We had a very stimulating first day at the conference on Tiesday.
We began with David Pfeiffer on Archibald Alexander's Thoughts on religious experience. I thought he could have been more enthusiastic about the book but quite rightly he offered some few cauttions while commending the book, nevertheless. He gave us four conclusions
1. Temperamental, biological and anthropological factors are important in religious experience
2. God gives us the strength we need when we need it
3. Justification and grace need to be kept in mind in the Christian life
4. The value of knowing Scripture well
In the afternoon Robert Strivens informed us about Eusebius of Caesarea and his church history. He then opened this up into a very interesting discussion of the writing of church history. Very helpful. Robert argued for a specific Christian approach. In the discussion we found it difficult to be sure how that should be done.
The final paper was a useful one on evangelicals, slavery and colonialism from Ian Shaw, which included sometimes painful reading on what our Reformed heroes said on the matter. It was useful to discuss matters such as reparation and what we are to make of the idea.
So a great day - excellent papers of the right length and decent discusssions.
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