http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_4ad3e808-5d10-11e1-ab81-0019bb2963f4.html
From the L’Abri brochure: “L’Abri is a French word that means ‘the shelter‘. The first L’Abri community was founded in Switzerland in 1955 by Dr. Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith. Dr. Schaeffer was a Christian Theologian and philosopher who also authored books on theology, philosophy, general culture and the arts. The L’Abri communities are residential study centers in Europe, America, Canada, South Korea, and Brazil where individuals can seek answers to honest questions about God and the significance of human life. L’Abri believes that Christianity speaks to all aspects of life, and L’Abri conferences provide lectures discussions and personal interaction on a variety of ethical and cultural issues.”
I could have tried to describe it myself, but it seemed that they already did such a good job. I hope that you have a better grasp of it now as I write about it.
One of the students here at church, Joel Sikkema, and I went to the conference this year in Rochester. Apparently they have been doing the conference for 17 years now in Rochester and it has grown from a few people to around 800. The theme of the conference was “In the Beginning…Celebrating and Defending the Doctrine of Creation in a Naturalistic Culture” Given where we are at, and what Areopagus is all about this conference was a good fit for us. It was two very full days of good lectures and break out sessions, as well as lunch discussions.
The demographics of those who were in attendance was quite varied. There were scholars and then there were families with their kids and many in between.
People spoke to us from many different perspectives: Biblical Scholars, English professors, film critics and Philosophers.
Some of my favorite speakers were Jack Collins talking about the proper understanding of the beginning of Genesis, Denis Haack on film, and Dick Keyes talking about the meaning of life and helping us understand the meaning of meaning (I know, sounds complicated, but it’s important). Issues of Human sexuality were also touched on and Joel and I had several rousing discussions on this and film during time off and during our trip back.
There are so many things I could say, but I might bore you. I have many pages of notes and several new books to review and read. Hopefully next year will provide a promising conference as well, and I hope to get a few more students interested in going.
Below are are few pictures from the conference.
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- Denis Haack talking about film.
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- Nancy Pearcey: “Sex, Lies, and Secularism”
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- A view of those in attendance.
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- “Bookstore”
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- L’Abri table
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- Denis Haack speaking about film.
Here is the first of two much belated posts from the L’Abri conference (Feb 10-11).
After arriving in Rochester on Thursday evening, Joel Sikkema and I checked in to our hotel and then headed out to check out what was available for dinner. We walked around the downtown area, and were looking for something unique. As we first left the hotel, a small family restaurant caught our attention, but we decided to take a stroll through a mall area to see what else was available.
As we walked a little further, we discovered Rochester’s Ice Festival/ Ice bar. They had set up a common area as an outside bar, complete with ice tables, and little fire pots to keep people warm. They also had a band playing from the skywalk , which was really cool. There wasn’t a lot of food there, so we kept walking. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me to capture this, so you’ll just have to imagine!
After taking a look around we decided that we would give the little family restaurant a try. Little did we know that it was actually a Dutch restaurant! Now, I grew up in Sully, and went to school in Pella, which doesn’t really get much more Dutch than that, but I can’t really say that I have ever seen a restaurant like this before. Usually Dutch seems to be manifest as a bakery or cheese or meat market, but I’d never heard of traditional Dutch food.
Anyways, we sat down and started to take a look at the menu to see what exactly this place was. While we were perusing the menu a waitress comes running out of the kitchen bringing a plate full of food to another customer and yelling: “PANNEKOEKEN!” Needless to say Joel and I were a bit surprised by this and thought it was pretty funny. We decided that we should get pannekoeken’s as well, so that we could have a first hand experience of this. However, somehow we managed to order something else called a pannekette, and unfortunately the waitress just brings those out without any fanfare. The food we ate seemed like it was some sort of fluffy pancake item with a lot of vegetables and or meat in it. It was quite tasty.
It was really interesting to see a Dutch Restaurant decorated with pictures of Dutch people I didn’t know. They had a surprising lack of delft, but you could still tell it was Dutch, although someone did point out that they weren’t sure that Dutch people drank out of Mason jars 
Below is a photo of my meal that Joel was kind enough to take with his phone. Also, check out their Facebook Page. Soon, hopefully, I will have another post about the L’Abri conference itself.
Me enjoying my pannekette at Pannekoeken.
