Westminster Conference 2016 Day Two

Day 2 lived up to the promise of Day 1 as even more gathered at the Regent Hall, Oxford Street for a further three sessions. We began with Ian Hamilton looking at the matter of the passivity of God, which has become  hot issue of late, especially in America. The paper was a very competent but hopefully lucid presentation. It was above all irenic and that is one of the things discussed later in one of the better discussion times this year.

I chaired the second session which was a tour de force from my father-in-law Geoff Thomas on evangelicalism since 1945. He spoke of movements (the charismatic movement, etc) and men (Stott, etc) and soon, finishing with 10 encouragements - i] Modern English is the first world language ii] Books iii] The world wide web iv] Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones v] The International scene vi] Pulpits in the UK vii] There are organisations viii] Creation convictions ix] Theological seminaries x] There is this conference.
The closing paper, which is traditionally a biographical paper without discussion, was this year on J C Ryle and was given by Iain Murray, Mr Murray has a whole book on his subject and so he chiefly sought to create an interest in the man, defending him at certain points (on the atonement and as an Anglican for example).
So a very good conference. We plan to meet again next year on December 5 and 6, 2017.