Ryan: Trip, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what what work you're doing and what lens you're gonna be bringing to our discussion about this fantastic movie?
tripp: well, two really important lenses I'm gonna bring are one, I don't like horror films 'cause they creep me out and I have really vivid dreams.
Ryan: Ha ha.
tripp: the second one is I on top of being a podcaster, been doing it a long time, homebrewed Christianity. and these kind of things happen at our big event Theology Beer Camp where you're gonna be doing it live this year, Ryan.
Ryan: Yes.
tripp: per like professionally I'm I d I did a PhD in philosophy and religion and so this is quite a fun movie a apart from the five minutes I had to cover my eyes in hopes to sleep through the night. So I'm a philosopher of religion. I mean I am a theologian as well, but this is like I would enjoy using this film in the intro to philosophy of religion with undergrad students you know, and I would leave the room during parts of it.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah.
Ryan: I th I think I c I think I can think of the few parts that you probably closed your eyes because they're probably the same ones I close my eyes during.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): He's afraid of the prophets. That's my guess.
tripp: Yeah. But you you you in you choose to do this regularly. Yeah.
Ryan: I do. I do. and you you both know my wife, Kim. I texted her and I was like, Are you still up? Like I got towards the end of the movie, I was like, Are you still up? And she's like, What are you scared? And I was like, I mean, Hugh Grant makes me a little uncomfortable, I'm not gonna lie. you you
tripp: Like how good looking he is or or something else.
Ryan: The guy has aged super well. you may have also heard another voice there. Josh Patterson is joining us for another conversation. He's joined us for several different you know, looks into Nightmare on Elm Street. We did Saw. we got a few episodes in the can that are gonna be coming out pretty soon too. So we did Evil Dead as well, Josh, talking about like the apocalypse in Evil Dead. That was lot of fun. And Josh, can you just remind people a little bit about yourself and You suggested heretic, so I feel like you maybe need to tell people why why you thought this would be the conversation that the three of us should have.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah, so like you said, my name is Josh. I have a podcast called Rethinking Faith that I've been doing since twenty eighteen, which is a crazy statement to say.
Ryan: Crazy stat. Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah. yeah, but I I don't know what else. I help with Theology Beer Camp. I'm the camp director this year, which is crazy. So I've really enjoyed working with Trip. and I also work with Ilia Delio at the World Institute for Science, Religion and Culture. So shout out wiser. but the why this movie I watched it, I feel like I watched it l sometime around this time last year, by myself. And there were aspects of it that were annoying, and then there was some parts that I really enjoyed. there was a particular scene that actually made me cry the first time I watched it. and not because I was afraid, but because I found it to be moving.
Ryan: Okay, not not not that kind of tears.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah, not not scared tears, but I found it to be moving. and so I don't know. I just I thought it would be fun. I mean, subject matter wise, I think you know, the heresy word gets thrown around maybe a little bit too much. And you know, I get annoyed with some of our like deconstruction friends who just, you know, I'm a heretic. Like it's obnoxious. But it come on, I'd like we all had that stage. I did it too.
Ryan: Yes, yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): I just think it's annoying. But this movie was just I mean, for me a lot of fun. It raises a lot of fun, like yeah, questions around religion and and faith, belief. you know, what is the one true religion kind of thing. So I just thought it there was plenty of fodder for conversation.
Ryan: I know that I know you guys are are you guys are gonna be driving this a lot because this movie operates in places that I have not done extensive study and you guys definitely have. I do wanna give a few details for the film, and I won't lie, I wrote down one question for this interview because I think it's just going to take on a life of its own. so For those of that do not know, Heretic came out in the the latter part of 2024. It got a few of its festival releases early on, but it was given a wide release on November 8th of 2024. It was directed by Scott Beck and Brian Woods of the Beck Woods Company. And it has really only four actors in it and three that we spend a ton of time with. We have Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East, and a I'm gonna not Gonna lie, a random cameo from Topher Grace in this film. Heretic follows Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, two young Mormon missionaries, trapped inside the home of the diabolical Mr. Reed. Loured inside under false pretenses, the women are stripped of their phones and subjected to manipulative theological lectures that challenge their personal faiths. Reed forces them into an underground labyrinth designed to systematically. Shatter their beliefs through the elaborate and violent hoaxes that he puts in front of them. After Barnes is brutally murdered, Paxton must weaponize her own intellect to outsmart Reed and physically fight her way out of his compound. So, my one question is: guys, what does this movie say about religion?
tripp: It it's really big fan. It's a really big fan.
Ryan: There you go. Who
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah.
Ryan: grants a super fan trip?
tripp: Yeah. Yeah. one one thing that I noticed that that I found rather fascinating, right? So he has the model on his desk of his labyrinth, right, that goes lower. You also have a number of pictures and a and a like up close random pause on Dante's Inferno. Right. So, you know, for those that don't know that, like you're going through all the layers of hell, right? Dante's taking this tour Angels giving a tour of hell, which is a way of seeing the moral imagination of like responsibility, ethics, justice, and these kinds of things as you're moving through it. and so like knowing that text is there, it's built this way, it's modeled, and the model even looks in many ways like some of the pictures you get of the reconstruction of Dante's Inferno, like when people draw it out and things. There I I think that part's kind of like inherently I mean it it's intentional. and except that I in the inferno here is like if a new atheist chat boy made a hellhouse. That's that's the gimmick. So like the the deeper you move into the crypt or move journey to the center of the inferno, at the be in the very middle you don't find like a Satan in a lake of ice.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
tripp: it you you get like the Wizard of Oz reveal and it's a bunch of tortured women. Right? So
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: one of the things the film I I think it's getting at like as a story and not just what the the characters are dealing with is like a lot of kind of contemporary religion, a religion in the West, there one of the features is a bunch of tortured women. Like it's women's bodies the whole thing's built on. and they There is a solidarity among the women, right? Because the the conductor, is that what the priestess
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: that comes up, you know, whispers on top of the given line she's supposed to give when she comes back from her vision in the dead is you know, it's not real, right? And you know, the you you could either hear the you can hear that it's not real as a statement about either of the two doors, right? This dude imposes
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: a binary like a fundamentalist, who's you know, he's like the inversion of a religious fundamentalist. He's an atheist one,
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: right? They they're both god splainers that like just
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: assume the natural state of a human being is to possess through rational reflection and facts the ability to give a full account of existence that is obviously compelling if you're just not an idiot, right? And so the the the he he imposes that binary, but you but it's not till later when whichever girl lasts the longest like plays out, you know, to him how it went that the it's
Ryan: Right.
tripp: not real line is not a statement about their faith, but about the whole construct of an either or and a final answer. Right? And so what is undone in his inverted kind of new atheist hellhouse version of the inferno is a vision of faith that is so dominant in modernity where its its veracity corresponds to the facticity of belief claims. And you know, just as a philosopher of religion or anyone that knows the evolution of human beings and religion, we were religious for a hundred and ninety thousand years before anyone thought beliefs were a big deal. So
Ryan: Hmm.
tripp: right when you ask the question, what does it say about religion? In many ways the the film is problematizing the kind of post-Reformation, late modernity thought that every individual should be able to articulate rationally and defend their beliefs, and that those beliefs are what justifies and gives value to their practices, embodiment, experiences and such. The evolutionary story of religion is we had all the bodies, rituals, engagements, bonding, narratives, all these kinds of things way before we d we decided to patrol participation and veracity on beliefs. And so to me, one of the things is is kind of like apox on all the Godsplainers house. Religion under terms of God splaining is even more annoying than mansplaining, because the mystery is theoretically ultimate. And to try to do so is to lock yourself in a hellhouse that runs on death.
Ryan: I New Atheist Hellhouse has gotta be somewhere in this episode's title. That's that's that's good. That's good. Josh, I since having I've seen this twice now. And the entire time I'm watching this movie, I'm just like, I I don't know who to I don't know who to believe in here. I don't know who to trust. Obviously, I know Hugh Grant is set up as the bad guy. But also I I feel like Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, they have this like they have this bond where they're on the same side, but then they start asking different questions. Like individually. Was there a certain one of these ladies that you were like, I I identified more with this character. I identified more with with this character. And could you maybe like say why you identified with a certain one?
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah, I think and I'm gonna try to tie it into a bit of what Tripp was talking about too, with the whole like Hugh Grant's character being a fundamentalist. Because it's set I mean, the the girls are interesting because I think the film is designed in such a way to make you think one thing about them and then it kind of flips at the end. so when it you know, the movie starts out, you know, I most definitely identified more with the the emo chick. for ob
tripp: No way.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): for obvious reasons outside of Yeah
Ryan: You are very Sophie Thatcher coded, Josh.
tripp: Yeah. It was funny because I when you know, when he was watching it he just kept trying to swipe right on the screen and
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah.
Ryan: Is this is she in my area? Like I don't know I don't know.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah, right.
tripp: She's emo, but she has magic underwear.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah. The man. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Ryan: Like you, Josh. Like you.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): But the I mean that like the scene right where it starts out in the beginning, they're sitting on the bench and they're having that like conversation where she's like, do do you know what porn is? Do you like and it's like such
Ryan: Pornography.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): it's such an unbelievable conversation because clearly like the blonde chick definitely watches porn but won't admit it to her friend and the other one's like of course so
Ryan: Right.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): The way the way that they kind of have it set up is she the emotric tends to like it doesn't really seem like her faith is is, you know, strong in that sense, right? Like the
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): blonde is definitely more of the kind of fundamentalist type character, takes it way more seriously. You know, the other girl maybe, you know, she's read some postmodern literature, went to theology beer camp a couple times, and has like a or how she holds her beliefs is different.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): but then at the end of the movie, the I mean the scene that that was I found really deeply compelling was the when the blonde kind of s actually starts to open up and is honest about her doubts and her questions. and there's that scene where, you know, she has already stabbed two Grant in the you know in the throat.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): he's up against the door bleeding out. She's sitting on the ground bleeding as well because she got stabbed. and he asks her to pray for him or for them. And she says prayer doesn't work. And that was like a big in my mind, a reversal of kind of her character, or maybe her true faith, you know, kind of came
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): out at that moment. and then Even though so she said that she cites the scientific studies, right? well, the people who got prayed for didn't actually help them. and as he's crawling across the floor to kill her, she prays for him anyway. And like to me, that why why that was so moving is because you know, I like the whole radical theology thing, and that just was like oozing that to me. like it's it was a very beautiful seen in in my opinion. So anyway, that I don't know if that exactly answers your question, but that's
Ryan: Honestly, it does because it ra it it immediately raised another one of I interpreted Sophie Thatcher's character, Sister Barnes, as she's the cynic in the in the duo. And
Josh Patterson (He/Him): That's a better word. Yeah.
Ryan: and Sister Paxton is the sin she's the sincere part of Faith. She's the almost like the dough-eyed She she she's just trying to like do her darndest. I mean she's the one that hasn't gotten anybody baptized. So they've investigated all these different addresses and they're they're following up with these people. And sh she hasn't gotten a baptism yet, but the cynic has gotten eight or nine. So I felt like
tripp: Yeah.
Ryan: that was that was a cool kind of juxtaposition.
tripp: I I would just say like everything you two just said is why if you asked who had more faith, it's emo chick. Right? She's honest about her questions and doubts and is there nonetheless because faith is inherently a risk in the presence of doubt, like with the horizon of hope and orientation, this invitation to transformation within the tradition and such and so she's able to hold that identity with more authenticity and transparency. and not experience the questions and such as inherently threatening, while the more naive one won't admit she looks at porn. She won't like then she's just doing what she thinks she needs to do to save her life, right? Like she won't be present to what the actual contesting of her faith 'cause she doesn't think it will hold up. She is as anxious about preserving the finality of her belief as whatever Hugh Grant's character is doing, right? Because he's the sm and he's the most scared person in the whole thing, right? Like
Ryan: Okay.
tripp: he's he he's a he's like a Reddit forum on steroids populated by new ath new atheist fanboys doing like half accurate, half manipulated rhetorical tricks for somebody that's like never read a real book because they just believed the Bible or what they were told. That's who it works on. It's not on it doesn't work on someone who's actually thought about it before. Right. And that's how like emo chick just like is like, I remember my first philosophy class, right? And and so the the the it like the the story itself is an exercise of the battle between two people who are uncomfortable with the possibility of it being otherwise, right? And that's what happens at the end. The one that lives, the girl that lives. lives because she embraced a vision of faith having purchase and power on the other side of her certainty. He dies with it. Like the whole thing is an exercise in his control on his behalf. It needs to allow him to kind of possess, enact, and determine the true narrative of faith. Like what kind of like you know, he's belittling the origin story of Mormons, just like you could of any religious story if you say like this is the one true only final fixed one. But he's the one that imposes the binary between belief and unbelief and then carries it to its violent conclusion. He's doing as like the the id of the new atheist fanboy chat lounge, the conquistadors conquering of those naive silly people, right? Like it's like the it's like someone with an ADIQ that loves Christopher Hitchens but doesn't get that he's smart. That's what That's what he's doing. And he feels completely validated in it. and so the the the per like the actual person with the most terror is the fact that these two like nineteen year old Mormons just upset everything he was doing, read his stupid tricks, forced him to admit he's manipulating and setting the whole thing up. It it gets him to r admit that what he thinks he's doing for liberation for all the women underneath and for them. Is just a part of his
Ryan: Hmm.
tripp: sick, twisted way of having complete control around the world. And the only place that he can even be the Pope of his one true religion is in a house that locks, won't let you have access to the outside world, and every bit of the agency of the people in it is conscripted into his own narrative. Like he is the s most scared and fearful person that you could imagine. Like he's the one that has trouble sleeping at night. Right? And so what does he do? Does he does he come to acknowledge or wrestle with it like the more naive one does? Or is it already present in a part of his life like the other? No. He tells his whole story of like, Well, I tried to learn this and I learned this and all he's telling it like he's like he's an apologist just so that you feel less informed than him when he dismisses it for stupid reasons. Right? So the like the the the fascinating thing is He's this most scared person. He like the horror of the film, the most intense, is the psychological horror he has to experience when these two little girls that he thought he was playing a trick on actually end up fulfilling their mission in the sense of they really encountered like
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: the truth. Not the truth in like join this religion, but the truth that his entire world
Ryan: Right.
tripp: and house and structure and the death system he built is sitting around protecting his security because he can't even exist in the outside world. Where something else isn't brought in, metabolized and selected to be a part of his final agenda. Right. Think of his like l you know, when he does his whole iteration speech, right?
Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
tripp: Of like the games or the song or whatever.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Throws major shade at the Mormons when he's like, Bob Ross.
tripp: Honestly, Bob Ross is like, why would that not be the coolest? Like, I would take that as an affirmation. Because the Monopoly game, right? Okay, well there's a first version, it gets stolen and monetized, but the whole game itself is supposed to be teaching everyone the ills of capitalism. And then Americans are like, Why would I learn that lesson? Right? You know, it's like going to a true love weights rally just to figure out how far you can go without Jesus getting mad at you and alternative positions. And and so like something that is pedagogical. becomes becomes a licensure for exploitation. and then you're like the Bob Ross one, the guy with a PBS show that's not even run on commercials and it's about the sheer excitement of aesthetic pleasure and craft. That would have to be the most humane version of it. I have no idea what you do with a Bob Ross. You're like, what happens on New York Avenue? It's a park. that I painted. Like I don't
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Little accidents. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah. my gosh. I I you know, there's so I'm I'm really gathering, Trip, that you you do not find Mr. Reed compelling at all. You find him to be scared and like this wannabe apologist who's like he's trying to set up gotcha moments, but he just can't get any of them to stick because these girls ask way way too many questions or th they they're not playing the game on his rules.
tripp: Yeah, and and honestly they would all work for him if someone else's final truth structured it that way, right? That's the that's the thing. And then in that second big scene, right, he so he does all the iterations and all that kind of stuff. But in the second one where he's like revealing all the tapestries of the art and this comes from this and this, right? Like it it it take you ten minutes on Wikipedia to realize that this is just a straw construct. It's only threatening if you've never even contemplated your own beliefs. and you could just as easily look at all that and give a multiplicity of interpretations. Right? And so I it like I know I know there are like people that are much like the more naive missionary where th if they've never heard any of that content and then it's presented that way, you're gonna be like, yeah, but the same thing happens
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
tripp: Yeah, but just think of how many people we know that will when you tell them about, you became a Christian and they're like, Yeah, you know, I'm a I'm a I was a lawyer and I'm really rational, but then I read evidence that demands a verdict, and it's got all these Hebrew Bible prophecies that are completely taken out of context with inherently anti Jewish interpretations, but they all equal penal substitutionary atonement, which is an atonement theory invented three fourths of the way through the life of the church, and now I know the one true truth. Thank you. Like it's the same it's the same maneuver. It's just stupid. Like it and not I don't want it anyone that thinks that way to think I'm saying they're stupid. I'm saying to construct your response to ultimacy in the way you structure your own finitude day to day, if it is anxious about encountering the truth and being transformed by it, then you don't have faith. And not f in in any sense, right? Like y and there's completely non-religious or atheist ways of having faith and there's completely religious ones. I'm just saying if your biggest fear in life is that your form of existence could be unsettled by the presence of another or the plausibility of an alternative, then have you actually found feet on a ground that you trust? Or are you walking around trying to find a bubble of safety you can live in? Then maybe, I don't know, You homeschool your kids, you go to a mega church, you make sure they play sports with a prayers before it. You, you know, go and you know, you can create all these little parachurch organizations where they've never met anyone that thinks the world's not six thousand years old and Jesus didn't deliver Trump to America. You know, there's all these various ways that we do this. I'm just saying it's like the the everything that religion's supposed to be when it's done well is about leading us to a deeper and fuller life. Where our own flourishing is interwound and interbound with the flourishing of others. If you ask all the historic wisdom traditions, what does the good life look like? It's one where the encounter with the other is the site of one's living, not the site in which you coerce, exploit, and control them into taking everything you have and squeezing their hand around it until their fingerprints look just like yours. And that's what the that like that's the fear that he's had. And he it on top of like you know, it's one thing to receive a tradition that's blessed millions of people. It's another to think that you drugged up some chicks you s kidnapped and that's the proof that you're really true. Right? Like, how asinine is it to think that that one dude who can't even live in a house that you can use a phone in and has to create conditions to encounter the other where they're locked in. That that guy is the one that figured out the one true religion. You know, it's it's like i he's he is a per as persuasive as this dude with severe PTSD, an unhoused neighbor, a friend of mine in Redondo, who set around explaining how to hook quantum mechanics and string theory together. And, you know, he never w even went to college after the trauma in Vietnam. But he's like, We both love science and religion. Let me explain it to you. You know, and And in w he what he's saying is nonsense. If he'd taken a classes, he'd know, but that's not the point, right? It was created as a structuring safety blanket so that you can control the uncontrollable and never have to risk faith in the face of it. S thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Sorry. I know y'all
Ryan: So,
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Ha ha.
tripp: usually talk more in the podcast. I I
Ryan: No, no, no, no. It's great because the whole point like the whole point that Hugh Grant's character makes in this movie is that the one true religion is control. That she went as far into the house as she did because he deemed it that way. He but he doesn't account for he doesn't account for certain things. He doesn't account for the you know the the doe eyed sincere sister to question well the lady wasn't she like she was in a different position when we when we came back. Like there's that like glitch in the matrix for him, and then he tries to, as she says, improv with the simulation narrative. Josh, I I'm I'm curious, when you see like Hugh Grant's character start to get worried, were you as like as someone who loves getting deeper into these phil philosophical theological discussions, we're like, you are screwed now, man Or were you just like, How is he gonna try to get out of this? At that moment in in the film, what were how are you in Interpreting that part.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Well, I so it just it's funny because it just reminds me of like real life experience. Like Trip knows I've made some friends online that are the kind of see, he's laughing, that are the kind of like you know, Reddit atheist people. Very sincere, but it's very much the Hugh Grant thing. It's very much a a constructed thing. They're still very much fundamentalist in their thinking. And so it's just it's how I see things happen. So like when I try to have conversations with these people and I break the rules that they put into place, like I break the house that they're trying to put up around me, they do the same thing. That's when they start improving and say crazy, stupid shit. And like, well, you know, or they become dismissive, like, well, you don't count. You don't actually believe in God. You're not actually a Christian. You're not this. and it's like it Like for example, I was having a conversation with somebody recently, because you know, oftentimes within the kind of atheist theist debates, people put you on a spectrum, right? Where you can either be like atheist, you're an agnostic, or you're a theist. You believe in God, you're not sure, or you don't believe in God. when in reality, it's actually more of like a a quadrant. So when you say, like you can be basically like how you hold your beliefs. And the beliefs themselves. So if you think about it as like a a T, have like atheist on one side, theist on the other, and then the the Y axis, you can have like Gnostic and agnostic. So you can be an agnostic atheist, meaning like I the the Gnostic agnostic bit is an epistemological question. It's a ha it's a knowledge question. How do we know? What can we know? And then the theist atheist bit is a metaphysical question. or like how we think reality works. and so he like fits this agnostic atheist bit and he has like this bit he does with it, and I'm I fall within the agnostic theist category,
Ryan: Hmm.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): but his logical system that he has constructed can't understand that. I try to talk to him literally for two hours, and he was like, You can't be an agnostic theist. Because like if you don't know God exists, then you're just by definition an atheist. And like he can't get the gradation in there. And so like it's frustrating and like that's how Hugh Jack that or I almost said Hugh Jackman. that that's how Wolverine thinks. But
Ryan: That's how Wolverine thinks. God
Josh Patterson (He/Him): no, that it is his character. So like it just reminds me of real life conversations that I have. and it can just it can just be frustrating. Cause like, I mean, I'm just basically repeating what Tripp is saying. It's a construction. It the certainty is the idol here. Certainty is what they're after. and again, it's still this r really hyper like black and white fundamentalist way of thinking and engaging the world that when it gets called into question, you respond the same way that the annoying, you know, Reddit apologist does,
tripp: well, two really important lenses I'm gonna bring are one, I don't like horror films 'cause they creep me out and I have really vivid dreams.
Ryan: Ha ha.
tripp: the second one is I on top of being a podcaster, been doing it a long time, homebrewed Christianity. and these kind of things happen at our big event Theology Beer Camp where you're gonna be doing it live this year, Ryan.
Ryan: Yes.
tripp: per like professionally I'm I d I did a PhD in philosophy and religion and so this is quite a fun movie a apart from the five minutes I had to cover my eyes in hopes to sleep through the night. So I'm a philosopher of religion. I mean I am a theologian as well, but this is like I would enjoy using this film in the intro to philosophy of religion with undergrad students you know, and I would leave the room during parts of it.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah.
Ryan: I th I think I c I think I can think of the few parts that you probably closed your eyes because they're probably the same ones I close my eyes during.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): He's afraid of the prophets. That's my guess.
tripp: Yeah. But you you you in you choose to do this regularly. Yeah.
Ryan: I do. I do. and you you both know my wife, Kim. I texted her and I was like, Are you still up? Like I got towards the end of the movie, I was like, Are you still up? And she's like, What are you scared? And I was like, I mean, Hugh Grant makes me a little uncomfortable, I'm not gonna lie. you you
tripp: Like how good looking he is or or something else.
Ryan: The guy has aged super well. you may have also heard another voice there. Josh Patterson is joining us for another conversation. He's joined us for several different you know, looks into Nightmare on Elm Street. We did Saw. we got a few episodes in the can that are gonna be coming out pretty soon too. So we did Evil Dead as well, Josh, talking about like the apocalypse in Evil Dead. That was lot of fun. And Josh, can you just remind people a little bit about yourself and You suggested heretic, so I feel like you maybe need to tell people why why you thought this would be the conversation that the three of us should have.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah, so like you said, my name is Josh. I have a podcast called Rethinking Faith that I've been doing since twenty eighteen, which is a crazy statement to say.
Ryan: Crazy stat. Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah. yeah, but I I don't know what else. I help with Theology Beer Camp. I'm the camp director this year, which is crazy. So I've really enjoyed working with Trip. and I also work with Ilia Delio at the World Institute for Science, Religion and Culture. So shout out wiser. but the why this movie I watched it, I feel like I watched it l sometime around this time last year, by myself. And there were aspects of it that were annoying, and then there was some parts that I really enjoyed. there was a particular scene that actually made me cry the first time I watched it. and not because I was afraid, but because I found it to be moving.
Ryan: Okay, not not not that kind of tears.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah, not not scared tears, but I found it to be moving. and so I don't know. I just I thought it would be fun. I mean, subject matter wise, I think you know, the heresy word gets thrown around maybe a little bit too much. And you know, I get annoyed with some of our like deconstruction friends who just, you know, I'm a heretic. Like it's obnoxious. But it come on, I'd like we all had that stage. I did it too.
Ryan: Yes, yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): I just think it's annoying. But this movie was just I mean, for me a lot of fun. It raises a lot of fun, like yeah, questions around religion and and faith, belief. you know, what is the one true religion kind of thing. So I just thought it there was plenty of fodder for conversation.
Ryan: I know that I know you guys are are you guys are gonna be driving this a lot because this movie operates in places that I have not done extensive study and you guys definitely have. I do wanna give a few details for the film, and I won't lie, I wrote down one question for this interview because I think it's just going to take on a life of its own. so For those of that do not know, Heretic came out in the the latter part of 2024. It got a few of its festival releases early on, but it was given a wide release on November 8th of 2024. It was directed by Scott Beck and Brian Woods of the Beck Woods Company. And it has really only four actors in it and three that we spend a ton of time with. We have Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East, and a I'm gonna not Gonna lie, a random cameo from Topher Grace in this film. Heretic follows Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, two young Mormon missionaries, trapped inside the home of the diabolical Mr. Reed. Loured inside under false pretenses, the women are stripped of their phones and subjected to manipulative theological lectures that challenge their personal faiths. Reed forces them into an underground labyrinth designed to systematically. Shatter their beliefs through the elaborate and violent hoaxes that he puts in front of them. After Barnes is brutally murdered, Paxton must weaponize her own intellect to outsmart Reed and physically fight her way out of his compound. So, my one question is: guys, what does this movie say about religion?
tripp: It it's really big fan. It's a really big fan.
Ryan: There you go. Who
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah.
Ryan: grants a super fan trip?
tripp: Yeah. Yeah. one one thing that I noticed that that I found rather fascinating, right? So he has the model on his desk of his labyrinth, right, that goes lower. You also have a number of pictures and a and a like up close random pause on Dante's Inferno. Right. So, you know, for those that don't know that, like you're going through all the layers of hell, right? Dante's taking this tour Angels giving a tour of hell, which is a way of seeing the moral imagination of like responsibility, ethics, justice, and these kinds of things as you're moving through it. and so like knowing that text is there, it's built this way, it's modeled, and the model even looks in many ways like some of the pictures you get of the reconstruction of Dante's Inferno, like when people draw it out and things. There I I think that part's kind of like inherently I mean it it's intentional. and except that I in the inferno here is like if a new atheist chat boy made a hellhouse. That's that's the gimmick. So like the the deeper you move into the crypt or move journey to the center of the inferno, at the be in the very middle you don't find like a Satan in a lake of ice.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
tripp: it you you get like the Wizard of Oz reveal and it's a bunch of tortured women. Right? So
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: one of the things the film I I think it's getting at like as a story and not just what the the characters are dealing with is like a lot of kind of contemporary religion, a religion in the West, there one of the features is a bunch of tortured women. Like it's women's bodies the whole thing's built on. and they There is a solidarity among the women, right? Because the the conductor, is that what the priestess
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: that comes up, you know, whispers on top of the given line she's supposed to give when she comes back from her vision in the dead is you know, it's not real, right? And you know, the you you could either hear the you can hear that it's not real as a statement about either of the two doors, right? This dude imposes
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: a binary like a fundamentalist, who's you know, he's like the inversion of a religious fundamentalist. He's an atheist one,
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: right? They they're both god splainers that like just
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: assume the natural state of a human being is to possess through rational reflection and facts the ability to give a full account of existence that is obviously compelling if you're just not an idiot, right? And so the the the he he imposes that binary, but you but it's not till later when whichever girl lasts the longest like plays out, you know, to him how it went that the it's
Ryan: Right.
tripp: not real line is not a statement about their faith, but about the whole construct of an either or and a final answer. Right? And so what is undone in his inverted kind of new atheist hellhouse version of the inferno is a vision of faith that is so dominant in modernity where its its veracity corresponds to the facticity of belief claims. And you know, just as a philosopher of religion or anyone that knows the evolution of human beings and religion, we were religious for a hundred and ninety thousand years before anyone thought beliefs were a big deal. So
Ryan: Hmm.
tripp: right when you ask the question, what does it say about religion? In many ways the the film is problematizing the kind of post-Reformation, late modernity thought that every individual should be able to articulate rationally and defend their beliefs, and that those beliefs are what justifies and gives value to their practices, embodiment, experiences and such. The evolutionary story of religion is we had all the bodies, rituals, engagements, bonding, narratives, all these kinds of things way before we d we decided to patrol participation and veracity on beliefs. And so to me, one of the things is is kind of like apox on all the Godsplainers house. Religion under terms of God splaining is even more annoying than mansplaining, because the mystery is theoretically ultimate. And to try to do so is to lock yourself in a hellhouse that runs on death.
Ryan: I New Atheist Hellhouse has gotta be somewhere in this episode's title. That's that's that's good. That's good. Josh, I since having I've seen this twice now. And the entire time I'm watching this movie, I'm just like, I I don't know who to I don't know who to believe in here. I don't know who to trust. Obviously, I know Hugh Grant is set up as the bad guy. But also I I feel like Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, they have this like they have this bond where they're on the same side, but then they start asking different questions. Like individually. Was there a certain one of these ladies that you were like, I I identified more with this character. I identified more with with this character. And could you maybe like say why you identified with a certain one?
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah, I think and I'm gonna try to tie it into a bit of what Tripp was talking about too, with the whole like Hugh Grant's character being a fundamentalist. Because it's set I mean, the the girls are interesting because I think the film is designed in such a way to make you think one thing about them and then it kind of flips at the end. so when it you know, the movie starts out, you know, I most definitely identified more with the the emo chick. for ob
tripp: No way.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): for obvious reasons outside of Yeah
Ryan: You are very Sophie Thatcher coded, Josh.
tripp: Yeah. It was funny because I when you know, when he was watching it he just kept trying to swipe right on the screen and
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah.
Ryan: Is this is she in my area? Like I don't know I don't know.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah, right.
tripp: She's emo, but she has magic underwear.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Yeah. The man. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Ryan: Like you, Josh. Like you.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): But the I mean that like the scene right where it starts out in the beginning, they're sitting on the bench and they're having that like conversation where she's like, do do you know what porn is? Do you like and it's like such
Ryan: Pornography.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): it's such an unbelievable conversation because clearly like the blonde chick definitely watches porn but won't admit it to her friend and the other one's like of course so
Ryan: Right.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): The way the way that they kind of have it set up is she the emotric tends to like it doesn't really seem like her faith is is, you know, strong in that sense, right? Like the
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): blonde is definitely more of the kind of fundamentalist type character, takes it way more seriously. You know, the other girl maybe, you know, she's read some postmodern literature, went to theology beer camp a couple times, and has like a or how she holds her beliefs is different.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): but then at the end of the movie, the I mean the scene that that was I found really deeply compelling was the when the blonde kind of s actually starts to open up and is honest about her doubts and her questions. and there's that scene where, you know, she has already stabbed two Grant in the you know in the throat.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): he's up against the door bleeding out. She's sitting on the ground bleeding as well because she got stabbed. and he asks her to pray for him or for them. And she says prayer doesn't work. And that was like a big in my mind, a reversal of kind of her character, or maybe her true faith, you know, kind of came
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): out at that moment. and then Even though so she said that she cites the scientific studies, right? well, the people who got prayed for didn't actually help them. and as he's crawling across the floor to kill her, she prays for him anyway. And like to me, that why why that was so moving is because you know, I like the whole radical theology thing, and that just was like oozing that to me. like it's it was a very beautiful seen in in my opinion. So anyway, that I don't know if that exactly answers your question, but that's
Ryan: Honestly, it does because it ra it it immediately raised another one of I interpreted Sophie Thatcher's character, Sister Barnes, as she's the cynic in the in the duo. And
Josh Patterson (He/Him): That's a better word. Yeah.
Ryan: and Sister Paxton is the sin she's the sincere part of Faith. She's the almost like the dough-eyed She she she's just trying to like do her darndest. I mean she's the one that hasn't gotten anybody baptized. So they've investigated all these different addresses and they're they're following up with these people. And sh she hasn't gotten a baptism yet, but the cynic has gotten eight or nine. So I felt like
tripp: Yeah.
Ryan: that was that was a cool kind of juxtaposition.
tripp: I I would just say like everything you two just said is why if you asked who had more faith, it's emo chick. Right? She's honest about her questions and doubts and is there nonetheless because faith is inherently a risk in the presence of doubt, like with the horizon of hope and orientation, this invitation to transformation within the tradition and such and so she's able to hold that identity with more authenticity and transparency. and not experience the questions and such as inherently threatening, while the more naive one won't admit she looks at porn. She won't like then she's just doing what she thinks she needs to do to save her life, right? Like she won't be present to what the actual contesting of her faith 'cause she doesn't think it will hold up. She is as anxious about preserving the finality of her belief as whatever Hugh Grant's character is doing, right? Because he's the sm and he's the most scared person in the whole thing, right? Like
Ryan: Okay.
tripp: he's he he's a he's like a Reddit forum on steroids populated by new ath new atheist fanboys doing like half accurate, half manipulated rhetorical tricks for somebody that's like never read a real book because they just believed the Bible or what they were told. That's who it works on. It's not on it doesn't work on someone who's actually thought about it before. Right. And that's how like emo chick just like is like, I remember my first philosophy class, right? And and so the the the it like the the story itself is an exercise of the battle between two people who are uncomfortable with the possibility of it being otherwise, right? And that's what happens at the end. The one that lives, the girl that lives. lives because she embraced a vision of faith having purchase and power on the other side of her certainty. He dies with it. Like the whole thing is an exercise in his control on his behalf. It needs to allow him to kind of possess, enact, and determine the true narrative of faith. Like what kind of like you know, he's belittling the origin story of Mormons, just like you could of any religious story if you say like this is the one true only final fixed one. But he's the one that imposes the binary between belief and unbelief and then carries it to its violent conclusion. He's doing as like the the id of the new atheist fanboy chat lounge, the conquistadors conquering of those naive silly people, right? Like it's like the it's like someone with an ADIQ that loves Christopher Hitchens but doesn't get that he's smart. That's what That's what he's doing. And he feels completely validated in it. and so the the the per like the actual person with the most terror is the fact that these two like nineteen year old Mormons just upset everything he was doing, read his stupid tricks, forced him to admit he's manipulating and setting the whole thing up. It it gets him to r admit that what he thinks he's doing for liberation for all the women underneath and for them. Is just a part of his
Ryan: Hmm.
tripp: sick, twisted way of having complete control around the world. And the only place that he can even be the Pope of his one true religion is in a house that locks, won't let you have access to the outside world, and every bit of the agency of the people in it is conscripted into his own narrative. Like he is the s most scared and fearful person that you could imagine. Like he's the one that has trouble sleeping at night. Right? And so what does he do? Does he does he come to acknowledge or wrestle with it like the more naive one does? Or is it already present in a part of his life like the other? No. He tells his whole story of like, Well, I tried to learn this and I learned this and all he's telling it like he's like he's an apologist just so that you feel less informed than him when he dismisses it for stupid reasons. Right? So the like the the the fascinating thing is He's this most scared person. He like the horror of the film, the most intense, is the psychological horror he has to experience when these two little girls that he thought he was playing a trick on actually end up fulfilling their mission in the sense of they really encountered like
Ryan: Yeah.
tripp: the truth. Not the truth in like join this religion, but the truth that his entire world
Ryan: Right.
tripp: and house and structure and the death system he built is sitting around protecting his security because he can't even exist in the outside world. Where something else isn't brought in, metabolized and selected to be a part of his final agenda. Right. Think of his like l you know, when he does his whole iteration speech, right?
Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
tripp: Of like the games or the song or whatever.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Throws major shade at the Mormons when he's like, Bob Ross.
tripp: Honestly, Bob Ross is like, why would that not be the coolest? Like, I would take that as an affirmation. Because the Monopoly game, right? Okay, well there's a first version, it gets stolen and monetized, but the whole game itself is supposed to be teaching everyone the ills of capitalism. And then Americans are like, Why would I learn that lesson? Right? You know, it's like going to a true love weights rally just to figure out how far you can go without Jesus getting mad at you and alternative positions. And and so like something that is pedagogical. becomes becomes a licensure for exploitation. and then you're like the Bob Ross one, the guy with a PBS show that's not even run on commercials and it's about the sheer excitement of aesthetic pleasure and craft. That would have to be the most humane version of it. I have no idea what you do with a Bob Ross. You're like, what happens on New York Avenue? It's a park. that I painted. Like I don't
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Little accidents. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah. my gosh. I I you know, there's so I'm I'm really gathering, Trip, that you you do not find Mr. Reed compelling at all. You find him to be scared and like this wannabe apologist who's like he's trying to set up gotcha moments, but he just can't get any of them to stick because these girls ask way way too many questions or th they they're not playing the game on his rules.
tripp: Yeah, and and honestly they would all work for him if someone else's final truth structured it that way, right? That's the that's the thing. And then in that second big scene, right, he so he does all the iterations and all that kind of stuff. But in the second one where he's like revealing all the tapestries of the art and this comes from this and this, right? Like it it it take you ten minutes on Wikipedia to realize that this is just a straw construct. It's only threatening if you've never even contemplated your own beliefs. and you could just as easily look at all that and give a multiplicity of interpretations. Right? And so I it like I know I know there are like people that are much like the more naive missionary where th if they've never heard any of that content and then it's presented that way, you're gonna be like, yeah, but the same thing happens
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
tripp: Yeah, but just think of how many people we know that will when you tell them about, you became a Christian and they're like, Yeah, you know, I'm a I'm a I was a lawyer and I'm really rational, but then I read evidence that demands a verdict, and it's got all these Hebrew Bible prophecies that are completely taken out of context with inherently anti Jewish interpretations, but they all equal penal substitutionary atonement, which is an atonement theory invented three fourths of the way through the life of the church, and now I know the one true truth. Thank you. Like it's the same it's the same maneuver. It's just stupid. Like it and not I don't want it anyone that thinks that way to think I'm saying they're stupid. I'm saying to construct your response to ultimacy in the way you structure your own finitude day to day, if it is anxious about encountering the truth and being transformed by it, then you don't have faith. And not f in in any sense, right? Like y and there's completely non-religious or atheist ways of having faith and there's completely religious ones. I'm just saying if your biggest fear in life is that your form of existence could be unsettled by the presence of another or the plausibility of an alternative, then have you actually found feet on a ground that you trust? Or are you walking around trying to find a bubble of safety you can live in? Then maybe, I don't know, You homeschool your kids, you go to a mega church, you make sure they play sports with a prayers before it. You, you know, go and you know, you can create all these little parachurch organizations where they've never met anyone that thinks the world's not six thousand years old and Jesus didn't deliver Trump to America. You know, there's all these various ways that we do this. I'm just saying it's like the the everything that religion's supposed to be when it's done well is about leading us to a deeper and fuller life. Where our own flourishing is interwound and interbound with the flourishing of others. If you ask all the historic wisdom traditions, what does the good life look like? It's one where the encounter with the other is the site of one's living, not the site in which you coerce, exploit, and control them into taking everything you have and squeezing their hand around it until their fingerprints look just like yours. And that's what the that like that's the fear that he's had. And he it on top of like you know, it's one thing to receive a tradition that's blessed millions of people. It's another to think that you drugged up some chicks you s kidnapped and that's the proof that you're really true. Right? Like, how asinine is it to think that that one dude who can't even live in a house that you can use a phone in and has to create conditions to encounter the other where they're locked in. That that guy is the one that figured out the one true religion. You know, it's it's like i he's he is a per as persuasive as this dude with severe PTSD, an unhoused neighbor, a friend of mine in Redondo, who set around explaining how to hook quantum mechanics and string theory together. And, you know, he never w even went to college after the trauma in Vietnam. But he's like, We both love science and religion. Let me explain it to you. You know, and And in w he what he's saying is nonsense. If he'd taken a classes, he'd know, but that's not the point, right? It was created as a structuring safety blanket so that you can control the uncontrollable and never have to risk faith in the face of it. S thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Sorry. I know y'all
Ryan: So,
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Ha ha.
tripp: usually talk more in the podcast. I I
Ryan: No, no, no, no. It's great because the whole point like the whole point that Hugh Grant's character makes in this movie is that the one true religion is control. That she went as far into the house as she did because he deemed it that way. He but he doesn't account for he doesn't account for certain things. He doesn't account for the you know the the doe eyed sincere sister to question well the lady wasn't she like she was in a different position when we when we came back. Like there's that like glitch in the matrix for him, and then he tries to, as she says, improv with the simulation narrative. Josh, I I'm I'm curious, when you see like Hugh Grant's character start to get worried, were you as like as someone who loves getting deeper into these phil philosophical theological discussions, we're like, you are screwed now, man Or were you just like, How is he gonna try to get out of this? At that moment in in the film, what were how are you in Interpreting that part.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): Well, I so it just it's funny because it just reminds me of like real life experience. Like Trip knows I've made some friends online that are the kind of see, he's laughing, that are the kind of like you know, Reddit atheist people. Very sincere, but it's very much the Hugh Grant thing. It's very much a a constructed thing. They're still very much fundamentalist in their thinking. And so it's just it's how I see things happen. So like when I try to have conversations with these people and I break the rules that they put into place, like I break the house that they're trying to put up around me, they do the same thing. That's when they start improving and say crazy, stupid shit. And like, well, you know, or they become dismissive, like, well, you don't count. You don't actually believe in God. You're not actually a Christian. You're not this. and it's like it Like for example, I was having a conversation with somebody recently, because you know, oftentimes within the kind of atheist theist debates, people put you on a spectrum, right? Where you can either be like atheist, you're an agnostic, or you're a theist. You believe in God, you're not sure, or you don't believe in God. when in reality, it's actually more of like a a quadrant. So when you say, like you can be basically like how you hold your beliefs. And the beliefs themselves. So if you think about it as like a a T, have like atheist on one side, theist on the other, and then the the Y axis, you can have like Gnostic and agnostic. So you can be an agnostic atheist, meaning like I the the Gnostic agnostic bit is an epistemological question. It's a ha it's a knowledge question. How do we know? What can we know? And then the theist atheist bit is a metaphysical question. or like how we think reality works. and so he like fits this agnostic atheist bit and he has like this bit he does with it, and I'm I fall within the agnostic theist category,
Ryan: Hmm.
Josh Patterson (He/Him): but his logical system that he has constructed can't understand that. I try to talk to him literally for two hours, and he was like, You can't be an agnostic theist. Because like if you don't know God exists, then you're just by definition an atheist. And like he can't get the gradation in there. And so like it's frustrating and like that's how Hugh Jack that or I almost said Hugh Jackman. that that's how Wolverine thinks. But
Ryan: That's how Wolverine thinks. God
Josh Patterson (He/Him): no, that it is his character. So like it just reminds me of real life conversations that I have. and it can just it can just be frustrating. Cause like, I mean, I'm just basically repeating what Tripp is saying. It's a construction. It the certainty is the idol here. Certainty is what they're after. and again, it's still this r really hyper like black and white fundamentalist way of thinking and engaging the world that when it gets called into question, you respond the same way that the annoying, you know, Reddit apologist does,
