Who am I?

Someone called me a theologian once. It’s a word that people recognize, even though it’s not as tidy as “veterinarian” or “therapist” or “novelist”. Like a nickname, I don’t think you can just start saying it. I did earn a PhD in theology, which helps.

Most of my writing has been academic, and focused largely on the history of the Christian church—specifically, what was going on in the first several centuries as folks were still largely trying to figure out what you could and couldn’t say about Jesus. But also, what you could and couldn’t say about the Bible, about the church, and about each other.

While I will always care deeply about these things in a historical sense, I also care deeply about why they matter now. That’ll come out in my writing, probably, both explicitly and implicitly.

Some of the stuff I’ve written shows up here in my Google Scholar profile. You can see a bit more on Humanities Commons. I wrote an exceedingly expensive and now out-of-print book about trying to bring ancient theology about the church, her practices, and the Bible into the present—mostly trying to convince Protestants who don’t care about the sacraments (Eucharist and baptism) that they should, in fact, cace about the sacraments. I’ll send you a PDF if you want it.

Why subscribe?

I suppose so you can find out immediately when a word I’ve typed appears on the internet. And so you can keep up with me when I’ve lost track of who knows what and when.