Speaker 1: Joining us now as Jay Warner Wallace. As I said,
Speaker 1: I've talked to him a couple of times before about
Speaker 1: his book called Case Christianity, and he's got a new
Speaker 1: book that is put out in a very different way,
Speaker 1: and I really like this. It's a i'll just show
Speaker 1: you the cover here of it. It is a graphic novel.
Speaker 1: So there's the suspense broken right there. I gave away
Speaker 1: the secret. I thank you for joining us, mister Wallace,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little to take.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Tell us a little bit about this
Speaker 1: and why you did this, and of course you did
Speaker 1: this in conjunction with your son. It's really professionally done.
Speaker 1: We've got some images of it that we can show.
Speaker 1: But it's an amazing book and it's a kind of
Speaker 1: a fun way to get the point across that you've
Speaker 1: made in some of your other books before. Tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think most of my other all my
Speaker 3: books are nonfiction books that make a case for Christianity,
Speaker 3: either for its truthfulness or for its goodness and usefulness.
Speaker 3: So those are books that we kind of just make
Speaker 3: us a straight case. But I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: of folks who who are moved more by fiction, And
Speaker 3: my son always thinks this too, because we know that
Speaker 3: we can make a case for something and you may
Speaker 3: agree with that case, but we can also take you
Speaker 3: on a journey, and if you are part of the journey,
Speaker 3: you end up living the case. And so this is
Speaker 3: a graphic novel that is a fictional work about a
Speaker 3: team of detectives that are trying to catch a serial
Speaker 3: killer in Los Angeles County. You know, we applied all
Speaker 3: of our experience in the county, So this is going
Speaker 3: to feel, I think, pretty realistic. If you're a police officer, detective,
Speaker 3: you're going to read this and think, oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 3: pretty much how we do it. But I also think
Speaker 3: what we're trying to do is to tell a better
Speaker 3: story to tell. We're going to explore an issue that
Speaker 3: most people struggle with, and that is how do we
Speaker 3: ground human value, meaning and purpose. I think that most
Speaker 3: of us take our identity for granted, and then at
Speaker 3: some point we struggle because we're trying to figure out, like,
Speaker 3: who are we really? And if you'll notice, and if
Speaker 3: you've seen like today in America, there'll be a number
Speaker 3: of homicides, it's just the sad truth. Now, most of
Speaker 3: those you're not going to know anything about because they're
Speaker 3: never going to make the press. But if a celebrity
Speaker 3: gets murdered, well, now that's going to make the news
Speaker 3: and suddenly it'll be a national or international item. Well,
Speaker 3: why do we think that celebrities somehow are more valuable
Speaker 3: than other victims? We kind of act as though they are.
Speaker 3: So how are we grounding human value? What makes one
Speaker 3: person newsworthy and somebody else not. We think from a
Speaker 3: Christian worldview that every life has value, but how do
Speaker 3: we ground it? So what we have here is this
Speaker 3: is not a Pollyannish kind of Christian story where everyone's
Speaker 3: going to get saved in the last chapter. And this
Speaker 3: is a realistic, gritty novel. And that's a large comic book.
Speaker 3: Because it's a graphic novel. It's kind of like you're
Speaker 3: watching a story boarded movie involving people who are struggling
Speaker 3: to understand who they are as they chase a serial
Speaker 3: killer who is upping the ante every time he kills somebody.
Speaker 3: This victim is of increasing cultural value, and what we're
Speaker 3: trying to do is challenge the notion that people actually
Speaker 3: are of increasing value. We think that we want to
Speaker 3: be able to ground our identity and our value and
Speaker 3: something that's transcendent. And so we're going to make a
Speaker 3: case for this, but we're going to do it without
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, beating you over the head.
Speaker 1: That's great. You know, many times I've heard people talk
Speaker 1: about animal sacrifice, you know, and one of the first
Speaker 1: things we see after the Garden of Eden is that
Speaker 1: God gives skins to Adam and Eve to cover up
Speaker 1: their nakedness right cover up there. Now they're aware of
Speaker 1: you what is going on. But he has to kill
Speaker 1: an animal in order to make that. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a consistent principle throughout Christianity that without the shedding
Speaker 1: of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin, right, And so
Speaker 1: a big part of that is that people understand in
Speaker 1: the seriousness of sin because they see when even you
Speaker 1: talk about the difference in human life, even when we
Speaker 1: see a dead animal, we kind of stop for a moment.
Speaker 1: If we see a broken branch or a tree or whatever,
Speaker 1: some plant that's that's been chopped up, you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think anything about it. But if you see an animal
Speaker 1: that's been chopped up, you got blood all over the place.
Speaker 1: Even that will make an impact on you, let alone
Speaker 1: a human life. And if you point out all human
Speaker 1: life is valuable, it's not just celebrities, but it's again,
Speaker 1: it's like all life is valuable. The life is in
Speaker 1: the blood, and that is a real I think it's
Speaker 1: a lesson that God was trying to give us to
Speaker 1: drive home just how serious rebellion to him is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, as my son likes to point out,
Speaker 3: you know, as police officers, we have certain limitations because
Speaker 3: there are rights that humans have. So for example, I
Speaker 3: can't just kick down your door and enter your house
Speaker 3: without a aren't without a reason to do it. But
Speaker 3: on the other hand, if someone is screaming in your
Speaker 3: house that they're being murdered, they're being killed, well, now
Speaker 3: I can kick down the door to save that person's life.
Speaker 2: We actually think that the value of life.
Speaker 3: Legally is more important than even some rights that you
Speaker 3: have to privacy. We recognize as police officers that humans,
Speaker 3: the human life is important. Now, what I see in
Speaker 3: culture is that you're right. What we have a tendency
Speaker 3: to do is the secular world just sees us as
Speaker 3: another evolved creature, another animal like all the other animals.
Speaker 3: And what you see happening is that typically other animals
Speaker 3: are now being afforded the same dignities that we would
Speaker 3: have in the past only have afforded humans. They're in
Speaker 3: our restaurants, they're on the plane with you, they're everywhere,
Speaker 3: and they're there because we have minimized the difference between
Speaker 3: humans and other animals. Now here's what's interesting. You know,
Speaker 3: from scripture, if scripture is true, we are unique in
Speaker 3: the sense that we are image bearers. We bear the
Speaker 3: image of God. And the first thing that God does
Speaker 3: when he gives us the identity, he creates Adam in
Speaker 3: his image, and then he gives Adam a name, an identity,
Speaker 3: And the first thing he asks Adam to do is
Speaker 3: to then turn and give an identity to all the
Speaker 3: other animals. You know, the Christian story is an identity
Speaker 3: story from the Old Testament all the way through the
Speaker 3: New Testament. And so this is something we wanted to explore. Now, look,
Speaker 3: I could easily make that caze on paper and make
Speaker 3: it the way I just made it to you, or
Speaker 3: I could tell you a story that we hope is
Speaker 3: so engaging that by the time you're done with it,
Speaker 3: you'll get this principle. Even though in this story, I
Speaker 3: think if you were to read this book, you're going
Speaker 3: to get halfway through it before you even think to yourself,
Speaker 3: is this.
Speaker 2: A Christian book?
Speaker 3: Because what we want to do is we want to
Speaker 3: reach people with truth. In God's Truth is everyone's truth.
Speaker 3: You're stuck with it, whether you're Christian or not. If
Speaker 3: it's true, it's true for everyone. So we thought we
Speaker 3: could write a book in which we could make a
Speaker 3: case that even your unbelieving friends could read and not feel.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, this is so preachy. You know this is no.
Speaker 3: It turns out it's just describing the world the way
Speaker 3: it really is. And this is what scripture does. It
Speaker 3: describes the world, and it describes us the way we
Speaker 3: really are. So you'll see that these characters, there are
Speaker 3: only one Christian character in the entire book, and he's treated,
Speaker 3: for the most part the way that as a non
Speaker 3: believing cop I treated most Christian cops I knew, which
Speaker 3: I kind of marginalized them. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, here
Speaker 3: comes to Christian view. Okay, great, and you'll see this
Speaker 3: is probably true and many of the people who read
Speaker 3: this book are going to say, but you know this
Speaker 3: is true in my world too. My non Christian friends
Speaker 3: don't really you know, take my what I say seriously
Speaker 3: about this. So we wanted to create a narrative that
Speaker 3: was very that depicts reality the way it is for
Speaker 3: a lot of the readers. If we're going to read this,
Speaker 3: you're going to recognize your own struggles trying to tell
Speaker 3: people about Jesus, trying to tell people about what's true.
Speaker 3: And so this is a book that may not land.
Speaker 3: Every plane may not land safely at the end of
Speaker 3: the runway, because life is that way.
Speaker 2: It's you can share.
Speaker 3: I've got a father who's a cop, who's a detective,
Speaker 3: who is now retired, of course, and he's you know,
Speaker 3: eighty five, and he is he is not interested in
Speaker 3: hearing about the Gospel. And as many years as I've
Speaker 3: spent trying to help him see it from the same
Speaker 3: perspective that I take as a detectivest, he is willfully
Speaker 3: rejecting anything that I tell him. Well, you probably have
Speaker 3: someone in your life like that too, if you're ready
Speaker 3: of this book. So we want to have a book
Speaker 3: that reflects that reality as well.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what I said earlier about just the
Speaker 1: specialty of what is special about life in general, and
Speaker 1: you're right, you know, we're in creating the image of God,
Speaker 1: and there's a huge difference between us and the animals.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that we are seeing now
Speaker 1: we talk about the dignity of human life, one of
Speaker 1: the things that we really have to be aware of
Speaker 1: the push that is coming against that, and we're seeing
Speaker 1: it across the board. Goes back to bef Skin and
Speaker 1: other people talking about, you know, beyond freedom and dignity,
Speaker 1: they're just going to treat human beings like animals. And
Speaker 1: we see it more in the more contemporary writings of
Speaker 1: people like Juvil Harari just saying well, you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to take away You're not going to have any
Speaker 1: freedom or dignity. We're just going to control you as
Speaker 1: as we would an animal. And so I think that's
Speaker 1: a really important theme to drive home, and it's a
Speaker 1: great way to do it in a detective novel, especially
Speaker 1: because everybody loves detective novels. They love you know, forensic
Speaker 1: novels and all the rest of this stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is it's always captured the human imagination because it
Speaker 1: is about life and death, and it is also about
Speaker 1: a mystery and a puzzleism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, and this form of novels. I always
Speaker 3: wanted to write fiction, and I realized that there's a
Speaker 3: difference between writing fiction and writing nonfiction. Okay, there's definitely
Speaker 3: a different skill set. My son is an avid growing up.
Speaker 3: He's now thirty six, he's been on the job thirteen years.
Speaker 3: He's you know, he's always an avid comic book reader.
Speaker 3: And I think if you are an avia reader in
Speaker 3: a particular genre, well then you have a better shot
Speaker 3: at writing something in that genre. So so he this
Speaker 3: is what we had to contribute was basically a script.
Speaker 3: It's like a movie script. You know, we'll say a
Speaker 3: page one, he's going to have, you know, five panels.
Speaker 3: These panels are going to be these scenes, these dialogue,
Speaker 3: this action. Then we give it to a group of
Speaker 3: illustrators that are really gifted illustrators. They're the same illustrators
Speaker 3: that created that are Chosen graphic novel, so they're very gifted,
Speaker 3: and they basically then do all the rest of the
Speaker 3: heavy lifting. If people like this book, and I hope
Speaker 3: they do, it's largely because it was illustrated so magnificently.
Speaker 3: I mean we first got it back and we're watching
Speaker 3: how it's developing the characters. Yeah, I mean you see that,
Speaker 3: the character development, I'm like, wow, you know, that's actually
Speaker 3: better than I had imagined, you know. So, so I
Speaker 3: think that this partnership between writers and creative artists had
Speaker 3: been really helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got a clip up there. Now a couple
Speaker 1: of these different things. And I love the graphic novels
Speaker 1: and the comic books, and of course I learned how
Speaker 1: to read with comic books. My mom would take me
Speaker 1: in tow before I started school. And this is back
Speaker 1: in the silver Age of comics when they were a
Speaker 1: lot safer than they are now. Yes, they've gotten kind
Speaker 1: of they've pandered to adult or to college kids, I
Speaker 1: should say, in terms of what they got, but they
Speaker 1: were pretty safe back in the late nineteen fifties and stuff.
Speaker 1: And it was great because, like you point out, it
Speaker 1: is like a storyboard to a film.
Speaker 3: And I wonderest thing about that is that my son
Speaker 3: will say this because he found my brother in law's
Speaker 3: old comic book collection from the early nineteen sixties, and.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3: There was far less objectional material in those old comic books.
Speaker 3: And what he told me is growing up as a
Speaker 3: young Christian. He got his, of course's marching orders from scripture,
Speaker 3: but he found that a lot of his character development
Speaker 3: came from these comic books, especially Spider Man. You know,
Speaker 3: this this kid who's got to save the world. But
Speaker 3: he's going to a chance to go on this date.
Speaker 3: And of course, as soon as he gets to the
Speaker 3: point of taking the girl out, this is when doctor
Speaker 3: Octopus attacks and he's got to change. You know, I've
Speaker 3: got to act sacrificially. I want to do this thing,
Speaker 3: but I need to do that thing. Well, I thought, really,
Speaker 3: so you're telling me that some of your character was
Speaker 3: developed through comic books. But I realized that this is
Speaker 3: probably true for a lot of our young people. Then
Speaker 3: issues that are sold to them under the rules of
Speaker 3: fiction become the kinds of things that develop people's character.
Speaker 2: That's why we.
Speaker 3: As Christians need to be in this space, because you're right,
Speaker 3: what's happening. If you're reading comics or graphic novels today,
Speaker 3: you're going to have to turn the blind eye to
Speaker 3: a lot of offensive non Christian material. Yes, but can
Speaker 3: we do a story that's every bit is gripping, entertaining, gritty,
Speaker 3: but also teaches a Christian worldview, so that when character
Speaker 3: development is actually going to occur naturally as you're reading fiction,
Speaker 3: it's the kind of character that's also consistent with the
Speaker 3: teaching of scripture. That's what we're trying to do with
Speaker 3: this kind of a book.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when we go back and you look at it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, comparing a contemporary movie. The comic books of
Speaker 1: today were in graphic novels of today versus the stuff
Speaker 1: back in the fifties. It's like a you know, Disney
Speaker 1: movie about about Davy Crockett or something, you know, versus
Speaker 1: movies that focus on a psychotic joker character, you know,
Speaker 1: for Batman. And now the villains have become the heroes
Speaker 1: of these things, and they've become really, really rough as
Speaker 1: you point out, you know, and when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: the characters would and there was a reason for that.
Speaker 1: When they first started out, they were pretty rough, just
Speaker 1: like films. And just like they had the Hayes code
Speaker 1: for movies, they also came up with a comic book code.
Speaker 1: And they said, if you're going to target kids with
Speaker 1: this stuff, then you're gonna follow certain rules, and so
Speaker 1: it was kind of quasi mandated that they would have
Speaker 1: to follow those rules. And the characters were really straight up,
Speaker 1: and they were good and they were honorable characters. My
Speaker 1: son Travis is working a board here. I used to
Speaker 1: read him novels from Ga Hinty, And in those novels,
Speaker 1: even the villains, the villains were better than our heroes today.
Speaker 1: And I'm not joking, you know, they had better, higher ideals,
Speaker 1: and they treated people better than the heroes treat people
Speaker 1: today in our movies and so and fiction. So those
Speaker 1: things were there as matter of fact. That have the
Speaker 1: always have the saint look like a stamp, and I
Speaker 1: never knew what that was when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: That was up on the cover of the thing, and
Speaker 1: that was saying that it had been certified and was
Speaker 1: with the comic book code. It's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why Mad called itself a magazine because they didn't follow
Speaker 1: that code. They were really sorry. They It wasn't anything
Speaker 1: that was sexual or violent or anything like it is
Speaker 1: in the and the graphic novels today. But it was sarcastic,
Speaker 1: a lot of satire and everything like that, and so
Speaker 1: they were proud of the fact that they did not
Speaker 1: adhere to the code. And so I think the code
Speaker 1: was basically, you're going to present a good moral character
Speaker 1: in our society. At that point in time, Christianity had
Speaker 1: a lot of influence on that. And really, even if
Speaker 1: these people were not Christian, it was the Christian influence
Speaker 1: that was influencing the art and the culture. And you're right,
Speaker 1: we do need to take that back.
Speaker 2: Well and think about this.
Speaker 3: The Christian theology tells us that there's an enigma of
Speaker 3: man that we are duplicit. We have the capacity for
Speaker 3: unbelievable altruism and goodness because we have been created in
Speaker 3: the image of God, but we also are deeply rebellious
Speaker 3: and if I have inherited that sinful condition from Adam.
Speaker 2: So that's why we are these duplicit kind of beings.
Speaker 3: Now, what's interesting is we went from a point in
Speaker 3: history where we would rather we preferred to write about
Speaker 3: what we could be than what we really are. Now
Speaker 3: we've shifted, and yeah, it's true that we are duplicit.
Speaker 3: We are we have a capacity for both greatness and evil,
Speaker 3: but we want to focus on the greatness. We want
Speaker 3: to say Hey, this is the ideal we ought to
Speaker 3: aspire to. But I think what we're seeing right now,
Speaker 3: especially in comics, is that we're instead we're just sketching
Speaker 3: out the characters as they really are, as dark as
Speaker 3: their nature can also be. Well, look, I get it.
Speaker 3: You're going to see in this book that we've been
Speaker 3: very realistic with all the detectives and they have a
Speaker 3: dark side. Okay, but we want to aim at something.
Speaker 3: And you know that old saying that if you aim
Speaker 3: at nothing, you hit it every time. That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: So we have to write stories. I think that aim
Speaker 3: at something that is good. There ought to be some
Speaker 3: example in the book that is not trite and trivialized
Speaker 3: and stereotypes, but offers a solution to the problem that.
Speaker 2: Everyone else is experiencing.
Speaker 3: And so hopefully, if we do this in a way
Speaker 3: that is compelling, you're going to come away from reading
Speaker 3: this book and you're going to have I think it
Speaker 3: could for number one, if you're not a believer, I
Speaker 3: hope it'll open up your thinking to the possibility that
Speaker 3: Christianity has something to teach you about how to live.
Speaker 3: But if you are a believer, I hope it's going
Speaker 3: to give you much more confidence. And also we want
Speaker 3: to have an alternative for believers who maybe want to
Speaker 3: have some fun in this space, this true crime graphic
Speaker 3: novel space, which right now, if you were to go online,
Speaker 3: you're going to get a lot of stuff that you're
Speaker 3: going to have to ignore some percentage of it if
Speaker 3: you want to hold on to your Christian worldview. We
Speaker 3: wanted something that you didn't.
Speaker 2: Have to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, right now, tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about you know, you're also encouraging with this some deeper
Speaker 1: probing and some discussions about Christian worldview. Tell people what
Speaker 1: you've got an association with that conversation guide that it's also.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I do think this is a gateway book
Speaker 3: for it going to be a gateway book for a
Speaker 3: lot of people. So on the inside back cover, we
Speaker 3: have a QR code that if you just hit that
Speaker 3: QR code, it's going to open up our case closed booklet,
Speaker 3: which is a Case for the Resurrection in about forty pages.
Speaker 3: So it's going to take you a step further if
Speaker 3: you wanted to know, for example, why this particular character
Speaker 3: in our story maybe responds a little different differently to
Speaker 3: the trauma. Well, the answer is in his Christian worldview.
Speaker 3: Even though we're not we're just going to hint at it.
Speaker 3: We're not going to make it like a punch in
Speaker 3: the face, but we want to give you a chance
Speaker 3: to go. Now, Look, if you're somebody who buys a
Speaker 3: book today in our economy today, I feel like it's
Speaker 3: a big ask anymore for someone that's been similar between
Speaker 3: fifteen and twenty dollars, depending on where you buy it,
Speaker 3: a book like this. So what we want to do
Speaker 3: is offer something that makes the price seem like it's reasonable.
Speaker 3: So what we've done on our website at Coldcase Christianity
Speaker 3: dot com is anyone who buys the book, yes, you
Speaker 3: have access to that digital QR code, but also we
Speaker 3: want to send you a conversation guide that'll help you
Speaker 3: navigate the conversations that are going to flow out of
Speaker 3: someone who reads this book. Also, we want to give
Speaker 3: you our ten or ten and a half hour thirty
Speaker 3: session Casemaker's Course. It's the same course I teach at
Speaker 3: Gateway Seminary here in southern California, and it's the course
Speaker 3: that is fully robustly illustrated. It's all videos. If you
Speaker 3: take this course, you will become a much better Christian casemaker.
Speaker 3: So when someone does have a question about the Christian
Speaker 3: world that maybe is prompted by a book like this
Speaker 3: or anyone else's book, you'll be able to kind of
Speaker 3: hold your ground, to be able to make a case
Speaker 3: for why you want to hear my concern. If you
Speaker 3: really want to know what it is you love, what
Speaker 3: is your your your family loves, think about what it
Speaker 3: is they're capable of defending. Because it turns out whatever
Speaker 3: it is you're capable of defending, that is your real God.
Speaker 3: We just came out of the football draft from college
Speaker 3: football into the NFL, and I know people who can
Speaker 3: make a robust case for why so and so should
Speaker 3: have gotten drafted or didn't get drafted, or should have
Speaker 3: gotten drafted in a different position.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I say that all the time on the
Speaker 1: I Oh yeah, I kind of flipped it, you know.
Speaker 1: I say that they're all upset because this guy didn't
Speaker 1: go earlier or whatever.
Speaker 2: And it's like that, and there's talk shows that they
Speaker 2: only have.
Speaker 3: I mean literally, I was watching on the sports channels
Speaker 3: where you might have six hours today of this discussion
Speaker 3: with people debating it.
Speaker 2: Well, Okay, if that's.
Speaker 3: You and you are better able to defend your pro
Speaker 3: football team and their selections, then you are able to
Speaker 3: defend your God. You've kind of shown your hand as
Speaker 3: to what you find worth defending.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we need to.
Speaker 3: Be move into a position where we're so geeked out
Speaker 3: about what we believe about God and about Jesus. But
Speaker 3: this is this stuff we spend our discretionary timeline. This
Speaker 3: is the stuff we spend our disposable time, our disposable income,
Speaker 3: our disposable thoughts, the stuff that we have freedom. Like,
Speaker 3: you know, you're not working right now, what are you
Speaker 3: thinking about that? There's your God? You're not engaged with
Speaker 3: your family? What are you thinking about? There is your God?
Speaker 3: So I think in the end we have to kind
Speaker 3: of align our thoughts and align our abilities. And so
Speaker 3: we want to do we've always wanted to do this
Speaker 3: is provide resources that will help people. If you do
Speaker 3: want to do that, like how do you learn? Like
Speaker 3: where do you get that stuff? Yes, you can buy
Speaker 3: a book, but what we want to do is offer
Speaker 3: those free resources to our website that will help you
Speaker 3: to take the next step.
Speaker 1: Well, and I love what you do because you know,
Speaker 1: we always have. We always have people who will push
Speaker 1: back on that. And I like to have my faith
Speaker 1: challenged from one perspective or the other because I always
Speaker 1: found that when I get that challenge and I go
Speaker 1: back and I investigate in it, I come back much stronger.
Speaker 1: There's always because it is true, and that it helps
Speaker 1: me to understand that it's true if I go back
Speaker 1: and I investigate, which is what you did in your life.
Speaker 1: You go back and you investigate it, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's not a blind faith that we have. And what
Speaker 1: it does is you find the answers and as you
Speaker 1: dig deep, then it becomes a passion for your life
Speaker 1: the more you get into it. And we've talking about celebrities.
Speaker 1: We've had so many celebrities in the last year or
Speaker 1: so that I've seen there in their fifties and sixties
Speaker 1: and say, you know, I never read the Bible before,
Speaker 1: but I started reading. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Then they want to grab you by the lapel and
Speaker 1: tell you about how amazing this is and what they
Speaker 1: found in it. And and that's we don't see that
Speaker 1: in the case of a lot of nominal Christians because
Speaker 1: they're just not reading it. You know, they may be
Speaker 1: a part of a club or a church or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, but they're not really actively involved. And so
Speaker 1: if you can get something in that that pulls you in.
Speaker 2: And that's what I love.
Speaker 1: What you do in general with a cold case Christianity
Speaker 1: is that you answer a lot of these concerns that
Speaker 1: other people had, concerns that you had when you first
Speaker 1: came to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: I mean I think what we want I'm hoping to
Speaker 3: do to have my own kids and as I was
Speaker 3: raising them and now my grandkids, is to help them
Speaker 3: and develop an investigative approach. Yes, where you know this
Speaker 3: is worth taking the time to. Like, the church attendance
Speaker 3: is not the box you can check and say, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 2: It's just one of the.
Speaker 3: Many things you're going to find yourself doing because you
Speaker 3: are this in love with the worldview with Jesus of Nazareth.
Speaker 3: So I think the reality of it is is how
Speaker 3: do you do this?
Speaker 2: Here's what I love.
Speaker 3: This is a worldview you could investigate.
Speaker 2: Think about it.
Speaker 3: If you're somebody, for example, who is a Bahaih and
Speaker 3: you think that the writings of Bahau law are magnificent
Speaker 3: and beautiful and spiritual.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, How could you test those? How do you
Speaker 2: test proverbial.
Speaker 3: Statements even though they're Buddha if their Hindu statements, whatever
Speaker 3: they may be. How do you attest that this is
Speaker 3: not just that Jesus said smart things, of course he did.
Speaker 3: It's that this is a claim about something that happened
Speaker 3: in history. That's very unusual if you think about it.
Speaker 3: You don't have claims about history that can be tested
Speaker 3: in the High faith or in Buddhist faith. This is
Speaker 3: testable in the sense that it records an event. If
Speaker 3: it didn't happen, it's all false. So you can now
Speaker 3: there's something you can point to now, which is the resurrection.
Speaker 3: Do we have good reason to believe the resurrection occurred?
Speaker 3: If it did, then this guy's in a different category.
Speaker 2: Jesus.
Speaker 3: He's the one wise guy who, unlike all the other
Speaker 3: ancient wise guys, rose from the grave. We need to
Speaker 3: know have confidence that that's the case, because otherwise he's
Speaker 3: just one ancient voice among many who also said wise things?
Speaker 2: Or is he the voice?
Speaker 3: And by the way, because we are created in the
Speaker 3: image of this God, we always have a shadow of
Speaker 3: his teaching in our lives. We are image bearers. We
Speaker 3: cannot avoid even when we think, do you know any
Speaker 3: Christ figures? There are in history the stories that are
Speaker 3: like the Jesus story that emerge. Now, you could argue
Speaker 3: that those that come after Jesus are simply people who
Speaker 3: are copying the Jesus story, but there are a lot
Speaker 3: of Christ figures that are pre Jesus. Why because this
Speaker 3: is God's story, and if you're an image bearer, which
Speaker 3: you are, you kind of innatly have God's story in
Speaker 3: your head, whether you like it or not. So I
Speaker 3: think in the end, we want to be able to
Speaker 3: use our giftedness, whatever that may be, all of us,
Speaker 3: even those of us who are listening to this show,
Speaker 3: to be creative, and we ought to own the arts
Speaker 3: we have. By the way, for generations. Don't step back
Speaker 3: from the arts. Continue to write, write fiction. Do Christian movies. Yes,
Speaker 3: I know people will say, well they're not the one
Speaker 3: I hope they wish they would be. Well, that's on us.
Speaker 3: We can do a better job. So let's do that
Speaker 3: better job.
Speaker 2: So we have something to.
Speaker 3: Point to, so our young people have an alternative that
Speaker 3: actually is God honoring.
Speaker 1: I agree, Oh yeah. In fact, can't talk about doing
Speaker 1: the best job that you can. That's the key, you know,
Speaker 1: when we look at the architecture, for example in Europe,
Speaker 1: the Great Cathedrals and everything that we're there, and there
Speaker 1: was a multi generational effort to show their best you know,
Speaker 1: to show their best skills and all the rest is
Speaker 1: they poured it into that. Regardless of you know, what
Speaker 1: you think it was, there was still a you know
Speaker 1: that was their desire to do something in some way
Speaker 1: that honored God and everything that we do I think
Speaker 1: is Christians ought to be done to a standard that
Speaker 1: people would say, oh, I want to know more about
Speaker 1: this guy, what motivates him, you know, to do something
Speaker 1: of that quality. But as you were saying, it all
Speaker 1: comes back to the Resurrection of Jesus and we're just
Speaker 1: a week away from Resurrection Sunday. And you've got case
Speaker 1: closed that is also there at your website and you
Speaker 1: have a link to that as part of people get
Speaker 1: this graphic novel. It's a link to that. Tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at Key's Clothes was really we wanted to do
Speaker 3: a long time ago. We've done a couple of different
Speaker 3: versions of what we would hope to be a case
Speaker 3: quick case of the resurrection, because I do think this
Speaker 3: is the one most important piece of evidence that is
Speaker 3: in the Christian world view. Paul says, if the resurrection
Speaker 3: didn't occur, the number one we have been false witnesses.
Speaker 2: So you've been lying to you. So that ought to
Speaker 2: discredit pretty much everything.
Speaker 3: Else we've said. But also you have no hope of
Speaker 3: your own resurrection. This is all in one Corinthians fifteen.
Speaker 3: So if you look at this, this is the key
Speaker 3: thing that I knew I had to investigate. First, Do
Speaker 3: I have good reason to believe that this resurrection thing occurred?
Speaker 3: Because that puts him in a different category altogether, and
Speaker 3: that category is the difference between any other ancient's age
Speaker 3: and Jesus of Nazareth. So what this is is like
Speaker 3: a thirty or forty page, very small booklet. It's the
Speaker 3: quickest version I can give you of why I think
Speaker 3: the resurrection is the most reasonable inference from the historical evidence. Now, look,
Speaker 3: some of people are going to say, well, I can't
Speaker 3: believe that because it includes something supernatural. You know, it
Speaker 3: turns out that that's supernatural thing is what's keeping most
Speaker 3: people out Here's what I mean. If we had an
Speaker 3: ancient set of documents that just describe Jesus of Nazareth
Speaker 3: as a simple teaching rabbi in the first century, that's
Speaker 3: all he is. He said some wise things, but never
Speaker 3: worked a miracle, never rose from the grave, never walked
Speaker 3: on water. It was not born of a virgin. He's
Speaker 3: just this guy, just an ancient guy who was smart.
Speaker 3: There wouldn't be a single skeptic on planet Earth who
Speaker 3: would deny the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth based on
Speaker 3: the manuscript evidence we have. It's so strong. There is
Speaker 3: no ancient who's better attested than Jesus.
Speaker 2: But if you insert.
Speaker 3: One miracle into those same ancient manuscripts, suddenly skepticism is
Speaker 3: at a high None of it can be true. Why
Speaker 3: that just tells you that the skepticism is not based
Speaker 3: on the strength of the manuscript evidence. It's based on
Speaker 3: a presuppositional bias against the supernatural. Trust me take out
Speaker 3: the supernatural elements and everyone loves it, but they So
Speaker 3: that is really about us having to examine do we
Speaker 3: have really good reason to reject anything outside of space, time, matter, physics,
Speaker 3: and chemistry. I actually think there's a good reason to
Speaker 3: believe there is something beyond space time, matter, physics, and chemistry,
Speaker 3: just from the science of those who study the universe.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think we're stuck with that.
Speaker 3: The quoal only question is is that thing outside of
Speaker 3: space time, matter, sciencestry, in physics, is chemistry and physics?
Speaker 3: Is that thing personal? Is it a personal being? If
Speaker 3: there is a personal being that starts the universe, well
Speaker 3: then I suspect you could do anything he wants once
Speaker 3: the universe has been started. So there's no like big,
Speaker 3: big deal miracle in the pages of the New Testament.
Speaker 3: The biggest miracle of all is in Genesis one. Everything
Speaker 3: from nothing that's big. If you can do that, you
Speaker 3: can probably walk on water. So that helped me to
Speaker 3: at least navigate my bias against the supernatural. I was
Speaker 3: somebody who believed in big band cosmology. That's still the
Speaker 3: standard cosmological model of the astrophysicists who are working today
Speaker 3: as secularists. Well, they believe that there's something outside of
Speaker 3: space time and matter that begins all space time and matter.
Speaker 2: Well, what is that? What kind of force?
Speaker 3: Is it an impersonal force or is it a personal force.
Speaker 3: Why would we think, for example, it's an impersonal force
Speaker 3: and be stuck on that. If it's a personal force,
Speaker 3: we at least have to have a hypothesis that includes
Speaker 3: God as a creator. I'm not saying you all have
Speaker 3: to do this, you have to jump in that direction,
Speaker 3: but can you at least allow that as a hypothesis,
Speaker 3: because I'll tell you what, if you do, you're going
Speaker 3: to find that it has much better explanatory power for
Speaker 3: a lot of other things in the universe. So I
Speaker 3: think in the end that was what had to open
Speaker 3: the door for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if there was ever a times people have said
Speaker 1: there's ever a time where there was literally no thing,
Speaker 1: then there still would be nothing out there. And you know,
Speaker 1: when we even talk about the word supernatural, there must
Speaker 1: be something that organizes this that is above nature. And
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of materialistic scientists say that. We
Speaker 1: looked at Krick and Watson who discovered DNA, they could
Speaker 1: no longer deny an intelligent design, but instead they created
Speaker 1: in their imagination and said, well, we'll call it pan Spermi.
Speaker 1: It must have been aliens who came here and did this,
Speaker 1: but they will not. Then you take it to the
Speaker 1: next step. I'm going to I'm still going to deny
Speaker 1: the God of the Bible, even if I see the
Speaker 1: inevitability and the impossibility of this happening without intelligent design.
Speaker 1: So there's always there's always that there. But that's the
Speaker 1: other thing I like about Christianity. It's always about critical thinking.
Speaker 1: It encourages, it invites critical thinking. And that's what you
Speaker 1: do with cold case Christianity. You invite critical thinking and
Speaker 1: you have answers for that, and it's important for us.
Speaker 1: We can't really go it's a vital life skill for
Speaker 1: us to be able to have critical thinking. And so
Speaker 1: that's something that we tried to really stress with our
Speaker 1: children when we were homeschooling, was the critical thinking aspect.
Speaker 1: And so we would look at at creation versus evolution,
Speaker 1: and we would look at it all the biology and
Speaker 1: you know, here's your set of facts, and everybody's got
Speaker 1: the same set of facts. How do we interpret these
Speaker 1: set of facts? And why would we interpret it this
Speaker 1: way or that way?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and think about this is this is a
Speaker 3: worldview that I hope when people, even when they read
Speaker 3: our books, whether it's this book or the fiction or nonfiction,
Speaker 3: I think this is a very different worldview. Paul tells
Speaker 3: us in Romans twelve two that you cannot be conformed
Speaker 3: to this crazy world, but you need to be transformed.
Speaker 2: And he had a number of ways he could have
Speaker 2: said it.
Speaker 3: Remember when I listened to a suspect, I'm listening to
Speaker 3: all the things and thinking to myself, how he chose
Speaker 3: to say it a certain way? Why did he choose
Speaker 3: to say it this way when there were about six
Speaker 3: or seven other ways he could have said it? Because
Speaker 3: how you choose to say it matters. And Paul says
Speaker 3: in Romans twelve two that we are to be transformed,
Speaker 3: not by the renewal of our will, or our hearts,
Speaker 3: or our emotion or our experiences. Like, what is it
Speaker 3: that's going to make a difference, what's going to transform
Speaker 3: your life? Well, it turns out it's the renewal of
Speaker 3: your mind. It's about rethinking. This is a thinking person's worldview.
Speaker 3: And I know that we've got a generation, we've got
Speaker 3: so many different strands of Christianity, and what's really emphasized
Speaker 3: is the experience. What you've experienced, share your testimony, and
Speaker 3: what they're really saying is no, don't share the way
Speaker 3: you thought about this, the way you rethought all the facts.
Speaker 3: What most people are about to share, then, is what
Speaker 3: experience they had from that they interpreted that God was real.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 3: God has got of experiences, for sure, and if you've
Speaker 3: had an experience, you may be able to attest it
Speaker 3: to God, but you need to kind of evaluate it
Speaker 3: based on the evidence. It's not just your experience. Your
Speaker 3: experience alone will get you into all kinds of trouble.
Speaker 3: I have six brothers and sisters who were raised lds
Speaker 3: by my stepmother, and they largely will tell you that
Speaker 3: they had an experience that confirmed for them that the
Speaker 3: Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was
Speaker 3: a prophet of God. Well, look, your experiences can't be trusted.
Speaker 3: They have to be tested against the facts. And once
Speaker 3: they're tested against the facts, you can know if that experiences,
Speaker 3: if you've properly interpreted it.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we have a worldview that encourages us
Speaker 3: to not just you know, enjoy the experience of God's presence,
Speaker 3: but to test it to make sure it actually is
Speaker 3: God's presence. You're feeling yes, because you know, I believe
Speaker 3: there's a spiritual realm, but not every spiritual experience you
Speaker 3: have will necessarily be from God.
Speaker 1: And we have to test the spirits to this experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly got to see if that is from God. And
Speaker 1: he calls us to worship him in spirit and in truth,
Speaker 1: and we don't want to throw away either one of
Speaker 1: those because it's an ass not or you know that's right.
Speaker 1: And so then he says, they come, let this reason together,
Speaker 1: you know. He says, you're there, sends me a scarlet.
Speaker 1: I'll make them white as snow. So he invites us
Speaker 1: to use are the minds that he gave us, and
Speaker 1: that is a wonderful thing. And then he does come
Speaker 1: with experiences as well, and so all of that has
Speaker 1: to be a part of it. And so it is.
Speaker 1: It is a complete package. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people this is one of the reasons.
Speaker 3: This is one of the reasons too. But I'm thinking
Speaker 3: this is why we wanted to do fiction. I have
Speaker 3: a sense that we can make a case that you
Speaker 3: can a sent to intellectually, but fiction takes you along
Speaker 3: as part of the experience of the chase for this killer,
Speaker 3: for example, in this book. And so it's combining both
Speaker 3: what is the case for this? And two, like, I
Speaker 3: want you to experience something. And my son always says
Speaker 3: it that, yes, he learns a lot from nonfiction, but
Speaker 3: it feels like when he's reading fiction, he's drawn into
Speaker 3: the story and it becomes an experience.
Speaker 2: And I think that's true for a movie.
Speaker 3: If you watch a movie for those two hours, you're
Speaker 3: kind of transported into that realm. While graphic novels are
Speaker 3: basically just movies that have been put on paper, because
Speaker 3: they're just storyboarded movies. And so we hope that when
Speaker 3: you open this up, and even if you're not somebody
Speaker 3: who likes to read a novel, graphic novels are so visual,
Speaker 3: you're just watching a movie, and so you can take
Speaker 3: anywhere want to go. So the idea is to draw
Speaker 3: people into that experience. Because I think this You're right,
Speaker 3: this is not an either or. I would never suggest
Speaker 3: that you can develop your entire Christian worldview from fiction.
Speaker 3: That's like saying experiences are all that matter. At the
Speaker 3: same time, though, you got to be careful not to
Speaker 3: draw all your Christian, robust Christian life simply from reading
Speaker 3: non fictional case books basically that are theology or whatever
Speaker 3: they may be, because it's going to be kind of dry,
Speaker 3: like you need to have a heart and head kind
Speaker 3: of experience together. And I think that the nonfiction often
Speaker 3: affects your head. Fiction often affects your heart. So that
Speaker 3: combination we think we have basically, I always say, as
Speaker 3: we're trying to bite the apple from both sides.
Speaker 1: Well, it combines the spirit and the truth in a way,
Speaker 1: you know when you have that there, and you know,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of music. For example, right when we
Speaker 1: have music, if you've got good lyrics, that's great. And
Speaker 1: if it and it moves moves you emotionally through the music,
Speaker 1: and then you add the lyrics. If they if they
Speaker 1: teach you something that's value, that's a great thing as well.
Speaker 1: And again going back to the graphic novels, they are
Speaker 1: so much like movies. That was the thing that used
Speaker 1: to always fascinate me because I can't draw anything. I
Speaker 1: can't trust thick figures and the fact that somebody could
Speaker 1: as they do in your book. You know, you can
Speaker 1: draw things and there's a certain kind of kinetic you
Speaker 1: can almost see things moving, you know when you look
Speaker 1: at it, because it is like a storyboard. But you know,
Speaker 1: good graphic artists can can make it really come alive,
Speaker 1: like you're you're kind of seeing the movement there. You
Speaker 1: can see the movement from one panel to the next,
Speaker 1: or from the character what they're doing. You can imagine
Speaker 1: it there, you know.
Speaker 3: Yes, my son always says that what we just we
Speaker 3: contributed is we contributed the movies script or the screenwriters,
Speaker 3: and in that screenplay, you're going to have some direction
Speaker 3: about like who's going to what the movement should be,
Speaker 3: what the scene is going to look like, what the
Speaker 3: characters are going to say for sure, what the action.
Speaker 3: You're writing all of that into the screenplay. But the
Speaker 3: artist in a graphic novel is every other person in
Speaker 3: the movie. He's the director because he's going to direct
Speaker 3: the action. He is all of the actors. He's even
Speaker 3: telling the actors what expressions to take. He is the
Speaker 3: wardrobe guy, he is the set designer. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: the lighting person. I mean the artists basically play the
Speaker 3: role of every other important person in a movie project.
Speaker 3: All we do is submit the screenplay, and we've also
Speaker 3: given them liberty the same way a screenwriter was going
Speaker 3: to give liberty to a director to direct his screenplay. However,
Speaker 3: he sees fit. You hire the right person, right, because
Speaker 3: you know that you're going to have to give him
Speaker 3: that liberty. Well, the same is true with this kind
Speaker 3: of a project. We had to give the artists the liberty.
Speaker 3: We developed the characters, we developed the storyline, We give
Speaker 3: them the storyline, then they bring it to life.
Speaker 2: And we weren't even sure. We had some ideas.
Speaker 3: They gave us the rough sketches back on the different characters,
Speaker 3: and there's like six major characters here, and we had
Speaker 3: some ideas about those characters, and we had some input,
Speaker 3: of course, but in the end, I was impressed with
Speaker 3: what they thought the.
Speaker 2: Character should look like.
Speaker 3: And so this is awesome, right, ye may be able
Speaker 3: to have cast that actor for that role, but here
Speaker 3: they thought of something just and by the way, they're
Speaker 3: not just they're thinking of it just from their imagination.
Speaker 3: It's really an amazing process to go through. But I
Speaker 3: think in the end, when you see it, I think
Speaker 3: most people don't think of comic books as being that thoughtful,
Speaker 3: but there is so much that's happening behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: For example, we started this project two and a half
Speaker 3: years ago and we were ready to go. We could
Speaker 3: have I mean, we could have had this. If we
Speaker 3: could just snap your fingers and produce, you know, one
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty pages of art, we could have been
Speaker 3: ready in a day. It took two and a half
Speaker 3: years for us to get from concept to published work,
Speaker 3: and that's largely because it's a collective effort and it's
Speaker 3: like making a movie.
Speaker 1: Well, it certainly does show. And just like that last
Speaker 1: panel that you had of there, Travis, that there's one
Speaker 1: at the bottom where a guy comes up behind and
Speaker 1: hit somebody from the back and you say crack, and
Speaker 1: you see the cap flying and there. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: just such kinetic energy in these graphic That's what I
Speaker 1: really enjoy out of it because you can really see
Speaker 1: it come alive. And as you point out, you know,
Speaker 1: they create the characters and they're doing the direction and
Speaker 1: the action in it. So it is a great collaboration
Speaker 1: and it looks really interesting. I've seen some of who
Speaker 1: haven't had time to go through all of it yet,
Speaker 1: but it is really well done. Again it is you
Speaker 1: can go to a coldcase Christianity dot com. That's where
Speaker 1: the people can can find it and buy it, right,
Speaker 1: I guess they can also get it on Amazon. But
Speaker 1: if they get it. Once they get it, then there
Speaker 1: is a code in the back that's going to give
Speaker 1: them supplemental material. And it is a great outreach, a
Speaker 1: great conversation starter with people.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I hope it is. I hope it's
Speaker 3: a gateway book. I think it's the kind of thing
Speaker 3: that you can give somebody and then the conversation begins.
Speaker 3: Now the question is are you ready for the conversation?
Speaker 3: And that's what we really I think our whole ministry
Speaker 3: is about. If this is a tool that helps you
Speaker 3: get active and get ready for the conversation, then we've
Speaker 3: accomplished our goal.
Speaker 1: That's right. And you know, that's the wonderful thing about it.
Speaker 1: We used to have a Bible study and our home
Speaker 1: back in North Carolina, and when something is coming up
Speaker 1: like that, you know you have to And it wasn't
Speaker 1: that I was leading it or anything, but you know,
Speaker 1: I knew what we're going to be covering, and so
Speaker 1: I would, you know, look at it, and I would
Speaker 1: study it for a while. And it's that preparation that
Speaker 1: is really the benefit to you. And so if somebody
Speaker 1: goes into this and somebody looks at this and focuses
Speaker 1: on it. Just gives them a focus, It gives them
Speaker 1: something to do. We always ought to be engaged in
Speaker 1: some way or the other doing something that is positive,
Speaker 1: and so this gives you some direction. It gives you
Speaker 1: something to contemplate, to think about critically, and it's really
Speaker 1: going to build you and it might help you to
Speaker 1: pass out on to somebody else's.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, if it's a catalyst that we've done our job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. Coldcase Christianity dot Com. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Jay Warner Wallace. Always a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you,