Gabriel fackre biography

American theologian (1926–2018)

Gabriel Joseph Fackre (1926–2018) was an American theologian and Abbot Professor of Christian Theology Emeritus at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts (now Andover Newton Seminary at Yale). He was on the school's faculty for 25 years before retiring in 1996. Previous to that he was Professor of Theology and Culture at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, teaching there from 1961 through 1970. Fackre has also served as visiting professor or held lectureships at 40 universities, colleges, and seminaries. His papers are housed in Special Collections at Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries, Princeton, New Jersey.

Personal life

Fackre was born on January 25, 1926, in Jersey City, New Jersey, and raised in Brooklyn, New York City. He and his spouse, Dorothy Ashman Fackre, married in 1945, were students together at both Bucknell University and the University of Chicago Divinity School and later the parents of five children and grandparents of eight. Dorothy, also an ordained minister, served with Gabriel in congregations in the Chicago stockyards district and in the greater Pittsburghsteel mill towns of Homestead and Duquesne, Pennsylvania, for 12 years. Dorothy died in 2017. They were theological collaborators and wrote a number of books together.

Fackre died on January 31, 2018.

Theology, ethics, and mission

Fackre wrote in the fields of theology, ethics, and mission in thirty books and monographs, among them five volumes of a series on Christian doctrine, The Christian Story, and chapters and encyclopedia entries in another ninety volumes and over three hundred articles and book reviews. He was president of the American Theological Society. Fackre was involved, often with his spouse, in various efforts in social action, beginning with their spearheading a campaign to bring Nisei students from World Wa

This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable.

This book is for those struggling with the question What is the Christian faith? The answer given here unfolds in the form of a story. Gabriel Fackre interprets the basic Christian beliefs as "chapters in the biography of God," a narrative technique that shows the drama and dynamism of what God is doing in the world. En route, Fackre covers the standard teachings of the Christian tradition, beginning and ending with the doctrine of God and treating the subjects of creation, fall, covenant, Christ, church, salvation, and consummation.

Having been thoroughly revised and updated in this third edition, The Christian Story now develops in more detail the doctrine of the Trinity, takes up the issues of religious pluralism and Jewish-Christian dialogue, and offers a perspective on angelology. New appendices discuss the use of inclusive language and describe the surge of writing in the field of systematic theology.

Gabriel Fackre (1926–2018) was Abbot Professor Emeritus of Christian Theology at Andover Newton Theological School. Well known as an "ecumenical evangelical" pastor and theologian, he was also a prolific author. His many books include The Christian Story (three editions); Christian Basics: A Primer for Pilgrims (with his wife, Dorothy); Judgment Day at the White House; Christology in Context; The Church: Signs of the Spirit and Signs of the Times; and The Promise of Reinhold Niebuhr (3rd edition).

Robert Webber in The Christian Century
"The Christian Story should be a welcome relief to people who are weary of rationalistic theology. This is a serious book describing Christian history in story form. The people who will welcome it are intuitive thinkers who up to now have not had a theology written for them."

Alexander McKelway in Theology Today
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by Connie Larkman| published on Feb 6, 2018

The United Church of Christ is mourning the loss of an eminent theologian, respected teacher, prolific author and passionate activist with the death of the Rev. Gabe Fackre on January 31. The Abbot Professor of Christian Theology Emeritus at Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS), Fackre spent most of his life in service to the church.

“I came to know Gabe, as his friends called him, when I first moved to the Boston area in 1994,” said the Rev. Martin Copenhaver, president of Andover Newton Seminary at Yale. “I was immediately impressed with the orderliness of his thought and his encyclopedic knowledge. He was deeply committed to the cause of ecumenism and was able to describe the theological perspectives of every manner of Christian tradition—and in ways that were nuanced, insightful and respectful.”

Fackre, who spent 25 years on the faculty at the ANTS before his retirement in 1996, was steeped in ecumenism. He was ordained in the Evangelical and Reformed (E&R) Church, and continued serving when the E&R Church joined the Congregational Christian Churches to create the new United Church of Christ. 

“Gabe Fackre was UCC in ways that few of us in the church have experienced. Raised as a Baptist, shaped by the intellectual rigor of the University of Chicago Divinity School, he joined the E&R Church in 1950, inspired by the witness of Reinhold Niebuhr,” said Barbara Brown Zikmund, retired UCC seminary administrator and historian of American religion. “When the UCC was born in 1957 his theological horizons expanded. First as a pastor, and then as a professor in two very different seminaries rooted in German Reformed and New England Congregationalism, he thought, wrote and prayed for the UCC. He was a ‘churchman,’ not just a professor.”

Fackre began his teaching

The Christian Story, Volume 1: A Narrative Interpretation of Basic Christian Doctrine

By: Gabriel Fackre

Price: $3.00

Publisher: Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans : 1996

Edition: Third Edition

Seller ID: 77775580

ISBN-13: 9780802841070

Binding:Paperback

Condition: Good

Sturdy. No markings. Light wear.This book is for those struggling with the question What is the Christian faith? The answer given here unfolds in the form of a story. Gabriel Fackre interprets the basic Christian beliefs as "chapters in the biography of God," a narrative technique that shows the drama and dynamism of what God is doing in the world. En route, Fackre covers the standard teachings of the Christian tradition, beginning and ending with the doctrine of God and treating the subjects of creation, fall, covenant, Christ, church, salvation, and consummation.Having been thoroughly revise...
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