Henry Center

Christians in the first century were largely marginalized in their world, yet possessed power to develop communities of love and justice that transformed lives. Humility was a chief identity marker for early Jesus-followers. Christian Scripture presents paradoxes related to power and humility: (1) God’s power is often most evident in those society views as insignificant; and (2) Humility dismantles exploitative and dehumanizing practices. Following Jesus includes using power and privilege rightly, especially for those in leadership roles such as teaching, administration, and pastoral service. By taking a deep look at power and humility in the Bible, we can develop perspectives and practices that reject injustice—we will instead find new ways to invigorate our commitment to human flourishing.

In Leisure the Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper explains that stillness and quietness of soul are necessary to see the real—especially that all things have been created through Christ and for him. But bounded by a culture of “total work,” we live lives of quiet desperation, exhausted and unable to slow down and attend to the arts. This lecture explains why contemplating poetry must be central to theological education. Poetry uniquely slows us down to attend to the real, teaches us how to see the transcendent in the ordinary, and opens us up to new possibilities for engagement with the world.

Suffering from an epidemic of scandal, the scourge of celebrity, and the general malaise (if not antipathy) toward the church, it’s a difficult time to be a genuine pastor. Truthfully, though, it’s always been a difficult time to, as St. John of the Cross said, put “love where love is not.” The good news is the Spirit always stirs amid the ruins. When we open our eyes to see and open our ears to hear, the Spirit restores our hope and renews our imagination.

Contemporary art can often be unexpected or downright unsettling in its form and subject matter. In that, it may actually remind us of the startling actions and embodied metaphors employed by Old Testament prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah. They intentionally disrupted their audiences for the purpose of calling them to repentance. By likewise reframing our discomfort with certain contemporary artworks as an invitation to self-examination, we open up new, generative possibilities. This lecture uses examples from the Art Institute of Chicago to explore how artworks might serve as a prompt to personal confession and a growing love for the God who loves us.

What is theological education for? In times of tumult, transition, and upheaval, returning to this most basic question can provide guidance for what we’re doing. Likely, all of us would agree that the pursuit of learning—some type of knowing—is at the heart of theological education. But given that the subject matter of theological education centers upon the triune God, the type of knowledge we are after is one that draws the closest possible relationship between knowing and loving. This lecture explores the Pauline relationship between knowledge and love as it pertains to the goal of human existence, how we read Scripture and do theology, and how we use knowledge and learning for the good of others.

We live in a frenetic age of unrealistic expectations, fostered by unrelenting voices both outside and inside of us. Through subtle and not so subtle forces we are constantly expected to do more and be more. Exhaustion, shame, and anxiety pervade, and all too often they also shape the church’s life. In this context, one of the great gifts Christians can give the world is to rediscover a healthy vision of what it means to be truly human, bringing us back to a more realistic and gracious view of discipleship.

We live in an age of increasing anxiety about the future of the church, as many are asking about what makes the church relevant within the world today. The true relevance of the church, however, is not found by looking to the world, but above the world. The theological backdrop of the church’s mission is Jesus’ ascension into heaven. The distinctness of Christian mission emerges from these strange cosmological events, as Christ’s ascension gives the church’s mission a heavenly orientation. This lecture will show how the renewal of mission depends upon having a clear vision of the ascended Christ.

Many are asking questions about what it means to fulfill the Great Commission today, wondering how we are to be formed as disciples who can live faithfully in this complex cultural time. Exploring the origins of the term, “the Great Commission,” and the role this final command of Jesus has played in shaping contemporary conceptions of discipleship helps us consider how to live out Jesus’ parting words today. Connecting this historical account of the Great Commission with the larger narrative of Scripture, we see a vision of discipleship emerge that involves being attentive to our everyday vocations, our locations and communities, and intentional cultural engagement.

The New Testament does not say much about the mother of Jesus, but what is recorded offers a powerful example of Christian faithfulness. In some instances, however, she has been lifted up only as an example for women, especially for those of the Catholic or Orthodox expressions of the faith. Attention to her story reveals both an affirmation of female embodiment in God’s redemptive plan as well as an exemplar for all believers no matter their sex. She points the way to her Son, embodied male in a uniquely inclusive way, so that all believers find their holistic identity in him.

It is usual to expound the idea of creation by referring to "law" as the principle of regularity and predictability that inheres in the order of the world. But the term "law" is often supposed to be equivocal, meaning one thing as applied to creation and something else as a norm of free human conduct. In this lecture, O'Donovan argues that in its various theological uses the concept of law is consistent, and always implies the notion of creation. Through it the task of ethics is located in between the givenness of created order and the openness of action, which thereby acquires its significance as "history."

Augustine is well known for his abstract reflections, early in his career, on the role of human free choice in introducing sin into God's good creation. But this, for Augustine, was just one small part of the larger story of human willing in relationship to God. In this lecture, we will consider how Augustine understood God's grace and human willing in the larger context of God's providential plan for human beings as revealed in Scripture. At the same time, we will see how Augustine applied this larger picture on a micro-level, to the challenges of the Christian life that his flock faced on a day-to-day basis. As Augustine grapples with specific parts of the biblical story where human willing comes to the fore, we see him developing not just a diagnosis of how human willing went wrong, but a richly biblical and trinitarian vision of the art of willing rightly.

The Christian concept of creation is contested in the present age for many reasons, but one of those reasons is the incredibility of a distinctiveness of humanity beyond the explainable and the material. Figures from the past century—from Walker Percy to Wendell Berry to Marilynne Robinson—though have drawn from theology, biology, psychology, and the humanities to suggest that the mysteriousness of human nature points beyond itself to a greater mystery of the cosmos. Christian theology can account both for the human similarity to the rest of nature and the human predicament of alienation from nature, and from ourselves. A sense of humanity as a paradox of integrity-in-brokenness, intelligibility-in-mystery, cultivation-in-conservation, and wayfaring-in-habitation can help us to reconcile the tensions between imagination and reason, community and individualism, and realism and justice while maintaining what we intuit to be true—that humanity is unique—alongside the challenges to that uniqueness in questions about whether humanity is alone in the universe or can be replicated by an algorithm.