Is Digital Culture Opening Doors to the Demonic?
Cameron (00:00.824)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host, Cameron McAllister.
Nathan (00:04.839)
And I'm your cohost, Nathan Rittenhouse.
Cameron (00:06.84)
Are we still scared of demons and devils and the supernatural? We are actually, we are, that fear hasn't gone away. And it's interesting, a lot of ink has been spilled recently, Nathan, on the fact that we're not really as disenchanted as we think we are. There's a book that came out called The Myth of Disenchantment and a lot of others have followed on that theme.
Nathan (00:12.265)
More so than ever.
Cameron (00:31.798)
And also something like Tara Isabel Burton's Strange Rights, R-I-T-E-S, is also looking at the religious habits of people nowadays.
Nathan (00:37.131)
Mm-hmm.
and it's not even within the academic or religious worlds. I mean, you can find untold numbers of references to this in your local shops and online conversations. So yeah, I don't think we have to argue this point at all.
Cameron (00:55.81)
Yep. Yep. And now that you said that, you know, this is happening and there's a non-academic read, I'm going to promptly quote a scholar because that's just what I do. The guy named Roger Luckhurst brought out a beautiful book called Gothic, basically just tracing the history of the movement. It's actually, if you squint hard enough, you can see it behind me on my shelf. University Press, replete with gorgeous illustrations.
Nathan (01:04.427)
Yeah.
Cameron (01:25.144)
But in that book, Roger Luckhurst says that we should basically think of the Gothic. And by the way, if you want to know what the Gothic is, if you want a precise definition, good luck. of, yeah, so I'll give you his definition, which I think is helpful. The Gothic is one of those things where you say Gothic and most people have a very definitive idea. They just can't necessarily put it into a straightforward definition. But you could talk about, of course, Gothic architecture. That's a very easy.
Nathan (01:36.181)
Well, I was about to ask, so...
Nathan (01:54.123)
Well, that's what I always think of immediately in the broken arches. Yeah
Cameron (01:55.466)
Easy place to point. Yes, absolutely. you know, flying buttresses and that kind of thing. mean, Gothic architecture is a very real accomplishment and you can point to definitive examples and yes, the pointed arches, all of that. It's all there. But Gothic, when we apply it to literature or something like that, we all have a pretty decent idea. So we tend to think of gibbous moons and haunted, you know, castles and, you know, some
Nathan (02:23.68)
Bats.
Cameron (02:24.456)
Bats, right. Well, that, I mean, so this is just sort of the way it looks. This is the aesthetic of the Gothic. But the point would be nowadays that, that's, we still like that stuff, but it's kind of, we don't see it as necessarily scary.
Nathan (02:27.787)
Wait, how are those connected at all? Is there a?
Nathan (02:36.395)
Okay.
Cameron (02:46.022)
quaint. It's fun. It's kind of, it's old fashioned. It's like the equivalent of a black and white movie with, yes, haunted castles and all of that. I love, it's like a costume drama, right? Absolutely. Count Dracula is a great place to point to, especially think of the black and white, the Bela Lugosi film has all of that in it, in droves. And if you look at some of the old Gothic novels, as they started in England in particular,
Nathan (02:56.563)
The Count Dracula kind of,
Cameron (03:13.368)
They're all there, the castle of Ortrondo and so on. But Roger Lucker says, the best way to think of the Gothic is as a traveling set of tropes. So the tropes that we've just mentioned, the bats, the gibbous moon, the castle, the cemeteries, all of that. So they travel, they change, they adapt. And so what was once yesterday's Gothic now looks a lot different in that sense.
Nathan (03:39.988)
It's cartoonish.
Cameron (03:41.9)
Well, today actually some, yeah, absolutely it is. But now think about the way we have a real, a lot of scary films right now that are coming out that are actually really truly succeeding in the sense that they're scaring people. And I I like scary movies. So just, this is the confession time. If you don't know that, if you haven't tuned in before, I'm Cameron McAllister. I like scary movies. Yep. Nathan doesn't.
Nathan (03:43.344)
I mean, our version of the old school gothic is cartoonish.
Nathan (04:07.903)
and I'm Nathan Rittenhouse and I don't, so this balance is out.
Cameron (04:10.732)
I always have, and always have, since, so one of the, but a good scary film, still, the age-old litmus test is really, or scary anything, can actually scare you. it's not, horror films that gross you out, yeah, it's not as hard to gross somebody out. It's very hard to actually scare somebody. Just like, in that sense, it's a little bit like a comedy. It's not easy to make a film that is genuinely,
funny that really is laugh out loud funny. And same thing with horror. It's a very unforgiving genre. It's very hard to get somebody. Usually if you try to scare somebody and you go too far, you're just going to, there's a fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous and you just, ends up just being goofy. It's not, and it's not scary anymore. And also fear changes according to the different times in which we live. You know, there are different things that seem scary at different times, but now the Gothic increasingly is in online spaces.
or it involves modern technologies. Now, horror has always involved technologies. So for a long time, I think one of the most interesting genres for a while was found footage. And found footage still does some really clever stuff. But think of, mean, the prime example here was the Blair Witch Project.
Nathan (05:29.907)
Well, was that not a little easier though because like the early technology wasn't that great. So like the all shaky VHS quality of the home camcorder, uber pixelated.
Cameron (05:38.05)
Yeah.
Well, it added a degree of stark realism that now there were earlier found footage films that weren't as, one very notorious one called Cannibal Holocaust and the name should tell you all you need to know. But the Blair Witch Project, when it came out in, I think it was 1999, people genuinely didn't, there were many, many people who thought it really was real. And the marketing campaign behind it was ingenious. So part and parcel of the films
terrifying effect had to do with how it did. It felt people thought it was this actually recovered footage. Now that we know better the Blair Witch. I still think it's a frightening film, but I understand why a lot of people think, well, this was a product of its time. It's not scary anymore, but that the shaky footage and all of those amateur aspects upped the realism of it. But part of what I want to get at Nathan is that traveling tropes piece.
Found footage functions here just like a cursed manuscript that is discovered or an old artifact. Yeah.
Nathan (06:47.061)
Hang on a second, bring me along with you here. So we have gothic as an aesthetic.
Cameron (06:53.262)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (06:54.805)
There has to be a metaphysical, philosophical, or spiritual... So, he's talking about a trope transitioning through time. Say a little bit more about what that... So, there's something that's symbolized in the symbol shift. But we're transitioning... Is it just scary? Or is it a... I'm trying to think, what is the continuity? Is it just fear that's being conveyed through the aesthetic?
that's moving through time or is there something more?
Wait, hang on. All right, scrap my question for a second, Cameron. I think in the broader question you might answer this, which is that, okay, if historically the bat was the scary thing of the aesthetic, what is the new modern equivalent of the bat? Like people aren't running around visiting haunted houses other than as a joke.
Cameron (08:59.118)
All right, let's soldier on. Yep, we'll try it. Okay.
Cameron (09:20.717)
Right.
Nathan (09:24.423)
Now, I do know people my age who when they were kids like going into old as you know, insane asylums and that kind of thing was very much a part of this. But now most people aren't living physical outside outdoor lives. So where does this go?
Cameron (09:31.074)
Yep.
Cameron (09:40.545)
Yeah, think it involves a lot of it involves haunted, supposedly haunted technologies. So whether it's a recovered VHS tape or now increasingly because VHS is a little outdated now, camcorder footage, know, so found footage is one example. Another way to put it is not so much the bat, but think about the recovered ancient accursed manuscript. Or I think of the famous ghost stories of M.R. James.
One of the most famous is called a whistle and I'll come to you where a man digs up an ancient whistle which summons a malevolent ghost that oppresses him.
Nathan (10:23.307)
Okay, but there's a flip here in that that still has a physical whistle. And even the old-found footage is like people running around in the woods and shaky cameras and what's coming down the chimney and all that. You watched a film recently that jumps from the physical totally into the digital.
Cameron (10:42.333)
The film is called Undertone because it's about a girl who is a co-host of a podcast called Undertone where they examine all things spooky. She is the resident skeptic and then her co-host who you never see in the movie, just hears voice. It's kind of a chamber piece. The only characters visible in this entire film
Nathan (10:53.227)
Dun dun dun!
Cameron (11:10.318)
Her name's Evie Babbage and her mom who is convalescing. Well, actually her mom is dying in a coma and she's her mom's caretaker in her mom's last days. So you have a mother in a coma in the upstairs bedroom and then you have this heroine of the film, Evie. And those are the only two people you see on screen for the whole film. So it's very isolated, shot in the home of the director of the movie.
his childhood home where, incidentally, he had been the caretaker for both of his parents before they both passed away. So some haunting details went into the, he wrote this film in that home and then shot the film in the home. So some interesting background there, but they have this spooky podcast. And so then they get these 10 audio files that are sent from an anonymous email address. And each of them, I mean, in some sense, there's a necessary
necessarily sort of gimmicky aspect to this. So the film progresses as they listen to each of these audio files and they get spookier as they go. But also the other thing that the film, so the movie is genuinely unsettling. I would say it's saying something, I'm hard to scare. I really am.
Nathan (12:28.169)
Which, that's saying something coming from Cameron.
Well, that's why I'm fast. I want to hear more about this because you have seen for you to be like, it's at this point, it's hard for me to think that you watching a movie about podcast hosts finding audio files is legitimately creepy. Carry on. I'm fascinated now.
Cameron (12:47.535)
Well part of it is the skill and the craftsmanship that goes into the film. you've got to have some real skill to pull this off. Now whether Undertone will be scary to people 20 years from now, I don't know. But part of what makes it work so well is it's very immersive. So when the character, when Evie puts her headphones on, they look exactly like mine, when she puts those on, the sound switches in the theater and it's very immersive. so the sound,
Sound plays a very pivotal role in it. So the atmosphere in this film is immaculate. It's also a slow burn. It's subtle. So here's something that's going to surprise, I think, some people today. Films that actually scare people today have to be a good deal more subtle. Now that sounds, I think, counterintuitive. I think your average person would say, no, horror films need to be more gory than ever. They need to be more, yeah, absolutely. And there are a good deal.
Nathan (13:42.121)
jumpscare in blood.
Cameron (13:46.479)
Many horror films that come out do still indulge in all of those tricks, all of those cheap thrills, as you will, if you will. But the ones that actually get under people's are subtle. They have to be quiet and they involve a lot of liminal spaces. I have to say a few words about the liminal spaces thing here, because this is big in horror right now. It's a huge... Well, and I'll give you... I can actually point to a concrete...
Nathan (14:06.111)
Wait, say that and then I have something I want to add.
Cameron (14:15.203)
kind of example of where it's coming from. so one of the, lot of this stuff begins in online, in the online world, YouTubers making shorts. some of these, increasingly there's an article in the New Yorker Nathan on how the future of horror is coming from YouTube. Cause there are several YouTubers, know, three recent prominent, prominent examples who have gotten humongous movie deals because they've made, they've made successful YouTube shorts for like
No, no money at all. One guy, Cory Barker, his movie obsession coming up with focus features, six million dollar deal. He made a film called Milk and Cereal, which I really liked. And it was, I think he made it for $800. It was a found footage style film about a serial killer. He's, Cory Barker, think, I don't know, he's 22, maybe 23. But, and here he is with the six million dollar movie deal. And his movie is the most anticipated for me. I'm really excited about it.
But another guy, this guy is only 19 now. He made it, so if you know anything about the back rooms, the back rooms was, talk about liminal spaces. It's basically this series of videos of a person trapped in empty office space where it's just endless corridors. But then you gradually get the impression that there's something in there. And so now back rooms, A24, the studio that put out Undertone.
just picked it up and that's coming out here soon too. He's the youngest director ever to be signed there. So this liminal space, long hallways or being stuck in disused office spaces or deserted public places. I think this got really big in COVID when you saw a world deserted and it was really eerie and ominous looking. Well, I think the place you'd point there, and this is Roger Luckhurst, is the labyrinth. And in the labyrinth, of course, there's a minotaur in there somewhere. There's a monstrous minotaur and
So we're almost, we are mythologically primed, if you see long corridors dimly lit or something like that, to expect something monstrous behind one of the corners or one of the corridors. And the film that does this the best, by the way, the most classic film to do this is The Shining from Stanley Kubrick, you have, Jack Nicholson in the film is explicitly identified with the Minotaur when the characters are being chased through a maze at the end of the...
Cameron (16:43.393)
at the end of the film in the hotel. But that's very prevalent as well. So these films are quieter. They're slow burns. They don't involve gore and blood. There is barely any onscreen violence at all in Undertone, if there is any at all. They are very subtle. You see almost nothing of the monster. It's the same with the Blair Witch project. There's no Blair Witches visible anywhere in the film.
but it gets under your skin in very powerful ways. I'm gonna stop there for now.
Nathan (17:22.165)
So what's the appeal?
Cameron (17:25.785)
Well, I like being scared, but I also like, but so on a, if you want a philosophical answer from me, films like undertone show by scaring us that we believe in more than we say we do. And I think that's absolutely fascinating. So a lot of people who are very jaded kind of skeptical figures and the, the brilliance of a film like undertone is the most skeptical character.
We have the main character who's so skeptical. And so she functions as a surrogate for the audience. She, our skepticism, she embodies our skepticism and she is really mercilessly skeptical. But as she slowly begins to crumble and as these audiophiles increasingly start to get under her skin and really, really deeply bother her, we've identified with her so strongly that it starts to get to us more and more.
Nathan (18:02.091)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (18:23.267)
The Exorcist honestly did this as well with the figure of the Catholic priest and the Exorcist, the priest is the most skeptical character at first. And as he gradually melts, we do too. But part of what I'm getting at here is just that these films and a film like Undertone work because they've slowed things down. They are more subtle. They're not so sensationalistic. And there are plenty of people who probably roll their eyes at this, but if you
If you actually just watch the film, I mean, there were several scenes where I had full body chills, which has, I can't remember the last time a film had that effect on me because it's just a way of showing in quotidian, very normal, mundane settings that there is more to life than meets the eye, that there are more things on heaven.
in heaven and on earth and are dreamed of in our philosophies. So it meets us in those kind of moments as modern people, because we just tend to think, we've got this all figured out. We know better now. We're not like those benighted, I think, know, bats and cemeteries and castles, think medieval. You know, that's old fashioned fear and we've outgrown that now. But it's something else when this stuff invades, these ancient forces invade our podcasts.
The videos we watch online, the internet, the online spaces, and also involve scenarios. There's more going on in the film too. Specifically, it's filled with very heavy Catholic imagery. This girl's mom is Catholic, so there are saints all over the walls, there's Mother Mary, and also the film is filled to the brim with guilt.
I don't want to be too stereotypical here, but she feels very guilty. She feels like she has in some ways brought her mom to a place of illness by disappointing her and all of that. Films that involve guilt tend to be really scary too, because there's a lot of films these days, scary films, involve grief and guilt. You need real complex psychology in the film. You need fleshed out characters.
Cameron (20:49.889)
And you need to slow down. So I just think this is, this is interesting because this it's what is getting through to us in a time of sensationalism and hype and speed and acceleration. The scariest films are slower. They're more emotionally rich and they're very subtle.
Nathan (21:13.589)
What is the relationship between this and online church? Weird question. I'll flesh it out. But there's...
A sense in which, neither of us believe that online church is a real thing. We'll just say that for the audience, coming out of the gate here. Cause we, we feel like it does need to be physically embodied, in community in relation to that actual other people and a whole other host of things that don't work digitally or metaphorically or from a distance. But an increasingly number of the world does engage that the totality of their experience is through their screens and audio.
And is this the... Like, when was the last time you actually had a close encounter with a bat?
Cameron (22:03.107)
Right. No, you're, you're, yep.
Nathan (22:04.723)
I do from time to time, bats aren't too scary to me.
Cameron (22:12.483)
No, what you're getting at is important. So you're talking about basic realism here. David Foster Wallace once, somebody asked him, why do you have all of these ads that are built, why all these pop culture references built into your fiction? And he said, well, it's just, that is, if you're writing fiction these days that reflects the world that you're walking through, this is the world I live in. Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote about babbling Brooks and 10 turn Abby.
because that was part of the scenery of their lives. So the scenery of our lives involves technology, involves screens all the time. So scary things showing up on screens and the notion that these, what you're watching could actually open you up to something. This is part of horror's appeal down the ages, that it's not only, one of the very basic fears about horror, especially in the Christian community, Nathan, is that it's inherently, it will contaminate you in some way, pollute you.
Or open you up. I mean, I grew up in evangelical circles where they said, you know, you don't want to open a door. Undertone is explicitly designed to implicate you, the viewer in the curse that's in that final audio file. So fair warning, if that gets under your skin, you get to that final audio file. You know, if you buy into the film's story, no, now you're, now you're, you're probably infected.
by this thing. Yeah.
Nathan (23:42.955)
So, let me ask you question then. So, Paul Kingsnorth's argument is that our technological obsession culturally is actually manifesting an actual spiritual, malevolent spiritual reality. Paul Kingsnorth is not your 1980s homeschool mom.
Cameron (23:54.189)
Yes.
Cameron (23:57.935)
Correct. Yes.
Cameron (24:03.039)
No. He's a serious intellectual and a serious artist. Yeah.
Nathan (24:06.687)
Well, there are serious artists and intellectuals who are 1980s homeschool moms too. But I'm just saying there's a sense in which that that argument is still being made. And I think like if, if I look around the community in the world of people that I see is that there is a deep correlation between an infatuation with screens and deep spiritual unrest, unease and paranoia and life in general. Now,
Cameron (24:09.9)
Sure.
Nathan (24:35.955)
Whether or not I'm saying that that totally is manifestation of it, jump through your zoom camera and gotcha. Or it's just, I'm reposturing myself. But I don't think it comes through scary movies. I think it comes through all sorts of other things, but anyhow.
Cameron (24:36.835)
Yep. Well.
Cameron (24:44.717)
Well, yeah.
Let's just think.
Yeah, I think Paul Kings North would find Undertown very frightening because it's, but I think he would probably find it to be, I think he would also say this is a really good film, but it's scary for the reasons that you just outlined. If we believe that there are malign power, know, spiritual powers out there, you you believe there are, you know, the devil and his minions are indeed real, then, and that they are cunning and clever and that they are
working in cunning and clever and creative ways to hurt us, then you would, then it would, think you just draw a very, it would be a very logical conclusion to say that, the way technology functions right now to harness people to various forms of bondage and addiction, the way it, just, it just, yeah, on and on we could go listing the disastrous effects that it has. Then,
Nathan (25:43.007)
binds you to things that aren't real.
Cameron (25:50.539)
I think on a subconscious level, some people will see, I mean, we'll see these kinds of films and then, and they will experience a very kind of, what's going to sound weird, a primal kind of almost ancient fear watching a film about haunted audio files. Because it's the same, it's the same old ancient fears, but it's just showing up in our everyday scenery. This is the, this is why the exorcist was so scary.
Nathan (26:20.341)
Well, let me.
Cameron (26:20.355)
The exorcist hits Georgetown, know, it's so demonic possession in the modern world. This is why the exorcism of Emily Rose was really scary because you have exorcism, you have a case of alleged possession, and then you have a courtroom setting, which adds a whole nother degree of modern realism to it. And there's this, I remember a friend of mine watched it in college and was so scared he was almost panicked. Cause it was just, this is like a paradigm shifting kind of, and it happens at the gut level.
Nathan (26:50.581)
Well, can I give some reasons why I think that's how that works? So it's the same thing, you are dealing with somebody who's possessed or super high on bath salts, meth, whatever, or a spider. Let me try to make this connection. I thought dogs are way creepier to me than spiders, but I think the reason that spiders unsettle people
Cameron (26:50.722)
It doesn't, yeah.
Yeah.
Nathan (27:17.853)
Is it's very hard to look at a spider and tell what it's about to do next You you can't read the cues like is it about to jump on my face or just sit there? it has this I I don't know what's about to happen next. and when you're talking to somebody who's like on drugs They're like there's no cause and effect like I don't understand its decision-making process Origin where it's going what it's thinking or what it wants to do, but I think it could hurt me But it probably won't but I don't know how to control the situation so
The deepest fears come from us feeling out of control.
and there's a Same thing with bats like bats move in erratic patterns That make them hard to catch and they could bite you and there are some stories of people being bitten by bats I've never been bitten by bat. I don't know anybody's been bitten by bat. I see a lot of bats sometimes in my house But but it's the erratic Nature of the of the demonic and the bat and the spider and the snake and the drug addict and the
where you are engaging with something that you're Believing that you know is real that you Think has the potential to hurt you and you have no real handles on how to deal with it
Cameron (28:39.247)
I think that is, mean, the notion that you're completely out of control is very real. mean, one of the, my dad, he, well, yeah, my dad, when he was a young man, not walking with the Lord at all, when he messed around with some, yeah, with the occult, he had some experiences. And part of what was so terrifying about them was that he, as he articulated it to me, he was,
Nathan (28:47.669)
You're vulnerable.
Cameron (29:08.683)
aware that here was something I couldn't control. I was a very strong, powerful person. I could make people do what I wanted. People were afraid of me and intimidated by me. Whatever this was, it operated according to a very different set of rules. I had absolutely no control over it. And it was very, very bad. Whatever it was, it was unclean. It was impure. And I think, yeah, that's, that's
That's a universal experience for people. And that's why films like, that's why the horror genre will continue growing and expanding and moving with the times. But those old fears don't go away. They just, they take on different forms sometimes.
Nathan (30:00.927)
Yeah, but the difference is though, is that I can close the laptop screen. I can turn off the power button to the film, to the digital, to the podcast. Like there's a solution to that. Where most people are engaging these things in genuinely frightful, meaningful ways in their lives, there isn't an off switch. And that's where they start seeking out the church and spiritual help for these things of saying, where is the actual power?
Cameron (30:22.499)
Now switch.
Nathan (30:30.645)
to deal with that which is creepy, which is loose in the world.
Cameron (30:32.193)
yeah, if you are, yeah, there's one, you're watching a movie. mean, think, think about the ring, ring or ringu was the original Japanese version. The ring was the American version. Both were massively successful. In the ring, watch, shoot, you watch this VHS tape and then it's supposedly cursed, gives you a series of surreal images, very unsettling. And then as soon as the video is over, the phone rings, you pick it up and a voice whispers, seven days. And in seven days you die.
Very, very effective, really scary, but it's just a movie. But if you are, as what I think you were hinting at Nathan, increasingly people are experimenting. If you're playing with the occult and something bites back, yeah, there isn't an off switch. This is where we get serious for a second here and say, hey, we're both Christian men and that stuff is real.
And you may think by playing with it, you may experience some pretty amazing stuff. And a lot of people are looking for amazing stuff. You might, but the problem is it's real and you're not in control and it does not have your best in mind. This is stuff that wants to hurt you. Yeah.
Nathan (31:48.363)
You know, I was reading Justin Martyr, so we're talking way back there, and one of the four main features of the things that the early church struggled with helping people in their conversion into the church, so sex, money, and power through violence, I mean, those have all been done away with, so nobody worries about that anymore. But the fourth one was the occult.
and spiritual practices. And what was interesting about the early churches teaching on this is it wasn't like this isn't true and it's silly. It's like we all used to do this and it works. But we don't anymore because it's of the devil and we serve a higher power. So there was no there was no jovial downplaying of like, what a cute cartoonish childish thing. Like, no, we were all involved in that and we don't anymore. And so I think that's a more realistic response to
Cameron (32:22.467)
Yep. Yep.
Cameron (32:43.245)
Yeah. And we should just say as a note here, if this is you, and if you're in this category, you've dabbled and you think you're somewhere you don't want to be, you've started something that you can't finish, we would encourage you to, first of all, you need to get involved in a local church and then reach... Yeah. Yeah. Because often it will involve... No, absolutely not.
Nathan (32:43.743)
reality.
Nathan (33:02.559)
with somebody who will pray for you specifically about these things. This isn't a death sentence, but it's hard to get out of on your own.
Cameron (33:09.839)
Well, one of the big lies that will come is that it's a death sentence. The enemy would have you believe, now you're stuck and it's completely irreversible. This is not the case, but it will sometimes involve a of prayer. You'll want to speak to people.
Nathan (33:28.619)
Freedom is a real thing in this category and that's not to say there aren't some intellectual and emotional scars that take a long time to heal from it.
Cameron (33:35.181)
Yeah. But freedom is absolutely possible and it's more than possible. You know, the Lord would love to see that bondage gone, absent from your life. But yeah, so reach out to people and...
Nathan (33:48.575)
I think Cameron, that's one of the interesting differences between you and maybe the average viewer of this, is you're watching the running of the bulls from the safety of the sideline here.
Cameron (34:01.359)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (34:02.395)
because you are a Christian and you do have a grounded spiritual platform in which to kind of, in an academic sense, analyze the shifts of these things. Where there are lot of people who are... I guess you're in the safety of the boat watching the stormy waves and there are people who are thrashing around in the stormy waves that don't have the boat. And so I see that as a distinction here for those who are curious.
Cameron (34:25.783)
Yeah. Well, and I think on that note, think you also, should be, I try to exercise discernment, but we have different thresholds and your conscience is going to be very important factor here. So for, for plenty of people watching a film like Undertone will bring them to an unhealthy degree of fear perhaps. And so I don't think you should watch it. Or if, if, if anything troubles your conscience, I don't think, I think you refrain from indulging in it.
Because if it's troubling your conscience, then we got a problem. So I'm, yes, I mean, if this, if I had a troubled conscience doing any of this, I would stop. But yeah, some of us, if we proceed forward with discernment and care, then yes, we can watch the running of the bulls from the sidelines.
Nathan (35:18.485)
Yeah, and off for a couple... yeah.
Cameron (35:19.001)
But we'd have, yeah, in cultural territory with cultural artifacts, we're in necessarily gray territory in the sense that we don't have a clear rule book that's handed down to us. There's nothing in scripture about watching found footage films or found audio file films, but we exercise discernment and care and you know your own limits and we all have different thresholds. I always try to preface, I didn't this time, I try to preface any remarks about confrontational or challenging content with that statement.
Nathan (35:48.587)
So, regardless of where you come out on this, here's the takeaway that you should be, is just recognize that the, say you're a Christian leader, thoughtful person engaged in your church, whatever, and you're just engaging young people in the world around you, just keep in mind in the back of your head the direction of the conversation of the shift in what's creepy and evil. And be aware of that as you minister toward the light. You don't have to study the darkness, but it's helpful to know what some of patterns are that are out there. You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope.