Parchman Lectures

I was honored to be Truett Theological Seminary‘s 2011 Parchman lecturer, and I was charged with four lectures — so I chose Evangelicalism Today, and so my four lectures were on Evangelicalism, Universalism, Gospel and Atonement. (How’s that for four hot topics.) But none of them were simple repeats of my books but instead the three topics — universalism, gospel, and atonement — were examined from the angle of what evangelicalism is.

While I have always maintained the Bebbington quadrilateral very well summarizes what evangelicalism is, discerning the more precise order of those four elements (biblicism, conversionism, crucicentrism, and activism), which was my focus in the first lecture, enables to peer both into what evangelicalism is but also sheds light on the furor over universalism, why evangelicals are so committed to a soterian gospel, and why penal substitution is so important to evangelicals. So, those were the themes I chased in the lectures, and the Q&A after the sessions further stimulated my thinking.

Here are links:

Evangelicalism

Universalism

Gospel

Atonement

Truett is the seminary (at Baylor University, and I spoke in Baylor’s chapel on Monday morning) of the Texas Baptists and I was thrilled to be with Roger Olson, David Garland, Todd Still, and meet a number of scholars and hang a bit with David Wilhite, whose book on the church was so helpful to me, and also get to be again with Josh Carney, pastor at University Baptist.

My friend Jim Martin pastors in Crestview, invited me to his church for an afternoon with some pastors (sorry, preachers), and it turned into a great afternoon discussing all things connected to the gospel.