Introducing the Center for Public Theology

We at Midwestern Seminary have some exciting news to announce. As the video above makes clear, in June 2016, we launch the Center for Public Theology. My goal as Director of this new initiative is to help the church answer one of the central questions of our time: how can we be faithful witnesses in this world at this particular time?

This is not a new question, of course. As I say in the introductory video above, the great pastor-theologian Augustine probed these matters in his seminal work City of God, calling the church to see that the world is temporal but faith is eternal. Rome was burning, Augustine knew, but the ascended Christ would never be defeated. So the church needed to place its confidence in Christ, not in Caesar. So it is today.

I’ve got a great deal more to say about the CPT, and about these matters, but this will suffice for now. We’ll have several more sneak previews of this exhilarating new project, which brings together several of my personal scholarly interests: theology, culture, and the public square. We’ll be offering resources in numerous formats, and I’m eager to roll these out in days ahead. We’re also debuting a lecture series that will feature–in fall 2016–one of evangelicalism’s most gifted thinkers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, I’m thankful to get to share this with friends, and I look forward to the work ahead of us. The days are evil, but Christ is on his throne, and his kingdom is advancing.