Recently, I had the opportunity to record a live episode of the Calvinist Batman podcast with its mysterious and powerful host, “Bruce.” We gathered in the fellowship hall of my home church, Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida, set a couple of high tech mics with the help of our sound team, and recorded an episode before a live studio audience of about forty people, mostly church members.

Comic books and puritan theologians seem like a bit of a strange combination, but on this podcast forum, it works very well. Each episode begins with some lighthearted banter about comic books, superhero movies, and other cultural curiosities. In the episode that I was privileged to record, we began talking about my own father’s epic comic book collection from the Silver Age of comics, especially my father’s prize possession of Spiderman 1-10. Here is also a quick glimpse of my dad’s collection of Fantastic Four 1-10. 

We progressed on, then, to discuss matters of more spiritual significance as we discussed Jonathan Edwards and his theology of joy. In our conversation, I was able to share much of what I had gleaned from my doctoral studies of Edwards’s theology of happiness, which I distilled into book form in my recent title, A Theology of Joy. 

Towards the end of our time together with podcast master Bruce, we even discussed some dark topics like depression. You can check this out too as a bonus Q&A episode.

Check out the full episode here!