OK, welcome back to the show everybody.
I have an awesome episode in store for you guys.
I am joined by the one and only Brian Gadala.
He doesn't need much of an introduction with my audience,
but we're going to go over a couple amazing things that is
going on with Brian right now. He just released a book on
September 12th. Cruel Logic, Brian, welcome to
the show man. It's great to have you here.
Thanks for having me on, Rod. Absolutely.
So let's jump right into it, man.
What stirred, what was stirring up in you to to get you to want
to write this philosophical killer novel?
I mean, this is epic. What was going on in your mind?
Yeah, I call it a theological thriller.
Reason why is because it's basically a psychological
criminal thriller, psychological crime thriller.
But I'm definitely dealing with. I'm definitely telling a story
from a very unique perspective that.
Probably hasn't been done as much in the way that I'm doing
it, in that I'm sort of engaging in some philosophical dialogue
within the thriller genre, which, you know, risky to say
the least, but people have been finding it to be exciting so
far. So the basic principle of or
premise of the story is Cruel Logic, the philosopher killer.
That's the title, and the premise is that.
It's a story of a serial killer on a woke university campus.
And so this guy is basically he's a professor who's a
brilliant professor, philosophy professor, but he's also a
serial killer. And what he does is he captures
university professors and he debates them and videotapes the
debate. And the topic of the debate is
his moral right to kill them. So he'll ask.
You know, he'll he'll ask him something like, okay, if what
you say is true about reality, give me one valid reason why I
should not kill you, and I'll let it go.
In other words, he's plumbing their moral theories and their
their theories of ethics. And each of the various
professors you know, evolutionary biologist, trans,
queer theorist, you know, feminist, All these various
world views. I'm exploring in in through the
the story in the novel and at the same time that this is
happening, I'm telling the story also of a evangelical Christian
who goes to he's a freshman first year at a fictional, you
know, California campus and he's introduced to social justice and
it draws him in and we see a lot of.
Well, we see everything that's going on on the college campus
these days with whether it's DEI, diversity, equity and
inclusion, indoctrination, queer theory, trans ideology, all the
protests, BLM, antifa, all the stuff that's been going on on
campuses in the in this last decade or so.
I've sort of bring bring to bear on the story because that's the
context of what this is going, that of what this is taking
place. And I was inspired by the notion
of the idea that Western civilization is no longer taught
in most universities. The curriculum, like many
universities for decades, had had at least a basic Western Civ
requirement. You know maybe they would have
take some classes, a series of classes is all it was part of
the basic requirements. You know, learning the the
history of Western philosophy, Western civilization and
culture, music, some things like that.
And that's all been done away with in in the context of the
modern woke university because the the higher education has
been captured by this, you know this deal Marxist.
Left wing paradigm that has reduced reality to oppressed and
oppressor and all this stuff that's going on and what does
that lead to? You know, I I've been I've
thought a lot about it. A lot about you know what
happens when you when you take God out of a culture.
What happens when you get rid of Western civilization, and that
is what the higher education has been doing, is.
It's been seeking to get rid of Western civilization because it
conceives Western civilization as the as an oppressed, an
oppressor worldview of racism, sexism, homophobia, and and all
the other phobia you can imagine.
Right? And patriarchy.
And ultimately, they believe that Western civilization, they
understand that Western civilization is rooted on
Judeochristian values. And so there the the university
is up, has uprooted all this. And I've thought a lot about
what happens when you do that. And on the surface, you think,
oh, you know, we're getting rid of all this oppression and all
this fundamentalism or whatever, But what are you really getting
rid of When you take away the foundation of civilization?
What are you going to get? And so the one of the dominant
themes in Cruel Logic is ideas have consequences.
And so I'm I'm, yeah, I'm wrestling at the higher level
with these big ideas and concepts, but this very related
to our everyday life. And of course it's in the
context of this thriller serial killer where a cop and a
psychologist who who is hunting down this this killer and the
psychologist is kind of like a Jordan Peterson character.
He's actually a professor at the university trying to bring back
Western civilization. And so he's we're seeing through
his eyes this, this battle for the soul of the of education,
but really of society itself, right, of civilization itself.
So that's that's the big picture themes that I'm wrestling with.
But on that, on that personal level, it's these, this cop and
the psychiatrist trying to track down this killer.
And at the same time, an evangelical Christian is brought
into social justice. And how does that whole paradigm
tend to seduce people and draw them into to to thinking that
way? And I think that it's rooted a
lot in the ill equipment of a lot of Christians these days to
deal with real skepticism and doubts and such.
But also I think that there is a component of this woke campus
culture that learns how to manipulate the desire in people
for compassion. You know, we want to love
people. We want to accept people even if
we disagree with them. And so it's it's learned how to
manipulate that conscience in order to try to drive them into
guilt into doing what they're supposed to do.
That kind of a thing. So that's the, that's the big
story introduction to it all. Wow, that.
That's amazing. I want to talk a little bit
about like character development for one second.
So like you're, you're zooming out, big picture.
These are big topics. They're relevant.
We need to be going here. Thank God that we have you to do
this for, for us as podcasters, as listeners, as just people
that are, in a nutshell, wrestling with these topics
ourselves. So let's talk about character
development here. When you're writing this book,
what was the inspiration like as these characters are developing
to enter into these these very controversial topics?
Yeah, well, you know what? I I come from Hollywood, so I
love entertainment and I believe entertainment.
So while I have a why I have that higher level interest in
these things, the bottom line is you got to tell a great thriller
story. And you know, one of my biggest
inspirations of all time has been Silence of the Lambs.
As well as the movie 7. Those are my two favorite
thrillers and I sort of write within that direction and from
that perspective and that kind of you know, dealing with the
scares and the fright but not going gory, too gory or or too
extreme, but but wrestling with that that primal human nature,
you know, and evil. The problem of evil and.
And and the desire in human nature and how that works itself
out. But so my main characters end up
being like I said this this character Joseph Calinger is his
name. He's a a professor of psychology
and he's like a Jordan Peterson. And so he's trying to bring back
Western civilization into the university.
And of course he's being attacked by all the students, by
and, and he enters into all the politics of the university.
You know when when you go against the grain and when you
go against the establishment, what do they do?
They try to take you out. They try to, they try to cancel
you. So they're trying to cancel him
and and get rid of him and accuse him of things.
So basically I have what goes on on these modern day campuses.
I actually drew from real events that have been happening in the
in the last years that you can read about in the news.
You know you've got issues like the Evergreen University where,
you know, famous. Secular professors Brett
Weinstein and and his wife, you know, stood up to the mob of
student protesters who were racists trying to force white
people to white professors not to come in and teach white not
to have white people even on campus for that whole day.
And they got shut down and cancelled because they refused
to follow that racist thought. Or you know that racist demand
but yet this is the kind of thing that's going on in a lot
of universities, right. And so then the students didn't
became violent in their protests and some of the professors were
actually endangered at at moments, you know, because of
their their violence as well as you know BLM and Antifa and that
the kind of things that they are doing all over the country.
So I'm bringing in all these. Components of our culture, and
I'm basing them all on what's really been going on.
So when you read this story in cruel logic, it's not going to
be outrageous things that I've made-up.
It's going to be this is stuff in the news.
In fact, I've even footnoted some of it because I've I've
sort of wanted people to realize, you know, this is not
crazy stuff I'm making up. This is really going on and I
just want you to know that. But you can enjoy the story and
and be entertained by it, and hopefully have this thrills and
chills that that that that a good thrill is supposed to have.
So, yeah, so I so I've, I've been inspired by Silence of
Lambs. My my main killer, Charles
Cullen is a brilliant philosophy professor.
So he comes from that, that background.
He's an Englishman. So he's got that English accent
and which I have in the audio book as well.
But and then then the character is evangelical Christian.
And you know, my goal was to to tell a story of.
I've been really sort of moved by what's called Christian
deconstruction or Christian deconversion.
This is happening a lot now where Christians will go to
college and they'll lose their faith.
But of course that's been happening ever since we've had
schools, right? But recently that's just been a
phenomenon. I think because of podcast a lot
of people have. Started their podcasts and they
share their stories and a lot of them are Christian celebrities.
Christian musicians or what have you right.
And so they're telling their stories about how they lost
their faith. And and I think that it's really
sad because this is an issue that I think all Christians have
to wrestle with and dealing with the doubts in their life and the
troublesome things like evil. You know how how can there be a
God with such evil going on in this world?
How could he let this go? You know, that kind of thing.
And and to honestly wrestle with these issues, and that's what I
do through this character Danny and as he also gets introduced
to the social justice movement, how he gets sucked into it.
Because I think a lot of that is connected.
And my my contention is that a lot of Christians today we're
we're really ill equipped to deal with doubts and skepticism.
And so for instance, a lot of churches, you know, they'll tell
you all about Jesus and your prayer life and church and and
reading the Bible and the Bible's a word of God, but they
won't really give you the, the background to defend that.
It's sort of like just believe, just have faith, you know.
And what happens is these Christians will then go to
college and they'll, you know, they're taught, just believe the
Bible's a word of God. Every word's perfect.
And the trouble is, is that. It's not.
It's not that way. It's the word of God.
But it's not perfect in the the the translations are not perfect
in the way that you would expect them to be, but they're not told
this. So when they go to college, they
get introduced to Bart Airman, and they see the facts that have
been hidden by Christians because they're afraid to deal
with it, which is transmission errors and all these kinds of
issues. There are apologetics.
People who deal with this stuff, but not a lot of Christians,
know much about it. So when they get introduced to
it, they lose their faith because it it.
These are facts that you can't deny, but they go against what
what they've been taught is what the Bible is.
So they've been misdirected, misinformed, miseducated, and
they're not equipped to be able to deal with atheism with
skepticism and doubts. In a real deep way, and I think
this is part of the reason, part of the reason why they're losing
their faith is that the other part is also I think the
sociology of a lot of Christianity, you know with the
seeker seeker sensitive churches focusing more on trying to be
relevant rather than truth oriented and I think also not
dealing with. Some of the personal issues that
are, shall we say, The Dirty little secrets that that many
Christians struggle with but we don't hear a lot about, such as
pornography. So I have my character in the
story actually struggling with pornography in an honest, frank
way. So I'm not here to make, I'm not
here to write cliches or stereotypes.
I want to be honest with all my characters.
And the Christian character has his struggles, has his sins.
Has his issues, but he's not a a fake person.
He's not some, you know, judgmental fundamentalist
homophobe running around. Oh, you're going to hell, you
know, No, anyone Christian. But he just has a a faith that's
not really founded on much of anything and which makes him
easy. Pray.
And you know, by the same token, you know, I seek to show this
woke university what it's like on the woke campus.
But again, I'm not. Coming up with extreme scenarios
to make the the the bad guy look look extremely evil and you
know, like the kind of thing that they do with Christians,
you know The Handmaid's Tale, right?
So look at the dystopia that the Handmaid's tell this.
This one's got in control of the country.
Look what they would do and like none of it looks like anything
that any Christians think or believe, right?
That's so absurd. And it's amazing how people buy
it because of their prejudices and biases.
So I don't want to be like that. I want to be honest even to the
to the viewpoints that I don't necessarily agree with and to
this what's it like, what's going on in the woke
universities? What's really going on?
And so therefore I also show what is drawing people, not just
what's bad about it, but. What is it that's good about it
that is making people be drawn into it?
And how do these things interplay and what's what's
really going on? So yeah, I don't try to make
straw man or cliches. I really, my goal as a
storyteller is to be honest and frank about every viewpoint in
the story. So that even though I definitely
have a viewpoint as a storyteller, I want to depict
all the different viewpoints, all the different.
Kinds of people that there are as best as possible and not
slander them as you know, cliches and stereotypes, which
is what most people do to their Christian characters when
they're attacking Christianity and stories and such.
I don't want to do that back to them, you know.
I want to tell a good story and one that might might at least
draw people in with a with an honesty that that I hope will
will ring true. Superlative.
That's amazing, Brian. It's just a couple things that
stood out. It's like how many men in the
church deal with the struggling with pornography.
So as people are going to be reading this, they're going to
identify struggles that they've either had in the past or
currently dealing with. So it's really going to
emotionally tie them in now and just it's it's phenomenal you
you covered so much there and we don't really have anybody else
that that I'm aware of that is bringing into a it right into
your home into your lap real life issues that are taking
place real time under our news where we can take this journey
through a nonbiased but but Christian perspective.
And I think it's, it's crazy cool that, you know, this guy is
hitting up the campuses and just taking out, you know, all these
false ideologies because it's kind of like that's what the
gospel really does at the heart of it.
And it's phenomenal. Phenomenal, so.
Now do get me wrong. He's a bad guy.
He's the villain. And he's not just making a
philosophical point. I'm not going to reveal the
twists that occur in the story. There are definitely he's he's
there's more story than just that and but that's where it
begins. That's that's the sort of press,
you know, I I actually got this idea from a Christian apologist
that I love to listen to years ago he was.
Back in the 60s and 70s, he was famous.
His name was Walter Martin. And Walter Martin, he wrote
Kingdom of the Cults. Anyway, he was a Rascal.
He was a he. He had a good sense of humor.
That's why I liked him. And so he was talking on this
old radio show that I was listening to, and he was
describing his frustration with some atheist one in particular
he was debating with. He was trying to say, hey, look,
look, you know, he's like. He he's, he's like, you know,
your atheism doesn't provide a foundation for morality.
He's like, what are you talking about?
I believe in morality. I believe murder's wrong and I
don't believe in God. He's like, yeah, that you True,
you do, but you don't have a foundation for it because your
atheism is contradictory. And he got so frustrated that
the atheist couldn't think about his thinking.
You know, he couldn't realize what's the foundation of what
I'm thinking. And so he just got so
frustrated. He got to the point.
He's like, OK, look, it's 1940s. I'm a Nazi with a gun pointed at
you. You're a Jew.
Give me one reason why I shouldn't shoot you, you know,
And that always stuck with me. That haunted me for years
because I felt that was a that was a powerful, dramatic way to
Incarnate the moral argument for the existence of God.
In other words, you know, we can make these logical arguments and
and and they're legitimate. They're valid but but in some
ways if you can embody. A concept or an argument into a
human dramatic story. It could be more powerful and it
can hit home in a more powerful way, just like a an analogy or a
metaphor, right? And that's kind of what that did
for me. It like, wow, that really
encapsules encapsulates the the moral problem that atheists
really have because they will attack Christianity.
You know, if there's a loving God, if there's, if he's all
powerful and all loving, then why is there evil, Right.
And yet the truth is, is wait a minute, wait a minute.
You're you atheist. You're the one that has the real
problem. Because if there's no God, why
are you calling anything evil? Why do you have a problem with
murder? Why what?
There is no such thing as evil there.
Everything is permissible at dos, as Dostoevsky had said.
Right. And.
And interestingly, I find Dostoevsky's.
You know his Sort of. Expression of this same argument
in Brothers Karamazov was one of the best expressions of it, with
Ivan debating Alyosha about, you know, this, this, you know,
against the love of God. You know, how could a loving God
create a world in which this girl is beat up and tortured and
raped by her own parents and smeared with excrement, right?
And it's just this horror that he but he he really captures the
profound emotional movement and psychological disturbance that
evil should give all of us, including Christians.
So I'm actually trying to wrestle through with this
problem of evil in God's existence and how do these
things coexist in a world? I want to wrestle with it,
honestly, because I do believe it's the universal conundrum or
it's the universal struggle in all of our hearts.
And as you get older, as the more I live, the more I become
acutely aware of the suffering and evil that's in the world and
how unjust it is in in many levels, right.
And I think that that when you have that concern and you're and
you think through, if you're an honest person, you're going to
say, hey, look this does cause me trouble.
It's not easily answered just like that.
And so I wanted, I want to wrestle through with that issue
too, on that deep human, psychological and spiritual
level. So.
What do you hope that like let's just say a non believer would
take away big picture and and even personally like what kind
of goes through your mind and then let's let's make this a
two-part that with a Christian what are you really wanting them
to see highlighted big picture and what is your hope through
the this story to to really grasp them deep on the inside.
Yeah I don't know I mean that's an interesting question do you
know? I don't know.
I guess I don't know if I have a specific, if I have a specific
thing I want a an unbeliever to know or get out of it or a
believer. When I write a story like this,
I come at it from, you know, as we mentioned, these big picture
issues. And so I'm wrestling with a
deep, multifaceted, multiperspectival issue.
I'm actually, rather than seeking to prove something or
seeking to make my readers see something, I'm seeking as a
storyteller to honestly enter into the story, enter into the
issues that I'm that I'm wrestling with and to try to
explore it from many different viewpoints and to be truthful
and honest about them and fair. So don't get me wrong, as a
storyteller, I definitely have a viewpoint, but in order to be a
good storyteller, I want to, even if I have opposing
viewpoints, I want to show the best of those viewpoints in a
story. Because people embody these
viewpoints in the way they live and the choices they make, the
moral choices they make, right. And like I said, I'm, I'm not
out to make. I'm not to you know make paint
stereotypes and cliches and and political propaganda.
I want to I want to wrestle with the human condition in an honest
way. And that means you know, giving
giving your opponents their fair shake so to speak.
You know, depict all the varying viewpoints with the best they
they've got and then seek to try to tell a story how I think
this, this can work out how I think this works out in the real
world because the the ultimate, you know, one of the dominant
themes in the story is ideas have consequences.
So if you really lived consistently with some of these
ideas that people have, what would it really look like?
I think many people really do have a lot of beliefs and
they're very convicted about them.
Whether believers or unbelievers, it doesn't matter.
They have strong convictions. But I found actually both
Christian and nonchristians have not thought through a lot of
their beliefs. They'll believe contradictory
things, you know? And they're not really.
They really haven't thought it through.
And but while while I am intrigued by philosophy, by
worldview thinking, I also understand that not everyone
thinks in those terms. Not everyone cares about
philosophy or, you know, theology, right?
And so I'm also have that dual interest in, like I say,
entertainment, drama, thrillers, You know, I love that kind of
stuff. And so I figure, you know what,
let me let me tell a story that it combines both my interests
and maybe people will be drawn in to to something that's a
little different and and sort of make things interesting, you
know? And who's your favorite
character that that you wrote about?
Who? Like when you were writing from,
you know you're talking about all these other perspectives,
Like you wanted to give everybody a fair shake and just
have a brief good overview that just connects all these things
together. But who was your personal
favorite to write about? Well, yeah, I know that's a good
question. I do have a favorite.
So like I said, I, I have all these different, you know,
professor characters, right. And again, I I don't, I don't
seek to make them into cliches. You know, I I do try to paint
characters that are common in, in these various fields.
You know, there are certainly patterns of behavior, patterns
of look and dress, right. You know, just like nerds look
very similar, jocks look very similar, right.
So. So there are very many
professors who also look very similar, but but that's a
shallow understanding. My goal was to sort of capture
the a common archetype so to speak of each of these different
characters. But my personal favorite
character was the was the main protagonist of the story which
is Joseph Calendar. Like I said he he is a professor
of of psychology and what I like about him is he represents a
kind of a Jordan Peterson character to me.
And this is also something I've noticed is there is there are,
It's almost like another there's almost like a backlash against
this woke anti western civilization movement.
There is more intelligent men who are standing up up and
fighting for western civilization, including fighting
for the judeo-christian. They understand that there's a
judeo-christian basis to it and that we get rid of this at our
peril. Right.
But interestingly, a lot of these men are not even
Christians. So they're sort of you know,
like a Jordan Peterson where well he certainly has a kind of
a belief but he said so himself that it it's not the it's not
the typical sort of with the way we understand having sort of an
evangelical understanding of you know having a personal
relationship with God and and but there's others like Douglas
Murray you know who defends Western civilization and I love
these guys. Tom Holland they write about
this stuff but I find it so interesting they're not
Christians. And so I I wanted to what's it
like to be that kind of a person you know and and and where might
that lead you know and what's the difference Why is it that
they can believe in Western civilization believe that
judeo-christian you know Bible worldview is good for society
and yet still not believe it for themselves.
What does that what is that like and what what might that end in
you know. And so that was my personal
favorite journey because I literally was trying to
understand I I I because I'm I'm a Christian and so I'm like how
could you be for all this stuff and yet not fully embrace it.
And in in terms of the faith and and it's sort of like you
believe it but you don't believe it.
I don't understand that. You know and this isn't a this
isn't a I don't say this as a criticism.
I love these guys. I I have other respect for them.
I just truly don't understand and I wanted to try to
understand that and that that was the most interesting part of
my writing for me personally. Fascinating.
Yeah. I mean, you have so, so many
previous popular series, you know, The Chronicles of the
Nephilim. I mean just you have so much.
Ferocity in in your writing that just is it's the ripple effect
is can't really determine it Brian it's it's fascinating just
to hear you talk because it as many people has been affected by
this it's it's amazing so do you are do you have a Part 2 in mind
for this cruel logic or do you think it just stands alone or or
does the development of the things that were.
Dealing within the world, determine what may be.
You know, putting some time on it and saying, yeah, Part 2
could develop, but let's see how things shift in turn.
You know, who knows what the future may bring.
At this point I I see it as a standalone novel, but I have a
series of novels called theological novels that I am
interested in exploring. And again, it's it's sort of
like combining philosophy and serial killers.
I, you know, I'm hoping this will be a a a new interest in
people, you know, putting together 2 opposite things, so
to speak, to make them interesting, you know make
philosophy interesting again, I don't know.
But all I know is that that's what I that's why I look, I
love, like I said, I love, I love serial killer stories and I
love philosophy. So I I'm, I'm putting the two
together. And so I do have some other
stories that I'm I'm working on and they're actually rooted more
in in true stories that have happened.
But I'm going to be, you know, adding some fictional characters
who who interact with the story that I think might be very
interesting, but we'll see. Now I want to bring up.
So you're an awardwinning screenwriter, right?
You've been doing Hollywood movies for the past 20 years.
A more recent controversial film is My son Hunter.
This is 2022. Let's just talk a little bit
about that. Just.
How did that work out and what was that process like?
Yeah, So my son Hunter is a political satire, not a
documentary. It's a political satire.
It's a drama that's based on Hunter Biden's laptop.
Now, of course, when we when I first started writing it in 2021
or something like that 22, it was of course still being
suppressed, right? And and now all the facts have
come out about how it was suppressed.
Now it's all true. And and but at the time it was
still not promoted or it's suppressed.
It was suppressed in mainstream media and so but there were
journalists like Miranda Devine who put out her book Laptop from
Hell. Although that came after my I I
read that I found out about it after I wrote the movie.
It wasn't released until we started making the movie.
But she had done a lot of reporting on it and and so there
was a lot of reporting in the New York Post and other sources
that actually gave a lot of the details of what was on the
laptop and we want. So the producers came to me and
they said, you know we want to do a movie on on to buy his
laptop, but we don't know what to do.
You know what give us some ideas And and I said, you know, I
don't want to do documentary and they didn't either because you
know there's a place for documentaries, but I don't know.
And there's. But also I found it was so
complex because here you have this, this, you know, as we now
are seeing, all these complex connections to all these, you
know, countries, whether it's Ukraine or China, Russia and
dirty business dealings with the Bidens, you know, and and of
course the sensational stuff was the prostitutes and the drugs,
you know, and that's you got to have that in Hollywood movies so
that, you know, on one level I'm like, well, this is a Hollywood
movie because it's got the sex and drugs and rock'n'roll.
But there's more to it, right? You know but here's the
interesting thing, both the producers and I, when we
developed the story and and so they they they came to me and
said you know yeah what can we do And I thought well you know
what I was really inspired by The Big Short and and The Wolf
of Wall Street kind of. I mean the the technique that
was used where they they do a political satire and and they do
a lot of creative things like they break the 4th wall where
they talk to the audience and you know they do all these you
know funny quirky things that allows them to cover a lot of
time and a lot of issues quickly.
And that's what this was and and I didn't want to get bored and I
want to pick the most highlights but how do you, how do you link
all these things together or you can do it through satire because
it's comedy and that allows you to make a lot of jumps and make
connections that you couldn't do in a normal traditional story
And and I realized that's what it needs to be.
But also secondly this wasn't a it wasn't a it was not a
political hit piece. I mean like and both the
producers agreed with me. We did not want to you know
write a movie that will show how bad Hunter Biden is and look at
how you know this is what Hollywood does right with all
their political enemies. You know, the Comey rule does it
to Trump and and the with the loudest voice in the room to
Roger Ailes, they just, they make these their their enemy,
their the the politicians they're critiquing or attacking.
They just making them into these absurd monsters, you know?
And what was the Dick Cheney one?
I can't remember what that one was called.
But anyway, they're all just ridiculous sort of cliche
stereotypes and like, you know what?
I wasn't interested in that. And I actually felt the kind of
sense of sadness for Hunter Biden because I saw this as this
is a interfamily dysfunction. That's deep.
Father, son, but also elder brother who ended up dying.
But it's a, it's a 3 way sort of father, son relationship and
there's a lot of dysfunction, but a lot of it's driven by this
desire to be loved, to be accepted.
You know, it was very deep, personal, typical universal
family dysfunction stuff only on an extreme level because of the
drugs and the sex and the crimes of the bind family, right.
And so we wanted to actually delve into that personal
relationship with the Bidens, you know, and that was the human
drama that actually made me want to do the movie.
And what's interesting about it is although every leftist outfit
attacked the movie, which is a sign that we did a good job
because they felt they needed to attack it.
And. Right.
But some, it's interesting because some of them were like,
yeah, but, you know, they kind of made Hunter Biden a kind of
empathetic, you know, and they didn't understand this.
Some of them thought we did it unwittingly, like we didn't
realize we were making him empathetic, and others couldn't
figure out why. And it's so funny because it's
like they are so blinded by their ideology that they could
only imagine demonizing their opponents.
They don't understand how to humanize opponents.
And here we are, conservatives, filmmakers.
We're humanizing our opponents and we're telling a good story
about them and they don't get it.
It just doesn't jive in their minds.
They're that blinded by it. But that was also affirming and
confirming to us that we did the right thing.
And we did it well. We did it right.
You know. So yeah, I was kind of proud of
that. And, you know, yeah.
And and of course happy with. The performances were excellent
by Lawrence Fox playing Hunter Biden and James John James
playing Joe Biden. Of course, in Hollywood,
normally you can get characters that look exactly like them,
that are great actors, but of course not when you're doing a
movie about the Bidens, right? So nobody in Hollywood would
hardly work with us. We had to get only those who are
willing to give up their careers, right?
But fortunately they still we still did a pretty good job
because Lawrence Fox looked pretty good as a hunter and he
was fantastic. Actor John James was quite heavy
and and and a lot more deep of a voice than than Joe Biden.
But his acting was so well that you know you, it drew you into
the story. Anyway, I was able to put aside
the fact that OK, he doesn't look exactly like Joe, he
doesn't talk exactly like Joe, but he's got the character down
and that's the most important is finding the soul of the
character. So all that was happening, I
think all that that happened with that, with that movie,
pretty well. But of course Hollywood would
not distribute it. They couldn't get it distributed
anywhere. So even to this day you can only
see it online. Streaming@mysonhunter.com and
you know for pretty, I think pretty good price.
I don't know if it's rentable or or you have to buy it or not,
but yeah, so that's where we were with that and I was kind of
surprised that oh, so, so now that all this stuff that's now
coming out and being covered on mostly in Twitter, not on in the
mainstream media still. It's X now, right?
It's X. It's like you could, so I can't
even keep up with it. Yeah, it's kind of funny, but
but the stuff that's now coming out, it's so funny because I'm
looking at this stuff and it it's not new.
None of the stuff that they were and this e-mail is where he's
called him the big guy. It's like this stuff was, it was
known years ago when I was writing the script.
So nothing is new. So I'm kind of proud of the fact
that I ended up picking all the most interesting things for the
story. That also happens to be the the,
the revelations now that are coming out about what was really
going on and and so it's like, oh, we picked the right, we
picked the right component elements for the story.
Yeah, so proud of that. Wow.
Yeah, that that's, it's quite, quite a journey, man.
I love. One of the highlights I'll just
comment on real quick before the next question is you didn't try
to demonize Hunter Biden like you just were honest to the
process. And I think I mean, he's a
pathetic. He's a We all know that.
He's tragic, right? And and he's kind of a hero, but
he's a tragic hero. In other words, his bad choices
lead to his demise. And that's what a tragedy is all
about. But of course in this, in the
reality, it's not going to happen that way, right?
He's going to get away with his crimes, sadly.
So we actually deal with that in the movie as well.
I deal with the fact that we all know that justice is not going
to be played out. And so let's have a let's see
what a fairy tale ending really is like in a movie.
That kind of thing. Amazing, amazing.
And I'm going to put links in the show notes, you guys.
So as we just kind of go through these different, you know,
screen rights and movies and and Brian's books, you guys will be
able to find all those details in the show notes.
So let's kind of like even walk back to 2011 alleged, right.
Let's talk a little bit about this is a screenplay.
It's awardwinning feature film. What one best narrative?
Feature and actors awards and six major film festivals.
That's phenomenal. Just let's do a brief overview
on that real quick. Honestly, I, I forgot about all
that. But yeah, that was a fun, that
was a fun movie to write. So that's based on the Scopes
Monkey Trial, right. So we, you know and Fred Foot
was the investor and the and the producer and and executive
producer that he really wanted to tell the true story that had
been, you know, when you hear Scopes Monkey Trial, what do you
think whatever it is you think it's all based on this?
This propaganda of like these podunk ignorant Christians
standing up against the great edifice of science and
knowledge, you know, it's just ridiculous.
What does everyone know? Inherit the Wind, which was a
play and a movie, even though it's like, you know, I don't
know from the 60s or something 50s, everyone knows that.
And yet that is a complete farce.
It's a complete falsehood. And so Fred wanted to sort of,
well, let's tell the the true story.
But be fair again, we're not going to demonize the way they
demonize Christians. We're not going to demonize the
atheists. But we wanted to show, you know,
from from both sides, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings
Bryan. And of course, we had some great
actors. Fred Thompson, they're both
deceased now. Brian Dennehy and Fred Thompson
played those two Titans, you know, and we show that that
battle Royale as it's called, as it was called, but in a way that
we also wanted to show the cult. Again, this is one of my themes.
Ideas have consequences. In that story, I said I wanted
to deal with the consequences of this idea, not just the trial
and and the battle that was going on at the time.
But we, we brought in something that was actually historically
occurring at the time, which was euthanasia and how euthanasia
was based on the social Darwinian view.
It took Darwinism and brought it to its logical conclusion in
society. And of course, now people say,
oh, it is that, you know, that that was misinterpreting
evolution. That's twisting it.
No, actually, it was just being consistent.
And that's the bottom line. And Clarence Darrow actually did
believe in in evolution and he actually did believe in
euthanasia. So he's really a villain.
It's interesting because he's one of the greatest, you know,
defender lawyers in, in liberal history.
But he was quite, a quite the monster.
In fact that was the guy before. And we brought this into the
movie too. The fact that before the trial
he had also defended Leopold and Loeb, who were these two college
kids who murdered a 14 year old boy.
And their defense, literally because of evolution, was still
popular and well known. And these kids were upper elites
who just killed some kid that they happen to know, but they
did it more out of a nihilistic sort of curiosity.
And so they were educated and they had actually studied.
They were actually known about Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche
and his worldview and as well as evolution.
And so Clarence Darrow in the trial actually made the argument
that, you know, hey, these, these boys believe that and and
and we're being taught this. So can you blame them if they've
been taught that we're animals and there's no morality?
You know, there's they're soup. They're overmen, Ubermensch.
They're overmen. Why not?
You know, I mean, how can you blame them?
The point was they're not to blame.
Society has taught them this, and and here he believes in it,
but he's also justifying it. He was truly an evil monster,
you know? And so anyway, we brought a
little bit about that reality. And in other words, this is all
ideas have consequences in society.
It's not just this, Oh, Christians are Christians are
idiots because they're suppressing science.
No. It's if you're teaching this
stuff, if you teach people that they're animals without
morality, it's no surprise that they're going to act like
animals without morality. So these are the issues that we
wrestle but of course the the movie alleged was definitely not
you know, not like my R rated you know cruel logic or anything
like that was definitely a you know G rated for Christian type
of story. But but I felt like, you know,
we tried to deal with, like I say, wrestle with that with a
with a fresh, more true to history perspective.
Yeah. And I just wanted to bring up a
couple other things, just stir up some interest.
Just so people, you just have such a long list, Brian.
I just want people to just be aware of of what you've done,
what you're doing and and even what you will be doing in the
future. So let's talk a little bit
about, you know, your founding member of the Arts and
Entertainment Ministries in LA. We'll just take it from there
and just tell us what you're a founding member of, what you're
supporting and what's close to your heart in these days.
Right now, these are organizations that I've been
involved in mostly when I was in LA.
I've since moved out in the last few years.
But yeah, I've been on boards. I've been in like the Biola task
force, which is for film. It's it was like with Hollywood
professionals helping students to to you know adapt and come
into the real world of filmmaking and the arts and
entertainment as a ministry to Christian artists that was in
LA. Yeah.
Several of these these organizations I belong to where
I've just tried to be a part of something that is is helping to
inspire the next generation. And also and also communicate to
the church a better appreciation for the arts in general because
we have not had the best reputation.
The church has not had the best reputation with the arts.
You know it's often rejected it because of the the risk taking
that art is the the, you know, the yeah, it sometimes pushes
the pushes the envelope and sometimes it goes too far.
But the point is, is the church has tended to have less of a
support of of art and but we, you know, we've had our good
days and bad days I think. But that's sort of the other
part where you know I have even written books like Hollywood
World Views which was my my desire to help Christians watch
movies more intelligently. Don't just throw out all the sex
and violence. So I don't it's all bad.
Yeah. But also don't say, well, it's
just entertainment, so it doesn't.
Is that still being used in Christian colleges to this day?
Yes. It's build be still being used
in classes is 20 years old and I did have an updated version.
But because I talked a lot about Hollywood world views, literally
how world views are communicated through storytelling in movies
and television series, right? And you know, the more that you
understand about an art, the better you can appreciate it,
but also the more you can discern and not be manipulated
by it or not be, you know, bamboozled.
So just like you know. So the more you learn about
storytelling, you can watch a movie more intelligently
appreciate it, but also see where you disagree and where you
you don't want to be controlled. Because storytelling touches us
in the soul in an unconscious way in some ways.
You know it it it moves us, it affects us in non rational ways,
right? So you might be thinking
rationally on this one level, but that it's touching.
The story can be touching your heart in a way that's very
different. And so the more you're aware of
what that, what that is, how that story does that, then the
more you're protected, but the more you can also appreciate the
good as well. So it's discernment between the
good and the bad. So talk really quickly about, is
it the Mick Lat Ministries for for Michael Heiser, Mick Lat.
So yeah, just talk a little bit about that.
I'm just unfamiliar with it. I'm seeing it here and it's, oh,
I was drawing some curiosity. Mick Lat is now going to be
called the Michael S Heiser Foundation, and I'm on the board
for that because I discovered Michael Heiser's theology a
decade ago and he was writing about the Divine Council world
view in the Bible. He's an he passed away about a
year ago and he he, he. But he wrote about strange
things in the Bible. Shall we say the stranger things
in the Bible. Nephilly watchers, the divine
counsel, all these weird things. You know, but he's a Bible
believing so. But he's also not afraid to
address real scholarship in the Bible that other Christians are
afraid to address. And I discovered him because I
was writing my what became my first novel Noah Primeval.
I was actually writing it as a as a screenplay and I discovered
his book on the Internet before it was a book.
It was. He was just.
Starting to write manuscript. Yeah he wasn't he wasn't famous
yet he's now famous but he wasn't famous at the time.
And and I discovered and it blew my mind and it opened my opened
my eyes like Eliza's servant could then see the the the all
the spiritual powers up there. Well, that's what happened with
me. And I realized there's a lot of
stories here that I want to tell from the Bible that has this
supernatural component that is kind of we miss.
We miss a lot and and and all these weird things in the Bible
that we that we're afraid to deal with.
And that became my series, Chronicles of the Nephylene,
which is now 8 novels. I've got Chronicles of the
Watchers, which is about 3 novels now, and they're all
integrated. And Chronicles of the
Apocalypse, these are all these novels that I wrote inspired by
Mike's theology. So I got to know Mike real well
and. And he put me on his board and.
And yeah, so. So that was, that was something
that was life changing for me in terms of theology, but in a way
that helped me to alter my my relationship and understanding
of God in a very deep way. I mean it's you're changing the
world with with this, this story that you just covered here about
knowing my causer and then seeing these these threads and
him being this scholar that is, you know, willing to go into
these areas that other people weren't.
You know, I'm just looking at it's some stats here, Brian.
Since 2012, your first novel series, Noah primeval, it's been
#1 bestseller in the top five biblical fiction spot for the
past 10 years. Yeah, yeah, even right now.
Go there. Right now it's it's number one
in like several categories. In the series of 15 novels have
dominated for top 20 in biblical fiction.
So it's just it's phenomenal and.
I know who Mike Kaiser is. I've known of known of him for
years. And I just think it's it's noble
and it's just honorable for you to be on that board because you
speak so well of him and he's really loved it just in the
community of my listeners. You know, I never got Mike on
the show. I reached out to him saying like
21 and he was busy because he really was drumming up a lot of
interest. A lot of interest.
He was just exploding. I mean, oh man, it is one of the
things we're like, Lord, why, why do you take some of the best
people, you know. But God used them in a great
mighty way and he's inspired many of people like me who have
taken his teaching and we we pushed it further and in the
other realms. And so it's just sort of the
form of. Storytelling, just in this form
of storytelling, what you're doing, which we we talked about
a few years ago. Last time I talked with you,
Brian, the power of storytelling.
And just it's that's what the church is lacking in, like you
were speaking about earlier. The church does lack in that
power of storytelling because it's kind of like mundane.
They just kind of read some churches.
Not all, not all. Mike Kaiser's church would have
been, you know, if you would have been at church with him and
he would have been at the podium, you would have been
gripping your seat. But yeah, and I love to see how
you know. God has this calling for you.
You're obviously on the path he's been opening doors for
year, year after year after year and the abundance and the
blessing, yes, that you're you are in God working in and
through you to just open up these other paradigms.
Some of us can see this really well.
Some of us see this but but to get bigger picture revelation is
is key especially in this age of technology, Brian.
So let's as we kind of start to wind down a little bit, just
tell us like. Anything cool going on lately?
Did you get any cool vacations this past summer?
And what's on the horizon? Just what's going on in Brian
Goodell's world, Not a lot, to be honest.
You know, we moved to Texas, actually a few two and a few
years ago and just loving it here.
We escaped Los Angeles and just been loving it.
But, you know, just try just enjoying living a normal life
and being, you know, heavily involved in our church and
trying to resettle in this. Listen, we lived in California
for 30 years, so it's an. Adjustment.
It's a big adjustment because as bad as California has become and
as bad as as the cities definitely are, there's much
beauty and there's much that we do miss from California and we
realize how much we become Californians.
You know, and how we don't certain ways that we don't fit
in, even though our values are very much like the Midwest and
Texas and such. There's still much of us that
yeah, we we're different people now too because of where we've
we've come from. So, you know, it's it's been,
it's been a lot of adjusting to that.
And in the meantime, then I'm just been, you know, trying to
continue to do my writing ministry, my writing calling.
So, you know, I usually write like a script a year, a movie a
year and a book or two a year. But I've slowed down lately and
I'm trying to get speeding back up again.
And so now, you know, I'm continuing my Chronicles of the
Watchers series as well as the next theological thriller novel.
So now I've kind of got two pathways that I've got to work
on and we'll see if I can keep up the the pace there.
But yeah, nothing, nothing big, nothing special, actually, just
enjoying a normal life, but one that's I've got to focus on this
storytelling. And it really is a calling
because as you mentioned, what I write is I do, you know, my I
love to, I love to tell entertaining stories, but I also
love to communicate truth and the Kingdom of God in as in as
entertaining way as possible to people.
And I really have received, been receiving a lot of responses
from readers, you know, contacting me and just saying,
you know, you've brought the Bible alive.
The Bible is getting dry to me. You've brought it alive again
and it's but I'm going back to the Bible to reread it.
In other words, the my storytelling is inspiring to go
back to the Bible, not just just read more of my books, but it
was like, yeah, go back and reread that Bible, seeing it in
with fresh eyes. And that's exactly what happened
with me. And reading Michael Heiser's
material and and discovering this new thread line that's been
there all along. And yeah, and it's just
inspiring Christians to be able to understand and interpret the
Bible through the ancient Near Eastern and Hebrew mindset, not
our modern Western mindset. That has just transformed many
people. And it's been a pleasure and an
honor to be part of that. Yeah and we're we're just
excited to see as you just keep working in your gift and and
keep doing these things, you're just bringing greater revelation
and getting people to read their Bible again and ultimately
develop a personal relationship with Christ.
From my perspective, that's kind of the goal here on the podcast
as we have a really wide spectrum of topics we cover.
I don't want to leave anything out, I mean.
Don't get me wrong, there's certain things I'm like, Nope,
don't want to go there. But, you know, we don't want to
be a stranger to these bigger ideas.
The church is kind of boxed in, a lot of this thinking and what
you're doing is blowing the roof off of it.
And we're shooting up 510 stories in the ideas of what we
really need at least a minute basis.
We got to have some language for this stuff.
And one thing I want to say earlier with the question that
you know I had asked you with cruel logic.
Was there anything that you wanted a Christian to see versus
maybe you know a non Christian that was reading it.
And like the reason I asked that is because I'm like visualizing
and thinking just about when you're talking and I'm going.
So many people are stuck in these narrow trajectories of
what they they just want to stay right here.
And whether it's politics or whether it's everybody has hurts
and pains and and the way that they were raised.
But I'm hoping that it would just cause them to take one
little step over. And go, Oh well, that's
interesting. And it opens and widens this
track. Not saying that, you know,
that's the answer, but getting people out of this narrow,
aggressive you can't tell me anything.
We can't communicate, we can't sharpen on each other ideas.
That's really helpful. So I highly recommend you guys
go pick up Brian's new book and Brian, let's close out.
Just give us some motivational words.
For my listeners, you know, give us some edification here real
quick. I don't know, Rob.
We're living in crazy times. Give us a little bit of
edification here. Just, you know, let me tell you.
Yeah. In fact, that a lot of my
storytelling too is a response and reaction to the extreme
polarity, the extreme hostility that is building in our culture.
And I'm capturing that reality as well in my story.
And I'm trying to show at least point in the right direction,
because stories aren't systematic theologies.
They're not complete philosophical discourses, you
know? I mean, like, stories challenge
you to think things through a little bit more.
They challenge you to think from a different perspective.
That's my goal. Not to complete everything and
to provide a complete summary of all truth or, you know, that's
ridiculous. But but I I'm telling my stories
to try to help people to start to see things differently and
not fall prey to that very hostile polarity that is
breeding violence in this culture.
It and I see it happening and I see it coming, and it's getting
stronger. And I deal with that very issue
in in cruel logic. Ideas have consequences and
violent ideas have violent consequences.
And we've got to. We've got to somehow we've got
to band together against this, and I don't know how.
You know, there are people who are of differing viewpoints who
are banding together, you know, like those who support free
speech. You've got left and right,
Democrats and Republicans who do believe in free speech and
supporting it. But we need more and beyond
that, because the the commanding heights of the culture have been
captured by this woke monster and at the heart of it is hatred
and violence and separating people.
So we're we need to seek to draw together and stop this
demonization of your of your opponents.
Very, very well said, very well said.
That's, that's important. Yeah.
Brian, it was an honor to have you here with me and just to go
over this. And I don't know if you knew
this or not, but you're actually in the introduction for the
show. So when you were on, I think it
was 2020 or 2021 at the very end of the episode I asked you for
some wine down words and you yelled freedom and you said in
the words of William Wallace, right.
So that's actually in the intro to the show.
So for all you guys listening where there's this like climax,
you know when you hear freedom being yelled, that's that's
Brian here and that's cool. Yeah man.
Tell people where they can find you and where where you prefer
people to purchase the book. You know if we can get some
people over there to to get a copy.
Is this on Amazon? You know just go through that
real quick and look if you're if.
We'll close out if you're really curious about me as an author
and all the things I've done in movies and all that, gaddala.com
is my website. There's a lot of stuff there to
look through, but if you just want to go straight to the books
and just find out information about the books, what are the
books about and all that, the best thing is just go to Amazon.
Because all my books are exclusively on Amazon and
paperback, Kindle audio book, and some are even in hardback.
And you know, you go there and you find like the Gadala's
author page or the series page for Chronicles and nothing and
it'll it'll give you a big lowdown on what what the books
are about and what you can expect right there on Amazon and
and buy it right there. So yeah, everything exclusively
on Amazon and my name is spelled GODAWA.
It was a pleasure to have you with me and you guys.
That's it. That's the episode.
I'm blown away. This is something I'm gonna re
listen to after I launch it for you guys to listen to here and.
Brian is really pushing the boundaries.
He's stretching the boundaries here and this is, this is
honorable you know and we're we're a working body.
So his function is important because we all work together and
we we're supposed to be processing this information and
encouraging each other through the process.
So that's it. That's the show.
Share this one with a friend, family member with your
coworker. God bless and goodbye.