NABPR Region at Large

Jason Hentschel, University of Dayton (Ohio)
jason.hentschel@gmail.com

The NABPR Region-at-Large invites proposals for the 2018 College Theology Society/NABPR joint convention around the theme of this year’s CTS Conference: “You Say You Want a Revolution? 1968-2018 in Theological Perspective.”  The following are some suggested topics, but other proposals are also welcome, especially in the area of biblical studies.

Prospects for the Third Reconstruction

            Some scholars of race have identified the First Reconstruction (1865-1877) and the Second Reconstruction (1945-1968) as crucial eras of change in racial politics in the United States, with global implications.  Churches played important roles in these eras of change, and renewals of theological reflection emerged from each era. Also following each of these eras came periods of consolidation, backlash, and regression. In recent decades, leaders have called for a Third Reconstruction.  What are the prospects of another era of theological ferment and political change in racial politics?

Sexual Revolution and Baptists

            The variety of Baptist bodies continue to struggle and disagree about the acceptance and status of LGBTQ persons in the church. Self-selected groups of Baptists and baptists have recently published statements in the UK, The Courage to be Baptist: A Statement on Baptist Ecclesiology and Human Sexuality, and the US, The Nashville Statement. What do these statements reveal about current theological and biblical discourse on sexuality, or about broad patterns of political and cultural change?

Nonviolence and Baptists

            Nonviolence has a long tradition in Baptist life that neither began nor ended in 1968 with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the 20^th-century’s foremost promoters of nonviolence. However, recent Baptist elisions with certain Reformed and evangelical theologies over the past half century, coupled with a renewed American militarism, have significantly muddied this picture of Baptists as a nonviolent people. We invite papers that address the history of Baptist pacifism and nonviolence and its possibility as a resource for an age becoming quickly known for its guns and its wars.

Topics in Baptist History, 1968-2018

            It may be true of every fifty-year period since the first baptists appeared in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but many new groups and directions have emerged among Baptists in the past half-century.  We invite papers exploring a wide range of historical topics.

Baptists and Ecumenism since 1968

            Though Baptists historically have been linked to separatism, the revolutionary fervor of 1968 and beyond spurred on various ecumenical and cooperative efforts even among Baptists, whether in terms of theological conversation or political cooperation. We invite papers that explore these new ecumenical impulses in Baptist life.

The proposal deadline for this section ONLY has been extended to Friday, January 19, 2018.  Please submit your proposal via email to both of the conveners listed above.