From the Davenant Institute:
Christians in America today are living through a time of what can feel like unprecedented crisis, conflict, and disruption. The Covid-19 pandemic, and the reactions to it—and the reactions to the reactions to it. The George Floyd protests, and subsequent waves of anti-racist and anti-anti-racist agitation that have roiled American churches, colleges, and courtrooms. The most fiercely contested presidential election since 1876. Exhausted by these and other crises, together with the steady marginalization of Christian faith in American public life, many pastors—and their parishioners—are ready to throw in the towel.
As wrenching as these experiences are, it’s important to remind ourselves, in this ADD age, that crisis is probably the default state of most human societies, the regular backdrop against which the church is called to carry out its world-saving work. Consider: we are apt to look back nostalgically on the glories of the Elizabethan era. Yet the typical Englishman of the late 1580s probably felt trapped in whirlwind of perpetual crisis: an existential threat of foreign invasion, assassination plots real and imagined, a harsh government crackdown on religious dissidents, together with regular bouts of plague. From this unpromising soil, however, sprouted some of the greatest riches of Christian theology and literature in all history.
By stepping back from the chaos of our own moment to see how the church has handled political and social crises in the past, we can gain fresh perspective and renewed hope to persevere through the trials of our own day. We can also be challenged to rethink our own assumptions about the greatest dangers and temptations of our present moment.
Join us at this mini-conference, sponsored by The Davenant Institute and Bethlehem College and Seminary, to learn more about how the trials and triumphs of our Protestant forebears can teach us how to walk faithfully today in an age of anxiety.
May 6-7, 2022
St. Paul, MN
Join us in St. Paul, Minnesota for a two-day mini-conference. Our plenary speakers will be Dr. Joe Rigney, President of Bethlehem College and Seminary, and Dr. Brad Littlejohn, President of The Davenant Institute.
Conference proceedings will run from 6:30 PM on Friday, May 6 till 5:00 PM on Saturday, May 7.
