Introduction

What would it mean for us to take Christianity seriously as a way of life, a set of practices and ways of being in the world—and not merely a list of beliefs?

Theologian Kevin Hector (University of Chicago Divinity School) joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz for a discussion of his latest book, Christianity as a Way of Life. Together they reflect on the practice of Christianity; the role of devotion to God in framing the importance of Christianity to a practitioner; the unique practices embedded in the life of Christians; the plausibility of Christianity today; what it means to see Jesus in people and look for the image of God in others; the practices of imitation and forgiveness; the conflicted character of Christian experience; loving God as loving what God loves; the significance of shame; and what it means to renarrate your life in light of the Gospel.

About Kevin Hector

Kevin Hector is the Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor of Theology and of the Philosophy of Religions; also in the College. His teaching and research are devoted largely to interpretive questions, particularly (a) how best to understand faith commitments, and (b) how the outworking of such commitments can shed light on broader cultural issues. Hector's first book, *Theology without Metaphysics*  (Cambridge University Press, 2011), thus defends a novel approach to the problem of metaphysics by developing a philosophically-informed and critically-articulated theology of language. In his second book, The Theological Project of Modernism: Faith and the Conditions of Mineness (Oxford University Press, 2015), Hector explores the idea of 'mineness,' in the sense of being able to identify with one's life or experience it as self-expressive, by tracing the development of this idea in modern theology. His third book, Christianity as a Way of Life: A Systematic Theology (Yale University Press, 2023) argues that we can understand Christianity as a set of practices designed to transform one’s way of perceiving and being in the world or, in sum, as a way of life. And in his forthcoming book-project, tentatively entitled “Life as a Theological Project: Creating a Usable Past,” Hector focuses on memoirs as a site of theological reflection, not least because memoirs shed light on issues that people wrestle with more generally.

Follow him on Twitter/X here.

Show Notes

• Check out Christianity as a Way of Life: A Systematic Theology (Yale University Press, 2023)
• Disconnect between academic theology and ordinary Christians
• Losing God to Christian practices
• Devotion as God’s importance being important to you.
• Imitation as practice for learning devotion.
• LeBron James as an example of devotion
• “The Martha Stewart effect”
• Being yourself as a form of devotion
• Mother Teresa and “seeing Jesus in people”
• Looking for the image of God in others
• The hermeneutical circle: making sense of the parts through the whole, and revising our sense of the whole through the parts.
• Nick Wolterstorff, forgiving as naming the wrong as a wrong, while excusing is ignoring the wrong.
• Indignation versus resentment
• How transparent are we to ourselves?
• Practice as building habitual reflexes
• Practices make it more and more sensible to orient towards God
• Shame in Hector’s Christian framework
• Marilynne Robinson’s Lila

Production Notes

• This podcast featured Kevin Hector
• Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
• Hosted by Evan Rosa
• Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, & Tim Bergeland
• A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
• Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give