From Philip Fisk:

It is with great pleasure that we hereby send you the Call for Papers for the Global Jonathan Edwards Congress 2020 from Monday 24 August to Friday 28 August, 2020. This congress will be organized by the Jonathan Edwards Center Benelux, headquartered at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, in cooperation with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, affiliated with the Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale University.

The theme of this congress is “Rationality and Spirituality: Retrieving Jonathan Edwards for Understanding Religion and Spirituality in Human Experience Today.” The congress seeks to create academic space for a multidisciplinary discussion that retrieves and leverages the robust nature of Edwards’s insights into a religious experience that is both rational and spiritual for the benefit of the humanities, church, and society.

Since spirituality reflects underlying beliefs about human existence and experience, there is a need for global theological reflection on the nexus between spirituality and rationality. Although post-Enlightenment thought bears a specious character and prejudice against Christian spirituality—even Christians are overly self-conscious of this burden, often “disenchanted” with medieval and early modern Christian spirituality—with postmodernity has come a renewed interest in spirituality. Some of the finest and most penetrating analysis of the rational and spiritual nature of religious experience is found in the writings of Jonathan Edwards, “America’s Augustine.” See Strobel, Neele, and Minkema, Jonathan Edwards: Spiritual Writings, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press, 2019).

Please carefully consider whether the Call for Papers for this congress resonates with your own research – if so, it would be great if you could submit an abstract for a paper. A special issue of the online journal Jonathan Edwards Studies will be dedicated to publishing a select number of papers presented at the congress.

It would also be great if you could help us spread this Call for Papers in your network, sending it to people whom you know will be interested in this topic. The deadline for turning in proposals is 15 February, 2020.

Sincerely,

Prof. Dr. Andreas J. Beck, Co-director Jonathan Edwards Center Benelux
Prof. Dr. Wim van Vlastuin, Co-director Jonathan Edwards Center Benelux
Dr. Philip J. Fisk, Congress director Jonathan Edwards Center Benelux

Paper proposals should be maximum 300 words and fall within the theme of the congress, as described on the homepage.

Paper proposals can be submitted by email to papers@jedcon2020.be. Please attach two separate Word documents in one email.

• Document one: Your paper proposal. Please include a bibliography with a maximum of five consulted sources. All references to the author should be removed from this document.
• Document two: Your last name, first name, Email address, institutional address, the title of your abstract, the topic under which your paper falls, as well as a short CV (1 page max.).

Deadline: February 15, 2020

We will review all submitted paper proposals and you will receive a response by April 24, 2020. If your proposal is accepted, you will be invited to present your paper at the congress.

Please be advised that your presentation will be limited to approximately twenty minutes.