The Sci-Fi Christian is a podcast (and site) about books, comics, movies and TV shows (with a heavier emphasis on the latter two). As you might surmise the hosts, Matt Anderson and Ben De Bono, are both Christians. As such they talk about the intersection between their beliefs and the media they consume. The premise, as laid out in the first episode |MP3|, is that they’ll be asking questions like ‘Was Jesus a Zombie?’ and ‘What does God think about teleportation? (Is it suicide?).’

Here’s the official description:

“We see The Sci-Fi Christian, in all its iterations, as being about the collision between faith and nerdom. We believe that good genre fiction is about more than just entertainment. We seek to engage with the themes and philosophies behind our favorite stories, wrestling with the big ideas within speculative fiction. We’re unabashedly nerdy and unabashedly Christian. Even if your faith background differs from ours, we look forward to interacting with you at The Sci-Fi Christian!“

If you’re a theist you may like this. But even from an outsider’s perspective there is a lot to like in this show. The hosts don’t have identical tastes in the properties that they enjoy (which makes for a sparkier conversation). Also good is that they’re genuinely and equally enthusiastic about the subjects they discuss.

I myself am less enthused. This is not because I am not a Christian. As with every show that I’ve heard that uses the “Sci-Fi” shibboleth in its title there is a certain lightness to The Sci-Fi Christian Podcast that turns me off. Perhaps the best identifier of such a podcasts is a pervasive usage of the words “spoiler” and “spoiler alert.”

I will happily go to the grave never having to hear the phrase “spoiler alert” or listen to someone discuss whether something was (or wasn’t) “a spoiler.” To my mind the whole “spoiler” meme is one that, if it has value at all, should be only acted upon and never discussed.

Podcast feed: http://thescifichristian.com/podcast/

Posted by Jesse Willis