In mid-January of 2017, the Los Angeles Theology Conference will bring a remarkable group of theologians to Biola University for a two-day discussion of “The Task of Dogmatics.” (Register before the end of November for the early registration discount.)
Theology professors in southern California should consider doing what several of us have already gotten into the habit of doing: Teach a class on Christian dogmatics this January, with the LATC as a major portion of your contact hours.
The conference itself, with five plenaries and three parallel sessions, delivers twelve hours of focused instruction on our topic to your students. With top theologians speaking on a key doctrine in a carefully-sequenced conference, it’s pretty obvious how you can make this worth academic units at your school: Add some preliminary reading and a post-conference discussion, plus a final reflection paper, and you’ve got a well-rounded educational experience on the task of dogmatics.
There’s an early bird discount in effect until November; there’s a group discount for groups of ten or more; and there’s a student discount. These discounts stack, so if you sign up a group of students in the next few weeks, you can get quite a price break.
The speakers are perhaps the most remarkable lineup we’ve had yet for a single year. I’ll just paste them in here in case you forgot them:
Michael Allen (Reformed Theological Seminary): Dogmatics as Ascetics
Henri Blocher (Faculte Libre de Theologie Evanglique): “The Permanent Validity and Contextual Relativity of Doctrinal Statements”
Katherine Sonderegger (Virginia Theological Seminary): “A Lamp unto our Feet: Scripture as Guide to Trinity”
Scott Swain (Reformed Theological Seminary): “Dogmatics and Systematic Theology”
Kevin Vanhoozer (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School): “Can I Get a Witness? Dogmatics, Analytics, Poetics, and the Challenge of Making Theological Statements”
James Arcadi (Fuller Theological Seminary): “The Word of God as Truthmaker for Church Proclamation: An Analytic Barthian Approach to the Dogmatic Task”
Eduardo Echeverria (Sacred Heart Major Seminary): “The Essentialist versus Historicist Debate about the Truth Status of Dogmatic Formulations”
Douglas Harink (The King’s University): “The Abiding Power of Romans for Dogmatics”
Josh Malone (Moody Bible Institute -Spokane) and Brannon Ellis (Lexham Press): “Divine Perfections and the Shape of Dogmatics”
Gavin Orlund (Sierra Madre Congregational Church): “Why Should Protestants Retrieve Patristic and Medieval Theology?”
Chelle Stearns (The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology): “Post-Traumatic Theology: Evaluating Trauma as a Starting Point for Dogmatics”
Darren Sumner (Fuller Seminary Northwest): “Christocentrism and the Immanent Trinity: Identifying Theology’s Pattern and Norm”
Chris Tilling (St Mellitus College): “‘Knowledge Puffs Up, But Love Builds Up:’ The Apostle Paul and the Task of Dogmatics”
Maarten Wisse (VU University Amersterdam): “Retrieving the Law and Gospel Distinction for the Task of Dogmatics”
Sameer Yadav (Westmont College): “Doctrine and Ontological Commitment to a Narrative”
