The work of practical theologian James E. Loder Jr. (1931-2001) deserves a wider audience. For
more than forty years he developed and exercised an interdisciplinary methodology that
identified patterns of correlation in the fields of psychology educational theory
phenomenology epistemology and physics producing a compelling theological vision that
centers on the person and work of the Holy Spirit engaging and transforming human life. At his
untimely death in November 2001 Loder was the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Philosophy of
Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary where he lectured primarily in the areas
of human development and the philosophy of education. This book introduces and examines
explores and untangles the complexity of Loder's thought in order to make it more accessible to
a broader audience. At the core of Loder's work is a relational phenomenological pneumatology
of inestimable value to the theologian engaged in the ongoing renewal of the church. The
Christian life is preeminently relational distinguished by a relationship with God constituted
by Jesus Christ and sustained by the Holy Spirit. Relationality Loder claims takes place in
and through the life of the Holy Spirit who operates within a complementary relationship with
the human spirit through an analogia spiritus: a profound transformational interrelation of
the Holy Spirit and the human spirit. The Holy Spirit intimately connected to the person and
work of Christ takes up and extends the work begun in the incarnation by enfleshing the
presence of Christ thus transforming human life. Loder is distinctive for articulating a
pneumatology that incorporates 'how' the self participates in the relationship and the way the
self through the relationship comes to have a full knowledge of itself the world and God.
It is precisely the logic of this Christomorphic dynamic that has extraordinary implications
for the way we attempt to fathom the depths and convey the meaning of Christian experience.
Loder's relational phenomenological pneumatology contains rich and principally unrecognized
resources for providing new frameworks for the Christian life.
