Category Archives: Worship

Speaking on a Christian Worldview in South Korea

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I’m excited by my first trip to South Korea.

Last year I was invited to give two plenary lectures on a Christian worldview at a conference at Handong Global University, in Pohang, South Korea. The time has now come for the conference and I am finally in Korea.

The conference is called, “Christian Scholars: Forming Identity, Building Community.” It is sponsored by the International Network for Christian Higher Education (INCHE) and is for Christian academics throughout Asia and Oceania. I’ve been told that scholars and teachers from twelve different countries will be attending.

Why was I invited to give these talks? That’s something I asked when I received the invitation.

It seems that lots of Koreans have read my work, and not just my first book on a Christian worldview, which I wrote with Brian Walsh (The Transforming Vision). The Korean translation of that book sold as least as many copies as (if not more than) the original English edition!

It turns out that all of my books have been translated into Korean (The Transforming Vision is also in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Indonesian). Given my career as a biblical scholar since The Transforming Vision, it seems that the conference organizers wanted to hear how I would articulate a Christian worldview today in our contemporary global context.

My two lectures will introduce participants to serious biblical theology, focusing on humanity as the image of God and the movement of the biblical story towards the eschaton. I will attempt to draw implications from this deep dive into Scripture for Christians in academia (connecting to the twin conference themes of identity and community).

My lectures are entitled “The Vocation of the Christian Scholar: Called to Image God” and “Teaching towards a Vision: A New Heaven and a New Earth” (you can read a summary of the lectures here).

The conference runs for three days; my lectures are on days 1 and 2 (you can see the conference schedule here).

There are also thirteen breakout sessions planned, with three presentations in each (thirty-nine presentations in all). You can see the range of topics here.

I am both honored to be at this conference and somewhat intimidated by my assignment. But I am trusting in the grace of God and in my wonderful Korean hosts.

A selfie with Shin Gyun Kim, my Korean host who picked me up from the airport in Seoul.

I’m very much looking forward to fruitful engagement with fellow Christians in academia from different cultures and diverse fields of study.

Join us for a Conference on Scripture, Theology, and the Sciences on October 25–26 (Just Two Weeks Away)

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You are invited to visit Northeastern Seminary on October 25–26 in Rochester, NY for an enriching time of discussion among theologians, biblical scholars, scientists, ecologists, pastors, students, and others.

Keynote Speaker—William Brown

Our keynote speaker is William P. Brown, professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary.

Brown’s expertise is in Old Testament theology, with a special emphasis on the ethical implication of creation themes. He has an abiding interest in the sciences and the science-theology conversation. He is the author of many books on biblical interpretation.

One of Brown’s best books, which is directly relevant to the theme of the conference, is The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Oxford University Press, 2010). In this book Brown examines seven different creation accounts in the Old Testament and imaginatively links them to his reflections on various aspects of the natural world that we have discovered through scientific exploration.

Brown’s Lectures at the Conference

Brown will give a public lecture in advance of the conference proper on Friday evening, October 25, on the topic of human evolution and the garden of Eden, entitled: “From Ardi to Adam: The Garden and Human Origins.”

The lecture begins at 7:30, but refreshments will be served from 7:00 pm.

The conference proper begins at 8:30 am on Saturday, October 26, with registration and a continental breakfast beginning at 8:00 am.

After an opening liturgy, Brown will present a lecture on God’s speeches to Job from the whirlwind, entitled “Job, Astrobiology, and the Science of Awe.”

Thirty Conference Papers

After Brown’s morning lecture, there will be thirty papers presented in concurrent sessions during the day.

Here are some of the paper topics:

  • Christ of the Neanderthals: Redefining the Imago Dei in Light of Modern Paleoanthropology
  • Why Have You Forsaken Me? Dying in Ecology and Theology
  • “When I Consider Your Heavens”: Cosmology and Worship in the Scientific Era
  • Language, Empathy, and Morality: Adam’s Evolutionary Journey to Maturity and Guilt
  • Experiments in Environmental Guerilla Journalism
  • God Saw that It Was Good, the Problem of Evil, and a Scientifically Informed Theodicy
  • The Chaotic Waters and the Womb: Pastoral Implications of Conceptual Metaphors surrounding Birth and Adoption in Science and Scripture
  • Technology, Time, and Living the Sabbath
  • God’s Agape/Multiple-Routes Design for the Universe
  • Alterations in Times, Seasons, and Biblical Text: The Impact of Horological Science on the Interpretation and Translation of Scripture
  • Servanthood and Service: The Challenges of Implementing Biblical Perspectives within Natural Resource Management

You can download the full schedule of papers here.

We hope you will join us for a time of engaging conversation with the keynote speaker, with paper presenters, and with other attendees.

There will be books by William Brown and some of the other conference speakers available for sale.

Registration and Accommodations

You can see the schedule for the day at the conference website, and here is the registration page.

There is a $20.00 registration discount available for members of the co-sponsoring organizations and for students and alumni of Northeastern Seminary.

Lunch is included in registration.

If you need to stay overnight in Rochester, here is a list of inexpensive accommodations nearby.

Co-Sponsorship of the Conference

This theology conference is one in a series of conferences co-sponsored by Northeastern Seminary and the Canadian-American Theological Association (CATA) over the last seven years.

Since this year’s conference will address the intersection of Scripture, theology, and the sciences, we are delighted to have three other co-sponsoring organizations, all of which address the the science-faith dialogue in helpful ways—the Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation,  the American Scientific Affiliation, and BioLogos.

These organizations will have information tables at the conference.

5 Common Misconceptions about Heaven and the Afterlife

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A couple months back I was asked to write a guest blog for the Gospel Relevance website on the topic of five common misconceptions about heaven and the afterlife.

This is part of a series on “5 common misconceptions” on a variety of topics by guest authors.

The five misconceptions I addressed are as follows (these are five things that the Bible does not teach):

1. That Christians will live in heaven forever.

2. That the earth will be destroyed in the judgment when Jesus returns.

3. That the new heavens and new earth will be a replacement cosmos.

4. That the new heavens and new earth will consist of a never-ending worship service.

5. That the way we live now doesn’t affect the afterlife (and vice versa).

You can now read the blog post online here.

Or you can download a PDF of the post to read later.

Update: By March 2019 the post I wrote for the Gospel Relevance website had been shared over 1,000 times.