Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Dean 

Schilling Professor of Public Theology and Church and Economic Life
Appointed 2014

Dr. Kyle Roberts is vice-president of academic affairs and dean, and holds the Schilling chair as professor of public theology and the church and economic life at United. Roberts has published A Complicated Pregnancy: Whether Mary Was a Virgin and Why It Matters (Fortress, 2017), co-authored Matthew: A Two Horizons Commentary (Eerdmans, 2018), and Emerging Prophet: Kierkegaard and the Postmodern People of God (Cascade, 2013). Roberts has published essays on Kierkegaard and modern theology, including several articles in the series Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources (Ashgate / University of Copenhagen) and other collected volumes on various topics, including Pietism, Karl Barth, eschatology, and Christian spirituality.

At United, Roberts teaches Introduction to Theological and Religious Interpretation, Christian Ethics, Historical Theology (modern period), Senior Capstone Seminar, and various electives—including Evil, Death, and Alienation and Eschatology and Hope. Roberts has been Academic Dean at United since January 2018.

Education

• PhD Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
• MDiv Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
• BA Wheaton College

Teaching and Research

• Biblical and systematic theology
• Christian thought
• Kierkegaard and existentialism
• Scripture and interpretation
• Sin and Alienation

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

• “Kierkegaard’s ‘Single Individual’ and Hardt and Negri’s ‘Multitude’: Theological Resources for a Post-Imperial Political Subjectivity” in Kierkegaard and Political Theology (Wipf & Stock, 2018)
• “Kierkegaard Reception in Modern Theology: A Review and Assessment” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook (DeGruyter, 2015)
• “The Living Word and the Word of God: The Pietist Impulse in Kierkegaard and Grundtvig” in The Pietist Impulse in Christianity, edited by Christian Collins Winn, G. W. Carlson, and Chris Gehrz. Cascade, 2012.
• “Francis Schaeffer: How Not to Read Kierkegaard,” “Reinhold Niebuhr: The Logic of Paradox for a Theology of Human Nature,” “Helmut Thielicke: Kierkegaard’s Subjectivity for a Theology of Being,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Vol. 10, Kierkegaard and Theology, edited by Jon Stewart. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2012.
• “A Destitute Beggar and a Resurrected Friend: Kierkegaard’s Use of Lazarus,” “An Active Faith and a Grateful Heart: Kierkegaard’s Use of James,” “The Pitiable Prototype: Kierkegaard’s Use of Peter,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Vol. 1, Kierkegaard and the Bible, edited by Jon Stewart. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2010.

Books

• Emerging Prophet: Kierkegaard and the Postmodern People of God (Cascade, 2013)
• A Complicated Pregnancy: Whether Mary Was a Virgin and Why It Matters (Fortress Press, 2017)
• Matthew: The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary (co-authored with Jeannine Brown, Eerdmans, 2018)

Experts Guide

• Christianity in the public square (evangelicals and politics, interpretation of the Bible and social issues)
  Millennials, faith, and the changing U.S. church
• Despair and suicide through the lens of philosophy/theology
• Advent themes (especially the story of Jesus’ virgin birth)