Os Guinness in Chicago, Jonathan Edwards, and Baptist21 Events

Socrates in the City is very cool.  And it’s coming to Chicago on May 6, 2010.

The program is “pre-evangelism”, aimed at cultural influencers interested in thoughtful conversation on matters of faith, the mind, and public life.  Based in New York City and led by evangelical public intellectual Eric Metaxas, the program is utterly unique and highly exciting.  It’s featured speakers like Sir John Polkinghorne, Francis Collins, Alister McGrath, and Robby George.  Basically, it rocks.

Here’s the info about the May 6th event in Chicago:

Please join host Eric Metaxas and special guest Dr. Os Guinness, author of The Call and more than twenty other books, who will speak on the topic: “Can Freedom Last Forever?: The Framers’ Forgotten Question and How We Are Doing Today”.

Date: May 6th

Wine and Cheese Reception from 6:30 pm till 7:00 pm

Speaking will begin at 7:00 pm SHARP

Dr. Guinness will sign copies of his books at 8:30 pm

Location: University Club of Chicago

(76 E. Monroe Street)

VPs accepted day of event)

Register for the event here.

So there you have it–Socrates is coming to the Windy City.

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Stephen Nichols on the strange unitive power of Jonathan Edwards.  It’s pretty remarkable when you actually think about the diverse patrons of the Edwardsean mind and ministry…

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Carl Trueman has the sharpest pen in evangelicalism.  In a recent essay (HT: JT) entitled “Life on the Cultic Fringe”, he takes aim at those who worry over what the world thinks about the church.  His words are strong but needed.  Read the whole piece.

Further, if the world finds me and mine ridiculous, then I can only respond by saying that I do not find the world’s views on a whole host of things particularly judicious or impressive either.  I switch on my TV each night and see politicians behaving like cheap backstreet hucksters; I see `celebrities’ living lives that would make a porn star blush and being applauded for so doing; I watch talk shows where people take seriously the soppy psychobabble of numerous numpties; I stand on the touchline at kids’ sporting events and see parents coming to blows over a refereeing decision in a game involving kids, for goodness sake; and I look at the great, self-important, self-righteous contemporary critics of the church and note the contempt they have shown in their own lives for their marriages and for those they were meant to love and honour, and even for those with whom they disagree within their own guilds. None of these things means that everything the world does and thinks is automatically wrong; but it inclines me to take the world’s wisdom with a pinch of salt and not be too worried if they find me `unloving’ or they dismiss my church when she refuses to conform to their view of reality simply because they tell me it is true. That kind of capitulation to powerful personalities and guilds is indeed where cults, on the Trueman definition, begin.

This is a helpful counter to those who suggest that the world has the right to act as some kind of imperious and abstract judge over the church.  That’s simply not the case.

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Timmy Brister has video from Tony Kummer from Band of Bloggers.  The event was really fun and typically well-done.  I continue to submit that it is strange that no one live-blogged it.  It’s like going to a conference on tables without any tables…

(I’ll let you chew on that one for a while.  Deep thoughts.)

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Check out upcoming Baptist21 events.  Exciting stuff…