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0:29

In 1550, imperial forces

0:31

besieged the German town

0:34

of Magdeburg, seeking to re

0:36

-establish the Roman Catholic faith. In

0:38

response, Magdeburg's Lutheran pastors and

0:40

theologians wrote a treatise

0:42

on justifying resistance to tyrannical

0:44

power called the Magdeburg

0:46

Confession. The issues it set are

0:48

a book of the month for April is

0:50

a translation of the Magdeburg Confession. Learn

0:53

about this new resource

0:55

at issuesetc .org or by

0:57

calling Concordia Publishing House

0:59

1 -800 -325 -3040 The

1:01

Magdeburg Confession. That's

1:06

my wife! What are

1:08

you looking for? You're

1:12

making a big mistake. He's

1:14

only a kid. Dad, I haven't done

1:16

anything. He's

1:21

a good kid. Jamie,

1:23

I want you to listen carefully. I'm

1:28

gonna start off with asking you. Do

1:31

you know a girl called Katie Leonard? Yeah?

1:35

Describe each other as friends then. Is

1:39

she dead then? Why would

1:41

you ask her? Those

1:45

are some excerpts from a TV

1:47

series called Adolescence. Among other things,

1:49

it's remarkable in that each of

1:51

its episodes is shot in one

1:53

long take. It tells the story

1:55

of a young man accused of

1:57

murder, and it's set as

1:59

a British crime mystery. Welcome

2:02

back to Issues, etc. I'm Todd

2:04

Wilkin, joining us to review the TV

2:06

series Adolescents, Pastor Ted Geese. He

2:08

has a bachelor's degree in fine arts.

2:10

He's pastor of Mount Olive Lutheran

2:12

Church in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and he

2:14

teaches a course for Concordia Lutheran

2:16

Theological Seminary, titled A Lutheran Approach to

2:18

Art, Media, and Film. Ted,

2:20

welcome back. Thanks, Todd.

2:22

Why are we so fascinated

2:25

with murder, murder

2:27

mysteries, legal drama

2:29

surrounding murder. There's a

2:31

couple of different reasons probably. One reason

2:33

is their puzzles, oftentimes,

2:35

especially murder mysteries, their

2:38

puzzles. So trying

2:40

to figure out what happened, putting

2:42

your feet into the shoes of the

2:44

detective, that kind of a

2:46

thing. So there's that element of it. I

2:49

think just even kind of

2:51

asking yourself, well, how would I

2:53

What would it be like if that

2:55

was all happening to me if

2:57

I was embroiled in the middle of

2:59

all of this that would be

3:01

another reason I think to like ultimately

3:04

the bigger reason would be. An

3:06

appeal to like a sense

3:08

of justice like you know wanting

3:10

to see the one who

3:12

was murdered let's say or their

3:14

family to be have them

3:16

be vindicated have justice come to

3:18

the. perpetrator, the murderer, etc.,

3:20

or the criminal. I

3:22

think that that's all part of

3:24

the reason why people find these

3:26

kinds of stories so fascinating. But

3:29

again, if you're an

3:31

American and you, let's

3:33

say, or a Canadian and

3:35

North American, if you

3:37

watch this show, Adolescents, but

3:40

you're kind of more

3:43

used to, let's say, Lawn

3:45

Order, SVU or Lawn

3:47

Order, where the story

3:49

kind of mostly just gets

3:51

wrapped up in one

3:53

episode, or maybe you're more

3:55

criminal minds or CSI, Miami,

3:58

or one of these other kinds

4:00

procedural shows. I think

4:02

that this whole, like the way

4:04

this unfolds is going to be

4:06

very different for you as a

4:08

viewer. If you're already

4:10

kind of familiar with British crime

4:12

dramas, it's going to

4:15

feel, in some ways, it's going

4:17

to feel part of that whole

4:19

kind of ecosystem of crime dramas. We

4:21

can unpack that a little bit,

4:24

but there's a real difference between

4:26

the British crime dramas, which this is

4:28

one of those, and your average

4:30

American crime drama. So how would you

4:32

describe the difference, maybe not in

4:34

this particular one, but the difference between

4:36

American versus British crime dramas? Well

4:39

one thing I remember years

4:41

ago we started watching a show

4:43

called Shetland which is set

4:45

in Scotland and the detective inspector

4:47

Perez was going into a

4:49

house that maybe like it was

4:51

all dark or whatever and

4:53

You know he was going into

4:55

a house where maybe there

4:57

might the killer might be in

4:59

there and he just goes

5:01

in He doesn't pull his gun

5:03

because he doesn't have a

5:05

gun He just Goes in in

5:07

the dark and I'm sitting

5:09

there thinking myself. He's gonna get

5:11

hit with a stick or

5:13

something like something bad is gonna

5:15

happen to him. And what

5:17

you find over and over again

5:19

in these police procedurals over

5:21

there is that. Their police

5:24

officers or their detectives they're

5:26

not packing heat they're not

5:28

carrying guns around they don't.

5:30

Pull them before they go

5:32

into a house. The

5:34

very different I mean you do

5:36

have like the beginning of this show

5:38

they show like the arrest of

5:40

the suspect and yes they have battering

5:42

ram and they've got a SWAT

5:44

team and there's all these people that

5:47

come descending on this house to

5:49

like arrest them. But generally speaking you

5:51

don't see that kind of stuff

5:53

there was a show called line of

5:55

duty where a number of seasons

5:57

in one of the key central characters

5:59

started to like sign a gun

6:01

out from the armory and. It

6:03

became a plot point like why are you

6:06

doing that? He was worried

6:08

for his safety, but the question is

6:10

that's unusual. Why are you doing that? So

6:12

all of that stuff is very,

6:15

very different. The other thing

6:17

that is fairly different between the

6:19

two, and you start to get

6:21

these kind of limited series on

6:23

platforms like Netflix, which is where

6:25

you find this, but where the

6:27

entire season is one case. Like

6:30

where they cover, it's not a murder

6:32

of the week or a crime of the

6:34

week, but it's this kind of, it's

6:36

almost more like a novel. Like

6:38

with the whole season, it'd be

6:40

like an entire novel. And that

6:42

Shetland that I'd mentioned, that's like

6:44

each season, well, especially at the

6:46

beginning, each season was based on

6:48

a novel by this Ann Cleave

6:51

lady novelist. So the approach to

6:53

all of it is a little

6:55

bit different. So it's a more

6:57

laid back. quote unquote,

6:59

or at least more intricate,

7:01

more long form version of

7:03

the stories. You get

7:06

that with this too, is that

7:08

it spans over a length of

7:10

time. It's four episodes. It's a

7:12

limited series, each episode is about

7:14

an hour long, but it doesn't

7:16

all resolve just in an episode.

7:18

The story that gets told in this,

7:20

they could tell that kind of

7:23

story in a law and order SVU.

7:25

episode, but it would probably just be a

7:28

single episode to tell that story, maybe

7:30

a two -parter. So

7:33

what happens in this

7:35

particular TV series, Adolescents?

7:39

Well, it all kind of

7:41

revolves around this boy,

7:43

Jamie Miller, played by Owen

7:45

Cooper, and it starts

7:48

with him being arrested under

7:50

suspicion of murder. It's

7:53

a very strong suspicion.

7:55

They've got CCTV camera

7:57

footage of the murder

7:59

happening, so closed circuit

8:01

television footage. And

8:03

it's the murder of a

8:05

female classmate of his named

8:07

Katie Leonard, played by Amelia

8:09

Holliday. She's the victim of

8:12

the murder, so you don't really see a

8:14

lot of her, but you hear about the

8:16

character and there's images of her in the

8:18

show. So what you

8:20

get then is the

8:22

day of the arrest, a

8:24

little bit of the work

8:26

of the police officers, the

8:28

detectives as they go to

8:31

the school where the victim

8:33

and the murderer were classmates.

8:36

And then another episode

8:38

that deals with

8:40

a clinical psychologist that's

8:42

come to evaluate

8:44

this Jamie character. And

8:46

then a last episode that

8:48

deals with the family in

8:51

more detail. like his mother

8:53

and father and sister and

8:55

dealing with things afterwards, further

8:57

down the road. So the

8:59

first day, the day after,

9:02

weeks later and then months later, that's

9:04

what you get. So it's not

9:06

as detailed. You don't get courtroom stuff.

9:08

You don't get like some of

9:10

these, like it's their kind of days,

9:12

day in the life kind of, or

9:15

just like it's actually

9:17

kind of just an

9:19

hour long chunk. of

9:21

time. And there's a reason for

9:23

that. And that's the way that the show is shot,

9:25

like the cinematography of the show. But

9:27

that's what you get is this.

9:29

And also just a lot of questions

9:31

as to why does this 13

9:34

year old boy murder this 13 year

9:36

old girl? Why does

9:38

that happen? So the police have

9:40

to think about that. The psychologist needs

9:42

to go, okay, so what does the murderer

9:44

think about that? And then

9:46

the parents are like processing and trying

9:48

to deal with all of that.

9:50

in their life as well. How

9:53

does it work? I don't know how it works behind the scenes,

9:56

but how does it work for the viewer? This

9:58

one continuous shot, which I've seen

10:00

some videos online of the actors

10:02

explaining that this requires an enormous

10:04

amount of rehearsal and coordination before

10:06

they even turn the cameras on.

10:09

Oh yeah. So we've looked at this

10:11

a couple of times along the way.

10:13

Like there was that movie 1917, which

10:15

was a World War I film. There

10:17

was the movie Birdman. with Michael

10:19

Keaton in it, similar sort of

10:21

thing. Each of those movies had a little bit of

10:24

a trick. Those were even

10:26

longer movies, like those are full length

10:28

feature length films. One of

10:30

the kind of earlier movies that

10:32

had some of these very, very

10:34

long takes in them that people

10:36

were fascinated by was the movie

10:38

Children of Men. That

10:41

was another one where just

10:43

very, very long shots with

10:45

some trickery as to how

10:47

they they do it, but

10:49

it was still this kind

10:52

of singular long shot. And

10:54

it does take a lot

10:56

of timing and planning and choreography.

10:59

It's maybe a little more like what you

11:01

get with a play, like

11:03

on a stage, because

11:05

the play will unfold, you

11:08

know, for an hour, let's say,

11:10

and then you have an intermission, and

11:12

then you come back and do

11:14

more. But everything has to kind of

11:16

all naturally flow from one thing

11:18

to the other thing. And what they

11:20

do with this is the camera

11:22

follows people around. So when he's in

11:24

the first episode, when when he's

11:26

arrested, like you follow the

11:28

the vehicles coming up to the house,

11:30

you follow them as they break down

11:32

the door, you follow it in, you

11:35

follow him getting brought out, all of

11:37

the chaos of that put in the

11:39

vehicle taken all the way to the

11:41

to the police station and then being

11:43

processed and put in a room and

11:45

then as the one character leaves the

11:47

room, the camera starts to follow that

11:49

character and then that character goes and

11:51

does this and then they talk to

11:53

another character and then the camera starts

11:55

following that character and then they go

11:57

and do this. So there's

11:59

no edits, there's no

12:01

breaks in the action and what

12:03

it does is it really kind

12:06

of draws you in as a

12:08

viewer and it makes it. gives

12:10

you might not be thinking of

12:12

this on the surface but it

12:14

gives you like under the surface

12:16

like subconsciously maybe even it feels

12:18

more like real life because the

12:20

life that we lead doesn't have

12:23

edits and cuts and stuff it

12:25

doesn't we don't have fades and

12:27

swipes and things that happen for

12:29

us so it makes all of

12:31

it more grounded and concrete. As

12:34

you're watching it and another kind

12:36

of detail with this is just

12:38

going back to the whole British

12:40

style of everything People just look

12:42

like people in these shows like

12:44

they don't Like if you watch

12:46

a like a lot of American

12:48

crime dramas, you know, if it's

12:50

an FBI show, they're all very

12:52

polished and with the makeup and

12:54

the hair and the suits and

12:56

stuff and everything this is more

12:59

like just natural

13:01

looking as you might want

13:03

to say or you might want

13:05

to think. So as a

13:07

result of that, plus this choreography

13:09

of the cinematography, the way

13:11

they do it, you get immersed

13:13

into the story. So it

13:16

makes it more grounded, more real,

13:18

more heightened sense of drama

13:20

to the whole thing. What

13:23

would you say in terms of not

13:26

to give away too much as

13:28

to the mystery of this thing, but

13:30

the themes of toxic masculinity, misogyny,

13:32

things like that. Well, this

13:34

is where it becomes a big, like

13:38

there's lots of shows that

13:40

deal with various kinds of

13:42

crimes. This one

13:44

hits a particular nerve on a

13:46

number of different levels. So

13:49

one of the

13:51

things that this is

13:53

dealing with is

13:55

something called incel. And

13:57

incels are involuntarily

13:59

celibate individuals. So

14:01

these are people who

14:03

cannot manage for various

14:05

reasons to end up

14:07

in a relationship, even

14:09

a casual one, which

14:11

those are not recommendable, but

14:13

like cannot seem to get

14:15

into a situation where they

14:18

have physical intimacy, sexual contact,

14:20

or a lasting romantic relationship

14:22

of any kind. And

14:25

this is something you

14:27

find people online are

14:29

dealing with these questions. This

14:31

is a term that has

14:34

now been applied. Initially, it

14:36

was a more neutral generic

14:38

term. In the last number

14:40

of years, it's become more

14:42

a volatile term. And

14:44

one of the things that

14:46

comes up in the course of

14:48

the show is that it's

14:51

being used as a bullying term

14:53

against the main,

14:55

the central character, the one

14:57

that has perpetrated the

14:59

murder. So it goes

15:01

into kind of areas of like the

15:03

manosphere, online pornography, even

15:06

things like, I guess adjacent to

15:08

that would be like McTow men going

15:10

their own way. That's kind

15:12

of like. an aspect of this

15:14

kind of stuff. Often

15:16

you hear about the term, like you'd

15:18

mentioned, toxic masculinity. Of

15:20

course, if there's toxic masculinity,

15:23

maybe there's also toxic femininity

15:25

too, right? But in

15:27

this case, it's kind of drilling down on

15:29

that misogyny. Andrew Tate, who

15:31

is this online presence that

15:33

people may or may not have

15:35

heard much about, he

15:38

gets name dropped in the course

15:40

of this. this show as they're

15:42

kind of starting to piece some things together.

15:45

And he's got an online presence. He's

15:48

an unsavory individual who

15:50

is hyper masculine in

15:52

a kind of almost

15:54

cartoonish way and has

15:57

been involved in, you

15:59

know, he's very physically

16:01

fit, I guess, and

16:04

seems like he's very

16:06

rich, seems like he

16:08

has access to lots

16:11

of interactions with women.

16:14

So that might be somebody

16:16

who would be attractive to

16:18

a guy like the main

16:20

character of the show in

16:22

theory. But the question

16:25

is, who are the role models? What

16:27

drives people to do the

16:30

things they do, particularly young men

16:32

in this particular case with

16:34

this particular story? And

16:36

then the other thing is that this is

16:38

set with a bunch

16:40

of like 13 year

16:42

olds as the kind

16:44

of key individuals. So

16:47

that's like late junior high,

16:49

early high school, depending on

16:52

where high school starts and

16:54

junior high school ends or

16:56

whatever in your jurisdiction. But

16:59

these are very young people.

17:01

And at one point the

17:03

detective says, you know,

17:05

well, aren't aren't all

17:07

13 -year -olds supposed to

17:09

be involuntarily celibate. They're

17:11

not supposed to be having sexual

17:13

relationships with each other anyways. So

17:16

he didn't see how

17:18

that applied to young, young,

17:20

young people. And

17:23

that was a term or a

17:25

thought that he would associate with

17:27

older people, like people and their

17:29

guys in their 20s or 30s

17:31

or older. And

17:33

this is where you

17:35

know, it gets a little more complicated

17:37

because that's how you start getting into

17:39

some of the stuff with cell phone

17:41

usage and other kinds of things. But

17:44

I think that viewers

17:46

that are seeing this

17:48

and thinking about it

17:50

might want to reflect

17:53

back. If you're older,

17:55

like, and you

17:57

remember stuff from the

17:59

70s and 80s and

18:01

90s, particularly the 80s

18:03

and 90s, but there's still

18:05

more modern examples of this.

18:08

This is like a crime

18:10

drama, but you do have

18:12

like romantic comedies or just,

18:15

I don't know, like the

18:17

kind of teenage sex farce

18:19

comedies that deal with anxieties

18:21

around teenage sexual relationships. So

18:23

these have been kind of

18:25

around for a long time.

18:28

So there's things like... know

18:30

revenge of the nerds from

18:32

1984 or 16 candles from

18:34

1984 or even like kind

18:36

of more preposterous things like

18:38

weird science and Teen Wolf

18:40

from 1985 and then you've

18:42

got like American Pie from

18:44

1999 super bad from 2007

18:46

easy a from 2010 no

18:49

hard feelings from 2023 which

18:51

is pretty recent with Jennifer

18:53

Lawrence and then there's kind

18:55

of more serious things like

18:57

this one called Kids that

18:59

came out in 1995. And

19:01

that was more serious because

19:03

that dealt with AIDS. And

19:06

as the teenage kids were engaging

19:08

in sexual activity, you

19:10

could, as this is, I guess, what they

19:12

call dramatic irony, as the audience member, you

19:14

know that one of them has got AIDS

19:16

and that he's passing it to the other

19:18

kids. So that's

19:20

one that's more of

19:23

a social kind of

19:25

style. social

19:27

topic movie than some

19:29

of the other ones,

19:31

which are just kind

19:33

of like about teenage

19:35

anxiety about losing their

19:37

virginity or having these

19:40

encounters. So this

19:42

though is dealing with some of

19:44

that stuff, but presenting it

19:46

the worst possible aspects of it

19:48

that are the pressures that

19:50

are being put upon the increasingly

19:53

younger aged people. That

19:55

that really ought to be

19:57

protected from all of this

19:59

stuff but because of the

20:01

way the internet is and

20:03

the access through things like

20:05

cell phones that the whole

20:07

culture around sex and their

20:09

interactions with each other have

20:12

been accelerated like gasoline on

20:14

a fire in a way

20:16

that previous generations didn't have

20:18

to deal with but that

20:20

anxiety has been around for

20:22

a long time and this

20:24

is part of that continuing

20:26

investigation of it, except it's

20:28

not played for laughs. Here

20:30

it's deadly serious. We are

20:32

reviewing the TV series Adolescence

20:34

with Pastor Ted Gase. We'll

20:37

get his pastoral concerns next.

20:51

In 1550, imperial forces

20:53

besieged the German town

20:55

of Magdeburg, seeking to re

20:57

-establish the Roman Catholic faith. In

21:00

response, Magdeburg's Lutheran pastors and

21:02

theologians wrote a treatise on

21:04

justifying resistance to tyrannical power

21:06

called the Magdeburg Confession. The

21:09

issues it set are a book of the

21:11

month for April is a translation of the Magdeburg

21:13

Confession. Learn about this

21:15

new resource at issuesetc .org

21:18

or by calling Concordia

21:20

Publishing House 1 -800 -325 -3040,

21:22

The Magdeburg Confession. Are

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the Lutheran Witness helping you

23:00

interpret the world from a

23:02

Lutheran perspective. Welcome

23:11

back to Issues, et cetera. I'm

23:13

Todd Wilkin, reviewing the TV series Adolescents

23:15

with Pastor Ted Geese. He teaches

23:17

a course for Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary,

23:19

titled The Lutheran Approach to Art,

23:21

Media, and Film. The Lutheran

23:23

Witness Magazine interprets the world from

23:25

a Lutheran perspective. An annual digital

23:27

and print subscription is less than

23:29

$25. Church councils and

23:31

conventions is the theme of

23:34

the May issue of The

23:36

Lutheran Witness. Learn more at

23:38

lcms .org slash witness or

23:40

by calling Concordia Publishing House

23:42

1 -800 -325 -3040, the Lutheran Witness

23:44

Magazine. Pesticides,

23:46

what are your pastoral concerns about

23:49

the series, Adolescents? Oh

23:51

man, there's a bunch. One thing

23:53

is, people have to remember this as

23:55

a fiction. It

23:58

may be touching on things that

24:00

are going on, but it's

24:02

not a documentary, so it

24:04

probably shouldn't be treated like

24:06

that. There are concerns that people

24:08

have had because the way

24:10

it's presented the murder is a

24:12

knife related murder and especially

24:14

over in the UK, most

24:16

knife murders don't play out

24:19

the way that they're being

24:21

shown or rampages or violent

24:23

crimes with knives. So

24:25

that's generally a

24:27

concern. People need

24:29

to look at this and ask

24:32

themselves, if they've got grandkids that are

24:34

in that age group, if they've

24:36

got children that are in that age

24:38

group, How

24:42

are they interacting with

24:44

them about these topics?

24:48

If it's a young boy, how

24:51

is that boy being

24:53

modeled towards being a

24:56

man with a healthy

24:58

masculinity? If

25:00

it's a girl, how is

25:02

she being modeled towards

25:04

being a woman with a

25:06

healthy femininity? How

25:09

are they being modeled

25:11

towards a good proper

25:13

interaction with the opposite

25:15

sex? Where

25:17

are their influences? Where

25:20

are their role models? How

25:22

is that being modeled to them? And

25:26

one question that the particularly the

25:28

father has in the last episode is,

25:30

you know, like did we like

25:32

in the mother twos like did we

25:34

Did we do things the wrong

25:36

way? Did we do things the right

25:38

way? If could we

25:40

have done anything different when it came to

25:42

our son? These

25:44

are good questions. The

25:46

pastoral concern would be

25:48

to be careful of self

25:51

-justification, right? Like to

25:53

explain everything away where you, it's

25:55

not your fault. If it is

25:57

your fault in some way, you

25:59

need to be honest about that. Now,

26:02

every situation isn't going to turn out

26:04

to be a murder, right? But

26:06

if there's problems

26:08

that have developed within

26:10

a family because

26:13

of outside influences, then

26:15

how well equipped have

26:17

your children been towards

26:19

dealing with those outside

26:21

influences? Have the

26:23

screens been used as

26:25

a babysitter? How

26:28

much attention has been paid

26:30

to what? is being watched or

26:32

what's being looked at. These

26:34

are questions that everybody has to

26:36

struggle with. But the thing is,

26:38

is that young people might not

26:40

be well equipped to struggle with

26:42

them. And if they're struggling with

26:44

them without support or help, if

26:46

they're struggling with them alone, if

26:48

they're struggling with them just amongst

26:51

themselves, like Lord of the Flies,

26:53

this is not good either. There's

26:55

a lot of concerns. Like

26:58

the pastoral concerns are

27:00

like we could spend

27:02

days talking about pastoral

27:04

concerns connected to various

27:06

questions connected to this.

27:08

I think that these

27:10

are all worth struggling

27:12

with. It's not advisable

27:15

to struggle with these questions alone. You

27:17

should be in conversation with other

27:19

families. You should be in conversation

27:21

with fellow Christians. You should be

27:23

in conversation with your pastor. You

27:26

should be looking for help wherever

27:28

you can find it. One

27:30

thing that's kind of cropped up

27:32

is questions of whether or not

27:34

cell phones should be banned in

27:36

classrooms. And listen,

27:39

I'm sure it would probably

27:41

provide a better environment for

27:43

education if that could be

27:45

done. How would you do

27:47

it? Like how can you do it? There

27:50

are also these other kind of issues

27:52

with it like parents that don't want

27:54

to be out of contact with their

27:56

kids ever. And if

27:58

you're of a certain age,

28:00

you remember life where you

28:02

spent hours on end out

28:04

of contact, uncontactable almost from

28:07

parents or any sort of

28:09

like authorities or legal guardians.

28:13

So, I mean, we're all like everybody's kind

28:15

of trying to figure out what to

28:17

do with these devices as they've kind of

28:19

plunked into our laps and people are

28:21

starting to get wise to the idea that

28:23

the ones that are in the driver's

28:25

seat for social media and things like that.

28:28

Maybe don't always have your best interests

28:30

at heart, and

28:32

you should probably be looking

28:34

at them a little

28:37

more, you know, cautiously, a

28:39

little more carefully, should

28:41

be paying a little closer

28:44

attention to how this all operates

28:46

in the lives of young

28:48

people, but not just young people,

28:50

in the lives of everybody.

28:52

This is something where we all

28:54

need to be looking at

28:56

that. Now, you can't just foist

28:58

it all on the technology

29:00

because we are the people using

29:02

that technology and other people

29:05

are the ones using that technology

29:07

and questions of age restrictions

29:09

and when and where things are

29:11

appropriate. These are all social

29:13

constructs and legal constructs that that

29:15

need to be seriously looked at. So

29:18

in terms of pastoral concerns, there's all

29:20

of that, plus there's the spiritual dimension of

29:23

it. And the spiritual

29:25

dimension of it, like from the

29:27

pastoral concern would be, I

29:29

mean, this show talks about murder, murder

29:31

harming people. This

29:34

is the fifth commandment. It deals

29:36

with these sexual relationships. That's

29:38

a sixth commandment related thing. You

29:40

also have fourth commandment related issues

29:43

because In this case, there's

29:45

all sorts of legal stuff going on.

29:47

It's the police and it's courts. That's

29:50

incarceration. That's all

29:52

part of it. But I think

29:54

the thing that probably is going

29:56

to have the biggest spiritual import

29:58

on most people that are watching

30:00

this and would be something worth

30:02

talking about across the board is

30:04

where it fits in with the

30:06

Eighth Commandment. What

30:09

these kids are

30:11

trying to navigate

30:13

here is their

30:15

reputation with each

30:17

other. And

30:20

for good or for ill, really for ill

30:22

in this case, that reputation

30:24

is bound up with sexual

30:26

interactions and whether people can

30:28

have them or not have

30:30

them within their peer groups.

30:33

So dealing with their

30:35

reputation. how

30:38

to navigate that

30:40

for yourself. But

30:42

then also, if you're

30:45

another kid in that school, let's

30:47

say, how

30:49

do you take care of

30:51

your neighbor's reputation? And

30:53

this is where that online

30:56

part, the anonymity or the feeling

30:58

like you can just say

31:00

whatever has a deleterious effect. It's

31:02

got a bad effect on

31:04

things. And then if people start

31:06

ganging up in the comments sections on

31:08

things, that's a problem too. So

31:10

a lot of this is

31:12

dealing with that reputation part of

31:14

everything. And this is

31:16

an area that I think if you

31:19

were to watch this show with young

31:21

people that you knew, the

31:23

thing you'd want to do

31:25

is have a conversation about

31:27

reputation and then provide to

31:29

them the great comfort that

31:31

we have in the Eighth

31:33

Commandment. which

31:36

the eighth commandment is, you shall not

31:38

give false testimony against your neighbor. What

31:40

does this mean? We should fear

31:42

and love God so that we do not

31:44

tell lies about our neighbor, betray

31:47

him, slander him, or hurt his reputation,

31:49

but defend him, speak well of him,

31:51

and explain everything in the kindest way.

31:54

So if you instill in

31:56

your young people to be

31:58

the ones that are doing

32:00

that second part, the

32:02

second part where You're

32:05

gonna defend somebody speak well of

32:07

them and explain everything in

32:09

the kindest way and protect their

32:11

reputation instead of destroying that

32:13

reputation that is that's a very

32:15

important part of it and

32:17

Even if you're this is the

32:19

other spiritual part of it

32:21

is even if your reputation has

32:24

been destroyed that is not

32:26

excuse to harm other people and

32:28

that has to be instilled

32:30

in the young and Needs to

32:32

be instilled in everybody So

32:35

this is the kind of can

32:37

of worms that this program opens

32:39

up and it's well worth digging

32:41

into and I hope people do

32:43

when they see it, if they

32:45

see it, I hope they take

32:47

the time to contemplate all of

32:49

these things and have these conversations

32:51

with people. So

32:54

Pastor Gates, besides those pastoral concerns

32:56

you've listed, are there any other concerns

32:58

you have? Yeah,

33:00

you know, I'd alluded to some

33:02

kind of controversy connected to this

33:04

I think listeners will maybe have

33:06

come across that themselves one of

33:09

the things is is that the

33:11

likelihood of this kind of violence

33:13

Like we were talking about is

33:15

it's it's less likely to have

33:17

happened like in the real world

33:19

not in the kind of fictional

33:21

I show but in it's more

33:23

likely to not be perpetrated by

33:25

a native British citizen somebody who

33:27

who was born in brought up

33:30

there. At the

33:32

very least, knife violence like

33:34

this tends to be more

33:36

associated with or connected with

33:38

people who have come with

33:40

that knife violence as part

33:42

of their culture from elsewhere.

33:45

Now, this is being used, I

33:47

think, like I think sometimes with all of

33:50

this is that this program can kind

33:52

of be a bit of a wax nose.

33:54

So you can kind of turn it

33:56

this way or that way. So There's all

33:58

we've talked about, a couple of different

34:00

various things connected to this. There's

34:03

a reasonable reason why the

34:05

central character of Jamie is

34:07

a white, young British person,

34:09

like who grew up kind

34:11

of from a British heritage,

34:13

let's say. And

34:15

the reasonable reason for this

34:18

is that Stephen Graham, who

34:20

plays the father, He's

34:22

also credited as the creator

34:24

of the of the whole

34:26

idea for the show and

34:28

as a writer on this

34:30

program and he wanted to

34:32

be able to play the

34:34

father so as a result.

34:37

That kid at that age

34:40

with that ethnicity that's the

34:42

most likely child boy for

34:44

him as the father so

34:46

that that's the most reasonable

34:48

reason for all of this

34:51

is that. He himself wanted

34:53

to be the dad in this

34:55

story. So this

34:57

is how it gets cast. This is

34:59

how it all plays out. And I

35:01

think that's important for people to keep

35:03

in mind because there's so much volatility

35:05

swirling around this program and there's so

35:08

much criticism. And some of

35:10

that criticism may be founded and

35:12

some of it may be being used

35:14

to gain points, quote unquote, or

35:16

to push an agenda for good or

35:18

for ill. There's a

35:20

reason for it. It

35:22

doesn't require it being some

35:25

sort of nefarious plot

35:27

to misrepresent this kind of

35:29

scenario within the UK. It

35:32

really kind of is more

35:34

about that. So I think that

35:36

the concern there is for

35:38

viewers that have kind of dug

35:41

into all of these various

35:43

criticisms that are going on out

35:45

there to also be critical

35:47

of the criticism and to look

35:49

for the most reasonable reason

35:52

why the program is the

35:54

way it is. Pastor

35:56

Ted Geese has a bachelor's degree

35:58

in Fine Arts. He's pastor of Mount

36:00

Olive Lutheran Church in Regina, Saskatchewan,

36:02

Canada, And teaches, of course, Concordia Theological

36:04

Seminary titled A Lutheran Approach to

36:06

Art, Media, and Film. Ted,

36:09

thanks. Thank you. Friday

36:11

on issues, et cetera, we'll

36:13

look forward to the second Sunday

36:15

of Easter, according to the

36:18

one -year talk with Heath Curtis

36:20

about Jesus appearing to the disciples

36:22

in Jesus and Thomas in

36:24

John chapter 20, and we'll respond

36:26

to your email talk at

36:28

issuesetc .org and issues, et cetera,

36:31

comment line 618 -223 -8382. I'm Todd

36:33

Wilkin. Thanks for listening. Listen

36:44

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36:46

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36:49

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