Dr. Sean McDowell (Biola University) & Dr. Matthew Vess (Texas A&M University) in dialogue about martyrdom and if anything is really worth dying for.
Video: https://youtube.com/live/jMmsPWb6wZo
Dr. Sean McDowell is Associate Professor in the Talbot School of Theology at BIOLA University. He is a communicator with a passion for equipping the church, and in particular young people, to make the case for the Christian faith. Dr. McDowell is the author, co-author, or editor of over twenty books including The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus (Routledge, 2018) in which he offers a comprehensive, reasoned, historical analysis of the fate of the twelve disciples of Jesus along with the apostles Paul, and James. The willingness of the apostles to die for their faith is a popular argument in resurrection studies and McDowell offers insightful scholarly analysis of this argument to break new ground within the spheres of New Testament studies, Church History, and apologetics. To learn more about Dr. McDowell, visit seanmcdowell.org
Dr. Matthew Vess is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University. His research broadly focuses on the psychological processes and consequences associated with people’s efforts to manage existential concerns, including concerns about personal identity, meaning, and mortality. Dr. Vess is a Principal Investigator of the Existential Psychology Collaboratory at Texas A&M University. This research aims to understand how people answer the “big” questions in life and how people’s answers to those questions influence their attitudes and behavior. This includes formulating and testing a wide range of hypotheses related to many types of existential concerns focusing on the antecedents and consequences of the experience of meaning in life, authenticity, self-alienation, perceptions of free-will, and mortality awareness. To learn more about Dr. Vess and the Existential Psychology Collaboratory, visit existentialpsych.sites.tamu.edu
