Reflect on the sacramental imagination and how water, bread, and wine communicate divine grace. Trace the theological and historical development of the sacraments in conversation with creation, incarnation, and architecture.

Dr. Christian Scharen is the Associate Professor and Gordon Braatz Chair of Worship at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. A practical theologian, he was ordained a pastor in the ELCA in 2001. He holds the Ph.D. in Religion from Emory University and has written or edited more than a dozen books and many articles, book chapters, and research reports. His research and writing focus on theology, worship and the arts, pastoral leadership, social justice, and theological education. His early work on theological ethnography helped spark an international movement bringing together sociology and theology in the study of the church. His most recent book is co-authored with Aana Vigen, Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics: A Completely Revised 2nd Edition (T&T Clark). He is currently working on a decolonial theological memoir about his family, the Ingalls of The Little House on the Prairie books, and a book on Christian worship before and after Christianity became the religion of Empire. He enjoys cooking, poetry, and music, especially learning to play on his grandfather’s 1910 Washburn bowl back mandolin. He is married to Pierrette Comulada, and together they have three adult children, Isaiah, Finn, and Owen, and a bulldog named Walt.