Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture invites you into transformative conversations at the intersection of faith, culture, justice, and the way of Jesus. Each episode, host Joshua Johnson engages guests who challenge conventional thinking and inspire fresh perspectives for embodying faith in today's complex world. If you're curious about how cultural shifts impact your faith journey and passionate about living purposefully, join us as we explore deeper ways to follow Jesus in everyday life.
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Shifting Culture
Ep. 328 Sean Gaffney - We Were Made For Stories
Stories aren’t just entertainment - they’re how we make sense of who we are, what we value, and where we’re headed. In this episode, writer and professor Sean Gaffney invites us to see story as a sacred thread woven through culture, theology, and discipleship. We talk about the shape of the meta story that undergirds all great narratives, how stories can form us spiritually, and why even blockbuster films can point us toward God. From the pitfalls of message-driven Christian media to the redemptive echoes in Marvel movies, this conversation is an invitation to engage story with both discernment and wonder.
Sean Gaffney has authored thirty produced plays, three feature films, four commissioned television pilots, two published chapter books, as well as over two hundred produced videos, animation projects, YouTube series episodes and short films (including for Big Idea and SuperBook). Other publications include contributing to Bigger on the Inside: Christianity and Doctor Who, It Was Good: Performing Arts to the Glory of God, and The Routledge Handbook of the Bible and Film . He was the Story Administrator for Warner Bros. Features, editor of Drama Ministry Magazine, the Managing Director of Taproot Theatre (Seattle) and General Manager of Lamb’s Theatre Company (New York). Gaffney currently is a Professor in Media Communication and Screenwriting at Asbury University, as well as Associate Dean of the School of Communication Arts. He received his BFA from Drake University, his MFA from Columbia University, and studied with Act One: Writing for Hollywood. He released a new book on the intersection of scriptwriting and theology: Meta Story: What Marvel & the Messiah Can Teach Us about Great Storytelling. More information at www.gaffneyinkwell.com and IMDb.
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Stories is how we are, who we are, it's how we explore our identity. It's how we explore who we might be, who we might want to be. It's how we test everything from our ethics to even practical living. It's how we test what is important, what are our values. It is how we discover the other it's how we find people who who are not part of us.
Joshua Johnson:Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. You know, stories shape who we are. They help us make sense of the world, test our values, stretch our imaginations and invite us into something bigger than ourselves. In this episode, I talk with Sean Gaffney about why stories matter, not just as entertainment, but as one of the primary ways we encounter truth, beauty and even God. We unpack the shape that stories take, why that shape echoes the arc of redemption, and how even the most unexpected narratives can reflect the heartbeat of the gospel, from Marvel movies to the messiness of Christian media, from the theology of character development to the discipline of watching with the Spirit. This conversation invites us to listen more closely, not just to the stories we tell, but to the God who is telling a story through us. So join us as we engage with story and the storyteller. Here is my conversation with Sean Gaffney, well, Sean, thank you for joining me. Excited to have you on
Sean Gaffney:very excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Joshua Johnson:Well, you have been writing and teaching story for many years. Yes, the question though is, why do stories matter? Oh,
Sean Gaffney:wow. Why do stories matter? Let's start with the easy ones,
Joshua Johnson:right? Yeah, the easy one, well, we're diving straight
Sean Gaffney:diving straight into it. Yeah. Stories matter on so many different levels, whether, whether you're looking at it, you know, from the sociological, from the anthropological, political, from the theological, stories is how we learn. Stories is how we we are, who we are, it's how we explore our identity. It's how we explore who we might be, who we might want to be. It's how we test everything from our ethics to even practical living. It's how we test what is important, what are our values. It is how we discover the other it's how we find people who are not part of us. I was just talking, actually talking with our administrative assistant here at Asbury, and she grew up on a farm in Iowa. I grew up in a small town we were talking about, you know, for her, there wasn't anybody who wasn't white and poor in her area. How do we discover the world beyond ourselves. And I think, I think definitely, as as people of faith, the other is important, because we are all we're all part of the same thing. And how do we, how do we learn to understand people who have not grown up the same way, who have not had the same traditions necessarily, as I, I've had other than you know, through extensive travel, which I recommend if you can travel, but we all can't travel. And through story, how can we safely go into environments that that would be dangerous for us otherwise, and not just physical danger, but emotional danger, theological danger, Faith danger. Story is a great way to learn what is the rest of the world thinking? How are they operating? How can I understand where they're coming from? When what they say to me doesn't seem to be making sense? Oh, I watch their story or listen to their story. This is why Jesus taught in stories. I will say this too already. We've launched into it, and I'm already on the soapbox, because I was, I was at an event, an experience, a Christian based experienced, and they were one of their little kind of advertisements for themselves. As they said, you know, we want people to understand the Bible's not story, the Bible's history. And I was like, oh, oh, number one. We can contest it on a lot of ways, but I understand part of what they're saying. The Bible is real. It's true. And for many people, true and story don't meet. I think God designed us in a way that true and story actually the only way to get to truth is through story, whereas history history is too limited. And I think they thought they were expanding the power of the Bible, but they're actually limiting it. When they say, Oh no, it's just a list of facts. Story has meaning and and therefore the Bible has more meaning than the facts listed in the Bible.
Joshua Johnson:You have the. Book that you recently put out called meta story you have a meta story framework. It really looks like it. This is the story of God. This is God story with us and humanity. His mission. What's going to happen to help us? Like, zoom out, like, what is this meta story framework? Why does this meta story framework help situate us even in our daily lives.
Sean Gaffney: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 to it, I strongly recommend it so her point of view. She says all of art is following God. Was her quote. Inspiration comes from God whether you know it or not. And really, my theory is not that far different from hers, in that I feel like all story is points us to God whether we know it or not. And it's not just, oh yeah, of course, Christian stories point us to God or biblical stories, all story points us to God whether you're watching television, whether you're watching the latest Marvel movie, whether you're reading, you know, a novel, you know someone that like a Tolstoy, that's more obviously directing you towards God or reading, you know, Graham Greene, that's bad choice, because he's also intentionally pointing you to God or reading, you know, the just The latest pot boiler, the latest crime book. They're all the structure of story points us towards God. We're designed. My big idea is that we're designed for story, because, again, story is larger than just fact, so we're designed for something larger than just fact, and we're designed for story, because that's how we find God. God's story. The shape of God's story is the shape of every story we yearn for. It's the shape. It's the shape of the stories that we want, the stories that complete us have that same shape, and it's because, in my opinion, it's because we're always searching for God and everything we do. So of course, we're going to use the shape of story, of of starting in a normal situation and falling out of that, getting getting unbalanced, and having a quest to restore normal, and having a crisis, having a having a death, having a resurrection, coming back out of that crisis and ending up in a new place, in a place where we haven't been before. That is that's our that'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 a storyteller.
Joshua Johnson:Can you walk me through some some of this meta story framework?
Sean Gaffney:Yeah, so within the book, I mean the book, the book can be used for, for people who want to be writers, to figure out how to how to write. But the the distinction that my book has, I think, is each element, whether we're talking about character or plot or theme, is more obvious dialog. Each element has a theological underpinning. There's a god underpinning for everything, of why we do it, why we tell story the way we tell story. So it's a kind of a combination of how to understand the story as well as how to write the story. So in the book, I break it down. I mean, I really go into detail of here. Here's each of the beats of a plot of a story here, here's how dialog and theme interact. So an obvious example is structure, you know? So the the the Uber structure of every story is, is you start out in balance. There's an unbalance to it. You go on a quest to try to restore a balance. You have a midpoint that changes everything. Then you have another quest, and then you have, it culminates in a crisis, which then leads to, you know, the coming out of the crisis, into the climax, the final battle, and then you're into a new world. You're into a new, new balance. And that actually aligns, I'm going to cheat a little bit with this, because I'm summarizing, but it aligns, aligns exactly with our history of the balance. We start out in the normal for us. We call that the Garden of Eden, right? It's the normal world. Everything is good, but then something happens that unbalances that. In this 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 this relationship with God, and then history. You can think of history as a long series of attempts by God to restore that balance, to bring us back into the fold. So, you know, you look through all the Old Testament, it's like, let's try this. We're going to try this. We're going to now. We're going to try this thing. None of it working right. It's all these attempts and failed attempts, culminating in the midpoint, which is the arrival of God on earth. Nothing else worked. So I'm going to intervene in history. I'm going to step in, I'm going to remove my own throne, my own godliness, to join mankind to be able to find that solution. And then here's, here's here's where I'm going to cheat a little bit, but I'm going to go into, you know. The second quest as Jesus, life on earth, His ministry. It's all about, can I get you guys to see it? Can you see it? You know, I've been saying, Hey, don't murder your brother. And you've been saying, okay, so if I kill him this way, does that count? If I kill him this way, does that count? Like, what's the legal and he's like, No, you don't understand. Love God. Love each other. It's like, okay, but isn't it loving my neighbor when I stone her for adultery? Isn't that loving, you know, it's like, okay, you're not getting it. You're looking at the wrong thing. Can I get you to look at the right thing? And so that's the quest two. And of course, it ends in a crisis. We crucify Him, we put him on a tree, and we kill God. And that's, you know, kind of like the end of that, except it's never the end, because the crisis is never the end. There's the resurrection, there's the coming back from that, 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 in another. 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 this journey, you're going to land in a new place. So every look at every movie that you enjoy, you're going to be able to find all of those pieces in that order. And it's God's story. It's just a reflection of God's story. So that's one piece of it. That's how that's how structure kind of aligns. So
Joshua Johnson:if I'm I'm looking at something and for looking at a story, let's take knives out. You talk about knives out a lot in meta story. So I Ryan Johnson is one of my favorite writer directors. A lot of people would go, how in the world would knives out actually point to God? And it structures dialog. This is murder mystery. It's it's fun. There's a lot of twists and turns. We're enjoying it. But does it really point to God? The story actually point to God. Point to God. So help us. Help us out. Tell us story actually
Sean Gaffney:points? Yeah. So one of the things we got to be careful of is, you know that the idea that every story points us to God in ways, every story is mirroring God's story. So we're so the track that we're following is going to be the same track. It doesn't mean that every story is good for us. It doesn't mean that every story is going to dump us off where we need to be, and it doesn't mean that every every story, even the stories that have good aspects, that the bad aspects of it don't outweigh the good aspects. So that'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, and some of them are R rated. Some of them are not in general, good, you know. The extreme example would be the movie Seven. The movie Seven explicitly talks about the seven deadly sins. The message of the movie is, our culture is so in love with the seven deadly sins that we're destroying ourselves. I can't recommend for any great movie, great great acting, great writing
Joshua Johnson:into that in the theater, they kicked me out because I wasn't old enough. Oh, really.
Sean Gaffney:Get into that one. It's a movie I actually regret watching because the dark elements in it for where I am, for who I am, the dark elements were so dark that they were damaging to my soul in a way, right? For other people, that's not their thing, right? So we each have to just kind of as a quick aside, and I'll get back to your question. I tell my students, before we watch things, like, throughout the semester, we're going to be reading different scripts. We're going to be watching different things. We need to be adult about 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 that you can handle that language, or you need to be adult enough that you can handle that, you know, storyline, or whatever it is, the violence, it's like, no, no. We need to be adult enough, the way Paul calls us to be adults. Of we know who we are. We know who where we are in our walk. And I need to be adult enough to say, Yeah, I know that movie is perfectly fine for every for y'all, but I can't watch it because my particular either weakness things that draw me into you know, I know people who can't handle strong language, not because they don't like strong language, but because they'll start to use it if they're exposed to it, right? So, yeah, you got to know you can't do that for me. Sexual violence, I can't. It haunts me. It hurts my soul. It's the kind of thing that you know. So I can't watch Law and Order SVU, even though that's PG or PG 13, that's too much for me, so I need to know, no, I'm not going to watch that movie for that reason. So So I'm not saying that every movie is therefore a god movie, and go ahead and watch it, or every TV show is a God show, so therefore go and watch it. But if you look at the right elements, you can see how we're training ourselves to read God's story through some of these stories, as well as as the look so knives out, certainly the structure has that same structure thematically knives out, it talks a lot about truth. Is a core theme to it. What is truth? But another major key, key to it is. Having the courage to do the thing you know is the right thing. So for those of you who've seen knives out, we have, we have this balance. We're using this thing. It's called setup and payoff which, again, God uses setups and payoffs. So understanding how they're used in movie helps us see how it's being used in the Bible helps us seeing how it's being used in our lives. So in knives out. Little bit of a spoiler, but there's a character I'm going to be vague enough. There's a character at the beginning of the movie who has an opportunity to make a 911 call to save somebody and is convinced is talked into not doing it because it's going to get her into trouble. And that same character at the end of the movie has an opportunity 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 has this mirroring thing of choosing to do it at the beginning, and then by the end, her character has changed enough for her to make a different choice. Right? That setup and payoff this, we can see that echoed in it certainly we see it echoed in the Bible all the time of the opportunity. Peter has an opportunity to say, Yes, I know him. Yes, I'm with him and and denies him right. And then has a later opportunity to go through the growth and stand in front of 5000 people and say, Yeah, arrest me. I know him. He's mine, right? We're seeing that same knives out setup payoff in his story. And if you look closely enough, you're going to see it in your own faith journey. You're going to see those moments where you were tested and you failed the test, and everybody, even your own, that inner voice is saying, it's over. You're done. You're not a good person, you're a horrible person. And then we see that, oh, I was given another opportunity. I was given, I was given a chance to learn and grow from it. So something as simple as that, and we see that in all of these movies, but it's training us. When we see it in the movie, we enjoy it in the movie. We like it in the movie because it resonates, because that's how God made us. And if we're wise, we can take a step back and apply that to our own faith journey as well. You
Joshua Johnson:talk about some redemptive storytelling as well, and redemptive storytelling sometimes, if you're looking at Christians trying to do do art and they have an agenda behind things, yes, sometimes it doesn't work very well. Sometimes you feel like you're manipulated. Yes, what doesn't work when it comes to story, especially in the Christian world, where we're trying to actually portray a message
Sean Gaffney: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 the house. 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 your show, it's been mentioned on other shows. Of this idea of, let's, let's write something and then slap a verse on it, and then we can call it Christian, because it now has a good message, but the message in the in the medium, the message in the storytelling itself, the storytelling is part of the message, and that's where, one of the places where we miss the boat a lot, is we do poor quality storytelling, because we argue that poor quality doesn't matter as long as it has a good message. And the message is, I have a character who's saying Christ is Lord, but I don't care enough about the quality of the movie to make it a good movie. So my message to my my non Christian audience, is they want to say Christ is Lord, but they don't really believe it enough to work hard. It isn't important. It does. It isn't valuable enough to them. So Christ isn't really Lord. Christ is Christ is LORD is just something 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, the the other thing that doesn't work is lying, which should not surprise us. I'm shocked. I'm shocked at how many times in Christian environments? You know, I used to work for a company, this was ages ago, where they were asking us to lie to our customers. And I said, we're Christians. We can't do that. And he said, No, no, we're a Christian organization. Our work is important to God. It's important for the Kingdom. Therefore we need to stay afloat. We need to stay in business. So therefore whatever we do to stay in business is godly, right? And and that sounds insane, but we see it over and over and over again. We need to get people into the church. So it doesn't matter how we get them into the church. It doesn't matter. And we love to lie as Christians, we love we love our marketing. So one of our biggest lies deals with marketing. We want people to come to the church. So we want the church to look like a nice, easy, safe place. So we tell people one of the most popular thing lies that we tell in Christian movies is if you accept Jesus as your savior, you will never have a problem ever again. This solves all of your problems. Right? We never, will never do and it's not true, because we're starting to do this. We're getting better. But that kind of movie, the people who make those kind of movies, would never have a movie that is, you know, the the salvation is always the climax, and then their life is fine. It's never, it's rarely the inciting incident, and now your life is in trouble. This is the thing that unbalanced your life, is you became a Christian, and we all know. You know Jesus. Jesus, you know. Remember when he says, Hey, take up your pillow and follow me, or where he says to His disciples, is warning everybody's going to love you. Nobody's going to ever treat you badly because of you me, nobody's ever going to, right? It's the opposite and and our stories. But that's not good marketing, right? Comcast, or, you know, Verizon, they're never going to run an ad saying, hey, use Verizon. You'll have trouble making phone calls, right? They're not going to they're going to say, oh, it always works great. It always works best. It's always better than so we lie to get people into the church. And that never works, because people see right through it. People know that. People, they look at the church and they say, yeah, that that person has been a pastor for 25 years, and he'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 your marketing. So we don't, we don't we protect God. We protect the church. At our heart, we don't believe that God can defend himself. So, you know, another one of our favorite lies is we have the Christian versus the the atheist storyline. It's one of our favorite story lines. And the atheist is, is dead, right? Evil. The atheist is like, I don't care that you have cancer, you know. The atheist is like, you know, laughing at your misfortune and that that person, and he's stupid. I'm going to prove to you that God doesn't exist, because I can't see him. Look, look around you. Can you see him? I can't see him. Ha, I proved it, right. Well, you're an idiot. So that's a lie. So, so the the people who are outside the church go to that movie, or, or half of the people inside the church go to that movie, and they go, Well, I don't know that guy. I've never seen that guy. I've never, I've never had that confrontation. It's a lie to say, Oh God is so strong that he can beat somebody. As long as that somebody, as long as that somebody is stupid, as long as that somebody is is maniacally evil for no reason, as long as that person has no compassion. You know, I'm sorry. Put just post on Facebook at some point. Just post, does anybody know an atheist 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 a Christian. Have you ever heard of a Buddhist who's who's been nice to somebody? Have you ever heard of a Muslim person who has has raised their children? Well? Have you ever, well, not according to our movies, right? So we lie, doesn't work. It doesn't work a story. It's bad storytelling, therefore it doesn't
Joshua Johnson:work. So then what does work? So that's think I want to think of like villains and solutions to stories. If you were talking like, you know, the atheist is the the villain. It's, it's a caricature. It's not a real person. What is it? What is like working in the gray look like, of like, hey, there are actually some, maybe some human redeeming elements of this, this villain, and there are some evil elements of this villain. How can you we? We create something that actually has more multi dimensions to it, and not just one caricature of
Sean Gaffney:Yeah, one way to start is, don't, don't choose the easy villain. So my movie, I did a movie called unlawfully yours. My lead is an atheist. She's lovely. You're rooting for her. You want the pastor to fall in love with her. She doesn't have the right theology, right? So that's so she's not the villain of the piece. Actually, a church lady is the is the villain of the piece. And that forces you, as a writer, as a creator, as well as as an audience, to not look for the easy answer, Christian, good, atheist, bad, right? Because, because your central character, the character you want everybody to follow, the character you want everybody to root for Jesus does that, right? You know, in the story of the Good Samaritan, the Good Samaritan is not the central character. You have to read my book to understand that. But the good Samaritan is supposed to be the villain, right? And and is not the it's, it's a the good, the good Samaritans a human being who sees 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 needs to be villainous. I like to. To to do the same trick that actors do. So my wife is an actress. She loves playing villains because they're delicious, but when she's playing a villain, she has to come up with, why do they want? What they want? You know, I actually just saw a critique of the recent Snow White movie. I haven't seen the Snow White movie, but that's one of the things they complain about, is the witch wants Snow White to be dead, wants to be the prettiest in the kingdom, wants to run. But there's no reason why she wants it, other than she's a villain. And most of our our easy Fallback is, well, they're the villain because they're the villain, not because they not because they have a positive motive. So if you look at Thanos in in the Marvel Infinity War and end game, he he sees that overpopulation is destroying planets. So his his plan to delete half of the universe, half of life, has a good motive, right? So, so you can look at him and go, Oh, he's trying to do good. He just is going about it in the wrong way. So often it can be the villain can be trying to do good, going about it in the wrong way. And then the third approach is, I would give them power. David and Goliath. Goliath outsizes David, right? Goliath has all of the cards. So the victory, you know, there's a lot of reasons you want to do that, but one of which is, it's a real victory. It's, it's, it requires courage of character for the victory. And I have a whole section of the book where I do this. This is one of the things that Marvel does, right in so many of their movies, is the villain is always stronger than if it's an argument movie, if you've got your atheist arguing against your Christian, anytime any of the argument movies are brought up in my classes, I haven't seen a lot of them, because they drive me crazy, 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 making his arguments as a audience member. Have you ever thought, oh crap, he's right, or have you always thought, Oh, what an idiot, what an idiot, what an idiot. And if you if you thought, 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, Earl Palmer said the importance of the devil's number to its audience is that they know that God's number is seven. So the devil is six spread six out to eternity. However you want to read it in there, six to the sixth power to the sixth power. God is seven to the seven to the seven. 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 our movies. Can you make them strong? I did that with a play. I did an adaptation of the Island of Dr Moreau. HG, Wells is Island of Dr Moreau. I did that as a play, and I intentionally gave all of the best monologs to Moreau, and I gave him a chance to convince us why what he's doing is right, because toppling that had had so much stronger significance to an audience than saying, Hi, I'm an idiot And I'm wrong, right? That has no emotional, that has no intellectual, that has no theological you're not going to grow from that, especially if you come in agreeing with the villain. You're certainly not going to grow if the guy up on the screen is not mimicking the thoughts that you've had, but if the guy on the screen can mimic those thoughts, and then somebody can come along with an actual answer. Now we're talking
Joshua Johnson:dive pretty deep through the Marvel Cinematic Universe of what Marvel looks like with this this meta story and some of this redemptive story. It's good. The things that I found recently, I'm going to spoil thunderbolts, the new Marvel movie, a little bit. But what I found is really fascinating with something new from Marvel, which I don't think they've done great since Infinity War, right?
Sean Gaffney:But here, pockets here and there. But yes,
Joshua Johnson:pockets here and there. I The the solution to the the villain in Thunderbolts wasn't about death and violence and more killing. It was about love and community, community and bringing people into a a true community. And yeah, place, it was a it was a refreshing look at something, where I go, I know the story. There's a villain, they're going to kill him. And there what happens when we start to usurp the standard storyline, and we actually tell a better story, and I think maybe a story that more aligns with Jesus. And what he's trying to do with us.
Sean Gaffney:Yeah, early Marvel, one of the reasons that they were so good, they had their stinkers early on, just like now there's the occasional Thunderbolts versus Captain America, New World Order, which was just a sloppy, sloppy movie early on, is that most people would say, oh, superhero is a genre, and it kind of sort of is, 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 for our action movie Iron Man, or for our war movie, Captain America, First Avenger, or for our spy movie, Captain America, whatever the Winter Soldier, or for our comedy or for our romance. So it became the setting and not the oh, we know how superhero movies go. If you look at their competitor, who I used to work for. I worked for Warner Brothers for 10 years. So the DCEU hurts my soul. Uh, but the competitor said superhero is a genre because it has a specific form. Every superhero movie should look like every other superhero movie, and that's exactly right. The reason that Thunderbolts is so powerful is because it's a drama about self inflicted trauma. Can you overcome it? Does it define you if if you are somebody who's done something bad. Does that mean that for the rest of eternity, that's who you are, or can you move past it? And as you said, the solution they violence is the attempt to solve the solution, because that's how we attempt everything and and the heroes literally stop the violence from happening, to replace violence with community and really kind of creating its own support group. We're here for you. We've been where you've been. West Wing has a has an interesting moment where you know one of the characters who had trouble in the earlier season is facing off with another character who's now going through his own trauma. So Leo McGarrity tells Josh, you know, when Josh thinks he's going to get fired, he tells him a joke. I'm going to warn you 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 throws it into the hole. Somebody else comes by and he says, Can you help me? And the guy throws some money into the hole and keeps going. It's a version of the Good Samaritan. And then his friend comes by and he says, friend, hey, can you help me? And his friend immediately jumps into the hole, and the guy's like, Dude, I want you to pull me 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 can help you find the way out. And I just thought that was a beautiful kind of that's the Thunderbolts, right? Is it's a group of people saying, I have been in the hole together, we can find our way out. It's a great biblical message in a movie made by people who have no interest in making a biblical message. But it's because I think they told the truth. I think, I think they wanted to explore the characters, and this is where truth telling comes in even you know, if you're not, in my opinion, if you're not a Christian, but you tell the truth, you're going to be reflecting God is they said, Look, we're telling stories about these characters. What's going to save these characters is not another defeat of a bad guy. What's going to save these characters is for them to stop being alone. Come together as a community, a broken community, acknowledge we're a broken community, and together, we're going to heal. I'm glad you brought that up. I i Fortunately saw that before I saw Captain America, New World Order, because I might have just given up
Joshua Johnson:on Marvel, given up on Marvel. I have given up on Marvel. And I was like, I needed a movie to watch Thunderbolts was that I was like, oh, there was some
Unknown:something there. They're actually trying to say something. I was
Joshua Johnson:excited about that. So that's fantastic. So how do we do this? So if you're looking at story, if you're reading film or movies TV, if you're looking at art or literature, what? How do we look at story? How do we read it? How do we engage our culture faithfully as we are part of this, you know, this god story here and now, and we actually have a role to play in this god story. How do we engage story faithfully in the culture. Yeah,
Sean Gaffney:I mean, step one is engagement, and knowing that it's engagement, we've convinced ourselves 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 and let it do its magic on us for whatever, let us distract us. And sometimes you need that. I'm not opposed to that at all. We definitely have music that's designed to just distract you for a little bit. One of the healing powers of entertainment can be just the distancing from the pain, right, distancing from. You come in at the end of the day carrying a heavy load, and you watch your favorite show, or you put on your favorite album, almost said record. Wow.
Joshua Johnson:You can tell your records are in their back end, you
Sean Gaffney:know, or, or, or whatever it is, or, you know, just flip, flip through a book of poems, and at the end, you've you've let go. That's that's a that's a healing power. So I don't want to diminish that. But even that is not leaning back and letting it wash over you. It's leaning into it, knowing that story has an effect, knowing that that every story you know, my students have fought me with this, but every story has a message, and if you know that, then, then you're looking for something different. So sometimes it's going to be, yeah, so I'm going to be watching NCIS, and I'm going to be 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 just kind of relax into it and and enjoy the the character banter, and that's fine. Other times you're going to say, You know what, I I'm I'm here because I want to be involved, right? So whether, whether you're watching wicked and you're going to sing along, or whether you're watching thunderbolts and you're going to cheer along, but you're leaning into it even more, following the story, following the entertainment, allowing the emotion of of the story to to take you away. And then the third. The third is the intellectual of you know, I know I'm going to be watching this because I want to see what they have to say, and I'm listening for what they have to say. And and there are movies out there that are like fantastic movies, like No Country for Old Men or the first Joker movie was really, really well made. Those movies come from their point of view, is that there is no God. God does not exist. That's my take. Some people will argue that in no country, but I think that ultimately, that's what it's trying to say. What is the world like when there is no God? As opposed to a movie like The Godfather, which I think is also a very Christian movie. The Godfather says there is a God. What happens if you choose to not follow him? Right? Two very different kind of things. So is there a value for for no country or for Joker? Yes, but you have to come in intellectual knowing. I'm here to hear what they have to say so I can understand my my fellow person who's made in the image of God, who believes that there's no God in their world, I can understand where they're coming from. I think sinners would be a good example of this. Sinners, there is a God in their world. There is spirituality in that world. But I have no clue. I have a strong clue of what my African American brothers and sisters in Christ, how they how they view God and how they view the world. I have an inkling as a as a middle aged white man, I have an inkling of what it feels like for them to be in this in the same religion that I'm in when there are those of us who, you know, I see it through a white lens, because that's my background, right? I have, I don't understand the African Americans who are not part of the church, who might still be spiritual, they're not atheists, but they have rejected Christianity as an option. You know, my brain is like, why would you reject that? What like if you're looking for spirituality, why? What watch sinners, you'll understand, oh, this is where they're coming from. This is, this is what it represents. This is to them. This is, this is the lens through, through which they're seeing, the religion, the white man, religion that was imposed on their ancestors, right? Very, very valuable. But it requires going in with your brain. It requires you not going, Okay, I'm going to turn my brain off while I engage. I think again. Carrie Wallace, I just loved your interview with her. But I think, I think she was the one that talked a bit about, you know, the discipline of of creativity, you know, instead of, instead of, kind of shutting off the creativity. And she talks about creativity as a prayer practice, writing something can be a prayer practice. Singing can can be a prayer practice. And I love that with this conversation, with that question of, can you enable can? Can you sit with the spirit watching the movie together and have the conversation that you would have with your friends as you're watching it? Can watching a secular movie like Thunderbolts be a prayer? That's the long answer. I think all of my answers are gonna be long answers. But
Joshua Johnson:yes, yes, it can be a prayer. This is, you know, I love. Josh Larsen has a book called 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 of a spiritual discipline. Is actually watching a movie or something with, with. Spirit. I really love watching a movie, and I like to do it with spirit on my own sometimes, and just go for a walk afterwards, and, like, really just digest it and discern what was happening and and really go into it. I
Sean Gaffney:love that idea. I see movies where about once every other week with some friends from church, and we always go out after and have a conversation about, what did we see? What were they saying? What was happening in there? If we're
Joshua Johnson: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 we relate to God. Is story. How can we embody story to others. So how do we so this is an evangelism question, because evangelism, I think, is, is storytelling? Yes, it is a it's a storytelling medium of the church to actually let people know that there is a bigger story that they should are in, and we should invite people in to live this story out. Is there a better way for us to embody the story when we're sharing the story with others? Yeah?
Sean Gaffney: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 know that they have a reason. Books and the, you know, be ready with the argument book and the Josh McDowell's, love those. Love those. But I think we've overemphasized argument, and we've overemphasized reason we need to be smart. We need to have reason. But that's not the road to salvation. The church made a mistake during the Enlightenment, I think because the age of reason, it's like we were we can reason our way through to the solution to any 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 of story. That's where this, this concept of, you know, everything is literal, therefore everything has no meaning beyond what it means. And God did not design everything as literal. He designed everything to have meaning. So can we embody? My friend Kathy did? It was kind of like a Peace Corps type thing. Down to Guatemala. Her job was to teach farming techniques, because the farmers there were struggling. She had many predecessors. Many people had gone with the organization before. Went down, gave lectures, 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 no lectures, no conversations, other than howdy neighbor and be cut being a good neighbor to the people around her. And then at the end of the year, the people 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 the embodying of it. We need to live as if we love God above all else, and we need to live as if we love our neighbor above all else. We need to to live as if we're not the most important thing. We need to live as if we've been redeemed. We need to live as if we're broken people, and as if we're working on ourselves. We need to live as people of hope who have a hope not because we've arrived, but we have a hope because we haven't arrived the people around us, if the people around us see us fall and get back up, if the people around us see us like during the plague, we missed a huge opportunity. During the plague, the church grew tremendously because the people who did not have God ran away. The people who knew God ran into the sick the sick areas if, if, if we believe that what we say is true. You know, if I were to go to you and say, hey, you know the key of souls, the best car ever, you need to buy a Kia Soul. Personally, I drive a Dodge Ram. But you should do this right? Then nobody's going to be buying the Kia Soul. It's funny. I picked a soul. I happen to drive a soul, but the soul right? If you say you need Christ, you need, you need to treat your wife well. Oh, am I having a fair share? You need, you need, you know, you need to follow Christ. He says, take care of the poor. Do I take care of number one? Sure, right? Then, then they know it's like the movie. They know we don't believe it because we're not putting the effort into it to follow what we believe. So embody, be a good neighbor. Love your love your neighbors. What is the quote that's given to Assisi? Right? Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. He doesn't say, don't use words. Use your words. He doesn't say, Don't do that. But that shouldn't be that the words should be coming after the embodiment. I wanna
Joshua Johnson:know how your creativity so as a storyteller and a writer, how does that inform some of your spirituality, some of your relationship with God. How does that affect it?
Sean Gaffney:Yeah, I was really struck. There's a Madelene lengo quote, I think it's in walking on water, where she says, A student asked her, you know, how does, how does God affect your writing? And she said, Oh, no, no, it's the other way around. My writing affects my relationship with God. Part of part of it is, as a creative you have to get out of the way. So the best storytelling is not the storytelling you know. The best Christopher Nolan movies aren't the movies that you can see, oh, this that there's a Christopher Nolan moment. There's another Christopher Nolan moment. They're the they're the movies where he has a big idea and then he gets out of the way and you forget you're in a story, right? That's true for the for all movies, right? The best ones are the ones that you forget you're in a movie. The best, the best creating, is when you forget you're creating. It's when you get out of the way. So a lot of a lot of being a creator is being trying to become more and more in tune with inspiration. I call inspiration the Holy Spirit. Other other people in the world, just call it inspiration. But it's the Holy Spirit being in tune with it, listening to it, letting the story talk to you, rather than you telling the story what to do, because that's where, that's where God really comes in. Andrea Nash fellow, she also teaches her with me, she wrote mom's night out in a slew of other movies and and she she's in talking about, you know, messages and movies. She's like, I'm in the Christian market. All of my movies are going to have a message that's that's by design. The producers want a message. The audience wants a message. So there's going to be a message says, I better make sure that it's the message God wants to be given, so that, you know, kind of on the surface as a creator, getting in touch with the Creator is, is just common sense. So every story I'm working on, you know, I tell for my students, there's a thing called need for a character, character, character, something a character needs. It's a psychological thing. I describe it to my students. I say, if God looked at this character and said, here's one gift I want to give him that's going to make him a more human, a fuller human being. What would it be as as a writer that forces me to look at all of my characters through a godlands, and it's easier for me after I've been looking at, you know, I'm writing, you know, if I write a story and this woman goes into town and, you know, has to deal with the town folk, right? It's easier for me once I've looked at each of those characters, including the town bully, and said, What would God want for him to then be in the real world and look at my neighbor and go, God, what do you want for this person? How can I help so, so if you can transfer it from, you know, the communion necessary while you're creating to the communion when you're when you're outside of that, it draws you closer to what is God's heart? What does God want in this world? What does 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, it through the process of storytelling that didn't fulfill him. Okay? God that that guy who keeps having his dog take his dump on my lawn, I see what you're saying here. Revenge maybe is not the way I should go, right? It also changes, you know, understanding story changes how I even read the Bible, because I I'm able to read it for more than the than the simple you know, when I, when I read a a parable by Jesus. I'm not looking for what's the one thing that Jesus is trying to say? I'm saying, Oh, he told it as a story, which means he's trying to say a lot more than the one thing. So what is, what is my new lesson this time in reading it?
Joshua Johnson:Is there a movie that impacted your own faith that you can remember,
Sean Gaffney:there have been movies that have really there have been movies have made me wrestle with practical ethics and and it made me I was always a black and white, it's either right or it's wrong. And there's movies that have challenged that in a good way, I think, for me. And there, there have been movies that have made me see God clearer. One movie that made me see God clearer is stranger than fiction, which is a movie about a guy living his life who then realizes he's a character in a book. And there's therefore, there's an author, and he has to he. Goes and tries to find the author and there, you know, I don't want to spoil it for anybody who does watch it, but he's confronted with a good storytelling decision that's not a good thing for him. And by getting to know the author and reading the whole book, he comes to accept his part in the larger story, and that really helped me to see God directing our lives. And like, Well, God, why would I have to go through that thing that is not great for me? Oh, if I read the book, I would see why it's it's important to everybody, you know. And then, and then a movie that helped with the ethical gray would be The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. It's an old movie. I saw it as a kid, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne. And there are things that are Jimmy Stewart character was a lot like me, like everything is black and white, and he can't deal with the way John Wayne deals with things and problems, and ultimately has to come to accept something 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 is it's a wrestling movie. It's not a movie that says, no, no, you need 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 that makes me go on a regular basis. This is not as easy as Dumbledore says to Harry Potter at some point. At one point, he says, there's going to come a time that you're going to have to choose between what is right and what is easy. It's not a choice between what's right and wrong. That's an easy choice. That's an easy choice, but it's a choice between what's right and what's what's you know, in that case, easy or the lesser of two, or the those
Joshua Johnson:two movies, all right, couple questions here at the end. One, if you go back your 21 year old self, old self, what advice would you
Sean Gaffney:give the big the big piece of advice, which is something I talk a lot to my students now about, because I wish I knew that. And when, when you're looking at God's plan for you, when you're walking through your life, walking with God, it's not about the the destination. It's about the direction. God is concerned about the direction, not the destination. And we so often, like in our careers, say, I want to be in Hollywood. I want to make 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 up here, and God might be, no, no, I made you a storyteller because I need you over here. I need you at this church in Iowa doing their media. That's, that's where I need you. So Don't, don't mistake, don't forget about the the direction are you going, where God wants you to go. You know, am I living in God's will? Isn't did I arrive where God wanted me to arrive? Is am I taking the step I'm taking right now? Is that the step he wants me to take? Am I facing the right direction? So that's what I would stop worrying so much about the end result. It's the journey, right?
Joshua Johnson:Yes. It's just embodying who you are, how God created you to be, and who he made you to be. I love that. That's so good. And you could do that anywhere, anywhere you could be a storyteller, anywhere. Yes, absolutely, that's fantastic. Anything you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend.
Sean Gaffney:Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do another cheat here, because this is something I know you know about already, but a great companion piece to my book is Daniel Schwab, ours, god of story, found out that Daniel was going to be teaching at the same conference I was going to be teaching. I hadn't heard of his book. His book had just come out, and I panicked, because I thought, Oh no, this is he's it's going to be my book, but better, and in reading it is actually it's a great companion piece to it. I know I'm laughing here because Joshua, I know you, you interviewed him. You have an episode. I wrote it down to 72 just so I could share it. But I loved everything about that book, and that book helped to change, even though I've steeped in story, even though I'm steeped in story as God's story, reading it through Daniel's eyes and the especially the examples he gives, because he'll he'll talk about a story element, and then he'll give a point of view of 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 highly recommend
Joshua Johnson:that. It's a great book. I love Daniel. It's good guy. And, yeah, I don't know why he's like, yeah, he's like, 20 minutes for me, and I really never met him in person, but
Sean Gaffney:he's hundreds of miles from me. But I met him in person. I went up to you,
Joshua Johnson:yes, you have what? See anything you've been watching lately, recommend.
Sean Gaffney:I've been listening to fascinating and again, talking about how to hear the voice of the other through through some commonalities. There is a podcast called Dolly Parton's America, and I think it's like a eight part podcast, and it's, it's two, I can't remember their names, unfortunately, I apologize for that, but the two producers kind of exploring. The start of it is them at a Dolly Parton concert and seeing a guy wearing a maga hat next to a lesbian couple, and all of them together, just lost enjoying Dolly Parton. And he thought, How in the world can one person bring our extremes together? So it explores a lot about it, but I learned a lot about dolly her faith, how her faith is reflected. I've been challenged a lot about how I reflect my faith and how, how, how I should do things differently, but also the effect of her music, her approaches. It's a brilliant little documentary series, and again, made by made by non believers, and they're very upfront about it. They do an entire episode about faith, and they started by saying, I don't have this. So I was very, very nervous to talk to dolly about it, because I was afraid we're going to suddenly go whoosh, and suddenly everything was going to fall apart. So it's kind of but it's a beautiful, beautiful little series,
Joshua Johnson:yes, well, your book, meta story, what Marvel and the Messiah can teach us about great storytelling, is available now, and you could go get that. How can people get your book? How can people connect with you? Where would you like to point people
Sean Gaffney:to? Oh, thank you. Yeah, I have a website, www.gaffneyinkwell.com, so that's G, A, F as in Frank, F as in Frank, N, E, y, I, N, K, W, E, l, l.com. You can go there. You can order the book through there. You can also sign up for a newsletter. I have a monthly newsletter with just kind of tips to writers. I also have links on there to a YouTube series where I explore movies and TV shows. My gimmick is I exercise while I watch things. And I thought, You know what? If I see a good example or a negative example, I'm going to just pause the TV, hop off the bike and talk to the camera so little five minute chunks of examples. Also, my handle on all of the socials is at Gaffney inkwell. So you can order my book through the website. You can also go to Amazon. You can go to Barnes and Noble anywhere that books are sold.
Joshua Johnson:Great. Well, I would, yeah, highly recommend following Sean as he is giving you tips as a creative storyteller. This book is fantastic, so highly recommend it if you really want to understand what story is and how we are part of this grander story, this meta story, and how to actually share and tell stories. This is a fantastic book, so go and get it. I definitely recommend this one. So Sean, thank you for this conversation. It was fun. It was a great conversation. Really enjoyed getting getting the story with you. So thank you very much. Thank you. Applause.
