April 24, 2008
Edith Humphrey
William F. Orr Professor of NT Studies
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Ecstasy and Intimacy: When the Holy Spirit Meets the Human Spirit
Meeter Center Lecture Hall
3:30 - 5:00
April 17
John L. Thompson
Professor of Historical Theology
Gaylen and Susan Byker Professor
of Reformed Theology
Fuller Theological Seminary
Anger Management, on Earth as It Is in Heaven:
What Christians Have Learned about Cursing Over the Years
Meeter Center Library
3:30 - 5:00
We live in an angry age. Yet in many churches and congregations, one of the best-kept secrets of the Bible is the presence, right there in the middle of the Psalms, of line after line of seething anger and vehement invective. To say the least, isn't there a bit of tension between the eager prayer in Psalm 139, that the righteous might live to see God's vengeance and even "bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked," and the fairly straightforward command of Jesus that we should love our enemies and pray for those who do us wrong? How do we deal with angry texts in an age so filled with anger--at home, on the roads, in our cities, and among nations?
On April 17th, Professor John L. Thompson of Fuller Theological Seminary will consider topics such as these in a lecture that draws on his recent book, Reading the Bible with the Dead: What You Can Learn from the History of Exegesis that You Can't Learn from Exegesis Alone. It's his conviction that the very hardest passages of the Bible are never better read than when we read them in dialogue with the full range of interpreters from the Christian past.
Join Professor Thompson at the Meeter Center on April 17 as he reflects on what we can learn from our forebears such as Origen through reformers such as John Calvin, and how we can find practical help from history when we read texts that seem to approve outbursts that are among the worst--and most understandable--of human impulses.
More on Dr. Thompson and his work ... http://www.fuller.edu/provost/faculty/dbsearch/final_record.asp?id=84
February 6
Glen A. Pettigrove
University of Auckland, New Zealand
The Standing to Forgive
Commons Lecture Hall
3:30 pm
Dr. Pettigrove has been a Lecturer at the Massey University School of History, Philosophy and Classics in New Zealand, and will soon begin teaching Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy courses at the University of Auckland. He completed his doctorate at the University of California, Riverside, and his M.Div. at Gordon-Conwell Seminary. In recent writing projects, he has been exploring the ethics of forgiveness. He is interested in the recent extension of the language of apology and forgiveness from interpersonal contexts to relations between collective agents. Calls for nations and corporations to apologize and make reparations for decades-old, sometimes centuries-old deeds reveal interesting changes in contemporary understandings both of legitimate political action and of moral responsibility more generally. Dr. Pettigrove believess that the broad implications of these changes for political theory and for public policy make the need for a careful study of political forgiveness pressing.
More on Dr. Pettigrove and his work ...
January 15
Elaine Botha
Professor of Theology, Emerita
Redeemer University College
Metaphor, Meaning & Embodiment
Listen to the Lecture: (mp3)
Meeter Center Lecture Hall
7:30 pm -- Evening Lecture
M. Elaine Botha is professor of Philosophy (emerita) from Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada and the North Western University, Potchefstroom campus, in South Africa. She graduated from the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and taught Philosophy at Potchefstroom University for more than 25 years. She taught at numerous universities and Colleges in North America, Europe and South Africa and has an extensive list of publications dealing with the role of metaphor in religion and in ordinary and theoretical cognition.
More on Dr. Botha's recently published book, Metaphor and its Moorings: Studies in the Grounding of Metaphorical Meaning, Peter Lang Publishing, 2007. (Please scroll down on that web page for a book synopsis.)
November 5, 2007
David Bentley Hart
Visiting Professor of Theology, Providence College
The Hidden and the Manifest: God and 'Being'
(with special reference to Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa)
Meeter Center Lecture Hall - 3:30-5:00 pm
Listen to the Lecture (mp3 file)
David Hart is an Eastern orthodox theologian and author of the books The Beauty of the Infinite: the Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Eerdmans 2003) and The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Eerdmans 2005). His work offers a powerful and deeply learned statement of Christian truth that draws on the Eastern Orthodox tradition while engaging modern and post-modern critics of Christianity. Hart develops his understanding of beauty within a dogmatic context, considering the doctrines of the Trinity, creation, salvation, and the eschaton.
Read Laura Smit's Review of Beauty of the Infinite
Read William C. Placher's Review of Beauty of the Infinite
October 3, 2007
Richard Plantinga
Professor of Religion, Calvin College
Music and Theology In Excelsis: The Sacred Works of JS Bach
Chapel Undercroft
3:30 - 5:00
In this presentation, Professor Plantinga will explore Bach's engagement with Christian theology, highlighting biographical and contextual factors, and also some prominent themes in Cantata 106 "Gottes Zeit ist die Allerbeste Zeit" [God's Time is the Very Best of All Times].
