It's not Vegas, but...(Part 1 of 3)

Normal people who reside in California take weekend getaways to places like Las Vegas, or the Colorado River, or perhaps a beachside resort. But not me. I take getaways to seminary conferences. Who needs R&R when I can be edified by some of the leading theological giants of our time?

OK, so visiting Wesminster Theological Seminary in California was, for this theology geek, like being a kid in a candy store. Meeting the authors of some of my favorite theological works was fascinating, and I could only wonder to myself "wow, these guys get paid to study the Bible and Reformed theology!"

On a more serious note, I was comforted knowing that the West Coast has a seminary that is so faithful to the Reformed tradition, and is churning out such solid pastors under their guidance. Hearing the professors speak was encouraging to this end. With the downward spirals of Calvin and Fuller Seminaries becoming more apparent, and even the slippery-slope compromises being made at normally-stalwart institutions like Reformed Theological Seminary (notice that they booked Tony Campolo for a lecture series?!), one begins to wonder if we should be creating Reformed seminaries with a pre-mil/pre-trib/dispie-like pessimism in expectation that all seminaries must, after their founding, follow an inevitable downhill trajectory into apostacy (or, if we're lucky, merely heresy), and that they all ought to be bulldozed after a century or so of their founding. Princeton, Calvin, and Fuller were taken by theological rot, so is there a 100-year shelf life we should observe before good seminaries spoil, and ought to be thrown out like so much fuzzed-over cheese? Hopefully not, so may God bless Westminster West.

My guess is that the little town I live in has a Reformed population of 1. That would be me. So, as you can imagine, I'm ecstatic anytime I'm around other Reformed believers, much less, surrounded by a whole crowd of Reformed brethren who are all theology geeks like me. The conference was sold out, and the bulk of the crowd were clearly laymen or elders, not pastors.

It was a joy to listen to Dr. Hywel Jones, with his deep Welsh accent, expound the Reformed doctrine of the sacraments. I must say, his lecture was one of the most illuminating I have ever heard on the topic. The doctrine of the Real Presence becomes most difficult to wiggle out of, exegetically and logically, after listening to him. Great stuff.

Dr. R. Scott Clark's talk also stood out. Westminster West, for good or ill, has taken an anti-Federal Vision stance, and Clark's presentation solidified this fact. I will be most interested in reading the faculty symposium on this issue, because Clark's polemic seemed to me to rely on uncharitably selective quotations of FV proponents in his lecture. He is convinced that the matter has become a matter of necessary church discipline, and called his audience toward this end. I'll be interested to see what becomes of it. If Clark's charges are right, then his response is justified. However, if the FV proponents disavow the interpretations imputed to their works, which I suspect will be the case, then I don't think the answer will be clear-cut. We will see.

I knew that I was going to attend Dr. Dennis Johnson's elective lecture, no matter what his topic was. He spoke about the preaching precepts exemplified in Acts, and I was not disappointed. I like his speaking style. He's the kind of guy I can see kicking a beer back with. Most notably, however, I noticed something about him during Clark's presentation. Sitting behind him, I noticed Dr. Johnson was taking notes. Not "I'm sorta being polite and taking notes while my colleagues are speaking", but detailed notes scrawled all over the lecture outline in his lap. "Huh," I thought to myself. This conference was not geared to academics or pastors, it was clearly geared toward laymen in content. But there Dr. Johnson was, still believing he had things to learn, even as a professor. And there I was, not taking notes at all.

I'll stop here for now and fill y'all in on the rest of the conference in the next blog post.

Category: Theoblogia