The Charlie Kirk Show - Hobbits, Wizards, and the Hidden Religion Behind Hollywood Heroes with Frank Turek

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00:00:15.000 Frank Turek joins us about his new book, All About Hollywood Heroes.

00:00:19.000 It's a really fun, spirited conversation.

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00:02:06.000 Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:02:09.000 Back by popular demand is a great patriot and incredibly gifted communicator and someone who I'm honored to call a friend, Frank Turek.

00:02:19.000 Frank, welcome back.

00:02:19.000 Charlie, always great being with you, brother.

00:02:21.000 But we're here today to talk about your new book and really go into depth into what you've put here with your son Zach called Hollywood Heroes.

00:02:30.000 Tell us about your book. 0.94

00:02:31.000 Well, first of all, let's start out by saying that Hollywood puts out a lot of garbage, right?

00:02:36.000 But notice, Charlie, that when they put out a blockbuster, well, maybe you haven't noticed, maybe the people out there have or haven't. 0.81

00:02:43.000 When they put out a blockbuster, it's actually to a large extent stolen from the greatest story ever told.

00:02:50.000 That when you look at the fantasy and superhero movies out there, Captain America, Iron Man, Lord of the Rings, Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Star Wars, these kind of movies, Charlie, they all have elements of the Christian story in them.

00:03:07.000 And that's why they resonate.

00:03:09.000 They resonate because these people are living in God's world, whether they're Christians or not.

00:03:14.000 And what resonates is sacrifice.

00:03:17.000 That's what resonates.

00:03:18.000 And so these movies, my son is just an amazing movie buff.

00:03:21.000 He's also in the Air Force, by the way.

00:03:23.000 We went through these movies and we pulled out how so many of them parallel the Christian story and how you can learn biblical life lessons and you can learn really the story of reality, which is the Christian story, by watching these superhero and fantasy movies.

00:03:40.000 Let's pick one out of the mix.

00:03:42.000 So Batman.

00:03:44.000 Batman.

00:03:45.000 What on earth could a Christian learn from Batman? 1.00

00:03:47.000 Well, first of all, Batman has the best, I think, most realistic view of human nature out there.

00:03:55.000 Notice how Batman, Charlie, is always fighting in the dark.

00:03:58.000 Why?

00:03:59.000 Because where there's darkness, that's where people are going to go.

00:04:03.000 Men love darkness rather than light. 0.94

00:04:04.000 Nothing good happens after midnight, they say, right?

00:04:07.000 So, Batman has to go after the bad guys at night.

00:04:10.000 And notice he never completely succeeds.

00:04:14.000 He never says, Okay, I can take a vacation now.

00:04:17.000 Gotham is free of bad guys.

00:04:19.000 Why is Gotham never free of bad guys?

00:04:21.000 Because human nature is evil.

00:04:23.000 You lock up one bad guy, the next night you're going to have to lock up another.

00:04:26.000 You're never going to create utopia by locking up bad guys because human nature is evil.

00:04:32.000 And Batman illustrates that better than any of the other series we look at.

00:04:37.000 So, the story of Bruce Wayne, right?

00:04:40.000 His father gets murdered.

00:04:41.000 I think his father and mother gets murdered in a foiled robbery, and he develops a fear.

00:04:50.000 Is there something to that?

00:04:51.000 That we have an internal fear and that we grow close to that fear and wear it as our identity, or is that just kind of a superficial detail?

00:05:00.000 That could be the case.

00:05:02.000 Batman obviously is motivated to try and avenge his parents' death by locking up bad guys.

00:05:10.000 And for a while, he succeeds in doing it in a way that doesn't compromise his integrity.

00:05:16.000 Like, he won't use weapons, he won't kill people, he'll just turn them over to the cops.

00:05:20.000 But things get so bad, Charlie, that he sorts of he sort of loses his way in the later Batman movies to the point where he is branding people, he's back to using weapons, he is almost becoming as evil as the bad guys he's locking up, and he has to catch up.

00:05:38.000 So, what's the biblical lesson from that?

00:05:40.000 Well, one of the biblical lessons is that human nature is evil.

00:05:44.000 And Charlie, you're one of the most eloquent people to talk about why Marxism doesn't work.

00:05:48.000 Why doesn't Marxism work?

00:05:49.000 Because you're running upstream against natural law and natural design.

00:05:53.000 Yeah, you're running up against human nature.

00:05:55.000 Human nature is such that you need to incentivize people to work.

00:06:01.000 Marxism thinks that, well, people will work as much as they can and take as little as they need.

00:06:08.000 The reality is, people will work as little as they can and take as much as they need because we're fallen.

00:06:14.000 Look, it's easy to be bad.

00:06:15.000 It's hard to be good, right?

00:06:17.000 And I always give people this illustration, Charlie.

00:06:19.000 I say, imagine you woke up one morning, you went into your bathroom to get ready for your day.

00:06:25.000 You look in the mirror and there's a sign attached to your head.

00:06:28.000 And this sign transmits every thought you have in big LED letters.

00:06:34.000 You can't turn it off.

00:06:34.000 You can't cover it.

00:06:36.000 Everywhere you go, people are going to be able to read your mind.

00:06:38.000 Would you leave your bathroom?

00:06:40.000 I wouldn't.

00:06:41.000 Why?

00:06:42.000 Because my thoughts are evil.

00:06:43.000 When I meet somebody, normally I'm judging them.

00:06:45.000 I'm going, man, that is an ugly shirt.

00:06:47.000 Man, where'd you get your hair cut?

00:06:48.000 Walmart?

00:06:49.000 I mean, you're thinking evil things.

00:06:52.000 Or you're thinking when you meet somebody, how can this person help me?

00:06:55.000 That's really what I want to know.

00:06:56.000 Can I take advantage of what this person has?

00:07:00.000 Can this person help me in such a way?

00:07:01.000 I'm not thinking, can I serve this person?

00:07:03.000 Unless I've been transformed by the blood of Christ, my mind is evil.

00:07:08.000 And so human nature is bent toward evil.

00:07:10.000 Batman illustrates that better than anyone.

00:07:14.000 So in the story of Batman, and again, I'm not sure if we're talking about the movies or the comics.

00:07:19.000 Usually the movies.

00:07:20.000 We're concentrating on movies in the book, Hall of Heroes.

00:07:22.000 So, in particular, the three most recent ones: Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises.

00:07:27.000 Is that right?

00:07:28.000 And Batman Begins, right?

00:07:29.000 Batman Begins, Dark Knight, and the Dark Knight Rises.

00:07:32.000 So, is there anything to this idea that Batman is not thanked for his good work?

00:07:39.000 Because there seems to be an element of that throughout the Batman series.

00:07:42.000 That no matter how much good he does, he actually gets portrayed as the villain.

00:07:46.000 Right, right.

00:07:47.000 That's true.

00:07:47.000 You're welcome for saving your civilization.

00:07:50.000 Is there something to that?

00:07:51.000 I think there is.

00:07:52.000 We don't have that in the book.

00:07:53.000 That's a new insight we'll put in there.

00:07:54.000 No, I'm not up to ask.

00:07:55.000 I haven't read the book yet, by the way.

00:07:57.000 I'm just kind of going.

00:07:59.000 But let me say one thing about Batman and Superman, because there's a movie called Batman versus Superman.

00:08:05.000 A lot of people didn't like that movie.

00:08:06.000 I intentionally didn't watch it.

00:08:08.000 Yeah, yeah, like why?

00:08:09.000 But actually, that movie, Charlie, actually goes into probably one of the most difficult questions that anybody needs to answer, even Christians, and that is: if there is a good God, why is there evil?

00:08:22.000 Because in this movie, Lex Luther, who's the evil character in it, is pitting Batman against Superman.

00:08:29.000 Why?

00:08:30.000 Because he thinks Superman is the God of this world, and he thinks Superman is a bad God because this Superman did not prevent Lex Luther's father from treating Lex Luther poorly.

00:08:42.000 So he's mad at God for not stopping evil in his life.

00:08:46.000 And that's why he's trying to get Batman to kill Superman because he thinks Superman is a bad God.

00:08:51.000 And right in this movie, Charlie, he starts quoting one of the most famous problems ever.

00:08:57.000 If there is a good God, why is there evil?

00:08:59.000 Is God not powerful enough or is God not loving or both?

00:09:02.000 This is actually in the movie.

00:09:05.000 And the interesting thing about this, and we unpack it in the book Hollywood Heroes, is that notice how Lex Luther is mad that God hasn't stopped his father from doing evil to him.

00:09:16.000 But you know, notice what Lex Luther is not mad about.

00:09:18.000 He's not mad that God hasn't stopped him, Lex Luther, from doing evil to other people.

00:09:23.000 And isn't this always the case that when we complain about evil, Charlie, we're always complaining about somebody else?

00:09:28.000 Hey, God, why don't you stop him?

00:09:30.000 Or God, why don't you stop her?

00:09:31.000 We never say, God, why don't you stop me?

00:09:34.000 Why doesn't God stop evil right now?

00:09:36.000 Because if he did, he'd have to take away our free will.

00:09:38.000 If he takes away our free will, then we can't love.

00:09:42.000 And if we can't love, this is not a moral universe.

00:09:44.000 I always ask people, and we ask him in the book: if God were to stop evil at midnight tonight, would you still be alive at 12:01?

00:09:52.000 I wouldn't be.

00:09:54.000 God gives us free will, which we can do for evil or we can use for love.

00:09:59.000 And at some point, God is going to end all evil, but he's not going to end it by taking away our free will.

00:10:04.000 What's he going to do?

00:10:05.000 He's going to quarantine evil in a place called hell, where the people who don't want to follow God are going to be quarantined, and they're not going to be able to affect the people that do want to follow God in heaven.

00:10:16.000 And the way you get there is through the blood of Christ.

00:10:19.000 So the Superman story is an interesting one.

00:10:22.000 I don't know that one as well as Batman, but there is only one way to, you know, be able to basically stop Superman Kryptonite and the story of Superman.

00:10:35.000 What is the biblical story?

00:10:36.000 Not the Batman versus Superman, but the biblical story Superman.

00:10:40.000 Superman is probably the biggest parallel to Jesus and virtually all the superheroes.

00:10:45.000 It's interesting because Superman was actually Nietzschean when it was written.

00:10:48.000 It was actually written as a nihilist by the two guys from Cleveland.

00:10:54.000 I can't remember their names.

00:10:56.000 So tell me.

00:10:56.000 Well, it turns out that Superman is sent here by a God of another world to save this world.

00:11:02.000 He is the son of this God, Jorrell, I think his name is.

00:11:07.000 And he stays incognito until the age of 33 as Clark Kent, right?

00:11:13.000 But he's staying incognito so he can complete his mission of trying to save this world from evil.

00:11:19.000 And then by the time he hits 33, then people start to realize: oh, this Clark Kent is really Superman.

00:11:24.000 This Jesus is really God.

00:11:26.000 So it's a parallel to the Christian story.

00:11:28.000 To the messianic story.

00:11:29.000 Yeah, the Messianic story.

00:11:30.000 And you find this in all of these superhero movies.

00:11:34.000 Can I move on to one that I'm numb?

00:11:36.000 You can do whatever you want.

00:11:37.000 Iron Man.

00:11:38.000 Yes, so I don't know that one.

00:11:39.000 Wait, so the Iron Man would be Tony Stark.

00:11:42.000 Yeah.

00:11:42.000 Okay.

00:11:43.000 Robert Downey Jr., right?

00:11:44.000 Okay, so Iron Man, Tony Stark, starts off as an immoral playboy, very well Irish. 1.00

00:11:53.000 Oh, yeah.

00:11:53.000 He's the perfect guy.

00:11:56.000 And he actually lived it.

00:11:57.000 Yeah, that's exactly right, Charlie.

00:11:58.000 That's what we have in the book.

00:11:58.000 In the book of Heroes, yeah, Jon Favreau, who was the producer of, and I think the director of the first Iron Man, he's, by the way, the guy that plays Happy.

00:12:08.000 He's the security guard in the movie for Tony Stark.

00:12:13.000 And anyway, he wanted Robert Downey Jr. to play this guy.

00:12:18.000 And the production house said, no, no, no, we don't want Downey.

00:12:22.000 He's got too much of a bad reputation.

00:12:23.000 Because he had drug problems.

00:12:25.000 He had substance abuse problems.

00:12:26.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:12:27.000 And Favreau persisted.

00:12:28.000 He said, no, this guy is Tony Stark in real life, right?

00:12:33.000 It was incredibly well acted.

00:12:34.000 Yes, it was.

00:12:35.000 Anyway, so he starts off as this amoral arms dealer, Playboy. 0.68

00:12:40.000 His company is selling arms.

00:12:43.000 Literally.

00:12:43.000 The first scene is beautiful, not beautiful, but it's well done where he's casually with a martini selling a sophisticated missile system.

00:12:51.000 Right, to terrorists, to terrorists, and bragging about it.

00:12:54.000 And then what happens is one of his own weapons detonates close to him.

00:12:59.000 It puts shrapnel in his chest, and he has to have a device installed into his chest to protect his heart from encroaching shrapnel, to guard his heart from encroaching shrapnel.

00:13:08.000 No, I don't think the movie makers intended this, Charlie, but this is a beautiful illustration of what I think is the second most important verse in the entire Bible right now.

00:13:17.000 The first section, or the first most important verses, have to do with the gospel, but the second most important verse for this generation is Proverbs 4:23, which says, Above all else, guard your heart because everything you do flows from it.

00:13:29.000 Notice it doesn't say follow your heart, it says guard your heart.

00:13:33.000 If that device fails in Tony Stark's chest to guard his heart, he dies.

00:13:39.000 Same thing is true in our lives.

00:13:40.000 If we start following our heart without moral restraint, we're going to wind up alone, addicted, full of anxiety, like Tony Stark really is.

00:13:49.000 In fact, Tony Stark, Charlie, has everything we think we want to be happy.

00:13:52.000 He's got the big three.

00:13:53.000 He's got sex, money, and power. 0.96

00:13:55.000 Got a great girlfriend. 0.83

00:13:56.000 He's got power.

00:13:56.000 He's got money.

00:13:57.000 He doesn't need anything, right? 0.98

00:13:59.000 But he's miserable. 0.83

00:14:00.000 Why?

00:14:01.000 Because he has everything to live with, but nothing to live for.

00:14:04.000 He's got no purpose.

00:14:06.000 He's got no identity.

00:14:07.000 But once he begins to guard his heart, he focuses on what is really important.

00:14:12.000 And he ultimately becomes a hero who, at the end of Endgame, spoiler alert, if you haven't seen Endgame yet, this is what.

00:14:18.000 Yeah, I just have seen The First Iron Man.

00:14:20.000 Okay, okay.

00:14:21.000 Endgame is where Tony Stark sacrifices himself to defeat the Satan figure Thanos.

00:14:27.000 Okay, and it's inspiring.

00:14:29.000 He dies at the end.

00:14:31.000 And I mean, for people who are inspired by these kind of movies, love these movies, was kind of almost a tear jerker for a superhero movie because Tony Stark is, he dies trying to.

00:14:40.000 He's a very lovable character, too, right?

00:14:42.000 Yeah.

00:14:43.000 So he dies.

00:14:44.000 But imagine this.

00:14:46.000 Imagine this, Charlie.

00:14:48.000 Imagine if they get to the climactic scene in Endgame where all the superheroes are there trying to take out Thanos.

00:14:56.000 And Tony Stark, as Iron Man, looks at his Avenger buddies and goes, guys, I'm just not feeling it today.

00:15:03.000 I don't want to take out Thanos.

00:15:05.000 In fact, I got to get back to following my heart and taking care of just me.

00:15:09.000 I'm out.

00:15:09.000 And then the movie ended.

00:15:10.000 Would anybody go, how inspiring?

00:15:13.000 That really motivated me.

00:15:14.000 The guy followed his heart.

00:15:16.000 He chickened out.

00:15:17.000 He didn't actually take on Thanos.

00:15:19.000 He just did what he wanted to do.

00:15:20.000 It was best for him.

00:15:22.000 Everyone would go, that's awful, man.

00:15:23.000 I don't want to watch that movie.

00:15:24.000 No one wants to see, and we're going to get to this in a second as soon as we build out more of these details.

00:15:29.000 From a cinematic point of view and a spectator and audience point of view, if you extrapolate secular humanism, it's the most boring movie.

00:15:37.000 Exactly.

00:15:38.000 That's why I'm saying, Charlie, I don't think the writers of Iron Man had Christianity in mind, but they knew that they're living in God's world, whether they believe in him or not.

00:15:49.000 And they know that secular humanism, they know that following your heart, they know that being selfish is never going to motivate an audience or inspire an audience.

00:16:00.000 What will inspire an audience is what Jesus did for us, and that is laying his life down for his friends.

00:16:06.000 Actually, laying his life down for his enemies.

00:16:09.000 Love knows greater love than to lay down your life for your friends.

00:16:13.000 Well, Jesus laid down his life for his enemies.

00:16:15.000 That's us.

00:16:16.000 And so Iron Man is interesting because it is kind of this idea, and it could be a Christ story, but it feels more like Paul, right?

00:16:28.000 I think Iron Man is more like us than, say, Captain America.

00:16:31.000 Captain America doesn't need moral development.

00:16:33.000 I don't know much about Captain America.

00:16:35.000 Well, Captain America does, he's always righteous.

00:16:37.000 He doesn't do anything wrong.

00:16:38.000 Oh, is that right?

00:16:39.000 Yeah, you never have to worry about, you know, is Captain America going to do the right thing?

00:16:43.000 He's always going to do the right thing because he's Captain America.

00:16:45.000 He's like Jesus.

00:16:47.000 Tony Stark, on the other hand, is more like you and me.

00:16:49.000 Tony Stark has issues, right?

00:16:51.000 Tony Stark needs sanctification.

00:16:53.000 And he goes on this character development arc over several movies to where, from where he is a selfish playboy, amoral arms dealer who is just in it for himself.

00:17:04.000 Pure hedonism, right?

00:17:05.000 Totally.

00:17:06.000 To the point where he's going to sacrifice himself to save his friends.

00:17:09.000 He's a strip club in his private jet.

00:17:11.000 That's right.

00:17:12.000 That's right.

00:17:13.000 I mean, it's just whatever you could do.

00:17:15.000 And with martinis and drugs and sex and alcohol.

00:17:18.000 So, okay.

00:17:18.000 Yeah.

00:17:21.000 Let's keep building this out, and then I'm going to play some devil's advocate because I encounter this sometimes.

00:17:26.000 So, what other movies do you have?

00:17:28.000 Oh, well, here's one that's going to annoy a lot of Christians right now, and that's Harry Potter. 0.62

00:17:33.000 Okay, so let's take a timeout and a detour, and then we'll go back.

00:17:36.000 I get emails from parents a lot because we're a family-friendly show.

00:17:39.000 For example, I was talking about a Netflix series called Ozark, which has nudity, it has swearing, and it has violence, a lot of swearing.

00:17:49.000 And some Christians were very upset that I was doing a commentary on it.

00:17:53.000 I did a podcast where I said I'm not defending what's in there.

00:17:56.000 I watch it with my wife, but from a literary point of view, there's some very complex and sometimes beautiful themes playing out.

00:18:04.000 Let's just, just from your standpoint, where should Christians draw the line on the consumption of art?

00:18:09.000 I think it depends on the age appropriateness and the individual person, right?

00:18:14.000 And the setting, right?

00:18:15.000 Yes, yes.

00:18:16.000 If you're a parent and you think any of those things are going to lead your child astray, by all means, keep them away from those things.

00:18:23.000 If they're mature and they can recognize that this is sin and this is not something to emulate, then perhaps there can be more value in watching it than not.

00:18:35.000 Yeah, and it's important to note that I, for example, I'm not going to make a defense of Ozark.

00:18:40.000 I actually think it ended poorly, but there is some incredibly biblical and just, I think, timeless wisdom baked into the story, right?

00:18:51.000 I mean, so if you're watching something and they're swearing, like, I don't like that, you're not watching it for the swearing.

00:18:56.000 Of course not.

00:18:57.000 Right?

00:18:57.000 And so is there something to that that the intent is to try to draw out a deeper moral lesson?

00:19:04.000 Well, let me put it this way.

00:19:05.000 The Bible's rated R. Especially Song of Solomon.

00:19:08.000 Yes.

00:19:09.000 Well, not just.

00:19:10.000 Son of songs or whatever.

00:19:11.000 Think about the adultery, think about the murder, think about the deceit.

00:19:14.000 That's very interesting.

00:19:15.000 Think about how much evil is in the Bible.

00:19:18.000 And it's in there because God is just telling the truth about how immoral his people were, which is one reason why I actually believe the Bible's true. 1.00

00:19:28.000 In fact, we talked about it last night on the Freedom Night.

00:19:30.000 I told you that embarrassing stories, embarrassing details are actually evidence that these people are not sugarcoats.

00:19:38.000 So this is Dennis Prager's number one argument.

00:19:41.000 I was just going to mention Dennis.

00:19:41.000 Exactly.

00:19:43.000 Yeah, and he's a friend.

00:19:44.000 He's amazing.

00:19:45.000 He said, why would the Jews make themselves look so bad?

00:19:48.000 That's right.

00:19:49.000 There's no way.

00:19:50.000 And by the way, Connor says the fact that the Bible is rated R is a great point. 1.00

00:19:50.000 That's right. 1.00

00:19:54.000 Connor's listening in.

00:19:55.000 Yeah, it is.

00:19:56.000 Now, this isn't licensed to watch whatever you want.

00:19:59.000 Personally, I think nudity and pornography bypasses the intellect and goes right to.

00:20:06.000 I totally agree.

00:20:08.000 That's something I'm going to draw the line.

00:20:09.000 No, and I try to fast-forward scenes and all of that, right?

00:20:13.000 But I'm not making a defense of it.

00:20:15.000 I want to be very clear.

00:20:16.000 Yes, yes.

00:20:17.000 But what I said to my audience is everyone has their own scales of that.

00:20:21.000 And I said, you watch it with your wife, so you're not doing it for the point of consuming it.

00:20:26.000 And I will say, Ozark in the later seasons, they basically sunset it.

00:20:30.000 But there was a lot of drug usage, a lot of swearing.

00:20:33.000 But again, the intent for that was not, oh, let's go try to watch.

00:20:37.000 There's an incredibly interesting story unfolding of someone who sinned small and ends up sinning big and did it all for the ends, justifying the means.

00:20:37.000 You know what?

00:20:44.000 That's what the whole saga is about.

00:20:46.000 And honestly, beautifully acted, great music, great cinematography.

00:20:52.000 So I just took that detour for a reason because we're about to talk about Harry Potter from a biblical context.

00:20:58.000 Now, just aside, when I grew up in Christian Heritage Academy, suburbs of Chicago, my parents were okay with me watching Harry Potter, okay with me reading Harry Potter.

00:21:09.000 But a majority of the kids I went to third, fourth, and fifth grade, there was a prohibition on even mentioning Harry Potter.

00:21:14.000 It's the occult.

00:21:16.000 It's the demonic.

00:21:18.000 You can't mention it.

00:21:19.000 And so just comment on that a little bit, and then let's go into Harry Potter.

00:21:22.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:22.000 We comment it in the book, Hollywood Heroes.

00:21:25.000 We deal with this, but let's just lay this out.

00:21:28.000 First of all, if you think your child is going to get into the occult by watching a movie, then by all means, keep them away from the movie.

00:21:36.000 Okay, I agree with parents.

00:21:38.000 If you're a parent and you say, hey, this isn't appropriate for my kid, fine.

00:21:41.000 I'm with you.

00:21:43.000 But to say that no Christian should watch this, I think is going too far.

00:21:46.000 Let me give you a couple of reasons why.

00:21:48.000 Number one, the kind of occult in Harry Potter is made up magic.

00:21:52.000 It's not real.

00:21:54.000 J.K. Rowling doesn't think that you can fly on a broomstick and play this modified game of soccer that they play in the movie.

00:22:02.000 These are not, this isn't the real occult.

00:22:05.000 There may be one exception in the last movie.

00:22:08.000 They tried to contact the dead.

00:22:09.000 It never really went anywhere.

00:22:11.000 But generally, the kind of occult that's in Harry Potter is made up magic out of Rowling's mind.

00:22:16.000 She doesn't believe it's really true.

00:22:18.000 She just made it up according to her.

00:22:20.000 And by the way, she's an Anglican Christian.

00:22:22.000 I don't know if she's born again or not.

00:22:25.000 No extra charge for this, but she has stood firm on the transgender issue, as you know.

00:22:29.000 In any event, she says, look, I put magic in here because it gives the kids a kind of power they don't have.

00:22:36.000 But the center of the story is not magic.

00:22:38.000 The center of the story is human nature.

00:22:41.000 And she says, Harry thinks he can fix everything by waving a wand.

00:22:46.000 That's not true.

00:22:47.000 Whether you can wave a wand or not, you have to deal with human nature.

00:22:51.000 And that's what this whole story is about.

00:22:53.000 Now, didn't Narnia Osul have magic in this?

00:22:55.000 Well, that was just my second point.

00:22:56.000 You're way ahead of me.

00:22:57.000 Narnia and Lord of the Rings, Chronicles and Narnia and Lord of the Rings have magic in it too.

00:23:02.000 In fact, in Lord of the Rings, Gandalf is a wizard, and so is Harry Potter.

00:23:06.000 Why are we okay with Gandalf and Lord of the Rings, but not Harry Potter?

00:23:11.000 The reason, and this is where you're going to, they'll say, okay, Narnia and Tolkien, or Lewis and Tolkien, had Christian arcs, but you're saying Harry Potter does too.

00:23:19.000 Oh, yes, I'm saying Harry Potter.

00:23:20.000 In fact, this is going to probably give you some negative emails.

00:23:26.000 We argue in the book Hollywood Heroes that out of all the characters we cover, and we cover a lot of characters in this book, that arguably the person, the character that parallels Jesus more than any other in modern fiction is Harry Potter.

00:23:41.000 People go, what?

00:23:43.000 Well, let's just give you four parallels.

00:23:45.000 Number one, Harry Potter is actually prophesied before he is born to be the savior of his world, Charlie.

00:23:54.000 And an evil figure tries to kill him as an infant.

00:23:57.000 Voldemort.

00:23:58.000 Yeah.

00:23:59.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:23:59.000 He who must not be named.

00:24:01.000 That's right. 0.99

00:24:02.000 He wants to kill him, just like Herod wants to kill Jesus, right, as an infant. 0.54

00:24:06.000 Secondly, in order to be the savior of his world, Harry Potter has to live a moral life, just like Jesus.

00:24:13.000 Thirdly, Harry Potter sacrifices himself to defeat the evil Voldemort, the Satan figure, just like Jesus does.

00:24:21.000 And fourthly, Harry Potter rises from the dead, and his followers have to put their faith in him in order to ultimately defeat Voldemort.

00:24:29.000 Does this sound familiar?

00:24:30.000 In fact, J.K. Rowling said, you can sum up the entire Harry Potter series in two Bible verses which appear in the story.

00:24:37.000 One of them is the last enemy to be destroyed is death from 1 Corinthians 15.

00:24:42.000 And the other is from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which says, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

00:24:48.000 These appear in the movies.

00:24:50.000 And J.K. Rowling says that's really the inspiration for the whole series.

00:24:55.000 She said, but I never wanted to talk a lot about this because I didn't want readers to know where we were going.

00:25:00.000 I didn't want readers to know that I was basically using the Bible story in order to write the Harry Potter series.

00:25:08.000 And so there's other biblical themes, though, weaved throughout Harry Potter.

00:25:12.000 I mean, for example, in Chamber of Secrets, the idea of facing the basilisk that could turn you to stone, that's a legend that has been around for thousands of years.

00:25:23.000 And the Bible deals with that in a variety of different ways of, you know, no one wants to sin.

00:25:28.000 No one wants to be caught in eye contact with their sin, that you must face, you know, your enemy straight on.

00:25:35.000 Talk about also this theme, and we talk about this, which is the idea of the hero's journey, which is someone who grows up without parents, usually raised by their uncle in a place of vulnerability, like under a stairwell on Tatooine or in the Shire, gets a call to adventure, Abraham, right?

00:25:54.000 Get out of your place of comfort.

00:25:56.000 Builds a team, usually counseled by someone who's been around before, know the road ahead, ask those coming to you.

00:25:56.000 That's right.

00:26:01.000 Bruce Wayne, Alfred.

00:26:03.000 Yeah, exactly, right?

00:26:04.000 Bruce Wayne with Alfred or Gandalf with Frodo.

00:26:08.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:26:09.000 Or Obi-Wan Kenobi with Luke Skywalker or Dumbledore with Harry Potter.

00:26:15.000 That's right.

00:26:15.000 And then they create a team, no more than two or three people of which usually show the entire kind of arc of different characters, right?

00:26:24.000 Which is kind of loyal, blumbling, bumbling idiot, which of course is Ron or Sam or Hans Solo, but very loyal. 0.91

00:26:33.000 Right, right. 1.00

00:26:33.000 Right. 1.00

00:26:34.000 And then also the very wise and shrewd, discerning, but quite honestly, not very socially, let's just say, very disagreeable person, right?

00:26:44.000 So that would be Hermoine.

00:26:46.000 And in Lord of the Rings, there's not a great example.

00:26:49.000 I guess, yeah, Lord of the Rings could be Aragon or could be Legolas or could be any of those.

00:26:53.000 Well, actually, Gollum is so disagreeable, but he actually helps achieve the mission inadvertently in Lord of the Rings.

00:27:01.000 In this final scene.

00:27:02.000 But what I'm getting at, though, is all of them, and I'd love your thoughts on this.

00:27:06.000 In all three movies, they, of course, have to fight evil, this invisible dimension, right?

00:27:11.000 All three of them in Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and in Harry Potter, there's an invisible dimension, right?

00:27:16.000 And it's all called something different, right?

00:27:18.000 It could be called the Force.

00:27:19.000 It could be called all sorts of things.

00:27:21.000 But what they end up having to conquer is their own struggle within.

00:27:25.000 They do.

00:27:25.000 Right.

00:27:26.000 Which is the voice in their head.

00:27:27.000 Harry Potter had it as a scar.

00:27:29.000 Luke Skywalker had it as premonitions.

00:27:31.000 And of course, boy, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and then Lord of the Rings.

00:27:36.000 Yeah.

00:27:37.000 Frodo had he literally wanted the ring for himself.

00:27:40.000 Can you talk about that?

00:27:42.000 Well, you talked about it so beautifully right there.

00:27:44.000 Well, it's one of my stump speeches.

00:27:45.000 I have five or six of them.

00:27:47.000 That's perfect.

00:27:47.000 That's why I like that.

00:27:48.000 In fact, let's take a look at Lord of the Rings in that context, okay?

00:27:51.000 Tolkien, in fact, what we say in the book Hollywood Heroes is not all the movies, quite obviously, are written by Christians.

00:27:58.000 Most of them are not.

00:27:58.000 But one of them that is, is Lord of the Rings.

00:28:01.000 Peter Jackson was a Christian? 0.90

00:28:02.000 I didn't know that.

00:28:02.000 No, no, no.

00:28:03.000 No, Tolkien.

00:28:05.000 Oh, I'm sorry.

00:28:06.000 I thought you meant the book, Book versus Morgan.

00:28:08.000 Yeah, well, the book, but they're adapting the book pretty accurately.

00:28:11.000 So Tolkien was a legitimate Christian. 0.69

00:28:11.000 Yes, got it. 0.69

00:28:13.000 He was a Christian.

00:28:14.000 He was a Catholic.

00:28:14.000 In fact, we got to bring C.S. Lewis into this because we both love C.S. Lewis.

00:28:18.000 And the Narnia movies are not very good, but that's a separate issue.

00:28:20.000 Right, yeah.

00:28:21.000 That's another issue.

00:28:22.000 But Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were in a group called the Inklings, where they would get together and talk about what they were writing.

00:28:32.000 And Lewis was a big fan of these dying and rising gods.

00:28:38.000 Most of them came after Christianity, and he thought it was enchanting that a god would die and rise again to save people.

00:28:46.000 And Tolkien said to him, Hey, Jack, because that's what they called C.S. Lewis, hey, Jack, why are you so enthralled with all these mythical stories about dying and rising gods?

00:28:54.000 But when it comes to the real myth, the true myth, he called it, in the pages of the New Testament, you're turned off by that.

00:29:01.000 And Jack's going, what do you mean by that?

00:29:04.000 He said, Tolkien said, Christianity is the true myth. 1.00

00:29:07.000 All these other myths, which didn't happen, are pointing to the event that actually did happen.

00:29:12.000 Jesus actually did come, die, and rise again.

00:29:15.000 It's true.

00:29:16.000 And of course, Lewis researched it and realized it was, and then he became the greatest apologist of the 20th century.

00:29:22.000 The true myth is that Jesus did come and die and rise again.

00:29:26.000 So what Tolkien did, however, is he did not like straight allegory.

00:29:30.000 He didn't want Chronicles and Arnea.

00:29:32.000 He didn't want Pilgrim's Progress.

00:29:33.000 So he had little mini archetypes.

00:29:37.000 And what he did is he divided the Christ figure among three main characters.

00:29:37.000 Yes.

00:29:41.000 Interesting.

00:29:42.000 Aragorn's one.

00:29:42.000 Aragorn?

00:29:43.000 He's the returning king, Frodo and Gandalf.

00:29:46.000 Interesting.

00:29:46.000 Gandalf.

00:29:48.000 I never thought of it though.

00:29:48.000 Gandalf is the strategist.

00:29:51.000 According to Tolkien, he's an angel.

00:29:53.000 He's a messenger.

00:29:54.000 He's going to help Frodo.

00:29:55.000 Why is he going to help Frodo?

00:29:57.000 Well, Frodo's weak.

00:29:58.000 Frodo can't do that.

00:29:59.000 So is he an angel or is he the advocate?

00:30:01.000 He's an angel, according to Tolkien.

00:30:03.000 So Michael or Gabriel.

00:30:04.000 Yeah.

00:30:05.000 He's a messenger.

00:30:05.000 He's acting like an angel, right?

00:30:07.000 Got it.

00:30:07.000 Okay.

00:30:08.000 Aragorn is the returning king, which is what Jesus is. 0.82

00:30:11.000 And Frodo is the weak character that has to depend on them.

00:30:15.000 And what we say in Hollywood Heroes is that Tolkien is showing his true Christian colors when he uses the weakest characters to achieve the greatest result. 0.96

00:30:26.000 So who are the, in fact, according to Tolkien, the hero of the Lord of the Rings series is Sam.

00:30:30.000 Of course.

00:30:31.000 Right.

00:30:31.000 And the movie does a pretty good job of depicting that.

00:30:33.000 Yeah.

00:30:34.000 So Sam says to Frodo.

00:30:38.000 Mr. Frodo, Frodo says, I'm going to Mordor alone.

00:30:42.000 What does Sam say?

00:30:43.000 Of course you are.

00:30:44.000 And I'm going with you.

00:30:46.000 And so there's a point where Frodo, on his way to Mordor, just can't go any further.

00:30:52.000 And Sam says, I can't carry it, but I can carry you.

00:30:55.000 That's right.

00:30:56.000 And he grabs Frodo and he literally carries him up the hill into hell and right up to the point of Mount Doom, right to the point of dumping the ring in the lava.

00:31:07.000 And we all know what happens after that.

00:31:08.000 Gollum shows up after Frodo says, I want to keep the ring.

00:31:12.000 And through divine providence, that's where Gollum comes in.

00:31:16.000 He actually inadvertently causes the ring to go into the lava and destroy.

00:31:22.000 Who is Gollum in this movie?

00:31:24.000 Well, Gollum is an evil character that is someone who has been overcome by the power of the movie.

00:31:32.000 No, I know that.

00:31:33.000 I'm saying archetypically, though.

00:31:34.000 Oh, just, I would assume a demon.

00:31:37.000 That's a good question.

00:31:38.000 Yeah.

00:31:38.000 Well, that would make sense because he was a hobbit prior, right?

00:31:44.000 It could be Judas.

00:31:45.000 It could be something like that.

00:31:46.000 The thing about Gollum is that he demonstrates what happens when you give in to human nature.

00:31:46.000 It could be.

00:31:53.000 He demonstrates that when you give in to temptation, you are going to actually destroy yourself.

00:31:59.000 I mean, think about this.

00:31:59.000 The ring gives him the ability to be invisible.

00:32:04.000 Yes.

00:32:05.000 And yet he lives.

00:32:06.000 Harry Potter has a similar way.

00:32:09.000 Which is you could do any sin as long as people don't see it.

00:32:11.000 Right, right.

00:32:12.000 What would you do if people couldn't see it?

00:32:13.000 Yeah, what would you do if people couldn't see you?

00:32:15.000 Well, think about this, though.

00:32:16.000 Gollum has this ability, if he has the ring, to be invisible, and yet he lives alone.

00:32:22.000 Why is it?

00:32:22.000 It's destroyed him internally.

00:32:24.000 And this is what Tolkien is saying, that sin will destroy you internally.

00:32:27.000 You need to redo your mind.

00:32:28.000 But let me go back to the three.

00:32:30.000 Aragorn, Gandalf, and Frodo.

00:32:34.000 It turns out this is almost like a trinity in the sense that you need someone to plan salvation.

00:32:41.000 You need someone to accomplish salvation.

00:32:43.000 And you need someone to inspire salvation among the people.

00:32:46.000 So Gandalf actually strategizes.

00:32:50.000 He is the one that strategizes salvation, plans it.

00:32:54.000 Frodo is the one that accomplishes it, and Aragorn is the one that inspires salvation among the people.

00:33:00.000 Just like the father planned salvation, the son achieves it, and the Holy Spirit inspires salvation among the people.

00:33:06.000 Who would be the Holy Spirit?

00:33:07.000 The Holy Spirit in this point is Aragorn.

00:33:09.000 Yeah, Aragorn is inspiring his men.

00:33:11.000 I suppose that makes sense, right?

00:33:12.000 Because I leave you with the advocate.

00:33:14.000 That's right.

00:33:15.000 So Aragor remains.

00:33:17.000 But there is a messianic component to Aragorn, too, right?

00:33:19.000 Sure.

00:33:20.000 He's the returning king.

00:33:21.000 Yes.

00:33:21.000 And so Tolkien has spread the messianic, the Jesus figure among those three.

00:33:26.000 But notice that Aragorn has to get the orcs out of Mordor in order to allow Frodo and Sam to make it to Mount Doom.

00:33:37.000 To draw them out.

00:33:38.000 He has to draw them out.

00:33:39.000 He has to inspire all these people to basically put their lives on the line in order to achieve the mission.

00:33:43.000 Wow.

00:33:44.000 And so it's just, it's so amazing.

00:33:47.000 And in the Bible, Charlie, in the Bible, who are the heroes?

00:33:50.000 All the weak people.

00:33:52.000 Right? 0.99

00:33:52.000 They're all weak. 0.99

00:33:53.000 I mean, you think about Paul, David.

00:33:56.000 You think about Mark, who he left his first missionary journey with Paul.

00:34:03.000 Paul was so annoyed with him.

00:34:04.000 He said, I'm not taking him again.

00:34:05.000 What does he do?

00:34:06.000 He connects with Peter.

00:34:07.000 He writes a gospel.

00:34:08.000 Matthew's a tax collector.

00:34:09.000 Nobody likes him.

00:34:10.000 He writes a gospel.

00:34:11.000 John is just a kid.

00:34:12.000 He writes a gospel.

00:34:14.000 Mary Magdalene. 0.96

00:34:15.000 I mean, she's a formerly demon-possessed woman, and yet she's the first one to see Jesus, potentially a prostitute. 1.00

00:34:22.000 It's debated, yeah.

00:34:23.000 I mean, there are so many weak characters, and Paul says, when I'm weak, I am strong.

00:34:28.000 Why are you strong when you are weak?

00:34:30.000 Because you have to depend on God.

00:34:32.000 You can't say, I can do it without God.

00:34:34.000 You need God, and you know you need God.

00:34:36.000 So we list in the book Hollywood Heroes, we list all the weak characters in the Bible and say, if you want to do something great for God and you're weak, you can.

00:34:46.000 You just need to depend on God in order to do it.

00:34:48.000 What other movies you got before I go to two objections that I want you to help navigate?

00:34:52.000 Why don't we deal with Star Wars?

00:34:55.000 Yeah, so I mean, let's do that.

00:34:56.000 So Star Wars, I actually think, is an easier sell to Christian parents than Harry Potter. 0.84

00:35:03.000 It is.

00:35:04.000 And I personally believe, and you could prove me wrong, there's parts of Star Wars that actually get the biblical story better than Lord of the Rings.

00:35:12.000 So what do you mean?

00:35:14.000 I think, for example, the story of Skywalker himself is very messianic and very Christ-like from growing up in a place of vulnerability or just desolation, could be Nazarene, and going on a series of stops and trips to eventually have to confront evil itself.

00:35:35.000 What's your thoughts on Star Wars?

00:35:37.000 Well, it's my son's favorite series out of all the ones.

00:35:40.000 We cover seven or eight series in this book, Hollywood Heroes.

00:35:44.000 And when he was a kid, well, first of all, I was a kid when the first one came out.

00:35:48.000 I was 15 years old.

00:35:49.000 And I actually think that's the best one.

00:35:50.000 In 1978, I think it's 18.77.

00:35:53.000 Yep, I was 15 years old.

00:35:54.000 It came out.

00:35:55.000 It's a brilliant film.

00:35:55.000 It is.

00:35:56.000 New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and the Return of the Jedi.

00:35:58.000 And then he was 15, or no, he was like 11 when the Phantom Menace came out.

00:36:02.000 So it's a generational thing.

00:36:04.000 When I was 15, people were going to the movies dressed up, Charlie.

00:36:08.000 You know, it's a cultural event where people are dressed up to go to the movies.

00:36:11.000 I think Phantom Menace and Clone Wars and whatever the third one is.

00:36:16.000 I don't like those three I thought were poorly written.

00:36:18.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:36:19.000 But that's what started him off on it.

00:36:19.000 Yeah.

00:36:22.000 And what we love about Star Wars, as Lucas himself says, it's a total morality play.

00:36:26.000 That's what it is.

00:36:28.000 And in Star Wars, there's a couple of, first of all, redemption is big, as you just mentioned, right?

00:36:34.000 Obviously, the redemption of Darth Vader is huge, but there's a redemption of another character that we find even more fun, and that is, of course, Han Solo.

00:36:40.000 Han Solo is the rule-bending skeptic who's on the good side, but he keeps saying stuff like, Kid, this force is just mumbo-jumbo.

00:36:49.000 It's nothing but simple tricks and nonsense.

00:36:51.000 You need a good blaster at your side, kid, right?

00:36:54.000 And then through a series of events, Han Solo, by the way, Han Solo, perfect name for this guy.

00:36:59.000 Why?

00:37:00.000 Because it's all about him, Solo, right?

00:37:04.000 He doesn't want to be part of the team.

00:37:06.000 That was the name of the spin-off, wasn't it?

00:37:07.000 Yeah, which I found insufferably boring.

00:37:10.000 He's in it for the money, Charlie, right?

00:37:12.000 Look, your worshipfulness.

00:37:14.000 I'm not here for your little goal here.

00:37:16.000 I'm in it for the money.

00:37:17.000 I expect to be paid well for what I do, right?

00:37:20.000 But then what happens to him?

00:37:22.000 He's frozen in debt by Jabba the Hutt, who's way bigger than a hut, by the way.

00:37:27.000 And because Solo can't pay him.

00:37:30.000 And so who has to come rescue him?

00:37:30.000 He's in debt.

00:37:33.000 Luke Skywalker has to come rescue him, and he cancels his debt by killing Jabba the Hutt, right?

00:37:40.000 It's over.

00:37:41.000 So he's redeemed.

00:37:44.000 And then, after that love that Skywalker displays to Han Solo, Han Solo then is motivated to join the team in a bigger way.

00:37:55.000 And later on, he says, Kid, he says, it's all true.

00:38:00.000 I used to think it was nonsense, but the force is real.

00:38:03.000 He actually becomes a believer through the evidence, Charlie.

00:38:06.000 That's what we're supposed to do.

00:38:07.000 We're supposed to look at the evidence and go, hey, this is really true.

00:38:11.000 So Han Solo is redeemed, one, by having his debt canceled, which is what Christ does for us.

00:38:17.000 Secondly, through the love of a friend who did redeem Han Solo.

00:38:22.000 And thirdly, because he saw the evidence.

00:38:23.000 And that's the recipe for Christianity. 0.98

00:38:25.000 You become a believer through love, redemption, and evidence.

00:38:31.000 And so the Star Wars film kind of bounces all over the place, right?

00:38:35.000 And it kind of continues to kind of replicates.

00:38:41.000 So the story of Anakin could be the story of Lucifer, too.

00:38:46.000 Yes.

00:38:46.000 Can you talk about that?

00:38:47.000 Yeah, beautiful.

00:38:48.000 We have a whole section in Hollywood Heroes on Anakin.

00:38:50.000 How does Anakin go from a Jedi?

00:38:53.000 You were supposed to be the one.

00:38:54.000 You were supposed to be the one.

00:38:56.000 He slips into sin, Charlie.

00:39:00.000 First of all, he's fearful.

00:39:01.000 He doesn't want to lose what he has.

00:39:03.000 He doesn't want to lose his power.

00:39:04.000 He doesn't want to lose his wife, obviously.

00:39:05.000 He doesn't want to lose his family.

00:39:07.000 And he puts those up as idols.

00:39:10.000 And what happens is he's enticed and dragged away by his own desires.

00:39:17.000 And this is exactly from the book of James.

00:39:20.000 Because James says, how do you sin?

00:39:24.000 You sin because you're enticed and dragged away by your own desires.

00:39:28.000 And so what happens is Anakin goes from supposed to be the savior to being enticed and dragged away to the point when the future emperor displays himself as a Sith Lord.

00:39:44.000 That's the guy Anakin's supposed to be fighting.

00:39:47.000 But the Sith Lord says to him, I can give you what you want.

00:39:51.000 I can give you the power.

00:39:53.000 I can protect your family.

00:39:54.000 Just come on my side.

00:39:56.000 And he ultimately does.

00:39:58.000 And Lucas actually says, George Lucas, who as you know is no Christian, actually says in an interview, that's when Anakin gave in to the temptation of the devil, when Anakin went and became basically a Sith.

00:40:15.000 And what happens to him afterwards?

00:40:17.000 Well, he's all burned up.

00:40:19.000 He has to be put in a suit of armor.

00:40:22.000 He's half man, half machine.

00:40:25.000 And what Lucas does in these movies, the sins of the characters are displayed in their physical appearance.

00:40:35.000 So Darth Vader is a breathing machine, basically.

00:40:39.000 He's encased.

00:40:40.000 The emperor is all wrinkled up.

00:40:41.000 His eyes are droopy.

00:40:43.000 They're red. 0.99

00:40:44.000 He's nasty.

00:40:46.000 Sin is displayed physically in their physical appearance.

00:40:51.000 And that happens to us eventually, too, just much more slowly, right?

00:40:54.000 You sin enough.

00:40:55.000 You're just going to show physically.

00:40:56.000 Totally agree.

00:40:57.000 But when you look at, say, Luke and Leia, they're pure.

00:41:02.000 They look good all the time.

00:41:04.000 And so the light side and the dark side are illustrated by their physical appearances.

00:41:08.000 And so Lucas put that right into the story.

00:41:10.000 Wow.

00:41:11.000 So let me get into kind of two objections here.

00:41:15.000 So the first would be this, which would be kind of a Jungian psychological critique.

00:41:20.000 Are you going Jordan Peterson on me right now?

00:41:22.000 Yeah, somewhat, which would be that these are not biblical stories, right?

00:41:27.000 These are ancestral stories.

00:41:29.000 Every country, every civilization has these sorts of stories.

00:41:32.000 Exactly.

00:41:33.000 And it's not anything necessarily biblical.

00:41:37.000 It's just within who we are as a species that they would say, and I don't believe this, just as a disclaimer, you know, we evolved as a species.

00:41:46.000 We've always had to overcome adversity.

00:41:48.000 We've had to have courage, build teams, have heroes to go forage and hunt and gather.

00:41:53.000 What would you say to that potential?

00:41:55.000 I would say it's partially right because we live in God's world and he has put eternity on our hearts, says Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3.

00:42:05.000 We all have eternity on our hearts and we all want to be taken from this place of pain and suffering, Charlie, to a place of bliss.

00:42:12.000 And that's what these pagan dying and rising gods are about. 0.81

00:42:18.000 Redemption is a theme of humanity because we live in God's world.

00:42:23.000 We all have this desire to be taken out of this place and taken to a place of bliss.

00:42:28.000 All of these fictional stories are pointing to the true story, the true myth, as Tolkien put it, that Jesus literally did come and die and resurrect after living the perfect life so he could remain just and justify sinners like us and ultimately take us to a place where there is no pain, suffering, crying, or tears.

00:42:49.000 Yes, we agree.

00:42:50.000 It doesn't come from evolution.

00:42:52.000 It comes from God is putting this all on our heart.

00:42:55.000 So you would expect that even secular writers who may not believe in God at all would include this in their stories, just like they include morality in their stories because morality is written on their hearts as well.

00:43:08.000 They know what resonates with an audience.

00:43:10.000 So yeah, I agree partially.

00:43:11.000 That's true.

00:43:12.000 But it comes from God, not evolution.

00:43:14.000 Yeah, and so they would say that it's not, the Bible only is fitting the story.

00:43:21.000 The story is not fitting the Bible.

00:43:22.000 That would be true if God didn't exist and Jesus didn't rise from the dead.

00:43:28.000 But the evidence is that God does exist, and Jesus did rise from the dead, which means on Jesus' authority, I'm trusting what the Bible says because he said the entire Old Testament is the word of God and he promised the New Testament.

00:43:40.000 So, yeah, with those two facts that God exists and Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true. 1.00

00:43:45.000 Christianity is the true myth. 1.00

00:43:46.000 It really happened.

00:43:47.000 It's not just another one of these fake myths or what we're talking about.

00:43:51.000 Yeah, and that's where some, and that would be the second objection that we could spend some time unpacking, which is a Bible-believing Christian might find exception with this book, saying you're flirting with allegorical gateways here.

00:44:09.000 All right, let me ask a question of this skepticism.

00:44:12.000 And again, I don't believe this.

00:44:13.000 I think this is actually incredibly helpful and beautiful.

00:44:16.000 Skeptical Christian. 0.94

00:44:17.000 Number one, what does Paul do when he goes to Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17?

00:44:22.000 He's speaking to secular in Greece, right?

00:44:24.000 Greece.

00:44:25.000 I've actually stood on Mars Hill.

00:44:26.000 Oh, it's beautiful.

00:44:27.000 Yeah, you got to go.

00:44:27.000 In Athens, yeah.

00:44:28.000 I didn't know it was called Mars Hill.

00:44:29.000 I think of a church in Seattle when I think of Mars Hill.

00:44:31.000 Yes, no, no, this is Mars Hill or the Hill of Aries.

00:44:34.000 Same thing.

00:44:35.000 Yeah, yeah, okay, got it.

00:44:36.000 Sure.

00:44:36.000 He's there, and he's got the Acropolis right there.

00:44:39.000 Yeah, the hall of the pagans.

00:44:39.000 Right behind him.

00:44:41.000 The temple to Athena.

00:44:41.000 That's right.

00:44:43.000 That's why they call it Athens, of course.

00:44:45.000 And Paul, in order to bring these Athenians to the point where they might consider Christianity, you know who he quotes?

00:44:52.000 He quotes their own philosophers.

00:44:54.000 He quotes Epimenides.

00:44:56.000 He quotes their own poets.

00:44:58.000 I don't remember that.

00:44:59.000 He's quoting in Acts 17, he's quoting their movies of the day in order to bridge them to the gospel.

00:45:08.000 That's what he does.

00:45:10.000 And that's all we're doing in the book Hollywood Heroes.

00:45:13.000 It's a tool of evangelism.

00:45:14.000 It is.

00:45:15.000 Also, think about this.

00:45:17.000 The stories, the 39, by the way, I was listening to the Charlie Kirk podcast this morning coming over here, and you were talking about how there are 39 parables.

00:45:26.000 Yes.

00:45:27.000 And you mentioned that, I don't know, maybe 11 or 15 of them have to do with money.

00:45:30.000 Yes.

00:45:31.000 No extra charge for that, by the way.

00:45:33.000 But.

00:45:34.000 Which is true.

00:45:35.000 In these 39 parallels, Jesus is telling fictional stories to illustrate a moral or theological point.

00:45:43.000 For example, the story or the parable of the Good Samaritan.

00:45:47.000 If you were there with Jesus 2,000 years ago and he told the parable of the Good Samaritan and you said, Jesus, what was the Good Samaritan's name?

00:45:56.000 He'd go, What are you talking about?

00:46:00.000 This stuff didn't really happen.

00:46:02.000 I'm inventing these stories to illustrate a moral or theological point because stories drive home moral and theological points sometimes better than straight prose or just didactic teaching.

00:46:17.000 We're doing both in the Bible, but I'm telling stories to illustrate a theological or moral point.

00:46:22.000 Jesus is using stories in order to bring people to the truth.

00:46:28.000 That's what these movies do.

00:46:30.000 That's what we're doing in Hollywood Heroes.

00:46:31.000 So some Christians would say the danger with this is then you're going to look through the entire Bible through an allegorical lens, right?

00:46:38.000 And so this is an objection of a lot of Baptists, for example.

00:46:43.000 Not to say it's just, but it seems to be a lot of the criticism comes from that denomination where they'll say the issue with this sort of a book or this sort of an approach is that all of a sudden people are going to look less about the miraculous intervention of God, Jonah and the whale, Red Sea departed, and instead, what is God, what is the story trying to tell you here?

00:47:05.000 What is the moral lesson here?

00:47:07.000 But would you say it both can be true, the miraculous intervention and the story?

00:47:13.000 Yeah, and I think this is one of the problems we have with biblical interpretation.

00:47:17.000 In fact, we have a course on our website, an online course at cross examine.org called How to Interpret Your Bible.

00:47:22.000 And it's a 12-week course, but let me give you the core of it.

00:47:26.000 It's an acronym, STOP, S-T-O-P. 0.61

00:47:30.000 Whenever you come to a Bible passage, you need to stop.

00:47:33.000 And here's what you need to figure out.

00:47:34.000 What's the situation?

00:47:35.000 What's going on?

00:47:37.000 What book are we in?

00:47:38.000 Who's this about?

00:47:39.000 Who wrote it?

00:47:40.000 Right.

00:47:40.000 Who was written?

00:47:41.000 What's the situation?

00:47:42.000 T, what type of literature is it?

00:47:45.000 Is this just straight prose?

00:47:47.000 Is it law?

00:47:47.000 Is it poetry?

00:47:48.000 Is it parable?

00:47:49.000 Is it apocalyptic literature?

00:47:51.000 Some people take exception of even calling part of it poetry.

00:47:55.000 But poetry is poetry.

00:47:57.000 Look, if you and I are reading a poem of the Civil War, Charlie, we're going to get some good historical information out of that poem.

00:48:05.000 But we're not going to stretch every line to its literal wooden extent.

00:48:08.000 We realize it's a poem, right?

00:48:11.000 And so we need to do that with the Bible.

00:48:13.000 We need to figure out what type of literature it is because we're going to interpret different literature differently.

00:48:19.000 You're not going to interpret poetry the same way you would interpret, say, Leviticus, law, right?

00:48:23.000 It's different.

00:48:25.000 The O stands for...

00:48:26.000 Matthew first-hand account.

00:48:27.000 Exactly.

00:48:27.000 Or the resurrection itself, which is an actual event in history.

00:48:32.000 The O in stop stands for, who is the object of the passage?

00:48:35.000 Is the object just the Jews? 0.96

00:48:37.000 Is the object a church in Corinth?

00:48:40.000 Yeah, church in Corinth.

00:48:41.000 Who is this written to?

00:48:43.000 And then the P in stop stands for, is this prescriptive or descriptive?

00:48:47.000 What do you mean by that?

00:48:47.000 Well, you hear people saying, well, you know, Solomon had many wives, so the Bible must be for polygamy.

00:48:54.000 No, that's a description.

00:48:55.000 It's not a prescription.

00:48:57.000 He doesn't want us to have many wives.

00:48:59.000 He's simply pointing out this is what Solomon did.

00:49:01.000 And look at all the pain that resulted in his life.

00:49:05.000 It drove him mad.

00:49:05.000 It took him away from God.

00:49:06.000 It split the kingdom.

00:49:08.000 He did not finish well.

00:49:09.000 No, he did not finish well at all.

00:49:10.000 So you always have to figure out what's the situation, what type of literature, who's the object of the passage.

00:49:14.000 And is this passage prescriptive or descriptive?

00:49:17.000 And then you can say, okay, now I can see what the interpretation is and how it applies to my life.

00:49:23.000 So if people are going to say, well, Jesus is talking about a parable here, so it's not literal.

00:49:28.000 No, every parable tells a literal point, but it doesn't tell it in a literal way.

00:49:33.000 It tells it in an allegorical way, or it tells it in a parabolic way.

00:49:37.000 It tells it in a fictional way to point out a real truth in life.

00:49:41.000 And that's what movies do.

00:49:42.000 That's what stories do.

00:49:43.000 Yeah.

00:49:43.000 And I'm sure you've received some of these criticisms before, but whenever I'll talk about the story of the Bible, some hardline Christians, I'm not saying that negatively, by the way.

00:49:53.000 I'm a hardline Christian.

00:49:55.000 They'll say, stop talking about the story.

00:49:57.000 They said it's about the facts.

00:49:59.000 It's about the reality of it.

00:50:01.000 They said stories is not, you know, you're now getting into a defense of literature.

00:50:06.000 And I disagree with this.

00:50:08.000 I think that, for example, the incredible fountain of art that has come out of the West is based in the biblical canon.

00:50:17.000 Yes.

00:50:17.000 From the best songs to the best paintings to the best movies, is that there needs to be, you can't just look, I think that God gave us the gift of reason and creativity to be able to look at the gospel three-dimensionally and look at it, like, oh, wow, I never thought of Jesus' sacrifice through this story, but it now means even more to me.

00:50:37.000 Yes.

00:50:37.000 And that's basically what you're building out here, right?

00:50:39.000 Yes.

00:50:40.000 Wow, that movie that I really liked growing up, I kept watching.

00:50:43.000 Maybe there's a reason I liked it because it was speaking to my soul.

00:50:46.000 It is.

00:50:46.000 That's the whole point.

00:50:48.000 And in fact, a friend of mine, Jay Warner Wallace, the guy I mentioned last night, the cold case homicide detective, has written a book called Person of Interest, where he does exactly that, Charlie.

00:50:56.000 He looks at literature, movies, art, even architecture, science, education, and he points out how Jesus has revolutionized all of those areas of culture.

00:51:10.000 That the story of Jesus, the account, the facts of Jesus have impacted culture more than any other.

00:51:17.000 And what we point out in Hollywood Heroes is not only does he do that, but all of the heroes that we go through in this book point to the ultimate hero, Jesus of Nazareth.

00:51:28.000 And where these characters have certain aspects of Jesus in terms of their characteristics, their hero qualities, Jesus is the perfect hero.

00:51:40.000 He's the ultimate hero.

00:51:41.000 He has qualities that other characters don't have and could never have.

00:51:46.000 They couldn't hold in tension these characteristics.

00:51:50.000 Let me just give you a couple of examples.

00:51:52.000 Notice that Jesus is, on one hand, loving, but also completely mission-focused.

00:52:02.000 I mean, usually people who are mission-focused are not really good that much with caring about people.

00:52:09.000 I struggle with it all.

00:52:10.000 All the time.

00:52:10.000 Get out of my way.

00:52:11.000 I got to do this, right?

00:52:12.000 Jesus is both, right?

00:52:14.000 Jesus is completely confident, but he's also humble at the same time.

00:52:19.000 Do you know anybody that is completely confident and yet humble and gracious at the same time?

00:52:23.000 Jesus, 100% truth, 100% grace at the same time.

00:52:27.000 Jesus is actually totally confident in what he's doing, but he's still people-focused.

00:52:35.000 And you look at this and you go, there's no character in all of fiction.

00:52:40.000 There's no character in all of non-fiction other than Jesus.

00:52:45.000 There is no way the writers of the New Testament, most of them were fishermen and just average people, who could have invented this character, made him authentic, and pulled him off if he wasn't a real character.

00:52:58.000 So one of the objections that Bill Maher, for example, popularized in his movie Religilist, which I'm sure you've seen.

00:53:04.000 Yeah, it's a while ago, though.

00:53:06.000 And I'm just drawing from memory here, but it stuck with me because it is repeated on college campuses, is the mythology of Jesus, which I don't believe in.

00:53:15.000 You believe in the reality, so do I.

00:53:16.000 But they'll say the mythology of Jesus is found all throughout sort of Egyptian river culture.

00:53:25.000 Like Osiris.

00:53:26.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:53:27.000 So virgin birth and humble beginnings and a blameless life and God manifesting as a human being.

00:53:34.000 What would your response be?

00:53:35.000 Yeah, most of that's nonsense. 0.55

00:53:36.000 Most of that.

00:53:37.000 Tell us why.

00:53:38.000 It's just on the internet.

00:53:39.000 It's not in real life.

00:53:40.000 You ask the scholars that look into Jesus is just someone that has been actually talked about before in one character, they'll say, no, it's not true at all.

00:53:52.000 In fact, Edwin Yamauchi, used to teach at Miami of Ohio, was an expert on this.

00:53:57.000 I think he was in Case for Christianity. 0.93

00:53:58.000 He was, exactly.

00:53:59.000 You're remembering.

00:54:01.000 In fact, it was Lee Strobel who did the case for the real Jesus and had Yamauchi in that as well, pointing out, no, this is not the truth.

00:54:09.000 Now, there are parallels in certain areas to Jesus from these other worldviews.

00:54:15.000 But as we talked about earlier, Charlie, I think that's God pointing to the fact that, yeah, in culture, there's going to be things that parallel Jesus.

00:54:23.000 And when Jesus shows up, people are going to go, yeah, that's what we've been looking for.

00:54:27.000 This is the real deal.

00:54:28.000 And what someone in Jordan Peterson's position would say, which he does not call himself a Christian, but he is.

00:54:37.000 Or is he close, hopefully?

00:54:39.000 I don't know.

00:54:40.000 He said he needs a couple years to figure out historical Jesus.

00:54:43.000 That was two years ago.

00:54:44.000 Is he done?

00:54:44.000 No.

00:54:45.000 Okay.

00:54:46.000 He's had some difficulties, I think.

00:54:48.000 And there's a lot Jordan says I disagree with in a lot of different ways, but I think he's helpful in other ways.

00:54:52.000 He makes a great defense of the Bible in others and has brought people to the Lord.

00:54:56.000 And I think people are too hard on him on certain stuff.

00:54:58.000 He's obviously had some prescription drug addiction issues.

00:55:01.000 But what Jordan would say, or a follower of Jordan would say, this is all great, Frank.

00:55:06.000 This is all fine.

00:55:08.000 But it's the story that has captivated you with Christianity, not the facts and circumstances.

00:55:15.000 But you're saying, no, no, no, no.

00:55:17.000 It just so happens the facts and the evidence actually are incredibly overwhelming, which actually goes to your other book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and the work you do with Cross-Examined, which is like, wow, actually, the facts and circumstances are amazing, and the story is amazing.

00:55:33.000 Because what the Peterson people would say is if you get the story wrong, the civilization falls apart, right?

00:55:41.000 That the stories exist for a reason, they hold us together.

00:55:43.000 So it's just pragmatic for them.

00:55:45.000 It's very pragmatic.

00:55:46.000 That's all it is.

00:55:47.000 If you do not have legends, if you do not have stories, if you do not have icons, if you don't have heroes, the civilization falls apart.

00:55:53.000 You're not wrong by saying that.

00:55:54.000 No, they're not.

00:55:55.000 But it's totally incomplete and spiritually really, really dangerous.

00:56:00.000 Yes.

00:56:00.000 Why this story?

00:56:01.000 And why not another story?

00:56:03.000 Yeah, and they would say, well, because this story, and again, I don't believe this, is what helped us evolve, is what helped us survive, right?

00:56:11.000 Nurturing for the young and honoring the hero.

00:56:13.000 And these things are built into the moral code of what allowed us to get out of hunter-gathering and build civilization.

00:56:21.000 As you know, Charlie, one of the major problems with this kind of theory is, first of all, we could go down the rabbit trail of evolution, but if our minds are not designed to actually know truth, if they evolved, why should we believe anything we think?

00:56:35.000 In fact, C.S. Lewis famously said, and I'm paraphrasing, he said, Suppose my brain wasn't designed for the purpose of thinking, that thought is merely the byproduct of some atoms within my skull.

00:56:47.000 He said, in that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking, so I have no warrant to believe anything I think.

00:56:54.000 Yeah, well, there are some postmodernists that believe that.

00:56:57.000 I know.

00:56:57.000 They believe it.

00:56:58.000 Why?

00:56:59.000 It's self-defeating.

00:57:00.000 You know, if I'm just a molecular machine, why should I believe anything I think?

00:57:05.000 And I hate to go this far, but I mean, you go to Camus and they literally question existence.

00:57:09.000 Like, why even live?

00:57:11.000 True.

00:57:11.000 That's why.

00:57:13.000 That's the furthest extrapolation of.

00:57:14.000 Who was it, Sartre, that wrote the book Nausea?

00:57:17.000 Well, that's the ultimate outcome of nihilism.

00:57:21.000 That's a good question.

00:57:21.000 That's a good illusion.

00:57:21.000 Yes, that's true.

00:57:22.000 Yes.

00:57:22.000 And that's why we can't build a society on nihilism.

00:57:25.000 And that's where I think Jordan's been helpful in some ways.

00:57:26.000 Okay, pointing that out.

00:57:27.000 Well, he's at least building a firewall, saying that if you don't get this, you need some point of existence.

00:57:34.000 And he is deriving from biblical truth, but he won't go as far to say that this is the word of God.

00:57:38.000 Look, there's only two facts you need to establish to show that Christianity is true. 0.85

00:57:42.000 Just two.

00:57:43.000 Number one, God exists.

00:57:45.000 And number two, Jesus rose from the dead.

00:57:47.000 Charlie, if those two facts are true, Christianity is true. 1.00

00:57:50.000 Why?

00:57:51.000 Because if Jesus rose from the dead, he predicted and accomplished his own resurrection from the dead, then he's validating the fact that he's God.

00:57:59.000 He's proving he's God.

00:58:00.000 So whatever God teaches is true.

00:58:03.000 Jesus taught the Old Testament was the word of God in at least seven different ways.

00:58:06.000 We have them in the book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

00:58:09.000 And then he promised the New Testament.

00:58:10.000 So on Jesus' authority, if he really rose from the dead, then Christianity is true. 1.00

00:58:15.000 And you say, how do you know Jesus rose from the dead?

00:58:17.000 You just look at the evidence, and we cover it somewhat in the book, Hollywood Heroes.

00:58:23.000 I've seen our sister episode two, the one we did at Freedom Night.

00:58:26.000 Okay, so it'll be in there.

00:58:27.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:58:27.000 And yeah, so that's so the that's helpful for, I think, a lot of our audience members.

00:58:32.000 The book is Hollywood Heroes because that's a struggle that some people are having, which is you focus too much on the story, then you kind of do the Bill O'Reilly thing where Bill O'Reilly used to say, oh, no, no, the Bible is just a bunch of allegories, nice stories that we tell ourselves.

00:58:46.000 Yeah.

00:58:47.000 How'd you come to that conclusion?

00:58:48.000 I'd ask him.

00:58:48.000 What evidence do you have for that?

00:58:50.000 He would just say, I don't believe in miracles.

00:58:51.000 It's unrealistic.

00:58:52.000 Legends, you know, no different than Godzilla or Loch Ness monster or whatever.

00:58:59.000 That's what they would say.

00:59:00.000 Bigfoot, Paul Bunyan.

00:59:02.000 They say stories tend to be larger than lies.

00:59:05.000 Except this universe is a miracle.

00:59:06.000 It came into existence out of nothing.

00:59:08.000 Even Stephen Hawking, who was an atheist, as you know, until probably the top atheist in the world until he died about five years ago, said, almost everyone now believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning at the Big Bang.

00:59:18.000 Now, Hawking was an atheist, and he couldn't figure out how you could get this space-time continuum without God.

00:59:26.000 Just to reinforce that, don't mean to interrupt.

00:59:28.000 That is an irrefutable fact at this point.

00:59:31.000 Even an ardent atheist will believe the universe started at a moment.

00:59:34.000 Right.

00:59:35.000 Time started with it.

00:59:36.000 That's right.

00:59:36.000 Now, space, time, and matter had a beginning, ladies and gentlemen.

00:59:39.000 Whatever created space, time, and matter can't be made of space, time, and matter.

00:59:42.000 In other words, the cause must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful to create the universe out of nothing, personal in order to choose to create, because to go from a state of nothingness to a state of creation, someone had to make a choice.

00:59:54.000 Also, the being would have to be intelligent to have a mind to make a choice.

00:59:58.000 So I always ask people, Charlie, I say, look, when you think about a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, intelligent cause, who do you think of?

01:00:05.000 Harry Potter.

01:00:09.000 It's God, ladies and gentlemen.

01:00:10.000 I'm giving you a hard time.

01:00:11.000 Let me ask you the final question, which we get.

01:00:14.000 And honestly, I have my own answer to it, and it's not great.

01:00:17.000 And I just think it's a silly question. 0.89

01:00:19.000 You've heard every silly question. 0.96

01:00:20.000 Well, then who created God for him? 0.89

01:00:22.000 Well, if you don't think about it, it is a good question.

01:00:22.000 Oh, yeah.

01:00:22.000 Yeah.

01:00:25.000 But once you start thinking about it, you realize it's a bad question.

01:00:28.000 Why?

01:00:28.000 Because who created the uncreated creator?

01:00:32.000 No one.

01:00:33.000 That's the whole point.

01:00:34.000 Look, there's only two possibilities, Charlie.

01:00:36.000 Either the universe is the uncreated creator or something outside the universe is the uncreated creator.

01:00:42.000 All the evidence shows that the universe had a beginning.

01:00:45.000 In other words, it's not the uncreated creator.

01:00:47.000 So whatever created space, time, and matter has to be spaceless, timeless.

01:00:53.000 Now, if you're timeless, do you have a beginning?

01:00:55.000 Nope.

01:00:55.000 No, you is.

01:00:57.000 You are.

01:00:58.000 I am.

01:00:59.000 Yes.

01:01:00.000 You are the great I am if you're timeless.

01:01:02.000 You don't have a beginning.

01:01:04.000 So to say who created the uncreated creator is like asking a bachelor what his wife's name is.

01:01:10.000 Well, he's a bachelor.

01:01:11.000 He doesn't have a wife.

01:01:12.000 An uncreated creator doesn't have a creator.

01:01:14.000 He is the uncreated, eternal being that, say, Aristotle would call the unmoved mover.

01:01:21.000 In fact, here's the interesting thing, Charlie.

01:01:23.000 Years ago, before we discovered the universe had a beginning, go back 100 years, we didn't know the universe had a beginning.

01:01:29.000 And now we do.

01:01:30.000 Atheists had no problem believing in an eternal universe.

01:01:35.000 They thought the universe was eternal.

01:01:36.000 Had no problem at all believing that.

01:01:38.000 And now we notice the universe.

01:01:40.000 It's expanding and then it will contract.

01:01:41.000 Yeah.

01:01:42.000 And now we realize that's not the case.

01:01:43.000 It had a beginning.

01:01:44.000 It's not eternal.

01:01:45.000 But they had no problem believing the universe was eternal.

01:01:49.000 Now we're saying, okay, the universe isn't eternal, but God is.

01:01:52.000 And they go, oh, no, you can't have an eternal God.

01:01:53.000 Wait, wait, whoa, Why can you have an eternal universe, but not an eternal God?

01:01:58.000 Something has to be eternal.

01:02:00.000 You can't go on an infinite regress of causes.

01:02:02.000 So the ultimate cause is what we call the uncreated energy.

01:02:07.000 And isn't the atheist's job in some way annoyingly easy in the sense all they have to do is constantly try to poke holes and deconstruction? 0.98

01:02:14.000 Yeah, the problem is it's easy to smell a rotten egg.

01:02:17.000 It's hard to lay a better one.

01:02:18.000 You have to lay a better egg.

01:02:19.000 Tell me why this universe exists.

01:02:22.000 That's right.

01:02:22.000 Put them on defense, right?

01:02:23.000 Instead of them poking holes in everything.

01:02:25.000 That's right.

01:02:26.000 And I say to atheists, I say, look, you have the burden of proof just like I do to tell us why the universe is the way it is. 0.99

01:02:32.000 Why is there a universe at all?

01:02:34.000 Why is it fine-tuned?

01:02:35.000 Why are there objective moral values?

01:02:37.000 Even either Hitchens or Dawkins said it's the hardest one for them to respond to.

01:02:40.000 Why are there objective moral values?

01:02:42.000 Why do we have the ability to reason?

01:02:43.000 Why are there laws of logic, laws of mathematics?

01:02:46.000 Why is the universe set up on a mathematical grid?

01:02:49.000 Why are we conscious, conscious?

01:02:53.000 How did Jesus rise from the dead?

01:02:55.000 Where does all this come?

01:02:56.000 How about Old Testament prophecy?

01:02:58.000 You need to explain all of these from an atheistic perspective.

01:03:03.000 C.S. Lewis said, in order for there to be a God, one part of the Bible has to be true.

01:03:09.000 Just one thing.

01:03:11.000 Right?

01:03:12.000 In order for the atheists to be right, it must all be wrong. 1.00

01:03:14.000 Well, also, think about this, Charlie.

01:03:15.000 If atheism is true, that means every single spiritual experience and miracle claim in the history of the world.

01:03:24.000 Both pagan and Christian.

01:03:26.000 In the history of the world has to be false.

01:03:27.000 And by the way, you and I reject paganism, but I don't doubt that some of them have demonic encounters. 0.98

01:03:32.000 Not at all.

01:03:33.000 The Bible teaches that.

01:03:34.000 So if they say, you know, I saw my ancestors, I believe it.

01:03:37.000 Not a problem.

01:03:38.000 But I see through pharmake other interventions.

01:03:41.000 Yeah.

01:03:41.000 Okay.

01:03:41.000 I mean, I think you're playing with the most dangerous thing you could do.

01:03:45.000 That's right.

01:03:45.000 Yeah.

01:03:45.000 But I don't think you're lying.

01:03:47.000 That's right.

01:03:47.000 No.

01:03:48.000 Atheists is always just hallucinogenics. 0.70

01:03:50.000 Everything has to be false for atheism to be true.

01:03:53.000 Every spiritual story in the history of being, from Native American tales to the Indus River Valley, it's all wrong.

01:03:59.000 That's right.

01:04:00.000 Moses was wrong.

01:04:01.000 Jesus is wrong.

01:04:02.000 Paul is wrong.

01:04:03.000 Everybody in history has been wrong about spirituality.

01:04:06.000 Except them, because they're not.

01:04:07.000 Except the reasonable ones.

01:04:08.000 That's right.

01:04:09.000 So let's bring this back because we only have a couple minutes here.

01:04:12.000 So it's Hollywood Heroes.

01:04:13.000 How your favorite movies reveal God.

01:04:15.000 And you also have your other book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, which we don't have time to get into right now.

01:04:20.000 We have to have you back again to talk about this, but it's a lot of fun.

01:04:23.000 Talk about cross-examine as well.

01:04:24.000 Yeah, cross-examine, what we do is we present evidence for Christianity.

01:04:27.000 We cross-examine ideas against it.

01:04:29.000 We go to college campuses, high schools, and churches.

01:04:31.000 We have a podcast called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.

01:04:34.000 We have a TV show by the same name on DirecTV, Channel 378, the NRB Network.

01:04:39.000 Oh, that's awesome.

01:04:40.000 And we go to college campuses, as I mentioned.

01:04:42.000 We also have a bunch of online courses where we teach online via video, but then we also do live Zoom QA, which people really like so they can interact with the instructors.

01:04:51.000 I'm not the only instructor.

01:04:52.000 You know, we've got Gary Habermas, you know about.

01:04:55.000 He's amazing from Liberty.

01:04:56.000 He's one of the greatest.

01:04:57.000 We've got Elisa Childers.

01:04:58.000 We've got Jay Warner Wallace, Sean McDowell.

01:05:01.000 Just really quick, I know we're really ton of time.

01:05:03.000 Do you see momentum?

01:05:04.000 You've been doing this for a while.

01:05:05.000 You're starting to see more and more momentum on this.

01:05:07.000 Yes, yes.

01:05:08.000 I sure feel that way.

01:05:09.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:05:10.000 I think people are more interested in answers.

01:05:12.000 They're more interested in truth.

01:05:14.000 There's always going to be naysayers.

01:05:15.000 There's always going to be people going the other direction.

01:05:17.000 But look, Charlie, our job is to be faithful.

01:05:20.000 Just preach the truth.

01:05:21.000 Leave the results to God.

01:05:22.000 Frank Turek, everybody, cross-examine.org, Hollywood Heroes, and I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

01:05:26.000 God bless you, Frank.

01:05:27.000 Thanks, Charlie.

01:05:28.000 God bless you.

01:05:32.000 Thank you so much for listening, everybody.

01:05:33.000 Email me your thoughts as always.

01:05:34.000 Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.

01:05:36.000 Thanks so much for listening.

01:05:37.000 God bless.

01:05:41.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - July 31, 2022

Hobbits, Wizards, and the Hidden Religion Behind Hollywood Heroes with Frank Turek

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