Seasons of the Christian Life

Once liberal Christianity was preached in ways that defined it in the public eye. Now Christianity is identified almost exclusively with its conservative expressions. Seasons of the Christian Life presents a series of sermons articulating a liberal Christianity over against its conservative neighbors. They were preached at the University Church (Marsh Chapel) at Boston University (save for one preached in Memorial Church at Harvard) during the 2004-2005 academic year when President George W. Bush was reelected and the country was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at war with terrorists wherever they could be imagined. The sermons follow the Revised Common Lectionary and focus on biblical interpretation as it is applied to the then-current spiritual, cultural, social, and political situation. The author is a professor of theology and at the time was Dean of Marsh Chapel and Chaplain of the University.

LONG ENDORSEMENTS--NEEDS TO BE EDITED

""With this collection of sermons, Robert Neville gives contemporary liberal Christianity an articulate and powerful voice. Here the author's carefully constructed 'theology of symbolic engagement' is perfected in pastoral practice. Each of these homiletic meditations is a spiritual jewel, as Neville's reading of basic Christian symbols is consistently illuminating, also frequently inspirational. Published a dozen years after being preached, the passing of the seasons has only increased the relevance of these sermons for prospective readers.""
--Michael L. Raposa, Professor of Religion Studies, E. W. Fairchild Professor of American Studies, Lehigh University

""Some preachers fled to the lectionary to escape current events in the years after 9/11, but not theologian Robert Cummings Neville, formerly Dean of Marsh Chapel. Whether it is the trying [presidential] election of 2004, the failures in the wake of military adventurism in Iraq, or the seemingly endless culture wars at home, Neville preaches into being an irenic, liberal pulpit, enmeshed in the Christian Year and at once liturgical and public, both faithful and deeply theological.""
--David Schnasa Jacobsen, Boston University School of Theology

""Great theologians who craft complex and comprehensive architectonic systems demand much of the reader, and reading Robert Neville's work in philosophical theology is not for the faint of heart. But reading his sermons is immediately and accessibly rewarding. The reader hears the music animating the metaphysics and comes to a rich appreciation of the texture of his religious vision of living faithfully into the glory of being a beloved creature of God the creator. What a gift it is to be finally reading Neville's sermons! Not since Paul Tillich's collections of sermons--The Shaking of the Foundations, The New Being, and The Eternal Now--have American readers been treated to such a rich and subtle feast in which a systematic theological vision is given robust homiletical life. Neville emerges as one of the finest theological preachers of our time.""
--John J. Thatamanil, Associate Professor of Theology and World Religions, Union Theological Seminary



Robert Cummings Neville is Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at Boston University and dean emeritus of the Boston University School of Theology. He is the author of Ultimates (2013), Existence (2014), and Religion (2015)--a series on philosophical theology. His previous books of sermons are Preaching the Gospel without Easy Answers (2005) and The God Who Beckons (1999).