I BELIEVE

Here is an important affirmation for Christians: Jesus Saves. But an important question arises: How? This week, we go into the THEO archives for a live debate in Bauman Auditorium in front of hundreds of students on the question: Is the “penal substitution” theory of the atonement the best way to answer this question of how Jesus saves? GFU professors Dr. Javier Garcia and Dr. Nijay Gupta take the stage in a spirited exchange.
IF YOU WANT MORE BACKGROUND ON PENAL SUBSTITUTION, here you go. (Dr. Garcia begins his part of the debate mostly assuming you already know what it is.)
OUR ARTIFACT: “Jesus Saves” bumper stickers

All Christians believe that God is present and active in the world today. But how active, and in what ways? Should we be praying for miracles constantly? Just sometimes? What would be the Christian case for not seeking miracles or seeing God as normally intervening in our world? We debate in front of a live audience, from the Spring 2020 THEO class in Bauman auditorium! Moderated by Dr. Sarita Edwards.
THE ARTIFACT: from Buzzfeed news, “The Evangelical Parents of a Young Girl Who Died are Using Social Media to Ask for Her Resurrection”

The book of Acts and the story of Philip is our focus in this week’s podcast. We invite Dr. Sarita Edwards into the studio to follow up on her lecture, SPIRIT, and we discuss what inspires us, the meaning of eunuchs, missionary activity, and more. Also: Can people be teleported?

With every head bowed, and every eye closed…just raise your hand… In this episode of the Smackdown, we’re discussing the idea of a “sinner’s prayer.” Is this the way into faith? For our artifact: We started the podcast with numerous artifacts actually unrelated to this week’s debate, such as the Phil Collins album that is considered one of the worst of all time (“Testify”), the Phil Collins song “Hero,” and Christian appropriations of pop songs (such as this Christian version of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”……). However, here are examples of an artifact on the topic of the sinner’s prayer, all images drawn from the internet—some serious, some satirical:
Sinner’s prayer art on Pintrest
Sinner’s prayer card
Sinner’s prayer cartoon
Book: J. D. Greear, Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart

“Jesus saves”—OK, but what does that mean? And what is the role of doubt? We go deeper, building on Dr. Doak’s lecture, SAVIOR. We read a famous and often misunderstood text. Join us.

We’re all about the gospel of Mark this week. In this episode, we unpack Dr. Payne’s lecture, CHRIST, in which she takes us on a tour through Mark. We talk about the surprising political background behind terms such as “savior” and “good news” (gospel) in Jesus’ time, and we engage in a reading of a series of stories in Mark that display one of Mark’s most frequent literary devices (“intercalation”).

Should Christians be getting hard-core into politics? How or why would we do that? It’s a constant hot topic. Perhaps people are even debating this now. Our pop culture artifact: Christian worship music empire and popular Australian church group “Hillsong” tweets out some politically charged comments about U.S. politics and then deletes the tweet and apologizes.

Why do people suffer? The painful problem of the exile raises this question in numerous ways. See the video lecture on EXILE for this week. Do people suffer because of their own actions, or are there other mysterious forces at work? Is the “act-consequence nexus” the best way to think about morality? Dr. Doak and Dr. Payne debate, and we provide a bonus discussion at the beginning about the issue of how and why Christians can debate with each other. Our artifact for the week: “Five natural disasters God sent to punish us,” an article discussing different times Christians and others have affirmed the “act-consequence nexus” as a way of understanding God’s activity in the world and our suffering.

Dr. Doak and Dr. Payne sit down to talk about how they felt when they first left home for college, and imagine, inspired by our material from the Bible this week, what it might be like to experience EXILE (be sure to watch the main lecture video on EXILE before listening to this podcast!). We discuss numerous texts and issues, haggle about the politics of people left in the land vs. people taken away from the land, converse about the tears that flow when the new Temple construction begins, and read a provocative text loaded with double entendre.

Is the Song of Songs supposed to be Rated R…or Rated A(llegory)? We argue about it. The artifact in question? A book by a Christian megachurch pastor called Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy. Listen at your own risk, away from the kids.