FORT WORTH, Texas – Rick Warren, one of the world’s most renowned pastors, will join prominent Anabaptist historian Abraham Friesen as a featured speaker during Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Anabaptist Conference, Jan. 30-31, 2012.
With the theme, “Anabaptism and Contemporary Baptists,” the conference will explore the connections between the 16th-century Anabaptist movement and 21st-century Baptist life and theology.
Warren, a Southwestern Seminary graduate with an interest in history, has made a large impact on contemporary Baptist life as pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of best-sellers The Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose Driven Church. As a theologian, Warren has also lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, the University of Judaism, and the Evangelical Theological Society.
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Friesen, professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has written many books and articles illuminating Anabaptist history, including History and Renewal in the Anabaptist/Mennonite Tradition and Erasmus, the Anabaptists and the Great Commission.
Other scholars lecturing at Southwestern’s Anabaptist Conference include Anabaptist historian Emir Caner, president of Truett-McConnell College and former dean of the College at Southwestern, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the 16th-century Anabaptist pastor and theologian Balthasar Hubmaier. Additionally, Southwestern Seminary president Paige Patterson and associate professor of systematic theology Malcolm Yarnell will present lectures during the conference.
Like contemporary Baptists, the 16th-century Anabaptists defended the authority of Scripture, the practice of believer’s baptism and religious liberty. As a result, many of them were executed by Catholics and Protestants alike. But, as one Anabaptist theologian insisted, the truths they preached would prove “unkillable.”
To learn more about Southwestern Seminary’s Anabaptist Conference, visit swbts.edu/anabaptist.
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Benjamin Hawkins is senior writer in the communications office at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.)