The Paradosis Center at John Brown University in Siloam Spring, Arkansas, put on its first conference last week, it was a remarkable event. It was an ecumenical conference including Orthodox (John Behr, Edith Humphrey, others), Catholic (Rusty Reno, Michael Root, others), and Evangelical (Timothy George, David Lyle Jeffrey). Unusually for such a conference, it focused on a biblical text: the gospel of John.

Some used their assigned text to address disputed points of theology and polity. Michael Root, for instance, explored the Petrine dimensions of John 21, and expanded to look at the interaction of Peter and the Beloved Disciple throughout the gospel. Others simply expounded the text: Edith Humphrey offered a quadrigal mediation on Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well, and John Behr gave a splendid paper on the trial of Jesus, setting it against the cosmic lawsuit theme of Isaiah and John’s gospel as a whole. Over the lunch hour on Saturday, I had the pleasure of being the Protestant on a panel with John Behr and Dominican Thomas Joseph White, fielding questions from JBU students about our differences.

The papers were all of the highest academic quality, and the responses were substantial contributions in their own right. But the ecumenical character of the event infused it with practical concerns for how the church can heal her wounds. It was not just another academic conference. I hope it is the first of many.