WTS Conference: Discipleship and Jesus

At the risk of getting sucked into another April Fool's joke :-) I wanted to extend an invitation. I chair the Practical Theology section of the Wesleyan Theological Society. Next year we are addressing Christology in our Annual meeting at Anderson University (just north of Indianapolis).

I wanted to see if there might be enough interest to have a paper session on "The Way of Jesus: Christology and Discipleship in contemporary church practice." This would allow folk in this group to contemplate the relationship between a prominent theme in Emergent discipleship (Following Jesus) and its relationship to Christology. This is an academic conference so there will probably be proposals by faculty and doctoral students on other aspects, but I am open to having one session developed around this theme. The only "catch" would be the writing/presentations would need to reflect advance graduate work, but I think there is ample intellectual horsepower within the group if there is enough interest. This may not be the best venue for the discussion but at least it would provide another forum if you are interested. If we get sound proposals I will let the group know once the conference chair sets the program. I am including the call for papers and my contact information. If you are interested please include the topic idea and this link. You can get more information from the Society website http://wesley.nnu.edu/wts/44_annual_meeting/44_annual_meeting_call_for_papers.htm

ALL THE TREASURES OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE: THE CENTRALITY OF CHRIST

Annual Conference
5-7 March, 2009
Anderson University, Anderson, Indiana

Plenary Session Speakers:
Prof. I. Howard Marshall, University of Aberdeen: ‘Where Are We Now? New Testament Christology Today’
Prof. Bruce McCormack, Princeton Theological Seminary: ‘Why Should Theology be Christo-centric?’
Presidential Address: Prof. Thomas J. Oord, Northwest Nazarene University

A Call for Papers: Papers are invited on the topic of Christology, the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, and its role in Christian Theology.


Completed paper proposal forms should be sent to one of the following section chairs by 1 September, 2008. Proposal form provided below.
Practical Theology/Christian Formation
Dean G. Blevins dgblevins@nts.edu

PAPER PROPOSAL FORM
Wesleyan Theological Society Meeting
All the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge:The Centrality of Christ
5-7 March, 2009Anderson University, Anderson, Indiana
Please add information below and email it as an electronic document to the appropriate section chair listed at the conclusion of the call for papers.

WTS SECTION NAME:

PAPER, PANEL, OTHER:
PRESENTATION TITLE:

PROPOSAL SYNOPSIS (250-3OO WORDS):

PRESENTER’S FULL NAME:
PRESENTER’S TITLE:

POSITION:

INSTITUTION (if any):

EMAIL:

ADDRESS:

WORK OR HOME PHONE:FAX AND/OR WEBSITE:

PRESENTATION NEEDS, AUDIO OR VISUAL (e.g., POWERPOINT):

SUGGESTED RESPONDENT (INCLUDE EMAIL):

PERMISSION TO RECORD:

OTHER WTS SECTIONS TO WHICH YOU ARE SUBMITTING THIS PROPOSAL:

NAME OF PROFESSOR ENDORSING PAPER AND PRESENTER (FOR MASTERS STUDENTS ONLY):

Nazarenes and Alcohol

-- This post is starting a new thread based on a comment in the ever so popular April Fool's joke turned potpourri discussion of Nazarenes and everything emergent. HNM, thanks for the prod to start a new thread on a topic well worthy of its own discussion. --

OK, so I'd like to know: for you Nazies out there, how do you handle the prohibition of alcohol in the Manual? As HNM pointed out, the Manual is actually much stronger than simply abstention. It actually says we should actively work for total prohibition and that we should boycott all institutions that sell alcohol. These would include every Mexican and Italian restaurant in the world, except of course beautiful Taco Bell. Seriously, though, any restaurant with food over $6-7 dollars a plate is going to offer beer or wine, and almost every grocery store and convenience store offers the same. The unavoidable truth is that breaking the boycott part of this paragraph has become practically unavoidable.
So then, what do you - you pastors and Nazie laypersons out there- what do you do about the abstinence part?
I feel a deep sense of confliction here. One one hand, I feel a duty to fulfill my verbal commitment to uphold the CotN and the Manual. On the other hand, I feel like requiring abstinence from alcohol is clearly legalism and often a hindrance to relationships (especially with people outside the church). I actually feel like not drinking sometimes hurts my "witness" more than it helps. Yet, I feel like a hypocrite if I do drink.
What to do?
What do you do?

Flock of Dodos

After sharing with my sister, who is a biologist, some of the conversations that have been going on in our last post here regarding the movie "Expelled", she brought another movie over my house for us to watch and talk about. That movie is titled “Flock of Dodos” which was a documentary released in 2006.

Filmmaker and evolutionary biologist Dr. Randy Olson explores the controversy over the teaching of evolution and the rise of the intelligent design debate. Wanting to know more about intelligent design, Olson interviews ID spokespeople (including Michael Behe, Jack Cahill, and John Calvert) and listens to their side of the story trying to figure out what is fueling this debate when this is essentially a non issue in the scientific community.

One thing he found when he sat down with these ID proponents is that they were kind, and thoughtful and intuitively intelligent people and this contrasted the often smug and arrogant sounding language used by his evolutionary scientist friends; not to mention that most people need a dictionary on hand to keep up with the vocabulary they use - even at poker games. He concludes that perhaps it is the scientific community that are the dodo birds, a community that has failed to adequately communicate the issues of science in an environment of over saturated information, where true and false matters very little, and sound bites and slogans rule. Perhaps evolutionary scientists need to take some responsibility that they have so poorly communicated what science and evolution is that it is no wonder there is so much confusion over the issue.

The movie is extremely good; taking the time to be informative as well as entertaining. For anyone interested in the evolution/ intelligent design “controversy” this is a must see. The movie explores the debate along with the barriers to communication in the debate. It attempts to be fair minded and I think succeeds at this extremely well. I learned a lot myself, even about intelligent design from watching “Flock of Dodos”. I still do not believe that it is a scientifically testable hypothesis to say that there is an intelligent designer; or even that there is an unintelligent one. However, like I said before in comments in the other post, you can make an extremely strong philosophical argument for intelligent design. Anyway, go rent the movie. My sister rented her copy from netflix, so put it at the top of your cue and check it out.