Thomas A. James was appointed as Assistant Professor of Theology in 2008.  Previously, he had served as pastor of two congregations, first in Dayton, Ohio, and most recently in the Cincinnati area.

A magna cum laude graduate in philosophy with a baccalaureate thesis on Wittgenstein and the problem of theological language at Toccoa Falls College in northeast Georgia, Professor James attended Louisville Seminary and then pursued Ph.D. studies at Union, writing a doctoral thesis on Gordon Kaufman’s account of divine activity in light of recent conversations about the interaction of theology and science.  After completing his Ph.D. in 2004, he was ordained by the Miami Presbytery (Ohio) and began serving as Interim Pastor of Corinth Presbyterian Church, and then in 2005 was called to serve as Co-Pastor with his spouse, the Reverend Michelle James, at The First Presbyterian Church of Glendale, Ohio.

Professor James is a constructive theologian whose primary interests are the doctrine of God, theological anthropology, and the interface of theology and the political, especially as these topics engage various non-theological perspectives, including contemporary cosmology, neuroscience, and recent continental philosophy and critical theory.  He is the author of In Face of Reality: The Constructive Theology of Gordon D. Kaufman (Pickwick, 2011), and is currently working on two book-length projects:  a collection of articles and essays written by Reinhold Niebuhr during the latter half of his career (1940’s to 1971), and a constructive interpretation of the reality of God, tentatively entitled, “The God Who May Come:  A Theology of Virtuality.”

He serves on the Board of the Howie Center of Theology, Science , and the Arts and is a participant in the Institute of Reformed Theology colloquy on Religion and Science.  He and his spouse, Michelle, have three children, Emma, Anna, and Charissa.