Fifty Shades of Green: The Bible’s Ecology of Wonder
Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/26/2014
9:00 am - 1:45 pm
Location
Brite Divinity School
Categories
At its most fundamental level, Scripture arouses a sense of wonder, specifically wonder of God, wonder of the world, and wonder of ourselves. In the Bible wonder exists prior to belief and dogma; it both sustains and reforms belief. Wonder brings out the best in religious faith even as it inspires the search for wisdom and knowledge in the world. In this course, participants will explore how the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, evokes all sorts of wonder: from fear to fascination, from awe to desire. We will also explore how wonder links the ancient biblical text with contemporary, including scientific, understandings of our world. The overall goal is to reawaken our divinely endowed sense of wonder.
William P. Brown is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the William Marcellus McPheeters Chair of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. Bill has also taught at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond and at Emory University. He is the author of several books and numerous essays on biblical interpretation and theology, including The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (2010), Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of Metaphor (2002), Ecclesiastes (2000), as well as editor of Engaging Biblical Authority (2007). Bill is an avid Sunday School teacher and a founding member of Earth Covenant Ministry, an emerging organization of Presbyterian churches in the Atlanta area dedicated to creation care (now a part of Georgia Interfaith Power and Light). Gail and Bill have two daughters, Ella and Hannah.