Areas of Expertise
Topics that Dr. Stewart is available to address at adult forums and other congregational events
Wisdom in a ‘post-truth’ culture
Renewal of congregational worship life
Religion and ecology
Natural burial as a spiritual practice
Baptism: history, theology, renewal
Education
B.A., Capital University
M.Div., Trinity Lutheran Seminary
S.T.M., Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
Ph.D., Emory University
Sermons
View sermon listPublished Works
BOOKS
Returning to the Earth: the Spiritual Wisdom of Natural Burial (forthcoming)
A Watered Garden: Christian Worship and Earth's Ecology. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress (2011).
Worship Guidebook for Lent and the Three Days. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress (2009). With Susan Briehl, Mark Mummert, Liv Larson, and Gail Ramshaw.
ARTICLES
“Fertile Ground for Conservation Burial,” Call to Worship, v. 52.4, May 2019.
“Fault-lines in the Graveyard: The Contested Nature of Green Burial” Dialog v. 57.4, Winter 2018.
“Deeper Understandings — The All in All Saints Day” Living Lutheran, November 2018.
“All Flesh is Grass: Natural Burial as Embodiment of Wisdom Literature’s Mortality Tradition,” Proceedings of the 2017 North American Academy of Liturgy: 153-164.
“Food and funerals: why meals matter for Christian mortality and how we might respond gustatorily to changing death practices,” Liturgy 32, no. 2 (April 3, 2017): 52–61.
“The Church’s Morning Song: Guiding our Feet into the Way of Peace.” CrossAccent: Journal of the Association of American Lutheran Church Musicians 24, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 6–11.
“Stream, Flood and Spring: Water Renewing the Earth and the Church.” (cover story) Living Lutheran 1.1April 2016.
“What’s the Right Rite: Treating Environmental Degradation as Sickness or Sin.” Currents in Theology and Mission 43, no. 2 (March 22, 2016).
“The Earth is Full of Your Glory,” Currents in Theology in Mission 43, no. 2 (March 22, 2016).
“Why We Need an Altar Call to the Font,” The Yale ISM Review: Vol. 2: No. 1, Article 3. (2015)
“Listening for the Accents: Noticing Patterns in the Conversation about Table and Font,” in Let’s Talk: Living Theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, 19, no. 4, Advent 2014.
“Invitation and Open Table” in Table and Font: Who is Welcome?, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 2014.
“The Place of Earth in Lutheran Funeral Rites: Mapping the Current Terrain.” Dialog 53, no. 2 (June 1, 2014): 118–26.
A Forgotten Body of Knowledge? The Earth as Tutor in Prayer. Let’s Talk: Living Theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod. Volume 18, no. 2 (Easter 2013).
Book review: Worship as Repentance: Lutheran Liturgical Traditions and Catholic Consensus by Walter Sundberg. Theology Today 70, no. 1 (April 1, 2013): 83–85.
“The Risen Gardener,” Blogging Toward Sunday, Easter Sunday 2013, on The Christian Century website.
“Palm/Passion and Paradox,” Blogging Toward Sunday, Palm/Passion Sunday 2013, on The Christian Century website.
“Living By the Word: Easter Sunday 2013.” The Christian Century, March 20, 2013, p. 23.
“Living By the Word: Palm Sunday 2013.” The Christian Century, March 20, 2013, p. 22.
Review of The Four Gospels on Sunday: The New Testament and the Reform of Christian Worship, by Gordon Lathrop.” Worship 87, no. 1 (January 2013): 77–79.
"Worship Without Walls: Taking Liturgy to the Streets" (cover story). The Christian Century v. 129, no. 20 (October 3, 2012): 22–25. Read the article online.
“Spiritual Nomads: Exploring the Landscape, Points of Interest of Young Adults in Worship.” (cover story) The Lutheran, August 2012, p. 20-25.
Edited volume: Liturgy 27.2, theme issue on Liturgy and Ecology, February 2012, invited guest editor
“Committed to the Earth: Ecotheological Dimensions of Christian Burial Practices.” Liturgy 27.2 (February 2012).
“Lessons and the Arts for Advent 2 – 4 and Christmas Day.” Lectionary Homiletics and GoodPreacher.com (December 2011).
"Water in Worship: The Ecology of Baptism," The Christian Century 8 February 2011 v. 128 n. 3.
“‘I Too Must Sing When All Things Sing:’ Paul Gerhardt’s Nature Hymns.” CrossAccent: Journal of the Association of American Lutheran Church Musicians 15:1 (2007): 40-44.
“Liturgical Preparation: Reviving the Center by Reaching Toward the Horizon.” Liturgical Ministry 16 (Winter 2007): 30-35.
“O Blessed Spring: Paschal Initiation in an Age of Ecological Disintegration.” Seattle University Theology Review 6 (2006): 76-88.
“Flooding the Landscape: Luther's Flood Prayer and Baptismal Theology.” CrossAccent: Journal of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians 13: 1 (2005): 4-14.
“Robert Hovda: Facing the Assembly.” Worship 78:5 (September 2004): 421-444.
BOOK CHAPTER
On the eco-sacramental dimensions of death practices (title TBD), in the T&T Clark Companion toSacraments and Sacramentality, 2021.
On Gordon Lathrop’s liturgical theology (title TBD), in Doing Liturgical Theology: Method in Context, eds. Jason McFarland and Stephen Burns. Peeters, 2020.
“Wisdom’s Buried Treasure: Ecological Cosmology in Funeral Rites,” Full of Your Glory: Liturgy, Cosmos, Creation, ed. Teresa Berger. Liturgical Press, 2019.
“The Earth We Carry: Cooperation and Tactility in Funeral Practices” in Gabe Huck: A Guide for the Assembly, ed. Bryan Cones and Stephen Burns. Chicago: Liturgical Training Publications, 2019.
Essays on Psalms 15, 49:1-12, 52, 85, 107:1-9, and 138, in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship: Year C, Volume 2, Season After Pentecost. eds. Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby. Westminster John Knox, 2019.
“Natural Burial,” in In Sure and Certain Hope: A Funeral Sourcebook, ed. Melinda Quivik. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress: 2017.
“The Stream, the Flood, the Spring: the Liturgical Role of Flowing Waters in Eco-Reformation,” in Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril, ed. James Martin Schramm and Lisa Dahill. Eugene: Wipf and Stock: 2016.
Introduction, Sundays and Seasons: Preaching. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2015.
“What, then, do theologians mean when they say ‘culture’?” in Worship and Culture: Foreign Country or Homeland? After Twenty Years: The Ongoing Life of the Lutheran World Federation Study Series on Worship and Culture. Gláucia Vasconcelos Wilkey, editor. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015.
“Baptismal Water in Lutheran Worship and on the Earth: A Living, Sacramental Landscape” in Eco-Lutheranism: Lutheran Perspectives on Ecology, edited by Shauna Hannen and Karla Bohmbach, . Minneapolis: Lutheran University Press, 2013 87–99
“Shifting the University: Faculty Engagement and Curriculum Change,” in Susan A. Crate and Mark Nuttall, eds. Anthropology and Climate Change: From Encounters to Actions. Left Coast Press, 2009. With Peggy F. Barlett.
DISSERTATION
The Role of Baptismal Water at the Vigil of Easter in the Liturgical Generation of Eco-theology. Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 2010. Published at Emory University's Electronic Thesis and Dissertation repository: http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/7mckz
INTERVIEW
Interview of Don Saliers and Emily Saliers. Practical Matters: A Transdisciplinary Multimedia Journal of Religious Practices and Practical Theology, Issue 1. Spring 2009.
LECTURE
The 2011 Byberg Preaching lectures that Benjamin Stewart and Barbara Rossing and gave in Oregon are now available online for downloading or listening (click on the year at the right; media archive); Barbara gave three lectures and one sermon; Ben Stewart gave one lecture and one sermon.