The 2005 Theological Study Conference
The Affinity Theological Study Conference
Dates: February 1-3, 2005
Venue: High Leigh Conference Centre, Hoddesdon, Herts.
The Affinity Study Conference has rapidly established itself as one of the most prestigious events of its kind in the UK. A symposium of this conference is published under the title of Tales of Two Cities - Christianity and Politics (IVP/Affinity). It has received favourable reviews and copies an be ordered by email from at the special price of £11.99 inc.p&p
“The times they are a changing.” So sang Bob Dylan (a long time back, it now seems). We did not need September the eleventh to inform us that some forms of religious extremism are shattering the old liberal consensus, which some had fondly believed would spread from the West to conquer the world. On the other hand, the clamour for state recognition, even approval and regulation, of homosexual marriage and of ‘alternative models of the family’ threatens to pull apart the fabric of our society. Yeats’s words, written in a different context, have a frightening relevance to them: ‘the centre cannot hold’.
Christians believe in a God who does not change, in a Saviour who ‘is the same yesterday, today, and forever’, in ‘the eternal Spirit’, and that ‘the Word of the Lord endures forever’. How are we to be faithful to these convictions in our fast changing, kaleidoscopic world? How should God’s people relate to their society and to the political life of that society at a time of such rapid change?
These, of course, are not new questions. They were faced by Old Testament characters like Daniel as well as by the infant church in the Roman Empire. They have also been faced at different times in the history of the church.
The purpose of this Affinity Theological Study Conference was to seek to find what light is shed by the Bible upon these issues and what lessons can be learned from history.
Paper 1: Seek the Welfare of the City: Saints and Society in the Old Testament (Speaker: Professor Gordon Wenham, University of Gloucestershire)
This paper is to address the underlying principles which govern the Old Testament’s diversity of teaching with respect to the relationship of the covenant people of God to their own internal political life and to that of the pagan nations around them. Why were some nations to be tolerated, when others were to be exterminated? How does the teaching and example of men such as Jeremiah and Daniel fit with that found in Joshua and Judges? What different, but complementary, lessons are to be drawn from the Book of Ruth’s treatment of inter-racial marriage and that found in Ezra and Nehemiah? Do the patriarchal narratives and Wisdom Literature have important, but neglected, things to say? Does the fact that the Old Testament points forward to something greater mean that Old Testament teaching can only be applied after it has passed through the New Testament ‘grid’, or can it be directly applied today?
Paper 2: Was Jesus Political? (Speaker: Steve Wilmshurst, Director of Training and Administration, Kensington Baptist Church, Bristol)
The rediscovery by evangelicals of the need to read the Bible with sensitivity to its ‘time line’, rather than a-temporally and a-historically, has led to evangelicals giving greater attention to the social and historical context in which Jesus lived and ministered. Palestine was occupied by a foreign power, whose citizens worshipped a veritable galaxy of deities, deities who included the emperor himself. The response of ‘the faithful’ ranged all the way from that of the wild eyed revolutionaries to pietists and mystics, with many others in between. Into this maelstrom of a world, Jesus was born. What was His message and mission? How did He relate to the differing groups. And what did He mean by the kingdom of heaven?
Paper 3: Samuel Rutherford and the Civil Government (Speaker: Revd David Field, Oak Hill Theological College)
The seventeenth century was a time of enormous social and political upheaval and change. It was not in ivory towers that treatises were written which dealt with the legitimate authority of ‘the powers that be’ and of the relationship between the church and the state. In a rapidly changing and, very often, dangerous world, zealous Christians, who were equally committed to Scripture’s authority, could not always agree on their understanding of the Bible’s teaching concerning the legitimate basis and limits of political power and of the place of the Christian in the state. Samuel Rutherford was one man with very decided views, views which found expression in his celebrated work Lex Rex. This paper will concentrate on what those views were, how Rutherford defended them, and how they differed from the views of other ‘main line’ Puritans. The relevance of the issues with which Rutherford grappled to the present day scene will also be addressed.
Paper 4: Nonconformist Saints in Nineteenth Century Society (with special reference to C.H. Spurgeon and Edward Maill) (Speaker: Dr David Smith, International Christian College, Glasgow)
The nineteenth century saw the rise of ‘the nonconformist conscience’. The ‘indirect’ political influence exercised by the growing numbers of nonconformists was matched by the ‘direct’ spiritual influence exercised by preachers such as C.H. Spurgeon and by various evangelical agencies. Living through an age of great intellectual challenge, imperial expansion, and which witnessed both spiritual revival and theological and spiritual decay, what lessons do the nonconformist saints of that period have to teach us concerning our role in today’s very different, pluralistic world? What examples should we follow and what things should we avoid?
Paper 5: Christianity and Politics in a Pluralist Society (Speaker: Professor Paul Helm, Regent College, Vancouver)
Is it possible to be religously exclusivist (there is only one way to God) but politically pluralist (different belief systems are to be tolerated in society)? Is such principled pluralism countenanced by the Bible? What limits, if any, are there to such a position? How is this position to be defended against the charge that it essentially privatises religion? How can one simultaneously hold to the gospel as ‘public truth’ and to political toleration of beliefs which deny that truth? What are the particular strengths of this position in the society in which we live? At what points, if any, is our society similar to that in which God’s people lived at different times in biblical history?
Paper 6: Asserting the Crown Rights of King Jesus Today (Speaker: Revd David McKay, Minister of Cregagh Road Reformed Presbyterian Church, Belfast, and Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Presbyterian Theological College, Belfast)
‘Jesus is Lord’ is the great, central confession of the Christian faith. ‘All authority in heaven and on earth’ has been given to Jesus. What does it mean to assert these ‘crown rights of the Redeemer’ in a society which does not acknowledge His lordship? How is this to be done? Is evangelism and godly living enough? Does godly living entail social action and/or political activity? What place do pneumatology and eschatology have? What are the implications of the fact that the kingdom has come, is coming, and will come? How is God’s kingdom to come on earth ‘as it is in heaven’?
Last update on 13 May 2006
Published by Ian Herring
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