Ask the Pastors S7 E3: "How about those KPop Demon Hunters?"

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Well, I was welcome to ask the pastor's podcast where you receive pastorally informed biblically and sensitive questions to your answers. I don't remember his thing. I'm so sorry. Questions to your answers. You nailed it.

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Questions to your answers. Keep going. I'm your host today, Austin Gooch, because Pastor Brian is out of town on vacation. Joining me is Pastor Thad.

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Hey everyone.

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And pastor Will,

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I'm really bummed I lost the rock paper scissors match. And you get to host.

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Sorry.

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You get to, I had a whole thing planned anyway. You're doing great. Take it away.

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Well, I'm hosting because I don't know anything about the actual topic at hand because as we discovered last week, I don't know anything about pop culture and this is another pop culture question. I don't actually know what the question is. I know the

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Topic. How are you going to host? You don't even know what the topic

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Is because we didn't really actually come up with a question. We had

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A topic. No, I think we did. We left you out.

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The basic topic is this Netflix movie called K-Pop Demon Hunters. Is that

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Right? Yeah. Okay. Do you think you're going to get more hate mail this week for not even knowing what this

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Was? Maybe I would rather have hate mail about K-pop demon hunters than Charlie Kirk if I had to have my choice. So that's fine. And I think the question has something to do with under what circumstances may Christians, I think children in particular dress up like characters from this movie for Halloween. Is that the basic

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Question? Yeah. I would actually love to do another one on should Christians dress up as characters

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At all? At all In

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General. In general.

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  Yeah. I think that's a good broad question, but is that the basic question that we're going to

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  Ask? That could be a different Halloween we had, Halloween was a big episode last year, two years ago, and you really look forward to that. Maybe that could be a different spin like on not just Christians celebrate Halloween, whatever, but dressing up as characters. Yeah, it came from my wife, so I'll give the context. We thought it might be more interesting than just a simple kind of SHA Christians let their kids watch

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  K-pop

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  Demon hunters. So here's the context. Well, it's the number one streamed, most streamed movie in the first week, month, whatever Of all time. All time.

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  All time. It's popular.

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  It's to say the least.

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  Okay.

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  Netflix biggest movie ever. At least again, out of the gate. We'll see if it has stake.

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  Do you think anybody that's listening has watched the movie?

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  Yes. I think everyone who's listening is not necessarily watched the movie. I think there will be some of everyone. Yeah. Who's listening is aware of it or else why would you listen to this? Well, unless they just to the podcast and live under a

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  Rock. Yeah. Like me,

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  But yeah.

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  Your host.

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  Yeah. Yeah. So

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  What's your take? What's your take?

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  Well, the context for the question is, my daughter got convinced by her cousins before we had even seen the movie. They want to go the movie's about a trio. K-pop stands for Korean pop music.

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  Okay, hold on. Do we need to say spoiler alert right now for those that haven't seen it yet, that they've been really busy and they haven't been able to K-pop themselves

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  For 90

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  Minutes or whatever and they want to do that. So do we need a spoiler alert or can you be just like trailer specific broad?

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  No, no, no. I think we spoil spoiler. Spoiler alert

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  All. So if you're just, you're on your way home, turn this off right now and then you go watch it and then I

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  Should we at least first say whether or not they should watch it?

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  I haven't seen it. I don't know if your discretion,

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  Yeah, you haven't seen it. You haven't seen it either. I'm the only one who opinion

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  Matters. I've watched 90% of it. Or have you heard 90% of it now?

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  Oh, okay.

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  Okay, okay. Very

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  Informal. Yeah, no, you

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  Mostly so I can say what I want.

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  Well just, okay, so just one word answer. Should they see it period before the spoiler? Because if we're going to tell 'em to turn it off and watch it for yourselves, we don't want to spoil it.

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  Sure. If you find this kind of movie enjoyable, I personally did not. My children have not asked to watch it. If they did, I might let my oldest with me.

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  Gotcha. Somewhat similar reaction. I don't think it's, I just, aside from any Christian, I just didn't think it was an incredible movie. Didn't blow my socks off by any means. And we can get to that. But yeah, I think that a big part is there wasn't much humor at all. At least not my, I mean maybe it's, I don't know, Korean humor, but anyway, yeah. Didn't resonate with me. And so especially

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  Which you're not the demographic, neither am I that they're trying to reach with

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  This. Right. But yeah, I do appreciate how much a lot of these animation movies recently have tried to pull the parents in and done a good job of having kind of innuendos and jokes and stuff to keep the parents involved.

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  This one just assumes that the parent is MIA or just also likes the same kind of, so there's no humor or it's just dry

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  And it is just not, again, not

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  Lighthearted or

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  Truly, I don't want to say anything racist or wrong, but I don't think it's, maybe it's not the target audience, I don't know. But yeah, I laughed

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  Once

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  The whole 94 minutes or

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  Whatever.

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  For me in a movie like this it, that's what's going to keep me interested in

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  What is the genre then. I know K-pop is a word, but that's like a music thing too, right?

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  It's a music thing.

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  Okay. So what the genre of the movie, well,

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  That's a good question. If

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  You couldn't use the word Kpop, describe the

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  Genre. It fits within the anime vein style. An

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  Anime meets musical theater.

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  There is some musical theater.

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  There's lots

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  Of, I think I would say it's more kind of just straight up animation than it is anime. Anime is even is interesting. There are points at which it cuts to kind of anime style of animation and stuff, which again, is not my thing, but is not the reason. There wasn't so much of that that it was a barrier for me. It really, yeah, it was just an

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  Animated movie with music

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  That wasn't funny. That wasn't funny. Okay.

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  But very popular,

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  But very popular. There are some bops, there are some bops in the music. Yes. The music is, if you're looking at a pros, cons list, the music is, to me by far the biggest case for the movie.

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  And what's the theme?

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  Very catchy tunes.

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  What's it all about?

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  So the theme

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  Hunting demons,

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  Sorry, let me go back real quick to the reason for the question. My daughter's cousins also at her church watch the movie want to go as this trio that the movie, I guess I should context for the movie, it's about this all girls K-pop group hunts, this trio of young adult, whatever, Korean pop stars who are musical icons, idols, stars, but who also fight demons. Apparently in this world that they've created, the demon world has to be kept at bay. And the way that that is done is through music and they give a little thing of, this goes back for ages, millennia, generations, whatever, and all these different musical groups who were tasked with keeping the demon world at bay by

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  Always three female singers.

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  Is that right?

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  I think

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  So.

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  The four ages, a trio has always held back the curtain of demonic flow.

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  Got it. Oh, I have to or at

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  Be. At least that's what they showed in the,

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  Was it? Okay. That's interesting. So maybe there's some, I don't know, symbolism, but they do this by fortifying the H moon. I think it's called, I don't know, it's probably a Korean word for something. But the H moon is like this barrier between our world and the world and the demons are trying to break through it. And the way that it's strengthened and our world is protected from demonic influence is by, I don't know, people's

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  Charting

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  Up the songs, people's hearts like joining together through the unifying power of music or something like that. I dunno.

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  They also have spiritual weapons that appear magically that they fight with.

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  Can you give an example of some of these spiritual weapons?

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  Like all listeners, a sword

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  Throwing

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  Knives.

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  Oh, so it's like a material

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  Thing that crosses the barrier that can and hits a demon, send demons back on the other side of the H moon who cross through the barrier. Yep. Got it. Okay.

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  So anyway,

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  So songs are not enough. You need music plus spiritual weapons.

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  If they come through, they have to, the way they send them back is through these weapons. Got it.

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  Is that like an Armor of God type thing? I don't know. We'll get to that. But one of the Christian reviews I was reading was talking about how this whole idea of the home moon or whatever that keeps the demon world at bay is very similar to the idea of the kingdom of God that Jesus talks about and the light that is advancing

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  In

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  The world and pushing back the darkness. And so there's definitely, there's tons of, a lot of the lyrics are very spiritual, obviously demons, there's talk about sin, there's a lot of talk about shame.

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  There's a lot of talk about idols. They don't necessarily talk about idolatry, but I mean I think that's definitely a sub theme as well where they're these superstars and most of the three good girls, and then there's this demon boy band. That's how the demon world has been unsuccessful at destroying them in the home moon. And so this one character gnu, who is like the male demon slash kind of protagonist thing, complicated character, whatever, he's a demon, but he hatches this plan, okay, here's how we'll fight him. We'll create a male demon boy band and we'll come and we'll steal their fans.

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  And their last, I said, their last song of the movie was your idol. We want to be your idol. We've already won your hearts. Now we want to win your souls. So there's a lot of spiritual motifs and sub motifs running through it. But Polly's question was again, not just should we watch it with our case? I'll just say flat out in general, I have a very, I think lax standard on that as far as I'll watch lots of things with my kids for the sake of being able to start conversations and disciple them. And I'm going to hope that if I have any merit at all as a father, that our conversation after it and my sort of take on the film is going to hold more weight in their eyes than whatever that kind of message that the film was trying to get across might've been like me helping them discern. Okay, what do you think the message of the movie was? And it was interesting. We already watched it as a family and I asked my kids dad, and Elijah doesn't know Bo, he was laying, laying on the dog, but ellerie her take on it again, she's nine. And so she definitely did not pick up on

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  Most of what me and Polly and whoever other Christian adult would pick up on. And that's fine, but it gave us an opportunity to explain, but less so the question of should Christian parents watch this, let their kids watch this, whatever. I to me say yes to that. I think that, yeah, the question where it gets interesting is let your daughter dress up as one of the three, and now E's got plans for Elijah to be the Gnu the guy and Bo's going to be the tiger and all this. I mean, it's a weird movie, but because then that's a different level now, it seems like you're celebrating or you are at least tacitly. Well, no, I mean probably more explicitly approving of this movie in some way if you're going to let your kid dress up like the characters from it.

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  So under what conditions do you think that it would be permissible to dress up as one of the characters and under what conditions would you say best avoided? Or do you say that there's really no, it's either you can or you can't.

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  So now we, before we get to that, should we now answer your earlier question of what is the theme, the message of the movie?

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  Sure.

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  I think to me that that's going to inform whether or not how you make those determinations.

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  So

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  What is the theme

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  Of the

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  Movie?

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  What would you say?

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  A singular theme

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  Or I don't know, a couple of themes.

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  How would you go about, I don't know if I could limit it to just one. I do think that it was not surprising to me this idea of shame being a major theme of the movie, of the main character hiding that she's also part demon and yet fighting back these demons and is ashamed of it and hiding it from others. And again, the three main female singers all having their own insecurities and part of their resolve towards the end is the, even in our insecurities, we can find ways to still love each other. Work past that. I would say, again, ripped off the greatest story ever told, there's always this battle between light and darkness. And again, we view that differently from a Christian perspective as well, is that there is a way for the light, the goodness to overcome the darkness, even if it seemed unlikely or improbable towards the end of the movie, that it seems like all hope is lost in that.

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  Yeah, the head demon, whatever his name is, has through the boy band, has kind of stolen the fans, blinded them to the, and now they're singing the song. Now we want your souls and you almost start to see soul, the animation, these souls coming out of the chest of the people in the audience and start going toward the demon world thing, I think. Yeah, to me I think it might be helpful to just, so there's a final song at the very end of the movie.

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  Can you s it for us real quick?

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  I'm not going to sing it, but it's called what it sounds like is the title of the song, what it sounds like. And I think that the lyrics of that song and the message are the takeaway message of the movie. So if I could just quickly read those lyrics and then maybe it might be helpful then to be able to respond to,

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  I'd rather you sing it, but that's okay.

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  I don't know the tune well enough yet. I'll keep listening to it on repeat, but so this is Rumi, the main character who, like you said, the big thing there that I left out, yeah. Is the secret. She is part demon, maybe half demon, her dad, I don't know, something. Her dad was a demon. Her dad was a demon. Did her mom die? I can't remember. She was raised by her aunt or something. And her aunt's whole thing was like, you got to hide because the demons have marks. They have these, they look like tiger stripes, patterns like blue patterns they call 'em. But these blue kind of strike looking

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  Things. I recall more of this movie than I thought I would.

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  Yeah, man, it's for children. It's not that complicated. That's new favorite movie. But she's been told you got to hide 'em. You got to hide your patterns. So she's always wearing long cloak and whatever. So anyway, here's her last and then the other two, Mira and Zoe or whatever, the other two, they come in and join her halfway through the second verse or something, and their voices are in harmony. And now they're singing together and they're realizing we all have shame. We've all been hiding certain things. So here's what they say, nothing but the truth now, nothing but the proof of what I am, the worst of what I came from patterns. I'm ashamed of things that I even, I don't understand. I tried to fix it. I tried to fight it. My head was twisted, my heart divided, my lies all collided. I don't know why I didn't trust you to be on my side.

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  I broke into a, this is the course I broke into a million pieces and I can't go back. But now I'm seeing all the beauty in the broken glass. The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony. My voice without the lies. This is what it sounds like. Why did I cover up the colors stuck inside my head. I should have let the jagged edges meet the light instead, show me what's underneath. I'll find your harmony. The song we couldn't write, this is what it sounds like. They had been trying earlier in the movie to write the perfect song that was going to seal the H moon forever. It was going to turn golden. And then the demons would never, ever, ever be able to come back into our world again. We couldn't write the song, we couldn't find the perfect lyrics to do it, but we couldn't write. But this is what it sounds like now. The perfect song is I'm bringing my full self shame and all patterns and all and coming to this place of acceptance rather than trying to keep on hiding it and fighting it, fighting the darkness within me. Okay, so I'm back to the song now.

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  Second verse. We're shattering the silence. We're rising, defiant, shouting in the quiet. You're not alone. We listened to the demons, we let them get between us, but none of us are out here on our own. So there was a scene toward the end where the demons come in and trick ruy and they strip her coat off her and they expose her and all the fans see her patterns and then her bandmates band mates turn their back on her. But interestingly, they do it not because you're a demon and now we hate you, but because you lied to us,

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  Why didn't you just tell us who you really were? You've been lying to us all these years. Okay, back to you're not alone. We listened to the demon. Oh yeah, yeah. But none of us is out here on our own. So we were cowards, so we were liars. So we're not heroes. We are still survivors, the dreamers, the fighters. No lying, I'm tired, but dive in the fire and I'll be right here by your side. And then the chorus again, I broke into a million pieces, can't go back. Seeing all the beauty in the broken glass. Scars are a part of me, darkness and harmony, my voice without the lies. This is what it sounds like. And then the second part about the color stuck in my head, but then the refrain that is repeated actually the most in the second chorus and then the rest is fearless and undefined. This is what it sounds like, fearless and undefined. This is what it sounds like. So here's my take on it,

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  It being undefined,

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  I think it's very undefined. I think it is a jumbled mess of spirituality and emotion and angst and longing and yearning all bound up in an attempt at something deep and meaningful that if you actually read, which I want to be very clear, I did not spend hours and hours thinking and meditating on these lyrics today. I mean, maybe if I did, I could pull some really deep truth meaning out of it. I mean maybe for the secular humanist or the non theist, maybe for today's modern secular person, I'm sure this will become an anthem. I'm sure that

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  It will touch people deep in their souls in some way because there are probably some half truths that we could really dig out, celebrate half of what was just said in the lyrics of this song and in the message of this movie about certainly sin and shame not having to define us, certainly in terms of bringing darkness to the light, bringing our broken parts of us to the light. I think it's a matter, obviously for us, as you said, of how you do that, why you do and what you characterize as the light for us, obviously it's the Lord and his love and all of that. I mean, yes, community too, but that's I think the best answer that the movie is. It's all about finding harmony and acceptance, both for myself accepting the broken parts of me, but also from you there is that there is still a communal thing, that there's some beauty and some truth in that where it's like, I should have trusted you to still love me even though I'm broken. And so again, there's a lot of have truths in there that a Christian could sing and celebrate, but

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  Which I would just add. You mentioned how you watch this with your kids. I would just exhort our parents that you should do that, watch things with your kids so that you can have these conversations so that you can help them defeat the lies of half truths and also take these half truths to Well, that's partially true. Let me point you to where the full truth is. That's just an aside on that real quick.

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  Yeah. So I guess my first question is are what are the things that we can affirm in the message? There are, I mean, clearly some points that make

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  Demons are real.

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  Demons are real.

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  They are new boy bands, boy bands. Well, they might be,

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  But I'm thinking about Paul on Mars Hill where he does yes, but no, and he does such a great job in that moment of yes, on these things, but no on these. So what's the, yes, first there is some common grace that's operative in this story in which we can say, yeah, some of this comes in contact with the story of the gospel. What are those?

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  Well, it's really interesting that the whole movie, again, there's spiritual, not just undertones, but I mean it is overt. We're fighting against demons. That's the premise of the movie.

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  And the majority of people are unaware of the spiritual forces going on around them. They're not aware of the demons coming in trying to steal their souls,

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  Right? Yeah.

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  And I just think it's interesting. I mean, all the kind of surveys over the last year or two, I don't know how long it's been or showing a huge, I think rise and spike in interest in spiritual things. I mean, for years people have polled and said, I'm spiritual, but not religious. No one really knows what that means. But I think even more so here recently with young people has been one of the interesting things with young people seemingly getting more and more interested in the spiritual world. So I mean that, again, to go back to your question, I think if nothing else, it's giving a very open door for us to discuss spiritual things, the demonic and how

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  This is not what demons are really like versus

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  This is, but how the spiritual world interacts with and touches our material world, not just with our kids but with others. Because again, this is a cultural phenomenon and it's not just with kids. I mean, I've read multiple things about how popular this movie has been with 20 somethings, for instance. Maybe that's a delayed failure to launch delayed adolescence or adulthood. But

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  I do think that it's interesting that this theme of shame is so high, and I wonder if it's coming from two directions. Number one is that Asian cultures are shame historically, more honor, shame. But before we say that, they're honor shame. And I don't know that that's the case anymore. Because now with the advent of the internet, the phenomenon of tar and feather is basically the same because of Twitter. And so I bet a lot of young people probably resonate with that because there is public shaming on things like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and whatever else. So for them needing some kind of cure, some kind of an antidote from the sense of shame is probably really, really high.

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  Absolutely. Yeah. Feeling like there's parts of me that I have to hide to be loved and accepted. I think that is probably the story of not just in some ways, not just the Gen z, gen alpha, whatever, but for us, for anyone and not just as a child either, but as an adult, to what extent do we feel that pressure to hide certain parts of us in order to find love and acceptance. So yeah, I mean I think that, oh, that word, they're touching on

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  That word acceptance I think is so key because there is a yes and no. I think to the acceptance part of that story, because even to the Christian story, there is in a sense that we do accept our broken parts or our sinful nature. We don't leave it there, but we don't say that it doesn't exist.

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  And

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  That's a key step in coming to faith in Christ is the acknowledgement that I'm in fact a sinner. And so I do like that there's at least this acknowledgement of, not that I just am wounded in some way or I didn't just meet the market some way, but there actually are, it sounded like in the song actual, again, I didn't say this movie, but actually parts of me that actually have perhaps been at fault. Did you say that there's the actual language of sin in the movie?

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  Yeah, there's at least one of the songs talks about sin. I had have to go look up all the lyrics to all the songs, but

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  Yeah. Do you want to move from thing to costumes?

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  Well,

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  I have so many things I'd like to say one all will save for the very end.

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  What are the other yeses? Are there other yeses?

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  Other yeses in there? Again, we have spiritual forces, light, darkness, shame, brokenness. I would also just add in there the relief that comes with sharing brokenness or shame, bringing it to the light. I think so much more needs to happen in our own Christian walks of being comfortable sharing our brokenness and then finding healing in the gospel and from others and letting 'em know our story so they can also be encouraged.

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  What are the nos? Give us the nos.

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  Well, hold on. You want to get more? Yes, yes. I have a yes and no

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  Sort of thing at the same time. Yeah. How about his? Yes. No transition than we go to your Yes,

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  After. I don't care. I was just going to say community. That was when I asked Elle, what do you think friendship? What do you think their message was in this movie? What do they want you to take away from it? She said, yeah, she said the importance of friends. Yeah. Because again, where it fell apart for her, Remy was where she was exposed and then her friends left. And then how she was able to conquer the demon and fight back was when she chose to own up and come to the light and be her true self. And she found that love and acceptance. She wasn't sure she would, but she did. And not only that, but her friends are also saying, Hey, I was scared too. I'm insecure. I've been mean to people. I don't know, whatever their broken parts are. And so we're all bringing our brokenness together and we find strength in community and in relationship with one another. But again, again, we're going to say that's different than that's far short. I mean, that's not enough. I mean, this is going to be the next anthem, like Wicked was for the LGBT lgbtq. No, I can't believe we didn't do one on Wicked.

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  I had the lyrics pulled up as a comment later. So we're on this direction,

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  It wasn, but I mean it's going to be the next anthem for the LG BT Q community. It's like, hey, they say we're broken. I felt like I had to hide all this inside, but I can just bring my full self and find acceptance with y'all. And we love each other in community and all of that. But again, I mean the best version of all of that is the church. It is like I can come to my life group, I can come to my discipleship group and I don't have to come pretending to be the perfect faira whatever Christian hypocrite thing. I can be honest about my sins, my struggles, my shortcomings, all that. And Jesus still loves me through it. He loved me enough to die for him. And so if you can't love me and accept me warts and all, then what are we really doing here? So

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  Yeah, my yes no, where problematic is way too strong. And I think a lot of this comes down to Christian conscience is another thing we've not said is the power of music and influence on it,

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  Influence that it has on us. Where you read at least one song where it's a jumbled mess. And again, my kids haven't watched it. I don't plan to watch it again if they ask maybe unless I can produce something better, this is a much better movie for us to watch, which is a different thing. Problematic, strong. Again, I don't think anyone's, I could be wrong. I think families in our church, if kids are watching it, they're most likely not assuming this is what's spiritual warfares like this is not what demons are like. But again, it does do something of making light of the demonic in some ways of like, yeah, it's kind of like a boy pott band. I think the question framed differently of should we let Elijah, not we, I'm not Hispanic, I don't have a say in this, but dress is one of the demons in the movie versus one of the Rumi or

  (34:03):

  Whoever. That's different.

  (34:04):

  I think that's, for me, that's a different question of, so

  (34:08):

  Here. Interesting. Let's go back to the movie for a minute. The closest thing you get, I was talking about this with somebody the other day in just the movie and your take, and they said the thing that stood out to them most about it was the lack of a Christ figure. Because the salvation was in you accepting yourself and being accepted by the community. And then it's all these fans, the whole stadium fans, voices and souls joining together is one that initially their souls were going toward the demon world. But then Rumi comes in and she sings the song I just quoted, and then their souls start showing. And I think if you watch closely in the thing, you start to see patterns on all of them too. Everybody's got some of the mark, the pattern, but that sin, that shame. But then their souls come and they just circle around her, and that's what empowers her as all our souls and our voices joining as one and that sort of thing now. But I was

  (35:14):

  Going to say was there is with Jeanie

  (35:15):

  Moment, the closest thing. Yeah, the closest thing you actually have though, to a Christ figure is then even with all of that, even with all everybody's souls and voices, she goes and she tries to slay the demon. She cuts it in half, it comes back together, it spews its fire at her. She blocks it and she's starting Rumi, starting to, she's about to get, I don't know, engulfed, inflamed and maybe turn into a full demon or whatever, who knows? But then G knew that demon from who tricked her

  (35:52):

  Earlier,

  (35:53):

  Who tricked her and betrayed her. They had a whole thing, we're going to be in this together. He deceived her, but he changes his mind and he comes in and he steps in between her and the demon and he takes the fire and she's like, no. And he's like, you saved me my, I think he says, my soul, you saved my soul. And then he says, so now I'm giving it to you. It's a whole weird,

  (36:23):

  That's going to be a little hard to,

  (36:25):

  Yeah, in addition to the, it's the

  (36:27):

  Closest you kind of get

  (36:29):

  In addition to the demons, there's also the souls, the whole souls thing. But again, it's all spiritual. And so there's room for correcting and helping our kids understand like, hey, this is someone who doesn't really understand how souls and demons and things work, but it opens a conversation for us to talk about it. So anyway, but the Christ figure, I thought you mentioned that with Elijah being genius, but he's the closest thing to get to and he's a demon, so that's a whole nother like, whoa. I mean this is, but he gets his soul back. So he is kind of like, okay, did he stop being a demon there in that moment? I don't know. It's a weird world they've created. But what else were you going to say about it? I cut you off.

  (37:18):

  Just my short plug for I really wish there were better Christian movies. Hot take. I think they're all garbage. So

  (37:27):

  I'm trying to think of,

  (37:28):

  I wish there were good Christian movies to watch. I'm also not against watching movies period, but that's just my own hot take. We wouldn't have to have conversations like this if there were better Christian movies or better movies in general.

  (37:43):

  Yeah, I enjoy Joy.

  (37:48):

  Oh, no, no, I remember what I was going to say. Go ahead. Related slightly different. I think we did this when we talked about Halloween, about dressing up in general is of what we're dressing up, people dressing up as the devil, scani clad ish people dressing up in just gruesome manners. All of those I think we can agree, probably unacceptable for Christians to do where what we're talking about is like, okay, this is a character from a children's movie, which is again, a lesser layer to that lesser degree. You

  (38:39):

  Had another question?

  (38:40):

  Did y'all want to dunk on the movie with more nos as things that we don't accept from it? It's themes,

  (38:47):

  You might, we've kind of touched on it

  (38:49):

  Throughout. Or do you want to move to, can we, under what conditions might we have our children dressed up in costumes from

  (38:59):

  King, specifically Will's children? Yeah, specifically. I have a child debating about a peacock costume right now. So

  (39:06):

  I vote yes on the peacock. I think that's all, unless

  (39:10):

  It's a stellar,

  (39:11):

  Stellar

  (39:12):

  Choice.

  (39:12):

  We were talking about that. Yeah,

  (39:14):

  That's an NBC.

  (39:15):

  You were very against the peacock. We're like, is that Yeah, NBC, I thought the lips were boycotting A, B, C. So

  (39:21):

  I'm boycotting,

  (39:22):

  I don't know,

  (39:23):

  Mostly. So I don't have two peacock costumes. That's my issue.

  (39:26):

  Gotcha. Yeah, for me, at the end of the day, I don't know, I want to talk more with Polly about it, talk more with the kids about it.

  (39:46):

  I think, honestly, to be honest, here's some of my thoughts about it is some of my thoughts of why I don't like the costume are less to do with the movie. It's the fact that I think, I don't think it's a movie that's going to have staying power. I don't think that it's going to be a little mermaid, lion King, whatever that 20 years from now, anybody will know. I don't know that those kinds of movies are made anymore anyway, and everybody just needs what's now instead of what's good. So maybe that's a relevant point. I'm just thinking even 20 years from now, we look at the back of the pictures and we're like, what is that What? That's stupid. Don't want to spend money on it. I guess it's funny with her two cousins, I guess. I don't know that someone drew names out of a hat for who was going to be what costume or which of the three characters. And they could not be more wrong for the ones that got picked to them from the girls' personality to the character, they're planning to whatever dress up. We'll see if we let Elle be, they might be a duo and not a trio.

  (41:11):

  We'll have to

  (41:11):

  Do a follow up

  (41:12):

  Episode

  (41:13):

  Afterwards. Yeah, we'll see. So I mean it's reasons like that. If I was going to make, for me, in some ways the strongest, the best case for why we might let 'em dress up, this is to have conversations with our neighbors about spiritual things because it is like we can put 'em in

  (41:38):

  A bunny of

  (41:39):

  Donkey Lion King. Yeah. What a peacock a dog. But it's like when you dress him up like a demon, no, I mean he is a demon, but he's not a creepy demon like the others. And again, he says

  (41:54):

  As far, far as demons go, a pretty good demon.

  (41:56):

  Same with Rumi. She's only half demon. But again, it's at the end. And I think even with the demon thing, it's interesting because there's obviously there's the spiritual,

  (42:05):

  But there is also, we use that language in the addiction world as well, battling your demons. And I think that's more of what probably this movie is touching on is when it comes to, again, your shame and your secrets and what you hide, the parts of you that you hide about yourself is those inner demons, my addiction, my whatever. So I think that's probably more so how they're even kind of symbolizing or playing out. But anyway, I think the bigger case for me would be, does this give us an opportunity even to, yeah, because all of our neighbors with kids anyway, who we go trick or treating, they will have seen the movie and it gives an opportunity to, oh, you like, what'd you think of the movie? And man that's like, man, that's all right. That's a straight shot into, well, lemme tell you what I thought of the movie and the message and in what ways it overlaps with, but doesn't tell the full picture of the gospel and

  (43:18):

  Harder to do a toy story even

  (43:19):

  Better. Yeah, exactly.

  (43:20):

  It is harder to do.

  (43:21):

  Exactly.

  (43:21):

  And so other movies have been expressive individualism in different kinds of, I'm going to look down at me, I'm going to accept it and express it outwardly. But this one at least has the added benefit of something transcendental. It actually has the added benefit of spiritualism and there's just other pros and cons or whatever. And to your point, this may not be a movie anybody cares about in 20 years, but at least it does bring the spiritual issue out onto the table.

  (43:43):

  Yep, exactly. So that's my best case for it. If we end up letting them do it, that would be why. But yeah, there's a lot of reasons not to as well.

  (43:56):

  Let me ask you this. If you were lean towards, no, is it more because of the character is either partially demon or kind of demon, or is it more because of the message of self-acceptance?

  (44:11):

  I think both. I think both are problematic. Again, problems can be solved, but we will see whether or not this one can be but problematic in that sense. I think both have to be strongly factored, considered in the same way that would I let my kid dress up in a little Satan costume? No, it would be fitting for Bo would be

  (44:43):

  Very fitting. Would you let a kid dress up as a Jesus character?

  (44:47):

  Oh, that's a whole nother, see, we got so many riffs on the Halloween episode. We could do just a whole month long lead up to Halloween

  (44:57):

  Coming to you

  (44:58):

  Next month.

  (44:59):

  Well, okay, so let's just say that's what I was going to ask a question.

  (45:03):

  But the message, I think the message is the bigger

  (45:04):

  One

  (45:05):

  To me. I think to me it's like when you let your kid do it, it's like someone in this family, whether it was the kid or the adult, was like their heart was singing

  (45:17):

  To this movie, that last song, this is what it sounds like, man, Elsa's Let It Go. Or Elsa, I used her as a function bag in a lot of sermons, but to frozen's credit on the expressive individualism that is midway through the movie, let It Go. And then it comes around and at the end she does have to, there is a communal thing and Ana comes back in and anyway, we'll get back to this movie. Hate on the movies or again, forgive on some of the movies one at a time, but demon hunters. Yeah, I think the message is actually is more problematic,

  (46:01):

  More problematic than

  (46:02):

  A frozen or a toy story. I mean, it's the world we live in. It's getting more and more so that way. But yeah, that's the hurdle for me. I have to figure out if I am getting over

  (46:18):

  Any final comments,

  (46:21):

  Just one. If the Gospel Coalition wants to hire me, I will write Jesus the Greater Demon Hunter article review for them. I

  (46:31):

  Don't know why that hasn't been written yet,

  (46:33):

  Because I've not pitched it to him.

  (46:35):

  That's it. Well, I was just on a call with him right before we recorded this and I should have done it, but my editor, Jerry Kennedy was on the call too, and I already owe him an article that I pitched two months ago and still haven't written. But that would be a good one. Someone needs to, I mean, it's the most stream movie of all time. I don't know why TGC

  (46:56):

  Hasn't come out with I

  (46:59):

  Did too. I didn't too.

  (46:59):

  Yeah, it's a missing thing into, again, highlight. It's a great title. Highlight all of hunters, highlight all of those problematic things and then show it in the light of biblical redemptive story.

  (47:12):

  Yeah, it's a better story. It's a way better story. It It's a jumbled mess. Sorry, gospel's a better story.

  (47:22):

  Thank you for fixing the pronoun

  (47:24):

  K-pop is just I

  (47:30):

  You thought it was going to

  (47:31):

  Be, there is enough truth there that people's hearts are going to be singing. Yes, they're going to be resonating, but I don't think they're going to know why, because there's not enough truth to actually connect him to Jesus. I mean, yeah, he is. He's the demon hug. He's the one that can kill the sin, the shame bring it to the light. Like you said, it's an important step.

  (47:55):

  Oh yeah, it's huge.

  (47:55):

  It's step one of the 12 step. You got to admit you're powerless and hey, I'm a sinner. I'm broken. I need help. But you got to 11 more steps to go. You do. You got to know the one who can fix it.

  (48:08):

  And so if you're listening to this podcast and you're in a part of our church and you got something in the closet and you need to come and bear it to somebody, that is what this church is for. I want to make sure that we always continually push on that message

  (48:27):

  And that I think enough time goes by and people begin to think everyone else is around here is getting holier than I am, and I got this and it's crushing me. And I know if I say it, you're going to be as disgusted with me as I am. And I hope that everybody knows that we here believe in the gospel and that the goodness of the work of Jesus is enough to cover over that. And you're able to be loved by him and loved and accepted by us, and not remain as you are, but to change.

  (48:49):

  That's right. That's the piece.

  (48:52):

  What's missing in the story. It can't just be, I accept you for who you are, it's that we can all come and

  (48:56):

  New creation.

  (48:57):

  New creation, man.

  (48:58):

  Yeah.

  (48:59):

  On that note, shall we wrap it up?

  (49:01):

  Let's do it.

  (49:02):

  Thank you for listening to Ask the Pastor's podcast. Can't wait. That's a wrong one till Pastor Brian comes back. He actually knows how to start us and end us, but if you have your questions, please submit them online or send us an email because our hopper of questions is getting low. Until next time, Lord bless.