Confessions of a Beginning Theologian, By Elouise Renich Fraser

Confessions of a Beginning Theologian

by Elouise Renich Fraser

Confessions of a Beginning Theologian
paperback
  • Length: 132 pages
  • Published: March 11, 1998
  • Imprint: IVP Academic
  • Item Code: 1519
  • ISBN: 9780830815197

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I hate looking and sounding like a beginner. Making mistakes and asking questions. Not sure yet where I'm going, much less how I'm going to get from here to there. Afraid of what might happen along the way. But God loves beginners.Becoming a theologian is about becoming a beginner. It isn't about whether you're old enough, young enough, smart enough or good enough. . . .It isn't about becoming someone else, changing your personality or leaving your past behind. And it isn't about becoming dull and dry, giving up fun and excitement, retreating from the world to attain some more exalted existence.

In this poignant, strikingly honest account, theologian Elouise Renich Fraser reveals her inner journey to overcome fear--fear of being wrong, doing wrong, being misunderstood and ignored--to confront her past and learn to befriend the Bible. Her story will inspire and encourage other "beginners"--at whatever stage in their personal and theological journeys--to learn to read theological texts more sympathetically, to develop theological imagination and to find their own voices as authentic human beings before God.

CONTENTS

Preface
1. Getting Started
2. Ties That Bind
3. Theological Commitments
4. Befriending the Bible
5. Reading Theological Texts
6. Theological Etiquette
7. Developing Theological Imagination
8. Speaking in My Own Voice
9. Persevering

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Elouise Renich Fraser

Renich Fraser (PhD, Vanderbilt University) is professor of systematic theology at Palmer Theological Seminary (formerly Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is coauthor (with Louis A. Kilgore) of Making Friends with the Bible.