Progress of CREDO500 blog conference

[This is a translation of the previous post by Jonah]

We are considering running the CREDO500 blog conference again next year. As such, we would like to open up this post for suggestions from our readers and participants, especially welcoming your thoughts and constructive feedback on the conference so far. We wish to make this and possible future conferences even better, as well as gather valuable comments and feedback from all of you. This is done so that future conferences [if done] could be improved, and that the proclamation of orthodox theology could be done for the growth of the Chinese churches towards maturity.

The first part of our blog conference "The Legacy of Reformed Theology" has concluded, although readers can continue to [and are encouraged to -DHC] post their comments. In this slightly over three weeks of discussion, besides growing in knowledge, we have also grown in our friendship in the Lord. Although we have many divergent viewpoints on the issues presented, yet we have generally engaged the issues not the people, with the goal of ad fontes or returning to the Scriptures, the source of our faith.

The translation [and editorial - DHC] work of the articles and reviews into English is undertaken by Daniel Chew, while the translation [and editorial - DHC] work into Chinese is undertaken by Pastor Jonah Tang and Amos Chaw. This is done so as to facilitate understanding in either or both languages. The second part of our conference "The Reformation and John Calvin", has an addition of three additional papers in them. As such, we have adjusted the period of this part to 2nd to 28th Oct, with the schedule being as follows:

Part II: The Reformation and John Calvin (3rd - 28th Oct 2009)

I. The historical legacy of John Calvin

Oct 3rd Stephen Chan, Calvin's Tale of Two Cities (Response: David Cheng)

Oct 5th Jack Sin，The Spiritual Influence and Legacy of John Calvin to The Modern World (Response: SoonBeng Lim)

Oct 7th Daniel Chew, New Evangelical Calvinism: An analysis of the Calvinist Resurgence (Response: Edward Sim)

II. Joh Calvin's theology of God's Sovereignty

Oct 9th LaiHoe Ang, Biblical Consistency of Calvin’s Work on Election (Response: Lemuel Hii)

Oct 12th David Chen，Has Turretin been faithful to John Calvin’s Doctrine of Election? (Response: Alex Tseng)

Oct 14th Alex Tseng, Karl Barth's Doctrine of Election (Response: Joel Tay)

III. John Calvin's theology of worship

Oct 16th Zhi Yong Wang, Calvin and the Psalms: Singing the songs of Jehovah (Response: Cathy Tan)

Oct 19th Cathy Tan，The quest for Calvin's essence of worship: Passion and love of God — A journey away from ritualistic worship (Response: Paul Gao)

Oct 21st Timothy Peng, Reformed View of Music (Response: Junhao Yang)

III. The practical theology of John Calvin

Oct 23rd Fook Seong Ten, Calvin's Institutes and the Practices of Piety (Response: PaiChan Yong)

Oct 26th David Cheng，Calvin's Law and Grace (Response: Jason Loh)

Oct 28th Jason Loh, Calvin’s View on the Cultural Mandate (Response: Benjamin Ho)

Our new contributors are: Rev.Dr.David Cheng (Calvin's Law and Grace), Pastor Timothy Peng (Reformed View of Music) and Jason Loh (Calvin’s View on the Cultural Mandate). Reviewers include Junhao Yang, Benjamin Ho and Jason Loh. A short biography of the people involved can be found here (to be updated later)

Our advisor for this conference Rev.Dr.Stephen Chan will give a final conclusion and exhortation at the end of this conference. Finally, for our celebration of Reformation Day on the 30th-31st of Oct, we would like to invite all our contributors and readers to write a short note or message in celebration.

May this conference contribute, no matter how small, to the goal of helping the Chinese churches know more about John Calvin and Reformed theology, and thus achieve unity in the truth. Amen.