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A Conference Exploring Hermeneutics, Text and Culture

READING
TWO
TEXTS

June 10 - 11, 2025

2025 Registration

Please complete registration and payment by MAY 10, 2025

Room Options
Private Room $445
Shared Room $395 (each)
Double Day Rate: no room $200
Tuesday Rate: no room $100
Wednesday Rate: no room $120

Day Rates include meals and happy hours.

Early Arrival (Monday 6/9)

If your travel arrangements include a need for Monday accommodations, please include these totals in your registration fee.

Payment
Electronic Payment (link sent via email)
Send a Check

Checks Payable to

Grace Lutheran Church


Attn: Two Texts Conference

Grace Lutheran Church

6190 Telephone Rd.

Ventura, CA 93003

WHEN /

June 10 - 11, 2025

About the Conference /

Join us for an insightful conference focused on the connections between God's Word and our local contexts in God's World.
 
This event is designed to explore edgy topics, deepen our understandings, and foster open, safe, and meaningful discussions.

WHERE /

St. Mary of the Lake Conference Center
Mundelein, IL

Details /

Retreat and reflect in the quiet, calm, and sacred surroundings on the edge of breathtaking St. Mary's Lake. Amenities include an on-campus meeting hall, overnight lodging for guests, and meals with a hosted happy hour.
 
 

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Rev. Dr. Dieter Reinstorf

Featured Guest Speaker

Former bishop (2010-2023) of the Free Evangelical Lutheran Synod in South Africa (FELSISA).  His academic expertise is New Testament and Hermeneutics, and he has served as a research associate of the Department of New Testament Studies in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria.  

 

He will speak on interpretive issues related to understanding Galatians 3:26-28 within the context of South Africa, especially in the aftermath of Apartheid.

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Dr. Gary Phillips

Featured Guest Speaker

Gary A. Phillips is the Edgar H. Evans Professor of Religion emeritus and Dean of the College emeritus at Wabash College. His scholarship centers on ethics of interpretation and the Bible’s relationship to Western aesthetics, particularly the artwork of Holocaust survivor Samuel Bak.

PUBLICATIONS

 

Dr. Phillips will lead participants in an “exegesis” of the Holocaust art of Samuel Bak and the hermeneutical issues related to interpretation of visual texts, providing an entrée into a theoretical consideration of post-structuralism and its insights into the role of authors, the nature of texts, and the challenge of ethical interpretation.

ARTWORK of SAMUEL BAK

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Rev. Dr. Jeff Kloha

Featured Guest Speaker

Jeff Kloha has served as provost and professor of exegetical theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis and the Chief Curatorial Officer at Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. His areas of expertise include the Pauline epistles and the manuscripts of the New Testament.

 

Using the work of H.-G. Gadamer, he will explore the movement from text into context within a theological framework of the Christocentricity and authority of Scripture and our post-Christian context. Particular attention will be given to culturally “problematic passages,” such as those on wealth, love, and humility.

TUESDAY / JUNE 10

11am Registration

1pm Welcome

1:30pm Dieter Reinstorf
“Reading Galatians 3:28 in an apartheid/post-apartheid context”
2:15pm Discussion

3:15pm Gary Phillips
“Reading a visual text (Samuel Bak) in a post-Holocaust context”
4pm Response & Discussion

5:15pm Happy Hour
6:15pm 
DINNER
Evening Social TBD

WEDNESDAY / JUNE 11

9am Gary Phillips
"The role of authors, the nature of texts, and the problem of ethical interpretation in a post-structural context.”
9:45am Discussion

10:45am Jeff Kloha
“Theological Hermeneutics After Meaning” 
11:30am Discussion

12pm LUNCH BREAK

1:15pm Paul Raabe
“Why Does the Old Testament Play Second Fiddle in the Lutheran Church?”

1:55pm Alec Fisher
"Moving Beyond a Polemical Hermeneutic: The Necessity of Positive Exegesis"

2:30 - 3pm BREAK

3:00pm Nathan Esala
"A tri-polar Approach to Translating/Interpreting the Parable of the Mines (Luke 19:11-27)"

3:35pm John David Duke
"To Judge the Quick and the Dead"

4:10pm Andy Bartelt
“Reading torah as torah (not “law”) in a Lutheran Context

5:15pm Happy Hour
6:15pm DINNER

7pm Dieter Reinstorf
"Reflections on the Republic of South Africa and Reading Two Texts"


Evening Social TBD

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