Dr Rodney Decker's last paper and other highlights of the 2014 Bible Faculty Summit in Clark Summit, PA

Last week, my father and I, as brand-new faculty at Baptist College of Ministry, had the privilege of attending the Bible Faculty Summit , an annual event for schools identifying within a broader fundamentalist tradition (which includes some Methodists and Presbyterians; also "more fun, less mental," I might add!). The various schools (e.g., BJU, MBU, BBC) take turns hosting a "Bible Faculty Summit" which functions as sort of a "mini-ETS" where, instead of choosing which papers to go to and only getting about 5 minutes of Q&A, everybody is in attendance for every paper and we end up with 30-40 minutes of Q&A! Some of the papers are quite interesting and provide a major contribution to discussions with broader evangelicalism as well as fundamentalism. One of the major contributors, Dr. Kevin Bauder, has become the intellectual face of moderate fundamentalism and has published essays in Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (ed. Naselli and Hansen)  and Pilgrims on the Sawdust Trail: Evangelical Ecumenism and the Quest for Self-Identity (ed. Timothy George). Both my father and I presented papers (Dad presented on Eugene Nida's translation philosophy, and I presented on the use and meaning of didaktikos in 1 Timothy 3:2 and 2 Timothy 2:24).

The highlight, however, was a tribute to Dr. Rodney Decker and the reading of his last paper. Dr. Rodney Decker is one of the few genuine scholars to identify within the broader fundamentalist movement in the past few decades (not because fundamentalists are dumb, but rather because we usually don't have time to write as much academic stuff!). Dr. Decker taught at Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Clark Summit,  Pennsylvania, but recently succumbed to terminal cancer. His last paper, "The Christian and Self-Defense," was read both in a chapel and at our Bible Faculty Summit posthumously. Click here for the link to the paper. By the way, Dr. Decker has a few books coming out posthumously as well: Reading Koine Greek and Mark 1-8: A Handbook on the Greek Text (and the second volume to Mark, as well). His scholarship will be missed (final note: his revised dissertation, Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark with Reference to Verbal Aspect, was published by the prestigious Peter Lang publishing company).

One truly final note for this post: I always thought it would be neat if you could have a book, something like Tools for Studying the Bible, co-authored by Dr. Decker and my own adviser, because then you'd have something by "Black and Decker . . ."   (pity my students; this is the type of humor I'll be bringing . . .")