By Daniel Johnson-Kim, Editor in Chief
When Dr. Leroy Garrett takes the stage at the Summit opening Theme Conversation in Moody Coliseum Sunday, it may be a moment of vindication for the 89-year-old scholar who was known throughout his life as a radical in the Churches of Christ.
“During the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s I would go to the Lectureships back in those days and I was a skunk at the garden party,” Garrett said of involvement in past Lectureships.
The former “stinker,” a renowned scholar, preacher and historian from the Stone Campbell movement, will begin the Theme Conversations at 7 p.m. Sunday with a lesson titled “Righteousness of God Revealed through Faith and for Faith.”
Garrett said he will discuss Paul’s message in Romans 1:8- 17 and how God’s righteousness encompasses all people.
“You are not OK because of our selfishness and pride, and I am not OK but that’s OK because of God’s grace,” Garrett said.
After Garrett begins the Theme Conversations Sunday, David Fleer, Kevin Murray, James Thompson, Randy Harris, Eric Wilson and Chris Seidman will each speak throughout the week on various passages of Romans, tying into the Summit theme of the “Righteousness of God.” Brady Bryce, director of Ministry Events, said each speaker brings an original style to the stage that will provide variety for the Summit audience.
“Everyone needs to be who they are,” Bryce said of the theme speakers. “If the person is a scholar they don’t need to be cracking jokes pretending to be who they are not, if someone is a great orator, let them be that.”
In an effort to make this a conversation and to step away from the old style of simplyhaving a lecturer and audience that listens, Bryce said that while each man presents, audience members can text message or e-mail questions for the speaker throughout the morning and evening’s Theme Conversations.
Bryce said there will be an interview portion in which he will ask audience members’ questions to the speakers following their lectures; this way, members are an active part of the conversation on stage.
Wilson, senior minister of Fairview Road Church of Christ in Columbia, Miss., said he believes this will be a great way to involve the audience in Moody.
“It’s utilizing technology and an attempt to make what was traditional be more relational and interactive,” said Wilson, the theme speaker for Wednesday’s 11 a.m. Theme Conversation.
Garrett said he was seen as an outsider in the Churches of Christ throughout his career as a professor and editor of the periodical Restoration Review, after calling out things he considered wrong inside his church family.
“Churches of Christ got caught into a web of sectarianism back in the ’40s and continued into the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s,” Garrett said. “My journey was a journey of freedom to make Churches of Christ what I thought what they should be more responsible in their interpretation of scripture to recover their heritage of unity and diversity and become a part of the larger church.”
Garrett profiled his journey in the Churches of Christ in his autobiography, A Lover’s Quarrel: My Pilgrimage of Freedom in Churches of Christ. And as the leading speaker for the Theme Conversations, it is a chance for him to be with “family” and lead them on a journey.
“Because of my age I think it may be my last hoorah,” Garrett said. “When you get to this age you realize you don’t have all that much time and to be able to get up there and speak, you never know when you’re not going to be able to do that again.”
