On Monday evening Stauffer Chapel hosted speaker Leonard Allen director of the Abilene Christian University Press and Leafwood Publishing. Allen lectured on the issue of unity within Christianity since the Reformation.
Allen’s lecture focused on Thomas Campbell’s “Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington in honor of the 200-year anniversary of the work’s publishing. He highlighted Campbell’s mission to unite Christian followers and his implication that doctrinal knowledge” does not make one person’s faith stronger than another’s.
“Being a Christian does not consist solely in the accuracy of the interpretation he said. We’ve come to confuse what it means to have trust in the Savior with exact belief in these doctrines.”
Allen quoted Doug Foster’s “A Contemporary Restating of the 13 Propositions” saying “Christ established one church—just one. This church is made up of everyone who has faith in Christ and is trying to follow him in the ways God’s Spirit in scripture has told us and who others can see are being transformed into his likeness by the way they act.”
Several Pepperdine students attended the lecture as well as alumni and members of the Christian community. Freshman Daina Tagavi said she found Allen’s lecture to hold a unique message.
“I guess I’ve come to see the different denominations of Christianity as kind of their own religions Tagavi said. Mr. Allen’s lecture helped me to see that people of all different affiliations are united as Christ’s followers.”
Allen is the author and co-author of many books and holds a Ph. D. in Christian Thought from the University of Iowa School of Religion. He has taught at several universities and currently resides in Siloam Springs Ark.