[I have revised this post].
At the last minute I was asked to be ready to present my paper on Bonhoeffer and Emerging Church movement at the Academy
for Evangelism in Theological Education meeting. But as it turned out, they didn't need me as all four presenters showed up. The AETE met this year in Ashland,
at Ashland Seminary.
The paper I was going to present was the one I wrote for my Duke Th.D. application. It has been on my blog for six months and I have made the changes people suggested there. You can see it at: Bonhoeffer and the Emerging Church: Ph.D. Application Paper
"Who is the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education?", you
might ask. The professors on the board are United Methodist, Cooperative Baptist
Fellowship, evangelical Anglican and Southern Baptist. The theme of this annual meeting was "engaging the
emerging church." (Download AETE
publicity.pdf).
The presenters this year were:
Bob Whitesel – who is a church consultant, author, adjunct professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, and is finishing his Ph.D. at the School for Intercultural Studies at Fuller Seminary. Bob tried to describe the way organic / emerging / missional church leaders think. He tries to help older church leaders understand this mindset.
Paul Chilcote – who is a visiting professor of evangelism at Duke Divinity School shared a paper comparing various positive aspects of the emerging church movement to the work of John Wesley.
Bryan Stone – who is a E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at the School of Theology at Boston University, pointed out that though the emerging church may appear at first glance disgusted by the institutional church, it is deeply focused on seeing people connected into community.
Len Sweet – who is E. Stanley Jones Professor of
Evangelism at Drew University also presented comments about the emerging church movement.
There were also a couple of papers presented by Southern Baptist pastors, Adam Greenway and William Henard. Henard is an adjunct professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY and Greenway is a Ph.D. student. They both have concerns with Brian McLaren's view of Scripture, doctrine, atonement, evangelism, and ethics.
The United Methodist E. Stanley Jones Professors of Evangelism from various United Methodist seminaries sometimes attend this meeting and then meet afterward together. The Foundation For Evangelism which funds the E. Stanley Jones professors of evangelism are also funding my doctoral program.
. (You can only read the article online if you have a First Things subscription). It is not an entirely flattering review. Hays didn’t mention the review in class but I saw it at the library. If you haven’t heard of Hays, he is a well-known (though not to you), New Testament scholar who has written a lot about: the use of the Old Testament in Paul’s letters, the Pauline phrase "faith in Christ Jesus vs. faith of Christ Jesus," the ethical teachings of the New Testament; and has written commentaries on Galatians and 1 Corinthians. I was definitely drawn to Duke because of Hays. Though an outstanding scholar, he has a heart for the church. (See his books 
