Regent College

Regent Bookstore is a culture, not just a bookstore, and may well be the best theological bookstore in North America. I was invited by Regent Bookstore to give a set of lectures on The King Jesus Gospel, and it gave me an opportunity to cover some its major themes and develop other themes I have been working on, including when the gospel itself was reduced (more of that at some other time).

So we had three lectures: two at the University chapel up the street from Regent and then Friday evening at Regent College itself. The two respondents, Darrell Johnson and Gordon Smith, pushed and pulled and extended and probed the themes of the lectures and were every bit as stimulating to me as the lectures themselves. And the questions from the audience helped all of us. (Nice to meet so many pastors from the area.)

The three topics: The “Book” on the Gospel (how we have understood the gospel, how the apostles understood the gospel); Evangelicalism, Conversion and the Gospel (how intertwined the born again experience and the gospel are), and The Gospel and Church History (where I look more intensively at the charge that we can blame revivalism for our problems).

I want to thank so many folks, beginning with Bill Reimer and Travis Black and Kim Boldt at the Bookstore, Phil and Polly Long for a delightful time at their home (got to see Mariam Kamell and Bill and Dorcas, and meet Travis and Andrea), and it was so good to see one of our students, Elsbeth Martens, who is flourishing in Vancouver.

OK, yes, Vancouver, in spite of the rain, convinced me Kris and I will have to make a proper visit. (Gotta have some Tim Horton’s, Canada’s version of, well … you fill in the blank.)