Well, hello, good evening, and welcome to the Speakeasy. Uh today is Valentine's Day, and I'm Nate Morganlock, and I'm all alone. Well, I'm not really because I'm with you and you're with me, and I hope you're looking forward to the rest of the show. I'm delighted not only to be joined by you, but also to be joined by Glenn Scrivener. Hello, Glen. Oh bye yourself.
SPEAKER_01Hello. Hello. Where are you, Glenn? I'm in the same place I've been for the last eight days straight. Covid jail.
SPEAKER_04Here I am. Covid jail.
SPEAKER_01Welcome.
SPEAKER_04Still unable to to take a lateral test pro possibly properly.
SPEAKER_01Well, I was so relieved eight days ago, like for the first time ever, I had proof that I could actually take a test correctly. Um because up until then I just thought for the last 18 months I must have been doing it wrong. But then when was it? Let me find let me find my eight days ago. It was something like uh it was something like this one. Right? And then I've been having these kinds of ones, and they've been getting progressively fainter, fainter, fainter, and now and now just this. This is all that stands between me and freedom. This tiny faint.
SPEAKER_04I don't I don't even think that the resolution is high enough for us to be able to see that line, but you're staying put, you're being um you're being ill behaved. Okay. But it's Valentine's Day. Has that brought any relief? I know you're locked in a room in your house, but um has it brought any relief today?
SPEAKER_01Well, my wife brought me a slice of toast cut into a love heart. So, you know, that was romantic. And uh I I handed her my washing, which I guess was shaped in the the shape of an anatomical heart. I I guess we'd probably make that link, but um, it has not been the most romantic Valentine's Day.
SPEAKER_04How have it for you? Um Well, I'm hoping that I'm not in too much trouble for doing a speak easy with you when I could be having dinner with my wife, because I do not have COVID. Um anyway, what are we gonna talk about this evening, Glenn? We've called it Love, Damned Love and Statistics. If anyone doesn't get that reference, I think it's from Mark Twain. Lies, damned lies and statistics. But we're talking about love and stats. What does that mean, Glen?
SPEAKER_01One of these days I'm gonna do a sermon on uh numbers 13, 14, and I think I will call it Spies, Damned Spies and Logistics. Um, but that's for another day. Um today I want to talk to you about some statistics I found online about relationships, and of course, like anyone who's like into social policy and um you know little lobby groups wants to put things out on Valentine's Day about marriage and family and couples and relationships and that sort of thing. I I found um some interesting statistics um from the Institute for Family Studies um talking about married women, um uh different um uh comparisons between men and women. Um people who say they are very happy with their spouse. So for married men, 65% say they are very happy with their spouse, 68% of women say they are very happy with their spouse. When it goes to cohabiting, I found this interesting. Um men slightly more, 67% say they are very happy with their spouse, and 55%, so quite a quite a marked kind of decrease in happiness when you compare married state to the cohabiting state. Bear that in mind. We'll go through another few stats like this.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um here are the percentage of people who are saying they're very happy with their relationship when you break it down by who asked who onto the first date. And uh so if it's a man asking a woman on his first date, he is very happy with their relationship at at a rate of 70%, uh females at the rate of 59%. Um now, interestingly, when it's the other person who asks you out, a man is markedly less happy with the relationship. Only 46% say that they are very happy with their relationship if the other person asked them out, as opposed to 63% of women. That's another thing. Interesting, bear it in mind.
SPEAKER_04Okay, okay. Building an argument. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Here are my data points. So here's another data point. So um men are more likely to ask for the first date. Nobody is going to be surprised by that, are they? But uh overall, 53% um the initiator is the man, 13% the initiator is the woman. And I guess the other the other occasions are they can't remember, or they like simultaneously ask each other out for a date. I don't really know.
SPEAKER_04Well they it was a blind date. Maybe that was how it was arranged.
SPEAKER_01Could be. Could be, but overwhelmingly, it's it's the man asking the woman. Men men propose, women dispose, um, as the saying goes. Uh marital satisfaction is higher among those who meet at church. It's the high the highest rate of marital satisfaction is found among couples that meet at church.
SPEAKER_04Is this is this your third data point then? Okay, so so what have we got what have we had so far then? We've had that married men are happier. Is that was that the first point, generally?
SPEAKER_01Um actually they're slightly happier cohabiting than they are when married, but women are much less happier. They are much less happy when cohabiting opposed to being married. So the covenant relationship kind of binding the man is a more uncomfortable thing for the man and it's a more secure thing for the woman. Okay. Yeah. Which is interesting. Um and it and it's you know, the by and large it's it's the man who asks, and the woman um yeah, who has right of veto and says yes or no and and jog on and those sorts of things. And then, you know, people meeting in in church are the happiest people when it comes to being married. Um now, I don't know what you make of that, Nate. Um you might just think these are just sort of commonplace uh truths. But uh what I was reminded of when when we saw especially this this stat about um women are much less happy in the cohabiting state and men are slightly less happy in the married state is to go back to Matthew 19 and kind of see, you know, the sexual revolution that has actually gripped the world is one in which um the sexes are equalized. You know, that we're we're very familiar with the 1960s sexual revolution and thinking that's that the swinging sixties, that was a sexual revolution, and that's when the genders were equalized. And I guess in the 60s, the genders were equalized because through the technology of contraception, women were able to be as licentious as men had always been. And so the sexes were kind of equalized in that sense. Whereas actually the original sexual revolution of the first century was an equalization, but it went in the other direction. It was men are now commanded to be as modest and restricted as women had always been. And so Jesus in Matthew 19 says, you know, you've got to one man, one woman, for life, that's it. Yeah, and and if anyone thinks that's too much, well, you can always be a eunuch for the kingdom, but those are your options. Yeah. Um and and how interesting that the the revolution born out of this teaching has been for the blessing and benefit of the world. That actually restraining male sexuality, tying a man to his sexual choices and to the offspring uh of his sexual choices, yeah, um makes men slightly less happy in the in the survey, um, makes women a heck of a lot more happy, and makes children flourish and grow, and it has been for the liberation of the world. Um, but that that is the that is the sexual revolution that has really brought happiness and freedom to the world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And so so the sexual revolution that Jesus brings about is to is to restrict men to the same extent that women had been restricted. The 1960s let women be as bad as men in that sense. Right. Okay. Right. And so the the very concept of relationship, it seems to me, is one of um of commitment and saying yes to one thing is to say no to something else. And so it's in one sense it's hardly surprising when we, you know, as we both know men's hearts better than we know anyone else's, um that being restricted and being forced, well not forced, but but committing yourself to something might not initially, for many people, feel like the most wonderful thing, but in the long term it produces happier, you know, happy wife, half happy life, you know.
SPEAKER_01And and it birthed a real sense of the equality of the sexes, and it birthed a real sense of consent being at the heart of all things, because you know, in the classical world, it was just elite men who had as many wives as they possibly could. Um, and of course, you know, if Solomon's got all the concubines, um, there aren't that many for for all the rest of the guys to go around, which is a really bad thing for all those concubines and wives. It's also a really bad thing for all the guys who can't settle down and get married. Um, but that that is what male sexuality looks like in the wild. And what you get with with Jesus is through the through the real restraint of of their sexuality, um, Joseph Heinrich, uh Joseph Henrik, sorry, um, he he wrote the the book Um The Weirdest People in the World. He said that the um the church reached down and grabbed men by the testicles, right? Which is a very robust. Beautiful image, isn't it? Isn't it for Valentine's Day? Um But he he he doesn't really have a very good explanation, I don't think, for why there was such a sexual revolution in the in the early centuries of the church, because the church had absolutely no authority to do that, they were not in charge of things, and yet somehow um men gave up their rights, and then and suddenly into a culture where there were 25 different words for prostitute in Latin, and not a single way to speak of a male virgin, okay? Like naturally, okay, the word the word virgin just means a female virgin, and then and then the Christians came along and they they they had to and that's why Jesus has to use things like you have to be a eunuch for the kingdom and things like that. Right. Like the concept of a male virgin was just like absolutely ridiculous. Interestingly, these days it's become ridiculous again, you know. The the film The 40-year-old virgin could not be anything but a comedy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that sense that we in the first century there was yeah, you don't we don't even have a concept of what you're really talking about. It's so unthinkable, it's so outside of the Overton window for what we can expect that you you kind of need to mangle together other words to create the the idea we're really talking about. And so I th I suppose the the radical nature of Christian marriage is something that bizarrely we're now so we've become so familiar with that it became you know the horizon of our expectations was Christian marriage. That that must be what marriage is, certainly for the West in a kind of in a Christian sort of Christian countries, that then the sexual revolutions came along and said, Oh no, we've got this brand new thing. And you sort of went, Oh no, this really was around and has been around for a long time in lots of places, and and it's not brought a great deal of of of deep joy and happiness. In fact, quite the opposite. It seems to bring um remarkable amounts of of shame and suffering and pain and and abuse. You know, it sort of seems to invite that kind of the dynamic which most naturally flows out from this is not love, commitment, sacrifice, honour, respect. It's actually to crush the weak and the vulnerable.
SPEAKER_01Sure, because like male sexuality in its natural state, there's nothing there's nothing biologically to tie a man to his mate or to his offspring. There's nothing biologically. A woman is tied to her offspring, she's got to carry them in her body. A man biologically does not have to. You culturally have to tie a man to his to his woman and to his children. Um, and and a man has to voluntarily kind of do that. And we we rely on that in order to have family, in order to have these these bonds of unbreakable love and to nurture children in the in the context of a loving family. Without without marriage, you you absolutely do not do not have that. And and you don't have either the sense of the the the woman's right to choose, the woman's right to consent and say yes or no. Um in traditional societies, it's it is arranged marriages and all that kind of stuff, and and some of that can work really well if there's an honoring of individuals and persons and and um who they who they really are. But we take for granted now um romance, we take for granted now um that you choose who you marry because they are your heart's desire, which is it's a it's a beautiful fruit of the Jesus Revolution, you know?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and and that love and marriage, love and marriage, they go together, Glenn. I think like a horse and carriage. Uh you can't have one without the other. Um, but bizarrely, I think, I mean, my familiarity that song is not you know Frank Sinatra's, but as it was played on um on what was it, Al Bundy. Married with children, Married with Children. And and culturally, what we've seen is a cynicism towards that idea that that song is then played as a kind of um uh as an ironic piece because now we're gonna get this, you know, kind of lazy, uncommitted um husband who has this wife and they just seem to bicker with each other, and that's sort of just the way that it goes. Now it it's a sitcom, so it's obviously kind of resolves itself each episode, but no one learns anything, no one no one changes. Again, you know, James Carey has talked to us um before about the nature of sitcom being that the characters have to kind of r return to um room temperature each time. Um but I think I suppose what I'm was thinking about with Valentine's Day Today is just how how naturally cynical so many people are about the concept. And there's it's almost as though there's a very small number of people who are sort of on the edge of of properly dating someone or going out with them or being engaged to them. You know, it's for those people, but everyone else can be very cynical about the whole concept of romance. The you know, it's all far too lovey-dovey, and you know, let's just wait till the 15th when the chocolates are all discounted. Um and I think I think that's a real shame that for so many of us love, uh, relationships and marriage have become viewed so cynically. Um and I want to sort of you know wave the flag for for romance and and what you know I say that sitting here speaking on a podcast when I could be I could be doing something else. Romance, yeah. Um yeah, but but so essentially saying that that the romantic comedy, right, the hallmark holiday, which is you know, Valentine's Day, the Hallmark movie is not something to dismiss and as fantasy and uh whatever. It's light and fluffy and sentimental, but to say no, this is actually teaching us something wonderfully true about the world that we live in, about the nature of the world we live in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it's it's a penultimate good, you know, other otherwise you and I would not be doing this on Valentine's Day. We'd be gozing up and and well, I wouldn't because I've got covert, but but you know um then actually, you know, two people who are just part couple, part sofa watching Netflix till they die, it is not you know the great eschatological vision of that is not the beatific vision. Um and interestingly, you know, in Matthew 19, um, Jesus not only says one man, one woman for life, he also says, or even better, you could be a eunuch for the kingdom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, yeah. And and eunuchs really were those who had their testicles grabbed and and you know, so that it would not be a threat to their you know the m the master's women, but so that they would serve undistractedly in his household. And Jesus says, you can serve undistractedly in the kingdom of God. Um and if you can accept that, do it, says Jesus. It's better. And one you know, 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says, you know, something similar. Um, so that it's it's not it's not as though you know married couples have it all figured out and and everyone else is it living in a lesser state. I would actually argue that obviously the true romance is is Christ and the church, um, and there are different ways that different members of the church can reflect that reality out to the world, and you can reflect that reality out to the world like um the virgin waiting for the great bridegroom in that parable, or you can reflect it in terms of a husband-wife relationship. Um, but yeah, the the romantic relationship where you are just lost in each other's gaze on a on a sort of horizontal level, that that can get a little bit um um cloying.
SPEAKER_04Um you've got to choose your words very carefully, and I I understand that. But and and that idea that yeah, it is a penultimate good. And so for those of us who are married not to idolise our partners or idolise the marriage as being the the most important thing, and that actually they work really well as a penultimate good. In fact, when they're properly ordered within you know the the relationship of um both concerned for the glory of God and and committed to him above all, knowing that they get their fullest understanding of themselves and their spouse and the context for their own marriage that it comes from from the Lord, that actually allows marriages to flourish and to to serve the purpose for which they were created far greater than anyone who's, as you say, eyes fixed on each other and can't see anything else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a friend of mine was um wrote it was Larry Crab, wrote many books about counselling and and marriage, and and um he he said he's he's counseled thousands of couples, and he says it's very common to have a tick-on-a-dog relationship where one partner is just sucking the life out of the other partner. He said, But most most relationships are actually two ticks and no dog. These little mosquitoes kind of sucking the life out of each other. Um, and when you when you don't have this grand vision for the Lord's romance, um, yeah, you you will just suck the life out of your partner node.
SPEAKER_04You've got to feed on something, haven't you? You know? Um well um that's a very odd way to finish this section, but we're talking about we're talking about Valentine's Day. We've done a number of uh Valentine's Day videos over the years, which are available on this very YouTube channel if you would seek to find them out. Um let us know what are your Valentine's Day plans? If you're literally watching this now, um we don't feel sorry for you or anything. We're glad you're here and uh thank you for being here. Um, but we are going to take a look at Little dive into the mailbag in just a few seconds. Um, and then we can have a look through some of the comments as well. See you on the other side. Speak easy. Okay, we're back again. Now's the point in the show where we like to have a little think about um the life of Speak Life, things that are going on, the community that we're all part of here down in Eastbourne and spread around the UK and the world. Uh Thomas, have you got anything for us to uh to chew on as we think about this? We can do some updates from around the globe a bit later on. Thomas, what's the question?
SPEAKER_00Oh, hello. Um you can hear me all right, yeah. Um well thanks for having me on the show. Uh I have a comment actually from our recent John Dixon interview uh that Glenn did. Uh, I'm on the screen as well. Um say Glenn, so you went to London to uh to interview John Dixon, right? And uh video went out about a week ago. And so we have one uh comment on that that you might be interested in looking at. Um he's he had said that Christ would never condone the crusades. I'm curious how he would come to that conclusion when there are many examples to the contrary. So I think the context of that was what about the wars in the Old Testament? You know, God's way of enacting just judgment in certain cases was uh through holy war, would the crusades fall into that category? So, yeah, do you have any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01Well, I I guess you go to Matthew 5 and you see the way Jesus um handles love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. Um turn the other cheek. If someone slaps you on one street, turn the other cheek to them, go the extra mile. If someone sues you for your cloak, give them the shirt off your back. Later on, he says, Do not take up the sword, those who live by the sword will die by the sword, all that kind of stuff. So um, to take up arms in the name of Jesus seems to be uh a denial of the one who laid down his arms that he might be killed. So Jesus did not kill his enemies, rather, he was killed by his enemies and and you know, lived in in self-giving love as the way to conquer his enemies. And then the New Testament picks that up, and and Paul says, you know, we we do not use the weapons of earthly warfare. We do use a sword of steel, we use the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And so actually, the Bible kind of subverts that language of holy warfare by saying, Yes, we do advance the kingdom, but here is the one kingdom that ought not to advance via the sword of steel, but by the sword of the word, that is the sword of persuasion, non-violent education and proclamation. And so that that has been, I think, the authentic way of Jesus. There certainly have been many times when Christians have taken up earthly power in order to spread the kingdom. Um, and John Dixon talks about many occasions like that, including the Crusades. He begins his book um with the the Crusades, but he would say that the Crusades are an example of people playing out of tune, out of key with the beautiful tune. So he says that Jesus gave us a beautiful melody, like a cello sonata, and Christians have come along and over the top of that, and they they might have been claiming to add to the beautiful tune, but I think probably you see them as being discordant notes, and the the true symphony is not like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And how do you usually glad? Because obviously, when you're doing missions, well, certainly this used to come up in university missions and things, when people sort of say, Okay, so that's all the Jesus of the New Testament. What about the God of the Old Testament? He's totally different from the Jesus of the New Testament because there's there's wars going on everywhere, and there's you know, people groups being taken out. How do you tend to respond to that? Because we obviously can't ask John Dixon because he's not here right now.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I think press into those. A great book um to read on this would be um Skeletons in God's Closet by Joshua Ryan Butler. And he talks about um hell judgment and holy war. And and he says actually, when you press into these things that are meant to be such a features for Christian belief, you actually see how they proclaim the good news in in a way that's surprising, um, but ultimately heartwarming. And it's it's a tough order, you know, to look at hell judgment and holy war and come out on the other side punching the air and saying Jesus is great. I think he pulls it off. One of the things he does is just talk about how all those Old Testament narratives are totally subverting your expectations when it comes to Old Testament wars. We go in thinking that the Israelites are like the imperial superpower and that you know they're that that they are Goliath and everyone else is David. It's exactly the other way around. David and Goliath is this paradigmatic case, and actually all the war is like that. I mean, they they they bring victories by going around Jericho seven times and blowing some trumpets because they have the right furniture. And you think these these guys are jokes, they are total. It's like the Malawian army, you know, taking on the US army by strumming acoustic guitars, and somehow they bring the victory. It's it is the subversion of all those expectations. Now, in the Old Testament, um there is a nation and there is politics and there are steel swords and soldiers and standing armies. Um, all of that is fulfilled in Christ in a quite different way. Um, and so there can never be a Jericho incident that the church goes to you know a town like that. Um the New Testament rules that out. But I think even as you go and step into that Old Testament arrangement, um, you're stepping into something that is not condoning violence, but actually subverting all our expectations about it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. No, I think that one's really helpful. I'd not actually heard the um David and Goliath as paradigmatic for Old Testament Israel in their relations with with the surrounding nations. Um, but yeah, when you think about it, you read the story of Jericho and you sort of forget how sort of ludicrous it sounds.
SPEAKER_01Um and that all their victories come by like jawbones and a tent peg. And it's just like and temple furniture. They almost never win battles in conventional way, and all their tactics are kind of like they they kind of they you know, they have a little bunch of soldiers who go out and then they they look like they're losing and they withdraw and then they outflank the maneuvers. It is always strength through weakness, it is always the subversion of of what you expect.
SPEAKER_04Are you telling me that most uh wars in the ancient world weren't fought using musical instruments? Because I I think that's what we basically picked up from the Old Testament. It's like, well, this must have been normal. This is perfectly normal. All the nations, yeah, all the surrounding nations were doing a lot of sort of trumpet blowing and you know, good stuff.
SPEAKER_01If you go to the British Museum, though, like you go to the British Museum and you see what the Assyrians looked like, or you you watch 300 and you see the Persian armies, and you see, like, oh, these guys are you you would be absolutely trembling at at these guys, and and and they are totally outnumbered, they are always the minnow in this. Um, so that that that's that's one angle on it, and then and then you've got to do this the sort of the development of the story in Matthew 19. Fascinatingly, we've already referenced 19 as regards marriage, but Jesus says regarding marriage and divorce, he says, Well, Moses allowed you to to divorce each other because your hearts were hard, but it was not so in the beginning. And so Jesus speaks of Old Testament, certain Old Testament legislation is non-ideal and is designed to mitigate against the hardness of human hearts, and is an applic and is a non-ideal application to a specific people in a specific place, but God's original intention was not like that, and Christ's redemptive intention is not like that, and I think I think marriage and divorce laws are like that, but I I think other things like having a standing army and having you know just the rules for warfare are like that as well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. And and as you say, seeing how does these um these particular events and moments in the Old Testament and the New Testament and the history of the church, how do they all f sort of connect together within the single story of of redemption? And once you lose that that that meta-narrative, that thread, you are simply left with, well, these are all isolated incidents, and how could we ever know which ones to copy and which ones to ignore and which ones to reject? And I think that's one of the things that's so tragic when people who have an interest enough in Christian things to pick up a Bible and to flick through it, but they they so often struggle to see that that through line from from Genesis to Revelation and see just how remarkable it is. I I've always sort of thought it was um a little bit like someone walking in at the end of a new hope and seeing Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star and saying, Why are you blowing up the Death Star? How what I can't believe it.
SPEAKER_00Wellison Imperial officers.
SPEAKER_04But but they had families too. Yeah, but when you're when you're watching the film, you're like, no, this is this is just and right. Yeah. And you know, we're we're actually we're cheering at the end of that because we s we saw what went before and and we see that this is this is a victory for justice. Um and a lot of these simple sort of brick bats just don't work like that because they don't take the narrative of scripture and the the the Christocentric nature of of God's revelation. Um they don't take that seriously.
SPEAKER_01And and yet sneakily, Christ is part of the arguments for them as well, because sneakily they they think, well, we should all be pacifists now, you know. Like everybody does. Everybody reads a Christian reads, a non-Christian reads Joshua in like with the same lump in their throat. But that lump in our throat was put there by Jesus, by the one who said, put away your sword, for those who live by the sword will die by the sword, right? Yeah. Who taught us to turn the other cheek? It's it's Jesus who has who has given us that that you know that value by which we we judge the you know the scriptures to be wanting. But again, it's it's people you know finding fault with Christianity for not being Christian enough. Um and and therefore we've just got to do the work of going back into the into the scriptures, figuring out the story and figuring out where we've got our values from in the first place.
SPEAKER_04Um what else have we got, Thomas? I mean, that was well a very long response from us to a question asked to uh to John Dixon. Thank you. Is there anything else?
SPEAKER_00Well, it as we've said today already, it is Valentine's Day, so we just thought we'd share this tweet briefly. Uh Ruth Evans kindly retweeting the cancel Valentine's video that we released uh this day a year ago. We were still in lockdown then. Um but yeah, it's still in lockdown now. So do go and check that out if you haven't seen it already. And it's probably worth mentioning as well that the the foundry is uh still open for applications. I can pop this link up actually. Look at that, a ticker. Look at that ticker link along the bottom.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, just just to give an update. Um uh I was in Liverpool on Friday meeting with uh a great group of people called AT3 who helped to arrange uh short-term sort of uh mission, year or two of mission for Americans, particularly coming over to the UK uh to see what life is like in a sort of post-Christian country, and had a fantastic time with them and was able to share a bit more about uh the foundry and what we do. And yes, really great to encourage more people as we look uh towards the end of this week. Uh, we really need to get those uh US applications in. So if you are watching or listening in the US and you are someone who would be interested in spending 10 months with us down in Eastbourne to think about theology, think about evangelism, think about story and storytelling, uh, think about communication and media, then please do uh visit us at www.speaklifefoundry.com where you can find out more and apply and maybe maybe even end up like Thomas right here asking the questions and moving the stuff along on the speakeasy. Who knows? Wonders never cease.
SPEAKER_00Well, absolutely. I I would uh absolutely recommend applying, but um, I think that's everything from the mailbag, so I will let you guys get back to it.
SPEAKER_04Okay, well let's um jump back in so that we can finish off with our third section, which as regular viewers and listeners will know, is a little movie tag, movie link, movie reflection game we've been playing. It hasn't got a name yet. Uh and the fact that we're gonna start a Lent series soon means it probably will never have a name, but we might return to it soon. Uh let's throw up a little movie tag?
SPEAKER_01Are we gonna call it?
SPEAKER_04Well, it sort of got called that, didn't it? But then I don't know if it's quite certainly the fact that I'm not calling it movie tag suggests that it it hasn't embedded itself in me. Denied. Denied. Uh so we will tell you more about what that movie is uh straight after we do this little jingly bit again. Speak it. I like having a little jingly bit. I think it's quite nice. I know it doesn't last for very long, doesn't give people time to go and put the kettle on or anything like that. Like last time we said, We're back. Well we're back, and we're back, and uh yeah, so the movie we're gonna talk about this week is uh 2005 film The Squid and the Whale, directed by Noah Baumbach and starring uh Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, and a young Jesse Eisenberg. Um now Jesse Eisenberg is the link with uh the movie that we watched last week, which was of course Thomas Thorgood's favourite film, The Social Network, where he played Mart Zuckerberg. Um, but in this film uh he's sort of playing a version of Noah Baumbach. So Noah Baumback, if if you don't know as a film director, um he's been quite prolific recently with something like a marriage story would be one of his, Francis Ha Mayowitz stories, and uh While We're Young, I think was another one of his. Um Noah Baumbach is married to uh Greta Gerwig, who directed Ladybird. And it's interesting because a lot of their films have got similar sorts of themes. They they have this kind of slice of life sense to them. Um so as stories, they don't really sort of go anywhere into kind of oh, there's this kind of great hero's journey that we went through all the all the hours on the story clock, but they do show you I think a quite authentic portrayal of of what life in the modern west is like for so many people. They're quite domestic as a result uh they're they're generally familial themes, uh the dialogue is kind of hyper-real, you know. He writes in every arm and uh and nod, and it's all kind of scripted, um and they're just fantastic, they're they're they're fantastic pieces of cinema. Um and I should warn people who are have not yet seen The Squid and the Whale, uh, there's got some fruity bits in it, it's got some fruity language, and it's got a couple of scenes which aren't um not the easiest to watch. Um but certainly as a as a great description and uh uh a presentation of the tragedy of relational breakdown and divorce and its impact on the the two children. Um I think it it it's absolutely fantastic. Uh Glenn, you had not seen it before this afternoon, is that right? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I have now, I have now seen it. What were your thoughts? I uh I very much enjoyed it, if that's the right word. Um it it does not flint from showing people at their least impressive, um, but it's it's kind of biting for all of that. And you know, so Jeff Daniels plays Jesse Eisenberg's dad, and a very unimpressive man who from scene one is just a real egotist jerk. They they're playing tennis, yeah, and instant it's a brilliant set-up because instantly you have like the four members of this family on either side of the net, and actually, and it's uh it's the mum is going with the youngest boy, yeah, and then Jesse, who looks up to to Jeff Daniels, are on the other side of it. Like, who who decided that those were the themes? This is this is this is the most one-time.
SPEAKER_03Dad and the firstborn son versus the mum and the little boy, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the little guy who's really a little guy, and and the first line almost is Jeff Daniels saying, Um, you know, hit her to your mother's backhand, she's weak. And then and he does, and like, yeah, he's just a total, totally unimpressive man. And it's it's kind of it's kind of bold, really, um, for Noah Baumbach to to kind of present really his family, and and you know, if Jesse is him, Jesse's a very unimpressive figure, yeah, yeah. Who who I I love, you know, he he's caught plagiarizing. He sort of he wins a talent competition by by basically just um pinching a Pink Floyd song, yeah, and then afterwards he explains it by saying, I but I felt like I could have written the song, so really the fact that they written it first was just a technicality.
SPEAKER_04And and and that is such an interesting one. So the character Jeff Daniels plays is so proud and conceited and dismissive and bitter and cynical and jealous. He he's such an ugly character in that way. And and yet because he's a father, he is he's the one Jesse Eisenberg is looking up to. He's the one I'm learning from. And I think you know that plays you know, that rings so true for the ways in which you know we look at our fathers and we look to the you know the men for for leadership, and uh so tragically their faults are not rejected and and redeemed, but are taken on wholesale as well. I will look at the world from your bitter and twisted vantage point. So so his his backstory as a character is that he's a writer um who was reasonably successful, but then has is being rejected by a number of of uh publishers and finds himself now as a embittered as an embittered literature teacher, um who just uses his lecture hall or his classroom as his own little kind of um uh empire of dirt, as that great 9-inch nails song says, you know, I I will rule over this place and I will dismiss everyone um else. And yet his wife, who's played by Laura Linney, who I was saying, I wasn't sure whether it was Laura Linny or Laura Laura Dern because they are so similar. Um but we realize that each is a Laura unto herself. In fact, is it possible just to prove how similar they look? And apologies if you're listening to this later on on the on the podcast, um, but to just Show a picture of the two of them. This is uh it's not just me who makes this this is confused by these two people. Um but anyway, Laura Linney's character, just whilst Thomas is bringing that up, um is she's an author in her own right, and she's becoming more successful. There you go. Uh if you do the one, if you do top left, actually, just that very first shot.
SPEAKER_01And that's not the end of the can't tell the difference between Laura's. Do you have any Laura's listening? I think Laura Laura's the world over just offended.
SPEAKER_04Look at them!
unknownLook at them.
SPEAKER_04I can't see how we can't see them yet. Sorry. We can't see them. Sorry, it's only on my monitor. Put it on, put it on, then they'll all be able to see. They'll see.
SPEAKER_01It's like um interestingly, Laura Dern actually plays a part like like they reference blue velvet within the film. And so Laura Dern is on screen, and you wonder the Noah Baumbach is kind of indistinguishable.
SPEAKER_04Um but yeah, here we go. We're just we're just pulling it up now, it's spinning round. Look at that.
SPEAKER_01Look at that, totally different. What are you talking about? Laura Dern is on the left of the screen, Laura Linny is on the right. It's very obvious. Okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_03We're gonna have a game, a running game now, Linny or Dun, and it's gonna come up every week on this.
SPEAKER_04Uh speak easy. Um, but anyway, so she she's uh thank you for that, Thomas. Um, but she has found um she's found herself becoming more successful, and so her husband's reaction is not to say, Oh, wonderful, now our household is is you know is growing in its influence in in the literary world. He says, That should have been me. And that idea of jealousy and of suspicion and of of self-righteousness, and it's just so so ugly, and you can see so easily why Jesse Isenberg's character would then grow up to be the kind of guy who says, Yeah, I could have written this Pink Floyd song. Yeah, not wow, Pink Floyd are amazing, and I've been found out as a as a cheat, but well, yeah, I'm good enough for that. And you just think, Oh, it's just so galling. Um, but but probably worth saying that his character is the one uh he has the most growth within the film. Uh within the story of the film, he learns to sort of Are you talking about Jesse now? Jesse, yeah, yeah, yeah. The eldest son, yeah. Um he learns to to see his father rightly.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_04Or at least more objectively. He and and I think that that as a a huge theme I've found not only in um in my own life, but it in sort of pastoral ministry is seeing how difficult it is to get the 360 view on someone you're closely related to. You know, it's very difficult for you to sort of look at them objectively because of course you know they were as they were to you in so many ways, and that's that's such a challenge when you have someone um who who is is verbally abusive and you know and just just such a tragic character.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, and and but yeah, to bring it around to where we started in terms of Valentine's Day and sort of love and relationships, it it brilliantly shows where the idolization of choice and the idolization of the individual doing whatever they want to do is the killer of relationships as well. Because you see the father pass on relationship advice to his son that is truly disastrous, and his you know, his son is going out with a lovely girl, and it would have been lovely, yeah. You know, like she she could have been brilliant for him, but her father, full of regrets, is always telling his son, Well, you can kind of cheat on her, get all you can out of her, and squeeze her, and and and yeah, so you you see the breakdown of relationships in the name of just individual will and and choice, yeah. Um, and yeah, and so as I as I was watching today, thinking about our Valentine's conversation as well, I was I was thinking you you have in the Jesus Revolution this beautiful love that gives birth to a sense of individual agency and choice, consent, and what a wonderful thing. And it gives birth, and that gives birth to the idea of equals having a love relationship and entering in on equal terms to a love relationship. Wonderful, but then that choice when idolized becomes the the selfish individualism that then goes on to eat the relationship, yeah. Um, so yeah, it's it's it's kind of and it's so starkly put in the film, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And and interesting for you know, I'm sure way more people um will have seen Marriage Story uh 2019 um by Noah Baumbach as well. Way more people will have seen that, and that I think is a bit of a partner piece to this. They're both stories about uh marital breakdown, and yet it feels as though Noah Baumbach, in his understanding of the world as he's presenting it to you, wants to say this tragedy is so deep that we really just want to paint it as a as a comedy. We really want to say it's not that bad. Um and the ending of marriage story actually finishes um much like uh a classic, you know, romantic comedy with this kind of great big sort of camera pull back, you know, as they're going to uh distribute their or going to collect uh Halloween candy. Um having decided to break up and it feels as though that's the they lived unhappily ever after. But it everything about the filmmaking is telling you that this is a good thing, this is resolved when it it in lots of ways it hasn't resolved. And I think relationally, thinking about Valentine's Day, thinking about as Christians, how do we relate to to the world around us? As Christians, we live inside a romantic comedy, and so much around us wants us to believe that we live we live in a tragic story. And I just think that's such an important thing for us to do to have those gospel that gospel perspective on a brilliant piece of filmmaking, both films, but uh on what's so devastating about them is this is what happens when you when you don't see the truth. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And he did he he seems to be wanting to traumatize his audience so that you leave the cinema traumatized, but somehow having gone through the car wreck, your knees are wobbling, you're you know, you're jittery, but you've survived. And it it seem it feels like to to go through these films is to go like to go through a traumatic experience, and it didn't exactly kill you. So hallelujah!
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they they look good, they they look good, and they're yeah, they're they're impressive pieces of work in terms of the acting. Um uh someone just said, uh, can we pull up that Robert Pizza? I thought the lesson of marriage story was that Kylo Wren and Black Widow would be a very problematic couple. I I think that that may well be another lesson of marriage story.
SPEAKER_01Um isn't that every marriage though?
SPEAKER_04Yes. Well will Kylo Wren ever be happy? I don't know. Um but yes, in in terms of seeing seeing the sin painted in virtue's colours to a degree, um or or the the softening of the blow to say, well, let's just make a nice film with this, you know, very beautifully shot and and that sort of thing. You think, uh well, I I would have I have an issue with that because it's not redemptive, it's actually it's a magic trick and it's a distraction. Yeah, and the hope would be that that all people were you know who enjoy watching it, you know, know Baobacks films would see that the answers given on do not go deep enough.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it's not that we want a happy ending where the couple stays together. That is doesn't always happen, but we want a happy ending in which the greater thing than marriage is the the reality of the universe that we we live inside a marriage story, yeah. Um and that there is there is a greater hope.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean Peter Lightheart talked about the difference between the classical comedy and the redemptive, the Christian comedy. So in the classical world, they they largely dealt with tragedy because the fates just mean that you cannot escape your fate, you'd have no choice, and everything unravels, and that was that was the sort of the the standard kind of um mode to look in. Sometimes there were comedies, but in the comedies he says, um, says says Lightheart, the um the actors would be in tears while the audience laughs at them. So the the the the naive and the fool gets his cover come up and he's crying, but everyone in the audience laughs. Whereas the Christian comedy is different in that both the actor and the audience are kind of are swept up into a into a into a happily ever after that that everybody can enjoy. And I kind of get that that feeling with Noah Baumbach movies that that we we go through trauma and they're they're left you know as the wrecks that they are, and we've kind of survived, and so we we can we can go about our day a little bit stronger. Um you know you want to you want to see redemption, you so want to see redemption.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and and this the slightly redemptive uh final part of of the squid and the whale is is for Jesse Eisenberg as he's you know meeting with a the child psychologist um to uh to think about his parents' marriage in a in a more constructive way and in a way that that allows him to sort of move through it without being embittered like his dad, is that he starts to realise the value that his mother uh has for him and he starts to realise what she she gave for him and that the squid and the whale, which is um this massive kind of display in the Natural History Museum in New York, um is is a is a place of is a kind of place of redemption for him. I and I again I don't think I don't think Baumbach goes far enough in showing that but I think that without that conclusion and it's a thin conclusion at one level, but without that, um as you say, you know, we got through their trauma. It's okay, let's put the kettle on. Um well maybe you got through this trauma. Is that the way to finish on Valentine's Day? Yeah, February the 14th, 2022. Um, Glenn, I I I've never sort of been so concerned for someone to only find one line on a COVID test as I am for you tomorrow morning. Because if you've got to stick it out till was it Thursday? Thursday officially day 10. Thursday officially being so thin. So you can't even anyway. I don't think anyone can see that at all. Um, but yes, um hoping that you will be back in the studio before very long. Let's hope that next Monday the three of us can uh can join together for a complete back as well. That'd be great. Um, well, thank you very much uh guys for joining in. We've got lots of the comments there. We'll be uh going through those again um another time. Um we will see you, or you will see us uh this time next week when we'll have another speakeasy with Paul Feasy. Uh thank you, Thomas, for helping us with all the tech support, and uh we wish you a very happy romantic Valentine's Day. Take care. Good night. See ya.