My wife and I will soon be in San Diego attending both the 59th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (Nov. 14-16) and the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (Nov. 17-20). At ETS, on Friday Nov. 16, I will be participating in a panel discussion on my new book, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007) (You can download the meeting program here).
But what I won't be doing at the ETS meeting is delivering its presidential address. It will be replaced by several brief talks on the 50th anniversary of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. As many of you know, I resigned as ETS president on May 5, 2007, a week after I had been received into full communion with the Catholic Church, the church in which I had been baptized and confirmed as a youngster. (See here and here). Although my wife and I are more certain than ever that we have indeed arrived at home in the Catholic Church, we dearly love our many friends in the ETS and look forward to our time with them. I have attended, and participated in, every ETS meeting since 1988 (except for 2000 when I was in law school). I have no plans to break that habit. (My successor, Hassell Bullock, the ETS Acting President and President-Elect, was recently interviewed online by Christianity Today, in which he previews the annual meeting).
At AAR, on Saturday Nov. 17, I will participate in the first meeting of the Intra-Christian Conversion Study Group. I will join Paul J. Griffiths and Scott Hahn as we discuss our conversions to Catholicism with respondents Michael McClymond and A. Edward Siecienski.
Some friends have asked me whether I am sad to not be giving the ETS presidential address. It is a good question, and one for which I have an answer: I indeed wish I were giving the presidential address, but I am far from sad. For in order to give the address I would have had to disappoint my nephew (see here) and enter the Catholic Church after November 16. No, I am not sad. I am blessed beyond words. Soli Deo Gloria
Comments (2)
Have a wonderful time, Frank. It's to the credit of the ETS that they are having the session on your book.
Posted by Lydia | November 13, 2007 4:30 PM
Let's set aside for the moment the question of whether or not a member of a parish of the Church of Rome should attend a meeting of an Evangelical Society.
Why would one want to go to a meeting of a group that is still populated by open theist types.
When they failed to clear out the open theist types they ceased to be Evangelical.
Posted by Thomas Yeutter | November 14, 2007 6:39 PM