ETS ’21 Annual Meeting Review

Greetings! I am thrilled to be taking part in one of the few traditions I have on this site: my review of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. What follows is not exactly hard-hitting journalism so much as reflections in gratitude on what I learned, largely for the sake of those who couldn’t be there.

This year’s meeting was in Ft. Worth, Texas, and I couldn’t resist the chance to drive down and explore my old hometown of DFW. This made for a long solo drive, but I enjoyed decent weather and beautiful fall colors the whole way down. (As for the way back, well…what a difference a week makes!) On my ride, I listened to two Teaching Company Great Courses: Reason and Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages, and The High Middle Ages. Both were engaging and informative. If you are ever looking for something to listen to, the Great Courses on Audible are a cost-effective way to get lots of good content.

This year I continued my previous trends of (1) sitting for whole blocks rather than trying to catch one paper here and another there, and (2) giving preference to the people involved over the title. I was in no way disappointed.

Theological Method

The first block I sat for was on theological method, which featured Vern Poythress, Michael Borowski, Rhyne Putman, and Mike Wittmer. I was late in getting to the first paper, but what I heard was good. Borowski introduced us to the field of textbook studies and analyzed different accounts of what it means to be human and what methodologies were used in these accounts. I loved every minute of it. I had never heard of “textbook studies” before, but the work of engaging with textbooks on the level of worldview was literally my job for the past 5 years, and it was great to discover there is formal, scholarly interest in that kind of work.

Putman is someone I have been listening to since the start. Back when I used to jump in for a single paper based on the title, I found myself often in his sessions saying, “oh hey, this guy again!” This time I remembered who he was thanks to his recent published work on theological method. Here he wielded method to talk about different approaches to worship theology.

Wittmer is a professor at the seminary associated with the school where I teach, and we have been in contact for years, but my relationship to him has tended to work not unlike my relationship as a bass player to other bass players: you usually only need one of us in the band. So this conference I had an especially great time getting to know him better. For his paper, he compared John Piper’s new book on Providence to the way that Calvin and Bavinck talked about the subject, with special attention to method and system. Piper was there in appreciation.

That afternoon I had wanted to attend a series on theological education, but my lunch went late and I missed a crucial starting paper, so I decided to skip and remedy a headache.

Wealth and Poverty, Christianity and Culture

The next day, I sat for the block on Christianity and culture, led by one of my old mentors, Dr. Kreider. The theme for the conference was wealth and poverty, and he invited 5 people, area pastors and non-profit leaders, who were working with the poor in Dallas. This section was phenomenal. I am going to let myself go long here, but there’s still so much more to say.

It was so refreshing hearing from Christ-centered people who are actually doing the work of the ministry. Bryan Carter talked about the great needs in Dallas, and how every pastor is called first to their church and then to their city. He talked about their strategic focus on help, housing, health, and hope. He also talked about advocating for the community through ordinances and by inviting the businesses they need in order to thrive.

Stephanie Giddens and Faith Michael talked about their distinct but related ministries among refugees. I quickly realized I knew basically nothing about this world. Some quick facts:

• “Refugee” is an internationally-defined term, managed by the United Nations
• This is not the same as an asylum-seeker
• Right now there are 82.4 million displaced people worldwide, an historic high (26.4 million of which are refugees)
• Almost half are children
• Only 2% of those defined as refugees are resettled
• A refugee is a legal status allowing you to live and work and get some government assistance
• It usually takes anywhere from 18-36 months for a refugee to make it to the US
• There is a great deal of examination and vetting before someone is allowed to resettle
• There are zero cases of terrorism associated with refugees

Their ministry had to do with helping refugee women in particular learn a skilled trade and financial literacy. They also minister to mental health needs since being forcibly displaced from your home tends to involve traumatic experiences.

Marvin Walker highlighted the importance of listening to those you are serving, respecting their culture, and not imposing a preset program when starting a new ministry. He is part of a church plant undertaken by my old church, Watermark Community Church, and they have resolved not to serve, but to belong. (In this context, lots of outsiders have come to this community “to help” over the years, and that is the mentality they are striving to avoid.) Very inspiring talk.

Finally, Christopher Wheel talked about his own experience of homelessness and his church’s approach to helping others. He talked about beginning with care before explaining why, and about how we cannot dictate the terms of engagement. When we step outside, we are in the community. He talked about God’s compassion, and how we will never lack opportunity to demonstrate that compassion in generosity to others. He also brought his own set of statistics about the needs in their community, with special emphasis on the impact of fatherlessness. They have focused on mentoring kids in school as a way of trying to mitigate the potential dangers.

Again, I’m skipping so much gold. I love theology and exegesis as much as the next guy, but we need to sit down and listen to the people actually doing the work, too.

RKD on Anger

While I did not make it to any of the ETS plenary sessions this year, I was excited about the EPS plenary. (By way of reminder, ETS is the broader theological society and EPS is a subset devoted to philosophy. ETS gets 3 plenaries, EPS gets 1.) Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung has written books on the seven deadly sins and vainglory in particular. We were huge fans of her work at PGS and wrote Vainglory into the EdD program. Her gift seems to be bringing a philosophical mind to church history for the purpose of practical spiritual formation. Her talk on anger (wrath) was in principle an affirmation of my own biblical study of the subject, but she (1) suggested that Thomas Aquinas was right in saying anger is a natural response to injustice, (2) and that the Desert Fathers and Mothers were right to say that our anger is easily (always?) tainted and that we should strive to live in peace, and (3) offered practical strategies for managing anger personally and dealing with injustice corporately.

I’m thrilled to see that there is a copy of her paper located here, and I would highly encourage you to meditate on it.

Wealth and Poverty in the Early and Medieval Church

The next block I attended was on historic approaches to wealth and poverty. Stephen Presley argued that the early church stood out among their peers as exceptionally generous and hospitable, so much so that some prominent contemporaries (e.g., Lucian, Celsus) mocked them for being dupes one could easily take advantage of. They were known for welcoming robbers and outcasts, and it was this witness that persuaded many of the goodness and grace of God. Presley noted that our social context is very similar to theirs and encouraged us to pursue a similar testimony.

Stefana Dan Laing told the story of Macrina and her family and traced the related concepts of philanthropia, leiturgea, and euergeta during that time. You can read The Life of Macrina for yourself and note the ways that her whole family stood out as an example of service in one way or another.

Just as the Christianity and Culture section invited guests to talk about their experience, so, too, this section invited a guest to talk about poverty. Fr. John Bayer is a Cistercian monk who took a vow of poverty and was able to share his experience of monastic life today. He talked about the rule of St. Benedict, about the blessings and challenges of communal life, and about how surrender of property relates to surrender of self to God. Lots of inspiring and challenging words here.

The next day I ended up in another early church section, so I will append it here:

Todd Scacewater talked about using discourse analysis to better understand the Didache, which has long been a favorite early church text of mine. Using this linguistic tool, he divided the book into its constituent parts and analyzed the economic ethics of the book. They include commands to be generous, prohibitions against mistreating the poor and oppressed, and warnings about how false teachers are revealed by their greed.

Sandra Glahn talked about widows in the New Testament and made a case that there was a formal role for qualified widows to play in the life of the early church. I had actually come across one of her earlier writings on this subject, which you can read here, and so I was already inclined to believe that she is right. She poured in even more evidence for her conclusion, and it was impressive. I couldn’t take notes fast enough to reconstruct the argument here, but I am sure we can expect more resources to come soon.

Parting Thoughts

It’s a blessing to be able to leave town for a while, reconnect with lifelong friends, establish new theological friendships, and sit at the buffet of ideas and be fed. I have always found it an inspiring and challenging time, spurring me on to be more disciplined in my thinking and in my studies. If you aren’t able to attend something like this, I hope you can at least find ways to connect with people who draw your attention to what God has done in the past and what God is doing now, and especially to engage and form your mind to better serve Him. If you live anywhere near me and you don’t have this, let’s talk.