“Who Am I Anyway? God, Sex, and Reality” Presented by Dr. Jay Smith, YTI President In a world undergoing brisk technological advances with accompanying cultural shifts, the relevance of church, religion, and even faith are in question. Many in our world have already abandoned the notion of faith in God as irrelevant. But is it? Is there a place for belief in God, and even more so, for faith in Christ? This series of lectures argues that there is a place for belief and faith, but in order to exercise said faith, Christians must address the serious issues that have confronted them for the last several decades: personhood, violence, and sexuality. MONDAY, NOV 9 - “Human Being: Person, Soul, and Spirit in a Postmodern World” One of the major issues facing our Western world is personal dislocation and disorientation. We no longer clearly understand who we are. In a world where sexual nature and gender roles have become fluid and even ambiguous, where morality and ethics are adjudicated by the media, and where rights and responsibilities are not mentioned together as mutually informing, the dislocation of person and self has become an epidemic with catastrophic consequences. This lecture examines the relevance of the concept of person, soul, and spirit for human beings in the postmodern Western world. TUESDAY, NOV 10 - “A Woman Interrupted: Anger, Abortion, and Redemption” Women in 21st century America are held to impossible standards and subjected to frustrating demands. From the insistence on unreasonable body types to emotionally damaging sexual expectations and reproductive controls, women are called to bear the unbearable in postmodern culture. This lecture examines the postmodern insults to women and God’s healing redemption. WEDNESDAY, NOV 11 - “Second Place Sexuality: Why Sex Does Not Define Human Meaning!” There is no issue that is more contested than that of human sexual function, desire, and expression in Western culture. The accepted sexual identifiers - heterosexuality, homosexuality, transgendered, and gender fluid - reflect the maze of possiblity for intimate interaction and serious misunderstanding for the human person. This lecture explores what it means to be sexually human, the created nature of sexual expression, and how followers of Christ are to be the image of God in the world today.