— Intro

— Motivation for doing this episode / How are we dealing with hard societal issues as Christians? / Two of Chris’s soon-to-be-released stories (‘Blackface’ and ‘You’re a Meme One’)

— Michael’s quote from a former pastor in Seattle who said that we should be in a spot where both the far left and far right disagree with our views / Cancel culture is making it hard to have real conversations on heavy topics / Michael wrote a cancel-culture story recently called ‘The Umbrella Holders’ / The church is in a tough spot right now / Tolerance and egalitarianism today

— The value of a person isn’t separate from the value (or lack thereof) of his or her views / The recent John Wayne controversy––even the dead aren’t safe

— Contemporary stories are changing / Michael enjoys the show ’24’ and likes how it depicts the true sinfulness of all human beings (Romans 3:10: No one is righteous––not even one.)

— Michael wrote a story called ‘Iris’ recently: it’s a warning about giving up one’s power of decision-making for ease of living in this technological world / “Moral correctness” is being separated from truthfulness (ends justify the means)

— Racism: Is it an unpardonable sin? The worst sin? / Look at our other sins / How do we write stories that empathize with those on the other side of the spectrum from us?

— How do we reflect these rough issues honestly in our work? / Pitfalls if we aren’t careful / Story Chris is working on about a confrontation between a hard-right shop owner and hard-left activist

— Yelp’s new anti-racism designation for businesses / Chris’s shopkeeper story doesn’t go the way you might think

— Ends justify the means is dangerous; Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore said something troubling a few years ago / Manipulation of truth is now commonplace in the media / The Christian artist standard for truth / We don’t get to make “comfort food” for our audiences

— Scary stat on how susceptible we are to fake news stories / More on Yelp’s troubling new anti-racism policy: false narratives might be permitted / Michael expounds on God’s view agains an ‘ends justify the means’ mentality

—  Election Day a week away: God’s establishment of governing authorities / We vote for policies we believe benefit all / Politics seem to have replaced religion / Michael knows someone who wished a political leader were dead

— The Christian artist’s fear of outing himself on these hard-hitting societal issues

— Why are we taking a risk by outing ourselves? / We are aware of our whiteness / Education is a big concern at the root of many societal problems / We don’t cancel people for their past bad acts / We don’t categorically dismiss an entire class of employees because their industry at-large has done some bad things / Where does Chris fall in all of this?

— Matthew 7:16: You will know them by their fruit / Identity politics is a worldview––it’s incompatible with faith in God / Love and compassion is the call for believers, not politics / Our art must reflect this and seek to change our hearts and teach us all grace

— Chris mentions a short story in a secular book that deals honestly with the fallout of CRT: ‘Friday Black’ By Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah / We have to account to God for what we do in our work / Link to article Michael recommended

— Outro

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