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2000 CFH FALL MEETING REPORT



The Fall 2000 CFH MEETINGwas at Point Loma Nazarene University

on October 19-21, 2000. Over 100 attendees benefited from thecare and

attention given to the meeting by program chair, Barry Hankins, Baylor

University, and our genial host, Rick Kennedy of PLNU. In addition to the

conference, the organizers planned a bus tour to Mission San Diego and other

points of interest in thearea. Your industrious editors actually managed to

attend all the sessions ofthe Point Loma meeting (thus justifying the faith of

their dean who picked up the tabfor sending all three of us to California).

Herewith our report on Point Loma 2000.

The meeting began on Thursday evening witha roundtable discussion

on "THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSOR IN THE MODERN ACADEMY: FOUR

PERSPECTIVES," chaired by Rick Ostrander,John Brown University. The

panel included Glenn E. Sanders, Oklahoma BaptistUniversity, Paul Spickard,

University of California at SantaBarbara, Abraham Friesen, University of

California at Santa Barbara, and DwightBrautigam, Huntington College.

Varying perspectives related to teaching,to the integration of faith and

learning, and to theattitudes of modern academia to Christian historians

sparked a considerable response.

On Friday, Session 1, "RELIGIONAND REVOLUTIONS" chaired by

Richard V. Pierard, Gordon College/Indiana State, saw papers "OnGod' s

Side: The Problem of Submission in theAmerican Revolution," by Tom Scott,

Mercer University; "Revolution and Revelation: The Effect of the 1848

Revolution on the PrussianEvangelical Awakening, 1848-1855" by David L.

Ellis, Purdue University, Calumet; and"AShort History of Religious Change

among the Highland Hmongof Vietnam and the Response of the Socialist

Republic of Vietnam to It," by James Lewis, Wheaton College. The discussant

was L. Edward Hicks,Faulkner University. Scott's question was an

interesting one:how did American pastors and theologians rationalize their

support of the anti-British revolution, given that they tookthe Bible seriously

and could not just ignore Romans 13 and 1 Peter. Some,like Jonathan

Mayhew, tackled the passages head on and used them to support resistance

to unjust authority; such resistance was not only permissible but required.

Others argued the moreconservative line that Peter should be seen as

arguing that we are to obey God rather than man when the two conflict.