WESTMONT, IL— Esau McCaulley, assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, has signed a contract with InterVarsity Press to be the editor for a new series tentatively titled The Fullness of Time: A Journey Through the Church Year. The first two books in the series will release in Winter 2022.
McCaulley said, “Our hope is that The Fullness of Time series introduces to some and reinvigorates in others a trust in the power of the church year to disciple and form us as followers of Jesus. The prayers, rituals, festivals, and Scriptures that mark the seasons of the year have as their goal the creation of Christians who have been changed by walking with Christ and his church through the year. The seasons provide a counter witness to the rituals, festivals, and habits of a world that are intended to shape us in its image. The liturgical year, then, is a perpetual rebellion against a culture that demands our time, attention, and our very lives. This series covering the festivals and seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time outline the contours of that rebellion. These books are tools for discipleship and assertions of God’s sovereignty over time itself.”
The Fullness of Time series will bring together diverse voices and backgrounds in six books that will serve as theological/spiritual introductions and reflections on each season of the church year. McCaulley said, “This diverse group of male and female writers spans multiple church traditions, including the Anglican Church in North America, the Episcopal Church, and Black Pentecostals interested in the renewal of liturgical tradition.”
Each contributor will focus on a season of the church year:
Advent
Tish Harrison Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America and writer in residence at Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh, PA. She is author of Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life (IVP, 2016). Warren said, “The ancient church has handed down this gift of liturgical time so that we can be shaped by the story of Jesus through the very way we name our days. I didn’t know about the church seasons until well into my twenties. Discovering this gift was—and remains—astounding. I found that time itself can disciple us. I want to help the broader church—whether familiar with the practice of liturgical time or not—to rediscover and unwrap this gift of the Christian calendar because it has been so important in my own life and worship. I am truly honored to be part of this series and working with these other astounding thinkers and writers.”
Christmas
Emily Hunter McGowin (PhD, University of Dayton) is associate lecturer of theology at Wheaton College and priest and canon theologian in the ACNA diocese Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO). She is the author of Quivering Families: The Quiverfull Movement and Evangelical Theology of the Family (Fortress, 2018). McGowin said, “Our Christian foremothers and fathers handed down the church year as one way we can be drawn deeper into the mystery of Christ. I am hopeful this series will help more Christians claim the church year as their own and observe it with intentionality and fruitfulness.”
Epiphany
Fleming Rutledge is an Episcopal priest widely recognized in North America and the United Kingdom as a preacher, lecturer, and teacher of other preachers. Her published sermon collections have received acclaim across denominational lines. Ordained to the diaconate in 1975, Rutledge was one of the first women to be ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church (January 1977). She matriculated at General Theological Seminary and received her master of divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1975. For fourteen years Rutledge was assistant and then senior associate at Grace Church in New York City. She has been a resident at Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto School of Theology, where she taught preaching, and also a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome. She is the author of many books, including The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Christianity Today Book of the Year 2017) and Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ.
Lent
Esau McCaulley (PhD, University of St Andrews) is assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. He is also the director of the Next Generation Initiative for the Anglican Church in North America, a province-wide undertaking committed to raising up and training the next generation of Anglican clergy and lay leadership. He is the founder of the Call and Response conference. He has written articles appearing in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Christianity Today, and he is the author of Sharing in the Son’s Inheritance (T & T Clark, 2019) and the forthcoming Reading While Black (IVP Academic, 2020). McCaulley is also the host of the Disrupters podcast.
Eastertide
Wesley Hill (PhD, Durham University, UK) is associate professor of biblical studies at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Lord’s Prayer: A Guide to Praying to Our Father (Lexham, 2019), Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Zondervan, second edition 2016), Paul and the Trinity: Persons, Relations, and the Pauline Letters(Eerdmans, 2015), and Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (Brazos, 2015). He is a contributing editor for Comment magazine and writes regularly for The Living Church and other publications. Hill said, “This series of books on the church year will serve as an ideal, inviting entree into one of the most ancient and formative Christian practices there is: numbering and ordering our days in light of the reality that Jesus Christ is the risen and reigning Lord of time.”
Pentecost and Ordinary Time
Emilio Alvarez is the founding pastor and rector of The Gathering Place in Rochester, New York. He holds a bachelors in Christian education, a master of arts in religious education from New York Theological Seminary, and a PhD in religious education from Fordham University. Bishop Alvarez was consecrated a bishop in 2011 and is currently a member of the Union of Charismatic Orthodox Churches, a Christian Union that reverences the historic Christian faith and practice of the early church. As bishop he serves as the Ordinary for the diocese of Christ the King, a network of urban Afro/Latino churches representing eight states and six countries. He is the author of the forthcoming book A Call to Pentecostal Orthodoxy (IVP Academic, 2021).
IVP editors Anna Moseley Gissing and Ethan McCarthy served as the acquiring editors for The Fullness of Time series. McCarthy said, “The church year has been forming the faithful in the Christian story since the church’s early days. This series invites readers to explore the riches of that tradition, guided by some of the best church theologians around. Spiritual formation, or catechesis, has always been part of our DNA at IVP, and this series promises to be a wonderful addition to that legacy.”
