Theology in the Raw - 737: #737 - Guns and Christian Culture: A Conversation with Rex Harsin

Episode Date: May 6, 2019

On episode #737 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with Rex Harsin. Rex Harsin is a native Mississippian (born in Tupelo, now living in Oxford). He attended film school in Los Angeles. The genesis of this documentary lies in 2017, when as a Christian and as a filmmaker, Harsin became interested in the topic of gun violence in America. You can check out the documentary here: https://www.beatingguns.com/documentary You can follow Rex Harsin on Twitter: @rexharsinfilms Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am so grateful you have joined us on the show. We have a special guest named Rex Harsin on the show today. Rex Harsin is the producer of a documentary called Beating Guns, Beating Guns, which looks at various Christian leaders and how they think through things like gun violence, gun ownership, or even just the gun culture in American Christianity. The documentary, Beating Guns, in some way kind of corresponds to the book written by Shane Claiborne, also called Beating Guns. And you'll see Shane quite a bit in the documentary. I mean, they're two different ventures, really, the book and the documentary, but they decided to name it the same thing to kind of show some kind of relationship. Anyway, Rex is a super cool dude. We talked about gun violence for a while. We talked about Christian

nonviolence, talked about his journey, but then got into kind of a Christian view of film. And we started talking about different films and how Christians should evaluate the goodness or morality or persuasiveness or virtue of films based on more than just whether they contain swearing or, you know, drug dealing scenes or witchcraft or whatever, but look for more Christian themes that are woven throughout various films. So we didn't plan that out. We just kind of got into it, started talking about a Christian view of film. So I hope you enjoy this episode. I very much enjoyed interviewing and chatting with Rex Harsin. So welcome to the show for the first time ever, Mr. Rex Harsin. Okay, we are live. I am here with Rex Carson. He is the producer of the documentary Beating Guns.

Rex, thanks so much for being on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. So why don't we start, just give a quick background to who you are. Because most people probably aren't going to recognize your name, I for having me. So why don't we start, just give a quick background to who you are, because most people probably are going to recognize your name, I don't think. So give a background to who you are, and then I really want to dive into this documentary, because I mean, it's going to no doubt cause some, I think, really good discussions, interesting discussions, and maybe some pushback and some other waves in the other direction. So let's get to know you first

before we dive in. Okay. Well, probably in regards to this, the most important thing to know about me is that I live in the buckle of the Bible belt. I am surrounded by Bibles and guns. I have grown up this way, spent a little bit of time in LA going to film school, but I have lived here most of my life. And I don't really have any ill will towards where I live, but I have had my eyes opened to certain things that put me at odds with the people around me. Your social context plays into why you do what you do, it sounds like.

Absolutely, absolutely. Because when I started to really grab on to the non-violent peacemaking teachings of jesus then i had to come to terms with all of this other stuff that i had grown up with in in the church that had been taught to me and i had to figure and i had to either find ways to justify it or say this isn, this isn't, this isn't right and go in another direction. So that's probably the, that's core to who I am. Tell us your journey. Yeah. Uh, into more of a nonviolent and we haven't even, I don't even know exactly where you would stand on that. I imagine you're an advocate on some level. But yeah, tell us a

journey, how you kind of became more in tune with a more nonviolent vision of the New Testament. And also, how did that, what did that do to your kind of position, your social position in the evangelical context that you live in? Yeah, well, I put a lot of that blame on Greg Boyd. I put a lot of that blame on Greg Boyd. We all do. Yeah, I know. It's like, I don't, you know, I've always, I've always had a, I've always taken Jesus very seriously, but I did not start to take his nonviolent teachings and his example of his

life seriously until my eyes were open to just how much of a how important that was and how vital that was in his life and what he was teaching us so like I said I mean I grew up with you know my heroes were you know Batman and you know like Jack Bauer and John McClane or whoever you know I mean I grew up with guns. I grew up, you know, running around in my yard, shooting guns and thinking that the best way to be a good person is to overcome evil by destroying it. And at some point, my that collided with my vision of who Jesus of who Jesus was. So I started to as that started to sort of come alive within me around that time is where I found sort of, you know, Greg Boyd's teachings and, and Bruxy and some of these guys who are very, very, um,

hard hitters on, on nonviolence. And, you know, it's really, you know, it's really shaken me and it's really caused me to figure out what I actually believe. And I wouldn't say that I'm a complete pacifist. If somebody is hurting someone out on the street or hurting someone in my family, and if I have to physically get involved to defend an innocent person, I will do that. I would say that I'm more consistently pro-life. I believe in not taking life unless it is absolutely, completely a necessity in order to defend innocent life. And I don't even know if I would do it to protect my own life. I don't know, you know. But I know, I think the thing is, what I've really accepted is that we have to take that seriously.

And I think when you have preachers telling people to arm yourself when you're coming to church and be sure to be packing a heat, well, you're not really taking the call to probe, to be pro-life and to be defenders of all life, including the lives of those who would attack us very seriously. If your first response is to pull out a gun and blow them away, you don't look a lot like Jesus. You might look like Dirty Harry, but you don't look like Jesus. Dirty Harry, how old are you? You're showing your age there. I am. I just turned 35 like two or three days ago.

But you still know about Dirty Harry. I can't make that reference anymore and people don't understand what I'm saying. Well, I like old movies too. Oh, man. Yeah. So you are coming out. Let's see. I'm not sure when this podcast is going to be released.

Probably very close to when the documentary is released. So April 20th, is it? Yes. Okay. April 20th. Give us an overview of that documentary. How did you get into it? What was it like filming it? What were some of the highs and lows and what do you hope that you'll accomplish by releasing this documentary well i didn't really want to make a documentary

about guns um you know it was never really like a key issue for me until i started to look at it i i decided to make the documentary because Shane was writing the book and Shane and I had become friends. And it was like, well, here's an opportunity for us to work on something together to help provide each other with resources that can, you know, help sort of get this message out that I think I knew it needed to be out, but I just, I wasn't aware of how important guns were in people's lives. So Shane started writing the book, and I started making the documentary, and I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, literally no idea.

I've never made a documentary before. Real quick, it's Shane Claiborne. Shane Claiborne, I'm sorry. Is the name of his book Beating Guns as well? Yeah. Okay, so same title. Yep, yep. So his is the book Beating Guns.

Mine is the film Beating Guns. But they're very separate things. I actually purposefully did not read the book before like he sent me a manuscript and i didn't read it because i didn't want i didn't want it to just be like a carbon copy right you know so you know he's going in chapter and chapter dealing with a lot of issues with you know with actual dealing with guns yeah and what i wanted to do is take a little bit of a different approach and get to something, get to the issues behind the gun, the gun violence. So, um, you know, we have interviews with people like John Perkins and, um, uh, um, gosh, uh, Brian McLaren, you know, and all these guys, and, you know, I let them talk about guns. But it's really more about like, we just have a conversation on what it means to try to live out the nonviolent ethics of Jesus. And so because I didn't, you know, I don't I don't come across in the film saying this is what our new gun laws need to be.

Right. Because frankly, like that's for other people in another discussion my the central question for this documentary was as a jesus follower what is my response to either owning guns or living in a country that is saturated with gun violence yeah so you know um i just i mean this sounds kind of i, it was really just a walk of faith. I would just, you know, I would reach out to people and if they said yes, I was like, well, I'm going to go here and do this and interview this person. And I'm just going to trust that they're going to give me something. And when I got into the editing room and I had everything together, it just started falling into place.

You know, I would, I would, I didn't even have an idea of how I was going to edit it. I just started, you know, and when I would get done with one scene, it would was going to edit it. I just started. And when I would get done with one scene, it would just lead to the next scene and it would lead to the next scene. And there really wasn't a lot of changing that around. It just sort of flowed. And you'll see that in the film. One thing will connect to the next scene and none of that was planned at all.

I mean, it was literally like, and actually a year into making the film, I was like, I, I don't even know if I have a film. Like, I mean, I really started to freak out. I was like, I don't know if I, I don't know if I can make a film with what I have. And then we had one day that just tied it all together. One day I went to Philadelphia and I spent the whole day with Shane and we did this uh we did this event um sorry hang on a second we we did this event um and it just sort of tied everything together and it brought it where there was like a narrative uh flow to the film you know never having made a documentary I'm like oh you just interview a bunch of people and I'm like wait I don't have a story there's no story to this film. So I went and filmed with

Shane. We had our story, placed the interviews on top of it with some interesting little things and it just worked. So Shane helped with the kind of narrative, like with some of the editing and post-production stuff? Oh no, Shane, no, no, no. He didn't have anything to do with that. He saw the final cut when I was done with it okay okay no no so so shane and mike they did this one day event where in philadelphia they um they went up and they uh they beat a gun into a plowshare and they delivered it to their senator asking him to vote on a bill that would ban assault rifles so that whole event so we wake up i think i got to shane's house at like two in the morning or something we got up at like

5 30 in the morning and we started filming like in the film you see Shane making coffee and going out and feeding his chickens you know and then it goes until the very end where um he's arrested like that's how the film ends is him being arrested but so that's the narrative it's the sort of the narrative of the film follows that one day and all the things that go on in that day. And it's a super interesting day. It's tons of good stuff. But then on top of that, we have all these interviews. So that's where John Perkins and Greg Boyd and Bruxy

and all these guys kind of come in covering different aspects. I mean, it's just – but it is crazy how it all came together. Like on that day, there was was the reading happened to be about uh dirk willems the anabaptist who uh do you know do you know that story no i don't think so so he's this anabaptist guy and he he escapes from jail and he's running across a frozen lake and as he's running the the jailer pursuing him falls through the ice. Well, Dirk Willems goes back and pulls him out of the ice and saves his life. The jailer takes him to jail and then they end up executing him. So that was the prayer reading the morning that I was there, right? Well, one year ago,

I'm with Bruxy in Minneapolis and, you know, he has this full on interview about Anabaptist and the move for, you know, peaceful nonviolence. So it was like, it all just connected. And I didn't plan it. It just connected. So right after they tell that story in the film, we go into Bruxy talking about it. So it's just, it's just crazy. It was a lot of things like that. You said you're in Minneapolis. Did you, is Greg in the film as well? Yeah. Yeah.

So there's this section with Greg and a guy named Brian Fisher who lives in my hometown. I mean, he works literally a stone's throw away from where I went to church at American Family Radio. And they have different things that they do. But like one of the things that I have Brian and Greg do is they each interpret Luke 23. You know, the bias they each interpret Luke 23. You know the bias award thing? Luke 22. Luke 22 sorry. So it's got these two guys and one of them's like a conservative like super conservative and then you know Greg he's not really liberal but he's very nonviolent and they're both

interpreting this one passage and I'm intercutting them. So one of them goes over that verse and the other goes over that verse and they're just interpreting this one passage and I'm intercutting them. So one of them goes over that verse and the other goes to the others and they're just going back and forth and it's ended up, it's most people's favorite thing in the film. Cause it's so interesting to see these two people interpret this completely different. And, um, but, uh, so yeah, that that's one of the things that Greg does in the film. And, um, yeah, it's super cool. I did plan that out though i was like i want both of

these guys to do this that's fascinating how do you um if you and i we talked offline uh about this but i mean if somebody if if if a church wants to have this conversation and they got a lot of kind of pro-gun people in the church and maybe a few that aren't or whatever. I mean, what kind of person would watch this and be helpfully challenged? Like, oh, man, I got to think about that. And what kind of person would be just totally ticked off even more and even more pro-gun after watching this because they're so angry? You know, like what's the underlying kind of narrative goal, you know, that you're trying to accomplish with this film? So my goal with the film is to challenge Christians on what it means to carry guns or be around guns. And what is our response to that by looking at Jesus?

by looking at Jesus. So I think anybody who takes Jesus's teachings seriously will benefit from the film. The people who like their guns and like the target shoot, I mean, they're just going to have to bear with some stuff that's going to make them uncomfortable. There's just some stuff and it's meant to be that way. If I'm not going to challenge people, then what's the point in making this film. So I think there's the 3%, 3 to 5% that are just absolutely going to turn it off as soon as they see Shane put on the, you know, the t-shirt that says like ban assault rifles. I mean, they're, they're,

they're already out, you know, I mean, I don't want them to be, but you know, they're already out i think people who like their guns and but but can recognize there is a problem in america like we have more guns than we do people that's insane and i feel like most people who have common sense can look at that so that's that is insane so i think they will they'll at least get through the film they're not going to agree with everything you know i let my dad watch the film and you know he's conservative republican you know owns guns all that stuff and you know he's like i don't agree with everything but i really enjoyed

the film and i really liked it and i've had that with a lot of gun owners they say that gun owners who are christians they enjoy the film because it makes them think yeah but you just got to be willing to get uncomfortable for at least a few parts of the film. Good, good. Yeah, for me, I like to distinguish, I don't know, I'm kind of thinking out loud here, between like a gun ideology or a worldview that has guns and the gun culture, if you will, you know, intertwined with it. Or even the political thing like,

don't you dare take away my guns or it's the worst thing in the world that the government did. What if the... So, I mean, just most of my audience knows, but I mean, I am an absolute... I don't like to term pacifist, but I believe in absolute nonviolence.

So I would go further than you would even on that theologically. I also own about six guns. Right. Yeah, yeah. And yet if somebody broke into my home, it would be physically impossible for me to use the gun to defend my family. And I don't agree that that's even something I should consider. I even, yeah.

So I use, I'm not a good hunter and I hardly ever go, but I do hunt periodically. I got a hunting dog and, and I went with my son bird hunting last year, you know, and, and, uh, uh, we do all kinds of, there's zero risk that my kids would ever, cause I mean, the bullets are in one area of the home and they don't even know what that is. And the, the clip and the attic and the, you know, it's like, it's not even, it's categorically my guns are not for self-defense or anything. But at the same time, I recognize that I don't think a gun is a neutral cultural artifact. It's really fascinating what, Oh, so I, I actually own one handgun.

And most people are like, okay, if you have a shotgun, okay, that's for hunting or whatever. But handguns are by definition for killing people. And I'm like, well, actually I bought a handgun a couple of years ago because we do a lot of hiking up in the mountains here. And 20 years ago, they released all these massive, huge wolves in the mountains. And the difference between a wolf and a bear and whatever is like, wolves aren't scared of people. They'll track you. Bears are actually, they'll run from you unless you're between a bear and a cub. Like it's rare that a bear, a grizzly might be a little more of a threat, but wolves will just sit there and look at you and they'll like walk with you.

And then they'll come at you and you're done. Like there can be really dangerous. So I'm like, man, I hike with my kids. My wife is like, I don't know, should we have something to fall back on? Even if you shoot it in the air and scare the wolf or whatever. So I actually hike when we go on long backwoods hikes with the handgun. But I'll never forget going to the store and buying the handgun and just the psychology of the power that you possess. I remember driving home and it's just, I felt

something almost. And I don't want to overly spiritualize it, but all that to say, to think that a gun is simply a neutral artifact, an inanimate object, which it is, but to think it doesn't do anything to your persona, your self-perception, your worldview, I think is really naive, really naive. So I don't know. Some people see me as a walking contradiction, and that's fine. I don't. And for me, there's a difference between like, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this, because it sounds like your documentary is doing both kind of some political conversations and also some theological conversations. like your documentary is doing both kind of some political conversations and also some theological conversations. To me, I do try to separate kind of the Christian ethic of nonviolence and even

how Christians should think about guns and the gun culture versus political laws and gun control and all that. I think the gun control debate can be pretty complex while the Christian ethic is much more simple to my mind. Yeah, absolutely. And for me, even if you could show sociologically that more guns equals less crime, like the John Lott's argument, or several people make that argument, that if you take away all the guns, then you'll actually have more crime. And I don't buy that, but even if it was true, to me, it wouldn't change the theological.

To me, I like to keep those kind of worlds separate. So anyway, yeah, so that's a long kind of me rambling. But in terms of the political debates about gun control and how to reduce gun violence versus the Christian ethic, does your documentary kind of interweave those or do both? Or how would you articulate that? Yeah, it focuses way more on the theological side of it, which is just more interesting to me. I mean, I'm so, I guess I'm sick of politics period, you know, it's like, and, and I,

you know, we do have a heart problem and we have a gun problem in America, but I'm more interested in diagnosing and working with the heart problem good you know um so i think that if we can get you know if i can and we can get people to take seriously the teachings of jesus not just about like you know even going beyond non-violence well where does the non-violence come from? What, what motivates that? Well, it's the fact that you are, we are called to love, like deeply, sincerely love everybody. And you can't deeply and sincerely love somebody if you're just like, oh, if they mess with me, I'm going to blow them away. You know, I mean, like, like, if that's your go-to, you don't love them. You know, you would never do that with your child. You would never do that with your spouse. You would never do that with your family. So like,

what about that guy that's going to pull the gun on you? You know, don't you want to at least try to talk him down instead of just immediately reaching for your gun and probably getting yourself killed in the process. Right. You know, like as I was making this film, a friend of mine got in a shootout with another guy and they killed each other are you serious i'm dead serious wait wait like a old west shootout wait whoa whoa whoa we are this is 2019 right yeah i know right it's crazy a shootout like not like like they got in an argument or something and said,

let's take this outside. Well, I mean, I don't think it was like a duel, you know? And they haven't really released the details. I hate that I'm laughing. I just – I know, but it's so bizarre because the thing is, like, if they hadn't had guns, it probably would have been a fistfight. Right.

You know? It probably would have been a fistfight. But it was – I don't know the details but it was over a woman and um you know they got into it at the guy's house and they both were packing so you know and then and then you know we went to sort of like a memorial service for him and you know his two i think their twin daughters were there, you know, but it was these two little girls and it's like the, like the, um, effects of gun violence are, I mean, it's just ripple effects, you know? So, you know, these girls, you know, I mean,

their dad's gone because these two guys were packing. So it's like, you're not just trying to like, you know, it comes down to all this like rights and all this kind of stuff or whatever but it's like we're talking about real lives you know i mean the um the rate you know veterans we lose more veterans to suicide than we do on the battlefield and it's because the trauma of gun violence the trauma of violence of being around that it just it affects you and you know you were talking about something about like the way it's not a neutral tool you know that that's it drives me insane when people try to say like when it's just a tool it's just a tool well yeah it's a tool with

a purpose it's a tool that is designed to blow the end you know blow the back out of somebody you know i mean like and when when you carry around a tool when you think about that all the time it affects your thinking it can't not affect your thinking oh i feel that as somebody who is committed to non-violence i felt that this sense of power like oh i felt somebody pulled me over or like flipped me off and while i'm driving just that deep down sense of I have power in my possession. Don't you dare cut me off on the road. And somebody who's radically committed

to the opposite just felt that tugging at me. Because we, and it's not just a gun, it's the gun in relation to a whole American history of a gun culture. Profound militarism. Like there's all these themes out there that are interwoven together that we swim in every single day. And you can't unless you are literally amish like you can't

escape the profound power of all those narratives that are connected psychologically socially historically to guns it's it's it's a it's a web it's a web of, of psychological power that you just can't separate. Yeah. And the, and the trauma of the aggressor, you know, I mean, you know, we, we talk a lot about the trauma of the people who, you know, are the victims, but it causes trauma to people who, you know, do the killing. I was talking to my cousin over the weekend and and he he just had a conversation with somebody at his church and the guy had killed 57 people in in combat you know and you know that sunday morning he had a gun in his mouth because the trauma of killing 57 people affects you unless you're a complete sociopath it's gonna affect you so it's not it is about defending victims but it's about defending you know the aggressors as well i mean i look at

people i'm just you know most people don't understand you know they think of it like dirty harry like i'm gonna blow them away and then i'm gonna go home and like have a drink but it's like you don't under you're gonna live without the rest of your life. That is an absolute lie. Yes. You're exactly right. And how, this is interesting because you're a filmographer. I mean, is that the right word? Filmographer, videographer? What's your? Filmmaker, videographer. I think you mixed it too. I mean, as a filmmaker, you can appreciate the power of how most, I'm not going to say all, but a large percentage of action films, whatever, would not expose the very reality of how damaging the righteous defender, the good person with the gun is actually harmed even when they commit a, I'm using quotation marks here, a righteous killing or whatever. Right.

And films have overwhelmingly not given that impression. So we think, we actually think, you know, the good guy with the gun or somebody breaks into my house, I'm going to pull, you know, the dirty hair, you know, and I'm going to just pull his head off and to think that you would actually be able to pull that trigger or even if he did even if he was a bad guy who was really trying to kill you that you would be not affected by that you just simply be victorious that that is simply a psychological myth it just doesn't it's just not true and it's been solidified by i mean piles and piles and powers piles of film that have solidified that.

Would you agree with that, that the film aspect? Absolutely. I mean, if you – it's really – we keep bringing up Dirty Harry, but if you look at Clint Eastwood, the later years of his career. So his movie Unforgiven, which is the last Western he made, it's a great film. It is an anti-violence film. Yeah.

If you watch it – and he made it with that purpose. And I think he was like – I think he was feeling he's like made all these films for all these years he made a lot of money making films about people who you know this guy who um it's glorifying violence and he made unforgiven as sort of a rebuke of all those because it shows him you know and like the effects of violence on him and on the people around him and it's it's a really brilliant film and there's another one um if you ever watched the show 24 yeah i love this show yeah me too and one of the reasons i love the show is because they specifically show you what jack bauer how it affects him you know one of their seasons ends in season three. It ends with him broken down in his car, like weeping. And you're like, where did this come from? This is totally shattering the American myth of the guy, the good guy with a gun. You know, it's like he's just in shambles.

Yeah. You know, because of the things he has to do in this violent world. do in this violent world. I'm so glad you said that because I'm not at all a film critic or whatever. I got the exact same theme. Even though the show is very violent, if you look at the moral arc, the trajectory of all

the seasons, it contains violence and sometimes shows violence in service of righteousness, but the overarching moral arc is how even when you're doing again quotation marks good violence whatever it wrecks your humanity it eats away at your humanity to the point to when even i think it's been a while but don't the later seasons kind of depict him as kind of like

you're almost like you're not attracted to the way he's torturing people anymore you're kind of like oh like you get it's the way it's portrayed just kind of like this is not compelling at all like he's turned into kind of a monster not monster but i mean he's like oh this is a really ambiguous character now and almost yeah yeah i mean they don't leave you with like you know this sort of glorified hero of him i mean it really and i just wish people understood that like that that's what i've noticed is that the people who are the loudest and the most vocal about guns they tend to not have any idea of the effects of it you know yeah and my family and i we've been affected but very personally from gun violence um and um it it affects you it just changes you it it it it just does yeah i mean my i don't i don't i don't

i'll go ahead and tell you but the um so my brother-in-law you know committed suicide with a gun and that was a serious turning point for me because i'd always shot guns and stuff like that before but um experiencing that and it just did something to me and i didn't realize it had done something to me and so i started making this film i think i had just like chalked it up to like all these other things but the violence of that it just took me to a place where i was like i don't want to i don't ever want to touch a gun again you know and i don't oppose people like well like what you saying, like hunting and all that stuff, even for people who want to have it for self-defense, that's fine. But for me, like, I can't like it really, like, I can't even be in

the room with one. Yeah. And I was not that way before, but it seriously, I mean, it, it creates a certain amount of trauma, you know, when you go through it personally, you know, crazy. You know, another, it's funny. You mentioned the Clint Eastwood thing, not to keep bringing it back to film, but the grand Torino, have you seen that one? That's another one that. Oh, so good. Yeah. I think he did that in that one too.

That, that, that, I mean, the, the, I don't want to spoiler alert. You got to go. I mean, this is again, maybe we can even get into a conversation about film because it's R-rated, tons of swearing. There's racial, I mean, it's all this stuff that's just capturing real life, right? Absolutely. The moral power of that story is more Christian than almost any movie I've ever seen, especially when it comes to true... Without giving it away.

A Christ... I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop. Watch the whole movie. Spoiler alert. The movie is like 10 years old. You haven't seen it too bad. You understand film much more than I do. Totally.

He turns violence on itself yeah he it's perfect christ symbolism he takes in the violence and defeats the violence in a non-violent way and if you watch the film at the end of the film i believe i'm right in this he's on the ground crying like in a cross and the innocent people are redeemed yeah like he absorbs the i mean it's just it's he sets them free so so so here's my because i uh i you know growing up in conservative christianity there's good films and bad films good films don't have any or hardly any swearing they definitely don't have sex nudity

witchcraft drug scenes which i never understood i've never watched a drug scene and said i want to go do that but um and good you know bad films have all that you know and to me it's like sometimes that that might be true um but a film that is trying to capture real life that doesn't contain sin, to me, is very dishonest. Yeah. There's a difference between, I think, a true Christian, I don't like using that term, but a film that is actually promoting Christian values will contain sin, but it won't make sin compelling. It will show the, you know, whatever. but it won't make sin compelling. It will show the, you know, whatever.

So even in Gran Torino, you know, the big swearing scenes or whatever, just to get really specific, are not actually, it's like with the gang scenes and it's actually, if you watch closely, it's kind of the bad people that are swearing or even some of the racial stuff. It's like, here's this crotchety old man and it's like, well, I don't want to be like that.

Like it actually can, all the sin that it contains is actually not compelling. And then, but then more than just the kind of containing sin, it has a theme of just profound moral, like Christian themes that are woven throughout of it. And I don't know, like I, it's just rare that I see Christians kind of make those distinctions between containing and making sin compelling and also other themes that just go beyond swearing and not swearing. You know, have you thought, give us a little one-on-one on how to watch film as a Christian. I have seen very few films, very few good films where I have not been able to find Christ or some sort of redeeming message in that film film and i think it's because it is written into our dna you know i mean there's some films that obviously they're just pure you know like action porn or whatever i mean like they're not really up but any film that's like

genuinely and sincerely and the person behind it has talent you're gonna find some sort of of jesus in there at some point you know is that more of a general revelation revelation? They're tapping into a common kind of like moral impulse that all people have. And even the average person who won't spin it that way, they, they know how deep down how people are. Why are they longing for redemption and longing for goodness to prevail? Is that, how do you explain that? I think so. I mean, like, like, I mean, you can take, you know, there's man, I wish I had a list in front of me, but like, I mean,

there's so many R rated movies that deal with, they may have all kinds of stuff with them. And if you don't want to watch it, you can fast forward it, you know there's man i wish i had a list in front of me but like i mean there's so many r-rated movies that deal with they may have all kinds of stuff with them and if you don't want to watch it you can fast forward it you know i mean like you just you just skip through the parts that are gonna bother you but the um but the message is there i mean it's like the end of american beauty right that's terribly lewd movie like i had to watch it in film school but like in the end this character makes like this sort of right decision to protect this girl's innocence you know and it's like the whole movie you're let up i mean this guy's terrible you know i mean he's like i mean he's just in a terrible place in his life he has all these terrible desires and all this whatever but in the very end like he makes this

decision to protect this girl you know and there's something redeeming about that moment you know um you know and that's just one that comes comes to mind but to me the i mean you wanted me to talk about christian movies like i cannot stand christian movies i mean i think they're just propaganda you know i mean there's nothing real about it like facing, Facing the Giants, I'm sorry, but like, if you're going to end your Christian film with the guy's wife gets pregnant, and he gets

a new truck, and his team wins a championship, I mean, it's just like, how not Christian is that? I mean, there's just nothing. It's like, oh yeah, you do all this, and you get all these rewards on Earth. You get the big, shiny new red truck. It's like, oh, yeah, you do all this and you get all these rewards on earth. You get the big, shiny new red truck.

Like I saw that I literally wanted to like rip the screen down, you know. And it's fine if people like that stuff. It's very fake to me. It's not real life. I can't even have conversations. Like it's like if you want to get real with me, if we want to get real, like I'll talk real. real with me if we want to get real like i'll talk real because like but i can't have these christianese yeah just conversations where it's just like i just feel like i'm on a different planet yeah and i'm not like like trying to talk bad about anybody like that's where people are

that's fine yeah and like like i totally get it but when it comes to movies which is like something that i love yeah it's like man keep the keep the sermons in the pulpit and let movies be movies because all those are just beefed up sermons on a soapbox preaching to the choir what do you think about so i i uh i i mostly resonate with some of the anti-christian movie some of them you know i'll go out and watch them. I'm like, well, that wasn't that. all right, there's still a lot of good stuff there

and there's a lot of bad stuff in the other movies that you like. Like, I don't want to make it so binary. That's from my vantage point. The one I did actually really like is, but, so let me,

a lot of Christian movies do make me cringe. I totally get what you're saying. And yeah, that kind of like very, almost works, almost, it's almost like a prosperity gospel

being built into it which is to me more dangerous than just making a blatant non-christian film um right what about so i really did like uh i could only imagine i think was the name of it did you watch that i haven't seen it yet okay i've heard it's good though well and that's just a true story so it's like they're not contriving it's just yeah i think it uh was really good it had a really the line between good and evil was blurred a little bit and it wasn't like good people and bad people there's a powerful theme of redemption um it uh yeah i thought it was really i really liked it for for christian films as far as christian films yeah well i mean like the the unplanned movie just came out right

have you seen that no i haven't but it's like i want to see it because like i'm interested in the story yeah and i my guess is in real life that story would be very very engaging yeah but it just seems like from the trailer it's just kind of like another one of those like it's way too propaganda-ish you know and i don't know i haven't seen it you know but it's just too propaganda ish, you know? And I don't know, I haven't seen it, you know, but it's just, I've experienced so many Christian movies, just be sort of, they're just not well-made. It's like the filmmakers, like they're just, they're trying to preach a sermon instead of telling a story. And it's like, don't do like, just tell us like a real story. Like,

like the God's not dead thing. Oh my gosh. So you're not okay. I'm sorry. You probably have to cut all this out. No, no. I'm not on a tangent, man. I've only seen that. I saw the first one a long time ago. I haven't seen the second one.

So I don't really have a strong opinion on that. But what about – so with the propaganda piece, isn't that kind of true of most films? I mean think about like just the two that came to mind is like uh blood diamond is propaganda um great film one of my favorites uh and i actually agree with the propaganda so i'm like oh i mean but it's still clearly you know i never wanted to buy a diamond again or even eat chocolate or you know um uh or what about i didn't see this one but um the shape of water from what i hear is just about as ideologically driven as a film could possibly be on the other side of you know yeah I don't know I think not I didn't like that okay I didn't I

don't know why like my wife liked it I did not like it at all I could barely get through it and I don't know why just something about it just like repulsed me like I was just very very unappealing was it like having sex with a fish part maybe that was that part yeah but like i mean just the whole style of it i didn't care about the characters and i think that's it it's like you want to care about the characters like i need i have to invest in a character okay so when i feel like these characters are just like like puppets you know they're just like mannequins up there they don't feel real they're like they're they're solely for the purpose of the propaganda yeah they're solely for the purpose like in god's

not daddy solely for the purpose of like getting across this message that we you know like we got to have god on campus or whatever i haven't seen that long time but it's like so the person doesn't feel real to me you know but you give me a movie that's like raw and edgy and i believe in the character and i can invest in that character then i'm much more willing to like to watch it and it's kind of like in a just in real life like i mean i'm willing to invest in someone who's raw and edgy if they're real and i feel like i can connect with them rather than we're just spewing off like all the christianese all day long you know like i can't invest in that because it doesn't feel real and to me the whole thing about jesus is that like he came into this

mess he came into this nasty r-rated film to redeem it you know and he i mean he got his hands dirty so like for me when a filmmaker gets their hands dirty and like tries to like pull something good, like a good message out of a, like, even if it's like a terrible scenario, like I respect that. And I think to me, cause that's what Jesus does. Like I just, Jesus is the most non-fake, non-phony propaganda, you know, person that ever lived. I mean, he was raw and real and you know, that's how I understand him. And I feel bad now because, I mean, I know people enjoy those films. And if you do, like, totally cool. Like, this is totally my opinion.

I think most people that listen to my podcast will probably resonate with your disdain for Christian films almost categorically. Yeah. categorically i i yeah i don't i've to me to me it is sometimes when people come down to art of christian films to me it feels well again it's just i feel like the propaganda and fakeness is exists on the other side you know again like a the shape of water again well maybe i shouldn't use that as example but i guess the difference is the filmmaking quality okay okay yeah yeah and that yeah certainly and that could be good to look at and the acting and everything. Wouldn't that come down a lot to just, I mean,

obviously money and Christian films aren't going to make a lot of money or nearly as much as a box office hit or not. But they make, that's the crazy thing is that they make money, you know, it's like, God's not dead made a ton of money. I mean, it's like over a hundred million dollars, you know? And like, and the crazy thing is that they make money you know it's like god's not dead made a ton of money okay it's like over 100 million dollars you know and like and the other thing is like

there's a you know get out you should get out i've done so that's been on my list for like a year and a half no i haven't seen it and i really want to see oh it's so good and it's you know they made it for two million dollars are you serious you know yeah and it made like i don't know hundreds of millions of dollars but you know and that you know it can be done okay people make good movies on c-string budgets all the time what did it cost to make napoleon dynamite oh like hundred dollars less than a million and it's wonderful i mean you know it's so good would you see that as a is a high not quality in that sense but like would you say that that is a very like a good film for what it was trying to do or or just a terrible i love it

i love it so what what was it just i think it's magnificent i i mean we we my family hardly goes to the day without quoting it to each other like it's the the movie is intertwined which is how we even relate to each other you know yeah i mean. I mean, it's, it's, yeah. But in that part of the country too. Well, my name's Preston and I live in Idaho. So yeah,

the film is a special place in my heart, but here's what's, I don't understand the psychology of this. When we saw the film, which was actually really recently, we sat through it and it was like, we almost didn't finish it. We're like,

uh, a couple of times like, and then we finish it we're like uh a couple times like and then we then we sat there you know then after we watched it the next month it's like the the film in this weird way just kept growing on us growing on us growing on us and we kept quoting it quoting it quoting it then we saw it the second time a month later it was like we're watching a completely different film we're rolling on the ground laughing and anticipating scenes and is that what what is that and i know a lot of people say the same thing like the first thing i watch you're like what what is this it's not even that funny but then it just grows on you in some weird way i don't know if it was designed that way or

i think it's just so obscure and it's such a particular it's like you have to accept that film on its own terms yeah because it does not fit any sort of like paradigm that we're used to yeah you know and um i think once you just go with it you know it's amazing it's amazing it's it really is i mean it's just one of those jewels you know and i mean there's a few films like that that i just love but that is for me it was when he threw the wrestler out the school bus or whatever the little action figure i don't that just got me because up until then i'm like i don't know what i'm watching and then it just didn't then it had me you know and yeah i think i quoted it for like 10 years the only reason i haven't because i haven't seen it long i need to go back and watch

it oh my gosh we uh hey how was your day at school i'll ask my daughter you know how was your day at school worst day of my life what do you think my favorite is uh yeah yeah yeah um so i have to say i think we're getting pretty serious you know the girlfriend line so i have to say we're getting pretty serious so my oldest daughter does an amazing kip she she'll speak all day long yeah we're just rolling that's so oh that's so good yeah i love it man oh hey we got to wrap things up uh i gotta get uh dude so let's give us some more specific concrete details about the documentary how can people access it even how can maybe church leaders or anybody use this film as part of a discussion

group because i know that's kind of an underlying desire is that people would use this as a churches would watch this and it would cultivate conversation so yeah how can we do that cool so um it'll be available um vimeo on demand, April 20th. Okay. And then people can rent it or buy it there. It's like $7.99 to buy or $1.99 to rent. And then if anybody wants to show it, I'm still working on my website. I got to go all that stuff, but I'm just going to put up like a form up there where if you go to go to my

website and I can send you that link for that. you can go and like just say hey i'd like to show this film and we'll just try this i'll just help set it up you know so vimeo on the band i'm not gonna like yeah vimeo on demand okay and i'm not gonna charge anybody if they want to if they want to um show the film you know it's there's not gonna be like a screening fee or anything because my hope is for people to take it and show it you know so cool so it's beating guns vimeo on demand uh april 20th at launches would highly encourage you to take it and show it, you know, so. Cool. So it's Beating Guns, Vimeo On Demand, April 20th at launches. Would highly encourage you to check it out.

Thanks so much, Rex, for being on the show and God bless you and your work and your ministry, man. Thanks, man. All right, take care. Thank you.