October 2000
Back Issues

Contents

• Emmanuel inaugurates new faculty chair
• From the President: A High Holy Day on the Holy Hill
• Film theology class to be offered
• Students use summer vacation to teach in Kenya
• Dr. Cynthia Hale to Lecture at Emmanuel October 10–13
• McNabb named Associate Director of Development

Emmanuel School of Religion is pleased to announce the establishment of the Toyozo W. Nakarai Chair of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament to honor the seminary’s former Distinguished Professor of Old Testament. The chair will provide funding for the faculty position held by Dr. Robert Owens, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Owens was installed in the Nakarai Chair during a special convocation service on August 30 in the Seminary’s chapel.

Owens said, “I feel greatly honored to have a title that bears the name of Toyozo Nakarai. Dr. Nakarai was a distinguished biblical scholar and a deeply spiritual person who devoted his life to the service of the Gospel and the Christian ministry. His support and encouragement during my early years on the Emmanuel faculty have been very important to my own formation as a teacher of ministerial students.”

Shortly after Dr. Nakarai’s death in 1984, a fund was initiated to endow a faculty chair at Emmanuel in his honor. Earlier this year, completion of the $500,000 fund was announced. Dr. Owens, who has served Emmanuel in the Old Testament department since 1980, was the natural choice to fill the chair.

Dr. Toyozo W. Nakarai, a native of Kyoto, Japan, was one of the founding faculty members of Emmanuel School of Religion. He served the school as a Professor of Old Testament from 1965 until his death in 1984.

Dr. Robert Owens, who lives in Johnson City, is a specialist in the ancient Syriac Peshitta version of the Bible. He has been invited to participate in both of the international Peshitta symposiums held at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands. He is a contributor to the new Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon project, working with computer manipulation of Syriac texts. His areas of special interest and competence include Old Testament textual criticism, Hebrew Wisdom literature, the history of worship, and ancient Syriac-speaking Christianity.

From the President
A High Holy Day on the Holy Hill

We enjoy our “high holy days” here at Emmanuel School of Religion. They are special times of praise and celebration that happen just a few times each year. Convocation in the fall and Commencement in the spring are two regular occasions. Then there are those unique events such as we will have on October 25, 2000, when we dedicate the Emmanuel Village. We plan a formal service, invite in our friends from surrounding communities, and then join in an occasion of praise and celebration. For those of you who have read the mystery novels of Dorothy Sayers, we might have called these occasions “Gaudy Nights,” but for us they are high holy days.

Nothing could have been more significant in the Emmanuel calendar than what happened on August 30. The annual Fall Convocation was dedicated to the inauguration of the Toyozo W. Nakarai Chair of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Dr. Robert Owens, who succeeded Dr. Nakarai as Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, was installed in that chair.

Dr. Nakarai was a founding faculty member of Emmanuel. He served the School as Professor of Old Testament from 1965 until his death in 1984. Hundreds of Emmanuel graduates testify to the impact Dr. Nakarai’s scholarship and Christian character had upon them. Dr. Owens follows in that tradition. He is a consummate scholar-teacher, and he teaches with a pastor’s heart for his students. His commitment to Christ and His Church is a model for Christian scholars.

As I meet Emmanuel alumni during my travels, their conversations tend to go very quickly to individual professors who had a particularly important impact on their lives. Perhaps we can all name teachers from our school years who were not only helpful but who played a decisive role in shaping who we are today. We remember them and we honor them. And we grieve when we hear of their passing. There were three such teachers who had a decisive impact on my life: Lloyd Robbins at Midwest Christian College, Sam Hamilton at Fort Hays Kansas State College, and O.K. Bouwsma at the University of Nebraska. The last of these three master teachers passed away in mid-August. Sam Hamilton was a philosophy teacher who saw his vocation as ministry. When I received word of his death I wrote the following tribute:

“Perhaps it was Sam Hamilton himself who coined the phrase, the Fellowship of the Unaccredited, but that described so many of us who found our way to Fort Hays Kansas State College. Those of us who came from the unaccredited Bible colleges were fully aware that our educational opportunities would have, for all practical purposes, come to an end had not Sam Hamilton created a way for us to enter graduate studies at Fort Hays.

“Sam not only gave me the opportunity to enter graduate school, he uncovered within me an interest that had always been there, but remained unidentified. Sam modeled what it meant to be a Christian philosopher. He also modeled what it meant to be an engaging teacher with a pastoral concern for his students.

“Once a week we met for an evening seminar in Sam’s home. The 90-mile drive back to Oakley late at night was always one of exhilaration as the discussion of Kierkegaard churned in my mind.”

I thank God that in His providence He made Sam Hamilton my teacher and pastor, and I am but one of the scores of people that he affected in similar ways. Each year at the Commencement Service here at Emmanuel School of Religion I quote to our graduates Paul’s words to the Thessalonians: “For what is hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of the Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed you are our glory and joy.” It is for those of us of the Fellowship of the Unaccredited to make every effort to be Sam’s glory and joy.

In James 3:1 we are warned, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” How true that is! But at the same time those who teach have the opportunity to be God’s agents at some of the most decisive times in the lives of their students. Dr. Robert Owens and his colleagues who teach at Emmanuel School of Religion do so with the full awareness of both this responsibility and this joy.

 
Film theology class to be offered

Dr. E. LeRoy Lawson, president of Hope International University, and Dr. C. Robert Wetzel, president of Emmanuel School of Religion, will offer the course “Theology in the Cinema” during Emmanuel’s Intersession January 9–19. The course will explore theological themes that appear in popular films.

Lawson holds the Ph.D. in English literature from Vanderbilt University. He is a nationally known preacher, most recently having served as the senior minister of the Central Christian Church in Mesa, Ariz. Wetzel holds the Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Nebraska. In addition to his administrative duties, he is Emmanuel’s Professor of Ethics and Philosophical Theology.

Because movies are often taken to be simply entertainment, viewers often miss their more serious implications. These implications range from positive and helpful insights into the Christian world-view to negative and even demonic views of life in general and of the Christian message in particular. The course will consist in viewing and discussing selected films as well as reading from the considerable volume of literature on theology and the cinema.

 
Students use summer vacation to teach in Kenya

The AIC Missionary College in Eldoret, Kenya, welcomed two Emmanuel students as teachers this past July.

Dr. Kip Elolia, Emmanuel’s Associate Professor of Christian Doctrine and Missiology and a native of Kenya, was asked by the college to organize advanced courses in missions that would help their students toward earning a bachelor’s degree. Elolia knew it could be a learning situation for both the teachers and students, so he recruited two of his Emmanuel students to join him in Kenya to teach for two weeks in July.

Rand Winter, a former attorney who at one time made his home in Key West, now ministers with the Unicoi, Tennessee, Christian Church. What attracted him to Elolia’s appeal for teachers was “the opportunity to help train preachers who could go places where I couldn’t go.” Danny Johnson, a graduate of San Jose Christian College, also responded to the call. He currently serves as minister of Johnson City’s Thankful Baptist Church.

Seventeen students enrolled in the July courses at AIC Missionary College. Winter taught an introduction to theology course, while Johnson led a preaching class. “I had never seen such dedication to learning,” Elolia said. “The oldest student in the group told me that he had not read a book apart from the Bible since he graduated from Bible college 30 years ago. At the end of the course, the same student came to me and held my hand while thanking me for bringing such dedicated teachers. This says volumes on the way in which our lecturers presented the material.”

Said Johnson, “We were made to feel very welcome by all and the classroom experience was truly delightful. These pastors modeled a level of commitment that is to be appreciated.”

Winter was impressed by the diligence of the students. “One indication of how graciously we were received is that, even in view of the long daily class sessions, the students often were so interested that they held Danny over after quitting time. In addition, the students had some work and reading to do in the evening hours, and also spent some quite lively hours among themselves discussing what they were learning.”

Elolia became involved with the AIC Missionary College through Edward Limo, a Christian who donated land on which the college’s 50-acre campus was built. The college, which is near Elolia’s hometown, approached him with the idea of bringing students from Emmanuel to teach. “The AIC Missionary College currently offers a diploma in missions which is the equivalent of an associate degree,” Dr. Elolia said. “They would like to offer advanced courses in missions that would lead to the bachelors degree.” Elolia said that the AIC Missionary College wants to continue offering the July classes every year and hopes to partner with other institutions around the world who wish to send their students for cross-cultural experience in Kenya.

Said Johnson, “To have opportunity to impact the lives of persons dedicated to the Lord and His people encouraged me about the work still needed in the United States.”

 
Dr. Cynthia Hale to Lecture at Emmanuel October 10–13

Emmanuel School of Religion will host the second installment of the Myron Taylor Lectures in Preaching and Pastoral Care on October 10–13 at 10:45 a.m. each day. The Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Hale, founding pastor of Ray of Hope Church in Atlanta, is the featured lecturer.

A native of Roanoke, Virginia, Dr. Hale’s natural talent in music led her to study at Hollins College in Virginia, from which she received her Bachelor of Arts degree. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Duke University and a Doctorate of Ministry from United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio.

She served as a chaplain for Federal correctional facilities in Colorado and North Carolina prior to founding the Ray of Hope Church.

Dr. Hale was inducted into the African American Biographies Hall of Fame, Atlanta, Georgia and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Bethany College, West Virginia. She is a 1993 recipient of the Martin Luther King’s Board of Preachers, and serves as a member of Project Impact-DeKalb.

The Myron Taylor Lectures in Preaching and Pastoral Ministry were established at Emmanuel School of Religion in 1996, and the inaugural lecture series was presented in 1998 by Dr. Myron Taylor, who then served as the minister of the Westwood Hills Christian Church in Los Angeles.

The lectures, which will be held in Emmanuel’s Mildred Welshimer Phillips Memorial Chapel, are free and the public is invited to attend.

 
McNabb named Associate Director of Development

Jeffrey C. McNabb has been named Associate Director of Development at Emmanuel School of Religion. A graduate of Milligan College and Emmanuel School of Religion (M.Div. 1990), he is presently enrolled in Emmanuel’s Doctor of Ministry degree program. Jeff recently concluded a 12-year ministry with the First Christian Church in Greeneville, Tennessee, where he served first as Youth Minister and then Senior Minister. He had previous ministries in Kingsport, Tenn., and Phoenix, Ariz.

Dan Lawson, Executive Director of Development, said “Jeff brings to our development staff a long history of relationships in the church, from Milligan College, Emmanuel, and East Tennessee. We are most pleased to welcome him to the Emmanuel staff.”

Jeff and his wife, Susan, have two daughters, Maia, 15 and Alyssa, 11. They reside in Greeneville, Tenn.