Reports Relating to the Fifty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society -- By: Anonymous
Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 46:1 (Mar 2003)
Article: Reports Relating to the Fifty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society
Author: Anonymous
JETS 46:1 (March 2003) p. 171
Reports Relating to the Fifty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society
The 54th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, November 20-22, 2002, with the third highest attendance on record-1688, behind only the 1689 in 2000, and the 1850 in 2001. The spacious Regal-Constellation Hotel near the airport provided the setting. Participating publishers offered generous discounts on their books and other products from more than sixty-five booths in a large exhibit area.
The program theme, “Evangelical Christianity and Other Religions,” was explored in six plenary sessions, and by many of the several hundred individual papers. Participants came from all over North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the islands of the seas to fellowship, exchange ideas, critique one another and to keep abreast of the most recent scholarship in their disciplines. Nearly twenty study groups also met as part of the overall program.
President-elect David Howard, Jr. served as program chairman and put together a superb array of plenary speakers. On Wednesday afternoon, Harold A. Netland of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School addressed the society on “Biblical Faith and Other Religions Today: Religious Pluralism and the Question of Truth.” That evening, nearly 800 persons gathered in the Constellation Ballroom for the fellowship banquet. After a delicious meal, ETS President Millard Erickson, of George W. Truett Theological Seminary and Baylor University, challenged our members with his resourceful lecture on “Evangelical Theological Scholarship in the Twenty-First Century.” His address appears in this issue of JETS.
On Thursday afternoon attendees first heard Daniel Block of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary speak on “Biblical Faith and Other Religions in Old Testament Theology.” This was followed by Wheaton College’s Greg A. Beale who lectured on “Biblical Faith and Other Religions in New Testament Theology.”
The fourth and fifth plenary sessions were held on Thursday evening featuring invited guests Richard Plantinga of Calvin College and Tite Tienou of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. “Biblical Faith and Other Religions in Church History” was Plantinga’s topic, while Tienou delivered a lecture on “Biblical Faith and Other Religions Today: Traditional Folk Expression. Both speakers were stimulating as well as informative.
The sixth and final plenary address was delivered by invited guest J. Dudley Woodberry of Fuller Theological Seminary, who was just returning from Afghanistan. His topic, “Biblical Faith and Other Religions Today: Islam” was informed by his many years of service to Christ as a missionary in Islamic countries.
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