The call for papers is now open for the 2015 Los Angeles Theology Conference, and will be open until July 15.
This year’s theme is “Locating Atonement,” and the plenary speakers are Michael Horton, Matthew Levering, Bruce McCormack, Ben Myers, and Eleonore Stump.
In addition to those five presentations, we are seeking nine shorter papers to be delivered in parallel or breakout sessions. As the call for papers says,
We are especially seeking papers that are theologically constructive accounts of atonement, describing how God reconciles sinners to himself. We are not looking for papers that discuss competing “models of the atonement.” The metaphor in the conference title is location, so the guiding question for proposed papers should be “where does atonement happen?” Proposed papers may juxtapose atonement with other doctrines in order to situate it (as may be noted in the titles of the plenary papers, “atonement and x”), but they should not change the subject from atonement proper to its implications for other loci.
The LATC style is to explore central doctrines (Christology and Trinity so far) with an eye on retrieving the grand tradition of Christian theology with suasive rigor, but to avoid as much as possible the conventional habits of thought that may have developed in more recent times. In the doctrine of the atonement, “business as usual” would be to rehearse the various models or theories of atonement (vicarious punishment, Christus victor, etc.) and then advocate the superiority of one, or present a synthesis, or an amalgam, or (for the adventurous) a brand new theory/model to trump the others! We won’t be doing that. The Aulénesque maneuver may be one way of teaching the material, or of exploring the territory within which atonement makes most sense, but we trust that other ways will prove more illuminating.
The call is open until July 15. Please spread the word.
