"Can poetry matter to Christian theology?" David Mahan asks in the introduction to this interdisciplinary work. Does the study of poetry represent a serious theological project? What does poetry have to contribute to the public tasks of theology and the Church? How can theologians, clergy and other ministry professionals, and Christian laypeople benefit from an earnest study of poetry?
A growing number of professional theologians today seek to push theological inquiry beyond the relative seclusion of academic specialization into a broader marketplace of public ideas, and to recast the theological task as an integrative discipline, wholly engaged with the issues and sensibilities of the age. Accordingly, such scholars seek to draw upon and engage the insights and practices of a variety of cultural resources, including those of the arts, in their theological projects.
Arguing that poetry can be a form of theological discourse, Mahan shows how poetry offers rich theological resources and instruction for the Christian church. In drawing attention to the "peculiar advantages" it affords, this book addresses one of the greatest challenges facing the church today: the difficulty of effectively communicating the Christian gospel with increasingly disaffected "late-modern" people.

Author - David C. Mahan
Foreword - Ben Quash

"Can poetry matter to Christian theology? To this question, David Mahan's book comprises a resounding 'yes.'With acute sensitivity and painstaking attention to literary detail, the author shows how Christian wisdom is hugely enriched by three major word-crafters. Far from muddying the waters of theological rigor, 'poetic performance' renders theology more precise, lucid, and faithful. An immensely important book, demonstrating just how badly the theologian needs the artist today."
—Jeremy Begbie, Thomas A. Langford Research Professor of Theology, Duke University

"The engagement of theologians with the poetry of recent times has usually consisted of giving theological warrant to beauty and aesthetic gratification, of finding analogies between poetry and theology, or of discovering Christian themes in Christian and non-Christian poets alike. David Mahan, in An Unexpected Light, has achieved something distinctly new and different. He has taken three examples of Christian conviction inhabiting the contemporary world in the form of poems by Charles Williams, Micheal O'Siadhail, and Geoffrey Hill. With lovingly close attention to both form and content, he has brought to our attention the 'inscape' of these examples of Christian inhabitation in poetic form. And he has judiciously asked what Christian theologians can learn from a close reading of these poems for their own way of inhabiting our world today. It's an admirable achievement!"
—Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology, Yale University.

"David Mahan is a superb close reader of poetry and also a rich theological thinker. This book shows how poetry and theology can come together to light up the great questions of human life today. Above all, his profound engagement with three fascinating poets—O'Siadhail, Williams, and Hill—will expand the circle of those who recognize their great significance for the twenty-first century."
—David F. Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge

"David Mahan sheds'unexpected light' on poetry as a Christian discourse. He does this by deftly elucidating common intellectual ground shared by poets and theologians. Where he shines, however, is in showing how a poem means, how ideas actually become incarnate in texts. Mahan offers beautifully lucid analysis of demanding poets who, in his sure hands, become accessible, though never merely easy. He challenges us to see their work as not only speaking to our particular historical condition but, in quirky and reticent ways, as evangelizing our imaginations."
—Peter Hawkins, Professor of Religion and Director of Luce Program in Scripture and the Literary Arts, Boston University

Colonial Presbyterianism
Religion and the Politics of Peace and Conflict
"Those Who Call Themselves Jews" by Dr. Philip L. Mayo
Martin Luther and Buddhism by Paul S. Chung
Evangelicalism and Karl Barth by Phillip R. Thorne
Christ in our Place: The Humanity of God in Christ for the Reconciliation of the World
The Little Church that Refused to Die by William W. Moore
The Subjective Eye
Geoffrey Fisher by David Hein
Speculative Theology and Common-Sense Religion by Linden J. DeBie
On the Christianity of Theology by Franz Overbeck
My Father-In-Law by Max Zellweger-Barth
Salvaging Wesley's Agenda by Kevin Twain Lowery
Reception Theory and Biblical Hermeneutics by David Paul Parris
European Pietism Reviewed by Frederick Herzog
Faithfulness and the Purpose of Hebrews by Matthew J. Marohl
The Holy Spirit and the Renewal of All Things by T. David Beck
Faith, Theology, and Psychoanalysis by Trevor Dobbs Ph.D.
Practices, Politics, and Performance by Dr. Michael G. Cartwright
The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Melanesia and Micronesia, 1850-1875 by Ralph M. Wiltgen
Cross in Tensions by Philip Ruge-Jones
Lo, I Tell You a Mystery by Dr. David A. Ackerman
The Holy Spirit in the Theology of Karl Barth by John Thompson
Renewing Tradition
A Gentleman in Every Slum by David B. McIlhiney
Gladstone: The Making of a Christian Politician by Dr. Peter J. Jagger
Freedom and Civilization Among the Greeks by A. J. Festugiere
God With Us by Joseph Haroutunian
On This Rock by Donald G. Miller
Orthodoxy and Difference by Dr. Dmitri Sidorov
Jesus and the Word by C. K. Barrett
Jesus Christ and Creation in the Theology of John Calvin by Peter Wyatt
The Present and the Past by Richard J. Ginn
A Place Somewhat Apart by Dr. Philip E. Harrold
The Will of God and the Cross by Jonathan H. Rainbow
"Education Has Nothing to Do with Theology" by Dr. Edward J. Newell
Theology of Anticipation by Anette Ejsing
The Epigones by William A. McComish
The Aims of Jesus by Ben F. Meyer
R.S. Thomas: Poet of the Hidden God by D.Z. Phillips
Theosis
Coram Deo by Caryn D. Riswold
Christus Faber by Ben F. Meyer
Seasons of the Heart by Sara Henderson Hay
The Reformed Pastor by John W. Nevin D.D.
Go Figure!
Calvin's Concept of the Law by Dr. I. John Hesselink
Agency, Culture, and Human Personhood by Jeanne M. Hoeft
Jesus, the Parable of God by Dr. Eduard Schweizer
Tradition Renewed
Constructing a Relational Cosmology
Risking Truth by Scott A. Ellington
The Arminian Confession of 1621
C. S. Lewis and a Problem of Evil by Jerry Root
Polemic in the Book of Hebrews by Lloyd Kim
Philip's Daughters
Reflections of Renaissance England by Dr. Marie-Helene Davies
Theology Beyond Christendom
Schleiermacher on Christian Consciousness of God's Work in History by Abraham Varghese Kunnuthara
Consenting to God and Nature by Dr. Byron C. Bangert
The Diffusion of Ecclesiastical Authority by Darin H. Land
The Kitchen Saint and the Heritage of Islam by Brother Lawrence
"Jesus Is Victor!" by Christian T. Collins Winn
Living Devotions by Mary Clark Moschella
Enigmas and Powers
The Ubuntu God by Samuel A. Paul
The Realignment of the Priestly Literature by Thomas J. King
The Tangled Bank by Michael S. Hogue
The Hermeneutical Quest
Jeshua by Moelwyn Merchant
New Testament Traditions and Apocryphal Narratives by Francois Bovon
Reading from the Underside of Selfhood by Lisa E. Dahill
Ambushed by Grace by Dr. Thomas W. Currie
Poverty in the Theology of John Calvin by Dr. Bonnie L. Pattison
System and Story by Gale Heide
Critical Realism and the New Testament by Ben F. Meyer
Where is My Home? by Dr. Zdenek Bednar
A Little Book of Christian Questions and Responses by Theodore Beza
The Triune God by E. L. Mascall
Female and Male: The Cultic Personnel: The Bible and the Rest of the Ancient Near East by Richard A. Henshaw
Revitalizing Theological Epistemology by Steven B. Sherman
The Trial of Jesus Continues by Dr. Rudolf Pesch
Basic Human Rights and the Humanitarian Crises in Sub-Saharan Africa by Gabriel Andrew Msoka
The Sacred Text by Ronald F. Satta
History and Theology by Dr. Piet B. Boshoff
Theology as Hope by Ryan A. Neal
An Unexpected Light by David C. Mahan
A Church Historian's Odyssey by Horton Davies
The Mestizo/a Community of the Spirit by Oscar Garcia-Johnson
Who Needs a New Covenant? by Michael D. Morrison
Searching for Lost Coins by Ann Loades
Saints: Visible, Orderly, and Catholic by Alan P.F. Sell
Schleiermacher's Preaching, Dogmatics, and Biblical Criticism by Catherine L. Kelsey
The Trinitarian Self by Charles Bellinger
From the Margins
Calvin's Doxology by Pamela Ann Moeller
Asian Contextual Theology for the Third Millennium
The Way of Theology in Karl Barth
The Loss and Recovery of Transcendence by John C. Robertson
The Neo-Orthodox Theology of W. W. Bryden by John Vissers
Fire From the Heights by Moelwyn Merchant
How to do Biblical Theology by Peter Stuhlmacher
The Theology of Electricity by Ernst Benz
The Heart of the Gospel by Bernie A. Van De Walle
The Tondrakian Movement by N.V. Nersessian