Friday, August 16, 2024

Megan Basham regarding SEBTS Hosting Cornwall Alliance Speaker, E. Calvin Beisner

Megan Basham's "Shepherds for Sale" provides a mixture of good stuff (like identifying the funding for various organizations that have "Evangelical" in the title) and errors (both minor and serious).  

Basham claims: "In fact, I could not find that SEBTS has ever hosted a speaker who has challenged climate change catastrophizing, though the school regularly welcomes those who promote it." (p. 17)

On the other hand, SEBTS's website mentions "A colloquium, Perspectives in Dialogue, will be August 28 [2009?] and will feature two speakers--E. Calvin Beisner and Michael Northcott." Answers in Genesis has posted what Beisner presented here (link).  The website is dated with "2017," but this seems to be an error, perhaps due to a refresh of the website at some point.

Beisner is cited favorably by Basham (on multiple pages) as an opponent to the "efforts to turn evangelicals into environmentalists." (p. 15)  Moreover, Basham says she had a Zoom meeting with him that went "more than thirty minutes past the time I requested" (p. 12).  So, it is mystifying how she overlooked the fact that Beisner was platformed at SEBTS specifically to have interaction on Environmentalism and to respond to Michael Nortcott's book: "A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming." Indeed Basham says that Beisner founded the Cornwall Alliance, which she praises in her book:

(p. 12)

The "Climate Change Awards" identifying Dr. E. Calvin Beisner as winner of the "Outstanding Spokesperson on Faith, Science, and Stewardship Award," in 2014 wrote:

Dr. Beisner has spoken recently on environmental ethics and policy at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Talbot School of Theology, Charleston Southern University, and Biola University, as well as at churches, and at The Heritage Foundation and Family Research Council, and was a guest on Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck hour-long special program discussing how the Green movement is infiltrating churches and targeting youth and on MSNBC discussing evangelicals and the environment.

This is not a comprehensive study of the folks that have spoken at SEBTS.  This is just the result of spending a few minutes checking whether one of the main heroes of Basham's chapter 1 had, in fact, been invited to speak at SEBTS.  

Here's a screenshot of SEBTS' website from August 2009:


And here's a screenshot of the first page of the chapter published by AIG:

Here's a screenshot of the CFC website:



Here's a screenshot of the event page:





SEBTS described the event, thus (Here's a link to a report of the event):

On Friday, August 28, 2009 the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture hosted a colloquium titled Creation Care: Perspectives in Dialogue. The colloquium featured Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, a founder and the national spokesperson for the Cornwall Alliance for the stewardship of creation and Dr. Michael Northcott Professor of Ethics at University of Edinburgh. Both men are influential voices in the subject of creation stewardship and have contributed much to the ongoing discussion on this topic.

The colloquium's first session opened with a welcome and introductions given by moderator and senior fellow, Dr. Mark Liederbach. Dr. Michael Northcott followed, giving the first lecture, 'Behold I have set the land before you' (Deut. 1:8) Landcare in the Bible and Today. Dr. Northcott's lecture focused on humanity's special relationship to the land  and our responsiblity to replenish the earth as evidenced throughout the Old Testament. He concluded his lecture by applying the Old Testament agricultural principles and practices to today's American farming industry and bringing to light some of today's most critical issues regarding the current food economy. Dr. E. Calvin Beisner gave the second lecture of the afternoon titled, Biblical Foundations for Creation Care. Also, basing much of his argument from the Old Testament Dr. Beisner also contended that humanity has a unique responsibility to creation as image-bearers of God, but emphasized the producer role of humanity. Dr. Beisner, while positing humanity's responsibility to care for creation, also posited the earth's resilience to humankind's use of its resources. The afternoon session concluded with a lively dialogue between the speakers and a question and answer time with the audience.

Following the break for dinner, the Creation Care Colloquium reconvened with Dr. Northcott again commencing the lectures and Dr. Beisner following. The topic for the evening session centered around the issue of global warming. Dr. Northcott made a case for the reality of global warming while Dr. Beisner contended against it. Again the speakers engaged each other regarding the topic at hand and then received questions from the audience.

The colloquium presented an opportunity for an increased and clearer understanding of the issues and concerns embedded in this much debated subject. There were two sessions with each concluding in a Q & A time. This event was the second of three creation care initiatives with funding provided by The Energy Foundation.

1 comment:

Lacie said...

Overall her massage is good but contains oversights or errors. These need to be brought to her attention so her updated version will be more accurate.