Listeners of this podcast know that when Christmastime rolls around, the SASF podcast likes to focus on the less appreciated Bible stories that lead up to the birth of the Christ:. You may remember past Advent episodes on the Levite's concubine, Onan, and Tamar. This year, the guys discuss the place of the Jewish people in the Christmas story. Why? Well, nobody needs a reason to talk about the Gospel, but in addition (if you're on X), you've definitely noticed a certain vocal minority who loves nothing more than to denigrate the Jews. Don't worry, we don't spend much time on those dummies -- but we do spend time discussing the meaning of Christmas, its place in history, the rights and wrongs of Zionism, Old Testament heresies like Talmudic Judaism, and, of course, the Jewish story that is the whole basis for the birth of our Jewish Savior... and why we're Christians now. You're also going to find out that you're the second lobster on the heavenly sheet in Peter's vision, so get used to not being the main character. Merry Christmas!

Under duress, Brian admits that Gladiator (the original) is still his favorite movie, having stayed atop the BK Movie podium since Brian was a teenager. Nate attacks Brian for his bashfulness at recommending what is, in fact, an all-time great movie, and the guys have a pleasant reminiscence of Russell Crowe and 2000's Gladiator, remembering all the great parts and forgetting all the supporting actors' names. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and it turns out they just released a NEW Gladiator, and Nate had watched it with his kids. You get to hear Nate's analysis of how the new Gladiator fails to emulate the old, along with his hypothesis for why Ridley Scott keep churning out poor quality movies from potentially amazing IP. You'll also hear Nate's director's take on the casting in Gladiator II, which is a single point of failure (well, maybe the CG baboons are the single point of failure). But the worst of Gladiator II is the effort spent undermining the nobility of Maximus.

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The guys make a oliphaunt-sized announcement -- the 1977 animated Hobbit is now streaming on Canon+ (along with the cartoon Return of the King!). Naturally, it's our next LAMPC pick (Look At Moving Pictures Club, for those of you who don't know). The discussion of the Rankin-Bass cartoon Hobbit leads to a discussion of Family Movie Night, and how all fiction is fantasy, really. In process Nate pokes fun at one of the sci-fi greats, Robert Heinlein, for his definition of sci-fi, and the guys turn their attention to discussing the movie I Am Legend.

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Yes, these two topics are both related, but not in the way you're thinking. Brian asks Nate a vital parenting question for anyone with boys -- how do you deal with kids talking about gross things? Nate points out that it's God who made the world with poop, pee, and barf in it, but it's also God who forbid coarse jesting. So Nate's family had a no-tolerance approach to fart jokes, for example; or yuk-yukking it up about poop and pee. But Nate also has a keen eye for the gross parts of God's storytelling, so there's nothing wrong with noticing and being amused when your infant destroys her new Easter outfit. This is all related to Shrek; but the real damage of Shrek is not in the earwax or swamp farting but in the "princess to monster" character arc that Princess Fiona epitomized. The guys break down wish fulfillment of Fiona's sort and how it has perverted (technical word) most of our modern storylines.

Around election time people get addicted to bad stories, downing them cocktail after cocktail. And that's because presidential elections, which are the beauty pageants of babylon, usually turn on this simple storytelling question: Who can tell the most compelling tale about their opponents? Harris-Walz is trying with video games and guns and abortion; Trump-Vance is trying with filthy comedians and French fries and free speech. Analysis gets really entertaining when you get to watch how fringe elements on both side stand where their opponents tell them to stand and say what their opponents tell them to say (this is where AOC and groypers overlap in their hatred of Israel, and where fascists and communists sort everyone into categories based on sunburn-ability). In literary terms, we Americans in 2024 are living in a black comedy, which is a satire in which the main characters cannot see that the rules they live by are crazy. But the audience can. And unfortunately, black comedies usually end in destruction for everyone but the audience. Speaking of audiences: who is your audience? What matters for you, right now, on a Tuesday afternoon, isn't the centuries-long stories God is telling of the rise and fall of nations -- it's how you treat your wife, kids, boss, pastor; and how your actions are telling a story to everyone you live with. So, vote for Trump, but God is the only Storyteller who should have control of your emotions. Stories are soul food, after all.

Public perception of Christianity has soured in the past decade -- and so has most of the famous "Christian" nonfiction -- titles such as The Shack, Love Wins, Blue Like Jazz, Love Does, Wild at Heart have aged like milk. In contrast, Brian asks Nate why his own nonfiction seems so well suited for the negative world. Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl is now a barrel-aged 15-year whiskey, the gospel of story. Death by Living is a bold declaration of your mortality in a time when "normal" dreams are shattering. The guys discuss why storytelling is kingdom work, and why the Gospel of Story is a key skill for every Christian living now to develop. Nate also addresses readers who don't like his writing, and that one secular reviewer who, days after publishing a positive review, accosted Nate with this realization of how Christianity had tiptoed into his books: "You pulled that C.S. Lewis s***." Find the matching hardcover sets of each book at ndwilson.com.

See if you can guess this author who has sold over 200 million copies: His comic work consists of nonstop adventure featuring a boy-faced hero and his little white dog. Yes, this Stories Are Soul Food episode is about Herge, Tintin, and Snowy (or Milou, if you're Belgian, and want the dog to be named after Herge's girlfriend). Nate and Brian discuss Herge's influence on their development, Spielberg's sorta unsatisfying adaptation, and the excellent Tintin cartoons now available on Canon+ (better than Spielberg?? yes!). Nate also challenges SASF listeners to show episodes of Tintin to their children (5th grade and under) and see what comes out of brains fed with this adventurous soul food. (Do let the SASF pod know what comes of it.) The guys also discuss Herge's blatantly bad spots (Tintin in the Congo) and their excitement at being able to share a childhood favorite with so many other families. If that sounds good, sign up for a free trial at joincanonplus.com.

The internet is still smoldering from the aftermath of a Tucker Carlson interview in which Darryl Cooper of the pop history podcast Martyr Made called Winston Churchill "a chief villain of World War 2." Brian asks Nate about historical heroes, the great wars, whether Winston Churchill is hero or villain, and why the explosion of boomer rage over the Churchill criticism in the first place. Nate returns these questions with extra helpings of spice, laying into historical revisionists of all sorts who think that THEY are the judge, and that a great man's legacy rises or falls after each new podcast claim. And, at the same time, he gives his answers to whether Winston had bigger flaws than we think (probably). Churchill is the last championship banner hanging in the gym -- why wouldn't we love him, even if he had flaws? To make sure everyone is angry, Nate also makes a case for the nuclear end to WW2, showing that historical revisionists, even when they've got a point, are always taking shots from the cheap seats.

Did you know that N.D. Wilson found a method that would have allowed a medieval to fake the Shroud using glass and paint, including photo negativity and all? This Stories Are Soul Food episode has the entire scoop -- including: Nate's impetus for the whole experiment (a professor discarded the Bible because the Shroud was "proof of the resurrection"); how the inspiration came to him (through a monstrous collection of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories); and how his theory continues to be ignored by contemporary Roman Catholics (although the medieval Roman Catholics declared that the Shroud of Turin was fake because they'd found the craftsman who had faked it!). You'll also hear why, if you believe your Bible, you already should have known the Shroud was fake. But for the first time in the modern era, we've got a frontrunner for how the Shroud of Turin was made (and it wasn't made at the moment of Resurrection).