The 25th-annual Carmichael-Walling Lectures, conducted by the Graduate School of Theology, will take place Thursday. Dr. Steven Friesen will be the featured speaker.
Friesen, professor of Religious Studies and Department Chair at the University of Texas at Austin, will deliver two sessions.
The lectures are an opportunity for ACU to bring in speakers prominent in biblical studies and New Testament scholarship. The speakers will address a broad audience, including students, community, faculty and anyone involved with biblical studies.
This year Friesen will discuss the book of Revelation.
“I reviewed a few topics with Dr. [Jeff] Childers and wanted a topic they haven’t had recently. We both settled on the book of Revelation, which I felt great about because it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Friesen said.
Childers, professor in the Graduate School of Theology, has been active in the lectures since he was a student, and he has organized the gatherings for the past seven years.
“The lectures are open to a broad audience, and the Carmichael and Walling families donate money to bring in knowledgeable speakers that have done interesting work to present the topic well to the audience,” Childers said.
Friesen eagerly awaits the lecture, set to take place Thursday in the Onstead-Packer Bible Building Room 114.
“I will not be presenting Revelation as the blueprint of the ending of the world. People who look at the book of Revelation as the ending of the world tend to have an unfortunate track record, but I will be looking at it with a systematic and academic approach: ‘why do we read it?'” he said.
“I have broken it down into two methods that will be divided into two sessions, first, Channeling John: Plot and Persuasion in the Apocalypse. I will use tools of narrative. I will look at the book as a story and how it unfolds as a story. The next session is over how the book uses issues of truth and power, promises, threats, titled ‘Challenging John: Truth, Deception, and the Lake of Fire,'” Friesen said.
