Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Sacred Signposts
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://bendueholm.com/
CITY: Wauconda
STATE: IL
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married Kerry Waller; children: three.
EDUCATION:University of Chicago, M.Div., 2007.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Lutheran pastor. Messiah Lutheran Church, Wauconda, IL, pastor of worship and education.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals and journals, including the Christian Century, Aeon, Killing the Buddha, and Religion Dispatches.
SIDELIGHTS
Benjamin J. Dueholm is an American Lutheran pastor. He serves as a pastor of worship and education at Wauconda, Illinois’s Messiah Lutheran Church. Dueholm has contributed articles to several periodicals and journals, including the Christian Century, Aeon, Killing the Buddha, and Religion Dispatches.
Dueholm published Sacred Signposts: Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance in 2018. Dueholm looks at the sacred signposts that indicate the way to practice and perform Christianity. The book looks at these markers as both sacred and subversive. He also examines the significance of words, such as water, bread and wine, ministry, worship, confession and forgiveness, and suffering.
Writing in the Christian Century, Timothy Brown reasoned that “Sacred Signposts is hard to nail down within a genre. ‘Humble apologetics’ might fit, although that description misses the mark, as does ‘spiritual memoir.’ The book offers a humble apologetics not of the faith but of the faithful acts-and therefore of the practitioners, faithful or not. While the prose occasionally reads as romantic, it’s clear that Dueholm deeply loves these practices and feels loved by them, so his romanticism is easy to forgive.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly stated: “Though lacking in anecdote, Dueholm’s pensive reflection on biblical virtues will be welcomed by Christians interested in simple theology.” A contributor to Internet Bookwatch found the account to be “an impressively informative and inspiring read that is particularly well written, organized and presented.”
Reviewing the book in the Ponderings on a Faith Journey website, Bob Cornwall observed that “there are many books written on Christian practices. Some are how-to books. This is not one of them. This is an invitation to dive more fully into the Christian faith, and let it transform us. It is beautifully written.” Cornwall remarked that “Katherine Willis Pershey in her endorsement on the book’s back cover speaks of the ‘breathtakingly beautiful prose,’ but notes that it is much more than that. She highlights his theological genius. I think Katherine is on to something. It is both beautifully written and—though not lengthy—it is theologically deep. I believe this is a book that will speak to many in our day, and thus is highly recommended.”
In a review in Modern Church, Tim Macquiban said that “generally speaking, the book is written in an American journalese which sometimes grates if you are not familiar with the vocabulary (what on earth are ‘dumpster-divers’?) but which often stimulates with arresting turns of phrase and fresh ways of presenting the familiar.” Macquiban pointed out, however, that “the chapters are curiously uneven.” Reviewing the book in the Anarchy of the Ranters blog, Isaac Smith mentioned that Dueholm “is one of a number of authors in recent years who have explored how to practice Christian faith amid the fact of a secular world, Rod Dreher (of the Benedict Option fame) being perhaps the most prominent.” Smith commented that “Sacred Signposts was a greatly illuminating read for me, in no small part because of my religious background as a Quaker. For us, the relationship to the ‘holy possessions’ has always been fraught. Either we disregard them completely, or we spiritualize them, fleeing the concrete realities Dueholm seeks to draw our attention toward. Yet even dissenters such as the Society of Friends can recognize their own tradition in the signposts that frame Dueholm’s book.”
A contributor to the A Thinking Reed blog said that “because Dueholm focuses on things that Christians already have in common, it might be easy to miss the radicalism of what he’s proposing,” appending that “Dueholm Dueholm is asking Christians to trust in the grace of the Holy Spirit and the gifts she’s already given to the church. This isn’t exactly a recipe, in worldly terms, for institutional success! But Dueholm (and Luther) would be the first to point out that, in this case, faithfulness matters more than success. Ultimately, the word and practices of grace are all the church has, but they might be the one thing the world really needs.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Christian Century, August 15, 2018, Timothy Brown, review of Sacred Signposts: Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance, p. 39.
Internet Bookwatch, August 1, 2018, review of Sacred Signposts.
Publishers Weekly, May 14, 2018, review of Sacred Signposts, p. 53.
ONLINE
Anarchy of the Ranters, https://theanarchyoftheranters.wordpress.com/ (June 22, 2018), Isaac Smith, review of Sacred Signposts.
A Thinking Reed, https://thinkingreed.wordpress.com/ (April 9, 2018), review of Sacred Signposts.
Benjamin J. Dueholm website, https://bendueholm.com (October 12, 2018).
Divinity School, University of Chicago website, https://divinity.uchicago.edu/ (October 12, 2018), author profile.
Ponderings on a Faith Journey, http://www.bobcornwall.com/ (September 17, 2018), review of Sacred Signposts.
Modern Church, https://modernchurch.org.uk/ (July 1, 2018), Tim Macquiban, review of Sacred Signposts.
Ponderings on a Faith Journey, http://www.bobcornwall.com/ (September 17, 2018), review of Sacred Signposts.
Ben Dueholm
MDiv'07
Rev. Dueholm answered these questions in the summer of 2013. He joined the Divinity School Alumni Council in the fall of 2012.
Why did you decide to pursue a degree at the University of Chicago Divinity School?
I received my bachelor's degree from the College and had taken several classes in the Divinity School. I knew alumni of the M.Div program and was always impressed at the breadth of traditions represented in the program as well as the depth of theological study that was possible through it.
What were the highlights of your Divinity School experience?
There were many! I loved the History of Christianity courses I took, Margaret Mitchell's New Testament class, a course on Luther with Susan Schreiner. I also took full advantage of the wider university setting by taking relevant courses in the English, Social Thought, and Anthropology departments. Helping to organize the ministry conferences was also a great thrill and a powerful learning experience of its own.
What is your current job? How did you get to this position?
I am currently serving as associate pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in Wauconda, Illinois. I came here on an interim basis in 2011 and was kept on as the permanent associate pastor starting last year. Additionally I work as a freelance writer for a number of periodicals.
How did the program at the Divinity School and the wider University prepare you for your current work?
People seem to appreciate the academic background that informs my preaching and teaching. Church folks tend to be intellectually curious, so being able to answer some of their questions or start conversations that might broaden those questions has been very rewarding. My work at the Divinity School helped me write quickly and effectively as well.
What do you do in your non-professional life?
I spend some time wishing I had more of a non-professional life. My wife, Kerry Waller Dueholm (M.Div 03) and I live in the church parsonage and raise our two sons, Soren and Elijah. We are also licensed foster parents.
Why did you agree to serve on the Alumni Council?
I felt I had a really first-rate theological education and I was happy to be asked to play some part in ensuring that a similar or better experience continued to be available to ministry students, in particular, who were willing to seek out the challenge of studying in an ecumenical, interfaith, and highly scholarly setting.
Benjamin J. Dueholm is pastor of worship and education at Messiah Lutheran Church in Wauconda, Illinois. His writing has appeared in The Christian Century, Aeon, Killing the Buddha, and Religion Dispatches.
I’m the author of Sacred Signposts: Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance, coming out in 2018 from Eerdmans but eminently purchasable right now. I’ve also written extensively on religion, politics, culture, movies, and books for The Christian Century, Aeon, Religion Dispatches, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard, The Washington Monthly, The American Conservative, and a few other places.
Ordained in 2009, I’m a Lutheran pastor currently serving Messiah Lutheran Church in Wauconda, Illinois. I previously served in different capacities in churches in and around Chicago. I’m a graduate of the University of Chicago and Deep Springs College. My wife and I have three kids and host an occasional cast of foster children.
Thank you for visiting and reading.
Sacred Signposts: Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance
Timothy Brown
The Christian Century. 135.17 (Aug. 15, 2018): p39.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The Christian Century Foundation
http://www.christiancentury.org
Full Text:
Sacred Signposts: Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance
By Benjamin J. Dueholm
Eerdmans, 176 pp., $16.99 paperback
What does the church offer the world these days? The answer, in Benjamin Dueholm's estimation, is what it has always offered: a sacred word, baptism, Eucharist, forgiveness, ministry, worship, and a cross-shaped lens through which to view it all. These are the "holy possessions" of the church. Each is an act of resistance in a world that tempts us to live as inhumane and godless people. These seven possessions are what we've got to work with and, according to Dueholm, it has always been so.
Sacred Signposts reads like Paul Woodruff's Reverence, a collection of personal stories and deep ruminations on a topic that cannot be addressed head-on. A direct treatment would just be a collision. By writing about (or, more accurately, around) each practice, Dueholm reveals the shape, depth, and necessity of each. His writing is careful but not timid. Each chapter builds upon the previous one, culminating with the call to sacrificial living in "The Cross," a topic which is both beautiful and biting, breaking readers open to the fragile power of the Christian life on which these practices leave their mark.
Filled with wit and wisdom, honesty and humility, the book does what its subtitle suggests: it resists. It resists the temptation to be preachy and instead chooses a more poetic route. The subversive nature of our holy possessions can only be approached through subversive writing. Dueholm takes up that challenge, weaving the brilliance of Augustine and Bonhoeffer alongside that of his children, to reveal the meaning of Christian practices.
Dueholm posits that the practices of the church are more art than achievement, not mechanical movements of the faithful but actions that move the faithful. The church that seeks to engage the transcendent clings to these particular practices, and therefore these practices cling to us. Humanity's search through the galaxies to find and take hold of charmed objects to bring good fortune and success is the dangerous underbelly of religious piety. Dueholm points out how each holy possession is the antithesis of that search, much to our surprise and benefit. The bread of the Eucharist may appear to be charmed in the hands of the priest, but it is the one who receives who ends up being charmed. The holy water turns the baptized, regardless of race, social status, or gender, into the holy one. The forgiven one is made clean without the opportunity to argue her case, which is an act of true grace. "This is the way of God," each mark continually hammers home, "to turn the recipient into the blessing."
Throughout it all, I found my own place in the conversation. How do the scriptures confront my reluctance to "give a damn" about my neighbor? How does baptism call me into community with those I disagree with? Dueholm's twists and turns of phrase made me put the book down periodically to ponder my own relationship with each rite. A book about the ministry arts should do no less.
The unashamedly Lutheran hermeneutic at work here will not be a stumbling block for those who find themselves in other camps. One of Dueholm's core convictions is that these practices are a golden thread that weaves through the church universal. I found this conviction a testament both to the strength of each practice and to their disruptive nature. Christians don't appreciate having our sectarian tendencies challenged, and yet they are challenged in these marks of the church. The progressive Wesleyan and the paleo-Calvinist both find themselves under the sway of the same practices, though they might understand them differently. Dueholm makes this point with a grace and matter-of-factness that engender both humility and shock. It's as if he's naming a secret that we all know but refuse to acknowledge.
Sacred Signposts is hard to nail down within a genre. "Humble apologetics" might fit, although that description misses the mark, as does "spiritual memoir." The book offers a humble apologetics not of the faith but of the faithful acts-and therefore of the practitioners, faithful or not. While the prose occasionally reads as romantic, it's clear that Dueholm deeply loves these practices and feels loved by them, so his romanticism is easy to forgive. How else do you write about something you love?
I have often thought that, should my faith deteriorate into nothingness, the practices of the church would be what I would miss most, both in the doing and the receiving. Dueholm nods in agreement, and he notes that there is good reason for that. Intangible beliefs change, but these practices offer an enduring, tangible word for those seeking faith when all other words fail.
Our holy possessions continue to say something. It's a mysterious but abiding something about the nature of God and humanity that gathers in the name of Christ. It's something that the church has always offered to the world in roundabout ways, full of hope and resistance and grace.
Reviewed by Timothy Brown, who is the pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Brown, Timothy. "Sacred Signposts: Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance." The Christian Century, 15 Aug. 2018, p. 39. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A551168341/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=860853fe. Accessed 17 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A551168341
Sacred Signposts
Publishers Weekly. 265.20 (May 14, 2018): p53.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Sacred Signposts
Benjamin J. Dueholm. Eerdmans, $16.99 trade paper (180p) ISBN 978-0-8028-7417-7
In this instructive debut, Dueholm, pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church in Wauconda, Ill., examines central practices of Christianity and explains why they still matter today. Addressing a post-Christian world and an America that is experiencing a "significant, ongoing decline in formal religious participation," Dueholm implores readers to consider seven Christian practices: word, water, meal, forgiveness, ministry, prayer, and cross. He abandons jargon in favor of language that makes religious concepts easy to understand: "The habit of prayer connects the disparate moments of our lives and the scattered intentions of our hearts." The seven sacred signposts "begin with something stubbornly ordinary: people," Duehold says, reminding readers to move beyond political and theological divides and extend grace to others. To illustrate how biblical practices can be applied to everyday life, Dueholm shares a handful of personal stories, but most of the book is a collection of his thoughts on faith and ruminations on passages from the Bible. He also draws on the teachings of St. Augustine, Martin Luther, and Dietrich Bonhoffer to help readers learn how to practice faith in a secular world. Though lacking in anecdote, Dueholm's pensive reflection on biblical virtues will be welcomed by Christians interested in simple theology. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sacred Signposts." Publishers Weekly, 14 May 2018, p. 53. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A539387468/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=94197849. Accessed 17 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A539387468
Sacred Signposts
Internet Bookwatch. (Aug. 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
Sacred Signposts
Benjamin J. Dueholm
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
2140 Oak Industrial Drive, NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49505
www.eerdmans.com
9780802874177, $16.99, PB, 190pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: The church isn't a building or an institution. The church is what it does. At the very heart of Christianity are its central, sacred, subversive practices the sacred signposts that have always shown the way to practice Christian faith, even when the terrain around it changes. In "Sacred Signposts: Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance", Benjamin J. Dueholm (who is the Pastor of Worship and Education at Messiah Lutheran Church in Wauconda, Illinois) unpacks Christianity's seven "holy possessions," which function as signposts words, water, bread and wine, confession and forgiveness, ministry, worship, and suffering. Then he offers a visionary account of the critical, radical, life-affirming role that faith can play in a secular, post-Christian world. An impressively informative and inspiring read that is particularly well written, organized and presented, "Sacred Signposts" is unreservedly recommended for community, seminary, and church library collections, as well as the personal reading lists for all members of the Christian community.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Sacred Signposts." Internet Bookwatch, Aug. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A553627951/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ebb2933b. Accessed 17 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A553627951
The church's holy, subversive possessions
Ben Dueholm offers a humble apologetics—of faithful actions, not beliefs.
by Tim Brown July 31, 2018
In Review
Sacred Signposts
Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance
By Benjamin J. Dueholm
Eerdmans
Buy from IndieBound
Buy from Amazon
What does the church offer the world these days? The answer, in Benjamin Dueholm’s estimation, is what it has always offered: a sacred word, baptism, Eucharist, forgiveness, ministry, worship, and a cross-shaped lens through which to view it all. These are the “holy possessions” of the church. Each is an act of resistance in a world that tempts us to live as inhumane and godless people. These seven possessions are what we’ve got to work with and, according to Dueholm, it has always been so.
Sacred Signposts reads like Paul Woodruff’s Reverence, a collection of personal stories and deep ruminations on a topic that cannot be addressed head-on. A direct treatment would just be a collision. By writing about (or, more accurately, around) each practice, Dueholm reveals the shape, depth, and necessity of each. His writing is careful but not timid. Each chapter builds upon the previous one, culminating with the call to sacrificial living in “The Cross,” a topic which is both beautiful and biting, breaking readers open to the fragile power of the Christian life on which these practices leave their mark.
Tim Brown
Tim Brown is pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.
See All Articles
Aug 15, 2018 issue
Filled with wit and wisdom, honesty and humility, the book does what its subtitle suggests: it resists. It resists the temptation to be preachy and instead chooses a more poetic route. The subversive nature of our holy possessions can only be approached through subversive writing. Dueholm takes up that challenge, weaving the brilliance of Augustine and Bonhoeffer alongside that of his children, to reveal the meaning of Christian practices.
Dueholm posits that the practices of the church are more art than achievement, not mechanical movements of the faithful but actions that move the faithful. The church that seeks to engage the transcendent clings to these particular practices, and therefore these practices cling to us. Humanity’s search through the galaxies to find and take hold of charmed objects to bring good fortune and success is the dangerous underbelly of religious piety. Dueholm points out how each holy possession is the antithesis of that search, much to our surprise and benefit. The bread of the Eucharist may appear to be charmed in the hands of the priest, but it is the one who receives who ends up being charmed. The holy water turns the baptized, regardless of race, social status, or gender, into the holy one. The forgiven one is made clean without the opportunity to argue her case, which is an act of true grace. “This is the way of God,” each mark continually hammers home, “to turn the recipient into the blessing.”
Throughout it all, I found my own place in the conversation. How do the scriptures confront my reluctance to “give a damn” about my neighbor? How does baptism call me into community with those I disagree with? Dueholm’s twists and turns of phrase made me put the book down periodically to ponder my own relationship with each rite. A book about the ministry arts should do no less.
The unashamedly Lutheran hermeneutic at work here will not be a stumbling block for those who find themselves in other camps. One of Dueholm’s core convictions is that these practices are a golden thread that weaves through the church universal. I found this conviction a testament both to the strength of each practice and to their disruptive nature. Christians don’t appreciate having our sectarian tendencies challenged, and yet they are challenged in these marks of the church. The progressive Wesleyan and the paleo-Calvinist both find themselves under the sway of the same practices, though they might understand them differently. Dueholm makes this point with a grace and matter-of-factness that engender both humility and shock. It’s as if he’s naming a secret that we all know but refuse to acknowledge.
Sacred Signposts is hard to nail down within a genre. “Humble apologetics” might fit, although that description misses the mark, as does “spiritual memoir.” The book offers a humble apologetics not of the faith but of the faithful acts—and therefore of the practitioners, faithful or not. While the prose occasionally reads as romantic, it’s clear that Dueholm deeply loves these practices and feels loved by them, so his romanticism is easy to forgive. How else do you write about something you love?
I have often thought that, should my faith deteriorate into nothingness, the practices of the church would be what I would miss most, both in the doing and the receiving. Dueholm nods in agreement, and he notes that there is good reason for that. Intangible beliefs change, but these practices offer an enduring, tangible word for those seeking faith when all other words fail.
Our holy possessions continue to say something. It’s a mysterious but abiding something about the nature of God and humanity that gathers in the name of Christ. It’s something that the church has always offered to the world in roundabout ways, full of hope and resistance and grace.