Wheaton College to Host 24th Annual Wheaton Theology Conference April 9-10

Wheaton College will host the 24th Annual Wheaton Theology Conference April 9-10. The theme of this year's conference, which is co-sponsored with IVP Academic, is "The Image of God in an Image Driven Age."

Conference speakers include Dr. Craig Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary; Dr. Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University; Dr. Willie Jennings, Associate Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies, Duke Divinity School; Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, Milton B. Engebretson Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism, North Park University; and Dr. Janet Soskice, Professor of Philosophical Theology, Cambridge University. Speakers from the Wheaton College faculty include Dr. Beth Felker Jones, Associate Professor of Theology; Dr. Matt Milliner, Assistant Professor of Art History; and Dr. Christina Bieber Lake, Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English.

"The theologians in the Biblical and Theological Studies department work together to develop a theme that we think draws on important questions in contemporary theology and will be of interest to students, pastors, and people in ministry," says conference organizer Dr. Beth Felker Jones. "Given how image driven our society is, we thought it would be important to think about what it means to be human bearers of the divine image in this context and culture."

This year's conference also features a collaboration with the Wheaton College Art Department. Joonhee Park, Associate Professor of Art and Communication, has created short videos that highlight the work of art faculty and correspond with thematic sections of the conference. The department will also have a table in the conference lobby where faculty work will be displayed.

"It has been wonderful to be asked to contribute to the conference in a significant way using the tools of our discipline," says Department Chair and Associate Professor of Art David Hooker, whose sculpture, "Corpus," is on permanent display in the Billy Graham Center. "Art is a way of knowing, as valuable as any other way of knowing, but often misunderstood."

"I'm excited that we can present a conference that so fits the liberal arts nature of the College," Jones says. "Theology is interdisciplinary by nature, and it's a privilege to interact with the amazing artists who work at Wheaton. The theological category of image obviously leads us to think about images, and our artists are equipped to do that in a special way."

IVP Academic will publish a book of essays from the 2015 conference in March 2016.

Keynote lectures are free and open to the public and will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday evenings at Barrows Auditorium in the Billy Graham Center, located at 500 College Avenue in Wheaton. For the full list of speakers, or to register for the conference, visit wheaton.edu/theologyconference.