I recently finished reading With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology, the published text of Stanley Hauerwas’s 2001 Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews. In one sense, this particular iteration of the Gifford Lectures was a failure—but it can hardly be regarded as an authentic failure, because the […]
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Are the Stories of Jesus Borrowed from Pagan Parallels to Christianity? + “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (Billy Joel)
This week’s podcast includes pagan parallels to Christianity, the Piano Man, and the most daring giveaway ever attempted on any human podcast. Paganism and plagiarism provide the theme for the first half. Even in ancient times, Roman philosophers claimed that Christians had “used pagan myths in fabricating the story of a virgin conception.” So is […]
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Three Chords Goes to the Movies: Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
On May 25, 1977, a young filmmaker named George Lucas released a space fantasy that he had simply titled Star Wars. Over the past four decades, this story has developed into one of the most influential cultural phenomena of the modern era. Now, with the release of Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, the saga that began In 1977 has drawn to a end—and what an ending it is!
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Rob Plummer: The Perplexing Problem of When Quirinius Governed Syria + “The Living Years” (Mike + the Mechanics)
This week’s episode covers the birth of Jesus, death, resurrection, and everything in between! It’s only a few days until Christmas 2019—a celebration which, this year, Timothy has very helpfully renamed “The Star Wars: Episode IX After Party.” At some point between now and Christmas Day, millions of people throughout the world will hear these words […]
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Dan DeWitt: Why Do the Apologetics of C.S. Lewis Matter? + “All Along the Watchtower” (U2)
Welcome to a new episode of Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast, with Dr. Dan DeWitt, a discussion of C.S. Lewis, and a celebration of a duo of flagrant illegalities! This episode commemorates two illegal acts, both of which were captured on tape and involved live rock and roll. The first of these […]
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Why Everyone Needs Creeds + “Where the Streets Have No Name” (U2)
Welcome to the creed episode of Three Chords and the Truth! But don’t worry: we are not talking about the band Creed. (In case you’ve forgotten, Creed was the 1990s band whose videos were filled with embarrassingly-bad CGI and with way too many scenes in which the lead vocalist apparently couldn’t keep himself from flailing […]
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Apologetics: Fragments of Otherwise Unknown Gospels
Gnostic Gospels and other unorthodox texts receive a lot of attention in popular media. The Gospel of Judas and the forged Gospel of Jesus’ Wife both became major news stories, for example, and a wide array of Gnostic texts are mentioned in novels like The Da Vinci Code that feed on bizarre conspiracy theories. It’s worth remembering, however, that there are […]
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Apologetics: An Overlooked Difference between the New Testament Gospels and Gnostic Gospels
Richard Bauckham points out a distinction between the New Testament Gospels and most of the Gnostic Gospels which—while rather obvious when one reads the Gnostic Gospels—is frequently overlooked: The [New Testament] Gospels are biographical narratives whereas most of the Gnostic Gospels are post-resurrection revelations. Typically in Gnostic Gospels Jesus appears to the disciples after the […]
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Eric Johnson: How Can a Good God Allow Evil in the World? + “Free” (Stryper)
How can a good God allow so much evil and suffering in the world? And why do some people seem to suffer so much more than others? According to a recent survey of college students, the problem of evil is the question about Christianity that college students find most difficult to answer. This week, Eric […]
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Apologetics: The Providence of God in Persecution
In his article “For Whom Were the Gospels Written?,” Richard Bauckham points out that a small minority group experiencing alienation and opposition in its immediate social context could compensate for its precarious minority position locally by a sense of solidarity with fellow believers elsewhere and a sense of being part of a worldwide movement destined […]
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Peter Gurry and Elijah Hixson: Mistakes Apologists Make About Textual Criticism + “Learning to See” (Van Halen)
Finally, it’s the long-anticipated Van Halen episode, which manages to feature not only Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen but also another important Dutch-born “Van”: Reformed theologian Cornelius Van Til! Plus, New Testament textual critics Elijah Hixson and Peter Gurry are back with us to discuss the mistakes that people defending the Christian faith […]
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Peter Gurry and Elijah Hixson: Was the Bible Copied Accurately? + “You Belong to the City” (Glenn Frey)
Has the Bible been copied accurately? Skeptics such as biblical scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman have suggested that it wasn’t. According to Bart Ehrman‘s book Misquoting Jesus, it makes no sense for Christians to refer to the Bible as God’s inspired Word “because we no longer possess the words that God supposedly inspired. … All that […]
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Jonathan Pennington: What Are the New Testament Gospels and Why Should We Trust Them? + “We Are the World” (USA for Africa)
According to bestselling religious scholar Reza Aslan, the New Testament Gospels “are not, nor were they ever meant to be, a historical documentation of Jesus’s life.” The Gospels are, Aslan claims, fictional compositions from early Christians who re-imagined a Jewish revolutionary named Jesus as an ethereal Christ of faith. But is it really reasonable to read […]
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Doug Blount: What Is the Relationship Between Evidence and Faith? + “Jack and Diane” (John Cougar Mellencamp)
“Faith is,” according to Christopher Hitchens, “the surrender of reason.” But is faith actually the antithesis of reason and evidence? That’s the question Garrick and Timothy explore in the first half of this week’s episode with Doug Blount, who completed master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, an institution that may be found—according to some reports—within the borders of Indiana.
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Grady Adkins and Joshua Swindall: What Christian Beliefs Do College Students Struggle to Defend? + “Don’t Stop Believin'” (Journey)
In this special back-to-school episode, Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones are joined by Dr. Grady Adkins and Dr. Joshua Swindall, two researchers who have spent the past year exploring which specific Christian beliefs are the most difficult for college students to believe and to defend.
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Three Chords and the Truth Live with Five Oaks Church
In this special episode of Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast, Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey join the student ministry at Five Oaks Church, a radical band of young believers who gather near the metropolis of Minneapolis in the wild and crazy land of Minnesota. Students from Five Oaks Church ask questions […]
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Sean McDowell: Did the Apostles Really Die for Their Faith? + “Dust in the Wind” (Kansas)
One of the strongest evidences for the truth of the resurrection of Jesus is the martyrdom of his apostles in the decades that followed his death–or at least that’s what many Christian apologists have claimed. But is this claim sustainable on the basis of historical evidence? Did nearly all of the first followers of Jesus […]
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Sean McDowell: Resurrection, Sacrifice, and Why Sean McDowell Didn’t Love Avengers: Endgame + “Hotel California” (The Eagles)
Sean McDowell joins Garrick and Timothy to talk about love, sacrifice, superheroes, and resurrection. Then, Garrick and Timothy go looking for transcendent truth in the Grammy Award-winning classic “Hotel California.” Along the way, they talk about Sehnsucht, plagiarism, and that one time when Timothy was looking for the founder of the Church of Satan but couldn’t find him.
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Three Chords Goes to the Movies: Avengers: Endgame
In the 1960s, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby began creating comic book storylines that were interconnected in a shared universe and told a single story through many individual stories. In the early twenty-first century, that’s what Marvel Studios decided to do through the films that became the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first of these films was released in 2008. Now—eleven years and twenty-two films later—all of these storylines have culminated in a single film, Avengers: Endgame. In this special episode of Three Chords and the Truth, Garrick Bailey and Timothy Paul Jones take a careful look at Avengers: Endgame.
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Rob Plummer: How Did Judas Iscariot Really Die? + “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” (Blue Öyster Cult)
One of the most difficult dilemmas in the entire Bible has to do with how Judas Iscariot actually died. According to Matthew’s Gospel, Judas Iscariot hanged himself, and priests purchased the field where he died for 30 pieces of silver. But, according to the book of Acts, Judas fell headfirst in a field that he had acquired and his intestines burst out. So which is it, and what does this mean for how we read the New Testament? Today, in the Three Chords segment of the program, Dr. Robert Plummer joins Timothy and Garrick to discuss the fate of Judas Iscariot. In the Truth segment, your intrepid cohosts discuss a Christian theology of death by examining “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by the Blue Öyster Cult.
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