don't sit there and show them a bunch of counterfeit money.

27:33

What they do is they make them handle the real stuff. They make them hold real money in their hands, smell it, look at it, and rub it between their hands and feel it.

27:45

And they got to know the real stuff so that when a counterfeit bill comes into their hands, they'll go, this doesn't feel right, it doesn't smell right, there's something wrong.

27:52

It feels like a counterfeit because they know what the real thing is. And as Christians, we should know our

27:58

Bible very well. We should be spending time with the Lord. We should be reading our Bible from cover to cover on a regular basis.

28:08

And I know that's hard because we're all busy and finding time to read. Believe me, I empathize.

28:13

Finding time to read your Bible is extremely hard. But if you are going to be forcing yourself or allowing yourself to be reading secular media or watching secular media, you need to know your

28:24

Bible well, because otherwise you're not going to be able to identify the counterfeit realities that are going to come across the screen at you.

28:33

Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things I tell people with other religions, you don't need to study.

28:39

I mean, I spent 14 years studying different world religions, and I wrote the book so people can just kind of pick it up quickly.

28:47

But people always say, well, what do I have to do to study Islam? Do I got to get a Koran and say, why do you want to study it?

28:55

Because if someone wants to study it to talk to a Muslim friend and share the gospel with them, then ask your friend the questions.

29:02

And that's how you'll learn what your friend believes, because your friend may not actually believe all that Koran teaches anyway.

29:08

But find out what they believe. But the thing I always tell people is know your Bible. If you know your

29:14

Bible, you can go into any conversation. I go into Jehovah Witnesses. I don't need to know that they had a failed prophecy in 1975.

29:21

I don't need to know all that. I don't have to know all these things about Joseph Smith and how many wives he had. I have to know that they have a difference when it comes to how someone gets saved.

29:30

They have a works -based gospel. We have a grace -based gospel. We can examine these two and say, I see where you fail.

29:37

That's how we do it. We study the truth. We study the truth. And when you know the truth, then the counterfeits raise their head.

29:45

They look really obviously wrong to you because you know what's true. And the second thing is you have to know where you get your authority.

29:53

And to be honest, I'm cheating here. I'm going through the chapters in my book. I was recognizing that.

30:00

I went, okay, next one's going to be presuppositions, I think. Well, authority is important because God gave us authority.

30:10

He speaks authoritatively when he wrote the Bible. And when we allow ourselves to be led astray by secular authorities, and when

30:19

I say authority, how many of you have seen a commercial where they say like three out of five dentists recommend this toothpaste or toothbrush or whatever?

30:28

They are using an authoritative argument to sell you that product. They are saying that these people know toothpaste and you can trust them that this is the best toothpaste because they're authoritative on this topic and this is what they say.

30:45

So you can trust their authority. Well, we're surrounded by a secular world that is telling us that they are a greater authority than what we read in God's Word.

30:55

And you have to be firm in what you know where to go to for authority, because if you don't have that set in your mind before you go and watch a movie, then you might be led astray very easily by the counterfeit realities they are presenting to you.

31:11

You're going to go on to the next point. Yeah, well, the next one is presuppositions. And this is one that I think a lot of Christians have never heard of unless they've been in a presupposition or listened to a presuppositional teacher or a lecture or something where you deal with the things that you start with.

31:31

That's what presuppositional thinking is. It's the foundation that you start with with your thinking. And when you're arguing with a secularist, a lot of times they refuse to admit that they have presuppositions.

31:43

They don't understand the term. They don't understand the reality. But you have to, as Christians, you have to recognize that we come to media with the presupposition that God exists, that God wrote

31:57

His Word, that it's authoritative and you can trust it. And that is the presupposition that you're going to start with when you're looking at anything secular.

32:06

If you change presuppositions and try to look at it from their point of view, then you're to lose your ability to see the counterfeits and to be able to put authority in its proper position.

32:19

So, you know, I just recommend, guys, just go buy my book. Yeah, well, really,

32:24

I mean, your book really sounds like it's laying out the answer to the question. How do we think critically when we go to view a movie or examine the media?

32:35

Well, we have to be able to identify counterfeits, know what our authority is, know our presuppositions.

32:40

What are the stereotypes? There are things we can do, but it means engaging our mind.

32:49

Right. We can't view this as just entertainment because there may be an aspect where, yes, we can sit.

32:56

I had a really rough day. I wanted to sit in front of TV and veg. I don't want to think about things. Well, you could do that, but you can also be influenced without realizing it.

33:06

And the more you do that, I think, is the issue, because the more someone subjects themselves to this stuff, it desensitizes them to the issues that they're not even aware they're being desensitized to.

33:22

And slowly they start thinking, as you said, with the sex and everything else in the movies, they think this is normal.

33:29

I mean, there's a reason why Hollywood is putting all this stuff in movies. I always find it interesting that they show all these stats that show that G -rated movies are the most money -making movies.

33:41

Movies that don't have all the sex and violence and all are the movies that make the money.

33:48

So you got to ask yourself, so why are they forcing it? Right. The only conclusion

33:54

I can come to is because they want society to vindicate their lifestyles.

34:01

Right. Exactly. And when we allow them to, like, one of the things that I say in my introduction to my book, and it's something that Daniel and I did a very long time ago when we first started the podcast, was talk about where we draw the line in our personal entertainment.

34:15

Because it's important as Christians to kind of sit down and figure out how far can you go before what you're doing is sin.

34:25

And for watching media, especially movies, you need to know where your weaknesses are and don't cater to them.

34:34

Because, you know, if you're a man and you struggle with pornography, then don't watch a movie that has sex in it.

34:44

Don't put yourself in a place where you're going to sin. And if you're a woman who struggles with seeing your husband in the correct standpoint, because you're drawn away by romance and by, you know, the love stories, then don't read romances, because they will destroy your relationship with your husband.

35:05

Because they're fictionalized ideals that your husband can never match. So there's things that you have to determine for yourself where your weaknesses are.

35:14

And don't test the spirit on those issues. You have to draw the line. Yeah, because the thing is, is that when we're not paying attention to it, that's when we can be deceived by it.

35:29

That's a big thing that I think so many people don't end up realizing. And I think one of the things that we end up seeing is when we look to Hollywood to inform us on things.

35:44

We look to people who really are being clear that they hate God. In fact, this may surprise some folks.

35:51

I'm sure you enjoy the movies and you do a show about movies, know this, but back in like the 50s, they used to have a board of pastors that used to have to approve movies.

36:04

Does that shock people nowadays to know that pastors used to have to approve a movie? And they got rid of that.

36:14

And look at what's happened since. I mean, you look at the movies in the 50s and 60s and what they tried to get away with.

36:22

They were always trying to push the line. Right. And if you don't think that Hollywood's trying to justify their own behavior, just look at the whole

36:31

MeToo movement and see what's been going on in Hollywood. And everyone knew what was going on in Hollywood.

36:37

They just didn't want anyone to talk about it. Yeah. But now that that's out, it's like, well, this should just be the norm.

36:44

But it's really confused people because this should be the norm. But only if I say so.

36:52

But if you have two people saying different things, it becomes really confusing for society. And people are really nowadays,

36:58

I think, getting seriously confused. And I think what we're seeing is that there's a lot of people who really are just can't make heads or tails of how they're supposed to behave anymore.

37:14

I do open air evangelism in New York City. And in New York, if you use a wrong pronoun for someone, you can be fined up to I think it's a quarter of a million dollars.

37:27

Now, I've never quite figured out who you have to pay. Like, I could just picture this being the city saying you could be fined and you pay the city.

37:34

And a whole bunch of people are like, find him, find him, because they want to get everyone to be fined, not realizing they're not getting the money.

37:42

The city probably is. I've never figured out who actually gets paid, but I'm sure it's the city.

37:50

Now, there's so much with that. I mean, there's so many things with this that as an open air evangelist, you end up having to deal with.

37:57

One, there's a respect issue. I mean, you want to respect the person that you're speaking with. And if you have a guy, which

38:03

I've had, a guy with a beard and he's dressed in a dress and he wants you to call her a her.

38:11

OK, but clearly it's not a her. I mean, full on beard, everything.

38:17

So you want to be respectful to the person. But at the same time, you don't want to deal with, you know, going against your own convictions of what's going on in culture.

38:29

And that could be really hard to deal with. Now, I have a crazy ways of dealing with it. As an open air evangelist, I have to deal with it with lots of people watching.

38:36

And I've come up with a technique that works for me because one of the big things I want to do is use humor so that I'm keeping the crowd engaged and it's lightening the mood of the crowd.

38:49

So I had this guy and he's like, he wanted me to call her. He wanted me to call him a her.

38:57

And he said, because he says, you can't call me, sir. You must call me ma 'am.

39:03

And I just looked at him and I said, well, and you must call me your majesty. And don't forget to bow when you do so.

39:10

And a bunch of people laugh and he goes, I'm not doing that. I said, OK, then neither am

39:15

I. You know, the funny thing with doing that is he was not going to honor my request of the pronoun or the way

39:24

I want it to be presented. So now if he tries to say that I'm not doing it to him, he showed the disrespect first.

39:30

You know, and I've used the same line now. I do know one person that actually had someone that they were talking to that started to refer your majesty and they bowed like with a big bow every time, which is actually pretty good for an open air preacher because you want that guy drew a big crowd every time he bowed down your majesty.

39:52

But our culture is getting so confused with things nowadays that you don't know how to behave.

39:59

You don't know. I mean, it's interesting that you have people who are claiming they're they've been victimized by the

40:06

Me Too movement. And yet now we're finding out they've also victimized others. Right.

40:12

And they're wanting to be excused because they were a victim.

40:19

So it's like, wait, so if I was a victim, then I can do whatever I want to someone else, because doesn't that make me the victimizer for them?

40:28

No, because I was victimized. But like almost everyone has that story that they were victimized.

40:34

Our culture has been so confused by what media has been trying to teach us or really what is

40:42

I think they want to. And this gets to your issue of authority. They want to remove an absolute authority, an objective authority, because if there's an objective authority, there's someone who is.

40:59

Say again? There's then there's objective morality. And a lot of the things they say are

41:04

OK are definitely not. Exactly. Exactly.

41:09

Because now if there's an objective morality, there must be an objective standard, which means we don't get to set it.

41:16

We have to obey it. That's what they don't want. They don't want the accountability. Yeah.

41:23

So you've come out with a book. Why do you write the book? Well, I've been trying to get people to, you know, communicate with us in our podcast.

41:35

And I want to know that we're actually having an impact on the way people watch movies.

41:41

And for the longest time, I really kind of feel like we've been talking into a void. We get a teensy bit of feedback, but not a lot.

41:47

And I got to thinking that it might be helpful if people had something like a guided journal where they could take notes and be, you know, kind of hold themselves accountable to thinking critically when they are watching media.

42:00

So my book is actually very little to read and a whole lot to fill in, because it's a guided journal where you can watch a movie and you can take notes, and then it tells how to find the themes and then look into scripture and figure out how to answer some of the questions that are raised by watching the movie.

42:23

So I just have little introductions to each concept and scattered throughout this journal so that there's very little reading and a lot of room to watch so that you can, you know, equip yourself and actually try this for yourself.

42:38

Because listening to me do it on my podcast is something other than, you know,

42:44

I think when people listen to my podcast, they're probably shutting their brain off as much as they do when they're watching a movie sometimes.

42:52

It's interesting to hear someone else do it, but they're not learning how to do it themselves. And that's why I wanted a book to, you know, kind of in people's hands,

43:01

I really feel like it would be very useful for especially teenagers, and to use, you know, like high school, junior high homeschoolers, or even, you know, families who have kids in public school, even using this way of looking at media on what you're being taught in school, because I can guarantee you in public school, you're going to face some of the same issues that you'll face in watching a movie.

43:29

Yeah, and I go to the movies often or not. But you got to see a picture

43:36

I posted just for the fun of it. As you know, I went to see Marvel's Endgame.

43:43

And you were not alone in informing me that the reason I didn't understand this is because there were like 20 movies before that, that I was supposed to watch.

43:54

Yes, it's a it was kind of like the end of a series, which

43:59

I think is kind of why it was called Endgame. But it was you did do a podcast on it.

44:05

I was just prepping for it. I wanted to prep for your podcast and be ready for it. So I kind of went but I was dressed for the occasion.

44:11

Was I not? Yes, you were dressed very nicely for the occasion. I was. So I actually was at my nephew's bar mitzvah and we had some hours to kill in between the bar mitzvah and the reception.

44:24

And my kids wanted to go see Endgame because we didn't know what else to do with ourselves.

44:29

And we went but we were dressed for a bar mitzvah. We walk into this theater and this was a tiny theater.

44:38

They had two, maybe three theaters in there and the theaters were not very large.

44:46

And we come in, we walk in. And as you know, we were we were dressed for a formal occasion.

44:52

You're probably turning heads. You're probably turning heads. Oh, we definitely were, even though there was like very few heads to turn there.

45:00

But because it was the middle of the day. And anyway, so we walked to the ticket counter. The phone rings and the person behind the counter goes,

45:10

I don't know. Do you want me to ask them? No. OK. And hangs up. Obviously, they're talking about us.

45:16

So I was like, what was that? And they're like, well, my boss just called. The manager called and wanted to know if you were dressed for a ball.

45:24

He saw you on the cameras. There was a time that people used to dress like that for the movies because it used to be a big deal.

45:34

Now it's changed. But I did go to see that movie.

45:40

And yes, I did have to have my son in law explain a lot of the background to it.

45:46

My wife, my wife slept for, I think, the first hour being that it was a three hour movie.

45:52

There was plenty of time for that. And yeah, so she she woke up to like a third of the movie way into the movie.

45:58

So she understood even less of it. Well, my son in law had to explain a lot to me.

46:03

But the thing that I ended up seeing with that was there's there were so many people that knew all of the backdrop to these movies.

46:12

They knew the storylines. They knew all of these sub storylines and subplots between all these different movies, which struck me, especially online, when

46:24

I was so clueless with this and people would bust on me. And yet here is one of the things that made me stand back and think there were so many of these storylines that people knew and people were so upset if it like, oh, it should have ended this way or that way.

46:41

I saw a discussion on this. Here's the thing that I found interesting with it. Many of these people that profess to know

46:48

Christ, do they know the storylines of scripture as well as they know the storylines of the

46:56

Marvel Comics series movies? I bet you not. Yeah.

47:02

Yeah. And that's a painful thing to think about. Yes, it is. It is.

47:09

And when we realize that as Christians that we have bought into secular media to that degree where it becomes an idol in our lives.

47:21

And I know I have friends at work, and I work in Christian ministry. I have friends at work who,

47:27

I mean, it's like a really big deal about going to see these

47:34

Marvel movies. And a couple of my close co -workers have seen Endgame at least six times each.

47:41

And I've seen it three times, which is a lot. And two of those were for the podcast so that I'd make sure

47:46

I get the podcast right. It's crazy to me that it becomes such a massive deal that we end up setting it up on a pedestal higher than God in our lives.

47:59

And, you know, Lord of the Rings did the same thing when the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out. There were a lot of Christians that really bought into that.

48:07

And J .R .R. Tolkien was supposedly a Christian. We don't know, only

48:13

God knows his heart. But—and there are some, you know, evil versus good themes going on in Lord of the

48:21

Rings, but you can't really use it to present the gospel unless you're talking about it from the way we do, where we rip it apart and show pieces of it that, you know, you can answer it with Scripture, not necessarily use it in place of Scripture, which

48:37

I think is a problem with a lot of Christians sometimes, is they try to use secular media in place of Scripture.

48:42

And you never should do that. And it is definitely a problem. We have—we're setting up idols in our lives.

48:50

I always thought it funny when I saw a book that was titled, Finding the Gospel in the Lord of the Rings. And I thought to myself, when

48:58

I saw that title, if someone had to write a book about it, then it must not be that clear. Yeah.

49:03

Well, there's people who did that with the Star Wars trilogy, too. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, it's really funny, but Christians, this is—I'm going to get myself in such trouble right now.

49:15

I know it. I just should not do this, but I will. There are

49:22

Christians who be—they will love Lord of the Rings and say that this is a

49:27

Christian book series. I'm going to the books, not the movies. But they'll look at the books and say, this is a

49:33

Christian series, really because they believe that the author was a Christian. That's really the only thing

49:38

I can conclude. And here's the thing I find so interesting with it. I could—now,

49:46

I'm the type of person that when I'm asked to critically evaluate things, I do original resource research.

49:53

So I always go back to the source. When there became this big thing over the

49:59

Harry Potter series, I read. So I have read the entire Harry Potter series.

50:04

For those who want to judge me, go ahead. But at least I can speak to it having checked it out, having researched.

50:12

I did the same thing with Da Vinci Code, and I researched all that. And so I can say why I don't believe in Da Vinci Code. But you know what?

50:18

I could actually show the gospel easier in Harry Potter than I can

50:23

Lord of the Rings. Now, I've read Lord of the Rings. Yeah. But in Harry Potter, it's like, okay, there's a resurrection stone.

50:30

Because of love, he has to die for all the other people.

50:36

And then the resurrection stone brings him back. And now that he's resurrected, he can now offer everyone salvation.

50:44

I mean, it's really in there very easily, very clearly seen. You don't have it as clear in Lord of the

50:51

Rings. So what am I saying there? Am I saying that Harry Potter was written to present God?

50:56

No, because if you listen to the author, it clearly wasn't meant for that. She is definitely not trying to teach

51:02

Christianity. However, when we come to it with a conclusion we want to make, we can very easily make it say what we want it to say.

51:13

And there's some things like Harry Potter, you can make it say a gospel message much easier than a

51:18

Lord of the Rings who may have been written by a saved person. But I don't know that he was actually trying to do that.

51:23

Now, you mentioned Chronicles of Narnia. I think he was trying to do that. C .S. Lewis was trying to present a message in there of Christianity.

51:32

I don't know if that was the case with Lord of the Rings. He may have been a believer, he may.

51:37

But I don't think that's the case. Right. So I just I always get puzzled when

51:43

Christians want to take something, especially like what Hollywood's doing and try to use it to present the gospel as if.

51:50

I guess this is where my real hang up is there. It seems to me that it's as if they're saying that the gospel and the word of God is not enough.

51:59

Like we need Hollywood to vindicate and substantiate what God says.

52:05

And that's never going to work because Hollywood is completely against. In fact, in my book,

52:11

I mentioned when it comes to stereotypes, it used to be when you were talking about the old

52:16

Hollywood, you know, where movies had to be vetted by pastors. Christians were actually viewed favorably in most media because we lived in a world that saw

52:25

Christians as like a stabilizing foundation in our society. And that's been turned on its head now.

52:31

And if you watch current media, if they present a Christian, he's judgmental, he's hypocritical, or he's, you know, beating his wife or sexually assaulting his children, or there's always some kind of nastiness about Christians is the way they're presented now.

52:48

And this is what they want the world to believe. And when we see a lot of the kickback that we're getting to the gospel in the secular society today, it's because they are being—the world is being indoctrinated with a different view of Christianity than is really the case.

53:04

And we have to be careful as Christians when we're imbibing this media that we aren't believing their portrayal of what we are as Christians, because they've got it wrong.

53:16

And we have to be able to correct it. And that's kind of the reason why

53:21

I still do this podcast, is because I want to be able to expose the agendas that are behind the stories.

53:29

And I enjoy watching movies. I enjoy entertaining myself. I still enjoy reading a lot of fiction.

53:36

But I have to be—as a Christian, I have to make sure that I have my worldview glasses firmly on so that I'm not indoctrinating myself in my entertainment choices.

53:49

Yeah, you know, my wife and I were recently out in Dallas, and we basically had—in the hotel, we had some hours to return on TV.

53:57

We were watching. It's really—it was a lot of what you said. I mean, when we see Christians portrayed in TV, when—we were watching, when

54:04

I saw this—Christians being portrayed as people that just want money, and they want everything to be good and peaceful, and everything should go their way.

54:14

And I got sick of watching Joelstein say, can we turn this off? So you see, even when it's supposedly a

54:25

Christian, it's not doing us any good. All right, so I want to—after this break, I want to talk—you and I actually have another, a mutual love for apologetics, and specifically a branch of apologetics of creation science.

54:39

And so after this break, I want to spend a couple minutes just talking about that. Are you just watching?

54:46

Do you enjoy watching movies? The special effects, the interesting characters, the great stories.

54:52

There's a lot to enjoy that comes out of Hollywood. But sometimes it's best to approach secular media with a healthy dose of critical thinking.

55:00

Join me, Eve Franklin. And Tim Martin. As we discuss our favorite movies. And share critical thinking for the entertained

55:07

Christian. So visit areyoujustwatching .com to subscribe. And don't just watch.

55:14

What does Phil Johnson think of the Things Above Us roundtable? If you have a heart for biblical evangelism, missions, and theology, you've come to the right place.

55:22

I agree. And they talk about sports, too. Go Cubs. Well, nobody's right about everything.

55:28

So subscribe to them on your favorite podcast app, and give them a rating and review, and tell them

55:34

Phil sent you. Pull up a chair to the Things Above Us roundtable podcast. Available at thingsabove .us.

55:40

What Phil said. Thanks, Todd. All right. So check out those two.

55:46

We've already been talking about the podcast Are You Just Watching? But also check out the Things Above roundtable.

55:51

Some good blog articles that they write on their blog site. Good group of guys. Some of them actually also write for Striving Fraternity.

55:59

But one of them actually used to work for Striving Fraternity. So we have a very good relationship with those guys.

56:05

Good content they're putting out. So Eve, you and I both have a love for apologetics and a branch of apologetics.

56:13

Well, you've already mentioned you're kind of seeming to be a presuppositionalist as well. So that's something else we agree on.

56:19

But let's talk creation science. Yeah. Well, when we think about movies, they don't present creation in a very good light, do they?

56:29

No. Especially when you're watching science fiction. It's all based evolutionary. Almost all of it.

56:34

Well, I shouldn't say almost all of it. All of it is based on science fiction. All of it is based on evolution.

56:40

It's crazy. It's actually like this fallacy. Like as if you don't accept our way of thinking, it's because everyone believes this.

56:50

No, that's a fallacy of ad populum. Like the whole population doesn't actually believe it.

56:55

There's actually a lot of scientists that don't believe in evolution. Yeah. And that is a presuppositional position, because you can't prove evolution.

57:07

You can't be there in the past to have seen it. You would have to have a time machine, or you would have to have been God yourself to be able to see the beginning of evolution and see how it came to create everything that we have today.

57:19

And it's really a fallacy to believe that just because we can see it now, we can just assume, make assumptions about the past.

57:30

You have to have been there. And as Christians, we know the one. I shouldn't say person.

57:36

We know the one, the being who was there at the beginning, and he told us what happened. So we should start with him as our authority figure.

57:43

And that includes creation, the way he wrote it in the Bible. Well, you know, we always talk with, if you talked any time you end up talking with an evolutionist, specifically someone that professes to be an atheist, they're going to argue that they have science on their side.

58:02

I'd love to ask the question, okay, what is the scientific method to these people? Yeah. When I was at college,

58:11

I took biology and zoology my freshman year, and I was already a creation scientist when

58:17

I went. I should say creationist. I'm not a scientist, so I can't claim that title. I was already a creationist, and I went to a secular school, and they were teaching biology, and the first chapter was evolution.

58:30

The second chapter was evolution. The third chapter was evolution. Then the fifth chapter, you know, went along a little ways.

58:36

The fifth or sixth chapter was on genetics. They could not mention evolution in the genetics chapter, because genetics does not fit with evolution.

58:44

So we abandoned evolution for a chapter, and then when we finished genetics, we went right back to evolution. I was just amazed at the fact that when you actually teach genetics, which is something we can study, you can't teach evolution because they don't go hand in hand, because genetics is information, and you can't have information without an information giver.

59:05

It comes from a mind, and genetics is all information. It is the most amazing thing in the world, and they're out there, you know, with their radio telescopes pointed at the universe, looking for some kind of signal that will, you know, have some kind of intelligence behind it, and they're completely blind to the fact that we are all built on an information code that is so complex, and I believe whether this is if you wrote it in books, that it would go all the way to the moon.

59:33

I mean, it's crazy how complex genetics is, and yet it just happened by chance.

59:39

It just happens to work. It really is amazing when we think about this, because I stood up, and you might get a kick out of this.

59:50

There was a, it was UConn, we were at UConn, and there's a video called UConn Professor Goes Ape, I think is what it's called.

59:59

This professor was getting upset with us doing open -air evangelism, and he ended up challenging me, and unfortunately the whole thing wasn't videoed, but he was challenging me, and I made the case that evolution is scientifically impossible.

01:00:16

It turns out he teaches anthropology. He teaches evolution. And I said, great, you're a doctor in this area.

01:00:27

Explain to me how we get new information into the genetic code. He literally went off for 20 minutes and never answered the question he even admitted.

01:00:39

Andrew's going to say that I didn't answer his question. I'm like, hello, it's been 20 minutes now.

01:00:45

You've been rambling. I asked them if they understand the scientific method, because when they admit the scientific method, it takes observation, it takes repeatability, you have to be able to create the experiment, repeat it, you have to be able to observe it, you have to record your findings.

01:01:07

So that other people can then repeat it, because part of it is being able to take someone else's work and repeat it yourself.

01:01:14

That takes that to a second level. So let's put that into the beginning of the universe.

01:01:23

Can we do that with the Big Bang? Well, let's see. Did anyone observe it? Uh, no.

01:01:30

Did anyone create it or be able to reproduce it? No. Did anyone write it down at the time?

01:01:38

No. But wait a minute. We do have a science method.

01:01:44

We see God said in the beginning, let there be light. We do have someone that not only observed it, created it, but recorded it.

01:01:53

Wow, there we go. If you're going to look at the only case where we have a scientific method for the creation of the universe, you should read the

01:01:59

Bible. Right? Yeah. That's my theory.

01:02:05

Yeah, that's my theory, too. Yeah. And then I will take it even a step further, because not only am

01:02:11

I a creationist, I am one of those really nasty people. I am a young Earth creationist.

01:02:16

I actually believe the Earth creationist. I know, isn't that? I mean, I just sucked all the air out of the room, didn't

01:02:22

I? Yeah. Well, actually, I agree completely with you, obviously, because that's what the

01:02:27

Bible says. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And it's really funny, because when you listen to my podcast, when

01:02:36

Daniel Lewis and I started it, we were both young Earth creationists. Tim Martin is not so much a young Earth creationist.

01:02:42

And so we occasionally have to avoid certain topics just so we don't end up arguing in the podcast, because I'm converting him.

01:02:51

Because that's not what the podcast is about. That's not what the podcast is about. But I'm converting him. I'm going to get him there eventually.

01:02:59

Yeah. You know, I loved I was doing open air in New York one time. And no, you may not know this.

01:03:05

My audience does. I'm from a Jewish background. And I had a guy, we're talking about the fact of young Earth creation, it came up.

01:03:12

And I was saying, I believe that the universe is around 6 ,000 years old.

01:03:18

They thought that was laughable. They were making fun of me. One guy said, even the

01:03:26

Jews don't believe that. And I said, sir, are you

01:03:31

Jewish? And he goes, yes. I said, can you tell me the date in the

01:03:37

Jewish calendar today? He's like, well, I don't know it. I said, what year is it?

01:03:44

Well, I don't know exactly. I said, well, you got a phone, look it up. So he gives the year. Oh, it's 5 ,700, whatever.

01:03:51

I said, OK, what's that dating back to? Ah, Abraham.

01:03:57

I said, you got your phone. Check it out. The date of creation. Yes, Jews actually dated their calendar by what they assumed was the date of creation.

01:04:09

So when you say they didn't believe in it, I don't believe you. Well, I don't think

01:04:17

Jews today, modern Jews actually know what they believe for the most part, which is why they need to read your books, right?

01:04:24

Yeah, well, most of the liberal Jewish people will not know

01:04:30

Judaism at all, let alone the Bible. Most of the religious

01:04:37

Jews don't know the Bible as well as they know really the Talmud, which is. So the way

01:04:44

Judaism is, you have the written law and the oral law. OK, the Talmud. And then with both of them, you have commentaries.

01:04:51

So you have a commentary on the written law. Well, the Talmud, which is where they focus most of their effort is a commentary on the oral law.

01:04:59

So it's what they say was orally passed down. And now this is the commentary on that. Boy, that's really hard to that's like so far removed from what

01:05:07

God's word, right? Why don't they just pick up the Bible? I mean. Yeah, because it says something they don't want to read.

01:05:16

Like, yeah, they're accountable to God. And they created a system of works to avoid the real gospel of grace, maybe.

01:05:23

Yeah, yeah. Oh, there you go. Being critical thinking again. I got to stop doing that.

01:05:33

All right. So, Eve, it was it was a pleasure. This went really quick. I might have you on because this was a lot of fun.

01:05:41

And we didn't even talk about movies that much. We didn't. I managed to avoid that.

01:05:47

But, you know, we're going to play a game. And if you've been listening to my podcast, you know the game.

01:05:53

If you haven't, well, then it's going to be a surprise. But don't worry, there's no pressure on you.

01:06:00

You can relax. The pressure's on me. So before we play the game, though, I do want to give some folks an update.

01:06:07

I just got this today. Now, this is two and a half weeks after this conference that Justin Peters and I did in Cebu, Philippines.

01:06:16

We did a discernment conference both in Manila and in Cebu, two different islands there in the

01:06:22

Philippines. Boy, did I do a lot of teaching there. I ended up between before we left for the

01:06:30

Philippines, I was in Idaho, Northern Idaho with Jason Lyle.

01:06:36

There was a conference up there. I had three talks. I spoke on Sunday school.

01:06:43

I spoke the Sunday message and I did a training for evangelism. And then we left for the

01:06:49

Philippines where there I had 10 to 12 messages that I had to prepare for the

01:06:56

Philippines. And so, boy, it was a lot. It really was. And you could sit there and say, boy, you've traveled halfway around the world.

01:07:04

Is it worth it? I think this explains whether it was worth it. This is from a pastor in Cebu. The conference we did was called snatch them from the flames.

01:07:13

And on Twitter, what they were doing was just calling it hashtag snatch as a shorter way of getting it on Twitter.

01:07:19

So this is what Pastor David said on Twitter to both Justin and I update on hashtag snatch.

01:07:27

Local pastor in Cebu preached on Sunday that from now on, they will only preach from scripture and they've rejected tithing as a doctrine.

01:07:42

A woman also was asked to preach, but she said, no, I won't find a man to do it.

01:07:50

Soledad Gloria. That is a huge testimony for folks that don't understand.

01:07:56

Tithing is a big deal. It's a very poor area and they want everyone to tithe.

01:08:02

Some of them call it a sin not to tithe. They will question possibly even someone's salvation if they don't tithe.

01:08:10

So that was a big deal. Women preaching was a big deal. We addressed that at the conference. Some of you heard if you listen to my rapper podcast a couple of episodes ago or last episode, you heard me deal with the fact of the women's role in the church has to be dealt with.

01:08:26

We can't avoid it. But to have a woman stand up who's asked to preach and she says she won't go find a man to do it.

01:08:34

That is a huge testimony because that was actually a question that I was asked. What would I do if a church wants to transition from a woman pastor to a man male pastor?

01:08:45

I said, fire the woman. And it sounds kind of harsh, but here you have a woman saying, no, let a man do it.

01:08:52

This is a role that a man should have biblically and they should do it. I think that's a huge testimony.

01:09:00

I think it's still two and a half weeks later having an impact what we did down there.

01:09:07

Praise the Lord. Yeah, and a lot of that folks came from your donations because many of you know that Justin and I went down there.

01:09:16

We had an arrangement with the church that we were paying our own way. That's how important we thought it was.

01:09:22

We said that if we are donors covered, if they don't, they don't. We were going no matter what.

01:09:28

And we did. We went down there and most of the folks, at least from Striving Fraternity, covered my flight almost completely.

01:09:35

And so I was able to go there and this is the impact that you had with your donation.

01:09:42

So I want to give a heartfelt thank you to those of you who made it possible for Justin and I to go to the

01:09:50

Philippines and be able to have a report like this to bring back to you. This is something that you made possible.

01:09:59

And folks, to make more of these trips possible, I was asked while I was there whether I would come to Japan to be able to train them there in Japan as they're prepping for the 2020

01:10:08

Olympics. They want me to actually come two times to do an evangelism training possibly before the

01:10:14

Olympics and then come maybe for the Olympics to actually do some evangelism. I can't afford that.

01:10:20

We would need your help to be able to do something like that. So if you want to get behind that and support that, go to strivingforeternity .org

01:10:28

slash donate. And if you could donate monthly, that would be a bigger impact. There are some things if you look on the

01:10:34

Patreon page, what you end up receiving as gifts for different donation levels because we want to give a thank you for those of you who donate.

01:10:43

Now with that, I want to play a game. It's time now to start the spiritual transition game.

01:10:54

All right, so Eve, I don't know if you know this game, so let me explain it to you.

01:11:00

This is a game that I find most people when it comes to sharing the gospel, they're okay with sharing the gospel as long as we get into spiritual discussions.

01:11:11

Once it's on a spiritual topic, people are okay with getting to the gospel. The question so many people have is, how do

01:11:18

I go from the natural to the spiritual? How do I make that swing, that transition? And there's many people that they pray, oh

01:11:25

Lord, please give me an opportunity to share the gospel with someone today. You know, I don't pray that, Eve, because I believe

01:11:30

I can take any conversation with practice, I can take any conversation and transition it into the gospel.

01:11:39

So this is a game that I've been playing for a very long time. And so if you think that I may be good at it, it's only because I've been playing it longer than, well, you.

01:11:47

And we don't edit this part. So if there's long pauses, it's because I've been stumped.

01:11:57

And it has happened. Some people have stumped me with things. Usually they're stumping me with things about pop culture that I have no clue what they're talking about, which

01:12:09

Eve may do being the topic of today's show. Here's the thing, though. As we examine this, what

01:12:14

I want to do is, Eve, you're going to give me something, an object or a topic or whatever you like, and I have to take whatever you give me in a very natural way of discussion, transition from whatever you give me to the gospel.

01:12:31

And again, the reason we play this game is the more we practice this, the easier it is for us to get into gospel conversations.

01:12:38

So Eve, what is my challenge today? What do I have to transition into the gospel?

01:12:45

How about iPhones? iPhones. I love iPhones.

01:12:50

So see, right off the bat, I know that you are a woman of high intellect and intelligence because you did not say

01:12:58

Android. No, I chose iPhones because they're the people's idols.

01:13:07

Well, see, now that would have been an E. I didn't even think about that. And this is what else with this game. I didn't even think about going into the way of idols, but that would be an easy transition there.

01:13:15

So now I have to avoid it because you came up with that one. And I know that my co -host on So You Want to Be a

01:13:22

Podcaster, Colleen Sharp from Theology Gals, is going to get upset with the comment I just made because she is a diehard

01:13:28

Android user. So am I, actually. And I'm not, I used to be an anti -Apple guy.

01:13:34

I admit it. I was a Microsoft guy. I didn't like Apple because they were a closed system.

01:13:40

They felt that they wanted to keep a closed system so that they could keep the hardware and the software and it would be better.

01:13:46

And I thought, no, it's better to keep... I'm a programmer by trade. I want to be able to have it open so that I can write my own programs and put it on these different operating systems.

01:13:56

So I liked Microsoft. I thought it was a better long -term solution until we started having these things called like viruses and worms.

01:14:07

And you know what? One of the biggest areas of IT is nowadays? Security.

01:14:14

Yeah. Why do you think that is? Well, it's because that open system that was so open actually is open in so much that people abuse it.

01:14:23

People use it for evil. They use it to do things just because they think it's fun. And meanwhile, it causes a lot of trouble for other people.

01:14:32

And they just think, okay, hey, we can do it. So let's do it. Where Apple doesn't have as much of that.

01:14:38

Why? Because it's a closed system. They actually have restraints, which is really kind of interesting.

01:14:44

Because what I see there is something that we see in our society. I mean, there are people, if you ever see people who grew up and they want to just live free, they don't want any restraints and they want to go any way they want.

01:14:55

And usually you find that although they think they're free and they're able to do what they want and they have all this freedom, those freedoms that they think are freedoms usually actually are enslaving.

01:15:05

And causing more problems for them. And actually, in some cases, leading to danger and even to death.

01:15:12

Because this is something that we see in the world. We end up seeing that things that people call freedom.

01:15:18

Oh, I don't want to believe in certain things because that would be too restrictive. Like an iPhone.

01:15:25

I want to be free. Well, what freedom ends up leading to is it leads us often to destruction.

01:15:31

This is true not only in the area of like thinking of computer operating systems, but it's really true because it's part of the human nature.

01:15:40

We violate God's law. And we want to say we're free to go and do the things we think are fun, whether it be drinking and drugs and sex and all the things that is out there that people say there's such pleasure in it.

01:15:54

But that pleasure is such a short -lived thing. And before you know it, destruction comes.

01:15:59

The guilt of that sin comes into place almost immediately after the sin is partaken of.

01:16:06

It's replaced with the guilt, the things that you thought were, oh, this is going to be such pleasure. The pleasure is replaced with guilt.

01:16:12

That guilt is there to let us know we broke God's law, that we've sinned before a holy

01:16:17

God and we're not in a right state with him. But God made a way of escape. God himself came to earth as the man

01:16:24

Jesus Christ. He died on a cross 2000 years ago that we could be forgiven because he was a man.

01:16:30

He could pay the sacrifice of another people. He could pay the fine we owe. Being an eternal being, he can pay the fine for more than one person and pay it for all of eternity.

01:16:41

So though you and I break God's law and we owe an eternal fine because of the nature of God, the nature of Jesus Christ being truly

01:16:49

God and truly man, he can pay that fine for eternity and he could pay it for you and I. And that's what makes

01:16:55

Jesus unique. And because of what he did, we could be set free, but we have to turn from trusting ourselves as a good person or trusting our good works or trusting the religion we grew up in and trust with Jesus Christ and lonely in what

01:17:09

Jesus Christ did on that cross and we could be forgiven of sin. Wow, great job.

01:17:15

That's how I would go from an iPhone to the gospel. Yeah, terrific. You of course went the quicker way.

01:17:22

iPhones are an idol. That one would have been much quicker. You know, a lot of people idolize their iPhone.

01:17:30

The second commandment says you shouldn't make idols. It's amazing how often we go to that in our podcast because idols are something that Western culture especially deals with.

01:17:41

You would think that we'd gotten over being pagan, but no, we build idols for ourselves everywhere.

01:17:47

It's crazy. And I think you're gonna enjoy our next podcast, the one I'm going to post here in the next couple of days.

01:17:53

Oh, really? Are you gonna spill the beans? What movie is it gonna be?

01:17:58

It's on Aladdin, the new Disney Aladdin. Yes, I did see that in the group. You have a Facebook group called

01:18:04

Are You Just Watching, which talks about the podcast and what you guys are. So you're gonna do

01:18:09

Aladdin, which is like, you know, I remember watching it with my kids, but I think it's a little different, this one, huh?

01:18:15

Yeah, well, it's pretty much the same story. It's live action, so it's a little darker. But there is,

01:18:22

I actually plug your rap report daily in there because we spin off and talk about the characteristics of God for a little bit as one of the themes, because they're talking about the genie being all powerful.

01:18:35

And I kind of use that as a way to jump into a discussion on the characteristics of God, which in your rap report daily, you have been working through.

01:18:45

So I plugged it. Did you actually play the clip? I did not play the clip, but I definitely plugged you.

01:18:53

Oh, so, OK. No, I almost you almost did something. You almost were the first.

01:19:00

So now I'm not going to tell you what would have happened if you would have played the clip. So, all right. But we do make those available.

01:19:07

We put those out in two minutes so people can in podcasters can grab them and play them in their podcast and react to them.

01:19:15

But all right. Well, I'm still waiting for the first time. I have something already planned for the first time

01:19:21

I hear one of those clips. Well, you know, I haven't published it yet. I could just, you know, sneak in there.

01:19:27

Well, then in that case, you'll find out what happens. I'm just going to leave it at that.

01:19:35

She's like, oh, I'm going back to the editing board. It's only two minutes long.

01:19:45

But Eve, this was a lot of fun. I'm really glad that you came on, even though it was a subject

01:19:50

I knew very little about. But, you know, when people ask me to do the spiritual transition game about movies or sports or musical bands,

01:20:00

I pretty much avoid that topic too and find a way to get to the gospel without actually talking about the movie or the music.

01:20:10

I think it was Dan Phillips that gave me the name. He gave me some name and I didn't know who the guy was.

01:20:16

And I think he was like a drummer or guitarist in a band called Chicago. And he was blown away that I didn't even know there was a band named

01:20:25

Chicago. So the rest of this weekend that he and I were together, he's like playing different songs on his phone that were from Chicago.

01:20:34

He's like downloading these songs. Oh, my. Was he trying to convert you or something? Huh? Was he trying to convert you or something?

01:20:42

No, he was amazed that I did it. He was like, come on, you have to have heard this song. And I'm like, no, no, no.

01:20:48

OK, how about this one? He was blown away. And I think I went to the gospel off the city

01:20:56

Chicago. I completely used a logical fallacy because a fallacy of equivocation.

01:21:02

I took the word Chicago, which was the name of a band, used it in the name of a city.

01:21:08

And I transitioned that way, avoiding the band altogether. I admit it was a logical fallacy, but the transition worked.

01:21:19

As long as it works, that's what's important. Yeah, well, I appreciate you coming on, folks.

01:21:25

If you have not subscribed yet to the podcast, are you just watching?

01:21:31

Take your podcast app out right now as you're listening to this because you're probably on your phone anyway listening.

01:21:38

So take your phone out right now. Go into your podcast app, which you're probably in anyway because you're listening to a podcast.

01:21:45

OK, if you're listening on the website, first off, you should subscribe to the podcast. If you're listening on the website, you have the links right there.

01:21:52

But you also can go if you're on the website. Well, it's on the same website. Just go over to Are You Just Watching to that podcast.

01:21:59

That's part of the Christian podcast community. There's a whole bunch of them and they're growing. But go and subscribe for free to Are You Just Watching on your podcast app.

01:22:11

It's going to have, well, at least as the recording of this, it has a little green logo because maybe the logo is going to change one day.

01:22:18

Who knows? But check that out. Make sure you subscribe, especially if you are one that's inclined to listen to movies.

01:22:27

Sorry, watch movies. If you watch movies, please make sure you're subscribed to this because you need to know beforehand the critical thinking you should have going into the theater.

01:22:40

I don't think they tell a lot of spoilers. And I think they give you spoiler alerts if they do.

01:22:45

So I would suggest you go before you watch the movie so you have the mindset already in place of where you need to be careful and where you need to apply some critical thinking.

01:22:58

So go check out Are You Just Watching. And when her book comes out, is the book out yet?

01:23:04

The book is out. It's on Amazon. It's on Amazon. So go to Amazon and check out

01:23:09

Are You Just Watching so you can read Eve's book and be prepared before you go in the theater.

01:23:15

Please. Please. Eve, is there anything else you'd like to end with with our listeners?

01:23:23

No, I think it was a fun discussion. And I'd be happy to come back and talk more. This is fun.

01:23:30

Yeah, we could talk philosophy and apologetics and how evil those young Earth creationists are.

01:23:37

They're such bad people. The destruction of the world. Actually, the prime minister,

01:23:43

I'll just throw this. This would be a fun way to end. Open a can of worms and then end the show. Great idea.

01:23:50

The prime minister, there was an open air evangelist just got arrested at a homosexual event. And what ended up happening is that the prime minister said that the biggest problem in Canada is evangelical

01:24:03

Christians. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:24:14

Okay, just to let folks know, we talked about the fact that Eve did edit in an episode of The Wrap Report into her podcast.

01:24:27

Therefore, being the first person to use a Wrap Report daily podcast in her podcast, she will be receiving a free copy of What Do We Believe?

01:24:42

written by yours truly, a systematic theology of the

01:24:48

Christian faith. So she'll be receiving that. If other podcasters want to use our

01:24:55

Wrap Reports, well, I'm not saying that we won't send more copies of What Do We Believe to them, but you never know.