Latest By Our Son Doug

Part of remaining on tenure course, when you teach at the university level, is that you must publish. And publish some more.

Our son Doug teaches theology at Seattle Pacific University and during the past several years has written numerous articles and papers for a variety of publications, both academic and popular. Additionally, he has written chapters in theology books in cooperative authorship with peers as well as with other scholars.

But now, in addition to the above, he has authored a treatise in theology. If you do a book search by author (Douglas M. Koskela) on "Amazon.com", up comes his book, Ecclesiality and Ecumenism, with the subtitle, Yves Congar and the Road to Unity. Almost sounds like a novel.

But it doesn’t read like one. It’s pretty heavy theological “stuff”. Here’s his pic and a description of the “plot”, both from the back cover:

“This book explores the contributions of the French Dominican theologian Yves Congar on the question of ecclesiality ('churchliness' in the catholic sense) with an eye to their ongoing ecumenical potential.” The volume articulates Congar’s “fresh reflection on what makes the church legitimately the church” that holds considerable promise for revitalizing efforts toward Christian unity.

Ecclesiality and Ecumenism is an unabridged version of Doug’s Ph.D. thesis, and it has been nuanced a bit to appeal to a wider audience. Understanding the topics that he probes has in recent years become very critical, especially with the ecumenical gestures made by the current and previous Popes. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI is cited in the book.

Amazon.com says the book is “temporarily out of stock”. Yikes, there must have been a run on it. However, I know for sure you can buy it here if you’re interested. It’s definitely worth a read, and, o yes, have a glance at the dedication page.