Would you be a monk or a nun? Dr. Doak and Dr. Payne explore whether or not monastic life is for them - and this week, we are inviting you to think about it too!

Have you heard of “the rapture”? Maybe, maybe not! But we’re going to tell you all about it, and then debate it. A fitting end to our journey through the Bible, arriving, finally, at the APOCALYPSE.
Our artifact: A poster Dr. Doak saw at Fred Meyer, for a rapture-themed paintball contest

Jesus returns to defeat evil: it’s the book of Revelation, our stunning last stop on this tour through the Christian Bible. Whose name is written on your head?

We invite Dr. Joseph Clair into the podcasting bunker because we need to know more about his lecture on the topic of Christian PRACTICE as it appears in the New Testament. We think together about the concept of Christian ethics and moral behavior. Dr. Payne asks an uncomfortable question which Dr. Clair and Dr. Doak struggle to answer.

We take up a topic Christians have debated for centuries: hell. Should we think of hell as “eternal conscious torment,” that is, unbelievers tossed head over heels into the fire to suffer forever, or is hell…something else? Is hell temporary? How might we think about the ethics of hell in light of a loving God?
Artifact for the week: “Farewell Rob Bell” (a tweet by Pastor John Piper, condemning Rob Bell and his book Love Wins)

Dr. Sarita Edwards is back into the studio to talk about the LETTERS of Paul in the New Testament. We talk about some of the locations where people lived who first received these letters, and we engage in a reading and discussion of an intriguing passage for Christian decision making in the first century AD—and today. Also: Was the Apostle Paul cranky?

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.

Dr. Joseph Clair joins us for a rousing lecture on POETRY in the Bible, following his lecture on this very topic. Why does God seem to love poetry so much? We discuss, with a close reading of Psalms 1 and 2.

There are prophets in the Bible—many of them. Christians today claim the Bible is their authoritative book, setting a pattern for life and practice. However: Are there prophets today, in the Biblical sense of the word “prophet”? How would we know? Why would there be? Why would there not be? Some Christians think yes, others, no. Our artifact for discussion: A story in the Washington Post from 2020 featuring a man who claims he is, in fact, a “prophet” today. If you browse around on the internet for a while, you can find many more examples, too.
***Episode note: For reasons we don’t understand, this episode gets cut off at the end, just before Dr. Doak reveals his true view! We have no clue how it happened and our original recording file itself gets cut off at this point. Super weird, and we apologize. For the record, Dr. Doak’s view on this is similar to (even if not exactly like) the view he argued in the debate portion.

Following up on Dr. Doak’s lecture, KINGDOM, we take another shot at summarizing and discussing this wide range of materials, all telling the story of Israel once they enter the land in 1 Samuel all the way through the demise of the kingship and the nation at the end of 2 Kings. And then there are a lot of books authored or spoken by “prophets,” also. Our close reading engages with a classic prophetic scene. Join us.

Does God have a favorite place on earth? Are some places more holy than others? Is the land of Israel still God’s “chosen land,” today? Join us for a civil discussion. Our artifact—which we failed to mention in the podcast itself!—is: Basically any story about the land of Israel over the past several decades! You can easily find all kinds of material about this all over YouTube, the news, etc. So we’re going to let you fill that in on your own. You can do it.

Your professors gather around the podcasting table to discuss this week’s topic, LAND (please watch the lecture on this topic before listening to this podcast!). We ask Dr. Edwards to say more about some specific points in the lecture, Dr. Doak offers alternate ways to think about the justifications for war in the book of Joshua, and we engage in a close reading of a strange little story.

This week we’re tackling two topics and lectures! First, the EXODUS, the story of Moses and the freeing of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. Second, the LAW, the set of commandments the people receive at Mt. Sinai. Dr. Payne and Dr. Doak engage in an extended close reading of a strange ritual. Here is the lecture on the EXODUS that you need to watch first, and here is the one on LAW.

Should the 10 Commandments from Exodus ch. 20 be displayed in public spaces in America today? WE DEBATE.
This week’s artifact: The story of a Montana man who took down the 10 Commandments.
Here is one version of the story
And here is another

This week we bring Dr. Sarita Edwards into the studio to discuss the ANCESTORS in Genesis chs. 12-50. How do we feel about the notion that God chooses some people…and not others? Do you have more sympathy for Sarah or Hagar in their dispute in Genesis chs. 16 and 21?

This week we’re discussing one of the most dreaded and revered concepts at Christian colleges: the “ring by spring” phenomenon. Students talk about it at George Fox. They talk about it at Gonzaga. And it is apparently also the title of a Hallmark movie. We use the concept as a bridge to thinking about the romantic relationships between the ancestors in Genesis chs. 12–50: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel and Leah, Joseph and Asenath. And…others. Were these marriages “good” marriages? What should we make of their methods of engagement (often in arranged marriages)? Dr. Doak and Dr. Payne debate.

Dr. Doak and Dr. Payne follow up on this week’s lecture, which covers Genesis chs. 1-11. In particular, they read Genesis ch 3, verses 1-7, in search of knowledge about the snake, gender, and who is at fault for humanity’s first sin.

Should readers of the Bible expect to find Noah’s ark, in reality, on top of a mountain in the Middle East? What might be the advantages and disadvantages of such a quest? Dr. Payne and Dr. Doak debate. Our artifact for the week is the “Ark Encounter” exhibit in Kentucky:
https://arkencounter.com/
And also related phenomena, like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kAgfh_-oSY

For this first in the series of “I Need to Know More” weekly podcasts, your four teaching professors all get together to kick things off! We discuss this week’s main video lecture by Dr. Brian Doak on the BIBLE. What is the text, physically? How does it get presented to us? How do Christians uphold their view that the text is sacred and holy? Dr. Doak gives another shot at going deeper on some concepts around canon and translation. These “I Need to Know More” podcasts are predicated on listeners have already watched the corresponding main lecture video for the week! Here is the YouTube playlist with all of those videos:
https://bit.ly/2CpgYEI.

Welcome to our end-of-week teaching and podcast element! We’re calling it the “THEO POP-CULTURE SMACKDOWN.” Each week, we’ll debate a different topic at the intersection of (a) our week’s topic, (b) pop culture, and (c) the Bible and faith. This week: it’s Dr. Payne vs. Dr. Doak on the question: Are “specialty Bibles” good or bad for faith?
Here are some examples of the “speciality Bibles” we’re talking about:
New Everyday Life Bible
The Athlete’s Bible
Tim Lahaye’s Prophecy Study Bible
Faith Girlz

The crew gets back together one more time for a final Amen.