Southern Seminary Events: Panel on Scripture’s “Immorality” & New England Travel

Two matters related to life at Southern Seminary.

Tomorrow in chapel at 10am, Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler, Jr. will be leading a panel on recent challenges to the doctrine of Scripture entitled “God in the Dock: Is God a Moral Monster?” You can watch the panel, which will feature Denny Burk, Phillip Bethancourt, and myself, here. Among other material, we’ll be covering Eric Seibert’s arguments that I interacted with on this blog and that Christianity Today covered.

This is a sobering responsibility. I’m hoping this panel will lend clarity and health to God’s people. The doctrine of Scripture is precious. God’s Word is true, and so God’s Word is good, and healthy, and trustworthy, and authoritative.

Secondly, and on a happier note, if you’re interested in learning more about church history, Christianity in New England, and Jonathan Edwards, you should come with Southern Seminary historians Greg Wills, Michael Haykin, and me on a weeklong tour of New England from May 19-26, 2013. We are going to have a blast. You can get up to nine hours of credit from SBTS, and you can select from about a dozen courses (you do the coursework afterward, don’t worry).

I love New England to my core. I also love theology and church history. So I’m thrilled to teach a class on Jonathan Edwards, and another on “The New England Mind,” which will interact with the New England literary tradition (Hawthorne, Longfellow, Melville, and many more) and how it influenced and was influenced by the region’s historic Puritan orthodoxy. I love the interaction of literature and theology, and it’ll be especially fun to probe this relationship in front of, say, Hawthorne’s home in Salem.

Beyond all this, we’ll be eating some great food (I would imagine there’ll be lobster on the menu), seeing historic locations firsthand (Salem, Princeton, Yale, Boston, Northampton, Enfield, Plymouth, and many more), and there is talk of a visit to Fenway Park, site of much Job-like theological wrestling under the Curse of the Bambino, now lifted.

You don’t have to be a current SBTS student to come; if you’re a “friend of SBTS,” you’re welcome. Join us!