Award-winning theologian to speak

Dr. J. Todd Billings, associate professor of Reformed theology at Western Theological Seminary and winner of the 2009 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, will speak at Northwestern College Sept. 16 and 17 through the Ronald R. Nelson Scholars and Artists in Residence Program.

Billings will speak on “Salvation as Adoption: An Antidote to Today’s Distant yet Convenient Deity” in a lecture at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 16, in room 313 of Van Peursem Hall. He will also speak in chapel at 10:05 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 17. Both events are free and open to the public.

Billings won the Templeton award for his first book, Calvin, Participation and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2007. He is also the author of The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture, published this year by Eerdmans, and co-editor with Dr. I. John Hesselink of Calvin’s Theology and its Reception: Disputes, Developments and New Possibilities, published this year by John Knox Press.

An ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America and a member of the denomination’s Theology Commission, Billings has assisted community development efforts in Uganda, taught theology in Ethiopia, worked on staff at a Boston-area homeless shelter, and served his local church in various leadership roles. He has lectured in Europe, South Africa and the United States, and has published in a variety of journals and periodicals, including Modern Theology, Harvard Theological Review, Missiology, Christianity Today and Sojourners.

Billings earned a doctorate in theology from Harvard Divinity School, a Master of Divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary and a bachelor’s in philosophy and English from Wheaton College.