Ancient Faith for the Church's Future

Autumn is upon us. As you all are gathering around the fire with your hot cup of tea on these cold evenings, pondering the coming months ahead, I know you all are imagining what to do once springtime arrives. Even if you are not, it is never too early to begin looking to the future, especially when it concerns Wheaton College's annual theology conference. Why would any of you want to take the sixteen hour trek out to the cold-hinterlands of Chicago, Illinois when you could be spending the time in lovely colorado, you might ask? Well simply because the conference this year will be focusing on some things near and dear to our hearts.

The conference is entitled "Ancient Faith for the Church's Future" and to quote from the website "One of the most promising developments among evangelical Protestants is the recent rediscovery of the rich biblical, spiritual, and theological treasures to be found within the early church. This conference focuses on the life and thought of the early church with a view towards the future asking: How do we appropriate the riches of the ancient church in ways that are both faithful to its own world and relevant to ours? In what ways do the ancient practices of spiritual life and devotion inform and sustain a vital contemporary spirituality and practice of reading the Bible? What does the emergent Christianity hope to find in the ancient faith and how does it represent a vital catalyst to the development of faithful community and witness? Is the ancient church the first example of emergent Christianity?" As one who is somewhat uneasy about some of the directions the Emergent Church is going and as one who is not-quite willing to identify himself with that moniker (i know ironic, coming on a website entitled "CoEmergentCo), I am definitely interested to look into attening the conference as it will be featuring folks associated with the Emergent movement like Tony Jones, and those outside of it but who still think it has some compelling things to speak into our current situation like Ray Anderson. i am interested to partake in the dialogue which will be going on there.Anyway, all that to say, I know it is a ways off and you all have plenty of time to think about it, but I would definitely be interested in road tripping out for the conference (April 14-17 I believe) simply because the Wheaton theology conference is realisitically one of the best theology conferences in the country (i know, a somewhat inflated claim) which has really dealt with some of the pressing issues to the church in recent years (women in ministry, the question of the church, beauty and the arts (or often lack therein) and Christianity) and it looks like it could be quite exceptional this year as it seeks to move forward as the global face of christianity is chaning. i could probably find some friends we could stay with, so lodging wouldn't be a problem. anyway, think about it and let me know if you'd be interested, it's a ways away, but i thought i'd mention it now. check out the link above for complete info as well as a list of all the speakers and the schedule.

daniel