Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1176 | ‘The King of Kings': The Biblical & the Questionable

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Today, we bring you our honest review of the new Angel Studios animated movie "The King of Kings" and break down whether this is a worthy adaptation of the Gospels — or rather, Charles Dickens' interpretation of the Gospels. And is it worth letting your kids watch it, or should parents pass on this one? We also discuss the past weekend's Easter celebrations, which saw Trump coloring with kids at the White House and "American Idol" hosting more of a faith-centric show. Share the Arrows 2025 is on October 11 in Dallas, Texas! Go to sharethearrows.com for tickets now! Buy Allie's new book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": https://a.co/d/4COtBxy --- Timecodes: (02:32) King of Kings movie review (42:47) White House Easter celebration (49:38) American Idol Easter show --- Today's Sponsors: Freedom Project Academy — Take back your child’s education at Freedom Project Academy. Right now, save 15% on all courses when you enroll at freedomforschool.com and use code ALLIE15. Good Ranchers — Go to https://GoodRanchers.com and subscribe to any of their boxes (but preferably the Allie Beth Stuckey Box) to get free bacon, ground beef, seed oil free chicken nuggets, or wild-caught salmon in every box for life. Plus, you’ll get $40 off when you use code ALLIE at checkout. Patriot Mobile — go to PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE or call 972-PATRIOT and use promo code 'ALLIE' for a free month of service! --- Related Episodes: Ep 1174 | The Best Argument Against Jesus’ Resurrection — and How to Respond | Guest: Dr. Sean McDowell https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1174-the-best-argument-against-jesus-resurrection/id1359249098?i=1000703924611 Ep 1126 | I’m in DC. The Post-Inauguration Atmosphere Is UNREAL https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1126-im-in-dc-the-post-inauguration-atmosphere-is-unreal/id1359249098?i=1000684871676 Ep 397 | Debunking Heretical Hot Takes on Jesus & Easter https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-397-debunking-heretical-hot-takes-on-jesus-easter/id1359249098?i=1000515872541 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

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That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley, term supply, see site for details, fellowship home loans, mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819382. King of Kings, the new animated movie about the life of Jesus. Should you see it? Should you allow your kids to see it? Bree and I have a full analysis, theological, creative analysis about that movie today. Also, American Idol honored Jesus over the weekend, and we will play you some highlights from that.

It was so special. All of this and more on today's episode of Relatable. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. We are getting into the King of Kings today. We were going to discuss it last week in case you and your family were going to see it over Easter weekend. You were trying to decide what to do, but I just wasn't ready yet. Now we are ready. So Brie and I have slightly different takes and interpretations about this. And so you'll get to hear what we think as well as what some other critics and viewers out there think. But Bree, since I didn't get to talk to you yesterday on the show, I just want to hear. how your Easter weekend was. Was it good? Yeah, it was. I was pretty low-key. Went to church, had Easter lunch. I made lemon bars. Ooh. Is there cream cheese in these lemon bars? No, is there supposed to be? No, not necessarily, but I have had cream cheese bars or maybe lemon bars with cream cheese, and it's just a great combination. That sounds amazing. No, mine were just

kind of the classic ones. And I made sourdough pretzel rolls. So I was baking a lot. Wow. Fun. And you went to your parents' house? Yes. And now I have a little, I'm like the youngest in my family. And up until recently, we haven't had a lot of babies.

But we did have my cousin's baby there. And so got baby time. Yeah. Yeah. Yay. So fun. We had a pretty low-key Easter, too. We just went to church and then went over to my parents' house and had some good lunch.

We had some good ranchers chicken. and steak and lots of other good stuff, some fruit pies. Wait, do I remember correctly that you don't like fruit pie? Did I just make that up? You do not remember correctly. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where that came from. I don't know. No, I love a good fruit pie. And we had blueberry pie and we had cherry pie. And we were both really good. Love it. Yep. And that's about all we did. And then I finished watching King of Kings. And so now we were going to talk about it. Okay, before I give my impression and we give our takes on it, let's just talk about what King of Kings is. Maybe you've heard it talked about.

There's been some discussion, some disagreement about its theological soundness, whether you should allow your kids to see it. This is an animated movie of the life of Jesus. And I'll play you the trailer and you'll kind of get a sense for what it is, Sot 1. Our story begins 2,000 years ago when baby Jesus came in. the world. Wait, wait, stop. If it's not about a king, then I'm not interested. This story is about the king of kings.

If you're with me, then I know that. It has angels and wicked kings and miracles. Okay, so that's part of the trailer. You can see right there really sweet, and you're probably wondering, like, why is there like 1800s people also interacting with people during Jesus's time. So this is an animated film that looks at Jesus' life from the Nativity to the resurrection, but it is through a narrative where the writer of the Christmas story, Charles Dickens, is telling this story of Jesus to his son, Walter, who imagines himself witnessing the events and kind of being a part of these events. And the

film is loosely based on something that Charles Dickens actually wrote only for his children. It wasn't ever meant to be published. And it was called The Life of Our Lord, which was basically a simplified retelling of the Gospels for his children that emphasized Jesus' life and teachings. But I think this would be a good time to talk about the background, Bree, of Charles Dickens just a little bit, because Charles Dickens was actually a Unitarian Universalist. And so he did not believe that Jesus was who he said he was. John 146, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, the life.

No one comes to the father except through me. And that salvation is through him. He is God. We read that in John 1. And as a Unitarian Universalist, Charles Dickens didn't actually believe that. Now, I didn't know that until I started digging into it. I actually thought that using Charles Dickens and using kind of like in the beginning, he's performing the play of the Christmas story and then his son is disrupting and it turns into

this whole thing of his son not going to bed because he wants to hear his father tell another story of a real king and that king is Jesus. And so I actually thought that was interesting, but I do kind of wonder why they chose Charles Dickens and what he wrote when Charles Dickens didn't actually believe a lot of what is in this movie, that Jesus is the king of kings, that he is Lord of Lords and that he actually died. on the cross for our sins. Charles Dickens just believed that he was a good moral teacher that I guess he just wanted his kids to know about. So there's some incongruency there, but you could just say maybe that's creative liberties. They thought that was an interesting way to get into the

story. Yeah. I don't know exactly what they're thinking was of why they used this as source material. But yeah, he had written something called The Life of Our Lord, which was just a document that explained Jesus' life and miracles to his kids. And it was never intended to be published or to be public. He made it explicitly clear. It was only for his family until after they died, then people published it. But that's what this is based on and why, I guess, they chose him as the central character. But yeah, like you said, he was nominally Anglican, but a Unitarian and didn't believe in, you know,

atonement or the Trinity or original sin. He just thought Jesus was a good moral teacher and had good stories. So yeah. And all of those things are, as far as I know, absent from the life of our lord, which is what they used to make this. So not absent from the film, but from what they used from it. Which is okay. You could ask, okay, why did they choose that they could have chosen a different entry point or a different way to get into the life of Jesus? But obviously they, as many movies do, took creative liberties.

with the history and biography of Charles Dickens. And they just kind of use that as the starting point. And so agree or disagree with that. There's not some big theological or moral issue with that necessarily. It might just be, hmm, why? A curious choice. Okay, there were some stars that played in this, which I also didn't realize. Uma Thurman as Catherine Dickens.

Okay, Charles Dickens' wife. Uma Thurman. Pierce Brosnan. Yeah. As Pontius Pilot. Mark Hamill as King Herod, Forrest Whitaker as Peter. Interesting.

Oscar Isaac is Jesus. I'm sorry. I don't know who that is. Oh. He was in Star Wars movies. He's pretty big. That's why. Got it.

And maybe these other people are also people I should know. The film grows $19.05 million during its opening weekend, setting a record for the largest debut of an animated biblical film surpassing the Princess. of Egypt. Wow. And the Prince of Egypt is truly a masterpiece of work of art. It was made by South Korean production house Mofak animation was directed also by South Korean Sjong Ho-Jing with Jamie Thomason. I don't know who that is, serving as the co-director. And okay, I guess I'll just say my overall take and then we can kind of get into a back and forth brie. My overall take.

Just watching as I was trying to actually be more of a critical viewer because I wanted to point out potential pitfalls. I wanted to look at the theological vulnerabilities before I could recommend it to you or tell you that you need to see it. But honestly, overall, I felt like it was a really good representation of Jesus in his sacrifice and the gospel. There were few creative liberties taken, but honestly, not that. that many. I thought that it captured the spirit of Jesus's life and purpose and represented his probable temperament really well. I thought there were some really beautiful moments where I was brought to tears. I thought the crucifixion was done really well. I thought it was interesting. A lot of the symbolism that was used. Jesus's baptism is meant to look a lot like when he

rose from the dead also when we see Peter, he's walking on water, he looks at the wave, turns away from Jesus, he doubts, he falls into the water, these aren't spoilers. If you know the Gospels, you know that these things really happened. And we also see Jesus, kind of, or Peter, in that similar position of kind of like being baptized and being raised up by Jesus. Another symbolism. I thought that it was really sweet when the little son, Walter, he finishes hearing the stories, he runs to his siblings. And he says, wake up, wake up. He wants to tell them the story. Well, that's what we're doing when we're sharing the gospel with people. We're saying, wake up, wake up. Like, you're sleeping and I have to wake you up

with the best news ever. And you are asleep, dead in your sin. And Christ wants to make you alive by grace through faith. And yes, I'm kind of like adding to the movie there, but I thought that that's what they were trying to represent and the message they were trying to convey. I thought they did a really good job, especially in that scene with Peter, doubting and falling through the water of showing you can do nothing to save yourself, that when you doubt and when you need salvation, it is Jesus that has to reach down and help you. You can't work your way to him. You can't make yourself good enough for him. You can't clean yourself off. He is going to have to reach down and help you. I thought that it was really, really good. And the tension between

the Pharisees and Sadducees and Jesus, the Roman Empire in Jesus. All of that was good without being too scary. So that's my overall take. I don't know if I can necessarily recommend it to you. Obviously, there are some serious thematic elements. You could say that it's scary. It's intense. The story of Jesus is scary and intense in some way. So it depends upon the maturity of your child, the conversations that you've already had with them. But overall, I don't have a lot of big, glaring theological problems with this story. I can tell you it was probably more theologically accurate and compelling than veggie tales. Okay. And maybe you could say veggie tales is the reason that millennials have the problems they do. But I thought that this is,

this one did a better job. Okay, I'll get into it with Bree. And Bree will give her thoughts in just a second. But let me pause. Let me tell you about share the arrows before we get into the rest of this. If you have not signed up for Share the Arrows, yet this is our Christian Women's Conference, y'all. It is going to be amazing just this morning. I was listening to some of the songs that I'm hoping Francesca Badistelli will be singing at the conference. The worship was one of the most powerful parts last year. If you have never heard 4,000 women singing, this is my father's world, a cappella in unison. Like that was just a foretaste of heaven. It was so powerful and I cannot wait for that moment again. It is going to be by the grace of God, a beautiful

event where you are coming together with thousands of like-minded women. You can come by yourself. I promise you it won't be weird or awkward. You will make friends. You will have people to sit with. You will have people to pray with and worship with and go to lunch with. And you will be able to hear from incredible teachers like Elisa Childers, like Katie Fowles. I almost announced the person that I'm not, I can't announce yet, but I will be announcing soon. We've got to be. We've got Taylor Dukes. We've got Shauna Holman. We'll be having a new health panel within this year. We've got Ginger Dugger Voelo. She'll be there giving us encouragement. I will also be speaking. And then we've got two women who will be on a motherhood parenting panel. It's just going to be

amazing, y'all. I promise you, you don't want FOMO. You don't want FOMO after this event. Okay, so don't wait until 2026. Now is the year. Go to share the arrows.com. Get your tickets while they're available. Bring all of your friends. Bring your small group. It's only for women. Can't bring your husband. Can't bring the related bros, but bring all the women in your life. Go to share the arrows.com. Okay, Bree, tell me your thoughts on this. We'll get into the artistic stuff because we have some artistic questions just about the content of it. But what was your thought overall about this? So I'll preface this by saying, I know people have been protective of this movie. so I don't want to make anyone upset.

Oh, I haven't seen that. Like, people are defensive about it. Yeah, they're really defensive about it. I will just say I'm a particularly harsh critic of Christian media because I believe that Christian should have high standards and should have a standard of excellence when it comes to media. And I just haven't seen us do that very well. And so when I watch an example that you can think of like not good Christian media. Oh, I'm going to make people mad if I see. say it, but I think the God's Not Dead movies are really terrible.

Cheesy? It's not just cheesy. I think that there, I think some of the messaging in them is, is a little bit dangerous to people who are not Christians. Gosh, I don't remember, actually. Yeah, often their depiction of like atheists is pretty, like, offensive to atheists to the point where I don't know that it would really encourage them to think well of Christianity at all.

And so there's lots I could say about God's not dead. But yes, that's an example of something that I don't think is done super well. And I just think our media could be a lot more compelling. So I went into this, like wanting to be a critic of it like you did, wanting to find the parts that could have been improved. And I will say I've softened a lot to it over the past like week since I've seen it. Most of my issues are artistic with it and like the story I thought could have been. better, not the story of Jesus, but how they told the story. But I thought so many parts of it were really beautiful. I thought some of the animation was like beautiful. The lighting and the animation.

There's this part where there's like a visual representation of like substitutionary atonement. And I thought that was beautiful when he's like sinking into the water and then Jesus takes his hand and switch places with him. And then Jesus is sinking down and he's floating up. I just thought that was like such a good visual representation for kids, especially of what was happening. So there were some moments like that that I were like, oh, that I was like, oh, this isn't really a thing in other kids' media. And so I appreciated that a lot. Yeah. And I appreciated they at least tried to get the full gospel in there. I don't know that I think some parts of it were more confusing than they needed to be. Like which parts? Like when they tried to explain original sin, he like pulls out a

book and explains Adam and Eve. And I just thought that could have been a little bit more clear. I don't remember the exact wording. But things like that, I'm like, maybe would have tweaked, but. But I appreciate, I always appreciate when in the question of sin, someone goes back to the beginning and someone goes back to Adam and Eve. I think that's really important and tells me, okay, even if we would have conveyed it differently, that indicates to me, I'm like, okay, you get it. You get where it comes from. That because of Adam, we have all died and Jesus is the second Adam. And I think just like with any art, they can't tell you everything.

There's so much that we have to see and draw from it. And I kind of want to watch it again because I think there's probably a lot of things that I missed that I didn't really see before. and I really do commend them for that. Any criticism that says it wasn't the full gospel, I just, you didn't say that, but anyone out there, like I just don't know if I would agree with that. I think that they did the best they could to get the full gospel in there. But if anyone out there disagrees, I would love,

there could be something I'm missing. I'm not thinking about if any commenter was like, no, you know, if they said this wrong or did this wrong, I'd be interested to hear that. Yeah. I thought that they also, I know some people had issues with some creative liberties that Jesus said. Oh yeah. With what Jesus said, right?

Like they added some things to his quotes or they changed words slightly. Yeah, there's a couple examples. Like when Jesus is in the temple, when he is younger and Luke, he says, did you not know that I must be in my father's house? And movie Jesus says, I felt like I needed to be here. So it's like much more modernized language. There's another example. I do remember that. I remember kind of wincing a little bit at the I felt. Yeah. But then I second guessed my own thoughts and was like, well, is there really anything wrong with that? He did feel it. Yeah. But I mean, his feelings are always truth. So maybe that's not bad. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's why some people had issues with it. he is multiplying the loaves and fish he says the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many that's what the bible says and then movie jesus says he came to give his life for the benefit of the multitudes so plugged in notes in their review of it that

um removing the word ransom from that describes the the true purpose of jesus death so that's Some people are having issues with that with modernization of those phrases. Yeah. I would be interested to know why they chose benefit if they just thought that that was a more modern way to say ransom, because ransom has to be explained. But if we're going to change it, I probably would have said salvation or I would have said, I would have said to save many, to save those who believe I probably would have said something like that instead of benefit,

because benefit is just as vague as ransom. Also, the multitudes. I feel like if you're replacing words, I don't know that I would have chosen that either. Yeah, there were a couple things like that. It's funny because we just talked with Sean McDowell last week about John 9, and that was one of the scenes. that was depicted when the disciples are looking at the blind man and they're like,

who sent? Did he sin or his parents send? And Jesus kind, they kind of changed what Jesus said about the power of God being displayed in him. But again, like, the spirit was there. The spirit was there. And they didn't show the whole scene of like the guy's parents and all of that. But I thought that that was, I thought that that was fine.

Okay. Here's one thing. I was looking away during this part and I was watching a screener so I couldn't rewind. When he raised Lazarus from the dead, did he weep beforehand? Do you remember? I don't think he did. Because I don't think he did either. And I remember thinking, well, that's strange because that's such like a important verse, it seems like, showing the humanity of Jesus is the shortest verse in the Bible.

Most people who are Christians know that verse and know it's when he heard that Lazarus died. So I thought that that was an interesting choice too. That's an interesting note. Unless I'm forgetting. No, I don't. I watched it in a theater. I feel like maybe I would have remembered. I don't think he did.

I also remember this Jesus in the movie is pretty stoic most of the time. Yes. And I don't. But that's how I read Jesus. That's how I read Jesus in the Gospels. Yeah. And I think it's fair to interpret him character wise as that I didn't particularly think Oscar Isaac.

was that compelling as the character like the other actors were but um but yeah all that to say i don't know that there were a lot of like emotional moments from like jesus's perspective one thing that i did have an issue with actually was the resurrection the depiction of the resurrection because i legitimately thought that they cut a scene out of it it like jesus is is dead and then it fades to black and then they're like oh but he also just rose from the dead and the end It was like so fast at the end. That's true. There wasn't really an explanation of like what that means now and why that's significant.

And I don't expect them to do a sermon, but it did feel very jarring. I was like, well, this is like an important thing to explain. And it wasn't. And I think that was a big issue for me as well. You know, they could have brought it full circle with the Christmas story because when you think about the Christmas story. Christmas Carol? Yes. I think I must have said the Christmas story.

earlier too. It's not the Christmas story. The Christmas Carol. Okay, the Christmas Carol. They could have brought it full circle because when you think about the Christmas Carol, it's not a gospel movie or story. It is kind of a universalist, moralistic story if you just need to be a good person and you need to be generous. But if they were going to rewrite kind of the life of Charles Dickens, they could have rewritten the Christmas story as if he was the Christian they depicted him as and showed a new end of the Christmas Carol of Ebenezer Scrooge like actually bowing down before the cross and like accepting Jesus and them showing like, no, that's really what the end of the Christmas Carol should be as realizing that Christmas is about Christ. That could have brought it full circle. But then they kind of left that off. Yes. Yeah,

I know I thought there were quite a few moments for emotional beats that had so much potential that they missed out on. One of those is actually when Peter has denied Jesus and he's kind of just sitting there on his own. That for me was one of the most emotional parts of the whole movie. But then the little kid character comes over and kind of interrupts the scene. And I thought that that was like so jarring. Yeah. Because I was like, I just want to watch what's happening with Peter now, not this cat. at and this kid that's here. And then also the interaction between the little kid character

and what's happening in Jesus' time, I see what they're going for. They were going for, here is how a kid could make this personal. Here's how they could see themselves in Jesus' story. I think that's what they're going for. But I thought that at times it was really confusing. There are times when Charles Dickens' character turns into Jesus. That did confuse me. I thought that I saw it wrong. No, he morphs into Jesus, or maybe it's vice versa. Jesus morphs into him. I thought that was super confusing.

Jesus has some interaction with the cat. I don't know if we explained. The little boy character has a pet cat. I must be emotional because I thought Jesus holding the cat was really sweet. Well, I did too. And I almost cried. But I thought that there was a lot of potential for like, because Jesus interacts with him and the little boy a couple times throughout.

Yeah. Yeah. It would be so much more impactful, I thought, if there was one moment where this little boy is watching this all unfold and there's one moment maybe right before the cross or something where Jesus makes eye contact with the little boy and all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is personal. Like he's connecting with me. That would have been sweet. Or if there was one moment where Jesus, you know, shows his love for little creatures and touches the cat somehow or whatever. But I don't think that that was really like emphasized very much. The kid was just kind of there and interacting in the scene sometimes. And I don't think it meant as much as it could have. Yeah. Okay.

I have thought on that. I have a thought on that. Let me, let me do another ad. And then I'll give my thought. Okay. Next ad is Freedom Project Academy. Freedom Project Academy is amazing. They are a fully accredited online school for children in kindergarten to high school.

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Like I saw a lot of what my children say and think and ask in that child. I thought that that was really sweet. And I also thought that he was a representation of having faith like a child because he just understood so well. It seemed like that it was sad that Jesus was dying, that it was wrong for the people to choose him to die over Barabbas. He didn't want Jesus to die. He saw how amazing and loving Jesus was. And I just, I see so much of what Jesus meant when he says you have to have faith like a child in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. One beautiful benefit of motherhood is that you relearn the Bible and the gospel through your children and they just understand it so clearly.

Like you understand sin. You understand that all this brokenness, the plagues, everything that happened over here happened because of the bite of the apple. And you just so desperately want to be saved from that. And you learn a lot. So I thought that that was a really sweet picture of what it meant to have faith like a child. Now, what we never see is actually an understanding of the child's own sin. Now, maybe you think like this is too intense, but you and I were talking before this,

that like it starts with this child. Now, I don't know how old the child is, maybe five, six. Yeah. But very much disobeying and disrespecting his parents, not like accidentally being, mischievous as like a normal rambunctious five-year-old, some of that. But some of it was just like flagrant disobedience when his dad is working on something really hard trying to perform the Christmas Carol in front of people. And he doesn't get punished.

He gets yelled at and yelling is not disciplined. But his dad gets frustrated and is like, you know, you need to stop doing this. I'm going to take the sword away or whatever. And his mom does not discipline him at all. No, the mom chides the dad for getting frustrated. So the dad is made weak right away. Then when the dad gets home from the play, the son, Walter, gets to stay up late while the other children who did obey get to have to go to bed.

Okay. And so the child gets rewarded for this disobedience by getting to stay up. And the mom is basically like telling the dad, the mom's supposed to be sweet. But the mom is like, to make up for you getting frustrated with him, you have to tell him this story. Now, obviously, it is a great benefit for the dad to tell. the story of the gospel. And we want that. We should all be doing that for our kids. But again, I think another missed opportunity, or maybe you think this was there, was maybe the child seen, oh, like, in my own way. Like, I contributed to Jesus's death on the cross. That is my sin.

And, like, he tells me to honor my father and mother. And, like, I also need salvation. I also need forgiveness and there could have been some like contriteness there to show. But that is one reason why I don't know that I would allow my kids to see it. Not because of the necessarily the like other parts of it, the story of Jesus, but because you see bad, you see bad behavior completely undisciplined by the parents and like very weak parents who don't take that behavior seriously at all. Yeah. No, I totally agree. That's a great point. And this is a little. little bit less severe of a point, but something that also bothered me that you touched on is is the mom character and how she's the one who was like motivating all of this. It's like

Charles Dickens wrote this for his kids. So he obviously was already motivated to share this story with his kids, we're presuming. But in this story, it's like the mom is forcing him to do it. the mom when he is trying to explain Adam and Eve, an original sin, he can't find the Bible or whatever that he needs to explain it. She has to find it for him. So I just thought that that was kind of silly that like she was kind of the motivator for everything. Maybe they just narratively needed her to do something. But I thought it was kind of a trope that is in a lot of movies. Oh yeah. The bumbling dad and the wise mom that has to come in and like bring order to the chaos. And maybe you could say, well, no, he's just an artist and he needed a more type A person to like keep him on track.

But we were also talking about how it's strange that, okay, if Charles Dickens, the fictional Charles Dickens really believed in the gospel and like cared about this so much that he had been writing this for his children, well, as Walter, the son is listening to it, he's never heard this stuff before. It's like he's never heard of Jesus. and he has to go tell his siblings about Jesus, why have they never heard of Jesus before? My mom, I went to see it with my mom in theaters, and she leaned over to me and was like, have they never been to church before? Yeah.

Why does he know none of this? So, yeah, that was kind of a weird choice in my opinion. Now, maybe you could say that this fictional Charles Dickens was becoming a Christian during this time, and it was new, writing all of this is he was learning it and believing it and he was presented it for the first time. Yeah. So you could say that and like from the completion of it, that's when he was like, okay, I understand this and I want to present it to my kids. I'm completely adding on to the movie and

giving it a very charitable reading. But maybe someone could say. Yeah. Now, no kid, by the way, if you're going to allow your kids to watch that, which is totally up to you and maybe you can have a conversation with them about the behavioral stuff in the beginning. But no kid is going to catch on to that. I don't think that they're going to like a five-year-old is going to have an issue with that. Okay. So there are some critics out there. Gabriel Hughes on X said, he said, while the film does get some things right, there's a lot. It doesn't. Jesus is often as quoted in subtle ways. He points out, we already talked about this. Luke 249 when Jesus says, did you not know I must be in my father's house? Movie Jesus says, I felt like I needed to be here. Loaves and fish. That's

scene, the Bible says Mark 1045, the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many movie, Jesus says, to give his life for the benefit of the multitudes. Gabriel also says that they make Jesus sound like a guy from HR rather than the King of Kings. I personally don't agree with that assessment in general. The film tells us our sin makes God sad, but there's no mention of hell of the judgment of God, which Jesus talked about. Okay, that could be true. That could be true. What do you think about that? That they don't mention hell. Yeah. Yeah, I had that thought briefly. I also, though, was just kind of wondering how, I mean, I don't make children's media, but I do wonder, like, what the best way to

communicate that to a child is. And I don't know. I would prefer that they didn't leave that out, but I also, I don't know, I guess I don't have suggestions for them as to how they would have presented that to a kid. That's tough. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe they're thinking, you know, that that's up to the parents. I don't know. Do veggie tales to pick tell? I don't remember. I don't think so. Probably not. That would have been like really scary seeing Bob burn. Veggies in hell, I know. Yeah. Chard tomato. So I don't know. Maybe it's just you could argue that it's not. But they do.

did talk about sin. They did talk about Satan. Yeah. Some movies wouldn't even talk about Satan at all. But yeah, you could argue that they don't really say what Jesus is saving us from and what we deserve. But again, you do see some depictions of that. Jesus taking our place that we deserve to be on the cross. Yeah. So, yeah, there's an argument to be made. There's one official reviewer from the outlet, the aisle seat. They found that the Charles Dickens storyline washed out the biblical narrative. That's how they felt, he said, when you have the story of Jesus, which is literally the greatest story ever told, why do you need a precocious kid and a mischievous cat? They aren't interesting.

Charles Dickens was an interesting man, but his career doesn't factor in. He's used as a framing device. So there's no insight into his works or creative process. That is true. And yet an excess amount of time is spent showing him bantering back and forth with his son, a subplot with zero dramatic tension or relevant to Christ's life, for that matter. I agree the beginning. The beginning bantering. So now we can get into our creative differences, which we've kind of already done. Yeah. The beginning part, in addition to the just like the like precocious kids and all that stuff, I just thought it was stressful and it went on too long. And yeah, it's true. There's really, that's not part of the plot, especially if they never bring it back to the child seeking forgiveness

and seeing his own sin. Like yeah, it's just stressful. Yeah, it's stressful. I just think, I've already said this. I just think the involvement of specifically Charles Dickens is so random. It is. And so if it was just some guy in the 1800s with a kid, I think it would make more sense because then you're just like, okay, it's a kid. It's a guy telling a story to his kid. This is like, there needs to be a reason for it to be Charles Dickens. And I don't think there was other than he wrote this random document for his kids that people don't even know about. So it doesn't really like matter that much. Yeah. So I. completely agree that's one of my biggest issues is that it's confusing because I don't know why it's Charles Dickens I don't know he's there I saw one reviewer actually the title of his review was finally a movie about Jesus that centers on Charles Dickens I thought that was funny because that's how I felt too I was like why so I don't know yeah I thought that it was going to be an interesting through line and it wasn't yeah because I like the Christmas Carol and so

I was like, they're going to make this gospel. Yeah. And they didn't. So I don't know if it's a South Korea thing. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Okay, so Angel Studios is run by, I think, Mormon creators, a Mormon family.

And yet I would not say that this was Mormon theologically at all. I didn't see any LDS influence on it. And what I mean by that is that Mormon theology does not believe that Jesus is God. They believe that he is a son of God, that he was literally conceived between Mary and God, that Satan is a brother of Jesus. And we don't see anything like that here. And I do think that we see Jesus as God. I mean, we hear Jesus' words. Who do you say that I am to his disciples?

And Peter, I believe, says, you are the Christ. And Jesus says, well said. You know, he said, the son of man has been given the power to do these. things. And so I do believe that we see Jesus as God, not just a son of God, as LDS theology teaches. And so if that's a concern that any Christian has out there, I didn't see anything like that in this story. And to clarify, sorry to interrupt, just to clarify, Angel Studios also only distributed this. They didn't contribute to actually the production of it. So I don't know if that's just additional context, I guess. But really, they're just like putting the movie out. They didn't make it.

Yeah. So overall, I think I think it's good. Obviously, our creative disagreements with it, that's like just our opinion. You may love all of that. You may see a lot of purpose in Charles Dickens' story and contribution to this. And I think, you know, that's totally fine. The more moral and theological stuff, you can decide how important that is. I think with anything that you are allowing your kids to watch, you should watch it first and you should think about it. And if appropriate, you should have a conversation about it. But I wouldn't say is better than Prince of Egypt, though.

Would you say it was better than Prince of Egypt? Did you like Prince of Egypt? Yeah, yeah. But it's hard to compare because that's like a classic in probably in both of our minds. But no, no, I wouldn't say it's better. Prince of Egypt is way scarier. Yeah. Way scarier than this.

Like, so if you haven't watched Prince of Egypt with your kids, I know from experience that five and three are too young. So I would wait. I would have waited a little bit. We did not finish Prince of Egypt because when they show the babies being thrown into the river and eaten by the alligators, I was like, okay, yeah, this is tough. It's tough. So important to talk about all of that stuff and for kids to understand and it could be different. for your own children. But I think especially when something is making a theological case and depicting Jesus,

we want to make sure it's as accurate as possible. I think that I would probably give King of Kings. Theologically, I'd probably give it an A-a-minus. Overall, as a movie, I'd probably give it a B-B-plus. What would you say, Brie? I'd movie B-minus. Theology. Probably B-plus.

Yeah. I thought there were some really, really sweet moments. And overall, I think it's a net positive. I really do. I'm not a hater of this movie. I think if you choose to see it with your family, then you're probably going to be blessed by it. And I think I saw a video of someone posted of their kids in the theater watching the scene

where Jesus was dying. They were like older kids, probably 8 and 10. And just the tears streaming down their faces. They saw Jesus being crucified and taking our place. So I think it could actually help your children see the, truth of the crucifixion and the meaning behind it. All right, we've got some more to talk about. Maybe we'll just get right into American Idol. That could be fun. You could just end on a positive note, but I got to pause and tell you about our next sponsor. And that is good ranchers. So as I

already said, this weekend, CR grilled for our family and he grilled some chicken, some non-pre-marinated chicken breast on the grill. And then he also made some steaks. And it was so good. Everyone was a raving fanned. Tasted amazing. I love having a freezer full of all American meat from Good Ranchers. We get a box of meat to our front door every month, so we just never have to think about it. It comes on dry ice. I know it's from All American Farms and Ranches. And it just makes my life a lot easier. I have my custom Allie Beth Stucky box at Good Ranchers, which is filled with all the stuff that we use the most. The ground beef, the better than organic chicken, the cuts of steak that we like. We love all of that.

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So go to Good Ranchers.com and use Code Alley for that discount. That's Good Ranchers.com, Code Alley. Okay. I guess we have a little time so we could play a few of the videos that. we have. We could go through the Easter egg roll and the egg hunt that happened over the weekend with Trump. I played this on my Instagram, but I just thought it was really cute. Trump sitting at a table with a bunch of kids and he's just coloring with them. And he says at one point, I colored the duck blue because I've never seen a blue duck before. And that's just very Trump. Here's a three.

I will. Why, you're looking at you. You've been a good guy. Amen. I'll be it. I'll sign all of them, okay? And then he also had an address, which, of course, was a bit contentious. Some people liked it.

Some people didn't like it. He emphasized honoring Jesus and, quote, bringing religion back to America. He also issued an executive order to lower flags half mass in order of Pope Francis. The Pope, he died. yesterday, yesterday morning. Here's up for. Speaking of special, Easter is special, and it's one of our favorite days. It's one of our favorite periods of time.

We're honoring Jesus Christ, and we're going to honor Jesus Christ very powerfully throughout our lives, all throughout our lives, not just now, all throughout our lives. We're bringing religion back in America. We're bringing a lot of things back, but religion is coming back to America. That's why you see the kind of numbers that you see. seeing the spirit and the kind of numbers that you seek. Okay, I would love for him to honor Jesus Christ throughout his life. I would love that for all of us.

Absolutely. 100 percent. We all need that. Bringing religion back to America, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know exactly what that means. How his administration is bringing religion back to America. Religious liberty, yes, I would say that is within his purview.

I don't just want religion, though. there's a lot of religions. Certainly Islam is multiplying. That's a religion. Buddhism is a religion. I don't want just any religion. And maybe Trump met just Christianity, but I want the gospel of Jesus Christ to do what only the gospel of Jesus Christ can do, which is turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. And I want Christians to go out and make disciples of Christ, specifically. That is the only religious awakening I want. And that's what I'm praying for. And no government. government can do that. Of course, policy matters. Politics matter because policy matters because people matter. Politics affects policy. Policy affects people. People matter. And it can affect,

like I said, religious liberty and free speech and all of these things. So, so important. But the government and the Constitution cannot enable nor hinder the gospel because the gospel has spread under all kinds of tyrants in all kinds of countries and all kinds of periods of history and the gates of hell will not prevail against God's church. And so I'm not really sure that Trump or any person has the power to bring that back. Now, am I thankful for the spirit of what he's saying that we have a president who will say those words that has put in place, a lot of Christians in positions of power who does believe in religious liberty? Yes, I'm very thankful for that. Trump also joked about the 2002 White House Easter egg role during which a person dressed in a bunny

soon was seen approaching Biden as he spoke to members of the media about Afghanistan and Pakistan. I saw this the other day. It was really sad. And you can say, oh, this is mean to point this out. He shouldn't appoint this. Okay, this was our president. This was our commander in chief. This was the leader of the free world that we were lied about to for years, told that he's totally competent, that he's totally fine. He's in charge of the nuclear codes. He knows what's going on. we entrusted him with the safety and security of our country, and yet this is who we were being led by. This is top five. I mean, that's just so sad. It was the middle of his presidency. That wasn't even towards the end. And that was like the height of the media telling us it was a right wing

conspiracy theory that Biden had dementia or Biden was confused at all. He is so confused. He has to be pushed away by the Easter bunny and he still doesn't know where to go. So Trump, even when I don't, you know, like his choice of words, even if I don't, you know, like his choice of words, even if I don't agree with him in a lot of ways, you know, morally, theologically, different policy issues like IVF, like, is he a huge step up from Joe Biden? Yes, I can acknowledge that. And I'm very thankful for that, that we have a president who I think is coherent and who is competent.

And despite all the noise and the craziness that we're constantly seeing from the media about HECSeth, about all these people, like, I think that the Trump admin is doing a good job. and leading us in a good direction. Also, over the weekend, American Idol celebrated Easter, and they had several celebrities, artists, singing Christian songs, and we're going to play you a clip of Carrie Underwood singing how great thou are in just a second. It's really beautiful. But let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day, and that is Patriot Mobile.

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What? What does it mean? Now I talk to Jesus about my kids. Oh. They couldn't include the. Okay, y'all didn't hear that because Stephanie is not in the microphone, but it's talking to Jesus about my kids. I used to talk to my kids about my kids. About my kids. Which is sweet.

But I just feel like the other words could have been added to that to make it more clear. But, you know, I've had an issue with catfish dinner, that lyric for a very long time. very long time. No hate to Luke Bryan. He seems like a nice fun person. But then we got Carrie Underwood. She's performing How Great Thou Art. And I've been listening to her hymn album for years. If you don't have her hymn album on Spotify, it is one of the best. She is so good. And this was really beautiful. Here's Sout seven. So good. So amazing. She sang at the inauguration. Remember that where she had to sing Acapelle. What did she sing? Do you remember? America. Great as thy faithfulness.

Oh, did she? No, wait. No, no, no, no, no. They played great as I faithfulness maybe instrumentally. Was it America? Okay, Bree's going to look it up. But that was also an amazing moment. The Sun reports that while ABC and American Idol producers made the final call in greenlighting the special,

Carrie Underwood was a big advocate for the special, good for her. Also, Cece Wynens. She's saying, come, Jesus, come. She also sang the goodness of God on an American Idol. special not too long ago. That was amazing. I love Cecey Weinen. She's so talented. Here is last night, or a couple nights ago, their performance, her performance, Sadi. One day he'll come and we'll stand face to face. Come and lay it all down. Cause it might be today. The time is right. There's no need to wait.

Oh, so good. I didn't want to just stop. I wanted it to keep going. I love her so much. She's so good. So good for American Idol. I love that. That was really beautiful. And God was honored.

And the Word of God will not return void. And so anything that was sung there that was direct from Scripture, God can use that. He can use all of it. Like any conveying of biblical truths. Like God can use all of that. And you just have no idea how many seeds have been planted. And that could just be a touch point. in someone's testimony. And so I'm very grateful for that. And good for Carrie Underwood for using

her influence to make sure the gospel is heard on a stage that reaches millions. And she's saying, which song was it? America the Beautiful. America the Beautiful. That was so good. All right. I hope that was an encouraging episode for everyone. I was super encouraged by so much of what I heard over Easter weekend that many of your churches were overflowing. So many people heard the gospel for the first time. So many baptisms. Praise God. Let us continue to pray that the gospel will go out, that he would use us, that he would use our boldness, our prayers, our courage for such a time as this. And we serve a really good sovereign God who is powerful and is going to protect his church and is going to seek and save the lost. And that's really, really good news.

All right. Before we get out of here, I just want to encourage you to subscribe today at blazedtv.com slash j6. We've got an incredible in-depth investigation that is only accessible to subscribers on blazedTV.com. It blows the narrative of what happened on January 6 wide open. It's got capital surveillance footage, conflicting timelines, serious questions about Officer Harry Dunn's story. It is streaming right now exclusively on Blaze TV. You are not going to find this kind of hard-hitting original reporting anywhere else. So go ahead and subscribe. You'll get access to all Blaze TV content at BlazTV.com slash

J6. All right. That's all we've got time for today. We will be back here tomorrow.