From LSD to Orthodoxy: From Artist to Scholar to Filmmaker
The Firestone Files: Letters to My Grandchildren — Dr. Chris L. Firestone
June 29, 2026 · Episode 45 · 2:14:12
https://drchrisfirestone.com/episode/from-lsd-to-orthodoxy-from-artist-to-scholar-to-filmmaker/

Transcript is auto-generated from YouTube captions and lightly formatted; it may contain errors.

Okay. Hey everybody, Nathan Jacobs with the Nathan Jacobs podcast here with you. Those of you who follow my channel regularly, you notice that we've moved to this new format, which I had promised about doing these more concise videos, things that are more in the 25 to 45 minute range. And we've been dropping those every Thursday. But as promised, I said we weren't going to completely stop doing the long form content. So here on this Tuesday, we're going to be going ahead and dropping an interview, a longer form interview. So uh those of you who have looked at past interviews, you might remember a character that I talked to named Chris Firestone, Dr. Chris Firestone.

And if you haven't heard of him or watched that old interview, which we can link to below, uh Chris is originally a former philosophy professor of mine and then churned colleague. We ended up teaching together uh after I had finished my PhD. And in addition to that, we've worked on co-authored essays. We've done co-authored books, co-edited books. And so Chris is a long-term friend, a long-term mentor, a long-term colleague uh in the area of philosophy. And uh Chris happened to be driving through Nashville. He had planned actually to come to Nashville in order to get some time with me.

He had figured out that I'm a busy guy and if you want to get an interview with me, you might have to actually just physically show up and corner me. And so Chris decided to do that. And so uh today what we're going to be looking at is we're going to be looking at one of those interviews. Now, Chris is a guy who's all about the journey. And so, what he originally wanted to interview me about was about my journey in three areas really, three areas that he watched me go through. One of those areas is, you know, my academic journey becoming a scholar. The other one is my journey in spirituality that ultimately led me to Eastern Orthodoxy.

And the third thing is he watched me on my journey as an artist and how you move from me being a fine arts painter drawer guy into being a filmmaker. And so that was Chris's original plan and that occupies the first two of the interviews that we did. The third one was kind of unexpected. Chris is a Protestant evangelical and so he wanted to have a dialogue about really the relationship between various Christian traditions and the church or at least my perspective on that sort of thing as an Eastern Orthodox Christian and what that means in terms of religious dialogue. So that ended up being the uh the third interview within this series.

And so with that, let's jump into part two of our three-part interview with Dr. Chris Firestone. I'm Nathan Jacobs and this is the Nathan Jacobs podcast. And I'm Dr. Chris Firestone of the Firestone Files. It's coming at you right now. Enjoy. All right. Well, welcome back to the Firestone Files in cooperation with the Nathan Jacobs podcast.

super excited to be here in Nashville at Nathan's house letting me set up this uh this ad hoc uh real estate here in terms of a set and and uh interview him and man I just being with you for a day I see how busy your life is and so it's um what an honor it is just to be here and be able to hang out and do this with you glad you could be here. Um we are are talking about our uh really your journey and uh in a previous episode we talked about our friendship and some of the things we went through and some of the academic stuff. Oh yeah, there are other podcasts on that but uh we talked about a lot of things we hadn't talked about before on camera.

Anyway, um this time I would like to do a little deeper dive in your spiritual journey. Okay. but using the pathway of your artistic journey as kind of a the uh the the arc or the driving force for the whole thing. And so uh I like to start there in the artistic stuff and then maybe you can help me understand you know some of the spiritual stuff as well as we go along. That's an interesting angle. Yeah. No, I like that. Okay. Um well the reason is because when I think of our relationship Okay.

first time I met you, you I don't you didn't wear it on your sleeve, but you told the story of being a transfer student from this unusual place that I'd not heard of, but a lot of people have who are in the art world. I'm not in the art world. I was an academic who had been buried in the academy for a long time, but this Maryland Institute of Art, College of Art, Micah, College of Art, Micah, and uh so I want to start there if you will. I mean, maybe we could start in your youth, but how you got there. Sure. And uh what happened there that then led you back into the academy?

Sure. Okay. That's an interesting way in um and I'll just say before I jump into it, you weren't the only person who I think was intrigued by that question of what is a like a proper artist doing like suddenly jumping into philosophy and religion. So I remember even in my doctoral studies Richard Mueller who was my doctor father right um you know in working in historical theology on post-reformation scholasticism on livveness Richard was worldrenown in terms of he is worldrenown in terms of I mean I'd say he's probably the f foremost authority in the world on 16th 17th century um you know post-reformation glassism and Um, and so people came from all over the world to study with Richard.

Yes. And it was interesting because I had been told explicitly going to Calvin that look, if you're not just a pure straight up I'm a historical theologian just doing textual analysis, you're doing the sort of creative constructive philosophy, religion stuff in dialogue with the history of ideas. There's no world where Richard works with you. And yet that turned out to be false. And uh you know, one of the interesting things about it was the thing that first excited Richard about me was the fact that I was an artist cuz Richard was moving toward the later years of his career.

He was getting ready to retire and one of the things he had gotten into was painting and um he had a background in it, but Richard was also very classical in his orientation to painting. So he was doing glaze painting, underpainting, all these sorts of things. And so I remember in our his you know our our research methodology class, one of the first things he gave us was I think it was Oh yeah. Yeah. No, it was an essay by Sir Joshua Reynolds who was the president of the Royal Academy um and of art. And he was doing this as sort of an example about like knowing historical context and there was something some oddities in there where he's like you know so what do you think this means? I just go, I know what this means. He's like, well, you went to art school, so you're not allowed to answer this question.

And so, um, but that started this I showed Richard my portfolio. He started showing me his art. And so, we really, you know, started this relationship built around art. It's actually one of the reasons why when they did the um the volume dedicated to Richard u my contribution was an essay on the platonism of Sir Joshua Reynolds um and sort of bucking the common wisdom that he's not a platonist or that's that's an older reading or whatever.

But that was really just in honor of the fact that I knew like right out of the gate day one this legendary scholar I'm in his historical you know methodology class and who he had never met and the thing that gets his attention is I'm an artist you know well that isn't the I mean that is a a deep and a profound relationship you're you supervised your PhD right that's right and uh but you had the same reaction at Trinity as a call I know and it played out slightly differently in a couple of different ways.

Let me use one example of that as we kind of back up just a little bit from the PhD back to the undergrad was that you ended up getting wasn't it two majors out of this uh because we went in to to Steve Pointer and to the to the to the academic board there and basically argued that your art background should be a humanities agree. Yeah. I mean, essentially what it was was I mean, I had I left art school in my third year.

And so, we're sort of getting ahead of the story. We'll go back into all this, I'm sure, but I left art school in my third year. And in art school, for anybody who's never been, like it's not like when you go to a liberal arts college and you're an art major, where you're taking five classes and maybe two are art, right? It's like history of art or something like that. This is all of your classes are art. 100% of your classes, sketching, painting. Uh, and even in art school, one of the wild things, cuz I, this was such a weird thing for me once I transferred to Trinity because art is so labor intensive, time intensive.

For every credit hour you receive, you're in class for two hours. And so, if you take a three credit hour class, you're in there for six hours. And it's six hours at a time, right? So, you'll take the class one day a week and you'll show up to paint or 6 hours for your three credit hour class. And so, when I got to Trinity and I was like, I'm taking a three credit hour class. We're taking three sessions a week and we're not even doing the full range. It's like 50 minutes in and we're done. I was like, what? Class is over. I just sat down. What is this? Anyway, I I think it was Steve Pointer who recognized he was like, look, I looked at his transcript.

He looked at my grades. He was the one who put me in the honors program right out of the gate when I was first transferring in. But he was the one who looked at that and was like, "You've done more than enough credits for an art major in a liberal arts context." I realized at an art school you would still have like a year and a half of classes to do, but in terms of like a liberal arts school, you've you've more than completed a major in this discipline. And that's why Richard I think it was in and you know you and I and Steve I remember a committee meeting or something that I got pulled into as an undergrad on this.

The number of committee meetings I got pulled into was weird but it was this entire controversy question over saying like we don't have an art major. What can we do? And my recollection is they said like we have a humanities major and so we could do like a humanities emphasis in fine art to just try to acknowledge this. Yes. uh something like that. Yeah, I was I think we were pretty delighted with that outcome and it's again having a great administrator like Steve Pointer made that possible because in that meeting he kind of turned this the lever there and really helped us get over the hurdle.

Yeah. Say honor honor that art background with the humanities. It's also part of why Trinity gave me a full ride to to the Divinity School. Well, I'm sure we'll get to that in that story is a is a great one. I I'm looking forward to to talking a little bit about that. One thing I realized though as you were talking about your time in art school in the immense amount of time of concentration and classroom time and focus that you had that that really in some ways prepared you for the academy later on in the sense that if you're going to do good work in the academy you're going to be pouring into books writing papers and really diving in.

In my own journey I didn't go to art school or anything like that. I played chess in high school and I learned in order to be a state championship chess player you have to spend hours focused on this on this dream and uh so did that did that come into play? Well, no. I mean 100%. I would say one of the reasons even though for you as somebody who had seen normal academia, right, our relationship probably seemed weird, right? Like I mean in a good way but like but for me that's what you do, right? Right? I'm a philosophy major.

Of course, I'm with the philosophy professors and the philosophy majors and hammering this stuff out all the time and all this other stuff is just white noise, right? Like I hadn't thought of that until this moment actually that that that there was a bridge there between what you'd experiencing and the fact that you're striving to find your voice and figure these things out and going through that whole slog. I mean, so the whole idea that you would do be a major in something, but it's just one of five things you're studying at that moment or what that that didn't even register with me. Yes, I remember that because you were so you were so focused in on doing the philosophy thing that you occasionally ran into those like traditional professors.

Yeah. Yeah. Who said, "No, you need to do my thing, not whatever question interest you." That's right. Yeah. Well, and it was actually that was part always part of the the thing like I had fine grades. I you know, like in other classes, but I would always let those classes slip and it would be like I'd just accept. I'm like, I'm not here to study that. I mean, I'll do it because I got to do it, you know, but I always had to run like a screen for you, you a few others like you who were Yeah.

Yeah. created problems for myself and you know that's that's why all of a sudden you get to the the PhD where I get to do nothing but the stuff I care about all of a sudden it's straight A's right but it was uh but yeah I mean I wasn't there for the grade I wasn't there for the academic uh side of things it wasn't for the the paper it was for the journey which had to do with philosophy and religion like we talked about last time um but I do I do want to dig backward a little bit but I still while we're in the transitional world That was your college experience. You didn't stop doing art there as I recall.

No, I still had private various locations that you were setting up in people's garages and uh I think I was painting in Bill Moler's basement. I had different people who were purchasing artwork. I had a a wealthy sort of private patron in the area that was was commissioned me for stuff. Anyway, yeah, I so I still did stuff on the side there um for that. But yeah, I mean I guess going back to your original question, you know, like a lot of people who go to art school, you know, they have, you know, they always loved art. They don't pay attention in class. They're always spending time drawing.

That's the thing they love. And it becomes the battle of whether or not you can convince your parents to study art because parents have this notion that the starving artist, you won't be able to get a job. And ironically, all of my jobs in the interim while trying to get a PhD were um were art jobs. So like that's actually not true. Art is actually today it's actually a really useful skill set if you can apply it in in a commercial context and so on. But anyway, but my brother had uh had already gone to art school. So he had already fought the battle. He went to the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and that was Kevin.

Um, and so, uh, you know, he had already fought that battle and won. And so, my parents were already accustomed to it. And they always knew like, you know, Nathan doesn't pay attention to anything. His head's in the clouds all the time except for our art. Like, there was no fighting that battle. And so, me going off to art school was like a no-brainer for them. Um and but in terms of like how it relates to the spiritual journey, uh I would say a couple of different things which are a little I find interesting. Anyway, so one of the things I did and you know I I tell this story a lot.

I oftenimes will say that my spiritual journey was sparked by a bad acid trip and that's true. Um but that the LSD and the fact that I loved I mean I the the drugs that I did the hallucinogens I did I did not for pure hedonistic pleasure. I did them I mean there was there was part of that right there was part of I'm sure I had all sorts of uh you know things I was trying to numb and whatever else but there was a big part of it also that was just I loved the way it allowed me to do it. Well a few different things.

One is that when you're an artist, and this is I'm sure true of essay writing or whatever, you're so close to the thing that you're doing, it's hard for you to see it with the fresh eyes that other people like no filmmaker gets to watch their movie for the first time. They don't, right? Uh because you've been in the trenches, you know, all the dirty laundry, you know how the sausage was made, all that sort of stuff. Um, but drugs allowed me an opportunity to put on new lenses and kind of see my artwork with fresh eyes, which was something I really enjoyed.

Um, because there was something about art that I what I saw it as is the outward articulation, the artifact of something that's inside of you. You've been cultivating this skill set and that manifest artifact is the concrete incarnation, right, of the skill set you've been uh you've been developing. And so to sit there and be like, "Yeah, that came out of me."

was something that was very satisfying. And so, um, drugs were always part of that. And then also with that, certain drugs, like LSD in particular, were particularly alluring because they really changed the way you think. And all of a sudden a lot of uh a lot of inhibitions and and you know boundaries you will you know run up against in your own creativity started to fall away. for example, and this is probably more detailed than people want to know about LSD, but um I remember my first LSD trip, one of the things that I did was once it was really kicking in and I was tripping balls to use the the word on the street uh on the street uh um term.

I was uh I was like, I got to draw and I was and we had this was we were in lockdown in house. A bunch of us were on LSD, all artists. And I remember just looking around like in this, you know, candle lit, Tom Petty's plan, you know, uh, lava lamps, whatever else going on. And I'm looking around, I just the first thing I see to draw with is I grab this big fat red mar magic marker. Not the sort of tool you would ever think like, yeah, I want to do some art, right? But I grab that and then I see poster board, right?

So, this big piece of poster board and I just rip off a piece and I slap it down. Now, again, when I say rip it off, it's some awkward wonky shape that again, like I would typically think rectangle, square, right? But here, it's like, who cares what shape it is? And then I slap my head down on the table and I'm rather than looking at it like this, I'm looking at it like this. And I of a sudden realized, you know, as an artist, I can warp space however I want.

It doesn't have to be onepoint perspective. And all of a sudden, I started doing drawing after drawing after drawing, unlike anything I'd ever done because I was like, "Oh, I can arc. I can do fisheye drawing. I didn't have the typical hang-ups of whether that line's perfect and all that." And that was the sort of thing that I really liked about LSE. That's why I did it because it it opened up my horizons artistically. And I was like, "That's crazy, right?"

Like that's that's wild that you know looking at you know that that all of a sudden these these constraints that I'm not even attuned to are there like that it has to be a rectangle just fall away and all of a sudden you realize oh I can do a lot of other things. So that's why I did it. That's why I liked it. Um but the fateful moment for me was um the bad LSD trip. And so one of the things about acid or LSD is that once it kicks in, you're on that ride, right? You're there's there's no sobering up, you know, and so you better like it and cuz it's going to last for hours.

Could be 6 8 hours, right? You're going to be tripping. And so it's like it's like stepping into a roller coaster and rather than I've just got to hang on for two minutes before it's over, it's like it's eight hours so you better enjoy the ride because you're on it whether you like it or not, which is a terrifying gamble, right? And so I had an LSD trip that went wrong. And this was the fateful moment of awakening um for me.

And that awakening was just that, you know, it I was having all sorts of over sensory type stuff and I wanted it to stop. And in that moment, I was like, how do I make this stop? And and the next thought wasn't despair. It wasn't suicidality. It was just just like the way, oh, I don't have to draw in rectangles. The thought was beyond what you would typically think. Your normal inhibition's lower. And I thought, well, I could kill myself. And it wasn't, again, it wasn't despair. It was just your think your thought horizon has expanded in ways where you consider things you typically wouldn't consider.

And so all of a sudden, I'm sitting there going, I could kill myself. You know, I ingested a chemical. I guess if I put a bullet through my brain, like that would that would stop it, right? And then immediately after that, a second thought followed on that. Now, I like to believe that that thought was introduced by someone, maybe Socrates himself, but the uh but a thought follows where he says, well, you could do that self. I have a conversation with myself in this moment. I was like, I could kill myself. And it's like, yeah, you could, but you do realize that consciousness is not a physical object.

So, are you sure that if you kill the physical object it's attached to that it'll stop? And I was like, "Oh, that's a good thought, self. I don't know if that's true." And then and all of a sudden and all of a sudden the next thought was, "What if it didn't?" Like right now, the terror I'm experiencing is in my mind could be eternal. And if my body dies, but my mind stays in this state, that would be hell. And for that, that was the first time for me the afterlife made sense. The idea that the mind isn't a physical object. consciousness is attached to a physical object, but it's not a physical object.

And just cuz the body dies doesn't mean that that stops. And if the mind is in a state of misery and terror, maybe that endures and that's what the religious people would call hell. And that revelation gripped me like I was just like rocked by that. early or late in the So, believe it or not, presume it'd be late, but this is, believe it or not, this is like senior year of high school, right before I go to art school. That's interesting. Yeah. So, I go to art school in existential crisis, but I'll get back to that. So, the first thing I do after I have that realization, there was a second thing about that trip. We had been playing with different auditory delays and things like that that had created like burned into my head this like sense of ticking time.

Yes. And so in that moment as I as I had that realization I had this sense of each tick I'm one step closer to death. And so you put those two things together I'm losing my mind. I'm like I've got to I've got to answer this question right now. And I do something very inadvisable. Um, I get in my car and I drive home, which is, thank God I I didn't kill anybody, including myself. But I get home and I go and I'm like, I need a Bible cuz you you know, where are you going to start with the religious question? I grab this Bible and I just literally drop it open in order to read.

And uh and it's really hard to read on LSD, by the way, but my eyes land on this one sentence and it grips me at how to the point it is, right? um that I never get past that one sentence for the next 3 hours until I sober, which is uh it was Christ in in the sermon on the mount saying, "If your right eye causes you to off and causes you offense, gouge it out and cast away because it's better to enter life maimed than to be cast whole into hellfire." And I was like, that scared more than one person. That's a little on point.

And and that started a really neurotic like neurotic in the sense of obsessive compulsive like uh an obsessive pursuit of philosophy and religion questions. Now that started all at art school, right? It's actually started before that in high school. All of a sudden I started down that road. In art school, it continued down that road. So it was me reading the Bible. Going to art school was more of a passion play than it was an intellectual journey.

Yeah. Now the irony is that journey the existential journey disrupted the art because what happened was I was so obsessively reading you know apologists comparative religion philosophy you know as far as I could I mean I was I didn't know how to navigate these things but I started to discover oh there are books on these topics and so I was reading systematic theology I was reading apologists I was reading philosophy I was reading all sorts of different things and it was all very haphazard right? Like I didn't know what I was doing. It was just wherever I could find a book that was relevant, I'd read it.

But I was doing it to the neglect of my art studies. So I'd like go into an art class, like a church or like an art history class and I'm smuggling in like a volume of something and I'm reading in the dark, you know, this thing. And you know, when I had, you know, time between classes where I should be painting, I'm studying. And so the irony was I really started to neglect my art at art school.

Uh, I grew a lot because inevitably you were still in class for 6 hours painting, but I was way more interested in what was going on and solving these questions. So, what two? You said two or is it two and a half years? Two and a half. Yeah. Yeah. It was in my third year that I left. What's the trigger that says I got to get out of this and get into the Ah, so he's a woman, Chris. I mean, that's true. There was there was some I mean, basically, there was some personal things happening and I really kind of use that as leverage to convince my parents that I should leave and go to a different school where I can study philosophy.

All right. Okay. And so I mean that's where I pick up the story. That is where you pick up the story. Yeah. Yeah. You you dropped in there. Now I do recall your early interest. Maybe this is the difference between, you know, milk and solid food, but you were interested in evangelical theologians at the time and that's one of the reasons you came. I remember people like Wayne Groot. I don't know if it was Van Huser as much as it was cuz they had straightforward answers to questions. Yeah. At least they were taking the text seriously. They were take that was always one of the things like I wasn't sympathetic because I was taking the questions seriously, right?

When I would encounter somebody who's sort of a liberal Bible scholar who just doesn't believe any of this stuff, but we're just treating the text, I'm like, well, why am I even talking to you? Like, if you don't believe this stuff, what what are we doing here? And so, that's one of the reasons why I was drawn to this is one of the reasons why even though, as you know, I tended to distance myself from apologists, right? I still at least liked that an apologist took a stance, right? And he's trying to convince me. I was like, "Good, convince me."

Right? And and and it was actually interesting because one of my early immediate reactions and frustrations really um was that once I took these things seriously, I was really frustrated by how few other people took them seriously. So, I remember going and sitting down with a Lutheran pastor because my mom, you know, was a Lutheran. And so, she was like, "Well, why don't you talk to pastor soando?" Right? And I got in there and I was like unloading on this guy. He like, "I need answers." And I remember him being like, "Nathan, are you on drugs?" You know, and I was like, like, "No." I mean, I I do a lot of drugs, but at this moment, I'm not on drugs, but but the thing that bothered me about it was I was like, "Do you not see the seriousness of this qu?

You're this is your whole job. Did you not get into this gig because you thought it mattered? Because again, what are we doing here? Right? And and so the thing that I always ran into is what I cared about was people who at least took a strong position. And that was one of the reasons why a lot of the people I found were in a Protestant or evangelical world because it was like, okay, at least you're taking a you believe this and you're willing to stake make stake a claim and you're willing to argue for it.

And so in my digging around in different areas, oftentimes I would my my research would end up bringing me to some, you know, Protestant, you know, apologist or just a Protestant Bible scholar, Protestant systematic theologian or whatever. Um, because at least they were staking claims. Okay. Now, before jumping into a little bit more into your undergraduate years in the art in the art uh sort of arc there, I remember you saying something to me that stuck with me and tell me if this funds into this at all. No idea what you're going to say. I know. Uh it's great. It's uh you talked about you I think we were at a looking at some contemporary art or something and you weren't convinced with some of the art that you were seeing. He said, "I I'm not convinced that they've done the hard work of the sketching and of the fine arts training."

I'm sure I said it much morely. Yeah, it was. What stuck with me was that seems right to me. There's a there's a critique here. I'm not saying that every contemporary artist, modern artist doesn't have those skills, but there's some kind of uh right of passage you have to go through in the art world. Yeah. And seems to me that your time in Maryland was developing those skills, the realization that you needed to have those skills in order to do the harder stuff. Yeah. So, this has actually always been part of my philosophy of art. I didn't have the vocabulary.

A lot of the things in my journey, I would say I intuited something that I would still say today, but I didn't have the vocabulary or the framework to articulate it yet. Right? And so one of the things that happened at art school and I and I would actually say things like this where we'd be sitting there and we'd be looking at you know usually oftentimes in art school like the Art Institute of Chicago there's an appended museum right where they have you know museum pieces and so I remember us being in a gallery because that's sometimes what you do in your art class. We're going to take a break. We're going to go over to the gallery. We're going to look at some pieces. We're going to talk about them.

And I remember going, you know, when I first saw this piece, I still remember this one arms in there and I'm looking at this very sort of ethereal sort of hazy washy painting and then there's a few places where figures sort of come into view like almost through mist. I'm like, you know, when I first saw this, I was I wasn't convinced that this guy had the right to do this.

and and the professor's like the right to do so tell me more right now he's intrigued right right but um but I start to talk about exactly and I and I don't know how I would have phrased it at the time right but I basically talked about the fact that and this is still central to my my view of art the term itself refers to a skill right and with someone like let's use an arisatilian framework work where you are a bundle of potentialities, right? There is ontological potential. You have strength, potential strength within you which is less than actual strength, but it's more than nothing, right?

And you have the potential to be musical, to be poetic, whatever it might be. And then through repetition, habit, you know, the sort of rigors um that start to form those things just like the rigors of working out, that potential moves into a concrete actuality. And so art, when I think of the word art, I don't actually think of the artifact that you're looking at.

Yes. I think of the cultivated skill. So I have that art within me of drawing and painting. Um, and I have potential for more of that if I do further rigor, but I have a certain cultivated reality of art within me. And when I engage in the production of art work, right, then what produces what emerges as a result is an artifact which is an outward manifestation or an incarnation of that inward art. Yes. And the reason that's important is because that doesn't mean that art is purely subjective, right? There's an onlogical objective reality to it. And that's one of the reasons why there is such a thing as first of all good and bad, but there's also such a thing as that's not art.

In other words, if I decide to if I decide I say I I'm an artist and therefore, you know, and I'm going to go take feces and put it on a plate and stick it out in a gallery and say, and therefore that's art. That's not true. It has to be emergent out of the potentiality. That is not a manifestation of the artistry that is within me.

Right. Right. like the art the skill set of drawing or painting whatever the art may be which obviously cooking is an art you know music is an art right uh it's not a manifestation of that and so to call it art is false it's not true uh and and I think that's the thing that's always been there in my framework about art and that's one of the reasons why I had said and I'm sure these are pro some of the conversations that you're thinking of I would use as an example somebody like Picasso So, I'd say this at art school and it would upset people because they'd be like, I think he's talking about me, you know, but but it would be like I'd point out if you look at Picasso's drawings when he's like 16, he's a Renaissance master. He has mastered the art of drawing in a classical sense. So, he's cultivated that art. Now, that's what I meant back then when I was younger and I said the right to do it.

If he wants to go ahead and start to draw distorted figures in some ways, well, that isn't a manifestation of his inadequacy. That's how he's choosing to utilize that skill set now. Yes. And so, um, he's as somebody who can draw a face in a realist sense, he can now choose to draw it in different ways, and that will actually be an expression of of his artistic skills. And so the thing is with Picasso, whether you like his stuff or not, it's not the work of somebody who's just a hack who doesn't know how to draw or paint. Right. Right. Um you can dislike it, you can think it's not as good as other stuff.

You can think it's bad art. Right. You can make all of those sorts of judgments about it, but to say that it is not the work of somebody who is an artist is not true. However, are there people who come along and they look at Picasso and they go, "Ah, that's art. I could do that." And the answer is they can't do that because what a Picasso is doing is looking at something real. He knows how to manifest in a real way and then he's figuring out how to twist it. Right. This person doesn't know how to do the first couple of steps. Right. And so what they're doing is just bad drawing.

Yes. Right. Um but the thing is and this was I think something that I had said to you.

I know that Kevin Vanhuser was really intrigued by the same, you know, thing that I would say about art history is that certain artistic movements like that, um, even though they were meant to be an exploration of a possible advancement, what they ended up doing is they ended up creating room for non-arts to come in and do non-art, but pass it off as art because, right, the average person doesn't know the difference between what Picasso did and what the guy who just can't draw it did and so um yeah so I saw the deconstruction of art and postmodernity and things like that as a massive step backwards and continued to tow the line in terms of saying no art isn't just an expression of emotion art isn't some amorphous cultural construct art isn't you know like and I always attacked those more deconstructionist or what you might call nominalist um senses of art where it's just whatever we make it into right whatever we say it is and you there's no such thing as good and bad and all It was really uh I I I always had and continue to maintain that very objectivist ontological sense of it.

I'm there's a lot of different questions that are coming to my mind and I'm going to get back to the story of your art journey proper. But do you see that analogy working out in people's spiritual lives as well? Do they need to walk? Do they need to do the basics? Well, um in order to in a sense u blossom into the kinds of religious others that they should become. Yeah. Well, I mean here I'll just inevitably I'll speak from my Eastern Orthodox perspective. Um and and this is one of the many things that I think is true in Eastern Orthodoxy.

Um I think one of the things that happens within the Latin West and then as it grows up and becomes Protestantism and then sort of becomes modern Protestantism or evangelicalism, you know, as we know it today. Um first of all, there was a tendency to see Christianity as a largely judicial religion, right? And see talk about things like merits and demmerits and pervenient grace and how it enables you to do things that are meritorious. And in many ways, if you were to frame the human condition and God and things like that, um, you would largely talk about the fact that God is a moral lawgiver.

We are moral law breakers. We are a damned mass. We're going to face judgment. And we're in a judicial predicament as a result of the gospel is that Jesus is here to remedy and the church is here, if you're Roman Catholic, right, to here to remedy um, you know, that judicial predicament and get us right with God uh, in preparation for the future judgment. And obviously how that works out in Protestant and Catholicism is different. Um but you know that's sort of a certain way of framing it.

And one of the things that I think has sometimes been you know used as a way of framing east west differences which I think is fair even if it's an oversimplification is to say that in the west the western Christianity is largely judicial. In the east Christianity is largely therapeutic. And by therapeutic here, the concept is more that the human condition and the gospel has more to do with ontology. And I think this is actually just as an aside, it's a really interesting thing that east west differences in the Roman Empire. The sorts of differences that I would talk about apply not just in Christianity, east, west, Latin, Greek. It applies in neoplatanism. It applies in Judaism. And so it's an interesting thing that the center of law Yes. in the Latin West, Rome also becomes the center of this very judicial way of thinking about topics, a very legal way of thinking about topics.

Whereas in the the east, in the Greek world, the center of philosophy, everything's ontological, right? And it's sort of it's an interesting dichotomy as an aside. But one of the things that I think comes out there is that when looking at you know the understanding of man and the gospel and things like that a lot of what you find in the Eastern church fathers that's early Eastern Christian writers is that the human condition is largely seen as um something that is part of a story about the making of man that onlogically God creates man in a certain way with a certain intent. Right? This is the image likeness distinction.

We're made in the image of God where we're rational and I think I saw that podcast. But the likeness is what we're supposed to grow into through communion, imitation, participation in God. And that the fall has largely to do with a movement backwards, a regressive movement that distorts our nature and makes it difficult, if not impossible on our own accord, to remedy it, to fix, to excise the cancer that's in the system, so to speak. Right? And that what the incarnation in the gospel is is about him who is incorruptible and his life and himself enters the cancerous organ in order to drive out the corruption physician. That's right.

That's right. And so he heals it from the inside. And here this is where actually everything about you know his life and his crucifixion and his descent into Hades and his resurrection has everything to do with completing the making of man and turning man into what he is supposed to be. And then Christianity has everything to do with the sacramental life, the life of repentance. All of this has to do with us entering into that, you know, therapeutic participation. Yes. In becoming fully human, like, you know, which is what you see in him.

And so that's a very long prelude to say that I think I think essential to how at least the Christian ease has seen spirituality generally is exactly what you just said that you as a human being bear the divine image which carries with it innately the potential of what would be called deification which is this participation this resurrection this glorification that's truly good news I mean in this sort of analogy between spirituality. That's right. And and I would also say like this is also a big anthropological difference, right?

And I won't get too far a field with this, but I'll just say like when you compare the anthropology, and this is largely because of the Pelagian dispute in in the Latin West and the doctrine of original sin, there's a tendency to create what's called the nature grace divide where like nature can't do anything pleasing to God of its own import. Not because of the fall, but just in itself. That's true of Adam and Eve, too. And so grace is this sort of supernatural invasion that allows it to sort of you know now do things that are pleasing God. Whereas in the Christian East it's that's that divide doesn't exist. Like there is a divide between nature and super nature.

If you mean you know creator and creature there's a divide in that. But it's perfectly natural that you as an image bearer can commune with God and be deified. Like that's not an arbitrary magic trick. Right. Right. And so when the Eastern fathers look at the nature of man, they really do look at it as well, the image of God is the very thing that makes it possible for you to be deified, to commune with God in those ways, what Christ is doing is just unearthing. I think one of the best pictures of this is actually how Gregory Nissa reads the parable of the lost coin.

And so you know, you have, you know, the parable where you have the woman who has the coin, she loses it in the house, she has to clean out the house, find the coin, throws a party, right? And how Gregory of Nissa reads this is that the house is humanity. The coin is the image of God. The clutter are the passions that covered it up. Interesting. And the woman is Christ who comes in and clears away the passions through the incarnation in order to find the coin and celebrate with the angels that it's been restored. Interesting. So, how would I mean again we're getting a little bit off. It's so interesting. I want to ask more questions. One one more question.

How how do uh you know I don't I guess I don't immediately see that the two paradigms are incompatible. Mhm. Um but secondly, if you think of something like the Roman road, which is a common sort of Protestant evangelistic tool for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, you know, is that not uh you know, is that not an eastern way of approaching the whole, you know, um evangelistic uh you know, endeavor? Yeah. And I would say I would say probably not. But the reason is uh I mean there are a couple of different reasons and I don't want to get us too far a field with this but I think the short answer is this.

Um I'll use it I'll use a doctrinal example that that sort of highlights the divide. Um so within the Christian east just like in Roman Catholicism Mary is thought to be sinless. Now, the ramifications of that, what that means, all that sort of stuff. Uh, you know, it it it's different in the east than in the Roman West. Uh, and different in ways that I've got a podcast on. But, you know, it's it's different. I got to see that one still. So, keep going. But here's one of the things that's critical.

The evangelical mind because of that sort of Roman road, right, that sees guilt before the future judge, sin as the primary problem. And by sin they mean moral infraction, right? The Eastern fathers don't mean moral infraction by the word sin. Um but the but the the evangelical response is well if Mary didn't sin she doesn't need a savior. Right? And the eastern fathers by contrast see the primary enemy of man the condition that Christ comes to remedy as as death. And in the east there is a feast day that commemorates the dormission or the death of Mary. I see. And so her not committing moral infractions doesn't remedy the human condition.

Yes. She still needs the work of Christ in order to be saved from death. Right. And so I think that right there captures the difference that that really with the Eastern fathers, they're like, "Yeah, moral infractions are corruptions. They're not what's supposed to be, but there's a lot more about us that's not what's supposed to be." And the healing of the person is body, soul, the whole thing. Yes. And just not doing wrong things doesn't fix the problem.

So it is and that's one of the reasons why going back to your original question I do think they look at the spiritual life as exactly that it is the struggle and the work that ends up drawing into existence ontology not and and this is again this is part of like because of the Roman Catholic Protestant discussion they're like for merits to earn God's favor through works like the Eastern fathers aren't even thinking about that they're thinking you're sick and dying this is the road of getting healthy Like do you want to get better?

Yes. This is just what you do to get better, right? You're not trying to earn anything. This is this is about ontology, right? And that's where you know your question about whether the ontology of art that I described is an analog for that. Their answer would be absolutely right. This is the spiritual potential that is within a person and the rigorous road that a person has to walk in order to cultivate that of course with the grace of God, you know, through communion with Christ and the sacramental life and all that. I see. That's fascinating. I mean, so when Paul says things like, you know, shall I go on sinning so that grace may abound?

By no means, the eastern way of saying that is you're not realizing you're truly human. Whereas the western way is like saying, "Well, okay. Um, you know, um, maybe maybe he I could be actually more into grace." I mean, this is I think this is one of the things I mean, just somebody who comes out of a Lutheran context because of my mom, right? That's her background. I do think there are a lot of like Lutheran, for example, who do struggle with that.

They're like, "I know we're not supposed to say yes, right? I know we're not we're supposed to say no no no you really shouldn't sin but at the same time there is a tension there that starts to emerge that says you know um if if my deeds save you from that yeah if my deeds don't aren't relevant to salvation and things like that why don't we go on sinning right whereas the eastern fathers are looking at saying death and corruption I maybe I should explain one of the things that I had said earlier I said moral moral uh infraction is not what the eastern fathers mean by sin right Um, it includes that.

I should say it includes that. But sin, as far as they're concerned, is just any corruption. So, if I were born without a right hand, right, that would be sin, right? Not because I've done something morally wrong, but because it's a corruption. It's what's not supposed to be. That's right. And so, yes, you as a moral agent who are supposed to be virtuous. Yes. Shouldn't do wicked things. That is sin, right? Yeah. But but in many ways that's seen as just the cancer at work. Yeah. And so this is all about do you want to live and die with cancer or would you like to become fully human and live? Right.

Wow. Well that's fascinating. Very interesting uh connection between the artistic and the spiritual. Didn't see that coming. But yeah. Well, if we backtrack again, we we we we left uh Micah and the Maryland Institute of of Art there and we make it to Trinity and you're doing art and I'm aware of it because it's showing up in in my office and it's showing up whenever we take trips or we stop over somebody's house. There's Nath. He's painting again. Where's he at? Um, and so you're doing all of that stuff. And I think that the evangelical world at Trinity, at least the way it manifests itself at Trinity, respected that.

Yeah. Yeah, they did. Um, and a lot of us professors celebrated that, said, "Man, we could use a little bit more of this around here." Um, and so we encouraged you to keep going. And, um, you know, there's a there's an event that happened. We've never we we haven't talked about this in years, so I'm going to throw this one at you. But one of the things that was a cultural event at the time, okay, was The Passion of the Christ. Oh, right. Which had come out. Yep. And both of us, probably for slightly different reasons, were smitten with this movie and Mel Gibson and and the whole in the whole uh you know, the making of it and the artistic excellence of it and all of that. and we felt like we needed to do something significant.

So, one of the things we tried to do was like, can we leverage Nathan Jacob's passion for art and his ability to do uh fine art to um a meet Mel Gibson, but b get you into seminary. Yeah. and for a master's degree um through this artistic moment that the entire culture was experiencing because of the passion of the Christ and just young people when I deal with classes today like I was just with prepar 34 students and we talk about the passion of Christ and they find it hard to believe that I went to it three times with students they find it hard to believe that the theater was packed every single time.

I mean, people crying outside the doorways uh of the of of the theaters. Absolutely. So, I want to just put that context to it. This isn't two crazy guys who were being caught up in the moment. We were like average normal guys. And that's I mean, it's one of the highest grossing films of all time. Yeah. And and and and we felt like it it it awakens something in us between the academic world, the art world, the spiritual world, all combining there in that great sort of cultural moment. And uh you set to work on on a if tell me if I got the terminology right a tptic.

Yeah that's right. And that is the the uh the three three panels Christ and and the two you know the thieves on the cross and and you started sketching working this out as a tptic and we thought my goodness wouldn't it be wonderful if we a you could do this and show it to Mel Gibson but b we could promise it to Trinity and maybe get you uh a scholarship of some kind. Yeah. we were trying to pitch. I remember at this, this was ironically before we were really doing anything serious with film before I was doing anything serious with film. Um, we were like, well, what if we document it?

And we came up with this concept for Finding Mel Gibson was the name of the documentary. And the whole thing was, let's document. Uh, and we were talking with uh a legit documentarian about doing it and all that, but the concept was what if we document the the conceptualization, the making, you know, of this painting. Very this is I think life-size we were going for. It was for Well, so what it was cuz I started on the first panel. I still have it. Um, and it's freaking great. Uh, but sorry, can I say that about my own stuff? No, it's really good. It's really good.

You can actually uh I don't know when this is going to drop relative to my new website, but if my new website is up um which will be you could get to through the Nathanjacobsodcast. com or nathan ajacobs. com um or hypothetically the eastwest. com like any of those will take you to some facet of the website. Uh and it has an art section. That's how you'll know you'll have the updated website.

Can we see that panel? That panel is there now. It's it's just the underd drawing, right? Like I never got to the painting phase of it, right? But yeah, it was um so it was three 4 foot by 4 foot panels. Um and so uh yeah, and I had mapped it out. It was very realist uh very Renaissance um very curo if you know what that is. That's that's basically the very high contrast like Rembrandt type style. You know, you had this professor i. e. me who was promoting you in this in this opportunity, this film, this moment for evangelicals to say, you know what, we we we love art.

We can do art. We can, you know, we can we can ride on the back of this for a while. And um put together this massive proposal. This is uh back in the world when it was hard to write proposals. We wrote a 10-page single space proposal. Mhm. With sketches and Yeah. with the I had already plotted. Yeah. The idea was that you were going to um what what were we looking for when we Well, so that's the interesting thing. I think this is the I I think this Well, we were looking for funding, but I think it's important to contextualize like why would you do this? And this this will come into play as we talk about more the sort of artistic side of things. But I just wanted to say thank you right to Mel Gibson. Yeah.

And I can talk more about why that is. Um but the short answer to why that is was that I was like finally a contemporary good piece of Christian art that I'm not embarrassed to say I love this thing. Right. And and I think it was recognizing me speaking from my perspective just as an artist. It wasn't evangelism impact or you know anything like that. It wasn't the box office. It wasn't oh good we've got an opportunity for Christian filmmaker. There was nothing like that in me. I mean I was still wildeyed heretical philosopher but there was I was still an artist who is on a deeply religious journey.

Yes. And to see I mean keep in mind again for people who don't remember this era you know maybe they're younger Mel Gibson was Hollywood like at this point like you couldn't get bigger than Mel Gibson. Yeah. Right. In terms of and so at the height of his career he decides to do this gamble. He wants to do this film. All the studios want to screw it up. None of them are interested in doing it. He has to finance it. what I think it's 20 or $25 million budget out of his own pocket because he believes in it and it needs to be done right.

Um we know that he's Roman Catholic and so this isn't just some guy doing a thing. It's he actually does like rever the source material and actually believe it and and it was one of those things where I was like look we don't get many cathedrals anymore you know but like movies are sort of the closest thing to a modern cathedral in terms of all these different artists musicians cinematographers costume designers so on coming together into one sort of orchestrated effort and this guy out of his own pocket at the height of his career despite the fact that Hollywood didn't approve decided to do this project and I was so floored by it.

Yes. That I was like this is this is art, right? Yes. And this is very good art from somebody who really believes this stuff. Now, I wasn't a Catholic, right? I wasn't I didn't believe the things that Mel Gibson believed, but I didn't care, right?

because I was like what I see is the same thing I see when I see any other cathedral like when I went to the Straussorg Cathedral and I was blown away and you know raised to the ground by the same thing that I saw there right and so I just wanted to say thank you as an artist who was on a spiritual journey and so the artwork was really a vehicle to try to get to him just to say thank you. Yeah, we we used to talk about the artwork as a passport as I recall. Yeah, it can take us places. And if we if we do this right, we can get to Mel Gibson, which nobody else could.

He had fallen off the grid at this point. And uh at the same time, maybe we could move people to seeing the significance of art in the evangelical spaces, which tend to be pretty barren of art. And um and I think you were quickened in your in your journey both academically, spiritually and artistically all at once in that moment.

And uh so we put this 10 page single space proposal together. Mhm. Not really knowing what we were after. I think we were after funding and the permission maybe I was after a sbatical. I can't remember to do it uh in order to to actually go after Mil Gibson and uh No, I think I know what it What was it? What was the endg game on that? Yeah. No, I now remember what it was. I was trying to remember what it was since two, but I remember because we had tried to do the fundraising for the documentary and we couldn't get there.

Yes. Our backup plan, this was our plan B was maybe given the price that it would, you know, like essentially what what a tptic like this would cost. Yes. If the university was willing to buy it, fund the creation of it, and then they would keep it obviously. Yes. Um that would buy my year. Yes. In order to go ahead and paint it and us to do the documentary and then maybe we can go ahead and we can sort of shoestring the documentary. So it was all about trying to convince Trinity to purchase it because of this greater vision. Yes. Yes. Okay. So Janette Sha who was the dean at the college.

She was awesome. Best dean we ever had. I think she was great. Um, she uh she takes this 10-page proposal, goes to the board, and I remember walking out and meeting her sort of halfway on the lawn there at Trinity, and she's just shaking her head. I go, "Well, what happened?" And she said, "You I don't believe what I'm about to tell you." I said, "Wow, did we get the money?" "No, you didn't get the money." Um, but they decided they loved the proposal so much that they would like to give Nathan a free scholarship for his master's degree. Yeah. It was such a bizarre counter proposal.

Yeah. We we didn't see that coming. Like, dang, the power of art, right? Oh, that's true. That's true. And uh I don't think that has ever happened in their history as far as I know. Oh, I mean, of all the of all the things to win a full ride. Yeah. The the art came through and um yeah, we we we I'm glad you did one panel. We you went on to do the master's degree. Yeah. And uh we spun our wheels in terms of trying to see Mel Gibson. Um yeah, that was an early effort for us.

We had not stepped into the art world, I mean, together on film or anything or or anything like that, but that was a an initial sort of I don't know what you'd call it, trigger that started saying, "Well, maybe we could do stuff in this realm." Yeah, I'm sure we can talk more about that when we get to the film stuff, but yeah, like it was it was I think that was something that awakened us to this idea that you could do do film. We were talking to legitimate filmmakers about a project and that that always seemed like at least I think a lot of people nowadays because of both digital technology, because of tax incentives that have drawn um filmmakers into different states.

A lot of people are accustomed to like, yeah, I've got a cousin who works in film or I know this guy I go to church with, he works in film. Right? But in our back back then before the tax incentive push had drawn all the like drawn business out of Hollywood and before you know you had digital and you were actually shooting on film, right? And the cost of shooting had dropped to meet a real filmmaker was a an oddity, right? Like that's that's a rarity unless you live in LA or something. Um, and so the very fact that we were seeing doors open, and this was actually right around the time that the tax incentives were starting to pull people into different Yes.

states, if I'm remembering correctly, the timeline. Um, but I think that that awakening that there were accessible filmmakers. Yes. Was a critical feature in what started my wheels turning at least about the possibility of doing film. So you're, you know, you're attending, I guess, Lutheran or Anglican churches at this point. Is that right? No. No. I mean, that wouldn't have been until down the road. Down the road a little bit. Okay. Yeah. But how does the art then I mean, you go on for a PhD. Are you still doing art in the PhD world? Because that seemed like that's a big ask when you No, I wasn't.

I mean, I I actually I was I had like that panel actually in my dining room, right? Um and I would just whenever I got sort of, you know, right, a moment, I'd grab I'd grab graphite and I'd start like going at it. So, I do that. I would draw during class um and things like that, but I didn't I wasn't doing like commissions and the sort help me understand then the migration from now you still do art. I see it everywhere here, by the way. It's all over the place. uh you still do this, but the film in the the sort of cathedrals that those represented became more of your focus. How does that Yeah. replace that or over time?

Yeah. Well, let me let me actually back up to something drawing on Mel Gibson and then I'll sort of work my way forward into that because I think there's a critical feature that art plays in in my story that I don't know if you and I have ever talked about. Now, I do talk about it in um there's a there's a volume that just came out from St. Vladimir's Press. Is it called um Turning East? I think it's called Turning East 2. Uh, so turning east, if I'm remembering the name right, it's either facing east or turning east, but I think facing east is the Frederica Matthews Green book.

So turning east is this book that was done by Rico Vitz, who's a philosopher in the honors college at Zuza Pacific. He's Orthodox. Yes. And um and he had noticed that there were a bunch of philosophers, people like David Bradshaw or whoever who had become orthodox. And so he was curious about this decided to do a volume where he got these philosophers to tell their story about how on earth does a philosopher become orthodox. Yes. And it I guess it was successful enough they were like do you want to do a second volume? So he did and this time I got pulled into it. Um I think that one probably came the first volume probably came out before I was even right. Yes.

But I got pulled into it along with some other people. Um and uh and in that essay where I talk about my journey to orthodoxy that's the one published place where I mean and you can hear it on my podcast. I think I did it on my Substack you know I talk about it but but that was the one published article where I tell this whole journey and I talk in there about the role of art in this um and uh and again I'm not sure if you're going to recognize this or not so it'll be interesting.

I'm intrigued. Um so one of the things uh that happens here is that throughout you know as I'm having these certain early religious awakenings I was you know zealously pursuing God you know if you're there talk to me like if you're there make yourself known right like if I'm just talking to the air fine but if I'm not like do something and I was really zealously begging and pleading with whatever's out there to talk to me, to meet me, to be present in this. And um and one of the things that always drew me in where I was just like I found it so alluring was religious art.

And I don't mean religious art like bookstore, you know, sort of, you know, you know, decor that you might find in a house. I mean cathedrals, right? So when I looked at my favorite art and this is probably no surprise to people who recognize that you know what I just said about earlier about art and the ontology of it probably wouldn't be a surprise that I gravitated primarily toward high skill level art which was very classical and so a lot of my favorite artists Michelangelo you know uh Caravagio and then some contemporary people like more contemporary like Singer Sergeant, but a lot of them were religious artists.

And the thing that I found so intriguing was that or alluring I should say was that when I saw art like that not just on its own but in context where it's part of a cathedral or it's part of a temple that I found seductive. Now, I didn't have a framework because I was an I was an empiricist for most of my early philosophical journey. And so, I didn't have a framework for talking about transend transcendent realities participating in images or symbols, right? Like I I didn't have a when you're an empiricist, right? That's just psychology, right? That's all it is, right? Um but there was this part of me that's like I don't know, man.

I I get a vibe from religious spaces like temples and things like that that seems like there's something there like these aren't and it wasn't just Christian right go into an Egyptian wing of a museum and you're like I don't know if these statues are just statues man there's some like bad juju attached to some of these right and that was that was always an intuition that I had but I didn't know how to process it because I was like I don't I don't have anything in my worldview to frame named this.

Yes. And yet there was always a part of me that had hoped that somehow maybe there was legitimacy to this. Yes. Um and so the reason I I think that's important and that ties in with the Mel Gibson stuff was because it was another manifestation of religious art that felt in some ways sacred, right? Um, and so I bring that up as an important part of my journey because part of the journey into Eastern Orthodoxy was that so many different things in my journey clicked. And that sense, that intuition that I talked about that said, I think religious spaces and temples and artwork isn't just that suddenly made sense in an Eastern Orthodox context.

All of a sudden, you know, this idea that this is an actual temple, that holiness is something that's onlogical. It's not just that humans can participate in these holy realities, but artifacts can. There is such a thing as a sacred space, not just sacred in a psychological or social sense, but a participatory sense all of a sudden started to click and make sense. Um, and it's funny because, you know, of course, like Byzantine style of painting isn't my favorite style of painting, but um, but it was still the vehicle for, you know, for communion with the holy in my experience. Yes.

Uh and so so anyway, all that's to say is that I think I think that's a critical feature to recognize that sitting in the background of my my journey, my spiritual journey was an intrigue with with the religious space, religious artifacts, the idea that a certain space can be sacred. And that all all went all the way back to Old Testament, right? It was something that I saw in the in the tabernacle. It was something that I saw with the Ark of the Covenant. It was something that I was like, you know, the way the ancient people approached, you know, worship, it wasn't just like there was something going on here, right?

Like there is real danger. You're stepping into, you know, some sort of place that is the dwelling place of a deity. It's not just an ordinary space, right? Yes. And that was the thing that that had always haunted me. And it was something that always haunted me precisely because so many of the artists that I loved and the things that I gravitated toward were in sacred spaces. And so that that was always there like you know to quote the matrix like a splinter in my mind where it was like what do I do with this draw toward religious art that seems like something more than just the topic, right?

it seems like it has a certain appropriate context that's participating in something transcendent. So, uh anyway, and that that's that's one of those things that I wanted to go back to there. Um now, in terms of moving forward, right? And this is where you're like, well, how do you make that transition? I mean, you were asking about remind me of which transition you were asking about.

Was it the transition from like art to film? Here here's what I have in my head here because all that's fascinating. I think that's great um context for for you having to explain actually uh some of the things that happen because um there's a movement where film starts taking more of your time and energy.

Um something happened in the academy uh in 2009 we've talked about before where there was this downfall and and and uh the academy did not we were all cognitively aware of the fact the academy is not acting very well to this they're not they're not um true to their to their principles and you know people are not doing too well with it and we were looking for a way to express ourselves in light of this and this is where we said hold on a second why don't we uh why don't we make a film now we had we had ex explored this motif in a class earlier called philosophy theology and film Steve Pointer had graciously when you were a professor at Trinity allowed us to co-e this class and uh someday I'm going to publish that uh somehow someway maybe even out of the Firestone Files or oh my goodness because it's so such an intriguing time in your life um where you start to say let me move out not out but let me move adjacent here in into the film world and to do something with that.

Yeah. And uh we did we made a movie a short film called Last Wish and the making of Last Wish. And that quickened I think in you the idea that man I could be doing this a lot more than I currently am and uh when when we had this this uh downfall of the academy as it were because of culture you know because of uh the I guess the housing crisis or whatever and uh we decided let's go ahead and make a feature film which apparently you can only do once what's called that microbudget film. We were we we got to burn every relationship you have.

Yeah. Well, you had some friends that I didn't know, but you introduced me to them. Um the uh Paul the Ingrams. Oh, yeah. And um they were already in cinematography in the film world and using and and so connecting all the dots, we started getting this idea maybe we can do a a feature a feature film and uh began writing. We were working with Edgar Allen Poe at the time and very I think true to Po type of uh script writing, right? Um, somehow we started writing funny, I remember. And ended up writing Killing Poe and you ended up directing that and getting A-list as a actors and it was just a an odyssey. I didn't know that I really wanted to go on, but I was wanting to a be supportive of you and b wanting to make a statement to the academy that we're done with you for a while.

Yeah. we're going to go into the film world and do something there. Yeah. And ended up making Killing Poe out of that or it's basically about a three-year odyssey to get that thing made. Well, I'd say I I see three different things at work here. Right. But yeah, how does that happen? Cuz that's not a religious film, per se. No, it's definitely not. I see three different things happening simultaneously in this, right? Like there's there's this one thing about struggling for an artistic voice which I'll talk about that one thing.

The other thing is just a general interest in film which I'll talk about that and then the third thing is what clicks when I get to becoming truly human which is the second film right um so I'll start with I'll start with the one in terms of the artistic voice.

Um I I struggled in fact even though I did all this art I really struggled with it and I don't know if you recognize how much I struggled until very recently right um very recently like the last maybe six years and um and the reason was I mean I think a lot of artists they they well I I shouldn't say I don't know how many artists I'll just talk about me, I struggled with the fact that I admired certain artists and I would always be torn by this whole like, oh, I really love that person's style. I'd love to do that and I'm trying to imitate that or, oh, but you know, this other style, I really love that and I'm trying to imitate that.

And it was this pull in all these different directions that I think really made me spin my wheels and spin my wheels in a variety of ways, right? spin my wheels in the sense of, you know, I I'm I'm not being honest about what I really like topically. Um I'm I'm not really exploring how I would do it a thing or something like that.

And let me make that a little more tangible. If I could go back and give advice to my 16-year-old self, right? Or in the same advice I'd give to any artist that's out there, you know, young artist that's out there, what I would do is I'd grab my 16-year-old self and I go, "All right, Nathan, let's have an honest talk here. Who's your favorite artist?" No, no, no, no. Don't tell me it's Michelangelo. Like, don't know who's really your favorite artist? Nobody's going to hear. I'm not going to make fun of you. Who is it? Right? And it would be Frank Frisetta. And so anybody who knows who Frank Frisetta is, he does like barbarians fighting dragons and busty women and whatever else, right?

Like it's pure fantasy illustration. He's he's incredible. He's the man. Um I loved Frank Fetta, but you can't say that, you know, cuz he's an illustrator, right? And you know, and that's that's sort of like, you know, that anyway, whatever the hang-ups were socially that if you want to be an elite artist or whatever, that's not what you do. And um I think one of the things that happened is because there was a lot of inability to just be reconciled to like what do you like? What do you want to do? Forget what's socially acceptable. Forget what the art world thinks you should do.

Forget even what you think you should do as somebody who's trying to be an elite artist. What do you really like? Right. And and why didn't you lean into that and just embrace it? Yeah. And I think the thing is I spent so much time in art school and afterwards working against the grain of my natural inclinations artistically that I think I slowed my growth right considerably.

And it was only very recently like over the last six years where I was like how would I do it you know and I started to find my own methods mixed media methods and I'm still discovering those but it was I stopped asking you know how would Bugaro do it how do you do this old technique and I just started asking how would I do it yes and um and what do I want to do and what do I like and so anyway once I started leaning into that that became you know fuel in the engine. But I think that's an important context because artistically I'm struggling and I'm frustrated, right? I can't find my voice and I'm just sort of trying to imitate a bunch of stuff artistically uh that you know it's not quite clicking, right? Or it's only clicking up to a point and you know then when I try to force it in a direction that's not really me, it you know breaks, right?

Anyway, so that's important context. The second thing that's important context is just that I I always loved film, right? When I was a little kid, I would do things like I'd set up G. I. Joe action figures in fight stances like this guy's flipping over that guy, this guy's kicking that guy, whatever. And then I'd take a Polaroid camera and I'd find cool angles to capture the moment. And so I I didn't know what I was doing as a kid, but what I was doing was cinematography, right? Like I was setting up these cool movie things. And then in art school, I actually did do film.

I did like now for me it was a throwaway class. Like nobody does film for a living. That's nonsense, right? But but the professor was like, "Man, you really should consider going into film?" I was like, "What am I going to do? Move to LA and like to work in the film world? That's nonsense, right?" And I didn't consider anything of it. But then I kept bumping into other filmmakers along the way. And this was because of the tax incentives drawing people. Like there were filmmakers in Michigan when I was in there like out there doing studying at Calvin. It was like what?

And they would look at what I did in the video game world and we didn't mention that but you know I did work part of how I paid my bills in the latter days of my master's degree was I took a job working for a video game company and so I was doing storyboard concept art cut scenes things like that.

Remember that you mention it? Yep. And then when the filmmakers saw that they were like man this is good stuff. have you ever considered going into film? And and so anyway, that just kept on coming up, people saying, you have you have you ever considered that? You know, maybe you should consider that. And and that started to eat away at me a little bit. It was like this thing that eventually I had trouble ignoring.

Yes. And so the philosophy, theology, and film class was an opportunity, an excuse really to say, could we get the university, you know, to give us the time and the opportunity to pull together a bunch of free labor, namely the students to pay and bring in speakers, you know, to learn the craft of film. And then finally, you know, to bring in the filmmakers to do a short with the students. and it would just be a way of breaking the seal basically in terms of an exercise in film. And so anyway, there's a that's a much longer story, but that was sort of the breaking of the seal on that thing that had started to eat away at me.

And once I had that, I had the bug. I was like, "Okay, let's go ahead and let's go ahead and do an independent feature film." So on the one hand, that just is just the love of film. But this is where I say the second movie, Becoming Truly Human, the documentary I did on the religiously unaffiliated was the one that was so critical in pulling so many things together.

Right? On the one hand, you know, Eastern Orthodoxy had pulled together, it had pulled together certain parts of my spiritual experience.

So I mentioned the artistic side and the experience of the transcendent as you know through this you know the physical realities that art particip is part of that was that was true that was there and so that had pulled together certain disperate parts of myself but I was still deeply struggling with the question of how do I work as a good steward of academics which was winning right like that was the part of me that was winning out most of my time while also stewarding art which I'm really sort frustrated with and I'm not finding my voice and I'm having trouble getting it where I want it to go while I'm doing this this, you know, this this this academic stuff.

And I think what happened was after we finished Killing Po, that was a deeply satisfying thing. But again, it was just like another facet of me that's all disconnected. Becoming truly human came to me. It was a project that came to me because we had just finished Killing Po. I had just become Eastern Orthodox and um and the Antioch arch dascese of the Orthodox Church was sitting there saying like we want to do a project and engage, you know, people who are religiously unaffiliated, people with no religion.

And as these this group of people were talking about how to do that, my name came up. They're like, you know, there's this guy. He's a philosopher. He's a college professor. He's also an artist and he like just finished a movie and you know, and you know, and and and I think he might know how to speak to this group or understand this group. And so I got pulled in and I ended up pitching that whole film. And we could talk about that if you want, but the thing was even though it wasn't a docu, it was a documentary, which I was not a documentarian.

That's not what I was interested in, but I sort of approached it the way I would a movie structurally, right? I had done the pre-ins. I knew what people were going to say. I was looking at it structurally. How would I assemble this? How would I approach this? So, it was kind of like I remember the cinematographer being like, "This isn't a documentary. This is an experimental, you know, documentary featured narrative, whatever." I was like, "Yeah, I don't know, man." Um, this way.

And and but I think the thing was that film was deeply satisfying in a way that had I had never been satisfied by a project because it had the rigor and the labor yes of so much of the artistic journey or like academic journey we had gone on. It was a work of art and it was a work of art that pulled together the artistic aesthetic side of me with the intellectual academic side of me with the desire to connect with people and the teacher in me. And so all these different parts of myself that felt so fractured.

Yes. And irreconcilable. The thing I'd been groping for for so long of how do I bring these together? That project solidified those where I was like, whoa, maybe this is how that how I do that. I hadn't quite thought of it that way, but now that you put it there, I mean, you think of Last Wish in the making of Last Wish is learning to crawl. Mhm. And Killing Poe is learning to walk. Yeah. You know, and I think you you you demon I mean for all of us who went into the Killing Poe project. Yeah. Get Nathan into the film world was the whole theme.

Yeah. And let him I mean he's got the skills. Let him be the point of the spear here. Learn the craft completely. Get his vision out. Um and get from beginning to end of the film making process completed. Who gets to in their life as a professor. Mhm. To make a feature film. Well, nobody. Very very few do. But this guy did. And this is part of that story. But there wasn't a strong religious theme in there. It was more of a and like we were saying before demonstration of craft skill the ability to produce a film from beginning to end. That means from fundraising concept story boarding you know getting the cinematographer crew micro budget gifts in kind deferred payments. You know all that went into that process that you learned on the fly and made happen and we got to the end.

And I think I mean you and I were celebrating because we knew we'd done something that very few people get to do in life. And I think a lot of the people we were with forgot that that was the whole point, right? that we were immensely successful, right, in that pro project because we achieved the the the the main thing we wanted to achieve and that was having Jacobs write and direct and and produce a feature film which he can now replicate. Yeah. And the first thing you replicate, if I'm hearing you correctly, is this kind of watershed spiritual piece of becoming truly human. Y that's right.

And that that kind of now brings that's the uh that's the learning to run part of this and where the tools become a spiritual reality in your onlogical being as it were. Mhm. No, I mean I think that's really true and you and I did run into that that I think look I mean film making is rigorous. It is a brutal, brutal process, especially narrative feature film making. And so when you do that with insufficient pay, insufficient conditions, people get burned out. They they get, you know, they can come away with a really negative taste in their mouth.

And that's one of the reasons why, you know, you only make that movie once because once people have done that, they've given a full month to those sorts of conditions and that type of burnout, they're like, I'm never doing that again. Right. Yes. But a lot of people do it in order to achieve a credit or whatever it might be. And obviously for you and I that that had to do with me putting my hand to the plow, so to speak, but um and and what we tried to do is pull in people who were hungry in different ways.

The CV linear and a vision realized you would never be asked to be, you know, you know, be a gaffer on a film with your experience, but you could be on this one, right? Whatever it is, right? Um and then and and it really is extraordinary um you know what was achieved because fact of the matter is I'm sitting here in in the film world now and I know I know what we shot Killing Po for you couldn't you couldn't get a script written for that wouldn't even meet WGA minimums and people who watch that film today still love it I mean they're they're surprised by how good it is for quote unquote a microbudget film.

Oh, micro budget. Yeah. And so it's crazy. I mean, it's crazy what we managed to pull off there. I mean, I remember Shawn Dero, who if you look up Sean, he's worked on a hundred films, all of which you've heard of. And Shawn uh is big visual effects guy. He's a guy who's working as a producer on some of my current stuff. Sean's a good friend. And I remember Shawn watching that and he's like, "Okay, how in the bleep did you like make this for that?" But he's like, "I couldn't." He's like, I don't even know how you could afford the music for it for that yet. Let's film that. Are you out of your mind?

Every gift in kind and every deferred line that we can get on a CV. Yeah. So, I mean, it was a herculean task that was a massive success. And I don't say a massive success because I think it's a fantastic piece of cinema. I think it's I think it's good movie. I think it's funny. Um, I see all the flaws through and through. I see all the ways in which the limited budget, you know, manifests in the final product that I have a dream of one day having enough disposable income and favors and film to go ahead and redo the whole of post and turn it into Yes.

like what I would what I originally envisioned it as. Um but you know like which actually wouldn't cost that much but um but that tells you a lot about how little money we were working with. Um but anyway I mean but but the point is looking at it for what it was which was demonstrating we can get from start to finish on this and learn all these lessons the hard way. Uh it accomplished that. And you're right that becoming truly human ironically had the same budget. Again I'm not going to say what the budget was but it did. The difference is like I, you know, with the skill sets we had done and all that, I was able to plan. I still had to call in a lot of favors.

Um, but that was a 5day shoot. Shot that entire documentary in 5 days just because of like rigorous planning and all that. Killing Po was what, a 21-day shoot, I think it was. Yeah. And so a whole month. It was a 21-day shoot with SAG actors, with, you know, a full crew, with multiple locations, you know, full moves, all this stuff. Indoor, indoor shooting, everything. I mean, yeah. So, I mean, becoming truly human is still I mean, that's still like a crazy budget, you know, to to get that that documentary made. But in comparison to Killing Po, Killing Po is sheer madness. Like, it's ridiculous.

Um, and so anyway, yeah, but you're right that basically then that that was what opened the door to make possible becoming truly human. And becoming truly human was the thing that catalytically sort of solidifi gelled a lot of things for me, right? And and thankfully I also had a nudge that came with that. So I'd mentioned that that was made, you know, that was at the behest of the Anukian arch dascese. They wanted me to do something. They didn't actually pitch a documentary. I pitched the documentary and they took a gamble and there was a guy um who decided to back it um Charles Agelot who decided to like get behind it um and make it happen.

Yes. And so I mean there were a lot of people behind the scenes making it happen but um that's where we went and did that. And then I had the nerve-wracking experience. I mean keep in mind I'm newly orthodox at this point. I hadn't had experience with seeing bishops or whatever. So I'm going to the Metropolitan at the Arch Dascese. Metropolitan is the bishop of an entire like of the US, right? Like yes. And so I'm at the arch dascese. I'm sitting with a Metropolitan and it's like okay I'm going to play the movie for you. Your eminence. Hope you like hope you like it.

Just me and him. And anyway, he got to the end. He's like I'm obsessed with what you did here. He was he was an air guy and he's like I'm obsessed with what you do theater. He's like I want you to leave teaching and I want you to make make movies for the Orthodox church. I was like okay. Um I remember you coming back and telling me about Wow. I was like uh you going to pay me to do that? No, but we will pray for you.

And it was like okay well but the thing is like I still took that seriously that ask and then at a showing where you know at an event again this was actually Charles is doing which I'm deeply grateful for Charles's support and all that u but uh at an event where there were a bunch of different potential donors and people like that that did a screening of becoming truly human did a Q&A talked about the things that I'm doing and that's where I met um who became my future business partner, uh, Charles Leon, Chuck Leon of Camelon Holdings, um, a venture capital firm.

And so that's where he had caught wind of what I was looking to do. And what I was looking to do, he thought was really intriguing. Um, it related to a lot of the things that he was interested in, but I was moving from these lessons of like, I'm not a documentarian, but I like engaging ideas. How do I do this? And actually where I went after that was to horror. And I know that's probably for a lot of people like what? But it was because I I realized that film is resistant to the dactic, right? You know, show don't tell, all that sort of stuff.

But inevitably, depending on genre, you have to get into the rules of the universe. So if you're doing a time travel movie, inevitably there's going to be somebody who says, "Time travel? How is that possible? And some guy's going to grab a piece of paper and be like, well, you see wormholes and you know, puncture the paper, whatever. You're going to get you or if it's and the thing that I realized was that with regard to horror, you have to talk about the rules of the universe, who's the monster, where does it come from, what is it averse to, how do we defeat it, all that sort of stuff.

And so, if you're going to world build in a horror context, you have to do that. And I thought, you know, it's really interesting that a lot of the most successful horror films have like Roman Catholic priests in them. And so the world view is Roman Catholic. And I was like, what would it be like if you did a horror movie from an Eastern Orthodox perspective? And so that was that was sort of the seedling concept that started growing up. And I was already having conversations with like Lionsgate about this sort of stuff. And so somebody like Chuck was like, "Hey, I'm going to get behind this."

and some other investors were like, "We're going to get behind this and we're going to fund this insane endeavor that you have of leaving the academy." Yes. And a stable paycheck for some speculative you're going to become a Hollywood writer director. But it did blossom into ultimately um it caught the attention of Shawn. Right. And so ironically, I mentioned Sean. He the first time he like got on board as in a producing role was because of this horror film. He came out to have breakfast with me at the I was working with Mike Flity and Mike Flity is one of the founders of Walden Media.

And so Mike was gaga for the project. And he's like, I know this guy Sean, visual effects guy. I'd love to get his assessment of the visual effects budget on this. And so we had breakfast and Shawn I showed Sean these animatics that I had done where you basically take storyboards and you actually like make them move and you add sound design and so you can basically see the scene in advance. I showed him some of the animatics, my concept art, all this stuff. And Shawn was blown away, which is saying something because Shawn works in Hollywood. Hollywood, right? Worked with every major director, every major studio, all that sort of stuff.

And so he was sitting there going, "Who's this guy?" Right? And and the thing was he actually called me up super enthusiastic cuz he's like, "Look, I never read a script. People send me scripts all the time. Mike sent me the script. I wasn't going to read this." He's like, "After I met with you and I saw what you're doing, I read the script." And he's like, "And I am," he's like, "Look, I've heard people talk about wanting to bring together theology and film and do something that impacts culture and engages in a broader convers." He's like, "I've heard people say that all the time.

I've never seen a single script that doesn't." It's like, "Your script did it." He's like, "This is what I got into this industry to do." and he's like, "So, I am willing to work for free on this thing." And I was like, "What?" So, anyway, that that was how Shawn got pulled in and you know, he as we moved on, he wasn't going to work for free, but you know, like that's how Shawn got pulled in. And then he introduced me to John Irwin, who um of Kingdom Story Company at the time. Uh, and John is the big evangelical director. Um, who did, you know, uh, well, I guess he's doing Young Washington right now, but he he's I can only imagine was the big thing that got him as a a big Lionsgate deal.

And so we went out to Nashville. I wasn't in Nashville. I was still at University of Kentucky at this point. Um, and we sat down with him and he because he had talked with Shawn and he's like, "Hey, what you up to these days, Sean?" and he tell tells him about the project and John's like they're at a birthday party and John's like keeps on going, "Tell me more about this project. Tell me more about the story." And then he's like, "Can I see the script?" And Sean sends it to him and John reads it and he's like texting him. He's like, "Does it stay this good throughout?"

Finally, he gets the end. He's like, "Can Nathan be here for lunch with me tomorrow?" And so Sean calls me up. He's like, "You want to meet with John Aru?" And I was like, "Sure." And so I drive 3 and 1/2 hours from Kentucky to Asheville in order to meet with John. Chuck, my business partner, hops on a flight and flies out. And next thing you know, we're sitting in Lionsgate Studios pitching this thing, talking about how to get this thing off the ground. Um, and then COVID happened and everything got disrupted.

But that conversation was what planted the seeds where John was convinced of my talent as a writer, as a director, and led ultimately to a first look deal um with this new subsidiary that Lionsgate wanted to launch, right? And so it was Lionsgate Stars Kingdom Story, which eventually became the Wonder Project. But when it was first launched, it was sort of on the heels of Top Gun 2 and we want to do more mainstream America movies like this and that sort of thing. And so John was tasked with finding the Avengers, right, to, you know, get first look deals and start to do content. And I was one of those people.

Yes. Brought in. And so that's what eventually then pulled me into the show House of David. Yes. And that's it long saga and so on. But I was going to ask you about that because I mean that brings us kind of to the contemporary period here. Oh yeah. Um and I think of two projects. One I just saw you working on one. Oh yeah. Can we talk about that one? Yeah. Go ahead. Um and then the house of David. And when I think of the house of David, I remember you coming to my house in Deerfield when I lived there. Oh yeah. and had this big thick script that you'd written.

And more than a script, I had a I had a bound copy. Bound copy. Yeah. Of season one before Amazon had bought it. I think I see it sitting over on the shelf over there. But you remember you we stayed on Yeah. It was like a 900 page. And uh but what I guess maybe you can speak to this question. The House of David requires you to work with secular folks, evangelicals, Orthodox. I mean, the whole gamut of people. When I think of the Bent thing, I think of more of the Orthodox. The Belt or is that what you're Bel? Yeah, sorry. The belt belt movie.

You just you just started writing it here before my very eyes. Um, how do you I mean your your your your story of going through Last Wish, going through uh Killing Poe, going through the uh you know becoming truly human uh now is arriving in major studios as you just described, major deals, people who are actually making these films for a living regularly. And um House of David's going to require you working with a lot of people who you wouldn't have known how to even work with you. I mean, you're fully in the industry at that point. How do you square that with your spiritual journey and also with u the belt movie, right?

Yeah. I mean, it it is an interesting saga because part of the thing that was going on there is obviously John Irwin, as I'd mentioned, is an evangelical. I'm not an evangelical. Right. And so the early conversations with John when he was going to pull me in and when he was first pulling me in, I don't think he was even intending to pull me in as a script writer.

I was working on a bunch of other the way a first look deal works just so people are aware and it's basically you're getting paid a salary and the salary is there so that you can develop and write and create possible projects and the first look means the studio gets to look at all of those and decide do they want them or do they want to pass.

Oh, right. Okay. And so that's the first look part. And then, you know, if they want them, then they have to, you know, strike a deal and and purchase them and things like that. And, you know, I'm sure every first look deal is different, but in my case, right, you you do work and you sort of keep track of the work and you rack up fees and if your fees exceed what they're paying you, then you're owed a balance. But, you know, if not, you're just being paid, right? You know, to sort of pitch and develop. And so John knew we've got this historical theologian guy here and we're about to do a show, like the flagship show for this right out the gate.

He was like, "We're going to do this show on David. We should pull him in like as a consultant." And I was like, "Okay, yeah, I'd be happy to be pulled in." But the first conversation I remember having I remember sitting there in the editing suites um with him at Kingdom Story Company and he's pitching this to me and I was like, "Well, John, what's your what's your red lines?" Like, "Where are you willing to go with this?" I was like, "You said Game of Thrones." Cuz that's how it was originally pitched to me. It became something that's not Game of Thrones, but you know, it was sort of like pitched to me as Game of Thrones, Life of King David.

Um, they wanted something more familyfriendly eventually, but like what was pitched to me was that. And so I was like, John, you said Game of Thrones. Like how Game of Thrones can I go? And I started bringing up things like the Nephilim, right? The like the giants. I was like, can like do you mind if we go the route of like that they're demonic human hybrids, that they're demigods? Right. And so he's like, "Oh yeah, totally. I'm talk bringing up the witch of Endor and I'm talking about ancient near eastern magic. I'm like, how far can I push this? Right.

Right. And so, you know, John knew that, you know, my red line is very different than his. I knew that, too. Right. Like that. But, um, but he was like, push it as far as you want, right? And he'll dial it back was the sort of intent. But, and then what happened for that reason, and this was again, this goes to your sort of integration of all these different perspectives. I put together a research team on it and um uh as part of that research team I pulled in a secular scholar who was I'm not convinced believes the Bible is true. I don't know.

Right. Right. Um I pulled in an Orthodox priest, Father D. Young, who is sort of, you know, wellknown in terms of a lot of the ancient neareastern stuff. uh and then I did some additional consultation as well as my own historical research.

And basically what I do is as we were working on the concept sitting there in the writer room and whatever else I would just start to create all the different questions people had all the different points of contact that raised scholarly questions and I would disseminate that you know first for myself for young for this other guy for this other person and then I'd get back the scholarly research and I would start to synthesize and consolidate it into a research document I massive research document that started to create options for ways you could go or how you could interpret things or what's plausible, what's not.

And so like that was the original role that I was being pulled into play. Um and so it's intriguing because I wanted I was trying to press for you know when people do this look at the show I was trying to press in the direction of take seriously the scholarship. You don't have to agree with the secular guy who doesn't, you know, believe the Bible, but you should be aware and we should be looking for ways of, you know, plausible deniability hypothetically, right? Like, you know, I you can always make choices. Are you just going to give a big middle finger to academia? That's fine. I've given my own middle finger to academia plenty of times, right?

But like, let's let's try to take seriously whatever the scholarship is saying about these different topics. And so that in itself was a navigation of a whole host of different things that academia had served me very well. Yes. Um now the interesting thing was within day two of the writer room, John was, you know, clearly pulling me in like you should write for this and I was getting into it, right? I was like, "Yeah, I'm into it, right?" Like that's cool. And so, uh, but that became another interesting thing because another guy who had written on, you know, uh, written on the show, Nate Wilson and D Wilson, um, if people know him in a literary context, um, Nate became a very good friend.

I didn't know Nate before that, but Nate is, if people know who Nate Wilson is, they know he's reformed, right? So, he's a very conservative reformed thinker. And so, theologically, he and I disagree. And it's kind of funny. I remember when he was introducing me to another film connection of his and this guy happened to be um this producer happened to be I think he was charismatic or something like that and like he was kind of navigating trying to figure out how to gently navigate that Nate and Nate disagree and we were just like oh no like no he's I was like no he I'm I'm think Nate's a heretic.

Nate's like yeah I think he's an idoltor. And I was like, "Yeah, and we both think you're worse because you're" and and so he was kind of shocked, but it's because Nate has become actually a good friend um through that working process where we were able to acknowledge where we're different and have honest conversations about that. And yet there was something beautiful about the fact that this was Old Testament because a lot of the more sort of like fiery topics that you might run into in terms of theological conflict, I don't want to say they're more New Testament because obviously if you believe there's a cohesive theology here, they're old and new, right? Um, but you know, Nate and I, how we saw the Old Testament and how we saw storytelling and how we saw how you would tell the story was in such great harmony that it was very easy for us to navigate those things together, right?

And so that became a that became a beautiful sort of creative relationship. That's again part of this how do you navigate these personalities? Um, and then of course when I get into the the Hollywood context, right, on the one hand, you know, I can talk about the Hollywood stuff, right? I can talk about the writing and directing, but then I would often times on House of David in particular be pulled in as the producer who's like the scholar guy.

And so all of a sudden I'm there with being asked in a whole like group of extras to talk about ancient neareastern customs and like how they would conduct themselves in this context or like meeting with the props department and other places to consult about cultic worship in the ancient world or and so it became a very bizarre eclectic mix. I mean, you know, things like all of a sudden we have a need for a rewrite and now we need uh we need a spellcraft thing and I'm doing research on ancient neareastern spellcraft, you know, um but doing it in a cinematic context where I know the story and I know what it needs to do in the story. And so like, okay, I'm trying to fill a hole here and you know, they're sending me over to say we need pages on this and you're the only guy who can write that, right?

And so, uh, or write it in a way that would be historically viable, right? Um, and so anyway, I mean, that's some of the dynamics about, you know, how those things started to play out in that context. Now, the belt is a totally different beast, if you want me to talk about that. Well, I'm I in the context of your spiritual journey is what's interesting to me is that you're finding your niche again in a more complex more high stakes environment as you continue to migrate in your journey.

Yeah. And so you could conceivably using the same paradigm look at the house of David as being the prleamama the working out of the skill set that you are now hoping to apply in a more spiritual uh spiritually significant uh film the belt. Yeah. And uh I mean I guess that's the way I'm I'm process I'm seeing this eb and flow in your career where you build the skill sets, you get the you get the chops as it were and then you go out and do what is spiritually animating your soul. Yeah. No, I well and I would say I I saw two critical things happen during my time on Killing Po that set the stage for things after that.

Um one of them is when you talk about skill sets, that's true. Um, and it was because when I got pulled into the writing process there, um, I was pulled in in a way where I had to iterate, iterate, iterate. So, you know, the the show originally started as seven episodes and they want to expand it to 10 episodes and they want to change, right? And and I kept on because I kept showing up and performing, right?

Like a lot of scripts, rewrites would get handed to me or I'd get pulled in different stuff. And so there was something over those two years before Amazon got involved in the show um that I mean the number of pages I had to crank out uh was a critical lesson right like I think early screenwriters one of the things they suffer from is just lack of experience right they have one idea they work on that idea they refine that idea forever and that's their only idea and so they have no concept what it is to like build and tear down and throw in the trash and rewrite and you know reconstruct.

Um but nothing was precious throughout that process. And so that's where that was really refining because it didn't matter what I got attached to. We all go we're tearing it down. We're doing a new structure now, right? Like whatever it might be. And so that was refining on the writing side. That was a really important part. And obviously seeing the whole process was was valuable. Um, but so I mean just as an aside there, I mean the echoes of your early artistic endeavors.

I mean one of the things that always shocked those of us who knew you is you'd have these fabulous pieces and the next thing you know you're whiting out the whole thing and reo and uh but I think you learned in that whole process and then you began to manifest as I'm hearing from you here now in in the script writing process that uh nothing is sacred until it's done.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, distasteful as it may be, right? Like a lot of babies need to die. Like that's the way they talk about it. Like you're going to have to kill kill your babies. And and that's because like in writing, right? Like until you learn that process. You write a scene and you're like, "Oh, but this is my baby." Right. You know, we learned that years ago in the academic world, you want a a good 15 pages, you got to write about 50, right? Yeah. So, so that was one thing that was critical to the whole process.

But I think a second thing that I learned firsthand was I got to see the way in which you know from the inside the studio system works and um unless you're the person who has the money and you're at the top of the food chain you can't control what comes out at the other end. Doesn't matter how intimately you were involved in the writing or whatever. Like once the studio owns the script studio owns the script, you know, right?

And so I started to see firsthand that if you're really going to throw yourself into this and you and you have a very particular vision and a very particular skill set, very particular reason, you're not just in this to get film credits and to say, "I work in Hollywood." There's something you want to accomplish. There's something you want to say. There's stories you want to tell in a specific way.

I came to realize you actually have to be the person who holds the purse strings, right?

you and um and so that does tie in with the belt um because the story of the belt is kind of it's a weird story um how it happened but I just get an email one day from Veli Monastery on Mount Aos which for for people who don't know like that's one of the those are some of the oldest monasteries in the world you know VPI was originally built you know or at least the churches around there go back to Constantine right these uh monasteries on Mount Aos and so it's a it's so many saints have come out of Mount Aos it's a spirit I mean there's a joke like if you tell a pro an Orthodox person like I'm going to the holy land they're like oh you mean Mount Aos or like and it's so it's it's a this revered place and I'm like I'm getting an email from Villi Monastery in Mount Aos why is this and I realized that it's one of the monks who was talking to another monk there and you know they have a vision for a movie and they came across a script and I realized like way back when because Mount Aos featured into the you know played a part in the story of that horror project I was working on. We were hoping maybe there's some world where we could go to Mount Aos, film there. If we can't film there, maybe we can scan environments and build 3D models or whatever, right?

And so we had sort of wanted to get the script into their hands. And there was Father Adrienos was a a monk there who we got into his hands and he read it and he, you know, he loved it, loved the concept. Think this is great, you know. Um, but apparently that script had been sitting there on his desk all this time. and another monk who was like wanting, you know, part of this whole rigomemeral that they had been working on for years of like wanting to do this film related to the belt, which I'll explain what that is in a minute. Um, goes into his office and sees this script and he starts to page through it.

He's reading it and he's looking at the pitch deck and he's like, "Do you know this guy?" And Father Adrien knows, "Oh yeah, Dr. Jacobs. I know him, right?" And he's like, "Can we contact him?" And so he reaches out to me and so this is how this whole thing starts and it's him and this uh this other producer Norris Chumley and um and and so they come to me and they're they're like we want to do a film about the AIO the holy belt of the Virgin Mother. Now, this was this is something that most people don't know about, right? But in terms of relics, right, from the life of the Virgin Mary, there's only two historically. A veil that she wore and a belt that she wo when she was pregnant with Christ, wore throughout her life, entrusted to St.

Thomas uh at her death. Those are the only relics. The veil's been lost and the belt has, you know, been broken into different pieces, but most of those pieces are on our edi. And they're like, we want to do a movie about the AIO about the belt. It's like, you mean like a documentary? What the heck? No, like a big Hollywood movie for like the world to know. It does seem like this is a watershed opportunity for you. Well, I was sitting here going, I'm not sure I understand what I'm being asked to do here, right? Like I belt, Virgin Mary, miracles, big Hollywood movie.

I understand all those words individually, but strung together. I'm not sure they make any sense. Uh, but I was like, but it's aos fine. I I'll talk with them. And so they had pitched different concepts related to the miracles of the belt. Um, so I had uh I looked at that and I was like, I guys, I don't think this concept works. I'll do the best version of this. I'll like hammer out for you what I think the best version of this is, but let me tell you also why I don't think that even that version works. So I did that and we went through that process and then I was like just for my own education, send me whatever you have on this, right? Like historical documents, whatever. And they send it over. So I start reading these and I stumble upon this completely crazy story in the letters and you know historical documents that they've shared that basically the belt ends up sparking the 1821 revolution, Greek Revolution and the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. I was like what?

And and it is a crazy story and I'll give you a glimpse of it. But basically to finish up this story, I was I went back to them. I'm like, "Guys, are you aware of the story?" Because you're telling me you want a big Yes. movie for the world. You want a movie? Like what I'm reading in these letters? That's a movie, man. And it took a little bit of arm twisting. They were hesitant. I'm like, "Come on. Where's your faith?" Right? you know, uh I actually did say that in one of the letters, one of the monks there, Father Popius, have some faith, father, you know.

Um but but uh anyway, they eventually were persuaded and then that started to turn into this massive historical dive and multiple iterations and things like that. And so I've been working with them now for a couple of years. Truthfully, I've gone to Mount Aos several times, but I went originally to see the Ayazone myself to be blessed by the elder there for to sign the paperwork. I went and journeyed on a pilgrimage with the Aiazone through um Cyprus um and saw the ways in which the people just flooded the streets there in order to see this and to venerate it. And then I did a separate trip where I went with the monks to Cree and most of the the events take place on Cree, you know, for them film. And so we went to the original places, we went and met with historians.

We went and saw like talked with the mayor and all this sort of stuff. And then, you know, throughout this I've been doing, you know, been in meetings with the historical guys and them sending over materials and all this.

And anyway, it's been a long process of iterating, iterating, iterating mainly because to bring together all of these elements in a way that on the one hand honors the history, on the one hand accomplish on the other hand accomplishes what they want to accomplish with regard to the belt and to tell a story in a way that's really story driven and isn't just either a peacemeal historical documentary or isn't um some sort of, you know, preachy propaganda piece where you have a concept and you're building a story to facilitate that, but you're really telling a story that makes sense organically as a story that captures all this stuff.

It's a tall order. And um I could go into more details of why it's a tall order, but it became an epic wrestling match to find the angle that would satisfy all the dimensions of of what's being demanded. broad secular historical epic in the action genre that's grounded in true historical events and honors that history while also highlighting the very real sort of miraculous features of it and the belief of the people in those miraculous features that factors heavily into the story like it is not an easy project but um thankfully right now as we're finishing you you were here when I finished up um the first well despite my inability to remember from last night.

Uh I did uh I was amazed that you were jumping into such an action-packed story. Yeah. Um and and I mean it's in the hero's journey, this is the climactic moment for you. I mean because there's a lot going on there. Yeah. And uh but it does seem like is not only has the eastern component to it but the Mary you know component to it. The the the um all the various elements that are required to carry a story of this magnitude uh from beginning to end is really a chance for you to uh I think to to pull all of your immense experience together.

Yeah. To put this together. They got the right guy. will they see the light, you know, at the end of the day, uh, in terms of funding and and kind of getting it to the finish line. How's that part of this process?

Um well let me actually pick up first with what you said about the hero's journey because I think that's actually not only is the film structured as a hero's journey uh but I think you're right in the sense of you know we can talk about and we have talked about all the different ways in which the different steps along the way planted the seeds and the the work that was done and the cultivation of that potential actual if we're going to hearken back to the art you know ontology that I talked about um moving toward, you know, a major project.

And I think while there was a whole host of massive growth points that were all essential, yes, to getting to where I'm at right now, there were still significant blind spots that I, you know, I had at work um in terms of, you know, story and and uh you know, and and moving toward like the type of screenplay that is, you know, the type that everybody body dreams of writing, right? And I think the thing that's really interesting is that you can see this happen time and again in Hollywood. There's any number of times where somebody has a breakout hit, you know, a director um might sham on. Right.

Right. And uh and then all of a sudden they struggle to have another hit, you know, and and it's like, man, there was so much hope, right? And the thing is like I can like you know like that I can tell you why his films don't land anymore, right? But I'm not convinced that he knows why, right? And and this is actually part of the perils of success is because if you get to the point that the studio is going to greenlight your project, you don't who do why do you need to listen to anybody, right? Why do you need to listen to a studio exec?

And so there's something actually really useful about having to deal with execs, having to pass certain bars and things like that. That's not to suggest the studio execs know what they're talking about all the time. That's not to say that. But that that tension between the artist and you know the surrounding support structure is really valuable. And I think something that often times happens with directors is that once they hit that point of success where they get to call the shots, their art gets worse because they need that friction in order to make good art. Wes Anderson is another good example. Like with Wes Anderson, his early stuff is some of his best stuff.

At some point, he almost becomes a caricature of himself because he doesn't have those sorts of constraints that were on there. Yes. Um, and so the reason I bring that up is I actually think had I succeeded, Co doesn't strike, my horror film does end up landing its deal with Lionsgate, which looked viable, and I'm off directing it. I think it would have succeeded. I think it would have been dynamite. But I also know at that point I've just written myself a ticket and I haven't yet learned very important lessons that I need to learn in order to become the filmmaker and the writer and the director that I want to be.

And I don't know if I ever do learn those lessons because now I don't who's going to tell me what to do. Man, I made that that blockbuster film over there. You go from the A to the Master of the B film. That's right. And so anyway, I say that because um the last couple of years of working on the belt have been, you know, it's been a lot of it's been a lot of that friction. It's been a lot of that wrestling with the material and how do you make it work and so on.

And at some point in there, I actually convinced the the folks behind this, the monks and the producer to go ahead and finance a writer's room for the second draft. So I'd done a first draft. They were pretty happy with it. They had notes, but I wanted a second draft. And I was like, "No offense, guys, but like you're monks.

You're not going to give me notes that are much use. I would like to finance like a room of real writers." And thankfully, we were able to get this guy, Bart Gavagan, who is um, you know, top rate uh, script and um, and a guy who is he deeply trusts, you know, as amongst the best of the best that you could also ask for, which is Chris Stout. But like Bart is a guy who I don't hopefully this he doesn't mind this being public information but he was offered seven million a year to be Spielberg script doctor. Yeah. Right. And he turned it down cuz that's not what he wanted to do.

Right. He wanted he's in the later part of his life and he's like I don't want to use the last of my years to make Spielberg's movies go from good to great. I'd rather mentor people who I think should be making, you know, the big movies. And thankfully, I qualified, right? Wow. And so that's awesome. So we financed this room and that writer's room was itself a learning experience all its own and it really refined. It felt like it dialed in the last of the things that I needed, the last of the tools. So that it's like, okay, yeah, you have the tools to go ahead and write. Nothing's precious.

You have the rule and the ability to gauge in the room, but it was almost like that working with Bart and talking through story and learning from him, it was like finally you see the code of the Matrix where you're like, "Oh, I now see what's wrong with my script. I also see what's wrong with that movie and that movie and that movie and that movie." Fascinating. And so that was that was critical. So, I mean it this was highly influential on my thinking and on my script writing. I mean, if I could, you know, if I were to tell you, for example, what I think of the movie Heretic, right?

I think it's a great movie, but I think it's only like 90%. It could have been 100%. I could tell you why, but it would, again, these would be a lot of lessons learned from that experience. Mhm. Um, so I I say all of that because I think in terms of the hero's journey type thing, I think it was important that I learned the lesson, all the lessons that I learned along the way. I think it was also important that I realized and could tell the monastery, look, you guys are going to have to find that it's just yourself. We get a studio to do it.

It's not going to be the movie you want, right? And to see that from the inside and know the truth of that was really important. But it was also getting that last set of tools in terms of storytelling to be able to say, "Okay, I do think I'm now ready to be able to do the sorts of projects that I want to do." We'll see how the story plan plays out. Um, supposedly Vadoy is going to be able to raise the the money for this project, which is a lot of millions. Uh, and so we'll see. Um, but you know, so we'll see how the hero journey plays out.

Experience with people of beans goes way back. I mean, trying to convince people to get on board a vision to to actually follow through with their initial inclinations, you know, um, you've done that before, you know, and and now we get to this this much bigger project and, uh, I think I think you're ready for it. And what a what a uh the the excellence, the the the willingness to set a bar and go for it and just keep plowing in that direction until you get there. Nothing sacred until you do uh as it were.

in the integrative component of being a whole person in terms of your art talent, the uh the spiritual journey that you're on and the academics, you know, um and just being a good friend all these years and you know, I one thing I love about calling you is I'm going to get the truth. That's true. you know, you're going to tell me what you really think about it. And uh, you know, my inability to contextualize is the only limitations on that kind of feedback I'm getting. And so, I really have appreciated that and hearing about these things in more detail. And there's so much more. And, uh, can't wait to dig into that some other time. But uh yeah, do do um do can I get a promise out of you that when the belt is in process or gets made, I'm going to get another interview with you about how how how you turn that corner, you know?

Yeah. Maybe you can come out to CIT where we shoot on location. As you know, I mean, you've gotten to do some incredible things. That's one of them is going out on there and doing some due diligence in terms of checking out the the place and uh and the people there. And uh yeah, I'd love to do that. And if I could be of any support, you know what? Give me a place to stay. Can we can I pass you off as a creaton? I can definitely paratoga or whatever. Anyway, so thanks so much for your time here and for this this really illuminating and uh and inspiring discussion.

So my pleasure. My pleasure. That's it for the Firestone Files and I guess and for the Nathan Jacobs podcast and uh until next time um we'll see you guys later. The Christian East and the Christian West share the same creed, the same scriptures and yet they are worlds apart. The differences run deeper than Mary or icons or liturgy going to the very nature of God, the hope of salvation, and even what it means to be human. They use the same words, but their meanings could not be more different. As these two worlds collide in our contemporary culture, what's needed is a translator.

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