What Really Matters?: A Collection of Letters from the L. D. Johnson Series

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.