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May 1, 2025 16 mins
Jerome Hudson, Entertainment Editor at Breitbard.com, joined Preston for his monthly visit. 
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Five minutes past the hour. It's Monday on the morning show.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Mark Levin.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
He's Jose on the phone line, Jerome from Jacksonville.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Go, oh wow, how you doing, buddy.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I'm doing great. I'm doing great. It's so funny because
you know, you do thousands of hours of live radio
broadcast and you usually are not You usually don't just
find yourself at the precipice of a cliff staring down
like that. There's a little bit of wind up that's involved.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
But I could help.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Jerome Mudson is the entertainment editor at brightbar dot com.
He's the author of the Fifty Things books. But more
important to any of that, he's a friend of Jesus
and he's a friend of ours. I've got to we've
been riffing a little bit about Christianity today and what
a train wreck that publication is. Does a publication do

(01:09):
entertainment slash media outlets in the Christian world? Does it
find its way to your eye? Do you pay attention
to example for as an example of what's happened at
Christianity today.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
So I'm a little unfamiliar with the current scandal a
running in Christianity today, but I read at least one
hundred websites a day, just sort of looking for the
interesting comment or quote from you know, name your favorite celebrity.
And so there are several celebrities who are very open

(01:49):
about their faith. And so I will read you know, Jerusalem,
about a half dozen to a dozen of those platforms.
But now I'm intrigued.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, they rolled out at Easter time this and social media.
The Bible doesn't say Jesus was nailed to a cross,
and it was to promote an article where some lone
evangelical Bible scholar thinks the crucifixion would have been carried
out with ropes, no nails. And so yeah, they've had
Russell Moore, the publisher is a train wreck. He ruined

(02:27):
the SBC. He's doing the same to Christianity today. He
rolled out the writer, and the writer said I am
so sorry and apologized, and I believe the writer. He
offered a heartfelt apology, but it doesn't explain the publication's
just disastrous fall from what Billy Graham founded it to be.
I was just curious. But that leads me to a

(02:49):
great segue. You were talking about celebrities and sharing their
faith Jerome. It seems like, and you will be the
one to correct me, and I know that you will
if in fact I am wrong on this or expand
on this dramatically. It seems like more and more people
in the world of entertainment, be that sports, be that

(03:12):
Hollywood music, are being more open about their commitment to
Christ and their faith. Is is that accurate?

Speaker 3 (03:25):
I'm not surprised when you know, look at the first
thing that comes to mind when you asked me. That
is the last thing that I think I remember. So
maybe it's a little bit of recency bias, okay, and
that is Jalen Gosh, the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.

(03:45):
Dalen Hurts, And it wasn't just uh, you know, I
you know, thank God, you know that we won this
football game. You know, He's like, I want to give
all honor Christ, uh, without whom I wouldn't be here,
you know what I mean. It was very just just
not your boiler plate. And then the head coach, Nick

(04:07):
Sirianni comes right behind him and sort of says the
same thing. And I don't know, Preston, if you know,
I just I don't get hagit packed But I love
my job anyway. I have to watch basically all of
the big award shows, and you just never hear any
of the artists, producers, the makeup artists, the actors. You

(04:31):
never actually, well, I wouldn't say never, but if a
thousand times, you know, nine and ninety nine times, you
just don't hear any reverence to Christ being paid. That said,
I just I feel like I'm seeing more headlines. And again,
I read a lot more headlines than the average being,

(04:54):
but I feel like I'm seeing a lot more coverage
of just these mega revivals, particularly on college campuses.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Buddy of the Morning Show, Jerome Hudson, back with us
from you. We're talking about what's going on on various
college campuses. We've talked about Ohio State being kind of
the epicenter, at least in the world of college athletics.
There was a revival going on before the football season
even started, and then you watch them in the national
title and all those guys taking advantage of that platform

(05:28):
to talk about Jesus.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Right, And you know, so, I guess what I'm trying
to get at is, I don't know if it is
sort of the chicken of the egg is is it
happening more or is it being covered more and reported
on more. I'm probably the worst person to be able

(05:51):
to sort of discern that because I'm just seeking out information,
you know, twenty hours a day, and so I'm seeing
it myself.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
But but you know, you got the hobby lobby founder
David Green. He's had you know, his his uh, his
campaign now for a few years by the multi million
dollar ad spots, uh for the super Bowl what is
it called? He gets he gets us.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, and they're they're brutally bad, but whatever it's I mean,
it's bad, it's bad theology.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, and and but but see that's that's a that's
a sort of a discernment that that you'd make, right.
And I don't know if they're I think they're just
trying to at least capture the imagination and attention of
the surface level person who's like, you know, Christianity curious.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, because because good theology won't do that, we've got
to fudge it up.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
But but this is this is sort of a multi
media space in which sure you just you know, they
do billboards, but again, multi million dollar advise on you
most watch event, you know, entertainment event of the year.
I just I don't know if that was happening thirty

(07:14):
years ago. But you also had I think, you know,
maybe maybe an oversaturation of the televangelists. It's just it's
a fascinating conversation to have in the in the social
media age in which we are, where you have influencers,
but then you have Christian based influencers. You know. I

(07:36):
think it's I think it's a lot more ubiquitous, just
the acceptance of Christ.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
It was yesterday on worldwide international television. I mean, it's
not really even arguable that while the Super Bowl is
the event, the game of soccer internationally is the most
watched anywhere in the world. And yesterday Liverpool clinch the
Premier League championship. And one of the guys that scores
a goal is a kid named Cody Gatpo and Cody

(08:04):
Cody runs after he scores his goal, pulls off his
jersey and underneath is a white shirt that says I
belong to Jesus.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Just you see. I see about a half dozen of
those examples a week, and again I love to see it. Yeah,
but I just don't know, I just don't know if
that was happening in the nineties.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
That's me.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
That's my point of it was happening because I wasn't
watching football in the nineties, you know, or if it
was happening, it probably didn't make it to the American mainstream.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Prest see.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I think the pendulum swinging somewhat. I think there are
more young men in particular embracing Christ and their faith
than I can remember in at least a generation.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
I this is.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
This is so fascinating to me because I know that
you know, okay, so you know since the if there's
been like that client I don't know if it's been
precipitous in people going to church, sure, which you know
is not the end all be all because you go
to church seven days a week, right, and doesn't really
put down a marker of what your faith relationship with

(09:17):
Christ is. But I think that vacuum has been opened up,
and there have been several different variables, the hollowing out
of the middle class, the ninety thousand manufacturing structures that
existed in two thousand that don't exist today. You know,
so work and what it means to be a man,
and what it means to be a provider. I think

(09:39):
a lot of different variables kind of created this vacuum,
and so you're seeing it in the political space where
women have sort of really taken over the messaging apparatus
of the left and the Democratic Party, pushing men to
the side. Women based issues like abortion have sort of

(09:59):
ate and embedded that. And you see Trump winning fifty
percent of the young vote and an overwhelming majority of
men generally, but also Hispanic men and black men, and
I think, to your punsulum swaying point, faith has also
been a part of sort of this the feeling of

(10:23):
that vacuum, if you will. It is like strength and masculinity,
all these things aren't bad.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Completely organically. The subject matter thus far with my guest
Jerome Hudson at brightbard dot com, where he serves as
the entertainment editor as the author of the Fifty Things books,
former part of this radio program years ago, and he

(10:52):
survived that. But as fate would have it, I had
one article Jerome saved that I wrote your name on
because I wanted you to weigh on this, and I'm
just going to turn you loose to talk about it.
Netflix rolling out their own version of Narnia with the
possibility of a Meryl Streep as as land. What could

(11:16):
go wrong?

Speaker 3 (11:19):
So the film is directed by Greta Gerrick, who's probably
now most famous for directing and writing co writing the
script for Barbie. And you know, her politics are no secret,
especially if you read right bart She's she was early
in the Hillary Clinton camp. And that's probably enough said

(11:43):
right there. Netflix through the years and in recent years
that stayed away from a lot of the controversies that
just seemed to play that company daily, certainly weekly a
decade ago, and this one it just it seems like
it's an unforced era in the sense that you have
a property from a the love you know, de pl

(12:07):
cs lewis Christian author. I mean I've heard people define
him that way, but he certainly has tunes that are
held high in the minds of people who are Christians,
and The Chronicles of Narnia is one of them.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
And so.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Hire Netflix hiring a director who's been open about her
left wing politics, who's infused different versions of that in
her most popular films in the past to helm this project,
which the last time it was made at Gosha, I
want to say twenty years ago, was harolded right it

(12:46):
set box Office Records. It was an international blockbuster.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
And so they're in my DVD collection. Say it again,
they're in my DVD collection, right.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
And you know, lastly, what I'll say is, you know,
Meryl Street sort of being rumored as as as you
know I can plant portraying as Loon was I didn't
believe it originally. I like to be as completely as can.
It's completely honest with the audience possible. I'm like, this
is because because in my business, like we don't, I

(13:23):
don't necessarily I'm I'm usually not the first to report
something right, And so if I get a headline that
says Meryl Street, who is just very toxic, I would say,
with probably a lot of the center right people, who
would who would show up to watch this Netflix Narnia version,
ye being being rumored to play as Loon and like

(13:46):
this can't be real. And then some of the trade
publications start to leak it, which bolstered it, and I'm like, Okay,
this this might be real. And I actually don't know
if he has the part or not. But if kid
Meryl Street does portray the wild of Asthma in the
Netflix Narnia movie, I mean it's it's a war footing,

(14:07):
you know, in my mind, because I just again I
could be wrong. I try to. You know, you haven't
seen the movie. I haven't seen a script. Nothing's leaked.
But it doesn't look good. It certainly doesn't look good.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Jerrem, tell me this. We got about we got a
minute and a half lear here before we gotta go.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
How is it possible?

Speaker 1 (14:27):
I mean, are the works of C. S. Lewis? Are
the Narnia chronicles just open to anybody to take? Does
no one have to sign off on who does what
with it?

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah? I don't. I'm not granularly familiar with the Narnia
and the CS. Lewis, the estate and the intricacies of that.
But generally, when you have an electoral property, like say
Superman or Batman, the rights to the character belong to
the creator's a state or the family right, so they

(14:59):
have they generally contractually have to make a new Superman
or a new Batman every five to ten years. And
I would assume that Netflix they may have just bought
everything Narnia. Maybe not everything C. S. Lewis, but everything Narnia,
the licensing, all the IP and and so this could

(15:25):
be the first of you know, a few movies or
the first movie and then a series. Boy, huh. It
just it's confounding, and not a lot of things surprised me,
and this one so far is a head scratcher for me.

(15:45):
It really is. Netflix is run by really smart people.
They've done an incredible job growing that brand. They're in
football now, they're in football now. I mean, they're doing
five comedy shows live. And this one is just like
it's like it's like the Titanic steering purposefully steering into

(16:06):
what could be a massive iceberg. Right, yeah, but I'll
wait and see. I'll wait and see.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Always good to visit with you, my friend. We'll talk
again next month.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
I love you so much, Love you too, all right,
Jerome Hudson with me this morning confounded him. Twenty eight
past the Hour, Brightbar dot com entertainment page and the
Fifty Things books
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