Kent Eilers

Books on the Christian life abound. Some focus on spirituality, others on practices, and others still on doctrines such as justification or forgiveness. Few offer an account of the Christian life that portrays redeemed Christian existence within the multifaceted and beautiful whole of the Christian confession. This book attempts to fill that gap. It provides a constructive, specifically theological interpretation of the Christian life according to the nature of God's grace. This means coordinating the Triune God, his reconciling, justifying, redemptive, restorative, and otherwise transformative action with those practices of the Christian life emerging from it. The doctrine of the Christian life developed here unifies doctrine and life, confession and practice within the divine economy of grace. Drawing together some of the most important theologians in the church today, Sanctified by Grace achieves what no other theological text offers – a shared work of dogmatic theology oriented to redeemed Christian existence. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sanctified-by-grace-9780567323064/#sthash.m8tZ99tT.dpuf

sible to understand. Hence, to say that such matters are inscrutable in this life seems to go too far, especially when there is a decent amount of biblical and theological material that seemingly points toward some models of the Spirit’s sanctifying work more so than others. With that said, Miller is not a systematic theologian and makes no claim to be developing a systematic or philosophical theology of the Christian doctrine of sanctification. That he even attends to the question in the way that he does is admirable. Indeed, one sign of a good book is that you are left wanting more. Perhaps Miller’s next project will be a book-length treatment of Christian virtue formation. His accessible style and appreciation of psychology would make such a work tremendously valuable. In the meantime, Miller’s The Character Gap is an informed and accessible introduction to the moral psychology of character development.

When teaching theology, mystery is unavoidable and—perhaps less obviously—it’s essential. The presence of mystery confirms that our attention still rests on the Living God, and not on some lesser thing of our making. We shouldn’t avoid theological mysteries or tamp down their tensions, but revel in them. This essay highlights reasons for student discomfort with mystery, shows how theological mystery is essential for teaching and learning in theology, and offers a way forward so that student encounters with mystery become gateway for invigorating their investment in the study of theology.

Zoom, or whatever cloud-based video conferencing platform one uses, can help or hinder education. However, Zoom especially jeopardizes the personal dimension of education by giving the impression of personal connection while simultaneously inviting distance. Specifically, Zoom invites "interpassive" teaching, to borrow a term from cultural theorist Robert Pfaller.

The context: I use this exam strategy at the end of a two semester theology cycle with upper-level undergraduate students majoring in ministry, missions, and theology. The pedagogical purpose: The oral exam evaluates content mastery. Its design also fosters learning by deepening comprehension, sharpening theological skills, and-unique to this format-creating novel teaching opportunities through conversation. These objectives are mirrored in the following learning outcomes. (1) Demonstrate and deepen understanding of selected topics in Christian theology. This requires drawing together course content and verbally articulating one's understanding (skill: concise synthesis). (2) Demonstrate and deepen the ability to imaginatively and fittingly apply understanding to environments and situations outside the classroom. This requires deliberating about how one's understanding will direct appropriate, apt participation in faith communities, culture, and world (skill: creative transference). Description of the Strategy: FORMAT: The exam consists of four questions, stretches forty-five minutes, and is conducted one-on-one. The setting is my office, but students may choose other venues. The most common is a walk around campus (think of St. Anselm and Boso). Students may also use creative means to organize, remember, and then frame their prepared responses: drawing on a chalk board, painting on a canvas, or even playing a piano. PREPARATION: Students are given two weeks to prepare responses (group preparation encouraged). Each question has an objective and subjective part: the objective requires demonstrating mastery of course content, and the subjective part invites deliberation about appropriate transference. We typically complete two questions. EVALUATION: Evaluation is based on their performance of three competencies: mastery of content, clarity, and creativity. As they articulate their prepared responses and respond to my follow-up questions, I award points based on the accuracy and depth of understanding, creativity in fitting transference, and the clarity of presentation. I distribute my rubric in advance. Why it is effective: (1) The exam is a learning opportunity replete with unexpected, poignant teaching moments: inaccuracies to correct, misunderstandings to redirect , creative insights to affirm and build upon, and fresh possibilities to explore. It is what a written exam can never be: theological conversation. (2) Verbalizing compels comprehension and concision. It is one thing to understand, but it is quite another to concisely verbalize understanding. (3) Finally, individualized presentation invites self-discovery. Students discover fresh vehicles for self-expression.

(Excerpt)

"‘The Christian life’ is theological shorthand for redeemed human existence in communion with the triune God through union with Christ in the Spirit. That is, it names the temporal experience of God’s eternal purposes for fellowship as they are realized in human beings according to God’s grace. To state it yet another way, to address ‘the Christian life’ is to speak about the character of reconciled and renewed human existence. God’s gracious purpose to conform fallen people to the image of Christ takes shape and fulfils itself in time and space; this is the Christian life.

Putting it this way points out the rich doctrinal nexus within which the doctrine of the Christian life is situated. While the primary reference of ‘the Christian life’ is the lived experience of Christian identity, as a doctrinal locus it stands dogmatically related to other areas of Christian witness such as the doctrines of the Trinity, creation and providence, Christ, the church and the final consummation (to name a few). Being so related, the doctrine of the Christian life is informed and illumined by a whole series of theological claims about God, such as his relation to created reality, his reconciling works and the human activities which arise from them. In turn, those other doctrines are likewise informed and illumined through the doctrine of the Christian life. Our approach thus articulates a theology of the Christian life in terms of the whole of the Christian confession rather than just one dimension" (p. 3).

In the closing lines of Alistair MacIntyre's After Virtue, he cryptically suggests that the moral revitalization of the post-Christian West requires the witness of another " doubtless very different " St. Benedict. 1 The figure of St. Benedict embodied for MacIntyre the ideal of local communities of virtue " within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the dark ages which are already upon us. " Three decades on from MacIntyre's remark we are, perhaps, witnessing St. Benedict's return. This essay explores the possibility of that return among new monastics, most specifically as it is represented in the work of Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. In what follows, I hope to show that the ecclesial renewal sought by new monastics necessitates not merely the formation of monastic-like communities who perform monastic-like practices, but the cultivation and maintenance of a distinctly theological imagination sufficient to fund the meaning of its forms of life. In other words, new monastic retrieval requires a community whose shared theological imagination makes its practices intelligible, sensible, and livable. The focus of the essay rests most heavily on the texture of new monastic retrieval, specifically its social dimensions. 2 Close attention to many new monastics suggests that they are involved not merely with the repristination of foregone practices or lost ideals. Instead, they seek to retrieve a social reality in which doctrines and practices are intimately wedded. Retrieval such as this is necessarily social in orientation, and, as I will argue in what follows, necessarily theological, though for reasons that might not be apparent at first. The essay proceeds in three parts. The first section is largely descriptive. I begin by tracing the outlines of the object of new monastic retrieval (the " monastic impulse ") to show it as a past that the new monastics believe we inhabit. I fill out this sketch in the second section by focusing on two books by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and bringing him into conversation with Charles Taylor. Taylor's idea of " social imaginary " offers a useful conceptual tool to better understand the interplay between imagination and practices. In the final part, I introduce Etienne Wenger's social theory of learning as an interpretive angle for considering my primary contention: new monastic retrieval requires the formation and

This essay explores the category of “mystery” in the theology of Rowan Williams. There is, or should be, an ongoing strangeness to Christian speech in that it never ceases questioning, probing, and unsettling. Williams finds the logic for this in the resurrection narratives. The resurrection is for Williams an event that upends, overturns, and re-forms the cosmos; it establishes a form of Christian community and a distinctive cadence for Christian language. The essay investigates this cadence as it appears in Williams’ writing on theological method, his work on the resurrection of Christ, and his engagement with the fiction of Dostoevsky and Marylinne Robinson.

(Excerpt)

All Christian prayer is trinitarian prayer, and this is true whether the one who calls on God in prayer recognizes it or not. Its foundation, direction, and grain are given by God’s saving economy in which the Christian is caught up: Christians pray by the Spirit, through the Son, and to God the Father. The Father is the object of prayer not merely because Christians follow the pattern and teaching of Jesus, but also because, as adopted sons and daughters and coheirs with Christ, God is their Father and knows their needs before they ask (Matt. 6:8-9; Rom. 8:15–24; Gal. 3:29; 4:5–6; Eph. 1:5, 3:1; Titus 3:7). Christians share in the sonship of the Son who continually intercedes for them as their high priest and brother; their prayers never initiate but only join (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25). And even this joining is a gift of grace, for the Holy Spirit is their gift who cries out from within them, “Abba Father!” (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). When their own words fail, the Spirit groans for them according to God’s will, finding expression when the one who prays can find no words at all (Rom. 8:26). Hans Urs von Balthasar thus writes, “The very possibility of Christian contemplation is founded entirely on the doctrine of the Trinity.”