In my earlier blog post, I noted that a registration link was coming. The registration link, along with detailed information about the conference is now in place. Registration for the Saturday conference is very reasonable and includes continental breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks.
Webinar on Creation Care, Justice, and Formation
I mentioned the Friday evening, October 18, and Saturday morning, October 19, lectures that our keynote speaker Dr. Sylvia Keesmaat would be giving.
Beyond these two lectures, there will be a webinar at noon (Eastern time) in which Dr. Keesmaat will be interviewed by Dr. Marlena Graves, assistant professor of spiritual formation at Northeastern Seminary, on the relationship of creation care and justice to moral and spiritual formation. Attending the webinar is free, but registration is required.
Call for Papers Extended
The Call for Papers (on the topic of the conference, from any disciplinary point of view) is now extended to September 27. You are cordially invited to submit a proposal for a paper.
Golisano Community Engagement Center
The keynote lectures for the conference will be held in the Golisano Community Engagement Center, on the campus of Roberts Wesleyan University. Breakout rooms will be assigned for paper presentations.
Our keynote speaker will be New Testament scholar, farmer, and activist, Dr. Sylvia Keesmaat.
Sylvia Keesmaat
Sylvia teaches online at Bible Remixed (www.bibleremixed) and is the author (with Brian Walsh) of Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire, Demanding Justice (Brazos Press, 2019) and Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (IVP, 2004). She also authored Paul and His Story: (Re)Interpreting the Exodus Tradition (Sheffield Academic, 1999). Sylvia is currently writing a book on climate grief, tentatively titled, A Fountain of Tears: Ecological Grief in the Biblical Story. She lives on a farm in the Kawartha Lakes with her husband, Brian Walsh, and a fluctuating number of people and animals.
A longer up-to-date biography for Sylvia Keesmaat with more details can be found here.
Dr. Keesmaat will give two lectures in connection with the conference, a public lecture open to all and a keynote lecture for the conference.
Friday Evening Public Lecture
Sylvia’s Friday evening public lecture, October 18, 2024, is titled: “Torn Between Grief and Hope: Biblical Wisdom and the Climate Catastrophe.”
Lecture description: We are often so weighed down with grief over creational destruction that it is difficult to look to the future with hope. This talk will explore not only the ways that this grief is present in the biblical story, but also how a future of possibility and renewal shaped the biblical imagination of those who lived with that grief.
This is a free public lecture open to the entire community. Registration for the Saturday conference is not required to attend. More information about time, location, and directions will be forthcoming.
Saturday Morning Conference Lecture
Sylvia’s Saturday morning lecture for the conference, October 19, 2024, is titled: “The Lament of the Land and the Tears of God.”
Lecture description: The lens of trauma and grief offers a relatively new approach for interpreting biblical texts about creational destruction and land loss. In this talk we will explore a few texts that highlight the grief of both the Creator and creation, alongside an imaginative hope that calls us to be servants of restoration.
This is the keynote lecture for the conference on “Creation Care and Justice”; registration is required. Stay tuned for the registration link on the Northeastern Seminary website.
Registration (through the Seminary) will soon be available (I will post a link when it is).
Call for Papers
In line with the topic of Dr. Keesmaat’s lectures, we invite submission of high quality papers on any topic related to the broad theme of “Creation Care and Justice.”
We welcome papers from the theological or the scientific side (including the social sciences), especially those that explore intersections of a biblical-theological vision with issues of scientific interest.
Papers should be scholarly but not highly specialized presentations of about 25 minutes, aimed at an audience of students, pastors, and faculty from across the spectrum of theological and scientific disciplines.
A PDF of the full Call for Papers (including deadlines) for the October 2024 conference can be accessed here.
I have come to realize there are multiple connections between these blog posts. I was aware of some of them at the time, but other connections seem to have been subconscious.
Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Classical Theism and Abraham’s Silence
I already understood that I was “deconstructing” classical theism and the traditional interpretation of Abraham’s silence.
My “reconstruction” of the former was to suggest that a relational view of God was more faithful to Scripture than a view of God as unmoved by anything outside of the divine nature.
My “reconstruction” of the latter was to argue that Abraham should have protested God’s command for him to sacrifice his son and prayed for Isaac, rather than silently attempting to obey the command (that was the basic argument of my book Abraham’s Silence).
God’s Relationality as the Basis for Critiquing Abraham’s Silent Obedience
In Abraham’s Silence, among the reasons I gave for why Abraham should have pleaded with God for his son was the prominent biblical pattern of vigorous prayer (found in the lament psalms, Moses’s intercession for Israel, Job’s protests, Abraham’s bold intercession for Sodom, and Jesus’s teaching on prayer in the New Testament).
This understanding of prayer is grounded firmly in a relational view of God—a God who is impacted by the human dialogue partner, in distinction to the the immovable God of classical theism.
I guess that this view of God is so ingrained in me that I didn’t have to consciously think about it.
(Neo)Platonism and Abraham’s Silence
Then, some comments by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat in response to my blog about classical theism suggested a further connection between the three posts—namely, Neoplatonism, or at least the traditions of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy that preceded Neoplatonism proper.
It was in those traditions of Greek philosophy that we get the idea that God is unaffected by emotion or by any outside influences.
And if humans are made in the image of this God, then we would naturally valorize (in Sylvia Keesmaat’s words) “the strong silent male who doesn’t demonstrate any emotion when asked to do something that should tear his heart out, and who believes that God is not open to dialogue and challenge.”
This is remarkably similar to how Abraham is thought of in many traditional interpretations of Genesis 22.
So—wonder of wonders—it actually looks like there is some coherence to my thinking about disparate subjects (even when I am not aware of it).
CREATION to ESCHATON 