Incarnation Conference

Last Saturday I attended the First Annual Winter Theology Conference at Grace Lutheran Church here in San Diego. Grace Lutheran is pastored by Rev. Dr. John Bombaro (my Lutheran friend from Hoagies & Stogies: Baptismal Regeneration). The theme of the conference was “Incarnation: For Us and For Our Salvation.” It was a great conference, and fortunately everything was recorded, and can be downloaded here. Some highlights:

David J. Scaer: I wasn’t previously familiar, but apparently he is a big name (the biggest?) in Lutheran theology today, from Concordia Ft. Wayne. A particularly seasonal quote that I appreciated: “Baptism is our own Christmas; when we put on Christ, who put on flesh for us.”

John Bombaro delivered a fantastic 50-minute distillation of a 6-hour lecture series about the pervasive and pernicious influence of Kant in all areas of thought today, and how the Incarnation helps us Christians to counter it.

Michael Horton’s lecture, “God with us,” is a must-listen. Horton wove together the themes of Temple and Covenant through Eden, Noah, Tabernacle, Temple, and of course brought it all to fulfillment with the Incarnation of Christ the Temple. There were all the usual bullet points you get from Horton (unilateral vs bilateral covenants, suzerainty treaties from MGK, temple symbology from Poythress, interesting covenant understandings from a Jewish perspective from Jon Levenson, …), but in this arrangement it seemed fresh and new. Kind of like seeing all your favorite actors get together to make a new movie.

All told, it was a great day. Any Reformed person who was in San Diego and was doing something else really missed out. I look forward to future conferences in years to come!