Category Archives: Biblical study

Michael Gorman to Give Keynote Lecture at Northeastern Seminary Theology Conference

Posted on by

Northeastern Seminary will be hosting its second Theology Conference on Saturday, March 19, 2016 (the first was held in October 2013 on the theme of New Creation).

The topic for 2016 is Participation in God’s Mission, and the plenary speaker will be Dr. Michael J. Gorman, Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, MD.

Well-known for his writings on Pauline theology and ethics, Dr. Gorman will be speaking on the shaping of the cruciform Christian life through participation in God’s mission, a theme that blends spirituality and ethics with mission.

Dr. Gorman will present a public lecture for a general audience (on the apostle Paul) on the Friday evening before the conference; then he will give the keynote lecture (on the Gospel of John) for the conference on Saturday morning. Both lectures will be based on his current sabbatical research, for which he was awarded a Henry Luce III Fellowship.

Besides Dr. Gorman’s keynote address, the conference will feature concurrent sessions with papers on topics related to the conference theme. Many paper proposals were submitted before Christmas and they are continuing to come in. The deadline for receiving proposals is currently January 4, but there is a rumor it might be extended by a week. But those interested should still get their proposals in ASAP.

The Call for Papers can be accessed here, and further information about the conference will be posted on the Northeastern Seminary website and Facebook page.

This event is held in partnership with the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association (CETA).

For those interested, you can check out Dr. Gorman’s books here and you can access his blog (called Cross Talk) here.

Creatures of God: Human Nature & Evolution for Evangelicals & Catholics

Posted on by

I recently began a series of blog posts on evolution and human nature, but I’ve had to put that aside for a while so I could prepare a lecture I will be giving in a few days in Vancouver, BC, as part of a two-day symposium funded by BioLogos.

The syposium is entitled “Creatures of God: Human Nature & Evolution for Evangelicals & Catholics” and is organized by Dr. Paul Allen, Associate Professor, Department of Theological Studies, Concordia University, Ottawa, ON.

Dr. Allen and his team have staged three prior symposia on related themes in three other Canadian contexts: Crandall University in Moncton, NB; Wycliffe College in Toronto, ON; and the Kings University College in Edmonton, AB.

At each of these events, theologians, philosophers, and scientists addressed different audiences of faculty, students, and members of the lay public on the question of human nature in the context of the orthodox claims of theological anthropology and the emergence of the human species according to Darwin’s theory and later revisions of it.

The symposium I’m a part of is addressed specifically to Evangelicals and Catholics, with presentations on the biblical and scientific sides of things.

I’ve been asked to speak on a biblical theology of humanity as imago Dei. I will give my lecture at Regent College (an Evangelical graduate school of theology affiliated with the University of British Columbia) at 7:00 pm on Thursday, October 29, 2015. The title of my lecture is: “Being Human: Engaging the Opening Chapters of Genesis in Light of Hominin Evolution.”

The following evening, Dr. Jeff Schloss (BioLogos Senior Scholar and T. B. Walker Chair of Natural and Behavioral Sciences at Westmont College) will be speaking at St. Mark’s College (the Catholic theological college of the University of British Columbia). His lecture is entitled: “Uncommon Nature Through Common Descent? Evolution and the Question of Human Exceptionalism.”

Each evening there will be a number of respondents to the paper that is presented, followed by an open discussion of the topic.

More information about both lectures can be found by downloading this flyer.

A Final Plug for the Global Theology Conference in Toronto this Saturday (October 3, 2015)

Posted on by

The Canadian Evangelical Theological Association (CETA) will hold its fourth annual Fall theology conference on Saturday, October 3, 2015 at Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto.

The theme of the conference is “Global Evangelical Theology.” The keynote speaker, Dr. Las Newman (president of the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Jamaica), will address the topic: “Theology on the Move: Discerning Global Shifts in Theological Thinking from the Global South.”

The conference runs from 8:00 am (beginning with registration and a continental breakfast) through 4:30 pm (ending with the presentation of the annual theological excellence award and a closing liturgy).

There will be about 50 paper presentations, in six concurrent sessions, on topics historical, theological, biblical, and missional—relating to the conference theme.

Click here for the conference schedule. And click here for online registration (though you can also register at the door). The registration site also has information about overnight accommodation if you want to travel to Toronto the night before.

If you want to check out my previous blog posts on this conference, they are here, and here, and here (in chronological order).