The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 62 – Frank Turek

Episode 62: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show, host Dr. Jeff interviews Dr. Frank Turek, a Christian apologist and founder of Cross Examined, about his new book Hollywood Heroes: How Your Favorite Movies Reveal God. Their discussion covers several major movie franchises and their biblical themes. They examine Captain America, Harry Potter, Han Solo, Lord of the Rings characters, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Throughout, Turek emphasizes the acronym CRIME (Creation, Rebellion, Intervention, Mission, Eternity) to show how these movies follow the biblical narrative structure.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show, available on Apple, Google, Spotify, Edifi, Liftable, and wherever you get your podcasts. If you like this show, could you take a moment to give it a positive review on your favorite platform? That helps draw more listeners to hear the interviews with our amazing guests. This is the show where I interview major thought leaders from many fields of influence to show how our worldview changes everything.

Today, I’m inviting back to the show a good friend and Christian apologist whose resources at his ministry is called Cross Examined. Help us understand and explain our faith to others. Today, we’re talking about his intriguing new book, Hollywood Heroes: How Your Favorite Movies Reveal God. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Frank Turek to the show. Dr. Frank Turek, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show.

Frank Turek (00:54):
Dr. Jeff, great being with you as always. How are you?

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:58):
Really well, thank you. It’s been fun. We did an episode several months back that was really popular. A lot of people loved hearing the strategies that you gave about how you debate atheists and how to stand for the truth. But we’re back today to talk about something that’s going to be, I think, a lot of fun. A new book that you have coming out about Hollywood Heroes.

And I remember, Frank, when you and I first talked about this book, and I tried to get you to publish it through Summit, but you already had a publishing arrangement, because I just thought it was so fascinating to see an example of how these heroes that everybody loves and bonds with from Harry Potter to Captain America tell us a lot about the biblical story of reality. So anyway, yeah, I’m really looking forward to it.

Frank Turek (01:47):
Well, thanks. I had the opportunity, really, to write it with my son who’s in the Air Force right now. He’s been in the Air Force for 12 years. He’s actually a major now, an intel guy. And he went to Southern Evangelical Seminary like I did, Jeff, while he was in the Air Force. And we were sitting around one day talking about some of the movies, because he’s a big movie guy. And I said, “Zach, this really could be a book about how your favorite movies reveal God.”

And so he’s really the brains behind the movies. He knows the inside and out. So he and I got together and we just pointed out how so many of these movies point to the ultimate hero, Jesus of Nazareth, so many of these movie characters do, these movie heroes. And secondly, there’s so many biblical life lessons you get by watching movies that we thought it would be a great tool, particularly for parents and their teenagers, especially to go through some of these movies and discuss these biblical life lessons.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:42):
Well, as a dad, that gets to my heart because it’s one thing to go to a movie and come out and say, “That was cool. Did you like it? Yeah, I like what this character did.” And of course, my sons, they’re so knowledgeable about the Star Wars universe, so knowledgeable about the Avengers universe. I understand very little of what they’re actually talking about because it’s very technical. But when it comes to what these characters represent, what their worldview is, how it reveals a biblical worldview, there’s a lot of material there that parents can use to open up conversations with their kids.

Frank Turek (03:18):
Without getting preachy. Without getting preaching. You don’t have to break the Bible open to make the point. Like for example, Iron Man, one of my favorite heroes. I think one of the most important Bible verses now, Dr. Jeff, and I know we teach this at Summit too. It’s important. It actually comes from the Old Testament. Other than the gospel, this might be the most important Bible verse in the entire Bible right now.

And it’s Proverbs 4:23. It says, “Above all else, guard your heart because everything you do flows from it. ” What does our culture say? Culture says, “Follow your heart.” The Bible says, “Guard your heart.” And Iron Man actually has a visual representation of that. Ironman gets hit by one of his own missiles and he has to have surgery and some device put right into his chest to guard his heart from encroaching shrapnel.

(04:10):
If he doesn’t guard his heart, he’s going to die. Well, the same thing is true in real life. If you don’t guard your heart, you’re going to die. And yet we’re telling people to follow their hearts and that’s dangerous.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:21):
Wow. That’s a really simple lesson and one that I never would’ve picked up on in the movies. Frank, give us real quickly, when we talk about guarding our heart, we’re talking about, at least in part, having a biblical framework for understanding all of reality. And in the first chapter of the book, you kind of review something that you’ve taught a lot, which is what the flow of the biblical narrative is. Can we talk about that a little bit?

Frank Turek (04:51):
Sure. We just have this acronym crime, C-R-I-M-E, and they stand for the big epics or the big periods of the Bible. The big events going on in the Bible. C stands for creation. Not only creation of the universe, but creation of all life, including human beings. Our stands for rebellion. We rebelled right after basically we were created.

I stands for intervention. As soon as the rebellion occurs, God says, “Here’s my rescue plan. I’m going to intervene. I’m going to enter the bloodstream of humanity, add humanity to my deity, come to earth, die as the perfect sacrifice for the people that actually rebelled against me.”

M stands for the mission. Now we have a mission. We have a mission to show people what God’s plan is and how you can join and be a part of his kingdom. And E stands for eternity. That’s where we’re heading ultimately.

(05:38):
Who wants to be a part of the eternity with God? Who wants to be separated from God? Remember, as we all know, eternity’s going to bifurcate. You’re going to have people who are with God. They’re in heaven and people who don’t want to be with God. They’re going to be in hell. So crime, creation, rebellion, information… I’m sorry, intervention, mission, and then eternity. So we kind of give that framework in the very first chapter, the introduction of Hollywood Heroes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:03):
Yep. It’s a great reminder that the significance of scripture is not just in a Bible verse that you like or in something that speaks to you. But this is telling a story of all of reality and that God’s plan for redemption is visible, not only in all of the books of the Bible, but in what early scientists called God’s, the book of nature as well, that redemption is just part of the way the entire universe is structured.

Frank Turek (06:38):
Yeah. And so we try and bring that out and point out that every one of these stories, and we cover a series of movie franchises from Captain America to Iron Man to Harry Potter to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Batman, and Wonder Woman. And how each one of these movie franchises actually is a redemptive story.

How are we going to fight evil or someone come and fight evil for us to take us to the promised land, to take us to eternity, to take us to happily ever after? That’s really what they’re all about. They’re all about taking us from this world of pain and suffering to a place of promise. That’s what all the movies are about. And I think you can give biblical life lessons by just watching these movies.

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:18):
Yeah. Well, let’s do it. Well, let’s dive right in and talk about some of the different heroes. I mean, you start with Captain America, which made a lot of sense to me. And I can imagine you and Zach watching the Captain America movies together, watching the Avengers franchise together, just, “Oh, what about that? Oh, picking out these different things.” But talk a little bit about Captain America. It’s not just that he’s a nice guy.

Frank Turek (07:43):
Yeah. He’s not just that he’s a nice guy, but he’s also willing to sacrifice for other people. If you remember the first movie, he is in this program where he’s trying to become a soldier. And of course, the general wants somebody who’s big and brawny. And of course, Steve Rogers is a wimp. And Dr. Erskine is trying to convince the general that, look, Rogers is the guy. And he says, “That guy, he’s a lightweight. He can’t do what I need him to do. I need a strong guy.”

Anyway, in the middle of the training, the general throws a grenade. Everyone thinks it’s a real grenade. It’s just a fake grenade. He throws a grenade into all these recruits and Captain America jumps on the grenade. Well, Steve Rogers jumps on the grenade and the big brawny guy runs and hides behind a truck. And Erskine says, “Hey, look, I told you this was the right guy. This guy’s willing to sacrifice. This guy’s willing to put his life on the line in order to get the mission done. He’s going to sacrifice himself to make sure it happens. Your guy won’t do that.”

(08:45):
So this guy might not be a perfect soldier, but he’s a good man. That’s kind of the catchphrase there. And it turns out that, of course, Captain America is always ready to sacrifice himself. His counterpart, Tony Stark, on the other hand, has to actually get there. He starts out as a billionaire playboy who’s all about himself. And over a series of movies, what we might call sanctification in the theological world, he actually becomes a hero and then does spoiler alert, spoiler alert, sacrifice himself at the end in order to save the world from Thanos.

So they’re two different character arcs and the writers of these things talk about that, that Captain America was always the righteous one, but he didn’t really have a life. Tony Stark had a life, but he was all about himself and they were on crisscrossing character arcs. And we unpacked that in the book, Hollywood Heroes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:40):
That’s so good. I was in church on Sunday. We’re recording this just after Easter and just watching the people in the church and people who were up on stage and knowing their stories, both story arcs. They’re people who were there as musicians or in the choir whose story is, they were faithful to God from a young age and they’ve had a heart of courage. And then there were other people who’ve gone through everything from drug abuse to prostitution to all different kinds of things who were redeemed by Christ. And it’s fun to see the connection between both of those stories.

So Captain America, you talk about, then, Iron Man, you’ve talked about a little bit, but let’s go a completely different direction out of the Avengers franchise and talk about Harry Potter. I remember when the Harry Potter books came out, it was a big deal among Christian parents.

(10:36):
Should we let our kids read the Harry Potter books or not? Make the case for why this franchise is so significant for understanding a biblical story, the way a biblical story applies to today’s life.

Frank Turek (10:55):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, it’s up to parents what they want their kids to watch. I get that. That’s totally up to them. In fact, not every movie that we cover in Hollywood heroes might be appropriate for the smallest children. In fact, we say that upfront and actually Natasha Crane, our mutual friend, read the whole book, loved the book, endorsed the book, but had only seen one of the 20 movies we say you need to see. She said, “Didn’t matter. I knew what was going on anyway.”

But Harry Potter actually has much more in common with Jesus, the character, Harry Potter, than virtually any other character we cover. And you say, “How can that be?” Because there are four things that are consistent between the two of them. They both are prophesied to be saviors before they’re born. They both have to live a moral life in order to accomplish their sacrificial mission.

(11:46):
They both die for their friends and they both resurrect from the dead in order to achieve salvation for their group. And that’s exactly what happens, of course, with Jesus. Now, of course, Harry Potter’s not morally perfect like Jesus is, but he’s morally better than anybody else in the whole franchise. And so he is a Christ figure.

And J.K. Rowling, who wrote the whole series, says the entire series can be epitomized by two Bible verses, which are both found in the movies and certainly in the book. One is from 1 Corinthians 15, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. And the other is from the sermon on the mount where Jesus says, where your treasure is, that’s where your heart will be or where your heart will be, that’s where your treasure is.

Those two verses, she says, epitomized the entire series. And I know that people are concerned because there’s a cult in the Harry Potter series, but for some reason Christians don’t have a problem with Lord of the Rings. And Gandolf is a wizard, right?

(12:46):
And we don’t have a problem with Chronicles of Narnia, but there’s the occult in there too. So if you could only watch things that were morally pure, guess what? You couldn’t even read the Bible because the Bible has obviously all these things in it as well as a description, not a prescription.

And Harry Potter is not prescribing to us that we ought to be involved in the occult. The occult or the power that Harry Potter and his cohorts have, as J.K. Rowling put it, she just said, “That’s not the center of the story. The center of the story is the fact that Harry has to morally get better in order to accomplish something.” It’s really a morality play. The wizardry stuff is just a way to give the characters power to do stuff. It’s not the center of the story.

Dr. Jeff Myers (13:37):
Yeah, that’s an interesting point because in the movies you’re talking about, there is some kind of supernatural power that is available to each of the characters. With Iron Man, it’s technological power, but with others, or Captain America’s technological power, but in many cases, it’s kind of a magical power. And I think when Rowling was writing those books, do you have a theory about why she wanted to create this world around magic? What was it about magic that was important for what she was trying to do?

Frank Turek (14:14):
Yeah, I’m looking for a quote on that because I know we have that in the book. I’m trying to remember exactly how she put it, but she went on to say that magic is not the center of the story. She said, in fact, let me see if I can find that, Jeff, because that’s a great question. She was talking about the fact that children don’t have power to do anything.

So the magic part of it was just to give them the thrill of being able to have power, but that wasn’t the center of the story. It was really a morality play where Harry had to do well and had to be morally good in order to accomplish a mission. In fact, here’s what she said. Here’s the quote. She says, this is from page 74 of Hollywood Heroes. She says, “Harry enters the magical world and he thinks it will be an escape, but it is not,” says Rowling.

(15:03):
“Human nature is human nature, whether or not you can use a wand.” In other words, this is all about human nature. You’ve got to defeat your inner demons. You’ve got to figure out a way in order to get something done to defeat your own temptations. And what we say in here is her point is that the characters have to grow personally in order to achieve their mission of overcoming evil. “That was an emotional journey that had very little to do with magic,” said Rowling.

You notice how Harry Potter has to do morally good things in order to achieve the mission. He’s the only one that can actually accomplish it. His friends can’t accomplish it. Other people can’t accomplish it. He is the savior and he’s prophesied. He’s moral. He dies and he resurrects.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:51):
Yeah. Well, this may be kind of a weird analogy, but back in the days of Greek plays, very often the characters would mess everything up thoroughly. And then a Dayu’s ex Machina, the God and the machine, would swoop in and fix everything and straighten out what the humans had messed up. There’s something nuanced about what Rowling is doing that you pointed out that I think is really important. It’s not that magic is used to save the characters from the consequences of their decisions. It actually, in many ways, highlights the need for them to be moral people who make right decisions.

Frank Turek (16:37):
Yes, because magic itself, just like any power, is amoral, right? If magic really existed, the kind that is in the Harry Potter series, and of course she doesn’t believe it does, but if it really existed, you could use it for good or evil, just like the force in Star Wars. You could use it for good or evil. Just like technology, technology’s amoral. We’re not really worried about nuclear weapons. What we’re worried about are human beings with nuclear weapons, right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:02):
Yes, yes.

Frank Turek (17:03):
It’s nuclear weapons that by themselves are immoral. It’s whether or not somebody’s going to decide to use them. That’s what we’re worried about.

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:09):
Right. Yeah. Well, you mentioned Star Wars right there. Let’s dig into that one a little bit too, because that’s a franchise that has been going on since we were little kids and is still going on to this day in all different forms. Talk a little bit about what you see of biblical truth in the Star Wars universe.

Frank Turek (17:33):
Well, there’s a lot in there. Of course, redemption is the biggest theme of Star Wars. And of course, the biggest character to be redeemed is Darth Vader. But of course, there’s smaller characters, or maybe not smaller characters, but characters who are not the center of the story, but in the peripheral of the story. And that for one would be Han Solo, right? Han Solo is a skeptic. He’s a rule bending, egotistical skeptic who has, by the way, the best lines in the movie, right? I mean, Han Solo gets away with all the greatest lines. For example, “Look, your worshipfulness, let’s get one thing straight. I take orders from just one person: me.”

(18:15):
He’s so egotistical, right? He says, “Well, Princess, it looks like you managed to keep me here a while longer. Sometimes I even amaze myself. I’m really not interested in your opinion 3PO.” He says to Leah, “I think you just can’t or bear to let a gorgeous guy like me get out of your sight.” I mean, he’s so egotistical, right? And he is a skeptic. He doesn’t think the force is real. He doesn’t think any of this stuff is real. He goes on to tell Luke that, “Look, none of this is real, man. It’s just simple tricks and nonsense. There’s nothing like having a good blaster at your side, kid. That’s what you really need.” Right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (19:01):
Yeah.

Frank Turek (19:01):
But then what happens to him? Well, he winds up in debt to Jaba the Hutt, who’s way bigger than a hut, by the way. And Jabba is going to put him in carbonite and freeze him until somebody pays a ransom for him. Well, Luke shows up. He comes to redeem, of course, spoiler alert, spoiler. He’s going to redeem Han Solo and he breaks Han out and he of course defeats Job of the Hut. So he gets Han out of debt. He’s the Savior. He gets Han out of debt.

Well, Jesus gets us out of debt, right? He destroys our adversary as well. And then later on in the series, Han becomes a true believer. And he says, look, all this stuff is true. I’ve seen it myself. In other words, Han becomes a believer because he’s seen the evidence, right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (19:48):
Yeah.

Frank Turek (19:48):
He starts out as a skeptic and he ultimately is encouraged to look at the evidence because he’s redeemed and he becomes a believer. He sees the evidence himself. Of course, there’s parallels there whether George Lucas meant that or not.

Dr. Jeff Myers (20:04):
Are you familiar with all of the shows that are on now that continue on with the Star Wars theme? I’m just wondering how the later work of these artists, putting these films together.

Frank Turek (20:19):
Yeah, I’ve seen some of them. My son really follows them. In fact, my son, Zach, who co-authored the book with me, has read most of the novels, the Star Wars novels, which are never made into movies. They’re just kind of in the Star Wars alternate universe. So he’s involved in all that. And of course, you’ve got what? Boba Fett is one of the ones that’s out there now, and another is Mandalorian, or I’m not even saying that right.

Dr. Jeff Myers (20:42):
Mandalorian.

Frank Turek (20:44):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other series that’s out there, there’s plenty of series out there with Star Wars, but they’re kind of focused in on just one character, whereas of course, the whole Star Wars grand series is a little bit more expansive. But it’s interesting. One of the guys that does those series is John Favreau, who was also the director and one of the actors in the Iron Man series. The guy who plays Happy, who’s the security guy in Iron Man. Well, he’s actually in some of the Star Wars offshoot themes. He’s actually behind that. He also directed the movie Elf, so he’s quite a talented guy.

Dr. Jeff Myers (21:31):
Wow. That’s a pretty interesting body of work.

Frank Turek (21:34):
Pretty diverse, isn’t it?

Dr. Jeff Myers (21:35):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s talk about Lord of the Rings for a minute. Well, probably it’s going to take a lot more than a minute. This was huge that turned into three movies that were epic and that’s been a long time now, what? 10 or 15 years or something. At least, yeah. Yeah. But Tolkien is significant in Lord of the Rings because he’s the guy who persuaded C.S. Lewis that Jesus was, that these myths are not lies, but that they hint at the truth and that what happened with Jesus is the myth that came true in real life. The true myth.

Frank Turek (22:16):
Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (22:16):
The true myth. Yeah. So do you think, I mean, was he trying to write a good story and his theology worked its way in, or was there something that he was trying to do to help us understand the relationship between truth and myth and reality?

Frank Turek (22:38):
Yeah. Tolkien was quite a deep thinker and he was a very devout Catholic, as you know. And with regard to Lewis, Lewis was always enthralled with dying and rising gods, as long as this dying and rising God wasn’t in the New Testament. And Tolkien called him out on that. He finally said, “You’re really enthralled with all these myths. What about the true myth? What do you mean, the true myth?”

Jesus actually did die and rise from the dead to save us from our sins. And that was like a light bulb in C.S. Lewis’s mind. And of course it led to him being probably the top apologist of the 20th century after that. He spent most of his time pointing out that Christianity was indeed true. But Tolkien, when he wrote Lord of the Rings, Jeff, he did not want it to be overtly Christian.

(23:28):
He wanted the viewer or the reader actually, because it wasn’t in a movie at that point. He wanted the reader to come to that conclusion themselves. But if you look at the three main characters in the Lord of the Ring series, they all do biblical things. You got Aragorn, who is ultimately the king, the returning king. You have Gandalf.

Dr. Jeff Myers (23:53):
Spoiler alert. Yeah.

Frank Turek (23:54):
Yeah, spoiler alert. Gandalf who is actually a wizard, but he really, according to Tolkien, is an angel. He’s a strategist and he’s a messenger. And then of course, Frodo. Frodo, who is the weak three foot hobbit person that just wants to enjoy the land, eat seven meals a day and drink beer. He’s very weak, right? But the entire middle earth is dependent on this weak Frodo, this hobbit to actually do something heroic.

And of course, that trades on the idea that all the characters, at least most of the characters in the Bible are weak. They’re not what you would expect to be heroes, yet somehow they do heroic things. And what Tolkien does is he uses Aragorn and Gandalf and ultimately Frodo to point to a world that actually is rescued by the self-sacrifice of this little weekhabit saves everybody from doom.

Dr. Jeff Myers (25:04):
I think there’s so many things there. And of course, Sam is another Christ figure. I can’t take your burden away from you, Frodo, but I can carry you.

Frank Turek (25:18):
That’s right. Yeah. I can’t carry the ring for you, but I can carry you. He says, as they’re literally walking through fire in Mordor to actually throw the ring into the volcano. And you know what Tolkien said, Jeff? He thinks in his opinion, the hero of the entire series is Sam.

(25:36):
Because Sam, without Sam, Frodo never would have made it. And then once Frodo gets there, what does he do? Well, his hobbit nature takes over and he says, “The ring is mine. I’m not going to turn.” And then Gollum shows up, spoiler alert. Okay. But he never would have gotten there without Sam. So Sam is behind the scenes. It doesn’t matter how many times Frodo tells Sam to go away, how many times he abuses Sam, how many times Gollum tries to get rid of Sam. Sam is just loyal. He just keeps coming back for more. And without him, they never would have made it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:12):
Yeah. He’s the faithful friend. A lot of students ask me when we talk about leadership. “Well, I don’t see myself being the outfront person. I don’t think that I could be the leader.” But that would actually be a really good illustration of the point that Sam is every bit the leader. His core strength is a desire to serve and because he’s willing to serve, then the mission is accomplished and the world is saved.

Frank Turek (26:40):
And by the way, that’s Jesus’s core strength. Of course, he has all the strengths, but the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. That’s why he came. And so here’s Sam given his life basically as a ransom or at least willing to give his life or this cause to save the world and without him it wouldn’t have happened.

Dr. Jeff Myers (27:06):
Was there something that Tolkien was doing with the relationship between Frodo and Gandalf, because Gandalf is out in the entire world doing all kinds of things to sort of arrange things so that good can prevail, but he never takes Frodo’s mission away from him and he lets him suffer a lot. I just wonder, that’s such an important message. I mean, today a lot of people, it seems like so many people are fragile and they believe that, okay, my relationship with God is a deal and the deal is that I’m good and his part of the deal is that he makes sure that I don’t suffer as a result.

Frank Turek (27:56):
Wow. Well, that’s not the Christian viewpoint, but that’s what a lot of Christians think, right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:00):
I think a lot of Christians think that.

Frank Turek (28:02):
I think you’re right.

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:03):
Yeah. Talk about suffering a little bit because a lot of the characters you’re talking about, in fact, all of them endure a tremendous amount of suffering in the stories. In order for them to become the kind of people they need to be to bring the story to a resolution.

Frank Turek (28:22):
Well, that’s what Tony Stark suffers quite a bit. He’s lost his identity. He doesn’t know who he is, right? And he has to grow in order to become an actual hero and he does. And as we said earlier, he actually gives his life to save the universe from Thanos. The three characters that are in the Lord of the Rings that we point out in Hollywood heroes do similar to what the Trinity does.

For example, the Father plans salvation, the Son achieves salvation, and the Holy Spirit inspires salvation among the people. Gandalf plans the salvation. Frodo actually achieves the salvation, and Aragorn inspires the salvation among the people of Middle Earth. So it’s a similar thing going on there. They’re all needed in order to save the world.

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:25):
I could talk about Lord of the Rings for a long time, but one of the franchises that you talk about in the book is Batman. And among Christian parents, this may be one of the most controversial because so many of the Batman movies are really dark and they don’t leave you always, well, very often, with a good feeling at the end. You feel like you’ve touched something that’s evil and you’ve kind of been tainted by it. Talk about how biblical truths emerge, even in a world that’s really dark and seemingly beyond redemption.

Frank Turek (30:10):
I think the Batman series more than any other is the most realistic of any of the series that we cover because look, Batman’s mission is to try and eradicate evil in Gotham. He goes out in the dark to hide in the dark because that’s when the criminals are out. So he’s using the darkness to his advantage in order to scare them from doing evil. But no matter how much Batman, how many times he brings a criminal in or stops a criminal, there’s always another one out there that he can’t stop because he can’t change human nature.

Human nature is evil. In fact, human nature is so evil that Batman has contingency plans to take out other superheroes if they go rogue. In fact, he even has a contingency plan to take himself out if he goes rogue. And this is what happens in the movie that a lot of people didn’t like, but this movie has more questions addressed that we as Christians want addressed than any other.

(31:13):
And that’s Batman versus Superman. The Batman versus Superman movie, people didn’t like that because first of all, these guys are both superheroes. Why are they fighting one another, right? This doesn’t make any sense. Well, the reason they’re fighting one another is because Batman and Superman are both fallen and Batman is worried that Superman is going to go rogue and destroy people. And so he needs to take Superman out and he needs to protect the world from Superman.

And there’s a villain in there, Lex Luther, we all know. And Lex Luther actually states epicurious. The problem that has been around for centuries, even before Christ, goes like this. If God is all good and all powerful, why does evil exist? Well, maybe he’s not all good or maybe he’s not all powerful or both. And this is explicitly stated, Jeff, in the movie. And it turns out that Lex Luther looks at Superman because he’s the God of the universe, this universe, as a bad guy because Superman did not prevent Lex Luther’s father from abusing Lex Luther when he was a kid.

(32:24):
So he’s going to get Superman back and the way he’s going to get him back is he’s going to sick Batman on him, right? But here’s the interesting thing that nobody really notices unless you really sit back and think about this. Notice that Lex Luther is mad at God for not stopping his father from abusing Lex Luther, but Lex Luther is not mad at God.

(32:49):
It is not mad at God because he hasn’t stopped him, Lex Luther, from doing evil to other people. In other words, Lex Luther wants God to stop everybody else from doing evil, but he wants God to stay out of his business when he’s doing evil. And we just find that interesting that it’s the same problem we have in real life. We’re always complaining about other people doing evil. You ever notice that? We’re always going, “Hey, God, why don’t you stop him?” Or, “God, why don’t you stop her?” We never think, “God, why don’t you stop me?” I always ask people, look, if God were to stop evil at midnight tonight, would you still be alive at 12:01?

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:21):
Wow.

Frank Turek (33:22):
Yeah, I wouldn’t be.

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:24):
Yeah.

Frank Turek (33:25):
So the reason God allows evil is because he has to allow free will in order to allow love. Without free will, you can’t love. The problem is, of course, you can do evil, but evil doesn’t disprove God. It actually shows God does exist because God is a standard of good by which we’d even know what evil was. So evil doesn’t disprove God. It may prove there’s a devil out there, but it doesn’t disprove God. So we point all this out in the book by going through these movies. And so when young people are reading it, they’re getting not only the movie, but they’re getting the lessons on good and evil and why God allows evil and a number of other lessons, obviously.

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:59):
Yeah, that’s good. Okay. You have a female character in there. You’ve got Wonder Woman in the book. And by the way, one thing I loved about the book is that you draw out little interactions, conversations between the characters that I had never noticed or never thought of. And for that reason alone, it’s cool because some of the lessons you think, “Okay, I think I know where they’re going with this.” But how the filmmakers get there and the lessons you’re able to draw out of it was just, it was really fun. Congratulations to you and Zach, by the way.

Frank Turek (34:38):
Well, thanks, brother. Let me tell you one of those that we discovered that Zach Schneider, who was the director of Batman versus Superman and some other movies like Justice League on the DC side of things, there’s a scene in Batman versus Superman where Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are all fighting an evil villain called Doomsday, right? And actually, in order to defeat Doomsday, Superman actually in the process is killed in the process.

And so he takes out Doomsday, but he dies as well. And there’s a scene in the movie where Superman’s dead body is being handed down from an elevation down, I think by Batman to Wonder Woman or vice versa. And Zach Schneider was asked by a fan, “Where did you get the inspiration for that?” And he tweeted back a picture, a medieval picture of a painting of Christ’s body being handed down from the cross.

(35:51):
And if you notice in that Batman versus Superman movie, there are crosses in virtually all the battle scenes. So he’s putting that stuff in there. Here’s an instance where the director is actually putting forth a Christian theme. Most of the time they’re not, but it happens anyway. But here’s an instance where he’s actually purposefully doing that. And after you’re alerted to it, you go, “Oh man, that’s it. That’s right. Look at that.”

Dr. Jeff Myers (36:17):
There’s a scene in Wonder Woman 1984 or Wonder Woman 84.

Frank Turek (36:24):
1984. You got it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (36:25):
Yeah. Okay. And again, I don’t want to spoil it for anybody who hasn’t seen it, but she discourses about truth. It’s an extended scene where she says, “What matters is the truth.” That’s right. Not my truth or your truth, but the truth.

Frank Turek (36:45):
Yeah. Without giving too much away, the way Wonder Woman defeats, or let’s say the way Wonder Woman wins in the end and Wonder Woman 1984 is not by using power, just like all the other superheroes use power to defeat the bad guy. Wonder Woman doesn’t use power. Wonder Woman uses truth to the point where the bad guy actually repents of his sin and gives up his wishes – it’s part of the plot, you have to see the movie – gives up his wishes and then reunites with his son, who throughout the movie has been neglected by this guy.

The guy’s name is Max Lord, which is a perfect name if you think about it. Someone who wants to maximize his lordship over creation and get as much stuff as he wants. It’s a materialistic thing, a plot about how can I get the most stuff and the most accolades? That’s what the whole Wonder Woman 1984 is about. But he actually repents of that because Wonder Woman actually tells him the truth and he accepts the truth and repents.

Dr. Jeff Myers (37:52):
Yeah. But she had to grow too in the movie, which I thought was fascinating, that she decides to use power, all the power that she has at first, and then her power begins to fade, and what she’s left with is truth.

Frank Turek (38:11):
The truth.

Dr. Jeff Myers (38:12):
I can’t overcome this by myself.

Frank Turek (38:15):
The other thing is, which goes against our culture as well, as we said earlier, the culture says, “Follow your heart.” She says, “I can’t follow my heart here.” In order for her to save the world, she has to give up her heart’s desire, which is her love interest, Steve, in the movie. She has to allow him to go in order for her to win the day. And so she decides, “I’m not following my heart. I’m following the truth, what needs to happen.” Now, that’s a lesson all of us could have, right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (38:46):
Yeah.

Frank Turek (38:46):
That emotionally, sometimes it’s hard, but we have to do what’s right regardless if it causes us. Even if it causes us emotional pain, we’ve got to do what’s right. We’ve got to do what’s true and right, and that’s what she does.

Dr. Jeff Myers (38:59):
Yeah, that’s good. Man, this is a lot of fun, and I hope that people will pick up the book. We’re releasing this episode on the day the book comes out on May 3rd, 2022. So hopefully lots of people will take notice. But I do want to address one thing, because I know a lot of parents probably, I know a lot of moms listen to this show when they’re driving their kids back and forth to school.

And I can imagine the conversation going like this. “Hey, Dr. Frank and Dr. Jeff talked about this movie, therefore we should be able to watch it.” Right. And there’s still discernment that has to take place. Truth can come out in some of these stories, but that doesn’t mean the stories are always good for us to participate in. And I’d love for you just to talk about that for a minute.

(39:52):
How do you guard your heart? How can you be discerning, even though there are lessons everywhere. That doesn’t justify necessarily participating in all of these stories. And it’s nuanced, but I think a lot of moms are going to say, “I’ve got to make these decisions for my kids until they’re old enough to discern for themselves.” How do you make good decisions about entertainment?

Frank Turek (40:19):
Well, I think one of the things you can do is, of course, there’s a difference between isolating your kids or insulating your kids from these things and inoculating your kids from these things. I think showing them the truth about what is actually in the world at a young but not too young age is what we need to do.

Otherwise, if you freak out every time some embarrassing topic comes up or some difficult thing that’s happening in the media comes up, your child is not going to come to you for answers. They’re going to go to the internet, they’re going to go to TikTok, they’re going to go to their friends, right? My wife was always very good at that. We talked to our kids about sex and about other things at a relatively young age because we wanted to make it seem like, okay, these are important issues.

(41:13):
We’re not going to freak out over them. We’re going to talk about them logically and reasonably. So the child would feel that they could come to us and ask us anything at any time. And I think when you watch some of these movies, first of all, most of these movies don’t have any real sex in them. They’re superhero movies, right? There may be love interests, but it’s not pornographic in any way.

(41:38):
There is violence, of course. Most of it is the kind of violence that’s special effects violence. There’s sometimes the occult or the paranormal, it’s supernatural. In fact, Jeff, one of the things that was interesting, we did the research for this book. Do you realize that of the top 25 movies of all time, all but maybe two of them have supernatural or paranormal activity in them. Wow. They’re all fantasy movies. Why? Because we all want to be taken out of this world into the promised land, into heaven.

We want to get out of this world of pain and suffering. We have this desire for this, which is why C.S. Lewis famously said that if I find myself with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world and we were. And so when we make movies that are intriguing movies, when we create stories that are intriguing, they all involve that.

(42:37):
They all involve, someone needs to come rescue us because this world isn’t right. We all know it’s not right. And I think only Titanic and maybe Furious Seven, which has a lot of special effects in it, but it’s not fantasy. Out of the top 25 movies, they’re the only ones that don’t have any paranormal or supernatural activity in them.

Dr. Jeff Myers (42:55):
Wow.

Frank Turek (42:57):
So I think we have to, with our children, inform them of these things and talk openly about these things with them. Otherwise, they’re going to be corrupted in my view because they’re not going to get information from the right source. They’re going to say, “Mom and dad are freaking out over this, or mom and dad are too protective of this stuff. I’m going to find out another way to figure out what’s going on.”

(43:21):
Why are homeschool kids so well adjusted? Because they’re taught by their parents all the time about everything. And so I think we need to do more of that. Our kids were homeschooled until high school, then they went off to high school. So we always tried to be very open with them. And of course, you can go online and check out Christian reviews of movies and they will tell you, what does this movie have in it? How much violence? Does it have sex? Does it have swear words in it? I mean, you can see all that before you show your kid the movie.

Dr. Jeff Myers (43:52):
Yeah. I know Plugged In from Focus on the Family does a lot of reviews. Movieguide.org is one I look at all the time before I make a decision to watch a movie, especially because so many movies today never show up in the theater. So there’s not a big theatrical release with the review process that just shows up on Netflix or Amazon Prime or something like that. And there’s a lot of garbage.

Frank Turek (44:22):
There is.

Dr. Jeff Myers (44:23):
So trying to make good decisions ahead of time is really good. But I use that word discernment. And I always remember the guy who wrote the forward to a book by Samuel Johnson called Life of Boswell. No, Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell. But he wrote the forward and he said, “The true education is expert discernment, that you know you’ve been educated when you can discern.” And then he defines it and he says, “Discernment is the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.” I think that’s where we’re headed.

Frank Turek (45:07):
That’s very good. Well, these movies, most of the ones we’re covering in Hollywood Heroes are made for families. There may be a couple of exceptions in there, but they’re PG, PG-13 movies. Not to say you ought not check them out before you view them, you should, but generally they’re pretty acceptable to most people. There may be a few exceptions in there.

None of the movies that I’m aware of that we have in this book are in the Hollywood Heroes movies. There may be one exception I’m not thinking of, but most of them are. And by the way, as you know, if you want to make money in the movies, you better rate it PG or PG-13. If you go into R, unless you’re Mel Gibson and you’re doing the passion, you’re not going to do as well.

Dr. Jeff Myers (45:53):
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Movies that are here for me. Mostly movies for families. Yeah, yeah. No question. Movies that are geared toward families always do better. And there are a lot more out now than there were when we were kids, which I really do think is fascinating. Well, the book is called Hollywood Heroes, Frank Turek, Zach Turek. Say congratulations to Zach for us. I’d really encourage families to pick up this book and have a look at it. And just if nothing else, it will show you how to watch movies in a way that helps you see reality in them from God’s perspective.

Frank Turek (46:32):
Thanks, Jeff. There is a website people can get more. There’s a little book trailer too, movie trailer. It’s called hollywoodheroesbook.com. So if they go to hollywoodheroesbook.com, they can see a lot more about the book there, what’s in it, what do we cover, some of the questions, that kind of thing. It’s all there at that website, hollywoodheroesbook.com.

Dr. Jeff Myers (46:50):
Hollywoodheroesbook.com. And people from there can order the book. They can get the Kindle. They can get the audiobook, whatever they prefer. Awesome. Frank, thanks for being on the show today.

Frank Turek (47:01):
Dr. Jeff, thanks so much. Looking forward to seeing you this summer out there at Summit.

Dr. Jeff Myers (47:05):
Thank you to my guest today, Dr. Frank Turek, for coming on the program. I encourage you to check out crossexamined.org for resources that Frank has produced on the reasonableness of the Christian faith. And you can also go to hollywoodheroesbook.com to get this latest book, Hollywood Heroes: How Your Favorite Movies Reveal God. You can get it at a bookstore, of course. Check out the site though because there are other resources there that can be helpful to you.

The Bible says, “Though I am free and belong to no one, I’ve made myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible.” Frank Turek’s book shows us one way to become students of culture so we can communicate with our peers, with our kids, with our parents about the good news of Jesus. May God give us wisdom to be able to do that this week, and we’ll see you in a few days.

(48:00):
Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show. It’s a podcast from Summit Ministries, summit.org. Summit is a nonprofit ministry that exists to equip and support the rising generation to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview.

For nearly 60 years, Summit Ministries has been training students and those who work with students to develop, deepen, and defend a biblical worldview through life-changing conferences, thoughtful church, homeschool and Christian school, curriculum books, free online resources and more. If you want to live out a biblical worldview in today’s world and you desire to instill a lifelong faith in the rising generation, visit summit.org/thedrjeffshow for more information.

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(49:03):
Be sure to share this show if you have enjoyed listening to it and leave a review, if you would, on the site where you download the show, that helps more people know about the Dr. Jeff Show, and I look forward to seeing you next week.