This coming Friday and Saturday (February 5-6) SEBTS will host its annual 20/20 Collegiate Conference. This year’s theme is A City Within A City: Church, Culture & Counter-Culture. A list of this year’s plenary speakers is below. In addition to the plenary sessions, breakout sessions will be led by SEBTS faculty members such as Bruce Ashford, David Nelson, Alvin Reid, Nathan Finn, Heath Thomas, Ed Gravely, Mark Liederbach, and George Robinson (among many others).
It is not too late to register. … [Read More]
A City Within A City: The 20/20 Collegiate Conference at SEBTS
Does God Hate Haiti?
Sometimes Christians with a public platform say foolish and irresponsible things that gain international attention and bring significant embarrassment to the cause of Christ and His gospel. Such is the case again with Pat Robertson’s declaration that God judged Haiti with an earthquake for having swore a pact with the devil in the 18th century to escape French rule and oppression. Such an outrageous statement quickly made its way around the world. I am currently … [Read More]
Fifteen Factors That Have Changed the SBC since 1979, Part 4
This past summer, I began a four-part series of articles titled “Fifteen Factors That Have Changed the SBC since 1979.” Because of a variety of distractions, I only wrote the first three installments. A number of BtT readers have asked me what happened to the final article, including two brothers in the last three weeks. Well, after a five-month interlude between articles, this installment concludes the series. By way of reminder, these factors are not … [Read More]
A City within a City: Church, Culture, & Counter-Culture
We at BtT invite you to join us for our February conference, “City within a City: Church, Culture, & Counter-Culture (Feb 5-6, 2010). The conference features five plenary sessions (Danny Akin, Matt Chandler, David Platt, JD Greear, and Clayton King) and 30 breakout sessions (Chandler, Platt, McKinion, Reid, Finn, Ashford, King, Greear, etc.).
This is our annual collegiate conference and is focused on college-aged students, but we welcome seminary students, young professionals, and mature high school students. We expect … [Read More]
The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience
Last Friday a document titled “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience” was released to the public. According to the press release, “The 4,700-word declaration issues a clarion call to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not – under any circumstance – abandon their Christian consciences” (emphasis in original). The declaration was drafted by Robert George, Timothy George, and Chuck Colson and signed by more than … [Read More]
What We Often Fail to Say about Christian Higher Education
In early September, President Bill Underwood of Mercer University authored an op-ed piece for Associated Baptist Press titled “Defining Baptist Higher Education for the 21st Century.” Gene Fant, dean of arts and sciences at Union University, recently penned a response to Underwood’s missive. Hunter Baker reprinted Fant’s article at First Thoughts, a blog attached to First Things. If you are even remotely interested in Christian (and especially Baptist) higher education, I urge you to read both Underwood’s … [Read More]
Ideas Have Consequences: The Place of the Liberal Arts within a Theological Education, Part 2
This is the second article in a series of two defending the study of the history of ideas as a crucial component in a balanced undergraduate theological education. Our guest author for this article is Ed Gravely, who serves as Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and the History of Ideas at Southeastern Seminary. His teaching responsibilities include courses in New Testament at both the graduate and undergraduate level and courses in the History of Ideas … [Read More]
Ideas Have Consequences: The Place of the Liberal Arts within a Theological Education, Part 1
Our guest author for this article is Ed Gravely, who serves as Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and the History of Ideas at Southeastern Seminary. His teaching responsibilities include courses in New Testament at both the graduate and undergraduate level and courses in the History of Ideas for undergraduate students at The College at Southeastern. Though Ed is a text critic by training, but he is the quintessential “Renaissance Man” with interests in philosophy, intellectual … [Read More]
Augustine for the 21st Century (6): Selected Passages by Augustine, Reading Recommendations, and Concluding Thoughts
Now, this installment is well worth your time reading. Unlike the previous installments of this blog series in which I bloviated about Augustine, this installment provides the real payoff: some bona fide passages from Augustine’s sermons and commentaries. Although I have read several of his books (City of God, The Confessions, and On Christian Doctrine), I have not read his sermons, commentaries and letters. Therefore in this post I rely upon Jules Brady’s collection in … [Read More]
Augustine for the 21st Century (5): What Can We Learn from Augustine as a Pastor-Theologian?
Pastor Augustine was not a perfect man, but he embodied certain virtues, disciplines, and convictions that we would do well to emulate. Sixteen hundred years after he lived and wrote he continues to teach.
Summary of Augustine’s Life. Augustine was born in Hippo (modern-day Algeria) in AD 354 to a Christian mother and a pagan father. At age 18 he discovered Cicero’s writings and started his quest as a philosopher. At first, he was drawn to … [Read More]
