Tag Archives: Willimon

Reading Barth Together

What the church will look like after the COVID pandemic has run its course is hard to say.  Will modern society’s confrontation with its own mortality lead to genuine pursuit of deeper truth or will it lead to a doubling down on the human project of getting out of life alive?  Will social distancing cultivate a hunger for more meaningful forms of community and authentic relationships or will the move that many congregations have made to online platforms further reinforce our worst consumerist proclivities?  It is perhaps too early to tell. Continue reading Reading Barth Together

It’s Still the End of the World!

It was able to share an enjoyable evening last night with an engaged group of people at the McNally Robinson bookstore in Winnipeg.  One of the things I was attempting to do in my lecture was to recover the eschatological character of the Christian faith, bound up as it is with the coming of Messiah and the pouring out of the promised Spirit.  The irruption of the eschaton introduces the distinction between church and world, which is clearly elucidated by Hauerwas and Willimon in the following quote which appeared in my lecture: Continue reading It’s Still the End of the World!

More Endorsements for “Leaps of Faith”

Here are more of the endorsements that have come in for Leaps of Faith:

“Much North American preaching is anemic—at best. Robert Dean demonstrates that a robust alternative is possible: gospel-shaped, theological, liturgical, pastoral preaching. Those who want to preach, and those who desperately need to hear, such sermons will be encouraged and enlightened by this significant collection. And if some readers learn to preach in similar ways, the church in North America (and elsewhere) might just be spared both bland sermons and a correspondingly feeble witness.”

  • Michael J. Gorman (Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology, St. Mary’s Seminary & University)

Continue reading More Endorsements for “Leaps of Faith”