What Really Matters‪?‬

The guiding purpose behind the L. D. Johnson Memorial Lecture series at Furman University is to raise the question “What really matters?” and to learn from various faculty some answers to that question. Of course, the purpose of the series was also to encourage a broader audience to consider the question and their answers. These lectures are not about Dr. L. D. Johnson, for he would have been quick to direct the focus back toward the important question they raise. Instead, these lectures and their writers focus on what Johnson himself focused, the ­question and the search, with the hope that each reader will join in the search alongside him.


L. D. Johnson (1917-1981) was chaplain of Furman University, where under his ­direction the Furman Pastors School became the largest ­program of ­continuing theological ­education in the country. A native of Oklahoma, he was a graduate of George Washington University (B.A.) and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Th.M., Th.D.). His pastorates included First Baptist Church, Greenville, South Carolina, and First Baptist Church, Danville, Virginia.


Thomas O. Buford is Louis G. Forgione Professor of Philosophy at Furman University, where he has taught since 1968. He is the author of seven books, including Ambushed on the Way to Glory: Finding the Way Through Jesus’ Parables(Smyth & Helwys, 1991). In 1985 he founded the Personalist Forum, a ­philosophical ­journal ­committed to the view that ­persons are first and to ­exploring themes related to living good lives.


Contributors

Tony Arrington

Albert Blackwell

Thomas O. Buford

Marguerite Chiles

Thomas Cloer, Jr.

John Henry Crabtree

Susan S. D’Amato

James C. Edwards

A.V. Huff, Jr.

Linda A. Julian

James B. Leavell

Duncan McArthur

Gerda McCahan

Robert McNamara

James M. Pitts

Theron D. Price

Richard W. Riley

Jeffrey S. Rogers

David W. Rutledge

David Shi

James Smart

David Turner

Bingham Vick, Jr.