Thoughts, Prayers & Art

Originally published: April 25, 2025

Recently, I was asked, “Who is your favorite theologian?”
I smiled and answered without hesitation — my colleagues.
Not because the greats—Augustine, Aquinas, Julian, Barth, Bonhoeffer—haven’t shaped me.

Not because I don’t find wisdom in books worn thin with study.
But because theology, at its heart, is not only written — it is lived.
It is spoken softly at hospital bedsides.
It is wrestled with over worn kitchen tables late at night.
It is preached with trembling hands and burning hearts on Sunday mornings.
It is offered in tears, in laughter, in doubts shared vulnerably among trusted friends.
My favorite theologians are the ones who show me Christ not only through their words,
but through their lives.

They are the colleagues who dare to believe in resurrection in a world addicted to crucifixion.
The ones who pray fiercely when answers run dry.
The ones who break bread and pour wine and whisper forgiveness in broken places.
The ones who teach me, again and again,
that theology is not merely about God -
it is the experience of God among us.

I learn from them not just through their thoughts, but through the way they love, endure, hope, and serve.
Through their humanity, clothed in grace.
Through their questions that have no easy answers.

So when I am asked who my favorite theologian is, 
I think not first of libraries or lecture halls, but of faces — of voices —
of the sacred community in which the Spirit still speaks.

And I give thanks.