Red-Eye Improvisation

No. 199: February 23, 2024

Welcome to The Square Inch, a Friday newsletter on Christianity, culture, and all of the many-varied “square inches” of God’s domain. This is a paid subscription feature with a preview before hitting the paywall. Please consider subscribing to enjoy this weekly missive along with an occasional “Off The Shelf” feature about books, a frequent Pipe & Dram feature of little monologues/conversations in my study, and Wednesday’s “The Quarter Inch,” a quick(er) commentary on current events.

Dear Friends,

Hello from Orlando, Florida, where I am pecking away on my rarely used iPad. I didn’t bring my computer because it’s sort of a family computer and it was needed at home. This is cumbersome so don’t expect anything too lengthy today. I am here for a “colloquium” on faith and work sponsored by Reformed Theological Seminary. A “colloquium” is not quite a “conference.” It is a gathering of scholars who write proposed papers, meet to discuss them, and then publish them together afterward. I am really honored to be included among some real luminaries: Michael Allen (RTS Orlando), N. Gray Sutanto (RTS D.C.; and whom I’ve “known” for a decade or more and have never met!), Vincent Bacote (Wheaton College), and Fred Sanders (Biola). These men are simply legit. And they invited the “independent scholar” guy from Montana. Like I say, I’m honored.

We circulated the papers and today we got together to discuss them. Essentially, each of us was assigned to write a paper on faith and work from the perspective of a particular aspect of systematic theology (e.g., God, creation, fall, redemption, etc.). The papers generated a fair bit of discussion because we are not all in violent agreement about everything. And that made it extremely interesting and fun.

I did two special things yesterday I’ll share with you.

First off, my travel was just not at all fun. To get here on time I had to take a red-eye out of Salt Lake. That meant getting to Orlando at 5:30 in the morning, and I had my rental car on the road at 7:00. What are you supposed to do when you’re dog-tired but it is way too early to check in to a hotel room? You go to the hotel parking lot and sleep in your car for an hour, that’s what. And then you wonder what you’re going to do for the day before your first formal gathering at the dinner hour .

Hey! Harry Potter World at Universal Studios! How much does that cost? Oh. $120? No thanks. I could drive down to the nearest MLB Spring Training facility! Oh. Two hours away? Not likely to be worth my while. I looked at the map and realized that Orlando is not, as I’ve always imagined it, in the middle of Florida. It’s a lot closer to Merritt Island and Cape Canaveral than I thought.

But I didn’t go to Cape Canaveral. I went and visited Teen Missions International at their headquarters in Merritt Island. I had attended the “Lord’s Boot Camp” in that jungle in the summer of 1990 before my mission trip to Tanzania and I went to see how the old place was doing. It was very different—tons of infrastructure was different, anyway—but the place and the people were exactly the same. Jesus-loving, non-denominational, but with a weirdly fundamentalist bent. Totally lovable.

Here’s some pics of my tour:

Those were, respectively, 1) Headquarters, 2) The “Slough of Despond” in the obstacle course, and 3/4) two of the obstacle course walls that every team has to figure out how get each and every member over by way of pure ingenuity and teamwork and strength.

I am delighted to see the ministry still thriving after Covid and all the conflict throughout the world. Consider sending your kids! It’s pretty life-changing.

Then I had the treat of meeting one of my heroes. I dropped by the home of John M. Frame and we finally actually met in person and enjoyed a nice visit. The man has had a profound impact on my life and the lives of so many others throughout his lengthy career. All of his books are good—clear, straightforward, biblical—but I told him that my favorite remains the first he ever published: The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. I think it stands the test of time as one of the best introductions to the life of the Christian mind. I revisit it quite often and find it full of profound insight.

That’s enough tapping for this week. I’ll leave you with me and Professor Frame. Have a great weekend!