Cyle Harless: Every story has a moment where a character reaches for control. Think of Bormir grasping for the ring in Fellowship of the Ring, or Harvey Dent forcing justice in the Dark Knight. Think of the Capitol tightening its grip in the Hunger Games and Wanda reshaping reality in WandaVision. Think about Anakin grasping for the power to prevent loss, or Thanos deciding the universe needs his version of balance. All of these characters reach for control. And all of them reach for control from a place of fear. Whether it be fear of loss, fear of insignificance, fear of vulnerability, fear of the unknown, Fear of death, fear of revolt, or fear of truth? Whenever a decision is made from a place of fear, it always reaches for control. Now in storytelling, fear is tied to the character's flaw, the internal fear that drives the character's external choices. And in scripture, that fear-driven pattern is the Babel impulse. Tell me if this sounds familiar to you. Pray harder. Stand strong. Fight for your faith. Lead your family. Fight the enemy. Protect the faith. The world is winning. The church is shrinking. We must fight. You've probably heard some of these statements, probably in church, and you may have even been one of the people to say them. And the problem is many of these statements, even if they are meant to challenge your faith, they are driven by fear, not by faith. Fear of cultural change, fear of losing control, fear of losing clarity, fear of losing authority, fear of losing tradition, fear of losing predictability. And here's the thing, friend, fear always reaches for hierarchy, for control, for restriction, for gatekeeping. And it argues that That is protection. It's doing it to protect. It's it's wisdom. But the truth is it's the Babel Impulse. We write characters who take charge. We preach messages about trying harder or being stronger. We build institutions to protect, to guard, or to keep things safe. And we create stories where the hero wins by overpowering the threat. But that is all the Babel impulse. And at the core of the Babel impulse is fear. And fear reaches for control, and control ultimately ends in collapse. If your stories or your sermons or your teachings have ever drifted toward control, hear me. Fear is driving those decisions, not faith. And what we are talking about today is the impulse that every character, every institution, and every person has within them. This impulse is the second subplot of scripture. It's the Babel Impulse. And until you see the subplot, you won't see scripture, culture, or your own heart clearly. Alright, so here's the good news. The Babel impulse is everywhere. You're like, how is that good news? Just track with me, okay? It's everywhere. We just need to shift our lens in order to see it, to recognize it. The Babel Impulse is in every story you've ever heard. It's in every organization you've been a part of. You've felt it in your own life. You've seen it in culture and you've witnessed it in the church. You just didn't have a name for it. Once you recognize the Babel Impulse, everything changes. Christ becomes the clear protagonist of the story. Culture becomes readable. You understand it. Human choices become understandable. You get the reasoning behind it. You see your own heart with a clarity you didn't have before. And fear. Fear can be named for what it is. Friend, Babel is not just a tower. Babel is an impulse. It is fear weaponized into hierarchy. It is the human attempt to secure what only God can give. It is to make and pursue choices that help us protect ourselves and what we care about even at the expense of others. It is the fear and flaw of humanity. It is the desire to rule and reign without God. It started in the garden. It advanced at the Tower of Babel, and it has lived on in nation after nation, kingdom after kingdom, heart after heart, and in God's people Israel, and it is still alive today. And once you see it, you'll never unsee it. Okay. Once we recognize that the Babel impulse is in all of us, the desire that lets fear drive our choices, when we recognize that, we can begin to change. We can change how we write, change how we preach, change how we love. Change how we see the world and change how we live. So we talked about presence in the last episode. If presence is the emotional engine of scripture, the Babel Impuls is the intellectual engine. It's the choices beneath every collapse in Scripture and every collapse in the human stories. Let me walk you through how the Babel Impulse shows up in the biblical screenplay. So Act 1, this is Genesis 3, where it reveals the seed of Babel. So in Genesis 3, the serpent, he doesn't tempt humanity with fruit, he tempts them with a rival story. He says, You can define good and evil without God. And the moment humanity swallows that rival script, fear enters the story. Fear of insignificance, fear of vulnerability, fear of being unseen, fear of being forgotten. And fear always reaches for control. Adam and Eve, they hide. Why? Because they're afraid and they try to control what God can see. They cover. Why? Because they're afraid and they try to control what is revealed. Adam and Eve blame. Why? Because they're afraid and they're trying to control the narrative. And when Genesis 11 arrives, humanity comes together and says, Let us make a name for ourselves. Let us do it ourselves. That's the heart of the Babel impulse. It is the human impulse to replace divine leadership with human control. It is driven by fear, fear of the unknown, of what if God doesn't come through? It's the fear that leads us to believe that we need to be in control, even if it means harm to others, even if it's at the expense to others, because when I'm in control, I'm okay. And that impulse is visualized in the In the tower in Genesis 11, and in character after character, and nation after nation in the story of scripture moving forward. So in Act 2, the Babel the Babel impulse rises. So throughout Scripture, we see the Babel impulse in play. Abraham, in fear, takes control by taking Hagar. Pharaoh, in fear, controls the Israelites in Egypt. Aaron, responding in fear, takes control and makes the golden calf. The ten spies respond in fear when they see the people in the promised land. Israel, in fear, search for manna on the Sabbath. Moses disregards God's directions, he takes control, and he hits the rock. Saul, in fear, takes control and offers the sacrifice. David disregards God's commands and takes control of Bathsheba. Pharisees, afraid of failing, take control by guarding the law. Peter, afraid of Jewish believers, withdraws from Gentile Christians. All of these examples reveal the Babel impulse because in every one of these situations, The characters are taking matter into their own hands instead of trusting God. Fear and control. Israel, the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, they were meant to be a kingdom of priests with God as their king. But fear enters the script and they tell God, they say, Give us a king like the other nations. And God tells Samuel the prophet, he says, They're not rejecting you, they are rejecting me. Israel chooses a king. They say, Give us a king like the other nations. That is the Babel impulse. They are afraid. They don't think God will come through. And so they take control. And here's the thing fear leads to control and it can look like wisdom. It can look like discernment. It can even look like truth. But it's not. It's not. Fear reaches for control and it ultimately ends in collapse. Israel's fear looks exactly like the fear that drives modern Christian institutions. It's the craving for visual leadership, predictable hierarchy, and human control. Now here's the thing when we get to Act Three of the Scripture of the Biblical Story. Christ confronts Babel. When Christ enters the story, he doesn't confront Rome first. He confronts Babel. He confronts the impulse to control. He confronts the impulse to dominate. He confronts the impulse to secure identity through hierarchy. Christ confronts fear. And he does it, get this, through surrender, not by overpowering, not by fighting. He does it through surrender. Christ doesn't climb towers. He descends. Christ doesn't seize power. He lays it down. Jesus doesn't build a name. He empties himself. And in doing so, he exposes Babel for what it is. At Gethsemane, at the garden, faced with the ultimate test of autonomy, with this, with the test of Babel, Jesus feels the full weight of the Babel impulse and he still resists it. Remember what he says in the garden? He says, Not my will, but yours be done. This is the anti Babel moment. It's the anti Babel moment because he is resisting the urge to follow his own will, to follow fear, to take control. And to trust God and is right before he's about to be killed. Then on the cross, Jesus, he legally defeats Babel. The cross exposes the complete bankruptcy of the top-down imperial power. Jesus conquers by dying, not by killing. See, friend, where Adam grasped, Jesus surrendered. Where Israel demanded a king, Jesus refused a crown. Where Babel built upward, Jesus kneels down. This is the climax of the Babel Impulse subplot. It is resolved on the cross through Jesus Christ. The Babel Impulse is defeated at Calvary, but it is not yet destroyed. Which leads us to Act 4, where the Babel Impulse reservices. See, it isn't long before the Babel Impulse re-enters the script. As the apostles, those who walked with Christ as they die out, the next generation of church leaders continue to face growing threats of Gnosticism in the local church communities. And They're facing potential Roman crackdowns due to the suspicions and rumors of what's happening at these local Christian gatherings. They they accuse them of cannibalism because they said that they were eating the body and drinking the blood, though eating the flesh and drinking the blood of someone. So they they were viewed, there were suspicions that they were cannibals. So they're dealing with Gnosticism spreading up starting to spread through the church and Roman crackdown. So what do they do? They do the very same thing that Israel did in the promised land. They reach for control. As pressure increases, Ignatius pushes. The early church to shift from spirit-led communities, discerning their own shepherds, to a top-down structure where bishops are appointed from above by the disciples of the apostles. And when Rome makes Christianity the national religion, the church adopts Rome's hierarchy. They move from houses where everyone sits together and shares together to Roman law courts, where they are divided by professional and laity. They rebuild veils. They recreate the Old Testament priestly hierarchy, and they Turn the community table into a professional stage. Out of a desire to protect the movement of the church, to guard the church, fear steps in and fear led to control. Instead of trusting the Spirit to govern, to watch over, to lead the church, man in fear turned towards control. And without realizing it, the Babel impulse crept into the church, rebuilding the veil and returning us to a priestly hierarchy like what was in the Old Testament. What Christ had defeated on the cross was was resurrected by the church. This is the tragic mid-act twist of Act 4. And that same fear, that same desire to protect what God had established that entered the early church, it enters you and I, constantly pushing us towards control, even though Christ is always inviting us towards surrender. Babel has entered the church because fear has entered the church. Not because Christians are bad. Not because leaders are malicious. Not because pastors are misguided. But because the Babel impulse lives in each of us. Because his culture darkens And gets more twisted and evil, fear rises because the pressure to increases to guard what we have. Because each and every day the call to protect and fight gets louder and louder. But there's good news because Act 5 is coming. See when we get to the book of Revelation, the climax of the biblical story, it shows us the final collapse of Babel. Jesus returns to execute the legal eviction notice. The global system, Babylon the Great, entirely collapses in a single moment. It's not reformed, it's not rehabilitated, it's not restructured, it is destroyed. Babylon falls, hierarchy ends, the tower collapses, new creation is restored to the horizontal co-equal intention of the garden. The Babel impulse, the human attempt to secure what only God can give is gone forever. And so, friend, when you and I see this, when we finally see the Babel impulse, we realize that Babel did not stop in scripture, it is alive today. In culture, in institutions, in government, in workplaces, in families, in churches, and in each one of us. When fear enters leadership, Babel rises. When insecurity enters ministry, Babel rises. When performance replaces presence, Babel rises. When hierarchy replaces mutual submission, Babel rises. When power is used to protect or guard instead of to serve, Babel rises. Babel is not ancient, Babel is now. Friend, we we can look at scripture and we can name Babel in the Bible, but let's be honest, we ignore naming Babel in the church. The institutional church often reinforces the Babel impulse without even realizing it. Again, not pastors are not bad. They are they are carrying so much weight and trying to do what they can. They are not malicious. And it's not because leaders are incompetent. And it's not because churches hate people. It's because we've inherited a fragmented lens. And friend, when fear enters theology, guess what? Babel rises. We tell parents, if your child strays, you failed. We tell pastors, if your church shrinks, you failed. We tell believers if you struggle, you disappointed God. But that is not the story of scripture. Because think, I mean, just think about this for a moment, okay? If humanity, if humanity could fall for a rival script in Eden, in paradise, under perfect love, with perfect clarity, with God walking beside them, then rebellion is not a failure of parenting or pastoring. Rebellion is the universal human ache meeting the universal Babel impulse. It is the universal human ache meeting the universal Babel impulse. And when the institutional church misreads the story of Scripture, it unintentionally disciples people into fear, into hierarchy, into performance, instead of into Christ's presence and surrender. This is Babel in modern form. Fear weaponized into expectation. Hierarchy disguised as holiness. control, masquerading his wisdom. And this is what your audience is experiencing. This is what your characters are experiencing. This is what the world, humanity is experiencing. The Babel Impulse is the moment the supporting cast tries to take over the script. It is, it is mutiny. And think about this. As the protagonist of the story, Christ, Jesus Christ, his struggle is not that he lacks the power to crush the mutiny, because he does. He crushed it on the cross. But it's that his character arc requires him To overcome rebellion through perfect justice and perfect love at the same time. This is the already and the not yet that we live in. He has defeated it, but it is not yet destroyed. Friend, I think when you and I, when we see the Babel impulse in scripture, in culture, in our own hearts, when we understand the Babel impulse, it gives us a new way to write and see institutions, to write and see villains, to write and see protagonists, to see people and to write characters, to see and teach how to handle conflict. To teach and see and even write how what breakthrough looks like. It helps us see fear. And it helps us recognize it in ourselves. And it helps us to see true godly wisdom. It helps us to be able to communicate what Babel power versus Christ's power look like. It allows us to communicate what love looks like. Friend, here's the truth. Only God, only God can confront Babel and the Babel impulse that is in every human heart. Only Jesus Can defeat it and lead a new humanity who surrenders to God and not the Babel Impulse. Only the Spirit of God can guide the body of Christ and only God can save us. I think once you see how the Babel Impulse works, how it's it it makes fear rise and we reach for control, you really start to stop treating control as wisdom. And you start treating control as fear. You stop treating hierarchy as strength and you start treating it as insecurity. You stop treating domination as leadership and you start treating it as a collapse. And suddenly, suddenly, the story of scripture, it makes sense. And the actions of culture make sense. Why? Because they're made out of fear. Because when we move in fear, we we we grasp for the control and we reach for control even at the expense of other human, God bearing, image bearing people. We will tear them down to protect ourselves. That is what the Babel Impulse does. It's not about caring about others. It's about caring about self. Why? Because we're afraid and we reach for control. We see that. And then we see that the choices of people make sense. Why? Because they're afraid and they reach for control. And we see the Babel impulse in our own hearts. And we say, Man, that wasn't God. That was me. That was fear. I let fear guide me instead of trusting God. Why? Because look, we we all carry this impulse to choose fear and control over surrender and faith. It is, it is imbued in us. It is in us. That's That's why Christ had to come. He was the He's the perfect human partner who said, Not my will, but your will be done. He is the only one to withstand and defeat the Babel impulse. That's why we need Christ. It is in you and I, this desire, this impulse. We don't desire fear, but it's this impulse that when fear is there, to choose fear and to seek control instead of surrender and to have faith and trust in Christ. And friend, once you see that, once you see that Babel impulse, I believe you can finally see the story you're living in. And then you can finally tell the story that brings lasting freedom with clarity, with depth, and with cinematic precision. See, friend, when you align your narrative architecture, if you if you're a storyteller, when you align your narrative and the architecture and how you how you put that story together, when you align that with the main plot of scripture of God restoring and you weave in the subplot of Babel, you stop writing stories where conflict is shallow and it's predictable, and you start to see how deep this fear goes. You start creating prophetic narratives. That expose the real human flaw, that fear that reaches for control, and you reveal how every single tower eventually collapses, grasping for power. You can show characters in their rawest, most honest form, grasping, hiding, dominating, protecting, and then you can show the breathtaking alternative that Christ offers through surrender, through humility, and through cross-shaped love. You can make your audience's hearts burn for the world that Christ is restoring. A world where hierarchy is gone, where domination is dismantled, and where the human impulse to control is finally, finally destroyed. Jesus didn't fight Rome. He fought Babel and he fought the powers and he won. And through his victory, we, us, the new humanity in Christ, become portable Edens, not gatekeepers, who rely on Jesus, on Christ as our hope of glory. We can take heart because Jesus said he has overcome the world. We can rest in peace, in love, in perfect love, the love offered in and through Christ that casts out all fear, because perfect love casts out all fear. The early church, that first century, they didn't panic. They abided. They contended for the faith. They loved. And like Christ, they endured and could say, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Friend, you and I, we are more than conquerors. Not because we win cultural wars, but because Christ lives in us and he has defeated Babel. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our testimony. In other words, we overcome by surrendering to Christ and sharing his story. Not we don't win by through the Babel impulse. We overcome through Christ and His test in our testimony, not through the Babel impulse. If we will love our enemies, if we will serve those who hate us, if we will pray for those who persecute us, if we will submit to those in authority over us, and we live as temples who kneel rather than rise. Then, friend, we will reveal the story of Scripture of Christ through how we live and how we communicate. This is the new humanity. This is the result of presence. This is abiding with Christ. It is the anti-Babble posture. It is the way of Jesus and it is the witness of the early church. It is the story that we are called to communicate, and it is the story we are called to live. Thanks for checking out this episode. If it helped you see the story beneath the story, if it made scripture feel unified, cinematic, and alive. Consider liking it, subscribing, and sharing it with a friend. And if you're a storyteller who wants to communicate Christ clearly through story, but you feel like you need more theology or more story theory to do it, friend, I have good news. You don't need more tools. You just need a new lens, a way to see scripture, culture, and human longing as one unified story. And that's exactly what you'll get in the See the Story masterclass. It's a live, 60-minute experience. Where you'll learn to see scripture, culture, and humanity as one unified story with Christ as the protagonist. And you'll begin to communicate that story with clarity, depth, and confidence. If that's the storyteller you want to become, join me for See the Story Masterclass at cinematicscripture.com. I'll have the link in the description below. Until next time, I'm Kyle. This is Cinematic Scripture. Watch attentively, reflect spiritually, and lead from the story. I'll see you next time.