The Mars Hill Club

One of our Mars Hill Club regulars, Chris Wright, contributed the following review of our first Apologetics Jeopardy! event on January 4, moderated by Bruce Paolozzi. Here is his report:

Mars Hill has begun a new and exciting forum for developing disciples trained in the art of clear thinking and persuasive reasoning: Apologetics Jeopardy. If you can drive out to Costa Mesa on a Thursday Mars Hill Jeopardy night (click on the Caldendar to find when the next one is scheduled), you might go home jumping up and down and screaming with more excitement than a TV game show contestant!

Although the prizes were of a more intellectual nature (2 books and a skin care set) the real enjoyment came from the content of the game itself.

Our host and designer of the game, Bruce Paolozzi, designed the content differently than a typical Jeopardy game show to increase the caliber of the questions to a Mars Hill discussion level. Instead of giving answers seeking a simple pat question from the contestants, Bruce referenced top notch critics of theist and Christian worldviews for us to refute in depth. Bruce was accompanied by his beautiful wife and game board presenter Kathy who even played as a contestant while keeping an eye on their energetic toddler. The Game board had the Jeopardy style categories of topics with accompanying questions increasing in difficulty with increasing game point values. “I’ll take Resurrection for 300,” ventured a brave contestant for whom this was his first Mars Hill exposure.

Bruce challenged him with “Address this objection: Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. He actually didn’t even die. He swooned on the cross and appeared dead and the disciples discovered him after he regained consciousness from this ordeal.”

The beauty of this game became immediately apparent. We were being challenged to think on our feet and respond both kindly and clearly in an atmosphere that was both enjoyable and safe. Following his answer we all were given opportunities to give any overlooked angle we could remember or creatively think up. After fumbling for words, missing the point and struggling to articulate answers, we gained a deeper appreciation for the clarity and conciseness of our experienced judge, Gretchen Passantino. For example, she summarized one of our responses beautifully, “So the ICU Jesus is not a good resurrected Jesus” who would sustain eyewitness belief to the point of martyrdom.

When one contestant suggested the questions be simpler with pat, reproducible answers, Bruce commented that out in the “real world” you’re going to get objections like these. Some of the questions were far from my field of familiarity. Where I might easily dismiss such questions, the fact that they were often real quotes from the likes of Bertrand Russell, combined with my being in the spotlight, peaked my interest and motivation to learn from the dialogue. “What a tool for discipling!” I thought. Another benefit of the emotional excitement and personal challenge involved is that it made it easier to remember points and counterpoints. I found it comparable to being put on the spot by a friend who has challenged me with an idea that has dangerous life directing consequences. It was a game that was not so trivial a pursuit. In the end, we had addressed 9 questions in some depth with many wonderful tangents. Usually, in Mars Hill we’re lucky to address one topic.

As we left that night with our prizes and adrenaline rushes, we discussed further how to improve the game. We’d like to include our internet readers too. If you have any suggestions or tough questions you would like to hear a variety of discussion over, please feel free to contact Bruce as we hope to make this game a tradition at Mars Hill.

You can contact Bruce by going any of his blogs on this site & submitting a comment. We hope to hear from many of you in the future!