8/21/24 - 2056: Fiction, the Stealth Evangelist

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the Voice of collaboration for the Faith and Work Movement.

Martha: And we are your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: So my question is: do you have a superhero? Growing up I loved the 6 million dollar man. He was my superhero. Was he my superhero? I don't know. But when I met Jesus, I figured out that he was my superhero because he came and executed a flawless plan to rescue everyone on planet earth. Kind of Will Smith without all the collateral damage. I think the better question is, do we have a hero in the faith? A mentor, a solid biblical example of a warrior for Jesus that we not only look up to, but also live under their example?

Way too many of us operate alone and not under the influence of an elder in the faith. So how about a fictional story about a Jesus following superhero just to lighten up the conversation? A 500 page novel of a superhero who works with God. Now that's what I'm talking about. Steven Thomas is an author. He's the author from Chicago, from the Windy City. Christian incredible fiction coming out of the Windy City, and he's here to share his story of transformation and Catholic Joe, superhero. Steven, welcome to iWork4Him.

Steven Thomas: Thank you so much. It's great to be here, and that was a phenomenal introduction. I love it.

Jim: I'm glad you enjoyed it. I have a lot of fun writing those. Steven, talk to me about how you became a follower of Jesus.

Steven Thomas: It started when I was actually young, so probably 17 years old, I was in high school, parents were going through a divorce, tough times, and somebody left this little booklet. And so I read this little booklet. It was a story about Fatima and it was a story about how, it was prophetic. Was the mother of God. She talked about how the first world war was going to end. Second world war was going to start, all these other like supernatural things. And from that, I just had this just ravenous desire for scripture.

So I would just read as a teenager. And again, I was with the trouble crowd. I was like a fast moving troublemaker when I was younger but I just dove into scripture and from there it just grew, my appetite and my hunger for Christ, for the Father and the Spirit. All that stuff is just, it's just increased in intensity until this present day. Still have it.

Martha: You never know a little seed can be planted and for you as a booklet that who knows what the intentions were when it was being passed around or whatever, but I love that started your journey. So what kind of career path has God had you on?

Steven Thomas: So I started off studying for the priesthood, so I felt called to be a priest and I was five years in the seminary and quickly realized that it wasn't my calling. I wanted to get married, wanted to have children and I just, again I left, I actually taught high school for a couple of years, and then after that I moved on.

My father had a manufacturing company, so I worked for him for about 20 years. And, everything I did from the moment I taught high school to the present day is I've always tried to weave in my faith. I've always tried to have conversations - because I used to do cabinets, right? Custom cabinets. So a couple that's redoing their kitchen. I would try to weave in Oh, okay. So how many kids do you have? How many do you want to have? And then we'd start talking about family and I would always share with them, I've read that the biggest regret that people have in their 50s and 60s is they didn't have more kids.

So I was always trying to promote people to be generous, like Genesis, right? Be fruitful and multiply.

Jim: You know, we don't have 900 years to have kids though, Steve . (laughter) It's a little different than Adam and Eve. They had ten centuries to get it done. Okay. All right Yeah, you're right. I get it. I wish we'd had more kids... some days.

Steven Thomas: I've got eight. I've got eight kids and I still wish we had more kids.

Jim: And your wife's going Yeah, I think eight is enough.

Martha: Just like a TV show.

Jim: I was going to say, that's catchy. That would be a great name.

Martha: It sounds like you've had a lot of different ways that God has used you in different careers and things like that, but at what point did you actually realize that your Heavenly Father wanted to work with you in whatever you were putting your hand to?

Steven Thomas: Like I said, really from the very beginning. I just, I felt called. My whole goal is to bring God's kids back to him. So no matter what I'm doing, even when I was doing cabinets. In fact, I'll give you an example. So I started a company in the nineties called Vitae corporation. So Vitae is the Latin word for of life.

And so I started this company. It was a culture of life credit card. So it's like a visa. Had the hand from the Sistine Chapel, the finger of God and Adam, right? Touching. And and I raised money for pro life groups and, crisis pregnancy centers, things like that. And I did that and then in 2007, and then actually we got banned when banning wasn't cool. Cause we were pro life and the bank found out how pro life we were and they're like, Oh, we can't have this.

Jim: How pro life you were. You're pro life. You were just like partially pro life. You actually were a pro, full life pro life.

Steven Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And then in 07, I remember going on to Netflix. I'm going to pick out a movie and I saw this genre, right? I saw this, the gay and lesbian genre. And again we love all of our brothers and sisters. We don't judge at all, but I just thought, I don't want my kids to have to navigate this. Again, this back in 07.

And so I started a company called faith and family flicks. So we had all family friendly movie selections for them. And I've done things like that all my life. I started a software called Bizintro. And again, the whole purpose of it was about, it's about giving, it's about giving introductions to people.

So I've always tried to tie in my the crazy, the stuff that goes on in my head. I always tell people I have more ideas when I shower in the morning than most people have in a month. It's just the things just keep flowing and that's where the book came from.

Jim: So all of those things you just said, none of them were and write fiction, long form novels, adventure mystery murder novels. Where did you ever learn that you could write?

Steven Thomas: You know I've always had these stories in my head and I just never had the opportunity. Again, eight kids. Never really had the opportunity to sit down and just you know crank out a 500 page novel. I don't have your energy Jim, right?

Jim: You had eight kids. They literally suck battery life out of you every day.

Steven Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. They actually keep me young. So again, it's like everything's a gift, right? Everything is a gift. And this whole story of Catholic Joe, it really, it developed through the years.

So it started probably back in the nineties. I remember my wife and I, we used to do marriage prep. We taught natural family planning. I did chastity talks. And I remember back then that we always got the short end of the stick. We, sometimes couldn't get a room and it seemed like we were always getting pushed to the side.

And I was thinking to myself, we need like a superhero. Somebody could just kick behind and take names and that's where it first started. And then, again, that was like, 30 years ago, and so here we are now., Last December wrote it.

Jim: We're gonna talk about Steven's book, which is Catholic Joe Superhero. Listening audience, if you have, if you're just tuning in, maybe this is your first iWork4Him show, but if you've been listening at any length, you know that I like to read. I read a lot of books for the show.

I've read over 500 over the last 11 years for the show alone. But during the year, I usually read 20, 30, 40 fiction books, always of the Christian genre. In other words, they're not morally bereft, that they're actually something that's going to lift me up. Usually some scripture in there, but it's people's real stories.

I'm reading a Francine Rivers story right now. But when my friend Bob Lambert out of Chicago said listen, you gotta meet Steven Thomas. He's written this incredible book. I wonder if Bob even read it. That's what I want to know. But Steven sends me his book Catholic Joe Superhero. I'm like, okay, not a title I typically would have picked up in a store, but I read it because Steven had a phenomenal reference for me.

I picked this book up. I couldn't put it down. I read it in three days. This was an incredible story and it's fun and it's all about Joe Salvatore, who's a great Italian guy. I just love that. Cause I've got about a third of a, between a quarter and a half of Sicilian in me so all the last names were no big deal for me. But Joe Salvatore is a war hero. He's a special ops hero. He's a man hero. He's a husband hero. He's a dad hero. And he's a hero of the faith.

And I love Steven that you wrote this book about him and after Martha says something I really want to make sure we get into, let's talk about the book a little bit.

Martha: Well, I just I love it when we're talking about stories and things that we watch and one of the things that I was thinking about in my own life is I love to watch youtube when I'm cooking in the kitchen. That's like my thing.

And what happens is shows that I've subscribed to come up and are suggested over and over again. So I know about new episodes. So I just want to take a moment to say to everyone right now to go to YouTube and please subscribe to iWork4Him, iRetire4Him, and we have several other channels out there. And I'll put those in the show notes for you if you want them.

But I would love for you to subscribe to those so that they show up for you when you're out on YouTube and looking for something to watch. We do really have a lot of fun being able to look at our guests talk and interact. And I know that they'll pop up automatically, so you'll be catching up all the time on what's going on right here at iWork4Him.

Jim: Steven, Joe's a military veteran, special ops. He has eight kids at home. Gee, I wonder where that came from. (laughter)

Steven Thomas: I'm lazy, alright? I'm lazy.

Jim: He's got an incredible wife named Mary. What's your wife's name, Steven?

Steven Thomas: Mary.

Jim: Okay. There we go. (laughter)

This whole thing is military, special ops, eight kids at home, stayed married to an incredible wife, Mary. Seems a little farfetched yet you make Joe very real. Where did the idea of Joe come from? Because none of your work background said special ops, military veteran, that kind of stuff.

Steven Thomas: Yeah, it's a good question. I guess I tried to create the perfect man and the reason again, he's not perfect, right? Because he's got flaws. He went through his dark times and again, God pulled him out, God's grace. But I wanted to create the iconic man of what really, it's the type of person I would want to be like. And again, I felt like masculinity in general was taking a really big hit in society.

And so I felt like we needed this iconic figure of what beautiful masculinity looks like. Cause the thing that shocked the heck out of me was that I wrote it for men, but women love it. And I'm like, I was just baffled. And so I asked, I pinned down a few women. I said what do you like about it? And they said, we really like that it shows just a really awesome masculinity and there's something attractive about that.

Jim: Steven, it's Ephesians 5:25 lived out: husbands, love your wives like Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Joe lives that out for Mary and his kids, and, at the end of that verse in verse 30, or the paragraph ends in 32, and it says, and wives submit to your husbands.

No wife ever would have a problem submitting to a husband who loves her like Christ loved the church. That's why Paul was writing it. But yet we just seem to have missed all of that. And that's why women love it because it's: I want a husband like that who will pray with me. .

Steven Thomas: And you're right. And who will I know who will live for my happiness and and live for my protection? And so yeah, I know that's a good point. It's a good point.

Martha: Okay, so speaking of marriage, Joe ends up having powerful influence over his brother Vinny in his life and in his marriage and he helps him to see the truth and actually fight for his marriage. Now I'm learning this from Jim because I haven't read the book yet. So I'm just being honest there but in a superhero book , why are we going the marriage mentoring route and the superhero ended up helping his brother?

Steven Thomas: You know, I think part of that comes from, I think it comes from my woundedness coming from divorce as a child. Again I call it the crucible of divorce. It's that silent stigma in life that we've all kind of grown comfortable with because it's so prevalent. And again, I've been I've tried to speak out as much as I could about marriage. If you can prevent one child having to cry themselves to sleep or one couple having to go through the pain of divorce, the book's a success.

But Yeah. Marriage, marriage really is.. So in our faith so John Paul II, the Pope, he said that marriage is the primordial sacrament. It's the beginning of it. It's the beginning of everything. So it's from marriage that everything kind of flows. And so if that, if marriage is distorted or broken, grace can't flow how God wants it to. So it's to me, it's the most important battle we have to fight in our day and age. If you fix marriage you fix 90 percent of all the world's problems.

Jim: Boy, there's a sermon you should get to preach on about a thousand sundays in about a million churches because truly strong marriages build strong families, build strong church communities, and strong church communities revolutionize the communities that they're in, and it changes a nation one community at a time. It's something we need to talk about, and I love the fact that Catholic Joe Superhero Is fighting for marriage. It starts with fighting for his brother's marriage, which was a hot mess, a great part of the story.

Martha: Don't give it away.

Jim: I'm not but it's not my cousin, it's my brother Vinny. So it's not my cousin Vinny, my brother.

All right, so Catholic Joe Superhero also uncovered some criminal unethical behavior in the leadership in the church. Are you writing on something that you uncovered or was that all just fiction?

Steven Thomas: No, I would say most the book is based on truth. I call it a fiction, right? But no I did a lot of research. So a gentleman that I know he actually hired X faithful FBI and actually to do a lot of research because back when they selected the last Pope, you had the, so the cardinals get together in a conclave, right?

Jim: Oh yeah. We've all seen on TV with the smoke coming out of the chimney and different colors.

Steven Thomas: Smoke means different things and so they were going on Wikipedia to get information on each other, and this guy was like, this is nuts. Wikipedia is a CIA tool or whatever, so anyway, so he made it his task to basically research all these different cardinals and the people in the church. And so he actually shared with me his wife made him quit after a couple years because some of the things he uncovered were just very disheartening.

And again, not that I want to dwell on the brokenness of the church because the church is very broken. Christ's bride is not as beautiful as we, as Christ wants her to be. In fact, so this nun who taught me in high school, she was very instrumental in my faith growth and development. She started reading the book and I talked to her and she had tears in her eyes. And she, once I started like talking about like corrupt bishops, she goes, Whoa, I can't endorse that.

But the thing is that, you've got to have prophets in the world and, when we're baptized. When we are baptized, we are anointed with oil and we are anointed priest, prophet and king. We are grafted into God's family, but we are anointed. We are meant to be prophets and priests and kings. And so that's where the whole notion of superhero. You talk about, why superhero?

Because we're all called, like you've mentioned earlier, we are all called to be superheroes by the merit of our baptism. And we are grafted into God's family. We've got the creator of the universe we can call Abba, Dada, Daddy or Father, the redeemer of the world we can call brother. And so we've got this unique, I would say power, because of that relationship that very few of us really understand. And that's why it had to be a superhero too.

Jim: We're talking with Steven Thomas who wrote this book called Catholic Joe Superhero. It's all about a guy who works with God. In so many situations, it is fun to read, practical as well. Which almost all Christian fiction is practical. You can learn a lot about God by hearing other people live out their stories, maybe in a fictional world, but there's always a lot of truth interlaced.

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Martha: I just, Steven, you walked across the United States with many others in the form of the shape of a cross. Tell us about that. Why did you do that?

Steven Thomas: So that goes back, so 18 years ago I was praying. And so I have this devotion to Jesus mother, right? I go, Mother, I go what's something we can do just for Jesus? And this whole idea of a Eucharistic procession across the country, so we had to basically to take our Lord across the country, reconsecrate it. That was 18 years ago. And they just had this big event in the church where literally they walked across the United States in the form of a cross. That was me. God put that on my heart. And so I brought that to the church in the United States. And so as a part of that, at the very beginning, and then, and a friend of mine who I brought on, he said, you know what, let's walk it.

So we had a relic of the true cross. So the cross that Christ died on that his blood covered, we had a little tiny sliver of that cross that we basically carried with us walking in the form of a cross across the United States, praying for our country, praying for marriage, praying for our church.

But just, sometimes we get, we feel like we have this helpless notion that what could we possibly do? And so we just felt like we wanted to go out and we wanted to do something radical and it was radical, and there were times where every step was just sheer agony. I'm not a marathon runner. I don't, you can't see the lower half of me. It's more like an hourglass than anything. But that, that whole trip was something that was it was so powerful.

And again, I felt like it really was the precursor to the book so I felt like it was from that trip and that journey and that persevering through that God gave me the grace, you know, to persevere through through writing the book.

Jim: And some people who haven't ever written a book don't know what that's really like. Because it's one thing to write the book the first time, and then you get with editors, and then it becomes no more fun. Because editors are just like, what are you thinking? Rewrite the whole thing. It's just, it's brutal. I didn't enjoy that part of the process. I enjoyed writing, but I didn't enjoy the editing part.

All right. Yeah. Steven, part of Catholic Joe's Superhero's story is your story, because you are in the battle today, fighting for marriage and fighting for men broken by divorce. Tell us about that.

Steven Thomas: Yeah. So that, that really is my white hot passion. So I was talking to a classmate from the seminary when I was there, he's actually an exorcist for the diocese of Indianapolis. And we're talking about how beautiful our faith is and that it makes, it gives meaning to suffering. And when I was a youngster, I suffered a lot through divorce.

And, again the crucible of divorce it was from that suffering again, it didn't turn me well. So I did turn to alcohol and things like that when I was younger but the wound has since been transformed by Christ, right? By his precious blood, right? He's transformed that wound into something that can bear fruit.

So now I take that and I got this white hot passion for marriage. I don't want anybody to have to go through that again. So really it was that experience really that fuels me to, and again marriage is just, it's just so important in our society. It's just it's so frustrating sometimes and we see people that just give up and that, that again, there's so much suffering because of it. I just feel called. I feel like God's called me to really be a champion for marriage.

Jim: I love it.

Martha: That's so good. And that really resonates with Jim and I, we believe that marriage is worth standing up for and fighting for, and people don't hear enough of that. And a lot of times it's great to hear that out of your wounds, some beautiful things have come that are helping next generations to come. How do you know that you're working with God in this battle? Joe knew he was working with God when he was taking down criminals. How are you working with God in the mentoring and the things that you're doing?

Steven Thomas: Good question, Martha. I guess we'd never really know, but I would say, I try to steep myself in prayer. So as a Catholic, I'll go to mass, I'll try to go to mass every morning. I'll do an hour of adoration. So I start the day with intense prayer. Again, as Catholics, I kneel before the tabernacle and I always, I try to renew my baptismal vows.

And I say, Jesus, you've anointed me priest, prophet, and king. We're in the same family. You're my brother. How are we going to yoke together to bring God's kids back to him? And so it's really that prayer and that desire that again, that desire God's given me. Everything is a gift, so he's given me that desire and it really is because of that prayer that I feel a sense of trust, confidence that I'm not going to be led in the wrong direction. Although I've made plenty of mistakes.

Jim: Yeah, Mary called. No, she called before the show. She called before the show and actually emailed me a list. It was quite lengthy, actually, but she asked that I not bring it up live on air.

 (laughter)

Steven Thomas: Good thing you have that, that one terabyte hard drive, that extra little bit of storage. Yeah. Good.

Jim: That was all the comments from the kids. Mary's list was fairly short.

Martha: I want to say something about this, because I think this is really relevant to what you were saying earlier about the nun who was concerned with what you were talking about was happening in the church and stuff, is the fact that we are all sinners saved by grace.

So we, when people say the church is a hot mess, yeah, it's full of humans, right? So we all fall short. And so I think that's really one of the many messages. Again, going back to Jim, how much we love fiction is that you can get these messages out of fiction without somebody going, You are crazy. You don't know what you're getting it in the story where someone else is learning. But the reality is that we do live in a messed up world that needs Jesus. And each one of us falls short.

Steven Thomas: Yeah, with fiction, it's like stealth evangelization because people, their guards are down, yes. And the thing is that they're enjoying the story, it's moving. And then you insert like a little conversation between Mary and Kathy where they're talking about, why don't you use contraception? And why, what's wrong with it?

And they have this conversation and you pose it in a way where you're not preaching. It's not a, it's not a catechism. It's not a textbook, but it's something that where you can again - I love the idea of stealth evangelization where you use, I call it the spiritual stiletto. They don't even know it, but the blade is going deep into their heart.

Martha: Yes. So many times you see it and I won't stay on this topic. I love talking about fiction, but it's like you are, your guard is down, like you said, and you all of a sudden go, you mean, people really can have a conversation like that? I never thought about that. I've never seen a healthy conversation like the one I just read in this book. Or a disaster of a conversation, depending on what you're trying to teach your readers.

Jim: There's demonstrations of both of those in the book, Catholic Joe Superhero.

Martha: Which is real life, gets you to see other vantage points and say, that's a, I really like how they handle that. Maybe I should try that in my own life. And that's the beauty of some tool like this, which I love that you're calling it stealth evangelism, because that's really what it is. And like you said, if one marriage is saved or one life is changed, it's worth it all. But I can tell you that it's also been great for other readers as well.

Jim: It was great. All right. So Steven, before we go, any final words? Any final... you said you had a question for Martha and I. Before we go, I want to give you a chance to ask that question. Didn't know if you wanted to do it while we're recording or after.

Steven Thomas: Sure. Yeah, no, actually, while we're recording, I wanted to ask you, what was the thing that struck you the most about the book? Because again my goal is to get into the person's heart. So what part of the book got into your heart?

Jim: It was the realness of the person because Joe didn't have all the answers. And he was seeking advice from elders. He was seeking advice from the spiritual leaders in his life. And he was seeking the Lord all the time. And he prayed with his wife. I love it.

Martha and I have prayed together since our very first date. Every day. And I know the power of that. And you put that in a superhero. It was fun, the stories he tells and all the adventures. But what I love is the fact that all came back down to, he honored his wife. And he honored his Lord in everything he did. He wasn't perfect, but he always went back to, God. I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing here. Just tell me what to do.

It's that whole Psalm 119 :105 thing, a light into my path and a lamp under my feet. But back then, 3, 200 years ago, when David was writing that little lamp barely lit enough space on the ground at night for them to know where to put the next step. And that's what Joe was living, one step at a time led by the spirit of God. And so he was real to me because that's the kind of - I'm never gonna shoot a gun and you know do special ops. I got that hourglass figure like you as well. Or was it that was the penguin figure? Whatever it is but it's part of the hourglass the bottom part of the hourglass.

So I just love the realness of it and it was fun to see romance in the middle of it.

Steven Thomas: What did you think of that part? Because I had to make it tasteful but still real.

Jim: It was, it was great. I loved it. I also love the fact that Vinny and Kathy were at the end of their marriage rope. In fact once a woman is scorned like Kathy was, normally they never turn back. And yet because of the transformation of Vinny's life, because of Jesus, it gave their marriage a second breath and we've seen that. And it's real. It's not, it's messy. And the collateral damage on the kids, as you described, and Joe's niece and nephew, that's a real thing. But yet, when somebody's life is miraculously transformed by Jesus, which anybody who's a Jesus follower has had a massive transformation of their life, it's fun to read.

Steven Thomas: Good stuff. Good stuff.

Jim: Yes. Steven Thomas, thanks for being on iWork4Him today.

Steven Thomas: Sure. And if you want to get the book, can I share a website?

Martha: Yes, please.

Steven Thomas: Yes. If you want to get the book, you can go to catholicjoesuperhero. com. So it's catholicjoesuperhero. com. And we're working on the next book. So I think the next one is actually going to be better than the first one.

Jim: Excellent. That's a pretty, that's pretty big statement right there.

Martha: We'll put the link in the show notes and we are just excited to hear from others of what they think when they read it for themselves.

Jim: Absolutely. CatholicJoeSuperhero. com. Steven Thomas, we're grateful to have you here today, and we're grateful that you're a superhero who learned to work with God. Loved it.

You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him!