This week fans will be fixing to fight. This includes many Christian fans.
Unfortunately we won't say what they'll be fighting about except to say the
topic this week is prime for debate.
That's like many topics that Christians dispute, not just relating to politics,
but relating to the fantastical stories we enjoy together. Meanwhile,
in the lower Haven Guild,
we are enjoying so far Lord willing a respite from those clashes.
And we want to keep following our code of honor that applies to all members.
How can Christian fans follow such honor codes wherever they go and wherever
they debate.
Welcome back to fantastical truth.
The hopefully peaceful podcast from Laura Haven in which we explore fantastical
stories for God's glory and apply their meanings to the real world.
Jesus calls us to serve I'm me, Steve, me Burnett. I published Laura Haven.
I also,
co-authored a non-fiction book about fiction called the pop culture parents.
And I'm Zachary Russell. And as a native Texan, we call it wrestling.
And this is episode 1 27.
Can a code of honor help Christian unity in creative groups.
Zach, uh,
we seem to have accidentally made a series for the summer here on the podcast,
uh, which I sort of retroactively called a hot topics.
Not every episode over the summer was about a hot topic,
but plenty of them were.
So now we're exiting the summer heat and I thought it would be just a great time
to make a hot topic episode about the very topic of hot topics.
If you can say that 13 times fast,
having nothing to do with a particular geekish retailer,
we're heading into a couple of other sagas in September and October.
So I guess you could call this the sort of incidental grand finale to all those
hot topics.
Yeah, well, this is good timing. I mean, here in Texas,
we've had such a big drought for months, and then all of a sudden we,
the heavens opened this past week. We had rain and thunder and lightning,
in fact, Naomi and I were out last night. And, uh,
we were about to walk to the car and this gigantic thunderstorm with tons of
lightning just hit. That was fun. Well,
it was fun for her cuz she always likes those movies where they run in the rain
and kiss. And I was like, I don't wanna get electrocuted.
And I think that's a good analogy for what may be about the hit there's there's
these thunderstorms on the horizon that are kind of inching their way forward.
And uh, yes, there's,
they're full of danger for Christians who are in several fandoms right now.
Well the right kind of thunderstorm can be refreshing.
It can relieve the drought. It can give people a chance to grow, uh,
not just get hit by lightning. So, uh,
hopefully we're gonna have more refreshing rain than electrifying heat in this
episode. Uh,
which of course is why we're gonna get to our concession stand in a moment,
switching metaphors from weather to food. But first, uh, speaking of, uh,
weather, or we're gonna get to our first sponsor for this episode once again,
which is enclave publishing and the novel blood secrets, uh,
currently the newest title from enclave by Morgan Bussy.
Here's the cover description. Not everyone wants to see the world saved.
Time is running out. Cities are being engulfed in,
in the mist and humanity is on the brink of extinction.
Theo believes he has found a way to stop mankind from turning,
but he doesn't know how to alter cast's unique blood into a cure,
or if that can even be done. Meanwhile,
cast struggles with the idea that she is possibly the savior of the world,
a world she is not sure is worth saving.
Enclave publishing is the publisher of blood secrets,
which is the exciting second book in the Skyward series by Christy award
finalist Morgan Bussy.
She's the winner of the sailor inspi readers choice and Carol awards
now available wherever outstanding books are sold.
It's also available in ebook and in audio book for Oasis audio,
visit enclave publishing.com for more information on blood secrets and other
exciting titles, you can find all those links currently at top.
Our podcast sponsors page Laura haven.com/podcast sponsors,
or get the basic link of top our show notes for episode one. Zach,
are you hungry? Cause we had a big, uh, pod style concession stand, uh,
last week with Kevin McCreary talking about Christian cringe. Uh,
I think there's still some leftovers. Uh,
some of those are even good one week later.
So I've gotten those outta the fridge put in the microwave.
some of them had to go in the oven, uh, at four 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
So I think they're just about ready for us to pull off the aluminum foil and see
what cheesy goodness awaits.
Yeah. You know, just based on the timing of this alone,
I wonder if there's some listeners out there thinking,
are they gonna talk about football because isn't that the big thing that people
debate about around this time of the year, but no,
this is not a football podcast.
This is a podcast about Christian fiction and other sorts of pop culture.
And that's what we're gonna be diving into sort of, not indirectly,
I should say because there's a lot of controversies about a certain fandom right.
Now. Yeah. That leads to the first, uh, concession the one I had planned anyway,
the reason why we're revisiting this topic now and not just to incidentally cap
off a summer of hunt topics, but because it turns out, uh,
I was looking at the calendar and the week that this episode releases Lord
willing, uh,
there's gonna be another thing that releases that we've just kind of ignored
here. Maybe tossed a few little barbs its direction,
but I don't want to be aggressive about a series that, uh,
however does seem to have been made. At least in terms of the marketing Zach,
uh, has, has, has been made to polarize a fan base.
Like some of the marketing choices they made seem designed to dis unify rather
than unify. So some of that I don't think, uh,
is the fan's fault and yet no matter who started it, uh,
Christians need to have good codes of honor based in scripture to know how to
finish it or avoid it or whatever your response is to that kind of hot topic.
So that's why we're talking about it now. Uh, however like many of our episodes,
we do want this theme to be evergreen. Uh,
no matter what time you listen to this episode,
there's probably some fan dispute going on out there. Uh,
usually involving Christians in some kind of creative group,
whether it's an in person group, uh,
or more likely some kind of social media circles of which you're a part.
So this episode should apply to name the dispute of your choice. Uh,
also this episode is a spiritual sequel to episode.
We did just a few months ago, 115 about statements of faith.
It was called how do Laura Haven creators strive to follow biblical statements
of faith? Uh, that one proved surprisingly popular Zach, and to show,
it seemed to make sense to follow up with the other document we have helping to
structure the Lord Haven Guild and Laura Haven as a whole, uh, the,
a code of honor that we put together at the turn of this year,
all of Laura Haven creators must sign on to the faith statement. Uh,
this is a Christian organization and we define Christian by particular tenants
that we have in that, uh, faith statement, the sacred scrolls,
but we also apply a written code of honor to every member of the Guild. I mean,
you don't have to follow that if you're gonna comment at Laura Haven,
anything like that, we have no way of enforcing that, but for the Guild,
which is our, uh, discord server, uh, confidential server, it's,
avitation only if you subscribe free@laurahaven.com, uh,
you do have to sign off to agree to follow the code of honor. Uh,
if you're going to be a member of the Guild, even if you're not in leadership,
even if you're not guiding one of the monthly book quests, uh,
Laura Haven is not a church or a church substitute, of course, uh,
we recognize our limits there. Uh,
but we do want to mimic any biblical local church, uh,
that has faith statements and orthodoxy and expectations for Christian behavior.
Orthopraxy, uh, orthodoxy, beliefs, behavior, ortho,
the apostles expected all believers to do this.
And so should we just as a matter of being brothers and sisters,
even if we're not in the local church with elders and deacons and things, uh,
if we know these things, we'll find confidence in Christ, uh,
that can help us maybe see in biblical light and avoid the ungodly behavior that
we see even from other Christian family members or the creators of big fantasy
franchises or the big corporations behind them,
which it seems increasingly Zah like to get the fans squabbling amongst
themselves, toss out some accusations and then see who emerges on top.
But once the battle's over, I, I don't like that kind of behavior. Uh,
we've addressed that kind of thing in previous episodes of the podcast,
but now we're kind of trying to offer a solution. Okay, you can't fix them, uh,
but you can follow a code of honor based in scripture.
And this is what we're trying to do at Laura Haven. Uh,
the confidence that we have then if we're re reacting to that kind of thing, uh,
is not based in getting more powerful than they are or knowing more biblical
truth than they are. But by looking to Jesus, we want to imitate his truth.
We want to imitate his conduct, any, uh,
other concessions you were thinking of Zach while I was running through those.
Well, Naomi and I are going through a marriage class right now.
And a big thing we're talking about is what were the expectations you had going
into marriage and how are those being fulfilled or not fulfilled?
And just recognizing the expectations you have in a certain relationship
can help you get to the bottom of why you're feeling a certain way about your
spouse,
but this really applies to any sort of relationship or any community you're part
of, there are expectations built into every relationship. And, um,
there, there are codes of conduct for every relationship or community.
And a lot of times they're just implicit and there's a lot of cues you're
supposed to pick up on,
but this being a internet community where there's no body language or anything
like that, we have to make everything written. And so just in defense of, uh,
codes of conduct,
that's kind of why we made this and why we made it so robust as
we're about to go into, uh,
because we wanna make those expectations as explicit, as clear as possible.
Yes. And I also want to throw out another concession there. Uh,
this is not to act like something like a pacifist or soft pacifist or
anything like that. Uh, I recognize that conflict is inevitable, uh,
in a world that's been broken by sin. Uh, it's also in some ways,
sometimes Zach healthy, you know,
conflict can be a way that people help one another, uh, help one another learn.
Uh, you can Exactly, uh, that is, uh,
an inherently conflicted act. Uh,
you could have a teacher student environment where there's some conflict,
you can have healthy debate,
but if the participants in the debate are following a code of conduct,
then hopefully, uh, the practice benefits both partners of the debate, uh,
as well as the moderator, as well as the onlookers.
So we don't do formal debates in the Guild or anything like that,
but we're not trying to make it a conflict free zone. I would say,
although I just, I've not seen yet anyway, eight months in, uh,
the kind of conflict, uh, that would, uh, compromise the group, you know,
that would turn in into something we don't mean it to be, uh,
we did have to kick one member, uh, just once I will say,
but it's only been one so far and, you know,
pray for the Guild that whether or not you participate in that community, uh,
that's a record that I would like to keep if at all possible. Uh,
we only lost one cuz the person very clearly, uh,
had no intentions of actually signing off on the code of honor. Uh,
this person was not a professing Christian,
but we don't require people to be professing Christians,
just follow the code of honor, which however is going to be a lot easier.
In theory, if you have the holy spirit inside you that makes you want to follow,
uh, biblical principles of behavior. So I think that's my last concession. Uh,
what we're gonna do now is just, uh, in a sort of a three part, uh, format here.
Uh, we're gonna go through the tens of the code of honor document,
which of course you can find linked in the show notes. Uh,
there's about two or three of them per chapter here. Uh,
we'll take breaks in between, uh, let's go Zach then to chapter one,
why we made a code of honor, uh, to help us respect all members.
So we'll go through each one and offer some brief thoughts, uh,
kind of unscripted here, similar to what we did with the faith statement,
but that turned out well, hope this turns out well too first,
just to specify again, uh,
Guild leaders and members are required to follow the Lord Haven code of honor.
So that's the document that, uh,
the members of the creative leadership are looking at to help us discern,
you know, okay, did this,
this person made an illusion to so and so issue that's going on, you know, uh,
does that break our, uh, our rule about the, you know, political topics? Uh,
this is a guiding document that we we use and it's got, I think, yeah, seven,
seven parts to it. Uh, the leadership team helped, uh,
put these together at the turn of the year when we launched the Guild and I will
go through each one right now, quoting directly, uh, quote one,
keep to the code.
Laura Haven Guild members may not necessarily agree with the sacred scrolls
faith statement. However,
please recognize that Lord Haven and the Lord Haven Guild are led by Christian
guides. We encourage questions of the biblical gospel,
but we cannot tolerate attempts to disparage this Christian faith or dissuade
other members from following Jesus Christ end quote,
and Zach I'm kind of reading that now more as a reader, uh,
rather than somebody who helped, uh, draft the language there. Uh,
what I'm seeing there is an intentional effort to make sure that
we define what we mean by Christian. Yes, Christians can only be individuals,
but Christian spaces, Christian stuff, Christian groups,
as we say in our title here, uh,
they do carry the influence of Christianity and we define what we mean by
Christianity in the faith statement. But here,
we just want to make sure that we don't have folks coming in,
even though there's a few hoops to jump through,
like subscribing free to law Haven, uh, in order to play stump the Christian,
uh, or in order to advocate for another religion. Like yeah, if, you know,
if you're a non-Christian of course you're welcome here.
Just like a non-Christian will be welcome in the local church. Uh,
but although we're not a local church,
so we also wanna follow the standard of nobody gets the stand up in the middle
of the local church service and disrupt the place. Uh,
all things must be done decently and in order,
and we do want that kind of creative order here in the Guild with maybe a little
side project of evangelism here and there. Uh,
not that we want a bunch of unbelievers to come in so that we can throw Jesus at
them. We'd rather everybody mostly be on the same page.
Yeah. And I think here, we're just,
we're recognizing a very common occurrence with online communities that,
uh,
certain people want to be let into a community who don't agree at all with the
identity or purpose of that community. Uh, but they demand to be let in,
even though they have totally different ideologies and they kind of bank on
people's empathy or sense of inclusion,
and then they come into the community and start subverting it, you know,
start trying to speak against the purpose of that community. Uh,
and then basically just bait people into fighting them and then,
uh, it just goes off the rails from there.
And so this happens all the time and we just wanna be really clear upfront
with who we are and what we're about and what we're not going to
accept in this community, because this is a private community. This is not,
you know, some social media platform or anyone's allowed to do whatever.
This is not a blog comment section. Uh, this is a private group.
And so to be in this group, this is, you know,
the first thing that is required is that you honor the purpose of the group.
And again, people may come here and I, I hope people come here that,
that aren't believers and I hope they find it to be a fun place. Um,
and I hope we can have fun discussions about fiction.
Exactly. And another concession, I would say a bit, uh, later R here just, uh,
forgotten and in the back of the fridge, is that some communities I would say,
are made for those kinds of rowdier discussions, like yes,
if you're into like mixed martial arts fighting, or as you said earlier,
Zach wrestling, you know, some kind of sports competition so long as it it's,
uh, you know, being formed by rules and refers and all of that, uh, you know,
and, and penalties, if he, you break them or eject the coach,
if he's throwing a chair on the basketball court or something like that,
and that's as sportsy as it's probably ever gonna get you a fantastical truth,
that kinda thing is appropriate there. But in this case, uh,
it's the Lord Haven Guild,
or maybe you have another creative group that you're a part of it's appropriate
then to set expectations like, okay, that maybe find out there, you know,
it may be good then to go to a political rally and yell and support your guy or
gal and, you know, and then boo the competition.
But we're not gonna do that here, not here in the living room, uh,
not here in the fellowship hall. Uh,
it's just simply a matter of defining the purpose of a space, uh, and almost,
uh, forming a kind of dress code. Uh,
it may be appropriate to dress one particular way for the pool.
And Christians can debate that over there.
oh, no.
But over here, yeah. Keep all your clothes on. You know,
we're not going swimming here, you know,
you may not need to wear a three piece suit, uh, if you are a man,
but you should have something on, you know, dress for the occasion,
behave for the occasion. And in this case, the occasion is a Christian space,
uh, to discuss Christian ideas in fantastical stories.
Yeah. And I, I like that we have that upfront Steven, because, you know,
we've decided that we don't want to just be a book and movie discussion group
that happens to be Christian. You know, we wanted to be Christian first.
Like this is primarily a space for the Christian faith through the lens
of fiction. Christianity is central to the purpose for our Guild,
like our Christian faith, you know, it's,
it's the foundation for why we're doing this.
It's not just an added ingredient to being geeks or whatever.
And so I like that we put that up front because that for other
Christians that really want to talk to other Christians about movies and
films and books and stories, you know, that that's who we're trying to bring in.
And then for anyone else that is like, well, I, you know,
I have a lot of Christian friends, but I'm not a Christian. Well, that's fine.
But just recognize that this is primarily a,
a space to promote Christian belief.
Exactly. Hey, I just remembered that a few days ago,
I actually got an email from somebody.
I think they were replying to the do not reply address, but that's okay.
the person was saying, Hey, I'm, I'm not a Christian.
Can I still join the group? I still need to reply to that person and say, yes,
just look to the code of honor. Number one, like this is the purpose here.
We're not requiring that of everybody just don't come in there. You know,
don't sign your kid up for the Christian school. Uh,
and then be shocked that they're teaching and expecting a Christian sexual
ethics, which is another controversy that's been going on lately. Um,
that's just plain old, silly, uh, I wouldn't sign up for the atheist school,
uh, and then be stunned that they're teaching my kid atheism. Uh,
don't try to change the group from the inside. Uh,
if this is the group's very clear, written, stated expectation.
Yeah. Hey, you know, on that note,
that's funny you say that when I was in college, um, I,
I met a friend that was in an atheist group, and so I asked where they meet,
I just wanted to listen in and I went there and it was a very, uh,
academic discussion. They were having about some topic and I was just like,
okay, this is interesting, a little boring, but, you know,
I just wanted to kinda listen in.
And then right in the middle of them talking this, this, uh,
freshman student stood up and, and said, uh,
what does any of this have to do with evolution versus creation?
And they're like, what it was like, so like off topic.
Oh, like she, did we have some Christian cringe going on? Perhaps?
Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of cringe. It was like, okay. Mm. And I,
I wanted to kind of take her aside, like, Hey, we're on the same team,
but just like, you know, hold your horses a little bit, you know,
like like, don't just drop the truth bomb and then run, you know?
Yeah. Play that forward in your imagination.
Do you actually see anybody ready to convert or even pre pre pre pre pre
conversion at that point? Uh, not really. Yeah.
Just gonna add more heat than light.
Yeah.
Let's go to the code of honor. Uh, number two here, uh, speaking of, uh,
not offending people, uh,
in the name of sharing some light and just end up sharing heat,
we have number two, respect everyone.
Every person in your quest party is created in God's image.
Every novel author is also created and is creating in God's image
because all people, whether celebrity stranger,
friend or family reflects this very image of God, they are worthy of respect.
We will uphold this biblical gracious respect.
That's the quote and Zach reading that. Now it, it seems a little general,
but that's on purpose. Uh,
we want to have that principle at the back of someone's head. Uh,
we want to internalize that in our hearts,
that the purpose of respecting people is not just to give them or tell them what
they want. Uh, the purpose of respecting people is the Imago day.
God has made that person in his image and breathed into that person,
the breath of life, God defines the reason why we respect people,
try to honor them as his image bearers. Uh,
God defines that not people defining that, uh,
which may be a little bit different from other, uh,
codes of honor written or otherwise that you see in other groups, uh,
fantastical or geeky or otherwise. Uh, there's kind of this, uh,
this shared idea of respect that gets defined by memes
and, uh,
partially remembered phrases and moralities from a hodgepodge of religions.
Most of them shaped now by the popular media and by political agendas. Uh,
this here I think is, uh,
is a principle that goes all the way back to Genesis chapter one,
describing the creation of man and woman.
Yeah. You know, the, the phrase I like is critique the work, not the person, um,
you know, attack the work, if you think it needs to be attacked and,
and taken apart, but don't attack the person, uh,
the person that created that work. Now, admittedly, this is hard. Uh, this is,
this is a hard rule to abide by sometimes because it's hard to sometimes
separate the art from the artist. Um,
and I think it's even harder to even be aware of this rule when
you're in an in group and you're sort of critiquing something from an outgroup.
And so I,
I think that this calls on us to sort of police each other in ourselves and I
mean, not police, but, you know, remind each other that, Hey, let, let's,
you know, let's hold to this rule, uh, be because look,
there are plenty of forums that you can join that are just,
uh, where everything gets very personal and everything gets very, you know, uh,
offensive, like just, we don't need to go there. like, there's,
there's many other forums for that. If you wanna do that.
So that that's not what we want to create in this community.
Exactly. I note they're the language too about, uh,
respecting every author of the novel and, uh, in the Lord Haven Guild,
there's a slight chance unless the author is Tolkin or Lewis, uh,
that the author could be there.
And that has actually happened a few times with some of the monthly book quests
that we hosted. Uh, however,
we try to pick books that we believe the majority of participants will enjoy,
and we're not picking a random book that Lord Haven is not reviewed or is not
aware of. Uh,
and we're always focusing on Christian made fantasy or science fiction there
it's, it's all Christian made titles, uh, that we're picking,
but some of the authors are very involved in, uh, fan communities like ours.
And so they may be showing up, which may make it a little bit, uh,
easier to respect that person because he or she is actually there, uh,
as opposed to being an author who is, uh,
no longer with us or who is not participating in the book west, uh,
I will say Zach, that I'm very happy overall, uh,
with the way that this has gone in the Guild,
because although we have chosen titles that we want everybody to like that are
fairly non-controversial like, for example,
we've got the Hobbit quest party coming up here in September.
By the time you listen to this episode, it may have already started. Uh,
we did at least at one point or I did, let's not use the, we there,
I chose a book, uh, back in the spring actually, uh, that was the, uh,
the seventh sun by the now late Lonnie Forbes, which had,
I would suppose some controversial elements in there. Uh, some central bits, uh,
kind of some Y a type, uh, heavy breathing content between, uh,
two members of the teenage cast.
And that I knew would be a little bit controversial.
And so I'm still thinking about like, well, did I, did I choose right? You know,
was this a good title at a good time for this group? And I know however that,
uh, members in that quest party, uh, appreciated the story overall,
but we did have some debate about that level of content and whether it was age
appropriate for particular readers.
And that was the kind of discussion I was hoping to see.
Could we discuss the themes and the content and the descriptions of the book,
uh,
without disrespecting the author and from my memory of that particular
book west, I think all of our heroes and the Guild did very well.
Would I choose a book like that just to see what would happen even a little bit?
No, maybe not, but in that case, it wouldn't be because, uh, that, uh,
case study did not go well. It actually did,
but we just wanna make sure that we choose titles that are, you know,
not going to add a lot of heat, uh,
to the discussion where people will have to cool themselves down. Uh,
we wanna choose titles that will add light to the discussion for the purpose of
respecting,
not just the author of the story or the characters in the story or the themes,
uh, but helping to respect one another as Guild heroes who bear God's image.
Yeah. And that right there is a great reminder.
We're gonna pick books that not everyone's gonna like there,
or that might have elements, not everyone is comfortable with. Um,
and people are going to have varying levels of enjoyment or those elements or
those books.
And so that's where we just have to assume the best about everyone else and
their enjoyment of those books.
It's okay to disagree about these things about whether or not these elements
should be in books or, or if you like them or not. Yeah.
It's just not okay to attack someone else for their taste
in books.
Exactly. And I'd say by the way, faithful listener,
we may have another accidental test case coming up simply because of that prime
debate. I mentioned, uh,
we'll get to that in a moment when we talk about number four here of the code of
honor,
but I've seen plenty of punditry about that particular series that singles out,
uh, cast members or the showrunners by name, uh, who as far as I know,
are not Christians.
And of course are not going to appear in the Guild to defend their work or see
what you're saying about them. So how do we handle then, uh,
franchise runners or a corporate chiefs who have no part of the Guild? Well,
I think the same principle applies that you wanna respect that person as God's
image bearer,
even if you couldn't disagree more strongly of with the type of creative work
that they have done. Uh, we do have a channel called middle earth, which is, uh,
just for all purpose, uh, discussion about all things Tolkin. Uh,
there's a lot of channels that, uh, go off in different directions, uh,
related to Christian made fantasy and sometimes secular fantasy as well. Uh,
but those are, I would say the side quests, uh,
we're focusing mainly on each one of the book quests, uh,
that we change every month in the Lord Haven Guild,
which leads me to our second sponsor for this episode, the Lord Haven Guild,
we had a slot open, so I rushed in and took it. Uh,
we are going there and back again with our Hobbit book quest,
a starting on Monday, September the fifth. Yes,
we are doing it for September just in time for Hobbit day, which is true fans.
No is on September the 22nd.
A Hobbit book quest will go through all 19 chapters of the Hobbit.
It's being led by faithful book quest leader, Elijah David.
And we're gonna have fun with this. I really, really enjoy, uh, the Hobbit. Uh,
I think in the past,
I think I may have actually read the Lord of the rings first before the Hobbit,
maybe because I had to catch up in a hurry before seeing the moves.
Unfortunately, I was one of those late coming fans,
but do not let them tell you that the Hoit is a children's story.
Whereas the Lord of the rings is the more mature grownup book for more mature
grownups. Uh, the Hobbit has a different flavor, certainly at the first,
but one of the observations I love to make about the story is that while it
starts off very whimsical and charming,
and then for some reason you have a talking purse, uh,
from the troll that Billbo fails to pick pocket and who gives off the alert.
And it's a weird element like that, uh,
stuff like that does happen in the Lord of the rings too. Tom Bombadil, anyone,
the talking, thinking Fox, anyone, uh,
Tolkin likes to go for those whimsical things.
And yet the Hoit starts off more whimsical and they gets more and more mature to
the end. And then by the end, in my interpretation,
you find basically a challenge and the best kind of subversion of the whole king
Arthur comes back to take is kingdom motif, which in my view,
sets up the return to the king and the whole king narrative and the whole
suffering servant narrative throughout the Lord of the ring.
So all the stories are connected and we're gonna find those connections and have
fun respecting each other and enjoying the Christian themes that Tolkin couldn't
help, but include in his story to join the Laura Haven Guild,
just go to Laura haven.com and subscribe free, enter your email address.
And then we will send you the exclusive invitation to this long
expected party.
Just go to Laura haven.com and we will see you in the Guild where you too can be
a Guild hero.
Yes. And towards the end of September,
we are going to have a video discussion,
a live video in real time discussion about the Hobbit that's gonna be on
Saturday, September 24th. So look for that announcement in the Guild,
in that book quest,
and you can join in and share your thoughts about the.
Hobbit. I'm looking forward to this. I've already been listening to the Hobbit,
uh, turns out there was a sale from that same company that we are sort of,
kind of maybe talking about here and there. They're not all bad.
They put the Hobbit and the Lord of the ring's audio books on sale narrated by
and.
Circles.
And he does a fantastic job, not just with the Gollum voice,
but by doing voices for all the cast members, I'm really enjoying it.
And at least at one point, Zach, I was having a bad day,
one chapter of circus reading the Hobbit in his inevitable style.
And my bad mood was just gone. So props you,
Andy circus don't know whether you're a Christian, but God used you that day.
God can use non-Christians and certainly non-Christians who help make Christian
stories like Laura, the rings.
How's his impersonation of sir Ian McLellan.
You know, it actually is pretty good. Uh, it's not,
it's not all an impression of sir Ian McLellan, uh, as Gandolph,
but you can tell that he is definitely being inspired by, I mean,
obviously the cast member of performances in the movies,
in which he played GOM and other roles. So, uh, it's, uh, it's, it's really fun.
And what I appreciate too, uh,
is that when it comes time for one of the many songs in the Hoit circus
will just sing it, he will just, wow. And a man's got pipes. Yeah. I,
I don't think I've heard him sing before. Uh, it is, it's obviously him singing.
Like he's, he's definitely singing, uh, in character, but for example, with the,
with the song that the dwarf sing,
while they're pretending to do all the things that bill lo Bains hates,
I was listening and wondering, are they going to do the tune from the movies?
Are they gonna do the tune from the movies? Yes, yes, they did.
It wasn't exactly the tune because for the, uh, the words of the song,
they have to actually change, uh, for the movies to,
to fit the meter that they put together. But the tune that circus does,
I don't know whether he, he, uh, adapted it or who would've done that, uh,
it is just basically 75 to 80%, the tune from the, uh,
the film version of the Hobbit. So, wow. I'm looking forward to that. Cool.
Yeah. That's one reason why I will defend the Hobbitt films. They,
they don't mind doing the songs they put in a bunch of other nonsense,
but they actually do have the songs in there, which I appreciate them. Anyway.
I don't mean to, uh, belabor that, uh, self, uh, self endorsement, uh,
too much longer. Let's go to chapter two of our discussion,
a few more tenets of the code of honor,
chapter two is called how the code of honor aims to discipline controversial
topics. So this is where we get into, uh,
the most PO possibly the most interesting portion here, uh,
of the discussion because we among the Laura Haven staff creators wanted to make
sure that people felt the freedom to talk about some things that did not
constantly feel, uh,
like the mods were going to descend upon them with all the wrath of the mods.
But we also wanted to set clear expectations that some topics were simply
not going to be allowed, not because they're evil,
but simply because there's some things we wanted to keep and other people's
comments, sections not necessarily here at the Guild. And so this next one, uh,
needed a lot of sharpening among the staff creators. Let's see how we did.
Number three, avoid swearing sex talk,
and harassment scripture says,
let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking,
which are out of place Ephesians five, four,
we apply this standard to the Guild, avoid vulgarities, profanities,
and misuses of God's title, including in acronyms. Yes,
some books for main quests or side quests may include language.
We wouldn't ourselves use in the Guild.
If you are uncertain about a word avoid using it, or ask a Guild guide,
members must avoid sexualized comments about characters or actual
harassment of real people. This does not refer to disagreements,
but does include yet is not limited to slander or vulgar language
moderators will help with resolutions as needed.
So that last sentence there, faithful listener, uh,
keeps things a little bit more open ended. Uh,
some things are gonna be subjective. We recognize that,
but apart from the one scenario I mentioned earlier, uh,
I can't recall that we've actually had any issues with this. Zach,
it seems that more people embrace this with relief, uh,
rather than Shaf against it with annoyance. Uh,
we haven't had people coming in there, uh, misusing God's title or God's name,
uh, and using vulgarities that, uh, would violate the spirit,
if not the law of a verse like Ephesians five, four.
You know, just this weekend,
I was online and saw a post from someone I follow just well known,
um, political type who happens to be a Christian. And, uh,
someone commented underneath that and said, you know, I, I respect you.
I follow you. I support your work. You're doing great,
but can you please not say OMG, because that is taking God's name in vain.
And I was like, well, well, that's great. You know, like, and,
and I think we all need that again. It's like,
we need to sort of correct ourselves, sharpen each other by saying,
let let's kinda leave that aside that that's gonna be on, you know,
the Twitter sphere, the Facebook verse, but in here, we,
we really want to be careful to honor God by not taking his name
in vain. And, and that's, you know,
using those initials is obviously just the first step in this,
uh, honoring this commandment. But, um, yeah,
it can be very easy to slip into, uh, vulgarity,
be easy to slip into profanity. Uh, and like you said,
it it's very easy with acronyms, so there's a lot of acronyms we could use that.
Uh, we're not going to mention on the era, this is not the George Carlin, uh,
podcast, but, um, you know, and Steven,
this was my life before I was a Christian. I,
I had plenty of profanity in my everyday speech and it took through a couple
years of college when I started walking with the Lord to really work that out in
my system. And it's not that I never, you know, I, I don't wanna say I,
I've never used a swear word since then. I, um, but I,
I try very hard not to let that be part of my normal conversation.
And I think the holy spirit just has to work in a person's life, um,
to remove that. But yeah, we, we don't want this to be a, uh, a,
a place full of that. I mean, we want this to be family friendly and I,
I don't know what the minimum age limit of discord is or what even we'd feel
comfortable with, I guess it's 13 or 16 or something like that.
I think 13 has been the in theory standard for a lot of social media.
I think that is the same for discord, but I mean, if it was, you know,
eight years old or 31 years old for that matter,
I think we would still want to avoid this kind of language. I'm noting.
Here's exactly. We put, uh, the, the, uh, the bands on vulgarity and profanity,
which by the way, are different, uh,
vulgar are about bodily functions and such like,
and profanity is specifically about a divine language or, you know,
places that you end up, uh, after death. Uh,
those are two different things and Christians can debate about what word counts
as what, and that's why, why we put the catch all there,
that moderators will help with resolutions as needed. It really comes down to,
uh, moderator decisions if we have a, a difficult case of some kind.
But I did notice that we put in there, uh,
the rule on language and the rule on harassment, uh, in the same place. And I,
I'm looking at that now and kind of interpreting in part my own work there.
And I'm thinking that the reason why both of those go into one tenant,
number three of the code of honor, is that the root there is anger. Uh,
both of these are violations of the rule earlier, respect everyone.
If you're respecting everyone, you're not going to harass them,
and you're not going to use vulgarity's profanities and misuses of God's title,
cetera, uh, showing respect, rules out these things automatically.
So number three really just comes off of number two.
And if you have a different spirit in your heart,
if you have an attitude toward love and respect, I,
I think that's going to be the change from within whether you're a Christian or
not, but most likely if you're a Christian, cuz it's the holy spirit doing that,
you know,
you can work on that on your self and try to fix yourself and respect people and
all that.
But I think it's ultimately gonna be harder if you're not a Christian and
eternally, it's not going to count, but in either case,
I think you are capable of showing respect and love toward other people, uh,
that will lead naturally toward avoiding these kinds of habits of harassment and
such, uh, without you having to have a specific rule about it.
And that's the type of person, uh, we want to attract it to be a hero,
to be rightly called a hero in the Lord Haven Guild.
Well,
and this is to say nothing of the fact that discord allows you to block people
or mute things or whatever. And so, uh,
frankly I would guess that people just do that first before complaining to a
moderator. Um, it's just so easy to do that, you know, with digital media, but,
um, but we don't really want it to come to that point either. We,
we don't want a atmosphere where that's happening. Cause as I've said,
there are plenty of other forums that you can join where this is the norm.
I actually do want to talk here about one in particular.
So when we had Shane Morris on to talk about wheel of time, uh,
I mentioned how there is a, uh,
the official forum for a wheel of time on Reddit or the, the sub Reddit,
I guess I should say. Uh,
they do not really allow or encourage any criticism of
wheel of time. It's a subreddit run as far as I can tell by the actual
show, uh, the, the Amazon show for wheel of time.
Now there are some other subreddits that are just about the books,
but the one that's about the show had a ton of people show up and criticize it
and rightly so for any number of things. Um,
and all of those people were little by little removed from there.
So they got together,
created a subreddit called the white cloaks which if you read the book
is kind of ironic and I'm not gonna go on all that. But, uh,
the latest thing I've learned is that that subreddit has now been locked down by
the admins of Reddit.
Oh, wow. Um.
Yeah. So there was, uh,
some kind of conflict between the mods of that subreddit and the kind of the
overall admins that are, you know, employed by Reddit.
What the admins did was basically flag every post.
That's not by a mod is spam.
And so a mod would have to approve each post manually,
but the mods are still allowed to post and people are allowed to comment,
but there's only three of them.
And there were thousands of people in that sub in the last I checked.
So the traffic there has, is ground to a halt.
And I imagine that was the whole point of this.
That it's cause what Reddit has done is just totally kicked off
subreddits and, and users completely from Reddit.
And that's gotten them a lot of blowbacks.
So now I think this is the new tactic to sort of bleed a subreddit dry that they
don't like the admins weren't entirely wrong about some of the problems in that
subreddit, Reddit doesn't disallow, profanity or vulgarity,
but they do disallow harassment.
And there do seem to be some cases where there was harassment or brig of other
forums. But at the same time,
there were much harsher rules and enforcement applied to this subreddit.
And so the internet is not at the equal opportunity place.
We all thought it would be in the nineties. I,
I remember when it was fun and when it was cool and it's become something else
that's being taken over by mega corpse and whatnot,
but critique of shows is, is totally allowed,
but we don't allow harassment of people. Those are entirely different things.
And, and that extends also to the,
the creators and the actors and whatever the other people involved in the
creative process.
Now we're mostly talking about Christian books so the,
the feelings are much, uh, you know, the temperature is already a lot lower. I,
I think on the books that we mostly talk about, but you know,
we have a middle earth forum. We have another, uh,
we have another channel about your current reads and you know,
we're gonna be talking about other, uh, intellectual property out there.
So hopefully this can become a template like what we're doing in the Guild.
We hope that this can become a template for you.
Our listener to create a local community, a book club, a watch party,
a board game group, whatever we,
we hope that this can help you kind of apply these principles to other
communities you might be in.
Yeah. This here to me,
Zach seems to be a fence around offense around offense where we say members must
avoid sexualized comments about characters or actual harassment of real people.
Are those the same thing kind of, uh,
because if you're going to act that way towards a character,
then you're probably also going to act that way towards a real person.
Who's your neighbor in the forum or the creative group, because to you,
they're a character, just the same as a character in a book.
They're not real person. You can just make anything, uh, you want up about them.
Uh, that's not correct. That's not a good posture for a Christian to have,
or a member of a Christian group to have.
So that's why we grouped those together. We did, however, uh,
put in a kind of a disclaimer there, this does not refer to disagreements.
We said because right.
Although it's less of a risk in some internet communities or creative groups
than actual harassment, uh, you will get people, uh, who will say, well,
that person is harassing me. Okay. Well, what was the harassment?
They disagreed with me. They want to erase me. Like, I mean,
that's the kind of thing. Like I said, offense around fence. We,
we don't even wanna get anywhere near that level of conflict, uh,
in a community like the Guild. Uh, but it does happen.
So we have that language in there, you know, just in case, I mean,
who knows whether this thing will outlive us all or whether, you know,
we'll pass to another creative team at some point,
I want that precedent in there, uh, if at all possible. Uh, but we,
we want to ultimately define harassment by the leadership of the
Guild, which will be exclusively biblical Christian leadership. Uh,
harassment does not get to be defined by the person,
although very likely in the Guild, if, uh, someone, uh,
if you feel like you're being harassed, uh, you probably are. I mean,
that's the kind of person we want to attract the kind of person who is not
disputative in that way. Uh,
it feels to me it's a lot easier to join a subreddit or Reddit or whatever you
call them over there, uh, than it would be easy to join the Guild.
It is free to subscribe, uh, but you do have to jump through a portal or two,
uh, which itself, uh, brings a, a sense of exclusivity, uh,
that we really wanna preserve. You know, it's not a, a gated community,
you know, where you have to have a particular income level or else you can't,
uh, rent this condo. Uh, but there is a gate, uh,
there is a gate and hopefully it's a little bit more narrow than you would
usually get with another, uh, creative group out there.
Yeah. Cause again, back to that white cloaks group,
I like that there was open discussion about the show. I didn't like that. It,
that became very vulgar profane in, in lots of other things. And so, you know,
that wasn't a great community,
but I also don't like that it was shut down anyway. We're,
we're trying to avoid again, all that,
the dumpster fire of Reddit here in the Guild.
Yeah. And for more on that, you, you can go to our episode 122,
why are more fans turning against their favorite franchises? Uh,
try to explore some of the, some of the, uh, the, the angry heart, uh,
the grieving heart that can lead to that type of anger in, uh,
fan communities about shows like that. Uh,
there may be a time to grieve and work through the, of grief,
but don't smother over your grief with anger, uh, get over it, move on.
There are probably better stories out there that, uh,
won't make you so angry and grieving about them.
So speaking of some political controversies, uh,
this next tenet of the code of honor also required a lot of input, uh, from,
uh, the creative team at Laura Haven. Uh,
some political topics after all people won't make call them political,
but they're not really political. They actually do relate, uh,
to how we worked out our Christian faith.
And they relate to some of the books that we'll be enjoying.
So we don't wanna just say no politics. You can stop talking about politics.
That's bad. We don't wanna say that. But at the same time,
we do want to specify particular things to leave out of Guild discussions,
take them to your comment section somewhere or your water cooler at work. Uh,
but not at the Guild. Here's what it says. Four beware of political issues,
some books and their quests may naturally explore moral issues
that relate to political conflicts.
We encourage gracious discussion of these ideas and themes as specifically
related to the books,
but members must avoid active discussion of specific political leaders,
parties, or public policy.
Those last three items there I think are important. Uh,
we don't want political leaders or candidates being name checked on the forum.
We don't want any want anybody, uh, trying to start a discussion about, Hey,
it was so and so, uh, proposition here in my state, uh, anybody else, uh,
from the state of Iowa, you know, who you gonna vote for in the primaries in,
uh, 20, 23 or 2024? Uh,
any of that stuff is just going to get absolutely shut down and no one's tried
it, uh, because the types of books we attract, uh, seem to understand this.
We don't wanna talk about parties and we don't wanna talk about specific, uh,
bills, uh, public policies, rules, laws, all that stuff.
There's a place for that. Not evil. Christians gotta do it,
but you don't gotta do it here,
but we have had some discussion, uh, about for example,
um, pro-life ethics like that will figure into discussions of the books, uh,
that we're talking about. Uh,
that's going to come up at least in an illusion here or there,
and you can bet we, we kept a bit of a sharp eye on those just in case,
cuz we didn't want it to, uh,
get out of control or spiral off from the more fiction centered
discussions. But it, it didn't last too long. Uh, and as the election year,
at least the United States is drawing closer or the election season really it's
a midterms here, uh, as we record this, but in 2024,
things are gonna get even more heated. So we will see how well, uh,
ten four here, the code of honor holds up. Uh,
I definitely want to keep that one, uh, intact, uh,
but if we need to address, uh, particular instances, uh, we certainly will, uh,
as a leadership team and Zach, uh, actually come to think of it, duh,
this is the part where I talk about, uh, that, uh,
particular prime debate that's coming up, uh,
because we have had some discussion about whether or not people are going to
watch that show, uh, which is not again, not,
I would say the fans' fault that it's gotten politically charged, uh,
because regardless of what the cast members looked like,
a lot of the early marketing, at least for the show led with, uh, all of the,
uh, diversity language and more political type language, uh,
that is at least associated with political agendas.
And that was just a weird marketing decision.
And unfortunately it's left many fans with a very bad taste about this
particular show. Uh, how are we going to talk about it on the Guild? Um,
I don't know, uh,
we may need to put in some guidelines in the middle earth channel.
Haven't had a chance to do that yet, but it's, it's, it's a test case again, uh,
that we may be keeping an eye on, cuz we don't wanna say don't talk about it.
It's a bad show. You know,
like someone may watch the show completely free of the stigma attached by the
super Van's Amazon video or anything like that. Oops. I said the,
a word there , that's fine. You may still enjoy it.
You may not have ever read token or his materials about the second age.
You know, it may be fan fiction and you're perfectly fine with that. Uh,
it may not be an evil show.
It may not have a political agenda in the show itself,
just in the marketing who knows in that case, God bless you enjoy it. Uh,
the rest of us just may not enjoy it as much because we've seen too much. Uh,
we'll be keeping an eye. We'll be keeping an eye on it.
Yeah. I, I think from now on now that you've let the cat outta the bag,
I think I'm just gonna refer to this new show as Jeff Bezos's fan fiction.
That that's just the only way to cover it. Well, I've.
Seen a few less flattering labels used to, to describe the title. Yeah.
But yeah, Steven, I, you make a good point there too.
We're not gonna try to be party poopers either,
so you're fine to enjoy the show. That's totally fine. And,
and people can have different reactions to the angle that Amazon is taking.
I think, um, Amazon made a very clear decision of,
they want to capture the cultural zeitgeist and make this for a totally
new set of concerns that people have. That was their primary audience.
That was their primary agenda. Um, we'll see how that works out for them,
but you know,
I wanna actually go from there to something else that's often said about sci-fi
fantasy kind of in the larger world, which is, uh, well,
science fiction has always been political or, or how about this one?
The personal is political and I just,
I stand completely opposed to these mindsets because that's a totalitarian
impulse that politics should invade every aspect of your life.
Everything in your life should be repurposed to survey political cause.
And we just totally reject that here at law Haven life,
life is so much bigger than who you're voting for or what parties in power,
what policies are happening because the church has survived 2000 years of
all kinds of governments and, and foolish leaders and foolish policies. And,
and so have books books have been around and will be around much longer than,
than people who are doing silly things.
It's fine to talk about moral issues because those supersede and outlast the
political realities. But at the end of the day, you know,
don't confuse an ideology for your identity. Uh, don't take on,
you know, one of these, um, uh, slogans or,
or mindsets as who you are. And then when people disagree with that,
you feel personally attacked. That's not right either. And again,
that's that totalitarian impulse that keeps getting pushed on us.
So we're gonna talk about some issues that come up, but yeah,
we just gotta be careful with the really hot button ones, you know, and,
and follow everything that we've already talked about up till.
This point. Exactly. I heartedly agree with that. Uh,
ultimately it is super political in what we're trying to accomplish here, uh,
in the, in the Laura Haven Guild, uh, these are moral issues,
issues of imagination and personhood that are foundational to the political
controversies that we have in other parts of the world. You've gotta have those.
You absolutely must. Yeah. Those fine to have that culture stories,
imagination informs those issues. So, right.
Why would you jump to the shallow end of the pool? Uh,
hopefully we're trying to go a little bit deeper into the, uh,
human psyche by way of fantastical imagination.
Let's move to chapter three here in a moment. Uh,
this ordinarily would be the place for a third sponsor. Uh,
we've left that spot empty, but just so you know, faithful listener, uh,
we will be having from here on out, uh, three sponsors,
one per chapter of each of our podcast episodes. So going forward, who knows,
maybe you could be in this spot two faithful listener,
chapter three is called what positive themes do we promote in the lower Haven
Guild? So we're gonna wrap up with, uh,
the three last tenets of the code of honor here.
This is where it gets a little bit more fun. Uh, we did the, uh, heavier stuff,
uh, just in the last, uh, chapter.
And this is where we really wanted to end with more positive endorsement of what
we're hoping to accomplish in any of our book quests and other story
explorations in the Guild.
Number five here makes clear our goal to focus on fans of fiction,
not the writing of fiction,
simply because of our focus at Laura Haven five celebrate fandom.
Our quest is to explore Christian made fantastical stories. As readers,
aspiring writers can find many other communities about creative work in the
Guild. We will keep all our quests focused on delighted discerning fans.
Fantastic authors need the wisdom of Proverbs 27 2,
let another praise you and not your own mouth,
a stranger and not your own lips.
This one in retrospect is fascinating to me because I'm,
I'm looking at that now.
And to the extent that I had input into the language here, I'm thinking,
what was I thinking about that?
And I was probably thinking about writers groups,
where the writers who are very enthusiastic,
especially if you're a Christian and have had trouble finding a writing
community. Uh, you,
you find one that seems to be talking about books and in the imagination books
equals writing sometimes. Well, not necessarily. Uh, there is a difference,
like even good writers, I think, uh, professionals, uh, know to keep the shop,
talk to the shop.
And then if they're out at a library event or something you don't assume that
everybody lining up to have, uh, their book signed by you, uh, is also a writer.
There's going to be a difference in your emphasis there. And Laura Haven is, uh,
near exclusively fan focused here to the extent that we talk about, uh,
authors and shop talk and all that stuff, uh,
we try to keep it very basic and very much emphasizing behind the scenes. Uh,
kind of my example, there is the, uh, behind the scenes, uh, materials on, uh,
I guess one of the discs, uh, for a movie like the Lord of the rings.
For example, the film trilogy has some of the best behind the scenes material.
And when they're taking you into the workshop to show the CA troll the cats and
the chain mail that they're putting together by hand,
and all of that at Witta led by to that's a bad New Zealand accent, of course,
they're not giving you instructions for how to do it.
They're not assuming that everybody watching is a craftsperson who wants to get
into that industry.
They're assuming that everybody who's watching is a fan of the Lord of the rings
and wants to know how they made the movie magic down in New Zealand.
So they will go into detail and they will show you,
and they aren't seeming to try to hide their secrets,
but they are keeping it more general. They are more keeping,
they're keeping it more focused on the fans. So that's what we wanna do.
If we talk about, like, for example, our saga coming up next month,
Zach will give a little spoiler here, faithful listener. Uh,
we're gonna go behind the scenes a little bit more talk about how these books,
how these audio books get made, uh,
introduce you to some of the people behind those,
but it's not going to be a how to guide.
It's not going to be instructional or professional development type stuff. Uh,
I think that would be unfair and unnecessary. Anyway, Zach,
if we were trying to step on the real maker's territory,
like real makers and other Christian groups are introducing people to that
network of creators, you know, the more, uh, industry side of things,
the more professional development side of things.
If you come into the Laurie Haven Guild saying, Hey, I wanna talk about my book.
I wanna get somebody to read my book. Let's get some, uh,
let's get some beta readers going. Let's get a critique group started.
If you do that, we're gonna say, mm, no. Uh,
look at number five here of the of the code of honor, uh,
and go find real makers, go find another group. Uh, that's already doing that.
Uh, they're not doing book quests and we're not doing, uh, writer,
critique groups, and we're not talking about that stuff.
We're going to focus on the fans.
Yeah. And even better go start a local writers group.
I think so much of this is just better handled in person with people that you
get to know, and that's what I've done.
And that's what I've really enjoyed others doing. But yes,
this is a place to primarily be on the same footing that we're all
readers here and it, and realistically, if you're a writer,
that's not reading books, uh,
you probably shouldn't be writing books until you go read a bunch of books. Uh,
the, the most successful authors are huge readers, huge book worms.
So that's gotta come first, no matter what, but yes,
we don't wanna make this a two tiered society within the Guild that there's the,
there's the people who are the cherished and celebrated writers.
And then there's all the other, you know, peasants with their chickens.
And so , uh, we wanna make this, uh, where everyone's on the,
the same ground.
Yeah. And there will,
of course be many heroes of the Guild who are authors or who are aspiring
authors. And we definitely welcome them because I think that statistically,
Zach, like, I haven't seen any surveys about this,
but it seems to me that folks who enjoy fantasy and science fiction and those
kinds of stories are more likely to try to write fan fiction,
just something in your personality or the fact that these, uh,
these genres have this kind of personality among their fans. Uh,
that's gonna lead you to be more likely to try to write the stuff, you know,
whereas I, I don't think that the same principal applies. Uh,
if you are someone who's, uh, a little bit of an older reader, you know,
maybe retired a local church member who enjoys, uh,
reading Christian Prairie romances.
It's probably less a chance that you're trying to write your own Prairie romance
and break into the Prairie romance industry. Uh, I'm not sure how that's going,
but it's,
it's not something that I've picked up on as I have among the fantasy of folks.
So that makes sense. Uh, again, it's simply a matter, not a morality,
but simply of focus. Uh, there exist groups for writing, uh,
take the writing questions over there.
Just like you would take the political questions over there. Yes.
It's gotta get done. Uh, we want those stories written.
We want them to get better. We want them published if they're great. Uh,
just not in the guilt everybody's you said Zach is, is on a level playing field,
you know, published authors and aspiring authors and simply fans alike.
And so far we found great success in focusing on that,
which also by the way, rules out a lot of those, uh, potentially heated, uh,
debate topics about publishing rules and whether or not Christians can write
about such and such and magic systems and things like that. Uh,
a lot of those just get taken off the table simply by focusing on fans first.
Yeah. And those, those discussions do need to be had just like we said,
the political discussions need to be had. It's just not here.
That's not what this is for.
So from there,
continuing the positive emphasis will go to number six of the code of honor.
This next is not a rule, but more like a suggestion, really a suggestion, uh,
because we want to promote this kind of spirit,
whether or not somebody actually wants to do that and come to think of it. I, I,
haven't done a whole lot of it myself. I'm my comments,
usually more straightforward than this, but if you want to number six,
enjoy your creative gifts. We don't require,
but we do encourage Guild members inquests to engage in virtual cosplay,
try taking personas of gall Knights, brave adventures, ship, captains,
monster hunters, or whatever suits you're, God-given imaginative,
fancy quest guides will lead in this imaginative world building.
If that's not how you create no pressure stay as normal as you like either way,
whether or not we engage in virtual cosplay.
We are all fans of fantastic stories. Zach, my inspiration there,
I will attribute the, uh, NAIA web forum, uh,
where I was a member for quite some time, uh,
before and after the release of the lion witch in wardrobe film in 2005,
uh, actually got to be a moderator there. And as we said on NA web,
once a modern, modest on NA web, always a modern, modest on nay web.
So I guess could,
I could always come back like king Edmond if I wanted to mm-hmm, uh,
Laura Haven and everything else, it keeps me pretty busy,
but there was a lot of this kind of light fend fiction.
Like people would change their user names or they would put a title, uh,
in their username there on the forum.
Kind of more like the fun days of the internet that you're always talking about
Zach back when the internet was good. Yeah. Uh, people would, for example,
join a thread that I started on a whim, uh, where I started what I called, uh,
the holy order of the spoiler free monastery in which I said that anybody who
wanted to, uh, could enter these August holes and walls, uh,
and take a vow of avoiding spoilers. So no roast on,
you know, monks or, you know, Catholicism or anything like that,
just having a good bit of clean fun there. Uh,
and it proved surprisingly popular.
It was the first time I think I'd ever gone viral on a forum. Uh,
lots of people flock into the virtual monastery. Uh, they took their vows,
they added their unique spins to them. Uh, they took up, uh,
roles in monastic service, you know,
whether or not they were going to clean the chandelier or scrub the floors or
take care of the rituals in particular, uh, mystical beverages and foods,
you know, it got really fun.
And ultimately I think I ended up being the most high Reverend father of the
holy order of the spoiler free monastery, a title that I also, uh,
preserve to this day.
So if we ever need a spoiler free monastery for something else, uh,
I may just open one up, uh, in the Lord Haven Guild this time.
That's the kind of spirit I'm I'm thinking of. And I,
I don't know if we've seen a whole lot of that now. Uh, it may require,
you know, some tweaking of the discord server, uh,
to enable more of that kind of thing,
but it is something that we definitely wanna keep an eye toward.
And I think it's a way to redirect some of the creative energies of the author
types to, you know, Hey, we, we respect the creativity that God has given you,
you know, let's turn that in service to the fandom. Uh,
even if you're not talking about the, your exact book or, you know,
giving critiques of other people's books, like we are all creatives here, uh,
creative, the noun, uh, as, uh, Andrew Peterson says in his book,
adorning the dark.
There's not a difference between creatives and non-creative because God has
given his gift of imagination to everyone. Uh,
this is an option for Gil heroes to have, uh,
while we are exploring the book quests.
You know, Steven you're exactly right,
that this rule number six really helps with rule number five,
because if you come to the Guild and,
and you wanna sort of play per pretend for lack of a better term, uh,
virtual cost play, as you said, you know, then that, that makes it more,
you're putting on that persona rather than I'm here as an author to promote my
book persona, uh,
because that is really the ban of a lot of Facebook groups I've joined. Uh,
there was one Facebook group I found a year or two ago, and it was, um,
you know, it, it was supposedly a reader's group. Uh,
but I scanned through all the posts as soon as I joined.
And they were all authors just promoting their own books, uh,
because that's what you're supposed to use social media for.
You're supposed to just promote yourself. Uh that's.
Yeah. That's what the gurus were saying. 15 years ago,
got a hold of an old dusty social media author promotion manual. Yeah.
Blew the dust off of it, shook loose the cobwebs and decided to give it a go.
Right. But I mean, that's what everyone uses social media for.
It's all about building your own personal brand now to the credit of the
moderator of that Facebook group. Um, I reached out and said,
I thought this was supposed to be a reader's group. Do y'all have rules about,
you know, no self-promotion spam. And, uh, this person said, you know what,
you're right. I I'm gonna start cracking down on that. And then they started a,
like a weekly or a monthly, like, okay,
here's the thread where you can put all your self-promotion,
but that that's it we're,
we're not gonna allow any other posts that are self-promotion yeah.
Work it outta your.
That's. Yeah. Right, exactly. Uh, so I, I appreciated that,
but you know, this is what always happens with social media.
People just want to talk about themselves.
And so if that author hat is on that's, that's how they're gonna talk. But I,
you know, to, to be honest, I'm not a virtual Coplay kind of person.
I've never really been into that sort of thing with forums,
but I appreciate that that is here because that does take the focus off of the
other kind of personas that people put.
On. You know what though, in honor, of the Hoit book quest,
we have coming up in September,
I did change my username because discord does allow this for a particular, uh,
server. I did change my username to Stephen of RDE. , uh,
not very creative, you know, not very Elvin sounding,
but I still want people to know that it's me, you know,
I don't wanna get too far with the whole username approach,
but there is something to be said, uh, that least changing your name, you know,
just a little bit. And we've done that a few times. Like, I,
I think I changed my name to kind of a, a robot looking name, uh,
when we did the, the book quest through, uh, Carrie needs' lost bits, uh,
I think that's just a way to respect and enjoy, uh,
the aesthetic of the book that we're exploring every month. So this time,
you know, especially if, uh, Elijah, David is leading the book quest, I mean, I,
I intend on helping out where I can,
but if I get to attend as just a party guest, uh, rather than a party leader,
then I might, uh, pick one of my favorite, uh,
races of middle earth and try to hu to that personality. We'll,
we'll see if I'm able to follow through with that.
I'm hoping September isn't too busy,
but I am already reading or listening to the Hoit and I'm planning to
participate because it's one of my favorite books. So, you know,
this actually has inspired me. Maybe I need to give a, a code of honor rule six,
uh, a try here and see if anybody naturally wants to pick up on that. Uh,
especially because the Hoit is so famous, uh, and the different groups, uh,
dwarfs elves trolls, well, we don't want trolls. We certainly do not want, uh,
those beasts from the mountains who are going to speak,
not at all in drawing room language, even if they only have one head each, uh,
we don't want that in the form.
So no trolls only pretend to be a wizard or an L or a dwarf for a Hoit I think
the, or, or a man for that matter or woman. Uh, those are the, uh,
I guess the only five approved, uh, good guy, uh, races there, uh,
not including all the divine creatures in middle earth,
as you learned about the simil and the supporting materials.
So let let's see how that works.
Okay. You've inspired me. I'll think of a new username, uh,
for this month for the Hoit.
Okay. Well, there we go. Again, it's a suggestion, it's a, it's a, not a rule,
more like guidelines, you know,
any kind of mix and match here in the code of honor. Uh, this is simply a way,
like you said, Zack,
to redirect some of those creative energies to a more fan centric, uh,
perspective. Yeah. All right. We've arrived now at, uh,
code of honor number seven here.
This one's pretty simple and it is more of a catchall and it's very Guild
specific. So it may not relate as much to anyone outside the Guild.
We just say seven, keep to the quest road.
If our quest conversations diverge too far from the Quest's main journey,
pursue those smaller trails elsewhere. For example,
if we end up discussing books different from the selection,
move that conversation to another place or request a future side quest to focus
on that other book, uh, that just helps I think, keep the discussions focused,
uh, especially if you have, uh, particular channels, uh, that, uh,
have a more broad label there. You may get some spinoff topics. Like,
for example, let's say people start talking about the Lord of the rings, uh,
in the Hobbit. Well, then we already have a middle earth channel.
You can take that too, so that we can focus on the chapter at hand.
And that's how we do the book quest, by the way, we,
we have a single channel or a single room, uh, in the, uh,
the Guild hall, uh,
to explore that book and then about every weekday or so, uh, someone may post,
uh, a few questions or even one question, uh, relating to a chapter.
So we go chapter by chapter. Hopefully people can keep pace that way, uh,
walk at their own speed on the book quest. And that's how we try to keep, uh,
the discussions focused and so far. Well, again, Lord willing,
we keep saying that, but so far it's working pretty well.
I think folks seem to pick up on that, uh, and then understand, Hey,
we've got enough space to talk about other, other things.
If you wanna talk about another Tokin book, we've got a middle earth thread,
or if you wanna talk about wheel of time and whether or not that's inspired by
Tokin or something, then go to the,
your favorite books channel or whatever we're calling it. Uh,
we've got enough space for all of those subtopics,
and that's just a matter of keeping things sorted,
trying to keep things in the proper place and, uh, make sure to avoid, uh,
too many rabbit trails.
Yeah. And this goes back to our main point and main purpose for Laura Haven
itself, which is to promote Christian fantastical fiction. Uh,
we are not simply the Christian discord server for talking all things,
science fiction and fantasy, everything out there.
We are primarily for Christian novels. And so, um,
that's always going to be the main quest and that's going to be the main topics
of discussion. Um, it's not to dissuade the other things entirely,
but just to kind of, it's a matter of emphasis or proportionality.
With that. I think we may be near the end of this journey, but I'm very curious,
faithful listener. Uh, what codes of honor have you followed?
Are they written or unwritten? Uh, because, uh, even before we started, uh,
Zach was making the point that no matter where you go with a creative group or a
local church or any community of any kind, there's gonna be a code of honor,
whether or not it's written, uh, seems to me that at least, uh,
before you join for a new group, there's an advantage to having a written code.
There may be flaws in it. Uh, there may be some things, uh,
oversaid or left unsaid, but Hey, at least the organizers are trying.
And in my experience, it is, uh,
a lot more effective to lay that out before you even start the group, uh,
rather than to try to backfill a code of honor or change one from underneath
people, uh, that can get pretty controversial. So, Hey, by the way,
just pray for the Lord Haven Guild. Uh,
we definitely want this to be a community that exalts Christ, uh,
through the exploration of these stories, uh,
these fantastical novels by Christian authors, uh,
no matter how long it goes, uh, we want that to be its purpose.
So just pray for the heroes, whether or not you're one of 'em and, uh,
join us for the Hobbit, uh, consider joining us, uh,
simply by subscribing@laurahaven.com.
We will email you that exclusive invitation,
and then you two can go on, on adventure into the wild. Uh,
from there, Zach, let's go to our com station and we got a lot of feedback, uh,
after our last episode with Kevin McCreary, the one about the Christian cringe,
uh, given our length here, I think we have time for only one or two feedbacks,
but what do we have over here in this, uh, bleeping blooping control panel?
So Nicholas Teman commented on this episode,
on our Facebook discussion about it and said, fun fact,
all high budget Christian cringe is made by a single individual cringe lore who
gained the power to transcend time and decency after being bitten by a
radioactive youth, pastor.
Hank cannon accepted cannon accepted. Yeah,
most of the feedback for this one was, uh, was, was really positive.
A lot of people understood what we meant by Christian cringe,
even if they maybe disagreed with any particular examples, uh, speaking of, uh,
UN unapplied to feedback, uh, there's at least, uh,
one faithful listener who had, uh, responded, uh,
at least took issue with one example of Christian cringe that I had.
It was more a matter of a prayer practice in a, in a Christian movie.
I still need to reply about that one, but I,
I think basically my reply will point to our concession stand, where we said,
Hey, you know,
you may disagree with the specific examples of cringe that we identify.
And in that case, well, you know, the cringe,
what we think is cringe may help you, or it may remind you of somebody,
you know, in real life, who's not cringe.
Like we don't mean to pick on that person or their beliefs. Uh,
so long as they're within, uh, biblical orthodoxy, uh,
it's simply a matter of being open to recognizing you may find that cringe
later, uh, or if for that matter,
you may think it's cringe now and not find it cringe later, you know, who knows,
uh, but either way, uh,
there is a difference between a creative product that some people think has some
cringe elements and real life, uh, real people behave in very cringe ways.
We are called to love them. And that goes back to our point here, Zach,
about respect and avoiding harassment and such like, you know,
you need to love the cringe maker or the cringe believer. Uh,
even if you do not particularly love the cringe.
Yeah. I, I think the solution, like so many things is grace and truth.
We have to be truthful about when our own art, you know,
especially within the church when, when we fall short of some and yes,
objective standards that as we talked about,
I do think there are objective standards of beauty. And I,
I think it's actually pretty easy to convince Christians of this because, uh,
the idea that art is totally subjective and just like morality and everything
else that that's a very postmodern new belief. I,
I think that good art is like all, all the beauty that we enjoy in nature.
It's like, you don't have to be convinced that it's beautiful. If,
if you're trying too hard to convince yourself a story is really good,
then maybe that's a sign. It's not, so we have to be truthful,
but then we have to be gracious, uh, because people enjoy different things and,
you know, everyone has their own comfort food,
whether that's actual food or or story based food,
you know, I, I could think of a friend I work with, uh,
he really liked that movie, the Meg that's about the Megalodon, you know,
it's sort of like a retelling of jaws, I guess. I'm not exactly sure. Or,
or deep blue sea it's about a giant shark that eats people. You know,
it's not a super intellectual film. , it's not very deep thematically.
Uh, there's no great purpose or importance to it. And so,
uh, some of our mutual friends were making fun of him for watching this.
And he's like, uh, look, I, there's plenty of movies.
I watch just to chill out and relax and kind of unplugged from all the cares to
the world.
And this is one of them and I'm gonna keep watching it and enjoying it for that
reason. And I'm like, you know what? I can respect that that's, uh,
shark movies are not my fandom, but if that's your fandom that I get it,
there's always gonna be things that other people like that,
that cause us to cringe, or even that we used to like,
and that we kind of cringe at now. But like we said, there's,
there's always things that we make that are cringy and look, uh,
we have to laugh at ourselves first and then, um,
but let's be gracious to others, uh, while telling the truth.
Amen to that. And a good code of honor,
whether internal or written down can help us deal, uh,
with those disputes over whether or not the thing is cringe. Like for example,
I will own the fact that I do not hate the Hobbit movies. Uh, I don't, uh,
the first one is especially good. The second one gets, uh,
a little bit more cringy at certain moments.
There are some absolute over the top cringe moments there that make, uh,
the cringing Christian movie look like high art.
And then the third one is just kind of mixed, but I do not hate them.
And I will own that. And I know that some people will look at me and go, well,
you like the cringe stuff. And in that case, well,
then I think that person needs a code of honor to show respect to me and not
harass me about that. But then I need a code of honor to show respect to you,
even if I think that what you enjoy is cringe,
how have you handled those situations with, or without a written code of honor,
email us podcast, Laura haven.com. Use the comment section on the website,
Laura haven.com/podcast. Or of course you can tag us on the socials,
let us know what you think. Uh, let us know how codes of honor have helped you,
whether it's ours or someone else's. Meanwhile, at Laura Haven,
as we have mentioned Monday, September the,
we are going there and back again,
starting our expected journey into Jr R Tolkin classic fantasy.
The Hobbit join us in the Laura Haven Guild by subscribing free@laurahaven.com.
We'll email you that invitation. Last week,
we had Marion Jacobs's new article@laurahaven.com. Uh, that was about how,
in her words, she masked her mental health with costume design, uh,
and then found some, uh, better, healthier reasons to work on costumes.
Some really good ones, including the award winner at the realm awards, uh,
in July, 2022, uh, she had a fabulous representation of the lion,
the witch and wardrobe that is the entire book. Uh, she got, uh,
drumming on the tables for that, uh, even, uh, it beat out some, uh, very,
very excellent cosplay there, uh, expressions of, uh,
Christian creativity there also@lordhaven.com.
We also published our book review of a book called immortal guardian. Uh,
it looked to me Zach, based on the description like, uh, Jason born meets, uh,
paranormal, uh,
spiritual warfare stuff going on really interesting premise there,
go check that out, all links to the show notes, by the way. Uh,
we also last week shared our article three Christian fantastical stories to help
your kids head back to school. Uh, that's applicable to you,
especially if you have kids ages eight through 12 and you wanna find them some
great, uh, fantastical reading material that's, uh,
age appropriate and from Christian creators, uh, next up, uh,
of course we're doing the Hoit book quest, uh, next week, but this week, uh,
not sure what else we have planned other than this podcast,
but we are doing an advance review on Friday of a book called the change. Uh,
that is book three of a series called the chase runner series, uh,
from mountain Brook fire, uh, by Bradley Kathy. Uh,
we're gonna have that review posted on Friday next on fantastical
truth. The saga begins Lord willing, not long ago.
We talked about church libraries and how these resources can help Christians
find the best books, including if not now, then in the future,
Christian made fantastical fiction, but what about public libraries?
How can Christians best discern and enjoy this resource? Well,
we're gonna speak with a public library director who also happens to be a
prolific Christian novelist of science fiction, fantasy steampunk,
paranormal suspense,
and beyond Steve Raza will be the first guest of our new saga
of episodes that we're assembling for this September on fantastical truth.
Meanwhile, practice a code of honor, not just one.
You make up according to other people's expectations of respect and things like
that.
But practice a code of honor that is derived from scripture as best you
can make it get help from the people around you get help from mature adults who
have demonstrated honorable and Christlike conduct.
I think that's the only way we can handle, uh,
some of these disputes that we have in Christian groups or creative groups.
That's the only way we can find unity, not just in behavior codes,
but in Christ is we continue to seek and find his fantastical truth.