Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 11:1 (Winter 1968)
Article: Nineteenth Annual Meeting Of The Evangelical Theological Society
Author: Anonymous

BETS 11:1 (Winter 1968) p. 45

Nineteenth Annual Meeting Of
The Evangelical Theological Society

The 1967 Annual Meeting of The Evangelical Theological Society, held from Wednesday, December 27th, through Friday, December 29th broke a nineteen year old precedent: instead of convening on some campus in the United States, our members travelled to Toronto and joined with their fellow-members north of the border in celebrating Canada’s Centenary. Dr. Stewart Boehmer and his colleagues at the Toronto Bible College were the epitome of efficiency and courtesy, providing an ideal environment for weighty discussion and stimulating fellowship.

Early in January, Dr. Gordon Lewis, who serves on our own faculty at Denver, shared with our students his impressions of the Toronto Convention. Graciously he has granted me permission to include his comments in this report which I am making to our Society. Here, then, is his resume of the outstanding program arranged by Dr. Kenneth Kantzer and his committee:

Recently at a school openly disinterested in academic prowess Billy Graham told the student-body: “If I were in your shoes I wouldn’t pray for a passion for souls; I’d pray for a passion for study.” In an editorial on the same need Carl Henry wrote, “Personal work may seem especially compelling the night before an examination, a time when academic tenacity should properly exercise spiritual priority. The war of ideas demands full disciplined judgment. The condition of the classroom may well become the condition of the nation, and indeed, of the world. This is no, time for playboys on campus or for dullards at the desk.” The 19th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society likewise underscored the need for Christocentric scholarship and evidenced that the need is being at least partly met.

Thus in a public address entitled, “Where is Theology Going?” Dr. Henry traced significant contemporary developments. We have seen the collapse of the three major theologies: modernism, neo-orthodoxy and existentialism. The survival span of alternatives to evangelicalism is shrinking. Modernism lasted thirty years (1900–1930), neo-orthodoxy 20 years (1930–1950), and Bultmann’s existentialism reigned for ten years (1950–1960), Since the dominance of Bultmann’s thought European theology has disintegrated.

Significant on the American scene has been the emergence

BETS 11:1 (Winter 1968) p. 46

of the death of God theology and its acceptance in the ecumenical dialogue. Mistakenly, in Henry’s judgment, Bonhoeffer has been regarded a prolegommenon to religious positivism. The ontic death of God has destroyed all divine transcendence. As a result there is growing awareness of the depth of the present theological chaos or crisis. ...