My friend and colleague at Northeastern Seminary, Esau McCaulley, has posted a reflection (based on Romans 12) on the American church’s way forward after the upsurge of white supremacist violence in Charlottesville.
It is a powerful exhortation and well worth reading: The Church as Witness and Protest: A Call to a Faithful Response to Charlottesville
The Jamaica theology conference that I’ve been helping to plan is coming up in just four weeks. It will be held on the campus of my alma mater, the Jamaica Theological Seminary (JTS).
Various details about the conference are now finalized. You can download a one-page conference flyer here.
The keynote speaker had already been announced. He is Dr. Steed Davidson, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.
THE ZENAS GERIG MEMORIAL LECTURE—FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
Dr. Davidson will give the sixth annual Zenas Gerig Memorial Lecture. This lecture will not be just for the conference; it will be a public lecture available to the entire community.
Dr. Zenas Gerig was the founder of JTS (in 1960), and its first Principal (he later became the first President). I got to know him when I attended JTS in the seventies; he taught the first formal Bible courses I took at JTS (on the Pentateuch and the Historical Books).
Dr. Gerig was an amazing man who had a significant impact on the church and on theological education both in Jamaica and in the rest of the Caribbean. Not only was he a prime mover behind the Caribbean Evangelical Theological Association, but he founded the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology (CGST) in Kingston in 1986.
Dr. Gerig passed away September 14, 2011 and I had the privilege of delivering the first Zenas Gerig Memorial Lecture in September 2012 (my topic was Abraham’s test in Genesis 22, and that presentation has since become a central component in a new book I am working on).
Dr. Davidson’s lecture will be on Friday night, September 8. It is entitled “The Hazards and Opportunities of Sola Scriptura for Caribbean Biblical Interpretation.” Dr. Garnett Roper, current President of JTS, will present a formal response.
You can download information about the keynote lecture, including bios of Dr. Davidson and Dr. Roper, here.
PAPER PRESENTATIONS—SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
After the keynote lecture on Friday night, the conference proper starts on Saturday (September 9), with a variety of paper presentations on topics related to the conference theme, “Biblical Interpretation for Caribbean Renewal.”
We have papers lined up from various theological disciplines and perspectives. Some presenters are coming from the US and Canada, though most are currently living in Jamaica, including professors at Jamaica Theological Seminary and the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology. I will be giving a paper myself, as will Dr. Eric Flett, who was the Zenas Gerig Memorial Lecturer in 2015.
The following paper titles indicate the diversity of topics to be discussed:
You can download a tentative conference schedule for Friday and Saturday, showing when the various papers will be presented.
And you can download a full list of presenters, paper titles, and abstracts of all the papers here.
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION
Registration is very inexpensive and can be done online on the conference page at the Jamaica Theological Seminary website. Discounted registration is available up to August 15.
Questions about registration can be directed to Dr. Winston Thompson, Vice-president of JTS.
CONFERENCE CO-SPONSORSHIP
The theology conference is sponsored by the Jamaica Theological Seminary and will be held on their campus, at 14-16 West Ave., Kingston 8, Jamaica, W.I..
The conference is co-sponsored by the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology and the United Theological College of the West Indies.
This interdisciplinary theology conference celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals and the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
Maybe I will see you in Jamaica!
Three weeks ago I posted about some of my essays that had just been published. One of these was an essay entitled: “A Psalm against David? A Canonical Reading of Psalm 51 as a Critique of David’s Inadequate Repentance in 2 Samuel 12.”
It is published as chapter 2 in Explorations in Interdisciplinary Reading: Theological, Exegetical, and Reception-Historical Perspectives, ed. by Robbie F. Castleman, Darian R. Lockett, and Stephen O. Presley (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2017), 26–45.
At the time I didn’t have a copy of the published essay to post.
The essay is now ready, and may be downloaded here, for those who are interested.
Below is an explanation of what I was trying to accomplish in the essay, adapted from my previous posts on the subject (including one I wrote when I was about to present it at a conference).
The Argument of the Essay
I’ve always prized Psalm 51 as an amazing articulation of the meaning of repentance; and it is a favorite and valued psalm for many Christians.
Although the superscription links it to David’s confrontation by the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12 over his adultery with Bathsheba, I had the sense that the traditional reading of this psalm as David’s prayer of confession did not fit the actual story in 2 Samuel. This came from teaching both the psalm and the Samuel narrative over many years (in different courses).
I therefore decided to read Psalm 51 carefully in light of the narrative of David’s sin and confession to see what I could come up with.
Since psalms superscriptions are not original to the psalms, but inserted by later editors (I give evidence for this in the essay), I propose that we take the superscription to Psalm 51 as a (divinely inspired) lectionary suggestion for reading the psalm together with the 2 Samuel narrative.
The result of doing this, I argue, is that the psalm ends up functioning as a critique of David’s superficial “repentance” in 2 Samuel 12.
My essay, therefore, challenges the naive, idealistic reading of the figure of David often found in the evangelical church (but then anyone who reads 1-2 Samuel with their eyes open would be disabused of this ideal picture anyway).
The essay is, most fundamentally, my attempt to take the authority of Scripture seriously (regarding both Psalm 51 and 2 Samuel 12 as divinely inspired), with eyes wide open to the complexity of this divinely inspired Scripture, asking what the implications might be for Christians reading these texts.
CREATION to ESCHATON 