podcast 333 – The Arguments of “God’s Death”

Humor, used carefully, can be a powerful weapon of argument. In this episode I analyze a little humorous historical fiction called “God’s Death: A Counterfactual Historical Reconstruction“ which was recently featured on Mark Cain’s Unitarian Christian Alliance Podcast.

When I first heard it, I laughed out loud multiple times. But on reflection, I realized that the piece is presenting serious arguments about interpreting the New Testament in comedy form. In this episode I explain what those are and how they relate to some of my work on this topic.

I present the audio in the first segment of this episode; for the full effect, the YouTube version is recommended.

The type of reasoning I discuss in this episode manifestly does not assume the truth of unitarianism. Rather, it comes to the texts looking for what fits or misfits various competing Christian theologies. This way of thinking critically about what we do and do not observe in the New Testament is contrasted with some poor habits of thought we often see in apologetics. Importantly, this way of reasoning can help you to make up your mind about what the New Testament on the whole teaches about Jesus and God even if you’re not sure what to make of a few difficult passages.

Links for this episode:

Unitarian Christian Alliance Podcast