Richard Alan Lischer (born November 12, 1943, in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

) is an American author, memoirist, preacher, practical theologian, and professor emeritus at Duke Divinity School.

Duke Divinity School

After serving as a Lutheran pastor for nine years, Lischer joined the faculty of Duke Divinity School in 1979. He has been interviewed on topics ranging from church liturgy to death, commenting frequently in the New York Times. He has participated in multiple NPR interviews, and in 2010 was a part of the PBS documentary "God in America," where he provides background for the episode on the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement. He has also explored the interactions of preaching, politics, and literature, notably at Yale Divinity School in his Lyman Beecher Lectures on preaching and reconciliation, as well as in a prize-winning study of Martin Luther King, Jr., ''The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America,'' for which he was interviewed by Duke News in 2011. He was one of two keynote speakers at the first international symposium on homiletics held at

Heidelberg University Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest unive ...

. In the classroom, he draws both on the church’s long tradition as well as the experience of contemporary preachers as resources for parish ministry. In 2000, he inaugurated Duke Divinity School’s first chair in preaching. Lischer has preached all over the world, most notably at the Washington National Cathedral, and regularly at Duke University Chapel. He is a former president of the Academy of Homiletics and the recipient of the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Memoir

Although both a pastor and an academic, it is Lischer's recent memoir work that has received the most public attention. His first memoir is the story of his early ministry, ''Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery'', and is set in middle-America in the early 1970s. It evokes the hidden dramas in a small country church and traces the painful learning curve of its inexperienced minister. Following the book’s publication in 2001, Lischer began a program of research and teaching in spiritual autobiography that has increasingly occupied the latter phases of his career. A second memoir, ''Stations of the Heart: Parting with a Son'', commemorates his son, Adam, who died of cancer in 2005, for which Lischer received attention in national and regional press. His most recent book ''Our Hearts Are Restless: The Art of Spiritual Memoir'' was published in 2022 by Oxford University Press.

Personal life

Lischer graduated from Concordia Senior College in Fort Wayne, IN in 1965, and then from Washington University in St. Louis in 1967 with an MA in English. He earned the Bachelor of Divinity at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis in 1969. His Ph.D. (Theology) came from

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

, in 1972. He is married to Tracy Kenyon Lischer, a lawyer in Durham,

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

Publications

Lischer has published more than a dozen books, including ''The Company of Preachers: Wisdom on Preaching from Augustine to the Present'', which was awarded "Best Book in Ministry/Leadership" by Christianity Today. He is also regularly published in ''The Christian Century'' and his essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the ''Washington Post'', the ''Wall Street Journal'', the ''Atlanta Journal Constitution'', the ''Sydney Morning Herald'', the ''Raleigh News and Observer'', and the ''Durham (NC) Herald''. In 2016, a ''

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

'' was published in his honor. ''Preaching Gospel: Essays in Honor of Richard Lischer'' included contributions from Ellen F. Davis,

Stanley Hauerwas Stanley Martin Hauerwas (; born July 24, 1940) is an American Protestant theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual. Hauerwas originally taught at the University of Notre Dame before moving to Duke University. Hauerwas was a longtime professo ...

, and Richard B. Hays.

External links

Official website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lischer, Richard 1943 births Living people American male non-fiction writers American Christian clergy American memoirists American Christian theologians Duke Divinity School faculty Concordia Seminary alumni Washington University in St. Louis alumni