#whose character is centered around bettering yourself for the sake of your children | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vivifrage · 3 years

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11, 22, 31!

Hello!! Thanks for the ask! Let's see...

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

In general, platonic and familial relationships. Especially ones where some character struggled with their family before - Hollow Knight is pretty obvious, Warframe you have a bunch of biomechanical war suits/beings and their orphaned magic teenager, Aphelion had a bunch of bots who left their civilizations and watched every organic they may have cared about go extinct + a very angry sweary teenager bot whose creator always treated her as a failure, and now Merciful Steel which is everywhere from "I'm not sure I want to give my parents a second chance after how they took my queerness" to "My civilization is horribly fascist/controlling" to "I was a sleeper agent and had to destroy the family who accepted me as their own."

Idk why. I get along with my family, especially my immediate family. But there's a lot of familial stuff.

22. Do you listen to anything while you write?

Yessss. It depends on what I am writing, I usually grab stuff that has the right mood. Or just pick whatever and my brain will make it the right mood.

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

Yeah!

For Hollow Knight, there's Gov, Judge, Erlwyn, Lina, and Meilie.

Erlwyn is the center of the group. He's Lina and Meilie's son, and Judge's bio kid. He's a little sweetheart who errs on the side of caution with his peers (since he's much bigger than them) and loves to explore. Can usually be found covered in dirt and tugging your hand to show you something exciting he found. As he gets older, his Soul magic and unknown heritage (nobody around him knows his species) drives him to try and get some answers. For safety's sake with the Soul magic, and to understand why he is the way he is with his species.

Lina and Meilie are doing their best to parent their boy. They've fostered for a long time, but their attempts to adopt always fell through. Until Erlwyn, of course. Meilie's a cook for a mining company and Lina works at a pub; the latter used to bring Erlwyn to work with her when Meilie was out. Lina's stopped talking to her family, but Meilie's adores her and brought her into the fold with tons of love. Meilie's a bit more lighthearted and silly (and also butch? it's hard to make a bug butch) whereas Lina tends to be more of a planner and go-getter.

Judge gave up the runt of her clutch when he was teeny tiny; she knew he wouldn't make it if she didn't, but couldn't bring herself to give him to Gov. In part, that was because she'd agreed that he didn't have to co-raise them, and in part because she's already had one of her sons, her firstborn, kidnapped by a male wyrm and the idea terrifies her. Even though Gov lives in the same town and she knows he's not like that. She's a god of order, and strictly lawful neutral. Most of the time, she terrifies the shit out of everyone (being an apex predator squishing herself down a bit) and she remains without close connections besides her brother, children, and transient girlfriend, a deity of the transition from winter to spring. While she struggles with being anything but deadly serious and unnerving, she's very caring and protective, and rather thoughtful and honest about her emotions. Likes to sketch.

Gov is short for the Governor, but he only uses the full title in formal settings. He's the play to Judge's work; while he takes his job in politics seriously, he's much more of a goofball and far more charismatic than his dour sister. He's easy to trust, which nobility, royalty, other politicians, etc can find spooky when all is said and done. He prides himself on being the fun uncle to Judge's kids, and once she calms down a bit, often babysits them when she's overwhelmed or takes them out to festivals and fairs. He's rather submissive to Judge in general, in exchange for her being okay with his presence; wyrm dames are super territorial and the last thing Gov needs is to genuinely piss her off. If there's a decision both of them have to make, he may argue his point, but Judge's word is final. (God of kinship means he has a nice bit of leeway, though, if need be.) He understands bugs far better than wyrms or other Higher Beings in general, and has gotten himself in trouble that way.

(Also, Judge and Gov are PK's siblings, but they generally don't know he exists and vice versa. Which makes Erlwyn his nephew, and he's Hornet, Hollow, Ghost, etc's cousin! Gov and Judge are both older; not a big gap between Gov and PK, but Judge is old enough that her firstborn is older than PK and possibly Gov, too.)

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blickety-split · 5 years

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An Open Letter to Bryan/Bryke: “Forbidden Love”

Hi, @bryankonietzko,

I want to begin by saying I’m a pretty hardcore Avatar fan. Even without the benefit of nostalgia (I watched both ATLA and LOK for the first time no more than a couple years ago), ATLA will always hold a special place in my heart. Despite the age disparity between myself and the target crowd, so many of the character moments in the original series deeply resonated with me (I found Aang’s grief after losing Appa particularly meaningful; the way he loses control over himself in multiple ways, struggling to find meaning/distract himself in the things around him, reminded me of myself after losing a friend not too long before). The beautifully-written world you and the ATLA team created inspired me to become more connected with my own heritage, influenced my writing, began my love for hard magic systems, and was even the reason why I started working towards an animation minor or pushed my art style into comic form in the first place.

That being said... I was extremely disappointed when I found this video on your Tumblr a couple days ago. Apparently, it’s a reaction video to the various shipping pairs in ATLA, done with satirical voiceovers and animated fan-art sent to you over the years. By creating this, not only did you mutilate the work of the young aspiring artists who (once) admired you the most, but also the presences of characters in your own show (and your clear misinterpretation of them), your presence as a role model, and— as you may imply— my lasting perception of your work.

Honestly, I understand the discomfort you probably felt towards some of the artwork you’ve received. I understand how frustrating it may be for your work to be received in a way you never meant it to be, and I sympathize with the urge to respond back with equal crudeness. But as the creator of your series, it is your responsibility to react to this attention with consideration and maturity, and to not further encourage the already-infamous divisiveness of your own fanbase. It’s one thing for children to act inappropriately— and another for a full-grown adult, let alone one with the utmost influence over the millions who responded and continue to respond to your show.

You should have known better.

You should have been better.

And to make this even worse, the public video didn’t just divide— it clearly condemned that sweeping group of people, explicitly stating, “Women who think Zuko and Katara should be together will forever have bad relationships”. Content that is downright demeaning and profoundly hurtful to a massive portion of your fans— and all wrapped up with an extra attack on the females of this group, to put a cherry on top. (And why would you have this come out of Sokka’s mouth? For goodness sake, isn’t he the one whose arc centered around losing his misogynistic beliefs?) But though this was frownable enough, the real jaw-dropper (yes, my jaw physically dropped, which speaks volumes, considering I was sitting in my dorm room alone, a situation where physical communication is at its lowest) was when I saw the final message of the video: “Thanks for all of the fan art over the years. SOME. MOST.” The blatant message of not appreciating the hours someone put into creating and sending you their intimate interpretation, most of these people— I remind you— being children. Specifically, the children who were indubitably the ones who looked up to you the most, to have gone through the effort of getting their work to you (indubitably a much more laborious task back then than it is today).

And yes, I realize that you said this was a “joke”, and that you didn’t mean to “cast aspersions” or “offend”. But first off— the way that you “explained” that point came off as sarcastic and insincere. Pasting the definition of a Joke makes it even more condescending. Secondly, there is a HUGE difference between laughing with someone and at someone. If a person called a woman wearing a hijab a “terrorist” for her beliefs, would explaining that it’s a “joke” justify that behavior? If a comedian goes on live television stating, “Do you find Asian men attractive? NO. Thank you,” is it on the men who were offended for finding this offensive since it was, after all, framed as a “joke”? The way your disclaimer was worded contributes to the notion that you should be safeguarded based on your lack of sensitivity, and that the “some people” you targeted in your preface should be wrong if they have a higher level of sensitivity to being insulted by these attacks— dare I say, in the rhetoric of 2019, a minor offense of toxic masculinity.

(Speaking of “toxic masculinity”, I could go on about the subtext of the joke of Katara belonging with Aang to be “happily ever after” and “make babies”, and how that submissive role echoed both in the actual portrayal of that relationship throughout ATLA and so many times in not only the elderly Katara, but also with nearly all of the older female characters in LOK, but I’ll restrain myself.)

As a fellow Avatar fan, I’m a big believer in redemption. I want to believe that someday, maybe today, you will understand the issues with what you’ve done and that you will eventually hold yourself accountable for the way you made so many avid fans of your show feel. But the fact that you not only showed this at a live Con, but shamelessly reposted this four years later, then responded to your LOK: Book 1 reception with an equally-sarcastic attack on a similar, female-targeted populace, I feel I’m given no reason to have faith in your benevolence as a creative. So unless you face this issue anew, put yourself in the shoes of the young artists (as Zuko did venturing the Earth Kingdom), and own up to what you’ve done, I won’t be watching the live action series. Because as it stands now, it’s all-too-clear to me that if THIS is how you see the characters of your own show (cornering them into single-sided tropes, seemingly ignorant to their sixty-one episodes of development), if THIS is how you treat your fans, if THIS is your level of awareness and sensitivity— then there is absolutely no way I can believe you are capable of “further deepening” your characters as you so claimed in your press release of the series.

Once again, this doesn’t change my gratefulness to you for the impact you had on countless people— including myself— through your work in ATLA. And I hope you learn/have learned (in the seven years since that post) to preserve that legacy appropriately and positively. And despite my current frustrations, I wish you nothing but the best on your future progress as an artist and human.

Good luck,

Quin

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soapboxsocrates · 3 years

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What I Tell Young Newlyweds

I am a writer, and as a writer I must, absolutely must write. I think during this Pandemic Season we have all come to realize that routinely doing certain things for our emotional and mental health is necessary and is good, but what I am talking about as a writer is something different. The simplest illustration -- one which I might use, say, with a child -- would be to try to imagine a bird which can’t fly, a fish which can’t swim. Close, but not quite. A better example (but one which incites a lot of non-artists) would be to try to imagine a man who can’t sire children, a woman who can’t bear children: these are (pro)creative activities (having children) which are hardwired and constituent parts of our identity on biological, foundational levels. There is a sense of death and grieving when one learns they can not have children, sometimes even social stigma and shame.Not being able to write is a little like that, not being able to have a child.

The basic gist of what I am saying is that I have to write… I have to write, and to write is nothing short of midwifing and serving (as a servant) the Story which I am writing. And in no less an affectionate, fully committed, delighting way than as I would sit upon the floor with my toddler child, and play whatever game she choses to have us play. I would equip that Story as I would that child (say, who delights in baking together) with the finest elements I can supply, that she/the Story would be enabled to fully be all she can be in the outwardly creative manifestation of herself/itself. And in this case, as I have done in my previous writings on what I would tell a young parent, I find myself listening and serving Story which I would not expect I would write about, nor for which I expect I personally warrant any reading by you. I don’t think I necessarily have any place but to serve the Story as I feel it leads, which very well may be to show something beyond how poor a servant of the material I might be, yet, at the end of the day, knowing I have done as I should while getting to do as I must.

The Story this morning leads me to this: an older man, right around the time of my wedding, gave me perhaps the most centering piece of advice I’d ever been given in all of life: the two of you will often find yourselves in different emotional spaces, and that is okay. It is both strange and hurtful to me that there are so few moments of sage wisdom (such as this between an older man and a younger me) in my memory, while there are yet countless episodes of impersonal and didactic … “intellectual firehosing” of me. So many times when I speak with younger friends who have just married I try to offer them that little nugget of sagacity I received from that older fellow because it was so good (yet try to do so in a way which isn’t coming across as obnoxiously unsolicited advice).

What I don’t tell my young, newly married friends (likely because I am just now getting a handle on it myself) is that it is actually some process intself to learn how to identify moments when you are (or/and are not) in the same emotional space, despite seeming to be in the same situation together. To throw in a little philosophical flavoring, it is a coming to the subjective awareness of the utterly objective alterity of the other (ie the otherness of your spouse), and the irreconcilable phenomenological subjectiveness of your experience, and that of your spouse, from each other. But, honestly, all philosophical fun I have aside, it might be true to observe that seldom if ever are the two of you in the same emotional spaces, and you certainly aren’t ever in just one emotional space, nor merely in one singular experience. For instance, with the moment of the closing of a new home purchase, one of you may be both excited over owning and stressed about a work situation, while the other is relieved but apprehensive because the mortgage lender was trying to play footsie during the signing, yet both of you have dreamed of the back yard for your children and are thankful to have it now in hand. For one of you owning a home means you finally feel like a real adult, while the other associates home ownership with a dreaded feeling of being situationally tied down. Somehow you have to find a way to be happy and to be sad and to be brave and to be scared around each other, not minimizing the other in their space while you occupy your particular space. A lot of times, for seasons at a time, this means nothing short of dying to your legitimate wants for the sake of the other’s needs, putting what the other needs ahead of getting your want’s met. Oftentimes it means that what you need God will meet, but not through your spouse; God may meet the needs through a friend. I tell the story that while my wife was having to deal with bad bosses at work (an utterly demoralizing set of circumstances causing her to feel entirely unprotected), I was her listening ear while God supplied my need to be heard not through her but through others, some guy buddies (even to this day who listen to me, who cause me to feel heard). I took it as God’s gentleness to my wife that He did not put the burden upon her already heavy laden shoulders, and His goodness to me to supply my needs as even I poured out to her. To my single friends all this should say, however, that if they have not learned how to let God help them not to be entirely lonely when single, being married sometimes won’t help answer that experience: sometimes you are the most lonely in marriage when you suffer but your spouse can not reciprocate, and God your only recourse.

And it may not seem to flow here, but what I also like to tell my young newly wed friends is this: even being often in different places, seldom in the same spaces, there is yet still a magnifying of each, a magnifying of both through being “together” in marriage. Going through the different spaces differently you are yet still “home” for one another. You grow together, even if it is not the same growth, or kind of growth. As a male I am biologically predisposed to want to “share my seed everywhere,” and yet in my soul I am made more, I am finally allowed to actually be and to become, when all other options are given up for this one I call my wife. Some might find that a bawdy thing to say, but when I say my wife makes me more than all the “possibilities” offered in being single, it is an expression at least as true as the bawdy truth. I dafre you to be more demonstrably true.

As I meander through this ponderously long wondering…. It strikes me that there are passages other than 1 Peter 3, for their call to submissive behavior, which generate more dispute, but not many. I necessarily read this passage as a cis-gender male who stays in the home specifically to raise the children, and to support a wife who has a very “toxicly masculine” work environment. (I do this, like Jacob, who did not do “manly” things like hunt as Esau did, but preferred to stay around camp and do “unmanly” things like cook, or so as the ancient, toxic masculinity looked at such things.) I thoroughly believe and insist that it would be a moral crime to deny my wife to function as she were made, as she is called vocationally; similarly it would feel a crime to deny me -- me the more “parenty” or maternal one -- the ability to foster my children’s sense of their worth as my being at home provides me the opportunity for. Moreover, by virtue of who she is and her vocational calling, my wife causes me to feel safe where I have never felt safe, to feel defended where virtually few have ever done, and more than those few others who did ever have done. (I am saying my wife defends me more than my other friends, far more.) We actually joke and say I am the more “maternal”, and she is more “paternal,” and we see the truth in both comments, and accept it. I am the one the kids come to when they seek comfort for a skinned knee, so to speak, and who she is as a mom has little to do with who she is in the home. My wife is the mom who models to her children what it means for a woman to be (vocationally) called into a passion, and what a strong working woman looks like. My grandmother stayed in the home, showing what a strong woman who stayed in the home looked like. Strength is strength, but it seldom looks the same, and my strong wife sings the praises of the strength which stays home to care for children and pray for strangers in the grocery store (praising it as something she isn’t capable of doing).

This is where things must already seem -- and may seem even more (ponderously) -- rambly and messy, but bear with my… well… my gist. For myself, what I read of 1 Peter 3 is “nuanced” to the point that it doesn’t mean what people argue about, and doesn’t at heart need defenses made to circumvent those arguments. What I read is kinda in the same vein as was my father-in-law’s advice: essentially there are going to be differences between each of you, and you are going to need to act relative to those differences if you want to demonstrate Christ to the other as the other needs. Being fully Christ to another is no less than subjecting yourself to them, thus demonstrating a greatness greater than the position or person to which you subject yourself. As is said of Christ, a bruised reed He will not bend… so neither should we.

I read that passage as an artist, a writer, who sees the intent like that of performance installation art: it is meaning, and worth, and value not seperable from being experienced. The winning and respectful, pure conduct, the beauty of the gentle and quiet spirit, the doing of good and not fearing frightful things, these are things which are aspects of God’s character in whose image Male and Female were created. There is no excuse for either male or female to fail to show such things as these qualities of God to one another. I am a cis-gender male and I want to be beautiful, want to be considered as a beautiful thing, so surely my adorning out to be that of an imperishable beauty of character (and not an athletic prowess the likes of which equal an olympian competitor but for which Christ was never described nor applauded), right? Male and Female are equal in the sight of God, or so I assume, so when my equal shows me a respectful, pure conduct and gentle spirit, not fearing either my frightful temper nor the stigma of submission to me, am I not then won over by the representation of God as Christ himself exhibited himself to me, and thusly am challenged by someone equal to me (not lesser) to be better than I am behaving in that moment with my frightful temper? I see no suggestion here that women should be and are to be subjected to memn, but that their choice to do so is for a purpose whose worth is nothing less than the full value of humanity as such resides in either and both of us, male and female, husband and wife. Put simply, wives here are asked to be Christ, which is not “less than” but fully all, to their spouse. If Christ’s death on the cross was meek, and meekness is power unexerted, then is submission not itself a wilful non-exertion of power triumphaning over my “ish” no less laudable (after a fashion) than Christ’s meekness and death on a cross which triumphed over death and Hell?

Julian of Norwhich made the case about the necessary esteem and value inherent to God’s love of Man this way:

“It is the most worship that a solemn King or a great Lord may do a poor servant if he will be homely with him, and specially if he sheweth it himself, of a full true meaning, and with a glad cheer, both privately and in company. Then thinketh this poor creature thus: And what might this noble Lord do of more worship and joy to me than to shew me that am so simple this marvellous homeliness? Soothly it is more joy and pleasance to me than [if] he gave me great gifts and were himself strange in manner.”

Is that not the very submission or subjectifying which Peter is suggesting, but one which is predicated on there being no inequality between male and female? The submission of my wife is not to a role in the home, nor to my (laughably) telling her what to do, but in a way (and from out of her strength) which shelters me in my weaknesses and lifts me up in my lowliness -- just as I hope I do for her. Again, strength (and weakness) look different, and that is okay.

As I understand it, the point of this life (as understood by one receiving the promises of God) is not this earthly life, not the roles we play nor the societal meanings ascribed to those roles, nor the values this world ascribes to such things. And neither are our actions defined according to what those actions “mean” in this world, or within our society. God’s kingdom is about goodness, humility, truth, nobility, righteousness, justice, purity, excellence, praiseworthiness, gentleness, kindness, joyfulness, love, peacefulness, patience, self-control; it’s about living out the classic virtues (and especially those mentioned above) because those things are writ in the fabric of reality as meaningful, and beautiful, and good. A mother is not made a valuable and strong mother simply and only by being in the home and being subject to her husband, but it is her strength to be Christ to her husband as Christ was to the Father in Heaven. “Christ who being in every way equal to God did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but humbled himself, taking the very nature of a servant,” and thus, in such a way, a woman and a mother model to her husband and the father of her children the strength he should exhibit in how he should live towards her… yet it looks different in each situation. My wife’s submission is a form of holy performance art, enacting Christ to me in no other way than one through which I can participate in and experience it. A holy performance art much like a ritual, but a ritual performed over / through the course of lives spent together.

So, yeah, here’s where I try to pull some (if you’ve been paying attention) three disparate streams into one, multi-dimensional thought. Yes, you’re going to be in different places, and that is okay. Yes, you’ll find in each other a home, as even you represent Christ to one another. Yes there is submission involved, but it is a strength itself submitting in order to cover and model to another. Most times (and here’s the pulling together of it all) you submit to the other in their places of need, for their support and healing, being each other just as Christ was in the world to us -- and that for the short time we occupy this life before we are all any longer in different places. There is indeed purpose and beauty to be had, in the suffering, of being in different places so often times. For what this is worth…

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megankeely · 6 years

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Looking Into The Eyes of a Border Patrol Agent: A reflective review of Alejandro Iñárritu’s ‘Carne y Arena’ (SPOILER ALERT)

February 22, 2018 | Megan Keely

Empathy has been a driving force for me ever since I could walk and talk. Insects in the windowsill, ants on a blade of grass, stuffed animals on my bed, classmates on the playground… I have countless childhood memories of imagining myself in someone else’s position and trying to feel what they might be feeling. At one point I thought I might be a mind reader — I remember seeing someone walk in the room, looking at their face, and truly feeling as if I could hear the thoughts on their mind. Perhaps it was my imagination, but those thoughts were most likely coming from a deep, insatiable craving to understand the perspectives of those around me.

We all have this capacity for empathy, but there are some people (including me during times of weakness or overwhelming fear) who shut down their ability to empathize. Since taking a stand as an advocate for Dreamers, I have seen this defense mechanism in many fear-driven individuals who are unwilling to see our current immigration policies from the perspective of the immigrant. It is disheartening every time. And it reminds me, again and again, of how much more work we have to do in order to reform our broken policies and outdated mindset around borders and immigration.

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to see the world from another perspective. I received a highly coveted ticket to Alejandro Iñárritu’s new Virtual Reality exhibit at LACMA. The piece is part installation art, part virtual reality film, and part pick-a-path interactive storytelling.

In Iñárritu’s “Carne y Arena,” you are inside a film with no screen. No frame. No black border around the visuals – the imagery of the desert sand and sky surrounds you. As the experience begins, you are alone, your bare feet on cold gritty sand, wind in your hair. And for 6.5 minutes, you are immersed in a virtual reality storyline comprised of 14 true narratives of immigrants attempting to cross the border from Mexico to the US. Because your Oculus Rift VR headset is equipped with a motion detector, you can move throughout the experience and control which characters you see up close, where you hide, or how you confront the challenges that come your way. The experience is an active one instead of a passive viewing. You encounter ethical dilemmas and hair-raising suspense that clench you at your core.

With his in-depth research and portraiture, Iñárritu has officially opened a new door to the future of storytelling, art, and journalism. His piece enabled me to look straight into the eyes of 14 brave individuals who risked everything for the sake of a better life for themselves and their families. I stood next to them as they limped through the desert. I dropped to my knees to hold an injured woman and her 3-year old child. And when the Border Patrol agent pointed his gun at me, I raised my arms in submission and fear. Although my version of the experience was a simulacrum, the blood and adrenaline coursing through my veins and heart were real.

The Border Patrol agents arrived like a storm touching down - helicopters and trucks and weapons. At one point I realized that because they are avatars in a virtual experience, I didn’t need to run and hide. So I walked up to the Border Patrol agent who was pointing his gun and shouting at an injured woman. I stood in his face and stared into his eyes. In his eyes, I saw deeply buried fear and anger turned into hatred and aggression. I tried to empathize, but I couldn’t. I looked to my left and saw another Border Patrol agent interrogating a young man who was studying to be a lawyer. I turned to my right and saw a 3-year-old child looking up in confusion. When everyone was gone, I was stranded in the desert, only a flock of birds overhead and a periwinkle sky.

The broad human experience is made up of so many emotions, but the ones illuminated in “Carne y Arena” are the ones that require deep resilience and strength to overcome. To take on this journey, exhausted and dehydrated and cold in a vast desert of unknown danger, one must be driven by dire circumstances and a survivalist need to seek a better life. And in the case of the hundreds of thousands of young people who were children when they made the journey across the border, thirsty and tired, tying sponges to the bottoms of their shoeless feet, laying packed like sardines in the back of a truck… They persisted against all odds. That is a feat to be respected and honored with a path forward, not backwards.

As the fight for a clean DREAM Act continues, we still offer no path to citizenship for Dreamers whose parents took this journey towards a better life. Whether you’re an immigration rights activist, a fierce opponent, or an uninterested bystander avoiding the topic altogether, I encourage you to have real conversations and try to understand where your neighbors are coming from. As ICE agents sweep our neighborhoods, raid our towns, and thrust our communities into chaos and fear through unlawful detentions that separate family members indefinitely, I encourage you to put yourself in their shoes. “Every day, as many as 50,000 people wake up behind bars in immigration detention centers across America, including families fleeing violence and seeking safety in the United States. Last year, ICE arrests of non-criminals more than doubled” (Jeremy Raff, The Atlantic). As our administration flexes its muscle and clenches its iron fist, I encourage you to play your part in shaping the message our country’s actions are sending – in the news today, in the legislation of tomorrow, and history’s records for all of eternity. Make your voice heard. Spread empathy.

More of Megan’s writing: Why Songwriter Megan Keely Chose to Take a Stand as an Ally for Dreamers Dream It Now Define American

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mdye · 7 years

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Pat Robertson's former producer Terry Heaton talks The 700 Club, Trump, and turning the Bible “into a self-help manual.”

In the 1980s, TV producer Terry Heaton was at the helm of one of the most influential media properties of the decade. As executive producer for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN)’s Pat Robertson — one of the world’s most famous televangelists — Heaton spent the 1980s and early ’90s transforming the network’s flagship show, The 700 Club, into a pioneer of conservative opinion journalism.

But decades after The 700 Club’s massive success paved the way for an alliance between the Christian right and GOP party politics, Heaton has more mixed feelings about his role in the “culture wars.” In his new book The Gospel of the Self: How Jesus Joined the GOP, Heaton reflects on his years working alongside Robertson, and how the advertising strategies he brought to CBN helped transform and politicize a generation of Christians. Heaton presents Robertson and his team as well-meaning idealists whose desire to use the power of the media to bring people to Jesus morphed into a need to hold on to power for its own sake.

Often, Heaton writes, the desire to put on a convincing “show” for their audience meant eliding the truth in favor of a more marketable approach: casting only conventionally attractive and “successful”-looking Christians in their segments, exclusively focusing on the positive aspects of Christianity, and hinting that faith could bring temporal as well as spiritual rewards. In other words, the Bible became a “self-help manual” advertised as something to be valued because of its impact on one’s own life, what Heaton now calls “the gospel of the self.”

I spoke with Heaton about Robertson and the future of the alliance between CBN and the GOP, and about how CBN helped bring together conservative Christianity and Republican Party politics. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Tara Isabella Burton

You were instrumental in the development of Pat Robertson’s The 700 Club as a groundbreaking piece of conservative television. Now you’ve written a book that’s far less positive about you and your colleagues’ influence on the Christian political landscape.

Terry Heaton

Those of us back then really wanted to change the world, but I don’t think we ever really thought about what that would produce. When you’re a few [people] against incredible odds, it’s a neat experience. But when suddenly people take you up on what you’ve been offering, you’ve got to figure out what it is that you really want to say.

I wrote the book because I felt I needed to apologize for my role in what we have in front of us today, although I don’t necessarily feel guilty about it. I just want to get it on the record that I participated in something that has turned out to be pretty bad.

Tara Isabella Burton

You came to Christian Broadcasting Network from a more traditional news background. Can you talk more about that transition?

Terry Heaton

I had one of those flaming, magic-from-the-sky, born-again [religious] experiences, one year before I was contacted by CBN to work for them [in 1981]. I worked five years for them the first time. I was very much a television guy, and the knowledge that I had about magazine show production, graphics, that type of skill, was broadly accepted at CBN because they didn’t really have a lot of that kind of knowledge. So we were able to create a machine that could manufacture The 700 Club. And I was always excited about creating good TV. As a new believer, of course, I was fascinated by Pat Robertson — his knowledge of the Bible, the things he’d been teaching throughout his life.

[Plus], I’ve always believed in point-of-view journalism. I think eventually it’s going to be all we have. So to be pioneering in that era was intriguing to me. But as we got more and more political, I could see the handwriting on the wall, and so I left, went back into local television and the news business. A year later, I got a call from Pat to help him while he was running for president. And I made decisions based on the promises Pat made to me to if I returned to CBN and be his executive producer — autonomy, the power to create a program [of my own] — none of them were fulfilled.

[The problem] was [The 700 Club] itself, getting more and more political. People from Pat’s campaign wanted me [to get involved with the political side of his campaign] all the time. I knew where the line was. But that didn’t stop us from going right up to it and even crossing over. That caused great internal conflict for me, which resulted — in the long run — in my salvation.

Tara Isabella Burton

What kinds of things gave you pause?

Terry Heaton

I didn’t have an actual single aha moment, but there were several. We were always trying to create segments that were vehicles for Pat’s teaching. In surveys, that’s what our viewers wanted more than anything else. So [for example] we had this idea to do a series featuring a guy who always got things wrong so that Pat could then come on afterward and tell people what to do right. So we developed a new segment: The conceit was a character who always did things “wrong” so Pat could come out and teach him.

The pilot was a guy who was constantly losing money because he was trying to give his way out of debt. So he’d look at the Bible where it says “you receive a hundredfold for what you give,” and if he was a $1,000 in debt he’d give away $100 expecting to be able to pay off the debt. And at the end, he turns to the camera and says, “What am I doing wrong?” And we all thought it was brilliant. It was. But I showed it to Pat in the dressing room one day, and he got this sour look on his face and when it was finished. He said,

Well, that didn’t go down very well with me.

I knew that Pat’s rationale for all of this is that you don’t want to do anything on TV that will interfere with anybody’s faith. But I think you can take that to an extreme — and that’s what we did. We always showed people getting healed, overcoming the odds. The strong impression that the viewer would get from the program was that if you just followed the formula, you would be blessed!

There was only one time we did a program about things not going right — it was a program about death. And it was one of the most powerful shows we did. Anyone who worked on it will tell you that. But Pat hated it because it wasn’t “prosperity!” and “everything’s going to work out just fine!”

Tara Isabella Burton

You say you wanted to change the world when you started working at CBN. What, from your perspective then, was wrong with it?

Terry Heaton

I think we felt — and I say this in all sincerity, because I don’t think it was insincere whatsoever — we felt that the world was going to hell and that we were afraid it would take us with it. And so we wanted to present a different view from, a news and information perspective, about what was taking place in the world, and build that around a biblical perspective: that God is alive and well and that he’s not happy with what is going on in the world.

But we used as evidence [for God’s presence] every self-centered trick in the book. When you get into black-and-white theology, you have to be able to explain things in a very simple way. For example, if you believe that God rewards good Christians by making them prosperous, and you’re not prosperous, you have to ask yourself why. And there’s really only two answers to that question. One is that you’re doing something wrong — a.k.a. sinning — and the other is that somebody out there is taking what rightfully belongs to you and you’ve got to do something about that. And that’s a pretty easy sell to human beings — we all want what we don’t have.

And that’s really what we did.

Tara Isabella Burton

How did you accomplish that?

Terry Heaton

We taught the Bible as a self-help manual. And it was very easy to move people [doing that], because who doesn’t want to have a sanctified self-help deal going on? [The conceit is that] you need a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ so that he can make [your life] better. … I’ve learned since that, really, I think God wants us to be better human beings, and that’s a far cry from building up spiritual points that you can cash in for reward at the end of your life.

Tara Isabella Burton

What issues did you and your colleagues focus on?

Terry Heaton

It turns out that abortion, gays and lesbians, and birth control — they’re all about sex. Sex, more than everything else, scares people who want their children to be safe and to live in a sanctified world. I don’t want to overstate that, but it’s the truth.

There’s a strong sense among people that they wanted to do something about it. And guiding them becomes an easy task — what we gave them was Republican Party politics. We had an explanation for all their fears — the lack of personal responsibility, big government, people trying to take from you what really belongs to you, self-responsibility, self-responsibility, self-responsibility. All those things worked very well with the type of Christianity we were preaching.

Tara Isabella Burton

You say “they’re” all about sex. Did you, personally, not feel that sexual morality was the be-all and end-all of Christian morality?

Terry Heaton

I don’t know that I had that concern. I was a TV guy! We all had a mission — to restore the USA to a godly nation. The fact that all that revolves around sex — it was convenient. To me, people who tout that all the time — they’re looking at [the biblical story of] Sodom and Gomorrah [used by some Christians as biblical proof that God punishes people for homosexuality]. But the Bible says that God didn’t destroy Sodom because of their sexual sins. He destroyed them because they didn’t take care of the poor or the afflicted.

But that message doesn’t sell when you’re trying to whip people into a political frenzy.

Tara Isabella Burton

In your book, you seem deeply admiring of Robertson’s accomplishments and charisma even as you’re critical of his methods. How do you reconcile the varying elements of this man you’ve worked alongside for so many years?

Terry Heaton

Pat is a politician who happens to be a minister. He grew up as a Southern aristocrat in Virginia. His father was a US senator. It’s in his blood, but more than that, it’s in his environment. So the fact that he got to be a minister and was able to manipulate a substantial audience into becoming political is actually quite an accomplishment, whether you believe it’s a good accomplishment or a bad accomplishment.

[But] he was one of the first people to contact me when my wife passed away in 2006. It was the day it happened. I don’t know how he found out. But he called me and prayed with me. And you don’t get any higher in my book than by reaching out to someone who’s suffering and praying with them. [But] I just want all the people that we served and that CBN serves today to understand the degree to which they have been pushed into the Republican Party and the Republican Party has been pushed to the right.

People are living, breathing, and practicing lies. And I don’t think that doing something about it is going to come from anybody who’s lording it over these Christians.

Tara Isabella Burton

In today’s political climate, it seems like there’s an even stronger relationship than ever between CBN and the current administration. Pat Robertson’s been landing exclusive sit-down interviews with Trump, and CBN’s new shows like Faith Nation are further blurring the line between news and opinion. What do you make of that?

Terry Heaton

First of all, regarding Pat and his relationship with Donald Trump — I think that’s very, very scary. As smart as Pat Robertson is, and as good as he is at marketing, he is also highly susceptible to his own hype. In that way, Trump plays him like a piano. If you watch his most recent interview, some of the things that Trump says to Pat are really way out there in terms of manipulating Pat. He builds him up like a salesman would, and Pat is susceptible to that, I think. But he wouldn’t be susceptible if Trump didn’t speak the language that Pat wants.

There is such fear on the right about the Supreme Court. I remember one show that we were taping in which Pat prayed that God would kill the Supreme Court justices. We had to stop the tape and advise him that he couldn’t say that on TV. But that’s the way he felt. Trump really sings Pat’s tune when it comes to the Supreme Court, also on the issue of religious liberty. When Trump starts talking about how Christianity is going to be “great again,” people like Pat sit up at listen. And they’ll support him whenever necessary — even if it means blowing up North Korea!

We’re a divided people. That’s why I wonder if it’s a good thing that Donald Trump’s president — at least we’re getting it all out on the table. In my mind, that’s the only righteous reason to put a guy like Trump in the White House. We’ll go through some stuff — but I hope on the other side, it’ll be better than it is today.

Tara Isabella Burton

How do CBN’s new initiatives — like its web-based Facebook Live shows like Faith Nation — reflect a changing media landscape from the days when you worked there?

Terry Heaton

As an observer of the web and media for the past 20 years, I’ve noticed that the church hasn’t really been involved in the World Wide Web. Because in terms of media development, the church — the message of evangelicalism — has always been at the forefront [of technology]. In the early days of radio, the church was ever-present. In the early days of television, the church was very present. In the early days of satellite — two of the 10 transponders on the first satellite were owned by Christian organizations. So when the Web came along and nobody of the faith went near it, that fact caused me to have an epiphany, if you will. The reason they didn’t go to it is because the web is a three-way communication street. It’s not one-way. The network is top to bottom, but [the web] is bottom to bottom. It doesn’t need any hierarchical approval.

And with Faith Nation, CBN is trying to turn a three-way communication medium [back] into a one-way. And for me that’s an artificial use of the web. It’s an open door for problems down the road. [The anarchic nature of the web] is a perfect vessel for the holy spirit. But it’s not the perfect vessel for a hierarchical anything.

The pulpit is going to have to give way to [conversations between] human beings: how they’re living life as a Christian, as a believer, whatever, and not marching in lockstep with certain beliefs, with those who would choose to manipulate the mass market.

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