Category Archives: Social justice

Biblical Interpretation for Caribbean Renewal—Theology Conference in Kingston, Jamaica (September 8-9, 2017)

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The Jamaica theology conference that I’ve been helping to plan is coming up in just over a month (I had posted a final Call for papers a while back).

KEYNOTE SPEAKER – DR. STEED DAVIDSON

The keynote speaker is Dr. Steed Davidson, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

Dr. Davidson, who is originally from Tobago, will kick off the conference with a programmatic lecture on Friday evening (September 8) entitled “The Hazards and Opportunities of Sola Scriptura for Caribbean Biblical Interpretation.” Then on Saturday (September 9) there will be papers on a variety of topics related to the conference theme: “Biblical Interpretation for Caribbean Renewal.”

PAPER TOPICS FOR SATURDAY

We have papers lined up from a variety of theological disciplines and perspectives, especially focused on the Bible and Caribbean renewal. Here are some of the paper titles:

  • The Parable of the Good Samaritan: A Political Reading from a Caribbean Perspective
  • The Inclusive Vision of Isaiah 56 and Contested Ethical Practices in Scripture and the Church: Toward a Canonical Hermeneutic of Discernment
  • Food for Thought: The Work of the Spirit and the Dynamics of Disgust in Acts 10
  • Word, Sound, and Power: The Religious Imagination of Rastafari Hermeneutics
  • Chiastic Contours, Caribbean Hermeneutic, and the Book of Acts
  • Black Identity in Light of Slavery, God’s Sovereignty, and Scripture
  • Pastoral Priorities for Biblical Interpretation in the Caribbean
  • Contextual Interpretation and the Canonical Narrative: Toward a Holistic Understanding of the Bible
  • The Anatomy of a Church Healing
  • The Biblical Interpretation of Demonic Possession and Voodoo-Like Possession as the Identity of Evil In Haiti

You may register on the conference page at the Jamaica Theological Seminary website by clicking on the form at the bottom of the page (discounted registration is available up to August 15). Questions about registration can be directed to Dr. Winston Thompson, Vice-president of JTS. The registration page will be updated with detailed information about the conference schedule as soon as it is available.

You can find my report on the conference here.

CONFERENCE CO-SPONSORSHIP

The theology conference is sponsored by the Jamaica Theological Seminary and will be held on their campus, at 14-20 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.

The Ethical Challenge of the Imago Dei—Human Rights and Beyond

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I was recently invited to write a blog post on humanity as imago Dei (“image of God”) for the Imago Dei Fund.

My post is now published online, with the title: “The Ethical Challenge of the Image of God in the 21st Century – Human Rights and Beyond.”

After sketching the meaning of the imago Dei and some of its ethical implications, the post concludes by exploring the compassion of God for the foreigner/refugee, which those made in God’s image are called to imitate.

Interestingly, my colleague in New Testament, Esau McCaulley, has recently written a blog post on a similar theme, entitled “The Slave, the Foreigner, and the Compassion of Israel.”

The Imago Dei Fund

Their website of the Imago Dei Fund describes them as “a grant-making organization working with our grantee partners to co-create a more just and more free world in which all human beings can thrive and flourish together.”

One of the issues the Imago Dei Fund addresses is human rights (as part of their commitment to “justice and mercy“). This was the topic I was invited to write about, based on the biblical teaching of humans as imago Dei.

Besides human rights, the Imago Dei Fund addresses matters of ecological justice (“care of creation“) and holistic shalom for persons (“care of souls“).

I invite you to check out the blog page of the Imago Dei Fund, where my post is located (along with other posts on related topics). It has the unusual name of The Inukshuk Blog.

If you want to know what an Inukshuk is, here is an explanation, with a picture.

Heading to San Antonio for the Annual SBL and IBR Meetings

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I’m getting ready to go to San Antonio to attend the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (November 19-22) and also of the Institute for Biblical Research (November 18-20); the two meetings overlap a bit.

I’ll be presenting two papers at the SBL this year.

How the Prophet Samuel Abuses His Prophetic Office

The first paper is called “Orthodox Theology, Ulterior Motives in Samuel’s Farewell Speech? The Characterization of the Prophet in 1 Samuel 12.” This paper will be presented in (15 minute) summary form in the Contextual Biblical Interpretation Program Unit, on November 20, 2016 (click this link for further information).

This paper begins by by exploring how my Jamaican context, especially the folk tradition of Anansi (the trickster/spider), might impact my reading of 1 Samuel. The bulk of the paper is an attempt to understand the very convoluted (even contradictory) speech of Samuel in 1 Samuel 12, which comes right after the confirmation of Saul as king. I try to show (from a careful textual reading) that that the prophet is twisting the facts of Israel’s history and using underhanded rhetoric in order to portray himself as the “solution” to the problem of the monarchy, despite the fact that God has explicitly given permission for the monarchy and specifically designated Saul as the first king. The paper proposal can be accessed here and the full paper can be accessed here.

God’s Desire for Vigorous Prayer

The second paper is called “God’s Loyal Opposition: Psalmic and Prophetic Protest as a Paradigm for Faithfulness in the Hebrew Bible.” This paper will be presented in full (25 minutes) in the Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures Program Unit, on November 21, 2016 (click this link for further information).

This paper explores the theology of the divine-human relationship underlying the sort of vigorous prayer found in the Bible (especially the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament), by looking first at the psalms of lament, then at prophetic intercession (with Moses as the model). The paper proposal can be accessed here.

Institute for Biblical Research

I won’t be presenting at the IBR this year, though I will be attending a number of sessions, including the annual lecture by Edith Humphrey, a fellow Canadian teaching in the USA. Her lecture (on the evening of November 18) is called “Reclaiming all Paul’s Rs: Apostolic Atonement by Way of the Eastern Fathers” and will be followed by two responses, one by Michael Gorman. You can find information about the lecture by scrolling down the IBR conference page.

Next year (November 2017) I’ll be giving an invited paper at IBR on Ecology and Eschatology in the Ecological Ethics and Biblical Studies research group (this year’s topic is on ecology and justice, and two of my friends, Brian Walsh and Steve Bouma-Prediger, are participating as paper respondents).

Esau McCauley, the new Assistant Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Northeastern Seminary, will be presenting in another IBR research group, devoted to Biblical Theology . His paper is entitled Exile, Restoration, and the Inheritance of the Son: Jesus as Servant and Messiah in Galatians 1:4.