Ep. 328 Sean Gaffney - We Were Made For Stories - Shifting Culture

Episode Transcript
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Sean Gaffney (00:00):
Stories is how we are, who we are, it's how we

(00:03):
explore our identity. It's howwe explore who we might be, who
we might want to be. It's how wetest everything from our ethics
to even practical living. It'show we test what is important,
what are our values. It is howwe discover the other it's how
we find people who who are notpart of us.

Joshua Johnson (00:38):
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. Youknow, stories shape who we are.
They help us make sense of theworld, test our values, stretch
our imaginations and invite usinto something bigger than
ourselves. In this episode, Italk with Sean Gaffney about why

(00:59):
stories matter, not just asentertainment, but as one of the
primary ways we encounter truth,beauty and even God. We unpack
the shape that stories take, whythat shape echoes the arc of
redemption, and how even themost unexpected narratives can
reflect the heartbeat of thegospel, from Marvel movies to
the messiness of Christianmedia, from the theology of
character development to thediscipline of watching with the

(01:21):
Spirit. This conversationinvites us to listen more
closely, not just to the storieswe tell, but to the God who is
telling a story through us. Sojoin us as we engage with story
and the storyteller. Here is myconversation with Sean Gaffney,
well, Sean, thank you forjoining me. Excited to have you

(01:42):
on

very excited to be here. Thank you so much for
having me.

Well, you have been writing and teaching story
for many years. Yes, thequestion though is, why do
stories matter? Oh,

wow. Why do stories matter? Let's start with
the easy ones,

right? Yeah, the easy one, well, we're diving
straight

diving straight into it. Yeah. Stories matter on
so many different levels,whether, whether you're looking
at it, you know, from thesociological, from the
anthropological, political, fromthe theological, stories is how
we learn. Stories is how we weare, who we are, it's how we
explore our identity. It's howwe explore who we might be, who

(02:27):
we might want to be. It's how wetest everything from our ethics
to even practical living. It'show we test what is important,
what are our values. It is howwe discover the other it's how
we find people who are not partof us. I was just talking,
actually talking with ouradministrative assistant here at

(02:48):
Asbury, and she grew up on afarm in Iowa. I grew up in a
small town we were talkingabout, you know, for her, there
wasn't anybody who wasn't whiteand poor in her area. How do we
discover the world beyondourselves. And I think, I think
definitely, as as people offaith, the other is important,
because we are all we're allpart of the same thing. And how

(03:12):
do we, how do we learn tounderstand people who have not
grown up the same way, who havenot had the same traditions
necessarily, as I, I've hadother than you know, through
extensive travel, which Irecommend if you can travel, but
we all can't travel. And throughstory, how can we safely go into
environments that that would bedangerous for us otherwise, and

(03:34):
not just physical danger, butemotional danger, theological
danger, Faith danger. Story is agreat way to learn what is the
rest of the world thinking? Howare they operating? How can I
understand where they're comingfrom? When what they say to me
doesn't seem to be making sense?
Oh, I watch their story orlisten to their story. This is
why Jesus taught in stories. Iwill say this too already. We've

(03:56):
launched into it, and I'malready on the soapbox, because
I was, I was at an event, anexperience, a Christian based
experienced, and they were oneof their little kind of
advertisements for themselves.
As they said, you know, we wantpeople to understand the Bible's
not story, the Bible's history.
And I was like, oh, oh, numberone. We can contest it on a lot

(04:20):
of ways, but I understand partof what they're saying. The
Bible is real. It's true. Andfor many people, true and story
don't meet. I think God designedus in a way that true and story
actually the only way to get totruth is through story, whereas
history history is too limited.

(04:44):
And I think they thought theywere expanding the power of the
Bible, but they're actuallylimiting it. When they say, Oh
no, it's just a list of facts.
Story has meaning and andtherefore the Bible has more
meaning than the facts listed inthe Bible.

You have the.
Book that you recently put outcalled meta story you have a
meta story framework. It reallylooks like it. This is the story
of God. This is God story withus and humanity. His mission.
What's going to happen to helpus? Like, zoom out, like, what
is this meta story framework?
Why does this meta storyframework help situate us even

(05:23):
in our daily lives.

I'm gonna reflect a little bit. Carrie Wallace,
you did an episode with Carrie,Episode 286, for anybody who
wants to go back and listen toit, I strongly recommend it so
her point of view. She says allof art is following God. Was her
quote. Inspiration comes fromGod whether you know it or not.
And really, my theory is notthat far different from hers, in

(05:47):
that I feel like all story ispoints us to God whether we know
it or not. And it's not just, ohyeah, of course, Christian
stories point us to God orbiblical stories, all story
points us to God whether you'rewatching television, whether
you're watching the latestMarvel movie, whether you're
reading, you know, a novel, youknow someone that like a

(06:07):
Tolstoy, that's more obviouslydirecting you towards God or
reading, you know, GrahamGreene, that's bad choice,
because he's also intentionallypointing you to God or reading,
you know, the just The latestpot boiler, the latest crime
book. They're all the structureof story points us towards God.
We're designed. My big idea isthat we're designed for story,

(06:34):
because, again, story is largerthan just fact, so we're
designed for something largerthan just fact, and we're
designed for story, becausethat's how we find God. God's
story. The shape of God's storyis the shape of every story we
yearn for. It's the shape. It'sthe shape of the stories that we

(06:56):
want, the stories that completeus have that same shape, and
it's because, in my opinion,it's because we're always
searching for God and everythingwe do. So of course, we're going
to use the shape of story, of ofstarting in a normal situation
and falling out of that, gettinggetting unbalanced, and having a

(07:17):
quest to restore normal, andhaving a crisis, having a having
a death, having a resurrection,coming back out of that crisis
and ending up in a new place, ina place where we haven't been
before. That is that's ourthat's our arc of of God, right?
That's our arc of finding God.
It's also the arc of history,which is why I think history is
story, because it has astoryteller.

Can you walk me through some some of this meta
story framework?

Yeah, so within the book, I mean the book, the
book can be used for, for peoplewho want to be writers, to
figure out how to how to write.
But the the distinction that mybook has, I think, is each
element, whether we're talkingabout character or plot or
theme, is more obvious dialog.
Each element has a theologicalunderpinning. There's a god

(08:06):
underpinning for everything, ofwhy we do it, why we tell story
the way we tell story. So it's akind of a combination of how to
understand the story as well ashow to write the story. So in
the book, I break it down. Imean, I really go into detail of
here. Here's each of the beatsof a plot of a story here,
here's how dialog and themeinteract. So an obvious example

(08:27):
is structure, you know? So thethe the Uber structure of every
story is, is you start out inbalance. There's an unbalance to
it. You go on a quest to try torestore a balance. You have a
midpoint that changeseverything. Then you have
another quest, and then youhave, it culminates in a crisis,
which then leads to, you know,the coming out of the crisis,

(08:49):
into the climax, the finalbattle, and then you're into a
new world. You're into a new,new balance. And that actually
aligns, I'm going to cheat alittle bit with this, because
I'm summarizing, but it aligns,aligns exactly with our history
of the balance. We start out inthe normal for us. We call that
the Garden of Eden, right? It'sthe normal world. Everything is
good, but then something happensthat unbalances that. In this

(09:11):
case, we decide to eat an apple,the one thing that we're not
supposed to do we decide to do,and it throws the world out of
whack. We are no longer in thisrelationship with God, and then
history. You can think ofhistory as a long series of
attempts by God to restore thatbalance, to bring us back into
the fold. So, you know, you lookthrough all the Old Testament,

(09:33):
it's like, let's try this. We'regoing to try this. We're going
to now. We're going to try thisthing. None of it working right.
It's all these attempts andfailed attempts, culminating in
the midpoint, which is thearrival of God on earth. Nothing
else worked. So I'm going tointervene in history. I'm going
to step in, I'm going to removemy own throne, my own godliness,
to join mankind to be able tofind that solution. And then

(09:56):
here's, here's here's where I'mgoing to cheat a little bit, but
I'm going to go into, you know.
The second quest as Jesus, lifeon earth, His ministry. It's all
about, can I get you guys to seeit? Can you see it? You know,
I've been saying, Hey, don'tmurder your brother. And you've
been saying, okay, so if I killhim this way, does that count?
If I kill him this way, doesthat count? Like, what's the
legal and he's like, No, youdon't understand. Love God. Love

(10:18):
each other. It's like, okay, butisn't it loving my neighbor when
I stone her for adultery? Isn'tthat loving, you know, it's
like, okay, you're not gettingit. You're looking at the wrong
thing. Can I get you to look atthe right thing? And so that's
the quest two. And of course, itends in a crisis. We crucify
Him, we put him on a tree, andwe kill God. And that's, you
know, kind of like the end ofthat, except it's never the end,

(10:40):
because the crisis is never theend. There's the resurrection,
there's the coming back fromthat, which is the climax, the
final battle of death, right?
And then we're going to end up,you know, I tell people, we
start in one place, we end up inanother. We're starting in the
garden, we're ending in a city.
We're ending in New Jerusalem,because there's been a change.
Because you've gone on thisjourney, you're going to land in

(11:03):
a new place. So every look atevery movie that you enjoy,
you're going to be able to findall of those pieces in that
order. And it's God's story.
It's just a reflection of God'sstory. So that's one piece of
it. That's how that's howstructure kind of aligns. So

if I'm I'm looking at something and for
looking at a story, let's takeknives out. You talk about
knives out a lot in meta story.
So I Ryan Johnson is one of myfavorite writer directors. A lot
of people would go, how in theworld would knives out actually
point to God? And it structuresdialog. This is murder mystery.
It's it's fun. There's a lot oftwists and turns. We're enjoying

(11:38):
it. But does it really point toGod? The story actually point to
God. Point to God. So help us.
Help us out. Tell us storyactually

points? Yeah. So one of the things we got to be
careful of is, you know that theidea that every story points us
to God in ways, every story ismirroring God's story. So we're
so the track that we'refollowing is going to be the
same track. It doesn't mean thatevery story is good for us. It
doesn't mean that every story isgoing to dump us off where we
need to be, and it doesn't meanthat every every story, even the

(12:10):
stories that have good aspects,that the bad aspects of it don't
outweigh the good aspects. Sothat's that's one caveat I want
to lead with. I know, I know.
You know, for a lot of people,they're like. You've got so many
secular examples, you know, andsome of them are R rated. Some
of them are not in general,good, you know. The extreme
example would be the movieSeven. The movie Seven

(12:31):
explicitly talks about the sevendeadly sins. The message of the
movie is, our culture is so inlove with the seven deadly sins
that we're destroying ourselves.
I can't recommend for any greatmovie, great great acting, great

(12:51):
writing

into that in the theater, they kicked me out
because I wasn't old enough. Oh,really.

Get into that one.
It's a movie I actually regretwatching because the dark
elements in it for where I am,for who I am, the dark elements
were so dark that they weredamaging to my soul in a way,
right? For other people, that'snot their thing, right? So we
each have to just kind of as aquick aside, and I'll get back

(13:18):
to your question. I tell mystudents, before we watch
things, like, throughout thesemester, we're going to be
reading different scripts. We'regoing to be watching different
things. We need to be adultabout the choices of what to
watch. And I don't mean by that,which a lot of people say, Oh,
you need to be adult enough thatyou can handle that language, or
you need to be adult enough thatyou can handle that, you know,
storyline, or whatever it is,the violence, it's like, no, no.

(13:39):
We need to be adult enough, theway Paul calls us to be adults.
Of we know who we are. We knowwho where we are in our walk.
And I need to be adult enough tosay, Yeah, I know that movie is
perfectly fine for every fory'all, but I can't watch it
because my particular eitherweakness things that draw me
into you know, I know people whocan't handle strong language,

(14:01):
not because they don't likestrong language, but because
they'll start to use it ifthey're exposed to it, right?
So, yeah, you got to know youcan't do that for me. Sexual
violence, I can't. It haunts me.
It hurts my soul. It's the kindof thing that you know. So I
can't watch Law and Order SVU,even though that's PG or PG 13,

(14:21):
that's too much for me, so Ineed to know, no, I'm not going
to watch that movie for thatreason. So So I'm not saying
that every movie is therefore agod movie, and go ahead and
watch it, or every TV show is aGod show, so therefore go and
watch it. But if you look at theright elements, you can see how
we're training ourselves to readGod's story through some of

(14:43):
these stories, as well as as thelook so knives out, certainly
the structure has that samestructure thematically knives
out, it talks a lot about truth.
Is a core theme to it. What istruth? But another major key,
key to it is. Having the courageto do the thing you know is the
right thing. So for those of youwho've seen knives out, we have,

(15:05):
we have this balance. We'reusing this thing. It's called
setup and payoff which, again,God uses setups and payoffs. So
understanding how they're usedin movie helps us see how it's
being used in the Bible helps usseeing how it's being used in
our lives. So in knives out.
Little bit of a spoiler, butthere's a character I'm going to
be vague enough. There's acharacter at the beginning of

(15:26):
the movie who has an opportunityto make a 911 call to save
somebody and is convinced istalked into not doing it because
it's going to get her intotrouble. And that same character
at the end of the movie has anopportunity to make a 911, call.
She knows if she does this,she's she's it's over, she's
done, she's lost. So she hasthis mirroring thing of choosing

(15:51):
to do it at the beginning, andthen by the end, her character
has changed enough for her tomake a different choice. Right?
That setup and payoff this, wecan see that echoed in it
certainly we see it echoed inthe Bible all the time of the
opportunity. Peter has anopportunity to say, Yes, I know
him. Yes, I'm with him and anddenies him right. And then has a

(16:13):
later opportunity to go throughthe growth and stand in front of
5000 people and say, Yeah,arrest me. I know him. He's
mine, right? We're seeing thatsame knives out setup payoff in
his story. And if you lookclosely enough, you're going to
see it in your own faithjourney. You're going to see
those moments where you weretested and you failed the test,

(16:35):
and everybody, even your own,that inner voice is saying, it's
over. You're done. You're not agood person, you're a horrible
person. And then we see that,oh, I was given another
opportunity. I was given, I wasgiven a chance to learn and grow
from it. So something as simpleas that, and we see that in all
of these movies, but it'straining us. When we see it in
the movie, we enjoy it in themovie. We like it in the movie

(16:58):
because it resonates, becausethat's how God made us. And if
we're wise, we can take a stepback and apply that to our own
faith journey as well. You

talk about some redemptive storytelling as well,
and redemptive storytellingsometimes, if you're looking at
Christians trying to do do artand they have an agenda behind
things, yes, sometimes itdoesn't work very well.
Sometimes you feel like you'remanipulated. Yes, what doesn't

(17:27):
work when it comes to story,especially in the Christian
world, where we're trying toactually portray a message

so many things, so many things. And I'm a big I'm a
big critic of Christian media,because I'm a Christian, I think
we have to critique in thehouse. If we don't critique in
the house, if we say, Oh no, no,you know, it's been mentioned by
some of your guests on yourshow, it's been mentioned on
other shows. Of this idea of,let's, let's write something and

(17:56):
then slap a verse on it, andthen we can call it Christian,
because it now has a goodmessage, but the message in the
in the medium, the message inthe storytelling itself, the
storytelling is part of themessage, and that's where, one
of the places where we miss theboat a lot, is we do poor
quality storytelling, because weargue that poor quality doesn't

(18:17):
matter as long as it has a goodmessage. And the message is, I
have a character who's sayingChrist is Lord, but I don't care
enough about the quality of themovie to make it a good movie.
So my message to my my nonChristian audience, is they want
to say Christ is Lord, but theydon't really believe it enough

(18:37):
to work hard. It isn'timportant. It does. It isn't
valuable enough to them. SoChrist isn't really Lord. Christ
is Christ is LORD is justsomething we say. That's the
message of your movie. It's not,it's not Christ is Lord, right?
So that's one of the things, thethe other thing that doesn't
work is lying, which should notsurprise us. I'm shocked. I'm

(18:59):
shocked at how many times inChristian environments? You
know, I used to work for acompany, this was ages ago,
where they were asking us to lieto our customers. And I said,
we're Christians. We can't dothat. And he said, No, no, we're
a Christian organization. Ourwork is important to God. It's
important for the Kingdom.
Therefore we need to stayafloat. We need to stay in
business. So therefore whateverwe do to stay in business is

(19:22):
godly, right? And and thatsounds insane, but we see it
over and over and over again. Weneed to get people into the
church. So it doesn't matter howwe get them into the church. It
doesn't matter. And we love tolie as Christians, we love we
love our marketing. So one ofour biggest lies deals with

(19:43):
marketing. We want people tocome to the church. So we want
the church to look like a nice,easy, safe place. So we tell
people one of the most popularthing lies that we tell in
Christian movies is if youaccept Jesus as your savior, you
will never have a problem everagain. This solves all of your
problems. Right? We never, willnever do and it's not true,
because we're starting to dothis. We're getting better. But

(20:04):
that kind of movie, the peoplewho make those kind of movies,
would never have a movie thatis, you know, the the salvation
is always the climax, and thentheir life is fine. It's never,
it's rarely the incitingincident, and now your life is
in trouble. This is the thingthat unbalanced your life, is
you became a Christian, and weall know. You know Jesus. Jesus,

(20:26):
you know. Remember when he says,Hey, take up your pillow and
follow me, or where he says toHis disciples, is warning
everybody's going to love you.
Nobody's going to ever treat youbadly because of you me,
nobody's ever going to, right?
It's the opposite and and ourstories. But that's not good
marketing, right? Comcast, or,you know, Verizon, they're never

(20:50):
going to run an ad saying, hey,use Verizon. You'll have trouble
making phone calls, right?
They're not going to they'regoing to say, oh, it always
works great. It always worksbest. It's always better than so
we lie to get people into thechurch. And that never works,
because people see right throughit. People know that. People,
they look at the church and theysay, yeah, that that person has

(21:13):
been a pastor for 25 years, andhe's going through that. Or
even, you know the you know,what do you do when you say all
your problems are solved? Oh,and now I have a prayer request.
My child has cancer, right?
Well, that doesn't meet yourmarketing. So we don't, we don't
we protect God. We protect thechurch. At our heart, we don't

(21:37):
believe that God can defendhimself. So, you know, another
one of our favorite lies is wehave the Christian versus the
the atheist storyline. It's oneof our favorite story lines. And
the atheist is, is dead, right?
Evil. The atheist is like, Idon't care that you have cancer,
you know. The atheist is like,you know, laughing at your

(21:58):
misfortune and that that person,and he's stupid. I'm going to
prove to you that God doesn'texist, because I can't see him.
Look, look around you. Can yousee him? I can't see him. Ha, I
proved it, right. Well, you'rean idiot. So that's a lie. So,
so the the people who areoutside the church go to that
movie, or, or half of the peopleinside the church go to that

(22:20):
movie, and they go, Well, Idon't know that guy. I've never
seen that guy. I've never, I'venever had that confrontation.
It's a lie to say, Oh God is sostrong that he can beat
somebody. As long as thatsomebody, as long as that
somebody is stupid, as long asthat somebody is is maniacally
evil for no reason, as long asthat person has no compassion.
You know, I'm sorry. Put justpost on Facebook at some point.

(22:43):
Just post, does anybody know anatheist who's ever given money
to cancer research now,according to our movies, you're
it's going to come back? No,I've never heard of such a
thing. Or somebody who's not aChristian. Have you ever heard
of a Buddhist who's who's beennice to somebody? Have you ever
heard of a Muslim person who hashas raised their children? Well?
Have you ever, well, notaccording to our movies, right?

(23:03):
So we lie, doesn't work. Itdoesn't work a story. It's bad
storytelling, therefore itdoesn't

work. So then what does work? So that's think
I want to think of like villainsand solutions to stories. If you
were talking like, you know, theatheist is the the villain.
It's, it's a caricature. It'snot a real person. What is it?
What is like working in the graylook like, of like, hey, there

(23:32):
are actually some, maybe somehuman redeeming elements of
this, this villain, and thereare some evil elements of this
villain. How can you we? Wecreate something that actually
has more multi dimensions to it,and not just one caricature of

Yeah, one way to start is, don't, don't choose
the easy villain. So my movie, Idid a movie called unlawfully
yours. My lead is an atheist.
She's lovely. You're rooting forher. You want the pastor to fall
in love with her. She doesn'thave the right theology, right?
So that's so she's not thevillain of the piece. Actually,

(24:12):
a church lady is the is thevillain of the piece. And that
forces you, as a writer, as acreator, as well as as an
audience, to not look for theeasy answer, Christian, good,
atheist, bad, right? Because,because your central character,
the character you want everybodyto follow, the character you
want everybody to root for Jesusdoes that, right? You know, in

(24:33):
the story of the Good Samaritan,the Good Samaritan is not the
central character. You have toread my book to understand that.
But the good Samaritan issupposed to be the villain,
right? And and is not the it's,it's a the good, the good
Samaritans a human being whosees another human being, right,
who sees rightly so. That's,that's one kind of way to do it.
The other is if, if you have,when you have your villain, who

(24:56):
needs to be villainous. I liketo. To to do the same trick that
actors do. So my wife is anactress. She loves playing
villains because they'redelicious, but when she's
playing a villain, she has tocome up with, why do they want?
What they want? You know, Iactually just saw a critique of
the recent Snow White movie. Ihaven't seen the Snow White

(25:18):
movie, but that's one of thethings they complain about, is
the witch wants Snow White to bedead, wants to be the prettiest
in the kingdom, wants to run.
But there's no reason why shewants it, other than she's a
villain. And most of our oureasy Fallback is, well, they're
the villain because they're thevillain, not because they not
because they have a positivemotive. So if you look at Thanos

(25:41):
in in the Marvel Infinity Warand end game, he he sees that
overpopulation is destroyingplanets. So his his plan to
delete half of the universe,half of life, has a good motive,
right? So, so you can look athim and go, Oh, he's trying to

(26:02):
do good. He just is going aboutit in the wrong way. So often it
can be the villain can be tryingto do good, going about it in
the wrong way. And then thethird approach is, I would give
them power. David and Goliath.
Goliath outsizes David, right?

(26:23):
Goliath has all of the cards. Sothe victory, you know, there's a
lot of reasons you want to dothat, but one of which is, it's
a real victory. It's, it's, itrequires courage of character
for the victory. And I have awhole section of the book where
I do this. This is one of thethings that Marvel does, right
in so many of their movies, isthe villain is always stronger
than if it's an argument movie,if you've got your atheist

(26:46):
arguing against your Christian,anytime any of the argument
movies are brought up in myclasses, I haven't seen a lot of
them, because they drive mecrazy, but some people bring up
one of them, and I'll say, Okay,I haven't seen it, but you tell
me when the atheist is makinghis arguments as a audience
member. Have you ever thought,oh crap, he's right, or have you

(27:07):
always thought, Oh, what anidiot, what an idiot, what an
idiot. And if you if youthought, oh crap, he's right,
then you've got a good villain.
Then you've got, you know,you've got, you know, the
devil's number is 666, EarlPalmer said the importance of
the devil's number to itsaudience is that they know that
God's number is seven. So thedevil is six spread six out to

(27:29):
eternity. However you want toread it in there, six to the
sixth power to the sixth power.
God is seven to the seven to theseven. The devil is strong. God
is stronger. And that's that,you know, that's kind of our
message in our movies, right?
Should be our message in ourmovies. Can you make them
strong? I did that with a play.
I did an adaptation of theIsland of Dr Moreau. HG, Wells

(27:51):
is Island of Dr Moreau. I didthat as a play, and I
intentionally gave all of thebest monologs to Moreau, and I
gave him a chance to convince uswhy what he's doing is right,
because toppling that had had somuch stronger significance to an

(28:15):
audience than saying, Hi, I'm anidiot And I'm wrong, right? That
has no emotional, that has nointellectual, that has no
theological you're not going togrow from that, especially if
you come in agreeing with thevillain. You're certainly not
going to grow if the guy up onthe screen is not mimicking the
thoughts that you've had, but ifthe guy on the screen can mimic

(28:38):
those thoughts, and thensomebody can come along with an
actual answer. Now we're talking

dive pretty deep through the Marvel Cinematic
Universe of what Marvel lookslike with this this meta story
and some of this redemptivestory. It's good. The things
that I found recently, I'm goingto spoil thunderbolts, the new
Marvel movie, a little bit. Butwhat I found is really
fascinating with something newfrom Marvel, which I don't think

(29:07):
they've done great sinceInfinity War, right?

But here, pockets here and there. But yes,

pockets here and there. I The the solution to the
the villain in Thunderboltswasn't about death and violence
and more killing. It was aboutlove and community, community
and bringing people into a atrue community. And yeah, place,

(29:37):
it was a it was a refreshinglook at something, where I go, I
know the story. There's avillain, they're going to kill
him. And there what happens whenwe start to usurp the standard
storyline, and we actually tella better story, and I think
maybe a story that more alignswith Jesus. And what he's trying

(30:00):
to do with us.

Yeah, early Marvel, one of the reasons that
they were so good, they hadtheir stinkers early on, just
like now there's the occasionalThunderbolts versus Captain
America, New World Order, whichwas just a sloppy, sloppy movie
early on, is that most peoplewould say, oh, superhero is a

(30:23):
genre, and it kind of sort ofis, but it's, it's not a meta
genre, it's not a main genre.
It's, it's so Marvel, early on,said we're going to use
superheroes as the setting forour action movie Iron Man, or
for our war movie, CaptainAmerica, First Avenger, or for
our spy movie, Captain America,whatever the Winter Soldier, or

(30:43):
for our comedy or for ourromance. So it became the
setting and not the oh, we knowhow superhero movies go. If you
look at their competitor, who Iused to work for. I worked for
Warner Brothers for 10 years. Sothe DCEU hurts my soul. Uh, but
the competitor said superhero isa genre because it has a

(31:04):
specific form. Every superheromovie should look like every
other superhero movie, andthat's exactly right. The reason
that Thunderbolts is so powerfulis because it's a drama about
self inflicted trauma. Can youovercome it? Does it define you
if if you are somebody who'sdone something bad. Does that
mean that for the rest ofeternity, that's who you are, or

(31:24):
can you move past it? And as yousaid, the solution they violence
is the attempt to solve thesolution, because that's how we
attempt everything and and theheroes literally stop the
violence from happening, toreplace violence with community

(31:45):
and really kind of creating itsown support group. We're here
for you. We've been where you'vebeen. West Wing has a has an
interesting moment where youknow one of the characters who
had trouble in the earlierseason is facing off with
another character who's nowgoing through his own trauma. So
Leo McGarrity tells Josh, youknow, when Josh thinks he's
going to get fired, he tells hima joke. I'm going to warn you

(32:06):
ahead of time. It's not a joke,a guy who falls in a hole and
somebody walks past and he says,Hey, can you help me? And the
guy writes a prayer and throwsit into the hole. Somebody else
comes by and he says, Can youhelp me? And the guy throws some
money into the hole and keepsgoing. It's a version of the
Good Samaritan. And then hisfriend comes by and he says,
friend, hey, can you help me?
And his friend immediately jumpsinto the hole, and the guy's

(32:28):
like, Dude, I want you to pullme out of the hole. You can't
help me down here. He says, no,no, you don't understand, I've
been in the hole before. I canhelp you find the way out. And I
just thought that was abeautiful kind of that's the
Thunderbolts, right? Is it's agroup of people saying, I have
been in the hole together, wecan find our way out. It's a

(32:49):
great biblical message in amovie made by people who have no
interest in making a biblicalmessage. But it's because I
think they told the truth. Ithink, I think they wanted to
explore the characters, and thisis where truth telling comes in
even you know, if you're not, inmy opinion, if you're not a
Christian, but you tell thetruth, you're going to be
reflecting God is they said,Look, we're telling stories

(33:10):
about these characters. What'sgoing to save these characters
is not another defeat of a badguy. What's going to save these
characters is for them to stopbeing alone. Come together as a
community, a broken community,acknowledge we're a broken
community, and together, we'regoing to heal. I'm glad you
brought that up. I i Fortunatelysaw that before I saw Captain

(33:31):
America, New World Order,because I might have just given
up

on Marvel, given up on Marvel. I have given up on
Marvel. And I was like, I neededa movie to watch Thunderbolts
was that I was like, oh, therewas some

Unknown (33:44):
something there.
They're actually trying to saysomething. I was

excited about that. So that's fantastic. So
how do we do this? So if you'relooking at story, if you're
reading film or movies TV, ifyou're looking at art or
literature, what? How do we lookat story? How do we read it? How
do we engage our culturefaithfully as we are part of

(34:10):
this, you know, this god storyhere and now, and we actually
have a role to play in this godstory. How do we engage story
faithfully in the culture. Yeah,

I mean, step one is engagement, and knowing that
it's engagement, we've convincedourselves that entertainments
are meant to just be background.
They're just, they're just,they're they're, we're supposed
to lean back in our chair andlet it do its magic on us for
whatever, let us distract us.

(34:44):
And sometimes you need that. I'mnot opposed to that at all. We
definitely have music that'sdesigned to just distract you
for a little bit. One of thehealing powers of entertainment
can be just the distancing fromthe pain, right, distancing
from. You come in at the end ofthe day carrying a heavy load,
and you watch your favoriteshow, or you put on your

(35:06):
favorite album, almost saidrecord. Wow.

You can tell your records are in their back
end, you

know, or, or, or whatever it is, or, you know,
just flip, flip through a bookof poems, and at the end, you've
you've let go. That's that's athat's a healing power. So I
don't want to diminish that. Buteven that is not leaning back
and letting it wash over you.
It's leaning into it, knowingthat story has an effect,

(35:36):
knowing that that every storyyou know, my students have
fought me with this, but everystory has a message, and if you
know that, then, then you'relooking for something different.
So sometimes it's going to be,yeah, so I'm going to be
watching NCIS, and I'm going tobe just kind of vegging out a
little bit, and I'm going to be,you know, I know, I know the
storyline. I know that it's,it's about justice. I'm going to

(35:58):
just kind of relax into it andand enjoy the the character
banter, and that's fine. Othertimes you're going to say, You
know what, I I'm I'm herebecause I want to be involved,
right? So whether, whetheryou're watching wicked and
you're going to sing along, orwhether you're watching
thunderbolts and you're going tocheer along, but you're leaning
into it even more, following thestory, following the

(36:20):
entertainment, allowing theemotion of of the story to to
take you away. And then thethird. The third is the
intellectual of you know, I knowI'm going to be watching this
because I want to see what theyhave to say, and I'm listening
for what they have to say. Andand there are movies out there
that are like fantastic movies,like No Country for Old Men or
the first Joker movie wasreally, really well made. Those

(36:43):
movies come from their point ofview, is that there is no God.
God does not exist. That's mytake. Some people will argue
that in no country, but I thinkthat ultimately, that's what
it's trying to say. What is theworld like when there is no God?
As opposed to a movie like TheGodfather, which I think is also
a very Christian movie. TheGodfather says there is a God.

(37:05):
What happens if you choose tonot follow him? Right? Two very
different kind of things. So isthere a value for for no country
or for Joker? Yes, but you haveto come in intellectual knowing.
I'm here to hear what they haveto say so I can understand my my
fellow person who's made in theimage of God, who believes that
there's no God in their world, Ican understand where they're

(37:27):
coming from. I think sinnerswould be a good example of this.
Sinners, there is a God in theirworld. There is spirituality in
that world. But I have no clue.
I have a strong clue of what myAfrican American brothers and
sisters in Christ, how they howthey view God and how they view

(37:49):
the world. I have an inkling asa as a middle aged white man, I
have an inkling of what it feelslike for them to be in this in
the same religion that I'm inwhen there are those of us who,
you know, I see it through awhite lens, because that's my
background, right? I have, Idon't understand the African

(38:09):
Americans who are not part ofthe church, who might still be
spiritual, they're not atheists,but they have rejected
Christianity as an option. Youknow, my brain is like, why
would you reject that? What likeif you're looking for
spirituality, why? What watchsinners, you'll understand, oh,

(38:31):
this is where they're comingfrom. This is, this is what it
represents. This is to them.
This is, this is the lensthrough, through which they're
seeing, the religion, the whiteman, religion that was imposed
on their ancestors, right? Very,very valuable. But it requires
going in with your brain. Itrequires you not going, Okay,
I'm going to turn my brain offwhile I engage. I think again.

(38:52):
Carrie Wallace, I just lovedyour interview with her. But I
think, I think she was the onethat talked a bit about, you
know, the discipline of ofcreativity, you know, instead
of, instead of, kind of shuttingoff the creativity. And she
talks about creativity as aprayer practice, writing
something can be a prayerpractice. Singing can can be a

(39:14):
prayer practice. And I love thatwith this conversation, with
that question of, can you enablecan? Can you sit with the spirit
watching the movie together andhave the conversation that you
would have with your friends asyou're watching it? Can watching
a secular movie likeThunderbolts be a prayer? That's

(39:36):
the long answer. I think all ofmy answers are gonna be long
answers. But

yes, yes, it can be a prayer. This is, you know,
I love. Josh Larsen has a bookcalled movies or prayers, which
I really enjoy, I like, and how,you know, movies are prayers to
God. And so that's, it's part ofa spiritual discipline. Is
actually watching a movie orsomething with, with. Spirit. I
really love watching a movie,and I like to do it with spirit

(40:04):
on my own sometimes, and just gofor a walk afterwards, and,
like, really just digest it anddiscern what was happening and
and really go into it. I

love that idea. I see movies where about once
every other week with somefriends from church, and we
always go out after and have aconversation about, what did we
see? What were they saying? Whatwas happening in there? If we're

we're people of story, if Jesus is a master
storyteller, if God's you know,this is how we find our identity
and who we are. This is how werelate to God. Is story. How can
we embody story to others. Sohow do we so this is an
evangelism question, becauseevangelism, I think, is, is

(40:48):
storytelling? Yes, it is a it'sa storytelling medium of the
church to actually let peopleknow that there is a bigger
story that they should are in,and we should invite people in
to live this story out. Is therea better way for us to embody
the story when we're sharing thestory with others? Yeah?

Yeah, you said it.
Embody it. I grew up late 70s,early 80s. Was kind of my, you
know, high school, plus years,especially within the church,
you know, things like, you knowthat they have a reason. Books
and the, you know, be ready withthe argument book and the Josh
McDowell's, love those. Lovethose. But I think we've

(41:34):
overemphasized argument, andwe've overemphasized reason we
need to be smart. We need tohave reason. But that's not the
road to salvation. The churchmade a mistake during the
Enlightenment, I think becausethe age of reason, it's like we
were we can reason our waythrough to the solution to any

(41:57):
problem. And the church said,Well, we can too. We can do that
too. And they let go of mystery.
They, in a large part, let go ofstory. That's where this, this
concept of, you know, everythingis literal, therefore everything
has no meaning beyond what itmeans. And God did not design

(42:21):
everything as literal. Hedesigned everything to have
meaning. So can we embody? Myfriend Kathy did? It was kind of
like a Peace Corps type thing.
Down to Guatemala. Her job wasto teach farming techniques,
because the farmers there werestruggling. She had many
predecessors. Many people hadgone with the organization

(42:43):
before. Went down, gavelectures, handed out seeds, and
never had any effect whatsoever.
Kathy went down and farmed,bought a little bit of land,
farmed for one year, gave nolectures, no conversations,
other than howdy neighbor and becut being a good neighbor to the
people around her. And then atthe end of the year, the people

(43:05):
around her saw her crop said,How'd you do that? Said, Oh,
here, here's how you did that.
Here's how I did that. This is,this is what we're missing in a
lot of our evangelism, is theembodying of it. We need to live
as if we love God above allelse, and we need to live as if
we love our neighbor above allelse. We need to to live as if

(43:25):
we're not the most importantthing. We need to live as if
we've been redeemed. We need tolive as if we're broken people,
and as if we're working onourselves. We need to live as
people of hope who have a hopenot because we've arrived, but
we have a hope because wehaven't arrived the people
around us, if the people aroundus see us fall and get back up,

(43:47):
if the people around us see uslike during the plague, we
missed a huge opportunity.
During the plague, the churchgrew tremendously because the
people who did not have God ranaway. The people who knew God
ran into the sick the sick areasif, if, if we believe that what

(44:08):
we say is true. You know, if Iwere to go to you and say, hey,
you know the key of souls, thebest car ever, you need to buy a
Kia Soul. Personally, I drive aDodge Ram. But you should do
this right? Then nobody's goingto be buying the Kia Soul. It's
funny. I picked a soul. I happento drive a soul, but the soul

(44:30):
right? If you say you needChrist, you need, you need to
treat your wife well. Oh, am Ihaving a fair share? You need,
you need, you know, you need tofollow Christ. He says, take
care of the poor. Do I take careof number one? Sure, right?
Then, then they know it's likethe movie. They know we don't
believe it because we're notputting the effort into it to

(44:51):
follow what we believe. Soembody, be a good neighbor. Love
your love your neighbors. Whatis the quote that's given to
Assisi? Right? Preach the gospelat all times. If necessary, use
words. He doesn't say, don't usewords. Use your words. He
doesn't say, Don't do that. Butthat shouldn't be that the words
should be coming after theembodiment. I wanna

know how your creativity so as a storyteller
and a writer, how does thatinform some of your
spirituality, some of yourrelationship with God. How does
that affect it?

Yeah, I was really struck. There's a Madelene lengo
quote, I think it's in walkingon water, where she says, A
student asked her, you know, howdoes, how does God affect your
writing? And she said, Oh, no,no, it's the other way around.
My writing affects myrelationship with God. Part of
part of it is, as a creative youhave to get out of the way. So

(45:45):
the best storytelling is not thestorytelling you know. The best
Christopher Nolan movies aren'tthe movies that you can see, oh,
this that there's a ChristopherNolan moment. There's another
Christopher Nolan moment.
They're the they're the movieswhere he has a big idea and then
he gets out of the way and youforget you're in a story, right?
That's true for the for allmovies, right? The best ones are
the ones that you forget you'rein a movie. The best, the best

(46:05):
creating, is when you forgetyou're creating. It's when you
get out of the way. So a lot ofa lot of being a creator is
being trying to become more andmore in tune with inspiration. I
call inspiration the HolySpirit. Other other people in
the world, just call itinspiration. But it's the Holy
Spirit being in tune with it,listening to it, letting the

(46:28):
story talk to you, rather thanyou telling the story what to
do, because that's where, that'swhere God really comes in.
Andrea Nash fellow, she alsoteaches her with me, she wrote
mom's night out in a slew ofother movies and and she she's
in talking about, you know,messages and movies. She's like,

(46:48):
I'm in the Christian market. Allof my movies are going to have a
message that's that's by design.
The producers want a message.
The audience wants a message. Sothere's going to be a message
says, I better make sure thatit's the message God wants to be
given, so that, you know, kindof on the surface as a creator,
getting in touch with theCreator is, is just common

(47:10):
sense. So every story I'mworking on, you know, I tell for
my students, there's a thingcalled need for a character,
character, character, somethinga character needs. It's a
psychological thing. I describeit to my students. I say, if God
looked at this character andsaid, here's one gift I want to
give him that's going to makehim a more human, a fuller human

(47:33):
being. What would it be as as awriter that forces me to look at
all of my characters through agodlands, and it's easier for me
after I've been looking at, youknow, I'm writing, you know, if
I write a story and this womangoes into town and, you know,
has to deal with the town folk,right? It's easier for me once

(47:56):
I've looked at each of thosecharacters, including the town
bully, and said, What would Godwant for him to then be in the
real world and look at myneighbor and go, God, what do
you want for this person? Howcan I help so, so if you can
transfer it from, you know, thecommunion necessary while you're

(48:17):
creating to the communion whenyou're when you're outside of
that, it draws you closer towhat is God's heart? What does
God want in this world? Whatdoes he want you to do? Not, you
know, we fall into the trap of,you know, would it be great if
my character got revenge, right?
And then, you see, oh, itthrough the process of
storytelling that didn't fulfillhim. Okay? God that that guy who

(48:42):
keeps having his dog take hisdump on my lawn, I see what
you're saying here. Revengemaybe is not the way I should
go, right? It also changes, youknow, understanding story
changes how I even read theBible, because I I'm able to
read it for more than the thanthe simple you know, when I,
when I read a a parable byJesus. I'm not looking for

(49:03):
what's the one thing that Jesusis trying to say? I'm saying,
Oh, he told it as a story, whichmeans he's trying to say a lot
more than the one thing. So whatis, what is my new lesson this
time in reading it?

Is there a movie that impacted your own faith
that you can remember,

there have been movies that have really there
have been movies have made mewrestle with practical ethics
and and it made me I was alwaysa black and white, it's either
right or it's wrong. And there'smovies that have challenged that
in a good way, I think, for me.
And there, there have beenmovies that have made me see God
clearer. One movie that made mesee God clearer is stranger than

(49:46):
fiction, which is a movie abouta guy living his life who then
realizes he's a character in abook. And there's therefore,
there's an author, and he has tohe. Goes and tries to find the
author and there, you know, Idon't want to spoil it for
anybody who does watch it, buthe's confronted with a good
storytelling decision that's nota good thing for him. And by

(50:11):
getting to know the author andreading the whole book, he comes
to accept his part in the largerstory, and that really helped me
to see God directing our lives.
And like, Well, God, why would Ihave to go through that thing
that is not great for me? Oh, ifI read the book, I would see why

(50:35):
it's it's important toeverybody, you know. And then,
and then a movie that helpedwith the ethical gray would be
The Man Who Shot LibertyValance. It's an old movie. I
saw it as a kid, Jimmy Stewartand John Wayne. And there are
things that are Jimmy Stewartcharacter was a lot like me,
like everything is black andwhite, and he can't deal with

(50:57):
the way John Wayne deals withthings and problems, and
ultimately has to come to acceptsomething that he would not have
accepted at the beginning,because it's not a black and
white, it's a gray. And for me,what was, what's, what I love
about that movie to this day isit's a wrestling movie. It's not

(51:18):
a movie that says, no, no, youneed to accept those things. Nor
is it a movie that says, no, no,you need to ignore those things.
But it's, it's something thatmakes me go on a regular basis.
This is not as easy asDumbledore says to Harry Potter
at some point. At one point, hesays, there's going to come a

(51:41):
time that you're going to haveto choose between what is right
and what is easy. It's not achoice between what's right and
wrong. That's an easy choice.
That's an easy choice, but it'sa choice between what's right
and what's what's you know, inthat case, easy or the lesser of
two, or the those

two movies, all right, couple questions here at
the end. One, if you go backyour 21 year old self, old self,
what advice would you

give the big the big piece of advice, which is
something I talk a lot to mystudents now about, because I
wish I knew that. And when, whenyou're looking at God's plan for
you, when you're walking throughyour life, walking with God,
it's not about the thedestination. It's about the
direction. God is concernedabout the direction, not the

(52:27):
destination. And we so often,like in our careers, say, I want
to be in Hollywood. I want tomake an Oscar. I want to get an
Oscar. God has sent me on this.
He's made me a storyteller.
Therefore, I'm going to end uphere, and God might be, no, no,
I made you a storyteller becauseI need you over here. I need you

(52:49):
at this church in Iowa doingtheir media. That's, that's
where I need you. So Don't,don't mistake, don't forget
about the the direction are yougoing, where God wants you to
go. You know, am I living inGod's will? Isn't did I arrive
where God wanted me to arrive?
Is am I taking the step I'mtaking right now? Is that the
step he wants me to take? Am Ifacing the right direction? So

(53:11):
that's what I would stopworrying so much about the end
result. It's the journey, right?

Yes. It's just embodying who you are, how God
created you to be, and who hemade you to be. I love that.
That's so good. And you could dothat anywhere, anywhere you
could be a storyteller,anywhere. Yes, absolutely,
that's fantastic. Anythingyou've been reading or watching
lately you could recommend.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do another cheat here,
because this is something I knowyou know about already, but a
great companion piece to my bookis Daniel Schwab, ours, god of
story, found out that Daniel wasgoing to be teaching at the same
conference I was going to beteaching. I hadn't heard of his
book. His book had just comeout, and I panicked, because I
thought, Oh no, this is he'sit's going to be my book, but

(53:58):
better, and in reading it isactually it's a great companion
piece to it. I know I'm laughinghere because Joshua, I know you,
you interviewed him. You have anepisode. I wrote it down to 72
just so I could share it. But Iloved everything about that
book, and that book helped tochange, even though I've steeped
in story, even though I'msteeped in story as God's story,

(54:21):
reading it through Daniel's eyesand the especially the examples
he gives, because he'll he'lltalk about a story element, and
then he'll give a point of viewof a biblical story to fit how
that fits. And it really did,does change the way you see how
you read the Bible. So I highlyrecommend

that. It's a great book. I love Daniel. It's
good guy. And, yeah, I don'tknow why he's like, yeah, he's
like, 20 minutes for me, and Ireally never met him in person,
but

he's hundreds of miles from me. But I met him in
person. I went up to you,

yes, you have what? See anything you've been
watching lately, recommend.

I've been listening to fascinating and
again, talking about how to hearthe voice of the other through
through some commonalities.
There is a podcast called DollyParton's America, and I think
it's like a eight part podcast,and it's, it's two, I can't

(55:23):
remember their names,unfortunately, I apologize for
that, but the two producers kindof exploring. The start of it is
them at a Dolly Parton concertand seeing a guy wearing a maga
hat next to a lesbian couple,and all of them together, just
lost enjoying Dolly Parton. Andhe thought, How in the world can

(55:47):
one person bring our extremestogether? So it explores a lot
about it, but I learned a lotabout dolly her faith, how her
faith is reflected. I've beenchallenged a lot about how I
reflect my faith and how, how,how I should do things
differently, but also the effectof her music, her approaches.
It's a brilliant littledocumentary series, and again,

(56:10):
made by made by non believers,and they're very upfront about
it. They do an entire episodeabout faith, and they started by
saying, I don't have this. So Iwas very, very nervous to talk
to dolly about it, because I wasafraid we're going to suddenly
go whoosh, and suddenlyeverything was going to fall
apart. So it's kind of but it'sa beautiful, beautiful little
series,

yes, well, your book, meta story, what Marvel
and the Messiah can teach usabout great storytelling, is
available now, and you could goget that. How can people get
your book? How can peopleconnect with you? Where would
you like to point people

to? Oh, thank you.
Yeah, I have a website,www.gaffneyinkwell.com, so
that's G, A, F as in Frank, F asin Frank, N, E, y, I, N, K, W,
E, l, l.com. You can go there.
You can order the book throughthere. You can also sign up for
a newsletter. I have a monthlynewsletter with just kind of
tips to writers. I also havelinks on there to a YouTube

(57:08):
series where I explore moviesand TV shows. My gimmick is I
exercise while I watch things.
And I thought, You know what? IfI see a good example or a
negative example, I'm going tojust pause the TV, hop off the
bike and talk to the camera solittle five minute chunks of
examples. Also, my handle on allof the socials is at Gaffney
inkwell. So you can order mybook through the website. You

(57:31):
can also go to Amazon. You cango to Barnes and Noble anywhere
that books are sold.

Great. Well, I would, yeah, highly recommend
following Sean as he is givingyou tips as a creative
storyteller. This book isfantastic, so highly recommend
it if you really want tounderstand what story is and how
we are part of this granderstory, this meta story, and how

(57:59):
to actually share and tellstories. This is a fantastic
book, so go and get it. Idefinitely recommend this one.
So Sean, thank you for thisconversation. It was fun. It was
a great conversation. Reallyenjoyed getting getting the
story with you. So thank youvery much. Thank you. Applause.

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Ep. 328 Sean Gaffney - We Were Made For Stories

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 328 Sean Gaffney - We Were Made For Stories