My teaching and research interests have been primarily in the areas of Christian theology and world religions, with emphasis on Protestantism, Evangelicalism and 19th century liberal theology. Having been raised as a Fundamentalist Christian, I have developed a life-long interest in the varieties of religious Fundamentalisms. Outside of Christianity, Buddhism and Islam are the religions with which I am best acquainted and those that have exercised my thinking the most. Among the particular influences on my theological thinking and development I include Luther, Jonathan Edwards, Schleiermacher, F. C. Baur, Ernst Troeltsch, Paul Tillich, and Gordon D. Kaufman. My more purely philosophical influences include Kant, W. V. Quine, Hilary Putnam, and Nelson Goodman. Since 9/11/2001 the problem of violence in the name of religion has become a major focus of my teaching, thinking and research, and in particular the rise of Fundamentalisms and radical religious worldviews in the three Abrahamic or Western Monotheistic traditions. Below I include the syllabus for my Violence and the Sacred course, where I explore the problem of violence in the name of God in great detail. My first publication, "On the Possibility of an Evangelical Theology," can be found in Theology Today, Volume 55, July, 1998. The full text of this article can be accessed through WebLuis. My most recent article, "Rupp in Perspective: An Examination of Two Topics in Beyond Existentialism & Zen," published in Volume 55, April 2005, in Philosophy East and West can also be accessed through WebLuis.
