Good Topics at ETS Confrence

On November 16-18 the 57th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society gathered in Valley Forge, PA to hear from some of the Evangelical communities premere theologians and scholars. It seems as though this years gathering touched on some great topics.

The focus seems to have been the Early Christian Church, in particular response to the DaVinci Code the gathering examined the early church's comprehension of orthodox theology. Some of the other talks, however, have caught my attention.

Among Southern Baptists two talks in particular caught my eye as important. Leading Baptist scholar John Hammet spoke on the subject of the "Emergent Church." This new movement within evangelicalism is still quite small but is gainning ground rapidly, recently I have even run into folks intrigued by it. Hammet's talk focused on the concern that the movement as a whole is being driven not by the word of God, but by a concern for the postmodern thinkers. It seems that he has crafted a well thought out argument against Emergent Church approaches, yet has not been as quick as some to completely label them as condemned.

Russ Moore, the vice-President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, spoke at this years ETS gathering as well. In his talk on November 17th he called for a complimentarian response to Evangelical egalitarianism through a biblically based vision of male headship. His words are a great need in this day of continuing maritial failure within the church. Jeff Robinson, writer for the Baptist Press, quotes Moore as having said, "Many evangelicals unwittingly live as femminists." Such a statement surely will raise eyebrows but it is unfortunately true. Male headship needs to be restored in the church and it begins with God-honoring husbands who love their wives as Christ loved the church!

These two topics caught my attention, there are, of course, many more that are worth noting but I encourage you to think through these two issues. They are unrelated issues but both must be handled by confronting them with the Word of God and dealing with the Scriptural anlysis of the both the Church and absolute truth, and male headship.