June 6, 2008
Leanne Van Dyk, Todd Billings, and David Stubbs were interviewed June 3 for a video project commemorating the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth. The project by Witherspoon Publications, a publishing house of the Presbyterian Church USA, is designed to be a resource for adult education programs in a congregational setting. Western Seminary’s professors spoke on Calvin's historical context, his enduring legacy and how his thought can continue to be a resource for the modern church. The videographer was Vernon Leat of Umbrella Group Arts of Kansas City, MO, an award winning maker of documentaries.
Assistant Professor of Reformed Theology Todd Billings has started a theology blog for an online journal of Theology and Culture known as The Other Journal . The blog is called, “Beyond Generic Christianity: Living Deeper into an Ancient Gospel.”
Dr. Billings was awarded a Wabash Center Summer Research Fellowship for a research and writing project, “Introducing Theological Interpretation: Scripture, Revelation, and Interpretation.” This project will assist with a book he is writing under contract with Eerdmans.
Associate Professor of Continuing Theological Education Cynthia Holder Rich will be a Resource Person to the Committee of the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly that will be dealing with the recommendation to include the Belhar Confession in the PC(USA) Book of Confessions. The General Assembly meets in San Jose, CA from June 21-28.
The Winter 2008 Reformed Review includes Cynthia's article entitled, “Seeking a Contextual Cry of Faith: Race in the US and the Belhar Confession.”
George Hunsberger, Professor of Congregational Mission and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program, will be a Resident Member of the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton Seminary during his upcoming sabbatical. He and his wife Katherine will be in Princeton from August 1 through February 28 of 2009. He will research and write on “The Missional Voice and Posture of Public Theologizing,” preparing a book-length treatment of that theme.
Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Director of the Distance Learning M.Div. Program Meri MacLeod traveled to Moscow in April to be a key note speaker to the Euro-Asia Accrediting Association on distance learning at the Moscow Theological Seminary. Through this amazing opportunity communicated through an interpreter, Dr. MacLeod reports, “WTS is really getting on the map with our Distance Learning program!” Western now has a student from Korea in the program too.
During Western’s spring break in April, missiology and evangelism professors Vern and Carla Sterk traveled to Bluefields, Nicaragua, where they led a conference in Spanish for Miskito pastors, their wives, and midwives. Rev. Adrian Bobb, a 2001 graduate of Western Theological Seminary, and his wife, Dr. Bernadette Kelly, were the hosts and translators at this event.
Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology David Stubbs co-taught a Hope College May Term class, “The Sacred and the Profane,” with Brad Richmond, the director of the choral program at Hope. They took 14 Hope College students to England to listen to the music of the cathedrals and the pubs and reflect on how the sacred and the profane have been misconstrued in modern times.
Dr. Stubb’s article, “The Shape of Soteriology and the Pistis Christou [Faith of Christ] Debate,” recently came out in the Scottish Journal of Theology.
New Testament Professor Robert Van Voorst published an article on Jesus in Jewish tradition in the new Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus edited by Craig Evans. Several articles, including a large article on James, were published in the third volume of the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.
Dr. Van Voorst has been elected to the executive committee of the Church Herald Editorial Council.
He recently taught adult Sunday School classes on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at Ferrysburg Community Church (CRC) and on the Acts of the Apostles at Third Reformed Church, Holland.