Stories Are Soul Food Canon Press

Nate talks about his ability to sense changes in the weather, and proceeds to roast Brian for his opinions on prologues. But that's not the occasion for this wandering episode: If you're a regular SASF listener, you'll know that the guys are big proponents of filtering films for family movie night (they recommend ClearPlay and VidAngel both). But what about books? When do books cross the line, and what should you do about it? Brian and Nate discuss this question. They kick things off, though, with a discussion on prologues -- turns out Brian hates them and Nate has written them, so stay tuned for the drama.

#SASF #StoriesAreSoulFood #Filters #Books #Movies #NDWilson #prologues

Nate claims that talking about music is boring, but in this episode you're going to find out he has written lyrics to more than twenty (!) songs (as yet unscored). You're even going to get one scandalous title. Then Brian ambushes Nate by reading a stanza of Taylor Swift's new lyrics, and the guys discuss all the questions that come along with music. What if you're a mom who sings secular jazz to her kids at bedtime? ("You are all I long for / all I worship and adore.") More power to you! What if you're a high school girl who bops to TSwift in her car all the time? Be careful you're not using your playlist as an aid to personal fantasy. Nate makes the point that it's just as easy to fantasize while reading Bronte, but your parents may not think to object to the classics. What about young guys whose workout tracks are a solid mass of E (for Explicit)? Masculine version of personal fantasy. How do you immunize yourself to music's pop culture? Well, that's the question. To conclude, Brian laments the decline of story-telling ballads into pop music -- and Nate says they're not even on the same tree: a Taylor Swift song is more of Starbucks frappe. What is the modern ballad? THE MOVIE.

#SASF #StoriesAreSoulFood #Jazz #Country #playlist #TaylorSwift #TorturedPoetsDepartment #Swifties #ballads

Can you name a successful Christian artist living today? Right now, to be a Christian artist means to be not a very good Christian and not a very good artist. Nate and Brian welcome the larger-than-life figure of Doug TenNapel to the SASF show to discuss this problem. Doug T. is a comic artist and video game maker who has pivoted with the times and is now reaching a monthly audience of 17 million+ via his YouTube show, Doug in Exile, where he is known for political noticing. But the guys aren't here to talk about politics -- they want to debate art and Christianity and why so many artists are deviants. Doug tells awful stories about furries: Doug's been calling out perverts in Hollywood since the late 80s, and the furries who just recently started biting kids in public schools are just one more thing that Doug T. foretold. Since artists are the canaries in the world's coal mines, we know things are bad when our artists are crazy. Nate asks Doug to name one successful artist who isn't screwed up. Doug brings up the cave art in Lascaux, and hypothesizes that this early artist might be the only one who didn't sell out. Nate says he tells young Christian kids NOT to join the art world -- books, movies, paintings-- because it's corrupt and will try to chew them up and spit them out. Doug agrees, and then offers his own solution to the twin problems of art vs morality and commerce. Nate wants the Christian artist to know the industry's demands, Doug wants the Christian artist to never think once about what his audience wants. But both of them want to protect young artists from being ramrodded into the machine, and both of them are very indie in their efforts, and so Brian asks Nate and Doug why they have moved on from the publishing world, and the guys argue about whether the goal of art is to innovate. They argue about fine art being experiential or a tradesman-like craft. The crux of the show comes when Nate tells Doug he has a little bit of "follow your heart-ness" in him. Doug objects -- sort of. You'll also hear a bit about Doug's dreams for a cardboard movie, what Nate would work on if he had ten million dollars, how Doug had to give himself grace to make art.  And of course you'll hear a bunch of great one lines: "Bulk is still a quality", "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly... so that you can learn to do it goodly," "I can't think of successful Christian artists who didn't sell out," and much more...

#SASF #StoriesAreSoulFood #DougTenNapel #Cardboard #EarthwormJim #BigfootBill #Nnewts #DougInExile #NDWilson #CanonPress #Publishing #Art #DeviantArt #ArtDebate #ChristianArt #ChristianArtists #CavesofLascaux

Breaking news: Nate's son Rory is a senior at Columbia University where, late last night (Monday April 29th), a mob of professional protestors advocating intifada and abolition of Israel climbed through dorms and tried take possession of a university building. Only Rory and his friend Charles stood up to bullies at the door of Hamilton Hall, defying hundreds of protestors, some professional antifa types, slinging threats and trying to pull them away with human chains and the crush of the crowd. Nate calls this moment of bravery Rory's "true graduation", and describes how he and his wife couldn't be prouder as parents. When campus security and actual police failed to respond, other Christian friends pulled the students away and the Hall was taken, windows smashed, and the protestors barricaded themselves inside. But the moment -- two calm students facing a mob of masked protestors in shemaghs -- was a perfect example of flipping the script and making a lie of the pro-Palestinian bullies' claim to be the oppressed. Nate and Brian break down the whole event, including how Christians can learn from radicals like Saul Alinsky by applying Doug Wilson's Rules for Reformers. When you see a bully, you shouldn't be doing "wuss calculus" about whether you will win. That kind of math can happen later. To quote Nate's novel Dandelion Fire, "Sometimes standing against evil is more important than defeating it. The greatest heroes stand because it is right to do so, not because they believe they will walk away with their lives. Such selfless courage is a victory in itself." Congratulations on your graduation, Rory!

#SASF #StoriesAreSoulFood #BreakingNews #ColumbiaUniveristy #ProPalestine #Intifada #NDWilson #DouglasWilson #TuckerCarlson #ProudParents

FACE YOUR FEARS: If this week's "Soul Food" discussion is a sandwich, the first slice of bread is advice for helping your children face their fears, the other slice of bread is how moms and dads fail to face their fears as adults, and the mystery meat in the middle is delightful discussion on demon possession, Jesus and Legion and the pigs, why demons seem to hate water, and why exorcisms happen more in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox communities than, say, Presbyterian ones. There's some speculation in that middle section -- but also a dose of biblical interpretation about Jesus as the strong man in Mark 5, and how he fulfils David's story in his rescuing of the demons. You'll also hear why most horror movies are dumb and why it's more helpful to look for scary stuff in Flannery O'Connor's short stories of hypocritical, self-obsessed grownups.

#SASF #StoriesAreSoulFood #demons #exorcism #FaceYourFears #FlanneryOConnor

Nate and Brian discuss Doug Wilson's gospel-filled appearance on the Tucker Carlson Network. Turns out, this isn't Doug's first big media rodeo, and it makes perfect SASF fodder to discuss the different characters that come out of the woodwork after such an event. The guys discuss the "I don't agree with Doug on everything, but" guy, the "criticize you publicly and beg for private favors" guy, and of course the outright haters vs. the tough-minded allies (we know who you are, SASF kingdom).  Oh, and of course the Big Eva folks -- who are actually Tiny Eva -- who are unwilling to mention Doug's name for fear they might get cooties. But we don't care about their tiny walled commune -- because the Gospel is so much bigger. As many a SASF episode does, the conversation launches into a discussion of how not to be a terrible dad who, for example, abdicates on his kids' homeschooling and then blames his wife for the bad result. The episode ends with a classic sign-out: "Go hard, suffer, keep the Sabbath. This has been Stories Are Soul Food."
If you want to listen to the audio of the Doug / Tucker episode, check it out on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3HYgx4GuY9Z8J7o6VKIp0l?si=FM_HhemDRniSQ-WmvE89tw

#SASF #StoriesAreSoulFood #TuckerCarlsonNetwork #TuckerCarlson #DougWilson #BigEva #BadDads