Review and Reflections of Summa 2009

Last January, I began the year by announcing that other projects would prevent me from blogging on interfaith issues as much as I would have liked. While the prediction came true, 2009 still saw some interesting highlights.  Here are some of the more memorable ones.

Year 2009 in Review

While interfaith dialogue can be quite rewarding, online discussion forums can be a trap for the unwary.  Abraham Lincoln and Blogging was my attempt at suggesting that self-restraint in dialogue should not be forgotten.  In 2009, I discovered Premier Christian Radio, a London-based radio station, that broadcasts Unbelievable with Justin Brierley.  During the year, Unbelievable ran an American Masters of Christian Thinking series, including Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, and Gary Habermas.  Alvin Plantinga’s interview, touching on free will and the problem of evil, was superb.  Robert Millet and Greg Johnson also found themselves on Unbelievable, which often hosts debates between a Christian and a non-believer.  Brierley did an excellent job inquiring into the challenges of this exchange.

In March, I spotlighted Peter Kreeft, a well-known Catholic professor and prolific writer who often speaks on CS Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.  Fans of Middle Earth will enjoy “Christianity in the Lord of the Rings: Apologetics in Tolkien’s Classic.” In May, I highlighted an interview with another Evangelical theologian, Clark Pinnock.  Pinnock’s writings on Openness Theology are especially important to Latter-day Saints.

One of my favorite posts is Stephen Robinson and the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.  In the wake of How Wide the Divide, there has been a lot of confusion over this issue and I hope to have made a contribution to mutual understanding with my paper.

Alvin Plantinga: Free Will and the Problem of Evil

One of the most important topics in religious conversations is the nature of human freedom.  On July 26, 2008 , Justin Brierley of Premier Christian Radio interviewed Alvin Plantinga, John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame as part the American Masters of Christian Thinking series. Listen to the interview at the Unbelievable website (mp3 here). The interview begins at audio marker 16:20.

If you’ve never read Alvin Plantinga, or are less familiar with the problem of evil and notions of free will, I highly recommend listening to this interview. In fact, because Plantinga focuses heavily on the concept of free will, I believe Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints would find the interview particularly relevant since this topic tends to linger in the background of many discussions between Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints.