The Church Split

This episode launches a new series from The Church Split: media reviews! In this review, Will looks at the Netflix miniseries called Midnight Mass. This show is an American supernatural horror which examines strong religious themes including the problem of evil, suffering, cult creation, belief, prayer, etc.  This spoiler free review should be fun for any that have already watched it or might consider watching.

Matt Chandler, Pastor of The Village Church, recently took a leave of absence due to allegations of inappropriate messages between him and a woman friend. We review the details released and discuss if this was truly inappropriate behavior of a Pastor or an example of legalism in the church.

Will goes on the YouTube Channel "Faith Unaltered" live to discuss all the different atonement theories. If you want an overview of each theory and a dive into how each one articulates Christ's atonement on our behalf as well as how they differ from each other, this is the episode for you.

Friend of the show Braxton Hunter from Trinity Radio posed 7 questions for Christian YouTubers to respond to. We took Braxton up on his offer. The questions:

We have friend of the show and fellow YouTuber and author Nick Quient on to discuss his views on egalitarianism in the church. We look at specific verses from the New Testament and get Nick's perspective on how those affirm or deny traditional views of women and their roles in the church. We also get into Deborah in the OT and how that affects the egalitarian position.

Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is the founder of a very interesting and new apologetics ministry called Talk About Doubts. They have an entire faculty read to engage over phone/zoom/in-person to discuss doubts people have. This can supplement churches and just help those that have no one else to ask. Dr. McLatchie also has a PhD in Biology and does debates with atheists on the evidence for God. We discuss his recent debate with Alex O'Connor (aka Cosmicskeptic), irreducible complexity, non-resistant non-believers, evidentialism, presuppositionalism, and a Q&A session at the end since this was recorded live.

We have talked about this doctrine on a few episodes, but never gave a full breakdown of our full belief and rationale until now. We dive into the doctrine of original sin, coined by Augustine of Hippo. We review scripture and the ramifications of such a doctrine on Jesus and his birth, Mary, babies (especially ones who pass away), desire and the causes of sin, our responsibility for sin and why we have no excuse, and other doctrines that are created or conflict with this presupposition.

We have been asked about this topic many times and we felt it was finally time to do a deep dive into what we believe on this topic. We go through numerous Bible references as we examine if a believer can forfeit their faith. We will review common objections from both sides. Even though there is disagreement in the body of believers on this doctrine, the end result for the believer is the same regardless of which side you fall under: Focus on your faith, cling to Jesus, submit to God's Word, produce good works from your faith, and give the gospel to to unbelievers.

With the impending potential overthrow of Roe v. Wade, we go through all the common pro-abortion arguments and give you methods on how to respond. We give overall discussion strategies, statistics, and even the most commonly used Bible verse taken out of context to support abortion. We address the 21 most arguments and then give you the SLED test for easy categorization of pro-choice arguments.