The annual meeting of and conference for the Northwest Region of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) is coming up this weekend at Multnomah University. In light of this, Transformed asked Western’s Patrick Schreiner to tell us a little bit about ETS, along with who should attend conferences like this one, and why.
Category: Event
New Year’s Idols
I enjoy making New Year’s resolutions. It’s an opportunity to put aside past mistakes and failures and start over in the coming year. I can start anew with my devotional or exercise program that I abandoned last year. My gym sent me an e-mail which declared this to be the “year of . . . you”. The e-mail went on to say, “It’s 100% your choice. It’s your decision. It’s in your hands. YOU are in control. YOU.” That’s the kind of talk I like – talk that centers around me. Of course, as a Christian I immediately recognize this to be worldly thinking, but I need to be careful. My thinking about resolutions can easily end up as worldly thinking masked by a thin veneer of Christian language.
The Endeavor of a Lifetime
There are very few endeavors in this world that can capture a person’s interest for a lifetime. Just like a much anticipated birthday present loses a child’s attention within a few days, (or even minutes), so the undertakings we most anticipate eventually lose their luster. It seems to be the norm in a fallen world. That is, until you come to the study of Scripture.
Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant
Tell the ALL truth… but tell it SLANT. That takes creativity. And the more creative you are, likely, the less direct you’re going to be. It’s not enough to ask, “What’s the truth I wanna get across?” But also, “What’s my angle? What’s my slant?”
A Sacramental Perspective on Creativity and the Arts
I am afraid that we have relegated Christianity to something in our mind and lost the sense of how holistic redemption is, how God communicates what Christianity is through the images that he has given to his church. There is a felt flatness to some versions of Christianity, not an embodied invitation to a historic sacramental Christianity. The historic images that God has given to his church are not the practices that usually come to our mind when we think of what it means to be a Christian.