May 27, 2025 • 26 mins
God told Samuel the prophet in 1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV)
"But the LORD said to Samuel, “... The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
You’ve also heard the phrases:
“I can do this all Day” or “Hulk. Smash!” Or “there’s only one God ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”
In this episode of Kingdom & Culture we explore faith themes pulled from the recent “Captain America: Brave New World” movie and more, with former United States Congressional staffer by day & inspirational speaker & all around superhero by night, Aaron Welty. Aaron helps us unpack the importance of true heroism through brokenness and the ancient truth of a “pure heart”, fully dedicated to God. Aaron shares his personal testimony of overcoming the odds and the adversity of his own struggle with cerebral palsy, while pursuing Jesus wholeheartedly, with amazing metaphorical gems from various Marvel & DC superhero’s and maybe even some Star Wars references! Get ready to listen to “this all day”, or at least for the next 26 minutes.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
God told Samuel the prophet in 1 Samuel 16:7 that
men look on the outward appearance of a man, but
God looks at the heart. This is important for our
episode today for Kingdom and Culture. I'm your host Mike Whitford.
Maybe you've heard other phrases in our culture as well,
similar to this, and I'm gonna tie it together, don't worry,
(00:20):
and here they are. First one is this I can
do this all day or Hulk smash or maybe another one.
There's only one god, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he
doesn't dress like that.
Yes, these are shameless quotes by Captain America, but they're
purposeful because we're gonna tie it all together with our
guest Aaron Welty, who is arguably the most preeminent authority
(00:45):
on all things sci-fi hero and all sorts of things
like that and integrating Christian faith with all of it.
Aaron has a unique story where he grew up with
cerebral palsy and God taught him the heroism of suffering.
So as we listen to this episode and you hear
from Erin, I pray your heart is encouraged that you
(01:06):
truly would understand what it means to go through difficulty
but come on the other side as an overcomer and
yes we will unpack the recent Captain America movie Brave
New World and explore these characterizations along with some other
things maybe you've heard of them Star Wars, all things
Marvel we'll dive into a lot of that so.
(01:27):
Get ready for an awesome action packed adventure of kingdom
and culture.
Today, we have a guest that I would say arguably
(01:49):
is one of the greatest authorities on all thing geek oriented,
whatever you want to call it. At least Marvel, uh,
Star Wars, we'll put it in those two categories, and
I'd even say DC Comics. So I just want to
give a fair warning. I'm geeked out. I got my
Captain America gear on today. This episode, we're not gonna,
we're not gonna shy away from going all in.
(02:10):
On Marvel, and specifically Captain America, the most recent movie
uh that released Captain America, Brave New World. So, we
have a guest who, this, this guy and I, we
just automatically connected when I, uh.
Got to, uh, be, uh, well, I got to meet
him in, in our nation's capital and, and since that
(02:31):
time back in 2010 we have just connected and done
some pretty cool things together but we're gonna focus on
a few things uh today with regard to, uh, yeah, just, um, uh, his, his,
I just want to share a little of his story,
have him share it rather, and uh we'll move forward
in regards to this Captain America thing. So if you're
interested in that, stick around, you're not gonna wanna miss it.
(02:51):
So Aaron.
Good to have you, Aaron Welty.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Uh, hello there, everybody. Good to be
here.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Um, Aaron, uh, I'm gonna let you just share a
little bit of your background story, but he has a
pretty gnarly story in regards to the fact that he's
even living and breathing right now. Aaron, can you give
like a, I don't know, a two minute version of
your testimony so that our listeners know who it is
that's talking. So when, when you do talk, they're gonna be, OK,
I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, I think the the best place to start is
the beginning. Um, I'm, I'm 43 years old, but for
43 years I've had a cerebral palsy diagnosis, um, and
that cerebral palsy diagnosis is rooted in, uh, premature birth,
was born at 30 weeks development, uh back in the
(03:39):
early 80s and.
Uh, that premature birth and, and kind of making it
through all of that resulted, uh, in a cerebral palsy diagnosis,
which in my case, essentially what that means is I
have reduced mobility, muscle function and motor skills, mostly in, um,
(04:01):
my lower limbs. I grew up in the Midwest, um,
have a wonderful, uh, you know, wonderful family, um, grew
up with wonderful, uh, Christian parents.
And um,
And I went to Cedarville University for uh for college
after high school and it was always my dream to
transition after college to Washington DC to work in the
(04:25):
realms of of politics and policy, and I was fortunate
to be able to do that um in my twenties
working on Capitol Hill, and that's when you and I met, um.
And then transitioned from uh working on Capitol Hill in
my 20s to working uh kind of on the uh
federal government side of things, um, in my early 30s,
(04:48):
and that's what I'm still doing to this day.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Well, in, in your background story, since I think it's
very fitting, uh, you've, you've had to overcome a lot
of odds and, uh, feel free to chime in on
that as we go through this process as you are
able to relate it. But, uh, I know your favorite
superhero is Xavier, uh, Professor X from the X-Men. If
that hasn't changed.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
No, it hasn't. That would be why I have my
X-Men hat on today.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Gotcha. OK. I see you. I see you.
Uh, but today we are focusing on, uh, Captain America,
both Steve Rogers, but also Sam, AKA the Falcon. So, uh, Erin,
I just want to get into it, um.
Uh, I just, you know, you, you and I both
saw Captain America, a Brave New World, not together, unfortunately,
but you know, we're able to connect now over it. Uh,
(05:36):
I wanted to see, or rather for our listeners to
hear from your perspective, how this movie fits in overall
to the Marvel universe and superheroom in general and the
flow of the previous Captain America character with Steve Rogers
into Sam.
And uh just uh I'm sure you got something to say,
(05:56):
so go ahead and lead us into that.
Uh, out of the infinities. OK, yeah, go
Speaker 2 (06:00):
ahead. So the infinity, the infinity, uh, saga is history,
and now we're dealing with the multiverse saga, where they're,
they've introduced this idea of the multiverse, the idea that
there is an infinite number of Earths that coexist, and
there's different configurations of different characters and superhero teams and
(06:23):
supervillain teams on different earths, and we've seen.
You know, this idea pop up in, in places like
uh Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where we
actually got to see um Charles Xavier, live action, Patrick Stewart.
Um, version of him that's a little more akin to
the comics and the animated series from the 90s that
(06:46):
you and I would have grown up with, uh, in
live action. Got to see different versions of, say, characters
like uh Mr. Fantastic and Captain Britton and Black Bolt.
Um, you know, and so it came in a little
bit that way, but then if you, if you watched
Spider-Man No Way Home, we had a Spider-Man movie that
(07:08):
had villains from the new movies and the old movies
all come together, but also the Spider-Man from the new
movies and the old movies
Speaker 1 (07:17):
and which was really genius and it's a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I I wonder how much of that, you know, was,
was actually inspired by that Spider-Man meme that's been going
around for years where the one pointing Spider-Man.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yes, that, that, um, so that is
Speaker 2 (07:36):
kind of the, the, the space that this kind of
post-infinity saga space is where this movie.
Um, is coming into play, right? You know, Steve Rogers
has transitioned out as, as Captain America and his story
as we understand it, is, is done and closed, and
(07:58):
Sam Wilson is now definitively the new Captain America in
the movies and you had the Falcon and the Winter
Soldier show that kind of transitioned that role from from
one to the other, um.
And that's, that's kind of where we're at at this point.
And even to where, and again, you said we were
(08:20):
gonna get into it. So, you know, this is spoiler territory.
But even where characters like Bucky actually show up, you know,
Bucky Barnes, right? 100+ years old, uh, Steve Rogers' best
friend shows up in this movie in a moment.
That I think is actually it's a quiet moment, but
I think it's actually a really important moment that solidifies
(08:44):
Sam's role as, you know, Captain America because, you know,
I think his comment to to Sam in the, in
the hospital is, you know, Steve gave America, Steve gave
the world somebody to believe in.
You, as Captain America, give them somebody to aspire to.
(09:08):
And I think the distinction that Bucky is making that
I think is really important, because one of the threads
of this movie is Sam regretting never taking the super
soldier serum. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
But I think he's got the suit and the shield,
but he doesn't have the strength that Steve Rogers had.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right, he doesn't have, well,
In a way he does. It just doesn't manifest the same,
Speaker 1 (09:35):
right?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Because
You know, if you go back to the first Captain
America movie and Professor Erskine's, uh, conversation with Steve the
night before the procedure when he says, why did you
choose me? And he, he talks about how the serum
functions and what it does and how the serum
Speaker 1 (09:54):
becomes great, bad
Speaker 2 (09:56):
becomes worse,
Speaker 1 (09:58):
worse.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
That's right. Good becomes great, bad becomes worse, and he says,
Um, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna read it here, he says.
That because the strong man who has known power all
his life may lose respect for that power, but a
weak man knows the value of strength and knows compassion.
(10:23):
He knows compassion. And this is the distinction that Professor
Erskine is trying to make between ultimately between Steve Rogers
and the Red Skull in that movie, because the Red
Skull took the serum and became who he was. So.
The, the point being is that I think a lot
of what Steve, Steve had that got accentuated by the serum.
(10:49):
Sam has that, but we don't see it show up
the same way because he didn't take the serum. And
what's interesting about this is that if you go back
and you watch Falcon and the Winter Soldier, right, and
you track the, the journey of, um, John Walker, who's
kind of like the, the new Captain America post Steve
(11:12):
but before Sam, and he later becomes US agent, which
will factor into the Thunderbolts, which is coming out in May.
Um,
What's interesting about that is that John Walker ultimately takes
the serum because he doesn't think he has what it
takes to be what he needs to be without it.
What I think is interesting is if you go back
to the original, uh, Captain America.
(11:36):
And that scene when Steve is training and he jumps
on the grenade, right, everybody runs away, but he jumps
on the grenade and he's like, get away, get away,
get away. And the, the general that's working with him,
Tommy Lee Jones's character.
He says, you know, so and so Hodges passed every
test we gave him. Yep.
(11:56):
But I think what we're seeing now is a character
like John Walker.
Is essentially what Hodges would have been if they've given
him the serum because he doesn't have the strength of
character that Steve has and I think part of the
reason that Sam has that strength of character isn't just,
you know, his experiences as an individual, his experiences, you know,
(12:22):
in the military doing para rescue, but I also think
what factors into that because you see it happen.
In this film, you see it happen in Falcon and
the Winter Soldier is Sam's got a whole another life
as an individual who counsels veterans coming back from war,
and so that counselor part of him factors so much
(12:45):
into who he is as Captain America.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, and he has compassion clearly for them, cares about
even his new friend, uh, I forget his name, uh,
that becomes Falcon in essence.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Ramirez, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Ramirez. And and when he gets shot down, the compassion
that you
See Sam have as a result of that. So his
character definitely being in line. And so on that, Erin,
I even want, if you could relate it, because I love,
you've done this before where you, you, the heroism of weakness, you, you,
you point that out even in your own life. If
you are able to tie that in, that'd be great.
But even as it goes into the strength of President
(13:24):
Ross in the, uh, uh, this latest Captain America movie
and how he becomes the Red Hulk. Spoiler alert, sorry
if you haven't seen it.
I think everybody knows, um, but, uh, right, uh, but, um, that,
that he has this super strength there at the end,
but even what happens with his character and the movement
(13:47):
of redemption.
Even after having given into full rage as the red
skull did, or and even that's uh maybe symbolic red skull,
Red Hulk, the full vent of anger and giving into
that ultimate power versus character, compassion with strength tempered.
So somewhere in there there's a question and go for it.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
If you
go back to what Erskine says about, you know, a
strong man who has, who's known power all his life
may lose respect for that power.
Ross has known some degree of power all his life,
Speaker 1 (14:24):
right? He's,
he was a,
Speaker 2 (14:27):
he's a general, he was the secretary of state. I
think at some point he was in a legislative role
because they make reference to when you passed the Soobia Accords, uh, so,
so he's been in some form of government his whole
life he's, he's had power himself, proximity to power, but even.
(14:47):
Even when you, when you first encounter the character in
this movie.
He's not the general Ross that we knew back in
Incredible Hulk and the event, you know, and some of
the Captain America stuff because he had something happen to him, right?
He had some kind of heart condition, heart attack, you know,
(15:12):
I mean.
Kind of like Tony, kind of like Tony. He had a,
he had something happen with his heart that changed who
he was. He realized he needed to make a change, um,
mainly because he was losing the love of his daughter
and his wife was already gone. Um, so you struggle.
He went through struggle. And so you have a character
(15:33):
who has ascended to the presidency, but is essentially alone, right?
He doesn't have the only real.
You know, decent person that we know of that he
has around him is that Secret Service agent that's with
him all the time, that's friends with Sam and so.
You know, he's, he's in a situation where.
(15:56):
Um,
He wants to make a change.
But yet, we see kind of some of the tendrils
and ideas around his old life still kind of clinging
to him and how he treats and how he uses
Samuel Stearns to ascend to the presidency, right? Samuel Stearns,
Speaker 1 (16:17):
do you think, Aaron, this is kind of rhetorical, but
please humor me. Do you think that could be relevant
to our walk with Christ, where we're
Uh, leaving our old life behind and pursuing the new
life we have in Christ. We've been baptized in water, perhaps.
We've made the confession of faith in Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior, and yet something dark still holds us.
(16:40):
Do you think there's any relevance or or parallel in
that
Speaker 2 (16:47):
allegory? um Spider-Man 3, right? Peter
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Park we went into a whole other universe. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Peter Parker in the black suit, right? Right, the black
suit that eventually becomes Venom when it bonds with Eddie Brock, um.
The, the beautiful thing about that sequence in the movie
that mirrors the same sequence in the animated uh Spider-Man
show from the 90s is that when he is finally
(17:13):
able to detach himself from the, the, the Venom symbiot.
It happens in a church. It happens in a bell
tower because it, it is the sonic ringing of the
church bells that ultimately interfere with the
Speaker 1 (17:32):
suit,
right?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
So, yes. And like, just because we are willing to
make that change, to, to, you know, to turn around,
to change direction, to repent, or, you know, run to
the arms of Jesus.
Doesn't mean that the enemy is just gonna lay down
and take it.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
True enemy is gonna fight tooth and nail.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
That's what screwtape letters is all
about.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Oh, you just brought in CS
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Lewis. CS Lewis is screw tape letters, right? That that
entire book is all about how do we trip this
guy up and not have him turn to Jesus, but
once he does, how do we continue.
You know, to trip him up. And that, that, that
book is, you know, um, inspired like spiritual sequels and
(18:24):
other things like the Frank Peretti books from the 80s
that I grew up on. And so,
Speaker 1 (18:29):
so, so
Speaker 2 (18:30):
yes, just because he wants to make this change.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And just for our listeners, Frank Peretti, this presents Darkness, powerful,
go ahead, continue.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Um, just because President Ross wants to make this change.
And wants to ultimately reconcile with his, his daughter, which
he ultimately does. Stearns isn't gonna take it lying down
because at the same time.
Stearns
Stearns is a is is the villain of the story, right?
(19:00):
He's he's the true villain of the story, but we
gotta what you gotta remember about villains, right? villains and heroes,
villains and victors is they start their stories in the
same place. Interesting, yeah, they, a villain and a victor,
a villain and a hero, they start their story as
a victim of some sort, right? um.
(19:22):
This is Anakin Skywalker.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
This is
you just brought in I mean Star Wars. I mean
we're geeking out. We're going all in.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I
Speaker 1 (19:29):
said
Speaker 2 (19:29):
it. This is how, but this is how these stories,
this is how they're structured, this is how these stories work.
So Samuel Stearns in in a legitimate way from a
legitimate perspective, he's, he's a victim, but he doesn't know
what to do with that.
Reality
Speaker 1 (19:47):
of his bitterness and unforgiveness to his heart and never forgiveness?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yes, absolutely. And that's, and if you wanna, if you
wanna kind of look at
Ross and Stearns as mirror images of each other, um,
just as you, you might do, um, you know, generally
you would do for like the hero and the villain,
(20:14):
but you've got, you've got a villain and you've got
an antagonist. If you wanna look at them as mirror
images of each other.
The difference is that Ross ultimately is able to find
that forgiveness in part, in part because.
When you think about the third act of the movie
(20:34):
and the, the confrontation between Ross and Sam, right, when he's,
I was about to pull that so you're going with it.
There's a
confrontation that happens like right here in DC, you know,
down by the water, um, Potomac River Potomac River with
the cherry blossoms and all that, so you know what's
(20:56):
happening in the spring, right? If you, if you're familiar
with how that works.
But that, that forgiveness that he finds ultimately, I would say,
is mediated by the confrontation.
With Sam.
In the sense that, you know, Sam tells him like, hey, I,
(21:17):
I don't, like I, I don't wanna fight you and
tries to be as defensive as possible. And we see
Sam operate this way in other stories like Falcon and
the Winter Soldier, but like, he doesn't.
He has no desire to actually kill Ross and end
his life, there there's a almost kind of.
(21:40):
Batman asked.
Desire to see this villain, this antagonist reformed like Batman
often does, right, you know, sending villains to Arkham and stuff,
so you have.
This character who ultimately finds forgiveness, but it's as a
result of the fact that the hero is willing to
(22:02):
put himself between the antagonist and everybody else, right? The
hero is willing to facilitate redemptive good even for the villain.
At great cost to himself by putting himself between the
villain and everyone
else.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Uh, well, Aaron, um, before we close, others are coming.
What does that mean, Aaron? What does that mean? What,
who are the others? And is it multiverse? What's happening?
What's going, Aaron, answer our questions. We need answers.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
So again, we talked about this is the multiverse saga
and we talked about the, the, the existence and the
structure of the multiverse.
We've got two Avengers movies coming in the next few years.
Avengers Doomsday, that's gonna feature Doctor Doom from the Fantastic Four,
as the main antagonist
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Robert Downey Junior as Doctor Doom, which is crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
It is crazy, but it's not necessarily as crazy as
you think because there is a degree of like comic
book precedence for this. So like we'll see how they
how they play that out
Speaker 1 (23:10):
because we got about 2 or 3 minutes.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I mean, what's coming is, you know.
world and an adaptation of secret wars where you're gonna
see different heroes from different places, you know, likely from
different earths having to all come together because we're gonna
deal with some, some degree of threat that is so big,
like we're talking bigger than Thanos big, you know, maybe even,
(23:36):
maybe even bigger than Galactus big who we're gonna see
on who we're gonna see on the screen this summer
with Fantastic Four.
That it's gonna take not just, you know, the Avengers
of Earth, it's gonna take the Avengers of Earths to
deal
with
Speaker 1 (23:49):
wow, multiple.
Well, you heard it here.
Boys and girls to use the old terminology that Stan
Lee would have used in a Spider-Man cartoon episode. By
the way, God rest his soul, I miss Stan Lee.
But Aaron, thank you for joining us. Not enough time
to go through what it is that's in your mind
and heart. Aaron, where can people follow you, uh, whether
(24:13):
on social media or I know I think you have
a website, um, but if people want to get to
know you more, where can they find you?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
The best places to follow me is Instagram. Uh, the
handle is at Aaron Welty, just A A R O
N W E L T Y, my name, and then
I have a website where I do um
I do um public speaking and that website is www.
Aaron Aaron, the letter R from my middle name, and
(24:41):
then Welty W E L T Y.com. I've got a
um
I've got a demo video there and as you well know, Mike,
you know, I, I travel the country in my off
time and uh talk about superheroes and Jesus.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I
hope you're as inspired as I am with Aaron's story
on how to embrace the reality of suffering so that
we can also embrace the heroism of being an overcomer
and like Aaron said.
The truth of the matter is the greatest story is
the story of Jesus, the greatest story ever told that
he suffered for our sins on the cross and did
(25:18):
not stay that way, but rose from the dead victoriously
that we too who follow him faithfully can have this
as part of our story.
And so as you go into the culture and you
listen to music or you watch Captain America, Brave New
World or other Marvel, DC or Star Wars movies and
beyond of course with discernment we can't take everything without
(25:38):
using the discernment of the Holy Spirit that you would
be encouraged to find those redemptive themes in these altars
to the unknown god, so to speak, so that we
can find a way to reach people for the glory
of God.
So be encouraged and if you want to learn more
about Aaron's story, you can go to Aaron Welty.com or
(26:01):
just follow the links that are provided to you through
the podcast. Thank you for joining us for this episode
of Kingdom and Culture. I'm your host Mike Whitford. Keep
advancing the kingdom of God through our culture as you
follow Jesus faithfully.
God told Samuel the prophet in 1 Samuel 16:7 that
men look on the outward appearance of a man, but
God looks at the heart. This is important for our
episode today for Kingdom and Culture. I'm your host Mike Whitford.
Maybe you've heard other phrases in our culture as well,
similar to this, and I'm gonna tie it together, don't worry,
(00:20):
and here they are. First one is this I can
do this all day or Hulk smash or maybe another one.
There's only one god, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he
doesn't dress like that.
Yes, these are shameless quotes by Captain America, but they're
purposeful because we're gonna tie it all together with our
guest Aaron Welty, who is arguably the most preeminent authority
(00:45):
on all things sci-fi hero and all sorts of things
like that and integrating Christian faith with all of it.
Aaron has a unique story where he grew up with
cerebral palsy and God taught him the heroism of suffering.
So as we listen to this episode and you hear
from Erin, I pray your heart is encouraged that you
(01:06):
truly would understand what it means to go through difficulty
but come on the other side as an overcomer and
yes we will unpack the recent Captain America movie Brave
New World and explore these characterizations along with some other
things maybe you've heard of them Star Wars, all things
Marvel we'll dive into a lot of that so.
(01:27):
Get ready for an awesome action packed adventure of kingdom
and culture.
Today, we have a guest that I would say arguably
(01:49):
is one of the greatest authorities on all thing geek oriented,
whatever you want to call it. At least Marvel, uh,
Star Wars, we'll put it in those two categories, and
I'd even say DC Comics. So I just want to
give a fair warning. I'm geeked out. I got my
Captain America gear on today. This episode, we're not gonna,
we're not gonna shy away from going all in.
(02:10):
On Marvel, and specifically Captain America, the most recent movie
uh that released Captain America, Brave New World. So, we
have a guest who, this, this guy and I, we
just automatically connected when I, uh.
Got to, uh, be, uh, well, I got to meet
him in, in our nation's capital and, and since that
(02:31):
time back in 2010 we have just connected and done
some pretty cool things together but we're gonna focus on
a few things uh today with regard to, uh, yeah, just, um, uh, his, his,
I just want to share a little of his story,
have him share it rather, and uh we'll move forward
in regards to this Captain America thing. So if you're
interested in that, stick around, you're not gonna wanna miss it.
(02:51):
So Aaron.
Good to have you, Aaron Welty.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Uh, hello there, everybody. Good to be
here.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Um, Aaron, uh, I'm gonna let you just share a
little bit of your background story, but he has a
pretty gnarly story in regards to the fact that he's
even living and breathing right now. Aaron, can you give
like a, I don't know, a two minute version of
your testimony so that our listeners know who it is
that's talking. So when, when you do talk, they're gonna be, OK,
I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, I think the the best place to start is
the beginning. Um, I'm, I'm 43 years old, but for
43 years I've had a cerebral palsy diagnosis, um, and
that cerebral palsy diagnosis is rooted in, uh, premature birth,
was born at 30 weeks development, uh back in the
(03:39):
early 80s and.
Uh, that premature birth and, and kind of making it
through all of that resulted, uh, in a cerebral palsy diagnosis,
which in my case, essentially what that means is I
have reduced mobility, muscle function and motor skills, mostly in, um,
(04:01):
my lower limbs. I grew up in the Midwest, um,
have a wonderful, uh, you know, wonderful family, um, grew
up with wonderful, uh, Christian parents.
And um,
And I went to Cedarville University for uh for college
after high school and it was always my dream to
transition after college to Washington DC to work in the
(04:25):
realms of of politics and policy, and I was fortunate
to be able to do that um in my twenties
working on Capitol Hill, and that's when you and I met, um.
And then transitioned from uh working on Capitol Hill in
my 20s to working uh kind of on the uh
federal government side of things, um, in my early 30s,
(04:48):
and that's what I'm still doing to this day.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Well, in, in your background story, since I think it's
very fitting, uh, you've, you've had to overcome a lot
of odds and, uh, feel free to chime in on
that as we go through this process as you are
able to relate it. But, uh, I know your favorite
superhero is Xavier, uh, Professor X from the X-Men. If
that hasn't changed.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
No, it hasn't. That would be why I have my
X-Men hat on today.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Gotcha. OK. I see you. I see you.
Uh, but today we are focusing on, uh, Captain America,
both Steve Rogers, but also Sam, AKA the Falcon. So, uh, Erin,
I just want to get into it, um.
Uh, I just, you know, you, you and I both
saw Captain America, a Brave New World, not together, unfortunately,
but you know, we're able to connect now over it. Uh,
(05:36):
I wanted to see, or rather for our listeners to
hear from your perspective, how this movie fits in overall
to the Marvel universe and superheroom in general and the
flow of the previous Captain America character with Steve Rogers
into Sam.
And uh just uh I'm sure you got something to say,
(05:56):
so go ahead and lead us into that.
Uh, out of the infinities. OK, yeah, go
Speaker 2 (06:00):
ahead. So the infinity, the infinity, uh, saga is history,
and now we're dealing with the multiverse saga, where they're,
they've introduced this idea of the multiverse, the idea that
there is an infinite number of Earths that coexist, and
there's different configurations of different characters and superhero teams and
(06:23):
supervillain teams on different earths, and we've seen.
You know, this idea pop up in, in places like
uh Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where we
actually got to see um Charles Xavier, live action, Patrick Stewart.
Um, version of him that's a little more akin to
the comics and the animated series from the 90s that
(06:46):
you and I would have grown up with, uh, in
live action. Got to see different versions of, say, characters
like uh Mr. Fantastic and Captain Britton and Black Bolt.
Um, you know, and so it came in a little
bit that way, but then if you, if you watched
Spider-Man No Way Home, we had a Spider-Man movie that
(07:08):
had villains from the new movies and the old movies
all come together, but also the Spider-Man from the new
movies and the old movies
Speaker 1 (07:17):
and which was really genius and it's a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I I wonder how much of that, you know, was,
was actually inspired by that Spider-Man meme that's been going
around for years where the one pointing Spider-Man.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yes, that, that, um, so that is
Speaker 2 (07:36):
kind of the, the, the space that this kind of
post-infinity saga space is where this movie.
Um, is coming into play, right? You know, Steve Rogers
has transitioned out as, as Captain America and his story
as we understand it, is, is done and closed, and
(07:58):
Sam Wilson is now definitively the new Captain America in
the movies and you had the Falcon and the Winter
Soldier show that kind of transitioned that role from from
one to the other, um.
And that's, that's kind of where we're at at this point.
And even to where, and again, you said we were
(08:20):
gonna get into it. So, you know, this is spoiler territory.
But even where characters like Bucky actually show up, you know,
Bucky Barnes, right? 100+ years old, uh, Steve Rogers' best
friend shows up in this movie in a moment.
That I think is actually it's a quiet moment, but
I think it's actually a really important moment that solidifies
(08:44):
Sam's role as, you know, Captain America because, you know,
I think his comment to to Sam in the, in
the hospital is, you know, Steve gave America, Steve gave
the world somebody to believe in.
You, as Captain America, give them somebody to aspire to.
(09:08):
And I think the distinction that Bucky is making that
I think is really important, because one of the threads
of this movie is Sam regretting never taking the super
soldier serum. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
But I think he's got the suit and the shield,
but he doesn't have the strength that Steve Rogers had.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right, he doesn't have, well,
In a way he does. It just doesn't manifest the same,
Speaker 1 (09:35):
right?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Because
You know, if you go back to the first Captain
America movie and Professor Erskine's, uh, conversation with Steve the
night before the procedure when he says, why did you
choose me? And he, he talks about how the serum
functions and what it does and how the serum
Speaker 1 (09:54):
becomes great, bad
Speaker 2 (09:56):
becomes worse,
Speaker 1 (09:58):
worse.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
That's right. Good becomes great, bad becomes worse, and he says,
Um, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna read it here, he says.
That because the strong man who has known power all
his life may lose respect for that power, but a
weak man knows the value of strength and knows compassion.
(10:23):
He knows compassion. And this is the distinction that Professor
Erskine is trying to make between ultimately between Steve Rogers
and the Red Skull in that movie, because the Red
Skull took the serum and became who he was. So.
The, the point being is that I think a lot
of what Steve, Steve had that got accentuated by the serum.
(10:49):
Sam has that, but we don't see it show up
the same way because he didn't take the serum. And
what's interesting about this is that if you go back
and you watch Falcon and the Winter Soldier, right, and
you track the, the journey of, um, John Walker, who's
kind of like the, the new Captain America post Steve
(11:12):
but before Sam, and he later becomes US agent, which
will factor into the Thunderbolts, which is coming out in May.
Um,
What's interesting about that is that John Walker ultimately takes
the serum because he doesn't think he has what it
takes to be what he needs to be without it.
What I think is interesting is if you go back
to the original, uh, Captain America.
(11:36):
And that scene when Steve is training and he jumps
on the grenade, right, everybody runs away, but he jumps
on the grenade and he's like, get away, get away,
get away. And the, the general that's working with him,
Tommy Lee Jones's character.
He says, you know, so and so Hodges passed every
test we gave him. Yep.
(11:56):
But I think what we're seeing now is a character
like John Walker.
Is essentially what Hodges would have been if they've given
him the serum because he doesn't have the strength of
character that Steve has and I think part of the
reason that Sam has that strength of character isn't just,
you know, his experiences as an individual, his experiences, you know,
(12:22):
in the military doing para rescue, but I also think
what factors into that because you see it happen.
In this film, you see it happen in Falcon and
the Winter Soldier is Sam's got a whole another life
as an individual who counsels veterans coming back from war,
and so that counselor part of him factors so much
(12:45):
into who he is as Captain America.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, and he has compassion clearly for them, cares about
even his new friend, uh, I forget his name, uh,
that becomes Falcon in essence.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Ramirez, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Ramirez. And and when he gets shot down, the compassion
that you
See Sam have as a result of that. So his
character definitely being in line. And so on that, Erin,
I even want, if you could relate it, because I love,
you've done this before where you, you, the heroism of weakness, you, you,
you point that out even in your own life. If
you are able to tie that in, that'd be great.
But even as it goes into the strength of President
(13:24):
Ross in the, uh, uh, this latest Captain America movie
and how he becomes the Red Hulk. Spoiler alert, sorry
if you haven't seen it.
I think everybody knows, um, but, uh, right, uh, but, um, that,
that he has this super strength there at the end,
but even what happens with his character and the movement
(13:47):
of redemption.
Even after having given into full rage as the red
skull did, or and even that's uh maybe symbolic red skull,
Red Hulk, the full vent of anger and giving into
that ultimate power versus character, compassion with strength tempered.
So somewhere in there there's a question and go for it.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
If you
go back to what Erskine says about, you know, a
strong man who has, who's known power all his life
may lose respect for that power.
Ross has known some degree of power all his life,
Speaker 1 (14:24):
right? He's,
he was a,
Speaker 2 (14:27):
he's a general, he was the secretary of state. I
think at some point he was in a legislative role
because they make reference to when you passed the Soobia Accords, uh, so,
so he's been in some form of government his whole
life he's, he's had power himself, proximity to power, but even.
(14:47):
Even when you, when you first encounter the character in
this movie.
He's not the general Ross that we knew back in
Incredible Hulk and the event, you know, and some of
the Captain America stuff because he had something happen to him, right?
He had some kind of heart condition, heart attack, you know,
(15:12):
I mean.
Kind of like Tony, kind of like Tony. He had a,
he had something happen with his heart that changed who
he was. He realized he needed to make a change, um,
mainly because he was losing the love of his daughter
and his wife was already gone. Um, so you struggle.
He went through struggle. And so you have a character
(15:33):
who has ascended to the presidency, but is essentially alone, right?
He doesn't have the only real.
You know, decent person that we know of that he
has around him is that Secret Service agent that's with
him all the time, that's friends with Sam and so.
You know, he's, he's in a situation where.
(15:56):
Um,
He wants to make a change.
But yet, we see kind of some of the tendrils
and ideas around his old life still kind of clinging
to him and how he treats and how he uses
Samuel Stearns to ascend to the presidency, right? Samuel Stearns,
Speaker 1 (16:17):
do you think, Aaron, this is kind of rhetorical, but
please humor me. Do you think that could be relevant
to our walk with Christ, where we're
Uh, leaving our old life behind and pursuing the new
life we have in Christ. We've been baptized in water, perhaps.
We've made the confession of faith in Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior, and yet something dark still holds us.
(16:40):
Do you think there's any relevance or or parallel in
that
Speaker 2 (16:47):
allegory? um Spider-Man 3, right? Peter
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Park we went into a whole other universe. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Peter Parker in the black suit, right? Right, the black
suit that eventually becomes Venom when it bonds with Eddie Brock, um.
The, the beautiful thing about that sequence in the movie
that mirrors the same sequence in the animated uh Spider-Man
show from the 90s is that when he is finally
(17:13):
able to detach himself from the, the, the Venom symbiot.
It happens in a church. It happens in a bell
tower because it, it is the sonic ringing of the
church bells that ultimately interfere with the
Speaker 1 (17:32):
suit,
right?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
So, yes. And like, just because we are willing to
make that change, to, to, you know, to turn around,
to change direction, to repent, or, you know, run to
the arms of Jesus.
Doesn't mean that the enemy is just gonna lay down
and take it.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
True enemy is gonna fight tooth and nail.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
That's what screwtape letters is all
about.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Oh, you just brought in CS
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Lewis. CS Lewis is screw tape letters, right? That that
entire book is all about how do we trip this
guy up and not have him turn to Jesus, but
once he does, how do we continue.
You know, to trip him up. And that, that, that
book is, you know, um, inspired like spiritual sequels and
(18:24):
other things like the Frank Peretti books from the 80s
that I grew up on. And so,
Speaker 1 (18:29):
so, so
Speaker 2 (18:30):
yes, just because he wants to make this change.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And just for our listeners, Frank Peretti, this presents Darkness, powerful,
go ahead, continue.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Um, just because President Ross wants to make this change.
And wants to ultimately reconcile with his, his daughter, which
he ultimately does. Stearns isn't gonna take it lying down
because at the same time.
Stearns
Stearns is a is is the villain of the story, right?
(19:00):
He's he's the true villain of the story, but we
gotta what you gotta remember about villains, right? villains and heroes,
villains and victors is they start their stories in the
same place. Interesting, yeah, they, a villain and a victor,
a villain and a hero, they start their story as
a victim of some sort, right? um.
(19:22):
This is Anakin Skywalker.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
This is
you just brought in I mean Star Wars. I mean
we're geeking out. We're going all in.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I
Speaker 1 (19:29):
said
Speaker 2 (19:29):
it. This is how, but this is how these stories,
this is how they're structured, this is how these stories work.
So Samuel Stearns in in a legitimate way from a
legitimate perspective, he's, he's a victim, but he doesn't know
what to do with that.
Reality
Speaker 1 (19:47):
of his bitterness and unforgiveness to his heart and never forgiveness?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yes, absolutely. And that's, and if you wanna, if you
wanna kind of look at
Ross and Stearns as mirror images of each other, um,
just as you, you might do, um, you know, generally
you would do for like the hero and the villain,
(20:14):
but you've got, you've got a villain and you've got
an antagonist. If you wanna look at them as mirror
images of each other.
The difference is that Ross ultimately is able to find
that forgiveness in part, in part because.
When you think about the third act of the movie
(20:34):
and the, the confrontation between Ross and Sam, right, when he's,
I was about to pull that so you're going with it.
There's a
confrontation that happens like right here in DC, you know,
down by the water, um, Potomac River Potomac River with
the cherry blossoms and all that, so you know what's
(20:56):
happening in the spring, right? If you, if you're familiar
with how that works.
But that, that forgiveness that he finds ultimately, I would say,
is mediated by the confrontation.
With Sam.
In the sense that, you know, Sam tells him like, hey, I,
(21:17):
I don't, like I, I don't wanna fight you and
tries to be as defensive as possible. And we see
Sam operate this way in other stories like Falcon and
the Winter Soldier, but like, he doesn't.
He has no desire to actually kill Ross and end
his life, there there's a almost kind of.
(21:40):
Batman asked.
Desire to see this villain, this antagonist reformed like Batman
often does, right, you know, sending villains to Arkham and stuff,
so you have.
This character who ultimately finds forgiveness, but it's as a
result of the fact that the hero is willing to
(22:02):
put himself between the antagonist and everybody else, right? The
hero is willing to facilitate redemptive good even for the villain.
At great cost to himself by putting himself between the
villain and everyone
else.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Uh, well, Aaron, um, before we close, others are coming.
What does that mean, Aaron? What does that mean? What,
who are the others? And is it multiverse? What's happening?
What's going, Aaron, answer our questions. We need answers.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
So again, we talked about this is the multiverse saga
and we talked about the, the, the existence and the
structure of the multiverse.
We've got two Avengers movies coming in the next few years.
Avengers Doomsday, that's gonna feature Doctor Doom from the Fantastic Four,
as the main antagonist
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Robert Downey Junior as Doctor Doom, which is crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
It is crazy, but it's not necessarily as crazy as
you think because there is a degree of like comic
book precedence for this. So like we'll see how they
how they play that out
Speaker 1 (23:10):
because we got about 2 or 3 minutes.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I mean, what's coming is, you know.
world and an adaptation of secret wars where you're gonna
see different heroes from different places, you know, likely from
different earths having to all come together because we're gonna
deal with some, some degree of threat that is so big,
like we're talking bigger than Thanos big, you know, maybe even,
(23:36):
maybe even bigger than Galactus big who we're gonna see
on who we're gonna see on the screen this summer
with Fantastic Four.
That it's gonna take not just, you know, the Avengers
of Earth, it's gonna take the Avengers of Earths to
deal
with
Speaker 1 (23:49):
wow, multiple.
Well, you heard it here.
Boys and girls to use the old terminology that Stan
Lee would have used in a Spider-Man cartoon episode. By
the way, God rest his soul, I miss Stan Lee.
But Aaron, thank you for joining us. Not enough time
to go through what it is that's in your mind
and heart. Aaron, where can people follow you, uh, whether
(24:13):
on social media or I know I think you have
a website, um, but if people want to get to
know you more, where can they find you?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
The best places to follow me is Instagram. Uh, the
handle is at Aaron Welty, just A A R O
N W E L T Y, my name, and then
I have a website where I do um
I do um public speaking and that website is www.
Aaron Aaron, the letter R from my middle name, and
(24:41):
then Welty W E L T Y.com. I've got a
um
I've got a demo video there and as you well know, Mike,
you know, I, I travel the country in my off
time and uh talk about superheroes and Jesus.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I
hope you're as inspired as I am with Aaron's story
on how to embrace the reality of suffering so that
we can also embrace the heroism of being an overcomer
and like Aaron said.
The truth of the matter is the greatest story is
the story of Jesus, the greatest story ever told that
he suffered for our sins on the cross and did
(25:18):
not stay that way, but rose from the dead victoriously
that we too who follow him faithfully can have this
as part of our story.
And so as you go into the culture and you
listen to music or you watch Captain America, Brave New
World or other Marvel, DC or Star Wars movies and
beyond of course with discernment we can't take everything without
(25:38):
using the discernment of the Holy Spirit that you would
be encouraged to find those redemptive themes in these altars
to the unknown god, so to speak, so that we
can find a way to reach people for the glory
of God.
So be encouraged and if you want to learn more
about Aaron's story, you can go to Aaron Welty.com or
(26:01):
just follow the links that are provided to you through
the podcast. Thank you for joining us for this episode
of Kingdom and Culture. I'm your host Mike Whitford. Keep
advancing the kingdom of God through our culture as you
follow Jesus faithfully.
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