I recently discovered that my article, “Tolkien and the Adventure of Discipleship: Imaginative Resources for a Missional Ecclesiology,” which appeared a little over a year ago in the Canadian Theological Review, can now be electronically downloaded from the website of the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association.  The Canadian Evangelical Theological Association is reorganizing in the new year to form the Canadian-American Theological Association, so it’s unclear how long the article will be available online.  So, if you’re interested in reading it, download it now.  The full article can be accessed here.

Here’s the abstract for the article:  “Ecclesiology seems to be an area of perennial struggle for evangelicals. In the current Canadian context this struggle is intensified by the crumbling of Christendom and the pressures of late modernity. This essay argues that the Middle-earth literature of J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) provides an important resource for imagining a missional ecclesiology that transcends the strictures of a Christendom mindset and faithfully resists the bifurcating logic of late-modernity. Leveraging the motif of the adventure of discipleship allows for the theological recovery of the unity of the identity and mission of the church and provides suggestive pathways towards the cultivation of a renewed evangelical ecclesiological vision.”