ISGA hosts Believer’s Church Conference
More than 150 people representing nearly a dozen different denominational traditions gathered on the campus of Goshen College, September 14-16, to participate in “Word, Spirit, and the Renewal of the Church,” the 18th Believers’ Church conference since the series began in 1967.
The conference, co-sponsored by ISGA, Goshen College, and the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, focused on the legacy of the Protestant Reformation for groups associated with the Anabaptist, or Radical Reformation, tradition. It also was an occasion for worship, wide-ranging conversations, and discussion regarding the usefulness of the term “Believers’ Church” and the future of the series.
After the opening Thursday evening worship service of scripture and song, Joel Carpenter, director of the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity at Calvin College, reminded listeners in the Friday morning plenary session of the profound changes in the landscape of Christianity since the Reformation. Carpenter highlighted the demographic explosion of Christianity in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as the rapid growth of mission-oriented immigrant churches in North America. The challenge for those Christians whose identity is oriented to the Reformation, Carpenter argued, is to rethink basic assumptions about theology in light of the “gifts majority world Christians bring to the Christian faith.”
On Friday evening, the renowned public theologian, Miroslav Volf, challenged the audience to recover insights on humility and joy from the “young Luther.” The modern sense of Self, Volf argued, is based on a precarious notion of competition and self-achievement, one that encourages a sense of joyless inadequacy, failure, and depression. Luther’s understanding of humility, in which existence itself is recognized as a gift from God, enables the Christian to recover their true Self and to “rejoice with those who rejoice.” Volf’s lecture, part of the Yoder Public Affairs lectureship, drew an audience of nearly 400 people.
Panel sessions throughout the conference featured 75 papers focused on thematic topics such as “The Bible and the Reformation(s),” “The Holy Spirit in the Mission of the Church,” and “Ecumenism and the Believers’ Churches Today.” Sarah Ann Bixler, a student at Princeton Theological Seminary who organized a panel session on “Martyr Narratives in Anabaptist Faith Formation,” was one of the numerous younger scholars attending the gathering. “As an emerging scholar,” she noted, “it was very meaningful for me to be part of the conference, to learn from a variety of Anabaptist perspectives and to have many fruitful conversations.”
The final two plenary speakers–Nancy Bedford, professor of applied theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and Frank Thomas, professor of homiletics at Christian Theological Seminary—both opened their remarks with references to recent racial discord in St. Louis and Charlottesville. The Christian legacy of the Reformation, Bedford argued, has been hijacked in North America by “toxic whiteness,” which she described as “a self-destructive apostasy.” In this context, she asked, what parts of the Anabaptist tradition are good news today? “The agency of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential,” Bedford said, “if we are to be transformed by the way of Jesus, whose narrow gate challenges the toxic forms of Christianity in the culture today, and opens into a wideness that embraces those who are most vulnerable.”
In a concluding worship service, Thomas, reminded listeners that moral and spiritual leadership “always has a cost.” Followers of Jesus, he continued, never know what is going to be required. “If you are following Jesus, God is asking for your deepest ‘yes,’ even if it calls for more than what you think you are able to give.”
Conference participants also gathered for a plenary discussion on the future of the Believers’ Church Conference series. According to John D. Roth, ISGA director and one of the conference organizers, by 2008, the series had nearly died out. “One goal of this conference was to explore whether there was sufficient interest among this particular group of churches to hold additional conferences in the future.” In the discussion session, participants acknowledged the limitations of the term “Believers’ Church,” but affirmed their interest in the continuation of the conferences, setting the next dates for 2019 (Washington, DC) and 2021 (Amsterdam).