Christian Theology in Practice: A stained-glass window and a scholar’s reflections
A stained-glass window in her childhood congregation, First Christian Church in Bloomington, Indiana, features a magnificent tree; that window is now featured on the cover of a new book by DDH alumna and Vanderbilt Divinity School Professor Bonnie Miller-McLemore. That image helped to nurture her faith and theology. She explains, "In Christian Theology in Practice, I trace my hunger to understand more about how local theologies evolve. In particular, I describe my pursuit of university disciplines that helped me understand and enhance the viability and accessibility of everyday theology. ...The book explores the backbone or skeletal structure behind how I have done theology in other writings and in the teaching of seminary and doctoral students as I've thought about death and dying or women's lives and children or spirituality in the midst of family life. ...On the wall over my desk hangs a reproduction of the window from the church. And it now adorns the book cover of Christian Theology in Practice. In both cases, it reminds me of the inexplicably mundane and wondrously tangible forms of theology as they press upon us in daily life." Christian Theology in Practice was published by Eerdmans in January 2012; it is dedicated in memory of two of Bonnie Miller-McLemore's teachers, John Spencer and Don Browning.