Carl Henry’s Quest for the “Evangelical Harvard” and Other ETS 2011 Topics

For the small but vibrant community of people known as “evangelical theologians” or “theology aficianados” or “those zealous about the extracalvinisticum,” the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society is a big deal.  I love ETS.  This year’s meeting, centered around the theme “No Other Name,” will be held this week in San Francisco, California from Wednesday, November 16-Friday, November 18.

There are a number of fascinating topics on the docket this year, as there always are.  Andy Naselli has listed one such event, a panel on the “spectrum of evangelicalism” that features several contributors to this notable and needed book on the same topic, just published by Naselli and fellow TEDS alum Collin Hansen.

Perspectives on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism

Thursday, November 17, 2011 | 3:00-6:10 pm | Parc 55 – Divisadero

Moderator/Introduction: Andy Naselli (The Gospel Coalition)

Presenters:

R. Albert Mohler Jr. (The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary): A Conservative Evangelical View on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism
Kevin T. Bauder (Central Seminary): A Fundamentalist View on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism
Carl Trueman (Westminster Theological Seminary): Response to Albert Mohler and Kevin Bauder

This panel should be very interesting.  You can also see Andy’s carefully enumerated reasons to attend ETS.  He is characteristically thorough.  I would add a fifth reason–because it’s fun!–but I would not wish to do untold violence to his list.

Here’s the full listing of everything happening at ETS 2011.  Wednesday morning–11/16/11–at 10:10am in Yerba Buena 7 (I have utterly no idea where this is), I’m going to do a paper on this: “Of Holy Grails and the ‘Evangelical Harvard’: Carl Henry, IFACS, and the Untold Story of the Great Christian University.  I’m one of four presenters in the Church History: American Christianity section alongside historians A. Donald Macleod of Tyndale Seminary and John Hannah of Dallas Theological Seminary.  My topic stems from my dissertation on the re-enchantment of the evangelical mind in the mid-twentieth century, which ranges over figures like Harold Ockenga, Carl Henry, and others.

Wherever you end up at ETS, I’m sure that this year’s meeting will be richly profitable.  The fact that it’s in San Francisco doesn’t hurt anything, either…