Dr. Travis Ables joins the Eden faculty after graduating with a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 2010, where he also taught as a Lecturer. As an Episcopalian devoted to the life of the church and the progressive mission of Eden, Ables seeks to bring to the classroom both a sense of tradition and a stress on understanding history in light of the present needs of the church. 

“My approach to history, both in teaching and in his research, is motivated by the belief that knowing our Christian history helps free up the silent assumptions and ideological blind spots in our mindsets, and allows us to rethink the liberating power of the Christian gospel,” said Dr. Ables. “This allows us to approach history with a critical toolkit that illuminates ways in which the power of the Christian message has been obscured in past and present. The history (or histories) of Christianity help us to learn anew the always surprising message of hope and liberation in the Christian faith, even as we grasp the tendency of the church to forget its mission, both in history and today.”

For Ables, the classroom is a place to actively wrestle with the theological developments and debates of the Christian past: the ideal classroom experience for him is one in which students grapple firsthand with the texts, images, and events of the Christian past. The classroom then becomes a place to think together about the ways we can learn from history in order to address the challenges of the church today.

Ables researches within the Augustinian tradition of theology, seeking to understand how doctrinal themes about God, humanity and Christ interrelate in Western mystical traditions. His first book, which is on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Augustine and Karl Barth, is currently in press with Continuum/T&T Clark, and he has published articles on the Spirit in Barth and Karl Rahner; contemporary debates about the Trinity; the ecclesiology of John Zizioulas; and the life and thought of Anselm of Canterbury. His long term research focuses on Christology and anthropology in the politics and devotion of Western mysticism, and the relationship of allegorical biblical interpretation and anti-Semitism in Western theology and philosopy.

Ables also has an interest in religious self-understanding in popular culture, especially television and film, an interest he enjoys drawing upon in the classroom.