B (2:07)

Absolutely. It is. It is really cool to, like, see behind the curtain, and there's a whole thriving community that's very thoughtful, very engaged, and so I think that's a big payoff for a lot of people.

A (2:19)

It is. And you are officially a part of it now because we have the Drew's newsletter, which is free. It's not. You don't have to be a Holy Post plus subscriber to get that. And it's great. Comes out once a week, and it's your musings from things you found all over the Internet and a dose of humor and a little bit of snark and some Canadian perspective, and it's been really good. I. I get it, obviously, but there's a lot of email newsletters I do not open. I open yours. True. I thank you.

B (2:44)

That is. That's the highest honor because, yeah, everyone gets a lot of newsletters, so if they open and read mine, I'm like, that's a. Yeah, it is a win.

A (2:52)

And that's why you're here today, because once a month you come on my show and we do a roundup of various things going on around the Internet that you want to talk about. So what have you brought to us today?

B (3:02)

All right. Okay. First off, since it's Christmas, this is a Christmas themed story. You know, every year there is a raging debate, at least online and in my house, about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, which we have settled that here. You settle that. Okay.

A (3:17)

Oh, totally. It is definitely a Christmas movie.

B (3:20)

Welcome to the right side of history. I'm totally with you. So, okay, so that's been settled. But now that that's last. So last year there's a new debate and it's. This is Home Alone, not a Christmas movie.

A (3:32)

Because it clearly is that. Yeah.

B (3:34)

Is it a Christian movie? And there was one gentleman, Jeremy Tate. Not exactly sure who he is, but he went online to make his case. Do you want to hear it?

A (3:43)

I do want to hear it.

B (3:44)

It's pretty. It's pretty inspiring and pretty convincing, at least to me.

A (3:46)

I just pulled it up. So I'm looking at this as you tell us. Yes.

B (3:49)

So Jeremy writes, Kevin, that is the kid, Right? Macaulay Culkin's character is drawn to the beauty and warmth of the church as he walks inside. Oh, holy night. He hears the words, fall on your knees. Oh, hear the angels voices. A sanctuary candle passes across the foreground, indicating that Christ is present inside the church. Kevin then has an encounter with a Christ figure, Old man Marley. You remember this dude?

A (4:13)

Yeah, his neighbor.

B (4:14)

Neighbor, yeah. Yes. Or he seems scary. Kevin makes a confession to him, then shakes his hand. And we see a bandage on Marley's hand. This is where it gets weird. Sky.

A (4:24)

Okay.

B (4:24)

It's never explained why his hand is wounded, but earlier in the movie, we see that his hand was actually Pierced all the way through. Full body chills. He doesn't write that. I just said that. Like the. Like the nails driven through Christ's hands on the cross. And then at the end of the movie, here's the clincher. Of course, everyone knows this. Kevin ultimately gets. Gets caught by Joe Pesci and the other guy. And so Marley appears at. Right. At just the right time and rescues him. It is a Christian movie. Did I convince you or did Jeremy convince you?

A (5:00)

I'll admit I have never seen those details before. I'm okay with it.

B (5:08)

I don't know.

A (5:09)

Like it.

C (5:12)

I don't.

A (5:12)

I don't. First of all, I think we got to back up and go, what is it that makes a movie Christian?

B (5:17)

Sure.

A (5:18)

And you could, you could make an argument that tons of movies have redemptive themes and stories of transformation, of second chances, of forgiveness, of mercy, of all these things that are deeply Christian virtues, but they wouldn't be, quote, unquote, Christian movies. And then you have other movies which are explicitly Christian movies because, you know, they're made by Angel Studios or whatever, and you go, yeah, but sometimes those movies aren't good.

B (5:44)

Right.

A (5:45)

So I don't know, what is it that makes a movie Christian? You know what I mean?

B (5:49)

Yeah, that's a good point.

A (5:51)

So if you want to say, does Home Alone have a deliberate Christian subtext, or this is, no pun intended, but deliberate Christian Easter eggs in it, then, okay, I'm there. I think he makes a pretty good case here. And I don't think.

B (6:09)

Interesting question to me though, like the, the script writers, the director, whomever, did they actually intend to put those things in, like the hand piercing and stuff that. I don't know.

A (6:22)

I think we need to get Chris Columbus. He was the director of this.

B (6:25)

Yes. Yeah, I didn't know. Okay.

A (6:26)

I think it's Chris Columbus.

B (6:27)

Get him on the pod, the first.

A (6:28)

Couple of Harry Potter movies, which might then erode his Christian credibility with some people. Yeah, I'm open to this. I think it would be fascinating to know were these things deliberately put? I mean, there is obviously, Kevin goes into that church at that critical time. He does have this encounter with his neighbor, this scary looking old man.

C (6:51)

So.

A (6:51)

Yeah. Okay.

B (6:53)

Okay. Added to the canon of scripture, is that what you're saying? Not quite. Not quite.

A (6:58)

I think it's fine to add it to the canon of Christmas traditions that you watch Home Alone.

B (7:02)

There you go. And my family has. We already watched it this year and my 7 year old was dying laughing as the bird come up and she Actually, it's Sophie. I don't know. But. Yeah, I'm sure she has. But it's like this year, it really. She really got it. You know, there's something delicious for kids about seeing adults. Just.

A (7:21)

It's a great movie. I. I've not seen any of the other Home Alone movies.

B (7:26)

Oh, yeah. Well, that. The first one's best, actually. Number two is. Okay, isn't that the one that Donald Trump is in cameo by our president Donald Trump. Okay.

A (7:35)

This is fascinating. I wonder if there's other movies you can do this to, like pointing out subtle or not so subtle Christian themes or symbols in them that you may not have noticed in the past. And I wonder which ones would just be, like, stretch so thin.

B (7:50)

I've seen it. I've seen the stretches.

A (7:53)

Yeah. So this is all posted on Twitter. I didn't look at the responses. Are people generally in agreement with him, or are they going, ah, you're nuts?

B (8:00)

No, generally in agreement. I mean, they. I think most people, like me, they want to believe. You know, like, it's like X Files.

A (8:07)

For those who have.

B (8:08)

Believe. Yes.

A (8:09)

Yeah.

B (8:09)

Although. Okay, there's. Here's another piece of context that I just saw. A Pastor, Josh Howerton, was talking about this online as well, and he said that he got. I don't know how he got this, but he got hold of the original script for Home Alone.

A (8:23)

Oh.

B (8:24)

And it has an extended scene in the church where Kevin's talking to old man Marley, and it has all kinds of theological stuff about how old man Marley's wife has died and she's in heaven, and I will be soon. And bolstering the case, I guess that. And it didn't make the final cut, obviously. They. They trimmed it a bit, but it had more Christian content originally, which does strengthen the case that Home Alone is a Christian movie.

A (8:48)

Well, all I need now is to hear the testimony of somebody who came to faith in Christ through Home Alone.

B (8:53)

I'm sure you could find it.

A (8:54)

And I will. I will no longer doubt, but I think it's a funny story. It's an interesting story. For all those who are gonna go watch Home Alone with your family this season, keep an eye out for the symbolism in Old Man Marley.

B (9:07)

Yes. It also has Christian cuss words. You know, like when the. When the burglars are getting injured, they're like. Like they're saying all these. Like, you can tell they want to swear, but they want to keep it, like, pg. Right. So.

A (9:17)

Right. There's a name for that. Like when you substitute some Innocent word for a. Like fudge. Right.

B (9:24)

Or shut the front door.

A (9:26)

Right. That kind of stuff. There. There's. I. That's called. But there's an actual term for that.

B (9:29)

We'll find it.

A (9:30)

Yeah. All right. I like it.

B (9:32)

Solved it. I like, like it. I like it. Okay. All right. Well, this next one is interesting as well. Kirk Cameron. You know Kirk?

A (9:45)

Not personally.

B (9:47)

Okay. But you know who he is. He's a child actor. Growing Pains. Was that it?

A (9:51)

Yeah, I grew up. I grew up with that show.

B (9:53)

Yeah, totally. He was a stud. Okay. Growing Pains, child actor, grows up, turns into. I mean, becomes a Christian, an evangelist. Very outspoken evangelist, stars in the Left behind movie, which I don't think you can get more Christian in your credentials than that right there.

A (10:11)

Home Alone now qualifies.

B (10:13)

Right, that's true. You're right. Add it to the list. Okay. But he's known for being super conservative, I'd say even, I don't know, politically, theologically. He caused quite a stir recently by confessing that his view about hell has shifted. He said that he no longer believes in eternal conscious torment. That is, the belief that when the wicked or unbelievers die, that their suffering will go on forever. And that he now holds. I don't know if he used this term, but it was essentially what he was describing. He holds to what theologians called annihilationism, the belief that the wicked will be destroyed, that they'll cease to exist, rather than suffering forever.

A (10:54)

Yeah.

B (10:55)

And I know this sounds probably to a lot of people like going bizarrely into the weeds, but, you know, I'll just read the quote. I want to get your take. I'm really curious. He says, I don't want to believe in conscious eternal torment for anybody, no matter how wicked they are. If the Scriptures taught it, I would believe it because this is the word of God. But if it doesn't teach that we are severely misrepresenting the character of God.

A (11:17)

And there's been quite a backlash.

B (11:19)

Yeah. Right.

A (11:20)

So tons of people on the more conservative end of the spectrum have come out against Kirk Cameron and said, this is terrible. Or they have been closely associated with him in some kind of ministry context, and they're distancing themselves now from him saying, oh, I still believe in eternal conscious torment. Don't lump me in with Kirk Cameron. Okay? There's a lot here. And this is a topic that comes up frequently for me and for us, because I wrote a book, my previous book, obviously I'm writing one right now for Holy Post plus People. But my previous book was what if Jesus was serious about justice? And a good chunk of that book deals with this question of eternal punishment and hell and all those kinds of doctrines. I am generally with Kirk Cameron on this one. I think. Let me come at it from two different angles. One angle is I think the evidence for eternal conscious torment is really, really weak in Scripture. Incredibly weak. It's very strong in tradition. It's very weak in Scripture.

B (12:23)

You haven't read Dante's Inferno.

A (12:25)

On the other side of this, the evidence for annihilationism is a little bit more complicated because annihilationism. There's a variety of views of annihilationism, and I didn't watch Kirk Cameron's podcast about this or episode or wherever he did this whole thing. But there are different views of annihilationism. And I think the people who will say, oh, I just think when the wicked die, they just die and that's the end of them. And there's nothing. That's it. I think that's often the way it gets presented by people who are advocating for the eternal conscious torment view. And so then I understand why they chafe against that, because I don't think that's what scripture teaches either.

C (13:07)

And so there's a.

A (13:08)

There's a position that I hold to that I don't know if Cameron does or not. It's a subset of annihilationism, but it's called terminal punishment.

B (13:17)

Oh, interesting.

A (13:19)

So there are two things, things you have to square, that are repeated over and over and over and over again in scripture. One of them, both Old and New Testaments, say literally dozens and dozens of times that the fate of the wicked is death. Even the most famous verse in The Bible, John 3:16, says, God sent his son so that we will not perish but have eternal life.

B (13:44)

Right.

A (13:44)

That just means to die. Like the fate of the wicked is to die, to perish. The wages of sin is death. I mean, just. I don't want to bore everybody, but it goes on and on. So that's what I think Cameron is latching onto going, this doesn't say the fate of the wicked is eternal conscious torment. It's death, the cessation of existence. So you have that. The other thing, though, that scripture does say a lot is that God will repay each person for what they have done, and that repayment is proportional, Meaning it's not the same for everybody. Yeah. Right. So if.

B (14:15)

It's certainly about rewards in heaven. Right? Yes.

A (14:18)

But it also goes the other way. Punishment is also described as proportional. It is not the same for everybody. So though the fate of all the wicked is ultimately death, it doesn't mean that. That death is instantaneous and without further consequence or punishment. So another way of saying this is I think the punishment for Hitler is going to be worse than the punishment for somebody who, you know, I don't know, lied on a home loan application or something. Whatever the sin you want to put in there, it doesn't fit God's character that the punishment for both of those would be equal in simply the cessation of existence. So terminal punishment says we all stand judgment before our maker and he will judge us for our sins in proportion to our sins, which is different based on the sins one has committed, but that at this. At the end of that punishment, it is death. It is the cessation of existence. So it's not eternal conscious torment. That's terminal punishment. And I'm not trying to, like, split the baby here or make it a hybrid of the two. I think I do not see the evidence in Scripture for eternal conscious torment. And I don't. This isn't. We're not going to get into it on this show of like, you know, debating all these different things you can read about in my book if you want, or there's plenty of others. But I think in the general sweep of things that Cameron is correct. I trust in his very conservative posture. He went to the scriptures looking for evidence of eternal conscious torment. And like a lot of us, was pretty surprised when he realized it ain't there. It's really not there. There's maybe two texts that kind of allude to it, but when you actually get into the exegetical analysis of those texts, you get into the languages, it ain't there either. So I think it's incredibly weak. And it's fascinating to me how strongly people try to defend it. And when they try to defend it, they usually come back to two things. One, the church has believed this for a long time, which is ironic that conservative evangelicals would appeal to tradition.

B (16:23)

Right. If you're sola scriptura.

A (16:24)

If you're sola scriptura. But then the second one, I think this is really the big one, is a lot of evangelicals feel like, well, what on. I don't have any real legitimate motivation for missions now without eternal conscious torment. And they feel like if you don't have that hanging over you, then why really come to faith? Or why feel the urgency of spreading the gospel? Which is really sad to me that you're. You're dependent. Like, I Go to the Book of Acts and there's multiple gospel presentations in the Book of Acts. There's, you know, literally thousands of people depicted in the books of. Actual Book of Acts is coming to faith in Jesus.

C (17:00)

And the word hell is never mentioned.

A (17:03)

In the Book of Acts. It's just not part of the preaching of the apostles and the early church. It is not there. Somehow they managed to advance the mission of the kingdom of God without an appeal to eternal conscious torment.

B (17:16)

Right.

A (17:16)

And now we find ourselves in a tradition of the church that says if you get rid of this thing, we don't know how we would ever advance the mission of the church, therefore we have to hang onto it. Well, maybe that's an indication that you've gotten something a little bit off track from what the New Testament itself teaches.

B (17:30)

Yeah, no, that's a great point. Yeah. If that's, if that's your whole argument is this pragmatic argument, if you can't, you know, get people to come to Jesus for fire insurance. Right. We have to switch everything up. So, yeah, it's interesting. I, I mean, I'm kind of torn. I truthfully, I haven't, like, thought carefully about it and done like, you know, word studies on it. And I don't. Here's my thing. And this is going to sound bad because obviously I love theology, but sometimes I'm like, do we have to come up with these phrases like eternal conscious torment or even annihilationism? Can't we just use the language of scripture? Maybe that's a cop out. I don't know.

A (18:04)

I agree with you, but that's the. But that part of that's the problem is when you read the plain language of Scripture, like the wages of sin is death, what the traditional view says is, hey, don't take that at face value. It doesn't really mean death.

B (18:17)

Right.

A (18:18)

It means eternal conscious torment. Even though Paul says death, don't believe it like, so I agree with you. Let's use the words of Scripture.

B (18:25)

Right.

A (18:25)

But it doesn't get you to eternal conscious torment. Here's the other thing, and I don't want to belabor this, but I do find I get on a soapbox about it sometimes. I think perhaps the greatest argument against eternal conscious torment is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. Because. And obviously there's a wrist.

B (18:42)

Okay.

A (18:43)

Yeah, yeah. I think there's obviously a ton of people that hold very strongly to the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. For those who don't know what that means, it's simply that Jesus paid the penalty on the cross that we deserved. Right. So what's the penalty he paid?

C (19:01)

It's clear in Scripture, he died for our sins.

A (19:05)

This is what, you know, the whole New Testament preaches over and over and over again. Jesus died for our sins. He was not eternally tortured for our sins. So if you don't, if you want to believe in eternal conscious torment, then you have to give up substitutionary atonement because Jesus paid a different penalty than the one we are expected to pay interest. Or you can give up your eternal conscious torment view and say, no, no, no, substitutionary atonement is absolutely correct. Jesus did pay the penalty for our sin, and that penalty is death. So there you go. And there's a lot more to this, but I just, I find those two doctrines incompatible with one another. And I'm going to hold on to the substitutionary atonement doctrine, thank you very much. But I think it's interesting that people have made your view of hell and eternal conscious torment in particular a mark of orthodoxy or heresy, when it's not, it's not in any of the creeds, it's not something that you have to adhere to in order to be an orthodox Christian believer. And yet we want to excommunicate people who have a slightly different take on the fate of the wicked. And I'm like, I think what Kirk Cameron is saying is completely biblical. And by the way, there's a long line of significant church fathers and theologians who've held to an annihilationist view, like Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus, Martin Luther, William Tyndale, John Stott, Clark Pinnock, Preston, Sprinkle, things NT Wright, Scott McKnight, like, I'm talking about contemporary people now too, but like throughout the whole history of the Church, a bunch of people have held to this view. But now suddenly you're going to say, I don't know, Irenaeus was a heretic or Ignatius of Antioch was a Herod. Like, that's ridiculous. So I just don't think this rises to the level of orthodoxy to have.

B (21:05)

Well, yeah, and it's not included in the creeds. Right. That I'm aware of. Certainly not to that specificity. So, yeah. And I do think it's my thing is like, I do think that there has to be some sort of post mortem judgment.

A (21:16)

Yes.

B (21:17)

Or else Christianity starts not making a.

A (21:18)

Lot of sense and there has to be because Scripture talks about it all the time.

B (21:22)

Yeah, exactly.

A (21:22)

Yeah.

B (21:23)

And just to preserve God's justice and totally and you know, hoping that people like Hitler don't get off scot free. Exactly.

A (21:30)

So that's why I went back to. There's these two things we have to figure out. That the wages of sin is death and there's proportional punishment. Each person will reap what they sow and will be paid back by the Lord for the evil they have done. Those two things are repeated a lot in the Bible. What is never taught in the Bible is eternal conscious torment. Yeah, it's an inherited Greek philosophy that the medieval church latched onto that we have not had the courage to look honestly at and jettison.

B (22:03)

Interesting. Okay, I'm going to look into it more, man. And if I find out you're wrong, I'm going to come back and burn you at the stake.

A (22:08)

When you're here this week, you can take home a copy of my book.

B (22:11)

Perfect. Hey, and I think that's the first time I've heard you say, I'm with Kirk Cameron. I don't know, that's.

C (22:17)

I'm sure there are many other things.

A (22:19)

I agree with Kirk Cameron about. I do not agree with him about his eschatology, if he still believes in the rapture left behind stuff.

B (22:26)

But on this point, that's fine. You guys are on the same page. All right, All right, moving on to the next one, the neuroscience of worship. There's an article up@relevantmagazine.com and I thought it was fascinating. It's just, you know, we know that worship is good for your soul. At least we believe that as Christians. And it's good to give God his due and, and worship God. But this article is talking about how, thanks to advances in neuroscience, we know now that it transforms our brains in meaningful ways as well. And it just unpacks these findings that show that, like, worship quiets the brain's fear center and at the same time strengthens a region of the brain that's responsible for emotional regulation and empathy and moral reasoning and self control. So they, you know, hooked up these MRI scans and then researchers. That'd be weird, by the way. You're sitting in church with like some sensors attached to your. Your dome. It seems like it put a damper on your worship. But anyway, so they can actually see this in real time as, like, activity is reduced in the area of the brain that's responsible for fear and releasing stress hormones. So, and here's the other thing the researcher said it actually doesn't take a ton of time. It's not like, okay, if you, you know, worship regularly over weeks or months or years, you get these benefits. It's, it could be like 12 minutes a day. What do you think? Here's my question, though. Yeah, there's a lot to say about this. This is my question. I don't know the answer. So what is God the active agent here, right? Is God the one that's like using the, the, the forms of worship to change us? I mean, to use the scriptural language, like the transformation, transformation of your, of your mind? Or is it just a quirk of psychology that if you, you know, repeat phrases over and over again or sing songs in a community of people that you, you reap these, these psychological and physiological.

A (24:31)

Well, I. Okay, I think you're getting at the issue I have with this whole article. I don't doubt the science. I think it's great. But what they're uncovering here is, is not something that's unique.

C (24:44)

Don't worry, this is not the end of the episode. There's actually plenty more. But to listen to the rest, you need to be a Holy Post plus subscriber. So head over to holeypost.com skypod and sign up. For just $5 a month, not only will you get uninterrupted episodes of the Skypod, which means you'll never have to hear this dumb announcement again, but you'll also get access to everything else at Holy Post plus, including episodes of Getting Schooled by Caitlin, Chess, bonus interviews, live streams, the Holy Post Book Club, exclusive merchandise, and a whole bunch more. And you'll get the warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that you're supporting our work of creating smart, pro, neighbor Christian content. So head over to holypost.com skypod and subscribe.