Adam G Beaver

I recently returned from Grand Rapids, MI, where I attended a small conference on “Renaissance Visions of Christian Origins” organized by Kate van Liere, Howard Louthan, and Simon Ditchfield. The conference was marvelous, and I hope to post a some new thoughts about historia sacra here in the near future. In the meantime, though, I should mention one of the ancillary benefits of attending the conference: the opportunity to get to know Calvin College, and Grand Rapids, a little bit better. Calvin has a lovely campus and some very engaged students, and the Grand Rapids Art Museum has quite an impressive collection of prints. Not to be outdone are the Meijer Gardens, a nature preserve-cum-sculpture garden patronized by the supermarket moguls of the same name. Among the open air exhibits we found Bill Woodrow‘s “Listening to History.” Not exactly the most enticing portrait of historical study, is it? However long the hours and hard the work of our conference, at least it never came to this…