Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Marilynne Robinson is one of the most eminent public intellectuals in America today. In addition to literary elegance, her trilogy of novels (Gilead, Home, and Lila) and her collections of essays offer probing meditations on the Christian faith. Many of these reflections are grounded in her belief that the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformer John Calvin still deserves a hearing in the twenty-first century.

This volume, based on the 2018 Wheaton Theology Conference, brings together the thoughts of leading theologians, historians, literary scholars, and church leaders who engaged in theological dialogue with Robinson's published work—and with the author herself.



Keith L. Johnson (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is associate professor of theology at Wheaton College. He is author of Theology as Discipleship and Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis, and he is the coeditor of Bonhoeffer, Christ and Culture.







George is the founding dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and senior adviser at Christianity Today. He is a member of the Southern Baptist-Roman Catholic Conversation Team and has participated inthe Evangelicals and Catholics Together initiative.







Rowan Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, PC, FBA, FRSL, FLSW, is a world renowned theological writer, teacher, and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury (2002–2012) before becoming Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge (2012-2020). Recent books by Rowan Williams include Luminaries (2019), Being Human (2018), God With Us (2017) and Being Disciples (2016) (all SPCK).







Timothy Larsen is McManis Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, an Honorary Fellow in the School of Divinity at Edinburgh University, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has written eight books, including A People ofOne Book: The Bible and the Victorians, and edited a dozen volumes, including most recently The Oxford Handbook of Christmas.



Acknowledgments

Introduction (Timothy Larsen and Keith L. Johnson)

1. The Theological World of the Reverend John Ames (Timothy Larsen)

2. Heart Conditions: Gilead and Augustinian Theology (Han-luen Kantzer Komline)

3. Marilynne Robinson and John Calvin (Timothy George)

4. The Metaphysics of Marilynne Robinson (Keith L. Johnson)

5. Thinking About Preaching with Marilynne Robinson (Lauren F. Winner)

6. Marilynne Robinson and the African American Experience (Patricia Andujo)

7. Space/Time/Doctrine: Marilynne Robinson's Gilead Novels (Tiffany Eberle Kriner)

8. Heaven and Earth: Reading Gilead Through the Landscape of the Fox River (Joel Sheesley)

9. Beyond Goodness: Gilead and the Discovery of the Connections of Grace (Rowan Williams)

10. The Protestant Conscience (Marilynne Robinson)

11. A Conversation Between Marilynne Robinson and Rowan Williams (Moderated by Vincent Bacote and Christina Bieber Lake)

12. An Interview with Marilynne Robinson (Philip Ryken)

Contributors

Name and Subject Index

Scripture Index