Trinity and Geneva: travels in western PA

Much of last week I spent in the Pittsburgh area speaking at two educational institutions. The first was Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge. I had known of this institution for a long time, because my good friend William G. Witt teaches systematic theology and ethics there. I spoke on two subjects. The first took place at the Dean's Hour on wednesday morning, 15 February. It was about "Ideology and Idolatry," covering the basics of my first book, Political Visions and Illusions, with a preview of what is coming in my third book. My second talk was on metrical psalmody, which you can read about here. The second person responsible for my visit was the new Dean President, Bryan Hollon, who had heard me speak five years ago at Malone University in Canton, Ohio.

The following day Bill and I drove up to nearby Beaver Falls, the home of Geneva College, a Christian university established in 1848 by members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA), or Covenanters. That evening I delivered the Byron I. Bitar Memorial Lecture, titled, "It's All About Me: How Right and Left have masked the dominance of liberalism in North American public life." The current polarization between left and right, especially in the United States, is not one rooted in deep principle. Rather, both sides adhere to different elements within the larger liberal tradition, the right embracing what C. B. MacPherson dubbed possessive individualism and the left what Charles Taylor describes as expressive individualism. Neither has room for basic institutions irreducible to mere voluntary associations. I was introduced by Willem de Ruijter, Vice President of Enrolment and Marketing, who was a student of mine about fifteen years ago.

I owe a great debt to the RPCNA, because its members educated my late father between 80 and 75 years ago at the American Academy in Larnaca, Cyprus. The headmaster, Dr. William Wilbur Weir and his wife Elizabeth, mentored my father in his youth and helped to shape him into the godly man I knew growing up. Elizabeth in particular encouraged my father in writing poetry, an avocation that lasted into his final years. After I delivered my lecture, a young lady approached me and introduced herself as the great-granddaughter of the Weirs. I was quite emotionally moved to meet a descendant of the couple who had had such a formative influence on my father.

This is the first travelling I had done since my illness of last May and the first air travel since the start of the pandemic three years ago. I am grateful to God for providing these opportunities to speak at such fine institutions.