Dr. Halvorson is the 6th president of the college and has served for 11 years, the third longest serving president in the history of the college. Through his leadership, the college successfully navigated a global pandemic and other external challenges many schools are experiencing in the world of higher education.

Dr. J. Derek Halvorson ‘93, president of Covenant College, has announced his intention to end his tenure as president on June 30th, 2023. The announcement was made to faculty and staff on Tuesday, January 31st, 2023, and was previously shared with the Board of Trustees a few weeks prior. The Cabinet of vice presidents will continue to provide leadership as the Board of Trustees launches a national search for the next president, in collaboration with faculty, staff, students, and alumni.
In a letter to the community (linked below), Dr. Halvorson said, “I believe that every institution benefits from periodic renewals of leadership. As I look to the college’s future, it is my sense that the time has come for fresh energy and vision that can lead the college into its next phase of growth and development…I am confident the Board is well-equipped and well-prepared to oversee the transition and find the next person God is calling to serve as the president of Covenant College.”
Dr. Halvorson is the 6th president of the college and has served for 11 years, the third longest serving president in the history of the college. Through his leadership, the college successfully navigated a global pandemic and other external challenges many schools are experiencing in the world of higher education.
Looking back on his time as president, Dr. Halvorson shared “Serving Covenant College as its president is one of the greatest honors and privileges of my life. After Jesus Christ and his church, my family, and my closest friends (whom I met at Covenant), I could not love any person or institution more. I am extremely grateful for the people who make up the Covenant College community. My family and I have been blessed in numerous ways by members of this community, both on and off the mountain. We are especially thankful for the support provided by faculty and staff, the enthusiasm for learning and service that students have demonstrated, and the encouragement provided by alumni and other friends of the college. It has been our joy to be loved by you all.”
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President Derek Halvorson’s Letter to the Covenant CommunityCraig Wood, Chairman, Covenant College of the Board of Trustees Letter to the Covenant Community
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When I say that the second coming occurred during the same time described in the book of Acts, I am sure to provoke a few knee-jerk reactions. Today, we have been conditioned to believe the second coming happens in the future when Jesus raptures away the Church from the world. This event, as the left behind novels describe it, will leave the pagan world to sort through millions of piles of clothing, surgical implants, and dentures from the vaporized saints Jesus took away to heaven in their birthday suits. This is not what the Bible teaches and can only be described as an insane and laughable reading of the text.

A Metaphor for NT Eschatology
When constructing an eschatology of the New Testament, you will need to do so in layers, kind of like a house begins with a proper foundation, then successive levels get added, one on top of the next, until finally you can put the chimney and shingles on and live in it. 
The Foundation: Old Testament Eschatology
In that sense, the foundation of New Testament eschatology, the critical understanding that lies under the surface of the New Testament text, is the manifold witness of the Old Testament. If we do not get our eschatological underpinnings from the men of old, or if we do not understand what they were saying rightly, we could waste a lot of energy and effort constructing an eschatological edifice that will not stand. And while many Old Testament passages have been appealed to in our study so far, a fuller Old Testament eschatology is still forthcoming. 
As a reminder, however, of what we have covered so far, the eschaton (the final age of man) was already defined by God in the first age of man. God defined man’s purpose in creation as filling the world with joyful working worshippers (Genesis 1:28). While the first man fell in that task, the rest of the Old Testament is about how a coming man will succeed and have that global Kingdom. While more could be said, that is the point of eschatology in the Old Testament. 
The First Floor: The Eschatology of Jesus
On top of that foundation, however, is the next level of New Testament eschatology developed by Jesus within the Gospels. There, you may have been surprised to learn that Jesus’ teaching on the topic did not concern events long into the future but events that would take place soon after His ascension. This is demonstrated most perfectly in Christ’s Olivet discourse (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) and the chapters leading up to it (Matthew 21-23), where Jesus predicts 2 significant events will happen. The first will be that great woes will fall upon the Jewish people for not correctly stewarding the Old Covenant’s mysteries. The apostate Jews will be removed from their station to make way for Jesus’ new bride, the Church, which is made up of Jews and Gentiles who follow Christ. 
The second cataclysmic event Jesus prophesied was the end of the Old Covenant order. This means with His coming, the Jerusalem temple would be destroyed, the Levitical priesthood would be severed, the sacrificial system ended, the festivals repealed, and everything existing within the Old Covenant that served as a type and shadow for the coming of Jesus would be moved from the mantle to the museum. All of this would be done to make way for Jesus’ end-time Kingdom, manifesting on earth through the Church as He reigns over it at the right hand of God in heaven. This Kingdom, unlike the one of old, would conquer the world that Adam lost and, through the true and better Adam, deliver back to God a world that is finally and fully filled with worshippers. Jesus predicted this Kingdom would be taken away from the apostate Jews and given to the bride of Christ (Matthew 21:43). He indicated that these earth-shattering events would happen within a single generation (Matthew 24:34). And all throughout that forty-year window of time, as the downfall of the Old Kingdom and the rise of the New is happening, Jesus would provide incredible evidentiary signs and wonders to showcase the truthfulness of His claims.
In previous episodes and blogs, we outlined those Olivet signs and wonders and demonstrated how they do not prove a future eschaton but confirm to His disciples what He said. Again, these were near-term events that actually happened in the disciple’s lifetime and would have been a source of incredible comfort and assurance to them as they walked through these events. The signs Jesus gave them to be on the lookout for were the rise of false messiahs in Judah, the uptick in wars and rumors of wars in the ordinarily peaceful Roman Empire (Pax Romana), a marked increase in large earthquakes and famines, a blistering period of persecutions that Jesus called “tribulations,” “signs of the times” (which included a moral collapse of the Judean people, a period of great evangelism throughout the Roman world, and a great apostasy from increased tortures and persecution), an abomination of desolation in the Jerusalem temple before it was destroyed, a period of great tribulations for the Christians just before Jerusalem was destroyed, a judgment coming of Christ to bring God’s wrath upon the apostate city and temple through the Roman armies (Part 1 and Part 2), and apocalyptic signs and wonders in the heavens to confirm what Jesus was saying. These teachings from Christ in the Gospels encapsulate the first level of New Testament Eschatology that is built upon the witness of Moses and the Prophets. 
The Second Floor: The Eschatology of Acts
After constructing a foundation for eschatology from the Old Testament and the first story that was given to us by Christ in the Gospels, we have now made our way up the staircase to the second story of our end-times building, which is provided by Luke in the book of Acts. While many do not think of Acts as an eschatological book, it is the only book in the New Testament that details the earliest days of the Christian Church. And in that sense, it is critical to confirm whether we have understood the Old Testament passages and Jesus rightly. 
Think about it like this, a derelict builder may construct a shoddy foundation, with a piss-poor, jerry-rigged first floor, without too many people noticing. The building stands, its flaws can be covered up a bit, and many uninformed consumers will jump on the discounted price, being none-the-wiser. But, the higher a building goes, the more exacerbated foundation-level issues will become. An inconspicuous error on the ground floor of a building, every cockeyed brick or wonky beam, will become a catastrophe on a higher level (as anyone who has ever played Jinga can attest). In this way, the higher floors confirm a foundation’s trustworthiness and faithfulness. This is precisely what the book of Acts does for the eschatology we have been teaching. It proves that we have understood the Old Testament correctly and that Jesus’ prophecies were coming true in the time frame that He has given. 
For instance, when it comes to Acts confirming the eschatology of the Old Testament, the book gives several fascinating details. It begins with Jesus going up to heaven with the clouds, fulfilling Daniel 7. Jesus also tells His disciples that He has all authority in fulfillment of Psalm 2 and that His disciples are to take His Kingdom to the ends of the earth, fulfilling Daniel 2, Isaiah 9, and Zechariah 7. We also saw how the coming of the Holy Spirit mirrored God’s coming on Sinai, how speaking in tongues reverses the curse of Babel, and how prophecies like Joel 2 were fulfilled before the onlooking Jerusalem crowd’s eyes at Pentecost. This is a brief sketch, but it does demonstrate how the book confirms a near-term first-century inauguration of the final eschaton. 
In the same way, the book of Acts confirms many of the details that Jesus prophesied in the Olivet Discourse and the Gospels.
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She begins her book with the Anderson family. Moving from California back to Georgia and to their seeker sensitive megachurch in “the Bible Belt,” they thought they had left behind churches in which Leftist politics were pushed. They found the hard way that was not so, particularly after James Anderson was asked to join a “racial reconciliation” study, “Be the Bridge,” in which white participants were not allowed to speak for the first six months. They stuck it out for a while, but then moved to a PCA (Presbyterian Church in America, an orthodox denomination) church, only to find Critical Race Theory pushed from that pulpit and a service turned into something akin to a “struggle session.” The Andersons found out through difficult experience that “this is a bigger problem . . . not just California craziness.” Basham tells such stories well, letting readers know that more than politics are at stake but also the spiritual health of churches and people.

For months I’ve been eager to read Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale – How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. I’ve oft wished that it had been released before this summer of politics and of church conventions and assemblies. So when the local Barnes and Nobles let it slip onto their shelves before this week’s release date in what Basham has called a “small snafu,” I snapped up a copy. I’d rather call it a felix culpa!
Having become familiar with her online work, I expected a well researched, no nonsense work. Megan Basham keeps receipts and knows how to use them! And the book is indeed that, reflected by the footnotes and index taking up 72 pages.
What I did not expect is that Shepherds for Sale would be so well written. I knew Basham is an excellent communicator, but such skills do not always translate well to a book format. I expected a needed, well documented book; I did not expect one which would not only be easy to read but even hard to put down at times.
This is quite the accomplishment given the difficult and complex subject of evangelical leaders being too eager to heed and please the woke globalist culture of powerful elites, too sloppy in applying the Bible to today’s political and social issues, and too willing to take money from Leftist entities such as Soros. The predictable result is somewhat orthodox leaders and churches pushing toxic ideologies and politics.
Basham organizes the chapters of Shepherds for Sale mainly into how evangelical leaders have done so in the areas of climate change, illegal immigration, watering down and diverting what “pro-life” means, COVID propaganda and suppression, Critical Race Theory, #MeToo and #ChurchToo, and drift on LGBTQ issues. In addition, a chapter focuses on how Christianity Today and the Trinity Forum have departed from their original missions to become influencers for the Left with the help of money from the Rockefellers, E-bay founder Pierre Omidyar, the Lilly Endowment and more.
Yes, not pleasant topics to say the least. Yet Basham’s writing on these is assessable and engaging. And she makes Shepherds for Sale personal and relevant by telling real life stories, including narratives of how families have been affected by evangelical drift.
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