A Christian worldview analysis of Zootopia 2 explores stereotypes, Imago Dei dignity, responsibility and control in relationships, and what’s worth dying for.

Are You Just Watching?

Episode 169: Zootopia 2

For the full show notes please visit areyoujustwatching.com/169

Share your feedback!

We would like to know, even if just your reactions to the trailer or the topics we shared in this episode. Or what general critical-thinking and entertainment thoughts or questions do you have? Would you like to suggest a movie or TV show for us to give a Christian movie review with critical thinking?

1. Comment on the show notes
2. Call (513) 818-2959 to leave a voicemail
3. Email feedback@AreYouJustWatching.com (audio files welcome)
4. Join our Facebook discussion group.
5. Join our Discord server.

An in-depth dialogue unfolds regarding the Christian themes embedded within Disney's Zootopia 2, as Tim and Eve dissect the film's narrative structure and character interactions that reflect contemporary societal issues. The hosts articulate the film's commitment to addressing themes of diversity and unity while cautioning against the potential pitfalls of unexamined acceptance of its social messages. They delve into the character arcs of Judy and Nick, emphasizing their journey towards mutual understanding and the acceptance of their inherent differences as a source of strength. Furthermore, the podcast scrutinizes the film's portrayal of social justice, urging listeners to consider the implications of such themes through a Christian lens. The conversation also touches upon the necessity of critical engagement with media, particularly for younger audiences who may be influenced by the film's underlying messages. Through this thoughtful examination, Tim and Eve challenge listeners to navigate the complexities of faith and culture, encouraging a discerning approach to the narratives that permeate modern storytelling.

Takeaways:

1. In the sequel Zootopia 2, the narrative evolves to explore themes of unity through cooperation, transcending the limitations of stereotypical character portrayals.
2. The complex relationship dynamic between Judy and Nick unfolds further, revealing deeper layers of character development and thematic significance.
3. Disney's approach in Zootopia 2 reflects their engagement with contemporary social issues, prompting critical reflection on the implications of such narratives.
4. The film encapsulates the notion that differences among individuals can serve to enhance collective strength, as articulated by the character Nick in a pivotal dialogue.
5. Listeners should be aware that Zootopia 2 contains adult themes that may necessitate parental guidance when viewed by younger audiences.
6. The overarching message of the film emphasizes the importance of understanding and accepting differences, albeit within a framework that challenges viewers to discern underlying social agendas.

A kids movie sequel casts off the old skin of stereotypes and slithers into a deeper discussion of unity through cooperation.

Are you just watching episode 169, Zootopia 2?

Welcome to the podcast that shares critical thinking for the entertained Christian.

I'm Eve Franklin.

I'm Tim Martin.

And I think we've kind of started just doing kids movies for January.

I think if we look back like the last couple of years.

Totally coincident.

Well, you know, probably not totally coincidence.

It's probably December is a good time for kids movies.

Yeah.

Because, you know, kids are on Christmas break and they want to get families into theater.

So.

Yeah, I guess that would make sense from a marketing standpoint.

Yeah.

And Zootopia actually came out in November, but in January it's still in theaters, so it must be doing really well.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It was in theaters for well over a month.

Hopefully our listeners have actually watched it so they know what we're talking about.

But even if you haven't seen Zootopia 2, if you've seen the first Zootopia, then a lot of what we're going to talk about would still somewhat apply because they're very similar movies.

I did look it up and it is projected to hit streaming in March, so not that far away.

No, I think they're almost going straight from the theater to streaming these days.

So they'll keep it in the theater.

Used to be they left you hanging for a few months and then you'd go, I really want to see it.

Go get it on DVD as soon as it came out.

So don't want to spend a ton of time on first impressions because I'm really excited about some of our themes on this movie.

But.

But I do want to say I did really appreciate the further character development that went on between Judy and Nick in this movie.

Lots of things to discuss about that.

So we'll get that more into thematically.

And, you know, I think somehow though, Disney has gotten so woke that they just assume that you will just jump on board with their social agendas in their movies these days.

I think it's really easy to overlook the propaganda.

And Zootopia too, it's there if you want to harp on it.

But I think there's different ways you can look at the themes because they're animals, not people.

So it makes it a little easier to maybe to branch out with your analogies to go a little further afield than what they're intending you to do.

So it's easy to stereotype when you're Hiding behind the facade of animals a la George Orwell on Animal Farm.

Yeah.

Which I understand angel is coming out with a new version of Animal Farm in which they completely flip flop the actual premise of the story and make capitalism bad and socialism good.

Which is quite laughable.

The Angels doing that.

Okay.

The other interesting thing that I think comes out of both of the movies, both Zootopia, the first movie, now the sequel, is that they tend to make their villains, you know, a little different.

You know, it's like it's.

In order to keep the, I guess, the suspense going, they choose an animal that you would not suspect.

Like in the first movie, the true villain is a lamb.

And in this movie, the animal you think is going to be the villain is a snake.

And it turns out the snake was framed and wasn't actually the villain.

So they do a lot of turning, you know, your natural ideas of what animal would be bad on its ear.

So by the time they get to the fourth movie, the villain is going to be a red herring.

Literally.

Yeah.

You know, one of the last things I want to say about it from my point of view and to keep us moving quickly through this.

Is that I really appreciate kids movies that have a layer of complexity that's there just for adults.

And this movie definitely has that.

Almost to the point where I would actually be careful about taking some kids to see this movie.

Because there are some adult themes in here that while they're glossed over with a lot of fun animation and crazy scenes and all that kind of stuff, you know, some of the themes in here are very adult.

So I imagine most of the kids will miss them.

It'll go over their head.

But we have a generation of children these days that are exposed to a lot of stuff.

And I don't think they're quite immature enough to miss some of the stuff that's going on in this movie anyway, be warned.

Yeah, agreed.

The last thing I want to talk about, obviously, is.

My favorite thing to talk about is the music.

And I'm going to attempt to say this guy's name correctly this time.

The music is by Michael Giacchino.

Good job.

And I thought it was actually a really good score.

Because every scene, especially like when they're going to like different parts of Zootopia where it's like different kinds of animals and a different feel.

The music matches the feel of the.

Part of Zootopia they're in.

And so it really ties the whole movie together.

And then it's kind of got this real jazzy feel.

For when Judy and Nick are on their escapades.

So yeah, there's like a banjo in the marsh.

And then when there's these like mountain.

Goats in one section, they.

They got like the Swiss sounding music.

So it really ties everything together.

And I thought it was really good.

And in honor of that, I will.

Play just a smidgen of it so.

You guys can hear a little bit of the score.

Well, Tim, what did you think?

I did enjoy it.

And I went to ask my daughter and grandkids about it and they said Zootopia.

You mean Zootropolis?

And I was like, no, it's Zootopia.

I was surprised to find out that it's actually got different names in different countries.

Really?

In England, Zootopia is a copywritten name for a zoo.

Oh.

So they couldn't use Zootopia there.

In Germany, I think they called it Zoomania too.

And there was a specific French word for French.

And I'm not even going to try and say that one.

That's weird because Zootopia is a play on Utopia.

And it's supposed to be like the perfect place, you know, which is what utopia is.

That's kind of.

Kind of loses its meaning when you have to change that.

Yeah.

It drops off the implied perfection.

Right.

I eat movies like Zootopia up because they're all about the puns.

Yeah.

I love puns.

And of course, it's a Disney movie, so there are Easter eggs everywhere.

I love the hungry Hippos one.

That was so cute.

That one had me laughing out loud.

Yeah.

The chase scene through the kitchen where the snake knocks the chef hat off of one of the cooks.

And there's a rat standing on his head pulling his hair back in the first movie.

And I think the weasel did it in this one too, when they went to talk to him.

He's selling bootleg DVDs of movies that haven't even been released yet.

And they're all takes on Disney movies.

Punish takes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like you.

I wouldn't recommend this movie for younger children.

Maybe very young children, six or less.

Yeah.

But there's going to be that age in there where you know they're going to want to ask questions.

They're old enough to understand things you don't want them to understand.

Exactly.

So if you do, be prepared to answer those questions.

Yeah.

But there was a lot of good humor in it for adults to grab onto.

I was a little unhappy with the amount of subconscious elements that played into the Disney social agenda, I guess.

Yeah.

The one scene that bugged me the.

The most was.

The sheep shearing.

I think it was during it.

Yeah.

It was during a car chase.

And they.

They take the camera inside a.

A sheep's barber shop and the barber is working and they get flooded with wool or something like that, and the sheep comes out wearing his wool in a tutu and a bikini.

Bikini top.

Yeah.

And then one of the other customers says, I want what he's got.

And then that sheep shows up later in the movie when Nick is giving his dialogue about embracing our differences, accepting everybody's differences.

Yeah, yeah.

So it wasn't the outright statement that we've gotten in a number of Disney movies, but it's still enough to plant the seed in young minds.

So parents should watch it with their kids and be ready to discuss that kind of thing.

Yeah.

The main message of the movie is very much an expansion, a sequel of the first movie's message.

And even though it's a good message, I feel like Zootopia 2 leaned a bit more into the LGBTQ TIA, BC DEF elementop oriented visuals.

Yeah.

But I understand, you know, that's the way they see the world.

And they see it.

Yeah.

Not as a hostile environment necessarily, but as an environment where they need to get their viewpoint out and we have to face it that they won't be able to see it in truth until they have found truth.

So, yeah, I really enjoyed it, especially the puns and the Easter eggs.

But it's got the caveat, be ready to discuss the elements that.

That may not fit your worldview.

Yeah, yeah.

They squeeze them in quite quickly in some places.

And the general theme is definitely applicable to that general idea from a social justice standpoint.

But I like to think of the theme in different ways, and I think that that is where our first theme discussion is going to lead us, is to talking about the theme they were trying to get across from a point of view or a worldview that is completely different from theirs.

And the theme is a good theme, but it's sort of contaminated by the socially progressive worldview that Disney is.

Is presenting in more and more of its mov.

The theme is about living with and working with people's differences.

One of the two main characters, the Fox character, Nick Wilde, has a dialogue, a voiceover monologue at the end of the movie where he says, there's a lot of different animals out there.

And sometimes we start to look at all the little reasons that we're not the same and it makes us worry, but maybe if we just talk to each other if we try to understand one another, we would see that our differences don't really make make any difference at all.

Maybe we even see that what makes me, me and you, you can make us even stronger.

And that really sums up the whole relationship arc of Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde.

Through Zootopia 2, they're learning to lean into their strengths and lean on their partner for their weaknesses.

But Zootopia 2, Disney, in general.

They.

Want you to think of it as accepting people's differences, which is not the same as accepting people for who they are.

And for me, that comes down to that line that Nick uses.

But maybe if we just talk to each other, if we try to understand one another, we would see that our differences don't really make any difference at all.

And that's really what it comes down to.

So this is true in every sense of the word.

But it should not happen without a discerning attitude.

Right.

We don't have to accept people's sinful behavior to accept them.

People themselves.

Yes, to accept them.

And we should not lose the ability to identify sinful behavior, not because we need to point it out, but because we are responsible to help spiritually guide those around us, be they Christians or not.

And there are churches out there that believe hellfire and damnation is the way to go, but that is not the image that Jesus tells us to portray.

Yeah, there is a time for righteous anger, but not always.

There's a season for everything, right?

Yeah, but the point is, is that everyone, be they socially progressive, staunchly conservative, Christian nationalists, white supremacist, they're all made in the image of God.

And while we cannot accept their positions as valid, we have to remember that they are still deserving of the respect and honor that that label imagy O Day gives.

And we cannot be proper witnesses to our Lord and Savior if we do not start from a position of respect for who we're talking to.

Yeah.

At least that's my position.

Yeah.

I think of people like Ray Comfort, who makes me uncomfortable with his style, but he makes it work really well.

Yeah, I couldn't do it.

Yeah.

It takes a certain kind of person to do the kind of witnessing that Ray Comfort does.

And I think it's a gift.

Like Andrew Rapaport, who is the president of the Christian podcast community.

He has this thing where give me a topic and I will turn it, any topic, whatever it is, and I will turn it, in a very short time, turn it into the gospel.

And I think that's a gift.

I know we can train ourselves to do that.

It's a gift as well.

And I think being able to point people to Christ using any topic is a pretty amazing thing to learn how to do, because it means that any conversation you get in with anybody will give you the opportunity to lead them to the Lord.

And.

But leading them to the Lord is only part of it.

They have to recognize that they're sinners and repent because there is no belief without that necessary step of repentance.

And the world sees that as judgment.

Like, you're judging me because of this, or I have a right to be who I want to be and be happy and all of that.

But the Christian worldview is always going to be different.

And that we see you.

We see you as we are a lost sinner who needs the grace of God.

And that should be our priority whenever we're dealing with somebody, because we want everyone to be saved, even the most hated person, the person that we despise the most.

We should still love them, as Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, even.

As it heaps hot coals on their head.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's really hard to do, especially in social interactions, on social media, because social media is.

There's so many people who feel empowered by being behind a screen and a keyboard.

The anonymity of it.

There's just something about not having to look somebody in their eyes and talk to them one on one that allows them to be extraordinarily hateful.

And that goes for every side.

Even Christians do it.

I've seen so many Christians be horrifically hateful.

And they're always doing it in the name of Jesus.

You know, it's like, no, don't be hateful in the name of Jesus.

But yeah, that is not Jesus.

Like, no, you mentioned Andrew.

And one of the things that he and Ray comfort both do well, remind me of a particular scripture, 1st Peter 3, 13, 15. Who then will harm you if you are devoted to what is good, but even if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed.

Do not fear them or be intimidated, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is within you.

And that's something that I've always struggled with when you.

You want them to like you.

Yeah, I. I don't want to offend them, but yeah.

So one of the things we've talked before about how movies lean on stereotypes, right?

Because it's a storytelling shorthand.

It gives you one or more dimensions of a character without having to do this exposition dump.

But when you look at it in the societal lens that I feel like we're leaning into more today than we have in the past.

And you know, that may just be my perspective, but we're looking at it in a tribalistic nature.

And, you know, people are gathering together in groups of idealists, people who have all one idea.

And unfortunately, when you gather together with like minded people, not only does it create the echo chamber that we've warned against so many times, but it encourages the members to view people with other ideas as enemy.

Right, us versus them.

Yeah, suspicion or, you know, something like that.

And when in real life we use stereotypes as a social shortcut, it leads us to discrimination even when we don't think that we are bigoted or discriminatory.

For instance, I live in Norfolk, Virginia and I live in an area where it is lower income and almost every family around me is black.

And many of them have social problems, marital problems, you know, children by multiple fathers, stuff like that.

So it's easy to fall into that stereotype for me when I see a new neighbor or something like that.

But if I don't stop to talk to them, then I'm being just as guilty as everyone that I point at and say, don't do that.

Because we really need to get to know the people.

We can use the stereotypes to inform our conversations in as much as use it as a springboard to ask questions.

So how are you doing?

What problems are you facing?

Stuff like that.

Yeah.

And Zootopia really played into the stereotypes quite a bit.

A little uncomfortably for me.

It presented this area of Outkast called Marsh Market.

And it was very much a Deep South, Cajun, Appalachian vibe.

The walruses communicated all with one word.

Hey Bob.

Hey, Bob.

Hey Bob.

Hey Bob.

Just doing it differently.

Making them seem very dim witted.

Right.

And they never, they never presented evidence that they weren't.

But we should not allow this movie and movies like this to drive how we interact with people, except by taking this lesson and remembering that every person is made in the image of God and worthy of getting to know.

Yeah.

I was at a convention one year with a good friend of mine who's a Pentecostal pastor and a theology professor, now emeritus.

But we went to a booth and I was looking at some of the stuff and the man tending the booth was trans, I guess, cross dressing.

I don't know if they're the same thing.

They Aren't.

Yeah.

Crossdressers typically are not trying to pass as the other.

They're, like, doing the stereotype just like furries do.

Okay.

Yeah.

Cross dressers are men who are just dressing as women where trans typically are.

Attempting to actually pass as the other gender.

He was borderline enough that I still don't think I know, but that's regardless.

Yeah.

He was wearing nail polish that I thought was a particularly nice color, so I complimented him on the nail polish.

And my friend Jim, it said something along the lines of, you continue to surprise me.

I was like, what?

But, you know, that was one of those cases where I actually had the presence of mind to be Christlike and treat them respectfully.

I'm afraid that's the exception, not the rule.

Yeah.

We're not all perfect.

We're all striving to be.

And that's sanctification.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

The whole process, which I think leads really well into, like, the tag end of this from a Christian worldview.

One of the things that I thought was very interesting was the oversharing that goes on between Nick and Judy.

I like that scene at the end where they suddenly come clean with, you know, the.

The way they feel about each other and their own shortcomings in the relationship.

And I was thinking about that is like, that was the movie's kind of way of showing these are how they're different, but yet they complement each other because they're different.

And I was thinking this.

The oversharing is kind of a little bit like how Christians are supposed to interact, because the Bible tells us that we're supposed to confess to each other our sins.

You know, it's not so much that we're seeking redemption from each other.

Like in the Catholic Church, where you confess your sins to a priest and the priest then absolves you of them.

We're not seeking to be absolved of our sins, but we're seeking to, I guess, be more open and transparent with fellow believers about the things we struggle with so that we can share together in that need for redemption.

Yeah, we all fall short and.

Well, that's actually the first scripture I have listed, so.

Yeah.

You want to read it?

Yeah.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.

And that's James 5:16.

And, you know, it ties well into Ephesians 4:29, because when we confess our sins to one another, we find out that people are struggling with the same secret sins that we are.

Yeah, yeah.

So Ephesians 4:29 says, no foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need so that it gives grace to those who hear.

And that confession, even when you are talking about what you struggle the most with, is giving grace to those who hear you.

Yeah.

And it's one of the reasons that testimonies are so critical and powerful.

There was one last one that I wanted to touch on, just because it speaks so much to how we should not be embracing these stereotypes.

For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in, if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, sit here in a good place and yet say to the poor person, stand over there or sit here on the floor by my footstool.

Haven't you made distinctions among yourself and become judges with evil thoughts?

And then into 8 and 9.

Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

Yeah.

And this same thing happens when we use stereotypes to inform our response to people we have no experience with.

Yeah, yeah.

Before we go on with our theme discussion, I do want to remind you how you can support our podcast.

And I know probably most of you skip over this, but it's the prerequisite of doing a podcast.

You know, you got to throw this stuff in here.

So first of all, I'd like to thank our patrons, Isaiah Santiano, Craig Hardy, Stephen Brown II and David Lefton, who give to us monthly, and we really appreciate their support.

You can also support our Critical thinking podcast by going to are you just watching.com patreon or patreon.com are you just watching?

And consider giving us a small monthly gift.

If you give $5 or more, you get mentioned in every podcast episode that you support.

If you want to share feedback with us, you can do so by commenting on the show notes for this episode, which will be at are you just watching.com 169.

We'd love to hear from you.

You can also email feedback@ryoujustwatching.com and if you should care to do your own review of a movie, you could actually record audio and send it to us.

I know I don't mention that every time, but it's something I'd really love our listeners to do so that we could.

It would be cool.

Other voices in our episodes.

You can also join our Facebook discussion group at are you just watching.com community.

That's a direct link to the group that you have to request to join.

But if you follow all the rules to join, I'll let you in.

And also you can join us on Discord, which is you can get to by going to are you just watching.com discord.

And that is a invite to our server.

And we actually record our episodes live in our server.

So if there were people in our server right now, they could be listening in.

So the next thing that I wanted to talk about is kind of more of a bridge between Zootopia and Zootopia 2.

And it's something I mentioned earlier in my initial reactions to the movies.

And that is the way that they create the unexpected villains.

So it's like in the first movie it was a lamb, and in the second movie it wasn't a snake is once again, it's a play off of stereotypes.

It's like we're going to make you think it's the.

The evil looking one, but it's actually the one that you think is innocent and vice versa.

And in this movie especially, they had you thinking that somebody was a good guy who turned out to be not a good guy and turning on all of them.

So there was actually a traitor in this one as well.

But I did want to just briefly talk about snakes and lambs because they are both animals that appear a lot in scripture.

And I just wanted to talk about them a little bit from a biblical standpoint.

It's not necessarily a thematic critique of either of the movies, but it's something that I kind of thought of while we were kind of dreaming up what we were going to talk about.

And I'm going to breeze through this really quickly because if I. I could probably do an entire podcast on this.

So I'm not going to read all the scripture.

I'm just going to give you references on some of the stuff.

Okay.

So dealing with snakes.

Now, if you know me, you know I'm a young Earth creationist.

So one of the most important books of the Bible for my worldview is Genesis and the first 11 chapters of Genesis are also extremely important.

And in Genesis 3 we see the first indication of a snake.

Now it's called a serpent and it's actually a personification of Satan into the animal kingdom.

And so we don't necessarily know that it was a real snake that was in the tree.

It may have just been Satan appearing as a snake, but he's called the serpent in this account from Genesis.

And so in that we see that Satan in the form of a serpent entices Eve to sin, and then Eve entices her husband Adam to sin.

And because of that, God curses the serpent.

And so in Genesis 3:14 it says, so the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal.

You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life.

And and then in the account of the the Israel when they were leaving Egypt, there is this drawn out scene in Numbers where God sent snakes to punish Israel.

And in it, and it was biting them and they were dying.

So these were very lethal vipers that were just one bite and the people were getting very ill and dying.

And then God commanded Moses to make a serpent out of bronze and put it up on a staff.

And anybody who saw it, they were able to be healed from these deadly bites and they wouldn't die.

They were redeemed by looking at the snake on the stick.

And then in John 3:14, 15 later it says that just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

So in this instance the snake actually becomes a picture of what Jesus will be when he gives his life for the world.

So we necessarily think of, because of what Satan did in the Garden of Eden, we think of snakes as being very evil.

In fact, I've, I've seen this in discussions with like VBS's that have snakes sometimes then the Christians will say, how dare you use a snake?

They're evil.

And I was like, snakes are not evil.

There's nothing necessarily evil about them.

That now there are some snakes that are very dangerous and you need to be careful that you can identify the dangerous ones so you, you don't get yourself hurt.

They are one of God's created creatures.

And while the serpent is the symbol of Satan throughout Scripture, that doesn't mean that the snake itself is evil because it's also used as a picture for Christ.

And so it is good to remember that a Couple other things.

With serpents, the first sign of God's power before Pharaoh was turning Aaron's staff into a snake and then back into a snake staff.

I thought it was very interesting when I was kind of doing a quick research of.

Of snakes in the Bible.

Dan, the tribe of Dan, of the children of Israel.

I guess it's when the.

They are given their blessings at the death of Jacob.

I think this is when this was in Genesis 49, it says that Dan shall be a serpent in the way of viper by the path, and he will bite the heels of the horses.

And I thought that was interesting.

I'm not exactly sure.

I'm not studied up on what that means for the tribe of Dan going forward, but they are an interesting tribe.

Well, in my small group, actually, we're going through the Book of Judges, and we just did the passage where the men from Dan are on their way to conquer some more land because they've kind of not conquered their territory, and they steal this idol and the priest from this guy on the way.

And so they do seem to not be, you know, the most reliable tribe.

And then some last references to snakes come from the New Testament.

That will have power over snakes.

Like, they can bite us, and we.

And we won't get sick, and.

And we can tread on them.

And it's kind of more of that second part of the curse where the woman's offspring will.

It will bruise his heel while it bruises its head or something like that.

Crushes.

Crushes his head.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

It's.

Well, that.

It's.

I always read that power over snakes to be the same power of the lion laying down with the lamb, where the snakes would no longer be deadly.

Yeah.

Dependent upon, you know, venom and killing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, you know, it also could be a metaphor for having control over our sin, you know, like, that we've defeated sin.

That would be nice.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that.

Somebody with more scriptural teaching and knowledge can speak to that.

And then when Jesus sent out his disciples, he encouraged them to be wise as serpents, which I thought was very interesting that we don't necessarily think of serpents as being wise.

But look, I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves.

Therefore be shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves.

There's a lot of animals packed into that verse.

It's its own Little zootopia.

Yes.

And then I think the lamb is probably a little bit more obvious.

You know, when we, we talk about scripture.

There's so many really obvious connotations from scripture, but I'm just going to go over some of them really quickly.

The people of Israel, as well as the believers in Christ are often referred to as sheep, sometimes even lost sheep.

I'm not reading any of those, but they're all about the people being referred to as sheep.

And then we have the parable of the lost lamb, you know, where the shepherd leaves the 99 and goes to search for the one that went missing.

So that's a parable that is often talked about.

Actually, it's one of Jesus's more popular parables.

Yeah.

God as the good shepherd, which is everybody's.

Go to Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd.

And then sheep are often the sacrificed animal of choice in the Old Covenant.

So they're always talking about like the pure sheep, the one with no blemish.

And that was what they always had to give.

I mean, not everybody was rich enough to be able to give a pure sheep.

There were substitutes, but the sheep was the better one if you could do it.

Yeah.

And then of course, leading from that, Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God.

He's the fulfillment of the perfect sheep.

He is the perfect sheep.

And that is from John 1:29, Isaiah 53:7, 1st Peter 1:19, and especially many times in Revelation, he's referred to as the Lamb of God.

And then also first Corinthians 5, 7.

And then the last thing that I think of when it comes to sheep in the Bible is false teachers are referred to as wolves pretending to be sheep.

That specifically ties back to God being the good shepherd because the flock is the body of Christ.

Right.

It is.

So wolves pretending to be sheep are fake Christians.

There was one thing I wanted to throw in.

I had always wondered about the shrewd as serpents reference.

Yeah.

And I just looked it up while you were talking about it.

And this summary is AI generated summary from the MacArthur New Testament Commentary, which is 569.99 in logo.

So I'm not buying it for.

But the summary is good.

It says the article discusses the biblical instruction to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves, emphasizing the importance of wisdom and purity in interaction with others.

It highlights the need for discretion, integrity, and the ability to communicate effectively without being abrasive.

Using examples from Jesus and Paul to illustrate these principles, it points out that in many ancient lore, serpents were a symbol of wisdom.

They were considered to be shrewd, smart, cunning, and cautious.

And in that characteristic, at least, Christ tells his disciples to emulate serpents.

I always like diving into the meaning of the words and the exegesis.

Yeah.

And that's really cool because it kind of ties into our previous theme quite a bit as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, I don't want to beat that lamb and snake to death.

It made me think of it because it's like the most obvious animals in scripture are end up being both villains and not villains in these two movies.

I just think it's really interesting, I have to say.

Would that.

Would that be justice?

Oh, my goodness.

I love that one scene in the movie where the bad guy asks the.

The mayor, who's a horse, how many mayors the.

The bunny and the fox had taken out.

And he.

He puts his foot hoof on the ground and he goes, One starts counting.

2.

Counting with a hoof.

Patrick Walburton voices the mayor, Brad Wind Dancer.

And Patrick Walburton is such a hero of mine.

He's a marine vet and just in everything I've seen him, including hosting the mini golf tournament.

Holy moly.

He is just such a joy.

He's on my bucket list of people I'd like to get to meet personally and talk to.

I really appreciated that the mayor had a bit of a redemption in the movie as well.

It's like he's.

He's just the mouthpiece for the bad guy.

And then in the end, he actually becomes mayor and he actually does mayoral things, you know, so he becomes the.

Action hero that he pretended to be.

What?

That he played in the movies that got him elected mayor.

Yeah.

All right, so one of the dialogues that goes on, I think actually more than once, but there is a one specific one that, that we're going to hinge on between Judy and Nick is about things that, you know, that you're willing to give your life for.

And do we want to play act the dialogue?

Sure.

You're Judy.

I'm Nick.

Okay.

Okay.

We have to solve the case, Nick.

I don't care about the case, Judy.

It's not worth dying for.

The world will never be A better place if no one is brave enough to do the right thing.

The world is what it is.

Carrots.

And sometimes being a hero, it just doesn't make a difference.

I think maybe.

Maybe we are too different.

All right, that was a little fun.

Okay, so one of the things I thought about when we were talking about how we were going to thematically divide this up, this movie was the fact that Judy is worth dying for a case, because to her, it's extremely important.

She wants to save the snakes.

I mean, snakes are people, too.

And she wants to save the marsh because it's going to get destroyed by the tundra land expansion, and all of those animals are going to lose their home.

So to her, that is worth dying for, righting wrongs.

But Nick, all he cares about is Judy, and he doesn't want her to die because she's his pack and because she doesn't realize that Nick cares about her.

Because he's not been very vocal about that, actually.

He's just not been very vocal.

But we'll get to that later.

And I got to thinking, it's like Christians, especially in the west, we tend to get caught up in a lot of causes, and the world gets caught up in causes.

The work.

Everybody has a cause nowadays.

It's crazy.

I mean, even this movie is a cause to think, if you think about it.

But we have to think about it from a Christian's worldview.

What is actually worth dying for?

Now, I think Judy's position is admirable because she's putting the.

The needs of others before herself.

She's very concerned about the snake, how it's been framed, and she wants to prove that it wasn't framed.

And she also, you know, really cares about these people that she's met in the marsh and knowing that they are going to lose their home.

And if she doesn't do something, you know, to her, it's worth dying for.

And I think that's admirable.

And so I was.

I just want to kind of work through some of this thought process that I have.

So what is worth dying for in our world?

And how does that apply to how Christians interact with the world?

Because I see a lot of us as Christians, as a Christian, speaking dying metaphorically on some of these hills, especially in social media, which we've already talked about, it's really easy to be a keyboard warrior because you're not face to face with people.

You're not having these deep discussions.

You're othering people based on what side they're on.

Right.

The first one I came up with is politics.

So this is something I will tell you that as a Christian in the US I feel very patriotic and I want to be involved in politics.

And I have to remind myself whenever I want to start arguing politics on social media that this is not a hill that Christians are supposed to die on.

In fact, if you look in Scripture, the things that are talked about about government is all about how we're supposed to be subject to it and obey it.

Right.

All of those passages, you can look them up on your own time, because I'm not going to read them all.

But they're all about submitting to the authority of the government because God gave us the government.

We've actually harped on this several times in other episodes.

Yes.

It's a common theme.

Yes.

And then in Acts 5.

29, when Peter and the apostles are brought before the governing body of the Israelites at the time, and they are ordered to not speak of Jesus, then they reply, we must obey God rather than people.

So there is this tension between obeying the government, and at the same time, we put our trust and faith and obedience to God above our obedience to government.

So there is a tension there where if we're ordered by the government not to be Christians, to not speak the name of Christ, then we have to disobey.

But in every other instance, we are supposed to be obedient to our governing authorities.

So when it comes to politics, there is a slight tension here in the west because we live in democracies and we actually have a say in our government.

And so I think it is important, and I think we've.

If you've ever checked out the Christian podcast communities, theology throwdown, we deal with this topic more than once in some of our back episodes.

But as good Christians, we should be involved in politics.

We should let, I guess, our trust and faith in God and our Christian morals and worldview have a say in the way we vote.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that we should be disobedient or obstructive to what government needs to do.

And so there's a tension there.

Yeah, it's a fine line that maintaining your civic duty while maintaining your Christian witness.

Like witness.

Yeah, yeah.

The next one I have is.

And these are questions.

These are not things I say are worth dying for.

The I'm questioning, are these things worth dying for?

And the next one on the list is social justice.

And that is something that we see people willing to die for right now going on in our country.

You know, people who are standing up for the community they think is in danger and putting their own lives at risk to do it.

And it's hard for me to put myself in their shoes because I believe that what they're doing is wrong.

I think that there's an instance where when you look in Scripture, you know, God wants judges to be fair and impartial.

And he wants Christians not to discriminate.

You just read the passage from James 2, which I also had here, but I didn't actually spell it out.

So I'm glad you read it earlier.

And at the same time, we're told that we're not supposed to be a friend of the world.

So there's this tension.

And we kind of just discussed it in the first topic, you know, where you love the sinner, you care about the sinner, you can have deep discussions with the sinner, but we're not supposed to be friendly with sin.

We're not supposed to support it or condone it or in any way live with it.

It's supposed to be always something that we are against.

And that's called friendship with the world.

Right?

Yeah.

So in James 4:4, it says, you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?

So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God?

Or do you think it's without reason that the Scripture says the Spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely?

So there's this tension between wanting to have deep spiritual conversations with people who need to know the Lord and condoning sin.

And it's super hard.

If you're going to be a social justice warrior, you need to be very careful that you're not standing up for people's sin because that doesn't help them any.

You're going to love them into hell.

I'm sorry, but that's what you're doing.

You can't condone their sin.

Love them by being honest with them, but do it in a way that shares the love of God.

Right.

And their need for redemption.

It's not just that.

I think sometimes we get too hungry.

Need for redemption.

Yeah.

Well, we get too hung up on God is love and we forget that God is just.

And yeah.

So I don't want to beat that to death, but I don't think that social justice is a hill that Christians should be dying on.

On either side.

On either side.

Right.

We should be the compassionate middle ground where, yes, we love you, we want you to know about Christ, but we can't condone what you do, what you stand for.

But we can love you and we can, we want to share the gospel with you.

I mean, that, that should always be our position.

We shouldn't be demonizing them anyway.

Right.

So my final one on my list, and I think this is a no brainer.

Should Christians be willing to die for the sake of the gospel?

I think the answer is obvious, but I want to see where you go with this.

Well, yes, so Christ gave us life for sinners.

But it was mostly Paul goes on and on and on about how we should bear persecution.

And every single one of the apostles died for their faith.

Well, John John died of old age.

John John died of old age, but he was imprisoned.

He was persecuted for his faith.

So for the sake of the gospel, yes, we should be willing to lay down our lives.

In 1st Peter 4, 14, 16, it says, if you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler.

But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in having that name.

Rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

So there's that tension of love and judgment, you know?

Yeah.

God is the perfect judge and the one that we need to fear is him.

Not the people who can kill our bodies, but we need to fear a God, you know, who destroy both soul and body.

So, yeah, anyway, it's a good reminder that there are things worth dying for.

But for Christians, it should always be for the sake of the gospel.

That is what we are called to do.

You reminded me of earlier in Matthew 10, Jesus, he reminds the disciples to not linger where they're not wanted.

Right?

Yeah.

And it Basically means wash your hands of them.

Yeah.

Leave them to their judgment.

Yeah.

There are times where you just have to trust God's sovereignty in dealing with the people who don't seem to be responding well to your witness.

And that then may not be the hill to die on.

Right.

But you have to do your best to try to be open to God's will and test every instinct against the word of God.

Yeah.

I mean, we're not the ones who save people.

Christ is so the.

God didn't give us the burden to forgive people's sins and save them.

That.

That's all on Christ.

We're just supposed to bring them to the foot of the cross and encourage them to lay down their burden of sin, but that it's not on us.

And so that's where the, you know, shaking the.

The dust off to them.

I mean, all we can do is bring them the gospel and if they choose to reject it, that's not on us.

So.

Yeah.

Which, you know, in a way kind of leads into our next topic.

So the.

The last thing that I. I thought of in talking about this movie is something they kind of drive home really hard.

The puns, the puns.

I'm so proud of you.

There are several instances in the movie where they make a comment about the fact that Judy always jumps into the driver's seat when they're going somewhere, and it becomes a trope by the end of the movie.

It's like that she's always in the driver's seat in more ways than one, but she's literally always in the driver's seat.

In fact, there's one point where Nick says, I see you're in the driver's seat again, but this is like a visual reminder of her issue.

She has to be in control all the time.

And I was thinking about that because in a way, their partnership is kind of like a marriage.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's kind of like their give and take and the way they interact with each other, it kind of does feel a little bit like a marriage.

And they act and there's times where they actually pretend to be married as an undercover thing.

So.

Which is really kind of weird when you think of the animal.

They are a fox and a rabbit, which are usually the foxes eating the rabbit.

We need to.

About all the cop dramas, particularly Law and Order comes to mind.

The cops, the partners in those, they act very married too.

So I feel like it's not so much a stereotype as it's a necessity.

You have to Develop this working relationship.

And actually in Zootopia 2, when Judy confesses to her parents that she's having problems with her partner, the first thing her father pipes up with is this quote, the first rule of partnerships.

You can be right or you can be happy.

And that's.

That's actually a neat foreshadowing of the movie.

Well, I was thinking about that from the standpoint of going back to Genesis 3 and the.

The curse on the snake, which we.

I mentioned earlier, when the next curse is the curse on woman.

And that's in Genesis 3:16.

He said to the woman, I will intensify your labor pains and you will bear children with painful effort.

Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.

And a lot of people, the way they interpret that your desire will be for your husband will not be that you love your husband.

It was that your desire is for his authority.

You want to have authority over your husband.

And that seems to make a lot of sense when you see how liberated women behave around men.

And it's personified in.

Or animal fied, since they're animals, not people in this movie.

No.

Zoomorphized.

I don't even know how you would say that.

I don't know.

Yeah, something like that.

Anyway, Judy is always in control of the relationship.

She is always organizing everything.

She's talking over Nick.

She never gives him a chance to get a word in.

When they go to couples, there are partner therapy.

It's actually couples therapy, but she does all the talking.

Couples therapy?

Yeah, it's couples therapy.

She does all the talking.

You know, Nick never says anything.

And then she always takes the lead, leaving Nick silent, passive, and often ignored.

And she doesn't ever really apologize for that level of control and manipulation that she has in their relationship.

Even when they do their oversharing, you know.

Yeah.

And.

And I got.

The thing is, like, most of it, she doesn't even know she's doing it.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, she's just always in control.

And that is honestly the way women behave in our culture today.

And I see it over and over again, even in like, the liberal Christian churches where the women become pastors and lorded over their.

Their flock, you know, and.

And they get upset when people tell them they shouldn't be pastors.

And, you know, like, you know, we're all equal in the sight of God.

And that's true.

There.

There's that verse that we always go back to, you know, there's no Greek nor Jew, nor Greek, nor male, nor female.

We're all equally saved.

There's no difference there.

But God did set boundaries on how women and men should behave together, especially in relationships.

In Titus 2:4 5 it says, in the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not slaves to excessive drinking.

They are to teach what is good so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self controlled, pure workers at home, kind and in submission to their husbands, so that God's word will not be slandered.

And this is also reiterated in other verses.

And they're all about how women are supposed to be submissive and not in control.

We're supposed to submit to the leadership of the men in our lives.

And that doesn't mean that we, we turn into rugs that are walked over because the men are admonished to care for their wives and the women in their lives and laid their lives down for them, like Christ did for the church.

So there's equal responsibility there.

But the responsibility for controlling the relationship is definitely not on the woman.

That is not our duty under Christ.

And it's difficult.

It's a hard pill for us independent women to swallow because we want to be in control.

That's, that's the curse on us for our matron's sin.

And Eve, the other Eve, not me, not that I haven't sinned, don't get me wrong.

The first Eve.

The first Eve, yes, but it's, it's a hard pill to swallow.

But that is, you know, when we see what it does to the relationship between Judy and Nick, that she's always striving to control it and that's a shortfalling on her part.

We have to be cognizant as women that we have to have some self control there, you know, to understand that our desire will be to take that authority and we have to suppress that desire and actively submit.

Not just pretend to submit, but actively submit and do it every day.

It's hard.

I think a husband who does not consider his wife and not quite an equal, but a partner in everything is being foolish because you know, you're made one flesh.

The only time the authority comes up is when there's either a disagreement or it's a matter of faith in the house.

Right, but I don't know where I would be without my wife.

I am convinced that she saved my life on numerous occasions.

And certainly prevented me from doing some very, very stupid things.

So I like to lean into the complementary side of that complementary and relationship.

Right where we both have our skills.

And when you look at Proverbs 31.

You find the definition of a woman.

The definition of not the perfect woman.

There's an actual name for it, but I can't remember it.

But she sounds very much in charge.

And she is in charge of the household and the budget and all of that.

You know, putting away food for the winter and buying clothes and everything that is material.

It's almost a mirror of the role of elders and the role of deacons in the early church.

So I find that for me, it's important.

When you put this theme in our notes.

My thought went to how this was a reflection of their personalities.

And Judy, she even says, I'm a bunny with a hero complex.

But she takes on far more responsibility than she should.

And Nick, even after the whole redemption arc of the first movie for him, he's still shirking his responsibility.

There's a scene where Judy comes to Nick's apartment.

And you see his mailbox on the wall behind them.

And it's got multiple overdue bills sticking out.

So part of the development we see through Zootopia 2.

Is that they realize that they don't need to be everything that they're not.

But they can lean on each other for their strengths.

Nick can lean on Judy's desire to take responsibility without giving up responsibility himself.

And Judy can learn from Nick as far as how to be more relaxed, I guess.

Yeah.

Well, I think it's more flexible.

Yeah.

It would come down to thinking about it from a parallel in our culture today.

Is it would be a lot easier for women to submit to their husbands if their husbands were willing to take charge.

You know, it's like absolutely so many times the men in our culture are scared to be authoritative, to take charge because the women down so much.

You don't want that toxic masculinity.

Yeah.

For me, the issue comes down to responsibility.

And it ties into exactly what you.

What you said.

Men have a responsibility to the family.

And they need to keep up to it.

But everybody has responsibility.

And we need to remember that people bearing their own responsibility is good for them.

Including consequences.

Yeah.

Galatians 6:5 says, Let each person examine his own work.

And then he can take pride in himself alone and not compare himself with someone else.

For each person will have to carry his own load, whereas Judy was trying to carry everybody's load.

There's a number of times Nick says that she's trying to carry all the world's problems on her shoulders.

Oh, and that makes me think of Gary.

The snake said that his mother always told him that he shouldn't try to bear the fate of the world on his shoulders because he doesn't have any.

Nick's personality is the opposite, where he excels in not taking responsibility.

And that reminded me of Matthew 25, 26, and 27, which is the parable of the talents.

One of the servants, instead of taking the money that his master had given him and investing it, buries it in the yard and he returns it to the master when he comes back.

And that's where the scripture starts.

His master replied to him, you evil, lazy servant.

If you knew that I reap where I haven't sown and I gather where I haven't scattered, then you should have deposited my money with the bankers.

And I would give and I would have received my money back with interest when I returned.

We have a responsibility to use the gifts that we are given in a way that glorifies God and builds others up.

Yeah, well, I think that was a pretty fun discussion.

It was kind of deep, really, for such a shallow little movie.

Yeah, I really expected to come out of it without much to talk about, but you know, it touches on a lot of good elements.

And I appreciated Zootopia too.

Yeah, no, I thought it was a really good movie, which is hard for me to say because I'm liking Disney less and less these days, but looking forward to this coming year.

I believe there is the new Avengers movie coming out, so.

And not until summer though, right?

Yeah.

From what I understand is supposed to return everything pretty much back to the end of the last cycle.

So they're basically dumping all of the woke stuff they did over the last two or three years and going back.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Yeah, we'll see.

I don't know, but they've learned that they've pretty much nixed most of their audience with their social agenda in those movies.

So anyway, it'll be interesting to see what that's like with the.

The new Avengers movie coming out.

Who knows, maybe we'll even review it.

We'll see.

Don't know what we're going to do for February.

We'll have to do a quick turnaround on that one because it is a short month.

But hopefully there's something coming out.

That will work, but we'll get something out.

And once again, remind everybody that if you want to help us find a way to get into video for this podcast, please contact us because I would love to pick somebody's brains on that.

Thank you so much for listening.

I'm Eve Franklin.

I'm Kim Martin.

And don't just watch the Christian Podcast Community is a cohesive group of like minded Christian podcasters proclaiming the truths of Christ with expertise and passion in the areas of theology, church history, Christian living, evangelism, apologetics, parenting, homeschooling, sermons, and much, much more.

So check us out@christianpodcastcommunity.org One stop for all your favorite Christian podcasts.

Christianpodcastcommunity.org.