The Subtext: Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man

No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp

Lee Camp

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 556 Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

⁠⁠⁠In the first episode of 2026, we are diving into Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to explore what it reveals about faith, leadership, hypocrisy, presence, and how competing visions of Christianity shape real people and communities. In this episode of The Subtext, we dive beneath the mystery of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to explore what the film exposes about faith, church culture, power, and human nature. Through the contrast of Father Jud’s vision for self-giving love and Monsignor Wicks’ manipulative, rage-driven religiosity, we unpack themes of projection and hypocrisy, insecure versus secure spiritual leadership, and how love shows up through presence. We also read critiques that the film presents two “toothless” versions of Christianity and ask what the story ultimately suggests about God, church, and culture wars. Things we mentioned in this episode: ⁠ The Gospel Coalition "2 Corrupted Christianities in ‘Wake Up Dead Man’"⁠ ⁠ The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen⁠ ⁠Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing by Hillary L. McBride⁠ Follow The Subtext: ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠ Follow Lee: ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Lee's Newsletter⁠⁠⁠ Follow Savannah: ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠ Join our Email List: ⁠⁠⁠nosmallendeavor.com⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Happy New Year, Lee Camp.
0:02.4	Happy New Year, Savannah Lock.
0:05.0	Our show has made it through two years, so we could say that we're kind of two years old.
0:12.1	That is the way they counted the days that the Lord was in the tomb.
0:18.9	Oh, my God.
0:21.5	That's actually so true, right?
0:24.2	Yeah.
0:24.5	Because it was Friday.
0:25.8	Friday afternoon.
0:27.6	To Sunday.
0:28.1	To Sunday morning.
0:29.3	But then we said, so we're counting this in the most Christian possible way.
0:32.8	Happy second birthday.
0:35.3	Yes.
0:36.6	Lee, I love that right now you're in the studio where we normally record.
0:40.3	Yeah, thanks for showing up.
0:41.8	Because you thought we were going to be in the studio, even though I think the studio is
0:46.5	technically close today.
0:47.7	So God bless whoever opened up the door for you.
0:49.6	I talked my way in.
0:50.6	They were very surprised to see me at the door.
0:53.1	And I live so close to the studio,
	...

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