36 (from US, Canada, UK, Netherlands and Ukraine) joined the first session looking at Jim McClendon's Systematic Theology, starting with volume 1: Ethics and its first's chapter: 'How Theology Matters'. Some are season McClendon readers and some of us are reading him (properly) for the first time.
Responses were given by Andy Goodliff, Beth Newman and Curtis Freeman.
Some good conversation in the zoom chat, which spilled over into the conversation, around the importance of McClendon's listening tour of (American) Baptists institutions ahead of writing the first volume (which probably shaped his account of the Baptist vision); the reception history of McClendon in America, Europe and UK; the meaning of 'this is that' and 'then is now' (McClendon's claim for a baptistic hermeneutical principle) and a brief possible commonality between McClendon and Ephraim Radner on figural readings of scripture.
We will gathering on zoom again on 14 July to look at Ethics, chapter 2: 'What Sort of Ethics?' (The first two chapters are crucial to understanding McClendon's project) and then again on 19 August to look at Ethics, Part 1: Embodies Witness (ch.3-5).
For an invite contact me at andrew [dot] goodliff [at] regents [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk
Mentioned in the session:
James McClendon, Biography as Theology (Trinity)
James McClendon and James Smith, Convictions: Defusing Religious Relativism (2nd Ed; Trinity)
James McClendon, The Collected Works of James McClendon (3. Vol) edited by Andrew Ryan Newson and Andrew Wright (Baylor)
Curtis Freeman, 'Introduction: A Theology for Radical Believers and Other Baptists', which can found at the beginning of in the Baylor 2012 editions of McClendon's Systematic Theology
Amy L. Chilton and Steven Harmon, Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology (Mercer)
Matthew Emerson et al, Baptists and the Christian Tradition: Toward an Evangelical Baptist Catholicity (B & H)
Comments