James McClendon's Systematic Theology is an astonishing achievement for a Baptist theologian. Other Baptists have written systematic theologies — e.g. Stanley Grenz, James Leo Garrett and Millard Erickson — but McClendon's stands out, for its originality (he starts with ethics before doctrine) and its desire to be baptist. McClendon's work has been received and engaged with by a group of Baptist theologians in the US — e.g. Curtis Freeman, Barry Harvey, Steven Harmon, Beth Newman, Scott Bullard, Jeff Carey, Ryan Andrew Newson — and some in Europe, especially by Parush Parushev at IBTS and now also by VU Amsterdam and its establishment of the James Wm. McClendon Chair for Baptistic and Evangelical Theologies. There has been a more muted reception history in the UK. Its not that McClendon has been ignored, but there perhaps not been the kind of serious engagement that his theology arguably warrants.
With this in mind I wondered whether it might be possible to encourage a group to read systematics. It was an idea thrown out which found encouragement from Curtis Freeman and Steven Harmon. The plan is to read a chapter a month and then offer an opportunity to discuss it via a zoom conversation.
The first zoom will be on Thursday 18th June, 8pm (UK time) to discuss chapter one of Ethics: Systematic Theology Volume 1. We'll be focused on the 2002 revised edition published by Abingdon and republished by Baylor University Press in 2012. (If you can only get hold of the 1986 edition that's fine, part of the discussion will probably included the changes McClendon made in the second edition.)
Its open to anyone.
We hope this might encourage a new generation to engage with McClendon's thought, and perhaps others to revisit it.
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