Alex Sosler

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Alex Sosler is Assistant Professor of Bible and Ministry at Montreat College and Assisting Priest at Redeemer Anglican Church in Asheville, NC. He is also author of Learning to Love: Christian Higher Education as Pilgrimage (Falls City Press) and editor of Theology and the Avett Brothers (Fortress/Lexington).

Recent Essays

Perseverance and Grace: Or, Why I Don’t Deserve a Damn Bit of Credit for my Life

Alex Sosler - September 13, 2023

I’ve found that in perplexing or challenging circumstances, “why?” is a boring question. We like why. The leadership guru Simon Sinek asks us to start with why. It’s a popular question. I’m not against finding your why. I just think it’s overrated. Particularly in suffering or pain, I’m not sure “why?” works.

Taste and See: A Review of The Liberating Arts

Alex Sosler - August 14, 2023

Perhaps people defended the liberal arts to me, and I was too dense to hear, but I truly cannot remember anyone ever setting out a vision for the liberal arts

Education as Pilgrimage

Alex Sosler - February 15, 2023

"We seem to be born homesick, and that homesickness is meant to lead us into a life of pilgrimage.” Walker Percy Black Mountain,...

Attentional Arts and Beholding Beauty

Alex Sosler - March 9, 2022

Contemplation of God is paying attention to what demands one’s attention—more than information discovered or expression felt. Contemplating art can be a means, a sort of preparatory practice, of contemplating the Beautiful One from which all beauty is derivative.

An Education That Turns on Affection

Alex Sosler - October 13, 2021

Alex Sosler compares online and in-person education. Paradoxically, when we embrace the limits of our embodied existence and learn with and from particular classmates in a particular place from a particular teacher, affections develop. Imagination stirs.

The Liberal Arts for Loss and Lament

Alex Sosler - May 5, 2021

The main posture of a liberal arts education is slowing down, rest, seeing. But if we just train students to only strive, reach, stretch for something more, then suffering will come as a wasteful, meaningless interruption.

Ted Lasso as Parish Priest

Alex Sosler - February 3, 2021

Ted Lasso offers a compelling model of a good parish priest: this fictional football coach exemplifies how to lead others with care.

Sacred Reality: The Augustinian Vision of Goodness in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead

Alex Sosler - January 8, 2021

Robinson presents us with an encounter: a participatory, embodied experience; a blessed and broken reality; the sacraments. And from this encounter, we receive courageous eyes to see the precious things that have been placed in our hands and to honor them accordingly.