Ph.D. in Biblical & Theological Studies
Education
Ph.D., Marquette University, Religious Studies, 2002
M.A., Marquette University, Theology, 1998
M.A., Old Dominion University, English Literature, 1996
About Jeffrey Barbeau
“There is small chance of Truth at the goal where there is not a childlike Humility at the Starting-post.”
—S. T. Coleridge, Aids to Reflection
My teaching and writing emerge from the intersection of theology, literature, and history. I aim to serve students as a guide—leading them into an extended conversation about theological ideas, captivating literature, and provocative historical questions surrounding faith, society, and global development. Writing on British Romantic literature, nineteenth-century transatlantic theology, and the varieties of global Methodism has shaped my teaching and thinking about the pivotal issues facing our world. I am currently working on several book-length projects, including an anthology of British Christian writings between 1750 and 1832, a monograph on theologies of the Holy Spirit in global Methodism, and a monograph on the British intellectual Sara Coleridge (1802-1852). I am an active member of Grace United Methodist Church in Naperville, a devoted fan of the Green Bay Packers, and an enthusiastic golfer. My extraordinary wife, Aimee Barbeau, teaches political theory. My four children—Elizabeth, Rebekah, Benjamin, and Samuel—are simply wonderful.
Courses Taught
- Christian Theology
- Historical Theology
- Historical Theology: Reformation
- Historical Theology: Modern
- Modern World Christianity
- Theology and the Liberal Arts
- Advanced Systematic Theology: Pneumatology
- American and British Romanticism and Theology
Membership in Professional Societies
- American Academy of Religion
- American Society of Church History
- Friends of Coleridge
- Historical Society of the United Methodist Church
- Venerable John Henry Newman Association
- Wesleyan Theological Society
- Wordsworth-Coleridge Association
Research
- British Romanticism
- John Wesley
- Wesleyan Theology
- History of Methodism
- World Christianity
- Global Pentecostalism
- Doctrine of the Holy Spirit
- Doctrine of the Church
- Literature and Theology
Publications
Book Publications
Editor. Romanticism and Renewal: Later Eighteenth-Century Britain to 1832. Documents of Anglophone Christianity. Gen. eds. Roger Lundin and Debora Shuger. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. In process.
Coleridge, the Bible, and Religion. Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Editor. Coleridge’s Assertion of Religion: Essays on the Opus Maximum. Studies in Philosophical Theology, no. 33. Louvain: Peeters Press, 2006.
Journal Articles and Contributions to Books
“Who is the Holy Spirit?,” in Theology Questions our Students Ask: A Conversation between Students and Teachers, eds. Gary Burge and David Lauber. Downers Grove, IL: InverVarsity Press. In process.
“Coleridge, Christology, and the Language of Redemption.” Anglican Theological Review 93 (2011): 263-82.
“John Wesley and the Early Church: History, the Spirit, and the Early Church,” in Evangelicals and the Early Church: Recovery, Reform, Renewal, eds. George Kalantzis and Andrew Tooley, 52-76. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012.
“Asbury, Francis”; “Bushnell, Horace”; “ Coleridge, Samuel Taylor”; “Mott, John R.”; “Newman, John Henry”; “Taylor, Jeremy”; “Wesley, Charles”; “Wesley, John,” in The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature, eds. George Thomas Kurian and James D. Smith III. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010.
“Suffering Servant: Grief and Consolation in Sara Coleridge’s Poems,” The Coleridge Bulletin: The Journal of the Friends of Coleridge n.s 33 (2009): 80-88.
“The Leadership of the Church in a Global Society,” Catalyst: Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives for United Methodist Seminarians 35.3 (2009).
“Sara Coleridge the Victorian Theologian: Between Newman’s Tractarianism and Wesley’s Methodism,” The Coleridge Bulletin: The Journal of the Friends of Coleridge n.s. 28 (2006): 29–36.
“The Quest for Truth: An Introduction to Coleridge’s Lifelong Dream” (pp. 1–32) and “Science and the Depersonalization of the Divine: Pantheism, Unitarianism, and the Limits of Natural Theology” (pp. 163–85) in Coleridge’s Assertion of Religion (2006).
“Coleridge and the ‘Master-Key’ of Biblical Interpretation,” Heythrop Journal: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy and Theology 45 (2004): 1–21.
“Newman and the Interpretation of Inspired Scripture,” Theological Studies 63 (2002): 53–67.
“Scripture and Tradition at the Council of Trent: Reapplying the ‘Conciliar Hermeneutic,’” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 33 (2001): 127–46.
“Coleridge, Samuel Taylor,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians, eds. Patrick W. Carey and Joseph Lienhard (Westport: Greenwood, 2000; pbk. 2002), 130–31.
“The Development of Coleridge’s Notion of Human Freedom: The Translation and Re-Formation of German Idealism in England,” Journal of Religion 80 (2000): 576–94.
Book Reviews
Review of Poetic Theology: God and the Poetics of Everyday Life, by William A. Dyrness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). Worship. In process.
Review of The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal-Charismatic Imagination, by Amos Yong (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). International Journal of Systematic Theology. Forthcoming.
Review of Christian Peoples of the Spirit: A Documentary History of Pentecostal Spirituality from the Early Church to the Present, ed. Stanley M. Burgess (New York: New York University Press, 2011). Journal of Ecclesiastical History. Forthcoming.
Review essay of Coleridge and Liberal Religious Thought: Romanticism, Science and Theological Tradition, by Graham Neville (IB Tauris, 2010) and Suzanne E. Webster, Body and Soul in Coleridge’s Notebooks, 1827-1834 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010). European Romantic Review. Forthcoming.
Review of Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods, edited by Allan Anderson, Michael Bergunder, et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). Journal of Ecclesiastical History 63 (2012): 195-98.
Review of Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War, by Jonathan H. Ebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). Journal of Ecclesiastical History 63 (2012): 190-92.
Review of Romanticism/Judaica: A Convergence of Cultures, edited by Sheila A. Spector (Surrey, Ashgate, 2011). Wordsworth Circle 42 (2011): 269-71.
Review of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Anglican Church, by Luke Savin Herrick Wright (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2010). Journal of Church and State 53 (2011):492-95.
Review of The Old Enemies: Catholic and Protestant in Nineteenth-Century English Culture, by Michael Wheeler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) and The English Cult of Literature: Devoted Readers, 1774-1880, by William R. McKelvy (Victorian Literature and Culture Series [Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007]). 41 Wordsworth Circle (2010): 227-29.
Review of The Blackwell Companion to the Bible as Literature, edited by Rebecca Lemon (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009). Coleridge Bulletin: The Journal of the Friends of Coleridge n.s. 35 (2010): 95-100.
Review of Coleridge, Form, and Symbol: Or the Ascertaining Vision, by Nicholas Reid (Nineteenth Century Series [Ashgate, 2006]). Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net(RaVoN) 55 (2009). [http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/039567ar]
Review of The Branch Davidians of Waco: The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Sect, by Kenneth G. C. Newport (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Journal of Ecclesiastical History 59 (2008): 177-78.
Review of The Fountain Light: Studies in Romanticism and Religion, ed. by J. Robert Barth, S.J. (Studies in Religion and Literature, 5 [New York: Fordham University Press, 2002]). Coleridge Bulletin: The Journal of the Friends of Coleridge n.s. 30 (2007): 39-42.
Review of I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom, by Patrick Allitt (University Park, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for Christians in Higher Education 2 (2007): 5–7. I published a revised review of this book in the Wheaton BITH department newsletter in February 2009.
Review of The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody, by David W. Bebbington (History of Evangelicalism [InterVarsity, 2005]). Journal of Ecclesiastical History 57 (2006): 628–29.
Review of Coleridge and Newman: The Centrality of Conscience, by Philip C. Rule (Studies in Religion and Literature, 8 [New York: Fordham University Press, 2004]). Theological Studies 66 (2005): 678–80.
Review of The Broad Church: A Biography of a Movement, by Tod E. Jones (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2003). Church History: Studies in Christianity & Culture 73 (2004): 695–97.
Review of Romanticism and Transcendence: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Religious Imagination, by J. Robert Barth (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003). Theological Studies 65 (2004): 675.
Review of Coleridge’s Writings, vol. 4: On Religion and Psychology, ed. John Beer (New York: Palgrave, 2002). Coleridge Bulletin: The Journal of the Friends of Coleridge n.s. 23 (2004): 88–91.
Review of The Challenge of Coleridge: Ethics and Interpretation in Romanticism and Modern Philosophy, by David P. Haney (Literature and Philosophy [University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001]). Coleridge Bulletin : The Journal of the Friends of Coleridge n.s. 21 (2003): 109–112.
Review of Marginalia V , by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, eds. H. J. Jackson and George Whalley (Vol. 12 of The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Kathleen Coburn, Bollingen Series, 75 [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton, 2001]). Coleridge Bulletin : The Journal of the Friends of Coleridge n.s. 20 (2002): 141–46. [2500 word review of the critical edition.]
Review of Ruskin’s God (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, 24, by Michael Wheeler [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999]). Church History: Studies in Christianity & Culture 70 (2001): 799–800.
Review of Coleridge, Philosophy and Religion: Aids to Reflection and the Mirror of the Spirit, by Douglas Hedley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Journal of Religion 81 (2001): 664–65.
Review of In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible, by Peter C. Thuesen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Theological Studies 61 (2000): 587–88.
Review of The Character of God: Recovering the Lost Literary Power of American Protestantism , by Thomas E. Jenkins (Religion in America Series, [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997]). Christian Scholar’s Review 24 (2000): 609–11.
Review of An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777–1880 , by Paul C. Gutjahr (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). Theological Studies 61 (2000): 190–91.
Review of Protestant Evangelical Literary Culture and Contemporary Society , by Jan Blodgett (Contributions to the Study of Religion, No. 51 [Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997]). Christian Scholar’s Review 28 (1999): 616–18.
Conference Papers
“The Good Child: Sara Coleridge, Personhood, and Religious Education.” Coleridge Summer Conference, Cannington College, Somerset, England, July 2012.
“Sacred Songs, Slovenly Hexameters: The Bible in English Romantic Literature.” Invited lecture. Words of Delight: The King James Bible & the Bible as Literature. Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, September 2011.
“The Church and the Hope of New Creation: Wesleyan Pneumatology in the Theology of D. T. Niles.” Society of Pentecostal Studies, Memphis, Tennessee, March 2011.
“Coleridge and American Romanticism: On Language and the Religious Community.” Coleridge Summer Conference, Cannington College, Somerset, England, July 2010.
“The Spirit and Christian Antiquity: John Wesley, History, and the Early Church.” Evangelicals and the Early Church: Recovery, Reform, and Renewal. Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, March 2010.
“Romantic Imagination, Biblical Language, and the Doctrine of Creation.” Invited lecture. Text and Truth Series, Holy Trinity Church at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, February 2010.
“The Kingdom of God in Global Perspective: E. Stanley Jones, Trinitarian Theology, and World Religions.” American Society of Church History, Montreal, Quebec, March 2009.
“The Object of Pleasure: Methodism, Leisure, and the Use of ‘Unprofitable Diversions.’” Midwest Regional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois, March 2009.
“John R. Mott, Pneumatology, and Global Ecumenism.” Conference on Faith and History, Bluffton University, Bluffton, Ohio, September 2008.
“Suffering Servant: Grief and Consolation in Sara Coleridge’s Poems.” Coleridge Summer Conference, Cannington College, Somerset, England, July 2008.
“The Fullness of the Spirit: Richard Watson, Divine Personality, and the Defense of Wesleyan Theology.” Systematic Theology Section. Joint annual meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society & the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, March 2008.
“Thoughts ‘too refined to be popular’: Sara Coleridge, Biblical Exegesis, and Theological Method.” History of Christianity Section. Accepted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Diego, California, November 2007.
“Coleridge, Christology, and the Language of Redemption.” Nineteenth-Century Theology Group. Annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Washington D.C., November 2006
“John Wesley as Historian of Christian Spirituality.” Conference on Faith and History, Oklahoma Baptist University, Shawnee, Oklahoma, October 2006.
“Between Wesleyan Methodism and Oxford Tractarianism: Sara Coleridge as Victorian Theologian.” Coleridge Summer Conference, Cannington College, Somerset, England, July 2006.
“John Wesley and British Romanticism: Southey and Coleridge on Nineteenth-Century Methodism.” History of Christianity Section. Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Irving, Texas, March 2006.
“The Spirit-Actuated Church: The Intersection of Exegesis and Historiography.” Conference on Faith and History, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, October 2004.
“‘God’s Hand in the World’: Coleridge, Christianity and the Inspired Preacher.” Coleridge Summer Conference, Cannington College, Somerset, England, July 2004.
“Coleridge, Natural Theology and Atheism: The Demonstration of God in Fragment 2 of the Opus Maximum.” S. T. Coleridge and the Opus Maximum: A Reading Workshop. Clare College, University of Cambridge, May 2003.
“Coleridge’s Confessions: An English Apology for Divine Revelation.” Church History Seminar, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, February 2003.
“Text and Context: Newman, Coleridge, and the Secularization of Biblical Interpretation.” American Society of Church History, Chicago, Illinois, January 2003.
“Coleridge and the ‘Master-Key of Interpretation.’” Coleridge Summer Conference, Cannington College, Somerset, England, July 2002.
“‘Picking and Choosing’ from Scripture: Rethinking Tradition in Coleridge’s Confessions.” Joint session of the American Society of Church History and the American Catholic Historical Association. San Francisco, California, January 2002.