For those of you in the Boston area, or with a strong desire to come to Boston quickly, a conference on Family and Children in the Patristic Tradition begins tomorrow (October 13-15) at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts. There are scholars from all over Canada, the United States and Europe (Croatia, Switzerland, Germany) representing the range of Christian traditions (Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant) presenting at the conference, including myself, so please attend if you have any interest in this rich vein of material. Dr. Candida Moss of Notre Dame, for instance, will present on “The Abandonment of Family Sayings in the Synoptic Gospels and its Reception in Early Christian Martyrdom Stories,” while David G. Hunter, of the University of Kentucky, will speak on “The Household of God: The Family and Christianization in the Early Church.” I will talk on “‘Do Not Sexually Abuse Children’: The Language of Early Christian Sexual Ethics.” These are only a few of the papers to be delivered; check out the entire schedule here.

John W. Martens

Follow me on Twitter @johnwmartens

 

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.