In this episode, host Mark Moore, Auxiliary Professor of New Testament and Theology, is joined by the director of the Theatre program Derek Martin & Assistant Professor of New Testament and Theology Matthew Godshall. They explore the question, are cultural artifacts (i.e. films, television shows, books, etc.) that mention God in a bad or even sacrilegious way less dangerous than artifacts that do not mention God at all? Some “family-friendly” artifacts may actually cause more harm than good by excluding God all together.

TRANSCRIPT

0:08

Hey, welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And today on the show, I'm joined by two of my esteemed colleagues. Here. Jessup, Matthew, gotcha. Matthew, won't you speak a little bit about what you teach here?

0:20

Sure. Thanks, Mark. I don't know about a steamed but definitely. That's kind. I teach New Testament and theology courses. I'm actually the lead faculty for theology degree, to teach in historical theology, some comparative theology, but also getting stained in the New Testament with Romans and revelation and survey courses as well.

0:44

Perfect. Perfect. So we got theologian on board today, on board and then also joined by Derrick Martin. Derek, what do you do here?

0:51

You know, I'm the head of the theater program here at Jessup. I teach primarily the theology of the arts and faith in arts courses, as well as things like directing and Shakespeare some other stuff there I kind of vision cast for the program. I'm the functional leader. I don't know if I'd go status, because there's quite a few people that have a big say and how we move forward. But right, yeah, functionally, I think I'm ahead of the theater.

1:21

That's great. And it's been doing so well, the show's been going great. And it's been really good for the university. So and I'm just excited to have you both on the show. So we got two theologians and an actor. That's right. They there are two theologians and actor to Japan, right? Yeah, walk into a bar leading us into something. But really, what I want to kind of talk about today is how cultural artifacts approach God, how they talk about God. And when I say cultural artifacts, I mean, books, movies, music, plays, even plays in cultural artifacts, and how they, how they talk about God, how they view God, how they express gun, and have a particular kind of question. And that question is, are cultural artifacts that mentioned God, even in a profane light, right, even in a light that would make us extremely uncomfortable, maybe even angry, are artifacts that do that, more or less dangerous than cultural artifacts that don't mention God at all, that are silent on God. And I bring this up because I had an English professor in undergrad and full disclosure as an English undergrad, Major. So I moved, I saw the light and I moved to theology in my grad school years. But I was English and writing undergrad and my favorite English professor. I remember one semester, she was kind of receiving a lot of complaints about the books we were reading, you know, these works of mid 20th century American literature, and, and just the topics they were dealing with some unsavory topics, how they were presenting God, and I'll never forget her response to those complaints. She first responded by looking at Mark seven, which Mark seven is a passage that talks about where Jesus talking about what really defiles us, and it's not from what is on the outside, going in food we eat, maybe, conversations we have, but it's actually from within what defiles us so she's trying to maybe help students that, you know, it's already happening within our hearts. And she went from there to make the claim that artifacts that actually that worry her the most are artifacts that don't mention God that are silent on God. What do you what do you think about her argument there? That artifacts that are silent for her artifacts that are silent are more dangerous than artifact