Eugene Peterson may be the most influential theological writer in the church today. Yet because most of his career has not been in academia there is not much critical engagement with his work. Here some of the finest scholar-pastors we have describe the way Peterson has inspired and infuriated on the way to (hopefully) more faithful pastorates. ""For those who knew Eugene Peterson only through his idiomatically rendered Bible, The Message, his memoir, The Pastor, was a revelation. But only a partial one. For the full 360-degree refraction, read Pastoral Work . . . which collects the very...

The Shape of Participation is a work of constructive theology addressed to theologians, seminarians, and thoughtful pastors. Owens engages and deepens recent popular discussions of church practices by approaching practices from the church Fathers understanding of the churchs participation in God. Through a wide-ranging engagement with theologians, both ancient and contemporary--including Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Herbert McCabe--Owens argues that the embodied practices of the church are the churchs participation in the life of God, making the church...