Thoughts of a Pastor-Historian

Everyone reading this needs to stop what they’re doing right now and download Red Mountain Music’s new Christmas album Silent Night.   The entire album is available for download from Amazon.com for $7.99.  It is an excellent collection of classic hymns celebrating our Savior’s birth in Red Mountain’s signature style.  Enjoy!

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Steven Curtis Chapman has written and recorded a very appropriate expression of gratitude to our outgoing President.  We often forget the toil that the weight of the responsibility of this job takes upon the occupant of the White House.   As SCC states,

Whether you voted for him & love him, or you’ve disagreed with all his policies and dislike him… Could we all agree on this? We owe President Bush a sincere thank you. As the historic Inauguration of President Elect Barack Obama approaches, StevenCurtisChapman.com pauses to thank our outgoing President for his service to our great country. This Thanksgiving weekend, we hope you’ll enjoy a new song by Steven written in President Bush’s honor.

To listen to the song click here.

Also, a news article yesterday reports on an interview which President Bush recently recorded to be stored in the Library of Congress and a museum dedicated to his presidency.

George W. Bush hopes history will see him as a president who liberated millions of Iraqis and Afghans, who worked towards peace and who never sold his soul for political ends.“I’d like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace,” Bush said in excerpts of a recent interview released by the White House Friday.

“I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process. I came to Washington with a set of values, and I’m leaving with the same set of values.”

He also said he wanted to be seen as a president who helped individuals, “that rallied people to serve their neighbor; that led an effort to help relieve HIV/AIDS and malaria on places like the continent of Africa; that helped elderly people get prescription drugs and Medicare as a part of the basic package.”

Bush added that every day during his eight-year presidency he had consulted the Bible and drawn comfort from his faith.

“I would advise politicians, however, to be careful about faith in the public arena,” the US leader said in the interview with his sister Doro Bush Koch recorded as part of an oral history program known as Storycorps.

As his second term in office draws to an end, Bush joked he would miss some of the trappings that come with the presidency such as trips on Air Force One, never being stuck in a traffic jam, and the president’s residence at Camp David.

But he said he was glad to be stepping back into the shadows.

“Frankly, I’m not going to miss the limelight all that much. It’s been a fabulous experience to be the president … But it will be nice to see the Klieg lights shift somewhere else.”

The interview, which Bush recorded with First Lady Laura Bush, will be stored in the library of Congress and a museum devoted to the Bush Presidency.

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The faculty address of my doctoral supervisor, Dr. Tom Nettles, is now available for free MP3 download here.  Dr. Nettles’ paper is titled:  “Wie es Eigentlich Gewesen: The Hope of a Christian Historian.”  This paper deals with the methodology of the Christian historian.  This was a very important paper for me to hear as I begin my work as a Christian historian and I’m sure that I will refer to it repeatedly throughout my remaining years.

To hear other SBTS faculty addresses, visit here.

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This afternoon I walked over (with my friend Stephen Yuille) to see the historic meeting house of the First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island.  When we headed back to the Convention Center, we turned to see this sight which I captured on my cell phone’s camera.

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Michael Dewalt just commented on the previous post that copies of Devoted to the Service of the Temple:  Persecution, Piety and Ministry in the Writings of Hercules Collins are available for purchase for only $5.00 until Friday at 5pm from their online store.  This is a saving of 50%!  Thanks again Michael!

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I was recently interviewed by Michael Dewalt at the Reformation Heritage Booktalk blog about the book which I co-edited with Dr. Michael Haykin, Devoted to the Service of the Temple:  Persecution, Piety, and Ministry in the Life and Writings of Hercules Collins.  I just noticed this afternoon that the interview has now been posted online.  A special thank you to Michael and the good folks at Reformation Heritage Books for allowing me this opportunity.

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About this time tomorrow evening I will board a plane to Providence, Rhode Island where I will be attending this year’s annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.  The Evangelical Theological Society provides an opportunity for Evangelical scholars to present papers and have interaction with the wider scholarly community.  The schedule for this year’s meeting is available here.  I am attending this event in order to assist Dr. Michael Haykin who will be moderating a Baptist Studies session featuring Jason Lee, Timothy George, and Keith Harper.   A complete list of SBTS related paricipants was provided by Dr. Russell Moore back in August.  The list is as follows:

The 60th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society will take place on November 19-21, 2008, in Providence, Rhode Island. Our own Professor Bruce A. Ware serves as President-elect and 2008 Program Chairman. Professor Peter Gentry is delivering a paper at a plenary sesssion. The tentative program schedule has recently been posted, and we are proud to note that several Southern Seminary faculty, students, and alumni will be presenting papers at this year’s meeting. These include:

Faculty

R. Albert Mohler Jr., “Secularization and Its Discontents”

Peter J. Gentry, “Old Testament Text” (Plenary Session)

David Puckett, “Wilberforce and ‘Lesser’ Evils”

Russell D. Moore, “Hybrid Engines on the Sawdust Trail: Global Warming, Creation Care, and the Future of Evangelical Theology”

Mark Coppenger, “The Aesthetic Argument and Darwinism”

Michael Haykin, Moderator of Baptist Studies Session

Robert L. Plummer, Moderator of Missional Church Session

Gregg Allison, “The Multi-Site Church Phenomenon: A Biblical, Theological, Historical, and MIssional Assessment”

Adam Greenway, “Reconsidering the Identity of the Edenic Serpent”

Shawn D. Wright, “Aspects of a Biblical Theology of Children”

Kurt Wise, “Dominion: Optimization of Divine Attributes to God’s Glory”

Bruce A. Ware, “Christian Worship and Taxis within the Trinity: Why the Order of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Matters to a Correct Understanding and Practice of Worship”

Barry Joslin (Boyce College), “God in Three Persons: The Implicit Trinitarianism of Hebrews”

Denny Burk (Boyce College), “God’s Inactive Righteousness: A Clarification Regarding the Meaning of Paul’s ‘Righteousness’ Language”

William Henard III, “Sinners in the Hands of an Emergent Church: Jonathan Edwards Joins the Conversation”

James Hamilton, “The Lord’s Supper in Paul”

Alumni

Peter Beck (Charleston Southern University), “The Voice of Faith: The Role of Unition in Jonathan Edwards’s Theology of Prayer”

Kenneth Turner (Bryan College), “Moses on the New Perspective: Does Deuteronomy Teach Covenant Nomism?”

David Morgan (University of Aberdeen), “Land and Temple as Structural and Thematic Marks of Coherence for the Hebrew Edition of the Book of the Twelve”

Mark Rogers (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), “A Missional Eschatology: Jonathan Edwards, Future Prophecy, and the Spread of the Gospel”

Bryan Cribb (Brewton-Parker College), “The Character of David’s Character: Form Critical Insights from the Story of David’s Death”

Mark Overstreet (Criswell College), “Where from Emmaus? Constructing a Proper Method for Christ-centered Preaching from the Old Testament”

Paul R. House (Beeson Divinity School), “Thematic Studies”

Randall Tan (Kentucky Christian University), Moderator fo Discourse Grammar and Biblical Exegesis Session

Jason DeRouchie (Northwestern College), “Wa and Asyndeton as Guides to Macrostructure in the Reported Speech of Deuteronomy”

Joseph Pak (The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), “Characteristics of False Believers in the New Testament”

Benjamin Merkle (Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary), “Who Will Be Left Behind? Rethinking the Meaning of Matthew 24:40-41 and Luke 17:34-35″

Jarvis Williams (Campbellsville University), “Stricken by God? An Exegetical and Theological Response to Brad Jersak’s Nonviolent Model of Jesus’ Death”

Stefana Dan Laing (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary), “Patristics and Protestants: Contextualizing Patristics for Contemporary Evangelicals”

Students

Gary Schultz Jr., “Universal Redemption, Not Universalism: The Reconciliation of All Things in Christ”

Aaron O’Kelley, “The Prophethood of All Believers and the Gift of Prophecy”

Robert Van Tine, “Castration for the Kingdom: Illegitimate Remarriage and Avoiding the aitia of Adultery”

John Gill, “The Gospel, Scriptures and Napoleon Bonaparte”

David Kim, “How Does the Holy Spirit Affect Our Interpretation of the Word?”

Keith Goad, “Simplicity and Trinity in Harmony”

Rob Pochek, “Is God Still Speaking? Pastoral Implications in the Debate Concerning Ongoing Revelatory Gifts”

This week’s events also promise to be interesting due to the efforts of Drs. Ray Van Neste and Denny Burk to amend the constitution of ETS.  This is an effort that I’m supportive of and if you’re a member, I hope you are too!

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Michael Haykin has written a review of Francis Beckwith’s new book, Return to Rome: Confessions of An Evangelical Catholic.  Dr. Francis Beckwith was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), until he resigned last year due to his conversion to Roman Catholicism.  This review is very timely, as this book has just been released this week in advance of this year’s annual meeting of ETS.

To find this review and others which might be of interest to our readers, please visit the Book Review page of the website of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies..

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And it’s not even been released yet.  I just learned of this new CD, produced by Sovereign Grace Ministries.  It is titled and “Together for the Gospel Live” and features the music from the 2008 Together for the Gospel meeting as recorded live during the sessions.  As great as the preaching was at this event, the music is one of the main things that stands out for many attending this event.  To hear 5,000 men singing such great truths it moving in and of itself.  Free samples are available, as well as three free MP3 downloads, here.  This album is a great foretaste of heaven!  To imagine ten thousands times ten thousands singing praises to God is quite overwhelming.  Don’t miss out on this album.

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