Ep 1235 ｜ ‘KPop Demon Hunters'： Paganism & LGBTQ Propaganda for Kids
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 1 minute
Words per Minute
161.0746
Summary
Why is this kid movie so popular, not just among non-Christians, but also apparently in Christian communities as well? Is this just an innocent fantasy movie that is okay for your kids to watch, or is there something much more sinister going on? I ll give you my take on today's episode of Relatable.
Transcript
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K-pop demon hunters. Why is this kids movie so popular? Not just among non-Christians,
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but also apparently in Christian communities as well. Is this just an innocent fantasy movie
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that is okay for your kids to watch? Or is there something much more sinister going on? I'll give
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you my take on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Go to GoodRangers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's GoodRangers.com, code Allie.
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Hey guys, and welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful
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week. All right. I will never forgive your Relatable audience because you have forced me
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to watch something that is anime adjacent. I have received dozens of messages, at least dozens of
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messages from you guys asking me if I can talk about K-pop demon hunters. Now, if you are like me and
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you didn't even really know what K-pop was, I think the K stands for Korean. Is that right, Brie? It's
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Korean pop. That is correct. She says that is correct. So, I guess K-pop is a genre of music.
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You've got all of these Korean girl bands and boy bands. Maybe some of them are intermixed. And there
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is also an entertainment genre that falls under, I think, the music genre of K-pop. And this is one
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of those. And it's kind of anime, but not, maybe not completely anime. Maybe it's not like all the
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way anime. I don't really know. But y'all know I take issue with anime because I think it can,
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not always, it can lead people down a rabbit hole of a lot of confusion, especially when it comes to
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gender. Now, that is not the issue with this particular movie. I think the reason you guys
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asked me about this is because it has to do with the demonic. And there does seem to be a growing
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trend in children's, in adolescent entertainment of glorifying hell and glorifying the satanic and
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glorifying demons. We talked about that movie. Was it a movie or series with Jack Black that had to do
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with Satan and a demon coming into the world? And it seemed to blur the lines of good and evil by
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making the demonic kind of likable? So I think, understandably, when Christians see demon or demon
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slayer or Satan or something like that in secular media, our ears perk up and we're like, hang on,
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what's going on? What is Hollywood trying to convey to our children? So I watched K-pop demon hunters.
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And that, let me tell you, I don't think I ever would have known that this exists had it not been
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for you guys. But I totally understand why you want to know about it because you probably have older kids
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than mine and maybe their friends are interested or maybe they've asked to watch it and you just want
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to know, okay, like, what is the deal? So I not only researched this, I watched it for you. It's on
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Netflix and I will give my assessment and we'll get into the theological aspects of it and the things
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that I think you as a parent, a Christian in particular, should be thinking about. Let's go
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ahead and play the trailer for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about. It's not one.
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The world will know you as pop stars. But you will be much more than that.
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Let's send those disgusting demons back to the depths where they belong.
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All right. So you kind of get the premise there and we'll get more into the plot in a second. But
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you should know that this is an extremely popular movie. It was actually released a couple months ago
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in June. It has become a huge hit. It's gotten 184 million views. It is Netflix's second most watched
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movie ever and the top animated film likely to become the most watched overall. And this is
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incredible considering that I was reminded this this morning as I was finishing this movie that
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The Notebook is on Netflix. And The Notebook is obviously the best movie of all time. And the fact
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that Brie is raising her eyebrows skeptically, I wouldn't be surprised at all if she doesn't like
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The Notebook and she has some subversive subversive take on the best movie ever. But this apparently this
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anime adjacent movie has even topped The Notebook, which just goes to show where our society is headed.
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But also three songs from the movie. I will say the songs were very catchy. They've cracked the Billboard
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top 100. OK, so here's a little bit about it. The story follows Huntrix, a K-pop girl group led by a girl
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named Rumi. I guess I can say girl. They're probably teenagers, maybe 20, who fight soul-eating demons
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to protect Han Moon, which is a magical barrier that keeps demons at bay. So they're trying to protect
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their world, protect their town. And they're battling a demonic boy band. The reaction has been
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varied to this. You've got obviously a lot of people saying this is awesome. This is great. This is
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innocent. Love letting my kids watch it. Loved it myself. I saw a lot of reviews saying that.
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But then also you've got Christians saying, well, I think this is probably belittling what is a very
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real realm and a real spiritual battle and a real desire of Satan to try to take the souls and to rule
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the hearts of as many image bearers of God as possible. But then you have other Christians saying,
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well, that theme, you know, in a different way through this K-pop movie actually comes through
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and it's an opportunity to share the gospel with your kids. So before I give you what I believe to
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be the biblical take on it or my perspective on it, we'll talk a little bit more about the plot.
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And as we do that, you'll probably be able to put the pieces together yourself and form your own
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perspective based on your convictions and what the word of God says. So before we get into the plot,
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let me tell you guys, Share the Arrows is coming up. We've got, what is it? Six weeks? It might just
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be five. No, six, six. I think it's six weeks away. That's crazy, y'all. Six weeks away. That is going
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to go by so quickly. I am so excited to meet the thousands of you that are going to be there.
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Actually, yesterday I walked through the venue and I got to see where everyone's going to be seated.
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Y'all, we are in the home stretch of making this the best possible experience for you. That is just
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so incredibly important for me. I want you to come to this event. I want you to feel emboldened. I want
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one of your favorite guests. She is going to be delivering really hard truths in the compelling
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and the gracious way that she does. And our girl Francesca Battistelli Grammy Award winning artist
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is back with us this year to lead us in worship, y'all. I cannot wait. And of course,
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yours truly will be there speaking too. This year's Share the Arrows is brought to you by our friends
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00:09:23.840
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Okay, let me tell you about the plot of K-pop Demon Hunter. So this is what it is. For centuries,
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women called Hunters have fought demon-sealing souls for this evil king, Guima. And I might
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accidentally slip and say Satan because it's obvious that's what Guima is. If we're to look at
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that parallel, he is the king, the ruler of the demons, and he wants to steal as many people's souls
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is possible. Now, this K-pop trio, Huntrix, Rumi, Mira, and Zoe, they use their singing to create a
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protective shield called the Han Moon. And there have been different K-pop groups, always female,
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over the centuries, that have used their voices to protect this protective magical barrier. Unknown to
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her bandmates and fans, Rumi, who is a part of this Huntrix band, is also half-
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demon. And that becomes like a real point of conflict throughout. It becomes a point of
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shame for her. And we see that throughout. That is kind of a theme of conquering her shame of being
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half-demon. And then her other friends have things that they're ashamed of too. And so there is a theme
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of friendship and belonging and acceptance and things like that. There is a new strategy, however,
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that Gui Ma, the king of the demons, wants to employ to try to finally defeat the Huntrix or the demon
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hunters and break down the barrier of Han Moon and finally steal all the souls in this place. And that
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is by using this boy band. They're actually demons, but they kind of shapeshift and they turn into a boy
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band called the Saja Boys. And they emerge on the K-pop scene and they become super popular. One of the
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leaders of this new demonic band is named Jinu. I think that's how they pronounced it. And he is
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now trying to win his soul back because 400 years ago, he sold his soul to Gui Ma to try to provide for
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his family. And as it turns out, even though he got famous and powerful at the time, Gui Ma, just like
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Satan, was telling him a lie, got his soul and has enslaved him eternally. And then his family, of
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course, wasn't even provided for. Jinu is kind of used as a way to try to get Remy, the half-demon
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huntrix to compromise and to be weakened so they can infiltrate this magical barrier and steal the
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souls. But in the process, Jinu and Rumi fall in love. There is this exchange thing that happens in
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the end. And the huntrix, the group, does end up defeating the demon guys, defeating the
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gui ma and saving the souls of all of these people. I would say that like going to Greek mythology,
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if you look at the male K-pop demon group, they're kind of like sirens in that they are using their
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voices as a way of temptation and also their good looks to tempt people into falling in love,
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following them. And you actually have a scene where Gui Ma is like looking at these souls that he has
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stolen. And he's like very happy that the Saja boys have accomplished this. And I will say that
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is interesting. You don't see any explicit LGBTQ themes, but like in so much of anime, there is some
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implicit gender bending going on there, even if you look at the mythological aspects of it, but also
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like how the men look now I know. And like, and like Korean people don't have like a lot of body
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hair. And so you don't expect them to have beards and things like that, but they do look, the men do
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look in dress feminine, which seems to be a common trope actually in anime. So that's basically the plot.
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Did I miss anything, Bree? Was there anything that stood out to you and just like what happened in the
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movie? Um, no, I think you covered almost everything. What, I mean, the, the main guy, the main demon boy, he
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actually, it's revealed that he sold his soul just for his own sake. Like he, he tells her first, it was to
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provide for my family. And then it's revealed later that it wasn't, it was just for his own benefit. And he cast his
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own family out for it. And so his whole internal struggle is like, Oh, I'm a terrible person for
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doing that. So I deserve to be soulless or whatever. Um, and so he's trying to earn like the, he's trying
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to get his memories erased so he doesn't have to dwell on that all the time. So, um, yeah.
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Yeah. Cause he does feel guilty about it. He feels guilty about it. Um, and then in the end, he,
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he gains his soul back by sacrificing himself for them. And then he gives his soul. It's a little
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confusing. He gives his soul to Rumi because she's a demon and she needs one, I guess.
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She's half demon. She's half demon. Yeah. Because I guess her dad was a demon and her mom was a
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person, which is also seems to be a theme in a lot of these kind of like demonic, uh,
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shows or shows about demons. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of that exchange right there reminds me a little
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bit of beauty and the beast because the beast and beauty of the beast was very vain, very selfish.
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He ends up turning into a beast for many years and it's like, he has to have some kind of act.
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He has to truly love someone and have sacrifice before all of the petals in the rows like fall.
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And then he does, he falls in love with bell. He truly sacrifices himself for
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bell and she is saved, but he seems to die. But then she gives true love's kiss and then he turns
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back into himself. It's kind of like that, but you never actually, what? Okay. Remind me. Cause I was
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like also trying to do things when I was watching the end of this, what happens to Junie at the end?
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So that's it. It's not like beauty and the beast where he comes back and they're in love and
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He does not come back. Um, they have revealed now that because of the success of this,
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they're probably going to make a billion sequels and TV shows and musicals and stuff. But, um,
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so he might come back in the future, but at the end of this movie, he doesn't. The idea is that he
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sacrifices himself and they're all, the whole boy band is, is gone along with all the other demons.
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Okay. Before we get into the troubling aspects of this and the spiritual aspects, was there anything
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that you like, liked about it that you could say was good?
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I'm going to be honest. This was a hard watch for me.
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It was a tough watch. Um, it's just a very, I was just telling someone, you know, how Cocomelon is
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like overstimulation all the time. Yeah. That's kind of what it felt like to me. It was like,
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it's pretty to look at, but it's just like color and movement. And like, there's so much happening
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the whole time. So I kind of get why kids like it so much, but for me, it was a lot. Um, I thought
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that the animation was good. You know, I, it's just, it was a hard watch. Yes. I noticed some
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things like in facial expressions. I'm like, okay, that must be an anime thing. Like how they change
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the eyes and different things. And like, it's just so overly expressive while also not having a whole lot
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of detail in the drawing of the face. Like there's just like silly things. Like they're one of the
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K-pop girls. She sees a guy who has abs. She's like falling in love. Her eyes turn into corn cobs.
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And then as she's heating up because she thinks he's so attractive, the corn cobs burst into a popcorn.
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Like that's the kind of humor that is. There were a couple like kind of like funny parts,
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not really my humor, but I could see how like a kid would think something like that is funny.
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I mean, there were some, you could say, okay, if I were to give a totally positive perspective of this,
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like you could say, well, at least the satanic side or Gwima is seen as the bad guy. He is the bad
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guy. He is defeated at the end. The good guys want to protect the souls of people. We do kind of see
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this biblical theme that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light and that he tempts people with
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power and with pretty things. And he gets people to idolize things that are not God in order to
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convince them to give him total control. And we see that theme. And so you could say that something
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similar. There's a theme of, you know, true friendship. As I said, there's no explicit LGBTQ
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themes, which I think speaks well, probably of Korean culture compared to our own. And so that's
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what I would say about it. Also, I don't know if I would say it's part of like a very, the very dark
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trend of trying to get kids into the demonic. You could maybe argue that. I'm not totally sure
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that I would say that when it comes to this particular movie. However, would I allow my kids
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or really any kid, maybe a teenager, but would I allow my kids to watch this? No. Now a teenager
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might be able to decipher, okay, fiction, nonfiction, obviously not biblical. But I honestly, before the
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age of like 13, 14, I don't, I do not think so. I think that it is very spiritually, theologically
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confusing. And so let's get into the spiritual theological aspects of this that I think are
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Breaking news, everyone. Breaking news, everyone. I just heard Brie gasp. And I thought,
00:22:34.620
I don't know what I thought happened. I thought that we had, because we have a guest that I'm about
00:22:40.040
to interview next. I thought that we had a scheduling snafu. No, y'all. Taylor Swift is engaged.
00:22:48.660
Big news. Really big news. It's actually pathetic because she posted one minute ago and I saw it
00:22:55.680
already. Oh, I thought you were going to say it's pathetic that you had to wait 60 whole seconds
00:23:02.100
to know. That too. Okay. So she is engaged to Travis Kelsey. Okay. Now we just got to pause.
00:23:13.300
We just got to pause and talk about whether this is real or whether this is a marketing scheme to
00:23:18.340
get normies to watch the NFL and vote for Joe Biden. Vote for Joe Biden again. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
00:23:27.300
How do you feel? I feel like we have to pause and talk about this. I knew this would happen.
00:23:32.620
You knew? I knew this would happen. Okay. And we've all been waiting.
00:23:36.400
You thought it would happen before her new album came out?
00:23:39.580
No. No. That's a good point. That's a good point. It could have happened before, though. She could
00:23:48.140
have just been telling people now. I don't know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What does her ring look like?
00:23:53.980
Well, we'll put a picture up. It's huge. Okay. It's gigantic. That would be so surprising if she did
00:24:02.340
not have a huge ring. I know. A nice humble ring. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Nope. Oh my gosh. Well,
00:24:08.600
I don't know that my audience cares about this. Probably not. Don't leave any angry comments.
00:24:14.440
I would spend 30 minutes analyzing this, not because I'm a Swifty, please. Please. You guys know
00:24:21.280
that I'm not. That is why I had to fire Bree. That is why. Just kidding. I'm just kidding. If you missed
00:24:29.940
it, she's leaving to go back to ministry, where they definitely won't let her talk about Taylor Swift.
00:24:34.780
It's forbidden. Okay. But I'm not as Swifty. In fact, I don't think you should allow your
00:24:42.800
daughters to listen to her, idolize her at all. And I think Bree actually agrees with that.
00:24:47.600
But I have so many thoughts right now. And I wish that we could spend the rest of the time
00:24:51.840
analyzing, but I think people will be annoyed. Yeah, probably. Sorry for the interruption.
00:24:56.420
Okay. Big news in my life. We're going to have to put up like a breaking banner
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and like all kinds of stuff. And then the little ticker at the bottom will keep going with what I
00:25:07.600
was going to say about K-pop. Okay, guys, we're back. We are back. If only y'all could have heard
00:25:15.300
that gasp. Wow. It really scared me. Okay. So let's get back into it. Korean shamanism.
00:25:23.060
So I was looking at what religions are dominant in Korea, in South Korea. And it has a lot of
00:25:32.260
Christianity, but it's got a lot of secularism. It's mostly like agnostic, atheistic people,
00:25:38.300
which is very common in a lot of Asian cultures, not all. But what Ali Wong calls the fancy Asian
00:25:47.540
cultures that I would say that it is more secular, like Japan, very secular. But before Christianity
00:25:56.380
came to South Korea, there was something called shamanism. And it probably still affects Korean
00:26:02.240
culture today. So the film draws heavily on shamanism, which is a folk religion. It is based
00:26:11.620
on this idea that shamans can connect with the spiritual world through ceremonies. They can
00:26:17.080
foresee people's futures using the Chinese calendar. They can assist with tasks like naming children,
00:26:23.960
arranging marriages, or choosing lucky dates for events like weddings, moving home, starting
00:26:29.080
businesses. Very superstitious. Yoon Sun Yang, a Boston University associate professor of Korean
00:26:35.480
and comparative literature, notes that Korea has a long cultural history of female shamans who use
00:26:41.620
music and rituals to drive away evil spirits, which the movie mirrors in Huntrix's demon-hunting song.
00:26:49.480
So there is explicitly a religious motivation and pagan ideology that undergirds this. It's not just,
00:27:00.980
oh, Christians are looking for things and they're taking things too seriously. No, the film is actually
00:27:07.200
based on this pagan idea of shamanism, that there are these mediums that can communicate with the
00:27:15.020
other side and that can fight off evil spirits and really encourage this kind of paranoid superstition
00:27:22.260
that so many people of all different kinds of religions fall into. Maggie King, who directed the film
00:27:28.280
alongside Chris Appelhans, drew inspiration for this movie from her Korean heritage, having grown up
00:27:36.020
in Toronto but spending summers in South Korea. She said, when I first came up with the idea,
00:27:42.920
it felt just purely a superhero, like a purely superhero film about Korean women. Once we really
00:27:48.920
grounded the mythology and Korean shamanism, it opened up an opportunity to feature so many different
00:27:55.060
eras of Korea really show the history of how Korean music evolved through the ages. She saw shamanism
00:28:01.580
as a way to tell a feminist story, noting, I found it interesting that most historically it has been
00:28:08.260
traditional. I think it's progressive and a symbol of feminism. Therefore, naturally, I thought it was
00:28:14.060
appropriate to connect with the Korean shamans that I wanted to address in the women's narrative. So
00:28:19.540
there's feminism here, there's paganism here, there's witchcraft here, there is a combination of all of
00:28:25.600
these things. The Saja boys' name and costume design with their dark outfits and traditional Korean hats,
00:28:33.260
it's supposed to look like Jusung Saja, the Korean grim reaper, a pale-faced figure in black robes from folklore
00:28:41.040
who symbolizes death. So you can see that in the picture there, and we've got lots of themes that are
00:28:50.080
very similar, kind of showing the paganism and the demonic aspects of Korean religion over the years,
00:29:00.480
or parts of Korean religion over the years. So the big concerns that I think Christians should have
00:29:07.820
with the film. So there's a few. One, we see that there are demons, and the demons are very scary
00:29:15.300
looking. Like, that is one reason why I would not allow young children to watch this, just one of the
00:29:21.980
reasons. They're scary looking, but they're also bumbling idiots. Like, if you have watched Anastasia,
00:29:29.320
it's kind of like Rasputin's, like, his little minions. They're almost like minions. And so on the
00:29:38.860
one hand, you get the impression that these are very scary individuals carrying out the task of trying
00:29:43.620
to steal your soul, but also that they are harmless, that they are powerless, and that there is some kind
00:29:51.760
of human figure with the power to stop these demons if we worship them. But the people that are demanding
00:30:02.240
our worship, these Huntrix people, are obviously human beings with supernatural powers, not the only person
00:30:11.920
who does have the power to defeat demonic activity and Satan himself, Jesus Christ. You see some themes,
00:30:21.380
as we've already talked about, that we do see in scripture of Satan tempting, but I would say that the fact
00:30:28.580
that Rumi is part demon, and we see that she falls in love with the demon, I believe that this blurs the
00:30:35.360
lines between good and evil. Even if Guima, this satanic figure, is ultimately the enemy, you do start seeing
00:30:45.480
the demonic side of Rumi as being this quirk, as being a part of her personality that she should not
00:30:53.040
be ashamed of. That's my opinion. We do see some temptation from Guima that is very similar to what
00:31:03.300
we see in real life, that he exploits people's insecurities and fears to convince them to take
00:31:10.400
authority of their lives. But of course, the solution that is presented in this movie is not denying yourself and
00:31:20.400
following Jesus Christ, but it is further idolizing this girl band, this Huntrix band. You can actually see this
00:31:29.840
in some of the songs, like one of the competitions has the word idol in it, and that's not supposed to be a bad thing.
00:31:38.460
It's just that we're not supposed to idolize the demons, but we are supposed to idolize the demon
00:31:44.220
hunters. The Saja boys sing a song, I'll be your idol. I'm the only one who will love your sins. And even if
00:31:52.360
they are considered the bad guys in this movie, I do think that that is confusing for a child, because
00:32:01.360
these guys are also seen as very attractive. And again, the lead singer ends up being almost the
00:32:09.320
Christ-like self-sacrificial being, even though he is a demon. So we've got more on the theological
00:32:16.620
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So to get into this a little bit more, one big concern is the portrayal of demons. In the movie,
00:33:50.720
demons aren't just evil. They're complex. They're layered. They are people that you can talk to.
00:33:56.620
They are people that you can relate to. They have very similar kind of fears and insecurities as you
00:34:04.160
do. You find yourself being very sympathetic towards this demon who is enslaved to the satanic
00:34:11.760
figure himself. And you can see also that Rumi, being half-demon, she ends up being the hero. So
00:34:18.980
really, the two main heroes of this are either demons or part-demons. Now, you might say, well,
00:34:25.080
Rumi ends up getting rid of that part of her identity through her sacrificial act, but it's not ever
00:34:32.200
really clear that being a demon is objectively evil. We can see from the director that there is
00:34:41.660
something that she is actually trying to communicate through this portrayal. It's not too.
00:34:47.640
I read somewhere that the solution to shame is empathy. And I find that how do you manage to bring
00:34:58.620
Well, thank you. When we were crafting the story, we used to always compare it of Rumi's story as like
00:35:04.840
she's coming out of the closet, coming clean to her parent who is, you know, is wanting her to be
00:35:12.420
something that she's not. And so, yeah, it was just kind of naturally part of the kind of crafting of it
00:35:20.140
So understand that that is the allegory here. Not only are they purposely drawing upon satanic and
00:35:27.240
pagan themes, but they are also using this as a metaphor for an adolescent coming out of the closet
00:35:37.760
and trying to attain or come into a new sexual or gender identity. This is so common in anime.
00:35:48.280
And I know I said that there's no explicit LGBTQ themes, and that's true. I don't think a child
00:35:54.020
would necessarily see this, but just know that this is the message that the director herself is
00:36:00.320
trying to convey. I think that's true of so much anime, even when it's not explicit, the gender
00:36:05.720
bending and the self-liberation and self-empowerment and superstition. So much of what you're seeing
00:36:11.720
in the culture she's representing is actually woven through so much of anime. And of course,
00:36:19.000
it's not just anime. It is also woven through all kinds of children's entertainment. And while your
00:36:26.040
child may not pick up on it, don't be fooled. Like, these things can plant a seed. The irony is that
00:36:34.580
it's almost so on the nose with what Satan does that he can actually use entertainment that looks
00:36:42.460
and sounds fun and sounds innocent to plant seeds of deception in your child. Now, I'm not saying that
00:36:49.760
we have to make sure that our children never watch anything or listen to anything that's not a nursery
00:36:57.400
rhyme or is not explicitly Christian, but I do think that we have to be careful. And I think it's
00:37:04.320
better to go to that direction than to be so naive as to think that cartoons can't be insidious and
00:37:12.660
can't have a negative impact on our children. The songwriter behind some of the music that I
00:37:21.100
referenced, like I said, one of the songs, I'll be your idol. I'm the only one who will love your
00:37:26.840
sins. There's all different kinds of lyrics that are similar to that. The songwriter behind some of that
00:37:32.760
music said, it's about the obsession of fans because the Saja boys want them to be obsessed
00:37:38.320
to control them. That sounds like what an idol is. I was raised Christian and remembered it's a
00:37:42.400
sin to idolize something. So it was like a twist of I'll be your idol. It was kind of creepy. Like,
00:37:48.880
he's writing that about his own song. So the movie also suggests that salvation comes through music and
00:37:55.100
personal strength. Huntrixis, gosh, it's so hard to say. There's songs like Golden are portrayed as having
00:38:01.760
the power to defeat evil and seal the Han moon, implying humans can overcome spiritual battles on their
00:38:08.000
own. This decenters Jesus, who is the true source of victory over evil. There is also a theme of
00:38:16.760
humanism, secular humanism in the film. And this is from Focus on the Family's review, which actually was
00:38:25.260
kind of positive. I didn't think that this review hit on all of the issues with this movie. But it did
00:38:32.940
say this, the film itself takes a more humanistic approach that we can overcome our sins or at least
00:38:39.880
accept our flaws through self-actualizing effort. And so this particular person from Plugged In says
00:38:48.360
that you can use that as like a conversation piece with your kids. I personally don't think that's the
00:38:53.700
wisest thing to do. I think that it's cultivating a lot of confusion personally. And then you've got
00:39:01.260
Christianity Today. Obviously, lots of takes that Christianity Today has that I don't agree with.
00:39:06.580
But there are some interesting things in this particular article about humanizing demons and
00:39:11.400
the problem with that. So this author says, but what stands out most in the movie is how demons are
00:39:16.340
portrayed as creatures with conflicting emotions and a desire to do good. Instead of the grotesque
00:39:21.720
one-dimensional caricatures I watched and read about years ago that were most definitely 100%
00:39:26.720
wicked and therefore deserving of total destruction, the monsters and demons that are capturing our
00:39:31.560
collective consciousness today are relatable and humorous, anthropomorphized or animal-like in their
00:39:38.780
expressions, body language, and actions. Don't get me started on Derpy, Genu's adorable tiger demon
00:39:45.000
sidekick in K-pop demon hunters. I'd love that plushie, this person said. Unconsciously or otherwise,
00:39:53.160
we have placed ourselves in the center of every battle between good and evil. The narrative du jour is
00:39:58.820
how a human demon or half demon can successfully overcome the darkness within by their own strength
00:40:05.260
as characters like Rumi and Nozuko exhibit. Mastery of the self is the pinnacle of achievement.
00:40:11.480
There's a spillover effect in how we are remaking demons and monsters in our own image as these
00:40:18.180
flawed beings that are capable of building up and tearing down, capable even of saving humanity.
00:40:25.160
These creatures might remain fearsome, but more than that, they're also surprisingly deserving.
00:40:30.720
These movies are portraying of our compassion and empathy in this atmosphere, spiritual ambivalence
00:40:35.260
thrives. But I am intrigued by our modern day penchant for making monsters and demons
00:40:41.060
safe or cute or attractive or morally ambiguous and how this might be creating a sense of spiritual
00:40:47.180
ambivalence. And even worse than that, convincing people in an age where Ouija boards and tarot cards
00:40:54.180
are seen as neutral or good, this is my commentary now, that it would convince kids that you can dabble
00:41:00.320
in that without any consequences when in reality, we know that demonic power is real, that there's no such
00:41:07.640
thing as neutral power. There is either God's power or there is demonic power. We read that very clearly
00:41:14.320
as we read about the spiritual armor that we are to put on in Ephesians 6, that our enemy is the
00:41:23.040
spiritual realm of demonic principalities that is run by Satan, who is called in Ephesians to the prince
00:41:30.340
of the power of the air, who is not funny, who is not quirky, who is not bumbling, but is extremely
00:41:37.340
cunning and has it out for your soul and your child's soul. That is, in the realest sense, it is dangerous
00:41:46.360
as hell. Okay? So for us to trivialize that actually does mean something. It actually does have an impact
00:41:53.300
on your home. Here's what 1 Thessalonians 5.22-24 says. Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the
00:42:01.460
God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept
00:42:06.820
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it.
00:42:14.400
There are other translations of this verse that says abstain from every appearance of evil. So that's a
00:42:21.800
really important addition there, I would say. Isaiah 5.20 says, woe to those who call evil good and good
00:42:27.220
evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for
00:42:33.500
bitter. I think that there is an interesting conversation to be had about what level of
00:42:38.620
fantasy and magic is okay in children's fiction, because I don't think it's necessarily zero. I mean,
00:42:45.420
I love the Chronicles of Narnia. I think that there's a really good message in Lord of the Rings. I think
00:42:53.260
that there is an argument to be made, that there is a redemptive theme in books like Harry Potter. So I
00:43:00.840
think that there is a place for fantasy, a place for fiction. I think it can be really good for the
00:43:05.760
creativity of the mind. We've already read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to our kids in our home.
00:43:11.280
I love C.S. Lewis. And so I don't think all manners of magic are bad when it comes to fiction and when
00:43:23.720
it comes to children's entertainment. To me, I think the distinction is between magical themes that show
00:43:32.280
that evil really is evil, that it's not layered, that it's not nuanced, that when you flirt with evil
00:43:38.580
the way that Edward Edmund did with the White Witch and the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,
00:43:43.980
that really bad things happen, that it's not cute, that it's not funny. We shouldn't be a part of that.
00:43:50.580
So maybe that's the difference there, that evil really is evil in those kinds of books, and good
00:43:57.580
really is good, whereas in these kinds of magical themes, it is extremely blurred, and that can be
00:44:03.900
confusing for our kids that we are trying to disciple and catechize. All right, a little bit more about
00:44:09.560
what the Bible has to say about idolatry, necromancy, witchcraft, and this shamanism that glorifies trying
00:44:18.300
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So obviously, we read in the Old Testament and the New that we should flee idolatry. We see it in
00:46:28.360
Exodus 23 through 5. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make yourself a carved image
00:46:34.800
or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
00:46:39.780
water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. That is really important. A lot of
00:46:45.980
people need to hear that. We do not need to make carved images that we are bowing down in front of, but not
00:46:50.680
just carved images. Obviously, people, anything that is the creature rather than the creator who is blessed
00:46:55.800
forever. Amen. That's Romans 1. Deuteronomy, Joshua, 1 Corinthians 10, 14, as we move into the New
00:47:02.260
Testament. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. Flee from it. Galatians 5, 19 through 21. Now the works of the
00:47:09.420
flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife,
00:47:15.540
jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things
00:47:19.600
like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things, all of those things
00:47:24.840
will not inherit the kingdom of God. Colossians 3, 5. But to death, therefore, what is earthly in you,
00:47:31.300
sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. 1 John 5, 21.
00:47:38.520
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. This movie does encourage idolatry, the belief that
00:47:47.640
these people through their own power, that you through your own power can save yourself.
00:47:52.860
Deuteronomy 18, 10 through 12, as we look at this theme of shamanism that the creators are
00:47:59.220
explicitly saying is woven into this film. Deuteronomy 18, 10 through 12 says,
00:48:03.960
There shall not be found among you anyone who practice divination or tells fortunes or interprets
00:48:09.200
omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer that someone who talks to the dead
00:48:14.320
or one who inquires of the dead or whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.
00:48:22.340
Leviticus 19, 31. Do not turn to mediums or necromancers. Do not seek them out.
00:48:27.040
And so make yourselves unclean by them. I am the Lord, your God. Acts 19, 19. And a number of those
00:48:35.760
who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them all in the sight of all.
00:48:42.100
So this was not just an Old Testament command because the principle is still true today.
00:48:47.160
Practicing these kinds of works, it's idolatry. And also, Christian, it produces anxiety and paranoia
00:48:53.520
in you. We are so inclined. All people are so inclined to this works-based empowerment and
00:48:59.120
this works-based salvation that if I do this, then some power will give me favor. Remember those
00:49:06.520
power beads, 90s Kids Unite, like 1999, 2000? I remember my mom being very skeptical of power beads
00:49:14.880
because they were some kind of like Asian mystical thing that you could put on and it was supposed to
00:49:20.760
speak to your personality and protect you. Even though all those good luck charms, like the
00:49:25.800
little rabbit foot and all of that that we had growing up, it creates a lot of anxiety. And God
00:49:30.840
in His grace wants to protect us from that. And He wants to say, look, I'm not fickle. I'm not
00:49:35.820
capricious. I am not telling you that you have to do X, Y, Z in order for me to hear you, listen to you,
00:49:43.060
because He sent His Son who is unchanging. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today,
00:49:48.000
and forever. Hebrews 13, 8. To die for us. John 3, 16. To take our pain. To take our sins. To take our
00:49:57.000
punishment. To stand in our stead. To advocate for us. And every time God looks to us, He sees Jesus
00:50:05.480
standing in our stead, giving us a blank slate. If we believe in Him by grace through faith, like that
00:50:11.400
is the unconditional favor and love that we have. And because of that, because Jesus has given us
00:50:17.960
His righteousness, and we read that prayer, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as
00:50:23.800
it is working. James 5, like we can trust that God hears us and that God's great power can work
00:50:30.180
through us. The power of our prayers. How amazing is that? It's so much better than luck. It's so much
00:50:35.280
better than self-empowerment. It's so much better than self-idolatry. It's so much better than shamanism
00:50:40.400
or necromancy or psychics or mediums or all of this madness that really is just glorifying the demonic
00:50:47.880
and will lead you down a destructive path. So it's kind of like the conversation we have every year
00:50:53.360
about Santa, how Santa presents like this false, fake, cheap, superficial gospel, legalistic gospel.
00:51:00.180
It's like, why do we point our kids towards the counterfeit of something when the real thing,
00:51:05.680
the real power that is available to them is right there and is so much better? Now, as we get into
00:51:12.240
the fake portrayal, the wrong portrayal of who demons actually are, like what does the Bible actually say
00:51:17.460
about demons? It's important for us to remember they are real. It's not just fantasy. They are real.
00:51:24.160
So who are they? What are they? What should we think about? Should we think about demons at all?
00:51:28.600
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Demons are not these layered complex creatures that we should have any compassion for,
00:52:50.220
or who can be convinced to have any compassion for us. Demons are fallen angels who are now under
00:52:57.380
the dominion of Satan. They were cast out of heaven because of their pride, because of Lucifer's pride,
00:53:03.280
because of setting themselves up against the creator, against God himself. They are now eternally
00:53:08.780
damned, and they are bound for destruction just like Satan himself. 2 Peter 2.4, part of it says,
00:53:14.460
God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of
00:53:20.180
gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. And just a little bit more about Satan, 2 Corinthians
00:53:25.800
4.4, in their case, the God of this world, Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep
00:53:31.040
them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. So what we need
00:53:36.900
to know about demons? They seek to deceive people by promoting false teachings and idolatry or any
00:53:45.140
teaching that opposes the true gospel of Jesus Christ. We read in 1 Timothy 4.1-3,
00:53:51.720
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting
00:53:57.340
themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose
00:54:03.700
consciences are seared through the—I just think that's so important—the teachings of demons and
00:54:11.000
deceitful spirits through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage
00:54:19.640
and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe
00:54:26.580
and know truth. And I actually think it's a point of the examples that are given there,
00:54:31.480
and obviously the deceitful spirit and activity of demons goes far beyond just those two things that
00:54:38.420
he had to write, that Paul had to write to Timothy at the time about the congregation that he was
00:54:45.860
leading, but forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created. And so you can see that
00:54:53.120
at this time in this place that Satan was using things that sounded holy, that sounded good, that
00:55:01.540
sounded like they were going to earn someone righteousness, that he used legalism in order to
00:55:10.220
deceive people and pull people away from Christ. And so I think that Satan can use all kinds of means,
00:55:17.200
but it's not always things that are so blatantly wrong, like this particular K-pop movie. We see
00:55:24.200
demons and demonic activity and oppression and possession a lot in the Gospels. It was something
00:55:31.940
that Jesus and his apostles dealt with. Demons can possess non-Christians, aiming to destroy them,
00:55:39.160
not only to take their souls in eternity, but to control their bodies. We read this in Mark 5,
00:55:44.440
for example. They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of Gerasenes. That's how I'm
00:55:51.200
going to go with that pronunciation. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met
00:55:57.480
him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him
00:56:03.840
anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound by shackles and chains. But he wrenched the
00:56:08.580
chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him night and day,
00:56:14.440
among the tombs and on the mountains. He was always crying out and cutting himself with
00:56:18.700
stones. Okay, verse 6. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying
00:56:25.000
out with a loud voice, he said, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure
00:56:29.780
you by God. Do not torment me. So that's another aspect we see of demons, that they know who Jesus is.
00:56:37.880
They know that he is the Son of the Most High God. They know his power, and they actually fear
00:56:43.020
Jesus. They fear his power. They fear his name. For he was saying to him, Come out of the man,
00:56:48.320
you unclean spirit. Jesus was saying this to him. And then Jesus asked him, What is your name? He
00:56:52.800
replied, My name is Legion, for we are many. And he begged him earnestly not to send him out of the
00:56:59.320
country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. Send us to the pigs. Let us enter
00:57:04.560
them, this demon said. So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs.
00:57:10.720
And the herd, numbering about 2,000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.
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Sin makes you stupid. Demonic oppression makes you stupid. It leads you to death in so many different
00:57:21.520
ways. Jesus has the power over these. And that is why Christians cannot be possessed by demons due to
00:57:27.720
the presence of the Holy Spirit. We read, for example, in 1 John 4, for little children, you are from God
00:57:35.040
and have overcome them. For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. The Holy
00:57:41.580
Spirit indwells us, and whatever fills us controls us. And because we are filled by the authority and
00:57:50.860
the power and the goodness of the Holy Spirit, we cannot be filled and possessed by a demon.
00:57:56.300
Romans 8, 9 through 11. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If in fact the Spirit of
00:58:01.360
God dwells in you, if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
00:58:05.500
Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells
00:58:11.020
in you. So it's important to remember that demons are real, that they have real power,
00:58:17.340
that Satan really uses them to tempt you, to try to deceive you, but they do not have ultimate power
00:58:23.800
over you. Because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world, the prince of the power of
00:58:32.740
the air. So understand that, that Jesus has already conquered, that we are living as people who are
00:58:38.760
powerful, who are victorious in Christ, but not because of our own self-liberation, not because we
00:58:46.380
do this dance with the demonic, not because we have compassion for them, not all of these demonic
00:58:54.220
and satanic tropes that we are seeing in movies like this one, but because of Christ, because of his
00:59:00.780
power, because we rely on him completely. I would just encourage you not to watch anything, not to allow
00:59:06.880
your child to read anything that blurs the lines of good and evil, of light and darkness, of the satanic
00:59:14.200
and the godly, because those distinctions are real and they matter. They matter for how we live our
00:59:19.360
lives today. They matter for the peace and the calm, the serenity that we can have in Christ,
00:59:24.900
knowing that we are on the winning side, but they also matter eternally. We as parents have every
00:59:31.540
responsibility to disciple our kids, to steward their hearts and their minds. The time that we have here
00:59:38.100
on earth is fleeting. It goes by like that, but the time that you have with your children in your home
00:59:43.320
is even shorter. And I am not opting for legalism. I am not saying that you have to pretend that the
00:59:51.480
world doesn't exist. I'm saying be careful. I'm saying that we should be a lot more careful than
00:59:56.600
even Christians tell us that we should be. We will be demonized and we will be made fun of for being
01:00:03.840
Christians who take things seriously and who really care about protecting the hearts and the minds of our
01:00:09.380
children and properly discipling them. You will be told by people at your Christian school, in your
01:00:14.680
Christian community, among your Christian friend group, in your Christian homeschooling co-op, and in
01:00:19.460
your church that you care too much about what your child consumes. And let me just remind you,
01:00:26.440
Christians are supposed to be weird. Christians are supposed to be set apart. We're supposed to be
01:00:31.980
different. We're not supposed to be consuming all of the same things that other kids do, that other
01:00:37.480
people do. And it is normal. It is a normal part of Christian life to be called different and to be
01:00:44.640
made fun of for being different. Now, be weird for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons, but the
01:00:51.800
right reason is the pursuit of holiness. And I do not think this movie is in line with helping our
01:00:57.960
children on that path. All right, that's all we've got time for today. We will be back here tomorrow.