Southwestern launches Center for Early Christian Studies

Note: This story was originally published on Baptist Press. See here for the original article.  

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has launched a new center dedicated to the study of the ancient church called the Southwestern Center for Early Christian Studies (SCECS). The seminary has a long history of research and publications in early Christianity, but now it meets with a heightened focus. A new website, special lectures, patristic reading groups, regular graduate and postgraduate seminars, and a group of faculty and students dedicated to researching the early church will all be features of this new initiative.

“In recent years, Evangelicalism and early Christianity have been intersecting in new and exciting ways,” says Stephen Presley, director of the SCECS and associate professor of church history at Southwestern. “Every month, it seems there are conferences surveying the life and thought of the early church, seminars retrieving early Christian thought, or new publications engaging the early Christian world. As an institution, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is uniquely positioned to have an important voice in these conversations.”

Through its website, earlychristianstudies.org, the SCECS, Presley says, “aims to facilitate concentrated research and teaching in early Christianity that recovers important theological voices of the past.” He continues, “This website will be a clearing house for patristics resources. The features of the website will include discussions of current research in patristics, news about events and conferences related to the early church, regular updates about resources for early Christian studies, interviews and lectures on topics related to the study of the early church, and much more.”

Southwestern’s patristics scholars—including Presley, Dean of the School of Theology D. Jeffrey Bingham, Executive Vice President and Provost Craig Blaising, Assistant Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology Dongsun Cho, and President Paige Patterson—have a range of specializations and research interests in the early church, including various doctrinal, hermeneutical, archaeological, cultural/historical, and philosophical topics. The confluence of these interests, Presley says, “will strengthen the contribution of the SCECS and help make Southwestern an exciting place to study early Christianity.”

The SCECS will uphold Southwestern’s mission, vision and values by equipping students and ministers to make important contributions to the field of early Christian studies and recover the significant theological voices of the early church. In addition, the center will support local churches through providing resources for pastors and lay people who want to learn more about early Christian life and thought.

“We are excited about this new initiative and the prospects it holds for future research and teaching at the seminary,” Presley says. “For any prospective students or researchers in early Christianity, I encourage you to check out our website and subscribe for regular updates.

“Most of all, through the work of the center, we will strive to read more old books and, in the words of [C.S.] Lewis, ‘keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds.’”[1]