Tom Oord of the Wesleyan Theological Society (pictured left), who's also a professor of theology and philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University, wrote in to tell us about the society's meeting this past week, the largest in its history. Members joined with scholars from the Society for Pentecostal Studies at Duke University for "Sighs, Signs, and Significance: Wesleyan and Pentecostal Explorations of Science and Creation," a conference that Oord chaired. Here's what he wrote:

Guest theologian Jürgen Motlmann took the conference theme as the structure for his keynote address. Motmann said that interpreting creation involves understanding the natural world and the revealed Scripture as ultimately in harmony. This does not mean that various creation stories in the Bible should be regarded as good contemporary science. But Genesis does tell us the fundamental truth that God is the creator. ...
The meeting was groundbreaking. This was the first time so many theologians, biblical scholars, philosophers, and historians in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition have met together to think deeply on issues of science and theology.