The Two Cities

In this episode we’re talking about What Jesus Learned From Women with Dr. James F. McGrath, who is Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, the host of a podcast called ReligionProf, and the author of the book that we’re discussing here, What Jesus Learned From Women (published by Cascade). Dr. McGrath’s thesis is that there are many women in the Gospels who teach Jesus various things. Acknowledging that this is a controversial claim (depending on one’s Christology), Dr. McGrath begins by noting that Jesus obviously learned from Mary, his mother, and that there are other scenes that scholars have pointed to, such as the interaction with the Syrophoenician Woman, as discrete examples of Jesus learning from women. McGrath’s book seeks to build upon those examples and draw together all possible instances of Jesus learning from women presented to us in the Gospels. In our conversation we discuss Mary Magdalene, Jesus' grandmother, the woman caught in adultery, and the woman at the well in particular. When set in modern conversations about gender, Dr. McGrath concludes from this analysis that if Jesus was a feminist at all, he was not a twenty-first century feminist, but rather a first-century Jewish feminist. Thus, Jesus shouldn’t be read as being outside of a patriarchal Jewish perspective. Rather, his views on women arise out of that Jewish context and influence. Team members on episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. Josh Carroll, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, and Dr. Chris Porter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As our final episode in our Apologetics series, we conclude by discussing apologetics pedagogy, education, and training with three recent graduates of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, which was formerly associated with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries as its training arm. Joining us to talk about the experience of studying there and their ongoing relationship with apologetics in the aftermath of what was revealed about Ravi Zacharias are: Stephanie Kate Judd, who is a lawyer and researcher funded by Anglican Deaconess Ministries in disability and human dignity based in Australia; Lauren Ruef, who is a freelance writer and editor based in the States; and Clare Williams, who is the founder of Get Real, which is an apologetics ministry based in the UK. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Dr. Chris Porter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the penultimate episode in our Apologetics series, we discuss the need for Urban Apologists in particular to address how Christianity has been whitewashed. For this conversation, we are joined by Pastor Jerome Gay, Jr., who is the founder and pastor of Vision Church in Raleigh, NC, the author of The Whitewashing of Christianity: A Hidden Past, A Hurtful Present, and A Hopeful Future, and one of the contributors to the recent volume on Urban Apologetics (published by Zondervan). As Pastor Jerome explains, whitewashing is the way that Christianity is inaccurately portrayed as being a White religion from the very beginning, including the way that prominent African figures in the early church, including figures like Athanasius and Augustine, are regularly represented as white in Christian art. This is an important issue for many reasons, esp. since it is a hurdle to extending the gospel to black communities. Beyond matters of imagery, Pastor Jerome also speaks to the need to live out the gospel and empathetically enter into the experience of others when doing Urban Apologetics. Team Members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. Josh Carroll, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Sangalang Ng, and Rev. Daniel Parham. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode we continue our apologetics conversation by specifically talking about the problems throughout Christian history with Dr. John Dickson, who is the Distinguished Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Public Christianity at Ridley College, Melbourne, and the author of a number of books, including most recently, Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History (Zondervan), as well as the host of a podcast called Undeceptions. Apologetics for John is primarily about making Christ known, and thus he prefers to speak of public Christianity rather than “apologetics.” Given John’s recent book, and his expertise as a historian, we primarily discuss the horrors associated with the Crusades and how Christians should think about this terrible part of the history of their faith. For John, the greatest apologetic is the local church, both because no individual can really make the full case and also because when the church rightly sings the tune of Christ, unlike what we see with the Crusades, that will be the most compelling presentation of the Gospel as true and beautiful. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. Amber Bowen, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, and Dr. Chris Porter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carrying on our conversation on Apologetics, we are joined by Dr. John G. Stackhouse, Jr., who is Samuel J. Mikolaski Professor of Religious Studies at Crandall University in New Brunswick (Canada), and the author of a couple important studies on apologetics, such as, Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today (Oxford University Press) and, more recently, Can I Believe? Christianity for the Hesitant (Oxford University Press). In our conversation Dr. Stackhouse points out how what’s happening in apologetics mirrors what’s happening all around the world with the rise of populism—appealing directly to the masses. Over the course of our conversation we talk about the ethics of platforming and the kinds of motivating impulses that drive the industry, including certain fundamentalist impulses and the nature of Hell. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. Amber Bowen, Dr. Josh Carroll, and Dr. John Anthony Dunne. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of our Apologetics series, we’re joined by Lisa Fields, the founder of the Jude 3 Project, whose mission is “to help the Christian community know what they believe and why they believe it. Distinctive in its strong emphasis in equipping those of African descent in the United States and abroad.” In our conversation, Lisa tells us a little bit of her journey, how she first got into apologetics, and why she decided to start the Jude 3 Project. As Lisa explains, part of the reason is to address the unique apologetic concerns of Black Community. Questions like whether God exists is always an important apologetic discussion, but most Black people in America do believe in God and so more germane topic need to be explored, such as whether Christianity is just “a white man’s religion.” Lisa explain that Jude 3 is also partly an attempt to ensure that Black voices are represented on all the common apologetics concerns and issues.  As the conversation progresses we touch on some additional insights that Black Apologetics provides for the broader apologetic enterprise, such as unique insights on the Problem of Evil, drawing upon a history of suffering re: slavery, racism, and systemic oppression. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. Amber Bowen, Rev. Daniel Parham, Dr. Chris Porter, and Dr. John Anthony Dunne. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carrying on our broader conversation on Apologetics, we are joined by an analytic theologian, Dr. James T. Turner, who is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Anderson University and the author of On the Resurrection of the Dead: A New Metaphysics of Afterlife for Christian Thought(published by Routledge). In this conversation we touch on the nature of apologetics as an enterprise designed to demonstrate that Christianity is not fundamentally irrational. As Dr. Turner contends, this is all apologetics really ought to be, and he goes further to explain that the idea of removing intellectual objections to the faith won’t actually lead people to bow the knee to King Jesus. Another branch of our conversation then delves into the subject matter of Dr. Turner’s book, which is the resurrection and the nature of the afterlife. Dr. Turner is a hylomorphist, which is the view that everything is comprised of matter and form. The soul, then, is the form of all living organisms (humans, plants, trees, dogs). The form thus can’t float free from the matter, and cannot be separated from it. This has huge implications for popular apologetics that point to near death experiences as an argument for God (usually implicitly given in the form of a narrative, such as books like Heaven Is For Real). Dr. Turner explains that he holds this view because he believes that the Bible places all of its hope on the bodily resurrection of human beings, as well as the physical restoration of creation, not on immaterial souls going off to Heaven after the body dies. Team members from The Two Cities on the episode include: Dr. Amber Bowen and Dr. John Anthony Dunne. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Continuing our apologetics series, we are joined by Dr. Justin Bailey, who is Assistant Professor of Theology at Dordt University and the author of Reimagining Apologetics: The Beauty of Faith in a Secular Age(IVP Academic). In our conversation, Dr. Bailey offers his constructive proposal for what apologetics could look like that gets beyond a mere focus on the intellect. Further, he wants to distance his approach to apologetics from what he calls “capital A apologetics,” or magisterial apologetics, which promotes a “sage of the stage” who offers a kind of top-down approach full of defeater arguments. Dr. Bailey is clear that his proposal is not an attempt to get rid of the classical arguments for God’s existence, but rather he wants to open up the realm of what fits into the apologetic enterprise. This expanse needs to include the role of the imagination, which is not infantile or make believe, but rather is oriented towards reality, and specifically what possibilities stand before us, thus helping people see what possibilities are available in the life of faith to those who stand outside of it. And the other key expansive bit is the role of empathy, our ability to entertain the perspectives of others and to recognize what a person needs in that moment of encounter, which might not be a defeater argument. Team members of the episode from The Two Cities includes: Dr. Amber Bowen and Dr. John Anthony Dunne. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode in our apologetics series we address matters of evidence. What counts as “evidence,” and how do we interpret it? Moreover, what do we do when people interpret the evidence differently, or don’t find it to be relevant to the claim being made? Specifically, how should we understand religious disagreement? How should we understand religious experience? Does that count as evidence of God’s existence, God’s goodness, etc? Joining us to address these types of questions is Dr. Greta Turnbull, who is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University. Dr. Turnbull is an expert on evidence and disagreement, and helps us realize that evidence is messy. She calls our attention to the differences between logical apologetic questions and more existential/pastoral questions, and she points out how sometimes apologetics sticks too rigidly to logical matters when pastoral/existential issues are more pressing for people. In that light, we discuss how apologetics thus needs to expand and adapt to what is most salient for a given person, esp. since its ostensible aim is to bring people into faith, which is an inherently personal aim. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. Amber Bowen, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, and Dr. Grace Emmett. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this installment of our apologetics series we ask the corresponding question to last week’s episode, Does Apologetics Help Us Read the New Testament? For this conversation we are joined by Ian Mills, who is a PhD Candidate in New Testament at Duke University and co-host with Laura Robinson of the New Testament Review podcast. Ian contends that the modern apologetics enterprise both hinders our ability to read the New Testament and makes us worse people. Over the course of our conversation we talk about both of those aspects of Ian’s indictment on the modern apologetics, looking at specific culprits and also specific examples where our reading of New Testament will be negatively impacted. Team members from The Two Cities on the episode include: Dr. Amber Bowen, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Rev. Daniel Parham, Dr. Chris Porter, and Dr. Logan Williams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.