The Readirect Podcast
Interview with Author Jason Kirk: A Deep Dive into "Hell is a World Without You"
Join us as we sit down with debut-author Jason Kirk, whose novel "Hell is a World Without You" paints a visceral portrait of life growing up in the grip of Southern evangelical culture.
Whether or not your story follows a similar path to main-character Isaac's, we think you'll find something to relate to in this novel. Join us as we sit down for an interview with the author!
Prior to February 17, 2024, all proceeds from this book will be donated to the Trevor Project.
Hell is a World Without You:
Rarely has an Evangelical upbringing been depicted with the relentless honesty, wide-ranging empathy, and Superbad-meets-Siddhartha playfulness of HELL IS A WORLD WITHOUT YOU. During the time of Pizza Hut buffets, 9/11, and all-night Mario Kart parties, a grieving teenager faces a mortal crossroads: fire-and-brimstone certainty vs. forbidden love. And whether or not you've ever begged God to delay the Rapture (so you could have time to lose your virginity), that kid's story is about you.
Join us as we sit down with debut-author Jason Kirk, whose novel "Hell is a World Without You" paints a visceral portrait of life growing up in the grip of Southern evangelical culture.
Whether or not your story follows a similar path to main-character Isaac's, we think you'll find something to relate to in this novel. Join us as we sit down for an interview with the author!
Prior to February 17, 2024, all proceeds from this book will be donated to the Trevor Project.
Hell is a World Without You:
Rarely has an Evangelical upbringing been depicted with the relentless honesty, wide-ranging empathy, and Superbad-meets-Siddhartha playfulness of HELL IS A WORLD WITHOUT YOU. During the time of Pizza Hut buffets, 9/11, and all-night Mario Kart parties, a grieving teenager faces a mortal crossroads: fire-and-brimstone certainty vs. forbidden love. And whether or not you've ever begged God to delay the Rapture (so you could have time to lose your virginity), that kid's story is about you.
Welcome to the redirect podcast. My name is Abigail Fultes.
Speaker 2:And I'm Emily Robes. The redirect podcast is a show where we shift the conversation back to books. We discuss themes from some of our favorite books and how those themes show up in real-life experience.
Speaker 1:On today's episode, we interview author Jason Furke to discuss his new novel Hell is a World Without you.
Speaker 2:But first, if you've been enjoying the podcast, we would highly ask that you support us in a few simple ways. First, you can leave us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts and let us know that you love the show.
Speaker 1:And we'd also love for you to follow us on Instagram at our redirect podcast. We love connecting with people on Instagram. And finally, if you really really love the show, it would be really cool if you would share it with a friend. Sharing our show with a friend is the best way to help us grow our community of football clubbing nerds.
Speaker 2:Hey Emily, hey Abigail, how are you?
Speaker 1:Good. Actually, speaking of communities of football clubbing nerds, I didn't tell you this. I went to Texas yesterday, but I was in Trader Joe's yesterday and I was wearing my Basquiat War College sweatshirt and one of the girls who works at Trader Joe's camp to me she was like oh my god, I love your sweatshirt. What are your theories? And we ended up having like a 15 minute conversation.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Fourth wing.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:And I was like, yes, look, I love being a girl.
Speaker 2:I know so fun. I love people who are so willing to just strike up a conversation, like in public, on shared interests. So shout out to that girl, totally yes.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Speaking of shared interests, we have a lot of shared interests. What's with today's interviewee, Jason Kirk?
Speaker 2:Yes, we're excited to talk to him a little few minutes about his book Hell is a World Without you. It follows a young evangelical high school student as he progresses from freshman to senior year, and if you grew up, like we did in the South, in evangelical culture, you will definitely relay a lot to the conversation we're about to have, I think.
Speaker 1:And if you don't and you didn't then still stick around because this is still for you, because it is such a fascinating and like real life look into this weird subculture and there is lots to be gathered from this conversation. We even name the fact that like it's really interesting to sometimes read books about like religions and sex and things that you're not a part of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that could be that for you, or it could be painfully true to life.
Speaker 1:It could be very painfully, but either way it will be hysterical. Yeah, so a little plug for the book before we get into our conversation with Jason.
Speaker 1:Jason's book Hell is a World Without you is available pretty much everywhere books are sold, and if you purchase the book before or by February 17th, I think, is the date that he said all of the proceeds from the book will be donated to the Trevor Project, which, if you don't know, is a nonprofit that helps prevent self-harm among LGBT people, and it's also a nonprofit that helps prevent self-harm among LGBTQ youth, yeah, which obviously is super rad. So we will drop a link on our Instagram and we'd love for you to go purchase the book before that.
Speaker 2:So if you're thinking about buying it, definitely go ahead and do it before that date, so you can be doing good and getting a really interesting book in the process. So anyways, without further ado, without further ado, jason.
Speaker 1:Kirk. Well, welcome to the podcast, jason Kirk. Jason, how's it going? Thanks for joining us, hey y'all Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Happy to be here.
Speaker 1:So, jason, your book has just released, hell is a World Without you. Tell the people a little bit about what's it's about, what's your deal? Who?
Speaker 3:are you. So I was born in Atlanta, raised Southern Baptist and did everything that entails, and then, once I became an adult, got married, went to college, all that stuff, it was like, okay, we've left all that behind, we're done with all that. I don't ever have to think about any of those things ever again. Psych, yeah, exactly, whoops. And then over the past few years, the process of sort of talking about those things on a sports podcast of all things, the shutdown forecast wherever you get allegedly cover college football, but we end up talking about other things just as frequently.
Speaker 3:That process led to a lot of like hearing from people who grew up all around the country who have had similar experiences, weird experiences, nightmare theater and evangelicalism and the insane things we were taught to believe and the bigotry poured into our heads and this sense of self-hatred that was instilled in us and all this stuff.
Speaker 3:And it's like, oh no, I'm thinking about these things because I'm talking about them with people and they're like you're unlocking memories and I'm like, oh no, we're doing a lot of that together, aren't we? And then it just led to a process of sort of like diving back in and realizing like you can't just get rid of that stuff by saying it's gone or saying an amount of time has passed. So, like you know, dove back in, started reading a lot, listening to a lot of religion podcasts and going back to all the old music and everything, just completely dived back into it and around that time started writing a novel and started doing a Bible podcast with my wife, emily. She was raised like borderline, mainline Protestant, so like she kind of had no idea what the rapture is, for instance, whereas I'm like wow Will. Let me tell you.
Speaker 1:And what's the name of that podcast?
Speaker 3:That podcast is the Vacation Bible School podcast. Yeah, it's been really fun because we started it before I realized I hadn't finished my religious deconstruction, so like it takes like a year. And then there's this episode where you like I go back and listen. Now I'm like okay, buddy, there's the anger. All right, that's what we needed to get to, you know. But yeah, it's that. That's that's sort of a summary of the whole process, I think. Yeah, and currently I work as a sports editor for the athletic part of the New York Times company.
Speaker 1:I love it One thing so the in your book the hell is the world without you. The hero is Isaac. Can you tell us a little bit? I mean, we obviously want people to read the book, but tell us a little bit of like Isaac's journey and like who he is. So we start out.
Speaker 3:So the last part is like it's one I've thought about a lot, because and I will answer the first part as well yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So the narrator is. In a sense he's sort of a composite of my experiences that other people also had. Like everything about him is something that I can connect to, not just me. Um, like there's just so many little things where you talk about this insane thing that happened at church and then you find like oh, someone wrote a whole book about it. It's like there's a James Baldwin quote about. Like you think you were the only one, and then you find that Dostoyevsky said something about it a hundred years ago and like that has happened so many times within the past five years or so. So in a sense Isaac is similar to me in a lot of ways, but I want him to feel universal. And if he doesn't feel universal enough, then I want these other characters to as well, because there's just as much of me in all of these other characters, like these young people, a few of the adults Not necessarily. There's a couple of adults I haven't been like in a very long time. Let's say that Some of the church antagonist figures.
Speaker 3:But Isaac is. We start this story. He's 13.9 years old. He wants to emphasize the.9 part because he's starting high school.
Speaker 3:It's a four-year story set in high school. He's a lifelong church kid who's pretty lonely, kind of a slightly weird kid Not the weirdest kid in the world but he wants to join this new church because his big brother works there. His big brother is cool to him. His big brother is the kind of guy that Isaac believes he should be just on fire for what they believe the gospel to be. Very Helen Brimstone guy, very committed, and also he's large, which young boys think large people are very cool. But we get the sense that Isaac has this sort of he's got two things at once the whole time From the very first sentence. We see it where the very first sentence is and I should have it memorized, but it's essentially my dad might have been in hell for six years now and right now I just want to play pick up football which that vibe continues for the far majority of the book, where it's this constant sense of there is a theology that is hounding these kids night and day and they just want to flirt while playing video games.
Speaker 3:At the same time. Both things are completely true, oh my God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I would love to really quickly ask, before we dive into all those other things like obviously you have more of a background in writing, but on the sports side primarily so did you ever see yourself writing a novel and did you ever envision that it would be something like this or kind of? How did that come about for you?
Speaker 3:So I had done creative writing as a younger person, took a few creative writing classes in college Honestly, looking back, wrote a lot of short stories, just never cared about like publishing them or anything, and it sort of always been a hobby in the background. And for like the 2010s, I had a very, very busy job in sports journalism. So like I didn't get to do a whole lot of that and then quarantine hit in 2020, and like sports stopped, so I didn't have a job for a while and it's like huh well, kind of just alone with my thoughts Uh-oh, what's going to happen.
Speaker 3:And fiction is what came out and like I sort of settled on fiction A, because it's a way to make these things feel more universal, like if it's talking about me. It feels like it's just talking about me, but, you know, if there's a way to sort of broaden to like, take it from just like sounding like oh, this is a Southern Baptist thing that Southern Baptist do, to like no, this is an evangelical thing and beyond that, this is a Western Christian thing, you know, and it just felt like a way to have more fun and to say more yeah and to not I don't know just the idea of like writing on fiction, felt like I was giving myself a stage and I'm like, no, yeah, well, I was saying when I first started reading it, I did have to double check for a second because I'm like this is so real and accurate to a life that I experienced that I was like, wait, I thought this was a fiction book.
Speaker 2:Obviously, as it develops I think there's a little more like dramatic elements, but that everyone may not have experienced. But for the most part it does feel so true to life, while still being a really enjoyable fiction book. So I think that definitely comes through.
Speaker 1:It felt so true to life that you're like, wait, is this actually not fiction? Because and this is actually something else I wanted to ask you about is like this book was written from the perspective, really not as like a hater, Like it's easy to just take a really like black and white perspective and be like, oh, this whole thing sucks, Like this. But you know, toward the end of the book Isaac has a moment where he realizes like there, it's not. I can't just be black and white, unfortunately. And like I relate to that so hard because it's like the world that he was brought up in taught him everything was black and white. So the compulsion actually is to just say, oh well, this church and this whole religion is just but and it just sucks and it's only bad. But like that is still just playing into this, like this culture that brought you up, that is wrong. Like there's, it's not all bad, there was good that contributed to his life and that is the most complex and difficult thing to hold.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah it. I think the very, very first version of this was a, was a short story about four or five years ago where it was essentially just 20 pages of like. Look at this insane world. Look at this world where, you know, grown adults shame all the young ladies and make the young men feel bad as well, if not quite as bad, but still very bad and tell everyone that hell is, you know, around the corner at every instant all this terrible stuff and the kids are completely normal kids. They're, they're weird, everyone's weird.
Speaker 3:But like and it was a sense, essentially that version was just a love letter to like my lifelong friends that I met in that world. Like I have friends I met in second grade at Southern Baptist private school. Like, I met my wife via Christian music when we were 19. Like, like, I still hold on to so many people from that world and it's kind of funny, in college I was, like you know, angry.
Speaker 3:Like, know it all hardcore agnostic, right, or like I don't care about any of that stuff and which is relatable and I understand. Like you say, like we are, we are taught that it's one way or the other. So, like, once you take one step outside of church it's like, ok, well, fine, I'm, I'm going over here because you don't want me, and it's the feeling like you feel completely divorced and that it's by design. They tell you what's what's going to happen and they follow through on it, you know. So, like it took a long time to come back around and find like, and it wasn't until, you know, a couple years into writing this book, you know, to realize like hey, I can just kind of like, have my own thing and call it my own thing.
Speaker 3:It doesn't have to be by their definition you know like because saying I can't, I can't keep any of it. That's saying they're right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a never ending journey.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, I think, one thing we actually didn't tell you Emily and I are lifelong best friends who grew up in the same church, so we met at our church preschool, so you know. And now we're here talking about the multifaceted consequences of that like choice, you know. So just to like reemphasize your point in a real way, yeah Well, speaking of being like true to life, one of the things we highlighted, something that Isaac says as he's about to enter high school. He says, turning 14, I prepared to enter the ultimate astrology and condoms war zone, public high school, where men and God had always warned me I'd either get brainwashed by secularism and go to hell or become such a flagrant Christian that I'd get shot, just like Columbine's legendary martyr, and go to heaven. And Emily and I both highlighted this because it's like speaking of universal experiences, like what was that like? Why were we all so obsessed with this girl who was a martyr In Columbine, shooting like yeah, that's wild dude.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there was just so many years of groundwork laid for that reaction to that tragedy and, like that, built up so many of us to view this kid who was shot, to view the fake story about her as if it was what we were all supposed to aspire to. You know, like we were taught that persecution is what the, what we should be experiencing, and if we weren't experiencing it, we weren't hardcore enough. Christians because, well, first century Roman Christians were persecuted, okay, well, we don't live in first century Rome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so we're trying to like reproduce that like we're all like obsessed with finding a way for ourselves to be persecuted in a world, in a country where the dominant culture is our religion.
Speaker 3:Well, like, if you're a Christian in America and you want to be persecuted, okay, go to the border in Texas and defend, defend immigrants. Go to Florida and defend trans kids. If you want to be persecuted, there are easy ways to get it done. But, like, go into, you know, waving your Bible around and yelling at people and then and then crying because they don't want to be yelled at. That's not persecution, that's just you trying to be easiest possible way to get you know, to get yelled at, like we were. Just it was just sunk into our brains that you're only doing it right if everyone's mad at you. But they have to be mad at you for, like, following conservative politics in a conservative country and like that means you're just turning everything into an idea of persecution.
Speaker 3:You know, and yeah, I was homeschooled in middle school Isaac, I don't think Isaac was, but I was. So, like, going into public high school, going from, you know, homeschool to public high school, is like, oh my God, I'm going into the belly of the beast. And after like a year or two, it's like, first of all, half the people here go to church. Secondly, like you know, the non Christians are normal people. We get along fine, you know, like, and that moment was one where it's sort of like I think some adults might have been lying to me. That couldn't be the case, but I think that might have. I really have the feeling that someone lied to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Emily, do you want to share about like on that topic of like, the fear of maybe what we believe isn't real is the greater fear?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think we both highlighted and had a very intense reaction to. There's a point where Isaac is talking about the rapture. I think he's talking with some friends and he says you know, they think it might have happened, and there's the quote that he was 51% afraid that the rapture had happened and 49% afraid that it never will. And we we both really resonated with that of like you're simultaneously terrified that this thing has happened that sounds really scary but also maybe even more scared, or at least equally scared, that you might be wrong and it might never happen. So can you talk a little more about that? That line? It was just really back to the I had to like take a breather.
Speaker 2:I know it's like oh wow, that sums it up perfectly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were. I mean, we were raised to view doubt as like the ultimate sin, you know, and like we were raised to view whenever you have a question or you think someone has gotten an interpretation wrong. Like we were, we were handed all these mechanisms in our head. We were pre programmed to combat that stuff, right, and we were taught that anything that says the pastor is wrong, well, that's Satan and it was just. It was this series of traps in our brains that, you know, just designed to keep us on course. So, yeah, the fear that I might not believe this is like that's like the scariest thing, right, like that's that's scarier than Because what was all of this for?
Speaker 3:There's that, yeah, and there's also like, if it's real and I'm wrong, but I'm not capable of believing it. Like it, like so much of Western Christianity, is about affirming the creeds and about affirming that you think these statements are true. And like this obsession with, like the Gospel of John, so much about belief rather than other parts of the New Testament that are about other verbs, but like so much of it is about do you believe this? Do you affirm this? Do you say this out loud? Do you think this opinion is correct? Do you think this thing about Jesus's identity is accurate?
Speaker 3:And it's like, well, what if I don't? What if I can't? Right, that's the scariest thing of all. What if I'm not capable of believing that a virgin gave birth? What if I'm physically never going to be capable of thinking that was true? Then what? I'm just, I'm just hopeless. I'm just. You know what if I would, if I'm not capable of believing that there will come a day when every Christian who fits a certain profile will evaporate or whatever, and then the antichrist will take over? What if that sounds completely fake? I'm just doomed, you know so, yeah, because you don't.
Speaker 1:It's like this House of Cards, because it's it's. Every belief is dependent on the other. It's so fragile and it were made to believe that this is we're on a solid rock and like this is you know. But if, if your faith is so contingent on individual pieces of theology or like certain interpretations of scripture, like that is creates a lot of fear, and I think you actually, that is actually something that's born of insecurity. When you can't, like, if you can't abide an ounce of doubt which also, like doubt is necessary for faith, but like if you can't abide a moment of doubt, then you're going to lean really, really hard into the fear and like the voices that are screaming really loud about I'm right, I'm right, I'm right.
Speaker 3:The so Isaac's brother, eli, his like, his certainty and all that is like just naked insecurity, just like, and like. There are times when it feels like he knows it, that just like he is clinging to this, the only way for him to redeem himself from what he views as a like eternal betrayal of God he did when he was 17 years old, the only way to atone for that is to become the maximum caricature of a fire and brimstone lunatic. And the pastor overseeing all of this is, to me, I don't know how else you would be a pastor who preaches hell, unless you were terrified that there will be consequences for you if you don't. You know, like. So for the pastor, for me he's completely defined by fear. A bit of pride once this church starts growing, in attendance, sure, but like, ultimately, even the pride is just an inversion of his fear because like, like, if he spent all these years like he spent about 10 years being frustrated by like the church isn't growing, and then, all of a sudden, it is like, that feels great, it feels awesome. God must like me. Now I must be doing something right.
Speaker 3:And like what? What is it that drove these people in it's like? Well, he's saying a bunch of angry political stuff that they really like because 911 just happened. So ultimately they're not even responding to like the gospel of Jesus. They're responding to this like angry right wing telling them what they want to hear politics. But for him it's all the same. He's getting people in the building and they're hearing, quote, unquote, the gospel. But yeah, I just tried to show that like it's a series of systems and these things propagate themselves. These adults make children who become adults, who make more children, who who propagate the same fear. And it's a house of cards. It's exactly what you said house of cards based on theology. Like it's not evangelicals, it's not Republicans, it's this entire wing of theology that says you must agree with this or God will hate you forever. That's it. That's it. Nothing changes until that changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of going back to like the book as a whole, I we were kind of talking a little bit before you got on, of like I wish we could read this through the eyes of someone who didn't grow up this way, because it seems kind of crazy. But then it's like well, I experienced most of these things, you know in some degree. So do you have any kind of like thoughts or vision of when you're writing this, like how it might appeal to both the audiences who grew up this way, like us were like this is normal, and versus someone who either grew up, like you said, maybe more mainline, or completely not in church at all, how they might take a book like this as well? Like did you have any thoughts about those different audience?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that was that and the pacing were probably the two battles I thought about the most because like the pacing, just because like a lot going on in a four-year story.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We got to cram a lot but the making a world that both feels, completely no punches pulled, authentic to anyone who grew up in it, like, if not by the end of page one, if I don't, if I haven't convinced you that I was there, then it's, then then it's not gonna work and like, yeah, we got.
Speaker 3:Like we got a knockoff Christian t-shirt on page one, page like two, someone's making a joke about boys and pressing girls by carrying folding chairs like I'm like, oh my god, it was so specific that I was like oh, he was there, yes, yes so it's like there was a thing on Twitter where it was like I was challenging people, like hey, give me an evangelical reference, I'll tell you which page it's on and someone was like these specific words. I see that hand, like page 16 it's an easy.
Speaker 3:The first chapter is just packed with that stuff. But at the same time, people who weren't there, I have to walk them in and I just treated it as like world building. I treated it like I looked at sci-fi novels and I was like, how do they get you up to speed on? You know, by page four it's like, okay, well, people here breathe purple air or whatever you know. Like how do I, how do I get you up to speed? And translate, and like sci-fi novels, fantasy novels, like all of chapter two is basically like listen, here's how everything works. I'm gonna explain it. I'm gonna use a lot of jokes, you know, and like and and all that, but it's, it's totally just fantasy novel.
Speaker 1:World-building chapter two such an interesting way to put it because, yes, like you kind of have to build that up for somebody who doesn't understand.
Speaker 1:I think one of one of those details I highlighted was at one point Isaac's mom is interrupted in the kitchen reading a Christian frontiersman romance novel, which is something that Emily and I have talked about like in detail.
Speaker 1:We had an episode that was called the books that built us and one of them was all about like these, like Amish Christian books anyway, okay, so kind of bringing it a little bit more dark. One of the kind of characters it's not really a character in this book is actually Isaac's inner voice, which he's like is this God, is you know the Holy Spirit, or is it like a demon? Like, and it's telling him, yeah, but your dad's burning in hell, you know, or you can't be attracted to Sarah Beth, or else, like you're just, you know she's not your wife, I can't get her aim handle without knowing, like, if she's gonna be a Christian or I'll be an equally yoked and oh, I think a lot of people, so I think a lot of people who get that, get it, but for people who don't, do you want to share a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:so that device? It came about because, like you, mentioned House of Cards as a metaphor, which is very like, very, very fitting, like the first version of that device, the thing that's essentially Isaac's fully formed set of beliefs that slowly shift throughout the course of the story. Originally I had a Jenga Tower that was falling apart as, like he would question this belief and he would see someone mistreated, whatever. And the Jenga Tower is falling apart, eventually turned into something that could fight back, so it's just screaming at him the whole time so he could have a little debate with it going and, like I started doing that, I was like this is really weird, are people gonna follow this? And I played this video game called disco Elysium that has like dozens of voices inside of characters head. So I was like okay, too is fine, they can handle too, especially because one of them is the bold in all caps. They can, they're easy to distinguish.
Speaker 3:But then I was talking, like after the book came out. I was talking to my wife and she read this psychology book about how, like that's how brains actually work. Like they actually are sets of voices that are arguing with each other and all of them are trying to protect us, some of them very misguidedly, right like and ultimately, this voice that's like screaming at Isaac like don't do that or your go to hell. That voice is very sincerely trying to keep the kid from. It believes going to hell. Like that voice believes it is looking out for Isaac and it's it's. It's this process of he has to negotiate a way the way around his own brain.
Speaker 3:But like they're really interesting and fascinating thing and thing I you know I had no idea how it would land, but like people who didn't grow up in that world, they find it relatable because ultimately, like everyone has haters in our own head, you know, like everyone has doubt and shame that we shouldn't have and regret, and like everyone has a voice telling us like, don't even try, you're gonna fail. Like we all have that stuff. Some of us it was designed by religion, some of us it was amplified by religion. But it's been fascinating that everyone has found all of it relatable in one way or another.
Speaker 1:I don't know, because it's just about people yeah, and it's confusing when, like, everyone has a voice and some people think it's the voice of God and that's yeah oh man, that's hard um, I just want to.
Speaker 2:I don't want to spoil like the whole ending, but I guess, if you can vaguely talk about, the ending you would never guess like, how did you, did you start out knowing kind of where it was leading to, or did that come about through the process of writing the book?
Speaker 3:yeah, so the climactic moment which, like I, it doesn't feel at all a spoiler to me, to say the stories about Isaac versus Eli in a lot of ways. Ultimately, they are pitted against each other for the fate of their father's soul. Like to me, that's the internal conflict of the whole thing. And over and over and over and over throughout the book, eli and others are constantly telling Isaac like you are going to have to make a choice. You, like it is going to come down to, will you stand up for everyone or will you go along with this? Like you know, simple certainty. And it comes down to a heated moment between Isaac and Eli. And I had that moment.
Speaker 3:That exact moment was the first thing I wrote. It was the starting point for everything. And then I wrote backward because ultimately, that moment was a spin-off of the real life moment that inspired the writing of this, like a moment when a middle school or a youth group, a bunch of men, came into our church and started waving around guns because they were doing the persecution fantasy thing. They were saying are you tough enough to, you know, be brave despite all this and and remain Christian? And you know, it was revealed to be a skit. But in my mind I'm like, okay, what if there's a kid there who goes along with it, who's who gets so scared that he's like I deny Christ, I die, christ, don't shoot me.
Speaker 3:What happens to that kid? What happens to that kid ten years later when he's like I was the coward who let down my entire, all my friends, who denied Christ, who's probably damned himself when I was 17? How hard is that kind of kid gonna go to undo that mistake that kids delight? And so that moment was what I was always writing toward the ending after that, when ultimately it comes down to like Isaac and one of his best friends, who he has like a very strong kinship with. But they also have this what appears to be infinite gulf between them because of things they've been taught about religion, and it comes down to essentially do they love themselves enough to love each other and for like for both of them? In a lot of ways, they have to throw aside a lot of the things that have been crammed into their heads, which is a lot to ask of 18 year olds. But yeah, that's that.
Speaker 1:Those are sort of the two to me, sort of the two main concepts about the entire thing so before we hopped on the call you mentioned, you started getting some bash like over backlash, over the title. Can you tell? Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely yeah. The um. It's funny, looking back, the journey of the title sort of mirrors the journey of the writing and the journey of the protagonist. Like the very first version I called it youth group and it's like that's literally what's about. About youth group, no deep feelings here. It's about these, about these people who just did stuff. What's the pick, what's the problem? And then it was like, alright, let's, let's, let's jazz it up a little bit. Dirtbag, church kids, that's pretty good. Right, these are the misfits, right, it's a funny book, that's what we're doing here. And then started to dig into feelings.
Speaker 3:Oh, at one point it was called save yourself from hell, which was a play on a Christian metal bands album. That was kind of like I don't know if these guys believe they're going to have it was like a very dark album. And then it was like hell is only a word from it. I'm wearing an event horizon shirt right now, which is very funny. Hell is only a word, a quote from that movie, and there's a bunch of other hell stuff.
Speaker 3:And then I landed on this one because it was a combination of all that hell stuff the, the band, me without you, a like Christian band with a lot of doubts. Christian rock band, that doesn't suck at all. And the Tolkien phrase here with you at the end of all things, like those things sort of combined it at the title and it was like alright, I like that title a lot, but I know people are gonna yell about it because, like, it doesn't say hell is a world without God, it says hell is a world without you. Who's you people gonna yell at me what? What does you mean? Well, by the book and find out. But like, yeah, over the past few days, as like it's, it's, it's, it's been shared more on like religion Twitter over the past few days which is funny because, like to this point, you know it's sold.
Speaker 3:You know thousands of copies to mostly, mostly like my friends in sports media, you know like podcast listeners. Now it's now it's reaching like religion religion folks like on John Piper Twitter.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes dark corner of the internet.
Speaker 3:I'm getting dudes with, like John Calvin Abbey's yelling at me about hell, and I'm like John MacArthur fan club.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm like this is, this is what I wanted years ago. It's time the book is out. Now, you know, and like everything they're throwing at me, like oh, what about this first revelation 218? I'm like, yeah, my characters debate it in chapter 27. You cannot hurt me, you do not know anything. I don't know. You haven't read any verses I haven't thought about. I thought about them more than you do, because I believe they applied to me. I believed I was going to hell. Yeah, what in the world are you gonna throw at me? You know?
Speaker 1:so, like I'm having fun now if you get it, you get it. Read this book, and if you don't get it, you're gonna want to get it. Like I have this fascination and I am, I Emily and I both do. I don't know if it's because we are trying to make peace with our very religious upbringing, but like we have a fascination about reading about other religions, or reading about Mormonism or Scientology or other cults, and I think part of it is like oh, I'm not, you know. And so that's my message to people who think that they may not find a place in this book is like, but it's really interesting. Like good for you that you don't relate, but like you want to know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's like. I mean, I had the same thing where it's like oh, I like this documentary about this cult and I like this movie about these crazy people in this swamp. And it's like for years it was this sense of like, hmm, that sounded familiar. Ah, that doesn't mean anything, ignore that. And then it's a few years ago, after I started writing this, emily and I took this test by an actual cult researcher where it's like a list of checkboxes, like did you grow up in a cult? And I'm like, yeah, I'll check a few. And then look at the end like, wow, I checked almost all of them, you know. And it's stuff like the leaders have everyone exhausted and, you know, hungry, and they've used music to manipulate their emotions. And then at the very end of it they ask for an emotional commitment and then they hold them to it. I'm like, dog, that's church, that's seven days of church camp.
Speaker 2:I did that. It's the best week of my life.
Speaker 3:That was awesome. I kissed her girl during the middle of all. That. It was great, you know. But we played dodgeball for four hours in order to get tired enough for the emotional commitment.
Speaker 3:But yeah, the cult stuff is. It's a great selling point because I could say like, hey, there's a cult way, way, way closer to you than the swamp or Utah or whatever. You're thinking of cults, like there's cult elements to all of this. And once they read it and they're like, huh, this was a lot more relatable than I thought it was. Okay then, are we talking about stuff besides just religion? Are we talking about systems of political oppression?
Speaker 3:Are we talking about you know, all sorts of stuff that's culty, not just swamp preachers, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I so I think, to round this out, because Isaac has peace at the end, that's. You know, this is a guarantee. Would you agree with that that Isaac has peace at the end? That was my take.
Speaker 3:I think he has. He's definitely found a really a version of it for sure yeah. He ends in a good space.
Speaker 1:Okay, so tell us a little bit now, like because we said this is not, there are tons of shades of gray in this, and to say that it is black and white, like we spent, you know, almost 40 minutes here like kind of lamenting about some of the facets of our upbringing, but there are still really beautiful things, and so I guess it just maybe the listeners might want to know like where you're at now and like how you personally feel at your this point in your journey.
Speaker 3:So at this point I've sort of come around to a thing that like it always sounded like a joke to me, but in hindsight I think I kind of knew I'd end up here, but it was like it felt so far away. But yeah, I've used this term Christian pantheist to describe myself, and when I say that I don't think I mean that I believe every blade of grass around me is God. But at the same time it's like it's like there's two brains here, the characters Corey and Alexa. Ultimately, that's everything for me. Like Corey would say, like yes, the blades of grass are God, because the universe is process, theology and becoming, and blah, blah, blah, the Kabbalah, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 3:Whereas Alexa would say, like who gives a s***? There are poor people. Jesus said to take care of them. Jesus said to treat them like they're God. Right, treating them like they're God means essentially that that's a version of pantheism. If everyone around me is to be treated as God, then we're all God and God's everywhere. So ultimately, it's like the long and winding mystical path to that thought versus the like blunt, crude, straightforward path to that thought, and I'm like somewhere between them, usually more Alexa, or it's just like there's so much stuff to know. Alexa's right, that's it.
Speaker 1:I relate to that. Go love on somebody, go help a poor person. You know like that's what you should take away from this. Okay, jason, where can everyone buy your book, listen to your podcasts, subscribe to your newsletters or whatever else that you want them to do?
Speaker 3:So the book is available everywhere. As far as I know, there might be somewhere. It's not, but if it's not, then let me know and or hassle them until it is Until. When is this episode going to come out To? 19th, okay, so until February 17th, all sales, the proceeds that will make their way to me from those sales and donating to the Trevor Project, oh that's great. A charity devoted to reducing self-harm among LGBTQ youth. So far, we've donated $39,000.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it feels, very good. Like huge support by our community. The ultimate donation, I don't know what it'll be, but a bit higher than that. Speaking of the community, our two podcasts the shutdown full cast quote, fingers on sports, and the Vacation Bible School podcast with my wife on religion. The sub-stack is Jason Kirkfyi. I think that's it. I think that's the stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you, this was so fun yeah.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah, this is great. It's very fun to talk to fellow travelers. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, Emily, what have you been reading recently?
Speaker 2:Okay, I actually delayed recording this with you so that I could have finished this book, and it's actually a former pod recommendation by you that I put on hold the second you talked about it, which was quite some time ago, if you guys know. You know that the Libby queues can be long, but it is the celebrance by Stephen Raleigh.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, it's such a long time coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I told you about this in like early December.
Speaker 2:It was a while ago and I actually do think it got delivered to me once, like maybe a month ago, and I had to postpone it because I didn't have time, like too many things came in at once.
Speaker 2:So it came back around. Anyways, if you guys did miss the last time, Abigail recommended or you forgot this book follows a group of five friends. They were originally six and the six member of their group died before they graduated college and so at his funeral they kind of decide we're going to get together and hold living funerals for the rest of us, and we all know, like, how much we mean to each other before we die, which you know. I love this book.
Speaker 2:This book basically details those funerals, but I loved it because I'm like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea, but also probably like really weird and kind of impractical in a lot of ways, and I loved how this book kind of like showed that tension of like yeah, this is super weird, and how would you even go about doing a funeral for a person who's so alive and what would you do? What would you say, what would you like, where would you go? And so I really loved it. I had like a romcom that I was reading, but after reading Hell's World Without you, I was like in this, like thoughtful mood. I'm just like I want something that's gonna, you know, fill that in my heart, and so this book definitely did. It was so good. I mean, stephen Rally we talk about him all the time. He's so good at like writing grief and like loss and those kind of themes in a way that's just really also uplifting somehow and devastating at the same time and funny and like just real.
Speaker 1:So I loved it and I think it's also cool in that book, you know it spans like decades, so you're seeing also the friendship change. Yeah people grow apart, but then like they're still committed to this promise that they made and it's very relatable and like leans into the tension of the way people's lives change and how people grow apart, absolutely. And you know that's like very true to life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially a group of friends. I feel like you know you have friend groups but they change so like I feel like it's so much easier to have a one-on-one friendship with someone that you maintain, versus a group, is really difficult to keep like the dynamics and to cope with the change. And I really like how the funerals kind of help them, you know, take the next step in their relationship so that it doesn't fall apart and they can move on to a new phase or like a new way of relating to each other. So it's really good. It's yeah, if you're in the mood for something to like jerk at your heart, obviously. Obviously it's not like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's kind of devastating you kind of know you're getting into it yeah but there's no surprise.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited, speaking of Stephen Rowley, about his Gunkel sequel. Yes, the Gunkel Abroad. I'm so excited for that.
Speaker 2:Yes, loved that.
Speaker 1:I cannot wait.
Speaker 2:So that would be great, but I really love it. Yeah, thank you for the recommendation. It's really You're welcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad you liked it. Okay, what have I been reading recently? I recently read or listened to an audiobook Breeding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall-Kimmerer. Emily, I'm this. Have you read this book? No, okay, this book is for you. Okay, I just want to say that this is like such an Emily book. Robin Wall-Kimmerer is a Potawatomi botanist who writes this book about the indigenous teachings of like humans and nature and how we have, how indigenous teachings point us toward respect and reciprocity with nature.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But also she is a poet and so the way that this is written it takes something that's like very sciency and maybe and maybe like very anthropological, and the prose that she uses she uses lots of stories to demonstrate these big ideas about the way that the earth takes care of us and the way that humans should take care of the earth, and it's honestly. It's one of those books where I'm like oh, this was a life change book and I think it's really going to change my life. So I loved it so much and the audiobook is available for free on Hoopla and she has a very pleasant voice.
Speaker 1:That's even better, just really great because it's a very long audio book. But really I'm telling you she gets into I mean, she's a scientist, so she gets into sciency, stuff about plants and animals.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 1:But also like weaves them in with ancient indigenous tradition, and it is just extremely lovely. I honestly love this book so much.
Speaker 2:Okay, I just put it on home.
Speaker 1:You've been into me. Yeah, you really. This is such a book for you, I just it's wild. And I can't fully endorse this yet because I haven't finished it, but I started the Poppy War by RF Kwong.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And the author of Yellow Face. She, I think we mentioned when we when we talked about that book on the podcast, that was her first like non fantasy novel. This is actually her debut novel and it is fantasy but follows the story of this young girl named Rin and she's trying to flee. Like she's a war orphan who's trying to flee her, like rural life and the foster family who's trying to pair her up with a super old guy and so she studies really hard to get into this war Academy and she goes and it's kind of the story of what happens then and perhaps her the bigger role that she may play in this war Dynasties. So it's really good.
Speaker 1:And it's not super like, it's not too fantasy fantasy. It's giving a lot of the same. It's not a romantic thing, as far as I can tell, like I haven't seen any romance yet. I mean it could totally happen, but it's really good and I really like the way it's written. So okay, like a partial plug.
Speaker 2:Yeah, update us as we finish it. Yeah, but please read Rin's address.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm all in. It's a four week wait, so maybe not as long as the syllabus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, we'll pass it on to the next one. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye.