Talk Examines Christian Spiritual Formation

Steve L. Porter, the new senior research fellow and executive director of Westmont’s Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture, offers his inaugural lecture Friday, April 28, at 3:30 p.m. in the Global Leadership Center. The talk, “Knowing Christ Today: The Shape of Christian Spiritual Formation in the Academy and Church for the Sake of the World," is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

Amos Yong, dean of the School of Mission and Theology and professor of theology and mission at Fuller School of Theology; Gregg Ten Elshof, professor of philosophy at Biola University; and Andrea Gurney, professor of psychology at Westmont, will respond to the lecture.

“My inaugural lecture will help set the stage for the ongoing work of the Martin Institute and its centers in light of the significant work of Dallas Willard,” Porter says. “I’m increasingly convinced that the Martin Institute — and efforts like it — are exactly what we need today. Cultural, ecclesial and psychological factors keep Christians from consistently living out the kind of life Jesus came to offer, and the church and world are in crisis because of it.”

Inspired by the work of the late Dallas Willard, the Martin Institute seeks to support a new generation of leaders in Christian spiritual formation and to help establish this field as a domain of publicly available knowledge open to research and pedagogy of the highest order.

Porter graduated from Biola University, earned a master’s degree from Talbot School of Theology and a Master of Philosophy in philosophical theology from Oriel College at the University of Oxford before receiving a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Southern California.