ACADEMIC
This conference aims to draw together scholars, pastors, students, and general readers of John Owen’s writings to promote further research and reflection on Owen.
John Owen is frequently regarded as the leading puritan figure of seventeenth-century England, whose diverse writings attract a cross-section of scholarly and popular interest across theological, biblical, historical, and pastoral disciplines.
This conference will seek to assess the current state of Owen scholarship and identify new directions of exploration. We aim to draw together seasoned and emerging scholars in the field in order to encourage interdisciplinary reflections on Owen’s life, career, and writings.
Over the last decade, John Owen has become one of the most widely discussed English theologians, and perhaps the most widely read theologian of the seventeenth century. Several books have emerged that are devoted to various aspects of Owen’s life and theology, including from Ashgate (2012), Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht (2014, 2015), Oxford University Press (2016), Palgrave Macmillan (2017), Routledge (2013, 2018), Brill (2018, 2022), T&T Clark (2019, 2022), and Crossway (2020). Likewise, several colleges, universities, and seminaries have courses and seminars on Owen, and PhD students in the USA and UK continually submit dissertations on his work. Finally, Crossway is currently releasing a new 40-volume edition of his complete works, and Oxford University Press is publishing a forthcoming volume of previously unpublished sermons.
Building on these developments, this conference seeks to foster collaboration and discussion among those interested in Owen’s writings in order to encourage students, pastors, and scholars to consider the importance of Owen for both the academy and the church today.
Dr Martyn Cowan Union Theological College, Belfast
Prof Crawford Gribben Queen’s University Belfast
Principal Michael McClenahan Union Theological College, Belfast
Dr John Tweeddale Reformation Bible College, USA
Wifi access network: UTC_Public Password: UnionCollege
MONDAY 24 JUNE 2024
9.30-10.30AM REGISTRATION AND COFFEE / ROOM 5
10.30-11.30AM PLENARY LECTURE / CHAPEL
“Owen and Judaism”
Prof Philip Alexander
FBA (Emeritus professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester)
This paper will assess Owen’s Hebraic learning, to set it in the context of Christian Hebraism at the time, and outline his view of Judaism. It will bring to bear the latest scholarship on the question. Topics which would, inter alia, come up would be his Restorationism, and his view of the reliability of the Hebrew text of the OT (note his controversy with Brian Walton). I would also, if time permits, set his views in the context of Jewish-Christian dialogue today, in which I have been heavily engaged.
11.30-1.00PM SEMINARS
OPTION 1: OWEN AND THE CULTURES OF DISSENT / ROOM 4
“Looking for Sir John Hartopp: patron, patriot and ‘pillar of dissent’”
Dr Lesley A. Rowe
Independent historian, lecturer, and author
Sir John Hartopp is primarily remembered as the patron of John Owen and Isaac Watts. This paper seeks to show that Hartopp deserves to be recognised in his own right, not only for this service but also for the wider contribution he made to the cause of post-Restoration nonconformity.
“‘I Answer in the Words of Dr. Owen’: Nehemiah Coxe’s Use of Owen in Vindiciae Veritatis (1677),”
Jared Mays
PhD student, Queen’s University Belfast
This paper analyses Nehemiah Coxe’s (d. 1689) use of John Owen in his polemical work, Vindiciae Veritatis (1677). Coxe’s heavy reliance on Owen provides insight into Owen’s influence on contemporary dissenting groups and how this led to different understandings of theological identity and orthodoxy in the seventeenth century.
“John Owen’s ‘Theo-Christo-Pneumatology’: anti-Scotist or anti-scholastic?”
Rev Dr Sam Bostock
Union Theological College, Belfast
Was John Owen a Reformed scholastic? This paper draws on hitherto unexamined engagements with Owen’s broadly adjacent contemporary, Samuel Rutherford, to argue that their methodological differences lend weight to the view that Owen’s mature efforts to form a ‘theo-christopneumatology’ should be considered a post-scholastic enterprise.
“The Pactum Salutis as a Communication of Divine Goodness”
Rev Dr R. Jason Pickard
Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Westminster Seminary CA Goodness is communicative. Goodness is also a transcendental that can be predicated of God both personally and essentially. Therefore, this paper seeks to build upon Owen’s rich theology of God’s goodness to construct an understand of the covenant of redemption as a communication of God’s goodness.
1.00-2.00PM LUNCH / DINING ROOM
2.00-3.00PM PLENARY LECTURE / CHAPEL
“Pastoral and Literary Caregiving: Richard Baxter, ‘Puritan Man of Letters’,”
Dr Alison Searle
Associate Professor of Textual Studies at the University of Leeds
This paper assesses how pastoral care and literary cure intersect in the correspondence of Richard Baxter (1615-91). N. H. Keeble’s groundbreaking literary study of Baxter (1982) categorised him as a ‘Puritan Man of Letters’. In the decades since, a rich and expanding field of scholarship has developed exploring Baxter’s prolific writings in an extraordinary range of genres, as well as his contributions to the political, religious, and scientific cultures of England, Britain, Europe, and North America. I return to these two concepts of ‘Puritan’ and ‘Man of Letters’ to interrogate how Baxter used the literary genre of the letter to provide (and receive) pastoral care. Situating Baxter’s epistolary practice within both the early modern republic of letters and the textual cultures of transatlantic puritanism enables us to rethink the ways in which doctrinal convictions, theological polemic, pastoral caregiving, and literary production shape one another through their inextricable entanglements.
3.00-3.30PM AFTERNOON TEA / DINING ROOM
CONFERENCE
3.30-5.00PM SEMINAR OPTIONS
“Medieval Parallels to Owen’s Trinitarian Theology,”
Ryan M. McGraw
Professor of Systematic Theology, Greenville Presbyterian Theological
This paper seeks to expand the possible medieval context of Owen’s Trinitarian theology by placing Trinitarian ideas from some key medieval thinkers alongside Owen’s expression of Trinitarian doctrine. After stating the question, the rest of the essay sketches some medieval models for the Trinity, presents and analyses some of Owen’s key terms related to the Trinity, and then concludes with some suggested ways that studies of this kind can expand post-Reformation scholarship. Parallels do not necessarily entail dependence. As such, the material below gets the ball rolling for further research, illustrating by example the kinds of questions and authors that might deepen our understanding of Reformed scholastic ideas.
“Owen, Cane, and the Transatlantic History of Anti-Catholic Books,”
Zachary McCulley
Visiting Assistant Professor of History, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg VA
This paper analyses the complex history of the book debate between John Owen and the Catholic theologian, John Vincent Cane. It covers the commissioning of Owen’s first anti-Catholic works, Cane’s reading of them, the books’ distribution, and their transatlantic reception.
“‘I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine’:
John Owen on Union with Christ in the Song of Songs,”
Richard Patton
PhD student, Union Theological College
An historically contextualised consideration of the doctrine of Union with Christ in Owen’s usage of Song of Songs.
“John Owen’s exegesis of the Song of Songs in Communion with God in its seventeenth-century context,”
Nathan W Parsons
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Though more confident than others in his interpretations of the Song of Song’s difficult symbolism, John Owen’s allegorical exegesis of the Song in Communion with God aligned with that of other key seventeenthcentury Puritan interpreters and did not forge any new ground in the history of Christian interpretation.
5.00-6.00PM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION / CHAPEL
Screening of the Crossway Works documentary, followed by a panel discussion
6.30PM COLLEGE CLOSES
TUESDAY 25 JUNE 2024
9.30-11AM SEMINAR OPTIONS
OPTION 1: OWEN, SCRIPTURE, AND THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL / CHAPEL
“The Hebrew Text and the Septuagint: John Owen in the Reformed Tradition,”
Levi Berntson
Assistant Professor of Theology, Reformation Bible College, Sanford FL
This paper seeks to provide much-needed nuance to John Owen’s reply to Brian Walton’s argument in his Biblia Sacra Polyglotta (1654), in which Walton argues that the Septuagint can be used to critique the Hebrew text of the OT.
“John Owen on the Freedom of the Will,”
Dr Benedict Bird
Westminster Seminary, Newcastle
Can God be absolutely sure that anyone in particular will be converted and persevere as a Christian, if that person is not compelled and necessitated to do so? Owen explains how the Reformed understanding of free will and the work of the Holy Spirit provides the answer to the conundrum.
OPTION 2: RECEPTIONS OF OWEN / ROOM 4
“The Puritan and the Prelate: John Owen, Thomas Barlow and the Conformist Reception of Dissenting Literature,”
Adam Quibell
PhD Queen’s University Belfast
Bishop Barlow left behind a unique collection of annotated books by Owen. They give unique insight into Owen’s relationship with his erstwhile mentor and colleague turned ecclesiastical enemy. This paper will provide the first extended analysis of marginalia on Owen’s works and fresh insight into their contemporary reception.
“Contemporary reception of John Owen in Latin America: The formation of a new theological tradition,”
Daniel Caballero Vichez
PhD Student Queen’s University Belfast
This paper presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the contemporary reception of Owen in Latin America, a region that has witnessed significant growth in Protestantism over the last thirty years. This surge prompts an investigation into the formation of a new Reformed tradition in Latin America, leveraging both written and oral sources to delve into this religious transformation. This offers to enrich our understanding of Owen’s reception in Latin America but also challenges us to reconsider the global impact of Reformed theology.
11.00-11.30AM COFFEE
CONFERENCE
11.30AM-1.00PM SEMINAR OPTIONS
OPTION 1: OWEN’S ΘΕΟΛΟΓΟΥΜΕΝΑ
“Cultivating Happiness and Virtue through Spiritual Affections: Exploring Human Flourishing in John Owen’s Theology,”
Sam Hyeong Rae Jo
PhD Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Independent Scholar
The concept of the affections facilitates a deeper understanding of Owen’s theology, particularly his anthroposensitive theology and affective spirituality. This paper explores how his understanding and utilization of the affections steers humans towards their proper end, as affections play a crucial role in cultivating happiness (eudaimonism), virtue ethics, and improving social relationship.
“The nature, rise, and progress of the Covenant of Grace: Petrus van Mastricht’s use of Owen’s Θεολογουμενα
in the TheologiaPractica Theoretica,”
Dr T. M. Rester
Associate Professor of Church History, Westminster Theological Seminary PA
The last edition of Mastricht’s magnum opus, the Theoretica-Practica Theologia, was published in 1698. John Owen is often deployed directly and cited indirectly in Mastricht’s engagement with the Voetius-Cocceius debates of his day on Christology, assurance, and the outworking of the covenant of grace in the Old and New Testaments.
“What is the significance of Owen’s change of mind on the necessity of Christ’s satisfaction?”, Tim Laurence
University of St Andrews
For some, the Dissertation on Divine Justice (1653) was a course correction which served the Reformed legacy. For others, it doubled down on Owen’s earlier commitments, including the magistrate’s duty to punish on matters of religion. This paper proposes a clearer way forward, tracing the demand of Owen’s own argument.
“Sacrifice in Hebrews - John Owen’s commentary of Hebr 9 and 10 in the light of newer research,”
Prof Dr Hans Burger
Professor of systematic theology, Theological University Utrecht
In classical reformed theology, Christ’s sacrifice of Christ is understood as satisfaction by penal substitution. Hebrews says more about Jesus’ priestly work. In newer research on Hebrews, alternative approaches to Jesus’ sacrifice are offered. What light does this shed on Owen’s understanding of Jesus sacrifice in Hebrews 9 and 10?
1.00-2.00PM LUNCH (DINING ROOM)
2-3.30PM SEMINAR OPTIONS
“For Though We See in Part: John Owen’s pastoral apprehension of blessedness in the Beatific Vision,”
Wesley Lassiter
Lead Pastor of The Rock Church and student of Union Theological College and the BibleMesh Institute
As a pastor-theologian in troubling times, John Owen’s theology of the Beatific Vision informed his pastoral focus on mortification of sin and meditation upon God. Owen’s understanding of divine blessedness is not only the believer’s hope for the future but a reality for the present, even if only in part.
“John Owen, the Trinity, and the Beatific Vision,”
David Driver
Lead Pastor of Forest City Bible Church London ON
This paper examines the role of the Trinity in John Owen’s doctrine of the beatific vision. In particular, it explores the theological issues driving Owen’s Christological account of the visio Dei, along with analysing the place Owen gives to the Father and the Spirit.
“The Thomistic Vision of Owen: A Remedy for Contemporary Revisions of John Owen’s Account of the Beatific Vision,”
Josh Tinkham
PhD student at Southern Evangelical Seminary
As a confessionally Reformed theologian who started his career studying John Owen’s works and currently specializes in writing on Thomistic philosophy and metaphysics, I will show that modern characterizations of Owen’s beatific vision as a departure from the Thomistic conception are overstated by proving they are essentially the same.
“Reconsidering Owen’s Early Pastorate: Discovering New Covenant Theology,”
Ryan Shelton
PhD Queen’s University Belfast
This paper analyses Owen’s overlooked appointment to the ministry of St Botolph’s, Colchester in 1645. It considers his radical ecclesiological innovations in the late 1640s in the context of an uncertain living and an emerging Congregationalist variation of seventeenth-century federal theology.
“An inconsistent Congregationalist? Examining the Connection Between the Covenant theology, Congregational ecclesiology, and Paedobaptism of John Owen,”
Mike Anderson
Preaching Pastor, Citylight Church Center City, Philadelphia PA
The suggestion has been made throughout history and in recent years that congregational ecclesiology and covenant theology tend toward credobaptism. In response, this paper examines how John Owen held his congregational ecclesiology and covenant theology together with his paedobaptism, though not without tension.
CONFERENCE TIMETABLE
3.30-4.00PM AFTERNOON BREAK / CHAPEL
4.00-5.00PM VISIT TO THE LIBRARY OF QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST
A visit to the Reading Room of the Special collection at the McClay Library of QUB to see relevant works
5.00-6.00PM PLENARY LECTURE / CHAPEL
“‘All Things Summed up in Christ’: Karl Barth and John Owen on Christocentrism”
Ty KieserAssistant Professor of Theology, Criswell College, and author of Theandric and Triune: John Owen and Christological Agency Barth and Owen have often been presented as juxtaposed figures on either side of the spectrum of Protestant theological methodologies. Yet, as the dust settles on the Calvin against the Calvinists debates, potential new directions in Owen studies abound. This paper seeks to travel down one of those paths by comparing the dogmatic location of the person of Christ in the theologies of Karl Barth and John Owen. For both figures, I will briefly demonstrate the theological space they allocate to Christology in their accounts of revelation, the doctrine of God, and theological anthropology. The final conclusions offered will gesture toward the potential significance of Owen’s thought for broader methodological conversations, but are especially oriented toward illustrating potential new directions in the theological engagement of Owen’s corpus and scholarship.
7.30PM CONFERENCE DINNER / DINING ROOM
10.00PM COLLEGE CLOSES
TUESDAY 25 JUNE 2024
9.30-10.00AM REGISTRATION AND COFFEE / CHAPEL
10.00-11.00AM INTRODUCTION AND FIRST SESSION
Prof Crawford Gribben
John Owen’s spheres of reformation: individual, family, church, nation
11.00-11.30AM MORNING COFFEE / DINING ROOM
11.30AM-12.15PM SECOND SESSION
Dr John Tweeddale
The increase of divine knowledge: John Owen on the goal of pastoral ministry
12.30-1.15PM THIRD SESSION
Principal Michael McClenahan
The pathology of sin and pastoral care
1.15-2.15PM LUNCH
2.15-3.00PM FOURTH SESSION
Dr Martyn Cowan
John Owen the preacher
3-3.45PM AFTERNOON BREAK / DINING ROOM
3.45-4.30PM FINAL SESSION
Dr Lee Gatiss
‘You’re so dull!’: John Owen on listening more carefully
4.30-5.00PM Q&A
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN OWEN Lee Gatiss and Shawn D. Wright, general editors
Considered one of the most important theologians in history, John Owen has influenced centuries of Christian leaders. This 40-volume project presents the entirety of his published works in a carefully edited, modern format to reach a new generation of Bible readers and scholars and inspire them to deeper faith.
The Holy Spirit—The Helper (Volume 7) | Available Now
The Holy Spirit—The Comforter (Volume 8) | Available Now Apostasy from the Gospel (Volume 14) | Available Now Sin and Temptation (Volume 15) | Coming September 2024
The Church, the Scriptures, and the Sacraments (Volume 28) | Available Now
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