Thanksgiving Conference for Thomas Torrance

Yesterday I spent the day in two places - the M8 and New College, Edinburgh. I was four and a half hours on the M8 and 7 hours in New College attending the Thomas F Torrance Thanksgiving Conference. And the 7 hours in new College made the 270+ minutes on the M8 well worth it. But just to make sure blog visitors appreciate the rhetorical force of the comparison, the M8 without roadworks is like a slow release anxiety enhancer. The M8 with roadworks you have a choice - be miserable, be very miserable, or make sure you have good conversation partners in the car and a stack of your favourite CD's. Yesterday I had both.

On the way there in Andrew's car, the state of the central artery road system provided Graeme and I with an endless supply of discouraging and demoralising comment. Andrew's sanctification levels have thereby been considerably augmented. 

On the way home, driving my own car which has been having a holiday with Aileen, I discovered some of her CD's including a supply of Johnny Cash. The mixture of snarling defiance and sentimental regret, sung by one of the greatest Country performers of my generation kept my own levels of sanctification at least this side of going subterranean!

And it was worth it for the following reasons
I met Jason Goroncy, my virtual and blogging friend and now I can call him a real friend whose face I recognise, whose voice and accent I recognise, and who unfortunately is leaving Scotland for New Zealand three weeks after actually meeting me.. though I'm assured the move has been planned for some time.

At the conference I met and spoke with several others including a Church of Scotland minister from Cyprus who is a friend of Steve Chalke, which led to interesting discussion about Torrance on Atonement; a retired minister who experienced Torrance's lectures halfway through his degree (1949-52), and whose preaching had been sustained by fires ignited over two brief years of Torrance dogmatics; Robin, a key player in Paternoster publications and someone whose theological awareness of 'what's going on' and 'what works' is both impressive and generously shared; Stuart the Edinburgh post-grad (not my Word from the Barricades friend and colleague), with whom I shared coffee, brief discussion of high falutin theology and memories of standing together at Hampden on that Saturday when Queen of the South gubeed Aberdeen 4-3; several other friends I already knew but had a chance to talk to while juggling a plate of chicken tikka sandwiches, a cup of coffee and a mini choc muffin!

Registered members were given a complementary copy of Torrances new book on the Incarnation, beautifully produced by Paternoster / IVP, and already slotted in to be my main reading during Advent in a month's time - on which I'll blog. This, and a second volume on Atonement to be issued next year, contains much of Torrance's lectures on dogmatics, revised and rewritten over the years and now issued to a wider audience, edited by Bob Walker who is uniquely qualified to do this sympathetically, thoroughly and as one who knows the peculiar excellencies of Torrance's mature theology.

Then there were the papers, all of them good, a couple of them outstanding, and at least one contribution from a recently retired minister that was deeply moving and reminded me how it could be that any of us ever thought we might just be able, by the grace of God, to preach such a Gospel, serve Christ in his Church, and express in pastoral care the self-giving love of the Triune God, incarnate in Christ crucified and risen, and actively redemptive throughout Creation, in the power of the Spirit. 

The epilogue to such a full day was a Pizza and Wispa night watching the fitba with my son Andrew, home from Uni and reminding me of the importance of self-indulgence. As if.....

Comments

[andy goodliff]

I'd be really interested to hear more about the papers, especially sandra sach who was until his death, one of colin gunton's final students.

[Jim Gordon]

Hi Andy

The paper by Sandra Sach was clear, prceise and persuasive. She argued that the Torrance emphasis (Thomas and James)on the importance of dogmatics undergirded by Doxology is an essential key to understanding the Torrance take on theology. Such a link enables a view of Christian life as a response to the Triune God of love expressed through worship as thanksgiving. A strong emphasis on Christ's humanity, and of Christ offering his humanity in obedient worship and sacrifice to God provides both the pattern and the context of that divine grace that becomes the pattern of the believer's life. In the offering of life in thanksgiving, the twin aspects of the Incarnation, the humiliation and exaltation of Christ, are thus mirrored in the life of the Christian incorporated into Christ, 'Christ in us as we are found in Him'. Life is therefore a continual offering of obedience and thanksgiving, offered in Christ, to the God revealed in Christ incarnate, and through the Spirit.

At least, Andy, that was what I made of Sandra's paper - and I was grateful for an entire day, not least through this paper, given over to considering what God has done, is doing and will do, in redemptive grace - rather than the too frequent programmatic 'how to' approaches of many a conference on church, which so easily slide into pelagian self-help inspirationals. I don't mean to dismiss the latter kind of conference - just to welcome the proper emphasis of the former kind!

The papers will be published in a special issue of Theology in Scotland in 2009.

[Jason Goroncy]

Jim,

Yes it was great to finally meet. You're shorter and much more 'witty' than I had imagined. I'm glad the time stuck on the M8 was worth it.

[lynn]

I was stuck on the M8 in the opposite direction Jim - off to a Christology lecture in the dear green place!

[brodie]

Jim & Lynn - There is a train!

[Jim Gordon]

Och Brodie - ah ken there's a train. Bit there wiz three o'us, and wan hud tae take the caur onyway. So we thocht we micht juist aw pile intae the wan caur. Driver of said car has since been converted to trains!!!!

[lynn]

Brodie - children, school club, 9am lecture, train station and bus station = does not compute :-)