Lisa E Dahill, Ph.D.

About

I grew up in Costa Mesa, CA, and went to an ELCA college (Gustavus Adolphus) in Minnesota, followed by a year in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps in Milwaukee and seminary in Chicago.  After serving parishes in Iowa, I came back to California for the Ph.D. in Christian Spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and worked as a post-doctoral research scholar at the Carnegie Foundation (Stanford University).  From there I moved to Columbus, OH, to join the faculty of Trinity Lutheran Seminary, where I taught worship, spirituality, ecology, Bonhoeffer, and the arts for ten years.  I've been at CLU since Fall 2015 and am working on projects involving outdoor worship and spiritual practices, along with mobilizing Lutheran and Christian resources to address the ecological urgency of our time.  I love biking, hiking, backpacking, kayaking, and swimming in the ocean, and I'm convinced that the creativity, community, and joy sparked through passionate love for our Earth and its most-endangered creatures (including humans) is just honestly more fun than any other way of life.

Education

Ph.D. (Christian Spirituality), Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA

M.Div., Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago, IL

B.A. (summa cum laude, Religion and German), Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN

Expertise

Christian spirituality

Theology, spirituality, and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Religion and ecology

Christian and Lutheran worship (especially sacraments and hymnody)

Christian monasticism, including Protestant monastic or neo-monastic communities

Publications

BOOKS:

Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril, co-edited with James B. Martin-Schramm.  Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock.

[In Contract] Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Classics of Western Spirituality Series, ed. Bernard McGinn.  Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. 

Reading from the Underside of Selfhood: Bonhoeffer and Spiritual Formation.  Princeton Theological Monograph Series. Eugene,OR: Pickwick/Wipf & Stock, 2009.

 40-Day Journey with Julian of Norwich. Minneapolis:Augsburg Books, 2008.

 Truly Present: Practicing Prayer in the Liturgy. Minneapolis:Augsburg Fortress, 2005.  

 With Charles Foster, et al. (second author). Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and the Pastoral Imagination. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005.

TRANSLATION:

Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, volume 8, ed. John W. de Gruchy (one of four translators).Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010.

 Conspiracy and Imprisonment: 1940-1945.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, volume 16, ed. Mark S. Brocker.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, June 2006.  Sole translator.  Winner: Top Ten Book of 2006, Academy of Parish Clergy.

SELECTED ESSAYS AND BOOK CHAPTERS:

“Bells of Mindfulness: Bonhoeffer, COVID-19, and the Climate Crisis.” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 21 (Spring 2021): 80-88.

“’Unworthy of the Earth’: Fallibilism, Place, Terra Nullius, and Christian Mission.” In The Grace of Being Fallible in Philosophy, Theology, and Religion, ed. Thomas John Hastings and Knut-Willy Sæther, 67-88. New York/London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

“Water, Place, and Indigeneity: Three Glimpses of Christian Spirituality.”  Introduction to themed section.  Spiritus (Fall 2020): 172-75.

“Self and Shadow: Bonhoeffer, Social Location, and Gender as Genre.” In Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Theology, and Political Resistance, ed. Lori Brandt Hale and W. David Hall, 131-44. Faith and Politics: Political Theology in a New Key Series, ed Fred Dahlmeyer.  Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/ Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.

“Eating and Being Eaten: Interspecies Vulnerability as Eucharist.” Religions 204 (2020), 11 pages: doi:10.3390/rel11040204. 

“Lent, Lament, and the River: Interfaith Ritual in the Ashes of the Thomas Fire.” Liturgy 34/4 (2019): 1-12. 

“Water, Climate, Stars, and Place: Toward an Interspecies Interfaith Belonging.” In Interreligious/Interfaith Studies: Defining a New Field, ed. Eboo Patel, Jennifer Howe Peace, and Noah Silverman, 158-68. Boston: Beacon Press, 2018.

"Living, Local, Wild Water: Into Baptismal Reality." In Encountering Earth: Thinking Theologically with a More-than-Human World, ed. Trevor George Hunsberger Bechtel et al., 151-65. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2018.

“Rewilding Christian Spirituality: Outdoor Sacraments and the Life of the World.” In Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril, ed. James B. Martin-Schramm and Lisa E. Dahill, 177-96.  Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2017.

 “Into Local Waters: Rewilding the Study of Christian Spirituality.” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality (Fall 2016): 141-65.

“Life in All Its Fullness: Christian Worship and the Natural World.” Liturgy (Fall 2016): 43-50.

“The View from Way Below: Inter-Species Encounter, Membranes, and the Reality of Christ.” Dialog: A Journal of Theology 53/3(Fall 2014): 250-58.

 “Bio-Theoacoustics: Prayer Outdoors and the Reality of the Natural World.” Dialog: A Journal of Theology 52/4 (Winter 2013): 292-302.

“Indoors, Outdoors: Praying with the Earth.” In Shauna Hannan and Karla Bohmbach, eds., Eco-Lutheranism: Lutheran Perspectives on Ecology, 113-24.  Proceedings of the Association of Teaching Theologians, 2012.Minneapolis: Lutheran University Press, 2013.

“Proclaimed, Embodied, and Sung: Bonhoeffer and the Holy Spirit.” In Holy Spirit: Unfinished Agenda, ed. Johnson T.K. Lim, 281-86. Singapore: Armour Publishing, 2014.

“Bringing Voice to Life: Bonhoeffer’s Spirituality in Translation.”  In Interpreting Bonhoeffer: Historical Perspectives, Emerging Issues, ed. Guy C. Carter and Clifford H. Green, 79-90.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

“‘There’s Some Contradiction Here’: Gender and the Relation of Above and Below in Bonhoeffer.” In Interpreting Bonhoeffer: Essays on Method and Approaches, ed. Peter Frick, 53-82. International Bonhoeffer Interpretations Series. Berne/Berlin: Peter Lang, 2013.

“New Creation: The Revised Common Lectionary and the Earth’s Paschal Life.” Liturgy 27/2 (April-June 2012): 3-16.

“For the Life of the World: Toward the Next Ten Years of Spiritus.”  Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 10 (Fall 2010): 287-92.

“Con-Formation with Christ: Bonhoeffer, Social Location, and Embodiment.” In Being Human, Becoming Human: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Social Thought, ed. Jens Zimmermann and Brian Gregor, 188-202.Princeton Theological Monograph Series.Eugene,OR: Pickwick Books/Wipf & Stock, 2010.

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45), Life Together.” In Christian Spirituality: The Classics, ed. Arthur Holder, 329-40.London andNew York: Routledge, 2010.

“Spirituality: Overview.” In The Encyclopedia of Christianity, 5 vols., ed. Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Milič Lochman†, John Mbiti, Jaroslav Pelikan†, and Lukas Vischer; translated and edited in English by Geoffrey W. Bromiley; statistical editor, David B. Barrett; vol. 5 (Sh–Z), 159-61.Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.;Leiden: Brill, 1999-2007.

“To Sing the Mystical Union: ‘Warum sollt ich michdenn grämen’.” CrossAccent 15/2 (August 2007): 40-49.  One in the 2007 “Accent on Paul Gerhardt” series.

“Jesus For You: A Feminist Reading Of Bonhoeffer’s Christology.” Currents in Theology and Mission 34/4 (August 2007): 250-59.

“Particularity, Incarnation, and Discernment: Bonhoeffer’s ‘Christmas’ Spirituality.” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 2/1 (2007): 53-61. 

Grant Funding

Sabbatical Grant for Researchers, Louisville Institute (2021-2022): “Rewilding Life Together: Bonhoeffer, Spirituality, and Interspecies Community”