The program for the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society is now available for download from the ETS Website. I am grateful that the program has updated my institutional affiliation (Thanks, Dr. Ware!).

Program for the 60th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society

Dr. R. Laird Harris was a founding member of the Evangelical Theological Society who passed away on April 25, 2008 at the age of 97. At the time of Dr. Harris’ death, he was one of only two living founders of the ETS. The only remaining founder is Dr. Roger Nicole. Dr. Robert Culver is to my knowledge the only living charter member of the society.

At the founding meeting of ETS (December 28, 1949), Dr. Harris presented a paper titled “Old Testament Textual Criticism and New Testament Quotations.” Dr. Harris was also appointed to serve on the Committee to Draft a Constitution. According to the minutes of that first meeting, Dr. Harris was responsible for the word “autographs” appearing in ETS’s doctrinal basis. He suggested that the rough draft “inerrant in the original languages” be changed to “inerrant in the autographs.”

Covenant Theological Seminary has an extensive memoriam published on their website which notes Dr. Harris’ many years of service to the church and his status as a founding faculty member of Covenant Theological Seminary. The memoriam can be read here: “In Memoriam: Dr. R. Laird Harris (1911-2008).”

(HT: Justin Taylor)

The following response was written by the co-sponsors of the amendment, Ray Van Neste and Denny Burk. The views expressed are ours alone, and we do not intend to speak on behalf those who have signed-up as supporters of our amendment.

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We appreciate very much the service that the members of ETS’s Executive Committee (EC) render to our Society. Theirs is a time-intensive job, and they have made great strides to improve the quality of scholarship on display at our annual meetings. We wish to thank them for the course that they have set for the Society. We expect great things in the coming years.

Nevertheless, the co-sponsors of the amendment think it is time to express our disagreement with the EC’s public statements about our Amendment proposal. On at least two occasions since we introduced the amendment at the November 2007 meeting in San Diego, the EC has addressed the members of the Society in official forums in terms that have been prejudicial against our proposal. We have not yet been afforded an opportunity to respond in those forums, so we intend to make use of this one. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight, our amendment was formally presented to the Society to be voted on at next year’s gathering in Providence, Rhode Island. Here’s what happened.

At 5:30pm, members of the Society gathered for the second business meeting of the conference. After dispensing with several items of business, Dr. Hassell Bullock introduced Dr. James Borland with a new item for business. Dr. Borland informed the Society that an amendment to the doctrinal basis had been received by the Executive Committee, and that it would be read at this year’s meeting and voted on at next year’s meeting. Dr. Borland then read our amendment aloud. Read the rest of this entry »

ETS President, Dr. Hassell Bullock, comments on our amendment proposal in an interview with Collin Hansen for Christianity Today. Here’s the relevant section:

CT: Is there any merit to suggestions for changing the ETS doctrinal basis?

BULLOCK: The recent return of Francis Beckwith, the ETS president, to the Catholic faith of his childhood, has obviously and understandably created questions within the society about the adequacy of our theological basis, which is quite brief: “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs. God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in essence, equal in power and glory.”

The society was founded upon a simple theological basis rather than a statement of faith, with the intention of providing a broad evangelical basis for academic discussion, thus allowing and encouraging diversity within unity. While the proposed amendment will not change that basis, it will expand the statement quite significantly, and, while solving one problem, may create others.

However the society decides this issue, I hope ETS will continue to see itself as a wide space for discussing biblical-theological and related issues within the bounds of an unshakable commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture.

I am heartened that Dr. Bullock has gone on the record to say that our amendment will not change the “broad evangelical basis for academic discussion.” We certainly agree with this assessment. Our amendment would accommodate the wide variety of theological traditions within Evangelicalism and would continue the tradition of “diversity within unity” that has always characterized the ETS.

Given the President’s positive evaluation of the amendment, I am wondering what “problems” he thinks this amendment will create. Perhaps the answer to that question will have to wait for the debate.

The editor of the Criswell Theological Review has allowed us to post a free copy of the article we wrote on the journal’s website, and you can now download and read our rationale for the amendment. Even though the article relates most directly to voting members of the ETS, the issues we raise here are relevant to anyone who is concerned about the shape of contemporary American evangelicalism.

Denny Burk and Ray Van Neste, “Inerrancy Is Not Enough: A Proposal to Amend the Doctrinal Basis of The Evangelical Theological Society” Criswell Theological Review n.s. 5 (2007): 69-80.

[For information on how to subscribe to CTR, visit www.CriswellJournal.com.]

Ray Van Neste and I have co-written an article that has just been published in the Criswell Theological Review. It’s titled “Inerrancy Is Not Enough: A Proposal to Amend the Doctrinal Basis of the Evangelical Theological Society.” You can subscribe to the Criswell Theological Review at their website: www.CriswellJournal.com. I think our article will eventually be made available for download.

Our article has a lot of the material from this website included in it, but it covers some new ground as well.

Just yesterday, the Baptist Press wrote a little story about our proposal to amend the doctrinal basis of the ETS. I was thrilled to read the strong endorsement given by Dr. David Dockery, the President of Union University:

“I commend . . . efforts to provide a more full-orbed confession for the Evangelical Theological Society. When the society was formed, there was an assumption that a commitment to inerrancy brought with it a commitment to other orthodox and evangelical doctrinal distinctives. But that may not be the case anymore. [The amendment] will help safeguard the mission of the society in the 21st century.”

Dr. Robert Culver is a charter member of the ETS and has recently written to me expressing his support for the effort to amend the doctrinal basis of the ETS. He writes:

“I have read a print out of your proposed amendment . . . As you will observe from reading that paper I am in hearty agreement with your project.”

The paper to which Dr. Culver refers is an essay that he presented at the 2001 meeting of the ETS titled, “Defining ETS Theological Boundaries in the Midwest Section Forty-Two Years Ago.” In the paper he discusses the doctrinal parameters of the ETS. He also shares his own notes from ETS’s founding meetings which give hints as to why the founders chose to have a doctrinal basis rather than a doctrinal statement.

It’s a fine essay and an important piece of ETS’s history. We are thankful for Dr. Culver’s support.

Dr. Burton Goddard was a founding member of the Evangelical Theological Society. He passed away just last month at the age of 97. At the time of his death, he was one of only three living founders of the ETS. (The other two are Dr. Roger Nicole and Dr. Laird Harris. Dr. Robert Culver is to my knowledge the only living charter member of the society.) Gordon-Conwell Seminary released this statement about Dr. Goddard: Read the rest of this entry »