New Creation: A Primer on Living in the Time between the Times (Rodney Clapp)

71bznuj-0rl“We are storied creatures, and everything happens because we lean toward endings. These endings are the goals, the pursuits, the destinies, the termination points that mark and animate our lives. Without endings we could never begin anything. We would lack plots and our lives would be without purpose, devoid of meaning.” So begins Clapp’s book which explores how eschatology, or our vision of ‘last things’, shapes our living in the now. The now is the ‘time between the times’, when this age and the age to come overlap.

In his exploration of how eschatology shapes practical Christian living – from politics to sex, creation care to prayer – Clapp is, in the words of one reviewer, an ‘equal opportunity offender’.  Everyone will be challenged and convicted at some point.

rodneyclappJoin us on Saturday, February 2nd at 10:00am for a ‘fireside chat’ with Rodney Clapp. The informal conversation is hosted at Evangelical Community Church, Bloomington (and no, there isn’t a real fireplace).  It’ll be a good time to think together, talk with Rodney about his ideas, and hopefully leave encouraged to bring the end into the present as much as possible.

Rodney Clapp is a former editor at Christianity Today, editor and columnist for the Christian Century, and author of numerous books, including A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society.

Creation Care, Climate Change, and The Gospel, Kyle Meyaard-Schaap

We are very excited to be hosting Rev. Kyle Meyaard-Schaap for a Trinity Fellowship Lecture, Wednesday, April 3rd, 7:30pm at Evangelical Community Church. Kyle is a graduate of Calvin College and Western Theological Seminary and serves as the Kyle_Profile_1National Organizer and Spokesperson for Y.E.C.A. – Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. and has been a steering committee member since 2013. Before going on staff at Y.E.C.A., Kyle served for four years as the Creation Care Coordinator at the Office of Social Justice for the Christian Reformed Church in North America, where he worked to educate and equip individuals and congregations to learn and act at the intersection of creation care and Christian faith.

The lecture will explore how the Christian faith leads us to a deeper concern for God’s earth and love for neighbor both at home and around the world, integration theology, science, and action. There will be a time of Q&A following the lecture.

Kyle has received numerous awards for his work, including being named in 2015 to Midwest Energy Group’s inaugural 40 Under 40 cohort for his work on climate change education and advocacy. He has been featured in national and international news outlets such as PBS, NPR, NBC News, Reuters, and U.S. News and World Report. He is married to Allison and resides in Grand Rapids, MI with their son Simon. In his free time, Kyle enjoys cooking, reading, and spending time outside in God’s beautiful creation.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Steven Lulich

What does the Gettysburg Address have to teach us about the reliability of the New Testament documents?  Is it true that there are more textual variants than words in the New Testament? Dr. Steven Lulich will address issues of New Testament textual reliability at our upcoming Trinity Fellowship Event, this Wednesday night (Mar 28th), 7:00pm in Room 1122 of the Global and International Studies Building.

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Dr. Steven Lulich

Dr. Steven Lulich has been a part of the IU scholar community since 2010, serving as a lecturer, visiting research scientist, and assistant professor, working both in the Linguistics and Speech and Hearing departments at Indiana University. Prior to coming to Bloomington, Steven worked at Washington University in St. Louis as a research scientist and as a lecturer at MIT. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics from Dartmouth College and his PhD from MIT in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology. Dr. Lulich has taught a wide variety of courses in the areas of speech, acoustics, research methods and linguistics, including “Word Crime: Language as Evidence”, an undergraduate course in forensic linguistics. Dr. Lulich has done research on a variety of languages, including Russian, Polish, Oroqen (an endangered language of northeast China and Siberia; pronounced “o-ro-CHEN”), Hungarian, Brazilian Portuguese, German, and (of course) English. He studied Classical and Koine (New Testament) Greek formally at Dartmouth College (including advanced classes on Homer, Aristophanes, and New Testament) and has continued to be involved in Classical and Koine Greek informal translation projects (Homer, Plato, Apostolic Fathers, Pauline and Johannine epistles) and teaching projects in Boston, Saint Louis, and Bloomington (including 3 classes at ECC, focusing on 2 John and Philemon). In addition, he informally contributed to the development of machine learning approaches for analyzing Classical and New Testament Greek texts, as acknowledged in two conference proceedings from 2007 and 2008.

Meet Our Panel for November’s “Truth Claims in Pluralistic Culture?”

Dr. Tim O’Connor, Dr. John Beggs, and Dr. Bob Whitaker will participate in November’s discussion, “Truth Claims in a Pluralistic World?” During the discussion, each will bring the unique perspective of their field to issues related to truth claims in our contemporary, pluralistic world.

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Tim O’Connor

Dr. O’Connor is a philosopher whose chief interests lie in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion. He taught at Indiana University for more than twenty years in the Philosophy Department. Dr. O’Connor is currently teaching at Baylor University in 2017. Dr. O’Connor received his M.A. in Philosophy from University of Illinois at Chicago, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cornell University.

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Bob Whitaker

Dr. Bob Whitaker is a pastor and a theologian. In addition to his teaching work at Evangelical Community Church, he has been a member of the adjunct faculty at Ivy Tech State College and Indiana University. He received his M.A. at Trinity Law School, an M.Div. and S.T.M from Yale University, as well as a D.Min. from Princeton Theological Seminary.

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John Beggs

Dr. John Beggs, Professor of Physics at Indiana University, has taught at IU since 2005. He received his B.S. and Masters degree from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from Yale University. In addition, Dr. Beggs did postdoctoral work at the National Institute of Health.

John Beggs: “How Can I Connect Science with My Faith?”

Dr. John Beggs is a highly regarded scientist on the faculty at Indiana University. He is also a person deeply committed to his Christian faith. On October 18th at 6pm (Woodburn Hall 101), he will discuss the ways in which his Christian faith and science are compatible.

Sometimes faith and science are treated as entirely different, incompatible ways of knowing. They are to be kept in separate silos, never to meet or inform one another. John Beggs, a committed Christian and highly regarded scientist questions this paradigm, asking instead, “How Can I Connect Science with my Faith?”

Join us for the conversation, and invite others who’d be interested – student, faculty, religious or irreligious.

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Associate Professor
Biophysics

B.S., Cornell University, 1985.
Ph.D., Yale, 1998.
Postdoctoral Position: National Institutes of Health, 1999-2003