Kingdom Triangle at the Association for Biblical Higher Education

JP spoke about Kingdom Triangle at the annual meeting of the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) in Orlando, Florida.

The theme of the meeting was "Engaging Culture Through Biblical Thinking."

The ABHE meeting was attended by several hundred Christian educators, and I was honored with the opportunity to do plenary sessions on the first leg of the Triangle, the life of the mind. I tried to emphasize the importance of general revelation in the integrative task for apologetics. I also did a seminar on building a case for Christianity.

The ABHE is an agency involved with several Bible Colleges and Seminaries across North America.

Moreland went on to observe, "It has always been a source of amazement to me as to how little our Bible colleges emphasize the task of apologetics, and how little is known about how to make the case for Christianity. There was great hunger for my seminar and, in my view, it was the highlight for me of the week."

Kingdom Triangle Conference: Moreland, Jackson, Kendall

A major Kingdom Triangle conference was held in San Diego on the tail-end of the National Pastor's Convention. The conference attracted pastors and other leaders in churches and organizations.

JP Moreland was joined with R.T. Kendall and John Paul Jackson to present and model themes related to the book, Kingdom Triangle.

Kendall spoke three times and emphasized the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit to being grieved by unholiness, the importance of totally forgiving those who have hurt us, and of completely forgiving ourselves for Christ's sake. Kendall is a gentle, humble man with a very keen mind, and his presentations were penetrating (a version of Kendall's talk can be downloaded here)

John Paul Jackson spoke three times and he emphasized the importance of learning how to live in Kingdom power and authority, of resisting the temptation of thinking that the sense-perceptible world is all there is, and of being aware of the battle going on in the spirit world all around us. John Paul demonstrated the use of words of knowledge and wisdom on Friday night, and the ministry time was edifying and encouraging.

JP spoke twice and emphasized the life of the mind, the importance of study, the centrality of thinking theologically, and of learning to keep our minds habitually focused on God, the good things in our lives, and our identity, mission and character development in the Kingdom.

JP observed

This conference was unique in that it represented a balance among the life of the Christian mind, the inner life of spiritual formation, and the overt supernatural nature of the Kingdom.

We hope to see other Kingdom Triangle conferences of this sort

JP Moreland at the National Pastor's Convention

JP was delighted to be a speaker at this year's National Pastor's Convention in San Diego, California. With excitement, here is what he wrote to us:

I spent two wonderful days from February 12-13 at the NPC in San Diego. The conference brings together about 1500 pastors from all over the country. I was honored to present two workshops on the three legs of the Kingdom Triangle. The workshops were well-attended and very stimulating. I take away from these sessions a few lessons:

(1) There is a growing interest in Kingdom power and the supernatural aspects of Christianity across theological lines and denominational divisions. I sense that pastors are getting that this is a matter of the Kingdom, not primarily of spiritual gifts, and while there is still concern about abuses, more and more pastors are desiring to see the Kingdom preach in to their churches. The Kingdom Triangle book provides them with a theological and intellectual rationale for moving wisely into this area.

(2) There is a growing awareness and acceptance of spiritual formation, along with a desire to learn how to practice spiritual disciplines in the corporate setting. Much progress has been made in awakening the church to the need for disciplines in individual believer's lives, but more work needs to be done in applying these disciplines to the church as a whole.

(3) I was impressed with the desire among the pastors to learn more about how to think about worldviews. I presented some fairly tough material, but the audience was hungry for more and more. In all, my heart was encouraged by these men and women, especially by their openness to get the job done somehow.

Pastors continue to resonate with Kingdom Triangle and are finding fruitful ways to discuss its importance for their churches.

Moreland at Moody's Founder's Week

From cold and windy Chicago, JP spoke at Moody Bible Institute's Founder's Week conference.

The Week brought together hundreds of attendees and several well-known Evangelical speakers and teachers. "It was a joy to participate," said JP.

My first workshop was a review of my recent work The God Question.

There were about 120 people packed into a room that held 100, and there were dozens of folks in the hallway who could not get in. I explained how to explore the contemporary rise in depression and concomitant loss of happiness with the shift of ideas from biblical theism to secularism, especially as regards the nature and limits of knowledge. I then offered a précis of the sorts of arguments for God I have found helpful in doing evangelism, I shared a number of illustrations for why people should seek religious truth with their minds and not pragmatic help with their feelings and desires. I closed by offering four criteria for selecting one’s religion and claimed that Christianity satisfies these better than its alternatives. A very stimulating time of Q&A followed.

My second workshop was a review of my other recent book with Klaus Issler entitled In Search of a Confident Faith. Because of the large crowd at my first talk, the room was moved to a small auditorium on campus. About 350 attended. I addressed the nature of faith as confidence or trust, explained that it is based on knowledge (and teased out some important facets of knowledge) and claimed that it comes in degrees. I then explained the difference between vague doubts from the culture’s plausibility structure and specific doubts that can be written down in a paragraph or so, and showed the way to address these different sources of doubt. This was followed by a brief treatment of emotional sources of doubt, e.g, trust issues, woundedness, inability to form attachments and healthy friendships, and I closed by emphasizing the importance for growth in God-confidence of testifying to the things we have seen and heard God do.

What on Earth is Happening with the Kingdom?

For "World Outreach Week" at Twin Lakes Church, JP Moreland gave a talk titled,

"What on Earth is Happening with the Kingdom?"

You can download and view it here.

JP's talk is a helpful summary of the third point of the Kingdom Triangle.