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Midwestern Seminary faculty, students to present papers during ETS meeting

Posted October 11, 2017 by Midwestern Seminary

KANSAS CITY, Mo., (MBTS) – Midwestern Seminary will be represented by 20 faculty members and students, as they present scholarly papers and moderate sessions at the 69th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on Nov. 15-17. The theme of this year’s meeting is “The Heritage of the Reformation.”

“I could not be more pleased with the representation Midwestern Seminary will have at ETS, from faculty to Ph.D. students,” said President Jason Allen. “Our goal is to lead the way in Christian scholarship within the Southern Baptist Convention with the ultimate benefactor being the local church. Settings such as ETS provide an excellent opportunity to share with the greater evangelical community the scholarship taking place here.

[quote]“Additionally, it is fitting to address the conference’s theme: ‘The Heritage of the Reformation.’ For evangelicals, the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation may be the most consequential commemoration of the 21st century church. Millions of believers celebrate anew the historic recovery of the gospel of grace. As we celebrate, we reconsider the Reformation as a singular inflection point in the history of the church, and one from which we must continue to learn and grow.”[/quote]

Jason Duesing, the institution’s provost, noted that ETS presents an opportunity for the seminary’s theological scholarship to be sharpened and results in a stronger faculty that leads in preparing the next generation of pastors and ministry leaders for service in the local church.

“With each year, it is a joy to see the cultivation of scholarship ‘for the church’ at Midwestern,” Duesing said. “This group of established and up-and-coming scholars are living proof of the strength and quality of the instruction in our Ph.D. program.”

The Presentations

Midwestern Seminary professors and students taking part in the meeting and their topics are as follows:

— Dr. Jason K. Allen (president): “Reformation Homiletics: Assessing Calvin’s Method of Preaching Christ from the Old Testament”

—Stephen Andrews (professor of Hebrew and Old Testament): “Unsung Heroes of the Reformation: Christian Hebraists and Sola Scriptura”

—Matthew Barrett (associate professor of Christian theology): “Is our Doctrine of Inerrancy Christological Enough? The Future of Inerrancy and the Necessity of Dogmatics;” “Balancing Sola Scriptura and Catholic Trinitarianism: John Calvin and Nicene Complexity;” moderating “Does Sola Scriptura Have a Future? The Reformation and Biblical Authority”

—J. Alan Branch (professor of Christian ethics): “Gender Reassignment Surgery and Christian Ethics: A Brief Summary and Critique”

—Todd R. Chipman (assistant professor of biblical studies): “Weapons, Wealth and the End of the World: Investigating Hag 2:6 in 1QM and Hebrews 12”

—Jenny-Lyn de Klerk (Ph.D. student): “The Spirit’s Work in Prayer: Comparing Calvin and Owen in Light of Calvin vs. the Calvinists”

—David Dickenson (Ph.D. student), with John Lee: “Following the Signposts through Mark’s New Exodus”

—Jason G. Duesing (provost and associate professor of historical theology): “The Thorough Reformers: Baptists and their Contributions to the Christian Tradition”

—Joseph D. Garner III (Ph.D. student): “The Instruments of Our Salvation: Thomas Cranmer, The Bible, and the English Reformation”

—N. Blake Hearson (associate professor of Hebrew and Old Testament): “When is an Adverb not an Adverb? Deuteronomy 6:5 Reconsidered”

—Jason P. Kees (Ph.D. student): “At the End of All Things: Verbal Connections of the New Testament in the Apocalypse”

—Matt Kimbrough (Ph.D. student): “You Ought to Be Teachers’: Community Obligation in Hebrews 5:12”

—John Lee (assistant professor of New Testament), with David Dickenson: “Following the Signposts through Mark’s New Exodus”

—Thorvald B. Madsen (dean of graduate studies; Ph.D. program director; professor of New Testament, ethics, and philosophy): “He Was Despised: Isaiah 53 and the Apologetic Purpose of Matthew 8”

—Michael D. McMullen (professor of church history; editor of the Midwestern Journal of Theology): “The Spirituality of William Wilberforce: Evidence from his Unpublished Journals”

—Matthew C. Millsap (assistant professor of Christian studies; assistant director of library services): “Infinite Dominion: No Man’s Sky and the Cultural Mandate”

—Owen Strachan (associate professor of Christian theology; director of the Center for Public Theology): “Retrieving Theopneustos: The Reformation’s Legacy and the Theologian’s Errand;” moderating “Does Sola Scriptura Have a Future? The Reformation and Biblical Authority”

—Tom Wadsworth (Ph.D. student): “Divine Christology: Where It Stands, Where It Should Go”

—John Mark Yeats (interim dean of students; dean of Midwestern College; associate professor of church history): “Pursuing the Win: How the Gentrification of American Religion Undermines Biblical Values”