Newsletter #139
On My Favorite Symposium Papers
A Bittersweet Event
This past Monday and Tuesday I participated in my final Theological Symposium as a member of the Free Will Baptist Commission for Theological Integrity (Watch the sessions here.)
While I will be serving through July when the 2025 National Association is held, the Symposium is the highwater mark of our year as a Commission. It brings all five members together to meet, plan our next year of ministry, and sponsor our annual Symposium. I’ve participated in 12 symposia as a Commission member, 14 altogether. I’ve deeply enjoyed these times of learning, discussion, and fellowship.
For most of those 12 years, I served as Program Chair for the Symposium. This means that I was responsible for the organization and promotion of the event, along with being the principal reviewer of papers submitted. Occasionally, I also solicited papers from people researching and writing on topics that I felt would enrich our event. I learned a lot through performing that role.
As Symposium Chair, we underwent changes in the submission, review, and planning process. We honored F. Leroy Forlines and Robert Picirilli. We navigated an online program due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And we’ve seen a stunning number of first-time presenters appear on our program.
I well remember presenting my first paper as a young seminarian in 2008. I was nervous and excited. I knew I had my facts well in-hand, though what I didn’t know was how to best articulate and defend some of my assertions when they were challenged. I can still see Leroy Forlines, Robert Picirilli, Paul Harrison and more sitting just a few feet from me. And I can hear their questions and challenges to my paper. You sometimes learn as much from those interactions as writing a paper itself.
I’ve had opportunities to present academic papers in other settings. While those experiences have paralleled ones at the Symposium, there is something unique about being among your own people. Some of them have watched you grow. Some of them have grown because of you. Some of them are themselves finding their own voice. Most of all, these are people who will likely be in your social orbit for many years to come. The dialogue over ideas, practices, and more will continue.
I thought today’s newsletter provided a timely opportunity to do two things: (1) highlight some of my favorite Symposium papers from the past 12 years; and (2) list the papers I’ve had the privilege of presenting. If nothing else, perhaps these lists will help readers know the kinds of interesting work being done by others. And in my case, if someone wanted me to go deeper on Churchatopia on any of the topics I’ve written on, then they could request as much.
My Favorite Papers
It’s with some reluctance that I offer this list, knowing I have to exclude so many solid papers. However, I think the positives outweigh the negatives in sharing these. I’ll share the name of the paper, the presenter, and the year in which it was presented.
Now, in no particular order:
“Let them be heretikcs, Turcks, Jewes, or what soever”: Thomas Helwys’s Seminal Argument for Universal Religious Freedom in England. (Phillip Morgan, 2014)
Religious liberty or freedom is a topic many of us have come to appreciate more and more in the secular West. What too few realize is how integral one of our theological fathers was to articulating the argument for religious liberty in the last five hundred years. Morgan does a commendable job describing the contribution of Thomas Helwys, who also happens to be the namesake of the Helwys Society Forum, a wonderful site I was privileged to help co-found in 2010.
Toward a Theology of Divine Providence (Robert Picirilli, 2015)
The name Robert Picirilli should be enough, but I’ll just add that Free Will Baptists often don’t know what to do with topics like sovereignty and providence in the face of their Calvinists interlocutors. Picirilli charts a path forward in this paper.
Moderating the Maelstrom: Robert E. Picirilli, W. S. Mooneyham, and the Shaping of Denominational Identity (Charles Cook, 2022)
Charles Cook has done more than anyone to help me understand the development of the Free Will Baptist movement in the mid-twentieth century. Whether you fashion yourself as a historian or not, this paper is a fascinating look at competing conceptions of Free Will Baptist identity and key leaders in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
Trinitarian Preaching: On the Father, in the Son, and through the Spirit (Kevin Hester, 2015)
Fellow Commissioner Kevin Hester doesn’t present papers often, but when he does, they are always thoughtful, rich, and meaty. We know we should affirm the Trinity, but how do we minister in light of it? This paper shows how in the crucial area of preaching.
The Influence of Leroy Forlines on a non-Free Will Baptist (Richie Clark, 2016)
Though Richie doesn’t belong to the National Association, he has had a fascinating intellectual journey into Arminianism via the influence of Leroy Forlines. In our 2016 Symposium we highlighted Forlines’s contributions. Clark’s presentation was a highlight of the program.
English General Baptists: The Arminian Anti-Rationalists (Jesse Owens, 2017)
Jesse has done much to build on our understanding of the English General Baptists, especially as it relates to the role of creeds and confessions. While this isn’t my greatest area of interest, he always manages to bring excellence to and elicit interest in this subject area.
Prevenient Grace and the Word of God: A Reformed Arminian Perspective (Joshua Colson, 2020)
Colson may be the best Free Will Baptist writer under the age of 30. His prose is sparing, elegant, and clear. He brings his craft to bear on an extremely important but grossly underarticulated subject of prevenient grace. This is essential reading.
The Lord’s Supper as Meaningful and Open (Cory Thompson, 2018)
Perhaps in our aversion to sacramentalism, Free Will Baptists have often failed to articulate our understanding of the Lord’s Supper in a clear and compelling way. Fellow Commissioner Cory Thompson has done this superbly in this paper.
Cultivating a Culture of Wisdom in the Local Church (Jeff Blair, 2018)
Jeff Blair is one of those thoughtful pastors whose preaching and writing I’ve come to respect and appreciate. Drawing from his D.Min. research and writing, this paper brings together some wonderful insights on the need for wisdom in the life of the church.
Covenant and the Warnings of Hebrews: The Blessing and the Curse (Matthew McAffee, 2013)
Matthew McAffee has been a teacher and friend for over 20 years. His work in Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern studies is unparalleled in the Free Will Baptist movement. But my favorite work of his has come from the book of Hebrews. I had a course with him on the topic when he was a very young college professor, and he has often returned to the themes in Hebrews in his writings.
The Institutional Good of Marriage, Family, and Society (Matthew Bracey, 2018)
My old friend and collaborator Matt Bracey has regularly sounded themes that bring together intellectual history, law, ethics, and the church. However, this paper on the family—informed of course by these prior topics—is perhaps my favorite.
Jacobus Arminius and the Diversity of Reformed Theology Prior to the Synod of Dort (Matt Pinson, 2020)
Matt Pinson’s work on Arminius, the English General Baptists, and Free Will Baptist history has been so important to the development of Free Will Baptist self-understanding in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. One of the greatest factors in that understanding has been for us to discover the real Arminius and the Reformed tradition in its original context. This paper achieves that in an important and interesting way.
I’ve heard many more interesting, well-written, and even important papers. I’ve also noticed that some presenters tend to tackle topics of greater native interest to me. (Chris Talbot and Matthew Bracey especially come to mind. Those fellows are always picking good topics to write on.) But this list is a brief sketch of some that struck a special chord with me.
Now, I turn to a list of the Symposium papers I have presented over the years. I’ll skip editorializing on each, for that would take this newsletter to an unseemly word count that no reader desires.
Sanctification and the Electronic Media: How Are Screens Shaping Us? (2008)
“In One Accord”: Bridging the Divide Between Doctrine and Practice (2012)
Crafting a Free Will Baptist Apologetic (2013)
Hearing the Gospel Today: Reflections on the Hermeneutics of Evangelism (2014)
Singleness as Discipleship (2015)
Celebrating the Legacy of F. Leroy Forlines (w/ Matthew Bracey; 2016)
Cultural Analysis and the Dynamics of Leading Change in the Church (2019)
Should Pastors Be Obeyed? Pastoral-Theological Reflections on Hebrews 13:17 (2021)
The Holy Spirit, His Gifts, and the Use and Abuse of Tongues (2022)
I probably learned the most writing “In One Accord”.
“Singleness as Discipleship” was by far the most personal presentation, born out of deep experience.
“Cultural Analysis and the Dynamics of Leading Change in the Church” is the most practical one, and perhaps the one I enjoyed presenting most.
“Sanctification and the Electronic Media: How Are Screens Shaping Us” is the most poorly written, but in some ways, the most impressive since I feel that I was saying in 2008 what many people have only started saying in the last 5-8 years.
I spent more time researching, writing, and rewriting “The Holy Spirit, His Gifts, and the Use and Abuse of Tongues” than any other paper.
Objectively, I think “Hearing the Gospel Today” is the best-written one.
Follow Up:
In Newsletter #128 I wrote briefly about the complex phenomenon of infertility. It’s an even bigger problem than for the married couples facing it. We are losing our grip on a truthful definition of infertility altogether.
Kallie Fell of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network recently documented the shifting landscape surrounding the way infertility is being defined, which has profound and extensive consequences for ethics, law, culture, and the economy. Take time to read her short, disturbing article, “Redefining Infertility.”
Quotes of the Week:
The poet-preacher John Donne said, “I date my life from my ministry.” There is more to life than ministry, but I knew as soon as we pulled out of the driveway that I had needed Cana more than Cana ever needed me. I do make sense of my life from that ministry.
I also believe that pastoral ties cannot be severed, even when they are imperfectly remembered or forgotten altogether. If all our relationships participate in a vast network of meaning called “kingdom” or “church,” they must have a richness we can’t always savor and a permanency we can only imagine. They are eternal because God remembers everything and has engraved our names into the palms of his hands. The moment we hit the oil road, this ministry in the flesh was lost to me, and Cana became a story with voices and textures and a mystery all its own. For which I am grateful.
Richard Lischer, Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery.
The Cass Review’s 388-page Final Report, released last April, is the world’s most comprehensive document on youth gender medicine. Tasked by England’s National Health Service to investigate, renowned pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass spent four years gathering evidence and interviewing stakeholders from all sides of the debate over how to treat gender dysphoric kids.
The conclusion she came to? “The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”
The NHS subsequently changed policy from affirmation to evaluation, and banned puberty blockers (despite warrantless objections from a small but vocal minority of British physicians). Several European countries came to similar conclusions after systematic evidence reviews, witnessing exponential growth in adolescent-onset gender dysphoria, and watching the number of detransitioners rise.
America, alas, did not follow suit. The Endocrine Society dismissed the Cass Review, saying it “does not contain any new research” to contradict its current pro-puberty blocker guidelines. The American Psychological Association kept mum. The activist-led advocacy group World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH)? They called into question the Review’s ethics—despite themselves removing a chapter on ethics from their latest “standards of care.”
Lisa Selin Davis, “Medical Groups Are Censoring the Cass Review.”
Books I’m Reading Now/Still/Again:
Joel Biermann, Day 7: For Work, Rest, or Play.
Joshua Chatraw and Mark Allen, Apologetics at the Cross: An Introduction for Christian Witness.
Ronald Nash, Faith and Reason: Searching for a Rational Faith.
Luke Burgis, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life.
Parting Shot:
In just a few weeks I’ll begin teaching a graduate-level apologetics course for Randall University. That may lead to more concise reading lists and newsletters as I focus my energies on that important commitment. However, at least through the end of 2024, expect a newsletter each Monday morning.