Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Go ahead and get us into the. Think fast.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Yeah, so we were talking about kind of what's going on right now. The biggest thing kind of in the church circles that we thought was worth discussing was about Phil Robertson passing away. The.
He is of course well known for his work on Duck Dynasty, the TV show. Duck Commander was the company that he started selling duck calls, of course. And man from about 2011 to. And I might have the dates wrong but it felt like about 2011 to 2015, 2016. That show, Duck Dynasty was the rage in the Church of Christ. It was a big deal because they were loosely quotes Church of Christ. And so everybody was super excited about that. Phil was pretty well known for. He, he got blasted by the media quite a bit for taking stands on homosexuality and a lot is other context stuff like that over a decade ago that he kind of got in the news for outside of the Church of Christ circles. But yeah, he passed away. It was very sad. He was struggling I think with a type of cancer and a blood disorder or something like that and passed away.
A lot of debate going, going around because the, the reason I use quotes for Church of Christ earlier is that he was at a. He was an elder at a place that was referred to as Church of Christ, allowed women speakers. I didn't do a ton of digging but as far as I know they were okay with instruments.
And so that's not really the point of this debate. What I kind of wanted to get to was guys, how careful should we be with this idea of Christian quote unquote entertainment? Because we've talked before about stuff like the Chosen which is still very popular.
There's obviously the Kendrick Brother pure flicks type movies where um, great wholesome movies that are very God centered but denominational feel to them. And there's. There's a bunch of them. God is not dead. Fireproof, Courageous, Facing the Giants. Those are pretty old now.
[00:01:58] Speaker C: Angel Studios is popping them out like four a year.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Overcomer. Like there's, there's a lot now. You're right. War room. Keep going. But what are Yalls thoughts on that? I guess my main question is like how wary of Christian Christendom entertainment should you be? Because I guess the fear would be you take somebody like a Duck Dynasty star. Maybe it's not Phil, maybe it's Willie or Sadie the daughter, whoever it is that like you can have these young people that kind of idolize them and you know, don't seem to have everything nailed down fully. And you think about the Christian movies As well that I just brought up, like, great movies that might have a wrong message in. Do you guys think it's better to just stay away from them altogether or.
Typically, I know we are all spit out the bones people. As far as other things go. Are you. Do you include stuff like Duck Dynasty or Christian movies like that in the spit out the bones category? What would y' all say?
[00:02:49] Speaker C: I think one of the great things about Duck Dynasty was that it was so much better entertainment value wise, than so much of that other stuff out there. It was not. It was very clear they were Christian. Every episode ended with a prayer. And it was one of the few prayers you would see on TV that was prayed in Jesus name.
They were very clear about that. But the show was not. I mean, God's not dead. Those things are just so in your face.
Yeah, well, the message is just not. It's not like good art. It's Christianity and then putting some art, you know, so putting some entertainment with it rather than entertainment that they are Christians while they do it. And I think that that's a really valuable thing. In the same way he was a businessman. He didn't have to put a fish, you know, little logo on the thing to make it. But integrity and doing it right way and being open about your faith and using the success of the business to, you know, lead people into the Baptistry and things like that. That's the right way to do these things. And so I appreciate that a lot more than some of the more explicitly Christian cultural stuff. Obviously, if somebody's doing like a Bible story, you know, that's a separate thing. But these movies where they're trying to make entertainment, but every time it just comes back down to, you know, shoving the gospel is the point of the story. And it's like, not flat. Yeah, we can make stuff without just putting the Christian message right up front. Because you look at how, like, the other side does it, they just include it as a matter of course. When they. They put LGBT themes and things like that. Now they've gotten really bad about it where it is just shoved in your face. Nobody goes for that like, it's you. You have to just make it as part of it as normal. Does that make sense?
[00:04:26] Speaker A: That's a great point.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Makes perfect sense. I think it's. Yeah, that's a very, very good point. That also comes with being an A E show. They had a bigger budget, you know, script writers, things like that that I think are.
But it actually dovetails with our point last week about Joe Rogan. Of having Christians in these places that can then go out and talk about Christianity in a well spoken perspective. And well spoken is kind of goofy for Duck Dynasty. But on the other hand, they did. I think it's a.
I like that point, Jack. Of the point of that. And what you're trying to say is like, it's a normal part of life. We want to make it a normal part of life instead of, hey, here's a distinctly Christian thing. It's like, no, we're living life, we're having a good time, we're business owners, we're doing this. And yes, we're highly Christian. It makes Christianity, we talk about like the normal normative principle like that. That's the normal thing. It makes it feel more normal. Very much to your point. Like the homosexuals, of course there's a gay character on there. Like, why not? Why wouldn't there be? Like, we want that with Christianity where it just dovetails with reality. Of course the family praise. Yeah, of course we do. Like, it's just natural. That's. Why would we not type of thing rather than it's very Christian and nobody else really does this, but we're really Christ now. We're normal and we are Christian.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: There's a genuineness to it that I think is kind of what I'm taking away from that comment, Joe. And that's, to be honest, that's why Phil and the rest of them were pretty appealing to a lot of people, is there was a genuineness to it did not feel forced, it did not feel fake where some of that other stuff does. And that's not to, for me personally, it's not to cast aspersions on some of those other movies and stuff like it. I think it's a very noble thing that they're trying to do. Jack, I think your point is very well taken. That is the Duck Dynasty show seem to pull it off a lot better. And I think the genuineness of we are here living our lives and CR and Christianity and serving God is a huge part of that.
As opposed to as you're, as you're kind of saying like structuring everything around this one message that we're trying to get across, it just lands with people better. And so yeah, I thought that was, that's a good, very good point you make there.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: We also got to be able to spit out the bones, as you said, because on things like Facing the Giants, it's health and wealth gospel. Everything goes well and then they lose the game. Oh man, we lost the Game. Oh, whoa, whoa. They were cheating. All right. We get to, you know, like. Yeah, sorry. Spoiler alert for anybody that hasn't watched so like a 20 year old movie.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: But came out, like, doesn't seven or something.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a long time ago. But it's those type of things that kind of can be subtle for Christians if we're not paying attention to it. Sometimes it's the lie closest to the truth that does the most harm. That's where we have to pay attention on these Christian things. It's like Prince of Egypt. They throw subtle things in and like, hey, they got a Christian movie. And all these kids would come in and we've talked about it before, but these kids would come into my mom's first grade class. That's not how it happened when she's talking about Joseph. Like, absolutely, that's how it happened. Okay, so that's not just because Hollywood portrays it that way, but it's a lie closest to the truth. Yeah, a lot of biblical truth.
A little bit that we threw in there. And that's the danger of something, in my opinion, like the chosen, which is sure. Biblical truth. He's quoting straight scripture in some of it. And then there's a lot of chosen.
[00:07:19] Speaker C: They would never take creative license.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Not at all. Yeah, so then there's. Yeah, exactly. The creative license element to it that you just got to be very careful for. And we need to be discerning as Christians to pick up on the themes, the health and wealth gospel, like in Facing the Giants, the subtle additions to scripture. Wow. You know, this is amazing. I didn't know that Joseph went out and, and played volleyball or, you know, weird stuff. It's like, I didn't know that was in there, you know. Yeah, I know it's not in there, but that's what I'm talking about is like weird stuff that get thrown in. And then you get kids coming in Bible class thinking that Joseph played volleyball. It's like, what?
So be careful on those things.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: And the last thing I'll say is, you know, how many shows that I would so much prefer my kids watch Duck Dynasty over, regardless of the, you know, the quibbles that people have with, with some of the stuff that they taught or whatever. It is, like, there's a lot of bad shows out there, man. There's a lot of entertainment options that are just horrendous and horrific. And so that, to me was the appeal of it as well. And I think a good legacy that was left is like very good, clean family friendly entertainment, which I think is valuable. So my answer to my question would be spit out the bones with it. But I think it's perfectly fine.
[00:08:26] Speaker C: One final thing is he held the line. He said, we're going to say Jesus's name. We're not going to do this, we're not going to do that, we're not going to curse, we're not going to.
That's a great way for Christians to engage with the world. So a very good example on that part specifically. So that's going to wrap up our Think fast. The rest of the podcast comes out on Monday.
If you're catching the end of the podcast right here, right now on I've got to figure out how to stick the landing on these where I'm ending a podcast and a preview podcast at the same time. But you guys get the idea. The podcast topic on Monday is Levels of Heaven, Levels of Hell, so should be one to look out for. And if you're catching this at the end of the podcast, thanks for listening and we'll talk to you guys on the next one.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: Sam.
