Faculty and Administration

I earned the B.A. at Northwest College in Seattle. After a couple of years in youth ministry, I went to graduate school. I earned the M.A. at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where I studied systematic theology and church history, and the Ph.D. at Marquette University, where I focused on historical theology, with particular attention to the theology of Jonathan Edwards. After completing doctoral studies, I taught for three years at Emmanuel College in Georgia. I came to McMaster Divinity College in July 2006. I teach courses in theology, theology and culture, and theological leadership. The Trinity, the Holy Spirit, Jonathan Edwards, Pentecostal theology, and theological reflection on contemporary culture and events are my research and teaching interests. My publications fall into two streams. One focuses on the trinitarian theology of Jonathan Edwards (e.g., The Trinitarian Vision of Jonathan Edwards and David Coffey and, with Robert Caldwell, The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards). The other participates in constructive Pentecostal theology (e.g., From Pentecost to the Triune God and Pentecostalism and Globalization).

Practical Ministry Experience:
I left for Northwest University with strong sense of a call to ministry. While in college, I studied youth ministries and served in several church youth ministries in the Seattle area. After university, I was youth pastor in an Assemblies of God church for two years in Woodinville, Washington. Afterward, I served an Assemblies of God congregation on Northern Minnesota’s “Iron Range” for several years as youth and associate pastor. This experience shapes my vision of the theological task. Theology is not primarily a dreary trek through thick tomes and down metaphysical rabbit trails that lead one ever away from the real world (well, at least it shouldn’t be). Theology helps us to discern authentic and effective ways to embody the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives and ministries. Theology helps us “keep in step with the Spirit.” It avoids cliché, hackneyed, and effortless answers. Your life, your church, and your ministry are not prepackaged programs and standardized paradigms. Your life and ministry has a unique habitat. The art of theological reflection prepares us to discern the pathways of faithful discipleship. I invite you to come join us as we endeavor to ask and answer the question: how can we embody the grace of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit in our lives and ministry for our contemporary world? That is the question of theology.

Research Interests:
Jonathan Edwards
Pentecostal theology
Christianity and culture
Christian adaptations to post-Christendom
Public theology

Current Projects:
A Pentecostal theology of the atonement

(with Lee Beach) Emerging Churches in Canada (funded by Lilly Theological Scholars Grant)

Publications:
Published

(co-edited with Amos Yong) Pentecostal Theology and Jonathan Edwards (London: T&T Clark, 2019)

Pentecostal Preaching and Ministry in Multicultural and Post-Christian Canada, ed. Steven M. Studebaker (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2019).

(co-edited with Stanley Porter) Evangelical Theological Method: Five Views (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2018).

A Pentecostal Political Theology for American Renewal: Spirit of the Kingdoms, Citizens of the Cities (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

From Pentecost to the Triune God: A Pentecostal Trinitarian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012).

(co-edited with Gordon L. Heath) Christianity and Globalization: Implications for Christian Ministry and Theology (2015), includes an essay by Philip Jenkins.

(co-authored with Robert Caldwell) The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards: Text, Context, and Application (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012).

The Trinitarian Vision of Jonathan Edwards and David Coffey (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2011)

(co-edited with Michael Wilkinson), A Liberating Spirit: Pentecostals and Social Action in North America, Pentecostals, Peacemaking, and Social Justice Series, ser. eds. Paul Alexander and Jay Beaman (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2010).

Pentecostalism and Globalization: The Implications of Global Pentecostalism for North American Pentecostal Theology and Ministry, ed. Steven M. Studebaker (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2010).

Jonathan Edwards’ Social Augustinian Trinitarianism in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009).

Defining Issues in Pentecostalism: Classical and Emergent, ed. Steven M. Studebaker (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2008).

In process

The Spirit of Atonement: Pentecostal Contributions and Challenges to the Christian Traditions (London: Bloomsbury).