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Dead Theologians Society Reading List

Tom Grosh IV —  June 10, 2013 — 4 Comments

Bob Trube, InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministry (GFM) Director, Ohio Valley

Last week I received an email from Bob Trube, InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministry (GFM) Director, Ohio Valley. He shared with me Ohio State University’s Dead Theologians Society Reading List. What’s the inspiration? He “shamelessly stole the name and idea from Robbie Castleman, who led a group under this name when she was on GFM staff in Florida.”*

The Dead Theologians Society, or Delta Theta Sigma (DTS), started in the fall of 1990, on the campus of Florida State University, when some InterVarsity Christian Fellowship students began meeting weekly to discuss what they had each learned from reading Oswald Chambers’s devotional classic, My Utmost for His Highest.

Dead Poets Society was then a recent movie, and the students agreed that a Dead Theologians Society was needed to promote the serious discussion of some of the best in Christian literature.

To promote the Society, the Greek acronym Delta Theta Sigma was adopted for the designation of the Dead Theologians Society.

Since that time, this idea of “discipleship through the Christian classics” has spread quickly, and DTS reading groups continue to develop. – The Dead Theologians Society: Pursuing Discipleship through the Christian Classics. Links and some italics added for additional resourcing and emphasis.

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Best Christian Books of All Time Review Series: Knowing God Pt. III

John Hundley —  June 6, 2013 — Leave a comment

A Recent Portrait of J.I. Packer

Several weeks ago I left you with the second installment of my review of J.I. Packer’s Knowing God, one of the works that made it onto ESN’s March Madness bracket, The Best Christian Books of All Time. As I said then, this book has greatly impacted the way I see and live in the present world. I’m far from being able to say that I’ve got this life under wraps (and I hope I never think I do), but Packer’s words have led me to question and wrestle with many “wrapped” beliefs that I would’ve probably left inside that worn, crinkly paper of assumption and expectation.

Today I’m going to work through a few of the several remaining Chapters of Parts II and III, pausing only when I think the main point of the Chapter might bring up some questions for us — we who are so easily ensnared by the worrying pursuit of academic success (if you’re anything like me).

Wrath and Judgment

Chapters 14-17 of Part II and the whole of Part III, Chapters 18-22, have as their foundation the biblical concept of propitiation, which is centered upon the age-old problem of the just and loving God of Christianity. Packer confronts God’s righteous anger and his judgment head-on.

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Late Have I Loved You

Tom Grosh IV —  June 4, 2013 — 2 Comments

In last night’s Christian Devotional Classics (Evangelical Seminary) a fellow student shared how much he appreciated Gungor‘s “lifting” of the words of Augustine’s Confessions in Late have I loved you. As you may remember Augustine’s Confessions won ESN’s Best Christian Book of All Time and this is a beautiful selection from the text.

Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace. — Augustine. Confessions. Book Ten, Chapter 27. Newly Translated and edited by Albert C. Outler. Philadelphia: Westminster Press [1955] (Library of Christian Classics, v. 7). Accessed 6/3/2013.

Have you come to love the “Beauty so ancient and so new” or have you “rushed heedlessly among” the beautiful things [made] out of dust, failing to give them their proper place? As you engage in your daily academic endeavors, do you pant, hunger, and thirst for the Creator, i.e., come to know God even more richly? Are you part of a community which encourages you and provides accountability toward that end?

Note: To dig into the Emerging Scholars Network Facebook Wall series built around readings from Christian Devotional Classics, check out “Evil behaviour injures. . . .”.

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