Welcome to The Holy Post. The 2024 election is finally here. Who won? We have no idea because we recorded this episode on Monday, but we do know that MAGA men are not happy about their wives secretly voting for Kamala Harris. And a new study finds trust in American institutions, especially the media, continues to decline. Is there any way to reverse the
trend? Then, to take an overdue break from politics, I talk to author and illustrator John Hendrix about his new graphic non-fiction book, The Myth Makers, about the remarkable friendship between CS Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. It's a fun conversation about faith, fantasy, and it's just a little bit nerdy. Also this week, a Japanese village that's populated
with puppets just to fuel your nightmares. We also have a bonus segment this week for Holy Post Plus subscribers where I talk to John Hendrix about the show The Rings of Power. We nerd out just a little bit about this streaming show based on Tolkien's mythology of Middle Earth. So if you're also a nerd and a Holy Post Plus subscriber, you can get access to
that bonus segment this week. And if you're not yet a Holy Post Plus subscriber and you've been on the fence, now is a great time to sign up because we're offering a 20% off monthly and annual memberships. Head over to HolyPost.com slash plus and use the promo code HolyPost20. This promo code HolyPost20 for 20% off HolyPost Plus subscriptions. Okay, here is episode 642. Hey there, welcome back to the HolyPost podcast. This is Phil Vichier. I'm here with
Caitlin Sonny-Shes. Hi Caitlin. Hi Phil. Hi and Sky Dark-Jakani. Wow. Sky Dark-Kani. Hey, I just got five copies in the mail of my book with in Serbian. They've now made a Serbian version of it. And my name, I don't have it with me, but my name in Serbian has got weird letters in it. Really? Maybe that's what you were trying to pronounce. Yeah. Yeah. Just all consonants. Fewer vowels. Sky has a black hat on. Kind
of a menacing. It's almost a menacing black hat like surprisingly. Yeah. Like the minions of a villain when they all show up in a van to grab you and take you to his lair. They'd be wearing those, actually they'd be wearing that outfit and they'd probably look just like you actually with the same hair. I do look like the terrorists in most movies. Yeah. Yeah. So I know. Is that appropriate? No. It's just sad. White people can't. Terrorists too
sky. White people can be increasingly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I just I have a lot of experience at airport security and theme park security. And I get, you know, randomly selected quite non-randomly. I'm just saying. Yeah. It's because you wear that t-shirt that says stop and frisk. I think that one. I'm just looking for some pda. Okay. That's not really a theme song. Today's episode is sponsored by Sunday's Food for Dogs. We've been talking
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the after party logo. It's all dark. And then on the back. What is it though? Can you describe the logo to us? The logo, it's a round seal that has a donkey head and an elephant head. Okay. And I think they have olive branches in their mouths or trunks. And then there's a cross-slaught each other. Yes. And there's a star or cross above the two of them. Like there's peace between these sworn enemies, the animal slash political kingdom. And after
party, of course, is Russell Moore and David French and Curtis Chang. And they've created that curriculum to help Christian communities, churches, families, schools think more Christ like about their political involvement. And it seems like the appropriate week to highlight that curriculum and make sure people check it out. Go to the afterparty.com. And maybe I don't know this episode's coming out the day after the election. It's time
for the after party. Yeah. It's now after the party or during the party or during the funeral. We just don't know. And that's why this is one of the trickier episodes we've ever recorded because we're recording the day before the election. And this will come out the morning after the election. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, Hey there Wednesday morning folks listening to this. We probably don't know who won yet. I'm going to say we do. Oh,
of course you are because everyone's saying we won't. So now you have to be like, yes, we will. Okay. Support your accusation sky, dark sky. I, I, and Mike over here at the office and I've talked about this repeatedly and he's come along a little bit to my point of view. I think the polls are full of garbage. Uh-huh. Well, yeah. Yeah. I think the polls there's don't know what they're doing. And I think because it's hard to pull in
this era. And I think after major poll errors in 2016 and 2020, that there is a term that's come out that's called poll hurting H E R D I N G. Uh-huh. Because it's really odd that all these polls are saying it's super close in all these different swing states. It's one thing to have a couple of states be this tight. But for so many swing states to be this tight and all the polls basically saying the exact same thing, it makes it sound like
all the polls are worried that they're going to get it wrong. So if they just go, oh, it's too close to call. It's so then they can kind of hedge it either way no matter how it works. These are their results. These aren't. But they're weighted. They're weighted results. Because like in 2016 and 2020, they both times drastically undercounted Trump voters. Yeah. And so they've waited it now to try to correct for that. I'm just saying
I'm not going to say who I think won. I'm just going to go out on a limb and say hopefully by Wednesday morning, we know who the winner is because the polls are actually not as close or the reality is not as close as the polls were suggesting. It's all I'm saying. That'd be great. Well, that is fascinating. And I could 100% be wrong as people are listening
to this and yeah, we're not feeling in skies. Yeah, it is. Right. And that's that. That was that's interesting for you to just go out on a limb and make a prediction that will the answer will be known as soon as people hear you make the prediction. I know. So your wrongness will be apparent immediately. That's how I like my wrongness to be a media apparent. Yes. Immediately apparent. I don't want to linger slow. Yeah. Yeah. Drip, drip,
drip. I am tired of politics. I am tired of the election, although sad at life was kind of fun. I am tired of all the ads during my football games that are saying so many things that are not true. I'm kind of stunned by I have to say the closing argument from the Trump campaign in TV ads was made up of almost 100% false or misleading statements. It was stunning. There were some false and misleading statements from the Harris campaign, but nothing
like what I saw from the Trump campaign over the weekend. I'm a little grumpy about that. Caitlin told me not to be and I'm trying to listen. I just told you not to be grumpy in general. You're allowed to be grumpy in justice and deception and grumpy. Okay. So I can, but how do you know if I'm being grumpy with specificity or generality? How do you know? Well, that's, that's what I'm asking is if you could just limit your grumpiness
to those things and not have it extend to other things. I would appreciate that. Okay. I'll, I'll try. I'll try to get a, I'll put a steering wheel on my grumpiness. So I can direct it only in in Caitlin approved directions. Things are getting weird though. They're getting really weird. They're getting weird in Japan. There's a village in Japan where the population of the village is now outnumbered by puppets. A deep populated village in Japan
has crafted dolls for a sense of life. With most of the population gone, residents of one village in Japan have come up with a novel plan to make it less lonely, replacing people with puppets. No, this is terrifying. It's awful. Fewer than 60 people live in Ichinono and most of them, which is what we tell our toddlers when they get mosquito bites like no, don't it? Fewer than 60 people live in Ichinono and most of them are past retirement
ages younger people have moved away for jobs or education. So using old clothes, fabrics and mannequins, residents have stitched together their own population of puppets to keep them company. Some puppets ride swings, others push firewood carts, smiling eerily at visitors. Nope, nope, nope. We're probably outnumbered by puppets says Hisoyo Yamazaki an 88 year old widow. Many of them sent their kids off for better jobs elsewhere and they never came
back and also Japan's getting older and is depopulating. So we're headed, the whole west is headed in this direction. So I think this is the future of humanity. The future is humanity. Of course you think that. A handful of people talking to puppets. I feel like excited about this. This could be a solution to shrinking congregations. Puppets. Yeah, just filled the pews with puppets. I guess there's some president for church puppets.
Pew. Pew puppets. Pew puppets. I like that. There was a Christian puppet company that just made puppets for church puppet teams. I have gone heavily into decline as general. I'm sure, but I remember those. Yeah, but they could adapt. They could adapt to this new reality and instead make pew puppets. Yeah, and if you get really ambitious, you can have puppet puppets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In some cases, we do. That's right. 30% of
the Japanese population is now over the age of 65. 30%. So if you want to know why social security and other social support plans are in trouble around the world, here's a good metric. When we launched Social Security in the US, for every single retiree, there were 20 Americans of working age paying into social security. Okay. In Japan now, for every retiree, there appears there are about one and a half or two working age citizens paying into their
social. That changes the math. I don't know. I don't know if you now, Caitlin, I don't know if you took math because you were all about you were all about theology and you got the little award to prove it. But that's not good math. It's not good math. Yeah. So they need to figure out how to get the puppets to do meaningful work so they can earn wages so they can pay in to social security so they can support the aging population in Japan.
I have a question. Yes, Sky. I have not read or seen this article nor do I intend to. Yeah. That's good. The they're called puppets, which implies that there's some kind of that's a good question. Human agent that is making them move. But otherwise they're just a mannequin or a statue. Yeah. They're kind of elaborate scarecrows basically. Okay. So they're not really puppets. Okay. I they're fabric. They're fabric and the people that
live there are referring to them as puppets. Maybe there's a translation issue. Maybe the Japanese word. Maybe there's whatever this is. Yes. Caitlin. Yes. Caitlin. I just well, I was just reading about this and I learned that they recently finally have a child a two year old. The first baby the village is seen in two decades. That kid is going to be so messed up. That's so scary. I'm going to have about so old. So many imaginary
friends. Yeah. That's terrifying. I don't like that at all. I think this is a great setup for a new horror movie. Yes. That's what you might enjoy. I mean, I would enjoy it. I just don't want to live a serial killer who grew up as the only child in this little tiny abandoned village. No. No. He thinks of all humans as disposable puppets. No. I think of the movie where the puppets come to life and kill everyone. That's the horror movie
you're looking for. Yes. Yeah. Because it's basically it's it's it's it's pre building a zombie apocalypse. It's like we want to have a zombie apocalypse. So we're going to build in place what will eventually come to life as the zombies and eat our brains. So where did this baby come from? If they moved. Yeah. They moved. It was during COVID a couple could work from anywhere. And so they decided they could get a really cheap affordable
house. We want to live there. Let's go to pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop this. No. Which is that's the Greek version. It's a puppet places it's you know, no, is that what it's called? It's you know, no. Yeah. It's you know, no sky. All right. I'm going to move on. Kaelin is there anything else you'd like to say about that story? No. Other than like what a weird setup to talk about American politics to be like, well, we could
live in cities populated by puppets. It could be worse. Hey, but this is why one of the reasons Japan's having the issues it's having is because they don't allow immigration. And so they don't they don't have workers coming in. Yes. And they're not they're not having children. So part of the reason we don't have a country full of puppets is because yes, America has historically been welcoming of immigrants who have kept our population robust.
And this is the future. If we will be living in cities filled with puppets. That's right. Probably will come get that out of there come to life at night and kill us all right. And our dreams like the little boy and poltergeist with the clown would be would be Trump himself who's really. No, he's a real he's a real flesh and blood person's guy. Yeah. Yeah, which makes the puppetry that much grosser. No, no, I'm not even going to Kaelin should
we move on from that. Yeah, please. Yeah, I think we should move on that. Mega men are freaking out. Mega men. That's the new DC comic book. What? Mega men are freaking out over their wives secretly voting for Kamala Harris. The narrative took off after Liz Cheney urged women to vote your conscience, even if it meant keeping their vote for Harris, a secret from their Trump supporting husbands. And then there was a new pro Harris ad from vote common good featuring a voiceover from Julia
Roberts. Everybody, all women do what Julia Roberts says unless it it disagrees with what Taylor Swift or Oprah say. And then we've got a big problem. A voiceover from Julia Roberts shows two women at the polls sharing an understanding gaze and an oh, the understanding gaze as they cast their ballots for Harris while their pro Trump husbands cluelessly egg them on.
Oh, silly men, silly pro Trump men cluelessly egging on this development. The idea that wives are being encouraged to vote secretly without telling their husbands for Kamala Harris has deeply disturbed Maga husbands everywhere. Maga husband. Sorry. Maga, Maga, whatever. Perhaps no one portrayed the Maga meltdown better than Fox News anchor Jesse Waters on Wednesday evening. If I found out my wife Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever
of her Harris, that's the same thing as an affair. Yeld Waters. I see I was yelling. I wasn't saying that he, this is what he sounds like, but this is actually what he sounded like because he was yelling. Of course, it's been pointed out. Waters cheated on his first wife with Emma, who was then his employee. This violates the sanctity of our marriage. Okay. There you go. Charlie can another candidate's lever is not a violation of marriage.
Charlie Kirk then jumped in. We all love Charlie Kirk and said it is so repulsive. It is so disastrous. It is the embodiment of the downfall of the American family. That's it. Wow. That a woman might have an independent thought separate from her husband. No, I think it's, I think it's the implied deception in a marriage. So let's discuss that. Is it,
is it okay? Would it, is it okay? I mean, obviously, if she said, actually, I'm going to vote for Harris, but to vote for Harris and not inform your husband, who of course has a little notebook to write down who you vote for every year. So he can keep tabs on you. Kaelin, Kaelin, isn't, isn't in the Bible somewhere? No. Husbands are in charge of their family voting. No, it doesn't. And all democracies, all foreseen democracies.
I actually, there are some fantastic examples in scripture of women defying their husbands or failing to defy their husbands and facing consequences for failing to defy their husbands. For example, Abigail, who saves her family from David's wrath because she actually has hospitable to him. Or you think of like, in a nice and safira, safira goes along with her husband's plan to deceive the church about their use of money and they face some serious
judgment for that. So we have some examples in scripture of women either failing to defy their husbands and facing consequences. Okay. So, so for the record, for the record, you're saying that men voting for Trump will bring judgment on their family. That is not what I said. And so women have to defy it because it's unrighteous. No, I'm saying there are circumstances in which a woman defying her husband would be righteous. There are
circumstances woman defying her husband would not be righteous. Yeah. If he is, you know, helping guide her towards something good, something that she can't see, which he might also not be able to see things that she can point out to him. But there are instances in which defying her husband would be good. I also think it's not clear to me how much of this messaging some of it might be straight up but deception. Some of it seems to just
basically be like, your vote is secret. So you don't have to tell your husband if you don't want to tell your husband who you voted for. And it seems like even in the ad, maybe the these imaginary wives in this ad told their husbands they were voting for Trump. But the way I interpreted it was just that their husband sort of assumed they were and assumed they were following in their husband's lead. And it turns out they weren't there are
much deeper problems. If you can't talk to your husband about who you're voting for, and just the way that you vote. But I don't know that it was encouraging straight up deception. It seems like it was just saying, in fact, in a really horrifying way, it seemed to assume there might be real consequences for you if you did vote differently than your husband. And don't worry, he'll never find out, which is itself a problem. But. Yes.
Yeah. Okay. So this is the sprays is two different questions for me. One is, is it problematic if a couple do not share the same voting preference? Right? Is that is that an issue? I mean, secondly, that's a non issue. That's my agree. That's my vote. But my wife might vote differently. That would offend me. But then secondly, what does it say about a marriage if either couple doesn't feel like they can be honest with their spouse about what their
political views are in a given election? That seems really weird. I think I think it's an appeal for maybe it's an appeal for tradwives to rebel against what they're trying to say is their role, their traditional role of subservience. I don't know. I'm also just making that up. I mean, I do think that ad is playing on the reality that we've talked about before that there is a pretty serious political divergence among the genders increasingly in the last few
election seasons. But it is, it does seem to be speaking somewhat specifically to people where this is a really serious disagreement and there might be consequences, which again, would be heartbreaking if they were really serious. Like if someone is frightened that there hasn't been find out who they were going to vote for, that's there's no big situation there. That's awful. My assumption is they just don't want
us start a fight. I just don't want an argument. Yeah, which might be true of some people. Yeah. Yeah. So Skye, you are married to a woman. You are married to a woman and her name is Amanda. And I know her. And she seems like someone who really is willing to speak her own mind. Yes, she is from my knowledge. Have you ever voted differently? Has she tried to win you over to voting differently than you want to devote in an election? Or has
she voted differently, but not told you? Well, if she's voted differently and not told me, I obviously wouldn't know that because she's told me. That's right now. She's told me. I vaguely recollect early in our marriage. I think we may have voted for opposite candidates on one election. It was a troubling. Was it troubling? No, back then politics seemed like you had your preference. Right. And you wanted someone to win, but you were like if the
other guy wins, it would be all right. It's not ideal. What's the worst thing that could happen? Right. That's not kind of the environment where it's used to see the election and won't leave the White House and we'll start a war with his followers. That's not going to happen. This is America. Okay. So you know, it may have happened once, but you didn't find it
biblically dubious. No, not at all. And why did it take you so long? No, that's not what I was trying to think back if I could recall the actual election or this happened, but I couldn't know. No, there's nothing biblically dubious about it at all. Okay. Curious about
both of your opinions on this. There is a movement and it seems to overlap pretty heavily with the Christian nationalist movement, the formal Christian nationalist movement, not when we just say that about people and they say, I'm not a Christian nationalist, but the ones who say, yeah, actually, I am. And that's what I think is God's design for governance
that there should be one vote per family, not one vote per person. And that's the way that the founders intended it that it was, you know, it was the head of the household, the owner, you need to own land. You need to be the head of a household. And then you can go white man because yes, and there should be, well, maybe they don't go that far depending on, you know, like, are you a real American or are you a fake one that came because of,
you know, the 1965 immigration reform? So then maybe you shouldn't, yeah, maybe you shouldn't vote then. So what do you think? Because there are people, there are pastors who are preaching that the 18th Amendment should be overturned and that women should no longer have the right to vote. So obviously, this would be highly offensive, that not only that women vote, but that they would vote against, they would silence their husbands by canceling out their
vote, obviously, to some people, that's very offensive. Caitlin, do you find that offensive? I don't even know really what to say about this. I was not prepared to be asked to do. I think women should vote. It's a thing. It's a real thing. My answer to that is yes. I think women should be able to vote. I don't, here's what, here's what I think. I think on one hand, there's the tiniest sliver of something true and what these people are saying, it's
that all of our politics is communal. And I would hope all of our individual discernment about important things we do in the world would be communal, that we would have some sense that I don't make decisions fully by myself. I don't walk into a voting booth and vote just entirely based on my own personal preference. It would be impossible. I'm influenced by people around me, even if I didn't want to be I am. And it's good that I am. I should
seek the council of people. I should look to my neighbors. I should ask questions. I should have, especially the people closest to me should influence everything that I do, but that that includes this one vote. But that ignores both the made an image of women and the fact that that made an image that also means that we have gifts to contribute to our larger community, including discernment of important things like who our leaders are
that will decide things like the laws that govern our country. There's no way to understand this that doesn't just say essentially women should not have a significant role in this.
You can tidy it up by saying it's head of household or one family, but the reality is people are making that argument because they believe that men should be the ones casting those votes that often are, and they often are explicitly like, Phil, if we are going to take really seriously the people that are really in this camp, maybe if I'm relying on very sexist, like really old ideas about women and their intellectual capacities, women, and
their ability to remain unencumbered by emotion. All of these really tired stereotypes about women are often playing into this. They're not at all wrong, but they can root some of these ideas in the founding of our country. We just fought for a long time to change those ideas. Some people even invoke Eve when making this argument in that women are just more
easily deceived. Is it any coincidence that we're hearing these arguments in the election in which there's a woman candidate and the first presidential election since Roe v. Wade was overturned and a lot of women are concerned about that particular issue.
Yes, I don't think that is a coincidence. I'm going to go out and say, I have laid off Twitter for the last few weeks, partly because I've been busy making these little animated shorts, but also because I don't think there's anything I could say that would really change
anyone's mind about anything because we're so dug in on our positions. It's more so in this, to me, and I've been around a while, I've never seen it this bad, where you can't even really debate the issues or the policy positions because you're wrong, because I don't believe your source of wherever you got that information. I don't trust it. I'm just going to reject your argument. I'm going to give you the argument that I have that I heard from
my source that I trust. Bloomberg News just did a published an article about trust in America and they've got some charts showing how bad it really is. This is the one that was, okay, the percentage of Americans in 2024 who express a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in institutions. That was their first question. The most trusted institution of the list of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 17 institutions, which is most trusted? Do you want to guess, Caitlin? Unless you're looking at the chart and then you're not. No, I mean, I don't know the list, but I would guess like a medical field. That is fallen. No. Okay. I mean, I guess with COVID, I just think that that is fallen number one. Yes, it's a military. That's number two. That's the military because men with guns, there's nothing we trust more than a good guy with
a gun. A number one is small business. We trust small business. So, you know, your local florist, your local institution. It's the institution of small. Yeah, that's, I don't, I don't buy that. Then the military, number three, the police, police or number three? Surprising. Then higher education. Oh, they've all got. That was also surprising.
Yeah, that's weird. Then the medical system. But, but okay, just to be clear, the number of Americans who express a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the police is about 55%. Higher education, it's down to 40%. Also, same for the medical system. So we're under half that are expressing high confidence. That's right. After that is the church organized religion at about 35%. What do you think is at the bottom? Congress. Yep. Congress about
8%. 8%. But then above Congress, the second least trusted is television news. Yeah. And the fourth least trusted are newspapers. So the media is way down there. And then they did another interesting little study or they published it. How trustworthy does public find news from 52 different sources? And they rated it by partisan affiliation. So if you're a Republican, you're trust in these 52 news sources is on this scale. If you're
Democrats on this scale. So where do we see overlap? Where do where can Republicans? American Red America and Blue America agree about trusting a media source. And there is a clear winner that is highly trusted by both conservatives and liberals. What is it? ESPN. No. Some sports thing. Oh, okay. It's the weather channel. Oh, that's not the news. Oh, my gosh. The weather channel is the news source that we all trust the same.
And there's one that we mistrust the same. Ooh, there are things that bring us together. The weather channel brings us together in trust. And this source brings us together in mistrust. What is it? Facebook. No. I don't like this game. What? Yeah. The national inquire. Oh, okay. Great. The irony is, do you remember when Trump was president, at least the first time around? And there was whatever Hurricane was coming through. When Trump was president the first time
around. I don't know. Maybe he's president. I don't know. I don't know. So remember that hurricane or fourth time? The hurricane was coming through and he shows this map from the national weather, whatever. And it showed the course and it didn't, wasn't going where he said it was going to go. So he took a sharpie and re-drew the map. He sharpied the map. And on the flip side, he was super tight with David Pecker, the guy who ran the national
inquire who Trump used to pay him to kill stories that were bad for Trump. So it's ironic that the two new sources that Americans trust the least in the most are the opposite for Trump because he doesn't trust the weather channel, but he does trust the national inquire. Well, he trusts the national inquire to help him. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Different than trusting them as a source of accurate news. I object to your characterization, Senator. That's a tabloid. Nobody takes it serious.
On that, the democratic, democratic respondents trust positively 35 new sources that Republicans distrust out of the 52, 35 of them are trusted. So there you go. That's, I'm going to say the mainstream news and Republicans trust Fox News and not much else. So it's, and we've talked about this a zillion times. I don't even know why I'm talking about this. Again, except that I thought the chart was kind of pretty. And I thought it was funny that we
all trust the weather channel and no one trusts the national inquire beyond that. I'm not sure why I brought this up, except to say that I see this playing out on Twitter. And it's partly why I'm just, I'm just not really trying to, to bring new facts to anyone on Twitter because they're rejected out of hand based on priors. You just need to cite the weather channel as your source. Yes. Yes. It's really branching out.
Do you know that putting tariffs on all imports will cause prices of almost everything to go up? I heard it on the weather channel. Now I'm making progress. Now I'm getting somewhere. Okay. I don't know what to do about that. What do we do about that? And I, can we go back? Is there, can we come down from this mountain of mistrust where nothing you say will land because I don't trust where you get your facts? Yes. How do we come
down from it? Great. I think part of it is, well, there's a couple factors on this, but it depends what altitude you're talking about. Caitlin likes to talk often about the importance of local engagement and congregational engagement and neighborhood engagement. And when we build relationships with people who may not share our exact political ideology, but we share a community together and we're trying to do life together, you can build
more trust that way. But when it comes to national media trends, I, I, I think we're actually reverting back to the American norm because prior to the advent of radio and especially television, Americans got their news from very local fractured sources, which is some of what contributed to the Civil War is if you lived in Georgia, you were reading newspapers and getting news information very differently than someone who lived in Philadelphia.
And we're breaking back into that. Although it's not as explicitly geographic as it is demographic or sociographic that we through the algorithms have siloed into different news segments. So 20th century with media technology and the Cold War really bound America together in a way that when we were young Phil, we experienced, but there's a generation now who've never
known that united sense of American identity. And we may well revert back to the factionalism and perhaps even civil breakdown that we saw in 19th century America because we don't share united media. If we have a civil breakdown, the puppets are going to rise up against us. We got to keep it together people. I like how skies answer was like, yes, we can fix it. And then he basically was just like, no, it's really bad. We can fix it on a local
relational level. I don't know what the fix is on a national level. So there's hope, hope for me and my cousin, but not necessarily for me and my nation. Maybe. Well, to Sky's point to the other problem is when we have these surveys that will come out about trust in different institutions, it's typically asking people like this institution,
how much trust do you have in it? That's in the abstract. So if people think about the media in the abstract or the medical field in the abstract, it's very different than I know someone who works in journalism or I know someone who's a doctor or I know someone who works in higher education and they're like a really faithful Christian and there. So I think part of what we can do to Sky's point, we obviously can't fix like big national
trends. But if many of us are in context like Phil, you were talking about where I'm in a conversation with someone and they don't trust the sources I trust and it feels like we live in different realities. I think one really grounding thing to do can be to say, hey, you're making these really broad statements about this institution. What about this person at our church who works in the public school system? Could we bring them
into this conversation? They're a real person that you trust. It doesn't guarantee that that conversation will go well. But I think there's some opportunities to not just, as Sky was saying, to make it local, to make it more specific, but also just to say there's a human being that I know that's involved in this. I was hearing someone talk recently
about how strange it was that they were, and maybe this was on the podcast. I don't remember, but someone was talking about how strange it was that they were encountering teachers in their public school context that would have these kind of racist, sexist, xenophobic ideas in the abstract, but they were working in a school with people that fit these categories that they were saying kind of these really derogatory things about. And
once someone helped them see, hey, you're talking about your students. When you say these kinds of things, there are immigrant students in your class. There are LGBTQ students in your class. There are people of color in your class. It helps that person to say, oh, I'm getting this abstract racist rhetoric, this sexist rhetoric from the internet, but I'm not connecting it with the lived reality of the place that I'm in. And once I do,
there's such cognitive dissonance. It doesn't always fix the problem. People can still be captive to those ideologies, but it forced them to actually think specifically in an embodied way. And that was more helpful than just trying to combat what they were hearing on the internet with more abstract commentary on the internet. Right. I will add one other thing that I think could change the national level of this.
I think if there is legal reform that actually makes libel in defamation lawsuits more likely against news carriers that are spreading falsehoods. And if there is reform to internet laws, particularly section 230, which would make internet carriers specifically social media carriers responsible for the content that is disseminated by their users, that would
radically change the American media landscape. Because if the carriers, everyone from Twitter to Facebook to the New York Times, if they are more legally accountable for the content that they are spreading, including the false content, you will see them clean up their act very quickly. And you won't have the flat out lies and dissemination of conspiracy theory and untruths that permeates our current media landscape. And that could go a long
way to building trust back in media that isn't currently there. But that would take a massive legal effort to just sue the heck out of media companies. Yeah. And I mean, Fox News after 2020 faced the largest lawsuit in the history of the media and ended up paying $800
million for the lies they spread about. And still to this day, they catch themselves when someone starts to say something like that when they have a guest on who starts to go into the, you know, dominion voting systems, they shut them down and say there's been no evidence. So I guess lawsuits work. I'm just worried about people coming after news of the butt though. If you can put that that's gospel truth, Phil. It is gospel truth. It's
gospel. It's gospel truth. So we are broadcast. This is the first time we've broadcast from purgatory where we are, we are neither here nor there. We are in the great in between. We know as you're listening, the election happened. We don't know what happened. So I don't know that we want to go on too much longer speculating. Because we need to actually see what happened. Oh, Caitlin. Yes. Yes. Caitlin. No, Sky was going to say something.
Oh, I was just going to do an interview after this with John Hendrix about something completely unrelated to any of this time for something completely different. Yeah. It's a palette cleanser after this contentious election season to just enjoy thinking about something different. And I would finish that money Python quote, except Caitlin won't like the second half. I'm sure I won't. No. Okay. And Caitlin, you were going to say to what Sky was going to
say. Well, I was just going to say we do not know the outcome of this election. But your point, Phil, about like not that we're in purgatory. But there is a larger truth that we should remember in an election as we're receiving reports about the outcome that we do live in a already and not yet. Like there is a really important Christian tension to remember an election, which is there is important work for us to do. There are glimpses of the kingdom
of God that we can bring to earth through faithful, just, merciful work. And yet both sides of the political aisle, all sorts of local and national efforts to have certain laws passed and different people elected pull on the strings of our heart to say this will be the kingdom of God. And if this is not passed, then all is lost. If this doesn't come to pass, then the way of life is you know it will never be realized. And the reality of living in
the already and not yet is that there is great possibilities for faithful work. And yet none of them are the full kingdom of God come to earth. That is promised. Like not no outcome of this election can threaten the coming resurrection of the dead in the life of the world to come. And we can have hope in that even if we're celebrating right now or even if we are mourning, lamenting and there's real suffering that could come as an
outcome that we should take seriously. That promised hopeful future is not at risk, regardless of what we know now while you are listening. Amen. Amen. Okay. So we got a great interview coming up. We are going to stop recording and then we're going to go vote. And then we're going to watch TV tomorrow night and then we'll finally catch up to where you all are on Wednesday morning. And we can have an intelligent conversation about it.
So thanks for hanging with us and we'll be back next week and we'll be as in the know as you are. Maybe. See you next time. You know that I'm a skeptic. I like things to have evidence, proof, data. I like to research things before I commit to them and that even goes for my supplements. I want to know that they're high quality. That's why for the last year I've been drinking AG1. Unlike many supplement brands, AG1 conducts relentless testing to set the standard for purity and
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Many of you know that I'm a nerd. I love superheroes, sci-fi and fantasy, good grief. I've got Imperial Stormtrooper bookends here in my office. But the entire nerd subculture really isn't that old. And there was a time when these kinds of magical stories were limited to fairy tales that were just for children. But in the middle of the last century two Christian men changed all of that. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were both professors at
Oxford. They both loved Norse mythology and they both published books that changed popular culture forever. My guest today is John Hendrix. He's an author and illustrator who's created an amazing new graphic nonfiction book about the relationship between Lewis and Tolkien.
It's called The Mythmakers. In it he beautifully tells the story of Tolkien and Lewis' friendship, how Tolkien was instrumental in leading Lewis from atheism to Christianity and how Lewis then led Tolkien to make his stories about Middle Earth more than just a hobby. John Hendrix is the chair of the MFA illustration and visual culture program at the Sam Fox
School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. He's written and illustrated a bunch of bestselling books including The Faithful Spy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and The Plot to Kill Hitler, and Go Into Likewise, The Parables and Wisdom of Jesus. And a book called The Holy Ghost, A Spirited Comic. There are a bunch of others that you should check out. But this new one about Tolkien and Lewis is fantastic. Here is my conversation
with John Hendrix. John Hendrix, welcome to The Holy Post. Oh, so glad to be here. Okay, so I got to do a little explanation before we jump into your book because people know we talk a lot about books on this show. Most of them get sent to us by publishers because they want to get some press, they want some exposure on The Holy Post. And they're desperate for The Holy Post, eye on this book. Yeah,
they want The Holy Post bump. And we fortunately were in a place where we just pick the books we really like, the ones that we want to read or the authors we really want to talk to. That is not how I came across your book. So I came across it because Phil was reading it. And I kind of caught a glimpse of him like, what is that? And he showed it to me. I was like, that looks really cool. So I bought myself a copy. I actually paid for a
copy of your book. I'm like, so many. This is the highest compliment this show can provide me. So thank you. Well, and that's why I invited you to come on because I've read the book and I absolutely loved it. So I think we got to have a month. And so for anyone listening, like any book that I do talk about on the show, I usually like, but the fact that I went and bought this, it wasn't given to me. That tells you something. Well, congratulations
on the book. It's fantastic. It's called Myth Makers, the remarkable fellowship of CS Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. I don't want to call it a graphic novel because it's not a novel, but it is graphic. Yeah. So yeah, it's graphic nonfiction probably be the right word. It's a little clunky. They don't have a category for that in Barnes and Noble. So it's in the graphic novel section, for sure. Okay. So my first question, this is so technical.
How long did it take you to do this? Because it is a large book and there's a lot of illustration in here. Yeah. I mean, it was a five year project. And if you count my reading year, that probably adds another year on to it. Because I'm a very slow reader. And I think of this as a work of art more than scholarship, but I really wanted it to sit in the nonfiction section, despite it having a talking lion in it. And so I just wanted it to be accurate.
I wanted it to be true. I didn't want to over speculate about it. I didn't want it to be fan fiction. So I worked really hard to make sure that it was as close a nonfiction as possible. Okay. So take us back then to the origin of this project. What led you to want to undertake such a massive project as telling the story of these two huge figures and do it with illustration? I mean, the first thing you got to know is just like these
two men changed my life. So like on some level, this is just fan art for them. Like I wanted to kind of make a love letter to really not just them, but the thing that they were searching for in their work. And you know, the first question you ask, because so many people have written and thought and talked about this work. Tim Keller, I so many of my heroes have used them as a starting point for their work. So what could I possibly add to this? I think
is the right question. For any actually insane person who thinks I should write a book. So I mean, just very briefly, the thing I wanted to do was middle earth and Narnia have been illustrated so many times. And I love all the new covers, every new edition I just pour over. But there the inklings, which is also kind of a sub created world. I think it I would argue it's a third fantasy world that they created together has never been
illustrated. And I just wanted to bring young readers specifically into that world and translate some of their really interesting but complicated ideas into a form that was pretty acceptable. Okay. So I get I suspect that you and I are both on the nerd spectrum. And I don't want to assume all of our I do like rings of power too. So I think you can put me and David French in the same category. So we probably don't want to go along that
route. But yeah, I mean, we can do a whole thing on that. But like I don't want to assume all of our listeners are as nerdy as we are. So first of all, we need to explain who we're talking to my hair. CS Lewis. Most famous for writing the Chronicles of Narnia books, although he did a lot of other writing on Christian apologetics and other things. And J.R.R. Tolkien, of course, the originator of Middle Earth, Lord of the Rings, those fantastic
books and the Peter Jackson movies and everything else that's come since then. So let's back up a little bit. What? What do you believe the Narnia books and Lord of the Rings or the Middle Earth books? How did that? How did these works change popular literature? Because we take them for granted because we're both born long after these books. They had a massive influence on literature and youth culture and storytelling. But they were really weird
for the time when they were actually written by Lewis and Tolkien. How did they change things? Yeah, this is such a foundational thing to talk about. It is easy to forget that CS Lewis and J.R. Tolkien did not know that they were the CS Lewis and the J.R.R. Tolkien. They were professors that were basically doing this as a kind of hobby. I mean, they were doing
this weird activity together. And they sort of accidentally reenchanted an entire world to thinking that fantasy literature could be meaningful for both adults and children. And so in that age post-war when they were really starting this project together, I think the world was sort of ready to be reenchanted on some level. And yes, I think you can draw a straight line between Lord of the Rings and Star Trek as sort of inventing modern fan
culture in the sticties. Like the way we relate to our properties, not just like I enjoy this movie, but I identify with it. Like that was a phenomenon that just did not exist pre Lord of the Rings. And frankly, Tolkien didn't really understand it himself either. He thought it was strange if people dressed up like hobbits and did hobbit food parties
or whatever. So again, those are two things running side by side that I think both Narnia and Middle Earth kind of ushered us into the way we now relate to popular media like this. Yeah, great point. I want to get a little bit into their biographies. I learned things that I know both of these characters and I know their work obviously, but I hadn't studied their biographies in great depth. They both had childhoods that were rooted in a lot
of pain. And then of course, their early adult years in the trenches of World War One, explain how you think that pain in their childhoods and young adult years shaped them and the literature they eventually created. Yeah, it's again, if you know the sort of rough draft of their friendship in your mind, you probably don't know there's so many rich details in their story that are really compelling. And one is they're kind of shared
childhood traumas. I mean, Tolkien wasn't, was an orphan by the time he was 12 years old, lost his mom, his father had died in Africa. Lewis was a kind of orphan as well. His mom died very young. That was a scar he carried his whole life. And yet in his dad's grief, his father sent him away from his homeland of Ireland that he loved to go to boarding school in England, basically alone to be bullied for like two years by these kids at a boarding
school. So in many ways, Tolkien and Lewis should not have been friends. They, I mean, one was a Catholic from England. The other one was an Anglican from Ireland. They had a lot that could have kept them apart. But they came together right at this, this shared time in their life, united by the trauma of World War I, the loss of their parents. And then this shared fandom of Norse mythology. I mean, it was truly like they were geeking
out about Star Wars together or whatever. And that little shared fandom, which is really what my book is kind of about on some level, is what propelled their fellowship. And it came from I think this, the longing for joy that was, that was so stripped of them in their, in their youth. But yeah, it's a fascinating overlap.
Yeah, I mean, you do really get the sense if you could go back to the 1930s, you do get the sense that these are just two nerds who stumbled into each other at Oxford, realizing they both had this really weird hobby that grown men typically don't nerd out about. In this case, North Stackedery mythology. Well, even more that Lewis at that point was
an agnostic who who sees the world as a lost and hopeless place. And then there's this nerd guy who six years older than him, who's like loves Norse mythology, just like him. But his view of the world is not distorted. It is not broken after World War I, like so many of the other veterans. There is a clear desire for hope in Tolkien's works that is not found in what Lewis is writing. I mean, his stuff at the time is, honestly, it's
hard to read. It's very, it's very cynical. And so, so they, they find this love of Norse mythology, mythology together. And then there is this clear opening up on both of them. I mean, Tolkien to this point had never shared any of his legendary and with anyone. And then he allows Lewis to read the lay of Lethian, basically the core of the Simarillion about Baron and Lethian. And this is a huge act of vulnerability for Tolkien. And then Lewis
receives it. And not just says that was awesome, but writes a 14 page commentary on it, right? So immediately they were just like, they were bros, like they were like, I get what you're doing. And so, of course, Lewis is intoxicated by this idea that maybe stories are not lies, as he said. Maybe stories are not lies, gilded and silver. But they are something that could be meaningful and real. And that's, and that's where their fellowship really takes off.
Yeah. If anyone has any knowledge about their friendship, it's usually that Tolkien was instrumental in Lewis coming to faith. And, and you know, what people don't realize is that Lewis was instrumental in making sure that Tolkien's weird hobby of creating this middle earth mythology actually saw the light of day and people read his books, because he wasn't planning to make any of this public. So they really created one another
in a significant way. But let's talk a little bit about Lewis's conversion. And you took some liberties with the way that's explained mostly just to condense it for because of the time involved. But sketch out what you think were the critical moments or components that
led Lewis to embrace a faith, if not exactly like Tolkien's very similar. Yeah, they, I think many people know the story of them on Addison's walk together, which many scholars have said is one of the single greatest conversations of the 20th century, like if you had most important single conversations, that would be one of them that shaped the outcome of the rest of the century. But I think with, with that particular moment, the important thing to remember is that
they are both coming to the same place, looking for answers sort of together. And Lewis
was at that point a theist, he had allowed the idea that maybe God could be possible. But it was in this conversation on Addison's walk that lasted well into the night where Tolkien convinces Lewis that all the myths that he loves in the universe, the elder Edda, all the ancient mythology, they were all there to prime the human heart to see mythology as something desirable so that when that myth came true, we would look at it and we would
say like, it's happening. And this, we know this conversation happened because of the, the poem that Tolkien wrote for Lewis, Mythopoeia, which records a lot of this conversation in verse. And, and I think again, Tolkien did not convert Lewis. But he, as Alan Jacob said, the scholar Alan Jacob said, he allowed Lewis to read the human story the right way. And this little, this little key that turned the lock in Lewis's heart was Christ was the
myth that actually came true. And that's why the myths matter. And, and again, I think that just it allowed Lewis to square the circle of his life, which was like at one point Lewis said, everything that I love in the world is imaginary, right? And that, that brought him grief because to him, everything that was real was hopeless and dim. And so to, for Tolkien to give him a key into his greatest joy and to allow him to complete that story
as being like rich and meaningful. And the imagination is a place that can be validated in the eyes of God. I mean, this was, Lewis would never have made any of his works without that, without closing that gap. Right. Absolutely. God, there's so many directions I want to go here. But when people hear the word myth, you do this, apart from the core narrative about their friendship, you have these tangents in the book that go off and exploring the idea of myths and different.
It's really creatively and beautifully done. But when people hear the word myth, they think fable. They think a lie, a fiction, a fictional story, a lie of myth. It's not real. It's fake news, whatever you want to put on it. But Tolkien and then Lewis had a different understanding of what myth meant, which is why you call your book myth makers, explain
the relationship they saw between myths and truth. Yes. Yeah. No, this is one thing I correct really early when I speak to audiences, especially in church context, where they're like, I'm saying the Bible is a myth. And they're like, whoa, hold on. And they immediately you know, walk out of the lecture. And because in line and wizard, which is some avatars I used to help us tell the story, walk through this hall of myth. And inside of the hall of
myth, there is the Genesis story and Gilgamesh and all of these ancient tales. And so, yes, Tolkien and Lewis saw myth, not as this is a false tale, but the definition I use in the book is kind of cobbled from a few different scholars. But it's basically, it tells us something true about our world. And even though it is not necessarily fact, it is truth, right?
And that's all, all ancient audiences understood myth as truth. And so the closing sort of argument from Tolkien and his poem to Lewis about that night on Addison's walk was, you know, we make in the manner in which we were made. We write myths because we were made by a myth maker. And, and that core idea is that like we are stories, God writes stories because
we ultimately want to see that story completed. So it's, it actually uses a lot of Jungi and psychology and the, the idea of the, the great Joseph Campbell concept of the hero's journey that we see in so many popular films and stories. It's, it's that there is an echo of longing to completion inside these great heroic tales that is kind of the core story that, that ultimately
the gospel answers in flesh and blood. And, and that was their understanding of why myth was so important to understand and to kind of revere. How do you see their, their stories, whether their books are under the films that have been made about Lord of the Rings of how do you see those myths still drawing people toward faith? Yeah. Or is it, is it just that they exist in the culture now in their own thing
and the, there, there, there's no real connection and off it goes? No, no. Every time I hear you say, I follow a lot of podcasts of people that I just love who are not Christians who love talking about Tolkien and love talking about the, the, the longing for what I think in these stories is home. Like, I think it's the longing for the new creation. And like, that is good. That is right. And that is inside every human being. And honestly, I can make the argument
that Middle Earth is way more infused with gospel allegory than Narnia. Like, I made a list the other day for my own sort of hobby. And I found 10 or 11 connections inside of Lord of the Rings alone that, that are just like clear gospel echoes of this, of this longing for new creation. And a longing for all that is wrong to be made right or as Sam says,
everything said, be untrue, right? And so when I see people who love Tolkien and who are not going to church, I'm like, Oh, man, I, I, I want you to read the story the right way. Cause like, to me, I'm, I'm a Christian because it is such a romantic story on some level. The, the idea of God becoming man and dwelling among his habitants to finally set the world right. Like, you know, again, it's a, it's an incredible story. And I, and I think that's why Narnia and Middle Earth have still endured.
Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with Charles Taylor and his idea that the modern world has been disenchanted. And I, I believe that's part of the reason we're so drawn to these fantasy worlds because there's so much enchantment. I mean, there's magic and wizards and good and evil and kings and elves and stuff. And it's a way of scratching that itch we have for an enchanted reality. Yeah. Well, and the identifying with it, like now, because
you have the enlightenment is stripped us from anything supernatural. The idea of allowing us to live inside of that is, is so, I mean, I think it's God given like the longing for that. And you know, I've heard Tim Keller talk about this, like talking animals, wanting to have a talking animal is given to you by God because it's like you want to be at
home with your creation. You want to commune with creation. And so like the desire to have a talking tree or a beaver that you can have tea with, that is like a God given desire, which I just love thinking about that. So we go to these stories because it gives us that sense of enchanted world and we immerse ourselves in it. So I remember going to the last, the midnight showing of Return of the King when it first debuted was at 2003, 2004, three maybe yeah. Yeah. And what's the
midnight show and I was surrounded by people dressed like elves. And I think this is bizarre. I mean, I love this stuff too, but I'm not about to dress up in it. But people really immerse themselves in it. And it sounds like you have a little bit of grief when you meet people that are doing that. And they don't recognize that what Tolkien was trying to say to us is no, this creation we inhabit is also enchanted. Yeah. But so few of them
actually see that anymore. So it gets a weird, I don't know if we're caught in a trap here where we go to Tolkien and Lewis to feel that sense of enchantment, but have those worlds become so immersive now because of technology and all the nerd culture that it actually prevents us from finding that enchantment in the real world because you can live in the fictional one indefinitely now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, it's a great point. I mean, Tolkien
would have hated all this stuff. I mean, that's one thing you have to always remember. He actually famously in on fairy stories said the worst thing you can do or on fairy stories was an essay he wrote 1939 well ahead of Lord of the Rings, really taking full shape. And
it was kind of a defense of why fantasy should matter. And in that he said very poignantly the worst thing you can do for fantasy is illustrate it because then it steals some of the power of the reader to envision the world in their mind and to inhabit in their own place. But of course, you know that Tolkien himself illustrated some of his stories. So like he was a total conundrum. And I think I kind of have an argument about what he was
really saying. And part of it was the sort of simulation of a very fiduidic landscape. I mean, like imagine a beer-shot painting versus what Tolkien made which were more glyphic and designed images. I think deep down he was more of a graphic designer than a pure painter. But yes, I think he believed that that did rob something from the sort of soul reader experience. So going back to their friendship. Later on in the book, you talk about how they grew
apart over time. For a number of different reasons, there was kind of weird jealousy over one of Lewis's other friendships. There was some disagreement over their style of writing. And then a big piece seemed to be Lewis's growing fame as a Christian apologist and voice along with Lewis's marriage, which I mean, I knew about the marriage, but I didn't
realize how that impacted him in Tolkien. Can you talk a little bit about, especially those last two things, Lewis's growing reputation and fame in especially England and then how his marriage impacted their friendship? Yeah, and this is a really important. I spent a lot of time on this in the book and people who don't know this about them. I have already gotten emails from people that's like, I
had to put the book down when I got to this point because it like bummed me out. And then they were like, but I trusted the author and I picked it back up and they were glad they did. But I think it's important to tell the full story of their friendship because this side of new creation, we experience pain and loss that is like unresolved. And their
story of their friendship is both triumph and tragedy together. And yes, it came down to a friendship over 25 years of British men that did not talk about their feelings very often. And yes, it started with Lewis becoming basically a hero of England, a hero of Britain after the broadcast talks during the war, becoming a enormous celebrity in America. And Tolkien's sort of feeling like he did with all of his works that you had to really
be qualified to do what you're doing. And the sort of fine carpentry of his work was very different than the way Lewis composed intuitively and quickly. And so writing theology books when you did not go to seminary, that struck Tolkien as odd. And even when Lewis dedicated screw tape letters to Tolkien, he was really confused by that and felt very
mixed about that. And so yes, they're like in a lot of friendships, there was this sort of growing tension that actually was rooted in some of their theological differences of Catholicism and Anglicism. So that is where it began. And then it kind of was all topped up with with joy, David. Okay. So yeah, joy, David, man, to explain for the again, those who don't know, Lewis was single most of his life. And pretty late in his life, he meets this American divorcee
named joy. And they had what some might consider to be a little bit of a scandalous relationship because of the circus. I mean, the time being what it was and the appearances being held up the way they needed to be explained how that unfolded and how Tolkien reacted to it. Yes. So Lewis did, he was pursued by joy and joy was divorced. It's important to say she was divorced because her husband was abusive. And she was in my mind in the right to leave
that marriage. And Lewis felt so as well. In fact, he he pressed for an official annulment of that marriage. But when they got together, they sort of did marriage backwards. They got married to keep her in England. And I think Lewis was sort of not fully truthful with himself about the feelings he had for at the time. But after they had officially gotten married at the courthouse, she gets a diagnosis of cancer and Lewis immediately
realizes that he is deeply in love. And the threat of that law sort of calcifies immediately his love for her. And of course, the reason why this was so upsetting to Tolkien is he had not heard of this at all. So the marriage of his, the marriage of his basically best friend comes to him from someone else. And so I think what Lewis had done knowing that Tolkien would be very upset that he is marrying someone who was divorced probably in his mind felt
I'm going to keep this from him so as to not cause pain. But of course, the the loss of that communion was the ultimate blow for Tolkien to feel like he was left out of this very important thing in Lewis's life. So I don't want to ruin it for those who pick up the book, but you have a very creative way of bringing some closure to the nature of their friendship, which, well, I guess it fits the myth idea, right? It seems true without being factual. I guess that's what it is.
Well, another way I've talked about that without spoiling it is Tolkien had this idea of the Eucatastrophe, the backwards catastrophe and that all great stories have it. And in fact, it's one of the criticisms of Lord of the Rings. There's like too many of them. Like Gandalf comes back from the dead. He saves Helm's deep, the eagles, like all the things that like the joyous sudden turn from disaster to salvation, which Tolkien thought
was ultimately like Easter was the ultimate Eucatastrophe. So to me, I'm writing a book about them. I just could not give them their own Eucatastrophe. So yes, I try to have truth without fact at the end of the book, yes. Okay. Before we wrap up, tell me more about why you choose to tell stories through graphic illustration the way you do. And this is not your first book. You've done one on Bonhoffer. Yes.
I know you've done other children's books. I mean, but like whether it's Bonhoffer or Lewis and Tolkien, like these are not figures or topics that you think naturally lend themselves to be depicted the way you've done it. Yeah. Was it difficult convincing a publisher to go along with this or how did that work for you? Well, I mean, no more difficult than I also have a book of comics about the Holy Ghost having conversations with a squirrel
and a badger. So really that to me, if I can sell that to a secular publisher, I feel like Tolkien and Lewis is a piece of cake. But no, I mean, I think my publisher trust me. I've worked with Abrams books now for almost all of my authored works. And I honestly I really love that I'm not at a quote unquote Christian publisher and that I'm trying to translate these ideas to a pretty broad tent. But yeah, for me, like I love drawing and
drawing is an act of translation. It's taking something complicated and editing it and making it graspable. And to me, that's what these stories do. And just the basic form of to me, if we can go to art school for just a minute of the like word and image relationship, that's what it means to be an illustrator, but words and image context together. And
the book, the book, the codex to me is the ultimate human technology. Like, and when you pour words and images into that, that form, it becomes a kind of enchanted intersection. I believe that the book does things that no other form can do. That that special word and image relationship creates a third thing that is neither word nor image and that, like the stolt that whole being more than the sum of its parts is to me, just it's magic.
And when I experience it as a reader, it's what I want to give to other people. So I mean, that's why I illustrate fiction or illustrate nonfiction for young audiences. I mean, I've written a number of books and they're always an undertaking. It's always a lot of work. And yet I look at what you've done here and I'm just stunned. Like the amount of planning that must go into this every page, every chapter, every layout, every
illustration, it's just a remarkable and beautiful achievement. So incredibly grateful for it. Do you have something else in the works or are you just kind of resting from from this audience? Yes. I'm my editor. It gives me two weeks and he's like, what's next? Actually, it's that worst is the 10-year-olds who have read the book in two hours and then ask me, when does the next one come out? And I'm sorry, you're going to be five years.
Yeah, you're going to be 25 when the next book comes out. Yeah. So I am working on a retelling of the Salem witch trials in this format, which I'm really interested in what the church thinks about the devil. And I think most of us have read the crucible and that's probably our only like mental engagement with the Salem witch trials. And the crucible is awesome, but it's a lot of fiction and it's a work of art, right? And the full story of Salem
is actually way weirder than you think. It's way scarier. It will never be fully solved. And it actually sort of defies being easily categorized. And again, those are the kind of stories I like to work on. So we expect that around what, 2029? 2028 is what it says right now on the calendar. So yeah. Okay. John, would you be willing to actually stick around for a few minutes and talk separately about movies and brings up all of them? Oh, and I love to. Yes.
Okay, we'll do that for our Holypost Plus subscribers. Get a little bit more. Definitely pick up Myth Makers by John Hendrix. It's fantastic. I want to get your bond offer book as well. I have found you and your great work. Thank you for all the, I mean, these are like I keep saying enormous undertakings and grateful that you have the patience and gifts to pull it off because we all benefit from it. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much.
The Holypost Podcast is a production of Holypost Media, produced by Mike Straylow, editing by Seth Gorevet. Help us create more thoughtful Christian media by subscribing to Holypost Plus at Holypost.com slash plus. Also be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts so more people can discover thoughtful Christian commentary plus ukulele and occasional but news. Visit Holypost.com for show notes, news stories, Holypost merchandise and much, much more.