Robert Saler: Everything in its Right Place

Photo by Peter Bouteneff, at a Radiohead concert attended by him and Rob Saler

Robert Saler serves as Research Professor of Religion and Culture, Associate Dean for Evaluation, and Executive Director of the Center for Pastoral Excellence at Christian Theological Seminary (CTS) in Indianapolis. Prior to coming to CTS he was pastor of Bethel Lutheran Church in Gary, IN and also taught at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (from which he received his Ph.D. in 2011). His first book, Between Magisterium and Marketplace, deals with issues of ecclesiology and theological creativity, another book, Theologia Crucis examines how the theology of the cross impacts global theological literature. He unites his love of theology and popular culture—notably, Radiohead—in his fantastic recent book All These Things Into Position: What Theology can Learn from Radiohead, which informs much of this episode of Luminous.

Rob has collaborated with Peter Bouteneff and other colleagues on the Arvo Pärt Project, which not long ago produced the book Arvo Part: Sounding the Sacred (co-edited with Peter Bouteneff and Jeffers Engelhardt).

Having been a Lutheran pastor for a decade, he has recently been received into the Eastern Orthodox Church. He is currently a fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture at Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis, and as part of that work he is engaged in two major writing projects: a book-length study of the theological aesthetics of the Death to the World movement and a book on Jack Kerouac, Dorothy Day, and Seraphim Rose on writing and spiritual community in 20th century America.