Art and the Kingdom

Art and the Kingdom

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The Silver Chair: Naturalism and Self Destruction

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You don’t need to be a historian to know that we humans have a penchant for destroying ourselves. We start pointless wars, or shoot up deadly drugs, or waste our…

You don’t need to be a historian to know that we humans have a penchant for destroying ourselves. We start pointless wars, or shoot up deadly drugs, or waste our lives on social media. But this devotion to self destruction is not just physical in nature. It is also philosophical. 

Intellectual movements throughout history have deliberately attacked the idea that human beings are special, and that our lives are deeply meaningful, and that we have something transcendent and eternal to anchor our hope in. Philosophical suicide comes in many forms, but much of it derives from the broad worldview of “strong” naturalism, which basically argues that the physical world is all there is to reality. All sorts of bitter fruit grows from this assumption, like skepticism, atheism, and moral nihilism. 

C.S. Lewis understood this worldview all too well. He confronts its self-destructive logic in The Silver Chair, a novel in the The Chronicles of Narnia series. In this story, our protagonists Jill Pole, Eustace Scrubb, and Puddleglum travel to the strange land of Underland, which is a dark underground civilization populated by the miserable looking people called Earthmen. Here, away from the sunny lands of Narnia, the greatest test that our heroes face is not physical danger, but spiritual apostasy. 

A Crisis of Faith

In Underland, Jill, Eustace and Puddleglum free the Narnian Prince Rilian from captivity, thus completing the quest that Aslan sent them on. But before they can escape, the Queen of Underland arrives, the Lady of the Green Kirtle, who is a witch. 

Upon seeing her escaped prisoner, the Witch does not violently attack the heroes. Instead, she throws some magical green powder into the fire, filling the air with a sweet, drowsy smell, which makes it “harder to think.” Then, she starts playing a mandolin-like instrument, which also makes it hard to think. Finally, she begins to question their beliefs about “Narnia” and “the Overworld” and “Aslan”, making our heroes doubt whether or not these things have ever existed. 

The Witch begins by questioning the existence of Narnia. When Puddleglum protests that he knows he has been there once, as he distinctly remembers seeing the sun , the Witch pivots to questioning the existence of the sun. Since they are underground, nobody can point to the sun to verify its existence, and so they have to use analogies to explain it to the Witch. The sun is like the lamp in this room, only far greater and brighter, Prince Rilian says. The Witch laughs at this and says:

“You see? When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your sun is a dream; and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp. The lamp is the real thing; the sun is but a tale, a children’s story.”1

This conclusion is absurd; Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum have been seeing the sun their entire lives. But in the Underland, in the utter darkness, and under the influence of the magic green powder, and the mandolin, and the Witch’s soft, sorcerous voice, our heroes are eventually convinced to deny the existence of the sun. But it doesn’t end there. Jill, in defiance of the Witch’s narrative, declares that “there’s Aslan”. So then, predictably, the Witch begins to sow doubt about the existence of Aslan and even lions in general. She says: 

“We should do no better with your lion, as you call it, than we did with your sun. You have seen lamps, and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You’ve seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it’s to be called a lion. Well, ’tis a pretty make-believe…And look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world, this world of mine, which is the only world. But even you children are too old for such play.”2

The Witch is so condescending, isn’t she? And yet, it’s her arguments that should be laughed at. Obviously there’s a sun! Obviously there are lions! But the Witch’s magic is too powerful, and by this point it seems as though our heroes will completely succumb to her deceit. 

Philosophical Parallels 

Read some naturalist philosophy, and you’ll start to hear some eerie parallels between their arguments and those of the Witch’s. For example, Lewis was no doubt inspired by the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume when he wrote the Underland passages. Hume is well known for his skepticism, and he doubted all sorts of things, from miracles to inductive reasoning to the reality of cause and effect relationships. His skepticism arguably came from his naturalist worldview. 

Hume famously made a distinction between what he called “impressions” and “ideas”. According to C. Stephen Evans, “Impressions then are what we immediately experience, either through the senses or by attending to our own minds.” So an impression would be the sweetness we taste when we bite a pineapple. “Ideas” are copies of impressions. We construct our ideas or concepts based on sensations we have had in the past. I have seen a horse before, as well as an animal horn, and so I combine the two and come up with a unicorn.3

Doesn’t this sound familiar? According to the Witch, the “sun” and “lions” are nothing but ideas, or imaginative constructions of things that have already been experienced, such as lamps and cats. And just as the Witch declared “there is no sun”, Hume’s philosophy led him to make some interesting claims himself. For example, Hume thought that the “self” doesn’t really exist. In other words, you and I don’t really exist. Evans explains, “The self for Hume is really just a ‘bundle of perceptions.’ We are just a stream of psychological events following each other rapidly.”4

It’s common to find this Humean skeptical attitude in naturalist literature. Just take a look at two examples:

First, the psychologist Sigmud Freud famously argued that belief in God was a form of “wish fulfillment”. He writes, “the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the need for protection-for protection through love which was provided by the father; and the recognition that this helplessness lasts throughout life made it necessary to cling to the existence of a father, but this time a more powerful one. Thus the benevolent rule of a divine Providence allays our fear of the dangers of life…”.5 So, our “heavenly father” turns out to just be a psychological projection; we take the best traits from our earthly fathers and use them to construct God. Again, here we see echoes of the Witch’s arguments against the sun and lions.

Second, speaking about the existence of the soul, M.H. Sabatés sneers, “‘Immaterial mind’ or ‘soul,’ like ‘élan vital,’ ‘elf,’ or ‘chupacabras,’ are ghostly expressions that come from mistaken frameworks or conceptions and do not refer to anything.”6 Remember how condescending the Witch was? Well, this kind of dismissive attitude towards anything non-physical (like souls and God) can be pretty common among naturalists.

So, once the Witch gets our heroes to admit that there is no sun, no Narnia, no Aslan, what then? If naturalists get us to admit that there is no soul, no miracles, no God, what then?

The Horror of Underland 

Underland is a dark, miserable place populated by miserable people. And no wonder. They have no sun to give them light or warmth, no Narnia to roam freely around, and no Aslan to protect and love them. They are living in a dead wasteland. And if Jill, Eustace, Rilian and Puddleglum were convinced to abandon their most precious beliefs, they would be trapped in this wasteland by choice. They would essentially be comitting philosophical and spiritual suicide, depriving themselves of all that is good, true and beautiful.

And if we deny the existence of our own souls, we deny what makes us special in the world. We are nothing but clumps of flesh bound together by chemical reactions, and there is nothing special about that. If we deny the existence of God and the afterlife, then we exist for no purpose, and our lives are absurd and meaningless. If we follow the naturalist’s gameplan, then we imprison ourselves in Underland, a cold, dark abyss deprived of hope and joy. We commit philosophical and spiritual suicide.

But thankfully, our heroes choose to spare their own lives.

Puddleglum stamps on the fire which the Witch threw the green powder in. This reduces the enchanting smell that the powder caused, and fills the air with the unechanting smell of Puddleglum’s burnt foot. He then declares,

“Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself…Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one…I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”7

The Witch’s plot is foiled, and after that she decides to attack them physically in the form of a snake. Our heroes defeat her and escape the Underland.

Enchantments or Eternity

After I read this story, I wondered, is there any parallel to the Witch’s sweet smelling powder and sweet sounding mandolin in naturalist philosophy? What, if anything, could be attractive or seductive about the miserable, denuded, nihilistic philosophy of naturalism? What about naturalism enchants us?

Lewis’s thoughts in his book The Weight of Glory may give us a hint. He writes, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”8

If naturalism is true, and there is no God, and we aren’t special, then we don’t have any special role to play in the world and no special obligations to fulfill. And that means that we can do whatever we please. We can chase all the pleasures of life without worrying about the afterlife. And with this enchanting smell in the air, maybe we can be tempted to buy into naturalism. Maybe we can say, “there is no sun.”

So what will we do? Will we give in to the enchantment and destroy ourselves in Underland? Or will we stamp on the fire and expose naturalism for what it really is, and hold on to the hope of a greater joy to come?

And I want to make it clear that I am not encouraging some sort of strong fideism or religious subjectivism here, or any kind of view which tells us to persist in faith even if our religious beliefs turn out to be false. Ironically, this view is actually an unbiblical one, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” So I disagree with Lewis, speaking through Puddleglum, that “I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it”. If you’re this person, then by the very words of the Apostle Paul himself, you are “most to be pitied”.

But I also think that there is a way to salvage what Puddleglum is saying. We shouldn’t persist in faith if it turns out that our religious beliefs are false. But it may be that the current evidence appears as though it is against Christianity, or theism, and the data and arguments we have seem to favor naturalism. Or maybe things are just 50/50: the evidence can go either way. In this case, I do want to say, as Blaise Pascal argued, that we should hold on to our faith. The eternal joy that Christianity offers is incommensurably superior to the grim Underland of naturalism. Under the shadow of philosophical suicide, we must fight for our lives.

So I say, in Puddleglum fashion, that even a desperate hope for the eternal God is better than any enchantment that the godless forces of this world can conjure up.

  1. C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, 178. ↩︎
  2. Ibid, 180. ↩︎
  3. C. Stephen Evans, A History of Western Philosophy, 337-338. ↩︎
  4. Ibid, 350-351. ↩︎
  5. Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, 30. ↩︎
  6. M.H. Sabatés, “Reductionism in the Philosophy of Mind”, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Retrieved from http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/reductionism-philosophy-mind. ↩︎
  7. Lewis, The Silver Chair, 182. ↩︎
  8. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory. ↩︎
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Frankenstein (2025)

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Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025) teaches us about death, faith in science, divine hiddenness, and forgiveness.

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025) is a masterpiece and worthy of an Oscar. In fact, it is nominated for nine Oscars and, without a doubt, will win at least a couple. The film tells the well known story of Victor Frankenstein’s mad, ego driven desires to conquer death, and how, in the process, he creates a monster whom he abandons. I cannot comment on how similar the movie is to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel as I shall have to wait until after grad school to checkmark that off my reading list. However, there are four important themes throughout the film that I wish to comment on: death, faith in science, divine hiddenness, and forgiveness.

DEATH

In the film, Victor has a callous but scientifically brilliant father and a soft and loving mother. The abandonment of his father creates the medical complication that kills Victor’s mother during the childbirth of his younger brother William. This death, and Victor’s failing to save her, puts into him the motivation to overcome mortality. Oddly enough, death may be what motivates all of us in all that we do.

The Pulitzer prize winning archeologist Ernest Becker states, “the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else: it is the mainspring of human activity – activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.”1 He continues, “all culture, all man’s creative life-ways, are in some basic part of them a fabricated protest against natural reality, a denial of the truth of the human condition, and an attempt to forget the pathetic creature that man is.”2

All culture is shaped by death, without it, culture would not exist. Most of our choices are subconsciously shaped by death. Hedonistic pleasure, virtuous pursuits, our stories, our health, our relationships, and our religious devotion (both atheistic and theistic) are all driven by the inevitable future that death overtakes all. Death, it terrifies us into searching for life.

Ancient stories echo this terror. In the Ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh says, “how can I rest, how can I be at peace? Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead. Because I am afraid of death.”3 The critic in Ecclesiastes groans over death and suffering and its seemingly unfair character, and even states that it is better for one to never have been born at all (Ecc. 4:3). Today, more than five hundred studies demonstrate that we are deeply affected by the terror of our knowledge of our own mortality.4 Death can be a great thing to meditate on (Ecc. 7:4), but we often choose incapable and damaging antidotes when we should choose Him as the antidote.

Victor, while presenting his ability to raise the dead to university faculty, beckons, “God is inept, and we must correct his mistakes!” This causes the university to expel him; however, he finds a funder in Heinrich Harlander, and both turn to science to settle their despair over death.

FAITH IN SCIENCE

Frankenstein has always been taken as a cautionary tale against scientific ambition and the people who, as Elizabeth says, “play God”. Today, the scientific ambition to play God is at an all-time high. Transhumanism, a philosophical movement that seeks the promise of immortality through technologies’ ability to overcome human limitations, is where Victor puts his faith. Today’s pioneers do the same. Oracle cofounder Larry Ellision donated $430 million to antiaging research, and Alphabet CEO Larry Page started Calico with a $750 million investment for life-extension research.5

Some put faith into “brain-uploading”. David J. Chalmers, professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, states that one day, during the “singularity”, that we will be able to upload our brains to a computer, giving us immortality. However, Chalmers also recognizes that we have no idea how to go about consciousness and therefore, brain uploading. He says, “it is true that we have no idea how a nonbiological system, such as a silicon computational system, could be conscious. But the fact is that we also have no idea how a biological system, such as a neural system, could be conscious. The gap is just as wide in both cases.”6 Transhumanism relies on the metaphysical commitment of materialism, but perhaps we have this wide gap because we are much more than simply material beings.

Any time we reduce man to material, we will end up in evil. Victor states, “In seeking life, I created death.” Instead of seeking life Himself, he created a monster. However, del Toro does not think of monsters as most do.

A MARCIONITE DIVINE HIDDENESS

Del Toro connects more with monsters than with Jesus. He says, “monsters are my religion… my grandma has Jesus. I have Boris Karloff. He was my Messiah.”7 He also thinks of monsters as patron saints and sees Frankenstein as Christ. One only has to look at the striking imagery of the monster being crucified:

However, under this framework, he conjures a Marcionite-like heresy where Victor is a careless and angry creator who gave no thought to what would come after his creation and the creature is Christ whom comes with love and salvation. It seems that the creator is the one who needs forgiveness, not creation. It seems that it seems as though it is the creator’s fault for the suffering we experience and not creation’s rejection of their creator. The creator abandons his creation and his creation yells “VICTOOOOOOOOOR!” The chasm we see between the divine and us is a true reality, but it is not the creator’s fault.

Victor as a child prayed to the archangel Michael as he bowed to a comforting statue of him. However, a bloody, dark angel visits him to inspire his journey of overcoming death. Victor should not be thought of as a God who abandons His creation, rather he should be pictured as Adam and Eve who listened to the dark serpent that told them they won’t die. Victor is us humans who miss the mark in the plethora of ways we try to achieve life.

In the Christian story, it is the Father who had a plan all along to reconcile His creation back to Himself, the plan that the seed of the women would crush the head of the snake (Gen. 3:15). And even del Toro seems to maybe hint at this plan near the end of his film.

FORGIVENESS

Del Toro, a lapsed catholic, cannot rid himself of the Christian ideal of forgiveness. While he may paint God as a negligent creator, the message of forgiveness, that is so central to the Christian faith, is the story’s message as Victor ends saying:

“Forgive me. My son. And if you have it in your heart, forgive yourself into existence. If death is not to be, then consider this, my son. While you are alive, what recourse do you have but to live? Live. Say my name. My father gave me that name, and it meant nothing. Now I ask you to give it back to me… one last time. The way you said it at the beginning. When it meant the world to you.”

The creature responds, “Victor. I forgive you. Rest now, Father. Perhaps now, we can both be human.”

We must forgive ourselves into being. If we do not forgive each other and ourselves, we cannot have life. The Psalmist writes:

When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
Through my groaning all day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I did not hide;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”;
And You forgave the [f]guilt of my sin. Selah.
Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found;
Surely in a flood of great waters, they will not reach him.
You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble;
You surround me with [h]songs of deliverance. Selah (Ps. 32:3-7).

If the creature does not forgive, he will waste away along the bitter, groanful road of unforgiveness that leads only to sheol, the realm of the dead. However, once the creature forgives, he is able to look upon the sun, which, as Victor said, is life. May we, through these stories that shadow the real story, realize the forgiveness we have in Christ as His light preserves, delivers, and gives life to all those brave enough to look upon the Son.

  1. Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, (New York: Free Press, 1973), xvii. ↩︎
  2. Ibid, 32-33. ↩︎
  3. The Epic of Gilgamesh, translated by N.K. Sanders, (New York: Penguin, 1972), 42. ↩︎
  4. Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszcynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life, (New York: Penguin, 2006), 10-11. ↩︎
  5. Arina Eunjung Cha, “Tech Titans’ Latest Project: Defy Death,” Washing Post, April 4, 2015. ↩︎
  6. David Chalmers, “The Singularity: A philosophical Analysis,” in Science fiction and Philosophy From Time Travel to Superintelligence, 2nd. Ed. Susan Schneider (West Sussex, UK: Wiley, 2016), 203. ↩︎
  7. https://bgindependentmedia.org/mexican-director-del-toro-frames-frankenstein-as-a-father-son-psycho-drama/#:~:text=Review%20by%20CARROLL%20McCUNE,doing%20a%20horror%20movie%E2%80%94ever. ↩︎

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Crime and Punishment: “Love Thy Enemy”

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“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. It sounds so pious, so noble, so beautiful, doesn’t it? It’s the perfect verse for sermons and devotionals, and it’s…

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. It sounds so pious, so noble, so beautiful, doesn’t it? It’s the perfect verse for sermons and devotionals, and it’s such an easy verse to say. But it’s also an easy verse to vanish in our hearts and minds when we see the next national news headline, or when we scroll through the comments of a politically charged post, or when we drive on the highway and we have to slam on our breaks for that person who seems to be actively seeking to kill people. 

And what about if someone took an axe and murdered your innocent friend for no good reason? Could you love them then? Would you feel nothing but moral outrage towards this murderer, or would you be able to make room for compassion and mercy? How can you balance justice and love? These are all important questions that Fyodor Dostoyevsky explores in his moving novel Crime and Punishment, particularly through the characters of Raskolnikov (a young, poor, former university student, and the novel’s protagonist), who is the murderer, and Sonya (a prostitute Raskolnikov befriends), who is the bereaved.

Double Murder

Raskolnikov originally plans to murder only one person: an old, rich pawnbroker named Alyona Ivanovna. He plans to kill and rob her, and he tries to justify this action to himself. Alyona is not a very nice woman, and besides, her money could be used for good. Motivated (at least superficially) by this logic, Raskolnikov executes his plan.  

Raskolnikov thinks that Alyona will be alone when he carries out the murder. But his plan goes horribly wrong when Lizaveta, Alyona’s younger half-sister, steps into the room after Raskolnikov has just murdered Alyona. Raskolnikov rushes at Lizaveta with an axe, and her reaction is heartbreaking:

“And this wretched Lizaveta was so simple, so downtrodden, and so permanently frightened that she did not even raise a hand to protect her face, though it would have been the most necessary and natural gesture at that moment, because the axe was raised directly over her face”.1

Now it turns out that Sonya was friends with Lizaveta, and they used to read the Bible and talk together. So after Raskolnikov confesses to Sonya that he murdered Alyona and Lizaveta, he does a whole song and dance to try to justify his actions to her. He tries to compare himself to “Napoleon”, an “extraordinary man”, who has to get his hands dirty in order to get his career going for the greater good of mankind. He then tries to say that he planned on robbing Alyona in order to support himself as a university student so he could help his family. But eventually he reveals the horrible truth:

“I wanted to kill without casuistry, Sonya, to kill for myself, for myself alone! I didn’t want to lie about it even to myself! It was not to help my mother that I killed-nonsense! I did not kill so that, having obtained means and power, I could become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply killed-killed for myself, for myself alone-and whether I would later become anyone’s benefactor, or would spend my life like a spider, catching everyone in my web and sucking the life-sap out of everyone, should at that moment have made no difference to me!”2

So Raskolnikov is a moral monster who planned to kill for purely selfish reasons, and poor Lizaveta was caught in the crossfires of his wicked scheme. Now even though Raskolnikov had done something incredibly kind to her before this, giving her all his money so she could support her family, it was perfectly understandable for Sonya to despise him at this moment. Past charity does not excuse a malicious double murder. She had every reason to call the police and let justice be done and leave the matter at that. But her reaction is very interesting and morally nuanced. 

Toxic Empathy or Sinful Wrath?

What does it mean to “love thy enemies”? What exactly does Christian love and empathy entail? It’s easy to manipulate verses like this one, and so just as we roll our eyes when someone misuses the verse “Judge not…”, we might also be tempted to have a similar reaction when someone says “love thy enemies”.

We might insist that Christ’s teachings about love are all well and fine, but they do not mean we abandon justice, which God has also commanded us to pursue (Micah 6:8). Justice demands law and order, and the punishment of evil. And some other Christian may push back on that, and insist that God’s commands about justice are all well and fine, but we must act lovingly first. Love demands compassion and mercy towards evildoers and criminals. 

And of course, when we have a tension like this one, it is easy to abandon all nuance and slip into extremes. So Christian X may say, “sure, Raskolnikov committed ‘murder’, but he’s had a tough life, and he’s a hypochondriac, and he’s done some nice things before, and besides, Alyona wasn’t so innocent herself, so who am I to judge…”. And Christian Y may say, “Raskolnikov is the spawn of Satan, who butchered two innocent women for selfish reasons, and he deserves a slow, agonizing death, and I would do it myself if I could …”. 

What is the temptation of our day? Is it to let criminals get away with murder in the name of love and empathy? Or is it to strip these wrongdoers of all humanity and deny them any sort of compassion in the spirit of moral wrath? Which extreme will we choose? Or can we balance justice and love?

Sonya’s Saintliness

Sonya does. When Raskolnikov asks her what he should do now, this is what she says:

“Go now, this minute, stand in the crossroads, bow down, and first kiss the earth you’ve defiled, then bow to the whole world, on all four sides, and say aloud to everyone: ‘I have killed!’ Then God will send you life again.”3

Raskolnikov understands what this sort of public confession entails. It is the justice he has been dreading the whole novel. It means he will go to prison. He says:

“So it’s hard labor, is it, Sonya? I must go and denounce myself?” 

And she responds:

“Accept suffering and redeem yourself by it, that’s what you must do.”4

So Sonya does not throw justice out in the name of love. She demands justice for the murders of Alyona and Lizaveta. But she also does not throw out love in the name of wrath. Instead, she offers Raskolnikov her life. Sonya wants both Raskolnikov and herself to wear cross necklaces as they both go to suffer “hard labor”:

“Here, take this cypress one. I have another, a brass one, Lizaveta’s. Lizaveta and I exchanged crosses; she gave me her cross, and I gave her my little icon. I’ll wear Lizaveta’s now, and you can have this one. Take it … it’s mine! It’s mine!” she insisted. “We’ll go to suffer together, and we’ll bear the cross together!”5

And she does. She follows him to the police station where he confesses his crime. And after he is sentenced to a prison camp in Siberia, she follows him there, starts a correspondence with his family so he can receive news from them, and frequently visits him in the prison. And even after all of this, he mistreats her and acts rudely to her.  But she persists in her compassion, and eventually Raskolnikov repents, becomes a changed man, and comes to love her. 

Behold the Lamb of God

When we witness injustice, whether done to us or others, it is easy to rage, and treat the evildoer the same way Raskolnikov’s fellow prisoners treat him: 

“You’re godless! You don’t believe in God!” they shouted. “You ought to be killed!”6

But it’s infinitely more difficult to treat the evildoer with the Christlike love and mercy that Sonya exemplifies. Now obviously, we are not obligated to follow our enemies all the way to labor camps like Sonya does. But we are commanded to love them, and pray for them, and forgive them seventy times seven. As Sonya shows, this love need not come at the expense of the just condemnation and punishment of evil. But it does come at the expense of our desire to hate those who have wronged us.

It is interesting that the prisoners, who are murderers just like Raskolnikov, declare that he “ought to be killed.” In God’s eyes, before we accepted Christ, we were all murderers, all sinners who rebelled against God and who had no right to condemn anyone (see Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the unmerciful servant, for Jesus’s teaching on this). But despite our sin and hypocrisy, it is Christ who bears our cross and suffers hard labor in our place and resurrects us. It is this Christian love that Dostoyevsky beautifully illustrates in his novel, and it is (one reason) why I personally believe that Crime and Punishment is one of the greatest Christian novels of all time. 

  1. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, 83-84. ↩︎
  2. Ibid, 441. ↩︎
  3. Ibid, 442. ↩︎
  4. Ibid, 442. ↩︎
  5. Ibid, 444. ↩︎
  6. Ibid, 575. ↩︎

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Batman V Superman (2016) and its Missed Theological Message – Part 2

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Previously, in part one of this article series, we introduced the argument that the message of Batman V Superman was missed by most of the general audience due to theological…

Previously, in part one of this article series, we introduced the argument that the message of Batman V Superman was missed by most of the general audience due to theological apathy and biblical illiteracy. We then dove into the problem of evil, how the foundation for morality has been stripped away, and how Batman is a Nietzsche inspired Übermensch and Killer of God. We now turn Batman’s redemption in Superman.

WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME!

While we all made fun of the infamous Martha moment in Batman V Superman, and while it can come off as cheesy, I do think we missed what Zack Snyder was trying to convey.

Batman hates Superman for not being a man, for being deistic, for not being able to relate or to care for humankind. Batman, while fighting Superman, states, “You’re not brave… men are brave. You say that you want to help people, but you can’t feel their pain… their mortality… It’s time you learn what it means to be a man.” At the end of the fight, when Batman is about to kill Superman, he says, “You were never a god, you were never even a man.”

What Bruce Wayne misses is the fact that Superman is human, that he has emptied himself to become a servant, he has wept, he is a man who knows sorrow well, he can sympathize with our weaknesses, he has felt the pain that the Problem of Evil brings. He is not a deistic god who cares not about his people. Rather He is God in the flesh; he is a God who has a mother. It is at this moment in which Batman’s heart changes. Bruce sees Clark beg to save his mom, Martha. Zack Snyder states:

“The Martha moment… is Bruce’s opportunity to reconnect with his own humanity and the humanity of Superman. Batman doesn’t end the fight because their mothers have the same name, but because he recognizes Superman as someone with a mother, and thus a human, despite his alien origins. The battle against Superman is ultimately Bruce’s realization that he can be better and reconnect with humanity again. It’s not a redemption, or a full change, as he does kill mercenaries at the warehouse in the following scene, but it is a start.”1

Batman realizes that Superman shares his humanity; it is the realization of the Incarnation that changes Batman. He realizes that God is not far from our suffering, but is with us in it! Now while Batman still kills, he does eventually return home to his no-kill rule in the Justice League. He finds his true humanity again, a humanity that is transformed and likened to Superman or to Christ.

Superman and the Death of Christ

The religious imagery and comparison of Superman to Christ is obvious throughout both Man of Steel (2013) and Batman V Superman. One only has to look at the images below to understand what Zack Snyder is doing:

The original creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, created Superman as Moses-figure. Superman has since been seen as both a Moses and a Christ-figure. In Hebrew, Kal-El, Superman’s Kryptonian name, means “Voice of God”. In Man of Steel, he is thirty-three years of age when he begins making public his Superhero activities. Another powerful image is when Jor-El (Superman’s Kryptonian father) says to Superman, “You can save all of them.” Superman then extends his arms from his sides in a crucifix before going to save humanity from destruction. The Christ imagery is blunt and obvious.

Another comparison to Christ is the fact that Superman chooses to save humanity. His mother, Martha Kent, states, “Be their hero, Clark. Be their angel, be their monument, be anything they need you to be… or be none of it. You don’t owe this world a thing. You never did.” Superman could easily regret ever coming to earth and forgo the saving of humanity. God could regret that he ever made mankind and flood the earth once again, but he does not! Rather, he willingly submits to suffering:

Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put more than twelve legions of angels at my disposal? – Matthew 26:53

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. – John 10:18

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy. – 1 Timothy 3:4

Superman willingly chooses to save humankind from Doomsday even though he knows that it will cost him his life. Zack Snyder and the concept artists position religious imagery to evoke Superman as the Christ:

Lastly, one of the most striking symbols is the kryptonite spear. A fan asked Zack Snyder on Twitter why Batman, with all the technology he has at his disposal, chose a spear to be the weapon that kills Superman. Zack Snyder responded:

Again, back to the thesis, the general audience, due to theological apathy and biblical illiteracy, did not understand the religious discussion going on within Batman V Superman! When one grasps the imagery and the tough questions that the movie asks, the movie becomes so much more than just a superhero blockbuster movie. It becomes an exploration of the rejection and willful death of the Godman who became incarnate to bear the problem of evil itself and to redeem those who were lost.

The Justice League as Christian Saints

Batman is the one who was redeemed by the Godman. At Clark Kent’s funeral, the hymn “Amazing Grace” plays in the background. The lyrics go as follows:

Amazing grace how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I’m found

Was blind but now I see

Batman had become cruel; he had become an Übermensch who thought he could will to power his way out of his nihilism. Bruce Wayne was a wretch who branded and killed his enemies, but he was changed by the Godman. One could say that he was as blind as a bat, but now he sees.

Bruce Wayne, while talking to Diana (Wonder-Woman), states, “I’ve failed him… in life. I won’t fail him in death. Help me find the others like you.” Batman, who failed the Godman, is now honoring him with his life and is commissioned to find the others (the Justice League); one could say that he embarks on a great commission to find those that have been called by the death of the Godman, leaving them an example, so that they might follow in the Godman’s steps.

However, the Justice League knows that they cannot do this without Superman. Bruce states in the Justice League, “The world needs Superman… the team needs Clark.” Even the villains know that Superman is needed. Steppenwolf, in the Justice League, only comes to earth due to Superman’s death. He says, “No protectors here. No Lanterns. No Kryptonian. This world will fall, like all the others.” Without Christ, our world will fail. But Bruce knows that the death of the Godman is not where the story ends.

The Second Coming

In the ultimate edition of Batman V Superman, the Priest during Clark Kent’s funeral cites Isaiah 26:19: “But your dead will live, LORD; their bodies will rise — Let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy — your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.”

In the Justice League, Bruce Wayne and the team believe that Superman will be resurrected and will come again. Alfred asks Bruce how he knows this, and Bruce responds, “Faith, Alfred, Faith.” Now, contrast this with where our current culture is at. I find a quote from Friedrick Nietzsche to be helpful:

‘Whither is God?’ he cried; ‘I will tell you. We have killed him – you and I. All of us are his murderers… Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose’.2

The beginning question, “after 75 years, is Superman still our hero?” is one that I think our culture answers in the negative. In the Justice Leage, Superman returns and states to Steppenwolf that he is a fan of truth and justice. In our postmodern world, truth and justice do not exist; rather they are merely social constructions. For us in the west, we live in a post-Christian world. This drift away from the Christian story has brought along with it skyrocketing numbers of nihilistic behaviors. It has brought with it a meaning crisis where we are drifting in purposelessness. It has brought a world where the death of our loved ones feels meaningless and which forces us to will-to power fake meanings to cope with the Problem of Evil or forfeit, because there is no problem to be fixed, since problems imply purpose and teleology to which our current story provides none. We now live in a world where demons flourish because they smell the “decomposing God” that we have “killed”.

While Batman V Superman is a fictional comic book movie, the Christian story is our reality. Christ did in fact historically die, was buried, and rose to life, and shall return. In the meantime, how do we make the Godman desirable once again? We make Him desirable by putting on Christ, just like we put on the S of Superman, by having faith like Batman, and by following God’s Great Commission to find those that are to follow in the Godman’s steps. As we participate in the life of God, as Christ redeems our fallen human nature, and as we defeat the Problem of Evil, we shall see a culture that is as blind as a bat become awed with the grace and love of their savior.

  1. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/zack-snyder-shares-secrets-lost-batman-v-superman-sequels-1287433/ ↩︎
  2. Fredrick Nietzsche, The Parable of the Mad Man, 1882. ↩︎

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Batman V Superman (2016) and its Missed Theological Message – Part 1

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Bad Movie or Missed Message? Batman V Superman, while far from perfect, is an amazing film. However, back in 2016, my friends and I, as well as most of the…

Bad Movie or Missed Message?

Batman V Superman, while far from perfect, is an amazing film. However, back in 2016, my friends and I, as well as most of the world, did not think so. Everyone who saw the film can remember the hilarious memes:

However, since then, I have grasped the theological significance of the movie and believe that Batman V Superman is an underappreciated, underrated, and over hated movie that has a deep theological message that went over the heads of the general audience. This, I think, is due to the theological apathy and biblical illiteracy of our current culture. While Zack Snyder, the director, is well known for his religious imagery in his films, one first must ask if it was Zack Snyder’s intention to make a theologically motivated film. In an interview with CNN, he says:

When we started to examine the Superman mythology, in the most classic sense, I really wanted to press upon the film the ‘why’ of him, which has been 75 years in the making… The Christ-like parallels, I didn’t make that stuff up. We weren’t like, ‘Hey, let’s add this!’ That stuff is there, in the mythology. That is the tried-and-true Superman metaphor. So rather than be snarky and say that doesn’t exist, we thought it would be fun to allow that mythology to be woven through.1

Snyder also posits one of the main questions of the film: “At 75, is Superman still our hero?”2 Zack Snyder builds upon this question by diving into the Problem of Evil, examining our culture’s attitude towards Christianity, by framing Superman as a Christ-figure, and by creating an amazing character arch for Ben Affleck’s Batman.

The Problem of Evil

Lex Luthor, when confronting Superman, exclaims, “See, what we call God depends upon our tribe, Clark Jo, cause God is tribal. God takes sides. No man in the sky intervened when I was a boy to deliver me from Daddy’s fist and abominations. I figured out way back if God is all-powerful, He cannot be all good. And if He is all good, then He cannot be all-powerful. And neither can you be.”

Lex Luthor takes directly from Epicurus’ famous argument: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”3

It is not just villains who ask these questions, but biblical authors as well. David writes, “how long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps. 13:1). The prophet Habakkuk asks, “how long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?” (Hab. 1:2-3)

It is of great importance to notice that it is okay and even good to ask the questions that Luthor has; however, they do not demand hatred for God nor the logical conclusion that God does not exist. In fact, philosophers distinguish between the logical problem of evil and the evidential problem of evil because the former, the “Lex-Lutherian” form, fails, since it does not logically follow that God does not exist because evil exists. While there are many, many answers to the Problem of Evil, one answer explored by Zack Snyder is the Incarnation. But before we get to that, we must first analyze the current culture.

Christianity as Evil and Outdated

In our postmodern world, we find power to be evil and oppressive; therefore, an all-powerful character such as Superman, or God, must also be evil. Luthor asks Senator Finch, “do you know the oldest lie in America, Senator?” and answers, “it’s that power can be innocent.” Superman cannot be innocent; God cannot be innocent. Lex even goes as far as saying that Superman is a demon. Referring to a painting seen below, he says, “That should be upside down. We know better now, don’t we? Devils don’t come from hell beneath us. No, they come from the sky.”

Another key factor in understanding our culture today comes from one of Zack Snyder’s favorite lines, in which Superman, and traditional morality, is no longer sought after.4 Perry White, the Editor and Chief of the Daily Planet, yells at Clark for writing on the Batman. The dialogue goes as follows:

Perry White: You don’t get to decide what the right thing is.

Clark Kent: When the Planet was founded, it stood for something, Perry.

Perry White: And so could you if it was 1938, but it’s not 1938. WPA ain’t hiring no more. Apples don’t cost a nickel. Not in here, not out there. You drop this thing! Nobody cares about Clark Kent taking on the Batman.

There no longer exists a foundation for morality in today’s age. The age in which Superman was made (1938) no longer exists, hence why Zack Snyder’s Superman carries a dark overtone and is no longer the hopeful, bright, traditional Superman. It is not just Superman that finds himself in another world, but Batman as well.

The Nihilistic Übermensch and Killer of God

A problem that many fans took with Zack Snyder’s Batman is the fact that Snyder violated Batman’s famous “no-kill” rule. Batman traditionally does not kill; however, Snyder’s Batman kills without hesitation. This is due to the hardened nature of Ben Affleck’s Batman, who is a Nietzsche inspired Übermensch that has gone beyond good and evil. We get a glimpse of why Batman is this way when he stares at what is, presumably, Jason Todd’s Robin suit:

For those that are unaware, Jason Todd was a Robin who was beat to death with a crowbar by the Joker. In the comic book storyline, “A Death in the Family” we see Batman come the closest he ever has been to killing the Joker, yet he does not. Zack Snyder wished to push the Batman character to the edge to explore what Nihilism does to a hero and what the Übermensch is capable of.

Alfred Pennyworth gives us a glimpse into this nihilistic change in Batman when he says, “Oh, yes it has, sir. Everything’s changed. Men fall from the sky, the gods hurl thunderbolts, innocents die. That’s how it starts, sir. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men… cruel.” Bruce Wayne, after the death of Jason Todd, feels powerless; therefore, he must transcend his moral tradition, he must go beyond good and evil, he must forge his own purpose and meaning. We see this most bluntly when Batman is dragging Superman on the ground during their battle and says, “bet your parents taught you that you mean something; that you’re here for a reason. My parents taught me a different lesson; dying in the gutter for no reason at all. They taught me that the world only made sense if you forced it to”. In Nietzsche’s world, Batman must carve out his own meaning to defeat his nihilism.

Sadly, what happens when we forfeit the Christian tradition is the death of God and with it, the character death of our heroes. We get a Batman that kills and that wishes to kill God.

See Part Two for an exploration of Superman as a Christ-figure that redeems Bruce Wayne through the “incarnation” and through his sacrificial death.

  1. https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/14/showbiz/zack-snyder-man-of-steel ↩︎
  2. Ibid. ↩︎
  3. Lactantius, De Ira Dei (On the Wrath of God), 1.13. ↩︎
  4. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/zack-snyder-shares-secrets-lost-batman-v-superman-sequels-1287433/ ↩︎

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NF, Mental Health, and Christian Culture

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I, as a fan of NF, was excited for his EP FEAR (2025) that was released a couple of weeks ago; however, I was surprised by its content. NF has…

I, as a fan of NF, was excited for his EP FEAR (2025) that was released a couple of weeks ago; however, I was surprised by its content. NF has always struggled with his mental health, but in his album HOPE (2023), he portrayed himself as overcoming fear. He had found a map to hope, he had finally forgiven his mom in his song “MAMA” (something he could not do in his song “How Could You Leave Us”), and he portrayed himself as joyful and content within his career in the song “MOTTO”. Most importantly he had finally outrun his depression and fear in his song “RUNNING”:

I wish you well, but I can no longer stand aside
And watch you sabotage the two of us
I love you to death, but I can’t spend the rest of my
Life in this darkness, I’m done
I’m done1

To fully understand the significance of NF’s newest EP, we should go back to the beginning. Before he was under the name NF, he had made a Christian rap album titled Moments (2010) under his actual name Nathan Feuerstein. Once he was under the name NF, he stopped being a “Christian rapper” but still leaves traces of his faith throughout all his music. In his song “Mansion” he opened up about the abuse that he faced at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend, discusses his mother’s death, and discusses his loneliness. He also portrays his mind as a mansion, and it is here where fear is introduced into his discography:

Fear came to my house years ago, I let him in
Maybe that’s the problem, ’cause I’ve been dealing with this ever since
I thought that he would leave, but it’s obvious he never did
He must have picked the room and got comfortable and settled in
Now I’m in the position, it’s either sit here and let him win
Or put him back outside where he came from, but I never can
‘Cause in order to do that I’d have to open the doors
Is that me or the fear talking?
I don’t know anymore1

He then went on to compose the song “Therapy Session” where he discusses how music is a gift from God. He says:

Like, this is something that personally helps me as well
I’m not confused about who gave me the gift
God gave me the gift and He gave me the ability to, to do this
And He also gave me this as an outlet
And that’s what music is for me2

NF’s music serves as an outlet for his struggles and even functions as a way to relate to God. In his album Perception (2017), we got a taste of hope for NF as he buried fear in his song “Intro 3”. It is also here where he introduced the keys that reappear throughout his music. In his album The Search (2019), he started the journey of finding hope. In The Search we got hopeful songs such as “Change” and “The Search”, but we also got vulnerable and despairful songs such as “Trauma”, “Hate Myself”, and “Let Me Go”. In the album HOPE, which is mentioned above, he began to produce more positive songs.

In his newest song “FEAR” we learn that fear has been unburied, that NF is struggling again with his OCD, and that NF has relapsed. Referring to the song “RUNNING” he says:

Told the world that I was sick of runnin’, then went back to runnin’, what a joke
Disappointed, yeah, me too, I thought I finally had finally made a breakthrough, guess not3

The Chorus then begins a discussion with God:

Standing back, watching my mansion burn to ash while I
Hold the gas can, asking God if He started this fire
Is this what You wanted? Is this what You wanted?4

NF poses a great question, does God cause the burning of some of our “mansions”? I think sometimes yes. C.S. Lewis thought that his grief over his wife’s death was an opportunity for God to knock down his “mansion”. Lewis writes, “He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.”5 The Apostle James writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3). While James is writing to persecuted Christians, I do think this passage can be applied for all kinds of trials. I think NF even realizes in his song “WASHED UP” that God is at work within his trials:

The Lord knew I needed this to survive the violence
The raw truth, I’m nothin’ without the Father’s guidance6

The “this” he needed to survive the violence is music, and he realizes that without the father’s guidance and gift of music, he would be nothing. One could even say that music is an instrumental cause or tool of sanctification for NF. If he is guided by the Father and the Father is the one who “started the fire” then could the burning of the mansion be something good? Could the burning of the mansion be an act of conforming one’s mind to a new foundation as the Apostle Paul tells us to do? In the music video for “HOPE”, NF, as the hope character, is outside of the mansion but gets pushed back into the mansion by fear. In “Mansion” NF wanted the mansion to be burned down:

Wish I could take a match and burn this whole room to the ground
Matter of fact, I think I’ma burn this room right now
So how this memory for some reason just won’t come down7

In the music video for “WASHED UP” it is not fear who burns the mansion; it is a new grim reaper character. Some fans have theorized this is NF’s anger, death itself, or simply NF. In “FEAR” it is hope who holds the gas can. Who is burning the mansion? Is it God, NF, hope, death, or anger? NF also repeatedly asks if this is what God wants:

Make all my hopes and my dreams come to life just to lay them to rest
Is this what You wanted? Is this what You wanted?
Give me a false sense of peace just to show me what peace really is
Is this what You wanted?8

What is this false sense of peace? I think he provides room for speculation as he ends “WASHED UP” with asking:

Am I on the brink of somethin’ great
Or have I lost it?
Am I on the verge of makin’ waves
Or am I washed up?9

It seems that NF no longer has peace due to his worry that he is washed up. Is NF’s peace in his career or is it in Christ? Ultimately, these questions that I propose will not be answered by me, so I leave them for NF to hopefully answer them in an upcoming album. But I do wish to make two key points about NF’s struggles.

Christian Culture’s Need For REALNESS

Even if NF’s peace is in Christ, that does not mean that he should not be relapsing. Growing up as an NF fan, I remember that some people thought that Christians should not listen to NF due to his music being too depressing. However, his authenticity, honesty, and vulnerability ought to help Christians. One third of the Psalms, which are music, are laments. We find many Psalms such as Psalms 3, 13, 22, 42, and 44 comforting even though they can be perceived as depressing. Psalm 88 is one of the most depressing as it ends with the author saying that darkness is his only friend. Ecclesiastes is known for its depressing character; however, it too is therapeutic. Jesus Himself is authentic and does not hide his emotions from God. Fulfilling Psalm 22 He asks, “my God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The church, as the body of Christ, needs this authenticity and vulnerability!

I think a key aspect to NF’s success is his authenticity and vulnerability; he is REAL and people desire realness. Sadly, the church is not perceived as REAL. A 2024 study found that only 52% of individuals say that they think their church community has no stigma when it comes to mental health.10 This stigma is so prevalent within the church that NF left the Christian music industry because he felt his music did not fit the Christian mold.11 We often have a fear of how we are perceived within our church communities. If one admits that he is struggling, then he may wonder if his church community will shun him. However, David, a man after God’s own heart, never shied away from his struggles; his struggles even became a means of worship for Israel!

We must ask and discuss if the church makes room for questions, doubts, confessions, relapses, mental health, and thematically dark art as God gave us such artistic expressions as a therapeutic outlet. The church ought to be REAL and if the church cultivates this, then we can help those who are relapsing, who are struggling to overcome sin, who struggle with mental health, and who are wrestling with God. We need this because we all fit those descriptions; the question is, are we willing to be vulnerable enough to admit it and discuss it?

  1. NF, featuring Fleurie. “Mansion.” On Mansion, 2015, Capitol CMG, audio. ↩︎
  2. NF. “Therapy Session.” On Therapy Session, track 1, Capitol Christian Music Group, 2016, audio. ↩︎
  3. NF. “FEAR.” On FEAR, NF Real Music, LLC, 2025, audio.  ↩︎
  4. Ibid.  ↩︎
  5. Lewis, C.S. A Grief Observed, New York: HarperCollins, 1961. ↩︎
  6. NF. “WASHED UP.” On FEAR, NF Real Music, LLC, 2025, audio. ↩︎
  7. NF, featuring Fleurie. “Mansion.” On Mansion, 2015, Capitol CMG, audio. ↩︎
  8. NF. “FEAR.” On FEAR, NF Real Music, LLC, 2025, audio.   ↩︎
  9. NF. “WASHED UP.” On FEAR, NF Real Music, LLC, 2025, audio. ↩︎
  10. “New Polling Data Shows Most People of Faith Would Seek Mental Health Care if Recommended by Their Faith Leader”, American Psychiatric Association, September 16, 2024, https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/new-polling-data-shows-most-people-of-faith-would#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C%20D.C.%20%E2%80%94%20A%20survey%20released,condition%2C%E2%80%9D%20said%20Marketa%20M. ↩︎
  11. Justin Sharachik, “NF Gives Definitive Answers on His Faith & Christian Rap Roots”, May 13, 2023, https://rapzilla.com/2023-05-nf-gives-definitive-answers-faith-christian-rap-roots/. ↩︎
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