After two days with world-renowned apologist Ravi Zacharias, the Henry Center is grateful to God for the response to his speaking.  Audio and video will be posted soon–check back in coming weeks.

The Center hosted a Wednesday lecture entitled “Toward an Evangelical Understanding of Postmodernism and Mission” and a Thursday chapel entitled “Lessons from History: A Tale of Two Men.”   Both events were standing-room only.  The Thursday chapel filled both the ATO Chapel and the overflow room.  In addition, the webcast of the Wednesday lecture drew one of the largest online audiences the Center has ever received.  For these good responses, we are grateful.

Dr. Zacharias is an evangelist with a global reach.  It was inspiring to hear him speak, and it is exciting to think of the fruit that we trust will come from his ministry to TEDS.

A report live-blogged by Andy Naselli

Ravi Zacharias is founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Here’s how the Henry Center advertised this address:

Someone from India recently quipped to me, “India has gone from ancient to postmodern and skipped over the modern period.” Indeed, in distilling truth, it has been rendered to neutrality. How then, in a climate of cultural preferences (whether in the East or in the West), does one share the Gospel graciously and winsomely without it seeming like a cultural chiding or contravention? This is the essential challenge before us in the church today.

This address is available via live-stream.

The ATO Chapel is packed—over 500 people have filled the room.

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The only thing worse than nostalgia is amnesia. (Ravi earned his M.Div. here at TEDS from 1973 to 1976.)

Two weeks ago Ravi responded to the “Man Vs. God” Article in The Wall Street Journal, and WSJ printed his letter to the editor (though WSJ cut the length in half).

Malcolm Muggeridge:

It has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, his own vulnerability out of his own strength; himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over, a weary, battered old brontosaurus, and becomes extinct. Many, like Spengler, have envisaged the future in such terms, and now what they prophesied is upon us.

Thoughts on Postmodernity in the West

• “We don’t know who we are, and he doesn’t know who he is.” That sums up postmodernity.
• Descartes should have said, “I think, therefore, thinking exists.” A pantheist could question his leap.
• You can ascribe intrinsic worth only if we are created by a creator. Talk of morality and intrinsic worth is not consistent with a worldview that embraces  empirical knowledge as the only knowledge.
• “It all depends on what the word ‘is’ means.”
• Cf. Nietzsche’s skepticism re objective truth.
• But when we are the victim of a lie, undoubtedly we will lay claim to the truth.

The Problem in the East

• Philosophy in the West has gradually moved to the existential, learning to the skeptical, art to the sensual, and spirituality to the mystical. Here’s the problem: While the West was moving unhinged from all these categories, the East was digging in its heels.
• Ravi has to be very careful that he not appear as a brainwashed Westerner when he speaks in the East.
• The West and East view Christianity, religion, and truth very differently.

Conclusion

Ravi closed with four stories that raise hard questions for postmodern thought.  Here are the essential points of the stories:

1. How do you affirm individuality?
2. We often don’t want to own up what goes on inside us.
3. Guilt is a terrible thing.
4. A prominent sheik told Ravi that it’s time to stop asking if Jesus died on the cross and start asking why he died on it.  This shows an abiding interest in the significance of the God-man.

The Henry Center is pleased to announce that on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 1pm, it will offer a free live webcast of the Scripture & Ministry lecture by legendary apologist Dr. Ravi Zacharias entitled “Toward an Evangelical Understanding of Postmodernism and Mission.”

Tune in here at 1pm for the free live webcast: http://tiuproductions.com/livestream/

The Center hopes that this talk by one of the church’s foremost apologists will spread understanding of a crucial set of topics amongst Christians from a wide variety of backgrounds.  Also, please visit the Center blog for Hansen Fellow Andy Naselli’s live-blog and summary of the lecture.

Those who are able to attend the event on Wednesday at 1pm at the Deerfield, IL campus of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School will not want to miss it.  In addition, Dr. Zacharias will speak in chapel on Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 11am (this event will not be broadcast).

Registration for the October 14-16, 2009 Gospel Growth=People Growth conference at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, IL) is rapidly rising.

Make sure that you visit the specially created event website.  Click here to register for the conference.  $59 for students, $99 for pastors.

Between hearing from Carson, Dever, Jensen and others, and being encouraged in your ministry to be faithful to the gospel, this conference should provide much opportunity for growth, reflection, and upbuilding.

Cosponsored by Matthias Media, the Henry Center, The Gospel Coalition, and the Simeon Trust.

A report live-blogged by Andy Naselli

The 2009 Kantzer Lectures in Revealed Theology by Dr. Stephen Williams

Williams is professor of systematic theology at Union Theological College in Belfast, Ireland. The title of the six-part series is “The Election of Grace: A Riddle without Resolution?” The fourth lecture in the series was advertised to address “the question of election and particular atonement, working from the John Owen/McLeod Campbell debate,” but it actually deals with election in the NT.

This is also available via live stream.

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A report live-blogged by Andy Naselli

The 2009 Kantzer Lectures in Revealed Theology by Dr. Stephen Williams

Williams is professor of systematic theology at Union Theological College in Belfast, Ireland. The title of the six-part series is “The Election of Grace: A Riddle without Resolution?” The third lecture in the series was advertised to address “the question of election as a determination of destiny, specifically, the problem of perseverance” but will actually be addressing election in the OT.

This is also available via live stream.

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A report live-blogged by Andy Naselli

The 2009 Kantzer Lectures in Revealed Theology by Dr. Stephen Williams

Williams is professor of systematic theology at Union Theological College in Belfast, Ireland. The title of the six-part series is “The Election of Grace: A Riddle without Resolution?” The second lecture in the series addresses “Barth on election integrated with Barth’s views on Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms.” (Update: Williams decided not to focus on Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, though he will mention Mozart at the end.)

This is also available via live stream.

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Introduction

• Bruce McCormack fired the first shot in “Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth.
• Our question must be “What does Barth want to say?” Barth seems to say things that could be taken both for and against Bruce McCormack’s view. Paul Helm’s essay in Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques rightly exposes the insuperable difficulties in this regard.

Evaluating Barth’s View of Election

• Theologians have often disregarded warnings about speculation in dogmatics.
• However worthy Barth’s motivation for believing that God has elected all, his belief is not scripturally warranted.
• Barth treats election as part of the doctrine of God. He treats creation after election.
• Does any other theologian have the capacity for exasperating and enthralling his readers at the same time?
• The observation that some make of America also applies to Barth: no generalization about his work is correct, but anything you say about it is true about it somewhere.
• Barth’s view of election is problematic for at least two reasons: (1) it seems to depart from the way Scripture uses the term election, and (2) it is essentially universalism. It is true that Jesus Christ is called “the elect” in the NT, but the NT does not say that all people are elect in Christ. The NT restricts the elect to a subset of the whole.
• Barth is not a dogmatic universalist, but his scheme pushes him toward that. He entirely fails to protect himself properly against the accusation. He seems untroubled by dissonance between his own language and biblical language. Why? Barth’s firm rejection of natural theology gives us a clue.
• Barth loved Mozart, who for Barth is the musician of joy. Mozart let creation sing in contrast Beethoven and Brahms, who are somber at best.

A report live-blogged by Andy Naselli

Tonight begins the 2009 Kantzer Lectures in Revealed Theology by Dr. Stephen Williams. Williams is professor of systematic theology at Union Theological College in Belfast, Ireland. The title of the six-part series is “The Election of Grace: A Riddle without Resolution?” The first lecture in the series addresses “the different ways of understanding God that surface in debates about election.”

This is also available via live stream.

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Introduction

• Psalm 130 instructs the heart. Psalm 131 instructs the mind.

The Intractable Nature of the Dispute

• Is election a riddle without resolution? Only he is a theologian who can turn a solution into a riddle!
• Election continues to divine the evangelical community in particular, especially via the Calvinist-Arminian debate. See for example a recent perspectives book debating five views on election.
• How far should anyone expect to get with contributing their perspective on election? We are faced with divergent ways of reading Scripture by evangelicals with different views of election (all of whom think Scripture “clearly” teaches their view).
• The cauldron has been no hotter than it has been for centuries. Strong language on soteriology is not new. And there is no evidence of global theological warming in the twentieth century.

Divergent Views of God

• It would be helpful to examine hermeneutical differences, but it would be even more interesting to examine different ways in which God portrays himself.
• Universalism (which Williams rejects) achieves a more coherent of the coexistence of the divine attributes than the alternative positions of Calvinism, Arminianism, and open theism.
• With reference to providence, God relates to good and evil in very different ways. Humans have unleashed evil upon the world and God has produced the good.

How Shall We Proceed?

• Scripture is the authority and exegesis the guide, but we won’t be able to deal with any texts in depth.
• Lectures 3 and 4 will focus on the Old and New Testaments. The OT lecture will argue that election is responsibility rather than privilege. The NT lecture will argue that election is contrasted not with reprobation but with a call that is refused.
• Someone who will be perched on Williams’s shoulder throughout these lectures and will be featured in lecture 5 is Charles Simeon. The three aims of preaching for Simeon were to humble the sinner, exalt the Savior, and exalt holiness. “Beware of systematizers.” In other words, be Bible-Christians and not just system-Christians. According to Simeon, the preacher has no responsibility to reconcile truths that Scripture does not. His responsibility is to rightly apply both sets of biblical truth. Further, existential reconciliation is possible. “Without agreeing with [everything by] Simeon, I’m taking some of my cues from him.”
• Lecture 6 will ask where this all takes us today.
• Methodologically, the place to learn about God’s love and power is Jesus himself. Karl Barth was massively christocentric, so lecture 2 is devoted to him.