Educational Ministry in the Logic of the Spirit

In November 2001, James E. Loder Jr., Professor of the Philosophy of Christian Education for forty years at Princeton Theological Seminary, suddenly died. He was a creative and profound thinker who had just completed a promising book. In it he developed a compelling interdisciplinary model to disclose how the divine Spirit affirms, reconstitutes, and transforms the human spirit to bring new energy and creativity into human experience. He called it redemptive transformation. You now hold that book in your hands. Those who know Loder’s work are confident that Educational Ministry in the Logic of the Spirit, though delayed for over fifteen years, will still become the best introduction to his complex thought. More important, it offers the imaginative means by which we may learn to attune ourselves and our faith communities to what God is doing in our fractured, distracted, and self-destructive world to bring about a revolution of love—the fruit of Christ’s Spirit and the center of our human vocation.

James E. Loder Jr. (1931-2001) was the Mary Synnott Professor of the Philosophy of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1962 until 2001. He authored The Transforming Moment (1981/1989), The Knight's Move (with Jim Neidhardt, 1992), and The Logic of the Spirit (1998). Dana R. Wright is the Director of Christian Formation and Discipleship at the First Presbyterian Church in Everett, Washington. He coedited two earlier books influenced by Loder's thought: Redemptive Transformation in Practical Theology (2004) and The Logic of the Spirit in Human Thought and Experience (Pickwick Publications, 2014).

Dana R. Wright is the Director of Christian Formation and Discipleship at the First Presbyterian Church in Everett, Washington. He coedited two earlier books influenced by Loder's thought: Redemptive Transformation in Practical Theology (2004) and The Logic of the Spirit in Human

Andrew Root (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is the Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary. He is most recently the author of Exploding Dinosaurs, Dead Dinosaurs, and Zombies: Youth Ministry in the Age of Science (2018), Faith Formation in a Secular Age (2017), and The Grace of Dogs: A Boy a Black Lab and Father's Search for the Canine Soul (2017). He has also authored Christopraxis: A Practical Theology of the Cross (2014) and Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker (2014). Root puts together theology and storytelling to explore how ministry leads us into encounter with divine action. His book The Relational Pastor (2013) as well as a four book series with Zondervan called A Theological Journey Through Youth Ministry (titles include Taking Theology to Youth Ministry, Taking the Cross to Youth Ministry, Unpacking Scripture in Youth Ministry, and Unlocking Mission and Eschatology in Youth Ministry) break new ground in this direction. In 2012 his book The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry (with Kenda Creasy Dean, 2011) was Christianity Today Book of Merit. He has written a number of other books on ministry and theology such as The Children of Divorce: The Loss of Family as the Loss of Being (2010), The Promise of Despair (2010), Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation (2007) and Relationships Unfiltered (2009). Andy has worked in congregations, parachurch ministries, and social service programs. He lives in St. Paul with his wife Kara, two children, Owen and Maisy, and their dog. When not reading, writing, or teaching, Andy spends far too much time watching TV and movies.