The SBC & the 21st Century: Reflection, Renewal, and Recommitment
In recent days Midwestern Seminary announced the forthcoming symposium The SBC & the 21st Century: Reflection, Renewal & Recommitment. This event, slated for September 28 & 29, is the first installment of a triennial symposium series hosted by Midwestern Seminary. Each triennial symposium will engage issues vital to Southern Baptist identity, heritage, and future.
Joining Midwestern Seminary as cosponsors in this initiative are The SBC Executive Committee, the Missouri Baptist Convention, The Southern Baptist Convention of Texas, and the Kentucky Baptist Convention. We anticipate adding many more cosponsors in the months ahead.
The symposium presentations will offer insights and assessments on the SBC and its future. These will be hopeful assessments of where the Southern Baptist Convention is, and where we must go. The symposium is intended to produce content by key SBC stakeholders for the broader SBC constituency.
Nothing quite like this event has been held in SBC life in recent years. The most recent and similar events were the conferences on Southern Baptist identity hosted by David Dockery and Union University in 2004and 2007. We believe the need is keen and the opportunity is ripe for this symposium to make a substantial contribution to the SBC.
We also are grateful B&H Publishing has chosen to partner with us for a book project comprised mostly of presentations delivered at the symposium. In addition to symposium presentations, other contributors will include Collin Hansen and Justin Taylor who are co-writing a chapter on the SBC and the broader evangelical world, and Danny Akin and Walter Strickland who are writing on the SBC and ethnic diversity.
And, yes, as a seminary that exists for the church, you can count on this entire project emphasizing Southern Baptist churches and how to strengthen them, not how to perpetuate denominational machinery. That is what SBC servants must be about, and that is what this symposium will be about.
As mentioned, Midwestern Seminary intends to host this symposium on a triennial basis, with this year being the first installment. In fact, initial plans are already underway for our 2018 symposium. We will foreshadow it this fall.
By geography and by choice, for much of its history Midwestern Seminary has existed on the periphery of Southern Baptist life. This generation of seminary leadership desires to play a more direct role in serving, supporting, and speaking into the SBC and its future. We trust the forthcoming symposium will well contribute to these ends, and that the symposium will propel forward our collective Southern Baptist work. You can register for the symposium here. I hope to see many of you in Kansas City on September 28 and 29.
topicsMidwestern Seminary, SBC, Symposium
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