Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church recasts biblical theology as a practice cultivated in Christian community rather than a solely academic pursuit. Stephen Presley argues that the early church fathers crafted an ecclesial biblical theology that was lived out communally and oriented believers toward beholding God's glory.
This volume brings patristic biblical interpretation into conversation with contemporary biblical theology, exploring how assumptions and methods of figures such as Irenaeus and Augustine can guide modern hermeneutics. Presley shows how early Christian theologians emphasized virtue and discipleship alongside exegesis, patiently shaping readers to inhabit Scripture's narrative. He illuminates the catechetical and liturgical scaffolding that informed patristic biblical theology, centered on Christ as the cornerstone.
Students and scholars of theology, church history, hermeneutics, and patristics will find valuable new insights.
Fall ’25 Required FLS textbook for Historical Theology I course taught by Pr. Andrew Kneeland.
Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought traces the development of Christian theology from its earliest days to the present. Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, this authoritative yet accessible textbook introduces the major theological movements, key ideas, and individual theologians of the Patristic Period, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Reformation and Post-Reformation, and the Modern Era up to the present day. Throughout the book, students explore central themes through numerous case studies, primary readings, and study questions at the end of each section.
Spring ’26 Required FLS textbook for Historical Theology II course taught by Pr. Andrew Kneeland.
Fall ’25 Required FLS textbook for Historical Theology I course taught by Pr. Andrew Kneeland.
Jesus through Medieval Eyes will take you on an exploration of medieval representations of Jesus in theology and literature.
Who is Jesus? What is he like? And who am I, encountering Jesus? These questions were just as important to Christians in the Middle Ages as they are today.
And yet—as C.S. Lewis noted—the modern church tends to forget that people of different cultures and times also thought carefully about who Jesus was; and sometimes their ideas and emphases were different.
Medievalist scholar Grace Hamman believes that we can deepen our understanding and adoration of Christ by looking to the Christians of the Middle Ages. Medieval Europeans were also suffering through pandemics, dealing with political and ecclesial corruption and instability, and reckoning with gender, money, and power. But their concerns and imaginations are unlike ours. Their ideas, narratives, and art about Jesus open up paradoxically fresh and ancient ways to approach and adore Christ—and to reveal where our own cultural ideals about the Messiah fall short.
Medieval representations of Jesus span from the familiar—like Jesus as the Judge at the End of Days, or Jesus as the Lover of the Song of Songs—to the more unusual, like Jesus as Our Mother. Through the words of medieval people like Julian of Norwich, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Margery Kempe, and St. Thomas Aquinas, we meet these faces of Jesus and find renewed ways to love the Savior, in the words of St. Augustine, that "beauty so ancient and so new."
Fall ’25 Required FLS textbook for Historical Theology I course taught by Pr. Andrew Kneeland.
