What are Christians to be and to do in the world? What does faithfulness look like in these complex and confusing times? Christians are often told either to take over the world in God's name or to withdraw into faithful sanctuaries of counter-cultural witness. John Stackhouse offers a concise, vivid, and practical alternative based on the teachings of Scripture about the meaning of human life in this world and the next. Why You're Here provides an accessible, concrete program for the faithful Christian living in today's world, fraught as it is with ambiguity, irony, and frequent choices among unpalatable options. Stackhouse speaks directly to everyday Christians who are searching for straightforward advice on some of their most complex quandaries about the challenges inherent in staying true to the Bible's teachings. Politicians, medical professionals, businesspeople, professors, lawyers, pastors, students, and anyone else concerned to think realistically and hopefully about Christian engagement in society today will find here a framework to both guide and inspire them in everyday life.
Author
Until 2015, John Stackhouse held the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Chair of Theology and Culture at Regent College, an international graduate school of Christian studies affiliated with the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. In September of that year, he took the Samuel J. Mikolaski Chair of Religious Studies at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, where he also serves as Dean of Faculty Development. A graduate of Queen's University (BA, first class), Wheaton College Graduate School (MA, summa cum laude), and The University of Chicago (PhD), he taught European history at Northwestern College (Iowa) before returning to Canada in 1990. For eight years he taught in the department of religion of the University of Manitoba, departing there for Regent in 1998 as a tenured (full) professor. He is the author of ten books, editor of four more, and co-author or co-editor of another half dozen. He has published over 700 articles, book chapters, and reviews, and his work has been featured on most major North American TV networks, in most major radio markets, and in periodicals as diverse as The New York Times, The Atlantic, Christianity Today, The Christian Century, The Times Literary Supplement, Time, and The Globe and Mail. Dr. Stackhouse has lectured at Harvard's Kennedy School, Yale's Divinity School, Stanford's Law School, Hong Kong University, Edinburgh University, Fudan University, Otago University, and many other universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. He divides his time now between Moncton and North Vancouver, BC.
